You're listening to cubicle to CEO episode 274, today's case study is the business poster child of making lemonade out of lemons, starring the husband wife duo Michelle Lucchese and John Ruggiero, who turned a bad wedding ring buying experience into founding manly bands, the number one digital marketplace for men's wedding jewelry, and a multi million dollar business helping to catapult their brand to number one are lucrative licensing deals with household brands like Jack Daniels Jeep and fender in this conversation, we specifically unpack their partnership with the Tolkien Estate, a rare deal that positioned manly bands as one of only two brands with Official Lord of the Rings licensing rights. Since the launch of their epic Lord of the Rings collection in 2022 it's become one of manly bands, top selling collections, adding over 7000 new customers and a $1 million lift in revenue from 2022 to 2023 with projections to exceed that increase in 2024 from crafting standout pitches to conducting thorough market research and negotiating high profile licensing deals follow the data driven decisions driving Michelle and John's impressive growth with manly bands.
Welcome to cubicle to CEO, the podcast where we ask successful founders and CEOs the business questions you can't google. I'm your host. Ellen Yin, every Monday, go behind the business in a case study style interview with a leading entrepreneur who shares one specific growth strategy they've tested in their own business, exactly how they implemented it and what the results and revenue worth you'll also hear financially transparent insights from my own journey bootstrapping our media company from a $300 freelance project into millions in revenue.
Hey everyone, welcome back to the show. Today, I'm joining me Michelle Luchese and John Ruggiero, and they are the co founders of Manly Bands, which we're gonna dive deep into a case study all around licensing and customer acquisition and scale. So I won't give away the whole the whole teaser yet, because first I want to ask you guys your cubicle to CEO story, but really, it's like a garage to CEO story, I believe so. Anyways, Michelle and John, welcome to the show. Yeah.
Thank you so much for having us. And you know, it is very much a cubicle before the garage. So we could say cubicle to CEO, I suppose. So, do you want to take that one?
Oh, take the garage story? Sure. So when John and I were getting married, we were having such a time trying to find him a ring. He has these massive pants you want to show yeah. And so we would go into the jeweler, and he would fall all over me, and, oh, do you want these diamonds? You want those diamonds? And you know, John, they couldn't even size him. And when they did have rings for him, which was more of a rarity. They were, like, in the back of the store, and there were, like, four of them, and they were super boring looking. And John just, he wasn't excited about those, you know. He was like, I don't want to subscribe to what every guy has been doing for the last, however, many years, you know? Why can't I have something exciting?
And so after we, you know, we did end up getting him a ring online, and it was a terrible experience as well. The customer service was awful. There was just no reverence in the whole process. And so after we got married, we had moved out of LA and we were kind of starting a new life, and we're looking for jobs, and we thought, you know, what? What if we started our own company, and what if we solved a problem that we had with the care and reverence that we would want it solved with, and so that's what we set out to do.
I really love the use of the word reverence to describe like the experience you want to create for your customers. I think that's really, really unique, and I can see that in even just in browsing your website, like the care that you put into every ring and the experience like you said, that you want to create for your customers, which, by the way, congratulations on now being the number one marketplace for men's wedding jewelry. Huge accomplishment.
So as of this recording, manly bands has, you know, over 500,000 customers. And in today's case study, we're really going to be diving into the major licensing deal that they did with the Tolkien estate. By the way, I'm just gonna say this for her listeners, because when I was preparing for this interview, I myself have only watched, I believe, the first Hobbit movie, so I wasn't like a huge Lord of the Rings. I know the horror. I feel ashamed to admit that, but I will be honest, it's actually queued up on our to watch list, and my husband's been, like, egging me on to watch it, but I was doing research for this, and you know, I was like, how do you pronounce this last name? And I and I searched it up, and it actually is Tolkien. But he, like, swore up and down. He was like, No, it's the Tolkien estate. Everyone says Tolkien. And I was like, no, they're saying it wrong. So I just want to say all of you Lord of the ring fans out there who. Hearing me say this, and you're like, Ellen, you said it wrong. I'm actually saying it right. I just want to put it out there.
Okay. Anyway, so you signed this major branding deal with the Tolkien estate for creating a Lord of the Rings inspired wedding band collection. And you're actually one of only two licensed makers of the One Ring like outside of the film. So I think context for our listeners, it would be helpful if you maybe first explained, like, how does a branding deal even work? Like, what does that actually mean?
Sure, so it's a lot of paperwork and a lot of contracts and lawyers and back and forth, but really how it works, like, from a financial perspective for other brands, is you give a percentage to that other brand that you're licensing to use their IP. And so in our case, you know, the one ring as an example. You know, we're giving Warner Brothers, who owns the Tolkien estates, you know, IP there, we're giving them a percentage of each of those sales. And so you know, when you're when you're going into wholesale, which, which we are, have been and are doing more of this year like you have to think about that in terms of your pricing too, you know. Okay, well, I can't discount these as much because I also have to pay the licensing fee. So there's, they're just like little nuances like that, but it is powerful. It's it's really fun. It is a lot of work, and it is a lot of money, for sure, yeah,
definitely an investment. But for us, it's definitely paid off being able to connect with fans and making sure that, you know, the Tokin estate signs off on stuff, and they tell us that, you know, they approve the designs that we're doing. They're very much part of the process when it comes to designing the rings, and it's just really neat and special to kind of be able to connect not only with the fans, but also where the content originated from,
absolutely and when you decided to take this kind of big bet on your business, did you bootstrap the initial licensing cost? Or was this like you took out a loan to take this risk, hoping that it would pay off? Yeah,
we did Bootstrap. Bootstrap bootstrapped everything. So, yeah, it's been a challenge. You know, putting every dollar that you make back in is really difficult, and finding those times where you can invest, you know, with the dollars that you have is great,
absolutely. And I know you said, or we already referenced, that there's only really two other or two total that because they're very selective, right about who they partner with. But in your licensing agreement, in your terms, do you actually get exclusivity within this category, or is it possible that they could license it to like another, a similar company?
It is possible, yeah, we don't get exclusivity with them. We do have exclusivity with some of our other licenses, but not with Warner Brothers. Yeah, they're just too big.
Yeah, that makes sense. So was this your first branding deal, then we know. Okay, no,
so we started with Warner. I'm sorry, not Warner Brothers. We started with Jack Daniels, and it was such a great experience with Jack Daniels. They're a smaller, a smaller company, which you wouldn't think, you know, you wouldn't think it knowing how global the brand is, but they really are just so authentic about how they make their whiskey, you know, they char their own barrels. You know, they're doing everything the right way. So it's, it's beautiful to be a part of, you know, a company work with a company like that. So when we started that line, we really sat down and tried to figure out what made Jack Daniels special amongst all the, you know, whiskey makers of the world, what is special about Jack Daniels?
We went into the history of Jack. His actual name was Jasper. And so we named, you know, we have a jasper ring. We named one of the rings, Lynchburg, which is the town where it started, and still is. It's a dry town, which is kind of hilarious. So there's a whole ironic history, yeah. So there's a whole lot of rich history. So it was really fun to dive into that and really get nerdy about it and say, Okay, well, how can we make this particular ring special? What kind of material can we insert in this, you know, ring that's supposed to be about the distiller, you know? What makes sense? And so we use like this Damascus steel and the distiller ring that we had, you know, originally, to to try and sort of show all the foraging and all the like craftsmanship that goes into that particular role within the company. So, yeah, we just had a blast doing that.
That is so cool. I want to actually circle back to that first branding deal then in a moment. But first, I kind of wanted to just get inside your heads and understand knowing that you know with Warner Brothers and the Tolkien estate, that it's a notoriously difficult, not difficult to work with necessarily, but just like, difficult to land a licensing deal with them. Why did you choose specifically to go after this deal and to even create a Lord of the Rings collection?
Sure,
yeah, I think, I think it was just a natural fit, like we were a ring company. We want to do stuff that's really unique and different to help us kind of stand out from, you know, other competition and and the Lord of the Rings, having the One Ring is, like, for me, the pinnacle. Okay, like we have a ring company, we have to have the One Ring. And I'm a huge nerd myself, so of course it was like, it has to be Lord of the Rings. And so we really made an effort and a push to get the license going. And. We're fortunate that they were willing to chat with us about it, and they really liked what we did and what we represent and our philosophy and values. And I think it just, it ended up working out so well. And actually, I think we have a couple of samples.
Yeah,
you're watching this on YouTube, or if you're not watching this on YouTube, maybe turn on YouTube and you'll be able to see these.
Yeah. So can you see these in the camera? Kind of, they're tiny, yeah? So
you can kind of see here. So, yeah, we have, we have several designs, and it's just, it's so much fun. We even have one, one ring that's like, this is a size 25 which is much larger than even my hands. But they, they're beautiful. I mean, they really are. And each one represents the characters from the film and or from the story, rather, and they're just, they're great. It's so great. We love to have an opportunity to do that. It really helps us stand out.
Yeah, and even though I know I'm not part of the lore, I think it's really cool that you like present it on the map, even I being a, you know, ignorant to this fandom, I still recognize that map. So it's, you know, very iconic. I think you guys did a wonderful job just thinking holistically through how you bring again, that experience alive for your customers. I would love to know too. How did you actually approach this to begin with? How did you get in contact with the right agent? Like, was this a cold pitch? How did you approach the pitch? How did you find this contact? I'm sure there's so many listeners thinking, Oh, I have this dream partnership, but I would have no idea how to even get into their, you know, sphere of awareness.
Yeah, there's a couple different ways you can go at it. You know, you can hire, like a licensing agency to help you, if your brand's big enough, you know, usually they'll take you on. Or you can just, you know, cold email them, and you can put together a beautiful, fantastic pitch that shows what you do and why you're special. You know that that also wins these days. It really does. People get so bored of the same like, Hey, I'm not gonna waste your time. But blah, blah, blah, boring emails, you know. But like, show them. Show them something gorgeous and beautiful. Show what's special to you. And you know, a lot of times people will, you know, rise up and say, Oh, wow, this is really cool. Okay, fine, let's, let's do a 15 minute phone call, you know, yeah.
So how did you guys create that pattern Interrupt, if you will, to catch their attention.
How did we do that? So we, we did actually hire somebody in in house who had licensing experience, and to she went after a host of of different licenses for us that year, and so we built a bunch up. It was nice. Yeah,
that's awesome. Do you try to, in the same way that you create an experience for your customers? Do you try to, like, I know sometimes when people go out of the box with pitches like you said, maybe they don't just send an email. Maybe they send, like, some sort of experiential package. Do you guys do anything of that sort? Or do you start just simple with the email contact and then kind of move from there?
Yeah, no, for sure, we actually try to go in best foot forward every time. And so we'll actually spend the time prior to reaching out, usually, to put together a whole pitch deck. And so we'll work with our products team and our creative team, and we have an amazing creative minds here that can put together these designs before we even reach out to them. So by the time they get a pitch deck from us, we have the story behind each ring. We have the initial concepts of a design for each ring. And ultimately they're looking at it, and they can actually see it, you know, and and sometimes we'll even send a sample, so they can then touch it and feel it. And so, you know, it's, you're kind of presenting. This is what it would be like, as opposed to, you know, hey, let's work together. We don't really know what we're gonna do, but, you know, let's chat about it, which is less appealing than sending, like, a package that's like, look, this is like, halfway done. It's gonna be awesome. Do you want to finish it with us?
And I, I feel like it's almost like a spec, a spec thing, you know, it's like, do the work, do the legwork, get it ready to go show them what could be, and then sell them on that. And ultimately, you know, if you do a good job, like, why wouldn't they want to exactly,
I think that we often get kind of in our heads about, oh, well, you know, maybe this isn't going to work. Maybe it isn't, you know is going to work, whatever. I don't want to put the time into it. And then you just get in your own way. Whereas, if you just spend the time and energy to put together something beautiful, you know, take out of your brain what is gorgeous and amazing, put it on paper into a deck, and then, yeah, like you said, you have put your best foot forward. You show you're showing what you can do and what your company can do. And then how can they not pay attention? You know,
it's about, you know, also, like standing out from other folks, because so many people will just send an email, you know, hey, I do this. We should work together. And they probably get so many emails like that. But if it's like, the full package arrives and they can look at it and touch it and, you know, see what the ring is going to be like. And it's just a whole different way to stand out from everybody else. And that's really what it is. It's about cutting through that noise.
Yeah, the experiential thing you're mentioning, too is something that we have tried a couple times, too, with just different like influencers or celebrities, where we've, you know, put together a very specific package for them and sent it off. We were very early to. Nice when we were doing that. So I can't say that that materialized into anything, but it was really fun to do absolutely,
Oh, I bet. And I feel like every touch point like that is so memorable for the Indies who, even if you can't directly correlate it to, you know, growth in the business, I think it builds upon that, like brand equity and how people perceive you. So there's always, I think, value in that. And I obviously have very limited experience in licensing, and in fact, I've never done what you guys did in licensed from another existing brand, but actually the opposite, where I licensed my IP to maybe, you know, a software brand or an education company or whatnot. But I can really relate.
And I want to pull out for our listeners what John and Michelle, for those of you listening, just said, I think that is key, that you actually show up and you lead the conversation. Rather than just saying, hey, I want to collaborate. It's like, Hey, I already have a fully fleshed out idea, and this is what it looks like and and like you said, John, it's like you're already almost at the finish line. So it's like all you're looking for is the green light to finish that race. So why would they not at least consider it. Loved that takeaway. I wanted to make sure our listeners really caught hold of that once you actually got your foot in the door with the estate, how did that end up playing out? Like, what types of hoops maybe did you have to jump through in the actual negotiation process once they were interested?
Sure, sure. So there's, there's a lot of negotiating in terms of, like, what the process is, what the fee is, bigger brands like Warner Brothers have their sort of very specific contract that you're walking into, and then you just mostly have to be comfortable with everything. But lots of times they will redline little things here and there. So if your process is a little different than what theirs is, my best advice would be read everything. And if you can't afford, like, having a counsel, like a lawyer in house, certainly have someone that you can send it to a family member. What have you that is like, really scraping through it and making sure that they understand. Because there are certain like clauses where if you're canceling the contract, there's like a buyout period, and all kinds of other like, random little bits of the contract that you just have to be very aware of.
And so, yeah, just be very detailed about it. Another thing we do for our team is we've started to like detail, because we have so many licenses now, we've detailed all of the like, sort of nuggets for each department that they need to know. So, hey, finance, this is how royalty reporting goes with this license. You know, hey, marketing, this is how you have to go through your approval process. Because every license does have a very specific approval process. Everything that has their branding on has to be approved by them, which is totally fair.
And they all have their own different systems that you have to go through in which to do that, which is a lot of legwork to do all those little things like, Oh, we want to put this ad out, we want to do an email, we want to do an an SMS. We want to, you know, if you're putting a picture in it, you know, we want to do a billboard, all these things, a commercial. All of it has to have, you know, approvals from all these companies too. So, yeah, it's a process of, definitely, all the paperwork and going through with the lawyers, making sure that your team is very clear on what needs to happen, going back to the designs with the decision makers over there and saying, Hey, what do you want to tweak? Because there's usually a little bit of tweaking, you know, back and forth on things.
And then for us, we practically make these samples in our manufacturing space. And then we have to send them to the Toki and estate, and then we also send them to Warner Brothers too, so they both have to approve. And then once we get the green light, then we can start, you know, putting everything on site and getting it going. So it's a bit of a process,
for sure. And one other thing to add to that too is, you know, these are, these are real companies with real products, and their goal is to make money, yes, and they know that what they're selling is super valuable, especially to the fans who appreciate it. And so oftentimes, every time, I think, with our licenses, we have what they call a minimum order quantity or an MOQ that we have to hit. So it's not like we can just, let's just make rings and we'll sell them and give them 10% like, No, we're contractually committed to selling X amount of dollars of revenue for them, and if we don't hit that through ring sales, we still owe them that revenue.
And so, you know, it really motivates us, of course, to sell as many of them as we can, to hit those order quantities, but we have to plan ahead, because we don't think we can hit that well, we still have to come up with the funds for it, so that's part of the negotiations, but that's definitely a big part of it, and makes it kind of hard if you're a smaller company, because you know that that could really be a problem if you can't hit those minimum order quantities.
Yeah, I can imagine, especially just even managing the cash flow of it, because it's so delayed, right? You're you're putting all this capital up front, and then you're waiting for those purchases to come in, and then, you know, who knows how long that takes to actually cycle. Have you ever run into a situation where you actually were not able to hit the minimum quota, and if so, how did you end up tackling that, that challenge?
Which license was that?
MLB?
Oh, yeah, baseball, yeah. So
we do not have a baseball audience. It turns out we're. Or it's possible that, for whatever reason, the rings that we designed, you know, that time just didn't, yeah, I would love to redo that. I think we could, we could do it differently, yes, so that was a bummer, because we could see, we could see it coming, we could see that we weren't going to make that, you know, it's called a minimum guarantee. We could see that we weren't going to make that, and then, yeah, we just had to pay it. You know, there's a schedule. There's a very specific schedule in each contract of when you have to pay the different guarantees by so, yeah, we just had
to pay agreement. And yeah, so obviously, before signing anything like that, make sure you know what you're committing to. And, you know, make sure you can do it, yeah,
and it's an investment. So, you know, some people, I've heard some brands, you know, they'll take their minimum guarantees and they'll put them in like an escrow account, just to be safe. And that's, that's the super safe thing to do. That's beautiful. But if you can't do that, if you're bootstrapping, like we were, we were just like, Okay, we're just going to make sure that we budget so that we have that cash, you know, because we could see it coming, so we'll have that cash when we're ready.
So in that case, I mean, obviously you had to pay the minimum guarantee the gap and make up the difference, but meanwhile, you still have all of this inventory right of the MLB greens that hadn't sold. So did you test any sort of creative campaigns to sell through the remainder of the inventory? Or did you kind of just call it a loss and say, hey, it's just not for our people?
Yeah. Well, you know, fortunately, we manufacture in house, so while we did have some stock on hand, we were able to go through that without a problem. And and most of the orders that came through, we were just making them as the orders were coming through. So So towards the end of the agreement, there really weren't that many outstanding inventory items because we were kind of making them on demand. So we did kind of get lucky with that, but, but we've had other situations where that wasn't the case, and we did have inventory, and we put it on clearance and try to move through it. And, you know, like, like you do, yeah, and
there's in the contract, there's like, a sell off period. I think most licenses have like, 60 to 90 days where you can, you can do that, you can put it on clearance, you can try to sell through it. There's, like you said, they like to make money, so they're so happy to get their fee on whatever you can make on it. So, yeah, yeah,
it's a give and take. We've been really lucky with with most of almost all the licenses. We just learned sometimes that, you know, one or two here or there don't perform as well as others, but, but for the most part, it's been a wonderful experience. And are the partners that we're working with now, we love working with and they like working with us.
Yeah, it seems like a very collaborative process. And to your point, John, like you don't know, right, what's going to really resonate and hit with your audience until you put it out there. So it's worth the test to find, you know, the the ones like the Lord of the Rings, that just really, really resonate with your people. Going back to that licensing deal, you know, you mentioned some of the things to look out for in the contracts and whatnot, including the minimum guarantee. Was there any point in the negotiation process that felt particularly tough, like maybe something that they weren't willing to concede on, that you you just had to accept, or maybe something the opposite, where you actually chose to stay firm and you're like, it has to be this, or else we're not doing this at all.
See, she usually comes down to that minimum guarantee, always.Sometimes these are large companies, and, you know, we're good, mid sized company. We're not small. But I think, you know, you still have to consider that, and it's like, well, we're, if it's a new license, you know, we always survey our customers ahead of time before going out and getting licenses, because we want to make sure that the people we're marketing to, marketing to do have an affinity for these licenses. So we knew that our audience, you know, loved Lord of the Rings before we even approached them. But that doesn't necessarily mean those are going to turn into sales because, you know, we're surveying people who you know, a year before we even went down that path. So they obviously already had their wedding rings. So it's it wasn't going to be that group of people we surveyed necessarily coming back to purchase from us.
So, you know, it's all averages and things like that. But I would say the minimum guarantee is still a risk, and so you always try to get that as low as you can from the brand side, because you want to have that safety net. But oftentimes with large companies, they're not willing to budge. And you know, you can't blame them either, because, you know, we're trying to get quality partners that are going to be able to sell, so that everybody makes money. And, you know, thankfully, we're of the size now where we have a great track record, and brands are very willing to or licensers are very willing to work with us, so that's good. But definitely, when we started, there was some back and forth, and as there should be and will always be, but it's definitely something to consider.
Yeah, and there, there continues to be back and forth as you continue the partnership, too, because your licenses will renew at a certain point. If they're going, well, you know, you want to go through a renewal period, and so we're going through a couple of those right now. So there's negotiations back and forth about those minimum guarantees, also about, like, access to where we can sell, you know, like so, for instance, you know, we're working with Warner Brothers to be able to sell the wondering, like, internationally now, you know, which is fantastic, yeah, and in our wholesale stores. And so we'll have that, you know, as soon as January, which is fantastic.
But, yeah, you still have to go through all of those little bits, because initially, a life. License is not going to say, most times, initially, a license is not going to say, Sure, sell wherever you want. Everything's great, no problem. You know, they have to be restrictive on their side for their company as well, and do their company right. And so you'll usually get a little pocket like, you know, e commerce United States. That's what you can have the first year, and then prove it out. And then you can have a little bit more. You get international e commerce, then maybe the next year, you get wholesale, you know, retail, what have you so like you have to be part of this partnership and actively expanding it the whole time as well, right?
I wanted to expand on the point you guys made about how, you know, you try to offset risk a little bit by doing that market research ahead of time to gage interest in your existing customer base. But like you guys said, the people who are shopping actively for wedding rings are probably not the people who already bought wedding rings. So I just wanted to ask for our listeners who may also have product based businesses and are trying to forecast sales projections right to be able to negotiate accurately those minimum guarantees or whatnot, or even just purchasing inventory. Let's say. How do you calculate? Is there some sort of framework or formula that you follow to kind of estimate? Can we actually realistically hit that minimum guarantee? And what does that? What does that number or analytic process look like? Yeah, for sure.
It's definitely a process, a lot a lot of statistics and calculations and averages and things like that. But the easiest, it's not an easy process, but probably the best way to approach it, and the way we approach it is being super conservative. So you never want to assume, Oh, if I get this license, I'm going to make an extra $4 million next year, and that's going to equal x amount of orders, and it's going to be awesome. And let me go tell them that because if you don't hit it, well, then you have that minimum guarantee you got to pay for so so we try to be realistic, but lean on the conservative side, you know, because if you come up selling more than you estimate, that's good for everybody, right? So still never be upset about that, but they might get a little bummed out if you don't hit it, and you know that could put your license at risk when renewal time comes up.
And so we always try to estimate, okay, if it has modest growth, you know, based on the surveys we've done with our existing customers and from traffic on our website and other ways, what could we see are people really excited about this? If we send out an email, you know, to 100,000 people, like, how many clicks did it get? Like, is it? Is it really, does it seem like there's interest in this? And so you kind of take all that data and you put it together, and you say, well, if, you know, maybe this will represent, you know, 3% of our overall revenue or sales, and that equals X amount of orders, and if that's the base, then is it going to grow over the year? And then you got to kind of think, Okay, well, what's, what's our overall business going to do? Is it going to grow next year? Is it going to, you know, stay flat? And you kind of apply all these calculations, and you kind of, you come up with some averages and worst case, best case type things.
And, you know, like any, any other way of forecasting, you just have to be careful. You don't nothing should be too rosy, because then it gets really stressful if you're not hitting your numbers. So, yeah, realistic, then maybe a little bit conservative. Of that puts you in a safer place. And, you know, some people doing the exercise, they may think, Well, you know what? Maybe it's not worth it to do it right now. Maybe I need to grow my business a little more before I go down this road, just so I don't put myself at risk. And on the other end of that spectrum, it's like, Hey, we're doing really great. This could really help, you know, boost us into the next level of where we need to be, and we should do it. So there's a cost benefit analysis that needs to happen. And the biggest advice I would give for that is it's super important to survey the market that you're in.
So obviously, your customers, your traffic, like we do, we're, we're, like, religious about surveys and things like that. We always want to understand our customers and what they're looking for, but also understand your competition too. I mean, if there's a bunch of competitors that all have the same license, then your license may not have the impact that you're hoping for. So Right? There's a lot to consider. For sure, it's it's not for the faint of heart,
yeah, a lot, a lot of factors involved.
Yes, well, and I would add, too, that I think it's really important where that license that you're going after sits in the market too. So, like, one of the reasons we went after Jack Daniels as an example, is, Jack is such an American company. You know, you've got all these other like Jameson would have you like, as a whiskey drinker, like, I know a lot of different kinds of whiskey, you know, but Jack Daniels has that true American heritage that we all know and love, you know. And our customer is very patriotic. We know that about our customer. So you also have to figure out, like, where is your audience, and what kind of brand in the space of in this, you know, particular example, whiskey. You know what? What whiskey company or, sorry, is it bourbon? Is it whiskey? It's whiskey.
But, yeah, you know which, which, which brand would they resonate with? You know, it's important to know that, and then also to know how that brand is doing in the market too, because. You know, unfortunately, at cancel culture, we've seen some brands, you know, kind of like, take a hit with some stuff that's gone down. And so you want to make sure, like, Okay, well, maybe I want to be in this particular space over here, but I have to avoid that company for the moment. Do I just wait for everything to recover, or do I choose another, you know, license in that space that might make sense for my brand?
Yeah, lot of market research is necessary. I'd say, Yeah,
that's a great point, Michelle, about the association of other brands reputations, or fluctuations and reputation, and how that impacts the way that your customer buys from you, even so I love that you brought that up these signals that you guys are looking for, like, how many clicks did this email get? Or, you know, what's the traffic on a certain web page? If we, I know, like you said, there's too many factors to boil it down to, like, one simple equation. But if you were to just make, like, a kind of off the cuff general estimation of how many orders do we think we could realistically hit for something?
Do you utilize any sort of metric, like a percentage of your overall customer base? Like, okay, we think 2% of our customer base could possibly buy this, and that kind of is like a starting place, maybe for the number range. Or do you base it on, like a different metric, like, maybe 5% of total web page views for a similar type of product, like, which, which? I guess factor kind of weighs the most heavily on how you're calculating that.
Yeah, sure, so it's, it's still a an analysis that needs to be run. It's tough to boil it down, but I would say, you know, take your website's conversion rate and have that to the side, and then, you know, run some campaigns through email and through maybe some Facebook ads or Google ads, and just have, like, a coming soon page, and, you know, for that particular license, and then just run that for maybe a couple weeks to a month. Don't spend a ton of money on it, but let's see, you know, what's that click through rate for those ads? What's the click through rate for the email?
And then take all that total traffic that goes to that landing page that talks about it, and, you know, really take a look at it, and then, I guess the easiest way that to get that baseline is, say, all that traffic, and then multiply that by your conversion rate, and that'll give you a really bare bones conservative most likely estimate, and say, Okay, well, if we send 100,000 people to this, and we have a 1% conversion rate, then okay, we know that, you know, maybe 1000 people will buy it, and that will equal, you know, X amount of revenue. And kind of give you that baseline I would sell, then err on the side of caution, though, and deduct another, you know, 50% off of that, just to be safe, but it's but that's a good way to do baseline, you know. And you know, for us, you find pretty quickly.
Once you get into it, you find, pretty quickly, if you're spending money on ads and really promoting it, that, you know, you can kind of see, okay, what percentage of our orders are these licenses going to represent, and and so now that it's helpful, now that we have that data, which you don't get when you're just starting out, but we kind of can understand, Okay, well, Lord of the Rings, does X amount of our overall order? Jack Daniels does X, you know, will this next launch that we're doing be a Jack Daniels Lord of the Rings, or will it be MLB or Game of Thrones type level? And we just, you know, try to find like licenses and to get an idea. Yeah, it's, it's super important and crucial not to find yourself in a tough situation there and doing these customer analytics and surveys and post purchase surveys super important.
We did, like an unintentional test with Jack Daniels. And I don't know if this would help listeners, but we had a line of whiskey barrel rings that were not specific to Jack Daniels, but they were just, you know, a test to see how they how they did, and they did really well. And so that was part of that research, in particular with Jack Daniels. Like, would people like this, you know, is this going to sell? Is this material going to sell, right? And then to us, we part of those metrics. I would, I would assume that John was doing at the time, you know, were based on the sales of just the whiskey barrel in general. And then, of course, when you add the brand to it, then we got a bump, you know, which we could presume that we would get a bump on something like that, because we had tested that material already with Lord of the Rings, we couldn't do something like that because we were really specific about these rings.
Like, there's, there's bow string in the Legolas, you know. So, you know, we're, like, really, really specific about each character and what made them special, you know, the saron kind of, like, it glows, you know, Gimli has his like crown in it, you know. So that's really hard to test, but for something that has a material aspect, in our case, it was easy to give that a shot online, just unlicensed first,
and, you know, just to add to another metric that we looked at, I'm just remembering, was we look at Google Trends to kind of see, okay, are people searching for this product? Like, you know, if I sell a widget, are people typing in Lord of the Rings widget? Or, you know, rings in our case, but like, you know, T shirts, Lord of the Rings T shirts. Like, is there an organic audience available already, or is this like a whole new concept no one's ever thought of, and they're not going to be searching for it like, that's, that's a greater risk. Because you not there aren't necessarily people looking for it. And so we looked at data like that, and and also SEO, SEO, look checking out those keywords, those same keywords, Lord of the Rings, wedding band like was a big one for us. You know, does it have volume? Are people looking for it? Because you don't want to, you don't want to sell a product that there's no demand for, because that won't work. And so it's important to look at that data as well.
That's such an excellent point in marketing nerd speak, basically, like, Are you selling a product that people already have problem awareness around, or are you having to create the problem for them? Right? And so that that's a very wise, I think, point of discernment in the research process. I'm curious, in all of your like, pre market research and just getting, you know, again, indicators or survey interests, have you ever tested anything I'm thinking, like, the campaign that kind of popped into mind is like when Tesla announced their cyber truck, and they were like, Okay, you can put down $100 deposit, right? I mean, very minimal compared to the actual cost of the the car. But they wanted, like, some skin in the game, right from their customers, to see, are we really gonna, you know, do this. And so have you ever done anything similar, where you maybe didn't make someone pre order the actual cost of the ring, but, like, put in some amount of monetary investment other than just checking a box? That's like, Yeah, I'm interested. If you ever carried this product?
Yeah, I remember we did a, like, a email that went out pre launch of these rings, but it was like a week beforehand, just to tease people. But there was a little sense of us then looking at the research of how many people clicked on this, you know, what was their interest, all of that stuff. So that's the closest I think we've ever gotten that I can think of, you?
Yeah, no, we've, we've never done a monetary kind of like put X amount of dollars down, primarily because we want to get that conversion the day they visit as much as possible. I mean, there's certainly a window for us, but, but obviously, if you can get them to convert sooner, that's better, and we'd rather have somebody come in and buy a ring that day than necessarily put down a small percentage for a ring they may or may not come back and purchase later. So, yeah, I think just tactically, just for us, that doesn't make sense, but I could totally see for something that was like, and a lot of companies do this, like, for much more expensive items that are going to have a much longer lead time, like a few months or a year, even, like the cyber truck, or, you know, I've seen, like, just other types of technology, kind of, like a Kickstarter, you know, where you know it's going to be six months. To be six months, or something like that, is good to do that, to gage that commitment for sure.
And you can kind of, you know, figure out your customer by that, if they have skin in their game. That's really great data. But for us, that didn't really make sense.
Yeah, no, I totally understand where you're coming from with that. To get into some of the more detailed numbers, you guys launched this Lord of the Rings collection in october 2022 it's now one of your best selling ones. So for our listeners, a little context here. The average price is $495 you saw a $1 million increase in sales from 2022 to 2023 you're actually on track to exceed that in 2024 so congratulations. And then you you were able to add 7000 customers, and actually almost 8000 total rings sold through this collection. I'd love to know when you debut these, you know, very fan specific collections, do you see a high reorder rate from existing customers who already have a wedding band? But maybe they're like, Oh, I just want to add, you know, something cool to my collection I can rotate out. Or do you see the vast majority of the sales come from new customers? Yeah,
we have seen some reorders in this line. For sure. There's certain lines that we see reorders from. So this is one of them. Our DC Comics line is another. Our military heritage line is a third. Yeah. But you know, generally, we're selling wedding rings. And so generally guys have the expression of, I only get one wedding ring, which isn't fair, because women get upgrades all the time. So that's that's something we're pushing against and trying to introduce into the market for guys to have that permission to have more than one wedding ring. But yeah, we've seen guys wear them as fashion rings. We've seen them just say, Hey, I like to switch my rings out, John, you're switching your ring out like every day, but you also have access to like,
go out to the shop and be like, What do I want to wear today? But I think to Michelle's point, we are trying to kind of help guys. Sure, it's totally self serving, but we are trying to get guys to consider their rings, kind of like they consider their watches, right? So it's like no that would possibly get repeat purchases. That's horrible, although it's a good idea. Maybe next year. Marketing idea,
No, no, but there is, there's two things. There's the idea of, hey, it's date night. I want to wear one ring. Maybe it's the original one, or a really nice one. You know, I'm at the gym. A silicone ring, makes sense. I don't want to ding up my nice ring picking up weights or something. You know, I'm at work. Maybe I don't want the nicest ring I have. I don't want the silicone ring, but I want something decent. So there's, there's that kind of concept, but, but, you know, for Lord of the Rings, for Jack Daniels, for the military heritage, for our license collections, and some of the more unique ones, like the military one, they're almost like collectibles. I mean, you're not going to find them anywhere else, and they're made with the supervision and blessing from these license holders.
And, you know, a lot of care and time goes into them. And so a lot of guys, they do want to kind of a collection the military. One in particular is probably the best example of that, where we have rings from all the different world wars and and just really interesting materials, like B 29 bomber and tank and all that kind of stuff. In fact, I have a piece of the tanker right here, very heavy, but, you know, it's stuff like, this is, it's it's interesting, it's a collectible. And so we were able to, you know, package that in such a way that folks, they want more than one. So definitely, a small percentage of sales come from rebuys, but we're definitely trying to make it happen more.
I'm really fascinated by this, like, it's almost like a study of human behavior, and not necessarily creating a new category, per se, but creating, like you said, new consumption behavior around an existing category. Actually, when you guys were talking about, you know, the rings being like collectibles, or similar to how guys switch out, you know, watches to match their outfits. It kind of brought to mind in the analogy of how, like, women collect designer purses and some to wear, some just to literally look at and just have as part of your as part of your collection. And even, like, the military heritage rings, I was like, Huh?
Like, normally it would be probably odd for anyone other than your spouse to buy you a wedding band of any sort, but I could almost see that type of ring, like I could see someone using that as a gift occasion, even if they're not necessarily like married to you, right? Could be just like a congratulatory gift or a celebration gift, or whatever you want to call it. So very interesting. You guys are changing the consumer behavior around this category, which I think is very impressive. Speaking of consumer behavior, I've always been curious with ring purchasing in specific, since, you know, with women, oftentimes, if you're in, you know, like a heterosexual, you know, marriage, it's a man buying the ring. And so with men buying rings is, do you find that the majority of your customers are men purchasing rings for themselves, or is it actually their wives and women? Who are, you know, driving the majority of these purchase decisions?
Yeah, so when we first started, it was about 7030 women, which was so fun. And you know, when we got married, we didn't know anything about I guess there's technically a tradition where the woman is supposed to buy the guy ring. Makes sense, because he's bought her a ring in that hetero relationship.
Wish I knew about that.
But yeah, so as as we've gotten bigger, we've noticed a little bit more equal of the split, we're probably like 6040, now, would you say still, almost,
maybe 5050
almost 5050, yeah. Oh, wow, yeah.
It's interesting.
Huh? What do you think has changed the behavior around that? Or do you think it's maybe just unique to your consumer base and not necessarily the category at large?
Yeah, I think what Michelle said, you know this newer tradition, I guess it's a newer tradition, because we didn't hear about it until after we got married. So married, so we know everything. Yeah, I'll just call it a newer tradition. And so, you know, there's that. But also, guys, we don't wear jewelry, you know, and so many of our guys are for whoever's purchasing it. They don't know their size. And so a very large percent of our orders actually do size exchanges. So, you know, people order it and then they have to send it back. And, you know, we do it all for free and whatnot, and make it easy, but it's definitely like, it's like 25% of the orders. And so, you know, sizing is an issue, but I think that really is just representative, a symptom of the overall issue is that, you know, guys don't really wear jewelry until they get married, the majority of guys.
And so I think, like, I certainly didn't know what I know did. So I think that's probably why you also maybe see the other side of the equation that's more interested in the jewelry. Whoever that is, they want to go buy it. It's exciting, you know. So they may say, Hey, I picked out these five designs. I thought you might like them. What do you think? And then you'll get the guy to come in and be like, Yeah, I like that one. And then they'll buy it for him since so I think that's kind of what runs a little bit. Guys maybe don't necessarily like to peruse jewelry sites, so I think that's why there's that split. Yeah. I
mean, we very much think that the spouse of whatever sort is like, is driving the purchase in a lot of cases, because there's, you know, there's also, you know, being a woman who's gotten married and planned the wedding and done all those things, you know, there's a commonality between all of us where there's a checklist, you know, and the things have to be checked up, they all have to get done. And for whatever reason, the mentoring is always last on the checklist, maybe, maybe, like just above, groomsmen gifts, such an aftertho. Yeah, so, so that was part of us making this whole process more reverent. But, you know, it's important to get it done. And so that that part of the equation is like, Hey, I'm working on this list, and this is still on the list. Like, we got to get this done. So I think that's why that's part of the conversation.
And one thing that the John did and adds at one point in the beginning is he was talking to, you know, the woman in the hetero relationship, just saying, like, Hey, is he still dragging his feet on getting your ring? Yeah. And, you know, so whatever your audience is, who is the purchaser of that? You know, equation. Is it the person the user is purchasing? Is it a gift, you know, like, you have to think about all of that. Who is this purchaser? Are they purchasing for themselves or someone else?
Yeah. I mean, as a fairly recent newlywed, we got married last summer, summer of 23 I can totally relate to everything you just said at the ring for Dustin my husband, unfortunately, was a little bit of an afterthought. I wish we had known about manly vans. Of course, at that time we didn't. But yeah, it all makes sense exactly what you're saying around, you know, just, just the way that your product really fits into, like, decades long of traditions and processes, and how changing that behavior, really, it does, it does take time, and it does take, you know, kind of positioning it maybe in a different way, to kind of finish up our our conversation and wrap up this case study.
If we zoom out and we're just looking at your entire business as a whole. You guys seem like very creative marketers, very outside of the box thinkers. So I would just love to know, like, what is your primary strategy for acquiring customers, and tangential to that, like, maybe what has been your favorite recent campaign that just did really well, was really fun and creative that you want to share with our listeners?
Yeah, sure. So I think for us, the best way that we connect with our customers is by telling a story. And I think that's the case for any marketing really. The best marketing tells a story. And so, you know, when we started the business, Michelle did an amazing job naming the rings and coming up with descriptions for them, and, you know, is almost like a little story for each ring. And so that really resonated so well, and it was brilliant. And I think, you know, we've carried that through into our marketing. And so, you know, we always say we want every ring to have a story. You know, just like your love story has a story. And so it's like, how do we, how do we connect that story to the person looking at the ring. And so we've always focused on having creative that, you know, talks about the history of our rings and our materials.
And, you know, our licenses all have a story. You know, Jack Daniels has his story. And, of course, you know, Lord of the Rings is a story. And I think it's just, it's kind of connecting with that and having a deeper connection than just, hey, come buy my widget, you know, and sure, always talk about features and benefits and things like that, but, but to have an emotional connection, I think, is the best kind. And if you can really sell people on the meaning of what they're buying and the feeling of what they're buying, I think it'll be a much better sale. And honestly, it's, it's a better experience for everybody. You know, they they aren't just buying something to check a box, necessarily. They're buying something that means something to them and and I think that's how you really stand apart from your competition, and you can really have a meaningful relationship with your customer, which is super important.
And then in terms of the best campaign, or favorite campaign, you know, we just launched one just recently. I haven't seen the numbers yet, but it's something we're all super proud of, and the whole creative team worked tirelessly to get this out the door. But it's a, it's a campaign for our military heritage collection, and it's, it starts off with a young service member who's coming back to his grandfather's cabin to kind of clean it up. His grandfather had passed on.
And you know, he's putting his stuff together, and he's he's realizing the importance of that ring, and what his grandfather's ring was there. And you know where it came from and what he did and how it represents, you know his patriotism to his country, and you know the type of man that he was, and you know everything about it was wrapped up the ring. Was the symbol, and you know the materials in it they it was so much more than just a commitment to his relationship, which is super important, but it was also a commitment to the type of man he was and the country he served, and his passion. And it was just super moving, and it seemed did such a fantastic job. So for me, it's stuff like that that you know, can really connect the story to the product and then ultimately to the customer. That really makes a difference.
Wow, that's beautiful. Well, if you guys have the link to that specific piece of creative or that video campaign, I'll have to get it from you after this interview, and we'd love to post on the show notes for our viewers to go see, and kind of see it in action, if you will. I love that. And one last note, you actually reminded me, as you were mentioning Jack Daniels again I had said at the beginning, I had a second follow up question, and it just eluded me. But anyways, I remember now what I was going to ask you there with these licensing partnerships with Jack Daniels, with Lord of the Rings and all. Of the other ones. Do the partners play any sort of role in helping to promote the products when they go live? Or are they fully removed from that piece of cross promotion with their own audiences?
Yeah. So that's kind of a case by case basis. Some of them are willing to do a little posting, a little bit here and there. I would say the majority of them would say that you're on your own, yeah, and really, until you prove yourself, and then once you prove yourself, then usually they're willing to do something. But you know, they're also spending money on their side and having their marketing campaigns. And you know, it's amazing to see large companies and large brands have these, like, three year marketing calendars. I'm so jealous of it. You know, living
day to day here. Yeah,
exactly. So, yeah. I mean, they have to fit everything into their budgets and everything. So if you're asking them to do something, I would, you know, go on the side of it not being something that costs anything to them.
Okay, so leveraging their existing channels maybe own, yes, yeah.
I mean, really, the marketing they're doing is by growing their brand, and that's why we want to work with them. So they're focused on getting their name out there, and, you know, having these amazing brands, and so that's, that's kind of how they're helping you, right there, right? Yeah, what Michelle said absolutely, like, they don't necessarily, a lot of these big organizations, they don't have time to necessarily send out an email or put something on their website, so I wouldn't expect that, but occasionally you just have to ask, yeah,
and in the asking, like recently, we launched Jeep last year, last March, and that's been a fun license, and they were so welcoming to us at their Easter Jeep Safari, so we got to have a table there and get to introduce people to the product that was brand new, and it was fun to like to meet the audience. So sometimes you can get invited to things like that, where you get to meet the audience of that brand, which I would say, please do like always do. It's so educational, because we learned a lot about the demographic of the G person, you know, which we thought was different than it was. So it really helped us, you know, and is helping us in in redesign or in new launches of that line and everything too, yeah,
and one, one other thing too, yeah, they may not be able to, like, do marketing campaigns for you, but, you know, people like Jack Daniels, they and they invited us out to where they make the the whiskey, and they gave us a tour, and they let us film it and get great creative assets that we could use in our own marketing materials. And so it is collaborative, for sure. And you know, you work with the right license, or they want to help you have what you need to promote them. So it's that's always been something good, too.
That's true. Yeah, we're going to visit fender next week or week after week after next, and so we'll get to tour their facility and Hollywood and go through and see how they make guitars, you know. So that's going to be a blast. And, and it is something where you have to push on your side as the smaller brand, because they're the big fish, you know, and right? And they're not, you know, like you said, they're not going to be hand holding you the whole time. So you do have to be visible in a very like, you know, good way, not not too annoying, but just annoying enough to to have a relationship and and get the resources that you need from them.
Yeah, no. Such a great reminder to be proactive in any relationship. And I love the approach you guys take of just attaching on to something they're already doing anyways, right? They're running their operations, regardless of whether you show up or not, so you might as well be able to take part in that and get some really interesting, creative like you mentioned.
Thank you so much, John and Michelle. This has been so informative, I'm sure, for our listeners too, who maybe have never even considered licensing as a revenue stream in their business. I'm sure this opened a lot of eyes and doors to that. So if any of you had a new idea from today's conversation with John and Michelle, please, you know, send them a message. Thank them for their time and sharing their insights, and go check out their amazing wedding bands. There's so many collections. There's a collection for everybody, really. So all of their links will be below in the show notes. But John and Michelle, is there any specific link that you send people to or for them to connect with? You guys personally,
just go to Manly bands.com and check us out. Yeah, we'd appreciate it. Yeah,
awesome. Thank you so much, and thank you all for tuning in. We'll catch you in next week's episode. Great.
Thank you for having us.
Thanks so much.
If you love today's episode, send it to a friend. Tag us on Instagram @cubicletoCEO, or give us a five star rating at ratethispodcast.com/cubicleToCEO. You can also access bonus episodes on our private podcast by joining the C suite, our flagship annual membership providing exclusive cash savings content and an offline community for small business CEOs. Check out the link in the show notes to join us. You.
