John Bassett III at Concord University 11-14-18 (1080 HD)

First of all, can you hear me? I walk around, I stand just behind a podium. Can you hear me alright? Let me tell you first, I told you and I love it. I mean, y'all are the real world. You are living the same life we live. You are fighting the same battle we fought, and you're not giving up. So I said to you today, we did maybe it will help you. I was a furniture yours, in many ways, is a coal industry. But the way I wouldn't be here today if a lady in Toronto had not written this book, and it's about globalization. And she used the furniture industry and my family as an example, but it could be many different industries. So a powerful footwear, many other things had happened during the world of globalization. And she tells you that because of globalization, we closed 60,000 factories. I know in the furniture industry, where we made it through, and people now, 90% of our domestic competitors are gone. But the story, and people say many people said, 'John, you wrote this book.' I said, 'No, I didn't write this book.' 'Oh yes you did.' I said, 'I can prove it.' So get this book, turn to chapter one, and I'm going to read the first two paragraphs, and I'm proving to you today I did not write this book. 'Some will read to programs once in the reporter's career, one of this very like a personal like Johnny Bassett the Third comes along. JP3 is inspirational, he's brash, he's a so discovered good ol' boy from rural Virginia, a larger-than-life rule-breaker. For more than a decade, it stood almost single-handedly against the outflow of furniture jobs from America. He's an more than one of his competitors parked when they heard I was writing a book about globalization with JP3 as a main character. Over the course of research of this book, over the course of hearing his many lectures and listening to him evade my questions by telling me the same stories over and over, there were times I agreed.' Chapter one, the first two paragraphs. She called me an twice now. Hey, you know I didn't write the book. I'm not saying I'm not a... I'm just saying I didn't like the damn book. Oh, this is we had a situation where globalization started really, it started when China became a member of the World Trade Organization. Before that, they had a status called Most Favored Nation, but once they were admitted to the WTO, everything changed. Prices absolutely plummeted, and we were subject to that and we had to cope with that. We are not against globalization, ladies and gentlemen. We just want it to be played fair. There are rules at the WTO, there are rules at the United States government, and they violated a lot of them. So listen to our story. I know you have a similar story with coal today, and you know what the EPA is doing, you hear about global warming, you hear about these other things. The world's changing. So I'll tell you what we did. I put together 29 companies and we formed a coalition, and we thought that the Chinese were cheating. In fact, we were almost positive. So we hired a law firm in Washington D.C., Smith King & Spalding, excellent firm, and we said, 'Would you represent us?' And they looked at the statistics and they said, 'Yes, we think they're cheating.' And we risked it. We said, 'How much will this cost?' And they said between a million and a half and two and a half million dollars. Now this is back in 2002. Okay, well we ended up being successful. It went on for years. It didn't cost two and a half million, it cost fifty-five million. And how do you defend a company and an organization in the industry in the United States when they tell you it cost you two and a half million, it cost you fifty-five, and it took three years to do? So we did that, and I was the coalition president. But let's go back to my individual company. That's what I want to talk about. What we did was organize people, and we ended up writing a book called 'Making It in America,' and it's a business book. She characterizes her book as a cross between 'Gone with the Wind' and 'Peyton Place.' They all want some sex stories, you ought to see what my ancestors did. Okay, this is a business book. That's what this is. It tells you how we did it, and the book says twelve rules, and that's because the publishers said, 'John, you have to have more than five rules.' We really had five rules, and I call them the five great rules. And we didn't get it from some business school, we got it from first-hand experience of working with our people and what it took to compete. What's rule number one? Rule number one is attitude. Guys, y'all got the wrong attitude. And don't think you can compete. If you don't think, believe that you could be successful, then you're going to lose. Tell me any ball team that goes out on the field and the coach tells them they're going to lose. Do you want a coach like that? We've got to change our attitude in the United States. We Americans, that's who we are. We remember the greatest country in the world. Now let's start about what we got to do. What surprised us was when we decided to stay, we called all my people together and we said, 'We're going to stay.' Our people were very courteous, but they were very respectful, but they said, 'You're not going to make it. We're waiting for our pink slip. We're waiting for our 60 days, and then the severance pay.' And I realized we had to change. We had to change that hope. We changed the way we think, and we had to change the way we compete. That's rule number one. And so you go to rule number two. How do you change an attitude? You change attitude with leadership. That's a. You change the attitude. Listen, I don't know if you saw that movie, I think it was last year, it's a movie about Winston Churchill when he first became Prime Minister of England. It's called 'The Darkest Hour.' And there was a coalition government between the Labour and the Conservatives, and Churchill they were very reluctant, but they made him Prime Minister. And then the powers to be, the ex-Prime Minister and Lord Halifax, which was remember the Conservative, wanted to sign a peace treaty with Germany. Germany had virtually taken over France, which they did. If they had signed a peace treaty and taken England out of World War II, Hitler could have turned all of his forces against Russia. Nobody knows what would happen. We would not have Western democracy like you and I know today. There would be no Normandy. We could have gone to Normandy if we didn't go to England first. We couldn't have launched an attack from New York City. That wasn't going to work. Churchill saved democracy for all of us because he led. John F. Kennedy said he mobilized the English language and dissented. And so we had to convince the people that we were not going to lose and we were going to make this happen. When they went to work, we were there. When they left work, we were there. I'm a member. We bought some new equipment, some up to three or four hundred thousand dollars, and it would come in and people just look at it. 'What is this?' I said, 'New piece of equipment.' 'How much it cost?' We tell them. 'Why'd you buy it?' I said, 'Bought it because we're not going out of business. We're going to stay right here. Y'all get through your heads, we're not moving.' And they started to believe that the management would not turn tail and run. And I led the coalition in there, and in all the papers I got a tremendous amount of criticism from the roof pillars and from other people. A lot of business schools say, 'This is a new world today. It's time to shut these back. We don't need these type of factories anymore.' I was bucking that whole trend. And the people and the factories started paying attention to it, and they said, 'You really need to stay.' And I said, 'Yes, and we need your help. We've got this as an organization. This is what we've got to do, and we've got to be winners, and we've got to think like winners and start using our head.' There's a word in business that I really despise. The word is 'can't.' Now, I don't... you can tell me we have a problem and we haven't solved it, but don't tell me you can't. Because when you see 'can't,' two things happen. First of all, you quit thinking. You've given up. Number two, you quit trying. You don't ever quit trying, and you don't ever quit thinking. And we would work things that we were in trouble with, and sometimes they failed. Don't fear failure. Learn from your failures. I learned a lot more from failures than I did my successes because I learned what not to do again. My father had a wonderful saying. He said, 'Son, I can put up with your ignorance, but I will not tolerate your stupidity.' And what he meant by that was if you make a mistake and you don't know any better, I'll teach you the right thing to do. Stupidity is when you do it a second time. And that was a very unpleasant experience. Okay, so we said we're not going to accept failure, guys. We're going to make this thing happen, and we're going to do it together. Get this through your head. Don't come in here pouting with your tail between your legs. Come in here and say, 'I got a problem. Let's work on it.' And we all got to work on it. Then we go to rule number three. Rule number three is a very interesting one. Rule number three is you've got to be willing to change and improve again, again, and again. Three very important words. You've got to change. People say, 'We did it this way.' Here's what: if it's not working, you better change. Have y'all ever seen this little book called 'Who Moved My Cheese?' Okay, if you haven't read it, it takes you an hour to. And it's about three or four rodents, and they would go to a block of cheese every night, and life was good. They go every day, they get fed every day. And all at once they went and the cheese has been moved. Now what are they going to do? So one of them said, 'I'm going to stay right here. The cheese is going to come back.' The other three, one way or another, found the cheese. Sometimes it's very dangerous, et cetera. Well, we'd buy these books and give them to my supervisors. I said, 'I want you to read this book.' And they come in and we sit down, and I said, 'Okay, the book. Who should this company be?' And 95% of the time they would say, 'We should be one of the three that found the cheese.' And I said, 'That's a good answer, but that's not the best answer.' And they look at me and say, 'You mean you think we ought to sit here and wait for the cheese to come back?' I said, 'No, I don't think it's the best answer.' Invariably they would say, 'Alright, John, you think the best answer is...' I said, 'It doesn't tell you who it is in this book, but somebody moves that cheese. Guys, we've got to be the one that moves. We spend our life trying to catch up with somebody else that's already passed us. This is an attitude we got to have. We go move the cheese. And when the people start looking for it, we're going to move it before they find it. We're going to let them chase us. And that's exactly the attitude we need in America. You've got to be willing to change and improve again, again, and again. What's rule number four? Rule number four is don't panic. Competition loves to tell you what they're going to do to you. The Chinese would say, 'You know this labor, look at our labor rates. And we have no health insurance, we have no social security, we have no workmen's compensation. We don't have any of these costs. You compete with us? You better start buying from us before we fill up and we don't have enough room to take care of you.' They want to panic you. So we sat down and I said, 'Okay guys, let's just sit here and think about what they can't do.' So we listed them out. I said, 'Weaknesses.' And they people look at me and said, 'What do you mean?' And I said, 'Where are the Chinese weaknesses? How far are they from our markets? How far is China from Charlotte, North Carolina? It takes some three or four months to deliver this. I said we can drive to Charlotte and back. When you buy a product, we're not going to make you wait three or four months. We're going to have more inventory, and we're going to ship in 48 hours.' And we would go to the trucking companies and tell them what we wanted them to do, and they laughed at us. So I called them in again. I said, 'Okay, this is what we're going to do. We're going to pay you one percent more for freight. One percent.' They said, 'Well, one percent doesn't mean anything.' 'Oh yes it does, too. Because if they charge 10 percent, we're going to charge 11. It's 1 percent to the dealer, it is a 10 percent price increase to the trucker when you go from 10 to 11. Guys, you've gone up 10 percent. And we said, 'No, you don't have to collect the bill from the truck upon the retailer. Charge us, and we'll put it on our invoice.' And I said, 'How long is it taking y'all to get paid?' They said, '60 days.' And I said, 'We're going to pay you every seven days. We're going to pay you 10% more, or even more if it's a 5% freight and you go to 6, it's a 20% increase. And you collect your money every Thursday. We take all the credit risk, and we'll collect from the dealer, and we only charge the dealer what they charged.' It wasn't a profit center. And then we went to the dealer, and they said, 'Well, what else you got?' To get it bad in seven days, they said, 'If you're paying me 10 to 20 percent more, you know stuff would be on the truck. Don't worry about that. We will deliver this.' And we went to the dealer and we said, 'Why you carry all this inventory? If we can deliver it to you in seven days, all you need is a floor sample. That's all you need. You don't need 15 suits in your warehouse. Use mine. Use mine. And I'm going to get it to you in seven days. And when you sell it, I'll get it to you in seven days. You deliver it in three more days, that's 10 days. And you get your money when you deliver it to the customer's home. Okay, that's 10 days. You don't owe me for 30 days. So you get to use my money for 20 days. And guess what? I've gotten rid of all your inventory for you. I've turned all that cash. You only have to have a floor sample.' And boy, they said, 'We want to do business with you.' And I said, 'You know, you're not going to be able to do it the other way across the Pacific Ocean.' So we start thinking about what can we do as Americans that they can't do. And it's all a matter of thinking. And don't ever use the word 'can't.' That gives you an excuse to fail. And if you do fail, learn from it and don't make that mistake again. And that's what's important. And I'll give an example. Happened last Sunday. New England Patriots, they play the Tennessee Titans. I mean, people saw that game. How many people thought that Tennessee would win? I wish I'd asked them last week before the game. But anyway, the point of it is they sat down. You don't have Tom Brady. You're more to back, but you know if you have a great defense, no quarterback is good when he's running for his life. And when you have good quarterbacks and nobody is open, they got a problem. Now you can't say, 'I'm going to lose because I don't have Tom Brady.' We've got to figure out how to win with the cards we're dealt. And that's exactly the way we thought, and we still think that way. We're still trying to come up with ways to be more efficient and more effective. But it starts with the attitude, then it goes to leadership, then it goes to change, and it goes to don't panic. What's the fifth one? The fifth one is teamwork and communications. Guys, you can't do it by yourself. You got to put a team together. You got to have everybody on that team working toward the same end. And we had a lot of communication. Americans want to be talked to. We want to know what's going on. So we constantly had meetings. And as I told you, I tell you the good news, I'll tell you the bad news, but I'm not going to lie to you. And this is what we need you to do. This is what to do. And we constantly kept building this ship. And let me give you the move now to the financial crisis. And the financial crisis was worse than globalization. I mean 2008, 9, 10. We lived through it. Housing starts fell 75%. That's when people buy bedroom furniture. Not made. When your market just 75% of your market disappears, that's a pretty good downturn. And we had health insurance. We had health insurance for 50, 60 years, but some people could not afford the health insurance for their entire family. So I walked in, I talked to my sons. I said, 'We got to do something for these people.' And they said, 'Dad, we're losing money.' I said, 'We got to help.' So we got a group out of Charlotte came in and worked with the biggest internal revenue group we had in Galax, and we made a contract with them, and we still have it every year. And we buy hundreds of appointments. We started at 2 o'clock and then we go to 8 o'clock at night. And that way you get the first shift and the second shift. And if you go to work for us, you, your spouse, and all your children can go to our free clinic. And 92% of the time they prescribe generic drugs, and they can buy them for three or four dollars. Now how many countries you know would take care of a family and their children and they only have to pay three or four dollars? And those people knew we care about them, and they were willing to work with us. And we formed the team. We were not trying to get rid of them. We were trying to make a better company. And that was the secret. And we still do this. And this is how we have been able to compete. Let me tell you one other thing, and then if you have questions, I'll answer them. When I left college, I went to the army for six years, got a commission. This was 1959, 60, 61. And I got a commission and I was sent to Germany. And I was on the East-West German border. Berlin isn't inside of the eastern border, it's all one country now, but it started at the Baltic Sea and went all the way to the Adriatic Sea. And one side was communist East Germany, and the other side was West Germany. And so they plowed a 10-meter strip, 11 yards. We were out in the country, and we would patrol up and down 60 miles. And they had guards. So when they would add that one to guard the whole time. And I was there one day, and every time I went out he had that machine gun Jeep behind you. And we were very close to the border, 10 yards, 15 yards from the border where the road went. And I looked over in the field, and there were people cutting wheat. They were actually using both sides. And this girl looked like 18, 19 years old, kept looking at us. And she was about 75 yards away. And all of a sudden she dropped that side and started running straight at us. So I told the guy behind me, I said, 'Put a round in the chamber. Machine gun up.' We could not do a thing if she didn't cross that border. If she crossed that border, we could protect them. They caught up 20 yards from the border. They reached over and grabbed her. They took a burp gun and went right up her back. And when she hit the ground, she did. And then they put a wagon, they threw her in the wagon, and they looked at us and smiled, and they went back to work. And we drove away. And I thought to myself, 'What's the difference between that girl and me?' And I knew what it was. She was born in East Germany, and I was born in America. Do we know how damn lucky we are to be an American? Those people walking from Honduras, I don't know if they're violating the law or not. They're not stopping in Mexico. They want to come to this country. We are in this country. It is time that we act like we used to. Let's get this country back to work again, ladies and gentlemen. And I will tell all of you, this is the way I feel. We all owe a debt to our country. We all owe a debt to the state that we live in. You all owe a debt to this university, and you owe a debt to yourself. And if we take that and we act on it, we will be successful. Thank you.

I don't know what my greatest achievement is, but let's say I love this country. I love this university, and I know y'all are digging it out of the dirt. You really are. Let me tell you something. I'm bragging, I'm telling you the truth. I've made over 100 of these talks. I'm about through. And then I was invited to do this. I'm going to make one more talk. And they called me up and they said, 'Would you come?' And I said, 'Y'all are not going to like what I tell you, so you better think of it again.' They called me back and they said, 'We know it, and we need to hear it.' The next place and the last place I'm going to speak is Columbia University in New York. And I'm going to tell you something, I'd rather speak to this crowd than that one.

He's my cousin. What else? I missed the last part. I'm sorry. We make middle class, and then we now make a whole group of solid furniture. We're making it a way globalization up most or valley market today. We make solid oak, we make solid cherry, we make solid maple, and a lot more. Love to see furniture like 50, 70, 80 years ago. Now the designs have changed. The young people want the stuff a little set. Yeah, I look in here comes my granddaughter with a brand-new set of blue jeans and it has holes all in the knees. And I said, 'How much did we pay for that?' You do not want to know how much. Sales car. But I mean, some of the designs have changed. That's the upper class. We make a Sena. We do not make the lowest price, but we make the middle class and the upper middle, and not the top. So we're right for a lot of Americans. But everything is made in Galax, Virginia. Everything. Yes.

She's fun. Bassett and busy. Your father worked for Bassett for 19 years? Her father did. Yes, thank you. And what else is she like? I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time hearing. I was just wondering how you would compare the financial status of Bassett as a whole from 2005-2006 to today. Comparing the financial status of Bassett from five or six years ago to today. 2005. Okay, first of all, I left Bassett in 1983. The person who runs Bassett now is my nephew, okay? And his mother is my sister. So that's a separate company. We know them, etc. But whenever I worked on this coalition or anything else, I'd never criticize a single company in our industry. I said we all have tough decisions to make, and I'm not going to criticize. So I'm not going to start criticizing Bassett. It might be great. I have nothing to do with them anymore. I have a lot of friends, a lot of family there, and I wish them the very best. But I'm not touching that with a ten-foot pole. Saw another hand somewhere.

I do. And I was taught with my two sons. Do they work scheduled? I work and still work and get up at 4 o'clock. No, but I will tell you they're much better fathers than I was. I'll be very candid with you. They're much better with their children than I am. But I think a lot of what happens in the factory is you've got to set the example. And I'll give you one example. This was ten years ago. I walked by a machine, a young boy, a nice guy about 19 years old, and they were running the machine at 60 feet a minute. We know it can run at 85 feet. So I went over and told Tom the operator, I said, 'Tom, you need to run this 85 feet a minute.' And he said, 'John, I think that boy can keep up.' So I went back and I thought about it. I remember the phone call. I took a smock off and I put it on, and of course everybody in the factory by this time looking. And I put it on the truck and I said, 'Son, stand right over there.' I said, 'Turn it to 85 feet a minute.' And the board came out, they were falling on my feet. I hadn't done this in 40 years. I grew up, my father put me in the factory, learned the trade and everything else. And when the work break came, they came over to help pick up the stuff. I said, 'No, you take your work break. I'll get it back from the truck.' And I did. And within 15 minutes of coming back, it came back to me how you. And then within 15 minutes I was saying, 'Come on Tom, put some more stuff in here.' And so I did that for 45 minutes, an hour. And I turned to the boy and I said, 'Son, I'm 72 years old. I'm 71. If I can do it, can't you do it?' He said, 'Yes.' A week or so later, he whistled and called me in, and it was running 90 feet a minute and he was going like the dickens. Now I'll tell you one story that I didn't tell anybody. I went to the nurse, and thank goodness nobody was in the nurse's office. So Brenda was in there, the nurse. I go in, had shades, and I pull the shade down, locked the door. She said, 'What is it?' I said, 'If you tell anybody about what I'm about to tell you, you're gone.' I said, 'John, I won't tell anybody. What is it?' I said, 'Get a sterilized needle out and get these fourteen splinters out of my hand.' My hands are so soft I can't tell boys anymore. So I said, and we do this all the time. We help them, and we talk to them, and we challenge them. And we just don't set that. And then some of them say, 'No, I'm quitting,' and leave. Yeah, that happens. But this is part of leadership. This is what we get paid for. We don't get paid to tell people we can't compete. We get paid to be winners. And I want all of you guys to be winners. Thank you.