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Let’s face it: If you were going to start a company today, a simple neighborhood bookstore is probably not the type of business you would choose for an easy win. Beyond the tremendous change that disruptors like Amazon and e-book technology have brought to the sector, books were never much of a profit center. With fixed costs, a tough distribution model, tiny margins made thinner by price-cutting competition, and, worst of all, a shrinking customer base, well, you had to be amazingly passionate and fearless (some might say foolish) to hang your shingle and open your door.
Yet, when I got out of college and landed my first job at an unusual bookshop on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, I could not have found a better place to learn my first and most basic lessons in business. Considered a kind of Chicago cultural landmark, the store was called Stuart Brent Books and was still overseen daily by its founder whose name was on the door — Stuart Brent. Its long life had been created by a large and rabid customer base, built over a half-century of deeply personal and engaging service that nowadays we call “connecting.”
Which is why as I was running between meetings about connecting to customers in ways that enrich and build relationships, I wondered if there were any lessons from that old bookseller in Chicago for today’s world of apps and cloud technology.
Here are four that quickly popped up for me, with a little translation for our times:
Mr. Brent, the shop owner and founder, never thought about the business obstacles that would challenge him in the years after he opened his doors just after WWII. He often said, “If I’d known how hard it would be, I might not have done it.” But his passion for books and reading gave him a mission that made him fearless in the face of economic uncertainty. He never stopped thinking about how to get books into people’s hands, so every obstacle to overcome became a new avenue to the prize. It eventually made him an expert in the retail book business, but that knowledge was never the point. And it gave him a niche others couldn’t fill: While competitors like B. Dalton became known as steep discounters (eventually filing for bankruptcy), Stuart Brent became a kind of “reading consultant” that justified premium hardcover prices. Takeaway for today: You can’t predict what will happen in business, but if you have a real mission for a company’s purpose, that vision can truly put the problems in perspective and carry you through.
Director and playwright David Mamet used to buy books at the store when he was in town. On one of those trips, he asked for two books to be sent to his hotel. The next day, we got a call from him asking where the books were. They were supposed to have been hand-delivered, but mysteriously had never arrived. One of the books was on the shelf. The other we didn’t have another copy of. I called every bookstore in Chicago to find it, but no one had it in stock. The manager asked if I had a copy in my own library at home — which I did. She told me to go home and get it. An hour later, Mamet got both his books (one of them from my library) — gratis — with a hand-written apology. Now you might think Mamet is so famous that he was treated differently, but this kind of thing went on at the store ALL. THE. TIME. It not only made work an adventure, but it also brought people back, year after year. Some customers had been shopping at the store for over a half-century. Takeaway for today: When your perspective is truly built around helping customers, you find new solutions that can lead to loyalty that lasts long past the moment.
Mr. Brent told us we couldn’t just look at the books; we needed to touch them. When you touch them, they “synaptically register in your mind” and you not only remember them better, you know them. Takeaway for today: It’s pretty easy to insert “product” for “stock” here and see how it applies to today’s world of apps. But the how is important here. PowerPoints are a great way to learn some general ideas about a product, but there’s no substitute for good old hands-on using it.
The first months of a calendar year are often a very slow time for many retailers. The Christmas shopping is done, you’re returning unsold stock, and you’re getting ready for what’s next. One week, in early February, we were a little too slow. Mr. Brent came in one morning and began moving everything about in the store. He physically moved entire sections across the store floor by hand and yelled at us all: “Business is terrible! Let’s change it!” The manager objected: “But our customers won’t know where anything is.” He shut her down pretty quickly: “We need to wake them up!” Takeaway for today: Recognize when your customers are bored. Update regularly. Use those updates as a great excuse to talk to them, reconnect with them, and even understand what to do next. Change may be a challenge, but change is good.
Some of these pieces of wisdom seem self-evident. Yet, in an era where technology is racing forward and helping everything move faster, it’s not a bad idea to remind ourselves what it’s all about: connecting to customers and creating relationships that grow business. And it’s always good to remember that just as Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” resonates thousands of years after it was written, a few old truths from the analog era can still guide businesses in the here and now.
Note: When Stuart Brent retired in 1996, his shop at 670 N. Michigan Avenue closed its doors after 50 years of business. At the time, one of his customers, Ira Blitzsten, told the Chicago Tribune: “I’ve probably never bought a hardcover book anywhere but here. His [book store’s] passing is a real loss.”
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