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Small-town store, big-name reputation – HFA Member Profile: Charlene Firth
The residents of Altus, Okla., expect big-city service from their retailers. Every day Charlene Firth and H&H Furniture deliver. Some people are born into the home furnishings business. Some find their way in through marriage. Still others start out at the bottom and slowly work their way up to signing the checks. Then there’s Charlene […]
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Let Data Mold Your New Business Model
Home furnishings retailers can use insights about their customer base gleaned from consumer data to help their stores change and evolve their business models. At the National Retail Federation’s Big Show earlier this year, leading retail executives and analysts implored retailers across industries to take advantage of the information at their fingertips or suffer the […]
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Boston Interiors to open store in New Hampshire
Longtime HFA member Boston Interiors is taking its act on the road. Store officials have announced the company is expanding and will be opening its first store outside of Massachusetts this summer in Bedford, New Hampshire this year. Boston Interiors opened its first store in 1979, and added six more store over the years throughout […]
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What makes a good store logo? – Part 5
The Sofa Store: To stand out, keep it simple. Good branding communicates what you stand for as a business. That branding can be communicated verbally or visually. Retail designer Martin Roberts’ series on logo design’s he’s helped recreate for home furnishings retailers ends this week with The Sofa Store in Maryland. When the owners wanted […]
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5 Things to Do When Your Store Hits a Cash Flow Crunch
Even the best and most profitable home furnishings stores can encounter a sudden cash flow crisis. It’s how they deal with it that separates the winners from the losers. As a responsible entrepreneur, you naturally forecast your cash flow carefully, but even then an unexpected bill or late payment can disrupt your cash flow. Here […]
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What makes a good store logo? – Part 4
Good branding communicates what you stand for as a business; that branding can be communicated verbally or visually. When retail designer Martin Roberts met with the owners of New Mexico-based HFA member Miller Waldrop, he came away convinced the store needed to project the personal attention and style it offers its clientele on a daily […]
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The ties that bind
Constraints at your store can be good assuming you’re committed to breaking free from them. Since I’m up against my deadline, I’m glad I had the day I had in the field today because the topic for this column has been brewing in my mind for weeks. If you hang out in the field long […]
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The Importance of Product Knowledge
(Editor’s note: This is the first of a three-part series. This month we look at how and why to learn product knowledge.) The foundational element and focus of sales training for most consumer products is the product itself, for obvious reasons. You can’t intelligently speak about products you don’t know and understand, much less sell […]
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The mistakes of Dale Earnhardt, Inc.
(and what you can learn from it) The lure of the family business is powerful. I live in North Carolina, a state whose allegiance to NASCAR is like no other. In NASCAR, the predominant form of organization is the family-owned business—or at least the private, closely held businesses. However, just because a family business is […]
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George of all trades – HFA Member Profile: George Perry
Truck driver, salesman, floor sweeper. These days George Perry does a little bit of everything at Sherwood House Furniture. All of them with a smile. For every home furnishings worker who has fielded a call from a cranky customer demanding to know when the sofa they ordered three months ago will arrive, for every employee […]