Catching Up With: Smith’s J.P. Collett

mike lewis

• February 18 2009
• 447 views
• 4 comments

J.P. Collett is a busy man these days. Based in Newport Beach, Collett handles Smith’s surf team and promotions and was recently tapped by the big guns in Idaho to take on the company’s snow team. TransWorld Business caught up with Collett to find out what it takes to balance responsibilites and be a successful team manager.

TWB: Your card says surf promotions manager. That doesn’t really encompass your whole job there these days, does it?

J.P. Collett: My card is a bit out dated to say the least. Towards the end of October I took over the snow promotions at Smith as well, but I recently kicked it into gear as the new year began. I had been managing the surf promotions for a bit over a year when the powers above felt I could take on both surf and snow categories. I grew up competing in both sports so it has been a semi-easy transition. Now I balance the time managing both teams and the promotions in each sport. Both are rad and have their own destinations that I will be sleeplessly investigating.

TWB: How’d you get into this gig?

J.P.C: I used to snowboard for Smith way back in the day when I was 13 till around 18. I moved out to Colorado to keep the shred dream alive, but was able to get a degree from Boulder and cut Sushi at HAPA in town. I kept in touch with the old crew at Smith, and when I graduated they hired me to do some in-store marketing in the Southern California region. I hung at that particular position for about a year and a half when the surf promotions manager at the time moved on to bigger and better things. I threw my interest for that job and Tag Kliener, our marketing director hired me to run the surf side of things. As the year progressed I handled the surf responsibilities just fine, and as Cory Smith moved up into a senior promotions roll he handed down the Snow program into my world of drinking, sunbathing, and sleeplessness. I have to say splitting my time within the snow and surf world is really quite amazing.

I am really lucky because I have structured both programs to be run out of my office/home/locker and it is working great. I head up to Idaho on a regular basis working in the office about six times a year. When the summer time comes my house turns into the Smith surf team house where every inch of floor space is littered with little, hairless monsters. It’s fun as hell though.

TWB: What do you think are the most important pieces of being a good team manager?

J.C.P: Thick skin, patience, organization, and creativity. You get walked on a lot in this job and if you snap no one will want to hang or work with you. Each athlete, magazine, industry type, or whomever looks at work and life in different ways and you have to adapt in order to have everyone get along.

Things don’t happen instantly and more often than not it takes numerous attempts to get any kind of ball rolling. Once the ball gets going, if you can work with anyone then you will get what you want and what your company wants. At the end of the day this job is marketing and TM’s need to get creative to stretch a dollar and capitalize on their athletes’ talents, personalities, and accomplishments. That way the brand looks as good as they do…or as shitty.

TWB: How do you help leverage the team’s talent to get exposure for Smith?

Well, I would not call it leverage, but I do think utilizing athletes accomplishments are exactly why companies sponsor these amazing kids. Using a marketing update to hit the entire industry and reps is a great way to capitalize on an accomplishment. If our reps know about everything that our team is doing and winning then they can let the shop crew know, and hopefully they can sell more cause we are on top of mind. Everyone loves a winner. We have an amazing PR dude in the office too that can get to anyone. Letting the entire public know that a Smith athlete won a comp or did something incredible is a great way to uplift our brand. It is not a Burton, Nixon, Smith, Muscle Milk, Monster and earmuff accomplishment…..it is a Smith accomplishment.

TWB: What’s one of the most fun/creative promotional events you’ve put on?

J.P.C: On the surf side of things I just set up a road trip from Manley in Sydney, Australia to Coolengata on the gold coast. We have about five athletes going on the trip with filmers and photographers shooting the entire way. It should be amazing and I only wish I could partake…God damn budgets. This is also going to lead to Smith’s first surf film. The Smith Optics Grudge Match is really fun too . It’s the best surf contest on the planet…….in Jersey of course.

TWB: I’ve heard being a team manager is a lot like babysitting. Would you agree?

J.P.C: Well there are a lot of babysitting aspects to the job, I think more so when you’re first coming into a program. Once your feet are planted and you feel comfortable you’re really just babysitting your good friends. Which is fun cause you can motivate them to get their asses off the couch and out on the hill or into the water. I think the biggest balance is making sure you build the relationships with the athletes so they are looking forward to promoting the brand that I and they work for. That comes from a little bit of faith and friendship. The faith is showing them the return on their hard work. (which sometimes does not seem like work) and the friendship is taking that extra shot of Jack to prove we can live the dream just as hard, sometimes harder.

TWB: What are your goals in this position?

J.P.C: I want to get this movie made really bad. We have been talking about it since I took over and it is looking like it will happen. We have made amazing snow films in the past so its time for our surf team to shine.