Not Mom & Pop's Shop

Mom and Pop owned a shop on the corner of Crimson and Broadway in Mesa Arizona, USA. Surrounded by cacti and big sky, the shop was a desert oasis for many. It was a place to fill up, grab groceries and a communal gathering space. At eight years old I stood on empty milk crates to restock the shop’s shelves. It was my professional debut, where I absorbed product, place, price and promotion before I even heard the word marketing. Hudson Willow exists today because Mom and Pop’s shop existed before it - I did not become an entrepreneur by chance.

Hudson Willow might not sell biscuits and deli meats (we would love a biscuit brand though) but we are woven from the same cloth as Mom and Pop’s shop. It is part of our fabric, underpinning our agency culture and independent spirit, reflected in our ethos of sincerity, imagination and resourcefulness.

It was not out of duty that I showed up with Pop every morning, but love. I found tremendous joy in the work. While I learned that success required hard work and dedication, the greater lesson was that success and joy required people. It isn’t a lone path. Rather, people and relationships are central, trust and teamwork are fundamental, as is finding common ground, not just to succeed, but to connect to purpose and value.

Daily life at the shop was dynamic and there was no part of the business I wasn’t invited to participate in. I memorized the shop’s rota by heart, especially delivery days and the usual delivery time – I loved physically ticking off the items received and carefully tearing off the top copy of the delivery note. I learned the names of all the distributors and suppliers, Core-Mark, Frito-Lay, PepsiCo., Anheuser-Busch, Hostess Brands, R.J. Reynolds, Mission Foods, Shamrock Farms, the list goes on.

I could rattle off each inventory of products, new product launches and seasonal specialties. I could describe the product logos, colour and packaging design. I knew the competitor products, the value of product placement and the potential of promotion on success. I was immersed in a world of branding and marketing, yet blissfully unaware.

I built product displays, rotated produce, created promotional signage and worked an in-store deli and post office. I knew what went into a Reuben and could make a mean Tuna Salad sub sandwich. I got to know about when the newest postage stamp designs were released, classes of mail and their varied delivery speed, and the difference in cost when sending a parcel to New York, Nebraska or Oregon – oh, how many boxes of Christmas presents and birthday gifts I stuck stamps onto.

The shop gave me a commercial intuition, an appreciation for the people in my spheres and an ethic that has shaped every role I’ve ever filled. Engrained in me is an industrious drive and eye towards opportunity; a deep investment in work and a belief that anything is possible if you set your mind to it.

At a young age, I interacted and worked with people much my senior, and this wasn’t a typical setting to do so; it was not a holiday family gathering, it was a professional business atmosphere. There was a constant flow of customers, delivery drivers, product reps and distributors.

Such a diversity of people provided me a sense of self, awareness of others and the foundations for building greater emotional intelligence later in life. I still reflect on the sheer number of people I got to interact with daily as a young child, in my teens and early adulthood – and I am grateful.

The shop was a place of constant change and improvement. Pops loved to reinvent and transform. He would delight in rearranging the store often, giving customers something new, even if it was just a new journey to the milk cooler.

If things didn’t fit, then pops expanded to accommodate. If you could think it, it could be. Before Shonda Rimes a “Year of Yes”, there was Pop’s, a “Lifetime of Yes”. Pops rarely turned down an opportunity, rarely shot down an idea before trying.

Watching Pops make something out of almost anything was one of the great inspirations I absorbed, but only came to realise many, many years later.