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

Hi Sam, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about your team building process? How did you recruit and train your team and knowing what you know now would you have done anything differently?

When I took over the Toy store I inherited the entire staff. Some left after a few weeks and some stayed. In the beginning it was really hard to enforce changes that I saw were extremely necessary to the success of the business. The team liked the way the store operated before and there was alot of pushback when the changes were implemented. I was able to get the team to see my point of view by showing them the results of the changes. The sales that happened in the extra hour that we stayed open, the increase in the number of transactions online after changing our shipping timeframe, the the increase in profits after we changed how the store was merchandized. All of these ideas and changes were really hard ti understand for the team when they were first implanted. However, once they were able to understand why they had to be made it instilled the trust that I needed. Our training process has been changed, ripped apart, re-written, shredded again, and will most likely continue to grow. We see the training process as a way to decrease the amount of mistakes made. If mistakes are made and the correct process was not trained then it becomes hard to enforce correction. But if the entire process of the job is trained and taught over and over until it is done correctly, then there is little room for mistakes. If something happens in day to day processes that has previously not been seen but is problematic, then add it to the training manual so that it can be taiga in the future. Make sure that the entire manual front to back has what a new hire has to be successful. If they do not know what is expected of them then they will make mistakes and do the bare minimum to get through the day.
The people we invite to join our team hasn’t always been clear. There were times that the hiring pool was so slim that we were hiring anyone that would show up to work no matter what their experience or social sense was. Since then we have nailed down the type of person that fits our environment. The number one thing that we look for in our candidate list is that are social enough to have the confidence to walk up to a complete stranger and help them through the entire sale. They have to have this feature because without that confidence it makes selling anyone anything very difficult. The next thing is that they are reliable. Without reliability there is no way to know if they are going to show up or not. Because we run a three to four person team every day, being able to undoubtedly count on them makes it easy to run all parts of the business. The last thing important part of a candidate is that they believe in the values and vision of the business. Why employ someone who doesn’t. Without this there is no way that they will help grow and make the store profitable. Work experience is something that we easily feel that we can overlook. Experience can be taught. Social confidence can not.

What’s been the best thing you’ve ever seen (or done yourself) to show a customer that you appreciate them? Give us some context so we can understand why this was so great and what the customer must have felt like.

Our goal at the Toy Co is to create consistent returning customers. We strive to make sure that every customers leaves happy and that they plan to shop with us again. We go far beyond typical retail customer interactions. Starting with our return policy. Typical retail return polices are often non negotiable and are based around a certain timeframe or condition of the product. Ours is fluid and based on each of our customers needs. If they have a product that they didn’t like or it didn’t operate and meet their expectations, we take the return and give them whatever currency they ask for. Many times this leads to a positive reoccurring interaction. They spend more time shopping with us and int he end leave happy with the thought that they had a positive experience with us. Instead of leaving with a negative interaction that leaves a mark on them and anyone else they may discuss their experience with.
Another way that we show our appreciation is through our loyalty program. This is something that over the past ten years most stores have adopted and made their own. Ours is special because in the 30 years that it has been around, it has never changed. If you are in our loyalty program, called The Juggle Bear Birthday Club, you receive a 20% off coupon in everyone of your Childs birthday months. As well as an every time you accumulate 200 points ($1= 1 Point) you receive a $20 credit towards anything in the store. This idea keeps customers shopping with us for every birthday for every child, every year. Many times other businesses will gasp at a $20 credit for every $200 spent because in this economy $200 is not as hard to reach as it use to be. But we feel that the idea of rewarding our local shoppers more than they are use to is an important aspect that keeps our local customers shopping with us and not Taget or Walmart.

Sam, 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?

The Great Rocky Mountain Toy Company has been a Downtown Bozeman staple since 1992. Our mission is to provide new and old, creative, educational, and specialty toys and gifts to children and young adults. We take pride in our exceptional customer service as well as the quality of the products we offer. I am the fourth owner in a long line of incredible community members who have each put their own spin on the business. When I took over the business two years ago I wanted to bring it back to how it felt in its heyday. I wanted customers to walk into an experience instead of the feeling of walking into a store. The idea of being more than just a place to buy toys and gifts is always something that I want to remember. The aspects of the store that make this idea come to life are two model trains that travel through the entire store, up and down murals depicting Bozeman’s most notable locations, and across stacked hand forged steel bridges that resemble real life train crossings. In addition to the train, we have an old reflection of the Bridger Bowl Ski area with a moving chair lift that carries various animals up the hill. These attractions along with our attention to detail and focus on each display that holds toys are what takes our store from a place to shop to a shopping experience.

Let’s talk M&A – we’d love to hear your about your experience with buying businesses

I was raised with two parents who both started their own retail business. Both extremely different from one another but with the brick and mortar retail mindset core to each of the stores I learned a ton of information from each of them. When I was younger I would listen to their conversations and at the time none of it resonated with what I was doing. However, fast forward to 2021 I was capable and more equipped to take over and run a business on my own than many of my counterparts. At 24 years old, most people thought I was too young and inexperienced to be running such a well known store in the heart of the downtown Bozeman community. The acquisition was smooth. The largest part of the process was determined by the previous owners deciding how to pass the store over to me in the best way possible so that the transition would go smooth. This meant getting their inventory to a level that was still high enough to feel shopable but low enough that I was able to buy my own products. This was extremely important for a few reasons, first, it made the initial cost of inventory lower, second, I would be able to buy and fill the store with toys and games that I felt would be best sellers. The third reason, has to do with the portion of the process that happened after I was officially the owner. The previous owners offered to stay on for a few days a week to teach me how to run the business. This included how to buy products.
At first the idea of owning a toy store at 24 was a laughable idea. However after discussing the idea with a multitude of people I decided to reach out and talk with the sellers about how viable the sale was. I wanted to know how the business had been doing over the past few years. The world was on the tail end of its initial covid years and if the business was able to stay open and remain profitable during 2020 then there was a good chance that it could do so in years to come. After looking at the financials, I knew that the store had extreme potential to be exceeding the profits that they were posting over the past few years. We negotiated a price that seemed valuable to both parties and I jumped into the world of toys and retail. I had very little experience beyond the a few deep conversations with my parents. I had never worked on the floor of a retail store, I had never managed people, and I was younger than all of my employees by much more than a few years. But my gut steered me in all of the right directions. A 30 year old Toy Store on a Main Street that was constantly having a variety of business pop up and fail after a few years, was bound to something special.

Any advice for managing a team?

Write down your mistakes, learn and grow from them, and never regret decisions you have made. Writing them down makes you rethink what you could have done differently. It also gives you a chance to remember not to make them again. Grow from your mistakes. Make the decision to not make them again and change how you would handle the situation in the future. Never regret your decisions, again use them as tools for future situations. Each experience good or bad can be used to create better situations in the future. There is no way to go back and change the past so there is no reason to think badly about what has happened. Move forward, move on, and don’t make mistakes twice. Stay positive. Nothing good has come from bad attitudes. If the leader can instill positive attitudes in team members then the environment that everyone works in can and will maintain high morale. Retail in peak seasons will always come with customers that are brutally hard to deal with. As a leader make sure that your team knows that these are the customers that need to be given what they are asking for. If they want a refund give them a refund, no matter what the situation or condition of the product is. If they want to talk to the manager, let them. As a leader be quick to jump on these situations so that your employees feel that you have their backs. There is no reason for an employee to be blamed for a faulty product and an angry customer. Instill positive attitudes and take care of employees feelings by making sure that they know that giving cutworms anything they are asking for will not lead to angry management.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://rockymountaintoycompany.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rockymountaintoycompany/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rockymountaintoycompany
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-rickenbaugh/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/great-rocky-mountain-toy-bozeman