As that calendar rolls over to the month when you will fully own the company you have been focused on for the last decade it should be met with a toast. The years of sacrifice, penny pinching, toilet bowls of (insert your expletive here), the starts and stops all should culminate in a moment of joy that cannot be matched. It doesn’t mean that you have arrived or the road forward will be easier. But, there is a sense of accomplishment and movement forward beyond compare.
I have got to witness it first hand from afar when our client partner, Kyle Deets of Deets Furniture, fully purchased the business from his Dad in May of 2023. That moment was what Kevin and I had dreamed of since we commenced our process of buying out Mom and Dad in 2010. That moment did not get to happen.
Our time on the calendar was March of 2020. The world was spun into the greatest self inflicted disaster that has affected all levels of society. We were in the beginning process of a period of time where all of us would understand if the career path or business ownership path we sought out was determined to be essential or non-essential. What was supposed to be moments of joy and shouts of congratulations turned into a question I never thought would be met at this moment we had built up in our lives.
“How bad do you want this boys?”
-Chris Ihrig, Fired Up Culture
I have lived through many quotes and moments of questioning in my young business life. They ranged from “Are you ready for this?” to “How will you overcome your age?” to “How will you live up to what your Dad helped create?”. I knew how to handle the questioning, the doubts and the lack of faith. However, no one had ever lived through this.
As the COVID oversight began to rear its policy beginnings, stores we worked with in the Northeast and in the Pacific Northwest were being forced to close. We knew it was only a matter of time before it was going to affect everyone. We were forced to face the reality that we had one of two paths to go down. The inevitable fork in the road moment. Veer to the left, we could continue to charge our advertising retainers that helped keep over 15 people employed but know that there was no certainty when we could get back to doing business as usual. Veer to the right, we would need to suspend fees effective immediately knowing there wasn’t work we could be doing and our clients wouldn’t be selling either.
We chose to veer to the right which we knew also came with a harsher reality. Our team of 15 would need to be reduced to 2. So, on March 23rd 2020 we suspended all advertising fees effective immediately and then laid off the entirety of our workforce with the path forward as murky as it had ever been. The joy of being the owners of this company was met with the reality that there wasn’t much of anything to own.
We spent the remainder of March having zooms and phone calls with lawyers, financial planners and accountants all arriving at the conclusion that no one knew exactly what was going to transpire or what the path looked like. We began following every state governor on Twitter, tuning into each national and local press conference looking for the correct context for the “open for business signal” and trying to find out what a new reality would look like.
As we weighed our options, I remember a particular focused and dialed in conversation with our people and culture consultant, Chris Ihrig of Fired of Culture. We were giving him the rundown of the events of our many calls and attempting to rationalize the next step which occasionally involved the “should we just shut it down” line of conversation. That is when Chris Ihrig does what Chris Ihrig does. Without even seeing his face or being on video, I knew that he proceeded to put both of his legs out with him resting his arms on his legs looking directly into our business souls. That is when he echoed the words “How bad do you want this boys?”
The events described in the prior events in the history of R&A came running through my veins. The legacy of what our Dad had built over 2 decades and the business partnership I had formed with my brother and best friend came to the light. For the first time in weeks, the clarity of why we do what we do and what R&A stands for became crystal clear.
This pandemic was not affecting major companies and the S&P 500. This pandemic was affecting every locally owned, independent business in every corner of America. The way that R&A Marketing was going to save itself was by finding a way to save each and everyone of them. R&A was going to make it by doing it had done in the past.
So, we got to work. We retooled and built up a “open back up” strategy that reduced our fees by as much as 50% and aligned all fees based on the brand footprint verses the sales footprint. We did a ramp up strategy that allowed our fees to progressively get to their final destination. We became a business that charged for the work that was completed verses the work that was going to be completed to help manage retailers cashflow. We suggested leveraging media companies that would give terms to allow advertising payment to align with delivered sales. We built programs that centered on being good for retailers that would allow them to grow.
It helped the industry we loved and specialized in benefiting from some of the government intervention we all wish to avoid in the future. However, I think the decisions we made in March of 2020 when we were flying blind helped set us up to build the agency that the independent furniture retailer needed for the future not how to survive in the present.
Every company made the decisions they felt they needed to make at the time. There was no guidebook. There was no shutdown for dummies. However, I am reminded of the many moments that have guided myself and R&A through this 40 year journey which all centers around doing the right thing to help the independent retailer have a real chance at success.
I like to believe our sacrifice and shift in March of 2020 has helped contribute to that. But, we are always aware of the belief that furniture store owner in 1989 had giving Rick Doran a chance. Tony Mikes and David Lively helping set the stage for me to come to R&A. A soccer player forging R&A deep into Web 3.0. And, a consultant knowing the right buttons to push to elicit a response.
The last 40 years of R&A Marketing has been about finding ways to break through the clutter and help furniture retailers succeed in a constantly changing environment where it seems like they cannot. Here’s to another 40 years of where this future of R&A Marketing could go.
From each member of the Doran Family thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
