Why These 7 Figure Sellers Went ALL IN on Retail...

The biggest thing I hear is retail is dying. But retail is still big. It's a much bigger market than online sales. Over 85% of the purchases that uh happen across the country are done in person. And the higher the dollar amount, the more likely they're to be bought in person. So with CO being in our rearview mirror, that number is almost up to 90%. So retail, it's the place to be. So is Kevin Liry still involved? We signed our deal with Kevin Oolir the day of our airing of our show and he wired us the money like an hour after we signed the deal. He's still involved. You know, when we launched in the big retail with Lowe's Ace, we've talked to him. He's going to help us make some TV commercials and things like that. I'm a novelist and I've sold a lot of books on Amazon. I thought by selling books, oh, I'm on Amazon. This is going to be easy. Selling a book on Amazon is nothing compared to selling anything else on Amazon. You're watching the marketing misfits with Norm Ferrar and Kevin K. Hey Norm, I got a question for you. What? But when you say you say that what? Yeah, cuz I know your questions. Go ahead. Have you ever bought anything in a store? No. Uh, I don't go into stores. Connie Connie does. Connie, so up in Canada, I didn't know if they had stores still or you had to like Yeah. Outdoor toilets, too. Indoor indoor plumbing. Indoor plumbing. But yeah, we still outdoor toilets. That's That's what you said in the last episode. You pee in the yard. Yeah, that's right. So, you have both. You're like you're like ambidextrous up there. Well, you know, I got I got a top cabin. You know, it's I can do it indoors or outdoors. So, I mean, retail I mean, I know you do a lot in retail. A lot of people don't know the whole range of all the the stuff that you do, but you've helped a lot of people get into retail. You've done a lot of retail. So, what's your take right now on where what retail, how important retail is for people that are maybe thinking about it or maybe they're already in ecom and they're wanting to to get over into it. The biggest thing I hear is retail is dying. And usually I'll tell the person it's not dying. It might smell funny, but retail's still big. It's it's a much bigger market than online sales. And I think a lot of people turn away from retail because they don't understand retail. They think it's way too complicated and they have no idea. They have only been, you know, taking these old courses from YouTube that are giving them a lot of bad information and that's why their, you know, online uh shop is failing. But yeah, you uh retail is here and it's not going anywhere. Yeah, I I agree with you and you can get into retail on your own. I mean that you can do the leg work and uh if you got a good product and uh you can you can try to knock down some doors but it's a it's a lot easier if you were on Shark Tank for example to get into retail uh or it's a lot easier if you partner with someone who has all the connections has all the relationships and that's that I think those are two well you don't have to be on Shark Tank but partnering with someone that has the relationships is is super super uh important but being on Shark Tank or something like that is also uh helpful. And that's what we have today is we have uh three guests. You have you have three buttons you have to hit today, Norm. Three buttons. You got this. You got You need some help. You need me to call Connie in or you need to call in Dallas or anybody to help help you out? I just got paid a little bit more. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Three people is the most I can handle. You're like, I'm out of here. Yeah. As soon as you're not getting paid bonus, I'm out of here. I see it. So, we got we got three guys uh in today. Uh that's this going to be a cool talk. We never had three people on the pod before. We've had two, I think. Uh or uh so this will be this will be cool. The a lot of a lot of good information comes. I'm excited about today. Can I do my job? Um yeah, let's do your job and bring them in cuz it's kind of hot back there in the green room. You know, it's a little summer hot back there. Probably sweating under the lights. I know D sweating under those intense lights. GC, how are you? Welcome, GC. Kirk. And now I don't want to sign out again like I just did. Here we go. And here's Doug. Well, what's up, guys? How you doing? Great. How are you guys here? Good. It was hot back here. The lights. Um so uh you guys uh uh the reason we're all we gathered today is uh to talk about uh retail and launching products and uh why people need to actually be paying attention to retail especially if they're coming from the ecom world. So Doug, I guess why don't you maybe start us off and tell us uh what's the state of retail right now? What's going on out there in retail and what are you seeing? I know you help a lot of Amazon sellers. Tell us a little bit of background and then give us a little quick overview of what's going on. Yeah, retail it's it's different today than it was, you know, six months ago. It's a lot different uh than it was six years ago. But one thing that hasn't changed is over 85% of the purchasees that uh happen across the country are done in person. And the higher the dollar amount, the more likely they're to be bought in person. So with COVID being in our rearview mirror, you know, that number is almost up to 90%. So retail um it's the place to be. almost anybody could launch on uh ecommer nowadays just from your backyard or your garage and you could start an Amazon store. But you know, retail, if you're a consumer products brand, if you have something that's patented, proprietary niche, it's still the place you want to be. Still the place where you're going to get in front of all the most customers. So retail's booming right now. You know, remember Kev, uh, just the other week, two weeks ago, I think, we had a uh, Oray, there we go. Amora O or a me. And she was talking about her new investment that going in getting into strip malls that have been abandoned and putting in incredibly high-end retail stores. He she said everybody's trying to um abandon certain types of strip malls and she's just turning them into high-end retail and she's finding it uh extremely easy and there's a specific niche. Yeah, I remember that that that Yeah. Um so I mean there's still a lot going on when it comes to to retail and there's a lot of brands that are retail only. They're not even on e ecom. Uh and then there's some that start on ecom. They kind of prove the model and then they go uh they go onto into retail. So So Kirk, uh uh what's a little bit about what you do? What's your what's your background? What's your story? Uh well, I'm here as one of two. I have a co-founder, Brian Halisinski, but we're the inventors of the Turbo Trusser. It's a rapid cooking uh trusting device. Instead of using butcher's twine, you actually use our device and instead of the mess, it's a lot easier. It's made of stainless steel. It's made in the USA. Um, we were on Shark Tank a couple years ago. We got a deal with Kevin Oolir and um, you know, right now most of our sales are on Amazon. Uh, we're going to be in Lowe's uh, coming up this uh, fourth quarter and we started working with Doug here a few months ago to help us get into retail because it is a tough nut to crack. So, you are you in retail yet or you're in the process and you have some poss coming in or are you still in the process of like uh getting that that established? We are in some mom and pops uh but not uh not big chains. Not yet. We have we have a PO for for Lowe's, but that's it. But we're trying to, you know, get a lot more uh stores lined up, a lot more, you know, um companies that will take on the Turbo Truster. We have other products, too, but right now we're focusing on the Turbo Trusser. Cool. and GC, what's uh just introduce yourself and let let everybody know uh what what you what what you got going on. Sure. So, uh Gregory Brown, I go by GC Brown. I am one of the co-founders of Up Cup Coffee, a functional mushroom coffee. Um there's multiple ones on the market, uh there's only a couple of us that are brewed, um I thought as a brand owner, a brand creator with no retail experience, I thought, uh the process was pretty easy. Um, I thought the hard part was going to be getting it invented or created, getting the chemist involved and coming up with the blend of mushroom coffee that was actually tolerable. Um, I thought that was the hard part. I figured once the bag and the packaging and all the pretty bows are on it and everything's ready to go, I thought that uh retailers would line up at the door to uh stock me on their shelves. Um, I ran into Doug and uh, obviously he told me the reality of that uh, which was basically in a couple of words. He looked at me and said, "There's no chance." Uh, that's not the way it works. Uh, so we went down the road. Uh, we're on Amazon. Um, Doug has done a tremendous job of getting us out there through WRD. Uh, it's in front of lots of retailers now. Um, I I've been self-employed my since I was 17 years old. Um, I've done everything from diamond mines in Africa, flower companies in Keto, Ecuador, software companies, restaurants, real estate, you name it, I've done it. Um, did pretty well at all of it. Like I said, never really in the retail space, but I understood sales is sales. Uh, Doug and I kind of are kindred uh, spirits. He uh, I always say he's just a younger version of me, just a go-getter. It's a couple of bulls in a china shop that understand what the cash cow is. Uh, I asked to, uh, uh, get a little bit more familiar with it. Uh, Doug was gracious enough to bring me on, um, to WRD. I've been there a couple of months and, uh, I'm learning retail. I actually love it. It's one of the It's the first time I've actually been employed with a group or a team of people and, uh, frankly, I realized that I've missed out on a lot of cool opportunities throughout my life uh, to be part of a team. But uh yeah, WRD uh the retail space is uh definitely uh it's an experience that I I'm actually falling in love with. And probably the most important thing that you left out, GC, is that uh you love cigars. I do love cigars. Yeah. I went I started like I told you as as part of the fad, you know, in college and stuff, you think it's cool. You're in front of the girls, everybody grabs a cigar. You can't hardly stomach the taste. You can't You're smoking it wrong. You're inhaling. You're choking all over yourself. But uh that turned into a a love affair. Uh that and boats. Uh neither one are cheap. So I have to uh sell coffee. If you like if you like cigars and boats and you got you ought to be at Norman and I do an event called Collective Mind Society. Yes. Yeah. We're doing it in Tampa. And we got cigars and boats. Smoking cigars on boats, too, as part of it. Uh it's going to be going to be awesome time. Yeah. I'm going to check it out. So, so, uh, the mushroom, uh, for those that don't understand, um, people that aren't into the, uh, the current trends, what what is exactly mushroom coffee and what's it do for you? Uh, and and did you actually get into retail or or and you're now you're helping out uh, Doug or tell me a little bit more there. Sure. So, it's a functional food. Um, lions has lion's mane mushroom, not the funny mushrooms. It's the health mushrooms. It has shellagit and nad in it also. Uh, it's cognitive function. uh cognitive function, anti-aging, energy, they're natural uh substances. Uh Lion's Mane's been around since 206 before era. Uh uh uh Shellagi has been around for 4,000 years. Uh NAD is making a huge splash now. So, I was taking these things and adding them to my normal morning coffee. And a light bulb went off one day. Hey, why don't I just make my own or why don't we, my partners and I make our own uh functional mushroom coffee. So, that's what we did. Uh we're on our way into retail now. We haven't uh we have a lot of people. It's in front of a lot of people uh a lot of different retailers that have agreed that it's the it's the thing to do. Uh now it's just a matter of lining up. Uh Doug's talking numbers. We're getting uh we're getting a lot closer, a lot closer than we uh we believed we would be this quick. What uh what was your aha moment when you knew uh you're not going to it's not going to be an easy road to get into retail? Uh I'd have to say when Doug looked over at me and said uh pardon the French, but actually I won't use the French, but he said uh absolutely no way. Just doesn't work like that. Was it because the brand didn't have exposure the packaging? You didn't have a catalog? Well, it's just uh at that time we were kind of introduced and the whole uh schematic of the coffee wasn't really laid out for him. He just heard coffee at $40 a bag or $36 a bag uh and just said it wouldn't work. He has some coffee uh background and uh so we leave that meeting where everybody's in suits and it's fancy. It's uh at a big place and we leave that and the we go back to Doug's hotel there in Beverly Hills uh to just on the uh rooftop uh terrace to discuss further ventures to see if we can make it work. And the aha moment came when the suits and the ties were loosened up. Doug will we meet Doug at the elevator. He walks out and a pair of orange flip-flops, socks pulled to the knee, a sleeveless shirt. We go to we go to eat up on the uh terrace of beautiful Beverly Hills and uh I realized this is the guy. This that was our aha moment uh when I knew that we could actually get to where we were headed. Hey Norm, you'll love this man. I talked to a seller the other day doing 50k a month, but when I asked them what their actual profit was, they just kind of stared at me. Are you serious? That's kind of like driving blindfolded. Exactly, man. I told them, "You got to check out Sellerboard. This cool profit tool that's built just for Amazon sellers. It tracks everything like fees, PPC, refunds, promos, even changing cogs during using FIFO." Aha. But does it do FBM shipping costs, too? Sure does. That way you can keep your quarter 4 chaos totally under control and know your numbers because not only does it do that, but automates your PPC bids. It forecasts inventory. It sends review requests and even helps you get reimbursements from Amazon. Now, that's like having a CFO in your back pocket. You know what? It's just $15 a month, but you got to go to sellerboard.com/misfits. sellerboard.com/misfits. And if you do that, they'll even throw in a free two-month trial. So, you want me to say go to sellerboard.commisfits and get your number straight before your accountant loses it? Exactly. All right. So, Doug, why would you instantly when he said it without really even diving deep, you're like, "That ain't going to work." Is it the Is it the price points too high or is it cuz there's expensive things just like Norm just said with these malls are getting taken over and putting in expensive stuff. What is it that you knew this was not retail ready or just like we need to make some changes here? Just from your experience, how did you know? Um well the the other part of the story is what are we like 10 months in. I don't think we had a bag a coffee maker. It was just an idea when I met them. Yeah. And uh so we're we're yeah 10 months away uh or 10 months since launch and and we're looking at you know hopefully launching into somewhere like you know Sprouts earwan. We have some really good opportunities at some other retailers out there. Rouses Publix. Um but the first thing I I knew was price point. I heard, you know, how much is your MSRP? You know, you ask the basic questions. I heard $36.99. I've been doing coffee for six years. I haven't seen a bo a bag of coffee for $36.99 in a store ever. And um what they actually ended up bringing to me was something that um interests me, something that I've never seen before. And the aha moment went from these guys are dressed in suits with an idea. They have no idea what's about to hit them. they're going to waste money and bang your head against the wall for 18 months and figure out it's really tough to get into retail unless you know what you're doing or what they had was an actual product that's proprietary. It tastes good. It works. It uh delivers the functionality that it says on the bag and more importantly we were able to get the price down. You know, get it to, you know, something where the market accepts it. And um you know, basically it's just based on experience. coffee is one of the hardest things to get on the shelf. Um, and it's dominated by, you know, a few major players. So, the nos are I think that's my first answer to everything, but they came and they sold me. So, if they're selling me, you know, I have to help bring them to retail. And it's been a it's been a fun journey. We're the only ones out there with K Cups, you know, so that takes, hey, I have a super expensive product that nobody's ever seen before. And now you're bringing in taste, you're bringing in functionality, and you're bringing in convenience. And that starts driving customers to your brand. And that's where we're at right now. 10 months away. We might be on a shelf store in 12 months, which is kind of unheard of. Uh when it comes to retail, no bag, no package. I don't even think they had a website. No, you had a website, right? You had a website. We actually So we tell them all the plans that we have and I said, "Hey, listen. We've got a cool website coming up. We've got uh some cool ideas. We got business cards being made." The blend was already done. I'd already spent all the money at the chemist. Uh I hadn't even brought in a finance earier at that time. Uh but the the blend was done. I knew what we had. We just didn't have packaging, any of that. But uh uh uh so I'm telling them all the stuff we have. Get stop everything. Stop the presses. Don't do another thing. So we literally stopped. We stopped uh the website. We stopped everything. Went back to the drawing board. Blend forward. Uh started with the bags. The bags. Absolutely. There's not a bag as far as looks. We best every bag out there. The bag and the packaging is just topnotch. And like Doug said, what the outside of the bag says, the inside of the bag does. And it's really a uh we plan on, and this was before Doug, uh we plan on becoming the industry standard for the functional mushroom coffee. I know we have that blend. We're the only guys that have the K Cups. We're the one of two guys that make it brewed. And we're only and we're the only one that actually tastes like a cup of coffee. The rest of them tastes like you lick the back of a wet tree. It's much better. I know with cigars, let's talk cigars for a second. Let's swing it back. I know a blend in a cigar, it really is a a perfectionist, like somebody who knows tobacco to really do the blending, right? Every manufacturer has their own blends and sub blends. uh for your uh for your coffee. I drink mushroom coffee and I don't know if you have Kev, but it's a completely different feel than regular coffee. Um is it a master uh blender that that does this or is it a fairly easy blend? No, it's a uh let me back up. We hired a team of chemists. We thought that we could do it right out the gate and we and we did. We made it taste like everybody else's, which was like licking the back of it. Did not taste like coffee. And it just uh that wasn't our goal. That was my goal. I'm a business guy. Immediately when we came up to the idea to make mushroom coffee, let's go. I started the very next day taking the steps to get it done. Uh two weeks into that, uh one of the partners, uh Alex says, "We should make the coffee taste good." And I'm like, "Why? Nobody else's taste good. Why should ours taste good? let's just get this out there and let's plan on and my plan was to sell one bag and then two bags and three bags and pretty soon we're making out of the garage and then after that we're in a small little office and then eventually in a store and then I fast forwarded skipped all that and went to Doug. But um we didn't uh we set out to make a to be different than the rest. The rest of them like I said it's you've had mushroom coffee. I don't know which one you have, but uh I I can bet I can bet everything that it doesn't taste like coffee and it doesn't taste good. It's a uh for me it was a hold your nose. Uh I'd make it the night before. I'd put the mix my shellagit in with it. I'd mix my NAD in with it. Uh the shell is super hard compound to work with. It's a tar. Had to melt. I'd make it the night before. Uh set it on my bathroom sink. Let it uh finish melting all of that. first thing in the morning, I'd slam it in front of the mirror, uh, brush my teeth, and I'm done with coffee for the day until the afternoon cup. Uh, and that's how I was stomaching it. It was just it wasn't wasn't for taste. It wasn't to drink, it wasn't a good cigar, it wasn't a good blend. It was just for the health benefits. And we decided we wanted to make something that we don't want to change your morning routine. We want to add to it. And and that's what Ups has done. So, I I just wanna Kirk, I swear we're going to get to you. Oh, no worries. No worries. But I just want to because this is the marketing misfits. You had to take something like I drink this mushroom coffee that tastes like mushrooms. Uh, and you you've done something completely different. So, how did you market your coffee to make it stand out from all of these other coffees or um sorry, mushroom coffees? So, the uh that was mostly Doug's idea to be honest with you. He wanted the uh mushroom on the front of the bag, but he wanted in in big lettering. Well, you probably can't see from there, but it says tastes like a great cup of coffee. And that's what we tell people going in that uh how we market it and how I personally have have approached retailers is uh hey guys, listen, this is not your typical mushroom coffee. This actually tastes good. Yeah, it actually tastes just like a regular cup of coffee. And by the way, no jitters, no stomach issues, no caffeine crash, all natural energy that you're going to feel from your first cup. Uh we give you the what you're supposed to take. A lot of guys put stuff on the outside of the bag. It's got this, it's got that. And really, is there enough in there to make a difference? Is there enough that you can tell with us that was important to us? uh our backgrounds, the three of us, um for all intents purpose, we all are ex-cons. I went to prison for white collar taxes, met a couple, a doctor that wasn't supposed to be there, by the way. I wasn't supposed to be there either. Um but that's our government. That's another discussion. But we met there and we all come from the same background. We do what we say. We're going to live and die by our word. Uh and that's a a fact in prison for sure, especially federal prison. So when we made the outside of that bag or when we made this blend, it was important to us that you got the consumer got exactly what we said you would get. You get 250 milligrams of the shellagic, you get 250 milligrams of the lion's mane and you get 100 milligrams of the uh NAD per cup and it's just uh it's been great. So you that's how we market. When you saw this price point, so you were you how what's it sell for now? What's the retail price right now? And uh we're at $36.99. So 36. Okay. So you're at the $36.99, but you went from a changed it from a bag to K Cup. Well, we have we have three different SKUs because So we have a nine serving bag because what happened was and this happened to me. I was buying multiple I had multiple bags of these mushroom coffees in my pantry that I take one cup out of and I just couldn't stomach it. So it just wasn't it didn't taste good. So I went on to the next one and on to the next one. So, what happened was a lot of these people, in fact, we were at a a breakfast with um Doug in Tucson and we asked the waitress, "Hey, have you ever tried mushroom coffee?" I have. The bag still in my pantry. We had one cup and just couldn't stomach it. So, I believe it was Doug's idea that come up with, "Hey, let's do a $9 or $11, $11.99 trialsiz bag so people aren't spending $40 to find out they don't like the brand. So, let's spend $11, $12, uh, or let them spend $112, get hooked, and they can come back and buy the 30 serving bag, which is the $36.99. And then, oh, by the way, if you have a Kurig press, we also offer the K Cups. So, uh, we have three different SKs now, thanks to Doug. That's the repositioning. So, Kirk, um, why Shark Tank? Why did you go on Shark Tank? Was it Was it for the Some people go on Shark Tank and they don't need the money. They don't need the partnership. They just want the publicity because sales blow up whether you make the main show or you get put on one of the CNBC shows and reruns or or you get cut to the CNB show as a as your debut which is not as good as being on ABC. But what why Shark Tank and uh people what was that experience like? Well, Shark Tank, it's it's kind of a crazy my co-inventor and I and co-founder Brian uh we we're like serial inventors. We've invented quite a few products. Um, I'll get to the Shark Tank thing in a second, but just a little background of how we got to where we're at. Um, we normally would, we were at first inventing products to license them so we could get royalties. And we licensed two products before COVID and to comp to large companies. And what happened was is um because of COVID we lost the two licensing agreements and the two products that were supposed to be in all the major big box stores we lost them because they said we can't even keep up with our supply now we can't so we were dead in the water with with those two products. So we c we we had another few products but we came up with this one. Brian texted me one day. He was trying to trust a chicken and we we invent barbecue barbecue products mostly. So he texted me and he was just like, I I we got to have a better idea for this. And so I'm a chef by trade in my previous life and I hated trust in chickens. When you use the butcher's twine, you tie them up. So what happened was we're just like, okay, let's let's start working on this. So we started working on it and we said we instead of licensing this one we are going to try to we're going to take it we're going to venture it we're going to launch it oursel if we can make it in the United States. So what happened was from con from conception to the market it took us about 10 months to get to the market. once we got to the market. And and and then speaking of marketing misfits, the way that we did it is is pretty it's pretty crazy how we did we did $50,000 in our first month when we were selling online. So we found a we found distributor or manufacturers in Ohio. Everybody everything every piece of our product is made within an hour of our house. So we could go we wouldn't have to fill a container. We you know stamp metal mostly and some bent wires. So, we didn't have to fill a container. We could go and we went to the manufacturers and they did low quantities for us and got us going. But once we launched, we did $50,000 in our first month by what Brian was doing. He's the marketing uh he's the the Facebook guru. Our products are so unique. What he would do is post in all these barbecue groups of pictures of our food being cooked with our products and they're so unique. Everybody's like, "What is that thing?" and then instead of saying what it is, then he would put it in the in the lower comments. And we got a lot of traction just off of doing that. So, we did that. We did 50,000 in sales. We as soon as we launched the product, we applied the Shark Tank. We It was online. It was during COVID and we didn't hear anything. And then once we had 50,000 in the first month, Brian went back, resubmitted to Shark Tank. We got a call back. We needed the we needed the exposure and we needed the money because when we went on the show we had 600 bucks in our in our business bank account with about 4,500 in receivables. So we were almost dead in the water and then Kevin invested in our company and then and then you know it started really picking up. Most of our sales now on Amazon and then that's when we met that's when we met Doug and cuz you know just being on Shark Tank is not going to get you in the big retail. I mean it is it is difficult and and you know and my business partner Brian is is a sales guy. He's a salesman but it's a whole different what he's selling is a totally different thing than getting in the big retail. So Kevin they always say that they can get you in retail. That's one of their lines is like oh don't worry I got the connections and they argue amongst themselves but that's just just talking out their the side of their mouth a lot. Yeah. Sometimes he did get us on QVC. We did quite well on QVC. Um the we've we've been on QVC four times. Kevin helped us get on QVC. So I mean our first show we did I think it was $111,000 in sales in seven and a half minutes. So it was it was pretty good. And our product is you know 19 it's $21.99 but it's $19.99 back then. Um, but now it's $21.99 on on uh on Amazon, but when we go retail, Doug, right, where we're going to be at $19.99 and then we're working with some other maybe some other big retailers that it might even be less than that for a dual pack. But, you know, that's that's something that we're working on. But, um, yeah, my wife came home the other day and something that you just said at, uh, retail it'll be $19.99. On Amazon is $29.99. 21. And that's uh 21. She came back. We were looking. I was I needed some shampoo and I said, "I'll just go to Amazon and get it." And she came back and she goes, "Oh, I went to Shoppers Drug Mart. This CVC or CVS, what is it? CVS." So, Shoppers Drug Mart up here. She goes, "Oh, I found this $4 cheaper." And she goes, "You can't always just trust Amazon for having the cheapest price, and you just, you know, back that up." So, my wife was right once. She's out of the house right now. probably had a coupon too that made it like half off knowing your wife. You know my wife knowing knowing your wife. Yeah, that that's the thing about that's why retail is not dead is because you're like I can order on Amazon. You're not you're north of Toronto like an hour and a half. So you I'm in the middle of Austin so a lot of times I can order it right now and it's here in 3 hours or it'll say you know delivery tonight before 10:00 uh or definitely first thing in the morning. You're a day or two probably in most cases. Yeah. for for your stuff versus she can just go down to the store. Now, there is a you know, for us entrepreneurs going down to the store to save $4 and spending an hour doing that, we might be able to make a lot more money than $4 in an hour doing something. She was already out there shopping. She didn't go there for Okay. to save that. Yeah. So, but that's the point is people still they need things now. They want to touch it. They want to hold it in their hand. They want they want to to see it. But there online there's unlimited shelf space virtually. uh primarily, but in the stores there's not. So, Doug, you I mean, we talked on the AM podcast a lot about this, but how how do you actually if you're going to go in, you got to take space from somebody else and are there a lot of times or something's got to get shifted around a little bit? Um, and then do you see that where you got to come in and justify like what Kirk's like like look, we got this 50,000 in sales, that's why that Shark Tank probably were a little bit more interested. Do you need that? Does does GC need that for for his stuff to actually show this the retailers that this is good or do they sometimes just come to you and say, "Hey, do you know anybody that's got some mushroom coffee?" Because people keep coming in our stores and asking about it. I wish I wish it was the latter. I wish. Yeah. No, it just totally, you know, opposite. You know, we're taking you take say, you know, the turbo truster. Uh, you know, Kirk, I don't know, we actually are getting launched uh going to have an initial launch into ACE as well. I don't know if uh you got that message Ace and Lowe's. Um, but what we do with the brands is, you know, we find out, you know, where where where they should go, you know, Turbo Truster, Ace, Lowe's, Home Depot. But the goal is taking as many shots on goal as possible, getting feedback from the buyer, and listening to the buyer. And what is needed, you just, it's just like anything, you never know. So, you want to have a full plan. You want to have good Amazon reviews. You want to have a nice, you know, meta. You want to have a good Tik Tok. You want to have a nice website. You want to have all of those things buttoned up because a buyer may be really focused at Whole Foods on your Amazon. And we know why obviously because they own it. You know, at Ace, they're going to be um really focused on how long you've been around. And you know, you get that knowledge just from being in the industry. I don't even know where it comes from. It just comes from decades. And you know, our team has a you know, people have been doing this for a long time. And the goal is, you know, just to be ready for anything. Shots on goal, good reviews, nice Amazon pres presence, good price point, you know, good sales team, uh, good social and, you know, uh, internet, you know, presence. All of those things matter to certain buyers, uh, depending on what stages you're in. It could be holidays, just so many variables. It's just the more you are are willing to beat your head against the wall and knock on the doors and get nos you um the more doors you're going to get open. So all variables based on how you're going to get into those stores. You just never know. Just be prepared. Were you drawn to Kirk or was Kirk drawn to you? And if so, how? You know, we actually met at a uh Shark Tank convention, uh a Kevin, I think it was just Kevin Olir's uh one of his conventions and I was already working with another brand of Kevin's at Shark Tank and we started talking um at Pattello Pizza Oven up the same alley, loved the product, knew about it, met the guys, we had some beers and I said, you know, I'd love to work with you guys and you know, we just kind of hit it off. I obviously sell in their um in their field in in retail with whether it's big box club or grocerers and they were looking to expand from you know Amazon and basic DTC and uh yeah been with us 60 days two major launches coming up in Q4 which is way out of the norm right which is what I told uh you know GC would never happen but um we've had some again success it's a patented product it's uh very well known everybody knows Thanksgiving everybody knows butchers twine when you're talking about putting around the turkey. So, it's an excellent excellent retail product. It could go almost anywhere from Ace to Sprouts to Publix. Shoot, we even try to get in the honey baked ham store, but they pre-cook everything. Yeah, they do. They free cookook everything. Yeah, I love that place though. It's a good spot, but we got no products there. So, Kirk and uh GC, what uh what are you guys doing? So, you're getting into retail, but what are you doing to build an audience or a customer list off of retail? Are you doing some sort of warranty card or are you doing some sort of insert or anything in your packaging to try to get people to get onto a list that you can add them to a Facebook group or you can remarket to them when you come out with your next uh invention? What what are you guys doing in in those regards? Are you just like retail? That's all we care about right now. We're just going to sell some stuff to uh to the stores. Well, Amazon, we put cards in our products on Amazon because, you know, collecting emails, you can't collect emails off Amazon. So, we came up with a new strategy and um actually we put cards in there, but now we're putting a card in there with uh you have to download a recipe guide for the turbo trusser. And another one of our products is really good on we sells really well on Amazon is the cream cheese platter. And what we do is we we put a QR code on there and then people download the QR code and and then to download it, you have to put your email in. So, right now, I think we have about 15,000 emails, but we're trying to build that email list up. Um, so to capture that off of Amazon since we can't do it when they order, we're trying to catch catch it, you know, when they get the product. And our new packaging, um, has the QR code right on it. Um, but, you know, we're on our third we're on our third set of packaging right now. I mean, even when we met Doug, he's like, you know, we even we spruced it up since then. We, you know, made it more retail instead of barbecue. It's more of a retail look. Um, cuz before it had flames and everything and we're taming that all down. We tamed our website down and now we're looking at more of like a retail feel than just, you know, going after the guys in barbecue. Now it's going after, you know, the, you know, the women, the guys, and anybody who actually cooks because you can use it in an oven or you can use it on the grill, you can use it in a deep fryer. So, um, yeah, we're trying to capture emails that way. Um, you know, we run sales on Amazon. Most of our sales right now are through Amazon and hopefully that's going to change here soon. Well, this this fourth quarter is going to be really nice for us. Um, but you know, we're kind of just, you know, we're we're growing constantly on Amazon, but not like, hey, we got 250 stores, we're going to have 500 stores. You know, that's what we're looking at. That's why we teamed up with WRD and Doug, just because, you know, they got the expertise to take us to that next level, which we don't have. I mean, we're inventors. We can we, you know, we do Tik Tok videos. I I just started making more videos since I'm the chef part of the of the of the uh of the team. So, I've been making more videos, more content, and uh that's another way just, you know, our social channels. We want to have a lot out on social media before we do our launches into these big retail so that way people are like they have seen it, you know, they can kind of relate to us. Um and that's what we're that's what we're working on right now. What's up everybody? your good old buddies Norm and Kevin here and I've got an Amazon creative team that I want to introduce you to. That's right Kevin. It's called the house of AMZ and it's the leading provider in combining marketing and branding with laser focus on Amazon. Hey, Norm. They do a lot of really cool stuff if you haven't seen what they do, like full listing graphics, premium A+ content, storefront design, branding, photography, renderings, packaging design, and a whole lot of other stuff that Amazon sellers need. Yeah. And guess what? They have nine years active in this space. So, you can skip the guesswork, trust the experts, there's no fees, there's no retainers. You pay per project. So, if you want to take your product to the next level, check out House ofamas AMZ. That's houseofamz.com. House of AMZ. You know what would be cool on that is if you in switch that to an app instead of a and in the app you had you know your demos and recipes and all this stuff but you also can integrate that in with some uh AI through APIs and people could actually ask questions like hey I'm cooking a 20 ounce 20 pound uh turkey or whatever uh what's they can interact with it and it'll spit back like suggestions on the fly based on their specific needs. and you get a lot of really cool interaction and um that would be that that might be cool. Um that's a good idea. But uh GC, what what uh what what about you? What are you doing to actually try to build an audience that you can control uh through this? Sure. Sure. We're doing a lot of uh mostly social media to be honest. We're doing a we're sticking a lot of money, time, and effort into uh videos. Uh Doug got us hooked up with a pretty good uh media company. So, we're spend I think we're up to like 80 influencers now that are all getting ready to drop at videos. They're different videos uh all at the same time. That's coming up pretty quick, right, Doug? I believe in the next couple of weeks. Yeah. By August, the latest. Yeah. So, we're we're doing a lot of the social media stuff. We we too have the QR code. I didn't realize that you could I'm not a computer guy and I'm not a uh Doug will tell you I'm not one of those guys. I'm old school pick up the phone and just call uh email list, that kind of stuff. If I understand uh the whole QR code that hooks to an app, we could do kind of the same thing with uh recipes to different iced coffees and tell more about the company, but uh I'm going to check into that immediately and maybe have an email like uh Kirk has where you have to fill out your email address in order to get into the QR code. Uh so we're we're experimenting with a lot of things. I'm lucky that um I've written some novels uh that have gone pretty well. There's a Netflix deal in the works along with a documentary about my life. Uh so we're going to definitely use WRD and uh Up Coffee as all part of that. Uh so we're hoping to get uh a lot of action off of that. Uh it's not Shark Tank, but we're getting closer. Hey Doug, yeah, financing. There's a lot of a lot of sellers out there that don't have the cash flow. What would you suggest? You know, if if somebody's coming to you with this great idea, but they don't have cash flow, what do you say to them? You know, I I just had the question today. We we have a a new brand coming on and, you know, they're worried about, you know, large POS, right? They're already in some mom and pops. We luckily have uh connections in house where we're able to help factor uh POS and, you know, we can factor up to um x amount of dollars just depending on on your history. But if you're working with us, if you're distributing the product through us and our program, um, uh, I hate to say it, I hate to be cocky with it, but money is not going to be an issue if we have a PO from a bigger place. Uh, when it comes down to being a smaller brand, um, you're going to have to, you know, get a loan, you're going to have to go to the bank, you're going to have to put your house on the line, and that's what it takes for almost every brand to go from the two $3 million brand to the 2030 $30 million brand. We had another or we had a Shark Tank company come in, tell us a story. Um, his wife, two kids, they went moved into a campground for almost two and a half years so they could launch, you know, their product and save money for retail and a retail pole. And there was, you know, 30 months of stopping your life to get there. So, when it comes to financing, man, you better have a good credit score, good friends, or uh a good plan to save a bunch of money because um that's what kills people in the end. But what we're also able to do on our side is to help. If you get a big roll out um and you're confident, you know the buyers, you know how the system works, you can negotiate rollouts. You could tether them down to where you can afford them and you can do it responsibly and a lot of buyers like that. So, the money thing's tricky. If you're working with WRD, you know, here's my sales pitch. We can help you out with the, you know, the big top fortune 500 retailers and the people who pay their bills, right? Um if you're not, um just make sure that you're keeping your credit tight. you know, you have somebody to reach out for the bank and know that the retailers don't wait, you know, for the loan terms to come through and that you just got to get ahead of everything. So, financing is tough and it's it's it's the biggest besides just being impatient. Um, we all know money kills or grows of businesses and um if you're not ready for the big order, you can be out of every store pretty quick. And I've been with brands like that and we've wanted to expand and grow and we just weren't able to keep up whether it was money, inventory, processes or something. And uh that those are the most painful because it takes a long time to get there. Can you uh do you suggest uh mom and pops or independents spa shop uh spa sal um salons? Uh let's say you have a beauty product. I know it takes a lot longer. They might just have a one case, you know, minimum, but they pay with a credit card. Is that something that you would suggest? Absolutely. Again, shots on goal from processes to, you know, making sure you can deliver on time to, you know, just just running the business. That's a thing that we try to do. We want to get people take brands that are brand new or just have a little bit of uh, you know, Amazon business. We want to get on a couple drop shippers. We want to get a couple mom and pops, one or two people stores. it's not our focus, but it's it's a warm-up exercise and it's also puts a little bit of money in the bank. As long as we're doing it profitably, no one's going to walk away from it, right? As long as it's not taking away from the big picture. So, shots on both. Um, definitely mom and pops. I think every even when we launched into Ace, we launched into seven, 15, 30 different chains at a time, maybe two. Those are the safest bets, you know, fewer mistakes that you that can be made. So Kirk and GC, you said that a lot of your sales right now are on Amazon as you're as you're ramping up. How do how are you doing that? Amazon is a beast. And a lot of people think Amazon's a field of dreams. You just put it up there and you're going to start selling. And if you got some other traffic, some influencers talking about it or some other things happening in your own Shark Tank. Yeah, people are going to go look for it and find it. But how how are you handling that? Do you have an agency doing that? Is that something that Doug's company helps you with? because there's there's a lot of uh moving parts on Amazon. It's gotten a lot more complicated over the last 10 years. Yeah, we're working with an agency. We've been working with them for about a year now, close to a year. We're on our third agency on Amazon. You're right. It's it's it's a crazy it's a crazy world. But yeah, we're doing well. They're doing really well for us. Um you know, they're working on commission, which is really good. Um the the previous two they were working on like a monthly basis and we didn't see any results. Um and we advertise a lot on Amazon. Um but yeah, we have a we have a company that we work with that we're happy with. Um and yeah, even like you just get the A+ content, all that. It is so it is so tricky. Amazon if you try to do it yourself, it's it's nearly impossible. I mean, if you if somebody says, "Okay, I'm going to manage my own store." Unless you know the back end of Amazon, it's hard. I mean, even like, you know, when we were on Shark Tank, we ended up suing like 150 companies. Our Amazon account got hijacked a couple years ago. We ended up suing 150 companies. Um, they they figured they stole about $238,000 in sales off of us because we didn't know what we're doing. The brand registry was new. We didn't, you know, we were just we were brand new. We were only in business for eight months when we were on Shark Tank. So, um, you know, one just popped up recently. We were, they've been gone for almost two years. One popped up and I think they're already gone as of this morning. They were, but yeah, they handled that just but we you have brand registry. Once you have the trademark, the brand registry, the most important thing for Amazon is, you know, you got to protect your brand. They don't, you know, I don't know if everybody knows this like the audience, but, you know, Amazon really does, they don't care about patents. they care about trademarks, you know, and because it's a lot easier enforced on there, you know, but, you know, we do have full patents. We have utility patents and stuff, but um yeah, we have an agency do it. It's a lot easier. So, is Kevin Liry still involved at at this point or because a lot of people don't realize that there's a big disclaimer on Chuck Tank that says, uh, this is not an offer. This is blah blah blah and all deals are subject to final due diligence and all that. A lot of deals that get made on there don't actually get don't actually happen. Only 25 Yeah. Only 25% of the deals you see on TV actually close. Really? Yeah. And then there's a big Those are shot like a year in advance, too. Yeah. We we signed our deal the day we we signed our deal with Kevin Oolir um the day of our airing of our show and he wired us the money like an hour after we signed the deal. So we we shook hands on what was it July 17th. Our show aired September 31st of the same year. Oh, that's great. Yeah. The due diligence, but we're such a small company. You know, we, you know, we didn't have a ton of uh paper, you know, a ton of stuff to go through for those guys to do their due diligence. So, we signed the deal and yeah, he's still involved and he's going to, you know, when we launch in the big retail with with Lowe's at Ace, um we've talked to him. He's going to help us make some TV commercials and things like that. And you know, with because with his, you know, he's on TV every day. I see him almost every day somewhere. So, you know, everybody knows who he is. So, he's going to help us with some TV commercials and some other, you know, some social media posts and things like that. But, yeah, he's involved. One thing about Kevin Olri, he really cares about small business. I mean, you know, we don't talk to him a lot, but his team, if we ask a question, they're like literally they answer within within a day, within hours most of the time. So, his team's really responsive. He's he's a really great partner. I mean, to do it all over again, we would still we would do it again. So, he basically just gave you the money and then passed you to his team and then you did some stuff with your team. And that's basically the relationship now is you work with the team. Are they they wanting like monthly reports or weekly reports? Are they getting involved like, "Hey, we think you should do this marketing. We want to introduce you to these people." Are I guess what I'm saying? Are they very active or are they more passive? Well, he's as active as we need him to be. He's passive, but if we ask him for something, they do it. Like he he lets us run the business. He does, you know, he has his own thing going on. I mean, he's, you know, he's has multi-million dollar business in our little business, but we ask him for support, he's there. um you know, as far as um is his team, yeah, we deal with this team a lot. He has a really good responsive team. Um but, you know, some other you know, Sharks that I've heard aren't as aren't as like responsive as Kevin. Um but one thing that I can say is he he's an honest guy and he really cares about small business. Now, GC, how did you how did you uh handle Amazon? What are you doing to make Amazon work? Very carefully. We uh I spent uh with uh two of our partners, we spent about four hours on there and realized right then this is not uh something we can do. Uh so we too went down a couple different roads with uh a couple different guys agencies and we're with one now that uh we're doing it. We're doing it. Uh sales have increased. Um everything is uh checking out. We're actually making money from Amazon. the first time around on Amazon, it was, "Hey, you sell $1,900 worth of stuff today and great, we made $8." Uh, so there was a lot of mistakes made uh in the beginning, a lot of buttons not checked. Uh, that has turned around and we're actually uh we're pleased with Amazon and everybody should know, the listeners anyway, that mushroom coffee has not made it to the shelves yet. Uh, there's only one out there. I think for Sigmatic is the only one that's out there that's actually hit the shelves. That's what I drink, guys. That's 200. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, just so you have some figures. Last year, I I think it was 2023, almost $3 billion done in mushroom, functional mushroom coffee. That's expected to grow to over five and a half for the next few years. Uh, pretty good growth. Retail or online or total? It's only e-commerce. There's nobody in retail yet. So, uh, uh, well, one there's one in retail, right? one for for Sigmatic has they've uh they busted through the doors. Um we'll be the second one. Um and they're doing those kind of numbers on e-commerce. So I recognize as one of our the partners or the co-founders that uh e-commerce is important to us. There's a lot of money being made right now on e-commerce. So we wanted to make sure that we had the right outfit that was doing that for us. And we were lucky enough to have uh Doug introduce us to that team. And like I said, we're pretty uh we're pretty happy with them. You know, I I want to just say something about Amazon. Like uh a lot of people, they might have a product, they go onto Amazon, they think they can just list it. You are spending just good money after bad or I think that's the saying you need to have somebody to guide you through and navigate Amazon. Anybody who thinks that they can just go on there nowadays and make a buck, it's a unicorn. You know, you really do need to have guidance. And that's where, like, think of a photographer. You'll need a photographer on it for Amazon for the slide deck. You don't do it yourself. You hire a professional. And that's the same thing with your copy. You know, why wouldn't you not get somebody that knows the ins and outs, pay them a little bit? A lot of people are afraid of just, oh, they're going to take my profit. Well, a good uh consultant or a good uh agency, a good one, that's hard to find. Uh, you know, they're not taking your money, they're building your brand. And they're not only like building up your product and sales, it's your brand. You're getting brand awareness through that. So, I just wanted I I talked to so many people that think it's just so easy to go onto Amazon and it's just not the truth. No, it wasn't for us. It was I fell underneath. So, as you know, I'm a novelist and I've sold a lot of books on Amazon. So, you think that by selling books or I thought by selling books, oh, I'm on Amazon, this is going to be easy. Selling a book on Amazon is nothing compared to selling anything else on Amazon. Books are easy. It's uh there's nothing to it and you actually you see what you're going to make per book. It's it's laid out. You're going to get 70% of the royalties as long as your price lands between this point and this point. It's pretty cut and dry. Amazon's pretty easy with that. So, like I said, I thought it would be pretty easy for this space. And uh absolutely, you have to have somebody that is willing to take punches for you and knows what they're doing. They know how to dodge some of those punches. Punch Kevin, would you? Even virtually, just punch them. A virtual punch. Yeah, you probably buy that on Amazon these days. You can probably can. I think I saw that on Shark Tank. That's one of the deals I didn't go through. But yeah, with the mushroom coffee, you got to be careful, too, with making claims about stuff on Amazon. There there's a whole science to the backside of the keywords, the way you phrase things, what goes in the title, what doesn't, what goes in a picture, what doesn't. Yes, it's very it's very data driven and very scientific. And now in a world of AI that's evolving into a whole another game uh that's complicating it even further. Uh it's massive opportunity. Um but and it can also be if you don't do it right, you're not going to have success. And I we hear that a a lot. Doug, what what do these guys do right and what did they do wrong? What did they do right? They took a chance on themselves. That's first, right? Like you know for just just being an entrepreneur, right? Um, what did you do wrong? Um, shoot. I Let's see. Maybe you probably you corrected it, but what did they come in like they've mentioned a few things that the way they thought about it and how easy it would be and and stuff, but what what are some things that you were like, "Oh, oh, they made the same mistakes a lot of people that want to get into retail make." And and just to use an example, just to make this real for people. Yeah. Yeah. So, you take, let's just say, you know, if you you think you're going to do good on Amazon, you guys, I think, made the point earlier, we're going to do good on Amazon. The coffee tastes great. I just have to get it to a buyer's hand. It's better than for sigmatic. It's this is going to be a breeze. And I think every founder that I deal with deals I deal with I forget what it's called. It's how what is it? Hubris. Yeah, that's a good that's just cut right to it. every single person just has the best product. Um, it's been good. You know, uh, Kirk's a serial entrepreneur, so he's not so focused on one. I have three products right now where they're pretty dang good, but uh, the owners swear they're the best in the universe and nothing else will ever be uh, invented um, as good as this. Um, so you have to deal with that, you know, just balancing it with reality. These guys, since they came so early, um, I'd have to tell them myself for mistakes. We just made, you know, normal simple ones. The big thing about taking into retail, it's also our like if you do it the right way with us, we're going to give you R&D from buyers, from people who are actually going to put your stuff on the shelf. So, we're not just going out there 40k a year, you know, 5% and we're just a sales team. We're going to get out 40 50 samples. We're going to get feedback and most likely we're going to change I almost every product that comes to me I change the packaging. I change the price point. You change how it looks. We we go from shelf ready to pallet ready. Um you know you're paying for with us at least, you know, we're not brokers. We're brand management. We're bringing sales. We're we're we're bringing back R&D. So when it comes to what did they do wrong, I would say right now nothing. Uh what' you do right? Again, back to just taking a chance when you got something patented and proprietary and you know, you live in America or Canada, right, Norm? Right. Let's go. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's just, you know, hubris is the biggest thing with with founders. But if you get people that actually listen and say, "Yeah, we have all had hubris just like we we do in our own business. We're the best retail sales team in the country." Um, you just have to go back to what works, what doesn't work, being honest, and taking feedback and making it actionable. Like, if you get feedback from buyers that your price is too high, what are you going to do? Quit? No. Repackage. Make go from 16 bag to 11.5. Um, go from 12K cups to 10. There's so many different things that you can do to uh, you know, help overcome those objections uh, that stop most people from getting on the shelf. And you know, working with a team like us, you're you're able to get sales and that R&D that a lot of people forget about. Hey, what's up everybody? Kevin and Norm here with a quick word from one of our sponsors, 8 fig. Let me tell you about a platform that's changing the game for Amazon sellers. That's right, it's called 8Fig. On average, sellers working with 8ig grow up to 400% in less than a year. 8FIG offers both funding and free tools for e-commerce growth and cash flow management. And here's how it works. 8FIG provides flexible data-driven funding tailored to your exact needs. You know, they can fund anywhere from up to $50,000 all the way up to 10 million. 8FIG gives you free tools to forecast demand, manage inventory, and analyze cash flow. Visit 8fig.co. That's 8fig.co co to learn more or check the link in the show notes below. Just mention marketing misfits and get 25% off your cost. That's 8fig.co 8fig.co. See you on the other side. At the beginning, at the beginning almost an hour ago now time is flying. You said that retail's changed even over the last six months. Where do you see the trend going in the next six months? Uh predictive buying run by AI instead of buyers. So pretty much taking everything I just said and throwing it out the window. There's predictive buying that, you know, puts us in certain grocery stores now. Predictive buying that, you know, algorithms are going to make the decision on what comes into the, you know, what comes into the stores now more than buyers. five years ago, totally different. Um, now things are starting to be built off of algorithms. And if not built off of predictive buying and algorithms, they're going to throw you on the dot site just to see if you can make it. You know, if you're not a powerhouse with a big bank roll behind you or a big name, um, they try to slide you online first um to, you know, cover theirel because the buyers are, you know, incentivized off of bringing out products that are going to move and make the the retailer money. So predictive buying, you know, using dotcoms as uh, you know, litmus tests before bringing people in and overall it just makes it tougher, right, for the small businesses to get in. So you're saying like for GC's coffee, they're going to use AI to see where all the biohackers are. And that's where you're going to probably they're the store is going to say, "All right, we'll we'll take it uh in here because we got a a high density of biohackers in uh this little neighborhood in Austin. Uh so uh let's put his coffee on the shelf." So rather than Yeah. you already know it's it's it's going to get that micro soon. You you Yeah, it is just like you know just like Amazon knows where to ship um you know to you know based on the locations that their orders are coming from. That's going to trickle right down into okay Turbo Truster belongs to these areas but not these regions. It's already been happening but it's going to just be more precise make it a little bit tougher for the small brands to to keep up because a lot of people don't understand. Oh, you know, they'll say again hubris. People in Missouri love, you know, barbecuing, right? You know, there's just the non-reality statements and yeah, predictive. I think AI is going to make a lot of decisions for us. And it's a two billion dollar market. Come on, Doug. It's a$2 billion dollar market. Uh, in Missouri, we got to be there. There's there's Well, if I just had 1% of the market, I'd be fine. We'll be good. Come on now. Come on. Come on. 1% of the market. GC and clerk, why did you on the flip side, why did you plunk down 40 G's and give up a little little Scooby snack to uh Doug? I mean, what why why not? Why? I mean, yeah, he bought you some beers and uh had a good dinner. Uh but but why why should someone that's coming from your the side for the interventor or the creator side of a product consider someone like Doug? And what's the what are the advantages really? Well, because we need him. I mean it it's you know I mean you know inventing a product putting it on Amazon taking it to market that way getting on Shark Tank that's easy compared to cracking the code of of the big retail market. I mean because there are so many variables there are so many things that we don't know and a lot of times you have to hire a professional to do it. And you know we tried to do it oursel we were on range me. We were we we were doing all these things and weren't getting anything. I mean, I we've sent out a lot of samples so far right now and he's, you know, we're in Lowe's. We, you know, we're going to be we're going to be in Ace. Uh, we have a lot of samples out to buyers in all across grocery retail like retail grocery and uh like it's, you know, you just have to do it, but you have to bite the bullet because without paying a professional, it's just like using Amazon, if you don't hire an agency to help you navigate it, you're not you're never gonna you're never going to figure it out. So the patience that it takes, does that ever you're like, man, is this thing ever going to take off? I know takes a lot of sometimes you just got to do a gut check like I know I got something here. We sold $50,000 before. It's doing okay on Amazon. It's going to happen. I just got to be patient. Is it take like just a different mindset? Uh for sure. I mean, you know, we pass last November we passed a million dollars in lifetime sales. Not obviously not profit, but you know, we that's the only thing that's keeping us going is it keeps selling. I mean, we're not selling, you know, millions a month or anything. Not not like we want to, but we know we have something. Our reviews are good. Um, the people really love our products and, you know, but we need we needed help to get us to that next level, and we weren't capable of doing it by ourselves. We we just couldn't do it. We tried. And, you know, you got to you got to pay the piper and you got to pay a professional to help you do it. That's that's the you know when we decided to to work with Doug and WRD it's like you know and we knew him we met him in person which was really which was really nice. Um but you know he he gets results and you know that's what we need. We're you know we can be in I don't know thousands of of retailers because we can go across grocery, we could be you know we could be at Home Depot, Lowe's, Costco. We can be in just about every place. But to get there, to find those buyers and to and to stay on them and to follow up all these people, you need a team behind you to do it. And you know, my business partner and I, it's just him and I. I mean, it, you know, we run everything. Like today, I I just sent a bunch of stuff to Amazon this morning, you know. So, um, you know, it's us, you know, and we needed, we needed a sales professional like like Doug to help us get to that next level. And GC. Yeah. So, ours was the same thing. We wasted a bunch of money. Um, well, let me back up. So, I learned a valuable lesson when I wrote these books. When I first started writing, I immediately knew pretty quick pretty quick that like within 120 pages that I was going to get to these bestseller lists. But I assumed because I had no experience in this that hey, you write a book, that's the hard part. Uh, let's put it on Amazon and everybody's going to come buy it the next day. So, I learned that that was not the case. I learned that you had to have a team to get that done. So, then came the coffee. I didn't know anything. That's a different kind of retail market. Uh I we quickly hired uh some professionals that we thought that they had our best interest in mind. We dropped $50,000 on a PR company before we basically had a bag. Uh we just made mistakes that we fell for the whole I can get you, I can do this, I can I'm going to do all these big fancy things for you and you're going to you're going to love life. And you fall for those guys and there's a lot of them out there that do it. And then along came Doug that sat us down and gave us a no. Everybody else said, "Oh yeah, we can do that. Pay here, sign here." And we did it not knowing. And like I said, we wasted 50 grand just on one PR company before we even had a bag complete. Uh and we didn't tell Doug about it. Uh and when we did tell Doug about it, uh crap hit the fan. Uh so we we quickly learned that uh we knew we knew we needed somebody. We didn't know who we needed at that time. And luckily enough that um that PR company happened to have the inn to Doug's uh uh maybe big brother we'll call him the the distributor uh that happened to we sat there we did the tour said man how great would it to be in a situation like this and then in walks Doug tells us we can't do it we sit down we explain this is what we're thinking it's not regular coffee and he goes to work immediately and we spent less with him to get all of these and we're in like uh like Kirk said, we have samples out to real people. I mean, you what's the chances of me being able to get out a sample to to Sprouts or to Whole Foods or to Publix or State or all these without having a guy that they're not picking up the phone to me. They're not I seen that. So, when I started to realize that I got impatient, I'm like, man, the he's had it. This is the way it works. Why don't we have a PO the next day? And then I was lucky enough to be able to go to work for WRD and I now understand how it works. The building your product or building your brand or getting it to the point to be ready to go somewhere. That's not the hard part. The hard part is cracking the retail nut if that's what you want to be. If that's where you want to get to, that's not an easy uh there's hundreds and maybe thousands of people calling these same buyers to get on the same shelf that I'm trying to get on. The shelf may be six by 6 in by 6 ft deep. There's a thousand people calling for that same space. And if you don't have the guy, you don't have the team, and you don't have the distributor and the salesforce that can take you to that, you're really just spinning your wheels and wasting time and money. I've been an entrepreneur, like I said, since 17 years old. My time is valuable. So, for me to sit on a phone non-stop all day long and nobody take my call and nobody put my I'm just wasting my time and money. Forget the 50 grand we blew to a PR company. We We needed a guy like uh WRD. You have to have somebody that's going to shake your hand. They're going to look you in the eyes. They're going to pick up that phone. They're going to return the text. Even if it's the next morning, uh he's gonna This guy's gonna get back to you. He's going to and he's going to tell you straight, listen, you can't do that or no, we're not doing that. Or, hey, listen, that bag, we had completely different ideas on where our bag should look like. And well, not so much look like, but what it should contain, the different SKUs. And a he sat us down and said, "Listen, those won't work. This is what will work." And like I said, we're out in front of we have a phone call at least twice a day with somebody that's asking the right questions in order to get us to the point of appeal. Hey Doug. Yeah. Last word. Is there anything we missed? Is there anything just and I'm sure it's only you know it might be 30 seconds, right? Uh we covered everything. Everything that anybody knows about retail now. Is there anything? You're good. You're good. Listen to this podcast and you're ready to go. Exactly. It's just like that. That's it. Yeah. The the only thing is Yeah. Hey, the biggest thing you can have in this game is patience, right? A lot of people, they'll go spend 40, 50 grand every quarter on Amazon and they'll spend a hundred hours a week trying to get it right and end up with a two to 3% profit or maybe a loss. Um, if you could put that into something with long term with patience that you don't have to touch that you say, okay, um, I'm gonna go back to the old analogy.com and online is cryptocurrency. Over here we have Birkshshire Hathway, something that works. If you put a small amount of money behind it for a very long time and let the process take it place take place, um, you're going to come out on a better end. So, what you have to the only thing that you miss is no matter what everybody's saying, you have to have patience. And uh when you have patience, then you just have to have more because right before you're about to make it, something is going to happen to set you back. And you just got have to have more patience. And if the right agency picks you up, if the right sales manager comes on your team, if you get a chance to work with people who actually care, the difference between our team and other teams is we care. And you have a product that the price point works, you're going to get there. You just just like anything, you got to just keep grinding, keep calling. You got to find the one person that wants to take you to the prom. And once you get there, um you build your brand from there. And it could be Sprouts, it could be Target. Um you can build your brand off of 150 stores. Um so it's just be patient, be consistent, be persistent, and uh be positive, and things will work out. Hey, Kevin King and Norm Ferrar here. If you've been enjoying this episode of Marketing Misfits, thanks for listening this far. Continue listening. We got some more valuable stuff coming up. Be sure to hit that subscribe button if you're listening to this on your favorite podcast player. Or if you're watching this on YouTube or Spotify, make sure you subscribe to our channel because you don't want to miss a single episode of The Marketing Misfits. Have you subscribed yet, Norm? Well, this is an old guy alert. Should I subscribe to my own podcast? Yeah, but what if you forget to show up one time and it's just me on here? You're not going to know what I say. I'll I'll buy you a beard and you can sit in my chair, too. We'll just You can go back and forth with one another. Yikes. But that being said, don't forget to subscribe, share it. Oh, and if you really like this content, somewhere up there there's a banner. Click on it and you'll go to another episode of The Marketing Misfits. Make sure you don't miss a single episode because you don't want to be like Norm. Perfect. Kevin, I think this has been good. If you if you want to go deeper on some stuff, uh Doug and I did I know you've done some stuff on your podcast, too. Check out Lunch with Norm. You've covered some retail stuff and from a different uh angle. And then Doug and I uh this podcast will probably come out first uh because the one we recorded uh won't be out till early fall. Um but you check that one out because it'll have a lot more detail in the weeds uh and and some some number breakdowns and stuff in there. So that that'll that'll help you out too. That's ampm podcast. All right. This will be interesting. At the end of every podcast, I always ask our guests, do they know a misfit? Oh, yeah. Of course. I know lots of misfits, of course. Definitely. Absolutely. Well, perfect. If And I I guess this will be a little bit later on, but our uh assistant Mary is going to reach out to you and uh get that information. Love it. Yeah, send her my way. We'll definitely get her linked up with uh somebody who actually helped build my business as well. And I think you guys have a good conversation. Fantastic. Yeah. Well, appreciate you guys having us on. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. All right, guys. You guys appreciate it. And thanks uh GC, Kirk, and Doug. This has been great. And I'm going to remove you. Don't go away. Okay. All right. Let's see if I can do this one. Don't want to. My computer's so sensitive. sensitive just like Kevin. Where's Kevin? You kicked me out. You kicked me out. I thought you All right. You're just going to take it from here. All right. You pissed me off a little, Kevin. You go. You go. You go, boy. Uhuh. I just I just want to know the the mushroom. The mushroom coffee. It It must You need to switch brands cuz this one's not working. Supposed to be anti-aging. Does your voice get on your nerves, too? It's supposed to be anti-aging and you may need to switch to GC's brand because something's wrong with their coffee. It's called natural. Hey, but no, that that that was good. Uh a different take uh on uh on retail than a lot of times what you hear and some people that are actually in there doing it uh uh dayto-day. And you know, a couple brands that are ones right on the cusp with a PO already. He he didn't mention here, but I think they actually won a contest at Lowe's, too. Like I forget what he says, like uh some sort of contest that got them into 250 stores. Uh yeah, that platinum award. Yeah. Yeah. Which is which is cool. And then GC, I think like he said, it's only one brand out there. I'm sure they're going to break through and have some some great success. So retail is something just like, you know, when I asked them that Amazon question, I said, "Hey, who's handing you on Amazon? This Amazon ain't easy." Just like they said, they said it many many times. Hey, retail is not easy either. It's a great opportunity. It's a whole different animal, but it's something that's definitely worth worth pursuing. And patience. And patience. Yeah. I think that's the other key is just be patient. Uh and um good thing, well, they say good things come to those who wait. Is that is that right, Norm? You've been waiting a while for something from me. I get stuck with you. Good things. You've been waiting on something from me. Yeah. And isn't it good things come to those who wait? It's patience. More patience. Patience. I heard that. I heard that. Oh man. Okay. So, we have a YouTube channel and we've got two actually. One is for our long form videos and that is uh Marketing Misfits Podcast. Pretty simple. Marketing Misfits Podcast. For shorter clips, three minutes and under, we have the marketing misfits clips. And we have a new Tik Tok channel. So, we've just opened that up. And by the way, uh our website, if you want to check it out, is marketingmisfits.co, not.com. Right, Kev? Uh that took me a while to get that. Yeah, it'sco. That's it. All right, I think that's it. Yeah, I think so. So, if if you like this episode, feel free to share it uh with with someone you think might benefit from hearing this. Someone's getting into wanting to get into retail would be great. Uh leave us a comment down below or follow us, subscribe on uh whether you're watching this on YouTube or Tik Tok or uh or uh any of the other channels, Spotify, Apple Podcast, whatever. Be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss a single episode cuz we're back here every single Tuesday uh with a with a a brand new episode from the world of marketing. And that's it. That's it. We'll see you later. See you next time. [Music]