This week's episode with Taylor Offer, the dynamic CEO of Feat Clothing was LEGIT! Listen as we explore the Black Friday season, finding balance, and his viral bagel scooping controversy. Dive into Taylor's transformative journey through Thailand, where he reshaped his perspective to build an authentic brand. Uncover the delicate balance between metrics and creativity in business, with insights on aligning objectives and fostering a team appreciative of non-ROI initiatives. Brace yourself for powerful discussions on trust, risk-taking, and detaching from results in the business world. Join us on the Unstoppable Marketer podcast for a captivating exploration of business and marketing.
Please connect with Trevor on social media. You can find him anywhere @thetrevorcrump
This week's episode with Taylor Offer, the dynamic CEO of Feat Clothing was LEGIT! Listen as we explore the Black Friday season, finding balance, and his viral bagel scooping controversy. Dive into Taylor's transformative journey through Thailand, where he reshaped his perspective to build an authentic brand. Uncover the delicate balance between metrics and creativity in business, with insights on aligning objectives and fostering a team appreciative of non-ROI initiatives. Brace yourself for powerful discussions on trust, risk-taking, and detaching from results in the business world. Join us on the Unstoppable Marketer podcast for a captivating exploration of business and marketing.
Please connect with Trevor on social media. You can find him anywhere @thetrevorcrump
Yo, what's going on everybody? Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer podcast. With me, as always, is Mark Goldhart, my lovely co-host. Mark, what's going on, dude?
Speaker 2:Oh, I am great. Nothing much going on, though, in my life. It's just a Black Friday season, so I guess we're busy. We're busy right now.
Speaker 1:Yes, black Friday season, it's all hands on deck right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I?
Speaker 2:It's late nights, early mornings.
Speaker 1:So actually about this year with Black Friday is two. Three years ago, black Friday was only Friday through Monday, actual Black Friday through Cyber Monday, and so Thanksgiving is my just ultimate worst holiday. Because of that, and because you're just all hands on deck, because 30% of people's businesses rely on four days of the year, it seems like yeah, and Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.
Speaker 2:Oh well, I love Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1:It's so great, it is the best holiday, but it is the worst in our world sometimes, right so? But I've loved, like the last two years. Black Friday starts early and so, like you, don't have everything relying on four days, it's relying on four days here and then a break there, four days here and then you know. So that's why I dig the new modern day. I agree Black Friday personally. Well, dude, let's introduce our guest today. This is a guest I've actually been super excited to have on for a minute now. His name is Taylor Offer and he is the co-founder and CEO of Feet Clothing. Taylor. What's going on, dude? What's up, what's up? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Also known as the Bagel Scoop Guy.
Speaker 3:That is my new identity at the Bagel Scoop Guy. It's crazy you can go do a lot of things in your life and then you scoop one bagel and you're the Bagel Scoop Guy.
Speaker 2:You're that guy. I'm like a small town guy. I don't know anything about bagels. So this is an honest question Are bagel scoops a thing or was that a joke? I don't know. Is there actually bagel scoops in Los Angeles?
Speaker 3:Well, first off a question for you Small towns don't have bagels. What's up with bagels? I'm not even bagels.
Speaker 2:Dude, salt Lake City does not have. I mean, it's a small city there's no, I mean there's some bagel shops, but like, it's very true, it's not a thing here. There's not truly bagel shops here. Well, not only that.
Speaker 1:Taylor. But Utah is like notorious for like we're chains, Like we're all about chains, Like chain restaurants.
Speaker 2:Oh, I think that was what I'm going to keep talking here. There's no bagel. Please, bro, explain it to me. What is a bagel scoop? Why did this upset New Yorkers so much?
Speaker 3:A scoop bagel is like it's a culture, it's a thing, everyone scoops. It makes so much sense, especially from a young age. Like we'd always my family we'd go get you get the baker's dozen, where you get 12 bagels and you get one for free if you get 12, so you get 13 bagels and we'd go home and I would eat like two or three bagels when I was like 12 years old, like that was the thing. But you scoop it out. So the best part of the bagel, as everyone knows, is the external part, everything bagels. You have all the seeds, you have all the flavor. So if you could scoop up, you could eat like two or three bagels full of all your toppings, all your things and the seeds, or you could just waste your time getting full on one bagel. So scoop bagels are definitely a thing, especially in LA, even in New York and then I guess I just pissed off some New Yorkers I think it was a lot of my energy Whereas, just like this, cali bro, scoop bagel, blah, blah, blah. I just pissed.
Speaker 2:It was more of the energy. It's like what are you going to ask for? I'll have a avocado toast next. Like, get out of here.
Speaker 3:Honestly, and it was like the internet is crazy. It's like once it starts dogpiling, like it's just a dog pile, it's a free for all. Then they started going after my haircut, they started going after my skin, they started going after my the way I talk and I was just cracking up. Like some of the stuff people are saying was so funny.
Speaker 2:I think if people pay attention to your social profile, they'll know that you certainly are not scared of some controversy.
Speaker 3:No, not. I mean I don't really care Like I have a really close knit family and close knit group of friends and then outside of that. I do not care what anybody thinks about me. It doesn't matter at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Dude, that that is actually something that I'd love to talk to you about, because, in the day of social media, I think one of the biggest problems to social media is everyone thinks that they need to care about everyone's opinions. Right, and even though social media can be such a valuable tool for companies and for people to build personal brands, it can also just kind of like consume and destroy people. So I'd love to hear about your, your personal thoughts and journey. Like you, have a pretty solid social following. You've built this brand as well on social, using social media. So how do you keep your head straight and and make sure that those relationships stay solid to help you keep grounded?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I'm very lucky that I came. I grew up in an amazing family. I'm such a good base where we still I have an older sister, younger brother, I have some nieces we still do family dinners a couple of times a week and that is just like a ability for me to be super grounded and just remember what matters. So, yeah, everything outside of that doesn't really matter at all.
Speaker 3:And I think that's enabled me to grow on social media because, like, if someone's making fun of me or like saying something you don't know me, I don't care what you say and that's powerful. Another big thing is I think a lot of people get hooked on the dopamine of social media, right, and even people without big followings. Even if you have 12 followers and you post a picture of your cat and you get three likes, you're checking, like everyone feels that. So I have this system down where I have a flip phone, as you can see here, like this is on me 24, seven, and then I leave my iPhone on my desk. So I treat my iPhone like my computer. I only use it when I'm in my desk working. When I leave my desk, you can call my flip phone. If you're important, you have my number.
Speaker 3:If not, like I'm off the grid for like 12 plus hours a day, which most people don't have that ability to reset. They get so caught up in this spin cycle of social that they don't even know what reality is anymore. They're spending four, five, six, seven, eight hours a day in this virtual world. It's not real. So it's like it's easy to lose your sense of reality. So I'm pretty conscious about staying grounded and disconnecting from that matrix.
Speaker 1:Dude, I love that. One of the things that like, one of the things that you said is something that, like, I kind of had this like realization a few months ago, which was when you have a foundation of values, right, so, like you, what you said is like hey, I eat, I eat dinner with my family. I grew up in a tight knit family and I eat dinner with them twice a week. Like there's, you obviously have these family values, things that are more important to you than feet, then your social media profile, then the likes, then the hate or whatever, and I think that that's a huge thing that a lot of people who create content and who own businesses lack is this like value section of their life. That is their foundation and then everything else is built upon that. What do you, what do you think about that?
Speaker 3:A hundred percent and I don't want to make it seem like I always had this, like I struggled a lot, especially in my early twenties. Right, I'm 30 now, so I've been running feet for eight years. And then social media and e-con for eight years, and eight years ago, like all that was on social media that I would consume was Gary V saying hustle, grind, don't enjoy your twenties, fuck your family, Fuck your friends, don't do shit, work 30 hours a day. I adopted that mindset, right, and at 22, 23, like I did that. All I did was work. All I did was quote unquote grind and I was able to get success with it. We were able to do collabs with some of the biggest people in the world, like Logan Paul and the chain smokers.
Speaker 3:I got named for bernie 30. We were doing millions of dollars in revenue at 23 years old and I was it didn't feel good. I was like shit, I am empty inside, like this sucks. I don't like this feeling. And that's what happened when I kind of prioritize the wrong things and I realized like you can get all the external success in the world, but you're not happy. What's the point? That's why I started like really auditing my time and really auditing like what brings me joy, when am I at peace? And I realized like whenever I touch my cell phone, my happiness goes down, my anxiety goes up and even small things, like when I touch my phone and I go on Instagram I start breathing faster, my breath becomes more shallow, I get a little more tense and once you become conscious of those things, you're like shit, why would I touch that phone, why would I want that on my pocket 24, seven, right? First is when I'm hanging out with my family. I'm sitting back, my body language is relaxed, I'm happy, I'm not thinking about things all the time, and so it's kind of it's really important to be conscious of what you do and how it makes you feel, and the more you can get in control of that.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of people have this fear of, like, stepping off the gas, which I did too right. You have this fear of someone's going to go out work you, someone's going to blah, blah, blah, but like that's not think. It's not about how many hours you work, it's about being efficient with it. And like when I was working and grinding, I wasn't efficient at all. I was scroll Twitter and Instagram for seven hours a day and be like I was grinding. It's like, no, I wasn't, I wasn't doing anything important, I was just refreshing my email and blocks waiting for a email to come up.
Speaker 1:That was such a waste of time, so just being more conscious of time makes you feel Dude, what, what, what? What made that transition for you to like be in that hustle culture of the Gary Vee Cause? Like we're all I mean I'm 35, mark's 34. We're all like not to put you five years older than you are, but we're all roughly in a very similar age. So we grew up in those same like I grew up listening to Gary Vee same, exact same stuff right In my twenties, like oh my gosh, I am not working hard enough. Like what was it that pulled you out of that? That made you Okay? Depression.
Speaker 1:What do you mean?
Speaker 3:Being depressed, like I got to a, I hit rock bottom. I actually hit rock bottom and I remember it was 2018. It was like a Tuesday morning and I was like I can't do this, I need to go and I need to go somewhere. And I had my part business part of the time. I said can you drive into the airport? He's like what are you talking about? I had nothing, literally the clothes I was wearing in my wallet, I didn't take my phone, I didn't take my computer, I had no form of anything, nothing. And I went to the airport. I said give me the next flight as far away as possible and on a one way, and I'll come back when I'm ready. And it was crazy, but I went to Bangkok, I went to Thailand. That was the farthest one way flight you can go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one night in Bangkok.
Speaker 3:What'd you say?
Speaker 2:One night in Bangkok.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it was a little more than I, but exactly, and I went to, I didn't know what, I just need to go somewhere. And I went and I remember being in Thailand and seeing I was walking around and I'd see these kids with nothing like literally rags on their back, kicking a Coke can, around, playing soccer, with the biggest smile on their face, and I was like I have a couple of million dollars in revenue and Forbes they're near 30. I have all of these quote unquote things. There was no way I could smile like that, or I hadn't smiled like that in years and I was like what's important in life? Like I want to smile. I want to try to figure that out.
Speaker 3:So that's what got me away from the hustle culture. I was like I played that game and by a lot of people's definition of quote unquote success, I was successful in that game and I hated it and I was like this is not the game I want to play, like felt like I was playing soccer and I was scoring a bunch of goals. I don't want to play soccer, I want to play basketball. It's a different game. I don't care if I can kick them all far. That's not important to me anymore.
Speaker 2:What's important to me is this so you're like Michael Jordan going to baseball.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I don't know if I can pair myself to Michael Jordan, but yeah.
Speaker 2:Secretly being suspended for gambling.
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Speaker 3:I mean, it's an ongoing battle every single day. There's so many unconscious habits that you aren't even aware of, right. There's so many unconscious thought tracks that you go through that you think are helpful, like as small as you know, waking up and checking your phone to be like, oh, put your phone outside your bedroom when you sleep. That could be one that's more obvious. Or like I thought I had to keep up with entrepreneurs. I thought, like your brain tricks you, right? Like I would follow every other person at an e-commerce company, all their social media. I had to watch other posts because I was gaining insight to what I was doing. I realized I was just like way too competitive and jealous of them and that's why I was following them. And like that wasn't positive fuel that made me feel like shit when they were posting their Shopify dashboards about how they're crashing it. Like I thought, like I had to do it. So it's all these, like it's everything and it doesn't stop. It's how you think about yourself.
Speaker 3:What happens when you look at your Shopify dashboard for the day and you see that your sales aren't what they were yesterday. What's the feeling you feel like? Is it important to actually check your Shopify dashboard every two hours. Can you check it once a week? Will there be any change in the material of what's happening? So it's an ongoing thing and there's so much stuff you have to unlearn and I'm nowhere near getting to where I want to get to, but it's as soon as you acknowledge something, you say shit. Is this serving me or is this not serving me and you could make a change?
Speaker 2:Well, here's a question for you, man. So feet, the brand itself I don't know what it looked like eight years ago, but the brand feet feels fun right now. I don't know if it's always been as fun as it is right now and I wanted to ask if, if you disconnecting and being able to disassociate a little bit from the business side of things and find yourself and give yourself the freedom to be you and have real fun like connecting human fun in the world, how much has that helped on the brand side for you to find a better voice and connect with people?
Speaker 3:Definitely. I think the more that you're able to connect with yourself, the more you can be an open space to connect with people and create right. Like I think there's a point and feet's finally getting back to being fun. There's a point where it wasn't fun and there's a point where we were so metric driven right. And there's a point where every piece of creative was a flat lay or a model walking into the shot showing the stretch, walking out because that's what converted right. And like we got hooked on the Facebook drug that a lot of people got hooked on. We built a brand around that. So I'm trying to get it back to fun.
Speaker 3:It's hard and you have to kind of sacrifice metrics and you can't always be metric driven. Some things don't have an ROI and that's okay. Like you got to do what fuels you because, end of the day, these businesses run on energy and if there's no energy behind the company, people aren't excited about it. It's not going to work. Employees don't want to work there. You're not going to want to work there. There's a point of feet where I didn't want to work at feet. I didn't want to keep doing it. It wasn't fun. So I think it's important to make an environment that people enjoy. And yeah, you got to have fun with it, otherwise what's?
Speaker 1:the point. Taylor, do you have like, do you guys have investors, or do you have to answer to people?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have with a lot of investors. We have the board of directors and, yeah, an amazing supportive board.
Speaker 1:Reason why I ask is because, like you, you see this a lot, where every like brands feel like they have to constantly be growing and constantly be scaling. Hence the reason why they fall into the trap that you said you fell into, which is the. It's the flat lays, it's the. What sells, it's the. You know. Are we spending more money every month? Are we making more money every month? Are we growing? Are we growing? Are we growing? And oftentimes, when you get in that mindset, you sacrifice the like. Sometimes you sacrifice the branding initiatives that you don't see, like immediate ROI. I spent a dollar here. Where did I make that dollar back? Um, what's your recommendation for people like yourself who fill in marketing?
Speaker 1:is about to say oh I, I was sorry, I cut out there, I think I. I think I was cut out right when I said what's your recommendation? What's your recommendation as somebody who does have a board, who does have people to answer to? What are you telling them when you're doing or spending money on something that's not necessarily going to give you an immediate ROI?
Speaker 3:It's challenging right Cause people. It's easy for different people to see the business from different perspectives, so it's something I talk about with the board and somebody I talked about uh, we have someone that does runs our finance right and it's like he is so focused on the day over day return and ad spend number and I'm like that's irrelevant because the content we shot today won't get shown for two weeks, but that content is going to be awesome. It changed things. So I think it's just aligning objectives and it's having people sorry, having people who understand the you need to do these other things or the business is not going to work and it's like you need.
Speaker 3:I'm lucky that I have investors in board that really trust me and I really trust them. Um, and we've been through some challenging times together and we work through it and it's important to try to figure out how you could trust each other and give each other that leeway. To end of the day, I'm fully confident that my board and investors believe in me and if I say, look, it's super important for us to fly to Brazil for two weeks and do this whole campaign around this launch in Brazil and it's going to cost a hundred thousand dollars, but it's going to back out here and they say if you really believe this like, go do it like. And I'm lucky to have those types of people around me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's rad, man. I think people forget that a lot of business, I mean although you have to be sound like the math has to work in a business but a lot of making the math work is our leaps of faith. And you know I'm an analytical person. I love trying to make sure things are going to work out but at the end of the day, like you're never going to arrive to a number that makes sense when it comes to campaign and brand initiatives, like it's always going to be I mean, hey, this worked before, I don't know if it's going to work again. It's always going to be a leap of faith.
Speaker 2:So if you can create that trust and that community within the company, that's where. That's where companies do special things. Right, cause everyone's bought in. I love what you said, that it's energy, and energy can manifest itself through through money. Like money is a form of energy, right, but the best form of energy is people. And so if you can actually harness energy from people who believe in the initiative in the direction of the company, that's where companies do special things. And so as you came back, you you figured out yourself how easy was it to get people bought in on this new vision of getting back to fun for feet.
Speaker 1:Definitely not easy.
Speaker 3:I mean it's challenging, like it's a lot of trust and it's a lot of risk because, like you don't know if it's going to work out. Right, like whether it is a campaign, where you're, you know, spending on something that just feels so true to you. And I think it's the, the artists or the creatives dilemma, right, like you have an idea in your head and you want to go to it and you want to fully believe in it. But if you do it and it falls flat, like you take it personal and you're like, oh shit, that's on me, which is I've detached a lot from that, right, like, here's my idea, my idea isn't me, here's my idea, here's what thinks in our work. We try it.
Speaker 3:You have to be unemotional about the results, which enabled you to analyze why it worked or why it didn't work and then improve on it. So, yeah, I mean the it's challenging, but the it becomes less challenging as you become less emotional and it's hard to detach emotionally from. This is your baby, this is everything. You're putting your heart, blood, soul into it. But you have to detach from the results, otherwise you're only as good as your results. And then one day, facebook shifts the bed and the changes, the algorithm, and then not only is your business failing, you think you're a failure in your head and that starts cycling you down. Really, really bad. So detach from the results and just put your best effort out there, and then analyze it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's. That's where that like uh, have something like more important than the results of your business comes into play, right, like that's the foundation piece, cause, like, if you're suck that week or that month or black Friday, bombs, bombs you got a family or you've got a faith or you've got something else that, like, you're attached to so you weren't to failure. What happened was a failure, right.
Speaker 3:For sure, yeah, and even like three generations from now, which is like your grandkids, that your grandkids kids they're not going to know you even existed. So like in three generations from now, nothing matters. And if you can kind of get back to that perspective of like that's really quick, like I don't even know my great-grandparents names, like my great-grandkids probably won't know my name, maybe they'll see a video of me or I don't even know. If that video is, then who knows? So like you're just here for a minute and then you're gone, so it just doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Dude, I'd love to talk about one of these leaps of faith. Let's talk about uh, is it Venice Beach? There's a billboard.
Speaker 3:Yes, I did put the billboard up in Venice Beach.
Speaker 1:We'll have to clip this billboard in. Dude. That's that's actually. I don't know if you know this, but you when that built, when you first posted about the billboard on Instagram. That's when I first reached out to you. I don't know if you recognize that, dude, but like I saw that billboard, I'm like I have to have this guy on this podcast. Like I had heard of feet and I had heard of you, but I hadn't attached you two together as one in the same, you know. And then I saw that and I was like, dude, we have to have him on. So, dude, I Mark, you asked the question that you're going with that, but I just wanted to throw that out there.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, that's not a conventional way of advertising for a D to C brand. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Back to being able to get to a point where you can fully come up with an idea and not have anything stop you from getting that idea out of your body. So I think a lot of people and I think a lot of people get really frustrated and doubted on themselves because they they could dream up amazing things in their mind but they can't get it out of their mind into the real world. And that was something I struggled with in a big way of like every entrepreneur has ideas and they can't get that idea to look the same in the world. So to me, like I just fully dropped that filter. I have an idea, I'm going to do it.
Speaker 3:And that billboard like I had a friend that's in the center of Venice, it's the biggest, most prime billboard in Venice, california, in Venice Beach, and that's like it's right next to the Venice sign, right there, everyone in Venice sees it. I had a friend who always had that billboard and I was like yo, if you ever are down with that billboard, holler at me. And he called me and he was like hey, I have that billboard, but you need something by next week if you want it. And I was like first thing that came to mind, like I'm putting myself naked on a billboard.
Speaker 1:I didn't tell anyone I was going to tell our board.
Speaker 3:I didn't tell an investor. I called my friend, he takes pictures and I said, hey, I need you to come over tonight. And he's like why? I was like you got to take pictures and we naked. And he was like what are you talking about? I was like I'm going to put myself naked on a billboard, can you just come over and take pictures? So we did it that night. Let it over, put the headline. The only thing more comfortable than being naked uh, feet, clothing. And yeah, I just didn't tell anyone.
Speaker 3:I just did it and screw it, and that was like back to in a world where everybody is the same and everybody goes through. Every brand goes through all of these filters, right, every brand will have a creative team and then the CEO approves and the board approves it and the end product after that would be soft and cozy. Get 20% off on your first order at feetclothingcom. Nobody cares about that? That is not at all. Or I was just like screw that whole process, I'm going to go pose naked on the billboard, at least people will remember it.
Speaker 1:What was the reaction from your board?
Speaker 3:They're just like you didn't want to tell us and I was like if I told you it would not be here, it wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 2:And tell our listeners what the tagline is on the billboard.
Speaker 3:The tagline is the only thing I think it's the only thing more comfortable than being naked. And then feetclothingcom. And it's me laying across the billboard, fully naked, laying like a model, with just what a hoodie covering the parts that legally need to be covered.
Speaker 2:You gotta cover those parts for sure. I'd love to hear what not like the intercompany reaction. But what kind of quote ROI have you seen from that initiative? Because that's a pretty out there initiative but it seems to be paying a lot of social dividends in ways that, if you're trying to look at things that like direct ROI, you might have said no to yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean it's hard because there's not. We got everyone got so hooked on Facebook, right? So hooked on. I spent a dollar on this campaign and I got a dollar and 75 cents back on the same day and it's like that type of marketing. People got so hooked on to the point that if you spend on a billboard anything that you can't track, people almost think it's not marketing, right, if you can't track it, you can't attribute it, it's not marketing or there's no value to it.
Speaker 3:So this billboard is a good example. I want to say it was like 3,500 or 4,500 a month. I think we ran it for like three months. So you're looking at, let's just say, yeah, it was because I was sub-leasing it from my friend who's had it, that's right. So I did like 10 grand for three months. So we had cost ROI.
Speaker 3:How it backed out, I have no freaking. I have no metrics at all. What I do know is the Instagram post got over 100,000 views. I had, you know, for the three months we had people sharing it and tagging us every single day. So, in terms of impressions, millions of people are like I'm not sure what millions of impressions on it and it's a perception, right, like everyone that talks about me or talks about the brand. I saw the billboard. It was awesome. How do you track that? And that's the thing that drives analytical people nuts and especially when you're in that kind of return on ad spend, analytical mentality, it will drive you nuts because you're like you can't track it. There's no value to it, which is, to me, that's the wrong way to look at marketing, because it's like you end up with.
Speaker 3:if you do have that analytical mindset, you end up only spending money on a meta advantage shopping plus campaign because it has the best ROI. You don't do any top of funnel, middle funnel, you do bottom funnel conversions and you only spend money there that you can track and then it's a race to zero. That is really a race to the bottom. So I think it's important to do other things and do things that you can't track.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you have any methodologies that you use to attribute the impact of those kinds of initiatives, or are you guys looking at like because some brands will just zoom out? I think one of the biggest problems is brands are so focused on the granular that they're looking at day over day and month over month when really they need to be looking at things as seasons and years and even though seasons can change depending on what industry you're in. So curious if you have a way within feet to try to measure those initiatives. Or do you just say, hey, we know it's working because of these top line metrics and it'll play out over time?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the billboard was more of a one off, so no metrics or any analytics around that. But yeah, no way to measure, besides how I'm feeling, with how people would respond to it and talk about it.
Speaker 2:And it's probably good. He's probably going to allocate some budget to initiatives like that. Right, just like we're doing fun.
Speaker 3:We're doing three fun campaigns a year, which is something I'm really especially as we've seen this race to zero on meta and digital advertising. In the past, we haven't allocated any budget to that. I would say 99% of our budget of marketing was allocated toward direct response marketing and the goal was same day conversions. So that's a big thing. I'm thinking about for next year is like can we get to the point where we have the luxury to spend on these things and it's a luxury, it's a luxury for a brand to be at a point where you could spend on something that doesn't need to return a dollar on the same day? So I think the goal is use direct response marketing to the point where you have a luxury to spend on things that you don't need to direct ROI. You could wait 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, and that, I think, pays out in the long term, but it's a scary thing to do and it's a scary thing to invest in because you don't know if it pays out ever.
Speaker 1:Right. Do you have any thoughts or guidelines around revenue, kind of revenue baselines, because you kind of did a little formula there. It was like hit direct response really really hard until you hit this luxury point. Define what a luxury point might be for somebody to start to get a little bit crazy and do things that aren't going to show that direct ROI yeah.
Speaker 3:I think a luxury point is when your contribution margin positive or if you have cash in excess, right? So I mean there's a couple different ways to finance or run these types of companies. Right, if you get to a point and you can get this luxury by, if you have 60 day or 90 day terms for your manufacturer and you have cash for that 60 days before you sell, that's a luxury. Now you have cash in that time period that you could use for some of this stuff. Right, if you have excess capital in any way, if you have enough of a marketing budget where you could break off $10,000, $50,000, $100,000 a month and say we don't need a direct ROI on this budget, we could spend this. So the luxury I mean it varies right, it could be $500 luxury, it could be $500,000 luxury.
Speaker 3:Some of the bigger I think bigger brands probably call it experimental marketing. Yeah, where they have these budgets of experimental marketing where it's like let's just go. It's almost like the venture capital model. Right, 9 out of 10 is going to fail, but that one that hits is going to fricking hit, right?
Speaker 3:So I think it's a lot of things like that, but it's different for every brand and a lot of it doesn't take capital, like a lot of it is a viral TikTok that is. That could just do it right. You can do that with your iPhone, so I think we're lucky. We live in a world now where reach is democratized, so you don't need to pay a premium to reach people. You can reach people on your phone, which is amazing. It's such an amazing time to live and reach people, so you can do it in many different ways.
Speaker 2:How does your brand reach correlate with your personal brand efforts and how does your personal brand help your actual company?
Speaker 1:Exactly. Thank you.
Speaker 3:I think we live in a world today where people want to know who's behind companies right, and I think, especially if people don't know who's behind a company, they assume it's a Chinese drop shipper and somebody random, or they assume the person's hiding for a reason. So in a big company, you get Amazon and Bezos, zuckerberg and Facebook, elon and Tesla. It's like people want to know who's behind companies and that's how you get this. They want to see it's real, they want to see it's cohesive. They want to know that it's not a bunch of six-year-old white dudes in suits in a boardroom trying to figure out how to sell women things by preying on their insecurities. They want to know if something that feels genuine and that person is living a lifestyle.
Speaker 3:So I think it's so important, especially at our scale is like especially when you're trying to build a brand, you have to live the brand, and I know a lot of people that don't live their brand. They can see the friction it creates on themselves on a personal level, and I think the best e-commerce brands or the best brands in general are brands that are aspirational of the founder, and I look at some of these brands. It's like it's what the founder and it does two things One, it helps the founder be the aspirational version of themselves. And then, two, it's this aspirational thing that everyone who's at that level, or below, or above, can go aspire to be. And it's genuine, it's real and people could feel that.
Speaker 2:I have a question about athleisure. I'm sure when you got going, I mean eight years ago, maybe it wasn't as crazy, but I mean Lululemon was still huge right Eight years ago, so you had, I mean athleisure obviously was a trend. We know it's still growing, but why athleisure? And I'm sure people thought you were crazy for trying to even enter into the athleisure space.
Speaker 3:Yeah, good question. I think of us less of athleisure and more of just comfy clothes and the future of clothing. And the way I think about it is the way I started this company is. I was working in investment baking and I wore a suit and tie to work every day and the second I put on that suit and tie I sat like this. My shoulders became stiff and if I'm ever in a suit or wearing uncomfortable clothes, you'll see my body language is really stiff and I'm a shell of myself Because I'm not comfortable physically, I can't be relaxed mentally. So that was God you're speaking like.
Speaker 3:We're still dressing how the pilgrims dress when they came to the US 300 years ago, with uncomfortable, starchy, stiff clothing. It's like why would you wear that? And then the more research I did on how clothing affects your mood and affects how you feel, I learned I'm extremely sensory sensitive to clothing. So if I wore clothes that are uncomfortable, it messes my whole body language, my whole energy, my whole mood. So I was like I can only wear comfy clothes because this is having the best version of myself.
Speaker 3:And I started to learn most of the US populated, most of the population, is sensory sensitive to clothing. They're just not aware of it. But when you're wearing comfy clothes, you feel more relaxed. So the whole concept was can we make clothes that are so comfortable that you could wear them and feel like you're comfortable wherever you go, but style it enough that you could wear them in the office, you could wear them on a date, you could wear them at dinner, you could wear it when traveling, and that's the whole concept. So I think a lot of people put that into the athleisure category, which I understand, because athleisure kind of does the same thing. But I look at us more as comfy clothing, less athleisure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Dude, I love that story and man, I just had this thought about. Maybe that's why there's rising anxiety rates in the United States. Is the skinny jeans trend right? For 10 years, people were just strapping on the tightest clothing of all time. But there's a book called the Charisma Myth and I can't remember who writes it or who wrote it, but she outlines what you just talked about, which she didn't. I don't think she labels it as a sensory thing, but essentially that when you're in uncomfortable clothing, it ruins the way that you have charisma and the way that you can connect because you're constantly thinking about yourself, right? It always puts your focus on what's uncomfortable inside of where you're at and being able to focus on other people and just being yourself. So I think that's a really fascinating point that you brought up is this idea that there's a lot of people out there that might be more charismatic or might feel insecure, and it might just be as simple as getting some more comfortable clothes.
Speaker 3:on Change, that order Clothes that you feel better in. You said that book was called the Charisma Myth. The Charisma Myth yes, Crack it out, but it makes sense, right? So if you think about it, if you're sitting in your living room on your couch underneath a blanket or just chilling on your couch wearing the comfiest clothes you could imagine, and somebody walks in also wearing the comfiest clothes and sits on the couch it's going to be easy to talk to them because you're relaxed, you're comfortable, you're going to be charismatic, you're lounging on your couch, you're comfy, right.
Speaker 3:If you go and meet somebody and you're wearing a suit and tie, and they're wearing business, professional clothes if they're women or men whatever and you're meeting for coffee at an office building, it's going to be hard to connect on a human level. You're going to be stiff, and that is all attributed to clothing, right? Your clothing dictates how you connect with people. If I was wearing a suit, you guys would be treating me differently on this interview versus if I'm wearing my hoodie. Half ways down, I'm showing you I'm comfortable, which is making you comfortable to be comfortable, and it's a cycle of comfortable and I think that's where Charisma comes. You're able to be charismatic when you're comfortable, when you're on your own mind, thinking about yourself.
Speaker 1:When did you make the transition? Because I know you guys started out more in the sock world when did you make that transition to the clothing it started?
Speaker 3:with socks, because when you wore a suit and tie, the one thing you could wear that was fun was socks. So I would wear when I would go to these, when I would go work in my corporate job and go work in banking and wear this suit. I'd wear these like Hawaiian pattern socks or pineapples and socks something that I could. When I was wearing this black and white suit, being so bored, being stiff, I had these fun socks. I would look down and then I remember to smile and say, oh, there are pineapples in the world. Oh, hawaii is a place that I do go to and I do feel relaxed when I go there. So that's how it started. And then, as I started learning more about clothing, I started realizing oh wow, it doesn't have to be just your socks. You could dress like this head to toe and feel this good. And that's how we got into clothing.
Speaker 1:Nice. And how was like? How did COVID do for your like, that ethos of cozy and comfort tends like, from what we've heard from most people in that space, they did really well during COVID. How did you guys do?
Speaker 3:COVID was I mean on the world level a horrible thing on the business level to feed. It was amazing for our business. And I think it was amazing for the world to open up to realize what COVID did that I think was so special Is it made people realize it wasn't work that made them stressed and anxious, and it wasn't the work they were doing, it was the clothes they were wearing, it was the office setting they were going into. And that's why people, when they were able to work from home from the first time, when they're able to work in clothes like this, when they're able to not wear shoes when they're working and be barefoot and not be constrained in all these ways, they realized, oh shoot, like I could do my work and not be stressed and anxious. And I think it made a lot of people realize office culture and the clothes that causes a lot of the anxiety.
Speaker 3:And that's why people love working from home, because you're comfortable and if you're in the right mindset of comfort and we all know you could think of the time like think about when you're in the best mood ever, like nothing could bother you, like when stuff happens it's not that big of a deal, right, and then think about when you're in the worst mood ever. I'm super anglish, anxious and the smallest thing could tick you off. So it's more about how do you get yourself in this comfortable setting. I think COVID showed people you can get in that comfortable setting at work, which was amazing for us because it made people realize like, shoot, I don't want to go back to wearing uncomfortable clothes, like I'm doing better at work, I'm more productive and I'm happier. I think it's because of what I'm wearing. So that was a really positive thing for us.
Speaker 2:The other flip side of COVID is, I think it really ended up highlighting the human need for connection. I think a lot of people took for granted the need to be around people, so it's kind of the other side of the coin of not being in an office, right. The good side of that is a lot of people are like, hey, I'd love being home with my family. And then other people who might not have had that same situation were like, oh, I really missed the office because they weren't getting that connection with other people. And when I've been looking at you and feet, clearly you've done a really good job of connecting with people to build collaborations, for example. So I would love to hear about your efforts with Collabs and how that's helped move feet forward. And then also how do you market those collabs in an effective way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned in person versus digital, because I'm a firm believer that in person meeting or conversation or anything is so much more powerful than anything could be done digitally. So when you think about these collabs, like as we record a digital podcast.
Speaker 2:I know right.
Speaker 3:But if we're in the room together, we'd be a lot more connected, right? Oh, it's true, pick up on. So with our collabs, that was the first thing that was most important to me of If we're collaborating with somebody, we're meeting them in person, we're doing things in person. I think a lot of brands go wrong with collabs, especially bigger brands, is what they'll do is you know, they'll hire an agency to go do collabs with them and then you know, have this director think of a concept, and then it's a half shoot or a full shoot day and the talent meets them there for a day and they're not actually talking to the person or the people behind the brand and all it's all scripted, it's all structured.
Speaker 3:The way I've tried to go about collabs is it's like it's a collab in collab. It is collaborative. We meet, we talk. I say, hey, what do you want to do with this? Like we talk about our goals, we talk about what product they want to make, they talk about how they want to show it, how they want to market it, and we see if there's alignment.
Speaker 3:So we actually say no to a lot more collabs than we say yes to, because for me it's like and it sounds woo woo but like if the vibes aren't right, we're not going to do it. And we've had some big, big people I'm talking tens of millions of followers, a-list celebrities who we've had agreements for collabs with and I've said I pulled the collab and I said we're not doing this collab and anybody would say you're crazy. This person is such a big celebrity name and I said they don't want to do it. I could tell by their vibes Like they're not excited about this and to me it's not genuine. It's going to hurt their brand because we've all seen celebrities hawking crap that they don't care about and they're reading a script.
Speaker 1:I love my ex.
Speaker 3:Because it does this, for why? And it's like just cringe. I don't want to be involved with that. For me, it's got to be genuine, it's got to be real. So I think that filtering system is the most important for collaborations Like if they don't, if I don't vibe with them, if they don't vibe with the brand, not a fit.
Speaker 1:What? What have collabs? What have collabs done for your brand Like?
Speaker 3:how, class of an office.
Speaker 1:Yeah, collabs are great.
Speaker 3:They won for net new customers. Right, Like you are gaining a bunch of net new customers, so that's a positive Be it's. We try to really structure a collab so they're win-win for a collaborator. So we pay extremely well for our collaborators and we give them a lot of creative freedom like probably too much creative freedom, to the point that a lot of them are doing 10 or 15 revisions on product. That ends up taking a long time to make, but it's amazing right Because we want them to be fully passionate around it.
Speaker 3:So when it's genuine, it's amazing. Right, You're reaching a net new audience in a very genuine, positive way. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Who is? What's your favorite collaboration you've done to date?
Speaker 3:They're all so awesome, some of the top ones on the mind. It's like choosing his favorite child, Trevor.
Speaker 2:Hey, you gotta ask it.
Speaker 1:You know it doesn't mean it doesn't mean the other ones were bad. You know they're all great at great at different times.
Speaker 3:Like. Helen Owen was awesome because she cares so much about product. She really has an amazing eye for fashion and design and products. That was great. Chelsea Kawaii was awesome because she was really about sustainability and making sure we did. She pushed us in a really awesome direction that way. Kristen Cavallieri was so cool, so awesome to work with Nice. Logan Paul was great. We did him in 2016. That was more of like a fun, crazy collab, so they're all fun. That's kind of my design, right. I don't want to do collabs that aren't fun, that aren't exciting.
Speaker 2:And I think a lot of business owners and marketers are wondering how do you actually land a collab with a celebrity? Because I think sometimes people think they're too small or maybe they're just insecure about their brand or themselves. So I'd love to hear how you took the step into actually getting these collabs and making those connections with these people. Thanks for watching.
Speaker 3:I mean, it depends on the person. I think a lot of times you just have to ask. And you just have to like ask. Where I always start is we always start with people that genuinely are wearing our product or like our product. So either we they bought it at full price on our site or we gifted it to them. And when I go through my Shopify and I see these celebrities who bought our product, I'm like yo, like you just spent $1,000 on our store, like I would have sent you this for free. And they're like I love your product, I wear it all the time, I love buying and supporting and then bed at transition.
Speaker 3:So conversation of yeah, wow, you actually do love our brand and that's so cool. And they're telling me I love how the zippers go like this, and the pockets like this. I'm like would you want to make something? And they're like oh, my God, I would love to. So I think it has to happen organically. I think the same way it's like how do I find something to collaborate with me? It's the same question of how do I find friends when I move to a new city or how do I find a significant other, and it's like there's not an answer.
Speaker 3:Be yourself and see who you connect with, and you can't force it. You can't try to get something out of someone because they're going to know right away. If you're trying to get something, it's not about getting. It's about what we do together and have fun.
Speaker 1:I love that. Any specific collaborator you're like got your eyes set on that you're trying to land Ooh.
Speaker 3:Two guys I would love to work with on the men's side would be Brad Pitt or Matthew McConaughey. I think they're both just so chill such our vibe and they're awesome. On the women's side, miley Cyrus is really cool. I like the way she lives life and does stuff yeah.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
Speaker 2:We got to blow this up, dude. Let's get Matthew McConaughey, that's right. Let's get him connected to feet, all right, all right, All right.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you've watched any or learned or read his book or anything about him, but he has the most amazing life story. He has such a good philosophy and a lot of things we talk about right being able to enjoy life and be chilled through the journey and also be ambitious but have balance. He's a massive role model, yeah.
Speaker 2:Andy's half brothers with Woody Harrelson there you go, is that what?
Speaker 1:the internet says Is that true?
Speaker 2:Allegedly, allegedly, allegedly half brothers. But you should hear them talk about it. It's funny. There's a clip of them.
Speaker 3:I'll check it out. Yeah, it's pretty funny.
Speaker 2:It's a good question, before we forget how do you determine how much to spend on marketing?
Speaker 3:It's a good question. I think it's different for different companies and different objectives. You have to figure out what is your objective. I always work backwards. I'm like what is the goal? And then from there you can figure out what you could spend on marketing. And if it's on a specific product. So let's say you order 10,000 units of a hoodie and with that you have your cogs and you have what's left after your cost, what percent of that do you want to spend on marketing that product? And then you work within targets. There you kind of work backwards. So I think a lot of the more analytical you can get about it, the more you could shoot from the hip and be creative. So I think a lot of people think frameworks limits creativity. But to me frameworks and boundaries actually enable creativity, because now you know what framework you're working in and you can be so free within that framework. So it depends on the product, depends on the time, but the more you can get an idea of that, the more you can feel free and creative.
Speaker 2:Do you have any ratios that you could give to help some marketers out, because I think a lot of marketers out there do either overspend or underspend. It's really hard to find companies that find the sweet spot of like, hey, this is where we're growing and an efficient scale profitably and I know it has a lot to do with, obviously, contribution, margin and products and what you're advertising. But I'd love to hear what your ranges are Like. What's a low end range of percentage of revenue and what's a high end range of percentage of revenue that you've spent?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's important to look at the full picture. So let's just say you have 100% of revenue and then from that you have your COGS, which is your product cost, and then plus your shipping cost. So let's search for this made up example, which is make up numbers. Let's say you're 100% of revenue, your COGS, so your cost of items plus shipping is 30%. Boom, now you're left with 70% of revenue. Right, if you look at your overhead and you look at your overhead of function for what you think you're going to do. So let's just say you've been doing a million dollars a month and your overhead is 100K a month. Boom, your overhead is 10% of revenue. Right, if you look at it that way, if you're at that scale. So you're left with 60.
Speaker 3:And that's a question of okay, what like can you spend and what even a margin do you want? Do you want to make 5%? Spend 55% of revenue on ads. Do you want to make 20%? Spend 40% of revenue on ads. And then you need to do sensitivity analysis to if you don't hit that million dollars scale. Uh-oh, you don't hit a million dollars a month. You end up doing 300K that month. Boom, your 100K of overhead is now 33% of revenue. So now it's like shit. If you don't get to that scale, you can't spend more than 30% of revenue because you'll be unprofitable. So I think if you can kind of look at the sliding scale that way and have sensitivity within it, that's how I look about what percent you could spend on marketing.
Speaker 2:Dude. Last thing that I want to say sorry, Trevor, I keep jumping in here, but I want to point it out because what you said is something that everyone whether you're in business or if you're a creative or in marketing needs to hear which is that constraints breed creativity, and it's so easy to look out there and see real life examples of that, which is literally every great movie and every great album usually was produced under some really significant constraints. There's a reason why people always point back to early albums of the biggest bands as their best albums, because they had significant constraints when they're producing albums in their early days and then, once the constraints get released, think about Star Wars. The first two Star Wars are phenomenal movies.
Speaker 2:You might not be a Star Wars guy, but the first two, New Hope and Empire Strikes Back are great, and ever since then it's just sunk to mediocrity yet best. But at those first two movies there were some serious constraints and limitations, so they had to be creative, and it's that creativity that sparks the connection with people. It's not the unlimited amount of resources is not going to save you. It's the creativity within the constraints. So I love that. You pointed that out.
Speaker 3:And I think a lot of creatives are scared of constraints because they think it's going to constrain their creativity, but it creates it. The best example I have of this is I took a writing class in college and one of the prompts was write a story about a family, write a TV show about a family. And if that's your only prompt, it's hard to come up with a TV show about a family You're like what the heck am I going to write about what? The family? It's just so many decisions. You're like what? And then this was a whole example to show us.
Speaker 3:The next prompt was write a Simpsons episode. And here are your constraints Homer has to do something stupid, bart has to get in trouble, lisa has to be smart, march has to be nice. And then immediately all these ideas start coming of like oh, what can Bart do to get in trouble? He could graffiti on this thing, he could do that. Oh, what's something stupid Homer could do? He could crash his car, he could do this, he could do that. And like boom, instantly you have so much more creativity because of these constraints. So I think any creatives just try to honor constraints and look at them as a positive thing, not a negative.
Speaker 1:I love that dude Mark. I like those questions. One question I have before we kind of end here is what's one of the biggest mistakes you're seeing brands make today? I can only pick one. You can pick multiple, but if there was just one out there that like a lot of these are mistakes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a lot of these mistakes that we made. So I think a big mistake is overhead too high, right, I think a lot of people want to think people are the solution. Especially in the e-commerce world, you don't need that many people. Employees are expensive, it takes a lot of time and energy, so a lot of teams are too bloated, which is number one. Two, another mistake that we made investing too heavily in inventory and not being really really critical of your buys, because that could set you back so much if you buy too much or too little of the wrong inventory. So inventory buying is so important.
Speaker 3:And I think three is and this is the most important mistake brands are making thinking there's a silver bullet, and I spent so much time thinking there's one thing right, and you could see it that people in these communities talk about like oh, tiktok shops, that's the thing that saves everything. Or like, oh, triple whale, you plug in this thing. Triple is a great platform, but oh, the way it shows you data and passes it back, it's better right. Or this, or like oh, text message. There's always this like shiny object that you think like boom, you do this, and it's like five times turn and ask that and everything's great and like that is so far from the truth and that is like too many people get hooked on, like this one thing that doesn't exist. It really does not exist. It's a bunch of 1% and 2% changes, not these 100% or 50% changes.
Speaker 1:Dude, I love that. We see that all the time. Like Silver Bullet, marketing used to work back in like 2016, when you didn't have as much competition and when Facebook ads were as crazy challenging as they are now, but I really, really love that, dude. One last question I have for you is what's your favorite revenue milestone you hit and why Revenue?
Speaker 3:milestone. Honestly, the thing I probably got the most excited about was in 2015,. It was like a year into the business and we did $10,000 a day. And I was like holy shit, we did $10,000 a day. That was more money than I made in my internship the year before, the whole summer, and I was like I work for 10 weeks to do $10,000 and we did $10,000 in 24 hours. And that was like wow, this internet thing is real.
Speaker 2:This internet thing is real.
Speaker 1:This worldwide web can do it Exactly. And that was a great feeling, dude, that's awesome. I love that. Well, taylor Broke, thank you so much for spending the afternoon with us. This has been really, really awesome. Where can people find you and where can people find feet?
Speaker 3:Yep, I'm Taylor Offer, T-A-Y-L-O-R-O-F-F-E-R. Pretty much everything LinkedIn, tiktok, twitter, instagram, venmo. And then F-E-H I'm just kidding F-E-H on Instagram, TikTok, everywhere else. And then T-Clothingcom is our website and we're running an amazing Black Friday deal right now, so go check it out.
Speaker 1:Let's get it.
Speaker 2:Go send Taylor some Venmo money to get a bagel skirt. Yeah, do not.
Speaker 3:Venmo me. If you Venmo me, I will probably Venmo your money back in full and then give you a discount to feet and say don't Venmo me. So actually, if you want to do that, you want a discount to feet, I'll Venmo you.
Speaker 1:You can do a bigger discount. Love it All right, taylor, thank you so much. We love you guys, audience. We appreciate you listening in and we will see you guys next Tuesday. Thank you so much for listening to the Unstoppable Marketer podcast. Please go rate and subscribe to the podcast, whether it's good or bad, we want to hear from you because we always want to make this podcast better. If you want to get in touch with me or give me any direct feedback, please go follow me and get in touch with me. I am at the Trevor Crump on both Instagram and TikTok. Thank you, and we will see you next week.