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December 26, 2024 58 mins

In this episode of The Unstoppable Marketer, hosts Trevor Crump and Mark Goldhardt sit down with Curtis Matsko, founder of Portland Leather Goods, the fastest-growing leather bag company in North America. Curtis shares his incredible journey—from selling journals at art festivals to building a $100M+ e-commerce empire. He dives into the challenges of scaling a business, the power of customer insights, and why being adaptable in marketing is key to long-term success.

Curtis explains how focusing on hero products, refining processes, and making bold decisions propelled his company to the top. Whether you’re a small business owner, marketer, or e-commerce entrepreneur, this episode is packed with actionable insights to help you level up your business.

Guest Bio:
Curtis Matsko is the founder and CEO of Portland Leather Goods, the largest leather bag manufacturer in North America. Starting in 2015 with handmade journals, Curtis quickly transitioned to scaling his business by focusing on marketing strategies and operational efficiency. With a background rooted in direct-to-consumer marketing, Curtis grew his company into a $150M powerhouse and continues to share his insights to inspire entrepreneurs worldwide.

Key Timestamps:

  • [3:25] – How Curtis’s authentic marketing approach skyrocketed growth.
  • [7:23] – What selling in-person taught him about online marketing.
  • [15:08] – The transition from journals to hero products and scaling up.
  • [34:09] – Why knowing your numbers is critical for problem-solving.
  • [48:14] – The importance of tackling big problems immediately.

#UnstoppableMarketer #CurtisMatsko #EcommerceTips #SmallBusinessGrowth #MarketingStrategy #ScalingBusiness #Entrepreneurship #BrandBuilding #PortlandLeatherGoods #DirectMarketing #MarketingMindset

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.
Curtis Matsco (00:00):
When I started in 2015-16, I looked online.
There were five great realleather bag companies in the US
and I'm like, wow, I want to belike these guys All five
bankrupt.
And what I found out was theirproblem is they had enough
success from 2005 or 2008 or2010 to 2017.

(00:20):
And then, when things got rough, they tried to do more and more
of the same thing.
They would say it's been sosuccessful.
We have a 10 year history ofsuccess.
Why wouldn't we do more of that?
Because it's not working becauseyou're you're going bankrupt
because you have a bunch ofloans that you cannot pay off
because you are not profitable.
That's how you know, but theycan't justify that in their

(00:43):
minds.
They're like this is what ourcustomers want.
We have to do this Time to moveon.

Trevor Crump (00:51):
Yo, what's going on everybody?
Welcome to the UnstoppableMarketer Podcast.
With me, as always, is myco-host, mark Goldhart.
Mark, how are you doing today?

Mark Goldhart (01:00):
I'm doing great, I'm well, I'm excited,
especially for this guest.

Trevor Crump (01:06):
I know it's been a minute since we've had a guest.
We've been kind of going justsolo, diving really deep into
tactics and tactics lately, andso not that we're not going to
do that today potentially, butI'm really excited for our guest
, yeah me too.
Let's introduce him.
We've got Curtis from PortlandLeather Goods on the podcast
with us today.

(01:26):
Portland Leather Goods, justFYI is the big he just said this
line before we started talkingthe biggest leather bag company
in the world.

Curtis Matsco (01:36):
Yes, Not even close.
Fastest, what I said is thefastest growing leather bag.
Sorry, sorry.

Trevor Crump (01:41):
Fastest growing.
That is what I meant.
I said that in my head.
But the largest manufacturer inNorth America.

Curtis Matsco (01:48):
Yeah, we have a place called the Studio, and we
named it that because it seemslike a small name.
But then it grew, grew, grew.
We're the largest leather bagmanufacturer in North America.

Trevor Crump (01:58):
Incredible man.
Well, thank you for joining.
We really appreciate it.
We were just talking.
I found you on LinkedIn.
Thank you for joining.
We really appreciate it.
We were just talking.
I found you on LinkedIn.
You've kind of been more activeas of pretty recent.
I feel like maybe within thelast 12 months or are you just
showing up in my feed?

Curtis Matsco (02:17):
No, no, no, you couldn't find me 12 months ago.
Not anything, it's nothing likeno pictures of me.

Trevor Crump (02:22):
So what inspired you?
To start creating content?

Curtis Matsco (02:28):
You know, we had some people we were going to do
some videos for I can't evenremember what and we got all the
fancy gear and had someone tryto shoot some stuff for us and
it was just a failure.
But in one of the breaks myassistant, Mariana, sat down
next to me as they're trying toget the cameras and the speakers
Right, and after the threehours, the five minutes of us

(02:49):
just talking to each other wasmagical.
So I just set my MacBook downand set it in my house in the
morning.
She sits up in the window nextto me and we just talked and all
of a sudden we just gotthousands and thousands of
people saying I love your videos.
It's authentic, it's real andyou know, we grew from a garage

(03:11):
to where we are today in eightyears and there's a lot of
breakthroughs, there's a lot ofchanges you had to do and what I
found out is, when I told mystory like the true story of how
things really worked, it reallystruck with some people.
I'm not here to tell the storythat everybody's going to catch
on to.
I'm going to tell the story ofwhat it really takes to build a

(03:32):
brand Because, yes, I own thelargest leather bag manufacturer
in North America.
I do not really consider myselfa manufacturer.
I'm a marketer.
I'm an online direct marketerand I created these products to
sell.
And I could hire amanufacturing to do it, but I
would pay different margins,have different speed, have
different logistics Everythingwould be.

(03:52):
I created this because it makesmarketing more effective
Totally.
But everything I do is from amarketing mindset.
I'm almost unstoppable in termsof marketing.

Trevor Crump (04:00):
I love it.
I dig it Unstoppable.
There's no pun intended, okay.
So let's jump into the story alittle bit.
Tell us a little bit how yougot started in this space.
Like what?
What started the whole thing?

Curtis Matsco (04:14):
I was doing a lot of yoga with a young lady in
2015, 2016, in Portland, Oregon.
She had a really bad job and Iwanted to hang out with her more
.
So I said hey, why don't youquit your job?
She's like I can't quit my job.
You know, it's just gotgraduated college, got her first
job.
It sucked.
And she said what will I do ifI quit my job?

(04:35):
And I said oh, I have nevertold you I'm a marketing genius.
No, you're not.
You're obviously the laziestman I've ever met.
You don't even have a job.
And I said no, no, no.
And I made I went handmade alittle leather journal and I
said this is what we're going tosell.
We can grow this to 100 million.
And she's like she was juststupid enough to quit her job.

(04:55):
And we started at art festivalsand we literally went from
5,000 to 10,000 to 20 in aweekend, to some weekends we
were doing 40,000 in a weekend.
Jeez.

Mark Goldhart (05:08):
And then we went on in Etsy.

Curtis Matsco (05:11):
In 18 months we became a top 10 all time seller.

Trevor Crump (05:15):
Wow, and what year was that with Etsy Two?

Curtis Matsco (05:19):
16, 17.
Okay, and then we went onShopify and I remember our first
year on Shopify getting off ofEtsy.
On Black Friday we did one sale, and this last Black Friday we
did a sale with an average ordervalue of $123 every three
seconds.
Jeez.

Trevor Crump (05:40):
Congrats.

Curtis Matsco (05:42):
Yeah.

Mark Goldhart (05:43):
Wild congrats.
So yeah, wild.
So.
So at first it was just etsyarts festivals, farmers markets,
all around the portland areayeah, yeah, and you know, not
really farmers markets andthat's a little marketing thing.

Curtis Matsco (05:56):
You'd be in a marketing guy.
You got to go where people wantto buy and have money.
It's not just where people are,but going to an art festival,
they were in a different mindsetof buying, and then people are
selling.
But going to an art festival,they were in a different mindset
of buying, and then people areselling paintings next to you
for $1,000.
So when you're sellingsomething for $30, $40, $100,
they just load it up.
Does that make sense?
So it really matters, just likein marketing online.
Where are you and who's youraudience?

(06:17):
100%, that's so important.
You can't go to a state fairjust because they're 50,000
people and expect to sell whatwe were selling.
They want garbage there.
They don't want to spend themoney.
They spent the money to get inAn art festival.
I'm telling you, oh, it'sbeautiful.
You sit in a park.
You got your little white thingpretty.
People walk by, they all lookgood, they're all drinking wine

(06:39):
in a good mood.
You sit in a lawn chair andpeople just hand you cash all
day.
I'm telling you, that wasbeautiful.
Still, one of my favoritethings we've ever done in this
company is just sit on abeautiful fall day and have
people come and hand us money,Just raking cash huh.
I loved it, just absolutelyloved it.
How cool Then I loved Etsy,then I loved Shopify, then I
loved each step.
If you don't love each step,you're screwed Totally, but if

(07:01):
you don't move on from everystep, you're also screwed.

Mark Goldhart (07:04):
You know I love that you actually sold directly
to customers at one point.
I think a lot of e-commercebrands have never sold their
product directly to a personbefore.
I'd love to hear what you thinkyou learned through that
process of selling directly tosomebody face to face that
helped translate over into thedigital world.

Curtis Matsco (07:23):
Yeah, that is a really great question.
Thank you.
There is nothing like being in.
I'm a competitive person, I'm amarketing guy, right, and I've
spent all this time making thesebeautiful handmade leather
products.
And then people would walk intothe tent and the first thing is
it's just like e-commerceWhere's the traffic flow?
We were different than everybodyelse at these art festivals.

(07:43):
Some people had a permanentsetup that looked identical
every time.
I would set mine up and afterone hour of a three-day festival
, I would see where the sun was,where people are going, where's
the traffic, and I would switchthe whole booth, break it down
and set it back up, and then Iwould do it again and again
until by noon, the right flow ofpeople were coming in.

(08:04):
They were staying here's wherethey're buying.
That's where they first caughttheir attention.
What's getting them in, what'skeeping them in, where's the
line, everything like that.
So I looked at it and then Ialso face to face, if someone
said I love this and they walkedout and they didn't buy it, I
said what the hell am I doingwrong?

Trevor Crump (08:19):
Right.

Curtis Matsco (08:20):
That is an insult , right?
You can't do that online.
You just see a number come inso you can actually ask the
people what is it?
What is it that you didn't like?
What is it?
So?
The price is that this you know,I would create gimmicks just to
see if they would work.
Sure, I would take a uh, thesesmall journals we did, and I'd
say one for 40, two for 60,three for 50.

(08:43):
You're like what?
That makes no sense.
And I'm like, oh well, guess Igot the honor of the deal and
we're lines of people that'shauling up.
We just have stacks and stacksand stacks.
Because what happens when youdo that?
You need to make a lot more ofthose leather journals, right?
So now you have to do aproduction up.
Now you have to sell more.

(09:03):
You have to.
Selling to people in person iscritical.
It's the same thing you doonline.
But we can have a millionpeople come through our, our
site.
You know we get three, fourmillion a month and at that
point they just become a number.
Sure, you talk to one personand it it hits you as a
different thing.
So I think it was very criticalfor our growth.

(09:27):
It's also what I knew at thatparticular time, but it also
told me a product had to bebetter.
That's part of it.
Here's the stupid thing.
I made it.
I'm an idiot.
I don't know how to make things, so I had to get people who are
better at it than me.
I had to become the marketingmind and people who are better
had to make it.
I knew that because I wasputting together journals in my

(09:48):
garage and I hired this younglady part time and I would make
a stack like this tall, and herswas like five times taller and
better.
And I'm like wait, maybe myspecialty is not making handmade
journals, maybe it's sellingthem Totally, maybe it's going
on to Etsy, maybe it's Shopify.
Maybe it's selling them, maybeit's going on to Etsy, maybe
it's Shopify, maybe it's thescaling, Maybe it's the full
thing.
We do everything.

(10:08):
We actually buy the hides fromthe US, pay for them to bring
them to go to the taproom.
We control this thing frombeginning to end.
Right, yeah, we manufacturethem, we send them, we do the
customer service, we havein-house marketing, we have our
own photographer studio, we doour own videos.
We do everything right, andthat way we just make a little
bit of money on each one andbecome more efficient.

(10:29):
We can move faster because it'sall in-house and we just grow
from there.
But I want everyone tounderstand we're a marketing
company.
Marketing first.

Trevor Crump (10:39):
That's it.
Why do you think that's?
I've heard you say this before,you've said it a couple of
times.
Why do you think that's?
I've heard you say this before,you've said it a couple times.
Why do you think that's a veryimportant thing for everybody
who's listening to this tounderstand?

Curtis Matsco (10:49):
I was in Tulum last week and I was talking to a
young lady who has a $2 millioncompany and she's a designer.
She got into business becauseshe designs jewelry, right.
And now she's seven years inand she's built, built it to me,
but she's having troublescaling to the next thing.
And she's like, yeah, next yearwhen I'm designing, and I'm

(11:10):
like, get out of the designingmindset.
Do you own this company?
Are you the head of this?
Yes, then get out of designing.
Why?
Because she's designing thenext thing she thinks is really
pretty.
I said do you have abest-selling product?
Yes, well, on your website, youdamn well.
I said do you have abest-selling product?
Yes, well, on your website, youdamn well.
Better, put that first, becauseyou have two types of buyers on

(11:31):
any website.
You have a first-time buyer andyou have the return buyer,
right.
So stop showing your newcustomers where the real gold is
and getting the new customer inthe system.
Your newest stuff.
It's unproven.
You have no algorithm.
You have no proof that that'sgoing to work.
There's a great one.
I know Ben at True Classic, andI'm going to tell you True
Classic has not changed theirfront page in five years, why

(11:55):
they A, b tested the crap out ofthat thing.
It works and anyone could saymaybe we should make it look
fresh.
And he can say why.
Our previous customers alreadyknow who we are and they're
going to go right through towhat they want.
But the new customers?
That's the best proven way toget a new customer totally and
and it's.

Trevor Crump (12:15):
And it's not just not only have they tested it,
but it's, they're pushing.
Uh, they're pushing their heroproduct, right, they're pushing,
they're pushing their act.
We call them hero products oracquisition products.
You know, I've heard peoplecall them CAC products.
Whatever you want, right we?

Curtis Matsco (12:30):
call them heroes.

Trevor Crump (12:30):
Yeah, yeah, heroes , heroes, kind of the thing that
we generally call it.
So what were some of your heroproducts in like those early
stages that helped you?
Because you have to acquirecustomers to get returning
customers right.
So especially in those earlydays, post right, you start out
in the journal space as thatacquisition product.
How did your hero product growin that journey to make sure

(12:56):
that you were always acquiringnew customers?

Curtis Matsco (13:07):
That was something that you look back and
you know I'm not a smart personsometimes which just really
helps me be successful, becausewhen I look back, I only see my
successes.
But I was looking at oldpictures of us back in 2016 and
17 and all these waves ofmistakes I made kept coming
through and I'm like, oh man, wehad some really dumb ideas,
right.
So we made a journal and I waslike, how do you add on to it?
Well, we could personalize it.

(13:28):
Right.
So we could personalize theletters or their name on it.
Ok, so that has to be handmadeper order.
Ok, we could put a differenthigh heat stamp on it to say a
different saying they could do.
When you open it up, we couldprint something different on the
inside.
So it's all taking that minorthing and spreading it out.
And I remember taking our firstleather tote and I remember

(13:50):
saying how many leather totesdid we sell this week?
And it was like 18.
I'm like, maybe that could beour hero product, of course.
Of course it's better than thejournal space, for goodness
sakes, right.
But it took me a year to figurethat out and I kept going wider
and wider, spending all mytimes coming up with machines to

(14:11):
personalize and do this.
All of a sudden, we startedselling 50 and 100, you know,
and what you see behind me andif they listen to audio they
can't see this but what you seebehind me is something that has
the ability to make 100,000products a week in leather goods
.
Right, you can't get there bydoing personalized journals.
That's all people sitting theredoing that and it's a smaller

(14:33):
market.
Right, the handbag market ismuch bigger, but I thought at
the first that that's what itwas, so you can continue to
evolve.
Now that we know our data, weknow we have specialties of what
our hero product is.
It's got to be a certain pricebecause you want to get that
first time customers.
You also need to track the LTV,meaning some products will get

(14:54):
you a lot longer LTV than others.
They like it more.
It leads to that secondpurchase where the gold is.
Now we buy traffic at a profit,meaning our first customer is
profitable.

Trevor Crump (15:08):
Congrats.

Curtis Matsco (15:09):
But I know that they're much more likely to
spend a lot more long term ifthey buy these two and not these
two.
So if it comes down to thisone's a little more different to
do our ad spend and everythingthat we're doing.
I'll take the time and effortto work on those ad sets because
I wanted to buy certain things.
Now, after they're in the mix,you got to come up with new

(15:30):
things to keep your audienceengaged.
Our formula is 50% on aday-to-day basis new customer,
50% returning customer, and soby the end of the month we look
at that.
So we know we need an extra900,000 customers next year.
That's what our goal in scalingis going to be, and then our
current customers will continueto buy and to even that out.

Mark Goldhart (15:54):
Okay, I want to dive in just a little bit into
this evolution from journals tobags.
And the reason why is because Ithink a lot of people you
already identified this a lot ofbusiness owners get stuck in
that transition, right Like theyhave the initial product and
it's doing okay, or good even,but not great, and they're
trying to find what's the nextstep, what's the evolution?

(16:16):
So, from your marketing mind,you were doing these journals.
How did you say, hey, let's doa tote.
Was it a tote just because, hey, we're doing leather stuff,
let's do a tote?
Was it a tote just because, hey, we're doing leather?

Curtis Matsco (16:26):
stuff.
Let's make a leather tote.
Yeah, I had a leather hide.
I literally didn't know what Iwas doing and I just cut the
panels like equidistant, shovedthem together, figured out how
to sew it together, turned itupside down, did a few things.
I'm like, oh, that's kind ofnice, took it out there and it
sold like, oh, that's nice.
But then when you're on etsyand you're on, you're going
online, you need to evolve.
I still spent 90 of my time onhow do I make the current

(16:50):
product better and get morepeople to buy and only 10 on the
additional things.
And that was fine because itgot us to where we are, but it
delayed our.
It delayed our evolutionprobably by a year.

Mark Goldhart (17:02):
Okay I bought a lot of expensive.

Curtis Matsco (17:04):
I hired a lot of employees with those heat
machines to write up the lettersand to put the personalization.
And then I'd say we don'treally want to do this.
And people say but people lovethe personalization, yeah, but
the other 200 million people whoare potential customers don't
even know it exists.
If we take it off and we justoffer the bag itself, we can

(17:27):
become much more efficient.
Now it seems like a it's theobvious decision.
Now, it was not obvious at thetime.

Mark Goldhart (17:34):
No decision is ever obvious at the time well,
because it was your biggestproduct at the time, right?

Curtis Matsco (17:39):
it's how you're bringing in all of your money.
Well, not all of your money.

Trevor Crump (17:43):
not only that, but it's also like the handbag
space is a daunting yes, thetotal addressable market is
bigger, but it's also morecompetitive.

Curtis Matsco (17:55):
Yeah, the TAM space is huge 78 billion, right,
okay.
But a lot of this is, you know,by the luxury brands that do
what they do, and I mean there'sreally nobody between us and
that billion dollar mark, right,there's Capri Holdings, there's
Tapestry, there's the big onesthat everybody knows, and then
there's us and we're growinginto that space.

(18:16):
We have to become who we are toa better degree to start
competing against them.
But I told you guys this beforewe started.
We talked for about 10 minutesbefore we started up and I
wanted to tell you, when Istarted in 2015, 16, I looked
online.
There were five great, realleather bag companies in the US

(18:38):
and I'm like, wow, I want to belike these guys.
All five bankrupt.
All five bankrupt Three oftheir CEOs.
I've always been very, very kindto them.
I was always offering advice ifI could give it to them.
They have called me up in thelast three years and said, hey,
can you help us out financially?
Can you take up?
They all went bankrupt and whatI found out was their problem

(19:01):
is they had enough success from2005 or 2008 or 2010 to 2017.
And then, when things got rough,they tried to do more and more
of the same thing.
They would say it's been sosuccessful.
We have a 10 year history ofsuccess.
Why wouldn't we do more of thatTotally?
Because it's not working,because you're going bankrupt,

(19:26):
because you have a bunch ofloans that you cannot pay off,
because you are not profitable.
That's how you know, but theycan't justify that in their
minds.
You're like this is what ourcustomers want.
We have to do this time to moveon.
Dude, I was uh, I was in tulumlast week with Mariota and a
bunch of people and we met thisguy named Timotei, and this guy

(19:47):
is a 23-year-old genius.
He lives in Dubai, he ismillions and millions on TikTok,
he runs the world's mostsuccessful TikTok agency and he
was sharing some stats with me.
Gen Z right now changes theiridentity every 30 days.

Trevor Crump (20:03):
What.

Curtis Matsco (20:09):
Gen.

Mark Goldhart (20:09):
Z changes their identity every 30 days.
What gen z changes theiridentity every 30 days?

Curtis Matsco (20:12):
define identity for us.
He started showing us all ofthese different themselves, what
they do, what they like, whatthey do, the stanley they're
carrying no I need a different Iwant to carry something else.
No, I want to.
They're so evolutionary.
They're hit with so muchinformation in constant times.
They're not someone like me whosaid I like wearing this shirt.

(20:33):
10 years later, you're stillwearing that shirt.
They change brands, have to beadaptable at a hodgepodge to
capture them.
They can't just say this is whowe are.
The point of that is, peopleevolve very, very quickly
because you know thatinformation, news, everything
has changed so quickly.
How can you look back to 2012and say this worked, we're smart

(20:56):
.
We want to pour more sauce ontothis.
The world is different.
The world is different than itwas in 2000,.
For goodness sakes, you guys getto see this behind me, that
this is part of ourmanufacturing here.
This didn't exist six monthsago.
This building did not exist.
This was all created up and putin here in the last six months.
So we had no manufacturing inmexico.

(21:18):
When covet hit, we came downwith 10, 9 990 dollars, because
you can't bring $10,000 downwhen everything was shut down.
The banks were shut down, thegovernment was shut down and we
set up our manufacturing withmasks on to try to get something
going.
And the changes we've made inthe last four years is because
we weren't locked into ourPortland identity.

(21:40):
That we're going to makeBecause Portland was shut down
for a year and a half youcouldn't make make it, we'd be
out of business.

Trevor Crump (21:46):
A hundred percent.

Curtis Matsco (21:46):
Yeah.

Trevor Crump (21:47):
And it was one of the cities that was a little bit
more shut down than most.
Right, I love what you'resaying.
We talk about this all the time.
Have you ever, do you?
Do you know who Marty Neumeieris?
I don't.
Marty Neumeier is, uh, he, hewas kind of like deemed as old

(22:07):
school branding genius, like MadMen style days, I think.
He like went to Silicon Valleyand got Atari as his client
because he told Atari Apple wasone of his clients or something
like that.
He just kind of like lied hisway into these really big jobs.
Anyway, he wrote a book calledZag and he introduces a chart
it's a quadrant, ok, and there'sfour quadrants.
And he introduces a chart it'sa quadrant, okay, and there's
four quadrants.
And on the y-axis is good, sothe further you go up, the

(22:33):
better it is.
And on the x-axis I'm sayingthat right, right, yeah, x-axis
is different.
And he says most people sit atthe top Q1, which is good but
not different, which is a deathsentence, which is what you're
talking about with these otherfive manufacturers that you were
, you at the time you werelooking and admiring so dearly.

(22:54):
They stuck too long in this, inthis quadrant number one, where
, in reality, where you reallywant to be.
I mean, you don't want to bedown in quadrant three, which is
not good, not different,obviously, and you don't want to
be over in this not good, butdifferent section, because
because nobody wants that butyou want to be up in Q2, which
is good and different.
And I don't think that peoplethink about the different

(23:18):
section enough.
All of us are just thinking,good, and there is such a, there
is such a um, what the word I'mlooking for?
There's, uh, there's a lot ofrisk in looking at your
competitors and admiring them,because what do you do when you
look at your competitors?
You start to do the things thatthey're doing.
Can I, can I bring up anexample about that?

Mark Goldhart (23:41):
please, please.
This is a little bit of afar-out example, but I like to
go camping a lot, curtis.

Curtis Matsco (23:49):
You live in Utah, man.
Of course it's beautiful.

Mark Goldhart (23:51):
We love as a family I got three little kids
we love sitting out looking atthe stars, and the thought I
always have looking at stars islike you're looking at snapshots
from millions of years ago ofthe stars.
You're not looking at the staras it is right now.
You're looking at the star asit was, from the distance.
It took the light to travel tothe earth.
That's the problem.
When you're analyzing andlooking at competitors is like

(24:13):
you're looking at a delayedimage of what you think that
competitor is or isn't so.
So you have to develop your ownpath and, like we talk about
this with our clients and peoplewe consult all the time.
You can't just take thesetemplates from Twitter profiles
and implement them onto yourbusiness.

(24:34):
You have to understand thefirst principles of operation
and of marketing and and paveyour own path with the first
principles.
So for you, how did you get outof that mindset of hey, I want
to be like these guys to no, no,like this is our pathway.
This is how I operate off of myprinciples, off of our values

(24:54):
as a company, instead of tryingto operate off of what you're
seeing is that delayed imagefrom a competitor.

Curtis Matsco (25:01):
I would say it's because I'm narrow-minded and
I'm cocky and I'm selfish and Ididn't want to look at somebody
else and what they were doing.
That's part of it.
And then some of them justseemed unreasonable.
I remember there's this onecompany and they were like we're
giving 5% of all proceeds tothis children's organization and

(25:22):
my people was like we shouldgive away 5% of everything we're
doing that organization.
And my people was like weshould give away 5% of
everything we're doing.
That would sound great.
And I literally had all ouremployees telling me to do that.
And the reason I didn't do itis because I couldn't afford to
give away 5% to charity, right?
Well, I found out a year laterthat I almost bankrupted them.
That was the first nail in thecoffin, because they didn't do
the math.
Does that actually get us newcustomer acquisition or

(25:44):
retention?
No, it sounded good.
And somebody came up with them.
We decided to do it, right.
Well, I was too cocky and andnarrow minded.
So I'm like, no, we're going tobe who we are.
It wasn't me looking out andseeing them.
I started doing that.
It was my, my people, totally,from the creatives to the
photographers, to everybody else.
I'm going to tell you the mostcrazy thing that we did that

(26:08):
literally broke the market open.
We hired models that smiled.
It's the hardest thing to dowhen you go to modeling agencies
, because you look at all theirthings and all the girls are
like they're like a girl, like agirl standing in a lobby and
she's pissed off.
Her boyfriend hasn't picked herup yet.
They all have that look ontheir face Like I'm sure this

(26:30):
model can smile, not naturally.
We wanted to be theapproachable brand, right, so we
had to start with some of ourown employees or people we knew
and teach them how.
It's easier to teach someonehow to model who has a beautiful
smile than teaching a model howto smile.
So it's a small little thing,but nobody else did that.

(26:52):
Everyone else thought, oh, let'sdo a long video that shows the
morning sun and you come up in aRange Rover and you lay the
leather out and you hand cut itlike this Boring yes, that was
really big in 2017 and everybodywas pitching, doing that and I
said no, no, no, let's put it inthe people's hands, let's let

(27:12):
them smile, let's beaspirational, but this is the
person at the party that youwant to walk in at the party
because they're going to makeeveryone feel comfortable.
You're going to like them.
You're going to always say, hey, I want that person to come to
the party.
They're nice, they're going tomake everyone feel comfortable,
you're going to like them.
You're going to always say, hey, I want that person to come to
the party.
They're nice, they're a goodperson.
Don't ask the bitchy girl.
We don't want her.
That's not aspirational.
That seems like a crazy thingat the time, but it worked and

(27:35):
none of the other customers weredoing that.

Mark Goldhart (27:37):
Do you know what I love about?

Curtis Matsco (27:38):
that though is.

Mark Goldhart (27:39):
It goes back to this example of competitors,
because do you know why modelslook the way they do?
because everyone else, somebodystarted it that way well, no,
it's for a very specific purpose, like the models that we're
referring to started because ofthe runways, because of the way
that they photograph but movewith the clothes hanging on them
.
So there's a there's a certainkind of aesthetic that these

(28:00):
clothing designers wanted, butsomehow that same aesthetic was
applied into the bagging spaceand into every other space.
But it wasn't because of areason, it was just like oh,
they're doing that, so we'regoing to use those those are the
supermodels and think aboutthis.

Curtis Matsco (28:16):
your photographers are lower and the
models are told not to walk outand make eye contact with
everybody.
They're supposed to look off inthe distance or look down and
not look anyone in the eye,right?
So the photographer is takingthis aspirational picture of
this person.
See them staring off like thisor like this, so that's what we
perceive as luxury.
It's the runway of them notlooking in your eyes or looking

(28:38):
down on you, right?
I'm just like, yeah, that kindof sucks.
You know I don't want to belooked down on you.
Yep Right, I'm just like, yeah,it kind of sucks.
You know I don't want to belooked down on.
I'm from Montana.
I'm just a dumb kid Like I.
I want people to be nice.
I want to hang around withpeople that I like.
I love that.
I hired the nicest models whowould smile and I'm telling you
that's gold, just gold.

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Okay, so let's jump into someof these like game changers,
right?
So Portland Leather Goods is anine-figure brand, right?

(30:46):
I think you've?
This isn't any news, but Ithink you've said you guys are
$100,000 to $150,000 plus as oflate $150 million.

Curtis Matsco (30:57):
$150 million yeah $150,000,.

Trevor Crump (31:00):
Yeah, $150 million .
Yep.
So nine figures.
Tell me what were the things.
Let's start low.
150 million.
Yeah, $150,000.
Yeah, 150 million.
Yep.
So nine figures, tell.
Tell me what.
What were, what were the things?
Let's start low.
Let's start at this sevenfigure mark, cause that's such a
massive milestone.
What was the thing that got youfrom that just six figure to
seven figure mark, and thenlet's go seven to eight.

Curtis Matsco (31:18):
I'm going to say one.
You may or may never have heardPhysical restrictions.
So I was in my garage doing artfestivals, right, and we had to
decide between this space,which was very small, or 2,000
square feet.
It was a pole dancing studio.
It was all purple and hadmirrors on it right, but it was

(31:40):
too big for us.
We went with the bigger spaceon it.
Right, but it was too big forus.
We went with the bigger space.
If we had taken the smaller one,we would be the hardest working
$2 million company in the worldright now.
Right, because we happened togo into a building that was
25,000 square feet.
So when we needed more space,we just offered more for the
thing and knocked the wall downnext to us, right?

(32:00):
So physical restrictions willlimit your brain in seeing
things in a different route,right, it just does.
We know that from leone.
We were in these big 10 000square foot warehouses, right,
and we had studio one and thenstudio two, three, four, five,
six, but they were all kind of.
Just once we moved into our onefacility, all of a sudden, your

(32:24):
brain thinks in a different way.
You cannot sit here and look atthese lines without seeing them
as a video game now, aboutseeing timing, about seeing
where the market.
It just all comes together inyour mind and if you physically
restrict yourself, so be in thespace you're going to be in, not
where you are at right now.
Right, does that make sense?

(32:44):
So I truly we would havescrewed ourselves on that one.

Mark Goldhart (32:47):
It's kind of like the physical version of
parkinson's law right yeah likeyou'll fill the space, that's
around you yeah, so if you don'thave that physical space, like
you won't fill it out, in a wayit doesn't help you.
Your brain will start thinkingI gotta fill this space, space
out somehow, isn't?

Trevor Crump (33:03):
that how it is with goldfish, too, or something
like that.
Like if you put a goldfish inlike a small versus like a
bigger tank, they will grow.
You'll also justify it.

Curtis Matsco (33:12):
You'll justify it .
It's like, well, we just needto be more efficient.
Well, it doesn't have to bethat, because you have to,
because of your space, it reallylimits people down.
Your brain justifies where youare.
Amazing, I think that's areally big one, and we almost
screwed ourselves a milliontimes.
Like I look back and I'm like,how did we make it through this
maze?
Because there was a lot ofthings that wanted to knock us

(33:33):
out of business.
So I think that's number one.
Number two is there's a bookcalled what Got you here Won't
Get you there, and I'm going totell you about that book.
I've never read it and I don'tneed to, because I learned from
the title.
Everything, the damn thingneeds to say Everything that got
me right here is not going toget us to the next level.
Right, whether that's people orprocesses, or systems or

(33:54):
structures or the marketing.
None of that is good enough.
Yes, you have to focus on whatyou're doing today.
At the same time, you need tobe figuring out what you're
going to do next, and that hasto be a brain obsession.
I'm going to tell you anotherthing that I would highly
suggest to anybody who is theCEO, the founder of running a
business, know the numbers inyour head.
Every time I ask an employee intheir area what numbers are in,

(34:16):
they said let me check mycomputer.
I literally want to scream.
Why is it so important?
Because if you know the numbersor the problems in your head 20
hours a day, your brain will besolving those problems.
If you don't know the numbers,you have to look at the computer
, which then changes your brainchemistry when you look at your

(34:36):
computer, right, and then forthat one minute you're trying to
analyze it.
To make it I'll know ournumbers so that when I'm walking
around'll see something, saywait, something's not right
there, that's not right.
Maybe we could change this.
I wake up in the morning and I'mlike it's just like my linkedin
.
Now I wake up every morning.
There's 50 new people who havewanted to be on there, right,
you know who have connected withme, what happens with me.

(34:59):
I wake up in the morning andthere's 12 new realizations my
brain solved at night.
I'm like I got to get Mariana,we got to do this and this and
this and this and this and thatconstant move forward.
Know things in your head, knowthe problems, know your numbers
so that you can come up withsolutions on that second and on
that meeting.
Meetings will not solve yourproblems Totally.

(35:21):
You seeing something and sayingI get it, we could do it
differently.
Then you call the meeting andyou implement it.
I know this doesn't seem likeit is not your regular d to c
type stuff, but that's how itactually works.
If you want to.

Trevor Crump (35:36):
It's so spot on.
I I mean some of the bestfinancial advice like just
personal financial advice I everreceived was just look at your
bank account.
If you don't look at your bankaccount every day, then you're
not going to see those littlecharges that are coming through
that you're like what, why am I?
I don't need that.
I'm never looking at that.
You know you're not seeingwhere your money's moving.
And if you don't respect yourmoney your money, won't respect

(35:57):
you yeah, I'll pay for dinner.

Curtis Matsco (35:59):
Don't, I'll do this.
I can buy this.
If you don't realize, the nextday you would see like ah damn,
I took a little dip there.
I probably should have just hada frickin hot dog Right.

Trevor Crump (36:07):
Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent.

Curtis Matsco (36:09):
That's true.
I don't care how many hundredsof millions you get, it's the
same thing.
Know your numbers, look at it.

Trevor Crump (36:24):
We like to hold on to our successes of our past,
but you have to hold on to theright lessons of the past?

Curtis Matsco (36:26):
yeah for sure.
Move to those next things.
So I don't want to get rid ofthe things that that have worked
well and it's hard.
I'm telling you, when we got toa million, I was still doing
art festivals to pay the billsfor the building as we grew the
etsy company.
Does that make any sense?
Then everyone's like we justneed to go all into Shopify and
completely got off.
I'm like no, no, no, Etsy'sstill bringing in 4 million

(36:48):
bucks a year.
We're not just giving that upright now, Right.
But then at one time you'rejust like I'm shutting that
pipeline down and it was likehow could you turn off of that
money?
Because I knew in my heart thatwasn't where it was at.
It was that next level.
So it's letting go of the pastto move on to the future.
Most people want to keepeverything from the past and

(37:09):
have the future.
You can't do it.
You cannot do it.
You have to break throughceilings at all times.
So sometimes I get passionate.
I talk like a little harsh topeople you know and for all the
people who buy from us and allthe people who know Port and
Leather.
I am a very kind and a lovingperson.
Everyone knows that about me.
But when it comes down tobusiness, sometimes I get mad at

(37:30):
people for continuing to makestupid mistakes.
I just want them to be better.
I just want them to understandthat they need to win this game.
They need to win it for themand their family and their
friends and their employees.
I am responsible for makinghard decisions that are going to
piss some people off, but inthe long run it's going to grow

(37:53):
our company.
Right?
I don't like those things.
Right, it's funny.

Mark Goldhart (37:56):
Everyone wants to watch a sports documentary and
they love the intensity thatsomebody brings right, but then
in their own life they don'twant any kind of that intensity.
They just want rainbows andsunshine and lollipops.
And then it's like, oh, michaelJordan is so great, I love
Michael Jordan.
It's like, well, there's areason why Michael Jordan was
like that.
He wasn't exactly a nice guyall the time.

Curtis Matsco (38:15):
Yeah, there's a great.
The Georgia football coach dida great thing on the three
problems, the three downsides ofleadership, and basically it
was you're going to makedecisions that hurt people you
love Right, you're going to.
You're going to have to makedecisions where you cannot

(38:37):
explain to people what thereason you did that for, but you
still have to make thatdecision, right.
Like there is certain things inleadership that are not your
standard, hold hands,everybody's gonna be okay.
I biggest breakthrough I everdid with all my employees was
this If an employee is notworking out, I used to think I'm

(38:58):
the worst guy in the world.
We're a great company and Ihave to let this person go.
What I realized, realized ifthey're not working out, they
will be happier someplace elsenot just mentally saying that,
but knowing it because I bumpinto them two years later and I
think, oh shit, they're going tobe angry at me.
I let this person go and theygive me a hug and say thank you,
my much better job.

(39:19):
I have making more money doingsomething that they were meant
for right, because we're not theperfect fit for everybody.
I think I pulled my brain atfirst, thinking, well, I got to
tell myself they'll be betteroff.
Now I know for a fact.
I literally just had anemployee.
I love this employee.
He was fantastic.
He was wonderful.
He wasn't right for where wewere going next.

(39:40):
So I literally said I'm goingto pay you for six months.
I will take you to all of theseconventions.
You're amazing.
I will help you get a new job.
He got a job at a small littlecompany running a whole side of
their e-commerce called Nike,and I saw him about four months
ago and my friends bumped intohim like, yeah, they work out
every morning, he's glowing,he's happy, he's like and he

(40:04):
thanks me.
He didn't thank me when we satdown and I told it's gonna
happen, but I said I love and Itrust you, dude, you're gonna
kill it someplace else.
And he is.
But that two months ofuncertainty was hard on him and
his heart and his family washard on me.
But that's what the good thingsin life are they're a little
bit hard and a little bituncomfortable.
Then you look back and say I'msure glad I did that.

Mark Goldhart (40:26):
Yeah Well, I love this topic, right?
Because, going back to yourthree points, it's all about
evolution, right, you'rechanging.
How do you change the next step, whether it's through physical
constraints, whether it'sthrough mindset, whatever it is.
And I love your story becauseyou're really just a little
microcosm example of changing,like Curtis, I mean, I don't

(40:47):
know if you, you care, but howold are you?
59.
Okay, so you're 59 years old I.
The reason why I want to bringthat up is because of the, the
old saying, right, the old, uh,saying that old dogs can't learn
new tricks.
Saying that old dogs can'tlearn new tricks.
Okay, you've created ane-commerce business in your 40s,

(41:09):
late 40s, and grew it into oneof the best e-commerce
businesses in your 50s.
Fastest growing e-commerce,Fastest growing e-commerce
business in your 50s andeveryone thinks this is like a
young guy's game.
The young people.
You're not the typical story ofa, D to c success okay.

Curtis Matsco (41:25):
Well, I'm gonna tell you a non-standard one.
I had a few years of drinkingwhere I literally did nothing in
my life except lay around andbe worthless.
So when you're really bad forlike, what happens is mentally
when you stop drinking, you goback to the age that you were
mentally when you started todrink heavy.

Trevor Crump (41:43):
Right Does that make any sense.

Curtis Matsco (41:48):
So like 10 years, I don't remember, so I still
conceive myself as being a lotyounger.

Trevor Crump (41:52):
So that's one of those blessings that I am.
Right now You're 40.
Exactly.

Curtis Matsco (41:57):
And I'm literally surrounded with 90 percent of
my top 100 people are betweenthe ages of 25 and 36, right.
So I've got this young energyall the way around me all the
time and I've got more energy.
I've got more things than theydo, but I'm able to see pattern

(42:17):
recognition from my life torealize what I need to do to
move on to the next area.
So yeah, I had a big offer tosell the company.
I'm like why am I?
Why would I do that?
I want to run this company for10 and 20 years.

Mark Goldhart (42:31):
Awesome.
So what's your advice, though,to younger people?
Cause we see young businessowners, young marketers, get
stuck a lot and they don't knowhow to move on to the next thing
.
Like you said, the book whatgets you here isn't what will,
or what got you here won't getyou there.
Yeah, yeah.
How do you help people havethat mindset?

Trevor Crump (42:48):
I'm really curious .
I like I want to know this too,because we this is like the
conversation we're having withpeople people all of the time,
and I've recognized it.
I feel like we tend to havethis conversation significantly
more with millennials and andwhat you brought up around Gen Z
makes sense because Gen Z ischanging their identity, most
likely because of how integratedthey are into social media and

(43:09):
the different trends and thingsthat are happening on social
media.
But yeah, I'm super curiousabout this.

Curtis Matsco (43:15):
You know, if you look at news on a certain
subject and it says came in twodays or three days ago, you're
like how dare they feed me thisold crap Crap in my newsfeed?
I want to know what happenedthree minutes ago.
Right, you go on to reels andstories and anything.
It's immediate and it's fast.
And it's fast, it's the fastchanging.

(43:36):
So, as we know, everybody haschanged down in the way that
time is conceived.
So that's just the way thatthings go.
Young people have an anxiousenergy that they need to succeed
right away, because they'veseen enough stories of somebody
doing an overnight success thatthey're looking for the
overnight success.
And I get that.

(43:57):
I kind of felt that way when Iwas that age.
But now it's worse becausethey're being told that by every
influence that gets them hurrythe hell up, you're behind,
right?
I love a quote by Bill Gates.
I didn't know it was Bill Gateswhen I heard it, but I love
this.
He said we overestimate what wecan do in a year.

(44:18):
We underestimate what we coulddo in 10.
Because if someone told me 10years ago hey, you want to have
a 200, 300, 400 million dollarcompany in 10 years, I'm like
damn straight.
If they had then told me all Ihad to go through to get there,
I might not have been sothrilled about it Totally.

(44:40):
Because I look back and I'm likethat hey, hey, I'm 59 and I
have a lot of energy, but I'mnot doing that stuff again?
Yeah, I am not.
I used to break down all thewalls of the building.
I used to do the construction.
I used to clean it.
I sat and scraped up old paintoff of the floor all night long.
So when the people came in,everything was cleaned up so
they could do that.
I did everything Not anymore.

(45:04):
I'm smarter at looking at itthis way Am I glad I did it?
Of course I am so young it thisway?
Am I glad I did it?
Of course I am so young.
Folks, there is a balance inthis world of learning.
You can only do it byrepetition and pattern
recognition of when you hold onand when do you let go.
Most people do the worst thing.
They half and half it.

(45:24):
Let's say you have a somebody'sgot a girlfriend or a boyfriend
.
It's not working out out.
What do you want to do?
It's like, well, we're notreally going to break up.
But I'm not going to move on.
I'm just going to kind of waitin this limbo state to see what
happens.
Most people do their businessesthe same way.
I'll wait for the next thing tocome up here.
No, because your mind is stillsolving the problems of that

(45:47):
past.
You've got to let it go right.
Or you've got to let it goright, yeah, or you got to put
more fire under that.
You've got to change it.
But over time you have torealize, hey, this is not, there
is.
I'd be a very big journal makerright now if I didn't want to
move on yeah so there's justlots of things that go along
with that yeah, okay, yeah, forsure yeah, I.

(46:09):
That doesn't answer a question,it just says judgment.
Everybody, life experiencegives you judgment of when to do
something.

Mark Goldhart (46:16):
That's the hard truth.
Though it's a principle, yeah,Like you can't teach someone a
template and say walk this road.
It's like you're going to haveto make hard decisions along the
way.

Trevor Crump (46:23):
Yeah, I mean it never.
And I think I think the pointof podcasts like this or books
or whatever is necessary becauseeverybody does things
differently.
I don't think it's necessarilyto have an answer of hey, this
is how you change.
The principle is you have tochange.
The principle is you have to dothings different.
The principle is what got youthere isn't going to get you

(46:50):
there, and something tells me,if I ask that question, hey,
what brought you from eightfigures to nine figures?
You're going to say somethingvery similar that has to do with
change and evolving.
Um, I'm sure you might have atactic or whatever, but my guess
is like that's, that's theethos of this podcast episode.
Right?

Curtis Matsco (47:05):
I was at a big party and, uh, everybody knew
who I was.
Uh, and they were all youngerentrepreneurs.
And as they got drunker anddrunker, they started like
hedging me off and finally thisguy got me in a corner.
He's like what's the secret,man?
What's the secret?
And I'm like the key is youhave to make a hundred decisions

(47:29):
, maybe a thousand, between onemillion and 10 million in sales,
right, and half are going tosuck.
But you make them and you moveon and you cut that as soon as
you can.
There's a number of things Isit how you hire the people?
Is it your marketing?
Is it the structure?
Is it product efficiency?
Is it your website?
Is it your AB testing?
There's a million things andeach one of those needs to be

(47:50):
addressed.
But what I do as the CEO and asa visionary and the person that
runs this company is I go tothe biggest fire and say we're
not going to have a meetingabout this, we are not going to
put a study about this, we'regoing to stay right here and
we're going to solve this rightnow.
And if it's on the line, I'llbe in the line.
If it's in marketing, I'll bein the marketing.

(48:11):
If it's photography, I'll bedoing that right.
What's your biggest problem?
Solve one a week.
For a year you got 52 of yourbiggest problems solved.
And guess what Small ones willdo that?
Go to the big problems andsolve it right now.
This is the meeting.
This is the time to do it.
Solve it now.
Don't put a committee.
Don't sit around and study.

(48:32):
Don't say in three weeks, comewith proposals, jump in, figure
it out.
Doing it now is better thandoing it later.

Trevor Crump (48:39):
I love it, dude.
I don't, I don't, like.
I'm sure there's a thousandmore questions, but to me this
episode has gone in such a cooldirection, yeah.

Mark Goldhart (48:51):
It's given me a given me a lot to think about.
Like one thing that keeps goingaround I'm ruminating right now
about is someone who'slistening to this might take
some of his advice ascontradictory, right, like he
talked a lot about it in thebeginning, right, curtis?
About the Pareto principle.
Basically, like hey, you'reusually going to find like 20%

(49:11):
of your effort is Mac, is really80% of all of your profit, but
then there comes a point fromthe journals to the tote that
you're just going to have tomake a hard decision.
And there's no, there's noanswer that we can give you
other than, yeah, you're goingto have to make a hard decision.
You have a marketing tacticthat you're using right now
that's working really well.
Guess what?
It's not going to work for thenext six months.

(49:33):
So you're going to have to makea hard decision through testing
and through some failure.
It's just how fast can youlearn through failure?
Yeah, and that's really thesecret.

Trevor Crump (49:41):
And and a hard decision is when to let it go
Right, like he said.
Hey, we're making $4 million atthese pop-ups, in these art
gallery shows, but there's morepotential on the Etsy side of
things.
So at what point do you kibosh?
At what point do you get rid ofthat?

Mark Goldhart (50:02):
And there's no reward without risk.
Like people would just want therewards without taking risks,
and those risks are thedecisions, right, curtis.

Curtis Matsco (50:10):
Yeah, and you really thank you for starting
something in my brain.
I remember when the person washelping me at say, my second in
command at the time said we needto get everyone in here.
We're all in just one spacemaking things in that little
2,000 square foot.
It's like we need to raiseeveryone's paid to $14 an hour,

(50:31):
which I was like we, we can'tafford that.
She's like look at all thismoney, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I showed her the books andeverything.
She's like oh crap.
I said I'll tell you what to do.
If we can make this amount,then I'll give everybody the
raise.
And she's like what's the bestway to do that?
I said, instead of selling, uh,30 totes a week, let's sell 30
totes a day.
And she told everybody.
And so they took betterpictures, they focused on this,

(50:54):
they re, we rewrote the listings, we adjusted our pricing
strategy.
All of a sudden, within likethree weeks, we're selling a 10
times the amount of totes.
And all of a sudden we foundsomething with the same people,
with the same people and thesmallest motivator of hey,
here's what it is, here'sreality, this is what we need to

(51:17):
do.
And then then it breaks youright like I didn't, this wasn't
genius.
Then, all of a sudden, I'm likewait a second.
Uh, that's a lot more money, alot easier.
Let's just pour the gas on thatfire and let's see where it
goes.
You know it's a ride.
It's a ride to do something foras long as we've done it and to
grow the way that we do and seethe people come and go and keep

(51:40):
the great ones on.
But it is judgments every dayon people, on process, on
product, on the future, on thepast, on your financials.
And I don't want to make thiscomplex because we're smart
people listening to this thing,but they can do it.
Here's the thing I will beat outa smart, disciplined person

(52:03):
every day, every single day.
And the reason I will is I'mobsessed, I'm at this thing, my
brain is working on this at alltimes.
Right, so you can be smart anddisciplined and I'll say that's
great, but I am going to figureout what is going to work.
There's just no way around that.
I put.
They say don't put youridentity in your company,

(52:23):
because if something goes wrongwrong with the company your
identity's screwed.
Does that make sense?
Tough, I've already done it.
I'm always too late.
The company blows up.
I don't know who I'm gonna be.
I'll be one of those people insalt lake that you guys were
talking about earlier.

Mark Goldhart (52:38):
You can wave to me from the side of the, on the
side of the street hey, but onthe flip coin you have not made
the company a reflection of youridentity, right?
It seems like you've built acompany very specifically to
serve a certain group of peopleand it's not necessarily you
yeah, 98% women.

Curtis Matsco (52:58):
Uh, yeah, that's, that's one of the things, but
I'll tell you and I you knowthis thing just evolved into
this, but I'm going to tell youthis anyhow, if I was going to
tell you one secret to mysuccess and the company's
success is hiring men and hiringwomen is different.

Trevor Crump (53:17):
okay, and here's what men, this is a hot take,
everybody this is a hot take.
Yeah, I like it men areoverconfident.

Curtis Matsco (53:24):
In my marketing team, people this one's spending
10, 20, 30 million a inmarketing.
They're guys at the top rightBecause they're unafraid to
waste a million dollars of mymoney.
Women would never do that.
They're too freaking rationaland they care too much.
So what I do is I get theoverconfident people and then I

(53:47):
teach them how to subduethemselves at times to make
rational choices people and thenI teach them how to subdue
themselves at times to makerational choices.
Then you get a woman who is 10times better than the guys, but
they don't quite know it yet.
They think in a little bit andyou give them the space to grow.
They're going to do all thework.
They're going to make sure allthe bills are paid.
They're going to make sure thedesigns are there.

(54:07):
They're going to make sure thetimeline of that new release is
done, that the photography linesup with this, lines up with the
web.
They're going to do all thatwork right.
So you take the people who mightbe lacking the confidence a
little bit, but have the skillsand you raise them.
You take these overconfidentjerk guys and you say hey, hey,
hey, settle down a little bit,but I need their overconfidence

(54:28):
to surge you forward.
Right, but you also need thewomen, which is probably 20 of
my top 25 people, all women wholiterally my favorite story is a
young lady I hired and threeweeks in we were at a coffee
shop and I said I have some newsfor you and she said not
another raise, you've alreadygiven me three raises in three

(54:50):
weeks.
And I said that's because youdon't said not another raise,
you've already given me threeraises in three weeks.
And I said that's because youdon't understand how great you
are.
You don't get it yet and I'mgoing to throw money at you and
tell you how great you are untilyou get it.
She until a couple weeks ago,when now she moved to the side
to do something else.
She ran all of the things thatyou see here and when I found
her, she was making $6 an hour,20, uh, uh, $6 an hour, 20 hours

(55:14):
a week.
That was her total job.
And now she ran all of ourMexico operations, including
legal, financial, production,logistics and design.

Trevor Crump (55:22):
Incredible Dude.
That's awesome.
What a cool story.
I think that's a great way toend, to cap it out yeah, yeah,
this has been awesome.
Curtis dude, you have givensome some really good gems here.
Uh, where can people findportland leather goods?

Curtis Matsco (55:38):
well, uh, I'm sure they're smart enough to
type that name into any computer, but I'm going to warn you
right now if you do, we'rereally good at our job and we're
going to track you down andyou're just going to see us
following you around for thenext year.
So there's no privacy when itcomes to port and leather goods
me personally.
Uh, the only thing I do islinkedin.

(56:00):
So curtis, matzko, go on tolinkedin, and mariana and I
decided we're going to postevery day next year.
We're not selling anything.
I just found that you tell theright people the right words, it
can change their lives.
I've had the people come backto me after six months and a
year and say thank you.

Trevor Crump (56:17):
So that's what we're doing.
Hey, linkedin is good, but Ithink you need to get on TikTok.
I think you got to, I'm tellingyou right now.
Well, there's a hot take Mariana, we need to be on that TikTok
machine.
I'm telling you right,LinkedIn's good, but it's just
like there's more action andthere's more really cool things
and lives.

(56:37):
I think you can change onTikTok.
I know that sounds interesting,but I post on TikTok, Instagram
and LinkedIn those are like mythree places and I get so much
more feedback on TikTok ofpeople coming to me like thank
you so much, this is so awesome.
How can I work with you?
Tiktok is by far the number oneplatform for me, by far.

Curtis Matsco (56:59):
I'm a little bit older and slower and not very
clever.
That's why it works, man.

Trevor Crump (57:05):
That's why it works for you.
It's like you may not be as thestereotypical person they might
think that you might see there.

Mark Goldhart (57:11):
What are you talking about?
You're scared of hanging withthe kids, Curtis.

Trevor Crump (57:13):
You're 49, not 59.
Remember.

Curtis Matsco (57:17):
Exactly, and that's safely saying.
I only drank for 10 years Imight be younger, who knows?
Hey guys, it was an absolutepleasure.
I say no to most podcasts Forsome reason.
I told Mariana Trevor when youcontacted me.
I'm like, I like this guy.
I follow him on TikTok.
I want to be on that show.

Trevor Crump (57:39):
Amazing.
Thank you so much.
Have an awesome day and goodluck throughout the rest of the
year.
Okay, thank you guys.
All right, we'll see you later.
Thank you so much for listeningto the Unstoppable Marketer
podcast.
Please go rate and subscribethe podcast, whether it's good
or bad.
We want to hear from youbecause we always want to make
this podcast better.
If you want to get in touchwith me or give me any direct

(58:01):
feedback, please go follow meand get in touch with me.
I am at the Trevor Crump onboth Instagram and TikTok.
Thank you, and we will see younext week.
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