Built for Growth: "Expanding Your Business Around

the Corner or Across the Globe"

by Arthur Rubinfeld and Collins Hemingway

Reviewed by Henry Holtzman

            Arthur Rubinfeld's long suit is retail business. As the executive vice president of Starbuck's, he was the architect of the company's spectacular growth from 100 stores to 4,000 locations around the world. Based on that track record he has opened his own consulting business to advise retail owners and executives on brand positioning, strategic growth, designing a retail firm, and operating retail at a profit.

            Although that sounds like a rather large banquet of concepts to digest in one book, Rubinfeld believes this comprehensive approach is essential to success. He calls it an "holistic approach to retailing."

            To bring forward each of the ideas they present in a structured way, co-authors Rubinfeld and Hemingway have created four lines which they call parts. These are:

• Part I, Make No Little Plans…have the imagination, courage and drive to believe that you can become a nationwide brand.

• Part II, Go Long…the phrase, which originated in football…is a strategy designed to rack up points (profits) and quickly put the game out of reach of would-be competitors.

• Part III, Own Main & Main…..it's an expression we used at Starbucks to describe any urban street corner that offered high-customer traffic counts, great visibility, and high quality co-tenancy (quality companies located around us).

• Part IV, Push the Envelope..shows how a retailer can maintain brand leadership over time.

            The heart of the authors holistic approach are three steps that they believe "ensures the right combination of creativity and discipline." Rubinfeld comments: "The holistic approach is to ideate, create, and execute. I usually express them as a unit, like this—-ideatecreateexecute—-because they relate so closely and one flows out of the other seamlessly. To ideate is the act of generating ideas, to imagine all the different possibilities for your business…. To create is the next step, which is to develop a specific business solution that embodies your concept and expresses your values and brand. To execute is to carry out your plan.”

            One of the book’s most interesting chapters is titled “The Importance of Your First Store.” Rubinfeld points out that the budding retailer learns all the lessons of business here. It’s a sink or swim situation. For example, he puts a unique twist on the old maxim of a store’s location. He states:

            “I have met many entrepreneurs who say that they specifically selected an ‘off-target’ location because they wanted to be able to perfect the concept quietly before presenting it to the market. Nonsense! In these cases, the rent is lower, but so what? You still must pay your employees and your operating costs, as well as the rent, lower or not. The only thing you are likely to ‘perfect’ in a sub-par location is bankruptcy. Rule Number One is: Always open your first store in the best location. Rule Number Two is: See Rule Number One.”

            Perhaps the heart of the book is Chapter 12, “How to Grow Rapidly Without Stamping.” It deals with applying the entire holistic approach – from creativity to discipline – to create growth. To make the point, Rubinfeld recalls the response in the early 1970s of Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart. When asked why he had opened stores all over Arkansas, except in the state’s capital, Walton answered, “If your choice was to put one store in Little Rock and compete with Sears, JCPenney’s, and Montgomery Ward, or to put 75 stores in the county seats without competition, which would you do?” Conventional wisdom would have limited Walton to a slow-growth or no-growth situation, and he knew it.

            “Built for Growth” may not be the ultimate book about retail business, but it is certainly a fresh look at retail.