September 10, 2025 • 26 mins
How do you scale a brand when your product is often a once-in-a-lifetime purchase? On this 200th episode of The E-Comm Show, Andrew Maff sits down with Mike Yarborough, founder of Rustic & Main, the handcrafted jewelry brand turning history and personal stories into wedding bands and engagement rings.
What started with Mike drilling a hole through a block of wood in his garage quickly scaled into a multi-million-dollar brand with a retail store, 35 employees, and customers flying in from across the country.
Mike shares how Rustic & Main grew by leaning into storytelling, sourcing historic materials like battleship teak and WWI rifle stocks, and creating deeply personal, customizable products. We also dig into the marketing challenges of high-consideration, one-time-purchase products—and how Rustic & Main is evolving with retail, engagement rings, and an experiential approach to brick-and-mortar. If you’ve ever wondered how to scale a passion project into a lasting brand while keeping your story front and center, this one’s a must-listen.
What You’ll Learn
- Why storytelling beats features when marketing high-consideration products
- How Rustic & Main scaled from one ring to a multi-million-dollar brand in just a few years
- The challenges of CAC for one-time-purchase products (and how to make the numbers work)
- Why retail must be experiential to justify brick-and-mortar in 2025
- How to balance handcrafted production with digital marketing efficiency
Why customer-submitted materials create unbeatable loyalty and shareable stories
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Michael Yarbrough (00:00):
You basically have to take risk. This is all
(00:04):
about entrepreneurship its whatwe do.
Andrew Maff (00:06):
Welcome to the E comm Show podcast. I am your
host. Andrew Mapp, owner andfounder of blue tusker, from
groundbreaking industry updatesto success stories and
strategies, get to know the insand outs of the e Commerce
Industry, from top leaders inthe space. Let's get into it.
Hello everyone. Welcome toanother episode of the E comm
show. As usual, I am your host,Andrew Maff, and today I am
(00:26):
joined by Mike Yarbrough, who isthe owner over at Rustic Main.
Mike, how you doing, buddy?
Michael Yarbrough (00:32):
Great.
Andrew, man, thanks for havingme on the podcast. I'm really
excited about it.
Andrew Maff (00:36):
Yeah, super excited to have you on the show. I love
this whole product line. I lovethe whole concept. I have
something similar, and I'mhoping to change soon, actually.
So fantastic to have you on theshow.
Michael Yarbrough (00:45):
Yeah, good time.
Andrew Maff (00:45):
Love to always kind of start these off pretty
stereotypically. Just give youthe floor and tell us a little
bit about, you know, where youwere at in your career, how you
kind of got started with Rusticand Main, and then we'll take it
from there.
Michael Yarbrough (00:58):
Yeah. So back in say, 2015 I was a software
Dev. Had been doing that forabout 12 to 15 years in some
some capacity, and I really justwanted to do something
entrepreneurial. I'd done a fewthings in fits and starts and
but I really wanted to dosomething that was handmade,
crafted. I just didn't know whatthat was. And around that same
(01:20):
time, I was doing a lot oftyping, a lot of blogging, just
as a dev, but also I was doingsome blogging, and I started to
get carpal tunnel, like feelingsin my hands, so my regular gold
ring just started to feel sortof cold and heavy, and so I
stopped wearing it. And maybe,like, six months goes by, my
wife's like, You got to wear aring, man, like, You got to have
something on your hand. Yeah. Iwas like, Yeah, I know. I just
don't know what to put on it.
And I thought, Well, I'm awoodworker as well. I've got
(01:41):
some some exotic woods out inthe garage. I'll just drill a
hole in one shape it out intothe shape of a ring, wear that
out and that's, that's what I'lldo. And I did. And that very
day, people started asking meabout it, asking me to make one
for them. And so that kind ofgot the wheels turning. And I
thought, you know, there'sreally not, especially at that
time, there's really not reallycool stuff, rings for men,
especially if they were madewith, like, really historic
(02:04):
woods, or really meaningfulmaterials, you know, military
materials, battleship woods. Theideas just started to come
along. And so in April of 2016we launched, and to kind of give
you an idea of how quickly wegrew. By the end of 2017 I had
quit my job, and we had aboutnine people working out of the
(02:25):
house, and so it just took offlike a shot, and we've been busy
ever since, and growing eversince. Now we have about we're
in four different buildings justkind of spread out here in the
Huntersville, North Carolinaarea. We've got about 35
employees, and so, you know, thesky's the limit at this point.
Andrew Maff (02:43):
That's such a cool story. I apologize for kind of
looking off to the side here fora second. I had to look this up.
We had, I had someone on theShow. Original Grain, where they
do a relatively similar wherethey do it with watches and
stuff. And I was like, That'sgenius. Like, it makes so much
(03:06):
sense to have like, some type ofstyle behind it and use, like,
more historical woods and thingslike that. It's, it's genius. So
how do you come across? Like,being able to get that kind of
stuff?
Michael Yarbrough (03:16):
Some of it is like, for example, the USS,
North Carolina, the battleship.
It's been decommissioned for along time, and it's been in
repair for a long time, just asa museum. And we would buy small
blocks of the original teak, theWorld War Two teak that was on
the ship as the sailors walkedon it. It was in war and all
that. And we would buy littleblocks of it for about 50 or 75
bucks a piece. And we were justgoing through it. And so we just
(03:38):
called them up and say, Hey, canwe buy this in bulk? And, you
know, they said, nobody's everasked to do this. And it was
really sad. We went out there.
It was fortunate for us,fortunate for them. We went out
there to the ship, and a lot ofthe wood was just sitting in a
pile, just rotting away, becauseit gets so deteriorated over
time. People can't really use itfor cabinets or, you know,
(03:59):
really cool, big projects, butwe can, we can make use of it.
So we bought up pretty mucheverything they had. And we've
done not, you know, we've donesomething similar with other
battleships, where we just callthem up and say, Hey, can we,
you know, come out there andpurchase them from you guys, and
those proceeds go back to therestoration of the ships. So
we've done that. We've done thesame thing with rifle stocks and
(04:19):
various other things. So it'sreally just kind of, we come up
with a concept and think, Well,where do we get this from? Who
has this? Another quick examplewas, so the Springfield 1903
rifle was used primarily inWorld War One, but it got used
in World War Two a little bit aswell. And we wanted to find some
old stocks. But we don't wantto, like, take a nice rifle
that's been historicallypreserved and, you know, use
(04:41):
that. And we found that therewas actually a cache of the old
stocks over in England thatjust, I guess, we had put over
there at some point during thewar. And when we switched to a
different rifle, they juststayed there. And we just, you
know, said, Hey, can we, can wepurchase that? So we do that
with a lot of things. But someof the most exciting materials
(05:02):
we use is actually just stuffthat our customers send to us.
It might be something likecoffee beans from the place
where they had their first date,or sand from a beach, you know,
where they that they love, orsomething like that tree from,
you know, the backyard of thehome where they grew up,
something like that. So we do alot of things that are just
really, really sentimental aswell.
Andrew Maff (05:23):
That's very cool.
How did so tell me about themarketing side of this, right?
Because you're not a smallbrand. You well into the seven
figure generally, like you'reyou've gotten it up there. It's
a very differentiated it soundslike, in some elements, custom
type of application. So, like,how did you, how did you start
to get this out there? What wasthat? What was the original
(05:46):
approach?
Michael Yarbrough (05:47):
Well, I'm sure a lot of your listeners
will remember back in if yousay, if you think about the
2016, days of being able tomarket on Facebook or Google, a
lot different than it is today,yeah, the good days, yeah. I
mean, you could literally, whenwe started out, it was just me,
and I was doing some ads, and Iwould just be like, let me just
target people who got engaged.
And it was like, Oh my gosh,we're doing like, 11 12x row as
(06:09):
it was incredible, right? Andthen, because we were so unique
and so niche as maybe the nexttwo years went on, a couple of
things happened. Morecompetitors started to come into
the space trying to do somethingsimilar, but a lot of rings
being made overseas and not tothe same standards as us. But
also Facebook began to change upthings. They made it, you know,
(06:29):
AI started their own. Ai startedto become the way, you know, how
they were kind of doing thingsbehind the scenes. And then
around the 2020, timeframe, youknow, things, just with the
Privacy Act and all that kind ofstuff, it just became harder.
But the primary way that we,that we market is is still the
same mindset, even though it'sharder for us to control exactly
what the ads do and who theytarget, the mindset is we want
(06:52):
to showcase the unique featuresof our of our product, and also
that we're really a story drivenbrand, like, that's what we do.
We just love stories, and so wewant to make sure that people
can see the story behind thering, not just, Hey, here's a
here's another piece of jewelrythat you know, where it just
looks different,
Andrew Maff (07:14):
Yeah. And is it? Is it primarily men's rings? I
believe you've gotten, you'vestarted to got get into
traditional kind of engagementrings as well, correct?
Michael Yarbrough (07:23):
Yeah. So we started off with men's rings,
and then that we expanded thatline. Well, we started off with
just wood rings, like rings madefrom wood, and then we expanded
that line to titanium and goldrings that contain inlays of the
specialty woods and othermaterials. And so we did that
for quite a while, and that wasour primary, you know, kind of
(07:43):
our bread and butter. It stillis. Last August, we kind of got
into engagement rings. And, youknow, doing a lot of custom
engagement ring designs and justthings that we just find
interesting, unique, just stylesthat we're drawn to, that may or
may not be on trend yet, but,you know, probably making a
comeback. Who knows? And then alot of classic, you know,
engagement ring styles as well,so and so that's been taken off
(08:06):
as well. So now we want to,we've been focusing really,
really heavy on that for reallythe primarily this year, yeah.
Andrew Maff (08:11):
Yeah, it's interesting. Tell me about a
little bit about the businessside, because I know, especially
with a product line like this,it's typically a one time
purchase. Maybe they'll comeback and, you know, get a few
different styles, or, you know,they might want to change it up,
like a while down the line. Butthat's not as frequent. So from,
like, a projectability type ofaspect, like, how do you how are
(08:35):
you managing that, in terms ofkind of deciphering customer
acquisition costs versus, like,you never really know what the
next couple months are going tobring it.
Michael Yarbrough (08:44):
Yeah, that's, that's a fantastic point, and
I'm glad you bring that upbecause we've worked with a lot
of marketing agencies in thepast who don't really understand
that. Like, we're trying to sellthem one product. You know, you
know, for the we don't haveother jewelry things to sell
yet, they're used to thescenario where, like, you're
selling a t shirt, and you cansell it to them and not make
(09:06):
very much profit initially,because you're going to sell
them five or 6 t-shirts over thecourse of the customer lifetime.
Yeah, and that's just not ourmodel. And so it's really
difficult for them to understandthat, not only that, but things
are handcrafted. There's alonger turnaround time, just a
higher price point for that. Andso the way we the kind of, the
way we project it is, werealized that, okay, it can only
(09:28):
cost in order to sell a customerring. We had to say, what is the
profit we're going to make offof it? You know, assuming it
costs $0 to market and thenwhat's the amount, what's the
percentage that we could spendon it in order to market it, and
then we're constantly watchingthe customer acquisition cost on
Google, Facebook, you know,Pinterest, wherever we're, you
(09:50):
know, wherever we're marketing.
We don't do Tiktok. I knowthat's big for a lot of folks,
but we just don't do that. Wemay try to do m2 when that comes
out, we'll see, yeah. But wereally just keep an eye on that,
because that's big for us.
Because, you know, sometimescustomer acquisition will be
250-300 bucks, you know, maybemore than that depends on what
the product is, especially ifit's a gold ring that's going
(10:11):
for 3500 bucks. Yeah, it's,it's, it takes a lot to kind of
cut through that ocean ofcompetitors and other people out
there, so we have to just priceaccordingly and just keep an eye
on it. The other thing thathappens is, you know, we'll work
with Google. They actually,they've actually been really,
really good to work with,compared to, say, like, meta,
who they just, I don't know,they're terrible as far as,
(10:33):
like, just, like, working withthem as a company, but Google's
been really, really good. But wehave to kind of train them like,
No, we're not cool with the twoand a half x row as like that
doesn't work for us. We need tobe at three and a half or four
for these ads to really justifythemselves. Otherwise, we'll
just we'd rather just do organictraffic. So there's some of
that, but you just have to haveyour eye on the numbers for
sure.
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Andrew Maff (11:26):
I'm shocked that you're, I imagine you're
probably performing pretty wellon the Google side. Since you're
you mentioned they're a goodcompany to work with. So you'd
probably say otherwise thatwasn't the case. But like, it's
such a there's so much limitedreal estate for things like,
let's just say, men's engagementrings. And anyone who's
searching the term like men'sengagement ring, you're going up
(11:46):
against some behemoths, and yourproduct line is very
differentiated. So how are youkind of, how are you getting the
Google ad side of things to workand really hone in on people
that are looking for something alittle bit different?
Michael Yarbrough (11:59):
The hardest thing with ads, whether it's
Google or meta Pinterest,doesn't matter where it is, is
the trial and error period, youknow, like testing and letting
it run for a long enough periodof time. So one of the
challenges in our industrybecause we have a higher price
tag item and something thattakes a longer consideration
time as well, because peoplewill come and they'll design,
(12:19):
and they'll have two or threerings in the cart, and then
they'll finally make a decision.
You know, at some point down theroad, it's difficult to go like,
Okay, we can't just put an adout there for 50 bucks a day and
then watch it for a week andhope that, you know, we get the
right results from it. Yeah, wereally have to leave it for you
know, we're spending $150 a dayletting it run for two weeks to
just get a baseline like, Isthis okay, or is it not okay?
(12:40):
And then tweak, you know, or weeven wait a little bit longer,
if we think it's kind of, itseems to be going in the right
direction. So you have, youknow, the longer you know, the
consideration timeframe topurchase, if you add that in, as
well as to where, like, Google'sjust not able to track as many
people as it used to, justbecause of the privacy things
(13:00):
and people, you know, fromphones to going on to different,
you know, desktops, from theirphone, that kind of stuff. But
then also because we havecouples looking at rings, and we
don't always know which personis going to make the actual
purchase. So maybe one personsaying, Oh, I love this design.
They're looking at it togetheron one phone, and then the other
person goes and makes thepurchase right at work from a
(13:21):
different device, you know? Soit's hard to track that stuff,
so we just have to keep an eyeon it. And it's just, it's that
long period of time of justallowing it to like, you
basically have to take risk.
This is all aboutentrepreneurship. Its what we do
is like, you make an assumption,you take a risk with an ad, put
it out there, see how it does.
And at some point you just gotto go, that's not working. Do we
(13:41):
tweak or do we? Do we cut itoff? Yeah, but it's just, it's
not, it's not quick. That's thething about it.
Andrew Maff (13:49):
Yeah. So you probably have a pretty you have
such a long sales cycle that I'mimagining those attribution
windows have to be, yeah, 30days, whatever. Yeah, geez. And
then, and then, of course, likeyou mentioned, you've got the
issue of your consumer and yourcustomer could potentially be
different people.
Michael Yarbrough (14:04):
Yeah, and I kind of liken this to what
people experience back in thatdoesn't really matter with ads
or not ads, but like you'd putan ad in a magazine, well, there
wasn't really a way to track andstill not really, unless you do
a QR code or something, there'snot a great way to track that ad
in the magazine really, reallyworked. The only way you would
(14:25):
know is if you pulled the adfrom the magazine all of a
sudden, your sales dropped. Thatwas the only thing you changed.
Maybe you could make thatconjecture. And so it's a little
bit like that. You just have tokind of go with your gut, like,
yeah, this should work likethis. This ought to be
resonating with customers, evenif you don't always see the
data.
Andrew Maff (14:42):
Yeah, I love that.
You just said that one of my goto, like, when I'm, like,
speaking on another podcast orsomething, I always say, like,
in my eyes, digital marketing isbecoming a lot more like
traditional marketing, right?
Like you can't track everything,like you used to, like, if you
watch Mad Men, none of thequestions they ask or like, what
was my return on that billboard?
Like, you don't know, like, it'syou put out a message, you put
(15:03):
out a campaign, and youhopefully you see sales grow.
And I know that for especiallyfor brands that sell online,
like the idea of that unknown isso, so ridiculous. They they are
so spoiled with getting to knowwhere every penny went. But it's
just not doable anymore, whichobviously, actually brings me to
my next question. You obviouslyhave your own website. You
(15:25):
mentioned your retail now,correct?
Michael Yarbrough (15:28):
Yeah, we have a retail store.
Andrew Maff (15:30):
Anywhere else, or those that are your two sales
channels right now. Those arereally our two sales channel.
Michael Yarbrough (15:34):
The retail store kicked off in August of
last year, and we officially,kind of launched, because there
was still some setup stuff todo. Launched in January, and
we're still trying to navigatethat, like, getting the word out
retail, like, locally, kind ofgoes back to more, like,
traditional advertising, thingslike, is very different than it,
yeah? Like, e commerce, online,you know, global, you know, type
(15:56):
of stuff.
Andrew Maff (15:56):
Yeah, that. So that was, that was kind of what I was
going to ask, because, like,down the line, retail is up and
running. You've been truckingalong for a while. The question
always becomes, like, youradvertising efforts, do you
saturate the market around theretail establishment, and then,
like we're just talking about,do you kind of just hope that
you start to see foot traffic,because you can't. You could
(16:18):
claim that there's ways to trackit. There's really not it's
difficult, and you're forcingpeople to come in with coupons
and things like that. And itgets kind of, especially for a
brand like yours, it gets like,I wouldn't do that, so like,
thoughts on how you're going tojudge the success of your local
marketing efforts to improve theretail side, knowing that
there's probably some bleed overto the website as well.
Michael Yarbrough (16:39):
Yep, now that's a great question. So what
we what we do track is, youknow, how many people come into
the store, how many purchasesare made, and that sort of
stuff. What we'll see is, we,you know, we may do, I don't
know, seven or eight differentevents this year, just being
part of the community, we'llsponsor some coffee shops, you
know, like, hey, the first sip'son us. And, you know, come in
(17:01):
and get a drink, and, you know,we're just around the corner.
The people who walk in aren'talways going to say, I saw you
guys at this coffee shop, or youwere on the back of my son's
baseball jersey or whatever,right? You know, because we
sponsored some little leagueteam, we don't really know. Like
you said, this kind of back inthe day, you just don't know.
You can't track that as easily.
But what we can track is, is,over time, the people becoming,
(17:22):
are people becoming more awarethat we exist? Are they stopping
in, you know, to the retailstore, and are we growing in the
revenue that we're generating,and they continue to have a
positive experience here? Sothose are the only things that
we can really track. And it'sone of those things where it's a
long game, which is people,people in the E commerce world
(17:43):
don't like long games, becausethey want immediate results. You
know, I put a product out there.
Why am I not selling it? Butwe're a brand that wants to be
around for 100 years or more, soit's like, Okay, we're gonna put
a retail shop up. It's in a coolspot. We really liked the
location. It actually our retailstore here's in Huntersville,
(18:04):
North Carolina. It's actuallythe childhood home of Luke
Combs, the country singer. Sosome people will be familiar
with him. A lot of people willbe familiar with him, yeah. But
so it's kind of like we're kindof preserved this little
historic home as well, butturned it into, like, a really
cool boutique shop. And so it'sjust, you know, it's not like
(18:24):
we're in a storefront downtownCharlotte, which has got good
walking traffic, but it justlooks like every other
storefront anywhere else. It's areally, really unique space, and
we want to try to make it work.
And we'll just have to see it.
Just takes time. Who knows?
Andrew Maff (18:40):
Yeah, are you manufacturing and fulfilling out
of there as well, or is it twoseparate locations?
Michael Yarbrough (18:46):
All of our shops are here in Huntersville,
our production studios just alittle bit over a mile away. And
so we've got two buildings, kindof side by side there. Our
marketing teams kind of justacross the street in a house.
And so we're kind of spread outright now, just because we've
grown so much and there's much.
And there's not, like, a bigbuilding that we like, that we
would all, you know, fit in, butwe were doing our production,
you know, especially for ourmen's wedding bands and many of
(19:09):
our engagement rings here inhouse just down the road. So
sometimes customers will drop bythe retail store. I mean, people
fly in from all over the place.
We've had people fly in fromCalifornia just to come and
check out around, yeah, andcheck out, you know, in the
area. But we'll take them overto the production studio and
just kind of give them a littlewalk through tour, and just
(19:30):
have, you know, check it out,see how things are done, like
how we do things, yeah.
Andrew Maff (19:34):
That's very cool.
Yeah. What is what's working foryou right now in the marketing
side? Is it the advertising, oris it, where are you doing
something? Because I knowearlier you mentioned about
telling the story and thingslike that. Is that part of that
effort?
Michael Yarbrough (19:45):
It is. Yeah, so advertising, typical e
commerce channels, we've kind oftalked about Google, meta,
Pinterest, things of thatnature. Those work. It changes,
not necessarily on trends. Butit changes on what kind of ads
are out there. This is sort of atrend, not like a not like a
(20:06):
Tiktok dance trend, but, youknow, there's a certain type of
ad that, once it starts working,all of a sudden, everybody else
starts to do it. And people justget fatigued of seeing that same
type of thing over and overagain. And so then we change it
up. And, you know, want to dosomething a little different.
And we kind of go back to thestorytelling. We've tried some
really, like longer form videos,like really, really touching
(20:28):
videos that tell the story of aparticular couple's ring, and
we've tried several of them, andit's just still really difficult
with longer form content that welove, that we think tells the
story. Like, if you saw it onHGTV, you'd be like, Oh my gosh,
this is amazing. But trying todo that in an advertising form
where you've got a reallycinematic sort of video, people
(20:50):
are just scrolling too quick.
They just don't even, they'renot invested in it. So trying to
figure out how to tell, how dowe tell the story, but in
shorter, little, you know,chunks, but that also gives the
that really gets the pointacross. And so that's been a bit
of a challenge. We're stilltrying to figure it out.
Andrew Maff (21:05):
Yeah, do you lean in on, like, current customers
and like reaching out to themand seeing if they have interest
in sharing their story? Is that,yeah, we'd imagine that's got to
work pretty well, right?
Michael Yarbrough (21:16):
Yeah, that does work really well. And
that's how we've done those. Didthose videos in the past, and so
and customers just had thesereal tear jerker just amazing
stories, and so they're out onYouTube. If you guys want to go
watch them, they're fantastic.
But the best things that we'regetting right now tend to be
photos or short videos thatwe're getting from the customers
along with the testimonial. Andthen we'll just mock all of that
(21:40):
up and put it out there. Andthat seems to do pretty well.
Andrew Maff (21:41):
Makes a ton of sense. Yeah, I could definitely
see for a product line likethis, like how just telling the
story is what's going to attractpeople. And really, that's
shareable content written allover it. So what's what's next
for Rustic and Main how yougrowing from here?
Michael Yarbrough (21:56):
Yeah. So we've got quite a bit of growth
ahead in the engagement ringspace. Like I said, we've spent
so much time on, focused onwedding bands that we're really
building out that wedding, youknow, the engagement ring fine
jewelry side, and that's a verycompetitive market. It's, you
(22:17):
know, obviously we're not asniche in that because, you know,
we're not putting, like,historic woods in an engagement
ring or something like that. Butit's so that's, it takes longer
to, you know, kind of become anSEO authority on those things.
So we're building that out andhaving a lot of fun doing it,
(22:39):
just because it's so differentfor us and so much fun. We've
got an in house jeweler. We do alot of our CAD designs in house,
and so we just come up with somecrazy idea. We're like, let's do
this ring, and it's a lot offun. So we're going to be doing
that and focused on that for theremainder of the year and next
(23:02):
year as well. And then we wantto actually start bringing the
from an esthetic standpoint,bringing the Rustic and the Main
kind of together. So we've beenfar more focused on the main
street kind of side appeal ofthings that sort of 1940s
glamor, or small town, MainStreet kind of, kind of feel and
(23:24):
weddings, we really want tobring more of the rustic element
back into it, because that'sreally what we started with. And
so later this fall, we're goingto start doing more photo shoots
around that, and trying to get,you know, pair those things back
up, and get that, that contentout there. And then big focus on
(23:47):
local really trying to push theretail store, and then
eventually we want to expandinto other retail locations as
well, so that each retaillocation kind of has its own
personality. It's a uniqueexperience. And I think this is,
if anybody's listening to thisand they're thinking about
(24:08):
opening up a brick and mortar, Ithink especially these days, it
Andrew Maff (24:11):
Yeah, yeah. I completely agree. It's really
interesting to see how retail iskind of slowly reviving itself,
has to be experiential. Youknow, we hear all about, like,
but with these new brick andmortars that are providing some
the movie theaters and stuffclosing down, especially after
type of additional value outsideof just the basic stuff, like a
the lockdown period, and it'sbecause they're, yeah, they're
reason to go otherwise, like,what's the difference? So you
just trying to be a place whereyou come and watch a movie, make
always just order it. Try it onat home, send it back. Yep. Very
cool. Mike, this was awesome. Ireally appreciate you having on
(24:31):
it an experience. And the samegoes for pretty much any store.
the show. I love to give you thefloor let everyone know where
It needs to be a place where youjust, you can't get that same
they can find out more aboutyou, and, of course, more about
feeling online, and so it can'tjust be come in make a purchase.
Rustic and Main.
Michael Yarbrough (24:42):
Yeah, so Rustic and Main. That's Main, as
in Main Street. Sorusticandmain.com you can head
It's got to be something wherethe customer comes in and they
over there. You can if you're inthe Charlotte area or somewhere
actually experience the heartand the soul of your business.
around here, even NorthCarolina, South Carolina, you
know, feel free to stop in ifyou're if you're seriously
And so that's really what wewant to do. We have a lot of fun
looking for a ring of some kind,wedding band, engagement ring,
with that as well.
or just to say hi, but you headover to rusticandmain.com you
(25:02):
can see all of our rings outthere, the wedding bands, the
engagement rings. We also have areally cool customizer, so if
you're thinking about doing ananniversary band or maybe a band
for the guy, you can go outthere and just you can actually
build it and see it in real timecome to life with all these cool
materials. You can even chooseoptions to select, like, I want
to send them my own rocks orsand or coffee or whatever, and
(25:24):
and we'll help you build thatout. It's a really, really cool
thing, so definitely worthchecking out.
Andrew Maff (25:30):
That's awesome.
Mike, thank you so much forbeing on the show. Obviously,
everyone that tuned in, thankyou as well. Please make sure
you do the usual thing, rate,review, subscribe all that fun
stuff on whichever podcastplatform you prefer, or head
over to the ecomm show.com tocheck out all of our previous
episodes. And as I always say,thank you all for joining us.
See you all next time. Have agood one!
Narrator (25:49):
Thank you for tuning in to the E comm show. Head over
to ecommshow.com to subscribe onyour favorite podcast platform
or on the BlueTusker YouTubechannel. The E comm show is
brought to you by BlueTusker, afull service digital marketing
company specifically for Ecommerce sellers looking to
(26:10):
accelerate their growth. Go tobluetuskr.com now for more
information, make sure to tunein next week for another amazing
episode of the E comm show.
You basically have to take risk. This is all
(00:04):
about entrepreneurship its whatwe do.
Andrew Maff (00:06):
Welcome to the E comm Show podcast. I am your
host. Andrew Mapp, owner andfounder of blue tusker, from
groundbreaking industry updatesto success stories and
strategies, get to know the insand outs of the e Commerce
Industry, from top leaders inthe space. Let's get into it.
Hello everyone. Welcome toanother episode of the E comm
show. As usual, I am your host,Andrew Maff, and today I am
(00:26):
joined by Mike Yarbrough, who isthe owner over at Rustic Main.
Mike, how you doing, buddy?
Michael Yarbrough (00:32):
Great.
Andrew, man, thanks for havingme on the podcast. I'm really
excited about it.
Andrew Maff (00:36):
Yeah, super excited to have you on the show. I love
this whole product line. I lovethe whole concept. I have
something similar, and I'mhoping to change soon, actually.
So fantastic to have you on theshow.
Michael Yarbrough (00:45):
Yeah, good time.
Andrew Maff (00:45):
Love to always kind of start these off pretty
stereotypically. Just give youthe floor and tell us a little
bit about, you know, where youwere at in your career, how you
kind of got started with Rusticand Main, and then we'll take it
from there.
Michael Yarbrough (00:58):
Yeah. So back in say, 2015 I was a software
Dev. Had been doing that forabout 12 to 15 years in some
some capacity, and I really justwanted to do something
entrepreneurial. I'd done a fewthings in fits and starts and
but I really wanted to dosomething that was handmade,
crafted. I just didn't know whatthat was. And around that same
(01:20):
time, I was doing a lot oftyping, a lot of blogging, just
as a dev, but also I was doingsome blogging, and I started to
get carpal tunnel, like feelingsin my hands, so my regular gold
ring just started to feel sortof cold and heavy, and so I
stopped wearing it. And maybe,like, six months goes by, my
wife's like, You got to wear aring, man, like, You got to have
something on your hand. Yeah. Iwas like, Yeah, I know. I just
don't know what to put on it.
And I thought, Well, I'm awoodworker as well. I've got
(01:41):
some some exotic woods out inthe garage. I'll just drill a
hole in one shape it out intothe shape of a ring, wear that
out and that's, that's what I'lldo. And I did. And that very
day, people started asking meabout it, asking me to make one
for them. And so that kind ofgot the wheels turning. And I
thought, you know, there'sreally not, especially at that
time, there's really not reallycool stuff, rings for men,
especially if they were madewith, like, really historic
(02:04):
woods, or really meaningfulmaterials, you know, military
materials, battleship woods. Theideas just started to come
along. And so in April of 2016we launched, and to kind of give
you an idea of how quickly wegrew. By the end of 2017 I had
quit my job, and we had aboutnine people working out of the
(02:25):
house, and so it just took offlike a shot, and we've been busy
ever since, and growing eversince. Now we have about we're
in four different buildings justkind of spread out here in the
Huntersville, North Carolinaarea. We've got about 35
employees, and so, you know, thesky's the limit at this point.
Andrew Maff (02:43):
That's such a cool story. I apologize for kind of
looking off to the side here fora second. I had to look this up.
We had, I had someone on theShow. Original Grain, where they
do a relatively similar wherethey do it with watches and
stuff. And I was like, That'sgenius. Like, it makes so much
(03:06):
sense to have like, some type ofstyle behind it and use, like,
more historical woods and thingslike that. It's, it's genius. So
how do you come across? Like,being able to get that kind of
stuff?
Michael Yarbrough (03:16):
Some of it is like, for example, the USS,
North Carolina, the battleship.
It's been decommissioned for along time, and it's been in
repair for a long time, just asa museum. And we would buy small
blocks of the original teak, theWorld War Two teak that was on
the ship as the sailors walkedon it. It was in war and all
that. And we would buy littleblocks of it for about 50 or 75
bucks a piece. And we were justgoing through it. And so we just
(03:38):
called them up and say, Hey, canwe buy this in bulk? And, you
know, they said, nobody's everasked to do this. And it was
really sad. We went out there.
It was fortunate for us,fortunate for them. We went out
there to the ship, and a lot ofthe wood was just sitting in a
pile, just rotting away, becauseit gets so deteriorated over
time. People can't really use itfor cabinets or, you know,
(03:59):
really cool, big projects, butwe can, we can make use of it.
So we bought up pretty mucheverything they had. And we've
done not, you know, we've donesomething similar with other
battleships, where we just callthem up and say, Hey, can we,
you know, come out there andpurchase them from you guys, and
those proceeds go back to therestoration of the ships. So
we've done that. We've done thesame thing with rifle stocks and
(04:19):
various other things. So it'sreally just kind of, we come up
with a concept and think, Well,where do we get this from? Who
has this? Another quick examplewas, so the Springfield 1903
rifle was used primarily inWorld War One, but it got used
in World War Two a little bit aswell. And we wanted to find some
old stocks. But we don't wantto, like, take a nice rifle
that's been historicallypreserved and, you know, use
(04:41):
that. And we found that therewas actually a cache of the old
stocks over in England thatjust, I guess, we had put over
there at some point during thewar. And when we switched to a
different rifle, they juststayed there. And we just, you
know, said, Hey, can we, can wepurchase that? So we do that
with a lot of things. But someof the most exciting materials
(05:02):
we use is actually just stuffthat our customers send to us.
It might be something likecoffee beans from the place
where they had their first date,or sand from a beach, you know,
where they that they love, orsomething like that tree from,
you know, the backyard of thehome where they grew up,
something like that. So we do alot of things that are just
really, really sentimental aswell.
Andrew Maff (05:23):
That's very cool.
How did so tell me about themarketing side of this, right?
Because you're not a smallbrand. You well into the seven
figure generally, like you'reyou've gotten it up there. It's
a very differentiated it soundslike, in some elements, custom
type of application. So, like,how did you, how did you start
to get this out there? What wasthat? What was the original
(05:46):
approach?
Michael Yarbrough (05:47):
Well, I'm sure a lot of your listeners
will remember back in if yousay, if you think about the
2016, days of being able tomarket on Facebook or Google, a
lot different than it is today,yeah, the good days, yeah. I
mean, you could literally, whenwe started out, it was just me,
and I was doing some ads, and Iwould just be like, let me just
target people who got engaged.
And it was like, Oh my gosh,we're doing like, 11 12x row as
(06:09):
it was incredible, right? Andthen, because we were so unique
and so niche as maybe the nexttwo years went on, a couple of
things happened. Morecompetitors started to come into
the space trying to do somethingsimilar, but a lot of rings
being made overseas and not tothe same standards as us. But
also Facebook began to change upthings. They made it, you know,
(06:29):
AI started their own. Ai startedto become the way, you know, how
they were kind of doing thingsbehind the scenes. And then
around the 2020, timeframe, youknow, things, just with the
Privacy Act and all that kind ofstuff, it just became harder.
But the primary way that we,that we market is is still the
same mindset, even though it'sharder for us to control exactly
what the ads do and who theytarget, the mindset is we want
(06:52):
to showcase the unique featuresof our of our product, and also
that we're really a story drivenbrand, like, that's what we do.
We just love stories, and so wewant to make sure that people
can see the story behind thering, not just, Hey, here's a
here's another piece of jewelrythat you know, where it just
looks different,
Andrew Maff (07:14):
Yeah. And is it? Is it primarily men's rings? I
believe you've gotten, you'vestarted to got get into
traditional kind of engagementrings as well, correct?
Michael Yarbrough (07:23):
Yeah. So we started off with men's rings,
and then that we expanded thatline. Well, we started off with
just wood rings, like rings madefrom wood, and then we expanded
that line to titanium and goldrings that contain inlays of the
specialty woods and othermaterials. And so we did that
for quite a while, and that wasour primary, you know, kind of
(07:43):
our bread and butter. It stillis. Last August, we kind of got
into engagement rings. And, youknow, doing a lot of custom
engagement ring designs and justthings that we just find
interesting, unique, just stylesthat we're drawn to, that may or
may not be on trend yet, but,you know, probably making a
comeback. Who knows? And then alot of classic, you know,
engagement ring styles as well,so and so that's been taken off
(08:06):
as well. So now we want to,we've been focusing really,
really heavy on that for reallythe primarily this year, yeah.
Andrew Maff (08:11):
Yeah, it's interesting. Tell me about a
little bit about the businessside, because I know, especially
with a product line like this,it's typically a one time
purchase. Maybe they'll comeback and, you know, get a few
different styles, or, you know,they might want to change it up,
like a while down the line. Butthat's not as frequent. So from,
like, a projectability type ofaspect, like, how do you how are
(08:35):
you managing that, in terms ofkind of deciphering customer
acquisition costs versus, like,you never really know what the
next couple months are going tobring it.
Michael Yarbrough (08:44):
Yeah, that's, that's a fantastic point, and
I'm glad you bring that upbecause we've worked with a lot
of marketing agencies in thepast who don't really understand
that. Like, we're trying to sellthem one product. You know, you
know, for the we don't haveother jewelry things to sell
yet, they're used to thescenario where, like, you're
selling a t shirt, and you cansell it to them and not make
(09:06):
very much profit initially,because you're going to sell
them five or 6 t-shirts over thecourse of the customer lifetime.
Yeah, and that's just not ourmodel. And so it's really
difficult for them to understandthat, not only that, but things
are handcrafted. There's alonger turnaround time, just a
higher price point for that. Andso the way we the kind of, the
way we project it is, werealized that, okay, it can only
(09:28):
cost in order to sell a customerring. We had to say, what is the
profit we're going to make offof it? You know, assuming it
costs $0 to market and thenwhat's the amount, what's the
percentage that we could spendon it in order to market it, and
then we're constantly watchingthe customer acquisition cost on
Google, Facebook, you know,Pinterest, wherever we're, you
(09:50):
know, wherever we're marketing.
We don't do Tiktok. I knowthat's big for a lot of folks,
but we just don't do that. Wemay try to do m2 when that comes
out, we'll see, yeah. But wereally just keep an eye on that,
because that's big for us.
Because, you know, sometimescustomer acquisition will be
250-300 bucks, you know, maybemore than that depends on what
the product is, especially ifit's a gold ring that's going
(10:11):
for 3500 bucks. Yeah, it's,it's, it takes a lot to kind of
cut through that ocean ofcompetitors and other people out
there, so we have to just priceaccordingly and just keep an eye
on it. The other thing thathappens is, you know, we'll work
with Google. They actually,they've actually been really,
really good to work with,compared to, say, like, meta,
who they just, I don't know,they're terrible as far as,
(10:33):
like, just, like, working withthem as a company, but Google's
been really, really good. But wehave to kind of train them like,
No, we're not cool with the twoand a half x row as like that
doesn't work for us. We need tobe at three and a half or four
for these ads to really justifythemselves. Otherwise, we'll
just we'd rather just do organictraffic. So there's some of
that, but you just have to haveyour eye on the numbers for
sure.
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Andrew Maff (11:26):
I'm shocked that you're, I imagine you're
probably performing pretty wellon the Google side. Since you're
you mentioned they're a goodcompany to work with. So you'd
probably say otherwise thatwasn't the case. But like, it's
such a there's so much limitedreal estate for things like,
let's just say, men's engagementrings. And anyone who's
searching the term like men'sengagement ring, you're going up
(11:46):
against some behemoths, and yourproduct line is very
differentiated. So how are youkind of, how are you getting the
Google ad side of things to workand really hone in on people
that are looking for something alittle bit different?
Michael Yarbrough (11:59):
The hardest thing with ads, whether it's
Google or meta Pinterest,doesn't matter where it is, is
the trial and error period, youknow, like testing and letting
it run for a long enough periodof time. So one of the
challenges in our industrybecause we have a higher price
tag item and something thattakes a longer consideration
time as well, because peoplewill come and they'll design,
(12:19):
and they'll have two or threerings in the cart, and then
they'll finally make a decision.
You know, at some point down theroad, it's difficult to go like,
Okay, we can't just put an adout there for 50 bucks a day and
then watch it for a week andhope that, you know, we get the
right results from it. Yeah, wereally have to leave it for you
know, we're spending $150 a dayletting it run for two weeks to
just get a baseline like, Isthis okay, or is it not okay?
(12:40):
And then tweak, you know, or weeven wait a little bit longer,
if we think it's kind of, itseems to be going in the right
direction. So you have, youknow, the longer you know, the
consideration timeframe topurchase, if you add that in, as
well as to where, like, Google'sjust not able to track as many
people as it used to, justbecause of the privacy things
(13:00):
and people, you know, fromphones to going on to different,
you know, desktops, from theirphone, that kind of stuff. But
then also because we havecouples looking at rings, and we
don't always know which personis going to make the actual
purchase. So maybe one personsaying, Oh, I love this design.
They're looking at it togetheron one phone, and then the other
person goes and makes thepurchase right at work from a
(13:21):
different device, you know? Soit's hard to track that stuff,
so we just have to keep an eyeon it. And it's just, it's that
long period of time of justallowing it to like, you
basically have to take risk.
This is all aboutentrepreneurship. Its what we do
is like, you make an assumption,you take a risk with an ad, put
it out there, see how it does.
And at some point you just gotto go, that's not working. Do we
(13:41):
tweak or do we? Do we cut itoff? Yeah, but it's just, it's
not, it's not quick. That's thething about it.
Andrew Maff (13:49):
Yeah. So you probably have a pretty you have
such a long sales cycle that I'mimagining those attribution
windows have to be, yeah, 30days, whatever. Yeah, geez. And
then, and then, of course, likeyou mentioned, you've got the
issue of your consumer and yourcustomer could potentially be
different people.
Michael Yarbrough (14:04):
Yeah, and I kind of liken this to what
people experience back in thatdoesn't really matter with ads
or not ads, but like you'd putan ad in a magazine, well, there
wasn't really a way to track andstill not really, unless you do
a QR code or something, there'snot a great way to track that ad
in the magazine really, reallyworked. The only way you would
(14:25):
know is if you pulled the adfrom the magazine all of a
sudden, your sales dropped. Thatwas the only thing you changed.
Maybe you could make thatconjecture. And so it's a little
bit like that. You just have tokind of go with your gut, like,
yeah, this should work likethis. This ought to be
resonating with customers, evenif you don't always see the
data.
Andrew Maff (14:42):
Yeah, I love that.
You just said that one of my goto, like, when I'm, like,
speaking on another podcast orsomething, I always say, like,
in my eyes, digital marketing isbecoming a lot more like
traditional marketing, right?
Like you can't track everything,like you used to, like, if you
watch Mad Men, none of thequestions they ask or like, what
was my return on that billboard?
Like, you don't know, like, it'syou put out a message, you put
(15:03):
out a campaign, and youhopefully you see sales grow.
And I know that for especiallyfor brands that sell online,
like the idea of that unknown isso, so ridiculous. They they are
so spoiled with getting to knowwhere every penny went. But it's
just not doable anymore, whichobviously, actually brings me to
my next question. You obviouslyhave your own website. You
(15:25):
mentioned your retail now,correct?
Michael Yarbrough (15:28):
Yeah, we have a retail store.
Andrew Maff (15:30):
Anywhere else, or those that are your two sales
channels right now. Those arereally our two sales channel.
Michael Yarbrough (15:34):
The retail store kicked off in August of
last year, and we officially,kind of launched, because there
was still some setup stuff todo. Launched in January, and
we're still trying to navigatethat, like, getting the word out
retail, like, locally, kind ofgoes back to more, like,
traditional advertising, thingslike, is very different than it,
yeah? Like, e commerce, online,you know, global, you know, type
(15:56):
of stuff.
Andrew Maff (15:56):
Yeah, that. So that was, that was kind of what I was
going to ask, because, like,down the line, retail is up and
running. You've been truckingalong for a while. The question
always becomes, like, youradvertising efforts, do you
saturate the market around theretail establishment, and then,
like we're just talking about,do you kind of just hope that
you start to see foot traffic,because you can't. You could
(16:18):
claim that there's ways to trackit. There's really not it's
difficult, and you're forcingpeople to come in with coupons
and things like that. And itgets kind of, especially for a
brand like yours, it gets like,I wouldn't do that, so like,
thoughts on how you're going tojudge the success of your local
marketing efforts to improve theretail side, knowing that
there's probably some bleed overto the website as well.
Michael Yarbrough (16:39):
Yep, now that's a great question. So what
we what we do track is, youknow, how many people come into
the store, how many purchasesare made, and that sort of
stuff. What we'll see is, we,you know, we may do, I don't
know, seven or eight differentevents this year, just being
part of the community, we'llsponsor some coffee shops, you
know, like, hey, the first sip'son us. And, you know, come in
(17:01):
and get a drink, and, you know,we're just around the corner.
The people who walk in aren'talways going to say, I saw you
guys at this coffee shop, or youwere on the back of my son's
baseball jersey or whatever,right? You know, because we
sponsored some little leagueteam, we don't really know. Like
you said, this kind of back inthe day, you just don't know.
You can't track that as easily.
But what we can track is, is,over time, the people becoming,
(17:22):
are people becoming more awarethat we exist? Are they stopping
in, you know, to the retailstore, and are we growing in the
revenue that we're generating,and they continue to have a
positive experience here? Sothose are the only things that
we can really track. And it'sone of those things where it's a
long game, which is people,people in the E commerce world
(17:43):
don't like long games, becausethey want immediate results. You
know, I put a product out there.
Why am I not selling it? Butwe're a brand that wants to be
around for 100 years or more, soit's like, Okay, we're gonna put
a retail shop up. It's in a coolspot. We really liked the
location. It actually our retailstore here's in Huntersville,
(18:04):
North Carolina. It's actuallythe childhood home of Luke
Combs, the country singer. Sosome people will be familiar
with him. A lot of people willbe familiar with him, yeah. But
so it's kind of like we're kindof preserved this little
historic home as well, butturned it into, like, a really
cool boutique shop. And so it'sjust, you know, it's not like
(18:24):
we're in a storefront downtownCharlotte, which has got good
walking traffic, but it justlooks like every other
storefront anywhere else. It's areally, really unique space, and
we want to try to make it work.
And we'll just have to see it.
Just takes time. Who knows?
Andrew Maff (18:40):
Yeah, are you manufacturing and fulfilling out
of there as well, or is it twoseparate locations?
Michael Yarbrough (18:46):
All of our shops are here in Huntersville,
our production studios just alittle bit over a mile away. And
so we've got two buildings, kindof side by side there. Our
marketing teams kind of justacross the street in a house.
And so we're kind of spread outright now, just because we've
grown so much and there's much.
And there's not, like, a bigbuilding that we like, that we
would all, you know, fit in, butwe were doing our production,
you know, especially for ourmen's wedding bands and many of
(19:09):
our engagement rings here inhouse just down the road. So
sometimes customers will drop bythe retail store. I mean, people
fly in from all over the place.
We've had people fly in fromCalifornia just to come and
check out around, yeah, andcheck out, you know, in the
area. But we'll take them overto the production studio and
just kind of give them a littlewalk through tour, and just
(19:30):
have, you know, check it out,see how things are done, like
how we do things, yeah.
Andrew Maff (19:34):
That's very cool.
Yeah. What is what's working foryou right now in the marketing
side? Is it the advertising, oris it, where are you doing
something? Because I knowearlier you mentioned about
telling the story and thingslike that. Is that part of that
effort?
Michael Yarbrough (19:45):
It is. Yeah, so advertising, typical e
commerce channels, we've kind oftalked about Google, meta,
Pinterest, things of thatnature. Those work. It changes,
not necessarily on trends. Butit changes on what kind of ads
are out there. This is sort of atrend, not like a not like a
(20:06):
Tiktok dance trend, but, youknow, there's a certain type of
ad that, once it starts working,all of a sudden, everybody else
starts to do it. And people justget fatigued of seeing that same
type of thing over and overagain. And so then we change it
up. And, you know, want to dosomething a little different.
And we kind of go back to thestorytelling. We've tried some
really, like longer form videos,like really, really touching
(20:28):
videos that tell the story of aparticular couple's ring, and
we've tried several of them, andit's just still really difficult
with longer form content that welove, that we think tells the
story. Like, if you saw it onHGTV, you'd be like, Oh my gosh,
this is amazing. But trying todo that in an advertising form
where you've got a reallycinematic sort of video, people
(20:50):
are just scrolling too quick.
They just don't even, they'renot invested in it. So trying to
figure out how to tell, how dowe tell the story, but in
shorter, little, you know,chunks, but that also gives the
that really gets the pointacross. And so that's been a bit
of a challenge. We're stilltrying to figure it out.
Andrew Maff (21:05):
Yeah, do you lean in on, like, current customers
and like reaching out to themand seeing if they have interest
in sharing their story? Is that,yeah, we'd imagine that's got to
work pretty well, right?
Michael Yarbrough (21:16):
Yeah, that does work really well. And
that's how we've done those. Didthose videos in the past, and so
and customers just had thesereal tear jerker just amazing
stories, and so they're out onYouTube. If you guys want to go
watch them, they're fantastic.
But the best things that we'regetting right now tend to be
photos or short videos thatwe're getting from the customers
along with the testimonial. Andthen we'll just mock all of that
(21:40):
up and put it out there. Andthat seems to do pretty well.
Andrew Maff (21:41):
Makes a ton of sense. Yeah, I could definitely
see for a product line likethis, like how just telling the
story is what's going to attractpeople. And really, that's
shareable content written allover it. So what's what's next
for Rustic and Main how yougrowing from here?
Michael Yarbrough (21:56):
Yeah. So we've got quite a bit of growth
ahead in the engagement ringspace. Like I said, we've spent
so much time on, focused onwedding bands that we're really
building out that wedding, youknow, the engagement ring fine
jewelry side, and that's a verycompetitive market. It's, you
(22:17):
know, obviously we're not asniche in that because, you know,
we're not putting, like,historic woods in an engagement
ring or something like that. Butit's so that's, it takes longer
to, you know, kind of become anSEO authority on those things.
So we're building that out andhaving a lot of fun doing it,
(22:39):
just because it's so differentfor us and so much fun. We've
got an in house jeweler. We do alot of our CAD designs in house,
and so we just come up with somecrazy idea. We're like, let's do
this ring, and it's a lot offun. So we're going to be doing
that and focused on that for theremainder of the year and next
(23:02):
year as well. And then we wantto actually start bringing the
from an esthetic standpoint,bringing the Rustic and the Main
kind of together. So we've beenfar more focused on the main
street kind of side appeal ofthings that sort of 1940s
glamor, or small town, MainStreet kind of, kind of feel and
(23:24):
weddings, we really want tobring more of the rustic element
back into it, because that'sreally what we started with. And
so later this fall, we're goingto start doing more photo shoots
around that, and trying to get,you know, pair those things back
up, and get that, that contentout there. And then big focus on
(23:47):
local really trying to push theretail store, and then
eventually we want to expandinto other retail locations as
well, so that each retaillocation kind of has its own
personality. It's a uniqueexperience. And I think this is,
if anybody's listening to thisand they're thinking about
(24:08):
opening up a brick and mortar, Ithink especially these days, it
Andrew Maff (24:11):
Yeah, yeah. I completely agree. It's really
interesting to see how retail iskind of slowly reviving itself,
has to be experiential. Youknow, we hear all about, like,
but with these new brick andmortars that are providing some
the movie theaters and stuffclosing down, especially after
type of additional value outsideof just the basic stuff, like a
the lockdown period, and it'sbecause they're, yeah, they're
reason to go otherwise, like,what's the difference? So you
just trying to be a place whereyou come and watch a movie, make
always just order it. Try it onat home, send it back. Yep. Very
cool. Mike, this was awesome. Ireally appreciate you having on
(24:31):
it an experience. And the samegoes for pretty much any store.
the show. I love to give you thefloor let everyone know where
It needs to be a place where youjust, you can't get that same
they can find out more aboutyou, and, of course, more about
feeling online, and so it can'tjust be come in make a purchase.
Rustic and Main.
Michael Yarbrough (24:42):
Yeah, so Rustic and Main. That's Main, as
in Main Street. Sorusticandmain.com you can head
It's got to be something wherethe customer comes in and they
over there. You can if you're inthe Charlotte area or somewhere
actually experience the heartand the soul of your business.
around here, even NorthCarolina, South Carolina, you
know, feel free to stop in ifyou're if you're seriously
And so that's really what wewant to do. We have a lot of fun
looking for a ring of some kind,wedding band, engagement ring,
with that as well.
or just to say hi, but you headover to rusticandmain.com you
(25:02):
can see all of our rings outthere, the wedding bands, the
engagement rings. We also have areally cool customizer, so if
you're thinking about doing ananniversary band or maybe a band
for the guy, you can go outthere and just you can actually
build it and see it in real timecome to life with all these cool
materials. You can even chooseoptions to select, like, I want
to send them my own rocks orsand or coffee or whatever, and
(25:24):
and we'll help you build thatout. It's a really, really cool
thing, so definitely worthchecking out.
Andrew Maff (25:30):
That's awesome.
Mike, thank you so much forbeing on the show. Obviously,
everyone that tuned in, thankyou as well. Please make sure
you do the usual thing, rate,review, subscribe all that fun
stuff on whichever podcastplatform you prefer, or head
over to the ecomm show.com tocheck out all of our previous
episodes. And as I always say,thank you all for joining us.
See you all next time. Have agood one!
Narrator (25:49):
Thank you for tuning in to the E comm show. Head over
to ecommshow.com to subscribe onyour favorite podcast platform
or on the BlueTusker YouTubechannel. The E comm show is
brought to you by BlueTusker, afull service digital marketing
company specifically for Ecommerce sellers looking to
(26:10):
accelerate their growth. Go tobluetuskr.com now for more
information, make sure to tunein next week for another amazing
episode of the E comm show.
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