Episode 105: Retail Phenomenon Marine Layer and Their Journey to Custom with Andrew Graham

Welcome to Skucast, the podcast for entrepreneurs in the promotional products industry. Skucast shines a light on our industry's best work, features maverick personalities, and discusses what's really involved in running a modern promotional products business. Skucast is the official podcast of Common Skew.

And so what's the quickest way for me to get a sales force? Utilize the sales force that exists in the industry already, right? And I would gladly— and I still believe this— I would gladly give up that 35 to 40% margin all day for access to the companies that we have access to now that we would never have had access if I was trying to do that directly.

Marine Layer, a retail phenomenon founded in 2009 known for their absurdly soft shirts, now has a corporate apparel division led by Andrew Graham, Director of Custom Products. Andrew sits down with Mark Graham, Commenscue's co-founder and Chief Platform Officer, to share the story of what led to the custom products division, the rewards and challenges of entering the market, and details about their soon-to-be-launched recycling program and more. Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, the Chief Content Officer at Commenscue. We just wrapped up our first Sessions conference in Dallas, the industry's one-day conference for distributors who want to ignite their sales growth. On behalf of the team Thank you to all who came to the conference. We had a full house. We had a great time. Andrew Crowe with Flywheel Brands said this: One thing I loved about Common Skew Sessions was the underlying theme of how my clients are the hero of the story, and it is my job to guide them to success. From Catherine's session to attracting new leads, to Samantha's session on converting leads into customers, the overall heartbeat presented was to meet our prospects and clients where they are and seek to promote them through creative solutions. The beauty of sessions was that they nailed what I believe is one of the purposes of life, and And that is seeking to help people while doing it in a fun and creative way. Thanks, Andrew, for your comment. And again, thanks to all who came out. We have 3 more conference sessions coming up in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. You can learn more at commonskusesessions.com. And as a reminder, we released the schedule and session details for SKU Camp being held in Pittsburgh, September 22nd through 25th. We have limited availability. We encourage you to visit skucamp.com to check it out. And this episode is brought to you by Commonsku, the platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. Begin your free trial now at commonskew.com. And next week we'll start our new series of Q&A inside the SkewCast. If you have a question about commissions, hiring, sales, marketing, whatever you're curious about, email me at bobby@commonskew.com. We'd love to feature your question. And now to today's episode featuring Andrew Graham with Marine Layer and your host, Mark Graham.

And it's a great pleasure to welcome Andrew Graham to the SkewCast. Welcome, sir.

Thank you. Great to be here.

So Andrew, can you tell me the Marine Layer story in 45 to 60 seconds?

Yeah, absolutely. We actually got our start in 2010. Our founder, Mike, was doing some spring cleaning with his girlfriend at the time in San Francisco, and she actually came across his old favorite t-shirt. And, you know, you might have one. I certainly have one. It's like that old college t-shirt that has holes in it, but so soft, nostalgic, you can never get rid of it. Kelly, Mike's girlfriend, decided to throw it away. Didn't end up ruining their relationship. They are married with two kids, but it did certainly change his career path. So he ended up quitting his job in finance the next day and moved— yeah, right— and moved down to LA to try and remake that t-shirt. And so that it actually felt like his old favorite the first time he put it on. And what he created was this really unique fabric blend, which is still our signature fabric, that is a blend of Supima cotton and Micro Modal. He realized he had something really special and needed to get those t-shirts back to San Francisco. So he bought a 1969 VW bus and started selling shirts out of the bus on his way back from LA to San Francisco. Wow. Yeah. And people were obsessed with the shirts. They were really, really expensive because making that small of a run of shirts is super expensive and people were obsessed. He got back to San Francisco, opened up a really small pop-up shop, 6-month lease. In the Marina District, which is this really cool boutique area of SF, and it worked. So, fast forward almost 10 years, 9 years, we now have just opened our 40th retail brick-and-mortar store and we have a full men's and women's California casual apparel line that really focuses and specializes in absurdly soft clothes. Wow.

And, your story specifically is really interesting as to what you were doing before your time at Marine Layer. Can you talk a little bit about your journey before you started the company and what attracted you to join Marine Layer?

Yeah, absolutely. So I came from the tech world. I was actually the 8th employee at Groupon back in Chicago and kind of saw the growth of a really crazy fast growth technology startup. Did that for almost 5 years before I moved to San Francisco to join a very small software startup where I was managing a sales team there. But during that time, I actually lived about a block away from the Marine Layer headquarters. And I would come into the store. There's a store in the front of our office. And just shop there basically every Saturday because I was totally obsessed with the clothes. I was like a huge, huge fanboy. And over time, just started making friends with the people there and learned about this role that they— or department and channel that they were thinking about starting in the promotional world. They didn't really know that yet, but that was what the plan was. And came in for an interview, they were like, you're the right person, and ended up getting the job. Wow.

I mean, it's such a great story when, you know, you've got a relationship with a brand and you're passionate about it. You know, it's like you turn into that perfect employee because you're not only brand advocate, but you understand, you understand what it's like to interact with the brand, to interact with the product. And so I could, I'm not surprised that you were a perfect hire. So congratulations.

Thanks. It took, you know, I had to prove myself after that, but it's been working out.

Yeah. Well, hey, we can talk about that journey since then. So I understand it's been about 3 years now, Andrew. I think that you and I had first met almost 3 years ago when I know it was very, very new into your journey, which is why I'm fascinated to check in with you now to see how the last 3 years have gone. Like, what has your journey been like developing this promotional channel from this really cool retail brand?

Yeah, it's been really fascinating. So the impetus for the hire at, at Marine Layer actually started from an order that we took on from Facebook.

Got it.

We took it on directly before we even actually knew that the promotional industry existed as a company. Um, and it was a very large t-shirt order. It was like 7,500 shirts. And our head of production is the one who took it on.

Got it. And this was like 4 or 5 years ago.

This was like 3 and a half years ago. So it was before I started at the company.

Right. Okay.

And so, you know, we have fans in the Bay Area, so it kind of made sense that they reached out directly. They're like, we want this. We're like, okay, sure. It's like a lot of money. Why not? We'll do it. Yeah. And it proved to be an incredible, incredible nightmare. For many reasons. Our head of production didn't really have client-facing experience before, so dealing with proofing and mockups and colors and all of that was just like totally out of her realm. She specializes in making amazing product, not necessarily delivering it in bulk to, you know, a company. And so I actually came on at the very end of that. That was kind of, again, the impetus for my hire to manage that end of that relationship and kind of figure out how we take it from there. It was tough. So it's kind of a funny story, and everyone that would listen to this can relate. We had used a new printer because we didn't want to overwhelm our existing retail printer. We printed 3 different colors on the same ground of a t-shirt, and the white didn't end up adhering correctly. And so after first wash, ended up really fading away very fast. And so half of the order was rejected.

And whose fault was that? Was that the printer's fault, or was that just naivety on your part, given that you didn't really have a lot of experience in custom?

It was a combination of the printer's fault and our fault trying to work with someone new for like, you know, one of the huge projects and one of the first ones that we've done with this person. So it was definitely on both sides. And then we had to remake half those shirts and they were like, we don't want to use white this time. Let's use purple and blue. It's like, okay, cool. And so I hadn't been involved in the printing part. I was just part of the shipping. This is like my, again, my like third week at the company. And I have no apparel background. And so we printed the purple U Pantone color instead of the C Pantone color, right? Which was a shade enough off that again, half of that reorder was rejected. So basically what then happened was the person that we were working with was like, hey, I actually used to be a distributor. This doesn't seem to be working very well. Can I introduce you to them? And that is basically what started my entire journey. It was the the problems of working directly with a company and then being introduced and said, hey, there's a $24 billion industry dedicated and devoted to making your brand really stand out for companies and making it a streamlined process.

So I just want to dig into that story just for a second because it sounds like a total nightmare. So you've got an order of 7,500 shirts from Facebook with your very expensive product. Half of them got rejected in the first order and then another half got rejected in the second order. So we're talking several thousand shirts. That you just had to eat and you're hating this, but you're loving it because it's Facebook, but you're hating it because you've lost a fortune already. Like, is that, is that your journey at this point?

That has been my journey and my only, my only understanding of what I'm about to get myself in.

Right. Wow. That's, uh, that, that's amazing. So, so you're now introduced to a distributor in the Bay Area that does this in their sleep. And what happens after that?

She goes, okay, so there's an industry set up for this. There are suppliers like you and there are distributors like us. And basically explained how the relationship works and what they could take on for you as a traditional apparel company, right? That you actually don't need to deal with printing, right? You can just— you can ship out blanks, we'll handle the back and forth with the customer. You just got to make sure that your product is in stock, that you're a good person for customer service, and we can kind of help grow from there.

Right.

And what we like stand for is like we got to be extremely responsive, we got to be accurate in our shipments, we got to be on time with our shipments, and we have to be in stock.

Right.

If we do those 4 things and, and we are Marine Layer with our product leading the way, we're going to be successful.

Now, was there any hesitation at the time? Like, I'm sure that all of that that the distributor was articulating to you was checking off all these great boxes for you, but Was there any hesitation when you got around to the financial side? So specifically, up until that point before the distributor, you're going and selling direct to Facebook. I'm just going to say, let's say for $10 a shirt, just making that up as a round number. Now this distributor comes in and they're like, hey, we operate on 35-40% margin. So either you need to take a haircut on what you're selling to us, Marine Layer, or Facebook is now going to have to pay $18 a shirt. Was there any hesitation or worry on your part that the distributor was ultimately just adding cost or eroding your profit margin?

Definitely, no question. That was the big challenge that I was having as I was trying to decide what is our go-forward strategy, how are we going to approach this market. And the one thing I knew is that, like, I know how to be scrappy, and I know that I'm not going to get a lot of support internally until I have a very viable business. So I'm not going to get additional headcount, I'm not going to get salespeople, I'm not going to get that support until I prove this works. And so what's the quickest way for me to get a sales force? You utilize the sales force that exists in the industry already, right? And I would gladly— and I still believe this— I would gladly give up that 35 to 40% margin all day for access to the companies that we have access to now that we would never have had access if I was trying to do that directly.

Right. I mean, it's such an interesting balance, right? Like, on one hand, you can say we'll take a reduced margin, but you'll trade it for volume as well as a much more streamlined process. And you get back to the business that you're in, which is stocking or producing beautiful product, but stocking it, making sure you got your inventory and all that stuff sorted out, but then ultimately shipping it off to other people who then handle all the finicky Facebooks of the world. And believe me, Facebook is finicky, as they should be, because it's their brand. They're spending lots of money to try to differentiate themselves. And it's interesting how when sometimes suppliers go direct to them, often by accident or just by happenstance, that, that the stories usually turn out like how you described, because Facebook is speaking a different language to you, whereas they're speaking the exact same language to whoever that distributor was.

Exactly. And it's such a relationship-based industry that I want to be someone that that you as a distributor inherently trusts and that we do get direct inquiries multiple times every day and I refer them out every day because it's just, it's not worth the strain on a relationship. That little bit of margin on that one order isn't worth it.

Yeah, that's, yeah, it's interesting. Do you know Jason and Mike at Aurigadio? Jason's actually not too far away from you in the Bay Area there.

Yeah, I've met them before.

And so Jason has been a friend for, for some time, and I know that on one of the podcasts that he's been on with us, and years ago, he related the story as to how Aurigatio got into the promotional space. And it's exactly the same thing with you. In their case, they were working, I believe, with the Targets of the world, the Bed Bath Beyond, the big retailers. And it was the same issue as the Facebook issue, where you're just dealing with a customer that you're not overly aligned with. And there were, you know, payment credit issues and consignment and all of these problems that went away when they discovered the promotional channel. Anyway, so it's, it's always interesting to me, companies that start from retail and then they either fully move into promotional or they move, or they create a promotional division like you have, and, and they're really, really able to optimize from there.

Definitely.

So t-shirts are, as you well know, are a huge commodity in the promotional products industry, even at the higher-end fashion level. So it's not like I'm comparing you to a Gildan 2000. There's lots of great, high-quality, expensive fashion shirts that are in the industry. In the context of the promotional products industry, how have you differentiated and found your sweet spot within a pretty crowded fashion high-end t-shirt space?

Yeah, it's a great question and one that kind of was able to crystallize in my mind when I went to the first BPAI show 2.5 years ago. So our first introduction to the industry in like any sort of meaningful way was January 2017 when we went to BPAI and I just saw the vastness of this industry and what was out there and knew when I started showing people my pricing and they just The looks on their face were just like, what? You're crazy. What are you trying to do? Exactly. And I still occasionally deal with that. And, you know, our shirts in our stores, if you were to go buy a graphic tee at our store, is $45. And part of what, you know, we tell every distributor that we talk to is that we know off the bat that we are not for everybody. We know that it takes a very rare customer, if any, that exists for us to ever win a 10,000-shirt order. It's just not going to happen. And that's okay. That's not necessarily who we're for. We're creating a product that has a retail brand backing it, that's made in the USA, that uses sustainable materials. And those kind of three components are what make our product our product. And frankly, once you get it in hand, it speaks for itself, which is great for me because you put this thing on and you're like, I love it. And it very quickly becomes your favorite t-shirt. And for the distributor, you get to sell a higher shirt and you get to put it in your presentation as maybe a good, better, best, or maybe your very best option. And if we are in every presentation for apparel as the very best or this top option or this aspirational option, maybe we'll win 1 to 2% of those. And then that's a very meaningful business for us, particularly at our price point. Yeah.. And from a brand perspective, it's, it's self-discerning, it's self-policing in terms of who ends up with our product that are the people that we want to end up with our product.

Yeah. Well, and I think when you put it that way, I mean, some of the brands that I was thinking of when I had asked that question, you've got your, you know, your Bella Canvas, you've got Next Level, and those are certainly higher end, but they don't have that retail story. As great as those shirts are, and they are more expensive than a Gilland shirt. And, you know, in the context of a presentation, You'd probably have your Gildan 2000 would be your cheap option. You'd then have your next level as your medium to above, well above average shirt, and then a marine layer, which is then heads and tails even more expensive than that and just a different story. Exactly. In many ways, it reminds me of the early American Apparel story. We don't have to go down that rat hole. I think there are some significant differences as well. One of the things that I always reflected on when American Apparel first started was how they were selling a blank shirt. This was, what, 10, 15 years ago? Like blank, like not even a graphic on it at the retail stores for $25, $30. And they were being wholesaled for, let's say, $4. And that was great for the distributor because the brand had established this retail value. So when you went in and showed it to a consumer or sorry, to an end customer, corporate buyer and said, hey, we've got this American Apparel brand. It's been validated at retail and I can sell it to you printed for $16.50. And then they're looking at the price tag at retail of $25. It was a great delta and a great story. And it sounds like that's the journey you're on, that you've got a $45 shirt at retail. Wholesale is going to, going to be substantially less than that. So it allows for a distributor to come to a corporate buyer and, and really show considerable value. And I think that's a great playbook. It's not for everyone, but it's a great playbook for the right distributors and right end clients.

Absolutely. You nailed it on the head. And that's that price point. It just weeds out people that don't want it. And there are plenty of distributors that don't want that price point in their arsenal. And that's totally fine. And I totally get why. And then there are other companies and other distributors that it's like part of their playbook now to include our product because there are those occasions where people really want are shirts. And there are even scenarios, and it's happened, where they love them so much, and their employees love them so much, and their customers love them so much, that that's the only shirt they'll buy. And it's worth it to buy less because it's the value that it inherently creates.

Yeah, 100%. And I think you see that across really every product category in the promotional industry. And I think the smartest entrepreneurs, the smartest supplier entrepreneurs that are getting into the space, are the ones that have a really clear understanding of their positioning in the market. So they can tell that clear story. Because a clear story is all distributors want, because then they can tell a clear story to their client. So I love it. And I love your conviction on how it is that you don't care. Well, it's not maybe you don't care, but you think you're very knowledgeable in knowing that your brand is not for everyone, but for the right people, you're a perfect fit. And I love that focus. So, so good on you. Switching gears a little bit and we can get into a brand conversation here. I noticed that Marine Layer has some Airbnbs and it's something that you, that you advertise on your website. Tell me about that. Like, what's the deal with Airbnbs with Marine Layer? How does that fit into your brand story?

Absolutely. Marine Layer started as a brick-and-mortar retail brand and still are very much so. We have 40 stores across the country and, you know, people always are saying retail's dying and, you know, people aren't going into stores and shopping as much. Online is taking over, but what's not dying and what's really growing is experiential retail and the connection to the brand that you are associated with. And our Airbnbs are an extension of our brand. They are a place for you to go to visit a really cool city on a really cool street. 23rd Street in Portland, Damen Street in Chicago, Magazine in New Orleans are where Airbnbs are. And it's, again, it's an extension of our brand that allows you to interact with us in a really cool and unique way. So great. And our, our founder has this ultimate goal and vision of maybe opening a hotel one day that is part of that same Marine Layer ethos that has that like kind of '70s, like '70s vintage cool vibe, like that California aspirational VW bus life. And that's kind of what we're trying to put into, into every way that you can interact with our brand, including our Airbnb. Yeah.

I mean, from an outsider perspective, it's like you're, you're, you're like this perfect fusion between 19— the 1970s and 2019, right? Like there's this very modern ethos about you, but there's, there's no question there's like, you know, a Venice skate park, 1970s vibe, you know, to you as well, even though the brand was born in 2010, right? It's, it's really interesting. So with those Airbnbs, are they owned by Marine Layer and then you rent them out so that you give people an opportunity to interact with them, or are they just Airbnbs of, uh, that you saw on the Airbnb network that you thought kind of embodied your values, that you had wanted to, you know, co-opt them— is not the right word— but, uh, to, to be able to put them out in front and center as being part of your story?

Yeah, so they are owned and operated by us. They are our Airbnbs. And we, when we find a store location, these 3 stores all happen to have a really cool space associated to them upstairs.

Oh, I see. Okay, so you own the building.

Got it. Okay. Yeah, so whenever we find a space like that, we're gonna make more. And like, that's the idea, right? We've been looking at other spaces in other cities to try and be able to, to be able to do that with because they're so— they're cool. And our Chicago and our New Orleans Airbnbs are basically booked every weekend of the year. Our Portland one is going through some renovations and restoring of certain things and coding. So that one isn't available to the public, but they are highly sought after because of their location. And they're just, again, they're really cool spaces. Like, I get— I've stayed in them and they're awesome, right?

Yeah, I know, it's amazing that, you know, the guest is not only getting a great experience, but they're also, you know, to some extent they're being marketed to, right? And, and they're there interacting with your brand. So I think it's really interesting, you know, there's I can think of Shinola as an example that comes to mind where, you know, great watchmaker, they make great bikes, they've got this, you know, very strong lifestyle story to them and they're now extending into the hotel business. I think their Detroit hotel is opening, I think, some point later on this year. There's actually— it's interesting, we're going to Barcelona in the summer and Camper, the shoe brand, has got a hotel there as well. And that was— it was actually one of the things that popped out at me and I was like, oh, we should stay there. Like, that's cool. Like, I appreciate the brand values of Camper, and I'm sure that their hotel will be interesting. And so those are just two examples that came to my mind. I think that some of the most interesting brands today are the ones that transcend their product and they go far beyond just like, hey, we're a t-shirt. In your case, you're really just trying to tell the story about something so much larger than, than, than just being a t-shirt company.

Absolutely. Yeah. We love Channola. That's funny that you mentioned them. They're like definitely a really— they're a brand that we love. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I'm going to get to that towards the end, so I won't— I won't— yeah, I won't fast forward to it, but I know you and I can have a really interesting conversation about brand crushes, and we will towards the end. Let's talk about your Respun program.

What's this all about? Yeah, this has been the coolest thing I've gotten to be a part of in my professional career. It's awesome. So at the end of November, we launched a program to our customers, to Marine Layer customers or anyone who wants to buy from retail, an opportunity for you to donate your old t-shirt. Any old t-shirt doesn't matter who it's made by and what it's made from. We'll take it and we'll give you $5 in credit to Marine Layer for each shirt that you give us, up to 5 shirts. You can give us as many shirts as you want, but you can only get $25 worth of credit. What we're doing is we're taking those shirts and we are working with a factory, a sorter, recycler, and factory that then takes those shirts, breaks them back down into their fiber level to then be upcycled and remade back into new t-shirts. So it's a 100% recycled, fully closed loop, t-shirt.

And the first lot of shirts, have they landed in your retail stores, or is this something that's literally happening right now?

We're working on it actively every day, and we are going to be launching them in our retail stores at the end of April, right around Earth Day. And so the idea again is like to stop textile waste. There's some really staggering statistics out there around 80 pounds of clothes are thrown away by the average American and end up in landfill, and 95% of that is actually recyclable. And so we're trying to do our part to stop that. And I actually think this program has unbelievable, incredible legs for corporate. Just think about those big brands that are going through rebrands and having thousands and thousands of shirts that they want destroyed or incinerated and causing CO2 emission., and we now are giving them an alternative to instead of doing that, let's break those back down into their original fiber and remake a shirt out of them for your next product.

Do you have any details as to how that might work at a corporate level, or is that still being ironed out at the moment?

Yeah, I'm getting closer. I'm going to actually have my first lot of corporate available, 100% recycled, respun shirts around June in hand. That are actually made from old Marine Layer customer shirts. The ultimate idea though is if a company wants to create their own closed-loop shirt, we can take any donation they want. They just have to basically commit to buying back 7 shirts for every 10 that they give us. So we are creating the ability to take in any sort of donation, and then there's just got to be a commitment back that either right away or down the line from their actual shirts that they buy something, they buy in them back at some ratio.

I mean, I think it's, I think it's really interesting to see how this will evolve. But I know just given my distributor background, I could see how this would be interesting for a distributor to go to a company. I mean, we've been using Facebook as an example, so let's continue. So let's say you're a distributor that's got a relationship with a company like Facebook and you've sold them, you know, tens of thousands of shirts over the last couple of years. You could go to your buyer and say, hey, is there an opportunity to take some of these shirts that have been produced in the past that you may not need, either because of logo changes or because, quite frankly, it was 3 years ago and the shirts may be not in the greatest shape. Facebook then returns, let's say, 5,000 shirts back to you via the distributor. And then in return, they're then committing for, what, 70% of those 5,000? Or they may even say, hey, we want to have 10,000 shirts in this new recycled respun program. And to me, my knee-jerk reaction is I think that's I think that's a really interesting story because it allows for the distributor to engage the end client in something that is feel-good. It allows for the distributor to get another order, and it also allows for the end client, Facebook in this particular case, to engage in something that is a worthwhile cause and prevents shirts from being thrown out. I think at least in theory, what's nice about that is you've got an environmental win, but you've also got a win for business. Whenever that happens, you get distributors particularly motivated because they want to, they want to get orders. They want to do high profit margin orders that make them look good in front of their customer. But think about how much cooler that is if at the same time they're helping, helping the planet.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

There you go.

That idea is free of charge. I mean, it's, it's the concept when looking, thinking about sustainability initiatives in general, there's this concept of the triple bottom line. But first and foremost, it's the revenue, your, your business bottom line that matters. If you don't have a viable business, you can't actually make any sort of environmental or social impact. Yes. And that's what we believe this, this program can do. And if you're willing to donate to us, we are going to be gladly able to give you a discount on whatever you are buying back from us because we want to also incentivize you to run and support this program because we don't want these shirts shirts to end up in landfill. We don't want them to be destroyed because textiles are the second largest producing waste industry in the world. Like, we have to do our part to stop that, and this is an opportunity to really do that. And it doesn't matter if it's a $1 Gildan or a $100 Armani shirt, we'll take it and we're going to turn it into something new.

Yeah, so interesting. Well, I'm really fascinated to see how the program rolls out, not only at retail but particularly in the, in the corporate promotional market, because I think it's got an opportunity to make a dent. It's not obviously gonna be for everyone because it's gonna be expensive and sometimes it's easier to sell 10,000 white gildan shirts at a low price for some distributors. But I think in this case, this is an interesting story. I wanna shift gears and talk a little bit about the marketing side of the promotional side of the business. So we spent a lot of time talking about the Marine Layer brand and the story, and I absolutely love that, but wanna really tap into your experience on the marketing side as it relates to the promotional channel. Can you tell me about the makeup of the custom team Is it just you still, or do you have some other folks that are helping you now?

Yeah, it's not just me. So we have one, I have my colleague and also one of my best friends. So to help me run the business, he, his name's Cam, and he has been up to this point managing all of our order fulfillment, all of the back half of getting things out to customers and also doing a lot of the, our, of our account management. But actually starting next week, we're adding our third member to the team who's going to kind of take over that operational role. And kind of get us even more on time and more accurate in our shipments. And then our— and Cam's going to be moving into like a strategic account management role, and I'll still be managing a lot of the production and a lot of overall growth and marketing of, of the custom, our corporate channel.

Right, right. And then of course you've got the whole infrastructure on the retail side with all the people that work there that are able to help fulfill the orders and produce all the clothing. So it's not just like 3 guys in a garage.

Right, exactly. Yeah, we have a, you know, 50-person corporate office that, you know, we're making and developing product all day, every day. I'm lucky to be able to lean on those resources whenever possible.

Yeah, that's great. What is the most effective marketing channel for you in the promotional side?

It's interesting that you ask. One of the challenges about this in general is that our strategy in the promotional space with distributors is not to go wide. It's to go deep with the ones that we are working with. And the ones that we believe have our customers. So that is our general strategy. So I'm not really trying to engage everybody, and so I don't do any digital marketing. I do one large trade show. I'm at them. I'm meeting with people at those, at those events, but I'm not trying to talk to everybody because I don't want to be on the defensive on price. I want somebody who already knows where we're at and having those conversations. So We do some trade show marketing, but primarily it's distributor events, it's distributor meetings, it's opportunities for us to share our story and kind of explain what makes us special. And then from there, just making sure that all of our brand assets behind it support that. So having a really nice looking catalog, having a really nice looking and smooth sample process to get them out so that like that whole story ties itself together.

Right. So you're adding your resources and investing them specifically within a certain distributor demographic as opposed to investing in things like AdWords or Facebook ads. I mean, maybe the retail division is doing that, but the promotional side, you're certainly not. Or like ESP or Sage product placement search advertising. It sounds like you wouldn't be doing that either because those types of platforms generally tend to go more mass. Then they really cater towards more of that niche audience.

Exactly. And that's been my conversation constantly with ASI and with Sage and that group is that like, I would love to do that type of stuff, but I don't think you're going to be able to get me the right customer. Right. Really, truly, our most effective marketing channel is our stores because what ends up happening is if our store is in the right location, the end customer is the person that's requesting Marine Layer from the distributor. And that's how we then get found.

That makes a lot of sense in terms of how end customers are finding Marine Layer. How do you find the right distributors? Obviously, trade shows is, is one thing, but if you're not investing in a lot of these mass platforms, how do you know who the best distributors are for the Marine Layer brand?

Another great question. It has been a challenge. It's through networking and through talking to the right people to kind of tell me who they think is the right person and then seeing if I can get in there and have that initial conversation. Localization. I started local, so my top partners are all those that are in the Bay Area that already have had knowledge of our brand. But as we grow and as we continue to have a presence in the Midwest and the East Coast and in the South, it's trying to find whether that's through ASI's portal or through that's talking to people like you, Mark, or, or others that kind of either find us organically or when we want to go out to a city doing our research to try and figure out who is going to be the, the best target for us and actually targeting cities that we have a store in because it helps with our brand recognition when we do reach out.

Yeah, no, I love the fact that you— that strong reliance on the retail store and the brand because it, it, it's a competitive advantage that you have over a lot of your competitors. So I, I think that makes a lot of sense. So it makes sense to me that because you started in San Francisco that you'd have these great relationships with Bay Area distributors, but if you're trying to open up, say, Chicago or Atlanta or just other markets that are well outside of where the three of you work in the promotional side, how are you staying relevant and touching a distributor in Chicago in terms of selling and account management and really inspiring them? Given that there's such a tactile side to your story, how do you not get lost with a distributor outside of the Bay Area that you can't touch as, as, as easily?

I think that's something that we're actively trying to work on and figure out. I believe it's going to require more travel. It's going to require more of our people being in front of them. You know, our, the supplier sales relationship with distributors is very top of mind. So doing our best to send updates and be just as responsive as we possibly can so that we, whenever someone asks us anything, we are back to them with an answer within 30 minutes. So that if we've engaged them and they start to engage us, that they are getting what they're looking for immediately. And we'll kind of bend ourselves over backwards from a customer service standpoint to make sure that that continues to happen, because we know that we can't always be there. We know that our samples are expensive. We know that we can't do and be everywhere. But that is how I hope to grow, because it feels like Chicago and New York and Atlanta and Dallas are very untapped markets for us. Because we haven't had as much of a presence there yet. Right.

And a lot of how suppliers sell themselves in this industry is through a rep sales force, whether it's multi-lines or whether it's factory reps that live in different cities. And by the way, I don't know that that's necessarily the only way to be successful as a supplier. I think that companies like yours stand really interesting— there's a really interesting opportunity for you to buck that trend in terms of having this like widely distributed sales force that's in multiple geographies, like, A, will probably bankrupt you at your size. You know, you're not Gildan. But at the same time, you don't necessarily need to do that when you think of what the technology landscape is like today and you think about your retail stores. And so I, you know, if I were you, I, I, I'm, I'm not sure that I would feel too badly about not having, you know, all those in-market, uh, sales investments, uh, particularly now in 2019.

Absolutely. And you touched on an interesting point around technology, and one of our biggest opportunities as a, as is from the promotional side for Marine Layer is better enabling our suppliers to use us from a technological standpoint. And it's been on my to-do list for a long time to improve our web experience and improve the way that you find our product because that is, again, that's another extension of our brand and how we're being presented to people and is a big opportunity for us.

Yeah. If you could change one thing about how our industry operates today, what would it be?

Oh, that's a, that's a good question. I think The, the thing that I've found that is both one of the most interesting and coolest things about it, but also the hardest to navigate, is just this highly relational experience of working with, with the large distributors out there. I feel like it's extremely hard to find the right people and find the right contacts and disseminate the right information to everybody because you do have some very large distributors out there that don't seem to have a consistent flow of information where people can go to get get the information they need. And so it feels very one-off in many cases. And I, I'm trying to have as broad of a conversation with the right people as possible, and I find that very, very difficult to have with those distributors that I think have my customers in the top 40. That, that's probably where I think I— is this, this way that information goes back and forth to people seems to be a little bit broken.

Yeah, yeah, I would, I would totally agree with that. I think there's a tremendous opportunity to, to continue to streamline that All right. I've got 2 more questions for you. Shifting gears to the branding discussion, I promised earlier on that we were going to get back to it. So I want to know what 3 t-shirt brands you personally wear the most. And yes, Marine Layer can be one of them. That's your gimme. But that can't be the answer for all 3.

So what, what, what's in your closet? I mean, I honestly, I was racking my brain on this question. I don't have anything else in my closet.

You're like me in Common Skew swag. I don't wear anything other than Common Skew branded merch.

So it's crazy. I have— I was looking in my closet this morning because I was thinking about this question, and I don't have anything other than, like, I'm from Chicago. I have a Bears t-shirt and I have a Cubs t-shirt and I have a Bulls t-shirt that are a Gildan and a Mitchell Ness. I do have one shirt I've literally one shirt that's not Marine Layer, and it's from a company called Industry of All Nations that I actually bought while working at Marine Layer. The only shirt I bought that wasn't a Marine Layer shirt because I think the way that they produce clothing is remarkable. It's an entirely waterless process. And so every piece of clothing is a little bit unique and highly, highly sustainable. And you can trace that piece of clothing back to the original maker. And I just like incredibly inspired by them, and I just wanted to support them in any way that I could. So I—

and their shirt's really nice. Yeah, that's, that's great. Well, you know, you're clearly, uh, you've drunk the Marine Kool-Aid there. Oh yeah. And that's not entirely surprising. And I think that— and it's— and thank you for giving the information about the other t-shirt brands as well. The reason I ask you that is just to understand the basket. And maybe this is actually a follow-up question: what basket of t-shirt brands do you feel are most similar to Marine Layer? In the promotional space or in retail?

Answer it however you want. Okay. So, I think there's Madewell, which is a women's brand, has an incredible t-shirt. They do a really good job. And I think there's a company called James Perse that also has a really, really nice t-shirt. There's way more expensive than ours, but I think they do a really good job and I actually really like their shirt. Those are the two that are coming the most to mind.

Okay, those are on the retail side. In the promotional side, like, what brands are in the same basket as you, even if remotely far away? I just— I'm curious as to who you would see as being peers, more or less.

Alternative Apparel, they're the one that I think are the closest to us. And then that actually the one that I'm most impressed by their assortment and what they're offering is Bella+Canvas. I really am impressed. I go into their booth I like don't understand how they make it for, for that price at the quality that they do it. And I definitely think that they are, they're trend forward. They have nice product and they're kind of pushing the envelope on style.

So they're probably the ones I'm most impressed by. Right. Yeah, I know it's interesting. And those are two very different examples. I mean, Alternative certainly has that retail side, incredibly retail forward. I remember when I was getting into the industry and they weren't selling through distributors. At that time. When I say distributors, I mean, I suppose you'd call them suppliers or wholesalers, like companies like SanMar or Alpha Broader, but then they ultimately started distributing through those companies and now have got a, a broader appeal. Anyways, I think that's interesting. I mean, every product in this industry has got a basket, right? Like that, some kind of broad category. So thank you for answering that. I think it'll also help listeners that don't know Marine Layer at all to help put some context to this. All right, final question. This is like one of my favorites. I always love to ask people, What 3 brands do you admire the most and why? It could be within the industry or they could be outside the industry, just like your regular global brands.

Number 1, like no question about it, the one that I look up to and admire and impressed by every single day is Patagonia. Yep. They're just, they're everything that a brand should be. They're everything that a brand can be. And they're just like incredible commitment to the mission of the environment and being sustainable and being thoughtful and creating products that last. It's remarkable. I truly love Patagonia and everything that they stand for. Next is Levi's, and that's because for a company as old and as inherently traditional as they are, everyone knows what Levi's brings to the table, and they are so consistent in how they do it. Plus, the fact that they're based in San Francisco and are such like a cog in the San Francisco ethos kind of makes makes them really special. And they're just— it's just like so consistent. Like, I love my Levi's jeans. Like, that's the other thing I have in my closet is so many pairs of Levi's. And because I— again, it's that consistency. Yeah. And then the last one is actually a relatively new brand, Allbirds. I'm not sure if you've heard of them, but they're my Allbirds on right now. Amazing. Yeah, a sustainable shoe brand that has a really great environmental story. But I come from a tech background and They're operating and growing their business like a tech company. Yeah. And an incredibly convoluted commodity-based footwear industry and totally killing it. And I also love the shoes. So those are probably the three that I admire and think about the most.

Yeah. Well, and I would say from my perspective, Marine Layer is kind of the Allbirds of the t-shirt business. Thank you. You're going down that same path. I mean, in terms of it being very aspirational, incredibly mission-oriented, incredibly focused on a particular customer that is not mass, which is interesting. Well, Andrew, this has been quite the conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to cover all these different topics with me. I felt like you were on the firing line, but you did a great job. And on behalf of everyone listening to the, to the Common Skew Skewcast, thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

I really enjoyed it. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of SKU Cast. Be sure to keep up with our latest content by subscribing to SKU Cast on iTunes or to our blog at community.commsku.com. Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening.