The Home Depot

Home Depot

The people originally behind Home Depot:

Bernie Markus - Jewish. Father was a carpenter. Taught him that you have to have money. You can't live without it. His service strength and cheerleading skills were inspirational to employees. Learned how to learn from other's stories of success and failure.

Arthur Blank - Lived with less in life. Father died when Arthur was 14. He played offense and defense in football. Got straight A's & senior class president. Was a jock and played a strong game. Had strength and organization.

Ken Langone - gave 2 million to the entrepreneur's idea and owned 70% of the company. He had the finances and knew how to get the money to support the good idea.

Pat Fareth - Came up with the idea of Home Depot essentially, but failed to run his own company. He ended up going bankrupt, and the young company hired him. He became in charge of marketting. He knew how to sell.

Home Depot was successful because the owners listened to the reviews of the customers. They took the customer's advice for a better run company. They tapped into a new trend of "do it yourself" thinking. They had good product. Low prices. Efficient brands. Home Depot was an idea hatched in a coffee shop that thrived. The people working were kind and helpful, and had so much fun, that they didn't feel like going home after the long day. Price, Assortment and service defined Home Depot.

So what? What does all this information on Home Depot actually say between the lines? Well, what it means to me, is that if you run a company that caters to people's wants and needs, and being courteous and helpful about it - chances are that people will come back. They kept on developing the idea of this wonderful company, even though it was inconvenient for them and they didn't like it.