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Cal Turner Jr. on the Promise of Family Business · Masters in Business

0:02
Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Verry Ridholts on Bloomberg
0:06
Speaker 1: Radio this weekend. On the podcast, I have an extra
0:12
Speaker 1: special guest. His name is Cal Turner Jr. He was
0:15
Speaker 1: the CEO of Dollar General. He ran the company for
0:19
Speaker 1: thirty seven years, and he is just full of charm
0:23
Speaker 1: and wisdom and just homespun, down to earth common sense. Uh.
0:28
Speaker 1: He tells wonderful stories about how his father and his
0:32
Speaker 1: grandfather moved into the retail business, the trials and tribulations
0:37
Speaker 1: of that, and of running a family business with all
0:41
Speaker 1: of the riffs and sibling rivalries that creates. He is
0:47
Speaker 1: just a very straightforward, honest person who has a lot
0:52
Speaker 1: of interesting things to share. I think he is not
0:57
Speaker 1: only humble, but knows how to express that in the
1:00
Speaker 1: way that gets the most and best work out of
1:04
Speaker 1: the people who worked for him. So I found this
1:08
Speaker 1: to be a charming conversation, and I expect you will
1:12
Speaker 1: also with no further ado, my conversation with Cal Turner Jr.
1:21
Speaker 1: This week, I have an extra special guest. His name
1:24
Speaker 1: is Cal Turner Jr. And he has been CEO for
1:28
Speaker 1: Dollar General for thirty seven years. Uh. He began in
1:32
Speaker 1: the family business in nineteen sixty five, and after he
1:35
Speaker 1: served a few years in the Navy, he came back
1:38
Speaker 1: to the family business to work in the warehouse sweep
1:41
Speaker 1: the floors, eventually rising to the chief executive position. Dollar
1:48
Speaker 1: General under his reign, expanded from a hundred and fifty
1:52
Speaker 1: stores and sales of forty million dollars to over six
1:57
Speaker 1: thousand stores and sales and access of six billion dollars.
2:01
Speaker 1: He is now retired and is the author of My
2:05
Speaker 1: father's business, The small Town Values that built Dollar General
2:10
Speaker 1: into a billion dollar company. Cal Turner Jr. Welcome to Bloomberg.
2:14
Speaker 1: Thank you, Berry. The way you talk makes me interested
2:17
Speaker 1: in hearing what I'm going to say, as I think
2:21
Speaker 1: a lot of people are. So let's let's go back
2:24
Speaker 1: to the beginning. You start in nineteen sixty five, literally
2:28
Speaker 1: sweeping the floor, as I wasn't exaggerating, right you Right,
2:31
Speaker 1: You picked up a broom and that's where you began.
2:34
Speaker 1: I swept floors long before nineteen sixty It was in
2:37
Speaker 1: the early fifties. I was born in nineteen forty. The
2:41
Speaker 1: company was born in January. The company was born three
2:45
Speaker 1: months earlier. So the company and I are about the
2:49
Speaker 1: same age. So um and the company grew up with you.
2:53
Speaker 1: When when you began sweeping floors at that early age,
2:58
Speaker 1: did you know the family business was where you're going
3:01
Speaker 1: to be working the rest of your life. No. I
3:03
Speaker 1: resisted it. I saw how hard my father worked. I
3:10
Speaker 1: knew that he was sweating. He'd wake up in the
3:13
Speaker 1: middle of the night in cold sweat, afraid he couldn't
3:16
Speaker 1: pay off the banks. He was over expanding. The timing
3:20
Speaker 1: happened to be right because it was right after the
3:23
Speaker 1: Second World War and it worked. It did work them. Now,
3:28
Speaker 1: your grandfather started a business, Jail Turner and Son wholesale
3:33
Speaker 1: um before the war. How what happened with that? Well,
3:37
Speaker 1: Luther Turner, my papa was wonderful. He only had a
3:42
Speaker 1: third grade education, Barry, and he had three younger siblings,
3:49
Speaker 1: and his father was tragically killed and Luther was eleven.
3:54
Speaker 1: Now he was the head of the family. The farm
3:57
Speaker 1: was heavily mortgaged, and he had to make it all
4:02
Speaker 1: work out for everybody. Wow, And that's at age eleven,
4:06
Speaker 1: at age eleven with only a third grade education. And
4:10
Speaker 1: what Luther had going for him is that he assumed,
4:14
Speaker 1: since he only had a third grade education, that everybody
4:17
Speaker 1: he met was smarter, and he should learn something from
4:21
Speaker 1: everybody he met. You know, regardless of your education. That
4:24
Speaker 1: sounds like a intelligent, humble approach to dealing with the world. Well,
4:30
Speaker 1: it certainly was his, and I consider Luther Turner to
4:33
Speaker 1: be the smartest person I ever knew. So what gave
4:38
Speaker 1: him the courage to start a company. He's recently married,
4:43
Speaker 1: he's got a newborn baby, he's broke. You mentioned he
4:47
Speaker 1: wasn't you know, all that wealthy when he launched the company.
4:50
Speaker 1: What made him think I could do this? Well, I
4:55
Speaker 1: don't know if he ever thought I could do this.
4:59
Speaker 1: He was hardest working man I ever knew. He tried
5:03
Speaker 1: to learn from everybody, and he tried to learn from
5:07
Speaker 1: life because he was so limited in his education, and
5:11
Speaker 1: he saved something out of every check. Good advice these days.
5:16
Speaker 1: If Luther Turner hadn't done that, he wouldn't have been
5:19
Speaker 1: the financial backing my father needed when both of them
5:23
Speaker 1: started the company. They started the company because they found
5:26
Speaker 1: a big brick building at half price. A Turner will
5:30
Speaker 1: buy anything. Yeah, I can appreciate that deep down inside
5:36
Speaker 1: the turn of family, our value investors, aren't you? Indeed?
5:39
Speaker 1: So so he finds this brick building. Where was it located?
5:43
Speaker 1: And what did he think the potential clients hele for
5:47
Speaker 1: this building could be. Well, the building was in Scottsville, Kentucky.
5:53
Speaker 1: It's a third of the way north of Nashville, Tennessee,
5:56
Speaker 1: on the way to Louisville. And he thought that would
6:00
Speaker 1: be a great place for a wholesale business. Actually it
6:05
Speaker 1: was a terrible place, but it's where he found a
6:08
Speaker 1: building for half price, and and that that was it. J. L.
6:12
Speaker 1: Turner and Son Wholesale Dry Goods. And what became of
6:16
Speaker 1: uh jail Turner and Son Wholesale Dry Goods. Well, it
6:22
Speaker 1: had one employee that was my father. And my dad
6:27
Speaker 1: would take samples of the merchandise as a wholesaler to
6:31
Speaker 1: all the retailers in these little bitty towns in Kentucky
6:35
Speaker 1: and Tennessee. And after the Second World War he found
6:40
Speaker 1: that they were not interested in buying more of the
6:44
Speaker 1: ladies panties that he had. The prices had dropped after
6:49
Speaker 1: the war, and he wanted to sell them some more,
6:52
Speaker 1: and they said, no, cal we're not going to buy
6:54
Speaker 1: anymore until we sell what we've already bought from you.
6:57
Speaker 1: He said, But the market's going down. You need to
7:00
Speaker 1: lower your cost and buy some of my panties. No,
7:05
Speaker 1: they wouldn't do it. So he came home and he
7:07
Speaker 1: said to my grandfather, Daddy, we have to go into retailing.
7:11
Speaker 1: We've got to be directly in touch with the customer.
7:15
Speaker 1: And I think that's a good principle of retailing, stay
7:19
Speaker 1: directly in touch with the customer. So all of this
7:23
Speaker 1: leads to your tenure at the company, which will discuss
7:27
Speaker 1: in a minute. But what motivated you to say I'm retired.
7:31
Speaker 1: I'm kind of board playing golf for tennis or sailing
7:34
Speaker 1: or whatever. I know, I'm gonna sit down and write
7:37
Speaker 1: a book. What was the motivation for that? Well, that's
7:41
Speaker 1: a bit of a long story. The first book I
7:45
Speaker 1: was involved with, the publisher asked the senior pastor of
7:49
Speaker 1: our church and me to write a book on followership
7:53
Speaker 1: from the perspective of the preacher that was his and
7:57
Speaker 1: the practitioner. That was my part book. And in doing
8:01
Speaker 1: that book, uh, I met the ghost writer, Rob Sembec,
8:06
Speaker 1: who became fascinated with parts of my story that couldn't
8:11
Speaker 1: go in that book, and he'd say, we'll put those
8:14
Speaker 1: aside for your book. Well, It took him two years
8:18
Speaker 1: to convince me to do a book, and then it
8:20
Speaker 1: took both of us six years to write it. But
8:24
Speaker 1: that's the result of it is my father's business. Let's
8:29
Speaker 1: talk about this as a family business. Most family businesses
8:33
Speaker 1: don't make it to the second generation. What made Dollar
8:37
Speaker 1: General the exception my loving father. I give him all
8:42
Speaker 1: the credit. I got the affirmation of the real cal Turner.
8:47
Speaker 1: I was junior, but he was the real cal Turner.
8:51
Speaker 1: And he would say things about me, like, well, cal Jr.
8:54
Speaker 1: Is smarter than I am, And that would prove who's
8:58
Speaker 1: really smart. It's the father who says that about his son.
9:01
Speaker 1: Know when he will work the bajeebers out of himself
9:04
Speaker 1: to prove that his father's right. It sounds like your
9:06
Speaker 1: dad was a good manager of people and children. He was.
9:11
Speaker 1: And I would be sweeping one aisle in the warehouse
9:15
Speaker 1: and he would convene his associates in the next stile
9:19
Speaker 1: I had just swept, and he would say, have you
9:23
Speaker 1: ever seen a floor swept as well as this one?
9:28
Speaker 1: And cal Jr. Was in the next ile, just sweeping
9:31
Speaker 1: away and grinning from ear to ear. That's fantastic. That's
9:36
Speaker 1: a good father, and you don't know that he's doing
9:39
Speaker 1: this on purpose. No, and everybody else there was kind
9:42
Speaker 1: of smiling. Look what he's doing here. And and that's
9:47
Speaker 1: the only job I had in the company of the
9:49
Speaker 1: many I had that I know I did well. Well,
9:53
Speaker 1: you did pretty well as CEO. We'll talk about that
9:56
Speaker 1: in a few minutes. Well, thank you. Let's talk a
9:58
Speaker 1: little bit about the whole concept of dollar pricing. What
10:03
Speaker 1: made Cal sr So adamant that we're gonna sell nothing
10:08
Speaker 1: from more than a dollar? And that's that what was
10:11
Speaker 1: the thinking behind that. Cal Senior was a country boy
10:15
Speaker 1: who observed what the city boys did in retailing, and
10:19
Speaker 1: he noticed the Louisville and Nashville, Tennessee department stores would
10:24
Speaker 1: run big, full color ads once a month dollar days sales,
10:31
Speaker 1: everything priced on the even dollar. And he knew those
10:35
Speaker 1: city boards were making money with those sales, or they
10:38
Speaker 1: wouldn't spend that much money on the ad. So he
10:41
Speaker 1: got his group together and said, I have the idea
10:43
Speaker 1: for a new concept, a new kind of store. It
10:48
Speaker 1: can be a dollar store, and the slogan can be
10:52
Speaker 1: every day is dollar Day, and we can make retailing simple.
10:57
Speaker 1: We can make value popped. For the customer, because we'll
11:00
Speaker 1: sell everything for a dollar. You do know that one
11:04
Speaker 1: dollar is the best price point God ever made, and
11:09
Speaker 1: that will be what will build our store around. What
11:12
Speaker 1: do you think? And they were unanimous call it won't work.
11:18
Speaker 1: Everybody hated it. Yeah, he said, well, I'll tell you
11:20
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do. We're gonna take a store where
11:23
Speaker 1: we have failed operating a junior department store, Springfield, Kentucky.
11:29
Speaker 1: We're going to open a dollar general store. And if
11:34
Speaker 1: that store succeeds where we previously failed, that's a pretty
11:40
Speaker 1: good test. And so we opened in Springfield, Kentucky. He
11:46
Speaker 1: got his friend in Nashville, Tennessee, who was stuck on
11:50
Speaker 1: pink corduroy, to cut that corduroy up into men's pants.
11:57
Speaker 1: Pink corduroys one dollar one dollar. Now, yeah they were pink,
12:04
Speaker 1: but yes, the farmers would buy them at one dollar.
12:08
Speaker 1: Somebody visited Springfield, Kentucky and said, it's amazing. This whole
12:13
Speaker 1: town seems to have a pink you about it. And
12:17
Speaker 1: there's a whole those those brawny farmers were in pink
12:20
Speaker 1: cardiu roy pants for one dollar. So he worked directly
12:23
Speaker 1: with manufacturers to come up with ways to create merchandise
12:28
Speaker 1: that could be sold profitably at a dollar as opposed
12:31
Speaker 1: to what can I go out and buy that? Absolutely,
12:35
Speaker 1: and that was a brilliant merchandizing strategy. Start with the
12:40
Speaker 1: customer in mind, and work with your vendors to create
12:45
Speaker 1: a value the customer needs. Let them be your partner.
12:49
Speaker 1: My dad believed that vendors were great partners and that
12:55
Speaker 1: was an opportunity for development of the company, the partnerships
12:59
Speaker 1: that you form with vendors. Even so, the first store
13:03
Speaker 1: where the previous General store had failed, opens up with
13:07
Speaker 1: the announcement dollar General every day is a dollar sale day. Well,
13:12
Speaker 1: the previous store was probably Turners Department store or something
13:17
Speaker 1: like that, but it it hadn't turned the profit. It
13:20
Speaker 1: hadn't turned the profit. And this new store had the
13:23
Speaker 1: yellow and black sign that said Dollar General Stores the
13:28
Speaker 1: town's most unusual store. And how long was it before
13:33
Speaker 1: everyone realized, hey, this is a really good formula. About
13:37
Speaker 1: four days? That was it. Let's send out how long
13:39
Speaker 1: it took him to open the store. And that's how
13:42
Speaker 1: long he gave me to open a new store when
13:45
Speaker 1: I first came with the company. Four days, not from
13:50
Speaker 1: start to finish from the start, away from you gotta
13:53
Speaker 1: build it absolute start. No, no, you you release an
13:57
Speaker 1: existing but you pay him a dollar a square foot. Right,
14:02
Speaker 1: So you'll take any building they've got, and you'll unload
14:06
Speaker 1: fixtures and merchandise on Monday and Tuesday and start putting
14:11
Speaker 1: it all out on Wednesday and Thursday and have it
14:14
Speaker 1: opened Friday morning. Thank you. And of course my stores
14:18
Speaker 1: looked as if I had opened them in only four days.
14:21
Speaker 1: But nobody they worked. The price was great, and and
14:25
Speaker 1: so the first store that was opened after how long
14:29
Speaker 1: did it take before you have to check your seats?
14:32
Speaker 1: You have to check the was it apparent from day
14:35
Speaker 1: one where their lines out the door? How quickly did
14:38
Speaker 1: everybody realize this is a much better formula than than
14:42
Speaker 1: than the department store. The store when it first opened
14:46
Speaker 1: was so full of customers that they had to close
14:49
Speaker 1: the door. So it was instantaneous, and they as they
14:55
Speaker 1: would let two customers out, they'd let two waiting people in.
14:59
Speaker 1: And that care it's its own buzz and the next thing,
15:01
Speaker 1: you know, So you worked with your dad for a
15:04
Speaker 1: long time, what was it like working with your father?
15:09
Speaker 1: My dad was absolutely wonderful. He was an only child
15:15
Speaker 1: who seemed to be adopting more brothers and sisters all
15:19
Speaker 1: of his life, and he had in mind from the
15:24
Speaker 1: very start that I would be to the one to
15:27
Speaker 1: run the company after him. I didn't have that in mind.
15:31
Speaker 1: You had other siblings, obviously had. There were two boys
15:34
Speaker 1: and two girls when I was the oldest boy, and
15:37
Speaker 1: I was the one who got his name. And so
15:40
Speaker 1: therefore you with a natural person saying yes to take
15:44
Speaker 1: the nancial But I've always referred to him as the
15:48
Speaker 1: real cal Turner because he was. Let's talk a little
15:52
Speaker 1: bit about your role as CEO. What did you like
15:56
Speaker 1: best about doing that job? What brought the most fun
15:59
Speaker 1: to you a CEO? The people's side of the business.
16:05
Speaker 1: I was fascinated with our customers. When I had clerked
16:10
Speaker 1: in our store. I had discovered that hard working farmers,
16:18
Speaker 1: we're smart as they could be. They had to survive,
16:23
Speaker 1: and I was convinced that my dad was right in
16:27
Speaker 1: saying we have the smartest customers of all because they're
16:31
Speaker 1: struggling and they have to be smart. And so my
16:36
Speaker 1: idea was that we could recruit great associates or employees
16:45
Speaker 1: from that customer base and they could help us to
16:49
Speaker 1: build a company that would really succeed because we build
16:54
Speaker 1: with associates who understood the customer. They helped us to
16:59
Speaker 1: understand us they were they were the customers essentially, and
17:03
Speaker 1: I realized that problem solving genius exists where the problem does.
17:11
Speaker 1: Those are the people who can help you figure out
17:14
Speaker 1: answers that you need in a retail company. What was
17:18
Speaker 1: your least favorite part about being CEO? Well, that's um,
17:26
Speaker 1: let me think what my least favorite part was. Oh,
17:30
Speaker 1: I know, my least favorite part was having to fire somebody.
17:37
Speaker 1: Everybody the least favorite part. I like everybody, and I
17:42
Speaker 1: want everybody to like me. And um, every now and
17:46
Speaker 1: then someone doesn't work out. You have to make a
17:49
Speaker 1: tough decision. That's right now. At one point in time,
17:52
Speaker 1: the company was on the verge of some really serious
17:56
Speaker 1: financial problems. Tell us a little and you discussed that
17:59
Speaker 1: in the book. Tell us a little bit about the
18:01
Speaker 1: background to that and how you avoided Chapter eleven and
18:04
Speaker 1: what you had to do. Our company had over expanded
18:11
Speaker 1: and we were actually in trouble as a company, and
18:15
Speaker 1: this large public company had the problem that the CEO
18:21
Speaker 1: and the CEO didn't agree on change that needed to
18:26
Speaker 1: be undertaken fast and tell us exactly who the CEO was.
18:32
Speaker 1: The CEO was my younger brother, Steve Turner, So not
18:37
Speaker 1: just a random person, this is your kid. Oh yes.
18:42
Speaker 1: And in the book I described that as life's toughest decision,
18:47
Speaker 1: and it was for me, the decision to fire my brother.
18:52
Speaker 1: It was hard, and I was aggravated at God for
18:57
Speaker 1: my being in that the decision making dilemma. Absolutely, and
19:05
Speaker 1: and my prayer became very irreverent because I told God
19:10
Speaker 1: exactly what I thought about him or her as I
19:12
Speaker 1: was having to go through. Then. Right now, your church going,
19:16
Speaker 1: god fearing man, you talk about um your revelation in
19:19
Speaker 1: the book and when God first came to you. How
19:24
Speaker 1: do you go from that to being angry at God?
19:27
Speaker 1: That's so inconsistent with everything else I've read about you. Well,
19:31
Speaker 1: the God I worship knows what I'm thinking even before
19:34
Speaker 1: I think it. And if I'm angry, how dare Cal
19:39
Speaker 1: Turner Jr. Speak in in sweet holy language and his
19:43
Speaker 1: prayer when God already knows what I'm thinking? So I
19:46
Speaker 1: have I have to have the integrity even with God,
19:50
Speaker 1: especially with God. Okay, that's fair. So how do you
19:52
Speaker 1: go from that to reaching the decision. Hey, kid, brother,
19:57
Speaker 1: this ain't working. We got to move on. Well, it
20:00
Speaker 1: took our family between six and eight months to process it.
20:04
Speaker 1: Because our whole family processed, that is sure. And they
20:09
Speaker 1: were all hoping Cal Jr. Would get over this and
20:12
Speaker 1: did he? He did not because he read some scripture
20:18
Speaker 1: that said I am the vine and my father's divine dresser.
20:23
Speaker 1: That which is dead, he cuts away, that which is fruitful,
20:27
Speaker 1: he prunes so it'll bear more fruit. And I thought,
20:30
Speaker 1: thank you, Lord, one brother has to be cut away,
20:33
Speaker 1: and this brother has to be pruned and be more fruitful.
20:37
Speaker 1: And I've got my marching orders. Thank you. So how
20:40
Speaker 1: did your brother take this? And did that cause a
20:43
Speaker 1: rift in the family? That didn't heal for a while.
20:46
Speaker 1: Of course it caused a rift, of course it did.
20:50
Speaker 1: It was painful, It was hard on everybody. But my
20:54
Speaker 1: brother actually helped me to do it. And how is that?
20:58
Speaker 1: He said, Now, Cal's Jr. This is my family business too.
21:05
Speaker 1: If if you do this, you're going to deny me
21:08
Speaker 1: my birthright. But brother, you'll have to step up to
21:13
Speaker 1: the plate and fire me and live with that the
21:17
Speaker 1: rest of your life. And I said, I do. Some
21:21
Speaker 1: people use that to get married. I used it to
21:23
Speaker 1: get divorced from my brother in the business. And what's
21:26
Speaker 1: the happy ending at the end of the happy ending
21:29
Speaker 1: is that Steve Turner blossomed in his independence of the
21:34
Speaker 1: family retail business and he proved who he was and
21:40
Speaker 1: what he could do. And I am so proud of him.
21:44
Speaker 1: And that wouldn't have happened if that really tough decision
21:49
Speaker 1: hadn't been made. But I'm convinced because the decision was
21:54
Speaker 1: based on scripture, it was made well. So everybody loves
21:58
Speaker 1: a happy ending like that. It took a long time,
22:02
Speaker 1: a long time. Your dad was essentially um, your mentor
22:07
Speaker 1: and your teacher. What did you run up What did
22:11
Speaker 1: you learn about running a business from your father? Well,
22:17
Speaker 1: I learned business from my father, Barry, but I learned
22:22
Speaker 1: leadership principles from my mother. Oh really tell us, and
22:26
Speaker 1: from all the women in my life. For example, that's
22:29
Speaker 1: very interesting. When I was a teenager, my mother would
22:32
Speaker 1: often say to me, son, for a good boy, you
22:35
Speaker 1: get into a lot of trouble. My mother taught me
22:39
Speaker 1: to separate the person from the problem, and people can
22:44
Speaker 1: come together to solve the problem better. So when I
22:47
Speaker 1: got into business with my dad and something would go wrong.
22:52
Speaker 1: He was of the old school, and he'd say who
22:55
Speaker 1: did that? And I said, I'm not gonna tell you, Daddy.
22:58
Speaker 1: He said, do you know who did it? Sir? Tell me, no,
23:01
Speaker 1: I'm not, daddy. I threw my mother at my father.
23:04
Speaker 1: I said, now, Daddy, we're not gonna say who did it.
23:08
Speaker 1: When something goes wrong, We're gonna say what happened and
23:12
Speaker 1: who needs help to fix it? Because anytime something goes wrong, Daddy,
23:18
Speaker 1: there is never any one person. Sure, several people were involved.
23:23
Speaker 1: So let's not look for one person to blame. Let's
23:27
Speaker 1: build a company of problem solvers where people established relationships
23:32
Speaker 1: to help each other. And my dad would say hmmmmmm,
23:37
Speaker 1: and I could I could see from the expression on
23:40
Speaker 1: his face that I had not yet made a complete sale.
23:45
Speaker 1: Did he realize you were basically channeling your mother back
23:48
Speaker 1: at him? And oh no, I didn't tell him that.
23:53
Speaker 1: I was young and green, but I knew not to
23:56
Speaker 1: spring my mother on my father. But that was a
23:58
Speaker 1: very pragmatic approach to problem solving, making it about the issue,
24:03
Speaker 1: not the person. Yes, if you have a person problem,
24:06
Speaker 1: well that's a whole different conversation. But if something just
24:09
Speaker 1: happened to go wrong, let's fix it rather than make
24:12
Speaker 1: it about who did what. Well, the personal problems usually
24:19
Speaker 1: result in something going wrong, But you can solve the
24:24
Speaker 1: personal problem better if you all concentrate on the problem,
24:29
Speaker 1: not the person that That makes a lot of sense.
24:33
Speaker 1: So you ran a public company for a long time,
24:37
Speaker 1: do you Let's go back to the day the company
24:39
Speaker 1: went public? When did When did you go? I p
24:43
Speaker 1: O December of nineteen sixty eight because my dad just
24:48
Speaker 1: decided it was time to take Jail Turner and Son public.
24:52
Speaker 1: Oh and by the way, Son, we're going to change
24:55
Speaker 1: the name to Dollar General Corporation. Oh Dad, here, we're
24:59
Speaker 1: taking Turner off of the name. I kind of hate that. Yes,
25:02
Speaker 1: our company needs to be identified with our stores. So
25:05
Speaker 1: Dollar General it was. And he said, you take it,
25:10
Speaker 1: you run with it. So we went public. We had
25:13
Speaker 1: no chief financial officer, we had no consolidated financials in
25:18
Speaker 1: the company, we had no budget. But Cal jr. You've
25:23
Speaker 1: had accounting courses and you can handle Wall Street, so
25:26
Speaker 1: you take it and go public. Well I'm glad I
25:29
Speaker 1: was naive enough to think I could do it, because
25:32
Speaker 1: I had to do it. So we went public and
25:35
Speaker 1: in January somebody said something about an annual report, and
25:41
Speaker 1: I said, what is an annual report? They explained what
25:46
Speaker 1: it was and said, okay, well I'm the only one
25:48
Speaker 1: who can write it. So I went in my office
25:50
Speaker 1: and closed the door and sat down and wrote the
25:53
Speaker 1: first annual report. What about annual meetings with shareholders? How
25:58
Speaker 1: how did that go? Yeah? Well in the early day. Well,
26:05
Speaker 1: we had them in Scottsville, Kentucky, and we invite everybody
26:08
Speaker 1: to come to Scottsville, Kentucky. Not many showed up. Well
26:14
Speaker 1: that's where the company was headquartered, so why why wouldn't you?
26:18
Speaker 1: We had it in Scottsville, Kentucky. We had to grow
26:21
Speaker 1: up as a public company. We had to grow up
26:24
Speaker 1: as a family business that could learn the best way
26:31
Speaker 1: it could be professionally managed. There was a lot of
26:35
Speaker 1: trial and era, a lot of hard work. But we
26:40
Speaker 1: had wonderful people to help us figure that company out.
26:44
Speaker 1: So you had to get a CFO, you had to
26:46
Speaker 1: get ahead of investor relations, you had to get a
26:49
Speaker 1: marketing What was that process like adding these people or not? No,
26:55
Speaker 1: we didn't have to get them my dad. My dad
26:59
Speaker 1: thought I could do whatever needed to be done. That
27:02
Speaker 1: shows his overcount for the in his son. And so
27:06
Speaker 1: we evolved and those persons were added in time, but
27:13
Speaker 1: not right away. Normally companies load up with those folks
27:17
Speaker 1: before the I p O. It took years and years
27:20
Speaker 1: before these people showed up. It did, indeed, it certainly did.
27:25
Speaker 1: So you were wearing a lot of hats. You were
27:27
Speaker 1: acting as CFO liaison to Wall Street investor relations. What
27:33
Speaker 1: job weren't you doing? I can't think a single job
27:37
Speaker 1: I wasn't doing, and I think that's why there's no
27:39
Speaker 1: hair on top of my head now. But who better
27:42
Speaker 1: to be CEO than someone who knows literally every aspect
27:46
Speaker 1: of the company. Well. I had had most of the
27:50
Speaker 1: jobs in that retail company myself, and I was not
27:55
Speaker 1: good at a single thing I did except sweeping the floor.
27:59
Speaker 1: And I developed a respect for the people who do
28:02
Speaker 1: those jobs well, and I said, look, we all know
28:06
Speaker 1: how I got this job. I'm the boss's son, I'm
28:10
Speaker 1: over my head and I need your help. I respect
28:13
Speaker 1: what you do. I like how you get the work
28:18
Speaker 1: done in this company. Let's learn together, and you have
28:22
Speaker 1: my commitment that we will share the success with you
28:26
Speaker 1: if you help us build this company. I love the
28:31
Speaker 1: philosophy and I have to adopt that that that sounds
28:33
Speaker 1: like a very realistic and practical approach to getting the
28:39
Speaker 1: best out of the people who are working for you. Well,
28:41
Speaker 1: it was my approach at being over my head, So
28:45
Speaker 1: it comes from the place of honesty. But it also
28:48
Speaker 1: happened to work out well. Yes, and and they believe
28:51
Speaker 1: me because I think they knew I was over They
28:53
Speaker 1: knew you were telling the truth when you said I
28:55
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm Yeah, exactly. That's fantastic. So you
28:59
Speaker 1: go public. When you came in as CEO, there were
29:03
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty stores. What was that expansion process
29:07
Speaker 1: like up to as many stores as as the company
29:10
Speaker 1: has now. Well, we could open a store in less
29:15
Speaker 1: than a week, and if the store didn't work, we
29:19
Speaker 1: could close it in a day and move on. So
29:24
Speaker 1: you're willing to throw stuff up against the wall, see
29:27
Speaker 1: what worked, and if it didn't work, shrug and move on.
29:30
Speaker 1: And if it worked, you could put more resources into
29:33
Speaker 1: this and we would do the occasional acquisition if we
29:38
Speaker 1: could get good store leases in the process, more places
29:43
Speaker 1: to open our store. And my dad would always be
29:46
Speaker 1: the great buyer. He'd buy all the opportunity buys and
29:50
Speaker 1: we'd be overstocked with whatever he'd bought. So we had
29:53
Speaker 1: to open more stores. Yeah, yeah, And he used to
29:59
Speaker 1: laugh about how how bankers, how retailers could pull the
30:03
Speaker 1: wool over the eyes of bankers by saying, look, if
30:07
Speaker 1: I can open more stores, I'll have more places to
30:11
Speaker 1: sell my merchandise. If it doesn't sell here, I'll sell
30:16
Speaker 1: it there. Well, if it doesn't sell here, chance there.
30:22
Speaker 1: So you mentioned acquisitions. I'm assuming part of the reasons
30:26
Speaker 1: to go public is to use the stock for these acquisitions. Yes,
30:31
Speaker 1: you get a new group of companies, a new group
30:34
Speaker 1: of stores, and new group of managers. So you're also
30:36
Speaker 1: hiring talent as well. How did that that acquisition process
30:41
Speaker 1: work over as many years as you were deploying that. Well,
30:46
Speaker 1: it was always based on the marketing opportunity afforded by
30:52
Speaker 1: an acquisition prospect. Could we get stores where the leases
31:00
Speaker 1: would work for us? Yes, and that that was our
31:06
Speaker 1: entire basis for doing that. Location didn't matter. You didn't
31:09
Speaker 1: care like any town, any population. Well, that evolved. My
31:14
Speaker 1: dad used to think, our our prices and merchandise are
31:17
Speaker 1: so compelling that we can open a store anywhere. And
31:21
Speaker 1: some of the buildings, at least you'd say that about them.
31:25
Speaker 1: They were just in places most retailers wouldn't pick. And
31:31
Speaker 1: as the company evolved, we got a little more particular
31:35
Speaker 1: about where we would put our stores. But he still
31:38
Speaker 1: only wanted us to pay a dollar a square foot
31:41
Speaker 1: per year? Did that? How long did that work out?
31:44
Speaker 1: How long was that price point able to do well?
31:47
Speaker 1: Two or three years? That was that? Eventually the landlord
31:51
Speaker 1: started raising, uh, study raising, Well, you it's supply and demand.
31:56
Speaker 1: There's there's there's no supply of opportunity a ty to
32:00
Speaker 1: open store at a dollar or square foot anymore cal sr.
32:06
Speaker 1: So you had to actually start paying up for that.
32:08
Speaker 1: Was there any methodology too, we want to expand either
32:12
Speaker 1: geographically east or west or what was the thought process?
32:17
Speaker 1: Where were you looking or was it just traveling around
32:20
Speaker 1: the country working with your partners, your vendors. You would say, hey,
32:24
Speaker 1: this is an area that looks ripe for acquisition or expansion. Well,
32:29
Speaker 1: we wanted to open the stores where we understood the customers.
32:34
Speaker 1: So they were primarily in Kentucky and Tennessee at the time.
32:39
Speaker 1: And and yet opportunity to expand elsewhere was compelling, and
32:47
Speaker 1: and we would we would go where we could get
32:50
Speaker 1: the cheap ramps. So who was your competition in those
32:54
Speaker 1: early days that was around the same period Walmart was
32:58
Speaker 1: blowing up. Well, we always considered our competition only to
33:05
Speaker 1: be everybody else who was in retailing. The entire retail
33:09
Speaker 1: sector was your college. Yes, and and the landscape of
33:13
Speaker 1: retailing um provided whole kinds of competition. And there's a
33:21
Speaker 1: lot There was a lot of carnage among retailers. There
33:25
Speaker 1: always has been. If you don't stay connected to the
33:29
Speaker 1: customer as a retailer, and if you aren't meeting a
33:33
Speaker 1: customer need with your store, your days are numbered. And
33:37
Speaker 1: that's very sage advice. I have a ton more questions
33:40
Speaker 1: for you. Can you stick around a little bit. We
33:43
Speaker 1: have been speaking with Cal Turner Jr. He's been CEO
33:47
Speaker 1: of Dollar General for decades. If you enjoy this conversation,
33:52
Speaker 1: be sure and check out the podcast extras where we
33:54
Speaker 1: keep the tape rolling and continue discussing all things retail.
33:59
Speaker 1: You can find that at Bloomberg dot com, Apple iTunes,
34:04
Speaker 1: or overcast wherever final podcasts are sold. Be sure and
34:08
Speaker 1: check out my daily column. You can see that at
34:10
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com. Follow me on Twitter at rit Holts.
34:14
Speaker 1: I'm Barry rit Halts. You're listening to Masters in Business
34:18
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to the podcast. Cal. Thank you
34:34
Speaker 1: so much for doing this. I am enjoying this tremendously.
34:37
Speaker 1: I have a bunch of other questions to get to,
34:41
Speaker 1: but I only touched upon something that you spend some
34:47
Speaker 1: time talking about in the book, and we really didn't
34:50
Speaker 1: get to on the broadcast portion. And it's um your
34:55
Speaker 1: spirituality and how you had a moment that change your
35:00
Speaker 1: whole life, and you spend a lot of time in
35:02
Speaker 1: the book discussing that. Tell us, I think you were
35:05
Speaker 1: eleven years older old, So tell us about that a
35:08
Speaker 1: little bit that I was intrigued by that. It's interesting
35:12
Speaker 1: how Luther Turner's life changed at eleven, and how Cal
35:17
Speaker 1: Turner Jr. How the life of Cal Turner Junior changed
35:21
Speaker 1: at eleven. It was a summer Sunday evening, and I
35:25
Speaker 1: was sitting in the beautiful twilight on my uncle's front
35:30
Speaker 1: porch across the street from our church. I was waiting
35:34
Speaker 1: for my parents to pick me up, and in that
35:37
Speaker 1: still wonderful twilight time, something came over me that I
35:44
Speaker 1: cannot explain. It's nothing that I came up with, but
35:49
Speaker 1: it happened to me. And it was based on the
35:52
Speaker 1: words of the old Rugged Cross and the conviction that
35:57
Speaker 1: while it was wonderful that Christ had died for everyone,
36:02
Speaker 1: he had specifically done it for cal Turner Jr. And
36:06
Speaker 1: it was a big wow that changed my life. I
36:12
Speaker 1: didn't know what that meant, but I knew from that
36:16
Speaker 1: time on my life would be different. Now that I'm
36:22
Speaker 1: seventy eight and looking back on it, I think it
36:25
Speaker 1: meant that I was always supposed to be asking the
36:29
Speaker 1: right question of life, and I was forewarned that if
36:37
Speaker 1: I followed my Lord, I would have a cross to carry,
36:43
Speaker 1: and so I have to ask what was your cross
36:46
Speaker 1: to bear? Well, my cross was splitting the family and
36:52
Speaker 1: the company by firing my brother. That was um the
36:57
Speaker 1: best example of across us. But now that I look
37:02
Speaker 1: back on those rough times in life, I find myself
37:08
Speaker 1: more blessed by them than the times of success. Well,
37:13
Speaker 1: success is easy, Failure is hard. Failure is hard, and
37:19
Speaker 1: sometimes it takes failure to learn lessons that should be learned,
37:26
Speaker 1: which only failure can teach, so it's it's biblical, a
37:31
Speaker 1: little not quite cane enable, but the fight between brothers
37:35
Speaker 1: is fairly biblical. Years later, how did that resolve? Writing
37:41
Speaker 1: this book, my father's business has been additional healing to
37:45
Speaker 1: the relationship between brothers. My brother loves the book. He does,
37:51
Speaker 1: he does, and how I described the dilemma that we
37:59
Speaker 1: all faced. He had a role in life to live,
38:02
Speaker 1: and I had one to live. And when I read
38:07
Speaker 1: Timothy Keller's book The Prodigal God, I learned about the
38:12
Speaker 1: sin of the older brother. In that parable about the
38:16
Speaker 1: prodigal son, the prodigal son gets forgiven, not the old
38:21
Speaker 1: not the older brother. Who is who is self righteous?
38:25
Speaker 1: And who's the people pleaser? And that's who I was.
38:29
Speaker 1: I was a terrible older brother. And that helped me
38:33
Speaker 1: to put it all together better in a way that
38:36
Speaker 1: gave my younger brother the credit he deserved. Did he
38:41
Speaker 1: realize how painful the process of firing him was to you?
38:46
Speaker 1: He obviously knows how he felt. Was he aware? How
38:50
Speaker 1: it you sound like? And what I read in the
38:53
Speaker 1: book it you agonized over this decision, and it haunted
38:57
Speaker 1: you for a while, even though you knew it is
39:00
Speaker 1: what the camp be two bosses. It had to be done,
39:03
Speaker 1: and even still it haunted you for a while. Yes,
39:07
Speaker 1: but my brother understood how hard it was on his
39:11
Speaker 1: older brother. That's why I said, you're gonna have to
39:14
Speaker 1: fire me and live with that the rest of your life.
39:17
Speaker 1: And I do. I still feel the scar. Sometimes you
39:24
Speaker 1: learn more from your scars. So how long was it
39:29
Speaker 1: before the family rift began to heal? How long did it?
39:34
Speaker 1: And it's always continual healing, But when did you first
39:37
Speaker 1: start to say, all right, we'll get by this. Well.
39:40
Speaker 1: To me, the healing began when my father called me
39:46
Speaker 1: about twenty four hours after learning that I had fired
39:50
Speaker 1: my brother, and he said, I haven't slept since that call, son,
39:54
Speaker 1: But I realized now that just as an animal cannot
39:58
Speaker 1: live with two heads, neither can a company. And you
40:04
Speaker 1: did what you have to do, had to do, and
40:09
Speaker 1: I'm with you. You have my support. That helped the
40:16
Speaker 1: healing to begin. Did you reach out to your brother
40:20
Speaker 1: afterwards and said, here's what we want to do. I
40:22
Speaker 1: don't want this to cause a permanent A permanent wound
40:27
Speaker 1: for the family is how we can heal. I did
40:30
Speaker 1: reach out to him. It wasn't immediately done, though, because
40:36
Speaker 1: more healing in our rapport needed to occur before I
40:40
Speaker 1: could even do that. A little time in space has
40:42
Speaker 1: to allow. Sometimes sometimes you have to be sensitive to
40:47
Speaker 1: the time that's needed to invest in a situation or syndrome.
40:54
Speaker 1: Need time time can help that That makes perfect sense.
40:58
Speaker 1: By the way the book is filled at these lovely um.
41:02
Speaker 1: I don't want to call them stories because they're they're true,
41:05
Speaker 1: just it's it's a a lovely set of vignettes well told.
41:12
Speaker 1: And it seems like you had a very fascinating career
41:17
Speaker 1: running the family's business. Thank you. I've never made anybody
41:21
Speaker 1: I consider equally blessed as cal Turner Jr. Well, that
41:26
Speaker 1: that's a charming sentiment. Let me get to some of
41:29
Speaker 1: the questions I missed during our our conversation. There's a
41:33
Speaker 1: bunch of things I wanted to UM wanted to ask
41:37
Speaker 1: you mentioned UM when I was talking about the time
41:41
Speaker 1: the company was on the verge of chapter eleven, that
41:44
Speaker 1: the underlying cause of that was overexpansion and rapid expansion.
41:50
Speaker 1: So once you came to realize that was what you
41:54
Speaker 1: what what had put the company in danger? How did
41:57
Speaker 1: you get past it? How did you resolve that challenge. Well,
42:02
Speaker 1: we had been doing strategic planning for years, but we
42:06
Speaker 1: weren't able to implement it very well because we had
42:11
Speaker 1: two camps in the company, one for each brother, and
42:16
Speaker 1: we couldn't coordinate the implementation. So after the younger brother
42:23
Speaker 1: left the company, we could get on with what we
42:27
Speaker 1: had said we wanted to do with the company, and
42:29
Speaker 1: we could, but we had to move fast. It's a
42:33
Speaker 1: good thing that the whole management team had been doing
42:38
Speaker 1: planning because I understood our agenda and we could implement
42:44
Speaker 1: it faster. So I'm curious about one thing, and I'm
42:49
Speaker 1: sure listeners are as well. You said your brother blossomed
42:53
Speaker 1: after this event. What did he go on to do.
42:57
Speaker 1: My brother developed um the Gulch in Nashville, Tennessee, which
43:03
Speaker 1: is an amazing development of the downtown Nashville that we
43:10
Speaker 1: all know today and that has Steve Turner and his
43:16
Speaker 1: son Jay all over it. They did wonderful things for Nashville,
43:23
Speaker 1: and so he became a very successful real estate developer.
43:27
Speaker 1: He did, he did, indeed, and he also blossomed in philanthropy.
43:35
Speaker 1: He and his wonderful wife, Judy have done amazing things
43:40
Speaker 1: for the not for profit community UM for downtown development
43:47
Speaker 1: and they are deservedly very loved in the community of Nashville, Tennessee.
43:55
Speaker 1: Now you mentioned philanthropy, I'm confusing. I don't remember if
43:58
Speaker 1: it was you or your father. Mother began taking a
44:02
Speaker 1: few shares of Dollar General stock and donating it to
44:07
Speaker 1: a foundation each year. Am I misremembering that? I don't
44:13
Speaker 1: remember that that that he did that my uh, my
44:17
Speaker 1: dad would would give some of his stock to all
44:21
Speaker 1: the cousins year after year after year. Uh. Philanthropy for
44:26
Speaker 1: him was more of a family thing I miss from im.
44:30
Speaker 1: I might be confusing the two in my haste to
44:33
Speaker 1: get the book. Well, I can tell you what my
44:36
Speaker 1: dad did in philanthropy. At the end of his life.
44:40
Speaker 1: He woke up to the blessing of philanthropy because he
44:45
Speaker 1: saw his kids doing it and and he wants conducted
44:51
Speaker 1: a census of all of the churches in his hometown
44:55
Speaker 1: of Allen County, Kentucky. Found that there were ninety one
44:58
Speaker 1: of them, and he gave a thousand dollars to each church,
45:03
Speaker 1: and they were overwhelmed because more than half of those
45:07
Speaker 1: churches had received the largest contribution in their history. And
45:13
Speaker 1: he said, son it's amazing. Look how cheap philanthropy is
45:18
Speaker 1: in Scottsville. You can't buy that kind of good will
45:22
Speaker 1: in Nashville, Tennessee for dollars on. That's amazing. He's a
45:27
Speaker 1: value investor even when it comes to indeed, that's charming.
45:33
Speaker 1: So you avoid chapter eleven by by taking these two
45:38
Speaker 1: camps and creating one camp with it. How long did
45:41
Speaker 1: it take to come out of that period of Hey,
45:44
Speaker 1: things are really uh, things are really dicey. Okay, now
45:48
Speaker 1: we feel like we're on from our financial footing. Well,
45:53
Speaker 1: it took a good three years before I could see
45:58
Speaker 1: our turnaround. We're working three years. That's a long time.
46:04
Speaker 1: Felt like an eternity. Our company had gotten bigger. You
46:10
Speaker 1: can't turn a bigger company around as fast as you
46:13
Speaker 1: can a smaller company. And it's interesting how that happened.
46:18
Speaker 1: My dad and I had another fight because Um, the
46:24
Speaker 1: son of his pet flunked a drug test. Um he
46:28
Speaker 1: was the only district management the company to flunk a
46:30
Speaker 1: drug test. And my dad said, you're not gonna fire
46:34
Speaker 1: him because his father has done more for this company
46:37
Speaker 1: than your whole management team put together. But I did.
46:41
Speaker 1: I did fire And what did he say, well, he
46:45
Speaker 1: was just royally ticked off. And I decided that I
46:50
Speaker 1: can't keep going through father and son fights. I know
46:55
Speaker 1: how I can control the old man. So I'll go
46:59
Speaker 1: to Otsville and I'd say, look, Daddy, my brothers and
47:05
Speaker 1: sisters don't want to sell their stock until I sell mine.
47:11
Speaker 1: I'm willing for us to get family to come back together.
47:17
Speaker 1: You and I keep fighting. It's like a dagger to
47:19
Speaker 1: my heart every time we have a fight. Let's agree
47:24
Speaker 1: that all of the turners will sell this company. And
47:29
Speaker 1: I knew my dad would say, oh no, and then
47:31
Speaker 1: I'd say, well, then you behave and did he He said?
47:37
Speaker 1: I said, so let's sell the company, Daddy, And he
47:39
Speaker 1: said okay, And I said okay. So he called your bluff,
47:45
Speaker 1: he called my bluff. And I said, well, all right, Daddy.
47:49
Speaker 1: What I have to do now is to share that
47:52
Speaker 1: with the management team. So I'm going to go back
47:55
Speaker 1: to them and suggest that they come up with the
48:00
Speaker 1: compensation plan to make it worth their while if we
48:03
Speaker 1: successfully sell the company, because something needs to be in
48:10
Speaker 1: it for them to shore. And so I went back
48:14
Speaker 1: and they came up with a plan that I said,
48:17
Speaker 1: I don't think the board would ever approve this, but
48:21
Speaker 1: we it was taken to the board, the board approved it,
48:25
Speaker 1: and somehow the turnaround of that company that wasn't yet
48:30
Speaker 1: working started to work when all of senior management got
48:36
Speaker 1: that motivated to make it work. So, so what are
48:39
Speaker 1: you saying that incentives matter and when employees feel the
48:43
Speaker 1: own a company, they perform better. Exactly exactly, That is
48:48
Speaker 1: a fundamental that sometimes we miss. It's easy to to overlook,
48:55
Speaker 1: especially when things are going well. It's only when things
48:58
Speaker 1: start going poorly that we start thinking, what do we
49:01
Speaker 1: what do we forget about a good observation good observation?
49:05
Speaker 1: So a question I have to ask you, given the
49:08
Speaker 1: nature of dollar general and the fact that you're saying
49:12
Speaker 1: every retailer is a competitor, there has been an ongoing
49:19
Speaker 1: um let's call it income inequality or wealth inequality that
49:24
Speaker 1: has ebbed and flowed over the years. During the Great Depression,
49:28
Speaker 1: it was a very, very big chasm, and then in
49:33
Speaker 1: the post War War two period the middle class flourished
49:37
Speaker 1: and did very well. And over the past let's call
49:40
Speaker 1: it ten or twenty or maybe even thirty years, that
49:43
Speaker 1: rift has widened again, and it's bigger today than at
49:47
Speaker 1: least according to some data, it's bigger today than it's
49:50
Speaker 1: been since the Great Depression. What does that mean to
49:56
Speaker 1: you as somebody who worked in retail, and as somebody
50:01
Speaker 1: who is spiritual and and is concerned about the welfare
50:05
Speaker 1: of his fellow men. Free enterprise needs to be free,
50:13
Speaker 1: and there are inequities that occur from time to time.
50:20
Speaker 1: And yet if the market can have its influence on
50:28
Speaker 1: human activity, it can be self correcting. We found that
50:36
Speaker 1: building a business required our offering opportunity to develop to
50:43
Speaker 1: our customer base that could become our associates and build
50:47
Speaker 1: the company, and they could. They could grow and develop,
50:51
Speaker 1: and their financial well being would be enhanced in a
50:55
Speaker 1: major way the more productive they became. So if the
51:00
Speaker 1: money rewards productivity, then it's good to have more wealthy
51:06
Speaker 1: people based on their being productive. It works, it does work.
51:12
Speaker 1: It gets yes, it gets out of balance. Life is
51:16
Speaker 1: always out of balance. A real leader tries to figure
51:21
Speaker 1: out the balance that he needs or she needs to
51:25
Speaker 1: work on. And this this ebbs and flows. It gets better,
51:29
Speaker 1: it gets worse, it goes back into that's the cycle
51:32
Speaker 1: of business, of life, of everything. Yes, yes so, and
51:36
Speaker 1: if without getting to um clich seven fat years, seven
51:40
Speaker 1: lean years. That's what eventually, if you wait long enough,
51:44
Speaker 1: it all comes back around, I think. So, So let
51:47
Speaker 1: me ask you some of my favorite questions. These are
51:49
Speaker 1: what I ask all of my guests. A lot of
51:53
Speaker 1: these I don't know the answer to one or two.
51:55
Speaker 1: I think I could guess the answer to um. Tell
51:59
Speaker 1: us the most important thing that people don't know about you, Well,
52:05
Speaker 1: they don't know the grounding of my faith and the
52:09
Speaker 1: central and importance of that to my life. But we
52:13
Speaker 1: we have talked about that. You write about it extensively
52:16
Speaker 1: in the book, but you don't wear it on your sleeve.
52:19
Speaker 1: It's not you don't be people over the head with it.
52:22
Speaker 1: I wear it on my sleeve more in the book
52:24
Speaker 1: than I ever have. That's one of the nice things
52:28
Speaker 1: about retirement. You don't have to be so constrained about
52:33
Speaker 1: political correctness. You can share from your heart with the
52:40
Speaker 1: hope that you're doing that will help somebody else. And
52:44
Speaker 1: my book is an attempt to mentor the reader. I've
52:47
Speaker 1: had great mentors throughout my life. That's my next question.
52:50
Speaker 1: Tell us about some of your mentors. Your dad, obviously
52:53
Speaker 1: is gonna be front and center and we've we've talked
52:56
Speaker 1: about them. My dad, my mother didn't know she was
52:59
Speaker 1: meant ring me when she was raising me. And let
53:02
Speaker 1: me interrupt you a second. Do you really stop and
53:05
Speaker 1: think about this for a second, because I'm just thinking
53:07
Speaker 1: about my mother. Do you really think she had no
53:11
Speaker 1: idea she was mentoring you? Or was she just doing
53:14
Speaker 1: in a way that it took you sixty years to
53:17
Speaker 1: figure out she was parenting the best way she knew how.
53:23
Speaker 1: That's mentoring. And yeah, of course, and the best mentoring,
53:28
Speaker 1: I think is to a you get confused about who
53:32
Speaker 1: is helping whom because you're helping each other. And I
53:37
Speaker 1: love to be in those two way mentoring relationships. That
53:42
Speaker 1: that's a lovely sentiment. What retailers out there and and
53:47
Speaker 1: people in the retail industry influence the way you looked
53:51
Speaker 1: at the business of Dollar General and anybody affect how
53:56
Speaker 1: you approached it or was it strictly Calcina there There
54:03
Speaker 1: were many of them throughout the history of our company.
54:08
Speaker 1: We observed successes among the competition, and um, there were
54:16
Speaker 1: some more successful now and others might be more successful later.
54:22
Speaker 1: And a good retail leader observes the competition and yet
54:28
Speaker 1: does not copy that competition. Is there anything you can
54:32
Speaker 1: learn from the competition without copying them? Oh? Yes, But
54:36
Speaker 1: you know what you need to do is to learn
54:39
Speaker 1: how to apply in your company what that competition seems
54:45
Speaker 1: to do well in his or her company. But you've
54:49
Speaker 1: got to learn it through the eyes of your own
54:54
Speaker 1: employees and customers and apply it in your business model,
55:00
Speaker 1: in your business opportunity. It makes perfect sense to me. Uh,
55:05
Speaker 1: this is one of everybody's favorite questions because people are
55:08
Speaker 1: always looking for new things to read. Tell us about
55:11
Speaker 1: some of your favorite books. Well, the book that I
55:18
Speaker 1: need the most of any books the Bible. Now. I
55:22
Speaker 1: tend to read books that are from really good thinkers
55:31
Speaker 1: that are based on the Bible. Earlier, I shared with
55:34
Speaker 1: you that Timothy Keller is one of my favorite theologians,
55:39
Speaker 1: and when he wrote that book The Prodigal God, helped
55:42
Speaker 1: me to figure out the problem I had as an
55:45
Speaker 1: older brother, and it helped me to bond with younger
55:50
Speaker 1: brother and to understand life better. I like what he writes.
55:56
Speaker 1: I read a lot of Richard Roar of hen Now
56:00
Speaker 1: and I like Richard Rore's book Falling Upward. It talks
56:05
Speaker 1: about life having two basic dynamics. You start off building
56:12
Speaker 1: your container, you try to accomplish, achieve, succeed. You build
56:18
Speaker 1: the container, and the last half of your life you
56:21
Speaker 1: try to fill it with meaning and he he surmises
56:28
Speaker 1: that the person who works on that second half dynamic
56:35
Speaker 1: early is more blessed in life. Try to get the
56:40
Speaker 1: meaning in the container as you're building it, and he
56:44
Speaker 1: he talks about uh, dualistic thinking and non dualistic thinking
56:51
Speaker 1: in a way that was a real aha to me.
56:54
Speaker 1: So much of life is compare and contrast. Put a
56:59
Speaker 1: label on this, put a label on that, And God,
57:04
Speaker 1: who made all of us, says, there's more to life
57:08
Speaker 1: than a label. There's more to life than a comparison.
57:12
Speaker 1: When when I pray to God about something, should I
57:16
Speaker 1: do this or that? God would say yes, and it
57:20
Speaker 1: would tick me off. But you've said that several times,
57:27
Speaker 1: And I recall so I come from a fairly religious family,
57:33
Speaker 1: and I would have similar discussions with my father, and
57:37
Speaker 1: every now and then I get a headshake and say,
57:40
Speaker 1: you know, Lilisie on the blasphemy boy settled down, But
57:44
Speaker 1: you and I'm remembering conversations I've had you kind of
57:50
Speaker 1: make me think along the same lines of Hey, that's
57:53
Speaker 1: getting a little close to the edge, being ticked off
57:56
Speaker 1: at God or being somehow unwilling to accept your lot
58:03
Speaker 1: as part of a bigger plan and and shaking your
58:07
Speaker 1: fist angrily at the skies. That's not the sort of
58:10
Speaker 1: person you are today? Or are you? Am? I am?
58:14
Speaker 1: I am? I miss reading your genteel southern charms as
58:18
Speaker 1: something else. Well, I'm still a person trying to get
58:22
Speaker 1: over himself and get out of God's way. Okay, but
58:26
Speaker 1: you didn't sound like you that way when you were younger. Well,
58:31
Speaker 1: and I don't mean as a teenager, I mean as
58:33
Speaker 1: a forty or fifty something person running a business. Well,
58:38
Speaker 1: I guess um, I may have exuded more confidence than
58:42
Speaker 1: I really should have had. Um, certainly when we went
58:49
Speaker 1: public and I didn't know what in the heck I
58:51
Speaker 1: was doing. I had to project confidence while I was
58:57
Speaker 1: quaking in my boots. But what does that have to
59:01
Speaker 1: So take that to the next step. You're ticked off
59:07
Speaker 1: at God? You said, how does that square with um?
59:13
Speaker 1: Your your basic religious upbringing? I was always told that, Hey,
59:17
Speaker 1: it's not for you to be mad at God. Who
59:20
Speaker 1: do you think you are? So that's kind of my background.
59:23
Speaker 1: How did how did you deal with that? Well? Well,
59:27
Speaker 1: then then I realized God was saying back to me.
59:30
Speaker 1: You know you were converted based on the Cross, and
59:33
Speaker 1: I told you you were going to have a cross
59:35
Speaker 1: to carry. I'll help you carry it, get with it,
59:40
Speaker 1: get over being piste off with me on life, and
59:46
Speaker 1: I'll help you get on with it in a deeper way.
59:50
Speaker 1: So yeah, I've sensed that God was saying, thank you
59:54
Speaker 1: for being honest with me. I already know you're you're
59:57
Speaker 1: upset with me, but thank you for being honest. So
1:00:01
Speaker 1: you eventually came full circle and was able to to
1:00:05
Speaker 1: get beyond your anger and manage what had to be managed.
1:00:09
Speaker 1: But I had some real irreverent prayer life. And I've
1:00:13
Speaker 1: always called myself a backsliding methodist, but that that means
1:00:18
Speaker 1: I own my backslide in a way that helps me
1:00:22
Speaker 1: to bond with other backsliders, And that makes perfect sense
1:00:26
Speaker 1: to me. So you, if anybody I can talk to
1:00:30
Speaker 1: about the sort of disrupted state of retail these days,
1:00:36
Speaker 1: you certainly have an interesting perspective. What do you think
1:00:41
Speaker 1: about the changes that are taking place with the Internet
1:00:44
Speaker 1: and Amazon and the new generation not really shopping the
1:00:48
Speaker 1: way their parents did. What do you think retail looks
1:00:51
Speaker 1: like going forward? Well, I've seen a lot of change
1:00:56
Speaker 1: in retailing in my thirty seven and a half years
1:01:00
Speaker 1: in the Saddle, and there will always be challenged. There
1:01:04
Speaker 1: will always be retailers making it and others not making it.
1:01:08
Speaker 1: The ones that stay closer connected with the customer are
1:01:12
Speaker 1: going to survive. And for example, when Dollar General changed
1:01:19
Speaker 1: its mindset by saying we're not a retailer where customer
1:01:25
Speaker 1: driven distributor, that really got the company going. So you
1:01:33
Speaker 1: need to redefine yourself in almost any organization based on
1:01:40
Speaker 1: what your people can help you figure out would work.
1:01:46
Speaker 1: They can help you figure out the next iteration of
1:01:50
Speaker 1: your company that you will all pursue together. When they
1:01:55
Speaker 1: give you the answer, they'll implement it for you very well.
1:02:01
Speaker 1: So tell us about and I You've talked about a
1:02:04
Speaker 1: few things with this, but I want to ask a
1:02:06
Speaker 1: specific example. Tell us about the time you you failed
1:02:11
Speaker 1: and what you learned from the experience. Oh well, I
1:02:16
Speaker 1: wish I could tell you about a time that I failed.
1:02:21
Speaker 1: There were many times that I failed, and um it
1:02:27
Speaker 1: was every failure was an opportunity for me to apply
1:02:35
Speaker 1: what my mother said, for a good boy, you get
1:02:37
Speaker 1: into a lot of trouble. We have good people who
1:02:41
Speaker 1: who mess up, and the key to getting it right
1:02:47
Speaker 1: is to acknowledge that we have messed up in a
1:02:51
Speaker 1: way that helps us all to fix it. And from
1:02:55
Speaker 1: every every failure was my best opportunity. It seems as
1:03:00
Speaker 1: I look back on life for for improvement, for to
1:03:05
Speaker 1: grow and to develop, and to reach out to other
1:03:08
Speaker 1: people and say, I really need your help here again,
1:03:13
Speaker 1: I'm a boss's son who's over his head and I
1:03:15
Speaker 1: need your help. I love. I love that approach. So
1:03:19
Speaker 1: outside of work, what do you do for fun? Well,
1:03:25
Speaker 1: Studying people is a delight for me. Everybody is one
1:03:33
Speaker 1: of a kind, and I get a kick out of
1:03:38
Speaker 1: getting acquainted with somebody on a ten second elevator ruck. There.
1:03:44
Speaker 1: People are fascinating and if there's a way for me
1:03:49
Speaker 1: to make a connection with them that says you're special,
1:03:55
Speaker 1: I am blessed if I make that connection. Now, I
1:03:59
Speaker 1: enjoy I enjoy physical activity, so I work out regularly.
1:04:06
Speaker 1: I enjoy being outside. The turners came from the farm.
1:04:09
Speaker 1: I like getting out on the land. I like just
1:04:13
Speaker 1: seeing whatever is going on out there in God's creation. Um,
1:04:18
Speaker 1: I've I've played tennis, I've played golf, I've I've done skiing,
1:04:24
Speaker 1: water and snow. All of these things I enjoy. But
1:04:30
Speaker 1: it is the activity that connects me with others that
1:04:35
Speaker 1: that is fulfilling. And life gives a lot of opportunity
1:04:39
Speaker 1: to be in partnership with other people. I am not
1:04:43
Speaker 1: surprised about that answer from you. That is pretty much
1:04:46
Speaker 1: exactly what I imagined you were quite revealing in the book.
1:04:50
Speaker 1: You know, it's why why didn't you just go on
1:04:52
Speaker 1: and answer the question? Because sometimes I don't know, but
1:04:56
Speaker 1: I kinda I kind of read that into you. Um.
1:05:00
Speaker 1: So if a recent college graduate came to you and said,
1:05:04
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about a career in retail, what sort of advice,
1:05:08
Speaker 1: what sort of career advice would you give them? Well,
1:05:11
Speaker 1: I don't have any pet advice to give anybody. Um.
1:05:15
Speaker 1: I like to get inside of the person and and
1:05:19
Speaker 1: figure out what turns that person on, what turns that
1:05:23
Speaker 1: person off? And let's let's talk about that and and
1:05:27
Speaker 1: how much of a turn on might retailing be for you?
1:05:31
Speaker 1: How much of a turnoff might it be? Are you
1:05:34
Speaker 1: a people person? Um? You mind hard work? How about
1:05:39
Speaker 1: long hours. What do you think about that? Can you
1:05:43
Speaker 1: have enough fun in retailing that you'll enjoy the long
1:05:48
Speaker 1: hours and the hard work, because that's what it is.
1:05:51
Speaker 1: We found in recruiting employees to our store where we
1:05:55
Speaker 1: could often find the best employees by talking people out
1:05:59
Speaker 1: of coming to work for us, meaning you don't want
1:06:02
Speaker 1: to work here is let me let me, let me
1:06:04
Speaker 1: tell you what's Let me tell you what's what's hard
1:06:07
Speaker 1: about this job you're applying for. You have to work
1:06:10
Speaker 1: a long hours, You get the merchandise straight and the
1:06:14
Speaker 1: customer messes it up and you have to straighten it again. However,
1:06:19
Speaker 1: if you want to be a part of this company
1:06:24
Speaker 1: where we give a better life to struggling people, you
1:06:28
Speaker 1: can feel good about the hard work you do. And
1:06:32
Speaker 1: then some people would be honest enough to say to themselves,
1:06:36
Speaker 1: I don't want to work that hard. Well, they're they're
1:06:38
Speaker 1: not a candidate for dollar General. If that be the case,
1:06:43
Speaker 1: that that seems to work. Was it that you know
1:06:47
Speaker 1: today about retelling that you wish you knew thirty seven
1:06:51
Speaker 1: years ago or so when you were first getting into
1:06:55
Speaker 1: the business of managing a fast growing retailer. I can't
1:06:59
Speaker 1: give you a good aunt her because I'm glad I
1:07:03
Speaker 1: didn't know much about retailing when I went into it,
1:07:07
Speaker 1: because I knew I needed to get others to help
1:07:11
Speaker 1: me learn and we could learn together. So retailing is
1:07:17
Speaker 1: a dynamic that you have to be figuring out together
1:07:21
Speaker 1: all the time. I love that answer. That's terrific. We
1:07:26
Speaker 1: have been speaking with Cal Turner Jr. He was the
1:07:30
Speaker 1: CEO of Dollar General and his new book is out
1:07:35
Speaker 1: and it's titled My Father's Business, The small town Values
1:07:39
Speaker 1: that built Dollar General into a billion dollar company. We
1:07:44
Speaker 1: love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at
1:07:48
Speaker 1: m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. If you enjoy
1:07:52
Speaker 1: this conversation well, then be sure to check out the
1:07:55
Speaker 1: two hundred or so other such conversations we've had previously.
1:07:59
Speaker 1: Just look up an Inch Down an Inch on Apple
1:08:01
Speaker 1: iTunes or overcast or Bloomberg dot com and you can
1:08:05
Speaker 1: see all the rest of the conversations we have had.
1:08:09
Speaker 1: I would be remiss if I did not thank the
1:08:11
Speaker 1: Cracks staff, my team that helps put together these podcasts
1:08:15
Speaker 1: each week. Medina Partwana is our audio engineer slash producer.
1:08:21
Speaker 1: Taylor Riggs is our booker slash producer. Michael bat Nick
1:08:26
Speaker 1: is my head of research. I'm Barry Results. You've been
1:08:29
Speaker 1: listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio