BedTimes Managing Editor Waynette Goodson stands in for Dave Perry to chat with Restonic President Laurie Tokarz about her new role as the vice chair of ISPA, as well as what’s working well for Restonic, and what she loves about going to market.
Transcript
Waynette Goodson
It’s Waynette Goodson; I’m your editor of BedTimes Magazine. Welcome to this edition of “Take 5”. I’m standing in for Dave Perry today, and I have Laurie Tokarz. She’s the CEO of Restonic. Laurie, tell us, just how are you sleeping these days? Give us a tip for the best night’s sleep.
Laurie Tokarz
Best night’s sleep. It is so hot these days everywhere. Right. So what I found is I need to have a lot of water and just kind of hydrate before I go to bed. And then I’ve got sweet dreams throughout the night.
Waynette Goodson
Sweet dreams. Well, speaking of sweet dreams, you are now the new vice chair for the International Sleep Products Association. Tell us just what that new role means for you.
Laurie Tokarz
What I really like about it is that there are so many things that ISPA does. There’s research, and there is lobbying. And I don’t think that everyone in the industry really realizes the impact that they have that helps to make their business go more smoothly. So my goal is to make sure that we get that information out and share it with our members as much as we can.
And also, to have a conversation, find out what our members need, what retailers need, and hopefully, we can deliver some of those requests in terms of research and different stats.
Waynette Goodson
Okay. Well, now, speaking of a big show.
Laurie Tokarz
Yes.
Waynette Goodson
Here we are at Restonic. Tell us what is working well for your company these days.
Laurie Tokarz
Well, you may realize that we have a relationship with Scott Living, which is Drew and Jonathan Scott, as well as with Biltmore. And those two programs just continue to pick up speed and particularly with the Scott Living Program. Drew and Jonathan, they have more new TV shows on HGTV than any other celebrity. So they have 50 new shows every year.
And that just works for us to be able to communicate with the consumer. And that has really been helping us to strengthen our sales trend. We also have updated our new Keystone ComfortCare line, and that’s a little bit more not promotionally priced, but that meat and potato price point, which we find is very, retailers are hungry for that.
Waynette Goodson
The word value, right. The word value. So key. Okay. And so for our last question, talk about just why markets are important or just what is the best thing about markets for you.
Laurie Tokarz
It’s the interaction of people and the creativity that comes from it. And I think that we all figured out ways to work during the pandemic remotely. But there’s nothing that can replace being in person and sharing ideas and feeding off of each other. And we’ve been very fortunate to surprisingly see a number of retailers. We didn’t think that this market was going to be as well attended as it has been.
So our attendance has been twice what it was a year ago, and we’ve got a lot of creative juices flowing.
Waynette Goodson
Right. And there’s always the next market right around the bend. Well, exactly. Well, thank you, Laurie, for sharing your time and creative ideas with us today. And thank all of you for tuning in. We promise Dave will be back soon. Thank you so much. Thank you. I enjoyed it. Thank you.
