Apparel Redefined Partners with IMEC for Digital Marketing Success

Damon Pistulka  00:01

Hey, three. Hey, Curt, how you doing today?

Curt Anderson  00:04

Dude, I could not possibly be any better, man. It’s like, I feel like I’m at Disney today. I’m like a 10 year old at Disney. That’s how

Damon Pistulka  00:11

I know it’s exciting times for us. On our Windows Wednesday show today, talking about digital marketing success, we’re going to be able to talk with John Leroy here from apparel redefined, and how he partnered with IMEC for digital marketing success, it is going to be fun today Curt, because we get to look at John’s journey, talking with customers, talking of, you know, just showing the cool things they’re doing and how that has helped them create awesome content and community. Well,

Curt Anderson  00:42

I totally agree, man. And so this is such an honor, such a privilege. I just, you know, I’ve become John’s become just a very close, dear friend, my respect, my admiration. I’ve been to his facility multiple times. As a matter of fact, he’s stuck with me coming out to visit him. Next Wednesday, I’m going to be back. No, Ryan, okay, I’m going to be back hanging out with John. John, John, you know what might drag you on? We might do another live next Tuesday, just for lack of it, right? So, alright, we’re with John Leroy from apparel redefine in the wonderful city of Chicago. It’s a great time of year. This guy is just a killer athlete. And so, you know, you got the you know, we’re on the cusp of the World Series next week. You got football going on. Chicago. Bears are crushing it. John, Happy Wednesday, how are you? Man, you’re a Green Bay guy. I forgot, Whoa,

John LaRoy  01:27

it’s happy to be on with two, two legends here and talking some shop. But yeah, I’m doing great. I mean, I just got back from Door County, Wisconsin, had a lovely weekend with a wife and kids up there, up in the Northwoods, and good to be back to get, get back in the swing of things. But it’s always nice to to get up there.

Curt Anderson  01:47

Well, wonderful long weekend. And I tell you, the far foliage is absolutely phenomenal, right? John, how was it drive?

John LaRoy  01:55

Oh, it’s beautiful. I mean, these are things like, you know, when you’re even mid 30s, I didn’t really care about, you know, it’s like people, like, plan their weeks around the colors and what, you know, where, however far north you are when they start hitting and when the season’s over. And, yeah, just taking some time to, like, step back and I guess, look at the trees or look at the leaves. It really is cool and beautiful, but little things like that you don’t really appreciate. And you know, it was we drove up on Thursday, and from Thursday to driving home yesterday, it was a big difference, you know, like, maybe three or four more days up that far north, and then all the leaves are down, you know, just five short days to see that kind of change. Yeah, yeah. Well, hey,

Curt Anderson  02:46

welcome to to old guy hood. I guess

John LaRoy  02:51

leaves on trees. Yeah, we

Curt Anderson  02:52

get older, I tell you, man, I and not your point that I was probably same age. We’re like, you’re like, Man, this is gorgeous. Where’s this been on my life? Well, it’s been the whole time, you know, right? Too

Damon Pistulka  03:04

worried about going somewhere fast at that point. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  03:08

exactly. So it kind of stop, smell the roses, stop and just see the beautiful foliage and all this other stuff. So John, we’re going to dive into we’re talking sports and we’re talking business. We’re talking apparel redefine. So please do me a favor for folks not familiar, who is apparel redefined? How do you and your incredible team make the world a better place?

John LaRoy  03:27

Yeah, so what we’ve been talking about a lot is we just, we don’t make T shirts. We make memories, right? We do a lot more than that. But one of the things we talk about our new, new internal clients, our employees, is that even though it’s manufacturing, there can be some some mundaneness to some of the tasks. You know, what you do and what we do matters. You turn on TV on Saturday, you see our stuff in college football. You turn on WGN, and you’ll see our stuff all over Wrigley Field, local high schools, colleges, everywhere. You know, you see an athletic event, you’ll see our stuff. So one of the things I kind of liken it to is, you know, you’re getting called up to varsity as a freshman, sophomore or whatever, and you get that varsity jersey. Now we have a hand in making that lifelong memory. And potentially, you know, people hold on to those jerseys and either clog up your drawers, or you get really pissed off your mom or your girlfriend or your wife when they throw them away. But it’s amazing the power and the memory that’s attached to the piece of apparel, right? So that’s that’s, in a nutshell, what we do, but we help solve the problems of sourcing and executing decorated apparel and promotional items. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  04:44

I, you know, I love that, John, and we, we’re going to dive into, you know, creating content, how small business owners could or should be creating content, what it does for your business. And I’ve had the honor and privilege you and I’ve been working together on doing interviews, and Damon last week, we’re going to, it’s more. We’re going to pull up this gentleman’s website, this incredible company in Chicago that John provides services for solutions to. He calls it, you know what? It’s like a, it’s like a temporary tattoo, you know, you go like your favorite band’s concert or, you know, an event, a nonprofit, something in memorial to a loved one. I think it just, it’s not just a shirt. Is John said he’s building memories, man. I’m like, how powerful is

Damon Pistulka  05:26

that? Yeah, awesome, awesome. Hey, we

Curt Anderson  05:30

got a few comments here. Damon, we got Shabazz stop by. Says, nice conversation. We’ve got a friend here. Sadia says, hello everyone. We got Samson here saying hi. So guys drop us a note. Let us know where you’re coming from. Say hello. We want you to love for you to connect with all three of us. Connect with John Leroy from para redefine John. Let’s go here, as we dive into your entrepreneurial company. What you guys do? Just share a little bit and like, what, what’s it been for you as an entrepreneur? Like, going from, like, different stages, different phases. And then we’re going to lead up to today.

John LaRoy  06:03

Yeah, I mean, starting at 22 and being almost, you know, in this for 18 and a half, 19 years already, there are different progressions through the cycle, and I think ours are and especially manufacturing. I think it takes longer to go through those cycles. But in early days is, is still a grind, but it’s a different grind, right? You know, I have been fortunate to not be behind a press or an embroidery machine, probably in the last four or five years. Prior to that, it was every day, all day. So the kind of the transition of being in the business to working on the business and developing the leaders around you, really with a focus on leadership, like, for example, I think I’m enjoying this leadership group called Vistage. And actually it’s one of the things that, as we continue to grow, developing the leaders, you know, at the next level and the low, the level below that, because I don’t have the personal connection that I used to when it was a company of 20 or a company of 30, you know, I’m still involved in hiring and interviewing, but it is becoming less and less. And not everyone knows the story, right? You know, anyone that’s been hired in the past six years sees this current building, which is 10x the size of our old building, you know? So it’s like it wasn’t always this way, and it’s going to get better as well. So understanding, like, where you came from is really important. So we’ve done some video with our orientation process to keep people, like, familiar of our roots and where we came from, and then just the industry changes. You know? It’s like, I’ve always said I want to do my part to innovate in archaic industry, and not much has changed, or not up until about five, six years ago, screen printing really hadn’t evolved for 70 years. You know, it’s like, Hey, here’s some ink, here’s a screen. Slap a logo on a t shirt, and here comes digital. And, you know, everyone has that, that feeling or that effect. Anytime a new technology comes in, it’s going to completely disrupt the industry, and screen printing is going to be gone forever, right? And if you’re screen printing, you better sell all your equipment, because things are going to change. And then that doesn’t happen, right? Because even though, as the technologies come into our industry, finally, there’s still a space for the analog ways of doing things. It’s just different niches are better served by different decoration types. So us as a contract decorator, to be able to provide all the services with consistency and quality in mind and speed is important for our customers and our clients. And you know, six years ago, DTF didn’t exist. Now it does. Does it going to replace screen printing? No, but is it part of the market and the future? Moving forward, 100% ecom, Curt, your your your forte and your expertise and where you cut your teeth for a while, like that was always going to be the future, but it got accelerated by covid. So being able to do print on demand for a vertical, for a whole different vertical of customer that we weren’t even going after service two, three years ago. Now, here comes covid econs exploding. But how do you, you know, do just in time inventory for them? Now, you could do a high quality before you could do it, but the quality wasn’t there. Now the quality is caught up and the speed is getting there, but now you have the technological gap of the software. So our industry is evolving, and I think mainly because of the focus on speed, you know, the Amazon effect is real. Yeah, I first got involved in 2005 six, a three week turn time was pretty standard, you know. And the old days of Service Merchandise, where you pick from a catalog, you know, and you go to the store and it comes down the aisle, those have all been replaced by ordering from Amazon. Get it today. Now, Amazon’s not adding customization on a lot of their products. They are doing that soon, but adding customization, especially on athletic apparel. Takes time, but I can no longer turn things in three weeks. It’s got to be a week. So what I’m getting at is the external pressure from doing stuff overseas for quick turn. High quality type stuff is still very leaning towards and will be created domestically, the high volume, low cost type stuff. You need 10,000 T shirts with or 100,000 with the coke logo on it or something that’s still going to be done overseas. But the the quick turn, high customized stuff still needs to be done locally, and even needs to be done closer to the end user, customer again, the Amazon effector. You got that last mile type stuff, where we can get the blanks all over the country, but adding that last minute mile value to it is still done very regionally. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  10:49

yeah. And it’s huge. The Amazon effect hits every industry, right? And you’re Yeah, just every one of them’s been, been affected by it. And you, I agree with you 100% you know, your niche is really to go custom, local, quick, great quality, those kind of things you can do, and that’s what people want. You know, from the work that I get to do on Amazon, I can see the difference in one day delivery. One day delivery faster is huge in the world of E commerce now, two days, three days is massive. So if you can go from three weeks down to a week, that is a big deal. A big deal,

John LaRoy  11:29

yeah, and it’s all text. I mean, getting through that entrepreneurial journey, right? Like in the weeds for really the first 10 years, right? And then kind of getting to a point, okay, like, hey, what’s next? Right? And I had a partner, you know, everything worked out really well. Everything happens for a reason. They’re terrific people, but it got to the point where it’s like, hey, you know, they’re approaching the end of their career. I’m right in the beginning of it, and I am not settling for mediocrity, like I think we can do better if I’m committing my life to this, I’m not going at it half ass. Yeah, don’t see a real path or growth the way we were currently doing things. So we’re like, we need to develop some type of software tech to fuel our scale, our ability to scale and and our vision. But it wasn’t there. You know, there was a lot of stuff off the shelf and off the box type or out of the box type stuff, and it really wasn’t geared towards our niche. And what we did so we started developing ourselves, and that’s been, you know, seven, eight year project and software development never ends. But as a big turning point for us, where we started seeing some more hockey stick type growth, and allowed us to look for new building, move into our current space, and now, you know, looking to build a new facility soon here and and continue the growth. Nice. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  12:53

I tell you, John, it is. It’s so inspiring. You know, kind of being on this, not even being in sidelines, but you know, just participating, watching this, this whole journey of yours. Damon, we had a conversation last week, and John, you said something absolutely hysterical. Damon, we’ve talked about this dozens of times. You know, as entrepreneurs, you just, you’re basically, it’s AKA, like, I’m just completely unhireable. You know, yes, John dropped that line last week, and I love it. But John, what I love is, like, the, you know, I’m going to call it like a confident, humble disruption, like you’re coming into the industry. And I couldn’t love the name more. You know, apparel redefine, like you are truly redefining the industry. What I’m going to show some examples, and Dan, I’m going to pull up one of their clients. We just interviewed this client last week and had a great conversation. But John, just, you know, for folks out there, say, manufacturers, you know, you know, you always talk about how critical that brand promises and like, you know why it’s not just a t shirt, it’s a memory. It’s representing your company. It’s representing your quality, like representing that brand promise. Share a little bit about, you know, I’m gonna, we’re gonna go and we’re gonna talk about Joe at Obvious Shirts in a minute, but just, you know, and I know you and I talked about it a lot, week in, week out, but for our folks here that are that’s new to them, What do you mean by that brand promise? What does that mean from a quality apparel standpoint?

John LaRoy  14:11

Yeah, it’s the it’s a subliminal messaging that that logo’s telling you without saying words, right? You know, it’s like we talk about the example, if you’re going to hike up a mountain in the middle of winter, are you bringing a Coleman jacket? And it’s a to make jackets, are you bringing a north face, or you bring a Patagonia, that type of stuff. If you’re going outside and you’re, you know, getting your excavator, your backhoe, are you going to wear a Patagonia? You’re going to wear a car hurt, you know, it’s like, there’s, there’s stuff that inherently tells you what that brand does and promises without any type of words or conveyance, but it’s consistency over time creates that momentum, right? And you know us as kind of small business manufacturers back in the weeds and not having the market. Marketing budget of a north face or a Patagonia. What do you do? Do you say? What you do? Do you do? What you say is your team repeating that message, you know, your boots on the ground, your grassroots efforts. There’s a political cycle right here. All these buzzwords. Is that message being carried out by your team and then your best customers and and I’m proud to say, I think it is. And we do. We say, we say, we do. We’re not perfect manufacturing. There’s a lot of opportunity for mistakes, and it’s not if something happens, it’s when, and what do you do to make make it right for your customers? Because again, like one of the things that we talk about all the time is like, Guys, at the end of the day, we’re not we’re not Merck, we’re not Purdue Pharma. I don’t have the ability to create or end lives. But you think we would? You know, Friday Night Lights is Friday Night Lights. If you don’t have those freaking jerseys there, you might as well be dead, because there’s, yeah, a big deal in AD football coach. You want to kill you. They don’t care who dropped the ball. So I do say we have the ability to end and create life, you know, through a t shirt. But deadlines are real. Promises are real. If you’re going to make that promise, you better deliver on it. And again, that folks intensity over time creates momentum, and then the brand starts speaking for itself. It’s not just about John Leroy, not about Nick It’s not about Derek. It’s about apparel or defined if they say they’re going to do it, they’re going to do it. And it just, it doesn’t happen overnight. You know, these brands don’t become household names overnight unless they have, you know, billions or multi millions of marketing to do like these. These up upstart brands Roback, that really haven’t been along for a long time, but they’re able to throw it on a PGA golfer and get eyeballs. And yeah,

Curt Anderson  16:51

hey, we’ve got some comments here, John, so we’ve got it being if I’m saying that correctly. Happy Wednesday. Thank you for joining us here today. Says impressive our dear friend, Diane buyer says, Hello and Happy Wednesday. Diane, Happy Wednesday, please connect with John on LinkedIn. You guys will be great fast friends. Samson says, do what you say. You do. Do what you do. Do you do? Do what you say. Love it. And he says, Thank you, John. So Samson, thank you for dropping a comment again. We’re here with John. Leroy from apparel redefine. Drop those comments in the chat. Let us know what you’re out there. Connect with John on LinkedIn. John, I want to, I want we’re going to talk about some different you’ve been you and I’ve been doing some wonderful interviews, some powerful conversations. We’re going to dive into. I want to show one of your clients, because we do dove into these guys last week. And so let me, let me pull them up real quick, and they I want you to talk a little bit about, from an entrepreneurial standpoint, partnering with people. It takes a village to raise a child, right? They always say it takes a village. Well, it takes a village to raise a business, aligning with vendors and partners that are going to support you take you to that next level. I’ve had the unearned privilege first of week in, week out. We’re interviewing clients of yours that are giving you raving testimonials. They’re talking about how they couldn’t do this without John and his team. And they’re calling out specific people on John’s team how, like, Derek crushes it. You know Nick is doing? You know he’s they’re calling out the teammates that are just crushing it. This is a an incredible company here, Damon, this is a company that’s dedicated to like primarily, you talk about niche down and niche down before it hurts. They focus on the Cubs, and a guy’s name is Joe. It’s a brilliant, incredible entrepreneur success story, John. Just talk a little bit about this relationship, and how does apparel redefine help small entrepreneurs, give them the ability to scale, to lean on your expertise, your equipment, your overhead, but then I can just be like a fierce marketer, walk us through that process. And then let’s talk a little bit about Joe here at Obvious threads,

John LaRoy  18:50

Obvious Shirts. But, yeah, it’s obvious, yep. Like, why? You know, again, we’ll talk about this in a little bit too. But like, your passion, right? You know, it’s like, follow your passion, but my passion, I’ll get into in a little bit, but more for Joe’s standpoint, a lot of budding and entrepreneurs, they try to do it all right, where Joe, in the beginning, was the creative, the marketer, but he was also trying to do the production right. And there’s only a limited amount of time during the day where you can create, you can mark it, and then you gotta go produce. And usually the producing gets kicked to the back, right? You know, it’s like, I’ll get to it later. And after 10 monsters and 15 coffees, you go try and print shirts at night, and then something happens, and you screw up shirts or whatever. But it is your baby. And, like, one of the things that Joe really talks about is a commitment to quality. He still has customers from, you know, his first iteration of Kyle Schwarber shirts in 2016 2017 that still have that shirt that he printed, you know? And it’s like, that’s awesome. That’s the best form of marketing and advertising out there. Not only was the design still timeless, but the shirt is held up for. Eight years now, yeah, the print still looks great, and it still washes, and you can wear it once a week. And that in itself is amazing, right? So what I’m getting at is like, for me, you know, in our, in our space, when I tell people, like, hey, what do you do? I’m like, okay, like, everyone’s bought a car before. So in our, in our example, I’m Ford, I’m the manufacturer. Our customer is the dealership. You know, people don’t come to me yet to order an f1 50. They go to, you know, they go to the dealership. That dealership is our customer. The dealership focuses on the selling. They focus on the marketing. They don’t do the doing, right? We exist in the background and do the doing. So everyone that wants to do stuff in terms of apparel, decoration, merch, stores, online and in the corporate world, you want to enhance your brand. The best form of promotion, to me, is still a t shirt and one that you want to wear, you know, yeah, a professional sports game. You see dads drop their babies and people’s trample over people for a triple x white teacher that they’re going to throw in the back of their car. It’s unbelievable. Like the power that a free giveaway t shirt, yeah. Now imagine if it’s done really well. It’s got to create a message on there and it feels really good. And inherently, you go back to your closet and you keep picking out the shirt that feels good, fits good, looks good, and kind of the message on there might be secondary if it fits and it looks really good when you wear it. So yeah. So we help those people solve those problems that they might be having. In terms of production. We partner with a lot of different small businesses that are what we call team dealers in the business, where they might have a small embroidery machine. They might have a small print shop in the back, but we’re trying to help them with the technology we’ve created as the gateway to say, hey, focus on what you do. Well, focus on the sell. We’ll focus on the producing. And we have a relationship, right? Like, that’s one of the things that, like, I didn’t even know, getting into the business that I really do enjoy. It’s kind of like, for me, the last frontiers that exist, and relationship based sales. It’s not so much a What have you done for me lately? It’s like, hey, what have you done for me over the past 510, 15 years? And these people are friends, yeah, that we’ve built because they continue to sell, we continue to do so, yeah. I hope that answers your question. Curt,

Curt Anderson  22:19

oh, that was, it was, thank you. Yeah, that was phenomenal. And so, and it was just such a privilege to have a conversation with the owner here on how he was a corporate sales guy, cubs junkie, and how, just like, out of just a wicked, great sense of humor, the the desire to create a quality t shirt. And then finds aligns with John. And what he talks about is like, you know, John, I’m going to be a pain. Like my, my level of expectation and quality is so high and so like, in now, their team had a barrier to find they actually say, like, when they ship something out, their quality benchmark is almost like, Hey, would Joe? Would obvious, accept this, right? John,

John LaRoy  23:00

yeah, I think that’s a good point. I’m glad you brought that up. So one of the buzzwords that you hear now, like in a lot of entrepreneur leadership events or stuff like that, like, you can fire clients, right? You know, it’s like, Hey, make sure you find the right client for your business. You don’t have to be everything to everybody. And I would caution you there. I caution people there is like, why aren’t they the right client? Are they pushing you in a direction to make you better? You know? Are they having uncomfortable, uncomfortable conversations with you because they’re unhappy with something and you’re just kind of like, I You’re not right for me? And that’s a direction that we could have taken five years ago, six years ago, because there was a period of time where, like, everything we’re doing was there was something wrong. And I’m like, guys, like, if we’re going to have this vision and this mission and we’re going to do what we say and say we do, we have to be better. You know? We have to be better. We have to take this as a challenge and beat it and exceed it. So it took some time, but there were some things we needed to shore up. And yeah, I think Joe, I mean Joe, and we talked about it with Curt. He made us better. And, you know, again, I don’t agree with a lot of the mainstream buzzwords that are out there. And we talked about this a lot Curt, but yeah, yeah, you could be easy to say like, Hey, this guy’s not right for me, but really examine it. Why isn’t he right for the wrong reason? Or it’s an internal problem. You better fix it, because someone else will court that client and blow it up. And I just had a feeling, I mean, it hurts me. It really freaking hurts me, because I’m a South sider, and there is nothing to be hopeful, optimistic about anything with the freaking White Sox. And it really pains me. And, you know, I’m like, I really think Joe’s got something here. He’s got a fun, a huge network of a lot of. You know, big names out there that you know, swear by Joe. You know, Joe has become the major league guy to go build a brand like he. He wasn’t trying to build individual player brands, but that’s what happened, because he does what he says, and he says what he does, or says what he do, and he gets done and people like, hey, if, if he can do that, he can do that, he can do it for my personal brand, because you have so many of these guys that are like fringe or bubble guys. And with the internet, with ecom, if they got a following 1015, 20,000 people, they can make a good amount of supplemental income. You know, you can argue whether or not they need it, but they, hey, set it up, let my sister take care of it, or let my brother take care of it. Next thing you know, they got a million followers, or selling couple 100 shirts a day. And it’s not hard to do anymore with tech and, you know, having the ability that we have now to do DTG with direct to garment, you don’t have to commit to any inventory. The only commitment is your time. Put a shirt up there if it doesn’t sell. No big deal. We don’t make any so it’s really like a nice synergy of tech, social media and equipment, where it’s all kind of converging at one to make this a reality, where before you’d have a ton of waste, you know, you’d have to print four or 510 1000 of these shirts. Yeah, you don’t know what sizes, you don’t know what colors, you don’t know the design works, but it’s stored in a warehouse somewhere in the Midwest, and it only ships when people order it.

Curt Anderson  26:29

Yeah, and John, and I’ll get this off the screen, because I know it’s killing you right now looking at this, but I just want to give folks, just from an inspirational standpoint, how many times you said around like, you know, hey, gee, I should do this. Or, you know, hey, that’s a really funny thing. Or, you know, he came up. This was the the t shirt that hockey put his company in, a hockey stick demon. And two months ago, my wife and I were in Canada. We’re at Niagara Falls on the Canada side. We’re at a steakhouse. The guy sitting next to me is wearing this t shirt, t shirt that blew up Joe’s business, and what he did so this, you know, he strike me. Lightning struck. Struck. Yeah. The point that I want to share here is like, if you have an entrepreneurial dream, an entrepreneurial itch, you know, multiple things in this process, this is almost like a case study. Is like, how do you scale your business? You need to surround yourself. John, open up. He’s going to align with Vistage this like, I don’t know a guy who’s like more as CEO of a booming, great company has such a hunger to learn. That’s why he’s so successful. You know, Joe is a corporate he was a sales rep for for a software company. You know, just a beach bleacher bum, self profess bleacher bum at a Cubs games, and he came up with these T shirts, and it blows up, but he wanted quality, and he stayed in his lane. I’m going to go so niche. I’m not even go south side of Chicago. I’m just focusing on the north side. So I just, I couldn’t love that more. I’m going to grab a couple comments right here. So again. So she says, wait, wait, we can’t do it all. Yes, your business is your baby, and so Diane says, love it. I can go get into the t shirt business. Yes, you can, my friend Diane, and John is just a guy to help you, John, I’m going to dive into content. Talk a little bit about a para redefine. You know, where were you guys from a market? Like, how did you grow the business without a marketing strategy? Is that’s a reasonable question, right?

John LaRoy  28:23

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, word of mouth, really, and we weren’t. It was kind of taboo, like for us in the in the back, like, imagine, back to the Ford example, right? If the plant was making cars for Ford, for Chevy, for Kia, and, you know, it’s a Ford, but it’s made in the same plant as a Chevy, and no one would really be thrilled about that, right? So we’re decorating for Under Armor, decorating for Nike, decorating for Adidas, and mainly athletic space. And it was kind of like, you shut up and do your job and don’t tell anybody where it’s coming from, right? And it was okay, you know? And it’s like we didn’t really have time to to to to worry about that other stuff, and then the CO and then covid hit, right? And no matter how good our relationships were with these companies, if there’s no school and no sports, what we thought for two weeks, three weeks and three months and eight months and 12 months and 18 months, it didn’t really matter. There was no buying. So it’s like, well, it’s not if it happens again, it’s when. And we can’t just be so tied to one industry when we have the equipment, we have the people we can decorate for other niches and industries other than just athletics. So I’m like, okay, great. Hey, we can do it. And then I’m speaking to a room of zero, right? They’re like, you know, who knows that we can do that? Because we’ve been in the shadows for so long. So it kind of started this journey how we met Curt through IMEC, and we hired a lean process consultant to fix some issues on our floor. And then it was like, Okay, now we’re ready to go to market and let people know. And again, I’m like, who’s listening to this message? And it was back up before that, what is the message and who are you speaking to? So I had to get on my own head. I just actually with the Vistage guy, Curt. He’s like, your podcast looks great. What? What’s some advice you have from a guy that really wants to start it? I’m like, start it. That’s it like, you know, like, in my head, it had to be perfect. I had, you know, looking at Joe Rogan. You look at all these guys that lead this space, and it’s like, if it can’t look like that, then I’m not, yeah, because I don’t want it to be crap. And that’s in your own head, you know, so much positive feedback from what we’re we started doing. I think this is episode 2324 wherever we’re at, for me, but yeah, just getting it going right, and then doing the stuffs, doing the steps in sequential order. That makes sense, right? So it’s like, who are the clients we’re going after that are not athletic? What’s that? What’s that look like? Right? Okay, so we say, hey, we have this, this target revenue. What does that person look like? Who is that buyer? If that buyer landed on my old website, they’re like, What? What is this? Who is this guy? I’m not spending this kind of money with them. They land on my LinkedIn. It didn’t look good, right? So we’re like, Okay, before we even start doing the marketing messaging, let’s get the house in order, right? You know, you have, you have to feel the dreams, but you got no hotel. So where are people going to stay? Where’s the trust? So we started sequentially improving the foundational needs that we needed to be able to go to market. Because if you go and my my thing too, is like my biggest fear is being a hypocrite. And it was like, if we start talking about all this stuff that we can do, but we have no way to really show it, it’s not it doesn’t convey trust. It doesn’t convey Hey, we are the company that can partner with you and help you achieve whatever it is for your brand, for your dream, for your logo, for your, you know, apparel program. So it was a lot of foundational stuff, and we’re at the point now, okay, let’s start talking about it, because that other stuff looks good. And so that’s kind of been the marketing journey that we’ve gone through over the past 18 months or so, right? Curt,

Curt Anderson  32:05

it’s been, it’s been a trip, man. It’s been a, it’s been a wonderful, phenomenal experience. And so Hey, and we’ve got a comment here. I’m going to, I’m going to grab real quick. So Sadia says, Thanks, valuable information and boosting motivation. Thank you for the comment here. Yeah, little road trip. So Dana, what do you any comments I’m going to I’m going to pull up a few things. Well, I

Damon Pistulka  32:25

think a couple things that John said is really important, and and all manufacturers, I think, kind of have gotten lulled into this one time or another, is we’ve got a customer base. They’re supporting us, and something happens, right? It doesn’t matter what you’re doing it and a customer changes, and now you’re like, and probably you, and like many other manufacturers, they don’t have 1000s of customers. They have a handful or two handfuls of major customers. And when one leaves, it leaves a big hole. Two or three leave, like, in your case, it’s a huge hole. And you’ve probably let some of that stuff slide your website, your social media, if you’re doing any of that. And I really like you know how you backed up, built the foundation, and then took off like you did now, because I think that does allow other people to really see what you’re doing, because you could been going for a long time doing content, doing these great interviews that you’re doing, and no one would see them.

John LaRoy  33:29

Yeah, yeah. And it was just like, I was always like, hey, we only have x amount of followers, you know what? What is that magic number you need to get to the followers, so we actually have an audience to talk to. And it was always like, well, once I get that number, then we’ll start. But it’s like, it’s not going to just happen. No, you have to get going and do something. And it stopped being the best kept secret, right? Curt, so, yeah, it’s more getting out of your own head. I never really thought I’d be into, you know, this weekly cadence of of talking, but, yeah, it’s really enjoyable, and it takes some of, I want to say the pressure, but it’s not all about me, right? Every week, it’s a guest, and we’re letting that guest talk about their business and their journey of how they got to where they are. And it’s, it’s really been an organic you know, there’s not a ton of preparation involved. It’s really just having a conversation. And the people that we invite on like to talk, you know, Kurt, so it goes well.

Curt Anderson  34:37

It so just, let me show you this real quick. So let’s, let’s go. So this gentleman right here, Damon, I want to share, John, you brought this up earlier, and you made me think of Chris. So this guy, you know, entrepreneur, you know, business background, and goes all in, and he really emphasized that brand promise, didn’t he? John, and just, and I’ll tell you if, and I hope I have this one straight. Correct me if I’m wrong, John, I’m pretty sure. It was Chris. He shares how, when he got started, there was 1000 shirt mix up, right? John, do you remember that? Yeah, there was 1000 shirt mix up. You know what he did? David, he ate it. He told the customer, it’s on me. He’s like, I’m not going to sit here. Like, nobody’s going to win. To say, like, whose fault it is, you know, like, you know, misspelled, you know my name. He ate it and right? John, wasn’t that Chris. Do you remember that conversation? Chris? So I mean, these, you know, man, I just get all worked up. I just get so excited. You know what? I’m not even sure the right screen, there’s, here’s, here’s Chris, let me get I change screens on you guys. Hey, here we go.

Damon Pistulka  35:40

That’s what it is. It’s an opportunity. When you’re when you’re able to interview and talk to people like this, you share some of these awesome stories that are happening around us every day that we don’t even know about, right? Nobody, not very few people will hear this, but you’re helping people get this out to the world, John, and really show some great, great examples.

Curt Anderson  36:01

And when you we think about the humility and the commitment to customer success that you’re willing to eat, I mean, put that number and, you know, think about that right? 1000 T shirts this here, this interview was the gentleman that that owns obvious shirts. Let’s go here. Let’s go nope. I’m sorry I got the wrong one this. I wanted to show this one right here. This is Chad McLean, John. Just share a little bit about let me share this tab. Here we go. Share a little bit about this conversation here with Chad, yeah,

John LaRoy  36:31

probably our most powerful conversation. I have a huge reverence for the military community. We use a lot from Navy Seal, jackal willing, and his his leadership, essentially library, you know, he’s got three or four books on leadership, so we do a lot of that internally, and getting the opportunity to meet Chad and what he’s doing for the military community that suffers with PTSD. So he’s into holistic medicine, psychedelic treatments with multiple different avenues. And you know, DMT, all psychedelics, all types of stuff that have been shown very, very effective and helping a lot of these guys finally deal with some, a lot of the trauma or the addiction that really holds them back, because there’s not a lot of help out there. You know, even though we hear about programs, we hear this, there’s a lot of struggle. It destroys families, destroys lives. There’s a lot of people you know struggling with severe depression and take their own lives. So he’s trying to help veterans 1t shirt at a time, right? So a lot of his proceeds go back to the community to get them psychedelic treatment, to explore alternative methods, because other stuff hasn’t worked. But yeah, just a truly powerful story. He was on a training mission. He was Green Beret, and they were they were going out of an airplane, and when he opened, there was another parachute underneath him. Stepped on that parachute could be 50, 100 feet up in the air, could be 20. He didn’t really know, but blacked out. But when he we woke up, he was an emergency room and really messed up his back severely for years, so struggle with addiction, but this his journey was amazing, of getting through and getting over the addiction and now understanding like how he can have a hand and changing 1000s of lives through apparel, one to Rick to make the money to be able To send a lot of these veterans that can’t afford it to treatment. So super, super powerful, very

Curt Anderson  38:46

powerful. And what he’s, and he’s, you know, rebounded his life. Completely great episode, you know, you need to go listen to it shares a very powerful story on how he suffered from PTSD and now selling apparel, you know, as his mission and his cause. And again, conversation after conversation, this gentleman over here to the right, if you see my mouse right there, this guy is general manager of a minor league baseball team right near John. Super passionate for the area, leans on John for all of his apparel needs, you know. And again, like you talk about that brand promise, like, you know, kids are in the community, at the grocery store, at the, you know, riding their bikes. We’re in that local, you know, baseball team. Very powerful, powerful there. And again, just more examples I’ll show you down here. There’s our wonderful Jacqueline. This gentleman here, Rocklin, super inspiring. You know what he’s got going on. Here’s John at a trade show. Here’s John. Goes out John, talk a little bit about Patrick. You go down to Morris, Illinois to visit him. On site, has a really interesting

John LaRoy  39:47

story. He he’s helped build brands like Peter Millar, Ralph Lauren, couple other big golf brands, and he’s always wanted to do his own and finally, after. Or, I think 1213, years of building other people’s brands, he’s like, Screw it. I’m going to build my own brand. Because he’s got a lot of the design and skill set. His designs are beautiful, and like his goal is to be in, like, the top 100 premier golf courses across the United States with his own brand. I think as of this fall, he’s in 25 or 26 of them. So he’s, he’s well on his way in only two years. But really, like, super passionate, and really has a deep understanding for manufacturing at the thread level of what the premium feel and look is, especially in the golf niche. And, yeah, I mean, what’s really cool is, like, in his shop, there’s no picture here, but all the elite golf courses that he’s in, he’s got a pin flag and he’s got room for 100 and he’s got 24 of them up right now. And it’s really cool. And that’s that’s a really hyper competitive market, and you get one shot, and if you you screw up delivering to Augusta, not only will it be bad for you, it’ll be bad for the future, because all those clubhouse managers talk, and they won’t have good things to say, and no one wants to be the guy and be like, hey, I’ll give him another shot. You don’t get another shot. So it’s, it’s really, really imperative to, uh, again, do what you say and say what you do. Yeah, I

Curt Anderson  41:25

tell you, John, this is phenomenal. I’m going to change gears here. Let’s see, let’s hear this tab. So here’s your YouTube channel. So again, now we’re so we’re talking about like, this is collaborative content strategy, and what John’s doing is he’s teaming up with us. You know, we Damon, we always call those soul mates, right? So it’s either customers, referral partners, vendors. You know, John was on the show before, and I was actually on site, and we were showing off his wonderful piece of machinery called the rock. Yeah, remember that it’s like the Ferrari. But when you go down here, you like, take a look at some of, I mean, take a look some of his videos, you know, like, here, you know, unleash your potential. You know, 500 views. And again, like, here’s a guy that just started out you go, you know, on YouTube shorts and, you know, building trust with business, 500 views. This one’s got over 1000 he’s got a new marketer on his team who’s doing some really fun, innovative things. And so, like, again, you know, he’s dedicated himself to, you know, stopping the best kept secret, getting that message out on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, meeting his clients, where they are to let them know. Like, you know, hey, there’s a better way. Instead of you doing all the processing yourself, hey, let’s partner up, and you can scale your business and take it to the next level. So I just, I John the power of these conversations, like, you know, a lot of these guys you’ve known for many years. I mean, what, how would you describe like, when we get on an interview, like, I just feel like you just, it takes the relationship to a whole different level. What are your thoughts?

John LaRoy  42:48

Yeah, I agree. You know, I think a lot of these people who we’ve talked to, there’s probably a handful that have done it before in a different setting, right? But a lot of them, it’s their first time, so they don’t really know, like what the angle is. And then I think once they kind of get in, and they start talking with Curt, and they get they put their guard down a little bit, it’s easy to share some war stories and some successes. And, you know, people like talking about themselves, so it just kind of starts to become natural. And Kurt does such an amazing job. An amazing job of making people feel comfortable and just kind of telling their story. But it does take the relationship to a next level, because I think that there’s nothing salesy I might Hey, you know, after after this call, I need you to buy this or do that. It’s more. Hey, you. Come on, talk about you. Hopefully this helps your business, and if it helps your business, it will help mine. But there’s no real commitment or strings attached like that. And I think people realize that once they come on and they like telling their story, and hopefully it’s a motivation for them to either start marketing or build on whatever they’re doing use this piece of content,

Curt Anderson  44:01

yeah, yeah, absolutely. It’s just, it’s just, it’s helping your customer better themselves, better their business, get their story out. But you know, in the same time, John, you know we weren’t teeing it up for this, you consistently get just raving testimonials on how, how awesome your team is, how you’ve helped take their business to the next level. Couple comments we’ve got. Hey Julie. Says, that’s wonderful, Julie, thank you for dropping a note here. Says, Hey, nice conversation. Thank you for joining us again. Drop us a note, let us know you’re out there. We got John Leroy here. We’re going to start winding things down. Damon, your thoughts from this collaborative what you’re seeing with John? You’ve been on the show with John. What are your thoughts here?

Damon Pistulka  44:39

Yeah, I think this is a great opportunity. And you you’ve walked into it, done the done the appropriate back work to really get get prepared. Your company prepared. So when people come, they can tell what you guys do. But then from there and out, it’s, it’s cool watching you enjoy yourself talking to these people, having these conversations. Questions, because it’s a completely different way, I believe, from from a standpoint of getting your brand out there and becoming known in the industry without dropping ten million on Google ads and banners and everything else, but in a way that really connects with people. Because you talk about the powerful conversations you’ve had, those you can’t buy that with a Google ad. You can’t buy that with, you know, some other thing, you know, just a promotion of some sort. It’s, it’s about building real community and connection across all these awesome people and they and you have done awesome work for them, or will do awesome work for them in the future. It’s just it’s so much better. I look at this kind of business, business community building, business development, whatever the heck you want to call it, and I just think it feels better. It’s not like, I mean, I don’t know about you, but when I get to be able to interview somebody, I just think it’s fun talking to them and learning from it.

John LaRoy  46:09

Absolutely, it’s the only thing, yeah, it’s not like, slimy. You don’t feel no, yeah. It

Curt Anderson  46:19

totally flips a script. And hey, Diane says, really appreciate this discussion today. Today, Diane, we appreciate you. We appreciate John Leroy being here. Yeah, we start writing down so you and I are connected from our friends at IMEC. IMEC is the Illinois Manufacturing Extension Partnership Damon. We are always promoting uh, MEPs on our show. As a matter of fact, we have the director of the entire MEP network on our live show this coming Monday, John, so we’re super thrilled about that. Your experience of working with iMac? What would you your your thoughts, your experience? Would you recommend our friends at IMEC to your family, your friends, your dog? What are your thoughts about our your experience working with IMEC?

John LaRoy  46:58

I don’t have a dog, but I do have chickens. I recommend my chickens, but, yeah, it’s one of those things that, especially, again, not to get political. But in the political season, you hear about like, Hey, I’m doing this for small business. I’m doing this for small business, and it’s great to hear it. But how do you access it, and what, what does the program mean for me? And once I, you know, started digging through some stuff and found the resources. Got involved, had the conversations. Dave Musgrave has been great. He’s been out here several times. Jacqueline’s been phenomenal. But this is an organization that is truly there to help, right and almost at the juxtaposed to what’s going on in the county and other avenues, they are truly there with a focus on manufacturing to help manufacturers stop being the best kept secret, or get more focused on lean, embrace automation. There’s a whole different slew of programs in our in our co op in in Cook County. That is great. And here’s the thing we’re paying for, it, right? Payroll tax, property tax, every freaking tax you could possibly pay for so go use it and utilize it, because someone will right, and eventually, you know, they could be your competitor. So, yeah, you know, it’s like, hey, if the programs are out there, they don’t have, you know, a lot of ways to, I think ImEx done a better job of, you know, letting people know what they do and how they do that. But again, it’s, it’s, it’s up to us as an owner or operator or whatever, to go in, invest the time, talk to people and really take advantage of the program that’s out there.

Curt Anderson  48:47

Yeah, John, I couldn’t agree more. And so again, thank you for First off, thank you for joining us. And Diane Byer says, Hey, we love our friends at iMac. And she says, for those who don’t know, iMac, Illinois Manufacturing Excellence center, Illinois. MEP Diane, thank you so much for making that distinction. We appreciate that. And so again, big shout out to Dave Blay Jacqueline. Dave Musgrave, everybody at the team for just really passionately dedicating themselves to helping you know our manufacturers, you know, throughout the country, and in John’s case, here in Illinois and in wonderful city of Chicago, John, we’re going to wind down, dude, I appreciate you. Claud you, commend you. Just love our friendship. Love what we’re doing together. I’m going to be on site. You’re stuck with me next Tuesday, dude. So get a get a good night’s sleep, right? Damon, he needs a good night sleep.

Damon Pistulka  49:36

Probably,

Curt Anderson  49:36

he probably does. So, John, any parting words of wisdom is we want to close out today. How can folks find you?

John LaRoy  49:44

Oh yeah, apparel redefine the website. I’m there. I’m on LinkedIn. John Leroy on LinkedIn, Facebook. I think we’re on Twitter, but yeah, I mean, or just email me. My email will put down below. John dot Leroy. Apparel redefine.com and I guess, just a final thought, you know, kind of the OG, for me in this space that I really admire, and he, self admittedly, is not a blue collar guy, you know, he’s an opera singer. I’m talking about Mike Rowe, I think, probably the most recognizable voice, yeah, in all podcasting. You know, I he had a guy on, and I gotta look over here. I gotta cheat. The company’s name is Groundworks, and I listened on the way up to Door County this weekend. And, you know, I’ve always my great grandfather was like a master craftsman. He was born 1900 he died 2000 so he lived 100 years, and all this stuff in 100 years. And I was so fortunate to live. He lived with us, you know, my whole life, until he passed. But I always had, you know, he started working at six years old as a bricklayer, and then, you know, he was too young, too young for World War Two, or too young for World One, too old for World War Two. So he missed all that stuff, but he always did stuff with his hands. And, you know, people ask like, what is your passion? What are you doing? It’s like, for me, it’s like restoring manufacturing greatness to America and pride, you know, and Mike Rose done an amazing job, yes, bringing focus to the blue collar work, you know, and that actually matters, you know, when we talk about, hey, who is essential, it was all the people that got done, right? Yeah, and we just make T shirts. We’re not plumbers, we’re not electricians, but everyone wears clothes, and unless we move to a nudist colony or society, you’re still going to need to wear clothes based on the health of America. I don’t think that’s a good idea right now. But anyhow, listening to Mike Rose conversation with this guy who just changed the lives of over 5000 people that has he has employed because he turned into employee owned. And instantly, I think over three, 400 people became mega millionaires, and even more in that are millionaires. He didn’t need to do that and learning like his Bootstrap. I mean, he was he had to go black and live in his mom’s basement. He’s like, I know nothing about waterproofing, raising homes, nothing. But he’s like, I wanted to get into something that actually changed people’s lives and put a better spin on a dirty industry. I’m like, This guy’s speaking my language, and there’s so many out there. Like, someone comes in your home, you think they’re scamming you. They think you’re jobbing them. Hey, you know it’s kind of like bringing your car, your wife brings a car to a mechanic, and he’s like, we need to change that perception, perception of the industry. And he’s like, and if we do it right, we’re never going to have this customer again. So it’s challenging, and how do you create that value? But it was like, I listened to it, and I got so much out of that. And now it’s like, it re motivates me to be like, hey, I want to be able to do this. You know, making T shirts is great, but it fits an ends to the mean of my vision to bring unbelievable value to my employees and to my clients and change lives. And this is the vehicle that I’m driving to get there. And so be it, and I’m not going to stop all gas, no FM brake, as our is our code from the floor likes to say, so, yeah, yes, yeah. It was a long, long last, last thought, but it was really powerful. You know, 223, hour podcast, and it goes by like this when you’re really kind of locked in, yeah,

Curt Anderson  53:30

awesome dude, that and Damon, that’s your hero right there. Mike, that you’re speaking, David, love language right there. John, so And Diane says, make it an awesome day. Wonderful week. Thank you so much. Thank you. Diane severe is giving a round of applause, and so we appreciate that, John do drop the mic. That was effect Damon, that’s going to be our little John, that’s going to be our little YouTube clip on our end, and Theresa will be pulling that out. So that was phenomenal. Okay, we’re going to wind down, close out the day, get everybody on with their day, for whatever they’ve got going. So John, we thank you. We applaud you, commend you, appreciate you. I get to see you on Tuesday, my friend. Hang out with us for one second. We’re going to close out. Damon, appreciate you, brother. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for everybody in the chat box. We appreciate everyone for catching this on replay. Please connect with John on LinkedIn. Go to apparel redefined. There’s all sorts of perfect he’s got a really cool video right on the website. Our buddy Jason put it up there, so check that out. Alright guys, we’ll

54:29

see you soon. Have a great week. Everyone. Bye.