Becky Greene, Furnitureland South

When it comes to furniture, it’s all about building relationships.

Becky Greene has been working with Furnitureland South for 10 years, but in reality she was born into the furniture industry. Her father was an executive in the industry, so she spent her childhood discussing furniture at the dinner table with her family. After her children were in a spot where she could focus on her career, she jumped into home and furnishings and later reconnected with an old friend, Jeff Harris, the CEO of Furnitureland South. The rest, as they say, is history.

For Becky, everything comes back to building relationships. It’s the best part of her job, it’s why she mentors extensively, and it’s what she gets out of her WithIt membership. We talked with Becky about her role as Executive Director of Merchandising at Furnitureland South, her passion for the industry and lessons she’s learned. Read the full interview below.

Q&A

How long have you been with Furnitureland South? How did you find your start there?

I grew up in North Carolina in the furniture industry. I’m the second generation of a furniture executive. My father was involved in the leadership of several case good companies. After I graduated from college and was raising a young family, I began working with my father in any capacity that he needed. I helped design and set up showrooms, I did focus groups with case good manufacturers, I assisted in sales.  Most importantly, I learned how to look at product and determine what is important to good, sellable design.  

When I finally got my children to a point where I could take off in my career, I got a job as a sub rep in the furniture industry working for a case good rep, and then I started picking up my own lines. Being a multi-line furniture representative taught me so much, and I got to spend time with retailers and designers.  The other interesting fun fact is that I grew up with Jeff Harris, the CEO of Furnitureland South. We’ve known each other for years and our fathers were contemporaries in the industry. He reached out to me and asked if I wanted to get into the retail side of the business, and I said yes. That’s how I ended up going from the wholesale side to the retail side. 

It was really beneficial for me to see all facets of the industry. When you’re a sales representative, you come to appreciate and understand a lot of what’s happening with your competition. I sold to interior designers all over North and South Carolina, so I got to learn a lot about what’s important to different people. I think you have to understand and appreciate the needs of people in the industry, and not everyone does things the same way. Over the last decade I have spent the majority of my time learning and building relationships. So much of what I do involves having the right relationships with the right people and making sure I’m being a good partner. A lot of what I do is building and strengthening relationships at the vendor level. 

What makes Furnitureland South different?

Well, we like to say we’re the Disney World of furniture stores. We represent over 500 active vendors. We are a luxury furniture destination – destination is the key word. We have the most beautiful furniture showrooms at the retail level in the country. We want our guests to have a world-class shopping experience and we want to be a turn-key solution.  They don’t need to go anywhere else to keep shopping. 

We’re a little bit different than a lot of furniture stores. We are all about the brand. We don’t try to hide the brand, we are transparent in what we’re selling and what we’re selling it for. It’s a little different strategy. My merchandising strategy is to put a fair price on the best possible product. In most cases, we have the largest and most attractive display of their furniture of any store in the nation. 

What does a typical day look like for you?

Number one, we analyze a lot of data. Every day I’m analyzing data, meeting with buyers about sales results, margins and volume expectations. Basically, we spend a lot of time saying, ‘What do we need to do to refresh our sales floor to make sure people have the best experience?’ I stay on top of what’s working and not working. We have 1.3 million square feet of showroom space, so that’s a big chunk of our day. I also spend a lot of time meeting with our vendors about mutual expectations. Those meetings are not always about picking pretty products, it’s really about dialing into the relationship and saying how can we both make adjustments to move the needle. 

I also spend a lot of time mentoring.  I have a very large team, and the designers that design the spaces report to me, so they present plans for every single installation. I give a lot of feedback on how to grow in their skills and their experience. I have a decent number of new-to-the industry interior designers who work for me and I work with them to help them grow and keep producing beautiful furniture displays. I also do a lot of training with our sales people. I work with them on how to present products in a way that encourages a guest to have an emotional connection to the experience.  I try to share my passion and give them tips to sell more furniture. 

I’m also responsible for all of our inventory and helping to pull through sales for our returns and credits. A lot of my day is how fast can we get product on the floor, how should we sell it, how much can we sell it for. We have to maximize profitability and maintain volume. I think a lot of people think when you’re in charge of merchandising it’s just buying things and making it look pretty. That’s the easy part. The hard part is making sure that I can take an operation as large as Furnitureland and make pricing decisions to make sure we can be competitive but also make money. I’m constantly analyzing our profitability and figuring out how we can increase that.

What makes you passionate about the work you do?

I guess you could say that furniture has always been a part of my life.  Some families sit at the dinner table and talk about sports or current events… we sat at the table and talked about furniture. It’s a fashion industry. I’m in love with the fashion in it, I’m very passionate about it. I also grew up in North Carolina, and I grew up in a time when furniture was a huge part of supporting the livelihood of so many families.  I have a definite heart-string connection to being in an industry that supports NC employers, and I know that what we do helps to take care of those families. I feel a sense of obligation and heartfelt connection to families in North Carolina who want to keep doing this kind of work – the artisans who make the furniture, the fabric people, the people who design furniture. I think we affect thousands of families and it means a lot to me. If we’re successful, they’re successful. It’s a passion, but it’s also a sense of responsibility.

What’s a lesson you’ve learned during your professional career?

One of the things I’ve learned, when I got started in this business and even when I grew up in this business, is that women were a nominal part of management decisions. I had to learn to navigate that. It’s one thing to disagree with the premise, it’s another thing to be a part of affecting change. What led me to WithIt was how cool it was that we finally have an organization that recognizes that women are getting more and more involved in the industry. We need to mentor women so we can continue to develop the careers of women in the industry. 

When I started in the furniture industry, I would go to meetings where I was the only woman at a table of 20 men. It was sometimes daunting, but I stuck with it!  One of the things I’ve learned is that there’s a big seat for women at the table, maybe even the host’s chair, but we have to manage it the right way. That means we have to get in there and do the hard work. You can’t just go in there and blow everything up and expect change. I had to earn respect.

Even though I knew I understood the industry, I had to prove myself. Sometimes it was frustrating, but I learned it’s a marathon not a sprint. There’s not a lot of things I can contribute, but I also need to be willing to listen. I learned to be a little more patient than I wanted to be. I learned to assert myself, but I also learned to assert myself in the right way. You can’t be intimated. I also think that I had to be super self-confident, even sometimes when I didn’t feel super confident. I will say just in the past 20 years, so much has changed, and I’m so proud of where we have come from but I know there’s a lot more work to be done.

My challenge to women would be this: I think we’ve gotten to the point that we are now through a lot of mutual support of one another, but I think we have to be careful that we don’t segregate ourselves. It’s not us against them, it’s not the women against men, because we won’t get very far with that. One of the things that I count as a blessing is the men that I have as my peers and my partners, because when you have the respect of men and women, then you really have it. We no longer have to ask to be at the table, we are at the table. Now let’s forge these relationships across the pond. 

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