In this Recap episode, we talk to John Roman from Battlbox to talk about a monumental moment in Battlbox history—paired with an attractive prize of $100,000.
Transcript from audio:
0:01 [Music]
0:08 John Roman welcome to the podcast I
0:12 think this might be our third or fourth
0:13 interview now in our tenure of
0:15 friendship
0:16 fourth because the first one didn't
0:18 record like us look at us
0:24 she came back when I was I was sure
0:25 Buster that was quite a few years ago so
0:28 we made it all the way around now we're
0:30 here you were with churnbusher but was
0:32 it at a recharge event I think so I
0:35 think it was charge X yeah I do too yeah
0:37 yeah Santa Monica yeah and now I'm here
0:42 at recharge have fun yeah I love a full
0:44 circle full circle yeah well what I
0:47 remember from every conversation I've
0:49 ever had with you is Battle boxes
0:52 retention and battlbox's very unique
0:55 approach to retention for the listeners
0:59 what is battlbox what do you guys do
1:02 sure so we are an outdoor and adventure
1:06 company so outdoor Centric whether
1:08 that's hiking camping
1:11 hanging out surviving literally anything
1:14 if it has to do with the outdoors it's
1:16 us we also have a subscription box
1:19 element obviously that is the business
1:22 that's the big big part of the business
1:23 and what I've always loved is your
1:26 retention is often higher than Brands
1:29 who you would think have a more natural
1:31 path to retention a subscribe and save
1:34 auto-ship kind of product and your churn
1:36 is pretty darn low because you guys do
1:39 some really unique stuff to keep your
1:40 customers around can you give us the
1:42 high level how do you think about
1:44 loyalty and retention especially when
1:47 the base of the business started with
1:49 this curated experience of products that
1:52 at some point you have too many of them
1:56 it's sure that's our number one churn
1:58 reason right people ran out of room the
2:02 approach don't get me wrong we do all of
2:04 the traditional churn-in retention best
2:07 practices throughout the life cycle but
2:10 it really starts with just how we view
2:13 our customers and it's it's we view them
2:15 in the lens of they are our community
2:17 and we're engaging with them there's not
2:20 a day that goes by where I don't have
2:22 some sort of interaction in our members
2:24 only Facebook group like as as myself
2:27 responding and then interacting and you
2:30 don't you don't really get that it's
2:32 easier to achieve when you're super
2:34 small and it's just you and you're
2:37 trying to build this but you know we're
2:39 still you know relatively small in the
2:42 big grand scheme of things but we're big
2:45 enough where it's a little uncommon to
2:47 see the amount of Engagement we have we
2:50 have five or six battle box team members
2:53 that are always at all points in the
2:55 members only group in aging so taking
2:57 that approach and we take it through
2:58 that engagement and then we take it
3:00 through content which is a lot of fun
3:02 and really cool to do and we're
3:04 continuing to double down on doing cool
3:07 content it is always my number one
3:10 retention tactic to give to people is
3:13 I can tell you all these little tactics
3:16 and things you can do within the life
3:17 cycle and check your automations check
3:19 your emails all this stuff but it really
3:21 all boils down to the same piece of
3:23 advice which is actually know your
3:25 customers because you actually talk to
3:27 your customers and it is shocking to
3:30 find how many Brands never have direct
3:33 interactions with their customers unless
3:34 it's on customer support
3:36 which is just such a Miss across the
3:39 board and it gives you all these
3:40 opportunities to do really cool stuff
3:43 when you have
3:44 true engagement with your customers
3:46 which you guys obviously do
3:49 let's get into the content piece because
3:50 you said something that I know some
3:53 operators are probably listening and and
3:55 heard like content's so fun and they're
3:57 going content is not fun it's the bane
3:59 of my existence but you guys see content
4:02 as fun tell me about your approach to
4:04 content and just how you think about
4:06 that in tandem with customer engagement
4:08 sure so content is fun don't get me
4:12 wrong it is at times the bane of our
4:14 existence I mean you look at Tick Tock
4:17 in particular we created a tick tock
4:19 handle in the beginning of 2020 we made
4:23 zero posts zero interactions did nothing
4:26 with the account except set it up for
4:29 the first year and then in 2021 February
4:31 it became this hot button I was like we
4:34 are going to be successful on Tick Tock
4:36 and we're not gonna dance because that's
4:38 not our brand I think out of all of our
4:41 tick tocks there's one dance and I
4:44 convinced Curran to do it and he
4:47 literally did it and then put a message
4:49 up here in The Tick Tock thing my my
4:51 boss made me do this nice so it took us
4:54 a year a year of continued daily stuff
4:59 working on content short form video
5:02 content with very little success but we
5:06 knew that it was eventually going to
5:08 crack so we did it for a year expecting
5:11 different results every day and getting
5:13 the same results of nothingness but then
5:15 it eventually popped it's our largest
5:17 channel now wow yes there's a completely
5:19 different approach I know we're going to
5:21 talk about our tank event that we did
5:23 that's exactly what that was it was
5:26 content but it was geared I mean
5:28 ultimately it was to accomplish a bunch
5:30 of things but it was really it's also a
5:32 retention tool I think the first time we
5:34 talked about it you put it in such an
5:36 interesting way it's part content part
5:38 virality part experiential part
5:41 Community part Willy Wonka tell us about
5:45 a thing so that was that was the actual
5:48 ingredient list everything is outlined
5:50 it's so we call our monthly boxes
5:53 missions so the first box we sent out in
5:56 February 2015 was mission one March 15
6:00 was mission two so we just sent out our
6:03 100th Mission our 100th box you know a
6:05 little over eight years and
6:08 we've done this amazing job of building
6:10 this community which means we're getting
6:12 feedback
6:14 24 7 constantly and and we take a very
6:17 proactive approach with feedback and
6:19 we've we've built a bunch of tools where
6:22 feedback is welcomed and appreciated so
6:25 you know the double-edged sword but
6:27 we're getting feedback constantly in the
6:30 June box is Mission 100 and in January
6:33 we started getting some
6:35 wrestlings about what is going to be in
6:38 Mission 100 they're gonna do something
6:39 big and the next 30 days is
6:44 people making predictions on what the
6:48 box is going to include and 99 of those
6:53 predictions would have put us out of
6:55 business because ultimately we're
6:56 selling a box for 170 200 after taxes
7:00 and shipping like we can't spend 400 on
7:04 the box we have you know 40 families
7:07 that that count on Battle walks for for
7:10 their money we can't go out of business
7:12 you don't have an Institutional money
7:14 that doesn't care about profitability to
7:18 use so we we knew we'd want to do
7:20 something but we didn't know what it was
7:22 we want to do something special it is a
7:24 big deal the 100th box
7:26 so we're at Shot Show which is a
7:29 convention in Vegas in January
7:32 in our CFO comes back with a little
7:36 pamphlet and it's a place called Drive
7:38 tanks and it's this 22 000 acres in
7:42 Texas and they have tanks and all kinds
7:45 of crazy stuff and he sends it to me
7:47 he's like hey this is maybe a Content
7:49 idea and I was like yeah we could go
7:52 there and just shoot some tanks so that
7:53 would be great content absolutely great
7:55 coin sure sign me up yeah so somewhere
7:58 along that conversation and the
8:01 conversation what we can do about
8:02 Mission 100 we start talking through
8:05 Concepts and ideas and the snowball of
8:08 what we can do and we we finally came up
8:10 with it we're gonna have this event and
8:13 we we're gonna have sponsors for the
8:15 event but then we're gonna have
8:17 additional sponsors because we we came
8:19 up with these six sponsorships one main
8:22 sponsor of five sponsors and the first
8:25 six people we pitched all said yes he
8:28 had six more calls lined up because we
8:31 figured you know we thought we were
8:32 going to close 50 the six calls we have
8:35 were like well crap okay we're gonna ask
8:38 them for product so Mission 100 ships
8:40 out we selected randomly 500 boxes and
8:44 those 500 boxes all had combined total
8:47 about forty thousand dollars worth of
8:49 additional product in them that our
8:51 customers those six that I mentioned all
8:54 donated and we shot a lot of footage and
8:58 a lot of posts a lot of content about us
8:59 putting these extra gear in this so we
9:02 called out these amazing partners that
9:05 they gave us this product and those 500
9:07 boxes they all got extras
9:09 sneakiness behind that too because
9:13 you could almost right away go well what
9:15 about all the other customers who aren't
9:17 gonna get it won't they be upset but you
9:19 have such a good engagement and brand
9:21 reputation and relationship with your
9:23 customers that actually I'm gonna guess
9:26 what it did was it then puts in
9:29 everybody else's mind that sometimes
9:32 battlbox just randomly puts extra stuff
9:34 in your box so I'm gonna stay on because
9:36 that might happen to me one day right
9:39 and to be fair we do that in our members
9:40 only group every week at least once
9:43 normally twice we just have a random
9:45 giveaway where we're just giving
9:46 freebies to active subscribers so yeah
9:49 surprise and Delight I'll get to the
9:51 part about how it was announced in a
9:52 second the second piece is five boxes
9:54 had a golden ticket that they received a
9:58 golden ticket we flew them to San
10:00 Antonio we met them out there five
10:02 participants six seven battle box
10:06 members and Partners came both on the
10:10 product side and then prela sent two
10:13 people 45 people we all stayed at the
10:15 same Hotel got in on a Wednesday had a
10:19 reception where we all meet at 7am
10:21 there's a bus and all of us get in the
10:23 bus we drive about two two and a half
10:25 hours in a row Texas and the five golden
10:28 ticket participants one at a time shoot
10:32 a tank a World War II tank at a target
10:35 downrange a basketball that said
10:38 battlbox Mission 100 on it love it and
10:40 if they hit the basketball we were going
10:42 to give them a hundred thousand dollars
10:44 after that part was over we shot the
10:48 tank I think another 10 times loaded
10:50 everybody back on the bus had sandwiches
10:52 ready for everybody for the drive back
10:54 and Gatorades and Waters and then that
10:56 night we took them all to dinner hung
10:58 out with them had some more drinks and
11:01 colder today we then also gave him each
11:03 a swag bag about two thousand dollars
11:05 worth of more product donated from our
11:07 sponsors and if anybody doesn't hit the
11:11 Target and they don't win the hundred
11:13 thousand we'll give them a free year of
11:16 Battlbox which is about 2 000-ish
11:19 dollars what was the experience like
11:21 doing such a deeply intimate experience
11:25 with these customers that you may have
11:27 never even met before or have really
11:28 only known virtually didn't know any of
11:31 them so only two of them were actually
11:34 in the members only group wow the other
11:36 three weren't because not everybody's in
11:37 that group only maybe half of our
11:39 customers so never had never met any of
11:42 them two from Tennessee one from Seattle
11:45 one from Texas actually but 10 hours
11:48 away and one from Idaho so it was so
11:51 cool it was also cool because yeah it
11:53 was intimate we got to noticeable we got
11:55 to hang out with them we hung out with
11:56 them for two days one was really cool is
11:59 they were the complete Spectrum of our
12:02 customers we had one in his 60s one in
12:05 his late 50s one in his late 30s one
12:08 late 30s or early 40s one early 30s and
12:12 then a 19 year old so it was the full it
12:14 was so cool like you had the full
12:16 demographic scope that's always been
12:18 something so interesting to me about
12:19 battlbox is your demographics are so
12:22 wide outdoor activities and enthusiasts
12:25 and people who are into it for different
12:26 reasons and yet you're still able to
12:28 talk to all of them so well it sounds
12:31 like it was just so cool to be there and
12:33 see it and really engage with it all it
12:36 is a a retention move what was the
12:39 strategy what was the thinking on how is
12:41 this going to drive retention so one the
12:45 way we announced it was interesting we
12:46 renew our customers the Uber majority of
12:49 them on the 15th of the month so the
12:50 morning of the 15th the recharge renewal
12:53 happened and at noon that day after the
12:56 renewal we dropped the video where we
12:58 let everyone know 500 boxes in the
13:00 upcoming coming shipment we're going to
13:02 have special products and five we're
13:04 gonna have golden tickets we explain
13:05 what the golden tickets were going to do
13:07 at a high level and we said very
13:09 accurately and factually this is not a
13:12 sales tool if you're seeing this today
13:13 and you sign up for a battle box you do
13:15 not qualify that's just for our
13:17 customers our active customers the
13:19 customers who are new today it was not
13:21 an acquisition move it wasn't the
13:23 purpose of it at all right surprise and
13:25 delight and we've been very clear this
13:28 is the direction we're going this
13:30 morning I literally spent an hour in a
13:33 spreadsheet of us planning what the next
13:35 event is going to be it's not going to
13:36 be shooting tanks again it's got to be
13:38 something else it's got to be something
13:39 fresh still working through what that is
13:41 but with certainty it's going to be
13:44 bigger than five customers this time and
13:46 we might have a a part where we open it
13:49 up to just if you're a customer you can
13:51 maybe buy a ticket and it really is
13:52 about the experience and it was so cool
13:55 because you have us you have the battle
13:59 box vendors box knives and business
14:02 connect in clean freak and all these
14:04 awesome vendors that sell us product
14:06 that goes in the box but then you also
14:08 have the customers over here you have
14:11 the partners like parallel that came and
14:14 we're all together and it's this
14:16 multi-faceted multi-win community where
14:20 everyone is just getting along and
14:23 getting to know each other and it was
14:24 just the experience was probably the my
14:27 favorite part well what's so cool about
14:29 that is that the consumer is persuading
14:31 the brands nowadays versus the Brand's
14:34 persuading consumers the consumers
14:36 really have a lot of power and they're
14:38 becoming so involved in brands what's so
14:42 cool about that is you really had all
14:44 these different people in the battle box
14:47 Universe whether that is agency partner
14:50 to vendor to the actual customer it's
14:54 the epitome of that they're getting to
14:56 know basically the back end of battle
14:58 books not just the team at battlbox but
15:00 the team that supports the team at
15:02 battlbox which just has got to create
15:05 such a unique atmosphere for the
15:07 consumers and for you guys you're seeing
15:10 it you're getting to meet Patrick who
15:12 runs operations and shipping and has
15:13 never been in a battle Box video before
15:15 right you're getting to meet him and
15:17 you're seeing he's a real person and
15:19 he's answering questions and it's so
15:21 cool because the truth is coming out
15:23 there right you're truly seeing all
15:24 aspects of it it's so cool one of the
15:26 really cool things was we were
15:28 interviewing the five contestants and
15:30 hearing their battle box experience and
15:33 each was so different the 19 year old
15:35 was talking about how he goes through
15:37 the battle marks everyone with his
15:39 grandfather and oh that is so special it
15:42 looks so cool and then one of the other
15:44 gentlemen keeps some of this stuff but
15:46 he put stuff together and gives it to
15:48 homeless people it was just so cool
15:49 because what you were quickly realizing
15:52 is there's another layer of the
15:54 community there's this whole other
15:56 additional layer that our customers have
15:58 started they're gifting the products
16:01 they're doing it with family and loved
16:02 ones they're donating it to homeless
16:04 people like there's an effective layer
16:07 of this Camino onion if you will there
16:09 is an existing battle box universe and
16:12 then the customers are then creating a
16:14 secondary Universe Outreach for
16:17 battlbox that's so many story is such a
16:20 special way that the products are
16:22 connecting into their actual lives and
16:24 personas and how they show up in the
16:26 world is I mean just how much content
16:29 did you come out with do you already
16:30 recorded you're just you've got now what
16:33 a hundred more stories to tell yeah so
16:36 the water learnings from the way you
16:37 know in hindsight I wish it would have
16:39 done the interviews prior to the event
16:42 because the guy spoke about 100 we
16:46 should have brought we would have
16:47 brought his grandfather out there yeah
16:48 that means Grandpa yeah like how cool is
16:51 that
16:53 yeah so much fun and you talk about
16:56 being and feeling fulfilled afterwards
17:00 it is such a good feeling to see the
17:02 community in action in all the different
17:04 aspects of it to your point all
17:06 interacting and everybody just is
17:09 excited and getting along and it's I
17:11 don't know it's it was very energizing
17:13 this industry can be a little bit
17:15 isolating and it's a lot of it is online
17:18 and we're kind of just interacting
17:20 between these virtual fields and then
17:22 you're also just sitting in spreadsheets
17:24 and looking at the money and thinking
17:26 about supporting the families that work
17:27 for battlbox but then to have that this
17:29 is why we exist this is a purpose it
17:32 really grounds you back into that which
17:35 that is worth the experience so much for
17:39 brand operators and founders
17:41 but even more so the future of the
17:44 business it gives you kind of that like
17:46 re-energized I don't know it's how I
17:48 feel every time I see people like you in
17:50 real life e-commerce events are like
17:52 right this is about the people not just
17:55 selling on the internet but we got
17:58 super fortunate so I I don't know why I
18:00 didn't mention anything to talk about
18:01 all these parts so we also invited
18:02 several of our influencers as well and
18:06 it was so cool to see them interact with
18:09 everybody because they thought they were
18:11 right in the mix too and you have our
18:13 customers that have seen their videos or
18:16 their shorts and it was just such a cool
18:19 such a cool experience I want to do it
18:22 again immediately ugh I bet you said
18:23 you're already in the spreadsheets and
18:25 looking at
18:26 what the next thing is but to give the
18:28 longest answered on answer ever on the
18:30 retention piece it's exactly that right
18:33 so I've already sent a battle box into
18:35 the Union out to our customers letting
18:37 him know some of the cool things that
18:38 we're working on and one of which is
18:40 that there's going to be another event
18:41 there's also going to be an offering
18:43 called battle Vault where we're going to
18:46 have exclusive offerings for subscribers
18:50 Partnerships vendors additional deals
18:52 that we've negotiated and secured for
18:55 them and then a product catalog that
18:58 will have special pricing only available
18:59 to them so subscription box but also now
19:03 memberships it's exciting but in that
19:06 letting him know we're already working
19:08 on the next one and it's going to be
19:09 cool oh that's so awesome I am so glad
19:12 we were able to get on the mic and
19:14 actually talk about this because it is
19:16 one of the coolest Stories the most
19:19 unique approaches to retention while
19:21 also being literally in your numbers one
19:25 of the most effective approaches to
19:26 retention
19:27 John the second interview we ever did I
19:30 still to this day reference something
19:32 that you told me in that interview
19:34 probably once a week and I feel like
19:36 this is going to be the same thing for
19:38 years to come yeah we were talking about
19:41 Gathering feedback and having systems
19:44 set up to actually gather feedback so it
19:46 was the survey that you guys send out
19:48 that then automatically triggers
19:50 depending on their answer what follow-up
19:53 they get and it is at least once a week
19:56 I am telling somebody
19:58 when I say talk to customers it's not
20:00 just a floaty squishy idea you actually
20:03 execute on it they're gonna tell you
20:04 everything you need to know yeah John
20:06 thank you so much this was so much fun I
20:09 have to ask one question what does it
20:11 feel like to shoot a tank I didn't shoot
20:14 a tank you didn't shoot a tank yeah did
20:17 you stand close to somebody shooting a
20:18 tank yeah I videoed Was it crazy
20:21 shooting a tank
20:22 yeah it's it shakes shakes you feel it
20:26 yeah it's definitely super super intense
20:28 that's awesome I love it
20:32 foreign