Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Terence Reilly

Transcript

Terence Reilly · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

0:08
Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the bob lef Sets podcast.
0:13
Speaker 1: My guest today is Terrence Riley, the marketer extraordinary, the
0:17
Speaker 1: man behind the Stanley Quencher, the revival of Crocs and
0:22
Speaker 1: now Hey Dude shoots.
0:24
Speaker 2: Terrence, how do you reach the public today?
0:28
Speaker 3: I'll throw so many ways. The best way to reach
0:31
Speaker 3: them is fast. That's really the trick. And through social media,
0:37
Speaker 3: the opportunities to reach people fast are so incredible and extraordinary,
0:43
Speaker 3: so social and fast. That's been some of the unlocks
0:47
Speaker 3: in the last ten years for certainly my career.
0:50
Speaker 2: You say fast, what do you mean there?
0:52
Speaker 3: Fast today tomorrow? You know, the attention span of most
0:57
Speaker 3: folks is now, and so to get folks attention, you
1:01
Speaker 3: got to react quickly to what's happening on trends. A
1:05
Speaker 3: lot of the things that you write about, it's on TikTok,
1:07
Speaker 3: it's on social media, and brands in particular can see that.
1:12
Speaker 3: And the quicker you respond, react or create something, the
1:16
Speaker 3: better off your connection to that consumer or culture is
1:20
Speaker 3: what a gift it is too.
1:22
Speaker 2: Okay, let's go with your present gig. Hey dude, you know,
1:26
Speaker 2: Hey Dude's numbers were great. Crocs purchased it recently, they
1:30
Speaker 2: haven't been that good. You're obviously given the job to
1:34
Speaker 2: bring it back. How are you going to do that?
1:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, hey dude, boy, we're a eight hundred plus
1:39
Speaker 3: million dollar footwear brand. You know, we're a top ten
1:42
Speaker 3: global footwear brand. So it's an amazing success story. But
1:46
Speaker 3: you're right, there's been a bit of a lull, which
1:48
Speaker 3: is one of the reasons why I accepted the offer
1:51
Speaker 3: to come as the Hay Dude president. And let's connect
1:55
Speaker 3: with consumers, customers and culture and so a couple things
2:00
Speaker 3: that I laid out really on my first day. You know,
2:02
Speaker 3: you join the team and you listen to some of
2:05
Speaker 3: the things that are working or isn't, and then you
2:07
Speaker 3: lay out a vision for the brand, and it's to
2:11
Speaker 3: really build the core and add more is where it starts.
2:14
Speaker 3: Like we had the Wendy and the Wally, these two
2:17
Speaker 3: famous silhouettes, which most people know is hey dude. So
2:22
Speaker 3: we've got to strengthen those things and you know forever,
2:27
Speaker 3: you know, since the Beatles at least are Elvis. You know,
2:29
Speaker 3: youth culture drives culture, but more than ever, youth female
2:33
Speaker 3: culture drives culture. And so to ignite a young female
2:39
Speaker 3: consumer is really an important aspect of what we're up
2:43
Speaker 3: to here at Hey dude in the nine months since
2:44
Speaker 3: I've been president, and do it through a few lenses,
2:48
Speaker 3: you know, where people are wearing shoes, travel and music
2:51
Speaker 3: and pre and post sport, especially young women who are
2:55
Speaker 3: wearing footwear in that kind of environment, to do all
2:58
Speaker 3: those things to ignore this brand, and we're already up
3:02
Speaker 3: to it. And it's been an incredible nine months for
3:04
Speaker 3: me in the way we're already connecting. So it's been
3:06
Speaker 3: a lot of fun.
3:07
Speaker 2: Okay, prior to getting an email from you, I didn't
3:12
Speaker 2: know what hay Dude was. I didn't know they were shoes.
3:17
Speaker 2: Am I an anomaly? Is there an issue of knowledge?
3:22
Speaker 2: Or is there an issue of I'm not the target
3:24
Speaker 2: audience and therefore that's not where you're focusing.
3:27
Speaker 3: Yes, I think it's a little bit of all of that.
3:29
Speaker 3: I think we're a relatively new brand and so that's
3:33
Speaker 3: part of it. But you know, eight hundred plus million
3:35
Speaker 3: dollar mystery is a pretty exciting opportunity for somebody like
3:40
Speaker 3: myself to you know, get the keys thrown at me
3:42
Speaker 3: to drive this car. So it's a pretty extraordinary thing,
3:46
Speaker 3: you know, but we're a footwear brand for all ages.
3:49
Speaker 3: There's you know, dad's in Iowa that love us, and
3:52
Speaker 3: young women in Miami who love us, and everywhere in between.
3:56
Speaker 3: And so the more we can get younger and more female,
3:59
Speaker 3: as I said earlier, the more well known Hey Dude
4:02
Speaker 3: will be. But you know, we're in some of America's
4:04
Speaker 3: premier retailers and we are a real success story that
4:09
Speaker 3: hit a bump in the road and now we're driving
4:12
Speaker 3: it like we stole it bub.
4:14
Speaker 2: Okay, not everybody is familiar with Hey Dude. Can you
4:18
Speaker 2: tell us what the Hay Dude shoe is?
4:20
Speaker 3: Yeah? So it's a really comfortable, casual shoe. It's like
4:25
Speaker 3: six ounces. It's the lightest thing. When you put your
4:27
Speaker 3: feet in, then you're like, oh dude, Like these are
4:30
Speaker 3: the lightest, most comfortable shoes out there, and they're meant
4:33
Speaker 3: for anything. Really, they're not performance shoes, of course, they're
4:38
Speaker 3: really casual and they're led by the Wendy and Wally
4:41
Speaker 3: silhouette that is really our icon. But Hey Dude is
4:45
Speaker 3: it's unlike anything, Bob. It's a real success story that
4:48
Speaker 3: I said is a huge top ten footwear brand that
4:52
Speaker 3: still is a bit of an unknown and that's an
4:54
Speaker 3: incredible thing.
4:56
Speaker 2: Okay, let's start really at the basics. Sure, what is
4:59
Speaker 2: the dude shoe made on?
5:02
Speaker 3: I was made out of different things? Certainly canvas is
5:04
Speaker 3: the thing that makes us famous, and it was so
5:06
Speaker 3: light and is a credible thing to pack in a suitcase,
5:11
Speaker 3: to add that extra pair in your bag so you
5:14
Speaker 3: don't hit the dreaded you know, weight limit in your
5:16
Speaker 3: your travel bag. So stylish, comfortable, and a variety of
5:21
Speaker 3: things that we make different styles, And there's boots, there's
5:25
Speaker 3: our classic Wendy's in our wallis, there's slippers that are
5:29
Speaker 3: made out of fuzz and all those good things. So
5:30
Speaker 3: a variety of different styles to suit alls of different needs.
5:35
Speaker 2: Okay, So the quantity of product. In the late nineties,
5:39
Speaker 2: when Steve Jobs came back to Apple, he quite famously
5:43
Speaker 2: streamlined the product line to make it more comprehensible. How
5:47
Speaker 2: many different off rings does hey dudes have? And how
5:51
Speaker 2: do you decide whether to add something not add something?
5:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, great question. I think, as I mentioned earlier, it's
5:58
Speaker 3: to build the core and add more. And so the
6:02
Speaker 3: core is the Wendy and the Wally, the classic silhouette
6:05
Speaker 3: that people who do know, Hey dude, know it for
6:09
Speaker 3: and so we need to strengthen that icon, but build
6:12
Speaker 3: around it things like the slipper that I mentioned. A
6:16
Speaker 3: success that is beginning to percolate for us is an
6:19
Speaker 3: Austin Lift, which is a women's style that's a slip
6:23
Speaker 3: in elevated platform shoot different than the Wendy in the Wallly.
6:28
Speaker 3: So you want to strengthen the core, which is hey dude,
6:31
Speaker 3: but you want to add the more and connect with
6:33
Speaker 3: different consumers. So a similar strategy and underperforming skews we
6:38
Speaker 3: stop making.
6:39
Speaker 2: Okay distribution, people think content is king. If you can't
6:44
Speaker 2: buy it, it doesn't matter what it is. So you know,
6:49
Speaker 2: Nike famously pulled back and their sales went down. They
6:53
Speaker 2: wanted to go to a more direct sales model in
6:56
Speaker 2: this particular case, how many retailers can Hey dude, and
7:02
Speaker 2: do you want more? Do you want less? What is
7:05
Speaker 2: your relationship with the retail cham great question.
7:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're in some of America's and the world's leading
7:12
Speaker 3: footwear destinations, you know, Dick's Sporting Goods here in the States,
7:16
Speaker 3: or famous Footwear Academy, and so we want to be
7:19
Speaker 3: on shelf. You know, footwear is often a TecTile thing.
7:23
Speaker 3: You want to pick it up and you want to
7:25
Speaker 3: try it on. But also, heydo dot Com, Amazon, or
7:29
Speaker 3: places where folks are shopping, And we were the number
7:33
Speaker 3: three TikTok shop brand in December of twenty twenty four,
7:39
Speaker 3: and so we want to be where the consumer is shopping,
7:42
Speaker 3: and that's what we're up to. So we're one of
7:45
Speaker 3: the top five footwear brands and so many of the
7:48
Speaker 3: key footwear destinations in the US and get an after it.
7:51
Speaker 2: Okay, let's drill down on some of the things you
7:53
Speaker 2: said physical retail. Yeah, how hard is it to get
7:59
Speaker 2: in a store? How many models will they take? How
8:02
Speaker 2: do you make sure that they're promoting your shoe appropriately?
8:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, you're only as good as what the consumer
8:09
Speaker 3: is reacting to, right, So the partners at any footwear
8:14
Speaker 3: destination or any retailer are reacting to what their consumers
8:18
Speaker 3: are after. So certainly, as I mentioned earlier that Wendy
8:21
Speaker 3: and the Wally silhouette is eighty percent of Hey Dude,
8:24
Speaker 3: So introducing new styles and new colors, materials and finish
8:29
Speaker 3: for those to have somebody buy that extra pair or
8:33
Speaker 3: the one or two that they buy every season is
8:36
Speaker 3: part of the dance that you do with retailers, and
8:39
Speaker 3: so they tell you what's working and they buy or
8:42
Speaker 3: don't buy, depending on the success or the EBB and
8:45
Speaker 3: flow of what you're doing is the brand to market
8:49
Speaker 3: those different styles and so a variety of products in
8:53
Speaker 3: a variety of different settings around the world.
8:56
Speaker 2: And how do you determine pricing?
8:59
Speaker 3: Well, certainly the consumer helps us do that, but we're
9:01
Speaker 3: really an affordable you know, under seventy five dollars, largely
9:05
Speaker 3: a pair of comfortable shoes that you know, just last
9:08
Speaker 3: you for a long time and serve a variety of
9:12
Speaker 3: needs in so many different places. As I mentioned earlier,
9:15
Speaker 3: travel or pre and post sport, after the beach or
9:19
Speaker 3: at the barbecue. We're just walking around. I mean, hey,
9:21
Speaker 3: dudes are so popular as I mentioned earlier, by our
9:24
Speaker 3: success and now we're just hooking the brand up to
9:27
Speaker 3: the rejuvenation machine.
9:29
Speaker 2: Okay, what percentage of sales or physical retail as opposed
9:34
Speaker 2: to online.
9:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's something we keep to ourselves, Bob, It's something
9:39
Speaker 3: that we don't typically share those kinds of things. But
9:41
Speaker 3: our online business is growing, as I mentioned earlier, TikTok
9:45
Speaker 3: shop and other things are new ways that we are
9:48
Speaker 3: showcasing hey Dude to consumers.
9:51
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's just assume I wanted to buy online. Yeah,
9:54
Speaker 2: I can buy direct from heydude dot com or something
9:57
Speaker 2: I can buy TikTok, I can buy Amazon. Can I
10:00
Speaker 2: buy the issues?
10:01
Speaker 3: All the above? You can all the above haydud dot com,
10:06
Speaker 3: TikTok shop, or Amazon, or you walk into some of
10:09
Speaker 3: your favorite retailers wherever you are and they'll likely have
10:13
Speaker 3: Heydude depending on where you are and what store you
10:15
Speaker 3: walk into.
10:16
Speaker 2: Okay, what is the deal? Tell us more about the
10:19
Speaker 2: TikTok shop and how that works. Yeah, so lots of
10:23
Speaker 2: different content creators are talking about your brand on TikTok
10:27
Speaker 2: shop and they get a certain percentage of the business.
10:31
Speaker 2: It comes and goes depending on the content creator and
10:34
Speaker 2: the size of their audience. And it's a way to
10:37
Speaker 2: get your brand, your footwear right in front of folks
10:42
Speaker 2: on their for you page or wherever they're scrolling. And
10:46
Speaker 2: it's been a remarkable success for the brand.
10:50
Speaker 3: I joined as the Haydude president in May, and I've
10:54
Speaker 3: seen my success in other places on TikTok and social media,
10:59
Speaker 3: and that's one of the things I suggested to the
11:01
Speaker 3: team strongly that we really get active on TikTok and
11:05
Speaker 3: in TikTok shop, and we got after it thanks to
11:08
Speaker 3: a great team, and we've seen really strong success.
11:12
Speaker 2: Okay, let's say I'm a user. Yeah, theoretically, can I
11:16
Speaker 2: say I'm going to peruse the TikTok shop or pretty
11:20
Speaker 2: much am I buying because I see the video of it?
11:23
Speaker 3: Influencer both you can go to the TikTok shop or
11:27
Speaker 3: it will come through your algorithm as the algorithm works,
11:31
Speaker 3: and so you'll be interrupted by TikTok shop for whatever
11:34
Speaker 3: brand in our case, hey dude, or you can go
11:38
Speaker 3: to the hey Dude TikTok shop as you are on TikTok.
11:42
Speaker 3: And if you're not on TikTok, you go to other
11:44
Speaker 3: places to discover hey dude, whether we're on Instagram or
11:47
Speaker 3: other places like Facebook or just generally searching through Amazon,
11:51
Speaker 3: Google or hated.
11:53
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's start with TikTok to reach the customer.
11:58
Speaker 2: How do you do that? Is it mostly about deals
12:01
Speaker 2: with influencers, Is it about posting your own content? Is
12:06
Speaker 2: it about buying ads? How do you do it? Yeah?
12:09
Speaker 3: All the above all the above, we have our own
12:13
Speaker 3: Hey Dude created content by our wonderful social media team.
12:19
Speaker 3: We work with content creators to create content. We work
12:23
Speaker 3: with celebrities or artists to create content, and of course
12:28
Speaker 3: TikTok shop content creators as well. So it is a
12:32
Speaker 3: real multi pronged delivery system just through TikTok alone that
12:37
Speaker 3: you want to keep fresh and get multiple messages out
12:41
Speaker 3: to the consumer. The messages that you want the consumer
12:44
Speaker 3: to know are important to Heydo, therefore they should know it. Okay,
12:47
Speaker 3: leaving celebrities aside, what works? I mean there are different theories.
12:52
Speaker 3: Let's talk print, which is dying. Some people say if
12:55
Speaker 3: you give a lot of information, the active buyer will
12:58
Speaker 3: actually be interested in that revent. Other people want less
13:01
Speaker 3: content or is it more about flashy video what sparks
13:06
Speaker 3: people on TikTok to be activated to purchase or check
13:11
Speaker 3: out Hey Do. I think humor can work oftentimes, but
13:15
Speaker 3: I think it's genuine content. Like genuine genuineness is what
13:20
Speaker 3: people are after and what connects the most. And as
13:24
Speaker 3: I said earlier, doing something and reacting to something fast
13:30
Speaker 3: can be that. And then of course, when brands participate
13:33
Speaker 3: in trends, you know, as you know, there's a different
13:35
Speaker 3: TikTok trend every week or so, and when the brand
13:39
Speaker 3: participates in it and does it well. Not all brands
13:42
Speaker 3: do it all the time, well including hey dude, but
13:44
Speaker 3: when you do it gets engagement gets shared, and that's
13:49
Speaker 3: part of the trick as well. So it's really an
13:50
Speaker 3: asset allocation of different things, not just on TikTok, but generally.
13:55
Speaker 2: Can you give me some specific example where there's a
13:58
Speaker 2: trend on TikTok and hey dude, leverage that.
14:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, just uh, last week we did something that had
14:06
Speaker 3: four million views, which you know evades me of why,
14:10
Speaker 3: but it was two of our young social media associates
14:15
Speaker 3: just have their finger on that pulse and they engaged
14:18
Speaker 3: in it and away we went with, you know, four
14:22
Speaker 3: million views of something like that. That would seem innocuous
14:26
Speaker 3: and it's not something that you can script or would
14:28
Speaker 3: put in your marketing calendar, but it is something that
14:32
Speaker 3: is in real time and it was done well, and
14:35
Speaker 3: the consumer and the TikTok viewer if you will, or
14:38
Speaker 3: user reacted to it. You know, brands are doing that
14:41
Speaker 3: right now, including hey, do the you know the du
14:44
Speaker 3: lingo logo that their sunsetting. You know, brands are participating
14:49
Speaker 3: in that, including hey do just today. So there's different
14:53
Speaker 3: ways that you can engage.
14:54
Speaker 2: Well, way be very specific how you were participating in that.
14:57
Speaker 3: We just uh we posted about the the quote unquote
15:01
Speaker 3: death of the Duolingo logo, and so lots of brands
15:04
Speaker 3: are doing it and we've got nice little traction on
15:06
Speaker 3: it and different ways. Just to be part of the
15:09
Speaker 3: conversation is you know, I think others have said it's
15:12
Speaker 3: the marketplace, it's the town square. And so when you
15:16
Speaker 3: engage and you do it well, and not all brands
15:18
Speaker 3: get it right every time, but when you do do
15:20
Speaker 3: it well, it connects. And the more you're throwing different
15:23
Speaker 3: lines into the water to appeal to different audiences and
15:29
Speaker 3: put your brand out there as a current, fast moving
15:33
Speaker 3: finger on the pulse of culture brand, the more you
15:36
Speaker 3: connect and the more people say, I might give those
15:38
Speaker 3: shoes a try.
15:46
Speaker 2: Okay, when it comes to influencers, how many influencers might
15:51
Speaker 2: you have relationships within pay at a time?
15:55
Speaker 3: Dozens and dozens, and they ebb and flow depending on
15:59
Speaker 3: the season, depending on the shoe, depending on the message
16:01
Speaker 3: that we want to tell. So there are dozens and
16:04
Speaker 3: dozens of them, and some are with us throughout seasons.
16:09
Speaker 3: But it's a very cyclical of the moment type of
16:14
Speaker 3: environment where brands like us are fast moving and folks
16:19
Speaker 3: come and go. They're always in our stable, so to speak.
16:22
Speaker 3: But it depends on the message, time of year, gender perhaps,
16:27
Speaker 3: or the story that we're looking to tell. But we
16:29
Speaker 3: continue to want to build relationships with more influencers so
16:33
Speaker 3: that they're all part of a larger Hay Dude community.
16:36
Speaker 2: And how do you establish that relationship through an intermediary?
16:40
Speaker 2: How do you find these influencers.
16:42
Speaker 3: All the above, intermediaries, agencies, personal connections, prior experience, genuine
16:48
Speaker 3: fans of the brand, which is again back to authenticity.
16:52
Speaker 3: There's a lot of Hay Dude fans out there. There's
16:55
Speaker 3: a lot of fans who want to work with Haydude
16:57
Speaker 3: and get paid to share their love for Hey Dude.
17:01
Speaker 3: And so that's part of it for any brand. So
17:03
Speaker 3: it's a real mosaic of different content creators or influencers.
17:08
Speaker 3: Some work better than others, and some are of the
17:11
Speaker 3: moment and some are more evergreen.
17:13
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's assume you have this relationship, you're going
17:16
Speaker 2: to pay the influencer. How much direction? How much in
17:21
Speaker 2: terms of requirements does hey dude have?
17:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, it varies. Also, there's a brief, and you know,
17:27
Speaker 3: we want to give content creators the latitude to create.
17:30
Speaker 3: Otherwise it's just dictation and that shows. So the content
17:35
Speaker 3: creator doesn't want to be dictated to. But there'll be
17:37
Speaker 3: brand standards of course, and things that we would not
17:40
Speaker 3: want people to say. But we review it and if
17:44
Speaker 3: there's something that was just off the mark, we'll ask,
17:46
Speaker 3: you know, the content creator to redo it. And that
17:49
Speaker 3: happens occasionally, but not too often because the briefs are
17:51
Speaker 3: usually tight and we have relationships with people that we
17:54
Speaker 3: trust and have vetted and have followers in various numbers,
17:59
Speaker 3: some huge uge and some micro and you know we
18:02
Speaker 3: ebb and flow with that as well.
18:04
Speaker 2: Okay, you talked about humor. What might a brief be?
18:08
Speaker 2: Give me an example of a brief in something somebody
18:11
Speaker 2: actually created.
18:13
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, there's so many things that are just different.
18:17
Speaker 2: You know.
18:18
Speaker 3: Humor is you know, a different taste for everybody, So
18:21
Speaker 3: not every what you think is funny, I don't think
18:23
Speaker 3: is funny, and vice versa. So none, no humorous bits
18:28
Speaker 3: come to mind directly, but it's all with a you know,
18:31
Speaker 3: we're not too serious as a brand. So the things
18:34
Speaker 3: that we're doing, like we were just at the waste
18:36
Speaker 3: management open in Phoenix this weekend, and lots of content
18:41
Speaker 3: that we created on that funny, silly, unexpected content that
18:47
Speaker 3: was just unlike anything that maybe is humorous or maybe
18:51
Speaker 3: it's just different, but got lots of attention online, including
18:54
Speaker 3: articles written about like what was haydu doing at the
18:58
Speaker 3: waste management open this weekend? So there's different ways to
19:01
Speaker 3: connect with all these guys wearing women wearing green suits,
19:06
Speaker 3: body suits that started making what is all that? And
19:11
Speaker 3: people commenting like what is all that noise in the
19:13
Speaker 3: back of the waste management open with haydude? Or what
19:17
Speaker 3: is that even? And so we got a chance to
19:19
Speaker 3: inject ourselves somewhere to introduce a upcoming golf Hey dude,
19:24
Speaker 3: shoe so with pins and aces, so cool stuff unexpected
19:30
Speaker 3: as a way to cut through and introduce a new style.
19:32
Speaker 2: Okay, all these golfers have endorsement deals. If you look
19:36
Speaker 2: at Beats first, it was let's just get the headphones
19:39
Speaker 2: on people's heads. Do you go to the PJA golfers
19:43
Speaker 2: to just give peers to everybody, or do you make
19:46
Speaker 2: deals with specific people? What's the approach?
19:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, just we did something that's unlike anything. We
19:52
Speaker 3: did not work with golfers specifically and getting shoes on
19:56
Speaker 3: multiple professionals. We were really for the fans and getting
20:03
Speaker 3: fans at the Waste Management open to experience, Hey dude,
20:06
Speaker 3: with an interactive exhibit and doing things that just got attention.
20:10
Speaker 3: And everybody's got a camera, bob, so everybody's posting on
20:15
Speaker 3: their own socials to evangelize the brand and the way
20:18
Speaker 3: that we activated at the Waste Management, but specifically to
20:23
Speaker 3: introduce a new pair of golf shoes that are coming
20:26
Speaker 3: out later this month.
20:27
Speaker 2: Okay, golf shoes, you know, are traditionally firm, so hey dude,
20:33
Speaker 2: is making a golf shoe. You're talking about how soft
20:36
Speaker 2: they are. They absolutely are soft.
20:38
Speaker 3: So one of the ways that you can really maybe
20:40
Speaker 3: you know, cut into a couple of strokes off your
20:43
Speaker 3: game is being comfortable and lighter. So they certainly grip,
20:47
Speaker 3: of course, which is an important part of golf. But
20:50
Speaker 3: I don't think we're advocating that we're for the professional
20:52
Speaker 3: golfer to win the Masters. We're for that weekend golfer
20:56
Speaker 3: who's out with his or her buddies and friends doing
21:00
Speaker 3: a couple of birdie juice before or after a birdie,
21:05
Speaker 3: and certainly on the nineteenth hole. We're really more a
21:08
Speaker 3: fun spirit than a high performance golf shoe. But it's
21:12
Speaker 3: something you can wear and probably get a couple of
21:16
Speaker 3: more bogies than birdies.
21:18
Speaker 2: Okay, what was the projected retail price?
21:23
Speaker 3: I can't remember the price of those, but they'll be
21:26
Speaker 3: in the similar vein of what hey dudes are, you know,
21:29
Speaker 3: in the seventy dollars range and with pins and aces
21:32
Speaker 3: as a great partner. So just a fun way to
21:36
Speaker 3: further explore the brand.
21:38
Speaker 2: Okay, is that something you started or was that started
21:41
Speaker 2: before you came to this brand.
21:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all part of a more edited assortment of
21:47
Speaker 3: who we want to work with and how we come
21:50
Speaker 3: to life with different partners, whether they're celebrities or whether
21:53
Speaker 3: they're brands or licenses, from SpongeBob SquarePants to Hot Wheels
22:01
Speaker 3: to Beetlejuice and on and on and on. Fun ways
22:05
Speaker 3: to connect fans of those properties to Hay Dude. And
22:10
Speaker 3: so that's something that we've been doing, you know, since
22:13
Speaker 3: I was at Crocs the first time around, we were
22:15
Speaker 3: doing that and now we want to bring some of
22:18
Speaker 3: that to Hey Dude. And the Pins and Asis partners
22:19
Speaker 3: have just been great.
22:21
Speaker 2: Okay, you come back to Hey Dude. I mean you
22:23
Speaker 2: had the Kentucky Fried Chicken, Croc, you had all that
22:25
Speaker 2: other stuff. Since you came back to Kroc, what initiatives
22:30
Speaker 2: have you started?
22:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I joined in May May first, and you know,
22:36
Speaker 3: you lay out the strategy that I suggested earlier. And
22:40
Speaker 3: so one of the first things we did is, you know,
22:42
Speaker 3: one of the things I like to do is think
22:44
Speaker 3: opposites and a brand named Hey Dude, who is looking
22:49
Speaker 3: to appeal to a younger female audience while still you know, energizing.
22:55
Speaker 3: Our core is to bring Sidney Sweeney on board is
22:59
Speaker 3: our brand and beast hugely popular, is loved by lots
23:05
Speaker 3: of people as an international, internationally known young woman, and
23:10
Speaker 3: it's just cool. She's smart, talented, but also just cool.
23:14
Speaker 3: And so that was one of the first moves that
23:16
Speaker 3: we made since I returned.
23:18
Speaker 2: Let's stop with Sydney Sweeney. You're sitting in the office,
23:20
Speaker 2: you're brainstorming, and you say, Sydney Sweeney will be a
23:24
Speaker 2: good idea, you go through the channels, you know, what
23:27
Speaker 2: kind of reaction do you get? You know, the odds
23:30
Speaker 2: of her actually wearing Hay Dudes are not high. What's
23:34
Speaker 2: the incentive for her? There's always a monetary incentive. How
23:38
Speaker 2: do you convince her this is good for her? Well?
23:41
Speaker 3: I think she recognized certainly where Sydney is from. I
23:45
Speaker 3: think herself and lots of her friends and family are
23:48
Speaker 3: Hey Dude fans. She's from up a certain neck of
23:52
Speaker 3: the woods, Idaho, Washington that way, where Hey Dudes are
23:57
Speaker 3: enormously popular. So she had an affinity for our brand.
24:01
Speaker 3: And because we're unlike anything, she could showcase a different
24:04
Speaker 3: side of herself, which really appealed to us as a brand.
24:08
Speaker 3: It doesn't take herself too seriously. You know, she's known
24:11
Speaker 3: for being an elegant, beautiful woman and you know, oscar
24:15
Speaker 3: parties and all that kind of Hollywood showbiz. But she
24:18
Speaker 3: has a different side of her and this allowed her
24:21
Speaker 3: to showcase that in a really casual way. And I
24:24
Speaker 3: think that's what attracted her to Hey Dude, and.
24:26
Speaker 2: Certainly what attracted Hey Dude to us to her. Okay,
24:30
Speaker 2: so she's in what did you do with her? Oh?
24:34
Speaker 3: So she's in. So we started by just an introductory
24:37
Speaker 3: video of this is Sidney Sweeney on a rope swing
24:40
Speaker 3: jumping into a lake. You know, just talk about how
24:43
Speaker 3: casual and unaffected she was by this, and then we
24:47
Speaker 3: put her in a new style, a fuzz lined slipper
24:50
Speaker 3: from Hey Dude Gone, couldn't keep him in stock And
24:55
Speaker 3: in just a couple of weeks, she's a huge part
24:59
Speaker 3: of our Spring twenty twenty five work that will be
25:02
Speaker 3: unveiling shortly and has a you know, helped craft it
25:06
Speaker 3: and it was a hugely important but involved partner to
25:11
Speaker 3: create what we're going to unveil in just a few
25:13
Speaker 3: short weeks to again make people think differently about Hey
25:17
Speaker 3: Dude as a shoe that's not just for him, but
25:20
Speaker 3: is for her and is for multiple wearing occasions. And
25:24
Speaker 3: Sidney just does it in a really cool and Sidney
25:28
Speaker 3: like way that she has this magical ability to pull
25:31
Speaker 3: off this elegance that she has, but also this just
25:35
Speaker 3: girl next door kind of give somebody the business kind
25:39
Speaker 3: of way.
25:40
Speaker 2: And so how many videos do you make with Sydney? Yeah,
25:45
Speaker 2: you know, a lot.
25:46
Speaker 3: We do a lot of things to cut through not
25:49
Speaker 3: just a sense of humor and unlike anything, but also
25:52
Speaker 3: our own sense of fashion and style for the brand
25:55
Speaker 3: that you know, she's wearing it in that way as well.
25:59
Speaker 3: So lots of different things, because as I said earlier,
26:02
Speaker 3: the attention span of people is so short. We only
26:05
Speaker 3: need a few seconds of video of Sydney and lots
26:10
Speaker 3: of different few seconds of Sydney to have people see it.
26:13
Speaker 3: And people are moving. You know that your thumb is
26:16
Speaker 3: always moving on your screen, scrolling up, left, right, wherever,
26:19
Speaker 3: and so once you see it, you stop and you
26:21
Speaker 3: got the message and you keep scrolling. But we got you,
26:24
Speaker 3: and Sydney makes you stop on your screen because of
26:28
Speaker 3: who she is. So we're just thrilled by that and
26:31
Speaker 3: we're excited to roll it out in just a couple
26:33
Speaker 3: of short weeks.
26:34
Speaker 2: Okay, so we're talking about social media platforms. You have
26:41
Speaker 2: this deal with Sydney Sweeney. She's engaged. You do anything traditional,
26:46
Speaker 2: whint TV, anything or those.
26:49
Speaker 3: Just off the table. Nothing is off the table. We're
26:53
Speaker 3: not doing those with Sidney Sweeney. We have done Connected
26:56
Speaker 3: TV with Hey Dude since I've been at Hey Dude,
27:00
Speaker 3: which is really when you're you know, when you're logging
27:02
Speaker 3: onto Amazon Prime there's a spot there, a hey dude
27:05
Speaker 3: spot there, and so we've been doing those things. It's television,
27:08
Speaker 3: but it's not television. Like perhaps we grew up knowing
27:12
Speaker 3: we're not doing any print today. But we do have
27:16
Speaker 3: conversations about a little bit more analog. That really came
27:19
Speaker 3: up with the you know, the TikTok shutdown that was
27:23
Speaker 3: rumored and happened for a hot second, and maybe the
27:27
Speaker 3: move to analog is a you know, thinking opposites again, Bob, like,
27:31
Speaker 3: is there some things that we should be doing to
27:34
Speaker 3: connect with consumers who are not going to have this
27:36
Speaker 3: major platform. So all things are on the table. Of course,
27:39
Speaker 3: our website, SMS where we text message consumers about things
27:43
Speaker 3: that they opt into. No radio, but the variety of
27:48
Speaker 3: social media that we do, and then experiential you know,
27:52
Speaker 3: part of this trick for any footwear companies to get
27:54
Speaker 3: shoes on feet. So whether it's the Houston Rodeo coming
27:58
Speaker 3: up in a couple of weeks or Stagecoach where we'll be,
28:02
Speaker 3: or the waste management open places like that, we have
28:07
Speaker 3: huge activations to get our fans who always come by
28:11
Speaker 3: I love Hey dude, I've got five pairs or new
28:14
Speaker 3: folks to the party and say I've heard about it
28:17
Speaker 3: or I've never tried them on, and then we watched
28:19
Speaker 3: their face when they try them on, and away we go.
28:23
Speaker 3: I did a little event in Marshfield, Massachusetts. Hey Dude
28:26
Speaker 3: is based outside of Boston, and there's this cool little
28:30
Speaker 3: event called Flannel Jam every fall. It's at the Marshfield Fairgrounds,
28:35
Speaker 3: And so I went on a Saturday with the team,
28:38
Speaker 3: and you know, we sold like five thousand dollars worth
28:40
Speaker 3: of hay Dudes in just a couple of hours out
28:43
Speaker 3: of a makeshift van, and you know, spending that Saturday
28:47
Speaker 3: listen to all these jam bands doing some great stuff.
28:51
Speaker 3: The amount of people that were coming up to me
28:53
Speaker 3: that I love hay Dude, and the amount of people
28:57
Speaker 3: I saw wearing hay Dude that walked into the fairgrounds
29:00
Speaker 3: with them. So it's just a real exciting experience for
29:03
Speaker 3: me and showed the connection that we've got the folks
29:05
Speaker 3: that we've just got to continue to build this Hey
29:07
Speaker 3: Dude community and that's what we're after.
29:09
Speaker 2: So when it comes to online, there's TikTok, there's x
29:15
Speaker 2: slash Twitter, there's Instagram reels, there's regular Instagram with photos
29:19
Speaker 2: there's Facebook, what works and where are you?
29:25
Speaker 3: They all can work. TikTok is certainly our leader in
29:28
Speaker 3: the clubhouse because it's the fastest and it allows us
29:32
Speaker 3: to reach the most people. Our fan base has tripled
29:36
Speaker 3: since I've been at the brand on TikTok. But of
29:39
Speaker 3: course Facebook and Instagram and Instagram reels are a huge
29:42
Speaker 3: part of what we're up to. Twitter, where we have
29:46
Speaker 3: an account or x, we are not active on it.
29:50
Speaker 3: We just don't find that to be a productive use
29:52
Speaker 3: of our time. It's a different platform for a brand
29:56
Speaker 3: like ours. Others do it well, but we're just not
29:58
Speaker 3: unlocking that. We want people to explore us through those sites.
30:11
Speaker 2: Okay, how let me put your marketing hat on. We're
30:13
Speaker 2: in a political era where the Democrats are beaten to
30:18
Speaker 2: the ground. The Republicans are dominating both in social discourse
30:23
Speaker 2: and power. One of the things about the last election was, oh,
30:27
Speaker 2: the Republicans were on podcasts, they were here that in
30:32
Speaker 2: terms of it's mostly baby boomer some gen xers. What
30:36
Speaker 2: do they not know and should know about how you
30:39
Speaker 2: reach customers today? Because we speak about the Democratic Party,
30:42
Speaker 2: they didn't And you live in this territory twenty four
30:46
Speaker 2: to seven. So if you were advising them, it doesn't
30:49
Speaker 2: necessarily have to be the Democrats. How do you get
30:51
Speaker 2: your message out?
30:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think seems like the Democrats have a more
30:56
Speaker 3: popular message, but the way they say it or share
30:59
Speaker 3: it just does not come across as authentic as the
31:02
Speaker 3: guy that won. Say what you want about the President
31:05
Speaker 3: of the United States, and certainly there's been plenty written
31:07
Speaker 3: about him, but he just says seemingly what it's on
31:11
Speaker 3: his mind, without a filter, and that seems to connect.
31:16
Speaker 3: If you measure by the fact that he won the election,
31:18
Speaker 3: that would say he connected. And I don't get the
31:22
Speaker 3: sense that the left does that to the same degree.
31:26
Speaker 3: It just feels more calculated, and Trump just comes across
31:31
Speaker 3: as real, which is how we started this discussion. Brands
31:34
Speaker 3: or politicians or anyone who just comes across as real,
31:39
Speaker 3: I think just has a better shot at success.
31:43
Speaker 2: Well that's half of it, and that's really important. But
31:46
Speaker 2: in terms of you know, the ratings for cable television,
31:50
Speaker 2: you know they don't have even a million people watching.
31:53
Speaker 2: So has there been a complete shift of the customer
31:57
Speaker 2: to social media too, alternative outlets? And many people don't
32:04
Speaker 2: realize this. In the so called establishment or is it
32:07
Speaker 2: more well, something works here and something works there.
32:11
Speaker 3: No, it's the it's the former. Like there, listen, I'm
32:14
Speaker 3: a gen xer. I'm astounded by my own adoption of
32:21
Speaker 3: social media. I'll give you an example. You know, I
32:24
Speaker 3: travel a lot in my role, and you know, one
32:26
Speaker 3: of the joys of travel in a weird way used
32:29
Speaker 3: to be you throw it. You check into your hotel room,
32:32
Speaker 3: you throw your bag on the ground right, and you
32:34
Speaker 3: turn the television on. I can't remember the last time
32:38
Speaker 3: I turned the television on in a hotel room. I
32:42
Speaker 3: have an iPad and for the brief time I have
32:46
Speaker 3: I sit in the chair in the corner of the
32:48
Speaker 3: hotel room or on the bed, and I scroll social
32:50
Speaker 3: media a variety of things. Twitter to get my news, TikTok,
32:55
Speaker 3: to be informed or entertained, or to laugh, to get
33:01
Speaker 3: dining tips in the city that I might be in.
33:03
Speaker 3: This looks like a cool spot. I don't turn the
33:05
Speaker 3: television on unless there's a sporting event, and even that
33:09
Speaker 3: I can do on YouTube TV on my iPad. It's
33:11
Speaker 3: not as big as screen. But so I'm astounded of
33:14
Speaker 3: my own personal adoption as a gen xer. So you know,
33:18
Speaker 3: my daughters are digitally native, so if that kind of
33:22
Speaker 3: switch happens to me, I mean just folks and kids
33:26
Speaker 3: that are born into this which is now a whole generation.
33:30
Speaker 3: They don't consume anything the way we did, which is
33:34
Speaker 3: why brands like Hey Dude and Stanley before that are
33:37
Speaker 3: looking to connect where they are and that's where they are.
33:42
Speaker 2: Okay, you're a gen x er when you were out socially,
33:46
Speaker 2: when you're not working and you start talking about this,
33:50
Speaker 2: do you find the other people of your generation or
33:54
Speaker 2: the people that you interact with are saying, yeah, yeah,
33:57
Speaker 2: I saw that too, Or are they saying, oh, that's crap,
34:00
Speaker 2: I'm not Are you one an outlier or are you
34:04
Speaker 2: finding that many people are doing what you're doing.
34:08
Speaker 3: I don't know that I'm an outlier, but I'm in
34:11
Speaker 3: the minority for sure. For a gen xer, you know,
34:14
Speaker 3: there's always the there's the misperception that TikTok is just
34:18
Speaker 3: a bunch of young girls dancing, and I know those
34:23
Speaker 3: folks come across my for you page every once in
34:25
Speaker 3: a while, But I'm looking for like where's the best
34:29
Speaker 3: pub in London? And there's lots of answers. I live
34:33
Speaker 3: in Boston, and so somehow I'm my for you page,
34:37
Speaker 3: the algorithm or my geography. Some guy in a blue
34:40
Speaker 3: hat at Emmett's Pub in Boston never been there before.
34:43
Speaker 3: It turns out it's around the corner, and this guy's
34:46
Speaker 3: alleging it has the best poor of guinness in all
34:48
Speaker 3: of Boston. If it wasn't for TikTok, I wouldn't have known.
34:52
Speaker 3: It is a five minute walk from my apartment, and
34:56
Speaker 3: that is I mean, that's elixir of life. To know
35:00
Speaker 3: that there's people out there and these places exist. I
35:03
Speaker 3: never would have seen that on television, And Wow, how
35:08
Speaker 3: exciting is this? And so I think I'm the outlier
35:12
Speaker 3: because people just think it's a waste of time. And
35:14
Speaker 3: I know, as so do millions of people, that it's where.
35:17
Speaker 3: It's the town square, and that's where you can learn
35:20
Speaker 3: so many cool things, fun things, interesting things. It's just
35:25
Speaker 3: an incredible thing. I've watched more videos about airplane turbulence
35:28
Speaker 3: because I'm so scared of turbulence when I'm flying that
35:31
Speaker 3: I feel better now because I hear all these pilots
35:34
Speaker 3: telling me not to worry. And now I'm not going
35:36
Speaker 3: to see that on CNN or MTV or ESPN or
35:38
Speaker 3: just so man, it's so cool to be alive right now,
35:44
Speaker 3: to have all this at your fingertips. Which is why
35:46
Speaker 3: I don't turn a television on an hotel because I'm
35:48
Speaker 3: not gonna feel better about turbulence.
35:51
Speaker 2: Okay, did you say this is my job? I need
35:55
Speaker 2: to know more about social media? This is a project?
35:59
Speaker 2: Or how did you get started?
36:01
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm insatiably curious. Yeah, I want to know. I
36:07
Speaker 3: want to know what's around the corner. Personally, professionally. That
36:10
Speaker 3: is my life. I have an insatiable curiosity and an
36:14
Speaker 3: unmistakable sense of what's possible personally, professionally. So listen to
36:20
Speaker 3: when I was a kid, Bob. I'll never forget this.
36:24
Speaker 3: This is a real analogue, and viewers of a certain
36:27
Speaker 3: listeners of a certain age will get this. When I
36:31
Speaker 3: was thirteen years old, I was fortunate enough my parents
36:34
Speaker 3: took my brother and I to Bermuda, which you know Bermuda,
36:39
Speaker 3: you know this is unheard of, and we stayed at
36:43
Speaker 3: the Southampton Princess. I don't know if it's still there,
36:45
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter. I was more interested in the Reuter's
36:51
Speaker 3: ticker behind the front desk of the hotel than I
36:55
Speaker 3: was about going to the pool. I couldn't believe something
37:00
Speaker 3: like this existed, that I was getting all sorts of
37:03
Speaker 3: information in real time. Yeah, I'll never forget it. I
37:07
Speaker 3: can still see it through my mind's eye. I grew
37:10
Speaker 3: up in northern New Jersey, so I used to fall
37:12
Speaker 3: asleep to news radio eighty eight just also to get
37:17
Speaker 3: you know, there's always sports on the eights. So before
37:20
Speaker 3: the Internet, you couldn't get you know, it was Warner
37:23
Speaker 3: Wolf CBS at six thirty, and that's how you got
37:26
Speaker 3: your sports or you called sports phone, you know, get
37:30
Speaker 3: all the sports news instantly, dial nine seven six one
37:33
Speaker 3: three one three. So like, these things are just this
37:37
Speaker 3: is just an extension of how I've been all of
37:40
Speaker 3: my life, and the fact that this all exists astounds me.
37:45
Speaker 3: So what is coming around the corner? AI? AI for
37:52
Speaker 3: good and for bad?
37:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's okay, I'm interested in this. That's certainly the
37:57
Speaker 2: popular topic. Tell me what's coming around the corner and
38:01
Speaker 2: how it's going to affect both your business and the
38:03
Speaker 2: average citizen.
38:05
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, it's certainly going to allow us to tell
38:08
Speaker 3: incredible messages to people fast and in ways that inspire
38:13
Speaker 3: and interrupt. It's happening right now and it's still in
38:18
Speaker 3: its infancy. The ways that we can communicate, the ways
38:23
Speaker 3: we can interview and hire as an employer. It's all
38:27
Speaker 3: just a few short years away from major shifts. But
38:31
Speaker 3: from a marketing perspective and a brand building perspective, the
38:34
Speaker 3: opportunity and the danger you have is quite a responsibility
38:40
Speaker 3: to do it right. You know, I was an astounded,
38:44
Speaker 3: you know last week that the Beatles want a Grammy
38:47
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty five using AI and what does that mean?
38:53
Speaker 3: You know, the Beatles is kind of a benchmark of
38:55
Speaker 3: so many things for so many people. Well, did that
38:58
Speaker 3: open the floodgates for it? Was almost a stamp of
39:01
Speaker 3: approval or was it something different or more? Really perplexed
39:06
Speaker 3: by that question and the outcome of that, but also
39:10
Speaker 3: thrilling in a way that that kind of thing can occur.
39:15
Speaker 3: So it's a really amazing thing that you know, we're
39:19
Speaker 3: doing at hey dude, and doing it in small birds,
39:21
Speaker 3: mostly on the creative side. But we're going to see
39:25
Speaker 3: how that continues to evolve. But that's certainly a major
39:28
Speaker 3: thing of what's next.
39:29
Speaker 2: So how are you using it on the creative side?
39:33
Speaker 3: Just to certainly fine tune photo shoots. And we recently
39:39
Speaker 3: did a partnership, one of our collaborations with the brand Ferbie,
39:43
Speaker 3: you know, those acute little characters a fuzz line Ferbie
39:46
Speaker 3: shoe and our entire ad, if you call it ad,
39:49
Speaker 3: the experience and the way we communicated that was all
39:52
Speaker 3: through AI. And there's you know, pundits that we're calling
39:56
Speaker 3: it the ad of the week just two or three
39:58
Speaker 3: weeks ago because it breaks through and it's a really
40:02
Speaker 3: interesting and how we did it was really innovative, and
40:04
Speaker 3: it makes you stop your thumb scrolling, and that's part
40:08
Speaker 3: of the game. And so there's other things dangerously going around,
40:11
Speaker 3: just you know, when we're recording this of celebrities being
40:16
Speaker 3: misinterpreted with AI about Kanye West, and I'm sure you've
40:19
Speaker 3: seen today that's really really scary and terrible. And how
40:24
Speaker 3: we put you know, guardrails around that I don't pretend
40:28
Speaker 3: to know, but we're going to have to figure that out.
40:31
Speaker 2: Okay, anything else you could say that it's around the
40:33
Speaker 2: corner besides AI.
40:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the thing that comes to mind, you know,
40:37
Speaker 3: most importantly, I think faster Ways to get you product
40:42
Speaker 3: is also around the corner. Of course, you know Amazon,
40:46
Speaker 3: you know you see these drone deliveries, which sounds you know,
40:48
Speaker 3: out of science fiction, but that's you know, that's coming.
40:54
Speaker 3: So it's just a matter of how interruptive it is
40:56
Speaker 3: or how distracting or annoying it is, and a level
40:59
Speaker 3: of that that society is going to accept. But that's
41:04
Speaker 3: certainly people want things faster, they want it now, and
41:08
Speaker 3: if a drone or something can fly it to you,
41:10
Speaker 3: people are going to want that. And it's just a
41:13
Speaker 3: matter of how is it that also relegated regulated, and
41:18
Speaker 3: how's the experience not you know, an effrontery to people
41:23
Speaker 3: who are not ordering things. That's the trick.
41:25
Speaker 2: Okay, you talked originally about fast and young females. Are
41:31
Speaker 2: you saying you want to activate young females because you
41:34
Speaker 2: have a fashion product or can you say across the
41:38
Speaker 2: board they are the most active and reactive.
41:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, great, great point all the above. So, as I
41:46
Speaker 3: think I said earlier, you know, youth culture drives culture, right,
41:49
Speaker 3: but more than ever before, youth female culture drives culture.
41:54
Speaker 3: Women more than ever before, you know, are traveling and
41:58
Speaker 3: going out in packs. Women typically are bigger fans of
42:04
Speaker 3: footwear than guys, they have a bigger community. In addition
42:09
Speaker 3: to the type group that they have, they also have
42:12
Speaker 3: larger communities and they like to share what they love
42:16
Speaker 3: and that influences their friends or their peer groups, and
42:20
Speaker 3: so all of those things lead us to that's where
42:24
Speaker 3: culture is. And if more women can fall in love
42:27
Speaker 3: with a funny little brand with a funny little name,
42:32
Speaker 3: there's a there's a great opportunity there to reach more
42:35
Speaker 3: people because, as I learned from you know, my last place,
42:40
Speaker 3: people want what's cool, and they want what's cool in America.
42:45
Speaker 3: Around the world, people want what's cool in America, and women,
42:49
Speaker 3: young women are letting the world know what's cool in America.
42:54
Speaker 2: Okay, Hey Dude has a male connotation. Is that a
43:00
Speaker 2: point of friction or you think about changing the name
43:03
Speaker 2: at some point?
43:04
Speaker 3: No, not at all. It's not a neither. That is
43:07
Speaker 3: our name. It's a funny little name. But you know,
43:10
Speaker 3: forty percent of our businesses female consumers already, so there's
43:15
Speaker 3: no no worries there. We just need to showcase more
43:21
Speaker 3: female focused styles, certainly showcase more ways to wear Hey
43:28
Speaker 3: Dude for young women, and that's part of the what
43:31
Speaker 3: we're up to as well. Part of the Sydney Sweeney
43:33
Speaker 3: work and all those other things, but not not an
43:37
Speaker 3: impediment at all. In fact, you know, women call each
43:40
Speaker 3: other bro dude. You know one of the top two
43:44
Speaker 3: three podcasts is Alex Cooper's Call Me Daddy. Right, So
43:50
Speaker 3: there's a power and ownership of these kind of things
43:53
Speaker 3: that women have taken. And as exciting time, let's assume
43:58
Speaker 3: you will have a product that you want to sell
44:02
Speaker 3: to males. Are you telling us that the best way
44:05
Speaker 3: to reach males is to reach the women and then
44:08
Speaker 3: they'll tell the males. That's certainly true. That is certainly true.
44:15
Speaker 3: Certainly from a gift giving perspective. You know, a lot
44:18
Speaker 3: of guys are just hey, throw another new size eleven
44:21
Speaker 3: in the cart. You know, guys are like that, right,
44:24
Speaker 3: But guys also want what's cool, they want what's comfortable.
44:28
Speaker 3: Guys also want what's dependable, and so from a fashion standpoint,
44:34
Speaker 3: most guys are fast fashion or they're just comfortable. And
44:38
Speaker 3: we want to make sure the guys that love us,
44:40
Speaker 3: and there's lots of them, stay in love with Hey, dude,
44:43
Speaker 3: but we certainly want to bring a lot more people
44:44
Speaker 3: into the tent.
44:46
Speaker 2: Okay, you have all this focus on women, yet the
44:50
Speaker 2: conversation at large is the opposite. Why do people not
44:55
Speaker 2: know this extreme power of women question?
45:01
Speaker 3: It's a great question. I don't know the answer to that.
45:03
Speaker 2: I do.
45:04
Speaker 3: So that's what I'm focused on with the Heydude team
45:09
Speaker 3: is making sure that we're bringing more people into the
45:12
Speaker 3: tent and recognizing the purchasing power, the cultural power, the
45:18
Speaker 3: community power of women in twenty twenty five.
45:29
Speaker 2: Okay, you said you're from New Jersey. What did your
45:31
Speaker 2: parents do for a living?
45:34
Speaker 3: My father was My parents grew up in the Bronx,
45:38
Speaker 3: New York. I was born in New York City. My
45:42
Speaker 3: father was in the United States Navy on the USS
45:45
Speaker 3: Wasp post World War Two, and he left the Navy
45:50
Speaker 3: and started fixing typewriters in New York City for IBM
45:55
Speaker 3: in the suit in the uh you know, the shoes
45:59
Speaker 3: carrying the case fix and typewriters, and he, like so
46:05
Speaker 3: many folks of his generation, worked his way to become
46:08
Speaker 3: an executive with IBM. We moved a lot as a
46:13
Speaker 3: young guy. As a young kid, we moved a few
46:15
Speaker 3: times before I was ten years old, and my dad
46:19
Speaker 3: raised you know, me and my brother and did well
46:23
Speaker 3: enough that my mom could raise us. You know, my
46:25
Speaker 3: mom didn't work outside of the home, but she certainly
46:28
Speaker 3: worked because she had myself and my brother. We made
46:31
Speaker 3: her work hard. So we were fortunate to grow up
46:34
Speaker 3: in northern New Jersey for you know, since I was
46:36
Speaker 3: ten years old and my dad carved it out and is,
46:41
Speaker 3: you know, an incredible guy. We're nothing alike, but he
46:46
Speaker 3: is an incredible guy. Still with us. Both my parents are,
46:49
Speaker 3: thank goodness, and that's what they did. They lived the
46:54
Speaker 3: American dream.
46:55
Speaker 2: Okay that moving around as a young child, having to
46:58
Speaker 2: fit in, did that effect your personality for sure?
47:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, it affects me to this day. So move to
47:08
Speaker 3: U born in New York City, lived upstate New York
47:12
Speaker 3: or Westchester, and then moved to Virginia and Illinois, all
47:17
Speaker 3: before I was ten. And so the fear of walking
47:21
Speaker 3: into a new cafeteria is still with me today. I
47:27
Speaker 3: don't like walking into office cafeteria. I don't like looking
47:34
Speaker 3: for somebody to sit with. That is was then and
47:37
Speaker 3: it still carries with me all these years later. I'm
47:40
Speaker 3: certainly more comfortable than I ever was, and I certainly
47:43
Speaker 3: do that because that's part of the job when you're
47:46
Speaker 3: leading a company, but it's certainly part of my psychology
47:52
Speaker 3: and how I enter any room.
47:56
Speaker 2: Okay, you have this anxiety, but concommonly, is there a
48:00
Speaker 2: positive element of this?
48:05
Speaker 3: It's a good question. Probably not a positive quality to that.
48:10
Speaker 3: That's a I mean a positive quality of moving around
48:12
Speaker 3: having to interact with me. Oh sure, oh, I said,
48:15
Speaker 3: of course, yeah, of course, yes. You know, I had
48:17
Speaker 3: an appreciation for other things before I was ten years old.
48:21
Speaker 3: You know, I knew you know, I knew where things were.
48:26
Speaker 3: I knew what Chicago looked like. When I was nine,
48:29
Speaker 3: you know, I knew what you know, the nation's capital
48:31
Speaker 3: we lived in Northern Virginia looked like. I knew what
48:34
Speaker 3: what I knew, the kids like the Bears. You know,
48:37
Speaker 3: you don't know these things, especially in the seventies, or
48:40
Speaker 3: you don't, but I did, And so it gave me
48:43
Speaker 3: an appreciation for maybe that always what's around the corner
48:46
Speaker 3: kind of a mentality that I had because I didn't
48:50
Speaker 3: know if we were ever going to be staying wherever
48:51
Speaker 3: we were because of my father's job, which was you know, thrilling, exciting,
48:56
Speaker 3: but also daunting when you get that we're going to move.
48:58
Speaker 3: So so yeah, of course, I think there's a lot
49:01
Speaker 3: of good, but the anxiety of that cafeteria table, which
49:04
Speaker 3: I took to my daughter's Unfortunately, you know, we moved
49:07
Speaker 3: a few times, I sadly, you know, cursed my daughters
49:10
Speaker 3: with the same thing my father cursed me, and I
49:12
Speaker 3: put curse and quotes, of course, but one of my
49:15
Speaker 3: first questions through my girls when we moved is you
49:17
Speaker 3: know who did you eat lunch with? It wasn't what
49:21
Speaker 3: did you learn, It wasn't how school, It was who
49:25
Speaker 3: did you have lunch with? And I would ask that
49:27
Speaker 3: question with my eyes kind of winced and my teeth gritted,
49:31
Speaker 3: because I know what that's like. And so I was
49:33
Speaker 3: transferring some of my whatever that is psychosis or anxiety
49:38
Speaker 3: on them unfairly, But it meant something to me because
49:41
Speaker 3: I know what it's like, and it hurt then, and
49:43
Speaker 3: I didn't want my daughters to feel the same thing.
49:46
Speaker 2: So what's your personality? Are you more of a lone
49:50
Speaker 2: or outsider? Are you the type of person who has
49:53
Speaker 2: a million friends and is contacting people all day?
49:56
Speaker 3: I have the same friends since I moved to New
49:59
Speaker 3: Jersey and fifth grade. We're all on a text thread
50:05
Speaker 3: every day. So I've got a tight circle of friends
50:09
Speaker 3: since I was eleven years old ten years old, which
50:14
Speaker 3: is an amazing thing to say, in an amazing gift.
50:18
Speaker 3: But then I make new friends along the way, and
50:20
Speaker 3: the friends that I make I'm really really close with
50:23
Speaker 3: and have influenced my life, you know, even my career.
50:27
Speaker 3: Some of the most important people in my life are
50:29
Speaker 3: people that influence my career who I've ended up being
50:32
Speaker 3: the best of friends with. So it's tight. I'm not
50:36
Speaker 3: the life of the party ever, but I'm comfortable being alone.
50:42
Speaker 3: But the friends that I have are deep and meaningful
50:46
Speaker 3: and long.
50:47
Speaker 2: So let's say I say, Hey, we're going to go
50:50
Speaker 2: to a party. You don't know anybody, none of them
50:52
Speaker 2: work in your business, so you're gonna say, hey, let's go.
50:55
Speaker 2: You say, well, you're gonna see Well, you know, maybe
50:56
Speaker 2: I'd rather stay home.
50:59
Speaker 3: I would prefer not to go, but when I go,
51:04
Speaker 3: I'm you know, I'm an irishman, right, So I do
51:09
Speaker 3: have that certain gift of gab when I choose to gab,
51:13
Speaker 3: and I've got a lot of really cool stories to
51:15
Speaker 3: tell and a really good life experience that people like
51:19
Speaker 3: to hear. When I end up sharing some of it,
51:22
Speaker 3: so I don't wear the lampshade, but I can get after.
51:27
Speaker 2: It, Okay, good student, bad student.
51:32
Speaker 3: I was average at everything, average at everything, good not
51:39
Speaker 3: I don't know why, but average at everything, and you know,
51:45
Speaker 3: medium part of my class, if you know what I mean.
51:49
Speaker 3: But I was a late bloomer, you know. And I
51:51
Speaker 3: also just because of that moving around, I think I
51:53
Speaker 3: lacked a lot of confidence that I didn't know I
51:56
Speaker 3: was actually good at quite a few things when I
51:58
Speaker 3: was in middle school and high school. That it turns out,
52:02
Speaker 3: you know, later in life, you start to realize, you
52:05
Speaker 3: know what, maybe I was better if I had some confidence,
52:07
Speaker 3: or had a different kind of coach or somebody, things
52:11
Speaker 3: could have been different then. But I'm not hung up
52:13
Speaker 3: on any of that. I just, you know, it was
52:17
Speaker 3: a late bloomer. I remember you couldn't you back in
52:20
Speaker 3: those days, and maybe they still do it. You had
52:22
Speaker 3: to do like the eight mile run, you know, you
52:24
Speaker 3: had to run for eight eight minute eight minute run
52:27
Speaker 3: or something like that, whatever it was, eight minute mile,
52:29
Speaker 3: there you go, man, and something you know in middle
52:31
Speaker 3: school and I hated it, like I was out of breath,
52:33
Speaker 3: like I couldn't do it, you know, it was kind
52:35
Speaker 3: of a little chubby, little pudgy little guy. And my
52:38
Speaker 3: favorite baseball player at that age was Carlton Fists because
52:41
Speaker 3: his nickname was Pudge. You know, it was like looking
52:44
Speaker 3: for connection and I couldn't do it like I just was.
52:48
Speaker 3: But you know, years later, I've run three marathons in
52:50
Speaker 3: under four hours. You know, So these things happen. Life
52:54
Speaker 3: is long, and if you're going to be hung up
52:56
Speaker 3: on who you were, well that's a waste of your life.
52:58
Speaker 3: And so the the things that have happened in my
53:01
Speaker 3: life and even just the last fifteen years have been
53:03
Speaker 3: extraordinary career wise, personally, so many amazing things.
53:09
Speaker 2: So you graduate from high school, then what.
53:13
Speaker 3: I go to college in New Jersey. Well, actually I
53:15
Speaker 3: started college at Northeastern up in Boston, and I hate
53:18
Speaker 3: to say it, I think I chose Northeastern because I
53:21
Speaker 3: was a giant and still I am a big fan of
53:24
Speaker 3: the Red Sox, the Bruins, the Patriots, and the Celtics.
53:27
Speaker 3: And a word to your listeners, that's not the reason
53:30
Speaker 3: to choose a college or university. But I was a
53:34
Speaker 3: huge fan of those teams and that's why I chose Northeastern.
53:39
Speaker 3: But I was too immature to know what to do.
53:43
Speaker 3: My high school and grammar school friends were no longer
53:46
Speaker 3: with me, and I did not adapt well. And I
53:50
Speaker 3: also just didn't like the city environment. I wasn't ready
53:53
Speaker 3: for that then. So I transferred to a little known
53:56
Speaker 3: Rider University in New Jersey, and you know, graduated, I
54:02
Speaker 3: don't know two point eight, two point nine, you know,
54:05
Speaker 3: something like that. It was an unremarkable scholastic career. But
54:10
Speaker 3: I graduated, and I got a job right out of college.
54:13
Speaker 2: But just before this, when you're going to Rider, yeah,
54:15
Speaker 2: are you living at home? Are you living in an apartment?
54:18
Speaker 3: I'm living in the dorm. I was a resident advisor
54:21
Speaker 3: for two and a half years at Ryder, So you know,
54:25
Speaker 3: you got your own room. There's a little bit of
54:27
Speaker 3: evidence there right right right, And you got a phone,
54:32
Speaker 3: which mattered then, and you didn't you didn't have to
54:35
Speaker 3: pay for and I got a little bit of scratch,
54:38
Speaker 3: so I had some spending money. And you know, an
54:42
Speaker 3: unremarkable career at Ryder. That there's they wouldn't remember me,
54:49
Speaker 3: and they shouldn't remember me.
54:51
Speaker 2: So you graduated, and you did what I graduated.
54:54
Speaker 3: And this is the day, Bob, where you know one
54:56
Speaker 3: hundred envelopes, one hundred resumes, one hundred stamps, and you
55:00
Speaker 3: send them out. I can't even imagine this was a thing,
55:05
Speaker 3: just hoping it got there, hoping somebody opened it, hoping
55:09
Speaker 3: somebody would call you back. What And I got a
55:15
Speaker 3: call back? You know, my mom got a call back.
55:17
Speaker 3: You know, this is the day. You know, I was
55:18
Speaker 3: living at home and my mom would answer, Terrence, it's
55:20
Speaker 3: for you, you know, and it's your possible future employer. The
55:24
Speaker 3: thought of that is so staggering today. But I got
55:27
Speaker 3: a job with the MWW Group, a PR agency in
55:31
Speaker 3: northern New Jersey. At the time, I think I was
55:34
Speaker 3: one of the first ten employees of the MWW Group.
55:38
Speaker 3: And now if you drive by MetLife Stadium in New Jersey,
55:43
Speaker 3: you'll see the W building on the other side of
55:47
Speaker 3: MetLife Stadium. So Michael Kempner and the group that hired
55:51
Speaker 3: me then still run it and grow it into a
55:54
Speaker 3: huge agency. But this is really funny. So I get
55:58
Speaker 3: this job, right, and I'm an account coordinator at twenty two,
56:02
Speaker 3: twenty three years old, and you know, you're getting press
56:05
Speaker 3: clippings and you have to clip them out for the
56:07
Speaker 3: different clients of the agency from Burrell's or you know,
56:10
Speaker 3: and you're cutting and pasting them and using you know,
56:12
Speaker 3: glue tape to you know, this is what you did.
56:15
Speaker 3: And I filled in for the receptionist when she went
56:17
Speaker 3: to lunch, and I had to get the coffee supplies
56:20
Speaker 3: every Monday morning for the office for the week. And
56:22
Speaker 3: that's what you do when you're twenty two. And they
56:24
Speaker 3: gave me a little account. This is a PR agency
56:27
Speaker 3: and I'm an account coordinator, so cut your chops on this, Terrence.
56:32
Speaker 3: And they gave me a little indoor amusement park in Paramus,
56:36
Speaker 3: New Jersey called sports World. And at the time whatever
56:41
Speaker 3: this is, nineteen ninety one, right around there, this indoor
56:45
Speaker 3: amusement park was a pretty cool thing. It was a
56:47
Speaker 3: giant box at inside where bumper cars and cafeteria with
56:52
Speaker 3: you know, hot dogs and popcorn and rides and ball
56:54
Speaker 3: pits and all sorts of stuff, and it was a
56:56
Speaker 3: really popular place. What am I going to do with
56:58
Speaker 3: this as a PR account coordinator? You know, press release
57:02
Speaker 3: to say here, have your kid's birthday party here, or
57:06
Speaker 3: they got a new ride whatever. Not exactly exciting stuff.
57:11
Speaker 3: But one evening, just as I'm about to go home.
57:14
Speaker 3: The desk phone, big giant desk phone rings and I
57:18
Speaker 3: pick it up and it's the owner of Sports World.
57:23
Speaker 3: It says, Terrence, get down here, Like, what's wrong? Because
57:27
Speaker 3: Terrence get down here with somebody hurt? Is anything wrong?
57:31
Speaker 3: He's like, no, Michael Jackson has rented the place for
57:35
Speaker 3: the night. What so, Yeah, Michael Jackson is here and
57:41
Speaker 3: he's rented the place for the night. We're closed, so
57:45
Speaker 3: all right now, I gotta be honest with you, Bob.
57:47
Speaker 3: If the iPhone existed, then I probably would have gone
57:52
Speaker 3: down to Sports World to what to try and get
57:55
Speaker 3: a selfie with Michael Jackson. But it didn't exist. So
58:00
Speaker 3: instead of taking my iPhone, which didn't exist in nineteen
58:02
Speaker 3: ninety one, I got on the phone and I called
58:07
Speaker 3: every assignment desk that I had in my Bacon's Guide.
58:13
Speaker 3: I know where Michael Jackson is tonight. Called me back,
58:15
Speaker 3: I know where Michael Jackson is tonight. The phone rang
58:21
Speaker 3: like it was you know, so everybody called me back
58:25
Speaker 3: and lo and behold. The next day and the next week,
58:28
Speaker 3: I had the biggest score in the history of the
58:30
Speaker 3: Young MWW group and change my career there. I promoted
58:38
Speaker 3: to an account executive and now I'm working with Continental Airlines,
58:41
Speaker 3: you know. And that's what can happen in life if
58:43
Speaker 3: you're ready for your audition. And so that was a
58:46
Speaker 3: gift to me, and that changed my career at the
58:50
Speaker 3: MWW group as a twenty three year old. Next thing
58:52
Speaker 3: I know, I'm on the runway at Continental Airlines in Newark,
58:55
Speaker 3: New Jersey with Lloyd Benson, you know. So it's amazing
59:01
Speaker 3: what can happen in a young career if you're ready
59:03
Speaker 3: for the moment.
59:05
Speaker 2: Okay, you go to Continental, play it out from there.
59:12
Speaker 3: So I just didn't know if I liked doing what
59:15
Speaker 3: I was doing, and so I went to work for
59:17
Speaker 3: a nonprofit in northern New Jersey, a long term care
59:21
Speaker 3: facility and psychiatric hospital. Yeah, the real fun stuff, Bob, And.
59:28
Speaker 2: Wait, wait just to stay there. Yeah, you're working with
59:30
Speaker 2: an amusement park, you're working with Continental era Lines. What
59:34
Speaker 2: is the motivation? I don't money? To get escape where
59:38
Speaker 2: you were? Why'd you do it?
59:41
Speaker 3: I don't have an answer for that. Genius or stupidity
59:45
Speaker 3: or somewhere in between, because it wasn't the money. It
59:47
Speaker 3: was a nonprofit. But I just wanted to try something else.
59:55
Speaker 3: And so I'm working for this medical center. It's a nonprofit,
1:00:00
Speaker 3: as I mentioned, and so one of my responsibilities was
1:00:03
Speaker 3: to put together an annual fundraising dinner, you know, the
1:00:06
Speaker 3: rubber chicken round table, and a whole bunch of donors
1:00:10
Speaker 3: and supporters arrive and I'm giving an appeal, you know,
1:00:13
Speaker 3: from the dais the main stage there with the podium,
1:00:17
Speaker 3: and I have a photo of this, which is a
1:00:19
Speaker 3: surreptitious photo that I didn't know I even had or
1:00:21
Speaker 3: somebody took it. But in the front row, in the
1:00:24
Speaker 3: front table, with his back to me was a gentleman
1:00:28
Speaker 3: who the next morning called me and I thought, oh wow,
1:00:33
Speaker 3: I got one of these high rollers to write a
1:00:35
Speaker 3: big check to the medical center. Look at me, I've
1:00:39
Speaker 3: got a big score. And he says, let's go to
1:00:44
Speaker 3: breakfast tomorrow. We go to breakfast that I'm ready for
1:00:47
Speaker 3: him to write a big check, and he says, I
1:00:48
Speaker 3: want you to be my marketing manager for Amror Prize.
1:00:53
Speaker 3: I don't know this guy, never met him.
1:00:56
Speaker 2: In my life.
1:00:57
Speaker 3: And this was actually called American Express Financially Advisors at
1:01:00
Speaker 3: the time part of American Express, and now it's Amerorprize,
1:01:03
Speaker 3: which is one of the leading financial companies in the world,
1:01:08
Speaker 3: and so I go get my series seven, series sixty three,
1:01:11
Speaker 3: Series sixty five to sell a market financial products in
1:01:17
Speaker 3: northern New Jersey. And what luck, you know. And you know,
1:01:22
Speaker 3: I think he got my salary from like twenty six
1:01:25
Speaker 3: thousand to fifty eight thousand, which was ridiculous, you know.
1:01:30
Speaker 3: But I'm now in a new field, and I bounced
1:01:34
Speaker 3: around the financial services for a while, and I passed
1:01:38
Speaker 3: another audition as I had this really cool idea to
1:01:41
Speaker 3: invite people to the movies to correct new customers. You know,
1:01:45
Speaker 3: we were looking for mom and pop to come in
1:01:49
Speaker 3: and talk about their financial goals and do a financial plan.
1:01:53
Speaker 3: And so I invited them to the movies, your local cinema,
1:01:59
Speaker 3: and before for the movie, I would do a ten
1:02:01
Speaker 3: minute presentation on realizing life's streams through financial planning, and
1:02:06
Speaker 3: I would film movie theaters because everybody loves the movies.
1:02:10
Speaker 3: And out of that we would get a few appointments
1:02:12
Speaker 3: and people would come in to meet with financial planners
1:02:15
Speaker 3: and we did some good business that way. And one
1:02:18
Speaker 3: night an executive from Prudential. Again I'm from New Jersey.
1:02:21
Speaker 3: Prudential is one of the leading employers in New Jersey
1:02:24
Speaker 3: and a powerhouse is in the audience, and she calls
1:02:28
Speaker 3: me the next day says you should come work for
1:02:31
Speaker 3: me in Newark, the headquarters. So I did, and Lisa
1:02:35
Speaker 3: is still one of my best friends today. She was
1:02:38
Speaker 3: just with my daughter in London a couple of weeks ago.
1:02:42
Speaker 3: But Bob, I hated it. I hated financial services. It
1:02:45
Speaker 3: was not for me. I really fell. I was a
1:02:49
Speaker 3: young guy, still thirty and a daughter one on the way,
1:02:54
Speaker 3: and I'm a vice.
1:02:55
Speaker 2: Oh well, wait, just to take a side route here.
1:02:58
Speaker 2: Where do you meet your wife in when? Yeah, so
1:03:02
Speaker 2: I meet her.
1:03:04
Speaker 3: We both had a summer job in college, and we
1:03:10
Speaker 3: knew each other from the hallways of our summer job.
1:03:13
Speaker 3: And one Friday evening on Route seventeen in Paramus, New Jersey,
1:03:19
Speaker 3: there was a Compact disc World And you and many
1:03:22
Speaker 3: of your listeners recognize the power of compact discs and
1:03:25
Speaker 3: CDs in the late eighties early nineties, and how Friday
1:03:30
Speaker 3: was payday and you made a pilgrimager. I did CD
1:03:34
Speaker 3: World on Fridays to just get what I needed to get.
1:03:38
Speaker 3: And so as I'm browsing through the s's Springsteen Southside,
1:03:44
Speaker 3: little Steven Sinatra I am from New Jersey. She walks
1:03:48
Speaker 3: in and I recognize her from our summer job, and
1:03:53
Speaker 3: we talked for a few minutes. And then the next
1:03:57
Speaker 3: day we saw each other in the hall. What did
1:03:58
Speaker 3: you buy? Then we started trading CDs and now your
1:04:04
Speaker 3: two daughters later in all these years, so music again
1:04:09
Speaker 3: shows up in my life in an unexpected and surreptitious way.
1:04:20
Speaker 2: Okay, since you met her and she's your age contemporary,
1:04:25
Speaker 2: what was she doing career wise? And to what degree
1:04:29
Speaker 2: was she advising you on your career?
1:04:33
Speaker 3: So she spent thirty five years with a major accounting firm,
1:04:41
Speaker 3: one of the big I don't remember. I think it
1:04:44
Speaker 3: was Big eight when she started. He went to eight
1:04:47
Speaker 3: to five, you know, I don't know. She was with
1:04:51
Speaker 3: one of the last one standing just until recently. So
1:04:56
Speaker 3: thirty five years, and the gift that she gave us
1:05:01
Speaker 3: was stability. She was working from home before COVID, twenty
1:05:08
Speaker 3: years before COVID, and knew how to balance all that,
1:05:11
Speaker 3: do an incredible job and raise two remarkable young women,
1:05:14
Speaker 3: two daughters that I mentioned earlier, And so that was
1:05:17
Speaker 3: an incredible gift to us. And she was able through
1:05:22
Speaker 3: you know, the firm's generosity because she did great for them.
1:05:24
Speaker 3: They did great by her that we could move to
1:05:28
Speaker 3: the various places that I moved. Is this career arc
1:05:30
Speaker 3: that I'm walking you through or boring you with and
1:05:33
Speaker 3: starts to unfold and so an incredible gift that you
1:05:37
Speaker 3: know she received and that you know we were both
1:05:40
Speaker 3: fortunate to have.
1:05:42
Speaker 2: So she's a CPA, she is not.
1:05:44
Speaker 3: She she did a lot of the training and the
1:05:49
Speaker 3: things that CPAs and the firm needs to keep licensed
1:05:53
Speaker 3: and keep you know, keep them honest.
1:05:57
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're in financial services, you hate it? Yeah,
1:06:01
Speaker 2: so what's the next step. So I'm in the headquarters.
1:06:05
Speaker 2: I'm a vice president of.
1:06:06
Speaker 3: Marketing for Prudential. This should be the dream of every
1:06:09
Speaker 3: kid from New Jersey, right, you know the Devil's play
1:06:12
Speaker 3: in the Prudential Center, And it was, you know, I
1:06:15
Speaker 3: was bored of being bored because boredom is boredom. And
1:06:20
Speaker 3: a friend of mine calls me and says, hey, there's
1:06:22
Speaker 3: a company out of Dallas, Texas called foot Action that
1:06:26
Speaker 3: is relocating to Mahwan, New Jersey, and nobody wants to go.
1:06:31
Speaker 3: Nobody wants to relocate from Dallas to Mahwan, New Jersey.
1:06:37
Speaker 3: So you should talk to this guy that I know great.
1:06:42
Speaker 3: So I talked to this guy and it happens to
1:06:44
Speaker 3: be Willie Smith. Will Smith, not the Fresh Prince, but
1:06:49
Speaker 3: Will Smith, and he's the vice president of marketing for
1:06:53
Speaker 3: foot Action in mahwan, New Jersey. And will takes a
1:06:58
Speaker 3: chance on this financial services guy and I go backwards
1:07:02
Speaker 3: in life from a VP at thirty two years old
1:07:06
Speaker 3: to a director of marketing for foot Action. Foot Action
1:07:10
Speaker 3: still exists, but at the time it was the leading footwear,
1:07:14
Speaker 3: casual sneaker brand for young kids. And Bob within three months,
1:07:22
Speaker 3: I'm going from selling mutual funds, annuities, and long term
1:07:25
Speaker 3: care insurance to being on stage with Beyonce in Houston, Texas.
1:07:32
Speaker 3: I have a photo to prove it. A couple of
1:07:35
Speaker 3: weeks later, I'm on stage at the Apollo Theater because
1:07:38
Speaker 3: we worked with Nike, because we sell a lot of
1:07:40
Speaker 3: Jordan's and air Force ones, and we opened a new
1:07:43
Speaker 3: store on one hundred and twenty fifth Street, and the
1:07:45
Speaker 3: only way to get tickets to the Nike wake up
1:07:47
Speaker 3: call at the Apollo is to buy a pair of
1:07:50
Speaker 3: Nikes at our new foot Action store on one hundred
1:07:52
Speaker 3: and twenty fifth Street. I am living the dream as
1:07:56
Speaker 3: a music fan, as a footwear sneaker kid. You gotta
1:08:00
Speaker 3: be kidding me, like this is the greatest thing ever.
1:08:04
Speaker 3: And that didn't last too long because it was I
1:08:06
Speaker 3: guess eighteen months. Two years later, there was a giant,
1:08:10
Speaker 3: you know, town hall in the big Assembly area and
1:08:15
Speaker 3: we were told something's up. And if we were your
1:08:21
Speaker 3: brothers and sisters, we would tell you to get your
1:08:23
Speaker 3: resume together. And so I got my resume together, and
1:08:28
Speaker 3: so did Willie Smith. And Willie Smith ended up going
1:08:32
Speaker 3: out to Saint Louis, Missouri. He was a Rochelle New Rochelle,
1:08:39
Speaker 3: New Rock City kid and Long Island kid, and he
1:08:42
Speaker 3: moved out to Saint Louis to become the VP of
1:08:44
Speaker 3: Marketing for Famous Footwear, one of the leading family footwear
1:08:48
Speaker 3: brands in the United States. And he calls me up.
1:08:50
Speaker 3: It says, Ryles, you got to come out to Saint Louis.
1:08:52
Speaker 3: I'm not moving to Saint Louis. I'm from New Jersey?
1:08:56
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me? And let's put this. Willie is real,
1:09:01
Speaker 3: real persuasive, and so moved to Saint Louis, Missouri, and
1:09:08
Speaker 3: five years of incredible experience growth, learning a lot of
1:09:13
Speaker 3: things at Famous Footwear in Saint Louis, seeing incredible leaders too,
1:09:17
Speaker 3: like Diane Sullivan and others who are just showed me
1:09:21
Speaker 3: how to do things that I didn't know that I
1:09:22
Speaker 3: was going to have to do someday, because right now
1:09:26
Speaker 3: I'm already in all my life, I've outkicked my coverage.
1:09:30
Speaker 3: And now I'm in Saint Louis and incredible experience there,
1:09:35
Speaker 3: incredible life moments there. And then I go pay a
1:09:40
Speaker 3: visit to Crocs. Famous Footwear sells Crocs at the time,
1:09:45
Speaker 3: still does, And I fly out to Colorado, where Crocs
1:09:49
Speaker 3: is based just outside a boulder, and I go into
1:09:54
Speaker 3: the Crocs boardroom to do my you know, spiel of
1:09:58
Speaker 3: why you should be spending more money Famous Footwear to
1:10:00
Speaker 3: sell more Crocs. And I do my thing in the boardroom, leave,
1:10:06
Speaker 3: and two or three weeks later, I get a call
1:10:08
Speaker 3: from somebody at Crocs. We'd like you to be the
1:10:13
Speaker 3: guy that runs the America's marketing for Crocs, which you
1:10:16
Speaker 3: moved to Colorado. I'm not from Saint Louis. Colorado seems
1:10:22
Speaker 3: like a really cool place to live. My brother lives
1:10:24
Speaker 3: out here, as do my parents. They moved from New
1:10:26
Speaker 3: Jersey and the East Coast many years earlier, so let's
1:10:30
Speaker 3: give it a whirl. And we moved to Colorado and
1:10:32
Speaker 3: I'm the director of Marketing for Crocs and then the
1:10:37
Speaker 3: CMO for Crocs, and thanks to an incredible team, we
1:10:40
Speaker 3: turned that thing around.
1:10:41
Speaker 2: Okay, Ros had a real negative reputation. Okay, people were
1:10:48
Speaker 2: making jokes about them, plastic shoes, etc. Ay, why did
1:10:52
Speaker 2: you take the job? B was everybody on the same page.
1:10:57
Speaker 2: Something's got to change in what we were steps.
1:11:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, I took the job because it was a brand
1:11:06
Speaker 3: and people hated it. That smells like money. To me, Well, whoa, whoa, whoa.
1:11:17
Speaker 2: People hated it. That smells like money. Explain that.
1:11:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, So when I was the CMO of Crocs. When
1:11:24
Speaker 3: I started, there was a meme that had a photo
1:11:29
Speaker 3: of pair of Crocs and it said those holes are
1:11:34
Speaker 3: where your dignity leaks out.
1:11:39
Speaker 2: That's good.
1:11:40
Speaker 3: That hung on my wall. I looked at it every
1:11:43
Speaker 3: day as motivation. And again, nobody hated Crocs. It was
1:11:50
Speaker 3: just a brand that was made fun of and there
1:11:52
Speaker 3: was tension to that. And when there's that kind of tension,
1:11:55
Speaker 3: you know, as Reggie Jackson said, back in the seventies,
1:11:58
Speaker 3: they don't boo, nobody d and so aha, like there's
1:12:04
Speaker 3: something here and we just need to make ourselves more relevant.
1:12:08
Speaker 3: Crocs did not have an awareness problem. Everybody knew Crocs.
1:12:12
Speaker 3: But if we can make it more relevant, that was
1:12:16
Speaker 3: the opportunity. And thanks to my colleagues, we made it
1:12:20
Speaker 3: more relevant and then some and helped turn Crocs into
1:12:24
Speaker 3: this extraordinary story in footwear and in brands and in culture.
1:12:30
Speaker 3: And again, how lucky am I? You know, it's almost
1:12:33
Speaker 3: like Forrest Gump. I just bump into these things or
1:12:36
Speaker 3: they find me and you change Crocs and change my
1:12:40
Speaker 3: life in the biggest way.
1:12:43
Speaker 2: Okay, that's the general. Be more specific. Everyone knows Crocs.
1:12:47
Speaker 2: There's a negative take. What were the first steps and
1:12:51
Speaker 2: when did you realize you were onto something? And then
1:12:54
Speaker 2: where'd you go from there? Yeah?
1:12:56
Speaker 3: The first steps was actually to We brought Drew Barrymore
1:13:01
Speaker 3: on board and it was the first opportunity we had
1:13:07
Speaker 3: to work with celebrity.
1:13:08
Speaker 2: Whose idea was that.
1:13:11
Speaker 3: It was a mutual decision. Certainly, the CEO of Crocs
1:13:15
Speaker 3: and I spoke about one of the quickest ways to
1:13:19
Speaker 3: cut through is celebrity partnerships. That's just the fact they
1:13:24
Speaker 3: don't all work, but is the fastest way. And Drew Barrymore,
1:13:28
Speaker 3: God love her brought us an instant credibility with people.
1:13:33
Speaker 3: It just changed the perception of the brain. Oh that's
1:13:35
Speaker 3: Drew Barrymore. Wait are crocs?
1:13:37
Speaker 2: Wait?
1:13:37
Speaker 3: What's this CrOx? Maybe there's something that I've been missing.
1:13:41
Speaker 3: And she's just an absolutely lovely soul. And she was
1:13:45
Speaker 3: the first thing to help us put a flag in
1:13:47
Speaker 3: the ground. Where the other thing that happens, Bob is
1:13:51
Speaker 3: you know, the the Hollywood agencies, they smell blood in
1:13:57
Speaker 3: the water. CROs has some money. I wonder who else
1:14:01
Speaker 3: they'd consider hiring. And that she opened the doors for
1:14:06
Speaker 3: other celebrities to begin working with crocs, to also widen
1:14:10
Speaker 3: our aperture of who to work with to get a
1:14:12
Speaker 3: more global presence. People like John Cena we could started
1:14:15
Speaker 3: wearing crocs for us. Prianka Chopra also one of the
1:14:19
Speaker 3: loveliest women I've ever met in my entire life and kindest.
1:14:24
Speaker 3: She bought the whole crew when we wrapped, she bought
1:14:27
Speaker 3: them all champagne and toasted the crew. I mean just
1:14:30
Speaker 3: and so now people around the world are starting to see,
1:14:32
Speaker 3: wait that weird American brand that shoot with the holes
1:14:35
Speaker 3: in it. Drew Barrymore and John Cena and Priyanka Chopra
1:14:40
Speaker 3: and then some Asian superstars in Korea and China. But
1:14:43
Speaker 3: Drew Barrymore helped open that aperture and widen it where
1:14:47
Speaker 3: now the brand was in a little different spot and
1:14:50
Speaker 3: you could start to see those green shoots and then
1:14:54
Speaker 3: really the.
1:14:55
Speaker 4: The the the turning point, like this is the moment
1:15:01
Speaker 4: where the plot changes, you know, bang on the piano keys.
1:15:05
Speaker 3: Here a young woman named Toria Roth, twenty three years old.
1:15:11
Speaker 3: She walks into my office on the CMO of Crocs.
1:15:14
Speaker 3: She just finished her internship with us and we hired
1:15:17
Speaker 3: her on full time. She walks in my office, sheepishly
1:15:21
Speaker 3: knocks on my door, you know, the CMO's door, and says, hey,
1:15:24
Speaker 3: t did you see this? And she shows me a
1:15:27
Speaker 3: photo of post Malone wearing Crocs and I didn't see it.
1:15:33
Speaker 3: She saw it, and it didn't take more than two
1:15:36
Speaker 3: seconds to know what was up. And so Kerry Macker
1:15:42
Speaker 3: from Universal Music Group that represented post Malone, she gets
1:15:46
Speaker 3: in touch with us and we create the first celebrity
1:15:52
Speaker 3: collaboration with Crocs, the post Malones and it crashed our website.
1:15:57
Speaker 3: This is one of those moments, Bob, that I can
1:15:58
Speaker 3: see unfold and slow emotion. It's a big deal to
1:16:01
Speaker 3: the company. We've never done something like this before. We're
1:16:04
Speaker 3: about to go live at nine am in Colorado or
1:16:07
Speaker 3: ten am in Colorado. We get the entire company into
1:16:10
Speaker 3: the giant cafeteria assembly area. We have the big screens
1:16:13
Speaker 3: up with our data points to see this first sale,
1:16:17
Speaker 3: and and we go live and the system crashes. There
1:16:22
Speaker 3: were so many people. We were not prepared for it.
1:16:26
Speaker 3: And I'm the guy like, I'm the ringleader, the pt
1:16:30
Speaker 3: barnum of it all. And it was a mortifyingly excitingly
1:16:34
Speaker 3: incredible experience. I knew we just crashed crocs dot com.
1:16:39
Speaker 3: Everything changes from here on out, and it did.
1:16:43
Speaker 2: Okay, Just to go back a step, celebrities are not cheap.
1:16:48
Speaker 2: There are some companies with huge marketing budgets. Others don't
1:16:52
Speaker 2: believe in it. You know, how do you decide what
1:16:55
Speaker 2: percentage of you know, revenue to dedicate to these people
1:16:59
Speaker 2: in terms of return? Is there some math involved? It
1:17:02
Speaker 2: purely a hunch.
1:17:05
Speaker 3: For me, It's all the above. I do have an
1:17:07
Speaker 3: eye and thanks to Toria Roth. She saw this, and
1:17:12
Speaker 3: so post Malone at that moment was on the come up.
1:17:15
Speaker 3: So there were ways to afford Post Malone then. And
1:17:24
Speaker 3: the next up was Luke Combs. He hadn't hit yet,
1:17:28
Speaker 3: but I saw this guy through social media and just
1:17:32
Speaker 3: you know, just constant reading and you know that curiosity,
1:17:36
Speaker 3: and he started to appear in different places that I'm
1:17:39
Speaker 3: looking for new music, like okay, who's this Luke Combs guy?
1:17:42
Speaker 3: And then you see a photo of him, like this
1:17:44
Speaker 3: is a Crocs guy. So he was on the come
1:17:47
Speaker 3: up also, and so but then you do some math.
1:17:50
Speaker 3: You do how many Instagram followers they have, and if
1:17:53
Speaker 3: ten percent of those, you know, go to our website
1:17:56
Speaker 3: and five percent convert, what kind of dollars and cents
1:17:59
Speaker 3: could there be here? You do those kind of rough calculations,
1:18:02
Speaker 3: but it's also hunch. It's also kind of who their
1:18:04
Speaker 3: audience is and their trajectory. And that's happened a lot
1:18:10
Speaker 3: in my life of betting on folks and also being
1:18:14
Speaker 3: a leader who listens to you know, Torrio who's twenty three,
1:18:18
Speaker 3: or Pejor Rodriguez who came into my office. He grew
1:18:21
Speaker 3: up in Puerto Rico and he said, at do you
1:18:24
Speaker 3: know who bad Bunny is? And I didn't, but he did,
1:18:28
Speaker 3: and he knew the impact that bad Bunny would have
1:18:30
Speaker 3: for Crocs and he was right. And so to be
1:18:34
Speaker 3: a listener and a leader who's open to good ideas
1:18:36
Speaker 3: can come from anywhere has transformed brands. And if you're
1:18:41
Speaker 3: just close minded, and if you think you have all
1:18:42
Speaker 3: the answers, then you're probably not going to win. But
1:18:45
Speaker 3: you do have to have some of the answers.
1:18:48
Speaker 2: Okay, But there was the traditional Croc shoe back not
1:18:53
Speaker 2: long after the Croc started, they started to put fur
1:18:56
Speaker 2: on them and stuff like that. Forget that. You now
1:18:59
Speaker 2: have all the celebrities involved, you start changing the product.
1:19:04
Speaker 2: Show me about that.
1:19:05
Speaker 3: Sure, well, with a great product team, you know. So
1:19:08
Speaker 3: I was the CMO, not the chief product officer. But
1:19:10
Speaker 3: now it's a similar strategy. You build the core. And
1:19:14
Speaker 3: we returned under my marketing leadership, we returned to the
1:19:18
Speaker 3: classic Croc. Kroc was doing lots of different stuff when
1:19:21
Speaker 3: I got the gig, and we just brought it back
1:19:23
Speaker 3: to basics. And there you build the core and then
1:19:27
Speaker 3: you add more. And the fantastic product team started to, Yeah,
1:19:31
Speaker 3: put fuzz in crocs, which is a huge seller to
1:19:34
Speaker 3: this day. Add height do partnerships with Christopher Kaine or
1:19:38
Speaker 3: Balenciaga to get just that different kind of style. And
1:19:43
Speaker 3: then gibbets, those little things that you put in the holes,
1:19:48
Speaker 3: have been an incredible success story because it allows people
1:19:51
Speaker 3: to personalize their crocs, which is, you know, such a
1:19:54
Speaker 3: vital part of contemporary society. And so so the combination
1:20:00
Speaker 3: of new product introductions and celebrity partnerships and then it
1:20:05
Speaker 3: became like the Got Milk Mustache bob where everybody wanted
1:20:08
Speaker 3: to wear the milk mustache and almost any celebrity or
1:20:13
Speaker 3: brand that we called who wanted to create their own crocs.
1:20:17
Speaker 3: And that's something that is still an active success story today.
1:20:23
Speaker 2: Ye know, from my perspective, the gibbets started with the
1:20:25
Speaker 2: public and then you got involved. Is that an accurate description.
1:20:31
Speaker 3: No, We started to we were photographing our shoes naked,
1:20:37
Speaker 3: which makes no sense. We were selling gibbets, but we
1:20:40
Speaker 3: were not photographing them and not encouraging people to do that.
1:20:43
Speaker 3: So we got behind it and then our fans started
1:20:45
Speaker 3: to take over, and that's when you know a hit.
1:20:47
Speaker 3: You know, our fans started to label Crocs fully loaded,
1:20:51
Speaker 3: you know, when you fill all twenty six holes with gibbets,
1:20:54
Speaker 3: and it allows people to express themselves. And that's another
1:20:58
Speaker 3: key component of Crocs's success is the ability to just
1:21:01
Speaker 3: personalize something you wear and extend your own personality, whatever
1:21:05
Speaker 3: that may be to the brand. And our product team
1:21:09
Speaker 3: just continued to innovate and still does at Crocs. And
1:21:12
Speaker 3: it changed my life where people started writing articles about me,
1:21:17
Speaker 3: which again, how did this happen to this guy from
1:21:20
Speaker 3: New Jersey? But it did. And then I got a
1:21:25
Speaker 3: call about his bottle company called Stanley that nobody had
1:21:31
Speaker 3: heard of, including myself. But you know, it's not every
1:21:36
Speaker 3: day that they're calling a CMO for a president's job.
1:21:41
Speaker 3: And I should go for it. I should try and
1:21:46
Speaker 3: grab this breast ring this guy from you know, but
1:21:48
Speaker 3: for the grace of God. You know, my father was
1:21:50
Speaker 3: a typewriter repair man into an executive. But for the
1:21:54
Speaker 3: grace of God, I'd be walking a beat somewhere. You know,
1:21:59
Speaker 3: President me, Let's give it.
1:22:02
Speaker 2: A whirl a little bit slower. You get an email
1:22:06
Speaker 2: or the phone ring as they say, what and how
1:22:09
Speaker 2: do you ultimately decide to take the job.
1:22:12
Speaker 3: Well, it was a similar experience to CROCS. So now
1:22:14
Speaker 3: I knew when I joined CROCS it did not have
1:22:17
Speaker 3: an awareness problem, had a relevance opportunity. Stanley had an
1:22:23
Speaker 3: awareness opportunity. It's a you know, one hundred year old brand,
1:22:28
Speaker 3: just known for quality, known for this green bottle that
1:22:31
Speaker 3: people love. It's been in you know, it's probably somewhere
1:22:36
Speaker 3: in you know, Connecticut or you know where you grew
1:22:39
Speaker 3: up in somebody's attic, somebody's garage, and most people didn't
1:22:43
Speaker 3: even know it. It was like, oh, yeah, that that''s
1:22:45
Speaker 3: that green bottle that my dad used to have. Well,
1:22:48
Speaker 3: my mom she took it to school every day where
1:22:50
Speaker 3: her soup. She was a teacher back in the sixties
1:22:52
Speaker 3: or so. All right, wait a minute, this is a
1:22:55
Speaker 3: there's a heritage here. How cool is that to get
1:22:58
Speaker 3: the keys to that kind of thing. So if we
1:23:01
Speaker 3: can make it relevant and increase the awareness, we might
1:23:06
Speaker 3: be able to do something. And this might be a
1:23:08
Speaker 3: really interesting president's job, which I shouldn't have no business having.
1:23:13
Speaker 2: How did they find you?
1:23:16
Speaker 3: I think as yeah, it was a search firm, you know,
1:23:19
Speaker 3: because I started to get a little attention for the
1:23:21
Speaker 3: Crux success. You know, undeserved attention. But you know, it's
1:23:24
Speaker 3: like a quarterback. You get the attention, you get the blame.
1:23:27
Speaker 3: And so people started to see what was happening at CROCS,
1:23:29
Speaker 3: and my name was, you know, somewhat attached to it.
1:23:34
Speaker 3: And so I was getting lots of calls for other
1:23:36
Speaker 3: CMO jobs and all things like that, President mat you know,
1:23:41
Speaker 3: so I thought I was going to be Governor Corleone,
1:23:44
Speaker 3: President Corloni. Yeah, so let's go for it, and that
1:23:49
Speaker 3: it turned out. I decided to do it in February
1:23:52
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty.
1:23:54
Speaker 5: Uh oh, okay, just to stay on this, ay, where
1:24:07
Speaker 5: is Stanley located?
1:24:10
Speaker 2: B how much revenue in a year?
1:24:13
Speaker 3: So Stanley's based in Seattle, Washington. And when I joined,
1:24:19
Speaker 3: Stanley was a seventy million dollar brand known for the
1:24:23
Speaker 3: Hammertone Green bottle. That's an American classic. You know, if
1:24:28
Speaker 3: you watch the Festivut episode of Seinfeld, Kramer's got it
1:24:31
Speaker 3: in his pocket. If you've watched Off the Space when
1:24:33
Speaker 3: they keep moving Milton and his Stapler, he's got his Stanley.
1:24:37
Speaker 3: The Hammertone Green is bedrock and helped build America.
1:24:42
Speaker 2: Okay, a couple other questions, FIRA, way, what other products
1:24:45
Speaker 2: does Stanley have.
1:24:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, lunchboxes, different drinkwear, specializing in drinkwear and lunchboxes, and
1:24:53
Speaker 3: then outdoor camping gear. You know how many you know,
1:24:57
Speaker 3: meals were made around the fire in the outdoor with
1:25:00
Speaker 3: Stanley over the last you know, seventy five hundred years.
1:25:04
Speaker 3: Is part again of American heritage and tradition. So so
1:25:08
Speaker 3: I know that that exists and quality. It's known for
1:25:13
Speaker 3: just quality and a real rabid core fan base is
1:25:18
Speaker 3: almost the wrong word, you know, just and advocates and
1:25:24
Speaker 3: just lovers of the brand. And it almost like a
1:25:27
Speaker 3: family heirloom and an inheritance. My dad was a Stanley man,
1:25:31
Speaker 3: my mom was a Stanley woman. That kind of thing.
1:25:34
Speaker 2: Okay, so you get the job. You're living in Colorado.
1:25:37
Speaker 2: The companies in Seattle, it's February of twenty twenty. Yeah,
1:25:41
Speaker 2: do they say you have to move? What happens on
1:25:44
Speaker 2: that level? And obviously it's the beginning of COVID.
1:25:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, so was planning on moving to Seattle, had a
1:25:50
Speaker 3: place downtown ready to roll. And then March or twenty
1:25:55
Speaker 3: twenty hits and this is I accepted in right before
1:26:00
Speaker 3: COVID and then COVID hits and I join first week
1:26:04
Speaker 3: in April. And my first reaction is what did I
1:26:09
Speaker 3: just do to my life? This high flying? I'm not
1:26:13
Speaker 3: high flying at all, Bob, I'm a CMO that's had
1:26:16
Speaker 3: some success at CROCS. What did I just do to
1:26:18
Speaker 3: my life? There is no office to go to, Seattle
1:26:22
Speaker 3: is closed. You got to remember, like in twenty twenty,
1:26:26
Speaker 3: none of us were on teams or we're just zoom
1:26:31
Speaker 3: like it was occasionally, And so what did I just
1:26:35
Speaker 3: do to my career? To my life? But you know,
1:26:40
Speaker 3: I made a decision. We're in it and back to listening.
1:26:45
Speaker 3: So one of the things that you do when you're
1:26:48
Speaker 3: a new leader I hope people do, is you listen
1:26:51
Speaker 3: to your team what should we stop? Start and continue?
1:26:55
Speaker 3: And on a Friday afternoon, I check in with Lauren Solomon,
1:27:01
Speaker 3: who is one of Stanley's brilliant saleswomen, and I asked
1:27:06
Speaker 3: that question, wh should we stop, start and continue? And
1:27:08
Speaker 3: I've listened to lots of people, and Lauren says, there
1:27:13
Speaker 3: are these three women in Utah that she has become
1:27:17
Speaker 3: aware of that have been actually buying this forty ounce
1:27:22
Speaker 3: adventure tumbler of ours and selling it on their own
1:27:27
Speaker 3: and they're seeing some success. So my CROCS instincts immediately crackle. Okay,
1:27:35
Speaker 3: wait what is this? Who are these? And she tells
1:27:38
Speaker 3: me about these three women who call themselves the buy
1:27:41
Speaker 3: Guide out in Utah and that they had taken a
1:27:44
Speaker 3: liking to this quencher, and so the team immediately starts to.
1:27:50
Speaker 2: Do it, just because we're going back there, firewing. How
1:27:52
Speaker 2: many were they buy.
1:27:54
Speaker 3: Hundreds on their own dime and they were taking the risk,
1:28:00
Speaker 3: and so they were seeing success. And so they had
1:28:04
Speaker 3: their own following of a few, you know, million or
1:28:06
Speaker 3: so followers on the by Guide, and we're telling their
1:28:09
Speaker 3: followers how much they loved this product. And so, again
1:28:12
Speaker 3: back to what I had just done at CROCS, I
1:28:14
Speaker 3: recognize this pattern thanks to Lauren pointing it out and
1:28:18
Speaker 3: the risks that the buy Guide were taking on their
1:28:20
Speaker 3: own before I showed up. But this is this is
1:28:23
Speaker 3: gold dust to me. And so we make an arrangement
1:28:27
Speaker 3: with the buy Guide to have them further evangelize this product,
1:28:33
Speaker 3: and then with them we started to create new colors.
1:28:37
Speaker 2: What does that look like? Further evangelize the product?
1:28:40
Speaker 3: Oh, to get really behind and get paid for it
1:28:45
Speaker 3: instead of taking the risk getting compensated for the bet
1:28:49
Speaker 3: that they had already made on this little product on
1:28:51
Speaker 3: their own and help us start something. And that's how
1:28:56
Speaker 3: it works. That's social media in a nutshell. And so
1:29:00
Speaker 3: we started to sell a few thousand and then lots
1:29:04
Speaker 3: of thousands, all on Stanley nineteen thirteen dot com. And
1:29:09
Speaker 3: so certainly the margins are great. They're getting they're getting
1:29:14
Speaker 3: a taste, as we would say back in New Jersey,
1:29:17
Speaker 3: and we got ourselves a little hit. And then we
1:29:23
Speaker 3: started to introduce a new another new color or two.
1:29:26
Speaker 3: And then with this, armed with this data, we could
1:29:29
Speaker 3: go to some of our key accounts that were just
1:29:31
Speaker 3: carrying the traditional Stanley's. So we're seeing this unlocked with
1:29:37
Speaker 3: young women. You should give us two feet of shelf space,
1:29:42
Speaker 3: and they did, and that two feet became six feet,
1:29:46
Speaker 3: became eight feet, which became an entire corner of Dick
1:29:49
Speaker 3: sporting goods and the cultural phenomenon that became the Stanley Quencher.
1:29:55
Speaker 3: I was born exactly like I described it, more or less,
1:29:58
Speaker 3: and new colors, new surprises, new collaborations, and what the
1:30:02
Speaker 3: crux experience that I had. I know how to do
1:30:06
Speaker 3: some of this stuff. I know how this should work.
1:30:09
Speaker 3: And we got after collaborations that also changed the entire
1:30:15
Speaker 3: you know, complexion of the brand.
1:30:17
Speaker 2: Okay, a little bit more granular. You're having this reaction
1:30:23
Speaker 2: from the Women in Utah. You're selling on the website.
1:30:26
Speaker 2: You go to Dick's give us a chance than.
1:30:29
Speaker 3: What we gave, point to lots of places to say,
1:30:32
Speaker 3: give us a bigger chance. But we had the math,
1:30:36
Speaker 3: you know, thanks to our team, thanks to Matt and
1:30:39
Speaker 3: Helen and others. They were carefully managing these relationships to
1:30:44
Speaker 3: start to grow it out. But we had the data
1:30:49
Speaker 3: and so that was another part of the magic. It
1:30:51
Speaker 3: was all happening on heydude dot com and now we
1:30:54
Speaker 3: can share it. So it was a safer bet for
1:30:57
Speaker 3: these big retailers to start to take a chance on us,
1:31:01
Speaker 3: and for some of these brands, and for Stanley, for everybody.
1:31:04
Speaker 3: It's been one of the biggest success stories of this century.
1:31:08
Speaker 2: Uh oh, okay, you got the Women in Utah. Now
1:31:12
Speaker 2: you're selling on the website. You have these accounts Dix
1:31:15
Speaker 2: and other plane what is driving adoption? What is driving sales?
1:31:22
Speaker 3: Well, shelf space for one, and then the use of
1:31:25
Speaker 3: social media. The buy Guide in particular, starts to get
1:31:31
Speaker 3: us started in the influencer and affiliate game where we
1:31:34
Speaker 3: could work with other beyond the buy Guide, affiliates and
1:31:38
Speaker 3: influencers to start to evangelize this product. And it also
1:31:42
Speaker 3: starts the fact that it's an incredible product. I mean
1:31:44
Speaker 3: it starts there. It serves so many purposes, but then
1:31:49
Speaker 3: it just becomes a cultural phenomenon through our use of
1:31:52
Speaker 3: social media to evangelize it. There was no TV, there
1:31:57
Speaker 3: was no radio, There was hardly any traditional marketing behind
1:32:03
Speaker 3: the Stanley product. It was all through influencers and affiliates
1:32:07
Speaker 3: and women. And like I said earlier, women create community.
1:32:12
Speaker 3: They decide what is cool, and they chose authentically the
1:32:19
Speaker 3: Stanley Quencher, and off it went. And then we would
1:32:23
Speaker 3: certainly fan the flames with new colors, new accessories, new partnerships.
1:32:32
Speaker 3: I was on TikTok back to not turning the television
1:32:36
Speaker 3: on anymore. I was scrolling through TikTok one afternoon and
1:32:42
Speaker 3: video crossed my for you page of a young artist
1:32:45
Speaker 3: singing to a pretty sizable audience, and the video was
1:32:50
Speaker 3: taken from behind her, behind the stage. And let's just
1:32:54
Speaker 3: say the video made its rounds because of this artist's
1:32:57
Speaker 3: rather ample backside, And so I then saw a video
1:33:04
Speaker 3: of this artist commenting on that video and she referred
1:33:09
Speaker 3: to her backside as her dump truck. I was like,
1:33:14
Speaker 3: who is this woman? Like, she's so first of all,
1:33:16
Speaker 3: she's beautiful, second of all, she's just cool and is
1:33:19
Speaker 3: own this and take ownership of this kind of misogynistic
1:33:24
Speaker 3: leering video that was on TikTok And wow, who is
1:33:29
Speaker 3: this woman? So I saw her name and my next
1:33:33
Speaker 3: move is I go to Spotify and I find her.
1:33:37
Speaker 3: On Spotify, I find her latest release. I go down
1:33:42
Speaker 3: the track listing and I see one of the tracks
1:33:46
Speaker 3: is called Watermelon Moonshine. And with my eyeball, bob, Watermelon
1:33:53
Speaker 3: Moonshine is a Stanley Quencher color. So I write Ellen
1:34:01
Speaker 3: on our team, on our product team, I said, hey,
1:34:03
Speaker 3: can you please create a watermelon moonshine color Quencher. You
1:34:07
Speaker 3: can't be wrong, And within two days she fires me
1:34:12
Speaker 3: back a cad of a watermelon Moonshine Quencher. And I
1:34:17
Speaker 3: reach out to this artist's label on LinkedIn. I connect
1:34:21
Speaker 3: with Donna McQueen and I said, hey, would you be
1:34:25
Speaker 3: interested in a Stanley Laney Wilson collaboration because what do
1:34:29
Speaker 3: you have in mind, and I said, how about watermelon moonshine,
1:34:35
Speaker 3: and off we went, sold out twice in less than
1:34:38
Speaker 3: two minutes, and the unboxing videos of Laney Wilson watermelon
1:34:45
Speaker 3: Moonshine quenchers were everywhere in twenty twenty two. So it's
1:34:51
Speaker 3: these kind of things that just continued to ignite it.
1:34:54
Speaker 3: And then lots of other artists and brand collaborations from
1:34:58
Speaker 3: love Shack Fancy to Wicked, to Olivia Rodrigo to too
1:35:02
Speaker 3: many to count, all similar to Crocs wanted their own
1:35:06
Speaker 3: Stanley quencher. And then we were parodied on Saturday Night Live,
1:35:13
Speaker 3: and then there are riots and target over the latest release,
1:35:19
Speaker 3: and then it's all over the world. And then of
1:35:22
Speaker 3: course there's the fire response video that I made that
1:35:28
Speaker 3: people write about still every single day, which was back
1:35:33
Speaker 3: to TikTok, my adoption of TikTok personally and moving fast.
1:35:39
Speaker 2: Tell that story because not everybody's familiar with it.
1:35:43
Speaker 3: So one Wednesday afternoon, I forwarded by somebody on our
1:35:48
Speaker 3: team a TikTok video of a woman who's car caught
1:35:52
Speaker 3: on fire, and she shows the camera her car's caught
1:35:58
Speaker 3: on fire, and in the couple is her Stanley and
1:36:01
Speaker 3: she pulls it out of the cup holder and shakes
1:36:04
Speaker 3: it and it still has ice in it after a
1:36:08
Speaker 3: car fire. So somebody sent that video to me on
1:36:12
Speaker 3: a Wednesday, and Wednesday night I wrote the team and
1:36:16
Speaker 3: said I'm going to buy her a car. I we
1:36:22
Speaker 3: and the next morning, Thursday morning, I roll into the
1:36:24
Speaker 3: office in Seattle, and I asked Chloe, one of our
1:36:28
Speaker 3: young marketing associates, to get the phone that has our
1:36:31
Speaker 3: TikTok account on it. You know, we have a Stanley
1:36:34
Speaker 3: phone at the time. It's not my phone. Said bring
1:36:38
Speaker 3: it into the boardroom with me and merchandise some products
1:36:41
Speaker 3: behind me. And I said, hold the phone up like
1:36:44
Speaker 3: it's a selfie. And I said what I said live,
1:36:48
Speaker 3: no scripts, no briefings, no nonsense. It was just what
1:36:52
Speaker 3: I think anybody would have done if they happened to
1:36:54
Speaker 3: be the president of the brand. That this woman has
1:36:58
Speaker 3: featured our product in the most heroic way a car
1:37:03
Speaker 3: fire and there's still ice in the Stanley. And I respond,
1:37:07
Speaker 3: I don't remember exactly what I said anymore, but Danielle,
1:37:10
Speaker 3: I hope you're safe. Thanks for showing the product in
1:37:14
Speaker 3: such a wonderful manner. People keep writing that we should
1:37:18
Speaker 3: buy you some new Stanley's. Well, we're certainly going to
1:37:21
Speaker 3: buy you some new Stanleys, but we also want to
1:37:24
Speaker 3: replace your vehicle. And I had to Chloe press send.
1:37:31
Speaker 3: She said, are you sure? Said yes, and she pressed send,
1:37:35
Speaker 3: and then it was like a movie. I went back
1:37:37
Speaker 3: around my day. But then people started texting me Tea,
1:37:41
Speaker 3: you know, you're blowing up on TikTok. No, my daughter, Dad,
1:37:44
Speaker 3: you know, like you're blowing up on TikTok and Bob.
1:37:47
Speaker 3: One hundred million views later, people know that video. They've
1:37:51
Speaker 3: seen it too many times to count in too many languages,
1:37:54
Speaker 3: languages I don't even recognize. Well stopped in airports from people,
1:38:00
Speaker 3: and it solidified the quality of the product. That's what
1:38:04
Speaker 3: it was about, and taking care of a consumer who
1:38:08
Speaker 3: we care about. And she was a fan of ours,
1:38:10
Speaker 3: and I like to think anybody would have done that.
1:38:13
Speaker 3: I just did it the next day, and I just
1:38:16
Speaker 3: did it. I didn't script it. I just said it.
1:38:19
Speaker 3: And maybe that's why I connected, which is what I
1:38:21
Speaker 3: said earlier. It's authentic, genuine and fast and off it went,
1:38:25
Speaker 3: and it helped change the complexion of a brand that
1:38:27
Speaker 3: was already winning.
1:38:29
Speaker 2: Okay, how did you get her the money, how did
1:38:33
Speaker 2: she buy the car and what car did she get?
1:38:36
Speaker 3: So we got in touch with her obviously through TikTok,
1:38:38
Speaker 3: because she'd seen the response, of course and was blown
1:38:40
Speaker 3: away by the response. And we just got in touch
1:38:43
Speaker 3: with her and we asked her what car she wanted
1:38:47
Speaker 3: and she told us, I can't remember what. We got
1:38:49
Speaker 3: her a Mazda, a Mazda something, and we contacted the
1:38:55
Speaker 3: local dealer where she lived in the Washington, d C.
1:39:00
Speaker 3: Maryland area, and we told the dealership we want to
1:39:03
Speaker 3: buy it. Let's take care of it all and put
1:39:06
Speaker 3: the big red ribbon on it and bring it to her.
1:39:09
Speaker 3: And we did that within four to six weeks of
1:39:13
Speaker 3: that first video and delivered on our promise, my promise,
1:39:19
Speaker 3: and really, you know, solidify the quality of the brand
1:39:22
Speaker 3: where that video is still shown every single day. I
1:39:25
Speaker 3: had a funny story. One of my best friend Sons
1:39:28
Speaker 3: is a sophomore at Elon in North Carolina, and he
1:39:32
Speaker 3: texted me a photo of me on his classroom screen
1:39:36
Speaker 3: that were talking about marketing, you know moments, and like,
1:39:42
Speaker 3: you know, Terrence, they're talking about you in my class
1:39:44
Speaker 3: So that's cool. So it's just it's continually talked about
1:39:49
Speaker 3: is like a smart marketing move, and it was just
1:39:52
Speaker 3: a real thing. It wasn't of course, it was marketing.
1:39:55
Speaker 3: I'm not stupid. People aren't stupid. But it was just
1:39:57
Speaker 3: a real reaction to something. And you see opportunity for
1:40:01
Speaker 3: your brand when it's reinforcing your quality and taking care
1:40:04
Speaker 3: of a customer.
1:40:06
Speaker 2: Okay, so the change in sales dollar wise for the
1:40:11
Speaker 2: Stanley Cup.
1:40:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, as I said earlier, when I joined in
1:40:16
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, Stanley was a seventy million dollar business and
1:40:21
Speaker 3: as you know, we reported at the end of twenty
1:40:23
Speaker 3: twenty four we were seven hundred and fifty million, so
1:40:27
Speaker 3: you know, ten x in four years, and I'm sure
1:40:31
Speaker 3: those numbers continued in twenty twenty five, so seventy to
1:40:36
Speaker 3: seven hundred and fifty million in four years. But beyond
1:40:40
Speaker 3: the dollars, it's the you know what, people don't even
1:40:43
Speaker 3: know how many times throughout my tenure there and even
1:40:46
Speaker 3: to this day, people just refer to it as a Stanley,
1:40:51
Speaker 3: like do you know, like the how amazing that is
1:40:55
Speaker 3: that people refer to it as like Q tip or
1:40:58
Speaker 3: Kleenex or z it's the Stanley Like that is the
1:41:04
Speaker 3: that's the case study and all the things that we
1:41:06
Speaker 3: did as a team to do that. Why know me,
1:41:08
Speaker 3: It wasn't me, It was all of us at Stanley.
1:41:11
Speaker 3: I made some big decisions, hired some great people that
1:41:14
Speaker 3: ran with things and made it better. But the fact
1:41:19
Speaker 3: that it's just known around the world and it's known
1:41:21
Speaker 3: in silhouette as a Stanley that is an incredible thing
1:41:27
Speaker 3: to have been a part of. And what I shake
1:41:30
Speaker 3: my head in disbelief no matter where I go, Bob.
1:41:33
Speaker 3: Like I was at a college campus giving a little
1:41:36
Speaker 3: presentation a couple of months ago, and walking around the
1:41:41
Speaker 3: campus before my presentation, I saw nine Stanley's, six pair
1:41:45
Speaker 3: of crocs and four hey dudes, And I started my
1:41:50
Speaker 3: presentation saying, what's nine plus six plus four? And all
1:41:55
Speaker 3: these eager college students raised their hand to yell out
1:41:58
Speaker 3: nineteen like really really, like now that's my career history
1:42:05
Speaker 3: on your campus right this morning I saw nine Crocs,
1:42:09
Speaker 3: six stand or whatever, and and do you want to
1:42:12
Speaker 3: know how it happened? And that kind of story.
1:42:14
Speaker 2: So, so how about the other Stanley products?
1:42:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, the rising tide lifts all boats, right, so
1:42:22
Speaker 3: you know, Stanley became some of the fun stuff was
1:42:25
Speaker 3: seeing dads who have their green Stanley convincing their daughters
1:42:30
Speaker 3: on TikTok that these daughters like, Dad, I need to Stanley.
1:42:33
Speaker 3: This is new, this new company is new, and it's like, sweetie,
1:42:36
Speaker 3: like I've had this Stanley for forty years, or this
1:42:40
Speaker 3: was your grandfather's Wait no it wasn't, dad like those
1:42:43
Speaker 3: kind of fun things to enhance the brand, and then
1:42:46
Speaker 3: new product introductions back to build the core and add more.
1:42:49
Speaker 3: In this case, we did it a little bit differently.
1:42:51
Speaker 3: We started from the outer and worked in to increase
1:42:55
Speaker 3: all the different categories that Stanley had and it's incredible
1:43:00
Speaker 3: success story beyond just the Quencher, but the Quencher is
1:43:04
Speaker 3: a global phenomenon that is a real incredible thing that
1:43:09
Speaker 3: the team did.
1:43:10
Speaker 2: Okay, you're no longer there, although you're there for a while.
1:43:14
Speaker 2: How do you prevent it from being a fad?
1:43:19
Speaker 3: By introducing newness, by continuing to surprise and delight with
1:43:25
Speaker 3: new collaborations with new colors, materials, finishes, accessories, all of
1:43:32
Speaker 3: those ways, and then great merchandising too, you know, and
1:43:35
Speaker 3: with you know, great partners who are giving you shelf space.
1:43:40
Speaker 3: For two to really give authenticity and you know, so
1:43:47
Speaker 3: many brands, so many consumers look for their retailers to
1:43:51
Speaker 3: give them the to be the editor right of this
1:43:56
Speaker 3: is what's cool, this is what they should have. And
1:43:58
Speaker 3: when you've got that incredible shelf space, you want to
1:44:01
Speaker 3: continue to innovate around it and build scarcity. That was
1:44:06
Speaker 3: the other thing that we did really really well at
1:44:09
Speaker 3: Stanley and Crocs. What I learned at Crocs. You know,
1:44:11
Speaker 3: the reason why the post malone sold out in a
1:44:14
Speaker 3: second is because there weren't a lot of them. And
1:44:17
Speaker 3: people want what they cannot have. And so the more
1:44:21
Speaker 3: you do that, you don't want to frustrate that could
1:44:24
Speaker 3: happen to but you want to people want what they
1:44:28
Speaker 3: cannot have, and so when you balance that really well,
1:44:31
Speaker 3: it extends things. But also it has to be a
1:44:35
Speaker 3: great product. Crocs are a great product. Stanley is a
1:44:40
Speaker 3: great product. Hey dude, it's a great product. So fads
1:44:45
Speaker 3: come and go. Great products stand the test of time.
1:44:56
Speaker 2: Okay, So you have this great success with a quench
1:45:01
Speaker 2: and you are aware of scarcity works for you, how
1:45:05
Speaker 2: do you decide how many to make and where to
1:45:08
Speaker 2: put them?
1:45:10
Speaker 3: A little bit of feel, a little bit of Instagram followers,
1:45:14
Speaker 3: a little bit of sign ups for to be notified
1:45:21
Speaker 3: of the next launch of things. So all of that
1:45:23
Speaker 3: goes into the calculus of how many you want to create.
1:45:28
Speaker 3: And again, if we're working with artists, we do a
1:45:29
Speaker 3: little bit of Instagram follower math, but we we want
1:45:34
Speaker 3: to typically you know, sell out, you know, that's what
1:45:37
Speaker 3: keeps the fire going. We want to put a cap
1:45:42
Speaker 3: on it, and we always did, certainly while I was there.
1:45:46
Speaker 2: What's the best way to introduce splash make people aware
1:45:51
Speaker 2: that there's one of these new limited products social media.
1:45:55
Speaker 3: Certainly, if it's an artist, they're going to tell their fans,
1:45:58
Speaker 3: you know, Landy Wilson, Hey, y'all, well, my new watermelon
1:46:01
Speaker 3: moonshine is dropping and her fans devour that, as do
1:46:06
Speaker 3: the artists and brand choices that the brands choose to
1:46:10
Speaker 3: work with. So it's certainly social Obviously, email notification and
1:46:17
Speaker 3: you know, sending an announcement or an invitation to our
1:46:22
Speaker 3: guest lists of who is following the brand. And then
1:46:26
Speaker 3: obviously in store, some of our target launches caused complete
1:46:30
Speaker 3: and total chaos and target stores where certainly towards the
1:46:36
Speaker 3: end of my tenure, maybe still today, I don't know,
1:46:39
Speaker 3: you know, there was a two limit, you know, two
1:46:43
Speaker 3: quencher limit that you could purchase, so that caused an
1:46:46
Speaker 3: additional frenzy and in some cases some really terrible behavior
1:46:50
Speaker 3: from customers. And with the iPhone, you know, those things
1:46:54
Speaker 3: get on video and those are all over the news,
1:46:58
Speaker 3: and that doesn't really hurt a brand. It shows the frenzy,
1:47:01
Speaker 3: but it's not something that you're after. You don't want
1:47:02
Speaker 3: anybody get hurt and you're not looking for that. It's
1:47:05
Speaker 3: just the Sometimes it brings out the worst in people.
1:47:08
Speaker 2: So you have all the success at Crocs in Stanley,
1:47:11
Speaker 2: to what degree did these companies do corporate publicity?
1:47:18
Speaker 3: Very little, very little? You know, Crocs then and now
1:47:23
Speaker 3: is a very humble brand, despite an incredible track record
1:47:27
Speaker 3: from you know, decades long track record of success and
1:47:30
Speaker 3: global success. Hey dude, we I'm sorry Stanley.
1:47:35
Speaker 2: We did one.
1:47:38
Speaker 3: CNBC piece where they came out to interview me and
1:47:41
Speaker 3: some colleagues in Seattle, and but not too much you
1:47:46
Speaker 3: know press, you know, a couple of articles from the
1:47:49
Speaker 3: President to talk about the brand, but it was by
1:47:52
Speaker 3: and large consumer consumer press, entertainment press, culture press that
1:47:59
Speaker 3: helped continue to fan the flames.
1:48:00
Speaker 2: Okay, did you have a PR person or was it
1:48:02
Speaker 2: all organic?
1:48:03
Speaker 3: All the above, all the above, terrific PR person who
1:48:07
Speaker 3: managed those things, and then some of the PR was
1:48:10
Speaker 3: just organic, you know. And the car fire spawned lots
1:48:14
Speaker 3: of articles, and the frenzy caused lots of articles, and
1:48:18
Speaker 3: not all of them were good. There was one article
1:48:21
Speaker 3: I remember reading that, you know, some of the frenzy
1:48:26
Speaker 3: that was occurring was you know, it's not the best
1:48:28
Speaker 3: of human behavior, and people were blaming me for it
1:48:33
Speaker 3: by name like, well, you're all fast something like I'm
1:48:36
Speaker 3: paraphrasing it. But while we're all quick to blame all
1:48:39
Speaker 3: the women who are beating each other up and pulling
1:48:44
Speaker 3: hair at Target, shouldn't we really be blaming Terrence Riley?
1:48:48
Speaker 3: Like you know, these kind of things start to, you know,
1:48:51
Speaker 3: creep into your life.
1:48:54
Speaker 2: Okay, just to stay there. Yeah, did you respond?
1:48:57
Speaker 3: Never? No? No, no, no, no.
1:49:00
Speaker 2: I mean I know that from my own life. You
1:49:02
Speaker 2: never respond. That's their goal. But did you know that
1:49:06
Speaker 2: because your knowledge of social media that you don't respond.
1:49:09
Speaker 3: No, just instinct or you know, you know, what's have
1:49:16
Speaker 3: you ever seen a movie Chef with Jon Favreau and uh,
1:49:20
Speaker 3: what's his name? The reporter at theater goes, I buy
1:49:23
Speaker 3: ink by the barrel, buddy, Like, you're not gonna you know,
1:49:27
Speaker 3: you're not gonna win that. In fact, the car fire video,
1:49:31
Speaker 3: you know that the PR folks and the PR agencies
1:49:34
Speaker 3: and all the PR pundits were saying, like, you got
1:49:37
Speaker 3: to make a big deal out of giving her the car.
1:49:40
Speaker 3: And you know, we were invited on the Today Show
1:49:42
Speaker 3: or Good Morning America one of those things, and listen like,
1:49:47
Speaker 3: I'm of the same ego as any of us, Like, hey,
1:49:51
Speaker 3: to go on the Today Show as a marketer or
1:49:54
Speaker 3: Good Morning or whatever. It was, yeah, like that's of course,
1:49:59
Speaker 3: that's it's not that you're suppose to do that, but it
1:50:02
Speaker 3: kind of would have ruined it. Like my response was
1:50:05
Speaker 3: just real, it was just me. I happened to be
1:50:08
Speaker 3: the president. But it wasn't some focus group, let's talk
1:50:12
Speaker 3: to a bunch of people and get a lot of
1:50:13
Speaker 3: points of view. It was just me. The next morning,
1:50:15
Speaker 3: most people didn't even know I did it. And so
1:50:19
Speaker 3: then hey, let's give her the car on the Today
1:50:21
Speaker 3: Show and do that whole thing. And I wanted to,
1:50:26
Speaker 3: but it was my mother. I told her, I said, hey,
1:50:29
Speaker 3: we're going on Today Show and my mom said, don't
1:50:32
Speaker 3: do that. I said, why your son? You know, I
1:50:35
Speaker 3: want to make you proud. Mom, your son's on the
1:50:37
Speaker 3: Today Show. She goes, don't do it, and she was right.
1:50:42
Speaker 2: Well, she said don't do it. Why did she say
1:50:44
Speaker 2: not to do it?
1:50:45
Speaker 3: Because she knew it would it would ruin it because
1:50:49
Speaker 3: it was real and it was real, and so if
1:50:52
Speaker 3: we started to put a shine on it and started
1:50:55
Speaker 3: to catch our own bouquets, it just wouldn't It wouldn't
1:50:58
Speaker 3: have been right, you know. And so she grew up
1:51:01
Speaker 3: in the Bronx. She's as real as it gets. She
1:51:04
Speaker 3: was right. So always listen to your mother.
1:51:07
Speaker 2: Okay, you had this incredible success. Were you compensated accordingly? Sure?
1:51:15
Speaker 5: Yeah?
1:51:16
Speaker 2: Yeah? Did all right? Okay, so then maybe you say,
1:51:21
Speaker 2: instead of getting a new job, I'm not gonna work again.
1:51:27
Speaker 3: My parents are from the Bronx. My father fixed typewriters
1:51:31
Speaker 3: in a suit in the sixties seventies. That's not what
1:51:37
Speaker 3: you do. So it's not about the money. I made
1:51:43
Speaker 3: more money than I'd ever thought i'd make in my life.
1:51:45
Speaker 3: Like I did, I did well, you know, I think
1:51:48
Speaker 3: my guidance counselor in high school told my parents I'd
1:51:51
Speaker 3: been underachiever. It's not about that. It's never been about that.
1:51:58
Speaker 3: I can't believe I'm in the spot, Bob. I can't
1:52:00
Speaker 3: believe I'm talking to you. I'm actually wondering what the
1:52:02
Speaker 3: hell makes me interesting that you'd have me on your
1:52:03
Speaker 3: podcast when I see your guest list. But I've somehow,
1:52:08
Speaker 3: with your great teams, connected with culture more than once.
1:52:11
Speaker 3: You know, you walk down the street, you're going to
1:52:13
Speaker 3: see people wearing crocs, carrying Stanley's and wearing hay Dudes.
1:52:17
Speaker 3: And I had a little something to do with all
1:52:20
Speaker 3: of that, and so that's a pretty cool thing. So now, hey, dude,
1:52:27
Speaker 3: is this eight hundred million dollar company that most people
1:52:30
Speaker 3: don't know about, Like, we could make hay Do the
1:52:33
Speaker 3: leading casual footwear brand in the world. Why not us?
1:52:37
Speaker 3: That's worth a shot, and I'm taking it. And I
1:52:41
Speaker 3: could have stayed selling a lot of Quenchers. Okay, you
1:52:44
Speaker 3: just expressed a level of confidence in yourself, and you
1:52:48
Speaker 3: talked about not having confidence in the high school. What
1:52:52
Speaker 3: triggered the confidence? No, I don't think I have any confidence.
1:52:56
Speaker 3: I'm just confident that with a great team we could
1:52:59
Speaker 3: turn hate dude into one of the leading casual footwear
1:53:01
Speaker 3: brands in the world because it's open space. Who is
1:53:05
Speaker 3: the leading casual footwear brand in the world. If I
1:53:08
Speaker 3: ask ten people, I get ten different answers, all great companies,
1:53:11
Speaker 3: and so why not, hay dude, because we're a great
1:53:16
Speaker 3: little product. And so that's the thrill of it. It's
1:53:19
Speaker 3: back to what's around the corner, that insatiable curiosity and
1:53:23
Speaker 3: the unmistakable sense of what's possible. This might be possible,
1:53:28
Speaker 3: and so I should try it.
1:53:31
Speaker 2: Okay, but let's let's go back. How did you decide
1:53:34
Speaker 2: to leave Stanley in addition not having the president's titlely
1:53:39
Speaker 2: your new role?
1:53:43
Speaker 3: Well, I am the president of Hey dude, Oh you are?
1:53:46
Speaker 3: I am? Yes, so ali of miss No, that's okay.
1:53:49
Speaker 3: So CROCS has a brilliant CEO for many many years.
1:53:54
Speaker 3: He was the one that gave me the CMO job
1:53:56
Speaker 3: at CrOx and he's still there. Anderye is an absolute
1:54:00
Speaker 3: brilliant man, highest of integrity. And Crocs. The president of
1:54:06
Speaker 3: CrOx is Ann Melman, who's equally talented. She used to
1:54:09
Speaker 3: be the CFO of CrOx and now hey dude, I'm
1:54:13
Speaker 3: the new president of Hey dude. So two presidents of
1:54:15
Speaker 3: two brands reporting into the CEO of Crocs, and it
1:54:21
Speaker 3: was just an exciting opportunity to again get the keys
1:54:23
Speaker 3: to an eight hundred plus million dollar footwear brand. Who
1:54:25
Speaker 3: gets that in life it shouldn't be me in my head,
1:54:28
Speaker 3: but somebody believes in me and is believed in me before.
1:54:31
Speaker 3: So driver like you Stole It, Bob. One of my
1:54:34
Speaker 3: favorite movies of the recent era is sing Street and
1:54:39
Speaker 3: driver It like You Stole It is one of the
1:54:41
Speaker 3: songs in singh Street. So somebody threw me the keys
1:54:44
Speaker 3: like they have before, and I'm going to drive it
1:54:46
Speaker 3: like I stole it and encourage our teams to do
1:54:48
Speaker 3: the same thing because it's possible. And I've just happened
1:54:53
Speaker 3: to be to live that more than once.
1:54:56
Speaker 2: Okay, you're at Stanley, you're having this great success. How
1:55:00
Speaker 2: does this opportunity come on your radar? And how hard
1:55:05
Speaker 2: of his decision is it to leave?
1:55:08
Speaker 3: Well, the CEO of Crocs were hired me once before
1:55:11
Speaker 3: as the CMO. So I got a call say, hey,
1:55:15
Speaker 3: would you be interested in coming back? And I was
1:55:20
Speaker 3: you know you're a skier, right Bob?
1:55:22
Speaker 2: And oh yeah, you know.
1:55:24
Speaker 3: What happens when you get to the top of the mountain.
1:55:26
Speaker 3: He turned back down and I got to the top
1:55:29
Speaker 3: of the mountain at Stanley, my mountain at least, and
1:55:33
Speaker 3: I believe there's certainly maybe a couple of a couple
1:55:37
Speaker 3: more feet first Stanley to climb, but then more at
1:55:42
Speaker 3: Stanley than anybody dreamed possible, certainly more than I dream possible,
1:55:45
Speaker 3: although I dream big. This is a whole other level
1:55:48
Speaker 3: of So give the keys to Matt Navarro, the guy
1:55:52
Speaker 3: who I had the good fortune to hire, helped me
1:55:56
Speaker 3: build Stanley, and now he's the new president of Stanley.
1:56:01
Speaker 3: It doesn't get better than that. When I was a
1:56:03
Speaker 3: CMO of CROCS, I hired Heidi Cooley, and when I
1:56:09
Speaker 3: left CROCS, she took over a CMO and what she's
1:56:12
Speaker 3: done with Crocs's more than I ever did with Crocs.
1:56:16
Speaker 3: So like this, these are gifts that I've been given,
1:56:19
Speaker 3: and I think I've passed it on a little bit.
1:56:21
Speaker 3: And both of these brands will flourish thanks to other
1:56:25
Speaker 3: great leaders that I happen to bring on board. And boy,
1:56:28
Speaker 3: that's a pretty cool little coaching tree to borrow football parlance.
1:56:32
Speaker 2: Okay, so you have this great success and it's a
1:56:36
Speaker 2: public success. Did other offers come down the pike?
1:56:40
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, okay, Yeah, a lot of people called, but
1:56:46
Speaker 3: it just wasn't right. There's it wasn't right. You know.
1:56:51
Speaker 3: I think what you want to bring, like you want
1:56:55
Speaker 3: to win the Super Bowl with the Browns, you know,
1:56:58
Speaker 3: you want to win the Super Bowl with the Lions
1:57:01
Speaker 3: or the Bills or the Vikings. Right. A lot of
1:57:04
Speaker 3: the brands that were calling just they were already successful.
1:57:07
Speaker 3: They were already They didn't need that, and I wouldn't
1:57:11
Speaker 3: get no satisfaction out of that. Hey, dude's also really successful,
1:57:15
Speaker 3: but there's more to go get and there's a lot
1:57:18
Speaker 3: of people that don't know about it. And now that's
1:57:20
Speaker 3: my job with a great team to fix it. That's stuff.
1:57:24
Speaker 3: And if we can do that and we already are,
1:57:28
Speaker 3: that's like bringing the Browns or the Lions or you know,
1:57:30
Speaker 3: to the super Bowl, and that's what you want, right, Okay.
1:57:35
Speaker 2: When Jeffrey Katzenberg was number two at Disney, the expression was,
1:57:42
Speaker 2: if you don't come in on Saturday, don't even think
1:57:45
Speaker 2: about coming in on Sunday. So are you the type
1:57:49
Speaker 2: of person who's essentially working around the clock, And is
1:57:51
Speaker 2: that what it's required.
1:57:53
Speaker 3: I don't have an off button, but I do not
1:57:56
Speaker 3: expect that from anyone. I rarely emails on the weekends. Rarely,
1:58:02
Speaker 3: I mean once every two or three months, that kind
1:58:06
Speaker 3: of rare. I'm always on and I'm always looking for
1:58:11
Speaker 3: the connections that can ignite a brand. And see Landy Wilson,
1:58:16
Speaker 3: see Luke Combe, see all of the car fires, see
1:58:19
Speaker 3: all that. So my antenna is always up. But that's
1:58:24
Speaker 3: just a personal wiring. I'm highly competitive. I want to
1:58:29
Speaker 3: win at part cheesy if that still exists, and I
1:58:32
Speaker 3: also want to win on the peloton. I want to win.
1:58:35
Speaker 3: So I don't know where that competitive fire started to happen.
1:58:40
Speaker 3: And I'm not always going to win. And I don't
1:58:42
Speaker 3: win everything, not even close, you know. But I try
1:58:46
Speaker 3: and be the best that I can be as often
1:58:50
Speaker 3: as possible, and it's somehow kind of worked.
1:58:56
Speaker 2: Okay, so what is your favorite Springsteen album?
1:59:00
Speaker 3: Oh? You went albums? Uh favorite Springsteen album is The River?
1:59:06
Speaker 2: Okay, Well you said albums, so then you were well
1:59:09
Speaker 2: you thought I was gonna ask tracks.
1:59:10
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't know what you're gonna ask me. I
1:59:12
Speaker 3: just wanted to. I'm from New Jersey, so it's the law.
1:59:14
Speaker 3: So my favorite Bruce song would have to be Frankie,
1:59:22
Speaker 3: but nobody knows that one. And so the one I
1:59:25
Speaker 3: listened to the most to get fired up is Growing
1:59:27
Speaker 3: Up Live off of seventy five eighty five, the live version,
1:59:31
Speaker 3: because it's.
1:59:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know, certainly know the song. My favorite,
1:59:34
Speaker 2: my what I used to get fired up was Candy's
1:59:37
Speaker 2: Room of course off Darkness. So did you see the
1:59:41
Speaker 2: River tour a few years ago when he redid it?
1:59:43
Speaker 3: I did? I did. I've seen him on every tour since.
1:59:46
Speaker 3: Born in the USA. That's when you know again, as
1:59:50
Speaker 3: an eighteen year old in New Jersey in nineteen eighty
1:59:52
Speaker 3: four eighty five, you know, you talk about a local hero.
1:59:56
Speaker 3: And I've been chasing that ever since. I've seen Bruce
1:59:59
Speaker 3: more than seven times and five different countries, and I'm
2:00:02
Speaker 3: one of those guys.
2:00:05
Speaker 2: But it's.
2:00:07
Speaker 3: It's chasing something that hit me. It got into my veins.
2:00:11
Speaker 3: August nineteenth, nineteen eighty five, was the first concert I
2:00:14
Speaker 3: ever went to of anybody, and it was Bruce at
2:00:18
Speaker 3: Giant Stadium. And what I've been chasing Bob is, they say,
2:00:22
Speaker 3: certainly the music and his performance and the band in
2:00:26
Speaker 3: the street band, But the moment when the house lights
2:00:30
Speaker 3: go down is my favorite moment in life. And time
2:00:38
Speaker 3: stands still for those twenty thirty seconds when the lights
2:00:43
Speaker 3: go You've been waiting for it, right and the lights
2:00:46
Speaker 3: go down, and there's the roar of the crowd, and
2:00:49
Speaker 3: then the band comes out one by one and it's happening,
2:00:54
Speaker 3: but it hasn't happened yet, and time stands still in
2:00:58
Speaker 3: this space. And then he comes out out last, and
2:01:01
Speaker 3: he comes to the mic and he counts off, and
2:01:04
Speaker 3: the minute he starts counting off, it's over because it
2:01:10
Speaker 3: it's now, it's it's ending, it's and that time stands
2:01:16
Speaker 3: still in those precious twenty to thirty seconds whatever it
2:01:19
Speaker 3: is between the house lights and him coming up to
2:01:22
Speaker 3: the mic and usually counting off as we know he does.
2:01:25
Speaker 3: And that is why I've seen him seventy five times.
2:01:28
Speaker 3: Time stands still. And if you can make time stand still,
2:01:33
Speaker 3: that's a pretty cool magic act.
2:01:36
Speaker 2: So have you sent Bruce A Stanley the Dudes or pro?
2:01:42
Speaker 3: I have not. I have not. I came close once
2:01:45
Speaker 3: to sending little Stephen a Purple Stanley because he just
2:01:50
Speaker 3: has that, you know, aesthetic in his personal life but
2:01:52
Speaker 3: I just know.
2:01:55
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's one thing to send it and
2:01:58
Speaker 2: literally not ask for anything.
2:02:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just I don't know, I have not I've
2:02:05
Speaker 3: thought about it more than once. But it's uh, you know,
2:02:10
Speaker 3: sometimes you just want to keep your heroes and all
2:02:12
Speaker 3: that at Bay. It's kind of still Listen. I'm fifty
2:02:15
Speaker 3: eight years old. I first saw Bruce and you know
2:02:18
Speaker 3: when I was eighteen, I kind of want to keep
2:02:21
Speaker 3: all that at Bay because it's still that fantasy world
2:02:25
Speaker 3: and it uh yeah, it's so it's chasing and it
2:02:29
Speaker 3: never would have happened.
2:02:30
Speaker 2: Well, generally speaking, you don't want to meet your heroes. Yeah,
2:02:33
Speaker 2: very few, very few of them. Some of them do
2:02:37
Speaker 2: live up to the rep but the something that you
2:02:39
Speaker 2: believe in most absolutely do not, and it's really disillusion
2:02:43
Speaker 2: can't listen to their music for a while. In any event, Terrence,
2:02:47
Speaker 2: I want to thank you so much for telling us
2:02:49
Speaker 2: your story telling and informing my audience and what's going
2:02:53
Speaker 2: on in career wise with these products. Thanks again, Thank
2:02:57
Speaker 2: you Tears. Next step this is Bob Left stock
2:03:24
Speaker 3: Sh