Threat 2: Fierce Independence Becoming Selfish Autonomy

The independence of our industry is a blessing and curse.

I’m incredibly thankful that, generally speaking, I get to do things the way that I want in my business. And I’d take all kinds of offense if someone tried to force me into a cookie-cutter box to make me just like the other companies around me.

In many ways, our independence is what’s allowed our industry to be so scrappy and resourceful. It’s also what’s attracted so many of the great people to work in it who didn’t fit into a standard corporate job.

And while I believe our fierce independence is a blessing that should be protected, it’s easy for it to turn into selfish autonomy if we forget that we exist in an ecosystem that’s bigger than ourselves.

Selfish autonomy takes a few different forms, but it often looks like spending inordinate amounts of time reinventing the wheel for every part of your business because you don’t trust anyone else enough to help you. It can also look like exceptionalism—believing that your company is utterly unique and what works for other businesses won’t work for you because your company is just too different. Finally, it can look like ignoring participation with the industry at large because, as one retailer recently told me, you’re extremely happy with the results you’ve been getting on your own.

The problem is that selfish autonomy only works until it doesn’t. At some point in time, if enough pirate ships get picked off, it’s easy to go after the few that remain. The only way that we win is to stay united around a common cause, namely, the belief that our industry is more than any one business—it’s a way of life that we must protect together.

And I see this more and more as time goes by: companies that have gotten fat and happy because their revenue continues to rise, paying no attention to their unit sales and sustainability shrinking away in equal measure.

It’s up to us to come together and serve the greater good by participating in our local industry associations, advocating for our industry to legislators and regulators, and teaching our craft to the next generation that’s coming up through the ranks.

Our fierce independence should be understood for the gift that it is—and leveraged to its full extent—but we must guard against it ever turning into selfish autonomy.

Because as we forsake the problems of our industry in favor of securing gain for ourselves, we cut off the very thing that makes that gain possible in the first place.

Threat 3: The Navy Is Coming

More than anything else, this threat looms large over the horizon for every independent retailer in our industry.

For years, we’ve largely operated without the risk of outside disruption. Our products are just complicated enough, just obscure enough, just dangerous enough—and our industry just small enough—that we haven’t seen many outside players try to get involved.

But this is changing, and we run the risk of dying the death of a thousand cuts.

Because the navy’s coming.

Now, the navy takes many forms—consolidation, corporate stores, private equity, e-commerce, big box, regulations—and none of them is evil in and of itself, but each one threatens the way of life of the independent retailer.

Again, it’s not that their existence is wrong. (After all, strong competition is what makes every company better.) Instead, it’s that our pirate ships aren’t equipped to compete in this world if we think we’ll be able to produce the resources to do it all by ourselves.

Here’s what I mean.

You think that it’s hard to compete against the independent retailer down the street? What happens when you have to go against a company owned by private equity that’s chosen to lower margins and operate with negative cash flow for two years in order to choke out all local competition?

Or when a local initiative comes up to ban natural gas in your market, but you can’t rally the troops to testify because there aren’t any troops to rally?

My point is that most retailers aren’t paying attention to the naval armadas that have been dispatched and are barreling toward them.

It’s not that we can’t survive it—far from it. The pirates will always be able to survive the navy as long as they stick together. Because the navy is big, and the navy is slow. Pirates, in contrast, are resourceful, scrappy, and fast. But we’ll run out of resources if we don’t combine forces.

I don’t think most retailers see the threat that’s upon them. Many retail owners in our industry are in their 60s and have no succession plan whatsoever. Many of them don’t participate in local industry initiatives and events and aren’t part of a network to find or grow someone to sell their business to. Many of them aren’t paying attention to the changes in consumer behavior that have transpired over the last 10 years.

This simply isn’t a recipe for success when you’re approaching a naval blockade.

The way that independent retailers are going to win is to stay together and leverage the strengths they have that the navy doesn’t.

And as much as it may seem like I’m against the navy, I’m not. In fact, I think that the navy in its own ways can create more opportunities for pirates like us to leverage—but only if we can stay one step ahead. And that can’t happen when we aren’t united.