Shop Talk: Willi’s Ski & Board on Ski Shops as Conduits and Founding Winter Divas

GEAR:30

BLISTER

Arts, Design, Skiing, Snow, Snowboarding, Sports, Outdoors, Bike, Technology, Gear

4.9 • 809 Ratings

🗓️ 25 November 2022

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kristin Sinnott and Kara Williard caught up with Kjerstin Klein, co-owner of Willi’s Ski and Board. They dove into Kjerstin’s adventurous background as a model and sponsored snowboarder (among several other amazing things); and what it looked like for Kjerstin and her husband Greg to take on Willi’s and maintain it as a family-owned ski shop. Kjerstin explains how to successfully jump into a family business; techniques for how to stay innovative; what it means to truly grow the sport; why ski shops are “conduits” within the ecosystem that is the ski industry; and we learn a lot about the Winter Divas program, a women’s focus group that Kjerstin founded to grow women’s presence and leadership in the industry, plus a whole bunch more.

TOPICS & TIMES:

Kjerstin’s Background (4:18)
Being a Model & Sponsored Snowboarder (9:31)
Jumping into a family business (13:12)
Staying Innovative (19:01)
Advice for family-run small businesses (21:50)
Ski shops as conduits (23:19)
Families that ski together stay together (26:55)
Women-specific gear taking shape (33:07)
Winter Divas (49:40)
Specialty Retail (1:01:40)
Skiing Meets Our Basic Needs (1:04:54)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everyone and welcome back to Gear 30 on the Blister Podcast Network. I'm Kristen
0:09.8	Sonat and as always you can check out everything we're doing and reviewing over at blisterreview.com.
0:17.9	Today we are talking to Sherston Klein, a willies ski and board shop.
0:23.2	Willys is celebrating their 52nd season this year, and Sherston has been working in the shop
0:28.7	that her in-laws started for the past 30 years. We had Sherston's husband Greg on last season
0:35.0	to talk about Willys. I highly recommend you give that a listen.
0:39.1	We'll have the link to it in our show notes. But this time around, Kara Williard and I got to sit down
0:44.3	with Sherston and talk about some of her past experiences. They're really good. You're going to like this.
0:50.1	We got to talk about some of her past careers and experiences that range for modeling.
0:55.2	And definitely check our show notes for a link to a music video that Sherston so kindly shared with us.
1:00.8	It's amazing.
1:01.8	It will definitely bring a smile to your face.
1:04.2	It's from the 80s and it's a music video.
1:06.7	I don't think I need to say much more than that, but check it out.
1:09.4	She was also a sponsored snowboarder when snowboarding was first getting started, and she tells us how she went from a
1:16.3	university athletic trainer in Colorado to a shop girl in Pittsburgh. We also discussed how to jump
1:23.4	into a long-established family business and how her role has evolved since she moved to
1:28.6	Pittsburgh, where Willie's multiple shops are located. She tells us about their five-and-under-free
1:34.9	program, and we have a lengthy discussion about women in the sport, and how her long-running
1:40.3	winter diva program has helped give women a voice and also helps inform the greater
1:45.7	snow sports industry. It's a great conversation, but before we get into it, this episode of
1:51.7	Gear 30 is presented by OpenSnow. OpenSnow has been our go-to weather app for some time, and we have
	...

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