[Greatest Hits] Episode #132: How They Get 7 Months On, 5 Months of the Year Off with the Most Ce...

Welcome to this edition of the million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell. All right, I'm back with Lee Keating, co owner along with her husband Tom Bowers for 33 years in Aspen, the premier ski clothing equipment and all season wear, the premier retailer in Aspen. They started at the bottom, worked their way up. And so thanks Lee, for taking the time to get back and giving us a chance to bat some more ideas around.

Thanks for having me, Lee.

Talk about, people are interested in this thing because as you're successful in one location, one of the things I have in the book is that every time you run through the finish line and you have a success, it opens up the doors to other opportunities that would have never been available to you had you not had that first success. And you've had compounding success. You even moved, I remember when you moved to and took over the big store on the corner. And a lot of people, you know, everybody's always second guessing, but there was plenty of people to say, oh, I wish they hadn't done that. Oh, they, they, they overbid, you know, and it's such a big thing. But you made it a, you hit that thing out of the park. And by doing that, you know, you got that opportunity because you made a success out of that 900 square foot facility to begin with and that, that opened the door up to a bigger opportunity. And how has that been for you? Do you feel vindicated? Did you feel vindicated by being able to make that work?

Oh, yeah, no, it's been unbelievably fantastic. It's been very, although, you know, a lot of people, like 90% of our customers were super supportive of us moving. Very, very supportive. So that was really fantastic.

Yeah. And so, you know, it wasn't like a blind leap of faith. You, you know, and again, a big percentage of your client base are success, super successful people that are the businesses. So you had, you had wise people giving you that advice. And so it still had to feel good though to, to, to see what a success it turned out because you become. You not just made it a success, you become a fixture in, in town at that location. And for how many years has that been? Now?

This is going into the eighth year, eighth year now.

You take that store and all of a sudden opportunities open up in what, Snowmass Vail, other areas.

Yes, we're in both Snowmass And Vail.

And so how did that come about?

That's the end of our thing.

You're not going to have any more kids. In other words, those. No, if stores are kids, you're not going to have any more kids. But what, that's it.

Three is enough.

Threes enough. Now what did you learn by taking on those and doing that kind of expanding? Because you have a lot of people that have success in one area and then they're faced with the same type decision and they want, they wonder. And so what you've done is you've duplicated yourself in Snowmass and in Vail. And Vail for people don't know is about a two hour drive, Snowmass about a half hour. And that stretches you. There's a lot going on running three stores compared to one. So what have you learned from that? How has that enriched your life?

Oh my God. My God. It's actually, you know, at first I would say it's made more work but it hasn't because we've made sure that a. The people that work for us in those locations are top, like top notch. And those locations have been, they're a much simpler operation than what we have here. We don't offer the services of ski rental or ski equipment. It's only ski apparel. It's only a few of the brands, the best brands. And a lot of people told us especially we open in Vail or we open in Snowmass, we have to buy differently for those stores. I said forget it, we're buying exactly the same. And so it's been nice that three shops kind of support each other through us almost really not needing a warehouse, you know, where the excess merchandise is kept in bail and snow mess. And as we need it, we move it around. No, it's, I don't know, sometimes my husband says it's a pain in the neck but other times we think it's great, you know, I don't know. Yeah, we just have to be on top of those situations though. We definitely, we just can't let them go and be off on their own. I mean we have fantastic people working there, but we still have to be on top of every detail all the time.

And what, let's go back to the first thing you said. You've got to be really have really high quality people there. It's like in my staff that's not that big but you know, we get, we do a lot of different things. We run several businesses. We've got, I don't know how they keep up with it. But I tell. I tell our staff, we don't just have a staff. We've got a trophy staff. You know, it's not. You know, people have got to be taught really, at the top of their game to be. To work with everybody else, because everybody else is like first class. And if you have. If your goal as the owner is just to survive, you'll take anybody you can get, you know, just to keep the doors open. But if your aim is to excel and you got, you know, a real pride about your quality and your reputation and really want to do a good job, you know, you're going to demand more out of the people on your team. And was that. I can't believe that was something that was new for you. But was that lesson more reinforced once you got extended like that?

Yeah, probably. But, you know, I think the fact that our guys are so good, so good that when this Covid thing happened, I said to all of them, you still have a job. Don't even worry for one second. And then in turn, they're so happy and grateful that they work twice as hard. You know, it's all about how you treat each other.

Yeah, but, you know, your mentality. What? I don't know if you. What? I don't know if this. Anyone ever talks to you about this, but there's a book called the E. Myth by Michael Gerber, and it's the entrepreneurial myth. And people think because they open a store to do what they do.

You.

Know, they have a business, but you really only have a business when you've built it up, that that thing can run and be profitable even when you're not there and you're, you know, you're involved in the buying and this, that, and the other. But you've got a business. I mean, you've got three stores that operate, and you can take off time, go on the buying trips, go on other things. I mean, how many months a year are you in Hawaii or Fiji or wherever? You take time?

Yes. Yeah, I take five months. Hawaii, Fiji, and Indonesia.

I didn't even know about Indonesia. You're even becoming more of my hero. So what's the thinking? What's the thinking behind how long did it take you to get to that point? And what's the thinking on taking that time out for yourself in your family?

Well, it was all step by step, you know, it wasn't five months all of a sudden. It started out two weeks. Then it grew to a month, then it went to two months. So it's been an evolution of time off, but also, I mean, we are so busy. Like when we typically get back October 1st, we hit the ground running and we are like that until we leave on May 1st. And I'm working seven days a week all day long. I'll ski in the morning for a few hours and then I am at the store from noon until when it's time to go home and have dinner. So it's a very busy being busy. Busy ski season.

Yeah. And if, you know, if you're going to have that time off, you can, you can push yourself because you know there's going to, you got this, this time off ahead of you and it makes it easier to just do what you need to do. What about, you know, when you're gone on the other side of the world? This is not like you took a vacation to North Scottsdale to a resort where you could drive back in an afternoon or a day. This is a day of flying by plane if you had to get back in a hurry. So on the other side of the world during those months, how much are you thinking about the business in wondering and worrying about the business every day? And is that emails and phone call and texts and things like that?

No, it's phone calls. I call them on the telephone. I have to hear their voice, have to know what's going on. I have to. It's. No, it's not text or email. It's an actual phone call.

Yeah. We have a guy in our business or a couple, and they're taking three week trips to Dubai and to China. They just, you know, he said, I like to travel, but they still have their finger on the pulse of the business even though, you know, they're on vacation. It doesn't. It do you find it takes a lot of time to keep up with it at a distance is. Or no, no, just as long as they know you're in touch with them and they hear your voice and things like that.

Yeah. No, it's maybe, I mean, some days it's 10 minutes. Other days it might be an hour and a half when I'm gone or if I have to say, do an order, that might take me a couple hours, but it's usually pretty quick. You know, I call each of the stores, ask them how they're doing, what they sold, what's going on, what's the gossip. Sometimes I have them send me pictures of the merchandising and. But it's pretty quick.

And what do you do? What, what, how long did it take you to figure out what questions to ask. Do you do it just by. It sounds like you're doing that by feel as well. It's like, what's going on? What. What was sold? You know, you get right to the bottom, bottom line. It's not a line. How do you feel? It's like, what's getting sold? You know, what's moving, what's.

Actually, no, I want the details. I want. Yes, yes. I don't call them and say, how is business today? Good. Okay, great.

How are you feeling?

I want to know the details. It's all about the details.

Yeah. You know, I'll tell you something. We used to have annual conventions in Atlanta, 40, 50,000 people back when we were owned. We were the marketing engine for Citigroup, and that was Sandy Weil. But his second in command was Jamie Dimon, who now runs, you know, the biggest bank in the world. And I asked Jamie one time, I said, you know, when you get together, they're planning meetings once a month. I said, when you get together, the planning meetings, what things do you go over? You know, what information are you looking at? And, you know, how do you come. How do you work your way through the decision process? He looked at me dumbfounded. You know, we were, like, walking on stage for some introduction of some kind. And I remember we're climbing the stairs and having this conversation. And he said. He looked at me dumbfounded. He said, the facts. He said, we talk about the facts. When you have the facts, it makes it very easy to make decisions. And it sounds like you operate exactly the same way. Well, this has been great. I appreciate your time. I'm proud of what you're doing. Looking forward to seeing how your business continues to expand, prosper. And see, now you're entering into a new dimension, which all parents do if they're fortunate enough to see their kids come and take hold of things in life and apply those same principles. And, you know, you got a lot of fun things to look forward to. Lee. And let me just ask you this. Going out the door, was there anything that you can look back on that you made sure you did with your kids to help them grow up and be responsible, independent people, you know, basically responsible and people that, you know, where they could be on their own and make their own decisions and not be misled by all of the stuff that. That try, you know, that's out there to try and get kids off track. Is there anything you can look back on and say, I'm really glad we did this, or this was Always my intent or we always talked about this because obviously you spent a lot of time together, but is there any one thing that you emphasized that you felt like made was a difference maker with them?

You know, it's interesting. I think what has been such a gift for our children is that they see how hard we work and how they see that there is absolutely. There are no shortcuts. There are no shortcuts. And if you want to be successful, you have to do the work. And for them, they've applied that to their schoolwork. I mean, they both told me there's no shortcut for math. It's applied to their training for ski racing. I mean, they work like crazy. They're surfing and also they're helping out with us here in the shop. I think both of my kids are going to do quite well because they know that there is absolutely, positively no substitute for hard work.

Well, that's a great ending to our interview. And I just want to thank you again, Lee, for taking the time.

Sure. It was great. Thanks.

Yeah. And I'm looking forward to the new season. It's always fun to see all the new great things that you bring in. And if I can, I'm always in there early before the season so I can cherry pick the best things.

I know that's perfect.

Before you get out of the sizes. So anyway, have a, have a, a great trip and thanks again for doing this.

Sure, sure. Thank you.

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