Climbing to Success: Rick Spicer’s Journey from Outdoor Enthusiast to Pack Rat Center Leader

In this episode, Dale dives into discussion with Rick Spicer, part-owner of the Pack Rat Outdoor Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Rick shares his fascinating journey from college student to outdoor retail veteran, with over 25 years of experience in the business. Together, they dive into the art of community building through unique events like the Brewhouse Bushwhack, the intricacies of transitioning ownership in a small business, and the lessons learned in managing people and inventory. Rick candidly reflects on challenges in the outdoor retail world, shares actionable advice for new retailers, and highlights the importance of leaning into passions and embracing collaboration.

Whether you’re an outdoor enthusiast or an aspiring retailer, this episode is packed with insights to inspire and inform.

Chapters

• 0:23 Rick's Journey starts with an introduction to his background, followed by his path to joining Pack Rat Outdoor Center. It then covers the history of the Pack Rat Outdoor Center and concludes with an overview of Rick’s current roles and responsibilities.
• 3:00 Rick’s expertise and involvement include his role as a survival instructor and his work with Boulder Outdoor Survival School. He also has teaching experience in Utah and a strong passion for outdoor education.
• 4:17 Rick's involvement in community and events includes building community and leveraging outdoor expertise for events, as well as organizing Pint Nights and partnering with nonprofits. His ownership insights cover his experience with buying into the busines
• 6:20 Building Community Through Adventure Races
• 9:43 Rick discusses event success and challenges, including competing with large retailers through community efforts, an overview of the Brewhouse Bushwhack event, and the challenges of organizing the event, including the crucial role of volunteers.
• 15:43 Advice for Retailers: Tips for building community and creating events based on personal passions.
• 18:20 Future Plans: Discussion on future collaboration and event planning.
• 20:38 Management principles and delegation techniques from Rick’s experience.
• 20:50 Effective Delegation and Time Management
• 24:22 Learning and Tools: Tools and resources for better organization and delegation.
• 30:04 Navigating Challenges in Outdoor Retail
• 32:49 Advice for New Retailers: Specialization, challenges in retail, and valuing relationships.
• 34:41 Specialization and Feedback: Benefits of specializing and listening to staff feedback.

Transcript

Intro: 0:02

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: 0:23

Rick, thanks for making the time to meet with me today.

Rick: 0:27

It's great. I'm happy to be here, thank you.

Dale: 0:29

Cool, all right, so we're going to jump right in. I want you to give us an overview of what got you here, so you have well, maybe first off your store name and then how you ended up being in retail.

Rick: 0:42

Yeah, so my shop is called the Pack Rat Outdoor Center. It's located in Fayetteville, arkansas, and we're just one door, but we are 51 years old. We were originally started by Scott and Carolyn Crook, and Carolyn is still very much a part of the business here nearly daily. And I got my start when I was actually in college. I was in the University of Arkansas working on getting a degree in environmental, soil and water science, but I was a lot more interested in rock climbing and backpacking and that type of stuff back then and I heard that PACRAP might be looking for some help at that time and so I filled out an application and got a job here, and so I was very much in the middle of my school when I started working here and it was sort of one of those situations, kind of right place at the right time, because I never left. I've been here ever since and that was 25 years ago, so yeah, so at what point?

Dale: 1:43

what's your current, what's your current position then? What's your, what's your role in the shop today?

Rick: 1:49

Yeah, I guess the easiest way you could describe my position. So I'm a part owner of the business now I'm also the equipment buyer and I'm I guess you could say I'm the general manager as well, although I have two other employees that are really the floor managers. I don't manage the floor much or the schedule or anything. It's mostly you know the types of things that owners would deal with and then managing the inventory and the buying process for the equipment. Those are my primary jobs and then in addition to that, I do a lot of event work and a lot of educational work. I've been an outdoor educator for 20 years. I was a climbing instructor with the American Mountain Guide Association for an SBI. I taught climbing for 15 years and outside of that I'm currently actually a survival instructor for the school in Utah called Boulder Outdoor Survival School. I'm a wilderness first responder, so I always had a strong kind of interest and willingness to introduce other people to the outdoors and get them excited about learning about it.

Dale: 3:00

Yeah, wow. So you teach for a school based in Utah?

Rick: 3:04

Yeah, wow so you teach for a school based in Utah? I do. Yeah, I don't get to do it nearly as much as I'd like, but it was a school that I personally wanted to attend for years and I finally, many years ago, had an opportunity to do that. And the way you become an instructor there is you get asked to come back after a course, and I was asked to come back and it took me several seasons of going out there for a few weeks at a time, but eventually I became an instructor there, and so when I can, I'll go out and I'll. I'll spend anywhere from two to four weeks a season out there trying to help run these immersive wilderness programs that are in the Escalante Monument area in southern Utah.

Dale: 3:46

Wow. So you know I would love to partner with you to host some sort of event. Let's start with a survival event in Utah. I could be a well and I want to dig into that for you. Like you've really leveraged your expertise and your love of the outdoors and survival in in branding your business and building community.

Rick: 4:17

I've certainly done my best to do that. I'm still learning all the time. I mean I'm not an expert in anything. I'm still learning all the time. I mean I'm I'm not an expert in anything. I think my, my special power is my stubbornness and my unwillingness to sort of quit at anything, and so a lot of it just comes from trying stuff and you know that doesn't work. So you try something different but you don't give up. But building community is something that's been really important to Packer at for years and years now, and you know we do everything we do. We host six pint nights a year and the last one that we did this spring we raised about $5,000 in one evening for a local nonprofit group, a Raptor Rehabilitation, veterinary Operation, and so you know we're real proud of the partnerships that we've been able to do there and kind of reinvest in our community.

Dale: 5:10

Yeah, okay. So I've got a couple of questions based on I'd love to learn more about how you kind of bought into the business and just there there are a lot of people who are either later on in the path, maybe similar to the owner that started it 30 years before you came on board, and then they see a promising employee and they kind of integrate them in. I've chatted with several retailers that kind of have done that. It'd be interesting to hear a little bit more about that path, and then, after I want to go into your event strategy with the Brewhouse Bushwhack and maybe dig into that a little bit more. So first, though, how did that go? And maybe any advice for people that are getting into a shop that might take it over or might, you know, want to buy in?

Rick: 6:06

Yeah, I mean it really when you're when it's a small, local kind of nonprofit not nonprofit, excuse me independently owned type of business. What I learned about it is that the process is quite complicated, and so there was a lot of legal processes involved, and so this was a vision that Scott and Carolyn had probably 20 years yeah, at this point I'd say 20 years ago because they recognized that after they were gone, they wanted the pack rat to continue to be what it was and what they built it into. To continue to be what it was and what they built it into. And so, in our case at the time, there were three long-term managers that had been here, and in order to qualify for the program, you had to be here a minimum of five years, and then at that point, they basically built into our compensation. We had the opportunity to work off our ownership, or sort of buy into it through our as part of our, our wages, if you will. Now, obviously, that had to be drawn up legally, and Carolyn could speak to that much better than I can in terms of exactly how that was done, but what the way it worked is that we gained a certain percentage, as an individual, of ownership per year through a period of five years, and at the end of five years it was left, so that Carolyn still owned the majority she still owns about 55% of the business and then the other three managers split. The other 45 was split amongst the three.

Rick: 7:56

One of those people has since left. She decided that she was ready to go a different way in life, and she was, at the time, our longest tenured employee other than Carolyn, and so now it's just Kevin and I and so, and of course, carolyn, who's still here all the time, and so I think what it did for I mean, I can't speak for everyone exactly, but I think I know what it did for me and I have a hunch. What it did for them is to, which is exactly what Scott and Carolyn wanted it to do was to create this sense of ownership, and this like direct participation in the process of what the business was becoming and what direction it was going to go, and so we very much believe in making decisions based on consensus. Everyone has a say Ultimately.

Rick: 8:50

Carolyn still owns most of the business. She owns the building. It's her final say, but she's always been really receptive to our feedback and the types of things that we think are important for the direction that Packer Eye wants to go, and a huge part of that is community. It's not always about profitability per se. None of us are doing this because it's the way to make the most money in life. If that's your thing, it's probably not the job you want to be in.

Dale: 9:21

Maybe consider getting into commercial real estate.

Rick: 9:24

Right, exactly, there's other things you could do, but I think we're all very passionate about the outdoors, we're all very passionate about protecting the environment, conservation, and this is a way that we can be involved in those things, build community and make a living while we do it, and so yeah, I love it.

Dale: 9:43

And you guys, in our conversation before we started recording, we talk about how do you compete against Amazon, and you guys have put a lot of energy into building community. Could you maybe and you're 10 years into this Bruja Bushwhack, give or take, right, you're going on your 10th year, so you're there. How does someone could you tell us a little bit more about, maybe, some of the uncertainty? And well, first off, you have what you said you get 400 people to that.

Rick: 10:25

Yeah, on average it could be a little more or a little less, but on average it's probably 400 people.

Dale: 10:48

So that's a success. You're known for that. People enjoy it. It sells out have tripped you up. That a lot of people you know, because there's a lot of this, is a rare thing for you to come up with an event and be on year 10. That doesn't happen every day.

Rick: 11:03

Right, yeah, I mean I'm not going to lie Like this event is complicated and it's a passion project for sure. It takes a lot of really high qualified volunteers and people that that I can trust to pull it off. I mean that's one of the things I want to emphasize is like this thing is not just me, it's not me doing all of this, it's a big crew of of people that they care a lot about doing it and that's what makes it work. Um and so um, you know, in the beginning it's funny, it happened almost by accident one of the guys in town that owns one of our local breweries this, the shop called fossilossil Cove, or a brewery called Fossil Cove that we've had a really long-term good relationship with, was in the store one day and it was me and a couple other of the staff at the time and it was literally by accident. We started like brainstorming this thing because it was slow that day and the more we talked about it, the more I was like this sounds incredible and I have a background too in adventure racing.

Rick: 12:08

I used to. I've competed in other adventure races and I've also. I was a rigger for ropes courses for adventure through other adventure races, specifically one called the Ozark Challenge. That was very popular here in the 90s and you know, adventure racing, like a lot of sports, goes through its ups and downs and in the early 2000s or maybe you know, mid 2000s, adventure racing, from my perspective anyway, really was kind of dead. There wasn't a lot happening in the traditional sense like the Eco Challenge and those types of races. What was popular were the Spartan races and the Tough Mudders and all that and I was competing and doing those just for fun, you know athletic events but I always felt like something was missing from those and I really love that old school idea of you know, going out and orienteering and doing all that.

Rick: 13:02

But you know, to me I don't know if I'm going to do something. I don't want to do what's been done before. I want to make things unique and interesting and provide an experience that maybe people don't have an opportunity to do in other places skills and nature, identification and all that type of stuff and so sort of selfishly, I just was like what, what would be like an awesome day in the woods? It'd be like really cool to go out and use a map and compass and do a bunch of hiking, maybe paddle a canoe, go, you know, look for animal sign, do some first aid scenarios, get some rope course scenario involved in there. I mean just all the stuff that I love to do, and it turns out a whole bunch of other people love to do that stuff too.

Rick: 13:55

And the other thing I guess about it is like I've made a ton of mistakes over the years. You can't be afraid. You can't not do something because you're afraid of making mistakes, because you're going to make them. That's just part of it. What's important is empowering other people around you to sort of be able to problem solve and fix those. And you know, learn from your mistakes and move forward, you know so yeah, so you're this.

Dale: 14:22

This is an embodiment. This event is an embodiment of your past experience that you were kind of expert in. So it's uh not that somebody couldn't do it, they didn't have that skill but you're very much going with your existing tailwind to say, hey look, I've done adventure races, I've done the tough mudders. I teach you these things. How can I build, uh, an event around all of these passions?

Rick: 14:46

Yeah, I mean pretty much. But at the same time it was like that, combined with me knowing a lot of great A, having a staff that bought into it, then that was excited as I was about doing it, and then also having a bunch of people in our community that either remembered some of that those old adventure race like the ozark challenge or was just like you know what. This sounds cool. And the other neat thing about this event is like we'll have people sign up and do the race and then maybe a few years later they become volunteers. Um, and, and there's, I've had so many people be like you know what I may not race, but I want to be involved in this as long as I can be, and so if I'm not racing, I'm going to be a volunteer, and then sometimes volunteers, they learn stuff and they get experience and then they become racers and it goes both ways and I think it's awesome.

Dale: 15:43

So so is it kind of like a spartan race and like a bushcraft, you know, field day like kind of thing like is it a?

Rick: 15:53

mix, except it's really, it's spread out, I guess, like the thing about a spartan race is different. Well, first of all, it's not nearly as athletic, there's you know. So our slogan is you race for points, not for time on this thing, and so you can come in last and win. Being fast and being strong only helps you in the sense that you can move faster from point A to point B to complete the challenges.

Dale: 16:19

So you've weighted down athleticism, so it's like it may help, but it's not going to be a factor, it's not going to be the driving factor.

Rick: 16:26

Correct. Now. Undoubtedly the teams that usually place high are very athletic teams because they can move fast. The one we just did in April, the winning team, I think they went about 14 miles in seven hours and that's on top of doing a ton of skill work and challenges shooting a bow and arrow, doing first aid scenarios, paddling a canoe, doing friction fire, all kinds of stuff. These are really skilled people that are coming out and doing this stuff. Especially the last maybe four or five years. It's become very competitive and you see these same teams just neck and neck trying to outdo each other every year. And this team this year, a team that had been in the top three for like oh, I forget maybe two, three years, now they, they came up in one and I was. It was awesome, I was so happy yeah.

Dale: 17:24

Dang, that sounds, that sounds so cool. Yeah, I love it. So yeah, you, you leveraged a lot of your experience. So maybe for other shop owners and other you know other people in your situations how can I build community? What kind of event could I do? Maybe you'd look what are my passions, what am I?

Rick: 17:47

skilled at absolutely, I think, leaning into your personal, your own strengths and and what you love to do. I mean to me it's if you don't like doing it, it's probably not worth doing. I mean, that's kind of where I'm at too. It's like I have very limited amount of time. I mean I have a family, two kids. I, you know, run packer out. I have another small business that I personally own, so I mean I'm a busy guy and so to me it's like I'm really only interested in getting putting my energy and getting involved in things that I enjoy doing and that I think that others see value in.

Rick: 18:20

So lean into your strengths and not just your own strengths, but like look around in your staff or your friends, your community, and like recognize the strengths of the people around you. I mean there's all kinds of people that help out with this thing and other events that we do, that are just very generous people, but they're also highly skilled people, whether that's, you know, uh, medical, you know EMTs, search and rescue, first responder, that type of stuff. Sometimes they're swift water people. I mean, you know, that's the awesome thing about the outdoor community, I think, is that you don't have to look very far to find people that are, a willing to help and, b that are really legitimately skilled people that you know, if you create that community around it, a lot of times they're very willing to help.

Dale: 19:15

Love it Cool. Well, I'm going to hit you up because I want to have an adventure challenge for a lot of different reasons.

Rick: 19:20

Cool In Utah, so yeah, let's talk.

Dale: 19:21

We should absolutely talk. I think I love that Cool. Well, and I and I do want to make a I need to find a way to come out to one of yours. That'd be awesome. Ok, so tell me what you know. Let's go to two directions. So first, if you were actually no, let's go to this other thing. First, management, just general business management, right, so you've been in, you've been involved in PACRAP for what? 20 years? I've been here 25 years. Like management principle or technique that you think has helped you a lot, that you maybe were a part of, like pre it being implemented, and then post, like whether that's employee reviews or a different way to track metrics or a different way to manage your sales floor. Is there something that you have that you're doing a lot differently now and seeing good results from that you didn't do, say, 15 years ago?

Rick: 20:38

Golly, that's a really good question. I think there's probably a whole lot of like small things that end up collectively making a big difference. Okay, um, I know that. You know, for me, staying organized is really critical. If you're super busy, it's so easy for something to get away from you. You know, maybe there's people in your staff that need something from you and you're like, yeah, I'll get to it. And then time goes by and you still haven't gotten to it, but you owe that thing to those people by, and you still haven't gotten to it, but you owe that thing to those people.

Rick: 21:18

And so, you know, finding a way to stay organized and be on a timeline and if you tell your staff you're going to do something, doing your best to follow through with that thing by when you said you were, is really important. And if you're, if you can't, like, letting them know you can and why, and just being getting in front of that, because you know, I think that, again, being a trustworthy person and being someone that like is looked at as as, uh, the type of person that is going to do what they followed through, what they said they were going to do on for me, I think, is just a really like core principle of the type of person I try to be and I think that you, you get more respect out of people if you behave that way. And and I know that because I've made mistakes in the past you know, uh, I, I something, somebody needed something and and there was maybe not as big a priority to me and I didn't realize how big a priority it was to that person. And then you know it's just again, it's just a time thing, uh, when you're so busy. But, um, I think, if you say you're going to do something following through on it which I know that's really broad, but I think it's really important, it's true, um, and then, um, I think my biggest thing most recently that I'm like in the middle of working on right now that I'm really bad at, is delegating. Um, I have had experiences in the past where I tried to give responsibility to other people and that didn't go so well. And then I, my response in my own head was basically like, okay, yeah, that's why I didn't do it in the first place. Then you take it back and you never get anywhere and you just keep adding to your to-do list, but then that causes all kinds of other problems.

Rick: 23:02

And so, you know, we have gone through a lot of change.

Rick: 23:06

We have a very young staff relative to what Packrat has traditionally had right now, after we, one of our owners left and our main floor manager left, and all that happened just over a year ago, and so, but even though sometimes in the moment those things are painful, I think we're in a really good spot because of the freshness of perspective that we have and allowing some other people's voices to kind of come in and play a bigger role in sort of the, the, the culture, internal culture of the store and, and you know, doing our best to be transparent with our people and, um, being like, hey, look, we're all in this together and, at the end of the day, what I want most is for people to come to work and feel respected and enjoy their job as much as they can, and so, you know, taking feedback and implementing that as often as you can.

Rick: 24:02

There's going to be plenty of times when you were going to get feedback and you're like, hey, I get it. That would be great if we could do that, but it's just not where we're at right now, for you know, whatever it may be, um but, if you can't um just be having an honest conversation about it, I think is super important.

Dale: 24:22

Mm-hmm, I love it. Uh, you know it's. Is there anything that you've done specifically, or like a tool or book you read, or resource or somebody else's example to help you realize that you weren't as organized as you should be?

Rick: 24:39

I actually I had an opportunity. So I was part of an entrepreneur program here in Northwest Arkansas recently, this spring. It was up in Bentonville. There's a program called Greenhouse Center for Entrepreneur Development. It's GORP is the name of it and it was actually for another small business that I'm running.

Rick: 25:03

But through that program, kind of unexpectedly, I had an opportunity to take a very in-depth personality assessment and I don't want to get it all wrong, I don't want to say it wrong, but I can get you the details of that and even the person that administered the test. But it was about a three-hour written test that I took. It was followed up with a series of meetings. One was in person, where this individual he's a professor at the University of Arkansas and he went through what all the metrics of the personality assessment meant and didn't open anyone's actual report. And then, individually, we we met with him, um, and it was very eye opening for me. I mean none of it, I would say, was a surprise. Uh, everything you read it was like, okay, that tracks, this track, so on and so forth. But the things that he pulled out, um, when we had our one-on-one discussion about, like, what the things that I struggle with are and the way that my decision-making process works, was pretty eye-opening, and one of the best pieces of advice that he gave to me was that you need to ask for help sooner than you think and you need to give when you, when you delegate, you need to give responsibilities away very slowly because of your the past. You have where, with that kind of blow it up in your face a little bit, and so I have begun been working out pretty well, and so I think I you know, as a almost 45 year old guy, I think that sometimes, for me anyway, I just put my head down and I just keep pushing, keep driving and trying to be like you know, I can, I can. If I just work hard enough, I'll get all of this done, everything that I need to do.

Rick: 27:16

But I think it's important to know where your your limits are and where you need to ask for help, because there's other people that are smarter than you or understand things better than you. And then the other part of that is that it's actually learning to ask for help and things. It's not a weakness, it's a strength. You know it's. It's learning to you know that not everybody knows everything, and I'll be the first one to admit that.

Rick: 27:44

I mean, even in retail I've been doing this 25 years there's all kinds of I learned stuff all the time and there's all sorts of things that either a I don't, I may, I'm not as good at it as some people or B quite frankly, it's just not that interesting to me and I would rather have someone else who's better at it or more interested in it be working on that component of the business with the stuff that I love the community building, the, you know the skills, you know those types of things that I really love that make my shop what it is and make it unique. And then, when it comes to you know, marketing and bookkeeping and a lot of these other things, like, go find other people that can lean into those things that are way better at it than I am.

Dale: 28:30

Anyway, yeah, or or a a 90 minute line review of a new apparel line with the different colors and things. You might like hard goods better.

Rick: 28:39

Yeah, exactly yeah, I'm only a buyer because I can buy hard goods. Yeah, if I had a bag on your footwear, I would probably not be that's how I was too.

Dale: 28:51

I'm like I do not want to sit through and look at any of this clothing. I know the colors change and I can't dress myself anyways Like I'm not the guy to do this.

Rick: 28:59

Me neither. I wear a t-shirt and a hat every single day of my life.

Dale: 29:04

Yeah Well, I wore a collared shirt for you today.

Dale: 29:08

So, yeah, the. You know, it's funny that you mention the just becoming more reliable at the end of the day and every project that I've done. Yeah, when you can work with people who say, oh, I haven't done that yet, or I can't do that, or I don't know the right, like just being very clear about, yes, I'll do that for you, but not this week, I'll do it next week. Oh, I can't do that today, I'm too busy, I will do that tomorrow. Um, I, I work with my brother, bruce, and I, I I trust him and everybody else trusts him because he's very good at just, he has a list and everything he ever commits to. You know that it's in his world and it won't.

Dale: 29:51

It made it to the list where, in my first business, I had an aunt that worked for me, who would, who showed me that I wasn't actually very reliable because, you know, working with her for a long time she's a deal. Did you do this yet? Oh, no, not. Yet she comes back two hours later. Did you get that done? I need that done, oh, okay, ok, no one's done that to me as the boss before, right, but she was my aunt, you know, right, and, and it was cool to work in that higher level of accountability. Yeah, and everything goes better when people are just straight up.

Rick: 30:25

No, it's true. I mean, accountability is important and you know, again, I'm not immune from making mistakes and forgetting things. But I know that about myself. And if I, I don't love the fact that I have to do it, but I live and die by my calendar and if it doesn't get written on my calendar it's kind of not real to me.

Dale: 30:44

And I know that about me because you emailed me earlier this morning to say I didn't get a confirmation here what's the meeting, what time. This was four hours before and and I can tell that, yeah, that's a, that's a strength of yours for sure.

Rick: 31:01

Cool.

Dale: 31:02

Awesome One QBP quality bike products. They had a. They had this like personnel or it was like a management matrix of of like they called it behaviors, personal responsibilities, management matrix of of like they called it behaviors, personal responsibilities and one of them. One of the things they wanted people to realize was that your perspective is only one of many perspectives, and I think that's a bit of what you're saying, like it's not right or wrong. Your perspective is, perspective is one of many.

Rick: 31:31

Yeah, absolutely yeah, and and I I remembered it, the the assessment that I took is called the Hogan assessment.

Dale: 31:38

Ah see, I've heard of that one.

Rick: 31:39

Yeah, I didn't want to say it wrong, but I remembered it so, um, so, if you know, if anyone watches this and they have any questions, they're welcome to send me an email about that, because I it really was a pretty eyeopening process, um, and I could, and I could direct them to some additional resources related to that if they're interested, but it is a time-consuming commitment to go through it.

Dale: 32:05

Well, you're in it 25 years, so it sounds like that's made a meaningful difference in your trajectory.

Rick: 32:10

Yeah, and I've actually turned other people on to it since then and they have given me similar feedback that they were like hey, thanks for telling me about this trajectory. Yeah, and I've actually turned other people on to it since then and I've had they have given me similar feedback that they were like hey, thanks for telling me about this. I found a lot of value in it.

Dale: 32:21

So Love it Okay, so we're at time. We have time for one more question. Cause I'm going to go? Cause I asked permission if I could go a couple minutes over, yeah. That's what we're doing um, so you could your uh advice that you'd give to a new retailer starting up oh golly, uh, yeah and you'd mention that not being the specialized piece yeah, for sure.

Rick: 32:49

I mean, don't be afraid to specialize. But I think the first question I'd ask him is like what, what is it that you're trying to get out of becoming an outdoor retailer? Like what's what's the end goal there, um, for you? And like, what are you gonna do that isn't already being done 100 other places with people that probably have more resources and assets than you do? Um, and that's not to scare anyone away, but it's just a kind of like, bring in this awareness of, like, what you're up against right now, like this is a very challenging.

Rick: 33:19

I mean again been doing this a long time. I've never it's never been as complicated as it is now and it's never been as hard and challenging as it is right now. And you know we have a lot of things going for us. You know, being where we are, um, with the great crew that we have, the history 51 years in business that we have, um, we have an amazing facility 15,000 square foot log cabin. I mean we're, we're in like a, we have a lot of great things going for us and all those things.

Rick: 33:50

It's still hard, um, and so you know I I kind of half joking, half jokingly, but not really I'm like man, I'm working twice as hard as I was, you know, two years ago, making less money right now. It's like this is kind of what it is, and if you can't laugh about that then you probably shouldn't become a retailer. Yeah, it's kind of how I look at it. But at the same time, I think the benefits of it are the people, the relationships and the opportunities, and so if you value those types of things a lot, then I think you can find a way to make a living doing this and you know it's going to be worthwhile. But if you're doing it because, oh, outdoor gear is cool and I could, you know, make a lot of money doing that, I would, I would think real hard. Uh, before you, you know, wanted to. If that was your reasoning, so to speak.

Dale: 34:41

Yeah, Love it. Tell me one one little bit about. You said uh, another thing you added that I thought was really interesting and that you've lived out really well in your business was don't be afraid to specialize and also, um it, you know, don't be afraid of just being a little weird trying for sure.

Rick: 35:03

Well, don't be afraid of being a weird in the sense that, like you know, again, my, my version of that is you come in here in a in a very much a traditional outdoor shop. You, you know, we got Patagonia, we got Yakum, we got Osprey, we got all those things that you expect to see in a shop like this. But we also have, like, some really interesting niche American made stuff which I'm super proud of. We have traditional bows and arrows, we have a bushcraft knives. You know, we have some unique items that you're not going to find in a lot of other types of shops.

Rick: 35:37

And the other thing I think to go along with that is like listen to your people. Like, if you've got key staff that are on your sales floor, they're having more conversations with your customers than you probably are, and so if you're not taking their advice, then you're selling yourself short, and, and so you need to routinely have conversations with the people that are selling the stuff that you're buying or that you're bringing in your store. Just like, just the other day, one of my guys actually not just multiple of my employees were like hey, we're getting a lot of people asking for outdoor quilts, like I had tried quilts in the past and never had a whole lot of success for them with them, and but I was like you know what. It's been a while since we really did much with quilts, like let's bring them in, let's see what happened or what happens with them. We haven't had many for a while just yet they're still kind of new in the store.

Rick: 36:33

But I think that does two things. One is it shows that employee that you were listening to their feedback and you're actually doing something based upon what they told you to do. And then if it sells, that's great for you. And if it doesn't sell, that shows them that hey, I listened and it didn't work out and that's OK, but we'll, we'll look, we'll find the next one. But if you just tell people no all the time and you shut them down after a while, they're going to stop coming to you with ideas and that's not going to help you either. And so I think listening is, you know, which is, again, it's sort of a cliche, but, like a lot of people say, it's one thing, say it's another thing to do it and to act upon the feedback you get from listening to people. And so, again, every decision you make can always be about the bottom line, and if that's the way you look at it, maybe being an outdoor retailer is not the right place for you.

Dale: 37:35

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome Cool. Well, it's really been great to chat with you today.

Rick: 37:41

Likewise.

Dale: 37:42

I'm excited to announce our new adventure someday. So we'll figure it out, stay in touch. Send me an email, we'll talk about it. Awesome, thanks so much. All right, thanks Dale.

Outro: 37:52

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.