Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to David Riddell. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, David thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

I could use this topic along with issues along the way. I’ll highlight and you let me know where to go. Big Frog Custom T shirts is a franchise, still in young stage
We opened first one in Asheville, NC (smaller rural area) in 2016. I “inherited” a second one in Durham, NC in 2017, FOUR hours away. It did less in it’s 7th year than Asheville did in first.
Custom apparel can be purchased in your underwear anytime online. We have competition with internet, all the local printers and etsy accounts. We had to separate ourselves from the competition.
After four years open in Asheville and having durham for three, EVENTS (including uniforms) stopped for 9-18 months due to covid, so we could have lost it all.
Although we are franchise, they only provide so much support. it’s all on us.
I spent 25 years in Retail so I had the knowledge of staffing, workflow, service, ops, merchandising, etc. My wife is a payroll/bookkeeper. Hiring is my strength so we could get a good team. Add those three things with the franchise to teach us and we were OK.
Hiring the younger generation AND creatives is challenging. We need retail personalities, NO introverts and at a retail pay. Multi task, customer service. We had to find creative ways to keep them. Between the two stores, two team members have been with me 6 years, one at 3.5 and one at 2 years. Weve had success.
See bigfrog.com Embroidery, screen printing and direct to garment fulll color digital print. Retail spaces, NO minimum and free design are the differentials.

Back to the beginning- scale up.
Be more than the name on the door. Get involved in community, give back and have a reputation.
In my local asheville store-
Member of four Chambers of commerce. Ambassador in all four, on the board of two of them. Very active
on the board of 3-4 non profits
Active in multiple meet up groups.
We have non profit pricing (includes school. churches)
We give away tons of free tees, sponsor lots of events, and have free fundraising sites.
I go, go often, go early, stay late, collect the dots (network), then connect the dots.
Use social media (my linkedin page has done amazingly well), constant contact and google my business to follow up, promote and tie in those in person things.
After a year, I took over Durham, so I was gone 2-3 days every other week. I now had to do the same things in Durham has in asheville, WITHOUT living there, but also having less
time to do so as I split the time. That is where strong staff comes in and lots of the social, email and sponsorship.

Best example of community/networking that is still spoken about by others.
I started promotinatedg asheville in January, we opened in May and had ribbon cutting/grand opening on Sept 1. We had ribbon cutting with ALL four chambers, attendance of over 300 people and spent very little money to do so. We had cheerleaders from local school, music school for under 8 bring kids to play, radio station showed and some restaurants

David, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

25 years in corporate retail, my wife the same years in bookkeeping/payroll. Moved back (met in college nearby) to asheville area due to family in 2013. Had corporate job. That ended in 2015. We didn’t wish to move or start over as retail was going a different direction. We also had kids in 7th and kindergarten. we looked at multiple franchises and chose Big Frog Custom T shirts. I understood how to hire, train, motivate and take care of the team but also knew the importance of an amazing customer experience which was dying in america.
Big Frog was the franchise that required retail background, sales and being involved in the community.
We are proud that being store 71 open and in a smaller market, we remain top 20 in sales every year, beating many stores in larger markets that are open longer.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Answered in prior slide. We started with schools the first year. Moms have the decision making, car keys and money for the next 10-15 years, while their kids are in sports, activities. One or both parents also work, maybe they help at a non profit and the family may go to church. That opens the organic promotion to tons of different options. Custom service, being visible, giving back and staying true to the mission statement all help grow the business.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Covid shut down all events, even businesses NOT needing uniforms as everyone was home. We could have closed as many other printers were hurt badly. We can do small quantities which screen printers can’t.
We had a diverse portfolio. Although our school, church and non profit clients disappeared, we had the trades, industrial/manufacturing and medical but also could help fundraise.
We wrote $10,000 in checks for fundraising, between the two stores, to local businesses and non profits. We set up a online store with logos from all these businesses, asking them to share and promote the link. For every shirt they sold, we each got $10. It gave everyone visibility through social media, they had people wearing their shirts and we both got money. Amazing community thing to do so we could all make it to the other side.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bigfrog.com/asheville
• Instagram: @bigfrogasheville
• Facebook: @bigfrogasheville
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidriddellbigfrog/

Image Credits
We are part of a franchise, Big Frog Franchise group, www.bigfrog.com Members of four chambers if you need the names from first page I filled out.