{"id":3305,"date":"2015-03-03T17:30:02","date_gmt":"2015-03-03T17:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vapementors.com\/?p=3305"},"modified":"2017-07-16T08:09:44","modified_gmt":"2017-07-16T16:09:44","slug":"vape-radio-50-absentee-vape-shop-owner-crushes-competition-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vapementors.com\/vape-radio-50-absentee-vape-shop-owner-crushes-competition-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Vape Radio 50: Absentee Vape Shop Owner Crushes His Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row type=&#8221;in_container&#8221; scene_position=&#8221;center&#8221; text_color=&#8221;dark&#8221; text_align=&#8221;left&#8221; overlay_strength=&#8221;0.3&#8243;][vc_column column_padding=&#8221;no-extra-padding&#8221; column_padding_position=&#8221;all&#8221; background_color_opacity=&#8221;1&#8243; background_hover_color_opacity=&#8221;1&#8243; width=&#8221;2\/3&#8243;][vc_column_text]<div class=\"smart-track-player-container stp-color-60b86c-EEEEEE spp-stp-desktop\" data-uid=\"edb60624\"><\/div>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #517df8;\">Show Summary:<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>To listen to the entire show, with show notes, transcripts and comments, visit\u00a0<a title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/vapementors.com\/vape-radio\/?utm_source=VapeRadio&amp;utm_medium=VMBlog&amp;utm_content=ShowLinks\">vapementors.com\/vape-radio\/<\/a><\/p>\n<span class='bctt-click-to-tweet'><span class='bctt-ctt-text'><a href='https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fvapementors.com%2F%3Fp%3D3305&#038;text=Vape%20Radio%2050%3A%20Absentee%20Vape%20Shop%20Owner%20Crushes%20His%20Competition&#038;via=vapementors&#038;related=vapementors' target='_blank'rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vape Radio 50: Absentee Vape Shop Owner Crushes His Competition <\/a><\/span><a href='https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fvapementors.com%2F%3Fp%3D3305&#038;text=Vape%20Radio%2050%3A%20Absentee%20Vape%20Shop%20Owner%20Crushes%20His%20Competition&#038;via=vapementors&#038;related=vapementors' target='_blank' class='bctt-ctt-btn'rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Click To Tweet<\/a><\/span>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #517df8;\">Links Discussed<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/vapementors.com\/vape-radio\/?utm_source=VapeRadio&amp;utm_medium=VMBlog&amp;utm_content=ShowLinks\">Vape Radio<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/vaperadio\">Vape Radio Youtube<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #517df8;\">What you\u2019ll hear today:<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Key Takeaways:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Develop your brand and competitive position around your personality, your area or market<\/li>\n<li>Be sure your employees represent you and your audience<\/li>\n<li>You do not need 2000 sq ft to open your shop<\/li>\n<li>Carry products your customers want<\/li>\n<li>You do not need to carry every flavor of every brand nor carry hundreds of flavors<\/li>\n<li>Training your employees as though you are running a hotel is a good culture<\/li>\n<li>You cannot teach personality or attitude, but you can teach technical skills<\/li>\n<li>Social media, i.e., Facebook and Instagram can overshadow your website<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To watch the video version on YouTube, visit\u00a0<a title=\"http:\/\/\" href=\"http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/vaperadio\">http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/vaperadio<\/a>. Please note, YouTube does not play the pre-recorded audio interviews.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Welcome to Vape Radio, your source for everything you wanted to know about the business of vaping, whether you\u2019re brick and mortar location, developer of e-liquids, online market, or anything else in the vape space, learn from the first and largest educational providers in the country. I\u2019m your host and founder of Vape Mentors, Norm Bour, and if you\u2019d like to know more about what we do or to catch up on our archive of #50, the show you\u2019re about to hear right now, this is show #50, so son of a gun.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Paul:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is #50, right now? Oh my god. We made it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We did, man. We did, and we\u2019re crushing at about 60 thousand downloads a month. There you go, and the crowd goes wild one more time. Anyway, visit VapeMentors.com and this is our website and again, this is show #50, I\u2019m just beyond ecstatic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Today we\u2019re unavailing a brand new program, it\u2019s called Vape Shop of the Month, and for those of you who have been listening to the show for a while or have been following Vape Mentors, we\u2019ve put together an online program called Vape U, and we created what we call The Six Pillars of Vape Based Success. It\u2019s a step by step process of developing a business, developing your competitive positioning, figuring out what products to sell and what not to sell and dealing with the law which primarily includes your local city and sometimes includes your state and certainly the FDA knocking at the door. It also covers social media and customer service.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re going to start profiling vape shops of the month. In segment #47, I asked, \u201cAre you a vape shop of the month?\u201d So you\u2019re going to hear an interview with a gentleman I know personally; his name is Jason Hambrecht. He\u2019s down in Amelia Island, Florida, which is just north of Jacksonville, and if you heard me talk in Section #1 today I spent about a week in Florida and traveled up and down the coast and I went to see his shop which opened back in August.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s got a really awesome location and amazing inventory and a wonderful, wonderful feel. They actually had a big event which he\u2019ll tell you about in just a moment. I\u2019m going to introduce you to Jason Hambrecht with Speakeasy Vaporium, and if you want more information you can go to SpeakeasyVaporium.com.<\/p>\n<p>Also, you can find them on Facebook, they\u2019ve got a lot of pictures posted, so Jason, welcome to Vape Radio.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jason Hambrecht:<\/strong>Thanks for having me, Norm!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s kind of cool because out of all the many, many customers and clients we\u2019ve worked with over the last year and a half, there\u2019s only been a handful that I\u2019ve met in person, but I was very fortunate that I met Jason when I was down in Florida and got to see his shop and we had a meal together. Jason, why don\u2019t you share just a little bit about your background? You\u2019re not like most vape shop owners in the fact that\u2013 Well, I\u2019m not going to tell them why, you\u2019re going to tell them why, why you\u2019re not like most vape shop owners.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jason Hambrecht:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I guess the big reason would be that I\u2019ve got another company that I run so this is sort of the side project. I wanted to do something different. My wife, Jenny, and I wanted to open another company and we wanted to find something fun, complete opposite end of the spectrum to what my other company is which is onstruction engineering to the world of vaping which is a life of its own.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s probably too modest to say but his shop was one of the very, very best, top rated growing construction companies in northern Florida, so good for you on that. Now he has successful business #2. Let\u2019s talk about how you came to the idea. You already mentioned what your motivation was: you wanted something different that maybe you could be more engaged with, yet you are not an active participant in your vape shop are you?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jason Hambrecht:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No. Luckily I stop in a few times a week, mostly on the weekends, and really it\u2019s just to hang out with the guys. I\u2019ve got two guys in the store, Sean and Bo that run it; Sean\u2019s the manager and they\u2019re both great. They\u2019re very passionate about it and I\u2019m fortunate enough to be able to step back.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One of the processes that Jason and I went through at the very beginning was coming up with a competitive position because that\u2019s really a key to success in most businesses and certainly in this one. If you remember, Jason, we went through a lot of different conversations about what to name it. Share a little bit about where the name \u2018speak easy\u2019 comes from because we talked about creating something around pirates and something around other things so maybe share a little bit about the history of Amelia Island and how the whole speak easy concept came about and why it came about.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jason Hambrecht:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Really, I have to give you credit for this one, Norm, because when we were thinking about the store we had all kinds of ideas but that\u2019s where you really helped me in the beginning; you dug out: okay, this is Amelia Island, tell me about the island, tell me about the culture, and you\u2019re absolutely right. We created a space that actually has the brick on the walls and our store is from a school that was torn down. The wood is from an old barn roof. The island itself here has a lot of historic value to it so we kind of tried to treat it that way. For two reasons: one it\u2019s really cool, and two, the residents here, they feel a bond to it when they walk into the store. It\u2019s not like walking in an Apple store, you can go in so many different directions, so we created kind of a really unique space for the island.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Excellent. If you had to come up with a demographic of who your target audience is or who they might look like, give us an idea, Jason, of your typical vaping customer.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jason Hambrecht:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A lot of people ask that in every industry, and as long as they\u2019re over 18, that\u2019s one of our customers. We get everything from a 19 year old to\u2013 we had a guy come in the store the other day, I think he was 85. We design the store so everybody would feel comfortable in it. It\u2019s got a little hip value to it but you walk in and it\u2019s not like walking in to some sketchy, head shop looking environment. It\u2019s very toned down but it\u2019s edgy as well, so we try to get as many age groups as possible.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>So one of the things that I want you to make sure you understand: branding is more than a logo, it\u2019s more than a name, branding is a feel. When I went into his vape shop, the guy didn\u2019t know who I was but he welcomed me right away. He said, \u201cWelcome to Speak Easy. Have a look around.\u201d Be very comfortable and very at ease, but one of the things you need to think about is what does your store represent when someone walks in? If you have a store that\u2019s full of \u2013 again, no reflection, no disrespect on young kids with tats and earrings and everything \u2013 but that can be off-putting to certain demographic audiences where what is really especially notable about the speak easy is that \u2013 Jason, correct me if I\u2019m wrong \u2013 I think a 27 year old coming in with tattoos and earrings and a baseball cap worn backwards is probably just as comfortable walking into your place as the 85 year old guy who\u2019s been smoking the last 70 years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jason Hambrecht:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sure, they mingle together. It\u2019s a fun environment. People help each other in the store. We really have awesome customers; I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s just our area but we very rarely have anybody who\u2019s upset in our store or anything, it\u2019s just a fun environment. We\u2019ll have a 60 year old guy and a 19 year old guy in the store helping each other figure something out if we\u2019re busy, so it\u2019s kind of cool.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Nice. Tell everyone about how big your place is as far as square footage which you\u2019re not using all of it, you\u2019ve got plenty of room for growth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jason Hambrecht:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Right, we\u2019ve got 1,500 square feet. We\u2019re probably only using about maybe half of it which is good and bad. We don\u2019t want to waste that space back there but as things grow, we\u2019ve got the potential to add what we want.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Make a note out there guys: if you\u2019re looking to start an industry, you don\u2019t need 2,000 square feet or anything close to that. Optimum range somewhere between 800 and 1,200 square feet, that\u2019s where you want to grow. Let\u2019s go into one of the pillars we call product selection: how did you decide what to carry and what do you carry that really sells well both in the e-liquid market and in the hardware line?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jason Hambrecht:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Well, this for me has been a giant learning experience. The week we opened the score, the stuff I got, I didn\u2019t even know what half of it was. I was a complete novice. I didn\u2019t even know what a vape shop was a year ago. I think it was February of last year when I even knew what vaping was, so I kind of jumped into it quickly, researched as much as possible, placed orders with vendors based on their recommendations. The first shipment came to my house and Sean and I and my wife we opened up all these boxes and we were trying to figure out what all this stuff was.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the baby steps; now we\u2019re to the point where we\u2019re on the cutting edge of everything new coming out. I don\u2019t want to get locked into a certain brand, I like having new stuff all the time in store.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What are your top selling E-liquids?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jason Hambrecht:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Right now Space Jam\u2019s a big one, and Suicide Bunny. There\u2019s a local company out of Northeast Florida called Fusion, they make awesome juice, they\u2019re very active in the community. They do a lot of donations to foundations. We\u2019re picking up this Savage juice out of Minnesota we should be getting next week. The Savage guys came to our store a couple weeks ago and that\u2019s an ultra-premium line packed very nicely, we\u2019re excited about that. We try to get new juices in all the time, almost every week. We filter out ones that aren\u2019t selling. We won\u2019t buy all of a line, we\u2019ll try to narrow down\u2013 you pick a brand and you try to find maybe the two or three flavors that are really hot and that\u2019s what we\u2019ve been carrying.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Excellent point. How many different brands would you say that you carry right now?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jason Hambrecht:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We probably have about a dozen brands, maybe even more than that. We\u2019ve got about 90 or so flavors total.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Excellent. Another takeaway I want you guys to get out of this is that you don\u2019t need to carry hundreds of brands and if you develop your own line of liquids you don\u2019t need to develop hundreds of flavors. Generally speaking, I advise\u2013 most shops have somewhere between 10, maybe as much as 20 different brands. I think somewhere around a dozen or 15 is optimum. Jason brings up a really good point: you don\u2019t need to carry every single one of their products. Just find the ones that sell, find the nic levels that sell. I always tell the customers and audience, \u201cDon\u2019t sell what you have, sell what people want.\u201d The market will tell you what it wants.<\/p>\n<p>Customer service, customer retention, customer acquisition. What is your process of how you trained people and found the right people? Because that is really paramount in this industry because you can\u2019t just do it all, you can\u2019t always be there and in your case, you aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jason Hambrecht:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Well, I wrote it all down. I used work for the Ritz Carlton years ago and they\u2019re pretty up there with customer service, so I actually dug some of that old stuff out and basically kind of rode out the philosophy of the store; how you treat customers, what do you do if somebody comes into the store with an issue? Sean and my wife and I sat down and looked at that, read through it, and that\u2019s kind of our culture. We created our culture. It has a lot to do with luck; Sean and Bo in the store are just awesome, awesome guys. They love what they do.<\/p>\n<p>You roll the dice and you see what they get, but these guys, really, they\u2019re passionate and customer service is the number one important thing as far as I\u2019m concerned.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Absolutely true, and here\u2019s another takeaway that I want you to get out of this guys, is that you can teach technical skills, you can teach some of the mechanics of the industry, but you can\u2019t teach personality, you can\u2019t teach attitude, you can\u2019t teach the things that people are born with they\u2019re learning how to be especially awesome at. You don\u2019t necessarily look for someone who\u2019s already an existing vapor because for the most part if they\u2019re interested in the industry they will learn it. You want to find people who are generally, cordially nice and want to help other people. Let\u2019s talk about the law; did you have any challenges with either your local city or with anything in the state of Florida that\u2019s going down that people should recognize?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jason Hambrecht:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Not us locally. In fact, we didn\u2019t even need a permit.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Woah!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jason Hambrecht:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the area that I\u2019m in. In certain areas you do need a permit, but where we\u2019re located we\u2019re considered to be in our county so that was easy. The community\u2019s accepted us pretty well. From the very beginning, I went down to the chamber of commerce and said, \u201cThis is what we\u2019re doing, this is who we are.\u201d We actually had a chamber of commerce meeting at our store last night. Probably about 200 people showed up. Just kind of get active with those people so you\u2019re in their face before\u2013 don\u2019t let them find out later on. \u201cHey, what is that place?\u201d Go introduce yourself to them so they put a face to the store, they\u2019re too concerned.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Absolutely true. One of the things that we talked about before you opened up the shop is how you go about marketing, because the 30 days prior to opening is probably one of the most critical. What are you doing in the social media world and the PR world as far as how you\u2019re getting the word out? How are you relating to other businesses or in the social media environment?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jason Hambrecht:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Social media is huge now. We\u2019ve got a website\u2013 we don\u2019t even need the website. Facebook and Instagram \u2013 we just started getting more active on Instagram, but Facebook is huge. We got almost 800 followers now. We\u2019ll probably hit a thousand in the next few months. We put stuff on there and people share our photos so that\u2019s really the main marketing we\u2019ve been doing. We put a magazine out, I don\u2019t know how we did, but word of mouth, good customer service, and people telling other people about your stores is what we\u2019ve been doing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s why I picked you as vape shop of the month: one is because I knew you personally and I wanted to make sure that you got the props that you deserved because again, I have an amazing amount of respect for people who do this right, which is not that common, and here you have a gentleman who came into the industry relatively fresh and talked to me maybe three months after he\u2019d been exposed to the vaping space and again, he\u2019s an absentee owner which is a little bit hard to do. Again, what we want to do on vape radio is we want to find people like you and share them with the world. Give everyone your website address and how to get ahold of you and how to find you on Facebook and Instagram and anything else you want to\u2013 this is your 30 seconds of pitchout, man.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jason Hambrecht:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Www.SpeakEasyVaporium.com. If you go to Facebook, just type in Speak Easy Vaporium, we\u2019ll pop up. Instagram is SpeakEasy Vaporium, and we also have an online store, SpeakEasySupply.com. It\u2019s starting to grow a little bit; we keep adding more and more to it which is exciting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s excellent. On behalf of Vape Radio and VapeMentors and certainly myself, congratulations, keep up the great work and congratulations on being the first vape shop of the month. There\u2019s one number one and you are it right now so other people are going to follow your paths. For those of you out there who believe they can share a story like this of wonderful success, we want to hear the challenges you faced as well. Believe me, Jason faced his own challenges we didn\u2019t really get into today because nothing happens easy, nothing happens by itself, you have to be proactive. Jason, you have yourself a good day.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jason Hambrecht:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You too, thanks a lot, Norm. I appreciate everything you\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ladies and gentlemen, that\u2019s wrapping it up for the day. You\u2019re listening to Vape Radio, the number one worldwide source for updated information streamed straight to your phones and tablets. Be part of our growing community of vape masters and head on over to VapeMentors.Com to learn more. Catch up on our past shows which this was show #50.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Paul:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>50!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Norm Bour:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Make a note; we\u2019ve crossed over that 50 threshold. Thank you so much for being part of our day and part of our industry and part of our lives and we are so glad to be part of yours as well.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=&#8221;no-extra-padding&#8221; column_padding_position=&#8221;all&#8221; background_color_opacity=&#8221;1&#8243; background_hover_color_opacity=&#8221;1&#8243; width=&#8221;1\/3&#8243;][vc_widget_sidebar sidebar_id=&#8221;cs-2&#8243;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To listen to the entire show, with show notes, transcripts and comments, visit vapementors.com\/vape-radio\/. To watch the video version on YouTube, visit http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/vaperadio. 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