GIVE ME 5 WITH STEFAN HAUSBERGER

ZIMMERMANNS SKIS, BOARDS and MORE, Owner Nashua, New Hampshire | National Ski & Snowboard Retailers Association (NSSRA) Board Member

1

Getting Into The Snow Biz

I was raised in it. My father (Gert) and uncle (Horst) owned Zimmermanns before me, along with namesake Egon Zimmermann. The store started in 1968. I started working part-time, nights and weekends when I was 13. By high school I was skipping class to work as much as I could. I would work weekends during college and after graduating with a business degree, I worked full-time, then managed the store. Eventually I was doing all the day-to-day, the ordering, and in 1999 I was offered the chance to buy my family out. The rest is history.

2

PLAYING SKI & BOARD BINGO

Like most great ideas I’ve had I can’t take full credit for them. I saw something similar being used in another industry, so I adopted and adapted it to work in snow sports. The idea is more of a raffle, but Ski & Board Bingo sounds better. We have been discussing it for a couple of years but finally tried it this season on a whim and it worked better than expected. We take one-of-a-kind, high-end, unique products or something we have a bunch of, we take the selling price, divide by 20 or 30 “spots” depending on what makes the buy-in more attractive. People can buy a spot, for a chance to win the item. Once the spots are all sold, we pick a winner live on Facebook using an online random number generator to determine the winner. It’s a fun and relatively inexpensive way to maybe get that item you might not ever buy yourself, but wish you had. People bet and gamble on all kinds of things these days, why not try to win a ski or board? You can’t win if you don’t play.

3

Social Success

We have someone in-house who handles all of our social media. We use all the big platforms differently, but we try to share the same consistent message across them. As for Instagram specifically, we noticed that as our followers have increased on Instagram, so has the number of unique visits to our website. There are a lot of intangibles that are generated by Instagram and the other platforms that don’t always directly or immediately translate to sales. More than anything, it has kept us relevant and in the minds of skiers and riders alike. Hopefully, when they are in the market to buy, rent or have their gear tuned, we are top of mind for them.

4

Blog Rolling

Our in-house social media person, Scott Stevens, does this (website blog) portion of our communications as well. He is an avid outdoors guy who participates in almost everything you can do outside. When he’s out hiking on a trail, or on the hill carving turns, he is always looking for inspiration for his blogs. I wish I could take credit for his work, but I can’t. He is given free reign and I think he does a great job.

5

Benefits Of Nssra Membership

I am just getting involved in NSSRA. I have known about it for years but haven’t really taken advantage of all it has to offer. So far I can say that the people I’ve met and had a chance to talk to have been great and the networking possibilities seem to be a huge benefit - one that I think every retailer could and should take advantage of.