Ken “Woody” Smith
In this episode, Specialty Bicycle Retailer and NBDA board member Chad Pickard interviewed Woody Smith, owner and President of Richardson Bike Mart. Chad and Woody cover the history of Richardson Bike Mart, the challenges Woody Smith has come across and how he navigated them, and how he successfully coordinates 4 stores, 17 brands, and 116 employees.
Latest Technology. Old Fashioned Service.
At Richardson Bike Mart, we’re dedicated to sharing our knowledge and our passion with you, whether you’re visiting us to purchase your first bike, you’re returning to us for your annual bike maintenance, or you’re new to the area and in search of riding buddies. We carry a wide selection of best-in-class bicycles, cycling apparel, and cycling accessories, and we offer many beneficial programs to ensure that you’re enjoying the exceptional value and convenient service.
You can expect our product selection to feature the latest and greatest, but our dedication to you remains as it was when Richardson Bike Mart was founded in 1962.
Woody & Chad
Thu, 8/20 11:48AM • 58:36
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
bike, store, people, bicycle, business, buy, years, bike shop, big, customer, BMX, industry, gm, vendors, Dallas, Richardson, employees, woody, rode, work
SPEAKERS
woody, Rod Judd, Chad Pickard
Rod Judd 00:10
You are listening to Bicycle Retail Radio brought to you by the National Bicycle Dealers Association.
Chad Pickard 00:17
Welcome to Bicycle Retail Radio. Today we are going to talk about something that started back in 1962. And then we’ll start to unlock the secrets to having the largest bike store in the southwest. My name is Chad Picard and I own a few bike stores up in South Dakota under the name of spoke-n-sport. And I’m also on the NBDA board and today, we have with me the very mirthful woody Richardson Bike Mart. Good afternoon, Woody, how are you?
woody 00:43
Good afternoon doing great. And I did have to look up what mirthful meant, but it means it means Mary and I I’ve since we’ve met several times over the years, you’ve always had a smile on your face and very happy to be wherever you’re at. So I think the Merkel fits you well. I’ve been called a lot worse. So thank you.
Chad Pickard 01:04
So today we’re talking about Richardson Bike Mart. And if we could, I’d like to talk about history, just a brief history of Richardson Bike Mart, and it started in 62. And there’s actually actually looked up, there are some cool things that happened in 62. The computer mouse was invented, the cassette tape was invented, and LEDs were invented back in 62. And it was also the first time that Ed McMahon said here’s Johnny and Janis Joplin was voted the ugliest man on campus at the University of Texas in Austin. So Oh, yeah, surprising, right.
woody 01:46
Oh, my.
Chad Pickard 01:47
Yeah. So give me a brief history of Richardson Bike Mart.
woody 01:53
Well, in 1962, a guy named Mike Hall started BIke Mart. And so he called it My call bite mark my calls bite mark excuse me, this plural. He had four locations here in the Dallas area. And in the 60s, and then he had the one in Richardson that he owned it back then your swing rep was, you’d always work with your swing rep and he was a swing dealer and you work with a swing rep said, Hey, I don’t want that Richardson location anymore. I want to get rid of that. So he told the swing rep, which was Jim Hoyt. And Jim point, said, Okay, I’ll try to find you a buyer for it. And so he left there, and he started thinking about it going, you know what, I’ve been on the road for 10 years. And this is 1970 Excuse me. 1980. So he went out and went home totally as his wife. He said, Hey, you know what, we want to start a family. be traveling all the time. This is getting hard. So why don’t we try to buy this Richardson location and bike shop? And so he went back and said, Hey, we’d like to buy it. It was 1200 square feet at the time and he owned my call own the other three bite marks the building property in the buildings. So he wanted to appeal to you when he couldn’t buy this was because it was in a strip center. And so, so Jim boy, but Mike calls Bike Mart November 1980 from my call change it to Richardson Bike Mart because it was the richest allocation kind of organically named it that way because he would pick up the phone bite mark and it was a rich simplification. And so he really didn’t go out and say I’m going to name it This, in fact, it took a whole year before it actually changed the sign on the signs from different people in success over the years and he’s one of them. And he just lifted up on the wall just said bite mark and the bite mark name had a good name for it. And, and so 1980 Jim white, about that changed which some bite mark and then I come along at nine. I had worked at a previous bike shop and essentially I called the peddler and the bike shop. And then I was there for six years. I came here in 89. And you continue the history.
Chad Pickard 04:13
Yeah, yeah. So when the current Richardson bike market building that you guys were in, when did you move into that building?
woody 04:19
Okay, so from 1962 to 1987, it was about two miles south of here on Koi and beltline. So it was a strip center. And then in summer of 97, we just went north here to the Campbell store to the where it’s at now. So that was 14,000 feet down there at that time, and then he went down here and built this 25,000 square foot building. And so that when we opened up a business for business on January 2, 1998,
Chad Pickard 04:55
and that building is now how big
woody 05:00
33,600 and some feet I don’t know exactly but
Chad Pickard 05:05
that is impressive. Yes sir. Is that it? That was it was a Was it a grocery store?
woody 05:13
No, he built it from scratch a lot of people come in here and they go oh this is no furniture store job it but he built it from dirt. So the shopping center ended with a building is that you’ve been in here before. And so he just added on it down and said Hey, I’ll sign a 20-year lease with you I want to build a 20,000 square foot store is a big gamble at the time. And so it a lot of people had bets that he would make it like two years and three years ago I had even some doubts. I was like oh boy, this is a big place. And but it with the lance factor, sort of when the Tour de France in 99 and in 2000 in the business road market went crazy. And here we are and that it was just organically. We’re blessed with a good business to justify the big footprint.
Chad Pickard 05:57
Yeah, and it is impressive. If you ever in the area of Be sure you swing by. I have been to the previous store when I was I lived in Denton for a while just north of Dallas and, and Richardson bike Mart was the place in the region to go buy stuff. So many options of products and things. And so we would regularly drive down 35 and, and hit up Richardson bike Mart. That’s awesome. So, and you guys have been in that location since and in? Did you open up other stores? at specific times?
woody 06:34
Yes. So uh, in 87. Then, we have a store in Dallas, and it was called bicycles a limited and he owned it since 1971. He built that store from scratch as a freestanding building. In fact, he’s still the landlord today of that building, but he wanted to sell the business he went to get out. And so Jim white bought that. That business from him changed the name from bicycles limited to renter some bite mark. And then that would happen in 87. And then in 19 in 2003, Jim built a freestanding building, bought the dirt, bought the property, took, took the bicycle limited guys idea, and said we’re going to be a landlord now. So he bought the dirt in the property and built a 15,000 square foot store in Frisco, which is a suburb north of Richardson, about 12 miles. And then and then recently in 2018, so Jim Hoyts been involved in all this since then, so so in 2012, I bought out the gym and in January 2012, I took over as owner, majority owner, he still has a controlling share of it, and he’s still involved, helps me mentors me and the in 2018, we open store McKinney, which is another suburb north of Dallas, and that was all by myself. And so that was kind of took a note from what They did it. And I couldn’t afford to buy the dirt in the building and build it from scratch because that’s the only way I could get it. So I end up partnered with my CPA. And so, so we both own a portion of it to my wife and on him. And so that was born in May of 2018. And it’s a, it’s a little over 10,000 feet 10,400
Chad Pickard 08:23
and that’s in an area that’s, as I understand is growing pretty fast, right?
woody 08:28
It is it. It’s growing about 10% a year, excuse me, two or 3% a year, and it’s grown 10% over the last four or five years it’s been it’s also just hitting this big growth. Just in the last few years. It’s nearly 200,000 people live just in McKinney now. And so strategically all the stores you look at a map in Dallas, we got kind of just north of downtown Dallas store and then Richardson store. The big store is in a kind of Far North Dallas, if you may, and then Frisco is about another 12 miles north of there and McKinney’s about another 11 miles north of there. So so they’re all about 1012 miles apart strategically and kind of worked out pretty good.
Chad Pickard 09:10
Good. So you’ve been around for a while, you’ve probably seen disc brakes come and go and then come back again. And you’ve seen carbon bikes come and go. And you’ve seen, even suspension has become available since you started working in a bike store. So you’ve seen a lot of changes in the industry, what are some of the changes you’ve seen at Richardson bike Mart, that you’ve had to really take a step back and say, Hey, well, this is something different. We really need to change the way we’re doing business to survive. But what or have you experienced any of those changes? And what did you do to navigate those?
woody 09:51
Oh, wow. Great question. And we’ve had, yeah, I think Yeah, the ebb and flow just like the stock market, you know, you have to change with the times and you have different competitors come and go. I guess the most recent challenge we’ve had we had it sadly because some of these are friendly competitors, but we had 11 lbs his local bike shops go out of business. And between the fall of 2018 in the spring of 2019, so seven month period we lost 11 bike shops in the Dallas Fort Worth area. And which doesn’t sound like a lot but then you say, Oh, it’s 20% well 20% of bike shops my business Oh, that’s that we know happens their inventory gets liquidated. Everybody in the brothers got to sell on for 20 to 50% off and so who doesn’t want to deal? I do. And so people go to those stores and buy their continental tires at 45 and 60 for whatever and their bikes and so anyway, so we had a struggle last year a little bit with that and but now we’re actually going to have a so the last shop went out of business in Bro see here may is May of 2019 this year so last shopped when a business liquidated inventory so I think we’ve had a clean slate since it so it almost to the day when that happened it after they closed the doors plus it also in the business just took off as people are running out of choices for sure. So we were blessed with people just saying you know what, we’re going to come to Bike Mart, they’ve been around a long time hopefully. And we’ve served people well we serve the community. We give back to a community hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and we just we’re always been connected in that and so those are the challenges but in how you’d handle them as you know, look at your payroll your biggest expense and you say okay, where can I trim? Where can I save? I did lay anybody off. I’m thankful for that. We have 116 employees and between all four stores and me just I didn’t have the heart to have to leave somebody off and things didn’t get that tight but they got pretty tight. Where I’m not used to and that took him out of the comfort zone and but we survived it. And we’ve had that even flows, you know, not 11 was a big hit. When 11 happened, boy, nobody was buying bicycles for about six months or eight months, it was just like, Oh my gosh, what happened in 2008 when President Bush was coming out of the office and President Obama was going in remember, for our guests and guests were in the south that’s a lot of money in and California is no big deal but that was high for around here and I think it was even higher as six and $7 in California at the time. But and so but you have to adjust your expenses and that’s the bottom line and what will you do your marketing?
Chad Pickard 12:46
Yeah, so with 116 employees, what are some tips that you know when working with those staff over the last? I mean, bike Mart’s been around 57 years, I believe What are some things you’ve done with staff that has helped grow your business and kept the ball moving forward because I hit 116 employees is a lot I I have three girls and getting them to move direction when we’re at the mall is well, it’s impossible. I think we all know that.
woody 13:19
Yeah, I got three girls too and a son, my, my youngest, so I can appreciate that. Um, yeah, it’s like herding cats, right? So communication. Every store has a GM I had to put them in leadership roles and say we have weekly calls we do with the GMC, I am operation manager. We talk to the gems every Tuesday on the conference call. And then he and I visit the stores weekly, and to see him and have sit-downs and one on ones with him. But it’s important communication is the biggest that’s the under communication underlying that. When you have more than a couple of stores, that’s the best advice I could tell somebody is communication. Have procedures in place written down, follow them. And in training, you know, that all comes in and around that years ago, you could fudge a lot of stuff with the internet and things you could even talk to customers if you didn’t know, some things, you could kind of fudge your way through those things and maybe get through it. But now the customers know is kind of the opposite. They actually know more than us and so they pretty much telling us I want this bike or you know, whatever. And a lot of cases because I think it’s 81% of people search the internet before they walk in your door and look at your website. So that’s a big number. So people were well prepared, but training and so we went on to Dan, I’m a huge Dan man fan and he has a gear training and the acronyms g and represents different letters for different Parts of sales training, and it works, it’s a recipe. It works. And if you train your people that you’re training and they get that seven hours of training before they start just don’t gear if it’s a salesperson, and then they get about four or five hours of what we call RBM University. So our RBM is just Richardson Bike Mart that’s our acronyms there. So we use so RBM University is just an in-store, we’re going to teach you about the business about our core values. Expectations go over the employee manual, you know, you should be shaven, and shirt tucked in, you know, the Grinch, well, no holes in your shoes and shirts and stuff like that. And so, name tag on so those are the things we kind of go over during that but so training is the biggest, biggest part of hurts.
Chad Pickard 15:56
You mentioned communication as being one of the most simple Certain things among your staff what tools do you use to communicate? Is it? Are you just shooting employees texts? Hey, take out the trash. Are you having one on one? Is it emails? Is it just here’s the manual read it, this is our communication and do your best? So what’s that communication like, between the leadership and staff?
woody 16:20
Okay, that’s great. Um, the, we have a company newsletter that goes out every other week. So when we get paid, which is every other Friday, we have a newsletter, it goes with it, it welcomes new staff, it’s coming on board, or somebody is leaving us and moving on to something else. Well, well, we’ll give them a goodbye, little knowledge there. And then we also list if we have any new product coming in. things around sales, big events are coming up. All these things like in the next two to four weeks, so employees know how to prepare and then so that’s at that level of a groundstroke of some people do better with more one on one time. So we have our gms will meet with this with the they have we call, we have a store manager and the GM and the GM and store managers will beat with staff. We have two meetings on a Monday and a Friday. And a reason we do two, it’s the same meeting both days. But you can’t get everybody when you have a seven day a week business, you have to we’ve been just doing two meetings, I don’t want to ask anybody to come in on their day off. So I always feel bad about that. So we do a Monday and a Wednesday, it’s the same meeting both days. The difference is just a different day, and different people will be there. And so we go over anything that we need to go over procedures, maybe we do a little role-playing for gear training. Maybe there’s a new tire that’s out or a new bike that just comes in and new 2020 Gizmo, we talked about that a little bit. But we always have a list prepared and we don’t shoot from the hip on that. So we have to bring things prepared. And then that’s it for the sales side, the server-side they do meetings every other week. The same type of thing. But they do on the server-side, hey, work orders are getting paid, we’re hitting our goal, you know, we’re trying to hit on one, you know, it’s up to you to $100. To labor, we want to do $100 with the add ons, when you do a repair has to go. Or it’s actually a buck 25. And some of the stores it just ends will store they’re talking about, but we’ll go over the goals, see how we’re doing. So those are communicated lots of different ways to email sometimes directly if we can’t if a part-time person is not here a whole lot. We’ll email him directly. Hey, good job on last month, you did a great month. Can you work on these two or three things for me, please? You know, things like that.
Chad Pickard 18:35
So you’re training roughly, you know, a full-time employee, roughly how much training are they getting a week with those? And I’m assuming there’s maybe some other training going on as well.
woody 18:47
Yeah. Well, when that’s been seasoned, they’re probably getting, oh, maybe an hour. I’d say two hours a month is true training, I’d say is what They’re getting a factory. Now. That’s beside the track University and the specialized University and the X verticity. One, you know, and whatever else they want to do in their own time, there’s other ones. But that’s, that’s above and beyond what we do with that we give. We give called bike bucks for that. So you do that at home when you do it, it emails the GM and then they get a notification and they give them roughly about 1215 bucks an hour equivalent and storage credits what they get. So it’s kind of a nice way to do it without paying them throughout the payroll. Okay.
Chad Pickard 19:35
And then do you do any sort of yearly, I don’t know, maybe like staff retreats for leadership or anything like that, to work on, you know, like a bigger store, bigger picture, things like a store, mission statements, core values and things like that.
woody 19:52
Yes, that’s funny. You said that John Burke. President of Trek asked me to do that a couple of years ago during the Continuous Improvement. And he does With his leadership team, and now it’s like so just last week we had our managers of store managers, and at the service manager and assistant service manager level we meet and we talk about kind of recap of what 2020 2019 has done and what 2020 is going to what goals we can do to improve we’re always trying to the constant improvement I’m always continuous improvement person, I’ve always wanted to do that personally, like a father, as a husband as a boss I like to continuously improve I always want to but can always get better and so we have a wide-open policy about that it stores run by a team. I just happen to own it and but it’s run by with a team atmosphere. And we all need to be on the same page and we all need to pull the rope the same way. And so so we have a little retreat so we had we rented a house outside Dallas up there and pilot point right where we went to school nearly up there and didn’t and then and we rented a little house it had a pole in it and it was 400 bucks is a VR Yo deal. And then we wrote from there we rode gravel we rode and some of the guys wrote mountain bikes is electro not too far. So we had about three hours of playtime and about four hours of meeting time talking about again, what was the good, the bad, the ugly, we do what they call SWOT analysis, SW, OT so its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. And so we, we let everybody go around the room and, and talk about it, let them participate, you know, where are they at with that, and, and, and bring up the strengths, the weaknesses and so forth. And opportunities.
Chad Pickard 21:37
Doing that event? Have you ever been blindsided by anything that you know, someone just said, Hey, here’s a threat that completely caught you off guard or maybe an opportunity that just you felt like you were totally blind to something and it ended up turning out to be a very important point in time to change the way business is done or to take advantage of something
woody 22:01
Yes, and, Boy, that’s a great question. I’d have to go in my memory bank and think about something to do a boy. Yeah, that’s an obvious one. Well, though and the one Chad, you and I talked about it, we have them when it comes to recently mind is Scheels Sporting Goods, it’s come to town and they’re big boy, and they’re built. They’re their biggest store they’ve ever built here in Dallas. In fact, it’s about five miles away from our Frisco location, or about 12 1314 miles from the big store of Richardson store where I’m at. And so yeah, you get a little nervous about that. And, and I want to talk to you about that. And I talk to Brent from biotech and, and get his two cents. And I know he had a story here and I talked to some buddies that have something else at Boulder, and they all said the same thing. And so anyway, well, yeah. So that things like that do come up. And yeah, we need to hear about those things and know what’s going on. And, yeah, we’ve had to make some changes, but that’s the most recent one. I could say. That and by the way, I didn’t finish but so the store that’s at the manager level of those meetings were, and now we’re doing, we’re going to Bentonville, Arkansas, which is the mountain bike Mecca. We started that last year, and we actually had a blast. And we again, it’s been two or three hours plan, not three hours plan. And then about four hours, five hours of business. And then we break bread, have a beer, and maybe talk to another hour or two about that in a relaxed atmosphere. And again, we look at a recap of what 2019 was, like, we’ll look at 2020 it will take some of the manager feedback and see if the GM citizens lined up. We won’t share that feedback with them until we want to hear what the GM say because gyms have a different perspective than the store managers do. And the service managers is that they’re, they have different challenges and different successes and different worries every day. So, so that so that’s how we’re doing it now. And that’s only been like this is only the second year now. So but it’s as to say what as the best thing I did and again, communication It’s been a great day in it in the team building has been huge. Getting the team together. I’ve seen a closer bond with everybody. It’s just been, it’s been great to see I love to see it. Awesome.
Chad Pickard 24:14
That’s awesome that you’re able to do that with your staff. Oh, yeah. Do you so you’ve worked at Richardson bike Mart since 89? Correct?
woody 24:23
Yes, sir.
Chad Pickard 24:24
So what do you do to take the blinders off? Or maybe that’s not the right way to say it. But I mean, you’re always in the same store or set of stores? Do you ever feel that you just you’re too focused, and you need to start looking for other places. You don’t want to or maybe you that you get maybe complacent because you’re always in the same place. But what do you look at too, you know, make sure you’re moving the ball forward and you’re changing as retail changes. Did you ever struggle with that?
woody 24:55
Yeah, I get concerned. um you know, I love to Go to Rei. You know, I admire what they do. They’re a billion-dollar company. They’re obviously smart of what they do in merchandise Well, they serve customers where they serve the community. Well, they admire them. I do a CI event with john Burke from Trek, and I’m honored to be able to have that. I told him, that’s a $20,000 value, and he just laughs because that’s part of being a Platinum Plus dealer with him. And you get that free time with them. And it’s, it’s four hours of just in, he shares other recipes, if he may with other store successes, or I won’t name the store. But that’s the agreement that everybody has when they go into those meetings. And he’ll look at ingredient go, Hey, you know what your gross margin is? 43.7 Wow, what are you doing to make it that hot? So I can share that recipe with other people or are like your marketing budgets only 1.5% two percent kind of going rate for the most job, what do you what are you doing or not doing? What may be your baby you’re leaving money on the table? You’re not using all that money to get the most out of the business. And so those conversations are just priceless. And so you come back and you have a page of to-do items. And we go back and we place and we start starting on the item. And so though and so, so going to the CI Vance, I’ve been enjoying these, these podcasts through MBDA demands are been great. And the Harley Davidson store since a parallel, I’ve got a buddy it’s in the motorcycle business. And I go to his store, I visit him out once or twice a year and see how they merchandise they have similar challenges similar environment that we have. And so I try to, you know, look at those types of resources, but mostly I just try to take care of myself. I try to stay I trust him as own and do what we do well Just keep serving the customer is the number one thing you can do. And that’s that I’m all about the sales floor. And I love being on the floor. I love selling. I love working the service counter helping customers. I love seeing somebody come back go you sent me by three years ago, I’ve lost 40 pounds, you’ve made a difference in life. Those things just keep going. Oh, yeah,
Chad Pickard 27:19
I agree with you. 100%. You mentioned the motorcycle industry. Are there other resources outside of the bike industry that you look to for I mean, you mentioned merchandising, maybe other industries that have certain processes in place, or maybe they’re viewing service writing different like the car industry or anything like that.
woody 27:41
You know? That’s funny said that too, because my Huffines Chevrolet is down the street from us and we bought most of our company cars there and employees buy cars here. They give us good deals. And they sponsor our race team. And so they put money in that club and we’re very grateful for that relationship. And they have a p two equivalent. If you Made a group when they get together of non competing dealers and they talk about their challenges and Hey, what’s your payroll like and what how do you deal with this and commissions and websites and all that stuff like that? They talk about this. Anything is on the table you can talk about and the FY two help helped me get through I did PT grid for about three years and I got to where I had to get out of it for a little bit because I was getting on this the Shimano 20 collective group. And I couldn’t do both at Burma candle both ends and it just my wife had had my high.
Chad Pickard 28:35
Yeah, and for those of you that don’t know, our P2 groups is a program through the NBDA where we match up probably about 15 to 16 retailers that are non competing, and we meet twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall and we talk about the topics that we’re struggling with and, and look to improve our businesses through key profit indicators. We if you go back a couple episodes I believe there’s a podcast about it. So if it’s not a podcast, it’s certainly one of our webinars that you can find posted in the forum. But the PTS have been a really good tool for those that maybe feel like they’re in an ocean and are trying to figure out some of the nuts and bolts of the industry and you know, kind of where should I be and what should I be spending on payroll and marketing and rent, leases and things like that. So yeah, I think thanks for bringing up the P two group I’ll put a plugin for that. If anybody’s interested they can get a hold of the NVDA and definitely happy to talk about it. But let’s get back to Richardson bike mark. You’ve with it with a store the size of Richardson bike Martin, not just the one location being 33,000 square feet but with four rather large stores or three other rather large stores. You work with a lot of bike brands and whatever What’s that? What’s that like working with 17 bike brands?
woody 30:04
Some people call you crazy. It’s like are you nuts. So we’re very, we’re very grateful for to the big the two big E’s in here and we have Trek and Specialized and, and that’s a rare thing. And we are very grateful for we make them to make both vendors happy is a tough dance. We do our best we like to be a sub. I’d like to tell people there’s no name on the building, but Richardson Bike Mart in every bike shop should do the same thing. You’d be selling your brand, don’t sell whatever brand, we’re grateful for track. We’re grateful for specialized. We’re grateful for the other 15 below it, but trig specialized makeup, most of our business, but then we do a lot of other things we do for brands and BMX bikes, we do three brands and recumbents. We do a lot of recumbent trikes in that’s a pretty big business here in Dallas. We do Two folding brands of bikes, three bike brands in five road bike brands we do we’re almost 5050 it varies year to year, it could be 4555 but it’s mountain bike road, sometimes it flips depends on the weather is if it’s wet, you’re dry, you’re so we like to get people from, from their first bike all the way up to there, to their racing bike or racing mountain bike and now in between and so working at it is a hard balance. But usually, we’ve been, we respect them, they respect us and, and we challenge us for different things and we try to grow this category or that category. We try to do the best we can and we try to negotiate those terms every year when we sit down with them, what their goals are, what their needs are, be respectful to that. And but mostly it’s the tracking specialized, it’s you know that That’s the game keeping those in compliance and where they need to be.
Chad Pickard 32:06
Sure. And I suppose that at some point, you just you got to have bikes on the floor. And if one brands out, you just got to move down the list and get them from the next. The next brand, I suppose. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah,
woody 32:21
yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think their strengths and weaknesses, you know, trek has a nice $399 mountain bike especially starts at 550 it’s just that’s too much for some people and we’re sensitive to that we want to be we have a lot of students at a couple of different locations that have that want basic bikes, basic transportations, and so with that said, we’re thankful to have those opportunities.
Chad Pickard 32:50
Gonna grow that in the future is is is 17 the limit now,
woody 32:55
now we had 22 in here one time and it was just too much I know it sounds like a lot Keep in mind that most of stores only have about five or six brands. I mean, yeah, tracks specialize Santa Cruz. Those are the top three brands we sell in here as far as dollars out of here, you know there.
Chad Pickard 33:16
And you mentioned BMX is what’s the BMX climate like in Texas is growing or is it? What’s it like?
woody 33:25
Well, being a mixer for 11 years I did that was my love. That’s right. And my, my Savior, for a lot of ways kept me out of trouble and on the straight and narrow as best I could, and it was a I’m very, very, very grateful to have BMX in my life. And so I look at BMX as so the answer your question, BMX is on the up. First time in a while that the vendors kink and fit. Sunday we’re running out of bicycles in 2019, but run out of bicycles in the 2020s To come sooner than later. That’s a good problem to have because we’ve had about that went through for years there have dry and the kids were buying that red shiny iPhone and not the red shiny bicycle and, and they did that 12 to 16-year-old just wasn’t riding much, but now we have this generation going up. So what that tells me is people like me, eventually aged out and they get into a mountain bike or they get into a road bike. Once they do that BMX for a couple of years, that is a favorite pastime of their life. I’m living proof of it. And I’ve got plenty of friends that come in the store that I’ve raced against. And they still bike, they’re still involved. It’s set the ground roots of the love for the bike. So the bicycle erotica, bicycle retailer and read all those things I say all these things. And one thing that never gets measured is BMX. I don’t see too much on it’s always juvenile or whatever. But when I see that needle moving, that tells me that we’re two to three years away from big things. kids getting kids becoming young adults, young adults begin bike riders, becoming Customers for life
Chad Pickard 35:01
and also employees and mechanics as well. Oh, you bet. Yeah, The thing is exciting. And it’s good to hear that it’s that the needle is moving on that.
woody 35:12
Yeah, it’s working good on the race side here in Dallas, and it’s working good on the freestyle side, so it’s working pretty good on both. Okay. The National caliber track here in Dallas is pretty nice.
Chad Pickard 35:23
Awesome. Cool. Very cool. And I had forgotten that you race BMX. I raced a little bit of BMX it not until I was in my 20s. But I raced a bunch against a bunch of 14-year-olds. So that was how I get most improved racer one year and that was, I think, yeah, I think they were scared of me or something. So moving on, what what’s something about our industry that’s always you know, that that you’re curious about or that keeps you maybe keeps you moving forward or you just want to keep learning more about it and Proving I mean, you said you’ve, you’ve done continuous improvement events with john Burke, you’ve done it with your staff, but is there like that one, Northstar that always moves you forward?
woody 36:13
Ah. Well, serving the customer. We have a serving mentality. That’s part of our core value. We have a serving mentality. If we can serve the customer, everything. It’s like the Good Book says you serve others, you’ll be blessed. And that’s what I’m living proof of it. I the Good Book says it and I live it every day and I’m so blessed to be able to say that and live it every day. The moving this moving the star forward, getting people on bikes, and seeing the more bike trails, more mountain bike trails, more bike lanes we ever have more bike awareness we’ve ever had. And I just can’t seem to not think that where the industry is headed. Setting up for a bike boom 2.0 we had a big bike boom in the 60s and 70s where swing could make it a bicycle. So we’ve never sold as many bicycles at that time ever again. And even though Yeah, states are almost doubling it was it people just don’t there’s they have too many other options, you know, CrossFit and a whole bunch of other things they can do nowadays, but the bicycle industry, I think is poised for another bite boom. And I don’t know when that is, but I think I’ll see it next. Yeah, it could be three to six years, three to eight years between e-bikes and the BMX or youngsters coming through. I just think we’re poised for that with gas, electric cars, GM making bicycles. What? Why is the car industry want to mess the piddly little bicycle? When something’s up there? I mean, why would they be doing it? All the major cars, all the major motorcycle brands are all doing it. So there’s got to be something there. That’s just my opinion. And I feel pretty strong about it. I can’t prove it. I just it just my gut.
Chad Pickard 37:59
All right. I hope you’re right I and yeah the mid-70s when sold more bikes than any other year I think everybody got a Schwinn varsity and then also a Peter Frampton comes alive record. I don’t know about that second bit of that second fact, but I’m gonna go with it. Yeah. Okay, let’s do it. Let’s go back and talk about your staff a little bit. What what what have you learned from your staff over the years that that’s, that’s helped you improve your business?
woody 38:34
I love having young people because young people bring a different perspective. And I tell you to know, early on to Hey, you see something question it. Why are you doing it this way? I don’t know why are we doing this way? And so I love that. I love young people and we have seniors, I’ve got guys in their 70s of work here and I’ve got them all in between. And I’ve got a suit. We got 1314 women, I believe wish I had about 30 or 40 of them in here, but I can’t get up women to work the business. The bus my daughter my number two daughter works here my number one daughter worked here for a long time until she decided to get married have kids and number two daughters following her footsteps and my son work for some but I think the staff of bringing new energy new ideas in questioning that’s what they can bring that question why do you do this way? And we may have a good reason maybe not so good reason. You know what, I don’t know why we do it that way. Did you think we should do it? Well, okay, well let’s try it. So
Chad Pickard 39:43
and I think that’s important as we get older and as we mature in our industry, our stance on things or the things we believe we become more rigid almost to a fault. And so it’s good to have the youth come in, in fact, If you read the Good Book, it’s Moses 40 years to solve some of his problems. But if having young people come in looking at things differently in different ways we can we can change and change our course and still continue to be relevant to new customers and create new experiences for them. So that’s awesome.
woody 40:19
Yeah, thank you.
Chad Pickard 40:22
Is there you have a special skill then that you contribute some of your success to is it? Is it just being a listener? Is it not being content with where you’re at? what’s, uh, what’s the hidden skill that that woody has that keeps him going?
woody 40:40
What keeps me going every day. I love coming to work every day. I don’t mind my wife says how do you work? I’m 52 years old. He’s Addy. You stay energized. Well, I’d love to get my workout in. I do four or five days a week I do something I run. I bike. I will work out at the gym. I will do something four days a week, five days a week minimum. I got to have a workout. I’m again a better boss. I’m a better husband, a better dad. And I gotta have my workout at least an hour or two and Saturdays I tried to work out and hit a two to three-hour ride one of our rides from the store. And but what energizes me is I look forward to what I’m doing. I love the people I work with. I love the challenges every day. There’s always something sometimes Yeah, it gets a little sometimes it gets a little tiring, but, but most time it’s good. You know, I like it. I’m sorry. I hope I answered your question. Yeah.
Chad Pickard 41:39
Yeah, that’s just that’s what I’m looking for. Uh, what do you see is the biggest challenge in the next one to five years in the bike industry.
woody 41:49
Oh boy, that’s a great one. Um, well, it shops a goddess state. They get to keep evolving if shops don’t stay current and with trends and changes in the click the click and collect through a specialized great program. I know I know john, you sell giant they have a similar program. trek has something quality bike process is the retail to home thing. If you’re not doing those things, you’ve got to be you need to get on it next year. You know, and that changes are going to happen and you get a bid and I happen to or with you without you so in so long term you just can’t survive if you don’t change with these things. But that those are the things that I think that the industry has to look at the next one to five years is creating a really good service department because that’s where the profitable part is keeping, aligning yourself with great vendors that give you really good margins, and they try to not outprice you are under pressure, I should say on their website versus your website. Those are some challenges and some of the vendors, but we want to play in that market that clicks and collect program when the customer can buy from their website and we get most of that money. That’s a pretty good deal. I mean, people liked it. I had a customer that’s been five bucks for 15 years here and he bought it. He was at home watching TV and just bought it bought a bike online and I say hey, what made you buy that asset? I am just curious enough, not wise way or just whatever I just said, You know, I appreciate you use our website. What made you want to turn to that not come and just buy it because I just wanna make sure it was there tomorrow is I want to check that box I’ve done. I was like, Okay, good reason. Thank you. I said thank you for your business and I appreciate that he doesn’t know we make five or six or seven points less than if you just walked in but That’s how people want to do business and I don’t make the rules I need to, we need to embrace that. And we got to figure out how we can embrace it and how we can, right now working on language to the website, how can I, how can we write that on a language without? The customer knows that if he knew that we took a margin hit, I think I could probably open with them enough to say, Hey, would you please buy it from us and just come into the store or buy it from our website, and then order it for you that way or whatever. And we just got to figure that language but I think it’s important. In the next one to five years, people are just going more and more online. And, and I’m grateful for Shimano for up in the Amazon. We look like robbers there for a long time we were we were 50% less and my, my buyers were buying products from Amazon two to three years ago because it was cheaper. That was from Shimano, and we’re not a small dealer, and it just really upsetting but they’ve learned I’ve cleaned that up. They’ve gotten better I see everything on there now. Within retail are sometimes about eight or 10% lower. It’s about the worst I can deal with that. But I can’t deal with 50%. And we look like we’re robbers and I mean, if we’re buying it for Amazon and current inventory for cheaper then we can buy for. And so somebody in there’s making money, Amazon’s making money the person that listed it’s making money. So there’s some sort of a gray market going on there. And so, a lot of stuffs been cleaned up so long as we keep lining our stuff up with vendors that are doing the right things. And cleaning up stuff like that and sharing the profits with on the website. Visit a manufacturer still need us bike shops and we need as healthy when you didn’t. We need to make sure our search departments are good. vendors are aligned and you’re continuously improving your own websites and stores. That’s the three best things I can tell you.
Chad Pickard 45:56
We talked about vendors a little bit earlier and you just brought it up again What What role have had vendors played in the success of Richardson bike Mart or even? What are some of the conversations you have with vendors? Are they? I would imagine that the size that you are you have a little bit of pole to get some things done. Not asking you to give away any trade secrets or anything. But what are those conversations like? I mean are they do you feel vendors are on your side or you feel they’re pushing the other way?
woody 46:33
Well, sometimes I second I start thinking about it going well, it looks. It looks like their bridge. They’re trying to become a retailer, wholesaler and some of these things, you start scratching your head. Well, I can tell you right now, if it knows me, any vendor knows me anybody outside the industry inside the industry. I’m not a bully. I don’t ask for much. I don’t ever ask. When vendors come in here and we go to lunch. I take them to lunch. They don’t buy me lunch ever. They don’t buy my team lunch. Ever. That’s one of my pet peeves. I just, we don’t I don’t want I’m not going to do we don’t we want, we want to be a good partner. And what I do ask for a favor if there’s not favor but I’d ask that’s legitimate ask not asking too much and not taking advantage of the rep or the situation, then I usually get a really good favorable response. And so so that’s, that’s my best advice would be.
Chad Pickard 47:33
Again, you’re coming back to open communication with your vendors really yeah, it’s
woody 47:37
been open with them and say, This is my challenge, hey, you’re shrinking my margins on this. Let’s just take that as an example. You’re shrinking my margins because margins are shrinking. Like it or not, we’re losing a half a point is it’s hurting the industry a little bit in the big vendors. And so how can we get margins backup, what can we do you know, is there something if we grow our business certain amount of certainty what are your needs? And it’s important to hear their communication with them and say, What are your needs? And what are our needs and we can be selfish. It’s a one-way deal. You’d say we’re the customer all the time, but the end of the day, they’re a vendor and we rely on them they market their product and they get people to come in our stores they advertise on their website that we’re stocking dealers and so those are all it’s a partnership needed in both sides and I respect that a lot. And we don’t I don’t ask we don’t I don’t my buyers stuff know that we that’s a taboo don’t ever we don’t believe we don’t we just I just want my fair share and that’s why when I went to Shimano, I said you know what, all I want is my fair. I don’t ask to get any better pricing anybody else but somebody’s been something when you can when I can buy stuff for 20% less than my price on Amazon and they’re making money on it occurred out I’m mad. I mean, You got me, you got my attention real hard. I mean, and the worst thing about it if people think we’re releasing, they go, man, they’re so high up there. Well, because they’re shopping one or two things or five things, you know, there’s the most popular Shimano chains or cassettes, or whatever. And all sudden, now we look like these.
Chad Pickard 49:18
Yeah, we lose a lot of authority when we mark something at MSRP or matte pricing, and our clients can you know that that pricing so transparent, they can just go on whatever website and get it for half price, we lose a lot of authority. And when we say, you know, in the months to come when we say hey, you need this type of bike for that type of riding, you know, they’re not going to believe us. Yeah, it’s good that some of that’s, you know, the internet is I feel is still new for retail for the bike industry. And it’s great seeing us navigate through that. And I certainly believe in the win-win. vendors have to win. I mean, they have to be sustainable. retailers have to win. They have to be sustainable. So good. With an organization as big as yours, do we need more bike stores? Do the smaller stores that are just starting out maybe in 1000 Square Foot retail spot? Or maybe they’re going big right away? What advice? Can you give them? a, you know, maybe something you’ve learned or something that you think they might need to hear about growing their own business?
woody 50:33
Well, yeah, they get their head examined. If they’re trying to get the buy business, I’d say I take that money and maybe invest into something else but since but if you really, really, really want to, and you like to make just a couple points a year then yeah, you’re in the right business. You have to love what you do, obviously. So that’s where it all comes. Well, I would say You know, you have to be inventory turns are huge. If we’re they’re smaller, bigger starting off it, you can’t over inventory yourself and you can’t pay your payables and then you get behind it. And it’s just a never-ending spot, especially if you have a recall on an item and you get too many of this or that. As those things like that can really hurt you. You know, be involved in the community be connected and communities or schools or churches I believe in that I believe in. We donate to every single person or company or organization, nonprofit for profit. I don’t care. Every buddy gets a yes that walks in here are that emails are are they cause or is the census the lender and, and so every GM and every store has that wide-open budget. You think, wow, I can do that. Well, what we do giveaway services, a lot of times and most of those things, every church every school has got we’re trying to raise money for a playground. We’re trying to work Doing a company team-building thing for some event and can you give us something for auction? Yeah. And so what we give away is bicycle tune-ups. And with labor and we give a $90 chip away and we got I got about 30 bucks in my thought is what we have in that true cost if you may, in a tune-up so but when does it become a customer in the store, and almost everybody has a bike in the garage, we’ve all been to parties and like I got a bike I need to bring to you Chad, I need to get that looked at, it’s got dust on it this thick, I’ve ridden five tires flat, we want to get those customers in the store, we know we can if we get them in the store, we can get them excited to ride again, if we can do that if we have them in the store. And so do those coupons and if I give me if I give a helmet or if I give him a pump or give him an I never see him again, those items go away. So I found that giving away services is little liability and a whole bunch of wind to get them back in the store. And so I like to give away a two to one or a or and or I should say I give sometimes both away. It depends on how big the event is. I’ll give have a date, a date night or date weekend. Rental bike voucher. So it’s for two bikes for two people for two days. And so they can. So his or her maybe a dad and a daughter or dad and a son or a wife and a husband, whatever they can go rent some bikes and whether the mount biker whether they’re a roadie, whether they’re we’ve met tandems they can go out and rent the bikes, it’s to two bikes for two days for free. And so those are good values. Again, get people in the store, get him smiling. You know, we’ve got people on bikes, they smile, they go, man, this is fun. I think I want to pop a bike. And so those are things that you those rental bikes already been paid for we’ve, you know, effectively they’ve been taking inventory, you know, you don’t have any costs into them. So you can give that stuff away. And you get an opportunity to try to sell them something. So those are Win-Win things. So be connected in the community and stuff like that. And say yes, don’t be that person that says no
Chad Pickard 54:00
Well, that’s all the questions I have what is there anything that you’d like to add?
woody 54:07
Ah, yes, my networks are mentors, mentors. Jim Boyd is my mentor. He’s my dad. He’s my hero and Jim Hoyt. Just a little bit of background, he was born and raised in Indiana on a farm. He went to the Vietnam War at 18 years old. He served for 23 years 22 or 23 months in the Vietnam War. He was 101st airborne. And so he was infantry. He was in the frontlines fighting the war every day. What a man He’s my hero. He, yeah. Purple Heart to silver stars runner up for the Medal of Honor. He comes back alive. He fought on Hamburger Hill if you know anything about Vietnam, wow. Well, that’s a big part of history. He is one of those members he’ll get the name from. A bunch of people died up there and it looks like hamburger meat. The way that people were shot up and everything is terrible, terrible times. He was one of the very fortunate, fortunate to come down from that, that mountain fight. And he came back a started swim bicycle 1970 work 10 years, it’s when bought bite mark 90. And he’s been my mentor ever since. And I always admired him from afar. I work for a competitor down the street. And I always saw him do this when swinging meetings and stuff like that. They’re simply Oh, he was like the rock star. He was like, everybody knew him. He was like, they didn’t I didn’t think he’s approachable and all that and, and finally a couple of years and asked for him for a job and he said, Yep, you hired me on the spot. It’s the 32nd interview. I didn’t know what I was getting paid. I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know when we got paid. He just said he said what can you do? I said, Sir, I was the GM of the bike shop, I can do anything I can. I did it all you basically fixed bikes to a customer walks in, you take your apron off and you go wipe your hands and you go help a customer sell a bike. Then you go back and you fix the bike and you go order that but part you need some quality and then You go back and fix the bike, you did it all. So and that’s what you do as a small business you had three or four or five people in the store you know employees and so I put him in service in between sales and I’m very grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to work with him and mentor me through the all this and I’d say a big shout out to john Burke because he’s been to those meetings for with him for CB six ci Vance probably in six years and those are really really helped our business and helped me personally as a leader and to help focus in on the things that are important. And then and then MBDA PT group really helped me you know, get to know you guys in senior the stores and here’s your challenges and it’s me feel like I wasn’t alone. And there are others out there. You know, I’m in business, biomass, biomass for myself, but not by myself. Other people around me that can help me. Just ask him and send those emails out, ask them questions and all that it was just great stuff that the group it offers. But anyway, it’s been my honor to be part of this group. And I hope everybody out there can learn something from this. And if you ever want to email me, I’m just simply woody at bike mart.com if you want to email me, I’d love to hear from you. And what else?
Chad Pickard 57:29
Yeah, thank you for that Woody. I don’t really quite unlock all the secrets of opening up, you know, the largest store in whatever part of the country we’re in. But yeah, if you have questions, what he has his email address, you can certainly email me if you have questions. It’s Chad at sn s bikes calm. And then there’s You can also reach out to the NBA through their website@nba.com. And I guess that concludes everything. I think we’re done. Woody. Thank you.
woody 58:03
Thank you so much.
Rod Judd 58:12
This has been Bicycle Retail Radio by the National Bicycle Dealers Association. For more information on membership and member benefits, join us at @NBDA.com.
Chad Pickard
Owner, Spoke-n-Sport – South Dakota (2 locations)
In 6th grade, Chad took apart and rebuilt his first coaster brake hub. It was that curiosity that kept him working in bike service shops from the age of 14 till buying Spoke-N-Sport in 2001. Mountain bikes and Hans Rey ignited his passion for technical trail riding a few years later. Chad’s work experience is almost 100% bike stores but he is always looking to other industries to improve the customer experience in his two stores. Chad serves on the bike committee in Sioux Falls and has played an active role in defending the rights of cyclists at the state level including the most recent 3-foot / 6-foot passing law.
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