The bedding industry has two new presidents with big plans for their individual companies. Chealen Martin, the new president of DreamFit, and Lou Paige, Englander’s new president and CEO, spoke with Bedding News Now to share their visions for the company and how their past experience in the industry will inform their new roles.
Martin previously held roles at Tempur Sealy, Casper and Englander, and he says his past experiences working with these brands have led him to some of the best mentorship and guidance he could ask for.
“I bring a new perspective to the brand, and I’m thinking not only about where DreamFit can go, but where we deserve to go,” Martin says. “I’ve seen some of the best in class and how they deliver value to the customers. I couldn’t be more grateful for my past experiences and more excited about the future of DreamFit.”
With his experience on the mattress side of the business, he has been championing the company’s latest release, the Grounding Sleep System. The three-bed collection has patented graphene technology that is designed to pull static tension out of the body, giving the sleeper a more restorative sleep.
“We truly believe it will deliver the best sleep that people can get,” he says. “This is an early adopter type of technology. You’re hearing it talked about on a lot of social media — Joe Rogan even spoke about grounding technology on his podcast. We’ve patented the system so that we’re the only company that can use it for the mattress protector and sheets. We have some great key retail partners I’m excited to eventually announce.”
Martin says this product is being rolled out strategically — as opposed to using a shotgun approach. And though this is a big focus for DreamFit, Martin says the company is always thinking about what’s next.
“We want to build on a team to support our retail partners and make sure we do this the right way,” he says about the Grounding Sleep System rollout. “There are other areas when we think about category expansion, and when we think about innovation, nothing’s off the table when it comes to what we can do from a textile perspective. In the near future, you will see innovation in the sheet category, and later this year we will get into the pillow category.”
Martin says DreamFit will look at pillows with a new, fresh perspective and what he calls “customer-backed innovation.” This means the company’s sales team, retail partners and the end consumer will all be surveyed about price points, margins and technology.
“Soon you will see many more exciting things to help our retailers simplify their lineup while providing value and great experiences to the end customers.
Martin is also responsible for the company’s new tagline, “The Luxury of Rest.” This new branding is used on all of DreamFit’s marketing materials, including brand-new packaging.
“We’ve always tried to figure out how to connect sleep to health and wellness — a lot of our marketing messaging and assets talk about how your sleep impacts not just your lower back but also your beauty and how you feel when you wake up. We want to figure out solutions that help people get better rest than ever before. If we were just another ‘me too’ brand and made a product without serving a need, then we would not have done it.”
Martin says this grounding technology can be used in other products, and the company is in the research and development stage when it comes to which products it can add it to. When new products come out, the Grounding Suite System will become its own category of products.
The company is also changing things up internally with a new ERP system that Martin says will give retailers the ability to see DreamFit data and use it to sell.
“We can show top sellers and suggest which models they need to have in stock with data like, 75% of customers that buy a new mattress buy a new set of sheets within 48 hours. Phase two of this technology update will be a new customer order portal that I’m excited about. We want to be easy to do business with, and we want people to enjoy doing business with us. So will see a change in the culture of the brand and see us taking credit for the incredible brand that we built and how much fun it is to work for us or with us.”
Overall, he sums up his vision for the company as being easy to do business with — giving retailers what they need so they can best serve their customers. “I’m excited to make improvements on everything from product and innovation to internal operational. We’re making improvements every single day.”
Englander
Lou Paige is an industry veteran with nearly 40 years of experience in the industry through roles at Serta, during which time he was director and then vice president of key accounts, as well as vice president of marketing and merchandising for the Serta Sleepmaster division. His last role was as managing director of international licensee relations and development at Serta.
Throughout his career, he has worked in sales, marketing, merchandising and more, and he says this helps him bring a unique perspective to his new role at Englander. His first order of business is to expand Englander’s footprint with regional retailers.
“We’re going to grow with regional players, but we’re still going to pay attention to our local players as well because we’re devoted to them,” Paige says. “They’ve been keeping us going for 131 years. We’re expanding not just domestically, but internationally as well. We have a decent international footprint, but there are still many opportunities.”
Paige says there’s a lot of great excitement in the company and that licensees are engaged in growing the business.
“They’re focused,” Paige says. “We’re always thinking about how to create opportunities for our customers. We’re looking to grow our customers’ business and create opportunities for them.”
The Las Vegas Market was an indicator of this, as Paige says the vibe was that it was probably the best Vegas market that anybody’s had in a few years.
“Attendance was good and there was a lot of traffic,” he explains. “And in recent years people haven’t been able to say that. It was well attended and productive for Englander. And I think that the attendance is a testament to retailers who are being aggressive and going after business, and those ones are going to succeed.”
One of the immediate actions Paige took when he entered the company was restarting the company’s social media presence with a fresh new look and the right messaging. The company is also working on launching a new website in April that has a dealer locator.
“We want to have consistent messaging throughout all of our communications platforms,” Paige says.
He says business may continue to be tough this year, but that savvy retailers are going after it. And Englander is giving them tools to help them with marketing training and how to increase close ratios.
“Close ratios are more important than ever,” Paige says. They’ve always been important, but today if you get someone in the store you need to close them. If they’re in your store, they want to buy a mattress; they’re not browsing. It’s going to be difficult, but I think retailers and manufacturers are going to go after the business, and that’s what you have to do in hard times — work harder when times are tougher.”
