Game On!

Yahoo! I skied on natural snow at least four feet deep yesterday. John called last night at about nine o'clock. He was still at work. They had a massive day and he was sounding like he needed to go home and sleep. Just a few more boots to get to and then he would head home. I almost felt a bit guilty but hey, a man's got to ski right?

So with the snow dances paying off in spades we are suddenly in top gear at the shop. The timing was sort of perfect. It gives us some time to spread things out before Christmas. The 10-20 day a year skiers came in as soon as the storm hit to get there season started. Now we will start seeing the Christmas shoppers and the families that do one trip a year and it happens right after Christmas. All hands are on deck and we are doing huge numbers at the register (for us anyway!).

Jennifer is home now and Rebecca gets home Monday. It is so exciting to have them home for a bit. I can't wait to ski with them! I expected Jenn to want to go with me yesterday but she had other plans already. I did make it home in time to catch the Campolindo vs. Miramonte girls varsity soccer game with Jenn last night. She went a bit early so she would have time to hug most of the players and all the coaches before the game started. They made all the "you should put on a uniform- we could really use you" jokes. It was sort of a returning hero scene. A few other players that graduated last year showed up part way through the game too. They were talking about doing an alumni and coaches verses the team game. Sounds like good fun! Count me in!

Alright then. I guess until the next time I ski it is work, work, work. That is where I am headed right now. That's where I will be well into the evening. There is no place I would rather be today. Thanks again for the snow dances. We seemingly did an excellent job this year!

Dancing for Uler

Is the mass of weather out in the Pacific the one to trigger our ski season? Can we go now? Are we there yet? Can we start now? Is it soup yet?

After the opening of the store each August the speculation begins. When will the season start? This year has been pretty good so far in my eyes. October 11th there was skiing at Boreal. On Thanksgiving most resorts were open for business using some combination of natural and man made snow. You could have skied a lot of days already on a single lift servicing a single ribbon of white. We have had a normal "soft opening" and are prepped for the real McCoy.

This next week appears to be the real thing. A series of storms that should blanket the Sierra and open things all over the resorts. I'll believe it when I see it, but it looks like it is going to happen.

This will bring a big sigh of relief to my entire industry as it does every year. This year more than others though. After a very poor sales season nationally last year, the manufacturers and retailers all had too much gear left over from the winter. The big factories in Europe (and Asia) don't want to slow production of goods but there is too much inventory already in "the pipeline". We need a cleansing year to get things right. The economy plays a part in all this of coarse. More important is the weather. If we have a great snow season, people will ski. They will buy skis and boots. Helmets and goggles. Jackets and base layers. Chapstick and lift tickets. Destination resorts will see the skiers come. Local resorts will see skier days rise. All will be right with the world. At least that's what all the sales reps are saying.

And they are probably right. Low sales have meant much belt tightening in the industry. Reps have lost lines as companies cut budgets. Brands have overhauled their business plans. Retailers ordered soft for this season because of high amounts of gear carried over from last year. Manufacturers have cut production surplusses to make sure they do not get stuck with overstock situations again.

Sales reps have been peddling the closeouts that they still have left from last year. They are also pushing us to reorder 2009/10 items we think we may need now later as the inventories on this years products is already getting pretty slim. We have barely sold any of the new stuff yet and they want us to reorder! Nobody wants to be stuck with overstocks items on their hands. Some of the retailers are biting too. Now a number of the "big boys" have started offering discounts to "pick me, pick me!" on reorders. Everybody has been nervous about the future-both short term and long term. There has been talk of major brands that are "in trouble" pulling out of the US market next year if things don't go well again this winter. And all the time they remind us that a good winter will make it all work out ok. As we are in a hold pattern waiting to see when snowfall will make sales numbers zoom, everybody seems to have not much else to do but worry.

Well I for one am tired of the speculation. Tired of the stressed out sales reps. Tired of waiting to ski. Tired of worrying about it. I hope that this storm is a great one. For me and my business it would be a good thing. For a lot of people and companies that I know and care about in the industry it may be a necessity at this point. If it happens, everybody can relax a bit and just get down to doing our jobs. And skiing!

With that end in mind, I have staffed up starting this Saturday and through the next weekend. If it doesn't happen, I will simply have a high payroll for the week and need to drum up some more "projects" to keep everyone busy. If it does happen, I can stop worrying and start working.

Uler is the Norse god of snow and he is the one that holds the key to all of our fortunes at this point. So I will do my snow dance again and again seeking Ular's love. The photo of Rebecca above shows that she has been doing the dance. Please do yours too.

A man and his Kastle

Every man needs his castle. Also a Kastle. Kastle skis (Pronounced KessLee) have been around for a long time. You may remember the Kestle White Star model. It seems to bear fond memories for a lot of our customers. My friend Rick loved his Kastle Combi skis around 1978. I had never on aKastle. Then at some point they disappeared from the US market. I hadn't thought about them much since until last year. Kastle had returned with a simple line of skis that I was hearing good things about. Really good things.

So I found out who ran things there and set up a demo day for the staff. We met last spring at Sugar Bowl with a number of testers from the shop. Head had skis there as well as Elan. We had some questions about their skis to resolve. 4Front skis were there as well. Jesse showed up from Kastle from Salt Lake with a quiver of skis and a sponsored "free skier" to boot. We also invited Jim Fowler from the StartHaus ski shop in Truckee. I know he likes to try everything and would be interested in the Kastles. He was. Long story short, the skis ROCKED. We had ample skis that we highly respect to compare them too and the Kastles were show stoppers. Our best scores ever on our review cards. Well, maybe a tie in that department with a few Stocklis...

Would the Kastles be a good ski for California Ski Company, we pondered? Well, we always try to stock what we would want to ski and to sell others to ski on. On the other hand, these are very expensive skis. We already have the Stockli skis which are premium skis with a premium price tag. We are not changing that relationship anytime soon, as we love the Stocklis and have a strong bond with the company. Is there room for two ski brands in that catagory? Hmmm...needed more consideration.

John's wife Cathy didn't need to think long. She stated before we had gotten back to the cars at Sugar Bowl that she wanted some. She was simply blown away by the MX88 and told John to make it happen. Talks with Jesse continued. I had a number of "Kastle Dreams" about the MX88. Spring and then summer came and went. We had not pre-seasoned Kastles. Talks with Jesse continued some more. This fall Cathy had not forgotten and started to put some pressure on John (and by default me) to try to get a pair even if we did not commit to the line. Finally Jesse came up with a plan. He sold me several Demo skis at a fantastic price. We could put them into demo and see what kind of action they produced. Done. I finally own some Kastles! If you want to check them out, come on by. They should arrive any day. They will be available to buy for $1000 with a binding which is $400 off sticker. Meanwhile as long as they are here we will Demo them.

Tomorrow will get me a glimpse of another ski that I am very interested in. Wayne Wong (yes that Wayne Wong) is coming by tomorrow afternoon to show me some Anton Gliders. These skis have been very exciting to several people that I respect that have skied them. A suspension system for skis that keeps even pressure as the terrain changes? Interesting. What does it look like? I cannot even try to describe them clearly in a few words so the web link is http://www.antongliders.com/. I had been eyeballing them on the Internet for about eighteen months now, but had been unsuccessful in getting a ride on them. Unanswered emails had me frustrated. I spoke to Peter Keelty from http://www.realskiers.com/ and mentioned them. He knows Anton (of coarse!) and he had recently skied them. He loved them. He said he "would call Anton" and get me on some skis. "Great!" I said.

Then Friday Peter called. He told me to grab a pencil. Then he gave me a phone number and said that it was Wayne Wong's cell. "The Wayne Wong?" I asked. Yes, he said. Wow. Cool. Wayne was a boyhood idol. I had the chance to ski with him a few times 4-5 years ago when he was working some with Fischer Skis and he is a really cool guy. But why did I need Wayne Wong's number I wondered? Well it turns out that Wayne is helping out Anton on the west coast.

So I called Wayne. He was on his way to a consumer show in San Jose with the skis. He would be heading home Monday and will be stopping by. I will get to see and handle the skis, get Waynes thoughts on them, and set up a day to ski them with Wayne in the near future. How bitchin is that? Pretty Bitchin!

Maybe the Antons will be like the Palmer PO2. A ski I love and own but don't feel is a good fit for the store. Or maybe we will become Anton Glider dealers? Who knows? One thing is for sure. If we carry Anton Gliders, the Kastles will not seem so expensive any more!

Either way It looks like I will get to spend a day on them with Wayne Wong. God I love my job!

It's getting colder!

Well, the scene has changed from Fall to Winter. The leaves have dropped as have the nuts. Daylight savings time has kicked in. My birthday has passed. We are halfway through the football season. The hardtop has been put onto the Miata. And the skiers are coming out in droves. The vibe is that we will have a good snow year. More people than in any other season seem to have purchased season passes. Sales are brisk at the shop and people are spending their money to get the gear they want or need. The energy is getting to be fever pitch.

For us working at the shop things are progressing too. We are now open seven days a week. The hires are in. They are being trained and measured. The clinic season is half done as far as outside reps coming in. Now we will start the in-house clinics. We are "overstaffed" because with only the weekends open we had everyone working and did training as we helped customers. Lot's of staff. Lot's of customers. It has worked out well. We have been busier than ever before. That's good news! It is also making me/us lag behing a bit in the training aspect. Now with a seven day schedule, it is harder to have a full staff clinic or meeting. I have to kick into high gear.

We have had a few club functions here this month. They are fun. We have another big one coming up next week with SnowPals. We have sold a little over ninety boots so far this year. That has given us a lot more space to breathe. Another couple hundred sold and we can get the boots all stored in a few areas. That will be nice.

And then...we wait for snow.

I want to ski so bad I can taste it!

I should have gone to Mammoth on October 9th when they opened but I passed. Now I regret it. I have made plans for a Colorado trip and will do a few Utah jaunts. But give me a turn and burn to Sugar Bowl on a Wednesday and I am good to go. Bring it on. I would ski sand right now! Heavenly has announced the weekend of the 21st. They are blowing snow. I hope they are right!

Clinic Season

So now we come to the educational part of our season. It's clinic time! We have clinics that we put on for ski clubs and our customers. We have clinics put on by Manufacturers reps for our staff. We also have in-house training for the staff. For a few weeks a year I spend a lot of time as a teacher as well as a student.

Last week we did a boot clinic for a club called SnowPals (WWW.snowpals.org) as well as customers that signed up. We took the first twenty people that registered and did a free basic stance and alignment evaluation. While this was going on in the boot area, I did a clinic on boots. Boot design, liners, insoles, fitting, boot fitters tools, and boot modifications were covered in some detail. This is one of the presentations that I have done many times and really feel comfortable doing. I think that everyone got some good info out of the event and a number of people found out ways to improve their skiing with boot modifications. The next morning we had a number of attendees come in to get their suggested work taken care of, so it seemed that at least some of them were paying attention and that the information was useful.

This week we have two club events that are part social, part clinic, and part retail (at least I hope that there is some good retail action involved!). We have a SnowPals social mixer combined with a ski technology clinic. The next night we will host the UC Berkeley Ski and Snowboard Club sale event. Also fit into this weeks agenda are two clinics put on for us by our vendors. The sales reps know us well and typically do a different presentation that is more technical and in-depth than the ones they do at other stores. I always look forward to them.

Our Elan/Dalbello rep is Will Lachenauer. Will is very interested in why the factories choose to do what they do. Will said his talk will be about boot design from the manufacturers point of view. How they decide on hinge placement for cuffs, different plastics used, and that sort of thing. Then Dan Dixson who is our Head rep will come in and do a few hours. I don't know what Dan will cover but he always does an excellent clinic as well.

An exciting aspect of this years first clinics is that we will have some new staff members at the clinics for their first days working at the shop. They will be sort of thrown right into the fire, and I think they will really enjoy it! We needed to add some staff to the store for this season and so for the first time I ran an ad on Craigslist.org. The response was overwhelming! Probably 50 responses the first day! Over a hundred in total! I suppose it is a sign of the times and I shouldn't have been surprised but I was. Some of the candidates were simply looking for any work they could find. Many of them were skiers and appeared to be good candidates. I came up with about 35 resumes that would be worth interviewing. That's about ten times as many as I usually seem to have had in years past when I needed to hire. I picked the top twelve and spent three days doing the interviews. Frankly, I think that any of them would have been acceptable. The ones chosen will be fantastic if I am not mistaken. New blood is always fun. We miss the employees that move on, but they typically stay in touch and the CalSkiCo family just grows that much bigger! A woman named Sara that worked for me the very first year randomly saw the ad and dropped me a line just to say hi. I hadn't heard from Sara in over a year and it was good to do so.

So Boreal is open and sales are taking off suddenly. We have new employees. Clinic season is in full swing. Wow. Slow and easy to really hectic all of the sudden. I will try to take a few days the week of the 19th off if I can. After that I think we will be expanding our hours, finishing up our clinics and...SKIING!

Here we go! It's off to the races one more time. Educated, with new blood, and ready for action!

Empty Nesting in Berkeley

Well, we dropped off Jennifer in Eugene last weekend. Rebecca has been back at Chico for a few weeks already. Officially an empty nester now. So sad. So proud as well. They are both going to do great! I will see them a few times and then they will be back to work and ski during winter break. Can't wait.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, we are another week closer to snow. The fall sale prices are outstanding but people are not coming in waves or anything. It's sort of lazy days around here. But that is changing fast. We have a clinic this Friday night on boot fitting and skier stance analysis. We took reservations that completely filled the class. That means that we will be doing 20 basic stance analysis' (for free) for participants in about two hours. Plus a bunch of custom insoles as we go along. While the boys are handling the stance work, I will be giving a boot clinic to a local club. Should be awesome! The next week we have a ski club mixer in the parking lot, followed the next night by the UC Berkeley Ski and Snowboard Club sale night. Party time at CalSkiCo!

Also starting that week will be in store product training. Some of this is with sales reps and some is in-house. It totals about 10 work days for each employee spread out between now and Thanksgiving in 2-4 hour segments. It is a scheduling nightmare as everyone has to attend. We start with an overview of the shop mission and ideals. Rentals are last because I have learned that people forget things that they don't practice and rentals don't start until it snows. In between we will go over every category of products in the store, all policies and procedures, job duties, you know, the whole enchilada. Very fun but tiring for me to stay "ahead of the class" and ready for the next segment.

A few opinions and predictions for this season:

1- The "knee" brand bindings will sell out. We are stocking them for the first time this year and I will wish I ordered double what I did.

2- Anything with reverse camber and/or a tapered tip will sell well

3- Blizzard will do great as a new brand in our store.

4- Line brand skis will sell to the wall again. I will wish I ordered more.

5- Like other industries we will see some shake ups. A few brands may disappear. Some of them names you and I are familiar with.

6- Like every year, skiers will ski more or less depending on conditions in Tahoe.

7- We will have a great snow year!

Lastly on my mind is the SIA industry ski show. Every year the industry has a trade show where they unveil their new product for the following year. I have written on the blog about the SIA show before. Vegas, easy, cheap, fun, and a big party to boot. Long story short is that the venue, dates and expenses have all changed. The Denver location will change the dynamic in a number of ways. Not all of them good. Many shops (most shops?) will probably not attend. They will instead opt to use local showings instead. I am torn. I have always gone to EVERY show, and EVERY demo, and EVERY seminar, thinking that more info is what gives me the edge. I like to really get to know the gear as well as possible. Right down to the content of our basic socks. We need to stand behind our products and really believe in them. I still feel this way. But this years show will be tougher to rationalize. It may be more important to spend the time doing product testing. Possibly in Utah? Hmmm...

Lastly we are dabbeling in yet another brand of ski. After testing the Kastle skis, (say Kess-Lee) I fell in love. Prices are in the higher ranges. Stockli has done great for us as a "flagship" ski, and I don't know if there is room for two lines in this "elite" catagory. We love the Stocklis and would never consider not having them in the store. They are still the best built and most interesting line of skis in the world. But the Kastles have a great feel, and a rich history. I kept dreaming about the 88 waisted ski. Cathy Ito (john's wife) went with us to do the demo day and said to John at the end about the 88 model- "I want them. Get them for me." Mike Thawley simply circled the entire "5" column on his test cards for all but one model. This type of response cannot be ignored. Plus they are made at the Head facility which we respect. Head makes not only their own very high quality skis but also many other high end skis, such as the Palmer PO2 and the "price point" Stocklis. I kept in touch with the Kastle national sales rep and set up a program where we will have demo skis available and can order off them. Kastle has a solid business plan and great personnel in place in the US. The skis will speak for themselves. Come check them out!

Planning a trip to Utah?

Last year I did three Utah trips. So easy and such great snow. I have close personal friends that live in Sandy Utah, so that is convienient too. Last year I brought up the idea of renting the guest space. "funny you mention that..." was the response. That's where you come in. They are now renting the guest portion of their home to skiers for the upcoming season on a daily or weekly basis. I have stayed with Willy, Kristy, and their kids numerous times and it is a great place with a super location. You will feel pampered! Three bedrooms, game room, full kitchen, big screen TV, indoor parking for one car, ski storage area, and a hot tub. You will walk out to views of the Wasach range looking like you could reach out and touch them. I recommend both the family and the house highly. If you are planning a trip, call now to get your reservations!

For more information go to: http://www.vrbo.com/258240

PS- This is an unsolicited advertisement, and no animals were harmed writing this blog entry!