We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Wesley Smith a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Wesley, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
After racing for years and traveling with a bike every which way you could do. In 2008 I was laid off from pearl izumi corp office and that was the key time to take the leap into burning cash, to build the dream with a better way of taking the stress and extra work out to getting your most critical component to all the things you have trained for over the months in becoming your best
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Well I had been in the fitness industry most of my life and when I moved out to Colorado working in the bike industry I had found the one thing that I wanted to get better at.
Growing up on a farm in NC I knew what it would take in hard work also knowing enough to be dangerous with marketing that I could create the vision and service that athletes in the cycling world would appreciate and want.
In any business, it just takes one client that truly gets it and becomes the raving fan of my service. Ali Black a pro out of Salt Lake City needed transport from SLC to Galveston TX for a race. The short version to this story is after the race she was going to a training camp in Scottsdale AZ the following week but had to go to another race in New Orleans that following weekend.
The key to growing any business is asking questions to find your clients needs. With that she needed her bike Tuesday morning the following week. The New Orleans race was on Sunday. ( did some math ) and asked when her training ride was to start which was 7:00am.
With time to spare I had her bike ready to roll at 645am Tuesday morning. The only thing she said was “Wesley your my man with keeping your word and delivering on a promise”
From there May 2010 after years of trying so hard to get people to just try it I had the I e that would sell the story to the people. From there, here I I’m 14 years later still growing
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Sure this was COVID. When the world shut down and everything I had built was gone in a week. I knew I wanted to keep this dream alive so started working at Home Depot to make ends meet until races and events got back up and running.
It was terrible and rough, even more so than starting a business. It’s kinda like growing up on a farm no matter the weather it still have to get up and plan the next day and that’s what needed to happen. Get up every morning and keeping moving forward
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
See the following story on Ali Black
Contact Info:
- Website: Probikeexpress.com
- Instagram: Probikeexpress
- Facebook: Probikeexpress