Dinner with Dr. Ike
ORLANDO, FLORIDA—Dr. Ike was sitting at a table at the B-Line Diner at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando when I spotted him. Catalogs and brochures collected from the Do it Best and True Value Spring Market were spread in front of him. His daughter Karen was sitting opposite.
Dr. Ike’s real name is Ike Epstein, and he’s the founder of Economy Lumber Yard of Laredo, Texas, the forerunner of the three-unit Dr. Ike’s Home Center. He’s been in the business since 1959, and longer if you count his experience with his father’s homebuilding company.
He celebrated his 93rd birthday here at the market.
“Yes, I am Dr. Ike,” he said when I approached. “How did you know? Have a seat.”
When Dr. Ike asks you to sit, you sit. And you enjoy the ride.
“My doctorate? It came from the School of Hard Knocks. People want to buy from Dr. Ike, the home doctor. They don’t want to buy from Economy Lumber Yard ….
“So I had a friend who had a Chevrolet dealership, and General Motors headquarters sent a marketing guru to Laredo to work with my friend. And we were all at dinner one time, and this guru says to me that he could create for me a logo and a six-week marketing plan for $250. And I said, OK, it’s a deal ….
“And it was different back then. There were no lawyers and no papers to sign. It was a handshake deal, and that was all there was to it ….”
“I’m going to stay with True Value and also use Do it Best. You need to have your salt and you also need your pepper ….”
“I’ve had managers say to me, why don’t we do some of the stuff that Home Depot does. And I tell them, if we did the stuff that Home Depot does, then customers don’t need us. Home Depot is just two blocks away from the store. They could go to Home Depot ….”
“We did things different, and we do things different to this day.” Like what? “Well, when Target or Walmart sends out a flyer, the flyer that goes out today was probably printed last November. But I want to wait to the last minute, because if I see it’s going to rain, I want to put ponchos in the flyer. And Home Depot isn’t going to have ponchos in their flyer.” [He pointed to Karen] “She’s always telling me I’m late.”
On cue, Karen added: “We have to catch a plane.”
So Dr. Ike left me with one final gem: “Come down to Laredo, we’ll give you a tour.”
