Grateful

Grateful

Despite the madness 2020 has dealt all of us, life goes on and continues to deliver beautiful, special moments. Carolyn and I just had a visit with our new Grandson, Ronin Harrison Perkins. He’s healthy and happy, and Mackenzie is doing well also. His big sister Hazel is taking her roll seriously and taking great care of him. Like many of you, we had to cancel multiple family vacations. We have rescheduled again for September and are hoping that can still happen. If so, we’ll finally get to see our daughter, her husband and the twins who live in Chicago. We have not seen them since Christmas. Veda and Jude are turning 2. It seems like they’re growing up too fast. Our daughter assures us that they are still little even though they look grown up in photos. Seeing all the kids and grandkids at once is our light at the end of the tunnel.

At the beginning of the pandemic it was very unsettling and a little scary when we were forced to close. There were a lot of tough decisions to be made. It was especially hard because you had no clue what to expect. Do you furlough your team, who do you keep, do you keep anyone? How do you keep revenue coming in? What is your burn rate, in other words how many months can you survive with nothing coming in before you’re out of cash? The first thing was to call every vendor and ask for extended terms. Push out every invoice that was coming due or renegotiate our terms and discounts. Cash is always king but even more so during times like this. Vendors were in a tough spot also. They knew they were getting cut off and would be the last to get paid by retailers. Fortunately, our vendors were great to us. Most extended our invoices 30, 60 and even 90 days out. Some offered deeper discounts if we would pay now. We took advantage of every offer. Standard procedure in desperate times is to immediately lay off and or furlough everyone. In most cases, in brick and mortar, the owners were the only people left. Fortunately, many of our part-time staff work here for fun, and volunteered to go on furlough. We took a pretty unorthodox approach with our fulltime team. We made the decision to keep everyone on payroll. They are an amazing and talented group that we needed more than ever and didn’t want to risk losing. After a week of being completely shut down, we called the fulltime team back in. We would remain closed to the public, wear our mask and social distance among each other, and deep clean and sanitize every inch. We all came to together to come up with strategies to service customers safely, responsibly and get cash coming through the door. Many of our part time employees were also able to return. This is when we started offering curbside. Our marketing team got busy implementing that along with other marketing initiatives. We looked at all of our inventory and pulled out any previous models that were slow moving, outliers or had been on the shelf far too long. These models were deeply discounted and marketed to sell fast so we could free up extra cash. It became a race to create as much cash flow as possible. Like everyone else, we had no idea how long we would be closed.

The support from the running and walking community has been unbelievable. Customers who had not replaced there shoes in a while, called, placed their order and we delivered it to their car when they pulled up. We also had customers replacing their shoes early just to support us. TC Running purchased gift certificates for future race awards even though they were postponed indefinitely. The support has been humbling to say the least. Curbside was working, it became a thing and we were staying busy. It was not the volume we were used too but we were happy for anything. When phase 1 was introduced we could open at 50% capacity. We had to completely reconfigure the layout of the store. All fit benches a minimum 6 feet apart and the fit stools placed 6 feet away. Fittings done by appointment only. We implemented temperature checks at the door, customers are given hand sanitizer, and a mask if they do not already have one. If we were at capacity inside, we were fitting outside under the tent with all the same guidelines. Shoes are sanitized after each fitting and the workspace is thoroughly sanitized as well. All of the high touch areas are constantly cleaned. It’s a lot of extra work but our team feels comfortable and customers seem to appreciate the extra steps. It has become the new way of doing business, the new normal.

With every event and race across the country cancelled or postponed, everyone realized running and walking was the only thing not cancelled. More people have started walking and running. Who would have imagined all the virtual races? Virtual races across the country and for every distance exploded! When we did open to the public, we were slammed. The appointment times booked solid, curbside pickup busting at the seams, and the phone ringing off the hook. It almost felt a little out of control at first. We had to constantly make adjustment to fine tune the traffic flow, stay within CDC guidelines, and all the while keeping ourselves and customers safe. As the days went on, we became a well oiled machine. Just like many businesses, we had to literally reinvent the way we do business. Many of the changes have been great and we wish we had thought of them years ago. Curbside pickup has been a great addition. Especially for our returning customers who know exactly what they want. They simply call the store or go online and place their order for curbside pickup. No more waiting your turn on busy days. Fittings are primarily by appointment only. Customers can go online or call, select the date and time they want to arrive, and an Outfitter is ready and waiting when they arrive, zero wait time. Customers can still walk in for a fitting. If an Outfitter is not available or all the time slots are booked, we simply put them into our Waitwhile system which sends text notifications on the progress of their fitting time. This gives us the ability to control the number of customers in the store. The customer can simply wait in their car or go shop the plaza.

Fortunately, business has been very good and we’re not far off from our normal. From our perspective it feels calmer and more relaxed in the store. We think it’s an even better experience for our customer too. In the beginning when we decided to keep our fulltime team together, most business were laying everyone off. You start to wonder if you’re the crazy one. Did we make the right decision? Everyday we reassessed where we were and what we were doing. I can honestly say it’s the best decision we could have made. It made us better, more cohesive, and even closer than before. You know who you can count on in the worst of times and who has your back. Everyone stepped up and took ownership. We are so grateful for this team/family. We will get through this. Clearly everyone is anxious to put COVID and 2020 behind us. I’m confident that 2021 will be much better, but different for sure. Training and races will be back one way or another. They will look a different also, maybe for the better even, but they will be back. And I can only imagine the enthusiasm and comradery we’ll see at those races. Stay safe and healthy. We’ll see you out on the road.

Edgar