Websites for Manufacturers: Easystow Fenders Teams Up with IMEC and B2Btail

Damon Pistulka  00:00

There we go. All right, everyone, it is Friday, and you know what that means? It is time for stop being the best kept secret. I’m your co host, Damon Pistulka, and boy, do we have an exciting show for you today. I’ve got my co host right over here. Curt Anderson, he’s going to take it away. Hey, Damon,

Curt Anderson  00:24

happy Friday, dude. Man, this is, did you get a good night’s sleep last night? Yes, I did. Got a Boy because this is, you need it. You need all the rest you can get, because this is going to be a good one. Man. This is, yeah, we got this handsome devil down below me. But we’ll, we’ll heck with him. We’ll come back to him later. Man, we got Ted Corlette in the house Ted, Happy Friday to you. How are you? Man,

Ted Corlett  00:44

I’m good. It’s a wonderful Friday. Looking forward to it. Hey, it’s a

Curt Anderson  00:48

great day to have a great day. And so we’re going to talk about website design for manufacturers and our dear friends at IMEC. We’re going to give lots of love and a big shout out to IMEC. If you’re like, Hey, what the heck is IMEC? IMEC is the Illinois Manufacturing Extension Partnership. They align and work with all sorts of millions of manufacturers around the wonderful United States. Ted, you had the honor and privilege of connecting with IMEC. But before we go there, we’re going to dive into your company, your background. We’re going to pull up your website at easy stow. But before I do all that, I have a question for you. Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you sitting down? You ready for this one? Ted, uh,

01:24

okay, let me check. Yep, I’m ready. Okay,

Curt Anderson  01:25

that up, boy, So Jason, I’ll come back to you in a minute. So alright, Ted, so Ted, you were just telling before we went live a wonderful, amazing story. So like, Jason, I we’re here on, like, on lakes, and so we, I just love your you’re talking about growing up on the lake. But with that in mind Ted when you’re a little guy growing up, when you were a little guy growing up, who was your hero? Who did you look up to? Who’d you admire? Who did just, it was just the greatest person on earth. Who did you look up to when you’re a little guy growing up?

Ted Corlett  01:54

Oh, boy, I looked up the sailors. But, you know, probably it was my father. You know, like a lot of kids, you know, your father has a huge impact on you. He he taught me how to sail, he taught me how to drive boats. You know, there was always the right way the wrong way in his way. You know, we always had to do that, whether we liked it or not. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  02:18

it’s the right I’m shamelessly David. You’re going to hear that all the time now. They got the right way, the wrong way, and then Damon’s way. How’s that?

Damon Pistulka  02:28

Yeah, well, that’s awesome. So let’s, let’s hear, let’s

Curt Anderson  02:30

hear a little bit more about that. What was dad’s name, and just, let’s talk a little bit about how, how wonderful he

Ted Corlett  02:35

was. Yeah, he, he actually had, we both had the same name, we’re the, you know, we’re the third, third generation, carrying on the name. And he is an engineer. He went to University of Michigan, and I ended up going to getting engineering out of Purdue, and then I have an MBA from University of Illinois, but, but he was the one behind our business. He, he designed a lot of the machinery we use. He designed it, created it, built it. He created our website. I was, you know, his slave for many years in the beginning, and then, you know, that’s the thing he was good at. I was, actually, I was more involved in the actual, you know, marketing and sailing, you know. So I knew what I knew more about the ins and outs and what we needed to do. But, you know, he would, he, you know. So I did that end of it, and he did a lot of the mechanical end of it. Well,

Curt Anderson  03:37

alright, something I want to surpass now. Number one, how old is dad today?

Ted Corlett  03:41

Yep, he’s he’s 94 he’s 94 and

Curt Anderson  03:45

I thought I heard you say that he did your website. Can you type and we and we, yeah, that’s our internal team knows this. But talk about your, your 94 year old father. Talk about how he created the website.

Ted Corlett  03:59

Yeah, he Well, he first created the patent, first, he wrote and submitted the patent and worked with the patent office to get all that approved. After we spent some some time having a on our first product, we had a patent attorney write it, and it was expensive, and he didn’t know, he didn’t understand us. And so for the next product, dad wrote it and figured it out and went and did that, and then when it came time to sell it, you know, we needed a website. And, you know, this is back in the 90s kind of thing. And so he designed it. He taught himself HTML and Pearl and JavaScript and and created, created it all so we were, you know, we had a, we had a thing on it where you could plug in, plug in data on your boat, and it would spit out and tell you specifics on what models to buy and all this other stuff. Wow. And he still, you know, up until, up until, we just, you know. I needed to advance to you guys. He was, he was still making changes to it.

Curt Anderson  05:06

Love it. Now. I do have another question for you, being a big 10 guy. So when So Father Ted that goes to Michigan, when his son goes to Purdue in Illinois? Did you get this owned at any time Ted like, how did Dad accept you going to Purdue? And, like, how did that work, right?

Ted Corlett  05:24

He he was pretty understanding. It was the rest of his brothers and sisters that were not, because they were all Michigan people. Oh no, yeah, that’s often.

Curt Anderson  05:35

So all the cousins. So when all the cousins were getting together on Lake Michigan, they like Ted is the black sheep. You

05:40

were, yeah, right. I was right.

Curt Anderson  05:44

That’s hysterical, man, yeah, it can be a boiler maker when you’re hanging out with the Wolverine. So Jason, let’s get you in the game here, dude. So you had the honor privilege working with our dear friend, Ted. What? What’s your opinion of, like, who knew, like, all these wonderful products that that go on a boat or a sailboat. What was your experience, or what are your thoughts on working with

Jason Deering  06:04

Ted? No, no, that was great. You know, just, I’m not a sailor. I’m I know nothing about the stuff that he’s talking about and he’s selling. And so the knowledge that he has about it in the process of him explaining what they were and and working through the website so we could get the messaging correct on the website was fantastic. Just learning, you know, all about, you know, defenders and responses was very interesting to me. And you know, the process of, you know, getting that information from him about his business and exactly his sales processes and all that kind of thing. Was very interesting, very interesting.

Curt Anderson  06:45

So we’re going to Ted. We’re going to dive into this now. I do have a question. So guy goes to Purdue, great engineering schools. Matter of fact, we just did a little webinar at Purdue last Thursday, and you go to Illinois, did you see yourself at like, when you were in college? Were you seeing yourself, like, big corporate, like a big manufacturing company, or did you see yourself as an entrepreneur? Like, what was a when you’re back in college going to grad school? Like, what were you thinking about for your career aspirations?

Ted Corlett  07:11

Yep, I was still mixed. I had worked for some big companies, and I thought, you know, that could work. And then, and of course, my dad comes up and goes, Hey, I got some ideas. I got some ideas. Okay, well, you know, I’ll do this for a little bit. And, and, you know, I You gotta have failures along the line, you know, you know, there’s we had plenty we had plenty of failures before we found what really worked and, and, you know, but it was, you know, for a while, there it was. It was always fun working with him, and he had a lot of good ideas. And, you know, it eventually came down to the ones that worked, like a lot of things, and it makes you appreciate what happened in the end. But there were, you know, so I’m glad we went the way we went. Now I can look back and say, That’s great. You know, there were times there when we were first starting out, going, what are we doing?

Curt Anderson  08:14

It’s, you know, David, we just used that line this week, right? The Thomas Edison, I figured out 10,000 ways not to make a life

Damon Pistulka  08:23

every day it seems like you’re doing that. The other way not

Curt Anderson  08:27

to do it. Yeah, I’m figuring out a lot of ways not to do things that’s for certain. So we’re going to pull up your website. You your company. Is called Easystow, share with folks your products, your product line, and then then a minute, I’m going to grab the website, but just share with folks like, how do you and your dad make a world a better place with your products? What’s going on there?

Ted Corlett  08:48

Yeah, well, we, you know, it came out of a necessity kind of, kind of thing where we were, we were working with boats and and I had seen some, some other fenders in the market, and they seem very expensive to me, and over built for what they were. And, you know, so we started looking at we were involved in sailing and boating at the time. And so we started looking at options and what we could do. And our first one was, when we first started out it was, you know, you cannot get those camping mattresses where you open them up and they self inflate, you know, they’re filled with, well, that’s the way you wouldn’t have to pump it up, like these other ones are, you know, you just open the valve and it pump up. But, and we worked on that for a while, along with some other products, of course, that were, that were going good and all but, but we could never get it compressed enough to really make a big difference. So we decided to just offer it a simplified design, as simple as we can make it, to make it affordable and make it tough, try it with the idea of trying to using quality parts as simple to. Nine and an affordable price to do it. And I think we came up so with some rather really unique products compared to what’s out there. And customers really like it. It actually, when you deflate it, it’s so our, what we make is an inflatable fender. And so you can make a you can have, everybody wants a big fender, but how do you store that on your boat? And so, you know, we the other companies come up with it too. But, you know, if you can deflate it, pump it up real easily, throw it over the side, you know, you can handle lots of different situations, especially if you’re traveling or, you know, cruising, yeah, and so, so we came up, we found some original, some unique material that is very tough, and we created a relatively simple design. A lot of people, when they make these things, they look at inflatable boats, and they say, Well, we got to make it like that. But a fender is just a bumper, you know, you just want something out there that can take abuse, doesn’t lose, you know, holds its shape and protects your boat. It doesn’t need to be super fancy for a lot of until you get up to the mega mega boats or something, you know, the mega, million boats kind of thing.

Curt Anderson  11:18

Well, I love it. So let’s, let’s do this. So for folks that are like, Hey, what the except? Next offender for our non voting friends out there, let’s, let’s take a website and how about that? So

Ted Corlett  11:30

now that shows two boats rafting up there and and it’s got our fender in between them. So if waves comes through, these two boats aren’t bashing against each other. And yet, you know, these are these boats. I don’t know if you can tell by looking at them, but, but they’re cruisers. So those guys, those boats, can sail around the world. So they’re, you know, well, built heavy duty boats, and they’re looking to protect the boats and and and have room to sail around the world

Damon Pistulka  12:01

well, and that’s just it. When you can deflate the bumpers. I mean, I’ve got friends that have large boats, you know, when you’re, when you’re talking motor boats, but when you’re talking 50 plus foot boat, the fenders take up a huge amount of space, if they don’t deflate like this. And if you’re, if you’re like, with one of these cruisers that can go around the world. I use my fenders, like, what, six days out of a world trip, and in the rest of it, it’s just taking up space if I don’t deflate it, which I might need for actual things like food or water or,

Ted Corlett  12:35

yep, exactly one of the sizes we make is, you know, it’s very popular. It’s a five foot fender. It’s five feet long. And, and, you know, you you can’t store that. It’s 12 inches diameter. And, and, you know, five feet long, there’s, there’s, you know, where do you store that when you want to carry anything else?

Curt Anderson  12:54

Well, absolutely, I love the pictures that we have here. So space saving protection for every voyage. And so we’re going to dive down here, and then I’m going to we’re going to talk about the product. Then Jason, maybe we’ll give some website tips for folks out there that are looking to redo their website, but dive in a little bit further the product line here. So what do we what are we looking at here?

Ted Corlett  13:15

So we our original design was this the on the left there. It’s called the heavy duty version. And the really unique thing about that is most fenders are built with fabric, reinforced fabric. When you get to inflatable fenders, the cheaper ones that you find on boats, those are roto molded plastic. But when you get to the inflatables, they’re usually made out of this reinforced fabric. And what we found was, it’s an industrial product, but it’s an it’s an extruded, reinforced tube. So it’s, it’s much thicker, you know, at least two or three times thicker than the fabric that is used on most vendors. So it’s, it’s very heavy, but it’s, it’s very tough, and folds, folds flat, like you can see. And then, so what we have inside of it is we have a urethane liner that literally holds the air. And then we sew on the attachment points and sew it all together.

Curt Anderson  14:20

And you dad came up with the design for for the whole product line. Is that correct?

Ted Corlett  14:24

Yeah, yeah. But, you know, like a lot of things, things evolved, you know, you start with one thing, and you go, yeah, you know, customers say this, this is weight. This is too heavy. My wife can’t handle this, yeah, yeah, because she’s the crew on a lot of boats. So yeah. He said, We need something lighter. And they said, Do you have colors in this? And we go, No, we don’t have colors, you know? It’s like a mile t you get one color. So we needed colors, so we came up with a standard duty line that’s lighter. It has colors, you know. And so that appeals to a lot of people, too, and a lower price point too, yeah,

Damon Pistulka  14:56

yeah. Super cool. Awesome. And. Right.

Curt Anderson  15:00

So down here, for this last item, share with folks what is a sponsor? For folks that aren’t familiar with the sponsor?

Ted Corlett  15:05

Yeah. So we would go to shows, and we’d show our fenders and, and there was a company called Little River. They’re down in Florida, and they said, you know, we sell these, these row boats and dinghies and, and they got sailing options on them, and, and they’re, very tippy. We need your fenders to, you know, make them stable and and so we worked with that company over a number of years and developed basically their their floats at that mount along the side of the boat. And as the boat, if it’s a Tippy boat, or if you’re sailing it, you know, it provides reserve stability, so so that the, you know, the little boats just don’t tip over, but, but, you know, it doesn’t have to be sailing. People use them for snorkeling. You know, from Bucha protection, you know, all kinds of stuff.

Damon Pistulka  15:55

Well, you see that a lot on dinghies too. Even dinghies are designed with a hard inner like interview hall with that around them. So imagine, works really well.

Ted Corlett  16:05

Yeah, it does. We have different different diameters depending on, you know, what you need it for, yeah? So, yeah, it’s quite interesting. I, you know, I thought that they’re, they’re, you know, they’re floaties for boats. Yeah? Such,

Curt Anderson  16:22

yeah. I need those Chase. You know that. So I love this picture right here. Damon, how about this one? This is right in your hometown. Look at this little guy hanging out here on the boat.

Damon Pistulka  16:30

Yep, yep, we get those. We definitely get those. But, yeah, that’s a, I mean, that’s so cool, so cool. And the design behind it, so it’s got the the two layers and inflatable to be able to save space. Very cool. Yep,

Ted Corlett  16:46

one guy, one guy had used it. Even he couldn’t. He had to get the his motor up so he could put in new motor mounts under his boat. And you know, there, usually you get a crane and you lift it from above or something. But on boats. That’s hard to do. And he actually took one of our fenders and heavy duty fenders, and he jammed it underneath there, and he was able to inflate it enough to lift the whole engine up off the off the mounts, and put in his new mounts and lower it back. So Wow. People use them for all kinds of stuff.

Damon Pistulka  17:18

Yeah. Super cool. Alright.

Curt Anderson  17:21

And so pictures like, Are these our clients, customers, sending you pictures? Where are you getting all the these wonderful images?

Ted Corlett  17:28

Yes, yep, they’re, they’re customer images. And so some of them aren’t perfect. Some of them are just, some of them are ours, but, but a lot of them are, most of them are just our customer pictures that they’ve sent and said, Hey, I’m using it this way. And you know, not

Curt Anderson  17:45

tell you what great customer loyalty. There’s nothing better than when you get your own customer and again, for our friends out there that are getting into marketing, what a great way to incentivize or motivate your clients to post your product out on social media. You can, you know, in this case, with Ted showing them out on their boat, having a great time with their family and getting their product in action. Man, what a what a great way to post that. So, yeah, also,

Ted Corlett  18:07

just above that is the are the feedback that we’ve gotten from customers, what our customers say. And you can scroll through those, and some of those are, you know, they’re they’re great. They’re great to hear that some of the stuff from what the customer said, Yep, right

Curt Anderson  18:24

here. Say, save me from the Michigan docks, man. And,

Damon Pistulka  18:27

oh yeah, yeah. There’s nothing worse than ramming into a dock and scraping your boat. It’s like, oh,

18:33

oh yeah. Like,

Curt Anderson  18:35

nails on the chalkboard, right? I just did that. So, you know, look at all these, you know, just, you know, I have several love them. They’re rugged, you know, little reluctance. You know, this person saying, you know, completely satisfied. Great job. So there’s all sorts of wonderful social proof. So again, for our friends out there, get those testimonials from your clients. Get those testimonials out on your on your website. Chase. Let’s go. Let’s talk. For any of our friends out there that are launching a new website, maybe they’re going to do a makeover, a new look. As a matter of fact, we just launched a brand new look on B2B. Tell this week. Talk a little bit about like you’re working with Ted. What went well? Kind of structuring the website? What’s going on here?

Jason Deering  19:16

Yeah. So just starting right up at the top, as as someone lands on your website, you have to let them know exactly what you’re you’re offering, right you you the time that they spend or so when they hit the site, it’s almost instantaneous. They’re trying to figure out if they’re in the right destination. So between your very your your nav menu, the very top of the website, in this first section that what is called, normally called the hero section, you have to really explain in first sight what you’re doing and and so what we’re trying to do in the menu is getting them to exactly what they’re looking for as quick as possible, without a lot of, you know, multiple clicks or anything like that. We want. Them we want. We want, in intent, doesn’t have a lot of products. Here he is. He has a handful. So we wanted to get the the visitor right to where they needed to go as quick as possible. So we kept trying to keep the nav menu simple here in the hero area, we want to have a really strong image to show what the product is or show what we’re offering. And that image does a pretty good job with showing exactly what the vendor is accomplishing and what the issue is that we’re solving, right? So the title there, the main headline, the hook, really needs to explain exactly what you’re offering and explain with a little bit of help with that sub headline, explain how you help the person, the visitor, with their issues, and then give them a call to action so they can do something immediately. You know, shop your view your products, learn more information, reach out to schedule appointments, something like that. And then this next line, kind of like a little bit of a social factor, a little bit kind of give us some bonus, some awards, or some where you’re found, and then that’s that little strip right there, maybe associations that you work with, that kind of thing. And then here we went right into offer, showing the products exactly the solutions that we have, that you can choose from. So we hit the the products, the services, right away and explain those out show, show the benefits of the of the products, rather than all the features. People don’t really care about the features. All they really care about is that what you’re offering is going to solve their issue. So get right to the outcomes get right to the benefits, and then get them to click a button so they can get purchasing as quick as possible. Scrolling down a little bit. This is we’re now. We’re kind of trying to reassure that customer that you’re kind of highlighting the things that really make your product stand out. Again, here it’s durability, space efficiency. You know, the the attachments are strong. They’re located in areas that make sense, those type of things and and we like that little bit of a guarantee, just just to reassure them that, if they do purchase this and it doesn’t turn out to be exactly what they want, they can, you know, you know, be they’re more reassured that they are buying the right thing. And then kind of continuing, we’re kind of continuing that feel, that kind of conversation, still pointing out some feet, and now towards the bottom, we can start coming out with a little more of the features that help us. The features are going to explain how we get to those benefits a little bit, and then down here, as we get closer to the bottom, we’re getting more to that social aspect and and reaffirming that other people are buying the product and they’re enjoying the product. They think it’s outstanding, and it’s taking care of their issues. Um, you know, reading the testimonials, you can see that other people are using the product in a way similar to what you would use to accomplish your problems. And then at the bottom, we want to get that contact information. We want them to reach out if they have issues, the questions, that kind of thing. We want to make sure that we’re some of the big websites, big companies you struggle, finding their their support, their help, that kind of thing. I like, for the smaller businesses be that’s one of your benefits of being in business, is that you you can communicate your support. Can be more direct. It’s not hard to find you that kind of thing. And then, yeah, we’re going into a little bit of our our story. We want, we want to build a relationship. We want people to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing, where you started. People buy from people based on not the product necessarily, right? It’s based on how they feel about that company, feel about that person. And that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re kind of getting some feels for us, feel that we are people that understand, are knowledgeable, that care about yours, that your boat’s not tipping over, alright, or or you’re getting we care, and we’re telling that. We’re kind of sharing our story. So you know, we’re one of you, right? We’re sailors. We love that water, just like you type of thing. And all of that comes together for a nice, relaxed buying experience where you totally understanding what you’re getting and what you’re looking at and that type of thing. And then we just want, as we go through, we want to show a lot of pictures of how it’s being used. So again, people are associating their issues with these other people that had the similar issues, and reconfirming that the product is right for them,

Damon Pistulka  24:44

yeah? Absolutely love. The images are just really something on this site.

24:49

Good. Sells

Curt Anderson  24:50

1000 words, right? Ted,

Ted Corlett  24:52

yeah? Nothing sells. Nothing sells it to a customer, like a picture on their type of boat, yeah? Oh, yeah, what they want? Not just a. Studio shot. That’s, you know, yeah. And I’m, you know, with a with a background, yeah, it’s good.

Curt Anderson  25:06

So, so Ted, how’s so now that you’re, you’re a big  eCommerce guru, and I know, and you’ve got your 94 year old father involved. He’s, like, he’s probably running the website for you. Now, how is the, how’s the website been going for you? We’re coming into boating season. How’s this been working out for you?

Ted Corlett  25:21

Yeah, it’s, it’s been going great. Well, we love it. I think it tells, you know, as much as dad did a great job as best as he could, this is, this is a real step up for us. This is, you know, brings us into the modern world kind of thing. And, you know, I never had testimonials on there, and I always wanted to put them on there and stay, yeah, and get all the pictures going. There was, there was, you know, it’s great to have the ability to add pictures and add what customers say, and have something that we can keep up to date. So, yeah, it’s wonderful. Or we’re over the moon with it.

Curt Anderson  26:00

Yeah, that’s awesome. So, so let’s go here, as you’re coming into the busy season, like, what’s what? What’s hot and heavy? Like, what are you looking forward to coming into the summer season with boating your customers? How are you approaching, how are you approaching business this summer? Yep.

Ted Corlett  26:16

Well, we, we’ve, we support a number of organizations that promote rallies and and rendezvous. And, in fact, one is just coming up here shortly, and, and it’s very funny, you can, you know, you can see, you can see, right after that, that, you know, people, you get people buying one type of product, because someone got on and bought it and said, Hey, this is a, this is a great product. And then all of a sudden you get a bunch of the same orders. You know from that same thing. You don’t know who’s doing it always, but, but sometimes you hear from it. So we’re, we’re, we have, we have a mix of of retail sales, and we have our mix of of dealers that we that we sell to. And so we work with both, and we enjoy both. You know, the dealer has his his group that he works with, that that he can support. So they’re they’re important, but it’s always good. Also talking directly to and dealing directly with customers. I try to get feedback from him on what kind of boat are you using on? How did you hear about us? You know, where did you Where did you find us? I just, and a lot of them is, you know, I was walking down the marina and I saw it, and I thought, wow, that’s cool. So, you know, it’s easy from that, you know, it’s great from that standpoint, too. Well,

Curt Anderson  27:36

you know, if you don’t mind, I want to dive into that for a minute, because I just, I just had that conversation this week with, you know, what’s very common with manufacturers is they have the distribution network, okay? And so they have a product, proprietary product, and they, and they, they, you know, might not feel that the distributors are really given the full attention to their product, right? Distributors have dozens, hundreds or 1000s of skews that they’re trying to promote and sell, and maybe, you know, unfortunately, as a manufacturer, maybe ours isn’t as a top, top of mine, or the absolute top priority for that distributor. However, we don’t want to step on distributors toes. What I’m hearing from you is you do a great job. You’re selling to the consumer and you’re selling distributors. How do you do? What do you have any advice, or could you share a little bit? How does that relationship? How’s that work, dealing with both consumers and

Ted Corlett  28:27

distributors? I like it, you know, I have good relationships with the dealers. You know, we we but when you go to a show, that’s how you get your real feedback. You know, you can talk to people. And you talk to people through the website and stuff like that. You know, you get lots of it that way too. And and dealers come up and see at the shows and and, you know, we need to do more reaching out to other, other dealers and distributors and stuff like that. And I think that that’ll come I think you’ve had some clever ideas on how to do that without, without spending a ton of money

Curt Anderson  29:03

doing it. Yeah, we so Damon, we Ted and I, we geeked out pretty hard, didn’t we Ted? So we caught that soulmate, 100 and I’ll tell you, like in his, in his sector, man, it is phenomenal. I mean, there’s all sorts of you got the boat shows you’ve got, you know, the marinas. I mean, there’s, like, a wealth of opportunity. So we call like that one to many Damon. Just share a little bit like your feedback, your thought of like for folks trying to get like that one, one to many relationships. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  29:30

that’s the way you really, if you want to get out to the to the masses, when you can, you know, create a relationship with 10 one to many’s. They might have 100 each. And now you’ve just met 1000 by meeting 10. And that’s the wonderful thing about that. And in your industry, as you said, it could be Curt. You could say, just think about Marina as a private marinas, resorts, other places that you know where people are docking their boats or or would be sometime even longer term, they. This, products they could offer, it would be a thing to help protect the people’s boats that are in there. And they could be offering great value to those people with their because, I mean, people spend any more, even an entry level boat is very expensive, and you just want to protect them. Oh,

Ted Corlett  30:17

yeah, right. And the and, you know, if one vendors come, the bigger the better. And a lot of these marinas, you know, I can’t, I can’t visit every Marina. So, so the more that we can network and get to know these marinas and and get our product there, you know, I think that that would really expand us a lot. Yeah, absolutely.

Curt Anderson  30:39

So, you know, and we, you know, lots of opportunities with LinkedIn. You can do, uh, email, you’re now selling on E commerce. So there’s just so many opportunities to open up the door there. Chase, what are your thoughts as far as, like, the B to B side, you know, selling to consumers? What Ted’s done with eCommerce? What’s your take?

Jason Deering  30:55

No, it’s Yeah, to go with. I’m just thinking, you know, in terms of, you know, this is still with that one to many kind of concept, it’s, it is it? Is that it is that ease. It is easier when you have those dealers getting there, and people are, you know, you’re networking together. People are seeing your vendors. They’re asking each other, they’re talking, they’re communicating and, and I think, you know, with what you’re doing Ted, it’s just, it’s cheaper and easier to get in front of them right right now than trying to, you know, just throw yourself all out there and trying to catch all those minnows by yourself. And, yeah, yeah. So going, you know, kind of having that in your in your thinking of, you know, that one to many is, is probably the perfect direction for you. And you know, with LinkedIn, you can, you can build that relationship with those dealers directly. You don’t have to be right there and have to be face to face. You can, you know, communicate what you’re doing in front of them. And you can, you know, join networks with them and groups and have the conversations with them and get to know them personally, you know, those type of things. So, yeah, keep doing that. That’s, that’s, I think that’s the right direction, for sure. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  32:07

And I love how you and dad put together the engineering, because I Yeah, the storage capacity, right? Damon, is that? What your

Damon Pistulka  32:15

thing? Yeah, yeah. Well, then the story behind it all, I mean, it’s so cool that Amy, it’s you guys designed it, you make it, you test it, right? You refined it. I mean, it’s, it’s really cool, right?

Curt Anderson  32:28

Panda, yeah, the best line of the show. I’ve got some ideas. I just, I think that, yeah, absolutely awesome. So I know we’re coming into time Ted. So talk. We want to give a shout out to our friends at iMac. How did you find I? Like, how did I make come on your on your radar?

Ted Corlett  32:45

Yeah, yeah. One of your questions was is, tell us about your organizations and and, yeah, you just have to talk about IMEC being, how good, great they are. I mean, they’ve been wonderful to deal with. You know, they’re ill, they’re for Illinois manufacturers, and they’re an excellent center. And they can do, they have classes, they can, you know, you can. They have grants seminars, you know, they can help you with all kinds of things. And they’re a great bunch of people to work with. I certainly enjoyed all of this. I’m really happy I found out about it, and it was through other manufacturers that I found out about it. And so, you know, they’re involved in it too. They’re doing strategic planning with them, where I concentrated on the website. You know, theirs is more about the they have this product, and which way do they move next? And they got a lot of lot of great work out of iMac with that. So, you know, it’s nice and and they constantly have they contact you, and they they offer all kinds of services. So it’s just been wonderful dealing with them. Well, big shout out

Curt Anderson  33:51

to our friends at IMEC, and just what a privilege to work with them, and what an honor to be connected with someone with entrepreneurs, manufacturers like yourself. Hey, Ted, how about that handsome devil sitting next to you? How about that

Ted Corlett  34:03

guy? You know, I want to thank B2Btail, B2Btail for it’s been a great experience. I make is lucky to have you guys, you know, I’ve, I’ve talked to other people saying, well, yeah, they’re, they’re, you know, I have a company, it’s okay, but all I can say is, you guys have been great to deal with. I got a wonderful website. Jason has worked with me, you know, I brought in stuff that, you know, I got. I want it this way. I want it that way. You know, a lot of you know, he could have just said, you know, this is the way we’re doing it, but he didn’t he? He always, he always made me happy and and working with you, Curt has been a joy and nice meeting you. Damon, yeah, I’ve had a lot of fun, and it’s really looking forward to the summer and and sales and using the website. And, you know, it’s just great. It’s been great. We hope you

Curt Anderson  34:59

just. Blow the darn internet off. You know, just we’ll start buying some fender then he buy, like, a half a billion dollar yacht or something like that. So, yeah, maybe, maybe Jeff Bezos needs some fenders on. There you go. Yeah,

35:14

that big boat

Curt Anderson  35:17

we’ll get, we’ll get that going Ted. We’ll wind down. Last question I’d like to ask you is, how about for if you go back to your younger self, young entrepreneur out there, what’s the best business advice that you’ve ever received? What would you like to pass along best business advice that you’ve ever received? Well,

Ted Corlett  35:31

yeah, I thought about that one i i saw that was one of your questions, and I have to tell you that the best one, I think I ever got that I remember the most was from my uncle. He, you know, he was, he imported China, and he was very successful at it, and his biggest customer was Crate and Barrel. Oh, wow. And, you know, one one time we’re sitting around, and I was just beginning, and his advice to me was for your dealers, give them as much discount as you can, and then service the hell out of it. And and I’ve stuck with, you know, and I think it’s true. I’ve tried to use that to some degree. You know you want to be you want your customer, you know, your dealer to be, you know, happy. You want him to make as much money as you can, and then he’s going to promote you as much as he can. You know, if you make it profitable for them, you know, they’re going to make it profitable for you.

Curt Anderson  36:29

You know, what brilliant I absolutely love that. What brilliant advice. Because you think of like, you know, Damon, we talk about like that book, like the Go Giver, or like, when you’re just dedicated to other people’s success. You know, was it Zig Ziglar says, you know, the more success that you draw you, the more that you help other people achieve their goals, the more they’re going to help you achieve your goals. Yeah. So, brilliant advice to your uncle. So, okay, we’re going to wind down. We’ve got, hey, got

Damon Pistulka  36:53

some comments in here? Let’s, let’s go. Diane, happy Friday, everyone. She said, now I have an urge to get out on the water this weekend. There we go. That’s awesome. And then we’ve got Ted Skylar. He said, Have you ever I’d love to talk to you about rendering needs you might have Ted or Skylar has a rendering software that does really cool stuff and for E commerce solutions. MD, you totally should nothing like fresh air and open water to refresh the soul. Yes, yes, yes. Try to get that daily if you can. That’s for sure. But thanks for dropping those comments in everyone.

Curt Anderson  37:33

That’s I love that line, man, nothing refreshes the soul. So alright, we’re going to wrap up anything Chase, anything that you want to, any parting thoughts, words of wisdom that you want to share with Ted or folks out there. As far as website, anything you want to share?

Jason Deering  37:48

Yeah, make sure when you’re building your website, you’re not just looking for a nice looking website, a beautiful looking website. Yes, it’s important. You want that first impression to look snazzy. But it’s, it’s, it’s, make sure you’re communicating with your customer, that you know exactly what their issues are, and that you have solutions that will help them and make sure you’re building a relationship with your website these people, again, they’re going to buy from the people that they feel like they are almost soul mates with or they trust the most, right? You can have identical products, but they’re going to choose the one that they feel most comfortable with. And that’s the job of your website is to build that trust, build that the the feels of it, and make them feel like they cannot go wrong with choosing you and and that’s what your website should do, is shouldn’t just wow with special, flashy features and all that you you got to speak to that customer right away.

Curt Anderson  38:53

Dude, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say the feels so, let alone twice, going, I love it. So alright, we’re Ted, parting thoughts, words of wisdom. That you want to share is we people can find you at easy Stowe com. We’ve got you on LinkedIn now. Anything else, any other places that we can find you, or what do you have to share there? Yep,

Ted Corlett  39:13

yeah, you can search for us online, and you can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on, we’re on Facebook. Easy, still, fenders, calm. You google, extra long fenders. You know, that’s, that’s our forte. That’s where we’ll come up. But, but I also want to tell you Curt that you know, when you’re talking about advice, one of the, one of the truest things that run, that rung true with me in your book was, was the part about, you know, don’t, don’t just chase sales. And when we started, you know, you you got this new product, and you’re looking, I want to sell this thing, you know. And some guy says, Well, I want it this way. And I go, Okay, I’ll make it that way. And, and, you know, you end up spending a lot of time, but you know, you’ve gotta chase profits, not just, you know, sales. And. And so, you know, we’ve standardized on to our products that that work the best and, and that people like, a lot that and, and so, you know, you can, you can look at other stuff and do research and and consider other products, but you need that core, a core group that’s that, you know, that really meets the need and and produces your your main profit. So, yeah, I thought those were very good words of wisdom on Todd.

Curt Anderson  40:27

Thank you, man, I’m going to take zero credit. Thank you. That means a million my my mom is going to love that you just shared a quote from my book. But you know what I’m giving since we’re giving love to our dads that came from my dad, my dad used to preach. Don’t chase sales, Chase profits. I don’t know if he and I were really good at it, but we used to preach. That was that, you know, so we’re we didn’t fall far from the tree, right? We’re giving lots of our fathers. So, yeah, great advice out there, guys, you know, go out there and chase profits. Don’t chase sales. And when we say, Chase profits with integrity and all that stuff. So okay, we’re going to close out. I know everybody’s busy. What an amazing Friday, what a wonderful conversation. First off, how about a huge round of applause for our esteemed guest today for Ted cortette at easy Stowe, we encourage everybody check out his website. Go to LinkedIn, and man, what an incredible conversation. Father, 94 years old, did their website? They work together, have incredible products. So again, stop by there. Check him out. And Damon, as we’d love to say, just go out and be someone’s inspiration. Just like our dear friend, Ted and you too, can make the world a better place. Damon, why don’t you close it out, Ted, hang out with us for one minute. But Damon, why don’t you take us away?

Damon Pistulka  41:41

Alright, well, thanks Curt, thanks Ted for being here and show us website. Easystow and just the cool history of your company and your father and you working together. Your father, I just, I still, I go back to your father originally, COVID coded your original website back in the late 90s. I mean, that’s just something you don’t see, that people take that time to learn in the way that you guys designed and engineered the your offenders, so that they really address the problem and have the features and benefits they do. And then now, seeing the website that is created with all the wonderful graphics and people real world photos is so cool, so cool. And I want to say something to the people that commented today. Diane Skyler, MD, thanks for being here today. We see we got more people that are listening. Appreciate you, even if you don’t comment. That’s for sure. If you got in this late, go back to the beginning and start over, because Ted has talked about easy still fenders, we talked about the website, the important features of the website from Jason, and it was, it was just awesome. Thanks everyone. Thank you for having me on Yeah, we’ll finish up offline Ted and everybody else. Have an incredible weekend. You.