Episode 93 – Marketing Questions You Should Be Asking

Show Notes

Here are the questions you should be asking:

1. What’s the best marketing for my business?
2. Understanding your options
3. How much should I spend?
4. Should I do it myself?
5. Should i be Email marketing?
6. What KIND of website do I need? If any!
7. before asking “How should i build my website?”
8. What should I be doing on social media?
9. Is what “Bob” does right for my business?
10. How do I LEARN ABOUT MARKETING?

Types of marketing we discuss:

• Internet marketing
• SEO
• Social Media
• Print
• Search Engine – PPC
• Video
• Relationship Marketing

Having a plan for marketing and knowing what you are talking about sets your business up for success.

Be sure to listen to the rest of the episodes to learn all you can about marketing and setting your business up for success.

Transcript

Welcome to the Custom Apparel Startups podcast, your best source for information, news, tips and tricks to get you off the ground running, and earn success with your custom apparel decorating business. So, get ready to soak up some knowledge!

Now, here are your hosts, Mark and Marc!

Mark S: Hey, everyone! Welcome to the Custom Apparel Startups podcast. My name is Mark Stephenson, from ColDesi.

Marc V: And this is Marc Vila, from Colman and Company. Today, we’re here to talk about the marketing questions you should be asking.

Mark S: Today, we’re doing that.

Marc V: Right now, yes.

Mark S: This is episode 93-1/2, since this is the second time we’re recording this episode. But we’re looking forward to this one, because really, it’s what we want you to ask us about marketing. Our motivation here is just that.

We get people that are asking us questions by email, they’re sending us messages through the Custom Apparel Startups courses, and on the Facebook group, all over the place. Nine out of ten questions – you know how when the teacher in front of class goes “Hey, no question is wrong.”? There are wrong questions. We’re going to tell you what the right ones are.

Marc V: This is really what we further mean about this. Somebody will say, will lead with “What platform do you guys use, to host your website?” They’ll ask a question like that, which is an important and interesting question, and there’s a lot of great opinions on this. But if somebody is going to answer that question properly for you, they need to know more information about you, and what you’re looking to do.

Mark S: Absolutely.

Marc V: Are you looking to sell online? Do you want to blog? Is it just a single page site, with some information? There’s a lot of things to ask, before answering that question.

Mark S: It’s like asking your neighbor “Hey, what’s the best practical car that you can find?” He’ll point to his own, because he already made that decision. We’ve talked about that bias before. So, you’re going to get the same thing, asking those questions of other people.

Marc V: Also, your neighbor might be a handyman. My neighbor’s a handyman, so he has a vehicle that makes sense for that. I commute, so I have a vehicle that makes sense for that. So, it’s all a relative thing.

We’re going to be talking about the questions that you should be asking, in a little bit of a deliberate order. Then, the big thing, the cool thing is that the most important question is the last question.

Mark S: I love that! So, you do have to stay until the end of the podcast. This will be, unusually enough, a four and a half hour podcast, by the way, so you’ve really got to stick it out!

Marc V: Or we might just stick it somewhere in the middle, so you can’t just fast forward to the end. So, it could pop up anywhere, or at the end. But all of these questions are really equally important, so maybe we can start with the first one. Let’s get into it.

Would you like to go first?

Mark S: Sure! “What’s the best marketing for my business?” That is a great question for you to ask, because it implies a couple of things. First of all, it implies that you’re thinking about marketing. Amazing! That’s great! You’re already ahead of the game.

The second thing is, you’re specifying that it’s for your business. Right? Not what’s the best marketing, like Instagram might be the best marketing tool for Kim Kardashian. Some other method, email might not be. So, it’s for your business. What’s the best marketing for your business?

I think that to answer that question, or to understand it better, you have to know what your options are.

Marc V: Yeah. What I like about this question is, is to talk about kind of the opposite way to ask this question. The wrong way to ask this question is “Has anyone here used Facebook ads, and do they work for you?”

Because one person is going to say “Yes! I made a bunch a money.” Someone else is going to say “Wasted a ton of money.” We don’t know what their business models are.

Mark S: Right, but we do know that when they said “a ton of money,” they meant $25.

Marc V: That is the other thing – the size of their business. They made a lot of many. They could have made $1,000 in orders, which you might hear that and say “That’s fantastic!” Someone else might hear that and say -.

Mark S: “I’m going to go broke doing that!”

Marc V: Yeah. “That’s not enough for me to justify the time it’s going to take for me to put in it.” So, it depends on your business, and what you’re doing. So, “What’s the best marketing for my business?” Let’s talk about some of them. I’ll start this time.

Mark S: Okay, you do number one.

Marc V: One is kind of just blanket internet marketing. This means that you’re focusing your marketing on the web. This is not billboards or print.

Mark S: Yeah. That’s as opposed to door to door advertising, just wearing your shirt around, being the guy that stands on the corner with the spinning sign.

Marc V: That’s actually great for the t-shirt business.

Mark S: It’s good for us, anyway!

Marc V: So, “What’s the marketing for my business?” Internet marketing being the first one, if you’re going to be selling online. If your customer is local customers mainly, if that’s who you’re mainly selling to; local small businesses, local schools, things like that. A level of internet marketing might be good for you, being able to be found in search, a t-shirt shop in Tampa.

Mark S: Google maps, for example.

Marc V: Yeah, Google maps and things like that. But to go on and to push a really large Google search campaign that’s a national campaign, you’re probably not set up for that yet. So, internet marketing could be one of them.

Mark S: The next one is SEO or SEM. That’s search engine marketing, basically. What that means is you are going to develop your site with the right words, images, phrases, etc., to be most attractive for Google to send people. So, that means if somebody types in “pirate t-shirts,” you’re going to set up your site to be found for pirate t-shirts.

This usually involves things like blog posts. It involves describing your products in certain ways, that aren’t very casual. You’re using specific keywords. If you are doing internet marketing, and you want to specify the wedding niche, then you’re going to try to get found on Google for “wedding t-shirts,” or “bridesmaids t-shirts.”

And that involves a completely different set of tools than if you have a Shopify store or if you’re doing Google ads, or if you’re going door to door.

Marc V: Yeah. I’d say internet marketing, this kind of falls under a level of the internet marketing, which is appropriate, why it goes next. But specifically with SEO or SEM, you’re not paying to be found specifically for these words. You’re paying to set your website up so, organically, as people search the internet, as they pick up their phone and say “Hey, Siri,” you’re going to be the first option that comes up.

Mark S: No one does that anymore, do they?

Marc V: I think it’s more people do it than ever.

Mark S: I thought it was Alexa.

Marc V: If someone has their Alexa around, and they’re not listening, right now, it’s making a noise.

Mark S: The great little blue circle.

Marc V: It happened to me night before last. I wasn’t watching TV. The TV was on, and I was in the kitchen, and the Alexa that I have is in the living room. Someone on the TV said it, and my Alexa is now trying to do an internet search. Anyway, let’s go to the next one.

Mark S: That was a good story, though. Social media. That’s all you.

Marc V: Yes. “Hey, Alexa. What’s social media?” Alright, we’re done with that. Social media marketing. That would be using Instagram or Facebook, things like that. It’s a little bit, not necessarily paid. This could be something that you take pictures and put them on Instagram, or you create specific Facebook posts, or you go on Twitter and you network on Twitter with people, and mention different businesses.

Whatever it might be, but using social media to drive people to your business.

Mark S: Like in SEO, you are on purpose, people are going to find your business anyway. But in SEO, what you’re doing is you’re structuring your site and doing articles, and creating content, specifically so it’s easier to be found. Social media marketing, you’re doing basically the same thing. You are putting up images, words and video on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or LinkedIn, whatever your platform of choice is, specifically to draw attention to your business. That’s it.

So, it’s not the casual use of occasionally posting a picture. It’s a strategy.

Marc V: It’s a strategy. What you’re doing here, typically, is you’re trying to build a network or audience of people who enjoy your posts, who enjoy what you share, with the potential that a percentage of them are going to order something from you.

A great example of one that might be good for that would be – the last time we did this podcast, you had mentioned the cheer market.

Mark S: This podcast.

Marc V: Yeah, this podcast right here. This episode. You had mentioned the cheer market, that if you make custom bows and custom bags and things like that, you might be taking pictures at events, people wearing the apparel that you make or the custom things that you designed for them. And people who are in cheer, whether they are cheerleaders or parents or fans, they’re going to follow.

They might follow you, just because they like the posts. One day, they might see a bag that you made. And then, they’re going to direct message you or go to your website, and contact you, in order to order that.

That would be a social media strategy.

Mark S: One of my favorite strategies is when you, let’s say if you do bling for a cheer squad or a dance team, or something like that. You take a picture of everyone wearing your garments. Then, every single one of those kids will post that picture on their own social. So, that’s a good strategy.

You create a garment, you take a picture of it while it’s being created, a picture of you delivering it, a picture of it on the team. You post it to the team’s website. Everybody shares it. That is great social media marketing.

Marc V: Yeah. So, what’s next?

Mark S: Next is print. You could do print. I just scratched that out, but it might be okay for you. You might want to do print advertising in a local newspaper, in an industry-specific magazine.

We’ve got a success story coming out. A gentleman does some beautiful embroidery work on jackets for the Buffalo Soldiers motorcycle club. It’s amazing stuff. He’ll post that out there. If there was a magazine attached to that, then that would be the perfect opportunity to advertise in that magazine, because you’ve got a niche market, with people who read it.

Marc V: Exactly. I have a good friend of mine, who has a small business. He advertises in those local community newspapers, the ones that -.

Mark S: That used to be the Penny Saver. Now it’s like the Four Dollar Saver.

Marc V: These are the ones that are typically free, and they only end up in a certain zip code, maybe, or a couple zip codes, whatever they are. He had said that it did really well for him. It cost him $500, I think, every time they printed it, or whatever it might be, or a month or whatever it was.

Because he had a very specific home service he was providing, and it was in that zip code, and it was being delivered to people there, he had a coupon in there.

Mark S: It made sense.

Marc V: It worked for him. It was perfect. So, if that makes sense for you, if it’s a very community-based business, then that might work for you.

Mark S: If you go to peoples’ houses and make t-shirts onsite, that’s a great idea.

Marc V: That actually is a pretty good idea, a little party thing.

Mark S: We should do that.

Marc V: I like it!

Mark S: The next one is search engine pay-per-click. What this is really is Google, writing Google a check, to advertise your products.

Marc V: Probably using a credit card.

Mark S: I don’t know what they would do with a check.

Marc V: It’s kind of what I call the forced version of SEO. You want to be found for certain words, so you tell Google what words you want to be found for, and they essentially tell you how much it’s going to cost every time somebody clicks on that.

Mark S: Yes. Some significantly more complex version of that. But that’s it. I’ll give you a good example of at least a couple of these things. If you search for a direct-to-garment printer on Google right now, it is almost guaranteed that you will see the DTG Printer Machine site come up in the first or second space of the organic search. That is our SEO at work.

It’s also almost guaranteed that at least once every two or three times, you’ll see a paid advertisement for our direct-to-garment printers, and you may even see a post from Facebook show up. So, that’s a good example.

What we do is we pay per click. If you were in the market for a product, like let’s say for example, you sold high-end leather bags for cheer, with bling on it, and it was worth it to you to get people searching for cheer gear, then you might pay a couple bucks to have somebody click, to show the ad.

Marc V: These are all good strategies. The next one that we’ve got would be video marketing. When I wrote this one down, I just thought of kind of blanket video marketing. So, this could be something that is TV. This could be on YouTube. This could be something that you pay for on, say Facebook, or it could be on social media.

But using video as a strategy to build business, this might be good. That cheer example might be a great one for this.

Another example we’ve discussed on the podcast, if you do corporate wear. What kind of interesting video are you going to do, to put a logo on a shirt? You could video your machine working. That’s kind of cool, but a great video you might want to do is how to properly size and measure for the garments that you sell.

Mark S: There you go!

Marc V: You could create like a playlist on YouTube. You could have every style of shirt that you sell. Then, you could do a little video on how to measure and size. This way, if you have a customer that picks, like this shirt that I’m wearing here. They pick this. This is the design they want.

And somebody says “Sometimes I wear a large, sometimes I wear an extra-large. Sometimes I wear an extra-small.” It’s all across the board. You could say “Hey, here’s a video on how to do it.” Also, when people are searching for that apparel online, or for that style of shirt, how to size a shirt or something like that, they might find you.

Mark S: Yeah. What size should I buy? Another good strategy for corporate might be to take the other tack. Instead of talking about the products that you sell, you could feature some of your customers. Let’s say you’ve got a big hospital that you do commercial work for. They are having an event, and they’re wearing your shirts.

You might go out and take some photos or take some video of the event for them, with them wearing your shirts, and you can post it on their Facebook page. Or you can share it on yours, and maybe another company will see that video and say “Hey, I’m doing an event. That looks great. I’ll pick up on that.”

Marc V: So, video marketing might be great for you. Then, the last one we have here, relationship marketing or networking.

Mark S: Just marketing to family. You have a big family, this is it.

Marc V: Just marketing to your spouse or boyfriend or girlfriend.

Mark S: Or both!

Marc V: This type of marketing is where you’re developing relationships with people. You’re not directly selling. We did a podcast a few episodes ago, where we talked about how to network and build a strategy for that.

Mark S: Yeah, that was good.

Marc V: That would be that type of marketing, where you go to local meetings, you go to business association meetings, you go to Meetups. You meet people, you contact them, you email them, and you build up a little network of people that you know. Then with that, you start getting referrals.

These are all great marketing. So, back to the question “What’s the best marketing for my business?” You should be asking this question. If you ask it to yourself first, that’s great. Because then you can really start considering “Well, I sell this product. Will that sell online? I don’t think so. So, should I advertise on Facebook? I don’t know. I want to ask about that. Can I advertise locally on Facebook, for this market?”

These are the things to ask. Ask yourself, and then come forward and ask us, or ask people on the Custom Apparel Startups Facebook group.

Mark S: I love that, because there are other things involved than just the product that you sell. It’s you, personally. Like if it’s easy for you to write, then maybe SEO is a primary strategy for you, because you can do at least some of that yourself.

If you’re always on Instagram, and you have a passion for it, then maybe that tilts you in the social media direction. The same with print, with search engines, with video. If you like to be behind or in front of a camera, then you’ve got an edge up on video, rather than picking something that you’re going to dread doing.

You’re going to have to pick something that doesn’t just match your product, but at least when you get started, it has to match you, too.

Marc V: Yeah, that’s great. That’s a great question to start with, because you realize that you’re not just immediately going in a direction. You realize that you have to introspectively look into your business, ask yourself some questions, and then go out there and ask “Which one is the best for me?”

Then, I would follow that question with a statement of “I’ve been thinking about it and considering it, and doing a little bit of research. I believe doing local search engine optimization and local internet pay-per-click would be really good for my business. This is why.”

Then, when you ask somebody who is a professional marketer or an expert, or another business owner that’s successful – which is key; ask people who actually are doing it right – then they now can really provide a good answer, rather than “Is Facebook marketing good?”

Mark S: Right, because just like you’re going to listen to, I hope, the first five or ten minutes of this podcast, to that list, a few times. Now, you already know more than almost everyone who will gladly give you their opinion. You really do.

Because you’ll ask in a group, or you’ll ask at a party, or your friends, or somebody that you know and respect in business. You’ll ask “What marketing is going to be best for my business?” And they’re going to tell you what they’re familiar with, or the last thing that they heard.

They’re not really going to listen to you and give you good advice. We will. I’m just going to point that right out. We will. So, email us. If you ask us intelligent questions, we’re happy to help.

Marc V: Yeah. That sounds great! So, let’s move over to the next question.

Mark S: This is what everybody really wants to know.

Marc V: “How much should I spend? How much money should I spend on marketing?” We love this question, because immediately you realize, by asking this question, that marketing is going to cost you a little bit of money, and you should be spending money on it.

Mark S: You should be spending money on marketing.

Marc V: Now, you’re trying to determine how much. So, what’s your answer for that?

Mark S: Ten dollars a day. No. That’s my reaction, because what everybody asks is “How much should I spend on a Facebook ad?” So, that’s five or ten dollars a day.

But there are a couple of rules of thumb that you are free to use or throw away, depending on your circumstances. Because just like the answer to question number one, the answer to question number two depends on a lot of different factors.

Most companies that are established, and just doing regular business, keep about a 10% marketing budget. Okay? If you’re very well established, you can spend less. And if you are interested in accelerated growth, then you can spend more.

Marc V: Yep. And this, by the way, rule of thumb. It really depends. “I spend no money in marketing, and I’m growing really fast.” That might be something that somebody is thinking. Someone else will say “I spend a ton of money, and we’re growing really slow.”

There’s many factors involved, but you really want to try to have a rule of thumb, so you have a place to start and consider. What I would say is if you want to be able to grow your business, you should be shooting for, to kind of start and grow, with about 10% of your revenue.

Mark S: Let’s draw a comparison here. Let’s say – how much is it if I wanted to get a Digital HeatFX system and a good quality heat press? About how much would it be to lease that?

Marc V: A few hundred bucks a month.

Mark S: So, $300. $300 to $350 a month. So, you’re going to spend that, in hours on training and perfecting your tasks, and you’re going to spend it on the cost of the paper and the toner. You’re going to spend that every month, to make the product. Don’t you think it’s worth spending a portion of that money on, or at least as much as one month’s payment, on marketing the product?

Marc V: Yeah.

Mark S: You spend all of this time and energy in making the shirt, and just sit there with a shirt in your hands, waiting for somebody to call you, that wants it. That’s not a good strategy. That’s where the 10% might come in.

So, if you buy a custom apparel piece of equipment – we did a survey in our group, I think it was last year. It took about 90 days for people to get up and running. Then, about $3,000 a month was a reasonable start. They were selling 30 shirts, making $3,000 a month. 10%? That’s $300. Not a huge amount of money, but it will make some kind of a difference in your business.

Marc V: You can also project this out. If you’ve been earning money, and putting money aside – if you’ve listened to the Profit First podcast – then, maybe you listened to that when we recorded that. And you’ve got some money, profit from your business; savings, whatever you want to call it; that you want to reinvest, do something with, and you want accelerated growth.

You could say “I really want to get to $10,000 to $15,000 a month. $15,000 a month. My goal one day is to get to $200,000 a year in income, through this business.” That might be your goal.

You can start, if you’ve got money saved and ready to go. You can inject. “I want to get to my first goal, $10,000 a month. $1,000 a month is what I’m going to use to market.” It’s a lot of money. If you’re in the position to do that, though, financially, and take some of the risks involved in that, you’re going to see the growth.

Mark S: Then, you get to do math like we do, literally every single day. “If I spend this much money, how much money am I going to make from customers that see it?” If we do a new ad for the Avance embroidery machine, and it gets to 1,000 people, and it costs us $10 apiece, but we sell two machines, we made $22,000. We spent a couple.

So, that’s good math, and that’s what you have to do. Now, there is the luxury of having the ability to spend that money. But I promise, if you apply that money correctly, that’s what businesses do frequently, to grow.

If you hear a story, or if you know somebody that did really well just by accident, that’s really not what you want to plan on for your business. “How are you going to grow next year?” “Eh, I just figure it’ll happen.”

Marc V: Yeah. It’s part of the strategy. What could you do? I’d like to dive into two little mini-sections of this. So, like a startup, how they’re going to get to it. And then, somebody who is established.

Mark S: Okay.

Marc V: My thought is, if you’re a startup, you’re not really making a lot of money yet. So, you’re not sure of what budget to put here. You’re relying on a second income to support the start of your business, so spending some money up front is hard. You’ve got to figure out where to get this from.

For one, budget as tight as you can, so you can afford some marketing dollars. If you would like to get to that $3,000 a month number you mentioned, then you want to try to find $300. You’ve got to find it. Right? Find that $300. Squeeze all of your budgets together, to get that $300.

Then, you’ve answered question number one. So, you might be saying “Okay, I really want to do a local print thing. That seems to make sense for me, or a local paid search,” whatever it might be. So, you take this $300 a month, and you figure out “How can I do that with this?” And you can. Then, as soon as you start seeing return on that, you start doing that math.

“I spent $300, and it took like three months, and I got to $3,000. I would like to get to $6,000. I’m going to spend $600, now.”

Mark S: I love that idea.

Marc V: What have you got there?

Mark S: Well, I did some swag. I just customized a Styrofoam cup, so everyone watching the video can see it. Normally, it’s just Marc Vila doing closeup magic that you guys don’t get to see, unless you’re watching the YouTube video.

But I like that idea. I just want to express that it’s not a sure thing. Right? It’s an investment. It’s an investment in testing, to see what works. So, you’re going to spend some on print. It’s not going to work. You’re going to spend some on pay-per-click. It’s not going to work. You’re going to spend some on SEO, and maybe it will work. Then, you’ll reinvest in that.

Marc V: Yeah. There’s risk and reward with all of this. The second side of that is if you’re an established business. So, your business income is, say $100,000 a year. That’s what your business is bringing in. And you’re really trying to grow this business. You want to build something better for your family, you have bigger dreams of some different things you would like to do personally, with money. So, how are you going to grow that?

If you are spending $1,000 a month right now, or zero – maybe you’re spending almost nothing – you’ve got to get to that $1,000. Figure out what your maintenance point is, because you’re going to start spending money on marketing, if you are a large enough business. Still a small business, but if you’ve got established stuff and you spend a little bit of money in marketing, you might not notice anything, because you’re spending so little, it’s not having any impact.

Mark S: That’s a good point.

Marc V: So, you go from making $100,000 to making $103,000. “I spent all of this effort and all of this time. Compared to zero, $3,000 seems like a big difference.” Right? So, you might have to spend more. If you’re in that larger business, then you want to break that 10% number, to really kick that up. So, you might be spending 15% or 20%, which seems like so much.

Mark S: But you’ve got to move the needle.

Marc V: That’s the goal. The goal is to move the needle hard and fast, and really step on that gas. If you want to do it, you’ve got to risk it out. If you feel like your business doesn’t have the money, that’s where the budgeting comes in. You make it happen.

Mark S: You’ve got to make it happen. I agree.

Marc V: You know what? That makes me think of one story, where when people are talking about time. You know, we did an episode talking about time and time management, and you never have time to do anything. But your dog gets sick, and now all of a sudden, you’ve found three or four hours to pack up, get to the vet, get all of the tests done, all of that stuff.

You found the four hours. How did you do it? They were there. It’s just a priority change. You’ve got to think about that with your money, as well. If your priority is going to be in marketing, you have to figure out “What else can I slim down? What else can I not spend money on?”

Mark S: I very much agree.

Marc V: So, next?

Mark S:: The next one is, should you do it yourself? I think also, that depends. Should you do your own marketing? In a lot of cases, I’ll say yeah, that’s a great place to start, as long as you’re willing to educate yourself on what to do.

There are tons of podcasts and blog sites and YouTube videos, just on how to do your own marketing.

Marc V: Just in Custom Apparel Startups.

Mark S: Just in Custom Apparel Startups, there’s all of that stuff. You’ve got all of those things available. So, it kind of goes back to your answer to question number one. What should you do? And part of that might be the stuff that you have an affinity for.

If you have an affinity for video, and you’re pretty good at video, then you might do that yourself. If you need some SEO done, and you don’t write, but that’s what you pick and it makes the most sense, then you’re going to need to find somebody that can write for web. And then, maybe a web person to do all of the backend stuff.

Marc V: I really like the idea of doing some or all of it yourself, just so you can really understand what’s happening. Because what happens always in business, every day, every day somebody is spending way too much money on trying to do something with marketing that they have no idea what it actually does or means. They barely understand the words that are being used, because there’s a lot of jargon in marketing.

They barely understand the words. They’re spending so much money, they’re getting little to almost no return, because they’re not educated about it. I think about this as kind of the cliché story of women don’t know about cars, and they go to the mechanic, and the mechanic assumes they know nothing, and makes up a bunch of stuff, and charges them way too much money.

Then, they show it to their friend who kind of knows about cars.

Mark S: “You got ripped off!”

Marc V: “You paid $100 to change an air filter? I could have done that for $9, at the auto parts store!” That’s what it’s the equivalent of.

Mark S: You’re talking about two different things. You’re talking about like you don’t know what you’re doing, so you spend a lot of money on the wrong ways to do it yourself, or you don’t understand what’s going on, so you hire somebody that you think does, but you don’t know enough to judge.

Marc V: Yeah. You don’t know enough to judge if they know what they’re talking about. Or worse, they’re ripping you off, which is worse than that.

Mark S: I had a conversation today where somebody, a friend of a friend has got a pretty big company, and they just hired a social media guy that said that they were going to get them a million likes, a million followers. I just know that’s not true. That’s patently not true.

Marc V: And I would just say “So? What does that mean?”

Mark S: Then, “How many shirts are they going to buy?”

Marc V: So, yes. There’s goals for those things, but they have to make sense.

Mark S: You’ve got to learn to speak the language. You’ve got to really give it some thought. Just like the time you spent – great example. We’ve got tons of training on the websites, on how to use equipment, that are very popular. We’ve got a course on getting into the custom t-shirt business, that includes marketing stuff, that’s not as popular, because people know that they need to know how to make the shirt.

They don’t know that they need to know how to do the marketing.

Marc V: Yes. If you want to be more successful, I’m glad you’re listening to this. And if you know somebody in this business or in another small business, that’s struggling and bringing you down, because they’re not doing well, you need to get them to listen to this, too. Because this is like the real juice. This is the important stuff.

Mark S: And if you do that, I will customize – I’ll give you some CAS swag. I will customize a water cup, just like I’m holding right now.

Marc V: Really? That’s nice!

Mark S: I will.

Marc V: Was that direct-to-garment printed?

Mark S: It was direct ink.

Marc V: It was direct-to-cup.

Mark S: Direct-to-cup.

Marc V: Alright. Let’s move on to the next one. This is one of my favorite questions. “Should I be email marketing?”

Mark S: Yes! Next question?

Marc V: Yes! The reason why this is a great question to ask is because you’re thinking about it, one, just like all of the other ones. And two is you just definitely should.

Mark S: It’s literally the only absolute yes, out of everything here.

Marc V: I agree. I can’t think of anybody in our industry that sells anything, that cannot benefit from some sort of email marketing.

Mark S: Absolutely!

Marc V: This doesn’t mean that you go out and you buy a cold list from somewhere, and spam people. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about getting people to sign up for your email list or your newsletter, your coupon list, whatever you might have. Getting people who are willing, able and would like to sign up for that, including previous customers.

Then, contacting them again, to let them know about new products, sales, specials, ideas.

Mark S: Events that you’re doing.

Marc V: Events you’re doing, follow ups, “Hey, it’s been a while” emails, things like that. Email marketing, and I’m really more talking about like a little software related email marketing.

Mark S: Like MailChimp or something like that.

Marc V: Constant Contact.

Mark S: Not you, just typing an email.

Marc V: That’s good, but I consider that sales, not marketing.

Mark S: We’re not saying that in a bad way.

Marc V: Yeah. It’s just that’s sales. That’s you directly reaching out to somebody. I’m talking about something that’s a little bit more crafted and for the masses. This email list does not have to be huge. You’re talking, you could have 20 people in it, to start. That’s great.

Mark S: You don’t have to send out an email every day to these people, either.

Marc V: No, no. You send out what’s relevant and important to your business. You could do all of this yourself. The email doesn’t have to have a bunch of fancy art and things like that. It could be all text, that just says “Hey, I just wanted to reach out, follow up. Here’s a short list of some new hats that I got in. If you’re interested in hats, these styles are awesome! I’ve got them ready to go. This is a great time to order, because they’re on sale,” or whatever it might be.

Real simple stuff, like that. It’s great. It’s a guaranteed way to get you orders. And anyone that I ever know, that has started doing some email marketing, in a very short period of time, they made some money. Because you can email market, literally for free.

Mark S: Literally, MailChimp is free, up to like 2,000 contacts or something like that.

Marc V: Yeah, and most of these services are, because they know that it works, and your list is going to grow. And eventually, you’ll pass the threshold where it’s going to cost you $50, $100, $300, whatever a month. And it’s always worth it, because they know. If you’re spending $200 on email marketing, you are definitely making more than $200.

Mark S: You’re making a lot of money.

Marc V: So, you’ll never turn it off. So, definitely go with something for free. Think of a good strategy. It’s one of the cheapest and best ways to actually make some money reliably.

Mark S: I don’t think there are any marketers that don’t use email. Okay, so number five. Marc, let me ask you a question.

Marc V: Okay.

Mark S: I’m going to start a t-shirt business.

Marc V: Okay.

Mark S: What kind of a website do I need?

Marc V: That’s a good question! Then, you should say after that, “If any.”

Mark S: “If any?”

Marc V: “If any.” “What kind of a website do I need, or do I even need one at all?” This is a great question to ask, because it goes back to some of the other things. You should ask this question to yourself, first. Do you want to sell items online? Do you have physical items that can be reproduced, like a specific design on a shirt, or a specific type of bag that you make, that somebody could see online and say “That costs $25. I’m interested in it. I want to click. Here’s my credit card. Mail it to me.”?

Mark S: Or do you have a following, or do you plan to do enough internet advertising, in order to get somebody to come to your design-your-own site? Which is very rare, for a startup.

Marc V: Very rare. Or do you deal with corporate or school apparel? Something to that effect? Or youth sports? There’s a lot of questions. You need a place for people to go online, get their questions answered, see pictures, see samples, see designs, and have a way to contact you. Maybe fill out an order form online.

Mark S: Right. Even those folks that don’t end up with a website, that need those things, sometimes they just end up with a really great Facebook page.

Marc V: Absolutely. Or your LinkedIn account might be a good place to go, or some things like that. Or an Etsy store or an eBay store.

Mark S: I will say that it’s going to be your advantage, even if you’re in a very small local market, to have an online presence of some kind. It does not have to be Amazon.com, right? It doesn’t have to be a big website, beautiful, fancy, or anything like that. It’s got to be good quality, simple, that has your contact information and what you do.

That can be on any platform that we mentioned. So, when you’re talking to somebody, really, when you say you make shirts or you do embroidery, or you make promotional products, one of the first things they will do is ask you what your website address is. Right?

And you are okay, if you can hand them a card or tell them about your Facebook page or your LinkedIn profile. Or if you just do Instagram, and all of your customers are just Instagram, you give them your Instagram profile. You don’t have to have a website website.

Marc V: Yes, you don’t have to. You just want to be somewhere where, when you’re talking to somebody, you have a place to send them, on their mobile device, on their iPad, on their laptop, whatever it might be. And that they can also easily share. Something that they can text to somebody, or email to somebody directly, or send them a link to this page, so they can look at it, as well.

Because some folks are going to make a decision, outside of you knowing, together, if they want to do business with you. So, you want to have a good place to send them, that’s more than just a brochure or a flyer or a business card. It’s important to have an online presence.

What kind of a website do you need is going to depend on all of the things we said.

Mark S: Yeah. It’s going to depend on your business.

Marc V: So, don’t ask first – don’t jump into “What platform do you use, to build your website on, online?” These questions are great to ask on forums. You’re going to get opinions, just like you said. You ask somebody what the best car to buy is, you’re going say Honda, and I’m going to say a Toyota. Because we own these. I like it. I had a good experience. You did, too. They’re probably just the same.

Mark S: Absolutely, except for the Toyota. That’s a good point, because like ColDesi, we predominantly use WordPress. And I’ve built probably 25 WordPress websites. So, when someone asks me about doing a website, I just assume it’s WordPress.

There are tons of other ways to build it. You can build it inside GoDaddy. You can build it with Wix. You can build it with all these different things. I will tell you, having used other platforms as well, that part really doesn’t matter. They are going to look the same online. They’re going to be functionally the same.

What matters is where you want to end up, not where you’re starting.

Marc V: Yeah. They’re all going to have pros and cons, in and of themselves. Some folks don’t like WordPress, because there’s so many attachments you can plug in. They can get glitchy. You decide you want to add a special form on your website, so you download a form, and they get glitchy.

Then, some would say “If you just use Wix, the form is built in.” But Wix doesn’t have as many plug-ins as WordPress does. Or someone might say “Get Shopify. It’s super easy to build. There’s a million plug-ins. A ton are free. It’s great!” Someone else might say “Don’t use that, because you’re married to exact formats on each page. If you want to customize it, you’re very limited.”

They’re all going to have their pros and their cons, so ask online, to get some opinions. Do, more important, your own research. Contact the companies. Have a list of bullet points of things of, like you said, where you want to be. If you have goals of where you want to be, you contact an organization or do research online, and say “I want to start here and get here. Does your platform do that?”

Once you get your yesses, then you can look at the other things; what’s the price, all of these things.

What I would say don’t do is don’t invest a ton of money, $5,000-$10,000, in paying somebody to build a website, unless you have a real plan for that.

Mark S: Right.

Marc V: It’s the same exact thing as – interesting. It reminds me of it, actually. There’s a developer company in Tampa Bay. They do web development and make apps, and stuff like that. Their office is in what I know to be a very expensive shopping plaza that’s got like three restaurants that are big brand restaurants. It’s got like a vape store, a flower shop, all of these things that people are walking in. An ice cream store.

You go to dinner, then you go to the ice cream, all of these things. And they have that, there. I’m thinking to myself “Did they really consider if that was the best for them? Is anybody going to walk in, because they go by there?”

They might have said “There’s so much traffic here, we’re going to reach a small percentage of people.” That’s important, so maybe they had that plan. Maybe they just said “We want to rent a place. This is a great place to go.” Now, they have this huge rent, and in the meantime, they’re going broke.

The same thing for your website. If you – I’ve seen people do it. “I spent $8,000 on this website, and I’m not making any money!” Why did you open up a store that cost you all this money, without the big plan behind it?

Mark S: Right. I love that explanation, because it definitely happens. It’s happened to friends of mine. They spend $7,000 to $12,000 on a website, and they’re making money. But now, also, every time they want to have somebody do something for them, it’s custom programmed. So, it costs them $2,000 to make small changes.

Where if they would have looked into the future and said “You know what? I’ve got this website now, but I’m sure that I’m going to grow. I’m going to want to do a bunch of different things. Maybe I should look at something different.”

Marc V: Yeah. And the internet is going to change, tomorrow. So, when you build it today, everything is going to work. Then, one day you’re going to turn on your website, and your logo is just going to be off in the corner. It’s going to be broken, because something changed. And now that something changed, you’re going to have to get it fixed.

So, think about all of that stuff first. What kind of website do you need? Ask that for yourself. Start doing your own research, and get some opinions.

Mark S: Yeah.

Marc V: Next, “What should I be doing on social media?”

Mark S: It seems like we keep going back to the same answer [inaudible 00:44:07]. What should you be doing on social media? Well, that depends.

I will say what you should not be doing on social media.

Marc V: Yes, great. Let’s change the question to that, then.

Mark S: Yeah. What should you not be doing on social media? If you have, and I’ve spoken to people like this on the phone, and we’ve had people in the group – I’ll give a great example. We had somebody in the group that was providing some value to others in the group. But the natural way he speaks was rude, and used a lot of profanity.

So, I had to boot him out of the group. Why is that? It’s because he was in a community that did not support that. It make everyone else uncomfortable. It did not contribute to a good image.

You have to think like that, if you are going to have an active business social media presence. If you are very active politically, if you are extreme in one direction or another, or if you are into clogging, for example, you don’t want your customers to know that. Right?

It’s not that you’re not proud of it, or you don’t have the right to express your opinion. It’s just that if you want to sell to everyone, it’s a good idea not to alienate a large percentage of the population on the other side, even though it makes you feel better.

Marc V: What if you’re a bronie?

Mark S: I don’t even know what that is.

Marc V: That’s an adult, specifically male, that’s a fan of My Little Pony.

Mark S: Okay, no. The answer is no. You should have a separate account.

Marc V: That’s why I have a separate account for that.

Mark S: That just bothers me. If you have strong opinions, if you keep a very personal Facebook page, those are not opinions that you want to express for your business. That’s what not to do on social. What not to do on social is, don’t be controversial in a way that will alienate your customers.

Marc V: That’s great. Within that, also like what not to do on there, is you don’t want to create something, and then do nothing with it. That’s the other big mistake.

Mark S: Don’t leave an empty house.

Marc V: Yeah. Don’t leave an empty house. That’s something that it looks poorly on your business. It’s the equivalent of a store that’s closed all of the time. That’s kind of what it’s like.

Mark S: Or at random times.

Marc V: At random times. Like you’re going to go to get ice cream. “Why is this closed? That’s weird.” There was actually a restaurant I knew that was open whenever they basically felt like being open.

Mark S: There’s a place sitting near where I live, that we actually tried to go to lunch. The sign said they were open, and they were not open.

Marc V: That’s kind of what it’s like on social media, if you have a Facebook. What happens is when you ignore that page completely, then somebody is going to post something on there, maybe a question or something negative, or something positive or whatever, and it goes ignored.

Then, someone else will go there 30 days later, and they’re going to look at your posts, and they’re going to see you started a page, took a picture, then somebody said “Hey, I’m trying to call you, and I can’t reach you.” Then, that’s the end of it. They’re going to assume you’re closed or you’re bad to do business with.

Mark S: I love that. The other thing not to do is post off-topic, even though it may be positive, it may be a great message to give to people. If you run a cheer business, posting your corporate stuff on there might not be the best idea, if you’re very vertically integrated.

Or if you’re running a cheer business, and there’s a great sale at Target, you want to share that with your friends and family. You don’t want to share that with your customers. There’s a little bit of a difference.

Pretend that you are going in to work, and you’re not allowed to have very personal conversations in public.

Marc V: How many people here are on Facebook or whatever it might be, and they’ve got that friend or handful of friends that’s always trying to sell them something on their personal news feed, too? That’s another thing I recommend not doing with your business.

I’m not going to say there’s anything wrong with posting on there and saying “Hey, friends. Do me a favor, because you’re my friend. If you know somebody who would be interested in what I sell, please share it. That would be great for me, because you’re my friend.”

Mark S: For example, if you guys know anybody that’s going into the custom t-shirt business, you should please share this podcast.

Marc V: Absolutely! That’s a great request.

Mark S: That’s appropriate.

Marc V: And that’s a wonderful thing to do, to ask for referrals from your friends. Also, don’t turn what’s personal. There’s another thing you don’t want to do on social media, and this is specifically for Facebook. It’s fairly – it’s not really technical, but it’s enough.

Your Facebook profile, your Facebook account, is for a person.

Mark S: Right. For an individual.

Marc V: For an individual, so your first name and your last name. Now, they’re not going to check your ID or anything like that, so you could put a pseudonym if you wanted to, I’m sure. I don’t know if that’s technically against terms of service.

Mark S: It is, but they probably won’t come looking for you.

Marc V: They’re not currently asking for social security numbers. They may, though. So, it is best to have your real name as your Facebook profile, your main account. Then, you create your business account on top of that.

A good friend of mine was starting a Facebook page for a business. I said “You should have one.” So, he said “Okay. I don’t really use Facebook.” “It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to use it personal.” You don’t have to have a friends list of a ton of people, to be able to do things for business there. But you do have to have a personal account that’s you.

Anyway, he set it up under the business name, as the actual personal account. So, it was the business name with the business logo, then created a business page with the business name. He asked me “Is this okay, actually?” I said “Actually, it’s against their terms of service. You may or may not get caught.”

I don’t know how they do that now, because everyone has a friend – “Oh, my friend has had that one for like ten years.” Okay, well, that’s fine. There’s a guy down the road who sells drugs, who’s never been caught. But how many people are in jail for selling drugs, right?

So with that, he got taken down, and lost that personal page and the business page completely. Gone.

Mark S: And let me tell you. There is no recourse, with most social media platforms. There’s no going back. It is very rare that somebody will reverse their decision on something like that, because they don’t have to do anything for you. You know what I mean?

It’s just as easy for them to take you off, as to mess with it.

I’ll also say that there’s nothing stopping you from having more than one personal profile. For example, I have a profile, when I used to use Facebook socially, that I shared with friends and family. I would post things, you know, going to Disney, going on vacation, things like that.

And I have a business profile that is just for business. All of the people that I’m connected with there are you guys. I start all of my pages from there. So, I’m not worried about posting anything on my personal page, in that case. I’m not going to post pictures of how much I enjoyed the prison tour, or anything like that. It’s just going to be “All of these things are cool, and they’re related to business, and they’re fun and they’re nice.”

Marc V: I have one. It’s private, so there’s nothing to see. There’s nothing to see there. I don’t really participate a ton on it, but I post pictures of when I’m on vacation, and family and friends, and I share, and I make snarky comments to my friends, and I troll people, and things of that nature. You know, the fun stuff to do on Facebook.

You see political posts, and you just say one thing, and then unfollow it, and just know that you started something terrible.

Mark S: Now you know Marc Vila’s hobby.

Marc V: Anyway, I use one. If you have a Facebook page you use, and you don’t want to have a second one, or worry about all of that stuff, you make it private. There’s no real reason to have it public, for your business. You make it private. This way, you separate it.

This way, if you do like to post off-color jokes or you like to post a lot of religious things that maybe some of your customers might not like or appreciate, then you keep that private. You post whatever you want there, and then you post what you want on your business, and there’s a line.

Mark S: The same goes for Instagram and Twitter and Snapchat, everything. Because once you’re in the social business world, you can do that.

Marc V: And you can have like 100 Instagram accounts on the app. I forget the number that they cap out at on the app. I think it’s five, maybe.

Mark S: I think that’s a lot, for what you shouldn’t do on social media.

Marc V: But there’s reasons for that. But anyway, let’s go on to the next one.

Mark S: I think we pretty much already answered this one. “Is what Bob does,” whoever Bob is, “right for my business?” That’s kind of this phenomenon of you see somebody else successful doing something, or if somebody on the Facebook group is doing glitter koozies for golfers, and it looks like they’re successful, then “Should I be doing that?”

Somebody else is on Shopify, is killing it on Shopify, “Should I be doing that?” What do you think?

Marc V: There’s a few things to go down the road on, on that. The first kind of thing is are they actually killing it, and doing well? That’s just one thing. Just because somebody has an appearance of being successful, doesn’t mean that they are.

Mark S: I love that.

Marc V: So, don’t just immediately say “God, this person is making so much money, so much business! I need to get on that.” They might be just really making it look like they’re fantastic, but they’re not.

Mark S: If there is the lawyer in your neighborhood that’s driving the Tesla, and has the bajillion-dollar house, it’s very likely, statistically, that he has no money. He looks successful, but he’s not really successful. Just because you see your friend everywhere on Facebook, it looks like they’re doing well in their business, you really don’t know.

Marc V: Yeah. You don’t know. I know someone whose grandfather, retired many years, lives in like a retirement trailer type of community, like tons of people over like 100. So, you would look at that and consider this tiny little home, like “Oh, he’s got nothing.” The appearance of nothing. He owns like ten of them in there.

So, the appearance of the outside doesn’t always match the inside. That’s one thing to consider.

The second thing to consider is, is what they’re selling what you sell, and is that your business model? They might be making a ton of money in – we’re going to keep using the cheer one, because we’ve been talking about it – in that cheer, but the business owner was active in cheer. She’s 45 now, and has been active since she was five, in that same area. She knows everybody.

Mark S: President of the cheer association.

Marc V: Was the President of the cheer association. They might really be in this. Somebody who is doing tons of corporate apparel might have owned a marketing business, and they did tons of marketing. They have all these contacts.

So, just because somebody is killing it in a specific business doesn’t mean you’re missing out. They just are in that business.

Mark S: Right. And vice versa. You could be doing that, too. Because they may be killing it, and there may be room in that market. You may be similar, so don’t let it sway you one way or the other. If Bob is being successful in a specific market, the appropriate thing to do is find out as much as possible as you can about what they’re doing, and if they’re actually making money.

Marc V: Yes, that’s great. And then, determine “Is there room in that market for me? Do I want to do this?” You might know somebody who has an Amazon store, and they make money selling on that. Do you want to do that?

I know someone, they buy stuff from China, and they bring it in to their warehouse. Then, they sell it. I don’t want to do that. I have no desire to do that.

Mark S: I listen to a podcast, and one of the recent guests was a woman who made seven bajillion dollars on Pinterest. I’m not going to do that. I’m confident she did that, but Pinterest is not my thing. So, it would be difficult for me to recreate that success.

Marc V: Yeah. So, is what – I’m going to say Bobbie, because that could be a man or a woman, actually.

Mark S: True. So could Bob. Don’t be gender insensitive.

Marc V: Alright, fair enough. Fair enough. So, is what Bob does right for you? You need to evaluate that more so than even asking the question. That’s definitely a question you have to ask for yourself. “Do I want to get into that business? Does it make sense for me?”

If it seems to make sense, then do it. If it doesn’t, don’t feel bad for not copying or doing what they do, or think that you’re actually missing out. Because there are millions of businesses, and there’s the sections and vertical markets underneath those. You find your own. If it matches what Bob does, then do it.

Mark S: I like that. Now, we’re down to the best question.

Marc V: Okay!

Mark S: The best question is “How do I learn about marketing?” That is really the best question that you can ask, because that demonstrates a bunch of stuff. First of all, that you know you need to do marketing, which we already covered, which is a big plus.

That you’re not assuming that you already know a lot about marketing. That you realize that your friends and family really don’t know anything about marketing. And you’re coming from a place of learning. You want to figure it all out, which I think is terrific.

Marc V: And when you ask this question, and then you get an answer, and you learn about marketing, you get to make up a list, like we did. Right? Because you start to learn it and you know it, and then it becomes a part of your knowledge, that you understand it.

Your customers don’t know anything about apparel, right? They don’t even consider the types of shirts and the blends, and that if you’re using a red shirt, it might be affected by a heat press. Your customers have no idea. You know that. You intrinsically just know it, out of doing it for so long, being in the business.

As you learn about marketing, you’re going to understand this stuff. So, how do you learn about marketing?

Mark S: There’s a bunch of ways you can do that. It’s the same way that we do, which is we both listen to podcasts on marketing. We read books about marketing. We look for websites that have to do with teaching marketing. There’s a lot of great ones out.

Marc V: There’s books. There’s so many books.

Mark S: Yeah, there’s books. I’m reading Gary V’s “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.” It’s a little older, but it’s great on social media sales and marketing. There’s just a lot of great books.

You can also go to the Custom Apparel Startups Facebook group, and you can go to CustomApparelStartups.com, and there’s a course on how to get into the t-shirt business, that covers a lot of marketing. And you could listen to this podcast over and over and over again, and learn about marketing.

Marc V: And if you haven’t listened to all or most of the episodes, then that’s a great place.

Mark S: I mean, let’s face it. This is episode 93. We don’t do short episodes.

Marc V: Yeah. They’re an hour.

Mark S: I’m going to say this is 90 hours’ worth of stuff. So, you’re done learning about marketing, when you’ve listened to all 90 hours. And taken the quiz. There’s a test.

Marc V: And it’s free, at the time that this is being recorded.

Mark S: Yeah. You never know. We may charge you.

Marc V: But there’s so much to learn out there, so what do you do? You’re on a budget, because you’re a startup? The library is going to have a ton of them. Go to the local library. Go to the internet. Go to YouTube. These are all things that you could do, whether you want a book or you want to go online, or you want to watch videos on your phone. All of that’s available for you.

What you’re going to find out is that as you learn about this stuff, you’re going to watch a video and “Wow! That’s the formula, right there!” Then, you’re going to watch another one who contradicts it.

Mark S: “No! That’s the formula!”

Marc V: Then, you realize that there is no one formula, and that as you just continue to learn, you’ll realize that everything is about what we’ve talked about this whole podcast. It depends. So, learn about this stuff, and you’re going to do great.

Don’t assume that just because you had that one friend, that one person you heard of that almost did nothing, and made a million bucks, they are definitely not the rule. They are the exception. How do you prove that? Just go find 100 people. Go to Walmart. Is landing on a million dollars common? No.

So, set yourself up, by doing all of this stuff.

Mark S: I agree. I love that. I think that that’s great. We are going to put a bunch of good stuff in the show notes, so definitely go to the CAS podcast page. Look for episode 93, and read up on that. We’ll put links to things that we think are entertaining in relation to this. Maybe we’ll just put a link to a podcast or something that we listen to, about marketing stuff.

Marc V: Right under this podcast, there’s links to a bunch of cool podcasts.

Mark S: There are.

Marc V: I mean, they’re ours, but they’re great.

Mark S: Was I not clear on that?

Marc V: So, yeah. I think this is fantastic, and I think we’ve wrapped it up. Any questions?

Mark S: No. The only thing that I would like to ask one more time is, if you love the podcast, or even only find it moderately entertaining, go give us a great review on iTunes or Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Tell a friend about the Custom Apparel Startups page, and make sure that you’re part of the Facebook group.

Marc V: And if you’re on the Facebook group, ask some interesting questions.

Mark S: Please!

Marc V: Again, I’m just going to vent this out, because this is what’s real. You’re in a group of people who, some of them are thinking about getting in business, or are on the edge. Some of them are in business, and doing pretty good. And some are killing it. Right? That’s your group. That’s in any business Facebook group you’re in. It doesn’t matter what you’re in.

But you’re in one, Custom Apparel Startups. Then, what do you do? You spend time asking these little technical questions that basically don’t mean anything to the long-term benefit of your business. You have one customer that’s trying to find this one shirt. Sell them on a shirt you know. Use your sales skills to sell them on a shirt.

Ask the group about how do you make more money? “I’ve been experimenting with Facebook. I’d love to connect with some folks that are successful in it, and tell me some things you do.” “I’m thinking about advertising in the local paper. Have you done it? Would you share the ad you posted?”

Ask these questions. You’re in this group. You’re not listening to this podcast to learn how to make a shirt better, or find this particular hat. You didn’t listen to 90 hours of this podcast for that. So, get on that group and ask a good question.

Mark S: I appreciate that. That’s a good idea. Alright, everybody. Thanks again for listening! This has been Mark Stephenson, from ColDesi.

Marc V: And Marc Vila, from Colman and Company.

Mark S: You guys have a great business!