The Coach's Rant Episode 1. Specialty Running Shoe Stores.

This broadcast is about why Specialty Running Shoes Stores are closing and how to fix the trend.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Good morning and welcome to the first edition of the coaches rant on daily facebook live. I'm one of the great things about doing these things live is that you'll get to hear that I'm still getting over. I'm about with whatever the bout was, so my voice is a little bit off. You may hear the dogs chasing the deer in the backyard and a couple of deer run through and of course I might hack up along as we're going through this as well. Um, but that's the advantages of being live. Everything's real. Um, and so I decided that I wanted to start doing my podcast, but also a live presentation that people could watch, tune into, um, ask questions if you needed to ask questions. Um, as the show's going on, it seems to me it'd be a lot easier format and I have to thank facebook for having such a great format that we can use to get to get out to people. I'm also recording the show for itunes listeners. And also for my mp four listeners later on if they wanted, if they wanted to dial in. But

: 0:59

Today I want to start off with, as many of you know, if you've listened to me over the years, one of my favorite topics is specialty running shoe stores, although today is a little bit different take you. Over the years we have seen a steady decline in sales in specialty running stores and we've seen a steady decline in the number of specialty running shoe stores out there. In fact, the last study done between 2007 to 2012 there were 1,343 specialty running shoe stores across the country. Privately owned specialty running shoe stores, independent specialty running stores. In 2012, that number was down to 1,254. What's the reason? Well, there's a couple of reasons.

Speaker 1: 1:46

I owned a specialty running shoe store and I saw the decline in sales and the decline in sales were due to people buying shoes online. Right? We see the opportunity to buy the same shoe you have in the specialty running shoe store for$100, say, and you can go online and find it for$80. Look, it doesn't take a genius to say, I'm going to buy that shoe allied. I've already used coaches expertise in the store and the one time that I needed it, now I know the product that I wanted. I liked this product. I'm going to go buy it online and we have a tendency to want to say, well, this is Amazon's fault, or this is Zappos fault, or this is this big online companies full. Well, no, it's not their fault. We live in a capitalistic society and they're thinking about business and their businesses to sell online and you can't fault them for wanting to be successful and and and so as, as angry as it makes me. Some times it's just the bottom line. There are large successful company and you're going to see a continual dropoff in the independently owned specialty running stores. The ones that are out there that do have a successful track record, are very active in their community, are now being bought up by the big guys, you know, which is now Jack Rabbit sports. It was buying up stores across the country and the larger their franchiser store ownership base becomes the more buying power they have, which gives them the ability to sell it lesser prices than their competitor. Now they're not supposed to. Here's where I think the real blame is, and I think the real blame is with the manufacturers. The manufacturers are your biggest competitor to the specialty running shoe store. You know, why is the manufacturer saying Amazon? It's okay, push my shoes online. Why is the manufacturer selling directly online? What kinds of support does the manufacturer showing that specialty running shoe store owner when they're selling their shoes online, direct to the public, or they're putting their over an ambula Amazon direct to the public. And that I think is a trend that as it continues, but it's only going to hurt that specialty running shoe store more. Um, and it, that. And in fact is one of the things that always infuriated me, you know, if you live in an area where you have to commute to a store, what do you want to do? I mean, it's so much easier to go on Amazon to buy that shoe, right? Or it's so much easier to go on. I'm ultra running or Newton or saucony or whoever's website and buy that shoe and have it shipped to your house. That's where the problem comes in. The problem doesn't come in from the fact that, you know, Amazon is a big business. The problem was in where, what is Amazon allowed to sell and what does Amazon allowed to sell out? And I think another trend that doesn't help the specialty running store is there an inability to get out to the public in more creative ways. And I think as a specialty running store, you know, past owner and someone who's been involved in running shoe business for over 30 years. I think that there's a lot of things that specialty running shoe store owners can do, um, to increase their sales and get not not get more people in the door, but get more shoes off their shelves and get more shoes out of their back room. And that's the bottom line, right? You want to get those shoes out of the bathroom, you want to get them on your feet. How many specialty running stores have become client centric but yet are getting themselves in a position to deliver product to their customers because basically that's your product one. Look, if we go back and we'd take a look at the surge of Internet sales, right? And, and we, we investigate a couple of companies, right? We take border books and, and, and Barnes and nobles and that they thought Amazon was a joke. They said this Internet thing is never going to work. Well guess what? Amazon wasn't a joke. No more borders books. No more barnes and nobles. Why? Because Amazon was giving people something that they wanted the ability to just go boop, boop, boop. And it's here the next day, rather than get in my car, drive 25 miles to a bookstore, surf through the bookstore. And another great story that I, I like to share, and I heard this story from a motivational guy one time, he talks about the downfall of blockbuster blockbuster. It actually created a report that talked about people coming in to the store picking up dvds on the chance that they might meet one of their neighbors and eating popcorn bag. And that's why blockbuster, we never bought a business in Netflix, would never hurt them. Well, this guy pointed out the obvious. He said, look, I want to lay in bed nick and hit a button and get a movie. And so netflix put blockbuster out of business because they didn't want to keep up with the trend of what they needed to do in order to reach their customer base and keep their customer base. And I think specialty running shoe stores, and if you're a specialty running store owner, and I don't, I don't consider fleet feet or Jack Rabbit sports to be specialty running shoe stores anymore because they're so big that they're the ones that are going to survive in the industry. I'm talking about mom and pop guys and Gals who are in this industry and want to survive in this industry. How are you going to do it? You have to create a customer centric system that allows you to get to your customer without them coming to the store. How do you do that? It's simple. You know, we see online and I know I, I get inundated with these facebook guys. Buy Your clothes here. Will do. If you don't like them, send them back. Right? Well what? It's. It's a novel idea. Look, my girlfriend does it all the time. We get a package clothing into mail. She goes through and says like anything, she sends it back. She likes something, she keeps it. She sends the rest back. What a novel idea. These people have a profile of who she is, what she likes, and they send it out and they and they encouraged her to buy through the system and it's a very simple concept and it's very easy concept and I think specialty running shoe stores should take a look at getting involved in this kind of selling as well. You're a customer comes into the store like my customer comes into my store and I sit down and I go through the whole customer service with them and look, there are a lot of specialty running stores out there who know what they're doing and there's some don't know what they're doing, but if you get into that customer and you help them and you need to start talking about modern terminology. First of all, we need to get rid of the old terminology, stability, motion control, and start talking about modern terminology to your customers and that modern terminology is gait cycle. Foot plant running for. These are the things that your client who comes into the store once to hear about this is how you're going to engage them. This is how you're going to be the knowledgeable expert that they're going to trust with their purchase and their legs and their feet as they get into their, as they get into their running program or continue their running program. When you've established that rapport and that relationship, now you can sit down and create a profile for that customer and say, okay, I know that John Likes to run and this is a an ultra paradigm because he likes the zero drop. He gets a nice way. He's got a wide four foot. He likes that wide plant that he can get. He likes to cushioning in the shoe. That shoe has a mild support mechanism that keeps him nice and stable. So guess what? You said, you've talked to John and you know that John runs about 30 miles a week. Well, if you're in this business, you know that the average running shoe is going to last 400 to 500 miles, right? So at that 500 mile point, or at that 400 mile point, you send out a pair of shoes to John. Very simple to do. You don't even have to send them out. I know a guy here who has a specialty retail shop and he doesn't send to close it. He sends he uber's them over. So you know that John Loves this shoe. You've gone through his gait cycle, so what do you do? You need to be customer centric. You need to be the guy who's going to be different. Instead of having John come to your store, send John a parachute. Say, Hey John, look, I think you're probably at the 400 mile mark and you and your running program. Your shoes might be breaking down a little bit. Here's what we've looked at your profile. Here's this year. You can take a look at it. If you're not ready for this, you send it back. Guess what? You just became an innovator and your neighborhood cause now John's calling his friends up and he's saying over to Mike Smith, play for shoes because he's going to check out your gait cycle. He's going to check out your foot plant. He's going to determine the kind of the shoot you where he's going to talk to you about your running program. He's going to establish a kind of mileage that you put in and then he's gonna take care of you every month by saying, hey look, you don't have to come in anymore. I'm going to send you your shoes, or you know what John, here's a new shoe you might like to try. That fits your foot performance and so now you're sending that shoe to him and you're going an extra yard. You're saying to that customer, I care enough about you that I'm showing you a new product that I think is gonna work for you. If you don't want it, no problem. Mail it back to me. You can do this on a local level and I think these are some of the innovative steps that specialty running shoe owners need to take and if they don't take that step, you're not going to be in business because you can't compete with Jack Rabbit Sports. If you own a mom and pop retail store, retail running shoe store, you can't compete with Jack Rabbit Sports. You can't compete with fleet feet and their stores. Not generally known for the best people in industry, but if you're a mom and pop guy, you're doing it for a reason. You love what you do. Look, I loved being in my running shoe store. I sat in there 12, 13, 14 hours a day just talking to people about running because it's what I love to do. I'd loved correcting people's Gait. I loved watching them walk out the door and the right pair of shoes that I knew were great for them. That's what the mom and pop running shoe store is all about. The guy behind the counter, the owner who cares it guy, he brings in, he trains his staff how to treat people and how to take a look and take care of their feet, their gait cycle, and they're running so they run better and healthier and if you're that guy, what's the next step to staying in business? The next step to staying in business is giving your son your customer something they can't get from any other store is that, hey John, I know who you are. You're my customer. I understand you. I appreciate you. Guess what? Here's the shoe of the month that I think's going to work for you. It might be the same shoe. It doesn't matter, and here's the other thing you can do. You can take a pair of socks and throw it in that box. You know what? There's companies out there were a running shoe. Stores can buy branded socks were a dollar 50 a pair, right? What's a dollar 50 hurt you for$120 shoe sale where your profit margins are, right? So you're saying, Hey John, you're going 400 miles on your shoe. You're getting pretty close to that mileage or the shoe is breaking down. If you need a new pair of shoes, here you are. And guess what? In the box is a free pair of socks. No strings attached. You don't even have to mention it. Guess what? John loves you even more because we all love new socks, right? These are the steps that I think the specialty running shoe store and needs to take. If he's going to stay in business. I don't want to see the specialty running shoe store. Look, I live in a place right now where there are no running shoe stores. I don't have a running shoe store within 60 miles of me, so I have to buy online and it's sad that I have to do that, but I do. And you know what? I would love to be able to go to a running shoe store and say, okay, look, I live way out on the end of Montauk. I live at the end of the world. Take a look at my foot. This is what I generally buy. This is a shoe that I like because I know I can tell this person about my profile, my gait cycle, my foot plant when I like to run in, and if he sends me a pair of shoes every 400 miles, I'm a happy guy. I would much rather give him$130. Then go online and have to buy the shoe from ultra online, go online and buy the shoe from Amazon. You know, it's. It's hard to compete with these guys. You can't blame Amazon. Amazon is not. Amazon does not the bad guy in this there another business rsg and and Jack Rabbit and is now Jack Rabbit. They're not the bad guy in this industry. They're in it to make money just like everyone else. Where the fault is coming is where the average retailer is not being proactive enough to keep their customer base satisfied by reaching out to the customer base. That's what I think you need to do and I'm willing to help teach you that. It's really not that difficult concept. Probably a lot of specialty running stores aren't even listening to this and that's okay, but you know what? If you go to a specialty running store and you are listening to say, Hey, I listened to the coaches podcast the other day and he had a really good idea because I think this idea works. This is how you stay ahead of this is how you stay ahead of the Internet. Right, and that's what you have to do to stay in business. You have to stay ahead of the Internet. We're all competing with the Internet. What we do, look, I have an online training platform. I have an online business. I believe in the Internet. I believe in the scalability of what I do. Thanks to the Internet. So if you're a local running store, you have to figure out your scalability to stay ahead of the Internet because you're doing something entirely different. Look, I don't want to see mom and pop stores go. I'm a big believer right now. The way the industry trend is that five years from now we are not going to see mom and pop retail retail stores around anymore. Um, if they don't start to get proactive more customer centric and find out new and creative, innovative ways to take care of that customer who's been supporting them. Um, how does my way to affect the miles I get on to shoot them your way to fix him. I was a good one to suit. It's great, by the way, has a big effect on the zoo and you know that for years we were out there and we're sitting in, okay, there, there's big guy shoes and I know you met and you're a big guy. Um, you're gonna, you're gonna break down to midsoles. Midsoles have a pair of shoes a lot faster than 160 pound guy is unfortunately at the vinyl Acetate, which is the main compound used in mid soles of the shoes is a spongy product and the firmer against is better for you because you're a size, you're going to want a firmer midsole, the midsole. And that's why if you go into a shoe, you have to go into your store and said, I know I need something a little bit firmer because I'm, you know, I'm 280 pounds. You're going to break that midsole down a little bit faster than the average person does. So you're going to need to think about that. And you can always talk to me about getting a running shoe. I have no problem with helping me with that. My running shoe store does a running form class often they always do gait analysis, but I want a mail and shoes because I love going there. That's, that's great. You love going there and that's fine and you should go there, but not everyone does. Look at the Internet sales numbers. I'm telling you. Not everyone does. Look. I had people come into my store and they would sit down and talk to me for 20 minutes, 30 minutes because I would put people. I would do a full evaluation. I would look at people and you're barefoot first to see their most natural foot performance and then I will look at their foot performance into shoe and then I would. I would evaluate their entire gate cycle before I picked out a shoe for them, body alignment, the whole thing, and then at the end of that people would say to me, well I can get it on Amazon for$88 instead of$120. There are people out there doing that and I've had people walk out the store and go, look, that's. That's the nature of what the Internet has done. Your guy at your store can get ahead of that because he's running into that. He's Rachel. He's running into that as well as everyone else's. Just because you're a loyal customer, it doesn't mean everyone else says, look, if I know that I run in an ultra paradigm and I live 30 miles from my store, 20 miles from my store, hell, 15 miles from my store is a long trip, right? If I know that I run in that shoe, what's the easiest for thing for me to do next time I need that shoe. Hey, Amazon. Hey, alter. Deliver that shoe to me. Oh, free shipping over$100 sales. Here we go. Throw something else in there. Send it to my house. Your running shoe store can get ahead of that with the customer. Who's going to do that? By being proactive and saying, I care about you enough to know what you need. I've created this profile. Here you go. Here's a pair of shoes and you know what? Here's the latest short Spicer Goi. Try them on. If you don't like them, send them back. I just thought maybe you might like them. Here's the latest pair of tights by so and so. Try them on and she'd be like, them know, this is what we need to do today in order to stay ahead of people getting online. It's easy to get online. We all do it. A rich don't tell them you don't do it either because I know everyone does it. Look, I hated the thought of people buying online when they came into my store, yet I buy online all the time. Excuse me. I thought they were going to hear some of that. Um, but that's, that's, that's my advice to a specialty running shoe store owners. You need, you need to think more about being outside of the retail box and being outside of the retail box means not sitting, waiting for people to come in the door, but going out and getting people your product proactively. And there's lots of ways. There's lots of other ways you can do that. You know, as a retailer. I had, I had running groups come to my store, I had clubs in my neighborhood and I would go out to these clubs and I would give talks so that they knew me as a, as a running shoe store owner, I think it's imperative that you were involved with every running shoes go and guess what? It's another great way to increase that mailing list. When we know that, look, if I get a text, I get a text, I'm a happy guy. Dopamine releases in my brain because someone cares enough about me to send me a text, right? Well, if I'm sitting in my store and I'm saying, you know what? I was at the store, I collected this group of emails and phone numbers. Let me reach out to these people and let them know how I can help them today. You know, people want people to care about them and I think that's, that's, that's the thing that we're spending too much time being angry, right? We're spending too much time at a specialty running shoe stores saying, Goddamn Amazon right now, putting me out of business. They're putting everyone else instead. Let's change that, that attitude. Let's take an attitude of, you know what? I'm going to beat them at their own game. I'm going to get out to my customer. I'm going to get out to my local guy and guarantee that local guy, after a couple of times, seeing that he's going to come in anyway, he's going to tell his friends about his great running shoe store. Guys who sends them to misuse automatically every month when he knows that they're broken down. Goes, there's. Here's another thing I'll tell you, if I got a pair of shoes in the mail at 400 miles, I wouldn't send them back if they're the right shoe for me because I'm saying to myself, Oh, this issue I run into and you know what? I probably do need a pair of shoes. How many times have you seen pictures posted online when people's running shoes, when? When they get them in shoe porn, right? That's what everyone calls it. Why would you send them back? Well, I must be ready. The expert sent me shoes so I must be ready. So you know, we gotta we gotta find a way to beat the Internet because what is the Internet, the Internet is an endless aisle of product, color selections. Everything is out there and the only way to get ahead of that is be ahead of that, you know, be proactive in your sales, be proactive and customer centered relationships. We are getting so far away from the customer centered relationships that weren't forgetting who we are. Look in 2017, 31 percent of runners bought their shoes online, 31 percent. That's how huge number of people who are buying online and we can start to reduce that number through the specialty running business by being more proactive, by getting outside of the box, by being on top of our customers' needs before they even know it. We can start to reduce that number is. And your specialty guy can stick around, you know, five years from now, you'll still have your specialty guy there. You're still be able to go in and hang out at the store when you went to. But it's important for them to do that. Um, if anyone does have any questions, that's, I'm going to wrap it up. I liked these things because I can do them nice and short. Sweet. Get the information out there that I want to get out there and talk to you about. I'm going to be doing these on, on a weekly basis now. Um, I think this is a much better way for me to do my podcast as well. This will be recorded on itunes. I posted it up. You can always drop in to my itunes link, download it, and listened to me rant to run. I'm going to do lots of rants over the next couple of months as we're going through the year. Um, hopefully there'll be some helpful information for everyone. Hopefully some people will be out there and paying attention to this. Hopefully you'll walk in people who are on here, we'll go to your local running shoe store and say, Hey, coach had a great idea for you. And if your local running store wants to talk to me about how to develop this concept, how to make it work, I will be more than happy to sit down with them and say, Hey, this is how you can do it. And guess what, we can even take this a little bit farther as we develop the program and say, your customer is, you know, what do you need to have your gate, um, reevaluated again as a time to take a look at that, send me a video and I'll do that on video for you and send it back as part of my ongoing service to you as my valued customer. Make your customer feel valued. Take care of them. Be Proactive. Get out there and, and rub hands in a different way. As always, be healthy, train smart, have fun. It's been great. And I'll talk to you all next week.