184 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 10 “We’ve been around for 66 years. We know exactly what we’re good at and what our perfect size is. We just know what our needs are. We have survived big-box stores coming into town. We know what kind of storms we can weather.” Corey expounded upon this same theme. “Robin and I have both been here for more than 33 years,” he observed. “We’ve seen stuff in our years here, where we’ve gotten out of certain areas and expanded in others, and I can see us having to do that. You can’t sit still.” Corey adds that what your strengths are today may not be the same within five years of normal business growth. Things change, but going to conferences and buying shows and generally keeping one’s collective ear to the ground will serve you well, as he points out. “That benefits us in being able to make changes a little quicker than others,” he shares. Robin concours. “The buyers are also the people who help sell it on the floor,” he says, as opposed to buyers who are 10 states away and have no proper handle on what is being bought, sold, or asked for. “That makes us a little more unique, and like Corey said, we keep morphing into different things.” More hardware Thirty to 40 years ago, Robin continues, the company “sold farm supplies like crazy,” whereas today, that has changed into a greater emphasis on selling hardware items and work clothing. You find out, he says, what “you need to be deep in,” in terms of inventory.
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