Lawrence Hoffman, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Marvy Uchida, cut his teeth in retail when he was 12 years old, working for Michael Dupey/MJ Designs. Lawrence and Clint discuss what it's like to work with world class retailers and manufacturers.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Mike Dupey, was the father of Arts & Crafts Retail - one key to his success was putting a team together with the right people in the right seats on the team.
• Mike impacted many people and companies on his journey.
• Howard Hoffman, Lawrence's dad, was the chief merchant for Mike Dupey's organization. He would see anyone, because he knew he could learn something from anyone and never knew where the next big opportunity was going to come from.
• The Dupey team worked hard, but had a lot of fun also.
• Forks in the road may not always seem positive, but whatever path you're on, learn as much as you can because you never know when that knowledge will help you.
• Lawrence's faith has shaped the direction of his life.
• Major lesson from a trend fashion retailer that failed - test concepts in multiple markets on a small scale for major shifts in strategy to confirm results before rolling it out to a full chain. Crawl. Walk. Run.

To contact Lawrence Hoffman you can reach him at [email protected] or find him on LinkedIn.

If you'd like to be a guest on the podcast, reach out to Clint O'Rear at [email protected].

Learn how Clint and his team at Creative Sales Consulting connect suppliers & retailers in the creative arts industries to build stronger relationships and strategic sales growth, in order to bring joy to consumers through artistic creative and decorative products.

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Music:

"Carpe Diem" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/