Cover Story: After Eddie

Professionally, Lynda Swann will never be another Eddie Smith. Then again, she won’t have to be.

The support system her father fostered and nurtured during his 50-plus years running the women’s hosiery and apparel catalog National Wholesale Co. runs so seamlessly that Swann handles her role as president with relative ease.

Perhaps the toughest thing she encounters each day, while sitting in the same office her late father occupied for so many years until his 2007 passing at age 89, is recognizing she’s the top executive. Try telling her that she “replaced” Eddie Smith and Swann quickly clarifies that she and several of her VPs succeeded him in ensemble fashion.

Succession planning is obviously never an easy thing. It’s sort of like choosing your own grave site or writing your will. Not fun stuff. But for Smith, who founded, owned and operated National Wholesale from 1952 until 2005 (shortly after he suffered a stroke and later developed cancer), succession planning was essentially ongoing. Aside from the legalities Smith attended to — to ensure his company would wind up in his family’s hands once he was gone — he didn’t necessarily put together a specific succession plan because it was in place all along.

‘Planning-to-Die’ Meeting
More than a decade ago, Smith attended to the necessary estate planning. “The reason many businesses don’t survive is because they lack this,” Swann says. “Dad actually used to have ‘planning-to-die’ meetings, and they weren’t fun. Now I’m holding the same meetings. If you don’t do this, there are obvious tax consequences, and [your successors] can be forced to sell.”

But for Swann, life after Eddie Smith entailed “a lifetime of preparation, focused on our philosophies and how we operate the business,” she says. “I grew up with that since I was 4. My dad was larger than life to me.”

All in the Family
That life has been full of family mixed with business and vice versa. Smith’s wife Sarah, who died 11 years ago, worked alongside her husband for years, as did daughter Lynda. Son Eddie Smith Jr. was also in the picture for a number of years before leaving in the late ’60s to acquire and run Grady-White Boats in nearby Greenville, N.C. He’s continued to practice what his father preached in building up the successful boating manufacturer ever since.

But that doesn’t leave Swann without “family” at National Wholesale. Longtime executives like CFO Joanie Lookabill (41 years), Vice President of Advertising-Creative Betty McMahan (27 years) and Customer Service/Telemarketing Supervisor Diane Miller (35 years) are so entrenched in the National Wholesale and Eddie Smith cultures and family atmosphere that today’s operations mostly are run by committee with Swann (40-plus years at the company) calling the final shots.

Despite her title and ownership, Swann insists she’s never outright taken the company over. “It’s a total team,” she says. “Every decision is made by the team.”

And every decision adheres to Smith’s principles:

• the customer is always right;
• treat customers as if each one is your only customer;
• treat all employees as if each one is your only employee; and
• have tremendous love and respect for co-workers.

Even Executive Vice President Mike Tate, one of Swann’s closest confidants with just 15 years at the company, is firmly entrenched in Eddie Smith culture. “Philosophi-cally, we’re all committed to continuing his ideals,” Tate says. “To me, there’s so much of a before/after difference, so much as the world has changed and we’ve had to evolve. But we’re devoted to living and conducting the business as he did.”

Trust in Talent
As for finding people like Tate, and even Lookabill way back in the ’60s, “Eddie had a real talent for picking people,” points out Nereus “N.C.” English III, president of Thomasville, N.C.-based Carolina Underwear Co., a longtime supplier to National Wholesale. “He was loyal to them, and they were loyal to him. He left good management in place when he became incapacitated. Today, they continue to bring good people on board.”

As Swann explains, Smith saw people “as they were created to be. He’d see potential in you that you didn’t see yourself. Then he had a gift for nurturing.”

In November, as she and Tate guided this editor around National Wholesale’s offices, call center and fulfillment center (all under the same roof — 150,000 square feet in all), she took time not only to warmly greet every employee she saw, but also to introduce their visitor to every one of them — a Smith trait picked up long ago.

Like Swann, “Eddie was a cheerleader,” McMahan says. “He was all over the building. He had this unbelievable instinct about people and their strengths, and knew how to encourage them. You realized you weren’t doing it just because it was a job, but because somehow, with his encouragement, you continued to climb to do that.”

Swann and her colleagues exude their trust and faith in clients outside the company as well. Last summer, they began working with the catalog consulting firm J. Schmid & Associates, although Schmid Founder Jack Schmid and President Lois Boyle-Brayfield knew Smith well for many years prior.

Reflecting on a recent visit from Swann and some of her National Wholesale colleagues at Schmid’s Mission, Kan., headquarters, Boyle-Brayfield observes that the company culture “remains remarkably the same [with an] appreciation of employees and a commitment to the customer.”

Smith’s legacy, she says, lives on in that regard. “It flows through to our partnership with them. What’s changed are the needs of the customer — new trends and styles,” she points out. “But the higher order benefits of ‘comfort’ and ‘trust’ are still very much a part of the merchandise concept. The core values are still very much alive.”

Problem-Solver for Seniors
A good many articles published in this magazine, as well as countless seminars given at industry conferences, preach the gospel of catering closely to the needs of the customer. With its typical customer being a female senior citizen who turns to specialty catalogers to serve her unique needs (e.g., panty hose that won’t fall down or irritate her legs), National Wholesale takes this gospel up a notch.

Many of the women who’ve bought from the catalog for years — and a good portion of them still mail in hand-written orders — rely on the cataloger’s order-takers and customer service reps to solve their problems, and have built up a warm rapport with the company over the years. Like the many ways Smith led by example, Swann and company have continued to make sure they can solve all customers’ problems and special needs. “There’s a palpable sincerity for people and their well-being,” Boyle-Brayfield says.

Tight With Customers
Smith became close to many customers over the years, often talking to them on the phone. “Customers would actually travel here, stop in and ask for him,” Swann says. “If they’d get upset, he’d send them flowers. And we maintain the same kind of relationship with them today.” (According to a current datacard from the company’s list manager, Belardi/Ostroy, the average National Wholesale customer has household income of $40,000.)

For instance, Smith often took the time to handwrite personal letters to customers who encountered problems with orders. Swann continues the tradition. “And they write Lynda back,” McMahan points out. She also calls many customers when they encounter any problems with products or the company in any way. “I call and tell them this is Lynda Smith Swann at National, and I get this dead silence,” Swann says. “They can’t believe I’m calling. My dad taught me to do that.”

Let ’em Vent, Then Help Out
As for unhappy customers, Smith also taught Swann “to keep my mouth shut if they’re screaming about something. Then when they’re finished, I ask what it will take to make them happy,” she explains. “You’re always inclined to interrupt and say, ‘Here’s what happened.’ But my father always reminded me to let them pour out their hearts first.”

Typical of the close relationships the company has had with its customers over the years, and how Swann and her team strive to keep them going, National Wholesale ran notices in its catalogs when both Sarah, and later, Eddie Smith died. In Eddie’s case, Swann promised customers that she and her team would keep the company going. In response, Swann received many thank-you notes from customers.

Key Changes, Post-Smith
Unlike some aging entrepreneurs from past generations, Smith always gave National Wholesale staffers carte blanche to invest in whatever technology they needed. Smith himself was no exception to the stereotype: “He never had a computer, but he always believed in technology even though he didn’t understand it,” Swann says. “He trusted his co-workers, such as Mike Tate, to tell him this was what we needed. To that, he’d respond, ‘Tell me how much, and I’ll write the check.’”

Still, since Smith’s passing, Swann, Tate and company have taken their technology investments and hiring to greater levels. For instance, despite its remote location in a small town in the middle of Davidson County, N.C., the company lured Vice President of Merchandising Wendy Basting from the New York City area just a few years ago.

“In the old days, our stock-in-trade was all the technicalities surrounding the hosiery,” Tate says. “But since Wendy has come on board, she and her team have helped build their expertise around fit and quality for this particular customer.”

Still, as McMahan points out, “not a day goes by where you don’t hear, ‘Mr. Smith would’ve loved this.’” Like any entrepreneur, Tate recalls, Smith “never wanted to leave. He wanted to be here till the end. And in essence, he still is.”