Latest / The Scene Projects / Mike Mallon on Storytelling, Trust, and Entrepreneurial Success

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Mike Mallon on Storytelling, Trust, and Entrepreneurial Success · The Scene Projects

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  Today's guest is Mike Mallon, founder of Storyteller Promotions, Marine Corps veteran,
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  and champion of turning branded moments into lasting loyalty.
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  From apparel to awards, Mike's team crafts experiences that speak louder than ads.
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  Let's dive into the art of brand storytelling.
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  This program is part of the Scene podcast network.
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  Scene Project features interviews with independent musicians, comedians, and artists
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  from across the Midwest.
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  Become part of our community and support local art wherever you are.
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  Welcome in to another exciting episode of the scene.
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  I'm your host Bubba Starts, and with me today is Mike Buzmalan.
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  Welcome to the show, Mike.
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  Good morning.
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  Welcome.
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  Hey.
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  It's a pleasure to have you on.
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  I know we've spoken before on the phone, which is kind of a rarity with this show anymore.
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  But I I wanna kinda lead off the show by by giving you a chance to give us a little bit of
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  backstory and, tell us a little bit about, you know, where you came from, and then we'll get
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  into all the things that you're doing now.
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  Got it.
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  So so originally grew up in Brooklyn, New York, moved out to the island, Joined the marines
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  when I was coming out of high school.
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  Did six years with the corps then came back to New York.
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  Was there until 1986 and then moved down to Texas, met my beautiful wife, and, been
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  bouncing around Texas and parts of the Southwest ever since.
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  So safe to say you prefer Texas to the New York City life?
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  Yeah.
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  New York City is a great place to grow up and be from, but that was not where I wanna
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  continue to live.
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  Came down to Texas on vacation, saw what it what it offered and, yeah, I went back, turned
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  in my gun, my badge, said bye bye and moved to Texas.
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  Haven't looked back yet.
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  So No.
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  No.
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  I've had the, pleasure of traveling to the great state of Texas a couple of times this
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  year.
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  It'd probably been about well, I guess I'd went through Texas on my way to Mexico and my way
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  back, but that was all the way back in 2016.
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  So it'd been about a decade and, went down to Austin back in May and then went back to the
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  Dallas Grapevine area, had a podcast conference at the Gaylord Texan there in Grapevine.
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  Gorgeous, man.
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  That was awesome.
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  We had a great opportunity with a a conference called podcast movement that gave us one of
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  their scholarship tickets.
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  So somebody's gonna give you a free ticket to a show regardless of whether it's fifteen hours
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  of driving away and you really ain't got the gas money to do it, you show up.
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  You don't be disrespectful, and you find a way.
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  And you are someone, you know, obviously, with your military background that you've always
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  found a way.
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  And now you're finding a way to bring brands and to tell the story of brands, which I think
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  a lot of us fail to do accurately.
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  So let's talk a little bit about storyteller promotions and what you guys are doing for
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  companies now.
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  Got it.
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  So we started in 2011 with the concept that there is a story behind every logo, every
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  brand, and there's our there are ways with promotional products, branded apparel, colors,
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  textures to reinforce that story to your audience on a consistent basis.
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  Too often, I think people, without any guidance at all, just, will go out there and find a
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  tchotchke or swag.
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  I hate that term swag, but it is what it is.
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  And there's no reinforcement to who you are as a brand.
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  There's no time spent on that.
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  So I'll I'll use ours as a as a as an example.
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  One of the things that got us started, the inspiration behind our company was my wife and
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  I went to go see the movie Up.
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  We had been working in corporate America our entire careers, giving the best of ourselves to
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  somebody else fourteen, sixteen hours a day, and we really wanted to do something for us.
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  And when we went and saw the movie, as in all Disney movies, in the first ten minutes,
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  somebody's gotta die.
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  We looked at each other like two high school kids, and we said that that's it.
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  We're not we're not doing this anymore.
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  So, in the movie, the, characters, Ellie gives Carl a grape soda cap, on a safety pin that
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  became their adventure badge.
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  So we took the grape soda cap, and that became our logo.
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  It's a reminder every single day of why we do what we do, and your your promotional products,
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  your swag should do that for you.
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  And that's what we counsel on.
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  Well, and I think that you really tap into the entrepreneur, spirit with that.
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  Right?
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  Not just with like, your story is aligning with the people that you're trying to help as well.
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  Right?
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  Like, you know you know their story or a little bit of it just inherently because it's a little
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  bit of your story.
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  Absolutely.
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  Think I think that's so important, especially in this business.
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  And there's just so many of these apparel companies and and, swag shops online that you
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  can buy these kind of products for, whether it's a koozie or, you know, stickers or T
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  shirts and and all of these things.
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  And as someone who's worked in the music business for twenty five years now, I've kinda
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  done it all.
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  I I've I've tasted a little bit of all of those things.
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  What I like to do now, Paul, I I print my own promotional materials at home.
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  I don't have any of them with me because we handed them all out, but I call them tags.
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  I would just print a piece of paper with our QR code on it, and I would laminate them.
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  I'd get 10 out of a thing, and I'd literally sit at home laminating pages and cutting them
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  up and cutting the corners on them.
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  And that was my marketing materials Because I was sick of spending money on something that
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  was either gonna get tossed on the ground, thrown away, or not necessarily get used, but
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  it could still tell the story of our brand.
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  And that story was I'm gonna be in your face and not afraid to hand this to you and to give
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  you a three second pitch as you're walking by, say, at the, you know, the Cinch playoffs
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  Governors Cup just a few weeks ago that we covered.
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  And, what was great about that is that we are broadcasting it live.
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  So you got to watch live on our YouTube feed and now on the replay of me just being me, what
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  I've always done.
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  I call it guerrilla marketing.
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  I don't know if that's a term widely used, but we're gonna get out at events and we're just
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  gonna put our stuff right into your hand.
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  And if you can exacerbate that over the course of years and hitting all these kind of large
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  scale events that some companies pay, you know, a a team of you know, whether it's models or
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  it's just, you know, people that are working on their promotion team to go out and to pass out
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  flyers and to build that image.
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  Well, we've just done that for ourselves for the last, oh, at least three to four years of
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  building up our band's reputation and now in the last eighteen months with the scene
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  projects.
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  Good for you.
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  And that's for no money.
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  Right?
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  I mean, that's for the cost of paper, the laminate, and those things, but the it doesn't
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  tell the whole story.
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  And I feel like that's where your company kinda comes in even for a small business like ours is
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  the helping us maybe refine that.
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  Taking a little bit of my story and looking at the last eighteen months of doing this, seeing
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  who it is that we really support and helping us to craft that to be able to bring one of a
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  kind, you know, merch or apparel or whatever it happens to be to the table.
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  Is that fairly accurate?
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  Yeah.
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  I think pro my wife always said it best.
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  Unless you're Starbucks, a coffee cup doesn't tell you a story.
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  Right?
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  One of the one of my favorite ones of all time, we work with a company that was, they were two
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  CPA firms that were coming together.
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  And it one of them was your classic, think of the old burgundy walls or green walls with the
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  leather furniture, you know, that kind of that that office vibe.
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  And the other group was a very young group.
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  They would knew.
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  They were thinking about things in a different manner.
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  And we were actually able to put together a portfolio that was custom made just for the for
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  them with part of it was leather, part of it was, burlap.
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  So you had the two that were meeting with the logo in the center, and that was their giveaway
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  or, promotional product, if you will, to all their clients and and prospects.
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  And it communicated that the blending of two things coming together in a new way of looking
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  at doing business.
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  So, yeah, just a it's just a little bit of thought and using whether it's an item, a
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  texture, a color, a series of colors, and bringing that all together.
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  We used to work with a lady.
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  She's actually achieved what she was trying to achieve with starting her business.
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  Everything with her was turquoise, and then it all came back to the fact that she was on a
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  beach one day in The Caribbean and looked out over the turquoise water and wanted to be able
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  to live in that environment and knew that the only way she could do that was with her
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  business and growing it.
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  So everything was built around that turquoise.
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  It was a constant reminder for her and everybody she knew the why behind what she did.
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  And it's stories that sell.
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  Right?
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  Something I repeat a lot is that, you know, people don't buy from people they like.
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  They buy from people they trust.
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  Well, how do they get to trust someone?
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  They hear their story.
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  And how do you wrap that story up into a piece of something, whatever it is.
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  Right?
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  A piece of apparel or or whatever it is, a branding, how do you capture that?
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  And I think for a lot of a lot of us, meaning artists or business owners, myself included in
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  this, it's sometimes hard for us to know what our story is because we are the main character
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  of it.
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  That you need someone from the outside to go, this is what your story is.
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  And not everyone has as clear of a vision as the client that you just spoke about it.
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  You know, we know here at the SCENE Projects, especially that we're about community.
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  Right?
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  And we're a community of creatives.
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  But how do you tell that story?
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  And and that becomes often a roadblock for me to the point where sometimes I just completely,
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  you know, put it out of my mind and set it aside, and I get too focused up in the work and
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  not in promoting our actual business, which at the end of the day isn't helping us or our
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  community.
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  So I I think that I myself could be better at a lot of the things that you guys bring to the
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  table, and maybe we have a a budding future business relationship happening here as well.
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  Love it.
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  Would you
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  yeah.
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  Well, would you say that that's pretty typical of a lot of operators and business owners?
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  Yes.
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  I'd say the majority of people, entrepreneurs, small business owners, they're really good at
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  doing something.
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  They've got a a talent or a skill, and they get out there.
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  And before they know it, they are they're in it every day.
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  And it's hard sometimes to just take that step backwards and look at why you do what you do,
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  what what inspired you to begin doing this, and then how do you communicate that story to the
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  world around you?
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  Because like you said, people buy from people that they like and trust.
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  They buy the why of what you do, not necessarily what you do, and that inspires
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  people.
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  And I think that's hard, you know, for a lot of people.
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  You know?
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  Even if you have a great product, even if that's a unique product, not everyone is going
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  to buy that just because it's unique and you think it's the most amazing thing in the world
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  even if it is the most amazing thing in the world.
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  You have to tell a story with that.
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  And if you're someone like like we are, right, where we have a whole house of brands, we have
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  four networks, 10 shows, five different hosts, you're trying to tell a lot of stories.
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  And sometimes, I mean, that in itself would be a full time job for any one of us to do me you
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  know, Meanwhile, I'm also trying to run all of it.
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  Right?
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  So I lose a lot in that, and and we're not even necessarily a large company.
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  Most of us are independent operators inside of that.
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  So I can only imagine someone that's, you know, an accounting firm you mentioned.
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  Well, those accountants opened a firm because they're really good at accounting, not because
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  they were really good at making a brand and marketing that brand to bring in clients.
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  That's not what they were got the world they were coming from.
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  So what other maybe, you know, examples could you give or, you know, maybe just some advice
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  that you could give our listeners who are mostly independent business owners, whether
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  they realize it or not as, you know, artists or podcasters or or whatever they may be doing in
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  their lives.
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  What's what's one piece of advice that you could give some of these with maybe an example
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  attached to it?
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  Well, it's gonna sound very self serving when I say this, but you do you.
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  Right?
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  There's a reason why you do what you do, and there's a reason why I do what I do.
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  There's a reason why there's brain surgeons and attorneys and all these other things.
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  You have a skill or a talent in a specific area that can serve the world and help your
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  community.
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  Focus on that.
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  Let somebody else focus on the marketing or human resources or whatever else that skill is
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  that you don't have, go to somebody else that does that for a living.
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  You're you're gonna be significantly more, complete when you've got somebody handling that
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  for you.
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  And it doesn't cost any more than it would normally cost to buy this stuff.
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  I think what's unusual about our industry is and I hear this all the time, and that's my
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  complaint, is you, somebody who's looking for something unique as a promotional item, calls
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  the distributor, and that distributor sends you a catalog and says, here, look at this.
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  My job, my responsibility is not to give you a catalog for you to find something.
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  My responsibility is to take the time to figure out who are you, who are you trying to
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  communicate to, where are they when they're gonna think about you, and then what can I put
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  in their hands they're gonna that they're gonna wear, use, and keep that has your brand on it?
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  Anything short of that, and I'm doing you a disservice.
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  So that's my that's my answer to is find somebody who's gonna guide you through the
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  process, not just hand you a catalog.
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  And I think that's great advice beyond the marketing and the promotional side and really
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  in everything.
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  Right?
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  If you're awful at keeping your books, maybe looking into a business manager or or someone
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  that's a professional in that world, I feel like I'm speaking to myself a little bit here,
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  that can do those things and that can manage the things that you're so that you can be
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  effective.
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  I think that's something that a lot of business owners lose sight of that we think that we have
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  to we have to do it all.
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  And sometimes you're not your most effective when you're trying to wear hats that just don't
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  fit.
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  Absolutely.
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  There, I do it myself.
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  I mean, we've all made the same mistakes as it, You know?
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  No.
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  No.
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  I I know how to do that.
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  I can handle it.
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  And, yeah, maybe you can handle it.
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  Maybe you can do it yourself.
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  We have there's plenty of clients that we've had that will go directly to our website and
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  pick something out.
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  They enjoy that that process.
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  And I'm not saying don't do that.
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  I'm just saying if you're in a position where you just don't know what to do and you wanna do
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  something different, maybe that's when you need to take a step back and go, let me let me give
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  this to somebody who handles this full time, somebody who really enjoys that side of the
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  business.
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  I happen to enjoy getting creative and finding things for people that are unique, things that
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  make them just go, wow.
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  Where was that?
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  Or I I've never seen anything like that before.
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  That gives me joy.
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  So if it doesn't you know, if you're not that person that all that doesn't give you joy, then
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  don't do it.
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  Do what you do well.
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  I think there's a lot of great advice in here and a lot of, a lot of things for our our
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  artists and creatives that are fans of the show to think about, that maybe don't think of
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  themselves necessarily as businesses of their own, but you truly are.
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  If you're out here trying to make it as an artist and as a musician or a podcaster or any
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  kind of creator or any other, you know, entrepreneur out there, there's a lot of value
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  that you can gain from this short conversation we've had today.
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  Mike, give you a chance.
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  Go ahead and plug your guys' website and anywhere else that people can find you.
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  Yeah.
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  We're storytaleofpromotions.com.
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  Find us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, pretty much any place.
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  Yeah.
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  We're, (713) 705-4400 is direct line right to us.
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  I love it.
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  Well, Mike, thanks for taking some time for me today.
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  I have a feeling that we're gonna be talking a little while after the show here as well about
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  how you can help the SCENE projects continue to, you know, carry this momentum that we've
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  been building for the last eighteen months.
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  Wanna thank you for your time, and thank you for being part of the SCENE.
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  Well, thanks for the invitation.
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  I really appreciate it, bud.