March 11, 2025 • 40 mins
In this episode, hosts Trevor Crump and Mark Goldheart discuss the recent macroeconomic trends affecting e-commerce and retail, highlighting Nike's unprecedented collaboration with Skims. They explore the importance of understanding broader economic factors when making business decisions and emphasize the value of strategic partnerships for brands of all sizes. The hosts also provide practical advice for companies looking to pursue collaborations and offensive strategies during uncertain economic times.
Please connect with Trevor on social media. You can find him anywhere @thetrevorcrump
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A lot of times what happens is when you don't pay
attention to macroeconomicthings and you think that it's
my creative, it's my agency,it's my brand, it's my employees
, whatever it is, they're notdoing what they should be doing,
you can make some really,really poor choices based off of
a false positive where actuallywhat could be happening is
(00:22):
those teams that creative.
Your business could be in amuch worse situation if you
weren't doing some of thosethings.
Yo, what's going on everybody?
Welcome to the UnstoppableMarketer podcast with me, as
always, mark Goldhart.
Mark, how are you doing, sir?
I'm doing well.
How are you?
Good?
Good, as you can hear, mark'svoice is a little under the
(00:45):
weather, hence the reason whywe're recording not in studio,
in home studios.
Home studio today.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Home studio today.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
That works, but we promised we wouldn't stop.
You know, when we couldn't makeit into the office or someone
was sick, we were like, oh yeah,we can record podcasts in our
house.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
It's 2025.
It is it's 2025.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
it is it's 2025 it may not be as visually pleasing
as the studio, but the contentwill be very tasteful yes, we
hope so at least it can onlyhelp, can only hope.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
We can only hope.
Yeah, I think a lot of peoplehave questions around Recent
performance of stores.
Yeah if you're in the e-commerceworld, you probably didn't have
a great February February Somedays some didn't, but genuine,
generally speaking, february wasa little more rough, and so it
(01:45):
begets the question why.
I think there's a lot ofquestions out there, yep.
But David Herman, who is prettywell known in the D2C world
he's a media buyer, he workswith some pretty big companies
and he said that he believesthat the D2C community tends to
(02:06):
ignore these types of commentsregarding Target and Walmart
missing the kind of Februarytargets, yep, but then he goes
on to say like two of thebiggest retailers in the country
are saying it.
So why won't some of youconsider that it isn't meta or
your agency or your creative?
Yeah, so it does seem likethere is a little bit of a macro
(02:27):
trend happening right now.
Also, it does appear thatthere's just uncertainty driving
some of these consumer trendsout.
Yeah, obviously we know thatthere are potential tariffs,
there's potential geopoliticaluh decisions and events
(02:52):
happening that might affectsupply chains or whatever you
have it, but I think just theaverage consumer is just kind of
unsure of what's going on andwhen people are unsure, they
usually don't spend as much.
Yeah, so that is interesting.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Um, also as interesting is that, uh, it does
appear that walmart is growingtheir online sales side, which
is a interesting tidbit, butinteresting but nonetheless
their overall, their overallprojected spending, uh, consumer
spending, um is not tracking towhere the dozens or hundreds of
(03:36):
analysts who probably work foramazon hoped and suggested it
would be and another likeconsumer confidence thing I
guess you could call it is.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I know in the auto industry, uh, many are
projecting that auto sales aregoing to be down anywhere from.
You know conservative or Iguess more hopeful estimates are
like only 5%, but a lot ofpeople are saying 10 to 15% down
year over year yeah so yeah,car sales are a little different
(04:10):
than what most e-commercebrands are doing, but that just
gives you an idea of just kindof overall sentiment yeah, yeah,
I mean, you have, I think.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I think it's one thing to have walmart, it's
another thing to have target,and then you kind of start to
mix those other things like, um,I mean, the housing market's
already been there for a minute,so that's nothing new.
Car sales have seemed to betrending that way.
I feel like car sales trend insimilar ways that housing market
(04:39):
does, just because interestrates trend, similar to what
interest rates are with homes Insome way.
I'm no expert on that, but yeah, I think you have these macro
things that are very, veryimportant.
I think, unfortunately Ishouldn't say unfortunately,
because it's, you know, as abrand it's important to
(05:04):
understand the macroeconomicthings that are happening,
because things could be a lotworse right?
So a lot of times, what happensis when you don't pay attention
to macroeconomic things and youthink that it's like what David
Herman said it's my creative,it's my agency, it's my brand,
it's my employees, whatever itis, they're not doing what they
(05:25):
should be doing.
You can make some really,really poor choices based off of
a false positive right whenactually what could be happening
is those teams that creative.
Your business could be in amuch worse situation if you
(05:45):
weren't doing some of thosethings Right.
So that's why we want to bringthis up is because you know, we
know that there's a lot ofe-commerce brands who listen to
this and sometimes you're not.
You know, you get kind of stuckand caught in your own world
and and maybe you've got anotherfounder, friend or whatever
(06:05):
Maybe you are working with anagency who runs 20 other brands
and maybe they're explainingthis to you, but sometimes it
doesn't seem as trustworthycoming from an agency.
Right, like, like, I shouldn't.
It shouldn't be that way.
But unfortunately, people havesome stigmatisms towards
agencies.
We're like oh, when performanceis down, of course the agency
(06:26):
is going to blame it on amacroeconomic thing, and some
agencies will do that when theyshouldn't be.
But I think it's an importanttopic to discuss, to say, okay,
cool, it has to be addressed, ithas to be acknowledged so that
you don't go making poorbusiness decisions.
The next question is where doyou go from here?
(06:51):
Like what, what should you do?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
right, right.
Yeah, there's a few examples ofwhat some bigger companies are
doing.
I mean, nike has taken a atleast their stock has over the
last four years.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
They reached highs in 2020 and then have since fallen
.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah, I think they announced their revenue was down
10% in 2024.
Yeah, they just announced apretty big time partnership
which is actually unprecedented,and we'll explain why.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, so the partnership was with skims right
, which is kim kardashian'sbrand.
Which is worth what?
What did you say?
It was worth when we werelooking.
Was it five billion, sixbillion?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
I don't know what it's worth now.
I mean the last, the lastarticle I saw was four billion
in 2023, so maybe five, four orsix, I don't know yeah, and
maybe more now that they'veannounced that that but they're
privately held.
So yeah, you know it's hard toknow yeah, so why is that
unprecedented?
(07:59):
explain that well, it'sunprecedented for nike, because
nike has never, as far as I knowand for what I could read, they
have never had a partnershipwith another brand.
They've only had partnershipswith product lines or designers
(08:19):
and and athletes, obviously,yeah, and like they've had.
They've had some like licensingdeals they've done with some
like other brands, like wherethey let some salt mauler brands
uh you know, use some of theirproducts and design them and
stuff like that.
Right, like I'm trying to thinkof what that company was called
there was a golf, there was agolf company that that did it in
(08:44):
the boutique space.
They had like a Nike or AirJordan deal.
Oh, eastside Golf, I think itwas Eastside.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, they did a collaboration with Jordan.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, eastside Golf, yeah, so they've done little
things like that, but they'venever really done like a big
time, like brand time, niketimes, whatever collaboration.
So this is like a full-on, notacquisition.
Yet I mean I'm sure that theywant to, but right now I mean
this is like a full-on announcedcollaboration.
(09:17):
Like, for example, like we knowthat nike um was technically
partnered with, I believe,kizik's parent company.
Right, they were investors init for the slip-on shoe
technology.
Yeah, they licensed thehands-free technology.
(09:39):
But that's more of a technologylike a product line, not a
full-on brand-to-brandcollaboration.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah, what's interesting about this is what
it sounds like from what I'veread is so the collab, like the
product line won't hit until, Ibelieve, spring is what they
announced.
So they announced it end offebruary, immediately, by the
way.
Saw like a 6.7 billion dollarincrease in valuation.
Um, like, instantaneously sawthat, like I said, we mark said
(10:10):
skims isn't public and so youcan't really see what it did for
skims.
Um, so it immediately made upsome of that ground of that
they've been what they've beenlosing.
But the pro, the it's supposedto be a full product line for
women.
Uh, so, like what?
(10:30):
What it almost seemed like tome, what I was reading is like
nike, for example, outfits, theolympic athletes, you know like.
Uh, so you know the women'strack outfits, like those, like
the thing.
The only way I know how todescribe them is they look like
leotards.
To me they're running likeleotards, you know, like that
(10:53):
seems like it's going to beright up the alley of.
Like you know, hey, skims, thewhole thing.
The purpose of what Skims doesis it helps women.
You know it helps.
There's several things thatSkims does, but one of the
things is like it makes things alittle more form fitting
(11:16):
tightens things up, you know,which seems like a very, very
like that type of technology.
Seems like it could be verygreat for athletes as well, who
don't want the looser, baggierthings yeah, yeah, right, yeah,
and I.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I looked up skims and and it does appear that nike
strategy here is they've lost alot of the athleisure market
over the last 10 years big timelike especially for women yeah,
for sure now that's what someanalysts are saying, which I
(11:59):
guess I don't know.
They might know more than me,but like I look at skims and I
don't really, because that's notreally athleisure, it's like
just seems like underwear themto you?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
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Well, it's, it's.
I think Skims started in theunderwear space, like the
undergarment space, right, causesome of it was body suits and
(13:38):
now they have entered into um,like the apparel space.
So pajamas and dresses andthings that women would wear
outside you would noticeably.
I think in the early days Skimswas meant to not notice that
you were wearing Skims, and nowthey do have some product that
(13:59):
very much is outwardly like ohthat's a Skims product, so I
don't know a whole't know aboutit.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Skims says that they are the next generation of
underwear, loungewear andshapewear, but uh, as far as we
know from this collaboration,they are creating a new brand or
product line which probablywhich probably does make sense
like it's going to go after moreof like athleisure, taking what
whatever skims has figured outabout, you know, on skin, yeah,
(14:31):
type of fabric, and a lot ofathleisure is on skin right,
like yep so whatever that means,um, people are taking very
positively to it.
They're thinking it's going tobe a pretty big deal.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yeah, I think it's a super smart collaboration
because I think, like you said,the women's athleisure market
has been dominated by well, Ishouldn't say been dominated,
because if you look at likeLululemon, nike is worth
significantly more thanLululemon.
However, I think Lululemon,when you say 10 years ago, were
the people who started eatinginto that like athleisure,
(15:10):
athletic wear market that nikehad primarily owned.
Um, and then over the last fiveyears, the you know you've got
viory that has stepped in andeat up a ton of the market.
Um, what do they?
They just got announced at likefive billion dollars.
Yeah, I think lulu's like 40billion.
(15:30):
Uh, viore's five billion.
You're right.
And when?
Nike?
What did you look at?
Nike is it worth like a hundredand hundred, something, hundred
and something, billion, 140billion yeah, nike.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Nike is like 160, if I remember right, is their
market cap, but lulu 11 is no,is not?
It's not that far behind.
I mean, is it 40 to 50 billion?
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
But yeah, you get 40 billion.
Like that's a lot of marketshare that they've taken and not
all those people were nikecustomers.
Same thing with Viori whenthey're at $5 billion.
Not everyone was a Nikecustomer, but in theory, every
one of those people could beNike customers.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
So I think it's a really awesome.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
I love the collaboration and what's really
nice, and the reason why we wantto tie this to this
macroeconomic discussion is,unfortunately, you oftentimes
cannot predict when a big macroeconomic issue is going to
happen.
Right, this one has been almostkind of like a long time coming
right, like ever since covid.
(16:37):
It's like things have been justwith, president know, an
election year, um, you've gotthese tariffs, you've got, um,
you go from a Democrat, ademocratic, uh, um, presidency
to a Republican, right.
So there's just so many, somany like big changes that have
happened over the last fiveyears, four years that, um, this
(17:01):
one seems like a little bitmore like, hey, we've all been
kind of like waiting forsomething.
We've all been kind of likewaiting for something.
We've all been feeling it.
But you know, you take a COVID,for example, and you just have
like, no one, no one wasplanning, no one knew so many
businesses went under because ofit, and and and and.
You know, sometimes it doesn'tmatter what you do, a
(17:22):
macroeconomic thing can crushyou.
But what I love about this skimswhat I'm going to be really
excited to hear from KimKardashian or Nike executives
whenever somebody's on a podcastor get interviewed or when it
launches.
I'm curious on how long in themaking this has been.
Has this been?
(17:44):
Because it's got to be over a12 month thing just with how
product development works andand all that kind of stuff, and
there's a good chance that itcould be even longer than that.
Um, so I love this because it'sa very offensive strategy and
what's interesting is that theconsumer spending reports are
(18:09):
down across the board.
Yet nike just added six billiondollars to their market share
and once they launch, it's goingto be another massive what
seems like it's going to be, youknow, end of Q1 to you know
early Q2, that they're probablygoing to do better than they
(18:29):
were projecting.
So the point I'm trying to makeis I think that a lot of brands
and we've worked on the brandside and we work with brands all
the time get very comfortablein the very predictable success
(18:52):
that they can have.
And when I say predictablesuccess, like hey, I know that
when I'm sending out X amount ofemails, I'm getting X amount of
returning customers that bringme X amount of revenue.
Getting X amount of returningcustomers that bring me X amount
of revenue, I know that if Ispend $100,000 a month or
(19:13):
$500,000 a month in ad spend onmeta.
I'm going to generally besomewhere around this kind of
revenue space.
So we get very safe in thoseworlds.
Now a lot of brands will makerisky moves to say safe in those
worlds.
Now we make, you know, a lot ofbrands will make risky moves to
say, okay, I'm going to jump.
How do I go from spending ahundred thousand dollars to
$200,000 in the next month or so, that that can be oftentimes
(19:34):
risky.
Uh, when I say risky, I justmean like, oh, that's a big jump
.
Right, I'm doubling my spend.
But there's these things that Idon't oftentimes feel brands
are trying to work on behind thescenes that may not give
immediate results but are goingto be the things that build the
(19:56):
brand and get people to startcoming back tomorrow versus just
today.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (20:04):
yeah, yeah, I mean it's just a longer term brand
building effort.
And I think what's interestingfrom this perspective for nike
is, if nike, if nike is willingto collaborate with a, a new
brand, right, this has to be awin, win.
So it's gotta be a win for themand it's gotta be a win for
(20:25):
skims Like right, like nobody'sgoing to make this partnership.
If it's going to be a bad, bad,uh result.
So I think skims is going tocome out the bigger quote winner
of this trade, but this tradeis going to be a win-win.
I mean, nike is going to win,skims is going to win.
And then the other interestingthing is in the e-commerce world
(20:49):
it's allowed so many brands toappear, so D2C has created
really an inundation of brands,especially around certain
product or market categories,and I think what Nike is
recognizing now right, soLululemon's grown to $40 to $50
(21:09):
billion market valuation, likewhatever Viore is now, whatever
Is it Ola.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Oh, Aloe.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Aloe.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah, aloe On Running .
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Aloe running, whatever all these companies are
.
Yeah, but guess what?
That actually gives nike theopportunity to come in and
re-establish themselves.
Right, because there's a lot ofindecision.
If people are willing to jumpfrom lululemon to a, to an aloe
or whatever, right, everyone'sjust jumping brand to brand to
(21:42):
brand.
So the nike is probably saying,hey, this is our opportunity to
partner with one that we wantand one that hasn't eaten into
our market share yet, which isgoing to be skims yeah and say
let's re-establish ourselves asthe go-to for whatever this
product line is going to be,which obviously, I think we're
(22:04):
all assuming is going to besomewhere on the athleisure side
.
So, yeah, props to Nike.
I mean they're going to betaking advantage of this opening
here, because there's a lot ofsifting going on with brands and
product decisions and we're ina time of uncertainty in the
economy and sometimes people aregoing to be less willing to
(22:25):
take risks.
So they're saying, hey, let'sreestablish ourselves.
But again, collaborations canbe win-win.
It's not going to be a lose-winsituation.
I mean, when you'reestablishing a partnership for a
collaboration with anothercompany, do what Nike did.
(22:45):
You're looking for someonewho's not cannibalizing you.
They're not eating into you andyour market.
They're going to be able tohelp you reach new people.
They already have anestablished brand identity,
right?
I think some people might thinkthat Skims and Nike might not
have a good brand cohesion there, but it's good enough, right?
(23:05):
So so if Nike can do it, youcan do it.
Just make sure that you'rebeing smart about who you want
to partner with and make surethat it's not going to eat into
your existing audience and it'sgoing to help you establish
roadways into new audiences.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Yeah, I think something you said that I
thought was interesting is Nikeis significantly bigger than
Skims from an evaluationperspective.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yet Nike's Well, from an everything perspective, yeah
, yeah, yet Nike collaboratedwith Skims.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
So I think, something that I hear all the time when
we talk to people about hey, youshould do a collaboration, like
we work.
It's very interesting.
We work with pretty big brands,but we also love taking on
every.
You know, we have a pool in ourwhen we consult of, like,
smaller companies that areemerging, you know, that have
(24:05):
the ability to make it big, butthey just haven't quite figured
out how to do it.
And when we have conversationswith smaller companies, it's fun
A lot of times like, oh, wethink this would be a cool
collaboration, but they're somuch bigger than us, why would
they want to do it, you know?
And then, on the flip side, wetalked to these bigger brands
(24:25):
and they almost think thatthey're too big to collaborate
with somebody smaller.
And so I think a veryinteresting lesson in this
partnership is it doesn't alwaysmatter about the size, you know
, um, and how much revenue acompany is making.
(24:46):
What matters is what you canbring to the table for them and
what they can bring to the tablefor you, you know.
So if you're a brand that'sdoing $50 million a year, um and
uh, let, let let's say you're alike doing $50 million a year,
um, and let's say you're a likeI'm just making something up
here.
Let's say you are a beddingcompany or, like, a mattress
(25:10):
company.
You know your company in thesleep space, Okay, um, and
you're this 50 plus to a hundredmillion dollar company.
But there is a brand that'semerging that may be in you know
five to $10 million space.
That is a supplement companyselling sleep aid kind of
(25:36):
supplements.
You know, um, what a coolcollaboration that would be,
cause you're not eating intomarket share.
Number one and number two,you're connecting with a very
like an audience that is goingto be very loyal, who
understands how important sleepis, and and it's a, it's a
win-win for both, because in theCPG space you have very, very
(26:00):
loyalists, because these peopleare subscribing over and over
and over again.
That's the type of value thatyou can bring to a bigger,
larger bedding, mattress,whatever company.
And on the flip side, thisbigger company just has more
customers that have deeperwallets, that also are very
interested in sleep, and sothere is this very symbiotic
(26:21):
relationship, even though onpaper, one looks like they could
be much more valuable than theother.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, which is exactlyhow Nike and Skims are.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Yeah, it is, and so it's going to give both of them
a ton of new content to workwith.
It's going to give new eyes toboth brands.
It's going to give both of thema ton of new content to work
with.
It's going to give new eyes toboth brands.
It's going to help both of thembreak into a new category
potentially.
So that's it.
Yeah, I think it's smart, it'sreally smart right now.
I mean, yes, and the flip sideof a lot of competition is that
(26:57):
there's a lot of uncertainty, orthere's maybe more indecision,
and there's more opportunity foryou to.
Well, let me rephrase thatthere's more uncertainty and
indecision from a consumerstandpoint, but that might be
actually more opportunity for abrand to establish themselves.
Yeah, so if you can zig whileothers are zagging, then then
(27:17):
you can actually emerge on topduring these kinds of situations
.
Because guess what, likeeconomies ebb and flow, like
this is just, this is business.
Like everything does not movein a linear direction.
So, if you're running a company, I'm not, I'm not saying you
shouldn't be frustrated, butthis is just life, right, right,
(27:40):
like every company has gone upand down, and so the important
thing is just trying to raiseyour, your basement Right.
So if you can make sure thatyour bottoms are getting higher
and if you could start gettingmore efficient, fixing your
operations, finding new ways todo outreach, like collaborations
(28:01):
, then then great.
That doesn't mean that you canstop doing the things that you
have to do that are thebloodline of your business.
But collaborations are so easy.
And now, yes, working withother people might not be always
easy, but a collaborationgenerally is a phone call.
There's not a ton of upfrontmoney involved.
(28:24):
It's not a lot of pain, like itis to to invest perhaps 300
grand into certain kinds ofvideo content that you might not
know if it's going to pan outor not.
Right like sometimes that canbe really painful and sometimes
collaborations will involve thatkind of content.
But but if you're a smallerbrand and when I say smaller if
(28:47):
you're five, you know even lowerthan that, if you're 1 to 15
million, it doesn't like all youhave to do is call another
company, just make some phonecalls, see, see which companies
make sense for you, yeah.
It's not that big of a deal,right, and, like you, you'll be
(29:08):
surprised how quickly you coulddo it, cause, like it's not just
with other companies, it's withother, potentially with like an
influencer, you know, and likethis isn't you having to go and
do a ton of of work, it's justputting yourself out there.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Yeah, and because oftentimes what happens is it's
like it's taking existingproducts and tailor it to the
collaboration right.
So, yes, there's time involved,in the sense that like, hey, if
your lead time is to createproduct, or three months or six
months or whatever, yes, yes,there's time there.
But you're right, it's justit's it's DMS away.
(29:44):
I get so many people who youknow I'll post content about
collaborating and so many peoplewill be like, well, this isn't
always like guaranteed to winand and and you're it's like,
yeah, you are 100% right.
However, that's why you stickwith the ABCs, the guarantees,
or when you know obviouslynothing is guaranteed, meaning
(30:07):
like, if you send an email,you're not guaranteed to make X
amount of sales, if you spend$100,000 an ad, you're not
guaranteed to make 400,000 back.
But there are these ABCs, thesethings, that you are pretty
constant and you know thatwithin a margin of error, you're
going to get X amount of returnon that.
That's why you do collaborations, because you know, or product
(30:30):
seeding, or new productdevelopment I mean, whatever the
situation is we're talkingabout collaborations here is you
do those things because inorder to grow, in order to build
your brand, you have to do morethan just run ads you have to.
Yes, that's going to help yougrow and you can do very, very
cool things and you can enterinto new channels and run more
(30:52):
top funnel stuff.
That will also build your brand.
But tying yourself to anotheraudience and borrowing that
audience is just another thingthat's going to help do those
things.
And yes, it might not alwaysland and it might not always be
a home run, the way it seemslike this skims collaboration is
going to be.
(31:13):
But does that mean do it no?
Speaker 2 (31:18):
yeah, good, like a good example of this would be
from a lower and you know, Idon't know what their revenue is
, but I'm guessing what lolablankets might be.
But they collaborated withtezza and if you're just looking
from the outside in, you lookat instagram and you're looking
(31:39):
at like a lola blankets and youmight think like, oh, like
they're just looking from theoutside in, you look at
Instagram and you're looking atlike Alola blankets and you
might think like oh, they'rejust a small blanket company,
like why would, why would Tezza,who has one point, whatever
million followers, collaborate?
You know, like that's and I'mnot saying, I'm saying that from
the perspective of that's whata lot of people end up doing-
(32:06):
Right, right.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
I'm saying that from the perspective of that's what a
lot of people end up doing.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Right right, a lot of companies will be like oh, I
don't know if I can get her,that person or that company,
yeah but obviously that was abeneficial move for both of them
.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Yep, yeah, they just did.
They just did like you know, itwas beneficial because they
just restocked.
Yeah, I don't know if you sawthat, like they, they restocked
it.
So you know that she wasprobably making good money from
it and they probably make goodmoney from it yeah, and it
worked out for both of them, soit's a win-win.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Yeah, and I don't know how much time and effort
went into that and that's I meanprobably it's.
Everything's always harder.
Everything's easier said thandone, so it's harder than what
we're making it out to be.
But still, like Lola MakesBlankets, they made a blanket
together.
They didn't necessarily comeout with this whole new product.
(32:50):
I'm sure Tezza had a lot ofinfluence on what that style
looked like and what she wantedto have her name on.
But a lot of times thatrelationship is just simply you
sending out different productsamples and just like hey, what
like?
What do you want?
What have you seen?
What?
inspirations, these patterns,these yeah and so that can be
difficult and that's work, butit's not like you have to
(33:14):
reinvent the wheel there no likelola knows how to make blankets
.
So, like, making a variation ofa blanket with someone like a
tezza probably wasn't rocketscience, right, it probably
wasn't like that crazy.
So and it was great for both ofthem and and we're happy for
both of them and we've had himon our podcast.
(33:35):
We're stoked that that we'reseeing them all over the place.
So good example.
Like you don't going back tothe skims to nike, like why
would nike partner with someoneso tiny in in comparison to nike
?
Yep, well, there's.
So don't think of that.
Terms of like, oh, we're small,they're big.
(33:56):
Think of it of like, hey, what,you might have something that a
bigger brand doesn't have.
Like you might have aninfluencer, you might have,
right, a certain targetdemographic.
Like you might have somethingthat they don't, yeah, and that
they want.
So, like, never.
Think of it as like big versussmall.
Think of it as like what?
Where can we?
Speaker 1 (34:15):
both value?
Yeah, yeah, do.
Can I?
Can I provide value to thisperson?
You know I, like some, somebodyonce told me, like, um, when I
was like early on in my career.
You know this guy was tellingme.
He said, hey, one of my biggestpet peeves.
He was further on, he was a CMOfor this bigger brand and he
(34:35):
said one of my biggest petpeeves is when, like, some
random person reaches out to meand says, hey, can I come, can I
pick your brain, want to talkabout marketing, can I pick your
brain?
And he says it's not that I'mnot willing to answer questions
and help young people, he's like, but the laziness and not being
able to come to me with thevalue you could bring to me.
(34:56):
You know, and I'm not expectingthat this kid who's in college,
who's never done anything, isgoing to provide me massive
value.
But just in everything, justthink about the value you can
bring Right.
And so, um, you know I rememberI used to say stuff like, hey, I
would love to pick your brain,I'd love to do a little bit of
work for you on the side, like,if you need hands, I'll do it
(35:19):
for free, like I, I just wantthe experience, and so I, you
know it was me like, hey, Iwould love to go to lunch with
you, ask some questions, but I'malso willing to, like, step
into your office and help you do, xyz, you know.
So there's always that that'skind of how you have to look, is
like, what is the value you canbring to them, or what's the
value they can bring to you?
And, yes, some might get, somemight come, come out on top more
(35:40):
than others, um, but thatdoesn't mean that they're going
to say no, just because theirvalue isn't going to be like the
value they're going to get outof you isn't going to be equal
to the value they're going togive to you yeah, there's
someone's going to be a biggerwinner.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
But like, if it's a win-win I'll do it.
It's never going to be equal.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Yep, and these things take a little bit of time too,
right, so remember that.
Like that's what's beauty, likethis, this, like yes, I know
we've kind of downplayed it andsay it's a conversation away,
because it is right, like that'sjust how it starts, is it
starts with a DM, it starts witha text, so it always starts
(36:17):
with the conversation, andsometimes these things take a
little bit of time, but that'swhy you have to be doing them
right now.
Like that's why, when thingsare going well, you shouldn't
just sit back and do the thing,do the ABCs.
You should sit back and say,okay, like how do we get to the
X, y, Zs, you know, um, and dothe things that?
God?
I don't know if it's going towork, but let's put time and
(36:39):
let's put some resource intothis so that, come you know,
next spring or fall, we're goingto win.
I mean, we had a client who didthis last fall, like it was
really cool.
Um, they had.
They had like four or five orno, it was maybe like two to
four collaborations set up, Ithink in october and october's
(37:01):
are generally bad months in inum, the apparel space.
Uh, yeah, as people are waitingfor black friday and they had
one of their best years, bestmonths of the year in october,
because they had thesecollaborations that absolutely
crushed them.
Now, they were smaller collabsbut they had, like these collabs
(37:22):
drop all in the same month andit essentially gave them an
extra month's worth of revenue.
So, instead of having a 12 monthyear, we had a 13 month year
based off of the revenue, basedoff of the revenue, and so these
(37:46):
things can help out in alsostruggling times and situations.
Um, so you got to just start,you got to start dming, you got
to start asking and understandthat it might take six months,
it might take 12 months.
Like I said, I bet the skinthing.
It's been a deal that's beenhappening for the last 12 to 18
months yeah, yeah, if I had toguess or even longer yeah, which
meant that skims would havebeen valued at less at the time
(38:10):
right most, I mean most likelyyeah hard, yeah hard to know
with valuations In theory, yes.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Right, but nonetheless yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
So I like that that's good Offensive strategies, so
that when you have macro thingsthat you can't control, you have
other things that you can leanon Right and not just the
one-two punch that you can leanon Right and not just the
one-two punch that you lead with.
You've got something that youcan pull out of your hat.
(38:45):
I think that's important.
I think the other thing that'ssuper important is just follow
some macroeconomic things,because I think yes, I know we
talked about doing someoffensive things like
collaborations, but alsosomething that's just like super
critical is sometimes we makereally bad emotional decisions
when it's just a time and aseason right, hey, let me fire
(39:07):
this marketing agency.
Or hey, let me stop spending.
You know, because my CAC wentfrom $50 to $70.
Sometimes we can make reallybad decisions, even though if we
were to, because we think it'ssomebody else's problem, not
(39:27):
something more macro, whereas ifyou were to turn your spending
off, it could actuallycompletely kill you in the next
couple of months.
Or if you were to fire youragency, they were actually doing
good, but you were putting itup against a macroeconomic thing
, and then you hire anotheragency who actually sucks Right.
So when you're not followingthe macroeconomic things, you
(39:50):
could be putting yourself in areally poor situation.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Yeah yeah, for sure Don't make emotionally based
decisions.
All right, sweet.
I think that's a good place towrap it up.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Yeah, I agree.
Thank you guys.
Thanks everybody.
Sorry, we're in the home officetoday, so if you were listening
it didn't sound any different,but if you're watching it may
look a little different.
But we'll see you guys nextweek.
Thank you so much for listeningto the Unstoppable Marketer
Podcast.
Please go rate and subscribethe podcast, whether it's good
(40:23):
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
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.
A lot of times what happens is when you don't pay
attention to macroeconomicthings and you think that it's
my creative, it's my agency,it's my brand, it's my employees
, whatever it is, they're notdoing what they should be doing,
you can make some really,really poor choices based off of
a false positive where actuallywhat could be happening is
(00:22):
those teams that creative.
Your business could be in amuch worse situation if you
weren't doing some of thosethings.
Yo, what's going on everybody?
Welcome to the UnstoppableMarketer podcast with me, as
always, mark Goldhart.
Mark, how are you doing, sir?
I'm doing well.
How are you?
Good?
Good, as you can hear, mark'svoice is a little under the
(00:45):
weather, hence the reason whywe're recording not in studio,
in home studios.
Home studio today.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Home studio today.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
That works, but we promised we wouldn't stop.
You know, when we couldn't makeit into the office or someone
was sick, we were like, oh yeah,we can record podcasts in our
house.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
It's 2025.
It is it's 2025.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
it is it's 2025 it may not be as visually pleasing
as the studio, but the contentwill be very tasteful yes, we
hope so at least it can onlyhelp, can only hope.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
We can only hope.
Yeah, I think a lot of peoplehave questions around Recent
performance of stores.
Yeah if you're in the e-commerceworld, you probably didn't have
a great February February Somedays some didn't, but genuine,
generally speaking, february wasa little more rough, and so it
(01:45):
begets the question why.
I think there's a lot ofquestions out there, yep.
But David Herman, who is prettywell known in the D2C world
he's a media buyer, he workswith some pretty big companies
and he said that he believesthat the D2C community tends to
(02:06):
ignore these types of commentsregarding Target and Walmart
missing the kind of Februarytargets, yep, but then he goes
on to say like two of thebiggest retailers in the country
are saying it.
So why won't some of youconsider that it isn't meta or
your agency or your creative?
Yeah, so it does seem likethere is a little bit of a macro
(02:27):
trend happening right now.
Also, it does appear thatthere's just uncertainty driving
some of these consumer trendsout.
Yeah, obviously we know thatthere are potential tariffs,
there's potential geopoliticaluh decisions and events
(02:52):
happening that might affectsupply chains or whatever you
have it, but I think just theaverage consumer is just kind of
unsure of what's going on andwhen people are unsure, they
usually don't spend as much.
Yeah, so that is interesting.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Um, also as interesting is that, uh, it does
appear that walmart is growingtheir online sales side, which
is a interesting tidbit, butinteresting but nonetheless
their overall, their overallprojected spending, uh, consumer
spending, um is not tracking towhere the dozens or hundreds of
(03:36):
analysts who probably work foramazon hoped and suggested it
would be and another likeconsumer confidence thing I
guess you could call it is.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I know in the auto industry, uh, many are
projecting that auto sales aregoing to be down anywhere from.
You know conservative or Iguess more hopeful estimates are
like only 5%, but a lot ofpeople are saying 10 to 15% down
year over year yeah so yeah,car sales are a little different
(04:10):
than what most e-commercebrands are doing, but that just
gives you an idea of just kindof overall sentiment yeah, yeah,
I mean, you have, I think.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
I think it's one thing to have walmart, it's
another thing to have target,and then you kind of start to
mix those other things like, um,I mean, the housing market's
already been there for a minute,so that's nothing new.
Car sales have seemed to betrending that way.
I feel like car sales trend insimilar ways that housing market
(04:39):
does, just because interestrates trend, similar to what
interest rates are with homes Insome way.
I'm no expert on that, but yeah, I think you have these macro
things that are very, veryimportant.
I think, unfortunately Ishouldn't say unfortunately,
because it's, you know, as abrand it's important to
(05:04):
understand the macroeconomicthings that are happening,
because things could be a lotworse right?
So a lot of times, what happensis when you don't pay attention
to macroeconomic things and youthink that it's like what David
Herman said it's my creative,it's my agency, it's my brand,
it's my employees, whatever itis, they're not doing what they
(05:25):
should be doing.
You can make some really,really poor choices based off of
a false positive right whenactually what could be happening
is those teams that creative.
Your business could be in amuch worse situation if you
(05:45):
weren't doing some of thosethings Right.
So that's why we want to bringthis up is because you know, we
know that there's a lot ofe-commerce brands who listen to
this and sometimes you're not.
You know, you get kind of stuckand caught in your own world
and and maybe you've got anotherfounder, friend or whatever
(06:05):
Maybe you are working with anagency who runs 20 other brands
and maybe they're explainingthis to you, but sometimes it
doesn't seem as trustworthycoming from an agency.
Right, like, like, I shouldn't.
It shouldn't be that way.
But unfortunately, people havesome stigmatisms towards
agencies.
We're like oh, when performanceis down, of course the agency
(06:26):
is going to blame it on amacroeconomic thing, and some
agencies will do that when theyshouldn't be.
But I think it's an importanttopic to discuss, to say, okay,
cool, it has to be addressed, ithas to be acknowledged so that
you don't go making poorbusiness decisions.
The next question is where doyou go from here?
(06:51):
Like what, what should you do?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
right, right.
Yeah, there's a few examples ofwhat some bigger companies are
doing.
I mean, nike has taken a atleast their stock has over the
last four years.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
They reached highs in 2020 and then have since fallen
.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah, I think they announced their revenue was down
10% in 2024.
Yeah, they just announced apretty big time partnership
which is actually unprecedented,and we'll explain why.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, so the partnership was with skims right
, which is kim kardashian'sbrand.
Which is worth what?
What did you say?
It was worth when we werelooking.
Was it five billion, sixbillion?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
I don't know what it's worth now.
I mean the last, the lastarticle I saw was four billion
in 2023, so maybe five, four orsix, I don't know yeah, and
maybe more now that they'veannounced that that but they're
privately held.
So yeah, you know it's hard toknow yeah, so why is that
unprecedented?
(07:59):
explain that well, it'sunprecedented for nike, because
nike has never, as far as I knowand for what I could read, they
have never had a partnershipwith another brand.
They've only had partnershipswith product lines or designers
(08:19):
and and athletes, obviously,yeah, and like they've had.
They've had some like licensingdeals they've done with some
like other brands, like wherethey let some salt mauler brands
uh you know, use some of theirproducts and design them and
stuff like that.
Right, like I'm trying to thinkof what that company was called
there was a golf, there was agolf company that that did it in
(08:44):
the boutique space.
They had like a Nike or AirJordan deal.
Oh, eastside Golf, I think itwas Eastside.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, they did a collaboration with Jordan.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Yeah, eastside Golf, yeah, so they've done little
things like that, but they'venever really done like a big
time, like brand time, niketimes, whatever collaboration.
So this is like a full-on, notacquisition.
Yet I mean I'm sure that theywant to, but right now I mean
this is like a full-on announcedcollaboration.
(09:17):
Like, for example, like we knowthat nike um was technically
partnered with, I believe,kizik's parent company.
Right, they were investors init for the slip-on shoe
technology.
Yeah, they licensed thehands-free technology.
(09:39):
But that's more of a technologylike a product line, not a
full-on brand-to-brandcollaboration.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Yeah, what's interesting about this is what
it sounds like from what I'veread is so the collab, like the
product line won't hit until, Ibelieve, spring is what they
announced.
So they announced it end offebruary, immediately, by the
way.
Saw like a 6.7 billion dollarincrease in valuation.
Um, like, instantaneously sawthat, like I said, we mark said
(10:10):
skims isn't public and so youcan't really see what it did for
skims.
Um, so it immediately made upsome of that ground of that
they've been what they've beenlosing.
But the pro, the it's supposedto be a full product line for
women.
Uh, so, like what?
(10:30):
What it almost seemed like tome, what I was reading is like
nike, for example, outfits, theolympic athletes, you know like.
Uh, so you know the women'strack outfits, like those, like
the thing.
The only way I know how todescribe them is they look like
leotards.
To me they're running likeleotards, you know, like that
(10:53):
seems like it's going to beright up the alley of.
Like you know, hey, skims, thewhole thing.
The purpose of what Skims doesis it helps women.
You know it helps.
There's several things thatSkims does, but one of the
things is like it makes things alittle more form fitting
(11:16):
tightens things up, you know,which seems like a very, very
like that type of technology.
Seems like it could be verygreat for athletes as well, who
don't want the looser, baggierthings yeah, yeah, right, yeah,
and I.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I looked up skims and and it does appear that nike
strategy here is they've lost alot of the athleisure market
over the last 10 years big timelike especially for women yeah,
for sure now that's what someanalysts are saying, which I
(11:59):
guess I don't know.
They might know more than me,but like I look at skims and I
don't really, because that's notreally athleisure, it's like
just seems like underwear themto you?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
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Well, it's, it's.
I think Skims started in theunderwear space, like the
undergarment space, right, causesome of it was body suits and
(13:38):
now they have entered into um,like the apparel space.
So pajamas and dresses andthings that women would wear
outside you would noticeably.
I think in the early days Skimswas meant to not notice that
you were wearing Skims, and nowthey do have some product that
(13:59):
very much is outwardly like ohthat's a Skims product, so I
don't know a whole't know aboutit.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Skims says that they are the next generation of
underwear, loungewear andshapewear, but uh, as far as we
know from this collaboration,they are creating a new brand or
product line which probablywhich probably does make sense
like it's going to go after moreof like athleisure, taking what
whatever skims has figured outabout, you know, on skin, yeah,
(14:31):
type of fabric, and a lot ofathleisure is on skin right,
like yep so whatever that means,um, people are taking very
positively to it.
They're thinking it's going tobe a pretty big deal.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yeah, I think it's a super smart collaboration
because I think, like you said,the women's athleisure market
has been dominated by well, Ishouldn't say been dominated,
because if you look at likeLululemon, nike is worth
significantly more thanLululemon.
However, I think Lululemon,when you say 10 years ago, were
the people who started eatinginto that like athleisure,
(15:10):
athletic wear market that nikehad primarily owned.
Um, and then over the last fiveyears, the you know you've got
viory that has stepped in andeat up a ton of the market.
Um, what do they?
They just got announced at likefive billion dollars.
Yeah, I think lulu's like 40billion.
(15:30):
Uh, viore's five billion.
You're right.
And when?
Nike?
What did you look at?
Nike is it worth like a hundredand hundred, something, hundred
and something, billion, 140billion yeah, nike.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Nike is like 160, if I remember right, is their
market cap, but lulu 11 is no,is not?
It's not that far behind.
I mean, is it 40 to 50 billion?
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
But yeah, you get 40 billion.
Like that's a lot of marketshare that they've taken and not
all those people were nikecustomers.
Same thing with Viori whenthey're at $5 billion.
Not everyone was a Nikecustomer, but in theory, every
one of those people could beNike customers.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
So I think it's a really awesome.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
I love the collaboration and what's really
nice, and the reason why we wantto tie this to this
macroeconomic discussion is,unfortunately, you oftentimes
cannot predict when a big macroeconomic issue is going to
happen.
Right, this one has been almostkind of like a long time coming
right, like ever since covid.
(16:37):
It's like things have been justwith, president know, an
election year, um, you've gotthese tariffs, you've got, um,
you go from a Democrat, ademocratic, uh, um, presidency
to a Republican, right.
So there's just so many, somany like big changes that have
happened over the last fiveyears, four years that, um, this
(17:01):
one seems like a little bitmore like, hey, we've all been
kind of like waiting forsomething.
We've all been kind of likewaiting for something.
We've all been feeling it.
But you know, you take a COVID,for example, and you just have
like, no one, no one wasplanning, no one knew so many
businesses went under because ofit, and and and and.
You know, sometimes it doesn'tmatter what you do, a
(17:22):
macroeconomic thing can crushyou.
But what I love about this skimswhat I'm going to be really
excited to hear from KimKardashian or Nike executives
whenever somebody's on a podcastor get interviewed or when it
launches.
I'm curious on how long in themaking this has been.
Has this been?
(17:44):
Because it's got to be over a12 month thing just with how
product development works andand all that kind of stuff, and
there's a good chance that itcould be even longer than that.
Um, so I love this because it'sa very offensive strategy and
what's interesting is that theconsumer spending reports are
(18:09):
down across the board.
Yet nike just added six billiondollars to their market share
and once they launch, it's goingto be another massive what
seems like it's going to be, youknow, end of Q1 to you know
early Q2, that they're probablygoing to do better than they
(18:29):
were projecting.
So the point I'm trying to makeis I think that a lot of brands
and we've worked on the brandside and we work with brands all
the time get very comfortablein the very predictable success
(18:52):
that they can have.
And when I say predictablesuccess, like hey, I know that
when I'm sending out X amount ofemails, I'm getting X amount of
returning customers that bringme X amount of revenue.
Getting X amount of returningcustomers that bring me X amount
of revenue, I know that if Ispend $100,000 a month or
(19:13):
$500,000 a month in ad spend onmeta.
I'm going to generally besomewhere around this kind of
revenue space.
So we get very safe in thoseworlds.
Now a lot of brands will makerisky moves to say safe in those
worlds.
Now we make, you know, a lot ofbrands will make risky moves to
say, okay, I'm going to jump.
How do I go from spending ahundred thousand dollars to
$200,000 in the next month or so, that that can be oftentimes
(19:34):
risky.
Uh, when I say risky, I justmean like, oh, that's a big jump
.
Right, I'm doubling my spend.
But there's these things that Idon't oftentimes feel brands
are trying to work on behind thescenes that may not give
immediate results but are goingto be the things that build the
(19:56):
brand and get people to startcoming back tomorrow versus just
today.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (20:04):
yeah, yeah, I mean it's just a longer term brand
building effort.
And I think what's interestingfrom this perspective for nike
is, if nike, if nike is willingto collaborate with a, a new
brand, right, this has to be awin, win.
So it's gotta be a win for themand it's gotta be a win for
(20:25):
skims Like right, like nobody'sgoing to make this partnership.
If it's going to be a bad, bad,uh result.
So I think skims is going tocome out the bigger quote winner
of this trade, but this tradeis going to be a win-win.
I mean, nike is going to win,skims is going to win.
And then the other interestingthing is in the e-commerce world
(20:49):
it's allowed so many brands toappear, so D2C has created
really an inundation of brands,especially around certain
product or market categories,and I think what Nike is
recognizing now right, soLululemon's grown to $40 to $50
(21:09):
billion market valuation, likewhatever Viore is now, whatever
Is it Ola.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Oh, Aloe.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Aloe.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah, aloe On Running .
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Aloe running, whatever all these companies are
.
Yeah, but guess what?
That actually gives nike theopportunity to come in and
re-establish themselves.
Right, because there's a lot ofindecision.
If people are willing to jumpfrom lululemon to a, to an aloe
or whatever, right, everyone'sjust jumping brand to brand to
(21:42):
brand.
So the nike is probably saying,hey, this is our opportunity to
partner with one that we wantand one that hasn't eaten into
our market share yet, which isgoing to be skims yeah and say
let's re-establish ourselves asthe go-to for whatever this
product line is going to be,which obviously, I think we're
(22:04):
all assuming is going to besomewhere on the athleisure side
.
So, yeah, props to Nike.
I mean they're going to betaking advantage of this opening
here, because there's a lot ofsifting going on with brands and
product decisions and we're ina time of uncertainty in the
economy and sometimes people aregoing to be less willing to
(22:25):
take risks.
So they're saying, hey, let'sreestablish ourselves.
But again, collaborations canbe win-win.
It's not going to be a lose-winsituation.
I mean, when you'reestablishing a partnership for a
collaboration with anothercompany, do what Nike did.
(22:45):
You're looking for someonewho's not cannibalizing you.
They're not eating into you andyour market.
They're going to be able tohelp you reach new people.
They already have anestablished brand identity,
right?
I think some people might thinkthat Skims and Nike might not
have a good brand cohesion there, but it's good enough, right?
(23:05):
So so if Nike can do it, youcan do it.
Just make sure that you'rebeing smart about who you want
to partner with and make surethat it's not going to eat into
your existing audience and it'sgoing to help you establish
roadways into new audiences.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Yeah, I think something you said that I
thought was interesting is Nikeis significantly bigger than
Skims from an evaluationperspective.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yet Nike's Well, from an everything perspective, yeah
, yeah, yet Nike collaboratedwith Skims.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
So I think, something that I hear all the time when
we talk to people about hey, youshould do a collaboration, like
we work.
It's very interesting.
We work with pretty big brands,but we also love taking on
every.
You know, we have a pool in ourwhen we consult of, like,
smaller companies that areemerging, you know, that have
(24:05):
the ability to make it big, butthey just haven't quite figured
out how to do it.
And when we have conversationswith smaller companies, it's fun
A lot of times like, oh, wethink this would be a cool
collaboration, but they're somuch bigger than us, why would
they want to do it, you know?
And then, on the flip side, wetalked to these bigger brands
(24:25):
and they almost think thatthey're too big to collaborate
with somebody smaller.
And so I think a veryinteresting lesson in this
partnership is it doesn't alwaysmatter about the size, you know
, um, and how much revenue acompany is making.
(24:46):
What matters is what you canbring to the table for them and
what they can bring to the tablefor you, you know.
So if you're a brand that'sdoing $50 million a year, um and
uh, let, let let's say you're alike doing $50 million a year,
um, and let's say you're a likeI'm just making something up
here.
Let's say you are a beddingcompany or, like, a mattress
(25:10):
company.
You know your company in thesleep space, Okay, um, and
you're this 50 plus to a hundredmillion dollar company.
But there is a brand that'semerging that may be in you know
five to $10 million space.
That is a supplement companyselling sleep aid kind of
(25:36):
supplements.
You know, um, what a coolcollaboration that would be,
cause you're not eating intomarket share.
Number one and number two,you're connecting with a very
like an audience that is goingto be very loyal, who
understands how important sleepis, and and it's a, it's a
win-win for both, because in theCPG space you have very, very
(26:00):
loyalists, because these peopleare subscribing over and over
and over again.
That's the type of value thatyou can bring to a bigger,
larger bedding, mattress,whatever company.
And on the flip side, thisbigger company just has more
customers that have deeperwallets, that also are very
interested in sleep, and sothere is this very symbiotic
(26:21):
relationship, even though onpaper, one looks like they could
be much more valuable than theother.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, which is exactlyhow Nike and Skims are.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Yeah, it is, and so it's going to give both of them
a ton of new content to workwith.
It's going to give new eyes toboth brands.
It's going to give both of thema ton of new content to work
with.
It's going to give new eyes toboth brands.
It's going to help both of thembreak into a new category
potentially.
So that's it.
Yeah, I think it's smart, it'sreally smart right now.
I mean, yes, and the flip sideof a lot of competition is that
(26:57):
there's a lot of uncertainty, orthere's maybe more indecision,
and there's more opportunity foryou to.
Well, let me rephrase thatthere's more uncertainty and
indecision from a consumerstandpoint, but that might be
actually more opportunity for abrand to establish themselves.
Yeah, so if you can zig whileothers are zagging, then then
(27:17):
you can actually emerge on topduring these kinds of situations
.
Because guess what, likeeconomies ebb and flow, like
this is just, this is business.
Like everything does not movein a linear direction.
So, if you're running a company, I'm not, I'm not saying you
shouldn't be frustrated, butthis is just life, right, right,
(27:40):
like every company has gone upand down, and so the important
thing is just trying to raiseyour, your basement Right.
So if you can make sure thatyour bottoms are getting higher
and if you could start gettingmore efficient, fixing your
operations, finding new ways todo outreach, like collaborations
(28:01):
, then then great.
That doesn't mean that you canstop doing the things that you
have to do that are thebloodline of your business.
But collaborations are so easy.
And now, yes, working withother people might not be always
easy, but a collaborationgenerally is a phone call.
There's not a ton of upfrontmoney involved.
(28:24):
It's not a lot of pain, like itis to to invest perhaps 300
grand into certain kinds ofvideo content that you might not
know if it's going to pan outor not.
Right like sometimes that canbe really painful and sometimes
collaborations will involve thatkind of content.
But but if you're a smallerbrand and when I say smaller if
(28:47):
you're five, you know even lowerthan that, if you're 1 to 15
million, it doesn't like all youhave to do is call another
company, just make some phonecalls, see, see which companies
make sense for you, yeah.
It's not that big of a deal,right, and, like you, you'll be
(29:08):
surprised how quickly you coulddo it, cause, like it's not just
with other companies, it's withother, potentially with like an
influencer, you know, and likethis isn't you having to go and
do a ton of of work, it's justputting yourself out there.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Yeah, and because oftentimes what happens is it's
like it's taking existingproducts and tailor it to the
collaboration right.
So, yes, there's time involved,in the sense that like, hey, if
your lead time is to createproduct, or three months or six
months or whatever, yes, yes,there's time there.
But you're right, it's justit's it's DMS away.
(29:44):
I get so many people who youknow I'll post content about
collaborating and so many peoplewill be like, well, this isn't
always like guaranteed to winand and and you're it's like,
yeah, you are 100% right.
However, that's why you stickwith the ABCs, the guarantees,
or when you know obviouslynothing is guaranteed, meaning
(30:07):
like, if you send an email,you're not guaranteed to make X
amount of sales, if you spend$100,000 an ad, you're not
guaranteed to make 400,000 back.
But there are these ABCs, thesethings, that you are pretty
constant and you know thatwithin a margin of error, you're
going to get X amount of returnon that.
That's why you do collaborations, because you know, or product
(30:30):
seeding, or new productdevelopment I mean, whatever the
situation is we're talkingabout collaborations here is you
do those things because inorder to grow, in order to build
your brand, you have to do morethan just run ads you have to.
Yes, that's going to help yougrow and you can do very, very
cool things and you can enterinto new channels and run more
(30:52):
top funnel stuff.
That will also build your brand.
But tying yourself to anotheraudience and borrowing that
audience is just another thingthat's going to help do those
things.
And yes, it might not alwaysland and it might not always be
a home run, the way it seemslike this skims collaboration is
going to be.
(31:13):
But does that mean do it no?
Speaker 2 (31:18):
yeah, good, like a good example of this would be
from a lower and you know, Idon't know what their revenue is
, but I'm guessing what lolablankets might be.
But they collaborated withtezza and if you're just looking
from the outside in, you lookat instagram and you're looking
(31:39):
at like a lola blankets and youmight think like, oh, like
they're just looking from theoutside in, you look at
Instagram and you're looking atlike Alola blankets and you
might think like oh, they'rejust a small blanket company,
like why would, why would Tezza,who has one point, whatever
million followers, collaborate?
You know, like that's and I'mnot saying, I'm saying that from
the perspective of that's whata lot of people end up doing-
(32:06):
Right, right.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
I'm saying that from the perspective of that's what a
lot of people end up doing.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Right right, a lot of companies will be like oh, I
don't know if I can get her,that person or that company,
yeah but obviously that was abeneficial move for both of them
.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Yep, yeah, they just did.
They just did like you know, itwas beneficial because they
just restocked.
Yeah, I don't know if you sawthat, like they, they restocked
it.
So you know that she wasprobably making good money from
it and they probably make goodmoney from it yeah, and it
worked out for both of them, soit's a win-win.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Yeah, and I don't know how much time and effort
went into that and that's I meanprobably it's.
Everything's always harder.
Everything's easier said thandone, so it's harder than what
we're making it out to be.
But still, like Lola MakesBlankets, they made a blanket
together.
They didn't necessarily comeout with this whole new product.
(32:50):
I'm sure Tezza had a lot ofinfluence on what that style
looked like and what she wantedto have her name on.
But a lot of times thatrelationship is just simply you
sending out different productsamples and just like hey, what
like?
What do you want?
What have you seen?
What?
inspirations, these patterns,these yeah and so that can be
difficult and that's work, butit's not like you have to
(33:14):
reinvent the wheel there no likelola knows how to make blankets
.
So, like, making a variation ofa blanket with someone like a
tezza probably wasn't rocketscience, right, it probably
wasn't like that crazy.
So and it was great for both ofthem and and we're happy for
both of them and we've had himon our podcast.
(33:35):
We're stoked that that we'reseeing them all over the place.
So good example.
Like you don't going back tothe skims to nike, like why
would nike partner with someoneso tiny in in comparison to nike
?
Yep, well, there's.
So don't think of that.
Terms of like, oh, we're small,they're big.
(33:56):
Think of it of like, hey, what,you might have something that a
bigger brand doesn't have.
Like you might have aninfluencer, you might have,
right, a certain targetdemographic.
Like you might have somethingthat they don't, yeah, and that
they want.
So, like, never.
Think of it as like big versussmall.
Think of it as like what?
Where can we?
Speaker 1 (34:15):
both value?
Yeah, yeah, do.
Can I?
Can I provide value to thisperson?
You know I, like some, somebodyonce told me, like, um, when I
was like early on in my career.
You know this guy was tellingme.
He said, hey, one of my biggestpet peeves.
He was further on, he was a CMOfor this bigger brand and he
(34:35):
said one of my biggest petpeeves is when, like, some
random person reaches out to meand says, hey, can I come, can I
pick your brain, want to talkabout marketing, can I pick your
brain?
And he says it's not that I'mnot willing to answer questions
and help young people, he's like, but the laziness and not being
able to come to me with thevalue you could bring to me.
(34:56):
You know, and I'm not expectingthat this kid who's in college,
who's never done anything, isgoing to provide me massive
value.
But just in everything, justthink about the value you can
bring Right.
And so, um, you know I rememberI used to say stuff like, hey, I
would love to pick your brain,I'd love to do a little bit of
work for you on the side, like,if you need hands, I'll do it
(35:19):
for free, like I, I just wantthe experience, and so I, you
know it was me like, hey, Iwould love to go to lunch with
you, ask some questions, but I'malso willing to, like, step
into your office and help you do, xyz, you know.
So there's always that that'skind of how you have to look, is
like, what is the value you canbring to them, or what's the
value they can bring to you?
And, yes, some might get, somemight come, come out on top more
(35:40):
than others, um, but thatdoesn't mean that they're going
to say no, just because theirvalue isn't going to be like the
value they're going to get outof you isn't going to be equal
to the value they're going togive to you yeah, there's
someone's going to be a biggerwinner.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
But like, if it's a win-win I'll do it.
It's never going to be equal.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Yep, and these things take a little bit of time too,
right, so remember that.
Like that's what's beauty, likethis, this, like yes, I know
we've kind of downplayed it andsay it's a conversation away,
because it is right, like that'sjust how it starts, is it
starts with a DM, it starts witha text, so it always starts
(36:17):
with the conversation, andsometimes these things take a
little bit of time, but that'swhy you have to be doing them
right now.
Like that's why, when thingsare going well, you shouldn't
just sit back and do the thing,do the ABCs.
You should sit back and say,okay, like how do we get to the
X, y, Zs, you know, um, and dothe things that?
God?
I don't know if it's going towork, but let's put time and
(36:39):
let's put some resource intothis so that, come you know,
next spring or fall, we're goingto win.
I mean, we had a client who didthis last fall, like it was
really cool.
Um, they had.
They had like four or five orno, it was maybe like two to
four collaborations set up, Ithink in october and october's
(37:01):
are generally bad months in inum, the apparel space.
Uh, yeah, as people are waitingfor black friday and they had
one of their best years, bestmonths of the year in october,
because they had thesecollaborations that absolutely
crushed them.
Now, they were smaller collabsbut they had, like these collabs
(37:22):
drop all in the same month andit essentially gave them an
extra month's worth of revenue.
So, instead of having a 12 monthyear, we had a 13 month year
based off of the revenue, basedoff of the revenue, and so these
(37:46):
things can help out in alsostruggling times and situations.
Um, so you got to just start,you got to start dming, you got
to start asking and understandthat it might take six months,
it might take 12 months.
Like I said, I bet the skinthing.
It's been a deal that's beenhappening for the last 12 to 18
months yeah, yeah, if I had toguess or even longer yeah, which
meant that skims would havebeen valued at less at the time
(38:10):
right most, I mean most likelyyeah hard, yeah hard to know
with valuations In theory, yes.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Right, but nonetheless yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
So I like that that's good Offensive strategies, so
that when you have macro thingsthat you can't control, you have
other things that you can leanon Right and not just the
one-two punch that you can leanon Right and not just the
one-two punch that you lead with.
You've got something that youcan pull out of your hat.
(38:45):
I think that's important.
I think the other thing that'ssuper important is just follow
some macroeconomic things,because I think yes, I know we
talked about doing someoffensive things like
collaborations, but alsosomething that's just like super
critical is sometimes we makereally bad emotional decisions
when it's just a time and aseason right, hey, let me fire
(39:07):
this marketing agency.
Or hey, let me stop spending.
You know, because my CAC wentfrom $50 to $70.
Sometimes we can make reallybad decisions, even though if we
were to, because we think it'ssomebody else's problem, not
(39:27):
something more macro, whereas ifyou were to turn your spending
off, it could actuallycompletely kill you in the next
couple of months.
Or if you were to fire youragency, they were actually doing
good, but you were putting itup against a macroeconomic thing
, and then you hire anotheragency who actually sucks Right.
So when you're not followingthe macroeconomic things, you
(39:50):
could be putting yourself in areally poor situation.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Yeah yeah, for sure Don't make emotionally based
decisions.
All right, sweet.
I think that's a good place towrap it up.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Yeah, I agree.
Thank you guys.
Thanks everybody.
Sorry, we're in the home officetoday, so if you were listening
it didn't sound any different,but if you're watching it may
look a little different.
But we'll see you guys nextweek.
Thank you so much for listeningto the Unstoppable Marketer
Podcast.
Please go rate and subscribethe podcast, whether it's good
(40:23):
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
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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