Good Wood

REVIEW SUMMARY
Individual. Ann Jackson, CEO, Rockler Woodworking and Hardware
Industry. Retail, hardware
Key. Jackson has been at the helm of her family's woodworking supply business since 1985.

In what was mostly an idyllic childhood, one memory sticks out for Ann Jackson, back in 1958 when she was 8 years old.

That was when she got her first job at her father's mail-order woodworking supply business in Minneapolis. Her father, Nordy Rockler, launched the business in 1954. Four years later he needed someone to open envelopes.

Jackson loved it. She worked with her cousins, and she developed an affinity for the details that make a business go. She especially enjoyed studying invoices. Says Jackson: “It was always a cozy place.”

Complex replaced cozy over the ensuing decades.

In fact, the firm has grown from one location, five full-time employees and a folksy catalog in the 1950s to an extensive e-commerce site and 29 retail stores nationwide in 2012. It now has 500 employees, with a focus on both professional woodworkers and people in it for a hobby. Products range from lumber and veneer to hinges and knobs. It's a global business, too, with customers in places like Germany, Australia and Britain.

It's also a big business: Now based in Medina, Minn., a Minneapolis suburb, Rockler Woodworking and Hardware had more than $100 million in sales last year. It distributes nearly 10 million catalogs every year.

Now 62, Jackson joined Rockler fulltime in 1969, was promoted to president in 1974 and took on CEO duties in 1985. Jackson, who has a vacation property on the Gulf Coast, was the keynote speaker at a recent daylong seminar/boot camp for women entrepreneurs in Sarasota. The Gulf Coast Community Foundation and SunTrust Bank underwrote the event, which was held at the Lido Beach Resort.

Jackson spoke with the Business Review prior to her speech, on topics from her career and mentors to advice and how to survive four decades in a family business. Here are excerpts of the conversation:

Q. How has the company balanced the line between its roots in a friendly Midwestern catalog business and the realities of a $100 million enterprise spread through nearly 30 states?
A. We try, but we're not always successful putting the customer first. But that's really important. Our catalog sales reps are so committed to the customers, that a couple started crying (during a recent software conversion) because we weren't giving the normal service that we always do. When you call us, you get a human being. You don't go press 1 or press 2. Personal service is really important to us.

Q. What steps have you taken to personally emphasize customer service from the corporate office level?
A. Everybody in the home office knows that if there's ever a customer who wants to talk to me, they can pull me out of any meeting because that's the most important person.

Q. How has customer service improved at the company over the years?
A. A couple of years ago we listened to some of the (customer service) phone calls. The catalog sales reps took care of issues promptly and efficiently, but didn't say 'I'm sorry.' And that's a really a good thing to say to people. So now if we make a mistake, we all say we are sorry.

Q. What are some key management lessons you have learned in your career?
A. This is a cliche, but it's a real cliche: Hire people smarter than yourself. The reason that it's true is not that I have a low IQ and everybody is smarter than me. But everybody is smarter than me in something. I can tell you the marketing guy is way smarter than me in marketing, and the IT guy is way smarter than me in IT. You just have to make enough money to pay for those people. And it took me a while to do that.

Q. What lessons have you learned in hiring people, given the company has grown from five to 500 employees since you took over in 1974?
A. All of us tend to hire fast and fire slow. But the real talent is to hire slow, but fire fast. If you have a poison apple in your company you are going to get a lot of damage. In my 42 years at this company we've had two or three really big poison apples, but on the other hand we've had people that are so sweet and kind and wonderful, but are totally incompetent. You need to fire them fast, too.

Q. Is that difficult for you to execute?
A. I'm not particularly hard-hitting. I really like the people I work with. You read about some CEOs letting people go right and left, but that's not really our culture.

Q. How do you avoid hiring mistakes?
A. A lot of it is to just clearly communicate the goals. We changed our goal process a couple of years ago. We now have quarterly reviews. We review the job description and it's much tighter now.

Q. What are some of your weaknesses as a leader?
A. There's an old woodworker saying, measure twice, cut once. That just means you need to be patient. But I'm not a patient person.

Q. Who are your business mentors?
A. My father, the founder of the business. He really has a passion for the products. I would say I have more of a passion for the business, but I'm proud of the products. I'm not a fine woodworker. I know what good woodworking is, and I appreciate the skills. My late brother was also a mentor. We were partners for 13 years. He passed away at 33.

Q. What advice do you give to aspiring leaders?
A. Always join professional organizations. When you grow up in a family-owned business and you don't get the polish that you would in a publicly held company, it's really great to be in a network organization. Even as a kid, I was in a lot of organizations. Also, find a mentor and do the mentoring.

Q. How have you handled the challenges of being a woman in an industry traditionally dominated by men?
A. It was never challenging or difficult, but there are people who would come up to me and say, 'hey, are you a secretary?' I was very young when I started, so there was probably more ageism than sexism. But I was always pretty good at numbers. My father was really great at forecasting sales and I could do the rest.