The #1 Reason Chick-fil-A Should be the Ideal, not Nordstrom

Well, I think there's a struggle in automotive retail with virtual space and the physical space. How do they blend?

You can learn a lot from the examples of those who did. You look at Chick-fil-A, and during the pandemic, they were doing about $4 million per location. McDonald's, a little under two.

The pandemic comes, everybody closes up, the dining rooms, you can't come in. Chick-fil-A decided to re-examine, curious. Somebody wants to order and pick up. So they reinvented their drive, and now you see the new Chick-fil-A's have three lanes, not one.

And 80% of their business is coming through the drive sales, not the dining room sales. And you see people out there, young people with their headsets, and they're working the lane, and smiling and enjoying it. And the guest is fine to come up to a Chick-fil-A, even when the line starts on the avenue leading into Chick-fil-A, because they know it's quick.

And they moved to $8 million per location.

One of my favorite places to shop is Nordstrom's. It absolutely breaks my heart to see the Nordstrom story. Because Nordstrom's was the place you went for quality. Nordstrom's was the place you went, and boy, if it didn't fit right or something was wrong, guaranteed you're going to be happier. Just give it back to us, and we'll give you your money back.

You'd go in, and you'd see Canali suits. You'd see Armani suits. You'd see whatever you wanted to choose from. Oh, boy, I'm going to pick me a new suit.

I'm going to have a personal guide who's advising me on the right size.

Now, you walk into a Nordstrom's, and, oh, there are no Armani suits. There are no Canali suits. And they said, well, you know, it's a lot better for us if you just order online. So what was the professional guide that would come in? Well, now we'll say, well, we have those all online. Here's Nordstrom.com, and that's it. The exchange stops. And so you're going to go buy a nice garment online. You don't get to fit it.

Instead, what if they had blended the two like we're doing in automotive and said, " You know what? We still have a great selection of any kind of garment that you would like. First, let's do this. Let's determine whether you're a 42, 44, short, regular, or long. I got the perfect, oh, I got the perfect jacket you fit.

And now, stand in front of a big screen on the wall that is a mirror of you, and see the suit on you. Which ones do you like? Let's get these three in.

And then, at 10 o'clock on Thursday, we'll do a personal fitting. And they could have included the associate. Instead, they excluded him.

And now the professional associate can't work there anymore. So you have an order taker and order online. It's become a department store that, because they were curious about how to fit in the change, uses the online selection, and incorporates it into the experience; they've lost their way.

It sounds like I'm down on Nordstrom's. I love Nordstrom's. I just don't shop there anymore because they're not the Nordstrom's they used to be. If I want to have a Macy's experience, I'll go to Macy's because they have a better selection. So I'll go to the original Macy's.

I don't know where Nordstrom's fits anymore.

That is an example of what a company that used to be at the top certainly is not at the top anymore. The HOW POWER experience is your curiosity, which is occurring online.

How do you incorporate it into your process?

If you have a process and you look at what's going online, you, as an integrator, a HOW POWER leader, know exactly what part of your process clashes with the new. So you may have two pivots in that part for those that don't use virtual and for those that do. 

You have really three different areas that people come into an automobile dealership. The virtual space, the relationship space, they bought from you before, they're friends, and then they just walk in first time. And most stores will treat them exactly the same.

The person coming in from the virtual space is in step three or four. They shouldn't go back to one. They've already done the greet, you've already done the needs analysis, you've already done a lot of the due diligence, so it's about presentation and validation.

The person who is coming in from relationships, you don't go, you don't all of a sudden change the tone of your voice and take, you sell them your relationship way. So it's informal because you already have the relationship 

The person who walks in and is probably older, then you take them through the greet, the needs analysis, the presentation, six-point presentation, walk around, discovery drive, and then we would go into trade evaluation and presentation of the numbers.

I'm sure we had a new leader at Nordstrom's, and I'm positive that he had to have come from the accounting department, and the sales were going down. So they decided they needed to make an adjustment to inventories and things of that nature.

Instead of asking why they were losing so much to the internet or wherever, well, if they had included the Nordstrom's experience by still respecting their guide, the excellence of when you buy a fine piece of garment, you want to feel good about it. And they decided to have them in two different avenues.

So it's different, but we don't recognize that at times, and that's why those individual entities do not achieve extraordinary.

One size does not fit all, not in the guest or the associate development. They have to be unique because people are unique.