Bringing insights to an iconic brand after 95 years

Ryan Barry:

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to this episode of Inside Insights Podcast, powered by Zappi. If you're listening, you probably know who I am, but my name is Ryan Barry and I'm joined as always by my lovely co-host, Patricia Montesdeoca and our producer Kelsey Sullivan. Good day, ladies. 

Patricia Montesdeoca:

Good day, Ryan. How are you doing? 

Ryan:

Guys, I got to tell you something. Thanksgiving week, I love Thanksgiving week. I love Thanksgiving. It's my favorite holiday. For those of you who aren't living here in the US, come visit me sometime for Thanksgiving. You'll see what I mean. It's a beautiful time of year. No one expects you to do anything other than eat and cook delicious food and drink a lot of wine. And I like to drink a lot of wine.

Patricia:

Be thankful.

Ryan:

And I'm very, very thankful for a lot this year. I'm very thankful for my health. I got COVID twice this year, and your boy fought through it. We had 292 people assemble for a crazy week in Bulgaria. We weathered a crazy year economically and still grew the company and innovated a lot, which I'm very proud of our colleagues for. And I have a beautiful family, but I'm also very thankful to be part of this podcast with you two. This is a lot of fun for me. I've really enjoyed doing it.

Patricia:

It is, me too. This is one of the highlights of 2022 for me.

Ryan:

We're not done this season yet, but it's been a lot of fun. We have only two episodes left, and believe it or not, we're already planning for season six. But yeah, doing this podcast brings a lot of joy. And so also very thankful for you, our listeners, because, well, it's cool to know that somebody's listening to the stuff we create, because I think we would do this anyway, but it's really cool. And those of you who take the time to send a LinkedIn email, or a text when something's helpful for you, it really means a lot to us. So thanks for doing that. 

So I have a day and a half left of work before I get into Turkey mode. I got some good beers in the house. I got two turkeys that I'm going to fry. You ever have a fried turkey, ladies?

Patricia:

No, I've never had a fried turkey. I've heard of them, but I've never had one.

Ryan:

All the more reason to come to the US and visit me.

Patricia:

I will.

Ryan:

So you fry a turkey. Let me give you that playbook here. So you brine the turkey for two days and that brings a lot of moisture into the turkey. And then you put a shit ton of garlic and butter and rosemary and sage under the skin and let it sit for several hours. And then you turn on a big pot with peanut oil and you fry it. You know how long it takes to cook? 42 minutes. 

Patricia:

42 minutes. That's it?

Ryan:

It takes 42 minutes. Most people are shuffling over that oven all day and they're going, "Oh shit, I got the turkey in the oven, now I got to cook the potatoes and I don't know what to do." Not me. I'm out back with whoever wants to fry. We're drinking a few beers and we're frying that thing. 

Anyways, this is not a podcast about how to fry turkeys, but if you've been listening for all five seasons that I like to cook. And so I have a few pointers here and there. But yeah, very excited. I'm excited to share this episode with you. We are interviewing today the head of insights at La-Z-Boy, Jorge Calvachi. I will have you know, every time I say something in Spanish incorrectly, Patricia corrects me, and is all part of me getting better. And so I think I might have said Calvachi a few weeks ago, and now hopefully, Jorge, I'm saying your name accurately. Jorge is responsible for shepherding a really wonderful brand into its next evolution, a 94 year old company. And believe it or not, he's the first ever insights person. It's all about that.

Patricia:

Crazy, unbelievable.

Ryan:

And speaking of Thanksgiving week, I'd love to get my fat ass in a La-Z-Boy this weekend. But before I do that, let's talk to Jorge. He's somebody who I met at Michigan State University Insight Summit. We were both presenters there. That's for those of you who remember we were talking about personal branding. That was my talk. And he was on a panel, and he's not taking his job as run insights. He's taking his job as help this wonderful brand, this wonderful company, realize its next level of growth through becoming customer-centric. 

And so that's the story that we're going to share with you today. And he's a year in. So you'll see the progress of where he is a year into his journey and how he's going about that. And at some point, we'll check back in with him to see how the results come through it. Shall we my friends?

Patricia: 

Go for it.

[Music transition to interview]

Ryan Barry:

Ladies and gentlemen, I am joined with the great Jorge Calvachi, Head of Insights at La-Z-Boy. Hey, Jorge. Thanks for making the time.

Jorge Calvachi:

Thank you.

Ryan:

For those of you on YouTube wondering why I'm wearing a beanie, Jorge was also wondering why I'm wearing a hat. It is a little cold in here, but I got a long haircut, so I need to get a haircut tonight. So, a bit of backdrop, Jorge and I met recently at the Michigan State Master's Program. Shout out to Michigan State. I would argue one of the better masters programs out there, particularly for insights. They put on their first ever Spartan Insight Summit and we were both speakers. I'm not going to steal Jorge's thunder, but I said this to you that day. You got me all excited about the way you were talking about customer centric growth.

So, Jorge, before we start talking about your story, your current state, take everybody on that journey. So, you've been in this game a while. You were in Costa Rica on a beach and you decided you want to get back into it. Take us through a little bit of your journey so far, some of the key roles you've had, and some of the learnings you've had along the way, but ultimately, what got you to La-Z-Boy and where you are today?

Jorge:

Yeah. Sounds great. Now listen, thank you very much for inviting me. So, I have about 20+ years of experience in consumer insights. My career started at Kraft Foods. After a couple of years at Kraft Foods, they asked me to lead the Multicultural Insights team. So, I'm going to tell you this whole story of all my roles, because every single role has been about breaking new ground and I am proud of that. At the same time, it was hard. So many successes, but more than successes, failing and learning and moving forward.

Ryan:

Isn't that what it's all about?

Jorge:

I'm still here. I am still standing up tall, man. So, all great. So, at Kraft Foods, led the Multicultural Insights team. This is the time where the census came out and said, "Hey, there are about 45 million multicultural consumers and they also eat." So, it's like, "Ooh, oh, my God. What are we going to do?" So, we needed to even develop procedures and best practices to do research with multicultural consumers that were in panels, communities, or anything like that. They have less access to the internet. So, that was fun and tough. At General Mills, I led the Insights Innovation team in Syria. If there is more innovation left in Syria, let me know. Nothing-

Ryan:

Well, oh, man, you tried it all, right?

Jorge:

Exactly. Then at Clorox, I helped the company expand internationally. At Amway, they asked me to join the company, because they wanted me to transform a large global insights function. They were centralized and they were not talking to each other. So, that was my job. So, here I am. You mentioned Costa Rica, the pandemic comes, it is a time to actually reflect. All right. I decided that I needed a great place to figure out what I'm going to do. So, I went to Costa Rica, no plans, just driving around the country. This voice came out of nowhere and said, "Eh, now, go back. You still need to do a couple more things." So that was fun.

So, I get back to the US and I get this call from La-Z-Boy and they asked me to build an insights function. I was like, "This is great." So, we're talking a brand that is iconic, 95 years, and they're bringing new leadership. In order to achieve their new vision, they needed insights. They needed to understand the consumer. They never had a consumer insights function at La-Z-Boy. So, here I am.

Ryan:

Wait, so I didn't realize this, first ever insights person in 95 years?

Jorge:

Correct.

Ryan:

Holy cow. Sorry to steal your thunder. That's incredible.

Jorge:

Yeah. This is a brand that is part of the fabric of society in the US. It is a brand that has been growing. It is $2.5 billion, right? So, I love this, because this was the perfect role for me. I get to build not only an insights function, but I get to build an insights ecosystem. So, that was in my head, but even more than that, when I said yes to this job, what really resonated to me was that what I needed to do, because they never had any insights function before that I needed to create a consumer-centric organization or at least help the organization get there. So, I love it, because here I have the opportunity with the team to reposition La-Z-Boy from the doorman brand in memories to an active, interesting, and distinctive and fun brand in the present. That is my job.

Ryan:

Wow. Okay. So, this story is even more cool because I didn't realize you were the first ever person. So, you're asked to build an insights function. You say, "No, we need to become customer centric." Ninety-five years of scar tissue of not being customer centric, balanced off by 95 years of strong product market fit, brand prestige, $2 billion market cap, and so on and so forth. So, take me through this. So, what were the steps you went about to not just work on consumer insights, but reframe the company's viewpoint to leverage the history, but also bring the customer into the 10? I'd love to talk a little bit about the stakeholders you had to engage, how you went about doing that, and the process of turning the company's eyes a little bit differently.

Jorge:

Great. So, the interesting thing is that if there was no pandemic, I don't think they would have been thinking about becoming more of a consumer-centric organization. Yes, they were bringing leadership from other really sophisticated marketing companies, but what happened is that... If you take a look at the last two or three years called what has transpired in the world, you're familiar with the term VUCA, right?

Ryan:

I don't think so.

Jorge:

V-U-C-A, volatility, we're living in this environment of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. So, just to mention a few things to bring it home, inflation, a potential recession, global warming, new pandemics, women's rights, political divides, shootings, and the list goes on and on. So, insights plays a critical role here. So, the reason that they brought me as well is to guide their decision, because the pandemic really impacted the furniture industry. At the beginning, they didn't know what to do. They didn't know what the consumer was going to think or do or behave. So, they needed somebody to understand the consumer. With that, they developed a vision that they needed to become more pandemic resilient and grow. All of that is based on the consumer.

Ryan:

So, to play that back, so there's this compelling event of, let's just call it 2020. A lot of deeply held beliefs and assumptions were thrown out the window. There was a degree in that boardroom of, "We don't know what they're thinking. That's uncomfortable if we wish to keep growing for another 95 years." Is that a fair playback?

Jorge:

Yeah, no, that is basically it. There are several things that were happening, as I mentioned, is the pandemic. It's the new leadership that is coming to La-Z-Boy, from Procter and Gamble, from Whirlpool and other CPG companies.

Ryan:

Yeah, DNA.

Jorge:

Yes. They're developing a new vision that is usually those visions and strategies are based on the consumer to grow. Just to give you an idea, yes, the good news is that La-Z-Boy is 95 years old and is still going as strong, but the average age of the consumer is about 60+. Also, at the same time, when I say La-Z-Boy, in your brain, you have a specific perception of the brand and the product.

Ryan:

The [inaudible 00:10:06] couch. That's what I'm thinking of right now.

Jorge:

But you know what is awesome? When you go beyond this perception that consumers have of La-Z-Boy, you have this brand with a strong DNA that is full of, okay, yes, people believe that we are the most comfortable brand when it comes to furniture. We're American made. We are one of those brands that are durable, high quality. Our products last 30 to 40 years, right? But most importantly, there is a lot of nostalgia and great positive memories about La-Z-Boy that we are not tapping into. That is what I'm saying. I get to reposition this brand that has dormant memories and we need to make it fun, active, and distinctive. That is the challenge. That is the call to arms.

Ryan:

Yeah. I'm excited to unpack this with you because it's rare, A, that a 95-year-old business tries to transform; B, that they're transforming customer centricity; and then C, recognizes we can actually leverage our roots to grow our future. 

So, some new leaders come in. I mean, so Proctor, Whirlpool, both very customer-centric businesses. One is a category marketing genius. Whirlpool is in a similar repeatable purchase tenure type of category. Obviously, not nearly as much nostalgia, but these are businesses that are brand builders, innovations.

So, all of a sudden, you're partnering with stakeholders that know what good looks like, just like you know what good looks like, right? So that's one big step. There's a compelling event, players are brought in to help drive it, yourself included. So, how did you go about setting up this insights function? I'd love to talk a little bit about the family, the founders, and how they were brought along this journey, and what were some of the steps that you took to set up the infrastructure of insights within the business?

Jorge:

Well, so the first thing that I did, so getting high level, but it's a little bit more tactical. I basically conducted an audit. What I mean by an audit is just talking to a lot of stakeholders across the organization. I did my own analysis of the way I set this up was roses, which are beautiful and they smell fantastic. Those are our classes. And then what the buds are, the buds is, "Oh, you know what? If we nurture this and we water them, they can become really great roses." And then we have the thorns. What is not working? Particularly, I focus on what will stop me from building this inside ecosystem in building a consumer centric organization. So, I did that.

So, identified that, for instance, rose was the support that I got from the C-suite, the support that I was getting from my team, my boss, and also, they were thirsty. They were starving for insights or opportunities, the buds. Not that many people know that Joybird, a really up and coming really established company that is just on the internet while they're helping them open some stores and key markets is just growing. How can we take advantage of that? And then there were some thorns. The company is big. When the company has been focusing for 95 years in developing the best, most awesome, most comfortable recliner sofa in the industry, they are a product centric company. They were making decisions that way. Now here I come.

With this audit, I was able to identify what I called 10 areas that in my case I said, "Well, where are you?" It was all the way from, "Do we make decisions based on the consumer?" Five-point scale, but to make it a little bit more impactful, are we in diapers? Are we in pull ups? Are we walking? Are we running, right? I got to tell you, most of that was we were in diapers and I presented this to the highest level. Everybody is like, "I get it. I get it. What do you need?" So, from that, the first thing that I did is my visualization of building an insights engine. This is about capabilities and this is about secondary research. How are we going to do primary research? Who are going to be our partners? The way I like to work is selecting strategic insights partners.

So, getting them into my business so they will understand my business to help me out. We can talk about that a little bit later. So, I put all that together, but most importantly, what I did is I realized that what we needed is an organizational learning plan. With my team, I went to different functions and I asked them to put together this form that we provided to them that I call, "What do you need to know to unlock growth?"

Ryan:

Love that. So, simple. It's so powerful.

Jorge:

Exactly. So, what is important? What is origin? What decisions you're going to make, and also, what else do you want to know? But we gathered this from nine different functions. What is beautiful about this is now that I have all this information in my hands, I can create this research plan for the next two, three years. I can connect the questions that they have. I can figure out the challenges and have meaningful conversations with each of my partners, the heads of each those functions.

When I do research, I can actually proactively figure out what they want to know and go to them proactively with research. So, what we call proactive research. I'm sitting in a mind of people's desires of knowledge to unlock growth. So, this is what I'm setting out, and this is what I mentioned about setting up an insights ecosystem.

Ryan:

It makes sense to me. There's a theme here, of everybody of people who are doing this right of really understanding stakeholders' needs, known unknowns, unknown unknowns. I imagine, Jorge, you then codified what you learned and said, "Oh, 10 people need market orientation help. Ten people need products experience." I mean, how did you go about distilling it down? I guess I'm projecting because that's what I would do.

Jorge:

Yeah, no. So, we got, as you can imagine, a lot of questions. So, then what we did, we started grouping and identifying themes. So, we had a themes about the brand. We have all of that, themes about the product, themes about shopping, themes about the website. So, we can start just looking at questions that are coming from different parts of the organization. Sometimes those are very different and sometimes they have different objectives. What is beautiful about this is, in fact, I'd never done this before. I have an organizational learning plan now that I can activate now, next year, and following year completely.

Ryan:

When you have an organizational learning plan, I like, because it takes a step out of insights and marketing and puts it to be company. So, how do you connect the learning to, I'm making this up, the chief operating officer? Is there a set of things that individual, if that role even exists, you've mapped to, or is there a way that you're connecting the organizational learning plan with, for lack of a better word, the departments that are going to be impacted by the learning or expected to receive the learning or implemented or what have you?

Jorge:

Yeah. So, there are a couple of things that we need to do here, but I need to also let you know that I have been with La-Z-Boy, exactly in two weeks, it's going to be one year, right? One year.

Ryan:

You're just starting to make moves now.

Jorge:

Yeah, exactly. So, things are starting to happen now. So, first six months, it was basically just digesting, absorbing. The last six months has been, "Okay, now this is what we need to do." So, we are in the middle of conducting a massive segmentation to identify our new growth target. We are going to also figure out our current customers, what they love about us. Well, we already know a lot about that respect, but we want to make sure that we don't polarize the people that love us, but we need to identify how to grow. We are also adding additional work in the segmentation for this other brands that La-Z-Boy owns.

So, multicultural consumers as well included here, because now, we know that if you don't have a multicultural strategy, you don't have a growth strategy. And then we are also conducting another segmentation that is the jobs to be done. We're going to integrate those segmentations. Visualize matrix within different targets. What are the needs? What are the jobs that we need to do? And then in about three or four weeks, we are going to be doing a consumer journey map. All of that has been driven by the organizational learning plan.

I'm going to have, like everybody else, these major presentations about the segments, jobs to be done, but because I also have is specifically by function, what really will unlock growth for those functions. Then I need to create and make recommendations and build story and insight for those specific functions based on that. They don't care about we have three, four segments and what about this? If it doesn't talk to them in a way that meets their need, I'm going nowhere. So, there's going to be a lot of interaction, telling that story, creating a lot of sympathy, empathy, and compassion for the consumer.

Ryan:

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. A lot of my listeners will remember we had Mark Ritson from Marketing Week on, and his point is how poor most companies are at market orientation about really turning the camera around. It doesn't surprise me that you were brought into this job. Businesses who relied on product strength needs to understand consumers. So, in your first year, you do two things, understand what they don't know and understand the entire customer base so that you can segment. So, before I ask you another question, I also want to tease out something that you said, because when you first started talking about segmentation, I was like, "Oh, I wonder where he is going to take this."

The reason I said that is I used to make a lot of money in a previous career doing segmentations that never landed in a company. The difference between what Jorge's doing and that scar tissue that I've got is understanding what is needed to catch website team inside, what is needed to catch retail team inside, to catch Jordan's furniture team inside, whoever this is.

Because otherwise, you create these overly complex matrixes that literally die on the insights team's PowerPoint drive. That's not what Jorge's doing. It sounds like what you're going to do is activate them at the team level and bring some salience to those people. I can't wait for you, because that's going to be a fun set of meetings, mate, because you're going to see pennies drop and eyes light up and ideas go. That's exciting.

Jorge:

Exactly. So, here's the thing, at the end of the day, how do we use this information to become a consumer-centric organization? Because that is what we need to get. I don't see my job really, as I mentioned at the beginning, of building an insights function. For me, that is what we do. A lot of people talk about this is what we do, this is how we do it. For me, what motivates me, what inspires me is, "Why do we do it?" I'm going to throw a Simon Sinek at you, which is like to become a consumer centric organization.

Ryan:

Yeah. That's the why.

Jorge:

This is the why for me. So, I was talking to people also when I was doing those interviews, stakeholders at La-Z-Boy. I asked them because everyone was like,

"Jorge, we need to become a consumer centric organization." I asked them, "So what does that mean to you?" Everybody had a different answer.

Ryan:

Well, I can only imagine. Give me some of the most polarizing answers. I'd love to hear this.

Jorge:

Oh geez. Oh, let's see. Some of those were putting the consumer first. Well, what does that mean? That you start with the consumer. So, everybody had the words.

Ryan:

It sounded good though, right?

Jorge:

Exactly. All the way to "Jorge, we know the consumer. So, we're already a consumer centric organization. We have the best product in the industry."

Ryan:

Oh, I love it. We know the consumer, period. We have the best product, period.

Jorge:

Yeah. So, we know the consumers. So, what are you going to tell us that we don't know? So, this is very interesting, because people think that the consumer only cares about the product and that is far from it. We purchase products. Yes, we want products to work, but for different reasons. We are looking for a specific benefit. We're not looking for a power drill head if I can make a hole with something else. I just need something to make a hole. That is what I'm looking for. So, this is what I did. Without trying to go back and define what a consumer centric company is, I said, "This is how we are going to become a consumer centric organization." We are going to ask two questions, and this is the first question. And then if it is positive, then we move to the second question.

Otherwise, you can't move. The first question is, "Is this beneficial for the consumer?" If the answer is yes, then the second question is, "Is this beneficial for the organization?" So, this is what I ask everyone in every meeting, in every business decision situation. This is how we should address things. So, let me explain a little bit more on, "Is this beneficial for the consumer?"

Once we have all this foundational information, we will know. Are we addressing an unmet need? Are we addressing a pain point? Are we improving the customer experience? If the answer to any of those is yes, then we move into, "Okay, is this beneficial to the organization?" This could be more like, "Okay, yes, this is helping us become more agile, more efficient, save money, increase margin." And then if you say, "Oh, no. Right now, we can't do this," but we know that if we do this, it will be a huge benefit for the consumer. So, we need to figure out how to deliver on that.

Ryan:

How to actually get there.

Jorge:

I'm sure that you have a lot of experience. In my previous jobs as well, the first question is, "Is this beneficial for the organization? Can we make money? Can we sell more?" We don't even know how this is going to impact the consumer. Yeah. So, it is so simple, but so powerful. That is how you start creating this consumer centric organization, but at the same time, I cannot do it alone. So, I am asking all members of the C-suite and VPs to any team or any team member that goes to ask for a decision approval, whatever, to ask, "So what is the consumer perspective on this? What options would the consumer given? How is this going to impact the customer experience?"

So, people now are starting to know that if the CEO, if the COO, the CMO asked those questions, they better be ready. So, they started coming to me. I got to tell you, we're a mighty team of two right now. We need to grow, exactly, but we're getting things done and we are super busy, but the company, this is great, they're protecting us so that we can just focus on building this ecosystem and answer key questions about how to grow at this moment.

Ryan:

What I love about this is the simplicity of this. I mean we can all go do this tomorrow, is really just start asking that question. The fact that you got your whole C-suite to do it, that will create more impact than a lot of things will do. A lot of projects, a lot of decks. It strikes me particularly as a profound thing to do in a product-centric organization. Now, 

I would argue a good product-led organization, particularly a software company, the customer is one of the prongs of stakeholder advice. But just asking what we'll do for the customer, what we'll do for the customer is something that goes a long way. The other thing that you said, and I'm glad you're doing it in your segments, is particularly for the more product engineering brains.

But jobs to be done is a really nice middle ground. So, if you're naturally excited about the power of your engine, the comfort of your chair, the speed of your software, that's naturally your company's culture, just asking about customer jobs to be done is a really interesting thing.

Because even a first principle technology oriented thinker forces that individual to think, "Okay, well, they get up and they drink their coffee and then they work out and then they brush their teeth and then they take a load off on their chair. They read their emails and they go to work." That helps you map your customer journey. I love the simplicity of this feedback and the fact that you're pulling this off with two people.

Jorge:

See, this is great. Here's another thing and I mentioned about the company is a product driven organization. One of the first things that I did when I came to La-Z-Boy was to understand comfort, because we own comfort in consumer's mind. They see La-Z-Boy as the most comfortable brand when it comes to furniture, but that has led the team to just talk about how comfortable we are. But it comes to a point that you are basically opening up for the competition to come and compete.

No, look at me. We're also comfortable. And then you compete in price, right? I mentioned that we make decisions based on emotion, and there is nothing more emotional than buying furniture, a loveseat, a recliner. So, what I did is I identify four dimensions of comfort that drives us. Number one, of course, is physical comfort. People love physical comfort. We deliver that. Physical comfort though is the enabler for mental comfort, emotional comfort, and social comfort. Nobody in the industry talks about that.

Ryan:

No one's leveraging that.

Jorge:

Nobody. So, yes, you go and buy. When people ask you at the store, "What are you looking for?" A couch. But nobody will actually answer, "What are you looking for?" and you say, "Let me tell you, I want to create an ambiance when I get to my living room that I can put my feet up and I want my family next to me. This is how I usually unwind after having a long day." That will be a weird answer from a consumer at a showroom.

Ryan:

But it's the truth.

Jorge:

That is the truth. So, people make decisions based also on mental comfort. That is about the assurance that you are making the right decision based on brand, reputation, durability, and quality. Guess what? We deliver that. Comfort is about creating an ambience that helps you relax just by not even seating in it. It's about just looking at it and you go, "Oh, my God. This is perfect." We deliver that. 

And then social comfort, social comfort is so critical for younger consumers. This is about when you get real furniture and then it's like adulthood coming out because you can afford this. And then the first thing that you do, you call your parents. They come to see.

Ryan:

Yeah, I remember my first house. I got new couches. It's like a big deal. Mom and dad, come check it out, and this moment of approval.

Jorge:

You know what that is? That is validation that you're doing great and you are proud and your parents are proud. This is why consumers buy furniture, sofas, and recliners, but nobody will tell you that. That is not what the consumer's going to tell you. At the same time, the opposite of social comfort is that you basically are embarrassed people coming to your home, right? How can we help consumers with that?

Ryan:

And leveraging the known quality of the brand, table stakes, the nostalgia of the brand with that unmet need. 

Jorge:

When I joined La-Z-Boy, they were going like, "Well, we have the name La-Z-Boy." It has some perceptions and all that. I'm like, "I love La-Z-Boy. This is the name that everybody knows."

Ryan:

Love it.

Jorge:

Yeah. So, how can we leverage La-Z-Boy? There are great conversations about that right now.

Ryan:

It's a really interesting thing when businesses do or don't decide to leverage their legacy name. I mean, you look in our industry, Brain Juicer to System1, Communispace to C Space. These are examples of leaving equity on the table. You do that with La-Z-Boy. Woo. So, now all of a sudden, you'd be reeducating people like, "No, no, trust me. Grandpa used to have this and grandma loved it too. You sat on it at Christmas Eve." There's a whole bunch of baggage there with it. So, I respect that they kept it real.

Jorge:

Yeah. Do you know that in most of those memories are really amazing memories? The way people see our brands are just fantastic. Let me tell you a story. So, I was at a sales conference about three or four weeks ago, and this person shared this story saying that they got a call from somebody who wanted to come to the home to fix their recliner. The recliner was about 30 years old. Our process is lifetime warranty. We'll take care of it. But what about if we give you credit and you can buy another recliner? It's going to take some time. We don't have the pieces. This person said, "No, I want this to be fixed."

So, the good thing is that when he was talking to this salesperson, the salesperson was very consumer centric and say, "I understand. Tell me more. Why is that that is so important?" At this moment, this gentleman basically lost it and say, "This was my wife's furniture for 30 years. I cannot get rid of it. Help me keep it." This is the stuff that really makes for a brand to create those memories and be proud of working for a company and creating those memories, right?

Ryan:

It's true. So, to my listeners, I have to come clean to you. I could talk to Jorge for another hour, but I have a four-year-old son named Cal. If I don't go pick him up from the school today, I'm going to be in trouble.

Jorge:

You got to go. Yeah.

Ryan:

I got time for one more question with you.

Jorge:

All right.

Ryan:

You have two people, maybe you'll have five soon. There's a lot of wonderful people out there looking for wonderful jobs in customer centric organizations. By the way, everybody, don't go work for a company that's not customer centric or trying to be life's too short. Give me a couple of attributes. Someone that you want on your team possesses these attributes as a human being.

Jorge:

All right. So, I'm going to give you a little bit more than two attributes. Curiosity, just like everybody else in insights, but I want a little bit more than that, which is proactive curiosity. For instance, I mentioned the organizational learning plan that I have. Now that I know what people need and want, I can be proactive and go back to them and say, "Hey, you mentioned that you wanted to understand these competitors like foot traffic. Let me tell you, this is what I just read. I just found out this. You may be interested in that."

That creates a strong relationship. I'm looking for courage. I'm looking for courage because I want people to ask the tough questions, to say no, and to say what it is in their mind, right? We are not order takers. We don't go, "Go fetch." No, we don't do that. And then compassion, but for me, compassion is a little bit higher than empathy. So, sympathy is really basically understand somebody's feeling. Empathy means more that you are feeling what the person is feeling. Compassion is action driven, is the willingness to relieve that pain of another person.

So, when I come back with the segmentation and I share the segmentation with people, we are going to get sympathy and we are going to get empathy, because people are going to say, "Yeah, I feel the way this person is feeling." But when I actually take it to a brainstorming session with a willingness to relieve that pain from consumers, that is what compassion is. It's action driven. You got to do something about it.

Ryan:

I want to come work on your team. This whole run a business thing's tiring, man. This is great. Jorge, I can't thank you enough for sharing your wisdom with us. I knew this was going to be a great conversation. I'm glad we got to have it. So, you didn't know this because I didn't want to interrupt you, but my wife and my three kids and I, we play rose, thorn, and buds every single day at our dinner.

Jorge:

Oh, really?

Ryan:

So, my rose from this interview is that Jorge gave you five simple steps of how you can make your company more customer centric. My thorn is that, well, I love my son Cal. I got to go pick him up. My bud is to chat with you in about six months and see how these segmentations land and to watch your earnings fly through the roof. My friends, businesses that prioritize the customer, businesses that hire great people like Jorge and get out of their way and help them do their jobs win in this marketplace. Whether they're selling furniture or software or cups, it does not matter. Jorge, thank you, my friend. I really appreciate this time with you today.

Jorge:

Thank you, my friend. Take care.

Ryan:

Cheers, man.

[Music transition to takeaways]

Ryan Barry:

So Patricia, I hear you have a little bit of a bone to pick with me.

Patricia Montesdeoca:

How dare you? You're encroaching on my space, Ryan Barry. 

Ryan:

You know what happened? So let me defend myself.

Patricia:

No, no, no defense. No defense. No defense.

Ryan:

I will not defend myself yet. Go ahead, Patricia.

Patricia:

You're supposed to be doing the interview, but here you are pushing in on my space. You're saying at the end, five steps. Five simple steps on how to make your company more customer-centric. Well, you thought you were just setting me up. Well, I'm not going to let it happen.

Because that's not how it's going to roll today. I'm going to start, I'm going to bookend this. I'm going to make a sandwich and then I'll put it in the middle, okay?

Ryan:

Yes. But hold on. I'm going to defend myself first. I was out of my interviewer mode.

Patricia:

Go defend yourself.

Ryan:

For those of you who remember, we interviewed Nick Graham two seasons ago. Nick Graham runs insights at Mondelēz, and I said in that interview, Nick Graham is the best listener I know, and this is something I picked up from him. And so I did steal your thunder and you're going to regain it. But I was just replying back what he told me, which is a good reminder of how to be an active listener, even though it's your co-host job. I'm sorry, Patricia. So note self don't active listen on podcast.

Patricia:

Just keepin’ it honest. 

Ryan:

I like it.

Patricia:

So actually there was a lot of really good gold here. So I'm going to start with the sandwich. I'm going to make this into a sandwich and I'm going to do the bookends. One of the things that seems just so incredible to me, other than the fact that he spent some time in Costa Rica figuring out what's next. So jealous. Was the fact that La-Z-Boy decided that they needed a change. 94, 95 years in, they're successful, they're doing it great. They're doing a marvelous job. And then all of a sudden they think, "Wait, wait, wait. Maybe we need some insight." This is not an easy thing. And kudos to them for actually doing that. To be honest, he told us that the pandemic made them think about being more consumer-centric. That's understandable.

The volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. VUCA for those who were listening, made them think, "I need more," because the pandemic impacted the furniture industry and made many people want to be home more and something that used to be their turf, many other people were encroaching on it, so that's where they began. That's where they thought, "We need Jorge." Now, I know why Jorge did an amazing job, because Jorge is amazing, but the fact that La-Z-Boy let him do his work, that was fantastic. So I think it's a combination of good and better, better, because it was everything coming together at the same time to make this all happen. So kudos to that. Now, I'm going to fast forward, I'll rewind in a second. Let me fast forward to the end. All the work that's being done that has been done, I think by this time it's exactly a year since Jorge started in his role, is implementing the change.

What happened when he implemented the change? What did he learn? What made this all work? The results in action. Something really simple. He understood comfort now. What's there to understand about comfort, you think? Well, the thing is that consumers that perceive that La-Z-Boy owns comfort. They knew this, but then it, let's dig deeper, which is what Jorge did. There are different types of comfort and all of the work that he did being consumer-centric, not product-centric, made him understand, made the company understand, that physical comfort enables other comforts like mental comfort, emotional comfort, and social comfort. So they've taken, what's something they owned, they've relied on their history. They've delved deep and they've understood their consumer to understand that physical comfort is when, as you just said, lay your big behind on the La-Z-Boy after you eat the turkey. But mental comfort is all about the assurance that you're making the right decisions based on the brand, et cetera.

And emotional comfort is all about holding onto the memories, the positive ones, not letting go. Like the gentleman who wanted to fix his wife's seat. And then there's social comfort that's so critical, like you, for younger consumers when they get real furniture and they grow up and they're doing the adulting thing. So I think that's something that's important, that we make sure that the result of all this, why is it worth it? What's it in for them? They got this deep, deep insight that's going to help them take something they own and make it better, make it bigger, make it deeper. So they're truly, truly owning it. And Jorge has taken them on this journey. Now, I can rewind a little bit and tell them how Jorge did it. Five simple steps. Ryan was absolutely right-

Ryan:

Sorry.

Patricia:

... simple being the keyword in that sentence, because there was nothing simple about it.

Jorge did an amazing, amazing job, because he took the five steps, but he took his company through it. So whether they were conscious that he was making them do change management or not, he did it in the most beautiful way because he eased on in. First thing he did is let's do an audit, but not just any audit, a Rose Bud Thorn audit. So he made it a game. He made it something fun like you do at your dinner table, right Ryan? Something interesting, something that make it not so scary. So that's something that was very important for the company to do. At the same time, he snuck in a level setting. Are we all talking the same thing? Do we all know what consumer-centric means? What does it mean to you? He found out that everybody had a different thing to do.

Then he fast forwarded to the next step, was developing an organizational learning plan. Two really keywords in that sentence. Proactive and organizational. Not just any learning plan. Insights, people, we all know about learning plans, but he talked about proactive, two to three years out and organizational. Not just marketing and insights, but for the whole organization. What does the whole organization have to do to change their mindset and go from being product-led to consumer-led. Three, implement. 

Sounds easy, right? Not even. He grouped things. He grouped things and grouped things, because he didn't just start shooting insights at them. He started doing little groups about the brand, about the product, about shopping, about shipping, about websites so that people could understand things in conjunction. And he's big on segmenting. That's what we're going to be talking to him about in six months is segmenting.

And he segmented to understand new and current consumers and all the jobs to be done in between, which is what helped them develop the growth strategy. The last one, the fourth one was to share the insight, but not just any sharing. He had some things he wanted to share as a company, which I thought was fantastic. The company focus was the why more than how. He didn't go to the what. He made them think about, why are we doing this? And then he shared with the whole company the consumer journey so that the company, know why we're doing it. And then he shared the results by function. That sounds simple when he says it, but not everybody thought of that. That's beautiful. It's beautiful in its simplicity and then implement. But one of the things is not just implementing new products or new advertising.

He's teaching the company to ask new questions, really simple new questions in a different order. Is this beneficial to the consumer? If yes, then is it beneficial for the organization? I thought that was beautiful. Something simple. How do we move forward to make sure that it's beneficial for the consumer and then that it's beneficial for the organization, because it's all about impacting, positively, the customer experience, the consumer experience. And I thought that was amazing. It was a beautiful journey. I can't wait to see what he does in his second year because his first year has been fire. Thank you, Jorge.

Ryan:

Muchas gracias, Jorge.

Patricia:

Muchas gracias,  Ryan Barry.

Ryan:

I'm trying here. And by the way, my kids are now learning another language and it is amazing how easy it is for kids and how hard it is for knuckleheaded dads like me to learn new things. 

Patricia:

It's hard-

Ryan:

Remember our Tony Costella interview, stay curious like a kid.

Patricia:

But proactively curious the way Jorge says.

Ryan:

Yeah, I like that. I really enjoyed Jorge's interview. As you heard, I unfortunately had to run because-

Patricia:

Yes, you did.

Ryan:

Life. 

Patricia:

You're a thorn.

Ryan:

...and  I think many of you can relate, we are both working people in this house, and so sometimes dad's going to go to school and soccer or whatever the hell else is going on. So I'm going to come clean. We have one episode left in this season. We've already created some crazy content for season six, so I'm not going to tell you what our season finale is. I'm going to surprise you, but I promise you it will be hot fire.

And this is where if you're watching on YouTube, this is where I will trigger a fire emoji. So more to come. We are already planning into season six, which will drop in Q1. So thank you very much for listening. As we are starting to think about season six, I want to know from you, is there somebody that you know that is creating wonderful products, creating wonderful ads, that is changing the customer journey, that is changing the centricity that businesses have around their employees or their customers? If so, I want to interview them next year.

Patricia:

And if they have something they're doing that they really want to share, they think is very much of value to the rest of the insights community, tell us, come on over.

Ryan:

And don't be shy, toot your own horn. Worst thing anybody can ever tell you is no, don't, don't let that be a deterrent from tooting your own horn. You're all wonderful. Let us know. My email is ryan@zappistore.com. You can get at me personally and I will share your inquiry with my esteemed teammates here. By the way, for those of you not watching on YouTube, Patricia, all the way down to Columbia, still rocking the Boston Red Sox hat. Finished in last place, they're not that good. But you got a little Boston love and I dig it. I appreciate that.

Patricia:

I got a little Boston in me.

Ryan:

For those of you around the world, I hope that you're staying safe and I wish you a lot of happiness and health and time with your loved ones this holiday season. We'll be back in a couple weeks with a season finale, baby. Goodbye everybody.

Patricia:

Ooh season five. Bye-bye.