Back to the core
Beyond cutting personnel, the company made another change. Rocky Brands had bought a Los Angeles fashion tennis shoe company, Creative Recreation, several years earlier.
Brooks says Rocky Brands was investing a lot of time, money and effort into that, as well as other small fashion-driven brands. They were fun, exciting and had the potential to jump from $15 million to $50 million if they hit it off with consumers, but Rocky Brands wasn’t focusing on its core brands and the core consumers of those brands: ranchers, cowboys, farmers, hunters, construction workers, military members and people who work in public safety, industry or hospitality.
So, Rocky Brands sold Creative Recreation, and looked into investing in and growing the brands that built the company, especially Lehigh Outfitters, which focuses on safety shoes and occupational footwear.
“It won’t be sexy. Nobody’s going to go ‘Oh, you guys had a 5 percent increase, that’s really great,’” he says. “But if we can have a 5 percent increase over the next 10 years, we can be a half a billion-dollar company and I think the stockholders would be happy with that, I think the board would be happy with that, and I know I’d be happy with it.”
The changes weren’t easy because Brooks says they were so drastic. Although many employees cheered the decision to divest Creative Receation, it took more than a year to find a buyer and get out of the business.
“We all knew what we needed to do, though. We just needed to do it, and it took all of ’17 to do that,” he says.
The change in focus brought some results quickly. Brooks says as a publicly owned company, one measure of success is the stock price. Throughout 2017, the stock price generally went up.
However, some people, whether stockholders, board members or employees, did want to move faster.
“I’m a firm believer in, take your time. I want to get it done, but I’d rather not make a mistake and then make another mistake and make another mistake,” Brooks says. “I’d rather, let’s slow down just a little bit and make sure that we have it set at least as best as we can. It may not be perfect, but let’s try and get it set the best we can. Most people were receptive to that as long as we continue to see some improvements, which we did.”
Keep the focus
In 2017, the company moved from running on adrenaline to a normal pace of business. Brooks says they probably over-communicated when the changes started. They pulled employee departments into biweekly meetings to answer questions, and the employees started saying, “You keep telling us the same thing.”
Now, Rocky Brands communicates with all employees on a quarterly basis about the company’s direction. Brooks also sees a more open culture, which fits the way he likes to communicate: whatever he can share, legally, he’ll do so.
Looking back, he’s not sure he’d change anything. It was better to communicate too much. It needed to be done because people were worried about the company’s stability. And Brooks was willing to talk about the company sales or Rocky Brands’ relationship with its banks.
“We never used to talk about that stuff at all. (But if) someone asks me what kind of interest rate we have with our banks on our line of credit, I’ll tell them,” he says.
He’s also careful to keep people on track, focusing on what Rocky Brands does well and getting better at it.
For instance, Brooks says his original plans will probably have 10, 15 or 20 things on them.
“You have to have the strength to whittle that down to a couple things,” he says.
Before, Rocky Brands and its leadership could not focus. The employees, including Brooks, worked on what seemed like 100 different projects and 100 different strategic plans. They were busy being busy and really couldn’t help the company.
You have to be OK with what you’re focused on right now or you will fail, he says. You have to say, “Here’s the three things we’re going to do. Let’s do those and then we’re going to move on.” You cannot be a largemouth bass chasing the lure.
“Let’s not chase these other things that right now are shiny and pretty,” Brooks says. “Who knows, maybe one of them hits; but maybe we spend $1 million chasing it and nothing happens.”
