Like the assembly grease on every shop’s workbench, Industry Grease is designed to help each part of the Bicycle Industry come together and work more smoothly… for the long term.
The end result isn’t about the bicycle or our industry. It’s about using our positions to provide consumers with the best experience possible and to establish our loyalty to them, and earn theirs in return.
What is it?
Industry Grease is a private, collaborative platform where individuals from every segment of the Bicycle Industry come together to ask questions, share ideas, and learn from each other on a grand scale. No matter the size, shape, or age of the shop or business, each member has an equal opportunity to share & receive feedback we can all learn from. Here members of the Bicycle Industry will have access to… and more importantly, participate in, weekly homegrown content designed to spark the kinds of discussions we need to have about today’s marketplace. Each discussion-filled article will be followed up with a podcast to bring the discussions together in a more comprehensive & digestible format. This is not another industry news site or a place where suppliers are going to push products. This is a place for people who care about the direction of the Bicycle Industry and their role in it.
Why?
Due to the turbulent shifts in the bicycle marketplace affecting how consumers shop, the Bicycle Industry’s various retail & supply channels have scrambled to solve their individual challenges that too often don’t align with each other’s. This has led to us becoming less organized as an industry and more vulnerable to the growth of larger corporations, outside industries entering ‘our space’, and all that is eCommerce. We’ve become accustomed to adapting to the marketplace rather than setting the pace and it’s distracted us from leveraging the advantages we do have… especially when it comes to going after the consumers we don’t know about, but should. We’re also having to quickly adapt to methods like direct-to-consumer programs and online fulfillment sales that either aren’t refined or are just confusing to all involved.
There are a lot of loose ends the Bicycle Industry needs to tie up before we can move forward and that begins by having some inclusive discussions on a massive scale. Regardless of how much experience or knowledge a person or small group has, ideas & decisions can become a bit monolithic without the involvement of a diverse & widespread resource of information… and each member here is a part of that. Industry Grease opens the doors to all involved to add a broader & more valuable set of perspectives, with the intention of guiding us towards a healthier & more sustainable industry.
But don’t listen to me…
To be blunt, I don’t want anyone to listen to me. You will hear me say this repeatedly but I think one person or group telling everyone else what they should do is as arrogant as it is dangerous. Even after spending 35 years in & out of every corner of the Bicycle Industry, my knowledge, experience, & perspective is a virtually unmeasurable fraction of what members of our industry possess as a whole. What I do know revolves around sparking the right conversations and bringing people together. I have been in just about every one of your shoes and feel that many of the issues we face can be avoided & even solved by having the right conversations at the right time… rather than after the fact.
Who is it for?
In a sort of ironic plot twist, Industry Grease isn’t here for retailers or suppliers in the Bicycle Industry. Industry Grease is for our consumers. In today’s marketplace, we need to reverse-engineer how we did things over the last 20 or 30 years and work from the consumer up. If we better serve consumers, they will better support us, improving our profitability & long-term sustainability. Okay… maybe that isn’t entirely true. In reality, Industry Grease really is for ALL of us because consumers need us, as much as we need them. The more we increase our understanding of the consumer, the more they’ll be able to recognize the value we offer. If they win, we all win!
Retailers – These are the Bicycle Industry’s customer-facing feet on the ground. Unique in size structure, & location, retailers are made up of individuals, each with a different perspective based on their role as well as the operations of their store. Industry Grease gives each person a place where they can share & receive feedback from like peers all over the country. Suppliers recognize the obstacles retailers face because one of their greatest challenges is adjusting to such a vast array of needs on a massive scale. Retailers of comparable size & shape supporting similar communities will be more able to discuss & learn ways each other approaches specific challenges. By bringing retailers from all over the country together, they can more easily generate a larger & more uniform voice their suppliers will greatly value and in turn, create a better & more profitable relationship.
Suppliers – Manufacturers, distributors, service providers, and others are often structured where only a small handful of people make decisions based on a varied & geographically scattered amount of feedback from retailers… who themselves are making decisions based on a very unpredictable marketplace. Since the dawn of all that is the web, forecasting has become more valuable than profitability and the absence of reliable information can be crippling to suppliers, often forcing them to become more conservative with supply and/or change the way they do business. A little communication on a larger & more diverse scale goes a long way toward helping suppliers & retailers support each other and more importantly, the consumer.
No advertising and absolutely NO selling/sharing your private information
Plain & simple: Industry Grease is a platform designed to bring everyone together for the sake of professional & personal growth and not slinging the latest products, services, & closeouts. However, we recognize suppliers can be a great resource to retailers and will soon have opportunities for them to increase their presence & reachability. We’ll have more information on this soon but the focus is to offer suppliers of all shapes & sizes an equal opportunity to be as much of a resource as they want to be, on a level playing field.
Who is this guy?
I’ve been called a lot of things… most of them good. The first person to drag me around on a bike and accept me in a bike shop called me Tomac. Some call me Tex based on where I was raised and how I say the word ‘guitar’ (gee-tar). On Strava & amongst my local bike friends, I’m Steeze McQueen. To most, I’m just Trey. I’m not going to claim I am the Bicycle Industry’s guru or that I know everything that needs to be done. I’m more of a self-proclaimed Industry Rat who just won’t leave and has spent several years envisioning ways we can better work together. As stated above, I think one person preaching to such a varied & widespread population is a dangerous thing, especially when we’re so operationally & geographically different.
You can find more dirt on me under the About tab by clicking on The Head Mechanic but you’re probably wondering what possessed me to create Industry Grease in the first place. In short, I’ve walked in most of your smelly shoes over the last 30+ years and am fluent in, or at the very least can relate to, what each of us is up against. Thanks to the unexpected pleasure of having a number of perfectly-timed experiences in every segment of the Bicycle Industry, I’ve gained a wider perspective than the average bear… yet admittingly, like every human, I don’t possess the bandwidth to know everything, hence why I chose this format for Industry Grease.
One thing I do know… the Bicycle Industry is more than ready to have the conversations it has desperately needed to have for some time. For those who know me will tell you, I listen… but I tell it like it is whether you want to hear it or not. In other words, Industry Grease is here to bring each of us closer together so we can have some great conversations without feeling like we need to blow GT-85 up each other’s cable housing. We’re here to discuss the good, the bad, and even the dreadful so we can help guide each other in a healthier & more sustainable direction.
How to Join
*I’m still working out the kinks before exposing all of the features, so hold tight till early 2025!