HOME GENTER MERGITANT

advertising alone won't cure the ills.

ter. The top was adorned with a photo of our new, smartly attired manager. Over his signature was an invitation to come in, see the changes, and shake his hand. The letter was warm, sincere and inviting. But it was also too soon! The letter was a cure lor the trafllc ailment - but the patient almost died.

At our retailer workshop last week, I found mysell talking about an experience that demonslrates lhe e/fects ql misleading advertising. I ran this stoty as a rclumn almost l0 years ago. It's worth rcpealing.

I ovenrlSlNG is the mosr expen- Fl sive and least productive cure for a sick store. I've been witness. and sometimes party, to increasing an ad budget in the attempt to bring the volume and margins up to a store's projections. Alone, an increased ad budget never workedl

Many retailers look upon advertising as chicken soup, penicillin, the wonder ingredient that's going to bring in trallic and make customers buy. It won't. Advertising is the vehicle that carries a message about merchandising and services. No matter how fancy or powerful that vehicle, unless the store realistically presents those products and services, the

During my days as director of sales promotion for a home center chain in the midwest, the fifth store we opened in town missed our first year's goals substantially. A task force moved in to uncover the problems. We found the manager was a close-minded, iron-fisted, doit-my-way personality - and the rest of the store's management team was ineffective. There was much employee dissension. Customers lelt uncomfortable shopping in the store. The out-ofstocks were at two or three times that of the other stores in the chain. And, we were not as competitively priced as the market area demanded.

Immediately we replaced the store manager with the best "people" man we had in the bull pen. Next we instituted a special promotion program in the immediate shopping area of the store. The finest sales letter I have ever written was part of that campaign. It was a simple let-

Our campaign brought back many customers who had previously committed themselves never to shop there again. They shook the manager's hand, and then proceeded to seek out the promised changes. They couldn't find'em. Instead they faced the same disgruntled sales staff, the same poor housekeeping and merchandising and the same noncompetitive prices. Many said goodbye forever. This time we added a credibility gap to our other illnesses.

The store eventually made it. It's now doing very nicely, thank you. But it took the third time around for us to realize that it take more than words. It takes merchandising action. In-store merchandising. In-store action.

Most importantly we learned that we. had to be specific in telling the sales force what is expected of them and how they can meet our expectations. Our ads talked about our "friendly, knowledgeable sales help." Too many times, however, our customers recognized that the guy behind the counter wasn't the guy who wrote the ad.

Sacramento, Ca.

Ponderosa Pine, Sugar Pine White.Fir, Douglas Fir, Cedar, S-P-F

James A. Haas, gen. mgr. Richard H. Mills

Sales Agents for:

Duramold Wood Products, El Paso, Tx.

W&W Moulding Co., Loomis, Ca.

P.O. Box 255546, Sacramento.

Ca. 95825 u.s. WATS (800)624-5319 cA. WATS (800)321-1278

(916\972-7282

FAX 916-972-7290