Building confident managers who keep performance moving

Bivouac Outdoor provides premium clothing and equipment from the world's best brands for camping, climbing, fitness, hiking, snow sports and travel. Through its ten stores around the country, it enables customers to have a lifetime of safe, comfortable and inspiring outdoor adventures in Aotearoa New Zealand and overseas.

The challenge

When Graeme Allen joined Bivouac Outdoor in 2017, he saw an opportunity to build on the capability of an already experienced team. Bivouac needed sales development that was relevant to its people, practical enough to use with customers, and supported by ongoing coaching. The business partnered with RedSeed in 2018 to give its teams practical sales development that could fit into the realities of a busy retail environment.

Starting with the managers

Bivouac introduced RedSeed to its Store Managers first, at the company's Managers' Conference. The response was immediate.

“The buy-in from the Store Managers was 100%. They saw it as a great opportunity, something super valuable and exactly what they'd been looking for.”

Managers made RedSeed their number-one priority in Bivouac's BIG 5 for the year. When the programme was rolled out nationally, Store Managers led the launch within their own stores. For Graeme, giving managers that ownership made a difference.

“I would have loved to be in every store, but in hindsight it was good that I wasn't. It was grown and backed by the Store Manager. They backed it, they ran it, and they were the most professional meetings we've had in store.”

Development wasn't simply being pushed out from head office. Store Managers owned it with their teams.

When the coaching rhythm slowed

Within three months, Bivouac was seeing positive changes. Stores reported increases in conversion rates and basket size compared with the same period the previous year, and teams were feeling more confident on the shop floor.

But as the busy Christmas period arrived, training slowed down, and the regular coaching rhythm slowed with it. Coming into the new year, Bivouac noticed that people were beginning to revert to old behaviours with customers. The experience showed that learning wasn't something that could simply be completed and moved on from. The team had started building new skills and behaviours, but those behaviours still needed to be reinforced.

Building managers' confidence to coach

Bivouac brought its managers back together at the following Managers' Conference. RedSeed worked with the leadership team to identify the problems they were experiencing, build confidence around coaching techniques, and give managers practical tools they could use to create change with their teams. The focus wasn't simply on getting people back into training. It was about giving managers the confidence and tools to keep developing their people.

Bivouac also made team development part of its regular Store Manager rhythm.

“Every week we have a conference call where every Store Manager is online. Number one on our agenda is Health and Safety; their physical and mental wellbeing is the most important thing to us. Second on the agenda is RedSeed, because our team's development is a priority.”

Keeping development visible helped managers continue the conversation with their teams rather than treating learning as a one-off activity.

The results

For Bivouac, learning was only the start. Keeping new behaviours going meant giving managers the confidence and practical tools to coach their people. By making development part of the regular Store Manager rhythm, Bivouac has created a more consistent approach to coaching, team confidence and performance. Read more customer stories.