University Bicycles — Episode 13

Brand Junkies - Rethink Creative Group

In this episode, David sits down for an interview with Lester Binager, the general manager of University Bicycles in Boulder, CO. Lester shares how their unique and extreme approach to customer service, and NOTHING ELSE, has led to them becoming one of the largest bike shop in the United States. If you're looking for a totally new approach to creating raging fans—this is it.

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Show Notes

David: What up Junkies? Today I sit down with Lester Bineger, the General Manager of University Bicycles in Boulder, Colorado. They're the largest bicycle shop in the United States by volume. I'm going to tell you right now, what he's going to share today is something I've never heard on the Brand Junkies Podcast. I don't even know that I've heard it anywhere period. It's so good and so unique I don't even want to tease it anymore other than just to tell you Lester's going to bring it today so get ready. Without further ado, here's Lester. Well, welcome to another episode of Brand Junkies. Today I'm joined by Lester Beniger of University Bicycles in Boulder, Colorado. Lester, how you doing today, man?

Lester: I'm doing very well. Thanks for this opportunity.

David: Absolutely. Absolutely. Lester, why don't you tell us a little bit about the history, the background and the story of University Bicycles and then kind of what you're up to now.

Lester: Sure. University Bicycles was started in 1985 by Doug Emerson. My role is the General Manager of the store and I've basically operated the store for the last ten years. We've been in existence for almost thirty-two years now. Doug started the bike shop with a toolbox and fifteen rentals. It's now grown into certainly one of the largest producing bike shops in the country. Probably top ten in overall revenue, but our reputation is what has been kind of an amazing thing to watch.

Previous to my position now, I was a sales rep for University Bikes and it was just always an amazing business to me, so to have the opportunity to run it was really cool. Just over time Doug just grew the business one customer at a time, one name at a time. Doug can recite names like no other. In fact I'd probably say if there's a key to the success of the business it's Doug's ability to recite names. I've worked really hard to be able to be good at that as well as helping all of our employees speak to people by using their names.

Throughout that the bike industry has gone in waves, so when University Bikes started mountain bikes were taking off so that really helped the business grow early one. Road bikes became more popular with Lance Armstrong. The business really shifted to the road side. Now we're this combination of rentals, road, mountain, [inaudible 03:26] bikes, hybrids, cruisers. We sell all of it. We do an amazing amount of service. We do over 5,000 rentals a year. It's just grown one customer at a time into what it is.

David: That's awesome. That's awesome. Okay, so you guys have been around for a long time now, so I'm sure that this has changed a lot, but what has been kind of the thing that has created raving fans over the past few years for you guys? You've been the General Manager now for a decade so I'm sure you've seen a lot of changes in marketing and branding and positioning and all sorts of things, but what have you kind of seen as your new catalyst for growth and why that is?

Lester: Well, I think authenticity and passion combined are the whole secret to the success of our brand. It's really a combination of those two things. Passion can be found throughout the bike industry. Almost every bike shop owner has it. Almost every bike, person that works for a bike shop has passion.

It's when you mix in authenticity to that, I think that's where Ubikes has grown into becoming what it is. We never intended for, we never thought in terms of making a brand. We just became this brand through the way we interact with customers, the way we run our business and the way we do our employee culture. All of these things are crucial to our success. We really try to distill everything down to passion and authenticity in how we do everything.

David: That's awesome. Talk to me a little bit about how does that passion and authenticity manifest itself in a way that if someone who's looking for a bike would pick you guys over someone else?

Lester: Excellent question. First of all we have never advertised in terms of trying to draw customers into the store. We've never paid. I shouldn't say never. If we have it's only to maybe help a friend out or something, but we don't really pay for advertising. We don't really have sales.

Everything is word of mouth with our customers, so it's created this intense effort to do an amazing job with every customer that walks in the door because without that, we won't survive. That philosophy lives on to this day. A customer comes in our store, they have usually heard we're the place to buy a bike or they've been here so long they've bought five bikes so they're coming back. We're going to learn your name if we don't already know it, we're going to talk to you by name. We're going to be smiling. We're going to be working with you on your level.

We're going to find out what your real needs are, what your real wants are like any good sales person, but again, we bring authenticity to this process. We really want you to be happy. It's crucial because again, if you leave our store and you're not spreading the gospel of University Bikes to your friends, we have failed. That's our philosophy towards customers and it's just created customers for life. That's tough this day and age with internet shopping. You can buy a bike cheaper on the internet. You can buy parts cheaper on the internet, but you can't get treated by a friend on the internet. You do when you walk in here. We know who you are. We recognize you. We ask you how things are going. We just take good care of you.

David: That's awesome. I love that. Okay, so I know kind of from doing some research on you guys, you guys have a number of programs in-store where you really try to give an accurate fit for bikes for each individual. Has that become a major selling point for you guys that you're able to get someone who's looking to buy a new bike the right fit? Is that part of that passion and authenticity coming out?

Lester: It is. Bikes come in sizes and we're not just looking to sell a bike. We want to sell you the bike that you want even if we don't have that bike and through the process of working with you we have to send you to another store. A triathlete might be a good example or a downhill mountain biker. We don't really offer products for those categories so much so we'll send you happily to a neighbor bike shop that does that business.

Even when we can't help you, we are helping you find what you need. In terms of bike sizing, yeah, a lot of people don't realize how important sizing and fitting is on-site when you buy a bike. We have that base covered. I think a lot of shops really work hard and try to do that as well, but it's a distinct philosophy of ours from the get-go. It also comes into play with how we build the bikes, so you can adjust the stem all the way up, all the way down when you're building a bike.

We try to build our bikes with the fit philosophy instilled into the build. That's where you place the saddle. Is the saddle level? What gear are you in when you take off and ride your bike? Where are the handlebars located? We're looking at you when you test ride the bike. Sometimes we'll go test ride a bike with you so we can see your position on the bike and that tells us more clues. It's a crucial, important part of our business that I think really comes through. Absolutely.

David: Okay, how do you train employees who obviously aren't always going to be, especially initially when you hire them, they're not going to be as invested as you are, they're not going to have been in this store for ten years, to say, "Hey listen, you need to learn the names, you need to figure out who they are, what they're about when these customers come in the store," because I'm sure like any business you have employee turnover and that you have people that may or may not be as passionate about bicycles as you are and about the sport as you are or some of your other employees. How do you transfer that passion and actual caring to new people that are on your staff?

Lester: Great question. The passion part of this is where this comes through. We really just try to hire people that have a passion for bikes to begin with. At the end of the day you've got to let people go do their job and then just watch how they do and just make sure it's working. We really try to find the right people to begin with that can already have some of these things inside of them.

The very first thing you do if you get hired here is you read our employee manual. Our employee manual is an amazing piece of work that Doug created over the years that totally sets the tone of what the expectations are for working at our store. Once you read that and you start working here the culture takes over. You can't be a failure here unless you're such a failure I have to fire you.

You have to, and that's another key, we do fire people. We don't run our business based on fear, but you can't let somebody work at this store and bring down this employee culture. You have to step up and you've got to be a part of what we're doing. We have a great, fun atmosphere to work here, when you work here. We have a pint of beer out of our kegerator every night after work. We go on employee trips to [inaudible 10:55] three times a year. We go bike packing with our employees.

We just create this culture where it's a fun place to work, it's a great stepping stone for your career and that's how we sell it to our employees. This is bike retail. This isn't the end of the line for you. This is a stepping stone. You get a chance to decide how you're going to make that work for you. We basically hire people upfront and fire them the day we hire them by telling them, "You're not working here your whole life. You're going to move onto something better. This is going to be a great stepping stone for you."

It's that employee manual, employee culture and of course we train people on what they need. We don't have a big specific training program. We base it on each person and what they actually need to know. We have a lot of employees that have worked at other bike shops so the product stuff is easy. If you're a cyclist you're usually passionate, you're reading about all the different bikes and products on the internet, so that's easy stuff.

It's trying to somebody's name. It's trying to talk to somebody like an adult and listen to them. You, you have to shut up and you have to let the customer talk. We watch our employees constantly and we just help them do a great job.

David: Yeah, that's what I was going to ask next because I'll be honest Lester, I've read a lot of employee handbooks and guidelines over the years and a lot of them are drab, poor language. It's almost unapproachable, so how have you created, I know that Doug created it years ago, but how is your employee manual different in a way that really teaches someone? Like you said, this isn't the end of the line for you. This is just the beginning or this is just a marker in your career. How do you teach them and continually coach them in a way that says, "Hey listen, you want to address it like this."? What does that process look like?

Lester: Well first of all I should email it to you when we're done. You tell me what you think, but it all goes back to authenticity. This employee manual talks to people about reality. How are you perceived? Do you know how you are perceived as a person? We constantly help people understand how they're perceived so that they can be perceived better or not. When you read the manual you'll get it. There's humor in there, there's real life dating advice in there.

David: Wait. Wait, I need to stop you. Did you just say that there's dating advice in your manual?

Lester: Real live dating advice. Mostly for men because men screw it up.

David: That's amazing.

Lester: It really does set that keystone right at the beginning for our employees. The manual has just been developed over years and through actual experience of running a business. Yeah, I wish I had it written in front of me, I could read some great quotes. One key to this manual is we have each employee after they read it they have to take a quiz because there's three statements that are kind of out of place in the manual. When they take the quiz we know they've read it or not based on that. That's a little trick there, but again, we have to have them read that so they know what they're getting into.

David: That's incredible. That's incredible. All right, well Lester, if someone was wanting to check you guys out and kind of find out more about University Bicycles, or Ubikes as you guys are commonly known around Boulder, where would they go to do that?

Lester: Our website is Ubikes.com. That's probably the best place. We do have a Facebook page I guess. I think we even do some Twitter and Instagram stuff, but again, it's all about walking in the store. Once you have that experience, we didn't even talk about our merchandising. Our whole store is filled with a museum so another great reason to come see us is to just see the history of the bike.

We've got bikes from all the way bake to 1869 all the way through today and just all kinds of memorabilia, so it's the real thing when you walk in here, the way you get treated, what you see, the passion pours out of the walls. Really the way you contact us is come in the store. Go to our website if you want to know where we are, if you want to rent a bike or see a little bit more about us, but it's just what happens between our four walls. That's what counts.

David: That's awesome. Well Lester, I want to thank you again for joining me and telling us a little bit about University Bicycles.

Lester: Absolutely. Thank you David.

David: Lester was true to his word and he let me see that really nice manual that he was talking about. I got to read through it and here's what I found. University Bicycles takes a very funny, humorous and engaging approach to everything that they do. It starts with orientation and it doesn't stop from there. It seems apparent based on their manual that everything that they do is about engaging the customer at the highest level possible.

Now this is not just some unique or gimmicky customer service idea. This has been refined over decades. Remember, they opened almost, over three decades ago. This is a phenomenally good, tested process that they use to engage with their customers. I'll just tell you, it seems quite apparent that they lay out the expectations for that with their employees on day one.

If you're trying to apply this to yourself, I know that when I'm trying to think about this and applying it to myself, it's about actually having the good information for my clients in the hands of my employees. Making sure that they know who the employee's wife is, who their kids are, what they care about, things that they like, the things that they don't like. That's all information that I as a business owner have in my brain and it's kind of rattling around in there and I know a little bit about what's going on, but to have it in such a way in a database that anyone can access it at any time so that they have a deep dive understanding of that client is going to be wildly useful to me and my business.

Well hey, I hope you guys stop by for the next episode of Brand Junkies. I have what I think is our best episode so far with 14th Star Brewery. I'm telling you, the stuff that we get from the co-owner and co-founder is absolutely on fire. I had a fabulous time talking with him and I can't wait to share it with you. Until next time, Junkies, peace.