Photo: .craig
It was exactly 10 months, 10 days and 10 hours when the store that I gave 6 months to close shut its doors.
I first met the new owners of Tony Mora when they were beside themselves with joy, having landed a retail location in the "center of the universe"—their quote, not mine. We met through a mutual friend who thought my retail experience could help them, at least with the hiring and training of the staff.
Our first meeting didn’t go well…I guess the truth is a bitter pill to take when everyone around you is your YES man. I have a rule in the office: if you want to hire me and not hear the truth, the fees are double. The meeting went downhill quickly after hearing the plan…they wanted to sell high-end cowboy boots made in Spain…my thought was, "How authentic can that be?" But the punch line was that they had just signed a lease in Time Square.
What? Holy mother of God…are they kidding? The look on my face must have given away my surprise, horror and doubt that I heard them right.
So they started throwing numbers at me…300,000 people cross that corner every week. The W hotel across the street has $500/night rooms. The investment banking offices of Morgan Stanley are on the other corner…"this is the best location, in the best city of the best state, in the best country in the world for retail!" "We only have to sell 20 pairs of boots a day to make the numbers!" They happily shouted to me.
This is why I say numbers lie, demographic studies can be used for toilet paper and all traffic is not the same. Shopping traffic is shopping traffic! Entertainment traffic, sight-seeing traffic or theatre traffic are not high-end shopping traffic.
I asked him if he had taken a walk around the block; if he had counted shopping bags. FYI the only shopping bags in the area are from the M&M store and tee shirts that say I love NY and run 3 for $10. He rudely informed me that he didn’t have to do this because he had hired the best team in the market to put together this store.
In fact, I think this was the part of the conversation where he asked me who I thought I was telling him this location “sucked” (ok really I said “wasn’t a good fit”, but I should have said sucked). I assured him that being a native New Yorker and having grown up in the business…oh yeah, and having opened up more than 1000 stores, sitting on the board of two universities (you get it); I might know a thing or two about this location.
Then the emails started coming in. First from Stetson, "your boots are the Rolls Royce of cowboy boots." Nice compliment, but that doesn’t pay the over $100k a month rent. Then came emails from Camper and TOUS, both Spanish brands, congratulating him on the great location and opening of the store. I think their stores are in Soho, right? Not Time Square.
This guy was killing me. I became obsessed with helping him; so many people where just taking advantage of him. Remember that team of industry professionals? Well I could write a book, not a blog, on how they oversold him, cheated him and ripped him off. For example, the insurance policy they sold him covered a million dollars of jewelry and furs, costing $30k (which by the way, he doesn’t sell!). We got him a full coverage one for under $8K.
Now it’s not that the owner Jose Maria Castresana is a stupid man. He is just not a retailer; he got into the business because the grass always seems greener and he put blind faith in what the “industry professionals” told him.
But 90% of the reason was for the ego! This was my first true encounter with the classic “emperor’s new clothes”.
It’s an odd phenomenon...think Michael Jackson…really no one could tell him “no more plastic surgery” and he had the best doctors. This team knew exactly what he wanted to hear, and that’s what made them the experts. Here’s a quick, fun example…..we were in the lawyers’ office…Oh, yeah fast forward 3 months—I started working with him after meeting in Spain and seeing that already he was in over his head…without the store even being open.
So back at the lawyers’ office…we were trying to find some type of exit clause, some loop hole out of the 10 year lease (!) and could not find anything to help us. Good thing he had such a great retail lawyer…but again with the punch line: as we are leaving the office, the lawyer comments to me, “You know I didn’t think that was a good retail location.”
Are you joking? Now you speak up. Ugh!
On a good day we could sell 4 pairs of boots, most days just 1. Cash flow was tight and the store wasn’t finished (we had no bathrooms, no access to the storage room), but some designer friend of his told the owner that he needed to put mirrors in the store. That doing this would make the store more high-end looking and chic. Meantime I was begging him to do some advertising…he spent the $6000 on the wall-to-wall mirror…which we left in the store when it closed.
There is a fine line between ranting and blogging so I am going to save the rest of my tale for a trade magazine story and for my book. But I should leave you with a few “morals of the story”:
- Do not let ego lead you.
- Do not make decisions based on emotion (only based on your pocket).
- Listen to that devil’s advocate.
- The people that give you “good advice”, question their motive.
- And my number one golden rule…people that sell you things are not your friend!