So What Happened to Sears?
If your business isn’t evolving, it’s dissolving. In this Black Friday episode, Ben Walters discusses the cautionary tale of Sears, a once-unstoppable giant that lost its edge by failing to adapt. Discover why innovation isn’t optional if you want your business to stay first, not last.
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Episode 048 Full
Ben Walters: [00:00:00] I am here on Black Friday because I think I'm the first one at the mall and I am going to get all the Doorbuster sales, so this is really awesome. As Ricky Bobby says, if you ain't first, you're last. And today I happen to be first at the mall, so this is so exciting.
Ben Walters: I am gonna get in here. I'm gonna get the Doorbusters. I am going to score an incredibly massive TV for my house. I'm gonna have an Xbox, all these things, maybe even a brand new car with a bow on it. So just let me pop in here. Uh oh, the door's locked to the mall. This is a bit of a problem. Not looking real good for me here today, but I am first.
Ben Walters: In your situation, in your business, are you first or are you not first? Because if you don't evolve, you're gonna go really quickly from first to last. So I'm at the mall, I'm at a Sears store, and it's nothing but rubble. [00:01:00] If you don't want this fate for your business, you have to continually evolve.
Ben Walters: And Sears is an awesome case study because Sears started as a mail order catalog company, and there was a lot of competition in that space. So 10 years later, do you know what they did? They said, we're gonna do free, rural delivery. A hundred plus years ahead of Amazon they figured out that got customers, so they did that. They began to dominate market share. They built a massive tower in Chicago. They were killing it. But then you know what happened?
Ben Walters: Downtown retail overtook them. So places like Macy's and Shillito's and Rike's and all these downtown department stores took all their customers. Luckily, even though Sears missed the boat on that, they evolved. They developed the Craftsman brand and the Kenmore brand of appliances, and they evolved into something cool.
Ben Walters: And then do you know what happened? Suburbanization happened and they were able to get back in the game and be the anchor of all these malls [00:02:00] all over the country. The first mall they were in was the Salem Mall, Dayton, Ohio. So that's really cool footnote for you Daytonians. They dominated that space.
Ben Walters: But over time, things change as they always do in business. And so malls fell out of favor. People wanted to go to power centers and big box retail and they weren't able to keep up, they were struggling with that, trying to get their traction.
Ben Walters: And then the second change happened where big box gave way to Amazon, and Amazon took a page from Sears' playbook, clear back in the 1800s, free delivery. They started cleaning everybody's clock. And when you miss the boat once, you might survive. When you miss the boat twice, like Sears did, you can't survive. Sears ultimately declared bankruptcy, final time, 2018, and is a footnote in history. This is what their buildings look like.
Ben Walters: So if you want your business to continue to evolve and not be just a pile of rubble, check out the SuperPumped Business podcast, find [00:03:00] out how, and I hope you have a great Black Friday.
Ben Walters: Thanks for joining me today on the SuperPumped Business Podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, I have two quick next steps for you. First, subscribe or follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. And second, jump on over to superpumped.com to find out all the incredible ways we can help you launch your SuperPumped Business.
Ben Walters: Keep well and I'll see you next time.
