Outdoor Retailer - Winter 2018 - 49

Feature .03

STUMPTOWN
SNOWBOARDS
WHITEFISH, MONTANA

Founded: 1992

WWWWW
WHEN JOE TABOR AND HIS WIFE, KRISTIN,
decided to start a snowboard shop 25 years ago
in the town where they grew up, they opened
it in the closet of Tabor's friend's CD shop. "It
was maybe 150 square feet," Tabor says. "We
just started scratchin' and clawin' and learning what not to do."
They didn't hire another employee for the
first four years. That changed as their business
grew, eventually occupying a shop in town and
another on the mountain. Now, the Tabors employ eight workers during the winter, many of
them Whitefish natives and roommates, all of
them rippers. "Most locals on the mountain
know who our guys are," Joe Tabor says.
At work, Tabor requires they be equally
committed to delivering fair customer service
and what he calls "the no-vibe vibe." "If I have
to go out on the floor because a customer has
a problem with an employee, I'm pretty confident the problem is the customer and not the
employee," he says. "The main thing we look
for in our staff is personality. We usually keep
a couple guys on the payroll who I call 'barometer personalities.' Just a genuine, friendly demeanor. Not a lot of spots open up."
Stumptown operates according to the
"cockroach principle": keep the staff lean
during slow times and heavy in good times-
like last season, which ranked among the
four best in Stumptown's history. Tabor
likes to say a customer's time in Stumptown
should stand out from the rest of her travel
day, which often stinks.
"We've had guys over the years who we've
hired back even if they weren't as, um, thorough as we wanted them to be, just because
of their personality," Tabor says. "We'll give
'em another winter because they're great at
making people happy."

SKINNY SKIS
JACKSON, WYOMING

Founded: 1974
Craig Moore

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OVER THE 40 YEARS THAT PHIL LEEDS HAS
co-owned Skinny Skis, a Nordic- and back-

SMILES EVERYONE
Joe and Kristin Tabor
of Stumptown
Snowboards in
Whitefish, Montana,
look for employees
who make customers
feel happy.

"WE USUALLY KEEP A COUPLE GUYS ON THE PAYROLL
WHO I CALL 'BAROMETER PERSONALITIES.' JUST A
GENUINE, FRIENDLY DEMEANOR." -JOE TABOR, STUMPTOWN SNOWBOARDS
country-focused shop in Jackson, Wyoming,
he's learned plenty of lessons. Near the top:
Never ask a customer, "Can I help you?" when
he or she walks in.
"Because the most common answer is, 'No,
I'm just looking,'" Leeds says. "It's kind of a deadend question. We encourage our employees to
come up with something a little more creative."
To make that easier, Leeds hires people capable of doing so. And they stick around. Roughly
a third of Skinny Skis' winter workers have been
there for 10 years or more. Such institutional
knowledge is crucial given the shop's strongest
category has always been Nordic, a highly spe-

cialized and technical niche that a lot of shops
forego in favor of burlier backcountry gear.
According to Leeds, Skinny Skis continues
to see single-digit annual growth in its topline sales. "Profitability has been consistent
through all these years," Leeds says. "While the
top-line sales growth may not be dramatic, I
think it's hard for businesses that are mature
like ours to do that without growing physically.
It comes down to the right buying decisions."
And for that, he has counted on a woman
named Pat Tackle since the late '70s. Although
Tackle, who started on the shop's retail floor, recently retired from full-time work, she contin-

Winter 2018 / OUTDOOR RETAILER 49

Outdoor Retailer - Winter 2018

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