When life dishes you awesome burritos you don't pick between chicken OR carnitas. YOU TAKE BOTH! YOLO!
SEPHORA TALES FROM THE CRYPT. EP 9. PARTNERSHIP IS A 2 WAY STREET.?Principles. Are you prepared to stand up for them? Even if there is short-term pain. Partnership. In order to work it has to be a win-win. Otherwise it feels like going the wrong way down a 1- way street. In the early days SEPHORA desperately needed ‘dept store’ brands (read L'Oréal, The Estée Lauder Companies Inc.) to attract, well, dept store (read Macy's, Nordstrom) customers. To say the brands were reluctant is an understatement. More like they were highly resistant to our overtures. We succeeded in getting an important one to ‘try us’ (name withheld to protect the guilty). Roughly a dozen stores. After a few months we had a honcho meeting- their execs and ours. Felt like the OK corral. Good news- results were off the charts. Make that great news. They came in prepared to add more stores. Even better news. Looking at the list of their store adds there was only one problem- there were zero mall stores. Only street locations. They were tip-toeing around the dept stores. No malls-no conflict. This was a major problem for me and my concept of partnership.?I said “I will give you a list of mall stores. Pick one. Any one. ONE! And we have a deal.”?Cupla weeks later they came back and said…No. No mall stores. At which point we asked them to leave. Sephora. Altogether. As painful as that was we simply could not live with 100-0 partnership. 95/5 we’d tolerate. 100-0 no. They didn’t really believe it, but within 2-3 months they were gone. It cost us $. But the lesson for our teams was priceless. We are not helpless. We believe in winning together. And we practice it. These kinds of decisions ultimately define who you are as a leader. Being true to hugely important principles in the face of adversity is perhaps the ultimate test. You are your principles. Or you are not. There is no inbetween. #partnershipistwo #youareyourprinciples?
Alec Batis
9 个月
As a new founder, I needed to hear this today (and pretty much daily these days…). Partnership, and in both directions of the supply chain me thinks…
I really enjoy hearing your “behind the scenes” stories! I’m ready for one that involves SiJCP. As part of that enterprise for over seven years—it holds a special place in my heart!
Margarita Arriagada
9 个月
Great story, principles matter and it takes courage to live up to them
Celia Wing
9 个月
You told this story in a meeting I was in. I repeated it often in the early years to developers who wanted to do something similar in our new store deals. This story got us a few locations on better terms. (I never thanked you - sorry!)
Martin Brok
9 个月
History well captured David Suliteanu. Lessons in leadership, principles and values clearly observed. Great stories behind the history that built the brand Sephora is today.
Shannon Pirie
9 个月
Your stories are my favorite on LinkedIn! You continue to inspire all of us! Keep em coming!
Karen Smith-Harvey
9 个月
AMEM…not many have the ——s to stand up!!!! They were lucky to have your leadership David, BRAVO!!!!
Consultant/Advisor - Cosmetics & Skincare Brand Management & Strategy
9 个月Remember our “bus” analogy & how some brands just would not “get on the bus” with Sephora no matter what? We had some brands who embraced our new concept & how we needed them as partners in our stores & with our teams. They “got it” (for the most part). These brands were on the Sephora “bus” in one way or another & wanted to see where we were going. And we even had a few brands who we nicknamed “bus drivers.” They were our best, most committed, 100% partners. We also had some brands that were at the “back of the bus”who grumbled a bit at first, but at least they were with us & willing to see what our journey was all about about. And then we had the legacy/traditiona/dept store brands…. They didn’t want to get on the “bus.” They didn’t understand why they should get on the “bus.” Some couldn’t figure out where the “bus stop” was. Some didn’t want to sit next to the other brands on the “bus.” And we had a couple of brands who refused to acknowledge that the “bus” even existed or believed we weren’t firing on all cylinders (ie they thought we were nuts). Ahhhh….good times. I’m happy to say that, for the most part, everyone ended up on the bus at one time or another & the journey has been well worth the bumps along the way