March 20, 2025 • 55 mins
Where does true retail innovation happen today? According to Liz Allison, CEO of luxury salon and spa brand Tricoci, it's happening at the intersection of experience and commerce.
Liz's remarkable journey from JCPenney retail trainee to scaling a billion-dollar Sephora business to transforming Neiman Marcus offers a masterclass in retail evolution. Throughout our conversation, she shares candid insights about pivotal career moments that shaped her leadership approach - including the time she dropped her lunch tray during a heated debate with her business partner in the JCPenney cafeteria!
What stands out is how Liz has harnessed the power of experiential retail at Tricoci. By integrating beauty services with product sales, her team achieves retail attachment rates of 50% (compared to the industry standard of just 10%).
Beyond business strategy, Liz offers refreshing perspectives on leadership - from adapting her extroverted style to make space for introverted team members to helping high-performers advance their careers (even when that means leaving the company). Her approach builds lasting relationships that extend far beyond any single organization.
As traditional retail faces disruption with thousands of stores closing this year alone, Liz's hybrid service-retail model offers a compelling path forward. The future belongs to those who can create emotional connections through personalized experiences while delivering products that resonate.
Ready to make retail cool again? Listen now and discover how merging service with commerce might just be the key to retail's next renaissance.
Liz Allison's Bio
Elizabeth (Liz) Allison is the Chief Executive Officer of Tricoci, a premier luxury salon and spa brand with 13 full-service locations across the Chicagoland area. Under her leadership, Tricoci offers elevated hair, skin, body, and nail services, supported by a team of over 1,000 expert beauty and wellness professionals serving nearly 200,000 active clients. Liz is dedicated to evolving the core business and driving growth through strategic transformation, while also overseeing the expansion of the brand's innovative beauty consumer products portfolio.
Before joining Tricoci, Liz was the President of Milan Laser Hair Removal, where she played a key role in scaling the business to become the country's largest laser hair removal company. She also served as the Chief Transformation Officer at Neiman Marcus Group (NMG), leading the company's luxury reinvention and managing NMG's minority investment and strategic partnership with the ultra-luxury re-commerce company FASHIONPHILE, where she also served as a board member. Additionally, Liz held numerous senior executive positions at JCPenney, including Senior Vice President of Sephora, and led the company's billion-dollar e-commerce business.
Liz graduated from the University of Iowa with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting and currently serves on the Tippie College of Business Administration's Marketing Institute Advisory Board. She is a former Advisory Board Member for Women in Retail and was honored with the Top Women in Retail award in 2020.
To check out Tricoci's latest brand launch:
https://nutrire.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Rich (04:01):
This is a great episode and I think you're going to
enjoy it.
Liz takes us through startingoff as a retail trainee when
those programs were very much inforce and her journey through
JCPenney to where she ultimatelyled the Sephora business in
JCPenney, which was, I believe,a billion dollar business, to
(04:24):
leading transformation effortsin Neiman Marcus to where she is
today, which is this wonderfulmerger between retail and
services.
And if you think about all thethings that are going on in
retail today, in the midst ofthe chaos and the transformation
and a lot of the closures andbankruptcies, there are these
(04:45):
wonderful stories and they'rehappening in that intersection
of experience and commerce.
Liz will tell us a little bitabout her adventure here.
Also some great insights whenit comes to team development,
her leadership perspective andhow she looks for and develops
talent.
So stay tuned for this episode.
(05:06):
I think you're really going toenjoy it and we'll see you on
the other side.
Paula (05:10):
Elizabeth Liz Allison is the chief executive officer of
Tricoci, the premier luxurysalon and spa brand with 13 full
service locations across theChicagoland area.
Under her leaderhip, Tricocioffers elevated hair, skin, body
and nail services, supported bya team of over 1,000 expert
beauty and wellnessprofessionals serving nearly
200,000 active clients.
(05:32):
Liz is dedicated to evolvingthe core business and driving
growth through strategictransformation, while also
overseeing the expansion of thebrand's innovative beauty
consumer products portfolio ofbeauty consumer products
portfolio.
Before joining Trocochi, lizwas the president of Milan Laser
Hair Removal, where she playeda key role in scaling the
business to become the country'slargest laser hair removal
company.
She also served as the chieftransformation officer at Neiman
(05:55):
Marcus Group, leading thecompany's luxury reinvention and
managing NMG's minorityinvestment strategic partnership
with an ultraury re-commercecompany, fashionphile, where she
also served as a board member.
Additionally, Liz has heldseveral numerous senior
executive positions at JCPenney,including SVP of Sephora, and
(06:17):
led the company's billion-dollare-commerce business.
That's nothing to just gazeover is leading the company into
a billion-dollar e-commercebusiness.
So Liz graduated from theUniversity of Iowa with a
bachelor's of businessadministration and accounting
and currently serves as theTippie College of Business
Administration's MarketingInstitute Advisory Board.
She's also a former advisoryboard member for women in retail
(06:39):
and was honored with the topwomen in retail award in 2020.
Liz, we are so excited to haveyou with us here at Retail
Relates.
Welcome.
Liz (06:47):
Thank you so much, Paula.
I'm thrilled to be here, HiRich.
Rich (06:50):
How are you doing?
Liz (06:51):
I am outstanding, sir.
It's great to see you.
Rich (06:54):
You probably loved having your bio read, if I know you.
I know Honestly yeah, no, Iknow, I know, but you do have a
really impressive background.
And for everybody, before Paulakicks off the questions, we've
known each other since JCPenney.
Liz (07:14):
We did.
We have known each other.
I don't even know how manyyears it is, but it must have
been back in the late 2000s,maybe.
Rich (07:20):
Yes, and we sat together for a couple of inspiring days
with the CEO at the time andMike Ullman and the CHRO.
We did, and ever since thenI've been a huge fan, so it's a
pleasure to have you on thepodcast.
Liz (07:37):
Likewise, sir, absolutely.
We go way back and you've beena great partner to me in many
different ways in the businessworld, a good friend too.
All right, Paula, take it away.
Paula (07:48):
So we like to start off not asking you the traditional
questions of well, tell me aboutyourself, but more so, tell me
you know what were the threemain pivot points, or pivotal
points in your career or lifethat have led you to where you
are here today?
Liz (08:03):
Yeah, that's such a good question.
You know it's funny the longeryou're in a profession and you
look back on things, there aremoments that you didn't realize
were as important as what theywere, until you're on the other
side of it.
The first one I would say is Igrew up in the Midwest.
I spent all my time in theMidwest, I didn't know anything
but that, and I was working forJCPenney.
(08:30):
I'd been a department manager,ops manager, hr manager,
district buyer, and JCPenney wasgetting ready to go through a
massive transformation.
I didn't know it yet.
They were going fromdecentralized to centralized
buying.
What that meant was like athousand locations were buying
for themselves and then theywere going to have just the
corporate office do it.
And I asked to move to Dallas,texas, to the big city, and be
part of that.
And they had me come down thereand all of a sudden I was 29
(08:51):
and I was in a room full ofreally high-powered executives
for the company and I had apoint of view and I learned to
find my voice while I was theremy voice and I had an opinion
and I had a seat at the tableand I had a little bit of
imposter syndrome.
I won't lie during that timeperiod.
(09:11):
But it was absolutelyincredible to be part of that
transformation and the companywas super resistant at first and
it did work.
So that transformation did work.
Stock price went from next tonothing to about 90 some dollars
to share, I think maybe in the80s I'm not positive, but it was
a great time.
That's the first one.
So that was JCPenney when I wasa baby.
Second one, scaling Sephora andZai JCPenney absolute blast.
We had basically no locations.
(09:34):
It was a joint venture betweenthe two companies.
It wasn't technically a jointventure but it operated like one
.
We took it from nothing toalmost a billion dollar business
in a few years.
So I learned how to scale abusiness which was just.
I'd never done that before.
It was a blast.
And I learned aboutpartnerships there and having
retail partnerships are soimportant and how you treat your
partner, how you build win-winsall of that that was critical
(09:57):
in my career.
And then the last one was thehardest.
It was the chief transformationofficer role at Neiman Marcus.
So if you could envision forthose that know Neiman Marcus,
it was 110, 12, 15-year-oldcompany, brick and mortar based,
and the world had moved,digital.
And so how could we turn thiscompany, with no money to really
(10:18):
pay for it, from an oldbusiness model to a new business
model where we would invest intechnology, and about how to
revolutionize luxury commercefrom an omnichannel perspective.
That was the most rewardingwhen it was over.
It was the hardest when I wasdoing it.
I was talking with a CEO therenot too long ago and he's like
you know that was really great.
(10:39):
What happened?
He's I never want to do itagain.
I'm like same, but I learned aton from it.
So those are the three biggestones for me.
Paula (10:46):
That's really beautiful and I love how you interwove the
stories and I almost feel likeI saw you grow in your career,
as you told that.
Oh, thank you, I did.
So let me ask you one more.
And then, reg, please jump inand please take advantage of the
rich history that you guys have.
Pun intended Definitely want tohear different points of views,
(11:07):
because you guys were in thebattleground together at
JCPenney.
So is this the career youoriginally envisioned?
Is this a direction that youthought your life was going to
take?
Liz (11:17):
No, no, no, no.
This is.
This is the weird to me.
Looking back on this, I'llnever forget this as long as I
live.
My dad was so bad at me, so Iwas getting my degree in
accounting at the University ofIowa because I like answers and
I thought that accounting wasall about.
At the end you get your balanceand you're done.
And I went to my accountingclasses and I went to my
(11:38):
interviews my junior year forinternships.
I didn't like it and I'm like Idon't want to do this.
What do I do?
I wasn't sure what to do.
So I called my dad.
I said hey, listen, I'm goingto go ahead and take an extra
year and do something different.
He's like yeah, no, not on mydime or not?
I'm like what do you mean?
He's like you're going to beout in a year and a half.
(12:00):
You just need to get out in ayear and a half.
So I graduated with anaccounting degree and I was
working at JCPenney part-time.
It's like do you want to be atrainee in our training program?
Like, I guess I don't haveanything else to do.
And so I moved to Omaha,nebraska, as a trainee for
JCPenney and fell in love withretail.
I was like working part-time,like four hours a week, and I
(12:21):
fell in love with the actualretail side of it, and so the
story was made.
I've stayed in retail andconsumer services ever since.
Rich (12:28):
So I'm going to ask you a somewhat of a professional
question and one of the thingsthat I end up doing is saying
I'm going to take notes and takeit back to my team, but I
didn't realize you were in atraining program at JCPenney.
What was it like in those days?
What did you go through?
Liz (12:42):
Well, keep in mind, we were decentralized, so where I was
learning to be a buyer and adepartment manager and then
hopefully a store managersomeday.
That was my ultimate ambitionto run a store in some tiny town
in the Midwest.
The training program was a12-month training program where
we learned how to run anopen-to-buy, how to calculate
gross profit, how much to buy,what sell-through percentages
(13:04):
look like.
So all the same retail maththat exists today did exist back
in the Stone Age.
It was still there.
Same formula, same calculations.
We learned how to buy and thenwe learned how to lead people
was a big part of it, and welearned how to run the
department that we were in.
But it was a 12-month trainingprogram.
When you graduated, you gotyour very first department in a
store.
It was great.
Rich (13:25):
So were you actually on the sales floor, learning retail
at the same time that you werein a physical location?
Liz (13:31):
I was so in the physical location you were a buyer and a
department manager, so I didn'tsell to customers really, unless
I happened to be on the floorworking.
I was more stocking the floor,rearranging the floor.
Visual merchandising wascritically important.
How you merchandise, that's abig part of retail.
It's not just about buying,it's about how do you
merchandise, how do you marketit.
(13:51):
We put together our ownmarketing plan as well, so those
were all facets that I was ableto do in Omaha, nebraska, in my
own little world.
I had the instant department.
It was very fun.
It's exciting.
Paula (14:03):
No, it's very funny how you start entrepreneurial and
now you're also back into thatentrepreneurial space.
So what you learn is alwaysgoing to stay with you.
Liz (14:13):
It's funny that you say that too, because the
entrepreneurial thing I didn'tthink I was and as I came up
through, so you know, jc Penneywas a $20 billion or $18 billion
when I was there.
Then Neiman Marcus was $5billion and when I was at
Neiman's, my role as chieftransformation officer that was
my last role there before I wentinto the job.
I'm like I want to go do my ownthing.
(14:34):
I want to go to a small company.
I love the big company thing,but it's hard to get things done
in big companies.
Rich (14:39):
There's a lot more red tape no-transcript to any of the
(15:15):
backroom functions.
Liz (15:17):
To a point.
Yes, I think you have to trulyunderstand both sides of it, and
if that means a couple days ayear, you're working on the
floor or doing a full setyourself.
That's one thing at JCPenneythat we did really well is that
all the buyers would go out toone of the lab stores and
actually set the floor for likefour times a year about rich
(15:38):
three times a year, somethinglike that.
They go out there and actuallyphysically set the floor and
then the GM would walk.
Like you know, this doesn'tlook right because they had to
take what they bought and makeit work in the store and then
send out the direction to theentire field.
That was super helpful.
I don't know that we do thatvery often anymore, and in
getting to that point andunderstanding both sides of it,
(15:59):
I think are really, reallyimportant and I've been a
generalist my entire career too.
I thought I was going to be abuyer.
I like the buying side, but Ilike the GM side much better.
Rich (16:12):
All right.
So I have a question that I wasgoing to queue up about
transformation, but you justused the word generalist and I
was on LinkedIn last night andAaron Hurst was asking would you
rather have a jack of alltrades or a master of one?
You just said generalist.
Liz (16:27):
Yeah, so that's for me, that's my preference.
So I'll talk about mypreference and I'll talk about
what I would do on my team, ifthat's all right with you.
From my preference for me, Ihave an insatiable intellect.
I just had this curiosity aboutthings all the time.
I was an accounting major, Ibecame a buyer, but then my
career I kept expanding.
(16:49):
I ran com at JCPenney, I wentinto consumer services, all
these different things.
I like the breadth of what I dobecause I like being able to
pull different levers atdifferent times.
However, on my team, there aresome roles that I love having
generalists in and there aresome roles that I want the
absolute.
I'm not going to swear the bestcandidate.
(17:11):
That's a very, very specific.
I'll give you an examplebecause I just went through this
.
I want my performance marketingperson on the marketing team to
be a digitally native absolute,know everything about
performance marketing.
I don't want them to havedabbled in all this other stuff
because it's moving too fast.
Performance marketing is movinglike lightning speed in how you
(17:32):
acquire customers and how youmarket to them.
I don't want them dabbling inother things.
I want them focused onperformance marketing.
Whereas in a GM, in one of mysalons.
They absolutely could have comefrom lots of different places.
Rich (17:47):
Let's start.
I think when we met, you weretransitioning into the role of
Sephora and now that I'mthinking back, it was one of the
first activations of its kindpartnership activation,
collaboration, however youdefine it.
It really was innovative at themoment, and now you have a lot
more department stores andretailers that are doing it.
(18:10):
How foreign was that to whatyou were used to and how did you
manage through that?
Liz (18:18):
I love that question because I didn't know what I was
getting myself into when I tookthe role.
It was incredibly foreign to mebecause, from a being at
JCPenney perspective, you're incontrol of your own destiny and
what you want to do there,because it's JCPenney Like.
You buy, you put it on thefloor, you sell it, but you're
all inside of your own company.
(18:38):
When you have a partnership,like we did with Sephora, which
was very similar to a jointventure, it wasn't just our
opinion, it was their opiniontoo, and it was we were we joint
, ran it.
We actually like my peer waswas at Sephora.
He ran half of it, I ran halfof it, but we had every decision
we made.
It was a big strategic decisionwe made together as a team and
(19:01):
learning how to understand wheremy business partner was coming
from, and sometimes we hadcompeting interests.
There were times that what Iwanted to do and what he wanted
to do were completely at odds,and so what we did is we
actually drew up the structure.
It was great.
We said the first question wasis this good for the Sephora
Inside JC Penney client numberone, is it good for them?
(19:21):
That was our first question.
Then we said is it good for ourteam and is it good for them?
That was our first question.
Then we said is it good for ourteam and is it good for our
enterprise and our enterprisewith the joint venture?
So, is it good for those three?
If it's good for those three,we'll figure it out on both ends
of our company.
So then we'd check with eachcompany and sometimes it wasn't
great for one, it was great forthe other.
That was okay with us, becausewe couldn't always be exactly 50
(19:41):
50.
But but we we kept going backis it right for the client?
Is it right for the other?
That was okay with us, becausewe couldn't always be exactly
50-50.
But we kept going back to is itright for the client?
Is it right for the client?
Is it right for the client?
Well, if it is, then it's goingto be right for the business
and the business will havelong-term legs and will grow and
it did.
Rich (19:54):
How did you reconcile that when you had a there's a
Sephora customer, there's aJCPenney inside of Sephora or
Sephora inside of JCPenneycustomer and they might be a
little bit different?
How did you reconcile that withyour partner?
Liz (20:08):
The first thing is is that Sephora is positioned as a
prestige beauty company, ofcourse, and JCPenney was not.
So that was the biggest pointof contention is exactly what
you're describing really is thatthe customer was different
Sephora.
What we did is we provided thedata, and I'm a huge data and
analytics person.
Like data, not feelings.
(20:29):
I say that all the time.
We provided Sephora theinformation that the people that
were coming into Sephora atJCPenney were not shopping at
Sephora, and what we foundthrough all of our studies is
that it was too overwhelming.
They were scared to go in, theydidn't understand it, it was
(21:01):
too fast, but in JCPenney theywere able to walk in and in a
smaller environment, a littlemore on what the sticking points
were like.
We thought Sephora spent toomuch on on fixtures, and they
did, by the way, they've spentso much money.
We're like, no, let us valueengineer.
They're like you're too cheap,just trust us.
I'm like you don't need thename brand on this, and that is
we'd argue about that kind ofstuff that we had to prove
(21:21):
ourselves, and then they let usdo it.
I do have to tell you one funnystory, though, because we're
sure going to crack up with this.
There was a time that mybusiness partner his name is
Satish Malhotra, he's actuallythe CEO of the container store
today we were not getting alongon this one topic and we'd been
fighting, not fighting.
We had a constructive conflictfor about two months on this one
(21:44):
topic and it got to a.
It came to a head in thecafeteria at JCPenney and it was
.
It was Satish and me and thenthe chief merchant from Sephora
was standing in between us andhe said something to me like
well, we just won't open anystores then and I dropped my
tray on the on the countertop.
I'm like you know what?
You need to just knock it off.
(22:05):
So we got in this huge argument,huge in the cafeteria, in the
food line.
So we go and we eat and thechief merchant's like you guys
just need to knock it off.
I'm like no, he's being snarkyand whatever.
So we get upstairs in my officeand the CEO of JCPenney had
heard about it and called me inmy office and it rings.
It says Mike Ullman, you know,you could tell who it was.
(22:27):
And I looked at Satish, helooked at me.
I'm like we're in trouble andMike's like you need to come to
my office.
So the two of us walked toMike's office.
He's like what's going on?
So we explained it and then thenext day we solved the issue
and it was fine.
So it was just we'd come to apoint of of we needed to hash it
out loudly, and we did.
Rich (22:47):
So I may ask you about Mike later.
But I'm curious when was thefirst time you used the word
transformation on your resume?
Liz (22:58):
Oh, that's a good question.
I did not use it until I hadthe chief transformation officer
role at Neiman Marcus.
But looking back on it, therewere transformation.
Jcpenney was a transformationtwice it was going from
decentralized to centralized,and Sephora was a massive
(23:20):
transformation that drove abillion dollars of revenue.
I mean that was that was theright word for no beauty to that
.
That was a huge transformation.
I didn't think of it that way,but it was.
It was.
Rich (23:30):
Yeah, I'm embarrassed to admit that during one of the
transformations is when Ilearned about stock options and
grants, because I got the phonecall saying that we're going
through a transformation andyou've been awarded these grants
and options.
I guess we could talk about itnow because you're one of the
ones that's been selected tomove forward and I was on
vacation and I'm like soundsgreat.
(23:51):
And then I had to go back andthis was pre-Google and figure
out what options and grants were.
But they were actually prettycool.
Liz (24:00):
They were really cool and it worked.
So you know, not alltransformations work, but I've
been fortunate to be part of afew that did.
Rich (24:07):
Is there a transformation that you've been part of and you
don't necessarily have to namethe brand.
It may just be a business or asegment where you were
disappointed in how it turnedout.
Liz (24:16):
For sure.
Actually, it's a JCPenney.
So the two that we talked aboutthe decentralized and
centralized and Sephora were prethis event decentralized and
centralized and Sephora were prethis event.
So the downfall of JCPenneygoes back to a very specific
time period in their company andthis is my opinion, obviously
that when there was a CEO thatcame in that had a massive
transformation idea of takingout discounts and simplifying
(24:39):
the business model and turn intoa full price, a full price
business, and I'll just his nameis Ron Johnson.
You can read all about him.
It's, I think it into afull-price business and his
name's Ron Johnson.
You can read all about him.
I think it's a Harvard BusinessSchool case now and, to be clear
, ron was not wrong.
He was not wrong in his beliefthat we should go to a
non-promotional model.
(25:00):
What was wrong is two things.
It came down to two things.
And I was there running Sephora, so I was out of the firing
line because our business wasfine.
Jcpenney lost 25% in one year ofrevenue and a $2 billion cash
burn.
It was incredible.
But during that time period,the two mistakes, the two big
mistakes that were made is onethe team that he hired was not
(25:22):
the right team.
But, most importantly, insteadof stepping into it slowly, it
was an on-off switch on like Ithink it was February 1st or
whatever year that was we turnedoff promotions.
This stopped.
Basically, we fired an entireconsumer base.
That was the current customer.
Instead of evolving to a newcustomer, which we absolutely
(25:43):
needed to do, we fired thecurrent customer.
The new one wasn't there, yetyou lose a quarter of your
revenue in 12 months of evolvingto a new customer, which we
absolutely needed to do.
We fired the current customerthe new one wasn't there yet you
lose a quarter of your revenuein 12 months.
It was epic.
So that would be the mostdisappointing, because it didn't
have to happen that way,because, again, he wasn't wrong.
I think he was actually right,but this execution was wrong.
Rich (25:57):
Yeah, I'll actually, because I was there during that
time and I think he wasabsolutely right and I think if
he had been able to execute evenhalf of what he envisioned,
pennies and department storeswould be in a different place
today.
But he didn't integrate thosethat he hired into the culture
and we're not going to harborbusiness where you did the case
study, and we won't do that.
(26:19):
But I think, from a lessonperspective and I haven't heard
it said that way, but he did hefired 5.1 million very loyal
customers and I remember the adthat played during the Academy
Awards that said you deserve tolook better.
And I remember the cringe of no, you didn't just say that.
Liz (26:41):
We did.
It was not good and it shouldhave worked.
And Rich to your point.
I think, most importantly, thatthe state of department stores
today could have been different.
If you look at departmentstores, they're just struggling
to find the reason for being.
It's like what is your reasonfor being?
And there's too much samenessout there and it could have been
(27:02):
very different.
Rich (27:03):
I drank the Kool-Aid.
I will will I will.
Liz (27:05):
I did for about six months and then I'm like, well, hold up
, hold up, and then that was,then it's done.
Now company and the companyactually is, you know, hopefully
will be successful goingforward.
Paula (27:17):
I've got a lot of confidence to them well, let's,
let's switch topics a little bitbut kind of stay on the same
track of profession.
So, throughout all this,throughout being the chief
transformation officer at theMidmarcus, what has been the
biggest transformationthroughout your career that
you've seen technology-wise, orthe biggest innovation that
you've seen so far?
Liz (27:38):
I think you know when you think about innovation and you
think about what that could meanwhere I've not seen it work.
Well, I'm going to start withthat first no-transcript.
(27:59):
At Neiman Marcus, we had thisthing called the magic mirror or
something and you could go andyou could pretend to try and
close and it shows you theclothes without putting them on
or something like that.
I don't remember we got tons oflike PR from it, tons of
marketing press, but like itdidn't do anything.
It was just there.
It didn't transform the company.
I think that the biggest partthat I've been involved in is
(28:22):
that this is going to soundsuper boring, but it's really
finding ways to connect datawith consumers and finding ways
to speak to people on aone-to-one basis.
That appears to be one-to-one,that is actually.
It could be one-to-many, butit's things that are
personalized to the consumer.
(28:42):
That drives an emotionalconnection with your brand and
makes you feel like you know meas a consumer, like I want
consumers to feel like they knowme.
That connection with data andnow we're using AI, of course,
all those connection pieces wereprobably the biggest innovation
and that's what we were drivingat Neiman Marcus.
We were taking this brick andmortar focus, true one-to-one
(29:04):
relationship.
Finding ways to scale thatdifferently by using data and by
sending text messages toclients that were suited exactly
to them, like they would sendme.
You know, this hot pink blousewould be perfect for you because
they knew all about me.
That was, to me, was one of themost exciting parts.
It sounds boring, but itactually was really exciting but
(29:24):
it actually was really exciting.
Rich (29:25):
So, from a consumer behavior perspective, how do you
think the consumer has evolvedover the last 10 or 20 years?
And if you were to predict howconsumer behavior will change,
let's say 10 years from now,what's your prediction?
Liz (29:37):
The speed of change is wicked.
So I think when you look back10 years ago, you could pretty
much predict what was happening.
You know, six months, 12 monthsout, and the consumer today is
moving fast and their demandsare incredibly high.
And so if you think about youknow, think about high fashion,
luxury fashion there'd be therunway shows in Paris.
You would face your orders,they'd make it.
(30:00):
It'd come in nine months laterand it was fine and everybody
was there by the time this stuffgets here.
Half the time it's actuallywe've moved on to the next thing
.
So the consumer is incredibly,incredibly fast and trends are
moving fast.
I personally love all theTikToks with Gen X, who I happen
to be, and Gen Z explaininglike I think I'm cool and I talk
(30:22):
about the brat, and they'relike that's like so done.
I'm like how could it be done?
It just started, like it didn'tjust start.
It started a month ago, like.
But it's a month ago, like it'sdone.
Those things will continue toget faster and faster and faster
.
I think we can thank, you know,just social media and anything
online for that.
The other thing, too, is thatthe consumer is incredibly
(30:43):
demanding.
They have choices and they wantthings today or yesterday they
don't want.
They're not going to wait, theyjust won't.
Now there are certain things.
If you can drive exclusivity,they'll wait for a wait list,
but in general if somebody wantssomething, they want it, and
they want it the next day, ifnot the same day.
I moved to Chicago.
I place an Amazon order.
(31:03):
It's usually there the same day.
If I place it early in themorning, it's nuts, the stuff
just shows up.
I want paper towels.
They're there like at threeo'clock in the afternoon.
It's pretty awesome.
I don't have to wait for it.
That's more of what consumers.
That's just table stakes today.
Rich (31:17):
And you talk about how quickly it's changing in social
media.
I was allowed to be very demureand very respectful for about a
week before it got old.
Exactly, I recorded a lectureand by the time I released it
two weeks later, it was likeseriously, dude, that is over.
Liz (31:31):
They make fun of us Rich, and that's, you know, my
marketing team.
I love them.
They're hilarious, so I alwaystry to put things out there, but
I made them buy me socks as alittle aside.
The other day.
Send me links on Amazon.
I'm like I need new socks to gowith my sneakers and they're
like you don't do no-shows, doyou?
I'm like, well, yeah, I do.
They're like you can't wearno-shows.
(31:53):
So they sent me links to thesocks I had to buy.
Okay, it worked out.
Rich (31:57):
They look good.
I have a question queued upwhere I was going to ask you
about in your travels and yourexperiences, have you come
across a brand or a retailerthat you think is doing it well?
But I actually want to give youa chance to talk about what
you're currently doing, becauseyou are merging or integrating
service and product, and so I'dlove to hear a little bit more
(32:20):
about what you're doing now andhow you're innovating that.
Liz (32:26):
So this is the perfect blend for me.
So we have a consumer servicecompany, tricocci Salon and Spa,
and we have a strong retailbusiness as part of that, but we
also have a CPG arm that wedon't talk very often about, but
I do want to talk about thattoday.
First part is is that thatconsumers want a full
experiential, whether it be inretail or in services.
(32:49):
They want experience as part ofthat, unless it's very
transactional.
So if they like, buying papertowels is transactional, getting
a massage is experiential, andand or getting your haircut or
getting your nails done,whatever those things are, and
what we're able to do atTrocochi is integrate the two.
So we're not just sellingretail and we're not just doing
haircuts.
We're doing both, and whatwe're trying to do is find ways
(33:11):
that this intersects, that theconsumer can have a full 360
experience.
So that's the first piece.
As part of that, we veryintentionally launch services
that have a retail component,and what we found is that when
we have a service with a retailcomponent, we usually attach
retail to the service about 50%of the time, and so, for those
(33:32):
of you that don't know, in thesalon industry, typically it's
about a 10% attachment rate, butit's 50% when you actually have
a service with a retailcomponent.
So we'll say we'll do an Orbeaback bar takeover and we'll wash
your hair with Orbe shampoo.
50% of the time people arebuying Orbe shampoo at the same
time that they're getting theservice.
So it's just making that wholething, like the whole experience
(33:53):
, resonate.
And that's what I thinkdepartment stores, by the way,
are missing today is how do youblend an experience with
shopping?
Shopping is not supposed to betransactional unless, again,
you're buying paper towels.
Shopping is not supposed to betransactional unless, again,
you're buying paper towels.
The other part of it is that weactually have a CPG arm in our
company and we do our ownprivate label under Tricogi
Collection.
But, more importantly, we justlaunched our very first brand
(34:15):
that we hope to take wholesalesomeday.
It's called Nutrier.
It launched nine days ago andit's smashing success.
So far we're in our 13locations in Chicago.
We've sold over 1,000 units innine days, which is huge.
The sell-through is justmassive.
And we just put it up onNutriacom.
(34:36):
We just launched the website.
We launched it nine days ago,but it's not really a launch.
We started driving trafficthere about 48 hours ago a
little bit.
We're still in beta there andthen we're going to do a
national launch in January,february, in New York City.
It'll be the full 360 campaign.
We're doing influencers, we'redoing everything you can imagine
(34:58):
as we kick off the nationallaunch.
And then we, just as part ofthat, launched Headspot Nutria
Headspot at Trocochi, also ninedays ago, and we're almost fully
booked out on it because thenagain these people are buying
the Nutrier product when they'regetting the Nutrier Head Spa
treatment.
So it's that experiential 360view.
It's just so.
It's great.
It's a great way to tell peoplewant to shop.
It's great, very emotive, yeah.
Paula (35:19):
And such a you're so part of people's personal, like the
personal aspect of them.
What made you choose thisindustry specifically?
So you've done Neiman Marcus,you've done JCPenney, so how did
you end up with this one?
Liz (35:31):
You know, growing up in retail and then shifting to
consumer services, it has beenlike I love both of those worlds
, and I also was, because it wasat Sephora I had the beauty
side of it, and at Neiman MarcusI also had the luxury side of
it, and at Demon Markets I alsohad the luxury side of it.
So I like this beauty luxuryservice retail blend.
That's what I'm doing today.
I'm doing exactly that.
(35:52):
It takes all the things that Ilove and puts it together.
Businesses that have a reasonfor being and have a stickiness
and an emotional connection arethe businesses that I like to be
part of, because there's areason.
People feel great when theyhave a salon service.
People feel relaxed, they feelthe best version of themselves,
(36:13):
whatever that is.
We've changed our internalworking phrase as beauty, where
you belong.
Everybody belongs here.
We just want you to feel,however you want to feel, what
is beauty for you?
I'm not here to tell you whatit should be for me, or I'm not
going to tell you what it shouldbe for you, but what do you
want it to be and how can wehelp you achieve that and feel
great about yourself?
Rich (36:31):
All right.
Well, I was going to jump intothe advice part, so start with
mentors.
You've had many, one inparticular, one or two come to
mind.
Liz (36:44):
Yeah, I would say the CEO at Neiman Marcus, geoffrey Van
Rondonk.
He was the CEO.
He currently is the CEO there.
So when I was running the offprice division at Neiman Marcus,
I was ready to go to a smallercompany.
I'm like I'm ready just to getout of this big, big company
thing.
And he's like I have one morerole for you.
I want you to go do this chieftransformation officer role.
(37:06):
I think you're great at it andat the end of that I'll help you
find your next job.
Like how can you say no to that?
Like that's a pretty cool thing.
Little did we know COVID wascoming and all that crazy stuff
at the same time.
But so I did that and webattled oh, my goodness, did we
battle?
And so so Jeff was a very, veryum he's, he's uh, uh, bcg
(37:27):
trained so highly consultant, um, data analytics, and I'm like
woo, let's go team and like likelead teams like nobody's
business and would want to runthrough a brick wall.
He challenged me to become moredata driven and much more
analytical and I challenged himto loosen up a little bit.
And we joke about it todaywe're still very close.
(37:48):
He made me a much better leaderand much more strategic in my
thought process, and Iabsolutely loved it.
I still go to him for advicetoday.
He's done an amazing job atNeiman Marcus, and he's one that
comes to mind first.
There's a lot of other ones,though.
Rich (38:09):
And probably some that you learned from that weren't
necessarily mentors, but youlearned what not to do.
Liz (38:14):
Oh yeah, I have those two.
I'm happy to describe them ifyou like.
Rich (38:19):
Yeah, we'll let that one go.
So, but you know you.
Just you said something andit's not the first time we've
heard it about having a mentorwho's a boss, who recommends or
helps you to move on to anotherorganization, and so I actually
want to expand that.
Have you had situations whereyou've had somebody working for
you who you think is extremelytalented and you've tapped them
(38:42):
on the shoulder and said youprobably have outgrown your
position here.
In order for you to grow, youneed to move on.
Tell me a little bit about that.
Liz (38:50):
I've said it twice in two different ways.
One time the person wasill-suited for the role they
were in and we were going tocome a time that they weren't
going to be able to be with thecompany.
And they knew it and I knew it.
It was just not a good fit, Notpersonality, to be with the
company.
And they knew it and I knew it.
It was just not a good fit, notpersonality, not, they were
(39:10):
just not.
They were not qualified for therole that they had.
And so, instead of just lettingthem go, I said we just talked
about it a lot and they didn'tlove it.
I didn't love it, they weren'tdoing a good job and I helped
them find their next role.
That was that was suited totheir skill.
They had an amazing skillset,just not in the job that they
had.
The other one was someone whocould really reach for the stars
and had that capability thatneeded to round out their career
, and I couldn't provide that.
(39:32):
I can't tell you who it is, butI couldn't provide that for
them in the company.
I just we didn't have the rolethey needed.
I'm like, if you want to go?
So I always have thisconversation with my high
potentials.
What is your North Star?
Where do you want to be in 10,20 years, depending on how long
they've been around?
What is your ultimate desire?
And once you understand thatpart of my job is to help them
(39:53):
get there If they're a highperformer.
If they're not a high performer, I don't because they're not a
high performer, but our highperformers, let me help them,
and that means sometimes lettingthem go, and sometimes they
come back and so you just don'tknow.
Rich (40:07):
Yeah, and those end up being proud moments, and I've
had a couple of those as wellwhere it's very hard.
You don't want to lose theperson, but you know that it's
best for them and you maintainthat relationship.
You watch them grow.
I don't think that's doneenough, but I think that's a
(40:27):
leadership skill that we need totry and develop no-transcript.
Liz (41:02):
I'll help, and that also, by the way, helps the company,
because then I also have runwayto figure out what to do about
it.
So it maybe takes a year.
What?
Paula (41:08):
do you think is going to is the currently the most
underrated or undervalued skillthe person can have.
Liz (41:14):
Oh, that's a really good question.
I think there's a couple.
One of them is authenticity,and bringing your true self to
work, like who you are and yourpersonality.
I think is really important,and because not you I never want
a team of homogenous, the samelooking, acting, thinking
(41:38):
everything you can imagine,because you want you want the
best brains and the best minds,the best people in the room.
That also I want people to beable to bring who they actually
are to work themselves, and Ihappen to be an extrovert and it
served me very well.
Thanks, rich, I am.
(42:03):
I have a brilliant person on myteam right now who's an
introvert.
I have to go out of my way tomake sure that I call on her in
meetings, because if I don't,she probably won't speak up in
the meeting because she's notcomfortable interrupting and so,
like having just free, Ishouldn't make her change.
I should, as a leader, adapt mystyle to make sure that she's
being heard, and so I think allof those things is one of the
(42:25):
most important things that aleader can do.
Paula (42:28):
That's interesting.
So to be a good leader, to beable to hear all these people,
you obviously have to have somekind of source of inspiration to
fill your cup back up.
What fills you back up?
Liz (42:39):
Oh gosh.
So I have a big family, marriedfor 10 years It'll be 10 years
in February and we have six kidstogether.
We're empty nesters.
Last kid is a senior in college, so I consider us empty nesters
.
What fills my cup is being withmy husband and being outdoors
in Colorado and reallyrecharging.
(43:00):
I try really hard on theweekends to not work.
I mean I might on Sundayafternoons, but I try really
hard to completely shut down forthe weekends.
But I work my tail off duringthe week in order to be able to
do that and it doesn't alwayshappen that way.
But just time with him and timejust being outside and being
together is how I fill my cup.
Rich (43:20):
And going to Taylor Swift concerts.
Liz (43:22):
Well with him.
Yeah, Of course, going toTaylor Swift twice.
I'm so excited.
I'm a Swifty.
I may be 54, but I'm still aSwifty.
Rich (43:34):
I'm 56 and I'm a Swifty, I'm a Posty, I love music and I
am very envious of that it'sgoing to be fun.
Liz (43:41):
Hey, keep an eye.
You know, tickets might dropright before the event.
You never know.
Rich (43:45):
If I'm not mistaken, you me, jim Kenny and Susan
Weinstock, who unfortunatelypassed away several years ago,
and I think about thedifferences in personalities.
Several years ago, when I thinkabout the differences in
personalities, she was, like youknow, a balloon in a phone
booth.
You were definitely theextrovert, I'm the introvert.
And then you had Jim Kenney,who was the elder statesman who
had worked with Mike before andsitting in there for two days it
(44:08):
was.
It was an interesting mix.
Liz (44:10):
It was a very interesting mix.
You are not kidding.
Rich (44:13):
As I was preparing for this episode, it dawned on me
that as long as you and I haveknown each other, we never
really worked together.
We had the opportunity to spendtwo days.
We were sitting at the sametable, part of the same group,
with Jim and Susan and a coupleof others, and had the
opportunity to have Mike Ullman,the CEO at the time, his near
(44:36):
undivided attention as he talkedabout, you know, not his
successes.
It was really great because hetalked about his challenges and
his failings at times and whathe learned through adversity,
and I took a lot away from itand you and I have stayed in
contact after those couple ofdays.
I'm going to pivot here alittle bit because you're a
(44:58):
member of the Women in RetailLeadership Circle.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat and how those connections
have helped you throughout yourcareer and the importance of the
relationships that you build?
Liz (45:12):
So I have an affinity for helping other women along.
Most of the people that Imentor are women not all, but
most are.
The world used to be dominatedby men and run by men, and times
have certainly changed peoplethat are there.
I mentor marketing studentsfrom the University of Iowa.
The same way that I lovehelping other people get ahead
(45:44):
and I love that part of itthat's actually what brings me
the most joy now versus business.
Results are great, but I lovethat just helping other people.
It's amazing when I think aboutTaylor Swift's song the man.
That's what I like.
That's kind of what I subscribeto.
You know, let's help otherwomen out.
Paula (45:59):
So, all right, Are you ready?
This is the most important partI am ready Bring it.
Bring it.
This is the rapid fireconversation.
This is where we are going toask you three questions.
The first thing that comes intoyour mind is the right answer.
So first question is do youhave a specific walk-on song or
theme song that would define you, the man?
Liz (46:21):
Taylor Swift.
By the way, the song is aboutlike if I were the man, then I'd
be the man, and it's basicallyabout being a woman and being a
professional.
Paula (46:31):
If you had one last meal, what would it be?
What is your last meal?
It's pizza.
If you had one last meal.
Liz (46:35):
What would it be?
What is your last meal?
It's pizza.
Paula (46:36):
It just is.
From where, though?
Oh, because I live in Chicago,yep you gotta be specific.
Liz (46:44):
I you know what.
I can't answer that.
I just moved there and we'remaking our rounds of pizza right
now.
There's a place.
I can't remember it.
It serves the best pizza.
It starts with a P, it has aP-squall, p-qualls, p-something.
It's amazing, niche.
Paula (46:58):
Niche or thin crust.
So you're saying deep dish.
Liz (47:03):
I actually prefer thin crust as a general statement.
Paula (47:07):
I do too, I can.
I love my deep dishes.
Rich (47:11):
So if you could transport yourself and you could take Jeff
along if you want, anywhere inthe world instantaneously.
You go for 24 hours.
You don't have to pack yourbags, you don't have to worry
about planes and transportation.
Where are you going?
Liz (47:25):
I'm going to Koakia resort on the island of Kauai because
that is my favorite place in theworld and that's where we go to
reconnect when we need toreconnect.
We get on a plane, go toauai,we stay at Koakia and just chill
Favorite place ever.
Rich (47:41):
And if you're going someplace on your own just to
get away for 24 hours.
Liz (47:44):
By myself I would actually go to.
I'd still go to a beach, but no, I wouldn't go there, I'd
probably just go down to theBahamas Atlanta Beach.
I'm a big like shut down when Itravel.
I have two different ways totravel, by the way.
I either shut down and read anddrink Sorry, I read and then I
also love to learn and I dohistory.
I like Italy and spending timein Rome and going to Greece and
(48:05):
going to Turkey and all thatLove it.
But that's a different kind of.
That's an active vacationversus a passive vacation.
Rich (48:11):
Yeah, I'm right there with you.
I vacation, going to Turkey,going to the Grand Bazaar and
learning about that, or with mywife and I, it's the grill.
Jamaica, certain mile beach.
Liz (48:22):
Yeah, exactly.
And then you do nothing right,you just hang out, you just read
, I just read, I read like 10books a week, as my husband
likes to call it, the all ornothing approach.
Yeah, that's me A thousandpercent.
Paula (48:35):
All right, you're having a dinner party.
You can invite three people.
They can be living or dead,they can be historical or
fiction.
Who's coming to this dinnerparty?
Liz (48:45):
Oh, I love this.
Okay, I would invite my father.
He passed away five plus yearsago and I'd just like to hear
that he's proud of me.
I know he was, but like now,like I'd like, I'd like just to
hear from him, I of me.
I know he was, but like now,like I'd like, I like just to
hear from him.
I'm absolutely positive, Iwould do that.
I would absolutely love toinvite Abraham Lincoln, cause
I'm fascinated by that part thatthat that period in time.
I don't know why, but like thatwhole, like what happened then,
(49:08):
like what really went down, soI think that'd be really fun.
Be a good mix of people too.
Rich (49:20):
That would be a pretty eclectic mix.
All right, bonus question whatwould you serve?
Liz (49:24):
Oh, what would I serve.
I'd have to have it cateredbecause I despise cooking.
So I'd have it catered in myhome and it would be like a
really nice, like really nice,like four course meal, five
course meal from a great chefand great wine.
Paula (49:39):
We have an Airstream and we're hosting a tailgate at
Soldier Field and my husband waslike what should we cook?
Like I really want our guestsyou know we invited like random
people this is a test run beforehe does the real tailgate.
So we're doing the tailgate andmy husband's like, well, should
we cook?
You know, I want our guests toget like great flavors and I was
like what do you mean cook?
(49:59):
I'm going to get it catered.
And he's like what?
Like oh, people love a homecooked meal.
I'm like no, people like goodfood and I can get that catered.
So it doesn't matter if Islaved over it or if I bought it
.
Like people are going to careif the quality of the food was
good.
So I'm all with you on catering, catering, cater, cater.
Liz (50:18):
Cater all the time.
I don't cook, I don't.
Rich (50:21):
I will tell you that I was an original ticket holder at
the new boss at Baltimore yeah,baltimore Ravens Stadium and we
tailgated and my nickname wasChef and a friend of mine and I
cooked and at the one o'clockgame we showed up at 7 30.
If it was a four o'clock game,we showed up at quarter of eight
and if it was an eight o'clockgame we showed up at nine.
(50:44):
And I didn't always make it tothe game, because sometimes you
have to sleep it off, but no, Iwould cook you're a great, oh
rich.
Liz (50:54):
You enjoy cooking and you're great at it.
Rich (50:57):
I like cooking for large groups, but I haven't done it as
much.
Liz, absolutely fantastic tohave you.
It's great catching up.
It is great when we get to runinto each other in industry
events.
It's not often enough, but Ilearned from you when we were at
(51:20):
JCPenney.
I continue to learn from you asyou continue to go on the
journey, and you're one of thosethat I hold in the highest
regard.
So I appreciate you joining ustoday, and I know that our
audience will love to hear thelessons as well.
Liz (51:28):
Great Thanks for right back at you.
I feel the same way about youand Paula, wonderful to meet you
.
Paula (51:32):
I look forward to us actually getting together in
person.
Liz (51:36):
Yes, yes, I'll send you some dates.
Rich (51:38):
All right, paula, so I'll apologize for that.
Paula (51:44):
It was a little bit of a trip down memory lane with Liz.
It was really great to see youjust share stories and see you
so joyful.
I don't think I've ever seenyou, you know, shoot the breeze
with an old colleague.
So some old war stories fromtwo vets that know way more than
me.
Sign me up.
I had a lot to learn there.
Rich (52:01):
Funny thing is is that we didn't really work together.
I mean, we weren't in the samedepartment, we didn't work on
similar projects.
Where we connected was in a twoday leadership seminar
symposium with the CEO at thetime and the head of human
resources, and the CEO was MikeUllman, who Liz mentioned, one
(52:23):
of the top CEOs I've ever hadthe opportunity to work for, to
learn from, and it's amazingwhat that two days did.
Paula (52:32):
And Mike Ullman.
He was a CEO, I did and Mike.
Rich (52:33):
Goldman.
He was a CEO, he was on theFederal Reserve Board, he was
extraordinarily busy and yet hewas there during most of that
two days and the stories heshared weren't hey, look at me,
this is what I did and hey, lookat me, let me brag about this.
He taught through humility andhe taught through this.
(52:54):
These are the mistakes I'vemade, these are the learnings
I've had, and it was a memorableexperience.
But back to Liz she and Iconnected over that and that two
days kind of led to this.
We've kind of followed eachother in our careers and have
been able to bend each other'sears from time to time.
Paula (53:11):
And you know what.
You bring up a good point andI'm gonna pivot a little bit
here.
It's all about relationship.
And bring up a good point andI'm going to pivot a little bit
here.
It's all about relationship andwe've talked about that before
in retail, the relationship youhave with the customer.
But life is all aboutrelationships and really making
a meaningful connection withpeople, not just that
(53:32):
superficial.
How are you Good?
Okay, great, saw you Check thebox.
I'll talk to you again in twoweeks to say that I am your
friend.
No, it's about having thesereal deep connections and when
you have those connections withsomeone, you can call them 10
years down the road and they'llremember you.
Like it was freaking yesterday.
Rich (53:43):
Yeah, and I think well, I mean you're a good example of it
.
I mean you and I workedtogether when you were at Zen
Media I think it was MarketingZen back then.
We've kept in touch.
We've kept in touch.
When I went off on my own, youwere kind enough to get me
co-working space and introduceme to a couple of people at the
(54:04):
DEC and we've stayed in contact.
And, of course, when we startedRetail Relates, you were the
first person I called.
So the relationships I agreewith you and sometimes the best
ones aren't the ones whereyou're just keeping up on social
media and there's a text everyother day.
You can go two or three or fouryears but then encounter a
situation and say you know whowould be good for this.
(54:25):
I'm going to reach out to Paula, because I haven't spoken to
her for a while.
She will know how to help withthis.
It's interesting because if youtake that and you look at it in
retail and you look at it inlife and you think about AI and
all the fascinating things thatcan be done, it can't replace
relationships.
It can't replace those humanconnections that really are what
(54:47):
the basis of retail is allabout.
Paula (54:49):
At the end of the day, that's what it is.
It's about connecting with thatone person.
That's what you try to doacross the board one person.
Rich (54:57):
That's what you try to do across the board, yeah, and what
I?
What I liked about what she'sdoing now and it was good to
catch up with what she's doingnow at Trococci is this merger
between services and retail, andI think that's what we're going
to find as we continue downthis exploration is that the
traditional big box ordepartment store retail that we
think of is getting disrupted,where people are buying from
(55:20):
social media, or they're goinginto a salon and they're buying
their retail goods, or they'rebuying direct from the factory,
or they're buying when they'reon vacation at a hotel boutique,
and the whole notion of whatretail is is just morphing, and
in a very tumultuous time.
It's what makes it, I think,rather exciting.
Paula (55:43):
So I will say I'm glad you said that, because when you
mentioned that you were bringingon this guest, I pushed back
because I couldn't see how isthis exactly retail?
Right, I'm on the outside, I'mnot a retail executive, that's
what you guys are the academicand the executive.
And I'm glad that you pushedagain and you said just wait and
see and listen, because itreally is retail.
(56:03):
Retail is so much bigger thanwhat the traditional retail was
and, like you said, it's gettingdisruptive and it's
encompassing more and more thanwhat we knew previously.
Rich (56:15):
And to your point.
I think, as we make decisionson what's really important, what
we're going to spend money on,I think there's a lot of us that
are spending less money onquote unquote stuff than we were
in the past and we may bebuying, you know, secondhand or
gently loved or whatever theterminology is, or we may be
(56:37):
buying handcrafted goods, or wemay be buying custom, or we may
be going without.
I think that more thoughtfulpurchase and not just going to
the traditional retailer itdefinitely is disruptive.
There are more stores slated toclose this year than I think in
.
I really haven't tracked whenthe last time is that 15,000
(57:00):
plus store fronts closed.
It is creating an environmentwhere new things will pop up and
it'll make, hopefully, retailand commerce in general more
exciting and engaging.
Make retail cool again commercein general more exciting and
engaging.
Make retail cool again.
There you go.
(57:20):
Make retail cool again, Paula.
Paula (57:21):
any parting words as we close out this episode.
I mean, I think, make retailcool again.
Rich (57:24):
All right, we're going to go with make retail cool again.
For all of you who joined us onthis episode, thank you very
much.
We really appreciate it.
We are having a lot of fun Forall of you joining us.
This has been a lot of fun.
Hopefully it was fun for you.
Hopefully you take somethingaway from it as you explore the
wonderful world of retail andglobal commerce and consumer
(57:46):
behavior with us.
We look forward to having youjoin us next time on Retail
Relates.
This is a great episode and I think you're going to
enjoy it.
Liz takes us through startingoff as a retail trainee when
those programs were very much inforce and her journey through
JCPenney to where she ultimatelyled the Sephora business in
JCPenney, which was, I believe,a billion dollar business, to
(04:24):
leading transformation effortsin Neiman Marcus to where she is
today, which is this wonderfulmerger between retail and
services.
And if you think about all thethings that are going on in
retail today, in the midst ofthe chaos and the transformation
and a lot of the closures andbankruptcies, there are these
(04:45):
wonderful stories and they'rehappening in that intersection
of experience and commerce.
Liz will tell us a little bitabout her adventure here.
Also some great insights whenit comes to team development,
her leadership perspective andhow she looks for and develops
talent.
So stay tuned for this episode.
(05:06):
I think you're really going toenjoy it and we'll see you on
the other side.
Paula (05:10):
Elizabeth Liz Allison is the chief executive officer of
Tricoci, the premier luxurysalon and spa brand with 13 full
service locations across theChicagoland area.
Under her leaderhip, Tricocioffers elevated hair, skin, body
and nail services, supported bya team of over 1,000 expert
beauty and wellnessprofessionals serving nearly
200,000 active clients.
(05:32):
Liz is dedicated to evolvingthe core business and driving
growth through strategictransformation, while also
overseeing the expansion of thebrand's innovative beauty
consumer products portfolio ofbeauty consumer products
portfolio.
Before joining Trocochi, lizwas the president of Milan Laser
Hair Removal, where she playeda key role in scaling the
business to become the country'slargest laser hair removal
company.
She also served as the chieftransformation officer at Neiman
(05:55):
Marcus Group, leading thecompany's luxury reinvention and
managing NMG's minorityinvestment strategic partnership
with an ultraury re-commercecompany, fashionphile, where she
also served as a board member.
Additionally, Liz has heldseveral numerous senior
executive positions at JCPenney,including SVP of Sephora, and
(06:17):
led the company's billion-dollare-commerce business.
That's nothing to just gazeover is leading the company into
a billion-dollar e-commercebusiness.
So Liz graduated from theUniversity of Iowa with a
bachelor's of businessadministration and accounting
and currently serves as theTippie College of Business
Administration's MarketingInstitute Advisory Board.
She's also a former advisoryboard member for women in retail
(06:39):
and was honored with the topwomen in retail award in 2020.
Liz, we are so excited to haveyou with us here at Retail
Relates.
Welcome.
Liz (06:47):
Thank you so much, Paula.
I'm thrilled to be here, HiRich.
Rich (06:50):
How are you doing?
Liz (06:51):
I am outstanding, sir.
It's great to see you.
Rich (06:54):
You probably loved having your bio read, if I know you.
I know Honestly yeah, no, Iknow, I know, but you do have a
really impressive background.
And for everybody, before Paulakicks off the questions, we've
known each other since JCPenney.
Liz (07:14):
We did.
We have known each other.
I don't even know how manyyears it is, but it must have
been back in the late 2000s,maybe.
Rich (07:20):
Yes, and we sat together for a couple of inspiring days
with the CEO at the time andMike Ullman and the CHRO.
We did, and ever since thenI've been a huge fan, so it's a
pleasure to have you on thepodcast.
Liz (07:37):
Likewise, sir, absolutely.
We go way back and you've beena great partner to me in many
different ways in the businessworld, a good friend too.
All right, Paula, take it away.
Paula (07:48):
So we like to start off not asking you the traditional
questions of well, tell me aboutyourself, but more so, tell me
you know what were the threemain pivot points, or pivotal
points in your career or lifethat have led you to where you
are here today?
Liz (08:03):
Yeah, that's such a good question.
You know it's funny the longeryou're in a profession and you
look back on things, there aremoments that you didn't realize
were as important as what theywere, until you're on the other
side of it.
The first one I would say is Igrew up in the Midwest.
I spent all my time in theMidwest, I didn't know anything
but that, and I was working forJCPenney.
(08:30):
I'd been a department manager,ops manager, hr manager,
district buyer, and JCPenney wasgetting ready to go through a
massive transformation.
I didn't know it yet.
They were going fromdecentralized to centralized
buying.
What that meant was like athousand locations were buying
for themselves and then theywere going to have just the
corporate office do it.
And I asked to move to Dallas,texas, to the big city, and be
part of that.
And they had me come down thereand all of a sudden I was 29
(08:51):
and I was in a room full ofreally high-powered executives
for the company and I had apoint of view and I learned to
find my voice while I was theremy voice and I had an opinion
and I had a seat at the tableand I had a little bit of
imposter syndrome.
I won't lie during that timeperiod.
(09:11):
But it was absolutelyincredible to be part of that
transformation and the companywas super resistant at first and
it did work.
So that transformation did work.
Stock price went from next tonothing to about 90 some dollars
to share, I think maybe in the80s I'm not positive, but it was
a great time.
That's the first one.
So that was JCPenney when I wasa baby.
Second one, scaling Sephora andZai JCPenney absolute blast.
We had basically no locations.
(09:34):
It was a joint venture betweenthe two companies.
It wasn't technically a jointventure but it operated like one
.
We took it from nothing toalmost a billion dollar business
in a few years.
So I learned how to scale abusiness which was just.
I'd never done that before.
It was a blast.
And I learned aboutpartnerships there and having
retail partnerships are soimportant and how you treat your
partner, how you build win-winsall of that that was critical
(09:57):
in my career.
And then the last one was thehardest.
It was the chief transformationofficer role at Neiman Marcus.
So if you could envision forthose that know Neiman Marcus,
it was 110, 12, 15-year-oldcompany, brick and mortar based,
and the world had moved,digital.
And so how could we turn thiscompany, with no money to really
(10:18):
pay for it, from an oldbusiness model to a new business
model where we would invest intechnology, and about how to
revolutionize luxury commercefrom an omnichannel perspective.
That was the most rewardingwhen it was over.
It was the hardest when I wasdoing it.
I was talking with a CEO therenot too long ago and he's like
you know that was really great.
(10:39):
What happened?
He's I never want to do itagain.
I'm like same, but I learned aton from it.
So those are the three biggestones for me.
Paula (10:46):
That's really beautiful and I love how you interwove the
stories and I almost feel likeI saw you grow in your career,
as you told that.
Oh, thank you, I did.
So let me ask you one more.
And then, reg, please jump inand please take advantage of the
rich history that you guys have.
Pun intended Definitely want tohear different points of views,
(11:07):
because you guys were in thebattleground together at
JCPenney.
So is this the career youoriginally envisioned?
Is this a direction that youthought your life was going to
take?
Liz (11:17):
No, no, no, no.
This is.
This is the weird to me.
Looking back on this, I'llnever forget this as long as I
live.
My dad was so bad at me, so Iwas getting my degree in
accounting at the University ofIowa because I like answers and
I thought that accounting wasall about.
At the end you get your balanceand you're done.
And I went to my accountingclasses and I went to my
(11:38):
interviews my junior year forinternships.
I didn't like it and I'm like Idon't want to do this.
What do I do?
I wasn't sure what to do.
So I called my dad.
I said hey, listen, I'm goingto go ahead and take an extra
year and do something different.
He's like yeah, no, not on mydime or not?
I'm like what do you mean?
He's like you're going to beout in a year and a half.
(12:00):
You just need to get out in ayear and a half.
So I graduated with anaccounting degree and I was
working at JCPenney part-time.
It's like do you want to be atrainee in our training program?
Like, I guess I don't haveanything else to do.
And so I moved to Omaha,nebraska, as a trainee for
JCPenney and fell in love withretail.
I was like working part-time,like four hours a week, and I
(12:21):
fell in love with the actualretail side of it, and so the
story was made.
I've stayed in retail andconsumer services ever since.
Rich (12:28):
So I'm going to ask you a somewhat of a professional
question and one of the thingsthat I end up doing is saying
I'm going to take notes and takeit back to my team, but I
didn't realize you were in atraining program at JCPenney.
What was it like in those days?
What did you go through?
Liz (12:42):
Well, keep in mind, we were decentralized, so where I was
learning to be a buyer and adepartment manager and then
hopefully a store managersomeday.
That was my ultimate ambitionto run a store in some tiny town
in the Midwest.
The training program was a12-month training program where
we learned how to run anopen-to-buy, how to calculate
gross profit, how much to buy,what sell-through percentages
(13:04):
look like.
So all the same retail maththat exists today did exist back
in the Stone Age.
It was still there.
Same formula, same calculations.
We learned how to buy and thenwe learned how to lead people
was a big part of it, and welearned how to run the
department that we were in.
But it was a 12-month trainingprogram.
When you graduated, you gotyour very first department in a
store.
It was great.
Rich (13:25):
So were you actually on the sales floor, learning retail
at the same time that you werein a physical location?
Liz (13:31):
I was so in the physical location you were a buyer and a
department manager, so I didn'tsell to customers really, unless
I happened to be on the floorworking.
I was more stocking the floor,rearranging the floor.
Visual merchandising wascritically important.
How you merchandise, that's abig part of retail.
It's not just about buying,it's about how do you
merchandise, how do you marketit.
(13:51):
We put together our ownmarketing plan as well, so those
were all facets that I was ableto do in Omaha, nebraska, in my
own little world.
I had the instant department.
It was very fun.
It's exciting.
Paula (14:03):
No, it's very funny how you start entrepreneurial and
now you're also back into thatentrepreneurial space.
So what you learn is alwaysgoing to stay with you.
Liz (14:13):
It's funny that you say that too, because the
entrepreneurial thing I didn'tthink I was and as I came up
through, so you know, jc Penneywas a $20 billion or $18 billion
when I was there.
Then Neiman Marcus was $5billion and when I was at
Neiman's, my role as chieftransformation officer that was
my last role there before I wentinto the job.
I'm like I want to go do my ownthing.
(14:34):
I want to go to a small company.
I love the big company thing,but it's hard to get things done
in big companies.
Rich (14:39):
There's a lot more red tape no-transcript to any of the
(15:15):
backroom functions.
Liz (15:17):
To a point.
Yes, I think you have to trulyunderstand both sides of it, and
if that means a couple days ayear, you're working on the
floor or doing a full setyourself.
That's one thing at JCPenneythat we did really well is that
all the buyers would go out toone of the lab stores and
actually set the floor for likefour times a year about rich
(15:38):
three times a year, somethinglike that.
They go out there and actuallyphysically set the floor and
then the GM would walk.
Like you know, this doesn'tlook right because they had to
take what they bought and makeit work in the store and then
send out the direction to theentire field.
That was super helpful.
I don't know that we do thatvery often anymore, and in
getting to that point andunderstanding both sides of it,
(15:59):
I think are really, reallyimportant and I've been a
generalist my entire career too.
I thought I was going to be abuyer.
I like the buying side, but Ilike the GM side much better.
Rich (16:12):
All right.
So I have a question that I wasgoing to queue up about
transformation, but you justused the word generalist and I
was on LinkedIn last night andAaron Hurst was asking would you
rather have a jack of alltrades or a master of one?
You just said generalist.
Liz (16:27):
Yeah, so that's for me, that's my preference.
So I'll talk about mypreference and I'll talk about
what I would do on my team, ifthat's all right with you.
From my preference for me, Ihave an insatiable intellect.
I just had this curiosity aboutthings all the time.
I was an accounting major, Ibecame a buyer, but then my
career I kept expanding.
(16:49):
I ran com at JCPenney, I wentinto consumer services, all
these different things.
I like the breadth of what I dobecause I like being able to
pull different levers atdifferent times.
However, on my team, there aresome roles that I love having
generalists in and there aresome roles that I want the
absolute.
I'm not going to swear the bestcandidate.
(17:11):
That's a very, very specific.
I'll give you an examplebecause I just went through this
.
I want my performance marketingperson on the marketing team to
be a digitally native absolute,know everything about
performance marketing.
I don't want them to havedabbled in all this other stuff
because it's moving too fast.
Performance marketing is movinglike lightning speed in how you
(17:32):
acquire customers and how youmarket to them.
I don't want them dabbling inother things.
I want them focused onperformance marketing.
Whereas in a GM, in one of mysalons.
They absolutely could have comefrom lots of different places.
Rich (17:47):
Let's start.
I think when we met, you weretransitioning into the role of
Sephora and now that I'mthinking back, it was one of the
first activations of its kindpartnership activation,
collaboration, however youdefine it.
It really was innovative at themoment, and now you have a lot
more department stores andretailers that are doing it.
(18:10):
How foreign was that to whatyou were used to and how did you
manage through that?
Liz (18:18):
I love that question because I didn't know what I was
getting myself into when I tookthe role.
It was incredibly foreign to mebecause, from a being at
JCPenney perspective, you're incontrol of your own destiny and
what you want to do there,because it's JCPenney Like.
You buy, you put it on thefloor, you sell it, but you're
all inside of your own company.
(18:38):
When you have a partnership,like we did with Sephora, which
was very similar to a jointventure, it wasn't just our
opinion, it was their opiniontoo, and it was we were we joint
, ran it.
We actually like my peer waswas at Sephora.
He ran half of it, I ran halfof it, but we had every decision
we made.
It was a big strategic decisionwe made together as a team and
(19:01):
learning how to understand wheremy business partner was coming
from, and sometimes we hadcompeting interests.
There were times that what Iwanted to do and what he wanted
to do were completely at odds,and so what we did is we
actually drew up the structure.
It was great.
We said the first question wasis this good for the Sephora
Inside JC Penney client numberone, is it good for them?
(19:21):
That was our first question.
Then we said is it good for ourteam and is it good for them?
That was our first question.
Then we said is it good for ourteam and is it good for our
enterprise and our enterprisewith the joint venture?
So, is it good for those three?
If it's good for those three,we'll figure it out on both ends
of our company.
So then we'd check with eachcompany and sometimes it wasn't
great for one, it was great forthe other.
That was okay with us, becausewe couldn't always be exactly 50
(19:41):
50.
But but we we kept going backis it right for the client?
Is it right for the other?
That was okay with us, becausewe couldn't always be exactly
50-50.
But we kept going back to is itright for the client?
Is it right for the client?
Is it right for the client?
Well, if it is, then it's goingto be right for the business
and the business will havelong-term legs and will grow and
it did.
Rich (19:54):
How did you reconcile that when you had a there's a
Sephora customer, there's aJCPenney inside of Sephora or
Sephora inside of JCPenneycustomer and they might be a
little bit different?
How did you reconcile that withyour partner?
Liz (20:08):
The first thing is is that Sephora is positioned as a
prestige beauty company, ofcourse, and JCPenney was not.
So that was the biggest pointof contention is exactly what
you're describing really is thatthe customer was different
Sephora.
What we did is we provided thedata, and I'm a huge data and
analytics person.
Like data, not feelings.
(20:29):
I say that all the time.
We provided Sephora theinformation that the people that
were coming into Sephora atJCPenney were not shopping at
Sephora, and what we foundthrough all of our studies is
that it was too overwhelming.
They were scared to go in, theydidn't understand it, it was
(21:01):
too fast, but in JCPenney theywere able to walk in and in a
smaller environment, a littlemore on what the sticking points
were like.
We thought Sephora spent toomuch on on fixtures, and they
did, by the way, they've spentso much money.
We're like, no, let us valueengineer.
They're like you're too cheap,just trust us.
I'm like you don't need thename brand on this, and that is
we'd argue about that kind ofstuff that we had to prove
(21:21):
ourselves, and then they let usdo it.
I do have to tell you one funnystory, though, because we're
sure going to crack up with this.
There was a time that mybusiness partner his name is
Satish Malhotra, he's actuallythe CEO of the container store
today we were not getting alongon this one topic and we'd been
fighting, not fighting.
We had a constructive conflictfor about two months on this one
(21:44):
topic and it got to a.
It came to a head in thecafeteria at JCPenney and it was
.
It was Satish and me and thenthe chief merchant from Sephora
was standing in between us andhe said something to me like
well, we just won't open anystores then and I dropped my
tray on the on the countertop.
I'm like you know what?
You need to just knock it off.
(22:05):
So we got in this huge argument,huge in the cafeteria, in the
food line.
So we go and we eat and thechief merchant's like you guys
just need to knock it off.
I'm like no, he's being snarkyand whatever.
So we get upstairs in my officeand the CEO of JCPenney had
heard about it and called me inmy office and it rings.
It says Mike Ullman, you know,you could tell who it was.
(22:27):
And I looked at Satish, helooked at me.
I'm like we're in trouble andMike's like you need to come to
my office.
So the two of us walked toMike's office.
He's like what's going on?
So we explained it and then thenext day we solved the issue
and it was fine.
So it was just we'd come to apoint of of we needed to hash it
out loudly, and we did.
Rich (22:47):
So I may ask you about Mike later.
But I'm curious when was thefirst time you used the word
transformation on your resume?
Liz (22:58):
Oh, that's a good question.
I did not use it until I hadthe chief transformation officer
role at Neiman Marcus.
But looking back on it, therewere transformation.
Jcpenney was a transformationtwice it was going from
decentralized to centralized,and Sephora was a massive
(23:20):
transformation that drove abillion dollars of revenue.
I mean that was that was theright word for no beauty to that
.
That was a huge transformation.
I didn't think of it that way,but it was.
It was.
Rich (23:30):
Yeah, I'm embarrassed to admit that during one of the
transformations is when Ilearned about stock options and
grants, because I got the phonecall saying that we're going
through a transformation andyou've been awarded these grants
and options.
I guess we could talk about itnow because you're one of the
ones that's been selected tomove forward and I was on
vacation and I'm like soundsgreat.
(23:51):
And then I had to go back andthis was pre-Google and figure
out what options and grants were.
But they were actually prettycool.
Liz (24:00):
They were really cool and it worked.
So you know, not alltransformations work, but I've
been fortunate to be part of afew that did.
Rich (24:07):
Is there a transformation that you've been part of and you
don't necessarily have to namethe brand.
It may just be a business or asegment where you were
disappointed in how it turnedout.
Liz (24:16):
For sure.
Actually, it's a JCPenney.
So the two that we talked aboutthe decentralized and
centralized and Sephora were prethis event decentralized and
centralized and Sephora were prethis event.
So the downfall of JCPenneygoes back to a very specific
time period in their company andthis is my opinion, obviously
that when there was a CEO thatcame in that had a massive
transformation idea of takingout discounts and simplifying
(24:39):
the business model and turn intoa full price, a full price
business, and I'll just his nameis Ron Johnson.
You can read all about him.
It's, I think it into afull-price business and his
name's Ron Johnson.
You can read all about him.
I think it's a Harvard BusinessSchool case now and, to be clear
, ron was not wrong.
He was not wrong in his beliefthat we should go to a
non-promotional model.
(25:00):
What was wrong is two things.
It came down to two things.
And I was there running Sephora, so I was out of the firing
line because our business wasfine.
Jcpenney lost 25% in one year ofrevenue and a $2 billion cash
burn.
It was incredible.
But during that time period,the two mistakes, the two big
mistakes that were made is onethe team that he hired was not
(25:22):
the right team.
But, most importantly, insteadof stepping into it slowly, it
was an on-off switch on like Ithink it was February 1st or
whatever year that was we turnedoff promotions.
This stopped.
Basically, we fired an entireconsumer base.
That was the current customer.
Instead of evolving to a newcustomer, which we absolutely
(25:43):
needed to do, we fired thecurrent customer.
The new one wasn't there, yetyou lose a quarter of your
revenue in 12 months of evolvingto a new customer, which we
absolutely needed to do.
We fired the current customerthe new one wasn't there yet you
lose a quarter of your revenuein 12 months.
It was epic.
So that would be the mostdisappointing, because it didn't
have to happen that way,because, again, he wasn't wrong.
I think he was actually right,but this execution was wrong.
Rich (25:57):
Yeah, I'll actually, because I was there during that
time and I think he wasabsolutely right and I think if
he had been able to execute evenhalf of what he envisioned,
pennies and department storeswould be in a different place
today.
But he didn't integrate thosethat he hired into the culture
and we're not going to harborbusiness where you did the case
study, and we won't do that.
(26:19):
But I think, from a lessonperspective and I haven't heard
it said that way, but he did hefired 5.1 million very loyal
customers and I remember the adthat played during the Academy
Awards that said you deserve tolook better.
And I remember the cringe of no, you didn't just say that.
Liz (26:41):
We did.
It was not good and it shouldhave worked.
And Rich to your point.
I think, most importantly, thatthe state of department stores
today could have been different.
If you look at departmentstores, they're just struggling
to find the reason for being.
It's like what is your reasonfor being?
And there's too much samenessout there and it could have been
(27:02):
very different.
Rich (27:03):
I drank the Kool-Aid.
I will will I will.
Liz (27:05):
I did for about six months and then I'm like, well, hold up
, hold up, and then that was,then it's done.
Now company and the companyactually is, you know, hopefully
will be successful goingforward.
Paula (27:17):
I've got a lot of confidence to them well, let's,
let's switch topics a little bitbut kind of stay on the same
track of profession.
So, throughout all this,throughout being the chief
transformation officer at theMidmarcus, what has been the
biggest transformationthroughout your career that
you've seen technology-wise, orthe biggest innovation that
you've seen so far?
Liz (27:38):
I think you know when you think about innovation and you
think about what that could meanwhere I've not seen it work.
Well, I'm going to start withthat first no-transcript.
(27:59):
At Neiman Marcus, we had thisthing called the magic mirror or
something and you could go andyou could pretend to try and
close and it shows you theclothes without putting them on
or something like that.
I don't remember we got tons oflike PR from it, tons of
marketing press, but like itdidn't do anything.
It was just there.
It didn't transform the company.
I think that the biggest partthat I've been involved in is
(28:22):
that this is going to soundsuper boring, but it's really
finding ways to connect datawith consumers and finding ways
to speak to people on aone-to-one basis.
That appears to be one-to-one,that is actually.
It could be one-to-many, butit's things that are
personalized to the consumer.
(28:42):
That drives an emotionalconnection with your brand and
makes you feel like you know meas a consumer, like I want
consumers to feel like they knowme.
That connection with data andnow we're using AI, of course,
all those connection pieces wereprobably the biggest innovation
and that's what we were drivingat Neiman Marcus.
We were taking this brick andmortar focus, true one-to-one
(29:04):
relationship.
Finding ways to scale thatdifferently by using data and by
sending text messages toclients that were suited exactly
to them, like they would sendme.
You know, this hot pink blousewould be perfect for you because
they knew all about me.
That was, to me, was one of themost exciting parts.
It sounds boring, but itactually was really exciting but
(29:24):
it actually was really exciting.
Rich (29:25):
So, from a consumer behavior perspective, how do you
think the consumer has evolvedover the last 10 or 20 years?
And if you were to predict howconsumer behavior will change,
let's say 10 years from now,what's your prediction?
Liz (29:37):
The speed of change is wicked.
So I think when you look back10 years ago, you could pretty
much predict what was happening.
You know, six months, 12 monthsout, and the consumer today is
moving fast and their demandsare incredibly high.
And so if you think about youknow, think about high fashion,
luxury fashion there'd be therunway shows in Paris.
You would face your orders,they'd make it.
(30:00):
It'd come in nine months laterand it was fine and everybody
was there by the time this stuffgets here.
Half the time it's actuallywe've moved on to the next thing
.
So the consumer is incredibly,incredibly fast and trends are
moving fast.
I personally love all theTikToks with Gen X, who I happen
to be, and Gen Z explaininglike I think I'm cool and I talk
(30:22):
about the brat, and they'relike that's like so done.
I'm like how could it be done?
It just started, like it didn'tjust start.
It started a month ago, like.
But it's a month ago, like it'sdone.
Those things will continue toget faster and faster and faster
.
I think we can thank, you know,just social media and anything
online for that.
The other thing, too, is thatthe consumer is incredibly
(30:43):
demanding.
They have choices and they wantthings today or yesterday they
don't want.
They're not going to wait, theyjust won't.
Now there are certain things.
If you can drive exclusivity,they'll wait for a wait list,
but in general if somebody wantssomething, they want it, and
they want it the next day, ifnot the same day.
I moved to Chicago.
I place an Amazon order.
(31:03):
It's usually there the same day.
If I place it early in themorning, it's nuts, the stuff
just shows up.
I want paper towels.
They're there like at threeo'clock in the afternoon.
It's pretty awesome.
I don't have to wait for it.
That's more of what consumers.
That's just table stakes today.
Rich (31:17):
And you talk about how quickly it's changing in social
media.
I was allowed to be very demureand very respectful for about a
week before it got old.
Exactly, I recorded a lectureand by the time I released it
two weeks later, it was likeseriously, dude, that is over.
Liz (31:31):
They make fun of us Rich, and that's, you know, my
marketing team.
I love them.
They're hilarious, so I alwaystry to put things out there, but
I made them buy me socks as alittle aside.
The other day.
Send me links on Amazon.
I'm like I need new socks to gowith my sneakers and they're
like you don't do no-shows, doyou?
I'm like, well, yeah, I do.
They're like you can't wearno-shows.
(31:53):
So they sent me links to thesocks I had to buy.
Okay, it worked out.
Rich (31:57):
They look good.
I have a question queued upwhere I was going to ask you
about in your travels and yourexperiences, have you come
across a brand or a retailerthat you think is doing it well?
But I actually want to give youa chance to talk about what
you're currently doing, becauseyou are merging or integrating
service and product, and so I'dlove to hear a little bit more
(32:20):
about what you're doing now andhow you're innovating that.
Liz (32:26):
So this is the perfect blend for me.
So we have a consumer servicecompany, tricocci Salon and Spa,
and we have a strong retailbusiness as part of that, but we
also have a CPG arm that wedon't talk very often about, but
I do want to talk about thattoday.
First part is is that thatconsumers want a full
experiential, whether it be inretail or in services.
(32:49):
They want experience as part ofthat, unless it's very
transactional.
So if they like, buying papertowels is transactional, getting
a massage is experiential, andand or getting your haircut or
getting your nails done,whatever those things are, and
what we're able to do atTrocochi is integrate the two.
So we're not just sellingretail and we're not just doing
haircuts.
We're doing both, and whatwe're trying to do is find ways
(33:11):
that this intersects, that theconsumer can have a full 360
experience.
So that's the first piece.
As part of that, we veryintentionally launch services
that have a retail component,and what we found is that when
we have a service with a retailcomponent, we usually attach
retail to the service about 50%of the time, and so, for those
(33:32):
of you that don't know, in thesalon industry, typically it's
about a 10% attachment rate, butit's 50% when you actually have
a service with a retailcomponent.
So we'll say we'll do an Orbeaback bar takeover and we'll wash
your hair with Orbe shampoo.
50% of the time people arebuying Orbe shampoo at the same
time that they're getting theservice.
So it's just making that wholething, like the whole experience
(33:53):
, resonate.
And that's what I thinkdepartment stores, by the way,
are missing today is how do youblend an experience with
shopping?
Shopping is not supposed to betransactional unless, again,
you're buying paper towels.
Shopping is not supposed to betransactional unless, again,
you're buying paper towels.
The other part of it is that weactually have a CPG arm in our
company and we do our ownprivate label under Tricogi
Collection.
But, more importantly, we justlaunched our very first brand
(34:15):
that we hope to take wholesalesomeday.
It's called Nutrier.
It launched nine days ago andit's smashing success.
So far we're in our 13locations in Chicago.
We've sold over 1,000 units innine days, which is huge.
The sell-through is justmassive.
And we just put it up onNutriacom.
(34:36):
We just launched the website.
We launched it nine days ago,but it's not really a launch.
We started driving trafficthere about 48 hours ago a
little bit.
We're still in beta there andthen we're going to do a
national launch in January,february, in New York City.
It'll be the full 360 campaign.
We're doing influencers, we'redoing everything you can imagine
(34:58):
as we kick off the nationallaunch.
And then we, just as part ofthat, launched Headspot Nutria
Headspot at Trocochi, also ninedays ago, and we're almost fully
booked out on it because thenagain these people are buying
the Nutrier product when they'regetting the Nutrier Head Spa
treatment.
So it's that experiential 360view.
It's just so.
It's great.
It's a great way to tell peoplewant to shop.
It's great, very emotive, yeah.
Paula (35:19):
And such a you're so part of people's personal, like the
personal aspect of them.
What made you choose thisindustry specifically?
So you've done Neiman Marcus,you've done JCPenney, so how did
you end up with this one?
Liz (35:31):
You know, growing up in retail and then shifting to
consumer services, it has beenlike I love both of those worlds
, and I also was, because it wasat Sephora I had the beauty
side of it, and at Neiman MarcusI also had the luxury side of
it, and at Demon Markets I alsohad the luxury side of it.
So I like this beauty luxuryservice retail blend.
That's what I'm doing today.
I'm doing exactly that.
(35:52):
It takes all the things that Ilove and puts it together.
Businesses that have a reasonfor being and have a stickiness
and an emotional connection arethe businesses that I like to be
part of, because there's areason.
People feel great when theyhave a salon service.
People feel relaxed, they feelthe best version of themselves,
(36:13):
whatever that is.
We've changed our internalworking phrase as beauty, where
you belong.
Everybody belongs here.
We just want you to feel,however you want to feel, what
is beauty for you?
I'm not here to tell you whatit should be for me, or I'm not
going to tell you what it shouldbe for you, but what do you
want it to be and how can wehelp you achieve that and feel
great about yourself?
Rich (36:31):
All right.
Well, I was going to jump intothe advice part, so start with
mentors.
You've had many, one inparticular, one or two come to
mind.
Liz (36:44):
Yeah, I would say the CEO at Neiman Marcus, geoffrey Van
Rondonk.
He was the CEO.
He currently is the CEO there.
So when I was running the offprice division at Neiman Marcus,
I was ready to go to a smallercompany.
I'm like I'm ready just to getout of this big, big company
thing.
And he's like I have one morerole for you.
I want you to go do this chieftransformation officer role.
(37:06):
I think you're great at it andat the end of that I'll help you
find your next job.
Like how can you say no to that?
Like that's a pretty cool thing.
Little did we know COVID wascoming and all that crazy stuff
at the same time.
But so I did that and webattled oh, my goodness, did we
battle?
And so so Jeff was a very, veryum he's, he's uh, uh, bcg
(37:27):
trained so highly consultant, um, data analytics, and I'm like
woo, let's go team and like likelead teams like nobody's
business and would want to runthrough a brick wall.
He challenged me to become moredata driven and much more
analytical and I challenged himto loosen up a little bit.
And we joke about it todaywe're still very close.
(37:48):
He made me a much better leaderand much more strategic in my
thought process, and Iabsolutely loved it.
I still go to him for advicetoday.
He's done an amazing job atNeiman Marcus, and he's one that
comes to mind first.
There's a lot of other ones,though.
Rich (38:09):
And probably some that you learned from that weren't
necessarily mentors, but youlearned what not to do.
Liz (38:14):
Oh yeah, I have those two.
I'm happy to describe them ifyou like.
Rich (38:19):
Yeah, we'll let that one go.
So, but you know you.
Just you said something andit's not the first time we've
heard it about having a mentorwho's a boss, who recommends or
helps you to move on to anotherorganization, and so I actually
want to expand that.
Have you had situations whereyou've had somebody working for
you who you think is extremelytalented and you've tapped them
(38:42):
on the shoulder and said youprobably have outgrown your
position here.
In order for you to grow, youneed to move on.
Tell me a little bit about that.
Liz (38:50):
I've said it twice in two different ways.
One time the person wasill-suited for the role they
were in and we were going tocome a time that they weren't
going to be able to be with thecompany.
And they knew it and I knew it.
It was just not a good fit, Notpersonality, to be with the
company.
And they knew it and I knew it.
It was just not a good fit, notpersonality, not, they were
(39:10):
just not.
They were not qualified for therole that they had.
And so, instead of just lettingthem go, I said we just talked
about it a lot and they didn'tlove it.
I didn't love it, they weren'tdoing a good job and I helped
them find their next role.
That was that was suited totheir skill.
They had an amazing skillset,just not in the job that they
had.
The other one was someone whocould really reach for the stars
and had that capability thatneeded to round out their career
, and I couldn't provide that.
(39:32):
I can't tell you who it is, butI couldn't provide that for
them in the company.
I just we didn't have the rolethey needed.
I'm like, if you want to go?
So I always have thisconversation with my high
potentials.
What is your North Star?
Where do you want to be in 10,20 years, depending on how long
they've been around?
What is your ultimate desire?
And once you understand thatpart of my job is to help them
(39:53):
get there If they're a highperformer.
If they're not a high performer, I don't because they're not a
high performer, but our highperformers, let me help them,
and that means sometimes lettingthem go, and sometimes they
come back and so you just don'tknow.
Rich (40:07):
Yeah, and those end up being proud moments, and I've
had a couple of those as wellwhere it's very hard.
You don't want to lose theperson, but you know that it's
best for them and you maintainthat relationship.
You watch them grow.
I don't think that's doneenough, but I think that's a
(40:27):
leadership skill that we need totry and develop no-transcript.
Liz (41:02):
I'll help, and that also, by the way, helps the company,
because then I also have runwayto figure out what to do about
it.
So it maybe takes a year.
What?
Paula (41:08):
do you think is going to is the currently the most
underrated or undervalued skillthe person can have.
Liz (41:14):
Oh, that's a really good question.
I think there's a couple.
One of them is authenticity,and bringing your true self to
work, like who you are and yourpersonality.
I think is really important,and because not you I never want
a team of homogenous, the samelooking, acting, thinking
(41:38):
everything you can imagine,because you want you want the
best brains and the best minds,the best people in the room.
That also I want people to beable to bring who they actually
are to work themselves, and Ihappen to be an extrovert and it
served me very well.
Thanks, rich, I am.
(42:03):
I have a brilliant person on myteam right now who's an
introvert.
I have to go out of my way tomake sure that I call on her in
meetings, because if I don't,she probably won't speak up in
the meeting because she's notcomfortable interrupting and so,
like having just free, Ishouldn't make her change.
I should, as a leader, adapt mystyle to make sure that she's
being heard, and so I think allof those things is one of the
(42:25):
most important things that aleader can do.
Paula (42:28):
That's interesting.
So to be a good leader, to beable to hear all these people,
you obviously have to have somekind of source of inspiration to
fill your cup back up.
What fills you back up?
Liz (42:39):
Oh gosh.
So I have a big family, marriedfor 10 years It'll be 10 years
in February and we have six kidstogether.
We're empty nesters.
Last kid is a senior in college, so I consider us empty nesters
.
What fills my cup is being withmy husband and being outdoors
in Colorado and reallyrecharging.
(43:00):
I try really hard on theweekends to not work.
I mean I might on Sundayafternoons, but I try really
hard to completely shut down forthe weekends.
But I work my tail off duringthe week in order to be able to
do that and it doesn't alwayshappen that way.
But just time with him and timejust being outside and being
together is how I fill my cup.
Rich (43:20):
And going to Taylor Swift concerts.
Liz (43:22):
Well with him.
Yeah, Of course, going toTaylor Swift twice.
I'm so excited.
I'm a Swifty.
I may be 54, but I'm still aSwifty.
Rich (43:34):
I'm 56 and I'm a Swifty, I'm a Posty, I love music and I
am very envious of that it'sgoing to be fun.
Liz (43:41):
Hey, keep an eye.
You know, tickets might dropright before the event.
You never know.
Rich (43:45):
If I'm not mistaken, you me, jim Kenny and Susan
Weinstock, who unfortunatelypassed away several years ago,
and I think about thedifferences in personalities.
Several years ago, when I thinkabout the differences in
personalities, she was, like youknow, a balloon in a phone
booth.
You were definitely theextrovert, I'm the introvert.
And then you had Jim Kenney,who was the elder statesman who
had worked with Mike before andsitting in there for two days it
(44:08):
was.
It was an interesting mix.
Liz (44:10):
It was a very interesting mix.
You are not kidding.
Rich (44:13):
As I was preparing for this episode, it dawned on me
that as long as you and I haveknown each other, we never
really worked together.
We had the opportunity to spendtwo days.
We were sitting at the sametable, part of the same group,
with Jim and Susan and a coupleof others, and had the
opportunity to have Mike Ullman,the CEO at the time, his near
(44:36):
undivided attention as he talkedabout, you know, not his
successes.
It was really great because hetalked about his challenges and
his failings at times and whathe learned through adversity,
and I took a lot away from itand you and I have stayed in
contact after those couple ofdays.
I'm going to pivot here alittle bit because you're a
(44:58):
member of the Women in RetailLeadership Circle.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat and how those connections
have helped you throughout yourcareer and the importance of the
relationships that you build?
Liz (45:12):
So I have an affinity for helping other women along.
Most of the people that Imentor are women not all, but
most are.
The world used to be dominatedby men and run by men, and times
have certainly changed peoplethat are there.
I mentor marketing studentsfrom the University of Iowa.
The same way that I lovehelping other people get ahead
(45:44):
and I love that part of itthat's actually what brings me
the most joy now versus business.
Results are great, but I lovethat just helping other people.
It's amazing when I think aboutTaylor Swift's song the man.
That's what I like.
That's kind of what I subscribeto.
You know, let's help otherwomen out.
Paula (45:59):
So, all right, Are you ready?
This is the most important partI am ready Bring it.
Bring it.
This is the rapid fireconversation.
This is where we are going toask you three questions.
The first thing that comes intoyour mind is the right answer.
So first question is do youhave a specific walk-on song or
theme song that would define you, the man?
Liz (46:21):
Taylor Swift.
By the way, the song is aboutlike if I were the man, then I'd
be the man, and it's basicallyabout being a woman and being a
professional.
Paula (46:31):
If you had one last meal, what would it be?
What is your last meal?
It's pizza.
If you had one last meal.
Liz (46:35):
What would it be?
What is your last meal?
It's pizza.
Paula (46:36):
It just is.
From where, though?
Oh, because I live in Chicago,yep you gotta be specific.
Liz (46:44):
I you know what.
I can't answer that.
I just moved there and we'remaking our rounds of pizza right
now.
There's a place.
I can't remember it.
It serves the best pizza.
It starts with a P, it has aP-squall, p-qualls, p-something.
It's amazing, niche.
Paula (46:58):
Niche or thin crust.
So you're saying deep dish.
Liz (47:03):
I actually prefer thin crust as a general statement.
Paula (47:07):
I do too, I can.
I love my deep dishes.
Rich (47:11):
So if you could transport yourself and you could take Jeff
along if you want, anywhere inthe world instantaneously.
You go for 24 hours.
You don't have to pack yourbags, you don't have to worry
about planes and transportation.
Where are you going?
Liz (47:25):
I'm going to Koakia resort on the island of Kauai because
that is my favorite place in theworld and that's where we go to
reconnect when we need toreconnect.
We get on a plane, go toauai,we stay at Koakia and just chill
Favorite place ever.
Rich (47:41):
And if you're going someplace on your own just to
get away for 24 hours.
Liz (47:44):
By myself I would actually go to.
I'd still go to a beach, but no, I wouldn't go there, I'd
probably just go down to theBahamas Atlanta Beach.
I'm a big like shut down when Itravel.
I have two different ways totravel, by the way.
I either shut down and read anddrink Sorry, I read and then I
also love to learn and I dohistory.
I like Italy and spending timein Rome and going to Greece and
(48:05):
going to Turkey and all thatLove it.
But that's a different kind of.
That's an active vacationversus a passive vacation.
Rich (48:11):
Yeah, I'm right there with you.
I vacation, going to Turkey,going to the Grand Bazaar and
learning about that, or with mywife and I, it's the grill.
Jamaica, certain mile beach.
Liz (48:22):
Yeah, exactly.
And then you do nothing right,you just hang out, you just read
, I just read, I read like 10books a week, as my husband
likes to call it, the all ornothing approach.
Yeah, that's me A thousandpercent.
Paula (48:35):
All right, you're having a dinner party.
You can invite three people.
They can be living or dead,they can be historical or
fiction.
Who's coming to this dinnerparty?
Liz (48:45):
Oh, I love this.
Okay, I would invite my father.
He passed away five plus yearsago and I'd just like to hear
that he's proud of me.
I know he was, but like now,like I'd like, I'd like just to
hear from him, I of me.
I know he was, but like now,like I'd like, I like just to
hear from him.
I'm absolutely positive, Iwould do that.
I would absolutely love toinvite Abraham Lincoln, cause
I'm fascinated by that part thatthat that period in time.
I don't know why, but like thatwhole, like what happened then,
(49:08):
like what really went down, soI think that'd be really fun.
Be a good mix of people too.
Rich (49:20):
That would be a pretty eclectic mix.
All right, bonus question whatwould you serve?
Liz (49:24):
Oh, what would I serve.
I'd have to have it cateredbecause I despise cooking.
So I'd have it catered in myhome and it would be like a
really nice, like really nice,like four course meal, five
course meal from a great chefand great wine.
Paula (49:39):
We have an Airstream and we're hosting a tailgate at
Soldier Field and my husband waslike what should we cook?
Like I really want our guestsyou know we invited like random
people this is a test run beforehe does the real tailgate.
So we're doing the tailgate andmy husband's like, well, should
we cook?
You know, I want our guests toget like great flavors and I was
like what do you mean cook?
(49:59):
I'm going to get it catered.
And he's like what?
Like oh, people love a homecooked meal.
I'm like no, people like goodfood and I can get that catered.
So it doesn't matter if Islaved over it or if I bought it
.
Like people are going to careif the quality of the food was
good.
So I'm all with you on catering, catering, cater, cater.
Liz (50:18):
Cater all the time.
I don't cook, I don't.
Rich (50:21):
I will tell you that I was an original ticket holder at
the new boss at Baltimore yeah,baltimore Ravens Stadium and we
tailgated and my nickname wasChef and a friend of mine and I
cooked and at the one o'clockgame we showed up at 7 30.
If it was a four o'clock game,we showed up at quarter of eight
and if it was an eight o'clockgame we showed up at nine.
(50:44):
And I didn't always make it tothe game, because sometimes you
have to sleep it off, but no, Iwould cook you're a great, oh
rich.
Liz (50:54):
You enjoy cooking and you're great at it.
Rich (50:57):
I like cooking for large groups, but I haven't done it as
much.
Liz, absolutely fantastic tohave you.
It's great catching up.
It is great when we get to runinto each other in industry
events.
It's not often enough, but Ilearned from you when we were at
(51:20):
JCPenney.
I continue to learn from you asyou continue to go on the
journey, and you're one of thosethat I hold in the highest
regard.
So I appreciate you joining ustoday, and I know that our
audience will love to hear thelessons as well.
Liz (51:28):
Great Thanks for right back at you.
I feel the same way about youand Paula, wonderful to meet you
.
Paula (51:32):
I look forward to us actually getting together in
person.
Liz (51:36):
Yes, yes, I'll send you some dates.
Rich (51:38):
All right, paula, so I'll apologize for that.
Paula (51:44):
It was a little bit of a trip down memory lane with Liz.
It was really great to see youjust share stories and see you
so joyful.
I don't think I've ever seenyou, you know, shoot the breeze
with an old colleague.
So some old war stories fromtwo vets that know way more than
me.
Sign me up.
I had a lot to learn there.
Rich (52:01):
Funny thing is is that we didn't really work together.
I mean, we weren't in the samedepartment, we didn't work on
similar projects.
Where we connected was in a twoday leadership seminar
symposium with the CEO at thetime and the head of human
resources, and the CEO was MikeUllman, who Liz mentioned, one
(52:23):
of the top CEOs I've ever hadthe opportunity to work for, to
learn from, and it's amazingwhat that two days did.
Paula (52:32):
And Mike Ullman.
He was a CEO, I did and Mike.
Rich (52:33):
Goldman.
He was a CEO, he was on theFederal Reserve Board, he was
extraordinarily busy and yet hewas there during most of that
two days and the stories heshared weren't hey, look at me,
this is what I did and hey, lookat me, let me brag about this.
He taught through humility andhe taught through this.
(52:54):
These are the mistakes I'vemade, these are the learnings
I've had, and it was a memorableexperience.
But back to Liz she and Iconnected over that and that two
days kind of led to this.
We've kind of followed eachother in our careers and have
been able to bend each other'sears from time to time.
Paula (53:11):
And you know what.
You bring up a good point andI'm gonna pivot a little bit
here.
It's all about relationship.
And bring up a good point andI'm going to pivot a little bit
here.
It's all about relationship andwe've talked about that before
in retail, the relationship youhave with the customer.
But life is all aboutrelationships and really making
a meaningful connection withpeople, not just that
(53:32):
superficial.
How are you Good?
Okay, great, saw you Check thebox.
I'll talk to you again in twoweeks to say that I am your
friend.
No, it's about having thesereal deep connections and when
you have those connections withsomeone, you can call them 10
years down the road and they'llremember you.
Like it was freaking yesterday.
Rich (53:43):
Yeah, and I think well, I mean you're a good example of it
.
I mean you and I workedtogether when you were at Zen
Media I think it was MarketingZen back then.
We've kept in touch.
We've kept in touch.
When I went off on my own, youwere kind enough to get me
co-working space and introduceme to a couple of people at the
(54:04):
DEC and we've stayed in contact.
And, of course, when we startedRetail Relates, you were the
first person I called.
So the relationships I agreewith you and sometimes the best
ones aren't the ones whereyou're just keeping up on social
media and there's a text everyother day.
You can go two or three or fouryears but then encounter a
situation and say you know whowould be good for this.
(54:25):
I'm going to reach out to Paula, because I haven't spoken to
her for a while.
She will know how to help withthis.
It's interesting because if youtake that and you look at it in
retail and you look at it inlife and you think about AI and
all the fascinating things thatcan be done, it can't replace
relationships.
It can't replace those humanconnections that really are what
(54:47):
the basis of retail is allabout.
Paula (54:49):
At the end of the day, that's what it is.
It's about connecting with thatone person.
That's what you try to doacross the board one person.
Rich (54:57):
That's what you try to do across the board, yeah, and what
I?
What I liked about what she'sdoing now and it was good to
catch up with what she's doingnow at Trococci is this merger
between services and retail, andI think that's what we're going
to find as we continue downthis exploration is that the
traditional big box ordepartment store retail that we
think of is getting disrupted,where people are buying from
(55:20):
social media, or they're goinginto a salon and they're buying
their retail goods, or they'rebuying direct from the factory,
or they're buying when they'reon vacation at a hotel boutique,
and the whole notion of whatretail is is just morphing, and
in a very tumultuous time.
It's what makes it, I think,rather exciting.
Paula (55:43):
So I will say I'm glad you said that, because when you
mentioned that you were bringingon this guest, I pushed back
because I couldn't see how isthis exactly retail?
Right, I'm on the outside, I'mnot a retail executive, that's
what you guys are the academicand the executive.
And I'm glad that you pushedagain and you said just wait and
see and listen, because itreally is retail.
(56:03):
Retail is so much bigger thanwhat the traditional retail was
and, like you said, it's gettingdisruptive and it's
encompassing more and more thanwhat we knew previously.
Rich (56:15):
And to your point.
I think, as we make decisionson what's really important, what
we're going to spend money on,I think there's a lot of us that
are spending less money onquote unquote stuff than we were
in the past and we may bebuying, you know, secondhand or
gently loved or whatever theterminology is, or we may be
(56:37):
buying handcrafted goods, or wemay be buying custom, or we may
be going without.
I think that more thoughtfulpurchase and not just going to
the traditional retailer itdefinitely is disruptive.
There are more stores slated toclose this year than I think in
.
I really haven't tracked whenthe last time is that 15,000
(57:00):
plus store fronts closed.
It is creating an environmentwhere new things will pop up and
it'll make, hopefully, retailand commerce in general more
exciting and engaging.
Make retail cool again commercein general more exciting and
engaging.
Make retail cool again.
There you go.
(57:20):
Make retail cool again, Paula.
Paula (57:21):
any parting words as we close out this episode.
I mean, I think, make retailcool again.
Rich (57:24):
All right, we're going to go with make retail cool again.
For all of you who joined us onthis episode, thank you very
much.
We really appreciate it.
We are having a lot of fun Forall of you joining us.
This has been a lot of fun.
Hopefully it was fun for you.
Hopefully you take somethingaway from it as you explore the
wonderful world of retail andglobal commerce and consumer
(57:46):
behavior with us.
We look forward to having youjoin us next time on Retail
Relates.
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