PROFILES IN BUSINESS: Stanley 'PAL' Borofsky and the success of Sam's

Vermont Business Magazine, Sep 01, 2004 by Marcel, Joyce

Small-business people are expert judges of character. Borofsky knows how to tell if a customer needs help, or wants to be left alone, or is planning to pilfer.

"You can see it in their eyes, you can see it in their attitude," Borofsky said. "Look around and you can see all kinds of things - it's amazing what you can see.

After Samuel Borofsky died in 1977, Borofsky began to expand. He took over the other side of the Sam's building in 1978, and bought the building in back, which used to be Sugar's Furniture, in 1983. He built a balcony in 1988. He bought out a cousin in Keene in 1989, and moved the Keene store to a new building in 1993. He bought the Church Building on Flat Street in Brattleboro in 1999 to use as a warehouse.

In the old days, Army & Navy was a cash-and-carry business. Shoplifters are still a problem, but back then, so were gunmen looking for easy cash. Things are different today.

"I've always said, the reason we haven't been robbed is that we're too busy and there's too many accesses in and out," Borofsky said. "There's so much action in the store that you never know what's going to happen. And today there's so much going on with Visa and Master Charge it's almost not worth people coming into the store to rob us. We have eight registers. For them to hit any one register, the challenge of doing it wouldn't be worth the benefit."

Mistakes Are Not Failures

You never know what you're doing wrong until after you've done it, Borofsky says.

"Nothings a failure," he said. "You do a lot of things wrong, but they're not failures. You do a lot of things, and if a lot of things are more successful than others, then you've accomplished something."

For example, at one point Borofsky went into the catalog business. Although he lost some money, in the long run Sam's did very well. But he discovered that his heart was not in selling long-distance, but in selling to his own community.

"There are certain things you can do right," Borofsky said. "And other things you can do that you're not really interested in doing. We were successful in the catalog business, but it was not our cup of tea."

That is why Disney's Eisner used Sam's as a business model.

"His mother had a place near here, and he used to come here on Thanksgiving and shop," Borofsky said. "He'd spend a lot of money. Real nice man, and the kids were nice too. He wrote us up in a Disney stockholder report. In essence, what he said was and he was talking about himself - to expand your areas, you have to stay in the areas that you have your expertise in, and not lose that. You can grow, but you have to make sure you're serving your base. 'Like Sam's. They grow, but they serve their customers.' I'm not quoting him directly, but that's something like what he said."

Service

One of the guiding principles of Army & Navy stores was to never turn away a customer. Before Sam Borofsky closed up for the night, he would look up and down the street to see if a potential sale might be walking by. Today it is harder to stay open late because of the large staff - it takes about 14 people to work the Brattleboro store at any one time. This bothers Borofsky, said his friend Steve Baker, who owns Baker's Hallmark and Baker's Office Supplies in Brattleboro.