Tang's distinctive management philosophy was the focus on people, both customers and staff. Emphasis was given to quality of the staff, reasonable pricing and warm service. Tang believed in investing in his staff, as his frontline staff would be the ones who would be in direct contact with the customers and he believed that the image of the store depended on them. As a result, Tang reserved a substantial annual budget for staff training, which included tailored programs for sales staff, supervisors and management. Supervisors and managers were expected to undergo a minimum 100 hours of training. Tang also made an effort to get in touch with his staff at all levels, in order understand his customers' expectations on product and service quality. Despite the company's poor financial results in certain years, Tangs retained its reputation for good service and reliability.