Jahmicah Dawes pointed to the surface of the pond. “Do you see the fish?” Three-year-old Silas looked over his father’s shoulder from his perch in the child carrier and asked, “Where?” Heather Dawes took a photo of father and son, making sure not to awaken one-year-old Finis, who had fallen asleep strapped to her chest at the start of the hike. The family was surrounded by lush green hills in an untouched natural area in North Central Texas that will become Palo Pinto Mountains State Park in a couple of years. For a few hours, they walked through fields of wildflowers and up and down rocky inclines, exploring a park that did not yet have trails.

Such peaceful moments have been rare for Jahmicah and Heather Dawes lately. When the pandemic hit in March 2020, the Daweses—like so many other small-business owners—went into a dark period of debt, depression, and fear for the survival of their specialty shop, Slim Pickins Outfitters (SPO). But then a lucky break led to a viral documentary about their family, a surprise influx of cash, and a second chance for SPO. For the small-town entrepreneurs, the ups and downs of the past year have been overwhelming. Especially coming to terms with just how important their shop is in the outdoor industry.

First of Its Kind

Opening an outdoor gear shop wasn’t exactly a lifelong dream for the Daweses. In 2012, Jahmicah graduated from Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas, with a fashion merchandising degree. Stephenville is about an hour and a half west of Dallas-Fort Worth, amid a treasure trove of outdoor adventure. That same year he met Heather. The two stayed in town so Heather could finish her studies at Tarleton State, with no clear plans to settle down there.

Back then, the idea of starting an outdoor store was on their radar, but only as a joke: “my friends and I had this running gag, like one day someone’s going to open an outdoor shop in Stephenville, make a whole bunch of money, and hit it rich,” Jahmicah said.

Right after the couple married in 2014, Michael Brown was shot and killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri, and racial tensions increased in Stephenville, a white-majority city where the Klu Klux Klan held a rally in 2007. The couple considered moving to a more diverse place that would be welcoming of their interracial relationship and future children, even applying to jobs across the U.S. In 2016, a sneaker company offered Jahmicah a job if he was willing to move to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. For a man who loved sneaker culture, it seemed like an easy answer. But Jahmicah had something else brewing in his mind.

“I remember it as clear as day,” Heather said. “We were driving to my parents’ house and he pitched SPO to me.” The old joke had finally started to make business sense to Jahmicah, and he figured they’d have the support of the community they’d been part of for years. “I said, ‘We’ll do it. We’ll try it. But when this fails, we are out of here. I’m not living here anymore.’”

So the couple opened SPO in 2017—unknowingly becoming the first Black-owned outdoor gear shop in the U.S. In fact, there weren’t many Black-owned outdoor businesses in the industry, period.

“I always say the joke is on us because we opened the shop and we’re definitely not rich,” Jahmicah laughed. But between 2017 and 2020, SPO did well, and for the most part, revenue increased each year. Though Heather wasn’t completely sold on the idea of SPO at the beginning, by 2020 she was all in. “My attitude toward the store had definitely changed,” she said. “We were both doing things to make it work. I was making sure we could make payroll.” On weekends and days off from her full-time job as executive director of a local nonprofit, “I work the shop or do back-office stuff so we don’t have to pay other people to do that,” she said.

Jahmicah, Heather, their family, and their staff all play different roles in the store’s success. Heather can usually be found behind the cash register, managing the finances, or running the shop’s social media. Finis maneuvers around displays and clothing stands in a baby walker, while Silas plays with a toy cash register on a bench or follows his dad around the store.

Creative endeavors and community engagement are Jahmicah’s forte, and his vision is apparent when you enter SPO. The sounds of blues, rock, or folk music on vinyl greet you as you inhale the smell of charred wood, smoky embers, and spice from burning incense, and feel Bill Murray, the family’s basset hound, nuzzling your feet. The shop holds a colorful array of outdoor gear, like apparel, shoes, blankets, water bottles, bags, mugs, and vintage items displayed on wood-pallet walls.

On weekends, locals crowd the shop for community events like yoga or bikepacking classes. Jahmicah has created an experience that fits with one of his many sayings: “it may be Stephenville out there, but it’s ‘Stephen-Chill’ in here.”

But just as the store was growing steadily and flirting with success, the pandemic hit, and everything they’d worked so hard to build came very close to slipping through their fingers.

An Unexpected Call

In 2020, “we were heading into year three and feeling really good,” Heather said. “We had paid down a lot of debt. But the week that we had been open for three years is when we had to close down.”

SPO closed its brick-and-mortar shop for part of March and all of April per the state’s orders, then reopened with retail-to-go and limited in-person shopping in summer. Around the time Jahmicah and Heather celebrated the birth of their second child that May, the future of their business became of great concern. Bills were due, and though they received a U.S. Small Business Association (SBA) loan and one month’s free rent from the retail building’s owner, their debt increased as sales dropped significantly. Jahmicah had to get a second job working a stock position overnight at Home Depot, then a grocery store, through the summer so SPO could make payroll.

“It’s not a super-high-income area within a 40-mile radius,” Heather said. “A lot of people don’t have disposable income. In a pandemic, you need food and water, and to make sure that your bills are paid, and that’s it.”

With each month that passed, the possibility of having to close the shop increased. “I remember going to Google to search ‘how do you sell a business,’” Jahmicah recalled. “I called a buddy who had bought an outdoor business and asked him, ‘Did you have a realtor or was there a broker?’ He broke down the process but then said, ‘Hey, you’re not there yet. When it’s that time, I will help you however I can,’” Jahmicah said. “That held some weight. I said, ‘Okay then, we will suffer a little bit longer.’”

And suffer they did, until July 2020, when they received a surprising call.

The Outbound Collective, a digital media platform, wanted the Daweses and SPO to be the focus of its next documentary in the #EveryoneșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű film series. Brian Heifferon, co-founder and CEO, learned about SPO through an Instagram Live event that July, hosted by the PR firm Jam Collective, in which Jahmicah spoke about representation in the outdoor industry. Heifferon realized the family and their shop would be a perfect fit.

“The goal of our film series is to elevate the stories of remarkable individuals who’ve traditionally been excluded from the outdoor industry’s dominant narrative,” he said. “We thought their purpose and their story really needed to reach more people.”

A crew flew out in November 2020. After a week of shooting, and learning the full extent of SPO’s precarious financial situation, The Outbound Collective and its partner production company, Wondercamp, suggested starting a GoFundMe campaign for the shop.

The Daweses were a bit hesitant at first to share personal details about their family life and financial affairs. “It was a tough decision to make because the video and the GoFundMe would be public,” Jahmicah said. “We prayed about it.” Deciding that the trade-off was worth it, they ultimately moved forward with the crowdfunding campaign, launching with a goal of $142,000 at the same time the film was released last February. Donations flooded in from friends, strangers as far away as New Zealand, and businesses like Taos Ski Valley. By the end, more than 4,400 donors gave a total of $172,001. (And the movie was selected for four film festivals this year, including the Roxbury International and Mountainfilm.)

“Having so many people we don’t know donate to the GoFundMe was a humbling experience,” Jahmicah said. “It shows that what we are doing here is important and resonates with people.”

A Second Chance

The Daweses never expected the barrage of nationwide support they received. The store’s Instagram went from 6,000 to 21,000 followers in a few days and the online shop saw a flood of orders.

“We were down to the very bare bones of product because we didn’t have any money,” Heather said. They sold out of everything in 12 hours. Eventually people could only pre-order products; SPO’s branded T-shirts and hats proved especially popular.

“We did half the revenue of 2020 in the month of February 2021,” Heather said. “Granted, our 2020 numbers were very down, and sales have definitely fallen off since then, but it was still better than what we expected.”

Jahmicah and Heather used the GoFundMe donations to pay off the store’s debt and their investors—so they now completely own the business (not the building). But though it’s easy to assume the donations solved all of SPO’s problems, the campaign didn’t overwhelmingly change their lives. It just helped the owners get back on their feet. “When we tallied up what we made with the GoFundMe, it was what we needed to essentially start over,” Jahmicah said. “I’m very grateful for it, but we’re in an industry where we are still 10 steps behind. I get to reenter the building, but I’m still at the back of the line.”

That said, the Daweses have plenty of ideas to move forward. “It’s been cool to see our online store grow,” Heather said. “We hope that continues.”

Jahmicah chuckled and raised his eyebrows. “We need it to.”

SPO rehired a retail consultant they’d worked with in the past to create a plan to keep the store thriving. “We are currently working off of a buying plan and have specific financial goals for the coming year,” Heather said. “We’re working to bolster our e-commerce as well so we can get our products, especially our private-label products, out to a larger market.”

In addition to the retail consultant, SPO will tap the expertise of a volunteer advisory board that includes the likes of Julie Atherton of Jam Collective; Heifferon of the Outbound Collective; Alex Bailey of Black șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű; Koby Crooks, an outdoor independent sales representative with Alpine Cowboy; and Chad Haring, vice president and general merchandising manager of Dick’s Sporting Goods. All agreed to help after being inspired by the film.

“The goal is to find people that have an expertise and have them help us grow our brand and business,” Heather explained.

Many small businesses, especially BIPOC-owned businesses, struggled or closed during the pandemic. So to be in this position—where the Daweses now own their shop and have an array of business experts at their back—feels like a blessing to Heather and Jahmicah.

“The fact that we were put on firm footing from the GoFundMe is really impactful,” Heather said. “It creates a different level of encouragement and wind in our sails. When things get tough we will always remember the kindness of those folks and feel a commitment to them.”

Paving the Way

The welcoming and inclusive atmosphere of SPO draws people like Alex Herrera, a Mexican American fly-fishing guide with Living Waters Fly Fishing. Herrerra also attended Tarleton State University, just down the street from SPO, but never knew the store existed until a friend from Montana sent him a link to the Outbound Collective film in February. As soon as he could, Herrera visited the shop, and he and Jahmicah quickly bonded over fly-fishing.

“It was such a cool thing to see a Black-owned shop in a town that would otherwise not want it here,” Herrera said. “Who else is going to set up a shop across from a Confederate monument? I said, ‘That’s a place I need to go to because I’ve felt the judgment in this industry.’ Being someplace like this, where I can kill time and feel comfortable every second, is amazing.”

Herrera wasn’t the only person moved by the documentary to visit SPO. Some have taken weekend trips from Austin, while others driving cross-country or to Big Bend National Park have rerouted to stop at SPO and meet a family they admire.

The Daweses sometimes feel conflicted about their newfound fame, particularly how to authentically approach their new role as influencers in the outdoor industry. As Heather put it: “Who wants to see us? We’re normal people.”

Still, the couple is forging ahead and learning more about branding and partnerships, expanding their marketing, and coming up with ways to build on the energy they received from the documentary. Jahmicah has plenty of ideas for the future—a podcast, blogs, gear reviews, brand and media partnerships, and nonprofit work. He has dreams of starting an incubator and accelerator program for people of color with outdoor business ideas.

“I was in REI the other day,” Jamicah said, “and got recognized by an Asian American employee who said, ‘I want to thank you for what you’re doing.’ He then told me some of his business ideas. Why isn’t an incubator program with financial and business resources for people of color not a thing already? I know I’m not the first one to think of this, so where is this idea getting snuffed out?” (SPO doesn’t have the bandwidth to start such a program now, but encourages any outdoor business with the capability to start a BIPOC incubator program to take the idea and run with it.) In the meantime, SPO will support BIPOC-owned businesses by looking for ways to carry their brands in-store and providing resources or a road map on what the Daweses did with their shop so others can follow.

“History shows that we, people of color, were the first stewards, cultivators, and conservationists of the land,” Jahmicah said. “Even if the papers or documents don’t say we own it, we were here, we worked and toiled over it, and that shows ownership.

“Just because we’re the first, we don’t want to be last. Even if we end up going down, we’ve shown it can work, should work, and that there should be more Black and brown bodies in the outdoors.”

It’s this spirit that Jahmicah and Heather instill in their sons, especially Silas, who loves interacting with visitors of SPO just like his father. Silas never hesitates to approach customers and ask them their names before starting a conversation. Perhaps it comes with the knowledge that SPO is his space.

“I tell Silas, ‘This is our shop. I want you to repeat it. I want you to meditate on that,’” Jahmicah said as he watched his son play. “With that, comes a sense of ownership and responsibility, and a drive to fight even more for it.

“Say it with me, Silas, ‘This is ours. This is ours.’”

The post How a Viral Documentary Saved the First Black-Owned Gear Shop appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

“The intimidation hits me before I even walk into an outdoor store like REI,” said Jahmicah Dawes, who owns the Texas-based outdoor gear shop Slim Pickins Outfitters. “It starts when I roll into the parking lot in my 2007 Chevy Impala with my fly rod sticking out the window. I look around at all the Audis, Volkswagens, and Subarus decked out with bike racks, ski racks, and gear boxes. I already don’t fit.”

For many—people of color, outdoor novices, plus-size individuals—the act of shopping for gear can be intimidating. Before you even get to the point of checking tags for pricing or sizes, stepping into a store where you don’t feel comfortable can discourage participating. In a lot of ways, that feeling of not belonging is the first barrier to creating a more diverse industry.

Get past the parking lot and you might feel overwhelmed by the gear itself. Look up, and you’ll see point-of-purchase displays that depict far-off locales with people, most of them white and incredibly fit, getting after something intense. It can feel like the outdoors as depicted are somehow unattainable, especially if the white guy helping you is a seasoned, know-it-all climber. And for Black people, there’s always the fear that someone might follow you around the store or accuse you of shoplifting.

“My mom used to work on 57th Street in New York City and one day she sent me across the street with her Amex Gold Card to buy Reusch ski racing gloves from the Scandinavian Ski Shop,” said Mark Boles, who owns the Massachusetts gear shop Intrinsic Provisions and, like Dawes, is Black. “I remember essentially being run out of the store by someone there, at which point my mom came down from her office and read them the riot act.” Boles was 12 at the time.

Slim Pickins and Intrinsic Provisions are completely different stores, the former in a rural college town, the latter in an affluent suburb with an REI nearby. Still, both Dawes and Boles have built their businesses in a way that the intimidation and bias they experienced wouldn’t be repeated.

We spoke with Dawes and Boles, as well as Becky Smith, REI’s retail director for the Northeast, to determine ten concrete actions gear shops can take to be less intimidating and more welcoming to all.

Roll Out the Welcome Mat

REI has dedicated greeters at all of its doors, personally welcoming everyone who enters. The company also works to ensure its initial entry displays, the first thing customers see when they walk in, feature something relatable like local maps and shirts. “We try not to lead with the hard products, something that folks might see as a barrier,” said Smith.

When you walk into Slim Pickins, you’ll likely be greeted by Dawes’ basset hound, Bill Murray. You might then notice an old record player, spinning old school blues or bluegrass. Up above, the walls give off a vintage vibe, mounted with old skateboards and bikes. “All of these things don’t scream hardcore climber or mountaineer or endurance runner,” said Dawes. “We want to be able to connect with someone on many different levels before saying we’re an outdoor shop.”

Make Sure Your Staff Reflect the Community

For a person of color, a plus-sized individual, someone who uses a wheelchair, or a queer-presenting shopper, seeing someone who presents similarly is immediately comforting.

“It all starts with hiring,” said Smith, who oversaw the opening of the REI’s Washington D.C.’s flagship store. “You have to look at who your local community is and what they need for you. We really strive to ensure that we reflect our local population and that our staff is as diverse, if not more diverse, than it.”

That requires not simply hiring who applies, but also reaching out to local nonprofits and BIPOC community partners and asking them to help spread the word about openings via their listservs. If your store is in a Latinx community, make sure you have appropriate signage and employees fluent in Spanish.

When REI was opening in D.C, Smith learned that there was a significant deaf population (because of local schools) in the local community through preliminary research. When building the store, the company kept them in mind when it came to layout and sightlines, and was intentional about hiring five deaf employees.

Invest in Inclusivity Training

Training helps employees become aware of unconscious biases they hold, introduces DEI concepts, and promotes a workplace that feels safe and inclusive. All of REI’s staff go through diversity and inclusion training within six months of starting, a process that involves an online component as well as in-person discussions.

“We put our managers through extensive diversity and inclusion training and then they’ll lead small breakout sessions to really flesh out unconscious biases and have honest conversations,” said Smith. “It’s a very vulnerable training and a safe space for having hard conversations with your team.”

In that D.C. store, Smith also required staff to go through deaf etiquette training.

Keep the Term “Outdoorsy” Broad

“We don’t define what it means to be outdoorsy for people,” said Smith. “We’re not saying you have to be a rock-climbing, thru-hiking, metric century rider in order to be outdoorsy. We’re saying that if you have an authentic feeling towards the outdoors then we have a space for you here on our staff.”

We recommend going a step further to ensure that your social media, displays, and in-store events don’t just promote one way of being outside.

Don’t Make Assumptions

Never guess someone’s gender, let alone why they’ve come to your store, or what their experience level may be.

“There’s a Black guy I see cycling every once in a while who’s a real diehard, but if you saw him walking around, you’d never know he’s riding 30, 40, 50 miles at a time,” said Boles. “If you decide to misjudge him, that’s not good. So I don’t make any presumptions.”

At REI, staff members are trained to always ask qualifying questions to help pinpoint what will suit a customer’s needs best, such as: What kind of activity will you be doing? How often will you be doing it? Where will you be? What season do you plan on doing it in? When showing customers gear, make sure they know how to use it and if applicable, offer to help them set it up for the first time.

Embrace Gender-Nonconforming People in Your Stores

Betsy Bertram, Brand Manager at Townsend Bertram & Company șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Outfitters, penned a piece outlining how her family shop is taking concrete steps to be more welcoming and relevant to gender-nonconforming customers. The five big takeaways: hire trans people and pay them a living wage, include pronoun preference on name tags, make all fitting rooms and bathrooms in your store gender neutral, and be conscious of the gendered imagery in your store and on your social media.

Don’t Push the Sale

For a novice, the pressure to buy something, especially if it’s expensive, can be a big turn off. “We never push a sale,” said Boles. “We want to make the customer happy, even if it’s sending them to another store.” Alternatively, you can offer a generous return policy. At REI, if a customer buys something and isn’t happy with it within a year, they can return it.

Encourage People to Bring Along Newbies

“My first experience in a gear shop was with friends,” said Dawes. “That support system takes away the harshness of that first-time feeling of not belonging. In that moment you belong just by association.”

Don’t hesitate to simply ask your customers to bring along their novice friends, suggests Dawes. Consider hosting school groups, meet-ups, or collaborations with groups that have nothing to do with the outdoors. Offer incentives, such as a 20 percent discount, to first time shoppers, or host a giveaway. There are plenty of ways to entice folks who have yet to experience the outdoors, it just requires a bit of effort and creativity, says Dawes.

Push the Brands You Carry to Do Better

REI, with the weight of its buying power, has a lot of pull when it comes to encouraging its brands to do better. For example, the company pushed Smith Optics and other goggle makers to use the descriptive term “low-bridge fit” rather than the term “Asian fit.”

“Most point-of-purchase we get from brands is very whitewashed,” said Dawes. “I haven’t seen one yet—and that’s not to say they’re not out there, I just haven’t seen it—that has shown a person of color.”

Dawes has even volunteered to serve as a model and get involved in the marketing process for at least six brands. So far, no one has taken him up on it. For his part, Boles designed Intrinsic Provisions to be more of a specialty store, focusing on brands that check a slew of rigorous environmental, ethical, and social values. “Nowadays, we will certainly make decisions based on the brand partner’s response to the Black Lives Matter movement,” said Boles. “Going forward, it will be more and more a part of how we evaluate brands we work with.”

Stand For Something and Say It Loud

Social media is one of the best tools we have for stating our values publicly. Say Black Lives Matter, display a rainbow flag, show images of people of all shapes and sizes, stand up for immigrant rights. If you believe the outdoors is for everyone and that there’s no one way to be outdoorsy, say it—in your weekly newsletters, at town halls, or via a sign hanging in your shop window. People will respond.

Simply paying lip service is never enough, though, and all superficial displays of solidarity should be backed up with real, sustained action.

“We work with many partners and nonprofits in our local communities so we’re not just relying solely on the messaging that we want to put out there,” said Smith. “Working in solidarity with others allows us to get the message out that there’s space for everyone in our stores and in the outdoors.”

The post How to Make Your Retail Shop Less Intimidating appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

In 2009, Jahmicah Dawes and his college friend embarked on a road trip from their home in Texas to California in a 1986 Datsun truck. His friend’s only rule was that they couldn’t stay in hotels. Dawes thought he meant they’d be staying at friends’ houses—not camping. Sleeping in a tent didn’t exactly excite Dawes, who had sworn off the outdoors after a negative experience years ago in Boy Scouts. On the first night in El Paso, Dawes’ pillow blew away and coyotes howled all night. The next morning, Dawes was ready to board a bus home. But his friend convinced him to try one more night. The second night camping in Arizona’s Organ Pipe Cactus park rerouted Dawes’ life.

“I had never experienced anything like it,” Dawes said. “It was so quiet and so beautiful. That’s how I got [into the outdoors].”

Dawes is a Jamaican-American man and the co-owner of outdoor specialty store SlimPickins Outfitters in Stephenville, Texas—the Cowboy Capital of the World. The adventure gear shop opened in a renovated Rexall Drug building in March 2017 to encourage college students and the greater community to adventure outside in Texas, using the hashtag #șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűOutTX. Brands featured include Columbia, Chaco, Patagonia, and an array of Texan and local outdoor companies.

Dawes is one of a few minority business owners in his town and in the greater outdoor industry, and he has been trying to confirm whether he’s the first or only black-owned outdoor store. (SlimPickins is the first black-owned #CoolShop OBJ has featured.) He views the representation as a responsibility and an uplifting opportunity.

“I’m in a town where there’s not a lot of people like me. I’m in an industry that has even fewer people like me,” Dawes said. “With it, there is responsibility there and a weightiness to it. What if we don’t survive? We might be the first, but we definitely don’t want to be the last.”

‘Outfitting the Saints’

The three pillars of SlimPickins are act justly, love kindly, and serve humbly—inspired by Dawes’ Christian beliefs and the teachings from the Bible. His faith is front and center.

The store’s calendar is full of all sorts of events like “Saturday Pedal” bike rides and “The Sessions” live music nights. But events also appeal to other believers: at “Coffee and Missions,” Christian missionaries share about their experiences in other countries. And a new program called “Outfitting the Saints” helps outfit missionaries who would otherwise shop at big-box stores for their gear. Dawes has provided bags, apparel, footwear, and other outdoor gear built to last to someone who spent six months in Africa this summer and another person who served in Cambodia by cleaning a village’s water building filters.

“You don’t have to believe what I believe,” Dawes said. “In fact we have a lot of customers that don’t. But what I believe still causes me to love people.”

A Quick Scan of the Shop’s Interior

Community Space First, Gear Shop Second

Amid the mix of familiar outdoor brands, Dawes stocks his shop with Texas-based inventory and products from companies prioritizing. That includes Austin’s Howler Bros and Kammok, Waco’s Sendero Provisions, a local fly company called Fatties on the Fly, and his brother-in-law’s hat brand, Slim-N-Harry’s.

“We really try to focus on our local natives,” Dawes said. “We intentionally partner with brands in Texas or surrounding states. Bigger brands have a broader reach and I think with that there are some limitations [in creativity]. If you’re a smaller brand, your creativity is a little big uninhibited.”

Selling gear is Dawes’ cover for having a space that’s relevant to the community and the creative outdoor enthusiast. He doesn’t define what that community is—it could be yogis, cyclists, fly-fishermen, travelers, someone just looking for friends, or a music lover drawn inside by the sound of throwback tunes on “Vinyl Wednesdays.” Everyone is welcome.

“That was the focus when we opened,” Dawes said. “At the time, I was a part of this community, I was known, but I didn’t really feel like I had a place. I want people to feel like they have a place when they walk in. We use the shop for a lot of things besides buying clothes. We consider ourselves a ministry that just so happens to be selling clothes.”

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