True Classic CEO Ben Yahalom: 'Diversification is key to marketing success'

Summary

The Glossy Podcast Episode Summary: Title: True Classic CEO Ben Yahalom: 'Diversification is key to marketing success'
Host: Jill Manoff
Release Date: February 5, 2025

In this insightful episode of The Glossy Podcast, host Jill Manoff sits down with Ben Yahalom, the newly promoted CEO of True Classic, a prominent menswear brand that has achieved remarkable success in a short span. Ben delves into the company's journey from its inception to becoming a $500 million revenue powerhouse, emphasizing the crucial role of diversification in marketing strategies. The conversation explores True Classic's product innovation, marketing prowess, strategic expansions, and unwavering commitment to customer satisfaction.

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1. Ben Yahalom’s Ascension to CEO

Timestamp: [02:41]

Ben Yahalom shares his transition from President to CEO of True Classic, highlighting the evolution of his role. He explains how his responsibilities have expanded to encompass broader strategic decisions and overseeing the company's global growth.

Quote:
"We started super narrow... expanding globally from being a US brand to a global brand in over 190 markets worldwide."
[02:54]

2. True Classic’s Product Philosophy

Timestamp: [04:23]

Ben discusses the foundational vision of True Classic: creating the best T-shirt in the world. The focus is on perfecting fit, fabric quality, and affordability to cater to a broad consumer base.

Key Points:

• Fit and Fabric: Development of a unique fit tailored for men, including larger sizes up to 3XL.
• Quality and Price: Custom fabric blends to ensure durability and softness without exorbitant pricing.
• Expansion Beyond T-Shirts: Introduction of activewear, jeans, chinos, jackets, and plans for women's apparel.

Quote:
"We wanted to provide a great quality shirt for a favorable price because the people who did try to create a premium T-shirt sold it for such crazy markups."
[05:00]

3. Marketing and Advertising Strategies

Timestamp: [06:22]

True Classic heavily invests in digital advertising across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Google, and YouTube to convey their brand story and emotional benefits associated with their products.

Key Points:

• Emotional Connection: Advertising focuses on confidence and self-esteem rather than just the product.
• Performance Marketing: Initially centered on direct response but now integrating more brand-building efforts.

Quote:
"We are really big on digital advertising... we sell that good feeling, that sense of confidence."
[06:41]

4. Diversification Beyond Digital Marketing

Timestamp: [09:39]

Ben emphasizes the importance of diversifying marketing channels to counter diminishing returns from any single platform. This includes expanding into TV, podcasts, partnerships, and sports sponsorships with entities like the UFC and local sports teams.

Key Points:

• Channel Diversification: Moving beyond Meta and Google to explore new advertising avenues.
• Adaptive Budgeting: Allocating budgets based on channel performance and opportunities.

Quote:
"We try to maximize the opportunity on any given channel... whatever device somebody's preferred method is."
[10:38]

5. Retail Partnerships and Omnichannel Expansion

Timestamp: [11:42]

True Classic has successfully partnered with major retailers like Target and Kohl’s, complementing their primarily direct-to-consumer model with physical store presence.

Key Points:

• Omnichannel Approach: Balancing online sales with physical retail locations to enhance accessibility.
• Customer Convenience: Offering in-store purchases for immediate access and reducing wait times associated with online orders.

Quote:
"True Classic, as you mentioned, is just a great play for us because so many of our customers are loyal Target customers."
[11:42]

6. Community Engagement and Customer Loyalty

Timestamp: [27:59]

Ben highlights True Classic’s unique community-building efforts, including the Insiders Club and an active Facebook group where customers interact directly with the leadership team.

Key Points:

• Insiders Club: A membership program offering benefits like free shipping and cash back.
• Customer Interaction: Direct engagement through Facebook groups, where customers provide feedback and participate in company meetings.

Quote:
"We create this direct relationship between everybody who works at this company and the end consumer because we're here to serve them."
[32:14]

7. Challenges and Operational Strategies

Timestamp: [32:33]

Ben discusses the ongoing challenges of managing rapid growth and maintaining ambitious goals without compromising on product quality or customer satisfaction.

Key Points:

• Supply Chain Diversification: Mitigating risks associated with tariffs by manufacturing in multiple countries.
• Team Dynamics: Recruiting "business athletes" who thrive in a fast-paced, growth-oriented environment.

Quote:
"We manufacture in a lot of different countries... quality is number one for us."
[18:31]

8. Future Goals and Expansion Plans

Timestamp: [36:54]

Looking ahead, Ben outlines True Classic’s mission to serve over 100 million people worldwide. Plans include expanding product lines, enhancing physical retail presence, and potentially exploring IPO opportunities.

Key Points:

• Consumer-Centric Goals: Focused on expanding reach and enhancing customer experience.
• Scalability: Utilizing internal growth and strategic partnerships to scale without diluting brand values.

Quote:
"The 10-year target at True Classic is consumer-oriented and it is to serve over 100 million people worldwide."
[36:54]

9. Understanding the Male Consumer

Timestamp: [39:24]

Ben provides insights into male consumer behavior, emphasizing the desire for simplicity, reliability, and value in their apparel choices.

Key Points:

• Simplicity: Men prefer straightforward, high-quality basics without excessive options.
• Reliability: Seeking comfortable, well-fitting clothing that requires minimal decision-making.

Quote:
"Simplicity is just such an underrated concept... they just want to be taken care of so they can take care of other things."
[39:24]

10. Plans for Women's Apparel Line

Timestamp: [47:24]

Responding to consumer demand, True Classic is developing a women’s line, aiming to replicate the brand’s success in menswear by addressing specific needs and preferences.

Key Points:

• Research and Development: Extensive efforts to understand women's clothing requirements.
• Inclusive Design: Ensuring fit, style, and fabric meet diverse preferences without compromising simplicity.

Quote:
"We're trying to make sure that when we go out there with our women's line, we truly nail it by solving real problems."
[47:26]

11. Customer Service Excellence

Timestamp: [45:13]

True Classic prioritizes exceptional customer service, viewing it as a cornerstone of the brand rather than a cost center. This approach fosters deep customer loyalty and transforms customers into brand advocates.

Key Points:

• Proactive Service: Going beyond problem-solving to enhance customer well-being.
• Personal Touch: Agents engage with customers empathetically, addressing not just their needs but also contributing positively to their lives.

Quote:
"We believe in serving humans, making them look good, making them feel good."
[45:13]

12. Conclusion and Future Outlook

Timestamp: [50:28]

Ben wraps up by sharing exciting upcoming initiatives, including new product launches like the Pima shirt, further international expansion, and enhanced marketing strategies. He reiterates the company’s commitment to continuous improvement and customer satisfaction.

Key Points:

• Product Innovation: Launching new high-quality products to maintain market leadership.
• Global Expansion: Establishing local distribution centers to better serve international markets.
• Strategic Partnerships: Leveraging relationships with retailers like Target to accelerate growth.

Quote:
"2025 is going to be a great year for this company. It's still early days."
[50:28]

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Notable Exclusions: The summary intentionally omits sections related to advertisements and sponsor messages, such as the promotional segments by Listrack and Christina Ko, to maintain focus on the core content of the interview.

Overall Insight: Ben Yahalom’s leadership at True Classic exemplifies how strategic diversification, unwavering commitment to product quality, and exceptional customer service can drive substantial growth in the competitive fashion industry. By balancing direct-to-consumer efforts with strategic retail partnerships and fostering a loyal community, True Classic is poised for continued success and expansion on a global scale.

Transcript

[Jill Manoff]

Hello Glossy Podcast listeners. As you kick off 2025 and work toward your aggressive revenue goals, one digital marketing platform partner is all you need and that's listrack. Listrack is your beauty and fashion revenue insider. List Track understands the beauty and fashion space and is the proven go to Partner for revenue creation Powering Personalized Consumer connections for leading retailers and brands list. Like Peter Thomas Roth Anastasia, Beverly Hills, John Varvatos and Oscar de la Renta, Listrack's powerful AI integration with Shopify allows you to access and unify your customer data to deliver personalized cross channel messages that resonate, engage and inspire your customers. Partnering with ListTrack gives you access to beauty and fashion experts who act as an extension of marketing teams, sharing proprietary industry benchmarks, data and real time behaviors and trends. Learn [e-mail] that's L I S T R A K.com.

[Jamie Elden]

I think it's going to be huge in 25 and in 26 because the beauty in the fashion industry love to put high powerful creative that they've invested in in front of consumers through all channels. RCS allows them now to leverage all the investment they've made on this content and use it in a mobile channel.

[Christina Ko]

That's Jamie Elden, Chief Revenue Officer at List Track, our sponsor on this episode of the Glossy Podcast. Later in the show custom talks with Jamie about how beauty brands are using personalization, working to stand out and new creative formats on the horizon.

[Jill Manoff]

Thanks for tuning in to the Glossy Podcast. I'm your host host Jill Manoff and today I'm sitting down with Ben Yahalom who was very recently promoted From President to CEO of True Classic. The five year old menswear brand has already done $500 million in revenue and in December it entered 460 Target stores which should work wonders to support the growth of the brand. I wanted to ask Ben how True Classic has achieved such success while remaining 90% direct to consumer. I'm also wondering about the shopping habits of today's male consumers and to what extent they differ across true classics 192 global markets. Welcome Ben.

[Ben Yahalom]

Thank you for having me.

[Jill Manoff]

Thanks for being here. You've got quite an operation happening. Tell me a little bit about your experience with the company and what it means to go from President to CEO. How your your role has changed.

[Ben Yahalom]

All right, so I'll start with a quick intro about the brand. So we started True classic back in 2019 with a very ambitious purpose of we're here to empower everyone to look good and feel Good. And we thought about doing that with developing the best T shirt in the world. One that fits really well, feels really great and soft, and is ultimately offered at a favorable price point because we wanted to reach the masses, the product market fit was out of this world and we started super narrow. We used to be called True Classic Tees. We used to be only in the United States and we used to only sell on our Shopify website. What we've been doing over the past five years is expanding towards that vision we had of serving over 100 million people worldwide with True Classic. And we have been expanding globally from being a US brand to a global brand. Like you mentioned, over 190 markets worldwide where you can shop True Classic. We expand from being a direct to consumer brand to an omnichannel brand. We are on marketplaces like Amazon. We are on our own retail stores. We have almost nine right now, two more to come. We have wholesale presence, like you mentioned Target, and we have marketplaces like Amazon and others. And we moved from True Classic Tees to True Classic because what we have done with T shirts can be done with many other categories for guys to make them look and feel their best. So we have activewear and jeans and chinos and jackets, and even women is on the horizon. So it's been quite a ride and a lot to talk about. So you tell me what you believe would be most interesting to your audience.

[Jill Manoff]

Well, it's interesting because I have heard a couple of folks on this podcast tell me, like, I set out to create the perfect T shirt. However, what was missing from the menswear market? Is it about the fabric? Is it about the fit? Like, what was not out there and why? Like, why had anybody done this? This is a basic. Everyone wears T shirts.

[Ben Yahalom]

That's right. But men have been underserved. And it's quite interesting to your very point, why has it not been done before? We just found that men were not served to what they were looking to have. So when it comes to it's actually all of the above, both fit and feel and price. When it comes to fit, most men's shirts have not been fitting them particularly well. We rethought about what should a men T shirt fit them? Like, and we made it a little bit tighter around the arms and chest, looser around the torso. We also went to larger sizes, all the way up to 3xls. And if you look at those larger sizes out there in the market, you will see that many apparel brands mail it in, if you will, with a generic grading of their shirts. But those shirts don't fit particularly well, those larger guys. And that was a shame when it comes to the product itself. From a fabrication standpoint, we developed our own custom blend and we thought about how do we deliver a greatly very soft fabric, one that doesn't wrinkle, one that lasts the test of time, doesn't peel. And we did our own kind of like R and D around that. And after doing all that effort, we were not trying to gouge the consumers. So we wanted to provide to them a great quality shirt for a favorable price. Because the people who did try to create a premium T shirt sold it for just such great crazy markups like 60, 70, $80 plus a shirt. And many people don't want to break the bank to get a T shirt every day. And so developed a great product, sold it for a great price, and we're able to hit that crazy market fit.

[Jill Manoff]

Yes. And it's very apparent. I was on creeping on your website where you show kind of how a typical T shirt fits and how your T shirts fit. And I mean, it helps that you have guys with nice muscles. It's kind of gripping their muscles.

[Ben Yahalom]

That's right. Guys want to showcase their arms and their chest and they want to conceal that midsection.

[Jill Manoff]

Yes. Well, it makes sense. Is this the type of imagery and video that is working on your digital ads? And tell me to what extent digital advertising has played or to what role it's played in your success to date?

[Ben Yahalom]

Yeah, we are really big on digital advertising, so we advertise on all the main channels you can imagine. So Facebook and Instagram and Google and YouTube and so on. And that is a big part of how we tell that story to our consumers. And you mentioned that with some of our imagery and videography. But what we ultimately are trying to help them understand is what we sell, while it looks like a T shirt or a product is kind of deeper than that, we sell that good feeling, that sense of confidence, that sense of self esteem. And we try to illustrate that without emotional connection to those consumers. So we take care of their clothing, they look and feel their best and they go on with their days. And so a lot of our advertising really tries to hit on those emotional benefits that come through the true classic products.

[Jill Manoff]

Yes, you've got experience at Meta, at Instagram, at Facebook. To what extent has that worked to your advantage or were you able to leverage that experience in building this brand?

[Ben Yahalom]

To a large degree, I would say so. I started being involved with the brand while I was still working At Meta from the very, very early days and I was consulting the founders and help them, help them figure out how to scale successfully on the back of those platforms with the right creatives, with the right measurement approach. So we know how much to spend with the right optimization and bidding and audiences and signal solutions like the Pixel we use or the conversion API. And the success we've had was just so surreal. When I was at Meta, I used to work on the Disruptors group. And at Meta you have this purview to see basically almost every business around the world. You know, the platform has over 200 million of them, 10 million of which are actively advertising. And it's a very long tail. You have all the kind of largest advertisers you can imagine, like the Amazons of the world, and you have the mom and pop shops that spend a few bucks and trying to kind of make ends meet. But I've never seen a true classic. And what was fascinating to me is how we were able to bootstrap the brand, go into a commodity space like t shirts in 2019. It's definitely been around for quite some time. And without any X factors, not raising funds, no celebrity endorsements, no product patents, with a solidified moat, we're able to do so well and be able to scale that profitably and build that community of fans in our customer base. And so I couldn't resist the temptation and joined full time to help run the company.

[Jill Manoff]

I was just going to ask about the presence of any fundraising or. Anyway, bootstrap. This still applies to this day. Five years in, you guys have not taken outside funding.

[Ben Yahalom]

Funding, that's right. We did raise debt, as in like credit line to finance our inventory, but we never raised any equity.

[Jill Manoff]

Wow. Wow. So exciting. I hear a lot from brands. You know, their spending on Meta has become less effective, more expensive, all the things. And is that true for you and why the diversification of everything has taken place?

[Ben Yahalom]

Yeah, it's true for everybody. You know, every channel you are on has. You're on a diminishing return curve. And as the returns continue to diminish, you got to start thinking about what is my next channel, what is my next audience, what is my next creative, what is the next product or market? And so we started super narrow. And it used to be pretty much almost exclusively on Meta and Google, but nowadays we're way more diversified and we don't play favorites. Every channel has its place in our mix. And my saying is that wherever performance goes, budget flows, we're here to grow profitably. And we try to maximize the opportunity on any given channel, whether it's a sales channel or a marketing channel, it doesn't really matter. We just try to make the most out of it. And when it comes to advertising, we spend up until a point where it doesn't make sense for us to spend more than that. But we're constantly trying to figure out how to drive those two pieces. Right, the performance or the efficiency. And then the scale and combine is how we make those decisions on a day to day basis.

[Jill Manoff]

Yes. So we are in late January 2025. Where's the money flowing now? What's working now?

[Ben Yahalom]

Okay, so for us, the biggest thing right now is to continue to diversify. So we are on Meta, we're on Google, we're on AppLovin, we're on TikTok, we are ramping up TV, we're ramping up podcasts, we're ramping up partnerships. We partnered recently with UFC and the Clippers and the Kings and the Ramps in la. So we are, we're continuing to diversify. I mean, we've been doing five years of very heavy advertising on the main channels being Meta and Google. And we are looking to tap other audiences.

[Jill Manoff]

Yes. Amazing. Tell me about how large the company is today, how many people, what revenue we're bringing in annually.

[Ben Yahalom]

We are doing over $200 million annually in revenue and we have just over 50 people working for us full time. But we have a lot of people who work for us part time, contractors, agencies, partners. But we intend to keep the company lean.

[Jill Manoff]

Yes. Target is your first retail partner beyond marketplaces or.

[Ben Yahalom]

No, no, we've had a few others. We were at Kohl's Nationwide, actually, still are, and. But it's. Those are really early days. We have a lot of interest from wholesale and we have been really focused on building the brand and building the intellectual property and the customer base. We're like over 4 million customers now worldwide, which is a sizable number. And now that we have all that behind us, the next biggest thing for us is to scale that with wholesale because it's still very much the case that over 60% of clothing is being purchased in a physical location. So we can only do so much being only in digital. And it's just right for the company to expand its reach and ultimately serve consumers wherever they may want to shop. So Target, as you mentioned, is just a great play for us because so many of our customers are loyal Target customers. I know my wife is, and that's her therapy session, if you will, to go to A good Target shopping trip. And you know, a lot of our women shoppers who go to Target, they want to buy stuff for their significant others, for their dads, for their sons, and it just makes a lot of sense for us to be there. Plus, for guys who want to grab some True Classics on the go and not wait until the order might take to kind of deliver to their doorstep and just be able to go down the street to the local Target and grab, that makes a lot of sense.

[Jill Manoff]

Yes. Are you doing a lot of brand marketing nowadays? Because I have to say, like, you're huge and True Classic, I don't have the recognition, but I'm not a guy.

[Ben Yahalom]

We do do a decent amount of brand marketing, but I wouldn't say it's been our focus over the years. We've been primarily focused on direct response, which in simple terms mean we want people to see the ad and convert. But nowadays we're trying to build more and more of a brand presence. The issue with building or putting all your effort and energy into brand building early on is that for a company like ours that's bootstrapped, we don't. We have never raised funds before or to date, we can't afford just spending into building this big brand unless we are able to have the sales coming through. And so we had to build that primarily on the back of performance marketing. But nowadays, as we got more traction and as we're building more kind of like physical distribution, we are also leaning more into building kind of the brand and generating awareness and reaching new people and making sure that people know what we have in store for them.

[Jill Manoff]

Yes. Tell me about the markets that you're in and where it makes sense to expand to. Is it usual suspects and maybe you're in Europe, maybe you're in Asia. I'm hearing more about the Middle east.

[Ben Yahalom]

But you tell me we are again available worldwide, but large markets for us, uk, Canada, Australia. We're also kind of getting more traction in Germany, in Mexico, in other countries. And very similar to what I mentioned earlier with the digital advertising budgets of how we want to flow our budgets into whichever channel performs the best. Countries are no different. And we're trying to make sure that we are investing more into our expansions into the channels where we believe markets, I mean, countries where we believe we will have the best opportunity to gain traction. So we are looking at this on an ongoing basis. And as we see more opportunity to scale a given country, we'll put more resources behind it. We'll develop more creative assets to be Able to advertise. We would send more inventory to the local distribution center so we can sell more of our assortment, things of that nature.

[Jill Manoff]

Yes. Not necessarily any feet on the ground in those international markets or.

[Ben Yahalom]

Yes, no, direct to consumer for now. Our president actually is in the uk, but not in that capacity.

[Jill Manoff]

Yes, you have stores. Tell me where your stores are.

[Ben Yahalom]

We have nine of them. We already signed a few more leases. We are opening up in Vegas and we're opening up in Glendale here in California. The other locations we have in Chicago, we have in Florida, we have here in la, in delamo, we have up north in California and Valley Fair. And those are just our ways to make True Classic available to customers as kind of directly as possible. That's our, if you will, physical direct to consumer play. And those have been a really fun kind of like, exercise for us. I absolutely love the experience that customers are able to get by going into our stores. They get great service. They get to see the product way better than they can on the website. They. They get to touch and feel and try and talk to the agent. And we see that in our numbers. We see that consumers who are going through the retail stores tend to learn more about the brand, discover more of what we have to offer, run, you know, kind of like across more categories and come back more often. And so that has been a really interesting kind of like experiment for us. And we're still improving the stores, but I would say that as we open more and more stores, the performance of those stores continue to get better as well as for any given store, over time, we're seeing better performance considering that more people who live nearby the store learn about its location and are getting comfortable kind of going there frequently.

[Jill Manoff]

Yes, for now, it's a sales transaction spot. Like, are you doing events there? Are you like, tell me about your community and what's happening on that front?

[Ben Yahalom]

No, I mean, we have a few ideas for the types of events, but we do stores as efficiently as possible. I mentioned to you earlier that we're bootstrapped and we are trying to be profitable. So we're very sensitive to those types of operating expenses. We also don't want to incur big expenses. So we don't have to necessarily raise our prices because we want to make sure that consumers are able to benefit from the surplus. And if we were to rack big deals, we will have to ultimately, you know, raise the prices to make kind of like the ends meet around here. And we are really sensitive to that because we want to serve as many people as Possible. So we don't do what most brands do, which is invest in a lot of, like, you know, marquee locations or flagship stores or fancy, you know, features and whatnot. We're just trying to make stores that are clean, visually appealing, but ultimately do the job that consumers want them to do, which is show the products that we have in a simple way, allow them to try them on and buy them for probably a better deal that they can find elsewhere in the mall, which is what they care about. And so that's really what the stores are doing. The sizes are not too large, typically between, you know, 1500 to 2000 square foot. So just enough to showcase some of our assortment and then help people find our website if they want to shop anything that's not available in the store. So that happens to people go into the store and then they may want something in a different fabric or a different color. And if it's not available right there, we directly guide them to the website and it comes directly to their house.

[Jill Manoff]

Nice. Tell me about your price range. And, you know, there's a lot of talk right now under the new administration about tariffs, where your production is happening. And if that's a concern for you.

[Ben Yahalom]

It'S always a concern. I just saw over the weekend that Colombia was hit with tariffs, and I want to say it just actually got reversed. But it's definitely going to be an interesting road with the new administration that will keep all of us on our toes. What we've been seeing for us is the need to diversify our supply chain. So we manufacture worldwide. We used to be more concentrated in specific countries like China. That's not the case anymore. We manufacture in a lot of different countries, Vietnam and Cambodia and Turkey and Egypt and others. And we are constantly building the capability to shift our supply chain pending, kind of like where the regulatory environment is going and tariffs and whatnot. We're also looking into options to manufacture in the United States. Ultimately for us is about the quality, the speed and the cost. Right. So the quality is. We are not compromising, no matter where we manufacture, on the quality of our products, because that's number one for us. It has to meet our fit criteria and consistency criteria and quality of fabrication criteria, no matter where we manufacture it worldwide. From a speed standpoint, depending where you manufacture and you may be able to get it faster or slower and to kind of like the distribution center. And from a cost standpoint, duties, tariffs, etc. Are just one part of the consideration. So every country has its own cost to manufacturing. Then you have to add kind of logistics costs and then you have to add the taxes and tariffs. And so in order to serve our customers better, we are super sensitive to how much it cost us to make our goods. And we're trying to do the best possible job so we can pass those savings to our consumers and serve more people.

[Jill Manoff]

Yes. Who are your competitors? Because on the women's side there's a lot of talk about, well, like if you're in this middle ground, everyone is going to the sheens of the world in ultra fast fashion or you know, maybe they're shopping luxury, but in the middle it's a little bit squishy about whether they're thriving in this environment. It seems like you're doing great. But.

[Ben Yahalom]

Yeah.

[Jill Manoff]

Where do you say the competition is?

[Ben Yahalom]

It's a really interesting question. What I love to think about when we think about competition for us is we try to obsess over our customers, not necessarily our competitors. We obviously look around and see all sorts of companies doing all sorts of cool things primarily for inspiration. Right. So we would maybe really like the work that, you know, Lululemon or, or Nike or Vuori are doing with activewear. And it's like, whoa, that's a, that's a really cool way to serve consumers who are into activewear similarly for kind of like other different categories. Whoever is doing denim, right, maybe we'll look into like what Levi's is doing and, and things of that nature. But we don't really obsess any one particular company. We try to be our own and we try to really ultimately understand who is those customers of ours, what do they want, how do they feel, how do we make them feel, how can we serve them better in the truest sense of that word. And we know that with that we win. And if we serve them with great quality products, offer it at a great price point, offer great customer service, be able to deliver to them fast wherever they may shop, we will get our fair share out of the market. And that's kind of like how we think about that. And we're constantly pushing forward. We're constantly trying to improve the quality. We're constantly trying to shop for better rates so we can offer it for the best possible price. We're constantly trying to improve our distribution both in terms of logistics and where we are available so people can get it faster. Right. And that's the angle we're taking when it comes to like who we are competing with.

[Jill Manoff]

We're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor hey glossy podcast listeners. Listrack consistently delivers results for their beauty and fashion clients, providing critical data, insights, opportunities and innovation to help them succeed over the holiday season. List Track launched the first Rich Communication services marketing campaign in the United States for its partner and client, the American heritage handbag and fine leather goods brand Dooney and Bourke. The campaign proved the power of this revolutionizing mobile messaging format, more than doubling the revenue per cent compared to SMS campaigns. Rich Communication Services RCS for short, has already made a splash globally and now it's available in the U.S. listrack's industry experts expect RCS to be the beauty and fashion marketers power tool in 2025, driving ROA by delivering rich interactive experiences that bring brands to life. Think enhanced media and photography, product carousels, multiple choice questions, polls. All interactions that go beyond the traditional copy with an SMS message. Now is the time to start creating your RCS strategy and listrack is here to help and guide you in reaching your customers via interactive messaging. That's listtrack.com l I s t r a k dot com.

[Christina Ko]

I'm Christina Ko, senior editor at Custom Digiday Media's and Glossy's in House agency. In this podcast Interstitial Story sponsored by Listrac, we speak with Jamie Eldon, Listrack's Chief Revenue Officer about how beauty brands are standing out, leveraging personalization and what creative formats are on the horizon.

[Jamie Elden]

I think we've all seen these brands that emerge on Instagram reels and they're on TikTok, they just appear and then suddenly they're everywhere and everybody's either wearing it, using it or talking about it. You know, like the direct to consumer brands that may have started in somebody's bedro basement kitchen and within a year everybody's bought it. And that is a lot of these smaller brands are able to get that kind of success quickly by leveraging social media channels. Influencers, specifically micro influencers, you know, that they can lean into to use the product, talk about the product and really know how to connect with a consumer and specifically a younger consumer today. And that's where a lot of the larger, more, you know, global brands and national brands, I think struggle is finding that unique voice to connect there.

[Christina Ko]

While some beauty brands are finding success channeling their passion into social media posts, another way to stand out is through effective personalization.

[Jamie Elden]

What we're doing is we're becoming a shopping partner with that customer. We're making recommendations based upon what their likes are and their behaviors and that's something that we've been able to do at scale, cross channel across whatever device somebody's preferred method is. We then may pull in two to three blog articles or written content that Peter Thomas Roth done about, you know, best practices for skin care and healthcare. And we might put that in the email as well because we might find that valuable to support the product. So again, you know, what we're able to do is really build this personalized recommendation journey for a customer, not only by putting the right product in front of them that they're interested in, but hey, here's some interesting articles and content around this area that you're looking at and we're finding that that has become extremely valuable. It's kind of taking everything that they're interested in and putting it in one destination and when they open it up, they feel that, wow, this is exactly what I've been looking at and what I'm interested in.

[Christina Ko]

As delivering unique personalized experiences becomes what consumers expect, beauty brands now have access to new technology to develop highly impactful mobile experiences that showcase their exceptional creatives.

[Jamie Elden]

In beauty and fashion. Brands really focus their creative prowess around print, digital, outdoor. They spend a lot of money on those creatives to make them look beautiful and to really appeal to consumers. That creative discipline around those is now being transformed into email creative, SMS creative, MMS Creative. Listrack is the first company in the United States to send an RCS message, which is rich creative. And that is going to be a game changer for the beauty industry and the fashion industry in 2025. Moving forward, RCS messaging through mobile phones allows a brand to pull in their TikTok shop content, their reels, their influencer content all into a video environment on somebody's cell phone. So what that means is it allows to create this unique, unique, rich creative experience with functionalities of they can shop, they can browse through catalogs, they can request something through this. It's a whole new way of a brand to communicate with a consumer through a cell phone. And it's going to be incredibly fascinating to see how that evolves over the next one to three years.

[Christina Ko]

You've been listening to Jamie Eldon, chief Revenue Officer at Listrack, our sponsor, on this episode. And now back to the glossy podcast.

[Jill Manoff]

Who is this customer? Do you speak about a certain demo or maybe age range? And what can you tell me about their loyalty?

[Ben Yahalom]

So we have a wide range of them. The core one would be the man, kind of like American men, if you will, 35 to like 54, maybe slightly overweight and not in the best possible shape, but we frankly find ourselves serving everybody. And I know it sounds generic, but I really mean it. Everybody, as in, like, we have young kids who wear True Classic. We have older, you know, grandparents who wear True Classic. We even have women who wear True Classic because they love it so much on their guys, and they kind of sneak a few T shirts or jackets or sweatshirts and wear them. I know in my family, a lot of our ladies are just wearing the. The men's clothes because they love them. And we're not fashion, right? We're like basics. We're essentials. We're trying to nail basic silhouettes. Classic, right? True Classic, if you think about that. So it doesn't lend itself to a particular category. What we are trying to do, though, from a fit standpoint, is to make sure that if you are small, we do the best possible job to fit that small person as best as possible. And the same goes to if you are 4xL. And with that, we're trying to really open up to serving, you know, consumers, whoever they may be and wherever they may shop. Women is a really interesting segment for us, primarily because she loves to come to True Classic. Nobody wants her men to look and feel their best more than the lady in their life. And we have a lot of women shoppers who just absolutely rave about the brand because they see the impact that it has on their significant others or their dads or their brothers. So those are always really fun to realize how you can have a consumer who is not the actual consumer, but they're just the decision maker and the purchaser. And we have many of her. From a community standpoint, I would say we have a really strong community. People really care about True Classic. And part of it is not just even the product, but who we are as a company. We try to do a lot of social good in a genuine way. Most recently, as an example, there's been the LA fires, which have been absolutely devastating. We open up a donation center right here in the office. We try to clear over 100,000 garments to people in need. And we do that genuinely because we're trying to be there and help. And when people see that and then they see that we are also serving them really well and give them good product and listen to their feedback. And they can come, you know, to our Facebook group and engage directly with myself and with Ryan and others on the leadership team. They can come on our social media and they see that we always respond. They can tell us what they want us to develop, and they see Us actually developing it. They love it, and they want to get kind of behind the brand. And that's been, frankly, the best part of the job, is to see how you serve people and people enjoy that and kind of rally behind you.

[Jill Manoff]

So nice. Tell me about your Facebook group. Is this, like, jumping? It's happening. It's a very lively channel.

[Ben Yahalom]

It is. It's the Insiders group. So we have this membership program that is really meant to be. We call it the Insiders Club, but it's really meant to be, like, the hardest core. True fans of true classic, and they get special treatment, if you will. So they subscribe. We charge super minimally, but it is meant to be there. So people really commit, if you will. It's $12 a year, so a dollar a month, and you get great benefits with it, like free shipping and 20% cash back and all sorts of things. But you also get access to this Facebook group. And on that Facebook group, all of us, we're all there, myself and the team. And it's fascinating because people really rave about the way they kind of ask questions. They provide feedback to the different products. They even jump on our internal meetings. So as an example, we do all hands and every all hands. We bring customers or I bring customers on to talk to our team. And we ask lots of questions around how we serve them and what would they like to see from us next and what can we do better? And we create this direct relationship between everybody who works at this company and the end consumer because we're here to serve them. And I want everybody on this team to really understand that and really understand the customer that we're serving. So that's been just a really, really cool group. And you can also see how the different customers kind of talk with each other. They ask questions, they get answers from others, like, how should I put those outfits together? Or what's a recent product you tried and really loved? And even if they have again feedback, we take that in and we implement that as soon as possible and get back to them on the moves we're making to keep improving the company experience for all of them.

[Jill Manoff]

Hey, I didn't even know about this group. I'm glad I asked. That's so cool. I've never heard the customer joining the all hands.

[Ben Yahalom]

I know. We really try to be customer first in every aspect of this organization, so.

[Jill Manoff]

Nice. Tell me what's challenging you now other than tariffs? That's a big one.

[Ben Yahalom]

Wow. That's entrepreneurship for you. I would say, like, every day is a challenge. I Think the biggest challenge for us is how ambitious we are. You know, we have a few key values at this company. The number one value at this company is to move the needle because we're obsessed with tangible, measurable results. But coming right after that, another one that's really challenging is go fast. Because we believe that done is better than perfect and we believe that speed matters. And if you're obsessed over moving the needle and doing it unprecedentedly fast, you are bound to break lots of things along the way. You're bound to make some really big moves rather quickly. And that's how you build a true classic in five years. Most companies would not be where we are as fast as we have been able to do that. And those are the values and the reasons we kind of hold it too hard. So what I would say is always the biggest challenge for us is the focus on fewer kind of bigger things that we want to really nail. Because we do lots of things and we do them very fast. And we do, I would say, pretty well, all things considered. But there's always more opportunity than we know what to do with. There's always competing priorities, right? We want to serve all those customers internationally, but we also want to serve them in all the wholesale channels. And we also want to open more stores and we want to do better job direct to consumer plus on the marketplaces. How do you go about that? We also want to serve women and we want to do more products for guys. And that other customer just asks us to add a fly to our underwear and fill in the blank. And so that, that is really the day to day here. It's quite dynamic. There's lots of different opportunities, but it's exciting at the same time because we do make progress faster that way. And that's, that's probably the biggest challenge I would, I would say is like focusing and prioritizing.

[Jill Manoff]

That's so interesting. How do you find people to hire for the team who share that ambition and make sure that they're on the. The same, in the same mindset all the time? Because it feels like those people are hard to come by.

[Ben Yahalom]

I would say very hard to come by. And we do have an amazing team of what I call, like my biggest analogy there is I'm looking for business athletes. And if you think about the business athlete or if you think about the athlete mindset in general, when the athlete comes and wakes up in the morning, right, they're working really hard and they may not feel like going to the gym. And when they go to the gym, they may not feel like doing, you know, the hardest exercise, but there is this inner belief that despite the workout being very hard, you don't go in there expecting to do fewer reps or fewer sets. You don't look at the weights and say, I wish they were lighter. I don't want to break a sweat today. I want to go home and like, do, you know, the bare minimum? You find joy in the process, despite how hard it is. And you leave the gym feeling, I got stronger today, I got better, I'm healthier. And you find joy in that growth, kind of like mindset. But there is growing pains and that's real. And so we need to find people and that's the people. We already have a lot of them on this team who share that type of mindset, who view the challenge in a positive mindset of like, that is a good growth opportunity. I'm going to come on the other side of this problem that I just solved that much better. I'm going to be more valuable as a player, I'm going to be more valuable as an employee. And that's one thing that no matter who goes through the True Classic, I call it University, comes on the other side and always tells me, nobody says it was easy, nobody says it was, you know, maybe the, the best time of their lives. But everybody comes back and says, I have learned more than I've learned anywhere else. And that is the biggest thing I will always take with me. I've never been pushing myself as hard. I've never been learning so much. I've never been accomplishing so much. I've learned more about what I'm capable of as a human going through this experience. And so that's why I always use that kind of like athlete mindset. Because no matter what you do, if you're training for the Olympics, you would always want to reset that record. And it's never fast enough and it's never high enough. You're just finding joy and continuously challenging yourself to be the best version of yourself. One percent better every day.

[Jill Manoff]

Amazing. Talk to me about your long term goals. I just see you as this major acquisition target is selling the company eventually. Like where do we want to go? How big? When are you targeting billion dollar brand status by a certain year or like what are the big goals?

[Ben Yahalom]

Yeah, so very similarly to how I mentioned that we are so consumer obsessed and not financial outcome obsessed, not competitor obsessed. Similarly here, the 10 year target at True Classic is consumer oriented and it is to serve over 100 million people worldwide with True Classic, making them look and feel their best. That is really what we're after. We know that all the other stuff will come around, but that's what we're trying to do. And we know that we will do that by truly listening, but truly understanding them, by truly serving them with the great product, with the great service, with great marketing, with great everything. And the financial outcome is a bit more flexible as a result. And so if we do a great job, we would continue to operate profitably, the business will continue to cash flow, we would be able to take that and invest that and continue to grow. We've been bombarded with so many inbound requests for all sorts of like, you know, private equities and, and VCs in the earlier days and family offices and you name it. We're not rushing to do any particular transaction and we will do that when it makes sense for our goal of reaching that incredible scale, doing what's right for consumers and kind of like benefiting from that. And if we weren't to do any of those pieces along the way, so we wanted to sell or when to, you know, we were not to do any of those transactions, what likely will happen is that this company will go public and we will IPO in X years from now. Oh yes, but that is not the core conversation in our day to day, if that makes sense. It is obviously coming up and there's always opportunities that we are kind of like evaluating. And then if we were to partner with someone on the financial side, we would think about through that lens of like, what strategic value can they bring in to help us on that mission? How can they help us reach more people? Perhaps they have the relationships to get true classic in front of more customers because they know XYZ retailers or distribution kind of like outlets. So we would leverage that in addition to the capital to propel ourselves forward and reach that milestone sooner rather than later.

[Jill Manoff]

Makes good sense. Is there anything you would say like consumer behavior, we're talking about how it's changing and it's rapidly changing and social media is playing a big part of that. But in terms of the male shopper, I feel like it's a unique beast. And for a long time, you know, the conversation was what's appealing to them. Is messaging like the only blank you need? Like they want to be told what to do, they want to be told what's right in terms of the behavior. Now what's, what's interesting to you?

[Ben Yahalom]

I would say that like simplicity is just such an like underrated concept. And the average guy is just so simple. Yeah, they want things figured out for them. They don't want to be bombarded with too many options. They don't care as much as people think about the bells and whistles. They just want to, you know, they want to be kind of, like, taken care of so they can take care of other things that they actually want to do. Right. Most of them don't care to, like, obsess over their clothing, for example. They just want to have a reliable go to T shirt that they can wear every day. A reliable and go to jacket jeans that they can wear every day. That fits great, that feels great, that's comfortable. They're done, by the way, compromising comfort with kind of like looking good. They want to look good, they want to feel good, and they want to do that in a good price point and get a good deal. That's what they want. So if you can, you know, it's not about like, hey, let me make you look super good, but you're never going to be comfortable in your clothes. Like, those days are pre Covid. Kind of like over now. We're kind of like moving past that. And if they feel good, they don't want to look sloppy. They want the. This kind of, like, simple silhouettes. They also want guidance. You know, they want things that go well, kind of like, if you will, foolproof it, right, Colors that match easily with one another, outfits that are easy to throw together. And when you serve them in that sense, and kind of like check the boxes that they don't want to bother with, they find value in it. And most guys, once they find what they like, they just stick with it because they're guys and they want to simplify their life. So we're trying to take kind of all of this kind of clothing complexity out of the equation. We're trying to be the go to simple choice with great products, great price point, great service. And when consumers learn about us and find that, they get hooked because of that, because we truly take care of of stuff that they don't want to be bothering with.

[Jill Manoff]

Nice. You mentioned in the beginning the fact that I think that you said you don't have a lot of, like, big celebrity endorsements or something like that. You know, you see the traction. There's a lot of press out there with the T shirt that Jeremy Allen White wore on the bear, and it, like, sold out like hotcakes after that. Or like, right now we're seeing all the collaborations between fashion and sports, and we know athletes can Be a big driver. But anyway, is that a goal down the line or what you're doing now is working just fine? Not necessary.

[Ben Yahalom]

We take that again, super, kind of like opportunistically, I would say, on a case by case basis. To date, we have not invested in any particular kind of big celebrity relationship, but we've explored quite a few of them. What we need to prove to ourselves in order to move forward is that that is worth the consumer impact we're looking to make. We're not here to necessarily, you know, help celebrities make more money. We're here to help reach more people, make them look good, make them feel good. Right. And the question is, if we were to do those types of things, and those are great shiny objects, would that serve consumers better or worse? And you gotta ask yourself those types of questions because for sure you will need to change something in your unit economics if you were to cut those kind of like big deals and shed millions of dollars into like, you know, licensing agreements or partnerships agreements. So we put most of our energy and effort into the product. When we do influencers, it's about the content. We want people that can resonate with other people, that tell a really good story, that bring some new angle to how we can talk about our products and the benefits that they provide. Not so much about the, again, shiny objects that are out there. Whether it's a marquee retail location in New York City, the biggest influencers or celebrity in XYZ category, or a crazy innovation on the kind of product front that will cost us an arm and a leg to bring to life, we keep it simple. We keep it kind of around what people actually care about. And that's our approach. But we definitely are open to all ideas for, you know, any celebrity that would kind of like align with our types of values that we're here to serve. And we're here to serve consumers and through that kind of their distribution, if you will, of content and reach, help us on our mission.

[Jill Manoff]

Yeah. When it comes to an influencer that kind of works and knows how to speak to them, the brand as you would want them to, is it. It's not a style influencer or somebody like you would think, is it somebody unique or different or outside the box?

[Ben Yahalom]

Yeah. I mean, I'll give you an example, and this is an example that Ryan, who's one of the founders here and the chairman, brought those guys on GregTube. And if you've seen some of our ads, you might have seen Greub, Greg and Nate in many of those videos and, you know, two really funny guys on the Internet.

[Jill Manoff]

Oh, fun.

[Ben Yahalom]

They were not, like, you know, the biggest influencers. They did not have, you know, crazy number of followers, but they were really good at telling funny stories. And we saw that as a great way to kind of, like, try a different angle for our advertising. Back to adding value. Everybody likes to laugh. Everybody likes a good joke. And if you're already, like, learning about a product, make it lighter, make it resonate, like, talk about some common truths, that would really hit kind of, like the nail on the head. And. And they've been great for us. And we have been partnering with them over so many different kind of like, videos, concepts. Years of working together now, and that's probably something you would say is maybe not a typical quote unquote, celebrity or influencer or creator partnership, but I worked for us and worked for the brand, and we've had a, you know, a fantastic relationship over those years. So similarly, in the future, if it's about creating content, we're looking for people who are excellent content creators who can really tell those types of stories. And that is more the merit of what we're after versus how many followers you have.

[Jill Manoff]

I love all these unique strategies and how they're. Anyway, not following the pack. Would you say that you're investing more than the average brand in customer service? It seems like that's a huge deal for you.

[Ben Yahalom]

Absolutely. And we call it customer experience. And we don't view that as a cost center, which is a really big difference. And I think most companies who look at that as like, what is your cost per ticket? And how do I Absolutely minimize that to the ground? We, of course, care about quality, cost, and speed in every part of this company. Already mentioned. That's the golden triangle at True Classic. We want things to be better, faster, cheaper. Customer service is no different. But we want the experience to be at 10 out of 10, 11 out of 10. Think Ritz Carlton, think Nordstrom, think American Express for an affordable clothing brand. Right. Most people who are as affordable as we are, they can afford investing in that. But to bring this to life, if. If you were our customer and let's just say you bought a product for your husband and you come in and you say, like, hey, he's not a large, is a medium or an extra large. And you're having a friendly conversation with our agent, and we just, let's just say, learned by the way that you're expecting what the customer agent will do is not just take care of the product, but they will send you a maternity package, and they'll congratulate you for that amazing life moment. And we lose money on those things properly. But you will never forget, as a customer, that brand who came out of nowhere with some extra act of kindness and generosity. And that's what we live for. And. Or if you learn that, like, you know, the customer just lost their house in the fire or whatever the case might be, people go through so much in life, and so we're really trying to be there for customers, not just to solve their direct problems, but, like, how can we brighten your day? And our customer agents are constantly trying to fish for those opportunities, if you will, to just truly go above and beyond, to surprise and delight, to show up to people, to put a smile on their face. And that's how you turn customers into fans, because so few people are actually doing that. And we're trying to truly stand out. And not because it's ROI positive necessarily, but because we believe in serving humans, making them look good, making them feel good. And it's not just with clothing. It's with everything we do.

[Jill Manoff]

Nice. I guess my last question, even though I feel like I could keep talking to you, this is so interesting. True Classic, ladies and gentlemen. Anyway, when is women's? Women's 20? 26.

[Jamie Elden]

2020.

[Jill Manoff]

Later this year.

[Ben Yahalom]

If it was up to run, it would be yesterday. But we're trying to do this this year. Frankly, we've been working on this for quite some time. We're trying to really nail it and just full transparency. Right? We're a bunch of guys, and we don't really know much about women. Right. The company was founded by three dudes, and. And we're bringing more women into the team. We're bringing more women into the fold. We're bringing our wives into this, and we want to make sure that we're developing something amazing for her. Her. And that has not been our core expertise, but it's been a constant request because we have so many women who are customers of True Classic who are just begging us at this point to develop for them because they love the brand so much. So we know we have to do this. We need to do this well. We need to make sure that when we go out there with our women's line, we truly nail it. And by nail it, I mean we solve real problems. No matter what is the garment, no matter what is the category. What are women struggling with when it comes to leggings? How can we make the legging better? What about T shirts for women? Also, what we have learned in all the research is that the preferences are so, like. Like, guys are simpler, to put it without, you know, without saying anything wrong. They are simpler women. We talk to so many different women, and we get so many different preferences around fit, around style, around fabrication, around colors. How do we nail this? Like, where do we go? How do we keep it simple? Right. And so we've just found it to be a bit more complex from, like, the early days where guys, we just went with, like, our fit and a few core colors. I don't know if the same thing would work for her. And so that's been kind of the work that has been going on behind the scenes. I still hope that we can get at least a basic assortment out by the end of this year.

[Jill Manoff]

Right.

[Ben Yahalom]

But don't hold me to it, because if it doesn't happen by then, it's because we're still obsessing over the details and wanting to make sure that we do this right. We only get to win to launch women once.

[Jill Manoff]

Yes. Oh, my gosh. Well, we will be watching. And the details matter. I've learned recently, you. We don't want leggings that show our ankles. That means that you're cheugy. You want long leggings.

[Ben Yahalom]

I know. I've learned more about women's clothing than kind of, like, past here than. Than my entire life, and I did, and my wife helped me a lot, too, just to kind of, like, learn about all the different things that you got to do. Right. To serve her well.

[Jill Manoff]

Definitely. Well, Ben, anything else this year that we. I didn't ask about. It's exciting times.

[Ben Yahalom]

There's a lot of exciting things for us, I would say, on the product front, I already talked about. We talked about women. We also have amazing things for guys. Like, for example, we are launching our Pima shirt in March, which I am so very excited about. So that's 100% Pima cotton shirt, super high quality, incredibly soft. And that is the first time in five years that we are innovating on our core product, which is the T shirt, because we just nailed this kind of first one so well. And we were thinking, how do we create a better version? How do we create a better fabric? So we're going to have that better, if you will offer from, like, a product standpoint, and I think that's going to be a major hit.

[Jill Manoff]

Great.

[Ben Yahalom]

On the international front, we are doubling down on our key markets and are trying to figure out ways to get products to those people faster and cheaper. So we set up those local distribution centers in the uk, in the Netherlands, in Australia, in Canada to be able to serve them better. And with that, we are hoping that we will be able to grow those types of markets.

[Jill Manoff]

Great.

[Ben Yahalom]

On the marketing side, you'll see a lot more True Classic in all sorts of places. So I mentioned earlier about those sports partnerships. We were just trying to find other methods to reach people in unique and exciting ways. And in General, I think 2025 is going to be a great year for this company. It's still early. Super early days. Even Target, you mentioned, like, we just started and we had the most basic assortment. I'm actually flying to Minnesota to meet with Target next week, and there is so much excitement about what does the future for True Classic at a Target look like and how do we show up in more Target stores with more of our products? And we're super excited about that. We think that's a great way to serve our customers. And so even what we already have done, kind of like doing more of it and doing it better is a huge part for 2025.

[Jill Manoff]

More stores of your own.

[Ben Yahalom]

More stores. We're opening up in Vegas. We're opening up in Glendale.

[Jill Manoff]

Oh, yes.

[Ben Yahalom]

And there's more opportunities that we're absolutely looking into. So more stores as well. Although I would say it's lower for us to be able to open individual retail locations. Right. So that's where great partners like Target are super helpful for us because obviously they already have the distribution and it's a faster way for us to serve our customers.

[Jill Manoff]

We love Target. Well, Ben, thank you for being here. This was so fun and informative. Excited to see all you do this year.

[Ben Yahalom]

Amazing. Thank you for having me.

[Jill Manoff]

Thanks for being here. That's all for this episode. Our theme music is by Otis MacDonald. Be sure to give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to the Glossy Podcast. See you next week.