Nike: How One Decision Destroyed a $300B Brand

27:40I.e., if you crush Facebook ads and you're like, yeah, we spend 20K a month and we make 50 on Facebook. Fantastic. Use a little bit of that profit and go figure out Google ads and dominate Google ads for your town. Great. You crush that. Go figure out TikTok. Don't over rely on one specific category thing that you're doing that's working because at any point in time stuff can shift stuff with meta could change the algorithm could change there's always going to be something that can throw you off your game or stop this climb from happening and shift or the market could shift so i think being in as many places you possibly can but obviously crush what you're doing really well and then figure out how you can move into these other places where your consumer is already hanging out.

28:25I also think... Maybe that's podcast ad reads, man. Hey. Come on. Yeah. Sponsors? I also think don't underestimate the power of IRL stuff in real life. Maybe you aren't in a footlocker, but is there an activation that you can do? A pop-up that you can do? What in-person events? We talked about storytelling a little bit earlier on in this podcast, but bring the community together. Get people together who is your target demo and your customers and just do in real life stuff because I think that people are more than ever craving that type of stuff. And so I think the brands who are going to win are doing really cool in real life activations.

29:15I don't know the name of the brand because Sarah Catheter told me this, but Chloe might. this sportswear company they're doing a drive-through pop-up granted this probably costs a lot of money it's pretty brilliant but it's kind of sick that's brilliant and people were commenting like man i would give i would pay so much money to go be able to do that and it's a it's a built-in content opportunity it's a little different a little different and it gets people getting out of their house and getting to experience your product in real life, touch it. And there's a story there. Not to bring up a total different brand, but like we just shot something for Hoka for the LA Marathon.

29:55And they did a in-person pop-up on Melrose, very packed street, very popular. And on topic of partnerships, they had brought an earth bar, which I thought was really cool. And so earth bar had an activation. If you guys know what that is, it's like a smoothie upscale smoothie place in Los Angeles. So they have an Earth Bar activation going on. They got all these drinks, kind of like these bottled juices and stuff for people to refuel after they go on their little community run and things like that. I'm assuming a lot of the people there hadn't tried Earth Bar. Sure. So this is a fantastic opportunity because it's not going to take away from our shoes.

30:29Yeah. This is a smoothie brand or a drink brand. People get to try this. They activate. They're together. It's pairing. It's pairing. They're also an elite brand. They're expensive. They're not cheap. They're really expensive smoothies. so you have like a perfect little partnership that works in tandem in a different space yeah an earth bar can make money and so can hoka and people were trying the shoe they had a thing that i thought was pretty cool they had a treadmill situation so people that wanted to try a specific size that were not gifted the shoe could go try it and see if it was something they wanted to invest in because they're expensive they also had like a bunch of stuff they're giving away shirts and hoodies and all this stuff and it had like la uh 26 like patches and whatnot so it's like specific to that event.

31:11That's cool. You remember it. And I thought it was really interesting just to see how an activation like that goes. Because we film a lot of those, but I wasn't looking at it necessarily from, oh, what's the content? I was looking at it like, why this activation? Why is this successful? Like how do you gauge it? And I, I'll shit ton of people taking videos, taking photos, trying the shoe on, seeing if they like it. Maybe some of them end up going by it. Maybe they don't. But I think it's a, it's a really interesting way to just like get your brand out. Oh, another small, small scale example. There's a guy on our street who is selling shirts and hoodies and pants.

31:44And he just has a little table on the topic of in real life stuff instead of him probably slinging stuff on Instagram. Right. He's taking it in person, letting people touch the fabric, letting people feel it. And I'm sure he gets sales every day on Melrose. It also reminds me of Ross from Cadence. And they do a lot of. Popped up at the beach the other day. Pop up at the beach. They'll do sponsored runs like run clubs. they're you know going out to the major marathons la marathon new york marathon and just getting getting out there in the real world and having physical goods because that's still how people discover things like yes so much has moved online but don't underestimate all the different ways that your customer or your potential customer might discover you tell you what if i'm at the grocery store there's samples i'm trying to oh dude catch me at a costco work the other day on me there's these little dumplings little frozen dumplings i said let me try that boom bottom probably so many seed oils in that there's actually avocado oil eat shit oh mr healthy come on come on come on come on all right what's next so as they're pulling back from the retail shelves they went from 39 of the market to 32 in five months wow you know who hopped up we got Hoka and on.

33:05So when they pulled back, these other brands were able to fill up more shelf space. Instead of it being 12 Nike shoes, it's now maybe six or eight. And you have these other silhouettes that end up taking up space in the place that you already dominate. And that's so interesting. There's a psychological thing that happens, at least for me. If I was to walk in and I was to see on a wall of 20 shoes, if 15 of them or even 12 of them are Nike. You're like, okay, just because there's more of that shoe up there, it feels like that is probably the best option. And then you're like, oh, because there's not as many, you know, on or Brooks or whatever, probably means that Nike is the better option, if that makes sense.

33:50Yeah, I think it definitely does make sense. And just by having these other these other brands on the shelf space they were able to get a few people here get a few people there and then it just compounds yeah i think word of mouth is also really powerful in sneaker land yes like you as a runner or as a track person whatever the heck it may be i told a lot of people about those brooks and i remember i had said every time these are the hideous shoes but they feel really good when you're running and i convinced that i told you about them i don't know if that had played probably did probably played a huge decision what you were thinking it probably was a bigger deciding factor that i think no it did not play it influenced you i don't think it influenced me at all because it it mainly was just kind of like a coincidence it was like oh copied the brand that i used no no it was the person at the at the store she measured my feet all this kind of stuff it's like oh you should go in brooks and i said no no no i don't think these are the ones i want because brayden has them and she's like normally i'd say he's wrong but just so happens that you guys are going to be wearing the same shoes.

34:53But my Brooks were way cooler than yours. It's debatable. Have you seen my Brooks? So they had a partnership with Kanye. I have been waiting to get to this part of the podcast because this is crazy. I remember in high school how badly I wanted a pair of Yeezys, Nike Yeezys. And I mean, the Nike ones dropped and then the Red Octobers came out. the twos the twos were even sicker than the ones and you were like this makes sense finally a company is betting on kanye before all this stuff happened and it's like he clearly knows about fashion he just needed a chance he made the yeezys it became a fucking cultural phenomenon i'm talking people lining up to get these shoes people aren't lining up like that anymore not even close for sneakers and then for whatever reason i think we all know the reason well no no no they no this was honestly before kanye really went off the rails i'm saying i'm saying can you can you imagine what it was like behind the scenes sure like you gotta that's what it was like behind the scenes seems like they just didn't want to give him as much creative freedom as he wanted and um he ended up going to adidas and adidas took a bet on him and they lost so much market share and in my mind just by kanye going over to adidas they also brought on pharrell as a creative director for the human race line um that was a sick line of shoes so sick so sick i had a pair of nmds pharrell nmds but dude like kanye and pharrell being attached to adidas and it wasn't like they just brought them on it was as if nike lost this like this aura that it had they lost kanye kanye went over to adidas they made super sick adidas shoes and they lost so many they lost so much market share i remember me specifically being like man i've never thought adidas was sick and then kanye and pharrell started making stuff and i was like i'll give adidas a shot that's funny i don't think that can happen i don't think that would have happened had they lost kanye i what do you think no i i yeah i just don't think you would have had as many people give them a go but i also think that having him under your umbrella is probably the most difficult thing in the world to have to manage and they were probably just like over they're like i also don't think that they no one could have predicted what he would do with that shoe over there and with adidas yeah i don't think like you could predict that that was going to happen i think that it's like a but dude he huh no yes like he proved it with nike no completely i'm saying though i think that they probably internally were like this is so much more of a headache yeah this is so much more of a headache and it's a loose cannon sure never know what's going to happen and that was before all the stuff like happened yeah all the crazy stuff happened so i think they're probably just like dude we're over this like this is ridiculous and then he goes over there he's super successful but he was going to be successful whether it was Reebok whether it was I personally think I don't think it would have changed it's more so a Kanye thing yeah and it was just like the hype of that moment like sneaker culture was at a completely different place than it was now and you're right like I remember I remember getting on up at seven in the morning trying to get some of those shoes and being unsuccessful every single freaking time yeah because everyone like had a pair and you wanted them super bad.

38:33And I remember there was a, there was a foreign exchange student, one of my classes that had like the zebra ones. And I was like, dude, how did you get those man? And he's like, I got a guy, dude, I need to know your guy, man. And they were so cool. They didn't have any like marks on them. They're just like pristine. It was just an interesting time, I think for sneaker culture. Yeah. It's sneaker culture has just changed. it's changed dramatically like i don't think that the the resale culture is really there you remember like benjamin kicks oh my gosh yeah of course the sneaker when we weren't when we were in high school it was crazy and college it was mostly it was in college for me you're a little older it was like freshman year of college i feel like was when the sneaker culture was rampant then goat came out and stock x came out and like the reselling market was a thing flight club flight Club.

39:25Yeah. I remember like the first time I went to Fairfax and went to Flight Club. I was like, whoa, these shoes are saran wrapped. They're on consignment. Just a crazy, just a crazy time period. And another thing that happened during that same time period was people started talking about Nike and they were saying that it felt like it was made by like a corporation. And when Nike first came out and like blew up it really felt it really felt like a brand that really cared about the innovation and the product and you would see a lot of stuff at that time period people were talking about how like the quality control had slipped a little bit and the shoes quality weren't as good like there was glue in certain places and things were kind of coming apart and I also remember when Zion was at Duke and he, I mean, granted Zion's like a massive, kind of an, kind of an anomaly, but he fucking pop, like you literally exploded the Nike shoe.

40:27But anyways, a lot of people were talking about how Nike all of a sudden started to feel like a corporation that was just like mass producing these shoes and not as much of a brand that really cared about like the final product. In 2024, there was also a really interesting stat we found while preparing for the episode. So they had 94 % brand awareness. People knew them. They just weren't buying them. And that is such an interesting place to be. And I mean, you as a marketer internally, you'd be like, why are people not like not purchasing? Everyone knows who we are. They know what we do. They know what we stand for, but they aren't executing with us at the register.

41:11They're not choosing our shoe over these other competitors. Why do you feel like that was? It sounds like they just relied on their legacy a little bit too much. And by failing to innovate and focusing on the product and relying on the brand that they had built for so long, I bet you they felt like no one's going to, like, no one can fuck with us still. We're Nike. like yeah people might you know start trying other stuff but like no one's gonna fuck with us and i think that that's really dangerous too because um just because you are out there and maybe you're posting content about your brand consistently and and people know you just because you're known doesn't mean people are going to take that extra step to work with you or purchase your product you have to give people a reason to care and to actually pull out their credit card and spend their hard earned money with you.

42:09And it goes back to quality, like kind of what I was saying earlier, just because I was posting a ton, you know, doesn't mean that people are just because I'm posting every single day on Instagram doesn't mean people are going to want to interact with my content. But you're not building a deeper brand. Yeah. And so that's why I want to now take the approach of posting less frequently, but really putting, you know, my heart and soul into every single thing that I'm putting out there online because everything that you put out is a reflection of you and your brand, like down to the smallest detail, you know, like the brands that are the most successful really obsess over the small details.

42:58Granted, I understand that it can be hard harder to do that when you're as big of a corporation as nike um but the cool thing is that like the people listening to this podcast probably don't have a brand as big as nike and so you can really take like really take pride in the quality of product and content that you're putting out because everything adds up and and understand that like just because you are known just because there is awareness around your brand doesn't necessarily mean people are going to take the step to actually buy something from you. I think it's also inevitable that as the top dog, you come down.

43:41I think it's inevitable. Regardless if it's the biggest YouTuber, the biggest CPG brand, the biggest clothing brand. It's like the person at the top isn't working as hard as 2, 3, 4, and 5. They want to be at the top so freaking bad. And there just becomes a time. Like, yes, you might have a 10-year reign, a 15-year reign, a 20-year reign. It happens in college athletics. It happens in sports where they win, they win, they win. And there becomes a moment when the team gets a little complacent. Or just like is a cycle. It's cyclical, especially in fashion. Like things that are cool when we were younger aren't cool anymore.

44:19Things that weren't cool at all and people wouldn't be seen dead wearing this brand is now super popular. It comes in cycles. So I have no doubt in my mind that the stock is worth purchasing right this second at$40-something. The Nike stock specifically? Yeah, I know it'll come back. It will. They have super smart people. I was just their campus. I've never seen anything like what goes on at that campus. Yeah, I bet. You would just – and we'll save it for the very end. But I just know that when you have that talented of people working on the brand, as well as the different athletes that they are paired with, and just the level of innovation that they have done in the past, I have no doubt that into this new era, the Elliott Hill era, which is the new CEO, that they will regain back to their glory days, back to their top spot.

45:11But they hired someone internally, which is something that I don't think brands do this enough. I noticed this while I was at my other job. I've noticed this while a lot of other friends at other huge companies, companies tend to do this where they grab someone from outside instead of promoting internally, which I think is very odd. Instead of giving someone a shot who's worked at the brand for X amount of years, you're like, oh, let's pull in this other person from this other agency or this other company that's done really good things. Yeah, maybe they've done super good things there, but they fail to understand like the story and the ethos and the messaging of the brand, like the heart and soul of what makes it what it is.

45:48So I think that if you own a company, obviously first promote internally, if possible, look at who your group is, but like, who could take this on? Like, who could we give a shot to? Because I think a lot of the times if you give someone some a gap to fill, they will rise to the tide. And if they don't, then you replace them with someone else. If you've had success, and then maybe you're starting to fall off a little bit, whatever. think about why you started in the first place and what made you successful and maybe you lost your way a little bit I kind of felt like that over the last couple of months like I hadn't posted a ton of stuff about my love for photography and videography and I think I got away a little bit from the stuff that like one I love but two allowed me to see success on social in the first place.

46:38And so if you are a brand or a creator and you've seen success in the past and maybe you're not seeing as much success right now, look back at what allowed you to see success in the first place and lean into that. What's the North Star? What's the reason you got into the thing in the first place? Why did you start making content in the first place? Why did you create the brand in the first place and like lean into that i think the brands that lose sight of that are the ones that inevitably uh fall off because they just lose sight of like the north star of why they started doing this whole thing in the first place hill's plan also is something that he's been very transparent about they want to get back on the shelves of those retailers some of those people that they had pulled back on we were just in a ritzy the other night with our girlfriends and there was nike shoes on the shelves and we didn't even really put this together, but they have now a partnership with Aritzia, which is a massive women's retailer that is like for basic clothing, right?

47:45Like the basics, they got everything that I wish they had that for dudes. If they had that, like you got a billion dollars on your hands. If you guys can make that for guys, but they were on the shelves. And I think that's interesting because it's a humongous store at the Grove or not at the, yeah, at the Grove. And it's a humongous store at Century City Mall. It's a lot of foot traffic. So many women are going in there. Their boyfriends are getting pulled in there with them, you're looking at the shelves. You're being reminded. Aritzia has done a really good job of creating a cult following. Dude, I would buy their shit if it was for guys.

48:17Yes, and the reason I think, or something that they do really well is they got a really comfortable section for the boyfriends to sit down. To hang out. They got couches. They got multiple couches. They got like 17 couches. There's nothing worse than going shopping with your girl and you go into store after store and there's no place to sit down. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, you, you, I find that it's frowned upon for me if I go sit in the boyfriend section. I have to be like, I have to be right there, ready to go. Same with me, but I'm like, let me do my little doom scroll. You pick your stuff out and then I'll tell you if I like it or not.

48:58And I don't know much about women's fashion. So you know what? I'm going to say, babe, you know better than I do. you know and it all looks great on you you know that's so funny anyways i i think something that you guys can take away to put into what you're doing is what is worked in the past might not work now so i think that there's something to be said about looking backwards and saying like what did we do in the past that worked but even as we found with like different ads that we ran i'll give you guys a perfect example this one ad that we ran a while ago like a year ago 3x row ads what that means is if I put in$10 to the slot machine, I get back$30.

49:36That makes a lot of sense. Everybody here listening, you're like, why don't you do more of that? That's what we did. So it made a lot of money. Then a year later, you try the same ad or a variation of the same ad, similar exact situation, but the ROAS is 1.1. So you're like, what changed? It's the same thing. Correct. The market changed. We don't get to dictate what I think is correct. The market decides, right? So what I think is right, what is actually right are two different things. You got to go off of the data. So as a brand, you got to look at like, okay, well, this worked for us in the past.

50:07People really enjoyed this. Why aren't they liking it now? Maybe the trends have shifted. Maybe kids aren't wearing that thing, or maybe adults aren't wearing that thing, or maybe the channels to which you were once marketing on is no longer very popular for your demographic. There's a bazillion reasons why, but it's your job to figure that out as the marketer, the advertiser, the owner it's like where are people at and how do we find them at that point when they're closest and ready to purchase yeah that's your job you just can't be afraid to innovate and i think that that's something that nike unfortunately did is they thought they were just going to be on top forever and they didn't feel the need to continuously innovate and you kind of saw it when you would go into stores you know it's like you felt it personally i did it was like you look at shoes and I'm like, I feel like, man, like 10 years ago, because I grew up right by the Third Street Promenade and there was a Nike store, a really sick Nike store at Third Street Promenade.

51:06Super sick. And I would go in there like every few months and they would have a new activation and it's like this new shoe and it's talking about all the new tech and everything. And you're like, this looks completely different than like the shoe that came out six months ago. and you could feel like they were constantly pushing the envelope and to your point it's like you can never get too comfortable especially in today's day and age because algorithms constantly change people's taste constantly changes trends change then you also have the little guns we we talked about this a lot before the pod you have these smaller brands who are making like$100 million.

51:47And that's obviously a ton of money. It's pennies to a multi-billion dollar corporation. But the problem is there's 100 of them. And they're all taking market share. So you have these little brands, in quotes, little brands, who are like, oh, they make$50 million here. They make$100 million here. There's a few on our street of women's activewear brands. They're like, oh, they did$100 million last year. Well, that steals from the Lulus of the world and the Aloes and the Nikes of the world where those women would traditionally maybe buy, oh, I'll buy like a Nike set. They're buying this random active wear set that I don't even know the name of, but they're very popular and they're doing drop style releases and women are like really craving these different silhouettes or these different colorways.

52:28So that's also, I think, coming into play where it was like, you just had this big dog and yeah, you had Adidas or you had Reebok or Under Armour or whatever. And then that was kind of it. There was like these, it was like the mega corporations that were huge. There's like these six, seven companies. Well, now there's a 6-7. There's also 64 under them. Yeah, 64 under them. 6-7. I know. 64 under them, though, that are taking all that market share. So I think that's also, and they're scrappy. They're doing TikTok shop. They're doing these different affiliate programs. It's not what the big brands are used to doing, you know?

53:02And on the topic of like, you know, being innovative, it doesn't mean that like your product needs to change. You just have to be innovative in the way that you're marketing it. You know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. It's not like you're going to be coming out with a new shoe every three to six months like Nike is. That might not be your business, but how you market your product, you know, continue to innovate and try new things. Let's talk about our biggest takeaways. Now we're into our favorite part of the pod. You guys know what it's called? The after party. To the after party. You guys made it.

53:34You guys got tickets. You got tickets to the show. Welcome. This is going to be fun. Feels good. Let's sit back and let's relax, dude. Take your shoes off. Hang out with us for a second. Should I take my shoes off? Yeah, the biggest takeaway is taking my shoes off because I want to get comfortable for the after party. All right, so the first. Yeah, we're going to pop up here. First one is, let's see. I don't know if I want to do that first one. Oh, we can do a different one. Okay. First one. Give me the first one. Sell the story, not the price. There it is. Story wins. Story is the win. Story is your moat.

54:09Story is your moat. you can never win on just being the cheapest or like the most expensive. You have to like, if you are going to be the most expensive, you have to sell the story as to like why your product is so much better. And being the cheapest option is just a recipe for disaster, in my opinion. But most likely, you're not going to be the cheapest and you're not going to be the most expensive. You're going to be somewhere in the middle. And so instead of trying to win on price, you got to win on story. I would talk to your community, the people that have already bought things from you. Yeah.

54:46And I would figure out what they love about your brand. And then I would hammer into that for the different activations on your ads, on your website content, on your social pieces, like learn why people love what you guys do and then keep recreating it and make it better. I would go steal from other brands that are also in different categories that you see doing things that are like, oh, we could take that and put that into what we're doing and change it up a little bit. And boom, we have something that's innovative in our space and in our category. Another thing I love from this episode is knowing you and wanting you are two completely different things.

55:23And so you shouldn't get caught up in how many followers you have because it's kind of an empty. Yeah, it's irrelevant now. It is kind of an irrelevant metric. But yeah, like just because you have a lot of followers on social media doesn't mean that you're in demand. So don't focus too much on how many followers you have. But in that same vein, if you are posting content and it is gaining you followers, you are probably doing something right. And so keep track of like what content is actually gaining you followers. Yeah. And keep track, I think, of the important metrics, not the vanity ones, not the followers or even not even the likes like who's sharing your stuff who's actively commenting on it i i think that you guys can all learn a lot about your product and why people buy it by just asking yeah a brand or company that i was reminded of when we were talking about nike and kind of losing its way is chipotle oh okay and i feel like when chipotle gosh you're right When Chipotle first came around.

56:36Dude, I would get Chipotle five times a week. It was like this unique thing. It's like you can go get this like Americanized Mexican burrito or bowl. They loaded up these massive burritos. It was really good quality. They weren't skimping you. They were giving you full things of vinaigrette. Good portions. Yeah, now we got a quarter of a thing. And then the corporation came in and you got shareholders that you have to make happy. and they go public and it's like they want to maximize profits. But like sometimes you're trying to maximize profits and squeeze these margins and you lose like the core essence of what made your product special in the first place.

57:18I haven't gone to Chipotle in forever. Same. Yeah, forever. I remember in college, I would go at least three or four times a week. At least. Totally. That was my go-to spot. It hit every time. Every single time. Gosh, double rice, half chicken, half steak. Get a little vinaigrette on the side. Gosh, you're kidding me. The CEO went and said something too the other day. I think it was the CEO or someone that worked at the company. They were like, we could raise the price a couple bucks. No one would even notice because most of our consumers make over 100K a year. I was like, that's an insane thing to say.

57:49The CEO said that? I'm going to fact check it because I don't know if it was the CEO or someone else that worked at the company, but they said that. I'm like, some things you just keep to your chest, man. Oh, it was leaked. But the CEO allegedly suggested that the company would keep raising prices and lean into customers making over$100 ,000. Which is rude, man. Trying to just keep raising the price. It's already high. But that's... That's the wrong thing that we should be optimizing for, man. But that's such a backwards thing because I would argue that somebody making over$100 ,000 isn't actually wanting to eat at Chipotle.

58:27They're going to want to invest in like better quality food. And Chipotle is already known as, you know, being a fast casual. Fast casual. Yeah. Anyways, back to Nike. Another takeaway is that you can fall faster than you came up. And brand takes 10 years to build and it can take five minutes to ruin your reputation. And so we talked about pairing and how important that is with podcasts. We talked about pairing and how important that is when it comes to branding. And I believe we shared the story on the podcast, but I'm not sure. We decided not to have a guest on pretty last minute because we found some like...

59:13Day of. day of sketchy shit that they were into. And we decided to pull the plug on the episode because we've spent over four years, damn near five years, building our brand and our reputation of this show. And the last thing we would want is to tarnish that reputation by having someone who we didn't align with their, you know, morals. And that's the last thing we would want. And so understand that you can fall super quickly. It takes so long to build up brand equity and brand loyalty. And through one mistake, it can kind of all come crashing down. So today their stock is at$42.69. I'd buy stock.

1:00:03This is not financial advice, but I think that there's going to be a big turnaround. I foresee that in the future. I went to Nike last week for the day and presented. So they bumped me up to first class, right? Sharif. Phil Knight himself? Yes, they called. Sharif was in the back of the plane, dude. Classic. I'm like, Reef, why did you get a ticket in the main part of the, what are we doing, man? Why are we in comfort plus as a family, right? So I go to the girl. I go, hey, listen, my buddy is in the back of the plane and I'm in first class. I would like to be downgraded or can you move him up to first?

1:00:37Like, what can we do here? Sit us next to each other. She goes, it's not possible. I go, we're going to Nike. Let's make it possible. So they come, they're like, we're not allowed to upgrade him because he didn't buy like this certain level of seat, which is also ridiculous. Delta's got to figure that out. I should be able to buy it if I want to buy it. And you got upgraded because you have status? Yeah. Cause I'm a platinum member. So then I freaked out a little bit. I was like, we're going to figure out how to sit us next to each other. So call whoever over, like, let's figure out how to make this work and they're like well he can't get up i go i'm moving down and he's gonna move up like i have some status on this airline you guys are gonna make it make sense after like five minutes of bitching of course they figure it out you guys just gotta bitch a little bit okay so they figure it out they sit us in comfort plus next to each other way harder the deal than it need to be but we go up there go to the employee store i'll tell you what i bought a few things that employee store stuff's still looking great fuck yeah got got a new pair of uh jordan one baseball cleats oh okay for softball because they're plastic because i don't you can't play with metal spikes in baseball okay i mean in softball so i got a pair of plastic great shoe though it's super sick nice quality there what color uh black and white they're pretty tough okay you want me to see you want to see a photo yeah just so you can take a gander at what we're working with tell me those aren't tough oh those are pretty cool they're pretty sweet right play softball run around those bases what they have going on there at that campus is the craziest thing i've ever seen it is it's like feels like miles long like you get into the campus and it's like you're at disneyland you're like oh this is the ken griffey jr building this is lebron building this is the mia ham building every single building has so much character and they're all based off of the athlete so like we were we were in the ken griffey jr building and you walk in and it's got like you know places is where he's hit a home run oh this ball was hit 460 feet or whatever that thing may be and it's so cool to just see like all this history from all these different athletes that have been you know been with them for some of them decades and on the one wall they had this mural of like all their champions like all the soccer lebron tiger all these athletes that had been with them for a really long time and then the lebron james building which we took a video in front of which was pretty special my co-worker but very cool just to see i think at that level what is expected and there were so so many fucking people i've never seen more people like it's just like it's in a machine and each building has a different staff like we were with the global creative team which is like their in-house agency i mean they got basketball you walk by there's volleyball building there's just there's a sand volleyball court there's a soccer field they got their main soccer person who's on the building.

1:03:14I'm like, there's just no way that they don't turn around. It's like, it's too crazy to see. And if you ever have been there or you're from Portland or you visited, like I was like astonished at how one person can start something that like turns into this. Can you talk about what you were pitching? Yeah, I can say a little bit about it. We were basically, how this stuff works. There's no guarantee that you will win the business from any of these brands or like any big ad agency. But we got to go in, show some of our work, show some of our ideas that we had for them, like ways that we thought we could integrate together.

1:03:52And then you just kind of chat and ask questions and hang out. It was pretty quick. I mean, I flew up at 8am and I came back at 8pm. Like it was just a one day thing, quick turn. If you guys can land Nike as a client, That'll be insane. Be a really great story for the pod. Yeah. Really cool story for the pod. But I think it was very surreal because I worked at Oregon and they're in Nike, obviously like super close ties with Nike. Some of the stuff that we would post would get tagged and collaborated with Nike football, which is cool. But it would be way different to be like, we're working with - At Nike.

1:04:30At Nike. Yeah. You know, like we've done some stuff for Nike Swim. But I'm like, give me basketball, football, something. You're going to see LeBron again and be like, dude, we're back. We're back coworkers, man. Who are you again? He's like, remind me your name. It's like, here's my jacket. But you also, you launched Coastal, man. I did. How did that feel? It felt really good. It's something I'd been wanting to do for a really long time. Getting to hotels. Yeah, getting to hotels. And it's funny because it just makes sense. So growing up, my grandma was a travel agent. And she worked with a few pretty high, what's the word?

1:05:17Like high profile people, celebrities. So because she did that, a lot of hotels really wanted her business because of who her clientele was. so we got to go experience some pretty epic hotels growing up um so she introduced she really spoiled me and she introduced me to the world of luxury hotels luxury hotels it's a little different than where we stay when we go to new york huh yeah yeah or the motel six with my pops on a skiing trip anyways the dichotomy of it all anyways um so grew up and like that that introduced me to like a certain world and I was always just like so drawn to I mean who isn't but like I was always so drawn to like the feeling of a really nice hotel it's just it's a completely different experience so my love for that um obviously you guys know that I love you know photography and video and so this is kind of like the culmination of both of those um and kind of something that I've indirectly, but kind of directly been working towards over honestly, like the past decade.

1:06:31And it feels really cool to launch my own agency. And, and, uh, you know, yesterday I was doing a bunch of outreach and stuff and, um, it's cool. I was also, it's interesting. Cause I was also thinking back, we've done the, like, we have the podcast together. Before the podcast, I tried doing DJing with Josh with a partner. In high school, I started a clothing brand with my buddy Seabass. And I was thinking, I was like, man, everything that I've done or tried to start or created has always been with a partner. And this is the first time I'm doing something solo, like my own business, doing this thing and it feels really cool um and so i'm really excited about it and i just uh i'm happy for you i think it's gonna do really well i'm i will say as far as uh like finding the white space and like separating yourself it is mind-blowing how bad horror sorry it is mind-blowing how bad vertical video content is for some of these like incredibly nice hotels it blows my mind And the hotels that are doing it well are just miles ahead.

1:07:48And I think it's just, it kind of ties back to what we were talking about this episode. I think that these people who own the hotels or make the marketing decisions, they're just so stuck in their way of like hospitality has, hospitality marketing has been done the same way for the past many decades. and I just think we're in a new time and people are discovering hotels completely differently. And so I'm really excited. If you listen to this podcast and you happen to have some connection with a luxury boutique hotel, let me know. But don't hit me or Braden up between Thursday afternoon and Monday because we're headed out to the fucking desert.

1:08:33We're going to be at Coachella. We're going to be at Coachella. But another thing too that we want - Which is why - which is why I rock my... Oh, nice, nice. We want to tell you guys something too because we have been going through a little bit of a, you know, thinking about the future of the show and what it's going to look like because so many of you have been with us for years, years of our lives, which is pretty wild. We've been hanging out together now on this couch for, what, almost a year. But it's progressively getting so, so difficult to get high caliber, amazing guests on that we think can provide you with amazing value.

1:09:13So going forward, we want to do more solo episodes similar to this. So this was an experiment and we hope that you enjoyed it and we hope that you liked hanging out with us on a specific topic. But we think that this gives us actually room to be able to do the show for multiple years to continue. Because right now, if we're being transparent with you guys, these guests to get have been a pain in the ass with the scheduling of certain guests not the guests that we've had on they've been great but some of these guests that we've been trying to get it's like oh we could do this in six months it's like there's no way you're that busy dude or just the simple fact of booking guests for a podcast is a full-time job within itself and it's just it's really frustrating having to rely it's really frustrating having such a big part an important part of how you operate the thing that you're doing reliant on not just one other person but a new person every single week.

1:10:22Some people are really easy. I can't. I cannot. I cannot make it like you don't understand how hard it is to book a different guest every single week that like aligns with your show is going to be a good guest we'll give you guys game it's fucking difficult and so it's funny

1:10:51yeah it's just it's just frustrating and you know talking about getting back to kind of like what we talking about dude finding our path back yeah finding our path back like we used to do a lot more we used to do a lot more solo episodes and then we realized that like the way we were really going to grow the show is yes through like better packaging but through guests who had you know a big following that would that would pull us in views and subscribers. And you kind of got to, I guess, play the game a little bit. But like, honestly, if it was up to me and Brayden, like most of the episodes, I think would be something like this, where it's just we're able to, you know, give you guys some game, talk about a certain topic, give our point of views.

1:11:37That is honestly like our favorite episodes. And so I think the way that we're going to be moving forward is like focusing, still trying to get incredible guests on, but. Yes. And that's not going to stop. We're not going to not do guest episodes, but if you guys are cool with it, I think these are going to be very prevalent and we're happy to dive into topics that you want us to go deeper on. So you can message us, DM us on Instagram. We'll respond and let us know what other stuff you'd want to see or like how you liked this episode, just hanging out with you, me, Coastie, because I really enjoyed it.

1:12:14And this is something that we can do more sustainably like we when we went to texas and we talked to max i think inevitably this is something that all podcasts go through where like you've seen it with the biggest pods in the world i.e like steven bartlett right started out as like that was business now i'd argue that it's it's like health ai all these topics these other different topics that you know he's having to expand into because you run out of folks to talk about especially when you're doing podcast episodes every single week for so many years like you just inevitably run out of people in a category so you you have to expand out we're also at you have to understand we're at a really fucking frustrating level dude where are we at man tell them we're like in no man's land so we're not a new podcast we've done over 200 episodes we've gotten a handful of like big guests we're not superstars but we're not superstars and so it's like we're trying to leverage past guests and get on bigger guests or even more guests of certain caliber but it's like you're almost too small for the biggest guest yes but you're too and then like we're not too big right but like you're too big for someone who's just starting and like just starting their brand out and you're like well no we want you you want someone who've like we've had on the past but then there's only so many of these people in our on our list per se and you guys if you guys could see the email threads some of these people it's like oh my god they're like look we get my assistant's assistant assistant i'm like just fucking tell me what day you're free man can we just do that can you just tell me what day you're free and we'll get this thing on the books or or or you know what's so fun dude tell me the most fun thing tell them what it is it's so fun when you get a podcast rescheduled three different times and sometimes on the day of that's so fun it's super fun so it doesn't it doesn't fuck with our schedule no it doesn't at all the cool thing though.

1:14:04It's great. We talked to Max Cheney about this when we're in Texas. And I think and know that this can turn into it because the rocks are strong. The rocks roll. I know that we can do these. It might just take us a longer period of time to get them to a place where viewership's in a place where we're super, super stoked on it. But I think this is going to be way more fun. And you guys can tell us if you hated it or if you liked it, because I really enjoyed this episode. this was super fun yeah this was super fun i like i love this like this was this was this rejuvenated me you know not like we get to do research on a topic bring you something that we think is tactical that someone at any level whether you're making 10 million bucks a year or you know you're under six figures you could grab and like put that into what you're doing and please if you have gotten this far one subscribe if you're not subscribed but two if you have topics of stuff that you want us to talk about or things that you want us to break down, let us know because I had so much fun talking about it.

1:15:05I also had so much fun researching. Yeah, this was super fun to go and do the research for. And I think that there's plenty more of these that we can pull. Oh, tell me. I do want to share one story and we can leave the rocks with this. And I shared this story with you as we were walking into the studio. So how often do you get your car washed? Are you still washing your car god no yourself i had a guy come to my house and he was outside washing someone else's car and then i realized oh he doesn't have any of his stuff so i gave him all my stuff like he had like one spray bottle i was like if you're gonna do this for a business like you should just take my stuff and like you just gifted it yeah i gave it to him i was like he was doing my car and it was him and his son and i was like oh do you do this full time because i'm just trying to make some extra bread and i go dude take all my shit because i had a ton of stuff so he took it and he did like an awesome job with my car but now i moved so he doesn't he doesn't drive that far away so i went to a first time ever drive-thru car wash dude i'm fucking doing that from now on really yeah i know it scratches your paint and like my tesla's all fucked up from like production stuff so i'm i'm over i'm like let me just have a clean car my car was disgusting yeah i took shit out of it and i'm like this has been in here for years but now it's clean so i'm now doing the drive-thru car wash thing and how often would you say you get a car wash i'm gonna do this twice a month okay so every two weeks yeah just like the haircut i hadn't yeah yeah fresh fit i hadn't gotten a car wash in shit maybe four months like it was getting gross okay same here i hadn't gotten a car wash in about six months this is embarrassing yeah i do park in a garage though so six months is embarrassing four months i park in a garage man yeah true true i park on the street mine it just gets so dirty.

1:16:51Anyways, go to the car wash. Okay. There's four options. $20. It's like$25, 30, 35, 40. Okay. I said, give me the deluxe. 40. It's been a while. That's what I want. Okay. He looks at my car. He goes, probably going to want the super wash. We'll do the mats. And it's not on the thing. Not on the thing. Super's not on the thing. It goes 40 deluxe, 250 detail. I go, we don't need the detail. Yeah, you don't need the detail. How much are you allowed to upsell someone if you don't tell them the price? So based off of the four options that you just gave me, I would say 15 to 20 % would be totally normal.

1:17:39I was thinking. Right. We were going from 40 to maybe 60. 60, 50 to 60. 60 max. 55 to 60. Yeah. Hands me the ticket. 100 bucks. He didn't tell you how much it was? No. I said, I maybe should have asked. I was just about to say, you didn't freak out? You just took it? I said. He'd already charged your card. I said, we're here. You know? Wait, wait. He already charged your card? No, no, no. He just handed me the ticket. Okay. And I was like, you know what? Fuck it. I need it. So I was like, he goes, it's going to take you 45 minutes. Or it's going to take us 45 minutes. I go, great. it's an eight minute walk to earth cafe i'll order some breakfast chill just right on our street yeah i'm on la cienega okay i'm on la cienega and i'm walking to the earth cafe on melrose um i order my food for there to eat there i sit down i'm getting fucking blown up who the fuck is spam calling me keep canceling it fourth call comes in i go same i gotta pick this up sir this is a car wash uh you left or you forgot to leave your keys so we can't wash your car are you close by i go well order food for here i'll get it to go and i'll be right there so i wasted like 40 minutes walking over to get fucking food not having left my car keys i got through at nine i didn't leave till fucking 11 it was a two hour fucking i go jesus christ uh but anyways yeah the the hundred dollar the the two the 250 percent upsell wild i think that's what that would be what they call like a scam or like that should be illegal man if i was on the phone like let's just put this in perspective if i was like dude if you're doing this thing yeah but we got this thing yeah and i switched it around i was like it'll be 65 ,000 you'd be like bro what if i was like on the phone with a brand i'm like okay the package is 10k but have you have you seen you guys seen the super they're like what's the super i'm like just trust the process it'd be 46 ,000 they're like dude we were in here for 10 have you seen that that's crazy have you seen the dude who calls andy elliott's sales oh yeah i love this guy i love this guy he's uh i forget the name he's like you want the like you want the thing he goes oh well, what do I get for that thing?

1:20:03He goes, it's like, it's$20 ,000. What do I get? He goes, dude, you get to like bro tap. What's bro tapping? He's like, oh dude, you know, you get to, you know, you get to fucking dap up Andy and, uh, hang out with him. You're just closer with him. Like make eye contact. You're like, dude, yeah, I'll take that one. He's like, what's your card? He gives him like nine digits. He doesn't give him, he goes, dude, oh, he goes, man, my grandma just died. He goes, dude,

1:20:32You can double down. Put in your card right now. What are those? Man, those last two digits are going to be hard to give you. He's like, oh, he's like, well, just find them. Gosh, great follow. You guys got to go find this guy. Anyways. This is a fun pod, man. Episode 203. 202. The 505 podcast. If you're still here, please hit the subscribe button. Send it to your friend and we'll see you guys all next week. Peace. That was fucking great. Or no, it is. 203. 203. See you guys all next week. Peace.