Lessons learned

Brian Crowley
Position: Senior vice president and CFO, Beall's Inc.
Age: 49
Years with Beall's: 3
Previous experience: Robb & Stucky, Tervis, Macy's, Federated

Brian Crowley has worked for a retailer that filed for bankruptcy, furniture chain Robb & Stucky, so he knows the pain of the recession.

At Beall's, where Crowley is CFO, he's learned that a company, even a big one in a tight-margin industry, can succeed without over-relying on debt. “We are conservative, pragmatic and humble,” says Crowley. “But we are also entrepreneurial. We aren't afraid to take risks.”

Crowley says he's a fiscally conservative person by nature, so it hasn't been a stretch to fit in at Beall's. He especially likes the in-it-together attitude among fellow senior executives. “There is a collegial spirit here,” he says. “At Macy's you don't have that sense of family.”

Crowley says while he can explain the intricacies of how each unit is run, the particulars of the culture are tougher to describe in words. In general, it's about doing, not talking, and the kind of integrity that's on when no one is watching. “We live these core values,” he says. “It's not just a bumper sticker.”

But like several other senior leaders, Crowley says it's a mistake to confuse the Beall's culture with being soft. Crowley says Beall's Chairman Bob Beall proves that you can be successful at both. When Crowley met Beall in the job interview process, for example, he was surprised at how flat-out nice and unintimidating the accomplished retailer is. Yet, says Crowley, Beall is a “fierce competitor who comes to win.”

Dan Doyle
Position: Senior vice president, chief human resources officer, Beall's Inc.
Age: 57
Years with Beall's: 25
Previous experience: Lord & Taylor, Marshall Fields

Dan Doyle doesn't sell any clothes, design any racks or man the checkout aisle, but he could have one of the most demanding and important jobs at Beall's.

Doyle oversees the company's new hires — and who doesn't get hired. That's important, certainly, in any company. But at Beall's, with 12,000 employees, the pressure is high on Doyle and his team. Their mission: Build a company of people who “get it” when it comes to the firm's well-established culture of do what's right because it's the right thing to do.

Doyle, married to Beall's Outlet Stores senior executive Tianne Doyle, first looks for a quality sometimes hard to find when he hires anyone, in any department: financial prudence.

“I like to look for people who will treat the resources here as if it's their own company,” says Doyle. “I try to make all my decisions starting with that.”

Doyle says he and his team then let potential hires know what the company is about, and why the culture works. If a new hire doesn't fit that, then he or she usually isn't there for long.
“We are a humble organization,” says Doyle. “We are servant leader driven. We are not a bunch of screamers and yellers.”

Steve Knopik
Position: CEO, Beall's Inc., Beall's Outlet Stores, Beall's Department Stores
Age: 59
Years with Beall's: 31
Previous experience: KPMG

When Steve Knopik was hired to run the finance department at Beall's, in 1984, the company had about $100 million in annual sales. Its corporate office was in a backroom of a Bradenton store.

More than three decades later, Knopik now oversees a $1.29 billion business, where a team of a dozen or so senior executives reports to him. Appointed CEO in 2006, Knopik is the first non-Beall family member to run the company. The corporate office has moved, to a larger space, and the company now has more than 12,000 employees.

But to Knopik, the lessons he's learned at Beall's about retailing and business hold, no matter the year or size of the company. Among the top: A great leader is humble, accessible and even-handed.

Knopik's mentors are Bob Beall, the chairman of the board, and Bob Beall's father, E.R. Beall. Says Knopik: “The thing I like about how the Bealls have run the business is each of them is a study in humility.”

A Sarasota native, Knopik came to the company after seven years with accounting firm KPMG in Tampa. But even a trained numbers guy like Knopik was surprised, and impressed, with the fiscal discipline that defines executive decisions at Beall's. The key: recognizing the difference between wants and needs in a company where cash flow governs growth, not debt.

Knopik says failing to stick to that philosophy has real consequences. He cites Winn-Dixie as one example of many companies that grew too fast and too wide, and relied on debt, only to eventually run into problems.

“You never have enough cash flow to do everything you want to do,” says Knopik, “So you have to sort through what you can do for the short term and what you can do for the long term.”

Dan Love
Position: President, Beall's Inc.
Age: 51
Years with Beall's: 9
Previous experience: May Co., Federated, Macy's and LL Bean. Came up on the financial side of the retail business, was CFO of Federated in his 30s.

The corporate culture at Beall's — from integrity to a fiscally conservative mindset to just flat out being nice to colleagues and customers — is innate, says Beall's Inc. President Dan Love.

“It's not something you can really practice and learn,” Love says.

The best thing about the culture, he says, is it makes Beall's a great place to work. While he's had memorable experiences at other career stops, at Beall's Love has learned the delicate balance of being detail-oriented without micromanaging, and mixing humility with a competitive streak.

That kind of deft business acumen, says Love, stems from Beall's Chairman Bob Beall. It filters down to the 11-person senior executive committee, which Love is on. “We don't waste time being contentious with each other,” says Love. “We don't have factions.”

The company, says Love, also doesn't have breakdowns over who or what department gets credit for a task or accomplishment. At companies as big as Beall's, he says that's an unusual achievement. “I love that our people aren't in silos,” Love says. “It's a major competitive advantage.”

Dave Massey
Position: Senior vice president, chief information officer, Beall's Inc.
Age: 57
Years with Beall's: 5
Previous experience: Federated and Macy's for 28 years. Also worked for Ohio-based retailers Lazarus and Shillito Rike.

Beall's executive Dan Love called his friend and onetime Macy's colleague Dave Massey in summer 2010, when the economy was in the dumps, with an intriguing offer: Leave the comfort of Macy's, where Massey worked for nearly three decades, to oversee technology at Beall's.

Massey, at first, balked.

He didn't want to leave his job during the downturn. And while he heard of Beall's, and respected Love, he wasn't sure going to a private company in a recession was his best career move. Says Massey: “You hear and read about a lot of private retailers having a hard time surviving.”

But Beall's, Massey has learned, is a “different kind of private company.”

The spotlight is on Massey at Beall's, given he oversees technology. On the one hand he protects the firm against cyber threats. But he also aims to merge the old way of thinking about IT, from a help-desk and hardware perspective, to what he calls business technology. The latter is where tech people work with individual departments on technology needs, not the other way around.

Massey says a major aspect of Beall's that's impressed him is the ability to do more with less but not get swept away in the stress of that kind of pressure. “We are nimble, fast and can make quick decisions,” he says. “But there is still a lot of collaboration and open dialogue.”

Tianne Doyle
Position: Senior vice president, chief merchandising officer, Beall's Outlet Stores
Age: 50
Years with Beall's: 25
Previous experience: Macy's

Tampa native Tianne Doyle knew she was headed for a career in retail after she graduated from Florida State.

Doyle's grandmother is Helen Cabrera, who owns an iconic dress shop in Tampa, Helen Cabrera's on Armenia Avenue. With Cabrera as a mentor, Doyle thought she would run her own store, or even a retail company someday.

And in a way she does own her own business, in her current job at the helm of merchandising for the Beall's outlet stores division, which encompasses 449 stores in 16 states. Doyle oversees a team of 130 employees who work with vendors worldwide and do everything from product sourcing to shipping to allocations on products in stores.

Doyle, married to Beall's executive Dan Doyle, believes the culture at Beall's has succeeded for a century because the people in the company protect it with fierce loyalty. “What's really great is Beall's lets people own their own business,” says Doyle, because the company provides wide latitude to make decisions, succeed and sometimes fail. “There is a real entrepreneurial sprit here. It's expected.”

Like many fellow senior executives, Doyle relishes the just-do-it approach at Beall's, where action trumps bureaucracy. For example, the company has multiple test-and-measure projects going on at once, from materials to product placement, at pockets of 20 outlet stores nationwide. It uses that data to make decisions — not let it sit in analysis. “(Chairman) Bob Beall says let's not let great get in the way of good,” says Doyle. “And I believe in that.”

Doyle says one misconception people sometimes have about Beall's is that the unassuming vibe equates to being boring. Not so, she says. “We like to celebrate wins,” she says, “but we leave our egos at the door.”

Cliff Walters
Position: On Beall's Inc. board since 1984. Attorney and principal with Blalock Walters in Bradenton.
Age: 65

Bradenton attorney Cliff Walters can easily list the business and life lessons he's learned form his long association with Beall's Inc. and the Beall family. Walters has been an attorney for the company, on leases and other corporate matters, since the mid-1970s, and he's been on the retailer's board of directors since 1984. He's a close friend of Beall's Chairman Bob Beall.

Walters' lessons-learned list includes:

An aversion to debt, something practiced for decades at Beall's.

The long-term value of surrounding yourself with people smarter than you — not just saying it, but doing it. “Realize your success is dependent on others,” says Walters. “You are not as brilliant as you think.”

Keep everything in perspective, no matter the obstacles. “Don't overreact,” he says. “It's never as good as you hoped or as bad as you feared.”

The Beall's culture, what Walters calls “frankness, unpretentiousness, but absolutely honesty,” is the best way to run a business. “Don't take yourself too seriously,” Walters says. “But take your business very seriously.”

An ability to make decisions, sometimes with incomplete data. “Don't overanalyze,” was one of E.R Beall's favorite quotes, Walters recalls.

Walters says one more lesson he learned from Bob Beall is to put integrity above everything else. That's why Walters, on occasion, has parted ways with the rare attorney at his firm who values being clever over being transparent. That doesn't fit with the Beall's-like culture at Blalock Walters, where the idea is to do the right thing because it's the right thing. “Many executives will rationalize bad behavior if it seems to add value,” says Walters. “But not at Beall's.”

This story was updated to reflect the correct number of employees at Beall's.