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Catching up with Atwater over sushi

Dean Bradley, creative director and founder of Atwater, emailed me the other day with an idea.

“You need to put the ‘eat’ back into Shop-Eat-Surf,” he said. “We’ll take you to one of our favorite lunch spots.”

So last week I caught up with Dean and Atwater Design Director Scott Madison over sushi at Buddha’s Favorite on the water in Newport Beach. The tastiest dish we ate was an interesting roll with lobster, cheese, jalapenos and tempura. Yum.

Atwater is one of the handful or up-and-coming buzz brands retailers are backing these days. Dean and Scott worked together at Hurley International for years and are known for creating strong product.

Here’s what’s new with Atwater.

Sales management boost: While Dean and Scott had the product side wired, they struggled managing sales reps because they lacked experience in that area.

That changed in January when they hired industry veteran Greg Osthus, left.

He’s whipped the sales force into shape, replacing underperformers with “Dogs that can hunt,” a favorite Greg saying, according to Dean and Scott.

The difference is night and day, Scott said. Before, if a rep didn’t get a big order, they would tell him, “that’s okay, maybe you’ll get it next time.”

That doesn’t happen with Greg. “He comes in, and he’s not playing around. He’s intense. You can get 20 emails from him in an hour...We love it. It makes us more professional,” Scott said.

Retailers also like that Greg has joined the Atwater team, Dean said. Many told Dean that they trusted Atwater on the product side, and now they know they can trust Atwater on the sales side. “Greg has years and years of credibility. Now they know some shady sales guy is not trying to overload their racks.”

Greg is also helping them with merchandising the line. He pays attention to what retailers are saying, what’s moving on the sales floor. He’s helping them add more basic items to the line and tiering the price points.

Retail accounts: Atwater is in approximately 200 accounts, including Nordstrom, Active, Sun Diego, Val Surf, Jack’s, Surfside, Surf Ride, and Frog House.

They just found out that a 40-store test at Nordstrom for spring went well, and that Nordstrom wants to place a holiday order and possibly an at-once order for fall.

Active also told Atwater it wants to grow the brand in its stores, Dean and Scott said.

Atwater plans to grow by gaining more real estate in existing accounts and by adding additional doors now that new sales reps are in place.

“Volume is key,” Dean said. “We need to grow a couple notches to be more comfortable financially.”

Atwater is self-financed by Dean, who borrowed against his house to fund the company. It also has a business relationship with BrandLogic for sourcing and back office help.

The friendship: I asked Dean and Scott how their friendship is weathering the business partnership.

They said it has deepened their friendship. They spend a lot of time together - they work together, hang out at night a lot, go golfing.

“99 percent of the time we’re getting along,” Dean said. If they argue, they deal with it, then it blows over.

Dean knew they would work well together from their time at Hurley. Once, Hurley sent Dean and Scott to Hawaii to research board short trends.

They worked 12 hour days, searching through Salvation Army stores, finding hidden thrift shops for locals, walking into shops late at night in Waikiki.

Neither of them ever complained or wanted to quit and just hang out, Dean said.

“I think we recognized in each other a strong work ethic,” he said. “And we both love what we do.”

Tough economy: I asked Dean and Scott how the economy is impacting business. So far, Atwater is growing through the downturn, Dean said.

Retailers take one of two approaches. They either rally around the big brands or look for something fresh and new to help them stand out from the crowd, Dean said.

“I glad we built a solid foundation as a cool, up-and-coming brand with quality before the economy got so tough,” Dean said “Especially now with Greg on board, people know we can ship on time and ship complete. We can produce.”