Dec. 2006, Number 91

Two Marketers Who Influenced Me

            “The Atlantic” magazine this month picked “The 100 Most Influential Americans of All Time.” The list came from a panel of 10 prominent historians chosen by the magazine.

            Like every subjective list, this one is bound to create some controversy (and hopefully for “The Atlantic” sell some magazines). “The Atlantic” gave a loose definition of influence “a person’s impact, for good or ill, both on his or her own era and on the way we live now.” The first few picks (Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson, in that order) would be on most people’s list, but as you go down the list, the choices become more difficult: Babe Ruth and not Michael Jordan, Bill Gates but not Steve Jobs, LBJ and not JFK.

            The “Atlantic” list is good for some heated water-cooler discussion. In the same vein, I though it might be fun to try to put together a list of marketers who have influenced American business.

            In order to get you thinking about that topic, I’ve started the process by telling you about a couple of marketers who really made an impression on me. Since this is a panel of one, the list is even more subjective than The Atlantic’s. Besides, these marketers are both in one specific industry, the supermarket industry. But I think the ideas these marketers championed are universal and will help you figure out whom you want to add into a pantheon of marketing geniuses.

            My only rule was no family members (sorry Dad!). So here, without further ado are two marketers who influenced me and the reasons behind my choices:

            1. Stew Leonard, Sr.

            If you haven’t visited one of Stew Leonard’s supermarkets in Connecticut or New York, try it. They specialize in fresh items, carrying only a small percentage of items found in a traditional supermarket, but specializing in perishables, prepared foods and an array of tasty delights such as homemade popcorn, cookies and ice cream.

            The atmosphere is lively at Stew Leonards, with animatronic milk cartons and cows singing to you as you walk down the aisleway (unlike most supermarkets, there is only one aisle in a Stew Leonard store). There is a petting zoo for little shoppers and all the food items are piled high and wide. The food displays are gigantic and signs with appealing red and black script invite you to buy in quantity for greater savings.

            The patriarch of the expanding Leonard enterprise is Stew Leonard, Sr. Although his children and other executives now manage the stores, Stew Sr. is the member of the family who influenced me the most.

            The one word that comes to mind when I think of Stew is “Wow!” His enthusiasm for everything to do with the business opened my eyes to a magical necessity for a successful entrepreneur: enthusiasm.

            When I interviewed Stew Sr. for a book I was writing with Murray, his eyes lit up as he regaled me with his business philosophy. The country was going through a depression at the time, but Stew would not concede that business was bad. He said,

“It is never a tough time. If you believe times are tough, times will be tough. You know the old saying about the hammer. You start nailing and say, ‘I don’t want to hit my thumb. I don’t want to hit my thumb. I don’t want to hit my thumb.’ Whacko. Owwww! Well, that’s what you don’t want to do in business.”

            Stew said his own personal philosophy was “Don’t walk away from negative people. Run.” Instead, he surrounded himself with positive people and constantly went on “One Idea” trips. You go someplace. It can be to a business entirely different from yours. You study that business intently and try to bring back one idea that you can use in your business.

            Stew was interested in volume. In making 20 nickels instead of one dollar. He instinctively knew that the having more customers in his store created more excitement and more possibilities for add-on sales.

            As I walked around one of his stores with Stew Sr., he would constantly stop: to chat with a customer, to pick some stray paper off the floor, to tell one of his employees to make sure a food display was piled up thickly and that the food was pushed to the front. His eyes were constantly darting around as he talked, trying every minute of his life to make sure his store was the best it could possibly be.

            2. Feargal Quinn

            One of the nicest relationships our family has had over the years has been with Feargal Quinn of Ireland. Feargal is now an Irish Senator, but for many years he and his family ran the Superquinn stores in Ireland, an independent chain of food stores that many considered the best small chain in the world.

            Feargal instituted many ideas in his chain that became standard practice in other supermarkets, such as having a play area for children, candy-free checkout lines and products that were marked as being home grown. He put signs up telling when prepared foods were made and gave away products to charity if they did not sell within a prescribed time.

            About 15 years ago, Feargal wrote a book about customer service that I felt was the best business book I had ever read. The book was a huge hit in Ireland and I wrote Feargal asking if we could publish it in America. He quickly agreed, and “Crowning the Customer” became our most popular book ever.

            In “Crowning the Customer,” Feargal explains his “boomerang principle.” His idea is that it is easy to have a customer come into your business one time. The trick is to have that customer come back often. He felt the only way a business could succeed was by listening to its customers, finding out what worked to keep customers happy and what customers didn’t like. Feargal believed in “management by walking around” and kept a small office for top staff. He liked to have staff meetings on the floor of the supermarket and to personally bag groceries in order to keep his ear close to what his customers and employees were thinking.

            Feargal also created customer focus groups, which met quite often to give his managers and employees feedback on how his stores were doing. The focus groups had only one rule (“Please,” said Feargal, “don’t tell me any good stuff. Tell me what you don’t like about our stores.”) By encouraging his customers to become quality control managers, he quickly could discern what had to be improved at his store.

            Superquinn eventually instituted an even more systematic way to catch customer complaints. Superquinn has a loyalty card which gave customers benefits at other retailers as well as at Superquinn (customers could also earn credits by shopping at the other retailers). Feargal awarded his customers bonus points on their cards if they pointed out defects in his stores. Feargal was dogged in his approach to improving his business. He believed that by listening intently to his employees and customers, he could create the best shopping environment in the world. And he did.

            Both Feargal Quinn and Stew Leonard Sr. are marketing inspirations to me because of their personalities as well as their business achievements. They are both great storytellers, both are charismatic individuals and both are totally dedicated family - both the families of customers as well as their personal families.

            It is not often you have the pleasure in meeting in one industry two such dynamic marketing forces. I am lucky to know them.

            If you have some choices for a list of influential marketers, I’d love to hear from you.