Gearhead Outfitters Inc.

Gearhead Outfitters’ objective is to provide the best customer service.

The company, based in Jonesboro, sells gear and apparel for “active and healthy lifestyles,” according to its website, and offers items such as running shoes and backpacks.

Its approximately 70 employees don’t have sales quotas, nor do they operate on commission, said Gearhead’s owner and founder, Ted Herget.

His motto is let the employees take care of the customers and the numbers will take care of themselves. And the strategy seems to be working.

Founded in 1997, Gearhead has expanded to seven locations, with its eighth opening in April in Fayetteville. And still another store could be opened by the end of the year, but a location hasn’t been determined.

Herget declined to release revenue figures, but he said same-store sales, a key indicator of a retailer’s health, were up about 10 percent between 2013 and 2014.

The secret to the company’s success has been its employees, who are hard-working and honest, Herget said. “They want to build their career in the same industry and with us,” he said.

Gearhead also is active in philanthropy. In 2012, Herget and the company endowed a business scholarship for Arkansas State University at Jonesboro, where he received an accounting degree in 1997.

Herget said he wants his stores to do even more philanthropy work this year. One of his goals is to earn trust from the communities in which the stores are located. “This is a long-term play,” Herget said. “We’re not going to run it for five years and we’re out. We want to get into the community. Our employees are there.”