Chris Largent brings deep love for outdoors to his retail adventure

Chris Largent can trace his love for the outdoors back to when he joined the Boy Scouts of America and began absorbing as much of the natural world as he could.

The Columbus native steadily developed a passion for hiking, backpacking, kayaking and canoeing, leading to his joining the ranks of Eagle Scout in 2004 and becoming a member of the Pine Mountain Trail Association.

Ultimately, that attraction to green forests, meandering trails, flowing water and blue skies shaped Largent’s future, prompting him to take a job with Dick’s Sporting Goods as the store was opening in 2006. He became sales lead of the Lodge Department there, which encompasses hunting, camping, fishing and water sports.

His next big opportunity came in 2010, with the debut of the Outside World store at 1025 Broadway in downtown Columbus, even before the Chattahoochee River whitewater course had been completed. The Columbus High graduate became manager and began to hone more skills related to running a retail operation.

Then, last May, Largent and friend Howard Johnson bought the store from north Georgia businessman Brent Troncalli and have now branded it Outside World Columbus. They peddle an assortment of products, including camping gear, kayak equipment, clothing and footwear.

The Ledger-Enquirer sat down recently with Largent, 30, on the second floor of the store where the colorful kayaks for sale are on display, to discuss his job and his passion for the outdoors and offering good customer service. This interview is edited a bit for length and clarity.

Q. How did you become so passionate about the outdoors?

A. I grew up here in Columbus, but the biggest thing is I got involved in Boy Scouts early on and that really sparked that flame. I was backpacking and hiking, and the first time I ever got into a kayak I was at a summer camp down in Florida. It was in a lake infested with alligators. (laughs) It was the same thing with canoeing. And then it was going on multiple trips with my scout troop and friends. We started doing it outside of the troop activities and it quickly gained momentum. Now I’m into climbing and still into backpacking heavily, and kayak fishing.

Q. Then Dick’s Sporting Goods came along?

A. I was hired there part time when they first opened and helped build that store out, and was promoted to sales lead a couple of months after and worked there for a few years until I saw this opportunity and decided to jump on it.

Q. How did your ownership come about?

A. Basically, I was presented an opportunity to buy into the business myself and become its owner from our previous owner Brent Troncalli. His vision was to have an outdoor store here in Columbus before the whitewater project started and to kind of start growing the sports that we carry as a more grassroots approach. We’re looking to continue that, of course. But when the opportunity presented itself, I was definitely interested. … Then Howard came to me and expressed interest. We’re great buddies through scouting and we do a lot with Boy Scouts and Venture Crew, which is an off branch of scouting, but it’s co-ed. They’re high adventure, so it’s backpacking, hiking and climbing. So both of us had the passion for everything we do here.

Q. What did Howard do before this?

A. He was retired. He was still doing some part-time work for the John B. Amos and the Medical Center ... and he does taxes as a side business as well. May 1 was our first day of opening as the new company.

Q. Is it different being manager-owner, rather than just manager?

A. It’s a lot different. I see the entire back end and how everything works from cash flow all the way up to the overall grand scheme of things. It’s more personal now because I have a lot invested in this as well. A lot of my time over the years has been sweat equity and now it’s my own company.

Q. And there’s more pressure?

A. It’s a little bit more pressure, absolutely.

Q. But confidence can ease that pressure. Do you have plenty of confidence?

A. There are times when I question it, but for the most part I’m pretty confident that we can make this work and work well for us.

Q. Who’s your target customer?

A. We have such a broad range. Across all the sports, and many different age brackets. We’ve got clothing that can kind of cater more to the teens all the way up to the mid-50s and that sort of thing. There’s so many different groups that we’re after. We’re after the outdoor enthusiasts, though, as that is growing in popularity, locally especially. People are getting out and hiking more and kayaking. Kayak fishing is a major sport that continues to grow and that’s what we hit hard on.

Q. When is your busy season? And I presume Christmas is pretty big?

A. Christmas is pretty big, especially with the weather. It dictates a lot of the clothing sales. The warmer it is — like today it’s almost 70 degrees — we’re not selling that many outerwear jackets and things like that. But we kind of go based off predictions and weather patterns and our pre-season buying to see what’s going to work. If it’s going to be a cold winter, we’re going to hit more insulation (clothing items). If it’s going to be a warm winter, we’re looking for the lightweight pullover-type stuff. It’s a layer that’s going to be shed by mid-afternoon.

Q. How about this winter?

A. This winter, it’s starting off lighter, but it’s suppose to get colder as it gets more toward January and February, when we typically get cold months. As it gets closer to that season, we’ll have to see how the weather patterns are going to do and adjust. We can adjust and take things off (inventory) and add things.

Q. Is whitewater, with the river course, a bread-and-butter category for you?

A. Not necessarily bread and butter. We do sell a lot of accessories for whitewater. They’re needing helmets, float bags, nose plugs, paddles and boats. Our instruction has done pretty well this year and we expect it to do better next year. As more and more people are getting interested, the problem’s going to be if we have water or not. We haven’t had a lot of water this year with the drought.

Q. So you offer classes to folks?

A. We have partnered with Ace Kayaking, which is a company that’s based mostly around the Ocoee River and they do a lot of teaching there. It’s geared towards private instruction and the maximum per class is two people. You get really personal instruction ... half-day lessons, full-day lessons, multi-day lessons, and then from there, based on how well you excel in that class, we can tailor another class to it to work on a specific skill.

Q. What are your daily duties as a manager?

A. Making sure that deposits are done, cash is counted, cash is accounted for, making sure the employees are doing what they’re suppose to do and making sure payroll is being used effectively, as well as making sure that orders are correct, orders aren’t shipping when I don’t need them to ship. Again, following the season and keeping up with that, and looking at leisure trends. There’s so much to do. Usually my day starts at 8:30 and I’ll be here until about 6 o’clock, typically Monday through Saturday. I have taken a couple of weekends off here and there for some outdoor fun … We’re open on Sundays during seasonal times. So during summertime when there’s a lot more foot traffic downtown, we tend to be open more. As we get closer to the holiday season, we’ll probably be open a couple of Sundays before Christmas.

Q. What’s the biggest challenge for you?

A. One of the biggest challenges that I face is I’m such a big outdoors person and it gives me depression selling all of this to people who can go outside and have fun. (laughs) … I have to stay inside while they’re enjoying the outside. But other than that, it’s following those leisure trends because what may work on one side of the country may not work in the Southeast. What works in the Midwest may work in the Southeast, but it didn’t last year. So it’s always kind of a Jenga puzzle trying to figure out what’s going to work and what’s not going to work.

Q. Do you get to travel occasionally?

A. I do go to trade shows and things like that. Typically, there are two or three buyer shows a year where you pre-buy for the next season, and you’ll get to see new products and get to test out new products. Like with kayaks, specifically, we go with Jackson Kayak to a dealer summit once a year and learn about new products, see the differences between the year models, and we actually get to paddle them and tour the factory.

Q. There is competition out there in the Columbus market. How do you view that?

A. We’re a growing location here. As people realize that the north end of town is busier, hopefully they’ll prefer to be in a little less-pressured atmosphere. Seeing back end how some of those stores work, they sound really great and say they have 100 employees, but what it boils down to is in the off season there’s not 100 employees working. I’ve seen that firsthand working in the box stores and that’s why, unless I absolutely had to, I would not go back to work with anything like that.

Q. You’re implying it impacts customer service?

A. You get a more personal experience here. We’re not trying to hit a number. We’re trying to make you happy. We’re selling a relationship with the customers, because we want those customers to be happy. We do want to sell them things because we do want to make a profit. But we want them to come back and tell us about their trips and continue to do those trips, because hopefully we’ll get to join them on those trips here and there.

Q. Finally, what do you find most rewarding about your job?

A. Seeing the smiles on people’s faces when they come back after having a good experience. It’s taking somebody that’s used a pack that’s of different quality and putting a really nice quality pack on them, sending them out, and having them come back back and be ecstatic about it. That’s really what gets me. I’m passionate about that myself because I’ve been through not-so-quality gear and finally found some stuff that I love. And now I get to share that knowledge with people.

This story was originally published December 3, 2016 at 4:15 PM with the headline "Chris Largent brings deep love for outdoors to his retail adventure."