MSU Alumni and donor, Jake Jabs.
MSU photo by Kelly Gorham.
COMBO is thrilled to announce that the speaker for our next general meeting will be the esteemed Jake Jabs, a well-known local musician! Oh, and he also owns a few furniture stores… Mr. Jabs will be speaking on how important knowing your music business is to knowing your music business. Come join us for a pleasant, social evening and a chance to get to know more musicians and music-related business professionals in the area.
What: COMBO’s January General Meeting
Where: Conference Room, AFW’s corporate headquarters, 8830 America Avenue, Englewood
When: Sunday, January 29th
Time: 7:00 until 9:00 p.m.
Cost: Free!
Age: Anyone!
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AT AGE 83, FURNITURE MOGUL JAKE JABS STILL LEADING BY EXAMPLE
DENVER — Colorado’s king of furniture keeps building bigger castles. For Jake Jabs, though, ever-larger superstores make up only one chapter in his rags-to-riches story.
Jabs, 83, the founder and owner of American Furniture Warehouse and one of the state’s top entrepreneurs, has pushed beyond the traditional furniture showroom to develop his own intricate, in-house system of sales, inventory and delivery.
Along the way, he’s remained one of Colorado’s most accessible business leaders — open and plain spoken about virtually all aspects of the inner-workings of his company as well as issues facing businesses.
He’s also one of the state’s most charitable residents, giving to dozens of organizations.
In 2013, he announced a $10 million donation to the University of Colorado-Denver for the creation of the Jake Jabs Center for Entrepreneurship, a record for the school.
In 2013, he announced a $10 million donation to the University of Colorado-Denver for the creation of the Jake Jabs Center for Entrepreneurship, a record for the school.
In 2011, he pledged $25 million to his alma mater, Montana State University in Bozeman, Mont, to build a new business school. It was the largest donation ever to any Montana college.
At the Montana State announcement, Jabs joked with a reporter, “My goal is to die poor,” before giving the true explanation for the donation. The gift was to pay back all that “God and business have given me,” he said.
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“You have to have the mentality that you just want to be the best. That’s what I wanted. I wanted to be the best furniture store. When I had my music store, I wanted to be the best music store. … That’s the one message I want to give to the kids,” he said.
Early history
Born in rural Montana, to parents of Polish-Russian-German descent who fled communist Russia, Jabs spent his childhood working the family farm with his eight siblings. There was no indoor plumbing, electricity or running water.
He graduated from college intending to become a high school agriculture teacher, spent two years on active duty for the U.S. Air Force as part of an ROTC commitment and then returned to Bozeman to become a co-partner in a music store.
More music stores followed. He also became a success as a retail store consultant and eventually sold the music stores. In the mid-1960s, he relocated with his wife and two daughters to Denver.
In 1968, he bought a shuttered Mediterranean furniture store in Denver, renamed it Mediterranean Galleries and added branches in Pueblo, Colorado Springs and Billings, Mont.
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He still oversees all of the day-to-day operations. He still visits all of the stores on a regular basis. He still travels around the country — and twice a year to Asia — to look for the best supplier deals.
He’s also still an unabashed champion of the free enterprise system, limited government, the United States, Colorado, his native Montana — and country music. He’s played guitar since childhood and once toured briefly with Marty Robbins.
Picking up a guitar in his office, Jabs strums and sings a version of Merle Haggard’s “Colorado.” The state really ought to consider it as a replacement to its current state song, “Where the Columbines Grow,” he says.
Asked if he plans to retire anytime soon, Jabs dismisses the idea. “There’s an old saying that if you enjoy what you’re doing you never work a day in your life,” he says.
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‘An American Tiger’
In 2000, Jabs took the step of writing down many of his views on business in a self-published biography, “An American Tiger.” The book takes readers on a chronological journey that begins with his childhood. It concludes with recognition in 2000 as the National Home Furnishings Association Realtor of the Year.
The book also serves as a kind of how-to guide for entrepreneurs with Jabs explaining the “secrets” behind his store’s growth. Few topics are left untouched. He discusses everything from paying workers on commission to negotiating with suppliers.
He also tells the story behind the tigers and other exotic animals that became the store’s advertising trademark.
The first commercial spots showed puppies but then an ad rep suggested switching to exotic animals. Jabs wasn’t convinced: “I saw no connections between exotic animals and furniture and ran him off.”
Then one day, at the request of his secretary, the ad rep brought in a baby tiger.
“When I came into work the next morning, all the employees were gathered around the tiger. I was hopping mad because no one was working,” he wrote.
“But I saw the interest and excitement that the tiger generated and they’ve now become our trademark. People love them. We’ve accessed all kinds of animals from different sources around Colorado, but lately we get them from Fort Worth.”
Today, American Furniture uses the image of tigers in some of its marketing but Jabs no longer wrestles around on-screen with the live animals.
American Lifestyle Furniture
The company’s current marketing focus is on its recent name change to American Lifestyle Furniture. The idea came to Jabs after he read an article about the growing popularly of lifestyle branding.
“You have to embrace change,” Jabs said.
His willingness to shift course recently led him to beef up the company’s social media and Internet department. In his 2000 autobiography, he had voiced deep skepticism about the Internet as an avenue for selling furniture.
“Things change. It’s the day and age of technology. These things here (smartphones) have changed the world,” Jabs said.
The company now handles online sales and deliveries all across the U.S.
Another of its newer offerings is the Artists of the West program. Select artists receive commissions on their original paintings and other artwork that are mass reproduced for sale at low prices (under $100) at the stores.
The program has proven so popular that the sales helped the stores’ weather the Great Recession, Jabs said. Some artists now collect more than $1,000 a month in commissions. Customers are able to buy great art at low prices, he said.
Low prices check off a number of items on Jabs’ keys to business success.
There’s No. 9, don’t be afraid to sell cheap (and) have the lowest prices in town; and No. 11, businesses must have a value to society and not just (serve) as profit machine for the family.
There’s also No. 14, entrepreneurs don’t do it for the money.
By Dennis Darrow | The Pueblo Chieftain
ddarrow@chieftain.com
Read the whole article here:
http://www.chieftain.com/business/3351394-120/jabs-furniture-colorado-state