Brand as the Hub of Your Go-To-Market Approach
John Solomon, CMO at Therabody, shares about overcoming the “Kleenex problem” and prioritizing the entry to your brand.
[MUSIC]
Welcome to Pipeline Visionaries.
I'm Ian Faizan, CEO of Caspian Studios.
And today we are joined by a special guest, John.
How are you?
>> I'm doing great, Ian.
Thanks for having me here.
>> Excited to have you on the show,
excited to chat all about their body,
your background, marketing, and everything in between.
Today's show is brought to you as always.
By our friends at Qualified, you can go to Qualified.com
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John, first question, what was your first job marketing?
>> Thank you, Ian.
It's a good question.
And I think it might be one that maybe is a little bit
non-tourition.
I don't know if you could call it marketing,
but I like to call it marketing.
So my first job, when I was graduating from college,
I was actually a political science major,
and I was trying to get a job in Washington, DC.
It's a tough time doing it.
And I finally got recruited by the State Department.
If you can imagine, this was 2003.
There was the Iraq War had just finished.
There was at least the George Bush had said,
President Bush had said, mission accomplished, right?
We all know many, many people don't,
but know what happened then, right?
So I was basically hired as they were starting
to do the reconstruction in Iraq.
I was hired as an information officer.
And that meant that I would get into the office every morning
about 5.36 AM and to take all the information coming
into the field about what they were doing there,
and the ports opening, electricity flowing.
And I had to package that up,
spin it a little bit sometimes,
and ultimately use that to have to communicate
to a lot of stakeholders internally across the government,
private sector, Congress.
And why I say it's marketing is because ultimately,
it was taking information, it was packaging it up,
it was trying to make it so people would actually want to read it,
engage with it, try to tell stories with it.
It was a very serious topic, right?
And some lot of money we're spending.
But ultimately, I had to do internal columns
and communications to all these stakeholders.
And I would say learning at a very early age,
how to do that, and how to do it succinctly,
how to convey messages, how to write really well,
and how to get up really early in the morning
and have to grind things out.
I think I was kind of like I say,
it was probably my first job really thinking about marketing
and communications.
- I think that might be a pipeline visionary's first.
I don't know if we've had a university department
on the show as a first job of marketing.
I think you might be a reporter.
- There we go.
- Well, in flash forward to today,
you were CMO with our body.
Everybody knows of the Theragon,
including Larry David, who gave one as a gift.
- Yeah.
- The latest episode of "Curb."
Pretty good.
- Pretty good.
We love that.
Funny story there is that everyone's like,
how did you do that?
What agency did you use to do that?
It was actually before my time, but when I was there,
but we had an office in Santa Monica,
and he was filming down the street.
And he walked in to the office and was kind of like,
"What's this about? What's going on here?"
And he met Dr. Jason, our founder,
and they kind of built a relationship over the years.
He was a huge fan of the product.
And when it came time to his final season,
he was like, "I'm gonna take care of you guys
"for being such a fan for so long."
So we knew he was gonna be in there.
We didn't know exactly how it was gonna be
and where the storyline, I think, is a marketer.
You cannot imagine kind of having basically an episode
where it's not just a product place,
but it's like a character in it.
So it's really authentic.
Larry loves the product.
And I can't tell you when that aired,
the amount of text messages I got from people all around.
So it was great, great to see that you saw that.
- It's epic. It's so epic.
And we mentioned, we were talking about fair,
and I mentioned that the first time I used the tear gun
was at a friend's bachelor party
where he played a bunch of golf,
and someone had them and I was like,
"What is that little thing you got there?"
And I spent every day working on my hamstrings
at the end of a long day of golf.
And I was just like, this is amazing.
This is so good.
Truly a word of mouth superstar is the fair gun
and all the stuff that you're doing at Theribody.
- Yeah, it's similar.
Like I'm a huge cyclist.
I was doing a big ride that I do every year
from Charity Ride from San Francisco, LA.
I remember on like the third day,
a guy brought up the Theribody and I was like,
"Oh my God, what's that?"
You know, got to try it.
And I became hooked way before even joining Theribody.
And I think that's really propelled the brand early days
was a people like yourself, like me
who I think really were leaning into technology
to solve these problems, right?
Especially kind of sports related,
obviously athlete teams really leaned into it early on.
But ultimately Dr. J created the product,
you know, after he was in a motorcycle accident
and he was really looking to solve for his pain
and he didn't want to use, you know,
that went on with the normal route of surgeries
and opioids and things like that.
So we really, we all just say born out of necessity.
You know, his product was really born out of necessity
when he created it, took a jigsaw, you know,
and he put a tennis ball in the end of it.
And now we're on our, you know,
sixth generation of that product.
But, you know, it definitely, you know,
we want people to see that,
that word of mouth is not just for the weekend warrior,
the athlete, you know, and that's what's exciting.
I think and then what we've been doing
over the last couple of years is how do we get that word
of mouth around people that, you know,
are dealing with all sorts of aches and pains, right?
And I think that's the next chapter we're on.
I think seeing Larry David talk about, you know,
how it helps, I love he said it helped, you know,
he only needed it for one minute and he healed his injury.
I'm like, I'm like, I told, I told illegal,
I was like, that's our new claim we're going to use.
I was going to quote, it's going to quote Larry David.
But word of mouth is really powerful, you know,
when you have a great product.
I think the challenges is, and I've experienced this
a lot in my career, is that when people try and copy you,
when they see something's hot, you know,
and their category is working,
then you have other people start to come in
and it brings a lot of noise and we have to continue
up our game, right, and we have to continue to innovate.
We have to continue to explain why our products, you know,
are better and we invest in science and research.
And there is a difference, you know, in our products
and then others who you might find, you know,
and are just kind of copying us and going for a price play
on Amazon or something.
- Yeah, and we'll dig into that a bunch here in a second,
but I did want to mention that the science piece of this,
like my wife is a physical therapist,
my brother is a PTA, a lot of my friends are physical therapists,
and physical therapy for me personally,
like I had some health stuff that was going on
and I did physical therapy and it made a huge difference,
specifically like massage and cupping
as part of the overall treatment plan.
And I didn't even know that that Theribody had a,
had a TheraCup, had a cupping as well
until I was prepping for this interview.
So I was like, oh geez, even I didn't know as a fan
of the TheraGone, but I think that part of it,
having it backed by science, having this be part of a modern
approach to health and to wellness in a way that
people don't know.
I mean, I think it is like category defining
and it is really interesting because, you know,
you mentioned how it's not just for the athlete,
it's like this, like how your muscles behave.
Is and how in sync all this stuff is with your body
is like super important, right?
And like, gone are the days of like,
hey, just reach and touch your toes
and your handstrings are gonna be fine.
Like, that's just not how the body actually works.
And I just think it's cool that, you know,
born from a, you know, from a doctor,
and coming from a very scientific background,
that there's ways to use these things at home
that can accentuate the stuff that you do
with the physical therapists, with the doctor and all that.
- Yeah, exactly.
You know, similar thing, you know, I experienced a,
as a cyclist, slipped on some black ice, you know,
fell in my back.
You know, for me, it was like the chiropractor,
massage therapist, you know, that kind of one, two punch,
accentuating it with some of our products.
And it really, it really works, right?
We announced that we actually just launched
our scientific advisory board.
And we also just announced that we're gonna be
investing $10 million in research over the next few years
to really double down in this space.
Because what we've found is that when we entered the space,
like you said, when we came out with cupping,
people said, "Hey, I've already been thinking about this,
or I've been kind of dabbling in it,
but now that you all are coming out with it,
and you're putting your brand behind your innovation,
and we made it in a really accessible way for consumers,
and prosumers to use.
Like, I'm now gonna get into this product."
So we really take it seriously,
and we will no longer launch any product
that does not have scientific claims.
So if we launch a sleep product, you know, really that,
we've actually done, you know, we launched our,
a couple years ago, we launched our Smart Vloggers,
which helps you relax before sleep.
You know, we did a partnership with SleepSport Labs,
and we also looked at how it helps you time to fall asleep,
and actually the quality of your sleep, right?
And so we are now working with third parties,
entities, research organizations,
we have an in-house science team as well.
It's super important because there's a lot of things
out there that can be very dangerous.
And what we're hearing from our consumers is,
I really, and in the growth of this kind of health
and wellness space, it's like,
I really wanna understand the science behind this.
And I just, I don't wanna gimmick,
and consumers are doing their research.
And it's been a core pillar of ours,
and I think we're trying to separate ourselves even more
by that science and thought leadership.
So again, we have a great science advisory board
all the way from, you know, from a dermatologist
to, you know, women's wellness to longevity,
all gonna be inputting into product development,
the science of it, so we can continue to be
in the forefront of this space.
I'm super excited because my passion is technology,
although brands I've been in,
it's consumer electronics.
You know, the weather was headphones with beats
or personal computing with Apple.
Right now, like the health side of it is just,
it's so interesting, right?
Like the ability to bring technology
to a lot of these challenges,
especially as we have an aging population
that wants to stay active longer.
You just look at pickleball, you know,
and all the headline you're probably seeing around that
about the number of injuries from that,
because the people that wanna stay active,
they love the sport, their bodies are aging a bit, you know?
And so how do we look at solutions, education, protocol,
to support, you know, more of these consumers who wanna,
you know, from that, again, from that elite athlete,
from, you know, all the way to someone who just wants to stay,
to keep moving longer and later in life.
- Let's get to our first segment, The Trust Tree.
The Trust Tree is where you go,
feel honest and trusted,
and share those deepest, darkest marketing secrets.
We know a little bit about TheraBody.
Can you tell a little bit more about
what your company does and who are your customers?
- Yeah, great question.
I mean, we've evolved, like you said,
I think a lot of people think of us,
they're, you know, I used to, when I started,
I'm working with TheraBody, what's TheraBody?
You know, we make a TheraG, oh, I know TheraGone, right?
So now it's much more about
we've been building the brand TheraBody,
and we really, really re-imagining health and well-being,
like we said, through the kind of the science technology.
And, you know, we really are all about helping you
to live healthier lives and to live longer lives.
And through the use of technology, like I said,
started by our founder, Dr. Jason,
I kind of talked a bit about his story,
who created TheraGone, but now we've really expanded
into kind of three main verticals
and how I've kind of organized the brand
around this greater mission.
The first really is that area we talked about,
which is that performance.
So how are we supporting the weekend warrior team athletes
who really want the top top of the line,
the latest technology, right?
Our Pro Plus that we launched last year,
you know, I have one right behind me here.
But, you know, this thing has hot, cold,
we have LED light therapy coming out,
we have vibration, we have, you know, mindfulness,
all in this one device,
which used to just do percussive therapy.
And so now we're really thinking about
what that's the bleeding edge
and how we need to perform better and get back
and recover faster to hit your PRs and back from injury.
So that's kind of our core,
and we're not walking away from that.
What we've seen though is that there's two really other
interesting areas.
One is wellness, right?
How do we start to take some of these technologies
and apply it to sleep?
How do we apply it to non-spore related pain?
How do we apply it to stress?
Mental health.
So that's an area that we're really pushing into
with some of the things you've come out with
over the past couple of years.
And even TheraGone's that are different
for those needs, right?
You might not need everything I just talked about
if it's someone who wants to just stay active,
a grandparent to work, to play with their grandkids longer.
You don't need the same level of intensity.
You don't need all this technology
so we can give you a great quality product
or maybe even at a price point you wanna interact.
Our third area, which we kind of, you know,
again, followed the consumer into
was the beauty tech side of things.
You know, what we found is,
when you brought up the mini,
people were taking the mini,
they were putting a super soft attachment on it
and they were using on their face for tension,
TMJ, all sorts of things, which we were like,
hey, that's actually not what you should be using
that level of amplitude for on your face, right?
We, you need to be a bit softer.
So that led us to really exploring
what about massage for your face.
And that led us to hold down a path,
we'll hold different modalities we can now put into a,
I don't have one with me, but our Theraphace device,
that now has ability to do our signature percussive therapy,
but we now have added the ability of microcurrent,
red light, which is great for fine lines and wrinkles,
cleansing, hot and cold.
So we created a completely new device
and entered the more of this beauty tech space
and we had, you know, huge success here.
And so we came up with our second product last year,
which was the Theraphace mask,
which was an LED mask, but we put our spin on it
as not only having the LED lights,
we actually have vibration therapy too,
kind of so going back to our DNA of understanding
a lot of these technologies and combining them
in interesting ways.
So that's kind of our third area
and it's allowed us to do all sorts of different things
with our consumers, right?
We can put together a story for beauty and wellness.
We can put together a story
around performance and wellness.
And now we have the ability to go after all sorts
of different consumers and bring them into the brand.
You might come into a beauty product,
but then you learn, wow, I love the mini
or I love, you know, the goggles to help me sleep.
So we find that it's a really interesting intersection
around these kind of three key areas.
We went back to your question of really kind of
what's the company and what do we do?
That's our kind of focus and formation right now.
- You have a bit of the Kleenex problem
where it's like, you know, in a good way,
where I mean, I don't even know what you would call
your competitive landscape, right?
It's like, there's just the Theragon, right?
It's like, that's the only thing that matters, you know what I mean?
Which is obviously great, but like you said,
you know, people don't know that Kimberly Clark owns Kleenex, right?
So it's like, how do you sort of get people to know
all of the other options that you have there,
you know, especially if they buy the Theragon,
you know, not direct from the website,
if they buy it from, you know, somewhere else.
So I'm curious, like, how do you sort of address the,
you know, that sort of issue where it's like,
everyone knows you for this one thing,
but you might not have like a digital relationship
with that person, you know?
- Right, yeah, it's a great point.
First of all, thank you for recognizing that.
I think we do have competition,
but we, I would say that in the area we play in,
which is called the not cheap, you know, knockoff on Amazon,
that we really started to separate ourselves
and I think the challenge we have is like you said,
is a lot of people have a Theragon,
like, you know, what does it look like?
What color is it?
You know, that's actually not a Theragon.
So one thing that, one thing that I as a marketer
really believe in is the idea of like distinctive brand assets.
And if you look at the Theragon,
and again, right here, the thing that's so different
about this product is the triangle.
And a triangle is patented, right?
And no other device because we have that protected
has the triangle.
So a lot of what we've done,
if you looked at what we've launched,
and the reason why it's triangles,
because it helps you reach more parts of your body
than any other product and has great ergonomics, right?
So there's actually a really important triangle.
So when we look to evolving our brand evolution,
it's like we have to own the triangle, right?
The triangle, the triangle, and probably this blue
is probably our most important brand assets.
And so if you look at the triangles now,
every one of our packaging,
it's everything that we're relicking
and we're imagining our website or app.
It's all about people.
If they don't necessarily remember the Theragon
or whatever these different products,
it's like I want the triangle one, right?
That's the one that I want.
And that's the memory we wanna keep in people's head.
Memories are so important, right?
'Cause people are not gonna remember that much stuff.
But in marketing, you wanna really focus
on a few memories to create.
One is a triangle, right?
So that's how we're solving at least a Kleenex problem.
When you're talking about the broader ecosystem,
that's when we need to start thinking about digital
is a huge focus of ours
and having that first party relationship
is a big part of our strategy.
Second is we work with key retailers.
We're in about 10,000 doors, right?
You walk into a best bar, you walk into a target,
you'll see the merchandise there.
You'll see as merchandise,
you'll see how we come to life as a brand, right?
And we have, like I said,
where we have a bunch of shopping shops,
over 50 now, best buy,
trying to target, Costco, Dick's sporting goods, right?
So we're really where our consumers are,
so we can tell that story in a retail standpoint.
And then an online standpoint,
we're looking at all sorts of pathways
to bring people in, whether it's Amazon or it's our site.
We really work with a whole bunch of different
of the marketing levers.
But that's kind of our job and that's my team's job
is to know how we can go to that audience,
bring them in, right, to our world
and really explain that story.
And we see in the results, right?
We see if you look at search results
of TheraBody over the last two years,
there were three years, it's all trending upwards, right?
So all the work we're doing to build that brand
and not you're thinking like a fair guy
and you're thinking TheraBody is helping
bring technology to problems that I have, right?
And that's the message we wanna have
and that's the work we're doing
and that's the work my team has to do
to be able to continue to educate.
'Cause like you said, we have a lot of products
but we still really believe that TheraGone
is the way into the brand, right?
It's like when I was at Apple,
it was like the iPhone, right?
It's like the iPhone's the way into the brand, right?
That was what brought you into the ecosystem.
Way back in the day, it was the Mac, right?
They did that but even when we're beats, right?
When I was at beats, it was like the solo too,
was like the product, that was a product
people came in for, right?
And then you figured out in years
and you figured out other speakers.
So I think you also, the more you have to focus, right?
And so we don't give everything the same airtime.
We don't give everything the same investment
because some of it is about the payload product
and that brings you in, you build a relationship
and then over time you bring a man across the ecosystem.
That's at least my belief in the marketer.
- Yeah, I love that.
Any other thoughts on sort of your overall marketing strategy
or how you structure your marketing team
in order to deliver that message?
- Yeah, it's a great question.
So I'd say kind of like two part of response to that.
First is, I kind of, again, believe in,
what's a simple thing that everyone can point to
is kind of that North Star
that we look to.
And for me, and it actually came,
our social team came up with this sort of strategy special.
I was like, life hurts and like we're here to help.
So it's like as a marketing team, it's like,
life, like it's so hard.
Like I'm a new dad and my back's hurting
because with my kid up, you know,
we're immersed on your feet all day.
Like you said, you got to go batch a party
and play an excessive round of golf.
It hurts, right?
And we're here to help you with that.
We're providing solutions.
So every day, that's what we need to kind of look
as our North Star and we should be doing that.
And I really look at it as like four kind of four key areas
to do that.
One is like really being, we have to be relatable, right?
So we have to go beyond those athletes
and we have to tell many different stories.
The difference between a phone that I marketed
or a headphone is it's different.
People, it's different when you're putting on your body,
right?
Like you can look and say, hey, LeBron wears beats,
you know, walking in.
LeBron's not wearing beats to perform, right?
I mean, yes, he's getting the mind,
sending things like that, but it's not actually like,
like he's using it to like, you know, in an athletic sense.
And so when you're really thinking about your body,
you have to be able to kind of speak to that audience, right?
You can't just show Ronaldo using a Theragon
and a grandpa and it's gonna say,
man, that's for me and my kids, right?
So relatability is really important.
As you'll see over the last year,
we've telling a lot more different stories
around different audiences.
Second we already talked about was like,
how do we, if we're gonna help people,
we have to have a direct relationship with them, right?
So continuing to invest in the digital side of things
and how we have more and more direct relationships
and personalized communications.
The third area that kind of touched on a little bit
is that thought leadership, right?
How do we continue to be the voice in this space?
And the last is like really being community minded, right?
You know, when I love working as brand,
it's rarely there when like,
have anything bad to say about it, right?
You're definitely helping people.
But we need to like listen to them, you know,
inspire them, activate with them.
So really thinking about community.
And so those are kind of the ways I think about it.
From a team structure standpoint,
I build a big believer that your kind of brand team
has to sit in the middle.
It's the hub of your going to market approach, right?
And so I have brand team really thinking about it
in those three areas I talked to you about before,
the performance, wellness and beauty.
And then we have specific brand managers
that really think about such as audiences,
but that's who's driving the integrated process, right?
That who is bringing the functions together saying,
hey, we're launching this product
or hey, we got Mother's Day
or hey, this week we have sleep week, right?
And then bringing together what's influencer, what's PR,
what's the site, what's email, what media,
what's all of those teams are doing
to drive that integrated process?
So that's where I'm a really big believer
in and how you structure things
or else it becomes really siloed,
because fragmented, you have one team go there,
shooting that content, another team going over there,
doing that, doesn't hang together.
It's not bigger, it's not like one plus one equals,
you know, four or five.
So that's how I really structure the team and think about it
to have really integrated marketing.
I wonder how many people own TheraBody products
that don't also own a TheraGone, right?
It's like, and you basically answered that as like,
for all those other products,
you start with they should own a TheraGone
and then they'll probably buy the second thing, right?
But yeah, I was just, I was like,
I wonder how many people that is,
that's a fascinating idea.
- Yeah, it is people usually start with TheraGone.
I think it could change our time with getting more into beauty
or other things, again, to sleep.
I think it could change our time right now.
There's still so many people still still
don't even know what a TheraGone is.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
One that's like, you know, I sort of, because of my family,
like I sort of live in this world, but it's like,
I remember when I was learning about, you know,
this stuff by sitting in a room next to my wife
going through BT school, and I'm like,
oh, muscles can be pushed in and also pulled out
through like, you know, through cupping.
And you're like, oh, that's interesting
that that's doing different things.
And it's just, I mean, I think fundamentally,
this is a total tangent, but fundamentally,
it's like, we should probably teach like anatomy
in high school in a way that we actually understand
our own bodies in any way, because like,
how our muscles and joints and all the stuff work together
and like the practical stuff that you can do.
But I think that that's like a huge problem
that you all face.
I'm curious like, how you think about that?
Because teaching people about their bodies
is like the business that you're in, right?
It's like, hey, did you know that you can use these things
to, you know, live a longer, happier life?
Like, that's a pretty hard sell, you know,
for some people and it's a pretty easy sell for others.
- Yeah, so I say to my team every, you know,
all the time, education is our biggest challenge, right?
It is having people, you know, give this,
give this to your device to, you know,
your aunt and your uncle, your grandparent.
What are they gonna do with this thing?
You know, it's not obvious.
- Right.
- Right, especially if you're not like you said,
in the world where you might be really focused
on recovery or health and wellness, right?
And early adopters to technology.
So it is something that we invest a lot in.
You know, we have an education team.
We really think a lot about all the different touch points
that people wanna be educated from,
the funny thing we just launched back again
is, you know, phone support.
You know, we started going into a more aging consumer.
They wanna pick up the phone and talk to you about it.
And they wanted to, they didn't wanna go online
or use an app.
We started to put, you know, in our packaging,
we started actually putting physical cards
with routines on it, of how to, you know,
which attachment to use, what handle grip,
where I put on your body for how long,
because some consumers, they don't wanna scan a QR code
and, you know, going in and out, right?
So we have to think about all the ways
people wanna be educated, right?
Some people want text messages.
Some people wanna call, some people wanna QR code,
some people wanna YouTube video.
You kinda have to be everywhere, right?
I mean, you really have to think about how always to educate.
I'm really excited about where techno
and mob's nerd out here for a moment,
but I'm really excited to where technology is going,
anything about AI, anything about like AR/VR, right?
Like my big dream is to one day have, you know,
virtual doctor Jay, where, you know,
he could come up on a screen and tell you, you know,
we're talking to a sports helping someone out today
who has blown our fasciitis.
And it's like, I have to like connect them on text.
They're gonna set up a call.
He's gonna help educate them, you know,
but like, how do we do that at scale, right?
How do we like start to really use technology
to scale education, to personalize education?
I think technology always, it's changing and evolving.
We're not that far away from it, right?
Where you can be wearing Vision Pro or Oculus, you know,
and having one of our products and, you know,
can get education right there, right?
And I'd love you through what to do.
I think once we can do that, that is super exciting, right?
Because it is hard, it is hard to get educated, right?
And everyone has like a personal thing, you know.
It was done on me, we got an offsite earlier this year,
one of our early founders with Dr. Jay
and Chairman now has been, and he was skiing
and he tours ACL, you know.
This guy has literally created a number of our products.
And first thing he does is calls Dr. Jay and says,
"What do I do? What products should I use?"
And literally, if he doesn't know,
how are we expecting our consumers to know?
- Right. - You know what I mean?
And so it's like that, we take it for granted,
I think living in the world we live in
and know our products so much that
we really have to have that day or one mindset
of like someone takes out a box and gets a gift,
like, "What do I do with this?"
So I don't, you know, I've been rambling
out of this question as a great one
because it's something I think about every day.
- Yeah, me too. I think about it every day too.
Because I, you know, I live it, right?
'Cause it's like every day I have to think about like,
"Oh, well, my feet hurt."
Or, you know, like, "My hamstring's hurt today or whatever.
What do I do today?"
Right? 'Cause I'm not gonna,
I don't have a, you know,
point me to schedule with a physical therapist or whatever.
So, yeah, it's,
I think it is not to be too dramatic,
but it is like,
it is one of the things that like,
is it, is it, is it trial of our times?
Is like, how does this generation, you know, age gracefully
and be able to, you know, do a lot of the things
that our parents' generation couldn't do
when they turned 70 or 80 years old, you know?
- Yeah, exactly.
- And I think we have found that people,
when you're in pain,
you are really looking for solutions, right?
- Yep.
- And it's one thing with your like,
20s and 30s and you're like, you know,
like, I can kind of just, you know,
hop back on the bike or do it ever again, right?
When you're like, you know, your 40s, 50s,
it's not that easy, right?
And you can get injured.
And it changes the, it starts to change things.
So I think that the fact that technology can help with that
is really exciting.
And I think, you know, in our lifetimes,
and we see we're like medicines evolving,
people are gonna, you know, knock on wood,
but people are gonna live longer, right?
I mean, huge strides and things like cancer research
which I'm really passionate about,
all sorts of things, right?
People are gonna live longer, right?
And I think that's exciting,
but like it's still same body.
We have to think about how do we,
even if we are getting rid of some of these diseases
and things like that, other things, right?
Broken bones, other things are gonna come up, right?
A fall, like we know of all those things
that can really have an impact on someone's, you know,
mental health, physical health,
and ultimately longevity.
So it's, I'm excited by where the technology is going
and how technology can really help.
And enable this area.
- Yeah, me too.
I'm super excited.
And I think it's like, there are so many secrets
that we don't know the answers to yet about our bodies,
especially women's health.
Like that's the other thing too,
is like we've been studying dudes for a long time
in the world, is like women's health
is significantly farther behind.
It's tragic.
- You look at this stats amount,
the research where funding is gone,
how little certain topics have menopause, for example,
and things, how little it's been researched, it's shocking.
So it's really a priority for us
on getting that representation, our science advisory board.
That's where we're looking to do new research in that area.
That is a growing focus of ours.
We're not, I think we're pretending to have completely cracked it
because I think it requires a lot more research.
So it's been so under research,
but that is something we are committing to
as we continue to invest in the science,
within the science and research space.
- Yeah, that's exciting.
It is super needed.
Okay, let's get to our next segment, the playbook.
We open up that playbook and you talk about the tactics
that help you win.
What are your three channels and tactics
that are your most uncutable budget items?
- I'm a big believer in the power of
television, television, and kind of,
I think social, I was a digital marketer,
I came up through that,
which I think gave me a real healthy skepticism
of the industry.
And I like, I still think that capturing people's attention
is hard.
I think you can capture people's attention
on a larger screen.
So whether it's YouTube video,
or connecting TV, linear TV,
I don't think you can grow a brand.
I think everyone I wanted to believe
that they could all create DDC brands,
just use your performance media.
All those brands are now probably getting into TV now
as you watch television.
So I don't use it all the time,
but I can't imagine not being able to pull that lever,
especially to get in front of some new audiences
and to grow the brand.
So that's really important for me.
A second thing is like PR.
I think PR and comms is so important.
I think the ability to get your story told,
the ability to get coverage, to inspire journalists,
writers, I think it has a huge, huge ROI,
way beyond what you're usually paying for those.
So I think that's one of the most important channels for me.
I think especially when you're a small company,
you don't have big budgets.
You know, that is a way that you can invest
and you can really get some great bills, some great buzz.
And it's not the third area
having the ability to experience the brand, right?
I think we are such a product that is,
you have to, if you try it there,
or you're trying one of our other products,
you see the difference right away.
So retail, really important for us.
We have our own stores
and we're about 20 of our own stores around the country.
Like I said, we're in all the key retailers.
We invest in merchandising.
We invest in showing her the right way in a premium way.
And that would be the third area.
It was kind of that in-person retail experience.
At least for our products.
We cannot be an online-only product.
We'd have to be something you actually engage with
and touch, control.
- Yeah, I just want to rip off a couple of things
that I found fascinating in our research
that I didn't know.
Number one, you have a military discount,
military first responders discount, which is cool.
I think that that's as someone is in the military.
I find that that's something that people don't market enough
and put into their marketing
because I think it shows that you like care
and also it helps people pull the trigger,
pulling the pun, I suppose.
The other thing that I thought was interesting
is that you were doing this,
and I don't know if you're still doing this,
that basically sort of like not a buyback program,
but basically someone brings in their competitor
to one of your stores that they get a little rebate
onto buying a Thiragon.
I found that that's really cool
because who wants those stinky competitors?
I'm not Irish still doing that.
- Yeah, both of those things, right?
And we're actually talking about with military
and even first responders, nurses, things like that.
We do offer a discount.
We don't talk about it enough.
We don't push it enough.
Something that we literally have in conversations today
about, very important for us.
Something we've always supported believe in.
Also education discounts as well.
And then we do, yeah, we started that.
We've always talked about it, that program.
I remember I was there when Apple started
the iPhone trading program.
It's a very, very hard program to execute.
A lot of logistics to do it at scale.
So we launched two pilots.
One, we did with Best Buy.
They're excited to start,
where we actually use a product, a competitor product,
or a their old Theragon.
- And you could trade, get some credits.
And then we launched it our own stores after that.
And we've been, people been asking about it for a while,
right?
These products last a long time.
And so people wanna feel like,
there's nothing wrong with it.
I just wanna get them there with some latest one.
So we're looking at extending that program
to make it more widely available
for people who potentially, but you know,
what I do from not go to a store,
you're not near a store, right?
Send it in.
So, sorry, some explore things like that.
And how do we kind of like recycle that, right?
So how do we take that and, you know,
can sell it, you know, as a discounted product,
refurbished a product.
We can even take, you know,
reuse parts of it and it's like that.
So, so really important for us to keep pushing
on that program that will continue to expand it.
- Yeah, it's cool.
And I think it just shows that you care
and that's like the most important thing.
Like your brand experience,
or your customer experience is your brand, right?
So I think that's so cool.
The other couple of things I wanted to mention,
some of the products are like HSA approved, right?
So, so if you have money in your HSA,
you can spend it, which I think that's also something
that's, I don't know how unique that is,
but that was pretty cool.
I didn't know that.
- Yeah, it's a big and big push for us.
A number of our products are HSA FSA approved.
We worked with a company called Sika Health last year,
which actually integrates into our website.
So you can check out and you can input your number.
And it's no matter how you can do it with Amazon
and it's fully integrated.
And a lot of consumers are starting to do that now.
And as well, it's a huge, huge benefit.
Especially certain times of the year
when you're trying to look to spend
what you might have left over.
So that's a big focus of ours to make sure
our products push to have our products be eligible.
- I love that.
And then the final thing is that you do corporate gifting
as well, so that, you know,
and for people who are listening to this show,
marketing teams and whatnot,
you want to give them to your customers,
you want to give them to your employees,
you want to give them to prospects or something like that,
that you could give these puppies away.
And our marketers, you know, our listeners
are always looking at things to give people
and goodness gracious,
would that not be the best thing to give a prospect
in the whole wide world?
- Yeah, you're hitting on all of my points.
I love this.
You're a evangelist here.
Yes, we have a whole corporate gifting program.
You can take the mini to the other products,
goggles, put your logo on it.
Huge around the holiday time.
People love to give it out.
Like you said clients get up to your employees.
So it's a big part of our business.
- Well, it excited me from a marketing perspective
because you're always thinking of something
if you're going to give, you know, the CIO of XYZ Corp,
you know, something that they're going to want
and they're going to use
and they're going to be reminded of, you know,
you give them a mug and they see your brand
and they say, oh yeah, I'm going to go buy that software.
You give them a Theragon, it's like,
and they're using it, you know,
and their spouse is using,
their kids like, you know,
mom, I don't know where you got this.
This is the best thing ever.
Like that is a brilliant piece of marketing
that sits around the house
and is actually used all the time.
So yeah, anywho, that's why I thought it.
- Yeah, 'cause I remember when I was, you know,
I remember, you know, from a holiday time,
you just get, you get booze, right?
You just get, you know, agency, you mean,
just be champagne and Ryan and liquor and like, you know,
cool, great, but like what about for about same,
you know, a price, you give someone a mini
that they're going to use that little bit healthier,
you know, for them.
So yeah, it's something that again,
is a great gift, it's a great gift
and people love it and love getting it.
- Anything that you are,
that's either not working,
that you're thinking of cutting,
or you're cutting, or anything that you are excited
to experiment with in terms of your marketing budget.
- Well, we've touched on a few of them.
I do think, you know, I'm really excited about
some of the technology changes we talked about.
The big thing for me with my team is,
I think that a marketing organization
at the end of the day is a creative organization, right?
And I think that what we bring is ideas and creativity.
So I think the biggest thing I'm focusing on
is really encouraging teams to take risk.
And I think that in the last couple of years,
when you look at all these layoffs, right,
you look at all this downsides and this cost cutting,
I think people say again,
very scared of trying things and taking risks,
because it's a scary time, right?
And what organization loses that,
that is really scary to me.
And as a marketer who always values at the end of the day,
all the, I said to some of my friends
that are the best strategist,
and the most, you know, you've done the best decks,
the best strategies, which I love, I was a strategist.
But an idea, well executed, you know,
can just carry that so much further, right?
I think that when I was a beats and we created,
you know, the straight out of Compton meme,
you know, for the movie that came on,
when you remember, it was straight out of blank, right?
And then fill in the blank and upload it, right?
My team, you know, it was three young,
three young marketers who put in a room
and said, come with an idea, you know,
when there was a 50K idea that led to,
you know, you don't have many viral moments as a brand,
especially not anymore.
But again, it was about an insight that has an idea
that traveled and there's really well time.
And I think that as marketers and as a team,
it's like we have to have people take risks, right?
And, you know, sometimes it won't get sold through,
sometimes we'll say, okay, it's a little too risky,
we're not gonna launch that.
But I'd rather at least have people go through it
and, you know, take some risks, take some shots.
I think that's the thing I'm really thinking about,
is how do you have a culture that, you know,
we have to have excellence, you have to have, you know, ROI,
all the things that marketers are being challenged with
now these days, but get to some, you know, bold thinking,
get to some risk taking and having people feel comfortable
with that.
So that's what I think that that's the superpower
you can unlock in a marketing organization.
If you can kind of churn out a 34 great ideas a year,
you're doing really, really well.
- All right, let's get to our last segment, quick hits.
These are quick questions and quick answers,
just like how quickly qualified helps companies generate
pipeline to happen to your great assassin website
and identify your most valuable visitors
and instantly start sales conversations,
go to qualified.com to learn more.
Quick hits, John, are you ready?
- I'm ready.
- Number one, do you have a hidden talent or skill
that's not on your resume?
- I think it's very difficult to ruffle my feathers.
My mom used to say that I was like a barge,
just kind of moving along.
I don't have really huge highs and lows.
It's just kind of steady state.
And I would say that's probably what my team would say
that's not on my resume.
- Love it.
Do you have a favorite book podcast
or TV show that you'd recommend?
- I just came across a most awesome podcast
aside from this one, obviously.
It's called The Founders Podcast.
And it is literally goes back
and kind of looks at founders, biographies
and autobiographies and kind of talks through them
and explains them and dissects them.
And I listened to this one on Lege-Rob Tires
and how that company was founded based on a book
that's of his biography.
Anyway, there's amazing, amazing stories
of different founders.
And I just nerd out on that story stuff.
So founders podcast, great podcast.
So listen to it.
Love it.
If you weren't in marketing or business at all,
what do you think you'd be doing?
- I would probably be a ski controller in Montana.
I'm a huge skier.
I love being up in Montana, I love being outdoors.
Sometimes I say maybe I'll be like a greeter.
Maybe I'm not even qualified to be a ski patrol.
Maybe I was greeter at the bottom of the hill
and maybe even working in like the ski shop.
You know, having people with rentals.
What's your best advice for a first time CMO?
- I think I would say
Michael up.
You know, it's a ride.
There's ups and downs.
That's probably harder than you think it will be,
but also immensely rewarding.
But it's definitely a ride.
- Well, that is it.
That's all we got for today, John.
Thanks so much for joining the show.
For listeners, go to TheraBody.com to check them out.
Go get a Thera Gun if you don't have one.
They're awesome.
John, any final thoughts, anything to plug?
- No, Ian, I really enjoyed the conversation.
Really, really had a great time.
If anyone wants, I would love to help out for advice.
Anything around marketing, reach out to me on LinkedIn.
You can find me there.
Probably the best way to reach me.
- I love it.
Awesome.
Thanks, John.
- We'll talk soon.
- Thank you.
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