![\"1371649645000-xxx-ceo-profile-george-zimmer-men-s-wearhouse-1-1306251149_3_4\"](\"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/1371649645000-XXX-CEO-Profile-George-Zimmer-Men-s-Wearhouse-1-1306251149_3_4-225x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_video admin_label=”Video” src=”https:\/\/youtu.be\/1TxehAnnLPU” \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”Row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n
PRESS PLAY>>TO VIEW KEN\u2019S WELCOME MESSAGE FOR THIS MONTH\u2019S BLOG<\/p>\n
The news last month that George Zimmer had been pushed out of the Men\u2019s Wearhouse, the company he founded and built into the most successful men\u2019s clothing specialty chain in the country, caught a lot of retail watchers by surprise.<\/p>\n
Not only was Zimmer the founder of the chain, but he was also the face and the spokesperson for the company which he grew from one store to over 1100 with nearly $2 billion in sales in 40 years at the helm.<\/p>\n
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George Zimmer founder Men\u2019s Wearhouse<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Many trade writers are skeptical that the company will continue to grow without Zimmer\u2019s familiar face and closing line (\u201cYou\u2019re going to like the way you look.\u00a0 I guarantee it.) in every commercial.\u00a0 It brings up the question of how important a CEO spokesperson like Zimmer (or Lee Iacocca for Chrysler and Dave Thomas for Wendy\u2019s before him) is to the success of the brand.<\/p>\n I believe that Zimmer was critical to Men\u2019s Wearhouse, but not because of his consistent presence in their commercials over the years.\u00a0 I, too, had the impression that he wasn\u2019t much more than Fast Eddy in New York or\u00a0 Ollie Fretter in Detroit were as familiar faces on TV.\u00a0 However, over 10 years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a presentation by Zimmer at Texas A&M\u2019s Center for Retail Studies Symposium and it changed my impression completely.\u00a0 It also helped me understand why the Men\u2019s Wearhouse brand was so successful.\u00a0 The familiar CEO spent a little time talking about the chain\u2019s history and their marketing efforts which featured him.\u00a0 Then, he went into detail about how critical complementary sales and training were to building profitable and loyal sales.\u00a0 The key, he said, was the ongoing training that every store associate went through repeatedly to insure they were giving the best service and were committed to selling wardrobes rather than items.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the key to successful retail brands\u2014making sure that your associates live up to the brand everyday, with every customer.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know whether the board at Men\u2019s Wearhouse accelerated Zimmer\u2019s exit because he no longer believed in the importance of the service and training.\u00a0 One thing for sure is that if the board and Zimmer\u2019s replacement at CEO, Douglas Ewert, want to move away from these important components of the brand.\u00a0 The company will, indeed, miss their longtime spokesperson.\u00a0 I guarantee it.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”2_3″][et_pb_video admin_label=”Video” src=”https:\/\/youtu.be\/1TxehAnnLPU” \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”Row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] PRESS PLAY>>TO VIEW KEN\u2019S WELCOME MESSAGE FOR THIS MONTH\u2019S BLOG The news last month that George Zimmer had been pushed out of the Men\u2019s Wearhouse, the company he founded and built into the most successful men\u2019s clothing specialty chain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=350"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350\/revisions\/352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kenbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}