Well we are 2/3 through the fall sale. So much fun! It's like a reunion combined with a busy day at the office. Lot's of "regulars coming by just to say "hi!" combined with lot's of sales. It is always great to see the regulars that are as much friends as customers by now. Some like Joe from Sonoma come from pretty far away just to say hello and check out the shop with little intention of making purchases. Awesome. Others like Cindy and Stefon (Spelled wrong) have decided it's time for killer new gear. Also awesome. David Hudson is always there the Friday before the sale starts bright and early- just to be first. Amazing. John says we are the "skiers barbershop". Pretty close to the truth.
The sale has also gone fantastic from a sales/business point of view. We are WAY above any previous year. Mainly accountable for this is the fact that John talked me into doing advertising beyond our postcard that we send to our customer database. For years, the annual "were back and having a sale" postcard and yellow pages listing were our entire budget. The business has grown every year so I was content with that. Still we have new customers every year that are local skiers and yet did not even know we existed. John argued that we can convert any skier to becoming a regular but they needed to know about us. "Get 'em in the door" he felt, "and we can make 'em ours". Well I cane to agree and did some print ads and an online piece on the chronicles web site. Seems to have worked!
At least as important is the support we get from companies like the Bay Area Ski Bus (BayAreaSkiBus.com). Brian sent an email to his customer base about the sale. That's 12,000 emails! Wow, what a great partnership. You have probably heard me praise his company before and now they are doing week long trips to destinations outside of Califnia as well. Very cool! If you are using the ski bus or want to check it out once, give us a call or drop by and we can give you a code to save $10 on a trip.
Also fantastic is that we have added a few new staff members that are working out great. Gabe is doing the school thing and will be playing a part time/fill in role. He was in shopping last season. We were very busy. Both John and I were dealing with multiple customer at the same time. Gabe started chatting with a customer that was patiently sharing John with a few other boot shoppers. Before we knew it, he sort of jumped right in and sold the customer some boots for us. Not a normal thing for a customer to do. John was monitoring this occurance closely out of the corner of his eye and it was clear that Gabe had some serious bootfitting experience. They chatted afterwards. Yes, he had sold boots and knew his way around the bootfitters bench. He also worked ski patrol at Deer Valley for five years, is very bright, and has an engaging personality. Just my cup of tea. We talked about him putting in some hours this season, traded contact info, and said we would pick up the conversation this fall. I had his info on my desk with the intention of calling him as I checked emails about three weeks ago and the email on top was from him. Oooh- karma at work. Gabe has been working the sale and is everything he seemed to be. Plus he's a bike geek to boot!
Tyko and I met when he was about twelve. His mom Cindy was a regular at my bike shop, and wanted to build him a race bike. She brought in a hand built custom frame that she wasn't using any more with a box of parts. "Can you make a bike out of this" she asked? She left Tyko with me to sort through the parts. Some pieces were missing so Tyko and I got very "creative" in getting the parts necessary. Well, actually we sort of absconded them from an abandoned bike near the shop I had seen slowly being stripped of parts over the past few months. Cindy was not pleased at first, and I think the word "criminal" was even used. She came around however, and Tyko and I sort of bonded that day. Now Tyko is a man and had worked last year at Wilderness Exchange, a local new and used outdoor shop that sells a lot of tele gear. Just back from riding his bike solo around Europe over the summer, he came looking for work. Hired. Tyko will be the "rookie" this year and will work significant hours. An accomplished skier that has been primarily tele skiing the past few years, my goal is to keep his heel down this winter.
I will probably hire one more full timer to take Todd's slot and have a number of quality candidates to interview. I won't say more 'cause I don't want to jinx it, but the staff should round out nicely. As usual it will be a core group complimented by "a cast of thousands". Which seems to just be our shop culture. In any case, it works for me and I am just pumped up to be back at it and giving all of you the best ski shop experience I possibly can. Thanks to those of you that have been patronizing the shop. To the rest of you- come on down!
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