PLATO'S CLOSET & ONCE UPON A CHILD: FAIRFIELD, NJ
Erin Stern, Daughter of Geoff Schmidt, discusses her Winmark journey
How did you come to own a Winmark franchise?
When my first child was born, I was vacationing in South Carolina with my parents. We saw a billboard for a Once Upon a Child. We went to the store to shop around, and we were blown away by the quality of the merchandise and the prices. My mom and I went crazy shopping for baby clothes, and we couldn't believe everything was gently used. We started going to the store every time we vacationed there that summer, and we talked to the manager about the business. My parents had owned two other businesses which I managed, so we started to think the franchise was something we could probably do and do well. We educated ourselves about the franchise, contacted Winmark, and went to Discovery Day. We kept visiting other stores and talking to owners while we looked for a space. Looking for the right location in our region took two years. We bought the commercial building to house our Once Upon, with the intention that we would do a Plato's Closet in the other half of the building down the road. We will celebrate the tenth anniversary of our Once Upon in May. Our Plato's has been open for about eight years.
What is one thing you know now that you wish you had known when you first opened your store?
There were really no surprises. My parents and I continue to work in our stores in a hands-on way. We knew in the beginning that we would work every day to get the store up and running, and we worked many many hours the first few years. Now we have regular staff and are able to leave early, but we still check-in or go in every day of the week.
Have you implemented any new tactics to keep your staff motivated and to help with employee retention?
It continues to be tough to get staff. Once they become part of the team, we feel that they tend to stick around a while. Many of our managers have been with us for eight-plus years, and many have family members who have come to work in our stores as well. We try to raise their pay regularly. On very busy days, we give them a bonus for their hard work. We give significant bonuses during the holidays. Sometimes we provide lunch or treats on a busy weekend. We make an effort to verbally thank them for their hard work most days. Seeing them every day and being in the store every day, we recognize how hard they work and how labor-intensive the stores can be. The pace of buying never relents, and sometimes the customer service demands can take a toll. We emphasize that it is a team effort. We try to support them in every way that we can, by bringing in more staff or personally staying late or coming early to get the job done. We give them a lot of autonomy once they have been with us for a while. We are flexible with scheduling, in trying to accommodate their needs (many are young single moms). Our location is not on a bus transportation line, so for staff who do not own a car, it can be a challenge to work for us. This is a unique challenge we didn't really consider ahead of time. It works out when people bring in their family members or neighbors to work as well because they carpool. We let them build a schedule around their ride or childcare.
How has the partnership with JMM benefited your business?
We have been with J Miller for several years and continue to be happy with their services. Sheri contacts us when we fall behind on planning the events for the next month (which we invariably do), and she puts up with our quirky personalities. We find J Miller to be responsive to our concerns or requests. We find them to be focused and detail-oriented with the marketing materials. Prior to working with J Miller, we'd worked with other companies in which the marketing materials would contain errors with incorrect events or hours. This has not happened with J Miller. They are on the ball. They are receptive to different ideas we have about trying new marketing strategies, and they keep us on task.
