Latest / Spokes & Strategy: Marketing the Bicycle / EP 19: Why the Bike Industry Has an Execution Problem, Not an Idea Problem

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EP 19: Why the Bike Industry Has an Execution Problem, Not an Idea Problem · Spokes & Strategy: Marketing the Bicycle

• Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: the cavalry isn't coming. there's no one on the horizon that's coming to save us. if we're going to succeed and we're going to thrive, it's gonna come from within. it means trying things. It means maybe they work, maybe they don't, but it means actually doing things other than waiting. Brandon Morphew: Welcome to Spokes and Strategy, Marketing the Bicycle with Brandon Morphew and Chris Melman of Miso Partners. Welcome to Spokes and Strategy, where the business of bikes meets the joy of riding. The bike industry has spent the last several years talking about change. Inventory changed, consumer behavior changed, brands changed, shops changed. Yet there's still this funny problem. Everyone seems to agree something needs to happen. But we don't necessarily agree on what. Or who's supposed to go first. My guest today has a pretty unusual view of all of that. Because a couple of times a year he gets brands, retailers, distributors, industry people, all sorts into the same building and watches what happens. And Jim believes there's still enormous value in something that's increasingly hard to manufacture online organized serendipity. I'm Brandon Morphew, your host, and this is Spokes and Strategy. Now, Jim, before we talk trade shows and the state of the industry, what's your relationship with actually riding bikes these days? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: well I run a bicycle shop in Chicago. It's been in my family for almost fifty years. and I run the trade shows. So I get about a week and a half in the spring after the show cycle ends and before the shop gets busy, and I get about a week week and a half in the fall before I start doing floor plans and fire marshals and freight drayage and logistics. so Minimal. Minimal I would say is the right word for the actual writing I get done. Brandon Morphew: If you do get out on the bike, where do you like to ride your bike? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: so historically I've been a fan of like super long distance touring. so when I was I finished college and before law school, I rode a bike from San Diego to Jacksonville. so bags on the back. and this is before smartphones, so like that's how old I am. But whenever I can, I'd like I'm on the bicycle so that I cannot be bothered. So I but that doesn't seem to work its way into my schedule anymore. So nothing nothing super long distance, but I like to do two or three days where you know, I'm on the bike and I can't be bothered by people. Brandon Morphew: That is a thing I love about the bicycle, and the ability to escape, both physically and and mentally. It's a great a great tool for that. Jim Kirsten is the show director of Cabda Expo, which produces bicycle industry trade shows built specifically around independent bicycle retailers and brands, distributors, and the service providers that support them. what caught my attention talking with Jim. wasn't really trade shows themselves. It's his belief that getting the right people together still matters. And that sometimes the best thing that happens at an event like a trade show isn't on the schedule at all. Thanks so much, Jim, for being here. really appreciate your time. Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: Thanks for having me. Brandon Morphew: So how did you end up being the guy responsible for putting on a big chunk of the bike industry in the same room? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: it was it it happened by accident. It wasn't it wasn't like a planned thing at all. so CABDA started I wanna think mid to late seventies and it was the Chicago Area Bicycle Dealers Association. and their first trade show, I believe happened in nineteen eighty or thereabouts. and it grew from a small thing to a regional thing to a large thing. Trade shows in every industry follow a sign curve. They get popular, people like then they do something dumb or some other competitor emerges or it moves someplace and they and they fade out. But so CABDA existed before me, but it it fizzled out, I wanna say in about the late nineties. we brought it back in twenty fifteen was our first show. But mostly it started because we after CABA went away, the first Cabda, there was a loose affiliation. I think it was called BDAC, which was the Bicycle Dealers Association of Chicago. And they would hold meetings, we'd have a Christmas party, there'd be a couple speakers, but it was it was pretty loose. We'd meet in each other's shops. And I had this well, I said to myself, Well, how how the hell hard could it be to run a trade show? And I like to tell people that for my sins I got this job and I got to f find out. it was supposed to be my winter job, you know, when the shop wasn't busy and there's a foot of snow on the ground. So it's like, yeah, this will be great. From like November to January I can be doing this thing. And it's grown into a thirteen month a year job and I didn't get rid of the first job. So that's kind of my arc is Brandon Morphew: if you were to look at Cabda in twenty fifteen when you started, what what what was the the problem that Cabda was solving for? And then how do you think that's evolved since then? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: There was back in the back in a long, long ago, I didn't have gray hair then, but there was a single trade show and it took place in a time of year when most of the shops that were in the Midwest or in the East, they were still busy. So telling them, hey, lock the doors, come out to this thing, it in a time when margins were already shrinking and inventory was a problem and you still have scheduling stuff, to to do that. and lose out on on cash flow on revenue was a tough sell. so there were dwindling attendance numbers from places that, you know, still needed that time. If you live in Southern California, the weather's always nice. You don't know what winter is, but running a bike shop in the in the Midwest or some place where it gets cold, like your cash flow drops to next to nothing in the wintertime. so you gotta make hay while the sun shines. So that was what we started doing was creating something that was regional. in the early days it was something that was local, but it was trying to make it more focused on the folks that were gonna be coming to it. so that that's kind of where we what we saw the the demand locally was people who weren't no longer making a trip to a to a large event that we thought was held at the wrong time of year and moving at something preseason. there were other things happening too, like When you put an order in in August or September on, you know, net never terms, like predicting sales and inventory, you know, seven, eight months out and when your payments are gonna be due, it's we wanted something a lot shorter time frame. So you can you can better predict things a month or two. for the exhibitors, you don't have to give net never terms, you can give standard in season terms because the We're in February, you know, the sun's coming out, it's a lot closer, the weather's gonna get warmer. So that was the motivation for us was creating something that was a bit more fitted to the market. Brandon Morphew: And how about now? Do you think that the role that Cabda plays, and you know, Interbike I think is the is the the trade show you were referring to, the one that has since passed away, but when when you think about like the role of CABDA, do you think that that's evolved over the last, you know, decade? Because, you know, we're we're rolling into twenty twenty seven. You've been around for a while. Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: Yeah, no, it I I'm reminded of that constantly was how long I've been doing this. the role has certainly changed. we moved from the one show in Chicago, our first expansion was West. started in San Diego, moved it to Los Angeles and now it's in Las Vegas. And then our E show was in New Jersey and Covet happened and now these e bike legislation and We'll get back to doing three, I think. but what the thing we've noticed is that what sells in the Midwest doesn't necessarily sell in Southern California. what sells in Southern California might not sell. I mean, there are there will be no downhill mountain bikes at at the Chicago show. the closest mountain is probably a thousand miles away. so it allows the exhibitors to kind of act with more specificity about the products that they're showing. there'll be no studded snow tires. there were none when we were in San Diego. I I doubt there'll be any in Las Vegas, but and that's just simple examples, but it allows people to kind of pick and choose because our industry is very regional. the manufacturers know it. That's why they offer different payment terms for shops in the snow belt versus, you know, shops where it's it's nice all the time. the way we distribute products is regional. That's why distributors have multiple warehouses because it's coming out of so everything else we were doing was regional, but our trade show was a single one that didn't quite fit you know the footprint for everybody else, didn't fit what they were expecting out of it. it also allows us to be a lot more specialized in some of the education that we offer and some of the stuff that we're talking about, as opposed to really, really broad strokes. So that's kinda how we've evolved is trying to fit in where we c where we can to it's also a lot easier to convince, you know, a shop in, you know, Green Bay, Wisconsin or Grand Rapids, Michigan, hey, t it's a Wednesday in February, lock the doors, bring the staff. We want everybody in the store. You can bring mechanics, they can take training, your salespeople can, owners and managers can make buying decisions. That was an easier sell than a We just want one or two people in the middle of the season to come out and do this. So that's the I guess the the impetus is the same. Well the our execution has changed. Brandon Morphew: said that you're not interested in in creating a giant spectacle just for the the sake of being big. where where did that philosophy come from? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: a lot of it is we want to be able to be as responsive as we can. And it it gets really di it's like trying to park a a semi truck on a side street. You know, it's there are only so many venues that can handle massive events. And then they have, you know, limited time frames because we're not the only industry that needs to get into them. there's a lot of risk and overhead involved in that. There's an entirely different school of of marketing and and logistics in in running those and I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze. I don't need twenty thousand people. I need a thousand decision makers. I need six hundred shops to make it viable for folks. So it's not about we're gonna have this event we're gonna pack it full of people who may or may not be even interested in the products that you're selling. It's the right mix of people, people who's are they're the buyers of your product. You know, me adding seventeen thousand people who aren't the buyers of your product I don't think really helps the situation. The pictures would look better. You know, they'd look really good if I could put thirty thousand people in the hall, but Brandon Morphew: I I think the pictures look good. I I like the pictures. thinking about trade a trade show, and Cabda in particular, what do you think a trade show owes a bike shop owner who's taking a day or two out of their business to come and attend? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: we owe them so our customers are the exhibitors. They're the people who are paying us for booth space. But our audience is bicycle retailers. so we don't we don't charge for tickets for early registration. You can register for free, but we owe them an event that meets like what We owe them a polished event, we owe them a cohesive event, and we owe them something that's current and topical. and that comes down to what education we provide, how we're how we're setting up what we're doing. If if we're talking to what the industry was ten years ago, we're doing them a disservice. so we're as much as we can in the confines of what we do, we try to push it forward while still Doing what they expect us to do. Brandon Morphew: Is are there any ways that you're doing that or that you plan on doing that that come to mind as you're thinking through this sort of bike shop owner, buyer? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: so first we identify what the the biggest problems that we're facing. and for a while it was supply chain logistics, it was the the cost of containers coming from Southeast Asia, then it was COVID policy shutting things down. now it's tariffs. and there's very little that an individual shop can do for international trade policy or tariffs. But you you can respond what you're doing. like in your own shop to like either make up for it or find alternative revenue sources. So it's if we can find folks who have succeeded in in in their shop finding an alternative revenue, doing something, maybe it's a product line, maybe it's used bicycles or a winter project or some neighboring industry they've gotten into, we wanna hear from because what what they learn can help other people. 'cause I think If we do the same thing that we were doing ten, fifteen years ago in our shops, there's just very little future. I don't think it works. if we do everything that manufacturers and distributors are telling us to do, I it's also very little future in that. someone's gotta be looking out for like their own business. So giving folks the tools to do that, no matter what the the landscape happens to be, that's kind of where we're focused on it. Brandon Morphew: This is actually leads into one of my questions, which is you kind of gave this description of the challenges. You know, everybody's thinking about these challenges and you know, everybody agrees something needs to happen, you know, the industry needs to change, there needs to be shifts, but nobody agrees on what, or maybe the ideas aren't coming like someone open to spigot. You know, there's there's a lack of of ideas or who should go first, who should make the first move, you know, some of it's around sort of business as usual. where do you see that come through most clearly? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: Well, I don't think we have an idea problem. I think we have an execution problem. a lot of people I mean, we've been we've been so reactive to things for the past ten, fifteen, twenty years even. Or something happens and we have to you know, how do we respond to this thing? So if it's we spend a lot of time waiting for the next boom to happen. we're waiting for youth participation to suddenly explode or for e bikes to solve all of our problems or For someone to come along and you know fix the inventory problem or for bike lanes and advocacy groups to you know somehow create new customers. there's I I I've said before, like the the cavalry isn't coming. Like there's no one on the horizon that's coming to save us. Like if we're going to succeed and we're going to thrive, it's gonna come from within. but it means it means trying things. It means maybe they work, maybe they don't, but it means actually doing things other than waiting. so being proactive as opposed to reactive. And and I g I get it. Like I know it's hard. Like I mean anyone who worked in a bicycle shop during COVID knows ac being proactive then was almost impossible. Like if the you had to be reactive. It was it was just rolling with the punches. but if we're not working now to make sure that we have customers five, ten, fifteen years from now, then we won't have And no one's gonna do this job for us. so taking a look at what you know other industries and other sports have had to go through with declining youth participation, like just some great case studies in in baseball, youth baseball. and their ramifications for what it meant to professional baseball ten, fifteen years down the line. Like if you weren't If you didn't have y kids playing baseball, you didn't have people watching baseball or buying jerseys or going to games ten, fifteen years later. and it it can very quickly turn into an existential crisis because you you can't just create them overnight. So that's where we need to start acting, I think. And and and it's everyone needs skin in the game, from the trade show directors to the brand managers to the shops, everybody. Brandon Morphew: Do you think we're aligned on what that problem is? Do you think we're aligned on this? I see numbers and I like to look at data and I see, you know, participation's up. so I'm just curious in from your point of view, do you think there's a consensus in the industry that this is this is the problem? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: No, I don't. not at all. It's one of the questions I I mean, one of the issues I have with a lot of the participation surveys is how they classify ridership. Whether it's I rode the bike one time in a year or I plan on riding more than one time in a year. I d I think we need new definitions. I don't think it takes a massive, you know, blue ribbon committee to tell you like ridership is not up. Like a compared drive past most schools and look at like a bike rack out in front of it and tell me if it was more full fifteen years ago or twenty years ago. Like look at how many kids are riding bicycles to school and how many aren't. I don't think I don't think any meaningful way youth participation is up. I think it's down. and there might be some some very, very short term fluctuations in it, but on the scheme that we need, it's not up. So yeah, I don't I don't think there's any type of consensus on on you know whether we're going in the right direction. Brandon Morphew: Do you do you hear anything from retailers that maybe they say privately that that you know doesn't get said publicly? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: all the time. No, I I mean usually it's complaints that I get. I I've been in probably thirteen hundred bicycle stores in the past four or five years. just connections we made at the shows, driving around, talking to people. but all the time. a lot of are worried. A lot of them have a lot of have concerns that you'd have in a business, you know, outside of bicycles. a lot of them have succession plans or To just A lot of people got into the bicycle business because they were enthusiasts or because their family was into it. there are people who were really into bicycles, that's great. We need passionate people. We also need people who can make good business decisions. We need people who can do the X's and O's and the KPIs and the forecasting. and we don't have enough of them. there are some people who run really, really great tight operations and there's other folks who who don't do that. So that's a lot of the concerns I get from people around those lines is it's like, well, is someone gonna do something about this or is someone gonna do something about that, or maybe maybe if someone did and that someone isn't gonna happen. like the cavalry isn't coming, like it's it's on us to do it. So that's what I try to impart onto people. Brandon Morphew: So you may have an example, you may not. is there anyone that's doing this well right now? So, you know, I think you know, we have some organization, Nica, and there's there's definitely some there's some stuff happening in in youth cycling and there's also lots of shops I think that are invested, lots of brands, distributors, advocacy, policy, industry organizations. Anyone that you see that's you know, leading by example. Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: there's there's hundreds. there's shops that have their own youth program. I mean, I've talked to a few shops that do their own, you know, contests for kids. They do bike rodeos, you know, putting butts on bikes is what it's about. I think there needs to be an organized effort. there's a but it it needs to start locally because it's no one's gonna run it. Like there's no one's gonna run this wave a wand and have everyone start doing this thing. It's it's gonna happen at the grassroots level in shops with partnerships through organizations like NYCA with partnerships in in their communities, but talk to many shops that have partnerships with local schools. schools who have replaced you know square dancing with something actually useful like you know how to ride a bicycle. But this there's tons of of people doing great work doing it, but it's n it's not enough. We need more. and I don't I don't want it to be my job. but it's it's something that I think we really, really need and I Being proactive. It takes stopping your your date all the stuff you have to do every day, all your payroll and scheduling and ordering and all the stuff that you have to do to keep the doors open and the lights on. But we need folks who actually are are working on what's going to happen five years from now and ten years from now. And I I don't think that happens very well at the corporate level because they're focused on the next quarter or two quarters or a fiscal year. They're not doing that kind of forward thinking planning. Brandon Morphew: interesting because I agree with everything you said. I think about these things and I talked actually of in a great position where I get to chat with people who are thinking about this. This is part of their thought process. I have a tendency to want to fix things. You know, like that's kind of like my default is like, well, you know, there's a problem, let's solve it. thinking about Cabda and is there a role You know, and you were talking about education. Is is there, you know, maybe it's a it's youth cycling in a box. I don't participation in a box. Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: Yeah. Brandon Morphew: I don't know what it is. You know, like this to me it feels like there's very few opportunities like CABDA, in general, you know, where there's all these people coming together and maybe you know, you could get a little lunchbox and and with your lunchbox you get a you know how to how to ignite cycle. I I don't know, I'm just curious, have you thought about this? Like you you mentioned it's not my job or or I don't know if it's my job, you know, like Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: I don't want it to be my job. so in in Chicago last year we had great participation with the the new Illinois Nica chapter. I think we had Indiana as well, but they set up and we're telling people shops how to set up a a bike rodeo. We set it they set it up on the show floor. whether it's for real little kids on sh on the on the balance bikes, but May maybe maybe it is something like a kit in the box or maybe a playbook on how to do some I think the work's been done. Like the the how do you do this part, like we know what cause six what the hallmarks of a a successful youth event look like. but the the execution of it is what we have a problem with. so maybe that is it, is just telling more people how it's been done, putting more examples in front of of people who have done it well. so I think That's that's what I think we can we can do pretty well 'cause if we have people coming into the into the building for the event anyway. but I don't I don't think I'm the right guy to go around and organize the the the bike corrals and the and the rodeos. I d I don't think I have Brandon Morphew: maybe somebody listening is the right guy, or gal. And I do think, yeah, I this is it to me is a real opportunity. There's a quote around, you know, a small group of of citizens, you know, making a Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: ability of a small group of committed people to change the world 'cause they're the only thing that are only people who ever have. Brandon Morphew: Yeah. Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: Yeah. Brandon Morphew: Ever have. Yeah. for me it's this, you know, kind of interesting you don't back to your your serendipity comment around this sort of organized serendipity. I I think there's very few moments in the year and and just in in life in general where you bring so many people that have they're rowing in the same direction. In a lot of ways. Not always, but they are in a lot of ways rowing in the same direction. We're not gonna change the world or fix the world on a podcast. Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: Yeah, yeah. Brandon Morphew: I would be happy to dedicate some time. If this is an opportunity and there's people out there that are interested, reach out. I think we could, you know, get some momentum around something like this. I like it. Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: No, I I I like to tell shops, either if I'm speaking at a conference or I'm just talking to folks, you don't have to have a perfect plan. You you just have to start doing something and tweak it along the way. maybe that's talking to, you know, boys and girls, or Cub Scouts. maybe it's talking to schools, maybe you have a Nica chapter, maybe it's it it doesn't have to be a giant program that's professionally run and well marketed. Like just do something and move forward. because I think it's gonna be bottom up. There's no way there's no one around to to do it top down. so it's it's going to be shops and communities doing this. So maybe there isn't a single way to do it, but gotta do we gotta do something because I don't I don't I don't see anything good on the horizon if we keep going the way we're going. Brandon Morphew: Sort of along the same lines, but when you think about Cabda, can you think of a situation where you've been given, you know, feedback either directly or indirectly from retailers, you know, this isn't working for us and and you've made a change. Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: often, yeah, a lot of it is stuff we can't change. we used to we used to poll people and say, Hey, where do you where do you think we should hold this event or w what month do you think works best or and we'll typically get like an equal number of people telling us each month of the year. so it's like data that was Topeka. Most people they're like, we'd we'd love to travel less to go to this thing, so if you could, you know, move it you know, to to br Nebraska, that'd be great for us. we've tried getting organized earlier. that some folks one of the problems with doing schedules early is that there's a lot of changes. There's a lot of moving pieces. the the speakers change and the order changes and this room is no longer available and so getting herding the cats earlier so people can make you know plan out their day better, We've really worked hard to do. and it's it's difficult because we have to do it simultaneously with logistics and booth sales and and attendee registration and all the other stuff we have to do with unions and electricians and getting the venues right and the catering in the hotel rooms. So it's there's a lot of cats that need herding and but doing that for the the attendees so they can you make decisions earlier. It's one of the things they told us early on is You know, giving me this list, you know, two weeks ahead of the show isn't good enough and that's we're trying. We're trying. We try to make it a little bit better every year. Brandon Morphew: What's what's something that you've tried that failed? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: my that's a that is a long and storied list. Brandon Morphew: Give me a top two. Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: top two of things we tried and failed at. we tried launching an app. We tried launching a an attendee focused app that would do everything from floor plan to meetings and and after you know fifteen, twenty thousand dollars and app development and months of my life working out features. we had thirty five people download it. Brandon Morphew: Might have downloaded it. Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: Yeah. It was a great app. I guess it looked looked fantastic. It did everything I wanted it to, but getting getting the the buy-in. So a lot of things we do is yes, that's a great idea, but the juice might not be worth the squeeze. Then we we want it's important to me that we keep the shows affordable, for both the exhibitors and for the attendees. so we we try to keep registration free for bicycle retailers and their staffs. As long as we can. We eventually have to turn it off before the show because we have to get the badges ready and that involves QR codes and it really involves proofreading and fixing people misspell the word bicycle all the time when they So we need some time to do that, but we don't want it to be we want it to be structurally relevant and the framework that works for folks. so yeah, a lot of people are like, you should you should give box lunches to everybody. It's like do you want do you want it to continue being free or do you want a a dry turkey sandwich that I'm gonna get from the catering department? Like so I'm I'm always open to folks giving me ideas. whether or not we can do or not is is is what I have to worry about. That's my job, yeah. Brandon Morphew: One of the things you mentioned was that's worked like surprisingly well is not taking yourself too seriously. And I appreciate that. why Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: Hm. Brandon Morphew: do you think the industry sometimes starts sounding too corporate or most of the people that are, you know, talking that way aren't actually corporate themselves? Like what w where do you think that comes from? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: a a lot of B to B communications is unnecessarily boring. and I don't know if it comes from people locked into corporate speak or email chains or circling back or putting this in front of you or any of the other buzzwords, but I've had a lot of success just telling people like, here's what we're doing, here's why we're doing it, come join us. and if we can do that entertainingly, if we can use humor, if we can be straight and open and transparent with people, authenticity doesn't have to be sloppy. it doesn't have to be unprofessional. It c it means sounding like an actual human sometimes. You can be professional without pretending to be a Fortune one hundred company, speaking in entirely buzzwords. We're selling bicycles. when we were selling bicycles, Brandon Morphew: I'm probably guilty of buzzwording myself. Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: like no no one's life depends on whether or not I use the correct corporate adjective. we can be professional but we don't have to be solemn about everything. Brandon Morphew: Is there anything you've seen like impact wise from that approach, like you know, being more human, be you using more common language, migrating away from that sort of business polished business speak? Have you seen any impact that is worth mentioning or tangibly? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: I mean yes, hundred percent. when we first started the thing, so when I was just young and foolish and had this idea that I could somehow manage to run this thing despite zero experience in event planning or I thought it was all gonna be digital. I thought everything was gonna be online. so I was like, we'll just, you know, rent this space and then we'll email everyone and then they'll sign up and they'll show up. a lot of folks 'cause we're we're talking with people across multiple generations, across multiple states, with different levels of comfort in in apps or websites or but so we we like to have a combination of stuff. so it all appeals to different people. So I don't think any any one thing we do appeals to everybody. so whether it's like print mailers that we send and you know, goes in your hands and you get to hold it and whether it's magazine ads or some of the email stuff for the websites. but it the stuff that, you know, gets the most clicks or re produces like the most registrations I mean after we do a a campaign is typically the most honest. so it's it's not some email out to prospective exhibitors with a bunch of pie charts on it. It's it's putting in plain language what we're doing, what we're trying to do. The thing that gets the most attention is I mean, you've seen some of my marketing. I mean it's it's surrounding me, but as much as we can, I like to make it fun. so if I have to put, you know, a Bigfoot in an Elvis costume, I'll do it. we have to have a like a giant dinosaur or mariachi bands. Like if I can capture someone's attention enough to for enough time to explain what we're trying to do, that's what we're gonna do. So I'll try I'll try ten things and if if two of work, I'm happy with that with that ratio. Brandon Morphew: thinking about success, things working, how do you measure what worked at the show? Like is it just how many people walk through the door? What metrics are you paying attention to? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: there's a lot of metrics that we track just to tell if our marketing is working or if a particular so that maybe we can go by square footage, you know, how much of our space is being utilized by how many brands. that's somewhat deceptive because a lot of times a distributor will take more space or how the brands move around changes. The exhib I mean the attendee count is also a fuzzy number because so if a shop sends ten people and I get there's one buyer there, certain exhibitors will say, great, we got we got eleven people in the booth, but like one person had buying author authority. So people are looking for different metrics from us. they're also looking for their their goals are all different. So some people are looking to sell things right there on the show floor or a day or two after. So there's show specials and they base the success on how many orders got placed during this thing. And some people are there to do brand building and the the payoff might not happen until three, four, five months later. it might not be until that particular shop ran out of whatever they were selling that was a competitor's product and now they already knew about yours. And that's kind of where the serendipity comes in. They didn't know they were looking for it until they saw it at the show. So it's it's long way of saying it's difficult to to to to measure success, but we like to track a few things, but I like to keep track of how many storefronts, how many bike shops we're we're talking to and reaching. we love seeing shop employees, we love seeing families. but the total number of bodies walking in the building isn't necessarily my goal. we like to see that the reach that we have, the number of shops and where they're coming from expanding every year. so that it's kinda how I I know that we're doing a good job is cause it has year on year kind of grown the the net we cast gets bigger. the types of businesses that we're recruiting is growing. so we're seeing a lot more folks from the sta tangentially still bicycle, but not necessarily a bike shop. So rental locations, mobile mechanics, a lot of hospitality, people that do rentals or seasonal stuff. we've said power sports dealers, R V dealers, people who are somewhat in the same ecosystem. so that Those keep growing. The tour operators and the outfitters that do vacation planning and stuff, we're seeing more of them. still ninety percent bicycle retail, but that's how I know that we're doing okay. Brandon Morphew: I love this phrase, organized serendipity, and you brought it up again. what does that mean to you? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: I don't know how to explain it. A lot of people when they decide they want to attend a trade show and it's it creates a chicken and egg situation. They're like, the the brands all want to know well how many how many retailers and which ones are gonna be there. And the retailers always like, well what brands are gonna be there? So I I'm basically convincing both groups of people, like these people are going to and then they have different time frames for when they want to do this. but I I think a lot of folks you can have a successful event by coming to see the people that you planned on. You can have the meetings with the the five or six brands that you set up meetings with or but in between that time, it's it's the stuff you didn't plan on seeing. Walking the show floor, you you see things you weren't prepared to see. You're seeing e guess the a product you didn't know existed or a a product you did know existed by a brand you didn't know existed. and I think when people are looking for ways to make their product offerings unique, they're looking for ways to increase margin. so if you can find alternate products that you make more money on. If you can find companies that are easier to deal with than some of the partners that you might have, that's what we mean by, you know, organized serendipity is keep people moving around. give people an an excuse or a reason to talk to somebody new. that's why we do social events to keep people talking, that's why we do our scavenger hunts to keep people moving into booths that they wouldn't ordinarily do. It's also why we locate our on floor education spaces. in the corner so you gotta walk to places you ordinarily might not walk. but creating the conditions for discovery without trying to control what actually gets discovered. that's what I think separates in person events from online. 'cause the algorithm is telling you what you're gonna see online. I don't have any algorithms, you know, like I just So maybe that was too l long winded of an answer for you. Brandon Morphew: No, not at all. I think it's it's great. I think in person events are fantastic. I think they have a huge place in the future. I think it's really important to get people we're on screens right now. I think this is the common way that people interact. so I'm I'm all for it. I understand the idea. It's just sort of like setting setting the stage and And facilitating the actors that come so that they can you know, live their best scene, you know, be their their best Hamlet. Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: I think the the internet made products easier to find, but they made, you know, genuine discovery harder. breaking through into people's attention got more and more difficult. you also don't know if the it's it's the influencers video that you're seeing instead of, you know, the actual product and what it does. B to B events specifically, The people you're talking to are professionals. They work in bicycle shops. It's very difficult to put a product in their hands that's garbage and not have them know it. there's very very little risk of you being fooled by a Timu product at a at a at a B2B trade show because you know what you're dealing with. it's not so much just the product discovery, it's we're in a relationship business. And I think that matters a lot more than than people give it credit for. Like talking to people, it might be the guy who designed the product. It might be just a sales manager, it might be a sales rep, but might be your sales rep. but that relationship matters. a lot more than just this is the person who I get a widget from. so I think I think we c we can do that better at in person events than you can online. Brandon Morphew: I have my own opinion, so I I'll try to be as unpolitical as possible. specialized track, we've got these, you know, the big four brands. last time I checked, they're not maybe giant actually might have been at at the show. everybody knows Trek, everyone knows specialized. I so I kind of get why they don't participate in in trade shows. I'm also curious what what what are they missing or what do you think it would take like an awareness for manufacturers that are I think important? Canyon. I mean, you know, these these players in the industry that are spending a ton of money to reach audiences globally and and nationally. I just love to hear what you think. I what would it take to get or what what are they missing by not coming? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: there's a lot of brands now, as opposed to twenty years ago, that hold their own events. They want to have an exclusive event for top hundred, top two hundred, top three hundred retailers. that gives them exclusive control over what gets seen, what products there are. they don't have a dealer who has been consistently buying all of their rubber and accessories and bags seeing an alternative. So that's so that's the motivation for them to have their own event and not go to a go to a trade show. I think there's more benefits to attending 'cause a lot of brands that I don't think are focused enough on growing dealer networks. they're focused on selling more product through the dealers that they already have. that's why you hear fighting over how much percentage of your floor space has to be their models of of product. which is a hell of a way to do business. As opposed to letting the product speak for itself or your margin speak for itself, but no, if you if you want to sell this, we need X percentage of this and brands need credible local representation for service work, for assembly, for warranty, for talking to the people who were interested in it. There's value in that. There's tremendous value in that. I think some of the D to C brands are learning that. because I don't know how you Ship a bicycle to somebody's house, have build it themselves I think the tension between a lot of them, some of the political stuff you were talking about, happens when the risk gets pushed disproportionately to one side or the other, whether it's the risk of inventory or it's the risk of of managing this. but a healthy dealer network it needs to be economically viable to the dealer and to the manufacturer. And the the friction that we have and the problems that we have and the complaining that we get is when it's not. When it's not there aren't healthy margins, when they're not sustainable, when you can't, you know, afford to to give your people raises or contribute to community events be because you're not making any money on the product. but yeah, D to C doesn't have to be anti-dealer. hybrid models work if they're done transparently and openly and honestly. and the retailers also you I think they have to earn their role, rather than simply demanding you know, margin protection. so both side again, we were talking about earlier about who has to go first, but I think bike shops need to be more vocal about what they bring to the table in these relationships. Like I don't think consumer direct sales by people who like to call themselves brand partners. Like there's a way to do it and there's a way not to do it. And I think a lot of bike shops just like to complain about it. and I think what we should be doing instead is explaining in very clear terms what it is that bike shops offer this relationship. And I don't think we've been doing it very well. Brandon Morphew: it's interesting to me. I I look at the auto industry often and sort of where the shape of that industry and you know, their business is very much a service business. You know, it's the the the margin on cars for a dealership is they're not making the money you think they're making on those, you know, there's some Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: Yeah. Brandon Morphew: money in it, but it's not new cars are not what's driving Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: So financing, right? Brandon Morphew: I'm sure financing helps, but it is it's service. They make the money's Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: Yeah. Yeah. Brandon Morphew: made in in their service business. There is no none of these brands are selling service, right? this is an area that's really interesting to me because it this is the the industry is changing, right? You know, it's it's changing in so many ways. And so if a retailer hasn't been to the show, to CABDA in a few years, what what do you hope they'd rediscover by coming back? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: Our bread and butter for exhibitors are small to mid-sized companies. people who have a vested interest in you succeeding because they're not gonna have the market penetration to go consumer direct. so they and they're they're coming out to interact with the dealer. They're not they're not staying away and making you go to them. so I I think a lot of shops now, especially now when margins are disappearing and especially with tariffs, everything's going up at Except for margins. but finding people who are I think more amenable to these partnerships that actually want to do business with you, as opposed to making you beg to do business with them, that's that's our bread and butter. it's small companies, smaller distributors who can give you a better level of service, who actually, you know, care about the outcome instead of just pretending to care and Calling themselves partners. They're gonna do their own thing. We're gonna continue doing what we do and and trying to recruit as many like good companies as we can. But we're also cognizant of there's not one bike shop. There's not one cookie cutter, there's not one product mix. Everyone is is doing things a little differently. so we try to have a a wide variety of stuff. so it's not just six mountain bike companies and we're really pushing especially exhibitors to when people are coming into the booth or you're trying to talk to them about why they should carry your product, talk about like what you're gonna do for them. Like how are you how are you helping them? What problem are you solving? Is it It's not just a fancy widget. It's not just the latest, greatest, it's you know, 16 speed instead of 10. Like but you can't simultaneously say bike shops are essential and then build a business model where the bike shop is the only participant who's not supposed to make any money. so the most important thing a shop can do is make sure that they're there next year. That's what I would tell any shop that hasn't been to CABD in a while is that's what we're focused on. We're focused not on we're gonna recruit this single brand that didn't really wanna be here or talk to anybody. that's not what my motivation is. my motivation is I on getting people there that wanna be there and wanna do business with you. Brandon Morphew: We have Cabda Midwest, and that's in Schaumburg, Illinois, February third and fourth, twenty twenty-seven. Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: Mm-hmm. Brandon Morphew: And then Cabba West Cabda West, which is Las Vegas, and that's March seventeenth and eighteenth, twenty twenty seven. Is that right? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: That's right. Brandon Morphew: Excellent. And I y you you've sort of been through, you've seen the the the gamut here. You've you know, you've survived bike shops, trade shows, COVID, Las Vegas, the bike industry. after all that, what still makes you optimistic about bikes? Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: I think the best thing about our industry is that we have passionate people who like what they do. We have really, really we have people who love bicycles. We have the people who love getting people on bicycles, love fixing bicycles, and they know that what a bicycle can do for for people, for communities. they're revolutionary tools. I mean, we had we had an organiza it they're called Forgotten Not Gone, they're based in Vegas, and they get veterans on bicycles and they get them out of the house and so people who might be dealing with mental problems or depression. And they're using the bicycle to combat, you know, veteran suicide. I mean, there are people out there doing wonderful things with like the the products that we sometimes take for granted 'cause we live with them every day. that's what I love about it, is it gets it gets people moving, it gets and there's there's a thousand ways you can apply it. And it's not just find a mountain and ride diet, it's there's charity rides, there's commuting to work that that the versatility I guess is why is what I'm trying to tell you is that's what I love about it. and any change is gonna start with that level of passion and commitment to it. And we have that in spades. What we need is execution. So that's that's my rant. Brandon Morphew: Love it. Jim, thank you so much for for joining me and sharing your time. people can learn more about Cabda and the upcoming Midwest and West shows at cabdashow.com. I'll be there. I really appreciate everyone who listens to Spokes and Strategy. and if you know a a shop owner, someone who's passionate about cycling, someone who's in the industry or a brand, please share this. Share this with them and let them know we'd love for them to join the conversation. So thanks so much. Jim Kersten - CABDA Expo: Thank you.