Around the Workstand

Workstand's Digital Advisor Service - leveraging current technology to grow sales in-store & online

• Workstand • Episode 100

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The idea of leveraging catalog-enabled websites and ecommerce to grow sales beyond a retailer's home market is one of the main reasons Workstand has so many bike shops using our platform. In addition to the website platform, Workstand's marketing agency team helps more than 400 stores manage their digital presence and promote their store locally and nationally. As our Key Accounts Advisor, David Martinez wraps all of that technology and marketing know-how up and combines it with his years of experience in successful bike shops to add in-store processes, strategic buying and inventory management, and professional presentation of all aspects of a purchase to elevate local bike shops as effective commerce merchants. Most people think selling online is all about price, but David has proven repeatedly that it is more about high-level execution in buying, inventory management, and customer experience that allows any store to sell more and grow faster.

We talk about all of that in this episode of Around the Workstand and encourage all stores to reach out to David at david.m@workstand.com to learn more and enroll in our Digital Advisor Service.

https://workstand.com/bike-shop-marketing
https://marketing.smartetailing.net/products/email-automations-pg197.htm
https://marketing.smartetailing.net/products/google-ads-pg182.htm
https://marketing.smartetailing.net/products/email-marketing-pg207.htm
https://marketing.smartetailing.net/products/premium-content-packages-pg101.htm
https://workstand.com/bike-shop-performance

Be sure to email your questions to podcast@workstand.com. We read all emails sent and we look forward to hearing from you.

If you're a Workstand client with questions about your subscription, email support@workstand.com or call 303-527-0676 x 1. If you are not currently a Workstand client with questions about how our programs work, email info@workstand.com.

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Ryan Atkinson, President + Co-Owner
Suzie Livingston, Marketing + Communications
Mark Still, Business Development

We also publish Around the Workstand on our YouTube channel if you'd like to watch while you listen. Here is our Around the Workstand playlist.

If you have any questions about the topics discussed in this episode of Around the Workstand or if you have ideas for new topics we can cover, schedule a time to meet with Mark Still here or email mark.s@works...

[0:03] Welcome, Around the Work Stand, and welcome, David Martinez, to Around the Work Stand. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? Thank you for having me. I'm doing pretty well. We get to talk a lot, and you've been here now five months, six months? About six months, yeah. Six months. And you are our Key Accounts Advisor. Is that the correct title you have? It is correct. Yeah. Good job. And we're going to talk today about the service that the Key Accounts Advisor.

[0:30] Is building an offering to WorkStand clients. So before we do that, though, you've been on the podcast before. You've done a couple of our daily episodes with me. But give us your background. How did you get into retail, the bike shops you worked with? How did you progress through that to get to a point where you now have something to offer other stores?

[0:51] Yeah, sure. So I started in bike retail in 2003. three. I worked for a, a large chain of retailers in San Diego, California under Mike Olson. So we had the, the Trek super stores, um, kind of did everything in the store. I started, uh, really doing this bookkeeping and then kind of worked my way into shipping and receiving. Um, then I'll, you know, on the sales floor, then I got into the buying, um, about, you know, several years later and really with the buying rule I had, I was buying for six locations, for all six locations. And really the main thing was, it's not just buying and refilling the store, but it's also working on sell-through and making sure that the items I'm buying are selling through. And if not, we got to get them out. So me being integrated into the marketing department was a key component of that, making sure that we're marketing the things I'm bringing in and that they're selling out. And if not, again, uh, really making sure that we're marketing things that we can sell, get them out and, you know, brush, bring in some fresh new, new items. So. So it's not just all shiny bikes on the floor and making people's day. There's actually work that goes into what's strategy.

[2:08] Yeah. There's work, there's strategy. There's all, you know, all that there's, you know, highs and lows for sure. So. Yeah. Yeah. Well, cool. Well, let's talk about this digital advisor service that we're offering now with your expertise at WorkStand. What's the objective of that service? And give us a little bit of the ins and outs of what you hope to do with stores that are looking to grow sales and build their online sales program. The main objective, obviously, is to increase revenue, total revenue, whether it be in-store and online. Increase traffic as well and also brand awareness. With that, you know, we develop a comprehensive digital strategy to really utilize WorkStan services, such as, you know, WorkStanIQ, our ads team, um, And then with that, you know, we want to maximize profitability as well. So we look at, you know, your shipping options. We look at your shipping rates, how you ship products, customer experience, you know, efficiency. You know, it all plays a hand in all of that. So that's kind of, again, the main objective really is to grow profit within the store.

[3:14] And I like that approach because we know that while we've got a bunch of stores doing significant online volume, Even the largest store, it's still not the majority. The majority is happening in the store. So I like that we're looking at that whole approach. And part of that is in the store processes, too. So what processes in the store from back office to order fulfillment are you addressing within the store itself versus just in the website admin? Yeah, so as far as back office, you know, as simple as packaging the products to go out to customers, making sure we have a professional-looking package. It's not just a broken beat up box with old labels on it, making sure our packing material is professional, looks good to the customer service. When a customer calls the store, everyone should have an understanding of how the process works, whether it be a return or a sale. But just going through all those key points that a customer might interact with us. Customer calls and wants to know the status of their order. Make sure that everyone understands how to get to that status and see where we're at. So, you're going to create a better customer experience. Yeah, that's important because if we want to compete in this world, it's a lot more than the price. In fact, the price is probably the smallest part of it. It's really order execution and how do you make somebody feel like a professional business is who they've just done business with. Yeah, exactly.

[4:38] Yeah. Awesome. What do you think from, because we've got clients, workstands clients from relatively small operations, one, two people, all the way up to multi-store, multi-million dollar operations. Who do you think is primarily we should be thinking about benefiting from this kind of service? It seems to me it'd be pretty broad. It's pretty broad, yeah. I mean, the customers that, you know, every shop is busy now, right? Every shop is running a leaner staff. Owners are kind of pulled away to different departments, and they're working on the sales floor, working on wrenching on bikes.

[5:14] Sometimes, you know, owners, they don't have a person to really dive into Google Ads or their website and really make it a key, you know, factor of their business. So anyone who doesn't have time, who just wants to increase their revenue stream online, is a prime candidate for this service. So, you know, we hear a lot that one of the barriers is just this thought that it's all too hard. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's part of what you're trying to address is that it's really not too hard if somebody's there to guide you and that's what you're there to do, right? Yeah. And we have a lot of services such as supplier fulfillment. So we can have, if an order comes in that the item is available from QBP, have QBP ship it for you. You don't even got to touch the product whatsoever. They ship it for you at a really reasonable price.

[6:05] And JBI, HLC, Trek, Specialized, all those have that fulfillment service that is underutilized. So it makes it really, really easy. That's a good point. It's there and it is underutilized. I think because some, stores think that if I do something like that, that's all I'm doing when the reality is you're using it as a tool that when it works best, do it. But when you've got.

[6:28] Whatever was ordered you got 12 of them gathering dust in the corner well then don't do that put it in a box and get it shipped out and fulfill the order that way exactly i always have an analogy of that one pedal wrench that you know we ordered you know 24 months ago i just sit still sitting there it's like oh and then you know one customer buys it and it's like a hallelujah moment so oh i'm like let's get this thing out of here uh yeah and you know and that that's that's a good use of this because there's probably 50 of those things in a store that if we can properly merchandise them on an effective website and change it from maybe one person in town walks in and wants that thing to thousands of people across the country might want that thing. Yeah, exactly. We're going to move inventory much quicker. Right. And it's not, you know, you know, in my head, I'm like, oh, it's best for people in smaller towns. Now you're opening up your doors to the rest of America, essentially. But really, it's for any size, you know, location, whether you have multi-location or one store in a, in a really big metropolitan area, um, you really are opening up your front doors to the rest of the country. And, you know, it's amazing that to see with a little, um, with some, with some ads running, it's amazing to see the, you know, the reach that you will get from these ads. You'll get people buying the most random thing across the whole country from your store. Um, and it's pretty rewarding, honestly, as a, as a, as a, as an advisor and also as an employees. Oh, this is pretty cool. Someone was on my website and they're in Virginia and I'm here in Arizona. It's completely random, but yeah, the system works.

[7:57] Turns out it's not random if you have a good approach. Yeah, exactly. So let's kind of, before we get into some frequently asked questions that we hear about all the time, let's just, we've talked about a lot of things, but as an elevator pitch, what could a store expect.

[8:15] After this, and these are generally 90-day engagements to get this done. What could a store expect at the end of the service? They run through the program with you. Their staff's getting trained. They're learning these processes. On the other end, what can they expect to have to help them grow after that, elevator pitch-wise? Yeah, sure. It's really a better understanding of how to maximize your website. Right.

[8:40] Knowing the times to to make changes to, you know, whether it's images or a homepage highlight, you know, having a good marketing plan going forward after that 90 days and knowing, you know, what to think about. I often think about, you know, buying as an example, you know, if we're selling a lot of this one item, something must be hitting, you know, so having a better understanding of let's buy for the online store now, not just for our stores in general, but buy for online. And, you know, inventory from vendors can be scarce at times. So if you're selling something really well, buy a little extra because, you know, you're going to sell online and it just works. So but having a better understanding, being more efficient with all these processes and a good game plan going forward. So and it's not the you know, the 90 day thing is just more or less a time frame to have like an in-depth, you know, conversation week after week after week. But after that, there is still going to be some engagement between myself and the retailer, making sure that things are still in play and in process. So it seems to work pretty well.

[9:50] And one of the things I've seen you help stores with that you think every store knows, but not every store has a full-time buyer and has really invested in those strategies. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, what is it that you're looking for and buying beyond letting the website and things like supplier sync tell you what's an interesting product that you may not stock that you might want to stock? What else is it that's there? Because I think that's a place that stores sometimes just assume, well, I'm buying stuff. It's no problem. But what are some strategies or tips you're looking at to improve that? Because often, I think the profit on an item, margin on an item, it's when you buy the item, not when you sell it that is so important. Yeah, I'd just say as far as the buying side, just be more focused, be more strategic, looking for special buys, right? So there's a lot of vendors out there who are over-inventoried and look at, hey, how can we make an extra $5 on helmets? Well, let's look at a helmet manufacturer and see what kind of deals they have. Are there good colors? Are they good, decent sizes? Let's buy some of those. It doesn't have to be this full, you know, let's buy a thousand helmets, but let's just buy 10 to see how it works and just, you know, give it a little test run.

[11:02] But also, you know, when it comes to buying, there are going to be some downfalls in our buys, right? So make sure our aged inventory is...

[11:12] Is priced appropriately and make sure that it's, you know, it's priced to sell and let's get it out and make room for something else. So with online sales, you know, to be totally transparent, it's like every sale is not going to be a home run when it comes to margin. But we are, again, opening up our doors to other people and let's get some of those old stuff out and get some new stuff in. Right. So it really, really helps and really moves, can remove the needle that way. Get some cash back. Right. So, yeah, that's critically important. I think I learned something years ago in the car business, a fellow taught me, he pointed at a car, he goes, that's not a car, that's a little stack of money. And we need to take that little stack of money and make some money with it. And I think it's the same thing in the floor. So looking at aged inventory with an objective eye and saying, look, I had the best intentions, but I can't ignore this thing that's sitting here. Let's have a strategy to get this sold at whatever price we're going to sell it. And so we can reinvest that in what we know turns and gets us more, gets us more large. Yeah. Awesome. Well, let's run through some of the general questions I think people are going to have. Talk about the cost of the service. We talked about that it generally starts off with a three-month, 90-day kind of engagement. But what's the general cost of it? And beyond that, is there any ongoing cost to it that retailers will want to know about? Sure. Yeah. The general 90 day engagement is about $5,000 and we bill you monthly. So it's $16.65 per month.

[12:35] On top of that, anything that I talk to you about and we suggest maybe doing custom projects will be extra for doing ads. We do have a small fee for doing the ads and managing the ads for you. But, you know, mainly just things like that. And that's kind of about it. So, but anything, again, just anything custom and then Google ads would be your best, your most expense aside from the service. So after that, you know, things are going well, you're still paying for that Google expense. And that's about it. Aside from your monthly workstand subscriptions that you already have. So.

[13:09] And then I think one of the things that comes up a lot with stores that are trying to grow business in this way is, do they need specific staff, dedicated staff for that? Or can existing staff in the time they're already on the clock be used for this kind of process, at least in the beginning? Especially at the beginning, no, you don't need extra staff. You just need maybe a couple of hands on board just to kind of know the process, know what to do when they get an order in. Someone who can get an email and check it throughout the day and see when they get orders in.

[13:40] I have a client right now who, you know, he's overwhelmed because there's so many orders. I'm like, oh, okay, that's a great problem to have, right? You have so many orders coming in. Let's, you know, what are we going to do, right?

[13:51] It's not a high-level position. So, really, you could stick anyone doing it. If someone can move a mouse, they can, you know, create some or they can submit some orders. So, it's pretty simple. You don't need someone with a lot of shop experience, you know, or, you know, even retail experience. They're just looking at a screen. All right, let's go find the item, put it in a box, and let's ship it out. So it's pretty easy. I think it goes back to what you said earlier is we want a professional experience, and that means everybody that has contact with customers in the store should have some understanding of what's going on. So that aligns.

[14:26] Now, we talk about dropshipping. In order to use the dropshipping or what we call supplier fulfillment, you do have to be on our professional package. Is that your recommendation, or is there room for folks on light and local to make some progress? There's definitely room to make progress on light and local, but the professional package is really the kind of ideal situation just because you can utilize those work stand components, right, to its fullest. So, you know, we have a supplier sync as well. So, supplier sync is when from QEP could show their inventory on your site. A great option, but it's a lot easier to have when you have fulfillment as an also an option to kind of complement that supplier sync. So if a customer buys, let's say, a pedal wrench from your site, now you have to bring in that pedal wrench from QUP, then ship it out to the customer. Why not just have QUP ship it for you? Again, it's a very, very reasonable price. It saves a lot of time, a lot of money, and just makes a better experience for everybody involved.

[15:22] When you say reasonable price, each of those five suppliers in the U.S., and there's two or three in Canada that have that fulfillment drop ship thing set up, they charge us. We don't charge any extra for it, but there's a small fee per order. And I think QBP, if I remember, is $3.50 per order. Depending on the level of tier you're at with QBP, it's $2.50 to $5, depending on per order. And then it's a flat rate of $10 for shipping. So if you look at that from the standpoint of employee time, boxes, packing material, getting the label generated, all that.

[15:55] Pretty reasonable for five bucks to be able to push a button and let QBP pick back and ship on your behalf. Same with JBI, HLC, Trek, and Specialized. Even the shipping alone is $10 flat rate, which is amazing, right? So as a total package, let's say at worst it's $15 for the whole fee, including shipping. That's a killer deal. Yeah. Cool. And we talked about – I often tell people that are worried about turning on their shopping cart because they'll be inundated with orders. I'll say, well, I wish it actually worked that way. I wish all you did was check the box, enable the cart, and hundreds of orders would flow in. It really doesn't happen that way accidentally. It takes some proactive work like you're talking about doing. With that proactive work, it can be a huge benefit. But what can the general store, let's say there's a store doing $10,000, $15,000 a month in sales, just kind of how it happens through the website and it's generating some store traffic. What's the potential if they really get these processes in place, if you can give a general idea of that? But what's the potential that's available if somebody says, you know, this sounds good. $5,000 is a lot of money. It's not nothing. But if it has this potential to multiply the effort, it sounds like a deal. What is that potential?

[17:15] I mean, the potential is the sky's the limit, really, honestly. You can, you know, you could expect anywhere between, let's say, on the low side, maybe $20,000, $50,000 a month in extra sales up to multi-million dollars in sales, really. It's all kind of just what you put into it. That, you know, you got to pay to play. It's not a free system, but we have retailers doing really, really well with this, and it's a significant part of their business.

[17:43] So, really, the sky's the limit. It's just really what you want to put into it. And because we're leveraging technology versus labor mostly, then there really isn't a limit on if I'm a small store, there's certainly a, it may not be 20 grand a month, but there's certainly huge potential to leverage the technology to help me appear bigger and sell bigger than I really am in my physical footprint. Yeah, it really all just takes a little bit of TLC in your website, you know, not even daily, but just maybe weekly or monthly, just touching on it and doing some key marketing. It's really, really easy, especially using Works in IQ. Pretty easy and pretty awesome tool we have and utilize. Yeah, and something like maintenance or marketing where we can even let our team do that maintenance type stuff and get the website dialed and keep it up to date without the store having to dedicate resources to that.

[18:36] Super. All right. I think we covered the good basis. There's lots of resources here. David's available to meet with retailers that want to explore the service. You can email, you want them to email you directly? Sure. Yeah. David.M at WorkStand.com. Of course, you can always send emails to podcast at WorkStand.com. I get very excited when we get emails to podcast at WorkStand. It doesn't happen that often, but I get very excited about it. But David, thanks for, it's good to have you here. You know, we work together. A lot of us here at WorkStand worked with you over the years, and you learned a lot from you years before you ever were part of WorkStand. So it's good to have you in-house and have these resources. So everybody reach out if you have questions for David. There'll be some resources in the notes, links to different things we've talked about. Anytime you want to get into this and look at growing sales, we're always happy to look at that and walk through that process with you and make it as understandable and digestible as possible. I love it. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. anything else before we go that's it all right well we'll see you around the works dan we'll see you.