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DTC Podcast
Ep 489: The Organic Growth Playbook: Salty Britches' Path to 500+ Retailers & the Military
00:51:15
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- [00:00]
Amy
Instead of us knocking on doors begging people to use our stuff. It's come from the inside out, which is what you want to happen. You can't do that from a computer screen. You can't do that from social media. You've got to be there. It's hard. It's a heavy lift to go and go and go, and we've spent years of going and going and going. We absolutely love independent retailers because they're smaller. You have champions for your product in those stores. They can talk about your product. They've probably used your product. Don't ever underestimate a product if you have one in your heart that you really feel like you need. If you need it, somebody else probably does too.
- [00:52]
Eric Dick
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- [02:13]
Amy
Thanks for having me. I love this podcast, so I'm really excited about being a guest.
- [02:17]
Eric Dick
This was a great introduction from Kurt Elster, who was one of the more popular podcasts we've had in the last little while, so I really appreciate that. Why don't you start off by giving us your hero's journey with Salty Britches?
- [02:30]
Amy
Sure. It's not typical, that's for sure. And I like to tease that I'm a reluctant entrepreneur. This is a second season of life for me, really. But we, we were normal people with normal W2 jobs for a long time. I had a 17 year career and also had a 6 year old who really, really suffered from saltwater chafing when we'd go on vacation to the beach. And we actually are not based at the beach. We're all the way across the state of South Carolina on the Georgia border. Everyone thinks we're a coastal brand, but we did become a coastal brand, just not geographically. But we would visit the beach and my son had a terrible aversion to salt water. And within the first five or ten minutes of him playing in the ocean, he was in tears, miserable. Under his arms, his belly, groin, everything was just super raw and chafed. And so we went to a local surf shop, a high end surf shop. This was in Folly beach in Charleston, South Carolina. And I asked, you know, what, what is this? And do, what do you do about it? Do you guys have an option or a solution? And all they could say was, oh yeah, we hear about it all the time. It's terrible, it's really painful. There's not a very good solution. Go to the local drugstore and try diaper creams or Vaseline, you know, the typical, which we had been doing for a while, but to no avail. And I was so frustrated. I was just like, my gosh, you know, that's not really helping. The Vaseline, the sand and grit and everything sticks to it. The diaper creams are white and he'd get it under his arms and not just white, but it just constantly had to be reapplied. And the, the rash guards, the clothes, the shirts. We tried expensive bathing suits and basketball shorts and all the different things, but the rash guards would just make it worse. It was just more surface area that would just irritate the rash. And so what happened several times in our vacation is day one was just miserable, which meant he didn't want to get back in the ocean the rest of the week. And it was just really frustrating. So after a particularly really gnarly vacation, I went home to my kitchen and decided, you know, I'm just going to blend this up in my kitchen as a solution for my kid. I was a desperate mom that was frustrated with our vacation experiences in the ocean. So I blended up a solution. But I had a six year old that was, you know, emphatic about what he wanted in this solution. It had to be clear so that people could not see it on his skin. It had to last all day because he did not want to keep reapplying it. Sand could not stick to it so that it wouldn't become more of a problem. Those were kind of his requirements, and I worked with him to try to figure it out. And I'd blend up different, different formulas and let him try it. And this went on for several years. And then in the summer of 2017, we were on the beach with other families. A large group of us had gone to the beach, and it did not even occur to me that all the moms had been sitting in a circle for hours. And our kids have been in the ocean for hours. All of the kids use Salty Britches. We didn't even name it at that point. It was just Amy's goofy. And one of the moms leaned over and she said, you know, this is the solution. This is a thing you need to post on Facebook that you have a solution to this problem. I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, no, this is not a thing. It's just my kid, and maybe your kid and her kid and her kid, but it's really not a thing. It's not a thing. And she said, no, I really think this could help people. Look at the kids have not been out of the ocean for hours. This has been a fantastic vacation. No one's cried. No one's miserable. It's been great. And I thought, well, you know, if it could help other people. So I posted on my personal Facebook page. Now, mind you, I was anti social media. I didn't even have that many friends on Facebook. I didn't have Instagram. And I just said, hey, moms, if your kids really suffer from saltwater chafing, I think I have a solution. And I had over 700 comments and instant messages. My phone started blowing up, and I thought, holy cow, the light bulb went off. I need to help all these people. How am I going to do it the right way? So I instantly reached out to my local bank because I needed a new banking account just to be able to handle the raw materials that I needed to buy. And they said, well, have you set up an llc? And I'm like, no. I mean, how do I do that? Well, go to Legal Zoom. So I did. Right there on the beach. We did everything right there. That day on the beach. I went to Legal Zoom. I put in for my llc. I. We decided, okay, what are we naming this stuff? And I knew I wanted britches in the name just because we're from the south, and that's a Southern term, and it's fun. And my kid came out of the ocean and was Kind of standing there as we're all talking about it. And he kind of threw out the name Salty. And when we heard Salty Britches, we knew that was it. That's it. That's the name. So I applied for the trademark right there in legal zoom to see if it existed. Like I did all of that that day. And then we were able to open a new checking account. And I bought a bunch of raw materials so when I'd get home from that vacation, I could blend and pour in my kitchen to help all these people that so desperately wanted the product. But that is essentially the short story of how it kind of became a thing, even though we were not on a path for it to become a thing.
- [07:58]
Eric Dick
What did you do for packaging right out of the gate?
- [08:01]
Amy
Yes. So I ordered little jars on Amazon and then I ordered stickers. And my husband and my son would sticker the jars and we would sell them. This is actually the original. We would sell these out of a cooler on our front porch, which is so bootleg. But every day I would come home from work and the cooler would be empty and there it'd be full of $10 bills every day. And I'd have people that local people, you know, can I pick it up? Can you ship it? So then I started where I was shipping and I'd go to the post office every day and I would, you know, pay that crazy postage. Before I'd set up my website, before I got on Shopify, I was doing everything just the way you typically ship, you know, anything. And then a local guy in town that I knew, I'd reached out to him about helping me set up the Shopify store, which he did. That was a game changer. It was just eating an elephant one bite at a time. But it quickly overwhelmed me and I still had my full time career. This was taking off and I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown. So I went to my husband and said, you know, something has to give. Either we need to go for this and really go for this and let me quit my job. Financially, we weren't prepared to do that yet. Or do we just quit this and go back to my normal life? That was way more comfortable than doing both. And at the time, we had had some strangers come to our home to tell us how much they love salty britches. It was bizarre. It was like being in the twilight zone to just have people show up at your house to talk to you about salty britches. And they would, which was crazy. And my husband came to me and he said, are you just going to tell these people you can't make it anymore? Like you can't do that. I'm like, well, I guess I'm going to have to, like, something has to give. I'm not going to survive. And my husband said, no, you can't, you can't. Too many people like this stuff and you got to keep making it for them. Let me, let me figure out what to do. And then he came back to me and he said, the option we have is we sell everything we own, we take our son out of private Christian school and we move to the middle of nowhere, to a tiny cabin that had been in his family since 1984. And we call it the tiny home, which was a tiny home before they were cool. No closets, no washer and dryer, no dishwasher, a tiny galley kitchen. Like tiny. He's like, you know, we can make that do until we figure it out and then we can bootleg bootstrap this whole thing. And I said, okay, okay, you know, if I have your support, you're all in. And this is what we do. So we hosted a living estate sale where we essentially sold everything we owned. We had people come through our home, bought my clothes, bought my shoes, bought our Christmas tree. I mean we sold everything. And we moved our son from, you know, a tuition based school to public school in the seventh grade, which was tough. He handled it like a champ. We're still in the tiny home, but we were able to buy 6 acres attached to it, build our shop, build our warehouse, people come here to work. We are really remote, which are, there's positives and negatives to that. But it's been a beautiful thing and we kind of dig the tiny house. Like we don't hate was cathartic to really release and make room in our lives. Just our mental capacity to just release a bunch of stuff that ultimately meant nothing. But to do that in your early 40s was great. It was one of the greatest things that happened to us. So there's lots of lessons in there.
- [11:56]
Eric Dick
That's super exciting to get buy in from your grade seven son. That's. I've got a grade six girl in her school and I think she would be loathe to be to, to move into another situation after being in that school. So it was, it's, it's amazing. Yeah. The momentum and the buy in that you had from your family and I guess that comes from the incredible product market fit that you'd achieved with the product to the point where you have strangers coming to your house to. To ask you for it.
- [12:20]
Amy
Yeah, that was. That was bizarre. And, I mean, things just developed so before we even made the move. I will never forget this. This is so funny. I was early in the morning in a housecoat, wheeling my trash can to the road for the. For the trash service. And this car drives by, slams on the brakes, and backs up to me, standing there in my housecoat at the end of my driveway. And it freaked me out. And he's like, hey, are you the one that makes that new stuff, Salty Britches? I'm like, yeah. He said, I want to carry it in my pharmacy. And I had no idea who this guy was. He lived. This neighborhood was huge. So I just didn't know everybody. And I thought, you know, I'm tugging my house coat. Like, I'm so embarrassed. I'm like, can I talk to you about this later? He was like, no, it's no big deal. I just want you to bring me a case of it so I can sell it in the pharmacy. And I thought, okay. And that was kind of how it happened with some local stores. I had some friends that had a boutique in town that were childhood friends of mine. I've known them forever. And they called me, Let us. Let us sell it. Bring it up here. And they scheduled a Saturday morning where I bought a box of this stuff in these homemade little jars. And there was a line of people outside of the store through the square waiting on them to open to buy my jars. I cried. I just stood there and cried and hugged everybody's neck. I could not believe it. And then another local market in town that was a great small market, small grocery contacted me, and to this day, they're one of my biggest customers. They sell it. It sits right there on their counter. They sell it all the time. It was that kind of thing. And they had seen what was happening on social media. They saw it on Facebook. They saw it unfolding. So locally, we've had tremendous support, and we still sell in all these independent retailers locally. It's. It's just been like rocket fuel to have their support and that people locally still buy it. It's just amazing to us.
- [14:18]
Eric Dick
Did you continue to post on Facebook? What. What were your. What was your organic strategy like on Facebook in those early days, beyond that single post?
- [14:27]
Amy
Well, yes, we were just kind of telling the story, and I still have a hard time putting myself out there and being on social media, but I literally could not go anywhere. I couldn't go to the grocery Store. I couldn't go to ball games without people just coming to me and asking me a million questions, which was awesome, but exhausting. So I would update people on Facebook of like, okay, you know, here we go. We're starting the website, you know, and I'd let them see a little video portion. And I still. I'm the least tech person on the planet. It was very organic, I can tell you that. It was just, okay, you know, our website's live. This is what it looks like. And people would share that, and then somebody would see it at the local market and they'd share it. It was really wild and fun just to see the support from people you had no idea were even watching or paying any attention. And that the way that grew into other markets was also still crazy. So we went back to Charleston and I went into that surf shop, McKelvin's Surf Shop, one of the oldest surf shops on the East Coast. The same surf shop that said, we know it's a problem. We hear about it all the time. So right when I got real product, a tube, my first tube, I went to that shop and I said, okay, guys, y'all told me this. You didn't have a good solution. So I made one. Would y'all like to sell the product? And because we vacation there every year, and they're like, sure, yeah, let us have it. So they started posting on their social media that they had this product, which in turn helped us grow. And at that time, I still did not have Instagram, which was kind of crazy. So I started getting messages on Facebook about these two guys that were on Instagram promoting Salty Britches. And they were triathletes that were swimming in the ocean and competing. One of them was a professional triathlete, and the other one, like, won every race he ever entered and was in lots of races. And they were based in Bluffton, South Carolina, near Savannah, Georgia. And somebody reached out to me and said, you got to see this on is you need to be on Instagram. These people are talking about you on Instagram. So I created an Instagram account and I reached out through direct messenger to those two guys. Yuri Marino and John Duberley were their names. And they were running. They were posting that they were running full distance triathlons and speedos because of Salty Britches, which was hilarious. And that's how we started our Instagram. And those two guys became our very first ambassadors. And they weren't asking for me to pay them anything. It was not like that. They just genuinely loved the product and wanted to share about it, which was incredible. And that got us in turn, as part of the 9 line 5K 9 lines, a big veteran owned company that makes T shirts. And so then nine Lines started putting us in their stores. And it just grew organically that way from people that genuinely love the product. And now we have 78ambassadors with a huge waiting list of ambassadors, because I'm not even sure how to handle them all and be fair to them that genuinely love the product. And that has been really the crux of our organic community and our organic reach. It just started from. Because the product was good and these.
- [17:51]
Eric Dick
People wanted to help other people in their same, you know, disciplines or hobbies solve the same problem. Like. And that kind of spread, you were saying, to ultra runners and other sort of endurance type sports where chafing would be an issue.
- [18:06]
Amy
Yes. Yeah. And that. That was such an organic story as well. So a really cool backstory is that I had been following the first podcast I ever listened to was How I Built this by Guy Raz. And one of the first guests that he had was Sarah Blakely that created Spanx. And so I was trying to consume everything I could. Sarah Blakely, because she had kind of done the same thing. She had created this product and organically, she was standing in Nordstrom's to try to tell people about it. And it really resonated with me. And this was at the time I was still working full time in my career. One of the things that I would do when I traveled on an airplane, I still do this, is I'd buy a book in one of the bookstores and try to read it anytime I was on a plane and finish the book. And I found this book called Living with a Seal by Jesse Itzler.
- [19:02]
Eric Dick
Yep, I know. I'm aware. Yeah.
- [19:04]
Amy
Such a great read. Oh, my gosh. I think I've read it like four or five times. So I read it on the plane and I get throughout the book and realize, oh, my God, this dude is married to Sarah Blakely, who I've been following on how to build that. How to build this. So I started following Jesse Itzler on social media. Well, then I see that Jesse Itzler is trying to run 100 miles. I'm like, what is this? Why are people. I didn't know people ran 100 miles at one time. Like, they were the races that actually do this. This is right before ultrarunning really blew up. Well, then I discover that he has discovered this Navy seal. His name's Chad Wright to help teach him how to mentally get over the hump of running 100 miles. And so Chad was fairly new to social media, but he had a small account. So I reached out to Chad Wright on social media, on Instagram, and said, hey, I have this new product. It's brand new. I have some triathletes that are using it. If you're running 100 miles, I think you could benefit from this. And he got back to me immediately, yes, send it to me. So I send Chad Salty Britches. He was newly out of the Navy, just retired, and was learning to kind of cope with getting out of the teams by ultra running. And then Jesse discovers Chad. I reach out to Chad, who gets back to me, who then calls me directly, and he's like, this is the greatest stuff ever. Like, this is great. How can I help? People need to know about this product. Chad, who's now training Jesse Itzler. Jesse blows Chad out of the water. Like, he is everywhere. He's on all these podcasts. Chad has really grown his platform, and he's brought us right along with him. Like, he's used our product. He talks about our product. He's been a fantastic cheerleader for us, and it kind of helped catapult us into the ultra marathon space, which we didn't know was a thing. So here we go. From surf shops where we think, you know, that's all this product is. It's just a skin barrier to. To help kids swim in the ocean.
- [21:10]
Eric Dick
You've got the surf logo on the package.
- [21:12]
Amy
Yeah, that's where all that came from, the shaka on the logo. And then now we're getting into ultra running. And now, I mean, we're six and a half years in. We sponsor a ton of ultra marathons all over the country, but we're also the official anti chafe, anti blister for the Leadville 100, which is a huge feather in our hat. And that happened organically. That was not me knocking on their door. Hey, hey, I want to. I want to pay you. No, I didn't do any of that, ever. They had coaches that were running the Keys 100 in Florida from Leadville, and they were using a competitive product and were suffering terribly because it's. It. You can't. Until Salty Britches. There was not an east coast product that would withstand humidity, high heat, water crossings, like everything else, would melt off your body. Right. And we created this formula just for that. And there was a guy running in front of them that heard their complaints, and he turned around, he's like, if you're going to run in Florida and the keys 100, you need salty Britches, period. And he hands them sample packs of Salty Britches. And these guys were part of Boundless coaching that coaches people to run the Leadville 100. So they reach out to me on my website on the Contact Us page. Hey, we'd love to set up a call with you. We really like your product. I had no idea who they were. I'd never heard of them and I get stuff like that. So it was kind of like, what is this? Okay, I'm willing to talk to you. Set up a zoom call with these guys. And they're like, you need to be in Leadville. I'm like, it's on my five year whiteboard. What do you mean, how do I go to Leadville? And they're like, no, we need to get you to all of the runners in Leadville. That's how strongly we feel about your product. And in 2024, we were the official anti chafe, anti blister of Leadville. So it, I mean, in 2025, we have two very popular influencers running for Salty Britches in Leadville. I don't want to give it away yet, but that's all been organically, that's how this entire story has been.
- [23:18]
Eric Dick
And we'll get into, you know, you experimenting with ads finally now in the past three months. But this has all happened without paid ads.
- [23:24]
Amy
Yes, never.
- [23:25]
Eric Dick
Which is unbelievable. Talk about, because you mentioned Navy SEALs was, was your, was the Navy SEAL you met, did that help you get into the military?
- [23:33]
Amy
Or was that another inbound lead, another organic unfolding? And we really do just give, period. We just give God the glory for this. We feel like he has opened the doors for us. It's been divine intervention. We don't know how else to explain it. That is our belief. But we, we were selling the product in the blue tubes locally and there were some special force operators that were training in the area that met with me. They got a hold of my product, they met with me and said, you know, it would be great if you could make this in a black tube. And I'm like, I'm sure I can probably figure that out. Like, who are you? Like, who's asking? And well, we're the Marine Raiders out of Camp Lejeune. Holy cow. Like, I didn't even know what a Marine Raider was. Those are the MARSOC operators. They are still, I still consider them part of my unofficial board members, but they helped me create the copy on the front of the black tube and the logo for the black tube. And they have been tremendous to support us. What's happened is they have pulled us into the Department of Defense. They've pulled us into the military space. Instead of us knocking on doors, begging people to use our stuff, it's come from the inside out, which is what you want to happen. We never saw that coming. And now we have five national stock numbers, which you have to be assigned to work with the military. That happened, like, overnight for us. And people still tell us, you know, that can take decades. Like, that is very hard to do. But if you have a product that they want, it's not hard at all to do.
- [25:09]
Eric Dick
I wonder if it helped that they were the elite. I'm just Googling. I didn't know what MARSOC was either. The Marine Special Forces Operations Command. I wonder if it helped, because they're like, the elite of the elite group in the military as well.
- [25:20]
Amy
They are studs. There is no doubt about it. They're a very small team, which is interesting. I. I don't know. I. I mean, but they have been tremendous champions for us. Tremendous. I can't say enough about those guys. We still have a great relationship with them. Yeah, that just. That's kind of how that whole space unfolded. So we went from surf shops to endurance sports, triathlon, ultra running, and then the military.
- [25:49]
Eric Dick
How, when it comes to, like, procurement within the military, how did you navigate that aspect?
- [25:55]
Amy
Oh, my God, that's a booger. I'm not even gonna sugarcoat that. That is very complicated. We were very blessed by getting introduced to some very good people that knew how to do it and the way this went down for us. So MARSOC knew they wanted to procure it, but they didn't know how to get you set up in that system. So he introduced one of the. Actually, he was a medic at marsoc, introduced me to another brand owner that sold products specifically and only to the military. And I set up a call with him. Like, how in the world do I even get started here? What do I do? Oh, well, there's a lady that can help you. I will introduce you to her. She's a specialist in procurement, and he made that connection for me. She's still. I mean, I have a call with her when I get off the phone with you today. She's still very much a part of our team. Her name is Peggy. She has been tremendous to help us navigate this space, because to me, you could have just set a book of German in front of Me, it would have been the same thing because that's how confusing and complicated it felt. But she's helped us swim those waters and navigate it and meet the right people and meet distributors in the space that that's all they do is you work through their contracts, their military primes, so they hold all the contracts and then they can sell your product and introduce it. But the military is a behemoth. We have definitely made ground there organically. Again, such like the Army Rangers, for example. This is a fun story. This is why we try not to say no to live events. Because I'm telling you, the all the goody is in a live event, you never know who you're going to meet. But because of our work with ultramarathons, we work with a group called Dumbass Events, which is Dahlonega Ultramarathon Association. They're based in Dahlonega, Georgia, which is also home to the 5th Ranger Training Regiment, where the mountain phase of Ranger school. So they were going to host an ultra marathon in the base for fifth RTB in Dahlonega, Georgia. And they called and asked us to come. Can you bring your tent? Can you bring single use packs? You know, this is a grueling race. We want you there. So I went and unbeknownst to me, we were on base for the Rangers. I didn't even know that's what that was. So I go to this ultramarathon and the Rangers are hosting. So they're in full. They're in their fatigues. You know, they're telling people where to go and helping. They're pulling the tent out of my car and setting it up for me. And finally, I mean, the guys couldn't stand it, and they came to me and said, what in the world is salty britches? And it turns out it was the Command Sergeant Major over 5th RTB who came to me. So he was. He's the main guy at this pace. He comes to me, he's like, tell me what this is. So I describe it to him and tell him what we do. And he was like, holy cow, we need this. Every Ranger needs this. Where have you been all of our lives? Next thing I know, I get an email from Best Ranger Competition. We understand that you have a product that all of our competitors need. You've been referred to us by the CSM Joey Blackshear from 5th RTB. And he insisted, insist that our competitors use this product. And that pulled us into Best Ranger Competition. And it's very difficult to buy your way into a space like that it really almost needs to happen organically. So this, this will be our third year as the anti chafe, anti blister for Best Ranger Competition. And those doors have just opened so many other opportunities. So after Best Ranger and the feedback from the competitors, the head medics for Ranger School added us to their packing list, which also, you don't buy your way into. That packing list is like the holy grail. It's very specific. You cannot veer away from that packing list or they'll kick you out of Ranger school. So because we got added to the packing list at Ranger School, all the surrounding stores that catered to that packing list started calling me and now they all carry Salty Britches. The Ranger Joe's, the Commandos, Gibson's Tactical Tavern. Like it's, it's. That just all happened organically. And it was just because we went to an ultramarathon where people are pushing themselves more than in any other space. Like it's the outer limits of society and human potential. And because our product has proved itself in those very difficult spaces, it's trickled into these other spaces.
- [30:39]
Eric Dick
I love your point about events, too. Just because that's. Kismet is the word I love. Whenever you go to an event, you don't know what connections, you know, the universe or God has in store for you. Basically.
- [30:48]
Amy
Yeah. Who you're going to meet, and it's all in proximity. You can't do that from a computer screen. You can't do that from social media. You've got to be there, you know, and it's, it's hard. It's a heavy lift to go and go and go. And we've spent years of going and going and going and just saying yes and we couldn't say yes to everything. I mean, there's some real kick in the gut things that happen as entrepreneurs when you say yes, too. And you kind of got to figure it out. I mean, it's just part of it. We bought a van last year, a Ram Promaster. We bought. We had it three months, we wrapped it, we drove it to Leadville, Colorado. It was awesome. We had our big tent at the expo with our van that was all wrapped. I mean, it was a big thing that we wanted to do, to have a real presence in Leadville so people wouldn't know we were actually a tiny little company. And we faked our way through that. Well, the van broke down on the way from Leadville. We were then going from Leadville to, Gosh, Detroit. We had a trade show in Detroit for The military for the National Guard. So we drove from Leadville to Detroit and the van died in Indiana. Well, I had. I was getting on a plane while the guy that was helping me with all the races was driving the van. Who calls me while I'm boarding a plane. The van is broke down. I'm in the middle of an intersection, so I have to call my insurance company, get a tow truck to come pull the van out of the road. Then I had to pay for the van and get it hauled all the way back to South Carolina. Like the van is out of commission, like it needs a whole new transmission. If we had that thing for literally three months, that was a big kick in the gut, you know, and you're going to have those, but you got to roll over it, you just got to roll through it and not let it set you back and figure out how to problem solve. It's just a series of problem solving. But you have to say yes. You have to meet people, you have to build your network and you have to organically do the boots on the ground to get people introduced to your product. That's not how people normally do it. They normally dump the money in the ads, they dump the money on social media. You see it everywhere. That probably works. That's just not the way we did it. We just went the opposite route. But we built relationships in a network that legit has pulled us into the right places. Instead of just selling online to people, random people.
- [33:15]
Eric Dick
You've said yes to a lot. But one thing you appear to have said no to so far is, is big box retail. And again, this is another example of you kind of going the other way. I talked to so many brands and their holy grail is to get into Target or Ulta or one of one of these big box retailers. But you've instead cobbled together 500 plus locations of independent retailers. Can you tell me why you went that way?
- [33:41]
Amy
Yes, we. Where do I even start? We absolutely love independent retailers because they're smaller and you have champions for your product in those stores. They can talk about your product. They've probably used your product. I mean, imagine going in a small surf shop. Those guys know how to direct you. People go in there because they need something specifically and most of the time it's staffed by guys that all they want to do is go surf, you know, and they're having to work here, but it's in between waves. So when you're like, okay, I need, you know, my kid is really chafed, I'm really chafed the ocean is biting back, what do we use? Those guys become your champions. It's like having a salesforce without having a salesforce and that has really proven itself out for us. And we've met a lot of those people at some trade shows like Surf expo, the running event. You know, we've in those spaces where we've done trade shows, we've met those independent retailers. Well, with Big Box there's a lot of risk in Big Box, especially at the life cycle of our brand and where we are as a brand. We didn't want to go into a space where we had a lot of competitors that have been in the space for years and there not being single soul there that can speak to the difference of our product and their product. We've tried to do it with our packaging but yet people will revert to what they know in some of these big box stores and there's no one to tell them any different. Well, with Big Box you need to have edi, which is inventory control. You're often buying your space on a shelf and there are chargebacks. So if you say you sell 5,000 units to these big box but they only sell through 2500 in a eight month period, they want to ship you back product or they want to charge you back product, there's a lot of landmines in that space. And I just, from my experience, I just recommend that brands do not go that route to begin with unless they've had a huge budget to go all in on social media and go all in all in on ads and build brand awareness and then go that route. But we bootstrapped this whole thing. I mean, my God, we're living in a tiny house. We did not have big budget to go all in on social media and all in on ads and do it that direction instead. We have just bitten this elephant one bite at a time, one small bite at a time. But it's proven out to work and that's how we did it. And we like that direction. We're happy with it. Not saying we will never go to Big Box, but if we can help it, we won't. We just love our independent retailers and we've seen a resurgence of independent retailers as well, which is really exciting for our local communities. We've just, we've had better experiences there, we've had better customer service there and we've been able to build champions there.
- [36:30]
Eric Dick
And speaking of champions, you're 78ambassadors. You know, you started with people just wanting to come to you. There's Still a waiting list. It sounds like you have ambassadors across each of your, your target customer avatars and all these different areas. Does your ambassador program look like it did back in the beginning or have you evolved at this point to have some form of compensation, whether it's discounts or points or anything like that, to keep people interested, or is it still just people wanting to promote it because it's such a great product?
- [36:59]
Amy
Yes. And yes, we've tried to evolve it that it's been a bit of a behemoth. All I've ever cared about is having a relationship with these people and being fair to them. But I've never, I've made it a point. I have not gone to them with requirements. We have not been a brand that says, okay, you have to post on social media three times a month or you know, we'll give you free product for this kind of post. We have not done any of that. We've wanted people to post out of genuinely what was out of their own heart, you know, all organic, real deal stuff. And that has been what's happened. We have more content than we know what to do with really. But we've also wanted it to be our goal to, to elevate and promote these people. And these people are incredible. They are doing things normal people are not doing. I mean, we have four with three world record holders in our network that. Holy cow. I mean, some of them are kids that have world records that are just doing incredible things and kids to watch. And so we've tried to promote them on our social media. Every year we send them a package of goodies. They get product. We try to do something that's made specifically and only exclusively for our ambassadors, whether it's a sweatshirt or hat or whatever. And we are like a race tank and we'll send them that kind of stuff so they have some stuff that they can wear and promote inside social media. But we don't pay our ambassadors. We haven't been able to really. I mean, it's, it's, it's just not kind of where we are to, to do that. And I know that's typical, but what I've learned is that it's not kept people away from coming on board. You do get those, and this is a telltale sign for anybody that's looking for ambassadorships. You do get those that you'll do a little background digging and either they don't even follow you on social media or they have never even bought from your website. That's not saying they haven't gotten the product other places, but you kind of see that they're just looking for something free, you know, and you have to filter that out. We definitely have had those that have risen to the top of. They're just really pushing themselves. They're really out pursuing goals. They genuinely want to help people. They really love this product. We have a guy, his name's Andy Glaze. He will not be an ambassador for any product. He is a holdout. He wears HOKA shoes. He uses Salty britches. He uses KT tape. He runs 100 miles, a hundred mile ultra, every weekend. He's a firefighter in California. He's a complete stud with a huge following. Millions. That dude has promoted Salty Britches till his heart's content. And I've reached out to him. He won't even let me give him free product. Like he. And he read. He ran Leadville last year and came to us when he finished the race, and we got to take pictures with him. But he just wants. He wants zero connection to a brand, just so people will always believe in what he's doing, which I think is awesome, but it's not necessarily how you have to do it. But Iron Cowboy James Lawrence, who did 101 full distance triathlons in 101 consecutive days. I think he has like 13 Guinness World Records. He's got Netflix documentaries about him. He's written books. The dude is a giant among giants, very well connected. When he was doing his 101 full distance triathlons, his body just basically was disintegrating. He was covered in blisters. He was having a terrible time. My Instagram started blowing up. Hey, you need to send James Lawrence Salty Britches. James Lawrence needs Salty Britches. So I reached out on DM and his daughter answered me back and said, oh, my God, please send it. Here's our home address. So I shipped them Salty Britches and they started using it at the end of his 101. And he called me directly after the event. And I actually flew to Utah and spent seven days with him, getting to know him like he is a student. And he has given us pictures with Salty Britches. Like, he doesn't charge us anything. He genuinely wants to see our brand explode. James Lawrence is salt of the earth, and if you can find people like that, they will do. They will want to help you for free. And that has kind of been what's happened.
- [41:28]
Eric Dick
And in this case, they found you. And that's probably the way it's got to be with people like that in some Ways. Right. It's hard to sell them on something. They're going to have to be fully bought in themselves.
- [41:37]
Amy
Yes, yes.
- [41:39]
Eric Dick
But that just comes from the way you built the business. And it's leads me to like one of my last topics here, which is funny. This is probably the, the latest I've ever talked about ads in a DTC podcast, but congrats, you're now running ads as an agency. I'd love to see it. Talk to me about what's going well with ads right away. Like, do you have similar. Are you finding similar product market fit as you've been able to organically?
- [42:01]
Amy
Well, I'd love to dig into all of that with you, except I don't know. Yeah, I, I do not know how to run ads. I don't know anything about ads. But what has happened once again is we got introduced to this dude that is a savant and he is all things tech, all things ads. He does all of our emails. He has been phenomenal to work with. We're still in that space because we are so new to it. I mean, I'm six and a half years in and just now doing this three months ago. He is doing all the testing, all the ab testing, video versus images. And like I said, I have content coming out of my ears.
- [42:40]
Eric Dick
Yeah.
- [42:41]
Amy
So he's trying to help me sort through what would be the best content, how to capture the best. Different, different audiences. And it's still a niche product, but yet that's a big niche in a.
- [42:56]
Eric Dick
Category that people don't. Don't always know exists. Like you didn't in the beginning, right?
- [43:00]
Amy
That's right.
- [43:00]
Eric Dick
You had to make it.
- [43:01]
Amy
Absolutely. So, you know, and that still blows my mind sometimes. Don't ever underestimate a product. If you have one in your heart that you really feel like you need. If you need it, somebody else probably does too. But the ad thing so far has been good for us. I mean, it's worked decent.
- [43:19]
Eric Dick
Roas.
- [43:20]
Amy
Yeah, I've learned all about those terms. I'm just really grateful to have a good team that understands all of that because it does not interest me at all. I want to be out amongst the people. I want to, you know, build these relationships. That's what I know I'm good at and that's what I enjoy. I do not enjoy this technicality work, but I know there are people like you that understand it and it really is worth connecting with someone like you or Kurt Elster or, you know, my guy to do that. If that's not Your strength. And I think I've run away from it for so long because I. It wasn't my strength, and I. I just felt like it was setting money on fire. I was just scared to death of it.
- [44:02]
Eric Dick
And it might have been early on, but, but, you know, that's the story of this industry is, is people who, who built their brands running ads, you know, would die for the organic connection that you have with your customer. So, so the feeling is like, if, you know, you've built it to this point, ads can really be a cherry on top. They can really help propel the growth that now that you have this, like, especially just all the content you have from your ambassadors, that's. That stuff is. Is rocket fuel when it comes to ads. How, I guess, how big do you see ads as part of the growth story going forward? Or is it still too early to tell?
- [44:37]
Amy
I'm sure it will be one of the main pillars. And, you know, and I still, I almost still have a little aversion to that because you hear from the people that live in these ad spaces of that is what you do. This is the normal norm. You know, this is how it looks and how it should go. So I feel like it'll probably always have to be there, but I'm still kind of opposed to it. I can't really explain it or tell you why it will always probably have to be there. We have just chosen to market and advertise differently, and that's all lumped into the marketing and advertising budget cost. I have always leaned heavily on a marketing and advertising that I could touch and feel and kind of expect what would happen. Whereas ads, sometimes you just don't know. And there's a. It's a big learning to kind of figure it out. And you have to spend money to kind of figure it out. And I've just not been able to stomach that as much as I could stomach physically going to a race where people are actually using our product and touching it and seeing it. And word of mouth has been the best thing that we could have done. Which you're right that, you know, people did not. They don't do it that way. They assume, okay, well, this is the playbook. You know, you dump all this money in ads and you work with a big company that's expensive and, and you grow that way. And yeah, it does work. But now, like you said, they're backtracking. I cannot tell you how many times I've gotten questions from brand owners, big brand owners that want to know how we Run our ambassador program. How do we meet people? How did we build this community? Where's our content come from? I mean, and that was all organic for us. And it just is proof there's more than one way to skin a cat.
- [46:18]
Eric Dick
It's just the Salty Britches Playbook.
- [46:20]
Amy
What can you stomach?
- [46:21]
Eric Dick
Gotta call this podcast what can you stomach? And what you have aptitude for and what fuels you.
- [46:27]
Amy
Right.
- [46:27]
Eric Dick
Like what? And I could just see. I can just see you at trade shows, you know, talking about your product and, you know, being really good at that and people really liking it as well.
- [46:36]
Amy
But I will say this caveat. I don't know if trade shows are the way to go either. Yeah, it. You know, it's. It just depends. And you have to be judicious about that. Sometimes you have to try stuff and it not work out. I mean, that's just. What is the difference in that versus doing ads? It depends on. So with trade shows, they have trade shows that are direct to consumer, and they have trade shows that are direct to wholesalers and retailers. And we've met a lot of our wholesalers and retailers, but now we've got a relationship with these wholesalers and retailers that we just call them or they call us most of the time. Was our team ain't big enough to just call all these people and they just reorder. Well, did I really need to go to that trade show where all the same buyers are. Probably not. So it's, you know, that's part of it too. We are doing something different this year that we've never done called the Jackalope Festival, and it's based in Canada.
- [47:31]
Eric Dick
Oh, nice.
- [47:32]
Amy
And they're doing an event in Virginia beach in May, Jackalope Festival. And it's right on the beach. It's a bmx. There's a rock wall climbing, I guess in Canada, they probably do the snowboarding. It's kind of like X Games. Yeah, they. They shudder. 50, 000 people through this festival in Virginia Beach. And they came to us actually at Surf Expo and said, oh, my word, we need you at this event. Like, your product makes sense for these people. So we decided to do it. And we'll be at the Jackalope Festival in late May, early June, right there at Neptune Beach. And that's direct to consumer. All of our races are direct to consumer. So it's just another way of doing it. You can go to direct to consumer on socials or through ads, or you can physically go direct to consumer. And that has just proven to us to build a real relationship with a real person. And turns out you meet some fantastic people along the way that genuinely want to cheerlead your product. And that's what's happened for Salty Bridges.
- [48:39]
Eric Dick
Beautiful. Thanks for getting the brand name in there so much at the end. I've been watching a bunch of surf comp. I love watching surf competitions like, like the hundred foot wave in oh my in Nazare, Nazarene in Portugal. But there's also just the one down in Hawaii that happens only when the waves show up. And having a presence at those type of events I feel would be. Would be really cool and just fun to visit.
- [48:59]
Amy
Yeah, I wish we could do them all for sure. A lot of those are remote where the big waves are, but I'll tell you, we have ambassadors that do it and so they kind of take our product with us. We have a kid, he's in Ocean City, New Jersey, who is on record. He has surfed every single day for like 1800 days in a row. Whether it's snow, sleet, freezing cold. He's the only one out there. He started, I think, when he was nine. The kid is a beast. He's going to be either. He'll probably be super famous one day. And he uses Salty Britches so that he can surf every day without the irritation from the neoprene in the wetsuits in the freezing cold water. We have learned so much just from watching Carter Dorley. Carter Catches Waves is his Instagram. He's been on the Kelly Clarkson show, He's been in People magazine. He's always promoting Salty Britches. And so even though we can't go to all these live events, our ambassadors are often there. Yeah. And that's another way that program has really helped us grow.
- [50:02]
Eric Dick
Very cool. Thank you so much for coming on the DTC podcast today. I think if anyone out there has issues with chafing and Salty Britches, they need to go to salty britches.com get saltybridges.com get salty. Get salty. Oh, was Salty Bridges. Was Salty Bridges taken?
- [50:20]
Amy
Salty Britches was a domain that was taken by a dead racehorse and we could not get it. So we added Get Salty Britches to the handle, which actually kind of worked out.
- [50:33]
Eric Dick
Yeah, totally.
- [50:34]
Amy
Pretty neat. But yeah, we couldn't get saltybritches.com which was funny, but it wasn't trademark. The name wasn't trademarked. We own the name. We own all the logos and all the trademarks. I think we have five trademarks now, which is fun.
- [50:48]
Eric Dick
That is well thanks again, Amy. This was a lot of fun.
- [50:51]
Amy
Thank you, Eric. I appreciate you having me.
- [50:59]
Eric Dick
Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you're not a subscriber to our newsletter, you can do that right now @directtoconsumeralloneword.co. i'm Eric Dick, and this has been the DTC podcast. We'll see you next time.