Openness to ideas makes Harkness a winner
By Tom Edmonds -- Furniture Today, June 2, 2003
San Diego — Dave Harkness, the Western Home Furnishings Assn.'s retailer of the year, believes that you get back what you put in, and he tries to put all the best ideas and all the best people into his Tacoma, Wash., store. He says the returns on these investments have been powerful.
A third-generation retailer, Harkness attributes his success to the foresight of his parents and grandparents and the contributions of Harkness Furniture's staff.
"A lot of the credit has to go back to the early decision to buy the property and start the business," he said. "Nowadays, there's no way you could start a business like this and have the $1 million inventory — and anybody who had to the money to do something like that probably wouldn't invest it in a furniture store."
Harkness Furniture is a 45,000-square-foot, gallery-oriented furniture store, with a 6,000-square-foot country store next door. The main furniture store features branded galleries from Broyhill, Ekornes, England, GuildCraft, Lane, Natuzzi and Rowe.
The company has achieved record results for four consecutive years, with a 40% increase in sales over that time.
A dedicated networker, Harkness is actively involved with the WHFA, the Pacific Furniture Dealers buying group and a Shepherd Performance Group. He said that while he may not be the best at coming up with new ideas he's good at translating a theory into reality at his store.
In presenting the award, Giff Gates of Gates Home Furnishings in Grants Pass, Ore., said Harkness is always striving to improve his business.
"In fact, by the time I get home from our meetings and get my bags unpacked, Dave will have three ideas implemented from the meeting we've just attended," said Gates, a past winner of this award.
One of the Harkness Furniture's primary assets — its 13,000-square-foot, high-cube warehouse — resulted from what seemed like a terrible tragedy at the time. In 1992, with most of his Christmas orders in the warehouse and ready to be delivered, Harkness was watching his daughter's soccer game when he heard about a furniture-store fire in Tacoma.
Actually, it was the warehouse, with all inventory, but not the store. Harkness remembers being so devastated that he couldn't talk to reporters who wanted to know what the business was going to do.
"I was too upset, but my mother (Dorothy) took the phone and told them we'd be open in the morning," he said. "We all felt terrible and didn't really know what we were going to do, but it allowed us to build this state-of-the-art warehouse facility that we have now."
Harkness said he recognizes that the company's success is a direct result of the efforts made by his staff, which is why 10% of his net profits go toward a quarterly bonus. "The more we've been blessed with, the more we've been able to give back," he said. "I try to operate the business the way we run our family, with the same values and ethics we have in our personal lives."
Harkness, 49, and his wife Cyndi have a boy, Kellen, and a daughter, Kimberly, in college.
"I don't know whether the kids will end up in the business or not," he said. "We've never pushed them. We just want them to reach their potential."
