NashCo Furniture building a Business with Heart and Purpose

Yeah. So yeah, I’ve had my stores now for about 13 years come up on 14 years I got involved in the furniture business out of college, so really was trying to figure out what to do at 21 and was offered an opportunity to start selling mattress out of a warehouse with a guy needed a beer money gig at the time, and kind of turned into a bunch of friends that work together. We all spread out, open our own locations kind of all over the South East at that time. Work through one distributor and then in 2017, I broke apart from that group and rebranded my business to what is today? NashCo furniture? We’ve been open in Nashville for 13 years. We opened a store, a sister store in Jacksonville, Florida, called JacksCo Furniture So we’re about 6 years there now and then opened another second location in the National Market, Columbia, about an hour South the beginning of last year. And now we’re working on a 3rd location, the National market that’ll be opening in September.

Yeah, yeah. It’s been a good, you know.

Good 12 years.

Trying to be that way with the bumps and bruises along the way.

Yeah. So like, I said, rebranded in 2017 and one of the things that we kind of got pushed is as a young entrepreneur going through a distribution channel was profit center, profit center, profit center, you know. Open your own profit center. That’s how you make your money, this, that and the other and when I really kind of started thinking about what kind of impact we could have in the communities we work in. I really wanted to become more of a community partner than a profit center. You know, I wanted to find a way that we could take what we have our little place in the world with, with furniture and mattresses. Help our communities with that. So, When we rebranded is NashCo obviously it becomes a much more hometown team, you know. Being in Nashville. But that was something that we were really excited about was the opportunity to become a community partner. We believe that, you know, if we can do things within the community, if we can help things within the community. The Profit Center mentality kind of comes along with that where we can, you know, gain a bigger market share based on what we can offer. So that’s kind of how Nashville came about.

our sister store, JacksCo. Same same situation. We’ve got partners in the communities. So in Nashville we work with a couple of organizations that help veterans that are transitioning from homelessness. In Jacksonville. We’ve got a group who work with that helps underprivileged kids get into beds. So we donate mattresses to veterans, to kids, and bump beds. Just to help. Really, people that are, you know, less fortunate in the communities. And that’s again, kind of how we can work our piece of the world what we have in front of us. So.

Yeah. So I’ll say, when I 1st got into it, there was really no passion. It was just not making a couple of extra bucks, you know. Fun, my fun! My, you know my fun habits. And you know, at the time I actually played arena football for a couple of years after college. What a ton of money in that! But in between seasons I could work, and you know, stash the money away. So I really think once I got involved. Once I got to open my store in 2011 after a couple of years, you know, you really start gaining appreciation for the business. You know. I think when I look at furniture and a furniture store, I think there’s a lot more than just the pieces that you’re selling. So when I look at it, there’s a sense of pride for customers, because it’s something they’re going to show off in their home right? So especially a living room group, a dining room group. You have friends over. You’re going to sit on that.

Sec that sofa, that sectional with your friends. So there’s a part of pride that kind of develops your own personality. Your own style. I think furniture is fashion. I’ve talked about that a lot but so that your sofa can really be an expression of who you are. You know what you like. the second part is comfort right. You want to come home. You want to be able to get into your spot every day, whether it’s curled up on your little corner of the couch, or your bed, or whatever it is, sitting down at the table with your family. So there’s a comfort piece to furniture that is not just a you know, not just actual comfort of the cushion, but a comfortable feeling of okay, I’m home. This is me. This is my spot. This is where I want to be. So, I think furniture is fashion. I think there’s a comfort piece of it. And I think that you know again the pride piece of it where? You work hard for it. Furniture is one of the bigger purchases of your life. So outside of a home and a car, you know, possibly jewelry, you know, but things that you actually need furniture is really the top 3 or top 4 of things you actually need.

So you really take, take pride, and and being able to offer somebody that because once they get what they want, they love it in their house they get. There’s a confidence that they have and a comfort they have, having that piece of furniture that you wouldn’t think of. I didn’t think of it like that when I 1st got started in the business. It wasn’t till I was in the business for a while that I really started kinda restructuring the way I thought about furniture, and what it can mean to people outside of just the piece itself.

For sure. Yeah, I’ve actually got a table. I’ve got a table from my grandmother that you know. We used to sit as a card table that you know it’s old as can be, but it still is a. It was a piece that was part of my childhood. My mom has some of the furniture from her, from my grandmother’s house and her home. It’s been around for 30 or 40 years, but it’s an extension of her upbringing taking her back home a little bit, too. So yeah, there’s a lot, yeah, there’s a lot that people don’t think about when they think about just the product itself.

Yeah, I mean, I think that’s, I think, just having a reason for it is what differentiates us. You know, creating an environment for our customers, our clients that yeah, they’re comfortable in, because at the end of the day they’re shopping for that comfort spot in their home. So if we can create an environment that’s comfortable for them to be, you know, coming in shopping with us, you know, friendly, and you know, comfortable. That’s what we’re looking for.

Yeah, yeah, I think it’s changed over the years. Yeah, we started off as a very low budget marketing platform. So we worked on Craigslist a ton. When we 1st got started we were the annoying people that had road signs all over this all over the town. $200 Queen pillowtop mattresses, and that’s how we got started, that really true gorilla marketing piece. And I think we’ve been able to keep that going, but obviously through different channels. So social media wasn’t around, or it wasn’t as prevalent when we 1st got started.

So it was around. But it wasn’t a marketing piece. That was a. It was a community piece. So getting involved in social media and kind of keeping up with the trends between Tiktok and Instagram and Facebook. I think Facebook’s changed, you know, 20 times over the last 5 years. How you can market, how you can target and then kind of what your strategies are gonna be to get to reach the right people. That’s a big part of what we do. Our campaigns for traditional media have always been a little bit different. We try to, you know. Try to show our personality, and that so you’re not just seeing the same white noise all the time. At the end of the day you can see a car commercial or furniture commercial. A lot of them are kind of the same. So we try to have some marketing strategies to differentiate us from what else you’re gonna see? Try to make it a little more memorable? And then, we really refer to return referrals, return customers a ton. So we’ve been able to build a strong base of referrals for return customers. And and again, that just goes to. If you treat one person right. The extension you can have from that not one customer, you know, can be 10 fold, and you know. if you have, if you have an issue, and you don’t take care of it, it can. It can be tenfold in a negative that your way. So we want to make sure we’re taking care of the customers that we have. If there’s issues, we’re standing behind not only our product, but our company. More importantly.

Certainly. Yeah. And you know you have. You have people that get their 1st apartment, and then when they’re done with the 1st apartment. They’re getting their 1st home, and then maybe they have kids and they need a kids bedroom. So you know you, we want to earn a customer for a lifetime. We want to be able to work with them throughout the different stages of their processes. So you know, if somebody needs a promotional piece. We want to be able to kind of fill the whole realm of what they’re looking for. They’re starting off with the promotional sofa, and they want to upgrade next time they come along. We want to be able to offer everything to them. Just wherever for wherever they’re at in their journey.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I think there’s been a multitude of them through the years. So I’ll kind of share a story about that?

yeah, looking back on it, looking back on it, you know, we got through it. But looking back on, it’s like, Wow, that really could have been different. In 2013 I had a small staff. It was only myself and 3 other people working with me, and 2 of those guys were brothers, good friends of mine. They were in a bad car accident. One of them passed away. The other one was hurt pretty significantly. I Ended up having to go back home. You know. Luckily, at that time I had a network with the group that I was in again. It was a bunch of my buddies from college. And I had a huge support system. So the one guy that was left had just kind of come on full time about 6 weeks before. So you know, I’m kind of out helping out with arrangements and everything, trying to get the family situated. I had people coming in from all over the place from different markets that we had stores in to come and help out. So that was a huge thing. Looking back like I said it, we got through it, it seems, looking back like it was somewhat smooth, but it obviously was a tough time to get through, and then, just just to get through Just to get through the new, you know all the open invoices kind of make sure you have to explain the customers. Not a fun thing to talk about over and over again with customers. So that was one thing, I think the second challenge was rebranding. So even though it was a positive rebranding, it’s a big deal when you’re, you know, 7 years in, and then you’re changing your brand. We got Unfortunately, we got caught in a tough winter also. So we we rechange. We changed the name of the store, and in January of 2018 we take finish the brand and everything in 2017 but it was so cold that winter that I couldn’t get signs up.

So we went for a month and a half without a sign on the building. So I had removed obviously the old material from the company I was with trying to get the new signs up for the new company, and there was a month and a half almost 2 months before we had a sign up, so we were still getting people to come in. You obviously had an open sign on the door, but there was no branding, no visual of who we were. So that was a challenge. And then going through Covid. You know, you could probably buy any retailer. But the Covid challenges were wild.

yeah, okay, yeah. Just unthinkable that that we went through. Yeah, a month and a half. 2 months of not knowing if or when we could open the doors. Kind of having to do things by appointment, because at the end of the day our bills didn’t stop. So yeah, we’re running people in. We’re having to let them in, lock the door.

People at a time, you know. Keep it, you know. Only allow 2 people into the time I had a couple of people that stuck with me through Covid, and that was, you know, obviously a challenging time. And then and we had the boom afterwards. Then we had the challenge of the freight afterwards and then, yeah, now we’re now. We’re kind of coming back off of that where I think furniture is kind of a crazy industry where everything else has had inflation. Furniture has actually been the one industry that comes back.

So yeah, we started off. I started doing this in 2007. So I’m, you know, 17 years into furniture, and your starting price point for a sofa and for a mattress is the same today as it was in 2007. Yeah, so.

That’s the only, we’re the only industry that doesn’t come back down. Cars have gone up and they’ve stayed up. How long they have gone up and they’ve stayed up.

The furniture has just come back down. It’s been so you’re fighting. You’re fighting a battle of inflated prices that we all dealt with for 2 years, and now, trying to, you know, maintain may maintain a level of business that you know, really was unrealistic. For a couple of years. But but now you’re now you’re back down

That’s a reality. So yeah. for sure. Yeah, it is 100 a thing that you know as I go to the grocery store and see what I’m spending every time. You know. It’s great to be able to still offer values that aren’t totally out of control.

Sharing.

So, as I mentioned at the beginning, we’re opening a new location. In a smaller town. Actually, the town that I live in here outside of Nashville. And that’s gonna be more of a boutique style setting. So more design oriented really, just to be able to offer more products and more to a bigger market.

So it’s gonna be more boutique style, more custom furniture. with a local flair. So you know, we’re really gonna try to just expand our market base. You know, in the Nashville market and I think that we can take this concept, you know, and make it work. I think we could have these little pocket of smaller boutique showrooms where you’re not having to rely on massive, you know, warehouses or massive showrooms, because at the end of the day real estate is just a little out of control, especially in the market. So we’re in. So luckily we’re booming. We’re in booming economies with Nashville and Jacksonville but with that comes some some serious cost of overhead with real estate. So in a lack of availability for real estate, for what you really need. So you know, in a perfect world, you know. Honestly, if we can, just can maintain where we’re at and you know, keep doing well and keep growing our markets where we’re at now, you know everybody’s happy. My wife’s getting involved in the business now. So I’m excited for that. So she’s gonna be able to twist her flare on everything.

But if we maintain where we’re at, that’s awesome. If there’s opportunities for growth, then we’ll definitely take advantage of them.

I appreciate it. I appreciate you having me on.

Sure thing.