The wit and wisdom of a retailing giant: use the wise words of the late Stanley Marcus to help make the right decisions for your gallery

Art Business News, March, 2004 by Murray Raphel

I met Stanley Marcus in Dallas in June 1995. I had long admired his writings and his promotions for the Neiman Marcus specialty stores and was anxious to talk with him about his ideas for success.

At the time, he was 90 years old and emeritus chairman of the Neiman Marcus department stores, though he had turned over the day-to-day management of the company to his son, Richard.

He still had an active life, speaking at business conventions and performing consulting work for several major companies, which he did until his death in January of 2002.

While discussing our ideas on business, I reminded Marcus of a prediction he made on the future of retailing when he spoke at the dedication for the College of Business at Indiana University in 1966. He said, "In the future, [customers] will be able to call their favorite local or out-of-town store on the phone and see the articles over a monitor that will interest them right in the comfort of their own living rooms. Stores will provide shopping guides to enable the shopper to make buying decisions with the same assurance two miles or 2,000 miles away from the selling floor."

On that day in Dallas, Marcus shared his insights on business with me, and now I want to share them with you, along with some selections from "The Viewpoints of Stanley Marcus: A Ten-Year Perspective," a book of weekly columns he wrote for the Dallas Morning News. I hope you will use these words to help make the right decisions for your galleries.

On Looking At a Painting

"It is very easy to see a painting and fail to recall it is a composition containing two apples, a pear, a teapot, a teacup, half a loaf of bread and a bowl of sugar. We settle with the impression it is a fruit picture, and we judge it by the whole rather than its components.

"For a long time I have followed the practice of memorizing every element in a painting. This practice helped me in my business because I was able to remember details of 100 garments I would see in a New York or Paris fashion show. It focuses the act of seeing as opposed to the act of looking."

On Creating Your Own Image

"Most of today's stores are dull, unattractive, out-of-date and not fun. They need to be reinvented. There's too much standardization. You can blindfold a woman, drop her by parachute into a shopping center, take off her blindfold, and she couldn't tell you if she's in Indianapolis or Minneapolis. The merchandise on display will apt to be the same. I once said in a speech that I was fully expecting to read a newspaper headline saying, 'Prominent Socialite Found Dead In Shopping Center. Authorities Claim She Was Bored to Death.'

"In our store's opening-day ad on Sunday, Sept. 8, 1907, my father described our philosophy saying, 'We will be known as the store of quality and superior values. We shall be hypercritical in our selections. Only the finest products of the best garment makers are good enough for us. Every article shown will bear evidence in its touches of exclusiveness, ha its chic and grace and splendid finish to the most skillful and thorough workmanship.'"

On the Definition Of a Good Merchant

"The best summation of the job of a merchant I've ever come across I read in a trade publication, 'The Housewares Review' in December 1954. It said, 'The business of merchandising is a subtle thing. A merchant need not only be a salesman but he must also be a psychologist, sociologist, diplomat, politician as well as a designer and artist. He has the knack for creating excitement around the most prosaic merchandise. He knows the meaning and, above all, practices the art of good fellowship, both in his business and his community. Most important, he knows his business reflects the desires of his customers. So he makes sure they get what they want.'"

On Art Galleries and Marketing

"I only know about art galleries as a customer. But most of them know very little about marketing. Most don't even know how to follow up a customer with a simple Polaroid shot of what the customer might have shown some disposition to buy or collect."

On The Importance of Humor In Business

"Eighty chief executive officers were asked, 'Have you found younger executives with MBA degrees have a greater or lesser sense of humor?' The vast majority said 'lesser.'

"Part of the blame lies with business schools. Although MBAs see themselves as the best and brightest, a growing number of corporate managers look on them as arrogant amateurs trained only in figures and lacking experience in the handling of people. Success in any field depends on influencing others, and wit is still one of the best tools around to do that."

On Creative Thinking

"I know a man who has a job that requires creative thinking but who has a tiny office. In a space no longer or wider than a tall man, he crowds a desk, swivel chair, bookcases, two file cabinets and a 50-gallon aquarium. Every time I see him, everything in the tiny room is completely rearranged. In over a year, I have yet to see him duplicate a pattern.