Empowering Employees, Building Trust, and Growing a Retail Chain with Concord Pet’s CFO
Participants:
Francesca Halberg – General Manager/CPO of New Media Retailer
Lindsay – CFO Concord Pet
Video Transcript
The history of Concord Pet
Francesca (00:02):
Hello, everyone. Thanks so much for joining me for the New Media Retailer Podcast. This is Francesca, and I am joined today by Lindsay with Concord Pet. Lindsay, do you want to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about Concord pet?
Lindsay (00:15):
Sure. So my name is Lindsay. I am currently the CFO at Concord pet a family owned business. Me and my dad and my brother are all partners. My dad started the business 40 years ago and probably a little bit longer than that. Actually where I’m sitting right now in the office is where the original trailer that we sold pet food out of originated, and it kind of went from there. He built his first location which was a shed on 202 in Concord Pike 40 years ago. So that’s kind of how it all started.
Francesca (00:52):
Fast forward to today — how many stories do you guys have?
Lindsay (00:54):
Today? We currently have 32. Hopefully by Q4 or early Q1 of 2022. We’ll have 33.
Francesca (01:03):
Wow. Oh my gosh. Congratulations. That is so amazing.
Lindsay (01:07):
Yeah. The first store that I opened, like at this level, was store 18. So that’s how much we’ve grown since I came on board.
Francesca (01:20):
Oh my gosh. What an accomplishment. That is absolutely amazing. What made your dad want to start a pet store? Does he love pets? Like did he have pets? Where did that come from?
Lindsay (01:28):
So my mom and now me grew up riding horses. So when they first bought their first property in Pennsylvania, it was just an open field. They built a house and a farm, and my mom had horses. So my dad wanted to try to figure out how we could feed the horses cheaper, and the only way to do that was become a Purina dealer at the time. So he started selling Purina products, which at that time was literally, you know, horse feed and dog chow and some chicken food and stuff like that out of the trailer. And I still ride horses today. We still have a barn with horses, so that’s how it really got up.
Francesca (02:10):
Oh my gosh. That is so cool. So obviously 2021, how many stores have you guys opened this year?
Lindsay (02:18):
Just one store this year.
Okay.
He opened two stores right before COVID. One was probably about 6-8 months before COVID, and one was literally like three months.
Francesca (02:32):
Wow. So one since COVID has hit, and then you’re hoping to open one more maybe by this year, beginning of next? Oh, I think it maybe froze. Oh, I think you came back. Yeah,
Lindsay (02:46):
That was me or you, sorry.
Business goals change across 32 stores
Francesca (02:47):
No, I’m not sure. No, that’s totally fine. That’s totally fine. Obviously you have managers at every store, but I can imagine being over all of those stores can certainly become difficult. Do you have like different goals and stuff for different stores, or are they all fairly similar enough that you can sort of operate under similar types of goals?
Lindsay (03:11):
For the most part, yes, but I would say we have definitely very different tiers of stores. So we have what we consider A stores, B stores and C stores. Now the C stores kind of end up being our newer stores that are still in growth mode. You know, five, seven years ago when we would open a new store, you would kind of see the growth pretty immediate and pretty fast. I’m not going to sit here and kid anybody; it takes a lot longer these days to build a store. You know, where it used to take three years to know exactly where that store was going to end up, I would say it’s kind of more five years now. And I think that has a lot to do with the online presence. You’re not going against just brick and mortar anymore.
Lindsay (03:53):
You have to get people to want to come in that just get everything delivered to their home. So it just takes a little bit more time to build that base. So the C stores are usually our growth mode or in like a lower income area. So the dollars are just less because of that. And then our A stores usually end up being, you know, our Rehobeth store or Hockessin store. They’re kind of in the higher income areas. So when it goes into purchasing and stuff for those types of stores, it can be very different because what might sell in Rehobeth and Hockessin necessarily might not sell in Aston, Pennsylvania or Community Plaza. Sure. Demographics definitely is a big role.
Hiring challenges have taken their toll on larger businesses too
Francesca (04:33):
That makes total sense. Obviously the first thing that comes to mind as we have this conversation is I’ve had a lot of these conversations with stores that have maybe one, two, or three locations and they have been very open and honest about their struggles currently with hiring. I can’t imagine at a much larger scale of 30, 30, 31, 32 stores almost the challenges that you face there. Is that like something you guys are experiencing right now.
Lindsay (05:00):
Yeah. It’s definitely a struggle. I can say that my managers that have been with Concord Pet and are more seasoned and really know how corporate works and can create that leadership role that makes their employees feel like part of the team, they hang onto their employees a lot more than my younger managers who just want to get a body as quickly as they possibly can and don’t really build them up into understanding family owned, independent, you know, what that’s supporting in the community. So I have stores that have literally had no problems with, you know, they have the same eight, nine employees they’ve had for the last 5-10 years. And then I have ones that it’s just constant turnover. Now I’ve talked to a lot of retailers as well, and I think from what I can tell, we’re probably above the curve in hiring, I hear that like retention for most is probably around 40% right now.
Lindsay (06:00):
Like if they hire five, two are staying and the other three are headed out. I would say we’re more at 60%. We’re above that, but like I said, it just depends on the area. You know, my Frazer and Malvern locations are having a lot more trouble because we are an entry level position at the end of the day. And depending on where, you know, the kids in those areas just aren’t looking for jobs and you’re just not there. So you know, it varies.
Yeah.
And management, like, you know, in the past few months, I have one store right now that we don’t have a manager at. It’s been very hard to find a management position for that store, but my managers are great because they’ve been very like, “Listen, if you need us to jump in or help out,” or, you know, they are good at helping me keep things going. So it hasn’t been horrible, but it’s definitely not fun. That’s for sure.
Trust is built through a professional and personal balance
Francesca (07:01):
Yeah, absolutely, and super, you know, uncharted territory for the most part. But something that you touched on that I would love to like dive into a little bit. For those of you that don’t know, we do work with Concord Pet on social media. So I do know from working with different store managers calling the store and interacting with them through email or on social media, you do have quite a few employees that are incredibly bought in to the Concord Pet brand to the message you guys stand for, to being a family owned business. You mentioned that that helps you retain employees. I think it also helps you guys capture new customers and retain customers.
For sure. I’ve seen it single-handedly myself on social media.
Can you touch a little bit? Is that something like an initiative you guys have started or where did that come from? Is that just these employees taking it upon themselves?
Lindsay (07:53):
I think the biggest thing is they have direct contact with the three of us. We invite all of our managers to our distributor trade shows. Our big ones, like our SuperZoo and our global, we don’t invite them. We’ll, you know, kind of pick and choose for stuff like that, but we try to really make them believe that that store’s their own you know, so they’re completely in charge of running their own store. They do their scheduling, they do their decorating, they do all of their ordering so they know what they’re selling. They order what they want. I’ll do some of the purchasing, but, you know, those stores really become their own. So I think that’s kind of the biggest thing.
Lindsay (08:43):
We have a 4th of July party we invite our employees to, you know. Tomorrow we were supposed to have a manager’s meeting and just with everything going on, things are kind of crazy. So instead of doing that, I was like, “Listen, if anybody wants to get together and just go eat some crabs and have lunch, and like, we’ll just like take a deep breath and like have a few hours.” so we kind of, you know, We are good at blending the professional and personal side of things. You know, I have my one manager, Brian Ellis, he’s been with us for over 25 years. I’ve known him since he was, you know, a 19-year-old kid that, and here he is 40 with kids, and we’ve watched each other grow up. So I think that’s kind of the bulk of it. Yeah.
Francesca (09:31):
Trust is such an important factor and the value of it is not often recognized, but I totally agree, like trusting in managers for them to like make decisions and instilling confidence in them is such an important thing. Do you feel like in turn, your managers treat their staff as family, as you treat your managers like family?
Lindsay (09:55):
Yeah. That’s like kind of what I was touching on like earlier. My managers that are really like what I would consider our key core that I don’t really foresee going anywhere. Yeah, they usually have like a little bit easier time holding onto their employees and keeping their retention, and that’s just because they know that what we pass down to them, they should then pass down what they can to their employees. Like, if they get a big gift card from us because they did something within their store, then they buy lunch or take their kids out to dinner or just however they can thank them, you know, end of the day. It’s a simple thank you. It’s all that people are looking for.
The right training builds confidence
Francesca (10:37):
Yeah. Absolutely. Culture is such an important thing at the store level for sure. And when people want to be there, what they put into their work is just given back to you tenfold. So that’s so great. And I’ve obviously like seen some pictures of some of your stores and they’re beautiful too. So I think that that also goes along with it, like wanting to keep the sort of looking a certain way and wanting to present an image of like professionalism with your staff, but also with how it looks, you know, those things are so important now in terms of training. How do you train your managers and then they’re training their staff and how are you like instilling that culture? Are there like principles you’d like to touch on?
Lindsay (11:19):
Yeah, so we used to have a managers meeting every month. And at that managers meeting, a vendor would come in and that’s when trainings would happen. Now we are doing those quarterly, and that actually started right before COVID as well. But we basically have like 22 to 23 manufacturers that come to these meetings. They set up like a trade show style format and the managers are grouped in either groups of two or three, and they literally rotate from booth to booth for 15 minute sessions.
Oh, that’s cool.
It’s really helped with the training side of things, because what was happening is at my managers meetings, we were seeing 12 vendors every year and it was the same 12 vendors, you know, so this really opened up for them to see a lot more, because at the end of the day the manufacturer reps used to get in my stores a lot.
Lindsay (12:14):
They don’t as much anymore because we have 33 stores. So it’s very hard for them to get into all of my stores, which is obviously going to happen, but also manufacturer reps are allowed to come into my stores and train my staff at any time. What we asked for them to do is send around an email saying these are the three days I’m going to be out, and these are the stores I plan to hit when and then the managers can either say like, “Yes, that’s perfect. I’ll have as many staff members here as possible,” or “No, that doesn’t work. Can you pick a different day?” And I’ve heard for retailers or manufacturers in my industry that a lot of stores don’t allow that to happen. Interesting. And I think that’s why, again, some of my managers, I mean, I’ve always been told that my managers are some of the best in the industry.
Lindsay (13:05):
And I think that that is a really good reason why, because we allow the reps to get into our stores. Like at the end of the day, I’m not the one selling the products. And that’s always been my stress with them. I’m like, “You guys need to get into the stores and talk to the managers because they’re the ones that are selling your products and ones that you need to call them on your way in and say, “Hey, I’m going to stop at Dunkin Donuts or I’m going to stop at Starbucks. Do you want something to drink?” Like, it’s simple. But it keeps your brand at, you know, the top of mind. So yeah.
Francesca (13:37):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they’re the ones interacting with the customers so much. And I can’t even imagine. Just thinking of some of the pictures I’ve seen at your stores, do you guys do carry such a large inventory? The thought of even trying to keep up with all of the brands and all of the different specifics that different breed lines focus on and things like that, you know, how overwhelming that can be when you’re trying to help a customer in real time on the spot and provide good customer service. So, yeah, that’s a really, really smart way to go about it.
Lindsay (14:04):
We grow too. It gets harder too. We like to try to hire management from within. As we expand, the stores get further away from where our core stores are. So to try to hire within gets very difficult. So our last two stores we’ve had to hire managers that are from outside the industry. So that’s a very good point as to like, you know, I want the vendors to get into those two stores as much as possible and get them up and running, because unfortunately we don’t have district managers. It’s just never worked for us. So like, I don’t have a person that I can be like, “Okay, you’re just going to go and work with this manager for a month.” And, you know, like, they’re kind of like, “Okay, you gotta, you gotta go, like, you gotta learn it and you gotta figure it out on your own.” Which has its pros and cons.
Retail and customer service experience are important when hiring
Francesca (14:54):
Now would you say like an important hiring factor to you is like their love of pets, or are you more focusing on like someone with like good customer service experience, or does that not really come up necessarily?
Lindsay (15:09):
Obviously having a pet background definitely helps, but it’s not detrimental. I think retail and customer service is most important, because at the end of the day to really love retail, it takes a special person.
Absolutely.
You know, like not everybody can handle that and especially what they’ve had to handle the last year and a half. So it’s definitely customer service and just retail in general. So like the last one manager we just hired was from Rite-Aid.
Okay. Totally understood.
You know, she loved working for Rite Aid, but Rite Aid is now big and not, you know, as what she remembered it to be. So sorry.
No, you’re fine.
And then the other one is from Turkey Hill, which again, you know, convenient style, but you know, they understand people and they understand what they have to do/
Francesca (16:02):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, that’s so interesting. And obviously the work that you guys are putting in from a family level and instilling that in your manager is for them to turn on and instill in your employees is paying off, because the posts that I see and like the brand that I’ve seen, so many of your employees willing to continue to emphasize on social media is so important and helps you guys tell your story so much. So that’s been a really, really cool thing to like watch progress. We’ve been working together for almost 11 years, if not longer because of the Circulars Unlimited connection too, so social media was still so new when we first started to where it is now, like seeing that progression with your staff being bought in and really getting involved in social media to help you guys even more has been a really, really cool progression to watch. So obviously what you guys are putting into it is paying off in dividends. So that’s really cool to see. What other challenges and stuff are you guys facing this year? I mean, obviously COVID has been tough for people. How are you getting people back into the store and things like that now?
Good customer service has carried Concord Pet through COVID-19
Lindsay (17:14):
I’m going to be honest, we kept our doors open throughout all of COVID. So I think at one point we changed our hours from 9-9 to 9-7 or something like that. I think that really helped customers see that we’re there. Like during COVID we kind of became the place that they could go when they could go nowhere else. And we’ve seen, I mean, obviously in general, there’s been a lot of pets adopted, purchased, everything during COVID. So we’re naturally going to see a growth anyway, but again, we’re running ahead of the curve and I think we were able to gain a lot of people back, you know, when COVID was happening and it’s still happening. Shipping is a nightmare. Things aren’t coming when it’s supposed to. So we’re able to get those people back and then we have to retain them.
Lindsay (18:10):
And I think that we’ve been able to do that. So I think that’s been the biggest thing is just trying to keep the stores as safe as possible but also as normal as possible. We never had it so that they couldn’t come in the store, you know, they were always able to. We’re not a Target; we’re not a Walmart. The most we have in a store at a time on a normal day is five to seven people. So they have plenty of room to spread out and keep their distance and shop safely and comfortably. So I think that was the biggest thing. We had to adjust some things like our anniversary sale. We couldn’t do, you know, we did like a weekend sale later, but we were able to come back and have Moonlight in December and yeah, we had that. People stand outside and, you know, we had to do it differently, but it was still there.
Lindsay (18:59):
And I think that really showed the customers, you know. The other thing was during COVID a lot of my managers, they started delivering to homes on their own. At the time we didn’t have a delivery service. We are on Instacart now, but some customers, especially you know, we have a lot of customers that are above the age of 50, you know, they want to just be able to pick up a phone and call the person you’re comfortable talking to and be able to say like, “Hey, can you drop a case of cat food off at my house?” And some of my managers stepped up and did that. And it really proved what that little bit of extra customer service can do.
Francesca (19:43):
Absolutely. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It goes back to like exactly what you were talking about before, like your managers just being super bought in to be willing to go above and beyond. Have you had to — I mean, obviously supply chain is a nightmare in every industry that we work in — have you found a way that you have had to communicate that with customers, or are you leaving that up to the managers really at this point, if there’s less that they can fulfill for customers?
Keeping some stock on the shelves was essential
Lindsay (20:12):
We’ve been somewhat lucky. We have our issues, but usually it’s not long-term. So like if they can’t find it one week, you know, it is there the next week. We’re lucky because a lot of our distributors supply the same products, so if one supplier is out, we might be able to grab it from another supplier. I’m going to be completely honest right now, as long as you keep something on your shelves, if the customer’s there and they can’t find what they want, they’re likely going to buy something else. So that’s the only good thing about dog and cat food. Like it’s really become about rotational feeding and proteins, you know, switching it up all the time and stuff like that. So it kind of helps to make when things like this start to happen a little bit easier because a dog doesn’t, you know, we have chicken allergies, which is a problem, but you can have the lamb, the beef, you know, the salmon and you can rotate those proteins.
Lindsay (21:12):
So it makes things a little bit easier. And we had a training a couple months ago and the guy that was giving the training, was like, “Listen, just keep product on your shelves.” He’s like, “If you have inventory, you’re going to sell it. Like, just make sure your shelves are full.” And that’s really what we’ve been preaching to the managers. Like if you can’t get X, get two cases of Y and put it in X’s spot just for the time being. So I don’t know if that makes complete sense, but we’re having more issues. I wouldn’t say necessarily on the food side of things, but like things that are sitting in the water on boats, so like toys and stuff like that. Luckily a lot of our manufacturers really do things way, way in advance. So we’re going to see what’s going to happen with like Christmas toys and stuff like that. But we thought last year was going to be an issue too, and then we didn’t have any problems. So fingers crossed that price increases are obviously kind of probably the bigger hurdle right now,
New hobbies inspired new sales
Francesca (22:16):
Right? Yeah. No, that makes total sense. Obviously you guys are heavy in dog and cat, you mentioned horses, your love of horses before. Have you seen trends where your customers are introducing different types of animals for the first time? Like I’ve had a lot of conversations with stories about getting into chicks and things like that. Is that something you guys have seen and have been trying to get inventory to support?
Lindsay (22:41):
Yeah. So during COVID, wild birds took off like crazy and garden, things that we were never in before. I mean, I have a store now that sells potting soil just because she’s like, “I have customers that come in and they want potting soil and they can’t get it from the Lowes down the street.” So, you know, she has some potting soil in our store now. Small animal and fish definitely went up during COVID and is still climbing. We were probably on the downside for awhile. We’re seeing pretty significant growth in both of those categories and even reptile. Reptile is a category that has been very hard to get product for, and I don’t know if that’s just because that growth was a lot more than they thought it would be.
Francesca (23:35):
Gotcha. That’s so interesting. That’s so interesting. I personally know so many people that have become either pet parents for the first time or a type of animal or got into gardening or landscaping or whatever it may be for the first time, because, you know, they were just home and we have businesses here that we’re able to stay open, small family owned businesses as well. And so that’s been just a really cool transition to see people just trying new things. So I’m always interested to hear the impact that that has on a local business.
Lindsay (24:07):
It was very interesting during COVID because our numbers were pretty steady. And when I would run my food numbers, I’m like, “Man, like we’re really down in the food categories.” And I think what we were seeing was people were getting their food online because that’s easy, but they still want to come in and see the ball and see the toy and touch the bed and see the clothing. Like that’s hard to buy online. Like, you know, you get a toy online that’s $19.99 and you think it’s really going to hold up. And then it shows up and you’re like, “Oh my God, my dog’s going to tear this apart.” So our supplies, our beds, our supplements, all of those types of things really skyrocketed during COVID. And I think that’s because, like I said, you know, people that were always buying their food online were probably still buying the food online, but we started to get them to come in to buy their other things. And then that’s where you hope that you can try to convince them to just keep coming back to you.
Opening a new business takes confidence and patience
Francesca (25:08):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I appreciate you taking the time this morning so much. This was such a good conversation, especially focusing on creating a culture with your employees in a place where people want to be. This is something obviously you do experience on a very regular basis as you open new stores. So maybe I would reshift this a little bit to what advice would you give a manager opening one of your stores now, but what advice would you give a business or somebody who was wanting to start a business in today’s world?
Lindsay (25:43):
Oh man, you gotta be patient. You can’t expect it to be where you want it to be in a year. And you can’t get frustrated. You gotta, you know, keep figuring out what you gotta do to move the needle. And confidence. Tou gotta be confident in what you’re doing and not be afraid to do something that might not be your style, might be outside of your comfort zone. Just getting the word out there as many ways as you possibly can.
Francesca (26:19):
Absolutely well said. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time this morning. I’m so grateful for those of you that are listening. Be sure to check back next time for another podcast episode. Thank you, Lindsay. Have a good day. Thanks.