← Escaping the Drift with John Gafford
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- [00:00]
A
Back again, back again for another episode of the podcast of like it says in the opening, man gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today, live in the studio, kids, I got something kind of cool for you. So this is actually a friend of mine who was very, very successful at his career, but just decided out of the blue a little while back, like a year and a half ago to start a completely another business that's doing very well. It's kind of starting to take off and we always have people on that, you know, have kind of crossed the finish line. I've kind of gotten over the finish line and I thought it would be really interesting to kind of grab somebody that was in the middle of the race and kind of talk about how they got this started, where it got going. You know, the idea here is if you're somebody at home that has an idea that's burning inside of you and you're thinking, man, I could make that happen, or, oh, all the reasons I couldn't make it happen, this is a dude today that's going to tell you how he's making it happen. So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the program, the founder, CEO, chief creative, and all around genius behind the new golf brand, Scooter Martini. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to program. This is Scott Martin.
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B
Scott, thank you. Nice to meet you.
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A
How are you, buddy? Pull that a little closer. First podcast for Scott.
- [01:12]
B
First. First one.
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A
First one. So, dude, you've been, you're a pretty successful guy in your own right. What, what, what's the day job that's gotten you to where you are?
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B
Cybersecurity. More Consultant advisor. Dealing with global Fortune 500 companies, really overseeing security, bringing new technologies to the market, solving complex business outcomes, trying to show like, risk plus cost justification on why they're doing what they're doing. So that's more my day job.
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A
Yeah. And at this point, it's, at this point, you've got that pretty much down. Yep.
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B
Correct.
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A
Yeah. So life runs pretty smooth, pretty easy. Life is pretty good. Yep. I see you at the club, it frees up a lot of your time. You've got time to play golf and do things, and all of a sudden you just wake up one morning and say to yourself, you know, what I need is a golf brand, a clothing apparel company, which is an incredibly tough business. So walk me through the idea stage of this coming to you and then deciding to make it happen.
- [02:07]
B
Yeah. So it was more my wife and I talking through it. And it was if we were going to do Something, what would we want to do? What's. Golf's always been my passion, buying apparel. I've always been a consumer. So I was always thinking what would I do different? How would I design something? Where do I think is. Where, where's something that I want that I don't see out there today? And then ultimately the pricing just started getting to me. Every polo is $125. Every hoodie's 150 bucks. Hats are up to $90 now for good quality. So I started thinking there has to be a market to create those high end quality products, but bring it together with a good design at a better price point, more for the consumer.
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A
So that, that's the idea. So you have no idea about apparel at this point?
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B
Nothing.
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A
No clue where to even start?
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B
Nothing.
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A
And you're having this conversation with your wife.
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B
Yep.
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A
And how did that go? Because look man, the biggest business decision you can ever make is who you marry. Yeah, I think we can all agree with that. So how did that conversation.
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B
Really good. She was very supportive of it. We started brainstorming around ideas and then you kind of get with what are you going to name it? Then you start looking at domains and social medias and that whole avenue. So we kind of decided to build a brand around like me personally, it's my nickname. I'm Scott Martin. So it's Scooter's always my nickname and then my last name's Martin. But if you look back at my family, the last name was Martini and they dropped the I when they came over from Italy. So we kind of combined my nickname with family and heritage to my Italian roots. So combine the two into a brand. Try and make it like a larger than life Persona. Right. Like you could be somebody that you're not normally it's kind of like a fictitious type guy.
- [03:50]
A
Well, dude, I'm the first one to say that, that when you go out and it's men's day at the golf course, you know Scott's coming. Yeah, well actually that's not true. You don't know when Scott's coming. You definitely know when Scooter Martini's coming around the corner. So that is a, that is a well crafted alter ego that I think you, you've earned on that. So you talk to the wife, the wife says, yeah, let's do this. What was step one really?
- [04:14]
B
Started looking into the manufacturing side, knowing nothing about apparel. Started reaching out to just the apparel manufacturer. So got burnt a couple times. Connected with the wrong people.
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A
Talk about that.
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B
Yeah. So it's kind of, you know, you're just calling people. You put a lot of trust in them. Start going through. And it was, hey, we're looking to start this up, start paying for samples.
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A
And where were you finding people?
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B
The first one was out of China. It was kind of like a third party. Told me they were the direct manufacturer, but come to find out, they're kind of like a middleman. So I was dealing with the middleman that would have to go back to a factory. And it was just very, very slow. It got very expensive. Where my samples started to creep up there. Didn't really have a say on the fabrics, but didn't really come to find out, like, you need a tech pack. Like, I need to be in charge of my fit, my fabrics, all that aspect. I really didn't have that there. They made them, but it wasn't based off stuff I liked and stuff that I really wanted in there. Then I get my samples. Waiting four months. I'm already probably 7,000 in with this company on samples. And the polo sleeve comes to here.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And it's like, oh, that's standard on the first run. And I'm like, something's not right.
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A
Is it? Is it, though?
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B
I don't have time.
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A
Where did you find them? The first people?
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B
Connections. Like, it was. There's a show, a couple shows in Vegas.
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A
Magic show.
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B
Yeah, magic show. And another guy I trust was starting to look at them as well as a company because he was doing something similar, but a different line. And it just kind of put a lot of blind faith in people without really doing my research up front.
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A
If you could go back to that stage instead, what would you have done differently?
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B
What we did, second step, which was. Yeah, so it was kind of scoured the Internet and found golf apparel, freelance designer. And she's been huge. So she started like, send us samples. You like, starting to build. Well, a lot of people don't know when you build apparel, it's not like, okay, I want this. Just throw this here. It's. It's like a tech pack. It's like building a building. So all the measurements, the sleeve lines, then customizing how you want to be. Do you want to be like, a slimmer fit brand, or do you want to have a little bit of room in it? So there's a lot of stuff. So I started pulling apparel that I like. I like the fit of send all that over, and we kind of measured everything, came up with the difference. And then she pretty much built what's a blueprint, which is Called a tech pack. So then from that tech pack, she had some relationships with suppliers out of South Korea that deal with about 15 different golf manufacturers. So we reached out to them. She introduced me and then they. It was a whole different experience.
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A
Was she based in the U.S. she was based. She's us, yep. So if you don't mind me asking, so what, what, what's the range? You know, tell me exactly what it was. But if somebody wants to find somebody. So instead of just like, obviously you can go on Alibaba, right, and find hats and then throw some logo on them, and that's a hat. There's a million swag companies where you can just throw something on a T shirt. This is where you're actually designing a clothing brand. So how much should somebody expect to pay to hire somebody to do that?
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B
So I would say it's about. It depends. So she had some can designs that we bought were a little cheaper because all the work was done. But then some of the ideas were. Or designs were taking ideas out of my head and putting those into an actual design and onto a shirt. So those range 1500 just for the tech pack to have the ability to then take that and start 15 grand to 100 grand. 1500. 1500 per design.
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A
Per design. Okay, got it. 1500 per design. Okay, got it. I was like 15 to 100 grand,
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B
that seems like, yeah, that'd be okay.
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A
So no, so, so it's actually pretty, pretty affordable.
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B
Yeah.
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A
But so what was the determination when you started this out? Like, how many pieces or how many products did you say? I need this many products before I have a line I can take?
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B
So for us it was, we don't want to go too big because it's the first run. We want to kind of get the feedback. But each supplier has a 200 minimum quantity, so I have to order 200. We went in a little bigger. I mean, we start with 11 different polos, four different hoodies, and four quarter zips. So we made a pretty significant investment up front just because of the time it takes. The time from development, the time when you start working with the manufacturers, the time you get your samples that they send back, pick your fabrics, they have to pull the fabrics, they start making it. So you get one sample of that and it's about 30, 60 to 90
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A
days before I can come out, before
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B
I even get that, then I approve it, then it goes into production. So you're looking at about 120 day
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A
process from, from design to actually from
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B
having the tech pack. So even If I added that on for the tech pack, yet another two to three weeks to a month. So you're almost at what, 150 days before you can have something live that you created.
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A
So you were 150 days and a pretty big order. And how much did you risk on this overall? What was your ballpark?
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B
The very first order alone, quantity wise was just over a hundred thousand.
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A
Okay, so we're $100,000 in. Now I'm going to go back in time a little bit because I'm going to ask, did you proof this concept at all or just go, nope, you didn't do that. Okay, all right. Okay. If you're listening to this, I'm going to give you a little piece of advice that I would have given Scott this piece of advice prior to him doing this. I would have done this, which was this. I would have gone on like for example, on my desk right now that we just left and I'll show it to you because you, I didn't see it when you were in there. I have $100,000 bottle of vitamins sitting on my desk. Why do I have a hundred thousand dollar bottle of vitamins? Because at one point, 20 some odd years ago, I decided to create a vitamin supplement nutritional supplement company with my sister where we spent $100,000 on supplements before we asked anybody buy them. Turns out, unfortunately, nobody ever did. Majority of it went into the trash. Henceforth, my hundred thousand dollar bottle of vitamins that I have as my reminder to do this one thing before you do what Scott did, which was proof the market, make sure that you, there's a market for what you want to do. And the easiest way to do that, if you look at things out there like Kickstarter, like those things where you can say, hey, here's this thing, do you want to buy it? Right? Run. It's, it's a lot safer to run to build a website which you can spin up for almost nothing. You could have taken your tech back, you could have put it up on a website, you could have run, you know, you could have run pricing. And the best part about this is you can do it in stages because you can figure out where your price point breaks, right? And you can still do this, right, because you're, we're going to get to your digital marketing strategy here, which we were talking about earlier, but you can still do this where you start out and you get your avatar for your client as you want to get, then you pinpoint your marketing at them with heavy call to action. To your website at a certain price point and then you just get to, you just get them till they get it in the basket. Right. You don't have any product yet, you can't sell it. But you just want to see how many of those at this price point are going to get in that basket. And then you just send them an email and say, oh, we're back stock. We'll get back to you when it comes back into stock. And then you can kind of proof your concept without a lot of risk. And now you're like, okay, cool, my ad spend was X, I got to this and then we got to here. Now your strategy is a little different which is why I understand you couldn't have done a lot of that. I understand that. But I'm just saying if you're listening to this and you're thinking about launching a product, proof the market before you spend the money because it makes sense. Now with golf apparel is a little different. And this is why I'm going to answer for you probably as to why you didn't necessarily get on that road because your long term goal with the brand is yes, some online sales. But you want to be direct with pro shops because there's a problem with pro shop apparel. Correct?
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B
Correct.
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A
Okay, what's that problem?
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B
I just think everything's too high priced, to be honest. I've been a consumer of it, but I'm running into backlash as well because pro shops want to maintain the margins and the higher price because then it starts hurt revenues. So it's kind of a catch 22. I want to be more for the consumer but I'm met with some resistance from a pro shop perspective because they don't want to drop pricing.
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A
Well here, but here's my thing though. Can't you give the pro shop the same margin they do?
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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A
So the pro job, they're buying wholesale cheaper from you than they can buy from the competitors.
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B
But they on most.
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A
Yeah, on most. But they still don't want to bringing the lower pricing.
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B
It's more I've, my reps have heard, you know, we're, we only sell $125 polos so it's doesn't matter on the profit. It's more of, you know, we're top 50 course in the U.S. we have standards, we got to be at this price, our logos on it. So we demand this dollar figure. So it's kind of been one of the more interesting aspects that I've learned because I, I didn't really foresee that coming in, I thought, you know, it would be a better option. You're probably going to sell a lot more if it's good quality at a better price. And I think that might be part of the fear is the lower price point is going to outsell everything and then they'll start seeing that decline in sale revenue.
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A
You're getting that resistance that's coming back from them, which, again. Okay, so let's, let's. So you've gone into pro shops, you've done this. They want to maintain their margins. They're still buying from you. You're in seven right now. So you have seven that are going in. They're still pricing competitive with everything else they have. They're not. Everybody's holding that pricing. They're just like, we'll make bigger margin on this.
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B
Correct.
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A
That's what they're doing. Okay, so that's the direct market. So that doesn't really help you. It actually probably hinders your sales a little.
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B
A little bit. Yeah. It's been one of the things we've been thinking, and I might do a pilot on it. It's like, do I artificially raise my retail for those scenarios, but offer a bigger incentive? So it's because there is kind of perception in a retail price from a buyer or a consumer perspective. Right. So it's.
- [14:09]
A
Yeah, there's. There's quality there for sure. But I would also say that, you know, I, I don't think you want to be a discount brand. I think you and I have had that conversation before where I said the worst thing you can do is just try to be the cheapest option. Yeah, I think that's a terrible. That's a terrible choice. I think what you can do. And we were talking about this, you know, let's talk about the idea for online and what we're doing, what you're currently doing, and. And where I think that should go. And again, if you're watching this on YouTube, feel free to chime in with whatever you want. You know, if you are an online branding expert, great. I've been around enough. I don't claim to be, but I've got enough businesses running online. I think I know what I'm doing. So obviously, I think there needs to be a little bit of a pivot because you're going to have resistance as an unknown brand in the pro shops, butting up against, you know, the Travis Mayhews and those brands that are sitting there that people know.
- [14:59]
B
And that's part of it too. Some. Some brochure pro shops won't bring in a brand unless they're two to three years old. They want to see consistence or my offering isn't big enough. There's not a big enough selection yet. So part of that's all growth and strategy. As we grow, more and more opportunity will come on that area. But it is a big focus because it actually drives our consumer pricing to be competitive. Because now through the pro shops and the wholesale setting that up, it drives the cost of the product down.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So it's how. Part of my strategy of how I'm able to provide a high quality product at a better price point is by leveraging the scale of the company.
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A
Let's see. I think for me, I think that you can utilize the pro shops and, and to me, pro shops are kind of an impulse buy. I think people go play a course they never bought. That's it. Maybe, maybe once a year, if it's your club, you spill it, you drop a hot dog down the front of your shirt and you're like, God damn, Jesus. I, you know, I got to go deal with this now. Maybe once a year. But the majority of that stuff that gets sold in the pro shops I think is, is one offs to people that maybe they're playing a course because it's got the club logo on it. Fine. Where design and color may help you there a little bit. It doesn't matter because they're not really buying the brand as much as they're buying the name of the course that's embroidered on it. But I think what you can do is just having a brand associated with those and then it gives you an opportunity to say, okay, listen, you can buy direct from us and get a better deal.
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B
Well, I shouldn't say better deal. I want to try and have consistency throughout the brand because if, if people are better able to get a better price online, they're not. They're just going to cut out and then the pro shops won't.
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A
But they won't. No, no. But here's the, but here's the difference. Right. I think again for me anyway, I think the fact the pro shop brand is totally different from the online brand.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Well, here's why. Because it's got the name of the course embroidery on it. And I think the majority of times, unless you have the dreaded spilled hot dog down the front of your shirt, most of those are being bought because it has the name of the course on it. Right. You know, I still have a pullover that says Badlands on it. I can't throw it away just because Badlands was such a cool course.
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B
I used to work there.
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A
Yeah. I just. Yeah, I just, I just like having a bad. Something says Badlands on it. I couldn't even. I think it's a. I don't even know what brand it is. I just know it says Badlands Badlands. Right. So I think that makes that a little bit of a limited stock run for you that can justify a higher price on, on site.
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B
Like that makes sense. Yeah.
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A
Yeah. I don't a lot of times. Right.
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B
You're paying for the logo.
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A
Right.
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B
If I, if I go play Pebble, I'm buying something.
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A
Oh for sure.
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B
Or a bunch of stuff with the pebble logo. Just so I have that as a memory.
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A
Sure.
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B
So yeah, there, there is a price point to that because of the logo. That's what's making up the difference. Okay.
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A
So trouble. So, so, so the trouble we're you're having right now is kind of necessarily getting over the hump with the, the pro. The original thought of coming into this with the pro shops were going to sell you cheaper. That's not happening.
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B
No. Well, it's successful in certain markets but the higher end courses, that's where I'm kind of met with some resistance because they want to charge 125 for their logo. Right. So it's. I need to have a program that adapts to both.
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A
Okay.
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B
Or I just need to pick one segment, pick a lane and kind of stay to that and make that my specialty.
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A
Where have you. Okay. So you've got a mixture of those now where you have. Where have you seen more sales happening in? The ones that want to maintain that 125 are the ones that are willing to say, hey look, we just want to make the margin. We just want to move merchandise. Where are you seeing more sales?
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B
It's been close so far. Like it's still pretty new. So they're just out there. But we're getting positive feedback from a bunch of them kind of on both markets. So just really, I think we'll have a better understanding of that in a couple months because we're still in the winter season. So a lot of people aren't buying the point Polos right now. They're buying more of the quarter zips and hoodies. So it's. I think we little need a little bit more time to get the right data to make that decision.
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A
Okay.
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B
But all the feedback's been pretty good from the shops.
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A
All right, well let's talk about the online strategy.
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B
Yep.
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A
So what has that been to this point? Where are you going with it?
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B
Yeah, so social media. We're on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. So a lot of it's just really trying to get the brand awareness out there. Um, how do you. How do I acquire new customers if nobody knows who I am? How are they going to go to my website? Why are they going to buy my brand without really knowing what we represent as a brand and what we're trying to portray? So we're trying to show a lot of that through social media, starting to show the personality of the brand. You know, like, showing people having fun, having a good time, hanging out with your buddies. You know, it's a way to kind of escape reality and really just. I have always felt like you want to look good when you're out there. It helps you kind of play better. If you're in a business setting, you're already kind of nervous because you're meeting with clients or potential clients. The last thing you need to be worried about is if you're comfortable in your apparel.
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A
But I think also, aren't you trying to. Like, this is a little bit of an edge to this. Like, we're trying to fly a little bit of a pirate flag over the top of this brand a little bit, right?
- [19:58]
B
Yep. Yep. There's a big side of that, too. Really trying to show the personality of golf, why people golf, why traditional people golf and the fun that people have on the golf course. I mean, you see car girls going viral because they're showing what it's like for the guys interacting with cart girls. And most of the followers are actually wives to see. What's my husband doing? The golf course.
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A
Oh, Jesus.
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B
So there's a lot of.
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A
The last thing you need is your wife. Is your wife following the local cart girl. But there's the last thing.
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B
A lot of fun happening on it. So we want to be part of that fun, and we want to be the apparel company not. Not over the top, but we want to kind of push the limits a little bit to bring out the fun side of why people and why the game's gone crazy since COVID Yeah.
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A
I think you look at. You know, I think there was a little bit of a breaking point this weekend, and I want your thoughts on this. It waste management this weekend. I think there was something that happened that might be a little bit of the tipping point, which is. I don't even know if you saw this, but there's this jackass kid that is just he's huge on social media, named Jack Dorsey. I hate this kid. I hate this kid. I hate that he's famous. I hate that he. I hate everything about this kid. And that's strong for me. I. I hate this kid. And he's at waste management, and he gets his buddy to yell jackass. Right in the back of somebody's back.
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B
So paid a guy 100 bucks.
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A
100 bucks. Paid him. Done. And then they both got bounced. And I'm like, okay, listen, Waste management is its own animal. I get it. Like the stadium hole. I get it. It's supposed to be there, but I thought that was just.
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B
It's a little much over the top.
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A
A little over the top.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Do you think that. Do you think that maybe. You know, obviously, I think. I think. I think the PGA is leaning into this a little more, especially with what happened live golf. But do you think there's a. You think that might have been a catalyst for. Maybe. Okay, we got to bring this back a little bit.
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B
Yeah. I mean, over the years, you could see the tournament, Right. They've shut down alcohol sales on Saturday because it starts to get out of hand. I think it's kind of like a fine line. Right. And I think it's kind of fine line of what we're trying to do as a brand. We want to be a fun brand, but we don't want to be over the top. Right. Yeah. Like what the influencer did. Right. Like, to me, as a golfer, unacceptable. Right. There's guys out here playing for $1.7 million. It's their lives. And you're literally interrupting them, interfering with that, and then trying to play victim that everybody's soft. It's like, yeah, you make your money in front of a camera. These guys grind. I mean, put forth a ton of effort. I have so much respect for every pro golfer and what they do.
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A
Oh, yeah.
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B
They shouldn't be interrupted by some influencer trying to get views by.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Interfering with what he's doing. So I agree with you. I'm not a fan of the guy. And I love the stance PGA took because I. I don't think there's anywhere in the game.
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A
Yeah. I don't think they should ever let that kid anywhere near everything.
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B
And I think he got a lifetime
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A
b. Yeah, I think he did. He can't ever go to any of the games.
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B
Good to that point. It's a fine line. Right. We want to be fun, but I still respect the game. I love the game. I play the game. And so you got to stay within the confines of the game.
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A
Well, let's talk about that. So who is. Who. Who's a scooter martini guy in your mind?
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B
In my guy. In my mind.
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A
Who's your guide?
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B
It's from a player perspective or what I envision.
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A
What do you know? Just in general. Like. Like. Like, if I see a dude wearing scooter martini, what do I know about that person?
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B
They're going to be fun, they're going to be personable, they're going to be a guy you want to play golf with, but they're going to respect the game, they're going to take care of the course, and you don't have to worry about them as a liability on the course.
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A
Yeah. I've told my son for many years, I said, listen, it comes to the game of golf, it's way more important to be entertaining than good.
- [23:38]
B
Then good. Yeah. So it's like I keep going back to. It's a fine line. Like, you know, if I want the brand to represent that, you're going to be like, that's a force I want to be in. It's going to be a ton of fun, but we're still going to play good golf and we're going to respect the course.
- [23:54]
A
Okay, well, let's talk about reaching those people now, because obviously the pro shops are. That was a little bit of a pivot. Even though we continue this, it's going to pivot. So now the strategy is becoming a little bit more customer direct.
- [24:05]
B
Yep.
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A
Via the Internet. And how are. What's the plan for reaching some of these folks?
- [24:09]
B
So I think as we've talked, I'd love to create kind of an AI vision and marketing plan of. I have about 100 different pet peeves of golf that just drive me crazy.
- [24:23]
A
Right.
- [24:23]
B
So I want to really start hammering on those. Bring light, make them funny, show the personality side of the brand, and really kind of at the same time showcase. This is what our brand is. This is kind of what we believe in from a golf perspective, but at the same time, maybe even help some of the courses. When it comes to the people playing that, they're taking care of the course and they're doing what they should.
- [24:45]
A
So the best part about, you know, those AI videos just for. For doing stuff like this is, is you can literally just run test after test after test and it doesn't matter and see what works. Yeah. But, you know, the thing is with social media anymore is it's such a flood of just nonsense, I found. And, you know, we Just hired a new guy full our company here. And I'm like, you know, what do you want to show? Like, what do you want to do? And I'm like, I just want to get some real stuff out there. Right. Nothing that's, you know, for example, it's always been the stiff, like walking around houses with, you know, our best looking agents, like Vanna White from, you know, like handout, like a spokesmodel. And, and I think people are just so sick of that. And so this guy came in and he just was walking around. You know, we were testing him out and he shot a tester. And it was my wife and Eugenia, who's our broker, and Mel, who's our director of operations. And me debating push presence, like should you get a push present? And I, I was debating that giving my, getting my wife a nanny for six years, that was the push present. I thought that was pretty solid. And then she was claiming that was for me. And that video of just what it's like to be in this office on any given day did like 20,000 views in like five minutes. Like that quick. Just because it was just really what was happening that day. And I think if you can take that, that stuff that happens on the golf course and make it funny and make it interesting, but, you know, not so like, here's my, you know, here's my, my model turning around and that stuff. I mean, you got to do some of that stuff to show off your brand because it's a clothing thing, but if you make it something that people want to engage with and want to want to watch and they want to see what happens next. And, and this thing, I mean, you and I had talked about before, kind of making, you know, scooter Martini, this mythical character that's like an absolute just terrorist on the golf course. And yeah, even though you don't want to be him, you know, it's obvious that he was there and he's kind of the menace. Yeah, right. And it's kind of like it's okay to root for the bad guy wrestler, but you don't want to be the bad guy wrestler. You know, I'll buy your T shirts, but I'm not going to do the stuff that he does is kind of that, that image. And I always, when you first told me about this, I always thought about back in the day, Palpalta skateboards and the search for animal chin that where they were looking for this mythical little old Asian guy, skateboarder. And it was like this mythical hunt for him. They Never found him. And I always kind of thought the, the hunt for Scooter Martini would be similar.
- [27:07]
B
And, and I, and I want to bring that in, and I want to almost make it, like, where you're proud to wear it. And it's like a family, and you see someone else wearing it, it's like, oh, nice shirt. You know, like, it's an automatic connection.
- [27:18]
A
You tip the hat. Yeah. People, you see it. The Jeep wave.
- [27:22]
B
Yeah. You see it a lot. Because I'm a big Ohio State fan. If I wear my Ohio State stuff anywhere, people come up. Oh. And it starts conversation and ask if
- [27:30]
A
you're married to your cousin. No, not.
- [27:32]
B
But it's almost like a way to meet people. And it's almost like being in Ohio wearing something Ohio State. Like, it's almost like you're part of, like, this unwritten family. Right. And that's what I want Scooter and Martini to rep.
- [27:46]
A
So the question about Ohio State, not to get too far off the thing is, do you feel that the reason for their recent struggles and failure to win is because Ryan Day's beard has just died way too, too black. You feel that that's the issue. I mean, that thing is just, it is shoe. Black. Black. It's just too black for me.
- [28:02]
B
They got, they got the talent.
- [28:04]
A
Yeah, they did. Well, they, I mean, they got the money. That's a whole nother thing. So as you start now down this road with social media, and I know you've hired a firm. Talk about hiring, talk about hiring a firm to, to represent you for social media.
- [28:15]
B
Yeah, no, it's been great. Like, I, I, I still have a day job. I don't have time to do that. So it's good to talk with experts to get their ideas. They have the creative background, so it's, it's kind of almost like the design process of Apollo. Right. I get to talk to an expert of. This is my vision. This is what I'm looking to do for the brand. And then they have the skill sets to be able to do it and post it and take it to all the different areas and all the stuff that I could probably figure out on my own over time, but I don't have the time. 1. And I don't have the bandwidth. 2. Yeah.
- [28:50]
A
So are you using other VAs or.
- [28:51]
B
No, just one.
- [28:53]
A
Just the one. So you just hired this one person.
- [28:55]
B
Yep. So they're, they're. I view them as really a partner in the business.
- [28:59]
A
Yeah.
- [28:59]
B
So it's, it's a great relationship. We talk all the time.
- [29:03]
A
Are they, are they, are they compensated just straight up or they compensate also on sales?
- [29:07]
B
Straight up.
- [29:07]
A
Okay, got it. Yeah. It's one of those things where if you're building a business and you know, a lot of people try to spend so much time figuring out like every little nuance part of that business themselves. And there's a great book if you, if you want to start a business like this. It's called who not how. And you should really get good at figuring out who can do things for you, not how to do that.
- [29:28]
B
Yeah.
- [29:29]
A
You know, I'm, I'm right now in the middle of kind of recasting my entire, my entire support system. So I hired a guy just, just so you understand what's possible out there. I went on upwork and I ran an ad for a virtual coo. And what I wanted was somebody that could then go through all of my processes and procedures and everything and KPI dashboards and all of that stuff for all of our different companies and then hire a team of VAs and manage those VAs and I wound up hiring a guy yesterday, actually that's the CEO of a, of a, of a pretty big roofing business in Idaho. Like 30, 40 million dollar roofing business. And he's like, yeah, I just, I'm getting the fractional thing. So he's like, this is my first foray into like doing this normally. Normally I would have thought, you know, vas, you're thinking Philippines, you're thinking Colombia, you're thinking Venezuela, you're thinking those countries and Mexico. And we will, we will hire some of the sub vas from there. But to get this first guy for like 20 bucks an hour to come in and build this entire machine and then hire all these VAs and then manage them is amazing. But I plan on having one VA that does bookkeeping, one VA that does design, one VA that does social media posting, one VA that does all the little things that I do. I want one human that does that task.
- [30:43]
B
Yep.
- [30:43]
A
And then does it extremely well and then have one person that manages all of those people to rope them in. And I think people spend so much time thinking like, oh, this is going to be so much work when if you really by utilizing upwork, if you're one of those people that thinks that, go read a book by Tim Ferriss called the four Hour Workweek, which is phenomenal, will show you kind of how to start your sort, you know, how to start outsourcing your life. I don't know how much of your Stuff you've got to the point yet where you can outsource.
- [31:07]
B
But that's kind of our model. Right. It's. My focus is on my day job mostly. So it's like, how much of this can I bring in? Experts that I'm going to bring them in, pay them for what they do. It's going to make us stronger. I'm going to learn from them in the. The process and it helps me kind of streamline it. Plus I can react faster.
- [31:26]
A
Yeah.
- [31:26]
B
So it's. If I'm in meetings in the day job, I can't have Scooter Martini at a halt. I. I need people that are moving power to do so, to move forward.
- [31:35]
A
Yeah. Moving behind the scenes.
- [31:37]
B
I'm completely behind that model and it's the only way I can. Can scale, to be honest.
- [31:43]
A
So right now you've got reps out in the. Out in the field that are. Two reps that are out building relationships
- [31:50]
B
with the pro shops. They have pro shop relationships. So they'll walk in and they'll show the whole line. And that's how we're getting a lot of our.
- [31:57]
A
Don't skip over that because you said they already have relationships. How did, how did you get that?
- [32:01]
B
So they're in the industry today, so they represent a couple other brands as well. So we've, we've partnered with them. They're all 1099. They're out there representing brands. They have the relationships with the pro shop. So as their meetings and they're showing Scooter Martini and talking about our brand. They have the samples, so they're feeling them, they're seeing our quality. So that's how we're getting all our sales today.
- [32:23]
A
So I don't want to skip over that because there's a lot of people. I've had great success with this over the years where you're like, okay, I've already got. You know, you try to find people in other businesses that maybe don't necessarily compete with you that already have products that go to your customers. And then what you can do is you can go to them and say, listen, let's do a deal where either I get on your mailing list or I get on your newsletter, or I can utilize your salesforce and I will compensate them to push our product. Like we've had over the years, great success with that by utilizing our, let's say our salesforce that is in title to. Then talk about our mortgage company or other companies. Like, like we're already talking to these people. Let's do this together. A lot of the joint venture partnerships I have with things like solar companies because like you guys are already doing all these home homes. You have the sales force of all of your agents that are selling all these homes. Let's come in and compensate those agents to help sell solar. And so by doing these combined sales forces, it's a really smart way to expand your reach. So anytime you can find people out there that are doing that kind of a thing, it's a good idea. Let's talk about building a salesforce now because we were talking a little bit about affiliates earlier and trying to get that thing going because nobody's a better salesman for your brand than a raging fan, right? It just doesn't work. So it does work is what I meant to say. So what's the long term plan for Scooter Martini?
- [33:48]
B
So right now I'm trying to incorporate technology, right? I sell technology from a day to day. In this day and age it's apparel. But I've been thinking how do I leverage AI or how do I leverage technology even though it's apparel? So a lot of that is my focus right now is like I have two reps right now. I could go and track down reps in all 50 states, multiple states. And all of a sudden I have say 80 reps that are out there pushing the brand. That becomes a lot as we're talking about to manage. If I was full in all day, didn't have a day job, I would take that over and manage the reps. I've kind of started thinking and I'm working with my web designer where I'm building like a wholesale back end. I'm going to leverage the technology to where a lot of the stuff a sales guy can do that's coming in, you can do it yourself online. So you can put in your logo, you can add your resale certificates, you can see the whole price book, you can see everything request samples right from there. So we're starting to partner and sponsor a lot of PGA Pro like club Pro type events to where they're coming, where we'll be the sponsor. We'll give away our apparel so they can see it, feel it, and then set them up with a code to our website to where they can go in the back end and they can start placing ordering. So a lot of it is how do I streamline this whole process, right? So, and I think technology is a big way to do it and that's kind of a big focus of ours. Another area is as Part of that reband is starting to build affiliate programs, starting to build rebate programs, really starting to reward the customers who love the product, are loyal, bringing others in and really start to compensate them. When they're referring us, we'll, we'll pay them back through either rebates or different type of program to where you buy one of my polos, you tell five people, here's your link. They buy. All of a sudden now you get a free polo.
- [35:40]
A
Yeah.
- [35:40]
B
Or you get a free hat or you get whatever you want to do with that credit within our brand. So now you're getting free stuff by kind of representing the brand and just every day at the golf, Hey, I like your polo. Where'd you get it? I'll send you a link. Yeah, that easy. And now you're starting to get free stuff. That's for that. Yeah.
- [35:59]
A
You know, one of the things that I would recommend that you do because I know you shopify on the back end like so many people do for online stores is I would look at as you get into more customer relationship and I, I don't use Shopify so I don't know all the capabilities it has. But I do know two things. Number one, go high level is what we use for pretty much all of our customer data driven contact stuff. It's an unbelievable CRM that does integrate with Shopify that would have a clean back and forth integration with them. But I would, I would hire somebody that understands how to, how to make that go. But you can integrate everything there, your website, your forms, your everything can go there. And to go high level, it's probably the best all around platform I've seen for just about everything really good. And then what I would also say is I, I love the affiliate program. Back to your, back to your existing clients. People that love what they do, I, I or love your product will sell it. There's no better mouthpiece than a happy customer. You know, there's just no better. Speaking of customers, you know, how are you handling right now? Customer support as a small.
- [37:05]
B
So it's all through the shops. Our reps handle a lot of that and then we get involved when we need to. But so far it's, you know, we have the email, I reach out personally on every single order as well. So it's like I want to kind of create that relationship with the consumer. Right. So I reach out every order, I'll shoot them a text because I get the info. It's like hey, thank you for the order. We have automated stuff but mine's personal. Like, it's me on the other end. It's like, hey, I just want to confirm your size. You know, you're a large, but some of your xl. What type of fit do you want? So I'm trying to get it right up front because I think it's. It shows that we care.
- [37:44]
A
Yeah.
- [37:44]
B
Instead of me just taking an order offline, there's no personality to it. And you order a large, I send you a large, it doesn't fit. Then you reach out. It's like I'm trying to be proactive and understand, interact with the customer and make it more personable. And really, with apparel, it's all about the fit. So you'll hear it all the time. It's like, this brand, I'm a large, and this brand, I'm an Excel. How's your fit? Fit?
- [38:08]
A
Yeah.
- [38:09]
B
And then I'll make recommendations.
- [38:10]
A
Do you have, like, the sizing chart on? We do.
- [38:12]
B
We have a lot of it. But as you know, like, a lot of people don't pay attention to it. It's. I see something. I wouldn't pay attention to it personally.
- [38:19]
A
When you have freakishly long arms, you have to pay attention to stuff like that.
- [38:22]
B
But it's. I feel it's. I'm trying to limit the returns by reaching out, making it. You know, I'm asking a couple questions, so I'm getting to the bottom of. And then I feel like I know our sizing good enough to where I can put you in the right size.
- [38:36]
A
Right. Okay. So when you order stuff, I'm just curious about this. Right. Do you have to order like, X amount of smalls? X amount of mediums? Because I'm sure at the end of it, you wind up with box of smalls.
- [38:47]
B
That's. That was the big part of the first figuring it out. I can order whatever I want.
- [38:54]
A
Okay.
- [38:54]
B
It needs to be 200.
- [38:55]
A
Yeah.
- [38:56]
B
But trying to figure out, with no data up front, what sizes are going to sell. Who's your customer going to be? So I reached out to a lot of pro shops, people in the industry. I know, what are your most popular sizes? I kept hearing over and over, two XL to XL to XL. So I buy all these two XLs, and my whole sale so far are large, medium and small. Where it's large, we did a lot. But medium, small. I did. I very underestimated the.
- [39:24]
A
Really?
- [39:25]
B
Yeah.
- [39:25]
A
You did a lot of medium and smalls.
- [39:27]
B
I didn't.
- [39:27]
A
Oh, you didn't.
- [39:28]
B
But sales is medium and small.
- [39:30]
A
People are buying mediums and Smalls.
- [39:32]
B
So I've already really. I've already had to reorder.
- [39:35]
A
I see. I would have thought the double xl. I would have knock on there. I. I would. If I had to guess, if just guessing I would have had to say the majority of it would be large, then it'd be extra large. And then he'd have a smattering of mediums and a. Just a touch of smalls that we
- [39:50]
B
had a touch of smalls and sold out immediately.
- [39:53]
A
Really?
- [39:53]
B
Yeah. So because we're finding two on. On like our hoodies are really, really popular right now. Good quality. We're actually a lot of unisex to where women want them. So their women fell in love with them too. So they're starting to buy like the smalls, the mediums. And it's kind of a good. Because we don't have women's yet. It's on the roadmap and it's coming. We're in samples, but they want to represent the brand and love the sweatshirts. So I've sold a lot of them to women as well.
- [40:20]
A
Fair. Yeah. Unisex, you can do whatever you want.
- [40:22]
B
Yeah.
- [40:23]
A
All right, so what's the long term plan? What's the long term goal for this
- [40:27]
B
is really just to keep building it up, Building the family, building the brand, getting it right, taking customer feedback. And I own the company so I can do what I want. It's really. That's the part I love, is if there's enough demand for something, I can add it. So I can do. I don't have to get approval from anyone. I can take it any way I need to go.
- [40:46]
A
Yeah. One of my favorite things I always say is when my kid was. When Hayden was like probably eight years old, said to me one day, he goes, dad, I want to do what you do. Okay. What do I do? He goes, you're the boss. And I said, okay, why do you want to be the boss? And he goes, because nobody gets to tell you what to do.
- [41:03]
B
Yeah.
- [41:04]
A
I said, yep. I said, you want to know what the hardest thing about being the boss is? He said, what? I go, nobody tells me what to do. It's super rewarding, but it's also the biggest challenge because there's no roadmap. Well, cool. Well, Scott, if they want to find the brand, they want to. They want to buy some stuff, they want to check it out, where they find it. Scooter Martini.com Scooter Martini.com. well, dude, I look forward to say, register.
- [41:26]
B
It's 20% off. As well.
- [41:28]
A
So 20% off. If you go check it out now. Look at that.
- [41:31]
B
And I can create a promo code specifically to this. And I'll do 35% off.
- [41:35]
A
35% off. If you type in escaping. Just type. If you type in Escape, it's 35% off. That's dope, dude. That's amazing. So cool. Well, dude, I wish you nothing but success. If you. One last question before we jump off. If you could go back in time and do one thing different, what would you have done?
- [41:52]
B
First call would have been to a designer. We would be probably two years up with sales, and we're seven months. It would have saved us about a year and a half.
- [42:00]
A
Oh, wow. Well, there you go. Dude, it's not. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Well, dude, thanks for coming by. Listen, if you listen to that today and inspired you to start your own business again, I think the best lesson that you can take away from today is obviously, it's not what you know, it's who you know. So plan this stuff out. A good plan up front will save you a lot of heartache in the long run. We'll see you next week.