There’s an adage that suggests if you want someone to listen, you should whisper.
That makes sense, at least it does to me.
But how about this? If you are a supplier planning to sell lots and lots of furniture, you invite customers to a three-day digital show and don’t tell them what they will find there until the day of the show.
Some may call that counterintuitive (my code for a bad idea), others may deem it unconventional (include me in), but I would label it as transformational.
As for the executive team at Lifestyle Enterprise, who will host this virtual show later this week (Jan. 29-31), they are calling it Hsieh Days, an obvious and well-deserved tip of the hat to company founder William Hsieh, a man who attracted retailers to his often-unconventional shows like flies to honey.
Editor-in-Chief Tom Russell did a great job outlining the nuts and bolts of the upcoming event and you can read it here.
If you’ve been in the industry for some time, you probably remember William as the creator of the by-invitation-only Forbidden City shows that would feature sharply priced furniture made exclusively for those shows.
Under the leadership of William’s son Michael, the company has taken that idea to an entirely new level by virtue of this upcoming three-day event.
With the advent of this show, I must credit Lifestyle with being early to the table in terms of redirecting dollars normally spent during a “traditional furniture market” on a showroom, food, entertainment, housing, transportation, logistics and the such and using those dollars to create event-specific goods and then passing those savings on to their customers.
Even better, the company showed integrity in that orders must be placed through their network of sales reps.
In talking to some of the folks responsible for the event, they made it clear to me that this event is not meant to replace their well-established presence at their Forbidden City showroom in High Point.
Instead, my source told me that this show is being launched to help dealers source well-made, sharply priced goods and to communicate the value and quality of the goods Lifestyle offers.
“Amazon has Amazon Prime Days, and this is our version of that,” my source said.
I think it is much more than that. I think what we may really be seeing is a glimpse into the mind of Michael Hsieh, a sharp, next-generation CEO who I suspect thinks the time is right to kick it up a notch or two.
Stay tuned!