John Russo’s grandfather fled poverty and political turmoil in Sicily 102 years ago. And G.B. Russo and Son, an international grocery, has operated in Grand Rapids ever since.
Today, five generations of Russos work in the store, making the company exceptionally dependent on family for its workforce, business savvy and overall profitability.
“We do a lot of the labor to pay the bills,” Russo said.
There are a number of ways to measure business success. Profits. Revenue. Number of employees. Community giving. But when it comes to business prestige, few achievements stand out like longevity. And G.B. Russo is one of many west Michigan-based, family owned businesses that have developed unique and individual recipes to survive and succeed despite changes in leadership and industry challenges over the years.
G.B. Russo and Son started out as a basic grocer. It's still not huge. But the business has grown throughout the decades and begun to compete with larger stores who sell similar products. To remain competitive, G.B. Russo and Son focuses intensely on providing top flight service and high quality products. The store also has hosted world premiers of different wine brands that typically aren’t available at the major super centers.
“We have a unique product mix and an added service mix,” Russo said. “People come here to as they would go to a library to see the product and learn about it.”
The business plan is clearly working. The store has evolved from the original small store on Division Avenue to an incorporated business and has dealt with succession of owners while trying to set the business trends as opposed to following them. Today, G.B. Russo and Son is one of the most popular specialty grocers in the region.
“We constantly have new products because some run their course and we drop them to keep (the selection) fresh,” Russo said. “There is a lot of creativity in this to keep people coming,” Russo said.
The Fix-it Family
Veenstra’s Garage opened in 1925 before computers or power windows. Since then, the company has faced the challenge of technological changes and changed its business approach to keep the customers coming back, said Mike Veenstra. The garage hired service presenters, for example, to help customers instead of the technicians.
“Now we have staff there to talk to you, so technicians can do what they do best,” Veenstra, the third generation to operate the garage, said. “If you have technicians that are valuable, you do not want them wasting time doing things they are not good at.”
When Veenstra’s father retired, Veenstra had to regain the trust of his customer base because most thought his father did the repairs.
“When there is a change of people (in control), you have to regain the trust of the customers because they learn to trust one person,” he said.
Veenstra learned he has to know more than cars to do business, but also has to be “smart in the ways of accounting, employees, marketing and advertisement,” he said. He also suggests that multigenerational family businesses tend to fail when those in charge do not work to stay successful or the wrong person is in charge.
“My dad says I’m much smarter than he was,” Veenstra said. “That is not true. I think I’ve just evolved, the same way he evolved in his career.”
Veenstra, for example, has adapted new marketing strategies to reach new customers who might not know about the garage, or who typically use other mechanics. Veenstra joined Automotive Service Leaders, a national group that shares marketing and training ideas, which led to developing a targeted mail piece and demographic studies. Something his father didn’t typically do.
“Business has become a game of whoever advertises to the most (people) wins, at least initially,” Veenstra said.
“It is more important to have a good leader who can manage (the business) properly that a person with a last name,” Veenstra said.
Furniture Folks
Stone’s Throw Furniture opened its doors to customers just two years ago, but it is the third store in a successful line of Huizen family businesses. Huizen Furniture, the original store, opened 1926 and since has expanded to three stores, including EQ3.
Keeping the look and styles of the furniture, as well as the appearance of the store, fresh and fashionable has been a large part of the family’s success, said Todd Huizen, a member of the family's fourth generation which operates Stone’s Throw Furniture.
“Part of our success comes from that we are a family business and a lot of us are family members who have really learned to work together well,” said Kathy Wissink, Huizen’s cousin that helps run the store.
Employees picked from the family typically take great pride in the work, and turnover also tends to be low, all of which adds to the company's performance, she added. And similar upbringings, habits and familiarity with the daily situations of the family can make workers more compatible and add to the overall success of the company.
“Family is quite important,” Wissink said. “For me, working with my sister Karen, she and I understand each other in ways that you can never understand another co-worker.”
Construction Kin
Joe Erhardt, president of Ada-based Erhardt Construction, joined the company in 1981 to help oversee a shift in business strategy designed to ramp up the operation and grow the company.
Erhardt Construction now regularly partners with outside firms on larger projects because it learned customers often want the close personal touch of a local company as well as the exceptional professional skills and experience of larger national contractors.
The building boom in West Michigan, particularly in downtown Grand Rapids, has attracted the attention of outside construction companies, several of whom have opened offices in the region. And that causes local firms to refine their business, marketing, and development strategies to stay in touch with the latest trends and attractive for new customers.
“You have to work pretty hard to stay ahead of the pack,” Erhardt said, who is a second generation member of the family. “People will pass you buy if you keep doing what you did three or ten years ago."
Erhardt, for example, has embraced lean construction practices to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its operation and save time and money. For a multigenerational company to be successful, it must develop people within itself, Erhardt said.
“If you don’t do that, you might survive, but you are not going to thrive and be successful in transitioning to the next generation,” he said.
Photos:
John Russo
Russo's boasts a wine selection of over 3000 types of wine
Mike Veenstra
Todd Huizen
Larry Sr. and Joe Erhardt - photograph by Jeff Dykehouse
Photographs by Brian Kelly except where noted - All Rights Reserved