Adapting and Thriving: Jimmy Funkhouser's Path to Outdoor Retail Success with the Feral Gear Shop

What happens when you leave the corporate world behind to build something wild and unconventional? In this episode, Dale dives into conversation with Jimmy Funkhouser, founder of Feral, an outdoor retail business that’s anything but ordinary. Jimmy shares his journey from working at Toys R Us to launching an independent shop with a bold mission—helping people escape domestication and reconnect with the outdoors.

Discover how Feral evolved from a high-end technical gear shop to a community-driven hub where used gear and accessibility take center stage. Jimmy opens up about leadership, creativity, saying no to good ideas, and why retail is a never-ending challenge worth embracing. Packed with insights on entrepreneurship, adaptability, and staying true to your vision, this episode is a must-listen for retailers, outdoor enthusiasts, and anyone looking to shake up the norm.

Chapters

• 1:12 The Evolution of Feral: Jimmy shares his initial vision of Ferrell as a high-end technical retailer and how he came to realize that the community needed more than just premium, high-tech gear
• 5:00 Discovering the Community's True Needs: The conversation delves into the frustration with industry pricing, the shift towards a more accessible pricing model, and the experiment of selling used gear which met with an overwhelming community response.
• 9:00 The Role of Frugality in the Outdoor Industry: The discussion explores the frugality and resourcefulness inherent in the outdoor community, environmental consciousness, and the “dirt bag” mentality, highlighted by a personal story about a 20-year-old back
• 14:30 Management Practices and Consistency: Jimmy emphasizes the value of focusing on a few core ideas and executing them excellently, the impact of spreading resources too thin, and the importance of consistent leadership and clear expectations for the team.
• 19:00 The Courage to Focus: He discusses the importance of saying no to good ideas to avoid dilution of focus, referencing Gary Keller’s book The One Thing and the concept of prioritizing a singular focus.
• 24:00 Lessons from Leadership Styles: The conversation covers lessons from Bobby Knight’s leadership style, the power of consistency, and comparisons to other leaders like Steve Jobs and their effectiveness.
• 29:00 Parting Advice for Entrepreneurs and Retailers: Jimmy offers advice on pursuing one’s unique vision, staying true to personal values, and the importance of leaving a meaningful impact on the community while taking pride in one’s approach.
• 33:00 Reflections on Business and Leadership: He reflects on the journey of running a business, balancing innovation with maintaining core principles, and the importance of personal fulfillment and legacy.

Transcript

Introduction: 0:03

Welcome to the Adventure Retail Podcast, your go-to destination for all things outdoor retail. Join us as we embark on a journey through the captivating world of outdoor gear shops, exploring retail triumphs, challenges and everything in between, from product sourcing to customer engagement strategies. We're here to support and empower outdoor gear retailers every step of the way.

Dale: 0:25

All right, jimmy, it's great to be here with you today, great to be here with you. Thanks for making the time, so we're going to start with. I'd love for you to give everybody maybe a 90-second summary of how you got here into the outdoor industry. You're eight years in, but what happened before that to help you end up where you are.

Jimmy: 0:48

Yeah, so I was in a corporate kind of existence with Toys R Us and Babies R Us and rest in peace, jeffrey. But I woke up one day and I kind of asked myself what would I do if I wasn't afraid to do it? And my very next thought was I would leave my job tomorrow. So that was in December of 2015. And we grand opened in March of 2016.

Jimmy: 1:14

And if you've ever started a business, you know how quick that is. You know we took the dive and went to outdoor retailer that winter to try to get my bearings and try to learn the industry and I realized I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. But we navigated to a grand opening in March of 2016 in Denver. We were in a small space there in Denver for two and a half years. We were lucky enough to grow in the Denver market and move into a bigger space that we moved into in 2018. And we did have a small shop up in Idaho Springs for about five years and then we migrated that shop out to the Midwest and have recently grand opened a new space in Grand Rapids, michigan, actually just two weeks ago. So that's been the, I guess, the brief evolution of my journey with Ferrell, starting back in 2016.

Dale: 2:10

Okay, so tell me why. Where did you get the name Ferrell?

Jimmy: 2:15

I love this question because it's precisely why I chose the name right? So there's this history of outdoor gear shops throughout the country being named Tacoma Outfitters or San Francisco Outdoors or whatever Right? So that's the easy thing to do, but it just didn't feel authentic to me and it didn't really jump off the page and we dabbled with names like that. But I wanted a name that would catch you and would result in one remembering it because it's unique. But also I wanted it to really catch people off guard and make them think for a second Like what is that all about?

Jimmy: 2:53

But the word itself etymologically means to escape from domestication and become wild. And just when I read that, I was like that's exactly what we want to do. We want to get people outside. We want to get people out of the house on the trail, in the mountains, escaping from their normal life. And just the definition of that word really spoke to why not only what we wanted to do, but why I was choosing to take the path. And it just worked. And and also there's pragmatic parts to everything. Right, we wanted to own a word, and if you've ever owned a business, you know how important SEO is, things like that and I wanted a word that wasn't really used normally in business circles. So when you Google it or you use it, like you know, just immediately the results come back and send you in the right direction.

Dale: 3:46

Yeah, escape domestication? I didn't. I kind of knew like feral wild animal, I didn't. I didn't know the exact definition. So that's so you. You became feral as you left your desk job. You were feral and like escaping domestication of the big box corporate to go out on your own escaping domestication of the big box corporate to go out on your own.

Jimmy: 4:09

Yeah, it was. It was. It truly spoke to why I was doing the whole thing to begin with. You know to include, you know to include like my journey. You know that was part of it, but also just what I cared about. I've always been passionate about getting people outside. I've always been passionate about getting people outside. I've always been the guy dragging people out to the trail. And when I, you know, did research into trying to figure out the name and I saw that definition it was, it was immediate, I said that's it, yeah man I love and most people listening won't be able to go and rebrand um so easily.

Dale: 4:44

I guess they, they, you know they can um, but you're starting this with a whole other perspective. Uh, you're not jumping into it with just the sole perspective of I'm going to open one consignment shop in, you know, in Denver, and that's my life and I'm going to retire here. And you know, you kind of left the door open for it to become what it could become.

Jimmy: 5:08

Yeah, with any business I think you've experienced this and I'm sure most small business owners that have scaled at all have experienced this the thing becomes its own thing. You know, in many ways feral I don't have the reins the same way I did back in 2018, right, the monster starts to eat in ways you don't expect and you think you've got control of it, and sometimes you do and sometimes you don't, and I've always, over the last four or five years, I've had the mentality of trying to stay out of the way sometimes and letting the community drive what it is that we should be doing. You know, we very much tried to keep the mindset of our job is to constantly be renewing our social license to operate. Right, that's the term I love to use which is when your customers come in every day, they're deciding whether or not they're renewing your license to operate. You may not think of it in that terms, and I think the best way to stay in front of that is just to constantly be thinking about what it is they need from you.

Jimmy: 6:19

You know what? What is it? Uh, how can we be serving our community today? That's different than it was two years ago and, ultimately, that's a big part of why we started selling used gear two years into into the adventure was just in, like just being maniacally connected to what we were hearing and what people wanted. So I think, yeah, that sometimes you have to drive and sometimes you have to be vulnerable enough to just get out of the way and let the business and the community drive your decisions, and I think that that's been a big part of our journey for the last few years.

Dale: 7:00

Let the business become feral. I won't keep making those, these bad jokes, but I love it. I'm really loving that. Uh, escaping domestication, that's like a super cool um, that's cool imagery and, and you could have yeah, I'm I'm sure you're already leveraging the brand um in in some of those ways, but you know, I'd wear a feral t-shirt and, yeah, it's super cool.

Dale: 7:32

It became very obvious, talking to you for the first 20 minutes before we started recording, that you are more strategic than the next guy and maybe I'm just comparing you to myself or you know whatever, but but I was really. But I was really um. No, it was impressive to see how your mind worked and even just in choosing your name right, there's a good amount of thought. So if you were going to coach a retailer, you know for 10 minutes, you know I'm, I'm your shop down the street when it comes to you know my, my business strategy, street when it comes to. You know my business strategy and this probably isn't a great question, but, like, what are some of the things you'd share in? Maybe how you'd look at another retail business that maybe other people aren't getting, because you also have this insight from not coming from the industry.

Jimmy: 8:22

Right. Yeah, I think the most important thing, there's two ways to think about it. One way is is this something you want to continue to do or is it something you want to build? You want to build the exit strategy in right, because there's a lot of people that start businesses with the intent to exit at some point become an acquisition.

Jimmy: 8:43

But I'm going to operate under the assumption that we're talking to people that want to be lifers. Right, they want to build something that they continue to be a part of. And if that's the case, if you want to stay along for the entire journey, it has to be built in a way to keep you filled up, your energy, your excitement. It has to be something you're proud to do and you're excited to do, because if it's not, you filled up your energy, your excitement, you have to. It has to be something you're proud to do and you're excited to do, because, if it's not, every small business owner is a single point of failure and if you wake up one morning and you've decided that it no longer fills you up, the party's over for everybody. Right, and I think so many times we lose sight of that. I lost sight of it, admittedly, you know, a couple of years, and then I had, I had, to step back and and reconfigure my relationship with the business and understand how can, how can I continue to drive this forward in a way that I'm excited about, I'm proud of it, the community's proud of it, and I have the relationships I need in this business. So, any, any time I have that conversation, I always. I always ask them is this something that you want to continue to be a part of and, if so, how do you build a healthy relationship with it and how do you build it in a way that you're proud to keep doing what you're doing? That's a deal breaker, because if that, if you ever lose that, then the game's over before you realize it. You know you're just biding, biding your time. The game's over before you realize it. You know you're just biding your time. I think that's core and critical. The other thing is and this is kind of in the same vein is do it in a way that's authentic to you and do it the way you want to do it, because if your ideas truly are bad, the market's undefeated, right, and you'll learn that quickly. But you know a lot of people that work in a corporate environment, which I did for 10 years. The big gripe they have is it's really difficult to be creative in that kind of environment, right, there's rules and structure and scaffolding and it's hard to break away from that. Try new ideas and do those things. If you're going to start a small business, lean into the beauty of what a small business and entrepreneurial journey offers, which is precisely that an opportunity to really put your fingerprint on the business and the entity that you're running. So do it your way, do it. Do it in a way that truly leans into your own creativity. There are these rails, right In every industry that people tend to fall right into and just end up several miles down the track before they realize they're like everybody else in the market.

Jimmy: 11:20

That's not fun, that's not unique, that's not creative, that's not really introducing anything fun to the universe, right? So if I think about, you know, renewing our social license to operate, I constantly think about why are we different? Why do we deserve to be here? And if the if the answer is ever well, I don't know then we probably shouldn't be doing it anymore, right? So I think being brave enough to just say I think my ideas are great and I'm going to execute on those ideas, pass or fail. I wish more business owners would do that.

Dale: 12:01

I love that We've talked. I own Grand Trunk with two other partners. My brother and we've worked together for a long time so we pretty much work as a. You know, we've worked pretty closely together. And then our other partner, who actually he started and he founded Campsaber, so Campsabercom Andy Stroman is his name really sharp, it's really sharp and we actually we get along really well. We're all. We're a pretty strong partnership. But I've found the more people that you have to discuss your ideas with it might be good because you might save yourself from making doing some of the dumb things. But sometimes the dumb stuff, the second iteration of the dumb thing is really good, or like the third where. But if you can't do some of the first dumb things, then then you don't get to number two or three and I wish more people saw that, that element of just action and moving and iterating. I'm sure you've had a lot of that as you've grown feral.

Jimmy: 13:06

Well, if you have a party of 12 people and you have to buy ice cream for everybody, you're always going to end up with vanilla, right?

Jimmy: 13:13

Yeah, there's just no way around that. That's how we operate. When there's a lot of people that are involved in the decision-making, we regress to the mean. I think that's just human nature and I think it takes a lot of courage to push against that and show up to the party with some weird rainbow ice cream that maybe some people are going to like and some people are going to love. But the truth about running a small business is you don't need everyone to love you. You don't need everyone to like you. You just need a few people to love you. You just need a narrow part of the community to say you know, I wouldn't consider shopping anywhere else because I love those guys, and I think that that's, that's what's worked for us. That's what I enjoy. That's what keeps me fired up about what we do, knowing that we're painting the picture every day in a unique way for us yeah, are you a part of goa grassroots outdoor association or have you looked at it?

Dale: 14:12

we're not. Yeah, have you heard about it or?

Dale: 14:14

and maybe yeah maybe it doesn't work with your model or whatever, but, um, rick spicer, he runs the pack rat right and it's. It's funny, some of the stuff he was talking about like they. He very much ran in his natural direction of like he would do adventure. He was an adventure racer and whatever and he and his thing was like look, don't be afraid to specialize. You can't be everything to everybody and don't be afraid to be a little weird. But it's very much aligning with a lot of this mindset and it's good. I'm glad to have these two conversations right in a row, because I feel like this is free counseling and free consulting for me as we in our different businesses, though it's easy to just get boring.

Dale: 15:00

It's easy to get boring and do things the same way when, as a 20 year old, you know, as in my early twenties doing the business because I was so clueless, it was really easy for me to just be unique and do my own thing.

Outro: 15:14

And.

Dale: 15:15

I think there's a lot of power and you have to deliberately channel that energy. Otherwise you say there's a lot of guardrails.

Jimmy: 15:22

you know, you go a few years down and you realize you're the same as everybody else stuck in that gear of understanding that that's been working well and why change and why stay in the lab, right, but the truth is the market runs away from you faster than you see it and um, I think I think staying in that like art. I kind of view it as like an artistic mentality of like constantly challenging you know everything that you're doing. It's hard to stay in that mindset if things are going well, right, if you're, if things are great in fourth year. It's hard to shift. That takes it takes commitment, but that's that's what I enjoy.

Jimmy: 16:16

You know, people ask me all the time why retail, like you know it's tough, it's not always sexy, you know it's. I'll tell you why it's tough, it's not always sexy, you know it's. Uh, I'll tell you why it's because I have to confront a unique challenge every day. That requires creativity, thinking outside of the box, and I and I love that, I love it's like being in it.

Jimmy: 16:39

You know, I would never, I would never say that my job is this difficult, but I use this analogy it's like being a nursing, an emergency room nurse, where I have no idea what's coming in the door. I have no idea what problems I'm going to have to solve today and I just I thrive on that. I love that. I love the challenge of having to think critically in ways that I never would have imagined, of having to think critically in ways that I never would have imagined. And I never want to get stuck in. I never want my default setting to be this is our system, this is our process. I think that's a big deal and that would be my advice to people is just stay creative, stay fun.

Dale: 17:22

Yeah, I love that. I've realized that I thrive most when I get to solve problems and when I'm a little stressed. That's when I'm the happiest, when I'm a little, you know, maybe too busy sometimes, when I have to like, when I have to breathe and think okay, how am I going to do this, this? And I've chosen to be an entrepreneur and realizing so I have to continually give myself the pep talk of Dale, this is what you signed up for and this is how you prefer it. So there's no, you're living in the dream now, and once things are figured out, it becomes less of a dream, right? So continue in that part. Now. I love your creative energy. Creative energy, um, so let's see where.

Dale: 18:09

Okay, so what's a thing? You're eight years into this? You had 10 years in a corporate job, like with a legit retailer, right? Um, uh, big. Well, toys are us, and you know, if you're a, toys are us kids, like you know, it's kind of one of the biggest retailers in the States back in the day. Where? What's a thing that you maybe know now about how to run Ferrell how to run an outdoor retail business that you didn't think was true? That's true now, but maybe wasn't true. When you first started, like is there a thing that surprises you? Like I didn't think I would have been doing it this way, or thought that this would work when I started, but now it's something that that I've embraced, can you think?

Jimmy: 18:55

is there anything like that? Yeah, that's easy. So when, when I first started Ferrell, I imagined Ferrell at feral I. I imagined feral as a high-end technical retailer, right, just super technical, technical gear, technical clothing, all the highest end brands. That was. That was what I thought I would be excited about, right, because if you're an outdoor junkie, there's always some level kind of geeking out on tech, right, whether it's the technical fabric or the new, the new tent or whatever. I just kind of imagined myself being that guy constantly chasing the next innovation and the highly technical. I realized very well I shouldn't say very quickly, I realized over time that that wasn't what the community needed from us. One that's a very small community, the highly technical, you know, mountaineering, climbing, multi-pitch community. It is a small community, but I came to discover very quickly that there was a much bigger need in our community and that was around the discussion of price.

Jimmy: 20:12

We were two years in to our feral journey when Joe and I who's one of our original employees were sitting upstairs in the the shop and we were just brainstorming what does our community need? What can we do better? And we were constantly wrestling with this like frustration around price. We felt like the industry. Everything was built around this premium narrative and this technical narrative. And you know, with anything, premium, premium goods come with premium prices and often premium egos.

Jimmy: 20:47

But you know, we, we just we didn't love that. That. We didn't feel like that was our community. And and we, just we one day I don't remember if it was him or me we said like, well, the brands control price for the most part when we sell new stuff, but they can't control price when we sell used stuff. So we went home that night, we emptied our closets. We, you know, we literally brought our own stuff into the shop, put it on a rack, put prices on it that we felt were fair, and it was all gone in like two days and and we said, holy crap, this is what people want. People want to have a different conversation around price in this industry. And when I opened Ferrell, I didn't see that, I didn't understand that. I didn't expect that to be a part of our model. I didn't want that to be a part of our model.

Dale: 21:41

Yeah.

Jimmy: 21:43

But when we started to have that conversation with our community in a real way, that that's the information we got in it. You know, when we we had one rack of just our stuff, we sold it quickly and we came up with a quick process to figure out how we could buy stuff from our community and and within three years it was half of our square footage Driven truly by just our community deciding and voting. This is the feral we want, and so that's what we became.

Dale: 22:15

Yeah, I love it. Uh, so is that? Because all of us and I don't want this to be a long tangent, but all of us outdoor adventure explorers, you know being outdoor nature I think there's an element of frugality and resourcefulness that is inherent with what we like to do. That maybe makes it even more so that that's a thing in the outdoor industry compared to other industries. Is that a thing in the outdoor industry compared to other industries?

Jimmy: 22:43

Is that a thing? Yeah, I'm not sure. You know. I always say I'm not a psychologist, but if you're in retail, you're definitely a part-time sociologist. You have no choice, because that's all retail is. Is this giant sociology experiment?

Jimmy: 22:56

I would say that part of it is. There's an environmental component to it for sure. I think anyone that interfaces with the outdoors frequently and intimately understands the impact of the consumerism that we all embrace on some level. Um, yeah, there's this kind of you know anyone that's spent some time in the outdoors extensively there's the. There is this dirt bag mentality right when, uh, we all really love that piece of gear that we've had for 20 years and is patina and worn out.

Jimmy: 23:41

And I've got a mountain. My first ever backpacking tent was a mountain hardware Mountain Hardware tent that I've now had for 20 years and they've tried to replace it and I won't let them because I have a connection to that tent. So I do think that there is something deeply seated in the culture of the outdoor industry that we've only recently uncovered with this new circular economy and new approach to trying to keep gear alive. If the brands are making great stuff, if they're making high quality stuff, like they claim to be, then this stuff should last longer than you know the cycle that a lot of brands are trying to get us to move on to the next thing, and I think we should all embrace that 100% Awesome what I've.

Dale: 24:33

I've been trying to explore management practices and you said you had like 30, 30 employees. I remember when someone convinced me two things. When they convinced me to start tracking my metrics by like ratios, like payroll as a percentage of sales, shipping as a percentage of sales, track that and keep those things, it kind of blew my mind and was really helpful because I didn't know like where, so that was something for me that helped a lot. Or when I finally got convinced to have like a regular weekly staff meeting, like really regular weekly. There were certain things that just that I found beneficial for my business, for you know variety of reasons. But is there anything that that you feel is a solid helpful? And this, I guess, goes against the creative you you mentioned earlier like I don't want to have a standard procedure for this, that or the other, but there's things that might be helpful for a retailer, like management practices that you feel create a lot of value for you and your team yeah, I think for me it's the courage to say no to good ideas.

Jimmy: 25:48

I think, as a retailer and as a business owner, we have when you're constantly in the lab, right, you're always looking for the next great idea that's going to pivot your business to the next level. And I think oftentimes we have a tendency to just say yes to everything and try everything, and that makes it difficult to maintain a profitable business, because everything has a cost. Every yes has a cost. It's either a financial cost or a time cost. So I think, having the courage to just say you know, we could do a million different things, but we can only do a few things well, and I think the financial way to think about that is you can only make margin doing a few things. The more you spread yourself thin, the more you make it difficult to drive margin into a business. And I think that's what a lot of business owners struggle with. Is they chase top line, chase revenue, chase sales, chase things, and there's a lot of levers you can pull to do those things, but at what cost to the structure of your business?

Jimmy: 27:02

The people that work in your business, um, I think you know, find two or three things that you can just do really well and and do them better than every everybody else, and those, the businesses that commit to that, tend to be more profitable because they're not just burning through cash trying to chase every little idea that may or may not, uh, pan out.

Jimmy: 27:26

Now, that's not to say don't stay in the lab, because I think you have to cut and be radically committed to challenging all your ideas and all all your preconceived notions about you run your business, but ultimately that doesn't mean you land on 10 things to execute, right, that still should only be a few. And I think that's what gets most people in trouble is they try to do too much. And that's the best thing you can do for your team, right? Because if your team wakes up every morning not knowing which Dale they're going to get, what's Dale going to have us chasing today, you burn them out real fast. So I think being radically committed to just doing what you can do really well the hardest thing to do it truly is the hardest thing to do.

Dale: 28:08

I feel like you've been talking to previous employees of mine, or something.

Jimmy: 28:11

Yeah, yeah, because it's hard.

Dale: 28:16

There's a book by Gary Keller he's the real estate guy Keller Williams called the One Thing and he's like, look, priorities is not even like. It used to just be priority, it wasn't pluralized. You have to choose one thing and it's a whole soundtrack of reasons why you should do actually exactly what you're saying. But we so want to have like this multifaceted. You know, multiple priorities in a day, lots of different forks to our strategy. You know, and, and it's more exciting and um, or you know, we think, but I love that. Uh, yeah, I have to listen to that. I'm probably due because I too often will spread myself too thin.

Jimmy: 29:02

Yeah, I love the way I think about it is the courage to say no to good ideas.

Outro: 29:09

And.

Jimmy: 29:09

I, I, you should, you should. Anytime you say no to a good idea, you should can feel like that's a victory because you're keeping yourself focused, you know. And I, if you, if you ask, ask yourself, have I said no to a good idea in the last few months? The answer is no, and you're, you're probably spread pretty thin and you know, multitasking, like the concept of multitasking, I love because it's a myth, right? Nobody multitasks. Yeah, anybody that says they're great at multitasking, they're probably just bad at doing any of those things really well because they're not focused, you know. So, yeah, it's something I think about a lot. You, you say you struggle with it. We all do, I do, you know it's uh, but I think it's so critical.

Dale: 29:55

Yeah, Well, and it's good. At least I know that I struggle with it and then I can fight that battle you know Right.

Dale: 30:01

I took yeah, I took social off my phone years ago. I took email off my phone two years ago and a month ago I took Safari off my phone. I still cheat and use Chrome, cause sometimes you have to with like QR codes. But it's amazing just how many places our attention can go without us knowing, and I think the same thing happens can be put out into our business too. It's funny. You say like, hey, which Dale is going to show up in the business? Or you know which Jimmy's going to show up in the business today. Man, that's the worst thing ever to work for a boss who isn't consistent and clear in their approach and who might bring you know different, different priorities or different moods, or even worse.

Jimmy: 30:48

One of my, one of my favorite thoughts around this very topic.

Jimmy: 30:51

I'm sure you know who Bobby Knight was is was famous basketball coach, tyrannical right, had a reputation of being really difficult, and I remember an interview with one of his players. This was probably 20 years ago. They asked the player why, why, why, why are you playing for Bobby Knight? That's, that's absurd. Why would you? There's so many other places you can go. And he said because I walk in every day and I know exactly who he's going to be. And I thought, wow, that's powerful, that's so great he's like.

Jimmy: 31:22

I know who he is, I know what he expects from me, I know what I have to do to meet his expectations and I'm excited to go to war with him every day, even though he's so hard on me. I know exactly who he is, I know exactly what I'm going to get every day and I'll continue to go to battle with him. And that changed my whole perspective on what a great leader can be. You know, there's a million different ways to lead, a million different types of energy you can bring, but the team needs to know who you are and they need to know who you're going to be tomorrow.

Dale: 32:02

Yeah, I love that Awesome. Yeah, I've got a good buddy who sold like seven businesses, really successful and super hard to deal with, like really intense. And one of the commenters said I worked for this guy for two years, you know way back, and it was one of the most amazing professional experiences I've ever had. And the way that he gets crap done and like pushes up, you know that just like. I think that it's true with him too. He's very consistent in his approach and it could be called tyrannical or whatever, but he's very consistent and he always had really great results. And you know, you look at Steve jobs and there's other these other people that do amazing things. It's not like always the warmest, fuzziest thing, but I love your that.

Jimmy: 32:58

That, uh, the focus on just having a clear strategy, being consistent, the focus on just having a clear strategy, being consistent, yeah, awesome, and that's that's not to excuse bad behavior. You know Bobby Knight and sometimes other leaders have a tendency to say well, this is just who I am, so deal with it. You know, there's a way to treat people and that's important. But I think your team needs to know every day, when they walk in, who you are, what your expectations are, and I think that goes a long way.

Dale: 33:26

Yeah, love it. Awesome. Any other parting advice that you'd like to leave to any of us, industry, outdoor industry folks or other retailers?

Jimmy: 33:39

Yeah, I wouldn't be. I wouldn't be so presumptuous to think that necessarily I have any particular wisdom that's useful for anybody of. If you're an entrepreneur and you want to start a business or continue a business and run a business, what's the point if you're not doing it your way right? There are so many corporations where you could come in and get nine promotions and build a great career and have a happy life and financial freedom. What is the point of taking this journey if, when you're 95 years old on your deathbed, you can't look back and say I'm proud of how I did that?

Jimmy: 34:34

because I did it the only way I could have done it. No one else could have done it that way, because that was me. The money that either works or it doesn't it. No one else could have done it that way because that was me. Um, you know the money and the. You know that either works or it doesn't. Um either grow or you don't. Uh, there's a lot of potential outcomes, but I think the only thing, when it's all said and done, that really matters is um, did you serve your community in a way that you're proud of? Um, because if you didn't, I don't think anything else is ultimately going to matter, and those businesses tend to wash out pretty quickly regardless. So you know whoever you are, whatever it is you care about, just chase your perspective and your unique talents and put your fingerprint and you might just change an industry right, and I think those are the people that ultimately do.

Dale: 35:30

Love it, Jimmy. Thanks for taking the time to meet with me today.

Jimmy: 35:35

Oh, so grateful for the chat, thanks for the time and thanks for the invite.

Outro: 35:41

Awesome Okay, thanks again, thank you for joining us on the Adventure Retail Podcast. Until next time, keep exploring, keep innovating and remember you're not alone on this retail journey. See you on the trail.