Adding Services in Tough Times

Tension crackled through the ranks around this time last year when H&H Lifestyles owner Trey Brunson asked all of his employees to gather for a store-wide summit.

“They thought I was going to fire them,” said Brunson, who couldn’t blame his team for having such thoughts. Their Brunswick, Ga., market had been traditionally known as a hot spot for luxury coastal getaway homes and hot construction, but all that had action cooled down in the early months of 2008. Brunson’s sales and service team, a group that had thrived during those peak building years by providing affluent customers with everything from custom kitchens to AMX home control systems, figured layoffs would be the logical fallout of the housing bust.

But Brunson wasn’t about to let anyone go. He stood up in front of the assembled troops and delivered a speech that rallied his crew to a new service-oriented business model. He even brashly, and correctly, predicted that the nearby Circuit City would go out of business.