Reasons Why Grove City Agway Retains Great Employees and Instills Customer Loyalty
Participants:
Francesca Halberg – General Manager/CPO of New Media Retailer
Elizabeth – Co-owner of Grove City Agway
Colin – Employee of Grove City Agway
Video Transcript
Francesca (00:00):
Good morning, everyone. My name is Francesca. Thanks so much for joining the New Media Retailer Podcast. I am super excited today to be joined by two participants, Elizabeth and Colin from Grove City Agway. Hey guys, thanks so much for joining me today.
Thank you for having us.
Thanks Travis. Yeah, of course. Why don’t you guys introduce yourselves? Tell a little bit about how you got started with the business, what your roles are, and Elizabeth, I’ll let you kick it off.
The background of Grove City Agway
Elizabeth (00:30):
Hi, I’m Elizabeth, and we’re part of Grove City Agway, and I’ve been part of Grove City all of my life. Literally my parents bought the store when my mom was pregnant with me, and so it’s all I’ve known. After college I decided I wanted to come back and join the business, and so I’ve been back here full time ever since. Well, I started off full-time since 2008 when I finished Penn state, and then recently this past year we’ve started the process of me becoming an owner as well.
Congratulations. That’s amazing.
Francesca (01:17):
Not to put you on the spot, but how many years has your family owned the business? And I know that this dates you, so I apologize.
Elizabeth (01:25):
No worries. I can own it. So they bought it in February of 1985, so 36 years ago.
Francesca (01:35):
Awesome. Congratulations to you and your family. That’s great. Thank you. Yeah. Colin, tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got involved.
Colin (01:43):
Yeah, so I started working here as basically my first real job out of high school. I’ve kind of worked through various positions, more or less, I guess. But Right now, I’m sort of like a Swiss army knife where I do a lot of miscellaneous things, but I don’t necessarily do all of it really well. I do a lot of things and receiving or things like counter and customer service, and yeah, just a lot of different miscellaneous things.
How long have you been there?
About eight and a half years.
Francesca (02:35):
Wow, oh my gosh. That’s awesome. And — oh, go ahead.
Elizabeth (02:39):
Just let me interrupt. And, well, he’s asking about his role really, but he’s crucial. I just want to interrupt, so I did. Yeah,
Francesca (02:53):
No, that’s good. I had a feeling that he was probably downplaying it a little bit. And kinda just in context of this conversation, you primarily work with Leeanne, who’s the marketing specialist. So you worked together and you handle specifically a lot of like the website, social media stuff, email marketing, right?
Elizabeth (03:11):
Correct. Yeah.
Francesca (03:12):
How did that come about? Is that just something you were interested in or just kind of got assigned to you?
Colin (03:19):
Yeah. So back when I started, that was sort of something that Elizabeth handled, and yeah, I mean, it was something that interested me. And so just over time, it’s something that I took on a little bit of and then sort of took on fully a few years ago, I guess now.
COVID launched curbside pickup
Francesca (03:40):
Yeah. And just like looking at your website, I see you guys do offer curbside pickup and local delivery. Are those services offered for a while? Was that like a COVID related thing? Walk me through that journey a little bit.
Colin (03:53):
Yeah, the curbside pickup and the delivery. The curbside pickup was definitely started around COVID. The delivery we might’ve started a little bit before that, but yeah, it’s something that’s definitely grown over the past year or two.
Francesca (04:19):
Okay, and how has that created any challenges for you in your business in terms of like how you’re connecting with customers, if they’re not coming all the way in for pick up?
Colin (04:36):
As far as that, I mean, I don’t honestly, it’s still fairly slow-moving. So I haven’t noticed a whole lot of challenges in that way. But yeah, we’re still trying to build our business in that respect.
Francesca (04:57):
Awesome. Yeah, no, I mean, it’s definitely something that a lot of stores participated in as a result of COVID for sure. And as it continues on, I think it’s a convenience that a lot of consumers are starting to expect. So I think it’s important that stores participate in it. And I think for small businesses though, it definitely is still something that is an education process with getting customers to that point. So every store kind of has a little bit of a different reaction or response to curbside pickup and local delivery. For sure.
Delivery was established, but online ordering made it easier
Elizabeth (05:30):
Yeah. If I can add to that comment. My computer froze there for a second, so I may have missed if he said this, but we’ve always done a lot of delivery, and we had been trying to do online prior to COVID. Cause I remember the only reason I know it was prior to COVID. I was so thankful we kind of had it established for COVID when we started really doing the online ordering of the delivery. So then it was so easy to do curbside pickup with our business in the past. It was just continuously people would call in arrange a delivery and we deliver it, and you hope that it stayed organized.
Francesca (06:17):
Yeah. A lot of spent time spent on the phone.
Elizabeth (06:19):
Exactly. A lot of information. Yeah. Right. And then taking credit cards over the phone and things like that. Then Colin kind of got it boiled down to I mean, people still call in and do their deliveries, but it’s a little easier sometimes with what Colin has done with the online ordering, and it just made sense. We tried to go bigger and we kind of toned it down a little bit and got it under control, the curbside pickup and the delivery.
Francesca (06:50):
Yeah, the delivery piece for small businesses that were in a position to offer local delivery. I think because COVID was like forcing so many businesses to, like I was talking to stores and they’d be like, gosh, I sometimes I’m on the phone up to 40 minutes with a customer. And garden stores, they’re like, “I’m kind of trying to like walk through my store and rattle off what we have, and is there an easier way to do this?” And that was the quicker connection point for stories. Then they were like, “Wow, you just saved me 45 minutes per customer.” So that was like the quick value add, like nodding their head. I get it, and I can skip it. It’s just some stores were not ready for delivery, and so that’s a whole separate piece.
Francesca (07:37):
I mean, when you need to figure out like the schedule and the zip codes and all of that, you know, people that didn’t have that pre-COVID, I think they had the longer stretch to go, if that makes sense.
Most definitely.
Independent retailers can to continue to navigate the “new normal”
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. No, we had that. So similarly, we had so many customers like saying that similar experience for sure. Is that curbside pickup, local delivery, anything else new going on in the store this year, or maybe since last year since things were so different?
Elizabeth (08:14):
I’ll take her. I was thinking about that, cause it is good to look back at. They are, look, I guess we’re halfway through it. So to look back and look forward to the year and this year was so up in the air that I’m like, this is a cop-out answer, but we just were trying to find our new normal because we had a great year in 2020, which is mind blowing and it continued into 2021, and we were just trying to embrace that and then just continue it as well, you know, and do the best we can and see if this going to be our new normal. And so I guess, like I kind of hate that term of new normal, but that’s what we were trying to do.
Francesca (09:02):
No, I think it’s a good use of the term in this context, for sure. In terms of like being really busy and things like that, I personally don’t know a lot of people that got new pets necessarily, but I know a lot of people that got into starting a garden or like maybe getting chicks for the first time. Can you guys walk me through like your customer base? Did you have new customers that were like very early in the education process and were really relying on you? Or like what was that journey like?
The pet and garden departments thrived with COVID
Elizabeth (09:36):
Yeah. To backtrack into the history of our business just a bit, we are figuring out, and this is mind blowing, but it was about 18 to 20 years ago, we bought a pet store and put it within our store. So we sell live pets as well. Oh, we have probably, Colin you can correct me, but I think like 90 fish tanks and they’re all freshwater fish. We sell rodents including mice and rats and guinea pigs, we know reptiles and we sell birds. And so that’s a big difference with our agway that makes us different than others because there’s some that do that, but that’s not as common, and it was not how this business started, you know? And when it was primarily agriculture, we switched, we added in pets, but we still do the ag side of things.
Elizabeth (10:33):
But with that being said, we saw a ton of people getting new pets, spoiling their current pets. And that was fun that kept the pet department — we all work together, but we have a pet department — and that kept them extremely busy, which was such a blessing to us because when money and people’s incomes were up in the air, you know, we didn’t know what to expect. And then with the gardening, there were people wanting to garden cause they were home and landscapers. Like I remember seeing people in three times a day some days because they were trying to do projects that they had never done before, but it was on their to-do list and they were off work, so they have time to do it. And so the landscaping and teaching people to garden, which is like, I love when new people garden.
Elizabeth (11:28):
Cause I think that’s such a great thing for adults and kids to learn. But you know, we were continuously telling people how deep to plant seeds and what to do with their soil and starting them off, and new chicken farmers or expanding chicken farmers. So it was like everything you’ve mentioned, we’ve expanded. Plus people got new dogs and things like that, so we could talk to them about that. We were so, so very blessed with all of it because people trusted us and they came to us for their new activities. So, yeah. Sorry, Colin, I kind of took over. You can add to that.
Colin (12:06):
That’s fine. Yeah, I obviously would echo everything that you said. And it was interesting to see all the people taking up new hobbies and different things last year and the big thing that was really noticeable right away was all the people taking up gardening and things like that. Cause you know, basically last year in March or April, we basically had the amount of seeds that we have now. And, you know, at the beginning of August, like we were just cleared out of things, and the same with you know, people buying things in the nursery just with the different perennials and annuals and all of that. Like we got that cleared out, you know, now we have shortages just because of supply issues, but at least at the start of it, things cleared out really, really quickly just because we were selling so much, and because so many people were picking up new hobbies or buying new pets or different things like that. So really interesting to go through.
Passion makes a great small business employee
Francesca (13:11):
Absolutely. And I think like my follow-up question to that is for me, noticeably as a consumer, I’m also very biased because I’m the daughter of small business owners, but the reason why people shop small is because of customer service, because of the community feel. But also because people that work at small businesses are so much more educated in that area than employees that work at big box stores. And I’ve had that experience through and through and through, so I can say that from my own personal experience. But obviously that does put a little bit of pressure on small business employees because people come there and ask questions about gardening or about pets or about having chickens for the first time, so how are you educating your employees? Is it something that like, they’re all interested in? Like how were they getting up to snuff, I’ll say, to have those educated conversations with consumers.
Elizabeth (14:14):
I don’t know. That’s a hard question. We try, I mean, you can read a whole book on everything, you know, read a book on each subject and not remember it. It’s a hands-on experience. We tend to hire people that are interested in what we’re selling, and honestly, that’s the easiest way to have them. Maybe they’re not educated when they got here, but they pick it up quickly because it’s what they’re interested in. And we’re okay with asking each other for help. And when I hire somebody new, I always am like, “Just ask for help. There’s no reason that you have to know everything the first time.” So when they ask for help, they’re there while we answer the question, and hopefully the next time they can answer that question without asking for help.
Elizabeth (15:14):
I mean, we always have cheat sheets laying around of how much lime you need per square footage, that kind of thing, because those numbers can all run together eventually. And we have, you know, the lawn and garden stuff with the mixes and stuff like that. You have to look it up sometimes and we have the resources here to do that, but you know, finding the employees that are interested in what we’re selling that makes them quick to be educated, and then it’s a hands-on education. I think about Colin, and Colin’s parents and my parents were friends growing up. He’s younger than me, obviously, so he started here young, so I feel like I can say this when he started, he didn’t necessarily know all the answers. Well, neither did I, but I grew up with it, you know? So it was different, but Colin is a go-to person now. And it’s all I would say by experience, right? Growing. Like that’s how you were educated. Yeah.
Colin (16:20):
Yeah. Just kind of learning as I went along. For sure.
Francesca (16:24):
Yeah. And Colin, do you have, like, obviously you guys have multiple types of departments there, so I’m sure you can’t relate every single one back to your life, but when you say like you learned through experience, is that experience of like being exposed to different types of conversations, or is it experience like you are trying some of these things out yourself, you have a garden now yourself, or you have pets so that makes you be able to speak from experience in that way?
Colin (16:47):
Yeah. I mean, honestly, there are things here and there that I know just practically from being at home with my own lawn or whatever, things like that, but a lot of it has just been work experience and like Elizabeth said, just kind of picking things up through conversations with customers or hearing, you know, Elizabeth or George oor somebody else who has all of that knowledge and just absorbing it through proximity basically.
Francesca (17:23):
That’s awesome. And do you hire a lot of like high school kids that are doing this as like a part-time job or are you hiring people that are a little bit older and this is more like a full-time gig for them?
Elizabeth (17:37):
So that’s an interesting question because right now, it goes back to the history of the story. Like we might not be able to pay the same as everyone. I don’t know. I can’t even think of an example, but we try to have a good work experience and work environment. And so with that being said, we tend to keep employees for awhile. And so the unfortunate thing right now is some of our employees are either retiring or going part-time, and they’ve been here the last 20 some years. So actually in the last couple of years and in the next couple of years coming up, we’re probably going to go through a weird transition time that we’re hiring. So we hire part-time high school kids cause we’re open eight to eight, Monday through Friday, eight to six on Saturdays, we’re open a lot of hours. So we hire high school, college kids for evening help and loading, but we always have somebody with experience on the floor. And so we hire everyone. We try to have a good mix, I guess, sorry, I kind of got off track there, but yeah, that’s what it boils down to, is we have even our part-time employees, you know, we like the long lasting ones and I think it, it goes back to the family atmosphere in the family business that they stick around.
Francesca (19:16):
Yeah. What a testament to that. I mean, having a place that’s “I’ve been there for over 20 years,” that’s amazing. That’s absolutely amazing. Congratulations. Typically when conversations shift towards hiring that is a difficult place to be in for businesses of all sizes right now. Are you finding a challenge in that area currently?
Hiring and retention is competitive and difficult
Elizabeth (19:44):
Yes. So I guess we have good employees, like our employees are great. And so you want to be very specific and partial, I don’t know the right word, but hire the right people to fill the right positions. And so it makes it difficult now when everybody wants it, right? Everybody wants somebody that’s good at customer service. And so and yeah, I mean these high school kids that are really good can go and get a job anywhere, you know? It’s hard to compete in that. So it’s been an interesting time with hiring, you know, we’re not in a desperate state of mind yet, but we always try to look towards the next season, and I could see it getting more and more difficult if, you know, I don’t know what I want to change, but I could see it being difficult and I’m hoping that you know, God just leads the right people to us and he does, he always has. So that’s what we kind of have faith in as well.
The shift to digital has been challenging
Francesca (21:06):
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s tricky. I think everybody right now is trying to come up with ways to get creative, to have it be a place where employees want to be, you know, to keep the good people there, so I definitely think it’s a challenge that like everybody is facing for sure. Another challenge that Colin kind of already touched on, so I’m assuming I know your answer, but biggest challenges you guys are facing this year. Go ahead.
Colin (21:44):
Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of obviously everything with COVID, you know, trying to get people into the store or at the very least having us deliver to them. And obviously before, you know, one of the big trends, even since I’ve been here, is obviously kind of the shift from a lot of brick and mortar stuff to online sales. We live in a very much like, for better or worse, like an Amazon Prime world.
Right.
And so you know, and obviously with everything with COVID, people wanting to get out less and/or being able to get out less, and all of that sort of thing has definitely pushed it more in that direction. So at least in my opinion, I not necessarily speaking for everybody at the store,
Colin (22:43):
but that’s a big challenge for us, obviously, and like Elizabeth said, we’ve been extremely blessed over the past year and a half or whatever. You know, we’ve done well over the period, but obviously there’s still going forward that that shift that has happened, and like Elizabeth said, the new normal or whatever of trying to recognize some of the way that our world has changed for the indefinite future anyway. And yeah, just rising to meet some of those challenges with convenience and everything.
Customers now want to be back in the store
Francesca (23:32):
And I think it goes back to it being a blessing that you guys were prepared to do delivery. I mean, Amazon can get packages to a door in two days. Yes. But obviously being able to offer delivery, sometimes there are opportunities where you guys can beat that, and you can get it to their front door quicker than Amazon, maybe. You know, so I think delivery being set up there is definitely such a blessing in terms of getting people back into the store. It seems like your customer base is open to at this point, obviously you touched on them coming in, like asking questions about “Hey, I’m a first time gardener” or “I’m interested in maybe having a fishing for the first time.” Do you feel like it’s starting to go back that way where customers are feeling comfortable coming back in?
Elizabeth (24:22):
Yeah, I do. The closest city we have is Pittsburgh, so we have a different customer mindset to begin with, so we were open the whole time. We were open, our doors were open, we followed restrictions the best we could, you know, and we always had people in. I think more people are coming through the door because they just want to be out, you know, and they want to see things themselves. They want to look at the options and they want to talk to us. And when it comes down to it, because we have great employees and customer service that I see people coming in and having a conversation about what they should use on their garden. And so those people that maybe didn’t come in as often during COVID, or I really kind of see it falling, coming back. Colin, you can add to that or correct me, but I that’s how I feel, I guess.
Colin (25:33):
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, like I said the whole way along, we have a really loyal customer base. We’re a fairly small town, and the store kind of has that feel where a lot of the employees — at least like the full-time employees — know a lot of people’s names and different things. And, you know, a lot of times vis versa and they’ll come in for advice and different things. So we’ve had a really loyal customer base that has stuck with us through it all. It’s been good, considering.
Francesca (26:37):
Are you guys having to come up with ways to incentivize people to come in, like either a promotion or maybe like an in-store event with like a rep from a brand? Or do you feel like it’s starting to just happen organically?
Elizabeth (26:52):
Well, Colin, I’m going to say something you might want to add to it, but the one thing that really works for us — and this isn’t answering your question exactly — but because we were doing this before with other things and then led to more, I guess it expanded, but we do a frequent buyer program for a lot of things. And really Colin is in charge of that. I mean, I don’t know if anyone’s in charge of it, but if there’s a problem, he handles it. So we have it for lots of dog foods, we used to only do it with bird feed, and that was just within the store. We’ve done it for a long time, like 25 years. So that’s a way that customers repeatedly come back, and it doesn’t matter if they order online or order in the store, it still works.
Elizabeth (27:53):
But anyways, now we do it with horse feeds, chicken feed, and oh, probably 10 brands of dog feed. I think I’m low balling it, if anything, and people get excited, it’s funny. I mean, it might be a $50 bag of dog food that they get free for every 12 that they buy. And so that’s an incentive to get people in the store, keep the customers, we do all the work. All we do is put their name in. So there’s no cards, there’s no barcode scan on their key chain. We try to make it simple and it’s an incentive to bring them in. So yeah, we do events, like we’ll have our open house back again this year and that will bring people in, but all of our customers come to that. So yes, they might find new things, but what really draws people in. Yeah. So yes. So Colin, you could go over from there.
Francesca (29:26):
That’s a great, consistent way to get these people coming back. Absolutely. That’s so smart.
Elizabeth (29:31):
And people get word and say, “I heard about this, should I buy that? My dog food from you instead of somebody down the road.” Yeah. Yes.
The competition of an independent retailer
Francesca (29:42):
Colin, I’ll let you take this one while Elizabeth regroups. Paint a picture of like your competition in your area. Are there other small business, like pet stores, garden stores, that you’re competing with? Is it more big box stores? You don’t have to say names if you don’t feel comfortable, but what is your competition?
Colin (30:04):
Yeah. I mean, we’re in a fairly small town, so there’s not a whole lot in our actual town itself.
Colin (30:19):
In Grove city, I guess the main competitor would be like there’s a Tractor Supply, which obviously carries a lot of the ag stuff. And you know, they carry some of the pet supplies and things like that. So we have to be sort of conscious with pricing and things, as far as being competitive with them. There’s a Walmart and that kind of stuff, which carries a little bit of that stuff too, obviously. So there’s not any like big box pet stores in the town there, there are a couple in the general area, but yeah, those are kind of the two big ones, I guess. There’s like a Busy Beaver that obviously, which I don’t know how regional that is, is that regional? It’s like a big box hardware store, but they carry a lot of ag lawn and garden kind of stuff. So each one of those, there’s sort of a section of the store that we have to be mindful of as far as competition with each of those, but is there anything you want to add to that, Elizabeth?
Elizabeth (31:53):
Yeah, I think as far as the small business competition, there’s some feed stores around, but quite honestly, the way we’ve always done it, and I would hope they would say the same, but we try to be respectful of one another. And because we’re small businesses, like we’re all trying to survive and succeed. And so that’s the way my parents always ran the business, was to be respectful of the people that you’re going to see at the 4-H auctions buying animals. So yes, they’re competition, but not really because we’re all a little bit different in the way we do things.
How supply chains have changed with COVID
Francesca (32:41):
That makes sense. That makes sense. And I think the way you guys are describing the town that you’re from, it’s almost identical to the town that I’m from. The town, which is the town right next door, there’s just one red light. So there is a family owned business that I think is similar to yours. They don’t have like live pets, but similar to yours. I know that they actually carry Agway products and Southern States products as well, and then here we do have a Tractor Supply and a Walmart. So I think it’s very similar, you know, to what you guys are describing. So I can mentally picture it very, very well. One challenge that a lot of stores do talk about is supply chain challenges and I know you touched on that earlier, but in what ways has that impacted your business? And are you hearing that some of the bigger box stores maybe in your area, like a Tractor Supply or something, are they are having an easier time getting their hands on products or is everybody struggling? Can you talk to that a little bit? Yep.
Colin (33:42):
Yeah, kind of to the point with both of sides of the question, I feel like is you know, canning supplies is a good example of something that last year we ran out of. We had some at the start of the year, but like we ran out of it super quickly and then we couldn’t get any more in, and then this year, I think this upcoming week is the first week we’re going to have any canning supplies and we’ve had a back ordered since the early spring. And obviously I’ll be walking through Walmart or something like that, and obviously a lot of their shelves while they might be emptier than normal, they at least have stock and we just haven’t been able to get anything.
Colin (34:30):
But there have been a lot of supply issues. Like you know, one of the things that I’ll tell people is, you know, COVID has kind of affected the supply chain in weird places, like a lot of manufacturers will have lots of their actual product, but like the dog food companies will have trouble getting the actual aluminum can or whatever. And then, or the chemical company like we get a lot of products and one of their supply issues was they were having trouble getting the little trigger sprayers, like they had the bottle, but they couldn’t get the sprayers, and things like that. So yeah, it’s kind of shown up in odd places, but yeah.
Elizabeth (35:25):
I think it’s hard because we’re a small business and we have heard that the big box stores are able to have first dib on these things, even though, like he said, the canning supplies were backordered since spring, we actually ordered them in the fall, like a year, almost a year. And that’s what we do. We don’t wait till last minute, but somehow it has seemed like the box stores have kind of snuck in there somehow. And that’s for a debate on another day, it is what it is. The thing is though that our companies that we buy from, some of them — I shouldn’t say all of them — have taken the time to explain to us why. And that’s where we can be different with our customers. We can explain, because they had explained to us the trigger sprayers top, they couldn’t get them. Then we can explain to our customers, and our customers somehow just take that a little bit better. They get tired of going in and seeing empty shelves, but if we take the time to say, this is what’s going on, they are like, “Oh, that makes sense. We’re going to take a deep breath and come back another time.” And so it’s a challenge, don’t get me wrong, but that’s how we’re trying to deal with it. I guess
Francesca (36:49):
I love that. And obviously Colin, like your answer. I was like, “Wow, he knows a lot about that,” but that makes sense then. Like, obviously if the brands are sharing with you about their difficulties, and that makes total sense. I mean, transparency, I feel like, always wins, so any time you get the opportunity to do that, I think it’s always the right decision. Do you feel like you are waiting for customers to ask before you’re sharing, or are you putting that information on social media so that customers are aware of before they come in? Talk to me a little bit about that.
Elizabeth (37:19):
I think I wait till they ask, because some people don’t care. Some people are going to be annoyed either way, some people care, and I want those people to come back. So, I mean, everybody gets their time. Like, yeah, I was annoyed when I couldn’t buy toilet paper, you know, back when, but that just is what it is, and let’s just carry on. I don’t care why, we just need to move along. So if they want the conversation or the discussion, then we’d be happy to talk to them about it, but I don’t think we try to overshare because we’re not trying for sympathy. We’re just trying to explain to them what’s going on. And if we do say, “You know, we want your business, but if you can find it somewhere else it’s okay, cause I know you need to kill these bugs and you need to do what’s best for you,” but hopefully our honesty will bring them back is kind of what we look at.
Francesca (38:13):
Yeah. No, I think that’s very, very well said. Colin, do you have anything you want to add there?
Colin (38:18):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I agree. My answer was pretty much the same. Like yeah, we don’t really share that sort of thing on social media outlets or anything, but we’re pretty open if somebody comes into the store, “Hey, you know, I’m looking for this” we’ll tell them, “Yeah. We’re really sorry. This is why we have been trouble getting.”
Focus on customer service to be successful
Francesca (38:39):
Yeah, that makes total sense. I feel like you guys painted like such a good picture for educating employees, creating like a culture in your business where people want to keep working, talking about like challenges and stuff like that. I’m so grateful for your time. I feel like I just have like one final question, and that’s what advice would you give to a small business right now who’re maybe going through some of the same struggles with you, whether that’s with hiring, supply chain, trying to encourage customers to come back in and not shop at like a big box store, or something.
Elizabeth (39:20):
I would say, you know, take a deep breath and don’t rush into freaking out, because it made me find that balance. Like Colin and my dad and I will have a lot of conversations and like try to instead of freak out or jump to the conclusion that the world is falling, the sky is falling, then take a deep breath and do that. One thing I did, you know, when having a business, is have good people that work for you and good people that you like, not just employees, but every small business to be successful. And this is kind of off of the supply chain thing, but like, you know, our bank is good to us. You know, if we have questions through all of the COVID stuff, we can ask questions there.
Elizabeth (40:15):
You know, our accountant, our attorney, all of those things, we have people surrounding us that we trust and we’re a family business, so like our families are crucial to it as well. I mean, Colin and I each have kids, and we have young children, and they come in and our spouses are involved — or maybe not involved, but supportive — and the kids run in and love the store. And that makes us as employees and working, want to be there because our family is part of the Agway family.
Francesca (40:58):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Colin from like an employee perspective, anything like you would share to like other employees that are like in a tough spot? I mean, to be in a situation where you’re like, “Oh, okay. A Walmart might have it, but we don’t, and I’m so sorry,” you know, or something like that. Like what advice can you share to other employees that maybe it’s not as easy as it was at this time two years ago?
Colin (41:20):
Yeah. Like we’ve been saying, just focus on customer service. That’s kind of the biggest, the most powerful tool in the small business belt or whatever is to have good customer service, and as an employee, on a frustrating day when, you know, you’ve answered the 10th person who’s asked if you’ve had like Japanese beetle traps in, just have patience and just try to just focus on your customer service and that’ll go a long way.
Francesca (42:13):
Yeah, absolutely. Oh my gosh, guys, this was such a great conversation and so relatable, and these are things that every business, big and small, is going through right now. I very much appreciate your time. I think this is going to be such a valuable lesson for other businesses, just like yours, who are in different areas who are constantly asking us the question, “What are other stores like me doing right now, or are other stores struggling?” and, you know, those are questions in the same way that you probably get asked 10 times a day, like we do too. And so we were trying to think like, how can we just bridge all of this information together? We have really good conversations with stores. How can we make them accessible? And I feel like this conversation is exactly why we wanted to start this podcast. And I feel like it’s going to be so beneficial for other businesses to listen to, so I thank you both so much for your time. You’re off the hook. Now you can take a deep, deep breath.
Elizabeth (43:06):
Yeah. Well, I will say not to like advertise for New Media Retailer, but you guys have been a huge help to us. And like I’m partial to Leeanne because she’s our go-to girl, and when I handed it over to Colin, I was like, I’m going to lose my friend. I don’t want to do the online stuff, but I really like talking to Lee. I know you guys are a great support for us. Thank you.
Francesca (43:40):
We’ve been, just like you guys, so blessed with such an incredible team. And it’s actually just so rewarding to hear people say things like that. Like we have employees that work here that, you know, sometimes it’s out of our control that we do have to move accounts around. We try our best to avoid it, but like Lee will say like, “But I don’t want to break up with them.” I love that. You know, or like something like that. And it’s just so rewarding to hear that on both sides. So thank you so much for sharing that. I mean, customer service is everything to us too, like you guys both mentioned several times here, so we’re happy to be a part of this fight with you guys. We’re all about small businesses and helping them be a world that has Chewys and Amazon, we don’t want anything to do with that. So we appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you guys so much. Have a great afternoon.