Channel Mastery

As we’re in the year of pivoting, quickly shifting consumer behaviors and uncertainty, I thought my guests today from the Springs Wealth Group would be great to feature on the show, which is our first official “Cross Training” episode, a new type of show we’ll be hosting every other month or so. In this series, we get to learn from specialty brands that are not retail or physical product related. No matter what kind of business you have, your customer is online today and we all need to be re-examining how our target customer is discovering, engaging with and buying from us. The Springs Wealth Group is no exception.

My guests today include Andy Inman and Chris Young are co-founders and financial advisors at the Springs Wealth Group, a financial advisory practice with offices in Colorado Springs and Texas. 

What they do is very important throughout the year, but in a year like COVID and as we're heading into the last couple months of 2020, business finances and personal finances are top of mind for many of us. Andy and Chris talk about their unique way of getting to know prospective clients, which I LOVE and how they’re trying to change the way of thinking from, I’ll enjoy life when I retire to let’s enjoy it now. 

They’re also here to talk more about Corporate Social Responsibility and the trends they’ve seen in the financial world when it comes to people and businesses supporting brands that math their ethics and belief systems.

Andy Inman is a financial advisor and co-founder at Springs Wealth Group, based in Colorado Springs, CO. For the past 11 years he has partnered with both individuals and businesses/organizations to help them align their financial strategies with both their individual lifestyles and long-term goals. When he’s not busy collaborating with his clients to help them live their best life, he can be found somewhere in the Rocky Mountains camping, mountain biking, skiing or snowboarding (yes, he does both). He considers himself an avid supporter of the Colorado lifestyle, an outdoor enthusiast, a semi-pro bourbon drinker, and an amateur handyman. He currently lives in Colorado Springs with his wife Emily, and their three dogs.

Chris Young is a financial advisor at Springs Wealth Group. He started his financial services practice in 2002 in San Antonio, TX. Since then, he has worked with hundreds of successful families and business owners helping them to reach their most important financial goals. After spending the first 17 years in Texas, he and his family made the decision to move to Colorado. His decision was both personal and professional. Personally, for his youngest son Dean, who has autism, to could get additional resources in helping him to have a successful life. Professionally, to join together with my current business partner, Andy Inman, to focus on working with individuals and businesses with a passion for the outdoors and the outdoor lifestyle. He currently lives in Colorado Springs, CO his wife Adrianna, and three boys, Jack, Cole, and Dean. He is actively involved in their lives through sports, scouting, as well as autism awareness. He enjoy camping, backpacking, snow skiing, and anything outdoors.

Channel Masters are very entrepreneurial in how they think and approach problem solving. In fact, when they have a problem they can’t find solutions for, they  build the solutions themselves. That scrappy approach is what makes us inherently nimble.  Roy Steves, my guest on today’s episode, is one scrappy problem-solver, and his client base is grateful for that. In this episode, you’ll hear right from the beginning - the founder’s story of Roy’s company Statbid, that he ushered in a new approach to paid search, one that put the client first.

That approach is more appreciated in 2020 than ever before for Statbid’s clients. Why? Well, Roy calls 2020 the year of irrelevant data. You need to know what he means by that, and in this episode he goes deep on why it’s important and how to act on that fact.

What’s in this episode is mission critical for marketers as they enter the last quarters of this challenging year. You’re about to witness the earliest onslaught ever of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Holiday 2020 promotion and yes, Roy has advice on how to set a plan that will get your brand through in fine style.

Roy also points out that going direct to consumer is no longer an added bonus, but an absolute for brands and retailers meeting the needs and expectations of today’s changing consumer. 

We discuss what’s working best today for online discovery and traction building and explore actionable steps you can take to prepare your business for the upcoming Q3 and Q4 of 2020, as we continue to work through COVID-19 and the unexpected changes of 2020. 

Roy Steves is the co-founder of StatBid, a paid search agency specializing in direct to consumer and retail eCommerce brands.  Previously, he had been CMO of PoolSupplyWorld, where he started as a web developer in 2010, but struck gold designing and implementing marketing and attribution systems, then building a marketing and merchandising team, ultimately doubling the business in just two years.  This led, in 2013, to an acquisition by Leslie's Pool Supplies, the largest retail chain in their industry.  During this period, he was a regular speaker at eCommerce conferences (eTail East and West, SuiteWorld, StatBid Summit) and podcast guest , where he thrived on conversations with fellow eCommerce operators.  StatBid, founded in 2015, is the perfect vehicle for assembling an unrivaled team of experts, helping build eCommerce businesses, and talking shop.

For the past five-plus months, through the COVID pandemic, recession and also, the social unrest that’s become part of our day-to-day lives as we shepherd our businesses, we’ve been talking around the importance of connecting your brand to a cause. 

Today, we start a series on Channel Mastery about how to take action on that super important goal. 

Connecting your specialty brand with social justice, social impact or a cause is not a nice-to-consider any longer - it’s a must do. No matter how you refer to it, it’s the action of having your brand stand for something and taking action toward supporting that cause every month going forward.

Consumers are demanding that their favorite brands align with them ethically and that those brands are taking action to make the change happen in the world they want to see. They no longer witness their government or other trusted institutions creating that change; so they’re now expecting their favorite brands to do just that. 

Our first expert resource on that topic, hand picked for you, Channel Masters, is Chris Steinkamp, my guest on the Channel Mastery podcast today. Chris is the Principal and Founder of Baselayer Group and one of the founding members of Protect Our Winters (POW). 

Chris is a fantastic resource for specialty brand leaders intent on aligning their ‘why’ with social and environmental impact. In this episode, you’ll learn how to give you fans and followers what they want: a cause to believe in and join, as well as a way to “roll up their sleeves and do something” with you to create change. Chris shares stories from the early days of POW and how other brands are leading by example to make real impact.

So many brands want to do the right thing right now, and consumers are tying their dollars to their values and supporting brands and businesses that align with them. We dive into creating movements and how brands can build deep loyalty from their fans and followers through corporate social responsibility. 

Chris Steinkamp is the principal of Baselayer, a marketing consultancy that helps values-driven businesses and organizations build their brands and drive change through impactful brand strategies and consumer engagement initiatives. In 2007, he started Protect Our Winters (POW) with Jeremy Jones and was the executive director of the organization for a decade. He wrote the mission and the strategic business plan, built the POW brand and launched numerous initiatives and partnerships that established POW as the pre-eminent climate organization representing the outdoor sports community around the world.

He spent most of his career in Los Angeles, at advertising and marketing agencies such as TBWA\Chiat\Day, Deutsch and Octagon, developing award-winning campaigns for Nissan and BMW, and was part of the core team that won the Grand Effie for Nissan.

This Channel Mastery episode originally aired as a live webcast produced by Outdoor Retailer in late June 2020. The webcast, The Weekly Chat, is an extension of The Weekly, a digital magazine for Outdoor Retailer. It launched in the face of the pandemic and economic shutdown and was very well attended by Outdoor Retailer’s audience. 

Channel Mastery host, Kristin Carpenter, was asked to appear on the show with Doug Schnitzpahn to discuss the battle for trust, and engagement, and how more traditional media institutions can serve today's ever evolving consumer as they search to build trust and community online. 

Traditional media entities are searching for ways to bring value to their audiences and readerships. Let’s face it - media is being disrupted in a big way and has been for the past few years. People are continually re-trained to expect both content and community to be presented in new ways and on new channels, and this evolution is not slowing down.

There isn’t a playbook for the pandemic and now recession so it’s our responsibility as business leaders to listen to and watch where the consumers are going, how they’re getting there, and adjust our way of thinking to best serve that North Star - our target consumers/shoppers.  

Doug and Kristin dive in on this topic as it pertains to the discovery facet of the consumer decision journey. 

Doug Schnitzpahn is an experienced innovative freelance writer, editor, and team leader with a demonstrated history of working in the publishing industry. He is skilled in Journalism, Corporate Communications, Social Media, Digital Media, and Editing. Doug is a strong media and communication professional with a Master of Fine Arts - MFA focused in Creative Writing from University of Washington.

Though it’s still a few months away, the Winter 20/21 season will be here before we know it. Specialty businesses and brand leaders are in the throes of preparing for business with new best practices in the COVID-era. On this episode of the Channel Mastery podcast, I sat down with Wintersteiger’s Sales Director for Consumer Products, Ryan Eittreim. Wintersteiger is the leader in service and rental solutions for the ski and snowboard industry. Ryan’s led a super interesting initiative that Wintersteiger is producing for the specialty community: A best practice guide to serving consumers at both retail and rental this winter. What’s more, these incredible resources are in your favorite color: Free! 

In addition to walking through these resources in this episode, Ryan and I also discuss the specialty markets’ journey through modernization of the consumer path to purchase through COVID. Specifically, we discuss how retailers and brands must be more consumer centric as the way consumers research and buy continues to change. I like to think of this conversation as a foundation of sorts to building a new plane while you’re flying your existing plane. Jedi! 

I invite you to listen, learn and share this foundational episode created to help you best prepare your business to serve the moving target that is our consumer in the COVID-era. And don’t forget to grab the free resources at channelmastery.com.

Ryan Eittreim, born and raised in Sun Valley Idaho, is a 30-year veteran in the Snowsports Industry with focus on Bootfitting, Repair and rentals.  Ryan has spent the last 20 years with Wintersteiger, Inc. in Salt Lake City, Utah as product and sales manager for machines and rentals, is currently the Director of Sales for Wintersteiger’s consumer brands Hotronic and BootDoc.  

We’re on the verge of August, 2020, which marks a shift into a new selling season, a kick-off into a key planning window for the coming year, and also, puts Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Holiday on the near horizon. 

Episode 140 is the start of our brand-new season of the Channel Mastery podcast. David Howell is managing partner and founder of Howell & Associates. He has helped hundreds of fortune 500 and specialty brands with selling online, keeping brand and pricing parity and offers valuable insights from the trenches.

So, if you’re wondering how COVID-19 impacted the Amazon marketplace, or lived that impact yourself, you’ll want to tune in to this show. And, if you’re interested in knowing what David’s paying clients are hearing from him in terms of his counsel on how best to distribute product and branded content going forward? Trust me, you want to listen to this interview.

David Howell is Managing Partner and founder at Howell & Associates. For 19 years he and his firm have specialized in traditional Global Brand Protection, Anti-Counterfeiting, and the Newera Open Marketplace and Ecommerce Channel Compliance. Having worked with over 500 manufacturers in recent years, he has a level of uncanny foresight in helping manufacturers solve online issues in just about every facet. When he's not working long hours for his client's success, he can be found deep in the Idaho mountains hiking, biking, or on his paddleboard on beautiful Payette Lake.

The Pro’s Closet continues to revolutionize the way people buy bikes. The company offers a very innovative channel strategy that enables consumers to buy used bikes easily online. They build trust with their 141-point inspection process and keep cyclists in their ecosystem with an easy to join and engage with approach where a cyclist is offered the option to trade in a bike and get a new one every year. They’re a retailer of all bike brands, have an incredible bike museum, and are amassing an incredibly unique data set as more and more cyclists discover the site. 

And a lot more cyclists are discovering the site - from COVID-19 newcomers to cyclists affected by the recession; the Pro’s Closet is counting some of its best months in 2020. Simply put, the Pro’s Closet is completely disrupting the way bikes are bought and sold.

I interviewed Nick Martin, the founder of the Pro’s Closet, in 2019, and captured the incredible vision and founding story of the company. It is one of our most downloaded shows and you can listen to that show here. 

And today, I am so excited to present to you the Chief Marketing Officer of the Pro’s Closet, Matt Heitmann. He’s a veteran in the cycling industry, having served at Competitive Cyclist, BMC, Canyon and more. Now, as the CMO at Pro’s Closet, out of Boulder, Colo., he is creating an orchestration between digital, tech innovation, and cycling that’s never existed before. I’m pretty confident in saying that Matt quite possibly has the coolest job in cycling!

Perhaps the best part about the Pro’s Closet right now is the fact that the company is simultaneously closing the gap between experienced riders and newcomers by offering content and shopping experiences for each. 

The cycling industry has seen a massive boom since the start of COVID, and I was curious to learn what the Pro’s Closet was seeing in demand and also, site traffic. Matt details a lot of trends in this show, which I think you’ll get a ton of perspective from. And, in terms of demand, let’s just say they’re turning over inventory 2 ½ times per month!

Listen in to hear more about how Matt and the team at Pro’s Closet continue to help grow the community of cycling enthusiasts through constant innovation - this team literally never sits idle! 

Matt Heitmann is a data driven commercial executive and is now Chief Marketing Officer at Pro’s Closet, located out of Boulder, Colo. Prior to the Pro’s Closet, Matt was driving commercial growth for Canyon Bicycles GmbH, BMC Switzerland, Backcountry.com and CompetitiveCyclist.com. 

While consumer behaviors continue to shift, one trend is here to stay: Our consumer is just plain comfortable being online now, for the entire decision and purchase journey. And with that, the battle for their attention is at an all-time high. 

Today’s guest is like a secret weapon for specialty brands struggling to engage and serve their target consumers. Kelly Ramirez is the founder and Chief Growth Officer of Prismatic, a Bozeman, Montana-based specialty brand growth agency. She has a background in-house at Google, and a love for small brands taking an artisan approach to customer experience online through her firm’s mix of services that include marketing analytics, performance marketing, marketing automation, conversion-rate optimization, forecast and growth modeling and user experience. 

The best part about Kelly? She knows that our specialty consumers are searching for a more human connection. In this episode, you’ll learn how to use tech to enhance your human, specialty connection with your consumer. I hope you get a ton out of this episode, Kelly is an incredible resource! 

Kelly Ramirez is founder and CEO of Prismatic, a growth consultancy that bolts onto brands to improve E-commerce performance and accelerate revenue from digital channels. 

Kelly founded Prismatic after nearly a decade at Google, where she led global growth initiatives for the top 1% of digital native travel advertisers including Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, Hotels.com. With hyperfocus on the foundational elements that enable a company to succeed in the new e-commerce ecosystem, Prismatic is an advisor, an interpreter, and hands-on practitioner for brands in growth mode. 

During the COVID crisis, Kelly and her team have been working in lockstep with clients in the SaaS, Outdoor, and Travel industries to interpret macro impacts,  develop strategic and authentic response strategies, and evolve their approach to scale in the dynamic retail environment.

This episode of the Channel Mastery podcast was originally recorded as a webinar on April 30, 2020 as part of the Snowsports Industries of America Town Hall Thursday series, and can also be found on their COVID-19 hub. 

Since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, it’s an understatement to say that we have seen massive shifts in consumer trends, especially in the outdoor active lifestyle spaces. Speaking on the topic with me are Ryan Atkinson of Smartetailing and Ben Barenholtz of Quivers. Both offer incredible insight and broader perspectives to how we must change our businesses to operate and match the evolution of today’s consumer. 

This episode focuses on foundational pieces to help understand the trends of where consumer behavior is now and where we think it is going. Though we don’t have a crystal ball, and certainly couldn’t have predicted how 2020 has been so far, we do have the ability to recognize the changes and adapt our businesses in real time.

Ryan Atkinson is President and Co-Owner of SmartEtailing. He is passionate about enhancing marketing for independent bicycle dealers. With more than 20 years of related experience, Ryan has worked in almost every aspect of the bicycle retail distribution network. 

Ben Barenholtz is a marketing leader and startup builder, with a passion for e-commerce and physical retail. He currently heads marketing for Quivers, the leading provider of “Fulfilled by Retailer” technology for brands and retailers. Prior to Quivers, Ben was the VP Marketing at Reach Analytics, a consumer analytics software company.  

With the continued pandemic and some of the U.S. in the beginning phases of reopening store fronts and other businesses, I was so looking forward to speaking with my guest on today’s podcast. Jennifer Tetrick, Director of PR and Communications at Decathlon is a returning guest today on this episode of the podcast. She joined us last April for Episode 84 when Decathlon, now in 70 countries globally, had just opened a store near Oakland, Calif.

As we begin to reopen here in the United States, Decathlon’s European stores are about two weeks ahead of us so it’s important to not only watch what they’re doing to safely and effectively begin to reopen but learn from them too. Jennifer touches on some of the changes implemented to ensure their staff and customers safety is of the utmost importance, the lessons they’ve learned so far and how they’re overcoming these challenges as a company. 

Along with the ins and outs of the reopening of some of their stores, Jennifer also shares how their multi-channel approach has shifted throughout the pandemic, to ensure they’re not only communicating with their target consumer, but understanding how their target consumer wants to be approached.

Jennifer Tetrick is Director of PR and Communications at Decathlon. She joined the Decathlon team full-time after retiring from professional racing.