Today on the emergence of their podcast episode number 48. Wow. There's a lot of dudes at races. I mean a lot of guys. It's all men. It's raining men at racing. So where are the women? Why aren't they at your event? Do you need to take a bath? Or maybe it's something else. Maybe it's you. Thank you for joining me for the Merchants Adura podcast. I am Kyle Bondo, and I take the mystery out of outdoor race direction.
Alongside me is always my fictitional co host, Mr. Murphy, who helps me see the things that can go wrong and will go wrong in your race strategy. Trust me. They're gonna go wrong. Mr. Murphy's gonna find them. He's gonna expose them. We don't necessarily like him. Anyway, together we are here to help you build better races. And today, we're gonna talk about women. Or more specifically,
how to build races that women want to race in? Which goes back to the title of this episode, which is, are you a women friendly race director? Well, are you? In order to answer that, we really need to start with a simple premise. Your races have few women. Or in more specific terms into your business hats on, few women customers. Which in turn begs the question, is because you don't want them to come to your race? Or
Are they the only women racers in the area that do come and you found them all? All 4 of them. Now, I would find that hard to believe that you have the market cornered on women racers. But how would you know Are there less women than men on the trails these days? Has it always been that way? If you're a mountain biker or a trail runner or Well, let's just speak with mountain bikers. If you're a mountain biker, you might say yes.
If you're a trail runner, you might say no. If you're an outdoor off road race director, you might be asking a completely different question like, where are they? Or how do I get them to come to my races? All these are all very good questions. Excellent questions that a race director should be thinking about. That's the kind of business thinking you need to be be churning around in your head, but it's not an easy 1 to answer.
We're gonna give that shot. Let's see if we can do that. To find out whether or not you are a woman friendly race director. So during a recent race series, I noticed something interesting. There have been a steady decline in beginner women turnout.
Now once upon a time at this mountain bike race, I noticed that there were a large cadre of women racers. And as the years go by, I've been doing this race series I think now for 10 years. It's called Wednesday's Wakefield, If you're in the DC area, Wednesday wakefield 06/20/2018, come on by. It starts at 05:30 in the evening. Nice mid race mid week race series. There we go. Got my promo in. Anyway, been a steady decline in women razors.
You used to be a whole bunch? No, there's not anymore. And there's even more dismal turnout with girls, you know, the junior girls between, like, the 15 18 range. And there was a little marginal growth kind of within a 25 to 45 year old range, it had a category called Master, 35 plus, had some that 1 started to slowly get more and more women to come more and more women made like ones and twos, not like tens and twenties. So what gives? Are all the women erasers now over 25?
Well, why have turnouts for women mountain bikers in the beginner and junior categories like I observe or they're statistically poor. It could be but there are just not that many women interested in racing. This is a real the real the real theory that men like competitive racing more than women. That's kind of the hypothesis right now of of thinking about this kind of topic. Is it true though?
Do women not like racing more than men or less than men? Or is it something else? Is it the environment of the race itself that is not creating something that women want to actually go to? That's really kind of how you have to think about this. So not everyone who rides a mountain bike or runs a trail wants to race. This is true for men or women. Doesn't really matter if if if if you split the sex into, you know, to equal parts, some people just don't wanna race or ever taking
the if you're really kind of thinking about this. So it became this became like 3 years ago, I started really thinking about the women issue in racing. And last year, in particular, coming from the collegiate side of the house, when I went to Montana,
and if you wanted to hear more about the explosion of Montana, it's a couple episodes back calling everything's bigger in Montana. When I went to the collegiate mountain bike national championships in Mizuho, Montana, And what I saw there was a lot of collegiate writers. But in particular, what's the massive amount of women athletes? It was almost as big as the men in size,
which kind of had me thinking that if there's this many collegiate writers, women collegiate writers out there in the world, and maybe I was seeing them all. Maybe there's way more because, you know, you get the b's and the c's and those other catic writers. You get all the a writers. Right? But seeing that group of women like that, maybe wonder, is maybe it's not that there are less women who wanna race. Maybe it's something else.
Maybe it's something that that a race director needs to really kind of put some scientific thinking into by observation experimentation and come to a conclusion to find out what is really at play here. And when it comes to the issue of getting more women to come to your races, Let's first make some observations.
Right? This is how this big this process works. In business as in science, you have to observe what it is. So I'm observing there are less women coming to races. It's antidoteical. It's just my race. Particular, but as I go to other events, I see the ebb and flow. I see some races with lots of women and some races with few women. So when it comes to this issue, then you have to make some observations.
I started to do that. Let's make some observations. Right? So I did that. And like many other race directors, I observed those lack of women. So let me ask some questions. Why do they race? What motivates of them register for a competitive event? And why do they think other women should race as well? Really kinda went out. I approached it from those 3 things. And talking to other women racers and women riders in particular, to try to answer his question, I started to collect data.
I know. Collecting data, right, or data. Are you a data guy or are you a data guy or a gal? So yeah, nothing complicated. This went around and talk to women. Racers, riders
in general. And ask them these goes to those questions. You know, and then do the whole, you know, hey, buddy. When I ask you about some question, then the creepy thing. Right? You know, usually do it in groups group settings. Now there are meetups and rides and then other racers I know and bike shops and places in all safe environments. You know, don't be creepy and, like, drop out of the bushes. Like, hey, do you like racing? Don't do any of that kind of stuff. You're gonna get kicked in the face.
But you have to do this in a way that you can get enough, you know, get enough feedback. They'd be comfortable with maybe understanding what it is about your events or maybe just the area in which you're you're doing events in. So you have to do this sometimes passively or maybe even directly. But after doing this enough times, you have enough answers or repeat answers or if you're hearing the same things over and over again, you start forming some conclusions about a 100% accurate. Right?
This is, of course, antidotal. Right? You're you're getting a a very slim little segment of the population. You have you're asking people at different you know, you're doing no controls and looking at things. Okay. To remove all the, you know, this isn't a scientific call. Throw it all out. We're just trying to get an idea. Give us something to deploy us in the right direction. So you get enough data, you start asking better questions, you start collecting better conclusions.
Because you don't know what you don't know yet. So you have to go find out kind of the basic things that understand what it is that is kind of repelling women, what it is that attracts women to racing or competitive events like yours. And then you have to understand, of course, your environment, and the community, and what you're you're racing in, and then how you're even marketing the people. These are all the things you start asking these kind of questions, and the feedback you get will help you formulate some of this thinking.
So it gives you some confidence in the findings of even some more official sources. So what's an official source you can consider? Well, the Outdoor Industry Association, of course, is a great official source for trying to understand demographics. So my data collection was much, you know, had a much smaller sample. But you wanna know someone had discovered? It turns out the reasons why women race are almost identical to men.
Yeah, put that into your brain for a second. They like the challenging in in they like the challenging chlamydia of course. Just like guys do. They like the competition. Just like guys do. They like winning. Just like guys do. They like to see what has resulted in their training efforts.
All that work they put in writing and training and and in the gym and maybe even doing others kind of the crossfit and and obstacle course and all that kind of stuff. They like to see those training efforts come to fruition just like guys do. And finally, this is probably the biggest 1, the biggest 1 you need to think about right now is they like to socialize with other people who like the sport.
Just like guys do. In fact, in talking to them, they don't just like to socialize with other women. They like to socialize with guys too. It becomes a social thing. Like minded people. Introducing to like minded people. If you think about all of that kind of the the thinking of, well, women are very different than men when it comes to racing. Well, it turns out that the bunch of baloney, and that's kind of exciting news. It's really exciting news because it really kind of defines
that, okay, that is the the nature of why women aren't coming to racing. It doesn't have anything to do with the actual racing parts of it itself. The competitive, the training efforts, the winning, they all like that stuff just as much as men do. But if these are the reasons why women race, then what are the reasons they don't race? What's the counter to this? So asking that question, both from racers and casual riders,
You provided the more interesting results. This is where things start to get kind of like, you know, whoa. Right? So this time, the reasons why it's more women specific. Well, what it's most off road races are marketed and centered towards men? That's something if you if you think about it, grab yourself a copy of dirt or a copy of a mountain biker, you know, whatever your your your your race rag of of choices, and take a take a gander at the marketing of some of these companies. Again,
it's all dudes. It's shredding down the trail. It's, you know, hardcore, high speed, throw in the elbows type of thing. And if it's a woman in the advertisement? Well, she's using wearing a half shirt and some shorts and she's, you know, advertising the bike, you know, look at my mid section. My belly button is advertising this bike and so awesome. Right? That isn't the women
a lot of women don't really care for that kind of stuff. This is the kind of this is the data you're getting back, marketed towards men. K? There are a few opportunities for women to learn racing skills. As it turns out, any kind of group rides or no drop rides include a whole bunch of guys or either much higher level of training than the women rider is.
And they're always last banana. So the guys all ride forward and they stop and they wait for the the couple of women to show back up and then they speed off again and then they wait for the women to come up and then there's some frustration and there's dirty looks and those rides don't really work. There's like fewer opportunities for them to learn how to actually race a bike Few women racers are teaching women how to race bikes
because they're doing their own thing. So the group rides are normally run by guys who aren't building those group rides in a way that would be safe for women or women friendly is probably a better word to say that. What else? Well, few races have the same categories or class divisions as men for men. So men are broken up into, like, Master's 30 39, Master's 48 49, Master's 50 plus. They have single speed open, fat bike open, Claddsdale, sports experts, those kind of things.
What are the women groups? There's women beginner, women sport, women expert. In of the statement. That means that these kind of breakups means that there's a the 35 year old woman who's gotten to mountain biking, who likes to ride her bike. She's gotten pretty good at it. She decides she's gonna join the beginner race. She bellies up to the line. She's excited she's gonna race. And next to her is this 19 year old kid who's a speed demon on 1 side.
And another person on the other side who's in their forties who's been racing like her whole life. They're in the beginner category because it's really kind of the only place they thought they fit. They maybe the person who's been racing her whole life just came to the area, doesn't know the trail. That the beginner category would be good for the learning the trail. And the 19 year old, it just came up from the 18 year old category as the first time he used to ride in the big kids race.
That's a women group. Now if you're a woman athlete, That's not exactly a competitive advantage or a competitive group you want to be in. You want to be in people who are like you, people who are similar in athletic ability like you to make it a real challenge. Remember, we said about the things they do like, like competition and winning. But they also like that challenge to know that the training efforts have paid off. So this is some of the feedback you get.
But from the last 1, is that few race directors target women in their marketing. There's no women specific type things. If you go back to the classes and divisions and the way they break up categories, they're not really appealing to that style of racing. It's kinda like, hey, we have all these written categories. And by the way, Yeah. You ladies. We got a couple things for you, you know. But we know you never show up, so that's all you get. SUFFER. And that's really kind of the attitude.
And it it's you can't really blame race directors for that because if women don't show up, why have the categories? Why invest all this time and effort into a category where you have 4 people versus the category has 60 people. Makes sense. It makes business sense to to be that way. But if you're not cultivating the growth of women riders in your event, are you really kind of, you know, this is like a self fulfilling prophecy.
I have no women writers in my categories. Therefore, I don't cultivate any women writers in that category. Therefore, I have no women writers in that category. That's really kind of that works. So these answers reveal some insights, but the real problem around the turnout you get with women's races. Everything out there right now is targeted towards men. Marketing, race education, categories in classes, all men specific.
And there seems to be little effort made to reach out and engage women riders. Although some race directors so this is not I'm not I'm not casting a generalization of a whole, like, blanket of, like, all you race directors are showing us. No. No. No. I'm not saying that at all. Some race directors are starting to see women raceers as a potential market. I mean, few put efforts around it, but some are starting to take notice. Many have tacked it on. It's almost like, oh, yeah.
And women racing too sort of way. Right? But others are starting to understand they have to be an active part in cultivating this potential profit making group of racers. You may claim to be women friendly. You still have to do things that are actually I know, shocker, women that are friendly to women. So don't behave in a way that women would find all that not friendly and expect people to show up.
It becomes evident in how many race directors combine women categories and classes into single groups, and then they or they relabel groups open. The last thing a woman wants to do is race against a bunch of knuckle dragging who are 10 times faster than she is. You wanna race in the same wave with men to be the 1 woman in a wave of men? That's not fun. But in an environment where you're not cultivating any kind of women race rules into the group, that might be all that she can get into. And some women are just like screw you guys. I'm racing with you no matter what and you don't like it, suck it up. But should they have to? And this goes into challenging long held assumptions.
There's also this this attitude I hear from from a lot of race directors and not all race directors again, not casting that blanket. When it comes to women racing, as they claim that if more race directors featured more women friendly races, there still would not be an increase in women racing. So not an increase in women racing? Is that really the assumption? Is it hard to hold them in contempt, however? They're basing this assumption primarily off their their past experiences.
Once upon a time, plenty of race directors did have banded women categories in classes. The women race doesn't show up. And the result was the reduction in the number of categories in classes. It's a cause and effect thing. And we just I just kind of explained that a minute ago, because there no 1 showed up, so they reduced the member, and when the consequence of that is they didn't continue not to show up, but then we go back to the original
original way back at the beginning of the show when I talked about, you know, is that all the win racers there are? So how do you solve this issue and create new women races that have essentially, when directors have already tried to do some of these things and that they've failed at it. Race directors require it requires you to keep being a race wreck. It requires you to keep a close eye on these market trends.
And if the market trend is not showing up in order to see that this is a potential thing that they need to do to change, they're not gonna do it. Restructures are very resilient in in providing new different interesting ways of doing things. But if it fails, they're far less likely to do it again. So 1 of those market trends that appears to be on f swing is the number of women interested in outdoor recreation.
As we go back to the demographics of the outdoor industry association, and we start thinking of things like Like, what do the numbers say? The numbers say that there's growth. There's actually women interested in being outdoors. The actual recreation is growing when it comes to women as a demographic. There's another source. This is the outdoor industry's women's coalition. It's telling us that there's a market change taking place.
But now, the assumption that race education and expanded categories and all that stuff that weren't possible solutions is now starting to say that they are starting to work. They are starting to favor women coming into this market. The data would point to a women friendly market. Only no race director, at least none that I've, you know, I'm pretty small group here, but looking around, seems to be really taking advantage of this yet. This is where the marketing experimentation needs to kick in.
Because if the data is telling you there's a potential market out there. And if you live in a big city, this is where a lot of potential market can kind of take place. You can really do some experimentation in these kind of areas. That the path to proving that a woman friendly race can lead to more women racing begins with developing a few solid strategies.
You really need to kinda like put yourself out there and start thinking about if I really want to increase the number of women in my races, you're gonna have to You have to do some things. You have to take some action. You have to experiment. When we talk about observations, right? We have some some conclusions made from those observations. Now we go out to test those observations, see whether or not they're true. Our conclusion is accurate. So we're gonna experiment.
We're gonna experiment with figuring out whether or not the numbers that suggest that women, outdoors, outdoor women, outdoors, I guess that's really weird. Okay. Outdoor persons? Okay. Whatever. Women who like the outdoors are out there and who want to race and we know they want to race. How do we then modify ourselves or modify our thinking or modify our offerings? To invite them in. What kind of experimentations would work to become a woman friendly race director?
Why does he need to do? So let's get into that. I have 5 of them. 5 marketing strategies for building women friendly race environments. That I think will work. And we'll go let's go through each 1 of those. So strategy number 1 is make the sport more appealing to women. This seems like a no brainer until you sit down and actually do it. You start to struggle with exactly what does make more what does more appealing the women actually mean? Well, what does it mean? What does it mean to you?
I always like to take the marketing approach when trying to understand something as subjective as what is considered appealing to group a. That might also be appealing to group b. Then after you do a marketing approach, you have to put your business hat on. So does adding something to attract 1 type of customer
to your events or to your race also attract another type of customer? Is there some synergy there? Or better way to think of this is, if I make these changes, does it actually move the needle in respect to bringing more women to my race? With those approaches in mind, look at what you do know about the current market. Let's take mountain biking in particular.
The mountain biking market is very male based in that it has that edgy, dangerous world, and single track riding, and a grinding, and knurling, and all that stuff. It's featured at all times. This is a nonstop bombardment of, you know, dudes going fast. Going down crazy hills and crazy things like that. This is not to say that women don't like edgy and dangerous trails. Because remember, the research says that some do. Is to say that not all women like it, but some do. Right?
So the race turnout numbers would say that many don't enjoy that style of marketing than do. So as a race director, you need to think about your marketing. What imagery are you putting on your website? What images are you using for your events? What are you putting on Facebook? Or for your advertising events in a flyer? Or when you're putting it in a magazine? What type of pictures are you showing?
Is it a group of dudes all doing dude stuff on Bot Mountain bikes? Or is it a mixed bag? Do you have a group of women, group of men? Are you are you looking at the demographics? Are you worrying about the diversity of those events? What images were using? Is it the guy jumping off the hill? God. Darlene, man. Woo. Superfast. Or is it through women? All, like, bracing after a race and congratulating each other on what they did. You need to be thinking about the optics.
This is what I mean when I say, you need to make your sport more appealing to women on a marketing approach. What image you're using? Is it all the racing stuff about you? You have some women in your race? Have you taken any photos of them? Have you taken photos of them also going off the jump and going, are going super fast. Are you using any of that imagery whatsoever? Or is it all guys?
Think about that. Think about the optics that you have when you're presenting the marketing part of your race. What are you using? What pictures are dominant everywhere you go?
And maybe it's something to point. Maybe you just don't have those photos because there hasn't been a lot of women coming to your events. Maybe you need to hire a photographer. Maybe you need to go find a local club or a local racing group and have some women come out and ride around and take some pictures, build some imagery, create the portfolio of marketing material you can use to be women friendly.
That's kind of the first idea I had about trying to be more women friendly when it comes to your marketing abilities. How about strategy number 2, develop better outreach towards women and women riders are already focused on the fitness part of cycling. Talking mountain biking. Here it can be trail running too. You don't have venturacing what have you. But I'm a mountain biker, so let's let's be mountain biking specific for this for this 1. So racing is just fitness at a faster pace.
And you're talking about riding a mountain bike. Plus, it can help some some gauge where they are. I mean, the fitness level check. A race really kinda helps you figure out what you need to work on, your endurance level, what you can do at the higher pace. We're being forced to go that fast. When you compare yourselves to other women with their comparative fitness skills, fitness levels, that is the appeal that some women find when they go to a race.
Your job is to show them that racing has just an is it just an extension of that same fitness? That you can enjoy a race as part of your training activity. You don't have to win just being in part of the race itself. Just racing being forced to go as fast as you can to see, you know, how'd you do? This can be done with group rides, with outreach,
especially if the race course itself with the venue where you're gonna have the race. It practice for clinics, a practice ride, where it's just women only. And now for some race directors out there, let me define what women only means. I know this is gonna be gonna be a shock to you, but women only, that means no dudes. That means that sure you may be starting off as just the guy forming a women's only ride and you're the guy who's providing your expertise
and individual experiences racing to women. That can work. Men can be instructors of groups of women. There's no rule as as you can't be. But if you want this to work well, try to find a woman who's also like a carbon copy of you in that same environment. Because they'll identify with that a lot more than with you. That doesn't say they won't identify with you.
There are plenty of women who got there who have coaches and have got their start and learned a lot of things from guy, teachers, from guy coaches and experience that well, fitness, trainers, etcetera. But you're talking about engagement. Try to remember again by the marketing, the optics. If you have women teaching women racing and women clinics on your race course, chances are these women will be more inclined to want a race in that environment.
Does it always work? Yeah. Of course, it doesn't always work. But that's kind of the thinking behind it. And when you remove the the unknown part of the race, when they actually see the fun side of the racing,
This is how you can engage women to want to try racing a little bit more. So this works for both men and women. It works for men and men groups really well. Get them out to see the race, to see the race course, to see the environment, talk about racing, talk about experience the racing, talk about the fun times of racing, they show up. Exact same philosophy, exact same of
strategy for women. So then it's a must have or any race director. You know, when you think about group rides, the concept is simple. Especially if you use online sources like Facebook or MeetUp, in between each of your races. Hold on 2 or 3 group rides.
At the venue you plan on using for your races, that becomes ideal that now they know the course. They know the environment. They know where the turns are. They know where the scary parts are. And your goals become encouraging so that you can get women to try to support that environment that's nonthreatening. And many women complain that are few group rides that help them build their skills. Either they end up at the back of the pack or they're left behind or fend for themselves.
So very little education takes place when this happens. So change that perception. Become the teacher. Give your skills away for free. And I mean that with all necessary. For free. Group rides are a great way to get women riding in the first place. They will not race if they don't feel comfortable riding to begin with. So those that can ride will appreciate the lessons. That especially if you can teach them, if you can get a woman in your staff or a woman partner or whoever you wanted to to
to organize it with a particular advanced skills to help teach that too. Your educational efforts will certainly be a long term investment. Because you want to cultivate that culture that's that community of women riders and it's gonna take some time. You can't expect to have a few group rides and then see the same number of people at your races. That's not gonna happen. You see, you need to build a reputation first. They ought to be able to trust you.
It starts with word-of-mouth, the familiarity with your races. So teach beginning women how to ride. Teach intermediate women how to ride, how to ride with a flow, how to do cornealing. You know, be warned that this is not mean women only events. You can have women only events, but not all group rides need to be women only, but some of them should.
So consider that some women like to ride with men some women like to enjoy the time out on the trail with their spouses, with their significant others, with their partners, with coworkers, with friends. Sometimes they don't all like to be around a bunch of women. There are just this is just like men don't always like to be around just all men. And the combination, there are men who only like to write with other men. There are women who only write with other women. There are a combination between
the 2. It is a social activity that you have to put the work out the metrics for. So if men dominate the demographic of the sport, then there's also this gateway to getting their girlfriends, their wives, their sisters, their mothers or daughters that come out to 1 of their group rides. They can be a source of people to come out and ride who maybe they've ever even thought about doing the first place. And beyond teaching and socializing, The group ride adds security.
Riding on the trails doesn't have to that has a particular level of risk. It's doubled when you ride alone. So group rides remove some of that risk. By having like minded people, potential friends along for the ride. The safety of all this, build that trust. Building that trust, build that reputation, build that reputation will encourage women to want to come to an event where that that the culmination of the social the social group.
You think of it as almost like a stepping stone of working towards getting to that race. And you could also you could even also break this up into junior rides. And super juniors had an under, you could do kid events. You can get girls to come out. 15 to 18. This is the poorest performing demographic in many racing disciplines as that 15 to 18 category for women. Young girls.
Because it's guys are all encouraged to buy bikes, ride bikes, go BMX, do riding, do all kind of stuff. Girls aren't encouraged to do that very often. So encourage them. Focus it off of not just boys, but girls too. And try opening your group rides to girls as a way to encourage them to ride and improve their skills, learn more of trail competence, and they even become future racers. They don't have to be racers right away. Just just get the bug going. Get them comfortable with the trail.
And you'll be surprised that those girls show up to your race a couple years later. And again, this is long term. This is strategy. Strategy is not something to do for your next race in a week or a month from now. This is long term. Education based marketing. It is an investment. Invest your time in teaching encourage women to become better riders. Your raises will become over time, imbued with that same reputation, and that's kind of the point.
To build a future of women racing by giving your time away now, build upon that foundation. Now, what's another strategy? Well, this is a strategy you like to aim towards the Rody's. Right? This is riding without cars. Is you tap into the women road biking crowd with a mountain bike offer? And that is, you got no cars. We're in the woods. We're having fun in nature. Or on dirt trails. It's kinda dirty. It's kinda it's kinda dusty. It's kinda rocky. There's trees. There's animals.
There's fresh air. No cars. No guys doing mach 6 with their hair on fire. Mountain biking, in a way is a lot safer road biking. You think Say her road bike? Yeah. It might be trees and dirt, but there's no cars. And especially in the DC area. The number 1 killer of bikers in the DC area. Cars. People not looking out. People turn it in front of you. People opening doors. Cars cars are nasty. Now, hit a tree ant that fun either. But I have control over and I hit a tree,
more or less. I don't have a lot of control over the car that pulls out in front of me that didn't see coming. So like cars and riding equals danger. So maybe more danger than a fun ride with friends out in nature? I I would say yes. So you could try to interest women riders by offering this bike share program that connects your local bike shops with a demo day for your venue.
So the bike shop wants to sell bikes. Right? That's pretty much the whole reason of bike shops in business. Gosh, sell bikes. It's a business. You want more racers. Why don't you team up with a women only friendly demo day for women road bikers. Get women road bikers to get some dirt on their shoes. And women over
women over roadies is a tough sell because a lot of roadies They hear mountain biking. They see they again, the marketing's all geared towards gnarled hard off the mountain, straight down, mach 6 to hear on fire. So there might be some education that takes place. You might have to get rid of some of the stereotypes that they think mountain bikers are. But if you can do it without requiring them to buy a bike right away, just test ride a bike. Come out and test ride a bike.
It could be an introduction they need to switch to mountain biking. And even better, it could influence them to buy a mountain bike from the bike shop you introduced them to.
Better oxygen for being out in nature away from cars is not a bad selling point either. So think about that strategy. Think about the roadie people and how you can bring roadies into your bed. This works for guys too. You can usually you can usually get some guys to come over to to do the mountain bike. But I'm talking, again, we're a women centric today. So think about those type of partnerships that you can encourage other kinds of disciplines that come over into
mountain biking itself that is a demo done by a bike shop at your venue where they're riding around on mountain bikes, they could see the trail. And now it's like, you know, hey, not only is this a cool way, but hey, by the way, the competition on a road, tons of competition on a road. We don't have a lot of competition over here. Why don't you help influence that, bring some people over, build the competition. It's a lot it's a lot more challenging to mountain biking the road anyway.
That's my point of view. I hear someone go, no, it's not. Yeah. Well okay. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, Rody. Anyway, not gonna start that fight today. Okay. Fourth strategy. Being outdoors is the new indoors. Again, but the marketing had right on. Like speaking of nature, nature is another selling point that you can use to take off the edge of a male dominated racing market. And getting out of nature on the trails is a very powerful imagery. Use it.
If you can connect that riding with friends, then your race marketing starts to take shape that social writing with friends and the fun and fitness kind of thing, lose the gnarle, lose the shred. You find that most of the hardcore race marketing that that you use imagery for nature don't even have to use that stuff. It can just be 2 people standing next to their bikes. You can really take the edges off of any of your marketing efforts by just influencing the location.
The actual venue itself can be a sales point to wanna get people there. It changed it out from the social connection of the of the writing groups to explore different locations that build up to your event. And maybe maybe you don't have a lot of women and racers in your event. So maybe you need to have a lot of different kinds of group rides. Now I I mentioned group rides earlier as being free.
You can do some group rides that actually are events by themselves. They could just be you know, riding clinics. Come ride this area. We'll we're gonna ride all day at Dallas State Park, which is, like, you know, 20 some miles a trail. You know, do it like a 3 groups. It's gonna go around. They're gonna be play you're gonna have a lunch catered. Make it an event. Not all events have to be races.
Make it an event. Make it an event where you bring in instructors. Maybe you have the the people who are like international mountain biking association trained instructors come out and give a give a clinic. As part of the event. And then there's a ride, maybe there's a lunch or a barbecue afterwards. Make it a day where you're building the relationship, you're building the social inactivity, or getting them to trust you. That's the whole point behind this. But use the outdoor. Use the venue.
You may not be do it. You may not be able to do it at the venue and what you're gonna race at. But think about the venues, the other venues that are friendly to riding and just have a ride. You don't have to have a race, have a ride. Because you can have a couple rides and then a race, but the rides can then become the marketing leverage for the race, the the if or, you know, this or that.
Right? Sometimes the Trees and Fresh Air can be a stronger selling point than the copywriting of your website anyway. So that's that's number 4. Now number 5 is the extreme. And you don't see a lot of these out there. But there are a lot of there are a lot of race directors who are starting to see an advantage to this kind of thinking. And this, of course, is make your your race more women friendly by having women only events.
Think about that. If racing is too intimidating to women who have never raced, then when it comes to racing and the men men dominate the scene, you could keep it simple by having women only events. So this goes back to to what I said earlier about the women only group rides. Is the women only event is just what it sounds? Okay. Pay attention. My male race record friend out there. That means no dudes.
Now, does it mean completely no dudes? Well, they can be There can be You can have men promoters. You can have male volunteers. But there are no men allowed to participate in the actual racing. Women only. That's it says it in the name. So the goal is to make an event for women that is removed from the intimidating nature of the competition created by having a whole bunch of guys around. Is it foolproof? No. That's why it's an experiment.
Some women love these kind of events. Surprisingly, there are women who hate these events. Who knew? Again, you're collecting data. You're you're finding out that there are all sorts of things that you didn't know about your customers. I thought that a woman only event would be something that women would think was awesome. Turns out, some love it. Some hate it. This is a great thing about collecting data as you find out things you didn't know.
So some women find win only events to be even more competitive than their their the COVID events. So thus, it's experimental. Your turnout will tell you if it works or not. Think about that. For those who are not fond of women only events. You can be introducing better categories and classes to your existing events. So you can you can take a woman only event and change it into making your race as if there's a woman component to your event rather than just an add on.
To think about that, this means less open classes. You're expanding the rage in women classes even if only a few people show up. You're dedicating resources to having women classes regardless of the turnout. You're you're banking on the potential surge. This may include breaking up categories like single speed or you have a single speed men and women. Then this is a category that you don't ever see a lot of women in. But it's growing. Last year, 1 of my races, I had a request.
We want a women's single speed category. And I pushed back and said, okay. If you can guarantee me, that 5 women will race in this category, I will have it. And that's what she did. She went out and found 5, 4 other women herself included, right, herself and 4 other races, to come to that race and be there. I made the dedication.
She put in the work. It happened. We did it. That is how you build trust. That is how you build the commitment to women categories and women racing is you're gonna have to you're gonna have to trust each other. You're gonna have to stretch the experimentation may not work. This could fail, but you could also succeed. This includes also thinking about, you know, some of the other categories like women 35.
Then maybe you create some like women 45 classes. Maybe you start thinking about some of the other categories and expanding those out to not just be all open. Now, there's gonna be a risk. A small turnout is small turnout. It's a double edged sword.
But focusing your market efforts towards women using expanded women categories in classes as an incentive, now you have something you can use to direct turnout when you're doing those group rides, when you're doing that marketing, you can now talk about how your race has those in it, that you have those categories in it, that you can advertise those categories as your marketing. Now think about that.
And these are these are some interesting strategies to kind of to think about, to kind of put your brain into this type of thinking. Because once you once you hopefully the experiment is and the incentives is once they've had a case of racing, and all that worry about the experience might, you know, the the experience of it, is it gonna be too challenging? Is it gonna be too competitive? It might all just wash away. They get to be in the mix.
Women racers, they get to be in the mix. When all the yelling spectators and game cowbells across the finish line, they get to see that nobody really cares what place you come in. That social environment is why some come to racing in the first place. The races is just the shared experience that connects everyone together.
So this is the idea behind experimenting with these type of things of women only group rides, women only racing, of expanded categories, of incentivizing and marketing towards those type of of of of racers and potential racers and potential market to bring into your event. You have to think about this stuff. This is a growth model You have to think about the stuff to grow because in order to bring in more customers, you can't just only take guys. You can't just have men.
You have to expand. The diversity of your customer base needs to facilitate the whole spectrum. You need to market to men, as much as you need to market to women, as much you need to market to any kind of eraser. This is the idea behind these kind of strategies.
Is you have a women specific style of strategy in order to get women to come to your race, but you're gonna have to put some effort into it. You're gonna have to put some money where your mouth is. You're gonna have to put some reputation on the line in order to back this up. It can't be it can't be a half approach. You have to really dedicate yourself to this because it requires a long term investment of building trust and reputation before that market will really start to believe you.
Because you think about all your competitors out there, how many of them are doing this? I bet you 1 or 2 is thinking about it. But how many are actually pulling the trigger on it? That's really kind of the thinking behind this. Just be the 1 that pulls a trigger. Be the 1 that's thinking about this and actually puts some effort into it. And my guess, my assumption and in my experience is that it will reward you. It may not happen right away. This is a hard slog.
But in the end, I think it'll reward you. So in the end, if you build it, will they race? There's a paradox overcome when developing strategies designed to increase the turnout of women in your races. You cannot expect large number of women to turn out to your race if you don't actually focus the environment in a way that makes it women friendly. You can't expect large women to turn out if there's no women that want a race in your area.
So before any of your efforts can be successful, you need to tap into your local community and find those women that may want to challenge themselves to race. Maybe they never knew they could or even would like it. But you need to tap into that. You need to find them on the trail. You need to invite them to their group rides. You need to build your coalition. Before these under these strategies are understood forwards, they have to be implemented backwards.
You think about that anyway. Implement it backwards. So think about it. You need to organize your races to be more appealing towards women by having categories in classes aimed towards women. You may have a place for them to actually race in. So once you have a race that is appealing towards women, you need to teach and encourage more women to be better riders in order to inspire them to become those racers.
And only after having women friendly organizations built They're talking about group rides, teaching women how to ride, teaching them how to ride better. It's only then can you really honestly market to them because you put your money or your mouth is. And that last statement has some teeth to it, honestly market to them. It does not go to any of these strategies thinking that you can increase your women turnout with half measures. These are all long term solutions.
And in order for them to work, you have to say consistent and maintaining the momentum over a duration of multiple seasons. That is the secret. That is the thing that no 1 will teach you. That try this. Didn't work. I forget it. That's not how this works. This is long term. It used to do this over multiple seasons. You have to increase
1 race for the time. And it really comes down to that. You might just have to increase it 1 race for your time when it comes to this demographic to build that trust. Because once you get a little bit into this, once you start dedicating your resources to getting a little bit of headway into this It starts to multiply. It starts to grow. And sometimes, exponentially.
Sometimes, you get a small cadre of women who then become like your emissaries to go find other women to race and bring in. And that's the those are the women you're looking for to be partners or even just just associated with your racing racing company or business is get them to come in. And maybe maybe that means that you discount the cost for entry. Maybe that means you give them coupon codes and the ability to come into your race at a very reduced price other than men.
You incentivize it because the the key is get them to fall in love with racing. Because once they do, you gotta have a customer coming back a year and year. And if your if your business is set up to be customer friendly and customer focused and they enjoy the experience, what you're going to build is a customer for life. That's kinda really the ultimate strategy of this because this works not just for women, it works for men too. And now you know.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Merchants of The Group podcast. I would love to hear from you please reach out to me via email at [email protected] or on Twitter at mergersister dirt. Also, please go to mergersister dirt dot com where you can find all the show notes. I have a Patreon button there. If you want to donate to the show, then meanwhile, while you're figuring out how to build better women friendly
parts to your race, how to build group rides, how to maybe even do women only events, how to increase those categories to to bring them in. I'll see you on the next episode of the Versus Your podcast. Until then, I hope what you'll learn today helps you build better races. Take care. Merchant's inert is brought to you by Gagopod. For storytellers that need a strategy, a platform, and a chance to be heard, learn how to create your next podcast at gagopod.com.