The Primary Problem With Products ⚙️

Welcome To Go-To-Market Shenanigans. 
If you read our welcome email, you know we discuss the practical & unorthodox marketing approaches we’ve discovered from launching & growing lifestyle brands. Today, we will discuss the following:

• Marketing (The problem with products)

• Advertising (Calvin Klein will probably not appreciate this)

• Product (check out this inflatable skateboard ramp)

• Health & Wellness (Let’s talk about Blue Zones)

• Links for the week (a couple of educational sleepers)

• Tune (absolute banger cover)

• Wisdom (from a Navy Captain)

Marketing 📈
You’re The Problem, Now Fix It.

Let’s be clear: we’re all the problem because we all have problems.

I have a few core beliefs from a short yet dense career of launching & growing lifestyle brands:

1. Every product should solve a problem.

2. Lifelong branded communities unite around solving problems.

3. The primary problem with most products is they don’t solve a problem.

Okay, I understand this sounds harsh, but hear me out for a second:

• First, your product will not be helpful to everybody; in fact, some people may hate it, and beyond contrary belief, that’s not just “okay,” but it’s a good thing! Consumers enjoy standing for something; in most cases, having others against it only heightens the response to stand for it. We desire to believe in things; it’s our duty to build communities that believe in our solutions.

• Second, your mission as a company should revolve around solving a problem you and, ideally, the people you hire identify with. Every campaign/product you make should nod back to this statement.

• Third, your vision as a company should see the world as a better place with your product; if you don’t believe that, you’re doing the world and yourself a disservice.

Now, how does this apply to business or marketing? As entrepreneurs, it’s common to want to make everybody happy. The truth is, in business and both lives, that’s just impossible. That’s why other people exist, so they can make the people happy that you can’t. So, deal with it and focus on the crowd with which you can create a difference. Change a group of people's lives, then branch out.

Test reiterate, test again, fall on your face, take a couple of big wins, brush them off, repeat the process, and understand none will last forever. Once you have decided to go after a narrowly targeted audience, hopefully supported by data and research 😅 one of the biggest mistakes I see brands and business owners making is trying to capture that audience on every marketing avenue known to humanity.

Here’s the harsh reality from experience: you haven’t mastered a single one, so how do you expect to master them all? Every marketing channel is different; every demographic reacts and responds differently on every channel, and in reality, socially engineering an effective communication strategy is freaking time-consuming. Yes, managing Instagram CORRECTLY is more complex than one might assume.

So go out and master a marketing channel, test, iterate, and find what works. Build out practices, automate, delegate, and then spend your budget attacking the next qualified platform. If you have no idea where to begin, pay a consultant to teach you and set you up with the correct structure. Yes, you’ll spend a premium, but how much is your time worth? More importantly, can you put a price on knowing that the structure you invested in is scalable and set up correctly?

You owe it to yourself to solve a real problem, attack each avenue with a full strike, see the plan through, and then take away the positives and negatives.

I say all this to bring you back to the product… imagine selling a product that changes lives; it probably markets itself, right? Now imagine selling a product that serves no clear or defined purpose and probably costs a lot of time and effort to get off the ground, right?

You owe it to the world around you to make it a better place. Build products that solve problems, build communities that care and stand for something. Humanity deserves it.

Do this, and you will find that effective marketing is the new selling.

^{To be continued… the purpose of your product can go beyond just utility.}

Advertising 💰
Calvin Klein Isn’t Going To Like This.

I enjoy watching brands use their marketing budget to make fun of themselves. Maybe it’s my stance against unwarranted materialism or my stance on humor. Regardless, Berlin Beer has done an excellent job of showcasing its stance toward its target male consumers through a well-produced mock commercial. (Mockumercial, if you will?)

If you want a good laugh, give this a watch… and after you watch, watch from the sidelines to see how Calvin Klein responds. I’d have to imagine that any form of lawsuit would turn this into the PR stunt Berlin Beer is hoping for.

If it happens, you heard it here first!

Product ⚙️
We’re Capable of Inflating Anything.

Evolution Skate Ramps has found a way to develop an inflatable halfpipe… if you’ve ever built a halfpipe, it’s time-consuming and requires maintenance. In many cases, your landlord or homeowners insurance makes you remove it.

This solves almost all of those problems. Although I have never ridden this pipe, I can only imagine it’s fun and convenient and provides a little more grace when you take a nasty spill.

If this is everything I imagine it is, it qualifies as one of those “why didn’t I think of this?” ideas.

Props boys!

Health & Wellness 💪
What are blue zones, and why should I care?

I’m not talking about this because I saw the Netflix documentary; I never did. However, a close friend of mine, Warner Jenkins, Founder & CEO of Nordic Wave, shared some rather enlightening insight on the topic.

To kick off this brain dump, let’s begin with defining Blue Zones.

Blue Zones - These are geographic regions with lower rates of chronic diseases and longer life expectancy.

The top 5 Blue Zones in the world are:

1. Sardinia, Italy

2. Okinawa, Japan

3. Nicoya, Costa Rica

4. Icaria, Greece

5. Loma Linda, CalifoTort Community.

To dodge the topic of diet, besides the idea that eating processed foods and chemicals are not suitable for us, what are the leading commonalities between these Blue communities?

Yes, the leading factor was community. It was found that Blue Zones, in most cases, spend less time on devices, move daily, and value their family, faith, and communities.

So, what can we take away from your environment that impacts our output and lifespan? Find something you believe in, surround yourself with people you love and care about, get your body moving (go on a walk!), shop at your local farmers market, and most importantly, allocate time to be present.

^{How wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony.
Psalm 133:1}

Links For The Week 🛜
Here are some resources we learned from.

• The Future of Vending Machines. (Shoutout to Chip Martoccia for sharing one).

• Consumer Behavior is cool.

• You should embrace Instagram Reels.

• I'm unsure how I just heard about this guy; I'm starting to think I live under a rock. (Shoutout to Jarod Farchione for sharing this one).

Tunes 🎶
Here’s our go-to track for the week.

Hot take, this is better than the original tune. Praying TikTok doesn’t ruin this iteration, as I currently have this track on multiple Premiere Pro timelines 🤷‍♂️. Hopefully, it blows up in style!

Wisdom 💭
A quote from a Naval Captain. (Also one of my best friends).

I thought this was such a great testament to leadership. If you are from Annapolis, Maryland, odds are you’ve heard of Logan Spilker. It would also probably not shock anyone that he is making the world a better place.

Although he cannot take credit for this quote, he is 100% living by it and gets credit for passing it down. We're passing it even further if you’re reading this far into the newsletter.

What I like about this message is that it’s straightforward and actionable. Although both action items, “hope” and “order,” could be taken as separate approaches, they work in unison.

This quote sums up leadership. Where there’s hope, there’s a will, where there’s order, there’s action. We live in a world of chaos that makes it easy to feel hopeless.

All that being said. I felt this was a great way to end the newsletter. We’re blessed to have guys like Logan leading the charge for this country.