Living The Red Life - How Two Sisters Saved a 135-Year Legacy

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

What does it take to keep a 135-year-old business alive in a world dominated by e-commerce, automation, and constant disruption? In this episode of Living The Red Life, two fourth-generation entrepreneurs reveal how they stepped into leadership during one of the most difficult periods in their family’s history and transformed a historic department store into a thriving community destination. Amanda "AJ" Ashenbrenner and Theresa Kronforst share the mindset, resilience, and unconventional decisions that helped them modernize without sacrificing the values that built their legacy. From customer experience and retail innovation to family business leadership and community impact, they discuss the strategies that continue to attract customers, build loyalty, and keep a hometown institution relevant for future generations.Key Takeaways• How to modernize a family business without losing its identity• Why customer experience beats convenience in today's retail world• The importance of adapting during economic and industry disruption• How two sisters successfully transitioned into leadership roles• Why community relationships remain a powerful competitive advantageNotable Quotes• "The sale is 95% listening to the customer."• "Change is the only thing that stays the same."• "People are coming in for the experience."• "We are the experience."• "Each day brings the unknown, but also the chance to rise to it."Connect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

We manage Schrader's department store together in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Our great grandpa started with selling good quality clothing and footwear, and we just maintain that. We always help the customer. I think it's interesting. A lot of people are coming and they're visiting for the experience. Teresa Cron Forrest and A.J. Schrader are fourth generation entrepreneurs and the leaders of Schrader's department store. Drawing from a legacy rooted in family, service, and perseverance, they continue to evolve a historic business while preserving the values and communities.

community connection that have shaped it for generations. We teach us to our employees that it's the sale is 95% listing to the customer and then 5% pulling it in and being able to service them the way they want to be serviced. We choose to not sell online. Just to be completely serious, the inventory side of that, it seems like an absolute I'm there. We don't have toy to sale.

There's no scanning codes when somebody is checking out. We manually enter the number into a cash register, right? register, right? Like, there's, there's none of that. But I also... My name's Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Welcome back to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast, the Red Life Edition. Joining me today, moments before we filmed the episode is AJ and Teresa. I will let them

introduce themselves because they're actually quite, they're quite a pair, their sisters, but they're part of an amazing legacy. Yeah. Welcome to the Red Life. Thanks. Who are you?

Why are you here? I'm Teresa, and I work with my sister, A.G. We manage Traders Department store together into Rivers, Wisconsin. Family owned and operated since 1891. Our, let's see, great grandpa started, right, with help from his dad, right?

It gave them money to invest into the business and kind of here we are. Wow. So department store. Right. A brick and mortar of brick and mortars. How is it going today in 2025 in the department store in the same sentence? How are things? I think it's going great, but we're unique in the fact that we never strayed from where we started.

So our great grandpa started with selling good quality clothing and footwear. And we just maintain that. We always help the customer. It's that where you walk in and you feel like you're a part of the story that we are. So it's, we just, we, it's amazing. I don't know how it else to explain it. It's hard to explain it unless you're there. It's hard to replicate it.

I think I kind of understand your meaning. It's almost like going into the artist's gallery where the artist is performing. Like you mentioned your legacy in the store, this department store was essentially built around the products that your family built, an actual brick and mortar where folks can come in. meet the family, buy a product, and support each other, support the village. And fast forward into the future, it's still very much a central part of our culture, how we operate. Talk about being owners of this time capsule, but a way of life that is still very much real and authentic.

My favorite story is Teresa works in the coffee shop and she had customers walk in, and it was an older gentleman with maybe his granddaughter. and he turned to her and said, this is how stores used to be. Well, we're still here. So it's amazing to walk in every day. It's weird because like Teresa said, someday, you know, you might want to retire. And I'm like, I don't, I like what I do. I really truly like what I do.

It has its moments. Sure. But it's amazing to walk in knowing that we are passing, we're trying to continue that legacy for the for the community, for our family. At some point, it almost feels like you're going to be a side show attraction or it's like, this is the way it used to be. I'm like, Daddy, are those people real?

Are they real playing? I'm like, no, this is still very much a thing. Yeah. I at one point, I lived in, it's not as a small town, but I lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, between living in Miami and San Francisco, and I just loved it. I just loved just seeing green and peace and then going to small towns and supporting stories,

not just businesses. talk about folks that are looking for something pure and you happen to find, you know, random encounters of like folks that live in coastal cities and they're like now looking for something different. That happens to be something that's been around forever. I think it's interesting. A lot of people are coming and they're visiting for the experience. And we have to, we're always talking to our employees about that.

People coming in, you can go anywhere and buy a T-shirt, right? They want to have conversation with you. Ask them where they're from. have that conversation. There's so many people that we know and have grown to know through the business

that are regulars that come in all the time and it's different having a conversation asking how their kids are how are your grandkids how's that new grandbaby and now you've learned

you know so that's one side of it is having the locals the other side of it is having people who have never been there before who walk in with her this Sophie's luck

right is I really is like you're on display kind of and it's a very I guess that's Sort of where we've shifted a little bit is understanding that we are the experience. It's not simply someone coming in to buy a pair of blue jeans.

Right. It's always like the small little triggers, like the doorbell on the door and like thing that just puts you in a different scene. And then you hit them with the music and the smell and the greet and the sale begins. That's your in-person funnel. Talk about the difference for folks that are listening. It's like having a brick and mortar is important. You guys have much more than that.

And the digital age that we live in is you don't get that in-person experience, especially when you're trying to create a sale or an experience. Talk about the difference in how you see how you're leveraging actually have a brick and mortar. It is just making more of a relationship with that customer. And it's unique in the fact that Teresa and I both, we have children. So we volunteer with the schools. We volunteer with our businesses. So we see, and we go to the grocery store.

And I mean, I can recall instances where you see a customer shopping and you're like, hey, at the grocery store. And you're like, hey, we just got something in that you might like. You know, it's, I think we just, we're special in that that we can bring that home. Big enough but small enough, I think. Right, right. So, right. Because we choose to not sell online. Awesome.

We choose to not. That's great. Because honestly, if like just being completely serious, the inventory side of that, it seems like an absolute nightmare. We don't have point of sale. There's no scanning codes when somebody is checking out. We manually enter the number into a cash register, right? Like there's none of that. So, but I also, I like the simplicity of it.

Absolutely. We're still using a paper journal to write daybook stuff. I mean, we do use computers, right? Sure, sure. A bad point. But we still have this. very old school way of doing things while we're able to bring some of that digital age in. Yeah, it's part of the magic sauce of what you're manifesting there.

Talk about what's carried on through the generation besides all of you. But I mean, like, what's in the air and the frequency when you walk in there? That is, it's service. Yes. And the attention to quality. Absolutely. We hear it a lot where I went to said business and tried on 30 pairs of shoes and couldn't find one that fit and I come here and you measured my feet and you found two pair that I

am walking out with. In minutes. Within minutes. Because, and we teach us to our employees that it's the sale is 95% listening to the customer and then 5% pulling it in and being able to service them the way they want to be service. So it's definitely service, but it is attention to making sure our products are not substandard either. What are you all doing? Is it word of mouth? How are you getting traffic? Is it foot traffic or folks driving out to come see? How are you guys building it? It's interesting. EG will talk about it more probably. She's like the marketing side of all of that. Awesome.

But it is interesting through the years to see how that part of it has shifted because it was so heavy newspaper. And when she first started, you know, I mean, I mean, I mean, our, she talks about the newspaper budget was tens of thousands of dollars in a year, which is unfathomable now, right? And I remember my dad, and they would have, they would lay the ads out. They're taking cutouts of pictures and laying things where they want them to be, right? Like, this is how it was. And now it's, we, our advertising budget is what, I mean, it's such a small percentage of what it used to be because of what's available now. Right. Well, advertising in newspapers, I'm sure. Are you advertising at all or on Facebook?

Okay, so there is a local newspaper that we absolutely love. In fact, I just approved an ad. But that's a, like, for that community. And it's a farming community that they always get that newspaper. And we know that our little ad supporting them supports us tenfold. Yep, and it's consistency. Right. And but other than that, it's social media.

And emails. Really? And a lot of word of mouth, a lot. We have the, we're in a beautiful area along Lake Michigan that a lot of people take that path up to Door County. And we just are a great stopping point. In fact, there's a lot of people that stop and stay now where we are because it is such a wonderful community. Are you guys looking to expand into almost like microhomes and having us? small community area because it almost feels like you are building an experience, but Airbnb is huge

and, you know, camping sites are huge and kind of doing the, even the overnight midnight experience. It's just like what, what, I guess what I'm asking is, what is the evolution of taking this for another 100 years? Evolution of the business would be to utilize the building more. Yes. So whether or not it remains as is as a department store, you know, we have three stories and lower. That's great now there's one story that's not being used at all.

So essentially, you know, moving forward future thinking would be renovating that, upgrading that into maybe livable space. For sure. I mean, we're not going to be around forever and we don't expect our children to be wrangled in. And I mean that in the most loving way because our, that was every previous generation kind of got suffered into working, right? They got pulled into the business, even though they had other hopes and dreams. Sure. And we have agreed that we don't want to do that to our kids. So, you know, when it's our time, hopefully we can just find something suitable so that the building is beautiful.

And, you know, they built it in 1890. They had additions come in. A couple of additions come in over the years then after. But ideally, it would just be to utilize the space. Yeah. I mean, it's a cornerstone in the city. I was just going to say, is it a historical landmark? Yes.

Like, oh, great. Like, you've got that seal. You've got the plaque. That's amazing. It's really cool how, like, you've got the actual. location. You've got your own Disney resort and it's really up to your imagination how many times you can change it up.

What do you do to keep seasonal? Do you have Halloween parties? Or is it just, you know, like walk me through what a year looks like for all of you running the store? So first quarter is cold. Take a breath. Cold. Got it.

And we're going to breathe through what just happened. Right. We look forward to January, February because of the craziness that we just left from in December. Okay. So then we hit March and that's, we have a Founders Day sale the first couple weeks of March, which is always big and it's sort of kickstarts spring season.

Right on. And then as we get a little farther, May is when tourism starts to pick up a little bit. Summer is bananas. We have the state park close, the beach is a couple blocks away, right? And so summer is very tourist heavy and then fall kind of settles back into, it is still. We still have tourists in fall, but it turns into less families and more, maybe older couples that are traveling together that don't want to. deal with kids, which to each their own, right? But fall is busy as well.

And then we sort of hit this like weird lull in November. November. Before people, they're just kind of waiting. That's why we four Thanksgiving sales and in all of that, right? Right. Yeah. Which would explain why you're sitting here. Yes.

I was just going to say. Like, we're here. We could manage a couple days here. Yeah. Right. Are you all staying for the mastermind next week by curiosity? No. Came up too, maybe not too quick.

We were unsure because she and I are never away together. Oh, okay. Yeah. We're like parents. Yeah. If she's going away, I stay. If I have a way, she's stayed. Gotcha.

Look at you both go. So. I know. What an honor. We'll see when the one in first quarter is. Okay. It's slow enough where we could both be able to. Got it.

Yes. But yes, this was like a trial run for our little children at home. Right. Oh, this is great. The children at the store and the children at our homes. Oh, gosh. Well, I hope it would. I hope they were playing this in the store on Loop.

So say how to your kids and the customers. Hi. Any specials you want to point at while they're shocking? So my next question is we're clearly entering into 2026, but your culture with your store is very rooted in something, not something, but in this lifestyle that's clearly not around anymore. How do you hire for something like that? How do you hire a 16-year-old punk that's like, well, this isn't technology enough?

How do you find someone that's genuine that understands what you're trying to the experience that you're trying to foster here. Rarely is it, I don't want to say merit-based or experience-based, we can tell from an individual if they're going to jive. And if they jive, we can teach the job to anyone. Right. You're selling clothes or I can train you how to make a latte. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you have to have the personality that we'll get along with. I mean, we have a wonderful staff and we have a lot of people that have been with us for a long tiring. And it's not like, it's because we're paying exorbitant amounts of money because that isn't the case. But we like to think that we offer a place where they feel safe and secure and feel welcome every day when they come in. And it went from having maybe a lot of family members that we hired to people, and I don't

want to say this weird, but like off the street. Sure, I got you. But their personalities did jive so much so that a lot of. a lot of them we consider them family. You know, like we text them on the weekends or we send them pictures of our kids or so it is unique. But yes, it is like that person walks in and you can just feel their light, I guess, is what it's very, it's odd until you have to do it.

There's no real way to explain it, but you just kind of know or you don't know. Where do you think that intuition comes from that download that knowing, Our parents for sure. I think dad was pretty into that, especially towards his end of life. Yeah. And mom is too. She's just a little more quiet about it. Yes.

I think we just had, we were very fortunate with very good parents. Yeah. Where they taught us where to go with our gut. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny how that works. A lot of folks don't get that sort of training.

I got raised with my grandmother, so I definitely got that training. Yeah. Folks today pay a large fortune to kind of be coached about this. I'm like, you all didn't get the guff way back in the guff days? Right, right, right. You're too busy on the social media's and the stuff that's not really important. But anyways, I digress. What will folks learn about you in your Women in Power episode?

Give us a preview because we're literally about to film it in that studio. Boy, I don't know. I think a lot of rolling with the punches, you know, we used to have a much. marketing class from a local high school that came in every year. Yes. And we always got, they always came in with a list of questions, right? And one of the same questions we got asked every single year was,

what does a typical day if you look like? Like, we don't know. I've come in in the morning to open a coffee shop and the ceiling had collapsed, right? Like, so I thought I was going in to do a thing and now it turns out I'm doing another thing. Oh, yeah. So I really, I think, and we've talked.

about this a lot while we've been down here, actually, was just, it's really learning how to pivot, learning how to think on your feet, sort of not really setting any expectations for anything because anything can change so quickly. That and holding it all together and smiling, like a duck on water. Yeah. It's just, like, you have to pull it together. And I think we have, not that we've mastered it, but we're willing to cut ourselves grace when we don't. And I think that's what we're going. It's just something, a nugget. And we always refer to our store as our family.

So we are two moms that will fight fierce to the death to protect our children and what's inside that building. Oh, yeah. And that's, that's just what we were unique in that it was men run forever. Yeah. And then two sisters just are like, bam, hold my beer. Yeah. I love it. So.

Very cool. Yeah. How can folks learn more about you? Is there a website that folks in attend? We do have a website. It's straterstore.com. Cool. We are on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok now.

You must be killing it on TikTok. It's just so unique. It's so niche. It's just a fun thing to have to be like, oh, what's this? Where are they? What are they doing? And they're doing this live? Like you really started looking into doing live fees.

It's a lot of fun. Yeah. Especially for folks that understand your niche. Right. And it's funny because my daughter has been pushing me to do stuff like that, a little 14-year-old. So, well, I'm sure. Future right there. Yeah, I know.

I know. Somebody's future boss. Right. Right. So she, I know we will probably end up kicking it up to the next level. Yeah. Right on.

I love it. I love this. Yeah. Okay. Cool. I guess that concludes yet another amazing episode of the Living Year Legacy podcast, the Red Life Edition slash Women in Power edition for Insight Success. This is A.J.

Teresa? Yeah. Good job. Awesome. Oh my God. I did that without looking at people. And Ray Gutierrez. And we are Insight Success.