Summer Summary
Founder's Blog – 3 September 2025
An update on how the Super Summer of Selling went. Progress, lessons learned, the full adventure. Here is a blow-by-blow of everything I thought relevant, with little to no
From our first retail purchase on June 4th to the last sale of the summer on August 16th as I drove back to college, WLP is now sold in 39 retail shops in seven states. We're in most of the big resort towns in the West (Sun Valley, Steamboat Springs, Park City, Jackson Hole, Moab, etc.), but also lodges, hidden gems, and stops on the way.
It began in Afton, Wyoming, going up and down main street visiting every store. My greatest thanks to Michael Butler at Wild Wyoming Outdoors, who watched me bumble my way through a one-sided conversation, then said, "Sure, I'll take a pack of 12." Our first store! Just next door I visited Swift Creek Trading, where Michael Horn told me, "This looks good, but you need a display or something that talks about the 30 sq-ft preserved. Once you have that, I'll definitely get it."
Ah, so that evening I ate pizza in Alpine for a change of scenery and sketched out ideas. Two days later I walked back in with a new display, made of cardboard, cardstock, and paper tape, and asked, "What do you think?" Got some suggestions, revised again, and now we have the point of purchase display I've used all summer.
After I'd visited every shop from Afton to Jackson Hole about three or four times, I needed to expand farther out. Driving to see my mother in Seattle, my
brother in Utah, and my aunt + cousin in Colorado, I made as many stops as I could to sell in other states. My dad joined for the Colorado trip, as we camped the way in a popup tent trailer like 19th century traveling
We didn't look exactly like this,but it gives you the idea.
(Picture from Wikimedia Commons)
The summer was my great rediscovery of the Sandler Selling Technique. Long ago, when I tried to get corporate sponsorships, I attended classes by Sandler Sales Training of Utah. Back then, I got nowhere with a flawed product, but suddenly I found myself using all the techniques I'd learned again, except this time to great success, and much greater insight. I relearned my Pattern Interrupt, overused the Up Front Contract, and applied the Dummy Curve so effectively I'd sometimes get told, "Well, you should work on your sales pitch, son!" (To which I thought, "I'm talking to you, aren't I?").
No exact numbers, but I probably visited 200 shops, where when I got to speak with the decision maker, about half the time they said Yes. And half the No's were a soft No, as in "Call back in October when we buy for winter season."
It was truly interesting to interact with so many shop-owners, and hear
their experiences. Here are some things I
- The ski resorts across the US are slowly being consumed by huge resort mega-corporations. Vail Resort Company is universally hated as they try to pull a Disneyland model in ski towns: Ski at the Vail-owned ski hill, eat at the Vail-owned restaurants, and shop at the Vail-owned gift stores. As I walked up and down Park City, they own like half the shops there, and the owners would always say, "Your cards are cool, but corporate makes the decisions, sorry."
- Outdoor shops are typically the most receptive to the cards because they're more conservation cognizant. Gift stores are next, then grocery markets. I discovered fly fishing stores are notoriously
inhospitable. Me: "Hello, I have these cards..." Them: "No, go away." Me:
"Awwww..." - It has been a bad summer for a lot of tourist towns (except maybe the super large ones). This summer had just as many people traveling, but they all have less extra money to spend beyond the trip necessities. In the Afton Wyoming area, retail sales were down 30%.
Web also did a couple street fairs.
There were lots of small shops to discover, and stories to hear. Here are a
- Wild Camp Goods in Vancouver, Washington, was a true hidden gem. The owner, Leland Duck, grew up in Cheyenne, worked corporate in California, then said, "Sheesh, I'm not liking this anymore. I'm going to start an outdoor store!" and has had it for about a year I believe. Every product has been hand picked from his personal use, including the best freeze-dried meal I've ever had in my life: Bowl and Kettle Crawfish Etouffee (It is heavenly on the trail). The walls include a little backpack museum, with his collection of packs going back to before humans discovered carrying all the weight on the shoulders is not ideal.
- Canyon Creek Trading in Idaho Springs, Colorado, is owned by a man from Nepal, who also owned a pastry shop and another gift shop on the same street. He went to college in the US, studied Mechanical Engineering, worked for 7-8 years with it, then said, "I don't really enjoy this any more. I'm doing something risky and buying this shop in Idaho Springs!" Before I left he told me the life advice, "If you want to have that kind of freedom in life that success gives you, you really have to have people working for you."
- I have to mention Wild Wyoming Outfitters again, as owner Michael Butler described how he originally studied Chemical Engineering in Florida. And then, after visiting the West so many times, finally said, "I don't want to do lab stuff, I want to start an outdoor store in Wyoming like I always wanted to!"
. . . I can't help but think there may be a trend.
Wild Camp Goods store in Vancouver, Washington.
But the biggest lesson from this summer is probably that we see our vision resonate with people. Of every place I've spoken to, all 200 contacts, zero of them said that they dislike the concept. This was our biggest question, and consequently our biggest revelation: That our core idea is sound, generates interest, and has true potential.
But that was all I had time for this summer, before duty called in the great land of Cornell. Long as it was, this is a surface overview of how WLP's first dedicated sales summer went, and given free time I may write an expansion post or two.
We'll see how WLP evolves as I work through classes at Cornell. If you
are reading this,are a retailer, and will be at the Las Vegas Resort and Gift show, say hello to us
Las Vegas Souvenir & Resort Gift Show
September 16-19, 2025
Booth #2735
If not, stay tuned for a blog post on how that all goes. As a final
parting gift, enjoy this picture of our Las Vegas show booth as we design
– Steven Whitney
| WLP Escapes The Matrix 17 June 2025 |
Selling In The East 2 October 2025 |