Working Retail On The Frontlines Deserves A Medal

In-store retail is tough. Long hours, picking up shifts for people who no-show, angry customers, low pay, and that's not even the half of it. All those who've worked retail know there is an unspoken bit of shame for being "in retail." But why is that? You're literally the face of the company and you're directly serving people. Ron Thurston helps us find our Retail Pride and champions retail on this episode of The Longer Game.

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Michael Maher  00:00

This is The Longer Game where we talk about retail, reimagine. We talk about the future of retail, so complicated and diverse and there's so many different options for shopping today. And we like to talk about how all those things intermingle together today I have on the show with me, Ron Thurston, he is the author of Retail Pride, the guide to your accidental career. Is that right? Celebrate your accidental career. Okay. And he is also the founder of, I keep messing this up. I don't know why I can do that. 

Ron Thurston  00:42

It's called take pride today. 

Michael Maher  00:44

Take Pride. Okay. 

Ron Thurston  00:46

And I'll tell you what that means. 

Michael Maher  00:48

Tell me a little bit more. Because clearly, I'm not good at introducing, I just remember Retail Pride, because I've seen that book. And it's a really interesting title. So yeah, tell us a little bit more about yourself, about tape. Right. Today and, and rehab. Right.

Ron Thurston  01:00

Yeah, thanks, Michael. I, so I'm a longtime retail leader, you know, kind of working my way up from literally sales, Assistant Manager, store manager, district manager, you know, head of stores the last decade or so. And I have been on, 

Michael Maher  01:17

You've been on the front lines, basically.

Ron Thurston  01:19

I've been on the front lines my whole career. And what I discovered and kind of realized to be very true is that the largest, the largest population of employees in this country work in retail, one out of four people in the US work in the retail industry in some format, a significant percentage of that are in stores. But I sat across from people during interviews, and in all the hundreds of store visits I've done all over the world who didn't always have the pride in their career. Yeah, it's it is considered kind of a fallback in there's no specific education. There's no particular journey, you know, if you start here, you'll end here, there's no particular money aspiration, like all of it feels for many people very accidental. Yeah. And I just get like, the longer I kept doing this, and, you know, like further into my career, like, we have to find ways to celebrate the people doing the hardest work for this industry, witches, in stores,

Michael Maher  02:26

You're serving people in a very personal way. And there are these like unwritten rules about retail about how people maybe should treat other people, but also how customers end up treating people that work in retail stores, I've worked in store retail before, and it's not very depends upon the people, but it's not always very rewarding. And you're dealing with a lot of different, even like on a store manager level, you're dealing with, you know, different wide age groups of people, different scheduling different people's idea of what the job or the work should be what they're willing to do. I mean, there's a lot of variables that are in there.

Ron Thurston  03:07

A lot of variables. And I think the skill that it requires to say it be a store manager of a $2 million store, and any mall in this country is underestimated about what that takes, because you're right, you are you're leading a team, maybe that team is for maybe it's 40. Yeah, maybe it's a $2 million store, maybe it's a $20 million store, you know, run both. You've got certainly customer experiences, but merchandising, store operations, loss prevention, cash management, the back of house Front of House, corporate directives, you're running a multimillion dollar business, and often kind of sitting out there on your own and often very self taught. Yeah, because there's no school that would say you're going to be a good store manager. The only way you become great in this industry is by doing the work and sometimes failing. And on top of it, choosing great brands and great leaders to,

Michael Maher  04:09

I was gonna say sometimes you have a good person, like a good I remember having a good boss. When I worked in retail, I worked at Starbucks, I remember having a good boss who was very supportive of me. She was there she's like, look, you're gonna have some issues. I heard about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, don't worry, I got your back. And she knew that I was there to to do good work, but she was willing to help me and was I just so appreciate her as an individual. She was very, she wanted results, but she was very kind to and how she approached things. And so I remember that.

Ron Thurston  04:42

I mean, and that's such a good story because we need more of that in retail. And it's so inspiring to me. It always has been to spend time in stores, and whether you're visiting as an executive of the company or as a customer, when you see it done really well. You want more like I want to spend my money here, I want to, I want to support you, I want to give you whatever you need to be successful. And it's so unique about this industry, in the size and scale of it, the diversity of businesses, the diversity of teams, you know, and the fact that you're kind of, you know, hopefully have a good boss, hopefully have a company with great training, hopefully have all those things. And at the end of the day, they're still running multimillion dollar businesses and have a huge impact on the economy of this country. You know, Amazon, and all I know, we'll talk about that, because that's your world. But,

Michael Maher  05:41

We don't have to talk about Amazon, I talk about all this.

Ron Thurston  05:46

But the store component of this, you know, still making up, you know, projected in by 2025, to be somewhere still 70% of all commerce done is still in a store. Yeah, like that, you can't ignore the fact that this is a gigantic group of people who just continue to need inspiration and, and ways to manage their career.

Michael Maher  06:11

Well, a lot of people look at ecommerce and Amazon and they get really excited by that. And my thought process, even for the clients that we serve, which is it's mostly Amazon, we're working on helping them providing a service for walmart.com. But we always tell them being omni channel is is the future, like go shopping in stores. Despite what the pandemic may have done initially, that's not going away. And I don't ever see that going away. Part of the reason I say that is because for humans, we want human interaction, even if sometimes we treat the other, the person on the other end like it, we still we still want human interactions. Maybe we just need a lesson on how to how to better treat people. But we want we want an experience. And I've even seen that in I've used this example so many times. But on Amazon, there was they've started to allow 360 photos, so you can see a product all the way around. And there was a bug spray company that was putting a 360 photo up on their listing kind of testing what that would look like and you think, okay, it's bug spray, like is effective? What are the chemicals? Or what's in it? Does it work? How many ounces? How long is it gonna last me. And that's pretty much it, right? They added a 360 photo on their listing and an increase the conversion rate by 10%. And for me that says people want a tactile experience, they want to experience what a product is going to be like, and that's something before they purchase. That's something that we deal with on Amazon a lot is returns, you know, someone says, oh, this product, it wasn't like it seems? Well, it's the same product, we didn't change it, you know, before it got shipped. So what is it that that's missing there, and I really see, you know, especially stuff in store not going away, but just changing into hopefully more experience oriented where, okay, we can utilize ecommerce logistics, maybe when we don't need the biggest store, we can have, you know, big storage in the backend, but really create an awesome experience for people in store. Like, I would still go to that I still want to go to that. And yeah, my whole livelihood is based on Amazon.

Ron Thurston  08:24

Right. And it because it's so human, it's so it's a part of how we experience life. It's how so much of this country was built, you know, around community and retail and like the local general store, and right impact that had like, that's how this big families like the Macy's family, you know, that come to the US and build the infrastructure of retail, like it is so much about how the world was was built. And I love that about it. But this, the kind of the complexities of it, like I said earlier, are really like underestimated of what it really means to work in retail.

Michael Maher  09:04

Can you give me an example of that, like put it into context of like, what just what's one? One, I mean, I'm sure you've got 1000s of experiences to pull from but what's what's one thing that that you could, you know, explain to listeners,

Ron Thurston  09:18

I think anytime that you are customer facing that you don't know where that's going to go. And I think your ability to then lead with empathy and like really lean in of what that means, like how is that customer experiencing your brand today? Like what can you do to lead with empathy, and be highly curious all the time, and it's part of the book and then be focused to accomplish what you want to get done? Is a, for me the recipe for success in retail, but that comes in many forms that answer your question. If I reflect back, you know, several years ago, I was the head of stores for St. Laurent, which is Paris based, it's one of the most important luxury houses in the world as rooted in a deep history in both kind of the US and in Paris, and like his Yves St. Laurent story, and then you know how it has translated over several different creative directors. But you could have what to say I'm a commissioned sales associate, here in New York City, in a $20 million business, I'm selling $2 million a year, myself, and I have a long list of clients, I have this really important store, I have, like high demand, high pressure, and I made, you know, I may not have the experience to do this job, but I'm learning it as I grow. Okay, I think that's the point that it's like you, you often are in these positions that don't always have rooted in deep training. And you're kind of like, okay, I'm empathetic, I understand the price point, I understand the history and selling and engaging and creating relationships. It's complex. It's, it's driven in achieving sales goals and million dollar benchmarks. It's really, it's highly complex, I keep saying it, but it's, it's so true. And no matter whether I work in the dollar store, I work at St. Laurent, it's complex. And it's important. And yeah,

Michael Maher  11:34

 That's interesting, because it doesn't change, regardless of what I mean, whatever the merchandise is, you know, people, people might have a different perspective on Yves St. Laurent versus the Dollar Store. But there's still all these different factors that go into it, like Have I been trained? Do I have an understanding of it, like, when it comes to even just check out? Do I understand how to engage someone, while I'm, you know, checking them out, or am I head down, you know, doing something like kind of making the experience more awkward. Same as the grocery store, like, and I think the other side of that is, people come in with expectations of what it's going to be like, somebody walks in the dollar store, they have an expectation of, oh, this is going to be, maybe they think, Oh, this is gonna be weird, or this is gonna, it's gonna be if they're not used to shopping in $1 store, and this is going to be kind of sad, or whatever the case might be, and really like, oh, wow, they've actually got some cool stuff here. Or people going into each sale, Iran could think, oh, it's going to be stuffy, it's going to be, you know, they're going to be really disengaged. And they could be super engaging, and really, really kind. And that's also something that you're having to deal with. And there's not that no one's training for that.

Ron Thurston  12:51

That was training, you may hire for that. Hopefully, you're doing who's doing the hiring is hiring, training, you know, onboarding, all of it. But you're exactly right. And, and where you can exceed those expectations is the beauty of the experience. And I love to tell this story, it was several months ago on LinkedIn, the district manager for the dollar store had posted pictures of her stock room in every store, I don't even remember what part of the country have a wall of gratitude from the from the team of like, what they were most grateful for. And like it was sparkles and glitter and colored construction paper. And like, she was asking people on LinkedIn to vote for the best gratitude wall and whack her stores from the dollar store. And of course, you know, like immediately messaging her. I was like, I love you. What can I do? Can I say books? Like, yeah, that's with you. And but like that kind of story? Like, why do we say that luxury is actually a better place to work? Or that is easier than the dollar store? Because it's not, I can tell you that it's not, and that they're all important. They're all in some version of the Omni world. They're all in like the ecosystem of retail. Yeah, but we can't underestimate that. And, and we do, I think sometimes disengage from our perception of like price and service. And that I just imagined myself like in those stores of that district manager for that dollar store. Her teams are probably very engaged. Source probably looked great stock in stock shelves, probably a good checkout system. Yeah, I would say that I'm on the board of directors of goodwill. And I spend even just the end of last week spend time visiting stores here in New York City. I mean, talk about a business, again, a multimillion dollar business right here in 14th street that is driven by whatever gets dropped off that day. Yeah. And that customers do visit they Funny enough, you know goodwill customer often visits every day Hey, what came in? They want, right? Like your new arrivals is whatever their neighbor dropped off to be sold at the Goodwill store. 

Michael Maher  15:11

It's almost like a record store or any place where there's us merchandise, you're like, hey, what was dropped off? Is there something unique or something? Like the one of the reasons I, as a teenager would shop at Goodwill is I just I wanted clothes that, like other people didn't have and I'm like, you can get that at, you can get that at Goodwill. And so that was cool. But also like there as a musician, I would go to Goodwill, or sometimes pawn shops and look at like, there's something for sale there, that's really worth something. And maybe it needs to be fixed up a little bit. Or maybe it's totally working fine. But someone just doesn't know what that capacity of that of that thing is. And so I buy it. And now I have this great thing that I got is a great fine. And it's like, you know, super exciting,

Ron Thurston  15:58

super excited and, and probably paid like $5 for it like that. Oh, yeah.

Michael Maher  16:02

And then and then sold it later for 100 or something.

Ron Thurston  16:06

Correct. But that pride. The reason I say that is because the pride that comes with any of those businesses, when they're well, LED is enormous. And in the managers I met here in New York for Goodwill, five years with the brand, seven years with the brand. I was visiting stores upstate New York a couple weeks ago, 20 years with the brand, wow, you don't stay working on Goodwill for 20 years in one store, if it isn't a great place to work, and that you find value and how you can you contribute to the community and why that's important work for you. Because the revenue generated in a Goodwill store goes back into the communities to get people jobs, job training programs, and temp agencies. And here in New York, it's it's an enormous business. And so that the idea of every part of retail is important. You just have to discover the story of why it's important and why people love being there. And then you layer in great technology, and you layer in Omni opportunities and capabilities, and great product and great culture. And it's a great career like I have had. But it doesn't come without effort of intentionally making that happen.

Michael Maher  17:29

Why would also say you brought up that district manager, you know, from the dollar store saying on LinkedIn, hey, vote for which gratitude board you like the best. And I've thought about this ever since working at Starbucks many years ago, that each store that you walk in, you could go to this, you know, from a Starbucks perspective, you could go to two stores directly in New York City, I mean, you could go to across the street, because people aren't even crossing the street. They're just like, I'm on this side of the street. And that's the way that I go. So it makes sense to have to across the street, not so much in Cincinnati. Downtown, people are gonna like, Okay, well, it's right over there, I'm going to go, I'm gonna go over there. But you could have two totally different store managers and two totally different vibes. And they're representing the same company. And that is really, for me, thinking about being a brand owner, like that's a little scary, because someone could be totally misrepresenting what the brand is, is meant to be. I mean, Starbucks, as it was, you know, growing in the 90s and 2000s. It was about being what they call the third place, it was about being that Lacey went to outside of home and work and where you were, you know, regular and you felt comfortable to be and people knew you. And it would sometimes even get to the point where, you know, customers that had come in to a store for a while, if there was a new person. They'd be like, Oh, they know my drink. And it's like, they wouldn't even tell you. They just say, oh, yeah, they know my drink. And it's like, oh, yeah, I know, Bonnie, she gets this, you know, skinny vanilla latte, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and extra hot and all this stuff. And eventually you learn, you know that that person is irregular, but like that person's almost more ingrained in a store and more investment is toward the URL, someone who's working there so that it's so dependent, I guess what I'd say is it's very dependent upon leadership, like the woman that was the district manager at the Dollar Stores. She obviously was a great leader and was empowering her teams to not just think to have pride in what they're doing, like what are you thankful for? You have an opportunity to work you have an opportunity to impact people. The price point is different. Yes. But, you know, it really, really depends upon great leadership. And that can be tough. If you've got people who are disgruntled and don't appreciate they're like, Oh, I'm just doing this because this is my job or whatever, and I'm gonna work my way up. And I'm not happy being a store manager or whatever the case might be.

Ron Thurston  20:06

Yep. And I can say from personal experience, there's probably I think there are four or five, Starbucks here within probably two blocks of my apartment here. That's 100%. True. They are wildly different. And but I also love that question. Because I do get this question sometimes. And in the press, like, who? Who's doing it really well, like, which brands are doing it really well? And which, and I'm like, there's actually no, and there's no answer to this question. Because you could have a great district, a great store for a brand that you may not perceive as being great. And there are really terrible stores for brands you perceive are? Oh, yeah, and because of exactly that store manager, maybe district manager, but I actually think store manager plays a much bigger role. Because you're close yet you're so close to like hiring, training, engaging culture, you know, that there's, there's a unique aspect of you, as the owner of that business, even if your name's not on top of the impact you had. And I, I can share. So I had been a multistore leader for many years in running kind of districts and regions. And I wanted to work at Apple. And because this was right, it was right after iPhone one. And I was like, Okay, this is a place I need to work. Yeah, understand how this is. So I joined and they said, You, your only role you can come into is as a store manager, again. And I had I think my job prior I was running like 120 stores, back and run, run a store. And I'm like, let's do it, like haven't done it for a long time. But let's do it. Okuburban, not important store in a mall in Houston. And I said, I'm gonna take this on as the biggest challenge, and make this the best apple store in the world, you know, just here by my, you know, as the store manager of this store. And it was kind of a mishmash team. And, you know, it was not a group of eight players, like, we're gonna make this happen. Yeah. And my flight first week was the launch of iPhone two, but we launched iPad and MacBook Air, and several, but we ended up that particular store with some of the best service results in the world. And wow, you know, awarded for that, you know, won awards for the best service. And then they're like, Oh, this guy seems to know what he's doing. And I became multistore, leader for Apple. But in those opportunities to say, it wasn't actually all the stores in Houston had the best service, my store had the best, right. And I had a great passion,

Michael Maher  22:54

Because of the leadership that you brought to that team. And you're you're dealing with in store dynamics of like, you are new to the brand, as a store manager, and there were likely people in the store that may be wanting to move up and be a store manager. And so they're thinking, Oh, well, you know, I'm more qualified to do this. And that person, you have to win those people over and say, like, hey, look, I'm here to support you. And then you've got people who maybe just don't care. And then some people who are like, Hey, I'm happy to be like, I want to do a great job, I want to do my job, well, how can I help you, you've got all those different dynamics. And so to be able to leverage that team into something that's powerful, and that wins awards like that. A lot of times see people who want to get into higher roles, because they want to get away from the in store experience. And it's like, well, they just want to, you know, grow their salary or grow their career, or whatever the case might be. And you're looking at it from a different lens, which is, how do we doesn't matter how far removed from a, you know, leadership level, I am from the store, how do we make that in store experiences as good as possible? That's a totally, that's a totally different perspective, that probably 50% of, you know, out of store leaders are doing 50% Aren't, they're just focused on metrics and all this other stuff. But like, that's the brand is the front line, the people that are in the store, someone has a bad experience at an Apple store, they think Apple sucks. And it was one person, it was worse. They didn't. They may not be, you know, the biggest buyer of Apple products, but they tell other people, other people go in that same store have bad experiences, they're turned off, they're like, Well, I'm gonna go buy a Sony veyo or whatever the you know, the other computer is but like, that's crazy. That's crazy that that's that powerful.

Ron Thurston  24:49

It's so powerful. And even just this morning, there was a kind of this post on LinkedIn, the trend of self checkout, you know that brands like Zara or Amazon fivestar force or whatever it is, and in many others, certainly grocery is all moving to self checkout. And my point of view is that that's actually the best opportunity to engage with someone when done well. That way changing your perception of your experience can happen at checkout. And if you have like someone who was like, Michael, like, how was your experience here, like, we're really happy that you're here, really appreciate your business, we want to make sure you come back, Hey, how's your family, like, the list goes on about even what a checkout experience can do for your perception of the brand. Because if it's poor, maybe your experience coming in was fine. Someone said hello to you. Maybe they got your fitting room, found something in stock, whatever. If the checkout experience is poor, you're going to remember the checkout experience or how hard self checkout was, but if someone was,

Michael Maher  25:57

Experiencing in the store to sociological experience,

Ron Thurston  26:00

and then you get the survey of like, Hey, Michael, how was your experience, you're going to remember the checkout. And you're like, it may have been an eight or nine, but you're going to give it a six. So all of a sudden, I'm a passive when it comes to your brand. Yeah, I'm like, not telling anyone, it was terrible. But I'm going to tell you what was great. Versus like the 910 that says, I'm going to promote your brand, I'm going to tell everyone how that particular location was phenomenal. To tell my friends to go there. Like there's so much power in every touchpoint. And certainly, delivery world, and you know, all of that speed of delivery. And quality is important. Yeah, and promoting. But that in store piece every touchpoint provides that, that chance.

Michael Maher  26:47

And you can create brand evangelists, out of just everyday people like that's what, that's why experience is so important. And when I talk to so I have a team of about 12 people now, and everybody's remote. But I talk about interacting with our clients and how we, we have to really make sure that we're pulling out the stops, we're communicating with them or making them feel heard. And so I'm, you know, listening and in conversations and coaching and saying, Hey, I would say this right here, because this thing does XYZ or I would, I would present this to them in this way. Because they're feeling like this, they're feeling not heard. And so we need to make sure that the

re's they're feeling heard. And there's a lot of, you know, experience just has can be very, very impactful. But there are brands, their clients that I like working with, that I buy, I buy their products, I pay for their products, when I could very easily ask them to send us, you know, stuff for free. And I tell other people, or I'll be like, Oh, hey, like we have a client who makes these really awesome pens. This is like a $60 pen. Okay, I never thought I needed a $60 pen. It's brass. It's very heavy. So it feels it feels very nice. When you're writing with it. It's very easy action to open up. It's nice and thick. You basically, you buy the pen for life, and you just change out the ink. But it's brands called every man. And this gentleman who owns this brand is such a great guy. He just makes me want to crush it for him. When when we go out there. I'm like, I want your brand to get big. So there's been periods where I'm, you know, working somewhere. And I have friends there and I say Hey, like, try this pen. What do you think about it? Like, whoa, this is cool. And I'm like, Cool, have it, like take it and use it. And it's a great experience. And I'm like, I never thought I would I would need a 30 or $40 pen. And I mean, in all honesty, I don't need it. But you can also start to justify it from a cost perspective. If you're like, I'm gonna buy Bix, you know, and I'm gonna spend a lot of money on these over my life period. And instead of doing that, I could just buy one nice one, and refill the ink. You know, that might even be a better experience as well. But people are willing to even pay a little bit more to have a better experience and people will like you said, you know, the country's kind of built on mom and pop shops. It's very easy to say, I don't like this store. I'm not going to bring my business here anymore. I'm going to go somewhere else. And it's very easy to also influence you know, what's better than a lead that you get as you know, you have a service company and a lead that comes in like, oh, you know, I see you do great work because your website what could be better than that. It's someone who says, I know these people and I trust them and I'm happy and I think that they would do good work for you. And we've had people who don't even get other proposals. They just had a really great referral. And they come in someone is basically been a brand evangelists for us because of the work we did for them, and now they brought us other business. And that's like how that's the, like how you bring in new customers is also and maintain your current ones is by investing in the current ones because they can also help bring in other people and it's more service intense, but are intensive, but I think it's more impactful to,

Ron Thurston  30:22

Its enormous. And when you think about the future of client acquisition and client retention and growth, in that, that's where so many kind of DTC brands have said, wow, like the impact that I can have on, on people being able to touch and feel and experience my brand, meet me, all of it, and grow my business, even if it's temporarily is a gigantic part of how they build exactly to your point, then people want to come spend their money engage with you, and find new ways to continue to, to interact with your brand and promote your brand. It's like retail is the best way to do that. In many cases. Even in this kind of trend of short term leases, and building businesses that are about client acquisition, that becomes a huge part of saying it's one step in their journey of growth.

Michael Maher  31:22

So there, they're acquiring the client, and then Oh, whoops, and then maybe they move, maybe they move sales to their website or something like that. But they're starting with an in store experience that could start,

Ron Thurston  31:32

or start direct to consumer or start on Amazon. And then and then move, I was in a store here in New York City for gentlemen who have startup fashion brand showed in New York Fashion Week, then from New York Fashion Week in September till the end of this year have found a temporary space, getting as many customers in there as he can, okay, and gets out of that space. Damn December goes back to online only. And like there's this kind of circle of life that happens with brands, that part of that circle is that human experience, whatever version that is for your brand, maybe it's a cart, maybe it's a, you know, a truck, something that says I want to see and feel in touch. And, and I said to him, I'm like, your product is beautiful, but the story is you. 

Michael Maher  32:22

Oh, absolutely, yeah, 

Ron Thurston  32:23

See you, you are the founder, you know, just like I am, I am my book. It's not the book. It's actually me, and the story of like, why I wrote it. And all of that, to say that we have to think of this in a very kind of ecosystem way that involves Omni that involves great product that involves brick and mortar. But it always involves people. And that's where I gravitate, because that impact has the biggest influence on the success and potential failure of any brand is what are the people doing both on the kind of corporate side? But, having spent my life in stores, I'm really devoted to making sure that they have great experiences.

Michael Maher  33:13

There's so many dynamics, like do the people that are in the corporate seats, care about the people that are on the frontlines? And if they do to the frontlines, people know that and if not, does that affect? If they don't feel that or the corporate doesn't care about them? Does that, you know, show up in the in store experience? Yeah, it likely does. And that's actually one of the most confusing things about Amazon are has been starting to change. But someone has a bad experience with an order, like it was late and it arrived broken. They're leaving product reviews. And it's not that the product was bad, it's that it arrived damaged during shipping, or the person that sold it to them didn't take much care in wrapping it or whatever the case might be. It wasn't the brand. And so it's just a reseller. And so someone has a bad experience. Well, they're going and rating the brand, they're not rating, you know you they're saying, Oh, I got a bad product and the person that was reselling it or the person that's you know, they didn't give me a replacement. They don't they just assume it's let's just say like Adidas or something like they just assume oh, well there's a rip in this and is poor quality and Adidas sucks. I'm gonna go start buying Nike it had nothing to do with them. And that's why and that's why it's so important that we tell brands all the time especially, you know, digitally native brands that are on that are selling on their own website. 54% of people are doing product research on Amazon, they're going and looking up stuff so that can impact your in store sales that can impact your you know, someone's more, I think 50% more likely to buy from a brand they don't know on Amazon than any other site. And that's not because Amazon's good at making products. They're basically a really trusted distribution network. That's what they are. They build trust through books, they gather data. And they built out a really complex logistics system that is allowed them to deliver stuff quickly. And if your brand is misrepresented on Amazon, and has poor ratings, that could affect the experience outside, which is why it's important to have good presence on and off Amazon, and which is why, you know, while I might focus on Amazon, I tell my clients, like, you know, you should be in stores, you're, you're, you're, wherever your clients are, or wherever consumers are at, they're going to a Macy's. And they're also shopping online, and they also are a prime member, then you should be in multiple spots where those people are at because you have multiple touch points now. And if they had a good experience directly on your website, they may also buy your product in a Macy's because they believe in your brand, and they support your brand. But and it's right there and like, Oh, I'm already here, I might as well get this product.

Ron Thurston  36:04

Yeah, yeah. And that's why I love the conversation of the balance of all the different channels. Because you're right, that kind of a someone who is not even related to this industry will say to me, well, but look at the growth of Amazon like stores, our stores are growing or stores are like they barely see the headlines, mall managers, and all yes, and, and the facts don't back any of that up. So I actually kind of thoroughly enjoy correcting people when it Oh, sure. Yeah, I do have like, actually, they're more stores opening and 2022, then I've opened in the last decade. Well,

Michael Maher  36:41

it's like when technology changes, and an ecosystem of retail changes, we see all we see the news headlines, like, you know, when the Industrial revolution was happening, a lot of people who were, you know, farmers who were doing stuff by hand, or factories, or other people like, Oh, we're going to be put out of a job by machines. And in reality, these machines allow for greater production, so more people could produce more things. And I just, it's you're just seeing what we've been focusing on change or diminish, because other new things are coming about, like you said, majority of sales are still happening in store, like that's not going away. And if anything, my focus would be, how do we utilize technology so we can create a better, more human experience? How do we automate the things that we don't need to focus on a human doesn't need to have their hands on? And how do we get that person to like it? How do we get that person to be more engaging, like in a self checkout store, instead of someone being worried about checkout, they can say, hey, you know, like, I like in an Amazon Go store, like I've had this brand, and it's really good. But I'd also recommend, like, if they're looking at, you know, protein drinks or something, I'd recommend this one, this one has a really good taste and flavor. Now they're engaging, and they're providing a better experience. But the technologies if it's seamless at checkout, now, they're just not even thinking about checkout, they're thinking about, Oh, I had a good talk with that person that was in the store. And they really cared about what I wanted. 

Ron Thurston  38:10

Exactly, exactly right. And, so that's a start in that kind of hiring, training, onboarding, you know, understanding all that product knowledge training, all of that happens, and then it engages with the customer. And then that conversation happens. And then the repeat business for the brand. Like it goes, it's full circle all the time. And we just can't We can't ignore the importance of this huge group of people.

Michael Maher  38:40

So tell us quickly about retail in America, this is your tour that's coming up. Correct.

Ron Thurston  38:45

It's tour. So in 2022, spring, I am leaving New York City for at least a year is my commitment to travel the country and to have these kinds of conversations just like you and I are having with the people doing the work in stores all over the US and in an Airstream and so I'll be living remotely, you know, part of it is also how do you take pressure off the system? How do you shop only local? How do you support community? How do you then engage with retail teams and through some great sponsors, like Ubik, which is a big platform for employee training. Okay, KWI is a big platform for POS systems, okay. And stores they both of these companies, platforms have big customer bases and Spotify from a music point of view and kind of local playlist kind of by city and you know how music plays a really important part in our retail experience. Oh, for sure. The whole immersion of, of sensory in retail. So through these, these partners and the airstream, this big tour so it'll be a podcast and a YouTube channel. And definitely a kind of a newsletter. Lots of Instagram. There's a whole big plan. So the return America tour.

Michael Maher  40:14

That's exciting. Well, when you get too close to Cincinnati, look me up and I'll buy you a drink or coffee or whatever the case might be on me. If people want to find you and find out more about what you're doing, where should they look? Should they look in stores? Should they look? You know, at the top of a skyscraper in New York City? Are you in the back room in a stock? Sorting? Where can people find you?

Ron Thurston  40:39

I'm all of those places. I'm in the back of a Goodwill store. It's like sorting donations. You can find me on Instagram at retail price. Okay. You can find me on Amazon the book best suited on Amazon hardcover and paperback. For at Retail Pride. And then definitely LinkedIn. Yeah, at Ron Thurston those was a retailpride.com, we'll get you to all those places.

Michael Maher  41:05

Okay, you can up there just for a little bit retailpride.com you said,

Ron Thurston  41:09

retailpride.com. We'll get you links to everything.

Michael Maher  41:13

Cool. Well, you heard it here. First people the in store experience is not going away. And I'm not even ashamed to say that because I just know that I'm part of a bigger as an Amazon search for I'm a part of a bigger ecosystem. So think about next time when you go to a store, think about that experience. Think about some of the things that are causing you to want to be there causing you to want to maybe not be there and think about how that could be impacting, you know, the brands that you're working with overall. And just know that we're all I always say anytime I'm on any kind of new system where it's like give a bio and I just say human raised by humans, because I love that line and l fight with that little girl. But you know, we're all humans. We're all here to engage with each other. We want human interaction. So let's make that the best and most positive experiences possible. Thank you, Ron, for coming on today and talking about retail. And it got me you know, more excited about thinking about brands and what that experience looks like. And yeah, it was just fun to have that conversation.

Ron Thurston  42:20

Thank you. Likewise. Thanks very much, Michael.

Michael Maher  42:23

So that's The Longer Game everybody if you want to find anything go to thelongergame.com We don't have any fancy outro. So yeah, that's it this the show's over. See you later. Bye.