Episode 34: "The Keys to Bringing in New Customers"

Marshall Atkinson

If you've ever wondered how a recording artist or brand has so quickly developed a merchandise line of their own, chances are someone like Todd Moen with KREATIV LAUNCH was behind it. Todd's company specializes in bringing ideas to life. With over 25 years of experience in production, distribution, and licensing, KREATIV LAUNCH has been the go-to partner for many well-known brands, such as the Rolling Stones, ACDC, the Grateful Dead, HBO, NFL, the NBA, Microsoft, as well as a host of others. In this episode of Success Stories, Todd will break down his approach for how he develops relationships with new customers that are in alignment with KREATIV LAUNCH his capabilities and profit goals. If you want to learn how to succeed in this area, this is an episode that you don't want to miss. So Todd, welcome to the Success Stories podcast.

Todd Moen

Hey, nice to be here. Thanks for asking me.

Marshall Atkinson

Yeah, so you live here in Arizona as well as I do. And so before you get too far into the show here, once you kind of just let everybody know a little bit about you and your history and kind of what you do.

Todd Moen

Okay, sounds good. Again, Todd Mellon, and I come from a background in the clothing business. So my father was an executive for Levi Strauss and a bunch of other clothing companies I grew up in, always been around the area, I went to school for biology and then engineering. So I'm a little bit of a kind of a hybrid all over the place. But I guess you know, if people really talk to me about something, I'm not so much about what I do or what to do, I think I'm a father and husband more than anything, and I enjoy, I enjoy giving back and doing a lot of things. I'm on a board at Grand Canyon University here in town, I do a lot of other things. So I think it's it's important to be really well rounded as you're working on things and not just be all business all the time. I know. That's what we're here to talk about today. But I'd say that if anybody spends more than about 10 minutes with me, you've probably heard me say something about one of my kids or my wife or something of that nature. I think that's an important thing to have a good perspective on what's really, truly important in your life.

Marshall Atkinson

I totally agree with that. That's really awesome. And I have had actually heard you talk about your kids and your family. So he's not sugarcoating folks. So talk about how you know, I know you do more than just your family has like made dresses, and all types of apparel, and you import things in from other countries. And so you're not just like your typical t-shirt printer. And so how did that evolve into the kind of what you're doing now with all these other brands and everything?

Todd Moen

Okay, that's a good question. So, yes, that my father and my brother still work in that company, and that they definitely got involved in doing dresses, large scale, overseas production, design, and doing the things like that. What I always saw was, even though I had my background in more technical things, I always really liked and enjoyed being an artist. And I was a good artist, I like to draw things, I was always creative. I don't think I was a great artist. But I liked having an outlet for that. So I kind of combined all the things I did the love of machinery, understanding chemistry, my background, you know, with my family, in the clothing business, doing all these different things and kind of morphed it all together into a career. And that so I really wanted to do something that I loved every day that I was there and enjoyed. So it was important to me to really kind of craft my own thing. I think one thing that I always like to tell people, I have never applied for a job in my life. I've walked in places and handed somebody my resume with this is what I think I could do for you. But I've never had to go that route. And I've always been one that just kind of thinks a little bit outside of the box. And that you know, we hear that a lot of people go well, what does that really mean thinking outside of the box? I don't like to follow what other people do. I like to be a leader. I like to find things and I'm not afraid to ask for things that I want and provide value for them. So I think that's one of the things I would say as far as coming and going and doing things and finding something that you truly love to do is an art and I really feel lucky to do that. So as your question was talking a little bit about what other types of do we do at KREATIV LAUNCH? So at KREATIV LAUNCH, one of our big things, and I've done this throughout my career, is we go work with a brand, and we say, "Tell us what you want to do. And we'll come up with ways to make it work." So it's not just so much somebody saying, "Hey, I've got these four designs for t-shirts. And we also want to put this on those designs and a few other things. What can we do?" And we open up the catalog and go to page three that says t-shirts, and it says, "Okay, on a t-shirt, we can go 13 and a half inches wide by 18 tall for the back print on the front, we can do this." And we don't really follow kind of like a system like that. And that's what a lot of people do. We say you dream it, let's figure out a way to make it happen. And then we figure out, how can you do that at a small scale? Because you're starting off and you can't go order 5000 pieces from overseas. How can I do something that's cool, that gives you that look for under 100 pieces? And then how do we scale that? How do we grow together and do that? So we do a lot of that with all sorts of different products and items. And it's, it's really not limiting ourselves by the rules of what standard can and can't be done. It's coming up with different ways, I do a lot of things where I print the fabric first, and then construct the garment around it so that things work. And that so it's doing it a little bit different and really working hand in hand with our customer base, who they really look at us as additional team members. We're not, we don't have any place where we go into and they hide all their paperwork, they move things around, we're looked at as you know, as part of the team. And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to make the vision happen.

Marshall Atkinson

So your kind of superpower is really coming up with new ideas from scratch and bringing them to life.

Todd Moen

Yeah, I think you know, if you're gonna get us in a nutshell, because you know, there's a lot of companies out there that work really hard and do everything that they can to make their customers happy. And you know, so I don't want to say I outwork everybody, I think we do put in a great effort. But that I think it's creativity. I mean, it's part of the reason my company's name is KREATIV LAUNCH, is that we are creative and that we come up with solutions that work and not only work but work in a way that you can go to market with them. It's one thing if you can go through, I can make this really cool, cool design. But we can't reproduce it again. And we can't make it so that it'll fit into a standard keyhole pricing in a retail store. So you got to have that sense of the reality of what you're doing.

Marshall Atkinson

Okay. And so with the current economy, Todd, what ways do you think customers are buying and what's changed? You know, and what are you doing differently than maybe you were doing a year or two ago?

Todd Moen

Good question. So that with everything, you know, the economy has been hard for a lot of people COVID, the shutdowns, all the different things that have gone through and my company very gratefully, we were able to have a massive growth in the last year and a half. And part of that was we didn't sit back and look for where the problems were, we really look for the solutions and became the solving solutions. Like first of all, we realized that there was a mass shortage and all the different things, we came up with ways to produce simple mass, get them out to the cut, you know, out to the public, and do the things that way, like a lot of people did, right. But then as soon as we saw the shift, that production globally was starting to open back up again, I was ahead of everybody in ordering more things and getting things and bringing them in and starting to bring some of the first shipments in that came in, you know that after that. So that was a big part of it. But I would say that anytime that there's a downturn in the economy, there's a hiccup, that if you flinch, you're in trouble. And so you've got to go at it with an attack mode, and not sit back and just wait for it to get over with. So we were very aggressive. And we went out and started targeting industries that we knew were going to continue to produce. And then some of them were creating brand new relationships as this was going through that we were able to call up and work with customers and say yet, I know everybody else is telling you they can't we can. Let's figure out a way to get this done. And we were able to pick up a lot of new customers through this. And I also did a lot of work for some of my friends around the country, especially people in California that were totally shut down and couldn't do anything. So we really, really did a quick switch. And it's also part of what we did when we founded KREATIV LAUNCH was that we wanted to be different and unique. I've learned a lot of lessons from being a printer and working with clothing brands over the years being a contract printer talking to lots of other people Talking to people like yourself martial that are dialed in on the industry, and really getting into seeing what works and what doesn't work. And one of the things that my company was set up really well is we're very lean, there's not a lot of people that are involved in it. But everybody that's involved in my company, has 20 plus years of experience. And we knew what to do, we didn't have to worry about it, we didn't need to set up a protocol for how you work from home, how you do these other things, we were ready to go, we put together a plan. And we started calling and contacting people and growing and doing the things and now we've, we've continued that we've actually our growth curve this year was explosive because of that. And then as things got better, we started, like I said, expanding into our overseas factories, doing the different things, looking at new areas to get things produced. And so I would say that the biggest thing is being open. And really designing a plan. And not being afraid is the key, I think, you know, if you can go back and look at it anything, it's if you want to sell and you want to grow your business, it's the easiest advice in the world. Don't be afraid to ask for an order. Don't be afraid to call somebody to see what's going on. And it doesn't matter if they work for a small little company up the street, or it's that big dream account you've ever wanted to do is figure out a way to get in front of them and talk to them and make sure you're providing value. So we've been working really hard on those areas to do but I think the other part too is you say what are we doing differently. One of the things that we've worked hard on to deliver to our customer base was we knew to a lot of people didn't have free cash lying around that they could pay for things. So we extended terms with people, we did some creative ways to come up with alternatives to ideas they had, so that it still fits in their budget, and doing things like that. So I think we really looked at the financial side of it a little bit more than we do. I'm not known as a printer that's going to go out and try to chase the bottom dollar. With people we sell quality, we sell retail quality products that are designed to last and look good and be nice. So I didn't want to be in that game. And I didn't change while we were going through this, I kept my focus. And we really have developed and continued to grow. And that it's interesting is that we've actually been selling higher-end products during the last year than we did basic products. And you think it's kind of the opposite. You know that from people, but people were looking for unique and different and quality. And so that I'd say that those are a couple of the ways that we switch things up to be successful during this time frame.

Marshall Atkinson

I think it's just because the end consumer wants to feel good about themselves, maybe when there's everything's going crazy around them. So they might spend a little more on something to make themselves happier.

Todd Moen

Yeah, I think so. There are two things because you know, we have, we have our one side where we're doing a lot of stuff that is high-end giveaways for some of our companies that our customers that we work with. So on those they really wanted to make sure that their customers felt validated and cared for. When it went for the side with what we're selling online and the different things with our partners, it really was offering something unique and different. And people were looking for an escape, they were looking for something unique. You know, when you're stuck in the house for six months, people wanted something to kind of show off, or hey, look at the new thing I got. And so we were trying to be as many of those cool new things that people were posting about.

Marshall Atkinson

I like that I like that. And so when we're also talking about the higher value client, the other end of that tide is saying no to people who don't, aren't in alignment with what you're doing, or what you're bringing to the table. So talk about being able to say no to folks.

Todd Moen

Yeah, I think that's one of the hardest things to do in business, and especially all of us business owners out there, or even just people working on commission, that it's hard to say no, it's something that I've had to really work on over the years to say no because if somebody puts a challenge in front of me, it's kind of like accepted, let's go, let's see what we can do. And it's definitely not the way to run a business that my wife will tell me that a lot too. My wife is an accountant. So she watches what we do very carefully. But that so one of the things that I started doing over the years is really kind of keeping a mental log of the types of clients and things and we all know it. When you start talking to somebody your meter goes off saying that this isn't right. But sometimes you know, we're looking for that sale and we're doing things so I really have been much pickier and staying in the lanes that I want to be in and I've turned down some pretty good customers or turned them to a friend You know, different friends throughout the industry, where it fits their paradigm more than it did mine. Because you know, the other part of it too is if you're taking business that you really don't want to do, or it's a low margin, or you've got a chance for failure because they're asking for way more than what it's possible to deliver, you're tying up capital that you could be making in your main core business that you could be doing other orders with. So we've stayed really focused on sticking to our core, and what we've been doing, and that's really allowed us to grow. But I will say that I've had times where I say no, and I really questioned it for a couple of days in my head that, Oh, that would have been a nice check. But it's not what we're at. And you know, I think that Gone are the days that you are a little bit of everything for everybody. It's very hard to be profitable that way, I think it's worth much more in an age of specialty. And knowing where you are knowing where you're profitable and sticking in those lanes, and that the world has changed. And if you don't keep adjusting, you're going to be the one left behind.

Marshall Atkinson

Right? That's right. And so if you're a generalist, meaning you do everything for everybody that's more aligned with commodity, right. So when you're a specialist, that's when you can get our higher dollar for what you do, because you're more focused, and that's where your expertise and bringing your value to your customer comes in. Don't you agree with that?

Todd Moen

Oh, wholeheartedly and you know, one of the things too is I explain that to my customers. And if I had one of them, you know, one of our key partners with us today, they'll tell you that and within the first meeting or two that I'm at, I always talk about, it's got to be a win for you, it's got to be a win for us. And it's got to be a win for the customer. And if it goes that way, we're building a great success story beat between all of us. And I wholeheartedly believe in that. And so one of the first things that we talk about is, there's a lot of people that will go out and sell you something really cheap, but that's what you're buying. That's not what we do that I don't sell something that I can't stand behind, in that we're not proud of. And so we target customers that are the clientele that is looking for something a little bit higher, and that is doing that. And what we found with that is that we're in a world where we don't have to do a lot of competitive bidding anymore. You know, we're out there just solving problems working with things, and really enjoying what we're doing. We're not in a bidding war for every order that we do. And I know that sounds weird because you know, I think most people out there that have a shop or you know, are involved in our industry, they bid every single job that we're we work to be a trusted member of our client’s team. And they know where we're at, we're very open with where everything is at. And because of that, we built the relationship where the relationship is more important than the price, you know, we're always conscious of giving them a good quality-price for their product. And I'm definitely not overpriced. But we do explain there's a value to the service that we offer. And I think that's one thing a lot of shop owners don't realize is, hey, how many times did somebody work through their kid's birthday party worked all weekend driven something 200 miles to an event, because it wasn't your fault, but the customer forgot, and you drop things off, and you do all these things. And in the end, sometimes those people leave you because oh, well, we somebody else is doing them for 50 cents cheaper, you know that if you don't lay out your value as a value statement with who you're dealing with, they're never going to respect that from you. So that's something that I've learned over the years. And we very much we don't wear it as this big badge on our chest that you know, must respect us. But we're going to help you we're going to work together. You know, as a team, we're going to be your partner in this, and that we were looking out for you. We appreciate it if you look out for us. And we stay with customers I did I've probably fired more customers over the years than I've had to leave me. And I think that's a big statement on working correctly with a group. And I think that's a hard thing for people to understand everybody sometimes get they get caught up in how much did I make on each order and all the different things like you know, on that I really look at what did I make? You know, what did we profit on a year to year basis with these companies and then really look at it so we actually analyze everybody and see where we're at every year to make sure that we're in a good spot that we're providing of good value and service, but it's also bringing back you know, the margin that we need to be as a business survive and to continue to grow.

Marshall Atkinson

And I think your statement there about knowing who you are really, is really about confidence. And I think a lot of newer printers or newer businesses, the reason they drop their pants on price to get something is they're just not confident in what they do. And so they'd rather get the yes. And it really not be a good fit, then to lose the business or feel otherwise, or that kind of thing. Do you agree with that?

Todd Moen

Yeah, I would say so that I see it a lot with people, Oh, more when I ran shops and did things that we would have a lot of, you know, whether it's a shop owner, or it was, you know, just a distributor that's out there selling that they would come in, and like, oh, boy, I really put myself in a hole on this one, and you'd hear it all the time. And that I don't think I can go back and really say that I've ever had one that I lost my shirt on, that I was always confident my math, I'm really good at math. And I know where my margins need to be, you know, and that if you're going to run any business at all, you've got to be good at math, and to be where you want to be. But I think when it comes down to confidence and everything, you've heard me talk about this before Marshall that I grew up with a little bit of a stammering stuttering problem. And I didn't like to talk and I didn't like to do a lot of things. And if I could go in there, and figure out a way when I used to, if I put four words together when I was in high school, it was a lot. And that if I could go in and do it, you all can. And confidence just comes from the ability to understand your value. And value yourself value, what you do value the service you're providing. And make sure that when you're doing that, you're living up to the words that you say, if you say you're going to deliver it at this time with everything, make sure it's done. And that if you're always running late, you need to make sure that you're looking at that and adjusting your timeline so that you are arriving on time and doing the things that you like you said, Yeah, I agree with you. It's very much a confidence thing. But confidence comes from within confidence can be gained. And that if you've got the guts to go through, and hey, I'm going to be a business owner. And I'm going to go out and do these things. You've got the confidence to go ask for orders from people and ask for it in the right way. And don't think that every order has to work out a lot of the deals you walk away from are some of the best deals that you never made, you know, you should have walked away from them. So that you know something to keep in mind is you don't have to close everything.

Marshall Atkinson

Talk about how you direct target new customers where you do the research of who you want to work with. And then you're going after them on purpose, you're not waiting for the phone to ring, you're going after them.

Todd Moen

Okay. And I think that's right now between referrals. And that exact approach is how we get all of our business, I don't do any advertising, everything I do is direct contact. So what I do is, I look at the types of areas that I know I provide a really strong value add to that customer basis, you know, to the customer. And then I look at what they're doing to make sure that it fits my production capabilities, the connections, I have my factories, all the other things too. So we very narrowly target things that we're going after even down to the point of we look for companies that are in this revenues area, you know, we don't want to get to a company that's too big, because then we might have trouble floating the cash for the orders that are coming in, right? Or we don't want to go somebody too small. Because if you're too small, and you're in that early on growth cycle and different things like that, I don't really have a lot of time to do 100 piece orders, you know, in the different things like that I'm really kind of focusing 1000s and above right now. And that's something like said it took a little bit. So what we do is we have basically a set of criteria that we've outlined analytically to look at companies so we look at the sector that they're in, we look at the amount of volume that they do sales. So you know what the revenue is? We look at how they sell items, are they selling items? Are they giving them away, and we target those. And obviously, when you're in that those get moved into two separate piles. Because you know, one, it's a freebie thing, or it's a thank you gift. And those can be anything from $1 to hundreds of dollars, right. The other side that we look at is people that are doing wholesale or direct retail, where we know we have to really watch our margins on that side and make sure that it fits within the scale that can go into and do a sales model. So we do those things analytically, we also look at if what we're doing with other companies fit, we do a lot of work with like skateboard companies, skate companies. So we found that one really good fit for us is we do a lot of work in the cannabis industry. So that so we've been picking up lots of cannabis brands. And one of the things we were saying is, hey, we just did these really cool socks and hats for this brand. They're okay, if you re-label, you know, redo it with your branding on it and do that. But this isn't an off-the-shelf item, but it's already been developed. So we've been doing a lot of that and teaming things up and creating things. So we look for things that fit that order. Are they big enough of a customer? Do they fit with where we want to be? Do they buy on a regular basis, I don't deal with anybody that does one big event a year, because it's too much going now we want people that are buying on a weekly or monthly basis. Most of my customers currently right now, place multiple orders a week with us. They don't pace, you know that. So that's something we really look at because that's part of how I devise My strategy for cash flow management. So there's a whole bunch that goes into it. And I answer more questions for you on it too, but that you put together these criteria. And then once you have that set, then we target in on the companies that we feel fit that area, I look at them, and we try to see do we have any connections into them yes or no. And then if we don't, we put together a packet of information for them, we'll go out we'll spend a little bit of time and effort, putting together art, dropping their logo on things, putting it together, really showing it in a custom way, and reach out at a high level, and contact the customer and go after, you know, we don't come in there with Hey, take a look at this, we put this together for you. It's like we see you, we value you. This is our company history. This is who we do and what we work with, we want to work with you. And you know, we'd like an opportunity to get it in front of you. And I would say, for the most part, we get into See most people that we do with just that basic simple pitch and a nice deck that we send in with it. And you know, and obviously, you know, that's for going after higher level larger customers. But you can do the same thing if it was a smaller customer, just having something that's appropriate to who you're going after. And so yeah.

Marshall Atkinson

Are you making samples?

Todd Moen

I do. Sometimes it depends on the brand. If it's a company where I think that we could do even, you know, a couple $100,000 worth of business without a year, I think it's worth it. One of the things that we have a great agreement with is that the factories that I deal with overseas and my production partners here in the US, I've done enough work with them, that we all will pretty much split sampling charges on things because we know where it's going to go. And so I do think it makes sense I don't go crazy with it. And I would say that maybe 30% of the customers we're going after we'll do a sampling program, and try to work on that. And so it's more just what fits the customer right and especially you know, in this day and age to with customers being fairly educated with what they want their graphics to look like, let's say on apparel that they want a soft hand they want a water-based print, they want to special effects or the different things of that nature. Sometimes you do have to go that extra effort to show them that your quality is better. And or why you know why they should switch to you because a lot of times to all target people because we did the work. And we saw what was in this sector that we wanted to go after we started looking at what they were currently doing. And we look for people that are doing just basic generic stuff. If you're doing basic generic with no creativity, you're a target for us if you're doing stuff, and we look at the stuff that's on your website and pictures and we can see that it's out of red, it's off placement. It's you know, all the things that we all should be doing better as an industry that isn’t done well. We're going after those people harder because we don't make those mistakes, you know, and that we work with our production partners, we do the proofing, we do everything to eliminate those. So we're looking for those opportunities to get in front of people, and really take advantage of lack of creativity, lack of quality, lack of the other things. And they also have the ability to be in the range of the order size that we need to be at to be successful.

Marshall Atkinson

So what I really like hearing here is the fact that you're bringing your own special rocket sauce to the table that shows these potential clients, how different you are from everybody else. And that gets your foot in the door to help generate the momentum to close the deal. Yeah, that's just great. That's just great. And so a lot of people, I think, they're sitting back, and they're waiting for the phone to ring. And all they talk about is the price of income cotton. And that's about as far as they go. Or write on cotton for embroidery or whatever, right? Yeah, we're not, we're not talking about all the awesome sauce that we can bring to the table. You know, and I'm an ex-artist, art director, right? So I know art sells shirts. And I want I can't even tell you how many thousands of designs that I've created over the years that landed the big accounts because we weren't scared to design into print. And that got us into the meeting.

Todd Moen

Definitely, I mean, you can I can think of times we're doing sampling, I was part of a really cool company up in Minneapolis. And we were pitching, you know, I'll just say who it was we were pitching Polaris at the time. And we went into the meeting. And to be honest with you, they didn't want to hear anything that we were talking about at the time. And you know, everything we did was kind of negative. And we went through and snapped a picture of one of the people in the meeting that was wearing a jacket and did some playing around with it went back we said hey, you know what, we're gonna come up with something you guys are gonna like, we'll be back here tomorrow morning. Okay, you know, at this time there was there were no DTG machines, there wasn't anything that you could flip around and print something out, mock it up, and new things. So we went back in, we threw mud all over his jacket, we put goggles on his face and had the rim of where his glasses were if he pulled it off, he had a big smile on his face but dropped one of their ATVs in the background. We separated it in the middle of the night shot, the screens got everything done. And nine o'clock in the morning, we were back there to show them the shirt. And what did we do, we ended up picking up a bunch of business from them for a number of years, we did a good thing, I ended up leaving that company, but they were still working with them at the time that he left. And what it really showed them was whether anything was the shirt, the most creative shirt ever. No. But what it did show was that we had the drive as a company and as a team, to show them how badly we wanted their business. And that we could produce a quality product in a quick turnaround. Because as we all know, that's not our industry, for the most part, that everybody would like to think that they turn things quick. But it's longer. And right now with all the challenges of owning a shop and having enough people and all the different things like that turn-times aren't that fast. And that. So I think sometimes it's really just being willing to go out there and just say, You know what, I'm going to put in caution to the wind, and I'm going to go for it. Because nothing ventured, nothing gained. You know that it's kind of funny because a lot of times to even these big customers, they're not used to being asked for the business. They appreciate it. You know, they'll be like, Oh, do you want to do business with us? You know, Oh, great. Well, let's see what we can. They're more than accommodating. And that I think that it's kind of like when you go into a job interview and you're nervous as all get out because you don't want to make a mistake. You don't want to do this and do that. Well, the person sitting across from me is going, Man, I don't want to have to interview 15 more people, I hope this one works out, you know, it's kind of that whole thought pattern is you don't know the fear from the other side. And really, people are just looking for people that can help solve problems and do it at a price that they feel is fair to everybody. And I really don't see very many people out there that are cutthroat. It's got to be at this price. And to be honest with you, if you're dealing with those people, you need to do whatever you can to try to get away from it because they're just they're stealing your business. They're not good customers. And so, you know, again, it's being able to have the courage to ask It's the courage to walk away. I will say there are more good customers, good people, and good opportunities out there. Even in hard times, then most people would think all you have to do is just ask for it, and show that you can accomplish it be a good printer, you know, don't go in there and say you can do all this stuff and show up and you ran it on the wrong mash. It's a thick paint, it's uneven, you've got a little bit of the backer sticking out, have a little bit more pride in yourself, and you can go a long way.

Marshall Atkinson

Alright, so Todd, the last question. Okay, so many companies in this industry are simply not profitable. And I know that because I've been around the block a little bit here. But so help listeners understand how you think about sales and production to maximize the profit for orders that you're producing. Because you start with the end in mind, right from the beginning, you don't like to cross your fingers and hope you'll make money, you're making money, because you engineered it that way. So we're gonna talk about that a little bit.

Todd Moen

And I think that's a good point, because a lot of people don't know how to price or they'll steal somebody else's price list, and they'll go off of that, which is go, I don't know why you would do that. But that's a big standard of how people do things. And well, you know, so what we do is, I'll give you a little insight how the actual clothing industry does that, you know, people that are selling things into, like Dillards, or, you know, department stores or the bigger stores, you know, we still have a few of those stores left. But that so what you do is you look at the cost of where you want to retail the item, and then you work backward from that. So you have to figure out, okay, if we're doing if we're looking to sell, let's say we're looking to retail, a t-shirt, and I'm just throwing theoretical, don't hold my math to this, even though I said I'm good at math earlier. So say we're trying to retail a shirt at $30. Online, we know that, okay, it's got to be at 30, the person, our partner that's working with it wants to at least mark it up, you know, once if not twice, you know, to be able to do that. So, where am I at? I'm down somewhere around $10, you know, an item that I can do? And then how do I get that put in. So we're working backward. As we're doing it, we figure out what we can do, we figure out where we can save money where we can't, I think one of the things, and that's how we develop a price. But one of the things that we do different KREATIV LAUNCH is that we look at how I can do like items, and work on that together to get the pricing down like I was talking about a little bit earlier. So I negotiate with the hat factories that I've been working with for over 20 years, that we're going to guarantee that we do X amount of hats a year, okay, we're going to be in that and we've got to hit that number, right or be as close as we can most years, we're well over it, you know, so if we have a down year, we're okay. But so we price everything out like it's an individual order. And we make our margin, but then on the volume that we do, because we do, we've got it built up to where we're doing more volume, I actually will have at the end of each quarter more percentage that I can add on to my actual profit, because we were able to say, maybe we saved an extra 15 cents a hat, you know, and we worked on that. So that was able to incorporate because they got the volume discount. So we look at things in a different way. I work with suppliers different, I buy things differently, I tend to find customers that like the same kind of stuff, or we get into a lot of programs where we're doing relabeling programs, a lot of people don't like the relabeling program, but what does the relabeling program do? A lot of times, if you're presenting it right, and you don't send them samples that have all the different brand names and the different things on them, you keep sending them, you can group people into a brand and work a deal with the shirt manufacturer or the distributor on those shirts to get your price down. Because hey, now I'm almost exclusively buying an all style shirt, or I'm almost exclusively buying this, you know, and that you're able to work backward on some of those things that makes him so we look at keeping our margin tight. And everything that we're doing, which we feel is a very fair win-win for us, our customers, and their clients. And then we go back and figure out ways that we're saving money because of the volume that we're doing, or the type of printing that we're doing, or the type of embroidery we're doing and doing things like I think one of the areas that we save a lot of money on is large programs with like restaurants, I do some large restaurant chains, and instead of doing each one where we embroider the Polo-like the ones that we have to do here domestically, I don't spend the time embroidery and all that I bring patches in and we just sell the patch on and we quick stitch a patch on to it. And because of that, we're able to take The profit that we would have charged for a complete embroidered, left chest. Now we're to a much Ineke more inexpensive patch that we're putting on that. And we might realize an extra 20 cents a garment price difference that we're able to keep. So you know if part of it is just being smart with what you're doing, but I think that coming up with what you're doing on your pricing in your structure, that how you price things, you really do have to look at it independently of what other people are doing out there, look at where you need to be, sit down, do your math on it, make sure you're making enough per order. And if you're not analyzing every order that you do, and have your complete profit on there, you're selling yourself short. And that I see that with too many people where they continue to sell themselves short. And then after six months, you know, they turn around to go, Well, how did I lose $25,000 last quarter, when I ran all this work, or I shouldn't say loose. But you know, under where your projected goal was, it's because you didn't do the math. And you didn't figure out where you needed to be. So you got to be really smart with doing all that.

Marshall Atkinson

And I'm a big believer in knowing your data. You can't manage what you don't measure. And really looking at your KPIs all the time, especially if you're doing your in-house production. So you know what your cost per impression is, you know, all that stuff constantly. You're looking at your labor, you're looking at how you're spending your money. And I think so many people just pay the bills. And at the end of the month or in the quarter, how much money do we have leftover?

Todd Moen

Yeah, I know, I would agree with you. I think that's how most people run their business. And I know exactly what I pay going into every month on labor. I know what I'm paying on rent. I know what I pay on consumables, I've got everything budgeted out, so that I can predict where I'm going and set myself up for success. And that's not anything that's hard to do. All your programs are set up for you to be able to do that get that data back out. Just people don't look at it. They don't take the time to look at it. And it's sad because if you don't watch your pennies, you're losing dollars.

Marshall Atkinson

Yeah. Well, it's because Todd, it's math and math is scary. It's boring. Oh my god, it's math. Right? You're lucky your wife keeps you on track. Yeah. Because she's the accountant.

Todd Moen

It's a blessing and a curse. Right? You know, because sometimes you want to go out there and you want to spend a little bit to go after business and do some different things. But an accountant will tell you no, no, no, that's not within your profitability, you need to stay here. So you got to gotta balance the two. And that is why no company should just solely be run by a salesperson. And none should be run solely by an accountant, you've got to have a blend, you've got to be willing to risk a little bit to get it. And you know, we had a football coach here in Arizona for a while that said, you know, no risk, no biscuit. And I think it's very true, you sometimes you got to throw it up and go for it, and see if you're going to come down with that touchdown. And it's important. And that I would say that I'm very calculated in what I do. But I am willing to take a risk. And I'm willing to go in and take a chance of being told no. And that I think it's just important. It's like, you know, people will say, Oh, you know, like, when you're younger, don't go ask her out, she'll never go out with you. And then you go up and talk to her. She hasn't been asked out because everybody was intimidated, has the guts to go. And then honestly, I think when you do that, and you go in the rush that you get from making those sales is so amazing compared to just settling for something to keep the flow going through your shop. And that's what I love. I actually love my job, I enjoy coming to work every day. I don't complain about it, I have a blast. I work with awesome people. I've got great customers that but I think it's just because we're all kind of looking out for each other. And we're all working through this process together. And that if you let that be known, and you truly get into those types of relationships with your customers, doesn't mean I don't suggest being like close personal friends with every one of your customers. That's not a good thing. But having a thing where you guys all know you got each other's back. And you're working through these issues and that you're a reliable source to get things done for them that they can count on. That I think that's the most important thing and that this is not terribly difficult if you put the work in and that it can be really difficult if all you're trying to do is grind from behind the whole time because you're never going to catch up. The other part of it too is really, really love what you're doing. And if you're in an area of the industry that you don't like, shift to an area that you do. And there's plenty of different markets to be able to sell our types of items into everything from printing for your own self, and going selling at a pop-up shop somewhere, all the way up to providing stuff for major brands and events. And that, you know, some of them, as I said, some of the biggest ones we did, we went in on cold calls and just presented what we wanted to do. And we were able to give him an opportunity. Because as we all know, out there, the competition's not that strong. You know, not everybody is so tight debt in with who they're buying from. And especially, that's becoming more and more because companies, there's much more quick turnover of people, people, their loyalty isn't there, they shop the internet more, they work with a trusted supplier and doing things. So you've got to come up with ways that you stand out. And one of the ways that you stand out really well is when they know that they can trust you and they can rely on you. And that and you're also not in there boasting about yourself all the time, you're talking about your team, and you're reminding them, it's not just you. Because you know, I don't want people to just think me, they're thinking, I've got this whole team of people that are all working hard, and they're dependent on all of this working together for you builds camaraderie.

Marshall Atkinson

Do you bring your team in? So it starts with you?

Todd Moen

It depends on the customer that we do, I have certain people that work with me in different parts of the industry that we do. And that's something I actually that's a really good thought too, is because a lot of times in the past, it has just been me. And when people get used to dealing with just one person from a company, and maybe seeing email addresses from everybody, you really limit your ability to scale. Because I can only be in so many places at one time, I can only take so many phone calls on a day to answer so many emails. And so one of the big things that I've been working on this, really the last few years is how can I be a better delegator and work on building my team so that I can trust what's being said, and you know, how things are going and, you know, really look at it, too, that too many business owners look at any time that, oh, they left money on the table, or they should have done this, or they should have done that, rather than looking at, hey, they accomplished they close the deal. We're profitable on it. It's moving forward, you know, and really appreciate the effort that's put in.

Marshall Atkinson

You didn't have to participate in that activity either, right?

Todd Moen

No, exactly. Yeah. And so that's where we're trying to get to, we're trying to build this up to where it can run itself more. And then I can kind of use my ability to come in and maybe close the difficult one, or saw be a problem solver versus being active in every order that happens through my company.

Marshall Atkinson

Oh great. Well, hey, thank you so much for your time today. Todd, I really appreciate you sharing your stories of success. So if someone wants to learn more about what you do, or how you can maybe help them, what's the best way to contact you?

Todd Moen

Yeah, they can go to our website, and it KREATIV LAUNCH calm, and that's kreativlaunch.com. And just click on it and there's a Contact Us and I'll get the message, I'll be happy to help anybody out. I'm always interested in being able to help make our industry stronger, and better. So I have no problem at all asking talking to people. Some things have led to some really good partnerships over the years by being willing to just take a phone call. So you just never know what's going to happen and how we can all help to get them so happy to have anybody reach out.

Marshall Atkinson

Awesome. Thank you so much, Todd. You're fantastic.

Todd Moen

Thanks. Always good talking to Marshall.

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