March 20, 2025 • 27 mins
Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ?
Marty Shapiro, COO of LAFCO New York, explores how luxury fragrance brands can grow their reach while maintaining their special appeal in today's evolving retail landscape. He shares strategies for creating consistent brand experiences across multiple channels while preserving the essence of luxury.
• Consistency across all touchpoints is crucial for maintaining brand identity
• Zip code protection is becoming obsolete as consumer shopping habits evolve
• Product placement should be strategic rather than limited by traditional exclusivity rules
• Context matters when displaying luxury products across different retail environments
• A failed brand extension taught valuable lessons about customer perception
• The product must be amazing, but telling its story is equally important
Email Marty at martys@lafco.com or find him on LinkedIn to continue the conversation on luxury brand growth.
Always growing.
Benno Duenkelsbuehler
CEO & Chief Sherpa of (re)ALIGN
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, welcome to the Third Growth Officer podcast,
where we talk about all thingsgrowth, yes, even and especially
those hard parts where you shedsome skin and pick yourself up
by the bootstraps.
Hey, I'm Benno Dunkelspüler,growth Sherpa and OG hashtag
growth nerd.
We're on a mission to redefinesuccess inside and outside the
(00:23):
business, one TGO episode at atime.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hi, I'm Marty Shapiro , the COO and one of the
partners of LAFCO New York, andI'm joining you today from my
home office in WestchesterCounty, new York, from my home
office in Westchester County,new York.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
All right, marty, thank you so much for joining us
.
I am Benno.
I have said this 150 times.
I am the host of the ThirdGrowth Option podcast.
All right, I got that.
I am calling in from MexicoCity today.
Marty, you and I met at anindustry event earlier this year
(01:06):
a couple months ago, actually,a GHDA conference and you spent
the first four years or so aftercollege working in banking and
private equity and then in thelast 11 years, as you said, coo
partner of a luxury.
Lafco is a luxury fragrancebrand you guys are selling
through boutiques, gift stores,key accounts, amazon,
(01:30):
direct-to-consumer on your ownwebsite.
There's a lot of left brain,right brain activity that has to
happen to make all of that workright.
So, what you and I were talkingabout at that cocktail party at
GHTA, up on the rooftopoverlooking the Atlantic Ocean,
was, I mean, it morphed into thetitle of this podcast, which is
how do you grow luxury, reachthe reach of a luxury brand?
(01:54):
You know, how do you growluxury yet remain special, right
, we've seen retail channelssort of blurring and flattening,
where the term that you usedyou know where consumers buy, at
both Walmart and Neiman Marcus,right, zip code protection
becomes difficult when productis available on a bunch of
(02:19):
websites your own and Amazon andothers, online and offline is
sort of melting and you aretrying to meet the customer
where they are with a luxurybrand.
That's true, no matter whatbrand you are.
You're trying to meet thecustomer where they are, which
is everywhere.
So how do you make the brandshine in each place?
So let's just kind of talk abouttouch points.
You have touch points, likesales people.
(02:42):
You have your own website,other websites, your showroom.
How do you help each touchpoint to shine?
Yeah, how do you help eachtouch point to shine?
I?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
think that consistency is really important
to us.
It's something that as a I wasgoing to say a luxury brand, but
as a brand, any brand,regardless of where you kind of
fit into the marketplace, Ithink consistency is important.
So we kind of think about Lafcoas having three core tenets.
Those are luxury, artistry andintegrity.
(03:16):
And so as we think about thevarious touch points, whether
it's the consumer visiting ourwebsite, consumer, you know,
visiting our website, laughgocomor a salesperson Nice plug,
well done, thank you, thank you.
Might be one of my firstpodcasts, but not my first rodeo
.
There you go, you know, weapproach all the touch points
(03:39):
kind of with those tenets in theback of our mind.
Like I said, our own website,laughgocom, but also when a
salesperson is talking to asales rep or an independent
retailer or a point of purchase,piece of sales material, where
we're talking about what makesour product special.
I mean, it's really all aboutlike presenting the brand in the
same light so that you know,when consumers see us, they
(04:01):
identify us, they know who weare, they know what we stand for
, we can piece, they can knowthat the product that they're
buying comes with a certainlevel of quality.
We've done a tremendous amountof quality control, not just in
making the product, but alsointegrity in the sense of the
decisions we're making about theproduct development and how we
(04:22):
created it.
Which factories do we work withthat are paying living wages?
I mean, there's so manydecisions that go into bringing
a product to life and weultimately try to distill it
down into this word that guidesour working day integrity.
But we want to articulate it tothe consumer so that wherever
(04:43):
they're interacting with LAFCOwhether it's the website or in a
store or on the packaging thatthey can understand that and
take that from us and know thatif they're buying something from
us, that that's what they'regetting.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Luxury and integrity are two of the.
What was the third word?
Artistry, artistry, luxury,artistry and integrity, and I
think there's so much power indistilling things down to their
most essential, which is a hardprocess to do, I'd say it's
really hard, I mean we workreally hard at it and I think I
(05:18):
mean we could do better.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I feel like we have a lot of work to do.
By no means do I think we do itperfectly.
But, yeah, it sounds simple tokind of distill a message down
to its core elements.
But it is not easy.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I hear, hear, hear, hear.
Right.
So simple is not easy andsimple is super powerful.
The more simple you know, youcrystallize something.
Let's talk a little bit aboutthis nagging problem, I would
maybe say, of exclusivity.
How do you help a sales repwhen the retailer wants
exclusivity or zip codeprotection, right?
(05:56):
Just how do you think aboutthat?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Well, I mean, I think you know, we certainly
recognize that our industry, orthe gift industry at large, has
grown up, so to speak, with thenotion of zip code protection as
something that people havebecome accustomed to or used to.
I mean, I think today that kindof protection is just simply
(06:22):
like, not worth what it once waswith the way people shop.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
I mean, it's becoming obsolete.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
It's certainly.
I mean I yeah, I do think it'sbecoming obsolete, but so I
think it becomes our job toarticulate to our customer you
know and I'm not talking I meanI'm talking in this case about
the wholesaler who's buying thegoods for resale what makes us
special and how it's exclusive,even though it's available in
other places.
(06:49):
I mean the availability of theproduct in other places doesn't
take away from why it's sodifferent and why a customer
might want to buy it in theirstore.
I mean, I also think we've donea lot of work on our side and
there's so many different kindsof stores and, as we were
talking before, what's importantto us is meeting the customer
(07:10):
where they are and we don't wantto place Lotgo everywhere.
We want to place Lotgo in theplaces where it's going to sell,
it makes sense, where thecustomer wants to buy it.
And I mean sometimes that meansthere is only one store in a zip
code.
That makes sense, and sometimesit means there's four stores in
a two block radius, where itmakes sense.
(07:32):
I mean, I think we approach itvery granularly.
I mean us internally, inconjunction with our sales reps,
where to put the brand.
But I think we work really hard, also just from an education
standpoint, in talking to peopleabout how having the brand be
out there builds momentum forthe brand, builds recognition
(07:54):
for the brands.
Two different kinds of stores,where she's not going to walk
into a furniture store andexpect to buy makeup and so
becoming aware, let's say, ofLafco at a furniture store, but
seeing it in a different kind ofretailer, in a different kind
of light, I mean we feel can bereally helpful.
(08:14):
Context matters right Contextdefinitely matters.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Are there.
Let's talk about what.
So we talked about thesedifferent touch points.
Right of salesperson walks intoa retail store selling lafco.
Retailer looks at your website.
Consumer looks at amazon looksat your website.
So they're all these differenttouch points.
Have you come across frictionpoints between the different
(08:39):
touch points where, like some ofthem, I think, as you say, are
they add or additive?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
right.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Like even the example you just used of seeing your
product in four different storesin two blocks, you know well,
one is a furniture store, theother one is a gift store.
What have you so, within thedifferent contexts maybe it is
additive the way you're touchingthe customer Are there friction
points where different touchpoints are dilutive?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
right like are like taking away from each other sure
I, I think that there can beand I think that's I mean it's
our job and it's also I'd beremiss in saying I mean we in
the specialty channel, we sellusing a network of independent
sales reps.
I mean we work with more than60 of them and I'd say we rely
very heavily on them to help usmake these decisions, help us
(09:33):
understand what the right storesare, help us understand if this
town can support four retailersbut that town can only support
one.
Help us understand whichretailers are additive and which
might be dilutive to your point.
I mean, we're a relativelysmall group of people, I mean
mostly based in New York City.
We can't be experts everywhereand that's why one of the many
(09:54):
reasons why the rep communitythat we work with is so helpful
to us and helping us understandhow we can successfully grow our
brand in a place where,physically, we're just not Right
and I mean look, I love yourproduct, I love your website.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
It is elevated is maybe the right word.
It has a feeling of there's amerchant and a designer and an
artist tree, as you said, behindit, right, and I think that
helps a lot to just show up inthese different places and
(10:28):
remain special.
I've been wondering if thereare other industries, maybe
other consumer industriesoutside of gift and fragrance,
where this luxury fashionelement is being made available
in a large way and yet remainingspecial.
(10:50):
I mean, are there?
Have you guys you know asyou're thinking about you go to
market strategy and being in youknow a variety of channels in a
variety of ways online, offline, etc.
Have you thought about otherconsumer products that are doing
maybe a better job than we areinside the gifted home and home
(11:11):
furnishings industry?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
I think there are probably a myriad of examples
like that.
I mean, I think the giftindustry has its own unique set
of circumstances that you knowkind of lead us to where we are
today.
I mean, I can give you anexample of a company that's kind
of in the gift and homeindustry actually, but not in
(11:33):
the same way, I guess, that weare.
That, I think, is a reallyinteresting example like this.
I don't know if you're familiarwith it.
It's a brand called Chilowichhave you ever heard of that?
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, they make yeah they, they,
they have a fantastic product.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
I mean, I'm a customer of the placemats of
some of the rugs.
And they've done a really, Ithink, great job of making a
product that would be easy to bea little bit, you know, seem a
little bit mundane, reallyspecial.
It's a placemat, it's aplacemat a rug, but they've done
(12:11):
it with incredible design.
But I mean design, messaging,marketing and I think, the way
that you know they.
They've also thought outsidethe box in terms of where they
can sell it and where they canmeet or, in some cases I think,
create a customer for theirbrand, like I learned recently
(12:31):
that they make all the floormats for Rivian cars and I was
like that's interesting, wow.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
So I had no idea.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, I mean I just think that's an example of a
consumer product who's meetingthe customer in many different
places, working hard at building, I think, brand affinity in a
product category that I would behard pressed to name any other
brands really who are playingwith them.
It's pretty commoditized.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
I love that example.
I'm so glad you brought upChiliwich because I mean, when I
asked you the question, I hadnot, I was struggling to come up
with a company.
I was like God, I hope Martycomes up with a company.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
and he did Well, I almost paused because I was like
, god, I hope Marty comes upwith a company, and he did Well.
I almost paused because I waslike, well, they're kind of in
the gift and home industry but Ithink it's applicable.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
No, I think it's a great example because Chili
Witch sells.
So I'm not as familiar withtheir rug business as I am with
their placemats, but so I'lljust talk about from the
placemat perspective.
There are hundreds of vendorsthat have commoditized placemats
, right.
I mean you can buy placemats attj, maxx and a million other
places and there's a lot of justcommodity placemats out there,
(13:48):
sure, apartment stores anddiscount stores etc.
And, like you said, I'mhard-pressed to think of a brand
name associated with any ofthem, right?
But here Chili Witch has been.
I mean, they've done also whatwe talked about at the very
beginning.
You know when I sort of hatsoff on your three words, you
know very simple luxury,artistry and Integrity.
(14:10):
Integrity, thank you was thethird one.
I almost remember.
I better remember them.
You better remember Exactly.
No, but I think Chili Witch hasdone an amazing job of creating
a very specific point of viewaround this sort of simple,
modern aesthetic aroundplacemats highly functional,
(14:31):
highly.
Yeah, I mean you just and up at, you know, hotels in different
parts of the country or theworld, that I end up seeing a
chili witch placemat on lots andlots of hotels around the world
, right?
Speaker 2 (14:46):
yeah, and I think I mean that that's an example of,
you know, hospitality, I'm sureis like an important touch point
for them.
But I mean they've even I thinkthey have a store in new york
city where they have rolls ofthe placemats on the wall and
it's cut custom to length, soit's just like they've.
They've thought about it, youknow.
They've animated the experiencein a variety of touch points
and unique ways, which I thinkis successful placemats yeah,
(15:09):
successfully.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Yeah for sure, For sure, we actually use that
example.
We were doing a project with atabletop entertaining company a
while back and we spent a lot oftime talking about this example
of chili, which I'm surprisedI'd forgotten that as an example
of how you can make a commodityproduct in a commodity category
(15:34):
quite special.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's a, it's a great example,
and I mean, you know, it's oneof the reasons why I admire so
much what they've done.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yeah, yeah.
And I mean, look, lafco homefragrance and candles and filled
candles is an equally crowdedcategory.
There's lots of competitors andlots and lots of you know
commoditized product Also.
Some you have some strongcompetitors, I would say.
But I think the fact that youguys have built a nice business
(16:07):
and you have grown you know, Ithink you were being a little
modest earlier, you made itsound like it's just a couple of
guys selling a couple ofcandles.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Well you know, we're not a behemoth with hundreds or
thousands of employees.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
You're not a rule of rubber made.
I understand.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yes, thank God you're not, thank God, we're not.
Yeah, it is hard, it's it's.
I think certainly there arepeople who view a candle as a
commoditized product lots ofpeople.
And that's why it's soimportant to us to articulate
our pillars artistry, integrity,luxury.
Each product has to embodythose things and it has to be
obvious to the customer why it'sdifferent.
(16:46):
Why should I buy a Lafco candleinstead of one of the myriad of
other candles available to them?
And that's not to say thatthere's no other good candles
out there.
I mean, other brands makewonderful candles and fragrances
too.
But I mean you know, one of thecore tenets of our, of our
brand is in our candles, ishand-blown glass.
That's just something that'sreally expensive, challenging,
(17:07):
difficult to do.
The supply chain is long, likeit's a, it's a huge pain in the
butt, but like why do we do it?
Because it's beautiful, becauseit's different, because people
remember it, because it helpsmake us stand out.
I mean that's that's we put thework in, because we have to.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
It's upset, but it it's obsessing over the details,
for sure, in ways that you know.
It's funny when I've had aconversation with industry buddy
a few months ago about thedifference of walking the
Atlanta market or high point orLas Vegas markets, you know,
these days versus 10 or 15 yearsago, and I think as an industry
(17:48):
we have gotten a lot better atmerchandising and obsessing over
details and packaging andvisual merchandising, where the
experience of walking thesetrade markets, trade shows, is
more like walking a high-enddepartment store and 15, 20
years ago was more like walkinga strip mall.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah, I agree with that, and I think, because of
that, it's harder to make yourproduct stand out because, like
everybody's doing a good jobmerchandising, the bar has been
raised.
The bar has definitely beenraised.
So I think, in order to standout, you know, you as a brand or
brand owner, I mean have tocome to the table each and every
(18:31):
market with something that'snew.
Show the customer why it's new,make it easy to understand and
digest what's different about it.
Right, because if you don't Imean I think you're right the
customer will just keep walkingthrough the department store.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yep you're right, the customer will just keep walking
through the department store.
Yep, if we don't meet thetwo-second challenge.
Right, if you?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
don't get my attention in the first two
seconds, you've lost me.
It's actually interesting.
I mean not to harp on this, butI mean we're a fragrance
company, so the mostdifferentiated thing we do is
make incredible fragrances.
But that's hard to articulatevisually, which is why the
hand-blown glass aspect of whatwe do is so important.
It catches the customer's eye,it makes them look again.
Many of our competitors, allthe salesperson and take the
(19:17):
time to understand why we'redifferent and if it resonates
with them, maybe they'll try us.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Do you have any examples of where you screwed it
up?
Like failures whether it'sproduct failures or marketing
failures or any?
Like nightmares not nightmares,maybe too strong a word, but
anything?
Look, we all learn more fromour failures than our successes,
right?
I started my business 15 yearsago after I had to take a $30
(19:58):
million company through abankruptcy process, and you know
that was certainly.
I certainly felt that it was afailure on my part, even though
it was during 2008, 2009.
And I don't think Steve Jobsand Jack Welch combined could
have pulled that company out ofthe monster fire.
But I've learned a ton throughthat painful experience, sure,
(20:25):
so I'm just wondering if there'sI mean any.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I think anybody working in a role like mine in
an entrepreneurial type ofcompany like we are at lafkoe
would be kidding themselves andlying to you if they said that
they didn't have you know alaundry list of failures from
which to, uh, to pull from, andwe're you know that's certainly
the case for us.
I can pull out a few.
(20:51):
I mean here's an example, justone.
Our company is actually 30years old and started as not a
brand, but as a distributor.
So we had exclusivedistribution agreements with a
variety of mostly Europeanfragrance, personal care and
apothecary brands.
And the business we're in now Imean candles and home fragrance
(21:13):
really started as a small sideproject within this distribution
company.
And you know it grew and grewand grew and eventually it was
the biggest and fastest growingpart of our business and it
became clear like this is wherewe need to focus our efforts and
energies.
So shortly after wetransitioned out of being a
distributor, we decided, hey,we've got the chops, we
(21:36):
understand personal careproducts, we have the customers.
Let's just launch a new lineunder the LAFCO umbrella and
call it LAFCO and people willknow because, oh, we're LAFCO.
We used to be a distributor andall of that was true.
I think that the mistake we madeis that we made it look
entirely different than the restof the LAFCO line.
(21:57):
We thought the name LAFCO stoodon its own because we knew how
much we knew about the categoryinternally, but the customer
didn't know that.
The customer knew Lafco as thecompany that made the beautiful
candles in blown glass in thewhite and black boxes, and so we
launched an entire collectionof personal care products.
(22:19):
The fragrances were great, thepackaging was interesting, but I
think the miss was that itwasn't LAFCO.
People didn't identify it asbeing LAFCO or what we did, and
for that reason it didn't sell.
It was almost a different brand.
That's right, a brand extensiongone awry.
It was a brand extension goneawry for sure.
(22:39):
We called it a collection goneawry.
That, or the problem with it,was that we assumed incorrectly
that the, the name lafco or thelogo lafco or whatever, stood
for all those things.
And it didn't.
It's like the people knew lafcoas the company that made these
amazing candles and so when theysaw this product, that was
(23:01):
totally different.
It just didn't compute for theminteresting, and so you know.
That taught us, I think I meanthe big takeaway for us in that
lesson was like know who yourcustomer is, listen to your
customer, understand what theywant from you and how they view
you, and deliver that to them.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Compelling promise, delivered right.
That's my three word definitionof brand.
A brand is a promise.
If it's not compelling, nobodywill you know, it won't break
through the clutter, and ifyou're not delivering that what
you're promising, then who careswhy we're talking about it?
So but yeah, but brandextensions are always tricky.
So thanks for sharing thatexample, parting words of wisdom
(23:41):
, that, or or any question thatI didn't ask you that you're
like burning to talk about inthe context of you know, how do
you make, how do you grow thereach of a luxury brand and yet
remain special?
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I think the only other thing I'll say is that I
mean where the product is soldor purchased.
You know we were talking a lotabout like in what kind of
retailer?
I mean that's, that's just apiece of it.
I mean the product has to beamazing.
The product has to tell thestory.
If the product isn't doing allof those things it doesn't
matter if it's exclusive, ifit's in five different stores,
(24:18):
if it's in every store it won'tsell.
And so I think we live in aworld where you got to have an
amazing product.
There's no question about that.
The quality of the product, theexperience of the product has
to be top notch, and I think 10or 15 years ago that might have
been enough.
I think today it's not enough,because we live in such a
(24:38):
marketing centric world thatbeing able to tell the story of
why your product is differentbecomes of paramount importance.
So when the customer goes tothe retailer oftentimes they've
done it like from some secretshopping.
You know I visit stores and goand look and observe.
I mean people so often walkinto the store.
It's not to buy a candle, it'sbecause there's a 90% chance.
(25:02):
Like they've already done theresearch, they know what they
want.
They know which brand they want.
They might smell a fewfragrances, but like the
decision has largely been made,and so that's why the touch
points you spoke about earlierare so important, even for a
scented product like Lavka.
It's like people are makingthat decision sight unseen,
scent unseen, based on whatemails they've received or what
(25:24):
articles they've read on theinternet.
And so I think, when you thinkabout how special a product is
or how exclusive it is or howexclusive it isn't, I mean I
think contextualizing that intoday's world, in this context
of people being fed so muchinformation, is important.
I mean, that's a big part of itas well.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Marty, if folks wanted to reach out to you
one-on-one, what's a good placeto do?
They just email you, Do?
They find you on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
You can find me on LinkedIn, or, yeah, feel free to
shoot me an email.
My email address is martysM-A-R-T-Y-S.
As in Sam at lafco L-A-F-C-Ocom.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
There you go.
You got your website plug inthe first few minutes and at the
end of the podcast.
Thank you so much for sharingyour thoughts and insights on a
subject that the answer to thesequestions has been changing a
lot over the last years.
You know, with the flatteningof retail channels and you know
(26:24):
online and offline melting andall the things we were talking
about here, and it will continueto change in the coming years
even faster, I think.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I couldn't agree with you more.
And when things stop changing,you know day by day, we're both
in big troubles.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
That's right, Marty.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for having me, Benno.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Thank you for listening to this episode of TGO
Podcast.
You can find all episodes onour podcast page at
wwwrealign4resultscom.
You can find me, benno, host ofTGO Podcast, there as well.
Just email Benno B-E-N-N-O atrealignforresultscom.
Let's keep growing.
Hey, welcome to the Third Growth Officer podcast,
where we talk about all thingsgrowth, yes, even and especially
those hard parts where you shedsome skin and pick yourself up
by the bootstraps.
Hey, I'm Benno Dunkelspüler,growth Sherpa and OG hashtag
growth nerd.
We're on a mission to redefinesuccess inside and outside the
(00:23):
business, one TGO episode at atime.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hi, I'm Marty Shapiro , the COO and one of the
partners of LAFCO New York, andI'm joining you today from my
home office in WestchesterCounty, new York, from my home
office in Westchester County,new York.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
All right, marty, thank you so much for joining us
.
I am Benno.
I have said this 150 times.
I am the host of the ThirdGrowth Option podcast.
All right, I got that.
I am calling in from MexicoCity today.
Marty, you and I met at anindustry event earlier this year
(01:06):
a couple months ago, actually,a GHDA conference and you spent
the first four years or so aftercollege working in banking and
private equity and then in thelast 11 years, as you said, coo
partner of a luxury.
Lafco is a luxury fragrancebrand you guys are selling
through boutiques, gift stores,key accounts, amazon,
(01:30):
direct-to-consumer on your ownwebsite.
There's a lot of left brain,right brain activity that has to
happen to make all of that workright.
So, what you and I were talkingabout at that cocktail party at
GHTA, up on the rooftopoverlooking the Atlantic Ocean,
was, I mean, it morphed into thetitle of this podcast, which is
how do you grow luxury, reachthe reach of a luxury brand?
(01:54):
You know, how do you growluxury yet remain special, right
, we've seen retail channelssort of blurring and flattening,
where the term that you usedyou know where consumers buy, at
both Walmart and Neiman Marcus,right, zip code protection
becomes difficult when productis available on a bunch of
(02:19):
websites your own and Amazon andothers, online and offline is
sort of melting and you aretrying to meet the customer
where they are with a luxurybrand.
That's true, no matter whatbrand you are.
You're trying to meet thecustomer where they are, which
is everywhere.
So how do you make the brandshine in each place?
So let's just kind of talk abouttouch points.
You have touch points, likesales people.
(02:42):
You have your own website,other websites, your showroom.
How do you help each touchpoint to shine?
Yeah, how do you help eachtouch point to shine?
I?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
think that consistency is really important
to us.
It's something that as a I wasgoing to say a luxury brand, but
as a brand, any brand,regardless of where you kind of
fit into the marketplace, Ithink consistency is important.
So we kind of think about Lafcoas having three core tenets.
Those are luxury, artistry andintegrity.
(03:16):
And so as we think about thevarious touch points, whether
it's the consumer visiting ourwebsite, consumer, you know,
visiting our website, laughgocomor a salesperson Nice plug,
well done, thank you, thank you.
Might be one of my firstpodcasts, but not my first rodeo
.
There you go, you know, weapproach all the touch points
(03:39):
kind of with those tenets in theback of our mind.
Like I said, our own website,laughgocom, but also when a
salesperson is talking to asales rep or an independent
retailer or a point of purchase,piece of sales material, where
we're talking about what makesour product special.
I mean, it's really all aboutlike presenting the brand in the
same light so that you know,when consumers see us, they
(04:01):
identify us, they know who weare, they know what we stand for
, we can piece, they can knowthat the product that they're
buying comes with a certainlevel of quality.
We've done a tremendous amountof quality control, not just in
making the product, but alsointegrity in the sense of the
decisions we're making about theproduct development and how we
(04:22):
created it.
Which factories do we work withthat are paying living wages?
I mean, there's so manydecisions that go into bringing
a product to life and weultimately try to distill it
down into this word that guidesour working day integrity.
But we want to articulate it tothe consumer so that wherever
(04:43):
they're interacting with LAFCOwhether it's the website or in a
store or on the packaging thatthey can understand that and
take that from us and know thatif they're buying something from
us, that that's what they'regetting.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Luxury and integrity are two of the.
What was the third word?
Artistry, artistry, luxury,artistry and integrity, and I
think there's so much power indistilling things down to their
most essential, which is a hardprocess to do, I'd say it's
really hard, I mean we workreally hard at it and I think I
(05:18):
mean we could do better.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I feel like we have a lot of work to do.
By no means do I think we do itperfectly.
But, yeah, it sounds simple tokind of distill a message down
to its core elements.
But it is not easy.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I hear, hear, hear, hear.
Right.
So simple is not easy andsimple is super powerful.
The more simple you know, youcrystallize something.
Let's talk a little bit aboutthis nagging problem, I would
maybe say, of exclusivity.
How do you help a sales repwhen the retailer wants
exclusivity or zip codeprotection, right?
(05:56):
Just how do you think aboutthat?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Well, I mean, I think you know, we certainly
recognize that our industry, orthe gift industry at large, has
grown up, so to speak, with thenotion of zip code protection as
something that people havebecome accustomed to or used to.
I mean, I think today that kindof protection is just simply
(06:22):
like, not worth what it once waswith the way people shop.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
I mean, it's becoming obsolete.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
It's certainly.
I mean I yeah, I do think it'sbecoming obsolete, but so I
think it becomes our job toarticulate to our customer you
know and I'm not talking I meanI'm talking in this case about
the wholesaler who's buying thegoods for resale what makes us
special and how it's exclusive,even though it's available in
other places.
(06:49):
I mean the availability of theproduct in other places doesn't
take away from why it's sodifferent and why a customer
might want to buy it in theirstore.
I mean, I also think we've donea lot of work on our side and
there's so many different kindsof stores and, as we were
talking before, what's importantto us is meeting the customer
(07:10):
where they are and we don't wantto place Lotgo everywhere.
We want to place Lotgo in theplaces where it's going to sell,
it makes sense, where thecustomer wants to buy it.
And I mean sometimes that meansthere is only one store in a zip
code.
That makes sense, and sometimesit means there's four stores in
a two block radius, where itmakes sense.
(07:32):
I mean, I think we approach itvery granularly.
I mean us internally, inconjunction with our sales reps,
where to put the brand.
But I think we work really hard, also just from an education
standpoint, in talking to peopleabout how having the brand be
out there builds momentum forthe brand, builds recognition
(07:54):
for the brands.
Two different kinds of stores,where she's not going to walk
into a furniture store andexpect to buy makeup and so
becoming aware, let's say, ofLafco at a furniture store, but
seeing it in a different kind ofretailer, in a different kind
of light, I mean we feel can bereally helpful.
(08:14):
Context matters right Contextdefinitely matters.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Are there.
Let's talk about what.
So we talked about thesedifferent touch points.
Right of salesperson walks intoa retail store selling lafco.
Retailer looks at your website.
Consumer looks at amazon looksat your website.
So they're all these differenttouch points.
Have you come across frictionpoints between the different
(08:39):
touch points where, like some ofthem, I think, as you say, are
they add or additive?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
right.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Like even the example you just used of seeing your
product in four different storesin two blocks, you know well,
one is a furniture store, theother one is a gift store.
What have you so, within thedifferent contexts maybe it is
additive the way you're touchingthe customer Are there friction
points where different touchpoints are dilutive?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
right like are like taking away from each other sure
I, I think that there can beand I think that's I mean it's
our job and it's also I'd beremiss in saying I mean we in
the specialty channel, we sellusing a network of independent
sales reps.
I mean we work with more than60 of them and I'd say we rely
very heavily on them to help usmake these decisions, help us
(09:33):
understand what the right storesare, help us understand if this
town can support four retailersbut that town can only support
one.
Help us understand whichretailers are additive and which
might be dilutive to your point.
I mean, we're a relativelysmall group of people, I mean
mostly based in New York City.
We can't be experts everywhereand that's why one of the many
(09:54):
reasons why the rep communitythat we work with is so helpful
to us and helping us understandhow we can successfully grow our
brand in a place where,physically, we're just not Right
and I mean look, I love yourproduct, I love your website.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
It is elevated is maybe the right word.
It has a feeling of there's amerchant and a designer and an
artist tree, as you said, behindit, right, and I think that
helps a lot to just show up inthese different places and
(10:28):
remain special.
I've been wondering if thereare other industries, maybe
other consumer industriesoutside of gift and fragrance,
where this luxury fashionelement is being made available
in a large way and yet remainingspecial.
(10:50):
I mean, are there?
Have you guys you know asyou're thinking about you go to
market strategy and being in youknow a variety of channels in a
variety of ways online, offline, etc.
Have you thought about otherconsumer products that are doing
maybe a better job than we areinside the gifted home and home
(11:11):
furnishings industry?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
I think there are probably a myriad of examples
like that.
I mean, I think the giftindustry has its own unique set
of circumstances that you knowkind of lead us to where we are
today.
I mean, I can give you anexample of a company that's kind
of in the gift and homeindustry actually, but not in
(11:33):
the same way, I guess, that weare.
That, I think, is a reallyinteresting example like this.
I don't know if you're familiarwith it.
It's a brand called Chilowichhave you ever heard of that?
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, they make yeah they, they,
they have a fantastic product.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
I mean, I'm a customer of the placemats of
some of the rugs.
And they've done a really, Ithink, great job of making a
product that would be easy to bea little bit, you know, seem a
little bit mundane, reallyspecial.
It's a placemat, it's aplacemat a rug, but they've done
(12:11):
it with incredible design.
But I mean design, messaging,marketing and I think, the way
that you know they.
They've also thought outsidethe box in terms of where they
can sell it and where they canmeet or, in some cases I think,
create a customer for theirbrand, like I learned recently
(12:31):
that they make all the floormats for Rivian cars and I was
like that's interesting, wow.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
So I had no idea.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, I mean I just think that's an example of a
consumer product who's meetingthe customer in many different
places, working hard at building, I think, brand affinity in a
product category that I would behard pressed to name any other
brands really who are playingwith them.
It's pretty commoditized.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
I love that example.
I'm so glad you brought upChiliwich because I mean, when I
asked you the question, I hadnot, I was struggling to come up
with a company.
I was like God, I hope Martycomes up with a company.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
and he did Well, I almost paused because I was like
, god, I hope Marty comes upwith a company, and he did Well.
I almost paused because I waslike, well, they're kind of in
the gift and home industry but Ithink it's applicable.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
No, I think it's a great example because Chili
Witch sells.
So I'm not as familiar withtheir rug business as I am with
their placemats, but so I'lljust talk about from the
placemat perspective.
There are hundreds of vendorsthat have commoditized placemats
, right.
I mean you can buy placemats attj, maxx and a million other
places and there's a lot of justcommodity placemats out there,
(13:48):
sure, apartment stores anddiscount stores etc.
And, like you said, I'mhard-pressed to think of a brand
name associated with any ofthem, right?
But here Chili Witch has been.
I mean, they've done also whatwe talked about at the very
beginning.
You know when I sort of hatsoff on your three words, you
know very simple luxury,artistry and Integrity.
(14:10):
Integrity, thank you was thethird one.
I almost remember.
I better remember them.
You better remember Exactly.
No, but I think Chili Witch hasdone an amazing job of creating
a very specific point of viewaround this sort of simple,
modern aesthetic aroundplacemats highly functional,
(14:31):
highly.
Yeah, I mean you just and up at, you know, hotels in different
parts of the country or theworld, that I end up seeing a
chili witch placemat on lots andlots of hotels around the world
, right?
Speaker 2 (14:46):
yeah, and I think I mean that that's an example of,
you know, hospitality, I'm sureis like an important touch point
for them.
But I mean they've even I thinkthey have a store in new york
city where they have rolls ofthe placemats on the wall and
it's cut custom to length, soit's just like they've.
They've thought about it, youknow.
They've animated the experiencein a variety of touch points
and unique ways, which I thinkis successful placemats yeah,
(15:09):
successfully.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Yeah for sure, For sure, we actually use that
example.
We were doing a project with atabletop entertaining company a
while back and we spent a lot oftime talking about this example
of chili, which I'm surprisedI'd forgotten that as an example
of how you can make a commodityproduct in a commodity category
(15:34):
quite special.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's a, it's a great example,
and I mean, you know, it's oneof the reasons why I admire so
much what they've done.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yeah, yeah.
And I mean, look, lafco homefragrance and candles and filled
candles is an equally crowdedcategory.
There's lots of competitors andlots and lots of you know
commoditized product Also.
Some you have some strongcompetitors, I would say.
But I think the fact that youguys have built a nice business
(16:07):
and you have grown you know, Ithink you were being a little
modest earlier, you made itsound like it's just a couple of
guys selling a couple ofcandles.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Well you know, we're not a behemoth with hundreds or
thousands of employees.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
You're not a rule of rubber made.
I understand.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Yes, thank God you're not, thank God, we're not.
Yeah, it is hard, it's it's.
I think certainly there arepeople who view a candle as a
commoditized product lots ofpeople.
And that's why it's soimportant to us to articulate
our pillars artistry, integrity,luxury.
Each product has to embodythose things and it has to be
obvious to the customer why it'sdifferent.
(16:46):
Why should I buy a Lafco candleinstead of one of the myriad of
other candles available to them?
And that's not to say thatthere's no other good candles
out there.
I mean, other brands makewonderful candles and fragrances
too.
But I mean you know, one of thecore tenets of our, of our
brand is in our candles, ishand-blown glass.
That's just something that'sreally expensive, challenging,
(17:07):
difficult to do.
The supply chain is long, likeit's a, it's a huge pain in the
butt, but like why do we do it?
Because it's beautiful, becauseit's different, because people
remember it, because it helpsmake us stand out.
I mean that's that's we put thework in, because we have to.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
It's upset, but it it's obsessing over the details,
for sure, in ways that you know.
It's funny when I've had aconversation with industry buddy
a few months ago about thedifference of walking the
Atlanta market or high point orLas Vegas markets, you know,
these days versus 10 or 15 yearsago, and I think as an industry
(17:48):
we have gotten a lot better atmerchandising and obsessing over
details and packaging andvisual merchandising, where the
experience of walking thesetrade markets, trade shows, is
more like walking a high-enddepartment store and 15, 20
years ago was more like walkinga strip mall.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Yeah, I agree with that, and I think, because of
that, it's harder to make yourproduct stand out because, like
everybody's doing a good jobmerchandising, the bar has been
raised.
The bar has definitely beenraised.
So I think, in order to standout, you know, you as a brand or
brand owner, I mean have tocome to the table each and every
(18:31):
market with something that'snew.
Show the customer why it's new,make it easy to understand and
digest what's different about it.
Right, because if you don't Imean I think you're right the
customer will just keep walkingthrough the department store.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yep you're right, the customer will just keep walking
through the department store.
Yep, if we don't meet thetwo-second challenge.
Right, if you?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
don't get my attention in the first two
seconds, you've lost me.
It's actually interesting.
I mean not to harp on this, butI mean we're a fragrance
company, so the mostdifferentiated thing we do is
make incredible fragrances.
But that's hard to articulatevisually, which is why the
hand-blown glass aspect of whatwe do is so important.
It catches the customer's eye,it makes them look again.
Many of our competitors, allthe salesperson and take the
(19:17):
time to understand why we'redifferent and if it resonates
with them, maybe they'll try us.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Do you have any examples of where you screwed it
up?
Like failures whether it'sproduct failures or marketing
failures or any?
Like nightmares not nightmares,maybe too strong a word, but
anything?
Look, we all learn more fromour failures than our successes,
right?
I started my business 15 yearsago after I had to take a $30
(19:58):
million company through abankruptcy process, and you know
that was certainly.
I certainly felt that it was afailure on my part, even though
it was during 2008, 2009.
And I don't think Steve Jobsand Jack Welch combined could
have pulled that company out ofthe monster fire.
But I've learned a ton throughthat painful experience, sure,
(20:25):
so I'm just wondering if there'sI mean any.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I think anybody working in a role like mine in
an entrepreneurial type ofcompany like we are at lafkoe
would be kidding themselves andlying to you if they said that
they didn't have you know alaundry list of failures from
which to, uh, to pull from, andwe're you know that's certainly
the case for us.
I can pull out a few.
(20:51):
I mean here's an example, justone.
Our company is actually 30years old and started as not a
brand, but as a distributor.
So we had exclusivedistribution agreements with a
variety of mostly Europeanfragrance, personal care and
apothecary brands.
And the business we're in now Imean candles and home fragrance
(21:13):
really started as a small sideproject within this distribution
company.
And you know it grew and grewand grew and eventually it was
the biggest and fastest growingpart of our business and it
became clear like this is wherewe need to focus our efforts and
energies.
So shortly after wetransitioned out of being a
distributor, we decided, hey,we've got the chops, we
(21:36):
understand personal careproducts, we have the customers.
Let's just launch a new lineunder the LAFCO umbrella and
call it LAFCO and people willknow because, oh, we're LAFCO.
We used to be a distributor andall of that was true.
I think that the mistake we madeis that we made it look
entirely different than the restof the LAFCO line.
(21:57):
We thought the name LAFCO stoodon its own because we knew how
much we knew about the categoryinternally, but the customer
didn't know that.
The customer knew Lafco as thecompany that made the beautiful
candles in blown glass in thewhite and black boxes, and so we
launched an entire collectionof personal care products.
(22:19):
The fragrances were great, thepackaging was interesting, but I
think the miss was that itwasn't LAFCO.
People didn't identify it asbeing LAFCO or what we did, and
for that reason it didn't sell.
It was almost a different brand.
That's right, a brand extensiongone awry.
It was a brand extension goneawry for sure.
(22:39):
We called it a collection goneawry.
That, or the problem with it,was that we assumed incorrectly
that the, the name lafco or thelogo lafco or whatever, stood
for all those things.
And it didn't.
It's like the people knew lafcoas the company that made these
amazing candles and so when theysaw this product, that was
(23:01):
totally different.
It just didn't compute for theminteresting, and so you know.
That taught us, I think I meanthe big takeaway for us in that
lesson was like know who yourcustomer is, listen to your
customer, understand what theywant from you and how they view
you, and deliver that to them.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Compelling promise, delivered right.
That's my three word definitionof brand.
A brand is a promise.
If it's not compelling, nobodywill you know, it won't break
through the clutter, and ifyou're not delivering that what
you're promising, then who careswhy we're talking about it?
So but yeah, but brandextensions are always tricky.
So thanks for sharing thatexample, parting words of wisdom
(23:41):
, that, or or any question thatI didn't ask you that you're
like burning to talk about inthe context of you know, how do
you make, how do you grow thereach of a luxury brand and yet
remain special?
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I think the only other thing I'll say is that I
mean where the product is soldor purchased.
You know we were talking a lotabout like in what kind of
retailer?
I mean that's, that's just apiece of it.
I mean the product has to beamazing.
The product has to tell thestory.
If the product isn't doing allof those things it doesn't
matter if it's exclusive, ifit's in five different stores,
(24:18):
if it's in every store it won'tsell.
And so I think we live in aworld where you got to have an
amazing product.
There's no question about that.
The quality of the product, theexperience of the product has
to be top notch, and I think 10or 15 years ago that might have
been enough.
I think today it's not enough,because we live in such a
(24:38):
marketing centric world thatbeing able to tell the story of
why your product is differentbecomes of paramount importance.
So when the customer goes tothe retailer oftentimes they've
done it like from some secretshopping.
You know I visit stores and goand look and observe.
I mean people so often walkinto the store.
It's not to buy a candle, it'sbecause there's a 90% chance.
(25:02):
Like they've already done theresearch, they know what they
want.
They know which brand they want.
They might smell a fewfragrances, but like the
decision has largely been made,and so that's why the touch
points you spoke about earlierare so important, even for a
scented product like Lavka.
It's like people are makingthat decision sight unseen,
scent unseen, based on whatemails they've received or what
(25:24):
articles they've read on theinternet.
And so I think, when you thinkabout how special a product is
or how exclusive it is or howexclusive it isn't, I mean I
think contextualizing that intoday's world, in this context
of people being fed so muchinformation, is important.
I mean, that's a big part of itas well.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Marty, if folks wanted to reach out to you
one-on-one, what's a good placeto do?
They just email you, Do?
They find you on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
You can find me on LinkedIn, or, yeah, feel free to
shoot me an email.
My email address is martysM-A-R-T-Y-S.
As in Sam at lafco L-A-F-C-Ocom.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
There you go.
You got your website plug inthe first few minutes and at the
end of the podcast.
Thank you so much for sharingyour thoughts and insights on a
subject that the answer to thesequestions has been changing a
lot over the last years.
You know, with the flatteningof retail channels and you know
(26:24):
online and offline melting andall the things we were talking
about here, and it will continueto change in the coming years
even faster, I think.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I couldn't agree with you more.
And when things stop changing,you know day by day, we're both
in big troubles.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
That's right, Marty.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for having me, Benno.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Thank you for listening to this episode of TGO
Podcast.
You can find all episodes onour podcast page at
wwwrealign4resultscom.
You can find me, benno, host ofTGO Podcast, there as well.
Just email Benno B-E-N-N-O atrealignforresultscom.
Let's keep growing.
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