Is it possible to retain customer loyalty through unprecedented global shipping disruptions? John Roman, CEO of BattlBox and Carnivore Club, knows with full confidence that it is. Hear how his team doubled down on their commitment to their customers in this week's episode.
Transcript from video:
0:01 It's just such a better feeling if someone proactively reaches out instead of taking a reactive approach. You just don't feel important. You feel like
0:09 you're just a number on a spreadsheet, which is the exact opposite of both how we feel about our customers and how we want them to
0:16 feel, which is extremely valued. Alright, welcome to another episode of
0:32 Supply Chain Therapy. I am your host, Alex Kent, joined my co host, Michelle McNamara. Michelle, what's going on? How are we? Doing well today.
0:41 I am so excited for today's episode. We have a phenomenal guest today,
0:46 John Roman, CEO of BattlBox and Carnivore Club. John definitely has quite the resume. After leading several successful sales
0:55 orgs and telecom and software, he turned his attention to e commerce. Once he heard that his college friend was launching a survival and outdoor
1:03 subscription box, as one does, he knew he had to be involved. While he began as an investor, the rapid growth of BattlBox facilitated
1:11 him joining full time as CMO and now CEO. John, thank you so much for joining us. How are you? Good. Thanks so much for having
1:19 me. I'm excited to be here too. Awesome. Well, this is Supply Chain Therapy after all, so let's kick it off with a collective deep breath.
1:26 So we inhale, and we exhale. I'm so much better now,
1:36 thank you. That's what we're here for. All right, let's jump right in.
1:41 So this is Supply Chain Therapy. Alex and I, we just love the drama, so I think we should start with something a little bit dramatic
1:49 here. John, do you have any stories of hardships or challenges that you've had to overcome at BattlBox? Yeah, I mean to keep things
2:00 on theme, supply chain was a huge challenge for us in
2:07 the second half, the latter part of 2020, really, and the majority of 2021. It was this, I hate to use the
2:17 word, new normal, but there was this new normal of what lead times look like. Once something is on the water, we're sitting outside
2:28 Long Beach, the expectations of it getting through into our facility really
2:35 changed. So it was a constant nightmare for about 18 months,
2:40 which was funny because when the pandemic happened and people were talking about supply chain issues, we weren't having any.
2:49 And we went pretty well into the pandemic without
2:56 thinking we were gonna have one, and then all of a sudden we started feeling it towards the end of
3:02 2020, and then it was just how it was after that.
3:07 Were you set up more to ongoing success at the beginning of 2020? I mean, I just remembered, I know all of us do,
3:14 of the toilet paper nightmares, paper towel nightmares. Were you just set up in a way that you didn't have that pain at the beginning
3:22 and it caught up to you? What kind of goes into that? I don't necessarily think so. We weren't working out
3:32 as far out ahead and aggressively as we do now, as we were forced to because of the supply chain
3:41 issues. We were working out based on what the timeframes were pre COVID,
3:50 and they were just still working. They were working and we were like, "Oh, we should plan out further ahead," but the reality is,
3:57 there wasn't a need to because the turnaround times were remaining the same. So then they just stopped working and stopped being the same,
4:06 and 120 days wasn't 120 days anymore. 120 was 180, or 210,
4:12 or 240. So unfortunately, and it wasn't like it was for all of
4:18 our suppliers and vendors. Some, for the most part, went unscathed,
4:24 and some didn't without any necessary rhyme or reason, at least from our end. I'm sure there were reasons, but,
4:33 yeah, it wasn't a problem until it was a problem. Yeah, and for subscription boxes, what is nice is there is a lot
4:41 that you can plan, sort of the demand is expected, and so that does make certain aspects of supply chain easier. But then
4:51 there are still certain challenges, of course, and maybe, 'cause we haven't talked about BattlBox yet, maybe you can give a little bit of the
4:57 spiel of what is BattlBox and then some of the challenges specifically that you guys were facing. Sure. So BattlBox is in the genre of mystery
5:08 box. So our consumers, our customers do not know what they're receiving.
5:14 It's survival outdoor camping adventure gear. So anything from an axe to
5:20 a tent, to a cool fire starter, to maybe some sort of flashlight device.
5:26 It's everything in that gamut. But to what I stated at the beginning, it is a mystery, and it's not mystery in the sense that,
5:36 Michelle, you're a customer, Alex, you're a customer, you guys are gonna get the exact same box. Taking it a step further, so we do
5:43 have tiers. So our basic, which is $35 a month, up to our pro plus, that's $170 a month, and for both of these is plus sales tax,
5:51 plus shipping. So you might have a higher tier box, but you're gonna
5:57 get everything from the lower tier boxes. So with certainty, Michelle, you could be in a pro plus, and Alex, you can be
6:04 in the basic level, but you both are getting everything from the basic box. Taking it a step further, we're strategic with how we ship because
6:12 we want all customers to get the box around the same time because of the surprise element, and because of that,
6:21 Michelle, you're right, there's some great parts of subscription because it's easier to forecast, but the reality is it's
6:31 the amount we're ordering no one has on the shelf for the most part. So these are typically custom manufactured runs. So when you start
6:40 running into supply chain issues, it's a major issue because you're only
6:45 as strong as your weakest link, and if we're missing an item that's in the basic box, that means we can't build basic, advanced,
6:55 pro or pro plus. In turn, we can't build any boxes. So at that point, it's a larger problem. We're basically halted.
7:03 We can't do anything at all until that one item gets there. Quick aside, you mentioned axe. What have been some of the most exciting
7:11 products, the ones that have been the most popular over the years? Is axe one of them? That's wild. Axe, we've sent out a couple
7:19 axes. We actually just sent out an axe last month, which we've sent out a few. We've sent out a couple of single
7:28 man tents, we've sent out a two man tent, which, from a shipping logistical side of the house,
7:38 yeah, I'm sure operations didn't appreciate that one too much. Its, shipping costs alone would have been a good reason not
7:47 to like it. But twice we've sent out a take down bow, so think like Robin Hood bow and arrow. Oh my gosh. But a take
7:55 down bow where it's quickly... It's very small and compact, and then you
8:01 build it. We've sent out a couple of those. Those have done really well. Yeah, there's typically at least one, like some sort of exciting
8:12 item each month. That's awesome. I might not share this episode with my husband 'cause I'm not sure. We might be your next customer.
8:21 I'm already thinking about it. If I got a bow and maybe some arrows in a mystery box, that's like Christmas in February or March for
8:30 me. Totally. That'd be awesome. Love it. And you see that, you see people, literally adults, kid in the candy store,
8:38 they're sending us, dropping as photos, they're in the backyard and the box couldn't have been delivered 10 minutes earlier. Yeah, I know we were
8:45 gonna touch on this a little bit later, but talk about that customer experience and how important that is, not only for your brand to continue
8:51 to grow in that unboxing experience, but all the work that goes into it in curating that box and then having that so that they are
8:58 surprised? They're all getting at the same day. How important is that to BattlBox? So it's one of the most important
9:07 things. On the prep call, we were talking about content and community. So these are two pillars that we really lead by, and there's not a part
9:15 of the business that we make a decision on that doesn't take both of those in a consideration. And a big part of community,
9:23 besides the obvious piece, is this Facebook group, where it's a members only perk, so you have to be an active subscriber
9:31 to be in there. Not all customers are in there, but we have a decent amount, I think last count, probably somewhere in the 8000
9:39 or so, 8500 maybe of our active subscribers are in there, and it truly functions like a community. The cool thing is that it
9:49 runs without us there. It just literally is taking these like minded people, people that love the great outdoors, love to get outside, whether it's going
9:59 on a hike or actually camping. It's the full range, and
10:06 they're forging friendships in there, which is pretty cool. Whether it's trading, maybe people are trading some BattlBox items, maybe
10:14 they're trading items that they bought on their own, or they're scheduling meet ups or just sharing best practices,
10:23 it's pretty cool, and it's honestly a little contagious from an energy level
10:30 to watch it in motion. But I say all of that to get back to your question, it's of the utmost importance. So
10:40 there's this value statement of the BattlBox product and, yeah, so you're in the pro plus, you're paying, call it, $170 a month plus sales
10:48 tax, shipping, depending on your state, you're probably somewhere right around $200. And yes, you're likely gonna get, call it, $350 worth of gear
11:00 if you were to buy it on your own, and that's a huge value statement, but we don't really upsell on that. We don't position that.
11:08 That's, to us, icing on the cake. We're really positioning
11:14 our product more as an experience. It's less about the product. It's more about the experience, about the community, about the content,
11:23 about the fact that our entire team is in that Facebook group and
11:30 readily available and functioning almost as extended family, than someone
11:37 sending you an axe. Yeah, so kinda going back, because of the content and community piece, knowing that you are going to have delays for future
11:46 boxes, how do you approach that to continue with that kind of the
11:52 importance of the community, and I'll call them your fans, the BattlBox members that are looking forward to that box?
12:00 Quite simply, radical transparency. One of the fortunate thing is trying
12:07 to find silver linings in the last few years of COVID, but the whole delays in shipments, everybody was feeling it.
12:18 By the time we were feeling it, it was extremely normalized, and really the litmus test on how normalized something is in today's culture
12:27 is, are there memes about it? It was talked about in most media sources, so it was understood,
12:36 and with it being understood, the gap of having to educate the consumer
12:41 was extremely abridged and shortened. So we said, "Okay,
12:48 we're just gonna tell them exactly what's happening." Some could argue, are we over sharing? And our view point is,
12:57 if this is over sharing, we're just gonna over share, and we hope that this connection, this community that we have
13:05 will appreciate that we're just keeping it 100 and we're just telling them
13:10 how it is. And we did that. We said, "Hey, we're waiting on this one item. We don't wanna ruin it for you,
13:18 but it's... " Maybe we'll give some kind of slight teaser to it,
13:23 "But it was supposed to be off this boat three weeks ago, and it's still sitting at port, it's been sitting at port
13:32 for the past three weeks, and we're hearing that it might be another week," and we'd give them the break down of when we're expecting it,
13:40 and then holding ourselves accountable a little bit in the sense that, "Okay, we'll be providing an update either as soon as we have another
13:51 one, or within the next week." Before, and even now, having something come late was the exception, not the rule. It had completely
14:00 flip flopped and it was the exception that everything was gonna come in on time for such a long stem. As a consumer myself,
14:10 that's what I would look forward to. If something is gonna be delayed, don't let me... Don't make me go and reach out and say,
14:15 "Where's my package? Did you forget about me? What's going on here?" It's more like, if you can get in front of it,
14:21 I'm in there, "Okay, I get it." And maybe that's because I'm in the industry, but I think a lot of consumers are like that.
14:27 They're just being proactive, and that radical transparency, as you were saying, is important not only for the brand, but it saves you that
14:34 customer service call that you're having to take and then track down in order too. If you're just proactive and say, "Hey, we're gonna have delays,"
14:42 I'm not making that call, right? Yeah, and I don't think it's because you're in the industry, or we're in the industry, I think it's us
14:49 wearing the hat as the consumer, right? And it's just such a better feeling if someone proactively reaches out instead of reactively answer,
14:58 "Oh yeah, we're having delays." You just don't feel important. You feel minimized. You feel like you're just a number on a spreadsheet,
15:05 which is the exact opposite of both how we feel about our customers,
15:12 and two, how we want them to feel. 'Cause we actually want them to feel how we feel about them, which is extremely valued, and that is just...
15:21 Nothing says you're not valued more than taking a reactive approach. It's like, if the same can be said when we're on the other
15:30 side of the business and we're looking at vendors and tech partners, and partners that we use,
15:38 shit's gonna go wrong. The question is, how do you respond to it?
15:43 And how do you take it to resolution? How do you communicate that? That's where the separation is, and yeah, I guess we got it right when
15:51 we decided to take that approach. Yeah, I think content, community,
15:56 that does really... I think the bottom layer of that is showing that you care. You care about them, so you wanna build that community and
16:05 you want to communicate effectively with them. I think that BattlBox is
16:10 truly differentiated with their content and community. A lot of brands say that that's important, but I think you guys really do some best in
16:17 class work. Can we talk a little bit first around how you tie in content and community into the supply chain process, the delivery process,
16:26 like that piece? Sure. So our procurement process of products
16:35 is constantly evolving, constantly getting better and stronger,
16:40 self learning, if you will, process. We're learning from our mistakes.
16:46 And through that process, we've built in easy ways to check a couple
16:52 of boxes, one, for the procurement process, but two, get content. So we have these multiple funnels of how we source new product,
17:01 and it's from the suspects you would think; vendors, manufacturers that
17:07 wanna be in our box, internal procurement team, things that they find,
17:12 things that employees find, but big surprise, our largest funnel is what
17:18 customers are telling us they want. So regardless of what funnel it comes in, it eventually gets to the point where
17:27 we need samples to see if this product is gonna check the boxes and ultimately get the BattlBox stamp of approval, because once we've put
17:35 in a product, we're kind of putting it in a box, we're kind of standing behind that product to a certain degree.
17:42 It doesn't matter that we didn't make it. We're saying, "This is good enough for us, so we're sending it to you." So it's gotta be
17:49 of a certain standard. So in that process of us getting the products
17:55 and testing them, part of, if anybody's listening, this is as seen in the
18:01 Netflix show of ours, the whole premise is we're testing gear to determine
18:06 if it goes in a BattlBox. Well, this is actually how the sausage is made. This is how we're doing it.
18:13 So product comes in and Brandon Currin, the face of BattlBox, he goes
18:20 and he test the gear. And at the same time of testing the gear, big surprise, we're filming it, and it serves so much,
18:30 so many purposes. One, it's giving us content. Two, it's easily shareable
18:37 by him to the rest of the procurement team that makes the decision on if a product is gonna make it to the next step.
18:45 Three, sometimes we'll not be sure of a product, like we feel good about it, but we're not all in on it. So we'll share a
18:53 snippet of that content to our customers, and we're very open ended,
18:59 "What do you guys think? Should this go in a BattlBox?" And surprisingly, they tell us their opinion, if they like it or not,
19:08 and if we get a lot of blow back and a lot of comments and engagement that are negative, okay, well, they've kind of answered
19:14 it for us, it doesn't make it to the next step. We were a little bit on the fence. Now, we know with certainty. Excellent.
19:21 Alright, now don't think I forgot about the Netflix show. I really wanna get into it now. Okay. I just nonchalantly dropped it... Yeah, right? No
19:30 big deal. Oh yeah, the Netflix show. Sorry, I forgot. So let's talk about it. Supply chain, of course. So I am kind
19:39 of curious, how did you prepare for the inevitable influx of orders?
19:45 What did that process look like? A complete and utter
19:50 nightmare. Lucky, we threw a dart at a number and apparently we had
19:57 played darts before, and if you've played dart before or even if you haven't, occasionally you get a bull's eye and
20:06 we somehow nail the number, so it was really, really difficult. So there was the obvious piece of concern because we had a July
20:15 erring, so really, we're having to make decisions on these products of this
20:22 optic, we're having to make those decisions arguably around the time of
20:30 March, where the pandemic is really just hyper hockey stick up
20:37 of uncertainty and scariness. And yeah, that was the time to make that
20:43 decision on products, to take it a step further, there was no
20:49 use case of what to expect, right. You had people... Everybody loved to
20:55 give an opinion on what they thought the number would be, the fundamental problem is, when you asked any of them, well, how are you
21:04 coming up with this? No one had an answer, no one had a data point they could point to. So it was literally just a bunch
21:11 of best guesses and you could say educated guesses. But were they?
21:18 So the show in its premise is testing gear to determine if it
21:24 goes in BattlBox, so it truly functions like a commercial for us, but obviously it's spoofed up a little bit for a TV.
21:33 Entertaining. Yeah. That's awesome. Entertaining. Has to have entertainment value, but the premise is still there. So we knew that there was
21:40 gonna be a... I just saw the truck go by. I know. The forklift. I was
21:46 waiting for it the whole time. Sorry. No, I'm excited. I wanted to
21:55 see it. Try and get away. Speaking of entertaining. Yeah. So the big
22:02 thing is, the reality is, let's do a commercial for us of us testing gear to determine if it goes in a
22:09 BattlBox which, guess what? You can buy at battlbox.com, and everybody is
22:14 wearing BattlBox shirt, so it serves this purpose, so we knew there was gonna be an uptick, but we had never seen
22:22 something like this previously. The best closest thing to a case study, which I'll explain why it isn't was Duck Dynasty, where they had that
22:31 duck call business that completely blew up, but that was traditional television,
22:37 every Wednesday it came on, but it was one episode, and I don't know how many seasons, how many episodes are in a
22:45 season, but somewhere in the 10 to 20 range. Right? And it was a slow build. While the Netflix model is,
22:56 especially during July of 2020, which was coming off of the phenomenon of
23:04 'Tiger King' that apparently everybody watched. It was this binge,
23:11 this binge phenomenon where you're gonna watch our show, if you're gonna watch it, you're likely gonna... Eight episodes, 30 minutes. So just not
23:19 a big time commitment, you're gonna binge through that in likely a couple of nights, some people will knock it out in one, most will knock
23:28 it out in two to four, and then it's done, you're moving on to the next thing you can binge. So
23:37 there wasn't this case study of a way to see what a quick ingestion of that type of show does.
23:46 So there is no way to really measure. You could take, okay, well, what did Duck Dynasty do in it's entire full season,
23:52 but it's still not apples to apples, so long story short,
23:58 we just try to make an educated guess, but at the same time, we put some new process in place to limit...
24:06 Limit the risk. So previously, you sign up for a BattlBox subscription,
24:11 and we had switched different models, at one point, there was a welcome box that you would get for your first month, we had pivoted away
24:19 from that and you were just getting the current box, and we decided to put something in place
24:26 where post check out after purchase, thanking them on the confirmation page
24:32 was a choose your first BattlBox, and these were three options which we
24:37 still use today that we can dynamically change in real time based on
24:43 inventory levels, customer experience, whatever variable it is,
24:50 change it and then Michelle, you check out 10 seconds from now you're seeing this new option, so we use that as a way to...
25:00 We knew that if we missed the number two by too much,
25:05 that we could use this to kind of alleviate that issue, we got lucky and we didn't... We didn't need to,
25:13 but it was a great tool to have kind of in case of emergency. Yeah. That's super interesting. I mean, I do think the old way
25:21 was build the community first, then monetize like the Duck Dynasty example,
25:26 and you're really building a case study around create the community and monetize and build that product at the same time, 'cause right now we're
25:35 in this stage of... You have their attention now. You need to capitalize
25:40 on it because tomorrow they're gonna be on to the next thing, you need to be kind of ready in that moment. That's super cool.
25:47 Let's circle back to supply chain for subscription boxes.
25:53 One of the key pieces is having a consistent customer experience across
25:58 every box, and can you talk a little bit about how you ensure that consistency and that ultimate customer experience? Yeah, so
26:08 it's not easy, right? I think we always, obviously have to lead and
26:13 take that into consideration, but we're constantly re measuring it. I think the best way... And this is a generalized answer by design,
26:23 'cause I think a generalized answer is best here for whatever specific brand
26:28 you have and you're managing and you're trying to provide a good customer experience, that customer experience piece is always gonna be slightly different.
26:35 Right. It's gonna be something that actually speaks to your audience, that's the given. And that's the variable that's different, what should
26:43 always be the same is re measuring and how do you re measure,
26:49 right? Talk to your customers, get feedback, whether it's via surveys,
26:55 doing the small case studies where it seems crazy and you can argue it's inefficient, but picking up the phone and calling some customers and
27:05 just talking to them, you'll be shocked at how much that means. Right. Put yourself in the flip side,
27:13 like Alex was saying, as a consumer, I like proactive. Can you imagine a company calling you and genuinely wanting to know, how can we do
27:21 a better job, how can we continue to earn your business every month or insert frequency here and caring. One, you've probably done that customer
27:31 now, their LTV. I don't have the data to support this, but I can make the assumption that their LTV just shot up.
27:39 If they weren't a fanatic before, the likelihood of them moving to fanatic status is exponentially increased, but also they're giving you their hard
27:49 earned dollars, they likely have an opinion on what a superior or better
27:56 product or a way we can improve is, and just ask them and not all answers are gonna be great answers, but if you talk to
28:03 enough people, you're gonna start to see trends and you're gonna start to see feedback that is mirrored on multiple conversations, and that's when
28:13 we start putting together the pieces of the puzzle, you're gonna see these things that are similar and that's how you improve, right. It sounds crazy,
28:25 just listen to your customers, but the reality is, so many brands don't. So many brands get in this really bad habit, I don't think it's
28:34 ever really even malicious, I think it's... You're in the weeds of the day to day of the business, and you've got your blinders on,
28:40 right, and you start thinking that you know what your customers want and
28:46 need better than they do, and that is 100% of the time incorrect... There's probably times we're driving and you're
28:56 in the zone, and you are probably possibly close to what they want
29:02 and knowing, but it's gonna be impossible to have blinders on, be in the business and have an exact pulse of what your consumers
29:12 want. Biggest reason is consumer behavior is constantly changing.
29:17 It's never constant, it's always moving a little bit. Yeah, it was a long answer. Listen to your customers is the short
29:25 answer. That's fantastic advice. Yeah, and it feels very authentic. Like you gotta give a nod to BattlBox, because if I think of other
29:33 brands, if they were to call me up, it would feel very odd and out of the blue, but you guys involve your customer along
29:40 the whole spectrum, they're part of procurement. To me, it seems like they feel as invested in BattlBox as you are, and so if you were
29:49 to come up, they'd be like, heck, yeah, let me show you... Share my feedback. Yeah, it's a good point. So
29:55 some brands, it might come across a little ingenuine, but it's just because it's what we were started on, you look at
30:02 some interesting part, so Brandon Currin, the face of BattlBox for the first
30:08 12 months plus, he was a paying customer of ours with zero, literally, we didn't find him, he found one of our Facebook
30:18 ads or Instagram ads and signed up and was a paying customer, he was the face of our brand. Luke
30:26 runs our CX department. Luke was a paying customer. So we have in the Facebook group, before that, it was a Reddit
30:34 style bulletin board, we have a group of moderators, and what we quickly found out is a lot of times our customers
30:42 were jumping in when a question was asked from a prospect or a customer, we were finding these super, super awesome customers that were
30:51 beating us to the punch on replying and what we quickly realize is, hey, this is a great ally resource at some point,
31:00 let's keep them engaged, so stop charging them for the box, even the box are free, and in turn, they help moderate these groups
31:08 for us. Right, they know the product just as well as we do, and it's impressive. And there's passion there. I'm curious, John, obviously,
31:17 a lot of brands outside of BattlBox, I think a lot of brands will react to the negative feedback, and in today's world, you're more likely
31:25 to... There's all kinds of studies out there that say, you're more likely to post a negative review than a positive one, so how do you
31:33 approach that with BattlBox of maybe you're getting a negative review, maybe you're not, but you're leading a different brand, and
31:42 the squeaky wheel gets the grease is the saying, but how do you also focus on that customer that's happy. And you go to them and
31:47 say, what are we doing right? Yeah, so unfortunately, the squeaky wheel does get it sometimes. They don't get all
31:55 of it, right, so our resources are allocated appropriately where unfortunately, if you're super loud and whether you're right or wrong,
32:05 everybody... One of the great things about the world is everybody has some sort of platform to communicate typically at social media, because it's
32:14 normally not the happy customers that go out of their way. That's right. And we do have to... And we do...
32:22 It's a priority. We actually, I send a screenshot following up on one earlier today, just... I was pure curiosity on that, how it was
32:32 resolved. So we do have to engage and we do engage, we don't act like it doesn't exist. We go as fast as we
32:41 can, full on, let's engage with this customer. Taking it to the other stuff, so we do an internal...
32:51 It's an internal survey, rate us 1 to 10, they're getting this after their first box with us, and how likely are you to refer us
32:58 to somebody else, and that's the real litmus test, right. And following, we're not reinventing the wheel here, so nine in 10 is considered
33:08 a promoter or a fan or fanatic, depending on how you're looking at this, 6 to 7, that's considered neutral, and then anything below that,
33:18 1 through 5 is a detractor or a negative or
33:24 a missed opportunity, we dropped the ball somewhere there, right, if they
33:31 gave us between a 1 and a 5 out of 10, something went wrong, we didn't set proper expectations, it wasn't a good
33:36 experience, bad shipping, stuff could be outside of our control, doesn't matter, it's still our fault. So we do that internal survey,
33:45 and if they give us a 5 or less, it automatically kicks a
33:51 ticket over to our CS team, they then investigate, try to figure out how do we turn this customer around. Sometimes
34:00 reach out makes sense and we can resolve it. Sometimes it's already a lost cause and we're gonna follow up anyway and just
34:07 hope that it pans out. Nine to 10 is promoter. These people,
34:14 we crushed it, we let them know while the fire's hot in there, they're a fanatic, all the places they can share their story and
34:26 tell others about BattlBox. In addition to that, we're gonna tell them about
34:32 our referral program and our BattlBox loyalty program.
34:37 We have a brand ambassador program, which is pretty cool that
34:42 runs parallel, it's similar to like our affiliate in our influencer programs, but it's more for the paying customer, the customer that
34:51 doesn't have 10,000, 50,000 or 100,000 or a million followers, it's the
34:58 average person. You might have 200 or you might have a thousand, but it gives them the ammunition and assets they need where they can
35:08 share it on their own social profiles, so we're really just making sure that when someone is a big fan, that we give them all the
35:17 tools necessary, so that they're comfortable sharing with their community
35:25 why they like BattlBox. That's great. Alright, well, wrapping up here with John Roman. John, let's get into the speed round, I gotta know what
35:34 other subscription boxes do you subscribe to? None. None. Okay, I wasn't
35:40 expecting that. Are you reading anything good right now?
35:46 So right now, the content I'm ingesting is
35:52 very heavy on community content, Michelle, you had spoken to how
35:57 our order of businesses and revenue and content and community is your non
36:04 standard? I think it is the non standard, and I think the other way is probably easier to replicate, and I'm interested in how do we
36:13 replicate this to grow both a mile wide and a mile deep. So
36:18 right now, what I'm... I'm listening to an insane amount of podcasts and
36:23 ingesting a large amount of YouTube content. On both, am oftentimes going
36:30 at like 1.5X speed, but it's not what you would necessarily think it's...
36:38 Right now, like a lot of Mr. Beast content, a lot of... They're accomplishing a very similar thing on a much smaller scale,
36:48 the Nelk Boys and the Full Send Podcast, both of them and Mr.
36:53 Beast, I'm ingesting a lot of it right now, just trying to better understand, because for us to replicate it on that side,
37:02 we need to better understand the terrain a little bit more before we go into it, and that's our goal for 2023 is hire more full
37:11 time creators on our team, and I think we need to better understand that world before we kinda jump into it. Alright, last question here,
37:18 John, what's one thing you do to relax and unwind when you're feeling stressed, when you're done ingesting content? Push ups. Push ups. So, it's
37:30 really strange. I do push ups throughout the day, it started off as... As
37:35 I've gotten older, I sort of have a back problem about it a little over a year ago, finally, after a bunch of different failed ideas,
37:44 the doctor said increasing your core strength, and because of a back issue you can't do sit ups. Push ups was
37:52 the answer, and I've somehow done daily push ups and it's like anti stress, working on core, personal goal. It's weird,
38:04 the power of doing push ups every day somehow has changed me fundamentally and exponentially in the last year. I love it. I love it.
38:11 Wow, I think you've convinced me, I must start doing push ups. I love it. And I'm super dependent on people, if it's just me doing
38:20 it, I'm not gonna do it. So I've created a text group with a couple of other friends, and we have to text each other when
38:28 they're done. Nice. For the accountability, if it isn't the text group, it doesn't count, which is like silly and very child like behavior.
38:37 But it holds me accountable. To that community again, I love it. Alright, John, thanks so much for the time today in coming on Supply
38:44 Chain Therapy, really appreciate it man. Thanks guys for having me. I really appreciate you.
