Part necessity and part peer envy drove Charles O’Meara to embark on a $1 million renovation of Absolute Sound, a hybrid retailer in Winter Park, Fla. But whatever caused O’Meara to renovate—in the middle of one of the worst economic downturns in 20 years no less—the project generated several important lessons that others in similar situations can learn from.
During the 28-year history of his business, O’Meara had painted the store and tweaked the sound rooms, but never executed any major overhauls. Business was good; he thought it was best to leave well enough alone. About a year ago, though, something told him he needed to do more.
“Every time I did an HTSA partner visit and saw the gorgeous showrooms of the other members, I’d come back here and know it needed doing,” he said.
So he powwowed with former retailer Mike Hagg, a designer that other HTSA members had used for their redesigns. When Hagg visited Absolute Sound, he told O’Meara he had never seen another dealer with such a solid marketing position who had done less to capitalize it.
“That got our attention,” O’Meara said. “We’d been dancing with him for a while, and finally pulled the trigger. We started with a great plan. We had a sane adviser. We went outside our organization for fresh ideas.”
So off he went, all guns blazing. But then, about midway through the renovation, the economy began to shoot blanks. Despite the downturn, O’Meara pushed on, showing how perseverance can boost staff morale and prepare a business for tough times.
“If you do a pretty showroom, you’re not going to do a lot more business than you did before. You really need to do a total self-examination of your business plan," he said. "Business, even though it was good, wasn’t smokin’, so it was time for us to turn up the wick.”
O’Meara’s goals were to make the showroom an easy place for the customer to buy and for salespeople to sell both products and services. Striking a balance so the company’s retail and custom business would be equally well served was key.
Absolute Sound’s basic setup is unique in that several of the store operations are located in separate buildings near the showroom. Even with those additional buildings, it was still challenging to conduct the full scope of business during the seven-month renovation period. Those challenges, however, pushed the sales team to a higher level of cooperation. Due to construction, for example, some people had to be in as early as 4 a.m. “We all took turns being there, and they did it without batting an eye,” O’Meara said. “Everyone bought into the vision. They were jazzed about it, and everyone took pride in what was happening.
