The Sherwood Encore Effortless mattress made its debut earlier this year, exclusively to Nationwide Marketing Group Members — with rave reviews!

On this episode of the podcast, Jeff Rose, VP of Furniture, Bedding & Outdoor for Nationwide Marketing Group (NMG) sits down with Tim Riezinger of Sherwood to share the backstory of Effortless and how this under $1,000 non-branded mattress was designed to be a champion for Members needing a product to fill that void.

Rose and Riezinger also talk about the inception of Sherwood’s Encore Kids collection and how it supports research for pediatric brain cancer.

Read the full transcript below.

Jeff Rose (JR): Hey Nationwide family and we are back here at PrimeTime and it is the end of day one. I mean, I think we got about an hour, hour and a half left.

And that’s right. I’ve got the one and only here, Mr. Tim Riezinger from Sherwood and you know, I’m excited to have him here. I’m excited to talk about Sherwood. We’re going to talk about, you know, the progression of our partnership.

Tim Riezinger (TR): It’s good. Good way to put it.

JR: You think so?

TR: Yep.

JR: And then, uh, I’ve got a couple of fun other things that we’ll dive into, but first off, Tim, welcome.

TR: Thanks. My first time.

JR: Uh, is it?

TR: It’s my first time.

JR: First time in the seat?

TR: Yeah. I was a little nervous, but you guys go easy on me.

JR: Okay. And then, Happy St. Patty’s Day.

TR: Yeah, man.

JR: I love the green.

TR: It’s also my anniversary.

JR: Today’s your anniversary?

TR: I got married on St. Patrick’s Day.

JR: No way.

TR: Yeah. 24 years ago.

JR: Okay. Well, congratulations.

TR: But I would rather be here.

JR: Huh? Would you really?

TR: Yeah. Well, just don’t play this.

JR: Oh, I’m going to send this directly to your wife. It’s what I’m going to do. I mean, yeah, I apologize for him. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on.

TR: It’s really all right.

JR: Okay.

TR: It’ll be all right.

JR: Well, I tried to talk to you a couple times in the booth. Sherwood’s been rocking it.

TR: Busiest show we’ve ever had.

JR: Okay, are you just telling me that…

TR: I say that every time, but I can say that the one thing that made it a little different was the marketing prior.

JR: Yup.

TR: Effortless, which everybody knows it by now, is a draw.

JR: Yup.

TR: It’s the star of the show. And I was a little nervous because I was afraid I wouldn’t have a voice, because everybody wants to talk about it. And it is exactly what we designed it to be — a no-brainer that everybody wants it on the floor. Look, feel, fit and finish, it’s there. And, you know, the Members are gobbling it up. But, appreciate you giving us the opportunity.

JR: Tim, I’ll give you this man. I remember going to you in Q4 last year and challenging you and your team to…

TR: Yup.

JR: Let’s make a special mattress for the Nationwide membership, so they’d be proud. And, you know, that unit compression that we have seen for the past couple of years… under $500, under $1,000… we needed something to get that going. And you and your team did an incredible job and it’s been one of the biggest buzz that I’ve been hearing about on the show floor during PrimeTime. Congratulations.

TR: Thank you. Thank you. Nationwide lived up to everything they said they would do to promote it.

JR: Yup.

TR: And it’s a good thing because it’s a lesson for us on how to prepare for PrimeTime. It’s having all those ducks in a row, marketing on board, our manufacturing on board, our reps, the TSI team on board. And it did come full circle. I think it’s a good map for the future, for multiple products.

JR: Yup.

TR: And we’ll definitely go through this again and again. But everything has… the expectations were great. For sure.

JR: Well I know I’ve only… how long have I known you? Two years now.

TR: Two years. Yup.

JR: Two years? And first time I met you, I was like, great dude. But, you know, how… work ethic… I’ve heard so many great things. Product innovation. What’s going on. And, you know, we both kind of took a leap together.

TR: For sure.

JR: You know, I was really needing that under $1,000 champion non-branded. And I did my due diligence, the team did their due diligence, and I kept on hearing, “You gotta go talk to Tim.” I talked to Tim, first class, and you’ve completely lived up to that, buddy.

TR: Yeah, but that’s two-way street. Two-way street, and we say this a lot, that it is a partnership. And a lot of the time, especially in our industry, is the partnerships vary one-sided. But this time, and I didn’t take as much of the leap of faith as you did because I had to earn it. And I think a lot of the times with the mattress category specifically is you’ve heard it a bunch of times. Everybody will tell you what they can do, but we have to execute.

JR: Yeah.

TR: And I took a lot of, like, we had to come to you. If we were going to promise you something, we were going to deliver it. And I think we did that from the kids’ program, which we couldn’t be any more pleased with, to Encore now with Effortless and Mattress in a Box. That, all those things are stepping stones for us to show you that, hey, man, we believe in Nationwide, we believe in the membership, and we believe in your leadership executive team that you’ll deliver if we work hard or we give you a product. It couldn’t have worked out any better.

JR: We’re literally, I think, just scratching the surface.

TR: Yes, for sure, for sure.

JR: And what I love about the relationship that we’ve built is I’m not scared to challenge you, and you’re not scared to challenge us. We’re here to find the best product, work as hard as we can, and deliver that message to the membership, and then us to draw the membership into you, and y’all do what you do, and just kill them with incredible product and great service, and then everybody wins. And so we’re really, really moving in the right direction here, buddy.

TR: Yeah, and it’s interesting because it’s not the average. Your membership, they talk to each other. So if you don’t deliver for one guy, for one retailer, somebody else is going to figure it out, right? So you have to be spot on with all the retailers, and as much as we wanted to grow from zero to 60… right? …the steps we’ve taken have made us better and better and better. So I learn from each of these things, and I think the membership, when they’re here at PrimeTime, they talk.

“Hey, you’ve got to go see Sherwood.” You’ve got to go visit and hear them, and that’s worked.

JR: Yeah.

TR: So we think going through the process that we did, which is somewhat painful for you guys, but I think it made us better.

JR: Yeah, it did.

TR: In the long run.

JR: It did. For sure. And you touched on something that’s real close to everyone here, is the kids’ collections, and how we developed that together to have its own look and feel, it growing so much. You added another SKU. You were six months into it.

I’d love for you to just take 30 seconds and just give a high… how’s it doing? Why you brought it on? And then just let everybody know about that special 1% that goes back to do pediatric brain cancer. I think it’d be a great story.

TR: Yeah, it was interesting. I visited here. I came to my first PrimeTime in Nashville, and this was going back two and a half years ago. And I walked around the entire center and looked, and there was no juvenile products, not mattresses. And I was like, wow, that’d be a nice little step into a category that maybe the membership doesn’t have.

Now, it’s not a huge segment of the business, but there’s still stores and retailers out there that need a juvenile product, but their juvenile product’s just that. It’s just a mattress with a cover on it. What we wanted to do was go back and make it look like it should be for kids, make it fun, and we did that. We went a little old school with it with some real playful looks on there, but we made them comfortable, and we made a good story with it.

And I can’t take credit for it, but Scott Warlick was the one that said, “Hey, you know what’d be cool? Is if we gave something back,” and that’s why we went with the Duke charity. And man, we got more buzz because we did that, and more people wanted to come see it.

And right now, if we want to know, it’s not been out a year yet. We’re about nine months into it. We’ve got 50-odd dealers that have picked it up, multiple, and large dealers. One dealer’s got 120 stores, and we’re going to probably cross over the $400,000 mark, and I know that doesn’t sound big, but you’re talking about twin-size mattresses here.

JR: Yeah, a lot of units.

TR: A lot of units, and everybody supports it. And we’ve gotten now where we’ve got entire assets. We’ve got photography. We’ve got banners for the websites. So it’s growing and sort of evolving as a brand.

JR: Yup.

TR: And I think that we’re just, again, you said it, scratching the surface of what Encore Kids can be. And each time it gets more exciting. Today, there was interest today. It’s been out a year. This is our third PrimeTime, and they were still coming in interested.

“Hey, let me see the kids,” which is cool. And plus, we get to hopefully write a big old check to Duke next month. We’re hoping to write a check for $5,000 to Duke Charity, and all that was done by the Members, not by us. So that’s a great thing. Super excited.

JR: Yeah, great story. Just great all the way around for everyone involved.

TR: We couldn’t be more pleased.

JR: Awesome. That’s awesome. Well, St. Patty’s Day tonight, right?

TR: Yeah, big night.

JR: Y’all got a party I’m hearing?

TR: Yeah, Hard Rock Cafe. You’re not there. Come on. I got a special treat for everybody.

JR: Do you? What is that?

TR: Yeah, yeah. There’s going to be two beer burros walking around serving us beers. If you haven’t seen them, they’re pretty cute.

JR: Like animals?

TR: Yeah, real animals.

JR: And donkeys?

TR: Donkeys. Well, burros.

JR: Oh, so you can’t call them?

TR: They get mad if you call them donkeys.

JR: Okay, we won’t talk about that.

TR: These are burros. They are going to be dressed like leprechauns and walking around the Hard Rock Cafe.

JR: Yes or no, will Brent Muse ride one of the burros while he’s there?

TR: He will by the end of the night.

JR: Okay, definitely.

TR: Right? For sure.

JR: Awesome.

TR: I don’t know. That’s why we got to bring the camera.

JR: Yes, indeed.

TR: Get it undocked.

JR: What’s up? Always a pleasure, my friend.

TR: I fully enjoy it. Thank you.

JR: Always.

TR: Thank you.

JR: Well, that’s going to wrap us up here at PrimeTime with Mr. Tim and the Sherwood team. Again, Nationwide, thank you all very much just for the support. And if you need that under $1,000 champion, I highly recommend you reaching out to Tim and his team and go take a look at Sherwood, everyone.

So, y’all have a great day.