SIA The Intelligent Partner - Fall 2007 - (Page 13)

Fried said ski areas have met consumer needs and “embraced the way people want to have fun on the hill.” For example, building more jumps has led to less regimentation and less boredom on ﬂat groomed trails. Mike Gagliardi (Rocky Mountains) This is the second year that “Gags” – a nickname he’s had since second grade – has received the award. And not surprisingly, he has a way with words. Gags started riding in 1986-87 while he was a Chicago-based corporate headhunter. He boarded in the Midwest, saw excitement building and was “living through magazines.” Finally he decided “I wanted to sell something I like rather than something I have to do.” So he and wife, Dodie Ownes, who had introduced him to downhilling – he proposed to her on a chairlift his third time skiing – moved to Golden, Colo. and learned that Aggression Snowboards was based in nearby Boulder. Gags, who has an engineering degree, phoned them and “went from a suit and tie V.P. to slingin’ wood cores, chewin sawdust and makin’ 6 bucks an hour.” And he loved it! He began repping snowboards for Barfoot in 1993 and has since branched out into longboards, apparel and more. From a rep’s standpoint, some of the biggest changes he’s seen are in communication and time management. He started by jotting down customer information on 8 x 5 cards. Now he has to check e-mails on a regular basis and Internet access is mandatory to keep in touch with customers. Another huge change is that reps need to stay in touch with dealers year-round, even if they don’t offer summer lines. For dealers, Gags says product technology has “bumped up” over the past 12-13 years. For example, boards are lighter and more durable, with more specialization. As for outerwear, when he began in the snowboarding business he was selling stuff that was “basically Cordura that was ScotchGuarded.” Hot trends he sees for the coming year include expansion in textured fabrics and more hardgoods specialization, like softer snowboard sidewalls rather than caps. he could “feed both my passions,” eventually becoming general manager and buyer. At that point, he became a tech rep for Nordic USA, then an associate and was given his own territory while picking up other lines. Now he’s an independent and in his 20th year in the ski business – 12 years as a vendor. Over the years, Kerkhof has seen major changes in the buying cycle. There used to be a lot of hype for pre-season sales, but now there’s a narrower time window. It’s tougher for reps to manage business – dealers have to promote more effectively and reps have to work more intensively with shops. “You need to manage it like a business,” not casually, he said. For winter-sports speciﬁc shops, he calls on less than 100 doors – dramatically fewer than years ago. Survivors have a passion for winter sports and “have a plan” that they execute, Kerkhof said. “Family is a trend that I’m watching right now” for both hard and softgoods, he said. “The best dealers have ﬁgured out a way to capture the entire family. The best resorts have ﬁgured out a way to capture and entertain the entire family.” Karen Kerkhof (Eastern Lakes) Karen Kerkhof specializes in softgoods, so it’s an even greater tribute to her professionalism that she received the same number of votes as her husband. “I felt very honored and a little just surprised because usually it’s the hardgoods guys who get recognized,” she said. At age 16, Kerkhof started working in a women’s clothing store, where she got a good sense about buying with a “young eye.” At age 18, she started as a summer buyer at Fun & Snow, a specialty shop in Ann Arbor, Mich., where she worked for 10 years. That fall, she was asked to stay on although “I didn’t even know what a binding was.” Kerkhof worked her way through college, then was a teacher for a year but didn’t have a teaching job. Nordica was looking for an apparel sales rep, “So I said, what the heck. And I never went back.” In the apparel world, Kerkhof feels that “one of the most signiﬁcant changes is the whole buying cycle has changed dramatically.” She used to buy in March when she knew what sell-through was. Now buyers need to look at things in December. She has to have a much closer relationship with buyers to John Kerkhof (Eastern Lakes) Based near Traverse City, Mich., John Kerkhof is half of a husband/wife independent rep team who tied for the regional rep of the year award as individuals. He generally handles hardgoods while she specializes in softgoods. They have a son who’s 6 and already a skier, and a 1-year-old daughter. John has been skiing since age 5. After high school, he used to frequent a local ski area shop as a customer, was invited to wax skis, went on to tuning and became assistant manager. He left to pursue a year-round position at a bike and ski shop so | S I A | T . I . P . | FA L L 2 0 0 7 | 13

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of SIA The Intelligent Partner - Fall 2007

SIA The Intelligent Partner - Fall 2007 Contents Word off the Slopes Welcome Best of the Best 287 Goodyear Blimps and the Bottom Line Faces in the Crowd On the Money SIA Products and Services Index to Advertisers Advertisers.com

SIA The Intelligent Partner - Fall 2007

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