Furniture Retail Tip #4 - Male Furniture Business Dreams and Women Business Dreamers By Grandpa Mike-e-e! at 90

Michael Greene (Grandpa Mike-e-e at 90)

About forty years ago (Yes! I once was young) I discovered that I was an anti-female, pro-feminist! Whatever that is.

My Bubbila and my teen age daughter invited me to attend what at that time was a unique seminar.. ."Women In Business Life." It was the period when my son's graduation law class had three women in it unlike the seventy standard graduates these days. In his delivery, the speaker of the evening suggested that women should receive the same compensation as men. At which point I raised my hand, stood up and exclaimed: "I don't think that women should received the same compensation. I think that..." at that point hell broke out in my family with my teenager in tears exclaiming "Dad! I'm ashamed!" and she and her mother stamped out of the seminar hall with heads down low!

"You don't understand," I yelled at the congregation. "I don't think a woman should receive the same compensation as a man if she proves herself better prepared. She should get MORE money. Absolutely, more!" I told you. I'm an anti-female, pro-feminist. I believe women's lib had to be invented by a man. Who else could have told them to burn their bras?

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A few years ago I traveled across these United States visiting with mama and papa home furnishing stores who had three or four generations of business experience to their credit.   It was a revealing experience because it involved real people like you and me, namely, grandpas, grandmas, their kids and grandkids who put themselves on line trying to keep a show breathing while trying to "make a living."

It was a beautiful adventure to follow up because it was real "real." "Real" in the sense that the characters in the life living scenes had to help form the family's living. "Real" in the sense that they all had to love what they were doing. "Real" in the sense that the whole family had to learn how to handle customers and monies; how to evaluate new home furnishing fashions that continually changed; how to protect their real estate investment; how to appreciate dedicated employees and how to invest the profits of the good years, and minimize the losses of the tough ones.

A-n-d how to work with new, young relatives who didn't fit the show when they graduated college and/or married into the family's game.

I unveil such past history to impress eager newcomers that retail is not just a tough profit and loss game but a tough way of life. A challenging life that you've got to learn to love and learn to live with. I put this history on the table because I also observed in my travels that women were the "lead" persons on the floor of these owner families. The champion doers, worriers and top sales, no pressure, closers. Top sales closers like my older sister, Yetta, who was the top sales closer on our family sales floor and when she retired we hung up her team shirt in the office to remind us that the number screened on her shirt was not to be given to any newcomer replacement.

There could only be one and it had to be earned.

What's the bottom line? The bottom line is that more and more women are showing up in executive, managerial and creative positions in our industry... in fact, all industries. So far, so good. But! They need to fight for and release more women's thinking for men to follow, to absorb and to appreciate.

Our industry is a family game wrapped around family needs of love, charm, beauty and caring for one another. We can do it all in our industry.  We can show the world that not only can our players create beauty and comfort but we can do it with love.

Thanks, again, for listening.
Grandpa Mike-e-e!