Expert Retail Strategist Reveals Branding Secrets

that really is the challenge for great companies is scale scale can be the enemy welcome to the let's talk business podcast a project of the PEX group gain valuable actionable ideas from the world's top Business Leaders to help you take the next step in your business journey and now here is your host Manny Hoffman coming to you from the PEX headquarters in Brooklyn New York this is the podcast for No Nonsense advice to help you learn grow and lead today I'm so excited to welcome our guest Duc Stevens in this episode Duc Stevens a retail industry expert and founder of retail profit with over 20 years of experience in various aspects of retail doc shares his deep insights on branding retail Evolution and the future of customer experience we explore how you can make your brand not only stand out but genuinely resonate with your target audience this is a fascinating episode focusing solo on branding which I love without further Ado here is my episode with Doc Stevens doc thank you so much for joining me on the let talk business podcast my pleasure thanks for having me so we met at an event a couple of weeks ago it was one of our PEX clients where we worked for over a year to Rebrand and they did the year-end event for all their employees and they launched the event um which was a spectacular event I've not seen events like that it doesn't have Happ every day and the be beautiful part of the event is um because they were able to share with their employees um exactly what branding is it's not just a visual identity it's not just a nicer logo really there's so much more that goes into a logo and goes into a brand and you were the guest speaker speaking about branding and you know the content that you spoke about and the details that you gave was so on point I said we got to have you on the show so here we are a couple of weeks later and uh we will get into the conversation and for our listeners you know that PEX is a branding marketing agency and we don't speak enough about the importance of branding we usually bring you all kinds of guests today is one of those episodes where we have an expert like Doug where we'll go into the details of branding and all the different elements that go into a super super um successful brand so for our listeners before we get into the details of it give us a little bit of a background and give us a little background what got you to be the expert in branding and particular when it comes to retail well thank you very much Manny and again thanks for having me um and and first right off the top I'm going to make one small correction to what you said I I am certainly not the expert when it comes to branding um I I'd like to think that over the years I've I've learned some important lessons and um and I've committed myself to trying to share those lessons with folks so a little bit of background on me um retail profit began about 16 years ago in the throws of the financial crisis which I'm sure we all have still Vivid memories of to this day I had spent prior to forming the company I had spent about 20 years in the retail industry working on really all all sides of it I was U on the man manufacturing side on the um on the uh retail side of things I worked in franchising for a period perod of time I worked with small independent retailers and then also some of the largest uh retail chains in North America and what occurred to me in all of that experience was was really one thing kept being reinforced and that is that most businesses are really chronically shortsighted in their perspective on things um you know retail certainly but I would argue that many businesses today are very much quartered quarter earnings report to earnings report sort of Endeavors and it seemed to me in 2009 as I looked around like many of us and I saw you know tumultuous economic change massive generational change the media landscape of course was just being absolutely obliterated by social media everything uh was sort of coming apart and it seemed to me that we were really on the brink of a new era and so I committed myself to that time at that time to sort of saying I think we need a voice in the market place that is looking at all of these changes synthesizing everything and trying to provide the market with a broader uh perspective you know a a longer term Horizon and really trying to bring some context to what all these changes meant and what do they mean for the strategy of a business and how you go to market and with that retail profit was born uh in that time um I've I've been fortunate to have the opportunity to write three books on the subject of the future of retail uh we work with remarkable clients um you know everyone from L'Oreal to BMW Ikea and and many many others uh I do a lot of speaking around the world in various uh Parts uh of the world to various Industries and and private organizations I'm a columnist for CBC Radio Canada and I also uh write for the business of f which is a publication out of the US and Shameless plug uh I've got a new book coming out very shortly I say very shortly it will be out in 2026 and it's called winning in the new era of competition because I think we're embarking on a new cycle of competition so um so that's so that's me and a big part of what I talk about of course is this whole notion of what does it mean to be a great brand and and how do you succeed uh with your brand exactly so I want to share a story um just to open up the conversation I think is uh um to to say you know to basically set the groundwork for our for our listeners because when we speak about branding there is two camps out there there are people that understand to a brand or at least they think they understand what a brand is all about and they they understand okay we need to invest in a brand and then there are there are certain um you know business owners that don't understand it doesn't pertain to me like I'm too small for that I don't need it and so on and so forth and also depending on which industry you are you have your your own assessment of what a brand is all about so I like to share the story maybe I've shared it in the podcast on other episodes in the past um there was once a a a a a business event where the CEO of CCO spoke and he spoke about branding and and and and then there was like a lineup of q&as afterwards and the first Q&A the first person ask me a question was like seriously you speak about branding like what do you guys do for for for Branding like you're just selling for cheap and he thought for a second how to respond and then he responded he says you know how much money and effort we put into our brand to make sure that our warehouses look like a warehouse you think every every every building we take over looks like a Costco this is our brand this is our look this is our feel this is our positioning and this is how how pricing works together with our brand this is our merchandising works with our brand and it went on and on and on to say and I think it was an eyeopener for most of the people in the room because everybody has a brand the question is what is the perception whether you like it or not exactly so I just wanted to tell our audience before we start digging into branding what we're going to be speaking today is for all of you if you're small large medium whatever you are whatever stage in business you are branding is for you could be that you're spending less spending more you figured it out 100% you didn't figure it out but that's more or less it so I want to speak to you give us your definition of what is a brand the way I look at it is you know we when we when we think about a a brand we're really seeing two two pieces there are two distinct pieces there are those pieces which are visible and presented to the public right and that's your your advertising that's your your buildings your fixturing your designs your products obviously your services all the things that that the consumer whoever your consumer is is is aware of the things that are readily apparent to them and then there are all the things that they don't see but that are no less important and that's your employee culture that's the values that your company was founded upon that's the uh you know the the um the the pay the pay structures and the incentive programs and all that stuff uh that that uh makes the engine of your company work you know your supply chain Partnerships your marketing Partnerships the agencies that you uh collaborate with all that stuff but the one thing that brings all of those things together for me is the notion of purpose what is the the the purpose that sits at the heart of your brand and and I just want to clarify what I mean by purpose because I think it's a word that gets used a lot today in marketing what I don't mean is your higher ideals I don't mean your vision statement you know the the things that we sort of write on Scrolls and keep in the company Vault you know the the the vision and values uh and and uh uh mission statements of the company what I mean is ultimately the the purpose you have in a consumer's life and you know in the 16 years that I've been working with Brands the one commonality that I've been able to identify amongst those who outperform perform in their markets and in their categories is that the true performers simply have not only a stronger sense of purpose but they have a stronger capacity for animating that purpose for their customer so the purpose isn't just something that lives in the hearts and minds of the employees it's literally something that is animated through the business every day to the consumer and the consumer feels that sense of purpose that is what defines the company that's what creates value for the consumer and that ultimately is what pierces all the noise in the marketplace and all the competition and allows that brand to rise above um so for me brand a truly strong brand is synonymous with the purpose that the company operates against hey listeners are you struggling to create beautiful looking proposals is it a hassle every time you need to prepare a quote or proposal for your clients is collecting signature still a manual process well it's time to upgrade to pandadoc at PEX we use pandadoc for all our proposals employee do imitation and so much more it saves us time keeps everything organized and our documents look incredibly professional with customizable templates real-time collaboration and E signatures padoc turns creating documents into quick and easy steps plus it integrates with so many other tools streamlining your workflow and boosting productivity try panad today by visiting px. c/ pandadoc and start your free trial trust me it's going to be a game changer for your business that's pte ex. SLP da do o so let me ask you a question um how do you define that when or when in the brand Journey does that get defined so I I think you know when you look at the Genesis of a company um let's let's take apple as an example because it's just such an accessible example it it may not necessarily be the best example but from the beginning Apple was driven by Steve Jobs passion around the idea that there needed to be sort of a a David to the Goliath of of the microsofts the ibms the the the sort of institutionalized notion of computing Steve Jobs always had this idea that they were a renegade brand that was creating not just a new looking system but also a new operating system and a company that had a different vision for the future of computing that Computing wasn't necessarily about main mainframe computers that were all you know uh in in huge office Towers but that all of us one day would be walking around as we do today with our own personal computer and it was a radical Vision at the time and and uh I I would argue that that jobs was fanatical in that he was Evangelical in that sort of you know communicating that Vision out and when Apple went to Market they they adopted that Ren philosophy and virtually everything they did um when you think about it not only were the products different but the way their stores looked were different the way their stores felt and acted you know taking all these computers these expensive things out of their boxes putting them on tables for computers for consumers to use right um putting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of inventory at risk to create a new kind of experience you know for the first time now we we experienced this thing called the Genius Bar where service was democratized where the the staff didn't talk to you like you were a fool who knew nothing about computers but they were like a friend that you could drop in and talk to and and learn from so it was a a a radical idea that got animated across the entire experience so the short answer to your question is in most cases the s of purpose is driven from the very beginning of the company and I mean I could say the same thing about a brand like Patagonia you know Ivan schard was very much that kind of fanatical founder who had this vision for a different kind of company in the apparel Market um The Challenge however is that as a brand scales and this isn't my idea I mean Bane and Company were were uh you know citing this years ago as a company scales and grows in size that founder energy that fanatical sense of purpose very often can get watered down right the the owner of the company moves further and further and further away from the consumer away from the front lines decision making now becomes more complex U more and more of the organization's resources go to Just sustaining the company on a day-to-day basis and you lose some of that founder energy and that that really is the challenge um for great companies is is scale scale can be the enemy but for me yeah purpose is about the passion and this sort of fical drive that that keeps the company moving forward let me ask you a followup question to this um because we see a lot now where Brands will let's call develop a purpose for the sake of marketing so they'll say uh buy our products and we'll plant a a tree over there and buy two pairs of socks and we'll give a third pair of socks to a undeveloped uh Community whatever it is how do you differentiate real purpose meaningful purpose than just they're doing good things but that's just like a a marketing tactic not the real purpose of the brand sure that's a good point and and we did we saw we saw quite a bit of that and we and we continue to see that sort of thing for me it's it's about manifestation of the purpose it's not about Declaration of the purpose anybody can do that it's about investing in it and manifesting it across every aspect of the business and I'll just go back real quick to my to my example of Patagonia so you know 1973 Avan schard uh who was an Outdoorsman a climber um and and a seller of uh European hiking and climbing gear um travels to Patagonia and he is so stricken by the beauty of the environment there uh and so overwhelmed that he decides in that moment that he's going to start a company but a company that is dedicated to the preservation of that beauty that he had witnessed and so uh Flash Forward to today Patagonia is a company that builds its offices out of recyclable regenerative materials uh that are carbon neutral he is builds stores uh using the same methodology so the stores are all low impact the products and the fibers and the materials that the products are made from are all again sourced with the environment in mind even the marketing materials that they put on the clothing the Hang tags all of that is looked at thoroughly to ensure low impact they pay their employees well their employees are given great benefits they are a fair a fair trade uh retailer uh Evan Ward himself built his own home almost completely out of straw you know to to prove the point that we can build things that don't have to have an adverse effect on the planet they give 1% of profit every every single year whether it's a good year or a bad year two environmental causes and most recently schard himself gave up billions of dollars to turn the company into an evergreen trust that is dedicated to environmental uh work that my friend is the purpose right that's not a company saying you know buy a pair of socks and maybe we'll plant a tree somewhere that's dedication it's a very important point and like I know some of the times when we work on branding and we come up with the proper positioning of the brand and the premise of the brand and the brand owner will sit there and say I love this it's so it's so it's up to date and it's something I could live by I say it's not something that you you need to live by it's something you have to commit to right and he says what does that mean it says if you're speaking about uh like natural ingredients on a product that's a commitment not for the product that you know now it's for the next 10 to 20 to 50 years of products that's the commitment of the brand right if you speaking about um you know great pro products and all of a sudden tomorrow you you're flying overseas and finding a manufacturer that could give it for half price they might not speak about they might not have quality products you committed to the brand you can't confuse the marketplace that's for sure so it's commitment and not confusing so I think I I very much appreciate the example you gave because it just shows that it's that decision and that um um that promise is across everything they do well that's right and and it it also doesn't necessarily I mean sure when we think about purpose yes our our minds immediately fly to to Brands like Patagonia with their dedication to environmental purpose but it need not also be necessarily something that is purely altruistic and and I use the example sometimes of uh Walmart as being being a a perfect example of a brand that understands its purpose to Consumers since 1962 Walmart's purpose has been low price always for Less always for Less always sell for less and unabashedly so never apologetically Sam Walton's Vision was that Walmart was a company that existed for the middle class consumer and to to try and make the lives of middleclass consumers better and to this day when you walk into a Walmart it just screams value at you you know so it's about not necessarily you know always making the world a better place and it doesn't always have to be some higher purpose it can be just a very single-minded focus and that to me is what makes uh a truly strong brand at the event that we were together um you were speaking and and you actually spoke about the difference between brand identity and brand strategy and how those different components um act um as far as the full life cycle of of the brand and the touch points could you share a little bit for our audience what um what goes in the difference between the top of the funnel which is the brand uh identity and then the brand strategy behind it your your brand identity is and and I think sometimes we get too hung up on the identity and and we lose the sense of strategy and what is always you know what I've always found funny is that if you get a group of Executives with with a company into a room and you were to show them you know a new proposal on their logo on their company logo you know that we we want to show you something that uses new colors and new fonts and that and you probably know this from your own experience many you will get hours and hours of passionate debate over the look and feel of that logo and everyone will have their own opinion on it but when you dig deeper and you ask the same room of Executives to describe in detail the nuances of the actual market experience of dealing with the company what a consumer will feel and experience that is wholly unique and different they very often don't have an opinion they they're they're detached from that you know or they have just some sort of general idea you know well we pride ourselves on you know product knowledge or whatever the case may be but they're certainly not as passionate about the strategy as they are about the look and feel and the Aesthetics of the brand and and one thing that I have found too is that very often there are there are internal assumptions about the brand that in many cases are not true it's just mythology you know that you'll have the company basically saying well you know we are the leaders in customer service we give better service than anyone and this is something that a lot of companies in the retail industry fell prey to is they were Naval gazing and basically saying oh we're the best at service we're we're we're awesome and meanwhile every JD Power survey that came out was saying well no Amazon is ranking higher in service than any of you guys with brick and mortar stores you know so we don't know what you're thinking here but you're not delivering the service you think you are and so that was part of the rationale when I uh wrote my last book which was called resurrecting retail was I wanted to try and provide a road map for companies to get back in touch with the strategy right what is our positioning what is a defendable position in the market that we can own you know and and what does that look like and how do we animate that how do we actually put legs under that and make it real for the consumer and create a new sense of value I just actually today I posted on LinkedIn um basically the last couple of days I had to reach out to a couple of large like larger Enterprise for customer support and I was going from you know from waiting to getting to a person then transferring me over over and everything like that so I actually posted on LinkedIn today that I wish for 2025 it should be mandated by L by CEOs to at least once a quarter use their customer support from their own company that will dictate a lot of change they they just don't realize that here they spending millions of dollars in acquiring new customers or sharing the Brand Story and now you have that customer that just needs to get that experience and the experience is by far not what they would ever wish for themselves absolutely yeah yeah the the irony in that for me has always been that um you you get on hold with a company and the first thing you hear is your call is important to us well wait a minute if your if my call was really important to you you would have just picked up the phone right and and I wouldn't be waiting 15 minutes to talk to someone and and and it's been done on the on the large scale think about an American Express think about a Uline think about companies Amazon even on that front zap yeah Zappos these are companies that that also have scale but and then all of a sudden you could find this company that's spending so much money to get me to call them and then all of a sudden their their phone tree is not working like I'm pressing this button that button is not now they add they added like voice recognition it's not getting my number that I'm putting in that's right sometimes it's it's it's mindboggling um so I want to I want to move the conversation to retail obviously that's your specialty um I know a lot has changed in retail since covid when at one point we thought it's totally dead everybody was pivoting to online and and and web web orders and so on and so forth we're seeing a a a interesting mix what's coming back it's coming back but it's coming back a little different what's your observation what do you see what what could you share yeah so I you're absolutely right um you know I I I I think what happened over the pandemic were a few things I I think certainly um the online capabilities of all companies improved dramatically because they had to right we saw grossers for the first time getting really serious about selling online and understanding how to do that virtually every retailer out there had to improve their e-commerce game Amazon did not sleep either though I mean Amazon's uh been systematically moving their operations closer and closer to Consumers um you know the IR the irony I suppose is that you know 15 20 years ago I was talking to clients and saying you know Amazon today delivers to your home in in days you know you'll order something and 3 days later you'll get it and we were we were quite impressed by that you know at the time but I and I was positing that you know very soon um it'll be hours you know it won't won't even same day will be pass a it will be hours you know place the order at 10:00 a.m. 300 p.m. your doorbell will ring and there it is and at the time that seemed crazy but now that is the reality you know there the vast majority of Amazon products uh have next day delivery but another huge change that has really just I think many affected all retailers is the idea of third-party marketplaces that it doesn't matter who you are now you can be Kroger Maes um Home Depot you know all of these retailers now have not only their own Marketplace of products but they all offer third-party marketplaces so if you want to buy Footwear you can buy it at Kroger you know if you want to buy Power Tools you can buy them at Macy's and believe it or not if you want to buy apparel you can buy it through Home Depot you know it's it's that kind of market now and so it has raised the the bar of competition for virtually every business regardless of the category that you're in I'm going to be talking very soon to um a group um uh a trade Association in the convenience uh market so you know companies like sheets and and other you know major convenience operators on on both sides of the Border well I mean the whole concept of convenience right has been completely reinvented what we believed to be convenient 15 years ago uh has been obliterated by companies like Amazon so the convenience industry is having to rethink um how it creates value so in terms of of retail now how does somebody that's still either Mom and Pop Shop either even the larger retailer that some of them that you've been advising how do they compete or who is their target market at this point so the way I look at it is this and I I referred earlier to you know wanting to create a road map for virtually any business to be able to determine where where is the white space in the market where we can actually carve out a meaningful share and the way I look at is this if I look at the entire retail industry what I see are two distinct constellations of Brands it's almost like there's a universe of Brands out there and they're divided into two distinct constellations the first constellation is what I call cognitive default Brands these are generally speaking brands that are so present in our lives on a trans transactional basis that they become the thing we think of first so we we talked about a couple of them when I think about buying something inexpensively that is just a commodity item boom Walmart pops into my head and Walmart dedicates themselves every day to making sure that that's the logo I see in my head if I think about oh I just I need something and I need it quickly boom Amazon cocacola great example of a brand that just tries to take all thinking of the equation when it comes to a brand you're sitting in a restaurant would you like something to drink uh sure I'll have a Coke right um they become a cognitive default for the average mom and pop it's very difficult to sit there and think to yourself well we're going to become the cognitive default in our category whatever that is and that's where the the other constellation of Brands comes in and these are Brands I call the emotional defaults these are brands that maybe aren't necessarily the the first thing you might think of but they're definitely the thing that would have the most emotional connection for you um and there are basically four positions within that constellation of Brands where you can compete the first one is on culture and so you know we mentioned Patagonia Patagonia is a brand that doesn't sell shirts and shoes and pants they sell a cultural idea and when we shop at Patagonia we feel like we are part of that culture and and that's why we're prepared to pay a premium for the products they sell the second category is entertainment so these are brands that may sell products that you can find elsewhere but they create an experience that is just fundamentally more fun more enjoyable more entertaining than their competitors and so we we prefer to shop with them there's a a toy store in New York City uh called Camp New York City and and I call it a toy store but it's actually more like a a a theatrical experience for kids and their families and they have these themed experiences that come in for about a month or two um and of course there's always a connection to toys but it's it's visceral you you know you and your kids can go in and have this amazing experience in the store the Third uh category is uh the expertise category so brands that have an authoritative voice in their product category whatever it is their knowledge of their product knowledge of the category is Head and Shoulders above their competitors and another great example in the New York City area is B&H photo and video it's a single store operation a traditional M started as a m po shop and today they do estimates are about $120 million out of one store location uh they sell worldwide and I've met people all over the world that know them because their product knowledge is just so absolutely unbelievable and that's what you're buying there and then the last category is design if you are uh a mom and pop business that makes your own product and you make something that's wholly unique and and you know exclusive to your brand wonderful uh but there are also Brands like daen who have completely uh changed the entire price value equation around what we're prepared to pay for a vacuum because they made something that not only looked different but it worked different so there these you know you have to choose which constellation can we operate in and uh how can we hone our purpose to be so crystal clear that we dominate in that uh in that con stellation would you say that we should stick to one of them or could it be a combination of more than one it's a great question uh and and it's a question that often comes up um my feeling is this I think you have to decide where you are going to first Dominate and you can only dominate in one spot so let's take the example back to to Apple in my opinion Apple was and and remains fundamentally an engineering brand they're a brand that has engineered products like the iPhone that are just you know Enchanted they look different they feel different they act different if you took the engineering out of apple it would cease to be apple right it would just become you know some other commodity uh computer company but Apple didn't stop stop with engineering they said yes we're going to dominate here but we're also going to differentiate in other places and that's where the customer experience in store came in The Genius Bar was a differentiation on service the um you know unpacking of product and putting it on tables was a differentiation of the in store experience so it is possible to dominate in one in one position but differentiate in other aspects of the experience but as soon as you're a brand that says you know what we're going to try and dominate on service on price on convenience on customer experience the end result is that you don't do any of them well right and your consumer can't associate you with any single thing yeah I think I think um um the way I interpret it is um that you dominate with one that's what people know you about but of course they need more from you as well right exactly they need the experience or they need the expertise but then what did they know you for that's right and and it makes you less susceptible to reverse engineering as well if you're if you're creating a bit of an Alchemy so yeah you know we we dominate in terms of the design of our products but we also create a unique service experience and we also create um you know a a unique level of convenience um not saying we dominate in convenience but it's different it feels different and that makes a brand really difficult to reverse engineer and Apple's probably the best example because Microsoft was literally going to Market to try and reverse engineer the Apple store and they just simply couldn't do it yeah what would you say um you know obviously we're all obsessed now with AI and the tools that are coming out how's that affecting retail what do you see how how do retailers actually incorporate AI into their workflow well it's it's being incorporated into virtually every aspect of the workflow and um and and we're certainly not um at a state of maturity uh yet there's an awful lot of activity of course there's an awful lot of investment as we saw just you know the other day um with a half a trillion dollars being committed to AI development in the US and yet you know China is unrelenting as well and and they're producing their own platforms as it pertains to retail I guess it's the it's evident to me that just as as um certain products come to Market and they're you know infused with gensing or infused with vitamin z we're going to see virtually every piece of software every process every device that is used in the retail sector from the supply chain to the value chain to the customer experience everything will be imbued and infused with AI and um it it will provide I think a level of intelligence that will be doing an awful lot of heavy lifting for us you know whether that's on the accounting side on the loss prevention side on the customer service side providing knowledge to employees when and where they need it or directly to the consumer so it's going to really I think permeate every aspect of how retail is done and um and and the level of efficiency uh that that it it's done with so yeah it's going to have a pervasive effect I know you mentioned before about you're working on your book re-engineering retail uh what could people expect um based on your research where you're finding what do you feel the book will be able to share so um it's it's kind of a big idea book um and and re-engineering Retail was actually the second book I wrote this one is called winning in the new future of of competition or the new era of competition um the thesis goes something like this I talk to Executives in this industry frequently and and and uh and quite regularly and I can say that um there's a common feeling and and I would say not just in retail but in business generally there's a common feeling amongst Executives that something isn't right something is just not as it used to be in the in in business generally the things that used to work you know like just going and buying more advertising you know and and having that land on the right consumer with the right message and driving consumers to retail none of those things work anymore and you know nobody wants to admit it but there there's something seems broken and my theory is what we are actually seeing is the the end of era in retail and in order to understand what that means we have to go back about 80 years to the end of World War II and look at the kinds of Investments that were being made in society at that time in the US in Canada in Western Europe in the UK massive government investments in business Creation in domestic trade and domestic industry in public education right which was uh robust and growing and more and more people going to University becoming educated which provided the retail industry with a steady stream of educated trainable workers capitalistic systems that really worked toward the middle of society and raise the fortunes of the average American family Canadian family whatever you wish we are coming to the end of that era and in fact I would argue that Society is now kind of living on the vapor trail of of those Investments and so the book presents the idea that as dire sometimes and as dismal as Society is looking to us today that those things that I just mentioned are in fact the frontiers of new competitive Advantage for organizations if you are a company who is more trusted than your competitors you have a shot at winning if you're regarded as being more fair than your competitors that's an advantage if you can be smarter than your competitors by tapping into and supporting education systems and creating a stream of trainable uh candidates for your business that is an advantage so this book will present essentially a view of the next 80 years of competitive advantage and what that's going to look like across all businesses yeah we we're looking out to for the release date on that um how could people um find out more about what you do and and see more of your content so uh if anyone is interested you can go to retail profit and that's p o p.com that's the mothership and that will take you to virtually everything that we do beautiful for the links resources mentioned this episod check out the show notes at w ww. Peters group.com podcast where will link to retailprofits.org a piece of advice from my Father which was don't let the bastards get you down number three anything you wish you could go back and do differently no I I really don't i' I've made a lot of mistakes in my life and uh but I but I I I value all of them love it love it and last and final question what's still on your bucket list to achieve you know I I I would like to feel that before I um uh before I die I I would like to enhance my sense of doing something good for the world and and and you know that that ties in with with this next book I would really like to think that this industry uh the retail industry has a crack at making the world a better place and I'd like to be a part of that beautiful Yeah you mentioned about retail like there's still a a lot of people that they their sense of belonging the sense of community happens in retail experiences that's right doc thank you so much for joining us I know your time is valuable that is why in the name of our listeners we'll forever be grateful for sharing some of your time with us today it's been a blast it's it's been a pleasure thanks Manny thank [Music] you that's my conversation with Duc Stevens my takea away from this one number one select one primary area to dominate from the four positions mentioned culture entertainment expertise or design focus on excelling in one area rather than trying to be everything to everyone number two test your customer experience regularly and experience your own customer service Channel firsthand just as jock suggested CEO should do quarterly to identify gaps and Service delivery number three if you're growing create systems to maintain your brand purpose and Val vales even as the organization expands preventing the watering down effect that often happens with scale number four create clear guidelines about what your brand promises and ensure all business decisions from sourcing to pricing aligning with those commitments and number five review how your stated purpose is actually showing up across all aspects of your business from products to customer service to employee culture look for gaps between what you you claim and what you deliver and that's a wrap for today's episode of the let's look business podcast I hope you enjoyed the Practical non-nonsense advice that our guest shared if you found value on listening I would be so grateful if you could share the episode with your friends and if you could give the show a five-star rating on Apple podcast or whatever platform you listen subscribe to the show and get notified every time we publish a new episode The let's talk business podcast is a Pex group original production until next time make it a great day [Music]