Rob Carter has been in the hot tub business for 15 years. Throughout his career he has found that it is his great employees that are truly what has made his business successful.
How do you measure your success when times are tough? // Truthfully, we pay attention to our customer service report cards. It’s all about customer service and if our customers are happy then we’re doing a great job taking care of our customers. What happens in times like these, there are enough people out in the marketplace buying our products, you just have to get your share. In a down time like this, it’s a great opportunity to grow your market share. So by taking care of your customers and providing spectacular customer service, follow-up and making the experience a very enjoyable experience, you build your referral base. There are enough people out there buying spas, if you can get enough referrals you don’t have to spend as much money on advertising. That’s totally in your control. That’s [based on] how you perform and how you take care of your customers. That’s one way to grow your business even during a down time, by getting that word out there that you’re a great company that sells a great product that really takes care of the consumer.
What has been your most successful promotion? // We’ll take their [the customer’s] spas in on consignment and they’ll buy a new one and then when we sell their old spa we work out a deal with them to facilitate the sale. So the customer receives credit for their old spa and they trade up for their new one. We have those spas around often, so we did a big sale promotion on hot tubs. We had some pretty beat-up hot tubs that weren’t even operable that we took out of people’s homes. So we did a free hot tub promotion that ‘If you can haul it you can have it.’ It drove a ton of traffic into our store. It wasn’t all qualified traffic, it was a lot of people looking for a free lunch or a free spa. We did give away a few spas that would cost us more to cut them up and throw them away than to just give them away. We gave away a few, we sold a few used spas and we sold just shy of 20 new spas. That was a good promotion for us.
Do you have any advice on weathering the storm? // Just be smart. Look internally. You hear a lot about big retailers, and well-run retailers, who will close stores even when things are fine. The typical perception is if somebody’s closing stores they’re in trouble and they’re going out of business. But the way I look at it is, if you’re closing stores, you’re getting rid of the under-performers and you’re constantly pruning your business. I think that you have to be smart enough to look internally that hard. If there’s something that you’re doing that’s not conducive to winning and making money, you need to cut bait and not be afraid to do it. A lot of people, unfortunately, can’t get past their ego and they’ll continue doing something they know they shouldn’t be doing. I think it’s important to be proactive, look internally and define your goal and your finish line. Let that goal or finish line govern every decision you make.