Stewardship Retail – Putting People First
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Chad & Tobie – COMPLETE
Tue, 8/18 10:44AM • 48:52
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
bike shops, bike, customers, people, ride, retailers, book, stewardship, retail, industry, rider, bicycle, sales, approach, cycling, opportunity, store, product, shops, business
SPEAKERS
Rod Judd, Tobie DePauw, Chad Pickard
Rod Judd 00:10
You are listening to bicycle retail radio brought to you by the National Bicycle Dealers Association.
Chad Pickard 00:16
Hello, my name is Chad Pickard and I own a couple of bike stores up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Today on Bicycle Retail Radio. My guest is Tobie DePauw. Hello, Tobie how are you today?
Tobie DePauw 00:28
I’m doing fantastic. Thanks for having me on Chad.
Chad Pickard 00:30
Yeah, I’m really excited about this. We’ve had some conversations on the phone that probably maybe could have been podcasts, only they were like three hours long, something like that. So the editor would have had a pretty heavy job to edit that down. So I’ve known you for a couple of years now, but give our listeners like a two to three-minute resume.
Tobie DePauw 00:52
All right. Well, I started in the bike industry in 2004. I was kind of hired off the street by a guy looking to buy The local bike shop in a small town, about 60 miles west of Chicago in Illinois, and really started from the ground. Really, I had not worked in a bike shop before. I liked bikes, but I wasn’t a bike nerd. And so I kind of started at zero and all of my employees knew more than me. And I assumed every customer walking in the store knew more than me. And so that was kind of foundational and how I approached business and continue to approach business. The shop when we had picked it up was at less than zero. I mean, they had run that thing into the ground, numerous accounts that were not being maintained, well, really poor community relationships. So we were at less than zero, I’d say. And so we had a lot of work, just kind of digging out that ditch. So that was the first couple years of business remodeling rebranding, learning the bike business, we were both my partner and I were new to the business and then we just kind of hit our stride in trying to do things a little differently. We were just outside of the Sprawl of Chicago, so we kind of had a little playground out there. And frankly, it was not a very exciting place to ride bikes. It was super flat. There was just not much nature to explore out there. And so we kind of had our own sandbox out there, which was a luxury to jump forward a number of years, we were starting to kind of services some of the trends before they were big. We were early to gravel early to fat bike early to titanium and just ended up over the course of 10 years quadrupling the store to everyone’s surprise, including ours. We did that just by trying to be nice at every opportunity and be creative. We did a number of events. Eventually, we started a nonprofit called Axl tree partnered with a couple of very smart and kind friends that helped me put together some great ideas. We launched events like the gravimetric blubber bike, the night bison 10,000 tons of smaller events in the community. And then in 2015, I had an opportunity to jump on with a small startup called Black River in Madison, Wisconsin. And so we moved our family up here and we launched Black River in 2016 and relaunched as people for bikes ride spot Last year and so now I’m at people for bikes full time working on the ride spot platform chiefly working with affiliates and bike shops to get them to use the tools and to kind of fit that into their workflow and their sales process. So that is the very quick version of the last
Chad Pickard 03:19
15 years of my life. And you also have a couple of side projects where you do some bookmaking, yeah, and even have something called stewardship retail.
Tobie DePauw 03:29
Yeah, that bookbinding thing is, is an interesting, I mean, there’s not that many bookbinders these days, so it is pretty unique. But after college, I worked and lived in Central America and worked for a small book binary and brought that home with me and just as life went on, continued to do that on the side, and when we moved to Madison, I kind of packed everything up for a couple of years and then relaunched it once I had a space to work. So that’s called the Mordecai book building. And it’s always been kind of a creative outlet. I’m really into tactile paper products, I’m really into physical goods handmade goods. So I’ve been able to weave that into the bike business and kind of into the bike shop back then. And now I’m really excited to be working with a lot more bike shops doing bicycle-related books and pocketbooks. And then stewardship, retail is really just, it’s kind of just evolved on its own, where it’s just been this pocket where I put all these thoughts that don’t fit into the people for bikes ride spot, agenda and don’t fit into books necessarily just an approach to retail that was successful for us. And so, starting to talk about that a little bit more. That’s what I spoke on at frostbite in February. It’s an approach to retail that’s really from my heart. So I’ve enjoyed kind of letting that out a little bit more this year.
Chad Pickard 04:45
Yeah, so incredibly boring stuff. Like I don’t know how you keep anybody’s attention. We could end it now.
Tobie DePauw 04:53
Thanks, everybody.
Chad Pickard 04:54
Yep, just don’t forget to thumbs up to our podcast and we’ll see you next time. No, the book thing is really intriguing, but Well, we’re going to talk about some stewardship today. And kind of some details around that. And why stewardship, retail, why stewardship, and maybe for our listeners, what is stewardship? Maybe some don’t know, maybe it’s a bizarre religious term that just doesn’t register with them. Or maybe it’s something they
Tobie DePauw 05:18
don’t even know. Thank you that I’d love to explain that the stewardship concept really comes from an approach we started to use at the bike shop many years ago, which was really trying to approach the sales process and the customer and the customer experience is something that was our responsibility to take care of, and really putting the customer’s kind of needs in the store and after the purchase before our own, and trying to take care of anything that we could provide that we would before asked. So that was kind of enough to sway to say something, but I’ll explain more. It’s just approach retail that puts people first it’s an opportunity to take care of our staff take care of our customers and take care of our That’s the most concise way I think I can put it. And that comes out in a number of methods and practices that we used at the bike shop and that I’ve been sharing with bike shops since. So what you’re saying is
Chad Pickard 06:11
we just got to give bikes to our customers. That’s it, right? I mean, that’s what they’re coming to get from us. They’re getting the latest dropper post the latest we’ll set and that’s it right or is there?
Tobie DePauw 06:21
That’s exactly wrong. No…loaded question now. And the idea that commodities, I’m gonna step back for a second. So I feel really privileged to have been sitting on the front lines of retail from 2004 until 2015 because I think that window was just so dramatic and so tumultuous were in front of my eyes. I saw the value of the QBPbook, go from gold to garbage. I mean, it just, we would wait until that giant catalog came in. We were the keepers. We had the information We had the knowledge we had the access to the parts to the stuff and we had them, we had the information so people had to come to us. And so very quickly in those early years, we saw information become available to everybody. Customers started coming in with the part numbers from our QBP catalog, and it was unnerving. And so the commodity aspect of bike retail dramatically changed in those years to the point where we no longer are the gatekeepers. And I think that a lot of people are struggling with that transition. But we don’t hold the keys. We don’t to the commodities anyway. But we also have this inquiry of incredible value in how we can add to the experience we can add to the product we can offer our personal experience. And so brick and mortar retail are in a really powerful spot right now because that’s still even though consumers are changing. I think that value is increasing the human to a human value that you can add to a product I think is growing Every day and we’re seeing that in terms of online businesses are starting to incarnate with brick and mortar stores, that’s telling us that brick and mortar has value. So the commodity aspect, I just don’t mean to be hyperbolic. But I think just the commodity products by themselves, they can get the customers can get stuff in. So we’re no longer the gatekeepers of those commodities. And so what do we have? What value do we have? And if we can bring them to a better understanding of the product, through our personal experience, if we can share a personal anecdote of how we use the product, if we can share our knowledge of where to ride their bikes, then we have something, we’ve got a product, we’ve got something interesting that other people don’t have, and the internet doesn’t have. So if
Chad Pickard 08:45
2004 to 2012 was where we own the information as to retailers and I think back to the quality catalog. And for those of you who have been in the industry for a long time, I mean, you’re describing right it’s receiving that catalog was Christmas, and I wish I wish I had every one of those well-worn catalogs. So the time
Tobie DePauw 09:05
we had a number of years I had until a couple of years ago because I had actually rebound the TCG or the trek catalog and the QBP catalog into hardcover editions. So even more abuse friendly, which I thought was so smart, but then it was like, I’ll just look online.
Chad Pickard 09:24
It wasn’t even worth going to get the big heavy book. Don’t want to get the page like
Tobie DePauw 09:28
you’re right. Yeah, it was Christmas. I mean, it was like, Hey, everybody locked the doors. We’re going page to page on the separate right now.
Chad Pickard 09:34
Yeah. Oh, man. I remember those. And if you visit quality bicycle products in Bloomington, they actually in their hallway, they have all of their covers, and I just remember all of them biking or I’ve been in the industry since 8088. So yeah, I’ve seen a lot of them. Now. It’s in 2020. And we have a global economy we have from our customers are getting, you know, hopefully, they’re getting parts from us, but they’re getting them from overseas. They’re getting information from Have a multitude of websites? Or is there too much information out there then? And bike shops are the ones that are helping our consumers navigate that now in a different way. It’s not necessarily this way is this many grams, and this has this many speeds, but it’s this is how you use this product or where you would use this product.
Tobie DePauw 10:16
Yeah, I think that the pendulum is starting to swing back whereas consumers were like, oh, wow, I can get this for this much cheaper over here, or I can order it and get it faster over here. But I think we’ve been burned by that as consumers, I think that we’ve made mistakes and we’ve learned from those mistakes and we’re like, you know what, I know I can get this from this generic company online. But I don’t know that that’s a good idea. Now that I’ve made this mistake and that part didn’t hold up or I got the wrong chain width or the wrong pulley. So I think that there is a little bit more of a swing coming back towards the value of that advice and that knowledge, but it won’t but it will never go back to the way It was Give me an example
Chad Pickard 11:01
of good experience in the store that you work out of just good stewardship, maybe by you or an employee or maybe someone that worked for you. Sure.
Tobie DePauw 11:09
So the process that really kind of birth stewardship, retail was a process that we called the 510 cards that was born out of our experience with fat bikes. Actually, fat bikes were a boon for us. We were in Northern Illinois, so we had a deep winter, it would get very quiet, we had no mountains, so no skis. And so fat bikes were an opportunity to just sell things in the winter months. And so we embrace those early and we realized that every sale started to drag on and on, because we’re like, oh, and you’re gonna need this. And you wouldn’t be caught dead out there without this. And we kept adding on all these different items, which were very good, very important to share. But the way that we were approaching it was not successful. We decided to just formalize that process. And so we made this card called the fat pack that listed all the most relevant Event add on accessories on the back. So we split them out from needs, wants, and desires and just kind of made a checklist for people to make their own choice. And our add on sales blew up. I mean, just incredible. And so we ended up applying that to every category in the store. And the reason it was a more of an approach of stewardship was we were saying, hey, I want you to go out and have the best possible first experience when you leave that store. And if I don’t tell you to buy a high volume pump, you’re going to have a very negative experience. If you go out there if I don’t tell you that you should buy these nice gloves, or this particular helmet say you might have a negative experience and I had the opportunity to improve the likelihood that you’d have a good experience. So it was that approach of saying it’s not just my goal to get you to the register. It’s my goal to make sure that that first ride is fantastic and that you fall in love with cycling because what we all want to avoid is the one and done customer that goes buys their bike because they’re motivated for whatever reason, they have a negative first or second experience and hang it up, then we call those garage ornaments. You know, that was it, that was the end of it. And so we want to, we want people to fall in love with cycling and build a community around our bike shop. So we need to make sure that they know where to ride by sharing routes. And that’s one of the big reasons I jumped onto ride spot early on, and then make sure they have everything they need to have a good experience because that’s I want them to think of our shop when they’re out having a great time. And I don’t want them to think of our shop when they’re having a negative time or a bad time. So that was kind of a that’s a long-winded answer to your question. But that’s an example of just the approach and what that actually what that paper card, the fat pack and then the 510 cards, what those did, they acted as a checklist. It put the onus on the consumer to say, oh, here’s my information I can do with this what I will and they would self navigate through the store using that checklist. list and then it wasn’t us just like a dripping faucet saying and you need this and you need this engineered this. So we were improving our in-store experience and increasing the likelihood of positive experience after the sale.
Chad Pickard 14:13
So I started it in bike stores as I think it was 14. And it was a, you know, the occasion that you’d sell a bike especially at at that age range, even in the following years was Oh, oh my goodness, I sold a bike. I’m done. You know, like that was that was the finish line was the bike. And over the years, I mean it growing up in the industry, you learned that that’s not enough, but how do you come out of the gate with that type of thinking for your staff? How do you train to that? Other than saying you have to do it? What are Is there a magic story you can tell your staff? It all clear. I don’t know that I have a magic story. But how about a funny story?
Tobie DePauw 14:53
I’ll find somewhere in the balance between funny and tragic. When I started in the bike shop, I had not been living in the States. I think I’d been back in the states for about six, seven months. And in Central America, I was living in a very impoverished inner-city scenario that really gave me a different perspective on the world. And so when I came back, it was I had kind of a crash landing into suburban America. And when I got the job at the bike shop, I had a real hard time selling, selling things, because I just didn’t think people needed them. And I thought, there’s so much better, so many more better things for you to do with your money than buy this expensive bicycle, which is a terrible approach to a sales job. It’s really bad. And so my, my business partner who I learned a lot from really said, Hey, this is our business. This is what we have to do to support our families. This is what we have to do to support our employees. And it started to change my perspective on sales. And so it was kind of like, well, I want to get paid. And my dad actually was the one that really helped me understand this the best my dad’s owned redwing shoe stores since I was a kid and I was kind of raised in In specialty retail in that sense, but he said, you know, if people are coming into your store, you’re not stealing food from their kids, you’re not taking bread off the table, they’re bread on the table. If they’re willing to put that much money down on a bike, you don’t have to worry about their other needs. They’re making the choice to come in and make this decision. And that’s their choice, not yours, your decision or your choice is to give them the best service possible so that you can provide for your people and, and that’s kind of how I came into the industry came into sales and started to kind of make it my own. And so in talking to my employees and talking to bike shops, now it’s like, well, we want to pay our bills, don’t we? We want to pay our employees don’t wait. We want to survive. And there’s nothing selfish or ugly about that. I think in the bike industry, there’s a lot of good people that are afraid to make money. And I’ve just come a long way since those early days where it’s like no, I want businesses to be successful so they can support employees on a long term basis so they can raise the ceiling on what bike shops can pay. So they can grow they can become influential members of their communities and for good, I think that’s in the approach that I’ve stuck with is just like, well, it’s not selfish, especially with bikes, to want to build a business that can get more people on bikes. I think bikes are a beautiful product and they’re unique in the world in that they are a vehicle for a community like few products are,
Chad Pickard 17:24
yeah, there’s there still can’t find anything wrong with bikes, other than not having the next one. Right, right. I think of customers walking into a store, if we don’t show them the good stuff, or if we don’t sell them something, them walking out the door. They’re not just gonna their desire for that product is not going to end. They’re going to continue to the next door to the next door. I would hope that our amazing specialty like retailers would equip themselves to be able to handle that need or to sell to that need. So You know, you’ve always you kind of brought it up earlier, you want something and you buy it online and you get it. And it’s, you know, maybe it’s electronic, maybe it’s a counterfeit, maybe it’s not. It’s too big, it’s too small doesn’t fit quite right. That’s a negative experience that can lead to the garage ornaments. And so yeah, I think it is critical that we sell to our customers, when they come in our doors and show them the good stuff, your dad is wise and telling that to you. And knowing that coming from a retail environment, sharing that with you, and hopefully staff that he worked with, and hopefully that
Tobie DePauw 18:34
brought him lots of success, something that you said earlier made me think of another perspective. And you were at my seminar at frostbite, which was called the sales, not the summit, and you would ask kind of how I communicated that approach to customers or sorry to staff and what made it important to them. And I think that one thing that was unique about our shop as we did try to take the long view on sales, and that’s essentially what that seminar was about was you may have to lose the sale in front of you to make the customer. And if there’s a better solution for them that you can’t provide, you’re actually adding value to their experience by showing them that, yes, you got to make sales. Yeah, you have to make sure your bills are paid. But I think if you take offense, you know when they show you something online, and you react negatively, then you’re not going to have the opportunity to talk to that customer again. So taking the long view on customer relationships and knowing like, yeah, I’m going to sell them this basic bike right now. But if I play my cards, right, and we build a good relationship, this could be a 10 year $10,000 relationship. But if I play my cards wrong, and I treat this person like less than a person because I’m busier, for whatever reason, you don’t have that opportunity.
Chad Pickard 19:50
Yeah, you hit the nail on the head with the lifetime value of a customer. I’ve been fortunate enough to see those customers that have been interested in cycling. They’ve come in and bought an entry-level hybrid or something like that to one of my favorite customers that within, I’m going to say 20 years went from a hybrid writer leisurely writing to now she’s a, she was up until a couple of years ago. She was a USA cycling official and had gravel bike, cyclocross bike road bike. I mean, she had kind of the quiver of bikes and to share that with her and to see that progress is very rewarding. But I also got to employ people to work with her and give back to the community and it’s the lifetime value of a bike’s customers pretty good. Yeah, if I sit down and do the math, well, a lot of our listeners are retailers. But we have a lot of vendors that listen to what’s it like to be a vendor and how do you be a good steward to your retailers or to the people that you’re selling to?
Tobie DePauw 20:51
Great question. Thank you. Well, I feel very fortunate now to be working with people for bikes because it’s a very unique perspective in that it’s neutral, we are on every one side. And so I really enjoy being able to work with all sorts of different shops and retailers, and suppliers and other advocates and learn from all those different perspectives. So I feel very fortunate to have such a perspective in our industry. And I do feel that stewardship retail and this approach perfectly applies to my job now with people for bikes and ride spot is I want my customers who are retailers, although they’re collaborators, I don’t, as opposed to customers, I want them to be successful. And I want to guide them through an experience with ride spot and with some of the ideas that we’re sharing so that they can find success in the long term. And with suppliers. It’s been fun to kind of be on the other side of the fence, if you will, you know, going to conferences and going in the other door. And being on the other side of the table has been interesting seeing that we’re all the same. It’s all the same people in different positions and we’re all For the same thing, which is to succeed to find success and do our employers well and to feed our families, more now than ever, I just feel this really strong feeling that there is no us versus them. There is no retailer versus the customer. There is no Carver’s driver. There’s no retailer or supplier. It’s all for us. It’s we it’s not us versus them. And so I’ve enjoyed the change in perspective, and I really kind of am enjoying this position and with people for bikes just to be kind of a coach and a cheerleader. I don’t quite know if there’s one role that does both those things, but that’s how I feel with the ride spot. And then with stewardship, retail, I think I’ve just started to find some real joy in just throwing ideas out that could be beneficial to people and people can take them or leave them I just want to share them.
Chad Pickard 22:45
What what are some of the things you’ve done with you’ve got an Instagram account with for stewardship, retail, what are some of the things that you’ve thrown out there? Just recently,
Tobie DePauw 22:52
in light of all the tumult, I decided it was time to just create a platform or a different place for people To see these things that weren’t just me or just wasn’t ride spot wasn’t Mordecai, the book stuff, and I put together that Instagram account pretty much just to share this very simple basic idea which was, hey, bike shops, it’s time to host your PayPal, post your Venmo. Give your fans an opportunity to support you. Because this is an odd time. Your business is crazy changing by the hour. And you have a lot of fans that may or may not need anything from you right now. But that doesn’t change the fact that they care about your success and your survival. So give them an opportunity to be generous post your PayPal for a number of days, I was just reaching out to bike shops and saying, Hey, what’s your PayPal, I’m gonna throw it on my Instagram story. And I had a number of people do that. And I’ve just been so encouraged by stories of people just being really generous with their local bike shops. And one in particular very close to my heart was Conrad cycles. In Chicago, they just added kind of a support button on their website. And they’ve been posting the sales screens from all those and their fans are just crushing it with support. It’s beautiful. And I’ve had a couple of other notes from other retailers that have found success in doing that. And the interesting thing is, I see a lot of comments from retailers saying, like, we don’t believe in taking money for anything. We’re not a charity case. And I really, I kind of like that stubbornness, because yeah, we do value our labor and we value our time. And we don’t want to be charity cases. But bike shops do a ton of good for their communities that they don’t get paid for. And so this is an opportunity for communities to come back and support bike shops and just pay for the things that they didn’t pay for before. And this is a time of sat in on a webinar the other day, and I think it was Dan man that mentioned just a time of vulnerability and transparency and I love that because that really is what it is, we’re all trying to figure this out in real-time. And nobody has the answers. consumers don’t always have to consume, but they do want their bike shops to survive. So the long-winded answer to this question, but really the money for nothing campaign was just put a button on your website that allows people to give you money in exchange for nothing. And gift cards are great. buying stuff is great. But gift cards mean maintenance of information, and maybe shipping gift cards. buying stuff online is great, but that means that person has to take time out of their busy schedule to package something and ship something. Those are all good, but I think there’s a place for people to just be generous with their local bike shops right now.
Chad Pickard 25:40
Yeah, I think you’re right. And I’ve known enough people in the food industry that same thing. Yeah, there’s that as well. This is great because I mean, we all hope we all love really good food. Bicycle Retail radio is supported by our NBDA members. All our member benefits can be found at NBDA.com… Join the NBDA today.
Tobie DePauw 26:06
I hope to take that message into other categories. This is just where I’m starting because this is where I know people and this is where I think I have just enough connections that I can say, hey, please share this idea and I can make an impact. So from start,
Chad Pickard 26:21
I’ve loved seeing the posts, and I hope to see a lot more and, and continued stories surrounding that. I want to go back to talking a little bit about perspective. You’ve brought that up a couple of times from a couple of different questions. Do you think we have a good grasp of our customer’s perspective when they come into our stores?
Tobie DePauw 26:40
I think we do. If we think hard enough about it, I think we just if we stop and remember to put ourselves in their shoes, it’s not difficult. It’s just the idea that we don’t always have that practice in place of staying in the mindset of our customers and remembering what it was like to be a new cyclist. We have the same conversation 100 times a day, and we just jumped to the end of that. And we don’t take them through every step. But if we remember what it was like to be a new cyclist, and we didn’t know what to say, we didn’t know the right language. We didn’t know what to ask. We didn’t know how to ask questions because we didn’t know what to ask. If we remember that, that gives us the opportunity and the perspective to meet them where they’re at. And I think we’ll be more successful if we can do that. So I really don’t think that it’s difficult for people to do that if they remember to do that. So we’ve mentioned bright spot a few times as a cyclist I use Strava I use to ride with GPS what customer needs ride spot or needs the features that ride spot has any watts, I need cadence I need to know if I beat my best friend in a segment are their customers that struggle with navigating simple routes through the city. Absolutely right spot actually came out of two separate endeavors that merged together Black River, which is the app that I jumped on to help create the software. was born to the idea that there should be a route sharing platform that’s more story forward that embraces the value that we find in retailers, which is retailers know the best places to ride. So we want to make those places available to everybody through a digital platform. And then people for bikes had invested money and time and perspective in a research project backed by Shimano and some of the best retailers in the country to discover what are the greatest barriers to cycling. And far and away the top barrier was finding safe places to ride. And so we merged we partnered up to make the best places to ride easy to find, easy to navigate. And then the second biggest barrier was finding other people to ride with because Cycling is very intimidating. So another feature and ride spot that’s handy for both retailers and for new riders is just finding meetups, finding group rides, finding clinics, and all of this is evolving in real-time right now. But there’s value still to connecting people. And there will be when this cloud passes. And then the last feature that I think is solid gold right now that we’re making available for free is our challenges. feature challenges are a little unique on ride spot, in that we make it a route-specific challenge. So retailers can post a route and say, Hey, everybody, go ride this route between this date and this date. And you can get something an award of our choice for completing it. And I think that’s especially cool right now because it’s an event you don’t have to go to people can do it on their own time at a safe social distance, they can go ride that route. And then they can visit a webshop to redeem a coupon or they can get something free in the mail. There are all sorts of creativity stemming from some of the new restrictions and limitations. So we’re waiving the fee. That’s essentially a premium feature for our financial supporters, but we want to make sure that shops can thrive in this weird time. So we’re waiving the fee on that and making that available to all retailers for a limited time. And ultimately you’d said, there’s Strava, there’s a ride with GPS, there are phenomenal platforms out there that can accomplish many of the same things. We’re trying to take a slightly more story forward approach something a little less intimidating. We don’t want to make it about competition or about endurance. We want to make it friendly, inviting, and comfortable for a new rider to jump in and get going.
Chad Pickard 30:23
So you’re saying I shouldn’t take all my KOM segments and copy them over to ride spot?
Tobie DePauw 30:29
You certainly can. It’s just we’re not going to compare yours to anybody else’s.
Chad Pickard 30:33
So 30 days of biking is a thing in April. So if I were a bike store, and I wanted to do a challenge, what types of routes are important for those IE newer cyclists? Great question.
Tobie DePauw 30:45
I think that because I think it goes a little bit against our as avid cyclist this goes a little against our nature or inclination in that connecting the dots right now is very important for new riders. There are a lot of people that no longer have access to mass transit. They’re looking to use their bicycle as a mode of transportation, but they only take mass transit, or they only drive in cars. So the routes that they typically take from A to B, are not ideal for bikes. So bike shops stepping up and saying like, Hey, everybody, this is the safest way to get from this community into downtown. That’s a solution. That’s a real solution for someone right now, that’s incredibly valuable. We take it for granted because we know that, but that’s not it’s not easy to find if you’re not into cycling already. And now more than ever, they can’t go into the bike shop and ask that question. So making it available through posting it on ride spot and sharing it out on social media is incredibly valuable. And then as far as challenges, just taking those basic commuter routes and making commuter challenges, that’s easy, and that’s fun to accomplish. That’s satisfying for a rider to say, Oh, that’s only eight miles, I can do that. You know, on my lunch break, they go and they ride that on their lunch break and they get notification says congratulations. You got 10% off at spoken sport calm That’s a good feeling. That’s a good feeling for the rider. And that’s a good feeling for the retailer as well. So I think it’s just a matter of, again, putting yourself in the shoes of that new rider. And you can do suffer avid riders too, you can certainly post a challenge that’s 100 miles if you want, and people can do it if they feel so inclined. But I think the key now, especially with the free challenges is just to make the most of it post 510 20 mile challenges and post a variety and let people self-sort and then they’ll accomplish what they want or do them all. I think just giving riders an opportunity to go out and do something, giving them some structure and giving them a little perk for doing that. Just a little bit of good news that we all need right now.
Chad Pickard 32:39
Yeah, and I think I think we can all agree earlier, we said that there’s nothing wrong with biking, there’s a huge mental and physical impact that it can have on our lives just for clarity or creativity. I’m not a doctor, but I’ve seen USA cycling some posted some videos about it, and getting out and biking currently is okay as long as you’re being smart about it. So encouraging customers to get out, I think it’s great using an app like this to give them some direction. Also great, man, if you think earlier, I had brought up the idea of the lifetime value of a customer and for a company like Starbucks, they’re selling coffee, I’m gonna imagine that their average transaction is maybe $5 or $6. And you would think that you know, the lifetime value of that may be a couple of thousand dollars, but the lifetime value of Starbucks customers over $14,000 at that booth $5 at a time, we’re not selling $5 trinkets at our stores we’re selling you know, a way of life it’s a little bit more expensive thing, but here’s an opportunity. With 30 days of biking a retailer really could create a challenge and attract a new customer by creating a challenge and I love patches and you can get patches made for super cheap, but the idea of being rewarded for a 30-day biking challenge and getting that new customer in the store and looking Taking the long view and hey, I’m going to really impact this person’s life by selling them cycling and not just the standard Schwinn varsity or the whatever that base model is, I’m going to start them there or maybe a little higher, they are going to love it so much. They’re going to have the gear, they’re going to have just everything that goes around a great cycling experience to create a lifetime. The customer you said earlier on, we have a huge opportunity right now with our customers.
Tobie DePauw 34:28
Yeah, I think and I think that’s unique. There are a few industries that can look at this time as an opportunity and in no way do I mean to make light of the trials ahead of us. But I do think bike shops do have a unique opportunity to do good for their communities and to do good for their business. And on that 30 days of biking topic. I wanted to mention some of the stuff kind of behind the curtain that we’re working on is to change to give retailers more ways to inspire riders, aren’t you? Challenges currently are route-based. So we call those ride the route challenges. We’re working on other challenges that are ride more often and ride more miles so that you could have longer-term engagement with riders just saying, hey, ride your bike 10 times this month, or see if you can ride 100 miles this month. I mean, that doesn’t sound like a lot to an avid rider, but to a new rider. That’s a lot. So we’re working on those things behind the scenes. And just the more we can get people engaged now and the more we can grow now, the faster that we can get that stuff into the real world.
Chad Pickard 35:29
Yeah. And even for as an employer, myself, I’m thinking, you know, I need to do this for my staff as well create a staff challenge of getting on bikes more often because I don’t know anybody in the bike industry that says, Oh, I just add like too much here. I’ve ever said that fact I think more common comments have been you’re nicer to be around when you get out for a run.
Tobie DePauw 35:53
Yeah, yeah. I think there’s a deeper message in that where we well there’s a couple of things I want to say at that point. A little All of us got into the bike industry because we love bikes. And we believed at some point that this was what we wanted to do with our lives. And that was focused on bikes. But bikes don’t buy bikes, people buy bikes. So in order to sell bikes, you need to talk to people. And that can take its toll. And if we forget, if we forget why we got into it, then it’s hard for us to be authentic and to be kind. And so part of stewardship, retail is taking care of yourself, and I encourage all retailers to go take a nap, go for a bike ride, take a nap, get restored so that you can do your job better. You can take care of your customers better, you can take care of your staff better. And yeah, just don’t forget bikes are good for you. And they’ll make you a better person. They
Chad Pickard 36:43
will. So speaking of trinkets and things to maybe gift to customers or even maybe sell in your store. Let’s talk about your book project. Let’s talk about Mordecai.
Tobie DePauw 36:53
Yeah, we want to know
Chad Pickard 36:56
Well, we’ve got six hours left. So I’d like to know I’ve kind of imagined this event for my clients and maybe even just friends or whatever, but you know, a sub 24 bikepacking trip, that’s just Goofy, quirky things may be branded with my store and my colors, like matchbooks. I mean, how goofy is that bottle openers is an industry staple. But you know, even things like a way to kind of record the experience. So a little, maybe a little book or something like that, I think goes right in line with what I view, a bikepacking event to be no technology, maybe a pen and a pencil and some paper to write on.
Tobie DePauw 37:35
Yeah, I’m just waiting for someone to ask for some bikepacking booklets or handbooks, and there’s a number of shops that I talked to that would just offer such a brilliant product. If we were able to collaborate on one of those we do. I have done a number of bike books or I call them great little bike books that are little guides that take people through the bike buying process with a list of things that will be helpful to know a couple of routes, couple animation notes, and those little booklets have done well with bike shops. I’ve also had a lot of bike shops ask for the little pocketbook as a giveaway like you were just referring to something with your brand on it that has maybe a little message from you on the inside. And just a little three by five little pocketbook that has no pages, I’ve become quite dedicated to having that pocketbook in my back left pocket all the time I feel naked if I don’t have it. And so it is fun. It’s fun to be able to work with bike shops on book stuff. It’s kind of the melding of my two worlds. So I’d love for more shops to reach out and collaborate with me on some of those and I hope that we can put together that bike packing guide. I mean, I would, I would buy your guide if you had a $10 Guide to 24-hour bike packing trips with your packing list. My goodness, I’d buy right now.
Chad Pickard 38:46
Yeah, it’s got a coffee machine.
Tobie DePauw 38:48
Just five different ways to make coffee and that’s our that
Chad Pickard 38:51
too. Yeah. Hi. I always forget how much coffee to put in the filter. So maybe I should put that in there. What other things would so if you’re going to do a backpacking trip, what other things Would you put in that book? I mean, obviously you want maybe somewhere to write things down by camping. Bingo.
Tobie DePauw 39:05
That’s right. Yeah. We do all sorts of little fun things in the bike books that we’ve done in the past just like that bike Bingo. word search, Sudoku, like little entertaining, things like that. But even just like how to start a fire, I think swift industries actually put out a fantastic adventure guide a couple of years ago, that was a bigger version of what we’re talking about. And it’s just wonderful. They’ve got some first aid somehow to start a fire. They’ve got somehow to fix a flat, it’s beautiful. It’s fantastic. So anything like that would fit really well in there.
Chad Pickard 39:39
And where can people inquire about those books?
Tobie DePauw 39:44
Mordechaibooks.com is my website and Tobie@Mordecaibooks.com is my email and then at Mordecai books on Instagram, they can see probably
Chad Pickard 39:53
some of the projects you’ve already done are some future projects. Yep, yep. Yeah. And the one thing you mentioned about selling These in your store. I mean, what a great way to continue your brand in a document for I mean, most of our industry stores. I mean, we’re quirky or nerdy, we’re Goofy, and people love that about us.
Tobie DePauw 40:13
Yeah, yeah. giving it to them. Yeah, well sell it to them or even in the bike buying process. The reason the great little bike book came to be was I just realized that there was this bottleneck of information in the sales process. And you can just see your customer glaze over where their brain stops working, and they can’t ingest any more information, but you have more to say. And so putting that in the little book and saying, you know what, this is a ton for you to take in right now. When you get a chance when you get home after a ride, sit down, I’ve got a page in there about bike maintenance, and I’ve got a page in there about warranty and I’ve got a page in there about why you should consider wearing a shammy I don’t know whatever it is, so people can ingest it on their own time and that in a way that extends Your value past the sale past the store experience. You’re, you’re there with them offering your knowledge on their time.
Chad Pickard 41:09
Excellent stuff. So we’ve both know and I think everybody knows where it’s kind of an uncertain time in our industry and other industries as well are going through the same thing with a national pandemic, what’s specialty retail going to look like in a year?
Tobie DePauw 41:21
I would be a fool to define that I have no idea. I think one of the more unnerving pieces is that we can’t turn to our elders and ask, what are we going to do? How do we do this? I think in real-time where we’re defining retail in real-time, so I don’t know what it looks like in a year. The one thing I do know for a fact is that 100% of your customers will be human beings. So as long as we remember that fact, and we remember to try to make our businesses human-focused. I think we’ll be able to adapt to the ever-changing scenarios. It’s been absolutely wild in even in the last two weeks. To see how IBDs have just been creatively and beautifully solving the problems, it probably doesn’t feel like it on the ground. But from where I sit, I have just been really impressed. And yeah, it sounds weird. But I’m excited to see how we will evolve through this because I think there’s a scary aspect to this. And I don’t mean to take the conversation, the scary turn, but I was talking to a good friend of mine, Philip from elevation cycles in Denver the other day, he referred to this as an Extinction Level Event. And that not just bike retail, but all retail is going to go through a massive change in the next couple of years. And we’re not all going to make it and that’s scary. And that’s hard. But I think there’s something about bike shops that is resilient. That’s tough. I’m excited to see how the industry is going to overcome these challenges. I really hope to see us all on the other side of it. You
Chad Pickard 42:53
said that I really liked the way you said that creatively and beautifully solve these problems. And as an Industry Yeah, we are problem solvers, having you know, service, the service side of things has been my favorite part of the industry, but the number of car mechanics that have come in and handed over a what was a bike at one time or what resembled the bike, and he says, I can fix any car, but I cannot fix bikes. And I know a lot of bike mechanics and techs that they can fix anything on a car. And I think that says a lot for our industry. And we’ve been through a lot. I mean, if you live in the north, every winter, you get through that. That’s a punch in the gut every year. Yeah, we’ve had tariffs, we’ve had product availability issues, but I think that I think we’re fighters and problem solvers, and I agree with you, I, some of us might not make it but I think the ones that do, we’ll come out the other end looking good. If you’re outdoors, if you’re able to get out and ride and if you have trails in your city. It’s crazy to see around here. And we’re still like I think we have it was below freezing last night and most of yesterday. But there are people that just want to get out and want to be active. They’re not looking for a group ride. They’re not looking to break any social distancing rules or anything like that. But they just, they want to feel the sun on their face. They want to burn off some energy. And they’re doing it. They’re walking, they’re running, or cycling, digging things out of the garage that was ornaments at one point, which I love seeing.
Tobie DePauw 44:23
Yeah, and I think some of the more creative solutions, I’ve seen so many shops going to appointment-based business just because they have to are realizing that that bottleneck is really difficult on them and their customers. And so just being generous with information and solutions, and saying, like even just doing little Livestream on Instagram to say like, Hey, are you dusting off your bike for the first time in 10 years? Here are your three things that you have to do right now. Just making that information known instead of having that person come in wait in line or make an appointment and those things could be solved quickly, and you’d still be earning that customer and satisfying that customer’s needs. You might not make your sale that day, but you might make the customer and they’re not gonna be able to do everything they need. But if they received some free information from you, and you gave them some warm fuzzies, you might be top of mind when they need something. And I’m imagining,
Chad Pickard 45:18
I mean, we’ve all worked in a bike store. Most of us have worked in a bike store on a Saturday, where it’s been bonkers. You’re helping three, four people at a time. And at the end of the day, you’re just like, oh, shoot, I forgot this. I forgot about this. I forgot about this. But if you imagine the efficiency, rather, I’m imagining an efficiency with a one on one appointment. That educational piece, you know, oh, I do need a bell does this when I’m on a bike trail. I need that. Oh, I do need hydration. Oh, I do need to have a rock-solid floor pump in my garage. Because I’m going to bike today tomorrow and then hopefully not for another week but I got to pump up my tires. Like I’m imagining that is combined with the 510 cards that you talked about earlier as a group Rate experience for the customer and the retailer to be able to really dive deep on the needs of that cyclist,
Tobie DePauw 46:07
I think that will yield a great result for everybody. We also have to look at the potential downside, which is you can only have X number of those appointments per day, you know, there are only so many hours in the day to be there for your customers. And so you really do have to make the most of that appointment. And not all appointments will be service-related. And some of them might be easy things but there’s just this very concentrated evolution of the sales experience happening right now that we don’t know exactly what it looks like. But everything’s in flux, just the idea of making the most of every appointment. And another creative thing that came across my radar the other day was requiring a service deposit for every appointment. So non-refundable, small nominal amount, so that there’s just this equal commitment between customers. And retailer, and so I’m kind of chewing on that idea and working on a blog post just to talk through that. And I’d love to hear what the industry thinks about that concept. And then I’m just very interested also with appointment only sales experiences. What does that look like? in a strange way? I’m just on the edge of my seat with popcorn watching this all godown. It’s just wild.
Chad Pickard 47:21
Yeah, I think there’s definitely an opportunity there. I mean, our customers have an emotional attachment to their bikes and their gear as they bring them in for service but tying a financial attachment to it. It’s just one more step to completing a sale successfully. Well, we’ve covered a lot of topics today. I hope that everybody has enjoyed the time that we’ve had. And Toby, thanks. I really appreciate your words of wisdom, your insight on some of these topics. I was kidding when I thought you were boring. I think everything you do is very interesting. And I love hearing you speak across the bike and posting in various places. So thank you for That I appreciate that.
Tobie DePauw 48:01
That’s ultra kind and I’m honored by your comments. Thank you so much. This has been a great opportunity. If anybody’s interested in the frostbite seminar, it is up on SoundCloud. So it’s free to listen to and download. It’s also available at stewardship, retail calm.
Chad Pickard 48:16
Yeah. And we can probably post some links to that in various places so that you can find those. Tobie Thank you to be healthy and get out for a ride and keep being creative.
Tobie DePauw 48:25
Thank you so much, Chad. It’s been an honor. Yeah, Hang tough. Thank you.
Rod Judd 48:27
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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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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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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