InsideFurniture

BRASSIERES, PANTIES AND FURNITURE: The relationship between cherished undergarments and home dressing is all about a grounded perspective of life

With modification, reposted by request from June 18, 2007

Most men in furniture could benefit from recognizing and cultivating their feminine dimension.

Men possessing a healthy feminine perspective probably enjoy a more balanced life personally and professionally.

Of course, for some men, the mere thought they could actually possess any kind of feminine dimension prompts defensiveness, snickers and varying degrees of discomfort that can unleash a torrent of baseless fears.

Get over it, guys. A man who is in touch mentally with his feminine side has little or nothing to do with sexual orientation, but everything to do with human orientation.

The reality is men possess a feminine dimension embedded within their psyches, whether they want to acknowledge it or not.

For the savvy men, tapping into this fantastic and fascinating reservoir actually demonstrates and enhances strength, confidence, courage and expanded empathy. Sounds manly to me.

Possessing balance acknowledges in a profound way a verity we all know: Women see and feel the world differently than men. This fact is good and necessary, just as much as the converse is: Men see and feel the world differently than women.

The difference is where the twain meets, which is the other verity: Most women are accustomed to thinking like a man much more than most men know how or want to think like a woman. For any men still fidgeting about this concept, I said think like a woman and not necessarily act as a woman, if that really matters.

Okay, enough psycho analytics for now. So what do men’s feminine dimension have to do with brassieres, panties and furniture, anyway?

MEMORIAL DAY

SUBSTANCE OVER STYLE: High Point’s dominance as industry’s primary and formidable knowledge home meridian

BlogNote: High Point and the Piedmont's home furnishings cluster constitutes a creative class found now where else. In a variety of ways, civic, business and political leaders are working together to grow the cluster.

The following post from May 24, 2007, still resonates, just as High Point Market does in the global home furnishings industry. In addition to this post, a separate study from High Point University reconfirmed the power the the Piedmont, the Market and the State of North Carolina.

A significant disproportion of the furniture industry’s executive and creative class — its brains, heart and soul — resides and works in and around High Point, North Carolina.

More than home of the world’s premier market center for furniture and home furnishings, High Point and the region is the primary working habitat to an estimated 15,000 influential people directly and indirectly involved in home furnishings and the semiannual international High Point Market each Spring and Fall.

Everyday in and around High Point, furniture’s incomparable and talented creative class is actively involved in designing, marketing, manufacturing, transporting, sourcing, financing, and warehousing furniture and home furnishings. Key trade publications and important industry associations are home in High Point.

Given the preponderance of the industry’s concentrated and interrelated foundation radiating from High Point, most people correctly assume and acknowledge the logic of basing operations in the furniture capital of the world.

For any doubters, the definitive observation of George Revington, chief executive of Home Meridian, confirms the strength of the region in announcing his decision to base company executive offices in High Point. Home Meridian is parent of the merger of Samuel Lawrence Furniture and Pulaski Furniture, formerly of Arizona and Virginia, respectively.

"We have showrooms here," he said about High Point, as quoted in the Greensboro News & Record. "Our design staffs are primarily in High Point. The finishing companies we primarily do business with are in High Point. And High Point is kind of the intellectual capital of the furniture business, and it seems like the natural place for us to be."

RAMPANT SALES PREVENTION: Short-term fright drives irresponsible reductions in marketing

Now is the time to take market share. When competitors retrench, methodical marketing opens and seizes ripe opportunities to grow and grow significantly.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? But it ain’t so for many furniture companies. They are unwisely cutting, even slashing marketing muscle to save money, figuring all they need to do is wait-and-see then pounce when business picks up.

Now is the time to act, to be firmly in position with continuous high visibility when business finally improves. At that time, it’s too late to play catch up and hope customers will respond.

Hope is not a strategy. In the race for business, you need to running, not walking or crawling or dozing.

Of course, fright produces potentially disastrous consequences. The illogic and myopia is classic sales prevention better known as bad decision-making.

Going on a radical, starvation marketing diet to reduce costs constitutes weakness, perhaps irreparably.

It would be the same as cutting lean muscle to lose physical pounds. Which it would do all right, but you’d be demonstrably weaker and need to work harder and invest more time and energy to regain the strength lost to irrationality . . . if ever you could.

Just as top Olympians always train and remain strong and in shape, so should mercantile athletes. Staying on top of your business game is all about reallocating precious funds to maintain awareness.

You can’t win by just getting by. You win by getting customers to buy from a dynamic business partner with the tools in place for sustained success.

For too many furniture executives, the activity of sales runs roughshod over the accomplishment of a continuity of methodical marketing efforts, which is investing in telling your story and telling it often.

The common belief, and it’s a myth, is all that’s necessary is to dispatch the sales troops and sell, sell, sell. That’s all that’s necessary because selling is what business is all about. Wrong!

Selling requires a variety of tools, and those implements are what marketing delivers all the time: before, during and after the sales call.

With only limited tools, selling resembles a pebble tossed into a pond, after the splash, the ripples eventually attenuate until the next splash.

Splash selling is throwing away good money. The cost of splashing is greater than the constancy of methodical marketing which is a form of spreading bread on the water.

Only an integrated approach of information attracts and keeps busy customers in the know.

Proactive marketing — especially in tough times — trumps retrenchment. Engage your customers with the character and achievement of constant awareness from many directions and sources — electronic, direct mail, collateral material, public relations, marketing communications.

Stay in shape. Identify your strengths, virtues and achievements, and tell your business story wisely and often.

Reflexively and irrationally chopping marketing costs is a hard ax to follow.

THE ECONOMY, SMARTY: As a vital partner and beneficiary, the State of North Carolina helps keep the High Point Market strong

Keeping the High Point Market strong is good business. Better yet, it’s a prudent investment returning jobs and prosperity to High Point, the Piedmont Triad, the State of North Carolina and, most importantly, to the global home furnishings industry.

Despite a disappointing economy, the Market remains strong in size, scope and influence.

The world class Market is a renewable economic resource, pumping more money — $1 billion-plus annually — into the area than any Super Bowl generates wherever it lands. Aside from Mardi Gras, the Market is one of the largest income-producing events of its kind in North America and the world.

Under the leadership of Brian Casey, president of the Market Authority, civic and business leaders are meeting and communicating with legislators in nearby Raleigh to extol the virtues of the Market, as a unique economic engine of ingenuity.

Always seeking to grow and become more important economically, as it is in breadth, design and style, the Market Authority seeks $1.6 million in additional marketing funds from the State. Total funding is about $3 million from state and local government.

The additional marketing funds will help the Market Authority grow the enviable enterprise's attendance and exhibitors, while still seizing all the opportunities and addressing vital challenges.

The Market seeks a prudent investment so it can return dividends in jobs, prosperity, stability and payback directly and indirectly, and that includes an amazing creative class generating more than $8 billion to the region.

Of the reverberating income the Market generates, a portion of it returns to state and local coffers as tax revenue. That means the Market pays back its investors more than it receives.

Even though the Market is behemoth, its success can anesthetize some of us to the sting of reality: A challenging economy, industry constriction and an aggressive, even brazen smaller Las Vegas Market on the prowl.

Even with the success of the Market, no segment of the industry, or citizenry, can be lulled into a false sense of security. That’s the reason merchants, designers, manufacturers and suppliers need to preserve their vital stake in keeping the High Point Market strong and flexible.

For more information, contact the High Point Market Authority. At the North Carolina Legislation, contact Henry M. Michaux, Jr., senior chairman, appropriations committee, North Carolina House of Representatives or Charles W. Albertson, co-chairman, appropriations-base budget commuttee, North Carolina State Senate.

CARPE CONSUMER: Retailer Kris McCreery is using the Internet to become a thought leader

BlogNote: In his own words, Kris McCreery of Sacramento's McCreery's Home Furnishings explains how he plans to use the Internet to attract and satisfy consumers actively searching for merchants to help them attain their dreams for comfortable living.

With rising costs of fossil fuels, people will be spending a lot more time centered around the home. That means those Sunday drives are likely to be less common — at least until cars get more fuel efficient because I can't see gas prices decreasing anytime soon.

Realizing this, I think that smart furniture retailers should be embracing newer technologies (which the furniture industry seems for the most part to be reluctant to do) and delivering information and content directly to the consumer.

I feel ever so certain that the internet is this tool – and that's why I have made a strong push to make my company —McCreery's Home Furnishings — a thought leader when it comes to providing valuable content to consumers.

Our website (www.mccreerys.com) provides a product catalog which includes more than 10,000 items of home furnishings so people can shop and browse in the comfort of their own home.

With approximately 60%-plus furniture purchases first researched online, I think it makes perfect sense.

The Internet is an incredible tool to provide not only product information but also experience and expertise to our potential clients.

Many times I feel that our clients want a more vibrant and comfortable home-lifestyle, yet they aren't quite sure how to achieve it.

This is why we have also launched a chatty blog for our designers to introduce themselves, as well as provide information about design, trends, and new collections.

So far it has been received with great enthusiasm.

Persistence and resourcefulness is key, but let us not be as persistent as a fly would be against a glass window!

The way people search and acquire news and information is changing. It only makes sense for the industry to change with it, don't ya think?

Sure do, Kris. Thanks.

PURPOSE AND BEING: Living comfortably is the sustaining marketing message for sustaining satisfaction

Look at the beautifully evocative image above. Isn’t it what our industry is all about? Damn right!

In the oil painting — White Roses from The Ashton Company — the essence of our industry’s purpose and being radiates so bright. Even so, this enduring message of comfort is missing in all the vapid sale-price-item cacophony that is home furnishings promotions today.

In case you missed it, nowhere in the image are discounts, no-no-no nonsense and other mercantile chicanery.

Here’s how I discovered the image: A friend and I talked about our industry’s purpose and being. With passion, I said all of us — merchants, manufacturers, suppliers and all connected to the home furnishings industry — are engaged in the sacred responsibility of furnishing people’s homes.

Hearing that, my friend sprang to his feet, took me the arm and joyfully commanded, “Come with me. I’ll show you what we’re all about, but most people don’t declare.”

I really didn’t expect such a demonstrable response, and I’m so glad he showed me the purpose-encompassing image appearing in this post.

As a supplier of sorts, my friend is detached professionally from consumers, but is closer to their hearts and minds than many merchants and vendors who seem to be too busy selling. They choose to ignore or are oblivious to recognize our industry’s primary responsibility of ministering comfort and joy from function, design and style.

In the past when I have written about responsibility, I am characterized as a naïve twit, dispensing warm and fuzzy information that doesn’t have much to do with selling furniture.

To which, I ask, ”If you’re not in this business to help people live comfortably, then get out.” People don’t want to be sold sticks and cloth or closed. They want to be opened with ways to dream and attain those dreams.

No matter how real marketing is, real men feel they need to sell for sales sake. To them, marketing is for wimps and twits who creatively craft strategies that actually establish a lasting context for sales to exist.

Back to this glorious image above. My friend is rare at his professional level, even if it is so distant from the merchant-designer level. His exquisite empathy constitutes an enduring virtue that guides his personal life and helps focus an honorable world view.

“Just look at this painting and you will see what we’re about,” he exclaimed, pointing vigorously at what he called “an embodiment” of our industry’s purpose and being. “She is comfortable, relaxed, safe and contented in an environment she loves.”

What’s more, he explained, “The brightness of life flows into the room that envelopes her and anyone else who goes there.” Look closely, and you’ll see two glasses on the cocktail table.

Each of us in our own way needs to translate and convey the enduring message of this marvelous image into our own lives and circumstances to satisfy people, the consumers who pay the bills.

The comfort of White Roses constitutes a powerful marketing message of the strength of simplicity, in a well-designed living environment that honorably transports people to comfort they deserve and always want.

If we’re not purveyors of living comfortably, then what are we doing in and industry whose purpose and being is all about comfortable living?

By any other name, White Roses, is a marketing message that still smells as sweet as satisfying people to live comfortably.

STAY TO PLAY: Deep pocketed and farsighted players are in position to reap rewards when the recession ends

Staying power is the name of the staying game. For manufacturers and retailers, the mercantile mantra is, “Better tread than dead.” Or, “Tread to stay ahead.”

It's all about staying focused. While the treading is tough, the smartest among us are finding ways to move forward with discipline to preserve dignity. Scrambling is better for eggs than business.

Treading the business waters to stay afloat continues to be a buoyant purpose in the minds of many. Sorry to say not all will make it.

Now is the time to capture the future while others are retrenching.

Smart merchants and manufacturers know they cannot succeed without marketing to drive sales, even in this trough of a frustrating business cycle.

Without a context for sales — informing, guiding and educating — no sales will be the context in the summer of discontent and will extend into the fall and winter, too.

Eliminating the marketing component is short sighted and a big opportunity cost.

Without a sufficient marketing context in place when good times return, the myopia that saw short-term savings, retrospectively, will have been a blind streak of dumb and not luck.

Here an element of hope: An unexpected benefit of the down economy is the reality that price promotions — no matter how gimmick-ridden, repugnant and odious — are not working. Hooray.

Adversity is the mother of invention. In times of trouble, the best resource is resourcefulness.

Here’s a open secret to exploit. More people are finding ways to remain at home, a new place they are discovering all the time.

Yes, consumers are staying put for many reasons wrought by rotten economy that will get better. In the meantime, families are getting together, along with neighbors.

My prediction is we will become more communally tribal, with more home centric people helping others.

This stay at home sense will preserve gasoline capital and, we hope, redirect the remaining discretionary income into investing into feathering the nest.

Home is what the industry makes of it for consumers.

GLOBAL MAGNETISM: Home furnishings’ creative class intensifies High Point region’s robust path to growth

Global home furnishings industry, start singing: A thrilling, portentous pep concert this week captivated the crowd from melodious and energized leaders of the High Point Market Authority, High Point Economic Development Corporation and Piedmont Triad Partnership.

At High Point’s Chamber of Commerce Economic Summit, the three talented tenors sang powerfully to the grand regional harmony of being in the right place at the right time. The star performers are Brian Casey, Market Authority; Loren Hill, High Point EDC; and Don Kirkman, Piedmont Triad Partnership.

Loren Hill, left, president, High Point Economic Development Corporation, discusses numerous reasons his agency achieves national recognition for attracting new business and job growth.

From the same page in the business growth hymnal, they sang inspiring romantic arias of area matters for success, as in:

The nationally recognized and respected 12-county Piedmont Triad, again in the Top 10 metropolitan areas for growth in the population category 200,000 to 1 million, according to rankings by Site Selection magazine. Chicago ranked first again as the top metropolitan market with populations exceeding 1 million.

Given the demonstrable facts, no wonder World Business Chicago and Piedmont Triad Partnership are the only North American economic development organizations ranked in the publication’s top 10 listed during the past three years.

High Point and the region’s renowned home furnishings cluster with its unparalleled creative class of supporting industries provides the High Point Market with an enviable and quality context for sustained growth.

The reason defines the interrelation and productivity of an amazing troika: the Market Authority, High Point EDC and Piedmont Triad Partnership. Together, they constitute three sturdy legs of a well-designed comfortable stool at the launching table of economic development.

For the global home furnishings industry the significance is overwhelming in favor of High Point and the Piedmont region as an area worthy of affordable expansion and rewarding relocation. The home of the High Point Market and surrounding counties are an attractive undervalued area whose return on investment merits international attention.

No similar distinction crowns Las Vegas or Nevada, both confronting financial, environmental and affordability challenges. As the business world has concluded, both the expensive home of the Las Vegas Market and World Market Center, as well as the landlocked State of Nevada are conspicuously missing from Site Selection’s top metropolitan rankings.

Despite the specious self-aggrandizing pronouncements gushing from the challenged World Market Center, Las Vegas neon’s harsh light is unable to illuminate a profitable path enough to entice, induce or attract home furnishings’ creative class to abandon a truly supportive High Point home to relocate to the costly desert.

Aside from a verifiable fact of prohibitive expense, traffic congestion, frenetic quality of life and high rents for showrooms and offices, few members of High Point’s creative class could ever imagine themselves actually residing there permanently.

But more importantly, the reason High Point and the Piedmont region are attractive to the home furnishings, high tech, pharmaceutical and other industry segments is the what Site Selection said of top business growth areas: Access to expanding companies, strong logistics support network, highly qualified and abundant labor pools, competitive business costs and what the publication characterized as good old-fashion ingenuity.

One more fact about High Point, the Piedmont and North Carolina: The people here are really nice, embracing and rarely condescending, snooty or haughty.

Remember, what happens in High Point furnishes the world. Make no mistake: The High Point Market has the goods, in stature, product assortment and magnitude, on the Las Vegas Market.