Retail is experiencing a massive transition. Thousands of independent retailers have been bobbing the ocean, clinging to planks of splintered wood and struggling to stay afloat. Today, those who remained have washed ashore on a new island and the rules have changed. But where there’s life, there’s hope, as long as you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and do the work.

In their new book, Come Back to Bed, Mark Kinsley and Mark Quinn offer strategies and principles retailers can use to forge lasting customer relationships that will weather any storm. Bring in new business and reclaim your path to success as you learn how to build your brand, connect with customers in a more meaningful way, drive foot traffic, and become notorious in your marketplace.

Drew Appelbaum: Hey listeners, my name is Drew Appelbaum and I’m excited to be here today with Mark Kinsley and Mark Quinn, authors of Come Back to Bed: Attract More Foot Traffic and Make People Fall in Love With Your Store. Mark and Mark, thank you for joining, welcome to the Author Hour podcast.

Mark Kinsley: Great to be here Drew.

Mark Quinn: Thank you, Drew.

Drew Appelbaum: Let’s kick this off, can you each respectively give us a rundown of your professional backgrounds?

Mark Kinsley: Well, since mine starts with Mark Quinn dragging me, kicking and screaming into the mattress industry, Quinn, why don’t you lead us off?

Mark Quinn: Here we go. I’ve been in the mattress industry for about 25 years and started with Sealy and Stearns and Foster in Florida, and then fast forward, I went to Serta when I was 28. So, I was with Serta Mattress for about nine years, and then I went to work for Leggett and Platt, which is the largest components manufacturer in the world. I did some really cool stuff there, I traveled the world actually, getting to know the category even better, see what people are doing internationally, they are doing some cool stuff. Then Kinsley was part of the agency that I was using, and he got caught stealing from the petty cash drawer at the agency, so I took pity on him and decided to give him a job at Leggett and that’s where it all started.

Mark Kinsley: By stealing from the petty cash drawer, he means grabbing a second beer out of the community fridge.

Mark Quinn: That’s true.

The Galaxy’s Greatest Mattress Industry Podcast

Mark Kinsley: My background before I got caught in a petty cash beer scandal with Mark Quinn was, and I’m going to go back to 19 years old because this matters, I was a classic rock DJ from midnight to five AM. After that, I got into television and I was a weekend anchor and a news reporter for about three years. I also hosted a daily talk radio show, so I was in journalism for about seven years before I got into the agency business and started working on this magical account with this amazing man named Mark Quinn.

Then, Quinn hired me, and we’ve been doing podcasts and kicking around the mattress business ever since. Today, Quinn is cofounder of Spink and Co, farm-grown beds and he’s a VP at key accounts for Sherwood. I’m president and CEO of Englander–it’s a mattress brand, it’s been around since 1894 and we’re all about helping people get a better night’s sleep.

Mark Quinn: Drew, it’s kind of funny, the cap to that story, when we were at Leggett, I was writing a blog at the time in the industry, and no one had really written a blog about the mattress industry before. I tried quitting the blog several times and Kinsley just wouldn’t ever let me do it. I would say, “Please let me stop this”, and he’s like, “No, it’s important, it’s your brand and it’s for Leggett and you have to keep doing it.” So, I kept doing it. Then he came to me and he said, “How about we do a podcast?”

I thought to myself, “What moron is going to listen to a podcast about the mattress industry?” Well, it turns out, a lot of people listen to our show and they’re not morons, they’re highly intelligent people. At the time, I had not really understood the podcast platform to the degree that I do now, and with Kinsey’s background in radio, it turned out really well and it was a lot of fun to do. Mr. Kinsley, we are now what? 185 episodes into this project?

Mark Kinsley: Yeah, still to this day, we are the galaxy’s greatest mattress industry podcast.

Mark Quinn: This is true.

Mark Kinsley: Who would have thought?

Drew Appelbaum: Now, is that because you’re the only mattress industry podcast?

Mark Quinn: Drew, that is the rudest thing I have ever heard anyone say to us.

Mark Kinsley: And 100% accurate.

Mark Quinn: That’s true.

Drew Appelbaum: Statistically, you are the best and the worst mattress industry podcast.

Mark Quinn: Yes, well okay, I guess we never looked at it from the bad side but I guess that’s true. I’ll tell you a quick funny story, we had Chris Cassidy on our show. Chris is an astronaut and the brother of Jeff Cassidy, a very good friend to both Mark and I, and he’s also in the mattress business. But anyway, here’s a guy that is a Navy SEAL and did a couple of tours in Afghanistan and then wanted to become an astronaut, and you have to go get an advanced degree to be an astronaut.

He goes to MIT and gets an engineering degree and then after that, he becomes an astronaut. He just landed on planet earth after his second tour on the space station. We had him on our show, and we were talking about sleep and space and having some fun with him, he’s just a great guy. At the end of the show, I said, “Chris, listen, you’ve been in space, you’ve traveled the galaxy, have you ever, one time come across a better mattress podcast than this one?” He said, “Hell no, I have not.” We feel validated, don’t we Kinsley?

Mark Kinsley: Well put. If Chris said it, it must be true.

Drew Appelbaum: Speaking of the podcast, what do you feel that the podcast has brought to your knowledge of the industry?

Mark Kinsley: Well, the podcast itself, as you know, is an incredible format for being able to be inquisitive. We can call up anybody we want and say we’re doing a show about this and we want to learn more. It gives us access to some of the top thinkers in the mattress business and beyond. As Quinn said, if we want to talk to an astronaut and talk about what it’s like to sleep in space, we were able to call up Chris Cassidy, one of 40 astronauts in the US. I mean, think about how many professional sports players are, and then you have astronauts.

It gives us just such great access and insight, it spurs you to be a little more curious about things and dig deeper, because every single week, at mattresspodcast.com, we are putting up a podcast. So, after 185 episodes, we’ve interviewed all the major brands, anybody new and innovative, doing something creative and unique in our business, anybody that’s outside of our business and we can find an adjacent hook, a way to connect it back to the mattress business, we do it. It’s a great platform and it’s a great tool.

When we started the podcast, we were both at Leggett and Platt, this is the world’s largest manufacturer of inner springs, the springs that go inside mattresses. Suddenly, we started getting calls from Tempur-Pedic. Tempur-Pedic wanted to be on our show, and at one point they wanted to sponsor the show. Well, Tempur-Pedic had spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the years telling people springs suck and foam is great. We said, “You do know we work for the company that you’ve spent a ton of money saying we’re awful?”

But they wanted us to come to their showroom, they wanted us to cover their products. So, it’s been funny how it’s evolved beyond a couple of guys doing a podcast into a real media property where people call us to get their message out in a creative way.

Drew Appelbaum: Let’s dig into the book a little bit. You have a successful podcast, you both are really knowledgeable in the industry, why was now the time to write this book?

Mark Quinn: Well, COVID hit Drew, and Mark and I were really trying to figure out, after the chaos of it all, trying to figure out what we are going to do and we both value time as a finite resource. We just said, “What are we going to do with the time?” It’s a gift, it dropped in our lap. Because there was not a lot we could do with work.

Mission, vision, and values, you have to understand these things to really know where to take your business or in this case, the podcast, the media property. One of our missions is serving people, we feel like we have this amazing connection to the people in this industry–we love the people in this industry, and through our work with Nationwide, who is the largest buying group in the industry–they serve furniture and mattress retailers as well as appliance retailers and home theater guys and a lot of outdoor stuff, and the independent retailer–we’ve done some speaking gigs for them, and we’ve done several keynotes for those guys.

When you start talking to these independent retailers, they’re just amazing people and one of the speeches that we gave was focused on how you drive traffic into your store. We gave this big speech and had them all write down some things on a notecard about how they drive traffic into their stores. That was a data point for us, and we really thought that was great and helpful and we had great feedback from this speech.

Then we thought, you know, we’ve always wanted to write a book, we want to share the knowledge we have that might be helpful to independent retailers because they’re facing some tough things right now, with ecommerce and COVID, obviously.

Then you get the big bucks guys out there, but a lot of these independent guys just don’t realize how incredible they are and some of their own superhero powers. What long way to say, it’s our mission to serve people, it is the unmet need of trying to help people figure out how to drive traffic differently and in a better way, and we like to look at ourselves as curators of cool stuff, or guides, and so we were able to take the information, put it into a book, and share what we thought would help people.

Kinsley, is that capturing the gist of it?

Building a Brand that People Love

Mark Kinsley: Yeah, as we got into this–we were in that speech back in February, before COVID shut everything down–we gave the speech and we had about 400 mattress retailers in the room, and we said, “Write down on this three by five notecard an idea that’s actually worked to drive foot traffic into your store.”

We had probably about 80 submissions and everybody that left their email address got that big fat list of ideas emailed to them. So, that really became the genesis of the book because, backing up one more step, the whole reason we gave that speech, to begin with, is that the president of Nationwide, and they have over 5,000 independent retailers as members, the president said that the number one problem facing their dealers is how to drive foot traffic?

So, we said, “Great, we’ll give a speech on that, we have some ideas,” and then out of that speech, we had all these other ideas from the people in the room. We said, “You know what? If this is a consistent problem, we need to do something to help them solve it.”

Then as we got into the book, we realized this is not just about tactics and promotions and ways to get quick hit traffic into your store. We realized that a lot of retailers don’t know who they are, they don’t know what they believe, and so they hesitate to actually push their message out into the world, and take the trumpet up to the top of the mountain and start blowing it, and say come to my store.

Because they’re tentative, they don’t feel like they know who they are or what they should do. So, we put an entire section into the book about how you actually build a brand that people love. So that’s in there as well and it builds on that into building a brand and then driving foot traffic into your stores.

Drew Appelbaum: Now, who is this book for? It’s not just for mattress retailers only, right?

Mark Quinn: That’s the cool thing about this book, Drew. Think about it this way Drew, whatever part of the country you live in, if you just drive down main street and you look into a florist shop, or even a doctor’s office, or a car dealer, or a restaurant, a lot of the experiences that you get are very similar. Not many restaurants do things that are drastically different, they serve food, they have a waiter, they have a person greet you at the door, and then you get a check and you leave, you may have some cocktails while you’re there. Florists, the same thing, you walk in, you buy some flowers, you see some arrangements in the cooler.

The level of creativity for a lot of these independent companies out there just isn’t there, they’re not really differentiating. So, we thought, you know what? It’s kind of the same thing that we’re dealing with in the mattress industry, and in the furniture industry–the ability or the need for them, I should say, to differentiate and create unique experiences and transformations for customers, it’s kind of the same thing.

Even though we write it for the mattress category and the furniture category, the reality is, and we make it clear in the book, it’s not just for them, it’s for anybody out there running a business that wants to understand who they are in a different way, identify levers that can help drive things forward in a more impactful way, and brand themselves.

There’s just a lot of stuff in there that will apply to anybody on the independent retail side.

Mark Kinsley: If you go back to the COVID shutdown periods, there were so many people in communities all across the United States and all across the world who walked outside and went downtown and saw what the world looks like if independent retailers disappear.

Because their communities were shut down, the shops were shuttered. That really crystallized in our minds, that this is what the world looks like if you take away the flavor of a place that’s only brought by independent retailers who are committed to their communities, creative and unique, and add that flavor to a place. So, it’s any shop that wants to drive more foot traffic. Look, we’re not coming up with quick-hit ideas, there’s work to do that this book outlines, but you’re going to be more meaningfully connected to your customers whenever you use the framework and the approaches and the tools and the resources. Really, it’s a book full of principles. We want someone to be able to blow the dust off this cover in 10, 15 years and the principles are still going to apply.

Drew Appelbaum: What do you say to retailers who say, “Hey, I have this great product and people will come to me.” What would they expect when they start investing and building into their brand?

Mark Quinn: Well, it’s a great question, and Kinsley and I look at this as either you are a transactional place to do business, or you can be experiential, or even if you’re really lucky and you work hard at it, transformational. I don’t want a business where I go and you come into my restaurant and you sit at a table and you order food and I serve you food and you leave.

Like, anybody can do that. Instead, I want a restaurant that you come into, you sit down, it’s family-style, and I’ve got a guy walking around with a big bowl full of freshly cooked, incredibly smelling homemade rolls and you can stand up in the restaurant and put your hands up and this guy will throw you a roll from across the room, and you can catch it and drop it or you know, whatever you want to do with it.

Then you can sit down and eat again. But these guys have a waiting list to get into their restaurant on any given day, it could be an hour to get in, and they have the gift shop.

What’s the difference? They understand that fun is part of their brand, they understand that everyone has to have quality food, but also to create a unique experience that makes people fall in love with who you are.

If you walk in, you have this affection towards them, you have this emotional connection to this place where you go with our family and you smile and you have fun, and your son stands up to catch a roll and he drops it in someone’s tea glass or whatever those silly things are. Anyone can be a place where you go in and write a check and sell things, that’s not the game we’re playing.

What we tell independent retailers is, get out of that game, that’s what big-box does, that’s what ecommerce guys do, they are transactional.

If you really want to have an impact, if you really want to drive traffic to your store, then you have to be about something, you have to connect your consumers in your market to who you are, you have to make them fall in love with you, and in order to do that, you have to understand who you are and understand how to communicate that to the community.

Kinsley, what are your thoughts?

Create Meaningful Connections 

Mark Kinsley: It’s experiential and it’s transformational, and Drew, your original question was about, “I have a great product, surely people are going to come.” You should definitely carry great products, you should definitely be intentional about your merchandising, but people can always rip off products, they can always sell cheaper than you. How do you put a defensible moat around your business?

You have to create meaningful connections with your community. It really does come down to that, and how do you do that? You’ve got to build a brand people love, you have to live out that brand, it has to match your culture, and you have to consistently engage.

We have a framework we use called CAGE–community, answers, giving, experiences. When we say become known for one of these, we have a great example in the book of a guy named Jeff Scheuer. Jeff has a mattress store in Shelby Township Michigan. It’s a one store shop and he’s the main guy running it. Meanwhile, over on Jeff’s YouTube channel, he calls himself the beducator.

He uses the answers approach–community, answers, giving, experiences. Jeff is all about providing answers to people who are going through a confusing process. Jeff’s store is called Mattress To Go, but his YouTube channel, the Beducator, has over 1.5 million views on his videos because he’s invested in helping his community and anybody in the world who wants access to good quality information and answers about buying a mattress. They can do it through this channel.

So, it is being intentional about how you are going to position your business and then how you’re going to live that out day to day and do that work consistently over time to create that drip, create that connection, and make it meaningful for the people who need help.

Drew Appelbaum: Now I will step back for a minute and say that I am pretty sure that Quinn just mentioned a Benihana style Italian restaurant, which I would love to see in the future. So, if that is on your radar, please make that happen and I’ll be your first diner.

Mark Quinn: There you go.

Drew Appelbaum: You just brought up one of the examples in your book and you do have a lot of examples and case studies from various business owners. Can you talk us through your favorite one, or maybe your most surprising one that you chose to feature and highlight in the book?

Mark Kinsley: Well I think one of my favorites that really illustrates a lot of the points that we make and the framework, is George and Doris Samaras, Portland Mattress Makers. So this is Portland, Maine, not Oregon. So, George was a customer of ours and I got to work with him on a complete brand overhaul. I remember the same issue that so many retailers have. He didn’t know who he was or how he was going to talk about his business, how he was going to position his business.

Should he be doing sales all the time and promotions or should he not? Should he invest in branding? George and I spent the better part of the year off and on coming up with his identity, his brand, how to position his company, and then how you take that message out into the world and make it meaningful. We like to make sure you can be first in a category. So, whatever that category is, you need to create it, and we’d realized George had the only mattress factory in Maine.

People in Maine are crazy about buying local. There are lots of communities out there that claim that people like to buy local but then they go shop online. Now, people in Portland, Maine, and that area, they are crazy about it. They love buying local. So, we decided, “Oh my gosh, we can prove that Portland Mattress Makers is local by talking about the factory because how can you be local and not have a factory? They have the factory to prove the point.”

We are always talking about, “Hey, we’re family-owned,” that’s what makes us different. Well, you never prove it by putting your family on your website or your advertising. So whatever position you’re going to own, we want you to be able to prove it through something vivid and meaningful. So, we invested in all this branding and messaging around Portland Mattress Makers–their tagline is Sleep Local.

Their factory is featured everywhere and all of their advertising, on their website, and on social media. We had about eight months to roll this out before one of the biggest mattress buying seasons, which is around Memorial Day in May. So that May, George decided, “I am not going to run a sale,” and the previous year he’d had a record May. So, I called him up in late June and I said, “George, how was it? How was your May?” He said, “We did not run a promotion and we were up 25% over the previous record year.”

It was a great case study showing that these ideas, when you do that hard work, when you define yourself, when you position yourself in a category of one, and then you pull all of the leverage you can in your galaxy, it can have real results. In George’s case, it did.

The HATCH Method

Drew Appelbaum: Now, the book is such a fun read. I really enjoyed going through it but sometimes the hardest part, when you read a book like this, is to take that energy and actually get started, but you guys created the HATCH method, which was a way to create new ideas. Can you take us through that method?

Mark Kinsley: HATCH is all about taking the beginnings of ideas and then turning them into something meaningful. What I’ve noticed over the years is people really screw up brainstorms and brainstorms are the beginning and when things go wrong, they often went wrong at the beginning. So, the HATCH method stands for–hold the brainstorm, act crazy, take a nap, choose ideas, hand off to the creative team.

Let’s talk about these first three. So, hold the brainstorm. When you have a brainstorm, you need to set expectations for everybody. No idea gets shut down. We are going to use the comedic method we call “yes and,” so if somebody makes up an idea, throws an idea up against the wall, nobody is going to shut that idea down. For example, “Grandma is wearing mittens made of ice.” “No, no, no, her mittens are made of fire.” Don’t do that.

You say, “Grandma is wearing mittens made of ice,” and the next person says, “Yes, and those mittens made of ice are the size of hot air balloons,” right? So, we build on the momentum, we never shut anything down. The point of a brainstorm is to go for volume of ideas.

Whenever things start getting wacky, that’s why we say the A in HATCH is act crazy. When things start getting wacky and start to feel like they’re going off the rails, that is when you’re starting to push past what’s obvious.

And on the other side of what’s obvious is something surprising. Surprise is the foundation of delight. Surprise is what grabs attention. If you can’t grab somebody’s attention, you can’t make them pay attention to anything that’s important. So, that’s why we want to go for volume of ideas up front. We want you to be as crazy as possible.

Then we want you to take a nap. What we mean by this is only during sleep–we’re a couple of mattress guys here–only during sleep does your brain make connections that are inaccessible during waking hours.

So, you are going to connect to past experiences and you are going to start putting together these little maps in your mind that create “aha moments” and breakthroughs, and that’s why we want you to take a nap or have a night of sleep first before you come back and choose ideas. You are going to see them in a new way and then you are going to have all of the stuff you need to hand off to a creative team and bring this to life.

Mark Quinn: You know just to tag on to that, the reality is for a lot of independent retailers out there, they either lack the creativity or they have it and they just don’t value it enough to slow down and really put some muscle into creating new ideas.

That example of that restaurant with the throwed roll was Lambert’s in Branson, Missouri. How hard is it to come up with an idea to do something like that, to make yourself different and stand out from everybody else?

It is not that difficult and for a lot of our guys out there, you get in this groove–your dad started the company, you grew up inside of it. A lot of these businesses are generational and so you just get in a groove and you are in the forest, so you don’t see the trees. The problem is you are not stopping and pausing and really focusing on, “Hey, how can we do it differently than we’re doing it now?”

Part of this is you have to decide to do things differently. If you don’t do that, that fundamental thing, then you’re never, ever, ever going to get to the really good stuff that comes out of doing things like the HATCH method. So, it’s just important for people to understand that by thinking differently than you do today and really taking some of those ideas and implementing them into what you are doing, that’s where the real magic is. That is how you connect to people in a different way.

You also need to be careful and this is the reason that we wrote the stuff on branding that we did because you have to make sure when you get done with those creative thinking sessions that what you come out of it with, is stuff that fits your brand. You are not trying to execute or place someone else’s gain. If you are a car dealer and sitting on top of an elephant, riding around the lot, screaming the sale, isn’t your personality, then don’t do that. That’s how we look at it.

Driving Foot Traffic

Drew Appelbaum: Now, you guys have such a great forum with your website and the podcast for folks to share their ideas and you have a list of traffic driving ideas at the end of your book, which was made from folks who listen to the podcast and went out there and just tried whatever they could. Can you recall a few of those ideas that you listed and maybe talk about some of your favorites?

Mark Kinsley: I really like PJ Orsini’s approach. He’s got a store in West Virginia and he brought in Traeger Grills and it changed his business. If you think about creating an experience, well, food. Whenever you have a piece of food in your mouth, you’re safe and there’s community. Not often back in our primitive days, if we were getting chased by a lion, we’re probably not going to have a meal, right? You are not going to have a meal and you’re not going to go to the bathroom.

So, whenever you have food in your mouth, it is communal, you’re safe. PJ started putting food in front of people on these Traeger Grills and this was back before everything that is happening with COVID, so that’s changed a little bit. So, he would have cooking demonstrations, he would serve people food and he would actually broadcast these demonstrations live-streamed over his YouTube channel and his Facebook channel and things like that.

So, he was bringing people into the fold. This not only brought people in so they could try out the food and look at the grills, but they buy the pellets and some of the replenishable products that go along with the Traeger. Now he’s created a relationship outside of the selling cycle that could be years and years in between buying appliances or even a grill. So, just thinking about what he has and then also thinking about how to strategically merchandise his products in a way that can continue to drive foot traffic because of those replenishables, and because of those events that Traeger was so good at having.

Mark Quinn: One of my favorites too is Sweet Dreams Mattress and Furniture–Greg and Katy Law. These guys are incredible, and they do a lot of things, they have a lot of contests, they have a lot of consumer interaction with the people in their community. But one of the coolest parts is that they have a superhero and his name is Matt Mann and he helped them in the store, and you can come and meet him.

It is just a lot of fun because people love that, they put him in spots, they have him on social media. Matt Mann attends 5K races and he’s an advocate for better sleep and to fight the injustice of bad sleep and track it down and to crush it and make sure that sleep inhibitors are a thing of the past. So just little fun things like that that people do to create excitement and connection to the customers they serve. Those guys get it right.

Mark Kinsley: I don’t think any conversation about driving foot traffic is complete without talking about Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale. In Houston, Texas he is the second most known person behind George Bush. So, anybody that’s been in Houston, you know Mattress Mack. You probably know him, you probably know him even if you’re outside of Houston. He is a master class in foot traffic and being different and just shamelessly promoting in a way that really connects with people.

He does all kinds of things, everything from when Hurricane Harvey hit, he opened up his store as a shelter. He has a servant’s heart but one of my favorite things he’s done consistently is, “Hey, come in and spend $3,000 or better and if the Houston Astros win the World Series, your furniture is free.” People came in in droves, spent $3,000 on a bed or furniture, and every time that baseball season they watched the Houston Astros game, you know what they thought about?

Furniture from Mattress Mack. Mattresses from him. He created impressions in the home around a positive experience, around a fun event. Now, every time they watch baseball, it triggered a thought and a memory around Mattress Mack. Any time somebody came to their house to watch that baseball game with them, they would say, “You know what? That sofa you are sitting on right there might be free at the end of the season.”

Then Mattress Mack flew around the country placing bets to offset if he was going to have to pay out that money to customers, which created a bunch more press, and he placed one of the largest sports bets in history and generated more and more press, all the while deepening his connection to his consumers in Houston and beyond.

Drew Appelbaum: Was he part of the Houston Astros cheating scandal?

Mark Kinsley: No, no.

Mark Quinn: No, of course not.

Drew Appelbaum: You guys know nothing, right?

Mark Quinn: We know nothing.

Mark Kinsley: Quinn, what do you know? You’re from Houston.

Mark Quinn: I am from Houston and no. That is a definite negative. Mack had nothing to do with that.

Mark Kinsley: He did make a few jokes about it that I saw off and on though.

Mark Quinn: Yes. Well, if you are betting a million dollars on him, you have to be careful of that or two million, you got to be careful that you’re in the clear there. But yeah, no. Mack is a good guy. He’s got Houston down and he’s been a solid citizen of Houston for a long, long time and people there love him, that’s for sure.

Drew Appelbaum: Now final question for you guys, how many tequila shots should readers take while reading this book?

Mark Kinsley: Dos. Dos tequila shots. Actually, maybe dos per chapter.

Mark Quinn: Oh geez, it would make the book better.

Drew Appelbaum: They’d just read it again, you keep forgetting.

Mark Quinn: There you go.

Mark Kinsley: Here is the beauty of co-writing a book. I wrote the good half.

Mark Quinn: No, now come on. Come on. No, I think it’s one to celebrate your beginning, right? Your venture. Action is the answer. So, the minute you crack the seal on that book, then you can celebrate your aggressive posture in your category. You are doing things you need to do. You are reading stuff that is going to help you get to the next level. So that is a reason to celebrate with a tequila shot and then when you’re done, of course, you take a tequila shot to celebrate the fact that you’re now so much more knowledgeable than you were when you first started.

And you take the tequila shot and you let it inspire you. You let it warm you up inside and then you start writing down all of the things you’re going to do because of what you read in the book. I think that’s how it’s going to work.

Drew Appelbaum: It’s the unwritten part of the HATCH method is that there’s somewhere a tequila shot in there.

Mark Quinn: It’s tequila. There is always tequila.

Drew Appelbaum: Well, Mark Quinn, Mark Kinsley, thank you guys so much for coming on the show and writing a book, especially like this one, which will help so many business owners and retailers is no small feat. So, let me tell you, congratulations on publishing.

Mark Kinsley: Thank you very much, Drew.

Mark Quinn: Thank you.

Drew Appelbaum: Now, this is the actual final question. If readers could take only one thing away from the book, what would you want it to be?

Mark Kinsley: Action reveals the answers and what I mean by that is we can think about all of these ideas as long as you want and trust me, I understand a lot of you have been at home for a long time, tucked away in your corner, thinking to yourself, “What do I need to do? How do I save my business? How do I move forward from here?” Action reveals the answers. It’s only after you start doing that you see what needs to be done.

It’s only after you take that first step that you are going to feel what it feels like to walk. So, get out there and do things and it is going to tell you. You don’t even know the right questions to ask unless you start.

Mark Quinn: I love that. It is a very important part of the book and a lot of people are reluctant to change so they may not jump into action. I’d say something to add to that is understanding the business you’re in. So, if you are in it to sell stuff to people, whatever you do, whatever category you’re in, that is definitely a business. But if you’re in it and your intention is to help the people that you serve, to serve people that come into your store, it is not just to sell them something.

But take a minute, if you are selling mattresses, to educate them a little bit about the importance of sleep in their life, about how it makes you feel, about how you can be sick less often because your immune system is better, about how sleep can make you look better, improve your attitude, improve your kid’s memory so they test better. So be intentional about what you are doing and serve those people. Help them solve the problem they have. It is something that they will sense.

They will be able to carve you out of the category where everyone else is just selling stuff and you are actually in it to help them, and they are going to know. Consumers get that. They understand that. They know who is really trying to help them and they know who is trying to sell to them. So be the person that is serving them, and just that one thing can do drastically good things for your business.

Drew Appelbaum: Now this has been a pleasure and I am so excited for people to check out this book. Everyone the book is called, Come Back to Bed, and you can find it on Amazon. Mark and Mark, besides checking out the book, where can people find you?

Mark Kinsley: They can find us at mattresspodcast.com. Like we said, yes, it is the galaxy’s greatest mattress industry podcast, and we have some amazing guests like astronauts, Jesse Cole from the Savannah Bananas, the founder of Mattress Firm, and lots of others. It is just a great campfire that we’ve built that people gather around to tell stories, share ideas, and hopefully walk away with some warmth and encouragement.

Mark Quinn: Or if you’re on Facebook, go to Facebook.com/dosmarkospodcast and we’re there and the podcasts are there and some fun videos and interaction going on.

Drew Appelbaum: Well Mark Quinn, Mark Kinsley, Dos Markos, thank you guys for coming on the show today, and best of luck with your new book.

Mark Kinsley: Thanks a million Drew, appreciate you very much.

Mark Quinn: Thanks, Drew. Appreciate it.