NHPA’s Retail Management Certification Program Cultivates Channel Leaders

Equipping a new crop of leaders in the independent home improvement channel, the North American Hardware and Paint Association’s (NHPA) hosted its college-level premier management school. The NHPA Retail Management Certification Program (RMCP) develops store managers and emerging leaders into confident leaders who improve performance inside their own stores. The program includes elements of virtual learning and in-person experiences, with the first in-person visit taking place this week in Indianapolis, Indiana. RMCP students will return to Indianapolis in October for the conclusion of the in-person portion. In addition to the two in-person visits in July and October, the program’s virtual components include online, self-paced coursework and assignments and instructor-led online sessions. 

Shannon Hartley, assistant store manager for Hardware Sales in Bellingham, Washington, says that she chose to attend RMCP to expand on her previous leadership education. Before coming to the independent channel, Hartley spent 12 years with Harbor Freight Tools, and is entering a new role at Hardware Sales. She appreciates that everything in RMCP is tailored to and focused on the independent home improvement retailer.

“I’ve gained a lot of leadership experience in the past, but not a lot of development,” Hartley says. “Through RMCP, I am hoping to not just gain the knowledge, but gain that development to keep growing as a leader.”

On the first day of Visit 1, Dr. Rob Mathews, Hodson Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship at Indiana Wesleyan University. Mathews also holds certifications in several assessment tools, and is the creator of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Instrument.

Under Mathews teaching, RMCP students dove into principles of leveraging human talent, how to embrace different problem-solving styles and ways to improve communication and employee engagement in their operations. 

“Starting the time together to address employee engagement is important because employee engagement is the most pressing topic facing retailers today,” Mathews says. “When you have engaged employees, it translates directly to results retailers are trying to achieve.The culture they create matters.”

Helpful Hardware Co. store manager Ben Craddock says that Mathews’ sessions were his favorite, especially getting to dive into how to develop personal talents into strengths and how his employees’ strengths can work best within the team.

“I was really interested in the personality sessions because I already try to play to their strengths, but it was interesting to learn how I can meet them where they are when it comes to personality,” Craddock says. “I will be hiring a good number of younger employees in the future and these lessons will be really helpful.” 

Drawing on his own experience as a former independent retailer, NHPA’s director of education and training Cody Goeppner shared best practices for training employees and building a culture of selling.

While Day 1 focused on the people side of an organization, Day 2 was dedicated to the physical parts of a business. Gary Petz, vice president and co-founder of Discovery Retail, helps retailers facilitate and communicate profit-focused differentiation and brought his insights to RMCP, sharing how students can use incremental improvements to encourage big growth. Petz also taught on store design, store slotting and space management. 

“Everything the students learn is crucial but doesn’t matter until they work it into the fabric of their company,” Petz says. “I always encourage students to share what they learn with everybody. Don’t dump it all on them at once, but break it off into little pieces. The managers who attend RMCP but then pull all this knowledge tight to their chest never grow their businesses.”

Students were able to put Petz’s sessions into practice with store tours at Menards and Sullivan’s Hardware and Garden, where they were able to perform a competitive analysis at both locations. 

Day 3 featured president of Ancrage Consulting Brian Landis, who brings more than 40 years of industry and consulting experience. Landis aught the Harvard Case Study: Home Depot in Transition and hosted an inventory management workshop. 

“I like to talk about this idea of financial engineering. Because this is not a super high return industry, being a good operator is really important,” Landis says. “These sessions give us a chance to talk about some of the ways that we can extract a few more pennies of profit out of business and learn from one another.” 

As a numbers lover herself, Faith Johnson, regional manager for Valley Wide Cooperative, appreciated the focus on the numbers, systems and processes in Landis’ courses. 

“I’ve always loved the number side of things, and I really enjoy helping others learn and figure out the numbers too. I like to figure out how each person learns and how to tailor teaching them in that way,” Johnson says. “I already look at what little things we can do every day to get better, and these courses reinforced that idea.”

Goeppner says the goal of the whole RMCP experience is for students to take what they are learning and formulate how it shows up in their stores. 

“We encourage students to embrace the vision and ask, “What does this look like moving into the future?’” Goeppner says. “How do they take what they learn in the classroom and look at everything in their operation through the lens we look through at RMCP?”