Leftovers

Hiring People in Bike Retail is a Nightmare. Unless You're Cheating the System.

Finding the right person to work in bike retail is about landing on someone with the right personality and skill set to do the job and move the business forward, In order to do that many retailers may have to search deeper pools of talent and begin courting people respectfully and professionally. Hanging a sign in the window isn't good enough any more. Here are some of my tips for finding great people.

Get it posted. Put the job description up on your site. List out all the duties, who they will be reporting to, what will be expected, and all the benefits of working at the store (list benefits all the way down to “free socks” if you do it). Pics of the store and their work space would be nice if you have them. As would general information about the city and the cycling culture.

Widen the search. The more qualifications you want, the wider the search has to be. Finding someone who is awesome in your city can really narrow the talent pool. You’re usually left with the 2-3 people that no one else wanted. Be prepared to hire from out-of-city or out-of-state and have people relocate. This is expensive on the front end, but done right the return can be made back within a year. Relocation packages usually require a moving and living stipend.

Hit Linkedin. Doing a search for “bike fitter” on Linkedin has more than 100 results (you have to upgrade on Linkedin to see more). You could also search "bike mechanic" or "bike technician". I would message all of them with the link to the job and ask if it seemed like a role for them. This is a hook to have people start researching you, and ideally beginning the interview process. If they tell you no, ask them if they know someone qualified, and increase your search by 100x.

Hit Twitter. A people search for “bike fitter” or "bike mechanic" on Twitter brings in a couple hundred more results. Send them a direct message similar to your LinkedIn message. It’s ideal if you didn’t message the same person twice.

Look for the person in second place. If you start looking to hire from other shops, I would look at look at the number 2 person doing fitting or service there. That person is usually being blocked from growth by the number 1 fitter, they are generally more open to opportunities elsewhere, and likely to be cheaper.

Once hired, pay accordingly. First, establish the level of service you want given. With that done, I would build a pay structure around the profit from the that area of the store (not sales, not margin- but profit). If this person doesn't have a fit or repair to do, they will want to be in the store selling it.

Train heavy. For bike fitters or technicians, I would want them trained everywhere and build them up to be one of the most knowledgeable people in the world when it comes to their skill set. I would want this person to have every certification possible. However, the better they get the more money they deserve.

Don’t forget bedside manner. Technical knowledge only goes so far. People in bike retail need to have an amazing bedside manner and an eye towards creating an amazing experience.

I hope this helps you out on your next search.

Thank you for reading this far. If you found this information valuable I would appreciate it if you shared it on your social feeds. Thanks again- Donny

Read This Before You Waste Another Tweet

When is the best time to tweet? How about the best time to update your Facebook status? Or Instagram? We're all looking for a shortcut but here is the hard truth.

There is no perfect time to tweet that works for every person or business. There is only the perfect time to tweet that works for you and your readers. Articles or experts that argue otherwise are usually presenting some form of aggregated data, which any data analyst will tell you, tends to clump.

Believing in clumps of aggregated data is falling victim to the shotgun fallacy. Aim a shotgun at the side of a barn, pull the trigger, and there will be hundreds of little holes spread across the barn. But there will also be a clump of those shots in the middle. A shotgun fallacy is when you draw a target around that clump and tell everyone, "I hit the target!"

For example, some social media experts will tell you that people check Twitter at 9:00 on Saturday. Though for a bike retailer, 9:00am on a Saturday may be the most popular time for their customers to be out riding their bike. So, that tweet is essentially wasted. Instead posting between 11 and noon might be better, when their customers are finished with their bike ride and checking their feeds.

I encourage the bike retailers I work with to test multiple times and track which times of day create the most engagement. Turning your calendar to the viewership f your audience is the best way to get huge results from your social channels.

Thank you for reading this far. If you have found this piece valuable I would appreciate it if you shared it on your social channels. Thanks again, Donny

Book Summary: Reinventing the Wheel by Chris Zane

It’s not too often you see a book about the business of bike retail. Zane’s Cycles is located in Branford, CT. Here is a short video where Founder/President Chris Zane describes his business, and here is where you can buy the book.

SUMMARY

Chris claims a 23% annual increase in revenue over the year before is his company’s average growth.

Nothing was focused on how to execute a sale, instead everything was focused on a higher level on how to get the customer in the store and keep them coming back for life.

The book worked like bike-shop specific bookends on any day-to-day work. Before you can execute a sale or service effectively, company visions like this need to be in place.

While the sales strategies Chris presents aren’t new (in fact he tells us where many of his ideas came from) they are new to the cycling industry. While marketing to gay/lesbian communities is obvious for millions of other companies, I wonder how many bike shops look into expanding their market there?

He mentions several times his plan to grow his one store location to 100 stores nationally. Too bad he never details how he plans to do it. Will be exciting to watch as he does.

THREE KEY IDEAS DISCUSSED

1. Zane’s average lifetime value of a customer is $12,500

This give Zane’s roughly $5000 profit if they earn maximum customer loyalty

The lifetime value allows them to understand the cost of acquiring and earning a customer

Arguing over a $100 return is not worth losing the customer and their lifetime value of $12,500

If a business does not understand their customer’s lifetime value, they do not know where to begin pricing strategies in service or marketing.

2. Zane’s has a 3-leg stool to their business. Products, service, and price.

Products:

Strong relationships with strong vendors and suppliers

Vendors need to be willing to go the extra mile in warranty and delivery

Vendors are not partners. Zane’s is their customer and they expect their vendors to treat them as well as they would treat their own customers.

Service:

Satisfaction guarantee. If a customer is not happy with any product they bought, at any time, they can return it for a full cash refund. The author tells a story of a full cash refund he gave a customer who brought in a bike that was 6 years old. The customer then bought a bike 3x the value and has been a loyal customer since. Proving the value of the lifetime customer.

Lifetime free repairs. All repairs that come from general use of the bike are free for life. This focuses his staff to assemble bikes in a manner that demands very little return and strong product education to his customers. The cost of free service is a no-brainer to Chris when compared to the lifetime value of the customer.

Kid’s trade-up program. If a parent buys their kid a bike they can return it for full value towards the purchase of the next size up. While it sounds crazy, this has been a profit center for the shop. The idea that a trade-up program is in place makes the sale easy. Only a portion are traded in and those are donated which earns the shop free marketing and new customers.

Lifetime flat repair program. For $20 you can buy free flat repair for the life of your bike. They sell 4000 of these programs a year and perform free flat fixes about 50 times a year. 4000 x $20 / 50 = $1600 earned for every free flat fix they do. People who ride a lot and are more likely to get flats don’t buy in to the program- they need to know how to fix a flat themselves.

Price:

90-day price guarantee. They match any price and then some.

Because the services Zane’s offers seems too good to be true, they match any price their customers can find on a bike up to 90 days after the purchase

When a customer does ask for a price match they give them an additional percentage on top to be sure Zane’s had the cheapest price.

This discount is acceptable in light of the customer’s lifetime value.

3. Where to put your efforts in marketing

Zane believes that 30% of customers are price conscience buyers, 30% of customers are experience conscience buyers and the remaining 40% can be persuaded to go either way. If you attempt to market to 100% of your customers you will gain approximately 50%. If you market just price or experience you will gain approximately 70%.

Experienced focused buyers spend more, so market your services and the shopping experience. Not the super deals on price.

Thanks for taking the time to read this far. If you found value in this piece would you please consider sharing it on social? Thanks again. Donny

Only One Customer A Bike Shop Should Care About. Seriously.

When trying to understand who the customer is, I believe there are only three people who could walk into a independent bike retailer. These three customers are not determined by their locality, age, gender, or any other demographic. They are:

Customer 1: Cyclists in your market who have purchased from you before.

Customer 2: Cyclists in your market who have not purchased from you.

Customer 3: People in your market who are not cyclists.

So when building a marketing plan, choosing product selection, or designing the customer experience- who should a retailer focus on? Customers 2 and 3 will take a lot of time, a lot of money, and have a very little return. Instead, I believe they should focus on the people who have already made a purchase, they are the biggest potential growth opportunity.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you found value in this piece would you please consider sharing it on social? Thanks again. Donny

One Law Bike Shops Don't Have To Obey

In 1931 William J. Reilly wrote the Law of Retail Gravitation. He determined that larger cities will have larger spheres of influence than smaller ones. Meaning that the larger the city, the father people would travel to reach it in order to buy their goods. In an era when retail was at its infancy the law made perfect sense. It even led to one of the most popular phrases in retail which you can still hear uttered today, “Retail is all about location, location, location.”

In today's retail world there are no city limits. We can purchase a bike from the UK just as easily as we could purchase it from Australia or China or wherever. Which means it is time to update the Law of Retail Gravitation. Instead of saying the larger the city the greater the pull, I will instead say the better the retailer can connect with the customer the greater the pull.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you found value in this piece would you please consider sharing it on social? Thanks again. Donny

How Many Bike Shops Serve Beer? You Might Be Surprised.

Many bike shops are expanding beyond the sale and repair of a bicycles. Doing this brings customers in the door when they may not need anything cycling specific.

For a bike retailer, selling a bike is a macro-conversion. But in the US 12% of bike shops have coffee bars, 11% offer spinning classes and almost 5% serve beer. About 1% offer massages, yoga or full-service restaurants. When these shops sell these things they are micro-conversions.

A business can no longer live on macro-conversions alone. Selling items that have a lower price point and are purchased more often are the micro-conversions that bike retailers need to thrive.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you found value in this piece would you please consider sharing it on social? Thanks again. Donny

This Is The Opposite Of Showrooming

A customer walks into your store, researches a product, and buys it somewhere else. This is called "showrooming". The opposite is when they find the product online and are inspired to visit your store. The term for this action is "webrooming". Click-&-Collect is the most popular form of webrooming, where a customer purchases the product online but picks up in the store. 35% of Home Depot's online sales are Click-&-Collect.

How does your web and social presence inspire people to visit?

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you found value in this piece would you please consider sharing it on social? Thanks again. Donny

Which Products Bike Shops Should Worry About. You'll Thank Me Later.

So many retailers struggle with what to order and when to have it in stock. Here is a simple trick to help retailers understand what really moves their business forward.

The Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 Rule, teaches us that 80% of our results come from 20% of the effort. For example, 80% of profit will come from 20% of the products offered. 80% of a technician’s time is spent on 20% of the services offered. Even 80% of sales are attributed to 20% of the staff. The percentages may not always be as clear cut as 80/20 but the idea that a large percentage of results come from a small percentage of work holds true.

Before retailers place an order it is a healthy exercise to run a Pareto analysis of the products they sell. This will help determine where to place focus.

Here is a Pareto analysis that was performed for a bike retailer. It shows that nearly 83% of their profit comes from 4 of the 12 bicycle categories they sell. They earned the bulk of their money, $152,895 dollars, from the sale of 555 bikes and building and extra 189 bikes only brought in $32,016.

Here is a tutorial on how to perform a Pareto analysis of your own.

Thanks for taking the time to read this far. If you found value in this piece would you please consider sharing it on social? Thanks again. Donny

200 Bike Shops Will Close & Other Predictions for 2014

I thought I'd take a crack at making some predictions for the year. 5 predictions for bike retail, and 5 predictions for the world of retail. In no particular order, here you go.

IN BIKE RETAIL

More bike retailers will move to click-&-collect.
Truly competing with online sales means competing online. Retailers will thoroughly build out their click-&-collect sites.

More bike retailers will become manufacturers.
Apparel and small hardgoods will be the first to be made by the local retailer. Once the retailer becomes the manufacturer, they will no longer be limited by MSRPs or territories.

Bike retailers will experiment with pop-ups.
Instead of waiting inside the brick and mortar, more retailers will open 1-2 day stores where cyclists congregate. Coffee shops, gyms, and trailheads will be the starting points.

200 bike retailers will close.
As some retailers grow, they are not growing the number of cyclists at the same rate. Only way they grow then is through market share.

A major cycling brand will go direct.
One of the top 10 cycling brands in the country will cut out the retailer network entirely. Instead selling direct to the rider.

IN ALL RETAIL

Stores will be open on Thanksgiving Day.
This is a no-brainer. For good or bad, the holiday of Black Friday is becoming more relevant than Thanksgiving. Bike retailers will still be closed though, still struggling to capitalize on the holiday.

Apple will update their in-store CX.
The customer experience at Apple is becoming antiquated. They will, again, revolutionize the way people shop. We will all say, “Why didn’t I think of that?” when they do.

FedEx and UPS will announce Sunday delivery.
With Amazon and USPS to launch delivering on Sunday, they will redefine the rules of making a delivery. UPS and FedEx will have to play catch up.

Showrooming will be encouraged.
Retailers are understanding that showrooming is not the death of a sale. They will promote it in store knowing that what the customer finds will match what they have.

Ship-to-store will grow.
Too many UPS packages were late or stolen this year. Customers will opt to ship to the store (or a UPS/FedEx location) giving retailers another chance to convert.

Thanks for taking the time to read this far. If you found value in this piece would you please consider sharing it on social? Thanks again. Donny