MEMBER SPOTLIGHT NOW

GIVE ME 5 WITH Dan Sullivan

President, Temple’s Sporting Goods, Bettendorf, Iowa

Still Going Strong After 93 Years

Like most small businesses that have been around for a while, it’s no secret the ability to constantly change and improve both processes and product offerings has resulted in our longevity. Over the last 10 years, we have made significant investments in both technology and equipment to serve our customers more efficiently. Our 10,000-square foot production facility can turn out high volumes of screen printing, embroidery and now Direct-to-Garment apparel, bags and headwear, which has helped maintain our service standards with the tremendous growth of our web-store program.

Moving Across the Mississippi River

The majority of our customer base had been on the Iowa side of the river so when the chance came to move a retail operation to the new TBK Sports complex campus in Bettendorf in 2018 we did not hesitate. Since the team office had already been moved several years back to our Clinton, Iowa showroom and warehouse it didn’t make financial sense to keep a retail location in downtown Moline (Illinois). We took the opportunity to update our retail experience for customers at the new location and it has really worked out well.

NSGA Members Since 1964

NSGA has done great advocacy work for our industry but the two areas our team benefits from most are the valuable research reports the organization puts out along with the up-to-date industry news via the NSGA SCOREBOARD E-Newsletter.

Sports Culture in the Quad Cities

It has been obvious to us for years how youth club sports is growing around the country and the Quad Cities (Bettendorf and Davenport, Iowa; Moline and Rock Island, Illinois) is no different. We now service several club volleyball, baseball, softball, soccer and basketball programs and even offer exclusive fan gear in our retail store for our clubs. We have found club sports to be much more lucrative than the high school business and do not see that slowing down for years to come.

COVID’s Challenges

The immediate challenge was keeping our 23-plus employees working. We were able to do that for the most part through a combination of “work from home” team members and being careful with contact for the team members that needed to be on hand. The second challenge was to figure out where sales were going to come from since sports came to a screeching halt. Our retail manager in Bettendorf was able to work customers through our online store and as the summer progressed was able to allow customers into the store on a limited basis. He even ran a hugely successful outdoor patio sale in early July. For the most part, however, the bulk of our sales during the first part of the pandemic came from our corporate customers. We were able to run employee support apparel programs for a few national accounts like Home Depot and Nestle along with several regional and local food and beverage operations.