metro

Old-School Selling

Rick Forman's newest superstores in Southfield, Pontiac rooted in Jewish ideals.

Allan Nahajewski
Contributing Writer

F

aith. Perseverance. Mitzvah.
Upon these fundamentals, Rick
Forman has built an empire. As
a teen, he sold T-shirts at a flea market.
Today, the 54-year-old Jersey native is
founder/CEO of Forman Mills, a chain
of 35 deep-discount clothing and home-
furnishing stores in eight states.
The company's newest and largest
store opened March 27 in Pontiac at the
Oakland Pointe Shopping Center in the
88,000-square-foot space formerly occu-
pied by Mervyn's at 250 N. Telegraph
Road. It's the sixth Forman Mills in
Michigan.
In November, the retailer opened
a 55,000-square-foot store at 29708
Southfield Road, site of the former
Marshall's store in the Southfield Plaza.
Together, the two stores have added more
than 400 jobs to the area.
"I love Michigan. There's something
about it I can't explain:' Forman says.
"When I'm here, I feel like I'm in the 1960s
or '70s in a good way. The people are down
to earth, and there's so much opportunity:'

Born To Sell

Forman doesn't remem-
ber when he wasn't
selling. He remembers
charging childhood
friends to crawl through
a tunnel into the family
411\
laundry room where he
Rick Forman
would tell them a horror
story. He says he feels an
affinity to the pushcart fruit merchants of
the 1920s. "I almost feel like I'm reincar-
nated:' he says.
As a 16-year-old, he asked his father
for a loan so he and a friend could try flea
market sales. "My dad wasn't doing that
well at the time. He was into manufactur-
ing, and the imports killed his business:'
he recalls. "One day, I asked for money
and said we were going to buy some toy
water guns and some things to sell. He
just threw $80 in the air and said, take it.
I picked it all up. That was our capital. We
didn't know what we were doing. We just
kept selling:'

Faith

Forman briefly attended Rutgers
University but dropped out. "I couldn't
focus:' he says. "I would be sitting there

thinking about how many T-shirts I need-
ed for the flea market:'
Ten years ago, after Forman turned the
flea market venture into a $250 million
business, Rutgers invited him to deliver
the commencement address at its school
of business to share the lessons he learned.
"The first lesson is to have faith:' he
says. "Have no fear. When I started, I
didn't know what fear was. I wasn't afraid
of competition. I just knew what I wanted
to do.
"When I speak with young people
today, I tell them to find the one thing
they're good at. For one of my neighbors,
it was selling pickles in a barrel. For me, it
was selling T-shirts. I didn't have a lot of
money, but I had conviction:'

Perseverance

The second lesson: "Life is an evolu-
tion. You're going to strike out a lot, so
persevere. Survive. That's the lesson of
Passover:'
For Forman, perseverance meant apply-
ing what he learned at the flea market.
"That's where the customer is right in
front of your face, and you're competing

against the person next
to you. You can't teach
that in a classroom.
It's the school of hard
knocks. It's where the
rubber meets the road:'
Forman was 21 when
he opened his first store
in a burnt-out alleyway
off a main street in
Philadelphia. "Because I
was from the flea mar-
ket, I understood it. I got
it really cheap. We sold
sweatshirts and T-shirts. A heavily disguised Rick Forman (right) took part on the
It did really well:'
Undercover Boss reality TV show and learned valuable
Faith and perseverance lessons from his employees. To thank and reward Curtis
translated into profits
(left), a maintenance supervisor, for input that helped get
and growth. For many
the company back on track, Forman gave him a promo-
years, life was good.
tion, a raise and $250,000 for a new home.
Then last year, an
eye-opening experience
shook Forman's foundation.
became Brad Bandini, an ex-football coach
looking for work. He trained under four of
He agreed to participate in Undercover
Boss, a reality TV show designed to show
his own employees.
employers what their employees are expe-
"The show's producers picked employ-
riencing. Disguised with a '70s-style mul-
ees working in the trenches who I didn't
let haircut, glasses and mustache, Forman
even know:' he says. "I was shocked at

Old-School Selling on page 10

8 April 2 • 2015