The Country Loft

The Country Loft is a business located at 204 North Minnesota Street New Ulm, Minnesota. The owner of this business is Nancy Kokesch. She has been in business since 1983. Nancy Kokesch knows how to run a business and has an incredible passion for the work that she does.

In 1983, Nancy had a vision for what the Country Loft would be. She pictured a store which would offer many country crafts. Country crafts were extremely popular in 1983. However, Nancy would find out during her first year of business that the Country Loft would need to be much more then a country craft store. The biggest business advice which Nancy offered during her interview was, "Be ready to adapt."

What began as a store offering country crafts had now become a store which offers books, fudge, collectible dolls, purses, and jewelry. The item which really changed the direction of the Country Loft was Gotz dolls.

"We were in business for about one year and I was operating on a shoestring, I made no income. One day during our second year of busines a women came into the store and she was looking for collectible dolls. I told her that we didn't have any dolls in the store, but we could order dolls for her. The next day she came into the store and we looked through a catalogue. She ordered two dolls for her daughters. The dolls cost about $40 a piece. A few months later she came back with her daughters and ordered 10 more dolls. I saw that there was a desire for dolls in the market so slowly I started ordering a dolls. At first I only made small orders, but the dolls would always sell out. I kept adding more dolls and people kept buying the dolls. Eventually we were the largest seller of the dolls in the United States, we were selling more of these dolls then Disney World! It got so big that the owner of Gotz would come to our store from Germany to sign dolls. People would be lined up all the way down the block to come into the store. Gotz made exclusive dolls which were only sold here. Over the years we sold thousands of dolls."

Gotz has since gone out of business, but there is still a loft in the store which is dedicated to selling dolls. Nancy had no previous knowledge or interest in dolls, but she adopted to the market and experienced great success.

The current big sellers in the store are purses, books, and jewelry. There is a lot of care put into the quality of these products.

Country Loft is known for its purses. There is a very good reason that the Country Loft has developed this reputation. Nancy and some of her employees travel each year to New York to select purses for her store. Nancy had just returned from New York with over 900 designer inspired purses. All of the purses are handpicked and no two purses are the same. Country Loft is also known for its jewelry which is acquired in much the same way and is also hand picked and bargain priced.

Another key for The Country Loft is reputation. The Country Loft's reputation relies heavily on two things, customer service and backdoor business.

Customer service is high up on Nancy's priority list. When asked about the competition from large retailors such as Wal-Mart. Nancy said, "Many of the retailors from down town got together and said,'"We don't want Wal-Mart.'" Nothing was going to keep Wal-Mart out so I told my employees that we need to do something that Wal-Mart doesn't do, we need to go the extra mile." This philsophy is evident in how Nancy hires employees.

Nancy said, "Show me that you want to work here. I like it when people come to interviews dressed up. I don't want you to bring kids or friends along. I will hire all ages and I will hire someone who doesn't have any retail experience. I do this because we train them to do retail our way. I look for people who are willing to approach customers. I don't want someone who is just going to sit behind the counter. We have a point in the store, that we call a greeting point. It is our goal to have engaged a customer by that point. We teach our employees never to ask,'" How can I help you?"' This is the question that Wal-Mart employees ask. It has become engrained in the customer to say, '"I'm just looking.'" We want to break down walls and really get to know the customer."

The customer service at The Country Loft is amazing. Customer service is another part of the equation that makes the store sparkle.

Nancy had a few interesting things to say about the current recession. Her comments emphasized that small businesses feel recessions just the same as large businesses. Nancy has a particularly interesting few of the recession because she has been in business for such a long time.

Nancy said," Business is down, but you have to known that after being in business for 26 years I've learned from my mistakes. About 12 years ago Minnesota street was torn up and business left. We had hardly any customers come in for that summer. When I first started up my business, the country was in a recession. Those times have taught me to cut down on overhead. This recession has caused me to see a few things. I'm selling lots of luxury items and what I mean by that is People come in and buy in order to make themselves feel better. For instance a lady might come in and try on some jewelry. She had no intention of buying the jewelry when she first came in but she leaves with the jewlery in her bag because it makes her feel good. I've seen the disappearance of a middle class. I get people in the store that are poor and buy the luxury items and then I get people in the store that are not affected by the recession and buy the same things that they would have before the recession. The middle class rarely comes in."

The Country Loft is a very successful business, and has gone through a lot in 26 years. Through it all Nancy's favorite memory from the store is the way it has affected one of her adopted daughters. Nancy has two adopted girls from Russia. One of them has been been bitten by the small business bug. Nancy's daughter grew up in the store. Her playpen was right by the cash register. Nancy's daughts is now 12 years old and sells bird feeders in the store. She has been written about in magazines, she's been on TV, and she even sponsors her own recycling contest.

The Country Loft is a success story because of the hard work of Nancy Kokesch. She has found a niche in a market dominated by large chains by focusing on the little things like reputation and customer service. Her passion for her work continues to this day will live on in her daughter.