SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- How do you get 10 horses into nine stalls? And please no trick answers, veteran marketing specialist Tom Feltenstein reminds his audience of nearly 200 retailers.
Hmmm. One of the horses is pregnant with the 10th, one guesses. No, Feltenstein says. Again, no trick answers.
Spell it, another retailer chimes in: t-e-n-h-o-r-s-e-s. One letter for each stall and there you go--10 horses in nine stalls.
And what does this have to do with retailing, you wonder? From a literal perspective, probably nothing. But that’s Feltenstein’s very point.
Great retailing emerges from great thinking, from an aspiration, he says, to be remarkable. “If you don’t like change you’re going to like irrelevance a lot less.”
On the speaking circuit for several decades, Feltenstein is CEO and founder of Power Marketing Academy. Earlier in his career, he served as a marketing executive at McDonald’s and offers effusive praises for the QSR’s late, great Ray Kroc. In his restaurant marketing consultancy, Feltenstein has worked with A&W, Dunkin Donuts, Subway, Starbucks and dozens others.
On this June day, he is speaking at the 2015 Cenex Buyers Fair, to men and women who make up Cenex’s network of 1,400 locations run by independent operators.
Feltenstein’s 75-minute presentation is about being remarkable. His humor is upstate New York borscht belt (think Carl Reiner, Sid Caesar, Henny Youngman), his experiences travel five decades and his suggestions--at least some of them--are immediately actionable.
“There’s an enemy called ‘average,’” he says. “Think about that. We’ve got to get rid of that.”
Among his solutions are:
- Think Topline: Most operators lock in on the bottomline. But the dollars are found in having your frontline workers engage your customers, most of whom live in your neighborhood.
- Speaking of frontline, Feltenstein laments that a retailer’s most important brand ambassador is also its lowest paid. But while Feltenstein argues for better pay he is also merciless in terms of purging weaker performers. “Who are your turkeys?” he asks. “And who are your eagles? … You have to get rid of your turkeys.” He challenged the audience to begin ridding themselves of their so-called turkeys within the next 60 days. “That’s very remarkable if you pull it off.”
- Hiring: The biggest mistake many companies commit is hiring someone based on industry knowledge. Often, he said, businesses “hire people for what they know and fire them for who they are.” Place greater attention on the candidate’s total personality, ethics, values. Empower workers to interact with customers, to brainstorm new solutions.
- Creative Tactics and Rewards: Offer birthday discounts, provide all employees with business cards (value them), host first-day celebrations for new employees and customer appreciation days, post billboards with the message, “The Answer is Yes.” Let the customer ask the question. And perhaps his most interesting idea, run a positive picketing campaign by taking 10 or 12 workers with pickets extoling your store.
Feltenstein was among three featured speakers participating at the annual Cenex Buyers Fair held this year in Sioux Falls. Cenex is the retail brand of CHS Inc., the country’s largest co-operative refiner. The company's energy products are distributed through a network of more than 1,400 Cenex-branded gas stations and convenience stores in 19 states, including 70 CHS-owned Cenex Zip Trip convenience-store locations.
Approximately 400 retailers and suppliers attended the two-day event.
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