Ride Morgan Hill – Spreading the Joy with Jodi and Doug Hall
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Ride Morgan Hill – Spreading the Joy with Jodi and Doug Hall
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This episode’s guests are Jodi and Doug Hall, owners of Bike Therapy in Morgan Hill, CA. Bike Therapy opened its doors in September 2017. Both Doug and Jodi are avid life-long cyclists and are embedded in the Morgan Hill Community. Bike Therapy is a 2021 Platinum BREA Award winning shop, 1 of 7 across North America, with a goal to help everyone between the ages of 2 and 99 to discover the joys of pedaling, on the trails or on the road. Listen in as we reflect on this past year, dive into their journey to opening a shop, day to day operations, and how they split, divide, and conquer the day-to-day excellence that is Bike Therapy.
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Ride Morgan Hill – Spreading the Joy with Jodi and Doug Hall
Tue, 11/23
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
bike, morgan hill, ride, shop, year, community, doug, business, retailers, store, customers, bicycle, people, day, jody, bike shop, building, buy, staff, question
SPEAKERS
Heather Mason, Doug Hall, NBDA , Jodi Hall
NBDA 00:10
You are listening to bicycle retail radio brought to you by the National bicycle Dealers Association.
Heather Mason 00:16
Welcome to another episode of bicycle retail radio brought to you by the National bicycle Dealers Association. Thank you for listening. If you’re a first time listener, be sure to check out the previous episodes. Please do us a favor and leave a review. It helps members of our industry find our podcast. Today’s guests are Jody and Doug Hall. Owners of bike therapy in Morgan Hill, California, like therapy opened its doors in September of 2017. Both Doug and Jody are avid lifelong cyclists and are embedded in the Morgan Hill community. A bicycle retailer Excellence Award platinum winning shop, one of just seven across North America, with a goal to help everyone between the ages of two and 99. To discover the joys of pedaling on the trail or road. I’m looking forward to learning more about Doug and Jody and their journey to opening a shop, day to day operations and how they split divide and conquer the day to day excellence that bike therapy is great friends of mine, I want to welcome Jody and Doug to bicycle retail radio. How are you?
Doug Hall 01:18
Hi, Heather. Thanks for having us.
Heather Mason 01:21
Oh my god, nice to see you. I’m really looking forward to this. I think the idea I think maybe Jodi and I dreamt up this idea of bringing couples and specifically the Platinum Award winners on to bicycle retail radio. I think it was at the big gear show. But that was back in August. How have you guys been since then catch me up.
Doug Hall 01:42
We’ve been good. It’s been a kind of a crazy, you know, into summer, man. Well, first of all, I want to talk about big airship because it was awesome. We loved Park City, we got a chance to go out and do a couple really fun rides. While we’re there. We love the outdoor venue that that that was, you know, we got a lot out of the seminars that you guys put on and Heather, you crushed it. It was super cool to to be there with that. So that was that was definitely a fun trip for us. Yeah, so yeah, we’re just cruising along here. As I said, it’s been a kind of a bumpy end of the season, you know, staffing wise, and you know, just supply chain, you know, COVID things. But it’s we’re good. Yeah, we
Heather Mason 02:23
just the so I remember one day, you too, I think we’re maybe just coming back from a ride or just headed out on a ride. And I was like, oh my god, he just had smiles on your face. It was so nice to see you just enjoying the time outside of the shop. But I also felt like there was so many, like you said the seminars and the opportunities to network with other retailers and bounce ideas, and you get back to the store. And it’s almost been just like a blink. And here we are now it’s November. And it’s like what, but again, congrats on the Platinum Award, one of seven shops. That’s pretty awesome. I was doing a little snooping on you guys, when I saw that the local papers did a report on it. How has it been with your staff and community? What’s the feedback then?
Jodi Hall 03:09
That’s been really amazing. Thank you so much to the NVDA for the award. We participated in the the ABS award American America’s best bike shop have worked for a few years, and always found it a great way to measure ourselves because of all the different questions that you asked. And we really liked the way you revamped it this year. And, of course, loved the different levels, the leveling that you guys instituted. And you know, we really believe that our staff is, you know, the award is a testament to our great staff. And a lot of those things that we put into place that you guys call out on the, you know, in these awards, the merchandising and the publicity and how we run the store and everything is because of the way our staff runs it. And I mean, the community has been very excited for us. We are Morgan hills, a kind of a smallish community outside of a big city, San Jose. So people here really value the local businesses that open up here. So they’re like, wow, you know, one of the top stores in the country and just really excited and they love to come in and sing our praises when they come in. So it’s been really nice.
Doug Hall 04:29
Not to Pat our backs here a little bit. But we also just yesterday received another local award, the local community college gave us a community spirit award, you know, kind of just it was kind of gave me goosebumps there when they did the presentation because they kind of ran through all the stuff that we do the community and I was like, wow, okay, that’s pretty awesome.
Heather Mason 04:49
Oh, my God, congratulations. Well, it’s so true. You know, when we were reading the applications for the bicycle retailer Excellence Award several opportunities to write in What you’re doing that’s unique in certain categories, and then how you’re interacting with our community in a spot where, you know, we went to your social feeds. And I mean, it’s evident, like you guys have your community involved. And I want to get into all that in more specifics. But just to rewind for our listeners who don’t know, you, you know, I feel like I know you so well, because I’ve gotten to know you, both of you through our PTO program, can you share with us your background and how you even came to open a shop together?
Jodi Hall 05:28
So opening your shop has always been Doug’s dream. He’s spent, how many
Doug Hall 05:33
years? Yes, I worked retail, like in, in college now to college. So I kind of never got out of the industry. So I worked on the wholesale side and worked for giant bicycle for almost 10 years, and sales and sales management, and worked for fox racing, which is kind of how we discovered Morgan Hill, Tim back to bags, and then have my own rep agency prior to opening the shop. So 32 years in the industry now. So
Jodi Hall 06:01
I like to say he’s been in every bike shop. So that was, you know, Doug, and then I really wanted to be in the bike industry. It’s kind of a hard industry to, to get into, because there are a lot of people that want to work in it. And so I started in in corporate worlds here in California, high tech, and then started to work for sea otter and some other events like the tour California and the tour of Missouri in Georgia. And when we met we kind of clicked on that. And then we actually met a week before InterBike. And we had our first date at dinner like,
Heather Mason 06:38
oh my god, can I ask about that? That’s Wow. So I’m learning so much. So I thought I knew Doug. I didn’t know all these years in the cycling industry and with a sales rep. And then God I didn’t know about your background with the events, though. But So Doug, you asked her to a date at InterBike.
Jodi Hall 06:54
I think I did. I called him. Yeah, I was like, Hey, do you have any extra tickets in our bank?
Heather Mason 07:03
I love that. That’s awesome. What a great place though, right? I mean, it’s like the energy’s high. And I can tell I mean, just from both of your smiles, no, that must have been a great first day.
Doug Hall 07:15
Vegas baby. It was awesome.
Heather Mason 07:19
Alright, so So did both. Did you grow up in Morgan Hill? How did you just both end there just from work careers and life just brought you to Morgan Hill? Or why do you decide to open the shop in Morgan Hill.
Doug Hall 07:30
So I’m from Washington State Jodi’s from New Jersey. And when we met, I was in Seattle, she was in San Francisco, did a long distance thing for a while and I moved to the Bay Area with her. We moved to the south, we were in San Francisco, we moved to the South Bay when I started working for fox racing. So that’s, that’s what we discovered Morgan Hill, weren’t quite ready to move from San Francisco to Morgan Hill, it’s a pretty huge change in, in lifestyle, culture, etc. Morgan Hill wasn’t as, as kind of built up downtown as it is now. So so we moved into San Jose. And then when we start looking for a shop, you know, think about opening a shop, you know, Morgan Hill was, was definitely in need of a shop. So that was like there was there was only one shop in town at that point, kind of student history. So I kind of known what happened with bike shops. Some years, I knew that there was a it was a great market and good opportunity. So that was largely why we pick Morgan Hill and plus we’re ready to move the family to, you know, to the burbs, if you will. So we love here, it’s site chain, it was like one of the best things we ever did in terms of like, it’s just a great town, different pace of life. It’s a small town feel, but it’s still almost 50,000 people.
Heather Mason 08:42
I can’t wait to come visit. But I think I totally jumped over the first date to brainstorm to open a shop. So how did that happen? How did you guys decide you wanted to open a store?
Jodi Hall 08:54
Like I said, it’s been Doug’s dream, and I think he’s been working on the plan for his whole, you know, career and I knew it might happen. And it just things the timing was right, we were looking to move anyways, and, you know, looked into a spot and then he started looking at different locations. And we found the one in Morgan Hill. And when when he when I worked when I walked into the store for the first time after he’d been building it out a little bit. I was blown away. I was just like, he’s had this vision in his mind all along. And wow, like I didn’t even know the extent of how amazing it was gonna be. And honestly, every time we do that, the the ABS or the brain award now, it just all those questions he’s already thought ahead. So many of those things that come up.
Heather Mason 09:48
Doug, you said you’ve been in so many bike retailers over the course of your career. And so can you help me then did that help form your mission vision for what bike therapy is? Did you take you know, what you’ve seen done? And what you thought would be the focus of your store? How’d you get to what really would qualify the mission vision of bike therapy?
Doug Hall 10:09
Probably best what? Yeah, so I’ve, I’ve probably been in four or 500. bike shops easily, you know, across the countries, as a national sales manager for a couple different brands. So yeah, I’ve seen a lot of bike shops, I’ve seen the good and the bad, I’ve really gleaned a lot of knowledge, just talking to different managers and owners over the years, you know, when we kind of, you know, really got into the nuts and bolts of what we were about, you know, it’s really building a healthy happy community through cycling. And that’s, that’s kind of our mission. That’s what we’re about. And, you know, we firmly believe, you know, bikes can change lives, and, you know, it’s stronger families, it all, it all builds that community. And so we wanted to be, you know, that, that hub for our community for cycling, and it happened, so it’s pretty awesome.
Jodi Hall 11:05
And what about when we saw that film on Nika?
Doug Hall 11:09
Oh, yeah, yeah. So I have everybody on the audience here has seen single track pie. So we were pretty lucky to get to the go to watch the initial debut of that. I think it was at specialized bicycles, we got invited to come to that, long before we open the store. That was like just a massive eye opener. Just like what Nika did for the community, you know, for for kids, then at that point, for sure, we knew that we wanted to help build a Nika team. And another one of the things to check off the list. And so we’re still involved with that every every day. Pretty awesome.
Heather Mason 11:47
Goosebumps. I mean, Nika has done so much for you know, my personal family, for our community. And you, when you get when the kids get involved, then the parents get involved. And it’s like a game changer, it just totally you can see how you’re shaping lives, and you’re helping people become better versions of themselves and families doing things together. It’s really amazing. I love that that single track high video, that’s really inspirational. Okay, so there’s two of you each with unique traits. And so you’re teaming up to open the shop, you know, did you go in knowing that each one of you would have certain strengths in the business and kind of conquer and divide the tasks ahead of time? Or how did you organize how you were going to work together?
Doug Hall 12:27
That’s a good one. So definitely, you know, going into it, I knew I had the retail experience, the retail background, kind of kind of a vision of what the shop would look like, and feel like, God had the marketing background, and, you know, the events and really brought a lot to the culture of it. You know, and and then, I think we both learned a lot along the way, just, you know, running a business. I mean, that that was the, that was the unknown. You know, we never I mean, I had a rep agency, but there’s no real overhead with that, compared to a bike shop. So we learned a lot on managing a business together. You know, we have when we did our business plan, we, we both had a very, you know, aligned goals of what we wanted to accomplish. So that was the good part. So we had a good starting point of, we had, you know, we were on the same track. So that was huge. So
Heather Mason 13:21
are you each, like going into the store every morning together and leaving every day? Or do you split your hours? And maybe God does some stuff from home? Or how are you managing that?
Jodi Hall 13:33
Every day is different. We also have two children and a dog. So honestly, when we started, I did a lot of stuff at home, I do some of the most of the backend work with the finance and the HR and accounting and the marketing. And Doug does more of the, you know, day to day store operations, although I’m getting involved in that now. And then I just started going into the store more often. And then COVID happened. So then I was staying home with the kids. And yeah, we kind of we, we talk all day long on the phone or in person about whatever is going on. And then we talked in the evening to about what’s going on at the store.
Heather Mason 14:19
I love that you seem so close and you’ve just got each other I mean, I can see you on the camera. Our listeners can only hear you but I can just see how you’re just even in their answers. You’re supporting each other. And that is a tremendous, you know, asset to your you know, your team. Let’s talk about just the past 18 months, 20 months the bike boom. I mean, has it been you said your kids are home. So you’ve been just pivoting? Has the shop just seen this exponential growth that we’ve experienced in the industry at large?
Doug Hall 14:48
Yeah, that’s you that’s the easy answer. The biggest thing, you know, we we had more than doubled our business last year. You know, we’re at that, you know, startup of COVID You know, We’re what, two and a half years old, something like that. We feel really lucky to have put a lot of pieces in place to make our business in a position to grow like it did. You know we had a lot of those backend tools in place that were key. You know, we have a smart detailing website. We put in IKEA, oh, no, the texting app use lightspeed. So we had a lot of those tools in place that allowed us to, you know, be found by our customers. We also had some tools from from vendors to where they can see what product we had. So that was huge. And then it just, you know, back the truck up, more bikes keep showing up, and we keep selling them. And you know, that’s that happened. That was great for a while. And then obviously, inventory became tight. But yeah, no, no question. We grew a ton, and we’re still having great success this year. So no complaints on that end.
Heather Mason 15:54
awesome way to do it. So alright, so I have seen images of your store. I haven’t personally been there. But can you give our listeners just like a little overview of what your building looks like, and maybe some unique qualities about where you’re located?
Doug Hall 16:08
Yeah, so we’re in a old green silo complex. It’s called the granary. So this, you know, 15 years ago, architect couple, bought this building, renovated it. So it’s office space, there’s like a Michelin star restaurant in this building. And then, kind of how we found it, there’s a place called the running shop and hops, which was a running store, which I used to sell to when I was an independent rep, and they moved into this space, and they put in a tap room next to it. Well, the taproom took over, then we end up moving into a brand new 2100 square foot building right in front of there. So there’s a courtyard between our shop in the running shop was a wine shop now gonna be a pizza place next to that. So get us a great little outdoor venue. We have a huge roll up garage door opening up into this space. It’s a you know, 10 Shed metal sided building with wood trim, 14 foot ceiling, or 14 foot high walls on the inside kind of exposed ceiling. Yeah, just good lighting, good music, and it’s a great energy there.
Heather Mason 17:14
Sounds like it’s just a great hub for the community to come together and do EMS, do you run group rides out of the store?
Doug Hall 17:21
Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, the post ride. beverages are always great. We inherited a Tuesday night ride road ride that’s still going on strong. And yeah, that’s like a huge part of the community is people showing up for that and hanging out afterwards.
Jodi Hall 17:37
And then we can team up with a running shop on different events we have. We have these night rides, called the morning held by party rides. And so everybody comes back we just did on for Halloween and then had a comp costume contest that we hosted with them. And that was really fun.
Heather Mason 17:55
So Jody, you’re behind the marketing. So are you coming up with these ideas like reaching out to other businesses then to connect the shopper? How is that happening? Because I know that was something on your excellence award. Just your community involvement that really stuck out to me that was an even I see it on your social feeds. I saw the post for the Halloween ride.
Jodi Hall 18:13
Yeah, I we have a couple of other staff members who are awesome at coming up with these ideas as well. And just through talking about what would it be great to do and fun to do. We were doing it a lot more obviously, in COVID. And we’re trying to bring it all back now. We are now planning our ladies night, which we do in December. Super excited to have that going on again. The bike party idea came from actually San Jose does a humongous bike party at 1000s of riders that go and that came up when the Amgen Tour California came through Morgan Hill and we were trying to come up with more bike things to do so we try to do them all year long, but especially may for like bike month. And during the summer. We’re very lucky here to have bike biking season all year round. So just trying to come up with different things that bring the community together and we have you know, group rides on Saturdays, but during the summer, we try to have them a little more, as many as many as we can with the staff that we have.
Heather Mason 19:20
Yeah, right. It’s like there’s all these things we can do right and who’s gonna find the time and the quality people to execute?
Jodi Hall 19:28
Yeah, and like Doug said, there are lots of little businesses right in our in the granary area, and then we’re one block off downtown so we can join in on it all the downtown activities as well.
Heather Mason 19:40
Okay, question for the retailers who are, you know, envisioning what you have and and I’m envisioning Do you have bike storage outside or places for people to park their buy bikes when they come back and want to have a beer how’s that work?
Doug Hall 19:52
And it’s a bit crazy in that regard. That that’s a that’s a if we had one thing we change we We definitely have more space for for one, a bigger store and two for more bike parking, etc. So yeah, it’s it’s just there’s there’s room around, bikes get leaned in lots of different places, there’s, there’s some parking racks, etc. But it gets a little crazy when you have, you know, 100 people on bikes coming back and having a beverage afterwards. So
Heather Mason 20:20
it’s like a good, it’s a great problem to have right now all those people, that is something that I’ve noticed, you know, we are in this incredible boom, and we have all these new cyclists coming into the sport. So just thinking about maybe your store layout, or, you know, I think you just mentioned like, more space, is there anything that you’ve been working on this past, you know, in the past year or so to accommodate the growth of cycling?
Doug Hall 20:43
Yeah, we, you know, we haven’t done any massive remodel, you know, we’d love to have more space, we’ve been kind of grabbing space where we can get it, we were renting some vacant space in the in our complex for storage, and Bike Builds, etc. We have plans to open a coffee shop, but unfortunately, that space is currently used for storage. So eventually, we’ll have a coffee shop there, you know, we we haven’t done like a massive remodel or anything during COVID, we’ve, you know, been really worked for years into the business over doing, you know, some touch up painting and all that sort of thing. You know, hands down the, you know, the biggest thing we’ve been working on is just improving our processes and creating that that business structure. You know, we feel pretty lucky, you know, we’ve had this year especially, we’ve had good level of staffing and great staff. So Jody and I have both been doing a lot of you know, behind the scenes, putting our heads down, you know, creating best practices, you know, our checklists, etc, just to make the business better and kind of run on its own more.
Heather Mason 21:52
Yeah, I don’t want to give away too many of your secrets, right. But that is a thing that, you know, retailers are talking a lot about, it’s the staff and how we keep our staff engaged and how we make them feel part of our shop culture, and respect them and give them time they need to breathe, but also make them know what the goals are for the business. Is there any unique ways and just taking that question off the Excellence Award? Is there any unique ways that you’re working with your staff, or that you’re training your staff,
Doug Hall 22:23
I don’t know if it’s unique, but we we definitely we try to we try to reward our staff as much as possible, you know, we, we have, I think a really good bonus structure. For them. It’s kind of a team award versus an individual thing, but we, we try to push everybody to meet goals, if you will, and then try to give them as much as we can we you know that since COVID, we buy been buying lunch for the staff every day. And that’s been huge, and it just makes them feel more, you know, part of it, we’ve done a lot with just doing some like we close the shop for a couple days here and there to do staff training days. And then you know, we’ll do some sort of team building exercise afterwards like go to top golf or go for a bike ride, whatever. And then we’ve done some some employee retreats, you know, taking them up to Tahoe, close the shop, taking the staff to Tahoe, or, or someplace else to ride for a few days. So it’s more like just making them feel part of the part of the shop.
Heather Mason 23:19
I like that I think that’s really important just to spend time with your staff outside of the shop to so they get to know both of you and respect you as the owners and your vision for the store. And in going back to showcasing so one of seven retailers across North America. And there’s so many things that stuck out to us about bike therapy and what is the way that you’re interacting with your community? But just to go into that for people who might not understand Morgan Hill? Who is the customer? Is this the recreational cyclists? The road cyclists? A little bit of everything. Is it seasonal? Can you describe to me like who your customer is?
Doug Hall 23:57
Yeah, I I really think the the operative term is we’re a family bike shop. And that’s all encompassing, if you will. We do a lot of kids bikes, we love selling kids bikes, we have a kids trade up program so make it easy for that that second bike to be purchased in the shop and try to make a little more affordable for families to buy new bikes for their kids. You know we definitely we do we do everything we you know the exception of you know we don’t do tandems and we don’t don’t really do much BMX even though our kids now racing BMX we do we do. Road mountain, really done I think a great job getting gravel bikes out there, even though we don’t have a lot of gravel roads here, unfortunately. But we’re finding ways to get people on gravel bikes to definitely sell a lot a lot of E bikes too. Yeah, we we cover all the bases.
Heather Mason 24:50
So are you working in the store like on the floor? Seven days a week or I don’t even know I don’t know how many days you’re open. But
Doug Hall 24:58
yeah, I mean, I’m I’m definitely there. I’m on the floor a couple days a week, and then I’m in the shop, you know, least five days a week, if not more. But the, again, we’ve been really working on trying to do that, you know, build the build that structure, and I do a lot of the buying. So I’m trying to try and do that there. And that’s in an off the floor all the time. So yeah, we’re there. And Jodi’s there, she’s actually been doing a lot of the operations receiving that sort of thing just to get more involved day to day.
Heather Mason 25:28
It’s like a full time job between ordering and receiving just that on its own right now, right? It’s trying to track down supply and stay on top of it and lots of hands,
Doug Hall 25:37
drove me to
Heather Mason 25:42
you know, thinking about just your local community, are you part of the Small Business Association are talking about advocacy to bring more bike lanes to the area? Is there anything that you’re doing there to make your shop kind of part of the community in that regard?
Jodi Hall 25:56
And you should ask, but like, Well, yeah,
Doug Hall 25:58
let’s uh, let’s say we were involved. Jodi’s really involved with the downtown business association is on the board for the for the downtown business association. We’re active in, you know, Chamber of Commerce, things are both involved. There’s a bicycle pedestrian advisory group for the city, which we participate in. I’m on the board for the visit Morgan Hill Tourism Board. Oh, wow. And then, you know, we started the Nikah team, so I’m Team director and one of the coaches of that as well. So,
Heather Mason 26:29
okay, well, how do you have time? Oh, my goodness, like a lot. But just thinking about that, would you tell other retailers who want to be more involved in their community, that being part of these organizations is a good thing has it been very beneficial for you or more of this time stuff, like, let’s be honest,
Jodi Hall 26:51
some of them are more valuable than others, but the networking, the value of networking is priceless, right. And it feels it’s so rewarding to be involved in the community. I mean, it’s definitely good PR, so to speak, but that’s not really why we do it, it’s great to be have your finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the community. I mean, you mentioned bike lanes, right now, there’s, there’s a whole effort to try to widen the roads of the downtown just to make it more pedestrian friendly, whether it’s,
Doug Hall 27:25
you know, Lane reduction, adding a bike lane, adding more pedestrian area, more outdoor dining, etc, saying, you know, street calming, if you will. So we’re involved with that, too. We’re on the planning committee for that, trying to push that through. And then I also forgot, I signed up for leadership, Morgan Hill, so they have a local leadership class, and I’m super excited about that. Because it’s, it’s, I mean, to learn some skills on you know, being a better leader for our company. But also, again, it’s like, tying in with the community and like I have some, like customers are gonna be in that class with me. So it’ll be really
Jodi Hall 28:01
fun. But, you know, it is all time, it is all time, not suck, but time required. And you have to balance you know, how much time you really have, to how much value these things bring. And then if you have family and other obligations, sometimes I think there’s times where you can be more involved in timesheets, less involved. And,
Heather Mason 28:27
you know, part of our RP two group, we had a guest speaker came in, and he was talking about setting goals and setting dreams. And, you know, I feel like we’ve been in, it’s just like, wake up, go to the bike store, open the door, you know, check our orders, check in with the customers with bikes on back orders, go home, do it. We’ve been so task focused, that it’s really important to be part of these other things like this leadership class that’s August signed up for so we can, you know, be open to what’s happening out there, and just better, you know, keep our mind learning and progressing so we can better our business. I think that’s so important. So, you know, I’m always happy to hear when someone’s setting that time aside, because really, it’s super important, right? Because it keeps you growing and you’re not stagnant. You know, you know, you’re not just caught in the tasks every day, you’re actually allowing yourself time to keep going towards that goal. Like what is your vision for? I’m just gonna throw this at you. Boom, like, where do you want to be in the next five years? What are your like, what do you want to vision? What’s the goal?
Doug Hall 29:32
Oh, that’s a tough one. Yeah, we you know, we have some ideas, but we’re, I think right now we’re, I think we’re focused on on being the best we can be at what right now. I, I don’t want to try to, you know, guess that five years from now, I know you’re supposed to have all these plans, etc. You know, we’re like, like, I guess the best way to put is we’re at a crossroads where we can go right now. There’s definitely options. tunings for expansion, there’s opportunities to get a bigger store. You know, we really, we don’t know, that’s the best way to describe it right now. Because there’s so many opportunities, and we’re kind of in one of those deciding points. Right now, what we’re gonna do.
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Heather Mason 30:31
How awesome to have each other, though, right? Like, is it? Are you keeping How are you keeping the spark and the flame and the romance alive? Where you know it’s work? And then do you prioritize date night and make time? Like, how does that work?
Doug Hall 30:46
Ted last? Oh, that’s our date. Right now. We were watching TED last.
Heather Mason 30:50
I love it. Do you get together? Are you do you get out and cycle together?
Jodi Hall 30:57
Yeah, I mean, I honestly think that’s the that’s the way we, you know, when we, we used to work, you know, luckily, our kids are a little older. We don’t necessarily need babysitters now. But we, when we used to hire a babysitter to go on a ride, and then take the time to have lunch, you know, together. And I think that’s it, you know, a little travel a little trips, I mean, that trip to Park City that we had sort of the big gear show where we had time to be with the industry and, and enrich our minds and go for bike rides. And, you know, have all those meals out just for what it was like two and a half days. It was such a fabulous trip. I think that’s the key for us. I think that’s the key. And even when we go I mean, I think we talked you know, we talked about the store and about the kids, but we also try to just talk about each other and
Heather Mason 31:54
have fun. Yeah. All right. So let’s talk about these new cyclists that are in our sport, we’ve seen this incredible boom, we’ve talked on it touched on ebikes earlier, but new riders like the not typical cyclists, how are you reaching out to engage them to come in to bike therapy? I know, Jody, you’re really on the marketing? How are we getting new customers in the door?
Doug Hall 32:15
You know, I think we mentioned before, you know, we have our website, which is that’s that’s like the base platform for reaching customers and kind of where everybody gets driven to, if you will, from the social media, etc. I think we’ve worked a lot this last year with smart detailing to kind of revamp our site and make it more user friendly and easier to navigate for new writers and give them more tools to to find the right bike last year when it was pure craziness. And people were buying bikes offline with it without us having any conversation with them. A lot of time it was they’re buying the wrong bikes. So they buy this bike online come in, and we start talking to them. And it’s like, that’s not the right bike for you. And we guide them toward the right bike. And then Jody, same times, like, if I’m shopping, if I’m a customer, looking at our website, like how do I know what bike to buy. So she was really pushing for like, a bike finder, and then we’re pushing our suppliers to create a tool to help find the right bike. And then next thing you know, smarty team actually came up with a great bike finder. So we’re super excited to see that. So that was like the first thing. You know, we’ve since we’re kind of on the out, you know, the end of COVID If we are, you know, knock on wood, hopefully within a COVID You know, we have a lot of our rides going right now. And I think really key for that is, is you know, the no drop rides for new riders get them engaged. So that’s been, that’s been great. We’ve, it’s, I love going on our Saturday morning road ride and have a brand new rider and it’s pretty cool. Like we’ve had new riders almost every ride lately. And you know, a lot of them, it’s the first group ride they’ve ever done. So you kind of have to take him under your wing and teach him the, you know, how to ride in a pack, you know, and that sort of thing. So, and it’s, uh, you know, we’re not going fast. It’s not as young as it used to be. Your website
Heather Mason 34:12
is amazing. I love your website. It’s ride Morgan Hill comm some things I noticed right away, there’s the ride tab and you have a Strava group and you call out join our Strava group. There’s definitely ride suggestions on there. And you have your you know, it’s really laid out with a nice calendar, email signup, very simple. I want to talk a little bit about the services that you offer, because there’s some things that I think are truly unique, or maybe not unique, but you’re putting it on your website. And so it screams out easy to access. It’s very well laid out for the person coming to your site service plans. So you offer service plans for people buying new bikes, is that what it is? Or is these regular maintenance plans for anyone?
Doug Hall 34:53
Yeah, so you can this is actually a new thing we started just this year 100% Okay. Out of pizza group. So we were super thankful for being part of the pizza group because that this is something that, like, it’s a no brainer. We actually had customers asking if we had service plans, so we knew there was a demand for it. But yeah, the certain service plans for if you buy a new bike from us, you get a discount. Or if you’re bringing in an, you know, a bike you already own and you want to get it on the plan, you can you pay more for it. So it’s a it’s a definitely win win for everybody. And then we it’s a three year plan, offering a couple tuneups a year for that plan, it doesn’t cover, you know, anything outside of that tune up, you do get a little discount on service parts. And then we have a lifetime flat protection plan as well, which, again, no brainer, and it’s, it makes customer happy. And you know, it’s actually good margin for us.
Heather Mason 35:48
Yeah, there’s all these things that we can do as bicycle retailers that lend itself to excellence. Like I see you have bike fit, you have demo bikes, you even have a page dedicated to trade and you’re used, like, when people come into the shop, are they mentioning that they’re seeing these things on your website?
Doug Hall 36:05
Yeah, absolutely. You know, we we get calls all the time for, you know, you know, we saw you do trade ins, you know, half a spike. And so, yeah, it definitely gets some some attention. You know, we do financing, too. I mean, there’s this, you kind of have to do everything, the easiest way to get to reach the most people you can. And I kind of like, you know, I know shops that don’t take American Express credit cards when I was like, why would you put a barrier to somebody coming in buying something at your store. So we try to make it as easy as possible in every aspect for people to come in and do business with us, and to be part of the cycling community. It’s so evident.
Heather Mason 36:45
And if you want our listeners are listening, go ahead onto their website, right, Morgan hill.com and sign up for their email list. And so Jody, are you sending those emails out? How often are you communicating with your customers?
Jodi Hall 36:56
Do I send those emails out, but we, we could definitely do a better job with our emails. We don’t want to bombard anybody with emails. So we do about once a month, a general newsletter. And I use Constant Contact now, which is great. But it’s hard, it’s hard to get all the pieces together, right? Like you plan an event or you have a sale, and then you have to write up the promotional information and get all the pieces together. Every time I sit down to do the newsletter, I’m like, geez, I still need this part of the information to send out, you know, and it’s been a little challenge to get that all together. An interesting challenge that we say that I’m still trying to get better at and involve more of our staff with, we also communicate through, you know, Yelp, and Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn. And I mean, you really have to be on every platform, so that you can hit everyone. And anyway, they’re trying to find us that were there. It’s definitely, you know, a full time job or job for several people.
Heather Mason 38:05
Yeah, I’m thinking that’s one of the benefits of being a husband and wife team, right? You can like divide and conquer, because you have so many different hats to wear, especially now navigating the COVID times and then even in California, I know there’s special things for having employees and new things coming up all the time. Right. So it’s just like, going after another dad I am loving your shirt. It says ride Morgan Hill. So I was gonna ask you do you sell shop branded kits and hats and shirts? And how are you navigating clothing? That always seems to be a question that retailers are struggling with?
Doug Hall 38:36
Yeah, so this shirt I’m wearing is actually one of the original shirts we sold in the shop when we opened and you know, and we, you know, we named our website ride Morgan Hill calm and you know, we were trying to promote cycling in our area, not just the shop. So yeah, we sell T shirts. We do tons of hats, hoodies, socks, jerseys kits, if you will. And it’s not easy. I don’t know that it’s, you know, hugely profitable. Sometimes if you have to try to meet minimums, you know, for for getting better deals. So I definitely kind of changed the way we’ve done it over time in terms of, you know, we’ve kind of figured out which which items are more profitable for us, so we can afford to keep doing these things. But we get people you know, calling from other states, it’s like, Hey, I used to live in Morgan Hill. I heard you guys have these cool hats and stuff. So we we get people you know, it’s pretty fun. You know, we need to do a better job of getting all that stuff on our website, because all it has to be done manually to the photos and all that stuff. But that’s definitely something we’ve been working on. On practice. We’re gonna have this morning. So yeah, we’re we we love doing that thing. It’s brand building, you know, a customer just coming in. It’s like, Hey, I’m taking a trip. I need a new hat. No, so we get that all the time. We also bought like the surfer, you know, straw hat, and we brought in a small batch of those to see how that goes. They sold out, like in a week. So it’s huge.
Heather Mason 40:03
I love it. I love the ride Morgan Hill, you know, at the MBTA, we have the buy where you ride. And we are thinking about doing trips to retailers kind of like along the p2p thing, visiting shops and spending like a day, you know, looking at other stores, and I love the idea of ride Morgan Hill, because it’s, it’s like Branson, it’s like building a culture around where your shop is located in genius. Fantastic. It is.
Jodi Hall 40:28
And I mean, our local community is, you know, we’re dedicated to that. And we are honored to be in this community. But having said that, at the same time, we also do have our online community. And these days, you know, we’re, especially with COVID, we do have customers from all over that find us. So I think one question is, you know, how do we appropriately reach those customers and make sure that they feel that they have gotten everything from us that they can?
Heather Mason 41:03
Yeah, I’d say like the trends, I’m thinking about our E bike sales, and definitely the focus like communication, how we’re communicating with our customers, some people are texting their customers now, service scheduling online, is there any trends that you’re noticing that you’re just keeping a watch on and maybe pivoting towards? So you can better serve your client base, your customers?
Doug Hall 41:25
Yeah, so we did add recently, and we’re still testing it right now that we added hub Tiger, we’ve actually probably added it four months ago, took me that long to get it kind of built out. But yeah, we’re excited about that, because that’s going to be a great tool for scheduling our service. We’ve had other systems before for scheduling service online that didn’t really work that well. And I’m excited about what what hub Tiger brings, especially for scheduling pits, which we just started up doing again, you know, on the on the trends right now, you know, as I, as I just mentioned about the equipment, you know, we started doing some focused Google ads with, with more detailing to push equipment sales. And I think, right now, you know, like margins have taken a little hit as of recent time. So the more equipment and you know, apparel sales we can do that’s going to that’s going to help our business be healthier. And we’re seeing really good results right off the bat from doing that. So I was gonna
Jodi Hall 42:27
say, we got in on the texting trend a long time ago, like, at least the beginning. COVID, right.
Doug Hall 42:32
We were probably a year before COVID, we started doing texting our customers. And just, it’s literally one of the best things we ever did. You know, we you know, especially on the service side, you’d call a customer and say, Hey, your bikes ready. 90% of the time, nobody would pick up the phone and go direct to voicemail. A lot of times they didn’t even listen to voicemail, or the mailbox is full. Once we started doing texting, instant response, it’s huge.
Heather Mason 42:57
Yeah, I’ve heard that it’s so much time just making those calls that get nowhere. You just text someone and they’re like, oh, yeah, thanks, man. I’ll be right over
Doug Hall 43:04
automated, they automatically get the text. So you don’t have to. Yeah, all right.
Heather Mason 43:09
So I just have this overarching, you know that what everything I’m hearing you say is pointed towards excellence. It’s not easy to run a bike shop. And it’s not just turning the sign on the open sign on, there’s so many different parts in it. Everything I’m hearing you saying is that you’re listening, and you’re looking at the resources available to you, and you’re choosing what’s best for your business, and you’re constantly evolving in it. It might be using partners to help you with your website, or whether you’re your service scheduling are with, you know, just meeting other retailers in person, but it seems like to be a truly excellent retailer, you actually have to, like, be on it every day, like you have to show up every day. Like just paying attention to what’s happening and making sure that you’re best positioned. I feel like that’s what I’m hearing. Right is that?
Doug Hall 43:54
Yeah, so So to that point, you know, p to group was a huge asset, just in getting that experience, you know, with other retailers and sharing best practices. But even before that, we started with a mentorship program with the score, which is volunteer, you know, retired business people, you know, helping small businesses. Jodi’s mom was involved with that, and we started with a mentor with that we worked with Dave dekeyser, when he was doing the NBDA You know, mentorship, then we also have worked with a couple different local business coaches, we have a business consultant we work with now and, and it’s again, it’s like kind of helping it keeping us accountable, and improving. And, you know, we’re, you know, we’re bike enthusiast that on a bike shop now and, you know, we were business people, so we have to be better business people to, you know, be successful and to be profitable.
Jodi Hall 44:52
I will say there’s not enough time in the day.
Heather Mason 44:55
Yeah, right. I can’t even imagine it with two kids and a dog and a business and Yeah, right. Oh my goodness. Is there anything that’s making you guys nervous right now? Is there? I mean, we talked about supply, you know, going into? I don’t know, do you have an offseason? It doesn’t sound like you really do. I don’t know.
Doug Hall 45:12
October was our offseason. Okay, no, we have a couple slower months, if you will, man. I kind of laugh when you say is anything making you nervous? So, I mean, we are in, I guess the best way to sum that up is, you know, we’re in very dynamic times right now, especially in the Bay Area, with all the shake up with with, you know, suppliers, buying retailers, etc. So, yeah, I mean, I guess, I guess, you know, there’s, there’s no, nothing stagnant right now. And I really think, you know, it’s kind of like you asked, what’s our five year plan? It’s, like, really hard to say it, because it’s like, there’s so much change happening right now. I think we, you know, we’re staying on top of things and just kind of seeing what the, what’s gonna shake out of it. But nervous is, you know, managing inventory, making sure we have enough, but not too much. And, you know, keeping cash flow, you know, business stuff. It’s like, yeah, like, stuff’s fun. The business stuff is what makes us nervous.
Heather Mason 46:17
Yeah, right. Is it fun? Is it fun owning a bike store? Are you guys having a good time? Sometimes? Yeah. I love that. I love that.
Doug Hall 46:26
I say most of the time, it’s like, it’s, it’s a passion, no question. Hands down. And like, you know, going back to, you know, the dream thing it’s like, and all the time I worked on wholesale side, what I really missed was working on the sales floor, and the interaction with the customers and building those relationships, and, you know,
Heather Mason 46:44
spreading the joy, spreading the joy, and it’s
Jodi Hall 46:47
like, being able to, you know, come up with a shirt design, and then make it happen and, or come up with an event and then see the community come together for it, you know, it’s just hard to, you know, put it all together and have enough time in the day to, to make all your all your ideas happen.
Heather Mason 47:07
You know, I know if you’re anything like me, you got the list, right? And you’re like, you have all these great ideas. And when you do execute on one, and you see you’re changing people’s lives, it’s part of their story that they’re gonna always remember. And it’s because you had the idea, and you made it happen. God, that feels right, that feels so good. Okay, so we have a lot of listeners who are a husband and wife, you know, navigating owning a store together. Any advice, any tips, any secrets, that you had shared it to help them continue to find success that you have learned from doing it? As a team?
Doug Hall 47:44
I, so I, I’ll say I, you know, definitely make sure you both share the vision, and you’re on the same wavelength. And, you know, you have to respect each other. And, you know, I’m the CEO, if you will, but I, but she’s my sounding board, she’s the one who, you know, really brings the reality and that in, you know, brings me back to Earth sometimes. So, no question, you know, just respect and listen, it’s like, just like anything in life, you got to listen to those around,
Jodi Hall 48:15
you got to really be, I think, the same wavelength. This is the key. I mean, there were a lot of things I didn’t know going into it. And even though I’ve been surprised by some of them have never been worried that we wouldn’t be able to talk through, you know, some issue or, or whatever was going on and figure out how to handle it. I don’t know what you call that, except for just your that competence in the relationship, or
Heather Mason 48:47
you just celebrated the anniversary into?
Jodi Hall 48:50
We did we’ve known each other on that first day to Interbike was 20 years ago.
Heather Mason 48:55
Congratulations, congratulations. Alright, what’s next for bike therapy? Can you share it? Can you without giving your secret sauce away? Any
Doug Hall 49:05
buts? No, boy. That’s that’s a that’s a good question. You know, we have lots of ideas. We’ll, we’ll see. Just
Heather Mason 49:12
continue to hang on tight. Right. It is. It’s like, that’s what I had a conversation with a retailer yesterday. And he he’s like, I don’t know, I’m just gonna continue to get through each day because it’s so dramatically changing so quickly. And
Doug Hall 49:26
yeah, if I had my dream right now, I would like it can envision, you know, more, you know, I almost like to be an event company, you know, where I think really, you know, what would even take this next level is having, you know, putting on more rides, putting on like a Weekly Race series and you know, it’s Wednesday night race series. I’ve seen that in a couple different places and I absolutely love it. I think it’s like, build it and they will come you you. You really have more opportunities for people to get excited about bikes. And, and you know, I have a friend who runs, runs a race series up in the northwest and, and he’s seeing, you know, kids grow up going to these races every week during the summer. And it’s like, you know, it’s super rewarding I can, I can see that.
Heather Mason 50:15
I love that idea. And I think that’s I know that’s something that just blew us away from your bicycle retailer Excellence Award application is that you are so connected with the community. For our listeners, check out ride Morgan hill.com. And then go to the social feeds Facebook as ride Morgan Hill, you’ll see some of the things that Jody and Doug are doing. It’s just truly creating a culture around their store. There’s lots of events, lots of rides happening there. Strava club, truly engaging the community and making that magic happen and offering those opportunities up. So Doug, and Jody, thank you for coming on and sharing about your story and a little bit about the shop without giving too much away. But I can’t thank you enough. And it’s just been awesome to get to know you both better. And I look forward to coming out to ride Morgan Hill.
Jodi Hall 51:04
We’re gonna need to come out here and
Doug Hall 51:07
come play. Yeah,
Heather Mason 51:09
I want to I want to and sometimes, you know, our listeners might have questions that maybe like you brought up some things that maybe they want to ask you about, is there an email address, you would share a way that people could get ahold of you if they wanted to follow up with you?
Jodi Hall 51:21
Absolutely. You can email either of us, Doug or Joanie at bike therapy dot bike. So like Doug at bike therapy dot bike, or Jodi and like therapy dot buycks. God I, by the way, or on any of those platforms I mentioned. We are all over them all the time. And we also have an email, like an email form on the website. Awesome. Well, thanks. A long lost friend of mine contacted the store through the email form. And we got back in touch and yeah, it’s been great.
Heather Mason 51:55
So you know what works? Right? Awesome. Well, definitely
Doug Hall 51:59
other other couples, bike shop owners, we’d love to connect with them and share experiences. So
Heather Mason 52:05
I know we talked about forming like a meetup group or something. I should get on that. That was great. We’ll continue with
Jodi Hall 52:14
a lot of other great answers out there for all the questions you asked. So
Heather Mason 52:17
I know I’m like putting you guys as like the guinea pigs like thank you for that. Thank you for that. So that is it. I invite you to connect and come on bicycle retail radio, share your story with our listeners. The NBA is celebrating 75 years this year around since 1946 existing to support retailers. If you’d like to join the NBA you can do so learn more nba.com sponsor a month of bicycle retail radio. Like I said, you can actually come on with me if you’d like. If you’d like to support the show. Don’t forget to share your favorite episode with friends on social media. Thank you, Jody and Doug so much. Thank you for listening. And with this we go.
NBDA 52:57
This has been bicycle retail radio by the National bicycle Dealers Association. For more information on membership, and member benefits, join us@nbda.com
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The NBDA has been here since 1946, representing and empowering specialty bicycle dealers in the United States through education, communications, research, advocacy, member discount programs, and promotional opportunities. As shops are facing never-before-seen circumstances, these resources offer a lifeline. Together, we will weather this. We at the NBDA will not waver in our commitment to serving our members even during this challenging time—but we need your support.
Now is the time to become a member as we join together to make one another stronger. Whether you’re a retailer or an industry partner, your membership in the NBDA is one of the best investments you’ll make this year.
Learn more about the benefits of being a member and join now.
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