Run clubs are booming—but what does their rapid growth mean for independent running stores? Greg and Mark have an honest conversation about the opportunities, frustrations, and occasional growing pains created by today’s run-club movement. They discuss brand activations that bypass local retailers, the pressure to provide automatic discounts, and the challenge of watching new groups connect with audiences that established stores have struggled to reach. The answer isn’t to compete with every run club or control every running experience. It’s to build meaningful, mutually beneficial partnerships. Greg and Mark explore how specialty retailers can become the solution center for their running communities by offering expertise, brand relationships, race services, meeting spaces, and long-term support. When stores focus on what they do best, they create their own gravitational pull—and give runners, clubs, brands, and retailers a better opportunity to grow together.
Run Specialty Cooperative Podcast
Episode 3 | Beyond the Discount
HOSTS Greg Koch and Mark Jimenez LENGTH 30:47
Lightly edited for clarity and readability while preserving the substance and conversational character of the recording.
Greg 00:01 Welcome. You are listening to the run specialty cooperative podcast with Mark Jimenez and Greg Koch. Episode number three, Mark, how you doing?
Mark 00:11 Good. Good to see you again, Greg.
Greg 00:16 This is what the consistency looks like.
Mark 00:17 You have a little family vacation in between, that go okay?
Greg 00:21 I did. Family vacation, you know how it is. It's always difficult to get away. Whenever you do take a family trip, you sort of realize how many plates you're spinning. And can you keep them spinning while you're away? It's always the trick. But thankfully, we worked our way through me being gone for a week, and I only had to get on the computer like three times while being gone. So I'm going to take that to win. One of those is paying taxes, which you kind of have to do anyway. So, yeah.
Mark 00:49 Not if you're a billionaire.
Greg 00:54 Yeah, we don't need to get into that. But how have you been?
Mark 00:58 Good. You know, staying busy. The heatwave seems to have finally given up the ghost here in Vegas. So we've come down from the 110s. I think it's only going to be about 98 today. So the morning was actually in the 70s. So that's like the best time when your mornings are out of the 90s and 80s, and you could get your run in the 70s.
Greg 01:19 You live in the dream.
Mark 01:22 Yeah, we definitely live in different worlds. But that's all right.
Greg 01:26 But, you know, my week in Florida, I felt like a Florida man, you know, it was, I got to acclimate it to the point where I was like, oh, 87 is not so bad with this humidity. But 87 with humidity is horrible.
Mark 01:35 Did you have any Florida man stories while you were there?
Greg 01:41 No, nothing, nothing spectacular. I know that you are always on the prowl for Florida man stories and sending those to our friend Cody. But nothing, I got nothing other than just, you know, hanging out of the house and house and doing all the Disney things before we went back to school, which is a decent segue back to school. What does back to school sales look like at Red Rock Running Company?
Mark 02:04 You know, usually school starts really early out here in Las Vegas. It starts the second Monday in August. So the kids have already been in school. I think this is what they're third or fourth week of school starting today on August 31st. And having been a former cross country coach here, I've got good relationships with all the teams. And we usually have just a ton of shoe nights. We can't call them spike nights because we don't sell cross country spikes because you're not allowed to wear spikes out here, cross country spikes in Nevada. Anyway, so yeah, we usually have a ton of shoe nights, and which turns late July and early August into one of our busiest and most successful times of the year. And this year has been down, down, down, like, we're still scheduled. Yeah, we still scheduled a lot of shoe nights, but you know, the ones that it's it just seems like this is a microcosm of people not shopping as much right now. Not as many parents showed up, not as many kids showed up. So it was still a boost, but it wasn't the boost that we're used to having.
Greg 03:13 Gotcha. Gotcha. Very interesting. Yeah. So Sioux Falls public schools started last week, last Thursday was the first day of school here, but we've, you know, we've got a lot of like homeschool kids, private schools, different types of things. So it's a sort of waterfall of starting of school. So some kids started as early as the that second week in August, kids in Minnesota, you know, we're right on the border here, like Minnesota still hasn't started. And they won't start until after the state fair. Now, this is a Midwest thing where the Midwest life revolves around the state fair. And if you're going to show animals or be involved in the state fair at all, you don't go to school, you wait till after that starts. So it's kind of a unique world that we sort of still encounter a bit here in the Midwest in terms of school starting, but always an adventure. And for us, we've done like a month long back to school sort of sale. We don't have specific times with each school. We just kind of blanket it and have done a lot of different promotions. We did one weekend for teachers and coaches. We did spike sales. We can have spikes here. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. I kind of like the idea of selling more shoes, but playing that game with spikes and making sure you have the right spike. Obviously, there's certain players in the game that you kind of have to have in order to be successful. But we've done well, selling down our supply. And just getting the season started, the biggest sort of twilight meet happens this Friday here in town. So we'll continue to see a trickle of those types of sales throughout the season. And our marathon takes place in a couple weeks. So we're busy.
Mark 04:56 Don't you also have a NXR up in your neck of the woods as well?
Greg 05:02 We do. Yes. So we have NXR first a couple weeks in November. And that's a huge deal. Unfortunately, we don't really get to play very much with NXR. It being a regional event, there's a regional store that kind of dominates NXR with Nike. And we sort of miss out on that. And I'm trying to navigate that as a store owner. And I would be open to advice on some of that stuff, but it's kind of a unique deal. Obviously, we've only had Nike for a year and a half. And this store's been doing it for 19 years. So I don't want to throw them under the bus, but it's difficult when they come into my town and are literally across the street from one of my stores. And we're sort of missing out on some of that stuff. But, you know, we have a winning proposition. And we just need to figure out what our win is for that weekend. And last year, it was it snowed and all kids from Kansas needed running tight. So I sold out of all of my winter gear before the winter season even started.
Mark 05:59 So nice. Good problem to have. Yeah, another difference between cross-country is that even though Vegas is home to a golf course on every corner, it's such a good industry here and a year-round industry that we're not allowed to run on them. So our cross-country looks very different from your cross-country where you're running in golf courses and, you know, soft grass. We're running on desert trails or the road. So nobody wants a thin spike on rocky desert terrain.
Greg 06:31 Yeah. Yeah, our NXR is actually on a soccer field complex. And that's going to get a lot of play because the local colleges have three or four meets on it this year as well. So it's a soccer complex, but it really should be across complex. But it's flat and fast. All the kids love to run there because it's so fast. But it's not what I would necessarily deem like a true cross-country course. I mean, it's track meet on grass. Correct. Correct. Which is also fun. And we've had we've had some really big success within the NXR world that the school is locally here. I think we had a boys team finish six last year, nationals. Wow. Even fifth or seventh or something along those lines. So our local kids have been pretty fast and pretty successful within that world.
Mark 07:23 That's that's pretty incredible.
Greg 07:28 Yeah. Yeah. I'm speaking to a coach on that one. So excellent. Well, today I wanted to talk to you a little bit about run clubs. It seems to be pretty buzzy. Running is having a moment. Maybe run clubs are having a moment within the industry, within the the scene, so to speak. And I wanted to just sort of open end it. I didn't necessarily have a huge agenda, but I'm curious. It's always fun to talk about the differences between our locations and our stores. But like, what what do run clubs look like for you? And what do you what does your sort of take on the run club experience there in Vegas?
Mark 08:04 Well, that's that's good question. You know, run clubs have absolutely exploded just everywhere. They're the they're the new thing. And, you know, first and foremost, what's the saying or rising tide lifts all ships so more people running has to be a good thing. And then after that comes so many, yeah, but there's a lot of cat, you know, Red Rock running companies been around over 20 years. I want to say now I'm getting old. So like time is different. I feel like run clubs popped up maybe two years ago. Does that sound about right? Maybe. Yeah, I like this big explosion online. Yeah. Yeah, bigger metropolitan areas are experiencing it differently too. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, they pop up and I remember watching as some of them grow, seeing them on Instagram and seeing a group picture with like five people. And then it seemed like overnight a group picture of like 300 people. That's like, this is this is amazing. And then you start seeing the things that man, I'm jumping, I'm probably jumping ahead pretty quick here, but we're going to get into the meat of it. Then you start seeing the things that as a store owner who's had a partnership with our vendors for Red Rock running companies had that partnership for 20 years and me as the owner of Red Rock running company almost nine years now, you see things like a vendor coming into town and doing a demo run with a run club. And we didn't even know about it. And then those are the things that you're like, Oh man, like wouldn't have been cool if we could have partnered with them on that and let this young group of runners because Gen Z that we struggle, that's that's an age group we struggle with shopping in our store. So it wouldn't have been cool if we could have partnered with them and you know, had that local experience. And then I have to talk myself down, I have to be like, well, you know, it's not the vendors job to advertise Red Rock running company, it's the vendors job to advertise the vendors product, which might not be a popular opinion and depending on where you go, we could talk about it. But yeah, that's so that's just kind of the groundwork for where we've gone. Well, not where we've gone is kind of the history. What's the history looking like over there?
Greg 10:29 Well, yeah, I think we're we're like usual, we're probably speaking a lot of the same language. And I think you hit on a couple of things that make a lot of sense to me. And, you know, it's so cliche with that rising tide lifts all boats as a it is a real thing. And I look at this. So within my store, we've been around for 14 years. And within my store, we've sort of gone through the gamut like we started just as a running store. And then people came to us wanting us to do group runs and create more of a communal atmosphere. So we did that. And so, you know, sort of started a running club. And then, you know, people were putting on races and they didn't want to do it anymore. So they wanted us to take over the races. We took over the races and we learned race management. And then people wanted us to time their races because they weren't happy with the timing vendors. And so like we're just, you know, I talked about spinning all those plates. It's like we kind of keep taking in these funnels of the industry. So like, we're race timing. And then we're, you know, race producing and we're coaching and we're putting on communal events like run clubs and creating running clubs and having group runs. And so, as time goes on, as an owner, you invest time and energy and you try to please people. And you try to create the things that customers want. And then someone comes along and maybe does it better or different or taps into an audience that you just can't seem to tap into. And you go through the gamut of emotions of like, man, I invested money, I invested time and energy. And it's, I'm so mad at this thing. And you kind of go through, you know, the steps of grief, almost, when you when you see these things sort of pop up out of nowhere. And it's like, how did they do that? How are they able to make these connections and how are they able to, you know, draw this certain audience in or create such a cool experience? And why can't I do that? And you kind of go through all those things and then to your point, you kind of talk yourself off a ledge. And it's like, all right, well, what's my responsibility? What's my job? And for me, I look at it and my job is to be really, really good at customer service customer experience in my retail stores, provide a really good timing solution for the people that want to hire me as a vendor for them. The races that I produce, I am responsible for making a really top-notch premier experience with those. And then coaching, I am accountable to my athletes and making sure that we provide a great coaching service. And it's like, when I lean into those things and I focus on that and the rest of the world sort of keeps spinning, what happens is I've got my own gravitational pull. And at some point in time, the running store and its gravitational pull is going to bring some of these people in and create opportunities. And for me, just like with the brand vendors and stuff, it's once I create those opportunities as a store owner, what am I going to do with them? I can get mad and I can be frustrated and I can, you know, and I can kind of cry about all the capital that I've invested in things. But then I can also say, all right, what am I going to do when my opportunity comes to connect with this group to actually do something positive with it so that we will benefit from it? And really, what it is, it's a series of opportunities. And I think that's the unique piece of the run clubs is honestly, like, I don't love putting it on a group run. I do it a ton, but it's a lot of work and it's not a lot of payout, you know? So someone comes along and they put on a group run and it's way better than mine, who am I to complain, right? Like, we're going to have a great group run in Sioux Falls and eventually they're going to need shoes or they're going to need gear or they're going to need something. And it's my job to be really, really good at providing those types of things so that they come to me and that my gravity sort of pulls them in. But that's high level. There's a lot going on. We haven't experienced the brand thing yet. And I'm pretty naive to it because I'm like, well, I've got great relationships with my vendors. I don't think they'd ever do that to me. But I've heard it time and time again in other areas of that happening. And so I'm bracing for it and prepared for it. But I really try to be a connector and I look at run clubs and run groups. There's two different avenues of them. There's like the traditional running clubs that are nonprofits are board driven and advocate for a great running community. And then you have run clubs that are maybe it's an LLC or maybe it's not an entity at all that just pop up. And I think there's a distinct difference between those two types of things. And how do you manage that and that sort of experience? I've said a lot. I'm curious your thoughts as I sort of word vomit it all over you, Mark. What are you thinking as I'm spitting all that stuff out?
Mark 15:10 Well, yeah, well, I don't even know where to go. It's like you said, it's a lot. I think part of the frustration comes from you know how I am about a level playing field and how I want everybody to have a level playing field. If I as Red Rock running company just want to have a group run, not sell anything. But if I just want to have a group run at a park, I've got to get a permit and make sure I've got event insurance to get that permit, make sure the restroom facilities, you know, everything you've got to do. Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot that goes into it, right? But you know, the flip side of that coin is that some of these groups show up and take over a park with like 300 people with no permit. And I love, yeah, I love to see you out there running. I really do. But it's also like, just level playing field. And I don't know, I'm sure the park police, they're marshals out here, are busy and there's a ton of parks and maybe only five marshals on duty. And is that even what they're looking for? Who knows? But that, you know, it could be a little bit of frustration. But honestly, I believe in partnerships. And when I'm approached by run clubs, the partnership has to be win-win. And we get quite a few messages. And by the way, the run clubs seem to be multiplying. And I'm wondering if like, what's happening that every day there's a new one, it seems. But I get quite a few emails requesting things like, oh, we're starting a run club, can we get a discount? And that's basically the gist of the email. We're starting a run club, can we get a discount? Or we have a run club, can we get a discount? And I struggle to, you know, we have a great loyalty program that already gets you discounts. When I took over the store almost nine years ago, there's like 300 lines of discounts in the computer. Like everybody got a discount. How do you keep track of a discount? If somebody just says, oh, yeah, I'm a member of a run club, give me a discount. What's the win for Red Rock running company? You could say, oh, we're sending traffic to your store. But how do we track that? How do we actually know that that traffic isn't coming to us anyway? So to me, a win is not coming and saying, we have a run club, give us a discount. A win is how can we partner in a meaningful way to improve running in the community? And so it hurts me every time I get that email, because I have to respond, I don't want to leave it hanging, but I have to respond and then do that education and just say, hey, you know, we don't really do discounts. We've got a great loyalty program. We offer a wonderful service that your new runners can use. We'd be happy to see you in here. What are some ways we can partner beyond a discount?
Greg 18:29 So to put that on you, Marc, do you have a, and by the way, those of you who maybe don't know, Marc, discount is the equivalent of like the F word to Marc. So it's not that bad. It's not allowed at Red Rock running company, I don't think.
Mark 18:54 We have we have this. We have a loyalty program. We have military discount and a teacher discount. Yeah. And yeah, look, it just comes down to margin. You've only got so much margin to play with as a small business owner, you can't discount everything because then you won't be able to pay your employees.
Greg 19:12 So we'll put a pin in that, but give me your example of a great partnership that you've had and how did you develop it? What did it look like and?
Mark 19:25 Yeah, you know, it started with me being, I don't know when this happened when I became the grumpy old man. Like I'm just turned 49 years old. I feel like I'm not that old, but like all of a sudden, I'm this grumpy old man and people send me emails asking for discounts. I'm like, oh, these kids, I just want pretty stuff and blah, blah, blah. And I kind of just say written off Run Club, but it was really on my negative side, right? And I'm just, man, like I even met with a group and I was like, what could we do for you? Like, how could we build this? And didn't really have a productive conversation. Then, then, you know, we found a Run Club in town that started asking the right questions and got me a little interested. And it helped that when I first met the Run Club leader was in the store and she was shopping in the store and she had brought some of her Run Club members in the store and was shopping. And so I walked in just to drop something off. And, and like she kind of came running out to me and was like, are you Mark? Are you the owner? And I'm like, oh, yeah, she's like, oh my gosh, we started a Run Club, Grace Club Run Club. And it's all women's Run Club and we love Red Rock Running Company. Have I got some ladies here right now actually trying shoes on and I bought my first pair of shoes from you. So that was like a great first step of being like, oh, you're already in my store shopping and you're introducing yourself to me. Like, this is a good start. And then learning more. It's an organization that, you know, supports and empowers women and encourages women to run, which is, you know, our vision is to redefine what it means to be a runner. So, so that's aligned. So again, like we started talking, but we really wanted to avoid just discounts. Like, what can we do to partner with you to help your organization grow, but to help us grow. And the very first thing we did was when their Instagram got to 10,000 followers, they wanted to do a 10k. And I said, great, we've got some experience with race timing. Let's do this first. Like, for this first one, we're going to, we're going to donate our time. We're going to donate, you know, the bibs. We're going to help you with the process of getting the permit and the medals, like we didn't donate the medals, but it came out of the race proceeds that we then gave to the club. So we did this at zero cost, but, you know, using our expertise, it was all Red Rock Running Company branded the bibs, the start finish line through our, to our advertising portal, and to show them what a good partnership could be. This is what we can provide to you. And then in return, we get touch points with all the people in your run club. And that was, that was about a year ago. And, you know, we've been slowly and purposefully moving forward into trying to get those, that partnership growing more. And yeah, it's growing from there, but I don't know if this is a good stopping point. I could, I could talk a lot as you know.
Greg 22:30 Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've stolen the phrase, but it's definitely something that I believe in. And it's what you're talking about is I believe our running store needs to be the solution center for runners and creating a solution for something that they're going to need. And that's where I talk about that gravity sort of pulling people into the store. Like, we're going to get up. We've worked really, really hard on building a building a great business. And that's where my focus and attention needs to be every day is how to make my business better. Because if I'm really good at the things that I say I'm going to do, it's going to happen naturally. And so having sort of a playbook or being ready to say here is how this is a win for me. What's a win look like for you? I think that's really important to think about as a business owner, as you know, we're talking on this podcast for independent run specialty store owners, which is an incredible, probably niche sort of thing to do. But I think that's the key piece is understand like, what what is your win? And for that, I think about what's the cost to acquire a customer? You know, it becomes a marketing play. And what does that look like? And what are you willing to give to acquire new customers? And how does that look? And there's lots of ways to do it without giving away just a blanket discount for one night. You know, you and I are both in it for building really good relationships, partnerships, long term investment. Like, I don't want that customer wants, I want them on repeat. And I want to have a business that's established and prepared to be on repeat for them so that they have the best experience running period.
Mark 24:11 Yeah. Yeah, agree. That's, I mean, you couldn't put it better. I like the problem solving center of the community aspect. I think that's a perfect way of putting it. And you know, as the partnership grows, we've done things like, we did offer them like a couple free pairs of shoes, but the ask for us was like, like, give this to people who really want to get into running, but can't afford a pair of shoes. Like, give this to somebody who you see coming to Run Club wearing an old pair of Chuck Taylor's that's, that's, you know, falling apart at the seams, because we want them to enjoy running. Yeah. And just ask like that. So it's a very, very small thing that we want, we want to, to drive it with purpose. And we made hard copies. So it's not like you can do that a million times. It's like two coupons exist and find the right way.
Greg 25:01 Yeah. I'm curious. Go ahead. Sorry. No, keep going. You have a question. Yeah, I'm curious. Your opinion, you know, we talked about brands coming in and brands wanting to be successful as Run Clubs, and your experience and your time working with both brands and with, you know, your community, the opportunity to work with a brand, in your opinion, obviously, we're biased, but are they going to have a better chance of getting a better experience with a brand through a running store or on their own?
Mark 25:40 Oh, that's a good question. Man, I don't know. I mean, I'm biased. I want to say with a running store. But, you know, I've seen through social media what look like incredibly successful group runs without a store being there, but only with a brand. I think the one thing we provide that could could make it, you know, level up is just the after shopping ability, you know, the expert advice. They tried on a pair of shoes. Maybe they didn't like it or they tried on a pair of shoes and said, oh, maybe this one was a little too tight on my heel. We have the expertise to even stay within brand. So, you know, if ASICS is the one doing the demo run and we want to give that favor back to ASICS and say, okay, like, you tried on the Kayano, which was a stability shoe. Maybe that's not working for you. Let's try a GT2000, which is also stability. And then, you know, we could we could take if the rep doesn't have a demo set there, like we've got it in stock. So, you know, we could put it on their feet, try it out and use our expertise rather than just, you know, using your phone. And I think like return rates say it all when you compare run specialty return rate to online return rate, it doesn't, it doesn't compare. Like, we have a, what, like a 7 or 8% return rate where online is, I'm going to throw out a number that, yeah, I feel like it's even higher. I want to say I've heard 30%, but I'm going to have to make sure before we get that exact.
Greg 27:19 It's just the internet, Mark, you can put whatever you want out there. It's okay. I think it's, I think the thing maybe run club organizers maybe might not realize is they want it today. They want it tomorrow with that relationship piece. And for us to be able to partner with a brand, it takes some foresight and some planning, but I think we can make bigger and better things happen if we plan in advance. And I think that's the biggest difference is there's only so many marketing dollars to go around for a brand. I would love for us to pull someone from a brand on to talk to about this more down the line. But I do think that if we, the foresight piece, and I don't think people are, well, I think there's some not misunderstanding, but I think people just might be naive to how far in advance we're planning within the run industry. I think running store owners get it. Obviously they go through selling seasons and they understand what that looks like, but like we are a year in advance, usually with what we're planning forecasting and preparing for. And so yes, we could put something together next week or next month, but like if we go even further out to plan something, we can do infinitely more stuff, more exciting stuff, more thrills, and create a better experience with planning. And I think that's the hard part to educate people on for sure.
Mark 28:49 Yeah, yeah. And yeah, don't contact me three weeks before your event or, you know, 10 days before your event. Quick Google search says 25 to 35% online return rate, or as you sold online. So yeah, we're better than that. Yeah.
Greg 29:08 Yeah. And I have, you know, it's interesting you bring that up in this different rabbit hole, but I just did the breakdown for staff on the value of shoes and like how much we actually make off of them. We've done this exercise before where it's like $2.25 and 25 cents after you take an account of your expenses and what you're getting. So it's like, we're not rolling in the dough here as a running store owners prepare shoes. Yeah.
Mark 29:36 Yeah, we should, we should, that's a whole podcast topic. You can share that graphic and and lay it down.
Greg 29:49 Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is, I think this was an awesome conversation today. If you could leave run club directors with one final message from the running store, Mark, what would it be?
Mark 29:55 You know, use us where us. We're your local resource we've been here. We're hopefully not going anywhere. We'd love to partner with you in, in a meaningful way that grows both organizations, you know, beyond discounts, whether it's timing or race, whether it's, you know, doing demo runs with, with brands, whether it's, you know, having a safe place for your runners to meet, you know, we want to, we want to be a part. And so, you know, contact us and, and let's look for that meaningful partnership.
Greg 30:29 100% couldn't have said it better myself. Awesome job. You've been listening to the run specialty cooperative podcasts with Mark, I mean, that's a great code. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next time.