Dear Stephen,
I've been reading your column for a long time, and when I finally write to you, it sounds more like a grievance than a question. But please know that I value your opinion and seek your advice. I'm a manufacturer's rep on the West Coast. I call on dealers, end users, and some A&D. My primary focus is dealers—they're great at helping us specify our product. All the dealers are different, but I've noticed a common thread: they all have a level of confidence that comes across as arrogance. They're super salespeople who turned their salesmanship into owning a company. I'm speaking, of course, of people who founded a dealership. Many second- or third-generation dealer owners are different—most don't even seem to like owning the dealership but can't give up the cash it provides.
I'm not sure of the point of my observation, but it reminds me of the saying "That guy must own a car dealership…" Here I am generalizing about the shifty sales performances you experience at car dealerships, or all accountants being boring, or the classic "Those that can't do, teach!"
For me, it allows me to know that when I'm dealing with a dealer owner, I'm always going to have the same kind of conversation. Typically, it revolves around how we as manufacturers need to give them more business leads, or how they can never find enough or better salespeople. And then there's the famous pushing for greater discounts and squeezing us for chargebacks.
I'm from a smaller non-aligned manufacturer, so I have to deal with them all—Steelcase dealers, MillerKnoll dealers, Haworth dealers, and HNI dealers. To me, no matter the major brand they're selling, the owners are all interchangeable. Do you have any observations or thoughts?
Signed,
Painting With a Wide Brush
Dear Whining Wide Brush,
You're right about one thing before we even get started: this isn't a question. It's a diagnosis—or at least your attempt at one.
And I don't mean that dismissively. I actually appreciate letters like this because they reveal more about the ecosystem of our industry than the people being criticized. When someone starts noticing patterns this consistently, it's usually because they've been living inside the same conversations for a very long time and they're tired of them.
Now, let's address the elephant in the showroom—
Yes, there is a recognizable personality type among furniture dealer owners, particularly the original founders. You're not imagining it. The confidence, the swagger, the sense that they are always the smartest person in the room and that everyone else is either slowing them down or failing them. These people didn't inherit jobs; they created leverage. And that tends to shape a personality.
Dealer founders are, almost without exception, former salespeople who discovered something important early on: "I don't want to sell for someone; I want people selling for me." That pivot requires a very specific mindset. It rewards aggression, certainty, impatience, and an unshakable belief that the market owes you something if you've survived long enough. That confidence often curdles into arrogance, especially when success reinforces it year after year. But here's the part you're missing, and this is where your observation needs to go deeper.
Dealer owners complain constantly—not because they're entitled (though some are), but because complaining is how control manifests in this industry. Complaining about reps, complaining about manufacturers, complaining about discounts, leads, salespeople, chargebacks—it's all the same muscle being flexed: leverage anxiety.
Most dealer owners live in a permanent state of fear that the phone will stop ringing, that the manufacturer will bypass them, that you, the rep, will favor another dealer, or that the next generation won't be as hungry as they were. So they press, they squeeze, they posture, and they remind everyone in the room that they are still necessary.
The exception to your critique—and even mine—is a dealership that has been acquired by private equity or by a major manufacturer that stepped in to buy one of its dealers. When this happens, the new PE or manufacturer owner tends to neuter the original owner's ego, or that owner simply goes away and professional management steps in. But that is another story for another column.
Now let's turn the lens back on you and your side of the table. You say dealer owners are interchangeable. Funny thing is, when I talk to dealer owners, they say the exact same thing about manufacturer reps. "They're never around." "They don't bring us enough leads." "They only show up when there's a problem." "They don't understand our business…" Sound familiar?
What you're really describing isn't arrogance—it's mutual resentment baked into a fragmented business model. An industry where everyone depends on each other, but no one fully trusts the other side. Dealers think manufacturers want to go direct. Manufacturers think dealers don't earn their margin. Reps sit in the middle, convinced both sides undervalue them. And yet, somehow, it works. Or maybe it works because of the tension—because everyone is watching everyone else closely, because nobody ever feels fully comfortable.
As for second- and third-generation dealer owners, you're right again. It's a coin flip. Some are excellent stewards who modernize, professionalize, and actually enjoy the business. Others are hostages to cash flow. They don't love the industry, but they love what it funds. And nothing breeds cynicism faster than being successful in a business you wouldn't choose again. So here's the thought-provoking part you didn't ask for but probably need to hear:
If every dealer owner you meet feels the same, the problem may not be them—it may be the role you occupy in their world. To them, you are not a partner. You are a variable. A lever. A resource to be pushed. And until that changes, the conversations won't either. You don't have to love furniture dealers. But if you're going to stay in this business, you do have to understand them without reducing them to caricatures. Because the moment you do that, you become interchangeable too. And nobody wins being interchangeable.
Signed,
Stephen