InsideFurniture

MARKIDDING WHOM AND WHAT?: Even though good marketing wins out, most marketing loses because it isn’t

Are you as bored (embarrassed) as I am with all vapid e-blasts and trade ads that lack the oomph to make a difference?

Just look at the chest-pounding, unsubstantiated claims and pure buckpucky that masquerades for sufficient and satisfactory marketing communications.

Where’s the call to action? In all those blasts, costly ads and grandiloquence, where is the differentiating factor. Just a picture with fetching salutation, like, um, “Come see us at Market,” doesn’t work anymore.

Tease can’t please. When retailers need to know, the missing facts just lacks the power to persuade.

No easy answers exists. If they did, business would be booming instead of boomeranging. From just throwing it out there, the stuff just comes back empty, clobbering you in the head.

Manufacturers need to tell and retell and retell what is different and why. And when they are tired of doing that, they need to do it more and more.

Reinforcement burnishes recognition. And performance takes you to the bank.

Here’s the secret all the marketers won’t tell you. Just do your homework and tell the truth with the real wise why’s and the bona fide wherefores.

All the rest is crapola.

TACTICALLY DRIVEN, STRATEGICALLY DEFICIENT: Brandishing consumer imperatives to buy instead of dream about living better, an industry falls into frustrating activity trap

Our industry’s heavy tactical focus on improving business seems to be little more than a reflexive and unsophisticated strategy.

A strategy of meeting the needs of consumers — called marketing — instead of addressing the needs retailers and their vendors — selling — can make a difference.

The industry’s diminishing returns on costly investing in the “same ol’, same ol’” promotional tactics constitute an intrusive prod versus a dreamy inducement to live better.

Without strategic changes, presenting furniture as it always has been “sold” is just an activity that masks enduring achievement. It’s tantamount to waving our arms believing we’re aerobically exercising our entire body. Who is fooling whom?

Surprisingly, inherent consumer demand (desire) to live better in more comfort and style always exists. We all want that experience. Unfortunately, real consumer desire dissipates under the constant glare, blare, verbosity and hyperbolic onslaught of “buy now” promotions. A better way needs to prevail.

Heavy, irrational focus on closing sales is mere activity in the absence of precise, continuing methods (achievement) to open consumers' minds to possibilities and savoring the experience again and again.

Promoting the dream-experience of living better seems to be a significant approach for a consumer activity fraught with significant complexity. For most retailers, the emotional contours of furnishing a home probably escape even the best merchants. For sure, many manufacturers are mistakenly disconnected with the dreams, wishes and aspirations of consumers.

Success is about abiding leadership. A challenge for our trade associations: Find new ways to help retailers and manufacturers meet and exceed the complex needs of consumers wanting to dream and experience better living with home furnishings.

My suggestion is do what I do as a marketer: Get the facts, craft the the glory story and tell it often with honesty and nobility, an fill it with dreamy possibilities that ignite passion.

Dream training can supplant sales training. It can be part of a dynamic fresh approach of solution-based achievement constructed on marketing principals instead of sell now imperatives. The other part is raising the professionalism of the home furnishings counselors. Save this subject for another posting.

As an industry, if we are unable to promote dreams about living better, we are certain to suffer the nightmare of complacency, neglect and unfulfillment.

HIGH POINTEDNESS: Expect fewer retailers in this soft economy, as producers scurry to improve showroom exposure for 2008 and beyond

October’s Market is traditionally slower and less showier than April. That’s a given in ordinary times. But we’re not operating in ordinary times.

The rugged individualistic merchants will be in High Point, as well as the rugged followers. Both will be finding ways to position their changing businesses for a continuation of difficult times.

While the smart retailers are shrewdly planning, so are the alert and savvy producers. They’re looking for new or better digs in High Point.

Knowing that the industry is consolidating, the progressive and strategy-minded manufacturers will be scouting new and different High Point perches.

Like a board game, the survivalist producers want to be in the right place for the convenience of retailers, designers and other home merchants that recognize High Point as the nucleus.

So where’s the best turf? Where it’s always been: Up Hamilton to Green over to Elm and to High Street and back again. In that loop, International Home Furnishings Center, Showplace and Market Square are the dominate players. That’s where the action will be concentrated.

The game of showroom-opoly has only begun.

STAYING RELEVANT: Gabberts relies on resourcefulness to meet and exceed consumer expectations

BlogNote: Rebecca Miller, president of Gabberts Furniture and Design Studio, Minneapolis, challenges retailers to stay relevant or die. In her own words, she explains the importance of facing the mercantile music of constant reinvention and dancing with consumers.

The past seven years have not been kind to the furnishing industry and manufacturers and retailers know that to succeed you must focus on the consumer—their wants, needs, aspirations and desires. Easier said than done.

For some 60 years, Gabberts has held its position as the Twin Cities’ premier destination for exceptional interior design services and fine furnishings. But the road has not always been easy.

Like others in our industry, Gabberts was not immune to the mistakes many made in trying to capture marketshare from an overly saturated market. When things got tough, Gabberts fell into the trap of competing on price and trying to be all things to everyone. It was not a successful strategy. 

That all changed in 2005 when management realized that in order to reclaim Gabberts’ position as the Number One choice for the finest in design and furnishings, they had to refocus the brand. That required shutting the doors in an underperforming market and gutting the flagship store to start from scratch.

In 2006, plans were underway for a $5-million renovation of the showroom and design studio. The goal: reposition Gabberts as a comprehensive service business and create an experience that makes it fun and easy for the customer to create a beautiful home.

To begin with, our designers, home furnishing consultants and the support staff had to reframe the way they conducted business. The old way of doing business was transactional and product-focused.

The new way required developing a relationship with every customer and being a trusted advisor as they work on their projects. And those “projects” may involve a room, an entire home or simply rethinking the way a customer’s environment functions and feels.

Rather than simply selling a sofa or lamp, we are now striving to serve our customers in a manner that will produce a result that satisfies their needs. We no longer focus on creating spaces, but rather creating “places,” be it wabi-sabi, humble with imperfections that come with time or the co-existence of comfort and chic, or simply a sanctuary of relaxation.

Whatever the look, however, the result is a place that is purposeful and comfortable, where our customers can entertain family and friends while beaming with pride.

Given Gabberts’ long history in our industry, I’m often asked about what it takes to stay relevant. And, my answer never varies: Service. The desire to make someone happy. Talent. Expertise.

FLACCID BUSINESS: Requires hard work and stiff resolve to be in rhythm with people always wanting furniture and needing a relationship

Right now Team Furniture is wary of the dog days (daze) of summer. They expected business to be soft, believing it’s just the way it is: That shoppers are more interested in most everything else except furniture.

I strenuously disagree. People are always interested in furniture, in living better. What they’re not interested in is the way the furniture is presented to them: As some kind of drive by commodity.

For some reason, most furniture people possess a holy faith-based view of driving business. With bombast, sales and flash, merchants and manufacturers faithfully believe, even pray, they can stimulate business. Praying is not a business strategy.

The methods by which shoppers absorb information — especially the ways they perceive, retain and engage with brands and stores and their messages — have changed irrevocably.

Shoppers don’t know what to believe anymore when they see advertising. That’s the reason they want to seek trusted information to satiate their needs not respond to contrived sales and artificial promotions.

In their psyches, consumers know that many retailers are playing games in a downward spiraling kabuki.

During the past Labor Day weekend, how many people said, “Honey, let’s honor all of us who work hard and play by the rules, honestly, and go out and buy furniture.”

Despite this verity, most furniture people seem to remain in denial. All they want to do is to persuade people to want furniture. That’s not necessary. Most people always want nice furniture, to live better in comfortable interiors.

If that’s so, then why are they buying everything else? Fair question, with a fair answer: People want be feel confident they can really, truly achieve their dreams, wishes and aspirations with furniture and home furnishings.

So, they search for information about furniture online. And what do they find?: Mostly the same advertising drivel that appears in newspapers, magazines and the cluttered airways. To that uninspiring stimulus, the shoppers’ response is disappointing and ho-hum.

Keep in mind, advertising is essentially an interruption. Whether it’s broadcast or in a publication, the ad intrudes, breaks up the desire to read a story or watch a program.

So, online, when people search, they are, as I have ranted earlier, SHOUTING they are in the market and really interested. They don’t want gimmick-driven sales patois and promotional posturing, they want nourishing information that they can grow on.

In presenting furniture to consumers, we're talking to family. So I ask: If you talked to your family the way many furniture ads speak or shout to consumers, would you earn respect and honor?

So, with the new media, new ideas are necessary. New ways are necessary. Real innovation and not a quick fix that are but mostly fast tricks for the short term gain instead of the shoppers’ long term fame.

Calling consumers dumb is, well, dumb? What do I mean. Here's an amazing fact: Most shoppers know they have to pay for furniture, and that some kind of financing will always be available.

Playing paying games dishonors people, the retailer and devalues the furniture. What's more it shifts the focus from living better to getting the stuff cheap. People don't want to live cheap. They seek to live better.

Right now Team Furniture is wary of the dog days (daze) of summer. They expected business to be soft, believing it’s just the way it is: That shoppers are more interested in most everything else except furniture.

I strenuously disagree. People are always interested in furniture, in living better. What they’re not interested in is the way the furniture is presented to them: As some kind of drive by commodity.

For some reason, most furniture people possess a holy faith-based view of driving business. With bombast, sales and flash, merchants and manufacturers faithfully believe, even pray, they can stimulate business. Praying is not a business strategy.

The methods by which shoppers absorb information — especially the ways they perceive, retain and engage with brands and stores and their messages — have changed irrevocably.

Shoppers don’t know what to believe anymore when they see advertising. That’s the reason they want to seek trusted information to satiate their needs not respond to contrived sales and artificial promotions.

In their psyches, consumers know that many retailers are playing games in a downward spiraling kabuki.

During the past Labor Day weekend, how many people said, “Honey, let’s honor all of us who work hard and play by the rules, honestly, and go out and buy furniture.”

Despite this verity, most furniture people seem to remain in denial. All they want to do is to persuade people to want furniture. That’s not necessary. Most people always want nice furniture, to live better in comfortable interiors.

If that’s so, then why are they buying everything else? Fair question, with a fair answer: People want be feel confident they can really, truly achieve their dreams, wishes and aspirations with furniture and home furnishings.

So, they search for information about furniture online. And what do they find?: Mostly the same advertising drivel that appears in newspapers, magazines and the cluttered airways. To that uninspiring stimulus, the shoppers’ response is disappointing and ho-hum.

Keep in mind, advertising is essentially an interruption. Whether it’s broadcast or in a publication, the ad intrudes, breaks up the desire to read a story or watch a program.

So, online, when people search, they are, as I have ranted earlier, SHOUTING they are in the market and really interested. They don’t want gimmick-driven sales patois and promotional posturing, they want nourishing information that they can grow on.

In presenting furniture to consumers, we're talking to family. So I ask: If you talked to your family the way many furniture ads speak or shout to consumers, would you earn respect and honor?

So, with the new media, new ideas are necessary. New ways are necessary. Real innovation and not a quick fix that are but mostly fast tricks for the short term gain instead of the shoppers’ long term fame.

Calling consumers dumb is, well, dumb? What do I mean. Here's an amazing fact: Most shoppers know they have to pay for furniture, and that some kind of financing will always be available.

Playing paying games dishonors people, the retailer and devalues the furniture. What's more it shifts the focus from living better to getting the stuff cheap. People don't want to live cheap. They seek to live better.

MEA CULPA: Advocating only visiting new resources at the High Point Market is wrong and misguided, considering the necessity to honor proven vendors

My good friend and fellow marketer Eric Bauer today properly reprimanded me for committing a forgivable transgression against honorable vendors, always working hard to be of noble service to retailers.

In my September 11 posting, I challenged retailers, wanting to shake them up in a self-responsible manner for their benefit and the greater good.

I said they needed to muster the courage and possess the enviable fortitude to get out of their stores, stop bitching about bad business and infuse some positive tension into their commercial lives.

With sincere passion, I implored them to attend the High Point Market shop only new vendors, a clear implication that a new track could give them faster fresh perspectives while adding some much needed zest to their businesses. Everyone needs zest.

Yes, Eric, mea culpa, baby, which is good to acknowledge, anyway. And especially now in the season of forgiveness, when all of us need to atone for transgressions intended and unintended.

So here’s my new challenge retailers: Suck it up and courageously attend the High Point Market next month. In addition to visiting your reliable sources, invest some quality time in seeking new vendors.

One of the towering dimensions, inimitable and immutable strengths about attending the High Point Market is its indisputable size, scope and power, within a challenging and rewarding crazy quilt of power showrooms. Given this incomparable verity, retailers can benefit just being there.

The mammoth size of the High Point Market attracts the smartest retailers, designers and home furnishings merchants of all kinds from all over the world. Keep in mind most of these key retailers are not invested in any of the smaller, regional markets, as they are in High Point.

CAUTION KILLS: Gaining a competitive advantage demands courageous action

Especially among retailers, when the going gets tough the tough get going to be successful. As difficult as attending the High Point Market may be in this low spot of the business cycle, you will be glad you did.

Overcoming the mistaken tendency to remain in the store, bemoaning business, is courageous. Attending market to secure fresh ideas has lasting merit, if you want to remain business.

For sure, few new ideas will barge into your store as mercantile white knights, riding magnificent white stallions, anxious to sweep you off your feet into their arms and gallop off to business success. Who’s kidding whom?

In today’s dynamic market, retailers need to be real merchants. They need to be much less dependent on sales representatives and more dependent on their instincts. And that gravitas comes from getting out there and mixing it up at Market.

The smart merchants will be in High Point next month, touching, feeling and find ways to succeed. If there’s a place to bemoan bad business it’s at the High Point Market, where there’s 12 million square feet of antidotes.

The bitter pill is staying put, and that will be hard to swallow as business eventually increases. That isn’t what you want. So here’s a challenge to retailers wanting to stay tied to their store’s apron strings:

Suck it up and come to High Point, but only visit new vendors. And when you’re coming, bring a sales person to what is home furnishings’ Big Apple.

Oh, if you think waiting it out and playing catch up in January at the Las Vegas Market, you're rolling the dice: Fewer major vendors, which means fewer introductions of little significance and a valuable loss of precious time.

Any retailer of any size from anywhere will always benefit from attending the High Point, with all its real and perceived challenges. No place is perfect, and I guarantee you that bad business is far worse than the High Point experience.

Again, the smart retailers will be in High Point. They will enjoy the time with pliant vendors. They always reap what they sow.

If you stay home, you are cutting off your business nose to spite your face, which is an unnecessarily act of retail disfigurement.

If you’ve got a nose for better business, start sniffing all the reasons to leave the store to get more at Market.

SALES PREVENTION: A pervasive aversion (perversion) to marketing retards business

Sure, blame most of the bad business on the economy. That’s the easy way out of assuming some responsibility for complicity in the contagious act of sales prevention.

The culprit isn’t intention, which is always good. The bad guy is pesky ignorance, mainly about the misunderstood need for continuous marketing to drive more sales.

Confusion reigns about sales and marketing, which most people believe are one in the same. Wrong, they and you are.

Marketing is the series of interrelated activities — (research, communications, advertising, public relations, et cetera — that establishes a flexible and sustainable context for continued sales.

No product or service can be sold without a context. Again, marketing in its broadest sense creates the context.

Introducing new merchandise for the sake of just new design or function can be a disastrous misallocation of resources. If there’s no palpable market for the new goods, no amount of selling energy can achieve lasting success.

Better to know the varied dreams, wishes and aspirations of prospects, and fulfill them accordingly, than guessing and failing. Isn’t that what many furniture manufacturers do, just guess or emulate what they believe will be successful. As opposed to conducting sufficient research to meet consumers’ dreams, wishes and aspirations with home furnishings they are more likely to want and buy.

As mentioned, consumers dream and our industry primarily sells. What a gap, huh?

Our industry is a critical component of the dream state. Getting into the dream requires commitment, courage and discipline. Just selling can’t achieve dreams, but only selling it can contribute to some nightmares.

Paradoxically, the answer is easy, yet difficult. It’s known as marketing, and that means knowing your customer. For manufacturers, your customers aren’t retailers. Your customers are consumers.

Knowing how consumers interact with home furnishings will provide great insight. Discovering the “how” will answer the related questions of: What?, When?, Where?, Who?, and Why?

Investing in marketing can return many paths to continued business, especially when those paths are paved with comfort, style, design and the verity of living better can be achieved with home furnishings.

RIPOSTE REPOST: Can't get enough marketing guidance

Blognote: Have been missing in action this week. Please forgive me for the inconvenience and discontinuity. I will resume writing afresh tomorrow.

The following is timeless post appearing a year ago in this space.

RETELLING STRENGTHENS RETAILING: Structuring a collaborative effort among employees can provide valuable marketing information creating the context for sustained sales

Without marketing, selling is more difficult. That means establishing an authoritative context to inform, guide and educate.

Especially furniture — an inherently blind item to shoppers — retailers need to establish the context of credibility. And a prudent way is harnessing the obvious resources immediately available: employees as marketing agents.

Most furniture retailers (applies to manufacturers and suppliers, too) probably haven't thought about transforming their employees into retellers, important people retelling important information about how and why people buy furniture.

Some important questions need to be asked to produce the information for retelling. And who are the people asking the questions?

Easy answer: Those smart, capable people are all employees, especially those who possess an inside working knowledge of how furniture is made and distributed.

The marketing magic of retelling would make any human resources person proud.

Who could object to the positive team-building act of transforming employees into productive market researchers?

The team effort can only strengthen employee loyalty, demonstrate confidence and reinforce management’s respect for the people who really make it all happen. I call those people the first consumer responders.

Useful knowledge. What’s more, the information provided by the retellers can be converted into useful knowledge to improve a retailer or manufacturer’s marketing process.

Armed with strategic marketing information, retailers are in a better position to establish a better context for sales.

Linked to a reasonable gain-sharing program, in which the production personnel can see their paychecks increase from their participation, the teamwork approach transforms human assets into important marketing askettes.

They ask questions developed jointly in a guided discussion about how everyone’s mission at the store or factory — directly and indirectly — is involved in the marketing and sales efforts.

In fact, the merchant’s business depends on everyone knowing as much as they can about the business to be a contributor whose reward is thorough satisfaction from participation and payment.

Basic questions for the retellers are simple, the kind that anyone might ask directly or indirectly as shoppers or just talking to a friend who bought a new sofa.

In a meeting with employees, the group will form many questions, as well as probably answer them with ideas and other questions.

As for capturing the questions, select from eight to 10 that eventually appear on response sheets each employee uses in interviewing friends and family.

Additionally, the respondent’s gender and approximate age would be helpful to know, plus:

What furniture did you buy recently?

What were some of the reasons for the purchase? Need? Want? Envy? Status? Comfort? Moving?

What influenced you to select a particular cover or finish? Interior design? A friend? Promotion? Magazine or newspaper article?

Other questions may be pertinent. No matter their subject, the idea of asking people about how and why they buy furniture can produce valuable information that becomes important in meeting wants and needs in the market.

Without making any assumptions, consider the process an important marketing function, which produces tangible and intangible benefits

Ask and you shall receive.