Transcript - Ron Thurston

Joshua Williams: Retail Revolution is a special, limited podcast created specifically for "Retailing and Service Design," a unique course that is part of the Fashion Management graduate program at Parsons school of Design in New York City. Each episode features in depth conversations with guests experts in omnichannel retailing, with myriad perspectives: technology, consumer engagement, data analytics, merchandising, and more. We pay special attention to the short- and long-term challenges and implications of COVID-19 and potential opportunities to rethink retail's future. Retail Revolution is produced by Joshua Williams and hosted by Christopher Lacy, both are Assistant Professors in the School of Fashion at Parsons.

Christopher Lacy: Welcome to our very first episode of retail revolution, where we discuss all topics relating to retailing and service design. Today, we have with us Ronald Thurston, vice president of stores for intermix, author, and a member of the board of directors for Goodwill. With 25 years of industry experience, he has worked with our plans as Saint Laurent, Bonobos, Tory Burch, and Apple.

Welcome to the show, Ron. 

Ron Thurston: Thank you very much, Christopher. Great to be here. 

Christopher Lacy: So happy to have you. Thanks for being on time on a Saturday morning to speak with us. So, I would love just for our listeners to hear you know, about you, your career trajectory throughout the industry.

Ron Thurston: Sure, Happy to. Thank you.  So, I will go all the way back to kind of growing up in Northern California. I grew up in Lake Tahoe, which is one of the most, really, truly beautiful places in the country, maybe in the world. And I had a grandfather who had a construction company who started building kind of custom homes, but eventually became the primary contractor for building all of the Safeway grocery stores on the West coast. And he built a pretty large organization as the CEO. And, I started traveling with him, as a teenager and just watching him in action and what I really learned from him really early on was about service and about the idea of serving others and about how to build a team through kind of leadership and empathy and how to have kind of a team around you that wanted to work for you as much as they want it to work for the company. And I really admired him for that. And as I started to think about studying, I studied fashion design and I studied retail administration at FIT I'm on the West coast. And as my career began, I always thought about, you know, how do I become that kind of leader?

That's not just about leading for the company, but through your own kind of personal, emotional intelligence.  And started that way as I really thought about it, if I really thought about my leadership in retail, That's really where it started for me. 

Christopher Lacy: Wow. That's a great journey because, you know, I don't think many people think of, you know, well now everyone is thinking of, of grocery stores right

Ron Thurston:  Well, that's true. 

Christopher Lacy: You think about what, what grocery stores do and, and there's a lot to learn when you think about retailing, in grocery stores and from the psychology of how they're set up and how you navigate through them. And, and there are good folks that are doing amazing things, but you know how they're doing services on. And I think of Kroger and I didn't recognize just how big of a company they are and their service design and what we could learn from it, from the luxury fashion world. 

And so, what that brings me to wanting to ask you, when you think about retailing and service design relative to luxury what do you work through industry does extremely well. What do you think needs improvement? 

Ron Thurston: I would, you know, I think about luxury in terms of, in the evolution of it, because I think often luxury is perceived as price. And so, you would say luxury is you know, the high end of cars, the high end of homes, the high end of apparel or accessories. And I think that today that feels like a very old way to think about it.

Actually, think about luxury today as time and about, I think safety is now a luxury. And we really think, I think really differently about service and serving others. That service shouldn't be a luxury, but service really is. And so even like the Apple's business or service models were built on the Ritz Carlton, idea of how to serve others. And so, Apple is a luxury brand, that has a really incredible service model built on the hotel industry, but I think service and that at that level doesn't have to be about price. So now I'm really, I think, differently about you know, in my own world at Intermix while it's an assortment of luxury brands and not everything is designer, so there's a mix, but the level of service that I expect is really high.

So, luxury, I think, is about intimacy and about service and about kind of trust and time. And how does that all work together tape today? Not just price, if that makes sense. 

Christopher Lacy: No, it makes sense. I think, you know, you're saying that and more luxury does not mean the same thing that I've meant. You know, in the days of dynasty and it was the lavish apartments and gold and, you know, big shoulder pads otherwise.

Ron Thurston: And I'm much older than you are. I have an even stronger appreciation. I actually lived it. Yeah.

Christopher Lacy: So Exactly. So, I mean, there's that idea that that's what luxury was. That's an, and I think, you know, luxury shifted definitely when we went through the recession in 2008 and we had to rethink what service looks like from the fashion side, because, you know, people were just walking through the door and we would service them and they'd go about the business and we never did follow up really. And that was the, and so that crisis created a different way of how we approach luxury. So, like, you know, my question to you now that is you work at retail, you know, customer engagement. What did you think has, has been the biggest shift in the last five years? 

Ron Thurston: Yeah, I think the biggest shift is about the relationship that you have with the brand.

So, luxury was often, I've made my purchase, I've I bought the car that I wanted. I bought the handbag that I wanted, the jewelry piece, all of the things you think about it and a high price. And once you've made that purchase, their relationship ended like, okay, great. I saved up enough money. I bought what I wanted. I'm ready to show this off. And now I'm done because your likelihood of actually purchasing, for an average person, multiple luxury purchases in a year is pretty low. No, you're, it's usually one or two big purchases a year on average, but, I think what has changed now is in order for that business to continue and every luxury brand now has discovered the need for a wide price point because of the relationship  that you've built from initial interaction and the follow up that you have and the work that's done, even if it takes six months to get the client back in the door, you can't, you can really no longer just say. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Maybe I write you a thank you note, and you call it a day.

The evolution of the industry is great. Well, how are you all? Like, are you safe right now? Like what is going on in your personal life, so that ultimately it leads to further sales down the road, but it's a very long game now. And I think that's where it shifted. It went from kind of the purchase world, just making a purchase to the relationship, to the long game of a lifetime of purchases that go on. 

Christopher Lacy: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, that means that something becomes really important, which is you know, how important is client retention compared to client acquisition in your business? 

Ron Thurston: Yeah, it's huge. And I think that the client retention piece plays into exactly what I was just saying of in my own business.

There's a direct correlation. Between client retention and sales performance. It's the stores that typically have low client retention have low either negative comp performance. And we can talk a little bit more about KPIs, but you know, overall sales performance and client retention go hand in hand today.

But it's different. Again, it's different when traffic is down and the transaction dollar amount might be different. If that client isn't retained over time, you can't grow a healthy business, it's not possible. So, you need to continue to work both ends of the funnel you need to retain, and you need to acquire. I won't say equally, because I think it's very different by brand, but right there, you'll always have drop-off on both ends.

And on the top end, when you think about retention, things happen in a client's life that happens in my stores too. A client gets married, she moves, she starts her family. Every lots of things, all of us have in our personal life changes our spending power. And so, if you're acquiring at the same time, you're growing your client file. You're retaining her from shopping last year, it becomes very healthy.  But part of it, if you can't retain through great service and great follow-up and great relationships, And you're not acquiring, you're dead in the water if you're only acquiring, but not retaining, but based they start to drop out.

So, it's, for me, it's a very like healthy balance on both ends of the funnel of acquiring and retaining and acquiring and retaining. And it's a constant conversation. And I think for any really any brand today, and I don't think this is about luxury. I think every brand has to really think about. How do I retain my current client base and how do I grow my client file?

Christopher Lacy: Absolutely. And I think coming out of this, to your point, you mentioned, you mentioned traffic and, you know, anytime there is, and we technically have been feeling the impact of low traffic, especially in New York retail for months with the slow of it. And, and it typically, you know, everything always ends up moving East to West and everyone kind of feels to slow and traffic due to less tourism.

And so ,you really have to look at your company internally and go, are we doing the right things with our existing client base because we're dropping in traffic. So, and just because public in traffic doesn't mean that we can drop in conversion of the people who are walking through the door or in sales.

Ron Thurston: Correct. I know you can't continue to put pressure on those acquired clients. You can't just say, well, the ones I have, I'm going to ask them to spend more and you can't. And so you've got to say, well, great  what can I do from a marketing perspective from a, you know, again, I I've always, I always veer left back to service and I would say if you actually have incredible service your, the reputation for that translates into friends, family, social, which drives traffic, which if they have a similar experience to what they've, what the perception of your brand is, you acquire, but then did you retain .So like it's I find that all just fascinating and will become probably one of the most important topics the next five years.

Christopher Lacy: Interesting.

Ron Thurston: Yeah.

Christopher Lacy: You talked about KPIs and I want us to dig into this bit because, you know, I love analytics and strategy and what that looks like as much as my creative side. So I want you to talk to us about, you know, what are the KPIs you're using to assess business performance.

Ron Thurston: Sure. I think the ones I use are very similar in the industry, so this won't feel super foreign, but there's always a sales to last year performance, a comparable store comp store sales number, which is as a publicly traded company is always the number that is reported in the financials is how, how has your business compared to last year, just as a baseline? we always look at traffic by location, by day by week by month by year and dig into traffic patterns. And. Yeah, I do expect stores to take it even one step further and say, what is my traffic by hour by day for proper scheduling and conversion. If you look at the traffic, you look at conversion converting, just walk in traffic, overall, just DPT or average basket. You know what, how much is as, as you've converted, how much is each client spending and how many units are in that basket?

So, if you're on. You know, within this scope of my brands and my company, Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, Athleta, he'll say to you, Janie and Jack, Intermix. Intermix has the highest average basket, but probably the lowest PT, because we have the highest price as opposed to an old Navy, which probably, you know, has a UPT of a three. But it has a $30 average basket. So, you kind of, how does that all shift around? And then, you know, of course client retention that we looked at, average unit retail is a big metric. So, what is actually the price of everything that you've sold? So, you really you're managing the average basket through UPT and through AUR. And say, well, great. If I really, if I can't grow my UPT and my traffic is down, I can grow it through price. And maybe the AUR in an average store needs to be higher or lower to drive conversion and move it all around in a different way. So those are probably the biggest ones outside of even just the margin of the product. We really look at gross margin by category, by store, by city. Some of those kinds of things too. 

Christopher Lacy: And actually, what let's, let's talk about a few things, relative to what you started out about, you know, prom, you know, comparisons between stores this year, last year. There's also this other number that always exists, which, which is called plan.

Ron Thurston: Right. That's true. That's true. 

Christopher Lacy: Depending upon what organization you work for, planning, you know, great or plan can kind of drive you crazy. You know, I remember working for organizations where it was like, yeah, you, you might've beat last year, but you didn't get to plan. So, don't be excited because last year does it matter? So, I want to talk about. You know, if you're in retail and service design, and you're looking at these plan numbers and, you know, if your, your plan number is astronomical, how do you approach that and stay positive and keep your team positive? Not saying that this is occurring at Intermix, but you know, often past lives, you know, what would you say to someone to keep their teams positive?

Ron Thurston: So, I would, dig into where does that plan come from? Because often the, the company sets the plan to cover the upside of the expense of out performance. So for example, if you work in commission sales and there are incentives built into kind of your selling model plan would say, well, great, the higher, the plan number, the higher expected sales number, the higher, the commission dollars that we're going to pay out, probably likely the higher bonus number the higher actual payroll that we spend to deliver that sales. So, its plan is often a derivative of covering the expenses for increased sales. And so, I, when I have been frustrated by the same conversation, it's like, well, how did you actually get to that number? And what are you trying to deliver? What do you want me to do? Right. and how to, how did the metrics, so I think what's important on a whole conversation of KPIs is building sales plans from the bottom up, which is what I do today and say, well, what actually have been the traffic trends? What are, all the different KPIs?

And does it actually roll into this number or is this number a fake number? and so we actually really try to build realistic sales plans using the KPIs so that I can actually then teach a store and say, yeah, your plan looks like plus 30% over the last year, but here's, here are your trends. Here are the KPIs. Maybe here's some, a product launch that's happening. what are all the different factors that go into it? Because I agree with you. Sometimes the store received that number is like, Whoa, like, how am I ever going to do this? Yeah, you break it down and you were like, actually your UPT has been trending to this. Your conversion has been best. Your traffic has been trending up all of these things combined, the math equates to this different plan number. So, I think there's an emotional side of it, for sure. But they're a well-done sales plan has all the math behind it to help, like teach and teach the store actually how to get there.

Christopher Lacy: Right. Yeah. And to your point, when it's a well-done sales plan and the math backs it up, it makes it much easier for store line to strategize effectively. You know, when it comes to, you know, just that mean we might need to hire another person who can, can produce this amount of volume or strategize differently in, in multiple ways. But if it's well thought out and logical, it makes the strategy.

Ron Thurston: It really does. It helps. So, I would just, I push back on, you know, when it doesn't make sense, like understand why, and how you can help, and I help. I think we are right for a moment. I think often in stores, when you think about retail design, the more, the more you communicate up the better, the more you communicate about what's actually happening in your business, that the idea of trends in your market ,trends in your on your street or in your mall, like what's the more you can share with kind of upper upper management, the better your sales plans will be the more realistic things will happen. And I guess I'm also just thinking forward a bit, none of us are going to be traveling very much for a while. We're going to have to rely on each other to share the facts about what's happening.

Cause I think store visits are gonna slow down. You know, I'm not getting on a plane anytime soon to see my stores in California. So, I think we have to all work together this year to share facts and to share information because sales fans are gonna be really difficult to predict this year. 

Christopher Lacy: For Sure. And to your point about not being able to travel and, and the changes of what we can expect, you know, our industry is known to, you know, it's funny whenever I started my practice of meditating years ago, and I remember, you know, that thing, they always tell you be present. And I finally said, I was like, you don't understand, it's difficult for me to be present because I work in an industry where I'm always 

Ron Thurston: It's true.

Christopher Lacy:  In the moment. Right? Like June and we're all, you know, people are excited about summer. We're all thinking about holiday and when it's holiday, we're all thinking about sale break in May. So 

Ron Thurston:  Oh, so true. 

Christopher Lacy: So, when you, when you think about that and you go, okay, this is a wild time. How are you strategizing? Like, where is your head right now? And strategizing for the next six months to a year to protect the downside of what's happening. How are you navigating this right now?

Ron Thurston:  Yeah, it's a really difficult time for every brand, because there's so many unknowns. I think the other point, the other side to what you just said of like, we're always thinking forward. This is a really difficult time to think forward because it's all unknown. And we're so good in retail about knowing the facts and having the KPIs and having a plan and knowing what's happening in fashion. And we can predict everything, and this has become very unpredictable. And so I think we're using facts like what has happened to the business trends and traffic trends in China. And I said, you're the first to experience this. What has happened, what happened in 90 days ago, four months ago, and what's happening today and just as a somewhat of a guidepost to help us figure out how to predict this. 

But I would say no, one's going to be able to say exactly what's going to happen. I think it will be very different by city. I know here in New York city it's particularly bad. And so there may be parts of the country that recover faster. but I. To answer your question. I don't think there's an, there isn't an answer today and we're going to have to constantly reevaluate and re reshuffle the plan. And there's definitely a goal of conservative, being on, erring on the conservative side. Before we know what's going to happen. It's a really, it's a very tough time for our industry. But,and talk about service, but this will give us some opportunities to be at our best in the future. 

Christopher Lacy: I agree with you on that. I think, and that's the, you know, we just talked about how this impacts your, your ability to strategize from a business kind of numbers perspective. But, you know, I do want to hear from you how you think this will change how the customer engagement and what they will expect from retail when we come out of this. What would be happen? 

Ron Thurston:  So I think everything that we have wanted retail to be from a relationship side,  like where we started this conversation, when I think about intimacy and relationships and the closeness that we all crave particularly now in retail, this is almost forcing that to happen. Because the idea of just being a place to buy more stuff is not relevant anymore. And some would say, but I actually really miss everyone that works in that store. I really like, I want to come and see you. I can't wait to give you a hug. I can't wait to like, be in your space regardless of what you sell. I think the, what will happen is we have to just be that much better at the relationship, the follow-up, the connection, the way that we potentially sell and I think, and what we sell, I mean, there's a lot being written right now around, assessing, I guess, how we've assessed our own need for the products and services.

And that brands will have to just understand their relevancy of what they're selling. It's like it's in, it's a very interesting time. But, that's why as hard as this is, and as financially devastating as this is for companies and brands and people. When I think about the actual retail experience, we will have to be what we've always wanted to be, which is creating relationships and connections to the customer, walking in the door.

Christopher Lacy: I wholeheartedly agree with that. And I also think it's going to push us in the direction we've been wanting to go relative to talks about what, what does sustainability look like and what does conscious behavior look like? I mean, I think right now we're in a space where we're learning the things that we pretty much could do without, but that we didn't do without them because we didn't have to, right? And that, that will automatically change the mindset of any customer for any reason. For example, I mean, look, I love coconut cream pie, but because I can't go get a coconut cream pie, as often as I used to. No, but like I.

Ron Thurston:  Or you'll learn how to make it yourself, 

Christopher Lacy: Which I can do, which I can do. You know, I think it becomes a point where there's going to be really conscious activity when someone walks into your or engages with your brand. To your other point, I think when we come out of this, we're going to see a group of consumers that are supporting brick and mortar businesses better than they ever have before.

Ron Thurston: Yes.

Christopher Lacy: And you know, You and I have talked before about retail apocalypse and people playing with that, the brick and mortar. And I think this will show that there will be no jets to brick and mortar because people will come out with a sense of going. I want you to support my local brick and mortar businesses, but as a whole, because it means I'm making sure that should something like this happen again. We have the strength as an economy to not have people lose their jobs. 

Ron Thurston: I hundred percent agree. And I think those that fall out of this that actually don't end up making it. And there's a lot being written about department stores and such, you know, is that really, is that, was that the future before this? And is it the future now? Think that's a big question mark. But I agree with you on local retail. You know, even local being Manhattan, you know, but maybe it's street, it's not, you know, Macy's Herald Square

Christopher Lacy: Right.

Ron Thurston: And so, I think we have to think about what is, what's the model of retail? What is the, what is the service expectation? What are you selling? How are you selling it? And it's almost like this is almost going to dial it all back, you know, the 50 years in some ways, and things will become more simple and more connected.

Christopher Lacy:  Yeah

Ron Thurston: It's really interesting time when I was running Saint Laurent, I had my, you know, the first store he opened was in 1969 around there, on the left bank of Paris. But I really thought about like, what was, if I were Yves Saint Laurent and I were, I had my own store, what would, what would I want it to feel like, what would, what would the experience have been? And I had the furniture in my office, kind of recreated to that time period, because I really wanted to understand during those years, what, what was the service in a boutique in 1969 on the left bank of Paris with a new designer? Like what would that have felt like? And I wanted to be able to experience that. Like every day, like we in my office every day and experience it as if it were 1969, it's like, it's just like I was in a madman episode. And, but I think it's really true. I mean, actually I go back and think like, this is that's the future, like madman is the future and its own like unique retail way. I'm just, I'm not as I'm, I'm actually quite optimistic about what this will bring not tomorrow but in years to come. 

Christopher Lacy: I have to say, I, I am as well. And I know that there is that. I think you used an example of thinking about 1969. I think of it as, you know, we, we probably needed to level set. No, we needed to level set that as a patient right. I mean, when we look at, you know, now that there's so much how much of the environment has been cleaned up in two month’s time? You know, when they're looking at what's happening in China, like this point, it's interesting how it's forcing us to a slow down a bit. I want to ask you something, because you are working on a project and I am super excited about, what is that about? What are you writing about? What are you going to tell us? 

Ron Thurston: I'm going to tell you all of this and more. And so I have, I think like many people that have been in this industry for a long time. There's a point where you actually want to be able to share your experiences with people that are just starting in the industry to talk about the fact that this is an incredible career. And so the working title of my book is Retail the accidental career that's okay to love. May change through editing but the idea of like this it's okay to love this. This is an incredible place to work with people who share a similar interest who have this idea that this is actually not a great career and that this is an incredible thing to do. And so the book is really for the industry of celebrating everyone that works in it and to say, Yeah, this is a great career to love.

Here's some helpful like Ron's leadership kind of ideas, but and how to be successful in retail and so I've been working on it since October of last year, and I'm hoping to be on shelves by this fall at some point. 

Christopher Lacy: Well, I'm super excited to get it. It sounds amazing. 

Ron Thurston: Thank you. 

Christopher Lacy: So, you will have to keep us updated on where that goes, and we'll have to speak to you again. I want to ask you, you know you've taken on a lot of and you've done a lot in your career. You've engaged a lot of people nationally that has created this desire to, to talk about it and in book form. If you were to think about who you are now, from where you started, what is the skill or the talent that you go, I couldn't do about this. This is the one that like, I can't not have disability. I just wouldn't succeed. 

Ron Thurston: I would I ever say it's actually a level of empathy and curiosity that is an important component in leadership and will become even more important. I, I think the idea of leadership in to do it, as I say, I'm not really curious how you think about this. This is just how this works on those days are over. I think that my own leadership style has been about listening and learning and crafting the culture of a company based on what the team wants, not what I want and being empathetic and being curious and being open to change and learning based on the audience, which is a different way that I think some in some companies have operated, from a very like tops down. I really do think about this, my own leadership style in a bottoms-up kind of a way.

Christopher Lacy:  Right. 

Ron Thurston: That, and I even today, when I think about, you know, all the incredible commissioned salespeople who are selling in hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, those are the most important people in my organization because they are the closest to the customer. They have the most feedback on product. They have the most impact on what the customer says about the brand. And so I spend the majority of my time actually with the sales teams in stores, because I learned the most from them about what the customer is saying and how they're feeling. So that, that part of my own just leadership has always been there. And I will continue for as long as I'm doing this.

Christopher Lacy:  It's amazing. Amazing. I want to ask you, you know, empathy is a really, it's an interesting skill because I think we often say empathy is this something that, you know, you either are born with any kind of having empathy , or you're an empathetic person where you are. And I, I challenged when people say that because I think you can absolutely grow your skill of empathy, right? You're paying attention. And I think the fact that you put empathy and curiosity together, I think if you're a curious person, you start to learn and approach things in different ways and therefore it creates empathy. Right? A person who's never curious about the world going on around them. You can't be empathetic to what you don't know about. 

Ron Thurston: Correct. Okay. And it's difficult if you haven't been curious, you can't put yourself in their place because you don't have it. You don't understand it. You just don't understand it.

Christopher Lacy: And I think that right there, you know, those two things, empathy and curiosity could cure a lot of ills that we have not just in the fashion industry when it comes to diversity and inclusivity, but on a global scale, if you're looking at themselves and said, what is my empathy? What is my level of empathy and what is a level of curiosity? 

Ron Thurston: Right.

Christopher Lacy: We need to go there. 

Ron Thurston: And I think it's bouncing, you know, if I go back to the purpose of the call around kind of retail architecture, it's also been balancing the financial obligations that all of us have of running successful business because it's you could say I'm highly empathetic or curious, and I want to give everybody everything they asked for. But the reality is you can't afford that, and you have to be able to say, I'm curious, I've learned, I've listened and based on everything I've heard, this is what we're going to do and doesn't check every box always. And I also, I try to be as transparent as I can with as many people as I can in my organization and say, I heard you, but this is, that is not financially viable. So, but this is what we can do. And they're like, okay, well, thanks for listening. I appreciate that. And because you were transparent and you listened, they're likely to actually follow you and to kind of navigate their own path, but in a way that was, work that you did together, I find actually their commitment to do it's really high if you lead it that way.

Christopher Lacy: Wow. That's impressive. So, what do you think Intermix does better than anyone else?

Ron Thurston: It's a great question. I think it's two things. You know, one is the mix and the edit. So intermix is the largest multiband, women's specialty store in the country and you need that edit. We really work hard on the edit by store, by city, by customer type, and really look at that true assortment from our own private label brand through the highest end of designers and just how to mix it altogether and show her how to wear it. So, the, I'd say the edit is number one and number two is the stylists and, and say, okay, great. I want to understand how to wear all this together, how to take a blazer and wear it five different ways. Wanna wear it to work. I want to wear it to dinner. I have events to attend. What do I do? and so the, I would say it's the edit and the stylist and the service. That's the key. If you put those things together. That's really powerful when done well. And we've had some, a couple of really successful years. 

Christopher Lacy: I would agree with you. I think, you know, I, I love going into an intermix store because there, there is this, level of fun right there, energy, and I have to say I've been to multiple intermix locations and kudos to you that there is consistency. And I think that's something that's difficult to get right. You're kind of always searching for that. And I don't know if it's because you once worked in Apple, but I used to reference the fact that thinking about Apple is no matter which Apple store you walked into, you knew your service was going to be the same. And that made you feel very comfortable in that space because you knew what you would expect and that comfort level. Made you feel like this is where I'm supposed to be. And I think intermix you, you've done a very good job. You and your team of creating. 

Ron Thurston: Thank you. I really appreciate that. I think it's, it's so interesting because then I think you want it to be the same, but you want every experience to be different.

And that only happens through again, like being empathetic and being curious and to say, and every customer that walks through the door, every stylist. The first thing you do is ask the questions you should and not like, what are you looking for today? Cause that question drives me crazy more like tell me who you are. Tell me about your closet. Tell me about what you do. Tell me about your favorite, your five favorite pieces in your closet. Like let's get to know each other. Maybe we just met. Let's spend 10 minutes of me just learning about you before I say, well, you know, if you need anything, let me know. My name is Ron like that doesn't work.

Christopher Lacy: Right.

Ron Thurston: You have to spend time. So, I want it to be consistent, but I also want it to be highly unique for the thousands of people that come into the store every week or used to.

Christopher Lacy: They will be back, they will. 

Ron Thurston: So, I it's that it's that balance. I think that we all want, and brands today. 

Christopher Lacy: Fantastic. Ron, I have to tell you. This has been an amazing conversation with you this morning. I'm glad we had the time to do it. I want to close it out by giving our listeners, you know, some information on you.

How can our students reach out to you, in the future, be it Twitter or Instagram and how can they stay up to date with what's going on at intermix? 

Ron Thurston: Thank you. I appreciate that. I would say two things because being New York based I will plug goodwill. Well, so for all fashion lovers in the world, as you're cleaning out your closets, don't forget to, I would appreciate it I should say, donate to Goodwill and about revenue that generated from the Goodwill stores fuels all the work they do in the community for people with obstacles to employment. And this is going to become even harder for them. because Goodwill funds things like temp agencies and, and people that work at the MTA, if people work at CVS, a lot of that comes through temp agencies, through Goodwill funneled through your donations in the retail stores. So, there's, I would just plug Goodwill and number two, LinkedIn is the best place to find me. I do post a lot on there and you can kind of understand my head even a little bit more LinkedIn. And then, for the book, if you go to our retailstories.com and just sign up for, to be notified, as the book gets closer, I'll be sending out some, probably email blasts with information@ourretailstories.com.

Christopher Lacy: Fantastic. Ron, thank you so much for your time. It's been a blast. We can't wait to have you back. I'd love to it in person next time.

Ron Thurston: Thank you, you too. 

Joshua Williams: Thank you for listening to this episode of Retail Revolution, a very special thank you to everyone who has helped make this podcast possible. Our guests, our students and fellow faculty at Parsons School of Design, especially in such an extraordinary and unprecedented time. Our theme music was composed by Spencer Powell. 

Be well and stay tuned for our next episode.

 www.RetailRevolutionPodcast.com