This work is copyrighted to A Novel Life. No portion of it may be used or reproduced without the expressed and written permission of A Novel Life.

Separating the Men from the Mules

Working 16 to 20 hours, seven days a week and playing football in the evenings, it was years before Ed had taken the time to even furnish his own little living room in the Doreen, an apartment building on 14th St. and East West Highway in Maryland. But the furniture business was booming in 1955 and he was busy making sure the little store on 17th Street was busy moving merchandise.

He was establishing bank lines and making contacts, which were to become essential building blocks of his future success.

On Sundays before heading into the little windowless office above the shop windows, Ed would stop at the Jewish Community Center and lift weights and then sit in the steam room and quiz the older men about real estate, banking and credit management. He talked to people like Hymie P., a public relations man who ran the JCC and Bill K., a real estate tycoon, who was happy to offer his advice and Milton K., a commercial liquor dealer who told him that if he worked into his seventies or eighties, he would stay healthy.

Ed’s ability to coach information from knowledgeable sources became his own kind of MBA. It is how he learned what to do if his customers in that pre-credit-card economy couldn’t qualify for bank loans for furniture. He would trek down to the Seaboard Finance credit company down the street and present a case before credit manager Emmett L., who had been an old classmate of his at Eastern High School before he transferred to Central. Emmett coached him on transforming those turn-downs into final sales, allowing him to hold onto every hard-earned cent. Sometimes, that meant guaranteeing a percentage of payments himself, or getting the buyer to increase the down payment.

It was during this first year in the new furniture business that Ed realized that learning about retail was a 7-day-a-week job. Every customer he spoke with was a teacher; every friend he had was an advisor; every manufacturer and advertising salesman he encountered was an expert to be quizzed and questioned.

“Most businessmen out there had a father to open the book to experience,’’ Ed would later say. “My father was in business, but he never knew finance, never knew merchandising. It was like I was looking for a light in a dark room and I was groping.’’

Ed had never loved learning anything as much as he did learning the nuances of the business world. Even vacations proved to be educational.

It was during his second trip to Miami with Nancy that he made a most providential discovery.

There, in the back pages of the local newspaper, Ed found an advertisement that read, “Couple leaving area and three rooms of furniture. Assume our payments for $17 a month. Call Mrs. Jones.’’

Ed was awestruck: here was a cheap, efficient advertising vehicle that had boundless potential. As soon as he returned to Washington, he bought three rooms worth of shabby, used furniture and placed his own $2 ad in the Washington Post.

The phone rang off the hook.

Not only did he sell all three rooms of the shabby furniture, but Ed had successfully enticed a whole new clientele into his little store.

Still, he didn’t like the deception involved, so he went to the Household Finance Company and bought a bunch of repossessed furniture with detailed histories about the homes it had been removed from. Then he put the repossessed furniture on the top floor of his three-story walk-up showroom. That way, when the customers first walked in, they would see a beautiful living room, dining room and bedroom collection that sold for $399. Ten steps up and they would see a $299 set that paled in comparison and finally, at the top, they would see the threadbare deal they had read about in the paper.

By 1956, ninety-nine percent of the customers would buy the more expensive sets, rocketing the store’s sales and putting it on the retail map.

By 1957, Ed was ready to admit he needed help running the business. Nancy was still coming in two or three days a week and working for Alvin B.’s construction company, but Ed needed another salesperson on the floor to talk to the customers. He once again called upon Jimmy P., who had left for a while, to join him again.

On work days at 8:30 a.m. Ed would park his car outside Jimmy’s apartment and, after honking the horn a few times, he would storm upstairs and awaken his tardy employee then stomp back out, leaving Jimmy to catch a bus and listen to grief the rest of the day.

By 1957, the store was operating in a comfortable margin and Ed was looking at real estate.

“I think we need a bigger space,’’ Ed confided in Jimmy. “There’s a new place up the street that has more than 10,000 square feet.”

Having helped squeeze more sofas into the claustrophobic 18-foot wide rooms than he cared to admit, Jimmy applauded Ed’s decision. In addition to being short on display and office space inside, the store on 17th had no parking, which was a constant problem.

But Ed was worried about the new place’s $350 rent.

“We can take care of that standing on our heads,’’ Jimmy replied. So the store moved up to 14th Street between N and Rhode Island Ave., where it could expand along with Ed’s knowledge of the business.

Even as the store filled out and began to operate in a more comfortable profit margin, Ed continued to work long hours. There was no task too menial for the president himself to take on. One day, a well-to-do Georgetown homeowner stepped into the shop just before closing time and mentioned that she was looking for an antique white bedroom set – did his store have any in stock?

“I have the perfect thing for you, but I’m not getting it in until next week,’’ Ed said. “Come with me. I’ll show you what it looks like.’’

He directed the elegant woman into his little panel truck and he drove her 20 minutes across town to a furniture store in Alexandria. There, at the front window, he said, “It looks just like that one.’’

He made the sale and turned the wealthy lady into one of his best customers.

In addition to his retail charms, Ed honed his already keen negotiation skills. He learned to push harder and harder for a deal and then, just when the guy was about to kick him out of his office, lighten up and tell a joke.

“You’ve got to keep him loose so he won’t want to kill you,’’ he explained later.

Not only did the salesmen stop short of kicking him out of their offices, they started letting Ed drive away with truckloads of their merchandise without a single dollar down.

Such was the case with a warehouse full of damaged recliners for which Ed paid less than $5 a piece. On a sweltering day in August, Ed and three truck-drivers hauled hundreds of the heavy chairs into the new store where they were to be displayed.

When one driver complained, Ed, who was sweating with the rest of them, replied, “I guess that’s what separates the men from the boys.”

Not so, the driver replied, “Mr. G., you separate the men from the mules.’’

Indeed, Lou came to think of himself as a good general, able to delegate when necessary, and able to step in with the muscle when too.

While Curtis Brothers, Peerless, Snider’s, Sloan’s and other competitors were selling the same chairs $200 and up; Ed was able to unload them fast for $49.95.

The recliner deal came to symbolize the advantage Ed had over the competition. He was able to buy his merchandise for less and get everyone around him to work more. Ultimately, it was that powerful combination that separated his furniture stores from all others.



 

This work is copyrighted to A Novel Life. No portion of it may be used or reproduced without the expressed and written permission of A Novel Life.