Kyle Fehr Email & Phone Number

My wife and I purchased a small-town pizza parlor in 2007, and shortly afterward the economy began a slow, plodding descent to recession. While business around us struggled, and as many closed shop, we increased our revenue dramatically and reduced costs across the board.Our main focus was to provide for the community. Where we could have raised prices to accommodate for increasing food prices, we reduced our prices and began giving away large amounts of food to various local charities and schools. We instituted across-the-board pricing for teachers and school administrators that reached nearly 45% off our standard cost. With our prices going down, we saw the return in our gross sales increasing. In addition, I negotiated a better pricing structure with our food supplier, and we focused heavily on cost control with our employees, increasing our net revenue further.In 2008 we founded "Lower Lake Safe Halloween" and united downtown businesses to provide an afternoon of trick-or-treating for elementary kids. The area we service is plagued by dirt roads and a lack of adequate lighting. We wanted to introduce something where the kids didn't have to miss out on Halloween because it wasn't safe, and where savvy businesses could take an opportunity to reach out to potential customers. In the pouring down rain we saw an even larger turn out than anticipated. Every business involved in our maiden voyage called it a resounding success.We've bartered deals and held special events with wineries, schools, farms, other restaurants and even a jail. As always, our focus was never to put money in our pocket. We wanted to provide a high-quality, affordable service and product to anybody who was interested. We've held many fundraisers in our building for various charities and school organizations, all at zero-profit to ourselves. The reward comes from the personal satisfaction of giving back, and the exposure to people that might not have tried us otherwise.

I began with GameStop as seasonal holiday help. In just over one year from my date of hire, I was promoted to store manager. In that year, I had dedicated myself to understanding and mastering visual marketing, direct and retail sales, loss prevention and business efficiency. Shortly thereafter, I moved from California to Dallas, Texas and took over a failing store.In one year of being assigned the next-to-worst store in the company, I received commendation for being ranked 9th out of roughly 200 stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth/Puerto Rico region. I had driven sales to exceed $400,000 in the year, increasing about 40% over the previous term.My time spent as a store manager was highlighted by continued growth in all measured facets of the business. The level of loss associated with that store location became less than 1%, and our large regular customer base was something I took extreme pride in. In such a competitive area, with literally another GameStop less than five minutes away in any cardinal direction, and not including other video game retail sources, quite a few people chose to come to my small store day-in and day-out. My focus wasn't on driving our bottom line, or trying to add on every possible item. It simply was to provide a comfortable, welcoming environment to both gamers and families, while staying as up-to-date and informed on as much as possible, and trying to understand each individual customer so my staff and I could put in their hands exactly what they were looking for, whether there was something at a higher price or margin or not.Numerous employees I hired achieved management roles in other locations throughout the company, and it is my hope that they're taking the beliefs and tools I instilled in them and passing them along to others. Salesmen would be a whole lot more pleasant to deal with if they were less pushy and more understanding, and I've proven that it is a highly successful path to take.

For nearly eight years I hosted a weekly jazz radio program for NPR serving the Northern California area. I received recognition from listeners and supervisors for the variety of music I chose and for how precisely my programs were laid out and executed. On numerous occasions I would be stopped around town, having being recognized by my voice, to have complete strangers tell me how much they enjoyed my program.All of this dedication and work was done for the grand sum of zero payment. In the time I volunteered for KCHO, I never collected a single cent in compensation, and I never wanted any either. Being able to provide a different aspect of a musical style to people that would likely not experience it elsewhere gave me a great feeling of accomplishment, and that was reward enough for my hard work.