Let there be no mistake: John W. Nordstrom was no retail expert. But throughout his life, he did what he had to do - hopefully we all have that in us.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
One of the people who most influenced me was Ben Shapiro, a marketing professor at the business school. He used to rant and rave and pound his fist: 'It's all about the customers!' And he was right. He was also right that, at that time, retailing was devoid of really talented people; he urged me to go in that direction.
What we learned was that the collective glamour of a specialty store could sell a lot of merchandise.
Jeff Bezos was one of those best and brightest who came to N.Y. to work in finance. He didn't need to know anything about retail bookselling to start Amazon.
Just the other day, my assistant was on the line with Calvin Klein. Golly, I usually shop at Sears.
No one in my family had a retail or marketing background. They were professionals. They didn't understand just what I was doing by going into retailing. After I started, though, it got into my blood. I knew this was what I wanted.
I've met people who didn't even know there was a Calvin Klein; they thought it was just the name of a product.
We asked ourselves what we wanted this company to stand for. We didn't want to just sell shoes. I wasn't even into shoes - but I was passionate about customer service.
I've never worked in a retail store, but I did sell shoes at Gimme Shoes in San Francisco, a job I was fired from.
I promise you that there are a lot of people involved in various kinds of retail activities who think they have a crucial role in the economy, and they're right.
People are always going to go shopping. A lot of our effort is just: 'How do we make the retail experience a great one?'
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