Bonus episode this week!
Matt sits down with Randall & Tyler to discuss their golf glove brand.
They talk about everything from shipping cake in the mail to why traditional golf gloves are boring to what to look for in a golf influencer to promote your products.
Thank you guys for listening to the cactus golf podcast super excited to have an inter interview for you guys and this is actually I was thinking earlier this is the first time we’ve had an interview with two guests including not including myself so super excited for
For this one we’ve got Randall and Tyler from Chip Chip golfco super excited to have you guys on and talk about what you guys are working on talk about your gloves I love the designs on them I’ve been uh you know obviously you know want to do uh introduce some of these glov
Star members here as well um so I’ve been you know eye and the got your eyes’ site for some time now and I I personally love the uh the Texas Holden one the the poker one it’s pretty cool design I’m not going to lie um but you
Know welcome to the show guys I appreciate you guys for coming on thanks Matt we uh we’re excited to be here and appreciate you appreciate you having us yeah thanks for having us of course absolutely so let’s start let’s start from the beginning let’s start from from
Day one for you guys how did you guys meet it’s a it’s a great question um so Tyler and I we actually have been friends for quite some time now we met um back college at the University of Wisconsin we actually were in the same fraternity there and pretty early on
Like both Tyler and I had entrepreneurial aspect ations and it was something that we connected on pretty early and there were times during college where we would literally go into one of our rooms and just brainstorm ideas for you know a couple hours everyone else is off doing whatever it’s
A Tuesday night and Wisconsin Madison below zero outside and we’re just like let’s just figure out you know how are we going to make our million dollars and we would have some crazy ideas right most of which were horrible I won’t even begin to mention here but we actually
Spent a couple years there trying to build a business um it was called called Birthday box believe it or not okay and the whole concept around this was that people go away to college uh their parents want to send them baked goods or something for their birthday but there
Really is no way at least at the time granted we graduated college in 2017 um so there’s been quite a few companies that have come out with something similar to this since then but there was no way for you know a parent to send baked goods to their kid outside of you
Know a full cake or a bunch of dessert that was both really expensive and most of it would go to waste so whole concept began around how do we send a single slice of cake in the mail that was I like it I I majored in engineering like
I was fascinated by trying to figure out how to get this to work and so I remember like junior year we went out and bought cake sliced it up shipped it in the mail and just were waiting for it to come back to see if we get this thing
To work and long story short very difficult to ship a slice of cake in the mail um we ended up partnering with some local bakeries instead and would have parents order you know know cakes through websites we would deliver them around town and we actually went as far
As to like sneak into our career fair there and set up a booth and had some people come and like sign up you know wanted to work with us and we had a mini team on campus that we were trying to build um and eventually the the main
Bakery that we were working with there kind of went out of business and you know we were obviously trying to figure out what we were going to do long term and it just didn’t end up working out but I know that through that process and
I’m sure Tyler can agree like we we knew two things one like we wanted to be entrepreneurial and two like if we ever had a business idea that we thought was you know something worth pursuing Tyler and I wanted to do it together like we have skills that complement each other
And so we had stayed in touch throughout the years I actually moved to Dallas um in 2019 Tyler now lives in Chicago and so we you know early on when we had this idea um this idea actually began kind of in covid where golf was really picking
Up I’ve been a golfer for really since high school um um and there was a whole Gap in the market in my opinion where you saw all these golf Brands developing these products that had these really fun and unique patterns and I’m sure Tyler canest anyone who’s played golf knows
That it used to be really hard to get into because it was very stuffy right a lot of dress really nice if you’re not that good you’re kind of afraid to play and over the last five to 10 years you’ve seen all these Brands really develop with these awesome fun unique
Patterns and really making golf more casual more fun and that was where this idea for chip golf Co came came about was that was happening across all these different product lines in golf and yet when I went to go buy a golf clove I could buy white I could buy a different
Shade of white and maybe if I was lucky enough I could buy black and that was basically it and so the concept started around how do we design golf gloves that are fun and how do we do it in such a way and build a company that can help
You know the greater good as well because during that time 2020 obviously Co was you know rearing its ugly head and it was just this dichotomy of people being able to play golf and have fun and yet the broader you know world around us was struggling and that was where chip
Golf co uh came about uh I did not so I I love I read your guys’ bio obviously on your site and and uh did some research uh myself before so I figured you know some of this question that I asked like I’m I figured I’d know in
Majority of it but the the backstory I want I want to back up before we go into the golf side I want to back up to this the the cake all right the the cake idea honestly I think is a fantastic idea I agree 100% because I can how many times
Like you know my birthday I went to I went to college as well and you know it was my birthday and my parents would you know want to send me something so like I got like a couple pizzas sometimes like they’ll just call like a pizza place
Nearby and you know get a pizza deliver to me and the person would write like an a Sharpie marker happy birthday on the inside of the box like it was nice you know it was cool um but the cake idea I think that’s got that has potential has companies done this I
Mean I’m out of school obviously as well too and I graduated just a year after after you guys um is there companies that have done this by now yeah probably once every other year someone sends us a message of oh look at this other company doing it now and one went pretty viral
And they loaded the box with like glitter so as soon as you open it like exploded and there was cake and then that went viral online yeah oh my gosh so we missed on that marketing stunt with it D I mean well that are I mean these guys copied you obviously I think
You guys had the first idea I mean I think everyone else copied you at this point I mean you guys are the Pioneers in the cake mail business this is we were on it we were on it early I think our execution was probably a little bit
Poor but yeah there there’s a few companies that do it now sendic cake is like the main one okay I know that I got one of those sent to my fiance for Valentine’s Day one year and the cake Shi flawlessly and like Tyler said you open it up and confetti and stuff comes
Pouring out so um I think we were on to something but uh execution might not have been up to par that’s all right that’s all right that’s awesome though all right so we we go back into the glove space and you kind of touched on
This a little bit you know like golf you know used to be in in some kind of place it is not really in some markets maybe a stuffy you know a stuffy sport U everyone you know wears the white glove tucked in shirt you know the clean shoes
And um all that all that fun Jazz but you know your guys’ gloves and your designs that you guys have come out with really helps pop and Elevate someone’s wardrobe and what they’re wearing right so where did you guys think of the designs you know how did that process
Come about like why do you guys think of certain ones and not others did you test different ones out with friends what did that process look like yeah we started with two designs it was our Texas holem was our first one and the feeling lucky was the other one
And I think and I’m trying to remember why I chose or why we chose those two designs but it was basically something that we felt was easy enough to design right you can get your different suits of cards the Clover for for feeling lucky and green is is relatively simple
They’re two color palettes that really contrast each other and pop off the white really nicely and I think we also wanted to keep in mind like what is the culture when people and friends are going out and playing golfing they like to gamble aka the poker and feeling
Lucky everyone when they’re stepping up to a par three dreams of one day having a hole in one you know soe um that was sort of what we went with were like the gambling aspect and the lucky and when we first started this out obviously we wanted to test whether these products
Would work whether it was an appetite for we had tried surveys and all that stuff and you get a rough idea of you know maybe some designs might people might like and what they might be willing to pay but you won’t actually know until you have a product out there
Ready to sell that they can buy and so that was what we decided to to move forward with and we had done a good amount of research finding a manufacturer we did you know we we say that the business started in 2022 that was the first year we’re actually
Available for sale it started as I mentioned back in 2020 when samples and all that stuff so it took us a while to find a glove that we felt really good with the quality because the only competitors that we had seen on the market at the time
A lot of the gloves were made out of either a synthetic material or a mesh or something put it on it looked cool but it just if you’ve ever play golf it just didn’t feel right and so we wanted the the really premium feel that a a
Cabretta leather kind of offers you like a Titus glove would but we also wanted the fun unique patterns that we had and so we started with just those two gloves obviously when you’re doing an initial order of a manufacturer you’ve never worked with before they tend to have a
High order quantity and you know we not wanting to to blow our life savings on two glove designs early on we kind of just started with the two and uh decided you know if this works out we’ll Branch out from there and stick with the general theme of just you know having
Fun different kind of golf gambling fun themes on the gloves but um that was sort of how those first two designs came about go was it hard for you guys to find a manufacturer you know you talked about earlier you know Brands gloves mostly were just plain white off shade
Of white maybe a black maybe a Navy if you’re lucky was it hard to find a Manu or did you have to go through multiple ones looking at samples before you found the right one I think like the sample process is the hardest part like you can
Find a handful of options online but then actually talking to someone getting doing the sample process and getting it to me that was the biggest hurdle of it because there’s so much time between every step of that process um and you’re so eager to actually get to the final
Product because we want to get it out there yeah then five more weeks and you never made an order with them so they’re a little slower than after you start making orders with them um yeah absolutely do you guys still work with the same manufactur you since day one or
Did you just ever switch or you ever look for different ones we do still work with the same one um I think as we grow obviously that’s something that you have to pay attention to having just one manufacturer is presents a challenge for a variety of
Reasons it’s been a great partner to us I mean they’ve they’ve been very communicative easy to work with we haven’t had any issu with shipments or anything I mean that was the first time that either of us have really sent you know a large chunk of money overseas to
People that you’ve never met before and yeah um you know there’s just a certain amount of risk you’re like am I ever going to see that money again is the product going to arrive how I think it’s gonna arrive um but they’ve been great and uh they’ve been a really good
Partner to us so even if we did expand we would still obviously want to continue to work with them and back to your earlier question about finding the manufacturer I think one piece of advice that I would have for anyone that’s creating a product is go look at
Products that you’re trying to model yours after and just see where they’re made like for us the high quality gloves were all made in Indonesia if you go online look at Alibaba whatever you’re gonna find a lot of Chinese manufacturers Pakistan manufacturers and it was a real struggle to find one in a
Country that we knew um leather products were a strength of theirs that was another difficult thing um but that’s again like when you find a good one you you stick with them for sure no no doubt cuz um you know little backstory before uh you know we started Cactus golf club
We also had another golf brand uh for p r and we made us golfers wallet and you know we still have you know like I can look around I’ve got probably the minimum order was a little bit way too high we were really we were ready we
Thought this was the product you know I think it could still possibly be the product we just don’t push much to be honest with you um but finding manufacturers like there was a lot of parts that went into it but the leather piece was like our final our final part
And uh it was during covid and it took forever to get the product and and the brand worked with a lot of large Brands Michael Kors uh Lucky Brand Tory bur a lot of big Brands so like ah you know this is this is the one that we need to
Partner with for sure they make quality products you know the leather producing got to be great um I mean we’re talking with the guy and then like I said Co happened and they’re like hey your minimum order of a th000 units is nothing compared to these guys who are
Buying hundreds if not millions of units of with us so you’re on the back burner here we’re going to focus on these guys so you know it’s good to find uh you know a manufacturer that you build a relationship with so when moments happen like that like you never know then Co
Comes there’s shipping issues that are starting to pop up again now you know it’s good to have those relationships with these manufacturers and build that loyalty because you never know when you’re going to be really relying on them again where they might be like you know what I like these chip golf guys
We’re going to go ahead and bump up these gloves and we’ll get to take care of them someone else can wait for this one it’s important right it’s exactly right one of one of the things that we want to do eventually too is neither of us have ever been to Indonesia we would
Love to go and actually see the manufacturing facility and meet people we’ve had a couple video calls with them but I think that’d be something in all the podcasts that I’ve listened to of different businesses that start they always mention that you know trip over
To see how it really looks is a big step in like you said building that relationship and and Trust for sure that be that probably be such an awesome experience because like you said from starting off you know you’re sending off you know wire transfer or if you’re
Going to uh I don’t know however you guys send money off I’m trying to think of what’s the uh in like grocery stores and uh like those little uh you send money to different people and companies and foreign entities T the G mid there you go there you go there you go you
Know so you’re sending you’re sending money off and like this is just an idea that started off in your head next thing you know you’re sending large amounts of money and you’re like are these guys going to scam me are they really going to give us our stuff like they’ve been
Talking really nice I like them I don’t know um so it’s it’s a frightening experience but I’m sure it’ be really cool to actually meet people actually in person face to face yeah and see the entire process of how everything is is uh is made but all right back to back to
To to the golf brand and which you guys are working on you guys also have a little bit of a charitable aspect to the brand as well too so talk a little bit more about that yeah um so again we were mentioning like starting this during
Covid uh it was important to us and especially at that time how can the company be doing good in the world as well um and golf is awesome and hopefully making everyone’s rounds more enjoyable and getting out there that is doing good in the world too but wanted to do a
Little bit more than that so yeah 10% of all the proceeds goes to different charities um and what we’re doing is partnering up Charities with designs um and hoping to continue that pattern going forward with the future designs as well um along with that once we put that
Mission um into the company a lot of events started to find us as well to donate product to those events so we’ve been trying to do that a lot to just get more involved meet more people and help as many Charities as we can even if we
Can’t donate money to all them we can donate product to events for sure absolutely and golf is such a a a easy thing and a popular thing to do for charity events different golf outings and scrambles that are you know sponsoring U any sort of Charity or
Scholarship or fund and you know we’ve get I can’t even tell you how many emails just from there they’re everywhere there’s so many outings and you want to be able to help every single one of them sometimes it’s just physically not not possible to help
Every single one of them but I love the idea of you know attaching a certain percentage of the proceeds from the gloves that go to different charitable uh organizations I think that’s really cool because you know some companies just go to one organization they just
Focus on one I like how you guys have the correspond like you said the corresponding from the design I think like one of them you guys have is like the uh I forget what the actual glove name is but it’s like the fire uh Emoji but it goes to like firefighters funds
And whatnot like I like that like that’s that’s that’s a cool comparison it’s a cool way to someone buys a new glove they get a new glove they feel good about themselves and they just helped out an organization as well at the same time like that’s such a a double win for
For the consumer and the golf club is such a unique product because it’s it’s the one product that you buy and you need to buy it in a high enough quality because it is something that you use throughout your round you know that you’re eventually gonna throw it away
Whereas if you buy a nice shirt like you most people wear those shirts for decades if they really like it but your gol you know that you’re going to use it and throw it away and so a lot of people will air on the side of maybe buying
Some cheaper gloves knowing like hey you know I’m gonna toss this away anyway why am I going to invest money into it and we wanted to change that narrative where now you know that like hey this glove that worn for 10 Rounds that has a hole
In it not only did I buy that one and it donated to charity I can now go buy another one and know that I’m going to be benefiting something else too so to make that kind of cyclical process a little bit easier on the consumer as
Well I love that I love that so let me ask you this question you know starting you know we talked about finding manufacturers and getting samples and and all that what has been the biggest lesson for you guys that you’ve had while building this
Brand so I mean I know first off off the bat given that this was one of the uh first businesses that I think Tyler and I have both actually brought to a point where you know we’re full on Advertising for it we have a website we’re devoting
A lot of time to it I think we thought that if you create a product that solves a problem it’s high quality and from everyone that we’ve talked to Consumers will like it that the consumers will just flock and find it themselves and I think that was probably the biggest
Learning lesson that we had in our first year was finding a way to acquire and um show your product to potential customers in a way that doesn’t come off as salesy but almost like solving a problem which we believe that we are in in the market
And if you can do that and you do that enough times you can create very similar to what you’ve done with cactus golf too where you kind of create this community of of people that they Vibe with your product they Vibe with your company and that’s how you get those people to
Return and spread word of mouth and to me that is the power of building a brand is know a lot of Brands if they had to acquire every customer that they got with the full force of their advertising spend it would be a lot harder for them
To be profitable they rely on creating those loyal customers that are returning and telling their friends about it and that’s something that we’ve taken a lot of pride in is creating a really high quality product that people really like they trust the mission um it’s not like something they’ve seen else on the
Market and so when they’re friends see it they’re like wow where did you get that and that’s kind of what we want to create we want to create this community of people that are in the business of you know changing the the golf glove game in Golf and and bringing Bringing
Down the uh the plain white gloves once and for all I like it I like it no I think that’s such a great answer honestly because like you said like you you you create the product you’re so excited about it day one it’s launch day you got everything the website’s all
Ready exactly how you want it you spent so much time in do it you press the publish you post it on the post to the world the ads running and you’re sitting there on the back end watching you’re watching you’re like all right someone landed on the site okay what are they
Looking at all right oh they left all right okay uh a little bit more and maybe another person comes along like it’s it’s there such a misconception that like you know people just think from day one you’re just instantly a millionaire it just is what it is and
That’s because I think maybe part of it maybe is that social media you know people are posting like you know screenshots let’s say the Shopify store they’re posting screenshots of oh we did $110,000 in one day like but you know that’s maybe their that’s in one day but that is day
1,233 for them right so you know people are only going to ever show you the highs they’re never going to show you the lows in life because it’s not attractive it’s not sexy it’s not going to get the likes on social media so I think that’s baby be part of it um but
Cuz you know people that think like oh I’m going to be an entrepreneur I’m going to drive a Lamborghini that’s how entrepreneurs they drive Lamborghinis and and rolls-royces and they have these houses and you know they can do all this but there’s so much that goes into it
And then day after day and then things that you think are going to succeed super well and you get hit in the face you’re like oh shoot that didn’t work go on to the next day let’s keep it going so I love honestly I love that answer so so much
And if you’re chasing the money like you’re chasing the wrong thing for sure for yes very obvious too and that’s why like having this charity component for us is so important because like for us building a business obviously the money is a nice thing like everyone that
Spends a lot of time want to be rewarded for that but creating something and seeing customers like find your product find it interesting enough that they’re willing to spend their hard earn money on it and not only to buy it but then they come back and leave a review and
They’re like man this the best glove I’ve ever used like that like gets me fired up right for sure 100% like there was I was clicking through like this perfect example like literally just one thing got me goosebumps and got me so excited because I was like oh my God
It’s working and like I saw I was clicking through so uh Instagram stories and I came across this one brand I think they create like um golf jerseys so they have like J um what’s a good example here uh Jordan spe where he go to Texas didn’t he go to Texas golf for
University of Texas so they’ll create like a j a Collegiate Jersey for him and then like his number is like his lowest career score or something like that so they create it’s pretty cool Jersey so I was clicking through their Instagram story and some guy was wearing it but
His hat was a cactus Golf Club hat and I was like I screenshotted that so fast I’m like oh my God it’s working this is it’s like that’s something that we didn’t post this was someone else like it was just a random person wearing it like holy holy CRA it’s it’s happening
Right now but my God like that doesn’t happen very often at all but man when it does happen it’s the greatest feeling in the world greatest I’m still waiting on like we all remember you know the first sale we made the first review We I’m still waiting on the time that I’m out
Golfing on a course and I see a random playing with one of our gloves 100% I mean that is gonna get me so fired up oh 100% oh th I mean yes a million times yes because like you know you’ve got we have friends and family that are
Supportive right I know people will go to buy your glove because they know you guys they support you guys same thing with us we’ve got friends and family that know us that they want to support us I love that that’s that’s fantastic but when there’s that random person that
You just happen to come across that doesn’t even know you and they’re supporting you man that’s got holiday season like people were buying put it under their tree like the fact that someone’s getting that Christmas and it’s like part of their Christmas experience 100% that it’s so cool or
Even the fact that these people went to work and spent some part of their time of their lives that is limited they earned money and bought it use that money to buy your glove like just the little stuff like people you know like you said your people that chase that
Chase the the money um learn quickly that the the money is not the root of all happiness it’s not the it’s not the end goal it’s it’s a great thing to to have and makes I don’t even know if it makes life easier probably makes life more difficult in some aspects to be
Honest but you know those little moments where like the what started as an idea in your head like I’m going to create these gloves they’re going to look different than everyone else there people are going to enjoy them and then you see it actually start to come into
Fruition people are buying it the sight’s up you know or start from the beginning you find a manufacturer you’re sending the money away it’s a little scary you’re like and is it the product going to be as good as the samples it might not be we might be losing some
Money on this are they scamming us you start getting the product like okay you know check that looks pretty cool then you post the site you start running the ads you’re spending your money that you worked hard for to try and build this you know and then next thing you know
Day after day it compounds slowly one after the other next thing you know this is it definitely a big aspect of you just build up momentum like that it just keeps on going like there’s times in the past year like uh we need to optimize
Our ad spend we’re not going to turn on ads at all this week or a couple weeks in a row and people started to still come and buy gloves and it’s like returning customers who like the product and like oh you build up that momentum and then own thing it’s like the freight
Train that you can’t stop it you just keep going with it compound interest baby it’s it’s the greatest thing ever because people take for granted like everyone’s goal is to go viral right everyone wants to go viral and next thing you know they post a Tik Tok and
They’ve got a million views everyone’s on their site you know everyone wants that you know don’t get wrong like it’s nice to have don’t get me wrong I’m not you know not put that in in the universe at all but the the most that’s not but
The thing is too with that is it’s nice to have but it’s not stable right yeah yeah it’s it’s it doesn’t happen every week you know it’s once in a blue moon is when it happens so you really don’t get too much from it like
Yeah you get that one sale but you know you don’t have that time to get feedback from consumers because now you’ve got you know 10,000 100,000 people on your site let’s just say crazy example you really blow up and what if you weren’t ready at that time that point in time
Now you just had 10 100,000 people who have a bad first impression you know so now it’s going to be even longer for them to even come back and check you out again so those dayby day one cuple person at a time those comments that you have on Instagram someone comments on
Your post you’re comenting back with them next thing you know you they’re they’re following you next thing you know they’re going to your site next thing you know they’re buying the glove they’re wearing it they’re telling another friend now that person’s coming on and it’s people take that for granted
So much it takes a long time don’t get me wrong takes so much time but that is the most secure and stable way to grow a business by far yeah and you might only get one opportunity to impress yeah customer and you know it’s funny you speak about the viral stuff like we’ve
Definitely tried our hand at viral content so difficult kind of did but on the wrong thing we went V Randall made a viral Tik Tok but about football golf wrong audience wrong audience barely about golf um yeah like that that like every component of this business has been its own learning curve
Right like yeah I thought oh I’m gonna go on Tik Tok and show these gloves that have never been seen before and people are going to be like sharing it and stuff but if you come off as salesy people just scroll right past like people go on Tik Tok to be entertained
And the best products in the world go on there and they entertain people they solve a problem and as a result those people coming by yep yeah we we just try and have fun if you want to see me make a fool myself on Tik Tok check us out at
Chip golfco but yeah it’s not either of Tyler eyes Forte I’ll say that but honly it’s the best to be organic because if you’re salesy or if you come off as fake people can read that immediately like if I scroll more time I’ve spent on a video
The worst they’ve done and I know you and talked about this Matt like the best had was like the one that you just ripped a video and threw it up there a th% it’s so true like I will spend like something seriously it’s it’s so crazy
You spend so much time and effort on editing the video and getting the captions right or should I try this color instead of that color as the text and then you post it and it’s got like maybe a 100 views and then something that you just like oh I gota make a Tik
Tok post today you’re laying in bed you’re like I just put this up real quick you post it you wake up in the morning like oh my God this blew up like what how did this even blow up right now it makes no sense it literally makes no
Sense so we had go viral was like you know took me all of five minutes to make and we had one video that I you know cut it together took me a while had Tiger Woods in it we were promoting our our tiger glove yep texted Tyler before I
Posted I said if this doesn’t go viral I literally don’t know what will like it’s Tiger Woods he’s coming back we’re promoting the tiger glove like how does this not work radio silence it’s crazy dude it’s such it’s so you know we went to um an event uh
Out here a few weekends ago there was a a golf small golf ball brand and another golf podcast uh that uh we we’re good friends with and they came out here and had a night golf event and they brought on brought super cool event but they
Brought and invited like a bunch of like golf I hate this word but influencers or popular people in the space and we’re just talking with a bunch of people and uh you know that was like the a long at least like 20 minutes of like the 30
Minutes that we were like sitting there waiting to to tea off like to like we’re all just talking and having a good time we were talking about just social media and just like how you can just it’s so hard to predict like one guy was like
He’s like all right I think I figured out Instagram he goes I don’t like it but I think it works like if you buy the verified badge he goes I think Instagrams treats you better goes I bought it the badge next thing you know My Views are starting to go everyone’s
Just trying to figure it out but literally no one knows man no one has any idea or any control as to when you’re going to go viral but like that’s everyone’s goal is like how do I get more eyeballs cuz at the end of the day
That’s that’s how you grow as a as a brand too is eyeballs you want to get many eyeballs on you as possible but again like we talked about it’s a slow and steady and steady Pace but it’s such a weird social media is it’s a it’s a
It’s a great great thing to have but it’s so weird like back in the day newspaper and radio and some Billboards man that just sounds so much easier right now but there probably was so much intricacies to that that we probably don’t even know about like are there
More people coming down I 10 East or I 10 west is this the Good checkpoint like I’m sure there’s it’s probably the same thing honestly but it’s such a I don’t know you hit the nail where it’s like the algorithms are changing all the time Tyler I have talked about
It’s like how do we build a business that if social media disappeared tomorrow like we’d still be around and that’s one of the things I love about what you’re doing too is like you’re building this community of followers like they know what you’re about I’m sure you’re getting a lot of Word of
Mouth advertising well and that’s how you create a sustainable business and driving repeat customers because if you have to keep going back to the well to get new customers it’s just it’s a challenge it’s expensive too very very expensive to to acquire new customers and that was like my
Probably that was another question I have and you kind of answered a little bit before was like what’s the one thing that’s been that surprised you while building this brand and acquiring a customer for me was the the biggest surprise it was like how expensive it is
It’s so expensive to for for social media like you know you can like some ads to acquire a customer you think like all right I got a golf glove uh let’s say you price it at $24.99 like this is the this is the glove to be this is it
This gives us some pretty healthy margins you know you got to factor in okay maybe we’ll offer free shipping so we’ll just take that cost out of it and this is how much it costs to make the glove so that leaves us $144 let’s just
Say for example and then you post the ad and you’re like one conversion cost you $15 like I’m I’m minus a dollar on this one sale like what the heck this is crazy this is nuts like it that was such an eye opener and I’m sure you guys
Could probably say the same thing yeah and we want to be competitive on price you know too and yeah sometimes you just have to swallow your pride and know that when you’re starting out you just can’t compete with these people who are able to order in the quantities and have the
You know the share of voice that they have compared to us and so you have to separate yourself on different things and that’s kind of why we’ve leaned into more of the quality and designs and our price point is still very competitive with the premium products I think it’s
That you know it is a premium product it’s going to last you a long time it’s gonna feel quality but you know we’re not going to be able to beat the the Kirkland three for 15 that they got going on at Costco no yeah no doubt and like there’s there’s a supplement brand
That that I really enjoy but it’s so expensive like I can buy like just say creatine for example at some Walmart for like $15 I pay like $40 because I love the brand I love the brand I love everything it stands for I love everything that they do so I’m G to
Spend the money because I want to support them like that’s and that’s such a hard thing like you know when you’re starting off as a brand and you have no one like you’ve got you’re starting from day one people are going to people are immediately going to criticize you like
Why are you charging $30 for your glove when I can go buy three for 15 at at Costco like they’re immediately going to judge you on that but it’s like all right that’s not my customer well at least not right now maybe he’s not my customer going to move on like someone’s
Going to realize like okay like I’m paying for Quality here like this is great quality and not only that like these guys are personal like I I I enjoy I enjoy them I I enjoy the content they put out you I enjoy interacting with them so I want to support them that’s
How small brands are are made I mean that’s that’s that’s how it is that’s how that works and it’s so hard as a small business owner starting from day one to get that Concept in your head because you want to be competitive you want to be Amazon I’m going to ship two
The same day right away get it out the door as fast as possible because that’s it’s it’s competitive out there like everyone’s going to compare you to someone else and there’s just some things you just know you’re going to have to take the loss on you just be
Like that’s not what I’m focusing on like that’s out the door that’s someone else they they’re good at that I’m going to be good at this this is what I’m going to be good at and for small businesses customer service that’s a a big win for small businesses because you
Go to large ones and most large companies They Don’t Really Care you’re just you’re just a cog in the machine you’re just a number for them they they don’t care but those small businesses that write a little handwritten note on in the on their on their order when you
Open it that’s cool like that those relationships like that that you build that’s that’s how you separate yourself as a small business that’s that’s free that just takes some time out of your day to write a little letter that’s nothing those big Brands they got to pay
Someone to do that like that they got to pay for that you the customer experience is a way to is a way to be able to elevate yourselves definitely and what you’re saying of like the focus part of it knowing what you want to focus on what you’re going to make important
About your company and your brand it’s like for us it’s very tempting to go say oh maybe we’ll make other types of apparel or we’ll start doing who knows what but like we know we to focus because we want to be the best at golf clubs and we’re going to focus on
Continuing to make that quality really good and good customer service yep but we just need to focus on that and continue to grow our brand around that good for sure and it’s hard to focus on it too because like you you want to be a like you have this like your brain
Tricks you it’s like all right we’re going to start with gloves and then we’re going to go to apparel and then we’re going to go these hats and then these belts and the next thing you know we’re going to be signing PGA Tour players they’re going to be wearing our
Stuff and like your brain starts tricking you because like you get so excited you like visualize all of this but you’re like no no no Slow Down slow down like that’s that’s the master plan right like can focus on where you’re at right now like focus on the dayto day
That’s take some time it’s going to get there CU like I’m I’m guilty of that so much and you have to like ground yourself after a while because it’s like you can just get out of hand like all right so you know next year we’re going
To start do doing our own stuff and making our own products and so now you start into manufacturers it’s like yo yo yo hang on focus on right now like you focus on keep building up your inventory like that that’s what’s important right now like it’s your brain like it’s you
Get so exciting that’s what it is honestly then the day it’s so exciting if you’re passionate about it and you enjoy it it just it’s it makes it so much easier no doubt but you mentioned it before so I you mentioned it a little bit ago and I talked about this more do
You guys is your vision eventually to Branch away like not Branch away but to start branching into different golf products apparel or other accessories is that the you know the long-term goal I think we want to make sure we are number one in golf gloves and as can we
Have the top quality golf glove that is not an all white glove that brings fun to the course does good like we want to be goto for that no second guessing that yeah um but like you’re saying it’s hard not to think about expanding it with that same quality to other
Things um but I think we have a little time before we want to be expanding into other products for sure add there too is like the golf industry is huge right and there’s all these little niches in the golf industry that if you can find a way
To dominate that you’re gonna be just fine yeah I think when buying a golf glove online is not traditional I know I personally have not done it outside of you know recently because I’ve been doing uh this but usually I buy it when I when I need it yeah and it’s usually
At a golf course or at a PJ Superstore or something like that and so if somebody is looking for a golf glove online I think they really want to buy it from a place that they know for example like us if we’re only selling golf gloves that they specialize in it
That it’s gonna be Body Glove um that it’s not just an afterthought it’s not just another product that they can get me to add on it check out and I think if you start to add these other products because the golf club is known as an accessory it kind of drifts into the
Background now people are going there for your shirts you know your accessories whatever and then golf gloves are short of an afterthought they get added to cart and that might not be what you’re after now granted you’re already getting the customer to come to your website it’s a lot cheaper to do so
If you have higher price products more products you can convert them at a higher rate higher order value like all that stuff is undoubtedly important we think there’s a way to do that within the golf glove space um and that’s what we’re going to continue focus on I love
It I love have you guys ever you know we talked about advertising a lot and inquiring customers have you guys done or have maybe in the future any sort of like influencer you know sponsors ambassadors or whatever you want to call them nowadays have you thought have you
Done it before or you thought about doing it so we we’ve done a few um it’s something we definitely want to get better at I think the challenge with the influencers is that you have to make it um advantageous for them and compel them to actually want to push the product yeah
Easier when you have a high- pric product you have a lot of margin you can share a lot of that with the with the influencer for us like it’s a lower pric product margins are okay and so for an influencer to sort of make their time
Worth their while they have to move in our estimation a pretty decent amount of product and so Target a lot more micro influencers for that exact reason you know people that are trying to get their foot in the door they’re product support them um there’s undoubtedly value in in just
Having broader range exposure um something that we definitely want to focus on but I think just what from what I know of other companies and other businesses that rely on the influencers especially now I think influencers early on the return on investment there was very high I think now it’s so saturated
That it’s just it’s hard I mean people are so used to going on social media and you can’t really go on there without feeling like you’re getting sold left and right yeah and makes consumers at least for me and a few people I’ve talked to like less inclined to want to
Buy from those influencers because of that and so I think that route is just it’s it’s difficult again the whole point of coming off salesy versus organic yeah us like if you are in a big video and they just so happen to be wearing your product and all of a sudden
People are in the comments like what is that where did they get that that’s the exposure that you want sure going on they’re being like hey and then they try and convince you that they’re not making any money when they’re trying they obviously are you know I me 100%
And like do you guys see a lot of influencers asking for money up front or Commission on products I’ve been surprised to me the the P the majority are asking for some amount of money up front 100 I I get that all the time all the time and my biggest thing is like
Usually one of two things there’s my thought either I’m going after someone too big that they’re you know we’re too small to them for them it’s just like I want money then at that point cuz they don’t really know what we’re what we can possibly do for them in commission let’s
Just say for an example and then that’s one thought and other thought is too is like they probably don’t even believe In Their audience because if they’ve got a powerful audience that like really enjoys them and takes their words serious and like what they talk about then they would know know that Their
Audience would follow suit and they would want the commission they know that long term they probably would be doing much better on that that’s always my thought process when I think about it is like either I messed up this person doesn’t have that good of an audience
That’s usually what I think when someone asks for money up front yeah and if you’re an influencer I mean it’s it’s a way for you to make money and not have to guarantee anything it’s like if if you’re directly if your pay is directly tied to the success of you selling the
Product which is obviously what companies like us want yeah likely means you have to put in a little bit more work you kind of have to guarantee some of the stuff that you’re talking about and not just you know spewing numbers like oh I get this much exposure and
This many Impressions and yeah average s percentages this it’s like well prove it you know what I mean 100% again the whole point of like the influencer space expanding so much is as many good ones as there are there’s a lot of fake ones too well that’s yes that was my next
Thing I was going to say is that’s so true like like you can go people can it’s the Bots are crazy number one and people can just go like people to all the time but it’s so true they people just go buy followers like you literally
Can just go buy followers or next thing you know you’ve got 20,000 followers and you look so big and this BigTime influencer what do you guys look for like if you’re going to you know try and find an influencer that you know want to uh share your glove with what do you
Look for in that in that person like do you look at you know the type of glove they have now or Partnerships they have now do you look like what type of content they post like what does that process look like I think a quick filter
For me has been scrolling like a month or two back and seeing how many likes they had on photos not just the most recent six or nine photos but a few back and if it was not 10 yeah or something for sure that’s been a quick filter I
That that one for sure why I love love to do is comments to me if if you if your audience is commenting on your post like it’s super quick for me just to go bam like hit the little heart button and I’m moving on to the next post but for
Me to sit there press the comment button and actually type a comment and press post that takes a little bit more time so if your audience is commenting on your your content and you’re commenting back with them and having good conversation I love influencers to have a community that’s going to be
Commenting back on their post cuz likes are other thing that can be a little scary too cuz people can next thing you know they’re buying likes and followers and it no you you they can but you can tell if they someone buys Comics you can tell
Where it’s like promote on so and so and like it there there’s so much or those those Bots are pretty easy to tell but foret something that I always look at is is the comments but I like like what you said too is like don’t look at the most
Recent or the pin post cuz they’re only going to show you what the what they want to show you like scroll down a little bit like and see to like are they just heavily pushing like all these random Brands because it’s not going to come across as organic you know if
They’re posting a different golf glove you know company once a week it’s like okay dude like stick with one at least that’s not really endorsing which brand you like the quality of or you’re really into for sure your image it just gets kind of reputation I should say just
There’s something I could think of top of my head right now that I I love the guy he’s such a great dude but like every week it’s a different brand like that’s sending him stuff and he’s posting content and he makes good content but it’s like dude you’re if I’m
Your follower I’m following you like you know I don’t know like I don’t want to switch Brands all the time like if you’re want to be an influencer and influence people like stick with one like stick with a couple like I’m going to do Callaway for clubs or then I’m
Going to do something else for a pair I don’t know whatever it is like like don’t be posting you know six different golf ball Brands within a month like Jesus dude I don’t know I mean we obviously look for engagement as Tyler mentioned that that’s a huge component
But I think too like outside of just promoting our actual products that we have we actually often look for people and that have brands that might even be outside of the golf space immediately that would be potential good collaboration Partners to design a glove with them in mind I know Tyler’s had a
Few really creative ideas that I don’t know if he feels like teasing those right now but um people that you wouldn’t necessarily correlate with golf but like you said they have a very loyal following yeah they do really well they sort of have a brand that may or may not
Be involved with golf and hey if they play golf or at least have demonstrated a willingness to to play golf that’s as much our our clientele as anybody 100% I love the collabs is huge and like especially collabs like you said not in the same space like one brand who does
It extreme ex L well is pins and ases do you know any other content at all like they they do such fantastic collabs Teenage Mutant nja Turtles they just had one with Zippo lighters they had one with um uh Baby Ruth candy bars like they’ve got like no nowhere in the golf
Space at all are any of these brands that they’re partnering with but they’ve got icy Slurpees like such random ones but people love their stuff and they I don’t know they do a good job with it are you going to tease it are you going to tease some ideas that you have yeah
In case he’s listening to the podcast I’m trying to get in touch with Joey Chestnut the champion because we have a hot dog them glove coming out so I love it I yeah I hope he’s listening and he can or if someone listening knows Joey chesin it would help everyone on the
Podcast if you could just find a way to get his ears to listen to this you know we gotta we gotta figure it out we got to clip this this this part of the uh the podcast right here and we post it we’re going to tag them I’ll have
Everyone in the group go to the post and everyone’s going to be tagging Joey Chestnut we’re just GNA blow it up man we’re just going to blow it up until eventually someone just uh comments back I did that recently with uh um Range goats the golf club from Liv they did a
Bunch of Trades that made no sense to me like they got rid of um uh what’s his name uh oh my God he just won three times last year on Liv got Matt wolf didn’t they they got Matt wolf that was like one of the trades that made no
Sense that it was like Harold Varner for Matt wolf and I was like that one makes no sense but they got rid of Taylor gu for someone else and I forgot who it was and I I like added them and I was like this makes no sense and I clip the cont
The podcast from it and then I posted it in the group and I was like hey can you guys just go over like I copyed the link I’m like just tag range goats into the into the comments and they ended up dming me uh about it too so I was like
This is this like they’re like more details will be revealed later like just it was worth the it was worth it don’t worry and I was like I don’t know man then I so I threw it at him too I was like what are the odds we can get Bubba
On the podcast like they’re like then they responded back and they’re like what live live event are you going to and I was like okay all right so maybe we maybe we’ll get Bubba on the podcast pretty soon but you know that works like you know people just spamming you know
The at on uh Joey last night I think we can get him I think we can get him for you guys like really Niche really people only talk about him like one day out of the Year 100% like 100% you don’t see any of his highlight reels isn’t it
Fourth Fourth of July is always the yeah so he’s like one of the greatest athletes ever like the most undefeated athlete ever most decorated 100% I love it I love it well guys we’ll end it there uh I got nothing else for no other questions that uh that
I had um really appreciate both of you guys for being I really really do I love talking to to the smaller brands that are just getting started and and getting their foot in the door and learning we bounce ideas off each other and have good the passionate conversations like I
Really really enjoy it so again just really appreciate you guys for taking time out of your day and and having this conversation uh where can everyone go and follow you guys or learn more about your guys’ golf clubes yeah so you can you can check us out on
Our website at chip golf cod.com we’re also on all forms of social media just at chip golfco um so feel free to to drop us a follow check out our gloves um and and follow along because we’re going to be releasing some new awesome gloves
This summer so um stay tuned I love it I love it well again appreciate you guys and for you guys listening please go check them out you really excited I’m going to get my hands on some of these gloves to you pretty soon so I’m going
To give a test ride as well but uh I really appreciate again you guys for for coming on appreciate you guys for listening make sure you guys like comment subscribe leave a review share with your friends and we’ll see you next week
