A Chat With Sue Landay, President, Trainer’s Warehouse

CS: What do you think are some of your key points to success in cataloging?
SL: Can I give you a couple? I think one is listening. That’s really been critical. Part of that is listening to colleagues and employees within the company, whether that’s folks in our assembly department, shipping department, customer service. Their perspective, the challenges they have, and their worries about a product or procedure have allowed us to continually improve. We listen to our customers when they’re not happy with something and when they need something new; that’s allowed us to grow. We’ve had vendors tell us they’re not sure a certain product is going to work and we might need to do something differently. That’s been critical. Whether it’s been a product development issue, a list manager problem, a service bureau problem or whatever, I’ve really tried to listen to their expertise. We’ve been going to NEMOA shows. At each of those, if we can get one or two nuggets, and we get many more than that, we can find something to apply to our business. That’s been critical. Listening to my dad too.