In this episode, John and I talk about Subscription Trends, TikTok, Paid Ads and everything else to do with GROWTH! We all want to grow our boxes, learn from one of the best right here with John Roman of Battlbox and Carnivore Club!
Transcript from video:
[Music]
hey eric music here welcome to the
subscription box show and if you enjoyed
this podcast or it has even helped your
business in any way then i'd ask you to
please consider supporting the show by
visiting the subscription box show dot
locals dot com any dollar amount would
be a blessing to us thank you so much
for considering
you see the recording notification that
you might have to click yeah okay cool
that means we're live right here yeah
it's recording live so
new format um everyone's going to be
seeing this so from the pre-banter post
banter
and the uh potion when does it start
right now right now we are
okay
probably this is probably easier than
post-production stuff well
yeah i don't know like there's just more
things for him to add so we have a
youtube channel now a locals community
um so yeah i'm just gonna bring up to
date here so i guess our editor jun
art's still the same editor he he just
has to add icons and logos and stuff now
he'll have your name with the the battle
box logo hey i got a question are you
are you are you guys still with
carnivore club are you still to do it
there too
yeah okay so
yeah so carnivore and battle box are are
now the battle box group and that was
that was what emerge emerge purchased
okay that's what i thought i knew there
was some news there and um
i thought maybe they got acquired or you
know you sold or whatnot but cool well
maybe let's start there let's um i'll
i'll quickly start with like what's new
with us and what we're going to be doing
here with the show and then maybe we'll
get you a quick update from you and
what's happening at headquarters and
still in atlanta
uh yeah yeah i'm still here but i mean
you know our parent company's in toronto
now so
yeah that's crazy yeah with the
carnivore club side of things right
no or just we can we can get into it we
were we were acquired in october
oh no kidding yeah in october okay well
yeah hold on to that so i'm just gonna
quickly so uh yeah new format of the
show this will be on youtube uh this is
also gonna be on locals the a lot of the
post banter show stuff um if there is
any
and then the the q a there's a specific
q a so i asked the locals community our
supporters and members to ask questions
for you so those q and a that q a will
be at the end of the show that's just
just going to be for the supporters so
if you want to be part of those and you
want to ask questions and you want to
hear the answers from our esteemed
guests like john roman here you're gonna
have to head over to the subscription
box show.locals.com
and there you can join as a member there
and you'll see your options so um that's
what's new with us john a bit of a new
kind of a format more engaging i'll say
um the show with many of the people that
just want to have more like day-to-day
um touch points so
uh what about you so yeah wow you guys
got acquired in october let's say yeah
let's start there
let's go back a second how many episodes
have you done now this is
uh do you know the quantity uh yeah i
don't know what number this episode will
be um but as we're recording this right
now what is it it's friday
yeah february 11th uh on tuesday so it's
only one show a week now since post
christmas and new year
we are at 208 i want to say two or nine
two weeks holy cow yeah
so it's still going strong
yeah
i've never i've never slept with
anything that long
[Laughter]
oh yeah
man and the funny thing is we've known
each other for for a few years now and
we've actually never met in person we
were close to meeting in person and that
whole
uh pandemic thing started yeah what's up
with that it's kind of good is that over
yet
yeah it should be um
but yeah tell me about uh yeah so
hopefully maybe in june uh we're we're
seeing a lot of provinces open up
right no restrictions that kind of stuff
so i'm hoping it's the same here in my
province i'm in right in the middle here
in manitoba
they're pretty pretty safe we'll say
usually so
we'll see what happens there but yeah
i'd love to be able to get this sub
summit i've talked to the sub team there
to get the to get up down there in june
right june 2nd yeah yeah it's uh just
the beginning of june um so when when i
it's obviously we have that office our
office up in in toronto um so when they
were going down through the lockdown
again recently did you guys go through
any kind of lockdown oh yeah yeah canada
is pretty
like again they play really safe i'll
i'll be honest like my opinion on it and
my opinion only too safe like it's like
we're very we only have 35 million
people here spread out in one of the
largest countries in the world and i
mean you look down south just look no
further to down south where you guys are
you guys have ten times as many people
and you guys are doing fine like florida
for example i look at it as a great
example right like there's more people
in florida than canada i think and um
wow they're they're they're doing okay
yeah
and they're not they're not following
any protocols at all that's what i mean
yeah i mean and they're living on top of
each other compared to here right so
yeah anyways we're not gonna get into
that but yeah hopefully i'd love to be
able to get down there just to get some
sun too like
looks like it's it's all sunny here
right now but um actually i should do
this i'll i'll pan over okay it's um
like minus 21 or 22 right now and it's
gonna be with with the wind it feels
like minus 40. there was actually a
blizzard this morning it's it's calmed
down a little bit but
that
you know it might be cold but that is
beautiful
yeah
so all to see i need sun i need some
vitamin d some natural vitamin d not
just my supplements here
yeah yeah well hopefully hopefully
you'll uh
you'll make it down to disney world
yeah
yeah it'd be nice to bring the family
too and you know we got five little
kiddos now and
oh they all have they'll have a blast oh
geez would they ever yeah for sure
so let's go back to you then let's
what's new with you what since we last
spoke i don't know when when it was the
last episode recorded but it was a while
ago it was a while ago but you came back
a couple times yeah
yeah we had that one thing where
we were all on
i mean the last time we decided to roll
on some kind of video conference okay so
yeah you first came in just talking
about battle blocks and carnivore club
that was episode say i don't know 40-ish
30-ish summer's in there probably
and then we
had you back on for a black no holiday
special talking about holiday deals
and then we had the
episode 100 which is um actually the
first video i released on the youtube
channel because it's such a cool video
with you and the other eight panelists
there's seven panelists where we talked
about um you know international trends
for 2021.
right that was the last time we probably
spoke and i got i got uh called out on
my uh
i think i had a a suit jacket or a
blazer or something
the suit the suit ladies and gentlemen i
guess i should introduce you um
today's guest here uh john the suit
roman all the way from atlanta georgia
thanks for coming on
[Music]
oh man so i never get to wear wear that
stuff and i was uh
that same day i was in i was accepting
an award
for sub summit when it was virtual
um
and i never get to wear this stuff like
i have this whole closet full of
um clothes from when i had to wear a
suit every day so when i find the
opportunity to do it i do it and then
y'all gave me a rough time on that
john was a bit of the whipping boy for
the virtual summit suit wearing geez
yeah you guys all called her to call me
um anyway so
this
um
since we we got acquired so
um
probably traded company out of out of
toronto emerge commerce um
they are
literally a an acquisition mode to
acquire these independent business units
like
like us and um
in october they acquired us um
so no longer the uh
no longer one of the owners of battle
boxing clan war club i am i'm an
employee um which which is cool and
different and um
yeah so that's that's the big big thing
that happened
um
so it's interesting it's uh
the cool thing is not a lot has changed
um their motto is they don't want to
come in and
um
you know like like jump in and start
disrupt yeah yeah like they
their their model is is getting these
operators that
that they want to keep in place
um
and kind of create this ecosystem where
like you're sharing best practices and
we're leveraging all of our buying power
to get a better rate on x um so it's
pretty cool it's um
probably the best
the best scenario we could we could have
had we talked to
when we decided we were at the point to
do this and we talked to some like
private equity companies and
i just it was not a warm and fuzzy
feeling from from some of them like they
when we asked them the hard questions
because ultimately we were interviewing
them too right we wanted to find
uh the right place for for the brand and
um
all the private equity companies like
there was not going to be
any job security for for our team
um it was very like spreadsheet
management
which which i'm not a fan of right
there's those intangibles that you don't
see on a spreadsheet
um
so yeah
interesting like i'm curious to like if
you want to let's rewind a little bit
here so like for people that are
listening like you know you might be
like wow that must be nice to getting
acquired but i mean at some point that
might have not been the vision for
your brand and the company but you guys
kind of just grew into this position of
of of you know an advantage i guess like
you had a you know a bit of a power
advantage
being you know
just what you guys were the success
you've seen whether it was with a
netflix show whether it was uh i mean
you know we can talk with that that's uh
i mean there's just been so many good
things that you guys have put together
like just so you guys actively worked at
a point where you decide to seek to be
acquired is that kind of what i'm
hearing
yeah so there were um
there were three of us that
that owned that had the equity in the
company and um
one one of us was
you know probably ready to i don't want
to say burned out but just ready to
ready to you know put the hat up and
call it a day and
probably didn't have the passion
um that that that they once had so we
were kind of at that crossroads where
um you know two of us wanted to continue
on
and and and one really didn't so at that
point you have a couple options right
it's it's do we try to buy each other
out
and
um
the other option trying to trying to
find a find a suitor and and the first
one just
we got too big right i uh
i don't have
that kind of money sitting around and um
you know at that point
do you do you get a loan and um
then there's gonna be the argument on
valuations right like a larger company
can justify that that multiplier off
ebitda um that that is healthy well
you know it's tough it's tough for um an
individual or two people to justify
paying a 6x ebitda because that means
with with the business staying the same
as it takes six years to get that money
back
and um you know that's not
the
the risk there right is is maybe not
something we wanted to bite off so
john just quickly before just i'll just
pause your story there try to see if we
can get back right to where you're at
here just for those who have never maybe
heard of ebitda you want to just kind of
like
explain that just real quick yeah so
so basically bottom line your money so
it's earnings uh before
interest
what is it ebitda uh
or interest taxes depreciation
amortization yeah it's an acronym for
people you can just google it too it'll
yeah yeah
so
yeah so it's your earnings before all
all those things right interest taxes um
and
it
it's basically what what companies that
are are going to
make acquisition that's what they're
looking at right they're looking at the
bottom line
um how much how much a company makes and
typically um
they're they're coming up with a
multiplier
off off that to form an evaluation
is there a
for people that are listening i know
that a lot of my listeners are all over
the place right some that are just
thinking of starting a subscription box
some that i've started and some that are
you know in the thousands and they're
growing
is there
in your opinion
a road map to getting acquired i know
for us that louisiana and i'm asking
this for myself we're kind of that like
we're our goal is was to build a company
to get acquired at one point so we're
still you know not there yet but is
there like a road map i guess my first
question and then my second part of my
question would be
is there like a level
not even income or subscriber base but
is there like some kind of like
size that they look at before they even
consider acquiring you or does it it
depends completely it could be all over
the map i think it could be all over the
map so you look at you look at carnivore
club right so carnivore club was
um
was was a
couple couple million dollar three
million dollar business we we personally
have acquired acquired them right
we've um
we sold uh before that we had two
smaller brands
bbqbox.com and spartancarton.com
one was a barbecue
um centric subscription box one was a
fitness and supplement subscription box
um
combined i mean i mean they were both
six low six figure businesses
um scratching and clawing to be six
figures and we we sold both of those um
so there was a there was a buyer for
that
and in low six figures and we're talking
one had um
600 subscribers 600 subs and the other
one it may be i think 350 400 higher
price point but but lower sub count
um and we found a buyer for both of
those so i i think
i don't think the size
um matters now i will tell you the
valuations probably differ the bigger
you get right like
um even even us we wear this multiplier
off off even up
but if we could have get it gotten to
that next level
you can start getting a multiplier off
um
top line revenue right just based on
who your suitor is you know they have
different different roles different
things they're looking for um
you know i know with the merge they were
looking for that sweet spot they they
are trying to acquire acquire companies
that haven't even between um typically
two and five million dollars
um
that's that that's what they're looking
for specifically
uh companies
yeah we just happen to fall fall into
into that so i think there's
i i think you know it's it's size
doesn't matter when it comes to selling
size matters when it comes to valuation
how much you're gonna get
um
but
the playbook for it
um
run run a tight ship right um i know
it's especially like when you start a
business it's easy
to
say well i i own 100 of this business
right and
daddy needs some money um and there's
money in here so like
doing stuff like that and treating it
like a bank account for personal use
people do that and and and
that's fine if you want to treat it as
just a lifestyle
a lifestyle job lifestyle company
lifestyle brand
that's cool but you're not gonna ever
sell because no one's gonna want to buy
it um and i think i think that's the big
thing
and to be honest we were we were guilty
of that when we first started
um
and uh we we took we took probably more
money out than we should have
and um
our books in turn did not look very
pretty
so even you know i think we probably
um
you know the outcome we came to where we
decided we were going to try to find a
suitor um we would have we've had those
conversations and probably at a similar
point um collectively a couple years
prior
but our books were not pretty and our
books were not going to be attractive to
anyone
um
in hindsight
if you do get to the you know
um
i'd say if you do get to
decent seven figure eight figures in
revenue
um the one hurdle we hit post letter of
intent was we had to get a legitimate
audit right
this this super expensive
um
anal probe that lasted months
um
it's mind-blowing you would pay for such
pain
but um we had to have one and then
emerge require that they said hey you
need to have
an audit done on previous year's
financials
and um we had never done anything like
that and you know we thought we were
running good books and we were to a
certain extent but there were so many
nuances little things like we had never
even accounted or thought of that that
changed stuff significantly um
and uh
if you get to that point and you want to
get acquired and your your decent seven
figure eight figures
have have an audit done prior
um because there were lots of surprises
it delayed the sales pro the us closing
three four months
um because we had to have this audit
done
and and so many little things like
change so we
we renew on we'll count february so
february 15th we have our big renewal
for both battlebox and carnivore club um
now we don't ship that box
either of them until the beginning of
march that's that's our model right well
previously
we were renewing on the 15th we still
were knew on the 15th but we were
capturing february 15th renewal in the
month of february
that makes sense to me that's when the
sale occurred right
that's incred that's incorrect
um
because you're shipping in march you
have to defer that revenue and account
for it in march when the product
actually ships
and we weren't doing that
um
so we had to go back on all the you have
to fix all the books on those yeah so it
was it was it was crazy like nightmare
yeah yeah because then you're having a
look at all the orders okay so
these orders shipped at this month but
these didn't so you gotta move it's not
like you're just taking all february
revenue and dumping into march these
actually shipped in february just one
time or whatever so
um or in the beginning of february they
bought so they didn't get it
yeah little nuances like that um
so i would highly advise getting ahead
of the audit thing
yeah um because we were supposed to
originally close
in june and we didn't close officially
into october
so long that's a long push out
yeah especially now you've got to go
through the summer drought i don't know
if that's the thing with your brand or
whatnot but i mean and then you're
trying to do that in the middle of or
beginning of q4 like it's uh
yeah it's just it's going that long it's
weird because then you're like
you're in this weird phase right like i
can't imagine yeah like you're you're
still the owner but
you're not you're assumed not to be
and
it's so weird it just brings a whole uh
whole slew of
uh variables you had never come across
or thought about
um
but yeah i think i think i had some of
the answers to your questions there yeah
for sure is there like a a place you go
to look for people that acquire
companies is like you know where do you
start looking or is it just connections
or
or a network you've had previously
so
so there's there's brokers right so
you know when we decided we were going
down this process um
i i leveraged my my network at first and
i got referred to
um
this guy out of out of toronto um who
had done done a
deal for this guy they referred him and
met met him since tim had this great
call
um meanwhile our cfo is going down a
more traditional route trying to find
you know where do we how do we get sold
right
and he found he found a traditional
broker house um and there's a bunch of
them in there for businesses all size
the one we so we ended up going with
both my guy
and the broker thing and we gave an
exclusion list because the big broker
they wanted an exclusivity they didn't
want anybody else
doing this okay um oh so we we agreed to
go with them but then we came up with
these this list of 50 people that my
buddy tim was going to work and we said
okay as long as is 50 tim has it anybody
else or anything you find these guys do
it tim got the deal um
his his first call he's set up
um ended up being now we had other calls
but the first call he set up ended up
being the emerge deal um
but back to yeah website closers.com was
who we used as the main from they didn't
you know they didn't find us a deal but
they got us lots of lots of meetings um
and they're one of the leaders in the
space
and it's super easy you can go there to
buy businesses you can also go there to
you know fill out a form and one of
their brokers will call you and
they handle the rest um
big big takeaway after going through the
deal is man i'm in the wrong industry i
need to be a broker
getting getting getting six to eight
points
um for a couple of meetings
yeah they they do they do they earn
their paycheck in your opinion or is it
i'm sure there's situations where they
do
and
you know it's a relative question right
do they earn their paycheck would the
deal have happened without them no yeah
right
we we didn't know a merged uh emerge
um so so probably
i guess they do but man they earn their
paycheck but they're just highly paid
um
so it's like realtors they don't uh no
offense realtors out there
irritates me so much
um and taking my equity for
yeah and so so the other thing no
offense realtors if you're listening
good for you but there's there's two
different
groups of realtors right there's these
hustlers grinders they're putting in the
the hard work they're
they're they're smart they're
intelligent they have they have critical
thinking they're they're going to be
successful and they chose real estate
then i'm sorry you have this other
bucket
that
[ __ ] failed at everything else
and they're not gonna be a realtor
sounds easy
um
but they and they want the same
percentage i don't know why i'm so
irritated right now
did you ever did you recently have a bad
experience with the realtor john
no
i have no
i i haven't had some great experiences
um
i have some realtor friends that if they
hear this they're like
you probably hate me now
yeah i know we have a lot of realtor
friends too and i i kind of you know
let's i tell mark to their face if i
sell i'm not using you i'm going to sell
myself it's 2022. like what do you yes
yeah i would also keep i'll keep my own
home equity thank you
right thank you i uh that was really mad
i i i really thought um zillow was gonna
like
change the game on on the road to market
zillow
yes
so in the states zillow decided
um you know you can go so on zillow you
can go and it gives you a zest a
zestimate of what your house is worth
um
but zillow probably traded giant company
started saying we're gonna get into real
estate we'll buy
we'll buy your home
so you're you were eliminating brokers
and they they bought a lot of homes but
the zestimate
um
always was kind of higher than than
appraisers and real estate people would
say your house was worth okay yeah i
think zillow was kind of going more off
their zestimate which was like highly
inaccurate so they for six months they
bought
thousands of homes and spent hundreds of
millions of dollars and then they just
said
all right we're not doing this anymore
like this isn't right but i thought that
that was going to be like
that that game changer where it it says
okay
you don't need a real estate agent
anymore
because
yeah i'm surprised still yeah i think
it's i don't know if it's just the
boomer generation i mean like i know
here in canada we have something called
kijiji yeah i don't know if you guys
have kijiji
it's like a buy and sell app right you
can do your vehicles there you can sell
i can sell you know
you know my calculator i can sell
anything i can literally post anything
take a picture
exactly and then people do that for land
for properties and their houses now so
i'm like you know people always post
their first facebook market and then i
think you
between facebook
and kijiji here anyways
it sells like people see it so i don't
know how uh
i don't understand how they they've
continued to be this yeah this space to
your point of 2022 i'm going to sell my
own house yeah and and so thinking now
it's
like so we the house we live and we
bought in
2015 so it's been a minute but the
internet was still the internet back
then yeah
and like we did all we did the majority
of like the research we knew this and we
knew that and
you can go to the the sites that have
the listings anyway i know
what exactly what exactly do you do for
your for your percentage not to mention
no one knows your house as much as you
do
so i mean yeah i know my house more than
you know my buddy brett or a realtor or
whatever right like
anyways uh let's take a you know i'm
just gonna take this we're going off
we're going off the off rail here but
i'm just gonna take a second to thank
our sponsors this is a new thing too
john we're thanking our sponsors in show
here so
this one here is close to your heart
because i think you've been on stage
either virtually or with your suit in
person
uh multiple times as a multiple winner
so uh sub summit sub summit 2022 is
sponsoring this episode uh the great
team at septa chris paul and um
george john
chris paul and john sorry sorry john the
hodge father yes um
so yeah this episode is sponsored by
substance we were actually we kind of
like teed it up a little bit you know
nonchalantly in the beginning but sub
summit 2022 is in june june 2nd to 4th i
want to say it's in i mean just go to
subsummit.com um
june art's going to be posting
the link on the screen here
or you can also go to sabta.com
s-u-b-t-a
and you will um
you will find a link to sub-summit but
sub-summit has amazing speakers and and
people like john that heads out there um
i was gonna say former cmo are you still
cmo at battlebox no i'm i am a ceo now
um so part of part of the switch
um with the new with the
new ownership i stepped into the ceo
role excuse me
well look at that
even june june 1st 23rd
june 1st to the 3rd yeah okay so
apologies to sub-summit but yeah june
1st the 3rd in sunny orlando florida and
i think there's even like a hotel block
you can you can rent there and stuff um
i think it's that's the same place we
went to pod fest i want to say like i
went to pod fest in 2020 and i think
it's the same
kind of like a resort hotel that was
beautiful there i think it is this is
i'm gonna i'm gonna start talking about
the sponsor here yeah so it's in disney
world okay at the swan and dolphin which
are
on on in disney uh near epcot theme park
um you can literally take a little tram
or walk
to uh or take a boat ride to epcot
you can take a you can take a little
boat to disney studios
um it's right there in the action it's
going to be it's going to be fun
yeah and there's always a massive lineup
of speakers there i mean go check it out
subsummit.com you'll see all the
speakers that are supposed to be there
so yeah check it out i'm definitely
going to be there if i can i mean it's
just kind of got him you've got to make
it
i know i might have to uh ski-doo across
the border and then fly from grand forks
north dakota or something we'll see
but yeah have to find a way to get there
if not obviously like
i mean i'm i'm kind of done with such
virtual things but worst worst case
scenario i would be going virtually uh
virtually anyways but yeah my plans to
definitely be there and i think um if i
can be there we've got some cool plans
for even the subscription box show
supporters um to kind of have meet and
greets with some of my past favorite
guests maybe like john maybe john would
come in and partake with that i'm gonna
be there i'd love if if you're there i'm
i'm 100 in yeah we'll have some drinks
and uh
some of my bring some canadian pints
maybe i don't know something cool we'll
figure something out some good coffee
some good some good beer um are you a
beer drinker sean i'm not so we've
talked about this before i'm not i'm not
a beer drinker what disappointing that
is very disappointing you look like you
could uh you should be you know
somewhere in a pub having a pint
it's friday
yeah
okay so let's continue so since the
acquisition what's the new role for you
look like you went from cmo to ceo um so
you know we kind of went through like
the process of getting acquired and
we can keep kind of going down this uh
this rabbit hole here so you guys get
acquired in october what does that look
like as soon as like you know day you
know day one and in the new position
here
yeah so so as far
as as far as day to day goes there
hasn't been a lot of changes um
for for for what my day-to-day looks
like i've i've leaned
um
heavily a little bit more than usual on
a
gentleman named walter he's our director
of marketing um
and he's he learned in really smart kid
and he's learned a lot of the stuff
um that i was doing on the day
day-to-day but he was but he was
learning that prior to the acquisition
um
as as it's always been the plan that
he's going to continue to take all
things
sales and marketing um
and then i have some involvement now in
the procurement process which i didn't
have before um but
that's in in general all of us in
leadership are involved in the
procurement process now i'm just to
ensure it was the one piece
my business partner who decided to
retire daniel that was the one thing he
did for the company was procurement um
so we said okay well if we're losing him
we're gonna need to overcompensate um
just to be be safe and make sure we
don't we don't miss the mark um so we
made a full-time hire to lead
procurement and we have kind of this
board of procurement to ensure
everything um
is is a better experience even before
so so the day-to-day
um
hasn't changed the way the business
operates hasn't changed much if i if i'm
thinking of what's different
um
they're probably traded so
there's
one i'm not
i didn't have to send reports
and updates on numbers ever before
because
i would listen to myself i'd look at
them and
and
and see where we're at and that would be
it now we're having to put together
um a decent amount of like reporting
and and forecasting and
shareholders
yeah so we're setting that up to parent
company
um so that's new and then this whole
publicly traded pieces new
because it's
um
we're having to get financials by a
certain date
um you know up to up to corporate so
they can put him in this combined thing
you know literally this week um
i believe maybe wednesday they you know
emerge announced that
their their preliminary q4 results
um in order to do that we you know we
had to get our numbers into this so so
that whole nuance is is new
um luckily i i
you know knock on wood
our cfo richard and his team
um
they they take 99 of that love lift of
the lift from that so i'm not having to
deal with it um too much on the
financial side the reporting side i have
some stuff i have to do
but um
that and then um
there's always going to be an audit
which is which is not fun so
um poor patrick who uh third partner the
other partner that also stayed on
healing he runs our warehouse needs
operations logistics shipping
fulfillment
inventory management all of that is his
domain
well they had to do at the end of the
year they had to do a
a fun inventory audit
which which these things are not fun so
like
um did you guys still do everything in
house john we do yeah
um
i think that was one of the um
probably one of the uh a
list of attractive things
that that we had going for us was that
we had our own fulfillment so is that
work why is that attractive to them
so emerge has um where we were their
second acquisition their first
acquisition true local
um which i don't know if you're if
you're familiar with that sounds
familiar yeah i'm trying to think about
it yeah so it's it's like a butcher's
block butcher box it's it's these high
quality organic um cuts of meat and
they're they're
99 of the business maybe 97 95 the
business is in canada okay um
and they don't have too much of a us
presence and some of the other
brands they have just golf stuff wag jag
is all canada-based but
they have some fulfillment in canada but
they really don't have u.s fulfillment
at all so it allows as there's expansion
these canadian companies
and you know just golf stuff for example
we're talking with them sister company
now and you know it probably makes sense
we come to a deal where we do some
fulfillment for them um instead of them
having to ship to a 3pl in the states
they can ship to us
or
keep it in the family
um
so that that's cool that's the synergies
and and whatnot
um but yeah
so yeah yeah
yeah
yeah it's incredible what a journey i
mean like uh i think
do most people stick around after they
get acquired or do a lot of people just
kind of like you said i think it was
daniel like they just kind of retire
because often i think you you know right
off in the sunset but you want to keep
uh you want to stay
you want to stay in the game i guess
yeah so
i wasn't a couple reasons why not you
know personally i wasn't um
i i i wasn't done with the battle box
journey okay um there i want to see a
little you know how far can we take this
what else can we do we had some
um you know some initiatives and plans
and things we wanted to launch that we
haven't gotten to yet
um i think i think the potential is
there
to um
to keep going with it now a merge
wouldn't have bought us if we weren't
sticking around
um so we were very very forthcoming when
we started the combo with emerge and we
said hey
um patrick
john
richard our cfo
um who wasn't a partner but he basically
might as well be
um the three of us are staying daniel
was not so there was some some major due
diligence by them because their motto is
they don't want they want independent
business units that are self-sustaining
they can run themselves they don't they
don't want to have to like
stick some leadership in there yeah um
so they there was major due diligence to
make sure that
they felt comfortable
we were confident comfortable that we
were fine with daniel not staying on but
they obviously needed to make sure as
well
um because their whole motto is staying
on now
yes we weren't ready to leave and hang
up the hat but
there's
major financial
um goals
and and payouts if if we can hit these
goals over the next few years so it's
advantageous for us to stay too um
it's they they've definitely
aligned made sure we were we were
aligned with them in
and staying on yeah um
so as long as you know as long as we hit
our goals it's it's very advantageous to
stay on yeah right on sounds exciting so
let's just move into the day-to-day
stuff i mean what are you guys seeing
for 2022 here we're still fairly early
february 11th like i said
as we're recording this um are you guys
um
[Music]
what's the plan for growth are you guys
are at a spot where you're saturated you
you know you're kind of like just kind
of maintaining are you still looking to
keep
you know growing acquisitions what's uh
what does that look like
so we have to grow um
the the power of the bees say we have to
and and you know in in reality we're
we're still growing we're still looking
to grow um
i think it's it's a for us it's a
combination of the continued acquisition
on digital advertising that we've done
it's launching new products um and new
offerings and then we're gonna we're
continuing the very cool thing
that we were up front with emerge and
they like it is we're going to continue
our talking uh model of trying to find
like additional carnivore clubs these
these other subscription businesses that
are smaller than us that we can talk in
where our existing team
um
can can you know replicate and do 85 90
of
of the job of of that other company
um so it's all of them we're um
we're still having the
love hate
hate
kind of like relationship with with
facebook i mean i think we're all in the
same boat of
of wtf after this this ios thing right
um
trying to find
what works
um and what doesn't work
and it's interesting
right now facebook and instagram are
actually going really well for us
and
everybody i've spoken to where it's
going well
we all are doing the exact same thing on
there
which is a very aggressive
offer
for for us it's um right now on
all of our battle box as we're giving
we're giving away a free single man tent
um so it's a gift i was gonna ask you
about your offer i'm glad you went there
because i was just gonna ask you like so
what kind of offer like was free box
kind of posse now it's like you have to
have this killer kick-ass gift i think
that people really want and they'll
almost sign up just to get that gift is
that kind of what you're getting at
um yeah i it and it's
you know for for
for five six seven years we we
didn't like
these these huge offers in top of funnel
we just didn't want to do that right now
we might give you middle of funnel give
you 10 off your first box
you know maybe something even more
aggressive and end up final just to
close you
and then what we used to do is
um for the last three years a couple
times a year typically three to four
times we'd have a very aggressive um
offer typically black friday cyber
monday yeah and we'd find two times
strategically later or earlier in the
year to do a
a that's a very similar thing and those
were needle movers that was okay let's
like let's turn it off let's add some
major
exponential growth to our subscriber
base let's let's do this and they were
planned and now the unfortunate
reality is that's just going to be the
norm now it's an evergreen
ex aggressive offer
um now the good news is we
we we did major testing as through the
years as we've done this and looking at
those cohorts um
they perform
not identical to nor to the normal
regular battle box subscribers
but but close enough where we can do
modeling and understand what the ltv is
and understand what the behavior is and
it it makes it where it's
it it makes sense it's profitable it's
um
but it's just it's a it's a new world
where we're having a lead with this
offer
and um it's but it's working it's
working right now and every and i've
i've probably in the last month talked
to
maybe 10 12 um businesses
in our space that are that are our size
or bigger
and that's what's working for them
they're it's work facebook instagram is
working right now for them and they all
are doing the exact same thing which is
which is interesting um
tick tock
is
for for us
has been the savior um it started off
organically and we were getting
customers organically
um
and it was our focus we doubled down on
content and we really made it very very
important so before ads you guys were
just strictly going just a lot of
content posting a ton like are you
talking like four times a day kind of
thing
no i'm talking like four times four
times a week
and then and it was a slow ramp right
and and now like we're we're pushing for
daily daily posts and once we can
consistently hit that we'll we'll
probably go move it twice a day um but
it's it's it's a slow it's a slow build
it's it's tough to get that much content
and then still do your other job
requirements
i just have like short posts on there
yeah so we we go anything from from
short and funny to to a minute to um i
think this week's best performer is
actually a three minute video
um
so we're we're we test it all
the uh but but literally in the last 30
days
we've we've actually seen success with
tic toc advertising
um which is which is pretty exciting
because all of last year we saw we
couldn't get anything to work on there
the only thing we saw work and the only
thing we heard about working was
um
taking influencers and having them kind
of white list and running the ads on
their their channels that was the only
thing that worked on tick tock and now
actual traditional advertising is
working on there and it's exciting
because it's
if they if they can keep it working like
it needs to
they're just going to continue to
dominate like right now tick tock is
dominating the the social space and if
they can figure out advertising and
knock on wood
it looks like in 2022 they might have if
they if they can continue this it's
it's they're gonna it's a game changer
like
it really really is uh it'll be a game
team it'll be good for everyone because
it'll it'll have some that competition
much needed competition from facebook
right like i think um
it will be good for everybody except for
for facebook or meta whatever you want
to call them yeah what is that i go on
my whatsapp and it's just like powered
by meta it used to be facebook now it's
meta what is that powered by the
metaverse
[Laughter]
yeah yeah um
so they yeah it won't be good for them
but
um
you know shame on them
the uh
uh other stuff um
we tested towards the end of last year
we haven't figured it out yet uh
connected tv so think hulu
um
slang
all of those um
you know over the top
um streaming services we tested
advertising with them
and
we haven't found anything super scalable
yet
um and i don't know if we will but
we saw an uptick
and
it might just be you know part of that
omni channel approach of another touch
point
um
what i do like about it is
the tracking on it has really stepped up
the game in the last little bit of time
so you know you're watching it on your
this this commercial for battle box on
your tv
but it's not like an ad you see on your
phone or a computer where like you click
it like you can't click it right
so you then go to it on your phone or
google it on your phone and go to it so
they know that they delivered that
commercial to that ip address
and then they track they track another
you know another device shows up got it
address boom same same user so they can
track it yeah
yeah so the tracking the tracking's
definitely stepped up but it's still
tough to for us to really know if we're
gonna find if it's a
if it's a prospecting um play or if it's
just a very very expensive retargeting
play reprospecting play i hope it's the
first one right i want foreign
i don't want middle of final yeah um and
then the last piece is is podcasts so
um
you know we're doubling down on tick
tock and and youtube content and content
content content double down double
downing on it but podcasts were about to
like quadruple down on it um that's
great that's interesting for you guys
right because for you guys it's a cool
niche like just like a battle box like
you know you probably have some really
cool podcasts on that kind of like niche
that you can really kind of target and i
think
is it just a matter of finding the right
ones like or do you kind of write it or
there's only like a handful that makes
sense
so there's there's only a handful of
ones that are in our space and we've
already talked to them and advertised
with them um
so this is trying to find
the larger the the the
i'd say the joe rogans of the world but
joe rogan's too expensive um
super pricey but like literally you
don't got 100 million to spare
gosh
um
so so finding you know we
maybe it's outdoor enthusiasts
um
just trying to find even even you know
breaking down the demographics of our
customers
and then finding okay there's these five
buckets what do this demographic listen
to yeah um and then finding stuff that
um
might it might be political it might be
political on either side um just trying
to find
um
you know what are what are what are our
customers listening to podcasts we went
through some exercises where
in our members only our community
facebook group i think we have i don't
know six or seven thousand people in
there it's like hey what podcast are you
listening to right now yeah it's perfect
okay
this is on your list
this is what they listen to yeah you
know
let's try to find some commonalities and
and let's
let's see see if it works so we're gonna
we're leaning in super hard on podcasts
we have a plan
um that if we can continue to scale and
see the cpas that make sense
and everything goes right which
probably won't but if it does it's
possible um we have a plan where we're
ramped up and we're going to be spending
700k a month by the end of end of the
year on podcast
um now we're starting way way way way
way way way below that um but we we
literally have an agreement
in place that if we can hit
these these these metrics um in in q1
we move up to this bucket if we get
these metrics in q2 we're going to move
up to this bucket
and it's it's a true plan this a true
plan to scale and make
um
may podcast be one of our our major our
major sources yeah is it just as simple
as setting up uh to track it like an
affiliate you're an affiliate with the
podcaster or do you have like a special
link uh what do you guys do in there so
we went so we went with um
so we partnered with an agency for this
um and
we're basically creating um
specific urls
um for
for each of the each of the
podcasts um with a specific offer
also a specific coupon code um
utm parameters put throughout the entire
thing obviously but then taking it a
step further um
and we hadn't gone heavy on podcasts in
a couple years podcast game changed too
just like connected tv you have the oip
address thing now so we're replacing
this pixel so we know what ip address
listen to the podcast so if they don't
go to the landing page if they don't use
the coupon code we still know it's that
same user um so surely with the ip
address the landing page the utm
parameters the coupon code uh post
purchase survey
surely with those five
five things
we'll be able to get a good measure on
if it's working right because that's
that was always the complaint about
podcasts is like tracking um but i think
we have a plan with those five
five pieces where we're gonna know
with certainty yeah and you could kind
of use a some sort of blended
cpa too right like you know when we're
putting to some modern money podcasts
you know outside of everything else
we're still gaining x amount of
subscribers or whatever i mean i think
it's you can just kind of like
and you have you have to look at it that
way right yeah
it's it's just like it's just like any
other um this whole blended blended
viewpoint we're
we're at a point where that's just how
you have to be this stuff
yeah
i think the podcast is interesting i
think we um
we it's tough though you've got to find
the right one you got to test i guess
like this only thing they can be very
expensive to advertise on right like
some of them are so pricey they're
extremely pricey and
or they can be
so i think it's important to find the
right one and not be afraid to test but
you also have to have like
make sure you're not going to just burn
it all on on podcasts first like i think
it's a it's an it's kind of another tool
in the toolkit so i think they can work
but they have to
be a right fit and you have to make sure
like you're
you're kind of zoned in and dialed in on
who is your listener or your subscriber
and what are they listening to you know
like you said you put them in buckets
and you try these buckets and it might
stick right if it's the right fit
because i think podcasting is unique
thing you know you have a host that host
is always in your ear so they become
there's a trust thing there like you
start to like the podcast i listen to i
really enjoy the host obviously right
over there so i wouldn't choose to
listen to them so there's a certain
truster if they're if they're marketing
something it's because i know first of
all they believe in it because it
wouldn't be on their show and i think as
a podcast for myself i i wouldn't
promote something i don't believe in so
i think there's a certain um
you know trust factor there that's
beyond just you know seeing a facebook
ad pop up so if you can if you can get
it right is what i'm trying to get to is
that um
the there's there is a percentage of the
audience that will purchase
no question if it's just got to be the
right one
yeah and and so so saying what you said
and i can appreciate that
so much that you know
we went out with this plan these are the
the the 12 podcasts we want to start on
and the vast majority of them came back
and said cool but like we want to set up
a call and talk to the guys at battlebox
we want to better understand what they
stand for what what what their focus is
what they're doing outside of of it how
are they giving back
and
asking hearing those questions
is like to me very cool because it means
that they they care to your point
they're not going to put their name on
and and advertise something they don't
believe it
which
and
i think the the listeners appreciate
that even greater right
that's why that's that's why you and i
listen to the podcast we listen to
because you like that person you trust
that person yeah um and it's cool to see
the back end of it like them
validifying that
that you should trust them because they
are doing the due diligence they do have
your best interests at heart is it's
just kind of cool well we're a brand
we're protecting our own brand right
like that we have to like otherwise
you're just gonna destroy your own brand
like like any brand wouldn't want to
seem um
untrustworthy in any sense right like
think of your own subscription box i
mean it's the same thing as a podcaster
so all right i can't believe that multi
guys are going to be hopefully i know
you're not there yet but that's crazy
700k down the road that's um that's a
big
yeah so we we started
with that that the test
um is it's a 100k test so we've already
paid for that
it starts on monday
um it's it's a five week
five week test twelve different podcasts
a hundred thousand dollars just so much
money and is that how many uh
that's more that's more than we then
than we paid for a podcast in our first
seven years in business
jump right at it with that you know what
that's cool are you about to see which
shows you're you're gonna be um you're
gonna be on
um
if you if not that's fine um it's just
because it'd be cool to kind of listen
to the uh
yeah so here is
yeah so we're
the part of the initial initial john uh
jump drinking bros podcast
uh the adam corolla show
um
commentary magazine podcasts
three martini lunch
um
tim pool daily show
behind the baller podcast with ben
baller surprises me that that that we're
testing this one but um
conservative review with daniel horowitz
the steve
dees show
and the news and why it matters oh wait
we're still going
steve never quit
um wealth power influence with jason
stapleton
unashamed with phil and jace robertson
the reuben report the eric
mataxa show the charlie kirk show
america first with sebastian gorka
uh
cbs is 60 minutes world news roundup
face the nation
um
and john solomon
so quite a lot that's cool
so how many that's so cool i love that
so how many like spots do you get for
that then like is it like you get a
mid-roll you just get an intro like
how many weeks or how many shows we're
going
um
so we did have some learnings from from
previous
and this agency has some learnings too
so we're we're only going to
two for each
um
and that seems to be the the the current
at least for us on the the
direct-to-consumer side that's the sweet
spot you start seeing diminishing
returns typically on the third
um so
your buck is two
okay i'm just doing some quick math here
so
so that's 24 spots if it's two each for
12 shows right
yeah
so on average oops
oh why can't i calculate this one
so
am i reading this right that's going to
be around four thousand dollars
an episode um yeah so not not all uh
you know all of these podcasts have
different um different viewership right
so so some have mastered i mean
i mean that's a that's a big name
comedian at least at least to me yeah um
so i'm sure he has a
uh
it'll be higher for him yeah
yeah yeah
it'll range on the yeah i'm just saying
like on average that's around like four
thousand dollars an episode so 8 000 per
show let's just say on average like
that's so that's people are looking at
podcasts and i've looked into it for our
niche like for the our big mom
influencers
right um i don't know why i did air
quotations they are legit mom
influencers and there yeah mom
influencer yeah no they it it's
expensive like you're looking at
you know you're looking at a lot of
money when it comes to
podcast leadership if they have a lot
and it goes by
it goes by views right yeah it goes by
views now views or listen yeah listens
downloads you know people go by
downloads a lot downloads is funny
because people go by downloads but a lot
of people are going by listens now too
because if you're just subscribed to a
show that you never listen to anymore it
still keeps downloading but how many
people are actually listening to the
show you can track that on certain
platforms too which is cool
so it i mean but the but the pricing
seems to be pretty for the most part
you're looking at
20 between 25 and 35
or maybe between 30 and 35 cpm um for
pogba that seems to be like
all of these were in that range that's
still the growing rate yeah i'd say so
as low as 15 as high as 35 yeah yeah yep
these were all in the
high 20s low 30s um
but obviously you know some of them have
way more followers than others exactly
and that's why it goes so if for those
who are wondering i believe that metric
cpm is like for every let's say we use
25. um 25 dollars per thousand
um downloads or whatever i think that's
kind of like what it's always been so
that's what you're looking at for a
price so if you're looking at um if
you're reaching out to someone in your
niche if you're listening to the show
like hey you know what i'd love to be on
a podcast what does that look like you
can go and and look at like okay they're
going to tell you their their numbers
okay you know
you know you're you're you know podcast
x is getting you know 5 000 downloads
well you know you can take your 25 and
times that by five yep and that's kind
of what you're looking at so that's
that's going to be around what the
pricing should be
roughly what it should be and it could
that can vary um some depending on like
the
if they have like a very engaged
audience
they can gauge certain metrics of
outside of that too that's a very
broad thing you just be careful with
that right because
um
yeah there's more to it sometimes it
means ti but yeah you just just a
general idea of what you're looking at
for uh when you're advertising on the
show um cool man so anything else you
guys are doing when it comes to like
advertising and just like when a car i
know like just actually a question back
on the offer because you mentioned the
tenth
is there something where it's like okay
we're gonna be eating a lot of money on
this tent uh it's gonna cost us way more
than we thought but it's gonna just in
the end it's still gonna
fix the cac right so let's say your cac
on facebook was
whatever you know fifty dollars this
unit here is gonna cost us you know
fifteen dollars or thirty dollars or
whatever it is twenty dollars
so now you're but it's going to lower
the the cac to
you know 20 so it's actually lower than
that 50 without it does that make sense
and that and that's what we're seeing
okay um so so you know we're seeing
yes the
the tent cost us 20 25 to manufacture
um but
the taxes get is just 25 less than
acceptable
of scaling so it ends up being
um not net it's the same thing it's um
which is interesting yeah and it it when
we saw that data we're like okay well
then why would we not do it right it's
not like it's not like
that the cac is the same rate and this
is that much more and there's that much
more risk no we see it lowering the cap
um
so it actually makes sense it's just for
whatever reason we had stuck in our head
for the last six years like
you know don't get that aggressive in
your initial offer now there there is
some risk right you have the people that
for the 10 for example you can buy the
basic boxes 30 a month
or the the pro plus 160
and you're getting the 10 regardless you
can anybody can get the 10. um so you're
going to have the people that those bad
actors
that are buying the basic canceling
immediately have no they're just doing
to do it right
um you do have those but the vast
majority of of these buyers are just
like normal customers and they're
staying they're staying around for
longer for just as long if not longer
um
they're behaving behaving in the same
way
um so there's not as much risk and the
only reason we know this is because we
thought there was gonna every you know
we thought everybody was gonna be bad
and do the basic cancel be gone
but as we ran that we used to run this
unit three times a year we'd watch that
cohort and it would just it would behave
the same way um without with a small
little
difference in the beginning but very
very small of those bad actors but then
everybody else was normal
so
our our ltv and our normal metrics
are the same so it's just a different
way to do it and it seems to be the only
thing that works for us on facebook and
instagram
two questions um one do you guys use
like a tool when it comes to measuring
metrics like uh you know you can get
into that if you want and um so that's
my my first question uh my second
question would be to the did you guys
test the tent stuff um
and furthermore to testing the tent
before you know buying a ton of them
i guess like is there something where it
needs to be a really solid tent not only
like people recognize the tent um does
it have to be a brand name do you think
or does it just have to be like it has
to look like it's a quality tent and the
reason i'm asking is because we're about
to test cameras so like baby cameras for
our stuff and i can get them
overseas for you know
less than i can get them from a
reputable company here in canada that
sources them and it's going to be
actually about 25 they retail and it's
not even like 50 it's like it's a crazy
amount um like they retail for say 50 or
40 i think 39.99 okay okay um and they
want to sell to me for 25 and i'm like
well i can get this camera in china but
i talked to other guys um and they're
like well you know there's a difference
like we've tested the china cameras and
you know they were you know we're just
getting a lot of returns that weren't
working so we actually opted to go for a
better camera
um and pay a little bit more but knowing
that there's they're sort of backed up
better does that make sense is there
something or that you think it's
important to make sure it's quality so
they don't like this junkie yeah so it
is it does need to be quality um it does
for the most part
um i know i know with dots with our
model it has to be something we
manufacture right because we need we
need those
the the that
that net difference of what our cost is
to what
retail or msrp or even perceived value
is sure it needs to be exponentially
more you know
the tent costs us 25 to make but it's
because we're making 10 000 of them
um
and you know the
the the perceived value is
on the low end 80 90 100 bucks
we have them for sale on our site for
140 and we sell them pretty regularly
um it has great sales velocity
so i think i think that that matters
right yeah um
i think you almost
you don't have to be manufacturing
something you're getting it from
overseas but
it's having that you really do want that
big difference from what you pay to what
anybody else would pay for it um
yeah i think it's just initially and
we're trying to think of like
to test it i guess like would you yeah
test it first so yeah i apologize that
was your first question i didn't answer
was
100
so we
before we pulled the trigger on the tent
piece
um
we did we did testing with it we did we
did and we did other items too that
failed failed miserably yeah and that's
why it's important to test i know it
happens us too like we it happens all
the time you think it's gonna you're
gonna hit a home run and it's just like
a complete flop right
right so what we what we've also done is
you know we're trying to
um even with the tenths per se
okay so we're going through the the
amount we bought
and
we have a decision to make like we need
to we need more right but there's also a
chance that
this
stops working right yeah facebook and
instagram
through the years many times i've been
having this exact same scenario saying
we figured it out it's working and then
they just you know uh cold [ __ ] me
um and start kicking me when i'm when
i'm passed out
uh
so we had this decision we need more
tents
but there's also the risk of of that
right like we're going to be putting a
big order that's a big big outlay of
cash and what if we're wrong like so
what we just what we've done is
we're making those decisions where
we're buying this and it's gonna be
actually in the subscription box
um
so we're getting that quantity to be in
the subscription box
far down the road
but the goal is that it doesn't go in
the subscription box because we need
that quantity yeah so we kind of have a
backup plan yeah and then we'll have a
we'll have an alternate product ready to
replace it in the subscription box um
that way we can get the big quantity
and if we hopefully this continues with
facebook and instagram and we need it
and we can use it yeah exactly and pull
that inventory but if not
we're okay too we'll use it for the box
yeah does it is a gift should the gift
fit in your first box in your opinion
you guys send it with the first box or
is it separate
it's too big
it's too it's it's too big hey uh i feel
like a
a 12 year old child can i run to the
restroom really quickly yeah cool i'm
going to entertain yeah this is like go
for it yeah give her i'm gonna i'm gonna
see if i can share my screen and we're
gonna try to look for your tent while
you're doing that
let me know if you guys see this here
let's go to
battlebox.com
so as you can see they've got a pretty
polished site there so apologies if
you're just listening to this i'm just
on the uh the battle box site you guys
can go check it out on locals or on
youtube here
if you're watching that way let's see if
the offer comes up here
basic advanced pro is it
looking to send a kick-ass gift
okay let's see pick your box let's just
go through here see if we can see the
tent
i'm gonna go
let's go with
oh i should have asked if it comes with
the tent let's go pro
you're back
can you see my screen there john
yeah i'm going to backtrack
where would i where can we see your
attempt here does it is it part of the
offer right now
so it's it's only part of the offer when
you're when you're seeing the ad so if
you hit the ad
it tells you about tells you the coupon
code if you click the ad we have utm
parameters uh a little code where it's
gonna give you a pop-up not a pop-up but
a
top bar that keeps reminding you of it
you can you can find it though if you
just go to search
um in the top right yep
and uh search it here yeah just type
intent
and it's the second one the free
shipping uh down down all the way sorry
second uh product right there yes one
here
yep
so unfortunately in a perfect world and
we've done items that could fit in the
box oh cool
but the reality is this can't so we have
to ship it separately
um
it's also
very expensive to ship because it's so
big
um so we have to take that into the
equation too and we're trying to figure
out what the acceptable cac is because
yeah there's the cost of this but the
cost of shipping is is up there too
i think on average it's costing us 12 or
11 dollars to ship maybe
wow
which is peanuts compared to here
um so you just send it right aways or
just send it together in a bigger box or
just kind of like wrap it together or
whatever but you send it in the first
order
so we don't send them with the first
order because the their first order goes
out um fairly quickly so what we're
doing is
we're putting in
um
batches of this free order
so it the customer gets it it's it's
it's the battle box free tent and then
we have in presidencies in the product
name ships february 10th which was our
first batch of shipping that way it's
not like onesie tuesday like we can
knock it out and be efficient so they
received that order confirmation zero
dollar order showing the tent obviously
tracking will attach to that when we
send but it also sets the expectations
of when it's shipping
so that you know yesterday
um patrick's team was able to go in
and and put together a thousand tents
in these boxes and ship them instead of
having a otherwise it becomes a little
inefficient
to have to
do them every day yeah yeah cool
interesting yeah i think um
[Music]
yeah i think the offer is good and i
think that your offer has to be good
like if he um
if you think about you know trying to
acquire a customer is there uh
is your acquisition cost i mean this is
maybe unfair to ask like what you guys
are seeing like traditionally and now
you're back to kind of like even if you
want to just use general generalities
like it's back to what you what was when
it comes to your paid ads with this
offer or is it better
it's
so the the journey of our acquisition
costs
since 2015 it's just been a constant
like this
um
you know we started interviewing if
you're listening that was a straight up
hand going straight up yeah
yeah it's just it's
yeah it's uh it's just been a constant
as time goes it becomes higher and
higher you know we started in 2015 we
were acquiring customers for five
dollars
ah that's insane
what's insane is just our naivety and
ignorance at the time if we knew what we
knew now
i would have taken every credit card
every anything i could have yeah um and
just gone all i would have went all in i
would have i would have taken out a a
personal loan
like because it was a five dollar
acquisition and then through the years
it became 20 and then 40 was acceptable
and then
um
really for the past
two years we've been operating on a mid
60s being being acceptable
and it then you know that that works for
us you know our average order values
over a hundred dollars um lte power
you know ltv is
is
in the five five hundreds so i mean it
makes sense
it's just not
not as easy as it once was
uh what do you think i i'm i'm i'm
flabbergasted when i hear
either in facebook groups or in whatever
masterminds and you hear people say like
oh yeah my acquisition costs or
i i can't and i never call them out on
it because it could be very very much
like they might be crushing it that way
but they'll say like i got a 12
acquisition cost right now i'm seeing 12
i'm like
what the hell are you doing that i'm not
like i don't know like or 16 or 18 it's
like oh
like that's insane like so i don't know
if it's just like they're
dialed in on their or they're maybe not
just taking it considering in
consideration the total cost of actually
acquiring the customer i'm not sure what
they're
i think i i i i don't think it's that
they're dialed in you know i i'm not not
to not to hate but
um
there's only so much especially on
facebook and instagram
there we're we're at a point of of
platform maturity where there's not many
there's not like some
latest hack of 2022 that's going to get
you
some that doesn't exist anymore right it
existed in 2015 right there were stuff
you could do it exists in tick tock
today
the the i'd say that
the the skill set and hackability and
ability to pull off cool [ __ ] on tick
tock in the advertising the skill set of
the tick tock advertisers is very big
right now right you have people that
have no idea to people that are leading
the charge
and and and crushing it but facebook and
instagram the platform's so mature and
even with the changes they make like the
skill set of someone who sucks
or isn't very good to decent all the way
up to like the most advanced facebook
advertisers that skill set isn't like
exponential like it used to be
um so i don't think someone's just
dialed in sure they might be dialed in
but dialed in isn't like
they couldn't get us for you this eight
dollar acquisition cost right
i think i think a lot of it's just
simply product right an audience
and um
and then there's there's a chance that
they're not taking other things into
consideration there's the chance they're
they're um they're taking facebook's uh
platform at face value on what
they're acquiring customers for right
the
the the platforms haven't been right in
years
um
and
what's crazy is that we came full circle
when we first started we had a uh it was
a pre-purchase survey how did you hear
about us right
and
now we're seven years later and
you know five i guess four months ago we
implemented a post-purchase survey again
because we need some truth
um
and we're not taking any of the
platforms for
for face value on what they're doing
we're taking google analytics and the
post-purchase survey
we're taking those two data points
and looking at them together and making
decisions with with them about the
platforms we the platforms are right tik
tok for example
as we're scaling and we've had we're
doing really well on it the last few
weeks
um but their platform itself on the
analytics and recording is literally the
it's a dumpster
it is it is absolute crap but
google analytics
is telling us that it's crushing it and
our post-purchase survey is telling us
that it's crushing it
um okay so it's crushing it because
those are the these are those are more
more of the truth than the platform
itself
yeah and you're right because maybe they
saw it on tick tock or youtube and then
they went on finally maybe the facebook
ad was the one that turned it or vice
versa so there's a lot of touch points
there potentially as well what tools are
you using to track that i was talking
with a mutual friend of ours we recorded
earlier this week so his episode will be
you know just a little bit before yours
but um mr josh band from
plate crate i love josh yeah we had it
oh he's awesome man like we had a wicked
conversation too so um yeah i think he
mentioned the tool maybe you guys were
sharing what was that tool again for the
post purchase
um yeah so he i inquire
that's right it was that's right inquire
yeah um so in choir it's it's super
plugs with recharge
what's that it plugs in with the
recharge yeah it plugs it does both
recharge shopify um
checkout so it's
it's great um
and it's uh
it's like it's not it's not priced
astronomical like we have we have large
volume and i think it's
it might
might be 50 a month
yeah um but like the data insights it's
giving us is just insane insane right um
here i'll uh
if you don't mind i'll share my yeah
yeah let me just fix this here one
second here
oh
all right go for it
so let's see
so
so many apps
so we our question is how did you first
all caps hear about us this was a
learning we took because we really
wanted to focus on
what's driving top of funnel um and you
simply just go to analytics
last seven days this is what's crazy
so it's a post-purchase survey look at
that response rate two out of three
people are actually playing the game and
telling us
wow
that's awesome
so
and you can see where
all the usual suspects but then you see
tick-tock crushing it care about us
um
and you know facebook and instagram are
right behind it youtube has always been
up there you know we are a little
blessed that we have the netflix tv show
yeah that continues continues to uh
pull stuff but
to be able to to just jump in this i
look at this every day every morning i
jump in and i'm trying to see you know
what's working what's not working i'm
i'm breaking it down by maybe we're just
looking at
um
you know let's look at today
so
70
and again today
tick tock
tick tock it's always in first place
here if you're uh we're looking at the
screen for the the audio listeners there
so it's um what's interesting is the um
the i call it the talking
which is which is uh
it's the it's the flipping of tick tock
becoming our primary it's in the last
three weeks four weeks
awesome so we you guys use an agency for
tick tock
um for advertising yes for organic no
um so we started literally a year ago
created this tick tock account organic
organic organic
um got up to you know i think we're
right now we're up to uh
377 000 followers so it's it's become
our largest channel
uh
you know it was a struggle
um
it was a struggle figuring out what
worked what didn't and what we would see
is we'd go
um through these like swings where we do
a cool video with a cool product and
tick tock would come to the first second
place of like how'd you hear about us
but then would fall back down to five or
six and would stay there
and then
we eventually got to the point in our
growth and follower account was very
like
good video boom up a little bit stagnant
we said a good video pop again
and um
we finally a year in
it's just consistently growing because
we have enough content
um and we're consistently posting too
but at the same time
that that's working and then advertising
is working but without the advertising
it's still up there too like it's just
it's it's we're finally seeing the
fruits
of
of a year of pounding our head against
the wall trying to figure it out
and you again you didn't have to spend a
ton of money it was just content right
it was just content creation right so
what's working is it um it's 20 it's you
know 2022 here is it funny stuff that's
working the mo the best is it
informational
say that again
just what kind of content you're posting
when you know never mind the advertising
like is it funny stuff you guys are
posting all the time that's working
really well you're seeing spikes is it
informational is it blend
it's it's a it's a blend right and it's
a blend of it's also a blend of time of
day and it's a blend of length um
so like you know right now
uh yesterday's post
where we're show we're literally it's
educational we're showing how to how to
tie a certain type of knot
um and you know so far it has 21 000
views
um
so it's it's it's it's everything it's
educational it's funny it's product
specific
not product specific
um
i mean it really is all over the place
and and kind of that's our that's our
attack is that we're hitting all those
buckets right we're sometimes doing
mindless funny stupid um stuff that's
not even relevant to the brand but it
might be trending on tick tock
um the only thing we don't do we don't
dance
we don't shake up we don't we don't
shake our stuff
um
i'd follow you to see that come out with
this come out with a suit
and do it
people
why is this guy out with a suit
dancing
he um
i mean and that's the only thing and i
get it that's that's what works the best
on there right yeah um
highly attractive people dancing
but
we don't do that
um and it's crazy that we figured it out
without doing that
i uh
i got so brandon curran the face of our
brand
the face of our tick tock i got him to
dance one time
um but it was like it wasn't like a
silly dance it was like a trending dance
of a trending
uh vid
audio and video of like like bad day
like not good dancing yeah and i was
like okay we can do this one he's like
man all right we really don't really
don't want to dance but
um and it didn't perform very well so
we're done dancing
yeah i think that's that's inspiring for
people like us
like me my brand i don't want to dance
i'm sure my wife doesn't want to dance
either on but i mean for us to you know
show how to properly swaddle a baby or
whatever like just different things we
can do like it's just think of your own
niche right like you know like what can
you do that'd be like educational do you
guys also have like um like a garyvee
jab jab jab right hook approach where
like once in a while you do all these
funny things informational funny
informational information also boom
threw in an offer is that just not
something you do on tick tock um so we
we tried it actually for the first time
last week it was the first time we had
put an offer on okay
um it didn't it didn't perform great
yeah
people are there to get entertained
right let the ads they're there to get
entertained but it's
what's crazy is that
um
i i take it as the so this is the gtf
it's this gtfo bracelet
and basically just a bracelet and you
can um
take it off and it has a little glass
glass breaker piece so you can literally
put it on something and
you know get out of a situation okay um
it's pretty cool it's inexpensive to
make it's
arguably inexpensive to buy but like we
did that video
and
we sold thousands of them
um we had we had to order more because
we quickly sold out so the product
videos do get us the without an offer
just showing a cool product and showing
the utility
um
we we see optics
and we've always seen optics even when
we're still growing like if you know one
out of
ten product videos
it catches the algorithm and starts
showing people like i want to buy that
um
like i so i think that the educational
piece and the product piece and mixing
them and marrying them
um works i don't know if you need to
necessarily have that that garyvee
here's a quick offer 50 off today like
yeah
no it's cool i love that and it's it's
very it seems genuine right like it's
just a cool thing you're doing and then
you're you know by the way if you want
to buy it like you know you can get it
right from this or whatever right maybe
we'll have to have uh
you come back to do uh an exclusive uh
video just for the supporters uh on tick
tock we can kind of look do a
screen share and look at kind of some of
the ads you guys have done your your
hits and misses your winners and losers
those kind of things i think that'd be
interesting because uh similarly with
josh we did kind of a post show wrap up
just for the supporters yeah that was um
actually i think it was tick tock
specific as well i think but i think
it's it's at the right time we're doing
this um purposely because it's on par
with what's going on in the industry
obviously if people like you and josh
are all over this there's a reason for
that um you guys have the resources that
companies like mine and maybe some of
you guys listening don't have to kind of
figure this out but you guys do and you
have figured it out so i mean that's
awesome
yeah tick tock is
talk is where it's at which
is weird to say
you know chris george has been yelling
that from the rooftops for a year and a
half now like he has
and
i've been i've been yelling it
um maybe not yelling it but like i've
been talking about this for
um since we launched i like i remember a
year ago when we launched i was like
guys we're behind the ball on this and
we have to go we've we've already missed
missed some opportunity because we
haven't figured out if i remember the
whole team was like
what tick-tock i was like trust me like
we're gonna this this this is it
like we have to we have to execute on
this
and
we we
hit our head against the wall so hard
over and over again
and
i mean a year later
and it's finally coming to fruition it
was
it was a year of like
why are we that the team was probably
like why are we doing this yeah
like john's lost his mind like he likes
to take he like tick-tock personally and
he's making this a business initiative
initiative insanity john right
yeah but it was we were we were going
down that route we were doing the same
stuff day and day posting the same stuff
and not getting any success and
expecting and meet me being like no
tomorrow it's going to work yeah just
wait this next post
i'm glad it finally did
um
because now i'm not that crazy person
that was like screaming tick-tock
right
chris is a prophet now he's uh
cool he did call it oh man he's yeah
yeah as soon as the first time i met him
he was talking about it i mean and that
and i knew it it's just the same thing
it's like uh you know yeah but how do
you yeah and you can know it too but
like still like
why do you only like it's still not easy
to lean into it no because it's so
unknown and if and if everybody's wrong
then
i mean your time is your most valuable
asset and it's a very
time intensive thing to try to figure
out like if you're wrong like you can't
get the time back yeah we were wrong
like the amount of time we would have
wasted in the past year
on something that didn't pan out would
have been embarrassing which i would
have probably should have fired myself
if if that was if that was the case
because it was a lot of time and a lot
of resources yeah i'll say this i mean
if you're out there listening and you're
like man facebook ads have been crappy
for me and i don't have enough money to
keep putting in there or not enough to
grow that the skill i want to grow i'd
say and you do have time as a resource
and maybe if you don't you might have to
make some um maybe that is something you
can start doing without having to just
create content and post once a day i
mean i think once a day four times a
week three times a week to start is
something
very reasonable i think josh says he
posts four times a day i was like oh
that's crazy that's a lot that's too
much for this guy yeah i'm not there yet
um but i think yeah i think it's one of
those things where um just start um
those are that's an organic way of
growing and even if it takes a year
and start now then yes then you know
next year
and and and i know it's it's probably
been talked about everywhere so often
everybody's probably sick of hearing it
but the community piece is is still so
so so important you have to you have to
build a community
and
um
it's something that has to happen
sooner than later right like if you can
if you're just starting off and
launching now like the community piece
needs to be a part of your initial
launch and if you don't have it you need
to focus on it because
that that's
so so key
and that's what we're getting because of
the community these these videos have
done well because there's the engagement
right these people
um
are engaging and commenting and liking
and and bringing up discussions and
discussing with each other
on on the comments so
figuring out that community piece is big
not easy it's it's a it's a whole whole
task in itself
well man we've got a lot of ground we've
been here i think on air for about an
hour and a half here so this is good
stuff i think what we'll do is we'll
wrap up the um the podcast part of the
show
and then we're gonna go into uh the q a
round for the supporters are you done
with that yeah i'm down okay well thanks
for doing this and for if you're
supporting the show
um
yeah we're gonna head over to the q a
and ask john some questions you guys
have submitted and if you're not and
you'd like to be just head over to the
subscription box show dot locals.com
thanks for doing this john yeah thanks
for having me here good to see you
[Music]