I wouldn't be so sure about that.
There's two ironmongers on the high St near where live. Both had store managers who were moving on for different reasons, the choices they made for their succession plans were very interesting.
One ironmonger had a guy who'd worked at the store for more than 20 years. The punters loved him. He was among the best at shelf stacking you've ever seen, but his talents didn't stop there. He had a way with customers, you went in there to buy a frying pan but you came out groaning under the weight of kitchenware. He held the record for the number of knives sold in a single day 4 years in a row. There were sales in that time that were so dazzling they still talk about them at the Annual Global Ironmongers Summit 15 years later.
About 5 minutes down the road, on the other side of the street, was another ironmongery. This one was anything but a world class retail space. As far as people from this town were concerned, this was a place to go in the unlikely event that the other one was sold out of what you were looking for, or if you were in a rush and were on the side of town that made this one closer. It did a reasonable business among OOTers because I live in a historic market town with its fair share of tourists, and it was closer to the train station. I am not saying it was a dump per se, but its staff were not people who had grown up with ironmongery, or even metallurgy, in their blood. There was no sense of passion in this shop, so it was regarded as a functional space, rather than one of passion.
The first ironmonger promoted its star salesman to store manager, but this was where things started to go wrong. You see, while he was a fantastic salesman, and knew the store, and its wares, inside out, he had no head for strategy. And the more time he spent organising the financial and administrative aspects of the stop, the less time he had to spend with the customers. He could replenish the shelves in that shop faster than anyone else had ever stacked a shelf but instead of doing that, while others toiled in the shop at night, he puzzled over spreadsheets that left him feeling confused and frustrated. And, sad to say, the fortunes of the shop turned.
The other shop had no loyalties to any of its staff, none of whom had been there for longer than 6 months or had any claim to understanding the nuances of ironmonger management. Instead, they looked far and wide for someone with retail management experience who could come and change its fortunes. They found a guy who had previously managed a Holland & Barret in Winchester, people had come to buy their vitamin tablets from as far away as Reading. This guy knew how to get things done, he came to the shop and changed things around, brought in the most modern retail practises, changed the store layout, got in new staff and changed their incentives to make the place an amazing place to work.
This was 5 years ago. I havent been into the first ironmonger for the last 2 years and I dont know anyone else who has. But the second now enjoys a status much like the first one used to. People dont just go in there to buy saucepans anymore. It is a place people go to meet and greet, to browse and to laugh.
The moral of this story? The Peter Principle applies, even in lowly, regional ironmongery.
