Latest / Story Scaling / Building Luxury in a Small Town

Transcript

Building Luxury in a Small Town · Story Scaling

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_08: Welcome to Storytaling by Podcastvideos.com.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_08: Where creators share the truth behind the content, the grind, and the growth.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_05: All right, everybody.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you all so much for joining us today.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_05: Parker Dotson here with podcastvideos.com.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_05: Jeremiah, as always, here with me as well.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_05: And today we've got a couple of great guests in.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_05: We've got Donnie and Seth from Hubbard Clothing just up the road from us.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_05: Some good friends of ours.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_05: So we just want to introduce you all to them, let them hear a little bit of what their story is about, and then just kind of continue some great conversation about what it's like for us to work together as a couple of individual companies and then just kind of share the message of what you guys do.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_05: So Donnie, I'll start with you being the uh the OG, and since your name is the company, we'll start with you on that side and then we'll get Seth in there as well.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_05: So go ahead.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_08: Can we get an applause?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_08: Oh yeah, for sure.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah, no, man.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: This it's funny.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_03: I I just uh celebrated my 49th birthday last week.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: And which marks my 30th year in men's clothing.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I started selling clothes when I was 19.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: Down in uh Fort Smith and worked uh for my first mentor for seven years down there.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I actually opened a store for them in Fayetteville a while back, like I I guess 25 years ago.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: And uh ran that.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_03: It was on Joyce Boulevard next to where um CeC Pizza and Okay and uh Shogun used to be next door on the corner.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_03: We were right in between.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: Gotcha.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: And so uh it was it was a good cool little shop, but it wasn't anywhere near as nice as anything I'm doing now.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um fast forward, I ran that for two years, got recruited by Bowman's in Little Rock.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I everybody always asked me, I mean, how long did you live in Little Rock?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, never, never.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_03: Little Rock's not my vibe.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I just was their outside salesman for Northwest Arkansas.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_03: Because very much to his credit, my my boss at Bowman's Wayne Ratcliffe, he was the tastiest, just most elegant old guy ever.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: Like he single-handedly took that business and made it what it was.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: And uh he was not afraid to sell anything at any price point.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: But he it to his credit, he recognized what was happening in northwest Arkansas 25 years ago.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and so he was looking for somebody to be up here.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_03: And uh fortunately for me, I ended up being the guy that he he connected with.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so I worked for several years out of my house uh selling clothes for him.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_03: And uh fast forward a couple years into that, I uh asked him if I he would be interested in opening a brick and mortar.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I partnered with him.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: I was 25% owner of that store, and uh we opened up a little 900 square foot boutique in an office building up on Horse Barn Road.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: So literally still the same road just where it turns into horse barn over there by the Toyota dealership.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_03: And there was no signage, there was no retail.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_03: I I would be like having to direct, they called the store and be like, hey, where where is your store at?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I'd look out the do we have blinds on the windows?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: I'd be like, Are you in a silver BMW?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I'm like, you're here, Mark.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_03: Where it was that hard to buy the place.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and we still did business in spite of ourselves.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: Then uh 2008, uh, that was really rough on anybody who had a significant business, right?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_03: And mine was still emerging and growing and small.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: So if you were small and agile, it was not that bad.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: And candidly, being in northwest Arkansas where Walmart was very important during 2008, sure.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_03: Things were still good.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: The problem was people had an adverse view of like shopping when their employees were struggling.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_03: So for about six, eight months, we were struggling.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: We we weren't dead.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: Little Rock was dead, right?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: Because that was a big business.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_03: So when you're down 20%, that that's a million plus, right?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_03: I was down twenty percent, and that was tens of thousands.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: So we ended up pushing through that, and my business actually started growing when everybody kind of got tired of just not shopping.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: And uh that's when my boss came to me and said, Hey, if you're gonna buy me out, this will be the best time.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: He needed the cash pretty bad.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: Because, you know, they just hadn't picked back up in Little Rock.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't Bentonville, right?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_03: And so uh I put together some financial partners, ended up buying him out.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_03: At that point, we changed the name from Bowman's to the Independent just because there was a lot of confusion over the name, right?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_03: We even though we had licensed the name, he had customers coming to Northwest Arkansas.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: We didn't necessarily have customers going to Little Rock, but he had customers coming up here that were seeing things in my store that he didn't carry.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_03: He didn't like that, so we just agreed to drop the name and it saved me five percent because I was paying him five percent of sales for the name, right?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: Was it his name?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_03: It was Bowman's.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: That it was that it's a hundred and ten-year-old store, right?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_03: Right, yeah.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_03: So a guy named Simon Bowman started that back in 1919.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: Right on.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: So it nobody nobody from the original was around.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_03: He just owned the store and he didn't like the confusion of do you own that store?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_03: Do you not?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_03: Is it Bowman's?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: Is it not?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: So we just agreed to part ways on that and uh fairly amicably.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um and then after that we changed it to the independent, and it was a little bit of a poke in the eye of all the people that I wanted to be independent of, because that was where the name came from.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_03: What's really, really wild about that side note is my business partner, Steve Clark, at the time we were talking about opening a denim shop in Fayetteville, which we eventually did, and completely separately from me, he was buddies with Mike Malone, which I don't know if you guys know Mike, he was part of the Northwest Arkansas Council and all that.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_03: Mike was kind of in politics at the time, and they were talking about like what would be a cool store name for doing the denim shop and having me involved in that, and completely separately, this is so bizarre.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_03: Steve and Mike and a couple other guys, Terry Smith, they were all involved in the denim shop, and they liked the political aspect and the stumping, and you know, like, why don't we call it the independent, like an independent candidate?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_03: So totally separately.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: Steve hits me up and he goes, Hey, what if we call it the independent?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, dude, who you who have you been talking to?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: It was so bizarre.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_03: And then I felt like I needed to prove it.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: So I sent him all my text messages.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, dude, I was literally texting this guy about this two months ago, and that's the name I came up with.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_03: Like it was like turned like I was like, oh, that's Providence.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_03: So we called it the Independent, operated that for like 11 years or so.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, our our downfall was candidly, we we opened a store in Little Rock because we perceived that to be a spot where we could grow sales pretty quickly because of the population, and we we ended up hiring a couple guys away from Bowman's who were, you know, lessons learned, don't hire disgruntled employees, you know, kind of thing.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_03: There was a couple of guys that were not happy with their situation.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: And um they they came over, they did a great job for the time.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_03: It was just it was the it wasn't the right market for what we were doing.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_03: And we figured out pretty quickly, a year, year and a half, that we needed to move on from that and shut it down.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_03: So we did.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_03: And at the same time, because it it really sucked the wind out of our sails up here, even though we were killing it at the time.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh same exact time I get an autism diagnosis on my now middle son at the time youngest.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: And uh we were navigating all that.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of stuff happens fast forward.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: I decide because I was getting recruited by every store in the country, because I was here I was a you know, 30s store owner selling super high-end product, and the there's just not a lot of people like that out there.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_08: What is it what does that mean you were getting recruited?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_08: They wanted you to come work for them.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's a lot of stores, legacy stores out there that don't have succession plans.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_03: In other words, they're they're owned by somebody whose children are not in the business or something like that.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: And um, you know, they're always looking for there there's a guy in Carmel, California who's got a really nice story.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: He's he, same situation.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_03: He's almost retirement age and he doesn't know what he's gonna do with his store.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_03: So he's he literally asked somebody a while back, he's like, What about Donnie Hubbard?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: And they're like, dude, he owns he's already got a store.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_05: Hubbard's West Coast, though.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_03: Sethical.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: So uh dude.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, everybody's looking for somebody to like kind of take over their business.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_03: And uh this guy in Louisville, he he's the nicest human being ever.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_03: We always had fun at market in in Italy when we hung out, and uh we just created a great friendship, and he called me up and he's like, dude, I gotta have you.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_03: And it was just a perfect storm of like the Little Rock thing happening, us like kind of on a treadmill going too fast at the Roger store because of Little Rock, right?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um, the autism thing, all of that.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_03: So I I ended up like picking up, closed my stores, moved to Louisville, and there was there were some promises on the back end, you know, ownership and this and that.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: What year is this?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: That was 2016 when I moved out there.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_03: And uh that was it was really weird exiting Northwest Arkansas after everything I'd built and all the clientele.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: I ended up coming back a couple of times and did some massive pop-up shops, like weekend pop-up shops that I I did like three months worth of business in one night.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_03: It was crazy.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um because I was gone.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like there was no luxury here anymore.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_03: It was it was non-existent.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_05: Um you were going to Bose Nose Tuxedos.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_05: Bose Nose.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: So uh did that for you know a little while and was we loved Louisville.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_03: Wasn't the bet uh, you know, we we moved there because we thought it would be a good situation for our son with autism.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: And the store was cool, it was a hundred-year-old store called Rhodes.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um figured out pretty quickly, eh, you know, a lot of those promises kind of usually don't come true.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_03: And it wasn't out of malice or anything.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's just you want to sell a a dream to somebody, and not necessarily everything you're selling can you actually perform on.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: And that ended up being the case, and I saw the writing on the wall.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_03: And I was a little bit bummed, but I was like, I can still make this work.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: Right, okay.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_03: And then December 10th, in walks my wife with a positive pregnancy test.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, oh shoot.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: We gotta go.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I just like literally started packing boxes.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: Dude, I was like, we can't do that here.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_03: So we uh I I went in and talked to my boss, and I was like, you know, we're we're having a baby.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_03: And we got a kid with autism, we got this little girl who doesn't really like Louisville schools.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_03: We're worried about that because Louisville's rough on schools.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_03: You gotta put your kid in private school there.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and we didn't have the financial means then to be able to do that at all.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, we we just I in we talked it over and he he was super excited about the fact we're having a baby.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, oh, maybe this will work out.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: And then man, a couple months later I was like, Nope, I'm out, like, gotta go.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_03: So I started kind of setting all the things in motion.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um called my former business partner, Steve Clark, to see if he'd be in sh well, I didn't even call him, see if I just told him I was coming back, and he immediately jumped in.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: He was like, dude, I want to I want to help you do it.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: So thank God for that guy.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_08: Shout out to Steve Clark, yeah.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_08: Whenever I hear you talk about him, it's always something like that.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_08: So shout out to Steve.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_03: He's my guy, man.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_03: That dude saw everything in me like when he t definitely should not have.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_03: Like and and supported me when he definitely should not have.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, dude has been just the greatest example of grace and kindness and forgiveness of anybody I've ever known, man.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what's made our relationship so good, you know, going forward.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_03: He he just did everything he could to help me bring my family back, start the store up and growth and things we're doing in the future.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: But uh yeah, great, great dude.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_03: And then uh so brings us to current.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I'm I'm talking to Steve, we're texting back and forth about hey, we we can't call it the independent.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's out.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: What what do we want to call it?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_03: And I've always been like adverse to putting my name on the door, like that's why I didn't do it whenever we named it the independent.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I had delusions of grandeur of selling the store at some point, and if it had an identity attached to me, then that would be a tougher issue.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_03: And the ego part, I didn't like it, and it feels weird and all that.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_03: And Steve was like, dude, you left town, you gotta let everybody know exactly who and exactly what.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_03: So that that was his advice, and I was like, you know what, you're right.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_03: And so I reluctantly at that point stuck my name on the door, and that's that's how we came up with Hubbard clothing, and yeah, it it was just a simple who and what.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know what I mean?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_03: And then the the logo design, the H mark, all that stuff turned out to be such a cool, you know, and everybody likes the the Hubbard name as far as associated with clothing.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, no, it's been it's been great, but uh man, we we opened on March 5th, 2018, and it was off to the freaking.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: A quick turnaround from the time you come back.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, Louisville lasted literally.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_03: We were when we were moving, we were we were in the moving truck and we're pulling out, and my wife, like everybody, jumps on her Facebook immediately to document the exit of Louisville, and she goes, Oh my gosh.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, what?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: She goes, You're not gonna believe this.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_03: We had no idea, we had not even really thought about the timeline.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: She turns her phone around and shows me.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_08: A year to the day.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: To the day.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_05: That's what I was gonna say.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_03: To the day.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_03: June 19th.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_05: Jeez.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_03: 2016, June 19th, 2017.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of divine has happened.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: A year to the 19th century.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's nuts.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_03: That's nuts.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_03: And we made our exit and you know, came home.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: We had sold our house, we closed our new house the next Monday, and wow.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_03: Then uh then it was a year of like spacing the floors of my house, like not going to work because I was trying to build out a store, and you know, still seeing clients in between and traveling to go buy clothes, and uh we we ended up we thought we'd be open for naively, thought we'd be open for fall of 2018.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_03: And then I'm sorry, fall of uh 2017.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: And then construction just drug on and on and on and on.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: So I had all this fall merchandise, and when I saw the writing on the wall, I started canceling things pretty quickly.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_03: But a lot of it was not able to cancel.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_03: So I just had to stick it in a back room and buy lighter for the next fall season and bring this stuff.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: It was it was a whole process, man.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: It's crazy.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but yeah, so we got opened up and it was like my first day in business was a blowout day.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_03: Like people were ready and waiting.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_03: We'd you know, I'm terrible at managing social media now.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_03: You guys thank God to help us with that.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: But uh I I had been on top of it pretty well, so a lot of people were anticipating the the opening, and yeah, you know, I mean candidly I didn't have a whole lot of other things to do.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_03: I managed social media at that time.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_03: And uh so we opened up and uh I just kept on with the theme of luxury and experience, and you know, when we opened up in 2018, it was uh and again uh ego involved, I I hate like acting like I was but I was a little bit ahead of the curve, right?
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_03: I I opened a barber shop before all these freaking barbershops opened up, right?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: I opened a barbershop in my store and then boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, Hudson Hawk, Jens Place and this and that.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_03: They all started opening up right after me.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, dang.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: Like, because I there were no barbershops.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_05: Sports clips around the corner you could go to.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_03: And so I was like, well, that's cool.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_03: Like I was a little bit ahead of the curve on that.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_03: Then we did the lounge in the back, and what's funny is now it within it, like we're eight years later, within our industry, you're starting to see like so many stores like start opening experiential like Selfridges in London, just did a private social club for their customers.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we were in we were in New York and we went to the Ralph Lauren flagship store on Madison, and they're like, Oh, you gotta check out the top floor.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: We just got done renovating, and they're showing us the double RL and all this.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_03: And then uh yeah, we walk in and they're like, Oh, this is really cool.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_03: Check this out, private lounge, you know.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, dang.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_03: You think you think Ralph saw saw Herbert?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_03: Listen, I'm not gonna say I'm not gonna say he did I'm gonna say anything.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_03: I walked into Ralph's lounge and I was like, you know what, I've always been very proud of what we've done, but it feels a little crappy compared to my breathtakingly beautiful decadent.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_03: So uh it was it was fun coming up with all the experiential parts of selling and not just creating another tan store with crown molding and you know, white walls, and you know, like everybody can do that.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody you you can make a place look beautiful with clothing and and uh a nice canvas, right?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted something that was over the top, and you know, what I wanted was for people to walk in and say, I can't believe this is in Northwest Arkansas.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_03: I wanted people to market it for me by having something so beautiful that they wanted to post it on Instagram to let everybody know where they'd been.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and I wanted people to walk out on the phones calling somebody saying, You gotta come check this place out.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I feel like on on every level we we've accomplished that and and we carry really beautiful things, right?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_03: And so my mantra and clothing has always been if you buy beautiful things, they'll sell at whatever price point.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_03: And we carry crazy price points on some things, and some pretty pretty approachable in luxury.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: We don't try to compete with Dillards, we don't try to compete with men's warehouse.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_03: We're never gonna be the place where you can come buy a$400 suit by design.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_03: And that's not out of being snooty or that's not we're we're we we never look down our nose at anybody that walks in the door that can't afford to shop with us.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, we we've really we really really really tried to make it a mission to go over the top with people we know shouldn't even be in the store as far as their pocketbook goes, so that when they leave, they're like, those guys knew we couldn't afford anything there, but they were so stinking nice.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_03: Because they're gonna tell somebody they had a great experience.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_03: And that I we we love doing that.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: And then every now and then you like assume somebody can't afford anything, and you do that and they buy out the store.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_05: And then you see the car, they get into and drive off, and you're like, Well, we misjudged that one when they walked in.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but uh yeah, a couple years in, um we were having a cigar event uh with open door cigars, and Brian Waters brings Seth in, and he's wearing a bow tie and decked out, and Brian literally looked at me that day when we were setting everything up.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: He goes, Hey, this is Seth, and he's gonna work for you one day.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_06: Wow.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was funny.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: And that's crazy.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_03: Seth was in college at the time, but um let you tell that.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_08: What's the what's the year that that that happened?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this was probably not long after you opened, like it may have been 18 or 19.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's probably 19.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: 19, yeah.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that was probably in the spring, if I remember right.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then that summer I ended up working with Donnie part-time.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it was quick.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, I was in school at the time and had just kind of got into dressing, just making it kind of a part of my lifestyle.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know why or how that was gonna become a part of who I am.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but knew that it was an important thing and it was gonna be important for me, so I started dressing in college.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: I wore a bow tie and a suit every day to class on campus.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Just to like do it.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: Quite well, to get in the habit.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and I was studying engineering at the time, so it I definitely stuck out.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_08: What do you what where is this coming from?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_08: No engineers just putting on a bow tie to kind of like what what inspired that train of thought?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think just like n seeing people that were of important importance in the world and knowing that dressing and um was just a part of their lifestyle.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to adopt that as a part of mine for whatever reason.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: It I thought it could be a good advantage for me someday.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it turned out to be a career.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um but also like my my grandpa was a banker, my other grandpa was a doctor, so they always dressed, so I've always had that kind of thing in front of me all the time whilst growing up.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it just eventually became a big part of my lifestyle.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was uh bartending for for Brian and working in his cigar shop and doing these events outside every once in a while.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, as soon as I walked in Donnie's store, I knew like this is something special.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_05: This is why I've been wearing that bow tie for the last four years.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_05: It's all culminated in this moment.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then uh yeah, came came on with Donnie that summer, uh doing part-time work there while I was finishing up school and then um finished school and sat down with Donnie, and it was right kind of right after COVID, and there was no jobs in the industry that I studied in, especially locally at that time.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I had started a nonprofit while I was in school, so I was doing that on the side as well.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: And um so I was scratching my engineering itch, but wasn't able to get like a career going, and at least how I wanted to do it.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so me and Donnie had a conversation and started full-time then.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, I've been really grateful to be a part of the massive growth that we've had.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, uh, I think of him as a mentor but also as a friend.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um so it's it's an extremely fortuitous situation that I've kind of almost stumbled into or been placed in, if you want to say that.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: Same thing with Caleb, yeah, who works with us.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_03: And Caleb's been with me for off and on.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_03: Uh he he's moved away for a little while and then came back and then moved away and then came back again.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_03: But uh yeah, he's been he's been off and on for about 13 years.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_03: Same thing.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like I actually uh long story short, I had somebody quit back 13 years ago during holiday season when I was alone.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I heard I remembered one of my Yeah.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_08: Did you cr did you cry?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_03: No, I freaked out.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, I gotta have somebody now.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_03: And I remembered one of my friends telling me that somebody we went to church with was into fashion, so I was like, introduce me.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_03: And so I I walked Ashwin Beaumont.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_03: Her maiden name's Beaumont.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I walked up to her and I was like, hey, do you know this guy, Caleb Pennington?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_03: She's like, Yeah, he's playing drums in service.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, introduce me.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_03: So she it was after service, so we walked up and he's standing in a group of his friends who all of his friends knew me.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know how I didn't know this guy.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I walk up and they're all like, What are you doing?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, You Caleb?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: And he's like, Yeah.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_03: I go, Listen, uh, I need you to come work for me.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: Can you come have lunch tomorrow?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_03: And he was like, What?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and he was like perfectly fine.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_03: He was working at the buckle.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, long story short, he shows up the next day and he was like, yo, kind of same thing he walked in.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: He's like, What is it?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: And this is back when we were the independent.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_03: But uh took him to lunch back when Basil's was here and best restaurant to ever be in Northwest Arkansas.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_03: Devastated still, it's gone.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_03: The Donnie was a sandwich on the menu.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's totally ego that I'm devastated, it's gone.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_05: I just want to go in and order my name.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because it's a great sandwich, great sandwich.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: But uh anyway, uh he came he he decided like just from you know the little bit of time, so he he came on board almost immediately, and then we uh, you know, uh Caleb and Seth are the only two people that have ever worked for me that have put any effort into mentoring and training and like teaching them everything I know how to do.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: Because they were the only ones that I was like, all right, these guys are these long-term and they're into it.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they can they can do this.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_03: But uh Caleb ended up moving to New Mexico during COVID and um came back and unfortunately had just replaced him and didn't have room at the store when he came back.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and then uh he got hired by suit supply, went out to California and ran their third biggest store in the country for a while.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_03: Now, working for a store like or a company like that, it's cool and it's fast-paced and it is non-stop.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_03: I went out to visit him, my cousin died three years ago.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I was I I grew up in LA, so I went back home to go see family and all that and go to the funeral.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_03: So I stayed in Hollywood, close to Century City, where Caleb was working specifically just to hang out with him.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_03: And so we hung out every night.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: I went by while he was working, and I stood in the store and I was like, oh my god, I'd jump off a bridge.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_03: Like, because it was it was a nightmare.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_05: Just chaos.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_03: Chaos.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, he he literally he was a store manager and he stood there like on an earpiece the entire time I was in there just directing traffic.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: He did he wasn't there was no relationship, there was no like cloth, it was it was selling to the masses, five hundred dollar suits, like how and i if if you were a customer and got mad about waiting, no problem.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: There's somebody standing right behind you waiting for somebody to come and take care of him.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: Like it w it was an environment like that.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: So I left there going, yeah, they're not gonna last long here.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: This is awful.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: And then sure enough, about three months later, uh, he calls me up and he's like, Man, how how how do I come home?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, just waiting for you to ask, man.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_03: So we put the we put the band back together and uh man, it has been off to the races.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: Northwest Arkansas has just I feel like we put all the pieces together just at the right time.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um we've got so many of the right brands.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: Kind of fell backwards into jumping on the Ralph Lauren train right when Ralph Lauren started blowing back up, and now we're the first store first specialty store in America to and what I mean by specialty is not big box Neiman's Nordstrom Sacks, that kind of thing.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_03: But we're the best first specialty store in America to carry all three divisions of Ralph.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_03: So we launched with original label, which is exactly what it sounds like, their original price point, brand, all that.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um then we launched Purple Label, which is really special.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's just the highest end of Ralph, it's all made in Italy.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: Every single piece is approved by Ralph personally, so that's that's his pet.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_03: And then there's their uh vintage inspired, Western inspired arm called Rouble RL, and that's so protected within their world.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: They don't let anybody carry it, but we've been doing so well with everything else, and can only they just like us.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_03: This is a kind of an oasis in America as far as there's no double RL anywhere around here, so they allowed us to open up a double RL this season.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_03: So that that thing is taken off, man.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's been it's awesome, and everything we get in is like, golly, that is so cool.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like the Double RL showroom too is I like I'm a pretty reserved person, but um like growing up on a ranch and stuff, going into the showroom for Double RL where you've seen you've seen pieces in the past where like this old cowboy is wearing this canvas jacket that he's had his entire life and he's out there on his horse, like wrangling cattle with us like early in the morning.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: Walking into that showroom, I like feel like I saw that exact person silhouetted.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: It was extremely it's the only emotional.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's the most inspiring I've ever had in fashion.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it was stuck.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was insane.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's very protected, and they don't even allow.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: Pictures is frosted glass.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_03: You can't see wow.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's wild.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_03: When they open the door, they're one of their favorite things is letting new accounts in.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_03: Like just because you walk in, you're like, what is happening now?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: It's crazy.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's wild.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: So cool.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: So that's a really fun brand.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_05: And that's one of the things that I don't, you know, the people I think in the area still are learning about you guys, which is one of the reasons why we've been working together, is the detail in which you guys put into that.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_05: It's not I'm looking at a catalog, let's order 50 of these, let's order 50 of these.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_05: You guys are going to showrooms, flying across the world, picking out hand-picked items and placing those based on what you know your clients have been wanting and needing, and what you guys love and what the you know will fit the area.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_05: And so that's one of the things I kind of like just briefly wanted to have you guys touch on is just talk about you know the detail that goes into you selecting those products that you put in store.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_03: Man, I think uh the best way to describe that is just curating many things that represent everything that we're doing, right?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_03: Because there's a lot of beautiful stuff out there that we could buy that kind of doesn't make sense in the environment that we built.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um so we're constantly looking at brands that does it have cool factor, is it beautiful?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_03: Does it sit well with all the other things we're buying?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_03: Like we we we had an appointment uh in July with Paul Smith, and uh it was one of those brands where I was like, I don't know if this actually works in our store, but then when we walked in and looked at the collection, we realized it was kind of a missing piece, you know, as far as it doesn't always have to be like everything else in the store, but it it definitely filled a gap of something that you know we we feel like we we probably can can sell.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_03: And we've had a few people ask for it, and specifically one one guy that I was kind of like, you know what, that that is a pretty cool brand.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: So that's what even got us to go look at it.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_03: Um but you know, we we we carry like beautiful, beautiful brands that are centuries old.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_03: Like Viacense that's been around since 1733.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_03: And it's probably been around longer than that.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: That was just at the time when they did their logoing.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_03: That was the oldest documentation they found.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um Canali 1936.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um you got you know so many brands that we do business with that have been operating in Italy for so long and created this culture of like it's a family business, even though Canali is massive and worldwide.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's still family owned, you know.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas a lot of the other luxury brands have sold out to private equity and now they're beholden to or you know gone public and beholden to you know profit.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: And that's why Canali's been able to state luxury, but in a price point that makes sense.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um and then we carry stuff like Keton that that price point doesn't make sense to anybody unless they put it on.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: And if you can afford that, buy it because it's beautiful.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I'm hoping to be able to take these guys at some point to to do a couple of factory tours because one of the highlights of my entire 30-year career was going to Keton enabled and touring the factory.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_03: And just like everything else with Keton, it started with them sending a driver to pick me up at the airport, and then we show up at the factory, and immediately it's it's time for lunch, you know.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_03: And they they feed their entire like we're talking a complex of multiple buildings, multiple factories.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's massive, and they feed the entire company every day.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_03: There's a there's an elementary school on site for the workers' kids.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's amazing.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_03: It's wild.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_08: Shout out to Keton.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I was blown away.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_03: And and the campus is the every single time they can buy an adjacent building, they do.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_03: Because they're kind of like Keton, their main uh product is is the brand Keton.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_03: But they also have Sartorio, and that's made in the building next to them.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_03: They do shirts that's made across another building where the you know elementary school is kind of underneath that, and then in that same building, they've very smartly because tailoring is becoming an issue, they've opened a tailoring school in conjunction with the the Italian government where they're teaching new tailors.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_03: They graduate about 25 a year, and they hire like five.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_03: Because out of the 25 to graduate, only five of them are to the level that Keeton will allow them to work in there.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm like, listen, so you graduate 25, you only hire five.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: What's I need one I need one of the things?
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_03: Can you let me know the people that don't think it is exactly what I'm saying?
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I've got to be able to do that.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_03: I've been hammering them.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, I I need, and the problem is in that part of Naples, like it's very well known you go to Italy and almost everybody speaks English.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_03: They're like, none of these people speak English.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like in that community, it's it's not actually in Naples proper.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_03: So they're out, they they don't even speak Italian, they speak Neapolitan, which is a dialect kind of thing where she I can understand a lot of Italian just from going over there so often and trying to learn a little bit.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_03: Dude, in Naples, totally different.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_03: Nothing.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know what he just said.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_03: So so it's a problem.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_03: So uh but uh and then there's you know the the aspect of in Naples, they they really would rather uh move to New York or Los Angeles.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_03: They don't they don't know what Bentonville, Arkansas is, yeah.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_03: And they don't realize it's the greatest place in America.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_05: And that's one of the things that I think that makes y'all's what you guys do so cool is that you can't really find what you guys do anywhere in our region, but I would even dare to say kind of middle America.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, you can probably find in your bigger cities for sure.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_03: But there's a couple of stores that I'm I'm really, really uh I I love their stores, and I I feel like they're doing what we're doing only on a bigger scale and a little better.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um, candidly.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_03: Uh just because they have the market and the resources to do it.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_03: Like there's a store in Minneapolis called MP3, and it's it's it's so cool.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_08: You you visited the store?
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_03: I haven't visited the store, but I I know the people, I know the brands they carry, I've seen, you know, like and I I contemporaries in the industry, I hear a lot about it.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_03: I want to go visit um because we're all everybody in this industry is pretty friendly with each other.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_03: Like we there's there's a couple stores out there that get weirdly competitive with everybody else, like no matter where they're located.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um but then there's another store uh called AK Ricks in Grand Rapids of all places.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it's it's owned and funded by the DeVos family, who's you know, the Amway people.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_03: So they got a lot of money behind them.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_03: And for a long time that store didn't have to make money and it was decadent.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think they've gotten more focused on making money now.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but it's a it's an over-the-top store.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's unbelievable.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so those are a couple stores where I'm like, they're doing it right.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_03: And then there's a lot of big stores that are, you know, I mean, in our opinion, like it's so easy to throw a shop and shop in every corner of your store and let it look like the brand, and you just become a miniature department store at that point.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_08: Well, well, to Parker's point and what you mentioned earlier, the unique thing about Hubbard is you guys are so intentional.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_08: And me and Parker walk in there, and I don't know if we're coming out with a$5,000 suit, you know, you know what I mean?
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_08: But you guys treat us like you know, just like anybody else.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_08: And this is before we were partnering with creating content.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_08: And then there's also an element of I'm bragging on you guys to a prospect client uh yesterday because I'm like, you know, they go and there's a guy who punches holes in the shirts that they get.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_08: Like it's not a mass production thing, they are looking at every single stitch and every single detail.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_08: And so there's this element of super exclusivity and intentionality, but also approachable everyday people.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_08: And I don't I don't know how you guys master that tension, but you but you do and you do it well.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and listen, it's just uh being able to tell a story, right?
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_03: Like I've always thought if there's a story behind a brand, it just makes it that much easier to sell.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you for pointing that out.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_08: For sure.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_05: Like recognizing that.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_05: You know, that's one of the reasons why partnering with you guys, working together, kind of bringing us to that.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_05: One of the things that we believe here is that you know, everybody has a story to tell.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and what sets people apart from a business perspective, you know, may not be necessarily the products in you guys' situation, it definitely is the products, but for a lot of businesses, there are similar products out there.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_05: But what at times people like to kind of get behind is that story of what the business is.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_05: So partnering with you guys for people that don't know, you know, we create some social media ads essentially for you guys, but it's not your I'm Donnie Hubbard, come to our store today and look at this beautiful jacket.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_05: You know, let us make you look your best, that kind of stuff.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_03: It's well, that's what we fell in love with about your partnership, right?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it wasn't cheesy and it wasn't that.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's let's tell that story.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and when people like, you know, you're me being a little bit younger in life with a new family, it's like, do I shop at Hubbard's?
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_05: I will say not yet.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_05: I would like to, because every time I go in there, I'm like, I really like that.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_05: But I got a 20-month-old is in daycare, you know?
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um but it's priorities.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_05: It's easy for me when people that come in there, and but it's getting people in the door.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_05: And so you guys have obviously a very established brand and very credible.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_05: But as you mentioned with Northwest Arkansas changing, the amount of people that are moving here every day that don't know anything about the mom and pop shops and all of this, you know, especially with Walmart finishing that new headquarters, just the influx of people is incredible.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_05: From the time that I moved up here in 2011 to now, this area from you know, y'all's store to here is completely unnoticeable.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but it's keeping top of mind for those people, especially those two new people that are coming in.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_05: They probably coming from a New York, a San Francisco, they don't have any other choice around here but you guys.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_05: So, but how do we make it to where they learn that story?
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_05: And it's like, I want to go meet with these guys because they know what they're talking about, and the brands that they carry tell a story, not just the shirts on sale for$39.99 type of thing.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_05: You know, and so I just wanted to kind of hear y'all's feedback from us as we're continuing, uh, you know, being a startup company ourselves, of just learning how we can bring offerings to the public.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_05: Just want to kind of get y'all's experience from a you know, working with us, doing these ads, the way we kind of been doing them and telling y'all's story, um, what that experience has been like for you guys, and then any benefits that you've seen from it essentially.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_05: So I think you've been a little bit more of the star on that one, but he's traveling all over the place a lot of times.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: So well, I think like we're we're not like Donnie mentioned earlier, we don't do social media very well.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's only three of us, and we have a lot to do, and so that's that unfortunately gets put on the back burner.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: So to be able to partner with a company like you guys, where you handle a lot of it for us, but you let us kind of tell our story in a unique way.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: I know we've said the word story like 10,000 times, but it's true, like yeah, that's what makes us really unique, I think, is that we we take we take what we do so personally.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and we take a lot of responsibility for when someone comes in the door, we want them to have a certain experience, we want to present our product a certain way, we want to be able to deliver in a certain reasonable timeline.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes that's a very variable thing.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but um to be able to partner with somebody that has the same level of intentionality with the way that you produce your product, um, it makes it really easy, I think, for us to work together and say, like, this is who hybrid clothing is presented by podcast videos.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_05: And have you all seen like, and we've been doing it for what about month seven in, I think now, since we really started kind of first getting talking with you guys and getting stuff going.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_05: Um have you seen, you know, just kind of tracking any influx of people coming in, just a new, newer clientele, I would say.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_03: It's nonstop.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_05: Is it really?
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's nonstop.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like I was I was telling somebody yesterday I was having a meeting at five with a friend and a business partner, and he's like, how's a business?
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, dude.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's great.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's incredible.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's nonstop.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_03: He goes, how long has it been like that?
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, nine months?
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, like all the seasons that it should have slowed down, it's just never slowed down.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: And that's crazy.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_03: It's uh it's awesome.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's crazy.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we attribute that uh partially to you guys because you know, not that everybody's coming in and mentioning it, but what dude, this is one of the funniest things ever.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: I haven't heard this.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_03: So this is so you guys had to start a TikTok because I'm I'm I just couldn't ever do TikTok.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_03: I couldn't like add one more social media.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_03: So you guys had to start a TikTok, and Seth was like, Man, one of our TikToks has like got a ton of views.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_03: And uh we started reading the comments.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_03: There's this one guy, to your credit, okay, guys.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_03: This one guy goes, and excuse the language, he goes, Jesus Christ, enough with the Hubbards already.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: He just died laughing.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, I mean, it was he's saying it so often in between so much.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_05: He had to copy the time from his days.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, I love it.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_08: Well, now you have the sophistication where you can say, I will only show this ad to this person three times or four times.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_08: Right.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_08: And we're like, oh, put it out there.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_03: I died laughing at her.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_03: It did nothing but make me like crack up.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, there it is.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's cool.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, we you know, looking at some of the analytics of it, I know a month for you guys was you know, everybody's kind of impressions and views, or this whole world of what we live in.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_05: It's like impressions is it just came across someone's screen.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_05: Some people love that, you know, that hey, at least somebody saw it.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but a view is somebody watched through that that clip, and one of the things we saw with you guys was like 261,000 impressions, 258,000 views.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_05: And for that month, you get we were looking at it, Facebook was the number one platform for you guys, but just 5,200 clicks to the website in one month.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_05: To the Hubbard website.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_05: And it's just like the more that people move here, it's just more people seeing it.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_05: And even though they may not have actively go on and do it, that seed has been planted.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I saw an ad the other day for this luxury clothing company, and they were talking about how Coach Cow comes in and bought his jacket, you know, his return to Lexington, that jacket he had on with that H pin, which everybody thought was Hogs, and I pointed the TV at my wife, and I was like, that's Hubbard.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, that's not hogs, that's Hubbard.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_05: And she was like, I figured the H was for Hogs, and nope.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um, but telling that story of things like that, people go, you know, I'm sure you've probably had people come in and go, Hey, you got any more of those jackets left that Coach Cal had on?
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, yeah.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_03: We're actually uh talking to Cal right now about doing uh a cool partnership with thewesome.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, got another season coming up, so exciting.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_05: Be better than football, that's for sure.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_05: But we'll see what happens to football.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_05: Maybe um may never know with the hogs.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_05: But um, but yeah, guys, I mean I know y'all have got the store opening here in just a little bit, so I want to want to cut y'all loose on that.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_05: But um wanted to thank y'all for coming in today and just kind of talking about it.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_05: If anybody has anything else they want to add before we wrap, feel free.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, same with Parker is just saying you guys have done such cool work, and we're grateful for the partnership because now we get to brag on you guys and say, hey, you know, there's a it's a theory called binoculars versus billboard.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_08: And a billboard is saying, like, hey, I'm here, come and buy this product, and binoculars is just giving you a peek into what we already do.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_08: And so you guys with these stories that don't even feel like advertisements, and it's so relatable, so personal, and people really enjoy them.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_08: So hats off to you guys.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, man.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um well we feel the same way.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, uh in uh the the same sentiment, our our version of that is sniper shots, not uh shotgun blasts.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_03: Like that.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_03: So we we we like the fact that what we're doing with you guys is very targeted and it's more sniper than shotgun.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right?
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_03: Because the billboard is a shotgun.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_03: And you're showing it to 98% the wrong people.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_03: Which is cool.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, very cool.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_05: Well, if anyone's listening or watching, if you guys have seen the ads and not been into Hubbard yet, be sure you do because I can promise you it's a completely different experience when you walk through the city.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_03: If you're on TikTok and you've seen too many, sorry.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_08: To that guy who's seen too many, we're about to put some more out.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_05: Here comes more.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_05: Comment every time so we can keep track of that guy.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_05: So thank you guys so much.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_05: You know, excited to continue partnering with you guys.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_05: And um, like I said, everybody go check out Hubbard if you haven't yet.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_05: So thank you all so much.