Advice Line with Tom Rinks of Sun Bum

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2:53Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will attempt with me to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. You can also send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com. And make sure to tell us how to reach you.

3:35And also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's full of insights and ideas from the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for free at gyros.com. And we'll put all this info in the podcast description. All right. On today's show, my advice buddy is the legendary Tom Rinks. Tom is the mastermind creative behind some of the most innovative products of the past 25 years, including the Taco Bell Chihuahua, De Leon Tequila, and of course, Sunbomb Skin Products. Tom, my friend, welcome to the show. Thanks, Guy. Great to be here. Love you. Tom, you were, of course, last on How I Built This, telling us your incredible life story.

4:16And for those of you who haven't heard it, we will put a link to it in the show notes. But basically, it's a story of how you built Sunbum into an iconic sunscreen and skincare brand. And Tom, I have told your story so many times to friends and colleagues, you know, how you spent more than a year looking for inspiration. Everything from from Mondrian paintings to Eames chairs to Japanese streetwear to wooden surfboards. And how all of that and the story of that really came together in designing the Sunbum brand. Tom, I suspect that branding and design is going to come up in our calls today. But let me just start by asking you a general question about branding.

4:56In your view, right, why does brand and design matter when you're putting out a product? Why is it that important? It matters because everybody buys on feeling, Guy, like everybody. So if you don't give them the right feeling that they want, whether that be in your packaging, in your advertising, wherever, if you don't give them the feeling that they're looking for, they're not going to buy. And it doesn't mean it has to be a cool brand, like a cool surfer brand, because cool is different to everybody. It could be I want to feel rich, so I need to buy Louis Vuitton or Prada because I think that's cool.

5:33I might want to feel like I'm an outdoorsman. And if I was an outdoorsman, I want to buy Patagonia and I want to drive a Subaru or whatever that is. And so you got to give me that feeling to know that it's going to deliver what I want to deliver. And it may just be wanting to deliver a message that, you know, it's a smart brand. It's going to actually clean the clog in my drain. So 10 times more unclogging strength is what I need to feel. I need to know that it's going to work because I got a problem and it's going to fix it. So the brand is what gives you the feeling to accomplish what you need to get done, which is why you're purchasing the product.

6:19Yeah. Tom, should we take some calls? Why don't we take our first caller? What do you say? Sure. Okay. First caller, are you on the line? I am on the line. Here I am. I'm here. Hello. Hi. Hello, Wendy. I think it's Wendy. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and what your business is. Thank you, Guy and Tom. Hello, and nice to meet you. My name is Wendy Kushel, and I'm from a little old town in South Carolina called Bluffton, and I have a business called Wendela's Low Country Sugar Scrub. Okay. Tell us about Wendela's Low Country Sugar Scrub. What is it? I mean, I'm assuming it's a scrub, skin scrub.

6:58Yes, it is a skin scrub, but I started out with a body scrub. I'd never heard of a sugar scrub in my 50s. Somebody told me to try sugar and coconut oil and rub it all over my body, and I was like, oh, my God, this is the most amazing thing I've ever done in my life. Wait, did you just take coconut oil and you mix it with granulated sugar and just scrub it? Right, because sugar is an exfoliant, right? It's going to take off old, dead skin, right? Yes. And it's not like you're going to become diabetic just rubbing sugar into your skin. It doesn't soak in that way, God. Okay, I got you. I'm just making sure.

7:28Yeah. Yeah. OK, so I did that. I did that. And then I I said, I'm going to start a sugar scrub company. But I didn't know that I could formulate or make anything myself. So I some because I was in the game, these ladies suggested something that would maybe take away the icky smells after you cook, you use it, you soften your hands. And that's how I came up with the hand scrub. OK. And tell me what what what's your question for us? Okay. If you Google hand scrub, you're not going to really come up with just a hand scrub. You might come up with like a Gojo type of O 'Keefe's working hands thing, or you might come up with a product that's a body and a hand scrub.

8:07Mine is a niche made for the hands, and it says in big letters on the label, the hand scrub. But I would like to ask, what can I do to let the customer know what this is, what it does, and how to use it? Tom, before we answer Wendy's question, do you have any questions, just clarifying questions for her? Yeah. Is it different than soap? Yes. It's not an antibacterial, although shea butter, which is one of my ingredients, and beeswax have natural antibacterial properties. This is something that's made to exfoliate, which is going to take away dead skin cells, but then it moisturizes your hands like a lotion.

8:49So no, it's not a soap, but it is something you wash just like you would with soap with water. The water activates the scrub. The sugars dissolve. And then these butters, raw shea butter and coconut butter, they melt into your skin. And you're like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. So when like buttery skin, you're basically turning skin into buttery skin. Yes. Yes. It's the fat you want on your skin, not inside or the outside. I love butter. I love butter too. I love it. It's the best. I love eating it. Extra butter on pancakes. I agree. If you ever have dipped your hands into shea butter, you would love that too.

9:25It's beautiful. So when do you use it? Is it by your bathroom sink? Is it by your kitchen sink? Because I looked on your website too, and it seems like it gets rid of odors and things like that too. Yes, some of the skews do. And those, yes, you would keep by your kitchen sink. You touch the garlic. You touch the seafood. You touch the onion. Whatever. Refresh your hands. otherwise it's nice in the regular bathroom. Just makes your hands feel good. You know that you're softening your hands. Like someone would use a lotion is you would use it. All right. So your question is, how do you get consumers to understand your product?

9:59How do you even show people how to use it? I have a lot of thoughts. Tom, do you want to start on this? Well, I'm just kind of catching up. So it says removes wonky cooking smells from the hands. Yeah. What does it say on the packaging? Yes. Is that what it says? For this one, for that skew, you're looking at the herbal line, which, yes, it does say, no, keep this scrub by your sink, grab a small bit, wash with water, mushy, mushy, wash, all up in those foxy fox hands of yours. Got it. Got it. Got it. So that's what it says. Okay. So it's the hand scrubs. It doesn't say on the package that it does that.

10:37So it's Wendela's, the hand scrub, the hand scrub rosemary mint. I'm looking at that, right? For that one. And you've got tons and tons of different – you've got the gardener scrub, the chef's line. You've got a line for chefs. You've got the man scrub. Oh, the manly scrub. And this is only for hands, right? This is not foot scrub. These are not. I have a separate line on there. Yeah, that's another story. Okay. But, yes, these are the hand scrubs is what my niche is, which is what I'm going after, period. Okay. Tom, any initial advice? Because I have a piece of advice, but I want to hear yours first if you have it.

11:14Well, looking at it, it just seems like the messages are kind of a little bit confusing, right? They're kind of all over the place. There's some fun. You want to be like fun and live, laugh, scrub. And then there's some other ones that are like luxurious and more spa-seeming. I think for me, you know, you really got to get some attention. It's so hard, right? Like hand lotions and all that stuff that's out there and all the organic stuff. I did. I was doing probably – I don't even know that I've ever told anybody this. I'm certainly not on air. Baby Bum came out with – it was going to come out with a nipple butter, a nipple cream.

11:57Oh, this is the baby version of Sun Bum, the baby line. A baby version of Sun Bum. I had an ad that I wanted to do for it, a standalone thing that just would be on shelf that would say, your baby sucks. Big, huge letters. So you're going to need this product underneath, really small. And that didn't make it? No, we didn't make the product. But I was so proud of that. Only, I know it would never make it and no store would carry that. But it just had to get people's attention. And also on the lip balm side, I was wondering, how am I going to ever take on Chapstick? And I was sitting having a taco at the taco stand in Encinitas and looked over and there was a bar there.

12:38our first street bar and it said best burgers in san diego and i was like yeah i should go try those burgers sometime right it's like those coffee shops those best best coffee in town but voted best that's the only reason i'm ever gonna stop and check out their coffee or go to that i would have never gone to that bar to check out their burger unless it said best burgers and so we ended up making it a signage that said world's greatest lip balm to us in little parentheses underneath it. So it was, you know, world's greatest lip balm. So my long way to make a point is really got to get some attention.

13:12I know you want to describe what this thing actually is, but you know, Wendela's amazing. World's greatest sugar scrub. Sugar scrub. You know, best on the planet. Best on the planet. According to some people, you can make that. I mean, I mean, Tom, you're right. How many restaurants or burger joints you go to? This is world's greatest burger. There's at least five of them in San Francisco. And some of those burgers are not the world's greatest, but it doesn't matter, especially if in the parentheses under you say, according to my mother or something. Like Wendell's famous sugar scrub. Okay, what have I been missing?

13:52It's famous. How come I've never heard of this before? I don't know about Wendell's. Yeah, I don't know this. So something like that, something to get me to think, this is really something that I haven't heard about. And how come I haven't heard about it? How come I haven't tried this coffee? I think you put world famous, Wendell's, and then you just put world famous, add that in the vent. I think you're absolutely right. You call it Wendell's world famous. I'm literally going to change all my labels. I'm getting it. World famous. It's great. All right. Here's something. Here's a practical thing that you should try.

14:25You have an incredible, you have incredible charisma because you're so, you're jumping out of this microphone. Like you are in the room with, you are in the room with everybody listening and you have this incredible personality. You need to be scrubbing your hands multiple times a day and putting videos out wherever you can on TikTok, Instagram. Now, I'm not saying millions of people are going to find you, but you're funny and you're interesting and you've got a lot to say about this. And I need to see you or other people or go out on the streets and be like, can I just scrub your hands? Can I give you a hand scrub?

15:04Just try weird things like that and just put it out, even if it's to 100 or 500 people. I'm going to do that. I think I'm going to scrub a person's hands in all 50 states in 30 days. I think I'm going to do that. That's a great idea. Or and go into kitchens and say, I'm going to scrub the hands of these hardworking chefs and just go and say, hey, take a break. Everybody scrub your hands and then just leave some tins and you go to the next restaurant. I think that's great. It's boots on the ground, going and doing. Going and doing. And I think just one more time, just be really disciplined. Be really disciplined on who what the brand is.

15:41If you look at Ben and Jerry's and the names of their products and the humor and the way they write, they went all in on that. Liquid death, all in on their edge. It's just so, I know who they are. When I look at your brand, I see you're over here and then you're over here and then you're for a spa and then you're live, laugh, scrub. And then you're, no, it's coconut sugar. I want to see a coconut oil and organic cocoa butter. Putting some of those words on will attract that organic, natural customer without saying it's natural or all organic. But you can still put the words on it that are the buzzwords that people look at it and say, oh, that's good for me.

16:19And it's going to make my hands. And it sounds luxurious. And it seems kind of cool. And you're cool. But you got to get me there to even look at the can. And that's where I think the name's got to change. Well, that's a lot of words on a label. How am I going to get all that in there? No, you're repeating stuff. You've got the hand scrub, the hand scrub twice on the front. And you're repeating stuff left to right on the label. You have the same thing, I think, on one side as the other. You've got some – I mean you can't put it all. No, and Tom, I think, right, I think what you're saying is you throw those words out on a piece of paper and you distill it into one or two or three words to tell a story about you, about this product, Wendell's world famous coconut scrub, you know.

17:03Maybe lose, live, laugh, scrub and give something else there. You know what I mean? Because I don't know what that is. I don't know what that means yet. I don't know how I'm supposed to live, what I'm laughing at and scrub. I'm not a fan of that. So maybe you can maybe take some words out and put some important words in for people to be like, oh, it's natural. It's got these coconut oils and all that. It's fun and it's world famous. How come I got to try it? Commit to your personality. Like if I was talking to you like separately, I would be I would be listening to you. And just like Guy pointed out, like you're funny and you got great personality.

17:39And so go with that. Like that's what it is. Don't try to be a spa. If you're not a spa person, don't try to be a spa person. If you are – and so just come down to the essence of your personality and be authentic and be vulnerable. Go all in on you. Yep. All right. Wendy Cushel of Wendela's now world-famous sugar-based hand scrub. Thanks so much, Wendy. We're going to be following you. Good luck. Thank you, both of you. It was wonderful to speak to both of you. Mwah, mwah, mwah. You too. Thank you so much, Wendy. Thank you. World famous. I'd go for it. You're so right about that, Tom. Like how many times you pass any like a taco stand or a churro stand or a lemonade stand.

18:24It's like world famous. And you're like, huh. We don't. We're not like, oh, where's the proof? Where's the proof? Where's the committee that actually you have no idea? They just write that. Yeah. Think about if you were like walking past the chip aisle. You're having a Cinco de Mayo party, right? And you're walking past all the chips. and then it's like world famous Wendell's chips, you know what I mean? You'd be like, that gives you at least a second to pause, to read more, to look at the chip, to read the ingredients or whatever. But if you don't have that, if it's just like Wendy's chips, no chance.

19:02Okay, Tom, we're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, we're going to hear from another caller, someone who went from producing reality TV shows to selling trucker hats. Stay with us, everyone. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to The Advice Line on how I built this lab.

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22:38Hey, welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and I'm taking calls along with my friend, the branding expert, Tom Rinks. Nice. And Tom, I mean, you started Sunbomb more than a decade ago, I think. I think, you know, like late 2009, I believe, if I got my time frame right. And if you were doing it today, right, a lot has changed, right? The 2010s was kind of like the decade of direct-to-consumer, right? And in general, do you think it's harder to launch a consumer product now than even then when you did it in 2010 or not? I don't think so. I think you just have to find what's not being done so with sunbomb i would just when i did it in 2009 with my friends we saw what was in the marketplace and we we went in a different direction that we could go because we were small and we could just move faster and be with the times a little bit better and we knew what that looked like if i was going to do it now i would do something opposite of sunbomb yeah and so it'd be the opposite of cool it would be like a nerd sunscreen or something oh i just you know what mean?

23:44They would just be like, hey, it's just a product to protect you. And they all work pretty much the same. Buying our product isn't going to make you any cooler. And by the way, nobody's cool. Either everybody's cool or nobody's cool. So just wear a sunscreen and carry on. There you go. Okay. Let's take another call. Tom, shall we? Sure. Who's next? Okay. Next caller is on the line. Is that Allison on the line with us? Yes, it is. Allison, welcome. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business. Sure. My name is Allison Mandelbaum, and I'm calling from Fairfield, Connecticut.

24:22And I'm the founder of Shady Lady, which is a beachy lifestyle brand, but we specialize in baseball and trucker hats that are made to fit the measurements of a woman's head. Hmm. Okay. And baseball and trucker hats made to fit the measurements of a woman's head, which we'll get to in a moment. And what's your question for us today? So my question today is, as a small business with a very little, little advertising budget, how do you get your brand out there if you don't have the backing of like, if you're not a celebrity, if you're not a huge influencer? are. Once people see these hats, like they love them.

24:59They love them because they are the best fit. They're so comfortable. But how do you cut through all that noise on social media and this crowded marketplace to get people to understand what's so different and special about these hats? Got it. Okay. We'll get to your question in a moment. Allison, tell us a little bit about how you got into the, because I think you started, you founded this in 2020, right? How did you get into the hat business? What were you doing at the time? I mean, kind of by accident. So I was a TV, a reality TV producer by trade. I worked a lot at MTV, my Super Sweet 16, True Life, Catfish, all that fun.

25:35And then I had my two little kids and I was traveling a lot as a TV producer and kind of my lifestyle changed. And all of a sudden, I just, I don't know what happened. I got this like entrepreneurial bug where I just kind of kept looking at things for different ideas. And And I just kind of became obsessed with finding something. You know, and Shady Lady, this really just grew out of me not being able to find a hat that I felt like fit me well. I felt like my husband could easily throw on a baseball hat, walk out the door, you know, and looked great. I, you know, was a hot mess. Two little kids wanted to still, you know, look okay at pick up and drop off, but could not find a hat that fit me well.