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Throwback Thursday: Advice from Handy Dan's chief

2/20/2018

It's a difficult -- but fair -- test of home improvement industry knowledge: Who were the two executives who gave the very first keynote speeches at the first-ever Home Center Show?


The answer: Lowe's executive VP John Walker and Handy Dan president Bernard Marcus.


The keynote addresses of the two men served as the top story to the March 22, 1976, issue of National Home Center News, the forerunner of HBSDealer.


Based on the coverage, it's not entirely clear why Walker is holding what appears to be $1 million in cash in his right hand. The caption suggests that the Lowe's executive was making a point about the kind of big money that the home center industry was capable of generating, but it doesn't come out and say it explicitly.


Marcus' caption expressed an entirely different tone. He cautioned: " . . . A lot of you won't be around in 20 years."


Other interesting bullet-point quotes from Marcus' speech:


• "Running one or two stores up to five is another world. It's the entrepreneur that starts a business, but it takes a professional manager to run more."


• "If you fight competition with price only, you're not a merchant. You will not survive. The stable home centers will build on a service image."


• "You can't carry everything. Be a genius in those categories you're going to build your business in."


Marcus, of course, went on to help change the course of home-improvement history. At the time of the article, he was about two years removed from the launch of The Home Depot. Neither the Home Center Show nor Handy Dan are with us today.


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