Doug Zarkin recently joined Good Feet Worldwide as chief brand officer, a chain of stores that provides arch support services for clients. He was drawn to the company’s mission-driven approach in the health and wellness space.
“The company has a portfolio of brands committed to improving the lives of those who partake in the products and services that we offer,” says Zarkin. “What I’ve enjoyed most in my career is the opportunity to do great work while doing great things for people.”
“The Good Feet Store is all about providing a premium arch support solution for those that are in a pretty significant state of pain,” explains Zarkin. “The opportunity is really helping people understand that it’s not reaching level 10 when you need us, it actually could be preventative. It’s something that anybody who is living an active lifestyle, who is concerned with the kinetic chain – from your feet all the way up to your head– are looking for ways in which to improve their life.”
The Good Feet Store has 250 franchise locations across the US and internationally. The company also owns ING Source, a medical grade compression products firm that owns OS1st compression socks and OrthoSleeve. Good Feet recently acquired New York City-based wellness brand Stretch*d, adding the stretching and body wellness brand to its portfolio.
Prior to joining Good Feet, Zarkin held senior marketing roles at Pearle Vision, Avon and Limited Brands. Brand Innovators caught up with Zarkin from his office in New York to talk about the new role, the benefits of training as an in-store associate and his new book Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What are your goals now that you’re in this role?
One is really getting to understand the people, not only that are part of corporate, but also and most critically, our franchisees, who embody our brand every day. Then it’s really to understand the process. How do we navigate people into the brand and through the brand, and our relationship with them post purchase? Then it’s evaluating technology. How are we connecting in today’s modern world with that consumer, pre, during and post experience.
But I am most focused on learning the business from the inside out. I’m actually going to be trained as an arch support specialist. Much like I when I was at Avon, I became an Avon lady. I’m going to become an arch support specialist to really understand what we do every day, spending time with our folks to really uncover and understand how the product is built and the technology behind it.
Can you talk about how you’re going to be telling the brand story?
Whether it is the Good Feet Store or Stretch*d, the premise of really effective storytelling starts with understanding consumers’ emotional decisions before they make rational choices. I talk about this in the book, Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone. I’m excited to get under the covers to learn about where those emotional stories are coming from and how to create and connect those to prospective users of our product. It starts with investing in human capital, looking at our current skill set, figuring out where we have opportunities and continuing to build out the high performing team to provide the leadership and the stewardship that is required of being a franchisor.
What is your approach to customer experience?
It really comes from a place of humility. We have to recognize that we are providing value to a consumer and to their life. Something else I talk about in the book is the notion of the brand value equation. Whether you’re making $5500 or $5 million a year, everybody processes through a brand value equation. It really is about value equaling experience as your numerator divided by price as your denominator. If I deliver an amazing experience, I can charge a premium price so long as the experience far outweighs the price.
I’m delivering a positive brand. In order to understand the experience and play a role in refining and optimizing it. It comes from a place of humility. We need to be of service to our customers and at the same time help them to see the value that we are delivering, treating every customer as if they were our only customer.
Can you talk about how training at this level really helps you to do your job better?
If you go back to the brand value equation, if you really are committed to the notion of thinking human –which is really treating every customer as if they were the only customer– there is no more valuable experience. The most important tool in any marketer’s toolbox is the frontline associate or the franchisee.
I learn best by doing. I have a tremendous degree of curiosity as to the how, not just the what. That’s what I want to encourage the team to focus on –how we do what we do. That’s where the magic happened at Pearle [Vision], bringing forward how we cared for people, it’s not just the fact that we sold glasses. Here, at The Good Feet Store, it’s not just about the arch support. It’s about how we help somebody arrive at their solution. I’ve already gone through it as a customer a couple of times. It’s a pretty magical transformation. I’m excited to do that across our entire portfolio.
Can you talk about how your past experiences have prepared you for this role?
The key to success really starts with building a high performing team. The success that I was able to generate personally was through building and leading a high performing team. It’s wonderful to climb the mountain as an individual and take a selfie but it’s so much greater and so much more enjoyable to climb the mountain with a group of people and take a group pic. Those experiences really reaffirmed the importance of people and team.
The second thing for me is the importance of understanding the business from the back of the train and working forward. Strategy without the ability to be executed is nothing more than just words on paper. In my past roles, I’ve had the opportunity to get in on the ground floor and keep that pragmatic perspective top of mind as we were developing breakthrough strategies. The third thing is really the commitment to leadership through listening. We live in a feedback culture when it comes to X and Facebook etc. Yet in business, we often close ourselves off to understanding that a good idea can come from anywhere. As a leader, I’m doubling down on that commitment to listen. It doesn’t mean agree but it means to listen, in order to help figure out where there are some opportunities.
You recently wrote Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone. Can you talk about the inspiration for the book?
It is a modern day guide to strengthening your brand’s value equation that really emanated out of a long-standing commitment that I’ve had throughout my career to mentor, teach and train. The opportunity to help others achieve greatness and learn from the successes and failures in my career. I had one great mentor in my professional life, and a lot of really terrible bosses. But I learned as much from the terrible bosses as I did from the great mentor. So the book is really a way to provide that mentoring and coaching on a broad scale. The book is written for those that are in college and graduate school, are young in their career, or really, honestly, anybody who’s looking for a baseline on how to connect brands and consumers together and develop meaningful sticky relationships.
In today’s market and culture, liking a brand has become a commodity. It is in passionate, trusted relationships, that long term business success happens. That’s my philosophy and how I go about building a brand. I don’t believe there’s a right way or a wrong way, I believe there’s a way. What I’ve tried to do in the book is provide a way to think and if you can get something from it to help you unlock your own potential and that of your brand.
