Thanks to a relentless campaign aimed at lawmakers in New York State and a personal visit by members of the NPA East Advocacy Committee to the primary sponsor of a number of bills, we were able to make unprecedented progress in your behalf.  For the full story, please see the Advocacy Update.

Paid membership was up again for the fifth time in as many years.  But we still have a long way. to go.  The more independent retailers that join the fight to protect our right to do business, the greater our chances for success.   And the most effective way to increase our numbers is through current members contacting local independent retailers and explaining why they need to be part of the fight. There really is strength in numbers, which is why we work so hard to not just maintain but grow our membership every year. You would be amazed by the effect even a few dozen more faxes or e-mails sent to your local legislators can have in convincing them to kill a bad bill or support a good one.

If you need contact information for nonmember retailers in your area and membership materials, please contact your Executive Director, Paul Kushner at 856-985-5446.  Or e-mail Paul at info@npaeast.org.

We are in the process of renewing our partnership with New Hope Natural Media to sponsor Expo East 2012. Since moving back "home" to Baltimore, attendance by both retailers and exhibitors has grown significantly and have positive comments about the entire show.  Please see that back page of the newsletter for information on this year's event.

As successful as we were in 2011, we can never let our guard down. With 11 states and Washington, DC to cover, our volunteer-driven Association can't afford to rest on past accomplishments. That's why we plan to focus even more energy on developing our advocacy efforts.  This means we will be calling on you and your fellow members to join us in the daily fight against bad legislation by getting in the face of your local legislators and letting them know in no uncertain terms that you vote, and your business provides job opportunities and a significant tax base for your state.  Let them know where you stand on a bill, and I guarantee they'll listen.

I also want to encourage you to take more advantage of networking opportunities.  Have a problem or question about any phase of your business?  Let us know.  If we can't answer your questions, we'll put you in touch with a member who can.   If you can avoid a pitfall or take advantage of a colleague's success, you'll have paid for your membership in NPA East many times over.  Need help?  Contact Paul Kushner at 856-985-5446. Or send him an e-mail at info@npaeast.org.

Michael & Elizabeth circa 1974

Michael & Elizabeth 2011

Q   What is your background and how did you get interested in natural products?
A    I'm originally from New York, where my very progressive parents raised our family on natural foods back in the 1960s. As a teenager, I was mortified by their choices, especially when my friends saw the "weird" stuff they were feeding me.  Naturally, I resisted not being able to enjoy the normal food everyone else was allowed to eat.  But eventually I became a convert, especially after becoming actively involved in politics in the late 1960s.  My complete transformation happened when I learned that the same chemicals being used to defoliate forests in Vietnam were also being used on our agricultural fields at home! 

My first retail foray into the natural products business was Arlington Health Foods, located in a town that borders Cambridge that I opened in 1971 with my older brother. We started Cambridge Naturals in 1974. My brother moved on very shortly after we opened the store, and Elizabeth and I sold the Arlington store a few years later to concentrate on the business in Cambridge.  So Cambridge Naturals (and of course our three children, Katie, 34, Nick, 31, and Emily, 26) has been our passion for more than 38 years.

Q  Tell me about your store and your product mix:  How much is supplements, how much is food.  Which is your primary focus and why?
A  Up until late 1997, we were a full-line, natural foods grocery known as Cambridge Natural Foods, which is still our corporate name.  We carried organic produce, offered an organic juice bar, had a huge bulk section, many refrigerators and freezers, and even cut our own cheeses. We also had a large grocery section and an extremely successful nutritional supplements and body care section.  Even with very little street parking and no loading area, our 23 employees served many hundreds of customers each day. 

However, given the growth and closeness of the competition, and our strength in nutritional supplements and body care, we decided to narrow the mix of what we carried.  In early 1998 we renovated the store and cut the grocery mix to about 15%. We became more of an upscale natural health store, which is the model we embrace to this day.  We expanded our selection to include a much greater number of herbal medicines, nutritional supplements, body care items, and a greatly expanded bulk herb section.   Body care represents some 25% of our sales; about 10% of sales are a mix of different yoga-related supplies and gift items.  We also carry many fair trade, direct trade, and mission-driven products. We have lots of snacks and chocolates and hundreds of teas.  And we still have a significant and thriving, though small and eclectic, grocery selection. We seek out and are asked to carry many unique lines and products, especially but not limited to locally made ones.

Q  Do you have a formal business plan or an informal one, and can you share the key elements that have helped drive your success?
A  When we first got into the business, we were able to get by financially, opening our store with very little seed money.  The market was such then that growth was almost inevitable - it was just going to happen.  At one point, there were about 35 stores in our immediate area.  38 years later, we are one of the very few independents left.  Why? Our love of the business has been a key component in our success, as has our keen awareness of our customers' needs. You could say we were more driven by passion than by formal planning. 

However, we are completely capable of producing a professional business plan when our banks have requested one in order for us to get a loan.  We have expanded a number of times over the years.  Our most ambitious change was six years ago when we moved from an on-street location with very little parking to a nearby shopping center that included a number of other independent business as well as some chain stores.  The synergy among our neighbors, especially the independent retailers, has strengthened our business and increased our impact on the community we serve.

Q  We've recently gone through what some economists say is the worst downturn since the Great Depression.  How did you weather it, and what steps did you take to ensure you'd get through?
A  We saw the downturn coming long before the 2008 crisis, as did lots of other people I know. The clear evidence for that "downturn" was pretty widely ignored until it was fully upon us. The only surprise was that the full impact took so long to get here. 

On a business level, we started preparing early. I sat down with each staff person individually and said, "this is what we see happening, and this is the vision we hold for how Cambridge Naturals will respond to the economic downturn." That vision included hiring two more staff people so we could provide even better customer service to our customers that were still coming in.

To me, people who choose to work in a small business are just like performers: you can never rest on your laurels.   We are always on the lookout for exciting new products and those with a larger message, such as organic, direct trade, legitimate fair trade, and especially ones that are connected to the local movement. 

I can't say enough about how important it is to connect one's store to the local movement and its significance to building both community and strong local economies. It is the most positive and hopeful movement of our times. And for us, being active in this powerful movement has not only helped us to survive, but to thrive in the face of great challenges. We also were very careful about inventory and payroll. 

I like to think of myself as a contrarian, so I put my trust in our staff and focused on providing even better customer service, and I worried a little less about the short-term bottom line. We also ramped-up staff training and became more active and sophisticated in the social media realm. As always, we communicated to our staff the need, and dare I say the urgency, for awesome customer service.

I'm still essentially an optimist, but I also believe that since we continue to suffer from a negative savings rate in this country, and that increasing consumer credit card debt is a major problem, we still need to proceed carefully. There are other worrisome economic factors, and as an independent community store we must continue to offer a unique product mix and exceptional service.  By and large, our customers love us, but we never take them for granted.  Customer count is up, and our sales have continued to grow, though not as dramatically as in the past six years. And as I said, we also are consistent about promoting ourselves as a locally owned business.  You can see it all over our store and within our staff.  We stress to our customers that the money they spend here stays in our local community.  We think that's a big deal to them.

Q  Competition from big box stores is a concern for all independent retailers. How do you compete with virtual monoliths that can often offer more selection and better prices?
A  There are four Whole Foods stores within three miles of our store. There is both a GNC and a Vitamin Shop within a mile of our front door. The supermarket in our shopping center has a natural foods section as big as our store. So, we have to be careful not to be reactionary.  These competitors are not going to go away, at least not in the short term.  So we use the tools we have.  And yes, I am repeating myself but here goes: 

We offer superior customer service, which means we put on our best show every day for every customer. We constantly make the case for shopping locally and supporting independent businesses, and we're not shy about letting customers know that without their patronage we simply could not continue to exist. 

Like almost every other bricks and mortar retailer, we suffer from what is called "showcasing".  People come to our store to pick our brains because they trust our judgment.  Armed with the  knowledge we shared with them, some then seek out cheaper outlets to buy the same or similar products.  Yes, we live in a discount culture.  And it can hurt us.  But by keeping our staff well-trained and pointing out that we're here to stay and that we support the local community when they support us, we can, and do, overcome the price issue.  We also point out the joy of shopping here, the individual attention they get from employees who can really help them and really want to be of service.  We also donate as much as we are able to local non-profits and communicate that through our website and emails and to our staff.  Finally, we sample out our products very often, especially featuring hot teas and snacks.

I'm also a founding member of Cambridge Local First (CLF), created in 2005, which is now a network of over 300 locally owned and independent businesses. All members get a large sticker to put on their doors promoting their membership, and we also put out a widely acclaimed business directory which is distributed all over the city. We give away, collectively, 30,000 copies of this directory that only features members who must be local and independent.  CLF also hosts business training that assists our businesses in enhancing our best business practices in such areas as customer service and employee law.

Q  Many independent retailers say the key to success is finding good employees and holding on to them once they've been trained. Do you agree? And, if so, what kinds of environments do you foster at your store to keep employees once you've invested the time and money to train them?
A  I agree absolutely. We have a highly educated and truly wonderful staff who can handle just about any question a customer throws at them.  We have relatively low turnover.  We offer frequent staff training; and the staff receives lots of samples from suppliers and manufacturers. We pay what we can afford, which is very competitive, and if there really is extra money, we share what we can. 

Our staff also receives substantial discounts on everything we sell, and we share the samples we get from suppliers and manufacturers. We treat our employees fairly and try to include them in decisions when we can.  We encourage everybody who works here to share ideas, and Elizabeth and I try to exercise our power lightly. We have established a reputation for being one of the great places to work in the city, and even when we lose people, and that's pretty much inevitable, we know we've given them valuable experiences they can take with them. They often become, even when they depart, the best advertisements for our store.

Q  Do you sponsor community events at your store, and which ones have you found to be most successful?
A  Several times a year we hold educational events bringing in speakers on timely topics such as immunity, energy, stress, and other topics.  And as I said, we strongly support exclusively local nonprofits that are housing and feeding the homeless and hungry.  What we ask in return from those we support is a reasonable amount of recognition and prominence, so we can justify the business expenses we incur as a result of our donations. 

Q  What have you found to be the best media for marketing your store? Where do you get the best ROI?
A  Basically, we have a holistic approach to marketing. We do very little mainstream advertising.  We used some direct mail in the recent past, but we rarely use it anymore.  We put a great deal of our marketing efforts into producing a dynamic website, and we are big believers in shelf talkers.  We really like to use them for staff picks. We employ social media to drive customers to the store, and we closely follow, but with our own personal spin, the principles found in Zingerman's Guide to Giving Great Service. We also like to experiment and get behind cutting edge products that customers won't find in a big box store. 

Q  Over the years, what's the best business decision you've made, intentionally or not, that turned into a major asset for your business?
A  The best decision we ever made was going into the natural products business together. We've stayed true to our passion all these years.  We've also stayed committed to fair trade products and continue to be major supporters of the "buy local" movement.

One area that has been less than optimal is the development of staff procedures.  I used to be somewhat lackadaisical when it came to the hiring and maintaining of employees.  I was just too casual about the process.  I assumed employees would do the right thing and know, instinctively, what the right thing is.  We also kept people on too long who were not performing well.  It's not easy to let employees go, but it's in everyone's interest, even the person being dismissed, to take action sooner than later.  We've learned that the better we hire the less often we have to fire.

Q  Now get out your crystal ball? What will independent retailers need to do in the next five to ten years to continue to survive and prosper?
A  As I said earlier, I pride myself on being an optimist, sometimes against all evidence to the contrary.  What's that saying?  I'm a pessimist based on intelligence but an optimist based on will. But I really believe that the economy isn't going to get significantly better any time soon.  In fact, I think we're going to go through a pretty dicey period for yet a while longer. So our business is going to continue to focus heavily on our customers.  We're going to give them our best performance every day and let them know that we love them - even the ones, perhaps, we don't like so much.  Customers are going to be needier in this current economic climate, and we're not going to worry so much about them trying to take advantage of our expertise and buying somewhere else.  We're going to stick to the model that has served us well for 38 years and not obsess about those outside influences, like the economy, that we can't change.