{"id":1464,"date":"2007-05-23T18:55:44","date_gmt":"2007-05-24T01:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=1464"},"modified":"2007-05-23T19:42:12","modified_gmt":"2007-05-24T02:42:12","slug":"on-the-nordstrom-analogy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1464\/on-the-nordstrom-analogy\/","title":{"rendered":"On the NORDSTROM Analogy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apropos of pretty much nothing: my two daughters — for whom I live — drove down from Seattle last weekend and threw me a surprise birthday party. The appropriate aphorism: “A good time was had by all.” I just found two party hats in the freezer.<\/p>\n

Which provides a seriously imperfect segue into: Nordstrom. Since the time I spent there informs nearly everything I’ve done in business the last thirty years; because what we do as full service agents has been rightfully compared to the Nordstrom model; and because I’ll reference them often, it might be worthwhile to give some background:<\/p>\n

I was there when they were just breaking into the California market, before the Department of Labor made them shut down any employee off clock hours — which means a concerned Nordy personally delivering a prom dress to a hormonally anxious deb is considered illegal — and before any organized gangs began using their return policy as a profit center. The employee manual read in its entirety “Use your own best judgment at all times”, twenty five year old buyers were given multi-million dollar budgets with the single instruction “Buy what the customer wants…”, and every employee was given the imprimatur to say only one thing: “Yes.”<\/p>\n

In the early seventies one billboard on I-5 leading out of Seattle read “Will the last person leaving please turn out the lights?”, but leading in<\/em> to the city was another billboard that read simply “We understand there’s a recession. We’ve elected not to participate.” and signed Bruce Nordstrom. When the same Bruce Nordstrom — “Mr. Bruce” in the vernacular — was asked in a meeting why it was necessary to give money back to people who didn’t seem to deserve it, after an eternal icy silence he said: “That’s my money. You’ll give it back until I tell you differently.”<\/p>\n

Everyone has probably heard the (true) anecdote of the radial tires returned for a full refund at the first San Francisco store. What everyone doesn’t<\/em> know is that, while most department stores at the time funded their advertising at 4% of sales, we budgeted 2%. Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apropos of pretty much nothing: my two daughters — for whom I live — drove down from Seattle last weekend and threw me a surprise birthday party. The appropriate aphorism: “A good time was had by all.” I just found two party hats in the freezer. Which provides a seriously imperfect segue into: Nordstrom. Since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-general","7":"category-marketing","8":"category-real-estate","10":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1437,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1437\/60-minutes-redux-what-it-means-to-be-nordstrom\/","url_meta":{"origin":1464,"position":0},"title":"60 Minutes Redux – What it means to be Nordstrom","author":"Morgan Brown","date":"May 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"After the fur is done flying over the 60 Minutes piece what are we left with? What has really changed? Has Redfin \"revolutionized\" real estate? Well if offering rebates on commission is considered revolutionary count me among the witnesses. With 6, soon to be 8 markets, I think there is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2941,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2941\/nordstrom-dave-liniger-remax-and-web-20\/","url_meta":{"origin":1464,"position":1},"title":"Nordstrom, Dave Liniger, RE\/MAX and Web 2.0","author":"Jeff Kempe","date":"April 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019m just not a rah-rah guy. The most trouble I was ever in at Nordstrom \u2013 it almost got me fired \u2013 was my refusal, as a men\u2019s shoe buyer in a suburban Portland mall store, to participate in an Anniversary Sale employee pep-rally-fashion-show, in which the men modeled the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1456,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1456\/like-a-virgin\/","url_meta":{"origin":1464,"position":2},"title":"Like a Virgin","author":"Jeff Kempe","date":"May 21, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"So I've spent the last hour trying to navigate Word Press -- I'm going to bet it's much easier than I'm making it -- have written a terribly serious post on the allegorical link between Nordstrom and real estate, and decided that's a really inelegant way to introduce myself. Yes,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1452,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1452\/shuffling-the-pack-two-new-bloodhounds-on-the-trail\/","url_meta":{"origin":1464,"position":3},"title":"Shuffling the pack: Two new Bloodhounds on the trail","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 21, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"We're adding two new contributors today: Lani Anglin is the Texas-proud provocateuse at the spunky Realtor Wives weblog. By day, she works as a rainmaker for Single Pointe Realty. With two kids, three cats, a dog and her husband, she finds a way to stay busy. Jeff Kempe knows a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1757,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1757\/in-search-of-excellence\/","url_meta":{"origin":1464,"position":4},"title":"In Search of Excellence","author":"Jeff Kempe","date":"August 6, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"That, of course, was the name of a best-selling management book that came out in the early eighties. It not so much defined my market philosophy as confirmed what I'd already learned from Nordstrom: Concentrate on excellence and rewards will follow. Concentrate on rewards, and you're pretty much assured of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog Carnivals"","block_context":{"text":"Blog Carnivals","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blog-carnivals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10771,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/10771\/ok-to-good-enough-to-great-to-amazing-to-oh-my-freakin-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":1464,"position":5},"title":"OK to Good Enough to Great to Amazing to Oh My Freakin’ God!","author":"Jeff Brown","date":"January 7, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Books on marketing and service -- gotta love 'em. Most, at least in my view are best utilized after shredding -- they're so fulla crap they make stellar fertilizer. 'Course I say that fully cognizant of the reality I'm pretty much BawldClueless when it comes to effective marketing, so I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flourishing"","block_context":{"text":"Flourishing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/flourishing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}