Today, I'm merchants of dirt episode number 7. We have a few tips about how to make your race name memorable. I'm gonna debunk the myths, race prone have our race profits, and we're going to introduce a new segment called Beyond shovels. This is where I tell you about the new sports management, technology, and tools, race promoters can use used to build better races.
Thank you for joining me for the Merchant of DIRG podcast. I'm your host, your teacher sure you're merchant of dirt, professional extraordinaire, and race promoter, Kyle Bondo. If you're new to the merchandiser podcast,
welcome to the show. This is what we do. We talk about dirt. We talk about off road racing. We talk about off road all sorts of things. And I help you understand the business of off road race promotion. That's a that's a tough part of this whole this whole thing. Help you simplify that art and science behind building, promoting, and directing off road races. And help you make money by giving you the tools to build better races. Our website is merchandisinger.com.
We are the podcast for Rechiner, Rechiner, their recreational engineer, That's at wreckingear.com. That's the blog where everything kinda started, which is the dirt is the podcast. It's the offshoot of wreckingear.com,
where we bring the the learning, the art, the science of off road racing into your very ears. Yes. We get right up inside your head and let you know about all the cool things that race promoters can do, will do, and help simplify that so that you could do those yourselves and make this a profitable business. Now this week is Thanksgiving in the United States. This is where we gather our families together
Some of them we haven't seen in a long time and eat a big meal usually featuring a turkey is the main course, and kinda catch up with everyone. It's a great time to get family together. Sometimes there's some family members you don't wanna see, but sometimes there are family members you do wanna see. And
This is the holiday in which you kinda gotta get everyone together, but it's a great holiday. It comes from on the 1st settlers from Europe came to America, ensured full food to the locals for this great feast, the native Americans, and the settlers coming together to eat. And it's kinda where it gets his name from, you know, thanksgiving. We give thanks for a good harvest. You know, for a good year. There is no other holiday like it. It's why
it has the it's it's right in the name. When we think about it, thanksgiving. It reminds me that a name is a very important thing, especially when you're naming something like a race for the first time. Oh, yes. There you go. Shameless segue. Let me you want to name your race something memorable. Because when it's something that people can remember without even thinking about it, it gives you huge advantage over a race name that's forgettable. However, it takes a little bit of creativity.
The naming your race part that can trip you up. And why why is it to trip you up? Because your event needs a nay. You know, a nay. Not some categories moniker like, you know, state state city or park name plus race type plus adjective noun equals race. You know what I mean? Let me give you an example. Virginia mountain bike challenge. That's memorable. Right? How about the Washington racing classic.
You know what kind of race that is? You know what the racing? You know what's classic? It's taking place in Washington. Washington State, Washington DC. Who knows? There you go. You know, the inter park name here event are functional. But you have to admit they're kinda boring. And if you want skilled and curious racers to show up, you're gonna need to capture their attention with something a little more ash. Worse yet, these kinds of functional names do not have
the creative well to pull from. You know, that's they don't have the imagery. These types of names have to be based for unique branding to be built off that. Save you know, the classic line drawings of the state or, you know, the Navi wheel circle, Jesus, and mountain biking, Navi wheel circles are to wear or even the popular go to logo, the bike chain link, or the shoe print. Those are horrible.
So when you have a name like Washington Racing Classic, you have nothing to pull from except maybe be what the skyline of the city, the shape of the state. So maybe you need some examples. To kinda work from. And, I mean, come on, Kyle. What the heck do you come up with the name? The creativity is tough for race promotion. I gotta design, like, course, to do this. Meaning is is not something that I'm really comfortable with. No worries. You know, the recognier has you covered.
With examples examples are always So let's get into a couple of examples. 1, I take from my very first mountain bike race I ever promoted, and it's called the Tomahawk tumble. Now I'd like to say that I played off the native American heritage of the venue with this rich history to create this name. But the truth is, that's not how it happened. You know, my son came up with it. You know, time before
the event, he and his friend, wins were out at the very same park. Only rather than riding mountain bikes, they were out, you know, being doing the teenagers to do and to throwing Tomahawks at Trees. Now, call them Tomahawks because that's the catchy name for now. Really, we're talking about hatchets. Hatchets. Right? Tomahawks, hatchets, kinda base the same things. You know? Oh, teenagers. Anyway, 1 of those Tomahawks missed the mark and went down the ointment.
So out hesitation my son and his friends, they go after it. Only when they slide halfway down the embankment, they misjudged the grade, and tumble all over the bottom. Okay. Don't get ahead of me here. But luck was on their side because the bottom was a wonderful ditchful of mud to break their fall. K? At the time when he came home, covered head to toe mud, in his good genes, it wasn't really all that funny.
But now we have a good laugh over the whole incident because what really come what came next So what does it have to do with the name of the event? Well, as I was struggling to come up with the name, my son asked me what I was working on, and I told him, what it was, and he poured it out. Oh, that's where we and that Tomahawk will tumble down the hill. And just like that, Tomahawk tumble with burst into existence.
I mean, from a name alone, I was able to to tie the Parks' native heritage into the name after the fact. It just so happens that it had some that I could use. The name also gave me some imagery to work with too. I mean, use the idea of Tomahawks. I found some stock illustration of a pair across Tomahawks. And when I combined the interesting game with imagery, suddenly had an event worth remembering. I mean, you need your you need to name your race the same way the same enthusiasm,
but making it a name as something writers remember. And, you know, if it's if it's something that that you can come up with that's creative, that you can pull from maybe something in your world, in your environment, experience. It helps. It helps make that name become personal to you. So often, ask how much does a name really matter when it comes to an event? You know, from what I know, I think it matters almost as much as the location of your venue.
Take that take that off the grain of salt with a minute. Location of your venue, a name means as much as location of your venue. My first race had maybe 40 riders show up their race day. That may not be a large turnout for some, but from from my first race, having 40 riders show up was success.
From those 40 writers, I had several tell me, they had a great day, posted photos on Facebook, and bragged to their friends about missing the race, I didn't think much of at a time until months after the race. People I didn't even know were asking me about the next Tomahawk tumble. By name. Just the name itself. The name that was unlike any other race name anywhere in my area had enough word-of-mouth to carry the race into year 2.
That's that's when something really strange happens. Ryder riders and racers room is mountain bike race. Right? So riders started asking me at other events. Hey, man. When's the t t coming? Hey, man. When's the t 2? When's coming back. T t t t what the heck was happening? Well, according to my kids, you know, I gotta go go back to my mouth. Right? I guess they're are they millennials? Yeah. I guess they're kind of millennials. And ask them to translate
what the hic t t and t 2 means with with respect to Tamil the Tamil Nadu. Well, according to my kids, when something is really cool, man, it often gets abbreviated into this texting lingo or some kind of shorthand. Now how cool is that? From Tomakkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk to t 2 in just a year with triple the turnout from year 2. That is the power of a good name.
Another another race name that worked out well was the event that I called the wolf bouncer All Mountain. And this was a a collegiate mountain biker race that included 5 events over 2 days of racing. It's very ambitious. Did it when I was first starting out. Don't recommend ever doing something like this. Take it 1 race at a time. But, you know, hey, I love a challenge. So when you think of a name like wolf bounce or the first thoughts that come to mind,
are a giant wolf that kicks people out of bars. You know? Like, don't go near there. You know? Woah. It'll start to howling. What a wolf bouncer is. But in this case, it's not a wolf. It's a deer. And it kinda became the center, almost the mascot of our event. I mean, like all good names, the name wolf bouncer comes from a really bad encounter with 6 point buck, 1 year while I was out riding. I mean, unlike some parks, the local trails where I was planning my event was protected
enough to have a herd of deer. Call it home. Okay. So you've been out right and you've seen deer, not a big deal. Right? Deer usually more scared of you than you are with them. If you're scared to do or do you're all? I mean, sometimes. Unfortunately, on this 1 ride, a 6 point buck, decided that, oh, Shell not pass. And as I wrote upon him, he stored it and stopped his foot like a mad bull and refused to move aside. Now, don't know if you've ever seen a deer do that,
but at this point, I thought he might actually charge me. I was thinking, I'm gonna have to get my by between me and me and that deer. You know? I'm not wanting to get the business end of a mad deer. 6 points is a lot of points. Getting cornered by a deer is not sound like my idea of a good time in the ER. So I politely backed away and took an alternate trail and and he went on his way. So surprisingly,
I went and, of course, you know, of course, you could tell friends like, oh my gosh. This deer just totally ran me off the trail thinking they're gonna think, you know, totally making this up. But I found for my fellow mountain bikers, I was with the only rider to get bounced from the park. Apparently, this deer was doing it to all sorts of people. I guess, when it comes to mating season, some of these deers get quite aggressive. So we
so this leads 1 thing to lead to another, of course, and when I joked, hey. That's why there's no walls here anymore. Boom. Then he was born. And the wolf bouncer. And after that, I only took a few searches in stock media, stock documentary, in the site that I found an image of a a body building your body built deer is giant muscle deer to complete the picture. You know, now the wolf bouncer is in its 3rd year.
As of 2016 with writers asking if they could get the race logo on a t shirt this year. Again, it's the power of a good name that makes your racers, aka your customers, come back and want more. You may find that a good name draws people in that might not come to you right away. Sometimes you need to just give it bland racerex.
Name so you can just get your race planning done with them. However, if you keep your ears open and you find that once you get into event planning, that a cool name kinda can come at you organically out of the blue. Often, it's in ways you didn't expect. You know, like I've, like, already highlighted before, So always be on the lookout for a good story, a weird experience, something that just sounds good to say out loud. I mean, sometimes, some words are just fun to say.
Like, stuff tough. That sounds that sounds fun to say. Right? I mean, there's a couple other races I think that the primal quests sounds really kinda cool. Chances are gonna be a lot easier to remember than 90% of the other events out there. Just like we give thanks for what the years brought us, give thanks to what a good name can give you, and make it memorable. And do you know what what else is memorable? A good cup of coffee. And I'm not much of a straight up black coffee drinker.
And I know that totally breaks the stereotype of a typical sailor. But there's a reason. In the navy, the coffee available was well, let's say, it was strained with a chief sock. And if you're not familiar with the US Navy, a chief or a chief petty officer, is the backbone of the illicit ranks. But not well known for clean socks. They're on their feet all day long. Yeah. Think that went through. Unlike what you've been told, navy coffee is often not the greatest beverage to drink.
And if very well can eat the chrome off a trailer hitch. So to combat that strength or taste or poor quality of the coffee, I would load it up with sugar and cream and cocoa. So I might say I weakened it, and it might call me. Other words for what I've done to my coffee, but I didn't care. I made it drinkable for me. Now my best girl, my better half, she can drink just about any coffee straight. I mean, sometimes the less additives,
the better. And I wish I could do that. I wish I could enjoy my copy that way. But I like my you know, I like that stuff in my coffee. Sorry. It's just the way it is. Now, this doesn't take away from the coffee flavor even with my poor man's mocha. That's the spoonful of sugar with some cocoa in my coffee. It was, you know, just a little bit of milk on the top, you know, just a bit, you know, kinda cool it off a little bit. I can tell you what's going on with the coffee.
I can tell you what's good coffee and what's great coffee. I mean, just like a good base to a house. You got a bad foundation to a house. It doesn't matter how great your house looks. House is gonna crumble. Same thing with a good coffee. You need a good coffee base for no matter what you put in it, for it to be a good You know bad coffee. You know it. So this is a new segment that I've started calling. Coffee is for closers.
If you're a fan of and Gary Glen Ross, you'll get that 1. 2nd, you know, 2nd prize is set as date 9th. Right? So this is my shout out to to some of the coffee that I've discovered through my travels. And I wanna reach back, of course, to my to my favor right now, to my fellow veteran owned, coffee connoisseurs, which is Rick's Roasters coffee company out of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Now Rick's Roasters was a sponsor to a race. I did with the George Mason Cycling Club.
Not a sponsor of the podcast. Not a sponsor of website. Just a really good guy, really good coffee company. He reached out when no other sponsors reach out and gave us some some cool coffee to give away his prizes. So this is my way of of even back to to Sean. Sean and and Kelly. Rick Roasters is kind of The only coffee I drink right now, they have a dozen of blends to choose from, but my favorite blend so far is the 4 horseman coffee. You know, like 4 horsemen.
Yeah. Like 4 horsemen, the apocalypse. And the genius behind this is Sean Rex, who just happens to be another sailor. He created his coffee by combining 4 different types of coffee into 1 blend, and it's it's like nothing ever had. And even on the package, the package of the 4 horseman cup of coffee is a pock elliptic taste. And, of course, it really kind of, like, blows your mind.
So of all their their blends, my wife loves all, like, just about everything they have. So, you know, my best girl is definitely a big fan of Rick Roasters. I'm I'm stuck on 4% right now. There's a couple other I like. Enforcement is the 1 I like. I mean, it's a really good coffee. So this is my way of of just saying thank you to Shaun and Kelly, Rick's for for helping us out of their race.
And I believe they've really created something special with this with this company, the Brick Broasters coffee company. So I If you get a chance, you know, please support them. Please go to the rickroasters.com. I have the link in the show notes and go visit our website. You can find everything about their blends, find out where they're about their you know, each of their coffee blends, how it's made, it can even order online. And that is still coffee for closers. Coffee for closers.
Okay. Now it's time for the main event. Now this is what y'all came for. Right? This is the the myths about race profits. I mean, race promoters were actually afraid to think about making a profit. They're terrified to let racers know that they have money. So let's let's bust up some of these myths right now. Because I think a lot of race promoters will will definitely identify with this. And I kinda start this off by saying, Do you wanna see something really funny?
I mean, do you really wanna see a race race perimeter look uncomfortable? Ask them about profit. I mean, better yet, ask them how much profit they're making, or if they think that generating a profit is a measure of their success. Heck, ask them if the last race made me money. I mean, it's funny that any talk about money will cause the average race member to break out into a fit of ums and ahs that would make a public speaker with a broken teleprompter proud.
These people start to really get upset over the the concept of profit, why your race promoters have such a hard time with a topic of money. Another short answer? Someone once told me that making profit was evil. They shouldn't be able to make money promoting races. They charge too much as it is. They should build races. For the love of the sports, not to make a profit off the backs of poor racers. You know, and there it is. Grieve promoters, poor racers.
It's the age old argument that racers have no money and promoters charge too much. I mean, race promoters are Not allowed to be happy about making money on a race. They think if someone sees them happy, a flash mob will form and burn them at the stake. Main just behind their hand built 5 Place podium that they labored in their garage and built by themselves,
out of their own pocket money for people to stand on and take their pictures on. Yeah. That's where they'll burn them. That's the wood they'll use for the fooner pire for making any money and being happy about it. I mean, the terror is real. Promoters actually feel that any talk above money as akin to bragging. They're actually afraid to think about making a profit and terrify the researchers know that they have. So let's end these myths right now. Myth number 1.
Profit is not the only barometer to success. Okay. It may not be the only 1, but is the only measurable 1 that matters. Racers pay you for a product, you know, your race. If that race sucked, they would ask for that money back. If they had a bad experience, they would not pay for your product again. If you think about it, having erasers show up to your race or show up again and again to your race is their way of telling you that your race was a success.
Otherwise, it wouldn't come to your it wouldn't come to a Reese if it sucked, period. Sure. There are a few out there that do that, but it's the only race near me dance. So what? Racers will drive 3 to 4 hours for a race that doesn't suck. I know this. I've done this drive. I know all sorts of other great racers who have done this drive. How many of those showed up your race? If the answer is more than 10, I mean, it says a totally made up number, but you get the point.
Then you experienced a success. Yeah. Congratulations. You might feel weird if you think that the extra money you made, you know, I e your profit. Is a sure sign of excess, but it is. Look at it. Smile while you're looking at it. This doesn't mean you're going to be swimming in your money vault later after you kick a hobo. It just means that you have now a new tool to use to grow your race business, and that sounds like success to me. So what's what's what's another myth?
Another myth is I'm betraying my beliefs if I focus only on making money me. Hold on 1 minute. Obviously, your belief, your mission, your desired impact, racers live is important, and I get that. It's your primary focus. It's your reason for getting up of the morning and building race did all this race stuff in the first place. I mean, there are all These are all important to your self worth, so don't stop thinking about that. K? Your business has goals and you need to stay true to those goals.
And if making a profit was the only thing you focused on, you might think you were not staying true to your beliefs. But you also need to admit that you have to make some money to stay in business. You need to feed your family or feed yourself. You keep that business, you believe so strongly and open, and you can't do any of that if you're running a charity. Not unless you have a second job because grocery stores don't take use BIB numbers as currency. You don't have to fixate
on it like, you know, the 1 ring of paler and my passion is. Gotta them. Gotta them. But you need to make it 1 of your strategic goals. Let me say that again. You need to make a profit a strategic goal. Why? Because just about every race promoter that has had plenty of races that were unsuccessful but did make a profit, either had a, a second job, B was receiving retirement check, or C is currently out of business.
I know. That's pretty harsh, isn't it? And if you find yourself believing that making a difference doesn't always make money, that's okay. Just understand, that you're always making a difference, but not making any money doing it, then you're not running a business, you're enjoying a hobby. Let that 1 sink in for a minute. I mean, doing something you believe in and making a difference but not making money is okay. That's charitable. It could be nonprofits.
But even nonprofits have to make a they have to make a profit. Don't don't Be thinking that a nonprofit is a business that doesn't make a profit. It means that it doesn't spin its profits by giving it to the owners of the company. A nonprofit is just someone who uses his profits on other things. Still has to make money. Can't keep the doors open to nonprofit. You don't make any money. So
if you're always making a difference, but how make any money doing it, you're not running a business. You're running a hobby. What's another myth? Myth number 3. Racers are poor, defenseless customers that are being taken advantage of by greedy promoters that charge way too much. This is a common common topic I often see on racing blogs and forums.
This is probably 1 of my biggest pet peeves because the big bad race promoters are always trying to stick it to the little guy with their endless greedy thirst for even higher registration free piece. They say that greed is so bad that it literally hurting the racing community. Really? Really? Let's break this 1 down by the number shall we? The typical mountain bike racer has 2 mountain bikes in their house.
You know, that 29 inch hard tail single speed and the 120 an inch full suspension super bike. Right? Each of these bikes are between what? A 1000 to $5000 each when it comes to helmets, gloves, shoes, pedals, sunglasses, designer water bottles, and color coordinated pro cut race kits. Biptops, not shorts because, you know, that's for the little people.
And because that, you know, that's how they roll. You know, add in the Garmin, the space watch, the Strava app already on their iPhone, their Samsung smartphone, and their heart rate monitor. Chances are, their mom didn't drop them off their race. No. They showed up in their own car. You know, this is the car they paid for with their 9 to 5 job. They provide them enough. Cachin, salary to buy all the above and then some, you know, outdoor recreational equipment.
Because, of course, their members are AI. Yes. They are. They probably get a huge dip in it at the end of the year because of all the stuff they buy. Now it doesn't include the chews, the coos, the special drink powder. It also doesn't include bike upgrades, new tubeless tires. Gotta have them nice wheels. You know, the ones with the matching red trim. Yeah. Special order from Germany, baby, Octung. Don't Japan to me, but you can probably see where I'm going. Let's continue.
You take all that gear, combine it with all the times they went riding, drove to other trails, and everything else that goes with preparing for the race day. And you can start to see how much money goes in becoming an amateur mountain bike race and if you're if they're a pro guy or even better, they're masters. Don't have to you don't have that kind of time to go into that. And don't even start it about sponsorships and free bikes and a lot of other stuff they get.
Then you have your friendly neighborhood roast race promoter. The guy or gal that spent 3 months dealing with property managers to get all the permits in place dealing, of course, designing a course, setting up a venue, and advertising the heck out of a race that may or may not have a large turnout. They have found volunteers providing refreshments,
maybe added music, marked all the bad spots with tape, they have emergency medical standing by, purchased all purchased a good insurance policy. They thought about getting timing squared away. They haven't slept in days. They were at the park before any of those racers showed up. They set everything up in the dark on race day, and they'll be cleaning up long after those guys leave.
All planned and built in their off time weekends and holidays in between going to their own 9 to 5 job. If race promotion is not, their 9 to 5 job. Jesus. The apron. And then it happens. $40, man. For a mountain bike race. Wanna rip off. You wolf proves your creepy b words. Still think they're poor. For some odd reason, there are mountain bike racers and racers in general out there that get paychecks for doing their job,
but do not deem the race prone worthy enough to deserve theirs too. And if they, God forbid, make money on a race, they're the living embodiment of evil itself. Enough. It's time to take a stand. Is now is not a time to wimp out. Chin up, back straight, Say it with me. Racers are not poor. Did you feel that? Let's try that again. Okay. Ready? Okay. Don't wipe out. Chin up, back straight. Stay with me. Racers are not poor. Should be etched in stone somewhere.
That felt great. Right? Be proud of what you built and that it makes money. If you create a good product that gives someone equal value for the dollar, You know, a great experience, changes a life, makes someone more active, creates a cultural event, was just good old fun, do not be ashamed of asking them to pay a fair price for it. Let the ones that complain,
complain, there's nothing you can do about it anyway. Like the saying goes, you can only please 50% of the people, 50% of the time. I think Abraham Lincoln say that, didn't he? He also say that most quotes found on the Internet are not true. I think Abraham Lincoln said that too. Anyway, so focus on the racers that appreciate your work. Ignore those that just wanna complain. They're not broke, at least not where money is concerned.
Yeah. Think about that 1 for a minute. Right? As a race promoter, you should be happy about making money at or on a race. It will keep your racing business alive. It will help you make a living for yourself, your family, and maybe 1 day a staff of employees, you can stay true to your beliefs while also making money. If you think about it, staying in business is the only way you will ever impact as many lives as possible. If you go out of business, you lose that platform.
So make sure you're making a profit is just as important to your business as the reasons why you built your business in the first place. Speaking of staying in business or even just starting a racing business, would you like to get a head start building your races? If you didn't have to figure out all the steps it takes to build just the race part of that business, what if you could follow a simple map? A road map. That showed you what each of the steps
and what order to take them. Would that free up all sorts of other things? Couldn't you go Brook on things that you really wanted to do, like course design, or getting out there and selling your race to actual racers, I'm almost finished writing a short e book, that will help you identify the steps, the structures, the timelines, all the stuff you need to create your own off road racing road map. But with it comes a premade, easy to follow road map that you can use right out of the box.
So you don't even need to make 1 yourself. This ebook together with a road map will show you the exact path you need to build a race in 90 days. 90 days. Yes. 90 days. Is the minimum amount of time you need to get a race off the ground. More or less. It doesn't sound like a long time, but if you follow the road map, you can build a race in just 12 short weeks, and it's entirely free. Just for you and your fellow serious race promoters,
build a race in 90 days with my starter road map. And when you're done, you can use it to build the races again and again and again. It could be your system. It could be your process for building a race. You can modify. You can change it, it's just a good place to start. So are you ready? Are you ready for building better races? If you are, go to wreckingear.com/roadmap and sign up with your email address, and that link will be in the show notes as well at merchantzadir.com.
So what does signing up in your email? Oh, it's it's kind of a loaded question. Right? Your email address. Okay. What does that give you? What does that give me Kyle? Give you my email and my address. Well, if you sign up this month, I will send you the 90 day road map PDF absolutely free. And by requesting the the 90 day road map this month, the month of November. So you have to do it this month. You know, this is my Black Friday
black month sale. Right? I'll include the 90 road map supplement ebook to you free as well. Yeah. I still have a few weeks of work to do on this. Oh, okay. Give or take. But by signing up, you get it when it's released and you get it for free. And that's a $39 value because when I finally released it, that's what I'm gonna sell it for. 39 bucks. But just for providing your email address
and getting and getting onto my newsletter because that's what the email address is. So get my newsletter, send you updates, new blog posts, the other things I've working on, new episodes of this podcast. That's what that email address that you provide that is what I'm asking for. Get you know, become a member of the list, join the the Rechinir, the Mount Merchants of dirt family, the community.
And I'll give you an ebook and a 90 day road map absolutely for 39 bucks, absolutely free. Ends December 1 2016. So go to wreckingear.com/roadmap. Sign up today. Get free road map in your ebook. And it's free forever. So if I update it, if I make a change to it, if I go back and and say, oh my gosh. Then there's something changed. There's a new thing. Oh hey. There's a new way to think about this. Any version of this? You get for free. That's a pretty good deal.
So go to wreckingear.com/roadmap and sign up today and get your free 90 day road map and ebook. Now for the new segment on merchandiser podcast, I'm calling Beyond shovels. This is the segment where I tell you about all the new sports management, technology, and tools, race promoters, should use to build better races. So why did I start including this? When race promoters weren't looking, mobile technology, online services, and cloud computing ruined the old understanding of productivity tools.
Today, the power of interactive management collaboration online services they can be leveraged via the Internet for free. And it kinda takes spreadsheets to a whole new level because, you know, spreadsheets, you know, the things you're still using. And gone or the days of punching numbers into fields and doing everything on a sheet of paper.
Now can you imagine your race plan ending in real time, collaborating with your entire team no matter where they are, and store all your documents in the cloud for easy access from anywhere. You can rent software applications without having to buy or build them yourselves now. All these tools are designed to make you more productive and build better races.
So beyond shovels, we're gonna talk about some of these tools. So what are they? Well, today, we're gonna talk about our 1st beyond shovels segment. We're going to go into managing productivity. Because managing your race workflow is a tough job, You could use a spreadsheet to keep everything under control, but then you'll have to modify that spreadsheet multiple times. And how do you often end up doing that? Well, you print it out and use a pencil to check off items and write in changes. Right?
That sounds tedious and inefficient. It also sounds like your spreadsheets Don't do workflows very well. Every time you change something, you have to go back and change your spreadsheet again. How about your team? When someone on your team completes a task, how do you or the rest of your team know? Email, phone calls, meetings? Well, you don't complete it. And you don't find out until it's too late, how can you ever keep track of it all? Stop the insanity.
Start managing your races with productivity tools, and today's productivity tool is called Trello. I hope I'm saying that Right? But Trello is an online application that helps you do workflows in real time. And it's using something called the Kanban methodology. This is a methodology found in software development. It's got a lot of connections to Doctor Deming in total quality assurance. And connecting us to agile scrum. But Kanban is
It's not something new. It's been around for a while, and software developers use it all the time. But what Trello does to the online web application, use through your browser, and it automates the movement of your lists by organizing them into these workflow boards, that are divided into these columns. Now each column is a step in your workflow workflow process
with all your to do items in the first column. So you think about about it. If you divide it into 3 columns, your to do list, your in progress, and your completed list. Okay? And you line up all your to do items in the first column. So when you start working on 1 of your to do items, you drag it and drop it
into, you guessed it, the in progress in progress column. When you do that task and it's completed, you put it into the done column, the completed column, and you can name in these columns anything you want. So you have complete customization of all this. However, the Trello 2 is more the Trello 2 tool is more powerful in organizing a prioritizing your race into a snapshot of what is completed, what is still being worked on, and what still needs to be done.
That is a powerful powerful look at your race productivity. When you connect this Trello board to your team, Now you can start to see how you're managing who is working at what task and have a real time view of what is done and what is not done.
Trello is kind of information at a glance. It's this capability that you could even include files, images, connections, other productivity tools like Slack. I think we'll talk about Slack next week. And cloud storage. We'll we'll talk to that probably in December. But you can use it on your mobile device.
It allows you to know what your race is in progress without having to to be on your laptop. You can check it from tablet, from your mobile phone, Trello, is that type of tool that you can you doesn't matter which device you're on, you get the same the same functionality, the same tools, and the same information at a glance. And that's that's a very powerful thing to think about. Because how do you do that with a piece of paper and a spreadsheet? Not so easy.
And Trill is also priced well for small teams. And you're probably thinking it's like, oh, man, something like that. That's gotta be expensive. Well, You'll never guess what the price is. That's right. It's free. Yeah. Free. Yeah. Exactly. Free. For for how long? Forever you're thinking, yeah. Right. Forever. Mister Murphy's back there going to forever. Yeah. Right. That is no thing. Of course. Will it be free forever? I don't know. It might be.
But the way some of these software applications are designed the little people are how they hook you in. It's like that first sample, that first, you know, hey man, give this a try. Triples like that too. Only your first sample is free for as long as you want it because it's designed to grow with your team. It's a productivity tool that when you get bigger, I mean, the advanced features aren't useful to you until you are bigger,
that's when it starts to cost. They when it's, like, $10 per month per user, which comes out to be, like, a $120 per user for a year. So if you got, like, a 3 or 4 or 5 person team and using Trello in in advance, and you're doing big races and big productivity. Okay. Maybe you can afford to do $600
a year. Did the software. If you're just you, couple of people, it's not that much. So when you get bigger, you can look in a trillow to manage your championship races, but you're not there yet. It's a small team. Trill is a perfect tool at a perfect price. So go check out [email protected] and stop managing your races by spreadsheet. And I'll include all those links in the show notes. So go check it out.
And now you know. Speaking of growing, you can't grow your offer racing business if you are not guided by principles. Principles, you say? Yes. Those fundamental truths that serve as your foundation for your system of reasoning. On the next podcast, I'll be talking about principles, why principles matter, and what business lessons you can learn by having a few simple principles in place to guide each of your business decisions.
That's it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening to the merchandiser podcast. Kim, questions or comments, please reach out to me on Twitter at emergency dirt. And if you wanna subscribe and never miss an episode, emergency dirt.com is how you do it. You got Android, iPhone, whoever you could podcast, 1 click gets you every single episode
for free. I wanna wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving out there. And I'll see you on the next episode of The Merchandise for together, we will build better races.