January 6, 2025 • 14 mins
Paul Corvino sits down with Larry Miller, the Sit 'n Sleep owner. Sit 'n Sleep is an American mattress store chain based in Gardena, California. As of 2024, it has 36 locations, all in Southern California. It is one of the largest independent mattress retailers in the United States and is known for its extensive advertising.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is CEOs you should know with division president of iHeartMedia,
Paul Corvino.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Today, I'm here with Larry Miller, the CEO of Sit
and Sleep, the number one mattress retailer in southern California.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Welcome Larry. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Hey, Larry.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Before we get going and we learn about your journey
to eventually building such a great business, I'd like to
do a quick rapid fire at Q and A where
we get your mind working and your mouth moving perfect,
You ready, absolutely, okay, beach your summer vacation. Beach Michael
Jordan or Tom Brady, Tom Brady, Beatles, are Stones Beatles,
(00:42):
Star Wars or Godfather.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
That's a tough one. I love them both.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'd say Godfather, Sean Connery or Daniel Craig, Sean Connery.
Celebrity people say you remind them of Patton Oswald. I
could see that little better looking on it. He's not bad.
Before we can get into the interview and learning about you,
got one more question. How many times a day do
(01:07):
people come up to you and say you're killing me? Larry?
Speaker 3 (01:11):
All the time, especially my wife and my kids, even
my dog.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
It's just such an iconic jingle of slogan.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Only in America and only because of radio.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
That's that's great to hear. That's great to hear. So
so Larry, tell me, we want to learn about your
journey and how you got to the point where you
are with such an incredible business.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Well, I failed in a prior business, not bankrupt, but
pretty much failed. I got out of the ashes of
that we birth sit and sleep and it was a
Futon daybed and self, a bed store stuff you could
sit and sleep on. Over a period of time, long time,
we became the first commercially successful Futon retailer in southern California.
(01:53):
And then I realized at one point that Futon's are
going to go the way of the waterbed. They're still around,
but not that big part part of the market. And
I realized that we needed to offer the consumer brand
name product that they were aware of to help them
sleep well at night.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
As you did. You grow up in.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
West Los Angeles. I went to Westwood School, Emerson High School,
UNI High School, State A Monica College, and cal State Northridge.
I'm a local boy.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
And what was your first job?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
My first job was cleaning toilets actually believe it or
I was. I was. I worked at a local gas station, swept,
cleaned the cleaned the bathrooms, did whatever the owner wanted
me to do. I delivered papers.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I worked as a hasher, serving food. I worked in kitchens, cleaning,
washing dishes, whatever I had to do to make a
buck because my family certainly had no money.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
How did you make the jump to start the first
you start your first business?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Well, I had other small businesses. I was entrepreneurial by nature,
like paper paper route, selling paper subscriptions, delivering the papers,
collecting for the papers, did that for with dry cleaning
and laundry. At one point I sold I went to
Mexico and brought back a bunch of fire firecrackers. I
(03:09):
was selling firecrackers in junior high school. Uh. So I've
always had that type of an idea of buying and
selling things, uh, and wanted to make You know.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Some people seem to be just born with that entrepreneurial spirit.
It's something you could teach to some degree, but you
just got to have it, and you got to have
and you got to have the ability to take risks
and have confidence in yourself.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
You know, without there's without A life without risks is
not a life fully lived, whether no matter what you're
whether you're in sports or education, a nurse, a doctor,
a retailer. Having no risk, it kind of takes the
joy out of life.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
So tell me about that. The first failed business, as you.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Put it, was a sofa bed business. It was and
did not do well.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Where was it? It was? It was?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
It was? There were six stores. My dad was in
the business. He worked for the company. There was a
franchise or eventually he bought into three stores. I became active.
I was a sales rep. Then I went into the
business with him while I was in college. I realized
after a period of time that it wasn't sustainable. The
(04:16):
margins weren't enough and the volume wasn't enough to be
in business long term. So what we did is close
those stores and opened once in sleep store. Would your
father with my father? My father is my equal partner.
I borrowed ten thousand dollars from an ant and he
borrowed ten thousand dollars from a bank that would loan
of some money. That's how we started the business. And
where was that first location? Culver City, California.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Culver City was not what Culver City is today.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
It was just a little bump on the road back then,
this is nineteen eighty there was. There was from film studios.
There are very few other businesses. But over a period
of time, with the benefit of radio, honestly, which was
the big larch pin for us, going from eight and
(05:02):
a half by eleven door knobbed mimeographed sheets on people's
doors to Los Angeles Times and the Herald Examiner, eventually
the LA Weekly and then onto talk radio really launched
our business.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
So let's go back. It's nineteen eighty You opened up
the first store in Culver City. Was it immediately success?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
That was horribly non successful. It was hand to mouth
that we barely stayed in business. I think my first
year was working seven days a week. I think I
might have made nine thousand dollars that year. I was
living on my credit cards. And what turned it around
slowly turned it around with marketing, advertising taking. So you
took that risk in marketing and averagise had to people
(05:48):
just not coming in the door unless you stimulate traffic.
We were lucky enough to find talk radio in nineteen
eighty three and went on talk radio. We did four
overnight spots at twenty five dollars a spot, and it
actually worked. We then we went to other day parts,
became pretty successful with that, and then I started voicing.
(06:11):
I was complaining to our rep about the lack of
an excited voice reading our spots. So he said, well,
come into the studio and you do it. I said, me,
do it. I've never done anything like that in my life.
I was scared to death. I'll never forget. It was
one hundred and three outside. I had a dirty, old
pickup truck and I drove it into the radio station
(06:32):
and I got there and I looked at this control
room and I panicked. I just totally was I was
scared to death.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Control looked a lot different than the one were.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Very very different. It was all real to real tape.
And the poor guy, I'll never forget the engineer. His
name was Jack Neamo, and I'll never forget he looked
at me and he realized I was not doing well
with it. My dad was in the booth with him
and he said, you got to get rid of this guy.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
He stinks.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
And I did it. Took me three and a half
hours to do my first sixty second spot, and there
was more pieces of tape on the cutting.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
All right, So the big difference is that you had
the business, it was struggling, you started advertising, has started
advertising advertising? And when you started advertising, what were the
key points? What was the value proposition? What set you
apart to let people come to your store.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
I realized we needed to offer the consumer great brands
at very competitive prices. Our margins were extremely low, and
but we basically said shop the department stores and come
to us and save hundreds of dollars. And it worked.
But that at super serving the consumer, caring about them,
spending time with them, and making sure that it was
(07:44):
a pleasant experience from the time they came in the
store to the time they might need service.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Now you were able to do that because you're in
the store. I want to see how you were able
to maintain that. How many stores do you have now?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Thirty seven store?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Thirty seven stores? It gets a little more difficult to
do that, it is. Let's go back. So now you're
at this point, it's nineteen eighty, you're struggling. You start
advertising on radio, your business starts to take off.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
How quickly to take off? Took years? It took years,
But it's slowly, inch by inch, station by station. Eventually
we went on multiple stations, including KFI thankfully, and it
was working more efficiently. We went on a shock jock
named Howard Stern Show in nineteen ninety two and business
(08:29):
doubled that year. We went to TV in nineteen ninety three,
it doubled again and I realized it wasn't just flashing
the pan and we were onto something. It's really impactful marketing,
hiring great people, good human beings. You can't teach somebody
to be a good human being. Either you're a good
human being or you're not. And we look for the
(08:50):
best people and then we can teach them the skills
that they need to properly serve the guests that come
into our stores. We don't deserve their money if they're
not happy.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Now you've got the one store. When did you open
the second store?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Nineteen ninety seven. We started in nineteen eighty. It was
a very very slow build, and you know that Culver
City store became the highest grossing matress store in the country.
Our second store, which is Tarzana and nineteen ninety seven,
became the second highest grossing mattress store in the country
and after that, I realized that we had the formula downright.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
It was to have.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
A very large selection of product, guaranteed best prices, with
great associates helping the consumer through that buying process and
the selection process.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
And at that point it starts through accelerating.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Started it started accelerating. We opened a couple of stores
a year, then went to three stores a year. And
the key to it was, you know, financing that growth internally,
because I don't believe in borrowing a lot of money,
pluming the profits back into the business and marketing, you know, marketing, marketing,
marketing and care the consumer.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
That's what's made a success. And how do you keep
now that you're in one store, you're in there, it's
you and your father, You're talking to customers. You're able
to do what's need to be done to give quality
experience to the customer. How do you maintain that as
you start growing?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Well, you teach people that those skills, and you hire
great people with good hearts, and you teach them the
knowledge they need to impart to the consumer and the
ethics of the business. You know, we absolutely want our
guests to be happy from the time they walk in
to the time they need a service or whatever they
(10:38):
need anytime, it's our duty to satisfy them, or we
don't deserve their money.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So now you're in you're in southern California, yes, and
you're from Los Angeles to We're how far well.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
We go north? Would be Oxnart on the on the west.
We're in Victorville on the northeast. We're in San Clementy
on the south, Myriad of Temecula on the southeast. And
my son's in the business, my nephews are in the business,
and this next generation, I'm sure we'll take us out
(11:11):
of Southern California.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Now, I'm sure you photo offers from some big national
competitors and the temptations never got to you.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
You know, look, I was born without any money. I'll
die without any money. It's about the ride in between
and being captain of our own destiny and having a
great place to work with people that I really love.
Would change tremendously if we sold the business somebody else,
I know what will happen. So tell me about the tagline.
(11:41):
You're killing me, Larry. There's two famous tanglies. We'll beat
anyone's advertised price or your mattresses free.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Do it for me? Say it like you do.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Beat anyone's advertised price. Are your mattresses free? So that
radio made that famous, and that was a consumer called
up was pregnant. I was locked at the store by myself.
My rep was in from the radio station and he
heard me talking to the lady and I said. She said,
she's got severe back problems and needs you know, and
(12:12):
I said, I know what you need. You need firm
mattress with softness on top because she was bedridden and
I've got just the right mattress. And she said, well,
how fast can I get it? I said, I'll deliver
it on my way home, because I did that from
time to time consumer needed it. And she said, how
do I know I'm getting the best price? And I said, ma'am,
I shopped the competition and I guarantee the best price.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
And he said, you got to do better than that.
The rep told me that. I said, ma'am, i'll beat
anybody's price. Of your mattress is free, and I forgot
about it. I wrote up the order and I started
writing the commercially said that thing. He said, I said,
what thing that I said about free? He said, put
it in the ad, and I said, really, that's how
that was born, and you're killing me. Larry came in
a studio carry Sacks, who's my creative agency and consultants,
(12:59):
plays to the void of her one. And I like
to tell jokes and laugh when I'm when I'm working.
So I was telling a joke. They're in the middle
of a recording session, and the engineer left the machine
on recording it and I told a joke and he
was laughing so hard he screamed, your killing malaria. Killa
started laughing. He was crying, and he said, put that
(13:22):
in the ad. So both of our, both of our
deals came kind of by accident. Both of our you know, well,
that's what made them work because they're organic and they're real.
They're real and exactly right.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
So it's organic, it's real. It's about marketing. I'm sure,
it's also about location.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
It's a location, it's people, it's marketing, and it's product.
That's the But without great people, without great product.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
None of it matters. It sounds simple, but then you
need the vision that you have and the entrepreneurial spirit
and the ability to take risks and believe in what
you're doing.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
You know it's I knew it was the right thing
to do. It was logical. You take good care of
your internal customers or your co workers. You got two
types of guests. We got external guests and internal guests.
You got to take care of both properly. And that's
sustainable and I'll help a business succeed over the long term.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
That's really terrific. Well, really really appreciate you coming in
Larry again. Once again we're on air with Larry Miller,
the CEO of Sit and Sleep, the number one mattress
retailer in southern California. Thank you so much, Larry for
being on. This is Paul Corvino, Division President of iHeartMedia
in Los Angeles, saying thank you for listening to another
(14:41):
episode of CEOs you Should Know. Listen to CEOs you
Should Know on the iHeartRadio app.
This is CEOs you should know with division president of iHeartMedia,
Paul Corvino.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Today, I'm here with Larry Miller, the CEO of Sit
and Sleep, the number one mattress retailer in southern California.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Welcome Larry. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Hey, Larry.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Before we get going and we learn about your journey
to eventually building such a great business, I'd like to
do a quick rapid fire at Q and A where
we get your mind working and your mouth moving perfect,
You ready, absolutely, okay, beach your summer vacation. Beach Michael
Jordan or Tom Brady, Tom Brady, Beatles, are Stones Beatles,
(00:42):
Star Wars or Godfather.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
That's a tough one. I love them both.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'd say Godfather, Sean Connery or Daniel Craig, Sean Connery.
Celebrity people say you remind them of Patton Oswald. I
could see that little better looking on it. He's not bad.
Before we can get into the interview and learning about you,
got one more question. How many times a day do
(01:07):
people come up to you and say you're killing me? Larry?
Speaker 3 (01:11):
All the time, especially my wife and my kids, even
my dog.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
It's just such an iconic jingle of slogan.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Only in America and only because of radio.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
That's that's great to hear. That's great to hear. So
so Larry, tell me, we want to learn about your
journey and how you got to the point where you
are with such an incredible business.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Well, I failed in a prior business, not bankrupt, but
pretty much failed. I got out of the ashes of
that we birth sit and sleep and it was a
Futon daybed and self, a bed store stuff you could
sit and sleep on. Over a period of time, long time,
we became the first commercially successful Futon retailer in southern California.
(01:53):
And then I realized at one point that Futon's are
going to go the way of the waterbed. They're still around,
but not that big part part of the market. And
I realized that we needed to offer the consumer brand
name product that they were aware of to help them
sleep well at night.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
As you did. You grow up in.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
West Los Angeles. I went to Westwood School, Emerson High School,
UNI High School, State A Monica College, and cal State Northridge.
I'm a local boy.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
And what was your first job?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
My first job was cleaning toilets actually believe it or
I was. I was. I worked at a local gas station, swept,
cleaned the cleaned the bathrooms, did whatever the owner wanted
me to do. I delivered papers.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I worked as a hasher, serving food. I worked in kitchens, cleaning,
washing dishes, whatever I had to do to make a
buck because my family certainly had no money.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
How did you make the jump to start the first
you start your first business?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Well, I had other small businesses. I was entrepreneurial by nature,
like paper paper route, selling paper subscriptions, delivering the papers,
collecting for the papers, did that for with dry cleaning
and laundry. At one point I sold I went to
Mexico and brought back a bunch of fire firecrackers. I
(03:09):
was selling firecrackers in junior high school. Uh. So I've
always had that type of an idea of buying and
selling things, uh, and wanted to make You know.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Some people seem to be just born with that entrepreneurial spirit.
It's something you could teach to some degree, but you
just got to have it, and you got to have
and you got to have the ability to take risks
and have confidence in yourself.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
You know, without there's without A life without risks is
not a life fully lived, whether no matter what you're
whether you're in sports or education, a nurse, a doctor,
a retailer. Having no risk, it kind of takes the
joy out of life.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
So tell me about that. The first failed business, as you.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Put it, was a sofa bed business. It was and
did not do well.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Where was it? It was? It was?
Speaker 3 (03:56):
It was? There were six stores. My dad was in
the business. He worked for the company. There was a
franchise or eventually he bought into three stores. I became active.
I was a sales rep. Then I went into the
business with him while I was in college. I realized
after a period of time that it wasn't sustainable. The
(04:16):
margins weren't enough and the volume wasn't enough to be
in business long term. So what we did is close
those stores and opened once in sleep store. Would your
father with my father? My father is my equal partner.
I borrowed ten thousand dollars from an ant and he
borrowed ten thousand dollars from a bank that would loan
of some money. That's how we started the business. And
where was that first location? Culver City, California.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Culver City was not what Culver City is today.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
It was just a little bump on the road back then,
this is nineteen eighty there was. There was from film studios.
There are very few other businesses. But over a period
of time, with the benefit of radio, honestly, which was
the big larch pin for us, going from eight and
(05:02):
a half by eleven door knobbed mimeographed sheets on people's
doors to Los Angeles Times and the Herald Examiner, eventually
the LA Weekly and then onto talk radio really launched
our business.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
So let's go back. It's nineteen eighty You opened up
the first store in Culver City. Was it immediately success?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
That was horribly non successful. It was hand to mouth
that we barely stayed in business. I think my first
year was working seven days a week. I think I
might have made nine thousand dollars that year. I was
living on my credit cards. And what turned it around
slowly turned it around with marketing, advertising taking. So you
took that risk in marketing and averagise had to people
(05:48):
just not coming in the door unless you stimulate traffic.
We were lucky enough to find talk radio in nineteen
eighty three and went on talk radio. We did four
overnight spots at twenty five dollars a spot, and it
actually worked. We then we went to other day parts,
became pretty successful with that, and then I started voicing.
(06:11):
I was complaining to our rep about the lack of
an excited voice reading our spots. So he said, well,
come into the studio and you do it. I said, me,
do it. I've never done anything like that in my life.
I was scared to death. I'll never forget. It was
one hundred and three outside. I had a dirty, old
pickup truck and I drove it into the radio station
(06:32):
and I got there and I looked at this control
room and I panicked. I just totally was I was
scared to death.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Control looked a lot different than the one were.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Very very different. It was all real to real tape.
And the poor guy, I'll never forget the engineer. His
name was Jack Neamo, and I'll never forget he looked
at me and he realized I was not doing well
with it. My dad was in the booth with him
and he said, you got to get rid of this guy.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
He stinks.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
And I did it. Took me three and a half
hours to do my first sixty second spot, and there
was more pieces of tape on the cutting.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
All right, So the big difference is that you had
the business, it was struggling, you started advertising, has started
advertising advertising? And when you started advertising, what were the
key points? What was the value proposition? What set you
apart to let people come to your store.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
I realized we needed to offer the consumer great brands
at very competitive prices. Our margins were extremely low, and
but we basically said shop the department stores and come
to us and save hundreds of dollars. And it worked.
But that at super serving the consumer, caring about them,
spending time with them, and making sure that it was
(07:44):
a pleasant experience from the time they came in the
store to the time they might need service.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Now you were able to do that because you're in
the store. I want to see how you were able
to maintain that. How many stores do you have now?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Thirty seven store?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Thirty seven stores? It gets a little more difficult to
do that, it is. Let's go back. So now you're
at this point, it's nineteen eighty, you're struggling. You start
advertising on radio, your business starts to take off.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
How quickly to take off? Took years? It took years,
But it's slowly, inch by inch, station by station. Eventually
we went on multiple stations, including KFI thankfully, and it
was working more efficiently. We went on a shock jock
named Howard Stern Show in nineteen ninety two and business
(08:29):
doubled that year. We went to TV in nineteen ninety three,
it doubled again and I realized it wasn't just flashing
the pan and we were onto something. It's really impactful marketing,
hiring great people, good human beings. You can't teach somebody
to be a good human being. Either you're a good
human being or you're not. And we look for the
(08:50):
best people and then we can teach them the skills
that they need to properly serve the guests that come
into our stores. We don't deserve their money if they're
not happy.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Now you've got the one store. When did you open
the second store?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Nineteen ninety seven. We started in nineteen eighty. It was
a very very slow build, and you know that Culver
City store became the highest grossing matress store in the country.
Our second store, which is Tarzana and nineteen ninety seven,
became the second highest grossing mattress store in the country
and after that, I realized that we had the formula downright.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
It was to have.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
A very large selection of product, guaranteed best prices, with
great associates helping the consumer through that buying process and
the selection process.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
And at that point it starts through accelerating.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Started it started accelerating. We opened a couple of stores
a year, then went to three stores a year. And
the key to it was, you know, financing that growth internally,
because I don't believe in borrowing a lot of money,
pluming the profits back into the business and marketing, you know, marketing, marketing,
marketing and care the consumer.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
That's what's made a success. And how do you keep
now that you're in one store, you're in there, it's
you and your father, You're talking to customers. You're able
to do what's need to be done to give quality
experience to the customer. How do you maintain that as
you start growing?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Well, you teach people that those skills, and you hire
great people with good hearts, and you teach them the
knowledge they need to impart to the consumer and the
ethics of the business. You know, we absolutely want our
guests to be happy from the time they walk in
to the time they need a service or whatever they
(10:38):
need anytime, it's our duty to satisfy them, or we
don't deserve their money.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So now you're in you're in southern California, yes, and
you're from Los Angeles to We're how far well.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
We go north? Would be Oxnart on the on the west.
We're in Victorville on the northeast. We're in San Clementy
on the south, Myriad of Temecula on the southeast. And
my son's in the business, my nephews are in the business,
and this next generation, I'm sure we'll take us out
(11:11):
of Southern California.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Now, I'm sure you photo offers from some big national
competitors and the temptations never got to you.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
You know, look, I was born without any money. I'll
die without any money. It's about the ride in between
and being captain of our own destiny and having a
great place to work with people that I really love.
Would change tremendously if we sold the business somebody else,
I know what will happen. So tell me about the tagline.
(11:41):
You're killing me, Larry. There's two famous tanglies. We'll beat
anyone's advertised price or your mattresses free.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Do it for me? Say it like you do.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Beat anyone's advertised price. Are your mattresses free? So that
radio made that famous, and that was a consumer called
up was pregnant. I was locked at the store by myself.
My rep was in from the radio station and he
heard me talking to the lady and I said. She said,
she's got severe back problems and needs you know, and
(12:12):
I said, I know what you need. You need firm
mattress with softness on top because she was bedridden and
I've got just the right mattress. And she said, well,
how fast can I get it? I said, I'll deliver
it on my way home, because I did that from
time to time consumer needed it. And she said, how
do I know I'm getting the best price? And I said, ma'am,
I shopped the competition and I guarantee the best price.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
And he said, you got to do better than that.
The rep told me that. I said, ma'am, i'll beat
anybody's price. Of your mattress is free, and I forgot
about it. I wrote up the order and I started
writing the commercially said that thing. He said, I said,
what thing that I said about free? He said, put
it in the ad, and I said, really, that's how
that was born, and you're killing me. Larry came in
a studio carry Sacks, who's my creative agency and consultants,
(12:59):
plays to the void of her one. And I like
to tell jokes and laugh when I'm when I'm working.
So I was telling a joke. They're in the middle
of a recording session, and the engineer left the machine
on recording it and I told a joke and he
was laughing so hard he screamed, your killing malaria. Killa
started laughing. He was crying, and he said, put that
(13:22):
in the ad. So both of our, both of our
deals came kind of by accident. Both of our you know, well,
that's what made them work because they're organic and they're real.
They're real and exactly right.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
So it's organic, it's real. It's about marketing. I'm sure,
it's also about location.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
It's a location, it's people, it's marketing, and it's product.
That's the But without great people, without great product.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
None of it matters. It sounds simple, but then you
need the vision that you have and the entrepreneurial spirit
and the ability to take risks and believe in what
you're doing.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
You know it's I knew it was the right thing
to do. It was logical. You take good care of
your internal customers or your co workers. You got two
types of guests. We got external guests and internal guests.
You got to take care of both properly. And that's
sustainable and I'll help a business succeed over the long term.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
That's really terrific. Well, really really appreciate you coming in
Larry again. Once again we're on air with Larry Miller,
the CEO of Sit and Sleep, the number one mattress
retailer in southern California. Thank you so much, Larry for
being on. This is Paul Corvino, Division President of iHeartMedia
in Los Angeles, saying thank you for listening to another
(14:41):
episode of CEOs you Should Know. Listen to CEOs you
Should Know on the iHeartRadio app.
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