One of the most successful retail businesses that grew from a single shop into a much loved and highly profitable multi-unit concept is The Container Store.
The business began in 1978 by selling all sorts of boxes, bins and doodads to help people organize all their stuff. Today, they have grown to 60 locations all over the United States with revenues around $750 million.
The Container Store is a classic category killer concept that has carved a niche in the retail world by following seven foundation principles. Kip Tindell, co-founder and ceo of The Container Store, has finally published a book detailing the principles behind the success of The Container Store.
Over the next two weeks, the Brand Autopsy blog will be sharing summaries of each principle The Container Store follows to achieve its long-lasting success. We’ll address important retail business matters from hiring to training to leadership to vendor relations.
Let’s start with The Container Store hiring philosophy…
1 Great Person equals 3 Good People
Finding great employees isn’t easy for any business. It helps to have the reputation The Container Store has to attract great employees. Many people want to work there, but less than 3.0% of the people who apply to become front-line employees at The Container Store get hired. Once hired, people rarely leave. The Container Store enjoys an unheard of store-level employee turnover rate of less than 10%.
One of the long-standing hiring principles practiced by The Container Store is 1=3. As in, one great employee will do the work of three good people.
The company is very selective in whom they choose to hire. They strive to hire only GREAT employees and they pay them well. The typical full-time frontline salesperson at the Container Store makes nearly $50,000 a year, that’s about double the industry average. Payroll as a percentage of sales at the store level is 11.5%. That’s high, much higher than most retailers would dare to do.
Kip Tindell explains why paying employees more works…
“Our approach to payroll is easy to justify because we are convinced that our 1=3 approach really works. Our employee wins, because she is making far more than anyone else than another company is likely to pay her for that position. The Container Store wins, because it gets three times the productivity at only 50 to 100 percent more the cost. And the customer wins because they have this superb salesperson who actually cares about working in the store.”
The Container Store believes it can pay its employees twice as much and still come out ahead because one great employee is as productive as three good employees.
It’s not easy to get hired by The Container Store. The interview process is time-consuming. It begins with an online application. A phone interview is next for those that make the initial cut. From there, candidates are given a homework assignment and brought in for a group interview. Then, a variety of one-on-one personal interviews take place. This entire process takes time but The Container Stores takes this time in order to find GREAT employees.
Hiring the right employees and paying them well is at the center of The Container Store’s success. Kip Tindell believes, “When you surround yourself with hugely talented, passionate, dedicated, and genuinely kind people, you will succeed in whatever you do—there’s no doubt in my mind about that.”