Success Stories Ep 91 - "Trust the Taco King on Marketing"

Are you ready to get down and dirty and dig into the real things that you need to be thinking about when it comes to marketing your business? If that's true, then today is your lucky day as we have none other than Jay Busselle the self proclaimed "Taco King" and marketing champion for the industry. 

As the Marketing Director for Equipment Zone, he is a treasure trove of great ideas, and excitement in ways to get your brand to resonate with your ideal customers.

 So buckle up buttercup, as we land our marketing brain on the "Island of Misfit Toys," as Jay calls it, and we'll tell marketing stories around this great digital campfire.

Transcript

Marshall Atkinson
Hold on. Are you ready to get down and dirty and dig into the real things that you need to be thinking about when it comes to marketing your business? If that's true, then today is your lucky day. As we have none other than Jaber, the self-proclaimed Taco King and marketing champion for the industry. As the marketing director for Equipment Zone, he is a treasure trove of great ideas and excitement in ways to get your brand to resonate with your ideal customers. So buckle up, buttercup, as we land our marketing brain on the Island of Misfit Toys, as Jay calls it, and we'll tell marketing stories around this great digital campfire. So Jay, welcome to the Success Stories podcast.

Jay Busselle
Whoa, Marshall, I am jacked up.

Marshall Atkinson
That's great. That's great. And we've known each other a long time. We've done all kinds of fun projects. And yes, every discussion we always have is epic. And I know this one's going to be just like all the others because I don't think we ever bring in the mediocre crap.

Jay Busselle
Not on your podcast I'm now fired up to be here. Thanks for that warm intro, man. I'm jacked up and ready to ride.

Marshall Atkinson
Well, it's all true, man. All right. So I don't want to mess around. Let's get into this stuff. Because usually when we talk, we run out of time. So I just want to get into it. You're ready?

Jay Busselle
I'm ready. Hit it!

Marshall Atkinson
Right. So J, one of the ways you describe this industry, and I alluded to that in the opening, is the Island of Misfit Toys, which is probably accurate. And I don't think anyone plans on getting into the industry, right? We all find our way into the circus somehow. So I want to circle back to the early days, Jay. Oh, boy, before you had a handlebar mustache or whatever, right? Yeah. How did you get into this industry?

Jay Busselle
That's a great question. I'll try to give you the short version. I was 15, a California refugee who had recently picked up and moved with his family from Southern California to the Wasatch Mountains of the Great Salt Lake City, and Park City, and turned in my skateboard for skis. While I was there, they had a vo-tech school inside of the high school. There was a printing and graphics class that I was enamored with. But you had to be a junior or above. I was a sophomore and sweet-talked my way into that class because I found out they were going to be printing T-shirts, and I was like, "Get the hell out of the way. I need to learn how to do this." And so I learned to print my first shirt before I was 16. We did it the old-fashioned way, just like, you know, Amber LIS Ruby Lith, exacto knives, all of the good times of creating a mess, aka printing my first shirt at 16. It honestly was a curse and a blessing because I had always wanted to be an artist. But I knew that there wasn't really any curriculum, or there wasn't a graphic design degree even available yet. Marshall, you were a couple of years ahead of me. You pretty much had to walk your own walk. You had to find programs and software and stitch things together. And…

Marshall Atkinson
Well, back when I was in college, computers didn't exist.

Jay Busselle
Yeah, there you go. So yes, yes, yeah.

Marshall Atkinson
I'm that old.

Jay Busselle
So I luckily did have the aid of some computers, but it was still very early in the game. So yeah, I figured out how to screenprint. I was bootlegging T-shirts, doing things you're not supposed to do, broke a lot of copyright laws, and made a bunch of money. I thought, you know, I'm the king of the world. I moved to Lake Tahoe, California, was a ski bum. While I was there, I got a call from my parents who said, "Hey, we're moving from Dallas, Texas, back to Phoenix, and we're gonna start this screen printing and promo company." And I was like, "What? What the hell are you talking about?" So that's really how I got here. It's the same thing. You don't really plan on it. You just get an invitation to the Island of Misfit Toys. And once I got here, I was like, I belong. This is home. Why would I ever leave? I get to wear T-shirts and shorts or T-shirts and jeans. I can wear a headwear hoodies. I can make a bunch of money. I can have fun. I can make a difference. And yes, it was hotter than hell in Arizona. Catching shirts off the end of that dryer belt was no fun thing when it's 120 and you do not have air conditioning in your shop. But you know what? Those are the stories we tell now. And that's why we have gray hair or less of it.

Marshall Atkinson
I call that the summer weight loss program.

Jay Busselle
That was definitely a summer. Wait, I need to go back to that summer weight loss. So that was probably the early '90s. You know, so if that was my start and I went to my first impression show, I think in '92. And I probably met you and Charlie, and you know, some of these guys, Mark, and Richard, who are just like walking encyclopedias of wealth of information, hanging on every word, and realized, you know, where's my strength? My strength is probably not in graphic design, and it's probably not on the press. It's probably more with the big picture and with branding, so I've just stuck with that.

Marshall Atkinson
Right, that's great. And so if maybe you've been under a rock or something, and that's okay, I've never heard Jay call this industry the Island of Misfit Toys. That comes from a TV show, and I think it's really appropriate. But if you're not always talking about J, just give us a little brief on that. 

Jay Busselle
Yeah, so it's from the classic animation of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. You think about the story of what you think you want to be, but not every story is perfect, and not every person has the perfect plan. Yet, when you realize what you're good at, it doesn't matter what other people thought or what the preconceived ideas were. It's like, let's just get going. Let's move forward, as you always say. So I think it was Cornelius and some of these other ragtag misfit toys that were missing parts or pieces or always wanted to be a dentist instead of something else. Yeah. So you know what? That's the reference. And I think it expands beyond apparel and apparel decorators. As I've grown, networked, and had opportunities to connect with people, I see adjacent markets that are truly like this dysfunctional family reunion of print, promo, and apparel. The analogy of the Island of Misfit Toys still works there, too. Because there are so many folks that are just making a great living. Like I said, they're making a difference in their communities, and they're making a pile of cash in most cases. I mean, if you do it well, obviously, it's not a gift. It's hard work.

Marshall Atkinson
I think the appeal of this industry a lot of times is you can be you, right? So you can go down your own lane, you can serve the customers you like the best. If you're a skateboarder, you can do skateboard stuff. If you're into outdoor sports, you can be the outdoor sport guy, right? Yeah, exactly. And plus, come on, we're all about comfort in this industry. Right? So 100%. I mean, I'm wearing shorts and a hoodie today.

Jay Busselle
I was gonna say, Who wants to wear a tie? Who wants to wear a tie and a suit? I mean, there are probably a few folks, but they're not my circle of misfits, you know, not very often. I mean, maybe church and weddings and funerals are about the only time I'm going to wear a tie.

Marshall Atkinson
Well, let me tell you, J, I think probably the number of days a year that I wear pants that go below my knees is probably under 10. You

Jay Busselle
You know, Marshall, ever since I saw that bumper sticker on your Prius that says "pants are optional," I mean, you've reached a new level.

Marshall Atkinson
I don't own a Prius, but that's okay. So all right. So I think that interlocking, cut that out, Marshall, you cut that out? So we're not cutting out anything, people. Yes, they want to know the real you. Yeah. So the marketing is kind of what you honed in on, okay. And we're a lot alike. And I think that's kind of our appeal, we're simpatico that. We love talking with people. We love finding stuff out, we love to read, we love to create content, we love to do this stuff. So when you're, you know, kind of traveling through your career, right? Where did you find the answers? Because, you know, we don't do things in "I need to learn that" or "I'm really weak at this, I need to experiment with that." Like, we're. Where are you finding these answers? Jake is probably somebody listening right now. They need answers to where should they be looking?

Jay Busselle
Sure. My first lessons in marketing, branding, and how to stand out in the crowd, how to be different by design, you know, was watching television and looking at commercials and trying to analyze why is this one funny? Why is this one memorable? Why does this one stand out? Same thing with radio, but not as much. But now, fast forward, you know, the last 20 years of my career, it's been an ongoing doctoral program, because marketing keeps evolving and it's moving even faster today. So where I go is I go to conferences, I go to a lot of books, I go to a lot of podcasts. I'm still an observer of the game. I'm just a little bit more tuned in maybe than others, especially in the print, promo, and apparel spaces. Who's doing what? Why is it working? And I'm not saying that because I want to jump on any bandwagons, but I'm always looking for clues. And the irony of that is some of the best clues given were written in a book in 1996. But, you know, guess what? Because it was from a professor at the Berkeley Haas School of Business, who is still probably considered to be one of the smartest men as it relates to marketing and branding. You know, not a lot of YouTube videos from Dan, there's books, Mark, you know, back in the day when people wrote things down, they published books and articles. So that's where I was doing a lot of reading, and I was comparing those notes with what's Nike doing? What's Apple doing, you know? And fast forward to today, it's the same thing, it's taking a look back, rereading some of the classics, take a look forward and say, "Okay, I see what the recipe is. Now, it's my opportunity to make my own secret sauce out of that, like, you know, change the ingredients or add a new ingredient." Or often, I fall into these taco associations, references, and metaphors, whatever you want to call them. But that's really what got this whole thing started with the tacos is, I made a comparison to marketing and branding. And I was just talking about talk about talk about a taco. And I said, "You know, everything on the outside, the shell, it's kind of like your brand. It's what everybody can see, at any given level at any given time, even if you're not in the room. It's part reputation. It's part experience, but it's your brand. It's the outside of the taco, but all of the feelings inside, all of the goodies. Those are all of your marketing tactics. Those are the things you do, your bidding. And it's okay. I don't care if people say branding tactics or marketing tactics. Yes, I know there's a difference. But for most people, the actual steps you're taking to be different, the actual things you do, the sign on your car, the sign on your door, the legacy of your print quality, the way you answer the phone, the logo on your hat, the email signature at the bottom of your email, all these little touches, they all are what's inside and what fill that taco with greatness." So I've said, tacos are like containers of greatness. And I don't care if it's a corn crispy shell or a flour soft shell or lettuce or some other pancakes. I've had pancake tacos. Get creative. You know, the show can be whatever you want it to be and what you put inside, as long as it has a market and then an appeal. And is it dangerous or offensive to others? There's somebody out there that's gonna go, "Hell yeah, tofu tacos, I'm down. Let's go." And there's other people like, "You're disgusting. Tofu does not belong in it." And I'm like, "If you add one, if you ever add it with black beans and the right salsa, dude. Delicious." So I don't know, maybe I'm wandering already in this podcast, but I just think brand relevance and marketing will never ever go out of style. And I've been so focused this last four or five years, thanks to you and Tom, by the way, on this concept of brand relevance and helping people transform their T-shirt business or their T-shirt shop. I don't like to use the word shop, but everybody else does. T-shirt business into an iconic brand, into something that's memorable, and is something that matters. So thank you, because you guys pushed me, you invited me to do a training. And I took six months, and I did a lot of studying and a lot of reading. And I looked at everything I was doing and everything I thought I knew, and I was like, "Okay, there's some pieces here that are still going to fit. But there's a lot of new things." And, you know, it's not just new shiny things like TikTok. It's a cluttered, noisy, distracted market. And it's hard as hell to get the attention of other people.

Marshall Atkinson
Yes, and I love what you said. One of the things I really want to hone in on here is the learning part. And then there has to be an action part where you try something new. I know this has become a shock to a lot of people, but I wasn't born with a podcast. I had to actually do one long time ago. And I didn't know anything about doing podcasts. I didn't know anything about building a live event like Shirt Lab. I didn't know anything about writing a blog or doing any other things, and you're the same way. Amen. But here's what separates me and you from other people: the fact that we're willing to stick it out there and know that the first attempt is just going to be awful. It's going to suck; nobody's going to listen or watch or read or whatever it is. Okay, we're going to birth the baby anyway. And we'll learn from them.

Jay Busselle
Yeah, yeah, embrace the suck. Those first steps suck. And if you've ever tried to lose weight or get healthy or stop drinking caffeine or stop drinking alcohol or stop smoking or anything that is addictive, you know how hard it is. But it's still worth it, and it's still part of the process. And it doesn't matter. And don't let those fears hold you back, whether it's a podcast or a blog or a live event or whether it's new marketing tools and new tactics. It's reinventing and shifting your positioning for marketing and saying, "I can no longer afford to be in a sea of sameness. I have got to do things on purpose that distinguish me and differentiate me in the marketplace and attract the people I actually want to do business with." And if I could just get all of that alignment, and it's not easy, it's easy to say it, it's hard as hell to do. But just like you said, you take those first steps, you embrace the suck, and you move forward, and you do it again. And then you shift and you do it again. And you're pragmatic, and you say, "That sucked, but I'm okay with it. Because, you know, thank God, only two people and my mom saw it. So I'm going to do that again, I'm going to do it better, I'm gonna get a better guest, or I'm going to try a different tactic." And you just keep pushing forward. And guess what, you know, six months later, it's not as scary. A year later, you're much better at it. Two years later, you start to have a following, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 

Marshall Atkinson
Yeah. It's being consistent is what wins. Usually, 

Jay Busselle
It is, and I gotta tip my cap to you, you are probably one of the most consistent. I mean, dude, you go in every frickin corner every day, every week. I have got content from you, and it's good. And I’m like Marshall is on his game.

Marshall Atkinson
I've got a special tool, Jay. You know what it is?

Jay Busselle
Yeah, it's it's called planning ahead organization assistance 

Marshall Atkinson
It's called a calendar.

Jay Busselle
It's called a calendar? 

Marshall Atkinson
You have one of those?

​​Jay Busselle
Yeah, here's the difference.

Marshall Atkinson
And you can get em’ cheap I hear.

Jay Busselle
I have them, but getting me to follow that calendar. That's another podcast for another day.

Marshall Atkinson
Before we move off this topic, right? Yes. I want everybody to listen right now. And we're going to take a mental field trip. And we're going to go to the grocery store. And there's a certain aisle in that grocery store that Jay is going to talk about, yep. I didn't prep him on this, by the way, he's going to take you down the special aisle of the grocery store. And he's going to tell you something that you may have never realized. And then I want you to think about how you're going to be different from what's in an aisle of the grocery store. So Jay, where are we going?  

Jay Busselle
Yes, we're going to aisle 12, and aisle 12 in my local Safeway is the cereal aisle. And you will not be too surprised, Marshall, that there is literally a dedicated aisle—I'm talking a good 40 feet long—of boxes of various sizes. And this is something that has been going on now for over 80-plus years since our good friends at Kellogg's decided to figure out snap, crackle, and pop. And the sad thing, Marshall, is that there has been very little progress. And the only thing that has happened is everyone copies everyone else. So on aisle 12, you walk down and you see all of these boxes. And it goes like this: cartoon, cartoon, cartoon, bowl, bowl, bowl, bowl, cartoon, cartoon, spoon, spoon, bowl, bowl, spoon, spoon, cartoon, cartoon, cartoon. And the thing just keeps going. And you're like, you know what, you have three choices. You can be enamored with a cartoon character, a bowl of cereal, or a spoonful of cereal. That's the advancement of 80 years. And I just look at these things. And I'm like, I'm lost. And they all look the same. They literally look the same. And it's frustrating. And it's fun for me to go down that aisle and watch all the people stop, pause, and just get stuck. They don't know what to get. They're wrestling right now. They're thinking, well, what am I kids going to eat now? I can't get that because, you know, my wife will get pissed if I bring home the Lucky Charms. That's just like bringing home bags of sugar. But they won't eat those healthy ones. Who wants Shredded Wheat anyway? That's disturbing. You know, if they had a cereal, a little taco, some would be so good. Anyway. Yeah, that's what happens. There's no way for them to stand out and they do a poor job of doing and they have multimillion-dollar budgets, whether it's Quaker, whether it's Post, whether it's Kellogg's, it freaks me out that they want to look so similar. And they're sitting there next to their competitor. And the thing that they're trying to yell at me is, look at me, I'm a happy cartoon named Captain. He doesn't even spell his name. He's got an apostrophe N, Capt’n. So it's weird, dude. And I don't get it because I think those smart people should be doing something different by now.

Marshall Atkinson
You would think somebody by now would just do some other graphic, something. 

Jay Busselle
Yeah, something different, something that's not in a bowl. And there'll be people on the other side of the coin, they would say, "Jay, you're missing the whole point. That's the point. There aren't any other ways." And I'm like, "Yeah, BS. There are definitely other ways. Other ways to market it, other ways to present it, other ways to make it stand out." There is. And from that, from that aisle 12, this is the genesis where I'm at in 2024 at the time that we're recording this and you know because you were in my class at Impressions Expo, I was like it's time to unqo the status quo. It's time, even if you're not sure, take the risk. It would be better to be different than to be the same. Everybody knows that.

 Marshall Atkinson
So let's shift, and let's talk about Liquid Death.

Jay Busselle
Liquid Death as you may know…

Marshall Atkinson
Oh, hey look Jay Jay's drinking one right now. 

​​Jay Busselle
Oh, hey look Jay Jay's drinking one right now. I have one sitting right here. Imagine that. So, yeah, look at that.

Marshall Atkinson
Is that mango? Is it the red one?

​​Jay Busselle
No, this is "Convicted Melon." This is a flavored sparkling water. It is in an aluminum can. And this ruthless tall boy is flavored with just a little bit of natural agave and a little twist of melon. And this is the best way I know how to murder my thirst and I can recycle my soul because this is in a truly recyclable can. This is called aluminum, folks, and I know that there are going to be people that think, "Hey, guess what, but what about plastic bottles, people recycle those too?" Well, guess what: the average aluminum can contains 70% recycled material. You can actually take the material, recycle it into a new can. You cannot do that with plastic. And plastic bottles contain only about 3% of recycled plastics. So yes, plastics can be downcycled, but they don't really get recycled. And I'm not an expert on this, but I have done a little bit of research on Liquid Death and they've come from nowhere to a multi-multi-million dollar brand.

Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, I think they're like 600, 700 million in sales in about three years. So…

Jay Busselle
They went from zero to over 500 million.

Marshall Atkinson
And what makes them different is the fact that they're not like Dasani, Aquafina, Fiji, whatever, right?

Jay Busselle
Nope.

Marshall Atkinson
So I want you to think about, if you're listening to this, the difference between, you know, branded water, How you can't do anything with branded water, there's nothing you can do with that. Well, yeah, you can, you can murder your thirst, and you could go at a completely different market. Now, are there people who hate Liquid Death because they all have this murder thing and they've all got a little statement in there? I don't know. Right?

Jay Busselle
They think it looks like a can of beer. People, when it first came out, most people, it was part of their marketing to actually have kids carrying these cans around, and people were freaking out, and they were like, "It's no big deal. It's a can of water. What do you mean? Oh, yeah, it is actually water."

Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, and they're laughing all the way to the bank.

Jay Busselle
All the way to the bank, times…

Marshall Atkinson
So your shop right now, you've got 15, 20, 30 shops, six shops, whatever, in your same county that you compete with and you all look the same. You're the cereal aisle.

​​Jay Busselle
You are, you're aisle 12, you're the cereal aisle. Some of you have green presses, some of you have blue presses, some of you have red presses, and guess what? You all buy from the same wholesale blank suppliers. We love SNS the most, but guess what? This is you. You are aisle 12. You look the same, talk the same, walk the same, and offer the same damn product in the same way, and you want to bitch about the angle of a squeegee or the tension and the newtons of a screen. Guess what? I get that that's important. I understand those details. Sadly, I understand those details. But the reality is, your consumer, your buyer rarely gives a shit about those details. And so you have to do more than that. You have to be different by design. You just do.

Marshall Atkinson
And guess what? They're looking for your version of Murder My Thirst.

Jay Busselle
They are. They are, 100%. 

Marshall Atkinson
Of course, that's if, you know, that resonates with that group. 

Jay Busselle
Sure. We both believe in the law of attraction. We both believe in the cliché of "your vibe will attract the right tribe." And that mentality is meaningful because take the risk, step out, Liquid Death, give me a break. People freaked out when it first came to the market. Like I said, I don't think people are freaking out now, especially the ones that love it. They're buying the brand because of their belief in recycling, their belief in sustainability, that it's actually a product that's fun, funny, and tastes good.

Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, you know, and don't forget, people buy an extension of them.

Jay Busselle
Yeah, they want to associate with this. They want to be on this team. Remember the word "fan" is short for "fanatic." And so if you're a fan of something, you know, and truly a fan, you have multiple hats of the Arizona Diamondbacks. So you have multiple jerseys of the Kansas City Chiefs, or you have multiple t-shirts for the San Francisco 49ers. Did I cover both bases there? So, you know, you're not just wearing a hat, a single shirt, a single thing. You are a fanatic, and it's something that you associate with.

Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, exactly. All right, question two. So as you know, Jay, I'm a big fan of outcomes, right? And I want to be able to chart out what we want and then we can build how to get there, right? And I think a lot of this industry, we just talked about it, looks and acts the same, right? So how can that shop break out of the vanilla way of doing everything the same and really differentiate itself? We've been talking about getting back to brand relevance. I don't think people really understand what that even is. So let's just get in and get messy with that.

Jay Busselle
I love it. Let's get in and get messy. Let's crush some tacos right here right now, Marshall. So first of all, do you want to be part of the top 20% or the bottom 80%? So you have to kind of have that fight. You have to say, I want to be part of the top 20. So if that's the case, you need to get out of brand preference. Brand preference is what traditional brands do in traditional marketing strategies. You earn a short-term preference. You are a box of cereal that's in for a month or two because it has a different cartoon character, but there's really nothing there, maybe a new benefit, maybe some discount offer, maybe some crazy pricing bundle, but it's based on preference. And what Marshall knows and what I know is we want to get out of that and we want to help encourage you to be part of the brand relevance group. They're the top 20%. They create a new category or in some cases a subcategory. They create something that has a long-term advantage and it emotionally connects with people. So it becomes really deeply relevant to them. Now you might think, well, how does liquid death become really deeply relevant? Again, it's the association, it's who I perceive myself as, and I want to be a part of that group. I want to play with those kids. I want to be on that island of misfit toys. And so brand relevance does more than that. Of course, it's not just a marketing trick and you touched on it. You talked about differentiation. And so some brands are awesome and they're very much, you know, kind of what I call in the logical camp. They appeal to the head. And others are very good at appealing to the heart. I think the best brands do both and they become customer obsessed, but they do it in a different way. And the differentiation is what makes them special. And there is a way to map that out. There is a way to actually say, okay, how are we going to go to market and be different? And I always start with Marshall, tell me what problems you solve. Not so much. So you kind of have to make a list of at least a few things, three, four, five problems your company is really uniquely qualified to solve. Then I try to help people with this. I say, look, there are six choices for you. As far as I've known, as far as I can read, as far as I can research, six ways, six things, six categories, six lanes that you can differentiate yourself. And I'm going to take one off the table. I forbid you to use it and it's price. So, write price on a piece of paper, roll it up, get your match, light it on fire, or throw it in the trash can. Save that for another day. Marshall is smarter than I am. He can give you strategies there. I cannot. But I don't want you to play in the price lane anyway because you'll probably lose. There's always someone with a bigger budget than you. So let's not even go there. What you can do is you can focus on product. And by product, I mean, you might have a knowledge base or you might have some category dominance. You might know trends and colors better than anybody else in your local hyper-specific market. Like you, you may know something that nobody in a 50-mile radius knows about apparel decoration, about a particular type of decorating. So you could have product be one of your lanes. Another one is service. But again, I'm going to take something right off the table. You cannot say, well, we have amazing customer service. Unfortunately, you're back at aisle 12 on the cereal aisle because everybody says that. So it means nothing anymore. You literally have to distinguish yourself better than just those words. You have to say, we have speed or we have an ease or we provide a convenience in our ordering process or we package something in a different way or we provide training both during and after. You really have to dig in on that service. But that's a lane, that's a point of differentiation. The other one I often talk about is just kind of the channel, like the size of our business and the size of the businesses we serve. Maybe you are best at serving on your business. Hyper-local main street, Chamber of Commerce, business networking level, right? So you're like, that's your lane, that's your channel, that's your place in which you do best business. But for other people, it's like we've talked about earlier, it could be skateboarding, it could be outdoor sports, it could be 5K ultra-marathons, everybody running, etc., etc. So whatever it is, get in that lane, that's your lane and own it. For some people, the fourth one is relationships. They have spent, they have a proven track record. They have years in the business. They have a reputation and a relationship. They're on all of the boards of all of the nonprofits. They have a seat at the table. They're volunteering, they're donating. You know, they just outrelationship you. They know more people and they've known them longer and people like to have that association. It's nothing against the new kid on the block. It's just we go with what's comfortable. So sometimes you can out-relationship people, and you can say, "Hey, we're the trusted partner. We have the proven track. We have the certification." So then there is that other piece where it is truly accreditation or reputation. So the other fifth lane of these differentiation lanes is reputation. You've got status, you've got achievement. You've got leadership. The community is already vouching for you. You get testimonials. So…

Marshall Atkinson
Creativity.

Jay Busselle
Yeah. And creativity could be in there as well. It could be on the service side. It could be on the reputation side. You're known as the most creative guy. You're known as the most creative gal. You have more ideas than any human should. So those are the things. I know it seems clunky for a lot of people; they just look at me when I say these things and they're like, "Oh, I thought you were gonna share something really sexy." And I'm like, "I just did." But you're not hearing me. You're not focused on these things. You're focused on the day in, day out, punch the clock kind of things. And I get that, that work on your business versus work in your business, you have to do both, but you have to spend some time and work on your business on these differentiation points. And there's so many great examples in our industry of people that have done it. I mean, I don't want to call anybody out because I'll leave somebody off the list.

Marshall Atkinson
Yeah. So I think, Jay, I read a really great sentence that can help you with this and is a fill-in-the-blank sentence. And it's kind of like this: "We help companies like this solve problems like this with solutions like this."

Jay Busselle
Yes. 

Marshall Atkinson
So fill in those blanks. And then that's how you can develop a strategy. So if you don't know the answers to those three blanks, it's going to be really difficult for you to figure out your marketing because you're missing a component.

Jay Busselle
Yeah. And then you end up being commoditized. You fall into commodity town, and you're back at price. And then you're asking everybody else, "Well, what do you charge for this?" Well…

Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, if you're that guy on Facebook, there's something wrong with your business. So the other thing that I want you to think about is, if you're listening right now, in your life, there's stuff that you buy that absolutely doesn't matter the price; you're buying it anyway. That's your favorite pair of blue jeans, or shoes, or ice cream, or when you go to the sports game, or you go out to your favorite restaurant and the check is $150. It doesn't matter because you had a great time. You do this already in your life. And I want you to figure out why you do that, right? How can you create a similar reason for your customers to not care about the price at all? And they just do business with you. This could be like, why do you have an iPhone? Well, other phones cost half the price. Why do you have the iPhone? Right? Why do you like this brand of whatever? You'll buy it doesn't matter what it costs. I'm getting it.

Jay Busselle
Yep.

Marshall Atkinson
Right? Like my son's all about Air Jordan's, you know, they sell other shoes, you don't want to buy those, right? So why do we need that? And for him, it's aspirational. It's a status thing, right? Because, you know, he's a college-age guy, right? He wants to look the part and that's his thing, right?

Jay Busselle
So it's a deep emotional connection. It's his, it's his, he wants to be relevant. He wants to be…

Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, yeah, you're not going to show up with the ridiculous Skechers. Who wears those?

​​Jay Busselle
Old men that are over 50, that's…

Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, I've got several pair, right? So, what, what I'm…

Jay Busselle
You just out of yourself.

Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, whatever. Actually, I wear a Hokas now, they're really comfortable. 

Jay Busselle
There you go. 

Marshall Atkinson
Anyway, so what it really comes down to is that you personally buy stuff in your life, Jay buys stuff, I buy stuff. There are things—like when I go to the grocery store, it doesn't even matter what the price is, it's in the buggy. I don't even look at the price, you know, like I like Tillamook ice cream, right? It's my favorite brand of ice cream. It doesn't matter what it costs, it's in the cart.

Jay Busselle
I love it. I get it. Yeah. 

Marshall Atkinson
So what I'm saying here though is I want your customers to feel that way about your business.

Jay Busselle
I 100% agree with you. You're giving sound advice, really good. It's not easy to do, but it is the thing to do. And the reason that's true is because then you step out, you are different by design, you are purposeful and intentional. You're not just following the latest marketing trend. You're actually in a different space and you have your key points of differentiation. And then, if you're really smart, if you really want to ace the test, if you really want to impress the professor, this is a direct, this is a 1996, look it up, kids. The book was called "Brand Relevance," and it was by David A. Aaker. And he talks about how if you can redefine it or define it, if you can name it, then it can become yours. That's what I meant when I said, if you can find a new category or subcategory, if you can define it and name it, then you have something that nobody else has. And I'll give you a super simple example. Our friend, our good friend, you know, Danny Rosin and Robert Fiveash. Danny and Robert own a company on the East Coast in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Virginia Beach, Virginia, and other areas; they're expanding, they're growing, they're going global. But they, the times were changing and things that were called or considered swag, S W A G, swag was kind of losing its momentum. And there were articles being written about how, this is just something we all get, swag, S W A G, something we all get,or shit we all get. And that's not great. That's an existential crisis. If you have a print and promo, and apparel company, when The New York Times is telling the world, we need less swag in our lives. We need fewer t-shirts in our lives. We need fewer can coolers in our lives. And so what they did is they renamed it something surprising, wondrous, amazing giveaways. And they built a swag lottery machine. And they took it to some of the most impressive, important marketing conferences, and they built this machine. There's only one of them. It's the swag lottery machine. You put in a ticket and out comes something surprising, wondrous, an amazing giveaway. And in many cases, it's a record album. The specific case I remember is a Julio Iglesias album comes out, and the guy is holding it with a ginormous smile on his face, and he starts dancing because he's got this surprising, wondrous, amazing giveaway. And of course, the folks at BrandFuel, including both guys and gals, were smart enough to have a sticker on that that will allow them to go to a link and choose their own merch. So if you wanted a t-shirt, you could get it. If you wanted headwear, you could get it. If you didn't want the headwear or the t-shirt because that's not your jam, then that was okay too. But by doing that, they were able to name this. And what they did was just brilliant. That's why I use this all the time as my examples: they made the marketing experiential, literally tangible, something that people are experiencing. Brand Fuel is the name of the company. Danny and Robert's company is called Brand Fuel. They named it. They came up with the word "Phygital," not "F -Figital," like "PHY" for physical meets the digital. They married those two words together, they called it something, and now they have something that no other brand has. That, my friends, is a masterclass at differentiation,​​categorizing something, naming it yourself, and coming up with something so that when they give branded merch to customers and employees, their engagement's through the roof, the happiness is through the roof. And guess what? Just like Marshall said, price doesn't matter.

Marshall Atkinson
Wow. That's the best answer anybody's ever given on this podcast Jay.

​​Jay Busselle
Well, there you go.

Marshall Atkinson
That's why you're here. By the way, if you want to hear all about stuff with Danny and Robert, they were episode one of this podcast. And it's no surprise, it's the most listened-to podcast episode of this entire series.

Jay Busselle
There you go. I hope mine comes in second right behind theirs because this is the magic, and when I tell you, I have the examples of that. They're not just in promo; there's a ton in apparel, but that is the masterclass. They did it like nobody else. They didn't even know they were doing it. They just knew they had to stand out. They knew they had to be different, and they're so creative, smart, and funny. So I love using them as an example of what we're talking about here today.

Marshall Atkinson
Plus they're just awesome human beings. 

Jay Busselle
Well, clearly.

Marshall Atkinson
All right. Question three. Another concept that's come up a lot is the idea of digital transformation, right? And so I'm going to break that down for you. So what is digital transformation? This is the adoption of digital technology to transform a service or business, right? So this could be achieved by replacing manual processes with digital ones, or replacing outdated digital technology with more upgraded digital technology. So I want you to think about AI and digital bots and all that stuff, right? Doing the work. So Jay, is this a good thing? Is this a scary thing? What's the Jay Busselle take on this topic?

​​Jay Busselle
​​This is a great, scary thing. It's both. It's a good thing. Yes, it can feel new and scary, but I'm for it 100%. And you have to be, or you'll get rolled over; you'll become the dinosaur. So don't do that. Embrace it, learn from it, figure out ways to apply it. And a couple of examples, the explosion of direct-to-film transfers is one that we've all heard about, we all know about it now; it's nothing new. But guess what, three years ago, nobody knew what that was. And if you did know what hashtag DTF was, it was not something that you'd want to share in mixed company or with your kids. So now, when you talk about it, people understand the digital printing side of it and the new applications. But I'll give you another one, because I was just working on this today, Marshall. This is why I think it's a great thing, and I think it is scary.So I'm sitting down with our web designer and our main graphic designer at Equipment Zone, and we're trying to solve a problem. We're trying to figure out how to repurpose some of our best YouTube videos and convert them into shorts, little short snippets, both for Shorts, which is a tool on YouTube, as well as potentially TikTok, as well as potentially Reels. So guess what, five years ago, that would have had to have been done manually. Three years ago, manually. Two years ago, that would have had to have been done manually. Two years ago, that would have had to have been done manually. We started to see AI tools that would do some of the work for you. By "some of the work," I mean, you're not hiring a virtual assistant. You're uploading your video, and what comes back out are six shorts that are already edited, already have the titles, the text, the copy, the descriptions, and then allow you to do the final editing, the final viewing, like changing words or changing things. And I'm telling you, that would save us 10 hours a week, if not more.

Marshall Atkinson
All right, Jay, what's that tool name? Because everybody's like, "They got their pen ready right now. What is it?

Jay Busselle
I'll have to look it up. I haven't committed it to memory. I know I'm letting you down as soon as I did that. I'll tell you what it is when it circles back around and hits me before the end of this podcast. How about that?

Marshall Atkinson
I hope so.

Jay Busselle
Well, it's something that we're looking at. as a tool in the toolbox that's going to allow us an increase in productivity. It's literally taking time.It's a time saver, but it's not just that because we can then reallocate those those hours to other things.

Marshall Atkinson
Yes.

Jay Busselle
And so it's a productivity tool that maximizes our efficiencies. I'll give you another one, Marshall, though, that's a hybrid and it's specifically for Equipment Zone. Again, sorry for the Equipment Zone example, but it's specifically a hybrid. We've had a live chatbot on our website.

Marshall Atkinson
For?

Jay Busselle
This will be the start of six years. Now, that doesn't mean anything. We weren't ahead of the curve, maybe a little bit ahead of the curve. We weren't the first. And we didn't just do this last year. We've been doing this for six years now. But instead of an auto bot that's going to spit back frequently asked questions, we have live sales reps monitoring the chat. It's us, you're talking to us, and we take turns, and we can cover between Arizona and New Jersey about nine hours a day. And so what that means is divided by five or six people, it's not that hard. Everybody takes a few hours. Everybody can switch, we can move through this. But having a human that's actually talking to you is dynamic. It's also an issue of speed. So we are really easy to get a hold of and we are really fast. Think about that. When someone wants to know something, that's when they're most likely closest to the goal line. That's when you become the most brand relevant to them. And so by us answering those things live, it's been a game changer.

Marshall Atkinson
That's awesome. And what I love about this is you know, I'm a huge Mark Schaefer fan, right? 

Jay Busselle
Yes you are.

Marshall Atkinson
Who's a great author, by the way. One of his catchy catchphrase things that he has is "the most human company wins." So if you're helping people where they live with their problems immediately, right now, and they can get that thing solved and move on, you're their hero.

Jay Busselle
A hundred percent agree with that. And the other thing that I love about Mark Schafer is he's the one that taught me there's a huge difference between insights and information. If we would provide more insights to people and actually less info, we would be more relevant to them. And here's the thing, if somebody comes on our chat and starts blabbing about something, they'll instantly know we're human. And if we provided more insight for them, it's a game changer because they could have found the info on their own. They could have easily gone and Googled something or kept browsing through our pages and found the answer. But you know what? Sometimes, and I'm guilty of this, we're a little bit lazy and we just want someone to tell us the answer.

Marshall Atkinson
We're lazy? People are lazy? I haven't heard that. 

Jay Busselle
Ah, man. Yes, they are. They are. And if you're the person that comes on our chat, they're lazy. Instagram, and it's an ad and says "price," if you do that to me one more time, I'm going to lose it.

Marshall Atkinson
Uh-oh. That's a challenge. I think everybody's about to do that, Jay.

Jay Busselle
It's like, just click the button. You're one click away from all of your answers.

Marshall Atkinson
You know, a lot of people are scared as what's behind the button.

Jay Busselle
Okay.

Marshall Atkinson
That's scary. A button clicks. clicks sometimes is really scary.

Jay Busselle
Yeah, it's very new. It's new technology. If you want more information, click here. If you'd like to know the price of this machine, click here.

Marshall Atkinson
Right.

Jay Busselle
"But in the comments, price?" Oh…

Marshall Atkinson
Right. Yeah.

Jay Busselle
Marshall, that kills me. 

Marshall Atkinson
All right, so I'm a big fan of AI stuff. I love playing around with it. If Chat GPT were barred, or Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, or Dolly 3, you know, name your AI thing, right? There are a lot of people who are really scared of that, who feel threatened by it. I've been saying this for a while, probably at least a year and a half. If it scares you, then it's meant for you. You have to get past that, okay? Because all of this stuff isn't going away. AI has been around for a really long time. You just haven't realized it. So when you ask Siri something, or you type in an address and it gives you the route to the Mexican restaurant, right? That's all AI. Grammarly, which I love, makes me look like I'm way more intelligent than I am, saves me on a constant basis with misspelling and grammar problems. That's AI.

Jay Busselle
Right.

Marshall Atkinson
Right. And my Grammarly is hooked up to everything that I'm typing online, whether that's a Facebook post, my email, or a blog that I'm writing. It likes no dummy. The quote goes before the colon, you know, like it does that for me because I type fast with fat fingers and, you know, I just go, right? And then I go back and make it pretty later.

Jay Busselle
Right. 

Marshall Atkinson
So that's all AI, and it's just great. I think you need to be playing with this stuff, asking things. I'm a big fan of ChatGPT. I use it daily. Don't even get me started on Midjourney. I've got my little man crush on that, right? And like, uh, it's just a good thing and we need to be learning that stuff. 

Jay Busselle
Yes, a hundred percent. While you were talking and making very good points, I did remember, with a little help from Google, there's a YouTube channel I like called Think Media. It's not like I'm religiously following them, but they have a lot of good content, and this is not an ad. I'm sure they're getting some residual kickback, but they weren't doing an ad for this company. There are several. If you Google it, there'll be ten. But the one that caught my eye was called Opus, O-P-U-S, Opus.Pro, I think is their website.

Marshall Atkinson
That's a really good winery,  by the way.       

Jay Busselle
Well, there you go. So basically, their claim is, 'Here's how you can make 30 YouTube shorts from a one-hour YouTube video.' So anyway, I haven't purchased the tool. I haven't used the tool. So I'm not going to fully endorse it, but just the idea of it was mind-blowing. And whether it's, like you said, whether it's Midjourney, you and I are working on another secret sauce project that's going to be revealed soon. I'm so impressed. Again, I'm not gushing, I'm rambling on you, but I gotta give you credit, dude. You're taking arrows in the back because you're the first one charging through the door. And I know there are other industry folks who are kind of giving you shit about 'Really, you're going to be promoting Midjourney?' But you know what? Good on you, bro, because you're going to figure shit out way faster, way sooner than everybody else. And not only that, you're such a good dude, you're giving us some of the recipes. You're giving us examples of how this will be applied in our industry. So I'm all about you being the renegade and the rebel and the first to charge through the door. And good on you, man. You know, tell those other folks to pound sand because…

Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, well, thanks. Well, I ignore that, right? To me, it's their threatened. It's the ego thing, and I totally realize that. And here's the thing: I'm an ex- art director. I still design, right? I know all this stuff.

Jay Busselle
Yeah, of course, it's just another tool in the toolbox.

Marshall Atkinson
If this tool existed a long time ago, and I was doing this as my daily career, man, I would be so using it, right?

Jay Busselle
Marshall, I had this exact conversation with our web designer, and she does high-end killer 3D animation. Not only that, she's an adjunct professor and teaches it. And we have this conversation, I said, well, where were the photographers freaking out when Photoshop came out? Was there some? Was there?

Marshall Atkinson
Yes, they we're freaking out.

Jay Busselle
Yeah, they were, right? And they were like,"What? You guys have this tool that can..."

Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, or the digital camera. Remember when Kodak famously didn't shift to digital? Okay, this is what's happening. Either, you know, let's just talk digital transformation, okay? Not too long ago, Jay, the only way to cross the Atlantic Ocean was my ocean one. ​​Right? 

Jay Busselle
Yep.

Marshall Atkinson
That's the only way you can make it across. New York, you know, New York over, right? The only way to make it across is on a boat, okay? Something was invented, the Boeing constellation. And now it's like three, four hours across and you're done. Okay? And millions of people, guess what they stopped doing? They stopped using the ocean liners, okay? Did the liners go away? No, the cruise industry was born. 

Jay Busselle
Yeah.

Marshall Atkinson
That didn't exist before the Boeing constellation. So my kind of thing, when people start talking about AI, they start talking about Mid-Journey or, you know, image creation, using these tools, right? 'Oh, you're going to take people's jobs.' And like, yeah, there's a lot of people who lost their jobs because of the Boeing constellation. There's a lot of people who got new jobs from the cruise industry. Okay. So that's been going on for the history of man: either you embrace the change or you're going to die off. Tough darts. Do it. Get involved. 

Jay Busselle
Yeah. Do it. You're right. Thanks, coach. I needed that inspiration. 

Marshall Atkinson
Right. So moving on. We got one last question, then we're gonna wrap it up.

Jay Busselle
Okay, let's wrap. We're going right now.

Marshall Atkinson
I want to talk about the future of marketing, right? I believe, and you know this to be true, currently, right now, today, there's a tremendous overwhelming amount of noise on social media. Like, you post something, I don't care what channel it is, 30 seconds later, it's ignored, okay? Most companies are investing in things that seem to be doing great, better at this. What they're doing is they're building communities, they're building experiences for their customers or maybe their potential customers, right?

Jay Busselle
Right. Right.

Marshall Atkinson
So somebody listening right now, they're a t-shirt printer, they're an embroiderer, whatever they're doing, they're in promo. Should they be considering maybe building some sort of experiential marketing thing where there's a community day and there's a thing, or you know, kind of, you know, that's what we did with Shirtlab, right? We built a community. Should they be thinking about this, Jay? What do you think?

Jay Busselle
Yes, yes, yes, 100%! Put this on the list. So you've got, let's say, in this order: brand relevance—figure that out; you've got 'people like us do things like this'—figure that out; you've got what Marshall said, which was something I've stolen from you: 'I solve problems like this, fill in the blank for people like you, fill in the blank using the solution.' And the solution happens to be, most of the time in our world, a branded merch item. But, you know, you could. So, first of all, be part of a community that could help build your business, both on the personal side as well as on the financial business side. So look for opportunities there. That could be everything from a softball league to a church, to a charity, to business-minded folks getting together for roundtables and masterclasses. So look for your community, right? Whatever you're interested in, whatever niche—everything from mountains to marijuana; you're gonna find people. Those two happen to go together, by the way. You're gonna find…

Marshall Atkinson
A mountain of marijuana?

Jay Busselle
(laughs) Wow, don't deviate me like that, Marshall. Holy guacamole, I'm trying to keep on track. It's all I can do, man. But yes, to be a part, and this is back to Mark Schaeffer, again, leading the charge. Communities are the last great hope for branding, and it's gonna be something that when we create experiences for people, we're no longer just pushing out, you know, it's like when you create an experience for somebody, you are creating opportunity for them to be co-collaborators. You are giving them more power. You are giving them more emotion, not less. And so if they take it, they're taking that experience because they are significantly interested and emotionally connected to it. And I'll give you a simple example. We just got back from Las Vegas. We had our annual promo kitchen mixer. It was a wild success, hugely successful.

Marshall Atkinson
I miss that party, man.

Jay Busselle
I know, it's one of the best things about the whole PPAI experience. So if you're ever interested in promo and you want to know more about mentoring PromoKitchen, happy to talk to you about PromoKitchen, happy to talk to you about the PPAI experience. Happy to talk to you about education and mentorship there. Marshall knows all about it. He was a former chef. I'm a current chef. We are geared up. So this year we did something different. We wanted to walk the walk and have an experience. Now this isn't anything new, but this is why it still works. Guess what we did? We decided to partner with Stalls and with Outdoor Cap and have an experiential where you could build kind of like a... a Build-A-Bear, right? Build your own hat. It's a make-and-take. It's a print-on-demand.

Marshall Atkinson
The actual term, I believe, is called a live activation.

Jay Busselle
A live activation, however you want to name it,whatever you want to do, if you've got an ego and you want to be correct, listen to Marshall, whatever you call it, you're going to have your own little recipe of what to do. We chose headwear and we decided to have people in lines as they're coming up to the big event to say, "Hey." would you like a hat, Marshall?" Now, it turns out there's a lot of people who don't want a hat because of either the style or because they're just not into headwear.

Marshall Atkinson
Oh, it's going to mess my hair up. 

Jay Busselle
Right. Or it's just not me. I don't want this hat. I don't want an extra hat. Where will I put it? On your head, dummy. But they're right. So first of all, let's give them the chance to opt out. So that was step one. Step two, which of these three hats would you like? Now, you could take a blank hat, which would probably be a mistake, but you could do it. Or you could take a hat that had the PromoKitchen logo on it. But, Marshall, here's the thing. There are a lot of people who love our party, but they don't want to leave as a walking billboard wearing a PromoKitchen hat. So what we said is, for our third station, you could come up with something yourself. We have different patches already made for you. We have a heart patch, a diamond patch. We have a "get lucky" patch. We have different transfers. We have things that are funny that I won't even repeat because my mind isn't bringing them up right now, but if I could think about it, and I would say the idea of this was to let people be the co-designer or co-collaborator of the hat. We created an experience for them. I thought, you know, 20, 25 people are going to be excited about this. And the other 300 who are all already in this business, they are all either promo or apparel people that they would be like, "Oh, what? I don't want that." Dude, the line was 100 people deep. They couldn't wait to be co-collaborators and co-designers. They had the best experience ever. And guess what we were doing while they were making a hat? Talking about mentorship, talking about why we're different, talking about PromoKitchen stands for something. This is our community. People like us do things like this. And I'm telling you, dude, I can't take all the credit. It was a collaboration, it was a live activation. Stalls, I gotta give credit where credit is due. Kelly and Jenna from Stalls crushed it. And Tanner from Outdoor Cap crushed it. And of course, I brought a little spicy tacos to the party. I'd like to think I helped.

Marshall Atkinson
Was there a taco patch? 

Jay Busselle
I had one, of course I had one. (laughing)

Marshall Atkinson
You need to get Stalls to make you some chenille tacos. 

Jay Busselle
They have, they have. It's so cool that you say that. They have actually done that for me and I'm just waiting for the perfect hat to apply it to. But I'll end on that because it was different. It was a way for us to unquote the status quo. It was a way for us to have an experience and introduce our community. Now, let me end on this. The reason I'm sharing that, that's not groundbreaking. Everybody's heard of this before. If they've listened to this podcast, they're like, yeah, we've been doing that for five years. Have you? Have you really? I'll bet you 98% of your client base have never been in your shop, have never pulled a squeegee, have never hooped a shirt, have never heat pressed a garment, a bag, a tote, something. They haven't. You're full of shit and I'm calling you out on it right now, that's my job. It's 2024, it's on. Unquote the status quo, create the community using the tools that you already know. You know them, you're tired of them. You're probably bitching at those tools, but your customers are gonna fall in love with it. Not all of them, but a large percentage of them. And when they see that for the first time, when they make something for the first time, they are emotionally connected to you. You have just delivered them brand relevance.

Marshall Atkinson
Exactly, that's awesome.You know, there's some restaurants that have seedings. so you can watch the chef's prepare. Right? There's also some restaurants that have actually a dining table in the kitchen.

Jay Busselle
Hundred percent.

Marshall Atkinson
Right? And it's because you want a better experience than nobody can have. You're sitting right there while they're they're preparing the meal. Right? And that's called the chef table. 

Jay Busselle
So cool.

Marshall Atkinson
This isn't a new idea. Yeah. These people have been doing this for a long time and it's just. how can we make it our own? And so what I think Jay has thrown the gauntlet down. So, did you get it? Are you picking it up? That's the question.

Jay Busselle
Are you going to pick it up? Are you going to pick up that ball and run with it? Or are you going to just kind of get back to whatever busy work you were doing before you listened to this?

Marshall Atkinson
They were making snappy comments on Facebook. That's what they were doing. 

Jay Busselle
(laughing) I thought you said it. You, you ignored them, Marshall. I thought you said you ignore all that.

Marshall Atkinson
I do. What I don't read, that's, you know, I have a Facebook strategy. Yeah. You know what it is? Oh, tell me. I call it the Facebook drive-by. So I open up Facebook maybe once, sometimes twice, but usually once a day. And I'm in there for five minutes and then I'm out. I just want to see what people are talking about and what they post. And you know, I post something, somebody replies, whatever, and then I'm out the door and you won't see me again till tomorrow.

Jay Busselle
That's right. I like that drive-by strategy. 

Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, I call it the drive -by. To me, it's equated with a car accident on the other side of the highway. Yeah, look, oh my god, it's on fire, but you keep going, you know.

Jay Busselle
It's something Jay did. Look, it's on fire.

Marshall Atkinson
Look, their car flipped over. What's going on with that? So So, all right.Well, hey, thank you so much, my friend, for sharing your story of success today. 

Jay Busselle
My pleasure. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Marshall Atkinson
I knew this was going to be just a killer episode. So, Jay, what is the best way to contact you? If somebody out there wants to learn more about what you do, or how you can personally help them.

Jay Busselle
I would love it if you would connect with me on LinkedIn, my absolute type. top of the charts favorite social media tool.

Marshall Atkinson
Linkedin is your jam.

Jay Busselle
LinkedIn is my jam. You can direct message me. You can ask me anything about what we covered here on this amazing podcast. Marshall actually is really cool. I know we've tried to do this for a while now. So I feel like, I don't know if I have a success story to record, but I, what were you gonna say?

Marshall Atkinson
This is like, I dunno, two months in the making.

Jay Busselle
Oh yeah, or maybe two years, I don't know. You asked me a while back. The thing is, it's just a really cool opportunity. I wanted to, you know, give my A game and I hope somebody heard something that will make a spark.​​And I want to end on this, that Sally Hoggs had, has written a really cool book about fascination, fascinate, the word fascinating.

Marshall Atkinson
You gave me that book.

Jay Busselle
I did give you that book.It's amazing. If you want to go deep dive on branding and how to be different by design, that's your book. And you can fascinate people with something different. And she says it's better to be different than it is to be better. And when I first read that, it was a breakthrough moment for me. 

Marshall Atkinson
It's so true. 

Jay Busselle
I've literally gotten caught up in the egos, in the trying to be better, trying to, you know, trying to be the best or trying to look the best or, 'Well, Jay, you need to look more professional. You know, you need to get a haircut or you should shave or, you know, why are you always wearing those hats?' or all of the things, the fears that we both have, the baggage we're carrying, but actually the things that sometimes people say to you, and you know what, this was liberating. It's better to be different than it is to be better because better is fleeting. Someone will top you tomorrow, if not today, but when you're different, you are different, baby. And that's your lane. And you can be yourself, be you, and you can master that and then be the best you can and be kind. Be kind to people, Marshall. For heaven's sakes, we don't have a lot of time here. So let's be nice. Just be nice.

Marshall Atkinson
Exactly. All right, dude. Well, thank you so much for your time. And I appreciate you and reach out to Jay.Exactly. All right, dude. Well, thank you so much for your time. And I appreciate you and reach out to Jay.

Jay Busselle
LinkedIn, baby. He can be up on LinkedIn. Love to talk to you. Keep the conversation rolling, marketing, brand relevance, points of differentiation. Do you want to transform your T -shirt business into an iconic brand? I know a guy.

Marshall Atkinson
Yeah, plus tacos.

Jay Busselle
And tacos. Let's hang. Let's go. I'm ready right now.

Marshall Atkinson
All right, see yah.

Jay Busselle
All right, take care Marshall.