Lessons to be learned from yesteryear’s quiz shows
By Gordon Hecht, YSN Contributor
Get a bunch of Gen Xers and baby boomers together and the conversation will turn to how great it was to be young in the last quarter of the last century.
During the summer we rode our bicycles wearing flip flops. No helmets. We drank out of the garden hose and played outside until the streetlights came on. We drank Bartles & Jaymes right out of the bottle.
School started the day after Labor Day. Never in August! After school we’d flip on the boob tube and choose between a half-dozen channels.
Prior to the time when we wanted our MTV, game shows ruled the afternoon airwaves. Contestants would win fabulous prizes like trash compactors, hot-air corn poppers or video cassette recorders. See if you can recall some of these TV programs:
Press Your Luck
Hosted by Peter Tomarken, players navigated a game board filled with cash and prizes while avoiding the dreaded Whammies.
There are a lot of Whammies in the retail world these days. Retailers who don’t have a strong digital advertising presence and an engaging website are also playing a game of Press Your Luck.
Print, traditional TV and mailers are OK. But people from 8 to 88 peck away on their phones or laptops when researching merchandise and where to buy it. Retailers who post “Call for price” don’t have to press their luck. It just ran out.
Sale of the Century
Led by Jim Perry, this show featured lighting fast questions and answers. Players accumulated $5 per correct answer. They could use that cash to buy stereo consoles or fur coats at pennies on the dollar. Prizes that would sell for $1,000 in the 1980s would be priced at $10 to $15. A remarkable value indeed!
You convert shoppers into buyers at the point that they believe your merchandise is worth more than the money in their pocket. They will say “yes” when you prove that the $999 mattress will provide at least $1,001 in comfort.
Value is not added through features. But showing how features add benefits to your shoppers’ lives will build value. Understand the benefits that your shopper needs and couple it with the features of your products. Once you jam-pack the merchandise with value, the sale is easy.
Family Feud
Premiering in the Bicentennial year of 1976, this game show continues today, nearly 50 years later. Original host Richard Dawson has been followed by five successive stars. (Can you name them?) The premise of the contest: two family teams of five members each compete to answer survey questions. The higher-scoring family plays a lightening round for fast money, up to $5,000.
In store count, the mattress, furniture and appliance businesses are dominated by family-owned showrooms. Many dealers are on their second or third generation of leadership.
Many adult children and grandchildren enjoy the challenges of operating the family retail empire. Many do not.
This is the day to plan the future. Call a family roundtable. Topics to discuss include:
- Where do we want to be in 2025 and 2030?
- What is the financial health of the company?
- Who wants in? Who wants out?
- What role will each family member assume?
- What is our exit strategy? Do we sell the business, and who will buy it?
- Do we grow or contract our store count?
- A fair and open conversation on compensation for family members.
Addressing these matters in a peaceful setting can avoid the war when decisions must be made under duress.
The Match Game
There were two iterations of the show: A serious Q&A version in the 1960s and a somewhat tawdry re-do in the 1970s. Gene Rayburn hosted both.
Contestants and six panelists were given a scenario. They had to secretly fill in a blank with a one- or two-word answer. After the contestant revealed their reply, panelists displayed their response. The player scored a point for each matching answer.
Retail store leaders play a Match Game every day. We display great merchandise at fair prices. We include a big bundle of services. And then we are asked to match the lower price at another store or website.
Price matching is not new. We retailers love to run the race to the bottom. Almost all of us have promoted “Lowest price guaranteed” or “Our prices can’t be beat.” From the first time two stores opened in the same town to the advent of that Interworld Webby Thing, some shopper is going to ask you to match a competitive price.
I am not a fan of price matching. It doesn’t make sense. If the other guy or gal is selling the same item at the same price with the same service and guarantees, why didn’t the shopper just buy it?
Something has to be different. And don’t fall for the “I’d rather give the local store the business” line that your shopper feeds you.
Over my retail career, I made it a point to challenge the price match request. When a shopper would ask, my reply was “Store/website X is selling this same item with the same service for $XXX? That sounds like a great deal, why didn’t you buy it?”
The replies I got included:
- Store X was out of stock.
- Store X charges more for delivery and install.
- The one at Store X was a damaged floor sample.
- Store X didn’t have the color I wanted.
- I didn’t want to order online because I couldn’t try it out.
- My credit was not approved at Store X.
- Store X doesn’t take Amex and you do.
In each case I had a demonstrable value advantage. Often the added value was more than the price difference. I held my price and closed the sale.
There are very few afternoon game shows on TV these days. The 2 p.m.-5 p.m. slots are taken up by talk shows and soap operas.
But if you watched the original broadcasts, you learned more than silly trivia and a greed for consumer goods. You learned strategy, quickness, grace under pressure and how to recover from an incorrect response.
All important skills in the retail games we play today.
Gordon Hecht is a business growth and development consultant to the retail home furnishings industry and a regular contributor to YSN. You can reach him at Gordon.Hecht@aol.com.
