Turning a Golf Network Into a Growing E-Commerce Brand

20:13Taylor Artman:same online, to get a customer or to whatever, even to get someone to buy for free? So it's a$5,$10 effort that can yield no return. as you said, or it can yield a great return with an exponential or potential exponential effect. So I think it's more the upside than the downside. So I think it's worth testing.

20:34Brian Roisentul:A hundred percent. Yeah. I would say if there's one thing that I've pressed on with our team, but also any of our campaigns, strategies or anything, because we don't run ads. We have before. We don't currently run one. We've got to be one of the only, like, of our size that's selling to, you know, 600-something retailers. And then, you know, we've sold in multiple countries across the nation for this long that don't run ads consistently. And that's probably not great. We probably need to fix that. And we will. But the reason for that, I think, a lot of times is we prefer to do it differently. And you're absolutely right.

21:14Brian Roisentul:What is the cost of it? You know, if you're running a social ad, you know, once you add up all these different things and the time and so forth, what's the goal? The goal is to put your hat out there and show this product. And nothing brings in sales more than your product. It brings in customers faster than any salesman will or any, you know, salesperson or marketer. It's a good product and people like it. And so if you put it on people that are in front of other people that are paying attention to them and not necessarily influencing, I don't always love that word, but they're just paying attention.

21:45Brian Roisentul:and they respect them or they see what they're doing, that will go further than those ads, I assure you. Now, the ads are powerful, but I completely agree with you. If you gave me the option, if I had$1 ,000 today and I had to make$3 ,000 back by next week, I would not run a$1 ,000 meta ad. I would send$1 ,000 worth of our product to strategic people and places. And if I was gonna run an ad, I'd have to pay somebody probably to get the best ROAS. And then, you know, I'm sure Meta takes a cut in there. If you go look at the nuts and bolts or whatever, I would use that to reward, incentivize, you know, whatever you want to call those commissions or referral kickbacks, you know, that you use for influencer marketing.

22:26Brian Roisentul:I would use that to encourage and motivate them to do so and then continue to scale on their own. And there's nothing that will return faster. If you have a good product, nothing will return faster, your investment, than putting it out there in front of people. You know, drug dealers, they give you a hit of it. They don't put a flyer in front of you. Yeah.

22:50Taylor Artman:Yeah, no, I mean, it makes sense. They get the full experience. They get to see, first off, it's a little something that goes a long way from your end. And they appreciate that. Whenever someone sends you a gift, it's always appreciated. if they love the gift even more. And it's something that is not expected. So when there's something unexpected, you tell people about it because you loved it. It wasn't expected. It was, let's say, they were showing appreciation. They were, you know, saying, oh, like, they are loyal forever. It's, yeah, I think, again, more upsides than downsides. So I wanted to ask you next, you know, you started again way before the pandemic.

23:29Taylor Artman:The pandemic hit, accelerated, let's say, e-commerce, many new brands i don't know if in your space specifically what many new brands were created of course overnight now many are gone as fast right but what's changed what was what were like those few years like 2020 2021 you're exactly right and in fact i was looking at something the

23:53Brian Roisentul:other day on on social where it it reminds you of like on this day or something and it was uh around this time of year in 2020 or 2021 i can't remember if it was right before or right now they had this march madness logo contest of new brands and like kind of lifestyle or apparel or whatever and i was looking at it and yeah like 20 or 30 of the brands on there were icons but 20 or 30 of those i considered ours like the new one on the street that was one of the smaller ones and i remember like it was a little bracket and it's fan voting or whatever and so we made it pretty far but 20 or 30 of those I thought were bigger and better than us.

24:30Brian Roisentul:I looked up to them and they don't exist anymore. And the big icons still do. And then there's about 10 or 12 like us that were in there that are either still alive, thriving or whatever, but they're here. And I have to wonder, you know, if some of those brands and the ones that got, I guess, you know, kind of some rapid growth through the pandemic or before it or whatever, they were a little too dependent, I'm guessing, on branding, on influencers, on engagement and, you know, potential or just perception versus the product. And I think brand perception is critical that you've got to always, that's one of the things you must protect your brand.

25:12Brian Roisentul:When you give free stuff out, that doesn't mean it's free for everybody. You don't ever discount as far as you must keep the premium pricing that you wish to be at. And if somebody says, well, why'd that person get one? It's like, well, they bring this to the table and they're part of this and they've earned it or whatever. and you create that opportunity for anyone to get there. But the value is the value. And I would have to wonder if all those brands during that time, they struck gold not in product development and not in a purpose or why that they were believing in. They did it, I think, through the people they put it on, you know, through paid ads, paid influence.

25:51Brian Roisentul:And so the second that a higher bidder came along, those people quit wearing it. And if the sales weren't there to back it up or the product wasn't good enough to maintain it, then it probably fizzled out. And so if you're going to pay people and pay ads or whatever, if you don't have the product to make that a lifetime customer, then you're in trouble. And so, you know, I think that's what we ran into. We saw a lot of marketers and a lot of promoters and a lot of people people, but the product people, I think are who can make

26:22Taylor Artman:They say marketing is a promise and product will show you whether it leaps up to the promise or not. And you can have no marketing great product and still thrive, right? It's not easy, but it's a way. And people will market it for you. Like it happened with you, right? With your products. People were already asking about your products even before you thought about having a brand. So it goes a long way. Product comes first. So do you know why some of those brands that you mentioned that are no longer a business aren't in business anymore?

26:55Brian Roisentul:Well, I'm sure there's a number of reasons economically with COVID and things like that. We had already been in business for three or four years. And I know I do know to get eligible for some of those COVID loans, a requirement was some sort of prior existence and proof of concept. You know, if the SBA and EIDL was going to back you up. So that's probably a factor, you know. So if you just started overnight, now you're kind of seizing an opportunity and you're not actually needing to be protected by this economic disaster. And so I think that would be one is they started there and they didn't have the backup support like we were fortunate to if we had a business going before that.

27:33Brian Roisentul:And then the next part, I think that the paid ads on Meta, and this is something that I've spoken to advertisers that we've hired and that have worked with other brands. And then also I've spoken with other founders who have great products that are well known or whatever, and they don't perform as well as this social media person's whatever they're making, you know, off Alibaba or whatever, at least in the short term. And I think that a lot of those people, they seize their opportunity by paid promotions. And by that, I don't mean like everything has to come with a cost, but the person needs to have a purpose and a why behind their wearing it other than money for it to really, truly connect.

28:12Brian Roisentul:And then I think the paid ads as well gets it out there and it gets a lot of one time purchases. I don't think that the people there were putting enough time, energy and value and maybe because they couldn't get out in front of people or not. but to complement those campaigns with product placement where people would buy it if it wasn't attracted to your website. If you weren't always getting paid ads put in front of you, how can you find this product, right? And so I think that that has kept us alive for sure, is our product was on shelves and we had partnerships that went far beyond our website.

28:43Brian Roisentul:So if our ad didn't run and the algorithm wasn't coming in front of Brian and the DTC, you know insider page or whatever you know that fit our you know algorithm on Instagram or meta then how would these people see us so if the ads stop the traffic stops and you you you got to have those ads be a revenue driver not dependent on your revenue.

29:08Taylor Artman:Now what about the next few years after a pandemic because again I speak with a lot of founders and I work in that space as well you know, from the agency, let's say, side. And everything that was easy, let's say, for brands when the pandemic hit wasn't the next few years. So what was it for your brand? Was there any point after the pandemic that you struggled and you reached a bottleneck? And yeah.

29:39Brian Roisentul:Yes. So after the pandemic, we had, well, I'll preface, right before the pandemic, we did a partnership with the North Texas PGA. And this was a B2B move, but we got our product in front of a bunch of golf professionals who are the purchasers, merchandisers, decision makers for a bunch of retail shops. A golf course is a retail shop. Sometimes they have more than one. And we put it out there. And one afternoon, we did about$53 ,000 in sales and it was a$1 ,000 sponsorship. And it cost me a hundred hats to put it out there. And right there, there's no meta ad in the world that will return that value.

30:15Brian Roisentul:I mean, like none, there's not. And so that right there was something. Well, I took that play and we wanted to expand it out into other athletes. And what became available after COVID was sponsorships. Brands and companies were dropping sponsorships of things because obvious cashflow issues, personnel, furloughs, whatever it may be, right? They had to cut contracts. And so an example would be that I learned a lesson, but it's coming back. But had I not had at least a strong following and brand positioning across many stores, we probably would have sunk. We took over Conference USA's presenting sponsor of apparel right after COVID.

30:59Brian Roisentul:So the contract was 21 to 23. And we took on a couple of small things like that, and we had to put product out there. And so like with Conference USA, we supplied product to 4 ,500 athletes three years in a row. And for the founders at home, that's a lot of money. And so, and there was no, I don't know if I'm allowed to even say this for the contract or whatever, but there was no cash at that time because of their positioning, but we got athletes in our stuff. Well, right after COVID also, there was obviously a clear hit on everything going on. And it took a while, half the country shut down, half the countries back or it was start and stops.

31:38Brian Roisentul:And then, you know, you had a lot of retailers and boutiques and even the end consumer, they're waiting on their PPP check or their or whatever, their stimulus or to get unfurloughed in order to be able to resume life and purchase differentiated product. You know, otherwise they're going to settle for commodities. And so I think I learned a lesson there because I took the same strategy I took to the PGA, but I didn't have quite the stable foundation and it got rocky for a minute there. And it was like, oh man, okay, year one's over. All right. We're okay. And year two was like, okay, we got through that one.

32:15Brian Roisentul:And then in year three, it's like, how can we survive this partnership? And then I wasn't even caring about the ROI. It was just like, how can I do this? And because I committed hard and you just didn't know that that was going to happen. That was going to come. And you thought it was going to turn back around and it did slowly, but it did on e-commerce more so. And I'm putting it on this, this through this other outlet that was more organic and that world had changed. And so what works one day before COVID wasn't working here. And, you know, and I, and I wonder, I think had I had that opportunity with no COVID, I think it would have parlayed, but I think we replaced an Adidas or something that it was a paid partnership.

32:56Brian Roisentul:The reason we got that was because it was high risk And somebody at a big company, they knew and there was risk, you know, and they're a chief of marketing or advertising or whatever. And they knew the risk and it wasn't worth their job. And so they got out. And the entrepreneur in me saw that as an opportunity. And I took the risk because I'm not a risk averse. And no one's probably nobody's that listen that's listening to this is otherwise they wouldn't start a business. And it was an ultimate lesson of, you know, we're better for it. And we now are seeing the return because we've got coaches and athletes that got those gifts and they're coming back now.

33:33Brian Roisentul:And they're becoming next waves of ambassadors or even purchasers or merchandisers or whatever. But it took a long time. And I think the brands that struggled after COVID, if they weren't so lucky, because luck's a big factor, or they, you know, or they weren't quite as scrappy in some of their ways. If they were too dependent on those online sales, they would have crashed before they saw the return. And so it's not all rainbows out there with these plays. It's about timing. But COVID, I think the main disruptor was we didn't know that. And how could I not take that opportunity when it was worth so much more right the day before?

34:06Brian Roisentul:And the conference, and I'm probably saying too much, I don't know what legal obligations are. That conference has shifted now, so I'm sure it's fine. But they needed that sponsorship, obviously, because it was shaky ground for everybody and everyone, right? And so COVID brought just disruption, which means it brought disruptive brands in, it brought disruptive strategies in, and then it brought disrupting buyer behavior. And it was unpredictable. And so I really, I feel for anyone that went through COVID and I don't feel for the ones that didn't go through it as much that started after. Cause one, I do feel for them because I worry that we're going to resume back to a more people centric buyer behavior marketing.

34:52Brian Roisentul:Like there's going to be a mix, right? I don't think the mall is going to be back, but people like to touch and feel product and et cetera. And I think that what you see, what you see disconnection between Hollywood and politicians and whatever to the to the normal person, the influencer marketing. If you go on TikTok today, on TikTok Live, there's people with a million followers that were like selling an insurance last week or whatever, you know, and they weren't they don't have a star on Hollywood. Right. And so it's it's all changing, you know, quickly. And so I get, I guess, concerned for those people that got hot and they're hot right now because it's going to resume back.

35:26Brian Roisentul:And so if you didn't have the understanding for why things worked before, I think they're in for a rude awakening. And so I think the brands that started anything before COVID and then are still going now, they're going to survive as things, I guess, steady or even shift back upwards. Like AI is going to change everything, you know, like everything. You don't need videographers quite much anymore. I mean, I could put in something in chat and it can make me a commercial that probably cost 50 grand in 2004, you know. Tell me about it. So, yeah, I've been talking about a lot of disruption in all sorts of ways.

36:00Taylor Artman:Yeah. And the commerce, there's a lot of exciting stuff that we don't know so much about yet because it's barely getting started as we speak. But are we going to sell to people? Are we going to sell to AI agents? How is that going to affect commerce? Is it going to happen mainly through LLMs, tools, AI tools, I mean, or I don't know. The only thing I know is that this is different. You know, I say the same example always. TV didn't kill radio. Online didn't kill offline. But it is different. It's not that. A gentic commerce or let's say purchases to be specific. I don't know, chat, GPT or similar will kill websites.

36:42Taylor Artman:But this is changing. I heard someone the other day saying, you're not going to ask an AI agent to buy sneakers for you. You're going to say, or so they said. You're going to say, buy the groceries for me and my family for the entire year. And the AI will keep in mind and to never forget again, you know, to buy groceries. If they have any, you know, conditions, you know, whatever they have or food restrictions, their taste is what they like, what they don't. It will be smarter. It's not just buy this for me. Follow this behavior for this year. Whatever, right? And that's just an example of many that we yet don't know about because it is humbling to say that we don't know what's going to come with that.

37:29Taylor Artman:But there are some examples for that adjunct e-commerce that is about to start soon. And it will change things. But one thing that won't change is, again, everyone is going to be there. But those that go above and beyond, like I interviewed brands that, I don't know, give a hundred notes called our customers because they want their input that every time they release a product they have this vip customer group that they give products to they have their product testers group that they send products to test before mass releasing the products incorporating their feedback online communities offline communities meetups whatever but that's what I see as a common denominator for the most successful brands.

38:17Taylor Artman:Can you succeed without that? Again, yes. Probably it's an uphill battle these days. And it isn't.

38:23Brian Roisentul:The product testing, I think, is massive. We're actually incorporating kind of a new rendition of that and probably a better model. We've kind of done it a bit on the fly and as needed versus now we're going to go a different way. Because one, that strategy helps big time on just an initial coverage of your cost risk, you know, when releasing something, especially if you can get them invested even on a micro level. But I would say as AI, I mean, AI is going to change it so much. You know, you just saw Amazon, I believe, released 16 ,000 employees back into the, you know, unemployment world, which is very sad.

39:02Brian Roisentul:And so founders, I think, and owners and just, you know, between whether it's strategists or decision makers are going to have to decide at some point what's more important, the ROI or the relationship with your countrymen and your, you know, the people in your community. And there's going to be a balance there. I think that you'll see Amazon hire people back. If there's too many AI, too much robot, there's going to be a downside. The internet took a while. You know, I really get where it is. And so now if we even go back three years now, you know, how quickly we've forgotten, like, what do we do between 4Chat GPT?

39:39Brian Roisentul:You know, in my lifetime, I used an encyclopedia. And it's like, and so if the Internet goes down, whatever, there's going to be some major learning curves. And so when you see Amazon go fire somebody like that, they're huge risk takers. But they can afford to learn the hard way. And so they're going in on that. And that's almost better. That's their testing. They're like, let's just go all in and see how it works. and we'll see the pain points and then we'll fill that back in with the necessary people is probably what they're thinking. And so as AI and this comes and Elon's going to make these robots, what you said at the beginning was they're going to go purchase things or whatever and you're not going to ask them to go buy shoes, but you might.

40:15Brian Roisentul:That's going to become, and now I'll go back, product was important and it will always be the key thing. But product differentiation, you know, the difference between a commodity is something that is interchangeable versus a differentiated product, right? That's why you can see two things made from the same company, and one is called Great Value at Walmart, and one is sold only at Whole Foods. And they're branded differently. They have different perception. One is clearly invested in more. It costs more to me. They're not. As much as people want to say they're exactly alike, they're not. There's a difference.

40:49Brian Roisentul:But are they the difference between$40 and$10? Probably not. But that perception is there. And I think what you're going to run into with the AI on two fronts is from if I hire AI or the founders and entrepreneurs and the business owners, we hire AI as a salesperson. They're not going to be able to relate. I don't care how good they get. They'll be able to answer questions directly or whatever, but we have a certain way. You know, like if I'm working at a shoe store, you walk in or you walk into my store and you're looking for something. I can quickly tell through conversation, through questions, through just observation, through indirect relationships we may have.

41:28Brian Roisentul:Right. I have a friend of a friend that's friends with you or whatever. And I know that you support X team. I'm going to point you to something there. The AI will never be able to do that. They'll never know. And even if they did know, they might know too much where they would have to shoot in the dark at so many things. They don't really know what's real and what's just kind of there. And so from a sales point, that relatableness will struggle to resonate with people over time. And then if it's the shopper or whatever, like you have an automated shopping, that's going to work and that's going to be great.

41:58Brian Roisentul:And that's going to really, really streamline. I would love for groceries to show up and I don't care if it's great value or Frosted Flakes. I don't care if it's almond milk or whatever. Soy milk, I just don't want dairy or whatever, you know, whatever it is. I really could care less. Wendy's or Waterburger at the end of the day, those are commodities and I'm not big on it. But as you get into differentiated products, it does matter. And you can't just go buy whatever. People want Nike Air Max shoes versus Nike Shox or the Adidas version or whatever. And then there's a person that wanted that Adidas version that was thrown out by the Nike supporter and vice versa.

42:39Brian Roisentul:And the AI will struggle with that. They're either going to be too exact or they're going to be too by the requirements and not by the reason for purchase. And so I think there's going to be a disconnect there. It's going to work for a while, but people are going to like that I chose this and I'm unique and I did it different. Right. And I just don't think the AI world is going to do that. It's going to make things a lot easier. And certainly if you're selling something based on price point and not based on premium perception, then AI is going to work on your favor big time. But if you're selling, you know, there's a reason you don't see commercials for Louis Vuitton out there.

43:16Brian Roisentul:They don't need commercials. Their customer doesn't watch TV. And so they are going to be found no matter what, wherever they put that product, because it's exclusive. And so I think if you've got a company or a model that's selling a service or product that is more based on price and functionality and a purpose other than the perception and the premium level, right? The appeal to, you know, a certain tier of customer, then you're going to benefit greatly, I think, here soon. But I think a differentiated product, whether you're a boutique with homemade designs, custom things, or just something organically thought of or created, or it's just something all new altogether, completely disruptive.

44:00Brian Roisentul:How is AI going to know what that is? It doesn't even exist yet. It's not even in their algorithm.

44:04Taylor Artman:Many questions to few answers for now about AI, but you're right. I mean, there's the report that we build, you know, between two human beings is not going to be replaced, at least not in the near future. Even if we have these humanoids that are, you know, being built or they already exist and they're going to be, you know, sold to the B2C, let's say, in the next few years. I think Elon Musk said recently in the next one, two years or so. But yeah, it's not the same. Connection between two human beings goes beyond being right or wrong, beyond knowing it all. In fact, knowing people who know it all, they are not the ones with more friends, let's say.

44:49Taylor Artman:It's people don't want know-it-alls. They want people that are wrong, imperfect. We want, again, we have this person in common. Oh, I know this. So it's to build rapport with someone like us. And that's probably far from happening already. But yeah, as far as purchases online, that's changing fast. But I can keep going forever. I think that we can keep days for hours, but I want to be respectful with your time. So I wanted to thank you first for coming to the show. I really enjoyed the conversation. And before you go, I wanted you to tell the audience where they can go to learn more about you.

45:28Taylor Artman:if you are on LinkedIn or any other social network. And of course, about where they can go to learn more about the brand as well.

45:36Brian Roisentul:Yeah. So our website is surfandturfgolf.com. You can find me on LinkedIn, Taylor Artman. There's not many Artmans out there, so you should be able to find it. And I'm on social media. You know, it's all public on there, so it's not hard to find. I'm not a celebrity either, so, you know, you might have to type it exactly in. But the website has got all sorts of contact us, all sorts of info. And then just, you know, for personally on a, you know, I think any listeners here with relatable, you know, connections, whether to problems or to people or to whatever. Yeah. Reach out. I love having conversations.

46:14Brian Roisentul:I've loved being on here, Brian, everything. And then we also we've got a problem or a program, actually, where we do private labels. So if you're in the apparel industry, I'm happy to help you in ways that I had mentors help me and keep fighting out there. And just always remember there's a third way because when you get to that fork in the road, that's the difference between being a business owner or a decision maker and someone that's a little more confined is you don't have those rules. You can create your third rule. My aunt is a great, great entrepreneur and has always taught me that. And so never forget there's a third way.

46:49Brian Roisentul:And so as we hit all these new, hopefully not COVID, but these new times, when it looks like it's left or right, those aren't the two directions. There's going to be up and down and stay the same. I don't know. There's a third way to do it and just be different.

47:04Taylor Artman:I love that. But for everyone listening or watching, if you go to the DTCinsider.com and go to the podcast section, you'll be able to find the show notes for this one, including the links to the, you know, social media and the website he just mentioned. Taylor, again, it was a pleasure having you on. Thank you.

47:22Brian Roisentul:Thank you, Brian. I really enjoyed it.

47:27Brian Roisentul:This episode was brought to you by BSR Digital. We help DTC brands grow through paid ads and email marketing campaigns. If you'd like us to help your business grow, head on over to bsrdigital.com and schedule a call with us.