Merchants Of Dirt Podcast

Merchants of Dirt Episode #54 Kyle talks about why building a community online with membership content is a better strategy for survival than replacing lost races. Build a Community Don't replace your races with a virtual equivalent. Instead, use this time to finally build your community. Spend time in developing online membership offerings that focus on daily, weekly, or monthly challenge content. A loyal following that is interested in your company month-after-month is far more rewarding than having them come to one race. Ideas for Pre-Built Membership Sites: meetup.com pabbly.com clubmaster.org wildapricot.com memberplanet.com memberspace.com patreon.com facebook.com Additional Reading Article: Virtual races embraced by endurance athletes during coronavirus pandemic Amy Porterfield - All About Membership Sites: Your Top 10 Burning Questions Amy Porterfield - How They Did It: 3 Inspiring Stories of Membership Site Success Amy Hoy - How to find your audience's online watering holes Thank You for Listeni

Merchants of Dirt Episode #53 Kyle explores The Lockdown AR-style virtual activity challenge designed by Rootstock Racing and what you can learn from this experimental four-day event. Race Invention is the Mother of Necessity Rootstock Racing, based in Philadelphia, PA, is hosting The Lockdown: an AR-style virtual activity challenge designed to bring what they are calling "a little bit of normalcy" to an Adventure Racer's life between Mon April 13 - Sun May 31, 2020. The idea behind The Lockdown is to have participants complete a personal eight-stage, four-day (96-hour) event within a 21-hour window of activity. The Lockdown stages include: Stage 1: Run/Trek Stage 2: Bushwhack Stage 3: Road Ride Stage 4: Trail Ride Stage 5: Multisport Stage 6: Non-Bike/Run Discipline Stage 7: Strength Building Stage 8: Navigation challenge What's the catch? The Lockdown challenge must be completed by May 31, 2020. This means you can start The Lockdown any time between April 13 to May 28, 2020. But once you start it, you hav

Merchants of Dirt Episode #52 Kyle explores how a virtual event can be organized and ideas for creating your own membership club to survive the shutdown. Does a Virtual Race in the Woods Make a Sound The pandemic is not going away anytime soon. So what is a racing company to do? Virtual Events! Explore a virtual event being produced by the Central Virginia Orienteering Club (CVOC) and take a deep dive into what it might mean for your business. This includes creating your own online membership club where you can host monthly challenges, provide members with exclusive courses, and work out the details of your tracking and timing issues. Thank You for Listening Email Us: MerchantsofDirt AT GMAIL DOT com All our Show Notes: merchantsofdirt.com All our Episodes: merchantsofdirt.libsyn.com More Race Promotion Thinking: Reckoner.com Merchants of Dirt is a Gagglepod production. Learn more at gagglepod.com.

Merchants of Dirt Episode #51 Kyle challenges race promoters to pivot quickly towards asynchronous competition and virtual events if their business is to survive this pandemic. Keep Racing with Asynchronous Virtual Events The world has been turned on its head with the pandemic of COVID-19. What is a race promoter to do when every event you direct requires people to be in close proximity to each other? The hard truth is that an events business that stops having events is out of business. However, if you pivot RIGHT NOW and incorporate Asynchronous Competition Events and virtual activities into your portfolio, you have a chance to capture an audience that is looking — albeit HUNGRY — for safe and creative ways to exercise in isolation. Thank You for Listening Email Us: MerchantsofDirt AT GMAIL DOT com All our Show Notes: merchantsofdirt.com All our Episodes: merchantsofdirt.libsyn.com More Race Promotion Thinking: Reckoner.com Merchants of Dirt is a Gagglepod production. Learn more at gagglepod.com.

Merchants of Dirt Episode #50 These 50 race direction lessons learned can help you build your roadmap, refine your checklists, or just help you find a place to start. 50 Lessons Learned - The RD Roadmap Welcome to an information-packed 50th episode of Merchants of Dirt and thank you for listening! Listen along as I help you take the mystery out of outdoor race direction with 50 lessons learned from being a race director. After it's all said and done, you'll find out that it's more like 250 lessons learned -- certainly an episode you're going to want to listen to more than once. Follow along with this episode's handy-dandy checklist: 01. Vision 02. Ideas 03. Research 04. Market 05. Mission 06. Principles 07. Budget 08. Business Plan 09. Model 10. Strategies 11. Offerings 12. Organize 13. Branding 14. Planning 15. Risks 16. Rules 17. Venue 18. Schedule 19. Proposal 20. Presentation 21. Permit 22. Build 23. People 24. Marketing 25. Outreach 26. Pre-Registration 27. Timing 28. Courses 29. Promote 30. Sales 31. T

Merchants of Dirt Episode #49 Racing Support Services is an entire industry that exists to make your racing business easier to manage, provide you professional services that you do not have to do yourself, and can free you up to build your business and think up new racing experiences. Racing Support Services Look like a professional without any staff by hiring a crew or renting one for a race day. How do you do that? By outsourcing many of the services and processes you are currently doing yourself. I this weeks episode, I talk about seven (7) industries that you could outsource your business and race direction services to. #1 - Marketing Ad Campaigns Websites Signage #2 - Online registration Web-based payments Extra sales On Day Licenses #3 - Venue Equipment Power and Cables Tents and Tables Start and Finish line arches #4 - Onsite Chip Timing Precision Timing Quick Results Staff Run Finish Line #5 - Onsite Media Photographer Drone Video Video Interviews #6 - Event Data Collection Post Race Survey

Merchants of Dirt Episode #48 If you invest your time in teaching and encouraging women to become better riders today, you can create an environment that promotes women to try racing for the first time and encourages more women to attend your events. #1 — Make your sport more appealing to women This seems like a no-brainer until you sit down to do it. Then you start to struggle with what exactly does “more appealing to women” mean. Does adding something to attract one type of customer to your race ALSO attract another type of customer? Or a better way to think of this is -- if I make these changes, does it actually move the needle in respect to bring more of A to my race? Mountain biker marketing is very male-based in that the edgy, dangerous world of single-track riding is featured at all times. This is not to say that women do not like edgy and dangerous trails, it is to say that not ALL women like it. As a race director, you need to focus on the fun atmosphere that is created during a race as a selling poi

Merchants of Dirt Episode #47 The reason bad crews have worse leaders has everything to do with a race director that hires their friends, allows them to say and do anything they want, and approves of their bad behavior by doing nothing to stop them from ruining their business. Observation #1 Problem - Deserted Finish Line Your crew wants to leave early? Tough! All of your crew needs to stay until the end, even if it's all packed up. Because if your crew is not still cheering the last ones to finish, why are they your crew? Solution - If You Stay Your Crew Stays Too  The solution is not to hire any of your friends that do not believe in your racing mission. Crew members that cannot be bothered to stick around until all racers are off the course need to go find other work. And if you as a race director cannot enforce that principle, then you should consider another type of business. Observation #2 Problem - Mocking Last Place Racers The way your crew treats those who are last matters. Doom on the race director

Merchants of Dirt Episode #46 Consider how creating spectator friendly events could create new customers while the untapped benefits of having an excited crowd could help your bottom line. Three Formats to Consider This episode of Merchants of Dirt is about spectators. Or more specifically, three types of events that make spectating fun: The Relay The Short Track The Intergalactic Pond Crossing In an age where every dollar counts, race directors owe it to themselves to consider including spectator friendly onto their race calendar. These short courses, quick turnaround times, and spectator friendly formats provide all the ingredients needed for a festival-like atmosphere. Which is exactly what you’re is looking for in your next event. Spectators might only come to your race to cheer their racer, but who knows? It’s possible that the speed of a shorter, easy to follow event might get them to stay to cheer on the other racers too. Additionally, think about all the spectators that DO come to your events. If

Merchants of Dirt Episode #45 Your accountability to your customers begins when they arrive at your venue, and only ends when you are certain they have left your venue safely. Head Counts Matter This episode of Merchants of Dirt is about race director accountability. More importantly, your accountability when it comes to a simple thing like head counts. And if you’re not sure what a head count is, this is the process of knowing how many racers you have on the course at any given time. Or is it? To get you in the right frame of mind about how important I think headcounts are, I play you a news report from Louise Donnelly of 7 News out of Brisbane, Australia about the disappearance of American's Tom and Eileen Lonergan. These two Americans tourists that were left behind during a diving expedition of Cairns, Australia, over 20 years ago because of a bad headcount. Listen to the full clip here: https://www.facebook.com/7NewsBrisbane/videos/1803272579685586/ Of course, a diving trip is very different to a race. Yo

Merchants of Dirt Episode #44 Insurance is the minimum financial protection a race director needs to protect themselves, their staff, their volunteers, their business, and their family from other people’s injuries. What is Insurance Insurance is a contract, represented by a policy, in which an individual or entity receives financial protection or reimbursement against losses from an insurance company. Insurance policies are used to hedge against the risk of financial losses, both big and small, that may result from damage to the insured or her property, or from liability for damage or injury caused to a third party. There are a multitude of different types of insurance policies available, but when it comes to outdoor events, there are some specific insurance policies you need to consider: #1 - Protection of you, your staff, and your business: When you start a business, this becomes the first insurance policy you consider outside of yourself or your family. #2 - Protection of volunteers, property, and day-of a

Merchants of Dirt Episode #43 Collegiate sports clubs can give college kids a platform for racing while serving as your personal laboratory for testing your race direction ideas. The Collegiate Club Laboratory College Club Sports are their own animals. They can be hard to form and even harder to control. But once you get one off the ground, they can become your very own race direction laboratory. That is if your experiments don’t try to eat you first. Start a Club #1 - Find a school that doesn’t have a sport you want to direct and talk to them about serving #2 - Fill out an MOU and make being on campus legitimate #3 - Start volunteering and recruiting new riders #4 - Create club officers and have the club become an official USA Cycling Club #5 - Get your riders racing in USA Cycling conference events Build a Reputation #1 - Think about promote local event idea and start planning #2 - Direct your first small event and give the club some money to work with #3 - Pay attention to how other schools produce their e

Merchants of Dirt Episode #42 There are certain levels of outreach where the marketing of each endeavor depends on how much time you have or what kind of impact you want. Three Kings of Outreach Today I answer listener emails regarding three very unique outreach strategies: Paul wants to know if 4-weeks is enough time to effectively market an event that is experiencing low pre-registration online. Brian was curious about what my platform would have been if I had been elected to the Board of Directors of the Adventure Racing Cooperative. Sam is starting his own trail running event and is interested in how to time his marketing efforts.  And Now You Know! A Gift for You If you found the questions that Paul, Brian, and Sam had sounded a lot to your own situation, here are is a selected list of a few articles that give you additional strategies on each topic: How not to suffer pre-registration woes Principles of a profitable race Put away the shotgun and start messaging with precision How contact lists can im

Merchants of Dirt Episode #41 Jennifer "Jelly" Crawford from The JellyVision Show walks me through the strategies and struggles of directing a conference from the ground up. Enter the Jellysode Jennifer "Jelly" Crawford from The JellyVision Show is the founder and event director of DC Podfest, a small but scrappy podcasting conference held once a year in Washington, DC. Jennifer started DC Podfest in 2015 with a vision of seeing it as a community for like-minded podcasters to come together and learn from in each other. Now in its third year, DC Podfest has grown its audience to over 130 attendees. But getting to this point was not easy. In this interview, Jennifer lays out seven keys points that all event managers need to consider when building an event: #1 - It has to benefit your community #2 - Be successful enough to pay people #3 - Size matters if you want to make a profit AND deliver value #4 - Sponsorship money will not come until you prove your committed #5 - Building a community takes time #6 - Venue

Merchants of Dirt Episode #40 Don’t be the single point of failure by being the only one with all the gear by building a few gear redundancy strategies into your plans. Single Point of Failure (SPOF) When someone has all the gear — all the tents, tables, and computers — then you have a single point of failure. In systems architecture, a single point of failure (SPOF) is when a part of a system that, if it fails, will stop the entire system from working. You never want a SPOFs in your race plan. Unfortunately, many times (more than we would like to admit) the race director is the only one with all the gear. It is difficult to provide any reliability in your racing business if you control all the keys to the kingdom. Similar to how your business management is hindered when you are both the race director and the racing business owner, gear can quickly become a new SPOF for your race. It may not seem it at first, but as you build your race venue infrastructure plans, each additional item becomes important to your

Merchants of Dirt Episode #39 There are some hidden challenges that hide within the multi-day slogfest that few one-and-done race directors have experienced. Directing a Multi-Day Race The multi-day race is a special kind of challenge that requires more than one plan, better communications, and hopefully a few hours of sleep. In this episode, I’m going to give you the five (5) takeaways I learned after directing a Multi-Day racing event that include: Race Day Plans Change -- Both Days Keeping Everyone in Town Keeping the Venue Alive Volunteer Burnout Race Director Burnout These are the hard lessons learned when the complexity is doubled and the problems that emerge are so unique that you will never see them coming. That is until you are in the middle of the chaos. After doing a dozen of these multi-day races I have a perspective that few single day race directors have the chance to experience. That means that if you’re a one-and-done promoter, or you’re thinking about tackling the multi-day race format, the

Merchants of Dirt Episode #38 Exploring a new trial on a holiday like Thanksgiving can be very rewarding so long as your plan includes these 7 important tips. Tips for Visiting a New Trail  Do some research Bring the right gear Talk to the locals Plan for disaster Take a moment to enjoy the scenery Expect to get turned around Get back before sunset If you have a plan, exploring a new trail solo can be very rewarding. Happy Thanksgiving! Turn Coffee into Outdoor Recreation Ricks Roasters Coffee Company owned by Sean and Keely Ricks is a veteran and family-owned coffee roaster and coffee wholesaler in Fredericksburg, Virginia, that is "all about the bean". Ricks Roasters is passionate about mountain bike racing, veteran-owned businesses, and coffee! Give Ricks Roasters a Try before December 31st, 2018 When you place your first order of Ricks Roasters coffee from ricksroasters.com, use my exclusive Promo Code: Wolf Bouncer -- and receive 13-percent off your first order! Ricks Roasters Coffee Compan

Merchants of Dirt Episode #37 Break your race out of obscurity by announcing your event at other events using the roadshow concept to get the word out. Take Your Race Promotion on the Road Did you know your race is a product? Well, it is! Your race is a time sensitive, exclusive product that can only be experienced the one time it is offered. If you miss it, you miss the experience of the product until next year. Maybe there will be another race, but there will never be another race like the one you missed. This is the product created by race promotion. However, when it comes to selling this product, we sell it like we’re trying to give people the secret passcode to our hipster club hidden underneath the bike shop. If people are lucky enough to figure out the code, they manage to get registered. What about those that are not lucky enough to figure out your code? How many of THOSE racers do you fail to reach?  Here's a clue to solve THAT code. On race day, go stand in the parking lot of your venue. Then count

Merchants of Dirt Episode #36 When you compare your local races to championship races you learn that it's the same plan, course design, and processes, only on a bigger scale. Merchants of Dirt Podcast Turns One! Merchants of Dirt Podcast released Episode #1 on On October 13th, 2016. It all started after I built Reckoneer.com into a strong blog about off-road race direction and event management. I was looking for another way to share my race building tips without having to always point people to my articles. That's when I discovered podcast production and that I could create content that people could listen to while out on the trail. Merchants of Dirt has now grown into 30+ episodes, expanding all my Reckoneer.com articles into something far more impactful. It even led to my spin-off podcast Get Lost Racing and the development of my first race building tools: The Go-Loop Process and the Race Promotion Roadmap. In just one year I have learned how to use this podcasting medium to make a difference that has dir

Merchants of Dirt Episode #35 Learn how to prepare yourself for the possibility that one or all of the four horsemen of race planning will show up and wreck your race. The Four Horsemen of the Race Planning Apocalypse Competition - You have to protect your top dates and locations Permission - You have to be actively engaged in your venues if you want park approval Registration - You have to keep feeding your customers your marketing right up until race day Cancellation - You have to accept that you have no control over the weather The Horseman of Competition Competition - Races on your same day. You have to protect your top dates and locations by being Hard to Kill. Here are some key strategies for surviving the Horseman of Competition: Plan in way in advance Target your ideal venues long before you season is over Get your permits in early -- get your "No's" early Schedule your park manager meetings early Learn your competitor's schedules Focus on the parks you NEED Have a backup for those you can change