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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the bob lef Sets podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is Terrence Riley, the marketer extraordinary, the

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Speaker 1: man behind the Stanley Quencher, the revival of Crocs and

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Speaker 1: now Hey Dude shoots.

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Speaker 2: Terrence, how do you reach the public today?

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Speaker 3: I'll throw so many ways. The best way to reach

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Speaker 3: them is fast. That's really the trick. And through social media,

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Speaker 3: the opportunities to reach people fast are so incredible and extraordinary,

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Speaker 3: so social and fast. That's been some of the unlocks

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Speaker 3: in the last ten years for certainly my career.

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Speaker 2: You say fast, what do you mean there?

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Speaker 3: Fast today tomorrow? You know, the attention span of most

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Speaker 3: folks is now, and so to get folks attention, you

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Speaker 3: got to react quickly to what's happening on trends. A

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Speaker 3: lot of the things that you write about, it's on TikTok,

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Speaker 3: it's on social media, and brands in particular can see that.

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Speaker 3: And the quicker you respond, react or create something, the

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Speaker 3: better off your connection to that consumer or culture is

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Speaker 3: what a gift it is too.

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Speaker 2: Okay, let's go with your present gig. Hey dude, you know,

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Speaker 2: Hey Dude's numbers were great. Crocs purchased it recently, they

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Speaker 2: haven't been that good. You're obviously given the job to

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Speaker 2: bring it back. How are you going to do that?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so, hey dude, boy, we're a eight hundred plus

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Speaker 3: million dollar footwear brand. You know, we're a top ten

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Speaker 3: global footwear brand. So it's an amazing success story. But

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Speaker 3: you're right, there's been a bit of a lull, which

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Speaker 3: is one of the reasons why I accepted the offer

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Speaker 3: to come as the Hay Dude president. And let's connect

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Speaker 3: with consumers, customers and culture and so a couple things

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Speaker 3: that I laid out really on my first day. You know,

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Speaker 3: you join the team and you listen to some of

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Speaker 3: the things that are working or isn't, and then you

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Speaker 3: lay out a vision for the brand, and it's to

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Speaker 3: really build the core and add more is where it starts.

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Speaker 3: Like we had the Wendy and the Wally, these two

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Speaker 3: famous silhouettes, which most people know is hey dude. So

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Speaker 3: we've got to strengthen those things and you know forever,

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Speaker 3: you know, since the Beatles at least are Elvis. You know,

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Speaker 3: youth culture drives culture, but more than ever, youth female

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Speaker 3: culture drives culture. And so to ignite a young female

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Speaker 3: consumer is really an important aspect of what we're up

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Speaker 3: to here at Hey dude in the nine months since

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Speaker 3: I've been president, and do it through a few lenses,

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Speaker 3: you know, where people are wearing shoes, travel and music

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Speaker 3: and pre and post sport, especially young women who are

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Speaker 3: wearing footwear in that kind of environment, to do all

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Speaker 3: those things to ignore this brand, and we're already up

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Speaker 3: to it. And it's been an incredible nine months for

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Speaker 3: me in the way we're already connecting. So it's been

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Speaker 3: a lot of fun.

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Speaker 2: Okay, prior to getting an email from you, I didn't

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Speaker 2: know what hay Dude was. I didn't know they were shoes.

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Speaker 2: Am I an anomaly? Is there an issue of knowledge?

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Speaker 2: Or is there an issue of I'm not the target

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Speaker 2: audience and therefore that's not where you're focusing.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I think it's a little bit of all of that.

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Speaker 3: I think we're a relatively new brand and so that's

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Speaker 3: part of it. But you know, eight hundred plus million

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Speaker 3: dollar mystery is a pretty exciting opportunity for somebody like

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Speaker 3: myself to you know, get the keys thrown at me

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Speaker 3: to drive this car. So it's a pretty extraordinary thing,

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Speaker 3: you know, but we're a footwear brand for all ages.

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Speaker 3: There's you know, dad's in Iowa that love us, and

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Speaker 3: young women in Miami who love us, and everywhere in between.

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Speaker 3: And so the more we can get younger and more female,

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Speaker 3: as I said earlier, the more well known Hey Dude

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Speaker 3: will be. But you know, we're in some of America's

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Speaker 3: premier retailers and we are a real success story that

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Speaker 3: hit a bump in the road and now we're driving

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Speaker 3: it like we stole it bub.

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Speaker 2: Okay, not everybody is familiar with Hey Dude. Can you

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Speaker 2: tell us what the Hay Dude shoe is?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? So it's a really comfortable, casual shoe. It's like

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Speaker 3: six ounces. It's the lightest thing. When you put your

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Speaker 3: feet in, then you're like, oh dude, Like these are

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Speaker 3: the lightest, most comfortable shoes out there, and they're meant

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Speaker 3: for anything. Really, they're not performance shoes, of course, they're

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Speaker 3: really casual and they're led by the Wendy and Wally

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Speaker 3: silhouette that is really our icon. But Hey Dude is

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Speaker 3: it's unlike anything, Bob. It's a real success story that

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Speaker 3: I said is a huge top ten footwear brand that

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Speaker 3: still is a bit of an unknown and that's an

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Speaker 3: incredible thing.

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Speaker 2: Okay, let's start really at the basics. Sure, what is

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Speaker 2: the dude shoe made on?

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Speaker 3: I was made out of different things? Certainly canvas is

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Speaker 3: the thing that makes us famous, and it was so

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Speaker 3: light and is a credible thing to pack in a suitcase,

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Speaker 3: to add that extra pair in your bag so you

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Speaker 3: don't hit the dreaded you know, weight limit in your

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Speaker 3: your travel bag. So stylish, comfortable, and a variety of

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Speaker 3: things that we make different styles, And there's boots, there's

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Speaker 3: our classic Wendy's in our wallis, there's slippers that are

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Speaker 3: made out of fuzz and all those good things. So

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Speaker 3: a variety of different styles to suit alls of different needs.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So the quantity of product. In the late nineties,

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Speaker 2: when Steve Jobs came back to Apple, he quite famously

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Speaker 2: streamlined the product line to make it more comprehensible. How

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Speaker 2: many different off rings does hey dudes have? And how

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Speaker 2: do you decide whether to add something not add something?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, great question. I think, as I mentioned earlier, it's

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Speaker 3: to build the core and add more. And so the

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Speaker 3: core is the Wendy and the Wally, the classic silhouette

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Speaker 3: that people who do know, Hey dude, know it for

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Speaker 3: and so we need to strengthen that icon, but build

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Speaker 3: around it things like the slipper that I mentioned. A

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Speaker 3: success that is beginning to percolate for us is an

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Speaker 3: Austin Lift, which is a women's style that's a slip

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Speaker 3: in elevated platform shoot different than the Wendy in the Wallly.

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Speaker 3: So you want to strengthen the core, which is hey dude,

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Speaker 3: but you want to add the more and connect with

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Speaker 3: different consumers. So a similar strategy and underperforming skews we

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Speaker 3: stop making.

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Speaker 2: Okay distribution, people think content is king. If you can't

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Speaker 2: buy it, it doesn't matter what it is. So you know,

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Speaker 2: Nike famously pulled back and their sales went down. They

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Speaker 2: wanted to go to a more direct sales model in

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Speaker 2: this particular case, how many retailers can Hey dude, and

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Speaker 2: do you want more? Do you want less? What is

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Speaker 2: your relationship with the retail cham great question.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we're in some of America's and the world's leading

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Speaker 3: footwear destinations, you know, Dick's Sporting Goods here in the States,

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Speaker 3: or famous Footwear Academy, and so we want to be

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Speaker 3: on shelf. You know, footwear is often a TecTile thing.

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Speaker 3: You want to pick it up and you want to

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Speaker 3: try it on. But also, heydo dot Com, Amazon, or

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Speaker 3: places where folks are shopping, And we were the number

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Speaker 3: three TikTok shop brand in December of twenty twenty four,

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Speaker 3: and so we want to be where the consumer is shopping,

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Speaker 3: and that's what we're up to. So we're one of

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Speaker 3: the top five footwear brands and so many of the

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Speaker 3: key footwear destinations in the US and get an after it.

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Speaker 2: Okay, let's drill down on some of the things you

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Speaker 2: said physical retail. Yeah, how hard is it to get

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Speaker 2: in a store? How many models will they take? How

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Speaker 2: do you make sure that they're promoting your shoe appropriately?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, you're only as good as what the consumer

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Speaker 3: is reacting to, right, So the partners at any footwear

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Speaker 3: destination or any retailer are reacting to what their consumers

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Speaker 3: are after. So certainly, as I mentioned earlier that Wendy

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Speaker 3: and the Wally silhouette is eighty percent of Hey Dude,

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Speaker 3: So introducing new styles and new colors, materials and finish

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Speaker 3: for those to have somebody buy that extra pair or

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Speaker 3: the one or two that they buy every season is

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Speaker 3: part of the dance that you do with retailers, and

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Speaker 3: so they tell you what's working and they buy or

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Speaker 3: don't buy, depending on the success or the EBB and

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Speaker 3: flow of what you're doing is the brand to market

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Speaker 3: those different styles and so a variety of products in

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Speaker 3: a variety of different settings around the world.

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Speaker 2: And how do you determine pricing?

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Speaker 3: Well, certainly the consumer helps us do that, but we're

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Speaker 3: really an affordable you know, under seventy five dollars, largely

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Speaker 3: a pair of comfortable shoes that you know, just last

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Speaker 3: you for a long time and serve a variety of

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Speaker 3: needs in so many different places. As I mentioned earlier,

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Speaker 3: travel or pre and post sport, after the beach or

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Speaker 3: at the barbecue. We're just walking around. I mean, hey,

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Speaker 3: dudes are so popular as I mentioned earlier, by our

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Speaker 3: success and now we're just hooking the brand up to

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Speaker 3: the rejuvenation machine.

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Speaker 2: Okay, what percentage of sales or physical retail as opposed

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Speaker 2: to online.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's something we keep to ourselves, Bob, It's something

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Speaker 3: that we don't typically share those kinds of things. But

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Speaker 3: our online business is growing, as I mentioned earlier, TikTok

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Speaker 3: shop and other things are new ways that we are

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Speaker 3: showcasing hey Dude to consumers.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so let's just assume I wanted to buy online. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I can buy direct from heydude dot com or something

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Speaker 2: I can buy TikTok, I can buy Amazon. Can I

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Speaker 2: buy the issues?

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Speaker 3: All the above? You can all the above haydud dot com,

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Speaker 3: TikTok shop, or Amazon, or you walk into some of

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Speaker 3: your favorite retailers wherever you are and they'll likely have

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Speaker 3: Heydude depending on where you are and what store you

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Speaker 3: walk into.

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Speaker 2: Okay, what is the deal? Tell us more about the

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Speaker 2: TikTok shop and how that works. Yeah, so lots of

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Speaker 2: different content creators are talking about your brand on TikTok

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Speaker 2: shop and they get a certain percentage of the business.

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Speaker 2: It comes and goes depending on the content creator and

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Speaker 2: the size of their audience. And it's a way to

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Speaker 2: get your brand, your footwear right in front of folks

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Speaker 2: on their for you page or wherever they're scrolling. And

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Speaker 2: it's been a remarkable success for the brand.

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Speaker 3: I joined as the Haydude president in May, and I've

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Speaker 3: seen my success in other places on TikTok and social media,

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Speaker 3: and that's one of the things I suggested to the

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Speaker 3: team strongly that we really get active on TikTok and

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Speaker 3: in TikTok shop, and we got after it thanks to

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Speaker 3: a great team, and we've seen really strong success.

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Speaker 2: Okay, let's say I'm a user. Yeah, theoretically, can I

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Speaker 2: say I'm going to peruse the TikTok shop or pretty

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Speaker 2: much am I buying because I see the video of it?

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Speaker 3: Influencer both you can go to the TikTok shop or

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Speaker 3: it will come through your algorithm as the algorithm works,

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Speaker 3: and so you'll be interrupted by TikTok shop for whatever

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Speaker 3: brand in our case, hey dude, or you can go

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Speaker 3: to the hey Dude TikTok shop as you are on TikTok.

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Speaker 3: And if you're not on TikTok, you go to other

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Speaker 3: places to discover hey dude, whether we're on Instagram or

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Speaker 3: other places like Facebook or just generally searching through Amazon,

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Speaker 3: Google or hated.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so let's start with TikTok to reach the customer.

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Speaker 2: How do you do that? Is it mostly about deals

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Speaker 2: with influencers, Is it about posting your own content? Is

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Speaker 2: it about buying ads? How do you do it? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: All the above all the above, we have our own

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Speaker 3: Hey Dude created content by our wonderful social media team.

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Speaker 3: We work with content creators to create content. We work

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Speaker 3: with celebrities or artists to create content, and of course

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Speaker 3: TikTok shop content creators as well. So it is a

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Speaker 3: real multi pronged delivery system just through TikTok alone that

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Speaker 3: you want to keep fresh and get multiple messages out

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Speaker 3: to the consumer. The messages that you want the consumer

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Speaker 3: to know are important to Heydo, therefore they should know it. Okay,

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Speaker 3: leaving celebrities aside, what works? I mean there are different theories.

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Speaker 3: Let's talk print, which is dying. Some people say if

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Speaker 3: you give a lot of information, the active buyer will

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Speaker 3: actually be interested in that revent. Other people want less

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Speaker 3: content or is it more about flashy video what sparks

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Speaker 3: people on TikTok to be activated to purchase or check

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Speaker 3: out Hey Do. I think humor can work oftentimes, but

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Speaker 3: I think it's genuine content. Like genuine genuineness is what

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Speaker 3: people are after and what connects the most. And as

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Speaker 3: I said earlier, doing something and reacting to something fast

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Speaker 3: can be that. And then of course, when brands participate

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Speaker 3: in trends, you know, as you know, there's a different

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Speaker 3: TikTok trend every week or so, and when the brand

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Speaker 3: participates in it and does it well. Not all brands

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Speaker 3: do it all the time, well including hey dude, but

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Speaker 3: when you do it gets engagement gets shared, and that's

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Speaker 3: part of the trick as well. So it's really an

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Speaker 3: asset allocation of different things, not just on TikTok, but generally.

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Speaker 2: Can you give me some specific example where there's a

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Speaker 2: trend on TikTok and hey dude, leverage that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, just uh, last week we did something that had

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Speaker 3: four million views, which you know evades me of why,

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Speaker 3: but it was two of our young social media associates

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Speaker 3: just have their finger on that pulse and they engaged

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Speaker 3: in it and away we went with, you know, four

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Speaker 3: million views of something like that. That would seem innocuous

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Speaker 3: and it's not something that you can script or would

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Speaker 3: put in your marketing calendar, but it is something that

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Speaker 3: is in real time and it was done well, and

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Speaker 3: the consumer and the TikTok viewer if you will, or

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Speaker 3: user reacted to it. You know, brands are doing that

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Speaker 3: right now, including hey, do the you know the du

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Speaker 3: lingo logo that their sunsetting. You know, brands are participating

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Speaker 3: in that, including hey do just today. So there's different

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Speaker 3: ways that you can engage.

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Speaker 2: Well, way be very specific how you were participating in that.

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Speaker 3: We just uh we posted about the the quote unquote

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Speaker 3: death of the Duolingo logo, and so lots of brands

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Speaker 3: are doing it and we've got nice little traction on

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Speaker 3: it and different ways. Just to be part of the

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Speaker 3: conversation is you know, I think others have said it's

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Speaker 3: the marketplace, it's the town square. And so when you

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Speaker 3: engage and you do it well, and not all brands

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Speaker 3: get it right every time, but when you do do

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Speaker 3: it well, it connects. And the more you're throwing different

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Speaker 3: lines into the water to appeal to different audiences and

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Speaker 3: put your brand out there as a current, fast moving

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Speaker 3: finger on the pulse of culture brand, the more you

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Speaker 3: connect and the more people say, I might give those

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Speaker 3: shoes a try.

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Speaker 2: Okay, when it comes to influencers, how many influencers might

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Speaker 2: you have relationships within pay at a time?

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Speaker 3: Dozens and dozens, and they ebb and flow depending on

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Speaker 3: the season, depending on the shoe, depending on the message

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Speaker 3: that we want to tell. So there are dozens and

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Speaker 3: dozens of them, and some are with us throughout seasons.

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Speaker 3: But it's a very cyclical of the moment type of

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Speaker 3: environment where brands like us are fast moving and folks

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Speaker 3: come and go. They're always in our stable, so to speak.

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Speaker 3: But it depends on the message, time of year, gender perhaps,

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Speaker 3: or the story that we're looking to tell. But we

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Speaker 3: continue to want to build relationships with more influencers so

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Speaker 3: that they're all part of a larger Hay Dude community.

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Speaker 2: And how do you establish that relationship through an intermediary?

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Speaker 2: How do you find these influencers.

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Speaker 3: All the above, intermediaries, agencies, personal connections, prior experience, genuine

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Speaker 3: fans of the brand, which is again back to authenticity.

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Speaker 3: There's a lot of Hay Dude fans out there. There's

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Speaker 3: a lot of fans who want to work with Haydude

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Speaker 3: and get paid to share their love for Hey Dude.

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Speaker 3: And so that's part of it for any brand. So

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Speaker 3: it's a real mosaic of different content creators or influencers.

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Speaker 3: Some work better than others, and some are of the

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Speaker 3: moment and some are more evergreen.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so let's assume you have this relationship, you're going

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Speaker 2: to pay the influencer. How much direction? How much in

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Speaker 2: terms of requirements does hey dude have?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it varies. Also, there's a brief, and you know,

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Speaker 3: we want to give content creators the latitude to create.

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Speaker 3: Otherwise it's just dictation and that shows. So the content

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Speaker 3: creator doesn't want to be dictated to. But there'll be

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Speaker 3: brand standards of course, and things that we would not

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Speaker 3: want people to say. But we review it and if

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Speaker 3: there's something that was just off the mark, we'll ask,

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Speaker 3: you know, the content creator to redo it. And that

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Speaker 3: happens occasionally, but not too often because the briefs are

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Speaker 3: usually tight and we have relationships with people that we

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Speaker 3: trust and have vetted and have followers in various numbers,

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Speaker 3: some huge uge and some micro and you know we

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Speaker 3: ebb and flow with that as well.

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Speaker 2: Okay, you talked about humor. What might a brief be?

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Speaker 2: Give me an example of a brief in something somebody

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Speaker 2: actually created.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, there's so many things that are just different.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 3: Humor is you know, a different taste for everybody, So

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Speaker 3: not every what you think is funny, I don't think

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Speaker 3: is funny, and vice versa. So none, no humorous bits

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Speaker 3: come to mind directly, but it's all with a you know,

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Speaker 3: we're not too serious as a brand. So the things

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Speaker 3: that we're doing, like we were just at the waste

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Speaker 3: management open in Phoenix this weekend, and lots of content

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Speaker 3: that we created on that funny, silly, unexpected content that

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Speaker 3: was just unlike anything that maybe is humorous or maybe

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Speaker 3: it's just different, but got lots of attention online, including

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Speaker 3: articles written about like what was haydu doing at the

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Speaker 3: waste management open this weekend? So there's different ways to

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Speaker 3: connect with all these guys wearing women wearing green suits,

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Speaker 3: body suits that started making what is all that? And

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Speaker 3: people commenting like what is all that noise in the

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Speaker 3: back of the waste management open with haydude? Or what

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Speaker 3: is that even? And so we got a chance to

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Speaker 3: inject ourselves somewhere to introduce a upcoming golf Hey dude,

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Speaker 3: shoe so with pins and aces, so cool stuff unexpected

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Speaker 3: as a way to cut through and introduce a new style.

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Speaker 2: Okay, all these golfers have endorsement deals. If you look

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Speaker 2: at Beats first, it was let's just get the headphones

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Speaker 2: on people's heads. Do you go to the PJA golfers

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Speaker 2: to just give peers to everybody, or do you make

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Speaker 2: deals with specific people? What's the approach?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, just we did something that's unlike anything. We

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Speaker 3: did not work with golfers specifically and getting shoes on

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Speaker 3: multiple professionals. We were really for the fans and getting

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Speaker 3: fans at the Waste Management open to experience, Hey dude,

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Speaker 3: with an interactive exhibit and doing things that just got attention.

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Speaker 3: And everybody's got a camera, bob, so everybody's posting on

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Speaker 3: their own socials to evangelize the brand and the way

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Speaker 3: that we activated at the Waste Management, but specifically to

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Speaker 3: introduce a new pair of golf shoes that are coming

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Speaker 3: out later this month.

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Speaker 2: Okay, golf shoes, you know, are traditionally firm, so hey dude,

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Speaker 2: is making a golf shoe. You're talking about how soft

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Speaker 2: they are. They absolutely are soft.

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Speaker 3: So one of the ways that you can really maybe

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Speaker 3: you know, cut into a couple of strokes off your

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Speaker 3: game is being comfortable and lighter. So they certainly grip,

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Speaker 3: of course, which is an important part of golf. But

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Speaker 3: I don't think we're advocating that we're for the professional

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Speaker 3: golfer to win the Masters. We're for that weekend golfer

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Speaker 3: who's out with his or her buddies and friends doing

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Speaker 3: a couple of birdie juice before or after a birdie,

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Speaker 3: and certainly on the nineteenth hole. We're really more a

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Speaker 3: fun spirit than a high performance golf shoe. But it's

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Speaker 3: something you can wear and probably get a couple of

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Speaker 3: more bogies than birdies.

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Speaker 2: Okay, what was the projected retail price?

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Speaker 3: I can't remember the price of those, but they'll be

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Speaker 3: in the similar vein of what hey dudes are, you know,

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Speaker 3: in the seventy dollars range and with pins and aces

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Speaker 3: as a great partner. So just a fun way to

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Speaker 3: further explore the brand.

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Speaker 2: Okay, is that something you started or was that started

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Speaker 2: before you came to this brand.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all part of a more edited assortment of

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Speaker 3: who we want to work with and how we come

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Speaker 3: to life with different partners, whether they're celebrities or whether

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Speaker 3: they're brands or licenses, from SpongeBob SquarePants to Hot Wheels

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Speaker 3: to Beetlejuice and on and on and on. Fun ways

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Speaker 3: to connect fans of those properties to Hay Dude. And

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Speaker 3: so that's something that we've been doing, you know, since

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Speaker 3: I was at Crocs the first time around, we were

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Speaker 3: doing that and now we want to bring some of

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Speaker 3: that to Hey Dude. And the Pins and Asis partners

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Speaker 3: have just been great.

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Speaker 2: Okay, you come back to Hey Dude. I mean you

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Speaker 2: had the Kentucky Fried Chicken, Croc, you had all that

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Speaker 2: other stuff. Since you came back to Kroc, what initiatives

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Speaker 2: have you started?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so I joined in May May first, and you know,

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Speaker 3: you lay out the strategy that I suggested earlier. And

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Speaker 3: so one of the first things we did is, you know,

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Speaker 3: one of the things I like to do is think

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Speaker 3: opposites and a brand named Hey Dude, who is looking

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Speaker 3: to appeal to a younger female audience while still you know, energizing.

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Speaker 3: Our core is to bring Sidney Sweeney on board is

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Speaker 3: our brand and beast hugely popular, is loved by lots

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Speaker 3: of people as an international, internationally known young woman, and

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Speaker 3: it's just cool. She's smart, talented, but also just cool.

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Speaker 3: And so that was one of the first moves that

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Speaker 3: we made since I returned.

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Speaker 2: Let's stop with Sydney Sweeney. You're sitting in the office,

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Speaker 2: you're brainstorming, and you say, Sydney Sweeney will be a

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Speaker 2: good idea, you go through the channels, you know, what

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Speaker 2: kind of reaction do you get? You know, the odds

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Speaker 2: of her actually wearing Hay Dudes are not high. What's

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Speaker 2: the incentive for her? There's always a monetary incentive. How

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Speaker 2: do you convince her this is good for her? Well?

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Speaker 3: I think she recognized certainly where Sydney is from. I

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Speaker 3: think herself and lots of her friends and family are

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Speaker 3: Hey Dude fans. She's from up a certain neck of

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Speaker 3: the woods, Idaho, Washington that way, where Hey Dudes are

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Speaker 3: enormously popular. So she had an affinity for our brand.

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Speaker 3: And because we're unlike anything, she could showcase a different

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Speaker 3: side of herself, which really appealed to us as a brand.

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Speaker 3: It doesn't take herself too seriously. You know, she's known

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Speaker 3: for being an elegant, beautiful woman and you know, oscar

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Speaker 3: parties and all that kind of Hollywood showbiz. But she

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Speaker 3: has a different side of her and this allowed her

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Speaker 3: to showcase that in a really casual way. And I

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Speaker 3: think that's what attracted her to Hey Dude, and.

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Speaker 2: Certainly what attracted Hey Dude to us to her. Okay,

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Speaker 2: so she's in what did you do with her? Oh?

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Speaker 3: So she's in. So we started by just an introductory

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Speaker 3: video of this is Sidney Sweeney on a rope swing

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Speaker 3: jumping into a lake. You know, just talk about how

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Speaker 3: casual and unaffected she was by this, and then we

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Speaker 3: put her in a new style, a fuzz lined slipper

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Speaker 3: from Hey Dude Gone, couldn't keep him in stock And

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Speaker 3: in just a couple of weeks, she's a huge part

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Speaker 3: of our Spring twenty twenty five work that will be

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Speaker 3: unveiling shortly and has a you know, helped craft it

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Speaker 3: and it was a hugely important but involved partner to

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Speaker 3: create what we're going to unveil in just a few

432
00:25:13,480 --> 00:25:17,880
Speaker 3: short weeks to again make people think differently about Hey

433
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 3: Dude as a shoe that's not just for him, but

434
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:24,439
Speaker 3: is for her and is for multiple wearing occasions. And

435
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:28,600
Speaker 3: Sidney just does it in a really cool and Sidney

436
00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:31,440
Speaker 3: like way that she has this magical ability to pull

437
00:25:31,480 --> 00:25:34,959
Speaker 3: off this elegance that she has, but also this just

438
00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:39,120
Speaker 3: girl next door kind of give somebody the business kind

439
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:39,440
Speaker 3: of way.

440
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:44,680
Speaker 2: And so how many videos do you make with Sydney? Yeah,

441
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:45,920
Speaker 2: you know, a lot.

442
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:49,680
Speaker 3: We do a lot of things to cut through not

443
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:52,200
Speaker 3: just a sense of humor and unlike anything, but also

444
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:55,000
Speaker 3: our own sense of fashion and style for the brand

445
00:25:55,040 --> 00:25:59,240
Speaker 3: that you know, she's wearing it in that way as well.

446
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:01,720
Speaker 3: So lots of different things, because as I said earlier,

447
00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:05,440
Speaker 3: the attention span of people is so short. We only

448
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:10,040
Speaker 3: need a few seconds of video of Sydney and lots

449
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:12,919
Speaker 3: of different few seconds of Sydney to have people see it.

450
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:16,439
Speaker 3: And people are moving. You know that your thumb is

451
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:19,360
Speaker 3: always moving on your screen, scrolling up, left, right, wherever,

452
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:21,720
Speaker 3: and so once you see it, you stop and you

453
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:23,879
Speaker 3: got the message and you keep scrolling. But we got you,

454
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:28,160
Speaker 3: and Sydney makes you stop on your screen because of

455
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:31,040
Speaker 3: who she is. So we're just thrilled by that and

456
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:33,480
Speaker 3: we're excited to roll it out in just a couple

457
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:34,159
Speaker 3: of short weeks.

458
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 2: Okay, so we're talking about social media platforms. You have

459
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 2: this deal with Sydney Sweeney. She's engaged. You do anything traditional,

460
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:49,280
Speaker 2: whint TV, anything or those.

461
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:53,160
Speaker 3: Just off the table. Nothing is off the table. We're

462
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:56,120
Speaker 3: not doing those with Sidney Sweeney. We have done Connected

463
00:26:56,160 --> 00:26:59,760
Speaker 3: TV with Hey Dude since I've been at Hey Dude,

464
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 3: which is really when you're you know, when you're logging

465
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:05,240
Speaker 3: onto Amazon Prime there's a spot there, a hey dude

466
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:08,879
Speaker 3: spot there, and so we've been doing those things. It's television,

467
00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:11,480
Speaker 3: but it's not television. Like perhaps we grew up knowing

468
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 3: we're not doing any print today. But we do have

469
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:19,800
Speaker 3: conversations about a little bit more analog. That really came

470
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 3: up with the you know, the TikTok shutdown that was

471
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 3: rumored and happened for a hot second, and maybe the

472
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 3: move to analog is a you know, thinking opposites again, Bob, like,

473
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:33,919
Speaker 3: is there some things that we should be doing to

474
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 3: connect with consumers who are not going to have this

475
00:27:36,320 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 3: major platform. So all things are on the table. Of course,

476
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:43,560
Speaker 3: our website, SMS where we text message consumers about things

477
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:48,399
Speaker 3: that they opt into. No radio, but the variety of

478
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:51,919
Speaker 3: social media that we do, and then experiential you know,

479
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,879
Speaker 3: part of this trick for any footwear companies to get

480
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:58,440
Speaker 3: shoes on feet. So whether it's the Houston Rodeo coming

481
00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:01,439
Speaker 3: up in a couple of weeks or Stagecoach where we'll be,

482
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:07,359
Speaker 3: or the waste management open places like that, we have

483
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:11,440
Speaker 3: huge activations to get our fans who always come by

484
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 3: I love Hey dude, I've got five pairs or new

485
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:16,879
Speaker 3: folks to the party and say I've heard about it

486
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:19,200
Speaker 3: or I've never tried them on, and then we watched

487
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:23,280
Speaker 3: their face when they try them on, and away we go.

488
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:26,720
Speaker 3: I did a little event in Marshfield, Massachusetts. Hey Dude

489
00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:30,200
Speaker 3: is based outside of Boston, and there's this cool little

490
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 3: event called Flannel Jam every fall. It's at the Marshfield Fairgrounds,

491
00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 3: And so I went on a Saturday with the team,

492
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 3: and you know, we sold like five thousand dollars worth

493
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:43,240
Speaker 3: of hay Dudes in just a couple of hours out

494
00:28:43,280 --> 00:28:47,080
Speaker 3: of a makeshift van, and you know, spending that Saturday

495
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:50,200
Speaker 3: listen to all these jam bands doing some great stuff.

496
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 3: The amount of people that were coming up to me

497
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 3: that I love hay Dude, and the amount of people

498
00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 3: I saw wearing hay Dude that walked into the fairgrounds

499
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 3: with them. So it's just a real exciting experience for

500
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:05,480
Speaker 3: me and showed the connection that we've got the folks

501
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:07,719
Speaker 3: that we've just got to continue to build this Hey

502
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 3: Dude community and that's what we're after.

503
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 2: So when it comes to online, there's TikTok, there's x

504
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 2: slash Twitter, there's Instagram reels, there's regular Instagram with photos

505
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 2: there's Facebook, what works and where are you?

506
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:28,400
Speaker 3: They all can work. TikTok is certainly our leader in

507
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 3: the clubhouse because it's the fastest and it allows us

508
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:36,000
Speaker 3: to reach the most people. Our fan base has tripled

509
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 3: since I've been at the brand on TikTok. But of

510
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 3: course Facebook and Instagram and Instagram reels are a huge

511
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:46,680
Speaker 3: part of what we're up to. Twitter, where we have

512
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 3: an account or x, we are not active on it.

513
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 3: We just don't find that to be a productive use

514
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 3: of our time. It's a different platform for a brand

515
00:29:56,360 --> 00:29:58,600
Speaker 3: like ours. Others do it well, but we're just not

516
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 3: unlocking that. We want people to explore us through those sites.

517
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:13,800
Speaker 2: Okay, how let me put your marketing hat on. We're

518
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 2: in a political era where the Democrats are beaten to

519
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 2: the ground. The Republicans are dominating both in social discourse

520
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 2: and power. One of the things about the last election was, oh,

521
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 2: the Republicans were on podcasts, they were here that in

522
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 2: terms of it's mostly baby boomer some gen xers. What

523
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:39,239
Speaker 2: do they not know and should know about how you

524
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:42,400
Speaker 2: reach customers today? Because we speak about the Democratic Party,

525
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 2: they didn't And you live in this territory twenty four

526
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 2: to seven. So if you were advising them, it doesn't

527
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:51,560
Speaker 2: necessarily have to be the Democrats. How do you get

528
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 2: your message out?

529
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think seems like the Democrats have a more

530
00:30:56,840 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 3: popular message, but the way they say it or share

531
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 3: it just does not come across as authentic as the

532
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:05,720
Speaker 3: guy that won. Say what you want about the President

533
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 3: of the United States, and certainly there's been plenty written

534
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 3: about him, but he just says seemingly what it's on

535
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:15,240
Speaker 3: his mind, without a filter, and that seems to connect.

536
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:18,000
Speaker 3: If you measure by the fact that he won the election,

537
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 3: that would say he connected. And I don't get the

538
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:26,640
Speaker 3: sense that the left does that to the same degree.

539
00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 3: It just feels more calculated, and Trump just comes across

540
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 3: as real, which is how we started this discussion. Brands

541
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 3: or politicians or anyone who just comes across as real,

542
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 3: I think just has a better shot at success.

543
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:46,120
Speaker 2: Well that's half of it, and that's really important. But

544
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:49,960
Speaker 2: in terms of you know, the ratings for cable television,

545
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 2: you know they don't have even a million people watching.

546
00:31:53,400 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 2: So has there been a complete shift of the customer

547
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:04,160
Speaker 2: to social media too, alternative outlets? And many people don't

548
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:07,560
Speaker 2: realize this. In the so called establishment or is it

549
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 2: more well, something works here and something works there.

550
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:14,040
Speaker 3: No, it's the it's the former. Like there, listen, I'm

551
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 3: a gen xer. I'm astounded by my own adoption of

552
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 3: social media. I'll give you an example. You know, I

553
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:26,400
Speaker 3: travel a lot in my role, and you know, one

554
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 3: of the joys of travel in a weird way used

555
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 3: to be you throw it. You check into your hotel room,

556
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:34,080
Speaker 3: you throw your bag on the ground right, and you

557
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 3: turn the television on. I can't remember the last time

558
00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 3: I turned the television on in a hotel room. I

559
00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 3: have an iPad and for the brief time I have

560
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:48,240
Speaker 3: I sit in the chair in the corner of the

561
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 3: hotel room or on the bed, and I scroll social

562
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 3: media a variety of things. Twitter to get my news, TikTok,

563
00:32:55,360 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 3: to be informed or entertained, or to laugh, to get

564
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 3: dining tips in the city that I might be in.

565
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:05,560
Speaker 3: This looks like a cool spot. I don't turn the

566
00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:08,880
Speaker 3: television on unless there's a sporting event, and even that

567
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:11,120
Speaker 3: I can do on YouTube TV on my iPad. It's

568
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:14,360
Speaker 3: not as big as screen. But so I'm astounded of

569
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:18,200
Speaker 3: my own personal adoption as a gen xer. So you know,

570
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:22,920
Speaker 3: my daughters are digitally native, so if that kind of

571
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 3: switch happens to me, I mean just folks and kids

572
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:29,480
Speaker 3: that are born into this which is now a whole generation.

573
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 3: They don't consume anything the way we did, which is

574
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 3: why brands like Hey Dude and Stanley before that are

575
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 3: looking to connect where they are and that's where they are.

576
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:46,720
Speaker 2: Okay, you're a gen x er when you were out socially,

577
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:50,200
Speaker 2: when you're not working and you start talking about this,

578
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:54,040
Speaker 2: do you find the other people of your generation or

579
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:57,680
Speaker 2: the people that you interact with are saying, yeah, yeah,

580
00:33:57,680 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 2: I saw that too, Or are they saying, oh, that's crap,

581
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:04,720
Speaker 2: I'm not Are you one an outlier or are you

582
00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 2: finding that many people are doing what you're doing.

583
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:10,960
Speaker 3: I don't know that I'm an outlier, but I'm in

584
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:14,000
Speaker 3: the minority for sure. For a gen xer, you know,

585
00:34:14,080 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 3: there's always the there's the misperception that TikTok is just

586
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 3: a bunch of young girls dancing, and I know those

587
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:25,239
Speaker 3: folks come across my for you page every once in

588
00:34:25,239 --> 00:34:29,919
Speaker 3: a while, But I'm looking for like where's the best

589
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:33,839
Speaker 3: pub in London? And there's lots of answers. I live

590
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 3: in Boston, and so somehow I'm my for you page,

591
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 3: the algorithm or my geography. Some guy in a blue

592
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:43,600
Speaker 3: hat at Emmett's Pub in Boston never been there before.

593
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:46,280
Speaker 3: It turns out it's around the corner, and this guy's

594
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:48,560
Speaker 3: alleging it has the best poor of guinness in all

595
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:51,800
Speaker 3: of Boston. If it wasn't for TikTok, I wouldn't have known.

596
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 3: It is a five minute walk from my apartment, and

597
00:34:56,640 --> 00:35:00,080
Speaker 3: that is I mean, that's elixir of life. To know

598
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 3: that there's people out there and these places exist. I

599
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:08,919
Speaker 3: never would have seen that on television, And Wow, how

600
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 3: exciting is this? And so I think I'm the outlier

601
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 3: because people just think it's a waste of time. And

602
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:16,840
Speaker 3: I know, as so do millions of people, that it's where.

603
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 3: It's the town square, and that's where you can learn

604
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:25,480
Speaker 3: so many cool things, fun things, interesting things. It's just

605
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:28,680
Speaker 3: an incredible thing. I've watched more videos about airplane turbulence

606
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 3: because I'm so scared of turbulence when I'm flying that

607
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:34,200
Speaker 3: I feel better now because I hear all these pilots

608
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 3: telling me not to worry. And now I'm not going

609
00:35:36,200 --> 00:35:38,920
Speaker 3: to see that on CNN or MTV or ESPN or

610
00:35:38,960 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 3: just so man, it's so cool to be alive right now,

611
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:46,399
Speaker 3: to have all this at your fingertips. Which is why

612
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:48,319
Speaker 3: I don't turn a television on an hotel because I'm

613
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:50,400
Speaker 3: not gonna feel better about turbulence.

614
00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:55,919
Speaker 2: Okay, did you say this is my job? I need

615
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:59,080
Speaker 2: to know more about social media? This is a project?

616
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 2: Or how did you get started?

617
00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:06,960
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm insatiably curious. Yeah, I want to know. I

618
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:10,400
Speaker 3: want to know what's around the corner. Personally, professionally. That

619
00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:14,279
Speaker 3: is my life. I have an insatiable curiosity and an

620
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 3: unmistakable sense of what's possible personally, professionally. So listen to

621
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:24,120
Speaker 3: when I was a kid, Bob. I'll never forget this.

622
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:27,439
Speaker 3: This is a real analogue, and viewers of a certain

623
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:30,960
Speaker 3: listeners of a certain age will get this. When I

624
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:34,320
Speaker 3: was thirteen years old, I was fortunate enough my parents

625
00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:38,719
Speaker 3: took my brother and I to Bermuda, which you know Bermuda,

626
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 3: you know this is unheard of, and we stayed at

627
00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 3: the Southampton Princess. I don't know if it's still there,

628
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:51,440
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter. I was more interested in the Reuter's

629
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:55,719
Speaker 3: ticker behind the front desk of the hotel than I

630
00:36:55,840 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 3: was about going to the pool. I couldn't believe something

631
00:37:00,160 --> 00:37:03,360
Speaker 3: like this existed, that I was getting all sorts of

632
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:07,759
Speaker 3: information in real time. Yeah, I'll never forget it. I

633
00:37:07,800 --> 00:37:10,399
Speaker 3: can still see it through my mind's eye. I grew

634
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:12,759
Speaker 3: up in northern New Jersey, so I used to fall

635
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:17,440
Speaker 3: asleep to news radio eighty eight just also to get

636
00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 3: you know, there's always sports on the eights. So before

637
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:23,000
Speaker 3: the Internet, you couldn't get you know, it was Warner

638
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:26,400
Speaker 3: Wolf CBS at six thirty, and that's how you got

639
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:30,600
Speaker 3: your sports or you called sports phone, you know, get

640
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:33,359
Speaker 3: all the sports news instantly, dial nine seven six one

641
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:37,840
Speaker 3: three one three. So like, these things are just this

642
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:40,040
Speaker 3: is just an extension of how I've been all of

643
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:44,160
Speaker 3: my life, and the fact that this all exists astounds me.

644
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 3: So what is coming around the corner? AI? AI for

645
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 3: good and for bad?

646
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:57,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's okay, I'm interested in this. That's certainly the

647
00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:01,319
Speaker 2: popular topic. Tell me what's coming around the corner and

648
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:03,400
Speaker 2: how it's going to affect both your business and the

649
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:04,280
Speaker 2: average citizen.

650
00:38:05,239 --> 00:38:07,720
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, it's certainly going to allow us to tell

651
00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:13,320
Speaker 3: incredible messages to people fast and in ways that inspire

652
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:18,719
Speaker 3: and interrupt. It's happening right now and it's still in

653
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:23,640
Speaker 3: its infancy. The ways that we can communicate, the ways

654
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:26,920
Speaker 3: we can interview and hire as an employer. It's all

655
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 3: just a few short years away from major shifts. But

656
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:34,799
Speaker 3: from a marketing perspective and a brand building perspective, the

657
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:40,800
Speaker 3: opportunity and the danger you have is quite a responsibility

658
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:43,920
Speaker 3: to do it right. You know, I was an astounded,

659
00:38:44,040 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 3: you know last week that the Beatles want a Grammy

660
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:52,600
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty five using AI and what does that mean?

661
00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:55,239
Speaker 3: You know, the Beatles is kind of a benchmark of

662
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:58,440
Speaker 3: so many things for so many people. Well, did that

663
00:38:58,520 --> 00:39:01,880
Speaker 3: open the floodgates for it? Was almost a stamp of

664
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 3: approval or was it something different or more? Really perplexed

665
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:10,399
Speaker 3: by that question and the outcome of that, but also

666
00:39:10,440 --> 00:39:13,840
Speaker 3: thrilling in a way that that kind of thing can occur.

667
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:19,080
Speaker 3: So it's a really amazing thing that you know, we're

668
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:21,160
Speaker 3: doing at hey dude, and doing it in small birds,

669
00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:25,160
Speaker 3: mostly on the creative side. But we're going to see

670
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 3: how that continues to evolve. But that's certainly a major

671
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:28,920
Speaker 3: thing of what's next.

672
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:31,600
Speaker 2: So how are you using it on the creative side?

673
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 3: Just to certainly fine tune photo shoots. And we recently

674
00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 3: did a partnership, one of our collaborations with the brand Ferbie,

675
00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:46,840
Speaker 3: you know, those acute little characters a fuzz line Ferbie

676
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:49,919
Speaker 3: shoe and our entire ad, if you call it ad,

677
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:52,359
Speaker 3: the experience and the way we communicated that was all

678
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:56,319
Speaker 3: through AI. And there's you know, pundits that we're calling

679
00:39:56,400 --> 00:39:58,480
Speaker 3: it the ad of the week just two or three

680
00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 3: weeks ago because it breaks through and it's a really

681
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:04,880
Speaker 3: interesting and how we did it was really innovative, and

682
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 3: it makes you stop your thumb scrolling, and that's part

683
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 3: of the game. And so there's other things dangerously going around,

684
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:16,359
Speaker 3: just you know, when we're recording this of celebrities being

685
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:19,440
Speaker 3: misinterpreted with AI about Kanye West, and I'm sure you've

686
00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:24,560
Speaker 3: seen today that's really really scary and terrible. And how

687
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:28,320
Speaker 3: we put you know, guardrails around that I don't pretend

688
00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 3: to know, but we're going to have to figure that out.

689
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 2: Okay, anything else you could say that it's around the

690
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:34,480
Speaker 2: corner besides AI.

691
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:37,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the thing that comes to mind, you know,

692
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 3: most importantly, I think faster Ways to get you product

693
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:45,240
Speaker 3: is also around the corner. Of course, you know Amazon,

694
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:48,799
Speaker 3: you know you see these drone deliveries, which sounds you know,

695
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:53,920
Speaker 3: out of science fiction, but that's you know, that's coming.

696
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:56,759
Speaker 3: So it's just a matter of how interruptive it is

697
00:40:56,880 --> 00:40:59,600
Speaker 3: or how distracting or annoying it is, and a level

698
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:04,239
Speaker 3: of that that society is going to accept. But that's

699
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:08,160
Speaker 3: certainly people want things faster, they want it now, and

700
00:41:08,239 --> 00:41:10,480
Speaker 3: if a drone or something can fly it to you,

701
00:41:10,960 --> 00:41:13,880
Speaker 3: people are going to want that. And it's just a

702
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:18,160
Speaker 3: matter of how is it that also relegated regulated, and

703
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:23,000
Speaker 3: how's the experience not you know, an effrontery to people

704
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:24,800
Speaker 3: who are not ordering things. That's the trick.

705
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:31,239
Speaker 2: Okay, you talked originally about fast and young females. Are

706
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:34,759
Speaker 2: you saying you want to activate young females because you

707
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:38,000
Speaker 2: have a fashion product or can you say across the

708
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:40,879
Speaker 2: board they are the most active and reactive.

709
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:45,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, great, great point all the above. So, as I

710
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:48,799
Speaker 3: think I said earlier, you know, youth culture drives culture, right,

711
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:53,560
Speaker 3: but more than ever before, youth female culture drives culture.

712
00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:57,879
Speaker 3: Women more than ever before, you know, are traveling and

713
00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:04,239
Speaker 3: going out in packs. Women typically are bigger fans of

714
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 3: footwear than guys, they have a bigger community. In addition

715
00:42:09,640 --> 00:42:12,480
Speaker 3: to the type group that they have, they also have

716
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 3: larger communities and they like to share what they love

717
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:20,440
Speaker 3: and that influences their friends or their peer groups, and

718
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:24,359
Speaker 3: so all of those things lead us to that's where

719
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:27,359
Speaker 3: culture is. And if more women can fall in love

720
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:30,919
Speaker 3: with a funny little brand with a funny little name,

721
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:35,319
Speaker 3: there's a there's a great opportunity there to reach more

722
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:38,920
Speaker 3: people because, as I learned from you know, my last place,

723
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 3: people want what's cool, and they want what's cool in America.

724
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:48,840
Speaker 3: Around the world, people want what's cool in America, and women,

725
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 3: young women are letting the world know what's cool in America.

726
00:42:54,760 --> 00:43:00,120
Speaker 2: Okay, Hey Dude has a male connotation. Is that a

727
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:03,000
Speaker 2: point of friction or you think about changing the name

728
00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:03,640
Speaker 2: at some point?

729
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:07,360
Speaker 3: No, not at all. It's not a neither. That is

730
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 3: our name. It's a funny little name. But you know,

731
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:15,680
Speaker 3: forty percent of our businesses female consumers already, so there's

732
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:21,319
Speaker 3: no no worries there. We just need to showcase more

733
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 3: female focused styles, certainly showcase more ways to wear Hey

734
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:31,480
Speaker 3: Dude for young women, and that's part of the what

735
00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:33,480
Speaker 3: we're up to as well. Part of the Sydney Sweeney

736
00:43:33,520 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 3: work and all those other things, but not not an

737
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:40,439
Speaker 3: impediment at all. In fact, you know, women call each

738
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:43,919
Speaker 3: other bro dude. You know one of the top two

739
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:48,719
Speaker 3: three podcasts is Alex Cooper's Call Me Daddy. Right, So

740
00:43:50,200 --> 00:43:53,280
Speaker 3: there's a power and ownership of these kind of things

741
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:58,320
Speaker 3: that women have taken. And as exciting time, let's assume

742
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 3: you will have a product that you want to sell

743
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 3: to males. Are you telling us that the best way

744
00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 3: to reach males is to reach the women and then

745
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 3: they'll tell the males. That's certainly true. That is certainly true.

746
00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:18,160
Speaker 3: Certainly from a gift giving perspective. You know, a lot

747
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:21,040
Speaker 3: of guys are just hey, throw another new size eleven

748
00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:24,520
Speaker 3: in the cart. You know, guys are like that, right,

749
00:44:24,719 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 3: But guys also want what's cool, they want what's comfortable.

750
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:34,719
Speaker 3: Guys also want what's dependable, and so from a fashion standpoint,

751
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:38,440
Speaker 3: most guys are fast fashion or they're just comfortable. And

752
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:40,359
Speaker 3: we want to make sure the guys that love us,

753
00:44:40,600 --> 00:44:42,920
Speaker 3: and there's lots of them, stay in love with Hey, dude,

754
00:44:43,160 --> 00:44:44,840
Speaker 3: but we certainly want to bring a lot more people

755
00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:45,399
Speaker 3: into the tent.

756
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 2: Okay, you have all this focus on women, yet the

757
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:54,839
Speaker 2: conversation at large is the opposite. Why do people not

758
00:44:55,160 --> 00:45:00,400
Speaker 2: know this extreme power of women question?

759
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:03,120
Speaker 3: It's a great question. I don't know the answer to that.

760
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 2: I do.

761
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:09,800
Speaker 3: So that's what I'm focused on with the Heydude team

762
00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:12,400
Speaker 3: is making sure that we're bringing more people into the

763
00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:18,120
Speaker 3: tent and recognizing the purchasing power, the cultural power, the

764
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:21,080
Speaker 3: community power of women in twenty twenty five.

765
00:45:29,040 --> 00:45:31,400
Speaker 2: Okay, you said you're from New Jersey. What did your

766
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:32,400
Speaker 2: parents do for a living?

767
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:38,800
Speaker 3: My father was My parents grew up in the Bronx,

768
00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:41,520
Speaker 3: New York. I was born in New York City. My

769
00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 3: father was in the United States Navy on the USS

770
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 3: Wasp post World War Two, and he left the Navy

771
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:53,960
Speaker 3: and started fixing typewriters in New York City for IBM

772
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:58,480
Speaker 3: in the suit in the uh you know, the shoes

773
00:45:59,440 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 3: carrying the case fix and typewriters, and he, like so

774
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:08,560
Speaker 3: many folks of his generation, worked his way to become

775
00:46:08,600 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 3: an executive with IBM. We moved a lot as a

776
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:15,319
Speaker 3: young guy. As a young kid, we moved a few

777
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 3: times before I was ten years old, and my dad

778
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:23,000
Speaker 3: raised you know, me and my brother and did well

779
00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:25,560
Speaker 3: enough that my mom could raise us. You know, my

780
00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:28,280
Speaker 3: mom didn't work outside of the home, but she certainly

781
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:31,120
Speaker 3: worked because she had myself and my brother. We made

782
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:34,000
Speaker 3: her work hard. So we were fortunate to grow up

783
00:46:34,040 --> 00:46:36,400
Speaker 3: in northern New Jersey for you know, since I was

784
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:41,160
Speaker 3: ten years old and my dad carved it out and is,

785
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:46,040
Speaker 3: you know, an incredible guy. We're nothing alike, but he

786
00:46:46,120 --> 00:46:49,279
Speaker 3: is an incredible guy. Still with us. Both my parents are,

787
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:54,560
Speaker 3: thank goodness, and that's what they did. They lived the

788
00:46:54,600 --> 00:46:55,360
Speaker 3: American dream.

789
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:58,880
Speaker 2: Okay that moving around as a young child, having to

790
00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:02,560
Speaker 2: fit in, did that effect your personality for sure?

791
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:07,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, it affects me to this day. So move to

792
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:12,480
Speaker 3: U born in New York City, lived upstate New York

793
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:17,000
Speaker 3: or Westchester, and then moved to Virginia and Illinois, all

794
00:47:17,040 --> 00:47:21,480
Speaker 3: before I was ten. And so the fear of walking

795
00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 3: into a new cafeteria is still with me today. I

796
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:34,080
Speaker 3: don't like walking into office cafeteria. I don't like looking

797
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:37,560
Speaker 3: for somebody to sit with. That is was then and

798
00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:40,920
Speaker 3: it still carries with me all these years later. I'm

799
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 3: certainly more comfortable than I ever was, and I certainly

800
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:46,440
Speaker 3: do that because that's part of the job when you're

801
00:47:46,480 --> 00:47:52,160
Speaker 3: leading a company, but it's certainly part of my psychology

802
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:54,759
Speaker 3: and how I enter any room.

803
00:47:56,320 --> 00:48:00,600
Speaker 2: Okay, you have this anxiety, but concommonly, is there a

804
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:02,000
Speaker 2: positive element of this?

805
00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:10,400
Speaker 3: It's a good question. Probably not a positive quality to that.

806
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:12,840
Speaker 3: That's a I mean a positive quality of moving around

807
00:48:12,840 --> 00:48:15,160
Speaker 3: having to interact with me. Oh sure, oh, I said,

808
00:48:15,200 --> 00:48:17,440
Speaker 3: of course, yeah, of course, yes. You know, I had

809
00:48:17,440 --> 00:48:21,640
Speaker 3: an appreciation for other things before I was ten years old.

810
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:26,080
Speaker 3: You know, I knew you know, I knew where things were.

811
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:28,640
Speaker 3: I knew what Chicago looked like. When I was nine,

812
00:48:29,239 --> 00:48:31,600
Speaker 3: you know, I knew what you know, the nation's capital

813
00:48:31,600 --> 00:48:34,560
Speaker 3: we lived in Northern Virginia looked like. I knew what

814
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:37,719
Speaker 3: what I knew, the kids like the Bears. You know,

815
00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:40,200
Speaker 3: you don't know these things, especially in the seventies, or

816
00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:43,279
Speaker 3: you don't, but I did, And so it gave me

817
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:46,560
Speaker 3: an appreciation for maybe that always what's around the corner

818
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:50,279
Speaker 3: kind of a mentality that I had because I didn't

819
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:51,800
Speaker 3: know if we were ever going to be staying wherever

820
00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 3: we were because of my father's job, which was you know, thrilling, exciting,

821
00:48:56,200 --> 00:48:58,239
Speaker 3: but also daunting when you get that we're going to move.

822
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:01,399
Speaker 3: So so yeah, of course, I think there's a lot

823
00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:04,439
Speaker 3: of good, but the anxiety of that cafeteria table, which

824
00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:07,319
Speaker 3: I took to my daughter's Unfortunately, you know, we moved

825
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:10,560
Speaker 3: a few times, I sadly, you know, cursed my daughters

826
00:49:10,560 --> 00:49:12,440
Speaker 3: with the same thing my father cursed me, and I

827
00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:15,640
Speaker 3: put curse and quotes, of course, but one of my

828
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 3: first questions through my girls when we moved is you

829
00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:21,680
Speaker 3: know who did you eat lunch with? It wasn't what

830
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 3: did you learn, It wasn't how school, It was who

831
00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:27,759
Speaker 3: did you have lunch with? And I would ask that

832
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:31,600
Speaker 3: question with my eyes kind of winced and my teeth gritted,

833
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:33,920
Speaker 3: because I know what that's like. And so I was

834
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:38,080
Speaker 3: transferring some of my whatever that is psychosis or anxiety

835
00:49:38,080 --> 00:49:41,080
Speaker 3: on them unfairly, But it meant something to me because

836
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:43,759
Speaker 3: I know what it's like, and it hurt then, and

837
00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:45,919
Speaker 3: I didn't want my daughters to feel the same thing.

838
00:49:46,960 --> 00:49:50,160
Speaker 2: So what's your personality? Are you more of a lone

839
00:49:50,239 --> 00:49:52,960
Speaker 2: or outsider? Are you the type of person who has

840
00:49:53,000 --> 00:49:55,600
Speaker 2: a million friends and is contacting people all day?

841
00:49:56,560 --> 00:49:59,279
Speaker 3: I have the same friends since I moved to New

842
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:04,880
Speaker 3: Jersey and fifth grade. We're all on a text thread

843
00:50:05,360 --> 00:50:09,880
Speaker 3: every day. So I've got a tight circle of friends

844
00:50:09,920 --> 00:50:14,399
Speaker 3: since I was eleven years old ten years old, which

845
00:50:14,440 --> 00:50:16,960
Speaker 3: is an amazing thing to say, in an amazing gift.

846
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:20,440
Speaker 3: But then I make new friends along the way, and

847
00:50:20,480 --> 00:50:22,960
Speaker 3: the friends that I make I'm really really close with

848
00:50:23,040 --> 00:50:26,200
Speaker 3: and have influenced my life, you know, even my career.

849
00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:29,359
Speaker 3: Some of the most important people in my life are

850
00:50:29,880 --> 00:50:32,400
Speaker 3: people that influence my career who I've ended up being

851
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:36,400
Speaker 3: the best of friends with. So it's tight. I'm not

852
00:50:36,560 --> 00:50:41,480
Speaker 3: the life of the party ever, but I'm comfortable being alone.

853
00:50:42,800 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 3: But the friends that I have are deep and meaningful

854
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:46,880
Speaker 3: and long.

855
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 2: So let's say I say, Hey, we're going to go

856
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:52,759
Speaker 2: to a party. You don't know anybody, none of them

857
00:50:52,840 --> 00:50:55,120
Speaker 2: work in your business, so you're gonna say, hey, let's go.

858
00:50:55,239 --> 00:50:56,919
Speaker 2: You say, well, you're gonna see Well, you know, maybe

859
00:50:56,960 --> 00:50:58,000
Speaker 2: I'd rather stay home.

860
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:04,520
Speaker 3: I would prefer not to go, but when I go,

861
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:09,080
Speaker 3: I'm you know, I'm an irishman, right, So I do

862
00:51:09,200 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 3: have that certain gift of gab when I choose to gab,

863
00:51:13,760 --> 00:51:15,680
Speaker 3: and I've got a lot of really cool stories to

864
00:51:15,719 --> 00:51:19,799
Speaker 3: tell and a really good life experience that people like

865
00:51:19,880 --> 00:51:21,960
Speaker 3: to hear. When I end up sharing some of it,

866
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:28,040
Speaker 3: so I don't wear the lampshade, but I can get after.

867
00:51:27,840 --> 00:51:30,760
Speaker 2: It, Okay, good student, bad student.

868
00:51:32,920 --> 00:51:39,560
Speaker 3: I was average at everything, average at everything, good not

869
00:51:39,600 --> 00:51:45,640
Speaker 3: I don't know why, but average at everything, and you know,

870
00:51:45,840 --> 00:51:48,200
Speaker 3: medium part of my class, if you know what I mean.

871
00:51:49,360 --> 00:51:51,520
Speaker 3: But I was a late bloomer, you know. And I

872
00:51:51,560 --> 00:51:53,719
Speaker 3: also just because of that moving around, I think I

873
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:56,799
Speaker 3: lacked a lot of confidence that I didn't know I

874
00:51:56,840 --> 00:51:58,759
Speaker 3: was actually good at quite a few things when I

875
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:02,040
Speaker 3: was in middle school and high school. That it turns out,

876
00:52:02,320 --> 00:52:05,320
Speaker 3: you know, later in life, you start to realize, you

877
00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:07,560
Speaker 3: know what, maybe I was better if I had some confidence,

878
00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:11,839
Speaker 3: or had a different kind of coach or somebody, things

879
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:13,759
Speaker 3: could have been different then. But I'm not hung up

880
00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:17,160
Speaker 3: on any of that. I just, you know, it was

881
00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 3: a late bloomer. I remember you couldn't you back in

882
00:52:20,680 --> 00:52:22,200
Speaker 3: those days, and maybe they still do it. You had

883
00:52:22,239 --> 00:52:24,400
Speaker 3: to do like the eight mile run, you know, you

884
00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:26,920
Speaker 3: had to run for eight eight minute eight minute run

885
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:29,879
Speaker 3: or something like that, whatever it was, eight minute mile,

886
00:52:29,920 --> 00:52:31,600
Speaker 3: there you go, man, and something you know in middle

887
00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:33,640
Speaker 3: school and I hated it, like I was out of breath,

888
00:52:33,719 --> 00:52:35,359
Speaker 3: like I couldn't do it, you know, it was kind

889
00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:38,759
Speaker 3: of a little chubby, little pudgy little guy. And my

890
00:52:38,880 --> 00:52:41,520
Speaker 3: favorite baseball player at that age was Carlton Fists because

891
00:52:41,560 --> 00:52:44,120
Speaker 3: his nickname was Pudge. You know, it was like looking

892
00:52:44,160 --> 00:52:48,160
Speaker 3: for connection and I couldn't do it like I just was.

893
00:52:48,560 --> 00:52:50,840
Speaker 3: But you know, years later, I've run three marathons in

894
00:52:50,920 --> 00:52:54,160
Speaker 3: under four hours. You know, So these things happen. Life

895
00:52:54,239 --> 00:52:56,000
Speaker 3: is long, and if you're going to be hung up

896
00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:58,439
Speaker 3: on who you were, well that's a waste of your life.

897
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:01,040
Speaker 3: And so the the things that have happened in my

898
00:53:01,080 --> 00:53:03,160
Speaker 3: life and even just the last fifteen years have been

899
00:53:03,200 --> 00:53:09,120
Speaker 3: extraordinary career wise, personally, so many amazing things.

900
00:53:09,760 --> 00:53:12,160
Speaker 2: So you graduate from high school, then what.

901
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:15,239
Speaker 3: I go to college in New Jersey. Well, actually I

902
00:53:15,239 --> 00:53:18,640
Speaker 3: started college at Northeastern up in Boston, and I hate

903
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:21,359
Speaker 3: to say it, I think I chose Northeastern because I

904
00:53:21,440 --> 00:53:23,719
Speaker 3: was a giant and still I am a big fan of

905
00:53:24,320 --> 00:53:27,680
Speaker 3: the Red Sox, the Bruins, the Patriots, and the Celtics.

906
00:53:27,880 --> 00:53:30,640
Speaker 3: And a word to your listeners, that's not the reason

907
00:53:30,719 --> 00:53:34,799
Speaker 3: to choose a college or university. But I was a

908
00:53:34,920 --> 00:53:39,280
Speaker 3: huge fan of those teams and that's why I chose Northeastern.

909
00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:42,200
Speaker 3: But I was too immature to know what to do.

910
00:53:43,760 --> 00:53:46,560
Speaker 3: My high school and grammar school friends were no longer

911
00:53:46,600 --> 00:53:50,440
Speaker 3: with me, and I did not adapt well. And I

912
00:53:50,480 --> 00:53:53,480
Speaker 3: also just didn't like the city environment. I wasn't ready

913
00:53:53,520 --> 00:53:56,560
Speaker 3: for that then. So I transferred to a little known

914
00:53:56,680 --> 00:54:02,160
Speaker 3: Rider University in New Jersey, and you know, graduated, I

915
00:54:02,200 --> 00:54:04,960
Speaker 3: don't know two point eight, two point nine, you know,

916
00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:10,040
Speaker 3: something like that. It was an unremarkable scholastic career. But

917
00:54:10,200 --> 00:54:13,160
Speaker 3: I graduated, and I got a job right out of college.

918
00:54:13,360 --> 00:54:15,719
Speaker 2: But just before this, when you're going to Rider, yeah,

919
00:54:15,760 --> 00:54:17,960
Speaker 2: are you living at home? Are you living in an apartment?

920
00:54:18,120 --> 00:54:20,960
Speaker 3: I'm living in the dorm. I was a resident advisor

921
00:54:21,080 --> 00:54:25,640
Speaker 3: for two and a half years at Ryder, So you know,

922
00:54:25,640 --> 00:54:27,799
Speaker 3: you got your own room. There's a little bit of

923
00:54:27,920 --> 00:54:32,040
Speaker 3: evidence there right right right, And you got a phone,

924
00:54:32,440 --> 00:54:35,239
Speaker 3: which mattered then, and you didn't you didn't have to

925
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:38,240
Speaker 3: pay for and I got a little bit of scratch,

926
00:54:38,400 --> 00:54:42,680
Speaker 3: so I had some spending money. And you know, an

927
00:54:42,760 --> 00:54:48,560
Speaker 3: unremarkable career at Ryder. That there's they wouldn't remember me,

928
00:54:49,040 --> 00:54:50,040
Speaker 3: and they shouldn't remember me.

929
00:54:51,239 --> 00:54:54,400
Speaker 2: So you graduated, and you did what I graduated.

930
00:54:54,400 --> 00:54:56,879
Speaker 3: And this is the day, Bob, where you know one

931
00:54:56,960 --> 00:55:00,720
Speaker 3: hundred envelopes, one hundred resumes, one hundred stamps, and you

932
00:55:00,800 --> 00:55:03,600
Speaker 3: send them out. I can't even imagine this was a thing,

933
00:55:05,280 --> 00:55:09,640
Speaker 3: just hoping it got there, hoping somebody opened it, hoping

934
00:55:09,680 --> 00:55:15,080
Speaker 3: somebody would call you back. What And I got a

935
00:55:15,120 --> 00:55:17,359
Speaker 3: call back? You know, my mom got a call back.

936
00:55:17,400 --> 00:55:18,719
Speaker 3: You know, this is the day. You know, I was

937
00:55:18,760 --> 00:55:20,879
Speaker 3: living at home and my mom would answer, Terrence, it's

938
00:55:20,920 --> 00:55:24,719
Speaker 3: for you, you know, and it's your possible future employer. The

939
00:55:24,800 --> 00:55:27,839
Speaker 3: thought of that is so staggering today. But I got

940
00:55:27,840 --> 00:55:31,880
Speaker 3: a job with the MWW Group, a PR agency in

941
00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:34,520
Speaker 3: northern New Jersey. At the time, I think I was

942
00:55:34,560 --> 00:55:38,640
Speaker 3: one of the first ten employees of the MWW Group.

943
00:55:38,880 --> 00:55:43,720
Speaker 3: And now if you drive by MetLife Stadium in New Jersey,

944
00:55:43,920 --> 00:55:47,200
Speaker 3: you'll see the W building on the other side of

945
00:55:47,239 --> 00:55:51,520
Speaker 3: MetLife Stadium. So Michael Kempner and the group that hired

946
00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:54,000
Speaker 3: me then still run it and grow it into a

947
00:55:54,080 --> 00:55:58,719
Speaker 3: huge agency. But this is really funny. So I get

948
00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:02,439
Speaker 3: this job, right, and I'm an account coordinator at twenty two,

949
00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:05,279
Speaker 3: twenty three years old, and you know, you're getting press

950
00:56:05,320 --> 00:56:07,000
Speaker 3: clippings and you have to clip them out for the

951
00:56:07,000 --> 00:56:10,319
Speaker 3: different clients of the agency from Burrell's or you know,

952
00:56:10,320 --> 00:56:12,759
Speaker 3: and you're cutting and pasting them and using you know,

953
00:56:12,880 --> 00:56:15,759
Speaker 3: glue tape to you know, this is what you did.

954
00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:17,759
Speaker 3: And I filled in for the receptionist when she went

955
00:56:17,760 --> 00:56:20,320
Speaker 3: to lunch, and I had to get the coffee supplies

956
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:22,319
Speaker 3: every Monday morning for the office for the week. And

957
00:56:22,360 --> 00:56:24,640
Speaker 3: that's what you do when you're twenty two. And they

958
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:27,800
Speaker 3: gave me a little account. This is a PR agency

959
00:56:27,840 --> 00:56:31,440
Speaker 3: and I'm an account coordinator, so cut your chops on this, Terrence.

960
00:56:32,600 --> 00:56:36,080
Speaker 3: And they gave me a little indoor amusement park in Paramus,

961
00:56:36,160 --> 00:56:41,160
Speaker 3: New Jersey called sports World. And at the time whatever

962
00:56:41,160 --> 00:56:45,359
Speaker 3: this is, nineteen ninety one, right around there, this indoor

963
00:56:45,400 --> 00:56:47,480
Speaker 3: amusement park was a pretty cool thing. It was a

964
00:56:47,560 --> 00:56:52,279
Speaker 3: giant box at inside where bumper cars and cafeteria with

965
00:56:52,360 --> 00:56:54,680
Speaker 3: you know, hot dogs and popcorn and rides and ball

966
00:56:54,719 --> 00:56:56,200
Speaker 3: pits and all sorts of stuff, and it was a

967
00:56:56,200 --> 00:56:58,880
Speaker 3: really popular place. What am I going to do with

968
00:56:58,920 --> 00:57:02,480
Speaker 3: this as a PR account coordinator? You know, press release

969
00:57:02,680 --> 00:57:05,680
Speaker 3: to say here, have your kid's birthday party here, or

970
00:57:06,600 --> 00:57:10,280
Speaker 3: they got a new ride whatever. Not exactly exciting stuff.

971
00:57:11,719 --> 00:57:14,200
Speaker 3: But one evening, just as I'm about to go home.

972
00:57:14,800 --> 00:57:18,320
Speaker 3: The desk phone, big giant desk phone rings and I

973
00:57:18,400 --> 00:57:22,360
Speaker 3: pick it up and it's the owner of Sports World.

974
00:57:23,440 --> 00:57:27,160
Speaker 3: It says, Terrence, get down here, Like, what's wrong? Because

975
00:57:27,240 --> 00:57:31,000
Speaker 3: Terrence get down here with somebody hurt? Is anything wrong?

976
00:57:31,120 --> 00:57:35,400
Speaker 3: He's like, no, Michael Jackson has rented the place for

977
00:57:35,480 --> 00:57:41,840
Speaker 3: the night. What so, Yeah, Michael Jackson is here and

978
00:57:41,880 --> 00:57:45,280
Speaker 3: he's rented the place for the night. We're closed, so

979
00:57:45,920 --> 00:57:47,760
Speaker 3: all right now, I gotta be honest with you, Bob.

980
00:57:47,800 --> 00:57:52,360
Speaker 3: If the iPhone existed, then I probably would have gone

981
00:57:52,400 --> 00:57:55,280
Speaker 3: down to Sports World to what to try and get

982
00:57:55,320 --> 00:57:59,840
Speaker 3: a selfie with Michael Jackson. But it didn't exist. So

983
00:58:00,120 --> 00:58:02,800
Speaker 3: instead of taking my iPhone, which didn't exist in nineteen

984
00:58:02,880 --> 00:58:06,959
Speaker 3: ninety one, I got on the phone and I called

985
00:58:07,040 --> 00:58:12,360
Speaker 3: every assignment desk that I had in my Bacon's Guide.

986
00:58:13,240 --> 00:58:15,520
Speaker 3: I know where Michael Jackson is tonight. Called me back,

987
00:58:15,920 --> 00:58:20,840
Speaker 3: I know where Michael Jackson is tonight. The phone rang

988
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:25,040
Speaker 3: like it was you know, so everybody called me back

989
00:58:25,440 --> 00:58:28,520
Speaker 3: and lo and behold. The next day and the next week,

990
00:58:28,600 --> 00:58:30,240
Speaker 3: I had the biggest score in the history of the

991
00:58:30,960 --> 00:58:38,440
Speaker 3: Young MWW group and change my career there. I promoted

992
00:58:38,480 --> 00:58:41,480
Speaker 3: to an account executive and now I'm working with Continental Airlines,

993
00:58:41,640 --> 00:58:43,640
Speaker 3: you know. And that's what can happen in life if

994
00:58:43,640 --> 00:58:46,880
Speaker 3: you're ready for your audition. And so that was a

995
00:58:46,920 --> 00:58:50,520
Speaker 3: gift to me, and that changed my career at the

996
00:58:50,600 --> 00:58:52,800
Speaker 3: MWW group as a twenty three year old. Next thing

997
00:58:52,800 --> 00:58:55,920
Speaker 3: I know, I'm on the runway at Continental Airlines in Newark,

998
00:58:55,960 --> 00:59:01,120
Speaker 3: New Jersey with Lloyd Benson, you know. So it's amazing

999
00:59:01,120 --> 00:59:03,240
Speaker 3: what can happen in a young career if you're ready

1000
00:59:03,280 --> 00:59:03,760
Speaker 3: for the moment.

1001
00:59:05,320 --> 00:59:10,760
Speaker 2: Okay, you go to Continental, play it out from there.

1002
00:59:12,320 --> 00:59:15,640
Speaker 3: So I just didn't know if I liked doing what

1003
00:59:15,720 --> 00:59:17,680
Speaker 3: I was doing, and so I went to work for

1004
00:59:17,720 --> 00:59:21,200
Speaker 3: a nonprofit in northern New Jersey, a long term care

1005
00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:28,040
Speaker 3: facility and psychiatric hospital. Yeah, the real fun stuff, Bob, And.

1006
00:59:28,280 --> 00:59:30,560
Speaker 2: Wait, wait just to stay there. Yeah, you're working with

1007
00:59:30,640 --> 00:59:34,560
Speaker 2: an amusement park, you're working with Continental era Lines. What

1008
00:59:34,680 --> 00:59:38,600
Speaker 2: is the motivation? I don't money? To get escape where

1009
00:59:38,600 --> 00:59:40,320
Speaker 2: you were? Why'd you do it?

1010
00:59:41,960 --> 00:59:45,440
Speaker 3: I don't have an answer for that. Genius or stupidity

1011
00:59:45,600 --> 00:59:47,600
Speaker 3: or somewhere in between, because it wasn't the money. It

1012
00:59:47,600 --> 00:59:53,720
Speaker 3: was a nonprofit. But I just wanted to try something else.

1013
00:59:55,080 --> 01:00:00,800
Speaker 3: And so I'm working for this medical center. It's a nonprofit,

1014
01:00:00,840 --> 01:00:03,640
Speaker 3: as I mentioned, and so one of my responsibilities was

1015
01:00:03,680 --> 01:00:06,200
Speaker 3: to put together an annual fundraising dinner, you know, the

1016
01:00:06,280 --> 01:00:10,040
Speaker 3: rubber chicken round table, and a whole bunch of donors

1017
01:00:10,080 --> 01:00:13,920
Speaker 3: and supporters arrive and I'm giving an appeal, you know,

1018
01:00:13,960 --> 01:00:16,520
Speaker 3: from the dais the main stage there with the podium,

1019
01:00:17,320 --> 01:00:19,600
Speaker 3: and I have a photo of this, which is a

1020
01:00:19,640 --> 01:00:21,880
Speaker 3: surreptitious photo that I didn't know I even had or

1021
01:00:21,920 --> 01:00:24,600
Speaker 3: somebody took it. But in the front row, in the

1022
01:00:24,640 --> 01:00:28,240
Speaker 3: front table, with his back to me was a gentleman

1023
01:00:28,720 --> 01:00:33,080
Speaker 3: who the next morning called me and I thought, oh wow,

1024
01:00:33,080 --> 01:00:35,120
Speaker 3: I got one of these high rollers to write a

1025
01:00:35,120 --> 01:00:39,200
Speaker 3: big check to the medical center. Look at me, I've

1026
01:00:39,240 --> 01:00:44,120
Speaker 3: got a big score. And he says, let's go to

1027
01:00:44,120 --> 01:00:47,000
Speaker 3: breakfast tomorrow. We go to breakfast that I'm ready for

1028
01:00:47,080 --> 01:00:48,760
Speaker 3: him to write a big check, and he says, I

1029
01:00:48,800 --> 01:00:53,640
Speaker 3: want you to be my marketing manager for Amror Prize.

1030
01:00:53,840 --> 01:00:56,600
Speaker 3: I don't know this guy, never met him.

1031
01:00:56,480 --> 01:00:56,959
Speaker 2: In my life.

1032
01:00:57,600 --> 01:01:00,680
Speaker 3: And this was actually called American Express Financially Advisors at

1033
01:01:00,680 --> 01:01:03,560
Speaker 3: the time part of American Express, and now it's Amerorprize,

1034
01:01:03,880 --> 01:01:06,840
Speaker 3: which is one of the leading financial companies in the world,

1035
01:01:08,160 --> 01:01:11,000
Speaker 3: and so I go get my series seven, series sixty three,

1036
01:01:11,160 --> 01:01:17,080
Speaker 3: Series sixty five to sell a market financial products in

1037
01:01:17,120 --> 01:01:22,600
Speaker 3: northern New Jersey. And what luck, you know. And you know,

1038
01:01:22,640 --> 01:01:25,120
Speaker 3: I think he got my salary from like twenty six

1039
01:01:25,160 --> 01:01:29,600
Speaker 3: thousand to fifty eight thousand, which was ridiculous, you know.

1040
01:01:30,560 --> 01:01:34,080
Speaker 3: But I'm now in a new field, and I bounced

1041
01:01:34,120 --> 01:01:38,680
Speaker 3: around the financial services for a while, and I passed

1042
01:01:38,720 --> 01:01:41,520
Speaker 3: another audition as I had this really cool idea to

1043
01:01:41,520 --> 01:01:45,240
Speaker 3: invite people to the movies to correct new customers. You know,

1044
01:01:45,240 --> 01:01:49,960
Speaker 3: we were looking for mom and pop to come in

1045
01:01:49,960 --> 01:01:53,040
Speaker 3: and talk about their financial goals and do a financial plan.

1046
01:01:53,560 --> 01:01:58,960
Speaker 3: And so I invited them to the movies, your local cinema,

1047
01:01:59,600 --> 01:02:01,880
Speaker 3: and before for the movie, I would do a ten

1048
01:02:01,920 --> 01:02:06,840
Speaker 3: minute presentation on realizing life's streams through financial planning, and

1049
01:02:06,840 --> 01:02:09,640
Speaker 3: I would film movie theaters because everybody loves the movies.

1050
01:02:10,400 --> 01:02:12,320
Speaker 3: And out of that we would get a few appointments

1051
01:02:12,880 --> 01:02:15,440
Speaker 3: and people would come in to meet with financial planners

1052
01:02:15,440 --> 01:02:18,400
Speaker 3: and we did some good business that way. And one

1053
01:02:18,480 --> 01:02:21,880
Speaker 3: night an executive from Prudential. Again I'm from New Jersey.

1054
01:02:21,920 --> 01:02:24,280
Speaker 3: Prudential is one of the leading employers in New Jersey

1055
01:02:24,280 --> 01:02:28,080
Speaker 3: and a powerhouse is in the audience, and she calls

1056
01:02:28,120 --> 01:02:30,880
Speaker 3: me the next day says you should come work for

1057
01:02:31,000 --> 01:02:35,880
Speaker 3: me in Newark, the headquarters. So I did, and Lisa

1058
01:02:35,960 --> 01:02:38,400
Speaker 3: is still one of my best friends today. She was

1059
01:02:38,640 --> 01:02:40,760
Speaker 3: just with my daughter in London a couple of weeks ago.

1060
01:02:42,040 --> 01:02:45,640
Speaker 3: But Bob, I hated it. I hated financial services. It

1061
01:02:45,720 --> 01:02:49,120
Speaker 3: was not for me. I really fell. I was a

1062
01:02:49,120 --> 01:02:53,960
Speaker 3: young guy, still thirty and a daughter one on the way,

1063
01:02:54,680 --> 01:02:55,240
Speaker 3: and I'm a vice.

1064
01:02:55,240 --> 01:02:57,200
Speaker 2: Oh well, wait, just to take a side route here.

1065
01:02:58,000 --> 01:03:02,560
Speaker 2: Where do you meet your wife in when? Yeah, so

1066
01:03:02,960 --> 01:03:03,840
Speaker 2: I meet her.

1067
01:03:04,320 --> 01:03:09,920
Speaker 3: We both had a summer job in college, and we

1068
01:03:10,120 --> 01:03:12,640
Speaker 3: knew each other from the hallways of our summer job.

1069
01:03:13,040 --> 01:03:19,040
Speaker 3: And one Friday evening on Route seventeen in Paramus, New Jersey,

1070
01:03:19,080 --> 01:03:22,680
Speaker 3: there was a Compact disc World And you and many

1071
01:03:22,720 --> 01:03:25,880
Speaker 3: of your listeners recognize the power of compact discs and

1072
01:03:25,920 --> 01:03:30,200
Speaker 3: CDs in the late eighties early nineties, and how Friday

1073
01:03:30,280 --> 01:03:34,120
Speaker 3: was payday and you made a pilgrimager. I did CD

1074
01:03:34,240 --> 01:03:37,480
Speaker 3: World on Fridays to just get what I needed to get.

1075
01:03:38,840 --> 01:03:44,080
Speaker 3: And so as I'm browsing through the s's Springsteen Southside,

1076
01:03:44,600 --> 01:03:48,560
Speaker 3: little Steven Sinatra I am from New Jersey. She walks

1077
01:03:48,600 --> 01:03:53,160
Speaker 3: in and I recognize her from our summer job, and

1078
01:03:53,280 --> 01:03:56,919
Speaker 3: we talked for a few minutes. And then the next

1079
01:03:57,000 --> 01:03:58,720
Speaker 3: day we saw each other in the hall. What did

1080
01:03:58,720 --> 01:04:04,080
Speaker 3: you buy? Then we started trading CDs and now your

1081
01:04:04,080 --> 01:04:09,040
Speaker 3: two daughters later in all these years, so music again

1082
01:04:09,280 --> 01:04:12,800
Speaker 3: shows up in my life in an unexpected and surreptitious way.

1083
01:04:20,880 --> 01:04:24,240
Speaker 2: Okay, since you met her and she's your age contemporary,

1084
01:04:25,440 --> 01:04:29,080
Speaker 2: what was she doing career wise? And to what degree

1085
01:04:29,800 --> 01:04:31,680
Speaker 2: was she advising you on your career?

1086
01:04:33,840 --> 01:04:41,480
Speaker 3: So she spent thirty five years with a major accounting firm,

1087
01:04:41,880 --> 01:04:43,960
Speaker 3: one of the big I don't remember. I think it

1088
01:04:44,040 --> 01:04:46,880
Speaker 3: was Big eight when she started. He went to eight

1089
01:04:47,000 --> 01:04:51,120
Speaker 3: to five, you know, I don't know. She was with

1090
01:04:51,160 --> 01:04:56,040
Speaker 3: one of the last one standing just until recently. So

1091
01:04:56,160 --> 01:05:01,040
Speaker 3: thirty five years, and the gift that she gave us

1092
01:05:01,720 --> 01:05:08,480
Speaker 3: was stability. She was working from home before COVID, twenty

1093
01:05:08,560 --> 01:05:11,360
Speaker 3: years before COVID, and knew how to balance all that,

1094
01:05:11,480 --> 01:05:14,520
Speaker 3: do an incredible job and raise two remarkable young women,

1095
01:05:14,960 --> 01:05:17,840
Speaker 3: two daughters that I mentioned earlier, And so that was

1096
01:05:17,880 --> 01:05:21,880
Speaker 3: an incredible gift to us. And she was able through

1097
01:05:22,040 --> 01:05:24,800
Speaker 3: you know, the firm's generosity because she did great for them.

1098
01:05:24,880 --> 01:05:28,120
Speaker 3: They did great by her that we could move to

1099
01:05:28,200 --> 01:05:30,600
Speaker 3: the various places that I moved. Is this career arc

1100
01:05:30,720 --> 01:05:33,560
Speaker 3: that I'm walking you through or boring you with and

1101
01:05:33,720 --> 01:05:37,920
Speaker 3: starts to unfold and so an incredible gift that you

1102
01:05:37,960 --> 01:05:40,439
Speaker 3: know she received and that you know we were both

1103
01:05:40,480 --> 01:05:41,120
Speaker 3: fortunate to have.

1104
01:05:42,080 --> 01:05:44,120
Speaker 2: So she's a CPA, she is not.

1105
01:05:44,640 --> 01:05:49,120
Speaker 3: She she did a lot of the training and the

1106
01:05:49,120 --> 01:05:53,440
Speaker 3: things that CPAs and the firm needs to keep licensed

1107
01:05:53,480 --> 01:05:57,000
Speaker 3: and keep you know, keep them honest.

1108
01:05:57,600 --> 01:06:01,880
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're in financial services, you hate it? Yeah,

1109
01:06:01,920 --> 01:06:05,000
Speaker 2: so what's the next step. So I'm in the headquarters.

1110
01:06:05,040 --> 01:06:06,200
Speaker 2: I'm a vice president of.

1111
01:06:06,080 --> 01:06:09,680
Speaker 3: Marketing for Prudential. This should be the dream of every

1112
01:06:09,720 --> 01:06:12,560
Speaker 3: kid from New Jersey, right, you know the Devil's play

1113
01:06:12,560 --> 01:06:15,800
Speaker 3: in the Prudential Center, And it was, you know, I

1114
01:06:15,880 --> 01:06:19,480
Speaker 3: was bored of being bored because boredom is boredom. And

1115
01:06:20,680 --> 01:06:22,960
Speaker 3: a friend of mine calls me and says, hey, there's

1116
01:06:22,960 --> 01:06:26,280
Speaker 3: a company out of Dallas, Texas called foot Action that

1117
01:06:26,440 --> 01:06:30,280
Speaker 3: is relocating to Mahwan, New Jersey, and nobody wants to go.

1118
01:06:31,960 --> 01:06:36,080
Speaker 3: Nobody wants to relocate from Dallas to Mahwan, New Jersey.

1119
01:06:37,200 --> 01:06:41,680
Speaker 3: So you should talk to this guy that I know great.

1120
01:06:42,280 --> 01:06:44,160
Speaker 3: So I talked to this guy and it happens to

1121
01:06:44,200 --> 01:06:49,480
Speaker 3: be Willie Smith. Will Smith, not the Fresh Prince, but

1122
01:06:49,640 --> 01:06:53,560
Speaker 3: Will Smith, and he's the vice president of marketing for

1123
01:06:53,840 --> 01:06:58,840
Speaker 3: foot Action in mahwan, New Jersey. And will takes a

1124
01:06:58,920 --> 01:07:02,680
Speaker 3: chance on this financial services guy and I go backwards

1125
01:07:02,760 --> 01:07:06,000
Speaker 3: in life from a VP at thirty two years old

1126
01:07:06,320 --> 01:07:10,160
Speaker 3: to a director of marketing for foot Action. Foot Action

1127
01:07:10,320 --> 01:07:14,800
Speaker 3: still exists, but at the time it was the leading footwear,

1128
01:07:14,960 --> 01:07:22,560
Speaker 3: casual sneaker brand for young kids. And Bob within three months,

1129
01:07:22,680 --> 01:07:25,600
Speaker 3: I'm going from selling mutual funds, annuities, and long term

1130
01:07:25,640 --> 01:07:32,360
Speaker 3: care insurance to being on stage with Beyonce in Houston, Texas.

1131
01:07:32,840 --> 01:07:35,680
Speaker 3: I have a photo to prove it. A couple of

1132
01:07:35,720 --> 01:07:38,479
Speaker 3: weeks later, I'm on stage at the Apollo Theater because

1133
01:07:38,560 --> 01:07:40,360
Speaker 3: we worked with Nike, because we sell a lot of

1134
01:07:40,440 --> 01:07:43,280
Speaker 3: Jordan's and air Force ones, and we opened a new

1135
01:07:43,280 --> 01:07:45,520
Speaker 3: store on one hundred and twenty fifth Street, and the

1136
01:07:45,560 --> 01:07:47,760
Speaker 3: only way to get tickets to the Nike wake up

1137
01:07:47,800 --> 01:07:50,280
Speaker 3: call at the Apollo is to buy a pair of

1138
01:07:50,360 --> 01:07:52,880
Speaker 3: Nikes at our new foot Action store on one hundred

1139
01:07:52,880 --> 01:07:56,560
Speaker 3: and twenty fifth Street. I am living the dream as

1140
01:07:56,600 --> 01:08:00,840
Speaker 3: a music fan, as a footwear sneaker kid. You gotta

1141
01:08:00,880 --> 01:08:02,760
Speaker 3: be kidding me, like this is the greatest thing ever.

1142
01:08:04,440 --> 01:08:06,880
Speaker 3: And that didn't last too long because it was I

1143
01:08:06,880 --> 01:08:10,320
Speaker 3: guess eighteen months. Two years later, there was a giant,

1144
01:08:10,400 --> 01:08:15,800
Speaker 3: you know, town hall in the big Assembly area and

1145
01:08:15,800 --> 01:08:21,559
Speaker 3: we were told something's up. And if we were your

1146
01:08:21,560 --> 01:08:23,599
Speaker 3: brothers and sisters, we would tell you to get your

1147
01:08:23,640 --> 01:08:28,559
Speaker 3: resume together. And so I got my resume together, and

1148
01:08:28,600 --> 01:08:32,280
Speaker 3: so did Willie Smith. And Willie Smith ended up going

1149
01:08:32,280 --> 01:08:39,080
Speaker 3: out to Saint Louis, Missouri. He was a Rochelle New Rochelle,

1150
01:08:39,160 --> 01:08:42,479
Speaker 3: New Rock City kid and Long Island kid, and he

1151
01:08:42,520 --> 01:08:44,400
Speaker 3: moved out to Saint Louis to become the VP of

1152
01:08:44,439 --> 01:08:47,719
Speaker 3: Marketing for Famous Footwear, one of the leading family footwear

1153
01:08:48,040 --> 01:08:50,720
Speaker 3: brands in the United States. And he calls me up.

1154
01:08:50,760 --> 01:08:53,440
Speaker 3: It says, Ryles, you got to come out to Saint Louis.

1155
01:08:52,920 --> 01:08:56,240
Speaker 3: I'm not moving to Saint Louis. I'm from New Jersey?

1156
01:08:56,280 --> 01:09:01,120
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me? And let's put this. Willie is real,

1157
01:09:01,680 --> 01:09:07,479
Speaker 3: real persuasive, and so moved to Saint Louis, Missouri, and

1158
01:09:08,400 --> 01:09:13,479
Speaker 3: five years of incredible experience growth, learning a lot of

1159
01:09:13,520 --> 01:09:17,840
Speaker 3: things at Famous Footwear in Saint Louis, seeing incredible leaders too,

1160
01:09:17,960 --> 01:09:21,280
Speaker 3: like Diane Sullivan and others who are just showed me

1161
01:09:21,520 --> 01:09:22,920
Speaker 3: how to do things that I didn't know that I

1162
01:09:22,960 --> 01:09:26,360
Speaker 3: was going to have to do someday, because right now

1163
01:09:26,360 --> 01:09:29,080
Speaker 3: I'm already in all my life, I've outkicked my coverage.

1164
01:09:30,360 --> 01:09:35,320
Speaker 3: And now I'm in Saint Louis and incredible experience there,

1165
01:09:35,360 --> 01:09:40,400
Speaker 3: incredible life moments there. And then I go pay a

1166
01:09:40,479 --> 01:09:45,639
Speaker 3: visit to Crocs. Famous Footwear sells Crocs at the time,

1167
01:09:45,680 --> 01:09:49,759
Speaker 3: still does, And I fly out to Colorado, where Crocs

1168
01:09:49,840 --> 01:09:54,800
Speaker 3: is based just outside a boulder, and I go into

1169
01:09:54,840 --> 01:09:58,320
Speaker 3: the Crocs boardroom to do my you know, spiel of

1170
01:09:58,720 --> 01:10:00,960
Speaker 3: why you should be spending more money Famous Footwear to

1171
01:10:00,960 --> 01:10:05,479
Speaker 3: sell more Crocs. And I do my thing in the boardroom, leave,

1172
01:10:06,280 --> 01:10:08,400
Speaker 3: and two or three weeks later, I get a call

1173
01:10:08,960 --> 01:10:13,080
Speaker 3: from somebody at Crocs. We'd like you to be the

1174
01:10:13,120 --> 01:10:16,600
Speaker 3: guy that runs the America's marketing for Crocs, which you

1175
01:10:16,680 --> 01:10:22,679
Speaker 3: moved to Colorado. I'm not from Saint Louis. Colorado seems

1176
01:10:22,680 --> 01:10:24,599
Speaker 3: like a really cool place to live. My brother lives

1177
01:10:24,600 --> 01:10:26,680
Speaker 3: out here, as do my parents. They moved from New

1178
01:10:26,760 --> 01:10:30,280
Speaker 3: Jersey and the East Coast many years earlier, so let's

1179
01:10:30,280 --> 01:10:32,599
Speaker 3: give it a whirl. And we moved to Colorado and

1180
01:10:32,920 --> 01:10:37,120
Speaker 3: I'm the director of Marketing for Crocs and then the

1181
01:10:37,240 --> 01:10:40,240
Speaker 3: CMO for Crocs, and thanks to an incredible team, we

1182
01:10:40,280 --> 01:10:41,160
Speaker 3: turned that thing around.

1183
01:10:41,960 --> 01:10:48,240
Speaker 2: Okay, Ros had a real negative reputation. Okay, people were

1184
01:10:48,240 --> 01:10:52,760
Speaker 2: making jokes about them, plastic shoes, etc. Ay, why did

1185
01:10:52,800 --> 01:10:57,719
Speaker 2: you take the job? B was everybody on the same page.

1186
01:10:57,880 --> 01:11:00,559
Speaker 2: Something's got to change in what we were steps.

1187
01:11:00,720 --> 01:11:04,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, I took the job because it was a brand

1188
01:11:06,800 --> 01:11:16,960
Speaker 3: and people hated it. That smells like money. To me, Well, whoa, whoa, whoa.

1189
01:11:17,520 --> 01:11:21,479
Speaker 2: People hated it. That smells like money. Explain that.

1190
01:11:22,280 --> 01:11:24,559
Speaker 3: Yeah, So when I was the CMO of Crocs. When

1191
01:11:24,560 --> 01:11:29,360
Speaker 3: I started, there was a meme that had a photo

1192
01:11:29,400 --> 01:11:33,920
Speaker 3: of pair of Crocs and it said those holes are

1193
01:11:34,000 --> 01:11:35,559
Speaker 3: where your dignity leaks out.

1194
01:11:39,560 --> 01:11:40,120
Speaker 2: That's good.

1195
01:11:40,960 --> 01:11:43,880
Speaker 3: That hung on my wall. I looked at it every

1196
01:11:43,960 --> 01:11:50,360
Speaker 3: day as motivation. And again, nobody hated Crocs. It was

1197
01:11:50,479 --> 01:11:52,360
Speaker 3: just a brand that was made fun of and there

1198
01:11:52,400 --> 01:11:55,400
Speaker 3: was tension to that. And when there's that kind of tension,

1199
01:11:55,800 --> 01:11:58,520
Speaker 3: you know, as Reggie Jackson said, back in the seventies,

1200
01:11:58,800 --> 01:12:04,599
Speaker 3: they don't boo, nobody d and so aha, like there's

1201
01:12:04,640 --> 01:12:08,760
Speaker 3: something here and we just need to make ourselves more relevant.

1202
01:12:08,960 --> 01:12:13,360
Speaker 3: Crocs did not have an awareness problem. Everybody knew Crocs.

1203
01:12:12,400 --> 01:12:16,280
Speaker 3: But if we can make it more relevant, that was

1204
01:12:16,439 --> 01:12:20,120
Speaker 3: the opportunity. And thanks to my colleagues, we made it

1205
01:12:20,160 --> 01:12:23,599
Speaker 3: more relevant and then some and helped turn Crocs into

1206
01:12:24,240 --> 01:12:28,839
Speaker 3: this extraordinary story in footwear and in brands and in culture.

1207
01:12:30,000 --> 01:12:33,400
Speaker 3: And again, how lucky am I? You know, it's almost

1208
01:12:33,479 --> 01:12:36,040
Speaker 3: like Forrest Gump. I just bump into these things or

1209
01:12:36,080 --> 01:12:40,479
Speaker 3: they find me and you change Crocs and change my

1210
01:12:40,520 --> 01:12:42,400
Speaker 3: life in the biggest way.

1211
01:12:43,120 --> 01:12:47,280
Speaker 2: Okay, that's the general. Be more specific. Everyone knows Crocs.

1212
01:12:47,560 --> 01:12:51,519
Speaker 2: There's a negative take. What were the first steps and

1213
01:12:51,640 --> 01:12:54,000
Speaker 2: when did you realize you were onto something? And then

1214
01:12:54,000 --> 01:12:56,200
Speaker 2: where'd you go from there? Yeah?

1215
01:12:56,240 --> 01:13:01,000
Speaker 3: The first steps was actually to We brought Drew Barrymore

1216
01:13:01,200 --> 01:13:07,000
Speaker 3: on board and it was the first opportunity we had

1217
01:13:07,080 --> 01:13:09,160
Speaker 3: to work with celebrity.

1218
01:13:08,880 --> 01:13:10,639
Speaker 2: Whose idea was that.

1219
01:13:11,360 --> 01:13:14,400
Speaker 3: It was a mutual decision. Certainly, the CEO of Crocs

1220
01:13:15,520 --> 01:13:19,200
Speaker 3: and I spoke about one of the quickest ways to

1221
01:13:19,320 --> 01:13:24,880
Speaker 3: cut through is celebrity partnerships. That's just the fact they

1222
01:13:24,920 --> 01:13:28,600
Speaker 3: don't all work, but is the fastest way. And Drew Barrymore,

1223
01:13:28,680 --> 01:13:32,840
Speaker 3: God love her brought us an instant credibility with people.

1224
01:13:33,120 --> 01:13:35,160
Speaker 3: It just changed the perception of the brain. Oh that's

1225
01:13:35,240 --> 01:13:37,440
Speaker 3: Drew Barrymore. Wait are crocs?

1226
01:13:37,720 --> 01:13:37,920
Speaker 2: Wait?

1227
01:13:37,960 --> 01:13:40,839
Speaker 3: What's this CrOx? Maybe there's something that I've been missing.

1228
01:13:41,800 --> 01:13:45,320
Speaker 3: And she's just an absolutely lovely soul. And she was

1229
01:13:45,360 --> 01:13:47,240
Speaker 3: the first thing to help us put a flag in

1230
01:13:47,280 --> 01:13:50,600
Speaker 3: the ground. Where the other thing that happens, Bob is

1231
01:13:51,720 --> 01:13:57,080
Speaker 3: you know, the the Hollywood agencies, they smell blood in

1232
01:13:57,080 --> 01:14:01,320
Speaker 3: the water. CROs has some money. I wonder who else

1233
01:14:01,360 --> 01:14:05,920
Speaker 3: they'd consider hiring. And that she opened the doors for

1234
01:14:06,000 --> 01:14:10,000
Speaker 3: other celebrities to begin working with crocs, to also widen

1235
01:14:10,040 --> 01:14:12,040
Speaker 3: our aperture of who to work with to get a

1236
01:14:12,080 --> 01:14:15,960
Speaker 3: more global presence. People like John Cena we could started

1237
01:14:15,960 --> 01:14:19,559
Speaker 3: wearing crocs for us. Prianka Chopra also one of the

1238
01:14:19,600 --> 01:14:23,760
Speaker 3: loveliest women I've ever met in my entire life and kindest.

1239
01:14:24,040 --> 01:14:26,960
Speaker 3: She bought the whole crew when we wrapped, she bought

1240
01:14:27,000 --> 01:14:29,280
Speaker 3: them all champagne and toasted the crew. I mean just

1241
01:14:30,760 --> 01:14:32,840
Speaker 3: and so now people around the world are starting to see,

1242
01:14:32,840 --> 01:14:35,800
Speaker 3: wait that weird American brand that shoot with the holes

1243
01:14:35,800 --> 01:14:39,719
Speaker 3: in it. Drew Barrymore and John Cena and Priyanka Chopra

1244
01:14:40,200 --> 01:14:43,720
Speaker 3: and then some Asian superstars in Korea and China. But

1245
01:14:43,840 --> 01:14:47,559
Speaker 3: Drew Barrymore helped open that aperture and widen it where

1246
01:14:47,560 --> 01:14:49,960
Speaker 3: now the brand was in a little different spot and

1247
01:14:50,040 --> 01:14:54,280
Speaker 3: you could start to see those green shoots and then

1248
01:14:54,760 --> 01:14:55,759
Speaker 3: really the.

1249
01:14:55,520 --> 01:15:01,280
Speaker 4: The the the turning point, like this is the moment

1250
01:15:01,320 --> 01:15:05,920
Speaker 4: where the plot changes, you know, bang on the piano keys.

1251
01:15:05,960 --> 01:15:11,000
Speaker 3: Here a young woman named Toria Roth, twenty three years old.

1252
01:15:11,960 --> 01:15:14,320
Speaker 3: She walks into my office on the CMO of Crocs.

1253
01:15:14,360 --> 01:15:17,439
Speaker 3: She just finished her internship with us and we hired

1254
01:15:17,479 --> 01:15:20,760
Speaker 3: her on full time. She walks in my office, sheepishly

1255
01:15:21,040 --> 01:15:24,280
Speaker 3: knocks on my door, you know, the CMO's door, and says, hey,

1256
01:15:24,400 --> 01:15:27,720
Speaker 3: t did you see this? And she shows me a

1257
01:15:27,760 --> 01:15:33,360
Speaker 3: photo of post Malone wearing Crocs and I didn't see it.

1258
01:15:33,600 --> 01:15:36,680
Speaker 3: She saw it, and it didn't take more than two

1259
01:15:36,760 --> 01:15:42,280
Speaker 3: seconds to know what was up. And so Kerry Macker

1260
01:15:42,520 --> 01:15:46,719
Speaker 3: from Universal Music Group that represented post Malone, she gets

1261
01:15:46,720 --> 01:15:51,920
Speaker 3: in touch with us and we create the first celebrity

1262
01:15:52,120 --> 01:15:56,680
Speaker 3: collaboration with Crocs, the post Malones and it crashed our website.

1263
01:15:57,080 --> 01:15:58,680
Speaker 3: This is one of those moments, Bob, that I can

1264
01:15:58,760 --> 01:16:01,640
Speaker 3: see unfold and slow emotion. It's a big deal to

1265
01:16:01,680 --> 01:16:04,519
Speaker 3: the company. We've never done something like this before. We're

1266
01:16:04,560 --> 01:16:07,040
Speaker 3: about to go live at nine am in Colorado or

1267
01:16:07,080 --> 01:16:10,479
Speaker 3: ten am in Colorado. We get the entire company into

1268
01:16:10,520 --> 01:16:13,439
Speaker 3: the giant cafeteria assembly area. We have the big screens

1269
01:16:13,520 --> 01:16:17,320
Speaker 3: up with our data points to see this first sale,

1270
01:16:17,360 --> 01:16:22,479
Speaker 3: and and we go live and the system crashes. There

1271
01:16:22,479 --> 01:16:25,880
Speaker 3: were so many people. We were not prepared for it.

1272
01:16:26,840 --> 01:16:29,960
Speaker 3: And I'm the guy like, I'm the ringleader, the pt

1273
01:16:30,120 --> 01:16:34,080
Speaker 3: barnum of it all. And it was a mortifyingly excitingly

1274
01:16:34,120 --> 01:16:39,280
Speaker 3: incredible experience. I knew we just crashed crocs dot com.

1275
01:16:39,320 --> 01:16:42,760
Speaker 3: Everything changes from here on out, and it did.

1276
01:16:43,920 --> 01:16:47,439
Speaker 2: Okay, Just to go back a step, celebrities are not cheap.

1277
01:16:48,439 --> 01:16:52,439
Speaker 2: There are some companies with huge marketing budgets. Others don't

1278
01:16:52,439 --> 01:16:55,680
Speaker 2: believe in it. You know, how do you decide what

1279
01:16:55,840 --> 01:16:59,240
Speaker 2: percentage of you know, revenue to dedicate to these people

1280
01:16:59,760 --> 01:17:02,680
Speaker 2: in terms of return? Is there some math involved? It

1281
01:17:02,840 --> 01:17:04,040
Speaker 2: purely a hunch.

1282
01:17:05,560 --> 01:17:07,920
Speaker 3: For me, It's all the above. I do have an

1283
01:17:07,960 --> 01:17:11,960
Speaker 3: eye and thanks to Toria Roth. She saw this, and

1284
01:17:12,040 --> 01:17:14,559
Speaker 3: so post Malone at that moment was on the come up.

1285
01:17:15,760 --> 01:17:24,280
Speaker 3: So there were ways to afford Post Malone then. And

1286
01:17:24,439 --> 01:17:27,920
Speaker 3: the next up was Luke Combs. He hadn't hit yet,

1287
01:17:28,520 --> 01:17:31,479
Speaker 3: but I saw this guy through social media and just

1288
01:17:32,000 --> 01:17:36,640
Speaker 3: you know, just constant reading and you know that curiosity,

1289
01:17:36,800 --> 01:17:39,439
Speaker 3: and he started to appear in different places that I'm

1290
01:17:39,439 --> 01:17:42,679
Speaker 3: looking for new music, like okay, who's this Luke Combs guy?

1291
01:17:42,680 --> 01:17:44,840
Speaker 3: And then you see a photo of him, like this

1292
01:17:44,920 --> 01:17:47,160
Speaker 3: is a Crocs guy. So he was on the come

1293
01:17:47,240 --> 01:17:50,080
Speaker 3: up also, and so but then you do some math.

1294
01:17:50,160 --> 01:17:53,000
Speaker 3: You do how many Instagram followers they have, and if

1295
01:17:53,560 --> 01:17:56,280
Speaker 3: ten percent of those, you know, go to our website

1296
01:17:56,360 --> 01:17:59,200
Speaker 3: and five percent convert, what kind of dollars and cents

1297
01:17:59,240 --> 01:18:02,320
Speaker 3: could there be here? You do those kind of rough calculations,

1298
01:18:02,320 --> 01:18:04,880
Speaker 3: but it's also hunch. It's also kind of who their

1299
01:18:04,920 --> 01:18:10,719
Speaker 3: audience is and their trajectory. And that's happened a lot

1300
01:18:10,880 --> 01:18:14,280
Speaker 3: in my life of betting on folks and also being

1301
01:18:14,479 --> 01:18:17,960
Speaker 3: a leader who listens to you know, Torrio who's twenty three,

1302
01:18:18,280 --> 01:18:21,519
Speaker 3: or Pejor Rodriguez who came into my office. He grew

1303
01:18:21,560 --> 01:18:24,479
Speaker 3: up in Puerto Rico and he said, at do you

1304
01:18:24,520 --> 01:18:27,800
Speaker 3: know who bad Bunny is? And I didn't, but he did,

1305
01:18:28,479 --> 01:18:30,559
Speaker 3: and he knew the impact that bad Bunny would have

1306
01:18:30,600 --> 01:18:34,160
Speaker 3: for Crocs and he was right. And so to be

1307
01:18:34,200 --> 01:18:36,880
Speaker 3: a listener and a leader who's open to good ideas

1308
01:18:36,960 --> 01:18:41,040
Speaker 3: can come from anywhere has transformed brands. And if you're

1309
01:18:41,080 --> 01:18:42,640
Speaker 3: just close minded, and if you think you have all

1310
01:18:42,680 --> 01:18:45,320
Speaker 3: the answers, then you're probably not going to win. But

1311
01:18:45,360 --> 01:18:46,719
Speaker 3: you do have to have some of the answers.

1312
01:18:48,240 --> 01:18:53,160
Speaker 2: Okay, But there was the traditional Croc shoe back not

1313
01:18:53,280 --> 01:18:55,960
Speaker 2: long after the Croc started, they started to put fur

1314
01:18:56,000 --> 01:18:59,040
Speaker 2: on them and stuff like that. Forget that. You now

1315
01:18:59,120 --> 01:19:03,839
Speaker 2: have all the celebrities involved, you start changing the product.

1316
01:19:04,400 --> 01:19:05,400
Speaker 2: Show me about that.

1317
01:19:05,760 --> 01:19:07,960
Speaker 3: Sure, well, with a great product team, you know. So

1318
01:19:08,040 --> 01:19:10,800
Speaker 3: I was the CMO, not the chief product officer. But

1319
01:19:10,880 --> 01:19:13,920
Speaker 3: now it's a similar strategy. You build the core. And

1320
01:19:14,360 --> 01:19:18,519
Speaker 3: we returned under my marketing leadership, we returned to the

1321
01:19:18,560 --> 01:19:21,559
Speaker 3: classic Croc. Kroc was doing lots of different stuff when

1322
01:19:21,560 --> 01:19:23,840
Speaker 3: I got the gig, and we just brought it back

1323
01:19:23,880 --> 01:19:27,200
Speaker 3: to basics. And there you build the core and then

1324
01:19:27,240 --> 01:19:31,479
Speaker 3: you add more. And the fantastic product team started to, Yeah,

1325
01:19:31,560 --> 01:19:34,600
Speaker 3: put fuzz in crocs, which is a huge seller to

1326
01:19:34,640 --> 01:19:38,559
Speaker 3: this day. Add height do partnerships with Christopher Kaine or

1327
01:19:38,560 --> 01:19:43,840
Speaker 3: Balenciaga to get just that different kind of style. And

1328
01:19:43,880 --> 01:19:47,919
Speaker 3: then gibbets, those little things that you put in the holes,

1329
01:19:48,479 --> 01:19:51,880
Speaker 3: have been an incredible success story because it allows people

1330
01:19:51,920 --> 01:19:54,800
Speaker 3: to personalize their crocs, which is, you know, such a

1331
01:19:54,880 --> 01:19:59,879
Speaker 3: vital part of contemporary society. And so so the combination

1332
01:20:00,080 --> 01:20:05,439
Speaker 3: of new product introductions and celebrity partnerships and then it

1333
01:20:05,479 --> 01:20:08,439
Speaker 3: became like the Got Milk Mustache bob where everybody wanted

1334
01:20:08,479 --> 01:20:13,320
Speaker 3: to wear the milk mustache and almost any celebrity or

1335
01:20:13,320 --> 01:20:17,000
Speaker 3: brand that we called who wanted to create their own crocs.

1336
01:20:17,280 --> 01:20:22,800
Speaker 3: And that's something that is still an active success story today.

1337
01:20:23,120 --> 01:20:25,720
Speaker 2: Ye know, from my perspective, the gibbets started with the

1338
01:20:25,760 --> 01:20:29,799
Speaker 2: public and then you got involved. Is that an accurate description.

1339
01:20:31,240 --> 01:20:36,400
Speaker 3: No, We started to we were photographing our shoes naked,

1340
01:20:37,400 --> 01:20:40,240
Speaker 3: which makes no sense. We were selling gibbets, but we

1341
01:20:40,240 --> 01:20:43,000
Speaker 3: were not photographing them and not encouraging people to do that.

1342
01:20:43,160 --> 01:20:45,799
Speaker 3: So we got behind it and then our fans started

1343
01:20:45,840 --> 01:20:47,439
Speaker 3: to take over, and that's when you know a hit.

1344
01:20:47,520 --> 01:20:51,240
Speaker 3: You know, our fans started to label Crocs fully loaded,

1345
01:20:51,600 --> 01:20:54,599
Speaker 3: you know, when you fill all twenty six holes with gibbets,

1346
01:20:54,600 --> 01:20:58,040
Speaker 3: and it allows people to express themselves. And that's another

1347
01:20:58,360 --> 01:21:01,720
Speaker 3: key component of Crocs's success is the ability to just

1348
01:21:01,800 --> 01:21:05,639
Speaker 3: personalize something you wear and extend your own personality, whatever

1349
01:21:05,680 --> 01:21:09,120
Speaker 3: that may be to the brand. And our product team

1350
01:21:09,240 --> 01:21:12,920
Speaker 3: just continued to innovate and still does at Crocs. And

1351
01:21:12,960 --> 01:21:17,200
Speaker 3: it changed my life where people started writing articles about me,

1352
01:21:17,520 --> 01:21:20,599
Speaker 3: which again, how did this happen to this guy from

1353
01:21:20,640 --> 01:21:25,040
Speaker 3: New Jersey? But it did. And then I got a

1354
01:21:25,080 --> 01:21:31,880
Speaker 3: call about his bottle company called Stanley that nobody had

1355
01:21:31,880 --> 01:21:36,639
Speaker 3: heard of, including myself. But you know, it's not every

1356
01:21:36,680 --> 01:21:39,519
Speaker 3: day that they're calling a CMO for a president's job.

1357
01:21:41,479 --> 01:21:45,960
Speaker 3: And I should go for it. I should try and

1358
01:21:46,000 --> 01:21:48,479
Speaker 3: grab this breast ring this guy from you know, but

1359
01:21:48,600 --> 01:21:50,760
Speaker 3: for the grace of God. You know, my father was

1360
01:21:50,800 --> 01:21:54,360
Speaker 3: a typewriter repair man into an executive. But for the

1361
01:21:54,400 --> 01:21:56,920
Speaker 3: grace of God, I'd be walking a beat somewhere. You know,

1362
01:21:59,080 --> 01:22:02,280
Speaker 3: President me, Let's give it.

1363
01:22:02,320 --> 01:22:06,679
Speaker 2: A whirl a little bit slower. You get an email

1364
01:22:06,760 --> 01:22:09,400
Speaker 2: or the phone ring as they say, what and how

1365
01:22:09,400 --> 01:22:11,240
Speaker 2: do you ultimately decide to take the job.

1366
01:22:12,160 --> 01:22:14,800
Speaker 3: Well, it was a similar experience to CROCS. So now

1367
01:22:14,880 --> 01:22:17,160
Speaker 3: I knew when I joined CROCS it did not have

1368
01:22:17,200 --> 01:22:23,320
Speaker 3: an awareness problem, had a relevance opportunity. Stanley had an

1369
01:22:23,360 --> 01:22:28,200
Speaker 3: awareness opportunity. It's a you know, one hundred year old brand,

1370
01:22:28,520 --> 01:22:31,360
Speaker 3: just known for quality, known for this green bottle that

1371
01:22:31,400 --> 01:22:36,040
Speaker 3: people love. It's been in you know, it's probably somewhere

1372
01:22:36,080 --> 01:22:39,360
Speaker 3: in you know, Connecticut or you know where you grew

1373
01:22:39,400 --> 01:22:43,679
Speaker 3: up in somebody's attic, somebody's garage, and most people didn't

1374
01:22:43,680 --> 01:22:45,719
Speaker 3: even know it. It was like, oh, yeah, that that''s

1375
01:22:45,760 --> 01:22:48,080
Speaker 3: that green bottle that my dad used to have. Well,

1376
01:22:48,120 --> 01:22:50,280
Speaker 3: my mom she took it to school every day where

1377
01:22:50,280 --> 01:22:52,320
Speaker 3: her soup. She was a teacher back in the sixties

1378
01:22:52,439 --> 01:22:55,040
Speaker 3: or so. All right, wait a minute, this is a

1379
01:22:55,200 --> 01:22:58,639
Speaker 3: there's a heritage here. How cool is that to get

1380
01:22:58,680 --> 01:23:01,960
Speaker 3: the keys to that kind of thing. So if we

1381
01:23:01,960 --> 01:23:06,960
Speaker 3: can make it relevant and increase the awareness, we might

1382
01:23:06,960 --> 01:23:08,439
Speaker 3: be able to do something. And this might be a

1383
01:23:08,520 --> 01:23:11,880
Speaker 3: really interesting president's job, which I shouldn't have no business having.

1384
01:23:13,720 --> 01:23:14,680
Speaker 2: How did they find you?

1385
01:23:16,880 --> 01:23:18,920
Speaker 3: I think as yeah, it was a search firm, you know,

1386
01:23:19,000 --> 01:23:21,120
Speaker 3: because I started to get a little attention for the

1387
01:23:21,160 --> 01:23:24,320
Speaker 3: Crux success. You know, undeserved attention. But you know, it's

1388
01:23:24,400 --> 01:23:26,400
Speaker 3: like a quarterback. You get the attention, you get the blame.

1389
01:23:27,120 --> 01:23:29,920
Speaker 3: And so people started to see what was happening at CROCS,

1390
01:23:29,960 --> 01:23:33,680
Speaker 3: and my name was, you know, somewhat attached to it.

1391
01:23:34,040 --> 01:23:35,920
Speaker 3: And so I was getting lots of calls for other

1392
01:23:36,000 --> 01:23:40,160
Speaker 3: CMO jobs and all things like that, President mat you know,

1393
01:23:41,479 --> 01:23:44,200
Speaker 3: so I thought I was going to be Governor Corleone,

1394
01:23:44,520 --> 01:23:49,200
Speaker 3: President Corloni. Yeah, so let's go for it, and that

1395
01:23:49,800 --> 01:23:52,360
Speaker 3: it turned out. I decided to do it in February

1396
01:23:52,400 --> 01:23:53,160
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty.

1397
01:23:54,720 --> 01:24:07,519
Speaker 5: Uh oh, okay, just to stay on this, ay, where

1398
01:24:07,600 --> 01:24:09,320
Speaker 5: is Stanley located?

1399
01:24:10,000 --> 01:24:12,599
Speaker 2: B how much revenue in a year?

1400
01:24:13,560 --> 01:24:18,679
Speaker 3: So Stanley's based in Seattle, Washington. And when I joined,

1401
01:24:19,200 --> 01:24:23,559
Speaker 3: Stanley was a seventy million dollar brand known for the

1402
01:24:23,760 --> 01:24:27,960
Speaker 3: Hammertone Green bottle. That's an American classic. You know, if

1403
01:24:28,000 --> 01:24:31,080
Speaker 3: you watch the Festivut episode of Seinfeld, Kramer's got it

1404
01:24:31,120 --> 01:24:33,760
Speaker 3: in his pocket. If you've watched Off the Space when

1405
01:24:33,760 --> 01:24:37,599
Speaker 3: they keep moving Milton and his Stapler, he's got his Stanley.

1406
01:24:37,920 --> 01:24:41,080
Speaker 3: The Hammertone Green is bedrock and helped build America.

1407
01:24:42,000 --> 01:24:45,879
Speaker 2: Okay, a couple other questions, FIRA, way, what other products

1408
01:24:45,920 --> 01:24:46,760
Speaker 2: does Stanley have.

1409
01:24:47,160 --> 01:24:53,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, lunchboxes, different drinkwear, specializing in drinkwear and lunchboxes, and

1410
01:24:53,080 --> 01:24:56,720
Speaker 3: then outdoor camping gear. You know how many you know,

1411
01:24:57,640 --> 01:25:00,280
Speaker 3: meals were made around the fire in the outdoor with

1412
01:25:00,400 --> 01:25:03,519
Speaker 3: Stanley over the last you know, seventy five hundred years.

1413
01:25:04,040 --> 01:25:08,280
Speaker 3: Is part again of American heritage and tradition. So so

1414
01:25:08,600 --> 01:25:13,400
Speaker 3: I know that that exists and quality. It's known for

1415
01:25:13,640 --> 01:25:18,080
Speaker 3: just quality and a real rabid core fan base is

1416
01:25:18,120 --> 01:25:23,640
Speaker 3: almost the wrong word, you know, just and advocates and

1417
01:25:24,920 --> 01:25:27,559
Speaker 3: just lovers of the brand. And it almost like a

1418
01:25:27,600 --> 01:25:31,120
Speaker 3: family heirloom and an inheritance. My dad was a Stanley man,

1419
01:25:31,160 --> 01:25:33,599
Speaker 3: my mom was a Stanley woman. That kind of thing.

1420
01:25:34,080 --> 01:25:37,480
Speaker 2: Okay, so you get the job. You're living in Colorado.

1421
01:25:37,640 --> 01:25:41,479
Speaker 2: The companies in Seattle, it's February of twenty twenty. Yeah,

1422
01:25:41,520 --> 01:25:44,840
Speaker 2: do they say you have to move? What happens on

1423
01:25:44,880 --> 01:25:47,080
Speaker 2: that level? And obviously it's the beginning of COVID.

1424
01:25:47,280 --> 01:25:50,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, so was planning on moving to Seattle, had a

1425
01:25:50,840 --> 01:25:55,120
Speaker 3: place downtown ready to roll. And then March or twenty

1426
01:25:55,120 --> 01:26:00,719
Speaker 3: twenty hits and this is I accepted in right before

1427
01:26:00,760 --> 01:26:04,760
Speaker 3: COVID and then COVID hits and I join first week

1428
01:26:04,800 --> 01:26:09,320
Speaker 3: in April. And my first reaction is what did I

1429
01:26:09,400 --> 01:26:13,720
Speaker 3: just do to my life? This high flying? I'm not

1430
01:26:13,760 --> 01:26:16,160
Speaker 3: high flying at all, Bob, I'm a CMO that's had

1431
01:26:16,200 --> 01:26:18,920
Speaker 3: some success at CROCS. What did I just do to

1432
01:26:18,960 --> 01:26:22,120
Speaker 3: my life? There is no office to go to, Seattle

1433
01:26:22,200 --> 01:26:26,920
Speaker 3: is closed. You got to remember, like in twenty twenty,

1434
01:26:26,960 --> 01:26:31,240
Speaker 3: none of us were on teams or we're just zoom

1435
01:26:31,479 --> 01:26:35,240
Speaker 3: like it was occasionally, And so what did I just

1436
01:26:35,280 --> 01:26:40,280
Speaker 3: do to my career? To my life? But you know,

1437
01:26:40,360 --> 01:26:45,000
Speaker 3: I made a decision. We're in it and back to listening.

1438
01:26:45,800 --> 01:26:48,080
Speaker 3: So one of the things that you do when you're

1439
01:26:48,080 --> 01:26:51,080
Speaker 3: a new leader I hope people do, is you listen

1440
01:26:51,080 --> 01:26:53,719
Speaker 3: to your team what should we stop? Start and continue?

1441
01:26:55,360 --> 01:27:01,479
Speaker 3: And on a Friday afternoon, I check in with Lauren Solomon,

1442
01:27:01,680 --> 01:27:06,800
Speaker 3: who is one of Stanley's brilliant saleswomen, and I asked

1443
01:27:06,800 --> 01:27:08,560
Speaker 3: that question, wh should we stop, start and continue? And

1444
01:27:08,600 --> 01:27:13,080
Speaker 3: I've listened to lots of people, and Lauren says, there

1445
01:27:13,120 --> 01:27:17,160
Speaker 3: are these three women in Utah that she has become

1446
01:27:17,200 --> 01:27:22,519
Speaker 3: aware of that have been actually buying this forty ounce

1447
01:27:22,600 --> 01:27:26,120
Speaker 3: adventure tumbler of ours and selling it on their own

1448
01:27:27,720 --> 01:27:35,880
Speaker 3: and they're seeing some success. So my CROCS instincts immediately crackle. Okay,

1449
01:27:35,920 --> 01:27:38,280
Speaker 3: wait what is this? Who are these? And she tells

1450
01:27:38,280 --> 01:27:41,040
Speaker 3: me about these three women who call themselves the buy

1451
01:27:41,120 --> 01:27:44,559
Speaker 3: Guide out in Utah and that they had taken a

1452
01:27:44,600 --> 01:27:50,240
Speaker 3: liking to this quencher, and so the team immediately starts to.

1453
01:27:50,280 --> 01:27:52,519
Speaker 2: Do it, just because we're going back there, firewing. How

1454
01:27:52,520 --> 01:27:53,599
Speaker 2: many were they buy.

1455
01:27:54,240 --> 01:27:58,200
Speaker 3: Hundreds on their own dime and they were taking the risk,

1456
01:28:00,040 --> 01:28:04,160
Speaker 3: and so they were seeing success. And so they had

1457
01:28:04,160 --> 01:28:06,439
Speaker 3: their own following of a few, you know, million or

1458
01:28:06,439 --> 01:28:09,479
Speaker 3: so followers on the by Guide, and we're telling their

1459
01:28:09,600 --> 01:28:12,880
Speaker 3: followers how much they loved this product. And so, again

1460
01:28:12,920 --> 01:28:14,880
Speaker 3: back to what I had just done at CROCS, I

1461
01:28:14,960 --> 01:28:18,120
Speaker 3: recognize this pattern thanks to Lauren pointing it out and

1462
01:28:18,160 --> 01:28:20,320
Speaker 3: the risks that the buy Guide were taking on their

1463
01:28:20,360 --> 01:28:23,800
Speaker 3: own before I showed up. But this is this is

1464
01:28:23,840 --> 01:28:27,320
Speaker 3: gold dust to me. And so we make an arrangement

1465
01:28:27,360 --> 01:28:32,719
Speaker 3: with the buy Guide to have them further evangelize this product,

1466
01:28:33,720 --> 01:28:36,439
Speaker 3: and then with them we started to create new colors.

1467
01:28:37,920 --> 01:28:40,679
Speaker 2: What does that look like? Further evangelize the product?

1468
01:28:40,960 --> 01:28:44,639
Speaker 3: Oh, to get really behind and get paid for it

1469
01:28:45,040 --> 01:28:49,320
Speaker 3: instead of taking the risk getting compensated for the bet

1470
01:28:49,320 --> 01:28:51,320
Speaker 3: that they had already made on this little product on

1471
01:28:51,360 --> 01:28:56,360
Speaker 3: their own and help us start something. And that's how

1472
01:28:56,400 --> 01:29:00,439
Speaker 3: it works. That's social media in a nutshell. And so

1473
01:29:00,479 --> 01:29:04,320
Speaker 3: we started to sell a few thousand and then lots

1474
01:29:04,360 --> 01:29:09,479
Speaker 3: of thousands, all on Stanley nineteen thirteen dot com. And

1475
01:29:09,560 --> 01:29:14,280
Speaker 3: so certainly the margins are great. They're getting they're getting

1476
01:29:14,280 --> 01:29:17,160
Speaker 3: a taste, as we would say back in New Jersey,

1477
01:29:17,840 --> 01:29:22,960
Speaker 3: and we got ourselves a little hit. And then we

1478
01:29:23,040 --> 01:29:26,719
Speaker 3: started to introduce a new another new color or two.

1479
01:29:26,840 --> 01:29:29,280
Speaker 3: And then with this, armed with this data, we could

1480
01:29:29,280 --> 01:29:31,240
Speaker 3: go to some of our key accounts that were just

1481
01:29:31,320 --> 01:29:37,080
Speaker 3: carrying the traditional Stanley's. So we're seeing this unlocked with

1482
01:29:37,160 --> 01:29:41,040
Speaker 3: young women. You should give us two feet of shelf space,

1483
01:29:42,640 --> 01:29:46,320
Speaker 3: and they did, and that two feet became six feet,

1484
01:29:46,479 --> 01:29:49,240
Speaker 3: became eight feet, which became an entire corner of Dick

1485
01:29:49,320 --> 01:29:55,120
Speaker 3: sporting goods and the cultural phenomenon that became the Stanley Quencher.

1486
01:29:55,720 --> 01:29:58,200
Speaker 3: I was born exactly like I described it, more or less,

1487
01:29:58,360 --> 01:30:02,800
Speaker 3: and new colors, new surprises, new collaborations, and what the

1488
01:30:02,880 --> 01:30:06,720
Speaker 3: crux experience that I had. I know how to do

1489
01:30:06,760 --> 01:30:08,599
Speaker 3: some of this stuff. I know how this should work.

1490
01:30:09,560 --> 01:30:13,759
Speaker 3: And we got after collaborations that also changed the entire

1491
01:30:15,120 --> 01:30:16,599
Speaker 3: you know, complexion of the brand.

1492
01:30:17,920 --> 01:30:22,759
Speaker 2: Okay, a little bit more granular. You're having this reaction

1493
01:30:23,160 --> 01:30:26,440
Speaker 2: from the Women in Utah. You're selling on the website.

1494
01:30:26,720 --> 01:30:29,639
Speaker 2: You go to Dick's give us a chance than.

1495
01:30:29,600 --> 01:30:32,880
Speaker 3: What we gave, point to lots of places to say,

1496
01:30:32,880 --> 01:30:35,400
Speaker 3: give us a bigger chance. But we had the math,

1497
01:30:36,320 --> 01:30:39,080
Speaker 3: you know, thanks to our team, thanks to Matt and

1498
01:30:39,520 --> 01:30:44,680
Speaker 3: Helen and others. They were carefully managing these relationships to

1499
01:30:44,800 --> 01:30:48,800
Speaker 3: start to grow it out. But we had the data

1500
01:30:49,240 --> 01:30:51,720
Speaker 3: and so that was another part of the magic. It

1501
01:30:51,760 --> 01:30:54,240
Speaker 3: was all happening on heydude dot com and now we

1502
01:30:54,240 --> 01:30:57,519
Speaker 3: can share it. So it was a safer bet for

1503
01:30:57,680 --> 01:31:00,479
Speaker 3: these big retailers to start to take a chance on us,

1504
01:31:01,120 --> 01:31:03,919
Speaker 3: and for some of these brands, and for Stanley, for everybody.

1505
01:31:04,200 --> 01:31:08,080
Speaker 3: It's been one of the biggest success stories of this century.

1506
01:31:08,320 --> 01:31:12,040
Speaker 2: Uh oh, okay, you got the Women in Utah. Now

1507
01:31:12,080 --> 01:31:15,920
Speaker 2: you're selling on the website. You have these accounts Dix

1508
01:31:15,960 --> 01:31:20,959
Speaker 2: and other plane what is driving adoption? What is driving sales?

1509
01:31:22,120 --> 01:31:25,800
Speaker 3: Well, shelf space for one, and then the use of

1510
01:31:25,800 --> 01:31:31,120
Speaker 3: social media. The buy Guide in particular, starts to get

1511
01:31:31,160 --> 01:31:34,880
Speaker 3: us started in the influencer and affiliate game where we

1512
01:31:34,920 --> 01:31:37,960
Speaker 3: could work with other beyond the buy Guide, affiliates and

1513
01:31:38,040 --> 01:31:42,080
Speaker 3: influencers to start to evangelize this product. And it also

1514
01:31:42,120 --> 01:31:44,840
Speaker 3: starts the fact that it's an incredible product. I mean

1515
01:31:44,880 --> 01:31:48,880
Speaker 3: it starts there. It serves so many purposes, but then

1516
01:31:49,040 --> 01:31:51,920
Speaker 3: it just becomes a cultural phenomenon through our use of

1517
01:31:52,120 --> 01:31:57,000
Speaker 3: social media to evangelize it. There was no TV, there

1518
01:31:57,080 --> 01:32:03,200
Speaker 3: was no radio, There was hardly any traditional marketing behind

1519
01:32:03,479 --> 01:32:07,960
Speaker 3: the Stanley product. It was all through influencers and affiliates

1520
01:32:07,960 --> 01:32:12,080
Speaker 3: and women. And like I said earlier, women create community.

1521
01:32:12,320 --> 01:32:19,040
Speaker 3: They decide what is cool, and they chose authentically the

1522
01:32:19,240 --> 01:32:23,200
Speaker 3: Stanley Quencher, and off it went. And then we would

1523
01:32:23,200 --> 01:32:31,560
Speaker 3: certainly fan the flames with new colors, new accessories, new partnerships.

1524
01:32:32,280 --> 01:32:36,040
Speaker 3: I was on TikTok back to not turning the television

1525
01:32:36,040 --> 01:32:41,120
Speaker 3: on anymore. I was scrolling through TikTok one afternoon and

1526
01:32:42,120 --> 01:32:45,080
Speaker 3: video crossed my for you page of a young artist

1527
01:32:45,200 --> 01:32:50,200
Speaker 3: singing to a pretty sizable audience, and the video was

1528
01:32:50,200 --> 01:32:54,439
Speaker 3: taken from behind her, behind the stage. And let's just

1529
01:32:54,439 --> 01:32:57,559
Speaker 3: say the video made its rounds because of this artist's

1530
01:32:57,640 --> 01:33:03,960
Speaker 3: rather ample backside, And so I then saw a video

1531
01:33:04,120 --> 01:33:09,400
Speaker 3: of this artist commenting on that video and she referred

1532
01:33:09,400 --> 01:33:14,000
Speaker 3: to her backside as her dump truck. I was like,

1533
01:33:14,120 --> 01:33:16,240
Speaker 3: who is this woman? Like, she's so first of all,

1534
01:33:16,240 --> 01:33:19,680
Speaker 3: she's beautiful, second of all, she's just cool and is

1535
01:33:19,840 --> 01:33:23,600
Speaker 3: own this and take ownership of this kind of misogynistic

1536
01:33:24,680 --> 01:33:29,320
Speaker 3: leering video that was on TikTok And wow, who is

1537
01:33:29,360 --> 01:33:33,880
Speaker 3: this woman? So I saw her name and my next

1538
01:33:33,880 --> 01:33:37,599
Speaker 3: move is I go to Spotify and I find her.

1539
01:33:37,640 --> 01:33:42,519
Speaker 3: On Spotify, I find her latest release. I go down

1540
01:33:42,560 --> 01:33:45,640
Speaker 3: the track listing and I see one of the tracks

1541
01:33:46,120 --> 01:33:53,720
Speaker 3: is called Watermelon Moonshine. And with my eyeball, bob, Watermelon

1542
01:33:53,800 --> 01:34:01,120
Speaker 3: Moonshine is a Stanley Quencher color. So I write Ellen

1543
01:34:01,600 --> 01:34:03,639
Speaker 3: on our team, on our product team, I said, hey,

1544
01:34:03,640 --> 01:34:07,920
Speaker 3: can you please create a watermelon moonshine color Quencher. You

1545
01:34:07,960 --> 01:34:12,120
Speaker 3: can't be wrong, And within two days she fires me

1546
01:34:12,240 --> 01:34:17,240
Speaker 3: back a cad of a watermelon Moonshine Quencher. And I

1547
01:34:17,280 --> 01:34:21,240
Speaker 3: reach out to this artist's label on LinkedIn. I connect

1548
01:34:21,280 --> 01:34:24,960
Speaker 3: with Donna McQueen and I said, hey, would you be

1549
01:34:25,040 --> 01:34:29,680
Speaker 3: interested in a Stanley Laney Wilson collaboration because what do

1550
01:34:29,720 --> 01:34:32,960
Speaker 3: you have in mind, and I said, how about watermelon moonshine,

1551
01:34:35,400 --> 01:34:38,920
Speaker 3: and off we went, sold out twice in less than

1552
01:34:38,920 --> 01:34:45,320
Speaker 3: two minutes, and the unboxing videos of Laney Wilson watermelon

1553
01:34:45,360 --> 01:34:51,840
Speaker 3: Moonshine quenchers were everywhere in twenty twenty two. So it's

1554
01:34:51,840 --> 01:34:54,040
Speaker 3: these kind of things that just continued to ignite it.

1555
01:34:54,479 --> 01:34:57,760
Speaker 3: And then lots of other artists and brand collaborations from

1556
01:34:58,200 --> 01:35:02,680
Speaker 3: love Shack Fancy to Wicked, to Olivia Rodrigo to too

1557
01:35:02,680 --> 01:35:06,639
Speaker 3: many to count, all similar to Crocs wanted their own

1558
01:35:06,680 --> 01:35:11,679
Speaker 3: Stanley quencher. And then we were parodied on Saturday Night Live,

1559
01:35:13,560 --> 01:35:17,080
Speaker 3: and then there are riots and target over the latest release,

1560
01:35:19,560 --> 01:35:22,479
Speaker 3: and then it's all over the world. And then of

1561
01:35:22,520 --> 01:35:27,320
Speaker 3: course there's the fire response video that I made that

1562
01:35:28,960 --> 01:35:33,000
Speaker 3: people write about still every single day, which was back

1563
01:35:33,040 --> 01:35:38,120
Speaker 3: to TikTok, my adoption of TikTok personally and moving fast.

1564
01:35:39,360 --> 01:35:41,720
Speaker 2: Tell that story because not everybody's familiar with it.

1565
01:35:43,000 --> 01:35:48,559
Speaker 3: So one Wednesday afternoon, I forwarded by somebody on our

1566
01:35:48,600 --> 01:35:52,479
Speaker 3: team a TikTok video of a woman who's car caught

1567
01:35:52,520 --> 01:35:58,400
Speaker 3: on fire, and she shows the camera her car's caught

1568
01:35:58,439 --> 01:36:01,880
Speaker 3: on fire, and in the couple is her Stanley and

1569
01:36:01,920 --> 01:36:04,360
Speaker 3: she pulls it out of the cup holder and shakes

1570
01:36:04,400 --> 01:36:08,160
Speaker 3: it and it still has ice in it after a

1571
01:36:08,200 --> 01:36:12,040
Speaker 3: car fire. So somebody sent that video to me on

1572
01:36:12,040 --> 01:36:16,680
Speaker 3: a Wednesday, and Wednesday night I wrote the team and

1573
01:36:16,680 --> 01:36:20,240
Speaker 3: said I'm going to buy her a car. I we

1574
01:36:22,240 --> 01:36:24,720
Speaker 3: and the next morning, Thursday morning, I roll into the

1575
01:36:24,760 --> 01:36:27,960
Speaker 3: office in Seattle, and I asked Chloe, one of our

1576
01:36:28,000 --> 01:36:31,200
Speaker 3: young marketing associates, to get the phone that has our

1577
01:36:31,240 --> 01:36:34,160
Speaker 3: TikTok account on it. You know, we have a Stanley

1578
01:36:34,160 --> 01:36:38,000
Speaker 3: phone at the time. It's not my phone. Said bring

1579
01:36:38,000 --> 01:36:41,799
Speaker 3: it into the boardroom with me and merchandise some products

1580
01:36:41,800 --> 01:36:44,240
Speaker 3: behind me. And I said, hold the phone up like

1581
01:36:44,280 --> 01:36:47,960
Speaker 3: it's a selfie. And I said what I said live,

1582
01:36:48,280 --> 01:36:52,240
Speaker 3: no scripts, no briefings, no nonsense. It was just what

1583
01:36:52,400 --> 01:36:54,760
Speaker 3: I think anybody would have done if they happened to

1584
01:36:54,800 --> 01:36:58,679
Speaker 3: be the president of the brand. That this woman has

1585
01:36:58,720 --> 01:37:02,960
Speaker 3: featured our product in the most heroic way a car

1586
01:37:03,000 --> 01:37:07,320
Speaker 3: fire and there's still ice in the Stanley. And I respond,

1587
01:37:07,360 --> 01:37:10,720
Speaker 3: I don't remember exactly what I said anymore, but Danielle,

1588
01:37:10,720 --> 01:37:14,599
Speaker 3: I hope you're safe. Thanks for showing the product in

1589
01:37:14,640 --> 01:37:18,519
Speaker 3: such a wonderful manner. People keep writing that we should

1590
01:37:18,520 --> 01:37:21,519
Speaker 3: buy you some new Stanley's. Well, we're certainly going to

1591
01:37:21,560 --> 01:37:24,479
Speaker 3: buy you some new Stanleys, but we also want to

1592
01:37:24,479 --> 01:37:30,040
Speaker 3: replace your vehicle. And I had to Chloe press send.

1593
01:37:31,240 --> 01:37:35,040
Speaker 3: She said, are you sure? Said yes, and she pressed send,

1594
01:37:35,200 --> 01:37:37,639
Speaker 3: and then it was like a movie. I went back

1595
01:37:37,680 --> 01:37:40,839
Speaker 3: around my day. But then people started texting me Tea,

1596
01:37:41,040 --> 01:37:43,960
Speaker 3: you know, you're blowing up on TikTok. No, my daughter, Dad,

1597
01:37:44,479 --> 01:37:47,800
Speaker 3: you know, like you're blowing up on TikTok and Bob.

1598
01:37:47,840 --> 01:37:51,840
Speaker 3: One hundred million views later, people know that video. They've

1599
01:37:51,840 --> 01:37:54,000
Speaker 3: seen it too many times to count in too many languages,

1600
01:37:54,080 --> 01:37:58,559
Speaker 3: languages I don't even recognize. Well stopped in airports from people,

1601
01:38:00,600 --> 01:38:04,880
Speaker 3: and it solidified the quality of the product. That's what

1602
01:38:04,920 --> 01:38:08,840
Speaker 3: it was about, and taking care of a consumer who

1603
01:38:08,920 --> 01:38:10,880
Speaker 3: we care about. And she was a fan of ours,

1604
01:38:10,880 --> 01:38:13,920
Speaker 3: and I like to think anybody would have done that.

1605
01:38:13,960 --> 01:38:16,400
Speaker 3: I just did it the next day, and I just

1606
01:38:16,479 --> 01:38:18,960
Speaker 3: did it. I didn't script it. I just said it.

1607
01:38:19,160 --> 01:38:21,000
Speaker 3: And maybe that's why I connected, which is what I

1608
01:38:21,000 --> 01:38:24,960
Speaker 3: said earlier. It's authentic, genuine and fast and off it went,

1609
01:38:25,040 --> 01:38:27,160
Speaker 3: and it helped change the complexion of a brand that

1610
01:38:27,200 --> 01:38:27,880
Speaker 3: was already winning.

1611
01:38:29,680 --> 01:38:33,360
Speaker 2: Okay, how did you get her the money, how did

1612
01:38:33,439 --> 01:38:35,559
Speaker 2: she buy the car and what car did she get?

1613
01:38:36,680 --> 01:38:38,559
Speaker 3: So we got in touch with her obviously through TikTok,

1614
01:38:38,560 --> 01:38:40,920
Speaker 3: because she'd seen the response, of course and was blown

1615
01:38:40,960 --> 01:38:43,920
Speaker 3: away by the response. And we just got in touch

1616
01:38:43,960 --> 01:38:46,679
Speaker 3: with her and we asked her what car she wanted

1617
01:38:47,120 --> 01:38:49,120
Speaker 3: and she told us, I can't remember what. We got

1618
01:38:49,160 --> 01:38:55,519
Speaker 3: her a Mazda, a Mazda something, and we contacted the

1619
01:38:55,560 --> 01:38:58,840
Speaker 3: local dealer where she lived in the Washington, d C.

1620
01:39:00,080 --> 01:39:03,880
Speaker 3: Maryland area, and we told the dealership we want to

1621
01:39:03,880 --> 01:39:06,080
Speaker 3: buy it. Let's take care of it all and put

1622
01:39:06,080 --> 01:39:08,599
Speaker 3: the big red ribbon on it and bring it to her.

1623
01:39:09,800 --> 01:39:13,400
Speaker 3: And we did that within four to six weeks of

1624
01:39:13,439 --> 01:39:18,559
Speaker 3: that first video and delivered on our promise, my promise,

1625
01:39:19,439 --> 01:39:22,840
Speaker 3: and really, you know, solidify the quality of the brand

1626
01:39:22,840 --> 01:39:25,360
Speaker 3: where that video is still shown every single day. I

1627
01:39:25,400 --> 01:39:28,200
Speaker 3: had a funny story. One of my best friend Sons

1628
01:39:28,280 --> 01:39:32,600
Speaker 3: is a sophomore at Elon in North Carolina, and he

1629
01:39:32,720 --> 01:39:36,519
Speaker 3: texted me a photo of me on his classroom screen

1630
01:39:36,880 --> 01:39:42,080
Speaker 3: that were talking about marketing, you know moments, and like,

1631
01:39:42,120 --> 01:39:44,280
Speaker 3: you know, Terrence, they're talking about you in my class

1632
01:39:44,400 --> 01:39:49,080
Speaker 3: So that's cool. So it's just it's continually talked about

1633
01:39:49,200 --> 01:39:52,320
Speaker 3: is like a smart marketing move, and it was just

1634
01:39:52,360 --> 01:39:55,080
Speaker 3: a real thing. It wasn't of course, it was marketing.

1635
01:39:55,120 --> 01:39:57,360
Speaker 3: I'm not stupid. People aren't stupid. But it was just

1636
01:39:57,400 --> 01:40:01,280
Speaker 3: a real reaction to something. And you see opportunity for

1637
01:40:01,400 --> 01:40:04,680
Speaker 3: your brand when it's reinforcing your quality and taking care

1638
01:40:04,720 --> 01:40:05,439
Speaker 3: of a customer.

1639
01:40:06,840 --> 01:40:11,840
Speaker 2: Okay, so the change in sales dollar wise for the

1640
01:40:11,840 --> 01:40:12,639
Speaker 2: Stanley Cup.

1641
01:40:14,080 --> 01:40:16,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, as I said earlier, when I joined in

1642
01:40:16,320 --> 01:40:21,320
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, Stanley was a seventy million dollar business and

1643
01:40:21,360 --> 01:40:23,840
Speaker 3: as you know, we reported at the end of twenty

1644
01:40:23,880 --> 01:40:27,519
Speaker 3: twenty four we were seven hundred and fifty million, so

1645
01:40:27,920 --> 01:40:30,519
Speaker 3: you know, ten x in four years, and I'm sure

1646
01:40:31,920 --> 01:40:35,960
Speaker 3: those numbers continued in twenty twenty five, so seventy to

1647
01:40:36,000 --> 01:40:40,200
Speaker 3: seven hundred and fifty million in four years. But beyond

1648
01:40:40,200 --> 01:40:43,680
Speaker 3: the dollars, it's the you know what, people don't even

1649
01:40:43,760 --> 01:40:46,559
Speaker 3: know how many times throughout my tenure there and even

1650
01:40:46,560 --> 01:40:50,120
Speaker 3: to this day, people just refer to it as a Stanley,

1651
01:40:51,600 --> 01:40:55,000
Speaker 3: like do you know, like the how amazing that is

1652
01:40:55,720 --> 01:40:58,160
Speaker 3: that people refer to it as like Q tip or

1653
01:40:58,240 --> 01:41:03,360
Speaker 3: Kleenex or z it's the Stanley Like that is the

1654
01:41:04,320 --> 01:41:06,720
Speaker 3: that's the case study and all the things that we

1655
01:41:06,760 --> 01:41:08,760
Speaker 3: did as a team to do that. Why know me,

1656
01:41:08,840 --> 01:41:11,280
Speaker 3: It wasn't me, It was all of us at Stanley.

1657
01:41:11,720 --> 01:41:14,200
Speaker 3: I made some big decisions, hired some great people that

1658
01:41:14,439 --> 01:41:18,960
Speaker 3: ran with things and made it better. But the fact

1659
01:41:19,000 --> 01:41:21,880
Speaker 3: that it's just known around the world and it's known

1660
01:41:21,960 --> 01:41:27,360
Speaker 3: in silhouette as a Stanley that is an incredible thing

1661
01:41:27,800 --> 01:41:30,280
Speaker 3: to have been a part of. And what I shake

1662
01:41:30,320 --> 01:41:33,400
Speaker 3: my head in disbelief no matter where I go, Bob.

1663
01:41:33,439 --> 01:41:36,880
Speaker 3: Like I was at a college campus giving a little

1664
01:41:36,880 --> 01:41:41,320
Speaker 3: presentation a couple of months ago, and walking around the

1665
01:41:41,320 --> 01:41:45,920
Speaker 3: campus before my presentation, I saw nine Stanley's, six pair

1666
01:41:45,960 --> 01:41:50,280
Speaker 3: of crocs and four hey dudes, And I started my

1667
01:41:50,320 --> 01:41:55,080
Speaker 3: presentation saying, what's nine plus six plus four? And all

1668
01:41:55,080 --> 01:41:58,240
Speaker 3: these eager college students raised their hand to yell out

1669
01:41:58,320 --> 01:42:05,200
Speaker 3: nineteen like really really, like now that's my career history

1670
01:42:05,240 --> 01:42:08,960
Speaker 3: on your campus right this morning I saw nine Crocs,

1671
01:42:09,000 --> 01:42:12,040
Speaker 3: six stand or whatever, and and do you want to

1672
01:42:12,040 --> 01:42:14,120
Speaker 3: know how it happened? And that kind of story.

1673
01:42:14,360 --> 01:42:17,639
Speaker 2: So, so how about the other Stanley products?

1674
01:42:18,760 --> 01:42:21,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, the rising tide lifts all boats, right, so

1675
01:42:22,000 --> 01:42:25,040
Speaker 3: you know, Stanley became some of the fun stuff was

1676
01:42:25,080 --> 01:42:30,639
Speaker 3: seeing dads who have their green Stanley convincing their daughters

1677
01:42:30,680 --> 01:42:33,120
Speaker 3: on TikTok that these daughters like, Dad, I need to Stanley.

1678
01:42:33,160 --> 01:42:36,560
Speaker 3: This is new, this new company is new, and it's like, sweetie,

1679
01:42:36,920 --> 01:42:39,960
Speaker 3: like I've had this Stanley for forty years, or this

1680
01:42:40,080 --> 01:42:43,200
Speaker 3: was your grandfather's Wait no it wasn't, dad like those

1681
01:42:43,280 --> 01:42:46,040
Speaker 3: kind of fun things to enhance the brand, and then

1682
01:42:46,080 --> 01:42:49,679
Speaker 3: new product introductions back to build the core and add more.

1683
01:42:49,920 --> 01:42:51,839
Speaker 3: In this case, we did it a little bit differently.

1684
01:42:51,880 --> 01:42:55,519
Speaker 3: We started from the outer and worked in to increase

1685
01:42:55,600 --> 01:43:00,920
Speaker 3: all the different categories that Stanley had and it's incredible

1686
01:43:00,960 --> 01:43:04,120
Speaker 3: success story beyond just the Quencher, but the Quencher is

1687
01:43:04,160 --> 01:43:09,400
Speaker 3: a global phenomenon that is a real incredible thing that

1688
01:43:09,400 --> 01:43:09,960
Speaker 3: the team did.

1689
01:43:10,880 --> 01:43:13,479
Speaker 2: Okay, you're no longer there, although you're there for a while.

1690
01:43:14,360 --> 01:43:17,479
Speaker 2: How do you prevent it from being a fad?

1691
01:43:19,680 --> 01:43:25,360
Speaker 3: By introducing newness, by continuing to surprise and delight with

1692
01:43:25,479 --> 01:43:32,280
Speaker 3: new collaborations with new colors, materials, finishes, accessories, all of

1693
01:43:32,320 --> 01:43:35,439
Speaker 3: those ways, and then great merchandising too, you know, and

1694
01:43:35,479 --> 01:43:40,320
Speaker 3: with you know, great partners who are giving you shelf space.

1695
01:43:40,439 --> 01:43:47,120
Speaker 3: For two to really give authenticity and you know, so

1696
01:43:47,160 --> 01:43:51,280
Speaker 3: many brands, so many consumers look for their retailers to

1697
01:43:51,360 --> 01:43:56,000
Speaker 3: give them the to be the editor right of this

1698
01:43:56,080 --> 01:43:58,360
Speaker 3: is what's cool, this is what they should have. And

1699
01:43:58,360 --> 01:44:01,200
Speaker 3: when you've got that incredible shelf space, you want to

1700
01:44:01,240 --> 01:44:06,320
Speaker 3: continue to innovate around it and build scarcity. That was

1701
01:44:06,360 --> 01:44:09,080
Speaker 3: the other thing that we did really really well at

1702
01:44:09,200 --> 01:44:11,880
Speaker 3: Stanley and Crocs. What I learned at Crocs. You know,

1703
01:44:11,920 --> 01:44:14,160
Speaker 3: the reason why the post malone sold out in a

1704
01:44:14,200 --> 01:44:16,920
Speaker 3: second is because there weren't a lot of them. And

1705
01:44:17,040 --> 01:44:21,439
Speaker 3: people want what they cannot have. And so the more

1706
01:44:21,479 --> 01:44:24,599
Speaker 3: you do that, you don't want to frustrate that could

1707
01:44:24,600 --> 01:44:28,840
Speaker 3: happen to but you want to people want what they

1708
01:44:28,880 --> 01:44:31,400
Speaker 3: cannot have, and so when you balance that really well,

1709
01:44:31,720 --> 01:44:35,200
Speaker 3: it extends things. But also it has to be a

1710
01:44:35,240 --> 01:44:40,200
Speaker 3: great product. Crocs are a great product. Stanley is a

1711
01:44:40,200 --> 01:44:45,400
Speaker 3: great product. Hey dude, it's a great product. So fads

1712
01:44:45,439 --> 01:44:48,719
Speaker 3: come and go. Great products stand the test of time.

1713
01:44:56,640 --> 01:44:59,920
Speaker 2: Okay, So you have this great success with a quench

1714
01:45:01,479 --> 01:45:05,400
Speaker 2: and you are aware of scarcity works for you, how

1715
01:45:05,439 --> 01:45:08,280
Speaker 2: do you decide how many to make and where to

1716
01:45:08,320 --> 01:45:10,320
Speaker 2: put them?

1717
01:45:10,400 --> 01:45:13,520
Speaker 3: A little bit of feel, a little bit of Instagram followers,

1718
01:45:14,000 --> 01:45:21,120
Speaker 3: a little bit of sign ups for to be notified

1719
01:45:21,160 --> 01:45:23,680
Speaker 3: of the next launch of things. So all of that

1720
01:45:23,720 --> 01:45:26,960
Speaker 3: goes into the calculus of how many you want to create.

1721
01:45:28,080 --> 01:45:29,880
Speaker 3: And again, if we're working with artists, we do a

1722
01:45:29,880 --> 01:45:34,200
Speaker 3: little bit of Instagram follower math, but we we want

1723
01:45:34,200 --> 01:45:37,439
Speaker 3: to typically you know, sell out, you know, that's what

1724
01:45:37,600 --> 01:45:42,160
Speaker 3: keeps the fire going. We want to put a cap

1725
01:45:42,200 --> 01:45:45,479
Speaker 3: on it, and we always did, certainly while I was there.

1726
01:45:46,960 --> 01:45:50,960
Speaker 2: What's the best way to introduce splash make people aware

1727
01:45:51,320 --> 01:45:55,000
Speaker 2: that there's one of these new limited products social media.

1728
01:45:55,280 --> 01:45:57,679
Speaker 3: Certainly, if it's an artist, they're going to tell their fans,

1729
01:45:58,200 --> 01:46:01,679
Speaker 3: you know, Landy Wilson, Hey, y'all, well, my new watermelon

1730
01:46:01,720 --> 01:46:06,160
Speaker 3: moonshine is dropping and her fans devour that, as do

1731
01:46:06,280 --> 01:46:10,200
Speaker 3: the artists and brand choices that the brands choose to

1732
01:46:10,240 --> 01:46:16,760
Speaker 3: work with. So it's certainly social Obviously, email notification and

1733
01:46:17,080 --> 01:46:20,800
Speaker 3: you know, sending an announcement or an invitation to our

1734
01:46:22,680 --> 01:46:26,840
Speaker 3: guest lists of who is following the brand. And then

1735
01:46:26,920 --> 01:46:30,960
Speaker 3: obviously in store, some of our target launches caused complete

1736
01:46:30,960 --> 01:46:36,680
Speaker 3: and total chaos and target stores where certainly towards the

1737
01:46:36,760 --> 01:46:39,200
Speaker 3: end of my tenure, maybe still today, I don't know,

1738
01:46:39,560 --> 01:46:43,320
Speaker 3: you know, there was a two limit, you know, two

1739
01:46:43,400 --> 01:46:46,439
Speaker 3: quencher limit that you could purchase, so that caused an

1740
01:46:46,439 --> 01:46:50,639
Speaker 3: additional frenzy and in some cases some really terrible behavior

1741
01:46:50,680 --> 01:46:54,400
Speaker 3: from customers. And with the iPhone, you know, those things

1742
01:46:54,479 --> 01:46:57,040
Speaker 3: get on video and those are all over the news,

1743
01:46:58,640 --> 01:47:01,280
Speaker 3: and that doesn't really hurt a brand. It shows the frenzy,

1744
01:47:01,320 --> 01:47:02,960
Speaker 3: but it's not something that you're after. You don't want

1745
01:47:02,960 --> 01:47:04,920
Speaker 3: anybody get hurt and you're not looking for that. It's

1746
01:47:05,000 --> 01:47:07,160
Speaker 3: just the Sometimes it brings out the worst in people.

1747
01:47:08,280 --> 01:47:11,240
Speaker 2: So you have all the success at Crocs in Stanley,

1748
01:47:11,720 --> 01:47:16,080
Speaker 2: to what degree did these companies do corporate publicity?

1749
01:47:18,760 --> 01:47:23,479
Speaker 3: Very little, very little? You know, Crocs then and now

1750
01:47:23,600 --> 01:47:27,360
Speaker 3: is a very humble brand, despite an incredible track record

1751
01:47:27,400 --> 01:47:30,720
Speaker 3: from you know, decades long track record of success and

1752
01:47:30,800 --> 01:47:35,080
Speaker 3: global success. Hey dude, we I'm sorry Stanley.

1753
01:47:35,120 --> 01:47:36,640
Speaker 2: We did one.

1754
01:47:38,400 --> 01:47:41,840
Speaker 3: CNBC piece where they came out to interview me and

1755
01:47:41,880 --> 01:47:46,840
Speaker 3: some colleagues in Seattle, and but not too much you

1756
01:47:46,880 --> 01:47:49,000
Speaker 3: know press, you know, a couple of articles from the

1757
01:47:49,000 --> 01:47:52,360
Speaker 3: President to talk about the brand, but it was by

1758
01:47:52,439 --> 01:47:58,840
Speaker 3: and large consumer consumer press, entertainment press, culture press that

1759
01:47:59,000 --> 01:48:00,960
Speaker 3: helped continue to fan the flames.

1760
01:48:00,720 --> 01:48:02,680
Speaker 2: Okay, did you have a PR person or was it

1761
01:48:02,680 --> 01:48:03,400
Speaker 2: all organic?

1762
01:48:03,760 --> 01:48:07,320
Speaker 3: All the above, all the above, terrific PR person who

1763
01:48:07,360 --> 01:48:10,720
Speaker 3: managed those things, and then some of the PR was

1764
01:48:10,840 --> 01:48:14,559
Speaker 3: just organic, you know. And the car fire spawned lots

1765
01:48:14,560 --> 01:48:18,479
Speaker 3: of articles, and the frenzy caused lots of articles, and

1766
01:48:18,560 --> 01:48:21,599
Speaker 3: not all of them were good. There was one article

1767
01:48:21,600 --> 01:48:26,000
Speaker 3: I remember reading that, you know, some of the frenzy

1768
01:48:26,040 --> 01:48:28,639
Speaker 3: that was occurring was you know, it's not the best

1769
01:48:28,680 --> 01:48:33,080
Speaker 3: of human behavior, and people were blaming me for it

1770
01:48:33,200 --> 01:48:36,800
Speaker 3: by name like, well, you're all fast something like I'm

1771
01:48:36,840 --> 01:48:39,760
Speaker 3: paraphrasing it. But while we're all quick to blame all

1772
01:48:39,760 --> 01:48:43,960
Speaker 3: the women who are beating each other up and pulling

1773
01:48:44,000 --> 01:48:47,240
Speaker 3: hair at Target, shouldn't we really be blaming Terrence Riley?

1774
01:48:48,040 --> 01:48:51,360
Speaker 3: Like you know, these kind of things start to, you know,

1775
01:48:51,439 --> 01:48:55,400
Speaker 3: creep into your life.

1776
01:48:54,000 --> 01:48:57,560
Speaker 2: Okay, just to stay there. Yeah, did you respond?

1777
01:48:57,840 --> 01:48:59,160
Speaker 3: Never? No? No, no, no, no.

1778
01:49:00,800 --> 01:49:02,760
Speaker 2: I mean I know that from my own life. You

1779
01:49:02,880 --> 01:49:06,240
Speaker 2: never respond. That's their goal. But did you know that

1780
01:49:06,479 --> 01:49:09,920
Speaker 2: because your knowledge of social media that you don't respond.

1781
01:49:09,800 --> 01:49:16,280
Speaker 3: No, just instinct or you know, you know, what's have

1782
01:49:16,320 --> 01:49:20,080
Speaker 3: you ever seen a movie Chef with Jon Favreau and uh,

1783
01:49:20,200 --> 01:49:23,160
Speaker 3: what's his name? The reporter at theater goes, I buy

1784
01:49:23,240 --> 01:49:27,439
Speaker 3: ink by the barrel, buddy, Like, you're not gonna you know,

1785
01:49:27,680 --> 01:49:30,760
Speaker 3: you're not gonna win that. In fact, the car fire video,

1786
01:49:31,320 --> 01:49:34,760
Speaker 3: you know that the PR folks and the PR agencies

1787
01:49:34,800 --> 01:49:37,080
Speaker 3: and all the PR pundits were saying, like, you got

1788
01:49:37,080 --> 01:49:39,000
Speaker 3: to make a big deal out of giving her the car.

1789
01:49:40,320 --> 01:49:42,439
Speaker 3: And you know, we were invited on the Today Show

1790
01:49:42,560 --> 01:49:46,439
Speaker 3: or Good Morning America one of those things, and listen like,

1791
01:49:47,840 --> 01:49:51,760
Speaker 3: I'm of the same ego as any of us, Like, hey,

1792
01:49:51,800 --> 01:49:54,040
Speaker 3: to go on the Today Show as a marketer or

1793
01:49:54,080 --> 01:49:58,759
Speaker 3: Good Morning or whatever. It was, yeah, like that's of course,

1794
01:49:59,040 --> 01:50:02,800
Speaker 3: that's it's not that you're suppose to do that, but it

1795
01:50:02,920 --> 01:50:05,360
Speaker 3: kind of would have ruined it. Like my response was

1796
01:50:05,439 --> 01:50:08,120
Speaker 3: just real, it was just me. I happened to be

1797
01:50:08,160 --> 01:50:11,960
Speaker 3: the president. But it wasn't some focus group, let's talk

1798
01:50:12,000 --> 01:50:13,320
Speaker 3: to a bunch of people and get a lot of

1799
01:50:13,360 --> 01:50:15,559
Speaker 3: points of view. It was just me. The next morning,

1800
01:50:15,800 --> 01:50:19,200
Speaker 3: most people didn't even know I did it. And so

1801
01:50:19,720 --> 01:50:21,759
Speaker 3: then hey, let's give her the car on the Today

1802
01:50:21,840 --> 01:50:25,720
Speaker 3: Show and do that whole thing. And I wanted to,

1803
01:50:26,200 --> 01:50:29,000
Speaker 3: but it was my mother. I told her, I said, hey,

1804
01:50:29,040 --> 01:50:32,000
Speaker 3: we're going on Today Show and my mom said, don't

1805
01:50:32,000 --> 01:50:35,439
Speaker 3: do that. I said, why your son? You know, I

1806
01:50:35,439 --> 01:50:37,080
Speaker 3: want to make you proud. Mom, your son's on the

1807
01:50:37,080 --> 01:50:41,599
Speaker 3: Today Show. She goes, don't do it, and she was right.

1808
01:50:42,840 --> 01:50:44,720
Speaker 2: Well, she said don't do it. Why did she say

1809
01:50:44,760 --> 01:50:45,280
Speaker 2: not to do it?

1810
01:50:45,320 --> 01:50:49,799
Speaker 3: Because she knew it would it would ruin it because

1811
01:50:49,840 --> 01:50:52,720
Speaker 3: it was real and it was real, and so if

1812
01:50:52,720 --> 01:50:55,080
Speaker 3: we started to put a shine on it and started

1813
01:50:55,120 --> 01:50:58,880
Speaker 3: to catch our own bouquets, it just wouldn't It wouldn't

1814
01:50:58,880 --> 01:51:01,080
Speaker 3: have been right, you know. And so she grew up

1815
01:51:01,120 --> 01:51:04,160
Speaker 3: in the Bronx. She's as real as it gets. She

1816
01:51:04,400 --> 01:51:06,320
Speaker 3: was right. So always listen to your mother.

1817
01:51:07,840 --> 01:51:15,599
Speaker 2: Okay, you had this incredible success. Were you compensated accordingly? Sure?

1818
01:51:15,960 --> 01:51:16,360
Speaker 5: Yeah?

1819
01:51:16,520 --> 01:51:21,280
Speaker 2: Yeah? Did all right? Okay, so then maybe you say,

1820
01:51:21,320 --> 01:51:24,679
Speaker 2: instead of getting a new job, I'm not gonna work again.

1821
01:51:27,000 --> 01:51:31,120
Speaker 3: My parents are from the Bronx. My father fixed typewriters

1822
01:51:31,280 --> 01:51:37,240
Speaker 3: in a suit in the sixties seventies. That's not what

1823
01:51:37,280 --> 01:51:43,040
Speaker 3: you do. So it's not about the money. I made

1824
01:51:43,080 --> 01:51:45,080
Speaker 3: more money than I'd ever thought i'd make in my life.

1825
01:51:45,200 --> 01:51:48,479
Speaker 3: Like I did, I did well, you know, I think

1826
01:51:48,520 --> 01:51:51,040
Speaker 3: my guidance counselor in high school told my parents I'd

1827
01:51:51,040 --> 01:51:56,800
Speaker 3: been underachiever. It's not about that. It's never been about that.

1828
01:51:58,280 --> 01:52:00,320
Speaker 3: I can't believe I'm in the spot, Bob. I can't

1829
01:52:00,320 --> 01:52:02,080
Speaker 3: believe I'm talking to you. I'm actually wondering what the

1830
01:52:02,080 --> 01:52:03,680
Speaker 3: hell makes me interesting that you'd have me on your

1831
01:52:03,680 --> 01:52:08,160
Speaker 3: podcast when I see your guest list. But I've somehow,

1832
01:52:08,320 --> 01:52:11,040
Speaker 3: with your great teams, connected with culture more than once.

1833
01:52:11,280 --> 01:52:13,560
Speaker 3: You know, you walk down the street, you're going to

1834
01:52:13,600 --> 01:52:16,920
Speaker 3: see people wearing crocs, carrying Stanley's and wearing hay Dudes.

1835
01:52:17,360 --> 01:52:19,960
Speaker 3: And I had a little something to do with all

1836
01:52:20,000 --> 01:52:26,479
Speaker 3: of that, and so that's a pretty cool thing. So now, hey, dude,

1837
01:52:27,200 --> 01:52:30,080
Speaker 3: is this eight hundred million dollar company that most people

1838
01:52:30,120 --> 01:52:33,920
Speaker 3: don't know about, Like, we could make hay Do the

1839
01:52:33,960 --> 01:52:36,679
Speaker 3: leading casual footwear brand in the world. Why not us?

1840
01:52:37,600 --> 01:52:41,200
Speaker 3: That's worth a shot, and I'm taking it. And I

1841
01:52:41,200 --> 01:52:44,240
Speaker 3: could have stayed selling a lot of Quenchers. Okay, you

1842
01:52:44,439 --> 01:52:48,160
Speaker 3: just expressed a level of confidence in yourself, and you

1843
01:52:48,240 --> 01:52:52,600
Speaker 3: talked about not having confidence in the high school. What

1844
01:52:52,800 --> 01:52:56,400
Speaker 3: triggered the confidence? No, I don't think I have any confidence.

1845
01:52:56,479 --> 01:52:59,479
Speaker 3: I'm just confident that with a great team we could

1846
01:52:59,560 --> 01:53:01,839
Speaker 3: turn hate dude into one of the leading casual footwear

1847
01:53:01,840 --> 01:53:05,720
Speaker 3: brands in the world because it's open space. Who is

1848
01:53:05,760 --> 01:53:08,120
Speaker 3: the leading casual footwear brand in the world. If I

1849
01:53:08,160 --> 01:53:11,160
Speaker 3: ask ten people, I get ten different answers, all great companies,

1850
01:53:11,960 --> 01:53:16,040
Speaker 3: and so why not, hay dude, because we're a great

1851
01:53:16,080 --> 01:53:19,840
Speaker 3: little product. And so that's the thrill of it. It's

1852
01:53:19,880 --> 01:53:23,920
Speaker 3: back to what's around the corner, that insatiable curiosity and

1853
01:53:23,960 --> 01:53:28,040
Speaker 3: the unmistakable sense of what's possible. This might be possible,

1854
01:53:28,560 --> 01:53:31,000
Speaker 3: and so I should try it.

1855
01:53:31,200 --> 01:53:34,440
Speaker 2: Okay, but let's let's go back. How did you decide

1856
01:53:34,479 --> 01:53:39,839
Speaker 2: to leave Stanley in addition not having the president's titlely

1857
01:53:39,960 --> 01:53:40,599
Speaker 2: your new role?

1858
01:53:43,520 --> 01:53:46,639
Speaker 3: Well, I am the president of Hey dude, Oh you are?

1859
01:53:46,720 --> 01:53:49,639
Speaker 3: I am? Yes, so ali of miss No, that's okay.

1860
01:53:49,720 --> 01:53:53,280
Speaker 3: So CROCS has a brilliant CEO for many many years.

1861
01:53:54,280 --> 01:53:56,400
Speaker 3: He was the one that gave me the CMO job

1862
01:53:56,640 --> 01:54:00,000
Speaker 3: at CrOx and he's still there. Anderye is an absolute

1863
01:54:00,280 --> 01:54:06,360
Speaker 3: brilliant man, highest of integrity. And Crocs. The president of

1864
01:54:06,400 --> 01:54:09,640
Speaker 3: CrOx is Ann Melman, who's equally talented. She used to

1865
01:54:09,680 --> 01:54:13,280
Speaker 3: be the CFO of CrOx and now hey dude, I'm

1866
01:54:13,320 --> 01:54:15,559
Speaker 3: the new president of Hey dude. So two presidents of

1867
01:54:15,600 --> 01:54:21,040
Speaker 3: two brands reporting into the CEO of Crocs, and it

1868
01:54:21,120 --> 01:54:23,280
Speaker 3: was just an exciting opportunity to again get the keys

1869
01:54:23,280 --> 01:54:25,479
Speaker 3: to an eight hundred plus million dollar footwear brand. Who

1870
01:54:25,479 --> 01:54:28,479
Speaker 3: gets that in life it shouldn't be me in my head,

1871
01:54:28,720 --> 01:54:30,920
Speaker 3: but somebody believes in me and is believed in me before.

1872
01:54:31,400 --> 01:54:34,680
Speaker 3: So driver like you Stole It, Bob. One of my

1873
01:54:34,720 --> 01:54:38,640
Speaker 3: favorite movies of the recent era is sing Street and

1874
01:54:39,360 --> 01:54:40,960
Speaker 3: driver It like You Stole It is one of the

1875
01:54:41,000 --> 01:54:44,560
Speaker 3: songs in singh Street. So somebody threw me the keys

1876
01:54:44,960 --> 01:54:46,760
Speaker 3: like they have before, and I'm going to drive it

1877
01:54:46,880 --> 01:54:48,840
Speaker 3: like I stole it and encourage our teams to do

1878
01:54:48,880 --> 01:54:53,440
Speaker 3: the same thing because it's possible. And I've just happened

1879
01:54:53,440 --> 01:54:55,000
Speaker 3: to be to live that more than once.

1880
01:54:56,080 --> 01:55:00,160
Speaker 2: Okay, you're at Stanley, you're having this great success. How

1881
01:55:00,200 --> 01:55:05,200
Speaker 2: does this opportunity come on your radar? And how hard

1882
01:55:05,240 --> 01:55:06,760
Speaker 2: of his decision is it to leave?

1883
01:55:08,080 --> 01:55:11,520
Speaker 3: Well, the CEO of Crocs were hired me once before

1884
01:55:11,560 --> 01:55:15,200
Speaker 3: as the CMO. So I got a call say, hey,

1885
01:55:15,200 --> 01:55:18,760
Speaker 3: would you be interested in coming back? And I was

1886
01:55:20,480 --> 01:55:22,240
Speaker 3: you know you're a skier, right Bob?

1887
01:55:22,280 --> 01:55:24,120
Speaker 2: And oh yeah, you know.

1888
01:55:24,040 --> 01:55:25,640
Speaker 3: What happens when you get to the top of the mountain.

1889
01:55:26,720 --> 01:55:29,320
Speaker 3: He turned back down and I got to the top

1890
01:55:29,400 --> 01:55:33,840
Speaker 3: of the mountain at Stanley, my mountain at least, and

1891
01:55:33,920 --> 01:55:37,560
Speaker 3: I believe there's certainly maybe a couple of a couple

1892
01:55:37,600 --> 01:55:42,200
Speaker 3: more feet first Stanley to climb, but then more at

1893
01:55:42,240 --> 01:55:45,920
Speaker 3: Stanley than anybody dreamed possible, certainly more than I dream possible,

1894
01:55:45,960 --> 01:55:48,320
Speaker 3: although I dream big. This is a whole other level

1895
01:55:48,320 --> 01:55:52,680
Speaker 3: of So give the keys to Matt Navarro, the guy

1896
01:55:52,720 --> 01:55:56,280
Speaker 3: who I had the good fortune to hire, helped me

1897
01:55:56,400 --> 01:55:59,960
Speaker 3: build Stanley, and now he's the new president of Stanley.

1898
01:56:01,560 --> 01:56:03,880
Speaker 3: It doesn't get better than that. When I was a

1899
01:56:03,960 --> 01:56:09,440
Speaker 3: CMO of CROCS, I hired Heidi Cooley, and when I

1900
01:56:09,520 --> 01:56:12,640
Speaker 3: left CROCS, she took over a CMO and what she's

1901
01:56:12,680 --> 01:56:15,600
Speaker 3: done with Crocs's more than I ever did with Crocs.

1902
01:56:16,400 --> 01:56:18,880
Speaker 3: So like this, these are gifts that I've been given,

1903
01:56:19,040 --> 01:56:21,320
Speaker 3: and I think I've passed it on a little bit.

1904
01:56:21,440 --> 01:56:25,120
Speaker 3: And both of these brands will flourish thanks to other

1905
01:56:25,160 --> 01:56:28,680
Speaker 3: great leaders that I happen to bring on board. And boy,

1906
01:56:28,760 --> 01:56:32,200
Speaker 3: that's a pretty cool little coaching tree to borrow football parlance.

1907
01:56:32,880 --> 01:56:36,080
Speaker 2: Okay, so you have this great success and it's a

1908
01:56:36,120 --> 01:56:39,680
Speaker 2: public success. Did other offers come down the pike?

1909
01:56:40,840 --> 01:56:45,840
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, okay, Yeah, a lot of people called, but

1910
01:56:46,040 --> 01:56:51,160
Speaker 3: it just wasn't right. There's it wasn't right. You know.

1911
01:56:51,200 --> 01:56:55,360
Speaker 3: I think what you want to bring, like you want

1912
01:56:55,360 --> 01:56:58,200
Speaker 3: to win the Super Bowl with the Browns, you know,

1913
01:56:58,480 --> 01:57:00,400
Speaker 3: you want to win the Super Bowl with the Lions

1914
01:57:01,120 --> 01:57:04,760
Speaker 3: or the Bills or the Vikings. Right. A lot of

1915
01:57:04,760 --> 01:57:07,600
Speaker 3: the brands that were calling just they were already successful.

1916
01:57:07,960 --> 01:57:11,280
Speaker 3: They were already They didn't need that, and I wouldn't

1917
01:57:11,280 --> 01:57:15,760
Speaker 3: get no satisfaction out of that. Hey, dude's also really successful,

1918
01:57:15,800 --> 01:57:18,520
Speaker 3: but there's more to go get and there's a lot

1919
01:57:18,560 --> 01:57:20,240
Speaker 3: of people that don't know about it. And now that's

1920
01:57:20,280 --> 01:57:23,440
Speaker 3: my job with a great team to fix it. That's stuff.

1921
01:57:24,040 --> 01:57:26,320
Speaker 3: And if we can do that and we already are,

1922
01:57:28,080 --> 01:57:30,800
Speaker 3: that's like bringing the Browns or the Lions or you know,

1923
01:57:30,840 --> 01:57:34,760
Speaker 3: to the super Bowl, and that's what you want, right, Okay.

1924
01:57:35,080 --> 01:57:41,600
Speaker 2: When Jeffrey Katzenberg was number two at Disney, the expression was,

1925
01:57:42,280 --> 01:57:45,000
Speaker 2: if you don't come in on Saturday, don't even think

1926
01:57:45,000 --> 01:57:49,200
Speaker 2: about coming in on Sunday. So are you the type

1927
01:57:49,200 --> 01:57:51,480
Speaker 2: of person who's essentially working around the clock, And is

1928
01:57:51,520 --> 01:57:52,640
Speaker 2: that what it's required.

1929
01:57:53,560 --> 01:57:55,960
Speaker 3: I don't have an off button, but I do not

1930
01:57:56,160 --> 01:58:02,640
Speaker 3: expect that from anyone. I rarely emails on the weekends. Rarely,

1931
01:58:02,720 --> 01:58:06,000
Speaker 3: I mean once every two or three months, that kind

1932
01:58:06,040 --> 01:58:11,160
Speaker 3: of rare. I'm always on and I'm always looking for

1933
01:58:11,200 --> 01:58:16,240
Speaker 3: the connections that can ignite a brand. And see Landy Wilson,

1934
01:58:16,280 --> 01:58:19,800
Speaker 3: see Luke Combe, see all of the car fires, see

1935
01:58:19,800 --> 01:58:24,160
Speaker 3: all that. So my antenna is always up. But that's

1936
01:58:24,200 --> 01:58:29,400
Speaker 3: just a personal wiring. I'm highly competitive. I want to

1937
01:58:29,400 --> 01:58:32,080
Speaker 3: win at part cheesy if that still exists, and I

1938
01:58:32,080 --> 01:58:34,320
Speaker 3: also want to win on the peloton. I want to win.

1939
01:58:35,680 --> 01:58:38,440
Speaker 3: So I don't know where that competitive fire started to happen.

1940
01:58:40,560 --> 01:58:42,000
Speaker 3: And I'm not always going to win. And I don't

1941
01:58:42,000 --> 01:58:46,360
Speaker 3: win everything, not even close, you know. But I try

1942
01:58:46,400 --> 01:58:50,840
Speaker 3: and be the best that I can be as often

1943
01:58:50,840 --> 01:58:54,680
Speaker 3: as possible, and it's somehow kind of worked.

1944
01:58:56,480 --> 01:58:59,520
Speaker 2: Okay, so what is your favorite Springsteen album?

1945
01:59:00,600 --> 01:59:04,280
Speaker 3: Oh? You went albums? Uh favorite Springsteen album is The River?

1946
01:59:06,160 --> 01:59:08,920
Speaker 2: Okay, Well you said albums, so then you were well

1947
01:59:09,040 --> 01:59:10,480
Speaker 2: you thought I was gonna ask tracks.

1948
01:59:10,800 --> 01:59:12,000
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't know what you're gonna ask me. I

1949
01:59:12,080 --> 01:59:14,440
Speaker 3: just wanted to. I'm from New Jersey, so it's the law.

1950
01:59:14,920 --> 01:59:22,520
Speaker 3: So my favorite Bruce song would have to be Frankie,

1951
01:59:22,600 --> 01:59:25,320
Speaker 3: but nobody knows that one. And so the one I

1952
01:59:25,320 --> 01:59:27,800
Speaker 3: listened to the most to get fired up is Growing

1953
01:59:27,880 --> 01:59:31,320
Speaker 3: Up Live off of seventy five eighty five, the live version,

1954
01:59:31,720 --> 01:59:32,320
Speaker 3: because it's.

1955
01:59:32,200 --> 01:59:34,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know, certainly know the song. My favorite,

1956
01:59:34,880 --> 01:59:37,440
Speaker 2: my what I used to get fired up was Candy's

1957
01:59:37,520 --> 01:59:41,000
Speaker 2: Room of course off Darkness. So did you see the

1958
01:59:41,120 --> 01:59:43,680
Speaker 2: River tour a few years ago when he redid it?

1959
01:59:43,760 --> 01:59:46,880
Speaker 3: I did? I did. I've seen him on every tour since.

1960
01:59:46,880 --> 01:59:50,160
Speaker 3: Born in the USA. That's when you know again, as

1961
01:59:50,160 --> 01:59:52,320
Speaker 3: an eighteen year old in New Jersey in nineteen eighty

1962
01:59:52,320 --> 01:59:55,560
Speaker 3: four eighty five, you know, you talk about a local hero.

1963
01:59:56,360 --> 01:59:59,240
Speaker 3: And I've been chasing that ever since. I've seen Bruce

1964
01:59:59,280 --> 02:00:02,440
Speaker 3: more than seven times and five different countries, and I'm

1965
02:00:02,480 --> 02:00:03,320
Speaker 3: one of those guys.

1966
02:00:05,240 --> 02:00:05,960
Speaker 2: But it's.

1967
02:00:07,320 --> 02:00:11,920
Speaker 3: It's chasing something that hit me. It got into my veins.

1968
02:00:11,960 --> 02:00:14,960
Speaker 3: August nineteenth, nineteen eighty five, was the first concert I

1969
02:00:14,960 --> 02:00:18,200
Speaker 3: ever went to of anybody, and it was Bruce at

1970
02:00:18,240 --> 02:00:22,480
Speaker 3: Giant Stadium. And what I've been chasing Bob is, they say,

1971
02:00:22,560 --> 02:00:26,160
Speaker 3: certainly the music and his performance and the band in

1972
02:00:26,200 --> 02:00:30,760
Speaker 3: the street band, But the moment when the house lights

1973
02:00:30,800 --> 02:00:38,400
Speaker 3: go down is my favorite moment in life. And time

1974
02:00:38,640 --> 02:00:43,720
Speaker 3: stands still for those twenty thirty seconds when the lights

1975
02:00:43,760 --> 02:00:46,640
Speaker 3: go You've been waiting for it, right and the lights

1976
02:00:46,680 --> 02:00:49,040
Speaker 3: go down, and there's the roar of the crowd, and

1977
02:00:49,080 --> 02:00:53,919
Speaker 3: then the band comes out one by one and it's happening,

1978
02:00:54,760 --> 02:00:58,040
Speaker 3: but it hasn't happened yet, and time stands still in

1979
02:00:58,080 --> 02:01:01,520
Speaker 3: this space. And then he comes out out last, and

1980
02:01:01,600 --> 02:01:04,920
Speaker 3: he comes to the mic and he counts off, and

1981
02:01:04,960 --> 02:01:10,280
Speaker 3: the minute he starts counting off, it's over because it

1982
02:01:10,280 --> 02:01:16,440
Speaker 3: it's now, it's it's ending, it's and that time stands

1983
02:01:16,440 --> 02:01:19,880
Speaker 3: still in those precious twenty to thirty seconds whatever it

1984
02:01:19,960 --> 02:01:22,600
Speaker 3: is between the house lights and him coming up to

1985
02:01:22,640 --> 02:01:24,920
Speaker 3: the mic and usually counting off as we know he does.

1986
02:01:25,720 --> 02:01:28,520
Speaker 3: And that is why I've seen him seventy five times.

1987
02:01:28,960 --> 02:01:32,360
Speaker 3: Time stands still. And if you can make time stand still,

1988
02:01:33,240 --> 02:01:35,520
Speaker 3: that's a pretty cool magic act.

1989
02:01:36,880 --> 02:01:42,640
Speaker 2: So have you sent Bruce A Stanley the Dudes or pro?

1990
02:01:42,880 --> 02:01:45,800
Speaker 3: I have not. I have not. I came close once

1991
02:01:45,880 --> 02:01:50,200
Speaker 3: to sending little Stephen a Purple Stanley because he just

1992
02:01:50,240 --> 02:01:52,400
Speaker 3: has that, you know, aesthetic in his personal life but

1993
02:01:52,640 --> 02:01:53,560
Speaker 3: I just know.

1994
02:01:55,080 --> 02:01:58,560
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's one thing to send it and

1995
02:01:58,680 --> 02:02:00,480
Speaker 2: literally not ask for anything.

1996
02:02:01,480 --> 02:02:05,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just I don't know, I have not I've

1997
02:02:05,560 --> 02:02:09,920
Speaker 3: thought about it more than once. But it's uh, you know,

1998
02:02:10,000 --> 02:02:12,440
Speaker 3: sometimes you just want to keep your heroes and all

1999
02:02:12,480 --> 02:02:15,160
Speaker 3: that at Bay. It's kind of still Listen. I'm fifty

2000
02:02:15,200 --> 02:02:18,280
Speaker 3: eight years old. I first saw Bruce and you know

2001
02:02:18,360 --> 02:02:21,400
Speaker 3: when I was eighteen, I kind of want to keep

2002
02:02:21,400 --> 02:02:25,040
Speaker 3: all that at Bay because it's still that fantasy world

2003
02:02:25,080 --> 02:02:29,120
Speaker 3: and it uh yeah, it's so it's chasing and it

2004
02:02:29,160 --> 02:02:30,000
Speaker 3: never would have happened.

2005
02:02:30,640 --> 02:02:33,880
Speaker 2: Well, generally speaking, you don't want to meet your heroes. Yeah,

2006
02:02:33,960 --> 02:02:37,200
Speaker 2: very few, very few of them. Some of them do

2007
02:02:37,280 --> 02:02:39,760
Speaker 2: live up to the rep but the something that you

2008
02:02:39,800 --> 02:02:43,360
Speaker 2: believe in most absolutely do not, and it's really disillusion

2009
02:02:43,480 --> 02:02:46,879
Speaker 2: can't listen to their music for a while. In any event, Terrence,

2010
02:02:47,320 --> 02:02:49,520
Speaker 2: I want to thank you so much for telling us

2011
02:02:49,600 --> 02:02:53,400
Speaker 2: your story telling and informing my audience and what's going

2012
02:02:53,480 --> 02:02:57,440
Speaker 2: on in career wise with these products. Thanks again, Thank

2013
02:02:57,480 --> 02:03:02,200
Speaker 2: you Tears. Next step this is Bob Left stock

2014
02:03:24,120 --> 02:03:24,200
Speaker 3: Sh