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January 10, 2024 • 26 mins
Justin Kehrwald is President, and CEO, and serves as a Board Member for Tradehome Shoes, Inc. Tradehome is employee-owned and operates 130 retail locations across 25 states, with Headquarters in the Twin Cities. Justin began his career with Tradehome Shoes in 1999. He has served several roles within the company including Store Manager, Regional Supervisor, and COO. In 2018 he became the fourth CEO in the company's 102-year history. Justin is responsible for all areas of the company's business performance and has grown revenue by over 80%. His vision for Tradehome updated its brand image, and store experience, opened 31 new locations, and launched its e-commerce, Tradehome.com. Under his leadership, Tradehome Shoes implemented the Trade-at-Home Giveback Program and, recently, launched a wholesale footwear brand.
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Episode Transcript

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(00:00):
CEOs. You should know justin KerwallTrade Home Shoes. Thanks for being here.
Yeah, of course, tell mea little bit about Trade home Shoes.
Yeah. Trade Home Shoes is basedout of here in the Twin Cities.
We're one hundred and two year oldcompany, believe it or not,
founded in Superior, Wisconsin, haveone hundred and thirty stores that spread across
twenty seven states. Full service,primarily in shopping centers, whether they be

(00:25):
indoor or outdoor shopping centers. Wecurate an assortment from contemporary brands and deliver
hands on, one on one servicestore customers. I saw that you're in
the Twin Cities and I was like, how many stores do they have?
But it's like six or seven?Yeah, we've got seven here in Greater
Metro. Yeah. So I don'tknow how that escaped me, but that's

(00:45):
awesome. So who's your primary customer? Would you say? You know,
I don't want to give you athrowaway answer, but our primary customer is
people that shop at shopping centers,which makes it really fun and somewhat challenging.
Make sure that we've got product thatresonates with teenage consumers and their parents

(01:06):
and their grandparents We try really hardto make sure that if somebody enters our
store, we've got product that they'reinterested in. And you got an awesome
website too, because that's the firstthing I did, was lucky up right,
Yeah, of course, that's theworld we live in. Yeah.
Yeah, completely revamped this year.A lot of people on our team spent
countless hours revamping it. And itlooks good. It looks like any place

(01:33):
where you do commerce, maybe betterthan some sites really, you know,
Yeah, I mean we're proud ofit. We're proud of the work that
we put in. We were alittle late to the game in the e
commerce space. We were ninety eightyears old before we launched a website that
you could actually add something to thecart. We again, we want you
to come shop our score and experiencethe service. But I think in today's

(01:59):
age, you would be naive tothink that a really integral part of customer
service is allowing people to shop attheir convenience. What got you into this
industry, the shoe industry, Yeah, full candor, I am an example
of somebody that fell into an accidentalcareer. I started working for Trade Home

(02:22):
as a part time sales associate.While I was attending South Dakota State University,
needed spending cash just like every othercollege kid did, and worked part
time, learned about the business,became an assistant manager, became a store
manager, managed for a handful ofyears, had an opportunity to move on

(02:43):
to a supervisor position, and Itransitioned into the corporate office. Worked a
couple of different jobs there, andin twenty and eighteen, at the end
of twenty eighteen, that's when Itook over my current role. And when
you going back to when you're workingin the sales part of it, where
you was it kind of old schoolat that point where that somebody brings shoes

(03:05):
out and you you know, helpsyou lace them up and all that.
Yeah, yeah, it was,and when the opportunity presents itself, it
still is. You know, weuse foot measuring devices. We don't have
product. You know, for themost part, we don't have product out
for customers that have to help themselves. We keep it in the stock room.

(03:29):
We like to bring items to customersand again we have to deliver the
service that that individual customer wants.But in a lot of cases, when
we're down on our you know,down in the squatting position and lace and
shoes up for people you know youcan't help but have them like, man,
I haven't had this done to mefor a long I can't remember the

(03:49):
last time somebody measured my foot.And that's that's what we live for.
That's personal when you think about it, you know, because your shoes are
a personal thing and doing that issuper personal. Yeah. We we we
really like to think so, Imean, especially in the proverbial customer journey.
Yeah. Uh we we want tobe as useful and as meaningful to

(04:12):
the to that shopper as we canbe. And in some cases it's just
bringing them out the size and theproduct that maybe they did some research on
before and they know that that's whatthey want to buy and they're they're pretty
die hard and what size they needand if that's the experience that they want,
great, But uh, you know, we we really sink our teeth
in when customers, hey, I'mon my feet all the time, or

(04:35):
I'm I'm training for my first tenk or my first half marathon and I
really need some guidance. And that'sthat's when we're at our best, I
believe. And that's also when weget to have the most fun with our
shoppers. So I didn't realize youdo athletic shoes as well or running shoes
even so. I mean you lookat at people's walk, how they how

(04:55):
they walk and say, well,you need more support. Yeah. Yeah.
A typical goal shopping experience with usstarts with either having you stand on
a scanning device where we have biometricalscans. They take real time photography and
it can show you the pressure pointsof your foot really well yeah, yeah,
you can get your own footprint,no pun intended, of your foot

(05:20):
and your placement of pressure, andwe bring out product that is specifically designed
for that. In some cases,you know, not every item that we
carry is a true technical item.Sure, and then we just do what
we can to help ensure that you'rebuying the product and the size that you

(05:43):
feel you're going to be the mostcomfortable. And wow, that is fantastic.
What is the mission of Trade HomeShoes? I mean, why are
you what do you hope to accomplish? Well, I've touched on it a
little bit, but our driving missionis to provide every customer the best service
that we can, and in partit gives us the opportunity to better serve

(06:06):
the communities that we have locations,whether it's through philanthropy or projects or running
clubs. You know, every individualmarket needs trade home to be a little
bit different in that specific community,and we work hard to lean into it.
Wow, running clubs, that iscool. I've done that. One

(06:27):
of the shoe stores I go to. That is That's definitely bonding when you
do that, and it makes youloyal. Yeah, it makes you well.
I think accountability buddies help life.Helps in any walk of life,
and especially with people that are enteringinto some of those journeys you know,
specific to running. It can beI don't want to say intimidating, but

(06:51):
it's nice to have some guideposts.It's nice to have some people that have
either been in the spot that you'rein now and have have broken through it
and have insight, or they're inthe exact same position and you can use
them as you know, reinforcement anda group together. You know, it's
okay to be sore. It's okayto not be able to go out there

(07:14):
and run a you know, fivemiles on the first time that you go
out and just to have somebody else, uh give give you just a little
bit of Okay, I'm going throughthis or injury, ye, injury guidance,
Like I've got the planner fasciitis goingon right now. I don't know
why if they ran like once andfor the first time in a long time,
I'm like, what's going on here? Yeah, it's called age,
but well, and and you knowweb MD and Google all of those things.

(07:39):
But having somebody else that can giveyou some some real life uh,
you know this, This is whatI went through if I come in for
shoes that mostly need an opinion becauseif I don't have my wife there,
because I can't do anything without mywife. Hey, do these look good?
Or do these not look good onme? Are these mine? Do
these match my eyes? Or whatever? So we we the joke at our
our stores whenever a gentleman says thatis you like, hey, you got

(08:01):
to give yourself a little bit ofcredit because she picked you, you know,
so you get to decide how goodher taste is based on your opinion
that yourself no doubt. What doesthe next year look like for you guys,
Well, I guess I'll preface thatwith the last couple of years have
been really strong we've had. Yeah, we've had two really big years.

(08:26):
We've grown in door count for you, and the volume in our doors have
reached new levels. So when wetalk, you know, strategic planning and
when we really think about what twentyand twenty four needs to be for our
organization, the word or the themeis reinforcement. Just making sure that we're

(08:48):
spending the appropriate time really training theassociates in the store to walk the walk
that we talk when it comes todelivering the service and having the right product
to so meant especially in some ofthese markets that we've recently entered into,
just really doing our due diligence andmaking sure that we have product that resonates

(09:09):
in that specific market. In thatmarkets are you in so we can you
remember them all? Yeah? Icould. I could go through some major
ones. I could go through astore one through one hundred and thirty two
and tell you, Yeah, Ican tell you the managers home I could.
Yeah, of course, that's that'swhat we do. We have stores

(09:31):
in eastern Washington down into New Mexico, starting on the west side right,
and then moving across we fill outthe Greater Midwest, the Greater Heartland.
We've recently opened two locations in thestate of Pennsylvania and in South Carolina.
We've got designs on continuing to stretcha little bit farther east over the next

(09:54):
couple of years. Wow, goodfor you. We talked about the next
year or so, I mean,in the next five years, anything different,
anything well, anything change as faras I mean, we're not going
to not be wearing shoes or anythinglike that, or have the automatic shoes,
I don't think. But I mean, what does the next five years
look like? You know, uh, maybe not specific to footwear, but

(10:16):
when you think of apparel and youthink of the clothing industry, you know
there's that that give and take,that balance between nostalgia and like technological advancements.
Yeah, you know the Evergreen brandthat is, you know, birkin
Stock, and you know they've beenmaking basically the same type of footwear since

(10:37):
the late seventeen hundreds and they're youknow, they're very very popular right now.
My kid wears Birkenstock, like thesewere popular way back when. Yeah.
And then with the innovation specifically inthe running space, you know,
with different densities and different stacking,different ways to attack that plant or fasci
iis that you mentioned, and youknow, just durability of products that's fun,

(11:03):
you know, from a from abusiness standpoint, the balance of brands
as they continue to put capital intotheir own D two C sites. You
know, especially over the last fewyears, there's been a pretty significant shift

(11:24):
in the marketing dollars spent by ourbrands with their D two C with their
own websites. So we're in aposition that perhaps five to ten years ago,
we didn't really have to talk aboutthe brands that we carry being our
primary competitors versus you know, maybeother shoe stores that had similar product assortments,

(11:46):
and that that'll continue to unfold itself. And I think the other important
component that we're leaning into and we'retrying to to do the right thing at
an appropriate pace, is just thesustainability of our segment of the apparel world.

(12:09):
It's just really important the carbon footprintof retailers and of the brands that
they carry. I think to answeryour question, over the next five years,
I think you're going to see somepretty significant advancements in the technology and
then the sustainability, and then areyou taking in the product or your operations

(12:31):
both honestly, Yeah, both,you know, whether it's from from shipping
efficiencies to just the corrugation of boxes, to how the product is made and
the sustainabile or recyclable footwear and makingsure that you're using, you know,
the appropriate eco conscious materials to manufacturegoods. These are items that brands are

(12:54):
spending a lot of attention on,as they should be. Yeah. Wow,
how many people are you headquartered righthere in the Twin Cities. Yeah,
our corporate office is in Cottage Grove, so that's that's where our our
home office, So our support officeand our distribution center is here in the
Twin Cities. Nice. How manypeople total do you employee? So,

(13:18):
you know, with with retail obviouslyseasonality there's ebbs and shows at the height
will approach a thousand employees, butwe're consistently right around that six hundred range
with eighty to ninety of them workingout of our headquarters. Okay, that's
a fair amount of people. Yeah, it is. Does it scare you

(13:41):
ever think I manage that many people? Or are they that many people are
supporting us? It doesn't scare meas much as it motivates me. You
know, one really important component ofwhat makes our company what it is is
we are one hundred employee owned.So how does that work? I hear
that sometimes? How does that?Yeah? Do they literally have a share

(14:03):
of the company. Yeah, Yeah, it's a it's a vesting schedule based
based on you know, their timewith the company and a couple other factors.
And you know, we've got warehouseworkers that have been with us for
over thirty years. We've got storemanagers that have been with us for the
same amount of time. Yeah.I've been with trade Home for twenty three
years and I'm not even close toone of the old veterans by by any

(14:26):
means. And we became an aesopin two thousand and fourteen, okay,
and since then, the ownership,whether it's from our store managers or people
that work on our finance team orwith our buying team, you can really
feel it. I mean, ithelped us get through you know, March
of twenty and twenty, which isit's hard not a low point. Yeah,

(14:48):
it's hard not to reference when whenyou're talking to somebody that worked in
retail. But we had zero attritioneven when we had store shut down.
Yeah, for you' that's amazing powerof us being employee owned has really a
major catalyst and what our company's beenable to achieve over the last two three

(15:09):
years. We're talking to Justin Kerwalldfrom Trade Home Shoes CEO or president CEO
my name take says yeah, that'sawesome. So employee owned and what else
makes trade Home a great place towork? You know? Again, without
coming across too self serving, thefoundation of employee owned means that our lines

(15:30):
of communication, uh, that they'rethey're warranted at every level. Uh.
And my story personally of starting asa part time sales associate, it is
not at all unique to our leadership, to our executive team. Uh,
the same for the two vps thatwe have the director positions. Uh,

(15:50):
most people that work for us andin you know, I guess if you
want to say like C level roles, they started with us in the warehouse
or they started with us on thesales floor as a part time associate.
And with our new employees, wehave like real life examples of proof of

(16:12):
concept like hey, this is howyou can climb with our company, because
that's our entire director and executive teamsare full of people that have you know,
cut their proverbial chops and earned theirway up with the company. And

(16:33):
knowing that I started as a parttimer. When I talk to part timers,
I know like, hey, youknow, maybe I'm just on a
different timing schedule then he or shemaybe, But you know, the company
was well over eighty years old whenI started, and everybody in a leadership

(16:53):
position now is our driving goal isto make it better than we took it
over. But to make sure thatthe good generation that takes it over from
us that just blows what we've doneout of the water. Wow, that's
lofty. Yeah, how do youkeep doing that? You got to always
be thinking ahead, right, youdo? You have to be thinking.

(17:15):
But again, going back to thepower of being employee owned, is I
mean we can have instead of entrepreneurs, we we really try to cultivate entrepreneurs.
We want people to challenge their youknow, direct report. We want
people at any level trying to thinkof ways that we can make trade home

(17:37):
better because we know that ultimately forthe next five to ten years, we
have a group of leadership that that'sgoing to be in their position. But
you know, we've got future leadersof the company that are working in roles
that maybe don't seem very prestigious.Yeah, but we we have to develop

(17:57):
them because they are our succession plan. That's awesome to hear. I remember
working part time the grocery store andthere's none of that. Nobody, nobody
cares about any of that. Justyou know, work go bag groceries when
it gets busy and stuff like that. So yeah, that was Yeah.
Again, I wish I could takeeven a semblance of credit. The Estop

(18:21):
was established before I was in aposition of leadership. But it's the best
thing that's happened to me and myrole with the company. As far as
where we're going to be over thenext five to ten years. What do
you guys do, if anything,with the communities where you guys have stores

(18:41):
or where you have a presence.Yeah, So taking it all the way
back right to nineteen twenty one,trade home shoes means trade at home,
you know. So in nineteen twentyone, the quote unquote competitors of the
age were Sears and Rollbuck Catalogs Services. So you know, the trade at

(19:02):
home means, hey, here's anopportunity for you to purchase items in your
town in the market, you know, in the community that you live.
So for us, it's so importantto have individualized initiatives, right our store
managers they work with five oh oneC three's and other nonprofits and schools within
their community. And we have aprogram set up it's called Trade at Home,

(19:27):
Give It Home. So we Imean, we're a footwear company,
footwear and accessories, so we leaninto that and over the last two years
we've donated fifteen thousand pair of socksor excuse me, fifteen thousand pair of
shoes and upwards of four hundred thousandpair of socks. Whoa yeah. And

(19:47):
we do it in every single communitythat we serve, whether it's Wilmer,
Minnesota, or Roseville here in themetro. Every single store has a say
in how those you know those howthose items are distributed through our company.
And you know, we're very fortunatehere in the metro. We've got to
establish some strong relationships with the SalvationArmy. We get to work with the

(20:12):
Vikings on some of their giving.Oh yeah, so foster programs. A
lot of our communities lean into programswith the Boys and Girls Club. We
were very active with Big Brothers,Big Sisters, just homeless shelters the people
that need the items with our youknow, we call our store managers that

(20:34):
the true boots on the ground.We let he or she really determine how
they can make the most positive impactin their community. And again that's a
byproduct of being a true owner operator. Everybody needs footwear or foot coverings or
both, you know, at somepoint unless always say, unless they're in
middle school. I can't figure outwhat's going on in middle school. The

(20:56):
kids hardly wear any clothes, youknow, in the middle of winter.
Yeah we're in shorts and or whatever. But in shorts in a pair of
slides. Yeah, that's fantastic.Yeah, Yeah, we're really proud of
it. A couple of people inour office worked really, really hard,
really diligently, following up with schools, again, following up with each individual

(21:17):
communities resources that we work with.And it's it's a relatively new initiative for
us. We've kind of started itin twenty twenty twenty twenty three, has
a tremendous impact on several of thecommunities that we serve and can't wait to
see how twenty and twenty four,in twenty and twenty five continue to just

(21:41):
build off of the momentum that we'vegained thus far. That's awesome. What's
a piece of advice that you've gottenor you've maybe learned a lot, Maybe
maybe wasn't an actual person. Maybeit's just like a voice saying this is
the way you should do it orwhatever. What's a piece of advice that
you got along the way. Tryingto our articulate this without sounding too wis

(22:02):
Houli right? But I've been fortunate, I would say I've been blessed to
wear at every position at every spottimeline wise that I've been working for Trade
Home, both inside and outside ofwork, I've had people that I looked
at as mentors, and I've alsoin real time, I've recognized that people

(22:26):
look at me the same. Right, It's all about perspective. It's all
about where you're at and your journeyof growing as an adult. And the
piece of advice that I would giveis be cognizant of who you have in
your life. Number One, thatyou can count on and that you can

(22:47):
try to emulate aspects of what theydo to make them them. And number
two, recognize that there's other peoplethat holds you in the same position.
They look at you as that person. You're forming a lot of other people's
future, regardless of if you knowit or not. YEA, surround yourself

(23:11):
with good people, expect a lotfrom them, and it'll help you expect
a lot from yourself. What elseshould the Twin Cities know about Trade Home
Shoes? Well, I would sayeven outside of Trade Home shoes, you
know the Twin Cities, whether it'sTC running, whether it's Mill City running,
chats shoolers. I'd like to putTrade Home in that group. We've

(23:37):
got a lot of really knowledgeable,really good service oriented retailers in the Greater
Metro. We would love the opportunityto earn your business. But I think
anyone who doesn't have a trained professionalassist them when they're purchasing footwear, especially

(24:03):
if it's task oriented footwear, Ithink that they're missing out an important part
of the customer journey. So again, love to have you shop at Trade
Home, but if you're not goingto shop with us, shop somewhere else
that cares a lot about taking careof you and your feet. When you

(24:25):
say task oriented, you mean shoesfor one purpose, task meaning work shoes,
or meaning running shoes meaning again,it's okay to I mean you buy
your slippers or you buy your nonfunctional items. I understand that. But

(24:45):
a proper fit when you're on yourfeet ten hours a day, or a
proper fit when when you're training togo on a family training to go on
a family hiker, getting ready togo on a vacation to Disney, or
you know, half of a sizeor an ill fitting item can make or
break a lot of experiences. There'sa lot of resources here in the metro

(25:11):
to make sure that you're getting theright you're getting the right fit, you're
getting a good pair of shoes foryour feet. You said you have seven
locations in the Twin Cities, andif you're listening outside the Twin Cities,
there's probably a location not too farfrom you. And of course the website,
which is what trade home dot com, trade home dot com. What
are the locations in the Twin Cities. So we've got a store in Blaine,

(25:32):
We've got a store in Eden Prairie. We have a store in Ridgedale.
We've got a store in Burnsville.We've got a store at the Mall
of America, we have a storein the Rosedale Center. And we have
a store at Woodbury Lakes. Wow, that's seven. Yeah, that's awesome.
Justin Kurwall Trade Home Shoes, Thanksso much for being here. And

(25:55):
again, the website is trade homedot com. You guys on social as
well. Yeah, yeah, youcan all of that handles you'd find trade
home and you're gonna find us.Yeah. And I always ask people too,
are are you hiring right now?We are. If you listen to
this and you're like, man,I could, I could get excited about
helping people find footwear. You canapply online or pop in into any of

(26:18):
those locations that were just mentioned andasked to talk to one of the members
of our management team. And yeah, we we'd we'd love to let you
know more about our company. Awesome, Thanks Justin, Yeah, of course,
thank you.
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