In today's episode, we're thrilled to bring you an exciting guest, Brett Swensen, the VP of Marketing at one of the hottest direct-to-consumer footwear brands on the market - Kizik! Trust us when we say they're crushing it.
In this episode, Brett shares with us a wealth of knowledge that every marketer and founder should know. We dive deep into practical strategies for scaling your business, starting from seven figures all the way up to nine figures. Brett emphasizes the importance of building specific moats around your business to ensure that you can protect and scale effectively.
We also explore the power of taking risks and discuss what it really takes for a business to go from point A to point B. So, whether you're a seasoned marketer or just starting out, this episode is packed with valuable insights that you won't want to miss.
Please connect with Trevor on social media. You can find him anywhere @thetrevorcrump
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Trevor (00:00):
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome to the
(00:01):
unstoppable Marketer Podcast.
We're so excited to introduceyou to this episode, we have one
of our good friends BrettSwenson, who is the VP of
Marketing at one of the fastestgrowing DTC footwear brands out
there right now. They'reabsolutely crushing it called
kick. In this episode, we go sodeep and talk about so many
practical things that everymarketer and founder need to
(00:24):
know. We talk about what ittakes to go from seven figures
to eight figures. From eightfigures, nine figures, we talk
about the importance of buildingspecific moats around your
business to help you protect andscale, we talk about the power
of risk taking, and what ittakes for a business to go from
point A to point B. When they dothat. Please enjoy this episode
(00:45):
and make sure to get the pen andpaper because Brett takes us to
school. Yo, what's going oneverybody? Welcome to the
unstoppable Marketer Podcast. Itis a great day to day with me as
always is Mark, but it's a greatday. But it's a sad day. If
you're watching this becauseMark's hair is gone. I used to
(01:06):
introduce Mark as my lovelycoast with the best hair, I
would oftentimes refer to him assomeone with the best hair and
he decided to show up with itcut.
Mark (01:21):
I caught it. Yeah, it's gone. Well, you look good.
Still, that my nickname in highschool is Goldilocks too. So the
locks are gone. But it was timeit was just when you wake up
every day. And there's fivemoments every day where you go,
I'm sick of it. Just having tocut it. So that's fair. That's
fair. Yeah. And I'm getting old,you know? Yeah. Backwards. Mark
(01:43):
is gone. Yeah. clean cut Marcusclean cut Marcus here. Yeah,
yeah. Okay. It's a new day, newage.
Trevor (01:49):
I dig it. Well, we have an awesome guest today.
Mark (01:51):
Yes, we do. I'm excited.
Trevor (01:52):
Yeah, we're really excited. I want to introduce our
guests. His name is BrettSwenson. He is the VP of
Marketing for one of the fastestgrowing shoe lifestyle
technology companies. Very good.
I can say it another way to Imean, you could just say the
fastest growing one of thefastest growing DTC footwear
(02:14):
brands ever. Right now. outthere. Yeah. Called kick. Did I
say because again? Yeah. Kick,kick, kick. Welcome, Brett.
Brett (02:23):
How are you? Thanks for having me. Awesome. Glad to be
here. How's your day been? It'sgood. I feel like every day we
wake up and we're in a differentlike, it's raining today. It was
sunny. It was 70 A few days ago.
I mean, now. Here we are. Yeah.
But things are good. I'm super
Trevor (02:39):
psyched. I'm coaching a baseball game at 430. Perfect
for eight year old and theydon't cancel those things. Ever.
Why would you if there'slightning above you? They will
cancel it. But nothing else.
Like sideways snow and wind.
Kids need to learn to tough itout. Yeah, it was machine pitch
last week. It was it was pouringrain. And I was putting the ball
(03:01):
in the machine and it wouldlike, like to be on the ground.
I'm like guys gonna cancel this.
Every like four balls, it wouldactually work. Good. So I'm
excited for that. Reallyexcited. Cheers to that machine.
Pitch. Not coach pitch machinepitch. Yes. Is machine pitch 40
miles an hour.
Brett (03:19):
Wow. Yeah.
Trevor (03:20):
How old are some eight?
Cool. Yep. So yeah, it isawesome
Brett (03:26):
weather. Well, good luck to you. Thank you. That should
be real fun. eight year olds inthe rain.
Mark (03:31):
And speaking of stormy events, right over the weekend,
we had a nice surprise onFacebook. Yes.
Brett (03:39):
Yes, yeah, I actually woke up Sunday morning. I was
like, Oh, I'm gonna checkTwitter. What's going on Paul
Firestorm. So I sent a fire up afew slacks and like, Hey, guys,
like anyone, like what are wedoing here? Like we pausing
like, what's going on? Andanyway, we were sifting through
it for a while in the morning,but luckily, we actually. I
(04:02):
mean, it did blow through abunch of our budget. We paused.
But then we kind of thought,hey, this could be an
opportunity for us to actually,you know, everyone else is
turning stuff off. Let's turnlet's go back on. Yeah. So we
turned our campaigns back on andthings normalized. But CPMs came
in, they dropped. I'm sure youguys saw it came way down. And
(04:23):
we only ended you know, maybe10% above? Really? I spend so
nice. You know if Matt islistening, we're waiting for our
credits. Yeah, I
Trevor (04:32):
think we all are waiting for.
Mark (04:34):
Yeah, for those of you don't know, the meta ad platform
and imploded on Sunday, theystarted over delivering ads. So
impressions, or cost perimpressions went through the
roof along with every other costmetric.
Trevor (04:45):
Yes. So it wasn't there.
And it was for pretty mucheveryone. That was a console.
Yeah. I mean, in my Twitterscrolling, there were a few
brands who were like, Oh, wedidn't really see anything. But
for the most part, it was
Mark (04:58):
everyone. Yeah, it was just me Across the board, oops.
Oopsies somebody made a jokelike Zuckerberg was off on
earnings. So he's trying to getit all back in one day.
Brett (05:08):
What's the highest CPM?
You saw?
Mark (05:11):
200? Really? Yeah. Okay.
Brett (05:13):
Like 130 is what we saw on our account, but
Trevor (05:16):
my goodness,
Mark (05:18):
I mean, that's the CPG space though, and they tend to
be higher anyways.
Trevor (05:21):
Yeah, yeah, very much.
So. So, okay, so Brett, I'm VPof Marketing at kissick. So, my
story how I got to know you. Wewere actually at a founders
event together. i Well, one, I'dseen you. I've seen you on
LinkedIn. I've seen you online.
I know who kissick is beenfollowing kissick for a while,
actually, kissick, I was around.
Mark and I were around at acompany when kissick was
(05:47):
introduced to us before it waskissick, like you have some
shoes.
Mark (05:53):
Well, it was just a hands free lab.
Trevor (05:55):
Is that what it started out as?
Brett (05:58):
Well kissing has always been around our parent company,
which kind of holds all of thetechnology and when we have over
130 patents in our portfolio,ease all around, you know,
footwear and hands free and youname it some crazy stuff like
locked away in a in a vault ballto Disney vault. Yes.
Mark (06:16):
A Big Cottonwood Canyon.
Yeah,
Trevor (06:18):
Richie, Richie, Richie.
Rich's vault zactly? No,
Brett (06:21):
no, but hands free Labs is the parent company that but
it really kind of was born afterphysics. So it may have been
kind of as we were starting, wehad to, like find a home for all
these patents and technology. Soyou know, one of the first
things that we did is when whenBlake and I came on early on was
to get out like where's handsfree labs gonna live and right
(06:42):
next to kissick. And so anyway,yeah.
Trevor (06:44):
Yeah. Well, we got introduced to it by it was like,
right when Alec I think AlexMcArthur got brought on. And I
met Monty and Alex at aconference. And they were
talking about it. And I rememberjust thinking like, that's
crazy. Yeah, like, that's prettywild. Yeah. And, and to see
where you guys I mean, that wasprobably
Mark (07:04):
five or six years ago. 18 and 2019.
Trevor (07:07):
I think we're in 2017 2018. Maybe
Brett (07:11):
I'm coming up on four years or three years. So yeah,
Trevor (07:15):
yeah. So it's amazing.
I'm excited to talk aboutgrowth. But yeah, make sure to
founders event. You're superawesome. We got I think we
essentially just got paired uplike I didn't come up and chat
with you. You didn't come andchat with me. They were like,
Hey, you too. No. Sit by eachother. Yeah. And we chatted. And
I must have been reallycharming. You were Yeah, it
Brett (07:31):
was it was I was really drawn to it was like a tractor
beam. And yeah, it was. It wasawesome to hear what you were
building and, and Bill just kindof swap stories and talk shop
little bit. Totally. I had seenyou on LinkedIn too. And Senior
Content was like, hey, yes, guyseems to have it together. Or
sort of, yeah. Or pretending.
Pretending really well. Yeah,
Trevor (07:50):
we can all pretend really good on social media
really good at that. Yeah. Sookay, let's talk. Let I say
let's just get to your story alittle bit. Like let's talk
about little your journey. I'mexcited because you've not only
worked for you've worked formultiple nine figure brands now
and been a part of nine figurestartups kissick, one of them,
(08:11):
purple being another one. So I'mexcited to get into that
journey. Let's just Let'squickly talk about who are you?
What, how do you know what youknow? Yeah. Where are you
important?
Brett (08:20):
Yeah, you hear that?
Question? I asked myself thatevery day. My kids are like,
what do you do for work? Dad,you go to meetings and type on a
keyboard and like, kind of
Trevor (08:30):
wear shoes all the time?
Brett (08:33):
No, actually, I didn't start in marketing. Actually. I
was one of those that didn'tlove High School. And early
like, you know, Junior Senior,you could ever work release. And
I just wanted to go and likestart working. And I worked with
my brother for like 10 years andthe photography space, like
(08:54):
portrait photography, weddings.
So I started out just, you know,it, he owned the business. And
we grew it to be like thelargest photographer in the
state. There was one time Iremember that especially, you
know, specialized in weddings,but we were doing hundreds of
weddings a year. And there wasone Saturday that we had like,
15 weddings or something crazy.
(09:18):
had, like, people were justflying to like, Okay, I'm gonna
go, you know, shoot theceremony. And then so and I was
gonna do the reception and, youknow, weddings here or there.
It's intense. And so, yes, youknow, I started just kind of, in
the end, I worked, you know,from high school till, you know,
my mid 20s doing photography,different variations and
(09:38):
actually learn to, you know,shoot and, but I realized like,
I didn't want to be aphotographer. I did a lot of the
backend work too. And like, themarketing quote, unquote, that
was when like Facebookcommunities were starting to get
big and we tried to innovate onthat. And, you know, you're
tagging all the brides and alltheir pictures and we'd make
shareable opportunities to justbuild community and totally You
(10:00):
know, kind of keep that flywheelgoing. And so I knew that I
liked this, you know, solvingproblems and figuring out how we
can continue to, to drum upbusiness and market and, and but
it wasn't like the digital sideof it. And so anyway, fast
forward and we actually we endedup starting a different
photography business that wasaround school photography, like
(10:22):
high volume school photography,and during that time I helped
build and really came up withthis concept for a CRM that
would basically take, you know,once the picture is taken, like
your, your kids school picturestaken, from the time it's taken
to delivery and class pictureand all that it was automated,
and it was sequenced and kepttrack of and organized. And, and
(10:44):
that was like, my first, youknow, really get into it into
building product and, andunderstanding like, how are we
going to market this and they'reselling to schools. And anyway,
what it just taught me a lotabout, you know,
entrepreneurship, and I wasliving off of credit cards. And
it was, it was a crazy time inlife. But anyway, we, we sold
(11:06):
that and I needed to go findsomething to do. And that's when
I was looking on like, indeed,yeah, I think Ian was like, I
really like marketing. And Ilike systems and CRMs. And like,
what can I do with this? And solike, this mattress company is
like, Hey, we're looking forlike an email and marketing
automation person. Yeah. I cando that. Yeah, like, I'm good at
(11:28):
that. And right before thatactually had spent some time at
an agency. Yeah, doingenterprise account management.
So I kind of had my foot in thedoor of digital marketing and,
you know, was helping with SEO,and it was PPC, and, you know,
just taking care of clients. ButI knew that wasn't where I
wanted to be either, but I knewI could do this. So I that's how
I found purple. Yeah, is I sawthis and I was like a mattress
(11:50):
company. Yeah. Okay. So I gothere, and I meet Alex McArthur,
who you mentioned, and a coupleother people and he ended up
actually calling my boss at theagency like on the spot. He's
like, Hey, I'm sitting here withBrett like, you're good dude.
Like, would you hire him? And Iwas like, Oh my gosh, what's
what's he gonna say? Like, yeah,shout out to Frank Baker, who
(12:11):
was like, Oh, my gosh, she's,you know, yeah, gave me a really
nice shout out. And and so, youknow, if you know, Alex, he was
just like, well, if it was up tome, I'd hire you. But you gotta
convince this other guy. So ifyou don't get the job, blame
him. I walked out. And I didn'thear from anyone for like, three
weeks. Yeah. So anyway, theyfinally got back to me, and I
start working purple. And that'swhen kind of things started in
this, this, you know, EComm DTCspace, and that I felt falling
(12:35):
in love with is just product inreally scaling brands from, you
know, basically, you know,startup to write, you know, $2
billion brands, and hopefullyanother one with physics. So,
that's kind of how I got intothis world.
Mark (12:49):
Did you have any higher ed in between that or just work. So
I
Brett (12:53):
actually went school for Exercise Science, and like, I
wanted to be a personal trainer,at one point, I was like, This
is gonna be awesome. No money inthat there's no money there. So
I actually just everything Ilearned was like, self taught,
and just going through it anddoing and then, you know,
working at the agency and kindof just learning I mean, at the
time, Facebook wasn't reallythat big. And some of these
(13:15):
traditional channels that weknow, today, we just weren't big
back then. So I just kind ofself taught and then, you know,
I put in a ton of time, justlike doing Sure, I just learned
by doing and here we are, why do
Mark (13:28):
you think that some of the best marketers are self taught?
Brett (13:32):
I think that's a great question. I, I honestly just
felt like there was no schoolingout there. Like, because I
actually did a couple of things,you know, just remotely, it was
like, Hey, I'm going to, youknow, see what I maybe missed.
And do you know, a year or so orjust kind of some marketing
courses, and it's all very justchecklist marketing. It's, it's
the playbook. And I feel like,that probably worked for a long
(13:56):
time. But when you're trying tobe disruptive, or really build a
category, I feel like, you know,there's, there's so much you can
learn by doing and teaching andjust figuring out versus reading
in a textbook or, you know,stuff that that everyone else is
learning. I just feel like, someof the success that I've seen is
when you know, that old clichewhen people are zigging, you zag
(14:19):
and and she's like, that was alittle bit of my career path of
like, how to get into this andjust figuring out by doing I
think is probably the keytakeaway there. But I don't know
what it's good question. What doyou guys think
Trevor (14:31):
about desk? Same thing?
Yeah. Yeah.
Mark (14:33):
My hunch is that, you know, we live in such a
dynamically changing environmentin terms of like, culture and
society, especially andeverything has accelerated since
social media startedaccelerating with cable TV and
like broadcast media, right. ButI just think that because tones
(14:54):
and culture shifts so quickly.
There's no way of like reading abook and then up approaching it
and doing it right. It's likereading a book about
skateboarding. And then thinkingyou can go out and skateboard
like, you still have to actuallygo out and feel the
gravitational pole, figure outyour balance. So you're never
gonna learn skateboardingwithout doing it. I actually
(15:14):
think the same thing withmarketing. Now you don't have
any skills until you're in themess. Because you don't know
what works until you know whatworks. I mean, it's dumb as and
simple as that sounds, right?
You really, you have all thesegreat ideas, and then you go out
there and you're like, oh, nineout of 10 of those works. Right?
So I need to fix my ideas. Yeah.
But that's my thought. Andbecause technology also is
(15:36):
changing so quickly, you can'tcreate a curriculum around it,
you just have to do it. Yeah.
Trevor (15:44):
I don't disagree. Like I've actually thought about this
a lot. Because I was the, like,I was the guy who I got my
master's degree in marketing,like, so I went through the
college, the full fledgeexperience, you know, and even
was, like, very thoughtful. Iremember thinking when I was
getting my masters that I wasgonna go get my PhD too. But for
(16:06):
me, it was like, I kind of feltlike, I had to do it. Like,
like, in my head, it was like,if I want to be x, that like,
you know, if I ever if I want z,I gotta go through X and Y
first, you know, so like, Ithink sometimes, like, the
reason why self taught marketersare the best, or, you know, just
really self taught anybodyusually, like, I think about
(16:28):
that with musicians all the timetotally is because they had such
a will, like that, like, theirgoal was to like, to be as
efficient as possible withfiguring out how to do it.
Whereas like, I wasn't reallyefficient with my time, right?
Like, I thought I was beingefficient. I'm going to school,
I'm learning about the five P'sof marketing, you know, I'm
(16:50):
doing these things, right. Iwouldn't did my thesis, all
these things. And then like, Iremember, like, one of the
saddest moments of my entirelife was like, ending my
master's degree, and be like,Fuck, I still don't know what
I'm doing. Like, that was, likeone of the, like, hardest
(17:11):
moments of my life. That justwas like, crap, I've got to,
like, I have to just like, goget a job somewhere and figure
out how to do this, you know, soI think I'm getting I'm long
winded with this. But I justthink people who understand,
like people who want something,tend to do whatever they can to
(17:32):
get to it. And they'll selftaught people, right. Like, I
want to be a professionalskateboarder. I'm not just gonna
watch movies anymore. Like, I'mgonna buy a skateboard. I'm
gonna buy the helmet. And I'mgonna, like, just go ride and
get the reps in and get the repsin, you know, where there's some
people who fall down, fall down.
Yeah, we're like, I, to me, Iactually, like, to me the
schooling route, I think aboutI'm like, I actually did that
(17:52):
because I was lazy. Like, Iknow, that's how everybody
thinks. But like, when I thinkabout it, like I was doing it,
because I was lazy, because itfelt like the right answer. And
that was gonna be handed to you.
Yeah. And it was like, Hey, dothis assignment. Okay? Hey, do
this test. Okay? Hey, study,like, this is what your course
is now. Like it was, it was likelaid out, go figure it out on
(18:14):
your own. Yeah, that freaked theshit out of me, was to be able
to have to, like, do it on myown. I was never a self taught
guy up until probably four orfive years ago, like I started
self teaching.
Brett (18:24):
Well, and then you guys see the shifts, like, I
remember, to your point, likeyou had a degree and like, you
could get a job. And then like,I remember when, when I was
interviewing, and kind ofgetting out of into the
corporate world, it was like,show us show us how to do this,
like, be a practitioner, notjust a on merit alone, we're
gonna give you this, like, weneed to know that you understand
(18:45):
this and actually do it. Andwhen I was at the agency, you
had to talk to people all daylong, about, you know, little
mini business plans for their,you know, in marketing plans for
their business, and like, youhad to show it, you couldn't
just be like, well, here, youknow, here's what I learned. But
like, will show it walk methrough Google Analytics and
show me where I'm findingsuccess or where there's, like,
(19:05):
there's no way that that wasn'tbeing taught anywhere. It
wasn't, it was principles, butit wasn't really like the
action. And that, to me, is oneof the I think the greatest
skills that I've been able toget as like being a practitioner
while continue to grow mycareer. So like, how do you
continue to stay in the weedsand, and do well, you know,
(19:26):
managing people and, you know,becoming more of a leader in
your company and organization,but still honing those skills
is, has been something that'sjust been really important to
me. I think that's how youcontinue to learn by doing I
mean, what you guys are doing, Ithink is a good a good example
of that super smart.
Mark (19:42):
And I think as you're self taught, you recognize that those
skills can easily becomeoutdated. Yeah, right. Because
you self taught you have tocreatively solve problems so
often, it's dude, if I if I losethis, it's gone. Yeah, right.
Then I'm gonna have to relearneverything. It's a lot easier
just to get in the weeds alittle bit. In your position so
then I wanted to move intopurple. So you you're creatively
(20:06):
solving problems as anentrepreneur at an agency you
get the job and at that pointpurple was kind of nothing
right?
Brett (20:15):
They had done when I got there they were just finishing
like the second Kickstarter. Sothey did their the first
Kickstarter, which launched themattress and kind of that
product market fit was there andthings were growing and I think
I was like the, I don't knoweight person on the marketing
team or something like coming into like, own a channel and grow.
But yeah, they were still tryingto figure things out. And it was
(20:38):
maybe he had done 5 million or Idon't know, something like that.
So that you know, they weremoving but it was early days
where they were trying to keepup there was one machine making
mattresses and it's like, okay,let's let's figure out what's
next.
Trevor (20:52):
Can I call purple? And for those of you who don't know
who purple is like, Purple wasthe pioneer right? In this like
mattress game, like in in you'renot going to RC Willey to buy a
mattress like that's how youWell, I'd say
Mark (21:09):
and maybe correct me if I'm wrong, but they weren't the
Pioneer. I believe there was afew before but what purple was
the pioneer in was a differenttechnology. And the DTC space
because they came out with theirpatented. And you can describe
it better than me, but it's thatlike grid gel system, but
Trevor (21:26):
they weren't the pioneer in the DTC space.
Brett (21:29):
No. So like Casper and like, there was a couple okay to
kind of like, figured out thisbed in the box. Got it. But
yeah, to Mark's point, like wereally came in and I think part
of my career has been likedisruptive brands, it was like
how do we just we're sellingthis, you know, a bento box
(21:49):
battle. We make it like,exciting and, and we and
disrupted just kind of a legacyboring industry. And that's
where I think purple came inwith again, you know, with a
moat around it. We hadtechnology that was patented.
That was wasn't memory foam.
Yeah, traditional. Whatever. Itwas, like, you know, this grid
system, they called ithyperelastic. Polymer. That's
(22:10):
it. That's it fancy, but I stillsleep on one today.
Mark (22:16):
Disclaimer, I also have a purple. Ah, it was the only
thing that fixed my wife'sshoulder problems.
Trevor (22:23):
You know, I actually remember when you bought your
Purple Mattress. Yeah. Yeah. Idon't. I do have a spellbinder.
I do have a bed in the box. Ijust can't remember who it is.
So very comfortable. I feelgreat on it. Yeah. Yeah. And
they stay cool.
Mark (22:40):
Yes. Great. Yeah.
Brett (22:41):
I'm a big fan, even though I you know, I'd be
honest, if I didn't use theproduct anymore. But, you know,
you go in to a hotel orsomewhere and I'm like, Man, I
just, I miss my bed. Yeah, missit. So
Trevor (22:51):
So what were some of the things that that purple did to
go? You said you around there?
Let's say it was between fiveand $10 million annually? What
were some things that got themfrom this, like, seven figures
into eight figures, and theneight figures into nine? Yeah, I
think
Brett (23:11):
unwillingness to settle and be boring. And to really
think outside the box, no punintended. But like, you know,
we, I just remember being there.
And the energy that was wasflowing there was there wasn't a
bad idea. Like, what you know,shout out to Alex, you know, for
fostering this, this culture.
(23:33):
And, you know, we could come upwith the craziest idea and take
it until we finally just kind ofhad to maybe cut something out
because it was too out theretoo. Too far. I don't know if
you guys remember we did a wedid something with Facebook with
Tim and Eric. You know, it was aI don't know if you guys know
(23:53):
those guys, but it was likethis. No, no other brand,
especially a mattress brand wasdoing something that was like
this disruptive from a, like aculture standpoint, it was we
did something that was like themost boring films ever made.
Yeah, for one of these and itwas just like, how could we
think differently and, you know,put ourselves in the
consideration set for someonewhen they are looking for a
(24:15):
mattress and we did that throughcontent? So you know, a lot of
people have seen the Goldilocksvideo. It's kind of one of the
claim to fame is that that kindof purple I'd say pioneered that
style of marketing with youknow, Harmon brothers you know,
was was a big proponent of that,but like it was this idea that
you could sell a mattress, youknow, on the internet with a
(24:37):
long form piece of content thatwe spent millions of dollars
behind that just kind of keptpurple top of mind. You're not
looking for a mattress veryoften, but we found that if we
could get people to you know,watch 30 seconds of that, we'd
be in their consideration set.
So when they're like man, I doneed a new mattress, right?
What's that company that thethree bears and like go
(24:58):
Goldilocks and they did the egg,the egg test and was like, oh,
purple. And we're, you know, wesaw organic traffic, and we're
able to kind of tie it back tothose initiatives. And so I
think just our commitment tocontent and being unique, it
really set us apart. I mean, weget people that was like, I
don't care, I don't want to buya mattress. I just love your
(25:19):
content. Right. And that backthen, which was been? What,
yeah, seven, eight years was wasvery new to the space.
Trevor (25:29):
Right? Totally.
Mark (25:31):
Here's a question for you.
What do you say to brands who
Trevor (25:37):
are too scared of?
Mark (25:39):
How should I say this? How would you respond to brands that
hold on to their brand image sotightly that they're not willing
to go out there with new ideasin content? Risk? Yeah.
Brett (25:52):
It's hard. In fact, we're at kissick, you know, we're,
we're a very different stage,you know, from from kind of
startup and where I feel like itis easier to take those risks,
because you're not defined yetare you you're still kind of
building your identity, and thenpeople start to know you for
something and it gets harder andharder. And I'd say, you know,
so it depends on where maybe youare as a brand, but I don't, I
(26:16):
don't think there's anythingthat, um, I think we get so
caught up on our own brands, wefeel like everyone's watching us
all the time. And people, peopledon't care. Like, there's so
many things going on that youcan go take a swing, and, and
try something new. And if itflops, no one's gonna like,
remember. So I have to, like,remind us, like, we're so in it
(26:39):
every day thinking like, Okay,we're going to launch this
video, we're going to do this.
And everyone's like, people havea lot going on. And I just think
there's room to explore andcreate and weave your way
through kind of a brandidentity. Like at kissick,
we've, we've shifted our focusthree or four times on, kind of,
you know, our messaging pillarsand who we're targeting and who
(27:01):
our persona is, and all of thatstuff, I think is very valuable.
And I think we get, you know,once you have your brand book,
and whatever, like you're stuckforever, and you're really not,
it's just a moment in time. AndI think that just helps me to
read Brian, you know, and Ithink it's just the culture you
set, like be willing to takerisks and take a swing, like all
(27:21):
the brands we look up to aretaking swings,
Trevor (27:27):
totally. So I'm grinning as you say this, because like
Mark and I, Mark and I talkabout this all the time, but we
call it like that fear,marketing to marketers, like we
get so caught up, that everyother marketer is watching what
we're doing as marketers, thatthey're going to be like, That's
not their brand. That's not whothey are. When in reality, like
(27:48):
your marketing to consumer whois very, very rarely ever
thinking about you. Like, thewhole purpose of you marketing
is just to get back in top ofmind. And the whole purpose of a
touchpoint and omni channel isto see if you can get that as
much as humanly possible. Right.
But like after somebody sees theGoldilocks ad or whatever out,
like they're not really thinkingabout purple day in and day out.
(28:08):
Right? It's just back to when itgets top of mind. You know, and
Brett (28:15):
I think to your to your question to Mark, I think
there's steps that you gainpermission to do more and more
things from your, your audienceand consumers to like, they'll
you'll you'll know, that's oneof the things at least I believe
in is kind of permission basedmarketing is like, the more that
you kind of gain the trust andgain and succeed and find new
(28:36):
ways to maybe talk about youryour product and brand. Like I
think your consumers let youknow, like when you maybe push
the bounds or when you can domore. And I think if you have a
good pulse on, on who your yourcore audience is, they'll kind
of help you along the way tolike, okay, maybe I'll go, I'll
stay away from this, but I canreally, you know, push here, at
(28:58):
least that's what I've seen inthings that that we've done is
you can kind of get a sense ofwin wins and opportunity to try
something new. Or to begin takea swing versus maybe playing it
a little bit safer and continueto kind of learn a little bit
more about who your consumersare. And
Mark (29:15):
because I what I do love about that example is that
purple went out there and usedhumor and was one of the first
companies to use that humorstyle long form video with
Harmons brothers, right? Howwould you how would you help
other brands see that humor canplay a role in their brand
without devaluing their brand?
Because I think a lot of peopleget caught up with I don't know
(29:35):
like we can't be funnier. Peoplewon't take a serious but you
guys had this very serious NASAscientists curated material and
mattress and use humor to shootthat thing to the moon.
Brett (29:50):
Yeah, I think there's a couple different ways you can
go. I mean, to me, humor is theultimate like, connection around
just being a human like we allWhile we all want to feel like
the brands that at least I lookup to and really resonate with,
like, there's, there's humansbehind that. It's not just like,
you know, you're speaking tothis ethereal brand that is run
(30:12):
by, I don't know, an AWS, youknow, like the the brands that I
feel like, I've been luckyenough to be a part of. It feels
more humanistic. And there's aconnection and, and I think
people, you know, it's easy fora lot of brands to go, you know,
highbrow and luxury andexclusive. And we always just
(30:34):
with purple, Annette kissick,we've taken some of that
playbook where we wanted to bereally welcoming, and
personable. And I think humordoes a great job of that,
because it, it's easy to kind ofeven make fun of yourself
sometimes and, and it brings itkind of levels that you know,
where you're not positioning thebrand above anyone, and it kind
(30:56):
of brings it on to a morehumanistic level. And I think
people really resonate withthat. But yeah, I think we've
we've been careful not to be tooslapstick, or, too, whatever.
Because, you know, especiallywith kids, it's we are a fashion
brand. And if you're gonna puton your feet, you know, it's
it's a fashion choice as well.
And so there is an element ofthat that we're careful of, but
it's worked really well for usboth a purple and yeah, and what
(31:20):
we've seen it kissick Do so
Trevor (31:23):
amazing. What are some of the, you know, I've heard
this, I've heard this from a lotof people who get to a certain
revenue revenue threshold wherethey start to think about top of
funnel contents more, right?
Most brands who are kind of inthis seven, eight figure
business and even below thatthey're thinking very much of
(31:43):
what I spend $1. How do I makesure that that dollar makes me X
amount of dollars? Like that'svery much how mindsets are what?
What's the leap that you've hadto take both like a purple and
as a kissick to say, we're goingto invest a very large sum of
money, that we have no idea thatit's gonna give us a return,
(32:05):
like, walk us through thatprocess, like on how you get to
that to decide like, we're goingto do it.
Brett (32:14):
Yeah. That that has been a it's a great question, because
I've had several conversationswith our CEO who who is a lawyer
by trade Crimean and he's, he isawesome. Mati deer is one of the
greatest people that I've everworked with and for, but he
(32:36):
didn't have any concept of like,you know, he's, he's learning on
the fly kind of marketing andDTC and right, ask great
questions, but like, having toexplain to them that we're going
to invest, you know, six figuresin, in a piece of content that,
you know, is that the top of thefunnel of whatever funnel you
could draw at the very top ofthat, you know, is, is a
(32:56):
challenge. And I think, again,we have some hindsight, you
know, one thing that's been niceto be able to look back at
experiences and be like, Oh,this feels like a purple moment,
like, yeah, this scale or thismoment, like, I remember how
this felt. So that's been reallynice to have that in our back
pocket. But yeah, I mean, it is,it is a it is a leap of faith. I
know every year come August,September, when we're investing
(33:19):
heavy and top of funnel like,yeah, building our audiences.
I'm like, oh, man, is this theyear? It's gonna like, not work?
Yeah. Like, are we not gonna seethis back in November and right,
you know, and it, but I thinkwe've, again, going back like
people aren't on the internet.
They're not, I mean, in my worldspecial where we're DTC,
they're, they're not searching,they're not going on, and I
(33:41):
can't wait to see an ad today.
Or, you know, and so we reallywanted to, we just believe
heavily in it's the backbone of,of, I think, our marketing
philosophy that if we can createengaging, content that also
educates and is, you know, forus demonstrable, you know, it
(34:02):
kind of checks off these, thesethings that we've we found that
make a great piece of content,especially for top of funnel
like, it's going to work. Likeit may be not as effective as
something we did over here, butlike, sure, there hasn't been
one time yet that we've, I thinkI've been a part of seven, eight
of these, like, what you'd callhigh production value, yes, upon
(34:23):
it. And every time you know, ifyou follow kind of a formula
that we've kind of just kind oflearned over time, like how to
what needs to be in there andwhat you have room for. It's
worked, but I don't know theoriginal question was like, How
do you like how do you how doyou get
Trevor (34:38):
to that? How do you get to that point to decide like we
got to do this,
Brett (34:41):
I think and I don't think every product maybe is is or
brand is maybe a fit for thisbut we speaking of Cusick now,
it's such a demonstrableproduct. We found that we had to
show people we had it wecouldn't just tell someone like
hey, imagine not having to benddown and put on your shoes you
just step in and go right. Like,Oh, sounds cool. Like, I already
(35:04):
do that with my
Mark (35:05):
butt. Does that a crock?
Is that Yeah, sandals handle?
Brett (35:08):
Yeah, like, yeah. But like if we could convey this and
show it, there's what we callthe aha moment that people got.
And so it was like video was ano brainer for us. And if we
could wrap that in a story thatreally helped, again, educate
but kept people entertained. Sowe could get keep people all the
way through to a minute, half,two minutes on a four minute
video. We were we were golden.
We just the metrics played outthat we were building this
(35:31):
massive audience and then wecould then we could come back
with your UGC and your midfunnel content to really drive
people further down. And then,you know, it's in his right, but
Mark (35:45):
yeah, yeah, I think you have a unique perspective on
this because the considerationcycle for a Purple Mattress, I
mean, you're talking about$1,000 purchase, right? Yeah.
What how long did it take peoplefrom seeing and hearing about
you to buying I'm imagining sixmonths on average, if not
longer, we heard
Brett (36:07):
back in the day when there was less, you know, on the
privacy side, it was like 28touch points or something over
like 90 days, something likethat. But it was like, yeah, it
was a long time. And so, youknow, that's part of the reason
why we went there. I was like,how do we that sticky moment?
How can we be sticky insomeone's mind? Because again,
Mark (36:27):
because nobody's just like, oh, I need a mattress
today. I'm gonna go buy one,right? No, I
Brett (36:31):
mean, yeah, but being part of that consideration set
was was all we were going forwith with some of those pieces
of content, just I mean, we weintentionally, you know, we
worked in moments of nostalgia,and, you know, so we reference
like Nickelback a few times. Andlike, there was these things
that like, all those connectionsthat really, you know, really
had ad recall. And, like, oh,yeah, what was that brand? Oh,
(36:56):
yeah, we were top of mind. Yeah.
And
Trevor (36:58):
what a wildly important metric to understand his brand,
which is like, your customertimeframe, right? Like the
journey of that lifecycle forthat reason alone, right? Like,
because if you don't understandthat, you've got this not 28
touch points, in 90 days, inorder for you to get a sale, you
(37:19):
could run a top of funnel adthat you paid millions of
dollars for and deem it as afailure. If you don't understand
that, like, Oh, crap. When whenreality is like, oh, no, we're
just not maximizing our threeROI after a week. We're not
maximizing that time enough.
Yeah. You know,
Brett (37:34):
yeah. Yeah. I mean, in, you know, we use, you know, some
different attribution tools. Andif you look at our YouTube
campaigns, right now, they'relike a point 3.4. But we know
that if they're, if they're likea point, five and above, we know
that that'll, that'll come outover, you know, over the next 30
(37:54):
days to be ROI positive for us.
And so, to your point, that mixwith, you know, asking, you
know, post purchase, likeWinZip, you know, how long when
did you first hear about us? Andthen, you know, tying that back
and be like, Man, on YouTube,they're telling us two months,
right, first time they heardabout us, like, okay, that's
really helped us scale. And,and, again, continue to have
(38:16):
that gumption as well to to keepdoing what we're doing. Because
we know it's working. It's justagain, not, not everyone's in
market all the time for evenshoes, which Sure, yeah, people
buy five, six times a year,right? Being in consideration,
so they're ready. And so that'sbeen super helpful for us.
Mark (38:36):
That's true marketers mentality, honestly. Right,
because I think we all getcaught up in the easy quick
wins. And and to go back to youroriginal question, I think what
happens is a lot of early DTCcompanies start pushing against
that boundary of easy wins. Andthey don't know what to do,
right? Because they're tooscared of not looking at their
(38:57):
Facebook or looking at theirFacebook and not seeing a
certain quote, ROI or row as and
Trevor (39:01):
we've been so used to saying, Hey, this is what we're
doing. This is what we're doing.
This is who we're, yeah, these
Mark (39:08):
are the people in the market. But once you start
pushing against that totalobtainable market, like you
you've had to do twice in yourcareer. It's that scary leap of
faith moment. And I think a lotof people go, I don't know.
Yeah, but you've shown twice howwell that can work over the long
run and understanding what themetrics need to be because, like
you just said, how manymarketers might know, I know, on
(39:30):
a top of funnel content piece,if I'm getting an X ROI in
platform, it's going to pay outover six months for me. It'll be
a 234 for me over very little.
Very few. Yeah. And they're tooscared to even look at a
platform and see that low
Trevor (39:44):
or no Oh, yeah. And know how to, like, how do you measure
that? Right? Like, how do I knowif it's point five? Is it going
to play out?
Mark (39:51):
Ya know, over six months?
Yeah, yeah.
Trevor (39:55):
I kinda want to pivot change a little bit. You guys
are right, if I kind of, youknow, a couple of things. If you
do the sound effect each time,yeah, okay. So you know, one
thing that we've talked about islike moats that you've built
around your business. One iscontent, like we've talked
pretty heavily about that sofar. But one thing you brought
up before, kind of as you wereintroducing yourself as a moat
(40:17):
was technology. Like we haven'ttalked a lot about that piece.
But you've you've come from nowtwo brands that had such a heavy
focus in technology. Talk to usabout the moat that that's
created. I know, we've talked alot about purple, maybe we can
do maybe we can kind of switchgears and talk more about
kissick. But I want to talktechnology and how that can be
(40:37):
this growth element and thisprotective element to a
business.
Brett (40:41):
Yeah, I mean, and I think it starts there, quite frankly.
I mean, one of the reasons why Iwanted to join kissick was
exactly that reason. I mean, asa marketer, having something
that's defensible, and havingsomething that, you know, again,
especially where we're at over100 patents, and it's mind
(41:02):
blowing to see the the, thedetail and the innovation that
that's gone into this concept ofhands free shoes, I mean, it, it
really does allow you and Iwould regret if I didn't say
like, that's part of some of thereasons why I think we're able
to take some of these risks, andit's probably easier for us to
be to be a little bit more,yeah, risk taking than maybe
(41:25):
some others where they're in theCPG space, or, you know, razor
thin margins, or, you know, Ithink that that's something that
I intentionally sought outthough, after being at purple
and, and being other placeswhere like, man, just, you're a,
you know, a t shirt brand orwhatever, and you're just
fighting against, you know,1000s of, of other brands that
(41:47):
you're all just trying to win onbrand alone or something that
you're repackaging you know, it,it makes it easier as a marketer
to, to really tell a story andto build a brand around, she
have one kind of driving force.
And for us, that's this handsfree movement that, you know,
(42:07):
we're we're on the forefront ofwe're we're planting our flag in
the ground saying we are theleaders in the next evolution of
footwear. Sure, come along forthe ride. Yeah. And that's,
that's something really excitingto be a part of from just like
a, an everyday to get up and goto work type of thing. Like,
that's really fun. How are wegoing to tell that story today?
How are we going to setourselves apart from other
(42:29):
brands that are, you know,whether it's sustainability, or
it's, Hey, we did this crazy newcolorway or whatever it is like,
No, we're thinking beyond that.
Like, we're thinking like, thisis the way that she should have
always been? Yeah. And let usshow you why. That opens up a
playbook that not a lot ofbrands, I think, have the
(42:49):
ability to do
Mark (42:52):
so. But that also has a challenge to it, right? You have
such a technical advantage thatmaybe as a marketer, you want to
focus on features. And I think alot of brands do that when they
do have a, quote, technicaladvantage. So how do you balance
features and benefits andconnecting to people
emotionally? Yeah,
Brett (43:09):
such a good point, I think, again, going back to our
conversation around differentstages of the business, we've,
we're now at a stage of thebusiness, we're really trying to
think, you know, a little bitmore aspirational? How do we
connect to, you know, higherlevel benefits? And how do we
create a brand that'ssustainable? And that actually
(43:31):
stands for something beyondfunctionality or problem
solution. And so that's, Ithink, where we're, you know,
we've, we've gone throughseveral iterations of our brand
and refreshed it and targeteddifferent people. And when we
started out, we were 65 Plusmale dominated brand heavy
leather shoes. Like, it wasaging America that was like, oh,
(43:54):
I need though I can't bend overand tie my shoes I need I need
those shoes. And like, Great,we'll take those take that
consumer all day, but then itwas like, we really want to make
this a billion dollar brand,multibillion dollar brand. We
got to think broader than that.
And how do we talk to acommunity that's much broader
than just that I need this to? Iwant this, I want this to be
(44:14):
part of, you know, this is anexpression of who I am sure. And
so we're, you know, it's takingtime, you know, this is my,
what, most fourth year kick in.
We're still figuring that out,like, what's the next step for
growth? What's the next growthaudience for us? And we're
growing through a lot of workright now to balance that where
(44:37):
there's still a functional,like, demonstrable, especially
on our growth channels likeFacebook and Google, like, we
have to show it, but it's like,how does that make you feel like
what is this doing for you andyour life? What are we unlocking
for you? And that's what we'restarting to rally around and
tell a slightly different storynow. So we can build a brand
(44:57):
that people you know, ourfounder says like If they want
to wear on their chest, like howdo you build that type of brand
and it's not easy, because ityou know, a lot of people
default to like the sameaspirational, you know,
qualities and a brand and we'relooking to, you know what, what
is what is kissick really allowyou to go and do by it may be
(45:20):
putting on your shoes and savingtime or it's easier. It's more
convenient. But like, what doesthat? How does it make you feel?
And anyway, we're building thatdrive right now. So it's a very
top of mind question for us,because we've been, I think,
really heavy just trying toscale and grow and, and now do
so profitably. Now, it's like,how do we, how do we build this
community and brand that it's,you know, can kind of stand
(45:43):
stand the test of time. And so
Trevor (45:45):
it's amazing for every moat that you build, right?
There's also like, a potentialproblem that like, can that moat
faces, right? So you know, onemoat that you guys had built
really early on in kissick isthe tech it is the features,
right? And it's very easy, like,hey, you know, you don't have to
(46:06):
bend over or you don't have to,like there's, there's a benefit
to that feature, right handsfree technology. So you can, you
know, not bend over as much orwhatever it is, right? Like so
it's, it's it's very much tiedto this feature benefit that has
protected and and allowed youguys to really targeted on some,
like amazing audiences. But nowit's like, hey, if we continue
(46:28):
down that road alone, can we bea billion dollar brand? And the
answer might be no, right? Youmight have to kind of like,
that's why it's like, Okay, nowwe're, what I'm hearing you say
is, now we have to focus onlike, the bigger meaning behind
what that brand is like, yes,technology focus, but now like,
what is the why? And how do weget that total addressable
(46:48):
market to really be interestedin
Brett (46:50):
competition crops up, right, you're doing something
really well, people startedjumping in totally. And that's
where we really are separatingourselves as well as, like,
others will claim to do handsfree, or whatever their version
is, right? Like, you know,again, setting ourselves like
no, we're the Oh, geez, were thepioneers were actually, you guys
can play on here. We're thinkingwhat's next, right? So there is
(47:12):
there's always gonna be a techcomponent to that, which I think
if you look like a Tesla, likethey kind of have that always
kind of pushing the bounds,which is, which is cool, but
with footwear and, and lifestyleand fashion. Like, we have to
tie that more to like, you know,more more aspirational and
feeling and, like peoplethroughout their day and how to,
(47:33):
you know, our, our best customeris kind of that, you know, 30 to
45 year old woman who's, youknow, looking for fashionable,
you know, cute shoes, but isprobably busy. Sure, probably
has kids. It's odd. She's on thego. But like, yeah, she's making
choices every day that aren'tjust how do I get into my shoes
(47:53):
these years, she's like, I wantto look good for my husband, for
my girlfriends for where I goout. Like there's all these
other considerations that we noware trying to be the brand for,
yeah, her and her spouse andthose that are surrounding but
like, those, those kinds ofdecisions aren't made on
function alone. It there's afashion element, there's a
fashion meet function. So it's ait's a unique opportunity that
(48:17):
it's been really challenging.
And in because the easy thing todo is just once just problem
solution problem solution. Howmany different scenarios? Can we
show? Someone you know? Yeah,putting on a shoe, but it's
like, we know we want it we havebigger aspirations totally.
Mark (48:33):
What's even funny? I mean, if you even just look at
demographics, who are the mostfunctionally based buyers? old
dudes, right? Like, that's thewhole joke. The New Balance
joke, right? Yeah, they're justlooking for function. So of
course, at the beginning, thatwas your primary demographic,
but I think that shows as yourdemographic has shifted, you
(48:53):
guys have been able to weave inthe story up until this point,
and then it's just continuinglike you said, iterating on that
story, because not many brandsgo from that demographic old
dudes. No to 30 to 40 year oldwomen. That's a hard jump for a
lot of brands to take. So Ithink that's credit for
Trevor (49:12):
death sentence jump for Yeah, for a lot of people. Yeah,
like, which is amazing.
Brett (49:17):
So scary. So credit for you scary? Yeah. Well, you guys
Mark (49:20):
were able to weave that story in and, and I always think
that our personalities and whowe are is just the summation of
the stories we tell ourselves.
And so for brands to become likea part of somebody's identity,
it's hard to how do you injectyourself in that storyline for
someone that they're tellingthemselves every day, right, so
yet, doing that for a 65 yearold guy and a 30 year old woman
(49:40):
is very different? Yeah, sodoing that amazing. More like,
super props for you guys thatkissick And then you know,
moving into you as a as amarketer and as a person, like
looking out there at othermarketers and people I'd love to
know, from your perspective,what, what do you see out there?
(50:01):
Like since iOS 14, since youknow, everything that's happened
in the last few years COVIDWe've had a lot of big events in
the marketing world AI. AI. Whatdo you think people are doing
wrong right now? Like, if youcould just look out there on
Twitter? Are you like, oh, man,like, you guys are gonna make a
huge fatal mistake right now.
Trevor (50:25):
Yeah, I like that common mistakes marketers are making.
Brett (50:30):
I mean, I think one. I see a lot of marketers chasing
shiny objects a lot. Like,again, AI is kind of that shiny
object right now, which I'm notsaying we should ignore it. But
I think one thing that we reallyfocused on early on was doing
one or two things really, reallywell. Before, you know, you're
(50:54):
tempted to go and kind of, youknow, go to your checklist of
like, oh, man, we got to do, youknow, SEO, and we got to do
influencer, or we need to dowhat, who's handling our
affiliate program? And like,there's so many things to do.
And I remember coming in, youknow, to kisah can be like,
there's nothing set up, nothingwas set up. Yeah. And I was
like, Okay, well, let's startwith the highest impact things
(51:16):
first, and let's be awesome withthose. And I think that's just
one thing that that I see a lotof people are like they're
chasing, like they're trying to,they're trying to solve and fix
something that they think a newtool or something will fix. And
it's like, maybe your productjust needs like, you need to
really listen and go talk toyour customers and figure out
(51:39):
what they really want, and notgo and find a new tool. And so I
just I know a lot of people werelike, I see, they're like,
they're asking for the next.
Hey, where can I go and find atool that does this or that?
And, and I don't know, that'sjust one thing that I've seen
that I get asked a lot. And it'slike, what your tax tax was
like, yeah. And like, give ittell me about your business
(52:00):
first, and like, what you'reactually like, tell me about
who's buying your product? Andwhy and like, do you really
understand them? And and I justthink that once you know that,
then it's it's easy to plug inthe right tools at the right
time. Yeah. It's so easy to getoverwhelmed. And then you've
spent all of your marketingbudget on like, the latest and
greatest influencer software,that's two grand a month, and
(52:21):
you're like, oh, my gosh, I'mlocked in for a year or two
years and and isn't evenworking. It's just so I know
that that's one thing I see offthe top my head, but I answer
Great question.
Trevor (52:32):
One thing that I'm like, I kind of almost pulled another
thing out of what you were justsaying there, which is, you've
you've inadvertedly mentionedthis a handful of times in this
podcast, like you've talked alot about talking to your
customers, and like, we've knownyou for a bit now. And that's
been like, we talked to DDCpeople all the time. And like
(52:54):
that is not a common thing thata lot of DTC owners and
marketers and founders arethinking about very often is
like, hey, let's just ask ourcustomer, hey, let's just let's
talk to them. But like, thatseems like it's been a core
piece of physics business forquite some time now. Because
like, how do you know, you know,like, like, you just keep
(53:16):
saying, like, you know, peopleare like, Hey, what's your tech
stack? Or what your tech stack?
But you're like, but do youknow, XYZ about your customer
first, before you even jump intothat? Yeah, well, how has that
been? Like, why is that been soimportant to you guys? So it
always been that way? Um,
Brett (53:32):
I don't know that it always has, I think, you know,
as I mentioned, we shifted,we've pivoted, two to three
times, you know, early on, therewere like big pivots. We call
our like, we had a product pivotfrom like, 1.0 to 2.0. And like,
like, it's really easy to guessit what we think we should make,
or especially in the footwear,industry, styles changes really
(53:54):
quickly. And, you know, again,lucky for us, we have a
technology that allows us to, towin. And it's not just style
alone, or a culture that we'vehad to build, you know, a lot of
drop culture or whatever, likewe have an actual functional
benefit. That's, that's beengreat. But like, being able to
ask and understand like, onewhere, where is the fashion
(54:19):
space going? So trying touncover insights there to then
help our product team make theright products and making shoes
takes forever? Sure. It'schallenging to hit timing, but
like, also understand, like,where are people wearing our
shoes? And why and how manytimes a week are they wearing
them in? Like what is reallyresonating, just that feedback
(54:39):
loop is, is critical when you'removing really fast. Because I
think if you're moving fast, youcan go down a wrong road by a
couple degrees, and then you'reway off. So it's kind of a gut
check moment to have later youknow, again, going back to
Creative as well like being ableto actually see how your
creative is doing and resonatingin real time. Most is is kind of
(55:01):
a game changer. So then it's,you're kind of de risking some
of that a little bit like, yeah,you could test and learn and
then iterate on it quicklyversus being like, Alright, all
our eggs in one basket, let'sgo. You know, so I think
continuing, you know, andthere's, there's tools out
there, you know, shout out tobestie. I mean, there's tools
(55:22):
out there that, make thatcollection and in and present
it. So you can, as a marketer,that's your job is to like use
your intuition and skillset tothen use that insight to make a
change. And I think that's onething I've had to learn in my
career is like, you know,pivoting is, is just, it's part
(55:43):
of the journey, like, going backto your conversation around
brand, you're not locked inforever, go pivot, go change, go
tweak. No one's gonna, you know,you're not married to that or
iterate on product. Find wherethose gaps are, or where maybe
where you're not addressing, wefound out that pregnancy. I
know, it seems like a nobrainer. But we learned through
(56:05):
just kind of talking andlearning and like finding
communities and conversationsonline. That pregnancy was like
popping off for physic. It makessense, right? Six months, seven
months, you're bending overbending over and like, I don't
know, at the time, but weweren't working. We weren't
making creative for it. Yeah, wejust found this community of
women that were like physics orsaving my life right now. And
(56:27):
we're like, Yeah, okay. There'sour next target. Yeah. 30, New
Zealand's of creative and foundsome UGC creators and like, went
all in. And that was a hugeunlock, you know, one of our,
our services business and like,you don't learn that by not kind
of putting your ear to theground, in whatever way that you
can, you can get insights. Andthere's so many
Trevor (56:47):
cool insight,
Mark (56:48):
what you're really saying is, in some ways, to me is,
there's a dirty side ofmarketing, and you have to get
in the weeds. You've mentionedthat before of understanding
customers, understanding yourproduct, understanding your
company. And so many companiestry to jump that step into
saying, Hey, I hit one thing.
Great. Now, let's jump into fivedifferent marketing channels and
(57:10):
five different tech stack tools.
And I'm gonna start replicatingwhat a billion dollar brand does
when you're saying, no, no, no,no, if you want to go from
seven, eight to nine, you got tokeep things simple. And you got
to do things exceptionally well.
And then you can start addingthat incrementality of maybe a
different marketing channel, ormaybe a different kind of
(57:30):
technology that you can includein your stack. But you don't go
from zero to 10 and expect towin, you'll just end bloating.
Yeah, right. No. And that's sucha valuable lesson for early
stage DTC companies. And we seethat mistake all the time. And
we've made that mistake in ourcareers, like, oh, this
influencer thing is going tokill it for us. And then we
signed up and it didn't doanything. Yeah. Or, oh, this
(57:51):
review platform is going toincrease or this customer
loyalty program, you know, justname them all. I'm not saying
those things are all bad things,but they're not the silver
bullets that are going to fixsomething that's failing in the
core of your business ormarketing. Yeah, and some
Trevor (58:07):
of those things will work better. The further down
the road, you get Yeah, right.
Like when when you've got a teamthe size of kids IQ and the
revenue, the size of kids IQ.
You've got more time andattention to put into maybe some
of those other things versus ifyou are a seven figure brand.
You know, it's like hey, what,like, what are those two
channels, you know, and focusthere. And then when you get to
(58:28):
the next level, then bring innumber three, you know,
Brett (58:32):
meat and potatoes.
Boring, bub.
Trevor (58:36):
Mean potatoes, pick and roll. What else? What else? We
got? The Sony and safetysqueeze?
Mark (58:45):
Well, man, we've we've loved our time chatting. It has
been great. Speaking of pregnantwomen, I have a very pregnant
wife and so I'm probably gonnahave to get out of here soon.
Trevor (58:55):
Yeah, Mark is Mark spot to have his third baby. Third
baby, which is exciting.
Mark (59:00):
It is exciting and daunting. Boy, right? We don't
know. That's right. Yeah, wedon't know. I forgot about that.
My wife likes to do the hospitalsurprise. So we'll find out. We
got two boys already.
Trevor (59:15):
I am so excited. I was awesome.
Mark (59:16):
I forgot if you use gamblers fallacy in your life,
you'll probably assume thatit'll be a girl this time,
right? But
Trevor (59:23):
I don't know what else.
Amazing.
Mark (59:25):
It's a coin flip every time. We'll see what happens.
Trevor (59:28):
Well, Brett, thanks so much for coming on. Dude, this
is awesome. I've, I've beenwatched. We both been watching
the journey of kissick for likeI said for a while now, you
know. And so it's been amazingto see. We're excited to see
where you take things and welove like I love that you've
dove so much into taking risksand you know, but also taking
(59:51):
risks but also simplifyingthings at the same time. You
know, it's been a really coolwe've seen like, two sides of
the spectrum, which has beenreally, really cool. So but
taking risks is as simple asSure, yeah. Yeah, very much so
you don't have to overcomplicateit and this is part of the game
plan. Love it. All right,everybody. Thank you so much for
tuning in. Brett. Where canpeople follow you? Find you?
(01:00:12):
Yeah.
Brett (01:00:14):
Really. I'm just Brett Swenson pretty much on all
social platforms. So yeah, I'm,I'm a lurker on Twitter. more
active on LinkedIn. So yeah.
Come chat. Kids. iq.com rise.
iq.com. Yeah. K as the IQs. Yep.
Kz AK calm.
Trevor (01:00:30):
They're awesome. I own a pair. Legitimately. So I will
soon Brett didn't get me wrongeither. I bought them with my
own money. I try actuallyoffered it. I said, I'm buying
these. Which is the true. That'sa true fan. That's the true
hormigas Yeah. And my wifereally wants a pair. So I
actually know. Alright,everybody, thank you so much,
and we will see you nextTuesday. Thank you so much for
(01:00:53):
listening to the unstoppableMarketer Podcast. Please go rate
and subscribe the podcastwhether it's good or bad. We
want to hear from you. Becausewe always want to make this
podcast better. If you want toget in touch with me or give me
any direct feedback. Please gofollow me and get in touch with
me. I am at the Trevor Crump onboth Instagram and tick tock
(01:01:14):
thank you and we will see younext week.
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome to the
(00:01):
unstoppable Marketer Podcast.
We're so excited to introduceyou to this episode, we have one
of our good friends BrettSwenson, who is the VP of
Marketing at one of the fastestgrowing DTC footwear brands out
there right now. They'reabsolutely crushing it called
kick. In this episode, we go sodeep and talk about so many
practical things that everymarketer and founder need to
(00:24):
know. We talk about what ittakes to go from seven figures
to eight figures. From eightfigures, nine figures, we talk
about the importance of buildingspecific moats around your
business to help you protect andscale, we talk about the power
of risk taking, and what ittakes for a business to go from
point A to point B. When they dothat. Please enjoy this episode
(00:45):
and make sure to get the pen andpaper because Brett takes us to
school. Yo, what's going oneverybody? Welcome to the
unstoppable Marketer Podcast. Itis a great day to day with me as
always is Mark, but it's a greatday. But it's a sad day. If
you're watching this becauseMark's hair is gone. I used to
(01:06):
introduce Mark as my lovelycoast with the best hair, I
would oftentimes refer to him assomeone with the best hair and
he decided to show up with itcut.
Mark (01:21):
I caught it. Yeah, it's gone. Well, you look good.
Still, that my nickname in highschool is Goldilocks too. So the
locks are gone. But it was timeit was just when you wake up
every day. And there's fivemoments every day where you go,
I'm sick of it. Just having tocut it. So that's fair. That's
fair. Yeah. And I'm getting old,you know? Yeah. Backwards. Mark
(01:43):
is gone. Yeah. clean cut Marcusclean cut Marcus here. Yeah,
yeah. Okay. It's a new day, newage.
Trevor (01:49):
I dig it. Well, we have an awesome guest today.
Mark (01:51):
Yes, we do. I'm excited.
Trevor (01:52):
Yeah, we're really excited. I want to introduce our
guests. His name is BrettSwenson. He is the VP of
Marketing for one of the fastestgrowing shoe lifestyle
technology companies. Very good.
I can say it another way to Imean, you could just say the
fastest growing one of thefastest growing DTC footwear
(02:14):
brands ever. Right now. outthere. Yeah. Called kick. Did I
say because again? Yeah. Kick,kick, kick. Welcome, Brett.
Brett (02:23):
How are you? Thanks for having me. Awesome. Glad to be
here. How's your day been? It'sgood. I feel like every day we
wake up and we're in a differentlike, it's raining today. It was
sunny. It was 70 A few days ago.
I mean, now. Here we are. Yeah.
But things are good. I'm super
Trevor (02:39):
psyched. I'm coaching a baseball game at 430. Perfect
for eight year old and theydon't cancel those things. Ever.
Why would you if there'slightning above you? They will
cancel it. But nothing else.
Like sideways snow and wind.
Kids need to learn to tough itout. Yeah, it was machine pitch
last week. It was it was pouringrain. And I was putting the ball
(03:01):
in the machine and it wouldlike, like to be on the ground.
I'm like guys gonna cancel this.
Every like four balls, it wouldactually work. Good. So I'm
excited for that. Reallyexcited. Cheers to that machine.
Pitch. Not coach pitch machinepitch. Yes. Is machine pitch 40
miles an hour.
Brett (03:19):
Wow. Yeah.
Trevor (03:20):
How old are some eight?
Cool. Yep. So yeah, it isawesome
Brett (03:26):
weather. Well, good luck to you. Thank you. That should
be real fun. eight year olds inthe rain.
Mark (03:31):
And speaking of stormy events, right over the weekend,
we had a nice surprise onFacebook. Yes.
Brett (03:39):
Yes, yeah, I actually woke up Sunday morning. I was
like, Oh, I'm gonna checkTwitter. What's going on Paul
Firestorm. So I sent a fire up afew slacks and like, Hey, guys,
like anyone, like what are wedoing here? Like we pausing
like, what's going on? Andanyway, we were sifting through
it for a while in the morning,but luckily, we actually. I
(04:02):
mean, it did blow through abunch of our budget. We paused.
But then we kind of thought,hey, this could be an
opportunity for us to actually,you know, everyone else is
turning stuff off. Let's turnlet's go back on. Yeah. So we
turned our campaigns back on andthings normalized. But CPMs came
in, they dropped. I'm sure youguys saw it came way down. And
(04:23):
we only ended you know, maybe10% above? Really? I spend so
nice. You know if Matt islistening, we're waiting for our
credits. Yeah, I
Trevor (04:32):
think we all are waiting for.
Mark (04:34):
Yeah, for those of you don't know, the meta ad platform
and imploded on Sunday, theystarted over delivering ads. So
impressions, or cost perimpressions went through the
roof along with every other costmetric.
Trevor (04:45):
Yes. So it wasn't there.
And it was for pretty mucheveryone. That was a console.
Yeah. I mean, in my Twitterscrolling, there were a few
brands who were like, Oh, wedidn't really see anything. But
for the most part, it was
Mark (04:58):
everyone. Yeah, it was just me Across the board, oops.
Oopsies somebody made a jokelike Zuckerberg was off on
earnings. So he's trying to getit all back in one day.
Brett (05:08):
What's the highest CPM?
You saw?
Mark (05:11):
200? Really? Yeah. Okay.
Brett (05:13):
Like 130 is what we saw on our account, but
Trevor (05:16):
my goodness,
Mark (05:18):
I mean, that's the CPG space though, and they tend to
be higher anyways.
Trevor (05:21):
Yeah, yeah, very much.
So. So, okay, so Brett, I'm VPof Marketing at kissick. So, my
story how I got to know you. Wewere actually at a founders
event together. i Well, one, I'dseen you. I've seen you on
LinkedIn. I've seen you online.
I know who kissick is beenfollowing kissick for a while,
actually, kissick, I was around.
Mark and I were around at acompany when kissick was
(05:47):
introduced to us before it waskissick, like you have some
shoes.
Mark (05:53):
Well, it was just a hands free lab.
Trevor (05:55):
Is that what it started out as?
Brett (05:58):
Well kissing has always been around our parent company,
which kind of holds all of thetechnology and when we have over
130 patents in our portfolio,ease all around, you know,
footwear and hands free and youname it some crazy stuff like
locked away in a in a vault ballto Disney vault. Yes.
Mark (06:16):
A Big Cottonwood Canyon.
Yeah,
Trevor (06:18):
Richie, Richie, Richie.
Rich's vault zactly? No,
Brett (06:21):
no, but hands free Labs is the parent company that but
it really kind of was born afterphysics. So it may have been
kind of as we were starting, wehad to, like find a home for all
these patents and technology. Soyou know, one of the first
things that we did is when whenBlake and I came on early on was
to get out like where's handsfree labs gonna live and right
(06:42):
next to kissick. And so anyway,yeah.
Trevor (06:44):
Yeah. Well, we got introduced to it by it was like,
right when Alec I think AlexMcArthur got brought on. And I
met Monty and Alex at aconference. And they were
talking about it. And I rememberjust thinking like, that's
crazy. Yeah, like, that's prettywild. Yeah. And, and to see
where you guys I mean, that wasprobably
Mark (07:04):
five or six years ago. 18 and 2019.
Trevor (07:07):
I think we're in 2017 2018. Maybe
Brett (07:11):
I'm coming up on four years or three years. So yeah,
Trevor (07:15):
yeah. So it's amazing.
I'm excited to talk aboutgrowth. But yeah, make sure to
founders event. You're superawesome. We got I think we
essentially just got paired uplike I didn't come up and chat
with you. You didn't come andchat with me. They were like,
Hey, you too. No. Sit by eachother. Yeah. And we chatted. And
I must have been reallycharming. You were Yeah, it
Brett (07:31):
was it was I was really drawn to it was like a tractor
beam. And yeah, it was. It wasawesome to hear what you were
building and, and Bill just kindof swap stories and talk shop
little bit. Totally. I had seenyou on LinkedIn too. And Senior
Content was like, hey, yes, guyseems to have it together. Or
sort of, yeah. Or pretending.
Pretending really well. Yeah,
Trevor (07:50):
we can all pretend really good on social media
really good at that. Yeah. Sookay, let's talk. Let I say
let's just get to your story alittle bit. Like let's talk
about little your journey. I'mexcited because you've not only
worked for you've worked formultiple nine figure brands now
and been a part of nine figurestartups kissick, one of them,
(08:11):
purple being another one. So I'mexcited to get into that
journey. Let's just Let'squickly talk about who are you?
What, how do you know what youknow? Yeah. Where are you
important?
Brett (08:20):
Yeah, you hear that?
Question? I asked myself thatevery day. My kids are like,
what do you do for work? Dad,you go to meetings and type on a
keyboard and like, kind of
Trevor (08:30):
wear shoes all the time?
Brett (08:33):
No, actually, I didn't start in marketing. Actually. I
was one of those that didn'tlove High School. And early
like, you know, Junior Senior,you could ever work release. And
I just wanted to go and likestart working. And I worked with
my brother for like 10 years andthe photography space, like
(08:54):
portrait photography, weddings.
So I started out just, you know,it, he owned the business. And
we grew it to be like thelargest photographer in the
state. There was one time Iremember that especially, you
know, specialized in weddings,but we were doing hundreds of
weddings a year. And there wasone Saturday that we had like,
15 weddings or something crazy.
(09:18):
had, like, people were justflying to like, Okay, I'm gonna
go, you know, shoot theceremony. And then so and I was
gonna do the reception and, youknow, weddings here or there.
It's intense. And so, yes, youknow, I started just kind of, in
the end, I worked, you know,from high school till, you know,
my mid 20s doing photography,different variations and
(09:38):
actually learn to, you know,shoot and, but I realized like,
I didn't want to be aphotographer. I did a lot of the
backend work too. And like, themarketing quote, unquote, that
was when like Facebookcommunities were starting to get
big and we tried to innovate onthat. And, you know, you're
tagging all the brides and alltheir pictures and we'd make
shareable opportunities to justbuild community and totally You
(10:00):
know, kind of keep that flywheelgoing. And so I knew that I
liked this, you know, solvingproblems and figuring out how we
can continue to, to drum upbusiness and market and, and but
it wasn't like the digital sideof it. And so anyway, fast
forward and we actually we endedup starting a different
photography business that wasaround school photography, like
(10:22):
high volume school photography,and during that time I helped
build and really came up withthis concept for a CRM that
would basically take, you know,once the picture is taken, like
your, your kids school picturestaken, from the time it's taken
to delivery and class pictureand all that it was automated,
and it was sequenced and kepttrack of and organized. And, and
(10:44):
that was like, my first, youknow, really get into it into
building product and, andunderstanding like, how are we
going to market this and they'reselling to schools. And anyway,
what it just taught me a lotabout, you know,
entrepreneurship, and I wasliving off of credit cards. And
it was, it was a crazy time inlife. But anyway, we, we sold
(11:06):
that and I needed to go findsomething to do. And that's when
I was looking on like, indeed,yeah, I think Ian was like, I
really like marketing. And Ilike systems and CRMs. And like,
what can I do with this? And solike, this mattress company is
like, Hey, we're looking forlike an email and marketing
automation person. Yeah. I cando that. Yeah, like, I'm good at
(11:28):
that. And right before thatactually had spent some time at
an agency. Yeah, doingenterprise account management.
So I kind of had my foot in thedoor of digital marketing and,
you know, was helping with SEO,and it was PPC, and, you know,
just taking care of clients. ButI knew that wasn't where I
wanted to be either, but I knewI could do this. So I that's how
I found purple. Yeah, is I sawthis and I was like a mattress
(11:50):
company. Yeah. Okay. So I gothere, and I meet Alex McArthur,
who you mentioned, and a coupleother people and he ended up
actually calling my boss at theagency like on the spot. He's
like, Hey, I'm sitting here withBrett like, you're good dude.
Like, would you hire him? And Iwas like, Oh my gosh, what's
what's he gonna say? Like, yeah,shout out to Frank Baker, who
(12:11):
was like, Oh, my gosh, she's,you know, yeah, gave me a really
nice shout out. And and so, youknow, if you know, Alex, he was
just like, well, if it was up tome, I'd hire you. But you gotta
convince this other guy. So ifyou don't get the job, blame
him. I walked out. And I didn'thear from anyone for like, three
weeks. Yeah. So anyway, theyfinally got back to me, and I
start working purple. And that'swhen kind of things started in
this, this, you know, EComm DTCspace, and that I felt falling
(12:35):
in love with is just product inreally scaling brands from, you
know, basically, you know,startup to write, you know, $2
billion brands, and hopefullyanother one with physics. So,
that's kind of how I got intothis world.
Mark (12:49):
Did you have any higher ed in between that or just work. So
I
Brett (12:53):
actually went school for Exercise Science, and like, I
wanted to be a personal trainer,at one point, I was like, This
is gonna be awesome. No money inthat there's no money there. So
I actually just everything Ilearned was like, self taught,
and just going through it anddoing and then, you know,
working at the agency and kindof just learning I mean, at the
time, Facebook wasn't reallythat big. And some of these
(13:15):
traditional channels that weknow, today, we just weren't big
back then. So I just kind ofself taught and then, you know,
I put in a ton of time, justlike doing Sure, I just learned
by doing and here we are, why do
Mark (13:28):
you think that some of the best marketers are self taught?
Brett (13:32):
I think that's a great question. I, I honestly just
felt like there was no schoolingout there. Like, because I
actually did a couple of things,you know, just remotely, it was
like, Hey, I'm going to, youknow, see what I maybe missed.
And do you know, a year or so orjust kind of some marketing
courses, and it's all very justchecklist marketing. It's, it's
the playbook. And I feel like,that probably worked for a long
(13:56):
time. But when you're trying tobe disruptive, or really build a
category, I feel like, you know,there's, there's so much you can
learn by doing and teaching andjust figuring out versus reading
in a textbook or, you know,stuff that that everyone else is
learning. I just feel like, someof the success that I've seen is
when you know, that old clichewhen people are zigging, you zag
(14:19):
and and she's like, that was alittle bit of my career path of
like, how to get into this andjust figuring out by doing I
think is probably the keytakeaway there. But I don't know
what it's good question. What doyou guys think
Trevor (14:31):
about desk? Same thing?
Yeah. Yeah.
Mark (14:33):
My hunch is that, you know, we live in such a
dynamically changing environmentin terms of like, culture and
society, especially andeverything has accelerated since
social media startedaccelerating with cable TV and
like broadcast media, right. ButI just think that because tones
(14:54):
and culture shifts so quickly.
There's no way of like reading abook and then up approaching it
and doing it right. It's likereading a book about
skateboarding. And then thinkingyou can go out and skateboard
like, you still have to actuallygo out and feel the
gravitational pole, figure outyour balance. So you're never
gonna learn skateboardingwithout doing it. I actually
(15:14):
think the same thing withmarketing. Now you don't have
any skills until you're in themess. Because you don't know
what works until you know whatworks. I mean, it's dumb as and
simple as that sounds, right?
You really, you have all thesegreat ideas, and then you go out
there and you're like, oh, nineout of 10 of those works. Right?
So I need to fix my ideas. Yeah.
But that's my thought. Andbecause technology also is
(15:36):
changing so quickly, you can'tcreate a curriculum around it,
you just have to do it. Yeah.
Trevor (15:44):
I don't disagree. Like I've actually thought about this
a lot. Because I was the, like,I was the guy who I got my
master's degree in marketing,like, so I went through the
college, the full fledgeexperience, you know, and even
was, like, very thoughtful. Iremember thinking when I was
getting my masters that I wasgonna go get my PhD too. But for
(16:06):
me, it was like, I kind of feltlike, I had to do it. Like,
like, in my head, it was like,if I want to be x, that like,
you know, if I ever if I want z,I gotta go through X and Y
first, you know, so like, Ithink sometimes, like, the
reason why self taught marketersare the best, or, you know, just
really self taught anybodyusually, like, I think about
(16:28):
that with musicians all the timetotally is because they had such
a will, like that, like, theirgoal was to like, to be as
efficient as possible withfiguring out how to do it.
Whereas like, I wasn't reallyefficient with my time, right?
Like, I thought I was beingefficient. I'm going to school,
I'm learning about the five P'sof marketing, you know, I'm
(16:50):
doing these things, right. Iwouldn't did my thesis, all
these things. And then like, Iremember, like, one of the
saddest moments of my entirelife was like, ending my
master's degree, and be like,Fuck, I still don't know what
I'm doing. Like, that was, likeone of the, like, hardest
(17:11):
moments of my life. That justwas like, crap, I've got to,
like, I have to just like, goget a job somewhere and figure
out how to do this, you know, soI think I'm getting I'm long
winded with this. But I justthink people who understand,
like people who want something,tend to do whatever they can to
(17:32):
get to it. And they'll selftaught people, right. Like, I
want to be a professionalskateboarder. I'm not just gonna
watch movies anymore. Like, I'mgonna buy a skateboard. I'm
gonna buy the helmet. And I'mgonna, like, just go ride and
get the reps in and get the repsin, you know, where there's some
people who fall down, fall down.
Yeah, we're like, I, to me, Iactually, like, to me the
schooling route, I think aboutI'm like, I actually did that
(17:52):
because I was lazy. Like, Iknow, that's how everybody
thinks. But like, when I thinkabout it, like I was doing it,
because I was lazy, because itfelt like the right answer. And
that was gonna be handed to you.
Yeah. And it was like, Hey, dothis assignment. Okay? Hey, do
this test. Okay? Hey, study,like, this is what your course
is now. Like it was, it was likelaid out, go figure it out on
(18:14):
your own. Yeah, that freaked theshit out of me, was to be able
to have to, like, do it on myown. I was never a self taught
guy up until probably four orfive years ago, like I started
self teaching.
Brett (18:24):
Well, and then you guys see the shifts, like, I
remember, to your point, likeyou had a degree and like, you
could get a job. And then like,I remember when, when I was
interviewing, and kind ofgetting out of into the
corporate world, it was like,show us show us how to do this,
like, be a practitioner, notjust a on merit alone, we're
gonna give you this, like, weneed to know that you understand
(18:45):
this and actually do it. Andwhen I was at the agency, you
had to talk to people all daylong, about, you know, little
mini business plans for their,you know, in marketing plans for
their business, and like, youhad to show it, you couldn't
just be like, well, here, youknow, here's what I learned. But
like, will show it walk methrough Google Analytics and
show me where I'm findingsuccess or where there's, like,
(19:05):
there's no way that that wasn'tbeing taught anywhere. It
wasn't, it was principles, butit wasn't really like the
action. And that, to me, is oneof the I think the greatest
skills that I've been able toget as like being a practitioner
while continue to grow mycareer. So like, how do you
continue to stay in the weedsand, and do well, you know,
(19:26):
managing people and, you know,becoming more of a leader in
your company and organization,but still honing those skills
is, has been something that'sjust been really important to
me. I think that's how youcontinue to learn by doing I
mean, what you guys are doing, Ithink is a good a good example
of that super smart.
Mark (19:42):
And I think as you're self taught, you recognize that those
skills can easily becomeoutdated. Yeah, right. Because
you self taught you have tocreatively solve problems so
often, it's dude, if I if I losethis, it's gone. Yeah, right.
Then I'm gonna have to relearneverything. It's a lot easier
just to get in the weeds alittle bit. In your position so
then I wanted to move intopurple. So you you're creatively
(20:06):
solving problems as anentrepreneur at an agency you
get the job and at that pointpurple was kind of nothing
right?
Brett (20:15):
They had done when I got there they were just finishing
like the second Kickstarter. Sothey did their the first
Kickstarter, which launched themattress and kind of that
product market fit was there andthings were growing and I think
I was like the, I don't knoweight person on the marketing
team or something like coming into like, own a channel and grow.
But yeah, they were still tryingto figure things out. And it was
(20:38):
maybe he had done 5 million or Idon't know, something like that.
So that you know, they weremoving but it was early days
where they were trying to keepup there was one machine making
mattresses and it's like, okay,let's let's figure out what's
next.
Trevor (20:52):
Can I call purple? And for those of you who don't know
who purple is like, Purple wasthe pioneer right? In this like
mattress game, like in in you'renot going to RC Willey to buy a
mattress like that's how youWell, I'd say
Mark (21:09):
and maybe correct me if I'm wrong, but they weren't the
Pioneer. I believe there was afew before but what purple was
the pioneer in was a differenttechnology. And the DTC space
because they came out with theirpatented. And you can describe
it better than me, but it's thatlike grid gel system, but
Trevor (21:26):
they weren't the pioneer in the DTC space.
Brett (21:29):
No. So like Casper and like, there was a couple okay to
kind of like, figured out thisbed in the box. Got it. But
yeah, to Mark's point, like wereally came in and I think part
of my career has been likedisruptive brands, it was like
how do we just we're sellingthis, you know, a bento box
(21:49):
battle. We make it like,exciting and, and we and
disrupted just kind of a legacyboring industry. And that's
where I think purple came inwith again, you know, with a
moat around it. We hadtechnology that was patented.
That was wasn't memory foam.
Yeah, traditional. Whatever. Itwas, like, you know, this grid
system, they called ithyperelastic. Polymer. That's
(22:10):
it. That's it fancy, but I stillsleep on one today.
Mark (22:16):
Disclaimer, I also have a purple. Ah, it was the only
thing that fixed my wife'sshoulder problems.
Trevor (22:23):
You know, I actually remember when you bought your
Purple Mattress. Yeah. Yeah. Idon't. I do have a spellbinder.
I do have a bed in the box. Ijust can't remember who it is.
So very comfortable. I feelgreat on it. Yeah. Yeah. And
they stay cool.
Mark (22:40):
Yes. Great. Yeah.
Brett (22:41):
I'm a big fan, even though I you know, I'd be
honest, if I didn't use theproduct anymore. But, you know,
you go in to a hotel orsomewhere and I'm like, Man, I
just, I miss my bed. Yeah, missit. So
Trevor (22:51):
So what were some of the things that that purple did to
go? You said you around there?
Let's say it was between fiveand $10 million annually? What
were some things that got themfrom this, like, seven figures
into eight figures, and theneight figures into nine? Yeah, I
think
Brett (23:11):
unwillingness to settle and be boring. And to really
think outside the box, no punintended. But like, you know,
we, I just remember being there.
And the energy that was wasflowing there was there wasn't a
bad idea. Like, what you know,shout out to Alex, you know, for
fostering this, this culture.
(23:33):
And, you know, we could come upwith the craziest idea and take
it until we finally just kind ofhad to maybe cut something out
because it was too out theretoo. Too far. I don't know if
you guys remember we did a wedid something with Facebook with
Tim and Eric. You know, it was aI don't know if you guys know
(23:53):
those guys, but it was likethis. No, no other brand,
especially a mattress brand wasdoing something that was like
this disruptive from a, like aculture standpoint, it was we
did something that was like themost boring films ever made.
Yeah, for one of these and itwas just like, how could we
think differently and, you know,put ourselves in the
consideration set for someonewhen they are looking for a
(24:15):
mattress and we did that throughcontent? So you know, a lot of
people have seen the Goldilocksvideo. It's kind of one of the
claim to fame is that that kindof purple I'd say pioneered that
style of marketing with youknow, Harmon brothers you know,
was was a big proponent of that,but like it was this idea that
you could sell a mattress, youknow, on the internet with a
(24:37):
long form piece of content thatwe spent millions of dollars
behind that just kind of keptpurple top of mind. You're not
looking for a mattress veryoften, but we found that if we
could get people to you know,watch 30 seconds of that, we'd
be in their consideration set.
So when they're like man, I doneed a new mattress, right?
What's that company that thethree bears and like go
(24:58):
Goldilocks and they did the egg,the egg test and was like, oh,
purple. And we're, you know, wesaw organic traffic, and we're
able to kind of tie it back tothose initiatives. And so I
think just our commitment tocontent and being unique, it
really set us apart. I mean, weget people that was like, I
don't care, I don't want to buya mattress. I just love your
(25:19):
content. Right. And that backthen, which was been? What,
yeah, seven, eight years was wasvery new to the space.
Trevor (25:29):
Right? Totally.
Mark (25:31):
Here's a question for you.
What do you say to brands who
Trevor (25:37):
are too scared of?
Mark (25:39):
How should I say this? How would you respond to brands that
hold on to their brand image sotightly that they're not willing
to go out there with new ideasin content? Risk? Yeah.
Brett (25:52):
It's hard. In fact, we're at kissick, you know, we're,
we're a very different stage,you know, from from kind of
startup and where I feel like itis easier to take those risks,
because you're not defined yetare you you're still kind of
building your identity, and thenpeople start to know you for
something and it gets harder andharder. And I'd say, you know,
so it depends on where maybe youare as a brand, but I don't, I
(26:16):
don't think there's anythingthat, um, I think we get so
caught up on our own brands, wefeel like everyone's watching us
all the time. And people, peopledon't care. Like, there's so
many things going on that youcan go take a swing, and, and
try something new. And if itflops, no one's gonna like,
remember. So I have to, like,remind us, like, we're so in it
(26:39):
every day thinking like, Okay,we're going to launch this
video, we're going to do this.
And everyone's like, people havea lot going on. And I just think
there's room to explore andcreate and weave your way
through kind of a brandidentity. Like at kissick,
we've, we've shifted our focusthree or four times on, kind of,
you know, our messaging pillarsand who we're targeting and who
(27:01):
our persona is, and all of thatstuff, I think is very valuable.
And I think we get, you know,once you have your brand book,
and whatever, like you're stuckforever, and you're really not,
it's just a moment in time. AndI think that just helps me to
read Brian, you know, and Ithink it's just the culture you
set, like be willing to takerisks and take a swing, like all
(27:21):
the brands we look up to aretaking swings,
Trevor (27:27):
totally. So I'm grinning as you say this, because like
Mark and I, Mark and I talkabout this all the time, but we
call it like that fear,marketing to marketers, like we
get so caught up, that everyother marketer is watching what
we're doing as marketers, thatthey're going to be like, That's
not their brand. That's not whothey are. When in reality, like
(27:48):
your marketing to consumer whois very, very rarely ever
thinking about you. Like, thewhole purpose of you marketing
is just to get back in top ofmind. And the whole purpose of a
touchpoint and omni channel isto see if you can get that as
much as humanly possible. Right.
But like after somebody sees theGoldilocks ad or whatever out,
like they're not really thinkingabout purple day in and day out.
(28:08):
Right? It's just back to when itgets top of mind. You know, and
Brett (28:15):
I think to your to your question to Mark, I think
there's steps that you gainpermission to do more and more
things from your, your audienceand consumers to like, they'll
you'll you'll know, that's oneof the things at least I believe
in is kind of permission basedmarketing is like, the more that
you kind of gain the trust andgain and succeed and find new
(28:36):
ways to maybe talk about youryour product and brand. Like I
think your consumers let youknow, like when you maybe push
the bounds or when you can domore. And I think if you have a
good pulse on, on who your yourcore audience is, they'll kind
of help you along the way tolike, okay, maybe I'll go, I'll
stay away from this, but I canreally, you know, push here, at
(28:58):
least that's what I've seen inthings that that we've done is
you can kind of get a sense ofwin wins and opportunity to try
something new. Or to begin takea swing versus maybe playing it
a little bit safer and continueto kind of learn a little bit
more about who your consumersare. And
Mark (29:15):
because I what I do love about that example is that
purple went out there and usedhumor and was one of the first
companies to use that humorstyle long form video with
Harmons brothers, right? Howwould you how would you help
other brands see that humor canplay a role in their brand
without devaluing their brand?
Because I think a lot of peopleget caught up with I don't know
(29:35):
like we can't be funnier. Peoplewon't take a serious but you
guys had this very serious NASAscientists curated material and
mattress and use humor to shootthat thing to the moon.
Brett (29:50):
Yeah, I think there's a couple different ways you can
go. I mean, to me, humor is theultimate like, connection around
just being a human like we allWhile we all want to feel like
the brands that at least I lookup to and really resonate with,
like, there's, there's humansbehind that. It's not just like,
you know, you're speaking tothis ethereal brand that is run
(30:12):
by, I don't know, an AWS, youknow, like the the brands that I
feel like, I've been luckyenough to be a part of. It feels
more humanistic. And there's aconnection and, and I think
people, you know, it's easy fora lot of brands to go, you know,
highbrow and luxury andexclusive. And we always just
(30:34):
with purple, Annette kissick,we've taken some of that
playbook where we wanted to bereally welcoming, and
personable. And I think humordoes a great job of that,
because it, it's easy to kind ofeven make fun of yourself
sometimes and, and it brings itkind of levels that you know,
where you're not positioning thebrand above anyone, and it kind
(30:56):
of brings it on to a morehumanistic level. And I think
people really resonate withthat. But yeah, I think we've
we've been careful not to be tooslapstick, or, too, whatever.
Because, you know, especiallywith kids, it's we are a fashion
brand. And if you're gonna puton your feet, you know, it's
it's a fashion choice as well.
And so there is an element ofthat that we're careful of, but
it's worked really well for usboth a purple and yeah, and what
(31:20):
we've seen it kissick Do so
Trevor (31:23):
amazing. What are some of the, you know, I've heard
this, I've heard this from a lotof people who get to a certain
revenue revenue threshold wherethey start to think about top of
funnel contents more, right?
Most brands who are kind of inthis seven, eight figure
business and even below thatthey're thinking very much of
(31:43):
what I spend $1. How do I makesure that that dollar makes me X
amount of dollars? Like that'svery much how mindsets are what?
What's the leap that you've hadto take both like a purple and
as a kissick to say, we're goingto invest a very large sum of
money, that we have no idea thatit's gonna give us a return,
(32:05):
like, walk us through thatprocess, like on how you get to
that to decide like, we're goingto do it.
Brett (32:14):
Yeah. That that has been a it's a great question, because
I've had several conversationswith our CEO who who is a lawyer
by trade Crimean and he's, he isawesome. Mati deer is one of the
greatest people that I've everworked with and for, but he
(32:36):
didn't have any concept of like,you know, he's, he's learning on
the fly kind of marketing andDTC and right, ask great
questions, but like, having toexplain to them that we're going
to invest, you know, six figuresin, in a piece of content that,
you know, is that the top of thefunnel of whatever funnel you
could draw at the very top ofthat, you know, is, is a
(32:56):
challenge. And I think, again,we have some hindsight, you
know, one thing that's been niceto be able to look back at
experiences and be like, Oh,this feels like a purple moment,
like, yeah, this scale or thismoment, like, I remember how
this felt. So that's been reallynice to have that in our back
pocket. But yeah, I mean, it is,it is a it is a leap of faith. I
know every year come August,September, when we're investing
(33:19):
heavy and top of funnel like,yeah, building our audiences.
I'm like, oh, man, is this theyear? It's gonna like, not work?
Yeah. Like, are we not gonna seethis back in November and right,
you know, and it, but I thinkwe've, again, going back like
people aren't on the internet.
They're not, I mean, in my worldspecial where we're DTC,
they're, they're not searching,they're not going on, and I
(33:41):
can't wait to see an ad today.
Or, you know, and so we reallywanted to, we just believe
heavily in it's the backbone of,of, I think, our marketing
philosophy that if we can createengaging, content that also
educates and is, you know, forus demonstrable, you know, it
(34:02):
kind of checks off these, thesethings that we've we found that
make a great piece of content,especially for top of funnel
like, it's going to work. Likeit may be not as effective as
something we did over here, butlike, sure, there hasn't been
one time yet that we've, I thinkI've been a part of seven, eight
of these, like, what you'd callhigh production value, yes, upon
(34:23):
it. And every time you know, ifyou follow kind of a formula
that we've kind of just kind oflearned over time, like how to
what needs to be in there andwhat you have room for. It's
worked, but I don't know theoriginal question was like, How
do you like how do you how doyou get
Trevor (34:38):
to that? How do you get to that point to decide like we
got to do this,
Brett (34:41):
I think and I don't think every product maybe is is or
brand is maybe a fit for thisbut we speaking of Cusick now,
it's such a demonstrableproduct. We found that we had to
show people we had it wecouldn't just tell someone like
hey, imagine not having to benddown and put on your shoes you
just step in and go right. Like,Oh, sounds cool. Like, I already
(35:04):
do that with my
Mark (35:05):
butt. Does that a crock?
Is that Yeah, sandals handle?
Brett (35:08):
Yeah, like, yeah. But like if we could convey this and
show it, there's what we callthe aha moment that people got.
And so it was like video was ano brainer for us. And if we
could wrap that in a story thatreally helped, again, educate
but kept people entertained. Sowe could get keep people all the
way through to a minute, half,two minutes on a four minute
video. We were we were golden.
We just the metrics played outthat we were building this
(35:31):
massive audience and then wecould then we could come back
with your UGC and your midfunnel content to really drive
people further down. And then,you know, it's in his right, but
Mark (35:45):
yeah, yeah, I think you have a unique perspective on
this because the considerationcycle for a Purple Mattress, I
mean, you're talking about$1,000 purchase, right? Yeah.
What how long did it take peoplefrom seeing and hearing about
you to buying I'm imagining sixmonths on average, if not
longer, we heard
Brett (36:07):
back in the day when there was less, you know, on the
privacy side, it was like 28touch points or something over
like 90 days, something likethat. But it was like, yeah, it
was a long time. And so, youknow, that's part of the reason
why we went there. I was like,how do we that sticky moment?
How can we be sticky insomeone's mind? Because again,
Mark (36:27):
because nobody's just like, oh, I need a mattress
today. I'm gonna go buy one,right? No, I
Brett (36:31):
mean, yeah, but being part of that consideration set
was was all we were going forwith with some of those pieces
of content, just I mean, we weintentionally, you know, we
worked in moments of nostalgia,and, you know, so we reference
like Nickelback a few times. Andlike, there was these things
that like, all those connectionsthat really, you know, really
had ad recall. And, like, oh,yeah, what was that brand? Oh,
(36:56):
yeah, we were top of mind. Yeah.
And
Trevor (36:58):
what a wildly important metric to understand his brand,
which is like, your customertimeframe, right? Like the
journey of that lifecycle forthat reason alone, right? Like,
because if you don't understandthat, you've got this not 28
touch points, in 90 days, inorder for you to get a sale, you
(37:19):
could run a top of funnel adthat you paid millions of
dollars for and deem it as afailure. If you don't understand
that, like, Oh, crap. When whenreality is like, oh, no, we're
just not maximizing our threeROI after a week. We're not
maximizing that time enough.
Yeah. You know,
Brett (37:34):
yeah. Yeah. I mean, in, you know, we use, you know, some
different attribution tools. Andif you look at our YouTube
campaigns, right now, they'relike a point 3.4. But we know
that if they're, if they're likea point, five and above, we know
that that'll, that'll come outover, you know, over the next 30
(37:54):
days to be ROI positive for us.
And so, to your point, that mixwith, you know, asking, you
know, post purchase, likeWinZip, you know, how long when
did you first hear about us? Andthen, you know, tying that back
and be like, Man, on YouTube,they're telling us two months,
right, first time they heardabout us, like, okay, that's
really helped us scale. And,and, again, continue to have
(38:16):
that gumption as well to to keepdoing what we're doing. Because
we know it's working. It's justagain, not, not everyone's in
market all the time for evenshoes, which Sure, yeah, people
buy five, six times a year,right? Being in consideration,
so they're ready. And so that'sbeen super helpful for us.
Mark (38:36):
That's true marketers mentality, honestly. Right,
because I think we all getcaught up in the easy quick
wins. And and to go back to youroriginal question, I think what
happens is a lot of early DTCcompanies start pushing against
that boundary of easy wins. Andthey don't know what to do,
right? Because they're tooscared of not looking at their
(38:57):
Facebook or looking at theirFacebook and not seeing a
certain quote, ROI or row as and
Trevor (39:01):
we've been so used to saying, Hey, this is what we're
doing. This is what we're doing.
This is who we're, yeah, these
Mark (39:08):
are the people in the market. But once you start
pushing against that totalobtainable market, like you
you've had to do twice in yourcareer. It's that scary leap of
faith moment. And I think a lotof people go, I don't know.
Yeah, but you've shown twice howwell that can work over the long
run and understanding what themetrics need to be because, like
you just said, how manymarketers might know, I know, on
(39:30):
a top of funnel content piece,if I'm getting an X ROI in
platform, it's going to pay outover six months for me. It'll be
a 234 for me over very little.
Very few. Yeah. And they're tooscared to even look at a
platform and see that low
Trevor (39:44):
or no Oh, yeah. And know how to, like, how do you measure
that? Right? Like, how do I knowif it's point five? Is it going
to play out?
Mark (39:51):
Ya know, over six months?
Yeah, yeah.
Trevor (39:55):
I kinda want to pivot change a little bit. You guys
are right, if I kind of, youknow, a couple of things. If you
do the sound effect each time,yeah, okay. So you know, one
thing that we've talked about islike moats that you've built
around your business. One iscontent, like we've talked
pretty heavily about that sofar. But one thing you brought
up before, kind of as you wereintroducing yourself as a moat
(40:17):
was technology. Like we haven'ttalked a lot about that piece.
But you've you've come from nowtwo brands that had such a heavy
focus in technology. Talk to usabout the moat that that's
created. I know, we've talked alot about purple, maybe we can
do maybe we can kind of switchgears and talk more about
kissick. But I want to talktechnology and how that can be
(40:37):
this growth element and thisprotective element to a
business.
Brett (40:41):
Yeah, I mean, and I think it starts there, quite frankly.
I mean, one of the reasons why Iwanted to join kissick was
exactly that reason. I mean, asa marketer, having something
that's defensible, and havingsomething that, you know, again,
especially where we're at over100 patents, and it's mind
(41:02):
blowing to see the the, thedetail and the innovation that
that's gone into this concept ofhands free shoes, I mean, it, it
really does allow you and Iwould regret if I didn't say
like, that's part of some of thereasons why I think we're able
to take some of these risks, andit's probably easier for us to
be to be a little bit more,yeah, risk taking than maybe
(41:25):
some others where they're in theCPG space, or, you know, razor
thin margins, or, you know, Ithink that that's something that
I intentionally sought outthough, after being at purple
and, and being other placeswhere like, man, just, you're a,
you know, a t shirt brand orwhatever, and you're just
fighting against, you know,1000s of, of other brands that
(41:47):
you're all just trying to win onbrand alone or something that
you're repackaging you know, it,it makes it easier as a marketer
to, to really tell a story andto build a brand around, she
have one kind of driving force.
And for us, that's this handsfree movement that, you know,
(42:07):
we're we're on the forefront ofwe're we're planting our flag in
the ground saying we are theleaders in the next evolution of
footwear. Sure, come along forthe ride. Yeah. And that's,
that's something really excitingto be a part of from just like
a, an everyday to get up and goto work type of thing. Like,
that's really fun. How are wegoing to tell that story today?
How are we going to setourselves apart from other
(42:29):
brands that are, you know,whether it's sustainability, or
it's, Hey, we did this crazy newcolorway or whatever it is like,
No, we're thinking beyond that.
Like, we're thinking like, thisis the way that she should have
always been? Yeah. And let usshow you why. That opens up a
playbook that not a lot ofbrands, I think, have the
(42:49):
ability to do
Mark (42:52):
so. But that also has a challenge to it, right? You have
such a technical advantage thatmaybe as a marketer, you want to
focus on features. And I think alot of brands do that when they
do have a, quote, technicaladvantage. So how do you balance
features and benefits andconnecting to people
emotionally? Yeah,
Brett (43:09):
such a good point, I think, again, going back to our
conversation around differentstages of the business, we've,
we're now at a stage of thebusiness, we're really trying to
think, you know, a little bitmore aspirational? How do we
connect to, you know, higherlevel benefits? And how do we
create a brand that'ssustainable? And that actually
(43:31):
stands for something beyondfunctionality or problem
solution. And so that's, Ithink, where we're, you know,
we've, we've gone throughseveral iterations of our brand
and refreshed it and targeteddifferent people. And when we
started out, we were 65 Plusmale dominated brand heavy
leather shoes. Like, it wasaging America that was like, oh,
(43:54):
I need though I can't bend overand tie my shoes I need I need
those shoes. And like, Great,we'll take those take that
consumer all day, but then itwas like, we really want to make
this a billion dollar brand,multibillion dollar brand. We
got to think broader than that.
And how do we talk to acommunity that's much broader
than just that I need this to? Iwant this, I want this to be
(44:14):
part of, you know, this is anexpression of who I am sure. And
so we're, you know, it's takingtime, you know, this is my,
what, most fourth year kick in.
We're still figuring that out,like, what's the next step for
growth? What's the next growthaudience for us? And we're
growing through a lot of workright now to balance that where
(44:37):
there's still a functional,like, demonstrable, especially
on our growth channels likeFacebook and Google, like, we
have to show it, but it's like,how does that make you feel like
what is this doing for you andyour life? What are we unlocking
for you? And that's what we'restarting to rally around and
tell a slightly different storynow. So we can build a brand
(44:57):
that people you know, ourfounder says like If they want
to wear on their chest, like howdo you build that type of brand
and it's not easy, because ityou know, a lot of people
default to like the sameaspirational, you know,
qualities and a brand and we'relooking to, you know what, what
is what is kissick really allowyou to go and do by it may be
(45:20):
putting on your shoes and savingtime or it's easier. It's more
convenient. But like, what doesthat? How does it make you feel?
And anyway, we're building thatdrive right now. So it's a very
top of mind question for us,because we've been, I think,
really heavy just trying toscale and grow and, and now do
so profitably. Now, it's like,how do we, how do we build this
community and brand that it's,you know, can kind of stand
(45:43):
stand the test of time. And so
Trevor (45:45):
it's amazing for every moat that you build, right?
There's also like, a potentialproblem that like, can that moat
faces, right? So you know, onemoat that you guys had built
really early on in kissick isthe tech it is the features,
right? And it's very easy, like,hey, you know, you don't have to
(46:06):
bend over or you don't have to,like there's, there's a benefit
to that feature, right handsfree technology. So you can, you
know, not bend over as much orwhatever it is, right? Like so
it's, it's it's very much tiedto this feature benefit that has
protected and and allowed youguys to really targeted on some,
like amazing audiences. But nowit's like, hey, if we continue
(46:28):
down that road alone, can we bea billion dollar brand? And the
answer might be no, right? Youmight have to kind of like,
that's why it's like, Okay, nowwe're, what I'm hearing you say
is, now we have to focus onlike, the bigger meaning behind
what that brand is like, yes,technology focus, but now like,
what is the why? And how do weget that total addressable
(46:48):
market to really be interestedin
Brett (46:50):
competition crops up, right, you're doing something
really well, people startedjumping in totally. And that's
where we really are separatingourselves as well as, like,
others will claim to do handsfree, or whatever their version
is, right? Like, you know,again, setting ourselves like
no, we're the Oh, geez, were thepioneers were actually, you guys
can play on here. We're thinkingwhat's next, right? So there is
(47:12):
there's always gonna be a techcomponent to that, which I think
if you look like a Tesla, likethey kind of have that always
kind of pushing the bounds,which is, which is cool, but
with footwear and, and lifestyleand fashion. Like, we have to
tie that more to like, you know,more more aspirational and
feeling and, like peoplethroughout their day and how to,
(47:33):
you know, our, our best customeris kind of that, you know, 30 to
45 year old woman who's, youknow, looking for fashionable,
you know, cute shoes, but isprobably busy. Sure, probably
has kids. It's odd. She's on thego. But like, yeah, she's making
choices every day that aren'tjust how do I get into my shoes
(47:53):
these years, she's like, I wantto look good for my husband, for
my girlfriends for where I goout. Like there's all these
other considerations that we noware trying to be the brand for,
yeah, her and her spouse andthose that are surrounding but
like, those, those kinds ofdecisions aren't made on
function alone. It there's afashion element, there's a
fashion meet function. So it's ait's a unique opportunity that
(48:17):
it's been really challenging.
And in because the easy thing todo is just once just problem
solution problem solution. Howmany different scenarios? Can we
show? Someone you know? Yeah,putting on a shoe, but it's
like, we know we want it we havebigger aspirations totally.
Mark (48:33):
What's even funny? I mean, if you even just look at
demographics, who are the mostfunctionally based buyers? old
dudes, right? Like, that's thewhole joke. The New Balance
joke, right? Yeah, they're justlooking for function. So of
course, at the beginning, thatwas your primary demographic,
but I think that shows as yourdemographic has shifted, you
(48:53):
guys have been able to weave inthe story up until this point,
and then it's just continuinglike you said, iterating on that
story, because not many brandsgo from that demographic old
dudes. No to 30 to 40 year oldwomen. That's a hard jump for a
lot of brands to take. So Ithink that's credit for
Trevor (49:12):
death sentence jump for Yeah, for a lot of people. Yeah,
like, which is amazing.
Brett (49:17):
So scary. So credit for you scary? Yeah. Well, you guys
Mark (49:20):
were able to weave that story in and, and I always think
that our personalities and whowe are is just the summation of
the stories we tell ourselves.
And so for brands to become likea part of somebody's identity,
it's hard to how do you injectyourself in that storyline for
someone that they're tellingthemselves every day, right, so
yet, doing that for a 65 yearold guy and a 30 year old woman
(49:40):
is very different? Yeah, sodoing that amazing. More like,
super props for you guys thatkissick And then you know,
moving into you as a as amarketer and as a person, like
looking out there at othermarketers and people I'd love to
know, from your perspective,what, what do you see out there?
(50:01):
Like since iOS 14, since youknow, everything that's happened
in the last few years COVIDWe've had a lot of big events in
the marketing world AI. AI. Whatdo you think people are doing
wrong right now? Like, if youcould just look out there on
Twitter? Are you like, oh, man,like, you guys are gonna make a
huge fatal mistake right now.
Trevor (50:25):
Yeah, I like that common mistakes marketers are making.
Brett (50:30):
I mean, I think one. I see a lot of marketers chasing
shiny objects a lot. Like,again, AI is kind of that shiny
object right now, which I'm notsaying we should ignore it. But
I think one thing that we reallyfocused on early on was doing
one or two things really, reallywell. Before, you know, you're
(50:54):
tempted to go and kind of, youknow, go to your checklist of
like, oh, man, we got to do, youknow, SEO, and we got to do
influencer, or we need to dowhat, who's handling our
affiliate program? And like,there's so many things to do.
And I remember coming in, youknow, to kisah can be like,
there's nothing set up, nothingwas set up. Yeah. And I was
like, Okay, well, let's startwith the highest impact things
(51:16):
first, and let's be awesome withthose. And I think that's just
one thing that that I see a lotof people are like they're
chasing, like they're trying to,they're trying to solve and fix
something that they think a newtool or something will fix. And
it's like, maybe your productjust needs like, you need to
really listen and go talk toyour customers and figure out
(51:39):
what they really want, and notgo and find a new tool. And so I
just I know a lot of people werelike, I see, they're like,
they're asking for the next.
Hey, where can I go and find atool that does this or that?
And, and I don't know, that'sjust one thing that I've seen
that I get asked a lot. And it'slike, what your tax tax was
like, yeah. And like, give ittell me about your business
(52:00):
first, and like, what you'reactually like, tell me about
who's buying your product? Andwhy and like, do you really
understand them? And and I justthink that once you know that,
then it's it's easy to plug inthe right tools at the right
time. Yeah. It's so easy to getoverwhelmed. And then you've
spent all of your marketingbudget on like, the latest and
greatest influencer software,that's two grand a month, and
(52:21):
you're like, oh, my gosh, I'mlocked in for a year or two
years and and isn't evenworking. It's just so I know
that that's one thing I see offthe top my head, but I answer
Great question.
Trevor (52:32):
One thing that I'm like, I kind of almost pulled another
thing out of what you were justsaying there, which is, you've
you've inadvertedly mentionedthis a handful of times in this
podcast, like you've talked alot about talking to your
customers, and like, we've knownyou for a bit now. And that's
been like, we talked to DDCpeople all the time. And like
(52:54):
that is not a common thing thata lot of DTC owners and
marketers and founders arethinking about very often is
like, hey, let's just ask ourcustomer, hey, let's just let's
talk to them. But like, thatseems like it's been a core
piece of physics business forquite some time now. Because
like, how do you know, you know,like, like, you just keep
(53:16):
saying, like, you know, peopleare like, Hey, what's your tech
stack? Or what your tech stack?
But you're like, but do youknow, XYZ about your customer
first, before you even jump intothat? Yeah, well, how has that
been? Like, why is that been soimportant to you guys? So it
always been that way? Um,
Brett (53:32):
I don't know that it always has, I think, you know,
as I mentioned, we shifted,we've pivoted, two to three
times, you know, early on, therewere like big pivots. We call
our like, we had a product pivotfrom like, 1.0 to 2.0. And like,
like, it's really easy to guessit what we think we should make,
or especially in the footwear,industry, styles changes really
(53:54):
quickly. And, you know, again,lucky for us, we have a
technology that allows us to, towin. And it's not just style
alone, or a culture that we'vehad to build, you know, a lot of
drop culture or whatever, likewe have an actual functional
benefit. That's, that's beengreat. But like, being able to
ask and understand like, onewhere, where is the fashion
(54:19):
space going? So trying touncover insights there to then
help our product team make theright products and making shoes
takes forever? Sure. It'schallenging to hit timing, but
like, also understand, like,where are people wearing our
shoes? And why and how manytimes a week are they wearing
them in? Like what is reallyresonating, just that feedback
(54:39):
loop is, is critical when you'removing really fast. Because I
think if you're moving fast, youcan go down a wrong road by a
couple degrees, and then you'reway off. So it's kind of a gut
check moment to have later youknow, again, going back to
Creative as well like being ableto actually see how your
creative is doing and resonatingin real time. Most is is kind of
(55:01):
a game changer. So then it's,you're kind of de risking some
of that a little bit like, yeah,you could test and learn and
then iterate on it quicklyversus being like, Alright, all
our eggs in one basket, let'sgo. You know, so I think
continuing, you know, andthere's, there's tools out
there, you know, shout out tobestie. I mean, there's tools
(55:22):
out there that, make thatcollection and in and present
it. So you can, as a marketer,that's your job is to like use
your intuition and skillset tothen use that insight to make a
change. And I think that's onething I've had to learn in my
career is like, you know,pivoting is, is just, it's part
(55:43):
of the journey, like, going backto your conversation around
brand, you're not locked inforever, go pivot, go change, go
tweak. No one's gonna, you know,you're not married to that or
iterate on product. Find wherethose gaps are, or where maybe
where you're not addressing, wefound out that pregnancy. I
know, it seems like a nobrainer. But we learned through
(56:05):
just kind of talking andlearning and like finding
communities and conversationsonline. That pregnancy was like
popping off for physic. It makessense, right? Six months, seven
months, you're bending overbending over and like, I don't
know, at the time, but weweren't working. We weren't
making creative for it. Yeah, wejust found this community of
women that were like physics orsaving my life right now. And
(56:27):
we're like, Yeah, okay. There'sour next target. Yeah. 30, New
Zealand's of creative and foundsome UGC creators and like, went
all in. And that was a hugeunlock, you know, one of our,
our services business and like,you don't learn that by not kind
of putting your ear to theground, in whatever way that you
can, you can get insights. Andthere's so many
Trevor (56:47):
cool insight,
Mark (56:48):
what you're really saying is, in some ways, to me is,
there's a dirty side ofmarketing, and you have to get
in the weeds. You've mentionedthat before of understanding
customers, understanding yourproduct, understanding your
company. And so many companiestry to jump that step into
saying, Hey, I hit one thing.
Great. Now, let's jump into fivedifferent marketing channels and
(57:10):
five different tech stack tools.
And I'm gonna start replicatingwhat a billion dollar brand does
when you're saying, no, no, no,no, if you want to go from
seven, eight to nine, you got tokeep things simple. And you got
to do things exceptionally well.
And then you can start addingthat incrementality of maybe a
different marketing channel, ormaybe a different kind of
(57:30):
technology that you can includein your stack. But you don't go
from zero to 10 and expect towin, you'll just end bloating.
Yeah, right. No. And that's sucha valuable lesson for early
stage DTC companies. And we seethat mistake all the time. And
we've made that mistake in ourcareers, like, oh, this
influencer thing is going tokill it for us. And then we
signed up and it didn't doanything. Yeah. Or, oh, this
(57:51):
review platform is going toincrease or this customer
loyalty program, you know, justname them all. I'm not saying
those things are all bad things,but they're not the silver
bullets that are going to fixsomething that's failing in the
core of your business ormarketing. Yeah, and some
Trevor (58:07):
of those things will work better. The further down
the road, you get Yeah, right.
Like when when you've got a teamthe size of kids IQ and the
revenue, the size of kids IQ.
You've got more time andattention to put into maybe some
of those other things versus ifyou are a seven figure brand.
You know, it's like hey, what,like, what are those two
channels, you know, and focusthere. And then when you get to
(58:28):
the next level, then bring innumber three, you know,
Brett (58:32):
meat and potatoes.
Boring, bub.
Trevor (58:36):
Mean potatoes, pick and roll. What else? What else? We
got? The Sony and safetysqueeze?
Mark (58:45):
Well, man, we've we've loved our time chatting. It has
been great. Speaking of pregnantwomen, I have a very pregnant
wife and so I'm probably gonnahave to get out of here soon.
Trevor (58:55):
Yeah, Mark is Mark spot to have his third baby. Third
baby, which is exciting.
Mark (59:00):
It is exciting and daunting. Boy, right? We don't
know. That's right. Yeah, wedon't know. I forgot about that.
My wife likes to do the hospitalsurprise. So we'll find out. We
got two boys already.
Trevor (59:15):
I am so excited. I was awesome.
Mark (59:16):
I forgot if you use gamblers fallacy in your life,
you'll probably assume thatit'll be a girl this time,
right? But
Trevor (59:23):
I don't know what else.
Amazing.
Mark (59:25):
It's a coin flip every time. We'll see what happens.
Trevor (59:28):
Well, Brett, thanks so much for coming on. Dude, this
is awesome. I've, I've beenwatched. We both been watching
the journey of kissick for likeI said for a while now, you
know. And so it's been amazingto see. We're excited to see
where you take things and welove like I love that you've
dove so much into taking risksand you know, but also taking
(59:51):
risks but also simplifyingthings at the same time. You
know, it's been a really coolwe've seen like, two sides of
the spectrum, which has beenreally, really cool. So but
taking risks is as simple asSure, yeah. Yeah, very much so
you don't have to overcomplicateit and this is part of the game
plan. Love it. All right,everybody. Thank you so much for
tuning in. Brett. Where canpeople follow you? Find you?
(01:00:12):
Yeah.
Brett (01:00:14):
Really. I'm just Brett Swenson pretty much on all
social platforms. So yeah, I'm,I'm a lurker on Twitter. more
active on LinkedIn. So yeah.
Come chat. Kids. iq.com rise.
iq.com. Yeah. K as the IQs. Yep.
Kz AK calm.
Trevor (01:00:30):
They're awesome. I own a pair. Legitimately. So I will
soon Brett didn't get me wrongeither. I bought them with my
own money. I try actuallyoffered it. I said, I'm buying
these. Which is the true. That'sa true fan. That's the true
hormigas Yeah. And my wifereally wants a pair. So I
actually know. Alright,everybody, thank you so much,
and we will see you nextTuesday. Thank you so much for
(01:00:53):
listening to the unstoppableMarketer Podcast. Please go rate
and subscribe the podcastwhether it's good or bad. We
want to hear from you. Becausewe always want to make this
podcast better. If you want toget in touch with me or give me
any direct feedback. Please gofollow me and get in touch with
me. I am at the Trevor Crump onboth Instagram and tick tock
(01:01:14):
thank you and we will see younext week.
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