Most bike shops, of course, are filled with men who often spend their days talking about the technical aspects of riding or even dabbling in a bit of profanity. Zane’swasalways differentin this regard—we’ve always had people of different genders, colors, and sexual preferences on the payroll. But once we expanded beyond our single location, I couldn’t personally monitor everyone’s behavior to each other anymore—let alone make every decision about whom to hire or fire.

When it comes to hiring new employees or reaching out to that new customer who just walked in the door or even interacting with existing co-workers, everyone in the Zane’s organization must embrace the idea that even if someone looks or talks different from you, he or she still represents that same $12,500 opportunity as anybody else. The goal of Zane’s is to be a destination where everyone feels welcome. Not only is this just the right way to do things, it makes for good business.

This isn’t something that is always self-evident, though; it needs to be taught and woven into the culture of your business. And the principle that needs to be taught is that a foundation for exceptional customer service begins by embracing cultures that may differ from those with which you or your employees are familiar. But what does that have to do with providing extraordinary customer service, you ask? Absolutely everything. I believe that everything in a business is connected in some big cosmic circle; every action has some kind of ripple effect. That means that as you reach out to embrace the diversity in your workforce, you should also be doing the same with your customers.

First off, just because someone speaks Spanish, he or she can’t be lumped in with everyone else who speaks that language. Nations like Mexico, Ecuador, and Chile all have different cultural norms that also serve to create barriers and accepted behaviors that we need to work hard at overcoming. It therefore remains a constant challenge to translate the importance of “Reinventing the Wheel”—to get these men and women to appreciate the importance of the lifetime relationships with our customers. Although I might get a nod of the head in response to a story I tell about why we can’t afford to forget to include a wrench or a set of instructions along with the bike headed to a recipient, overcoming the language and cultural barriers and really getting my employees to connect with my message remains a challenge.

One of the worst experiences a manager can face is when an employee begins to use language and the possibility of something getting lost in translation as an excuse for why he or she failed to do what was asked. “Did they truly not understand or is this some kind of game?” you’re forced to ask yourself. Although I do my best to study language tapes on a daily basis in hopes of improving my skill, I have recognized that I need to bring in the big guns as reinforcement. I look forward to this book being translated into multiple languages so that all my employees will have exactly the same information in their heads that I do. This book will serve as common ground that we can build upon as we continue to expand. With something we can share and build on, voilà, our barriers will begin to melt away.

We also have several bilingual employees who have worked for Zane’s for many years who not only help translate our conversations but serve as guides to the rules of the shop. These guys, to me, represent the future of Zane’s because they help make language barriers irrelevant. Instead, the most important issue for everyone to focus on is the customer. For example, one of our employees was born in Mexico and has worked for me for fifteen years, during which time I would guess he has built something like 55,000 bikes. There isn’t much I can teach him about building bikes and he, in turn, can actually be a mentor on the shop floor to each and every new employee who joins him in our warehouse.

At the same time, one of the guys who works inside the retail shop was born in Colombia but is now an American citizen. His language skills are not only useful in communicating with our Spanish-speaking employees, but he has often used them to smooth over an initial interaction with customers who might prefer talking in Spanish. That means that our guys’ language skills are not a barrier but an immensely valuable tool to use in welcoming a whole new segment of customers into the shop. As a matter of fact, I’m always asking both of these guys to bring in their friends to come work for us because of how important multilanguage skills have become in our society today. In other words, I trust both of these guys, just like anyone else working in the shop or on the sales floor, to be on the lookout for new candidates to work at Zane’s, no matter what background they may have come from. A fit is a fit, no matter what country you may have been born in.

At Zane’s, on the other hand, we had a different face to greet our customers: Camille. From the very beginning when I bought the shop, I considered myself just a local kid having fun with bikes. So, I hired my friends to help me whenever possible. It turned out that Camille was a friend of a friend and, as a rider herself, she started coming by the shop to help out behind the counter and with repairs. She was a tough cookie who certainly wasn’t intimidated by a bunch of guys; she could spin a wrench as well as she could thread her bike down a patch of rocky single track.

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, having Camille on board was a huge differentiating factor for us for reasons that went far beyond her mechanical skill or bike knowledge. For one thing, she brought balance into the shop. Instead of having just a bunch of smelly guys sitting around and telling dirty jokes and whatnot, we were all better behaved with Camille on hand. More important, Camille made our shop far less intimidating to our customers—especially those of the female persuasion. It was almost magical when female customers walked in the store, because, within just a minute or two, they would begin walking over to Camille for help. Camille offered our female customers something I and the other men couldn’t. There was a much higher comfort level for them to talk one on one about, say, how a particular piece of clothing fit, obviously something a male salesperson would have a harder time dealing with.

Watching these interactions helped me realize how important it was for us to reflect who our customers were with similar people working behind the counter. Because making connections with our customers was such an important part of our success, how could we ever make that allimportant first interaction if the environment they were walking into and the people they needed to speak with immediately intimidated them? The fact was that we were beating our competition because we looked different from them. I grabbed hold of this concept and understood that our continued success depended on delivering unique experiences to any and all customers, no matter their race, gender, or sexual preference. We would embrace the attitude that our bike shop was part of the community we operated in and, as such, our employees would reflect the same makeup as the community.

At that time, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, alternative lifestyles weren’t yet in the mainstream like they are today. Thanks to movies, TV shows, and popular personalities like Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres, things are different today. But even if they weren’t, back then as well as now, we approach each of our customers in the same way, making everyone as comfortable with their shopping experience as we can. That means that if a same-sex couple holds hands or kisses each other, we need people working the floor that are not only comfortable with those shows of emotion but also recognize those people for their potential as lifetime customers. If I saw a salesperson walking away from or acting poorly in response to these kinds of actions, that salesperson was on his or her way out the door; we just weren’t going to tolerate someone who didn’t get what we were all about.

When it came to selling to same-sex couples, though, we discovered something interesting. When you sell to a married heterosexual couple, there is typically a single buying decision that goes on. The couple typically jointly agrees to a purchase, which means you really are trying to complete a single sale. With same-sex couples, though, there were actually two purchasing decisions being made. Although both members of a couple would certainly look to their partner for help and advice, each person was actually acting individually when it came to buying something because each would typically have his or her own credit card or checkbook. Whether it was perusing bikes or accessories, a couple would typically be looking to buy two of everything, although perhaps in a different size or color.

For a salesperson, this was kind of like nirvana: you could actually ring up two sales for the price of one if you played your cards right. This meant, of course, that same-sex couples made for fantastic customers, something we soon moved to capitalize on further by advertising in lifestyle magazines and newspapers and with local events and groups targeted at the same-sex community. For example, we started running ads in the New Haven Gay and Lesbian Newsletter early on. We also became a sponsor for the Gay Men’s Chorus. For something like $150 a month, which was far cheaper than running an ad in the Yellow Pages—something that could cost $2,000—we were able to send a targeted message to a very specific segment of the community.

For any business owner who has experienced the frustration of trying to maximize a marketing budget like I have, finding this outlet was like stumbling upon the Holy Grail of advertising. The best part of doing this was not just that we tapped into a whole new customer base, but I would get stopped by both customers and strangers on the street who thanked me for supporting their organizations. The gay and lesbian community is hugely networked and word quickly spread about the kind of business we ran, which just opened up more and more doors for us.

We did, however, go through what, in time, proved to be an ironic experience with a gay employee we hired early on named Mark. Although we were as supportive of Mark as we could be, he was somewhat troubled and quite simply wasn’t performing well or reflecting the values that we continue to demand from all of Zane’s employees. As a result, I fired him.

You might imagine my surprise, when a few weeks after I let him go, my lawyer received a summons: Mark was suing us for discrimination. He claimed that we fired him because he was gay. At the hearing in front of a judge, Mark’s attorney led off by flatly stating that we fired Mark after we learned that he was gay.

“Not true,” I said in response. “We all knew Mark was gay from the day we hired him.”

“How did you know?” the judge asked me.

“For one, he was quite open about it,” I said. “For example, he had a big rainbow sticker on the bumper of his car.”

Turning to Mark, the judge asked, “Is this true?” Mark just nodded.

The judge quickly dismissed the suit and even took a few minutes to dress down Mark for unfairly trying to play the sexual identity card against us. As punishment, Mark ended up having to pay all of our legal bills as well as his own.

Looking back at our embrace of the same-sex community, there is a particular metaphor I like to use when it comes to making effective inroads with new customers: it all begins with a snowflake. Then, as it picks up traction, it grows into a snowball. Finally, with the momentum in full swing, that snowball becomes an avalanche. This is exactly what happened to us: all of a sudden, not only did our sales to same-sex couples begin to skyrocket, we saw a surge in interest from the community in working for us.

Today, I would estimate that out of every twenty-five bikes we sell, at least three of those bikes are bought by same-sex couples. In other words, this isn’t just an insignificant sliver for us—this is big business. And it is amazing that even though we have been advertising and supporting this community for more than twenty years, we continue to be the only bike shop that does so. Although I’m happy to keep an eye on any good ideas my competition might come up with, I’m just as glad that they have failed to capitalize on the opportunities brought about by embracing the alternative lifestyle community.

Now that their kids have moved on to college and beyond, these fifty-and-sixty-something-year-old customers are returning to us to find ways to explore their freedom just like their kids had before them. When these folks come into the store, they tell us, “I remember having such a great experience buying from you before, so I thought, what the heck, that’s where I’m going to buy a bike for myself.” At the same time, we have continued our relationship with the Southern Connecticut Cycling Club, which sponsors group tours that cater to more recreational riders—which, in turn, require exactly the kinds of bikes that we sell. Working with folks like this, we can help our customers choose bikes that are suitable for flatter trails and roads rather than bikes that might be more appropriate for mountain biking or racing. Again, for us, it’s always about finding the ways to make those initial and critical connections to our customers so that we can deliver them a shopping experience they won’t find anyplace else.

We’ve also attracted a great deal of attention and awareness of our brand within the older age bracket because of our community outreach and nonprofit efforts. We gain a lot of credibility with older customers when they see us at an auction for Breast Cancer Awareness, for example, because they recognize that our goal is to become a pillar of the community. My competitors, on the other hand, most of whom are still stocked with young tattooed and pierced guys, remain intimidating for most of this older crowd. Why would they expect to be treated well and listened to at the hippie bike messenger hangout? That’s not to say we don’t have our own share of tattooed and pieced employees, but we also have folks like myself who are there to bridge the gap and serve as someone with whom these customers might be more comfortable interacting.

Everything we have done in Branford serves as our playbook about the kinds of things we know work well, such as embracing diversity of race and culture, that we need to apply to the operations of any store flying the Zane’s flag. We need to amplify each and every message that applies to our original store so that it applies to 100 stores or more. Let’s talk more about how we plan to do that in the next chapter.