LAS VEGAS — Guest speakers at Furniture Marketing Group’s annual Symposium, held Jan. 23-24 at Resorts World here, gave attendees out-of-the-box perspectives of looking at different aspects of business and ways to apply those concepts in an ever-changing furniture retail landscape.
Terry Jones, founder of Travelocity.com and Kayak.com, shared thoughts on innovation and technology. Donald Cooper, who grew up in his family’s hockey equipment business before staking out on his own, explained why the most important attribute a business can possess is clarity. And in a high-energy presentation, coach and educator Dr. Ivan Joseph talked about the skill of self-confidence.
Jones said the only real difference between disruption and innovation is a person or business’ role in the change.
“From one perspective, we’re talking about disruption, but on the other, we’re talking about innovation,” he said. “They’re two sides of the same coin. You only call it disruption because you didn’t do it.”
Talking about how disruption has sped up, Jones said it 75 years for the telephone to reach 50 million users, while Chat GPT did it in 30 days.
“It’s a tough time to be a leader. You have to take risks,” he said. “What if disruption is coming? You’re going to have to be faster, cheaper, more connected with new models and technology.”
He said if one thinks of Big Data as the oil of the 21st century, AI should be considered its refinery, adding that’s where that data can be turned into knowledge.
“AI is an additive. It learns faster than competitors about trends, customers, layout, pricing,” Jones said. “There are products in your industry for all those things. Maybe you can put it to work.”
Jones said creativity is about thinking up new things while innovation is about doing them, and a business with a culture that accepts taking risks and learning from them to improve.
“The engine of innovation rests on twin pillars. The pillar of culture and the pillar of team. If you get those right, you get innovation. You won’t get any ideas unless you nurture the flame,” he said. “Innovation is baseball. If you fail 70% of the time, you’re awesome. Success isn’t permanent and failure isn’t fatal.”
The most important business attribute
Cooper told FMG members that their most important job is clarity. He said while many important ideas and insights come from the bottom up, clarity can only come from the top down. “If you at the top are not clear, who else can be?” he asked.
He said every business talks about goals, targets, aims and objectives, but he said those are weak and don’t give businesses wiggle room to perform. He added that a bonus reason for clarity is that it creates opportunities for life outside work.
“When you’re physically not there, your clarity is there,” he said. “They know what to do.”
Having clarity also gives customers an idea what they can expect. Looking at FMG member websites, he cited some examples.
Cooper liked Johnny Janosik World of Furniture’s guarantee of the lowest price in five states, free design services, countless custom options, a culture of giving back to the community an dhow it works with builders, real estate agents, club managers and property managers. He called it brilliant clarity and said the five-state guarantee was “bold and gutsy.”
Another standout, he said, was NFM, which he said had clarity from the beginning, with Rose Blumkin’s clear commitment to “Sell cheap, don’t lie and don’t cheat nobody.”
“That grabs customers and clearly differentiates,” he said.
He said regardless of what a business sells, people come to it for that, plus joy, and he used the example of Old Cannery Furniture Warehouse in Sumner, Wash., which has events throughout the year including a bridge lighting and free hot dogs as part of its Labor Day promotions.
“They make stuff happen,” Cooper said of the FMG member’s strategy. “People show up for free food.”
‘Confidence comes back to us’
Joseph’s presentation started with a quick game of Simon Says, in which several stood up immediately when he said, “Stand up,” without the prerequisite “Simon Says.” He said that comes down to bringing a confident energy to any encounter.
“The energy we bring into a room comes back to us,” Joseph said. “The confidence we bring to a meeting comes back to us. We have a responsibility and obligation to bring that when we deal with people.”
In another interactive portion of the presentation, Joseph brought six people up from the audience (this editor was one of them) to engage in a game of passing a Serta Counting Sheep plush between each other as quickly as possible, only touching it once. After a couple of early attempts, he got the attendees in the audience to cheer us on, and the time from start to finish shrank, which reinforced his talk about positive thinking and how it leads to confidence.
Joseph said success can’t happen without failure, and when people fail, it’s how they deal with it that determines when and how they succeed. He said as leaders, it’s important to build on the team’s successes to help build members into their most successful selves. “You have a responsibility to build it in others. Catch them when they’re good,” he said.
Joseph showed the Apple video that aired during the Super Bowl in 1997, “Here’s to the Crazy Ones.” He said the people portrayed in the spot all had a clear North Star to guide them and an unwavering belief in themselves.
“Who are you and what are you about? There’s a link between this confidence in yourself and this clear sense of purpose and alignment in the organization you’re working with,” Joseph said. “We can’t talk about grit, resilience and confidence if you’re where you’re not supposed to be.
“What’s your clear sense of purpose? ‘This is who we are and this is what we’re about.’ You want to attract those like-minded people to your organization.”
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