Tall Sales

Entrepreneur, August, 2001 by Geoff Williams

Indeed, several months after implementing TNG's learning programs, Gaynor saw customer satisfaction rise to 90 percent. Turnover virtually stopped. And Knight talks of one training success story regarding a woman who had never touched a computer before coming to TNG. "For two weeks, she cried every day," he says. But he stuck with her and had her spend an extra week in training.

Says Gaynor, "She ended up being the first to do $1 million in sales. She's still the sales leader on the floor."

SALESMAN ISA DIRTY WORD

In the early 1980s, when Gaynor opened an upscale discount beauty products and drug store, he put comment cards in each aisle so he could follow his customers' lead. Later, in 1985, he opened TNG strictly as a nail products business. But he listened again to customers--and as they demanded more, Gaynor happily obliged.

Customer service and selling may not seem simpatico, but they are to TNG's salespeople. Knight bristles at the term "salespeople." He knows all too well that used-car-salesman stereotype. Says Knight: "We call our people 'business development specialists.'"

The BDS title isn't BS. TNG's salespeople--sorry, old habits die hard--are trained to help budding entrepreneurs open salons and spas. Clearly, they want the salons and spas stocked with TNG products, but in getting that done, they'll also offer free advice and education on how to organize the layout for a salon, manage it, motivate staff and set goals.

"If you grow, then I grow," explains Knight. "If I give good customer service, then your bottom line goes up, and so does mine. I'm not viewed as a salesman, I'm [seen as] your partner. And then, while everyone else is trying to sell you something, you won't even talk to them, because you're waiting to talk to your partner. That's the strategy."

GEOFF WILUAMS is happy to say that he's already read Tuesdays With Marrie, and he wrote Entrepreneur's February cover story on lessons from Harry Potter.

Geoff Williams' desire to be a writer took him from his first rejection letter at age 12 (for a 154-page novel he had submitted to Random House) to his first professional writing stint for Popular Ceramics magazine at 22. Over the years, he's written for a variety of publications, and began freelancing for Entrepreneur in 1997. Of his visit with Larry Gaynor, whose stellar sales team is profiled in "Tall Sales" (page 50), Williams says: "I was inspired by a man who is decent, down-to-earth and enthusiastic about his business and life. It made me want to gulp down life the way he seems to."

INSIDE THE LAIR

THIS COMPANY TAKES CULTURE TO A POSSIBLY ZANY, BUT NO DOUBT PROFITABLE, LEVEL.

For all of its friendliness and community goodwill (the company donates $100,000 to charity annually), there's a military-style seriousness to The Nailco Group. To get into the first-floor offices, for instance, you need a special code key. And sales soldiers get pumped up by watching a video that shows the TNG Rebel mascot in an airplane dropping animated bombs on competitors.