Boutique Chat #040 | Protecting Original Work with Trademarks, Copyrights & Licensing Agreements

Get ready for episode number 40 with Mike Satterfield of RBR Wholesale and Original Cowgirl clothing Company. Let's talk about your business strategy and the juicy details of what actually works, from mainstream fashion to fashion on Main street and the entire ecosystem behind it. How do we scale your company and do it with the balance and the happiness that we all seek? Let's hear from those insiders, experts and strategists that actually make it happen. I'm your host, Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub, and I can't wait to chat. Hey, guys, I hope you have a notebook ready for this week's podcast episode, because we're visiting with someone today who I value his opinion and insight so much in this industry. He's seen it for a number of years from so many different angles. Today, Mike Satterfield and I are going to talk about a big topic that's impacting not only wholesale brands and makers, but also boutiques inside of our industry. And that's the topic of copyright issues, trademark infringement, and licensing agreements. We're going to talk about what you need to know as a wholesale brand, but also as a boutique owner carrying original work from these wholesale brands. We're also going to talk about what it means to have a licensing agreement so that you can carry branded merchandise like big company names and logos, college sports teams, you name it. Because there's a lot of misconceptions out there in the industry, then we're going to dive into something that I'm not sure many people know about Mike, and that is that Mike has a double life, if we can call it a double life as an influencer. And he's an influencer in the automotive industry. Now, if you follow his account, the Gentleman Racer, you're going to see all kinds of cool experiences, fast cars, and everything you need to know about what's trending in automotive. So Mike's going to take us behind the scenes as an influencer and talk about the contracts that he has in place, how to value ROI when you're working with an influencer, and what's the best way to go about finding an influencer to work with in your business. He'll also let us know what it's been like at RBR Wholesale and Original Cowgirl as people have reached out to their company to ask about being an influencer on their behalf. So get ready, take some notes. I love visiting with Mike. If you joined us last year at Western Summit, you got to see him on a panel. And if I can be a spoiler in case you haven't seen the news this year, Mike's going to be back again to dive even deeper into some of these business topics at the 2019 Western Summit. So, guys, please help me welcome my friend, Mike Satterfield.

Hey, guys.

Welcome to the show this week. I am so excited for what you.

Are about to hear because not only today are we going to talk about a great story of a brand that's been around this industry for a long time and sees how the industry is unfolding before us. But we're also going to dig into some key takeaways around trademarks and copyrights and licensing agreements, along with tips for working with influencers. So, as we dig in, I can't wait to introduce you to Mike Satterfield with RBR Wholesale, Red Barn Ranch. Mike, thanks for being with me today.

Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here, man.

So you and I have had. I'm trying to think the first time we really had a conversation probably more than a year and a half ago, you've been a member of the Boutique Hub. You joined us to speak at Western Summit, and I always appreciate our conversations because you've got such a great perspective on the industry.

Well, thanks. Yeah. I mean, I really appreciate everything you guys do at the Boutique Hub and kind of creating this awesome forum for us to interact and connect with brands and boutiques and everyone. It's been a really great experience working with you guys, man.

I appreciate that. And your foresight in terms of what's happening is just. It's great, great information to have and great conversations that we've had about it. As we dig into two key topics that I know you have a lot of thoughts around today, I want to just give kind of some backstory about your business, about your family business, and how you guys came to the spot that you are today. So do you mind kind of laying that framework of RBR and. And what it is?

Sure, of course. Well, RBR actually started out back in about 1985, so I was 4 when my mom started the company. And it was mostly a retail kind of home decor, western kind of themed store that was actually in a converted barn on our old ranch in California. So my mom did like retail events and things like that. And then as she kind of started growing the business, she started producing more things and people started buying them for their boutiques. And then I guess it'd be in the mid to late 90s, it kind of switched over to a full wholesale business and we closed down the retail Store. In that time period I had gone to college, you know, gone starting career in the automotive industry. And then around I guess 2005, she started selling and reselling western clothing through her wholesale business. And I kind of got involved in designing some of it because I kind of figured how hard could it be? It's really hard. But we started designing some of our own clothes and launched in 2007 with the brand original cowgirl and, and Morgan's, a Phillips speed shop. And yeah, it kind of just grew from there. Now we're, you know, we're located in California and Texas, making a move to Texas. And we've been around the industry for a long time in the apparel side and the retail side. And it's really been kind of interesting to see it change from really a person to person printing catalogs and all that to a pretty much 100% online business.

I was. That was going to be. My next question is. I mean you and I, we've. We've been around each other at a number of shows, you know, Dallas, Denver, and I'm curious your thoughts just on how the industry has changed, you know, especially in the last three to five years and kind of where you see that moving next.

Yeah, I mean like I said, it's. It's really migrated to basically a fully online business. There isn't really a whole lot of, you know, the need of the shows as much anymore. I mean they're still important. It's great to have that face time. We love interacting with our customers. But the fashion industry about 10 years ago released, started moving to that fast fashion model and the western especially side was always a few years behind that. But it's kind of in full swing now. I mean Western's gone mainstream so you have that fast fashion aspect of competing with, you know, bigger chains like the Buckle that are very western and Boot Barn, which is a western store and they're coming out with new products consistently. So it's really upped the pace and the turnaround time for development and creating products that we'd never really seen before. So it's been a big shift and a big change for the whole industry.

Yeah, how have you guys adapted to that? I mean, what shows are you still currently showing at and how are you approaching new customer acquisition and serving your existing customers?

Well, we've pulled back a lot on the actual physical trade shows. We're doing more of a kind of strategic visiting certain regions and mixing our shows up. So like we might do a Billings, Montana show one year and then another Year doing Atlanta and, and it's really more about just visiting with our existing dealers that are in those regions and just getting them that FaceTime. But essentially all of our orders are almost all done through some form of Internet. We do have a couple customers still fax us over orders and stuff like that, but for the most part everything's online. And the boutique hub has been a huge part of finding new customers and just connecting through the Facebook group and things like that, which is where so much business is happening now. I mean, we have business happening through Facebook and Instagram, Twitter even, and through our own website.

You were telling me earlier that you even launch your new arrivals. I mean, you go right to Instagram, which I think is so interesting for a wholesale model because even some brands are so secretive about releasing their products. They don't want anyone else to see what's new. You know, only their customers. But you, you've really taken the bull by the horns and just let it, you know, it is what it is. Like you want your customers to see it first, generate excitement and you know, what's the old saying? Do it first, do it best.

Exactly. And you know, we, we have so many of our wholesale buyers that follow us on Instagram and since we're releasing new product pretty much every single month, I mean there's something new coming out. We have to have the stuff turned around and quick and have the photos ready. Because what we do is when we launch something, we have a photo database for our customers so they can have access to those lifestyle photos right away and start promoting and selling product. And especially like our drop ship customers, things like that, we have to have all that stuff pretty much ready to go so they can put it on online and start making sales right away again. It's a quick turnover. It's not seasonal like it used to be.

Yeah. Would you say, I mean, just because you've seen so much evolution in your own business, if there's one thing you would go back and ever do differently, what would that be?

Well, we probably would have moved out of California a lot sooner just because we kind of ran out of space in California and base in California is expensive. So we did enjoy. We are enjoying building our new building out and getting all that set up here in Texas. But other than that, I mean there's really not a whole lot of different that we would have done. I mean, it's been kind of a play by ear and go with the ebb and flow of things. So the industry has shifted so much. I mean, hindsight's always 20 20. There's stuff that we know now that we didn't know a few years ago that would have been nice to know. But in the moment, I mean, it's just kind of a reaction to what's happening and trying to respond to trends as fast as possible.

Yeah, let's kind of shift gears a little bit. I know you work with a ton of retailers all over the US and I'm sure all over the world as well, if there is something you would say that your most successful retailers have in common, you know, do you think you can draw those lines between their success and tips for those who are listening?

Yeah, I mean, I think the. The biggest thing that our top retailers have is they have their own identity of their boutique. And we. They found products that we have because we have a large range of products that, that really fit their identity and they stay true to that more than just chasing every trend and ending up with this gigantic sale rack full of stuff that didn't really connect with their audience because they didn't buy stuff that really fit their core kind of, I guess, demographic or their core beliefs or style or whatever they were known for. So I think that our top stores really have an aesthetic that they carry through not only their design, but their photography, the types of products they carry, the way they do their flat lays, the way they interact with their customers. It has a consistency to it. And I think that's probably the biggest thing that if you can find not only your niche, but really have a consistent way of presenting your brand and your branding, it's going to make a huge difference in your business.

Man, you're spot on. And you don't even know this, but you segue perfectly into one of the key points I want to talk about today. Because I think whether you're a brand or a retailer, being original and knowing your customer and serving them first is the most important thing you can do. But unfortunately, in the world of social media, it's created a lot of really lazy business owners that have watched other people climb to success and then all they want to do is copy it and knock it off. Right. And it's all about turning things for a quick buck and seeing what someone else is doing and slapping it on a T shirt yourself and trying to go down that same road. So could you kind of talk to me about, you know, this is something we talk about in the boutique hub quite a bit because we're trying to raise the bar ethically. You know, the standards in the industry. Tell me what you're seeing, you know, in this same playing field of all these copyright trademark issues and people just trying to make a quick buck.

Well, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's always been an issue. I mean, in the industry if someone comes up with something that's popular and it gets copied. The difference is now technology has made it to where almost anybody can purchase a at home, direct to garment type printer or a vinyl cutter and make knockoffs of, of products fairly quickly. And now you have the added issue of overseas manufacturers that are jumping in in a big way and putting a lot of money into like Facebook ads and things like that, where they'll literally take your intellectual property, the actual photo that you took of your product, and then run a Facebook ad and sell it directly against you for, you know, 10, 20, 30% of your actual cost. I mean, we've seen some of our shirts pop up in these ads and they're selling them for $9. And you know, then we're getting people contacting us, upset that they've ordered a shirt from us that they paid $9 for. And it's been three months. So it's, it's a really interesting place we're in now because intellectual property is so important, especially in building a brand. But it's kind of like the wild west on the Internet when it comes to dealing with these different brands and people overseas.

Yeah. And in case anyone's listening and they aren't yet familiar with this, I mean, these are because I'm naming names here, but Bella Lily, Fairy Season, they get reported so much on Facebook, they're constantly changing their name to something new or have 10 accounts under the same name. But I think it's something we have to stand together and also educate our customers on. So they, like you said, you know, if your customers are coming to you and complaining, they have to understand the major quality difference that they're going to receive there too.

Oh yeah. I mean, and that's the thing, is that they're using your branding and your products and photos of your actual good, high quality stuff and selling an inferior product. And it goes beyond that because we see this a lot in the industry where people are, you know, using other branded things. Like the big Louis Vuitton craze we've all seen has been super popular. And some of that's on the edge of like, you know, is it art and a one off. And some of it is, you know, definitely trademark violation where you're cutting up Louis Vuitton fabric materials that could or could not be real. And you're making your own jewelry and cuffs and hat patches out of them. And it's one of those things that you just have to understand that you're, you're playing with fire. And I, I know retailers that have had, you know, Marshall show up at their, their place of business and seize their, their computers and their records and freeze their bank accounts because they were selling essentially counterfeit goods that were being traded on someone else's trademark.

Yeah, we've heard a number of those instances in the Boutique Hub as well. And I think you're absolutely right. You have to come down to asking yourself if it's worth it at the end of the day, you know, with what could happen. Because I believe we're just at the beginning of a major crackdown that's going to happen on the Internet because this has been going on like the wild, wild west for far too long. You agree?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And you're seeing, you know, more and more cease and desist letters going out. You're seeing a lot more brands getting involved in licensing and working with larger companies. We work with several different brands for doing licensed apparel and license production of apparel for them. And it's, it's a, it's, it's a process that, that takes a lot more. A lot of work to do licensing correctly. But it's a way that one prevents you from being on the hook legally for what can be tens of thousands of dollars in fines, plus whatever profit you made, other expenses like lawyers and things like that. But it also, it gives you legitimacy and it gives your brand and your store legitimacy when someone walks in and you're selling them a product that is, let's say, like our Golf, our Golf oil products that are officially licensed by Golf, they have that golf oil sticker on them and they can look it up on the Golf website and see that it is an approved product that has some value to people as opposed to, well, yeah, I just buy these patches overseas and throw them on hats and, and we, we sell them and we're not paying anyone who owns that intellectual property. It just, it just gives you an air. Legitimacy and it gives you a standard of product too, because all of our products that we do with licensing companies have to be approved by them, have to meet minimum product quality standards. And we get audited randomly for sending them products so they can pull them out of the line and see what the quality is to make sure that we're keeping to those standards.

Man, let's, let's talk more about this because I think that there's a lot of misconceptions here when it comes to licensing and what you can and cannot take in print on goods. Let's give a couple examples I know you and I have talked about previously, even in Facebook messages of things that we've seen people post Disney characters.

Yeah.

Pictures of famous people, say, like Dolly Parton or George Strait or Johnny Cash.

Is a big one. John Wayne. Those are all big ones.

Yeah, yeah. Can you kind of break down like, what is the line. What's the line in the sand of what can be printed, what can't be printed, and what do you need to do to go about licensing?

Well, I mean, the kind of baseline thing you should ask yourself is, did I create this? And if the answer is no, you're probably in trouble. You're probably not going down the right path. Because, you know, a lot of people seem to be under the misconception that if I Google an image and find it on Google, that image is now free for me to use. That may not be the case. There's images that are uploaded for editorial value. There's images that are uploaded under license. There's images that are. Are granted license for stories and things like that that are not then becoming public domain. And I think that's one thing that people misunderstand. Just because something is available publicly and you can download.