The Catholic School Leaders Podcast

Kirby Hasseman
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Catholic School Leaders Podcast, where today we are going to talk about a subject that everybody wants to know more about, and that is marketing. So today I'm happy to welcome as our guest, Kirby Hasselman. He's the CEO of Hasselman Marketing and Communications, a full service marketing company and promotional products distributor.

He was named as a rising star in the industry by PPB Magazine, and recently, out of 300, 000 industry professionals. He was recognized as a top social media influencer on two different industry lists. He hosts a weekly web show called Delivering Marketing Joy. where he interviews business leaders from around the country.

In addition, he puts out his Monday Minute, a short video on professional development, of course, each week. And he hosts an industry podcast promo up [00:01:00] front. He's published five books, and his first was called Think Big Marketing for Small Businesses. Another called Marketing Joy. How about that promo for our podcast today, Kirby?

he's also written Fan of Happy, and most recently, The Give First Economy. His most recent book, Hit the Target, is now on sale. You can find that anywhere where you purchase books. Kirby is most proud of, of his titles as father and husband. He's married to Amy, and the father of Skylar and Jade.

Kirby, welcome to the podcast!

John, thanks so much. I, I love what you're doing and I'm so honored to be here. So thanks buddy. Appreciate

Well, thank you. I appreciate it. So let's dive in here because one of the things that I'm sure you hear a lot, not just from schools, but businesses everywhere, is everybody always says, I need help marketing. But a lot of times there's a bigger issue where maybe you don't need help with marketing, but it's messaging, or maybe branding, or maybe advertising.

Can you describe in your opinion the [00:02:00] difference between any of those terms and when people are looking for marketing help?

Yeah, no, it's great. Actually, it's funny. I think marketing and advertising sometimes are, uh, they overlap in people's minds, right? When they, when somebody says we need help marketing, they actually mean they want to advertise, right?

Like, and so advertising is just the act of getting people to know about what you do.

Right? And so that can come in a lot of forms. Marketing, I feel like is the, the act of really telling your story in a way that resonates with the audience, understanding the audience, and then telling a story that makes them the hero of the story. And you are the guide. So for example, If you are, marketing a Catholic school, you know, the hero of the story should probably be the parent, the person who's making the choice and that, that you as the principal, you as leadership in the Catholic, you're the guide, you want to help that parent make the right decision for their loved one, right?

Well, then when it comes to messaging, I actually [00:03:00] like that because I think messaging is sort of shaping the message that is sort of making it, breaking it down into sort of a message that A, everybody can understand and B, they can remember. Marketing is truly an act of memorization. Right. And so messaging is about creating something that someone can remember.

Marketing is about saying it over and over again until they can say it back to you. And then branding, you know, I, I think people think of that as what's my logo. And while that's a component, but honestly, a fairly small component of it for most small organizations. Your brand is really what your audience says about you behind your back, right?

It is, it is what when, my good buddy Bill Petrie talks about this all the time. It is, yeah, it's your logo, but it's the emotion your logo represents. It's the, the emotion it elicits when people see it. So, you know, when you see the golden arches, right, I don't know what you see, but I think consistency, right?[00:04:00]

The Big Mac's the same every place, right? You think Amazon, I think of, reliability. Like, two days I'm going to order this and it's going to be, it's going to, and

what Amazon does,

And ease

of it.

exactly. They remove me from my money. That's what they do. I mean, right? They're better at that than anybody. And then there's like Comcast.

Right? Well, that does not elicit, for most people, a very positive emotion, right? So, they can work, they can do all the colors, they can make it pretty, they can do all they want about the logo, but it's still eliciting the wrong emotion. So, I think for most organizations, yes, you gotta get your core message and You get your messaging right.

You need to, you know, focus on your branding so it's pleasant. But then I think the big piece is making sure that that brand resonates with the actual audience you're trying to get with and then doubling down on telling that story more than you think you need to. Because as I said, marketing is an act [00:05:00] of memorization.

Delivering Marketing Joy, right? You mentioned that a couple of times in the intro. I do a show called Delivering Marketing Joy. I wrote a book called Delivering Marketing Joy. And the moment I knew it was working was when I had a poker game with friends, you know, just over at my house one night and one of my customers, who was also a friend, said, I said, well, I got to get out of here.

I got early morning. And he said, you got to deliver marketing joy in the morning. And I was like,

I'm in,

right? And when they start saying it back to you, that's when you know you're onto

something.

Yeah, and I think that's exactly it. And not just your, your customers, but your, your employees when they know what the story is and they can tell the story and that consistency of the story to me, because I could have what I believe my school should be all about, but I, you just always say, I want my employer, I want the teachers, I want the parents, even the students to be able to almost parrot what you're saying to say, Oh yeah, you know, and, and that, I think that's a great thing right there to say that what you're delivering out there in the message that you're trying to put out there, um, is [00:06:00] resonating with

And here's something counterintuitive. I also knew that the mission was working. The tagline Delivering Marketing Joy was working when my employees started to use it against me. I mean this, you know, like it sounds negative, but it was good. We were making a decision about, you know, I don't remember what it was, but it was with my accounts payable person.

So it probably had something to do with how we were going to bill a client. And my accounts payable person at the time said, you know what? I don't think that delivers marketing joy. And I was like, okay, I don't really like that. You're arguing with me, but I love how you're arguing with me. And so let's do it your way because she was viewing her entire experience to the customer through our tagline and how we live that mission.

And you're right. When the employees start to live it, then you're man,

you can really

make a difference.

You're skyrocketing. Well, let's go back to that again. The marketing joy. One of the things that I think that your company does that's very creative is you find new ways to [00:07:00] engage the audience. And I think as a school, sometimes we feel like we have to just keep things very black and white. We have to Uh, keep things, it's too expensive, I can't afford to do it, you know.

All I can do on social media is just type something out. I don't have money, I don't have time for that. There's, there's many, many, many ways that a school can deliver marketing joy. So I guess, what would you say is something that, that you see as opportunities that are low hanging fruit for schools to deliver marketing joy and to, and to reach that audience that they're seeking to reach?

at a very inexpensive or even free way of doing it.

Yeah. I mean, it's funny. I, you and I've talked about this offline, John, I believe the best brand building exercise in the world today right now is social media, right? Everybody vilifies it, right? And we read all the headlines about how it's ruining everybody. And look, there are challenges with that. I don't want to dismiss that, but if you want to reach people and you want to reach people and tell your story.

Right now, the idea that we can do this for free is actually kind of crazy, [00:08:00] right? I know there's some costs associated with it, but, you know, back when you and I were in college, if we wanted to spread our message, we would do a radio ad and we'd have to pay for that radio time. Even if we could do the creative ourselves in today's world, we can totally, yes, you can, there's paid versions of this stuff, but you can.

You are putting out this podcast and when you post it, you didn't pay to post it. That is an incredible opportunity. So, number one is really just taking the opportunity to utilize content and social media to tell that story, to do your marketing, to do your advertising, to build your brand. Do it consistently.

And if you want to stand out, one of my favorite statistics, John, is that I saw a study that said 89 percent of what we see in the world is negative.

to make that track for you. Right? And, and we're, we're in an election year, so it's going to get worse. Right? So, and, and by the way, that's not a social media thing.

That is a, like, it was just the human [00:09:00] brain is wired that way. Right? Even, you know, it's 2000, you know, thousands of years ago, we were wired to see the thing that stood out that was negative because it kept us alive. Right.

So, we were wired to do that. So I say that if you want to stand out in this crowded marketplace, create content and give out joy.

Right? If 89, if 90 percent of what we're seeing in the world is negative, if you can push out the good things in the world, in the good things in your school, consistently, over time, you will start telling that story, or start resonating with your audience. By looking at the good things that are happening in each individual school and highlighting those things that you can, that is one of the things that you can do to stand out in social media.

Also, highlight those partners that are doing great work. Is there a transportation company that you're working with that always takes great care? Is there a fundraiser, a company that does great work and actually helps you guys raise money for your school? [00:10:00] Anybody, a local hardware store that provides services for you, shout those people out, and sort of use that shared platform and give them shout outs.

They're going to be more likely to share your content, help you spread the word and tell your story not only on social media, but in the three dimensional world as well.

And I think that when you're talking about telling the story too, I think one of the things That's a real, real strength of a lot of schools is telling your story. Does it? Yeah. Okay. Hey, we're gonna have a fish fry this Friday night, or we're gonna have, a meeting this Friday for parents to attend.

Okay. Those are, those are things

that are happening, but when you really want to tell your story. You know, and that's something I always would say to people is when you have an open house, do it during the day. The stars of the show are the students. When they're in there, and they're doing their their work, and their smiles are there, and there's engagement with the teachers and everything like that, there's the story.

And you can't put a price tag. on somebody walking into your school and looking into a classroom and seeing happy kids and happy [00:11:00] teachers. There's the story. How are you telling that story each and every day beyond just, Hey, we're having a meeting for this or we're having a meeting for

Yeah. And I think again, sometimes we lose sight of the fact that it's called social media.

We treat it like every other media. And it's like, here's the thing, like highlighting your former students, you know, highlighting your teachers, telling them a little bit behind the scenes. Engaging with the audience.

This isn't a press release that you send to the radio. That's one of the things I really see that people make mistakes about. Because you're right, the fish fry, important. And the audience that works with you, good for them to know that. But also, if you want to create advocates, you need to give them something that they're excited to share.

Nobody cares about sharing your fish fry. No disrespect, I love it. It's awesome, right? If, if one of your former students is working at NASA, spend some time on that, right? Like

that's something worth [00:12:00] sharing. What Seth Godin, who's one of my heroes in marketing, says is if you want people to remark about you, you need to be remarkable, right?

So doing things that are fun, that are joyful, that are interesting, again, the thing I tell everybody, and I think I've told you offline is. Everybody is a media company in today's world, right? So, I'm a media company that also sells marketing. The guy down the street is a media company who also sells cars.

You, in this world, whether you like it or not, are a media company that also does education. So, what, in a media company, you'd create content that your audience would be super interested to, consume, and then occasionally there's a commercial.

Right.

Occasionally you roll in like, Hey, we've got a fundraiser.

Hey, we it's enrollment time. Hey, we've got an event. Great. But that shouldn't be every piece of content because if there's a TV station that only has commercials, you're probably not going to watch

it.

right. And there's that jab, jab, jab [00:13:00] swing that we talked about as well,

right

there for people. So, So, now we're talking about social media, okay? And I think, I think I agree with you. Social media is, is such a great platform. And as you said, it's free. It's, it's, it's free for people to use. Unfortunately, a lot of schools try to be everything to everyone. And, you know, they don't consider what's the most effective social media platform for me to use, or platforms for me to use, as well as they don't consider who's the audience that we're trying to target through this social media platform. Because I think a lot of businesses don't consider who the audience is and who they're trying to reach with their marketing efforts.

So, as you kind of go through the platforms that you would see most beneficial for a school to say, you gotta be on this right now. What would you say they are, but then two, who are you trying to reach through each of those platforms?

Yeah. So you, you hit the nail on the head, John, whenever, and again, I meet with, and you know this about me. I meet with clients from all over different spectrums [00:14:00] and no matter what the question is, and I'll probably talk about it when it comes to merge or whatever. The number one question is who's the perfect audience.

Who are you trying to reach? Because that will dictate so much of what you, that's literally the foundational question of what you do next. Right now. I think the same is true for, schools. It's like, okay, well what platform should I be on? Who are you trying to reach? if you're trying to reach kids, that's one thing.

If you're trying to reach the parents, which I'm guessing is who you're going to be. You're wanting to reach the, the parents and the grandparents. Right? Those are who's making the decisions of where those enrollments are. This is a blanket statement, and it's probably not a perfect one. And that's why I'm saying I gotta put it back, the onus back on the person who's listening to say, who is that perfect customer?

But right now, this moment, Facebook is probably the one I would spend the most time on. Because that's where, like, where A, It's don't just read the headlines when I look at the content that we put out and you know this about me I'm [00:15:00] on LinkedIn. I'm on all the platforms, but I've been doing it for 20 years, right?

But if I were starting with one the one I get the most leads to my website the most traffic the most engagement It's still Facebook. We're telling everybody's telling us it's dead, but it depends on who you're trying to reach The other thing that is a tactical thing that I would look at is Facebook groups, right?

Facebook groups actually increase your engagement and increase the amount of eyeballs that see, something. So like, see whatever piece of content you're putting out. So that fish fry, that's gonna get way more eyeballs on it if it's inside a Facebook group for St. Francis. school, right? If you just put it on the page, the algorithm is going to show that to one to three percent, maybe of the people who actually follow your page.

That's one of the big fallacies is you think, Oh, I've got a thousand followers. And so a thousand people will see it. No one to three percent. And the problem is when a piece of content, you put that. Out there and nobody cares. That's all that's going to see it. [00:16:00] If it's a piece of content that has great pictures of the kids, like you were talking about video, something that's interesting, all of a sudden likes, it's going to get more likes.

It's going to get comments. It's going to get shares. Well what that does is it shows the algorithm that it's interesting. And so it automatically starts showing it to more people who like your page. And that's where virality comes from. Now the groups. So, if you create a Facebook group for your school, for your fundraisers, for the community, whatever, when you share content inside of theirs, though there might be fewer people, the percentage of people inside the group that see the piece of

content is So,

So, and the other thing you can do is start to engage like that's when it really comes together is you have a group that then the people who are in the group start driving the conversation as well, right?

Hey, what's going on with pickup for school pickup this week? Hey, what's this? Hey, what's this? We're having trouble with Casey doing homework. Does anybody have any ideas on how to get her to do the new Common Core? Whatever. I, I, um, [00:17:00] it's been a long time since I've had kids that age. But all of a sudden when they start to engage and the school can act as a guide, Hey, here's this tool for parents.

Hey, here's this video. All of a sudden there's a more symbiotic relationship and those people who are asking the questions become advocates for telling your story later.

and I, and I think that's huge right there because then you're also seeing if the questions are being asked by one person, you, you got one. But if you see the question being asked over and over and over and over again. Then either you've got a problem, or you haven't communicated what it is very clearly that you're trying to get across to

people.

or you have a great opportunity, right? Like if a bunch of parents are like really saying, Hey, we're struggling with teaching our kid common core math. Could you then add as an added benefit sheet on 10 tips for teaching common core math where you could gather information?

And then that's something then you can use later as a lead magnet as something that people who aren't members of the school could get. Right to help teach their kids and now they become [00:18:00] leads for you for your school down the road. So you start to see problems you can solve as an organization that could lead to more students and more business down

the road.

And then that word of mouth that's in your community is working for you. And once again, there's that favorite word, it's free.

Yeah, that's

right.

So now, a lot of schools sometimes they get into that process where they say, I gotta pay for advertising, I gotta pay for marketing, I gotta pay for And one of the things that I've seen Facebook do, you've mentioned Facebook, is they'll say, Hey, you can boost this post right here

for things. Now there's some great skills. There's some great strategies that come from that if it's a post that you really want to boost. But there's some risks that are involved if you kind of don't know how to navigate those things. I guess real quick just since we're talking about Facebook, what are maybe a couple of strategies that if you are gonna invest a little bit of money in a Facebook boost or whatever the case might be, what do you want to make sure you do and what do you want to make sure you

don't do?

Yeah So the first thing I would say I mean the best thing to do [00:19:00] is to create a separate post and drive it as an ad But I will say that that takes a little more complex complexity that you got to dig into the back end So if you're just talking about the boost piece What I would say is the mistake I see people making is that they are like, Hey, I really want people to know about the fish fry.

And even though nobody's commented, nobody's liked, nobody's engaged with this post at all. We're going to boost that because I want more people to see it. And that's fine. You will get more eyeballs. However, the best way to do it is to pick the thing that people are already interested in and boost that because what you're doing is you're creating a more of an opportunity for virality because it, with the boost, you'll get the eyeballs that you, let's say you paid for a thousand people to see it.

That's all that are going to see it. because the algorithm and the audience, the market has told you no one cares, right? However, if you do one and it's that post that's engaged and everybody's commenting and all of a sudden there's a [00:20:00] ton more reach on it, boosting that, what's gonna happen is they're gonna boost it to eyeballs, and those eyeballs are going to engage, and then the algorithm will take that and show it to more eyeballs, because, like, people demonize the algorithm, but all Facebook wants to do is keep you on the platform.

Right. That's like, that's why they're doing, I mean, obviously other than the monetization of it, but they, they don't want it to be offensive or boring or whatever. Otherwise we'll all leave and go to something else. So when they see something that's That's interesting. Oh, let me show it to more people because clearly it's interesting.

So I believe you boost the post that's already doing well because then it will show it to more people, more people engage. Organic reach will go up at the same time as boosted reach. And so that's something I like if you've got one that's going well and you want to build your brand, I'd leverage the 25 or 50 bucks on that rather than on the one that isn't doing

well.

yep, and I think that's a great strategy to it right there [00:21:00] because you're basically taking what's good and you're trying to make it great as opposed to taking what's blah and trying to make it eh,

you know, let's give people

something to talk about.

sometimes you have to, right? There's that thing that I need everybody to know about and I need, like, so I need, but if I have the choice, I want the algorithm to work for me, not against me.

Yeah, and that just comes down to the cost versus the value that you're going to get back for it. Let me ask one other question about social media, and then I want to shift into some other stuff, but just since we're on it. Every school out there, every business out there is going to have somebody, somewhere, sometime, that puts something online about them that is that negative press.

And regardless of what George Steinbrenner used to say, that bad press is still press. Nobody wants to see a bad review about themselves, or a bad comments or things like that, and most of the time, you know, it's, it's somebody that's reporting a half truth or, or, you know, but nonetheless, it's out there [00:22:00] because, it's easy to do for people, might be something that happened five or six years ago, it might be something that, you know, and a lot of schools, they can't respond to those things, they can't go, yeah, but this is what really happened, you know, it's just, it's there, how would you say that a school should combat something negative out there, whether it be a review or something that shows up on social media, you You know, knowing that there's confidentiality standards that they've got to

uphold.

Yeah. So two thoughts on this. I have two, two sort of strategies that I would advise. Right. And you're right. Let me just tell you, I've had multiple businesses and I remember one that I launched and man opening night was amazing. Like I, we literally had like 100 positive reviews the first night, but I had one bad one.

And I still am mad about it, right? Like I, so it is deeply personal when something like that, you've worked so hard on it and somebody takes a shot and whether it's fair or not, they have a voice, whatever. I totally get it. So please understand. I feel you on that. But here are my two, here are my two strategies.

Number one, it's, there's a book called Hug Your Haters by Jay [00:23:00] Baer. It's like the, the sentinel work on this. And the concept is, That you want to address that, like a lot of times what happens is in any business, there's a negative comment and it is ignored, right? Because the business owner can't really tell the whole story, they don't want to tell the whole story, they, not even that it's bad, but just like that person's a jerk and I'm not going to do anything with it.

And so my advice always is to, empathize, address, and then move offline, right? And so what I mean by that is, You say, Hey, I'm so sorry that you had this experience. Would love to discuss this more. Here is my direct line. But here's my cell phone number. Here's whatever. Please call me about this tomorrow and we'll set up a time.

I would love to address this in person because it's a serious issue or whatever. I want to take this seriously. Okay, what that does number one, you show some empathy and a lot of people you'd be surprised the number of people that they just want to be heard. Right? And so when you actually address it and say, [00:24:00] Hey, I'm really sorry that you had this experience.

I am. Principal of the school. I'm head person in charge. I want to deal with that. It shows them that they're important and, you know, sometimes it can just be addressed there. But the other big thing is you take it offline because otherwise there's a back and forth. There's an argument that nobody wins.

And then if you can't actually get them offline and you can talk to him about it, you might be able to solve the issue. I've actually seen that happen more than you think. But the other thing, the secondary thing is. It shows everybody else who sees the comment that you have addressed it, right? Because, and, and so we all know, and I can, I can hear your audience and I can hear you, John, going, yeah, but this person's a jerk.

This person's a troll, like Uh huh. And they're a troll in every area of their life. And so, if you've addressed it professionally, if you've given your number, if you've said, hey, let's take it offline, and they keep coming, good. And the reason I say that is they're now showing to the rest [00:25:00] of the world who they

are. You've shown it's also more about the audience seeing, well, John addressed it. What, what are you supposed to do? Right? Like, so I think that there are more people reasonable that are silent online than we give credit for, right? It's the loud one that gets the attention. So empathize, address, move offline.

That's, that's the first strategy. The second strategy, and this is the one that most organizations, especially schools, I don't think do, is I would be flooding the internet with positive reviews. Like, most organizations don't have a strategy where you're asking for positive reviews, right? Like, hey, you just had an amazing event, everybody's telling you that the school is awesome, now's the time to send out an email, send out a post, send out something where you're addr Take it to that, that group that we talked about creating.

Hey, one of the things that we're really working on is we want to spread the word. Can you help us? Here's where you go to Google. Here's where you go to wherever you, Facebook. Please, can you give us a five star review? We want to tell more kids about [00:26:00] this. We want to tell more parents about this. The problem with the one negative review is you, you've only got three positives.

If you have a hundred positive reviews and there's one jerk. Most people view that as the outlier. And honestly, here's the thing. Studies are starting to show that if you have 500 reviews and they're all 5 star, it actually decreases your sales. From if you have 500 reviews and there's the normal hey, 490 or 5 star, 3 or da da da, and then there's one, people look at that and go, okay, that's real.

So, The challenge is when you only have the negative and you haven't propagated, you haven't spent the time to get all the positives. So A, I would address it, empathize, take offline, and B, I would create a campaign to flood the internet with positive reviews about my school.

And I think that's right on the mark there, because if everything is chocolate coins and puppy dogs of the world, then people kind of go, wait a minute here, now something, something's not right here. But I think it also is a great opportunity for you to go, wow, there's been four people that have made this [00:27:00] same comment about what we're doing with this.

We better take this seriously and and we better look at what we're doing with this because you can say well We're doing great with it But but are you because you got multiple people out there saying saying something

to the

to the contrary

on that?

Yeah. Yeah. The market will tell you, right? And I think one of the things that when Facebook and all these things start saying, well, I don't want to have Facebook because people will make negative comments. And my whole thing is, is people will be people. They're going to make negative comments no matter what the difference is.

Now you get to be a part of it. And so you get to address it.

Yeah No, I think that's super. I appreciate that Let's shift gears a little bit here because there's a lot of schools out there that are doing a lot of different events Believe me. I think I've seen it all golf tournaments galas You runathons or whatever the course way every year. I think they get more and more creative Your company does a lot with marketing, but they also do a lot with swag, and I think it's something that your company does really well is finding new ways to showcase the [00:28:00] different kind of products that you have in creative ways that get people to, you know, view a video or things like that.

What's the most effective swag items, I guess, that you're seeing right now in ways that, and I guess, mistakes that schools make when choosing their swag? And then have you kind of seen non profits or schools use branded merch effectively? What are some of the ways that you've seen

that?

Yeah. So it is funny to me. And I've, I've talked a lot about this online that when I'll, even people who are in my industry, they'll, they'll put out there and they'll be like, Hey man, I need an idea for a golf outing. And they'll, and they'll tell me the budget and they'll tell me like, and here's when it is.

And my number one question is always, who's it for? Where do they live? What's their gender? What's their age? What's the same questions that you would ask when you're thinking about messaging are the same questions you could ask about merch because when you say what's, you know, it's like, what's the best?

What's the [00:29:00] best piece of branded merch? Well, what's the best car?

It's a difficult question, right? Are you looking for, you want an EV? You want this? You want that? Like, so what I would say is, When I think of, let's, let's use fundraisers as an example. Okay. Let's start with fundraisers.

Okay.

Makes sense.

perfect sense.

Okay. So the big thing I like to, to, to think about when it comes to fundraisers and utilizing merch for fundraisers is, perceived value. I want to get an item with our logo on it that You, you think like this is a double wall vacuum sealed tumbler, right? Multiple colors. It's a, it's a really nice piece.

You will find that in retail for 40 bucks, right? Yeti, Stanley, those sort of thing. But I can buy it for 15. I want the perceived value of the item I'm doing to be really high. So that a my audience feels very appreciated, right? They think if you're giving it to them, they're like, wow, they really [00:30:00] invested in this.

They feel serious about this. Right? And then number 2, if you're going to do it as a fundraiser, so you're going to sell it, you can totally sell it at a reasonable margin and actually make some money. So, like, there are a lot of the Stanley Stanley's the big item right now.

Right? And Yeti's in the past have been big.

They're not great fundraisers though. Right? Because. I'm going to buy you. I'll sell that there's a school and it'll be 50 or 60 bucks. Well, you can't sell it for a hundred because they can go buy the same thing in retail for 50 or 60 bucks. You want to buy something that looks like a Stanley, that performs like a Stanley, but you can buy it for 10 or 20 and then sell it for 30 and feel great.

Right. You're going to make the margin. They feel like they've gotten a deal. And there's a ton of different items like that in the industry. You just have to pay attention to what's out there. Drinkware is one of them though, right? Regardless of the drink where you can do some really cool stuff, you can spend 10 or 15 and get it and be a nice piece and feel very proud about [00:31:00] it.

But then you can sell it for 20 or 30, make your margin and actually make some money. The other thing I like to do is a concept gift with purchase, right? I think one of the ways to utilize branded merch is to get, okay, I'm asking for a capital campaign and I want people to donate a hundred bucks. Well, okay, I'm going to do a t shirt that's 10 and maybe they were going to give 50, right?

But you get them to go to the next level based on a really cool piece of merch. And obviously you want to. That's one of those where you got to be thoughtful about and say, okay, at this thing, we're going to give up this much of my 50 and this much, you know, you want to build something. So it gets cooler and cooler as you go.

But what Brandon Merch done right really does well is affect human behavior. And so if you create a specific, vintage, one of a kind experience for a t shirt, maybe built around a theme around the school, maybe you're having an anniversary or whatever, it's like this, we're only doing this t shirt right now.

And one of the [00:32:00] ways you can get it is to donate. Those are a couple quick ways where you can use branded merch to really build your, fundraising. Basket and I think, but it's key that they, it has to be something understanding who it's for is so important because who it's for is going to, like, I won't care about the t shirt anniversary thing because I'm not a part of that tribe, but the people who are a part of that tribe might be like, Oh, I, my kid went to this school.

I've gone to this

school. I have to, I have

to have it. Right. And so, yeah. And so, and that leads to design, right? I think one of the trends I'm seeing right now, John, that I really like actually is for years. It's like, okay, we're just going to put our logo on it, slap our logo on the front. And that's what it's going to be.

I'm seeing more and more both in t shirts, drink wares, um, Drinkware where they put some sort of message that's inspiring, something that's funny, something that your, again, who's it for that? That audience looks at it and goes, oh, I gotta have that. And then, oh, by the way, your logo's on it too, right? So we'll do T-shirts that say, [00:33:00] you know, give first work hard marketing, you know, and then on the back there'll be our logo, but my clients wanna wear it 'cause of the message, right?

And so I'm seeing that as a trend, and it's a trend I really

like.

And I think one of the things that I see too is, you know, there's a big difference between cost and value. And if you're going to spend the money to do this, or if you're going to spend the money to give somebody a gift or give somebody a promo item at a fundraising event or whatever the case might be.

Please make your logos look good. Please make the design look good, because there's such a difference between just kind of slapping something together real quick and, and here it is, and it doesn't inspire anything. And so I think that, that other piece that I'm seeing, too, is the school's taking more seriously just exactly how professional that design looks of the t shirt or the cup or whatever the case

might be.

Yeah. I always say make sure you have good art or a cool design or theme. Give yourself time. It gets [00:34:00] funny how people will like, they just don't give themselves time. And then all of a sudden the entire thing costs more money because you got to ship it there and you got to do like, everything gets rushed.

And so, you know, Christmas comes same time every year,

right?

Like Yeah,

I don't usually change that birth of Christ always the same time. Right. So it is one of those things that I, I think that sometimes we, we do that to ourselves, we just don't give ourselves enough time. And then the, the final thought about that, John, and I'm sure we've got, you've got other stuff to do today, but this is stuff I could talk about all day

is just, again, done right.

Merch can be a big tool for building your tribe, building your brand, because you start to see people, you know, think about what you do when you're on vacation in a different place and all of a sudden you see somebody wearing your high school t shirt, or you're wearing, a Cleveland Browns jersey or whatever, all of a sudden you have a connection with them.

You don't know them, you wouldn't seek them out, whatever, but man, they're wearing the same team as you, it helps you build that brand, [00:35:00] but you have to do stuff that they want to wear when they're not. They're not at school or they're not at the fundraiser, like, and so one of the, one of the terms I love is we don't want to create brand fill.

You don't want to do merchandise that people take and throw it away into the landfill. It's brand fill, right? And one of the ways to do that is to know exactly who it's for, create quality merchandise that they're excited to have and then, and spend the time on the design so that when they get it, they're like, is something I have to wear.

It'll never make it out of my laundry basket. I'm going to put it on as soon as it's

clean.

Yeah, and I think right there, too, is something that I advise schools do all the time, and that is that you better have a plan for what it is that you're doing throughout the course of the year. If you're doing an annual fund and you know the annual fund kicks off every fall, okay, then start planning for it.

What does that look like? If you know you're doing a gala and it's going to be, I don't know, November or whatever the case might be, What do you gotta do to plan for that type of thing? And I think too many times, schools [00:36:00] and businesses, I always compare it to Little League Soccer. Because, you know, you go watch kindergartners play Little League Soccer, when the ball goes over there, everybody runs over there.

And when the ball goes over here, everybody runs over here. And if we just plan it out and say, okay, this is how the plan is, this is how we're gonna execute it, maybe you gotta pivot a little bit throughout the course of the year, because something comes up, or whatever the case may be. Hopefully it's going better than you expected.

But I think just having that plan and keeping a budget. for what it is. Because as you just said, if you're dropping 50, 60, 70 on something that you're selling for 80, uh, your margin is not real great there. You're not going to close a budget hole with a 10

markup.

Well Kirby, I want to thank you so much for your time today.

Appreciate all of your knowledge and expertise and this is something that we've been talking about doing for a while and I'm so happy that we got to do it and I enjoyed it so much. So thank you so much for for your time today and for all your expertise.

John, I'm proud podcast. I think you're doing a great job. And so thank you for allowing me to be a part of it. I

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