Before I dive in I want to tell you about two really great guests we had on the Dos Marcos podcast recently. Brad Parker owns a 6-store chain of La-Z-Boy stores in Portland, Oregon, and Charlie Malouf owns a 24-store chain of Ashley stores in North and South Carolina. These guys are both incredible business people that are doing a lot of things right so if you want a chance to listen to a couple of industry veterans talk about how they drive their business, click HERE to find links to those episodes. You won’t be sorry! ALSO…Mark Kinsley and I have our first book coming out in December so if y ..read more

Before we start, check out this week’s podcast featuring Keith Moneymaker from Sweet Dreams in North Carolina. Keith is a great retailer and shares some stories on how he is making it happen in his market so give it a listen and make sure to have a pencil handy because he throws out some really good ideas! Ever since Kinsley and I started working with the Nationwide Marketing Group we have been exposed to some things that have had a profound impact on me. It all started when I met Jeff Rose at a dinner that I was invited to by my good buddy Jason Mehl, formerly of Metro Mattress. They introd ..read more

“Adversity introduces a man to himself.” Albert Einstein   These are some crazy times we are living in wouldn’t you say? In the Dos Marcos podcast that published yesterday, I make the comment that “just because you have the power to be an asshole, doesn’t mean you SHOULD be an asshole.” Suppliers from all over are having trouble getting their products to people. The stupid COVID illness has shut down factories, people don’t want to come back to work because they are getting a nice fat government check, and the demand spike has made it tough for the guys in the factories out there to keep ..read more

Before I start, if you would like to hear a podcast on this topic, Mark Kinsley and I cover it all in the latest episode of Dos Marcos, so check it out! When I first started in the industry Sealy was #1 by a large margin. Simmons was #2 and Serta was trailing at a distant 3rd. I began working for Serta in 1996 and got there in time to be a part of the massive growth under CEO Ed Lilly and later Bob Sherman. Serta eventually took over as #1 because of a laser beam focus around one simple idea. “Find creative solutions to the complex problems that our customers are facing.” At some point, Serta ..read more

On Memorial Day my mother, Dee Quinn, passed away and it crushed me. In college I was lucky enough to take a Crisis Communications class taught by Dr. Jim Towns and we learned a lot about the grieving process and how to deal with that, but nothing can prepare you for the real thing. Somewhere close to 300 people were in attendance for the funeral at St. Martha’s, my parents church in Kingwood, Texas, which shocked me given the scare around the corona virus. Ladies from the church volunteered to decorate the church and the reception hall, a neighbor created a small piece of art in memory of mom ..read more

I was 28 years old when I first moved to Chicago. Serta hired me to be their Vice President of National Accounts in charge of the Sam’s Club and Montgomery Wards business. Combined, they accounted for over 1/3 of Serta’s volume which was about $85 million in sales at the time. To say I was “over my skis” would be a HUGE understatement so the pressure was on not to screw this up!!!! My boss Jeff VanTuyle took me into downtown Chicago to meet with Tom Lore the buyer (RIP Tom), and I was nervous as hell. The doors open on the elevator and we walk to the buyer’s office and there she was.  The ..read more

First off…if you have not already listened to this week’s Dos Marcos Podcast with Jon Spoelstra, you need to check it out. Jon was a BIG TIME executive in the NBA working with teams like the Denver Nuggets, Portland Trailblazers and the New Jersey Nets and he takes us inside the NBA and talks about how he was able to create positive outcomes for those organizations. His book Marketing Outrageously Redux is all about helping companies breakthrough and he shares some of those insights with us as well as his recent mattress buying experience. SO CHECK IT OUT! One of the things I like most about ..read more

Have you noticed that people have been unusually creative during this time of quarantine? My kids have been working on their TikTok game, Mark Kinsley and I have been writing a lot preparing for more Dos Marcos shenanigans, and our good buddy Mike Magnuson wrote, produced, and starred in this awesome music video called Shelter In Place. Who says white boys can’t dance?  Have you been doing anything to flex your creative muscle in the last 30 days? How is it that people are able to dig down and tap that creative energy now versus before the virus hit? Maybe it’s because some people have m ..read more

From the coronavirus, we will see illness, death, drug abuse, child abuse, poverty, political infighting, loss of personal income, loss of business, loneliness from the isolation and divorce among other things.  We are all living through a tragic event and we have a long way to go to get to the other side of it. We’ve all had trials in our life. For some of us, this might be the worst thing we have ever faced, but for others maybe it’s not as bad. In my world, I handle the valleys pretty much the same way.  I try to first focus on the positive things going on in my life, assess the s ..read more