2019 PCA Magazine

PREMIUMCIGARS.ORG JULY-AUGUST 2019 | PCA The Magazine 45 That eye for possibilities has guided Cass to grow even beyond the humidor. Take, for instance, his distribution channel. One day in the early 2000s, Cass walked into his neighborhood Harris Teeter grocery store and noticed a small cigar humidor on the counter. When he went to look at the cigars they were offering, he saw they were charging almost double the price of what he was selling it for at the Tinder Box. He then got the store manager to share with himwhat they pay for the cigars and Cass knew there was a potential avenue for his business to grow. “Harris Teeter’s headquarters happens to be in Charlotte, so I cold-called them,” he says. “I got a meeting and said to them, ‘I’m in the business. I’m local. I can service you. I would love to be in this category and I’ll help you lower your prices and get you down to what the SRP (standard retail price) should be for this category in the U.S.’” Interested, but not convinced, Harris Teeter invited Cass back for a formal presentation. Cass was elated but was also confronted with an overcommit, under deliver situation. He didn’t have the cash for the $1,500 humidor cabinets required for the project. So he reached out to the Cullmans at General Cigar with an offer: Helpme finance the cabinets and I’ll put General Cigar exclusively in the humidors. The Cullmans saw the potential and bit. With General Cigar in for 50 cabinets, Cass went back to Harris Teeter and sold themon it, starting with 10 stores clustered in the Charlotte area. “From that point forward, we added five, 10 stores every six to eight weeks for the next two or three years,” he says. “So it’s a very mature program. If they say, ‘Jump,’ I jump. If they say, ‘Run,’ I run. Inmost cases, asking for the order is easy … quality fulfillment is the challenge. I’m always striving to offer them impeccable customer service. It’s really been a wonderful relationship.”Wonderful and lucrative, as Cass’s distribution armhas expanded to other grocery stores, restaurants/bars and golf courses, numbering more than 200 locations in the Southeast. It’s these examples that typify what Cass tries to pass on to the next generation. “If you want to grow your retail business, you’ve got to go to the trade shows, you’ve got tomeet your manufacturing partners and you’ve got to talk to them about programs andmarketing. You’ve got to ask. You can’t be the owner sitting on a stool behind the counter smoking a cigar. The business isn’t going to come to you. You’ve got to invest the time to network, meet other retailers, looks for possibilities, find out what people are doing. For 25 years, I worked six days a week. I love it but you have to put in the effort.” For the day-to-day operations, Cass says inventory That eye for possibilities has guided Cass to grow even beyond the humidor. IF YOU WANT TO GROW YOUR RETAIL BUSINESS, YOU’VE GOT TO GO TO THE TRADE SHOWS, YOU’VE GOT TO MEET YOUR MANUFACTURING PARTNERS, AND YOU’VE GOT TO TALK TO THEM ABOUT PROGRAMS AND MARKETING. “ ”