The process spotlights a dealer's weaknesses and recommends better methods for managing his business, but it has benefits for the critiquers, too. It exposes them to different ways of doing things, and gives them a chance to work, and to relax, with their peers, a luxury they couldn't afford in their hometowns. "Joe would never expose his operation to any competitor," notes Landers, "and he'd never tell any competitor about his problems. There are real emotional advantages -- you can unload on each other here."
"When you're a small independent businessman, there's really no one you can talk to," concurs Claude Wolfe, a dealer from Orlando, Fla.
Even when the session is over, the closeness persists; the host dealer keeps members posted about the changes he institutes, and they may phone one another for advice. Then, when their turns come, they become the direct beneficiaries of the critique group's expertise.
In Rizzo's case, the critiquers had been asked to address the problems involved in turning the store over to his son. Rizzo had indicated that he wanted AAA TV to take care of him after he retired, or, if he were to die, of his wife, Jack's stepmother. Some of the members seemed to feel that would impose a hardship on the business.
Rizzo had also asked the group to consider a number of other questions: Should he continue to concentrate on service or expand his sales effort? Should he add new product lines? What could he do about poor employee morale? How could he deal with a Spanishspeaking work force? Where should the business be in 10 years?
The group squared off with answers -- to Rizzo's questions and dozens of others that they'd raised themselves during the review -- on a Tuesday afternoon in early February. The trial by peers took place in a small conference room at a Howard Johnson Motor Lodge close to the store. Rizzo sat at the center of one table, facing the dealers who were at tables on either side; his wife, still looking a bit nervous, and his son, a relaxed, good-looking 23-year-old, flanked him.
The critique began with Larry Suter, a dealer from Stuart, Fla., who wasted no time enumerating the business's shortcomings. "Starting with the inside of the store, more of the old equipment and junk should be removed or, better yet, thrown out. There's no discipline in the people at all." The list went on and on: the lack of identification numbers for serviced sets, poor housekeeping, illegible paperwork, obsolete test equipment.
Rizzo leaned across the table, the muscles clenching in his jaw; he was used to fighting and not inclined to remain quiet.
"There's no question about the bookkeeping system," Suter continued. "It's nonexistent. I don't think you've got enough figures to understand and operate on a budget and cost factor." Then, moving his finger down the list, he discussed individual employees, pay scales, and safety. "You may have to get out of delivering and picking up sets in half of your areas," he noted. "Either that, or put two people on a truck, one with a shotgun."
Several dealers laughed, but Rizzo smiled and nodded. "Don't laugh," said Suter. "I used to call on the commerciallaundry people in Miami, and one carried a submachine gun when they had big collections."
The next speaker, Howard Greenhouse, of Woodbridge, Va., suggested a method for increasing sales -- using the thousands of names of service customers as sales leads. "You have names, addresses, and telephone numbers of live prospects right here in your hometown," he explained. "It's just a natural, super, super way to get new sales."
Rizzo, his chin resting on a clenched fist, remained grudgingly silent during the remainder of Greenhouse's critique. Carter Pruitt, the owner of three furniture and appliance stores in Georgia, took up where Greenhouse left off. Rizzo had served on a group that critiqued Pruitt's business. "My suggestion is to hold meetings," Pruitt said. "Hold store meetings; hold management meetings; hold meetings of the service department. If this sounds familiar," he added, staring directly at Rizzo, "it is-it's your words from my critique. You told me to hold meetings. I come down here, and you've never held a meeting!" Everyone in the room, including Rizzo, broke into laughter.
Pruitt's wife, who had spent two days reviewing the books, told Rizzo, "My biggest surprise was that you didn't know anything about your financial statement; I think that you should sit down and learn about it, anything and all that you can learn about it." Then she turned the floor over to Al Rubin.
Rubin, who has a born salesman's natural charm, warmed Rizzo up: "The system that you've developed is practical, it's effective. It works for you. It makes you a living." But, opening pleasantries done with, he began to hammer away; he worked his way down a long list of suggestions as methodically as a carpenter driving nails. He told Rizzo that he should expand into video-cassette recorder and microwave repairs, air-condition his shop area, hire a new accountant, put some liquid assets into an IRA account, check out federal crime insurance, and settle things with his son.
"Set up an acceptable agreement in writing between you and Jack," he said, "that will, over an agreed-upon time period, transfer ownership from you to Jack." Like Claude Wolfe, the next critiquer, Rubin knew the importance of working well with one's offspring; his son is involved in his business, while Wolfe had taken over two stores when his own father had died.
But Wolfe had little sympathy for the heir apparent; his green eyes flashing, he noted, "I gathered statements like 'Sergio needs more help from Jack,' 'Jack should run the shop,' 'When Joe is away, Jack doesn't do any work.' "Jack, sitting at his father's side, began to fidget.
"Jack needs to prove that he really wants to work here," asserted Wolfe.
Unlike the others, Zeke Landres, the final speaker, felt that Rizzo knew exactly what he was doing. "I think he's got a pretty good handle on what's going on," he said, "but he knows, in his heart, that he can't continue to run the business the way it's being run, or he's not going to hold onto Jack." He made a number of observations, recommended that the store make more effective use of NARDA's methods, but finally he decided to cut the bull.
"Look, I wrote a lot more things down, but I've been talking for 45 minutes," he said. "If you're happy with the way it is," he told Rizzo, holding him with his eyes, "I don't want to hear any more horse from you. I mean, just run it the way it is and let it be a slophouse, and do it.
"You make a good living out of it -- you got a big house, okay? You got a place in Sanibel. You got two Cadillacs -- what the hell? Life is beautiful! You work three days a week. How bad can that be, Joe?
"I mean, you know, I come from the same place you do. I played stickball in the streets just like you did, baby. I pinch myself every morning and say, 'Is it still all right? Everything there? The money still in the bank?' What could be so terrible?
"But if you really want to change it," Landres said, "then shoot for that extra, Joe!"
It hadn't been easy for Rizzo; he had grimaced and endured the ordeal, but he wasn't about to suffer in silence forever.He had scheduled a rebuttal -- not normally a part of a critique session -- for the following morning.
When the members of the group gathered in the conference room again, Rizzo told them, "I felt like most of you didn't understand my business," and spent the next 15 minutes getting a load off his chest. His honor salvaged, he then admitted that he'd be implementing many of their suggestions.
