Episode 15 - Interview With Retail Business Consultant and Author, George Troy.

In this episode, I interview George Troy. George is a widely read blogger, author, and consultant focused on retail business communities, including online and brick-and-mortar stores. He has enjoyed decades of real-life experience as a senior executive for some of the best-known and most successful retail companies in the US and globally. A specialist in apparel, footwear, sporting goods, cookware, and home furnishings, Troy has led the retail divisions of Deckers Outdoor (UGG Boots) and outlet divisions of Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn. Today, he reflects upon his years of experience and discusses his new book, The Five Laws of Retail.

You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below:

Nathan Simmonds:

Record, so I'm recording. We're live, this is grand. Welcome to Sticky Interviews. My name is Nathan Simmonds. I am working with MBM. We are the soft skills provider for the UK grocery and manufacturing industry. These interviews are about sharing the philosophies and the thinking of great people to help you be the best version of yourself. Today, I'm interviewing George Troy. Now, I've had some wonderful conversations with him from everything from chickens to squashes to the five laws of retail which is exponent, expert ...

This is his field of genius. I've been speaking to him about these, and I want to share some of these ideas with you, or get him to share them with you.

Nathan Simmonds:

I want to introduce him first. I've got his bio here and it's pretty decent reading for someone in the consultancy industry. This is good stuff. 35 years of real life experiences, a senior executive for some of the best known and most successful retail companies across the globe. A specialist in both men's and women's apparel, sporting goods, cookware, home furnishings, and he's even led a retail division of Deckers Outdoor, which we all know as Ugg Boots, Williams Sonoma, and The Pottery Barn.

Key successes, taken Ugg Australia retail sales from 0 to 400 million in the US, Europe, and Asia in just 8 years. That on its own George is a pretty decent celebration right there of a career.

George is currently a consultant with the Grayson Company, based in New York. He's also serving on the board of directors for two non-profit organizations based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Also, he's got a BA with honours from Berkeley in anthropology, which makes his storytelling unique to say the least, and he uses that as the backbone of his approach to his book, ‘The Five Laws of Retail’. Please, welcome George Troy to the camera and the interview. George, thanks for being here. Really appreciate this.

George Troy:

Well Nathan, thank you very much for that introduction. I'm glad to be with you. It almost sounds like he could never hold down a job.

George Troy - blower and author

 

Nathan Simmonds:

Well I think you've got the experience from the apprenticeships of some of your earlier roles, which then got you into Ugg because of that real life experience and the stuff that you cut your teeth with. You know what? Now you're a consultant doing that for other people. It just increases the impact you get to have on those businesses. You know what? I'd rather you didn't hold down a job because it means you get to go and see more people and do more good in the world.

George Troy:

That's true. That's true. Thank you very much.

Nathan Simmonds:

So look, for me, the big question first of all when I'm talking to people is why do you do what you do? What was it that inspired you to be where you are and do the things that you're doing right now?

George Troy:

Well there are a lot of things. Primarily, the book that just came out, The Five Laws of Retail, can I show that for a moment?

The Five Laws of Retail, and it's just released last spring. It's doing fairly well, and there's several reasons I did that. One is that I honestly believe, I know, that these things will help people. They'll help people be more successful and to avoid failure. The other thing is as you just alluded to are the stories. I tell the story of these laws through the stories of things that happened to me, and that I did research and historical research and business research too, because retailing, whether it's groceries or beverages or shoes, is all about the people, and it's all about the types of interactions and the things that happen.

George Troy:

Nathan, you know, if you've been around the track a few times, like some of us have, there are a lot of stories every day, every week, every month, and some of them are sad, and some of them are funny, and some of them are poignant, but they're all instructive. Those are the things that people remember. I wanted to tell those. I wanted to share those with somebody or with the people who read the book. That's the main reason.

Nathan Simmonds:

That word you used, which was instructive, now there's a mechanism, a model that I teach which is the drama triangle from a guy called Karpman, Dr. Karpman, phenomenal model for psychology. It's all about drama. But when I talk to people about it, and as you look at soap operas that we watch now, it's all based on drama. The reason the dramas were created, you know the Greeks created drama, was to teach us stories of relationships and how we interact with people. It's just that along the way we forgot to actually view the instruction manual that was being played out for us.

Nathan Simmonds:

And then when you talk about those stories of your experiences, my experiences, us being around the track, those stories have been going on for tens of thousands of years. It's not like they're any different. You share stories about the East India Trading Company and some of those. This stuff, it's almost on rinse and repeat because people aren't paying attention to the stories that are played out previously.

George Troy:

Exactly. Exactly. There's always a consistency. I have one with you I'll share with you right now if you don't mind. We had a store in Manchester, and opened it just before there were some terrible riots in Manchester and throughout England. I forget even what they were about. I think it was some government cutbacks or something. So we were concerned about this, and instructed our store people to lock the stock room, lock up the safe, and lock up the store, and leave. They did because we were concerned about their safety.

George Troy:

Well sure enough, rioters, these hooligans got in, and they broke all the windows and they tore up the store. They didn't get very much. The stock was in the back. But all during this time, our security cameras were running, so we recorded some of this. Well, during the time there were these riots and there were these hooligans in the store, a DHL delivery guy shows up with a pair of special order shoes. He goes through the broken window, and he's got his invoice and a clipboard, and wants somebody to sign it. He gets one of the rioters to sign it, and then he hands them the shoes.

It's one of the most amazing things I've ever heard of. The guy did his job. This was his job, and he did it. He got the signature and all the paperwork was done, and it was funny and at the same time instructive of something, but I'm not quite sure what. You shouldn't always just follow the rules. You should be or one of your people if you're the leader of a team to make decisions on their own. It's not particularly smart to leave shoes with rioters. It doesn't matter if he got the paperwork. And it was all on film and we had it.

Nathan Simmonds:

It almost seems ridiculous. Okay, I've got to go in here and get a signature. Who is the lead rioter here that needs to give me the signature?

George Troy:

Exactly.

Nathan Simmonds:

Nonsensical, yeah, and like you said ... But then you can take that kind of informative thing or approach of actually well what's the leadership lesson here? How can I use this story to actually instruct my leaders in their stores to make sure that, you know what? If things aren't right, what's the best decision you can make? The best decision would have been take the shoes back to where you need to be until this is all over, and then we'll redo it again.

George Troy:

Exactly. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

Nathan Simmonds:

And that is the best part. At the same time, should he even be getting out of the van? No. Again, it's just encouraging those leaders to think for themselves. What is the best possible outcome in a crisis situation? Which we're in at the moment as well, as we're recording this. So look, I know this, I'm looking at books up here and up there of management books, of leadership books. What makes this one so helpful?

George Troy:

Thank you for asking that, and I hope that it is helpful. A couple of things, one is that I think sometimes people make things more complicated than they need to be. There's a thing at least I'd always refer to, an affliction called analysis paralysis that some people have.

Now analysis is important, of course, and what you do with it is also important, maybe more than important. I think that what I tried to do is to distil the business principles that I had learned and employed into some very easy to understand and simple things, these five things, through which you can see your activities and your business grow through a lens.

If you filter things through these five things and use those as kind of a level set for what you're doing, it'll be a little easier. It should make your job easier, and more successful, and to avoid failure. That's partly it.

Nathan Simmonds:

Nice. And those five things, this is the five laws of retail, yeah?

George Troy:

Yes.

Nathan Simmonds:

What are the five laws? Come on, give it to us now.

George Troy:

I'm going to do this without looking at my notes. I wrote the book, but sometimes I have to [inaudible 00:09:00] so closely.