A book that was written to help mattress and furniture retailers attract more foot traffic and build a meaningful brand has become a number one Amazon bestseller in multiple categories, including retail industry. 

Written by mattress veterans and podcast co-hosts Mark Kinsley and Mark Quinn, the book is described as a guidebook for independent retailers who are looking for ways to catapult their businesses forward. 

Featuring more than 70 foot-traffic-driving ideas gathered from real mattress store operators, Come Back to Bed has generated 33 five-star reviews on Amazon. 

Marketing your business is an essential part of telling your story and attracting customers. You won’t succeed if consumers don’t know you exist.

But your marketing needs to break through the noise in order to capture attention. How can you do this?

Creative thinking is where it starts. Creative thinking is critical when it comes to setting yourself apart from the competition. For some, thinking outside the box comes naturally, and for others, it’s tough. If you lack creative juices, there are five steps you can follow to help you to unlock creative ideas that will support your business goals. We call this the HATCH method. 

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said your brand is what people say about your business when you’re not in the room. 

The best way to know what people truly think about your business is your reviews. 

Today, internet reviews are one of the most powerful forces shaping consumer behavior. People want to see third-party sources that praise your company for its service or product. Reviews can often make the difference between someone choosing to give you their business or not.

It's time to stop calling sleep a pillar of health. Sleep is not standing there like The Queen's Guard wearing a fuzzy black hat beside fellow soldiers diet and exercise. Sleep is the foundation of health, with diet and exercise resting on top of it. Eating good food and getting plenty of exercise only go so far without good sleep.

Let's talk about food first.

Even before COVID-19, few industries had been more disrupted than the mattress business. 

For decades, people shopping for a mattress visited a retail store. They’d test a few beds, pay for the mattress, strap that white rectangle to the top of their station wagon, and head home. 

The business model for mattresses stayed constant because beds are bulky and hard to move. Manufacturers would ship products to a retailer’s warehouse, and retailers would sell to consumers, who hauled the mattress home or had it delivered. There weren’t many ways to skip a step. 

But today, technology and the rise of ecommerce have changed the mattress industry for good. People no longer need to go to a physical store to purchase a mattress. And now, with the coronavirus pandemic further exacerbating these trends, we’re forced to wonder where the industry will go from here. How will traditional mattress retailers survive? 

During the day toxic junk builds up in your brain. 

All that gunk needs to be flushed out, especially a protein called amyloid beta, or your risk of Alzheimer's increases. The glymphatic system is the apparatus that flushes all that funk. 

The main waste product the glymphatic system is rinsing down the drain is a protein that accumulates in the brain of Alzheimer's patients. That brain toilet called the glymphatic system is 60 percent more productive when we are asleep. 

Studies show that people with a genetic pre-disposition for Alzheimer's were able to significantly reduce or delay their risk of getting the disease by simply sleeping better.

Roger Cunningham owns The Bed Store in Knoxville, Tennessee. “Our success is because of authenticity,” he said. “Our slogan is, ‘We’ll even TUCK you in.’”

TUCK is an acronym for Thoughtful, Understanding, Compassion, and Knowledge. That word and the culture it creates transcends Cunningham’s mattress business. Roger and his team always want to make sure customers get the product they need, not the one with the biggest commission. He also knows customers are scared of mattress salespeople. This fear was once a barrier to purchase—and The Bed Store’s website helped customers overcome it.

Domestic mattress producers could see upticks in business, especially at the low-end, after anti-dumping duties led to a dramatic decline in imported mattresses.

Back in 2018, a group of countries led by Vietnam was importing approximately 8,000 mattresses into the United States.

Not a big deal.

But when that number grew to 4.2 million the very next year, the mattress industry took notice. Those leading the charge uncovered unfair business practices called dumping, in which foreign entities subsidize products and sell them into the U.S. at unfair prices.

The coronavirus pandemic has brought about many challenges for retailers. Even before COVID-19, being a retailer meant charting rough waters and navigating challenges caused by the rise of ecommerce. The sad truth is that not all retailers have made it through and there are many still struggling. 

For those of you who are wondering how you can navigate the current environment, the number one thing you can do to survive is: decide to be different. 

Why is being different important? We live in an attention economy. If you capture people’s attention, you make profits. Fail to make people look and listen, and business will suffer. Being different can set you apart from your competitors, it establishes your unique value and strengthens your connection with customers.

In June 2020, Gwyneth Paltrow launched “This Smells Like My Vagina,” a candle that started as a joke, but became a huge hit when it sold out on her Goop.com website. She described the candle idea as “a little punk rock.”

Naturally, her next step was getting into the mattress business.