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Where Outdoor Adventures Begin: Uncle Dan's Sells Outdoor Clothing and Gear While Offering a Lifestyle of Adventure and Fun 9/16/2009 11:33:00 AM
By Peter Gill
-Illinois Retail Merchants Association
 | | Brent Weiss (left) and his father, Al Weiss of Uncle Dan's the Great Outdoor Store, IRMA's 2009 Illinois Retailer of the Year. | | Photo by: Peter Gill |  |  | | Uncle Dan's salesman Edgar Melchor helps a customer try on a coat by North Face. | | Photo by: Peter Gill | |  | | Part of the Uncle Dan's team in Highland Park. From left to right are: Wendy Bade, Max Schaffer, Dawn Deubel, Chase Brosseau, and James Mortimer | | Photo by: Peter Gill | |  | | Uncle Dan's opened in 1972 in a 900-square-foot store on Bryn Mawr Avenue in Chicago. | |  | | The company now has four stores averaging 4,000 square feet, including this store on Central Avenue in downtown Highland Park. |
Jonathan Plotkin's son was planning a trip to an outdoor music festival in Florida, so Jonathan went to his friend's business, Uncle Dan's The Great Outdoor Store, to outfit his son for the trip. While he had no idea of what his son might need, it just so happened that an Uncle Dan's employee had attended the same festival a few years earlier and knew all about how to protect himself from fire ants, the hot days and the rainy nights. By the end of his shopping trip, Jonathan not only had all the right gear, but the confidence his son would have everything he needed.
For many travelers, a trip to Uncle Dan's is like the first leg of their journey.
Many of the store's employees are experienced travelers as well, with a genuine interest not only in the products, but in the customer's adventure plans. Their passion for the outdoors reflects the customer's excitement. By the time the customer leaves, what they purchased seems almost secondary to how they purchased it.
Store CEO Brent Weiss' strategy is to hire employees who have a natural inclination for customer service and a real interest in learning about the products. That's exactly the type of employee who helped Jonathan Plotkin, and enhanced his son's experience in Florida.
"When people come into Uncle Dan's, whether it's either a parent scared about their kid going off to school for the first time or a traveler who just wants to know that they're getting quality gear, they can be confident because there is a knowledge component behind it," said Plotkin, Weiss' real estate consultant. "They're selling more than items. They're selling a lifestyle."
The business is not only one of the Midwest's leaders in adventure gear and apparel, it is a generous partner in its communities. Uncle Dan's contributions focus on programs promoting health and wellness, youth, the arts, and the environment. The retailer has helped underprivileged school children by collecting used back packs and donated to the needy with collections of canned food and coats.
For its focus on customers and the community and its dedication to the retail industry, the Illinois Retail Merchants Association named Uncle Dan's The Great Outdoor Store its 2009 Illinois Retailer of the Year.
"Brent understands the true nature of retailing," said IRMA President & CEO David F. Vite. "His stores focus not only on serving the customers, but serving the communities.
He knows if he takes care of his customers on every level they will keep coming back."
In a letter nominating Uncle Dan's, Chicago 43rd Ward Alderman Vi Daley said the Chicago-based retailer truly fits the criteria behind IRMA's award.
"Service is the central focus of the business, and it is shown not only to customers, but the community around it," she said.
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A couple was shopping at another store for shoes to wear on a trip to the Amazon, but forgot their store coupon. The sales clerk refused to honor the coupon unless they brought it into the store. On their way home, they walked into Uncle Dan's The Great Outdoor Store on Central Avenue in Highland Park. Brent Weiss overheard the couple say they also forgot their Uncle Dan's coupon. Never one to miss a sales opportunity, Brent grabbed a coupon from behind the counter and handed it to the couple. Two hours later, they stacked huge piles on the counter for their trip. The woman admitted to Brent that if the other store had sold them shoes, they may never have bought all the other merchandise.
It all seems so simple. Serve your customer; don't turn them away. But too many retail sales clerks aren't given the leeway to make small adjustments. Brent learned from a young age that being flexible and finding a way to satisfy the customer is the only way to run a retail store.
"A lot of what we're talking about here is retail 101," Plotkin said. "That's what makes one retailer succeed where another one fails."
It's a retail philosophy Brent learned as a teenager working in his great uncle's dry goods store, and one he used to grow his own business from a tiny store on a Chicago side street in 1972 to a set of four high-end outdoor specialty retail stores from the city's north side to the suburban north shore.
As a 13-year-old employee of Boyce Surplus Store - owned and operated by Brent's great uncle, Dan Weinberg - Brent was much more interested in earning a few bucks than learning the retail trade. Nonetheless, he paid close attention and absorbed enough to develop an instinct for the business.
As an adult, Brent displays a deep passion for retail, striving to make every part of his business better. Whether he's talking to a vendor about product or showing off the recycled farm wood he used in his Highland Park store, his passion for retail is evident.
"You cut that guy and he bleeds retail - and it's so natural to him. He's an inspiration and iconic individual in the retail world," said Mike Fowler, Uncle Dan's Head Buyer and Vice-President of Operations.
Brent realizes the importance of his father, Al Weiss, and his wife, Diane in his development as a retailer. His dad got him started in the business and never stood in his way.
"He has been unconditionally supportive all along the way, with every move, every opportunity," Brent said.
Then, as the company grew and expanded, it was Diane who noticed Brent's frustration and stress and stepped in to help.
"She is so critical," Brent said. "We are very opposite. She is extremely task-driven. I'm like a million points of light. That might be the secret sauce - I'm able to observe and see, gather it, and then somehow figure out how to delegate and get this done."
Brent's career began when he was a student at Von Steuben High School in Chicago, taking the bus or walking to the store on Bryn Mawr Avenue in Chicago's Hollywood Park neighborhood. He and his older brother Mark worked with two or three full-timers and his uncle. One of the employees, a short cigar-puffing man named Al Dura, worked the boys hard and didn't let them get away with marginal work.
"He was the guy who, when I was a kid doing things quick and sloppy, would stop me and say, 'you're going to redo that and you're going to do it right and put the smalls in the front, the mediums in the back and the larges in the middle and don't let me catch you doing it any other way.'"
Dura was rough, tough and very demanding. More than once, Weiss would walk home in tears. He later realized that his uncle's associate was just trying to teach him good habits in a classic old-school manner.
But he watched as his uncle would ring a bell when a hard-to-move product was sold, or when Dura invited regular customers into the back room around the holidays for a shot of whiskey. The small team focused on the customer, and always kept things simple.
Brent's strength was never classroom learning. He struggled in school, but never struggled with common sense and problem-solving.
"I was always able to be a step ahead in just noticing things," he said. "If somebody's in the store and is carrying three or four pairs of socks in their hands, it drives me nuts that the associates didn't grab a little shopping basket for them. That's one of the things I try to teach is just, 'pay attention.'"
When his uncle died unexpectedly in 1971, his aunt sold the store. So Brent, then 16, and his 18-year-old brother opened a new store in a 900-square-foot space at 3350 W. Bryn Mawr Avenue with the help of their father, Al Weiss. Besides providing financing and managerial advice, Al used his engineering skills to turn an empty building into a retail business in two days.
From the start, the business had plenty of customers, selling military clothing, bell bottoms, black lights, incense sticks and "anything you desire" to local high school students and nearby residents. The boys ran their store as their uncle did, focusing on paying attention to the customer.
As the company grew, it developed a loyal customer base. Uncle Dan's second location opened in 1974 in suburban Skokie where there were plenty of young families and teenagers. Years passed, the community evolved, and those teenagers grew up to start their own families in suburbs like Deerfield, Northbrook, Highland Park and Buffalo Grove.
Brent and his father, Al, noticed their customer's changing zip codes and moved with them, opening a Buffalo Grove store in 1984. This time, instead of settling in a neighborhood, they leased a store in a strip center between Chernin Shoes and Jewel-Osco.
"I figured what could go wrong... but then I saw everyone getting out of their cars and going into either the shoe store or the grocery store. They weren't coming to our store," Brent recalls. "It was the classic mistake - don't ever open a store and base your business on people coming to other businesses."
He found a silver lining to the limited parking spaces at neighborhood stores - the customer is forced to be on foot and is more likely to visit the store. So the family opened a store in Lincoln Park in 1975 and Evanston in 1994. A Highland Park location followed soon after.
Uncle Dan's stores are far smaller than some of its big box competitors, averaging about 4,000 square feet. The decision to stay small helped the business by forcing management to be more selective in buying merchandise.
"We'll look at raincoats from one vendor and they show us 50. We'll have to somehow narrow that down to three. Three choices and two colors in each," Brent said.
For the most part, they make the right choices. There are times when they're wrong, but their ability to roll the dice and take chances has worked to their benefit, said North Face Sales Director Tony Erlick.
Brent also realizes his strength as a small company is reacting quickly to market changes. So he challenges his vendors, sometimes on a daily basis, to rush the right products, in the right colors and sizes to his stores. Even big vendors like North Face are willing to keep up the torrid pace set at Uncle Dan's.
"They challenge us, but we, in turn, challenge them with sales initiatives on certain products we want to get out," Erlick said. "In the Chicago market, we want our initiatives at Uncle Dan's."
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A woman once purchased a rain poncho at Uncle Dan's for her child at summer camp. She asked if the poncho could be delivered directly to the camp, as it was supposed to rain that weekend. But Uncle Dan's mistakenly sent the poncho to the woman's house. Brent quickly sent a new poncho to the child at camp via next-day delivery, sent the mother a note of apology along with a small gift and gave her money back. Then he found out where the mistake happened and fixed it so it wouldn't happen again.
"The trick, if you do screw-up, you've got to change the ending," Brent said. "We use that term all the time."
He also uses such situations as 'teachable moments,' crediting Fowler for teaching the staff not to be afraid to make a mistake, and to learn from their mistakes.
"Whenever there's a screw-up, it is such a reflection on me," Brent said. "You're out in the public and there's no where to hide."
Both the management team and the employees like being out in the public and they enjoy giving back to the communities they serve. Both Al and Brent look to their staff first for direction on charitable work.
About 15 years ago, when one of the employee's mom suffered from breast cancer, the retailer got involved in a breast cancer walk - not as a corporate sponsor, but just to help out by setting up a tent for information and advice to help the walkers. Uncle Dan's also participated in an AIDS bike ride 12 years ago at the request of a customer.
"We started helping because we had a passion for the staff and wanted to help what was important to them," Fowler said. "Every great initiative has been sparked by a staff member or a customer. So we're offering more than merchandise; it's a feel-good experience. We can't afford the big corporate sponsorships now, but there are plenty of things we want to do and still get involved with."
One such program is North Face's 'Never Stop Exploring Series,' which highlights the indomitable spirits and journeys of athletes who have overcome extreme physical challenges to compete in their sport. North Face will host one such program in Chicago on Oct. 6 and asked Uncle Dan's to participate as its headline retailer. Uncle Dan's will sponsor the event's VIP reception, benefiting the Cancer Wellness Center.
Another program chosen by the staff is an annual coat drive for the One Warm Coat promotion. In nine years, Uncle Dan's has collected more than 9,000 jackets and coats. Staff members even asked for coupons for a free coat at the Salvation Army so they could pass them out to the less fortunate on the streets.
In the Fall, Uncle Dan's runs a canned food drive, collecting about 5,000-6,000 cans for the Chicago Food Depository. The store collects them, and then delivers them to the depository. Many Uncle Dan's employees volunteer at the depository to sort them - not because they're asked to, but because they want to.
"It's just part of the DNA of our staff. It's an extension of our brand. We just try to make sure the staff is empowered," Fowler said.
Getting involved in the community on a charitable level allows the Uncle Dan's team to really get to know their customers. They understand the differences between those living in Lincoln Park and those living in Highland Park. This allows Uncle Dan's to put a different merchandise mix in each of its stores, giving it a personal touch bigger competitors can't provide.
So, even with four stores and more than 60 employees, the company found success by operating as a small business.
"We're a neighborhood shop," Fowler said. "We don't have a profit number sitting on the storefront each day. Just do good things and the profit will come."
The small retailer has a big following. Its high-end product lines rival its high-end customer service. The service is a by-product of Brent's hiring practices. He hires campers, hikers and adventurers who reflect the customer's love for travel. Some employees have even experienced exotic trips to places like Alaska, Costa Rica or Australia.
"My staff's downright excited about what the customer's doing, where they're going," Fowler explained. "It's not just about selling, it's about making sure they have a good adventure. We've even had staff members lend their own gear to customers for a trip to try it out. They're honest to a fault."
In the same way, Uncle Dan's website, www.udans.com, offers much more than just outdoor gear and apparel for sale. The interactive site includes outdoor resources including links to state and national parks, a camper's checklist and blogs on everything from backpacking and traveling to camping and scouting. Outdoorsmen often visit the website for the information then return for a purchase. Visitors can join Uncle Dan's e-club so they can be notified when new merchandise arrives and given advance notice of store sales.
Brent is also working on a possible partnership with travel agents after hearing that some of his wealthiest customers still use agents when traveling to exotic locations. These high-end adventurers want their travel agents to help them determine not only where to go and what to do, but how to equip themselves for their journey. Uncle Dan's would offer seminars and travel advice while the travel agents would set up the itinerary.
"That's the kind of stuff I like to do," Brent said. "Hopefully that'll be a value-added for them, and it'll be a value-added for us."
The next step in customer service will be a customer loyalty program, giving Uncle Dan's an opportunity to reward its most loyal customers. While he's considered loyalty rewards for years, the economic implosion has forced him to finally implement the program.
Over the years, adjusting to customer preferences has meant shifting away from the once-popular used army surplus items to more upscale and even stylish outdoor clothing and equipment.
When Uncle Dan's first opened 37 years ago, many of its current vendors didn't even exist. If people wanted to buy tents, sleeping bags and backpacks, it was typically army surplus.
Today the store carries high-end outdoor supplies and offers merchandise for every type of customer. There are mess kits and tents for campers, children's shoes and women's sportswear for moms, and backpacks and bicycle gear for college students. The store offers something for every age and demographic group, and just to make sure no one is left out, Uncle Dan's sells unusual items like titanium travel chopsticks and hiking boots for dogs.
"What I really love about our store is we offer something for everybody," Brent said. "It could be a grandma walking in and her daughter is going to have a new baby. We've got infant clothing. You'd be pretty hard-pressed, other than urban clothing. We don't get into the urban wear."
It was the customers who drove the store's merchandise lines to evolve over time, explained Al Weiss. Sometimes Uncle Dan's even drove its vendors to create styles, colors or sizes based on customer requests.
"We redialed to what our customer wanted and developed more to a boutique outdoor or travel store," Al said. "You do what these customers tell you to. We always tried to size-up what the customers needs are. Once you find that out, then you start searching for product."
Al recalls the original popularity of the used leather bomber pilot jackets. When they first became available through army and navy surplus, the jackets were old and the leather was cracked. The customers liked the style but the new ones were too stiff. They wanted a softer, more flexible jacket. So Uncle Dan's treated the used jackets with Neatsfoot oil to soften the leather. Then he asked the vendor to find a way of supplying new coats with softer leather.
"They tried and learned how to make the new jackets soft and comfortable," Al said.
Eventually, he asked the vendor to make other changes based on customers' requests, such as lengthening the waist line, adding inside pockets and adding removable fur collars.
"Little Uncle Dan's used to have fabricators come in and make all these adjustments," Al said. "It was interesting playing the game designing and asking 'what does the customer want?'"
Adding an element of style or fashion to the core outdoor business is what really sets Uncle Dan's apart in the industry, North Face's Erlick said. Fashionable outdoor gear is a Chicago phenomenon and Uncle Dan's was the first outdoor store to recognize that.
As important as it is to have a sales people who know how to listen and learn what the customer wants, it's a talent that cannot be taught, Brent said. Instead, it must be discovered in the job interview process. So he developed a list of 12-15 questions he asks prospective employees, and their answers show whether or not they truly understand customer service.
"You can't teach it. Believe me, during job interviews when you try to get that out of someone and it's just not there, the interview's done," Brent said.
The employee must understand how to ask the customer about his or her reasons for buying a coat or shoes, not just show them what's on the shelf. Such questions often lead to conversations about travel and results in a better overall experience for the customer - and usually the purchase of more gear.
To further the goal of determining the customer's needs, Brent took a page out of an old IRMA training seminar called 'Selling is Our Business.' The workbook - he still has it -explains how to determine customer's needs and how to meet those needs with merchandise.
Of course this is only possible if the sales clerk truly knows the features of the merchandise in stock. So Brent sets up in-depth training, or clinics, through his vendors. Uncle Dan's insist all its vendors offer clinics. They send their technical representatives to the stores to explain the construction of a tent or a pair of hiking boots.
Often the vendor will set up an internet-based training program for Uncle Dan's staff to learn about various products. The employees log into the system and move through various levels, driven by a special incentive: the more they learn, the more points they earn toward deep discounts on the vendor's products.
Brent continues to preach customer service to his staff. He would like to do seminars based on a book he read, called 'Hug Your Customers,' by Jack Mitchell.
"It says you have to know your customer - know them and really treat them right. You have to be aware of the customer... really pay attention," he said. "And you have to always ask yourself, 'who is the customer?' As Mike (Fowler) would say, 'we're not selling tombstones; we're selling adventure and fun.'"
Passing that philosophy on to the sales staff and making it part of the company culture takes good leadership. The mix of leaders at Uncle Dan's is unique. From father to son to wife or hired hand, all have naturally developed their own role in the company.
Al was the guiding force in the early days, bringing standard operating procedures to the business. Now Brent takes care of the big picture while his father puts out fires and makes sure everyone's communicating and working on the same page.
Mike Fowler, with a Degree in Business from Southeast Missouri State University, is Brent's get-it-done guy. He offers a peer voice to Brent, balancing out the father-son team. And Brent's wife, Diane is organized and focused, making sure deadlines are met.
"There's not a big hierarchy here," Fowler explains. "Brent and his father let the business organically grow. They've given quite a bit of latitude to a small group of us, and they don't micro-manage. The brand then grows from the staff and customers. So we're a top-down (customer-driven) company. The staff is so important. We try to help free them to take care of the customer."
Brent never wants to lose the culture that's become so important to the success of Uncle Dan's.
"What motivates me is taking care of that customer, being transparent," he said. "You just want to hear from everybody who's on that floor, 'I had the greatest experience there.' You don't want to hear how horrible it was."
The next step for the management team at Uncle Dan's is expanding to a new distribution and administration center recently acquired in Skokie. The center will open valuable retail space at the company's Lincoln Park location, which is much too small to be both a store and a warehouse. The new space includes a meeting room, providing a place for discussions with vendors and for staff meetings.
Brent admits he waited too long before making the decision, but was finally advised by consultants from SCORE (Service Corp of Retired Executives) that it was the right move.
"They said it totally makes sense," Brent explained. "The rent you're going to pay for this distribution center, you're going to see benefits because you're not going to have product you can't find. It's horrible (to open up a building you're not going to make money in). This was the most stressful lease I've ever signed. But somewhere in my gut, what I know is, if I'm going to put my brains behind doing the Internet business format, I couldn't get behind it unless we had a physical place."
Along with the new site, Uncle Dan's is also planning to segment the buying process by expanding Fowler's role so there are more specialized groups with him overseeing.
As leaders of a small family business, Brent and Al learned long ago how difficult it is to grow the company in a vacuum. They've enlisted the help of their vendors for training, consultants such as SCORE for advice, and joined IRMA because it offered them the power of bigger companies.
"A long time ago, I learned there was strength in numbers," Al said. "IRMA always fights for the retailer. I was always very pleased with their work. IRMA's done a great job for us."
He got directly involved in the Association, serving on the IRMA Board of Directors from April 1988 until September 1994. Over the years Uncle Dan's participated in IRMA seminars and joined the Electric and Gas Affinity Group Savings programs.
IRMA even stepped forward to help when Uncle Dan's received a notice that their tax payment to the state was late. The retailer had proof of when the payment was mailed, but the state pressed on with a $1,500 fine. The case was finally resolved in Uncle Dan's favor after IRMA got involved.
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Brent Weiss said the best compliment he was ever paid wasn't even directed to him. It was a conversation between two customers he happened to overhear. They were talking about Sunset Foods, a high-end grocery store in Highland Park known for its exemplary customer service. The one shopper told the other, 'you know, this place is like the Sunset Foods of outdoor stores.'
"That's the kind of customer service we want to create here; the kind that's somewhat invisible to a lot of people... They're not sure what it is about the store, but they like it," Brent said.
In the words of Diane Weiss on the company's website, "At the heart of everything we do, customer service remains the central factor in the direction of our company and our reason for being."
Uncle Dan's reputation among shoppers is respected by other retailers and appreciated by vendors.
Michael Abt, President of Abt Electronics and Appliances in nearby Glenview, understands first-hand the challenge of customer service in upscale suburbs on the North Shore where customers are typically more demanding. A long-time customer, Abt is impressed by Uncle Dan's success.
"They're a real nice store," he said. "One thing, they get product no one else has, before other stores get it. And they have great service. They're nice, they listen to the customers and they don't rush you."
Tony Erlick of North Face said Uncle Dan's is a perfect fit for how he wants people to feel about his North Face coats and backpacks.
"They provide an authentic atmosphere for their customer, finding not only the product they need, but the education to use it," Erlick explained. "They sell a lifestyle that allows people to go outdoors."
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