What I learnt from Heini Staudinger
It was a special moment when Heini Staudinger personally invited me to the GEA Autumn Fair 2024 (Link) in Schrems to present our ARRIVAL furniture. The famous GEA Waldviertler shoes and furniture are produced in Schrems and sold in more than 50 GEA shops in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.
Back to the beginning. Originally, my plan was different. I wanted to get Heini excited about our ARRIVAL furniture so that he would add it to the GEA range straight away. Of course, things turned out differently.
The furniture industry has its own peculiarities and mechanisms, just like any industry. To understand this, I was advised to literally immerse myself in it. And the best way to immerse yourself is to talk to as many people from the industry as possible. Many of my marketing colleagues now favour talking to AI like ChatGPT. However, I am of the opinion that an AI does not generate new knowledge, but only knows something that we already know. In addition, an AI cannot understand emotions, which are important in sales. But that's another story.
The prospect of a personal exchange with Heini was one of the motivations for travelling to Schrems.
The drive to set up your own company - in our case a company that produces designer furniture - is always something extraordinary for founders. For us, the special thing is to create unique, high-quality designer furniture that the world seems to have been waiting for for a long time. As I now know, it hasn't.
This article is for anyone who has a business idea and wants to make something of it. A business idea is always an opportunity, or as they say nowadays ‘If you get a calling’, which requires a lot of motivation. The associated craft is called entrepreneurship. It means overcoming resistance, taking a step back to be able to take two steps forwards and never losing sight of the vision for the big picture. That's what it's all about.
Your way is better than any way
Looking back, my first sales measures at RE.D were sobering, if not naive. I quickly set up a webshop, paid for Google Adwords, did a little fine-tuning and the furniture was selling like hotcakes. Sweet dreams, waking up with a boo-boo! Nothing but expenses.
Even the best web shop can't make up for a lack of a plan.
What does this have to do with the visit to Schrems? In the case of GEA Waldviertler, customers buy a lifestyle and not a shoe. I experienced this at first hand during my visit to Schrems. They try them on, try them on, look in the mirror, adjust their trousers. All of this creates a sparkle in the eyes, which demands the ATM card as if there were no tomorrow. And why should there be? We live at and with GEA in the here and now. Read about it in History of GEA (Link).
For me, the GEA brand is personified by none other than Heini Staudinger. This is reflected in the DNA of the GEA brand and what customers value about it: Quality, regionality, craftsmanship and a dose of rebelliousness.
Customers identify with this personality and wear their Waldviertler shoes with pride, not least because the shape of the shoes has a high recognition factor. Applied to our furniture, this means finding customers who feel addressed by the RE.D brand personality, not the other way round.
Everyone is not your customer
It is important to become aware of your own brand personality and to pursue it consistently and, above all, consistently. The conversations with Heini have sharpened my understanding of this and given me the confidence to formulate the brand strategy of our RE.D brand not more broadly, but on the contrary, even more pointedly and clearly.
The result is our new brand slogan ‘Crafting Beauty from the Familiar’.
Now the slogan sounds good. Further discussions will show whether customers can relate to it. The term product-market fit can be found in the literature. Product-market fit is like diamonds. It takes a lot of polishing, in our case discussions with customers, to make the product sparkle.
Understand your world
Furniture is a haptic product. When buying furniture, the feel is probably even more important than with many other products. When it comes to higher-priced products from an unknown furniture brand, it is essential to experience the feel and texture of a piece of furniture live when making a purchase decision. In contrast, this is less important for low-priced products from the Far East, where the purchase decision is based solely on appearance and price. Quality, craftsmanship and regionality play a subordinate role, making these products suitable for online retail.
Applied to our ARRIAL furniture, we need a marketing strategy that focusses on stationary retail.
I experienced this personally in the sales room at the autumn fair, where Heini showed me the production of Waldviertler shoes at first hand. It was only through personal contact that I was able to really understand the craftsmanship and passion behind GEA, which has made Waldviertler shoes appear to me in a new light. A high-quality product that is produced according to traditional craftsmanship. And that in Austria! I can only advise everyone to visit the upcoming in-house exhibition starting on 11 April 2025 or at least a GEA shop.
What does that mean for us? High-quality design, quality and the passion that goes into our furniture can only be conveyed through personal contact.
It's a marathon
GEA began over 40 years ago. It all started in 1980 with Earth Shoe shops. Later, these became today's GEA shops (Link).
RE.D has been around for a year. At the beginning, we thought we would conquer the world with our products within a year. As of today, many have conquered Design Adwords, but still few customers. But looking at GEA gives me a reassuring feeling.
It's a marathon, not a sprint.
This helps us mentally not to fail because of our own expectations of success. Rather, it motivates us to produce high-quality design furniture in Austria. We want to join the ranks of internationally renowned companies such as GEA, Sonnentor and Pro.ject. We want to make life special for our customers with our products and thus create jobs in Austria. Even if it is often hard work and requires perseverance, it is the small successes and feedback along the way that motivate us. It's a marathon with no shortcuts.