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Leslie Carothers

A message of hope

Stories. Compassion.  Authenticity. Commitment. Consistency. Color. Design.  Technology .Value. These are the “keywords” our industry’s consumers need to FEEL, HEAR, SEE, SMELL and TASTE when they “touch” your brand-whether in your stores, out on the street when they run into one of your employees or yourself, through what they read in the press, through your advertising and through your online presence. It is THIS combination of attributes that consumers are looking for when they spend their discretionary income today. It’s all about being genuinely engaged with your consumers,  transparent and, well, “fun and hip.”

Let me illustrate this with a story of one INDEPENDENT retailer who is doing well-today-in a very, very tough market.

Circle Furniture- owned by the husband and wife team of  Rich Tubman and Peggy Burns and Rich’s brother,  Harold Tubman.

Circle is a five store independent chain in Boston selling medium to higher end merchandise in what is arguably one of the toughest furniture retail markets in the country. Circle’s stores-which have footprints of 10,000 ft. or less, compete directly with some of the most successful furniture chains in the country. In one case, a Circle store is directly across the street from industry giant Jordan’s Furniture-owned by Berkshire Hathaway.

Circle is very successful-and profitable- and, as of today, October 7th, 2008, they are still selling a lot of beautiful, comfortable and colorful furniture to people in Boston. I spoke with Rich Tubman by phone and asked him the secret to his store’s success in this difficult market. He said, “It’s not one thing done right, it’s 100 small things done right.” Here is some of what Rich and his team are doing to make Circle successful:

1. Hiring and  investing a lot of money training great people in sales and design who REALLY care about their customers-and about the company. They’ve invested a lot of time and resources in creating a culture of compassion that their employees are proud to be identified with.
2. Making sure Circle’s consultants know that a car in the parking lot-these days- represents a really serious buyer and treating every customer-as soon as they walk in the door-as extremely special and IMPORTANT.
3. Using direct mail in unique ways.
4. Spending a lot of time and money on Circle’s  website-www.circlefurniture.com and also allowing consumers to buy directly from the site.
5. Having stores that look completely different from competitor’s because the merchandise  is colorful and customizable. Circle’s stores look “fun, friendly and individualistic.”
6 Having a merchandise mix that is heavy on colorful, fun, impulse accessory purchases-including books.
7. Having stores that have a smaller footprint allowing for a sense of welcoming, intimacy and connection.
8. Bringing all the sales managers( all women, by the way) to headquarters EVERY TUESDAY morning to ask their advice and opinions on what Circle should be doing to attract more business and how they could do things better.
9. Holding lots of community events at the stores-even when they don’t relate to selling furniture-per se.
10. Donating heavily to charitable causes and getting great local PR for those efforts.

Rich, Peggy and Harold are on the cutting edge of what makes independents successful and are always looking for ways to improve their operations. To be sure, they are hard-nosed business people, but they keep an open mind and always, always listen to great ideas and then ACT and take risks when necessary to expand their business. Further proof this strategy is working -they are expanding-even during these tough times- one of their stores from 3000 sq. ft. to 10,000 sq. ft. and have had great response from their local community to the expansion which opens in two weeks.

Rich, Peggy and Harold- for anyone who knows them -are: Authentic.Compassionate. Committed. Connected. Consistent people who use Design. Color. Stories. Technology.  to drive home their value proposition to their customers- so far, so good. Business is steady and expanding and therein lies a message of hope for our whole industry:

Pay attention to everything, stay close to your people,  listen, connect your customers to each other, act and risk-even now-especially now. That’s what all great leaders do and Rich, Peggy and Harold’s story can help show you the way.