Today on THE ROCK FIGHT (an outdoor podcast that aims for the head) we sit down with Neil Fiske, the president of Black Diamond.
Two stories lead to this conversation. First was the news that broke a few months back about BD 'narrowing their focus' after years of unwieldy expansion and then the story from a few weeks back about BD investing in and taking over Wilderness Exchange in Denver while retaining that retailers current ownership.
There is clearly something interesting happening at Black Diamond that is bucking current trends when it comes to brands in the outdoor industry. And Neil Fiske is on the show today to dig into the decision to step back, BD's retail strategy, and the brands approach to their sustainability/circularity initiatives.
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Episode Transcript
Colin (00:00):
Welcome to the Rock Fight where we speak our truth, slay sacred cows, and sometimes agree to disagree. This is an outdoor podcast that aims for the head, I'm Colin True, and today we're talking to the president of Black Diamond, Neil Fisk. But first, please subscribe and rate the Rock fight wherever you're listening on any podcast app, leave us that five star rating and press follow folks that really helps us out. If you like the rock fight, you definitely like gear and beer, so check out our other podcast on the Rock Fight Podcast network. It's called Gear and Beer. You can find it on the app you're using right now. And lastly, we want to hear from you. Send us your feedback by sending an email to my rock fight@gmail.com or reaching out on the socials where we can be found as Rock Fight Co. And all right, hey, let's start the show.
(00:47):
Fight, fight, fight, fight. A few months back, news broke that Black Diamond would be narrowing their focus. After several years of trying a bit too much, the brand found itself in a position where it was a bit overextended and the new brand president Neil Fisk, along with the backing of BDS parent Company Claris, announced that they were going to be slimming down the brand, so to speak. We spoke about the story here in the rock fight and at the time I remarked how impressive it was that Claris would back the brand in this way actually supporting the brand by publicly acknowledging that they needed to shrink in order to achieve their potential. Then a few weeks ago, news came that BD had entered into a new type of partnership to take over Wilderness Exchange, a Denver based retailer, while that retailer kept the current ownership intact.
(01:36):
You can hear more about the details of that deal by listening to the episode of the Rock Fight when Wilderness Exchange owner Don Bushy joined the show just went up a few weeks ago, shouldn't be hard to find and to say that BD is doing things differently than many of their outdoor brand peers is an understatement. BD is relying on the tenants of what built our industry to forge their future path. And I wanted to understand more. So I reached out to Neil Fisk, who joined BD as their president in 2023 after years at brands like Eddie Bauer and Billabong, and asked him to come on the show to dig into what exactly is happening in Salt Lake City. So welcome back to the Rock Fight where today we're talking about Black Diamond and finding out why climbers make better business leaders with Neil Fisk. Alright, well we're here today with president of Black Diamond, Neil Fisk, welcome to the show. Neil, thanks for being here.
Neil (02:28):
Thanks, Colin. Great to be here. David, good to see you. Good to see you.
Colin (02:32):
How's September in Salt Lake City right now? Is it starting to cool off a little bit? What's happening in Utah?
Neil (02:38):
Oh man, this is the perfect time of year. I love early fall. Lots to do, lots to get out and get after. So well, I'm a Colorado native, so I've been on the other side of the, who has the better snow debate for many years.
Colin (02:54):
That's Utah,
(02:56):
Of course. Appreciate Rock. I appreciate you coming on. We've been talking about this a little bit and excited when you agreed to join because this past March it was announced that you guys, black Diamond would be narrowing your focus, meaning the brand had become, I think you said, a little overextended and you wanted to scale back and put climbing at the center of everything you do. We covered this on the rock flight number, Justin Hausman and I talked about it and I thought it was a really interesting move and I was very positive on it given the kind of circumstances around it, which we'll get into in a second. But this at all had come after you've been on the job for just over a year and I don't want to spend time looking backwards. I mean, companies evolve, things happen, risks are taken and we end up where we are. But you're brought in to sort of set the stage and given black diamonds clout in the climbing community. I mean, is it a fair analogy to say that that first year was kind of putting your fingers in leaks in the dam? I mean there's obviously real strength to the brand, but then just so much going on, there's just so much too much for the whole thing to work as well as it could. Is that kind of where you ended up when you got into the chair?
Neil (04:02):
Yeah, well I'm not sure I'd describe it as putting fingers in the dam more
Colin (04:08):
Like just dollar bills shooting out around your fingers.
Neil (04:13):
I think it was maybe a confluence of the whole outdoor industry in sort of a reset year BD needing a bit of a reset. And so I would say the first year wasn't so much around tactics and managing through a difficult market as really fundamentally looking at what's the strategy for this amazing brand and how do we set it up for success and take some time to get there. And one of the things I've done over my career is sort of refine the playbook, if you will, and think about how do you get the most out of a brand? And so I always have this sort of seven part strategy for building brands and turning around companies, and I can describe it real quickly, but there's
Colin (05:07):
Love it. Yeah,
Neil (05:07):
There's an order and a logic to this that I try to follow pretty religiously. So the seven parts are number one brand. Everything starts with brand, ends with brand, and in between is about the brand and everything has to go through the brand filter, but then the brand sort of sets up everything that follows in terms of the strategy. So product is next, what categories are you in, are you not in? What are the defining characteristics of your assortment strategy that ladder back up to the brand position marketing's third. So what stories are you telling, how do you amplify, how does that bring the brand to life? Channel strategies forth, which I'm sure we'll touch on today, and how do you meet the consumer where they are seamlessly across all these emerging channels. Supply chain is fifth because once you figure out what your brand stands, for example, around sustainability, around your product focus, you really have to think through very carefully how that translates into all parts of the supply chain if you're going to execute on that strategy.
(06:20):
And then out of those first five you sort of get a sense of, okay, what does this organization need to look like if we're going to execute on those first five things? And then the last piece interestingly is the financial outcome or the financial discipline. And so it's sort of interesting, you start with brand and you end with financial results. And I think there are a lot of companies, and maybe BD was a little bit guilty of this, of flipping that around where you start with the financial goals and then try to back into what's the strategy and what's the brand. And sometimes it fits and sometimes it doesn't. And there was probably a period of time in a lot of companies where you say, oh, black Diamond's a great brand, we should be 500 million or we should be a billion and let's work backwards from that instead of let's really listen to the brand and let's build out the brand to its fullest natural potential.
(07:21):
And at the end of the day, the consumer is going to tell you how big it is, but if you try to force a financial outcome onto a brand, that's where I think you get sometimes over your skis or off the wrong track. And so part of your setup I would agree with, which is I think there was a period of time where we were trying to manage to a financial outcome, trying to grow Black Diamond very quickly. We ended up doing a lot of things in pursuit of that big hairy financial goal that somebody must have put out there at some point in time. And we were just doing a lot of things and not doing all of them to the quality and the excellence that the brand deserves. And so from the brand came this whole idea of, okay, let's simplify, let's get really back to the core of what BD is. And so kind of under the headline of number one brand, it was respect the past but shape the Future. You don't want to be stuck in the past, but you have to drill into that a little bit and figure out it's a little bit of brand archeology. I'd say that's what I was doing for the first six months really digging in, listening to the brand and listening to the consumers, pulling out those amazing founder stories that we have around Peter Metcalf.
(08:46):
Those things are gold, man. They give you the guiding principles that span the test of time. And man, if you just go back to those, it's a little bit like that. I think that scene in Jurassic Park where the first one where they drill into the amber to get to the mosquito to get the DNA and out of the DNA, they build these dinosaurs. It's kind of what
Colin (09:10):
I don't want to pander to my guest, I guest too much, but you're just speaking my language. I mean this was something that I think the outdoor industry, I don't want to say it's unique, I'm not saying I don't want to suggest that it doesn't exist in other categories, but the authenticity, the heritage, the passion, all these things are what made so many of these companies succeed in the first place. And to your point, I think when you look around, and we'll get into it, especially when we talk, I think about the sustainability conversation and some other things, it does, it becomes driven by the bottom line, which is not to say that's not important. Clearly that's important. It doesn't belittle that. But I mean when we were at Polar, when I was at Polar Tech, I mean we had a bit of a saying of if the guy in the room that's running the meeting is the spreadsheet guy, the ones where we're just plugging numbers in and saying, oh, that'll work.
(09:59):
That won't work and not the brand or product people, we got a problem. We're not going to do well in this meeting. We need to talk about product innovation and all these other kinds of things. And I think this kind of stacks up because the thing that was really interesting to me about the narrowing of the focus story, and I mentioned on the podcast a few months ago when that came out, was the support from your owner from Claris. Because I mean, I think there's a pretty decent history of whether it's PE or natural owner, whoever it is though. But if a brand is owned by somebody and things start going poorly, there's a lot of times they'll just punch you. It's like, ah, this isn't working out anymore. Didn't work out the way we thought you, we'll sell you off or they'll shutter you. And so the fact that the part of the thing that I read in that is story was like, Hey, this is with the support of our owner. And if you drill down to the most basic thing kind of saying, Hey, we're okay, maybe taking less money to do the right thing for this brand, at least in the short term. So how supportive was Claris in the decision to kind of go down this road and as you learned in that first year, what needed to be done here?
Neil (11:03):
Yeah, I think it's a great call, Colin. Great because none of this happens without the support of the chairman, the executive team, the board, and they were great. I think they were every step of the way along with the journey hopefully because we approach it quite methodically and said, coming into Black Diamond, I said, okay, here's the seven part strategy. This is the playbook we're going to follow and let's stick to it and see where it gets us. And I think ultimately give a lot of credit to Warren Canners because probably we've tried some different things in the past and this was really a chance to step back and say, okay, let's start from fundamentals around what is this brand and let the brand path unfold and get the core of the business to be really healthy.
Colin (12:03):
Warren is the chairman of Claris, is that,
Neil (12:05):
Yeah, he's the executive chairman of Claris and he's owned the brand or been part of the brand for over 10 years now and probably seen things come and go as happens over a decade. But this was really I think a great chance for us to say, let's simplify, let's get back to the essence of the brand because what do you have when you own a company like Black Diamond or you own a big part of it fundamentally first and foremost, you own the brand, then you own a company that houses and nourishes the people that support that brand and the culture that forms around that brand. And of course you have assets, but the assets are worthless unless you have the brand. And so again, I think if you start with, okay, let's get the brand to be exactly what it was intended to be and what it could naturally evolve to become, the rest of the stuff will start to fall in place. And so it was great, and Warren and the board were a hundred percent behind it. And I think Warren said it at one point to me, which was a really pretty interesting revelation. And I have to admit, I hadn't heard this too much over the course of my career of running companies. He said, I'd rather just have a smaller, more profitable company that's a better brand. And that's super powerful. That's great. Kind of get that permission and that support very often
(13:52):
Should be the tag
Producer Dave (13:53):
To the OIA
Neil (13:55):
Feel very fortunate, I think we all do to kind of have that permission and that runway to do what we need to do.
Producer Dave (14:04):
I was just a couple of things I still would've loved to have seen that first meeting where you present your strategy, alright, everybody, I've new, I've done my analysis, we're going to sell less, we're going to make less money and we're going to make work out. So it's still a tough call to go right in there and say, all right, I've got the plan, we're going the other way.
Neil (14:23):
Well, yeah, I hear you. The thing that was interesting, there are a few kind of catchphrases mantras that came out of that piece of strategy work. And again, for me, these are principles that have served me well over time, but one of them is do fewer things bigger and better. And one of my colleagues once said to me, that was something really powerful that you said, and it answers almost every question I have, which is just do fewer things really focus, the growth will come. And we were really the opposite of that when I came in. It was like lots of stuff against the wall, let's see what works. And that just as you would expect kind of burdens people out, lots of starts and stops and you can stall out pretty quickly that way.
Colin (15:27):
So how is the focus narrowing going when you look ahead or what are your expectations now? I mean what's six, seven months into the process, at least from the announcement of it, how's it all shaping up?
Neil (15:38):
It's going well as you would expect methodical. And it doesn't sort of happen overnight with this industry. What, particularly on the hard goods side with really long product lead times,
Colin (15:56):
Right? Sure.
Neil (15:56):
And so it takes a while to simplify the portfolio and all the activities that go around it. And one of the interesting things about the strategy is it's actually completely a hundred percent congruent with the principles of climbing and alpinism because think about it, alpinism is always about edit, edit, edit, do the most with the least everything you need, nothing you don't and simplify as much as you possibly can. And of course you have to have a good route and you have to have good planning and good team and all that other stuff, but if you carry too much stuff, you're not going to make it. And I think the same is true in business and it's hard to simplify. It's actually, it's one of those things when you probably look at businesses sometimes like Apple or something and after the fact you say, God, that business is so simple and it looks easy after the fact, but getting there is actually very difficult. So all the way back to your question, it's going well, but it is not a one shot deal either. It's not like a typical restructuring. We say, okay, on day 90 we're just going to chop off all this stuff it
(17:15):
It's much more like you're getting in shape, go into the gym, building a routine and getting better and better, leaner and leaner. And that's an endless journey where we'll be two years from now, I think we'll be even more simpler and more lean and even more focused, but it's not a one shot deal and it doesn't happen overnight.
Colin (17:41):
Well, so then you were back in the news outdoor news cycle a couple of weeks ago on the retail front, and you could tell us if this is part of the plan or if this came out of left field, but you're setting up a new relationship with the retailer Wilderness exchange out of Denver, and not just an ordinary shop and shop, but turning wilderness exchange into a black diamond store. We had Don Bushey from Wilderness Exchange on the Rock fight a few weeks back to get his perspective, but to get it from BDS perspective, why this particular move on the retail side with this particular retailer.
Neil (18:11):
So it's interesting and I thank you by the way, for bringing Don on. He's such a, oh, that was a pleasure, great character, and gosh, what an icon he'll be on again industry. I love that guy.
Colin (18:23):
Yeah, he's great.
Neil (18:25):
And it's interesting and I think this is a little bit of how this process should work. So early on in my tenure, I said one of the foundations of this industry in this business is the specialty channel. And I'm absolutely convinced that that's the top of the distribution pyramid and that if as Peter Metcalf said, our mission is to be one with the sports we serve, you can't do that without a very strong specialty channel and relationship with those specialty retailers. And I think that when I came in, that was an area that was maybe a little bit neglected, maybe a little bit raw actually, and we needed to invest in it. So Heath Christensen, by the way, Heath was another great member of the great BD rehire. We got him back from Coat Epoxy after he had defected a few years back. And so Heath and I hit the road and it was really just a listening tour. And we went through Colorado and we met with all of the most important, we call 'em cathedral accounts, the ones that really sort of shape and define the industry have over the years and will in the future. And part of that listening tour, we met up with Don in Denver and went to coffee and he was really very open about what's the future of retail, particularly in an urban location like downtown Denver.
(19:59):
And so we had a really good discussion then he came back a little while later and he said, would you all want to take over my location as a BD store? And we said, well, maybe there's a more interesting way to do this because what if we brought the best of what you do with the best of what we do together in a partner format? And our agenda isn't to go build out 200 mono-brand stores. We want to have a few, and we can talk about that if you want, but we sort of planted the idea of maybe we could do something along the lines of a partner store. And of course, you have to have a couple conditions to make this work. One, you have to have the right partner. Two, you have to have the right attitude coming in as Black Diamond. We're not there to tell Don how to run his business. The reason we're partnering with him is he knows his customer, he knows his community, he knows what's going to work and what's not going to work, and we're investing in that trust that we haven't done to represent our brand, but more importantly, the sports we serve in the best possible way
Colin (21:20):
To
Neil (21:20):
That community. And I've been in retail a long time. I think it's always been about experimentation and trying new things and some things work, some things don't. But one thing for sure is you can't stay still. And I do believe the specialty channel will evolve. I think it will survive and it will become healthy again. But only through these sort of partnerships and trying new things and seeing what resonates with the consumer.
Colin (21:53):
Do you see a world where there might be more of these, I mean obviously this could end up being a one of one, and even if it goes well, it doesn't necessarily mean there's other people out there who would even accept an offer if you went looking for it. But if it goes really well, is that something, would you consider pursuing doing it in other places?
Neil (22:09):
Yeah, for sure. I think we need to of course prove it out here, but I think the model is really interesting, which is how do you make more money and how do we make more money and how do we create a better consumer experience and
Colin (22:25):
How do we break up if we need to break up? That's a tough conversation in of itself, I would imagine.
Neil (22:30):
Yeah, I think you go into it with eyes wide open that this is something we're all fully committed to. And again, the consumer will vote, the consumer will tell us where we go. I do believe fundamentally, if we're connected to the community and we listen to the consumer, it will work, adapt it. We may not have the right ideas on day one or even six months in, and then it may take us a few iterations to get there. But that's one thing I love about what Don brings to this table. He knows that customer, he knows that community in a way that we do at a certain level, of course, but not with a sort of intimacy that a specialty retailer would know their local market in their community.
Colin (23:20):
Yeah. Well you mentioned mono stores, so you were the CEO of Eddie Bauer back in the day, right? So you definitely know a thing or two about having your own retail stores, right? You mentioned that'd be something you're looking at doing. What is the upside of that? I mean is that,
Producer Dave (23:34):
Let me interject real quick based on that comment, the concept of the shared space. This is a black diamond store, but from day one you are having competing and diverse brands. Where did that come from? I personally think that is the future of this type of model, strong single driver, but with a shared environment for the customer. I mean it's the consumer now that that's for their benefit for that experience. Where did that come up in this conversation?
Neil (24:06):
Yeah, great question David. So again, we're trying to be relentless in our focus on brand principles, but if I go back to Metcalf's original vision statement, be one with the sports you serve, it doesn't say that that limits you to just offering your product. It means you have to offer solutions to your consumers to give them a better experience to find how we progress the sport, to figure out how we innovate. It doesn't mean we have to do all of that. We're going to sell, they'll a petzel GRI in there because not climbing shop, we don't have that. And so yeah, we have belay devices, but we don't have something like that. And so if you want to be one with the sports you serve, put the consumer and the advancement of those sports at the center of everything you do, then it just makes sense to pull together those complimentary brands. In some cases, yeah, they're competitors, but at the end of the day, if we do this right, the sport will grow, the industry will grow, we'll all be better off and BD will be a better competitor. We're going to learn from those people that we're side by side with.
(25:30):
And we try to be humble too. We have a lot to learn always. And so whatever we can learn from being in a format like this from our competitors, from doing business in a different way, I think will be good for the industry and good for Black Diamond.
Colin (25:48):
Well, so back to what I was asking about the mono stores. What advantages does something like that bring you when we won't get those kinds of learnings? I mean, you could I guess become a vendor, a retailer for other brands if you wanted to, but the history says that typically people open a store and they stock it with their stuff and you should go buy BD stuff at the BD store, right? So what is the advantage, especially with the experience you had at Eddie Bauer, what is the advantage of doing something like that?
Neil (26:18):
It's interesting because my career arc, I started the first CEO role. I had 1600 stores, so it was basically all brick and mortar WorldCom.
Colin (26:32):
Did you visit all 1600 over the course
Neil (26:34):
Of your career? Career? Didn't know I'd never knocked off. All 1600 liked come
Colin (26:37):
On
Neil (26:37):
Down. I spent a lot of time on the road. I did. Yeah,
Colin (26:40):
That should have been the first 10 years of your career just I got to get to all the stores.
Neil (26:47):
Yeah, I don't think 10 years would've done it, but anyway, that's a lot of stores. But anyway, so I do have a love of retail and an appreciation for it. It is a little bit in my blood, but kind of in the whole, I guess, arc of my career now for an omnichannel brand like Black Diamond, again, I go back to brand principles and it's meet the consumer where they are, how they want to shop and figure that out. So therefore, what does that mean for Black Diamond? I think that means we need to have a handful of stores that we control kind of as laboratory stores where we present our assortment in the fullest and best possible expression of the brand. And we're constantly tinkering and we're getting that quick feedback, and maybe that's 10 or 12 stores. It doesn't need to be more than that, but there's very rich learning from having that kind of controlled environment. And I think that's the benefit of a mono brandand store
(27:59):
In this network. So what we do then is from that learning, we say, okay, we can now go to either a partner store like Don and say, we've tried these different three different ways to merchandise tracking and polls, and this is the way found works best. And so he benefits from that because we've proven it. We're taking results to the channel and we're a better, more informed partner than just here's a planogram, figure it out. We're kind of in the experimentation and learning and iteration with him. And I think even that's true with our specialty accounts. It's interesting because a lot of times what a specialty account will ask us is what sell in our trade area through your D two C
Colin (28:53):
Oh, interesting.
Neil (28:54):
And what are we missing that you're selling, that you've proven? And so I do think that, and it's easy to sort of turn this into a cliche around one plus one is three, but I think that if you do this right, the work that we do on our mono-brand formats, and that includes e-comm should be to figure out how we grow the brand for all channels. And so we end up taking those learnings a lot of times and rolling them out to wholesale. We also, even to the product point now, we have kind of a quick to market product strategy where we might take a product first to our 10 or 15 stores in
(29:42):
And figure out what's the consumer response, how deep to buy it, and then the next season we roll it to wholesale and then we go in much more intelligent around how deep should our retail partners buy this? What should they buy? Because of course, a big part of the waste in this whole system is we're always over buying stuff or under buying stuff or buying the wrong stuff. So if we can prove that out in our own formats and then roll it to our retail partners in specialty and key accounts, they'll make more money. We'll have less markdown, less waste. And so that, I think fundamentally I view Mono-brand retail as sort of pushing the bounds of where the brand should go and then taking those learnings, codifying them and rolling them into commercial success for retail partners.
Colin (30:38):
It's funny to reflect and kind of hear you talk about this, and I hadn't really thought about the potential of a wholesale partner asking for you guys for feedback from your own D two C efforts. So my career, the formative parts of my career was as a tech rep in the early, in the mid two thousands where I was literally almost sort out of stores because I was there on behalf of Timberland. And retailers were mad because Timberland had sold on their website like, ah, we don't want any part of you. You're putting us out of business. And they still had almost the power to do that at that time. Then it flips a hundred percent the other way 10 years later where now it's like, ah, we're only doing D two C. And then we realized, oh, actually wait, brick and mortar is important, wholesale is important.
(31:16):
And now I kind of feel like maybe we're on this precipice of this incredibly interesting next 10 years where maybe the two things are sort of figuring out how to kind of coexist with each other and then the learnings can benefit each other. And if I own my own shop, I could approach a black diamond and say, Hey, how does this work? You guys have your own source. What works for you in that? And then get that information versus five, six years ago where I don't think anybody would've thought that would be even a question that would be appropriate to ask.
Neil (31:43):
No, exactly. Right. And one of the things that's just I think kind of in that journey that you just described is it's a trap we've all fallen into, which is it a channel first strategy or is it a consumer first strategy?
Colin (31:58):
Yes,
Neil (31:58):
Because again, the consumer will tell us what makes sense and what doesn't. Learnings can be shared across channels and the consumer's never gone guardrail to guardrail, brick and mortar to all e-comm, oh, they don't care. The best consumers have always been multi-channel. They shop in specialty, they shop in key accounts, they shop brick and mortar, they shop online. And by the way, if you looked at this in 10 different categories, and the multi-channel shopper is always worth three and a half or more times the single channel shopper. And there's a little bit of correlation versus causality issue in there
Colin (32:41):
Because
Neil (32:41):
The best shoppers tend to engage more with more channels. But it's also true that when they engage in more channels and more touch points, they're more engaged than they buy more across all of those channels. And again, I think that's get to the consumer insight and what does the consumer want to see? And that's fundamentally why I don't believe specialty will ever go away. And it needs to be healthy because man, you watch the consumers in a specialty shop like we had a golden carabiner event up at Climb on in Squamish, and it's just incredible the energy and the culture around climb
(33:26):
And the engagement between the retailer and that climb community. And you can't get there. You can't get that anywhere else. And by the way, those are the kinds of events we should be doing more of because I think they build the sport, they invite people in. You don't have to be a five 13 climber to go do golden carabiner event. You can go out and have fun, climb with some partners, have a sense of comradery, friendship, community, good party afterwards, free pizza even. I think we need more of that, but those kind of events only happen in partnership. I think with a strong specialty channel that builds that local community, it's absolutely critical.
Colin (34:16):
The last thing I wanted to talk to you about was I wanted to take advantage of having the head of an outdoor brand here. We talk a lot about this topic. It's kind of a passion point for the rock fight about on the circularity and sustainability conversation, because on a recent show, Dave and I talked a lot about the efforts made by brands when it comes to the sustainability and circularity that end up feeling kind of box checky, whether it's the secondhand shop, a commerce or upcycling. The root of environmental issues in our industry are in the manufacturing and distribution of the goods. And the change those two elements is a very costly endeavor, but it really, I applaud the brands who are, hey, we're finding out different ways to improve what we're doing currently. And those are great, those are admirable, but it's really the only legit path to how we change things making for the better is kind of addressing how we make the stuff that we make. It may not be fair, we do put a lot on the backs of the brands in the outdoor space. I mean brands end up being sort of our celebrity or the people that we look to the most are the brands and they're also the ones with the cloud to change things. So as you reflect on your stops at places like back at Eddie Bauer or the products that we part of your range and the future at Black Diamond, particularly on the apparel side, what is the right approach here?
(35:30):
I have a tough time sometimes looking at some decisions being made and saying, well, that just feels like you're really unwilling to forfeit profits in order to do something better. So as you're someone who sits in the chair of one of these brands and all the things we've discussed today and the complications that go with it, how do you even mentally wrap your head around the right way to
Speaker 5 (35:48):
Approach circularity and sustainability? I never said it was easy. I just said, go back to what I said
Neil (36:21):
At the top. Everything starts with the brand. So I think the first question you have to ask yourself and I ask myself and we ask ourselves is how does this whole agenda on sustainability fit with the brand that will lay out everything else that follows? And one of the great things I think about Black Diamond is from the inception of the split between from Sheard equipment into Patagonian, black Diamond, sustainability has been absolutely at our core. We were born out of the clean climbing movement, and it's such a powerful analogy. Again, climbing, clean climbing, that's what defined us. We made peons, but then we decided, well, actually making peons isn't the best thing. Let's create things like Camelot and Stoppers. I think that there's a great quote I think from Doug Robinson when he talked about clean climbing and lots of words around that, but he distilled that down to say it's clean because the rock is left unaltered. So when we kind of do that brand archeology into clean climbing and then blow that up into what does that mean for the brand?
(37:49):
We take that analogy and pull it all the way through the brand and we kind of extend that and say, well, it's clean, not just because the rock is left unaltered, but because the planet is left unaltered. And that's one of those kind of big aspirational statements that we're always working towards and know that we've got more work to do. And then out of that point of view comes our sustainability focus. And I can describe that, but I think the key point is for us, we try not to talk about this a lot. We try to do it and prove it and highlight the results, but we're not going to put out a bunch of promises. You won't get that on this podcast. Sorry to disappoint.
Colin (38:42):
You're in a small group that feels that way.
Neil (38:48):
Well, I think from the get go that black diamonds about prove it, show it, do it, show us how to do it. And I don't think we are, Johnny come lately to sustainability. I think it has always been at the center of what Black Diamond stood for. And again, a lot of it goes back to the principles of climbing. Do the most with the least, simplify as much as possible. Don't take anything up the mountain that you don't need and kind of everything you need, nothing you don't. Those principles of climbing are incredibly powerful for circularity. So if we do that in our practice, in our sports, then how do we do that in our day-to-day. And I think for us, it kind of comes down to five areas that we're focused on. I'm sure everybody's got their own agenda, but it's number one carbon footprint.
(39:47):
And because I think lots of metrics of sustainability, but for me, the planet's heating up and the cause is greenhouse gases. And if we don't reverse that, very bad things are going to happen. It's that simple. So let's get maniacally focused on the single biggest lever we have to reduce global warming and the climate crisis, and that's carbon emissions. And so everything, a lot of things then sort of ladder up to that. So we're on the path to be 50% fewer carbon emissions by 2030 with offsets to be carbon neutral by 2030. But to your point, when we map the carbon footprint of black diamond, 90% of it's with our vendors. So if we're going to get to that goal, what does that mean? Well, guess
Colin (40:43):
What? They need to change.
Neil (40:44):
They need to change. And guess what? That thing about fewer, bigger, better answering every question, it answers that question too. We are pretty significantly scaling back on the number of partners we have, the number of factories we're in because that will allow us to work more closely with them to change the way products are made, we'll have more influence with them. So having fewer, bigger, better suppliers is absolutely critical to actually making a difference in carbon footprint. And the materials used. Just as an aside, I think we looked at this the other day, six months ago, we were in 18 apparel factories and we're getting that down to half of that nine. And you don't think about all the transportation that goes with less than full truckloads. And the movement around stuff 10, 15 years ago and supply chain would've, let's have more suppliers and let's pit them against each other. And
Colin (41:52):
If
Neil (41:52):
You're not happy with the cost, you go counter a product and just you ended up with these supply chains that are really fragmented and very inefficient at the end of the day, despite the fact that you're trying to get more costs out. So I think really picking partners, narrowing the focus on what we do, what our partners do, that's key to unlocking the carbon footprint will be, we've got a big campus project going on to make the BD campus carbon neutral and energy independent. More to come on that, but that carbon footprint's number one, and recognizing that 90% of that is how we work with our suppliers and reconfigure the supply chain. Number two for us preferred materials. And that's again, holding ourselves accountable to how much of our product is either recycled or earth friendly. And so we've got metrics around that. Goals we want to be at by 2030 and on earth friendly, all of our cotton is organic, but now we're saying organic's not enough.
(43:08):
You can actually take cotton as an agent of change here and say there are regenerative cotton farming practices that actually take carbon out of the air, sink it into the soil. And actually there's such thing as carbon positive cotton crops. So how do we lean into that? That's way beyond just organic, which is good. Let's use less pesticides. That's a good thing. But actually, if we can use agriculture to start to take carbon out of the atmosphere, how cool is that? So work going on there, that's two three, which is a big deal I think is often overlooked, is simplification. Simplify, simplify, simplify. You've said it on this podcast before. There's just too much stuff out there. We're just trying to say let's just do fewer things bigger and better. That will lead to less waste, less markdown, less stuff going in the landfill. Our suppliers will be more efficient even to the point where we're thinking about component simplification.
(44:18):
So how do we create more standardized components across our trucking pole lines so that they stay in use longer and we don't have to manufacture as many parts. It's a huge unlock. I think it's maybe one of the least appreciated unlocks of sustainability is just that edit, simplify, simplify. And it's better for the consumer, better for the channels, better for the planet, and better for your bottom line. It's just hard to do. It takes a lot of discipline. So that's three, four for us is product longevity. And that has three parts to it. I think. Again, this is part of our DNA, we've always built bomber product that should last a lifetime. And the best thing you can do off the bat for sustainability is make products that last and aren't disposable. But we're thinking about how do we build them to last, but also how do we extend the lifecycle of them?
(45:19):
So a big push on spare parts so that when you're trucking pole breaks, you don't have to buy a new one, you can get a part for that. And those parts are more interchangeable, a whole service platform that goes with that, extending the life cycle of a product. And then there's sort of an end of life path. And one of the things we are working on is to take, for example, there are two grades of aluminum in a lot of our product. We're working on a process whereby we collect those products with those two grades of aluminum, we sort 'em and we send them to our supplier partners and they're melted down and they're put literally back into new black diamond products. So a lot of work there. But I think that all of those three things built to last extended life cycle and think about end of life really get to product longevity. That's four. And then five is it's just the fair trade part of this.
Colin (46:18):
And
Neil (46:19):
For us, we're really using B Corp certification as our roadmap there and we have a lot of work to do. We're probably half to two thirds of the way there. And so we're really putting our shoulder into how do we get there, how quickly. Again, I'm making any promises, but that's our roadmap. Those five things we're really clear on. That's how we think we'll make a difference in this industry for anyone that's true to our heritage.
Colin (46:49):
Well, for anyone listening too, and I always maybe I speak in grandiose terms about, oh, change your manufacturing process and then I don't really maybe go into the details of what that means. I mean even you talking about the new way of new form of organic cotton and if you're developing a new, or if you're part of the development of a new supply chain for that, that's going to be more costly than the cotton you can currently get. So that's putting your money where your mouth is more so than just saying, oh, we'll take something and kind of put it into an online store. I just think those are the sort of first one through the wall has to take a little bit of a beating, whether it's on price or whatever it is in order to change the thing for the better. An easy thing to point to right now is what if we had not waited on PFAS, right?
(47:31):
I mean I think that is the only conversation to have on PAS now even when I continue to see press releases of like, oh, we have our new PFAS line. Great, where were you 15 years ago? We knew. And so that's kind of what I'm talking about. So I think those are the initiatives. I think it sounds like you guys are lined up in the right place on how to approach this for sure, because it is, you still then have the tyranny of the day-to-day that you have to play in while you're also trying to solve all of these problems. That is not easy to do
Neil (47:59):
Now. And I think we're sort of blessed at Black Diamond with a really clear founder story, a really clear set of principles. We don't have to create these on the fly. Go back to, there are three things that Peter, there were a lot of things Peter said that I think are sort of foundational for the brand, but the three that we talk about a lot, one, be one with the sports we serve. Two, the best days of climbing are in the windshield, not the rear view mirror. And it's a good catchphrase, but there's a call to action there to be progressive and to advance the sport and not always be looking backwards. And the third thing he always talked about was make a difference on matters of great importance and protect what matters. And from a brand we think about protect what matters, what is that? So sustainability for sure, access is a big deal. And this is I think even more holistic thinking about how we make a difference on sustainability. If we get people out in the outdoors,
(49:11):
They will be much more attuned to environmental protection than if not than. And I'll tell you a quick story that sticks with me, but when I at Eddie Power and I had developed a good relationship with Jim Whitaker, of course, the first American to climb Mount Everest. And gosh, I learned a lot from Jim and all his stories, but he tells his story of coming down Mount Everest after the first American ascent. He said, he's coming down and finally they get to this point on the descent where he can see one green blade of grass. And he said, I fell to my knees and I started to cry. I said, this is the most beautiful piece of grass I've ever seen in my whole life. And he goes on to tell how formative that was just in the appreciation of the planet and the magnitude of it and our role in it. And that's always stuck with me as a call to action to say, if we get people out in the outdoors, maybe they won't find that one piece of grass, but they'll find something that they connect to and that will lead to stickiness on this agenda and not sort of let it be a fad. And so I think there's part of access that Peter talked about under matters of great importance, it was about protect through the access fund and all of the associations we're partnered with
(50:48):
Protect the places we play and get people outdoors. And the third part is inclusivity and not inclusivity as it sometimes gets narrowly defined, but I think for us at Black Diamond, we realize this brand was sort of built on the pinnacle of the badasses and the elites and the athletes and the mutants that define the sport early on. But that's not all we are. We are still that. But that's not all. We are much more about in being true to one with the sports we serve. How do we bring people into these sports safely protect what matters, which is them and their lives and their enjoyment of it and their access to it. And I kind of was reminded of something somebody told me early on around Mariah Kraner being the champion along with Peter of the five eight climber that really stuck with me. There's real power in that idea that you don't have to be at the top of the pyramid to enjoy the sports that we serve. And if we can take that broader view of let's just get people out into the outdoors, into our sports, they will in turn become a more activist global community that in turn will support all of these agenda points that we're all after because it takes that sort of course, broad base grassroots engagement to make things happen.
Colin (52:23):
Unless it's pickleball, then it doesn't count and you can't be part of the community. No, but hey, we've kept you past our past time. We had a few more things, but we'll save 'em for next time. Neil really appreciate.
Neil (52:34):
Yeah. By the way, I can make one promise, which is pickleball is not one of the sports. We say there's no press release coming. We we're narrowing pickle here. We're going big. Yeah, we're going
Producer Dave (52:46):
Big. You've saved me from having to do another fake news story about that. So problem. Thank you for that definitive statement.
Colin (52:54):
Neil, thank you so much for joining us. Really, really appreciate you making the time and I hope to have you on soon. Thank you.
Neil (52:59):
Thank you. Okay,
Producer Dave (53:00):
Take
Neil (53:00):
Care.
Colin (53:02):
Alright, that's the show for today. Big thanks to my guest, Neil Fisk, to the brands and retailers listening to the Rock fight, I want to hear from you. Send your feedback on this episode to my rock fight@gmail.com. Actually, I want to hear from all of you, not just the brands and the retailers, but I'm kind of curious, any brands and retailers out there? What do you think about what Neil had to say? Our producer today was producer Dave Carstead, art Direction provided by Sarah Fishnets Genser. I'm Colin True. Thanks for listening. And here to take us out is The Man with the plan. It's Chris Deakes and he's going to sing the Rock Fight Fight song right now. We'll see you next time. Rock fighters, Rockside Rockside, rock bike,
Chris DeMakes (53:44):
Rock bike. Go to the rock bike where we speak our truth, slay sacred cows, and sometimes agree to disagree. We talk about human power, our outdoor activities and bites about topics that we find interesting. Black, my Culture, music, the latest movie reviews, ideas in for the head. This is where we speak our truth. This is where we speak our truth through the bike.
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