Ditch The "Playbooks" and Start Solving Problems Creatively | Special Guest KC Holiday former CEO of QALO - The Unstoppable Marketer®

Episode Transcript
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Trevor (00:00):
Yo, what's going on everybody? Welcome to the
unstoppable Marketer Podcastwith me as always is my co host
Mark goldheart Mark goldheartWhat's up, dude?

Mark (00:11):
Oh, I'm doing great. It's been an eventful past week for
me to say the least. But yeah,great. Yeah Fourth of July we
were out of town, a semi truckclipped our car with my wife in
it.

Trevor (00:24):
That's right.

Mark (00:26):
It wasn't bad. Like I mean, everything's fine. It's
not like a real accent. It wasjust she was in a parking lot
truck made a turn that was alittle too sharp and the back
end like the very back endcorner clipped our car of the
trailer.

Trevor (00:39):
I don't know how that doesn't happen more often. Like
I am put in that situation allthe time where like I'm in the
left hand turning lane. And thenthe person who's on like, my
right side that is semis turningleft into that lane going
against me. And I don't know howthat has never happened to me.

Mark (00:58):
They're professionals.
That's how I guess so I get mymy wife started doing ice baths
so that's interesting.

Trevor (01:06):
She's become an ice bath influencer now,

Mark (01:09):
I guess. So Amanda did her first time and guess how long
she went for?

Trevor (01:15):
Three minutes.

Mark (01:16):
Not 15 minutes. What 15 minutes dude, I'm not I was
there. Like she was in there for15 minutes.

Trevor (01:24):
Is it? I don't think it's healthy for women to do it
that long.

Mark (01:28):
I mean, they say you can I looked it up that well, there
you go. I mean, I don't know.
I'm sure there's some kind ofice bath influencer out there
listening. So let us know. Isthat too much? That too long?

Trevor (01:41):
As Yeah, that's a good question. Well, listen, dude,
I'm excited for today's episode.
We have an awesome guest, who'swith us for who's just been so
patiently listening to us banterback and forth. But we've got a
guest here today. His name isCasey Holliday. Casey is the
current CEO and founder of Caseyholiday coaching former co

(02:02):
founder of kalo. For those ofyou who don't know what Kayla
was they were the pioneers ofthe silicone ring. So if you
were a silicone ring, if you'veseen them on Amazon now, they
were the ones who really kind ofstarted that. So Casey, what's
going on? Dude, we're happy tohave you

KC (02:22):
guys. It's an honor to be here. I appreciate the kind
intro and Mark hearing aboutyour wife, man. Like she seems
so brave. She's in thataccident. She's doing okay. And
she's also ice bath thing for 15minutes like my goodness, the
woman's a warrior.

Mark (02:38):
She really is. I don't know if it's because an ice bath
is nothing compared to givingbirth eight weeks ago, or

KC (02:44):
weeks ago for her ice bath was like that was probably
recovery. That was just a nightI guess.

Mark (02:52):
So like I'll just, I'll just get in here. And she's a
redhead. So I think redheadshave higher pipe pain tolerance.
I think that's actually ascientific truth. No, it's

Trevor (03:00):
not is it really?

Mark (03:03):
I'm pretty sure it is. I mean, I'll look it up but I'm
pretty sure it is because theydon't anesthetic doesn't work on
them the same way it works oneverybody else. What? Yeah,

KC (03:12):
gingers are a rare unappreciated breed I have I
have my two year old ginger andhe's just there's he's very he's
just tough as nails he's builtdifferent he's just a why he's a
wallet yeah not to be tamed yep,

Trevor (03:26):
that's the I've never heard that at all and I need
somebody to confirm this. Yeah,if that is legitimate or not I

Mark (03:35):
looked it up according to the National Institute of Health
Studies suggest that theirgeneral pain tolerance may be
higher.

Trevor (03:42):
Why in the world All right. Well, there you go. Okay.
Well, listen, gentlemen, beforeI get started I actually want to
bring up a topic here Are eitherof you guys on threads yet?

Mark (03:58):
Too tired.

KC (04:00):
I I had like a I had a moment when I heard it get
announced. I was just like, wedon't need another one. We don't
need another one. Like I don'tneed another. Like, I don't need
more hours of my day thoughtabout which platform should I be
distributing on and where shouldI be creating content and how do
I now repurpose it to this otherplatform? Like it's become such
utter chaos? That yeah, I don'tknow. I so I'm on it. I'm on it

(04:24):
because I'm just a glutton forpunishment I guess. Or I just
sort of follow the crowd like abee to the beehive but I don't
know man. What do you get? Whatdo you guys think? Are you all
in Are you just toe in thewater?

Trevor (04:36):
So here's my thoughts.
So I had the same thought as youright when threads you know they
were talking about it for a bitbut when it when it came about
like when it was a yesterday orthat the night before yesterday,
whatever, when you actuallycould sign in and create an
account. I thought the samething. It's like dude, I can't.
I can't do one more thing I postevery day on Tik Tok I post
every day on Instagram. I postmostly every day on LinkedIn.

(04:57):
doing stories. I've been tryingto figure it out Twitter for the
last like three months in a veryhaphazard way. Yep. And it's
like, that's just that's justinsane for me to do. But I saw
this, like, I saw somebody postsomething that said, Hey, hurry
and get on the reserve, makesure nobody takes your, your,
your name your handle. And so Iwas like, Okay, well, I'll hurry

(05:21):
and do it. And I did ityesterday, and I have over 2000
followers now. Like, my followercount, skyrocketed. And so I
just yesterday, I just fell intothe trap. And I posted probably
15 times yesterday, thismorning, I posted five or six

(05:41):
times. And I am I don't know ifI'm addicted because I had the
follower account and theengagement really, really
quickly. I also am slightlyhappy about it, because I always
felt this, like I just feelstupid. When I'm on Twitter.
There are so many super, supersmart people in the DTC space.

(06:03):
And I'm not saying that I'm notsmart. But I'm not like super,
super technical, like a lot ofthese people and so like, thread
seems less.

KC (06:17):
Hey, Trevor, by the way, don't fall for that trap. Don't
fall. Come on. Like they're notthey're not as smart as they
would like to lead you tobelieve. And the reason is,

Trevor (06:28):
I and I know that I know that right? But you don't at the
same time, you know, you getlike a little imposter syndrome.
Oh, and

KC (06:36):
I felt that for a long time with Twitter. That was the big
aversion for me. It was like, itjust feels like everybody trying
to tell everyone how smart theyare. And talking just enough
over people's heads where theyget some of it. But you they
still look at you and go Godperson so smart. Like that

(06:56):
person. Yeah. And it's like, youknow what, like, don't come on.
Not everybody's that smart.
Everybody puts their pants onthe same way. Like come on.
Like, it's, you know, it's likethere are really bright people
out there. But when you likewhen you can pre write something
30 days in advance to and rewordit to make it seem very
different and very smart. Like,absolutely, there are brilliant
people. But I think that's partof the Twitter, especially in
the DTC world strategy of, hey,I'm going to talk real and sound

(07:18):
really smart and show all theseimages of, you know, revenue,
and all these different metricsand things like that, that, you
know, are gonna make you feel alittle bit worse about yourself,
but just just enough, not thatyou'll want to work with me and
hire me like, that's very muchthe game.

Trevor (07:36):
So true. So yeah, for those listening, that's

Mark (07:39):
actually it's excellent point. It is very true. People
talk in absolutes. Yeah. And ifyou're actually in the game, I
mean, look, and I get it, it'scontent strategy. I'm not
calling anyone out. Don't takethis personal, anybody, but
people talk in absolutes. Andthey act like this is the only
way this is like the goldenpath. But if you're actually in

(07:59):
business, you understand thateverything is just so variable.
And it just depends on thecontext. Everything is
contextual. It depends on yourbusiness, your model, your
goals, everything just depends.
So it's easy to go on there andthrow out an absolute, but it's
just it doesn't apply to everysituation.

Trevor (08:15):
Yeah. And it's it is a great content strategy, it's a
really good way to getengagement, it's a really good
way to get followers. That'sexactly that's exactly why
Donald Trump has the followinghe has right is because he
speaks in absolutes. And he'svery, very polarizing. And, you
know, and so you just like youlove them, or you hate them.
And, and it's a it's, it's donewonders for the man. Right. From

(08:40):
an attention perspective,

KC (08:41):
I'd say across the board. I mean, the, the the marketing
campaign, he ran to becomePresident of the United States,
right? It's like, it's, it'sexactly that model. And it was
exactly formulated to do exactlywhat people that are successful
on social media do, which islive your life in a complete
state of absolutes, and then doeverything you can to back it

(09:02):
up, even if you don't believe itinternally, yourself. And nobody
that's built social, I would saythere's probably very few people
that have built a socialfollowing going, Hey, here's
sort of what I think. Butthere's some context and other
sides make a lot of sense to andthis is dialogue, you're gonna
know like, and I think inTwitter, everything in social
media is engagement. Like I sawthis one tick tock, this guy

(09:22):
said, we're in every video,he'll say something wrong, just
to get people to comment to tellhim that it's wrong to create
engagement, right? So he'll justbe like, Look, man, and we know
it, guys. It's easy. Six plussix equals 10. And so you know,
if I've got a dozen and peoplewait, no, no, dude. Well, you
just added that wrong. And soeverybody will run to the
comments to tell him how dumb heis. And he's like, Oh, that

(09:42):
drives engagement. So it getsmore views and generate more
popular, man this is it's thiswhole game behind the scenes,
but you're right on Twitter, thegame is very much here's an
absolute and then it just getspeople stirred up on whether or
not they believe it, but to yourpoint. What I think it does a
lot is it actually makes peoplerethink what they do. Believe.
And I think in some ways inlife, that's a good thing. But

(10:03):
for the most part, it makes itmake drives people's confidence
way down, I think. And that'slike, whatever. That's not
necessarily like the people'sreaction to things is not
altered the person posting, butI think that's what it does. It
makes me go Well, surely, Ididn't believe that before. And
they're stating it was suchconfidence in AI, this person's
got a big following. And so whatI believe to be true must be
wrong. And then it kind of sendsyou down this whole rabbit hole.

(10:25):
Anyway, didn't mean Yeah, so

Trevor (10:27):
I think going back to threads, right? No, I think
you're spot on. And I'm glad itwent this way. But going back to
threads, I think that that's,you don't see that quite yet.
And so like when I jumped in,I'm like, this is really, really
refreshing. I'm going to justsay, like, I'm going to say
stupid stuff. I'm going to saystuff that just like when I end
to when I say stupid, I justmean stuff that's going on. Hey,
I'm podcasting with Casey rightnow. Hey, has anybody thought

(10:49):
about XYZ? Hey, has you know,and I'm just like, it just seems
new? It seems fresh. So we'llsee. We'll see. We'll see what
happens with it. Yeah. I thinkevery new feature, there's
always opportunity.

KC (11:00):
Yeah, I think every social media platform descends into
what gets rewarded. And it kindof, like, ends up there
together, like collectively,sort of like the loudest voices
get rewarded, and all that kindof stuff. So I can't imagine
that it's going to go adifferent path. But I guess I
have a question for you is, whynot take that same approach to
Twitter?

Trevor (11:19):
Um, I should, does it.
So let me ask you this, but Idon't have a good response for
you.

KC (11:24):
Is it does it feel less intimidating, like sort of the
the DTC, I guess, in the DTCspecific space? Because that's
what you talk a lot about, doesit feel like, oh, nobody's come
on here and made me feel dumbyet. So I actually can just be
myself on this platform withoutconcern of perception. Is that
sort of or comparative? I

Mark (11:43):
can let me and let me answer this for Trevor,
actually, because I, I thinkwhat it is, is that he already
built and tell me if I'm wrong,Trevor, this is me
psychoanalyzing. Let's see,let's see it. You already built
an audience on Instagram. And soTwitter was starting from zero.
Yeah. So haphazardly, it'sbecause it's like I'm at zero. I

(12:03):
gotta like build an audience. Igot to like, you're, you're
starting over in a sense, like,with no backing? Where with
threads? It's because people canjust click follow everyone I
already follow. So you can youcan shoot up the rankings a lot
faster with threads that youcouldn't on Twitter?

Trevor (12:20):
Yeah, I think it's to be honest, I think I think it's a
little bit of both, you know,from both of what what you said
absolutely. Like, when anytimeyou start from the bottom, it's,
you know, it's challenging, butat the same time, there's,
there's fun in starting at thebottom to see like what you do.
Yeah. But so so I think yes, Iwould probably say yes to both,

(12:42):
to be honest with you. So. Andthen the and the third thing,
there is also the fact thatit's, it is a Twitter was the
fifth channel. I was on. Yeah,right. You know, for me, so it
was like, it was like Instagram,and I when I say Instagram, I
take Instagram in two differentchannels, stories versus the
feed. Right. So InstagramStories feed, tick tock

(13:03):
LinkedIn. And then it was inthat it was Twitter, you know,

KC (13:07):
when you're, when you're creating content, are you are
you because this is I think it'san interesting approach. And it
says a lot about differentpeople and sort of what they
prioritizes so when you'recreating a piece of content, do
you think about it through thelens of Instagram first and then
repurpose to other channels fromthat initial post? Is that sort
of how your content strategyworks?

Trevor (13:27):
Yeah, yeah, a lot of times I will think about it from
it. Well, it really, it reallydoes depend. Instagram is
usually the first channel I postfor I think about it has been
Instagram, sometimes it becomestick tock, you know, because my
follower count is roughly thesame on both platforms. You
know, and so my community isroughly the same. And so that

(13:49):
those are the ones that I'mthinking about, but a lot of
times, there might be a piece ofcontent, I post on Instagram or
Tiktok that I'm like, I can'tquite find the right correlation
to how I want to repurpose thisover to Tik Tok or, or over to
LinkedIn, you know, butsometimes I sometimes I do, or
sometimes I'll post on LinkedInbecause I'm like, this is a

(14:09):
really good LinkedIn idea. AndI'll think about what are the
parallels that would make sensefor me to create this into a
real or into a Tiktok? And sobut yeah, I do start typically
with Instagram and Tiktok andthen if it makes sense to flow
it down the channels to from arepurpose perspective, but I
might alter and change somethings I'll do that. But a lot

(14:31):
of times I'm creating like a newpiece for each platform just
depending on what I think isgonna hit and perform better.

KC (14:38):
Interesting. So do you feel like i The one thing I think
talking about threads that I dothink is interesting, which was
my first response to it so I waslike you were I'm and I go video
first before written for themost part I have some written
Yeah, I just like video more. Ithink it's more fun and it's
something I've gotten the hangof over the last been doing it
for about three years or so. Butwhat I thought about threads was

(14:59):
like, like I have tons of videocontent from Tiktok and
Instagram that just doesn't workon Twitter. So to the point of
like, I started probably Twitteraround the same time as you of
like, okay, I'm actually goingto go for this and build up some
try and build something throughthis about three or four months
ago. And it was like, But noneof that stuff repurpose is here,
because video just doesn't playnearly as well on Twitter. And

(15:20):
so okay, I kind of have to likeeither transcribe these and then
put them into tweets. And like,Man, that's a whole bunch of
work. So otherwise, I'll justkind of start from scratch with
Twitter. But what I thoughtabout threads was like, Maybe
this could be the one of theplatform where it all plays. So
because it spawned fromInstagram, where people are used
to reels and are used to images.
And now it's sort ofincorporating writing like it

(15:40):
could threads be the one that'salmost like a combination of all
the work that I've tried to doacross all these different
platforms like it kind of justconsolidates all into singular
thread posts and you build anaudience through that that I saw
I kind of was excited about itmaybe the same way that you were
of going like all the thingsthat I do could play here versus

(16:01):
going well, video doesn't playhere. And own words don't really
play as well here and that kindof thing.

Trevor (16:09):
Spot on dude, I've thought the exact same thing. So
I start I just posted my firstvideo today to see if that kind
of starts to see what happenswith it.

KC (16:17):
Because the UX on on like the UX on it's almost like a
carousels view on threads withimages and stuff like that,
where it's actually in thevideo. Like it's not disruptive.
We're in Twitter, you like see avideo and it's like you like you
don't want to hide because it'slike so you're so not used to
seeing it right? All of asudden, it's there. We're in
threads, maybe people are justmore of like an organic
acceptance, because it's spawnedfrom Instagram that's like, Hey,

(16:39):
dude, maybe maybe it all playshere.

Trevor (16:43):
It's interesting, I think no matter I mean, the next
30 to 45 days will be verytelling on what the platform
does. And how people respond toit. You know, I think you're
it's like, right now it's like,January in a gym. Right?
Everybody's there. And, and sowe'll see what happens come
February, March.

KC (17:03):
Do you feel pressure? Sorry, the content stuff, I geek out
hard over it. So like, do youfeel pressure to choose the
platform? Do you feel pressureto go? I'm gonna go all in on
one. Like, do you feel like thisis going to be the main one that
I'm building an audience on?
Like, do you feel the pressureof that? Because for me, I'm
like a threat comes up. And it'slike, Man, I feel like I should
choose one. Or at least or atleast creating content through a

(17:25):
specific medium. So video orwriting, like, I feel like that
does matter. But do you feel thepressure as a creator to go this
is my main one that I'm gonnabuild an audience on, and thus
everything else will berepurposed from it.

Mark (17:38):
Do you know what's interesting as an observer,
because I'm not really thecontent creator of our duo
Trevor's always trying to get meto create content I need to but
I'm more of the observer. Itdoes seem like the people who
choose a channel do the best atgaining an audience the
quickest.

KC (17:55):
I know that's so I feel to

Mark (17:58):
right. So like if you go to Instagram, I mean, for
example, Trevor built anaudience really well on
Instagram and then built it inTik Tok on these video based
formats. Yep. And then you havethese people that are really big
and Twitter that just can't gainanything over and Tik Tok or
Instagram. Right, their followercounts are so low and and
Trevor's really high over there.
But in Twitter, they're kind ofbig hitters in this DTC, e

(18:19):
commerce space. So it almostseems like the people that focus
just on one channel, we're ableto maximize an audience and gain
an audience. And then I'm surethere's like a Escape Velocity
point where once you hitsomething, it doesn't really
matter what channel either bigenough you'll gain the
followers. But that's what Ithink I've analyzed, at least
across the spectrum.

Trevor (18:41):
To me, it's less about the pressure of a channel and
more about a format. So like,like written versus video. So I
just, I just naturally can speakbetter than I can, right. And so
I just naturally I gravitatedtoward towards video. And so,

(19:06):
it, it was if it was and I'm notlike a massive creator by any
means. But if it was somewhat,no, I'm not gonna use the word
easy, but if it was more naturalfor me to succeed on Instagram,
then naturally it was going tobe more natural for me to
succeed on Tik Tok. Right. Andso that's why I put more time
into Tik Tok in the beginning,but then I just saw a gap in the

(19:29):
market with LinkedIn, forexample, which was tons of there
just wasn't inventory of goodcontent on ticked on on LinkedIn
for a while there. Meaning like,people were just reposting other
people's stuff and articles andForbes 30 under 30s. And people

(19:49):
weren't telling stories andtalking about you know,
providing value and so that'swhy I was like, I've got to give
this a shot. You know, and I'veactually really fallen in love
with with LinkedIn. And thereason why I like LinkedIn is
because I can tell stories in alonger format there. Whereas I
cannot do that from a Twitterperspective. And I'm a
storyteller. And so to me, it'sless about the platform. And

(20:12):
it's more about the format.
Personally, so

KC (20:14):
if you can only do so if you can only choose one. Oh, wait,
hold on, I have a questionbefore you answer that. I think
intent matters a lot withcontent creation. So what what
outcome are you trying tocreate? Are you just trying to
build an audience or afollowing? Are you trying to get
them to buy things that you'reselling? Are you trying to get
them to sign up and be for anewsletter? Like what? Like,

(20:36):
basically, like, why do youcreate? I guess I would ask?

Trevor (20:39):
Yeah, really good question. I mean, the reason why
I started to create was becauseI had felt like my career path.
To the point where I started, Ihad made a boatload of mistakes
as a marketer, as anentrepreneur. And I thought,
hey, I would love to create aplatform that helps people avoid

(21:01):
these mistakes and get to aresult quicker. And in
conjunction, if people see medoing those kinds of things,
they're going to be veryinterested in what I'm doing,
and potentially be interested indoing business with me. But very
at first it was, and still isvery much like, my intent is to
help. And because my intent isto help we get a lot of business

(21:21):
from

KC (21:22):
it. So it is so the outcome that you're trying to generate
is I'm trying to generatebusiness through this but
position myself as someone thatthey you know, that tell stories
that shares interesting thingsthat they could relate to that,
but but the outcome of like, whywe create every day, because I
think it's interesting, that alot of people don't think about
it when they're trying tocreate, and they end up spending
hours a day creating. And thereality is, is like there are

(21:45):
times where I'm choosing tocreate over spending time with
my kids, right. And so I think,like, and by the way, I'm like,
I love being a dad, so nobodycan, like judge me based on what
I just said. But perhaps it'srelatable for some people, but
I'm like, without understandingwhat it is that I'm trying to
generate. I'm legit justchoosing that over them. And I
want to try and understand whyit is I understand why I create

(22:06):
but for you have like, what'sthe outcome that you're trying
to generate through this contentcreation? And if some people are
like, I just want to becomefamous, okay, that's fine. Or
it's like, oh, I want to try andget people to read my
newsletter, or it's like, oh, Iwant to try and get people to
now work with me. So for you,it's very much I do it, because
I love it. And I want to tellstories, and I love creating
content through that capacity.
But the real desired outcome isI want people to work with me

(22:26):
and yep, okay. Yeah, absolutely.
So back to my other question.
Back to my other question, ifyou can only choose one
platform, which would youchoose? Instagram.

Trevor (22:41):
Really? Yep.

KC (22:45):
I'm shocked by that.

Trevor (22:49):
Yeah, I've had a love hate relationship with
Instagram. But to me, there arefew platforms that have the
power of community the wayInstagram does, if handled and
done correctly.

KC (23:05):
That's probably a I won't go into it now. I found I found
Instagram, the most difficultplatform to grow on. And perhaps
I'm doing it incorrectly. Buthey,

Trevor (23:16):
I'm not saying I'm growing. Because I'm right now
I'm not, you know, I'm growingvery, very, very slowly. Like,
just just to be 100% honest. Butthe people I have right now,
stick with me. And like, theycome to that. And, and I mean,
they're, they're they're intotheir into what's happening, and

(23:37):
I'm creating relationships withthat's what I mean about the
community. It is definitely,definitely the hardest to grow.
If I was talking about a oneplatform for growth sake, only,
I tick tick tock, you've got thebiggest you can get the biggest
bang for your buck. It'sdefinitely gotten harder. You
know, it used to be a lot easier18, two months ago to two years

(23:58):
ago. But if you're talkingfollower growth, that's what I
would do. But like I have Ihave, even though I have just as
many followers on Tiktok rightnow, and I started two years
later on Instagram. I don't havea community there. Like my
community is not very strong. I

KC (24:12):
think tick tock is the worst community building platform that
it exists, it isn't entirely aconsumption platform.

Trevor (24:18):
Let's be honest, it's been.

KC (24:21):
Well, 97% of the content is not people that you follow,
right? That you see. So it'slike you're just seeing new
people. So it is for the sake ofso they've done a great job of
massive maximizing what I thinkhumans want, which is big
audiences big following bigviews, everybody knowing that I
exist, but I think and that'sactually what I think I would I
think a year ago, maybe evencloser six months ago, I would

(24:43):
have told you the same thing. Iwould have said Instagram is it.
That's my diehard like that'sit, I'm all in on it. Because to
your point, I think that there'sa level of community building
through it that sort of was itsuperpower and I think they lost
sight of that being thesuperpower as it tried to be
Come all of these other things.
And I think the more you try andbeat your competitors, the more
you end up looking like them.

(25:04):
And I think that's what happenedwith Instagram. And now even
with threads, right to bring itfull circle, it's like, it sort
of feels like Instagram in somecapacity is so obsessed with its
competition, that it'scompletely just made decisions
based on how do we competedirectly with them versus how do
we differentiate from

Trevor (25:21):
Yeah, how do we stand out and

KC (25:23):
that went for? And that's where I think I was like,
threads. I was like, cow, LeeInstagram, like, you've got how
many billions of users on yourdirect platform? So I understand
transitioning over to this thingand going after Elon? But my
gosh, like, why don't you justbe different, versus trying to
just replicate the sametimeline? And then anyway, I
won't go down.

Mark (25:40):
But don't you think that's a good segue into DTC because a
lot of brands make this mistakeover and over where they think,
Oh, hey, I have an audiencebuilt in of women or man or
whatever it might be. So it'llbe easy. Let's just launch this
auxiliary product, and changeour messaging a little bit. And
we're just going to take, we'rejust going to grow our Tam and

(26:02):
everything's going to be gravy.
And more often than not, theyalways fail, or not all the more
often than not always, I thinkthey'll often

KC (26:10):
I think product expansion is perhaps the most difficult thing
in direct to consumerbusinesses. If you when you
like, I think it is soincredibly difficult if you
don't do it early on, and bakein a large portfolio of products
early on, where customers andalike are just used to seeing a
lot of different things fromyou. And you can kind of build a
identity through that, which Ithink is hard enough in itself.
But like at kalo, that wasgenuinely meetings, we left

(26:33):
discouraged going, where do wego from silicone rings? Now that
the answer may be for a lot ofthese brands, you don't go
anywhere else, you keep doingwhat you're doing and find
increased distribution channels.
But if you look at companieslike Yeti and things like that,
like they expanded well intoother territories, but it's
really hard. It's really, reallydifficult. And to your point
mark of like, oh, cool, that wemade that mistake. We've got

(26:55):
this, we've got 1.5 millionemail subscribers, like, all we
have to do is tell them we'reselling something else and put
our name on it, and we're gold,maybe like this is it, we're off
to another vertical. And that'sa very humbling experience, or
at least it wasent

Trevor (27:11):
Casey, why do you think that is? Let's unpack that a
little bit. Because I think Iactually really liked this. I
know we I've made a mistake withit. Mark and I we used to be we
used to run the marketing for acompany that was selling women's
diaper bags. And we thought,hey, like, women only need so
many diaper bags, you know, andso we thought to ourselves, what

(27:34):
if we, and this was during thepandemic, when loungewear was
such a massive, massive, youknow, everyone was just in their
pajamas, because no one had togo to work anymore. Right? And
so we're like, let's launch awomen's like, all inclusive,
loungewear line, and that it canhit moms and all that kind of
stuff. And we had a massiveMark, how big was our list? You

(27:57):
know, I mean, two to 400,000,you know, subscribers. And I
remember when we launched theproduct, how underwhelmed I was
with how many how little peopleshowed up, and actually like,
came to bat with it. So what whyis that? Why is it so
challenging to do that?

KC (28:19):
So I'd probably I'd probably say three things. So the first
one, just straightforward. Ithink you find success in one
thing, and you delusionallybegin to operate under the
assumption that everything youdo touches, everything you touch
turns to gold. And so I thinkyou go like, well, we crush this
like we could crush anythingelse. Right? So I think that
there's just an arrogance thatcomes along with finding success

(28:41):
through one product in onechannel that warranted or
unwarranted, I think happenswith a lot of CEOs. And a lot of
companies when they get to acertain point. The second is, I
think it's Marc Andreessen thathas the quote that everybody's
time is already allocated. And Iwould say, for the most part,
everyone's loyalty is alreadyallocated. And by that I mean to

(29:02):
other products. So I think thatit's like the odds are of like,
we like I guess with the keelexample, we have silicone rings,
and it's like, well, we're goingto expand to sunglasses. And
it's like, while all yourconsumers that are buying been
buying your rings for howeverlong are most likely already
loyal to a sunglasses brand, orto a price that they pay for
sunglasses. So price and brand Ithink people become loyal to. So

(29:25):
I think people don't understandthat fact. They think oh, they
love my brand of this. Andtherefore if I launch my brand
of that they will buy enoughsometimes it works. Right like
TOMS Shoes moving to sunglasseswas sort of an example of that,
like so. But I think again,everyone's loyalties already
allocated. So I would say thatwould be the second and then I
think a third one which is likewhat I spend a lot of time

(29:48):
talking about with CEOs is like,I think most people
fundamentally misunderstandbusiness strategy. And one thing
that they drasticallyunderestimate is that every new
strategic Each decision you makeopens you up to a new batch of
competitors, who are probably Iwould say, all in on that

(30:08):
singular product where for you,it may be a secondary product,
there may be all in on thatsingular product. And so some
examples of that would be, likegeography. Like one thing that
people, I hear DTC founders allthe time talk about is like,
Well, I'm just going to expandto a different country. Like,
I'm just going to expand. That'sjust easy. And I'll give you an
example. So, kalo, we, we werelike, oh, we'll just expand into

(30:32):
Australia. Like, we'll just makethat expansion. And I lived in
Australia for the last fewyears. So I made this mistake as
a human being, oh, they speakEnglish. They've got a lot of
similar cultural things toAmerica. And so we should just
be able to insert ourselves intothat territory and be as
successful as we were here. Butevery time you make one new
strategic decision, so meeting anew need for a customer entering

(30:54):
a new geographical territory,coming out with a new product,
and or changing your price pointwould be some examples of
strategic changes in decisionmaking, is you're now opening
yourself up to a brand new groupof competitors, a new culture,
new customers, all sorts ofdifferent things. And I think
that people just don'tunderstand that once you do

(31:14):
that, like once you decide tonow okay, we sold silicone
rings, now we're going to sellsunglasses, there's consumers
behave differently, why they buysunglasses is different than the
way that they would have boughtyour product. Other competitors
in there are different. Theyknow consumers really well. And
so it opens you up to a newbatch. And people underestimate
that. And I think that that's ahuge problem from a strategic

(31:35):
perspective. Now, I think youlook at like the Procter and
Gamble's of the world that havedone product expansion
incredibly well with the brandsthat they own. And it's like, I
think that they understandstrategy very well. And they
understand how to enter a newnew market in a way with a new
product from the existing onethat they're already selling.

Mark (31:53):
Yeah. And there's like, two things I want to unpack out
of that snippet. I mean, forone, you mentioned TOMS Shoes,
expanding Well, into a differentcategory. But now I think that's
actually a good example. You sayit was? Well,

KC (32:10):
I think they expanded into sunglasses. I think the proof
would be in the pudding of TOMSShoes that it didn't go all that
well. Yeah, because that didn'tgo.

Mark (32:20):
So in Toms Shoes, Toms Shoes thought that they? Yeah,
they thought they had brandloyalty because they thought
that the people were buyingtheir shoes for a bigger reason
other than the shoes. Yep. whenreally it became a, I don't know
what you'd call it like a statussymbol. Right? That you're a
good person, I bought TOMSShoes, because I care about all

(32:41):
brands.

KC (32:42):
In Africa, all brands are status symbols. I want somebody
else to think this about me.
That's all of it. Yep, that'swhat

Mark (32:48):
exactly, but but their status symbol wasn't good enough
to branch out and try doing anew thing. And that happens
every time. So the Pandora's boxalso that you just talked about
of? There's always unintendedconsequences for every decision
ever, you know, the grass isn'talways greener, because that
grass has different problems. Soyou don't know what you're
actually getting into untilyou're you're in it. Right? And

(33:11):
my question is, when when brandsare trying to establish what
they do, how often for example,for k low? Did you guys talk to
customers to figure out and domarket research panels? How much
research went into a decision oftrying to launch a new product?
Or was it? Oh, hey, we did thisright. So this product makes

(33:32):
sense. Because oftentimes, wesee that companies don't really
do any research. It's reallyjust, hey, like, we talked to
some friends and like a fewcustomers told us to do this,
but there's not a real rigorouseffort to understand a
customer's decision making andif they could actually break
into that.

KC (33:51):
Yeah, so I would say we didn't do it. Well, we
definitely fell into thecategory of, hey, we've done
this well, not entirely of awe've done this well, so we
could do anything. I wasactually very cautious of that
like, like, hey, let's not fallinto this thinking like I've
we've seen plenty of companiesout there that think they could
put their logo on something andsell it. But for us, what I

(34:14):
would say we did a lot of wascustomer data and research. So
we would send out surveys and solike we released one product
that we released that actuallywas successful at kala which was
a departure but it was part of alarger vision that I don't think
ever got realized. But it wasreally silicone dog tags, like
customizable silicone dog tag.
Now people are like, rings tothat. Well, it's like we were

(34:35):
trying to go sort of allencompassing outdoors family
route was sort of the directionthat we were headed. So for us,
it kind of made sense. Inhindsight, and for a different
podcast, I probably would haveput it under a different brand,
but that's okay. So that's onething that we did really well
and so one way that one thingthat we did is we talked to our
customers, what percentage ofthe million and whatever email
subscribers we have, how many ofyou have dogs how Many of you

(34:58):
have kids, how many like so wekind of did customer research,
not that I wouldn't necessarilysay market research, we didn't
do a good job of marketresearch. But I would say we did
a decent job like we hired acompany to come in and basically
like, audit all of ourcustomers, who are customers,
why are they buying? What dothey care about? Who do they
follow. And so we did a lot ofexisting customer research,

(35:21):
because our strategy withexpansion was, if we can sell to
our existing audience, we'll dothat first and then sort of
branch out from there, probablyto try and increase the LTV of
existing customers, because wewere selling silicone wedding
rings that people didn't buy 20of. So I would say we did enough
to go, Okay, this is worth ashot. But we did not want.
Here's, here's one thing that Ididn't talk about. But Mark, you

(35:42):
brought it up in terms of likedifferentiation. So one thing I
think people don't realize, isthat initially, people buy
products to solve problems. Anda lot of times when you expand,
you think the problem is ourbrand wasn't there. And that's
the problem we're solving. Theywant our brand so much, that if

(36:03):
we put our brand there, thetheir their problem, these
customers problem is they wantour brand there so badly. And
it's not there. That's actuallythe problem we're solving. So
we'll just give them this crappypair of something. And they'll
buy it because our brandsattached to it. And I think at
the end of the day, like peoplebuy products to solve problems.
And I would say one of the bigthings that we underestimated in

(36:24):
product expansion was, how arewe solving a problem for
customers through this productthat is different than what is
already being solved in themarket. And I think customers
don't buy they choose. And theychoose based on differentiation.
And that's how people are ableto coexist within markets. And I
think we just didn't do a greatjob of going, oh, there's a very
specific problem here that wewant to try and solve.

Trevor (36:47):
Yeah, I think I spot I like that, you know, I think so
often, people, people go aboutfixing a, I'm trying to figure
out how I want to word this.
Sorry, guys, I just lost mytrain of thought I'll get back
to it.

Mark (37:06):
Well, I was gonna, I think you I think the train of thought
might be heading towards thismarketing to marketers, right?
Like, you get so caught up inwhat the C suite thinks that
your own company, yep. That youforget the needs and the
problems of consumers. Andpeople aren't thinking about you
all the time, like people thinkabout you or hardly ever they

(37:26):
think about themselves all day.

Trevor (37:29):
Totally. Well, not only not only that, but I think that
I think that customers putthemselves in communities that
they don't necessarilyunderstand that they are a part
of. And within the specificcommunities, there are different
ways to solve certain problems.
And so if you expand a specificproduct that would would take
you into a different community.

(37:53):
The current community of peoplethat you have aren't going to
buy it, even though it could besomething that they might want,
need or desire. But they'realready a part of another kind
of community of people who arebuying these types of things.
You know, we had a reallyinteresting conversation with on
the podcast with Chris Hall, whois the he's the head of

(38:15):
marketing for Bruce bolt. And hesaid, Hey, like, the reason why
Bruce bolt wins, is because wemarket it to an existing
community of people who justneeded something, you know,
whereas if they were to startto, let's say, they could,
because Bruce ball could say,Hey, we're sports. Let's go
create gloves for footballplayers. You know, we created

(38:38):
gloves for baseball players,let's create gloves for football
players. But they're they'reentering into a community of,
well, maybe there isn't abigger, maybe there's not a big
travel football community thatway, there's a really big travel
baseball community, becausethat's their community that they
serve, you know. And so it'sit's also you got to you got to

(38:58):
bring in the community aspect ofhow people buy as well, I think.

KC (39:03):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's like, anytime you're trying to
create something new in thecustomers minds, it's like,
like, it's a really difficultthing to do versus speaking to
what already exists in the mindsof your customers, which is sort
of the art of positioning, but Ilove the EECOM cowboy shout out
by the way. He's a great dude.

Trevor (39:18):
He was an absolute stud to have on the podcast.

Mark (39:22):
And all American senator So yeah, that's right.

KC (39:26):
so versatile.

Trevor (39:28):
He really was. He really was. Casey, how did you guys how
did you guys come up with likewe've talked a lot about I feel
like we not that we necessarilyskipped a step, but I want to
like jump back a little bitbecause we talked about you have
a product and the trouble or thechallenge of entering, you know,

(39:48):
creating new products andgetting your current existing
customers to buy it. Talk to usabout how you guys came up with
the kalo idea to launch just ingeneral. Just is just a new
product a new brand and ingeneral and solving a problem?

KC (40:05):
Yeah, sure, I wish it was a story riddled with genius. But I
don't think there was much of itthere. A lot of it was sort of
just a couple of guys trying tofigure figure something out and
solve a problem for ourselves.
So I think companies can dothemselves or founders can do
themselves a huge disservice bybeing the customer that you're
trying to solve problems for.
Now, that doesn't always happen.
But for us, it was a personalproblem that we had. So I for

(40:27):
people that entire context. Sowe created the silicone wedding
ring. So I married my wife in2012. And it's irrelevant to the
story. And about three monthsafter that my eventual business
partner, married his wife. Andso we were a couple of
newlyweds. We worked in arestaurant in Los Angeles, he
managed the restaurant and Isort of bartended and served at

(40:49):
it. And I had since beingmarried, I was super stoked to
wear a ring newlywed, I lovewhat a ring represents my wife's
the best. So I was super stokedto wear one. But I just found
myself taking a metal ring offall the time. And to be honest,
I didn't do market research, Ididn't go ask my 50 buddies,
like, what do they do with theirmetal rings, like that wasn't at

(41:11):
all what we did, I was justlike, man, it's a pain I took it
off to I would take it off towork out. And then I leave it in
my gym bag for three days. Orhonestly, I would break wine
glasses bartending with my ring,or I got a blood blister playing
golf. And I was like, Look, I'mnot, I'm not a professional
athlete, here. I'm not the mostactive guy in the world, but I
still do live life in a certainway. Like, this doesn't make any

(41:31):
sense, like, and I alwaysequated it to like, I'm not
going to go buy a Rolex, andthen just like wear it, mountain
biking, you know, like, it justdoesn't make sense. And so
people are changing shoes outfor different occasions, they're
changing watches out fordifferent occasions, maybe even
sunglasses out for very specificuse cases like so all of these
accessories, clothes, people arechanging all the time. But this

(41:52):
sort of represents this onething, that every bit that is
just a constant. Everybody'sjust wearing it. And so I was
like, Man, this doesn't makesense. But I wasn't really
planning on doing anything aboutit, to be honest with you. And
then my eventual businesspartner, Ted. One day in passing
at the restaurant, we startedtalking about wedding rings. And
he was like, Oh, I'm just notwearing one. And I was like, Oh,
really? And he's like, Yeah,I've been trying to like, look

(42:13):
for something else that I couldwear, because my wife wants me
to wear one. And I was like, oh,man, that's crazy. Like, I'm not
wearing one either. And it waslike, well, maybe there's, you
know, like, there's got to besomething else that we can wear.
And he had already been lookingfor it and stuff. And he's like,
I'm unable to find anything. Iwas like, well, let's go. We can
see if we can actually findanything we couldn't. We sort of
reconvened a week later. And wewere like, what if we did it?

(42:35):
And I have, you know, like theguys that started power balance.
My brother worked at powerbalance way back in the day. And
like, all controversy aside,zero, and they had zero
intention of becoming a becomingsir. I mean, the perception that
it did, and they're awesomedudes that started it. And so I
knew that they'd created asilicone band before and
everybody was wearing theseLIVESTRONG bands. And it was

(42:57):
like, together, we were like,what if we made it out of
silicone? Well, alright, yeah,that that should work. Why
wouldn't that work? Everybody'salready doing it. And so him and
I kind of looked at each other.
And it was like, Let's go forit, man. Like, why not? And my
goal was, I was making two granda month waiting tables, trying
to be an actor. And my goal waslike, Man, if I could replace
two grand a month, I would Icould, like, I'd be rich, like,

(43:19):
this is it? This is all I'mlike, I would be living the
dream. I was 2423 when I got2324 When I got married, and
then started Kayla at the sametime. So he had a friend in
town, who had a manufacturerthat that she was meeting with.
I think it was at the BeverlyHilton for her company. And he
basically my partner is like,let's just go crush it, we're

(43:39):
gonna go crush it. So we wentand sat down at this thing told
her Hey, we're gonna come sitdown. And she's like, Alright,
whatever. So we sat down,basically ambush the
manufacturer, we had gone toMarshalls and bought metal
wedding rings for like 20 bucks,just these examples of what we
wanted him to make slid therings across the table and said,
Hey, man, can you make these outof silicone? And he like, wasn't
even a silicone manufacturer.
But if you know anything aboutmanufacturing, a lot of times

(44:00):
it's like, yes, sure, we can dothat. And then they go figure it
out on the other side, whetheror not they actually can. And
there's like, Yeah, sure. Andit's like, okay, well, here's
the money we have, which isn'tmuch because we bootstrapped the
whole thing. And sure enough,but six weeks later, I was
driving over to his house, hisfamily's house, this
manufacturer, I was driving overto his house, giving him money
to get the first shipment ofrings over my partner went and I

(44:23):
think he sort of like, I don'tknow, whatever, it doesn't
matter. Now. I think, likeillegally got them from LAX,
like, and got our first bring,like, the rest is history. And
we built a website, a Shopifywebsite that we launched March 1
of 2013. And then kind of therest is history. So it was very
much back to the originalquestion of like problem solving

(44:44):
and market research for us. Wewere like, we were a couple of
dudes that lived active livesand a metal ring didn't make
sense. And we were like, Let'sjust try and solve this. We
didn't like econ was still veryyoung. We didn't know anything
about building websites aboutselling anything, but For us, it
was like we've got this problem.
Let's just try and figure outwho else in the world may have.
And also, and that sort of wasour growth strategy early on.

Trevor (45:07):
Dude, I love that. I think that there's such a
massive lesson in just solving aproblem for you because I like I
think a lot of times asindividuals and consumers, we
think that we are oftentimes inthe minority when it comes to
everyday problems. Right. Butwhen something is an everyday
problem, and you don't have anunusual lifestyle, right now, it

(45:33):
chances are, it's a it's aneveryday problem for a lot of
people. Right? Now, if it's justa if it's a one off problem from
time to time, that's adifferent, that's a different
story. That's I'm talking about,but yours, this is something
you're talking like, Hey, I gotthis every single day. Like
every day, I'm dealing withthis, you know, and I'm not I
don't have an unusual job whereI'm using my hands, right? Like,

(45:54):
yeah, I might be a bartender,but there's construction
workers, right? There areathletes, there are people who
are just lifting their golfersthere, you go on and on and on.
Like, I love the genesis of howthat started. Because sometimes,
product ideas and opportunitiesare so much more simplistic than

(46:17):
we think. And I actually likedhow you started the conversation
like, Hey, I wish there was amore brilliant story to this.
But like, to me, that's how someof the best best products are
ever started is there isn't abrilliant story to it. It was
just like, hey, I needed to fixto this.

Mark (46:31):
Yeah, dude. And the other thing I love about that story
is, is it shows how starting acompany is different than
running a company. So likestarting a product is very
different than running a companyand then trying to expand
because this is this is not thatstrange of a founder story. This
is generally what we find inDTC, most founders stories are I

(46:53):
had a personal problem. And thenI solved my personal problem.
And then they get caught upafter running a business and
figuring it out into they're notreally living a personal problem
anymore. They tried guessingwhat to do with their company
instead of going back to thebasics of what you said before.
So I liked this conversationbecause it kind of started on on
really the the progression oflike running the company. Now

(47:15):
we're back to the founding. Soif you're starting a company,
it's almost best just to thinkpersonal right? What problem can
I solve for myself or someoneclose to me? How do I make it as
real and tangible of a problemas possible? But then you start
running the company and you kindof become distant from that
problem. And then how do you goback into solving problems again

(47:37):
later in the business? And I'dlove to know from you after you
solve that problem. You startscaling kalo. We talked before
this podcast that you obviouslyyou're great at coaching because
you've coached up a bunch oflegends in the DTC space that
all started at kalo moved overto some of them moved over to
see to see some of them startedtheir own agencies like your

(47:59):
brother, Taylor holiday. Yougotta Casey or you got to go to
what is it Cody, Cody Winnick,and then

KC (48:07):
Andrew farriss Barris is Kayla. Yeah, some brilliant
minds. Yeah.

Mark (48:12):
So how did you build a team to continue to solve this
problem and scale it? Right,because this marketing team is
pretty pretty legendary. So howdid you do that? And establish
the foundation for all thesepeople to go off and be
successful by themselves.

Trevor (48:26):
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KC (49:56):
yet, truthfully, I think Kayla The entity should take way
more credit for theirdevelopment than me. I think I
what I did exceptionally wellwas provide them an environment,
that learning was encouraged andwe realized that we didn't have
it all figured out. And for themost part, we were a bunch of
young people that were kind ofjust each day at a time trying

(50:16):
to solve a new problem that theentity threw at us. And so the
the biggest credit I canprobably take for their
development is I started kaloand it provided that environment
for them. But like, guys, like Imean, my brother was a brilliant
mind before he came on board andplayed a huge role in the scale
of kalo on the marketing side,Andrew came on board in the
early days and learned paidmedia sort of in the trenches on

(50:40):
the front lines of kalo andCody, sort of an influencer
seating because we hadrelationships with athletes and
came in and took over how webuilt relationships with
athletes, which I think wasagain another superpower of
ours, that he played a role. Andand so I think, actually,
personally, I benefited and aswell as the entity benefited

(51:00):
more from those guys brilliancecoming in, and their ability to
solve problems quickly than theother way around. But I think a
lot of it early on was it wasthe early days of a lot of
things. And so there wasn't aplaybook. And I actually think
it's been really interesting, asI've spent more time on Twitter,
and even as I've coached CEOs,that I've kind of yo yoing back

(51:20):
and forth on how much templatespeople how much of a playbook
someone needs versus thedetriment of having a playbook.
And I think in the early days ofkalo, we didn't have a playbook,
we created it. And credit to mybrother and Andrew on the
marketing side very much. Socreating that playbook of how we
entered markets, how we spoke tocustomers, how we sold products,

(51:43):
how we ran ads, how we scaledquickly. And then I was very
much on building the team andthe team building side of
things. And I think that the theway that we were able to get
chalo out there and grow andlearn things really create an
environment where everybodydeveloped and grew. And it I

(52:04):
think led to a ton of oursuccess.

Trevor (52:07):
What are some of the so now you like what you're doing
now, like as we fast forward?
Like you are a you know, anexecutive coach, right? You
coach people on executive teamCEOs of businesses, what are
some of the problems that you'reseeing most of these
entrepreneurs, CEOs, executivesfacing? What what's what's also

(52:30):
a common thing that you'redealing with right now? Are you
seeing some commonalities?

KC (52:38):
Yeah, I think so I probably say going back to sort of the
playbook example, I just use Ithink a lot of people are
looking for the right answer tothings and they don't exist,
like there is no right answer tothings. And I think going back
again, more time on tour,everybody's looking for a
template, everybody's lookingfor a playbook ever. And it's
like, hey, every, every piece ofevery absolute, sort of, as we

(53:00):
talked about on Twitter shouldcome with, Hey, this is what
worked for me. But there's zeroguarantee it will work for you.
Right, it may actually be reallydetrimental for you to follow
the playbook. And so I thinkwhat everybody's looking for is,
what is this generalizedtemplate or playbook that will
give me all of the right answersthat I can just do and find the
success that you had. Andbusiness is the greatest game on

(53:25):
the planet. And it's the samething, like I equate a lot of
things to sports, you get in agame, you have a plan going into
a game, I think you should havea plan. And I think business
owners should have a plan we'vegotten people are so scared of
business plans. And it's likebecause it feels like a three
ring binder with 70 pages in itof things that are going to
change a month later. Yes,that's true. But I'd way rather
have a plan and find out it'swrong than not have one at all.

(53:49):
So I think you should have aplan going in. But the second
the whistle is blown in a sportsgame. One guy gets hurt. You
realize this matchup you thoughtwas going to be a benefit and
advantage is now a disadvantage.
Like you just learn things asyou go. And there's no formulaic
template that you can plug intoyour business that's going to
give you the right answers. AndI think living and existing and
uncertainty for CEOs issomething you have to get really

(54:13):
comfortable with. And I thinkthat's why a lot of people don't
want to become entrepreneurs, alot of entrepreneurs realize,
oh, shoot, this isn't exactlywhat I thought it was all
cracked up to be. Because thereisn't a silver bullet. There
isn't a playbook there isn't atemplate. And I think one thing
it kalo in the early daysbecause it was early days of
Facebook marketing. It was forlike brands obviously had been
built for hundreds of years. Butlike it was sort of a different

(54:34):
way of doing it through paidmedia like there was no
playbook. And now if you look ata lot of what my brother is
doing through CTC, what Andrewis doing through his consulting
and what he did through CTCthrough a while what Cody is
doing is they're going, Hey,here's a playbook. And they're
trying their best to try andgive people resources. And I
think they would tell youthere's no exact playbook that's
going to work for everything buthere's resources and tools that

(54:56):
will help you come to thedecisions that are right for
you. business, but I think a lotof CEOs are looking for somebody
to tell them what the rightanswer is. And even through my
coaching, a lot of people willhire me and go, I was just
expecting you to tell me what todo. And I said, No, no, I help
you. I help provide you contextfor the decisions that need to
be made. And then you make them.

(55:17):
And then we ensure on the otherside, that the decision we made
was the right one. We don't getmad at ourselves thinking that
oh, that wasn't that was thatwasn't the right decision.
You've got two forks in theroad, you choose one and you do
everything you can to ensurethat was the right decision that
you made based on all of theother behaviors and execution
that you have in your business.
But I think that's one thingthat I would say it's like,

(55:37):
especially people that are liketrying to make a quick buck, or
trying to order to scale thiscompany really fast, is they
think that there's this playbookand there's not then they get
themselves into a lot oftrouble.

Mark (55:47):
Yeah. Can I? Can I ask you a question? Please? Let's first
draw. Let's draw a parallel tomusic. Do you like music? I do.
I do like Rick Rubin.

KC (55:59):
I've gotten a lot of recruitment comments because of
the trailer that I work out of.
But apart from that I'm notsuper familiar with. Like, I
know the name, I know the name.
I'm getting exposed here on thepodcast, but keep going.

Mark (56:11):
Well, you know, he's a, he's a famous record producer.
He's clearly won tons ofGrammys, and he has a similar
philosophy, right with workingwith musicians. And I think what
you've exposed here aboutentrepreneurship, and running a
business is that it's reallymore of a creative role than it
is a templated role, right?
You're not a specialized worker,if you're an entrepreneur,

(56:33):
you're you're, you're creatingsomething, you're creating a
business. It's kind of a living,breathing thing. And if you look
at music, Jimi Hendrix like EricClapton, all of these legends
are self taught. It's not likethey they went and sat down and
got taught it. I mean, yes, theyhad people to help them along
the way. I'm not saying they dideverything by themselves. They
had coaches, right, like you.

(56:55):
But ultimately, it was somethingthat they were creating along
the way it and experimentingwith and trying to figure it
out, the Beatles spent years inGermany, just figuring things
out. Yeah, there

KC (57:07):
was a right where they would go play every night in Germany
playing right?

Mark (57:12):
Yeah, yeah, just had a bar in Germany. And so they didn't
have this template to become whothe Beatles are that we think
of. Right, it was a form of artand creativity. And it helps to
have someone like you come alongand expose that for people and
bring them back to the basis ofYes, like music, there are

(57:32):
foundational principles of musicthat you need to follow, or at
least as a guide rail of how youcreate it. But ultimately, we
are experimenting and creating,and trying to make something
that people relate to and canidentify with, and ultimately
purchase, vote with theirdollars. So in order to do that,

(57:54):
you can't just come in and belike, Oh, I'm just going to
follow this template or copythis other company, and
everything's going to be gravy.
It's it is a work in process allthe time. And so when you coach
people, and they realize this,I'm sure some of them have had
some, like deer in theheadlights looks when you're
like, oh, actually, no, I'm notgoing to solve all your
problems. I'm going to help yoube creative about your problems.
What's the how do you get thosepeople to, to get into a state

(58:17):
of mind of being more creativeabout their business and how
they're solving problems?

KC (58:25):
Yeah, well, I'll tell you, it's a terrible sales pitch to
tell people I'm not going tosolve their problems for them.
Right, like, you know, so thatdoesn't always go over well in
the first conversation. But Ithink here's what I would say I
a lot of the so I, mainly who Icoach are sort of seven figure
founders, meaning like CEOs ofseven figure businesses, or
founders of seven figurebusinesses that are kind of

(58:45):
going like, Hey, I'm starting torealize that companies don't
starve they drown. Because inthe early days, it's very much
like, oh, my gosh, is a customerever gonna buy my product I'm
never going to eat. And thenactually, what happens is
companies start eating. And thenthey start realizing, Oh, this
is getting bigger than me. Andnow I feel like I'm drowning.
And so that's kind of that'sthat shift happens. But what I

(59:06):
find a lot of times is to yourpoint there, I love what you
talked about. And I would sortof see those the differentiation
for those in business strategyand execution. So I think that
there are principles of businessjust like there are principles
of music that you need tofollow, because that's just how
it's done. And it's been donefor 1000s of years. And that

(59:27):
those are like the fundamentals.
But it's what you do outside ofthose fundamentals that make you
unique and make you differentand help you sort of win as a
musician, right, the creativeelement of it. And so what I
often was like my process ofworking with a CEO, is the first
thing I do is I lift up everyrock, so I'll do like a
performance assessment. Somebodymay call it like an audit,

(59:48):
sometimes audit scare people,but it basically you go like, I
gotta get inside your head.
That's the that's the firstthing I can do. And I almost
operate like as if you arehiring a Chief of Staff. It's
like You've got to be anextension to me, I want to be an
extension of you. And I want tolift up every rock and find
every problem that you'reprobably too close to
acknowledge exists or you'repretending doesn't exist. So you

(01:00:12):
may not know it, you may belike, that's a hard thing for me
to confront with team building,maybe I have the wrong people,
gosh, that scary, all uncoveredthat for you. And I'll go
through this process. And I'llrealize which of the principles
and or fundamentals of thebusiness they're missing,
because until you have those,you cannot elevate yourself
outside of them to thinkcreatively about how it is that

(01:00:35):
you're going to win. And so theexecution side to me is like,
you've got to have a forecast,in direct to consumer, because I
guess that's more of theaudience, right? You've got to
have a product calendar, you'vegot to have the marketing
calendar associated with it,you've got to have a financial
forecast, you have to have ademand plan for inventory. And
then you've got to understandthe people that are going to
help you fulfill all of theseneeds, right? So that's kind of

(01:00:57):
like, which of these do youhave? And there's other business
things like, Do you haveoperating agreements and things
like that, but that's like it.
But it's like, I can't sit withyou. And think creatively about
how we win. If you are answeringcustomer service emails today,
or you don't have a financialforecast of that's telling you
how much you should spend onpaid ads next month. Like if you
don't have any kind of roadmap,like I can't do much to help

(01:01:21):
you. But the strategy side ofit, which is a little bit comes
before the exit, I mean, itneeds to come before the
execution. But I think it's asort of a moving target. So
where I say I said earlier islike people I think
fundamentally misunderstandstrategy strategy is it's a,
it's your best guess at how youwin. That's what strategy is.
And it's a collection of choicesthat you make to differentiate

(01:01:42):
yourself in a market and providesuperior performance to your
competitors. That's whatstrategy is. And if you don't
know how you're gonna win thegame, like all of the other
stuff is also worthless. So youkind of need to go through this
initial exercise of like, how isit that we're going to win? How
are those decisions reflected inour plan? Let's make sure we
have that plan. And then let'sstep a step out and figure out

(01:02:03):
what's wrong with our strategy,what's right about our strategy,
what's wrong with our strategy,and then you kind of advanced
forward doing it that way. Andso that's my process of working
with CEOs. But on the strategyside, kind of, like you said,
that's, I would say, that's thecreative side, because that's
actually how you win. Likecreating a plan and executing on
a plan is not how you win. But aplan is comfortable, a plan
makes me feel safe. If I if Ihave a plan, like if my if I

(01:02:26):
were going on vacation, I've gota plan for every day, I feel
like I'm somewhat in control ofthe environment, right. And I
think a lot of people are like,that's what I need. And I want
that and gotta have this plan,but they don't have it. And so
that's why they feel a bit outof whack. But I think to your
point, Mark is like where areyou when it's on the strategy
side? So that's why are youmeeting these needs for these
customers? Why are you chargingthis amount? Why are you

(01:02:47):
acquiring customers that way,and that's the creative side.
And that's actually how you winand to credit. My team at kalo
and the Andrews of the world, mybrother and all of the other
team members that I had thatwere incredibly valuable. We
early on said this is how we'regoing to win. And then we went
hard after it. And that was sortof the creativity of kale and

(01:03:09):
how I think we found success.
And I think it's the combinationof those two things, the
principles and the fundamentals,as well as a clear understanding
of how you win, but how you winis scary, because it's your best
guess. And investing your time,money and inviting other people
into something and paying fortheir lives and their families.
Under this umbrella of somethingthat I think is going to work is

(01:03:31):
incredibly scary. But that'salso why it's the most fun game
in the world.

Trevor (01:03:35):
Yeah. What what I loves fascinating what I love about
every podcast, there's always Imean, there's been obviously
there's been dozens of nuggetsin the podcast, but to me, like,
the biggest nugget. And takeawayis that like we live in a, we
live in an immediate, like aworld full of immediacy, right,
which is like, I need this donefor me. Now. I want the results

(01:03:58):
now. And I think that's what'shappening, right? Especially on
social media, you have so manysocial media gurus who are
creating the courses and thebusiness plans and these things
that are templatized to everybusiness, and you can you can
buy him for $29 and you can buyhim for $29,000 and everybody
has something different I'm notI'm not knocking on courses at

(01:04:19):
all, because I think courses canadd a lot of them can be great,
right? I'm gonna get personal,but the thing is, is no, there's
no one idea for a DTC businessthat helps them all succeed or
else every single DTC businesswould be crushing it, you know,
and so, or any business at thatmatter is so what I'm loving

(01:04:42):
about this conversation isunderstand what you said which
is the fundamentals and theprinciples, right. You know, a
understanding your uniteconomics that is just a
fundamental to business, right,and you can, you can get a
pretty laid out detailedtemplate of how to understand
that Right, and how tounderstand that your how your
cogs fitted, and youracquisition costs and your

(01:05:03):
lifetime value, like you canunderstand those principles. But
at the end of the day, what itis going to take is just you
getting in the trenches, andtrying to figure it out. And
what you said was your bestguess, right? This is my best
guess, on how we're going to doit. And so that's what that's
the importance of a good leaderis being able to go in and lead
that charge while understandingthe fundamentals and principles

(01:05:24):
along the side. So I love that.

KC (01:05:27):
It's making bold choices.
And I think like, the greatestexample I have of this, like,
whether you agree with it ornot, is if you look at the
collection of really successfulCEOs over the years, they have
made one or two bold decisions,either when they've started the
company or when they've takenthe helm. So for instance,
again, whether you agree with itor not, when Elon took over
Twitter, what did he do?

(01:05:49):
drastically changed the cultureand made bold choices about what
they were going to do. And guesswhat he's saying, may fail. But
I'd rather I would way ratherplace my own bets than place no
bets at all, and try and ride onsomebody else's bets that they
made. And I think you'd look atthis with Steve Jobs when he
came in took over Apple again, Ithink you look at Henry Ford in

(01:06:10):
the early days, like a lot ofpeople think Henry Ford. He's
like the guru of all things, alot of things a lot of people
don't understand Henry Fordhired a CEO named James Couzens,
that actually built Ford. And hestayed in the warehouse and the
manufacturing of the carsbecause that's where his
superpower was. And he said, Irecognize this. And I fully
acknowledge that this is wheremy I am best, a best resource

(01:06:32):
for my entity. And I'm going tohire James cousins to run the
business. And that's how it allworked. And then after a certain
amount of years, the story isthat he got jealous with cousins
fired him and then tanked Fordin his grandson came and saved
it. But like a lot of peopledon't understand that's a bold
choice by by somebody that's astalented as Henry Ford was in
starting Ford Motors, right,like so these are bold choices.

(01:06:53):
And it's like you, as a CEOstrategically have to make these
bold choices. But a lot ofpeople haven't. A lot of people
and this is this is where DTCgets in trouble in trouble,
Trevor is some people canactually find success, just
following gurus advice to acertain point. But
sustainability is how you win inbusiness. And what you find is a

(01:07:15):
lot of DTC brands becomeunsustainable, because the way
that they've built things wasnot through strategic thinking
and sustainability, thinking oforganic growth, all of these
things, everybody wants amicrowave, nobody wants an oven.
Right. And it's the same thingwith DDC. So you can create some
success in the first one or twoyears paid media, paid media

(01:07:35):
paid media, but then you've got98% of your traffic, everyone's
coming from paid media. Now allof a sudden, your CPMs change,
your acquisition costs change,or the iOS rules change. And now
all of a sudden, Facebook is anoh, shoot, now the business is
done. Right? Because I kind ofjust followed this one playbook
and this one game plan versuslong term thinking and business
building. And I try and helpCEOs view their business not

(01:07:57):
through the lens of today, butthrough the lens of sort of what
is the next one to three yearslook like for you? And how do we
ensure that you're still here?
because not a lot of companiessell. But a lot of CEOs have
built a ton of wealth by havinga company that's profitable.
Yeah.

Mark (01:08:11):
Oh, yeah. And, and I think a lot of what you're saying, I
just watched The Revenant forthe first time last week. So
nice. I think I think it'sinteresting to think about it
this way, right? You can a lotof explorers back then or
frontiers men weren't reallyexperts at what they did and
didn't know how to think ofthings creativity, like they

(01:08:31):
just like pushed the boundaries.
Right. But an explorer like HughGlass, right? But the a lot of
those people wouldn't survive ifthey got attacked by a bear.
They'd be dead. Right? Yeah, butBut Hugh Glass did survive. And
why did he survive? It's becausehe could think creatively once
the actual problem arose aboutliving in the wilderness, right?

(01:08:53):
Like, oh, it is dangerous. Oh, IYes. Like I know how to navigate
it. And I know there's bearshere. But now I'm now I'm
bleeding to death. And I gottafind a way to like, heal myself
and throw maggots on my openwounds and eat bark and crawl
and, and make it back to surviveanother day. And that that takes
creativity. I mean, Picasso isalso a really interesting

(01:09:17):
example of this, right? He wasclaimed he was trained in
classical realism as an artistjust like everyone else in his
age, but he eventually had tomake a bold and creative
decision of exploring abstractart. And that's why everyone
knows him today. And so manyentrepreneurs think that they
have to have their Picassomoment up like right at the

(01:09:38):
beginning, and they're not goingto have that moment right at the
beginning. It's going to takethe foundations, they're going
to get hit by a bear along theway, they're gonna realize it's
way harder than you think it isto actually live out there in
the forest of entrepreneurship.
But if you can supply them withthe right tools and the right

(01:09:58):
mindset, they're going to beable to survive and get back and
then succeed and grow, like yousaid they can get as far as they
can with a guru. And that'sgreat. But eventually a bear is
going to come out and hit you.
And then what do you do? I likeit.

KC (01:10:12):
Yeah, I think I think you're right. It's it's the capacity to
solve problems and do itcreatively. You know, I think
that's really what it comes downto. And that can be scary. And
you're right, there's a lot ofbears that exist out there. So I
think you're spot on, dude, Ilove how you bring sort of like,
the creative artistic elementinto a lot of the business
building side of things, man,like, I think you're absolutely

(01:10:33):
right. I think it's businessbuilding is way more of an art
form than it is a science. And Ithink that that's few people
understand that. And they'retrying to science and
systematize and process driveeverything. And it just there's,
there's no right answers thatexist out there for you to go
find. You have to just go createthem. And a lot of times success
is measured in like inhindsight, right? It's like, you

(01:10:55):
know, when somebody's making it,there's probably a ton of
critics out there that aretelling them, they're an idiot.
And then 10 years later, they'relooking back on like, I always
said, That person was a genius.
And I knew those decisions wereright. Monday morning,
quarterback of it all. And it'slike, that's why it takes a lot
of courage to make decisionsthat few people agree with in
the in the, in the now in theimmediate, but at the same time,
a lot of them fail, a lot ofthem succeed. But that's kind of
part of the game and why yousort of have to see it that way.

Trevor (01:11:18):
Totally agree, man.

Mark (01:11:19):
Did this is my question and my question for you then
start wrapping this up, asyou're thinking about what we've
learned from you working outthere? What creative tool set?
Do you think entrepreneurs needto start looking at? To navigate
the next five years, we have newplatforms are rising? Right? We

(01:11:40):
have everything happening?
What's the principle that youthink entrepreneurs need to
focus on with marketing?

KC (01:11:49):
So I would say as we've seen, there has been a new
there's there's fads, and we'rehumans are A, we're a fickle
being. And even like, this ishow this conversation started,
where it's like, we haveTwitter, and somehow everybody
runs to threads, which is reallyjust Twitter with a mask on,
right? Like, for the most part,it's like it, but everybody runs

(01:12:11):
to this next new thing. Andbecause social media, it's like,
it just loves to beat thingsover our head. So we all kind of
follow it. And it's like, ifyou've ever been to like a
little kid soccer game, like,that's kind of what it is. And I
try my best to understand, like,I try my best to be the kid
that's not chasing after theball, you know, and it's like,

(01:12:34):
maybe there's the one kid andmaybe they don't care about
soccer. But for me, I try and bethe kid that's out there. That's
kind of like waiting for theball to pop out from the mob. So
I can go score it. And so what Imean by that is, I think it's
important as marketers that weunderstand the tools that are
coming out, and how people areutilizing them to be more

(01:12:55):
effective. And efficiency andeffectiveness. For me, I have a
take on where I think billiondollar companies should be
efficient. I think smallcompanies should be effective.
And another podcast where I cango into that. But basically what
I think I think it's reallyvaluable to understand why
everybody's running their chat,GBT is an example. Right? Why
Brady's running there, what thatball is, how it could help me.

(01:13:20):
But then stay on the outsidewhere it's like, I also want to
stay true to the principles thatare not shaken by waves of fads
coming and going. And so what Ithink still remains true.
Regardless of the amount of AI,regardless of the amount of
tools is that? People, buildcompanies, and people bring

(01:13:45):
creativity to companies. Like ifyou go ask chat GBT to tell you
funny jokes and to be reallycreative. That's still a
superpower. And an advantagethat humans will, I believe,
always hold over technology. AndI think that as you move
forward, I would encouragepeople to be the little kid

(01:14:07):
that's standing outside of themob chasing the soccer ball
waiting for that ball to pop outto figure out how they can use
it to go score goal, throughprinciples and through things
that remain to be truth. Whileall sort of these fads come up
and down, if that makes sense.
And I would say at the end ofit, it's like, I give me the
best person over the best toolevery day of the week. And I

(01:14:29):
think that we are obsessed,because we are trying to build
companies in ways where marginis squeezed and we're spending a
ton on paid and all of this andop X is reducing down to five to
10% to build successful ecommerce companies. And I don't
know that I necessarilysubscribe to that line of
thinking. And I would say thatthe greatest advantage that I
think you can give your companyis an incredible human that can

(01:14:50):
solve problems creatively withyou, but also with you
understand how to use the toolsthat are being presented and
that come out Every year sowe're every, every sort of
preceding year over the nextfive. So

Trevor (01:15:06):
awesome data. I love that that was gonna be I was
gonna ask a question that wasgoing to elicit a very similar
response. So I won't, I won'task my, my question. So I
appreciate it. Casey, thank youso much, dude, for your time
this has been. This has beensuper awesome. I love I love
where we started. I love alreadyended. And your insights have

(01:15:28):
been great. Where can peoplefind you to continue outside of
the podcast to get more insightslike this from you?

KC (01:15:35):
Sure. Yeah. So as we mentioned earlier on across all
platforms on at its it s Casey,just the two letters Casey
holiday, it's Casey holidayacross all social platforms. So
follow like, subscribe, do allthe good things. And then if you
want to go to my website andsubscribe to my newsletter,
which is the underdogentrepreneur, which I write
every week, sort of I started acompany with zero experience. So

(01:15:58):
I kind of considered myself anunderdog. So that's where the
newsletter name comes from, wastrying to help other people, oh
my gosh, try to help otherpeople that aren't necessarily
that aren't necessarily feellike they're experts, building
companies. And that's just atCasey holiday.com. And you can
also find out about my coachingand how I help CEOs and things
like that, that

Trevor (01:16:16):
to solid. Appreciate it.
Thanks so much. What was a lotof fun. Well, thank you, man. We
appreciate it. We appreciateyour time. We appreciate all the
listeners. You know, pleaseplease go and rate and
subscribe. Let us know how youfeel about the podcast. The
Good, the Bad, the Ugly, we wantto hear it. And we will see you
guys next week. Thank you somuch for listening to the

(01:16:38):
unstoppable Marketer Podcast.
Please go rate and subscribe thepodcast whether it's good or
bad, we want to hear from you.
Because we always want to makethis podcast better. If you want
to get in touch with me or giveme any direct feedback. Please
go follow me and get in touchwith me. I am at the Trevor
Crump on both Instagram andTiktok thank you and we will see

(01:16:58):
you next week.

All Episodes

Ditch The "Playbooks" and Start Solving Problems Creatively | Special Guest KC Holiday former CEO of QALO

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ditch The "Playbooks" and Start Solving Problems Creatively | Special Guest KC Holiday former CEO of QALO