July 25, 2024 • 20 mins
Kurt Brown is the President of Brown’s Enterprises in Washington, MO & 3rd Generation Businessman. He joined BE after graduating in 2003 from Fontbonne University. Kurt and his wife of 12 years, Liz, have 3 children. Kurt’s goals are to strengthen his business by providing a quality and healthy work environment for his staff. In his spare time, he serves the community and cares deeply for children and animals. Kurt is on the executive board of the Wildwood YMCA, fundraises for the Franklin County Humane Society, Five Acres Animal Shelter & Toys for Tots.
His focus is helping others achieve what they want to accomplish by providing the best quality footwear for the best value. “If I can do that, my mark will be made, even if it goes unnoticed“
His focus is helping others achieve what they want to accomplish by providing the best quality footwear for the best value. “If I can do that, my mark will be made, even if it goes unnoticed“
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hey, hey, hey, hey, there you are. How many do
we have? We have two?We have a dancer here guy, yea,
I will be talking all right,Well, then you're good to go.
I'm good already, got us rolling. Look at this. Thank you.
(00:26):
I had so many issues left.So I'm just gonna I'll be emailing
you when I'm going perfect yay,okay, no, no, no no.
You're gonna pull that mic to youand see how it. Oh it
sounds. Yes, Kurt Brown?One two three, Hello Kurt Brown?
(00:48):
How are you? Hello? Howare you doing? I'm doing wonderful.
You know, we're just gonna starttalking if that's cool with you. I'm
cool with talking. So this isa CEO, as you should know.
And here's the thing. I gothis first start off by saying this.
Yes, your new Balance stores areto me what every business should be like
AND's not. And it's been likethat even before the pandemic. You guys
(01:11):
have always taken care of every oneof your customers. I went to the
one in Creeve Corps years ago whenI first moved here many years ago.
Uh huh. So I just wantto start by saying thank you for being
so great and as a business andbeing a local business. That is just
something that I think other businesses shouldbe like, Well, thank you,
(01:32):
yeah, and thanks for coming into give us a chance to earn your
business, you know. I mean, we wouldn't be around for coming on
seventy five years in the shoe businessthanks to my grandparents, you know,
and then of course my mom anddad, and of course all of the
people that have given us a chanceto help them and their families. I
love that. Let's start at thebeginning. Ok. Okay, So you
(01:53):
are Kurt Brown. Kurt Brown,so simple and how many years ago?
Seventy seventy four now seventy five nextyear. My grandparents opened up our first
shoe store in nineteen fifty out inWashington, Missouri, which is where we
still have our family owned and operatedstore. It's called Brown's Shoe Center,
(02:20):
and it's on Highway forty seven,just north of Highway one hundred. I
love this, and I know manyof your listeners. I know this area
of town because it's much closer nowthan it ever has been before. So
that was your flagship, your firststore, your grandparents first store, right,
Yes, yes, our family's firstshoe store was in or is in
(02:45):
Washington, Missouri Brown's Shoe Center.Isn't that crazy? And so then what
happened after that? When did it? When did they go, Okay,
you know what we're doing. Okay, let's open a second one. Well,
it didn't really go like that.I love these stories to tell.
Sure, sure, Well, youknow, my grandfather passed away in nineteen
(03:05):
sixty nine, left my grandmother youknow, alone, right, and she
tried to do her best at thetime, you know, from sixty nine
to nineteen eighty, which is whenmy dad joined the family business. He
for five years he was a MissouriState Highway patrolman and started to have a
family, and at that point intime, he realized that was not the
(03:27):
career for him, being away fromhis family holidays, birthdays and so on
and so forth. So he andmy mom were like, look, you
know, let's move back home.My mom was a teacher, so she
knew she could find gain full employmentanywhere, and my dad didn't really know
what he wanted to do. Sohe realized that my grandmother was alone,
(03:49):
not really knowing where to turn orwhat to do, and that eventually that
store would just dissolve unless he gotyou know in there and started to learn
about the shoe business. And sothat he did, and so that's really
kind of the next step of ourevolution. Luckily he did his research and
came across an organization. But Idon't know if I should say this,
(04:14):
because you know, there's a lotof other family shoe stores out there that
need help, which I do wantto help. It's called the National Shoe
Retailing Association. So my dad hadfound the NSRA National Shoe Retailing Association,
and they essentially taught him everything aboutthe shoe business that he had no idea
of. And that's an amazing thingthat you just shared. Oh my goodness.
(04:38):
Yeah, and we are looking fornew members. So that was more
or less a bad joke, youknow, of not wanting to share an
organization. I mean, that's sogreat. Oh, it does so great.
So changed your life and just thinkof when you the domino effect of
how many lives you've changed over theyears just with your stores and your and
what you've done. Yes, andit's for one store owners, it's for
(05:01):
multiple door owners. And we havea you know, an annual you know
conference of course throughout the year,and we have additionally, you know more
meetings and little you know, webcastsand things like that that are educational in
nature about the vision and the directionand the fashion of the shoe business.
(05:23):
Because there's many aspects of shoes,you know, the ones that are cute,
the ones that are pointing at thetoes, the ones that are supportive
or durable for working or you know, living or exercising. And I mean
shoes, you know, are veryinteresting because there's a lot of different directions
you can go with shoes. Ialways say you could definitely tell a person
(05:45):
by looking at their shoes immediately,you know, And I know that sounds
horrible, but we as humans judgepeople within six seconds. We can't open
And I just I love shoes.I'm a shoeholic, so you know,
I'm I'm your client. But Ididn't even know that that this existed for
shoes. I mean there's so muchObviously you need them to exercise and to
(06:06):
run and all that, but they'refashion. They helped to put who your
personality is. They yeah, absolutely, and it's fun, especially now more
than ever in the athletic shoe businessbecause those two things have never been mixed
together as well as they are beingand created right now. It's so true.
(06:29):
In fact, when I came inthe last time and you helped me,
I love that you coordinated my shoeswith what I was wearing. You
could tell, oh you knew,and you did you picked out the perfect
pair of shoes. Well, yeah, they were absolutely the right ones for
your feet and the activities that youwere wanting to participate in. I'm talking
about the fashion, but that too, well, you gave me the great
canvas, you know, the youknow, the snug black top, the
(06:54):
snug black bottoms. I clearly knewthat we needed to go with black,
you know, and we mixed ina little touch of red, I believe,
if my memory is correct. Yes, and oh good, good,
good good. And I do myworkouts and uh, in fact, I'm
putting together video which people will beable to see along with listening to this
and uh with you in the storedoing a little bit of that. And
(07:16):
also I had to add in myvirtual reality workout because people don't believe it's
a workout, and boy is it. And so in my new new balanced
shoes there, it's amazing. Sothank you. Well, do me a
favor and focus on you and notme, because I'm a site for sore
eyes. No what, your yourknowledge is amazing. So and speaking of
(07:36):
which, so you let's fast forwardnow this show. How did you get
involved? You are the CEO,You're the how what what is your title?
Besides I do it just about everythingto help run it. I'm the
president of our company, which iscalled Brown's Enterprises, Inc. And we're
based out of Washington, Missouri.We have multiple shoe stores through out Missouri
(08:01):
and Kansas, and so you knowright now we are steady at four brick
and mortar stores, and we dohave an online presence. And you want
to see where your stores are sureof course, yeah. Yes. Our
original store, as we've touched on, is in Washington, Missouri. That's
(08:22):
called Brown Shoe Center. We havetwo stores in Saint Louis. One is
in Richmond Heights. That name ofthat store is New Balance Richmond Heights.
That's mine. It's at twelve ohfive South Big Bend, right at Highway
forty and Big Bend. Then wego a little north and a little west
to Creve Core. So that storeis named New Balance Creve Core. It's
(08:46):
located in City Place. That's myfirst one. And then we go four
hours west to Overland Park, Kansas. The name of that store, New
Balance, Overland Park. I loveit. I love this. I love
that you employ I mean, howmany employees do you have now? Locally?
(09:07):
I can say, well, I'mgoing to say forty, you know,
forty plus or minus, and it'sbeen as many as sixty. Uh.
You know, the the shoe storesnaturally, they have leases, and
you know there's times where we youknow, we wax and we wane things
like that within a business. Soyou know, any everywhere you open up
a store, it's not a homerun, you know. And it's not
(09:30):
like you could just hire you trainpeople. I mean, these people that
work there are really customers. Yeah, I'm looking at a book that looks
like it's not manual manual that looksabout what two hundred pages through pages.
It's like a telephone book, yes, because you're about customer service and so
yeah, it is like a phonebook. But and so, but I've
noticed your employees are happy, whichis really important. They are happy.
(09:52):
You know. That was a big, a big learning. Uh. Touch
point that my father passed on tome is that the most important people for
our business, or really in ourbusiness is our staff, so you know,
we got to really focus on themin order for all of your listeners
(10:13):
to have a great experience in ourstore. So that's our you know,
those are the first people that we'vegot to take care of and support and
give them an opportunity to grow andsucceed. And then naturally that kind of
sets the table for a nice interactionwhen your listeners decide to give us a
(10:33):
chance to earn their business. AndI know you said you do. You
do have a presence online? Whatis your online online? It's a little
tricky because we use words that haveor can be spelled multiple ways, which
we're kind of trying to figure outa way to work out of that,
but currently it is where feet loveUs dot com. But I can just
(10:56):
say this, if you can getin to the store, that's the best
thing. That's what really is theimportant thing, because that's when you really
see all those years in your family'sbusiness, honing, honing what you do
for customers and to get the rightshoe and the right fit. Yes,
we're not an online company, right, you're available, but don't go online,
(11:20):
go in the stores. Yeah,we're we're not transactional in nature.
We're more relational, yes, andwe can do a better job of that.
And really, you know, linkup with you and look at look
you in the eyes, and notonly tell you how much we care,
but show you how much we care. You know, we've got to be
(11:41):
high tech, but we also haveto be high touch. And there's no
better way to you know, toconduct business than face to face. I
love that. I mean, you'vejust said it all. And by the
way, each person is, it'san experience. You go there, there's
that thing you get on with yourfeet. What does that called where you
put your feet on some Yeah,so the metal one that's called a Brannic,
(12:01):
that cold hard measuring device that weuse that's been used since the gosh
nineteen hundred's for sure still works,Yeah, still works. It's great,
it's great. Now things have evolved, as you found out. Now we
use a three dimensional pressure plate footscanner, which you know, helps us
(12:24):
really educate the customer about the thingsthat this book tells our staff right when
they really dive into that. Andof course that is all about the feet,
the foot shape, the arch type, the pressure points, any foot
pathologies that someone may have anything fromyou know, just I want to exercise
(12:46):
more to I've got this one toethat does this one thing, or my
heel hurts in the morning and inthe evening, or you know what's up
with this arch, you know.And so there's a lot of things that
people do with and we're able tohelp, you know, We're able to
help with that. And and againyou can't get that, you can't get
that online. And that's when Ilearned a lot about my feet, a
(13:11):
lot, and and the shoes Iended up with. It's like you were
this magician. I don't know how, and all of the staff is like
that, it's amazing. Yeah,it's really fun to help people, you
know. And and when you runinto someone who you know pays attention and
wants to help you, you don'thave to you know, you don't have
to see it or know it,because you feel it, you know.
(13:37):
And there's a couple of things.You feel it, you realize it,
you understand it, and then youstart to get it, and then you're
like, well, why would Igo anywhere else? It's so true.
My grandmother said it takes years toearn a customer, and it takes seconds
to lose one. Wow, Soyou know if you have ever had a
you know, recently a bad interactionstore or an online purchase. I mean,
(14:03):
this is a great opportunity for meto say, hey, come to
the New Balance store, you know, come to Brown Shoes Center. We're
here to help you. Awesome.Thank you so much. Yeah, thank
you. This is fun. Iloved it. I didn't even look at
these questions here did I need them? You don't need them again Browns And
(14:24):
I keep saying new Balance store becausethat's what I call it. Thank you
so much, Kurt, Yes,thank you. We appreciate the opportunity and
everything you guys do in this community. Thank you. Well, we love
this community and many others. Good. I mean it's just I know I
didn't look at the thing, butoh yeah, we should do that.
(14:50):
Okay, so you say that though, right, Okay, yes, m
h yeah, I even have iton here, which is no. I
am glad. Yeah, community,everyone we like to help in Oh yeah,
(15:18):
oh huge, okay, so's Ican I totally know how to segue
into it. Sorry, I wassorry. To the production crew who's going
to be working on this. Wehave something in common? Yes, what's
that? When I was five yearsold, I wrote to the Humane Society
and said, thank you for allyou do. Oh, you guys do
(15:41):
a lot of good. And Ibelieve that is one of the many charitable
charitable companies. I guess it wouldbe charitable or it's one of the many
charitable organizations that you work with.It is, it is, and it's
not. It's not just centered aroundthe Humane Society. Really, it's pets
and animals in general. You know, the Humane The Humane Society does wonderful
(16:06):
work. And there's also many otherorganizations, whether they're nonprofit, for profit,
you know, straight rescue, yes, non kill shelters, other you
know. Really there's a lot ofbig hearts in this community. And naturally
I want to use our business asa vehicle to support others within our community.
(16:33):
So uh and I do it,you know, out of the goodness
of my heart, but also alittle bit selfishly to train and teach my
kids about being philanthropics. So,you know, I use our business and
it's storefronts and it's cash registers rightto the best of our ability to support
others. And so my kids andI make these homemade dog bones and we
(16:59):
put them and then put them ina zip lock bag and you know there's
there's one big bone and four smallones, and we put them up at
the register and just ask for adonation, a donation of who whatever you
want to give, you know.Sometimes it's a dollar, sometimes it's none,
sometimes it's ten or twenty, youknow. But most importantly, it
gives us an opportunity to connect withthose people that are in our store,
(17:22):
connect with our community that's in ourstore where we're not really selling them something,
we're working together to help someone else. I'd forgotten. You just reminded
me because my son at the beginningof the pandemic, Leo. He we
rescued. Bndy is her name,and I remember going into your store and
buying Bendy some of those you don'tnot buying, but donating England and then
(17:47):
finding all about from the person who'sworking the register and helped me out.
Great person in Creef Corps. Andthey're going, yeah, this is what
it supports. I go, wait, these are homemade. That's so cool.
Bindy loved them, by the way, I bet she did. And
what a great thing to teach yourkids. Yeah, they have a fun
time with it. And also too, it's a cookie that I don't mind
giving them. There's no sugar,you know, I wanted to eat it.
(18:11):
Could have you certainly could have.I love that you do that.
What other kind of charities do youguys do? Oh my goodness, Well
we also you know, pets andchildren are really our big interest groups,
you know, because whether you gottwo legs or four legs, we want
to help you. So the onesthat need that are the most vulnerable with
(18:33):
pets and children, vulnerable, influential, you know, those those aspects,
they just need, they need ahelping hand, and we want to do
everything we can do to help themwith your we do. Yeah, we
love KASA. CASA is one ofthose organizations that, gosh, you could
(18:56):
give and give and give and give, and they're always looking for other people
to help. So yeah, costis great organizations. Yeah, thank you
for helping so much. It's fantastic. It's our pleasure. We're in a
good spot to do it. Soand New Balance just want of many store
or many products. You also havebooks, I mean this we're talking national
(19:17):
stuff. Yeah, so that's that'skind of At our Brown's Shoe center in
Washington, we're a multi store company. But then also at the New Balance
stores. It's New Balance only,and so you know, one thing that
you know, one thing that wetry to get people's attention on is specifically
(19:37):
New Balance. New Balance is realhot right now, not only I mean
not only for the good quality shoesthat they make. Some shoes are made
in the United States of America.Other shoes, of course, are high
lifestyle and fashion that we talked about. And so we've just naturally just kind
of worked our way into Seguang nationallyknown, low locally owned. You just
(20:02):
nailed it. Thank you so much. Thank you like the way that
Hey, hey, hey, hey, there you are. How many do
we have? We have two?We have a dancer here guy, yea,
I will be talking all right,Well, then you're good to go.
I'm good already, got us rolling. Look at this. Thank you.
(00:26):
I had so many issues left.So I'm just gonna I'll be emailing
you when I'm going perfect yay,okay, no, no, no no.
You're gonna pull that mic to youand see how it. Oh it
sounds. Yes, Kurt Brown?One two three, Hello Kurt Brown?
(00:48):
How are you? Hello? Howare you doing? I'm doing wonderful.
You know, we're just gonna starttalking if that's cool with you. I'm
cool with talking. So this isa CEO, as you should know.
And here's the thing. I gothis first start off by saying this.
Yes, your new Balance stores areto me what every business should be like
AND's not. And it's been likethat even before the pandemic. You guys
(01:11):
have always taken care of every oneof your customers. I went to the
one in Creeve Corps years ago whenI first moved here many years ago.
Uh huh. So I just wantto start by saying thank you for being
so great and as a business andbeing a local business. That is just
something that I think other businesses shouldbe like, Well, thank you,
(01:32):
yeah, and thanks for coming into give us a chance to earn your
business, you know. I mean, we wouldn't be around for coming on
seventy five years in the shoe businessthanks to my grandparents, you know,
and then of course my mom anddad, and of course all of the
people that have given us a chanceto help them and their families. I
love that. Let's start at thebeginning. Ok. Okay, So you
(01:53):
are Kurt Brown. Kurt Brown,so simple and how many years ago?
Seventy seventy four now seventy five nextyear. My grandparents opened up our first
shoe store in nineteen fifty out inWashington, Missouri, which is where we
still have our family owned and operatedstore. It's called Brown's Shoe Center,
(02:20):
and it's on Highway forty seven,just north of Highway one hundred. I
love this, and I know manyof your listeners. I know this area
of town because it's much closer nowthan it ever has been before. So
that was your flagship, your firststore, your grandparents first store, right,
Yes, yes, our family's firstshoe store was in or is in
(02:45):
Washington, Missouri Brown's Shoe Center.Isn't that crazy? And so then what
happened after that? When did it? When did they go, Okay,
you know what we're doing. Okay, let's open a second one. Well,
it didn't really go like that.I love these stories to tell.
Sure, sure, Well, youknow, my grandfather passed away in nineteen
(03:05):
sixty nine, left my grandmother youknow, alone, right, and she
tried to do her best at thetime, you know, from sixty nine
to nineteen eighty, which is whenmy dad joined the family business. He
for five years he was a MissouriState Highway patrolman and started to have a
family, and at that point intime, he realized that was not the
(03:27):
career for him, being away fromhis family holidays, birthdays and so on
and so forth. So he andmy mom were like, look, you
know, let's move back home.My mom was a teacher, so she
knew she could find gain full employmentanywhere, and my dad didn't really know
what he wanted to do. Sohe realized that my grandmother was alone,
(03:49):
not really knowing where to turn orwhat to do, and that eventually that
store would just dissolve unless he gotyou know in there and started to learn
about the shoe business. And sothat he did, and so that's really
kind of the next step of ourevolution. Luckily he did his research and
came across an organization. But Idon't know if I should say this,
(04:14):
because you know, there's a lotof other family shoe stores out there that
need help, which I do wantto help. It's called the National Shoe
Retailing Association. So my dad hadfound the NSRA National Shoe Retailing Association,
and they essentially taught him everything aboutthe shoe business that he had no idea
of. And that's an amazing thingthat you just shared. Oh my goodness.
(04:38):
Yeah, and we are looking fornew members. So that was more
or less a bad joke, youknow, of not wanting to share an
organization. I mean, that's sogreat. Oh, it does so great.
So changed your life and just thinkof when you the domino effect of
how many lives you've changed over theyears just with your stores and your and
what you've done. Yes, andit's for one store owners, it's for
(05:01):
multiple door owners. And we havea you know, an annual you know
conference of course throughout the year,and we have additionally, you know more
meetings and little you know, webcastsand things like that that are educational in
nature about the vision and the directionand the fashion of the shoe business.
(05:23):
Because there's many aspects of shoes,you know, the ones that are cute,
the ones that are pointing at thetoes, the ones that are supportive
or durable for working or you know, living or exercising. And I mean
shoes, you know, are veryinteresting because there's a lot of different directions
you can go with shoes. Ialways say you could definitely tell a person
(05:45):
by looking at their shoes immediately,you know, And I know that sounds
horrible, but we as humans judgepeople within six seconds. We can't open
And I just I love shoes.I'm a shoeholic, so you know,
I'm I'm your client. But Ididn't even know that that this existed for
shoes. I mean there's so muchObviously you need them to exercise and to
(06:06):
run and all that, but they'refashion. They helped to put who your
personality is. They yeah, absolutely, and it's fun, especially now more
than ever in the athletic shoe businessbecause those two things have never been mixed
together as well as they are beingand created right now. It's so true.
(06:29):
In fact, when I came inthe last time and you helped me,
I love that you coordinated my shoeswith what I was wearing. You
could tell, oh you knew,and you did you picked out the perfect
pair of shoes. Well, yeah, they were absolutely the right ones for
your feet and the activities that youwere wanting to participate in. I'm talking
about the fashion, but that too, well, you gave me the great
canvas, you know, the youknow, the snug black top, the
(06:54):
snug black bottoms. I clearly knewthat we needed to go with black,
you know, and we mixed ina little touch of red, I believe,
if my memory is correct. Yes, and oh good, good,
good good. And I do myworkouts and uh, in fact, I'm
putting together video which people will beable to see along with listening to this
and uh with you in the storedoing a little bit of that. And
(07:16):
also I had to add in myvirtual reality workout because people don't believe it's
a workout, and boy is it. And so in my new new balanced
shoes there, it's amazing. Sothank you. Well, do me a
favor and focus on you and notme, because I'm a site for sore
eyes. No what, your yourknowledge is amazing. So and speaking of
(07:36):
which, so you let's fast forwardnow this show. How did you get
involved? You are the CEO,You're the how what what is your title?
Besides I do it just about everythingto help run it. I'm the
president of our company, which iscalled Brown's Enterprises, Inc. And we're
based out of Washington, Missouri.We have multiple shoe stores through out Missouri
(08:01):
and Kansas, and so you knowright now we are steady at four brick
and mortar stores, and we dohave an online presence. And you want
to see where your stores are sureof course, yeah. Yes. Our
original store, as we've touched on, is in Washington, Missouri. That's
(08:22):
called Brown Shoe Center. We havetwo stores in Saint Louis. One is
in Richmond Heights. That name ofthat store is New Balance Richmond Heights.
That's mine. It's at twelve ohfive South Big Bend, right at Highway
forty and Big Bend. Then wego a little north and a little west
to Creve Core. So that storeis named New Balance Creve Core. It's
(08:46):
located in City Place. That's myfirst one. And then we go four
hours west to Overland Park, Kansas. The name of that store, New
Balance, Overland Park. I loveit. I love this. I love
that you employ I mean, howmany employees do you have now? Locally?
(09:07):
I can say, well, I'mgoing to say forty, you know,
forty plus or minus, and it'sbeen as many as sixty. Uh.
You know, the the shoe storesnaturally, they have leases, and
you know there's times where we youknow, we wax and we wane things
like that within a business. Soyou know, any everywhere you open up
a store, it's not a homerun, you know. And it's not
(09:30):
like you could just hire you trainpeople. I mean, these people that
work there are really customers. Yeah, I'm looking at a book that looks
like it's not manual manual that looksabout what two hundred pages through pages.
It's like a telephone book, yes, because you're about customer service and so
yeah, it is like a phonebook. But and so, but I've
noticed your employees are happy, whichis really important. They are happy.
(09:52):
You know. That was a big, a big learning. Uh. Touch
point that my father passed on tome is that the most important people for
our business, or really in ourbusiness is our staff, so you know,
we got to really focus on themin order for all of your listeners
(10:13):
to have a great experience in ourstore. So that's our you know,
those are the first people that we'vegot to take care of and support and
give them an opportunity to grow andsucceed. And then naturally that kind of
sets the table for a nice interactionwhen your listeners decide to give us a
(10:33):
chance to earn their business. AndI know you said you do. You
do have a presence online? Whatis your online online? It's a little
tricky because we use words that haveor can be spelled multiple ways, which
we're kind of trying to figure outa way to work out of that,
but currently it is where feet loveUs dot com. But I can just
(10:56):
say this, if you can getin to the store, that's the best
thing. That's what really is theimportant thing, because that's when you really
see all those years in your family'sbusiness, honing, honing what you do
for customers and to get the rightshoe and the right fit. Yes,
we're not an online company, right, you're available, but don't go online,
(11:20):
go in the stores. Yeah,we're we're not transactional in nature.
We're more relational, yes, andwe can do a better job of that.
And really, you know, linkup with you and look at look
you in the eyes, and notonly tell you how much we care,
but show you how much we care. You know, we've got to be
(11:41):
high tech, but we also haveto be high touch. And there's no
better way to you know, toconduct business than face to face. I
love that. I mean, you'vejust said it all. And by the
way, each person is, it'san experience. You go there, there's
that thing you get on with yourfeet. What does that called where you
put your feet on some Yeah,so the metal one that's called a Brannic,
(12:01):
that cold hard measuring device that weuse that's been used since the gosh
nineteen hundred's for sure still works,Yeah, still works. It's great,
it's great. Now things have evolved, as you found out. Now we
use a three dimensional pressure plate footscanner, which you know, helps us
(12:24):
really educate the customer about the thingsthat this book tells our staff right when
they really dive into that. Andof course that is all about the feet,
the foot shape, the arch type, the pressure points, any foot
pathologies that someone may have anything fromyou know, just I want to exercise
(12:46):
more to I've got this one toethat does this one thing, or my
heel hurts in the morning and inthe evening, or you know what's up
with this arch, you know.And so there's a lot of things that
people do with and we're able tohelp, you know, We're able to
help with that. And and againyou can't get that, you can't get
that online. And that's when Ilearned a lot about my feet, a
(13:11):
lot, and and the shoes Iended up with. It's like you were
this magician. I don't know how, and all of the staff is like
that, it's amazing. Yeah,it's really fun to help people, you
know. And and when you runinto someone who you know pays attention and
wants to help you, you don'thave to you know, you don't have
to see it or know it,because you feel it, you know.
(13:37):
And there's a couple of things.You feel it, you realize it,
you understand it, and then youstart to get it, and then you're
like, well, why would Igo anywhere else? It's so true.
My grandmother said it takes years toearn a customer, and it takes seconds
to lose one. Wow, Soyou know if you have ever had a
you know, recently a bad interactionstore or an online purchase. I mean,
(14:03):
this is a great opportunity for meto say, hey, come to
the New Balance store, you know, come to Brown Shoes Center. We're
here to help you. Awesome.Thank you so much. Yeah, thank
you. This is fun. Iloved it. I didn't even look at
these questions here did I need them? You don't need them again Browns And
(14:24):
I keep saying new Balance store becausethat's what I call it. Thank you
so much, Kurt, Yes,thank you. We appreciate the opportunity and
everything you guys do in this community. Thank you. Well, we love
this community and many others. Good. I mean it's just I know I
didn't look at the thing, butoh yeah, we should do that.
(14:50):
Okay, so you say that though, right, Okay, yes, m
h yeah, I even have iton here, which is no. I
am glad. Yeah, community,everyone we like to help in Oh yeah,
(15:18):
oh huge, okay, so's Ican I totally know how to segue
into it. Sorry, I wassorry. To the production crew who's going
to be working on this. Wehave something in common? Yes, what's
that? When I was five yearsold, I wrote to the Humane Society
and said, thank you for allyou do. Oh, you guys do
(15:41):
a lot of good. And Ibelieve that is one of the many charitable
charitable companies. I guess it wouldbe charitable or it's one of the many
charitable organizations that you work with.It is, it is, and it's
not. It's not just centered aroundthe Humane Society. Really, it's pets
and animals in general. You know, the Humane The Humane Society does wonderful
(16:06):
work. And there's also many otherorganizations, whether they're nonprofit, for profit,
you know, straight rescue, yes, non kill shelters, other you
know. Really there's a lot ofbig hearts in this community. And naturally
I want to use our business asa vehicle to support others within our community.
(16:33):
So uh and I do it,you know, out of the goodness
of my heart, but also alittle bit selfishly to train and teach my
kids about being philanthropics. So,you know, I use our business and
it's storefronts and it's cash registers rightto the best of our ability to support
others. And so my kids andI make these homemade dog bones and we
(16:59):
put them and then put them ina zip lock bag and you know there's
there's one big bone and four smallones, and we put them up at
the register and just ask for adonation, a donation of who whatever you
want to give, you know.Sometimes it's a dollar, sometimes it's none,
sometimes it's ten or twenty, youknow. But most importantly, it
gives us an opportunity to connect withthose people that are in our store,
(17:22):
connect with our community that's in ourstore where we're not really selling them something,
we're working together to help someone else. I'd forgotten. You just reminded
me because my son at the beginningof the pandemic, Leo. He we
rescued. Bndy is her name,and I remember going into your store and
buying Bendy some of those you don'tnot buying, but donating England and then
(17:47):
finding all about from the person who'sworking the register and helped me out.
Great person in Creef Corps. Andthey're going, yeah, this is what
it supports. I go, wait, these are homemade. That's so cool.
Bindy loved them, by the way, I bet she did. And
what a great thing to teach yourkids. Yeah, they have a fun
time with it. And also too, it's a cookie that I don't mind
giving them. There's no sugar,you know, I wanted to eat it.
(18:11):
Could have you certainly could have.I love that you do that.
What other kind of charities do youguys do? Oh my goodness, Well
we also you know, pets andchildren are really our big interest groups,
you know, because whether you gottwo legs or four legs, we want
to help you. So the onesthat need that are the most vulnerable with
(18:33):
pets and children, vulnerable, influential, you know, those those aspects,
they just need, they need ahelping hand, and we want to do
everything we can do to help themwith your we do. Yeah, we
love KASA. CASA is one ofthose organizations that, gosh, you could
(18:56):
give and give and give and give, and they're always looking for other people
to help. So yeah, costis great organizations. Yeah, thank you
for helping so much. It's fantastic. It's our pleasure. We're in a
good spot to do it. Soand New Balance just want of many store
or many products. You also havebooks, I mean this we're talking national
(19:17):
stuff. Yeah, so that's that'skind of At our Brown's Shoe center in
Washington, we're a multi store company. But then also at the New Balance
stores. It's New Balance only,and so you know, one thing that
you know, one thing that wetry to get people's attention on is specifically
(19:37):
New Balance. New Balance is realhot right now, not only I mean
not only for the good quality shoesthat they make. Some shoes are made
in the United States of America.Other shoes, of course, are high
lifestyle and fashion that we talked about. And so we've just naturally just kind
of worked our way into Seguang nationallyknown, low locally owned. You just
(20:02):
nailed it. Thank you so much. Thank you like the way that
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.