Your Adventure, Our Gear…No, seriously!

I just damn well near deleted an email that ended up changing my day.

Like anyone, I periodically check my gmail during the day to make sure I’m not missing any important emails. I’m a newsletter whore, so I subscribe to a lot of stuff. Yet, depending on my time availability, I usually end up deleting anything I don’t “need” that isn’t from someone I personally know.

One of my daily newsletters comes from Summify, a program that aggregates my social media streams to send me the most important stories so I don’t have to sift through them myself. I enjoy it. But I don’t always have the time to read through it. Today was one of the days I didn’t have the time. So when I checked up on my gmail, I hovered my mouse over delete. I stopped myself when I saw Hugh MacLeod in the subject line. (What a guy.) I opted to open the email to see what he had said…

Hugh posted this guest blog post by Kathy Sierra.

It’s good. Read it.

I have that gosh darn inner pixie dust battle every day.

For anyone who doesn’t know, I finally settled on a job…a few months ago.

I am the “marketing person,” “director,” “manager,” whatever, for Uncle Dan’s - The Great Outdoor Store. I LOVE this job. I LOVE this company. I LOVE this business.

A huge part of marketing is extreme obsession. I whole heartedly believe that there is no such thing as good marketing if you won’t take a bullet for the business you’re promoting. There is good strategy without a willingness for suicide, but not good marketing.

I got into marketing because it just happened that way. I stayed in marketing because it became my passionate lover. Marketing is about instilling an emotional reaction. I love feelings. I like experiencing reactions. I’m into sentimental moments. I cry during commercials. I love being in love. Blah, blah, blah.

I’m not talking about Hallmark card crap. Ew. All I’m saying is, what’s the point of going through life with a flat lined heart beat? Metaphorically.

I wasn’t always like this. The more I spent time in marketing, and the more I realized I could create emotional enjoyment around something that wasn’t human or animal, the more emotional all other aspects of my life became.

I have a theory that School made me hard, but life has made me softer.

But there is a downside…

Love is painful. I’m kept awake at night by that haunting feeling that I may not be capable of changing the fate of Uncle Dan’s the way I want. All I want is to see it succeed. I’ve actually considered coming up with a way I could sit each person in Chicago down and talk to them about this incredible company.  One on one, with coffee. My job would be done. THAT would make a difference. But that ain’t happening. So instead, I pull my hair out trying to think of what else I can do. What magical idea will be the game changer that makes this family business the dominating outdoor store.

Then I read Kathy’s article. I didn’t even get to the end before I not only knew what she was saying, I knew exactly how to apply what she was saying to my day to day at Uncle Dan’s.

Yes, I fall into the traps she talks about. I’m absolutely guilty of preaching, “but social media is human.” It’s true, it is human. It’s me talking, and I’m real. The blog (coming soon) will be human too. The emotion that I put into every idea I come up with, my tiny versions of pixie dust, that’s all human. But she’s right. It will never be enough.

So we’re nice. Big woop.
So I hand out cool swag. Neato.
I put on good events (really I do, many cool ones on the way). But so what?

All these things are great fun, and they do “help.” They get people talking about your business and remembering you exist. But they aren’t the reason you’ll win. No matter how well executed they are.

I have to figure out how what I do, what we do, benefits the customer. How do we “help people become more interesting at their OWN next dinner party.” Or more likely campfire…in our case.  

I shopped in our stores to get ready for my trip to Peru on Friday.

BTW - I’m hiking Machu Picchu next week.

I’ve never done anything like this trek, and spoiler alert, I don’t know that much about the outdoor industry. But I’m learning. So when I went into Uncle Dan’s and was guided by our knowledgeable and enthusiastic staff on who, what, when, where to buy before I get on that plane to adventure, I was stoked by the amount of knowledge I walked away with. Now, I can explain to people why I got the gear that I did, what it’s benefits are, and why I picked the brands I did.

On Saturday I took my step-dad who was visiting Chicago to Uncle Dan’s and convinced him to purchase his first piece of Icebreaker. With the help of one of our staff, he learned everything he needed to know about why that piece was the right one. Icebreaker is quality shit. He walked away feeling great about that purchase. He talked about it at brunch, and then tried it on again at the apartment. Not because it looked good (he’s not that fashionable) but because he was so inspired by what it meant. At the end of the day, all the zip up is going to do is keep him really truly warm and comfortable. (Like forever because they don’t wear out.) That’s not that awe-inspiring. But to him, a guy that works outdoors in the winters of Michigan, that meant everything. He couldn’t wait to go back and tell the other guys he works with about it.

Today, our buyer took a phone call from a women shopping for her sons summer trip online. She paused her day, and spent time guiding this women through the site and around our products to make the best picks. Believe me, she had plenty of other things to do. But that bit of time she spent on the phone helping this lady who had no idea what she was doing, helped.

That’s what Uncle Dan’s offers.

That’s what I need to focus on.

We’re an education on the pieces of gear and apparel that make the adventures you seek in life possible. Be that how to feel confident on your first big trek, how to survive the winter, or how to fall asleep knowing you bought your son the right pair of pants.

Yes. You can get what we sell other places. We’ll always have competition. But we’ll never be just another outdoor retail store, we’re an education.

Word.
- C