In 1990 David Kahan was working the mean streets of his hometown: Noo Yawk, a.k.a. the Big Apple. He was a regional sales manager for Nike, responsible for the metropolitan territory. There were hundreds of accounts to visit just in the five boroughs. It could be a grind at times, and using payphones, pagers, and fax machines had its challenges. Still, Kahan was all-in on this business.
“I knew with absolute certainty that the rest of my career would be in this industry,” he says, adding that it didn’t matter to him if he worked in the athletic, dress, or comfort sectors. “I knew for sure the footwear wholesale/retail brand business was where I was meant to be.”
Kahan bet on himself that year. “I’d just rolled the dice and bought my first apartment, a co-op, and I hoped I could pay the overhead,” he recalls. It was a very smart bet. His success and the industry accolades he’s received, especially for his 12-year tenure at Birkenstock, speak volumes.
In 1990, though, the shoe industry was a different world—another planet, really. There were a lot more retailers to call on. That meant more potential, but also a lot more work. “It’s almost hard to imagine,” Kahan says, recalling a landscape of regional chains like Kohl’s, Mervyn’s, Herman’s World of Sports, Dick’s, and The Sports Authority, which was just getting started. In addition, there were hundreds of independent sneaker/shoe and Army/Navy retailers. “We’d allocate product block by block, and that definitely taught us brand management and discipline,” he says.
Among the smaller stores were some great retailers, and a cast of memorable characters, Kahan says. They were “real urban guys who were hardcore, in-the-store-seven-days-a-week retailers,” he says. “You also had guys who sold a lot of athletic footwear plus denim and tons of Starter jackets.”
In those days, the athletic market was on fire. Foot Locker, Champs, Sneaker Stadium, Footaction, Fan Club, Dr. Jays, and VIM were also quickly expanding. “The growth was off the charts in athletic,” Kahan says. “Plus, department stores all bought regionally while Nordstrom stores bought individually.”
The best way to meet all these individual buyers was on their turf, which wasn’t easy in the pre-GPS/smartphone age. “We used to stop at payphones when out on sales visits,” Kahan recalls. “We’d drive around with the Yellow Pages ripped out to find the stores in a town. Eventually, town by town, we got to know every store in New Jersey, Long Island, and Connecticut.”
This was also the age of the fax machine, an imperfect technology at best. “I’d get home at night and there’d be a ream of fax paper that went on for 10 feet with orders,” Kahan remembers. “Trying to read them on that paper where the ink would fade if it was left in the sunlight too long didn’t make it easy.” Kahan also recalls the time his boss gave him a pager so he could be reached on the road. “I’d get paged and then have to find a payphone to call. So today’s technology has sped things up dramatically, but it definitely has impacted people’s ability to find balance.”
While Kahan was confident even in 1990 that he’d make this industry a career, “never in a million years could I have imaged the exact path,” he says. “I’m so grateful for the many mentors who set great examples of how to really be in the business.” The past 35 years has enabled him to gain a lot of perspective. The key to long-term success, he says, is learning this simple lesson: It’s not about you. “The more you focus on serving others, the more you will get in return,” he says. •
