Over 17 years ago, Bruce Springsteen belted out,

“You might need something to hold on to, when all the answers, they don’t amount to much, somebody that you could just to talk to, and a little of that human touch baby, in a world without pity.”

Today more than then we are all desirous of a human touch. Most fast, efficient online transactions are completely lacking human contact. The customer is shocked when you provide a truly personal online experience.

Does your site get personal with your customers?

1. Call first time customers within a day of their order. Ask them for feedback and thank them for their support.
2. Ditch the boring executive bios. Post profiles from the rank and file, the people who actually interact with your customers on a daily basis. Profiles remind your customers they are buying from people, not some corporation.
3. Answer the phones yourself. Tell customers who you are and get their feedback first hand. You will hang up with loads of new ideas.
4. Give to a worthy cause. Make sure you communicate specifically the people who benefit from your donations, so customers feel the connection.
5. Include a picture of each customer service representative in their email signatures. Make it easy to remember they are dealing with real, caring people.
6. Listen and respond to your customers via Facebook and Twitter. Don’t create social media outlets if you’re truly just looking for another way to push you offers down the throats of your online friends.
7. Start blogging.

Have you ever been shocked by a company “getting personal” with you? Share your experience.

Ah, the good old days! Fact is, the furniture industry was successful in the 1950’s and the 1970’s and 1990’s. But “nothing fails like success,” says Gerald Nachman, cultural historian and founder of www.thecolumnist.com. Financial success turned our industry into a left-brain culture. Left-brain cultures are good at preserving old paradigms and programs, what Harvard Business Professor Clayton Christensen calls “sustaining technology.”

This works well when an industry is hitting on all cylinders. But when they slump, as is happening in furniture right now, left-brain cultures fail. In this industry’s case, we have tried to innovate by building lines that look exactly the same only cheaper because we believe the customer is only interested in price. Marketing departments scream louder and louder about unsustainable credit offers, and now we are trying to make cheap computers and bad bicycle give-a-ways the reason Ms. Jones should visit our stores. Leaders won’t implement technology, claiming the customer will not be interested in fully using it, and the result is bland brands and slow growth or dying retailers.

In his 2005 bestseller, A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink says, “The future belongs to designers, inventors, teachers, storytellers—creative and empathetic right-brain thinkers” who exhibit “the capacity to detect patterns and opportunities, to create artistic and emotional beauty, to craft a satisfying narrative.” In every industry there must be right-brain thinkers. They’ll need promoted and will play a part in upending existing paradigms.

The cold reality is that left-brain cultures are a liability when it comes to innovation. These cultures are not bad—they’re simply not equipped to move forward. Left-brain cultures rearrange existing programs; they rarely allow systemic change. They claim today’s situations is really the same as it ever was.

3+2-5 is not an innovative way of saying 5-3-2. The sum remains the same: zero.

The last time paid newspaper circulation in the United States was at its current level, a new house was selling for $4,600, a gallon of gas was 15 cents and the average annual wage was $2,400.  Oppenheimer’s Little Boy and Fat Man were about to bring World War II to an end. Clearly a lot has changed in the past sixty-four years.

Unfortunately, furniture marketing is stuck in this mid-20^th century fantasy land. Print media is still the dominant media choice for family-owned and family-run furniture companies. According to the 2009 ABTV industry watch report, the Top 25 sources experienced an average drop in sales of 10.4% last year.

According to this same report, “Marketing holds the hope for revival.” This is a scary proposition, because as the report points out, “In furniture companies, of course, marketing has traditionally been weak.” It goes on to say, “Even dire circumstances have not induced furniture companies to try to learn from other consumer goods sectors” (page 15).

Marketing in today’s environment is confusing and difficult. Retailers and suppliers alike are trying to find enough consumer money to keep the lights on. Marketing professionals are paddling beyond control to learn and implement emerging media in a way that benefits their clients.  At the same time, even the studies are confusing and conflicting. An example is a recent NAA (Newspaper Association of America) report stating these glowing claims:

1. First quarter traffic to newspaper Web sites was reported as 73.3 million unique visitors (average per month) by Nielsen.
2. That’s 43.6 percent of all U. S. internet users, up 10.5 percent versus the same time last year.
3. Page views grew from 3.1 billion per month in last year’s first quarter, to 3.5 billion in 2009.
4. NAA CEO John Sturm suggests these point to “digital success.”

But if we look at each of these “glowing” results in some context clearly the picture is not so rosy! Consider this information about the other side of the statistics:

1. The top three news destinations on the Web (MSNBC, CNN and Yahoo!News) each drew more than half the unique visitors of the entire newspaper industry in March. Year-over-year, MSNBC grew 9 percent, CNN 4 percent, and Yahoo!News 16 percent.
2. Yahoo! News alone gained 5.2 million unique visitors in March, or nearly 70 percent of the gain of the entire newspaper industry.
3. Newspaper page views at 3.5 billion per month are less than one percent of total U.S. page views (386 billion in February).
4. Time spent on newspaper sites in February, 43 minutes, 9 seconds per month per NAA/Nielsen, compares with total time online of 61 hours, 11 minutes and 56 seconds per U.S. person.  This means newspaper sites get the attention of the U.S. online audience just 1.2 percent of the time.
5. The total U.S. online audience (what Nielsen calls the “active digital media universe”) in February was 167 million individuals.  As NAA does note, 43.6 percent of that audience visited a newspaper web site, but given that newspaper site traffic works out to only about 1.6 page views per reader per day, many of the newspaper site unique viewers are clearly represent one-time-only traffic.

This information is easily found with only a small amount of time and research. As the leader of your privately owned and mostly family run businesses, why there is NOT audible dull noise leading to an ear drum busting roar of insistence on getting best advice for every area of your media strategy?

The conclusion of the ABTV report and my point are exactly the same: “The furniture industry needs to reject the old formulas that no longer get results, to replace the old dogmas that have lost their meaning, to refuse to settle for mediocrity, and to insist on world-class performance. It’s the only way to survive.”

The single most important number that directly impact your profitability doesn’t even appear on your financial statements: Customer Satisfaction. Our Ask Ms. Jones™ process provides you with prompt, actionable information so you’ll know exactly what your customers are saying about you, which positions you as a problem solving expert armed with answers that can laser guide your store to the top of the heap.

Our furniture-exclusive process, based on the Net Promoter Score (or NPS®), is a straightforward metric that holds you accountable for how you treat customers. The concept was first popularized through the book The Ultimate Question, and has since been embraced by leading companies worldwide as the standard for measuring and improving customer loyalty. It has gained popularity thanks to its simplicity and its linkage to profitable growth. Employees at all levels of the organization understand it, opening the door to customer- centric change and improved performance.

How to Calculate Your Score
NPS is based on the fundamental perspective that every company’s customers can be divided into three categories: Promoters, Passives, and Detractors. By asking one simple question — How likely is it that you would you recommend [Company X] to a friend or colleague? — you can track these groups and get a clear measure of your company’s performance through its customers’ eyes. Customers respond on a 0-to-10 point rating scale and are categorized as follows:

• Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others, fueling growth.
• Passives (score 7-8) are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings.
• Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.

To calculate your company’s Net Promoter Score (NPS), take the percentage of customers who are Promoters and subtract the percentage who are Detractors.

This is not a traditional customer satisfaction program, and simply measuring your NPS will not lead to success. You’ll need to follow an associated discipline to actually drive improvements in customer loyalty and enable profitable growth. You must have leadership commitment, and the right business processes and systems in place to deliver real-time information to employees, so you can act on customer feedback and achieve results.

Read more at netpromoter.com… or if you are ready to Ask Ms Jones for the nitty gritty truth of how you are doing, sign up now.

In this morning’s New York Times I was struck by recent purchase of the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field by the Ricketts family from TD Ameritrade fame.

This reminded me of furniture store stories for several reasons. The Cubs haven’t won a World Series for 101 years, Wrigley Field is the second oldest ball park in MLB and the Ricketts family made all of their wealth changing the rules of the stock trading industry. This same juxtaposition is taking place right in front of us in our industry daily.

Opportunity abounds. Our 100 year plus casegoods and textile businesses are dying painfully. New ideas for design, distribution, pricing, etc. are presenting themselves daily. At the same time, the hanger-on-ers continue to hang-on. Old thinking is sucking the life from many.

The Cubs and Wrigley were both owned by the same company, The Tribune Co., which is operating under bankruptcy protection. So is the Los Angeles Times and several other recognizable newspapers. Furniture stores continue to typically spend over one-third of their marketing budgets using this failing delivery vehicle.

Paid content news providers are growing by more than 25% annually. Aggregation websites such as Fark, Boing-Boing, ebaumsworld, CollegeHumor and Digg, and the sheer filtering efficiency of social networks do a pretty good job of separating the wheat from the chaff. Online search is now part of nearly every furniture purchase cycle, reportedly reaching 95% during the last twelve months.

So, who will be the Ricketts family who changes the furniture landscape in the coming years? It will be the folks who laugh out loud when they read quotes like this one by Elbert Hubbard, “Parties who want milk should not seat themselves on a stool in the middle of the field in hope that the cow will back up to them.”

Bob Garfield, Robert Picard, and Greg Stielstra are all making the case that we have entered the post-advertising age. How are you allowing your customer to engage with your company? How are you answering her concerns on her terms? What have you provided as a communications platform to allow her to tell you how you are doing?

At The Lively Merchant we are focused on the future. We won’t waste you money on pie-in-the-sky wild ideas. More importantly we won’t waste you money on nearly worthless newspapers just because it is the way it’s always been done.

I haven’t passed a horse and buggy on the highway recently. Have you?

Check out this excerpt from “How To Make Your Website Really Sell” in the September, 2009 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine featuring David Lively:

Be sure to post toll-free phone numbers and e-mail addresses on every page, as well as fields for visitors to submit questions, says David Lively, whose Ohio consulting firm, The Lively Merchant, specializes in retail sales. Glickman says retail sites should also allow visitors to calculate shipping costs early in the purchase process so that they aren’t ambushed at the conclusion of the transaction.

The ability to send automated responses to visitors who have reached the shopping cart is also critical, Lively says. “You want to be able to send auto responses that correspond to the exact point where a customer exits the shopping cart before purchasing, a communication that says, ‘We saw you were considering purchasing so-and-so product. If there are any questions we can answer about that product…’”

Whether you sell generic widgets or provide a highly specialized service, your efforts are more likely to bear fruit if your prospects perceive you as a benevolent authority in your field.

To that end, Lively says, a well-written, informative and regularly updated blog not only can boost credibility, it can also hold visitors’ interest and reengage them in the shopping experience. Read more…

• Make the essentials accessible. The company phone and e-mail should be prominent on most every page of a site, says Jay Bower of the Crossbow Group. Sites with a shopping cart should also provide ready access to privacy policies, return policies and shipping info.

• Don’t demand too much information. “Only ask a customer or prospect for information you really need,” advises retail sales consultant David Lively. “Long forms are a source of frustration.”

• Let them buy first, join later. It’s important to give customers an opportunity to open an account, but only after the close, says Dave Nevogt, owner of e-tailer PurePointGolf.com.

• Remember: Less is more. “It’s a Facebook-driven world right now,” says Bower. You don’t want a site that looks text-heavy.

• Function well with any browser. The best sites accommodate all visitors similarly, whether they arrived via Safari, Explorer or Firefox.

• Be original. Don’t use a common template. Dare to differentiate with a site that looks and feels like no one else’s, says David Gass, who heads Business Credit Services.

• Keep the site fresh. Regularly update your content, graphics and so on, and don’t be shy about trying new stuff on your site (a blog or video, for example).

Business owners have to use their heads in order to compete in today's world.

As I talk with a business owners of all sizes, and they explain how their hands are tied in moving forward with an internet strategy. They believe they are doing the best they can under the circumstances, of course, but really there are departments in their organization that need to be protected, prices that need to be kept, sacred cows that can’t be touched. “After all,” they argue, “why should I wipe out my current business just to succeed online?”

This dogged thinking is great, unless your competition decides differently.

When you have someone who is willing to accomplish THIS without worrying about THUS and SO, they will likely defeat you. Online, this happens fast, since there are organizations that are willing to grow at the expense of revenue, ethics or reputation. In your short term, being focused may be a real advantage.  Sometimes, focusing on accomplishing just one thing (whatever it is) pushes a business through this recession or  that far ahead pothole. But at what expense? The competition makes a ton of money and you’ve lost forever.

Retailers, vendors, suppliers, factory branded stores, chains, regional players, local independents, Top 100’s, Mom-n-Pop’s and every other nook and cranny of our industry need to think hard about this before it’s too late

September 14 in Vegas | REGISTER HERE

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Is your online strategy struggling? Do you even have an online strategy? The third release of the Industry-Wide Web Summit will unite home furnishings retailers, manufacturers, representatives and suppliers to:

o Brainstorm new solutions

o Work through existing conflicts

o Bury old misconceptions

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You CAN show and sell furniture online.

We’ll show you how.

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Monday, September 14, 2009 | Opening day of the Las Vegas Market

Building C | 9th Floor | Room C976 | 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm

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You will leave the Web Summit with practical, real world information and implementation strategies for all areas of electronic media and web for the furniture industry. Seating is limited. Registration is required for this free event.

Click here to register: please provide your name, company and telephone number.

How to Implement Email Marketing and Social Media for Results | David McMahon | PROFITconsulting

Throw Web-Based Marketing Into Your Mix | Ron Carpenter | Strategic Marketing Solutions LLC

Demystifying the Online Furniture Shopper | David Lively | The Lively Merchant

Create an Engaging Website that Brings Your Brand to Life Online | Renee Loper | aspenhome

“Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.”

Ms. Jones might pull out this Joe Friday line when she’s furniture shopping. Even if she falls head over heels in love with a sexy chaise or a beautiful bedroom, she’s going to have to justify her financial investment with some cold, hard facts.

Look at the following areas where Ms. Jones might find information about furniture. Rate them for accuracy, and then rate them for influence:

1.       A recommendation from a friend

2.       The internet

3.       A store visit

Now rate your store in these same areas. Have you irritated your customer base to the point that your name is dragged through the mud more often than it’s recommended? Do you have a website? Is it fresh and relevant? Do you have tear-offs in the store that she can take home with her? Does your entire staff know your policies? Are your designers well trained? Be honest!

Once Ms. Jones is in the information gathering stage, she has already decided that she’s going to buy furniture. The only question is, from whom?

How do you ensure that it’s from you?

Steve Jobs says, “Innovation distinguishes a leader and a follower.”

Our Partners at Profitconsulting and PROFITsystems are talking about retailer innovation:

Date: Wednesday, August 5

Time: 11:00 am Pacific |  starts at 12:00 pm Mountain, 1:00 pm Central, 2:00 pm Eastern

Cost: FREE

You’ll learn 21 innovative practices to help retailers maximize profits and cash flow from David McMahon, PROFITconsulting Senior Consultant and Furniture World Contributing Editor. You’ll also be given proven strategies highly successful retailers are using to get the upper hand on their competition. 

You’ll have the opportunity to ask questions about practical application of the practices in your business.

 for money-making, money-saving ideas.

Space is limited. Reserve your webinar seat now at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/361477657