Retail Relates
'Retail Relates' is not just a podcast; it's a journey into the heart of retail and commerce. Our episodes traverse the path from traditional marketplaces to digital platforms, highlighting the successes, trials, and invaluable lessons learned along the way. We're conversing with those shaping the industry—from the front lines to behind the scenes, the creative minds to the global strategists - offering a diverse 360-degree perspective. We're revealing the relationships and personal narratives that make retail engaging and accessible. 'Retail Relates' is an invitation to explore the world's interconnectedness through the lens of retail, encouraging listeners to discover the personal journeys and stories of those who drive innovation and unite us across cultures and continents.
Retail Relates
Transformation at the Intersection of Retail and Services: A Conversation with Liz Allison
Where does true retail innovation happen today? According to Liz Allison, CEO of luxury salon and spa brand Tricoci, it's happening at the intersection of experience and commerce.
Liz's remarkable journey from JCPenney retail trainee to scaling a billion-dollar Sephora business to transforming Neiman Marcus offers a masterclass in retail evolution. Throughout our conversation, she shares candid insights about pivotal career moments that shaped her leadership approach - including the time she dropped her lunch tray during a heated debate with her business partner in the JCPenney cafeteria!
What stands out is how Liz has harnessed the power of experiential retail at Tricoci. By integrating beauty services with product sales, her team achieves retail attachment rates of 50% (compared to the industry standard of just 10%).
Beyond business strategy, Liz offers refreshing perspectives on leadership - from adapting her extroverted style to make space for introverted team members to helping high-performers advance their careers (even when that means leaving the company). Her approach builds lasting relationships that extend far beyond any single organization.
As traditional retail faces disruption with thousands of stores closing this year alone, Liz's hybrid service-retail model offers a compelling path forward. The future belongs to those who can create emotional connections through personalized experiences while delivering products that resonate.
Ready to make retail cool again? Listen now and discover how merging service with commerce might just be the key to retail's next renaissance.
Liz Allison's Bio
Elizabeth (Liz) Allison is the Chief Executive Officer of Tricoci, a premier luxury salon and spa brand with 13 full-service locations across the Chicagoland area. Under her leadership, Tricoci offers elevated hair, skin, body, and nail services, supported by a team of over 1,000 expert beauty and wellness professionals serving nearly 200,000 active clients. Liz is dedicated to evolving the core business and driving growth through strategic transformation, while also overseeing the expansion of the brand's innovative beauty consumer products portfolio.
Before joining Tricoci, Liz was the President of Milan Laser Hair Removal, where she played a key role in scaling the business to become the country's largest laser hair removal company. She also served as the Chief Transformation Officer at Neiman Marcus Group (NMG), leading the company's luxury reinvention and managing NMG's minority investment and strategic partnership with the ultra-luxury re-commerce company FASHIONPHILE, where she also served as a board member. Additionally, Liz held numerous senior executive positions at JCPenney, including Senior Vice President of Sephora, and led the company's billion-dollar e-commerce business.
Liz graduated from the University of Iowa with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting and currently serves on the Tippie College of Business Administration's Marketing Institute Advisory Board. She is a former Advisory Board Member for Women in Retail and was honored with the Top Women in Retail award in 2020.
To check out Tricoci's latest brand launch:
https://nutrire.com/
This is a great episode and I think you're going to enjoy it.
Rich:Liz takes us through starting off as a retail trainee when those programs were very much in force and her journey through JCPenney to where she ultimately led the Sephora business in JCPenney, which was, I believe, a billion dollar business, to leading transformation efforts in Neiman Marcus to where she is today, which is this wonderful merger between retail and services. And if you think about all the things that are going on in retail today, in the midst of the chaos and the transformation and a lot of the closures and bankruptcies, there are these wonderful stories and they're happening in that intersection of experience and commerce. Liz will tell us a little bit about her adventure here. Also some great insights when it comes to team development, her leadership perspective and how she looks for and develops talent. So stay tuned for this episode. I think you're really going to enjoy it and we'll see you on the other side.
Paula:Elizabeth Liz Allison is the chief executive officer of Tricoci, the premier luxury salon and spa brand with 13 full service locations across the Chicagoland area. Under her leaderhip, Tricoci offers elevated hair, skin, body and nail services, supported by a team of over 1,000 expert beauty and wellness professionals serving nearly 200,000 active clients. Liz is dedicated to evolving the core business and driving growth through strategic transformation, while also overseeing the expansion of the brand's innovative beauty consumer products portfolio of beauty consumer products portfolio. Before joining Trocochi, liz was the president of Milan Laser Hair Removal, where she played a key role in scaling the business to become the country's largest laser hair removal company. She also served as the chief transformation officer at Neiman Marcus Group, leading the company's luxury reinvention and managing NMG's minority investment strategic partnership with an ultraury re-commerce company, fashionphile, where she also served as a board member.
Paula:Additionally, Liz has held several numerous senior executive positions at JCPenney, including SVP of Sephora, and led the company's billion-dollar e-commerce business. That's nothing to just gaze over is leading the company into a billion-dollar e-commerce business. So Liz graduated from the University of Iowa with a bachelor's of business administration and accounting and currently serves as the Tippie College of Business Administration's Marketing Institute Advisory Board. She's also a former advisory board member for women in retail and was honored with the top women in retail award in 2020. Liz, we are so excited to have you with us here at Retail Relates. Welcome.
Liz:Thank you so much, Paula. I'm thrilled to be here, Hi Rich.
Rich:How are you doing?
Liz:I am outstanding, sir. It's great to see you.
Rich:You probably loved having your bio read, if I know you. I know Honestly yeah, no, I know, I know, but you do have a really impressive background. And for everybody, before Paula kicks off the questions, we've known each other since JCPenney.
Liz:We did. We have known each other. I don't even know how many years it is, but it must have been back in the late 2000s, maybe.
Rich:Yes, and we sat together for a couple of inspiring days with the CEO at the time and Mike Ullman and the CHRO. We did, and ever since then I've been a huge fan, so it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast.
Liz:Likewise, sir, absolutely. We go way back and you've been a great partner to me in many different ways in the business world, a good friend too. All right, Paula, take it away.
Paula:So we like to start off not asking you the traditional questions of well, tell me about yourself, but more so, tell me you know what were the three main pivot points, or pivotal points in your career or life that have led you to where you are here today?
Liz:Yeah, that's such a good question. You know it's funny the longer you're in a profession and you look back on things, there are moments that you didn't realize were as important as what they were, until you're on the other side of it. The first one I would say is I grew up in the Midwest. I spent all my time in the Midwest, I didn't know anything but that, and I was working for JCPenney. I'd been a department manager, ops manager, hr manager, district buyer, and JCPenney was getting ready to go through a massive transformation. I didn't know it yet. They were going from decentralized to centralized buying. What that meant was like a thousand locations were buying for themselves and then they were going to have just the corporate office do it. And I asked to move to Dallas, texas, to the big city, and be part of that. And they had me come down there and all of a sudden I was 29 and I was in a room full of really high-powered executives for the company and I had a point of view and I learned to find my voice while I was there my voice and I had an opinion and I had a seat at the table and I had a little bit of imposter syndrome. I won't lie during that time period. But it was absolutely incredible to be part of that transformation and the company was super resistant at first and it did work. So that transformation did work. Stock price went from next to nothing to about 90 some dollars to share, I think maybe in the 80s I'm not positive, but it was a great time. That's the first one. So that was JCPenney when I was a baby.
Liz:Second one, scaling Sephora and Zai JCPenney absolute blast. We had basically no locations. It was a joint venture between the two companies. It wasn't technically a joint venture but it operated like one. We took it from nothing to almost a billion dollar business in a few years. So I learned how to scale a business which was just. I'd never done that before. It was a blast. And I learned about partnerships there and having retail partnerships are so important and how you treat your partner, how you build win-wins all of that that was critical in my career.
Liz:And then the last one was the hardest. It was the chief transformation officer role at Neiman Marcus. So if you could envision for those that know Neiman Marcus, it was 110, 12, 15-year-old company, brick and mortar based, and the world had moved, digital. And so how could we turn this company, with no money to really pay for it, from an old business model to a new business model where we would invest in technology, and about how to revolutionize luxury commerce from an omnichannel perspective. That was the most rewarding when it was over. It was the hardest when I was doing it. I was talking with a CEO there not too long ago and he's like you know that was really great. What happened? He's I never want to do it again. I'm like same, but I learned a ton from it. So those are the three biggest ones for me.
Paula:That's really beautiful and I love how you interwove the stories and I almost feel like I saw you grow in your career, as you told that. Oh, thank you, I did. So let me ask you one more. And then, reg, please jump in and please take advantage of the rich history that you guys have. Pun intended Definitely want to hear different points of views, because you guys were in the battleground together at JCPenney. So is this the career you originally envisioned? Is this a direction that you thought your life was going to take?
Liz:No, no, no, no. This is. This is the weird to me. Looking back on this, I'll never forget this as long as I live.
Liz:My dad was so bad at me, so I was getting my degree in accounting at the University of Iowa because I like answers and I thought that accounting was all about. At the end you get your balance and you're done. And I went to my accounting classes and I went to my interviews my junior year for internships. I didn't like it and I'm like I don't want to do this. What do I do? I wasn't sure what to do. So I called my dad. I said hey, listen, I'm going to go ahead and take an extra year and do something different. He's like yeah, no, not on my dime or not? I'm like what do you mean? He's like you're going to be out in a year and a half. You just need to get out in a year and a half.
Liz:So I graduated with an accounting degree and I was working at JCPenney part-time. It's like do you want to be a trainee in our training program? Like, I guess I don't have anything else to do. And so I moved to Omaha, nebraska, as a trainee for JCPenney and fell in love with retail. I was like working part-time, like four hours a week, and I fell in love with the actual retail side of it, and so the story was made. I've stayed in retail and consumer services ever since.
Rich:So I'm going to ask you a somewhat of a professional question and one of the things that I end up doing is saying I'm going to take notes and take it back to my team, but I didn't realize you were in a training program at JCPenney. What was it like in those days? What did you go through?
Liz:Well, keep in mind, we were decentralized, so where I was learning to be a buyer and a department manager and then hopefully a store manager someday. That was my ultimate ambition to run a store in some tiny town in the Midwest. The training program was a 12-month training program where we learned how to run an open-to-buy, how to calculate gross profit, how much to buy, what sell-through percentages look like. So all the same retail math that exists today did exist back in the Stone Age. It was still there. Same formula, same calculations. We learned how to buy and then we learned how to lead people was a big part of it, and we learned how to run the department that we were in. But it was a 12-month training program. When you graduated, you got your very first department in a store. It was great.
Rich:So were you actually on the sales floor, learning retail at the same time that you were in a physical location?
Liz:I was so in the physical location you were a buyer and a department manager, so I didn't sell to customers really, unless I happened to be on the floor working. I was more stocking the floor, rearranging the floor. Visual merchandising was critically important. How you merchandise, that's a big part of retail. It's not just about buying, it's about how do you merchandise, how do you market it. We put together our own marketing plan as well, so those were all facets that I was able to do in Omaha, nebraska, in my own little world. I had the instant department. It was very fun. It's exciting.
Paula:No, it's very funny how you start entrepreneurial and now you're also back into that entrepreneurial space. So what you learn is always going to stay with you.
Liz:It's funny that you say that too, because the entrepreneurial thing I didn't think I was and as I came up through, so you know, jc Penney was a $20 billion or $18 billion when I was there. Then Neiman Marcus was $5 billion and when I was at Neiman's, my role as chief transformation officer that was my last role there before I went into the job. I'm like I want to go do my own thing. I want to go to a small company. I love the big company thing, but it's hard to get things done in big companies.
Rich:There's a lot more red tape no-transcript to any of the backroom functions.
Liz:To a point. Yes, I think you have to truly understand both sides of it, and if that means a couple days a year, you're working on the floor or doing a full set yourself. That's one thing at JCPenney that we did really well is that all the buyers would go out to one of the lab stores and actually set the floor for like four times a year about rich three times a year, something like that. They go out there and actually physically set the floor and then the GM would walk. Like you know, this doesn't look right because they had to take what they bought and make it work in the store and then send out the direction to the entire field. That was super helpful. I don't know that we do that very often anymore, and in getting to that point and understanding both sides of it, I think are really, really important and I've been a generalist my entire career too. I thought I was going to be a buyer. I like the buying side, but I like the GM side much better.
Rich:All right. So I have a question that I was going to queue up about transformation, but you just used the word generalist and I was on LinkedIn last night and Aaron Hurst was asking would you rather have a jack of all trades or a master of one? You just said generalist.
Liz:Yeah, so that's for me, that's my preference. So I'll talk about my preference and I'll talk about what I would do on my team, if that's all right with you. From my preference for me, I have an insatiable intellect. I just had this curiosity about things all the time. I was an accounting major, I became a buyer, but then my career I kept expanding. I ran com at JCPenney, I went into consumer services, all these different things.
Liz:I like the breadth of what I do because I like being able to pull different levers at different times. However, on my team, there are some roles that I love having generalists in and there are some roles that I want the absolute. I'm not going to swear the best candidate. That's a very, very specific. I'll give you an example because I just went through this. I want my performance marketing person on the marketing team to be a digitally native absolute, know everything about performance marketing. I don't want them to have dabbled in all this other stuff because it's moving too fast. Performance marketing is moving like lightning speed in how you acquire customers and how you market to them. I don't want them dabbling in other things. I want them focused on performance marketing. Whereas in a GM, in one of my salons. They absolutely could have come from lots of different places.
Rich:Let's start. I think when we met, you were transitioning into the role of Sephora and now that I'm thinking back, it was one of the first activations of its kind partnership activation, collaboration, however you define it. It really was innovative at the moment, and now you have a lot more department stores and retailers that are doing it. How foreign was that to what you were used to and how did you manage through that?
Liz:I love that question because I didn't know what I was getting myself into when I took the role. It was incredibly foreign to me because, from a being at JCPenney perspective, you're in control of your own destiny and what you want to do there, because it's JCPenney Like. You buy, you put it on the floor, you sell it, but you're all inside of your own company. When you have a partnership, like we did with Sephora, which was very similar to a joint venture, it wasn't just our opinion, it was their opinion too, and it was we were we joint, ran it. We actually like my peer was was at Sephora. He ran half of it, I ran half of it, but we had every decision we made. It was a big strategic decision we made together as a team and learning how to understand where my business partner was coming from, and sometimes we had competing interests. There were times that what I wanted to do and what he wanted to do were completely at odds, and so what we did is we actually drew up the structure. It was great.
Liz:We said the first question was is this good for the Sephora Inside JC Penney client number one, is it good for them? That was our first question. Then we said is it good for our team and is it good for them? That was our first question. Then we said is it good for our team and is it good for our enterprise and our enterprise with the joint venture? So, is it good for those three? If it's good for those three, we'll figure it out on both ends of our company.
Liz:So then we'd check with each company and sometimes it wasn't great for one, it was great for the other. That was okay with us, because we couldn't always be exactly 50 50. But but we we kept going back is it right for the client? Is it right for the other? That was okay with us, because we couldn't always be exactly 50-50. But we kept going back to is it right for the client? Is it right for the client? Is it right for the client? Well, if it is, then it's going to be right for the business and the business will have long-term legs and will grow and it did.
Rich:How did you reconcile that when you had a there's a Sephora customer, there's a JCPenney inside of Sephora or Sephora inside of JCPenney customer and they might be a little bit different? How did you reconcile that with your partner?
Liz:The first thing is is that Sephora is positioned as a prestige beauty company, of course, and JCPenney was not. So that was the biggest point of contention is exactly what you're describing really is that the customer was different Sephora. What we did is we provided the data, and I'm a huge data and analytics person. Like data, not feelings. I say that all the time. We provided Sephora the information that the people that were coming into Sephora at JCPenney were not shopping at Sephora, and what we found through all of our studies is that it was too overwhelming. They were scared to go in, they didn't understand it, it was too fast, but in JCPenney they were able to walk in and in a smaller environment, a little more on what the sticking points were like. We thought Sephora spent too much on on fixtures, and they did, by the way, they've spent so much money. We're like, no, let us value engineer. They're like you're too cheap, just trust us. I'm like you don't need the name brand on this, and that is we'd argue about that kind of stuff that we had to prove ourselves, and then they let us do it. I do have to tell you one funny story, though, because we're sure going to crack up with this.
Liz:There was a time that my business partner his name is Satish Malhotra, he's actually the CEO of the container store today we were not getting along on this one topic and we'd been fighting, not fighting. We had a constructive conflict for about two months on this one topic and it got to a. It came to a head in the cafeteria at JCPenney and it was. It was Satish and me and then the chief merchant from Sephora was standing in between us and he said something to me like well, we just won't open any stores then and I dropped my tray on the on the countertop. I'm like you know what? You need to just knock it off.
Liz:So we got in this huge argument, huge in the cafeteria, in the food line. So we go and we eat and the chief merchant's like you guys just need to knock it off. I'm like no, he's being snarky and whatever. So we get upstairs in my office and the CEO of JCPenney had heard about it and called me in my office and it rings. It says Mike Ullman, you know, you could tell who it was. And I looked at Satish, he looked at me. I'm like we're in trouble and Mike's like you need to come to my office. So the two of us walked to Mike's office. He's like what's going on? So we explained it and then the next day we solved the issue and it was fine. So it was just we'd come to a point of of we needed to hash it out loudly, and we did.
Rich:So I may ask you about Mike later. But I'm curious when was the first time you used the word transformation on your resume?
Liz:Oh, that's a good question. I did not use it until I had the chief transformation officer role at Neiman Marcus. But looking back on it, there were transformation. Jcpenney was a transformation twice it was going from decentralized to centralized, and Sephora was a massive transformation that drove a billion dollars of revenue. I mean that was that was the right word for no beauty to that. That was a huge transformation. I didn't think of it that way, but it was. It was.
Rich:Yeah, I'm embarrassed to admit that during one of the transformations is when I learned about stock options and grants, because I got the phone call saying that we're going through a transformation and you've been awarded these grants and options. I guess we could talk about it now because you're one of the ones that's been selected to move forward and I was on vacation and I'm like sounds great. And then I had to go back and this was pre-Google and figure out what options and grants were. But they were actually pretty cool.
Liz:They were really cool and it worked. So you know, not all transformations work, but I've been fortunate to be part of a few that did.
Rich:Is there a transformation that you've been part of and you don't necessarily have to name the brand. It may just be a business or a segment where you were disappointed in how it turned out.
Liz:For sure. Actually, it's a JCPenney. So the two that we talked about the decentralized and centralized and Sephora were pre this event decentralized and centralized and Sephora were pre this event. So the downfall of JCPenney goes back to a very specific time period in their company and this is my opinion, obviously that when there was a CEO that came in that had a massive transformation idea of taking out discounts and simplifying the business model and turn into a full price, a full price business, and I'll just his name is Ron Johnson. You can read all about him. It's, I think it into a full-price business and his name's Ron Johnson. You can read all about him.
Liz:I think it's a Harvard Business School case now and, to be clear, ron was not wrong. He was not wrong in his belief that we should go to a non-promotional model. What was wrong is two things. It came down to two things. And I was there running Sephora, so I was out of the firing line because our business was fine.
Liz:Jcpenney lost 25% in one year of revenue and a $2 billion cash burn. It was incredible. But during that time period, the two mistakes, the two big mistakes that were made is one the team that he hired was not the right team. But, most importantly, instead of stepping into it slowly, it was an on-off switch on like I think it was February 1st or whatever year that was we turned off promotions. This stopped. Basically, we fired an entire consumer base. That was the current customer. Instead of evolving to a new customer, which we absolutely needed to do, we fired the current customer. The new one wasn't there, yet you lose a quarter of your revenue in 12 months of evolving to a new customer, which we absolutely needed to do. We fired the current customer the new one wasn't there yet you lose a quarter of your revenue in 12 months. It was epic. So that would be the most disappointing, because it didn't have to happen that way, because, again, he wasn't wrong. I think he was actually right, but this execution was wrong.
Rich:Yeah, I'll actually, because I was there during that time and I think he was absolutely right and I think if he had been able to execute even half of what he envisioned, pennies and department stores would be in a different place today. But he didn't integrate those that he hired into the culture and we're not going to harbor business where you did the case study, and we won't do that. But I think, from a lesson perspective and I haven't heard it said that way, but he did he fired 5.1 million very loyal customers and I remember the ad that played during the Academy Awards that said you deserve to look better. And I remember the cringe of no, you didn't just say that.
Liz:We did. It was not good and it should have worked. And Rich to your point. I think, most importantly, that the state of department stores today could have been different. If you look at department stores, they're just struggling to find the reason for being. It's like what is your reason for being? And there's too much sameness out there and it could have been very different.
Rich:I drank the Kool-Aid. I will will I will.
Liz:I did for about six months and then I'm like, well, hold up, hold up, and then that was, then it's done. Now company and the company actually is, you know, hopefully will be successful going forward.
Paula:I've got a lot of confidence to them well, let's, let's switch topics a little bit but kind of stay on the same track of profession. So, throughout all this, throughout being the chief transformation officer at the Midmarcus, what has been the biggest transformation throughout your career that you've seen technology-wise, or the biggest innovation that you've seen so far?
Liz:I think you know when you think about innovation and you think about what that could mean where I've not seen it work. Well, I'm going to start with that first no-transcript. At Neiman Marcus, we had this thing called the magic mirror or something and you could go and you could pretend to try and close and it shows you the clothes without putting them on or something like that. I don't remember we got tons of like PR from it, tons of marketing press, but like it didn't do anything. It was just there. It didn't transform the company.
Liz:I think that the biggest part that I've been involved in is that this is going to sound super boring, but it's really finding ways to connect data with consumers and finding ways to speak to people on a one-to-one basis.
Liz:That appears to be one-to-one, that is actually. It could be one-to-many, but it's things that are personalized to the consumer. That drives an emotional connection with your brand and makes you feel like you know me as a consumer, like I want consumers to feel like they know me. That connection with data and now we're using AI, of course, all those connection pieces were probably the biggest innovation and that's what we were driving at Neiman Marcus. We were taking this brick and mortar focus, true one-to-one relationship. Finding ways to scale that differently by using data and by sending text messages to clients that were suited exactly to them, like they would send me. You know, this hot pink blouse would be perfect for you because they knew all about me. That was, to me, was one of the most exciting parts. It sounds boring, but it actually was really exciting but it actually was really exciting.
Rich:So, from a consumer behavior perspective, how do you think the consumer has evolved over the last 10 or 20 years? And if you were to predict how consumer behavior will change, let's say 10 years from now, what's your prediction?
Liz:The speed of change is wicked. So I think when you look back 10 years ago, you could pretty much predict what was happening. You know, six months, 12 months out, and the consumer today is moving fast and their demands are incredibly high. And so if you think about you know, think about high fashion, luxury fashion there'd be the runway shows in Paris. You would face your orders, they'd make it. It'd come in nine months later and it was fine and everybody was there by the time this stuff gets here. Half the time it's actually we've moved on to the next thing. So the consumer is incredibly, incredibly fast and trends are moving fast.
Liz:I personally love all the TikToks with Gen X, who I happen to be, and Gen Z explaining like I think I'm cool and I talk about the brat, and they're like that's like so done. I'm like how could it be done? It just started, like it didn't just start. It started a month ago, like. But it's a month ago, like it's done. Those things will continue to get faster and faster and faster. I think we can thank, you know, just social media and anything online for that.
Liz:The other thing, too, is that the consumer is incredibly demanding. They have choices and they want things today or yesterday they don't want. They're not going to wait, they just won't. Now there are certain things. If you can drive exclusivity, they'll wait for a wait list, but in general if somebody wants something, they want it, and they want it the next day, if not the same day. I moved to Chicago. I place an Amazon order. It's usually there the same day. If I place it early in the morning, it's nuts, the stuff just shows up. I want paper towels. They're there like at three o'clock in the afternoon. It's pretty awesome. I don't have to wait for it. That's more of what consumers. That's just table stakes today.
Rich:And you talk about how quickly it's changing in social media. I was allowed to be very demure and very respectful for about a week before it got old. Exactly, I recorded a lecture and by the time I released it two weeks later, it was like seriously, dude, that is over.
Liz:They make fun of us Rich, and that's, you know, my marketing team. I love them. They're hilarious, so I always try to put things out there, but I made them buy me socks as a little aside. The other day. Send me links on Amazon. I'm like I need new socks to go with my sneakers and they're like you don't do no-shows, do you? I'm like, well, yeah, I do. They're like you can't wear no-shows. So they sent me links to the socks I had to buy. Okay, it worked out.
Rich:They look good. I have a question queued up where I was going to ask you about in your travels and your experiences, have you come across a brand or a retailer that you think is doing it well? But I actually want to give you a chance to talk about what you're currently doing, because you are merging or integrating service and product, and so I'd love to hear a little bit more about what you're doing now and how you're innovating that.
Liz:So this is the perfect blend for me. So we have a consumer service company, tricocci Salon and Spa, and we have a strong retail business as part of that, but we also have a CPG arm that we don't talk very often about, but I do want to talk about that today. First part is is that that consumers want a full experiential, whether it be in retail or in services. They want experience as part of that, unless it's very transactional. So if they like, buying paper towels is transactional, getting a massage is experiential, and and or getting your haircut or getting your nails done, whatever those things are, and what we're able to do at Trocochi is integrate the two. So we're not just selling retail and we're not just doing haircuts. We're doing both, and what we're trying to do is find ways that this intersects, that the consumer can have a full 360 experience. So that's the first piece. As part of that, we very intentionally launch services that have a retail component, and what we found is that when we have a service with a retail component, we usually attach retail to the service about 50% of the time, and so, for those of you that don't know, in the salon industry, typically it's about a 10% attachment rate, but it's 50% when you actually have a service with a retail component. So we'll say we'll do an Orbea back bar takeover and we'll wash your hair with Orbe shampoo. 50% of the time people are buying Orbe shampoo at the same time that they're getting the service. So it's just making that whole thing, like the whole experience, resonate. And that's what I think department stores, by the way, are missing today is how do you blend an experience with shopping? Shopping is not supposed to be transactional unless, again, you're buying paper towels. Shopping is not supposed to be transactional unless, again, you're buying paper towels. The other part of it is that we actually have a CPG arm in our company and we do our own private label under Tricogi Collection. But, more importantly, we just launched our very first brand that we hope to take wholesale someday.
Liz:It's called Nutrier. It launched nine days ago and it's smashing success. So far we're in our 13 locations in Chicago. We've sold over 1,000 units in nine days, which is huge. The sell-through is just massive. And we just put it up on Nutriacom. We just launched the website. We launched it nine days ago, but it's not really a launch. We started driving traffic there about 48 hours ago a little bit. We're still in beta there and then we're going to do a national launch in January, february, in New York City. It'll be the full 360 campaign. We're doing influencers, we're doing everything you can imagine as we kick off the national launch. And then we, just as part of that, launched Headspot Nutria Headspot at Trocochi, also nine days ago, and we're almost fully booked out on it because then again these people are buying the Nutrier product when they're getting the Nutrier Head Spa treatment. So it's that experiential 360 view. It's just so. It's great. It's a great way to tell people want to shop. It's great, very emotive, yeah.
Paula:And such a you're so part of people's personal, like the personal aspect of them. What made you choose this industry specifically? So you've done Neiman Marcus, you've done JCPenney, so how did you end up with this one?
Liz:You know, growing up in retail and then shifting to consumer services, it has been like I love both of those worlds, and I also was, because it was at Sephora I had the beauty side of it, and at Neiman Marcus I also had the luxury side of it, and at Demon Markets I also had the luxury side of it. So I like this beauty luxury service retail blend. That's what I'm doing today. I'm doing exactly that. It takes all the things that I love and puts it together.
Liz:Businesses that have a reason for being and have a stickiness and an emotional connection are the businesses that I like to be part of, because there's a reason. People feel great when they have a salon service. People feel relaxed, they feel the best version of themselves, whatever that is. We've changed our internal working phrase as beauty, where you belong. Everybody belongs here. We just want you to feel, however you want to feel, what is beauty for you? I'm not here to tell you what it should be for me, or I'm not going to tell you what it should be for you, but what do you want it to be and how can we help you achieve that and feel great about yourself?
Rich:All right. Well, I was going to jump into the advice part, so start with mentors. You've had many, one in particular, one or two come to mind.
Liz:Yeah, I would say the CEO at Neiman Marcus, geoffrey Van Rondonk. He was the CEO. He currently is the CEO there. So when I was running the off price division at Neiman Marcus, I was ready to go to a smaller company. I'm like I'm ready just to get out of this big, big company thing. And he's like I have one more role for you. I want you to go do this chief transformation officer role. I think you're great at it and at the end of that I'll help you find your next job. Like how can you say no to that? Like that's a pretty cool thing.
Liz:Little did we know COVID was coming and all that crazy stuff at the same time. But so I did that and we battled oh, my goodness, did we battle? And so so Jeff was a very, very um he's, he's uh, uh, bcg trained so highly consultant, um, data analytics, and I'm like woo, let's go team and like like lead teams like nobody's business and would want to run through a brick wall. He challenged me to become more data driven and much more analytical and I challenged him to loosen up a little bit. And we joke about it today we're still very close. He made me a much better leader and much more strategic in my thought process, and I absolutely loved it. I still go to him for advice today. He's done an amazing job at Neiman Marcus, and he's one that comes to mind first. There's a lot of other ones, though.
Rich:And probably some that you learned from that weren't necessarily mentors, but you learned what not to do.
Liz:Oh yeah, I have those two. I'm happy to describe them if you like.
Rich:Yeah, we'll let that one go. So, but you know you. Just you said something and it's not the first time we've heard it about having a mentor who's a boss, who recommends or helps you to move on to another organization, and so I actually want to expand that. Have you had situations where you've had somebody working for you who you think is extremely talented and you've tapped them on the shoulder and said you probably have outgrown your position here. In order for you to grow, you need to move on. Tell me a little bit about that.
Liz:I've said it twice in two different ways. One time the person was ill-suited for the role they were in and we were going to come a time that they weren't going to be able to be with the company. And they knew it and I knew it. It was just not a good fit, Not personality, to be with the company. And they knew it and I knew it. It was just not a good fit, not personality, not, they were just not. They were not qualified for the role that they had. And so, instead of just letting them go, I said we just talked about it a lot and they didn't love it. I didn't love it, they weren't doing a good job and I helped them find their next role. That was that was suited to their skill. They had an amazing skillset, just not in the job that they had. The other one was someone who could really reach for the stars and had that capability that needed to round out their career, and I couldn't provide that. I can't tell you who it is, but I couldn't provide that for them in the company. I just we didn't have the role they needed.
Liz:I'm like, if you want to go? So I always have this conversation with my high potentials. What is your North Star? Where do you want to be in 10, 20 years, depending on how long they've been around? What is your ultimate desire? And once you understand that part of my job is to help them get there If they're a high performer. If they're not a high performer, I don't because they're not a high performer, but our high performers, let me help them, and that means sometimes letting them go, and sometimes they come back and so you just don't know.
Rich:Yeah, and those end up being proud moments, and I've had a couple of those as well where it's very hard. You don't want to lose the person, but you know that it's best for them and you maintain that relationship. You watch them grow. I don't think that's done enough, but I think that's a leadership skill that we need to try and develop no-transcript.
Liz:I'll help, and that also, by the way, helps the company, because then I also have runway to figure out what to do about it. So it maybe takes a year. What?
Paula:do you think is going to is the currently the most underrated or undervalued skill the person can have.
Liz:Oh, that's a really good question. I think there's a couple. One of them is authenticity, and bringing your true self to work, like who you are and your personality. I think is really important, and because not you I never want a team of homogenous, the same looking, acting, thinking everything you can imagine, because you want you want the best brains and the best minds, the best people in the room. That also I want people to be able to bring who they actually are to work themselves, and I happen to be an extrovert and it served me very well.
Liz:Thanks, rich, I am. I have a brilliant person on my team right now who's an introvert. I have to go out of my way to make sure that I call on her in meetings, because if I don't, she probably won't speak up in the meeting because she's not comfortable interrupting and so, like having just free, I shouldn't make her change. I should, as a leader, adapt my style to make sure that she's being heard, and so I think all of those things is one of the most important things that a leader can do.
Paula:That's interesting. So to be a good leader, to be able to hear all these people, you obviously have to have some kind of source of inspiration to fill your cup back up. What fills you back up?
Liz:Oh gosh. So I have a big family, married for 10 years It'll be 10 years in February and we have six kids together. We're empty nesters. Last kid is a senior in college, so I consider us empty nesters. What fills my cup is being with my husband and being outdoors in Colorado and really recharging. I try really hard on the weekends to not work. I mean I might on Sunday afternoons, but I try really hard to completely shut down for the weekends. But I work my tail off during the week in order to be able to do that and it doesn't always happen that way. But just time with him and time just being outside and being together is how I fill my cup.
Rich:And going to Taylor Swift concerts.
Liz:Well with him. Yeah, Of course, going to Taylor Swift twice. I'm so excited. I'm a Swifty. I may be 54, but I'm still a Swifty.
Rich:I'm 56 and I'm a Swifty, I'm a Posty, I love music and I am very envious of that it's going to be fun.
Liz:Hey, keep an eye. You know, tickets might drop right before the event. You never know.
Rich:If I'm not mistaken, you me, jim Kenny and Susan Weinstock, who unfortunately passed away several years ago, and I think about the differences in personalities. Several years ago, when I think about the differences in personalities, she was, like you know, a balloon in a phone booth. You were definitely the extrovert, I'm the introvert. And then you had Jim Kenney, who was the elder statesman who had worked with Mike before and sitting in there for two days it was. It was an interesting mix.
Liz:It was a very interesting mix. You are not kidding.
Rich:As I was preparing for this episode, it dawned on me that as long as you and I have known each other, we never really worked together. We had the opportunity to spend two days. We were sitting at the same table, part of the same group, with Jim and Susan and a couple of others, and had the opportunity to have Mike Ullman, the CEO at the time, his near undivided attention as he talked about, you know, not his successes. It was really great because he talked about his challenges and his failings at times and what he learned through adversity, and I took a lot away from it and you and I have stayed in contact after those couple of days. I'm going to pivot here a little bit because you're a member of the Women in Retail Leadership Circle. Can you talk a little bit about that and how those connections have helped you throughout your career and the importance of the relationships that you build?
Liz:So I have an affinity for helping other women along. Most of the people that I mentor are women not all, but most are. The world used to be dominated by men and run by men, and times have certainly changed people that are there. I mentor marketing students from the University of Iowa. The same way that I love helping other people get ahead and I love that part of it that's actually what brings me the most joy now versus business. Results are great, but I love that just helping other people. It's amazing when I think about Taylor Swift's song the man. That's what I like. That's kind of what I subscribe to. You know, let's help other women out.
Paula:So, all right, Are you ready? This is the most important part I am ready Bring it. Bring it. This is the rapid fire conversation. This is where we are going to ask you three questions. The first thing that comes into your mind is the right answer. So first question is do you have a specific walk-on song or theme song that would define you, the man?
Liz:Taylor Swift. By the way, the song is about like if I were the man, then I'd be the man, and it's basically about being a woman and being a professional.
Paula:If you had one last meal, what would it be? What is your last meal? It's pizza. If you had one last meal.
Liz:What would it be? What is your last meal? It's pizza.
Paula:It just is. From where, though? Oh, because I live in Chicago, yep you gotta be specific.
Liz:I you know what. I can't answer that. I just moved there and we're making our rounds of pizza right now. There's a place. I can't remember it. It serves the best pizza. It starts with a P, it has a P-squall, p-qualls, p-something. It's amazing, niche.
Paula:Niche or thin crust. So you're saying deep dish.
Liz:I actually prefer thin crust as a general statement.
Paula:I do too, I can. I love my deep dishes.
Rich:So if you could transport yourself and you could take Jeff along if you want, anywhere in the world instantaneously. You go for 24 hours. You don't have to pack your bags, you don't have to worry about planes and transportation. Where are you going?
Liz:I'm going to Koakia resort on the island of Kauai because that is my favorite place in the world and that's where we go to reconnect when we need to reconnect. We get on a plane, go toauai, we stay at Koakia and just chill Favorite place ever.
Rich:And if you're going someplace on your own just to get away for 24 hours.
Liz:By myself I would actually go to. I'd still go to a beach, but no, I wouldn't go there, I'd probably just go down to the Bahamas Atlanta Beach. I'm a big like shut down when I travel. I have two different ways to travel, by the way. I either shut down and read and drink Sorry, I read and then I also love to learn and I do history. I like Italy and spending time in Rome and going to Greece and going to Turkey and all that Love it. But that's a different kind of. That's an active vacation versus a passive vacation.
Rich:Yeah, I'm right there with you. I vacation, going to Turkey, going to the Grand Bazaar and learning about that, or with my wife and I, it's the grill. Jamaica, certain mile beach.
Liz:Yeah, exactly. And then you do nothing right, you just hang out, you just read, I just read, I read like 10 books a week, as my husband likes to call it, the all or nothing approach. Yeah, that's me A thousand percent.
Paula:All right, you're having a dinner party. You can invite three people. They can be living or dead, they can be historical or fiction. Who's coming to this dinner party?
Liz:Oh, I love this. Okay, I would invite my father. He passed away five plus years ago and I'd just like to hear that he's proud of me. I know he was, but like now, like I'd like, I'd like just to hear from him, I of me. I know he was, but like now, like I'd like, I like just to hear from him. I'm absolutely positive, I would do that. I would absolutely love to invite Abraham Lincoln, cause I'm fascinated by that part that that that period in time. I don't know why, but like that whole, like what happened then, like what really went down, so I think that'd be really fun. Be a good mix of people too.
Rich:That would be a pretty eclectic mix. All right, bonus question what would you serve?
Liz:Oh, what would I serve. I'd have to have it catered because I despise cooking. So I'd have it catered in my home and it would be like a really nice, like really nice, like four course meal, five course meal from a great chef and great wine.
Paula:We have an Airstream and we're hosting a tailgate at Soldier Field and my husband was like what should we cook? Like I really want our guests you know we invited like random people this is a test run before he does the real tailgate. So we're doing the tailgate and my husband's like, well, should we cook? You know, I want our guests to get like great flavors and I was like what do you mean cook? I'm going to get it catered. And he's like what? Like oh, people love a home cooked meal. I'm like no, people like good food and I can get that catered. So it doesn't matter if I slaved over it or if I bought it. Like people are going to care if the quality of the food was good. So I'm all with you on catering, catering, cater, cater.
Liz:Cater all the time. I don't cook, I don't.
Rich:I will tell you that I was an original ticket holder at the new boss at Baltimore yeah, baltimore Ravens Stadium and we tailgated and my nickname was Chef and a friend of mine and I cooked and at the one o'clock game we showed up at 7 30. If it was a four o'clock game, we showed up at quarter of eight and if it was an eight o'clock game we showed up at nine. And I didn't always make it to the game, because sometimes you have to sleep it off, but no, I would cook you're a great, oh rich.
Liz:You enjoy cooking and you're great at it.
Rich:I like cooking for large groups, but I haven't done it as much. Liz, absolutely fantastic to have you. It's great catching up. It is great when we get to run into each other in industry events. It's not often enough, but I learned from you when we were at JCPenney. I continue to learn from you as you continue to go on the journey, and you're one of those that I hold in the highest regard. So I appreciate you joining us today, and I know that our audience will love to hear the lessons as well.
Liz:Great Thanks for right back at you. I feel the same way about you and Paula, wonderful to meet you.
Paula:I look forward to us actually getting together in person.
Liz:Yes, yes, I'll send you some dates.
Rich:All right, paula, so I'll apologize for that.
Paula:It was a little bit of a trip down memory lane with Liz. It was really great to see you just share stories and see you so joyful. I don't think I've ever seen you, you know, shoot the breeze with an old colleague. So some old war stories from two vets that know way more than me. Sign me up. I had a lot to learn there.
Rich:Funny thing is is that we didn't really work together. I mean, we weren't in the same department, we didn't work on similar projects. Where we connected was in a two day leadership seminar symposium with the CEO at the time and the head of human resources, and the CEO was Mike Ullman, who Liz mentioned, one of the top CEOs I've ever had the opportunity to work for, to learn from, and it's amazing what that two days did.
Paula:And Mike Ullman. He was a CEO, I did and Mike.
Rich:Goldman. He was a CEO, he was on the Federal Reserve Board, he was extraordinarily busy and yet he was there during most of that two days and the stories he shared weren't hey, look at me, this is what I did and hey, look at me, let me brag about this. He taught through humility and he taught through this. These are the mistakes I've made, these are the learnings I've had, and it was a memorable experience. But back to Liz she and I connected over that and that two days kind of led to this. We've kind of followed each other in our careers and have been able to bend each other's ears from time to time.
Paula:And you know what. You bring up a good point and I'm gonna pivot a little bit here. It's all about relationship. And bring up a good point and I'm going to pivot a little bit here. It's all about relationship and we've talked about that before in retail, the relationship you have with the customer. But life is all about relationships and really making a meaningful connection with people, not just that superficial. How are you Good? Okay, great, saw you Check the box. I'll talk to you again in two weeks to say that I am your friend. No, it's about having these real deep connections and when you have those connections with someone, you can call them 10 years down the road and they'll remember you. Like it was freaking yesterday.
Rich:Yeah, and I think well, I mean you're a good example of it. I mean you and I worked together when you were at Zen Media I think it was Marketing Zen back then. We've kept in touch. We've kept in touch. When I went off on my own, you were kind enough to get me co-working space and introduce me to a couple of people at the DEC and we've stayed in contact. And, of course, when we started Retail Relates, you were the first person I called.
Rich:So the relationships I agree with you and sometimes the best ones aren't the ones where you're just keeping up on social media and there's a text every other day. You can go two or three or four years but then encounter a situation and say you know who would be good for this. I'm going to reach out to Paula, because I haven't spoken to her for a while. She will know how to help with this. It's interesting because if you take that and you look at it in retail and you look at it in life and you think about AI and all the fascinating things that can be done, it can't replace relationships. It can't replace those human connections that really are what the basis of retail is all about.
Paula:At the end of the day, that's what it is. It's about connecting with that one person. That's what you try to do across the board one person.
Rich:That's what you try to do across the board, yeah, and what I? What I liked about what she's doing now and it was good to catch up with what she's doing now at Trococci is this merger between services and retail, and I think that's what we're going to find as we continue down this exploration is that the traditional big box or department store retail that we think of is getting disrupted, where people are buying from social media, or they're going into a salon and they're buying their retail goods, or they're buying direct from the factory, or they're buying when they're on vacation at a hotel boutique, and the whole notion of what retail is is just morphing, and in a very tumultuous time. It's what makes it, I think, rather exciting.
Paula:So I will say I'm glad you said that, because when you mentioned that you were bringing on this guest, I pushed back because I couldn't see how is this exactly retail? Right, I'm on the outside, I'm not a retail executive, that's what you guys are the academic and the executive. And I'm glad that you pushed again and you said just wait and see and listen, because it really is retail. Retail is so much bigger than what the traditional retail was and, like you said, it's getting disruptive and it's encompassing more and more than what we knew previously.
Rich:And to your point. I think, as we make decisions on what's really important, what we're going to spend money on, I think there's a lot of us that are spending less money on quote unquote stuff than we were in the past and we may be buying, you know, secondhand or gently loved or whatever the terminology is, or we may be buying handcrafted goods, or we may be buying custom, or we may be going without. I think that more thoughtful purchase and not just going to the traditional retailer it definitely is disruptive. There are more stores slated to close this year than I think in. I really haven't tracked when the last time is that 15,000 plus store fronts closed. It is creating an environment where new things will pop up and it'll make, hopefully, retail and commerce in general more exciting and engaging.
Rich:Make retail cool again commerce in general more exciting and engaging. Make retail cool again. There you go. Make retail cool again, Paula.
Paula:any parting words as we close out this episode. I mean, I think, make retail cool again.
Rich:All right, we're going to go with make retail cool again. For all of you who joined us on this episode, thank you very much. We really appreciate it. We are having a lot of fun For all of you joining us. This has been a lot of fun. Hopefully it was fun for you. Hopefully you take something away from it as you explore the wonderful world of retail and global commerce and consumer behavior with us. We look forward to having you join us next time on Retail Relates.
