Toys R Us is closing their doors and that’s sad.
I used to sell to Toys R Us and had a great relationship with them. They even helped me to market the #1 boys toy way back in 1983!
What can every company large, small, and micro-small learn from their demise? Watch this week’s UNCOPYABLE Business video to find out!
BTW, I’m very proud to share that my book, UNCOPYABLE: How to Create an Unfair Advantage Over Your Competition, has achieved BESTSELLER status in multiple categories on Amazon! If you haven’t read it yet, I encourage you to go get it right now! It’s only 152 pages (mostly one-syllable words, like I think and talk), and has 57 FIVE STAR reviews!
Hey Steve,
I don’t normally write or leave comments, hardly ever to be honest.
You are spot on with your assessment and insights of “below the line and above the line”. This exact thing that you describe in your video (One Big Lesson from Toys R Us) happened to me and my company for a number of years and my aftermarket automotive company nearly went broke in late 2005 (44 staff), the pain of that was intense.
If it wasn’t for that fact that we about searching for a business/marketing mentor, then going to work learning all about marketing and then implementing that marketing (Fast) we would have gone broke BIG time. It took a bunch of years and hard work to dig our way out of that shitty dark place! We had a commodity and no marketplace differentiation, we looked like eveyone else selling into that market place. And this is exactly why your readership should hire somebody just like you. Marketing saved my life, my home and my business! Steve you might be interested to know that over a seven year period that marketing was worth “Additional” $14.5 million dollars in sales and we pretty much dominated over our competitors over that period, we hit them hard.
Lastly, back then I paid a lot of dumb tax, money that should have been spent on someone like you… (an expert) any business owner not doing the Marketing in their business should seek help from you and they shouldn’t put it off until tomorrow… it might be just too late by then.
Seriously the Marketing is the best and most fun part of any business.
Thank you for all the great stuff you pump out and I love your book Uncopyable!
Best Regards
Mark Selbst, (Melbourne Australia)
Wow, Mark! Quite a story. I’m glad you’re still standing and found the power of committing to “above the line!”
Many thanks for sharing.
Steve
Steve, video will not play
Mike, try a different browser, or clear your cache.
Loved this video. I was head cashier at the Tacoma Toys R Us store when it opened in the early 80’s. My customer service team and I were in charge of the Cabbage Patch waitlist in Tacoma. I joke about being the most powerful group of women in Tacoma at the time! I even negotiated a great price on a brand new truck based on getting the manager at Titus Will a Cabbage Patch Doll!
I worked for them for 5 years. I left as well as many other employees when they took first took away our Mon-Fri shift saying everyone works weekends in retail. Then started chopping away at our benefits.
They grew fast and did not research their locations before building their stores that ended up empty soon after.
Sad to see TRU go away but completely understand why.
I’m with you, Simone! Going to miss TRU.
Thanks for sharing.
Steve
PS: I was extremely popular, especially to my two god-daughters because I had an inside connection to get them both Cabbage Patch dolls!