Walk into one of Ace Hardware’s 5,000 stores and you can buy grills, power tools, paint supplies or thousands of other home improvement products. Walk into a Lowe’s or a Home Depot and you can find products in the same categories. The average consumer who doesn’t frequently shop at these stores might find it hard to articulate the difference between them, which is why the CEOs of companies in categories that sell similar products must be their brand’s principle storyteller.
Ace Hardware CEO John Venhuizen does a masterful job of highlighting his company’s differences without bad-mouthing worthy competitors. Venhuizen appeared on CNBC this week to announce record 2018 second quarter revenues of $1.59 billion, a 6.4% increase from the same period a year earlier.
The host did what most consumers do—she lumped Ace into a category: do-it-yourself home improvement chains. She asked how Ace competes against them. Venhuizen began his answer by acknowledging the competition and praising their performance.
“We duke it out with some pretty impressive, very large companies. Depot, Lowes, Amazon. All of whom had a very nice quarter. You won’t catch me saying anything bad about those folks.”
Venhuizen then segues into a short discussion about his brand and how it’s different. Here’s the transition paragraph.
We find ourselves in a very different position. They are large-box, low-price leaders. We are more of a specialty retailer. Whereas they are more about home renovation—if you’re going to plunk down 40-grand on a kitchen remodel and granite countertops you’ll probably end up there—we’re more about home preservation: Fix, repair, replace. What’s fueling our growth is paint, power equipment, and outdoor barbecue.
In one paragraph, Venhuizen gives a specific example of why you might want to shop at a competitor, while offering a simple way to remember Ace Hardware’s position in the category—fix, repair, replace. He also gives three examples of the type of products consumers might want to consider buying at Ace, products fueling the company’s growth.
Ace Hardware’s CEO uses nearly every question to highlight the brand’s differences. For example, in response to a question about the investment he’s making in e-commerce, Venhuizen said:
Like all retailers, we invest massively in our digital presence. Online sales are up 35 percent year to date…but for us it’s still a relational, people-oriented business even with the digital investments. The world seems to be fawning over technical, impersonal, artificial, faceless interaction. At Ace, we bet the farm on a timeless principle—human relationships and human connection will always have the potential to stir the soul. That’s why 92 percent of our online orders are picked up for free at the local store.
Most average communicators would have answered the question directly and given numbers on how much they’re investing in their online presence. A skilled communicator takes it one step further and uses the question as an opportunity to tell the brand story.
It’s natural for consumers to lump a company into a category. It’s how we make sense of the world. But within categories—from finance to services and home improvement to healthcare—there are very real differences. It’s up to the company’s leaders to articulate those differences clearly and consistently.