Leadership and Onboarding for Retail Success with Mark Wagner

In this episode, Pete Mohr speaks with Mark Wagner, a sixth-generation retailer and HR Director at Shoe Fly, about how to lead and scale a successful retail business. Learn how Mark integrates legacy with innovation, creates impactful onboarding processes, and aligns his team for sustainable growth.

Key Takeaways:
• How multi-generational leadership shapes business growth.
• Building a scalable onboarding process with digital tools like LearnWorlds.
• Why accountability and structured communication are vital for scaling retail success.

Guest and Host Information:
→ Follow Mark Wagner and Shoe Fly for more insights:
   IG: @wagnershoespgh
   FB: Wagner Quality Shoes
   Website: Shoe Fly Website
→ Follow Pete Mohr for updates: @TheFootwearRetailer
→ Access more episodes and resources: TheFootwearRetailer.com

Action Step:
Evaluate your current onboarding and accountability processes to identify one area to improve. Small changes can have a big impact on your team and business success.

Join the Conversation:
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P.S. Looking to streamline your onboarding and scale your retail team effectively? Reply to this email, and I’ll share key strategies to make it happen. 

PLUS: Whenever you're ready, here are 3 ways I can help you move from the Operator’s seat to the Owner’s seat in your business:

1. Take the Value Builder Assessment to better understand the areas of your business that add the most value to your business - Click Here

2. Uncover your Kolbe. Whether just for you, or for your full team, better understand leadership strengths and ways you can advance your People - Click Here.

3. Listen my other podcast Business Owner Breakthrough podcast as well for quick tools and tips - Click Here

Transcript

0:00

Mr. Mark Wagner, so great to have you here on the initial episode with a retailer here on the footwear retailer podcast. Yeah, thanks for having me, Pete. It's, it's an honor. Mark, We've known each other now for, I don't know, probably six or seven years, I would think, somewhere in, around there. And, you know, all of the journeys that you've been on, you're a sixth generation retailer. You've seen a lot of stuff that's happened and grew up in retail and you're involved in, of course, Wagner Shoes, the family traditional business, and you're also involved in Shoo Fly. So much going on in the footwear retail industry and how do you navigate through all that every day? Yeah, you know, the sixth generation piece of it with, with Wagner Shoes and really sort of being a part of the second generation for, for Shoofly is to me, it's, it's a privilege. You know, it really is. I, I feel like, you know, I, I put in the time and, you know, it really is such a massive part of my life and, you know, it. I have so much pride in being part of Wagner's in Shoofly, but, you know, I try and remind myself that, you know, I'm here because of the generations before me. And so, you know, I think there's some humility in that and, you know, keeps me grounded and also keeps me, you know, working as hard and staying engaged in the business is what I am. So it's, it's such a privilege to, to be a part of this, you know, more so than what it is. I can't look back and think, you know, this is, this is my doing up to this point. You know, I feel like the future is really going to be, you know, something I'll be influential in and I'm just privileged to be a part of the business and, you know, happy to be here. I love it. I love it, Mark. And you know, for those listening, a lot of footwear retailers, what have you go through because of what you do in both of the businesses, you know, you've got, you're spending some time at Wagner and you've got two stores, right? Two stories. Yep. Yeah. With, with, with Wagner. And then how many stores with Shoo Fly? Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So we have two Wagner stores and I believe we have 13 different Shoo Fly and Appalachian running company locations. Awesome. So, yeah, it's a. And that continues to grow as the Shoo Fly partners are, you know, aggressive and expanding and growing that business. Yeah. Not only Growing in store number, but growing in square footage. Right. I know one of the major things with Shoofly anyway over the last couple of years has been growing footprint. Yeah, that's right. We, we've made a lot of, you know, internal investments on existing stores and some of that, to your point, Pete has been expanding stores. Who, you know, we've had shoo fly stores in certain markets for 20, 25 years. So we've really invested, you know, in expanding those. We've invested some of them in just remodels or facelifts. But yeah, we've really kind of spread it pretty equitably between acquisitions and, you know, reinvesting in the current stores over the last 10 years or so and. Adding the Appalachian brand. Right. That's been a big piece of sort of the, of, of adding square footage and adding sort of interest and excitement into the Shoofly system too. Right? Yeah, it really has. You know, the, the Appalachian Running Company is so, you know, just a little context. Todd Lewis and, and Greg Wagner, you know, they, they, they started Shoofly in the early 90s and you know, they had been running Shoofly stores for gosh, you know, you know, 20 plus years where they were Shoofly stores where, you know, they specialize in full service retail and in comfort footwear and you know, some brands that anyone would recognize, but also some, you know, some niche brands as well that made our business unique. And you know, it wasn't all that long ago where Shoofly had the opportunity to acquire a store in central PA called Appalachian Running Company. And you know, when they acquired that store, I don't think think that anybody really thought that it would leave such ripples within the Shoofly business that it did. I mean, it made such a massive impact. So, you know, we had acquired that store in 2018, 2019, right. In that time range. And since then we've opened up numerous more Appalachian Running companies. And you know, like I said, I don't think anybody thought, thought that the consequences or, you know, the, the, the opportunities that would, would come from buying, you know, one small specialty running store. But now it's just a really important part of, of the Shoofly portfolio. You know, with all the growth, with all the things that are going on, your position within Shoofly, you're involved a lot with the growth of the people, right? It's the human resources side of things. And I know you spend a lot of time, a lot of your, A lot of your days are spent around that amongst other things, but it's a good chunk of what you do, isn't it, Mark? Yeah, that's right. So I really got involved with shoofly in 2021, where this was part of our acquisition, part of the businesses. Two different stores in the Pittsburgh area became available for sale and Shoofly bought them. And that was really kind of my first opportunity at full time work within Shoofly. You know, I had been helping around certain projects certain times of the year at different stores, but 2021 was really when it opened me up where, okay, this is now my career. And that was for about a year I was really helping oversee the transition of those stores and in the growth of, of those new Pittsburgh stores. And in 2022 is really when I got into this human resources role within Shoofly. So, yeah, it's been about two and a half years that, that I've been the HR director for Shoofly. And you know, that's obviously been a, a totally different experience than anything else I've, I've had so far in the retail industry. So I know from our work in the NSRA next gen program, we talk a lot about people and how important a piece of our business is. Of course, we couldn't do it without them. Right. It's the, it's the process and the people and the alignment of all of that stuff so that things happen without us as the leaders sort of having to be involved every single decision, every single day, whatever the case is. And I know that it's, it's an ongoing thing, not only in your business and in my business at Utopia, but you know, how, what are you doing over the last couple of years? Where were you and how have you taken this through with regard to new hiring and what's your process? How. What's the difference in your process now than what it was a couple of years ago? When you go out, right, from sort of looking for the right person, understanding who it is, you need having that person come in, interviewing that person, aligning them in the right spot, training them through, like give us an idea of, since you've done this over the last couple of years, that process of where it was at, where it's at now, and where do you think it's going to go down the road? Yeah, it's a good question. And you know, what you were saying earlier is, you know, I think if you had one of the Shoofly buyers on this call, you know, they'd say there's nothing more important than the merchandising and you know, how can the store succeed if we don't have the right product and enough of the right product? Or you might talk to someone in finance saying, you know, how can we continue to grow and to move forward if we don't have our finances aligned? And you're talking to a human resources person and you know, my philosophy is every store is as good as the people that's within them. And I really do believe that. I feel like that has and always will be the backbone to the Shoofly business. I mean, you know, we're selling our service and we're selling our experience as much as we're selling the shoes or the socks on the wall. And you know, that's really a philosophy that is a top down approach with Shoofly. And you know, so as we hire, you know, a really big piece it would be as we reach out to, to candidates and generally how the process would go is, is, you know, we use various, you know, hiring platforms and as the HR director, I generally am in charge of doing first round screeners. So I sift through the various resumes on the different platforms that we use and I do these first round screenings and from there, you know, the ones who answer my questions in the right way where I get an idea, their availability and you know, earnings expectations and all those different things, I really pass that along to our store managers and our hiring managers in the region. So, you know, I think a really big piece of what I do is making sure that our hiring managers and I are on the same page in terms of, you know, what are we looking for. And you know, I think a really important part philosophy idea of what Shoofly does is, you know, generally we're not interested in if you've sold shoes before or you know, if you've folded shirts before in Macy's or whatever it is, you know, footwear experience, retail experience are, they're not, not important, but it's certainly not on the highest of our priorities on a checklist of what we're looking for, you know, we, we really believe that if, when we find people who are good listeners, when we find people who can, you know, work with a team, when we find people who like helping others, I mean, that's really at the core of what we do. And those are the things that you can't teach is what we feel. You know, I think almost anybody could learn how to use a branic device. I think anybody could learn how to use an iStep where, you know, they scan a customer's foot and identify arches and pressure points. You know, we feel like we have the infrastructure to be able to train anyone on those things. But, you know, what you can't teach is some of what I had mentioned before of what is their personality, you know, what motivates them. And we feel like when those aspects of a candidate align with what we do now we're talking now we're finding good people for the business. You know, Mark, I know I've shared this with you in the past, but a couple of years ago, probably more than that now, I came up with this little sheet, and it's called the Candidate Evaluation. And the candidate Evaluation that I kind of look at from an overview. And it's not like you have to use this all the time, but it's just to get your head around these sort of things. And I look at it, it's broken down into four, four pieces. And the one is capability. Are they capable of doing the job? Right? Capacity. That's their ability to grow and sort of fulfill the job requirements down the road. Because you might not be fully capable right now, but do you have the capacity to actually fulfill the job requirements? Right. And then there's confidence. And in my opinion, confidence is such an important piece for our culture anyway. But also too much confidence can burn you as well. For the candidate that's overly confident. Right. We've had those. We all have. Right. And it's like you're so confident about stuff, but pushing through all these things that cause ripple effects for everybody else. The last piece, the last, Last one's culture. And you, you mentioned that part of culture. And, you know, even though there's only these four boxes that I grade sort of from one to five, in my opinion, I think that last piece, that culture box, which is, are they a right fit for your organization? You said it. You know what? You don't necessarily have to have sold shoes. Are you the right fit for the culture of the organization and for moving ahead? I look at that box as twice the value of any of the other two or other three. And so when I'm grading these candidates, when I think about them and go through the candidates, it's like, do they have the capacity? Do they have the capability? Do they have the confidence that we're looking for in the right amount? And do they have the culture? And that's sort of how we look at it from the side of things, because none of those things basically said, can you run a branic device? Or, you know, like, can you. Can you do. Have you ever Fit somebody that has orthotics? No, I think it's, it's really interesting how, you know, how you use those specific checkboxes as you do it. And we do use some of those of our own. And, you know, to the point of talking about retail experience or, you know, shoe sales, footwear experience, I mean, I don't think I can emphasize enough and I think you'd agree with me when, you know, what we do as independent retailers in our niche retailing, it's so unique that sometimes, you know, we look at past footwear experiences not necessarily a good thing at all, because if you're selling shoes at Shoofly, it. It's just nothing like selling shoes at, at a, you know, Macy's or a Dick Sporting Goods. And that's not to say, you know, obviously those businesses are, are massively successful, for sure, but we're in different businesses, you know, and, and I think, you know, not everybody understands that. And, and so for us, you know, we. We want to. We want to find people who we really feel like we can mold. And what we do is so much different than other shoe stores that, you know, we look at a blank canvas, someone without that retail experience as a real positive a lot of times, because our onboarding is unique, our customer service is unique, the experience that we provide our customers is unique. And, you know, if we lose sight of those things, then we're just another shoe store and, you know, what is our value? Finding the right people and putting them in the right roles is just such a vital part of our success today and moving forward. Mark, I know a big part of what you've been working on for the last year has been onboarding and getting all of, you know, getting your onboard process changed, updated onto a new platform, rolled out, all of this kind of stuff. Can you kind of go through a little bit as to where you were at with the onboarding thing? Let's say when you came in couple of years ago, which is even further back, right when you, when you sort of took the position, how were they onboarding people and through all the different stores and all the different, you know, places that you guys do business and where are you at now and where are you going with onboarding for all of the, all the people that you have within the two organizations? Sure. And I think, you know, Pete, more than most, that this is really been on my mind since I started as the HR director two and a half years ago. I mean, it truly, it's, it's. It's a, It's a part of the business that I think about every day of my life now, for better, for worse. And, you know, I think it's a great question, and I think it sort of starts with shoo fly grew very quickly in. In a relative short amount of time over the last ten years or so. And, you know, that that's such a blessing that, you know, we've been in a position where we can continue to grow our business, where when there's opportunities, you know, financially, we're in a place to, you know, make aggressive moves and to acquire stores in businesses. So, you know, it really is such a blessing from that standpoint. But, you know, one of the challenges of that is that we are a growing business, and we need to recognize that. And sometimes we can't think of ourselves as, you know, the cute mon PA shoe stores that, you know, I think what shoofly was for for a long time. It's a growing business, and it continues to grow. And, you know, we need to think bigger sometimes in terms of, you know, how big the business has gotten. And so I think onboarding is a perfect example of that. Where historically and still, I can say this today, that in every one of our locations, we have really strong management teams in place at our stores. And I think for a long time, you know, as it was a smaller business, you know, we really felt like, okay, you know, we're gonna hire the right people and our managers are, you know, they're gonna groom them and mold them into the employees that they need. Because one, we trust our culture, and two, we trust our managers to mold these new hires. You know, honestly, that. That had been successful for some time, but we've outgrown that philosophy. We really need more structured in a more rigid process. We need booklets, we need videos. We need all sorts of different training material to support that. And that's really been what I've been working on for the last two, two and a half years. So where we're at currently is we have created onboarding booklets for every onboarding manager in the onboarding employee to follow along. Where we have policies, where we have our brand mission, where we have, you know, 101 documents, how to use a Brannock device, how to use an iStep. We have sections of explaining all the different athletic shoes of. Is it a stability shoe, a neutral shoe, Is it a. Is it posted? You know, what's the drop? And, you know, that's been a really positive thing, but that's not enough. You know, I think it's great that we have our managers working in the first two to three days right now is generally our onboarding process right now. And they're basically going through these onboarding booklets checking off exercise after exercise. And that's a step. But you know, our next step is that we're using a platform called LearnWorlds and that's a digital platform for our new hires to do a lot of their onboarding. And with LearnWorld we've created new videos, some of those that are made in house, some of those that, you know, we're relying on other businesses or even YouTube of certain things that really apply to our business. And, and that's really where we're going of going from a kind of a rigid 2 to 3 process to a process that is largely built online. And it's going to be a rigid 5 day onboarding process that's non negotiable that every single person who's hired in the company is going to go through the same onboarding process no matter if they're hired at our store in Huntington, New York or in, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. That you know, we need a uniform system that every store manager can rely on where that new hire is going to get a good and thorough understanding of what we do before we can cut them loose onto the selling floor and represent our, our brand. I love it. And you know the heart of Shoofly, right? You know, I have my little heart model for Shootopia that I, that I use and it's this model and we all need this. Every business, not only shoe stores, needs this clarity in some sort of model and some sort of structure that we can explain to our new on boards, but also that everybody else lives by that says this is what we do, this is who we are, this is the way, this is our way. Whatever the name of your brand, put the name of your brand on top of that page. And you know, in, in our shoe stores it's the Shootopia way and from that perspective we roll through this. And I know we've as, as a, as somebody who understands Colby Mark and you know, I'm a Colby coach as well, people learn in different ways and that's why I love the, what you're doing with your structure here. It's like we've got the documentation, right? You can read it now. We've getting the video too so you can watch it and we've got the audio so you can listen to it. And then we're taking all of this because it's a digital platform and then we're taking this and then implementing it into the store system and working with the manager so they can actually touch it and feel it. And for those people, it's like people learn in different ways. You set it yourself, right? So some people want to read the material, some people want to watch it, some people want to hear it, some people don't want any of that. They really don't get it until they do it. And so we need to have all of the training in all of these different formats so that anybody that comes on board can learn in the way that they need to learn so that they can live the Shoo Fly way, right? Or the Wagner way, or the Shootopia way, because it is a way and it's unique and different to the next shoe store down the road. And that's what makes us different. But part of that is clearly communicating, you know, it's this idea as leaders of our business, we need to clearly communicate what it is that we want to happen or else it doesn't happen. And people make their own path and their own way of doing what they think should happen. As opposed to maybe what you were saying. This idea is, you know, we used to kind of rely on the managers to do that, but now we need to have this structure that really starts with the shoo fly away and then rolls down through that and everybody implements along the way right down to the lowest level of the business. And I think this is another key piece of all of this too, where decisions. You've heard me say this too, Mark, but decisions need to be made at the lowest possible level of the organization. Right? And I'll say it again because I just think it's so important. Decisions need to be made at the lowest possible level of the organization. And if you don't have the structure and you don't have the training and you don't have the communication and you don't have the leaderships and the management structure to allow that to happen. That means that everybody that's higher up that pattern is always involved in decisions that could be made by somebody else. And it's taking away from their decision making juices to make the decisions that most matter at their level of the organization. You know, to tie a bow on that. And I think you brought up another point and something that, that you've really kind of pointed me in a direction of building shoofly is, you know, to, to finish the onboarding piece is, you know, as, as there are more stores and locations that, you know, we need the oversee the Onboarding for is, is, you know, I think the reality of it is, is some store managers and management teams at the stores, some are more interested in better at onboarding employees than others. And what we can allow happen is, you know, some of these manager managers who aren't as interested, we can't allow them to, you know, to continue to hire people who, you know, either fizzle out because you know, they weren't equipped the right way or onboard them in a way that was done 40%. Right. And now we have sales associates, whether they're part timers, full timers, managers who are out on the selling floor day to day representing our brand, but representing our brand, you know, 40% instead of at 100%. And so, you know, we really feel like digitizing this in creating a rigid, non negotiable onboarding system is not only good for the per, you know, the new hire, but also for the manager who, you know, if we give you every step that we really believe in, then nobody can screw this up. You know, we really feel like this is going to be, this is how it's done. You're going to learn everything you need to learn. And after the end of those five days you're not going to have all the answers, but at the very least you're going to understand who shoofly is, what's expected of you and how you're going to conduct yourself on the selling floor. So I'm really excited to roll this out. I'd say it's another two or three weeks away, but you know, we're right there. So I love it. You know, one of the things that I really love about what you're doing here is getting all of this stuff onto this digital platform. And it's one of the. And you know, what was the name of the platform you said you used, Mark? It's called Learn Worlds, Learn World and we use one too and it's called Up Coach. And you know, I'm never really sort of struck on the actual one that you use, but the idea that using a platform that allows everybody on the team the access to get in and get their information. So years ago I came up with this idea around sure, Process management. And sure is the word S u R e. Really the idea here is that first of all, whatever it is they're learning needs to be searchable. They need to be able to easily find it. Right. It can't be in a process manual that's in the back of the trunk of the car and collecting dust and hasn't been looked at since the first day of training. Right. The second piece is it has to be understandable and I love this piece that you're doing here with regards to the fact that it's now it's in written format, it's in video, it's all, it's laid out with checkbooks and all of the other different things along the way so they can understand it in whatever way is best for them. Then it's repeatable. And the idea that people need to be able to repeat whatever it is you're asking for them in an easy, structured manner. Right. Because if it's a one time event, it's really hard. And anything why I put repeatable really is because anything that's done more than three times in your organization should probably have a process because you want it to recur and repeat in that same sort of format. And it's got to be executable. It's got to actually be able to be done and assigned and accountable by the person you're assigning that process to. When we put this into the platform, then we've got, you know, this idea and thought through process of the sure model so that the process goes into the platform, whatever that platform is. But the platform needs to be able to be accessible and understandable all these different things. And overlaying that sort of thought whenever we're building these, you know, is it a G drive? Is it sort of. There's so many technologies with AI out now and as anybody's listening to this, there'll be even more. But the idea is the platform doesn't matter so much. It just needs to have this flexibility, flow and structure that they can access it, understand it and put it through the process to get it done. Right. Because that's what we're doing here. We're trying to bring these processes down with accountability to the lowest level of the organization. And one of the things I'll use as a quick example because I think I've used this on podcasts for people that aren't in the footwear industry, but I won't go deep too detailed in this one. But the idea here is that, you know, and I'm going to oversimplify, if somebody comes into your store with a return and they have a size 8 in their hand, they need a size 9 and they walk up to the counter and the person says, oh, it's a return, I can't handle that. That's the assistant manager shop. So then they go get the assistant manager. The assistant manager comes back and says, oh, I see you've got a size 8 here and you need a size 9. I'm allowed to do Brooks and New Balance and on and all the athletic, but this is a Clarks and I don't look after Brown Shoe. That's the other assistant manager. She's not in today, but she'll be back tomorrow. So can you come back tomorrow and then we'll look. I mean, that's kind of ridiculous to think about, but when we think about how process and how people align accountability and process, the only thing the customer wants is to get the thing taken care of. And if you've set up too much process, which is the other side of this equation, and I think what I'm trying to explore here is if there's too much process in place, then we're missing out this idea of the culture of working through what it is we're trying to do for our customer. So, you know, it's great to have process and structure and everything, you know, working in a way that we need it to work. But the other side of the coin is at every level of the organization, what is that managerial discretion that they have within that level to make the calls without a process in place. And that's something that should be explored too from the manager. And those are more conversations, what would you do if this happened? Or what would you do if that happened? And there are these one offs that we can use as coaching, sort of coaching moments as managing our team. Right, I totally agree with that. And you know, as you were talking about some of those things, the assistant manager to the store manager. Yeah, right. You know, that really had me thinking about, you know, you use the word communication within there and accountability and transparency and really the other thing that from my experience within the last two and a half years of being the HR director and something that I've worked closely with you on is transparency is accountability. And again, going back to shoofly grew, you know, pretty quickly in a short amount of time. And, and there were growing pains with that and I think in a really big one was when I need something, who do I go to? And if I'm going to this person, how many people did I skipped to talk to the person all the way at the top kind of deal. And there was a lot of that and there was a lot of frustration, I think growing within shoo fly of I had a problem, I reached out to this person and then I find out I shouldn't have reached out to this person, I should have reached out to this person, and this person's mad. I didn't reach out to this person. Oh, my guys. And there was a lot of that, you know, really, not just at one store, you know, throughout the company. And, you know, it was clear that, you know, we had grown quickly, and to some degree, people were wearing so many hats that people were sort of losing sight of their roles a little bit at a store level and at an executive level. And, you know, something that you really worked with me on that that's made an immense impact on the business was. Was the accountability charts. And, you know, like I said, from a store level or from an executive level, there's. There's just a much deeper understanding of when I have a problem, who do I go to? And, you know, and where do I know where I sort of stop my communication. And it needs to continue to go up a flagpole. And it's really streamlined. Not only communication, it's made roles clear, it's made expectations clear, and there's just so much less frustration from a communication standpoint within the company. I mean, we have 140ish employees between all of our stores. And, you know, working with you on an accountability chart has. Has made such a profound impact on the business and in really positive ways. And, yeah, as you saw through that, it just really had me thinking about how important that has been. And with a business that big, I mean, it takes time. Like, I remember when you said, I got to do this, and then, like, three months later or whatever, might have even been six months later, you're like, I finally got it done. But the idea here is it doesn't have to happen overnight. It just has to happen. And we. In our two stores, we only have about 14 people, and so we're in much smaller organization, and it's easier for me to chart that out. But at the end of the day, it's still something, even with 14 people. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna run this little example as well, because I think a lot of people that may be listening to this might only have one or two or three stores, and they still are making all the decisions. In a bigger organization, this kind of stuff has to happen. In a smaller organization, people say, oh, I don't need that. I'm still in the store every day, whatever the case is. But I'll tell you what, if you aren't in the store, we. Mark, I shared with you. We had a death in our shootopia family, and one of our key managers that runs our stores lost her son and tragic accident and it took her away from the store for a couple of weeks. But whether it's something like that or whether it's something like maybe you have to deal with cancer or maybe you have to deal in my past, I lost both my parents within a year and I was gone from my stores for the better part of six months, helping them as they live six hours away. So, you know, things in life take you out. And I'm sure if you're listening, you've seen this happen to somebody else in business or maybe it's happened to you, whether it's a divorce, whether it's all sorts of different things can take you away from your business. And if you don't have a clear line of accountability and you don't have other people to make these decisions in your business for you, and you're the only one that's making certain decisions. And when people are coming up that chain like you mentioned, and around, let's say you're the store, you're the store owner, and somebody at the retail floor keeps coming to you and bypassing the shoe or the store manager because they want a different answer. They don't like the answer they're getting from the store manager. So they're trying to bypass the store manager and talk to you to hopefully get a different answer that they can go back to the store manager and said, well, the owner told me this, this is the kind of the bypass stuff that happens. Right. But if you are the only one that's making the decisions and you're the buck stops with you all of the time, that's a problem too, right. So there's a, it's a bit of a double whammy here because when you start to lay out this structure of the accountability chart and for those of you who are thinking, what the heck's an accountability chart? Kind of looks like an organizational chart. Right. For which is more common language for a lot of people out there. But the idea here is that when you start thinking about this and thinking about who is in charge of purchasing Athletic, who is in charge of hiring the next person, who is in charge of opening the store today, who is in charge of dealing with that return, and if we don't have that clearly laid out, even at, you know, a five or six person business, then there's ambiguities and there's. And what happens is the client, when they walk through the door and they need stuff taken care of, they see it too. They're like, nobody's in Charge here. Nobody knows what's happening. When I ask a question, I'm not getting confidence, member confidence. As part of that piece of hiring, we need to build corporate confidence as well. And part of having this accountability structure in our organization that's clearly defined and everybody understands. Because here's another thing that a lot of small business owners don't believe. They don't believe that people in their organization a lot of time actually want to make decisions. If you're hiring the right person in your business, they actually want to make decisions. They want to help you grow. They want to see the business survive. They want to serve that customer. And if you don't have that sort of structure like we were just talking about laid out, they don't even know if they're allowed to. It's a really good point. You know, I think, you know, from a store management level specifically, you know, most of our store managers weren't hired as store managers. You know, they, they were promoted, they moved through the ranks. They really earned their positions. And you know, that's really how we like to hire and shoot fly. It's especially for these higher, upper level management positions, we want to do it internally because we believe we have good people who are motivated, you know, who are looking for that next challenge and full time sales associate who's not in a management position. You know, for them to go to me as the human resources director or for them to go to Todd Lewis, who's the president of the company, you know, for, for simple questions, for simple problems. You know, there's a couple of negatives to that one. Todd Lewis is working on really high level parts of the business where he doesn't need to be brought into the weeds to help out with a return or, you know, the windows haven't been cleaned in two weeks. Where's the window guy? You know, and the other problem with that, with going to Todd is you're really undercutting that manager who has worked so hard to get to that position. You know, they're the ones who are overseeing those parts of the business. And you know, for you to go over their head is just, it's bad in a lot of different ways. And you know, I think so many of those mistakes in our organization was happening because we didn't have an accountability or an org chart. We didn't have some sort of visual. And although some of these mistakes were innocent, they were causing frustration, you know, turmoil within the ranks because of innocent mistakes that were being made. And so it really has taught me the accountability chart more than anything is the importance of communication. Who to go to with certain problems or, you know, with good or bad news, who are you going to? And man, you know, the more these, the stores or the business grows, the more I realize if you're not communicating the right way, gosh, I hardly know what you're doing the right way because it is so important to the business that everyone's on the same page. I love it. Mark, I appreciate the time you spent with me today and love chatting with you on a regular basis in the next gen group with the NSRA as well, and seeing how you're taking over in the next gen of your business with everybody else that's involved in Shoo Fly and Wagner and such a great storied history. Six generations, so much going on, the legacy there and it's really cool. And I think the future of footwear retail is bright and with people like you leading the charge, I think it's going to be even brighter. Thanks so much for being a part of the footwear retailer here today, Mark. Thanks, Pete. I had a blast.