ABOUT RON THURSTON:

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rthurston/

Websites:

Retail Pride book: https://www.amazon.com/Retail-Pride-Celebrating-Accidental-Career/dp/1544515928

OSSY: https://www.useossy.com

Retail In America podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/retail-in-america/id1618323713

Ron Thurston's Bio:

Ron Thurston's life mission is to celebrate, elevate, and empower the people and spirit of the retail industry.
With over three decades of leading retail stores and operations for top American brands like Gap, West Elm, Apple, Tory Burch, Bonobos, and Saint Laurent, Ron has honed an extensive skill set in retail strategy, management, and innovation.

In January 2024, Ron co-founded OSSY, a forward-thinking retail recruiting agency. This venture is dedicated to addressing the biggest hiring and recruiting challenges in retail, reinforcing Ron’s unwavering commitment to the industry.

As the best-selling author of RETAIL PRIDE, Ron inspires retail professionals to embrace their unique career paths. He also hosted the RETAIL IN AMERICA podcast and tour, journeying across the nation in an Airstream trailer during 2022/2023 to uncover and highlight the remarkable stories and individuals in retail.

Ron also serves on the Advisory Boards of several rapidly growing retail tech companies, including Ometria, Butterfly, and YOOBIC, lending his expertise to drive their success.

SHOW INTRO:

Welcome to the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast.

EPISODE 71… and my conversation with Ron Thurston, retail veteran, best-selling author, podcast host and man on a mission to celebrate, elevate, and empower the people and spirit of the retail industry.

On the podacast our dynamic dialogues based on our acronym DATA - design, architecture, technology, and the arts crosses over disciplines but maintains a common thread of people who are passionate about the world we live in and human’s influence on it, the ways we craft the built environment to maximize human experience, increasing our understanding of human behavior and searching for the New Possible.

The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD Magazine part of the Smartwork Media family of brands.

VMSD brings us, in the brand experience world, the International Retail Design Conference. The IRDC is one of the best retail design conferences that there is bringing together the world of retailers, brands and experience place makers every year for two days of engaging conversations and pushing the discourse forward on what makes retailing relevant.

You will find the archive of the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast on VMSD.com.

Thanks also goes to Shop Association the only global retail trade association dedicated to elevating the in-store experience.

SHOP Association represents companies and affiliates from 25 countries and brings value to their members through research, networking, education, events and awards. Check then out on SHOPAssociation.org

In this 70th episode I talk with Samar Younes is a Beirut-born hybrid artist, futurist, and creative catalyst whose work embodies a transcultural approach.

Ron Thurston has spent years opening stores for major internationally recognized brands and knows a thing or two about a career in retail. In our talk we dig into the shifting the mindset of retail being an accidental career to one of choice, about with you should be proud.

We’ll get to all that in a moment but first though, a few thoughts…

* * *

Throughout my career in the retail design world I have often heard this statement “I never planned to be in retail”.

And it's often said with some slight lilt of apology, that in a way somehow as an architect it was somehow not taken quite as seriously as the design of public buildings or housing or other things that architects with a capital “A” do.

What's more, when I entered into the retail design world, quite by serendipity I might add, I came into the design of stores by way of visual merchandising. I was the resident architect of a small 4 personn design and visual merchandising consulting firm on 36th street just east of Park.

Working with a couple of seasoned pros, I learned that visual merchandisers were often regarded simply as window trimmers and I don't think quite got the respect that they were due for the power they had in shaping the retail experience for customers.

Often seen as the silent seller, visual merchandising was a key component to how the customer journey unfolded in a shopping experience. Mannequins and other displays in the store added that extra flavor to the store as a stage set in which the merchandise was the principal actor.

Architecture wasn’t unimportant, but it wasn’t the be all and end all of the in-store experience. You could have terrific architecture but if you couldn't get your assortment planning right department layouts an in store messaging you were likely not to perform quite as well.

It was through my first employer and mentor Joe Weishar of New Vision Studios in New York that I began to really understand the power of visual merchandising in the store designers toolbox

and that it couldn't be simply left to be an afterthought but had to be integral to the initial strategic design thinking of how a store would be laid out.

Where those special moments of surprise and delight would occur often had little to do with architecture but a lot to do with theatrics, art, marketing, graphics – in short, storytelling.

Going back to that comment a moment ago about serendipity finding me and putting me firmly in the world of retail design, it does very much align with the often heard message that “I didn't plan to be in retail.” It is in fact true, that one now is an architecture I had no awareness and probably no interest in designing stores for a living.

But, that said, I actually had no shame about being in retail.

Retail combined all the things that I loved:

stage set design, industrial design architecture, marketing, consumer behavior, trend analysis, fashion and advertising - all of these disciplines came together in the experience that a brand or retailer would provide for their customers.

The fact of the matter is, that the exchange of goods and services otherwise know as ‘retail,’ is one of the key cornerstones of cultures around the world.

Exchange has always been tied with ideas and that makes it extremely powerful. And, these ideas change over time influenced by the comings and goings of merchants and trends and technologies.

It seems to me, and this comes from someone who was educated trained and licensed as an architect, that retail locations are probably more frequented by the general population than are the major civic buildings that would have been typically called “architecture” in the past.

Think about it, when was the last time that you went to a post office, a library, an Opera House, a government building, a church, synagogue, or mosque or a courthouse?

When did you last walk the campus of a university or visit a museum?

And I am sure that there are some of you who will say well I did all of those yesterday but I'd also hazard a guess that they would be in the minority.

now, when was the last time you went to a store a shopping mall a department store or used your phone to buy something from Amazon or some other online company?

The point here is that shopping is so deeply ingrained in our everyday lives that it's inextricably tied to how we come to understand the world around us.

Shopping places therefore are important and even though many people who work in the retail space find their way there as a transition between the end of one semester and the beginning of another.

Students or younger members of our society are not the only people who find meaningful work in retail and who ultimately end up building their entire careers around working for retailer or brand or some company in the design and construction industry who's connected to designing and building stores.

And somehow our society has often placed a judgment on what type of retail you might likely be engaged in.

I have often heard the position that price point of product is somehow equated to pride in a sales associate’s work or price of products being a precursor to better service but this should not be the case. Experiences in retail stores should not be better if the products it sells are expensive.

Service should be excellent across the product price spectrum of retail experiences.

In fact we've all probably had experiences where being in high priced stores did not render necessarily better service.

The point is that you need to strip away what you sell and deliver high levels of experience regardless of the product or the service that you're providing to your customers.

Providing great service often has to do with how people connect to others and the level of emotional intelligence that sales associates bring to their job every day. Which also suggests that the way we train sales associates in customer interaction protocols might likely be less about the rubric of sequential steps on how to connect – first you do this, say that, then do this, and say that – but might likely be more effective if you train on why we all need emotionally resonant, empathic connection – how empathy is built into our collective DNA.

And this is where my guest, Ron Thurston comes into the story.

Ron suggests that empathy, curiosity and focus translate into every job in retail. He believes that we need to teach human connection rather than sales training. I would bet that most of us can spot the ‘sales pitch’ a mile away. We could almost speak the script because we have been exposed to it too many times.

Ron Thurston's life mission is to celebrate, elevate, and empower the people and spirit of the retail industry.

Core to his philosophy is to stop referring to your career in retail as “accidental” because you diminish you own power. Its ok to say “I choose to be the best sales associate, leader or stock person and I am proud of my role in the world of retail.”

With over three decades of leading retail stores and operations for top American brands like Gap, West Elm, Apple, Tory Burch, Bonobos, and Saint Laurent, Ron has honed an extensive skill set in retail strategy, management, and innovation.

In January 2024, Ron co-founded OSSY, a forward-thinking retail recruiting agency. This venture is dedicated to addressing the biggest hiring and recruiting challenges in retail, reinforcing Ron’s unwavering commitment to the industry.

As the best-selling author of RETAIL PRIDE, Ron inspires retail professionals to embrace their unique career paths. He also hosted the RETAIL IN AMERICA podcast and tour, journeying across the nation in an Airstream trailer during 2022/2023 to uncover and highlight the remarkable stories and individuals in retail.

I was happy to catch up with Ron Thurston after his key note presentation at the SHOP Marketplace event and sit down for a great talk…

* * *

ABOUT DAVID KEPRON:

LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b

Websites: https://www.davidkepron.com (personal website)

vmsd.com/taxonomy/term/8645 (Blog)

Email: david.kepron@NXTLVLexperiencedesign.com

Twitter: DavidKepron

Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidkepron/

NXTLVL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nxtlvl_experience_design/

Bio:

David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand ‘why’, ‘what’s now’ and ‘what’s next’. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.

David is a former VP - Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriott’s “Premium Distinctive” segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.

In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.

As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.

David currently shares his experience and insight on various industry boards including: VMSD magazine’s Editorial Advisory Board, the Interactive Customer Experience Association, Sign Research Foundation’s Program Committee as well as the Center For Retail Transformation at George Mason University.

He has held teaching positions at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.

In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: “Retail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven World” and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon. David also writes a popular blog called “Brain Food” which is published monthly on vmsd.com.

The NXTLVL Experience Design podcast is presented by VMSD magazine and Smartwork Media. It is hosted and executive produced by David Kepron. Our original music and audio production is by Kano Sound.

The content of this podcast is copywrite to David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design. Any publication or rebroadcast of the content is prohibited without the expressed written consent of David Kepron and NXTLVL Experience Design.

Make sure to tune in for more NXTLVL “Dialogues on DATA: Design Architecture Technology and the Arts” wherever you find your favorite podcasts and make sure to visit vmsd.com and look for the tab for the NXTLVL Experience Design podcast there too.

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