Hey Glasser, I feel for ya…we all have to pay the piper.
Let me tell you a a story.
Some years ago, I learned that all work is honorable. It doesn’t matter what you do, if you do it well. A friend told me years that in Japan, each erson holdng a job, any job, got a subsidy from the Japanese gov’t. twice per year. One was paid in summer, and one was paid around our Christmas time. He said the checks were for around $600. It helped stimulate their economy.
For a brief moment in time I ran the “O” Shop (O’neill’s in Santa Cruz). Since I was little urchin I would go up to Santa Cruz (from Santa Barbara) and see my relatives and go surf Pleasure Point. I was 8 years old and wetsuits didn’t fit me. Later on I got big enough that I could rent an O’neill vest from Jeff White, a tall young man that had a shanty wood shop along the stretch just a stone’s throw from Jack’s house. Little did I know that I would partner with this man years later at Surf N Wear in SB. I’m getting off the track but I’ll finish this thought…my mom rented a vest from Jeff and I paddled out Xmas Eve Day with my big brother (who was big enough to have a beaver tail jacket)…I remember saying to my brother (as I paddled my 9’4" Doug Roth out)…“I’m SO WARM, I could stay out all day!!!”
Maybe the previous paragraph is a good story to ponder. Sometimes we feel sorry for ourselves rather than reinventing ourselves. Now I’m not saying that YOU are feeling sorry for yourself, but perhaps a little reinvention is in order. Okay, so back to 1980 when I managed the O’neill Shop…almost right away, every shaper from 41st Ave to Gilroy was trying to get me to put their boards in O’neill’s Surfshop. Being in O’neill’s was a very prestigious thing! O’neill’s had purchased the flower shop one block up across the train tracks from the wetsuit factory (we simply called it “Inc”). Yup, Jack bought the building. Smart guy. So we had all these bitchen freestanding racks that held about 10 boards (5 each side at an angle). We had these beautiful crafted racks in the shop…we used one or two for used boards and the other’s were in front of the big windows for display. Guys kept coming in pleading with me…one day this guy came in and gave me his sob story…“please, I’ve got to make money, my family needs food, I have a kid, I’ll do anything if…etc. etc.”
I felt for him, really…really felt for the guy. I said, “I could really use a good ding repair person”.
He looked at me for a moment, and his head went up (nose first) and he said “I am a shaper, I don’t do ding repair!”.
The sad thing is, if he would have jumped right in and was reliable and quality concious we had so much demand for repairs that he would have made a load ofmoney almost overnight. And if he had helped me out in the ding department I would have been more than open to giving him an opportunity to showcase his boards in O’neill’s.
How did I resolve the rest of the ‘beggars’? I created a program. I gave each shaper an entire rack of their own and told them “you make what you think will sell, if you’re the twin fin guy and you want to do all twinnies, that’s up to you. If you make longboards and Barney’s, it’s your call. You get 10 boards of who you are to put on YOUR rack. I will also order some backup boards that we will store upstairs to bring down to keep a full rack when one sells. However if your “product mix” isn’t good and people don’t buy what you make, well…you get the picture?”
So the guys like Coletta, Schroedel, Vinson, Thomas, Croteau and Junod ended up earning a spot. Well, Croteau had his moments, but it all worked out. Haut even asked me to get O’neill to buy his factory (he got rejuvenated when sailboards came in, glad to say). Then there was an uproar when I brought in one racks worth of Town and Country boards and put them in the number one spot (rack by the door). They had insane airbrush work back in '80-'81, and I marked them up to $350 to $365…all the local guys were at $280. I was told I was nuts and they will never sell. I did this in June, right when the hoards of valley guys were coming over from San Jose every week end.
Saturday morning, the first one sold in 15 mintues. Two more sold that day. The next week end the boards were restocked and the most bitchen airbruses were $370 and $380. One sold Saturday the other one Sunday when the first guy from Saturday brought his friend in.
The boards kept selling and I phased them out near the end of the summer. I told the local shapers “now you can thank me”.
When they asked “for what” I said, the T&C’s proved what the market will bear and you guys are just as good as anyone, I can now bring your board prices up and you all get a raise."
Chuck Vinson thanked me years later telling me that because of the board program I implemented at O’neill’s he made enough to buy and keep his house at La Selva or Manresa Beach. Later on I helped Mark Angel and Brian Seurat move 150 boards they got stuck with on a Japan deal gone bad. Maybe I earned some good karma on this, and perhaps you have some saved up too?
Maybe you don’t need to go globetrotting.
Think outside of the box and you will prosper.