Starting Over Successfully with Entrepreneur Jeff Robinson

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell. And before we get started, if you want to know exactly how to win again and again, go to Wydell on winning.com webinar now to watch something I've put together for you. Now let's get going into this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind.

I'm here talking with Jeff Robinson, owner of the Ski Locker Ajax out in Aspen, Colorado, where I keep my skis and have for 11. This will be the 12th year and it's the place to be folks, if you want to spend the ski season in Aspen and have everything convenient, all your, all your junk and warm boots every morning when you get in there and not putting your feet in those cold or maybe damp boots you skied in yesterday. And it's all worth it every morning when you go in there and start your day at the Ski locker. So Jeff, talk about starting over, you know, well, the last time, you know, we were just talking about the idea of when you open your new location, the third one in three years, you know, you went and moved into the pop up and now got your permanent location, you bit the bullet, you signed the 10 year lease. But talk about a startup. You know what I've always found when you run a business again, if you're successful, you grow and then you get space restraints and you need to expand and this, that and the other. But when you uproot and move to a new location, there's always advantages, otherwise you wouldn't do it. But those advantages need to be substantial. If you have the choice, you gotta, it's gonna cost you to move and not everybody's going to go with you and there's going to be a lot of rebuilding. In our business you have people expand from state to state, town to town, you know, and sometimes what was working in Charlotte, North Carolina doesn't work in say Cincinnati, Ohio. And the guy was a huge success in Charlotte and he was basically a meatball. The 20 years he spent in Cincinnati and we just see that thing duplicated all over the country. On the other hand, some people move to another part of the country and they just catch on fire. And so you can't assume just because things on paper make sense that you're going to be able to make it work. And I think maybe that had something to do with, you know, you really thinking about the gut check about signing the 10 year lease. But talk about starting over, you know, you've started over in different towns, in different industries, in different locations. Talk about that whole process of starting over and doing it successfully. How much planning, how much can you plan? How much do you just have to figure out as you go?

Yeah, well, I mean that starting over and designing a shop from scratch, it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of work. I spent a lot of time, had a really good architect, interior designer, and we spent hours switching things around and trying to figure out the best way to make it all work. How we could make the locker room as big as we could. Because that money generates a lot of money that offsets that big rent factor for the space. Moving from the little shop to the bigger shop tripled my rent. And then just designing what is going to work, what's comfortable for the locker members, the retail area. So you put a lot of design work into it and then you actually got the place go in, do the construction and watch it come to fruition. And does it come out the way you wanted it to? And is it. Is what changes or what maybe you would have changed? But the new shop, it turned out as good as I'd hoped. The locker room turned out great. Happy with, with just about everything that we did. I don't think there's a lot of things I would change. The locker room takes up two thirds of the space and then our retail area is about a third of the entire space. So I really wanted to focus on a locker room and having those 120 locker members creating kind of a club feel with a big coffee bar and the patio and all this stuff so they could really enjoy having a locker skiing and enjoying staying and hanging around the locker room getting their skis tuned afterwards. Which if you're a locker member, that's all included all your tuning and waxing and services, including in there, you get discounts in the shop and. And all those things that go with it. So it feels like you're kind of a club type thing. But yeah, but it did feel like starting over in a sense that it was new space, new people coming in, getting lockers, new traffic, foot traffic, because the traffic in front of the shop. I like to say that street we're on is like the Rodeo Drive of Aspen in a sense. It's probably the busiest street in town during ski season, during the day. So we get people walking by. Thousands of people walk by the shop. Compared to the old shop, it was maybe 100 or two a day on a busy day. So it was a completely different situation, different shop, different location. And those are the things that motivated me to move to the new space was the. The ideal location and where we were and being near the bus stop and next door to two coffee shops. And the amount of people that would go by and see us and build a business because people would become aware of we were over there and who we were and stuff. And then building a reputation, which we already kind of had, but we had to maintain it and move forward with it and grow it.

Hey, listen, there's a lot of information online, but there aren't a lot of people who have actually done something. In my case, I've actually built a successful business that's accrued over $5 billion.

In assets under management and has done.

Well even during trying times. Now, if you want to know exactly how I've done this, go to Whiteellumwinning.com webinar Now, I've compressed a decade of learning into five short weeks. Just for those of you who want to give yourself an incredible advantage and are tired of waiting and watching others move.

And the thing is that all of this is in the beginning, you're designing, laying all this out, but when it comes down to it, you've got to make a bet.

Yeah.

And all of these things. But it helps if you've been in the business before. You know, like you said, it helped that you were forced to go over to that pop up. And so a lot of times when we're in, a lot of times we get a situation that's working for us. We're not really sure why it's working. We might know things we have to do things we don't have to do, but don't really understand the business as well as we think. Would you say you really have a better grasp of the business now, having gone through two moves than when you were over there at the base of the gondola?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, moving, moving twice, figuring things out, and then resetting this shop up and figuring, figuring out the do's and the don'ts through that process has helped me, you know, even to today. Like, this season is going much smoother than it ever has. Setting up the shop for this upcoming season is going super smooth. Everything's in place, you know. You know, in the ski business, we do our orders last January and February, and then you don't even see your stuff until October, November. But just setting it up and everything in place, and I've got some key employees that help me do that. Things are going super smooth. Selling lockers, the locker rooms, you know, filling up quickly. We're gaining Tons of new people that haven't ever been in our shop the last. The last season and already this season. So it's. It's going good.

And what do you. What do you think you're better at?

What do you mean?

Better at yourself? What do you think you've naturally grown into that you're better at handling?

Well, I spin all the plates and wear all the hats, so.

You know.

I love dealing with my locker members and my people and my customer, good customers, and I love taking care of people, and I love. I have a great boot guy. And he and I kind of have the same philosophy. We are all about people having a good experience while they're skiing. He's about getting their boots right, because if your boots are comfortable and they're set up properly, you're going to ski better. I'm about selling skis, the proper ski, the proper length, and giving people a good experience by giving them the right equipment. And that's what we like to be good at. And giving them good information, you know, whether we've got what they need. Maybe I don't have a boot that fits them. Maybe I'm sold out of the ski that's the right ski. From giving them the right information so they can go down the street to my buddy that owns the shop down the street. Maybe they have what they need. So we're all about just giving people a great experience when they're Aspen and Aspen skiing and on the hill so they can enjoy themselves, and.

That translates into doing the whole job well. And, you know, when that's your intent, you take every aspect of your business seriously and you're, you know, it just shows. So looking forward to a new season out there. Jeff, appreciate you taking the time to walk through this stuff with us. And probably we'll check back in with you in the future. What surprises have you had come in from some of your customers and some of the. You said people all over the country that you've met. What's been surprising for you? That I never expected. I know these people. I never expect I'd be in this situation. I get, you know, have these kind of friendships. Anything stand out to you?

You know, just. Just that everybody. And I don't have enough time to travel around and go see everybody. And everybody has been. They invite me to come to their stay at their house. I just. I get a lot of invites of just generosity, you know, and a lot of them I could call up, and they do just about anything for me because we've become pretty good friends over the years. So that's that. You know, that surprised me. I never thought I would have that. Where I've got a client in Beverly Hills that has a fabulous house. He goes, you can just come stay at my, in my guest house whenever you want. You can do this. And I've got other people come to New York City and stay here. You know, I'm not even there. It's stuff like that. It's the generosity from, from my locker members and customers that is just amazing.

Well, it's all because they're responding to how they're treated. And that's why I know I stay in there. And I'm looking forward to seeing you here this next season. So good luck getting things wrapped up, getting ready. We'll be praying for snow, cold weather and snow and kick off the the season with a bang here in Thanksgiving.

All right, Larry, thank you.

If you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works in the real world, I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years and put them into something for you to watch. Go to Whiteellumwinning.com webinar now in order to order to move up as fast as possible, I'm Larry Weidell, and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go.