Your Marketing Isn't the Problem: Designer Forum New York Recap

In this episode, we talk about our biggest takeaways from the recent Designer Forum New York Tradeshow: why you need to be physically placing yourself in the mix (not just in peoples’ DMs) and why most custom clothiers don’t have a marketing problem, they have a focus problem. We also share our take on the industry’s obsession with “scaling” and the questions we think you need to answer before you spend another dollar trying to market yourself. 

Highlights:

01:50 - The value in attending the Designer Forum as a custom clothier and why quality beats quantity every time.

05:55 - Revisiting two potential clients we chose not to put on the calendar and what happened after.

9:55 - Why keeping space open for the right clients is more profitable than saying yes to every lead. 

12:53 - A look at our July sales and why building a calendar full of appointments that actually move the needle is entirely within your control.

17:30 - The reasons why the Designer Forum is worth attending and why you can’t just work in the industry, you need to be part of it.

24:16 - Why you need to be putting yourself in the room, not just in the DMs. 

29:30 - What we loved from this year's keynote presentations and why investing in your business is essential to growth.

35:08 - Why marketing efforts are a waste of energy until you get crystal clear on who you’re actually trying to reach.

38:20 - Why we don’t teach you to scale exponentially.

41:48 - Gearing up for next January's show and how learning from experts can change your business.

Details on upcoming DFNY shows

Resources + Links
Apply for Luxury Clothier Collective Mastermind  HERE
More resources for custom clothiers HERE
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Appointment Only in IG: @appointmentonlypod

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you're asking a question about how I should market, you probably haven't figured out who you're after yet. And that I truly do believe is where most custom clothiers live today. In this ambiguous place of not really having any real focus, still trying to be everything to most people and offer something to everybody without a honed-in focus. Without a honed in focus, not only will your custom clothing business not scale, but it won't grow. This is appointment only, the podcast for custom clothiers and entrepreneurs building profitable high-end businesses. If you want control, profitability, and freedom from what feels like an endless hustle, this is for you. We're Kenny and Danny, twin brothers from day one and business partners for more than 15 years. We're sharing insights from our own experiences as luxury custom clothiers who built our own business from nothing. The highs, the lows, and what we've learned along the way that will help you build a high-end business you actually enjoy running and isn't running you. Clothier Coaching's official podcast. Appointment only starts now. By the time you listen to this, you will have finished your trade shows, whatever they are. Probably the Chicago Collective. Most people this season opted to do Chicago Collective over the designer forum, which can't blame you. It doesn't always work out. And they moved the show to be midweek this year, and it was much lighter attended. It was really cool to see those of you who are at the designer forum in New York. That's always one of our just sacred things that we love to do. And we that's the trade show that we prioritize. We've mentioned why before, but just to give you a recap, it's because it's more, it's more intimate and it's more quality over quantity. And that's what we prioritize, where you really get, of course, the Chicago Collective is a great trade show if you're a retailer and you have to go to that if you're a retailer. But if you're just doing custom and you're not going to the designer forum, you're missing out on a huge quality opportunity. And I would say too, if if if one of the reasons why you're going to the trade shows is to try to get books, you're much better served in a setting like the designer forum where you can actually have conversations with the Mills and the reps and allow them to get to know who you are versus the uh Chicago Collective, uh, the way of the way that that show works, where it's just so much busier. And there's you're you're sitting down and yeah, you are having a conversation, but then there's five people walking behind you, and they're, you know, they're waving and saying hey to people who happen to be passing by. I I would say for those of you clothiers who you're you're going to these shows so that you can connect with the mills, and and your hope is that you can get their books, get their collections. The designer forum is that show. Well, and we hear from clothiers all the time who ask, how do I build a relationship with this mill? Or how do I get these books? Or, you know, how do you sell so much of this thing? It all starts with having a relationship. And you're not gonna build one if the only time you put yourself in front of the people that you need to build a relationship with is when they are also in front of a thousand people, thousand other people who are doing exactly what you're doing and are have all the exact same needs as you have. Because I don't know if you realize this or not, but a lot of the highest end mills are very limited in what books they can divvy up and that that they can dish out. So if you aren't on their radar and they don't feel like fighting to prioritize you over anyone else, because it is a fight. I don't know if you've had conversations with your reps, but they have meetings where they they are fighting sometimes. It's like mortal combat. But it's it's a serious thing, and that's a real thing. And they have to sit in a room and they have to like plead their case. So if you don't have a relationship with your mill rep where they're actually going to plead your case, you're not gonna get the books. And you know, my two cents is the only time and the only way you're gonna get to that point with them is if you do something different and if you put yourself in the position where you can really build a relationship. And the only place you can really do that is if you are doing the designer forum as opposed, not even necessarily as opposed to the collective, but in addition to. And if you've never been to the designer forum, you don't know what we're talking about. It's the Custom Tailors and Designers Association trade show that happens in New York City every six months. It's typically, for those of you who are trying to plan, it's typically the third weekend of either January or July. And this year it was different because of World Cup. They had to push the dates a little bit. So it ended up being midweek and it didn't work as well for most people, and that's fine. It'd be like that sometimes. But if you're looking ahead of January or even, you know, this upcoming July next year, go ahead and sort of loosely plan on the third weekend of those months, and you should be in the clear. So we're gonna talk a little bit about the trade show because we at this point, by we're recording this, we are recently back from it. By the time you're listening, you know, it's probably a month or so removed, but we're gonna talk a little bit about what happened. We're also gonna close the loop on a couple of stories that we were talking about the last couple of weeks, uh, about some of the appointments we had, the people we worked with. And then we're gonna share our two cents on the keynote event at the designer forum where they talked about scaling and growth. There were a lot of really great things that were discussed in that presentation. There were also a couple of things that I thought were a bit of a miss. So we're just gonna share our two cents while we've got you, and then uh we will talk about something else. So to close the loop on the stories, the stories I'm thinking of specifically are weeks ago, we talked about a client who or a a brother of somebody we worked with like nine years ago who reached out and wanted a jacket. Oh, yeah. When I mean, it'd be impossible, not impossible, but not really my uh priority to figure out what episode that was. No, no, no, no. If you've been listening, if you if you're regular, you know, you know the story, it's ringing a bell. Oh, and you know what? Can I just say? But sorry to jump on the story. But thank you to those of you who introduced yourselves at the designer forum and were listening and are listening to the podcast. I was actually really surprised. Very pleasantly surprised. Pleasantly surprised how how many of the of you were out there have been listening, have been enjoying it. Some of you even only knew us from the podcast, which was really weird. Yeah, we're used to being we're used to uh being recognized because we're the King Bros, but we were being recognized because of appointment only, which was kind of fun. Yeah, that was great. Obviously, only in that setting on that block. There's no there's no other scenario in which we're which we're getting recognized for the podcast. But you know, it's all it's always nice. So thank you to those of you who introduced yourselves. I'm so glad you're listening. I'm so glad that you're finding this useful and valuable and entertaining and whatever whatever box it's checking for you. Thank you so much. We appreciate you regulars and we're gonna keep them coming. So the story was uh a it was in the episode where we were talking about how do you, I think it was how do you work with people who you haven't worked with in so many years. That sounds about right. Something like that. And sometimes you don't. Yeah, sometimes you don't. So we had worked with a guy like nine years ago. This was, I think uh, we had said we sold him, we were out of town, we sold him a three-piece suit for $1,400, something like that. We both got a little sick to our stomachs. But anyway, his brother reaches out and he's gonna be in town over uh specific dates in July, and he wanted a sport coat. So we talked through that. We we, you know, sent him an email and said, you know, we would recommend you do this. And in fact, our order requirement is that you do this, and yada yada yada. Go find the episode, listen to it for yourself. We're not gonna tell the story a second time. And and he ended up saying, Oh, that's not gonna work for me, and so we didn't put him in the calendar. Fair enough. Okay. Enforcing an order minimum. Enforcing an order minimum, chale as old as time. It's not, it's not always gonna translate into the person coming in. Then we told another story uh in in another more more recent episode about a C-suite executive who lived in a different state who wanted to schedule not a fitting, he wanted to schedule a a meeting to come in and have a discussion about doing a suit. And he was kind of rude in his response saying, Oh, no, no, no, this is how this is gonna go. And should the opportunity present itself, I'll let you measure me. And then we can look at it. You promised. And then we can look at it. Thank you. Yeah. Oh, oh, thank you so much for the opportunity to earn your business. Stupid. And he had one day that he was gonna be in town, presumably to go to all sorts of custom clothiers and waste a whole bunch of people's time, including his own. So both of these guys, by the way, wanted to have scheduled their times to see us within the same week of July. Which was that just so happened to be the week in between a couple of times where we were out of town. So that that week is a valuable week because we have a lot of things to do. Now, when we said no to these people or we put roadblocks in front of them to get in the calendar, we didn't have anything booked in these days. It was a dead week, but we just we knew it probably wasn't gonna stay dead. Yeah, we knew if it filled in. Even if it would have stayed dead. That how nice would that have been? It would have been great. That would have been awesome. Would have gone into the pool, we could have relaxed. But I was I was looking back at our credit card processing uh report, uh, because we're we're almost at the very end of July today. And I was looking back at that week and I was thinking about those two examples because I knew we talked about them on the podcast. And I can definitively say that even though we put roadblocks in front of those people before they booked, or in their case, did not, even though we didn't have anything scheduled, I can confidently say now those times filled in and we made so much more money having those days available and open for other people who want to follow the process, who want to pay the prices, who are happy to fall in line with an order minimum, who are ready to have a fitting and not just have a conversation. From a business perspective, it was such a better move for us to let them go somewhere else and save our calendar times for people who are more in line with the business that we run. I'm gonna phrase this a different way because sometimes if you're like me, you're doing something else while you're listening to a podcast. And I really want this to that's that's your way of saying that you stopped listening to me as I was talking. You know, I do have a tendency sometimes to let my eyes glaze over. I want to make sure that I want to make sure this is really clear and that that our regulars are completely understanding. And I want you to pull up, which I think you already are doing. That's what I'm doing right now. Sometimes, you know, we can read each other's minds. And I'm not joking. It we can sometimes. What am I thinking right now? That you can't wait to finish what you're gonna say. So to just make sure that this doesn't get lost in translation. What Danny was basically describing is that we when we were reached out to by these people, we had an opportunity to do one of two things. Either just say yes and put it in the calendar, and now all of a sudden we don't have that appointment slot available in July, or say no slash work to enforce our order minimum, which in this case did end up being a no. So we chose the road less traveled because a lot of you custom clothiers, and I'm not I'm not trying to single any one of you out. I just know how it is because I talk to you guys. I get the DMs. We, you know, we we work through this stuff where in luxury clothier collective, and I just ran into a bunch of you at the designer forum. A lot of clothiers would have just scheduled the Spore Coat meeting. Most clothiers would have seen that email signature of the C-suite executive and put him in the calendar hoping to earn his business. We didn't. So you might be thinking, well, you just missed out. Well, that's not what happened. And sometimes it works out that way where it's such a good thing, and you think about, oh my goodness, what would have happened if I would have scheduled those things? Here's what we would have missed out on. I'm just gonna run through the what I'm seeing to be the suit or sport coat sales of July. Yeah, we'll we'll filter out anything that's like clearly uh an accessory to buy at a final fitting or something. Yeah. So we have 3822. I'll just I'll that what? 382, 3,822, 28,220, 9,890, 16,675, 24,310, 7940, 31,820, 7500, 20,980, 990. Okay, so which of those would you rather have done a free consultation than? Which of those would you have rather have been just one sport code? I mean, seriously, that's that's the sort of Instagram versus reality. And it's easy to look back now that July is over and say, well, yeah, of course we said no to those people. Right. But it you've got to remember that when those people were in our inbox and when we were in active communication with them, we didn't have those meetings in the calendar yet. One of them was early June and we didn't have anything, if really for that month or for July. And then one of them was like, I don't know if it was March or April, it was the spring. So that's really what ends up happening. And that can happen like that. So we just wanted to close the loop on a couple of stories that I I know that we told. And having recently listened to them myself, because I listen and I critique what we say. And and sometimes I hear a story and it's like, oh, I wonder if we'll have an update, like a positive update or a negative update, or a negative, or whatever. I just wonder what the update will be. So I did want to share that to kind of just hammer that point home where I know how difficult it feels when you're not busy to say no to something that's a surefire in the calendar thing. But it's important that when you run a high-end luxury business that you that you preserve. I I was listening to a podcast the other day about luxury. And they said luxury isn't necessarily exclusivity, it's standards. And that's how we need to operate as custom clothiers. We need to have standards because if we're not gonna have standards for people coming into our calendar or people coming and seeing us or us going to them, if we're not gonna hold people to standards, then we cannot we cannot say that we're running a luxury business. And this is evidence of that in hindsight. And it doesn't always happen that way, but it does often happen that way. And that's the difference between a luxury clothier and everyone else. And that's what we're working with Luxury Clothier Collective on. It's not only what to say the email to send to enforce order minimums, but it's how do you position your business to give you the confidence to enforce those order minimums where you know your time will be better served by allowing certain things to pass you by because you're not for everyone, you're for a select group of people that will really move the needle for you. And this is evidence of that. It's always nice to sort of close the loop there. And we wanted to fill you in because we told you like sort of the first half of the story. And, you know, again, once again, I think we made the right call. And you know, the those the number of sales that I just read off, the volume is not that many meetings that we've had. We haven't had that much time in July. No, but everyone mattered. Everyone is a needle mover. And that's what we're saying here, and that's what we're saying in appointment only is it is so much easier and it is so much uh more enjoyable to run a business where your meetings move the needle. And that is our responsibility. It's not like we accidentally got clients to those dollar amounts. It is a strategy, it is a plan, and it is a way of taking people through the process that you have set up. And that's one of the things that we work with our LCC clothiers on. Okay, so enough about that. Let's talk about the the here and now. Let's do a quick recap maybe on the designer forum. Yeah. And then we'll talk about the keynote conversation that happened at the designer forum. So, for those of you who've never been to the designer forum, uh, you can go on our Instagram page and kind of watch that video that we posted, which it was like a day in the life. Um, really, it's it's a trade show and it's uh it's a hotel suite or it's it's a hotel, and there's a couple floors of suites, and you kind of just wander the halls. You you go in, you sit down with the different mills. All of the mills that you know and love are present there in some shape, shape, or form. And you go in and you either do what we used to do, which was build relationships with them, get to know them, beg for books, beg for books, anything you can spare, please, please. And, you know, hope and cross your fingers that maybe, you know, by the time you're back, boxes will start showing up with some books. Seriously, I mean that's what we used to do, and it worked. And now, I mean, I don't want to brag, but I think we're the first to get Laura Piana this year. Yeah. I think we're the first guy, the first people in the country that I'm aware of to get Dormet. You know, so it's you you do enough business with the mills and all of a sudden just shows up. You don't have to ask for it. So, what's the point of going to the designer form if you already know who you work with and you already know what the mills are? We go now to get more sales language. So we love talking to the fabrics or fabric reps and we love listening to how they describe the lines because the way that they're describing things is it is outside of how we naturally look at fabrics and would describe them ourselves. So, one, it's to get a language and and to understand and be able to communicate what makes this different than that, what makes this mill different than that mill. So that's really helpful. We we love to go for uh trend forecasting. Uh sometimes we see something and it's really evident that I remember this the season where it was just all about earth tones. Oh, yeah, everything was an earth tones. And we were wearing earth tones and we loved earth tones, but it was really helpful to see, like, hey, you know, things are picking up. This is going to be around for a while. So now we have a language in which to communicate to our clients that earth tones are here to stay. It's not just a, it's not just a flash in the pan uh trend. It's it's gonna be around for a while. So sometimes it's that. Sometimes we go now because we're really honed in on finding a specific line that can fulfill, you know, one year it was, we need really bold color pattern sport codes. So we were all about finding who can provide us with those. Other times it's here's a price point that we're missing in our presentation. Yeah, which of our mills has something that we can put in that price point that it justifies the amount? So so it's more targeted now for us. Um, but that's kind of the way that that we go about it is we go and sometimes we're looking for something specific. Sometimes we're just going to refresh our sales language, but we're sitting down, we're having conversations, we're hearing about the lines, we're checking it out, and usually we're saying, yeah, we'll take it. And most of the time, you know what the biggest value is as I see it at this point for us, and what most clothiers aren't doing? It's just being in the mix. You just gotta be in the mix. You just gotta show up. You just gotta go to the summer camp and be around because you don't want to be the person where when push comes to shove, and like we said, they're they're divvying up books, they're like, who? What? Who's that? I haven't seen them in years. They're still in business. Seriously, that's those are the conversations that that are happening all around you. At the people don't see you for a while, they assume you're out of business, they stop sending you books because they don't have them to spare. You know, if you're not going to this stuff, you're you're missing out on the value of it. You're missing out on putting yourself in the right rooms with the right people, and you're missing out on what these things can do for you on a larger scale. The short side to decision is to skip it because it costs money. It's not a cost, it's an investment. It's not an expense to your business. And and I remember years ago, the biggest investment we ever made wasn't in the way that we were talking to Mills or trying to get books. It was in the conversations we were having with people at the bar downstairs or the bar next door. Or any other bar. Yeah, or or this bar or that bar. But it was it was the conversations with people that we that we were learning from. And we still have those conversations. There's plenty to learn. There's plenty to learn at a place like that because there are so many people around with so many different experience levels. And so many different years and, you know, different years in business. But it is just a really great place to be. And some of the most valuable things just come from being around and available. You end up going to dinner with people who can help your business grow. You end up having an off-the-cuff conversation that you remember forever, and this person doesn't even remember it. You know what's actually, and I'm just going to be honest, this is pissing me off. I get all sorts of DMs. I say I because I'm basically the one running the appointment only Instagram page. Sorry to out you, Danny. Do you have access though? I do have access. Danny gets notifications. So Danny sure. Danny sees it too. Danny's in the mix. And then I wait for Kenny to see it and respond, and then I look at what was said. He's like, what was that? What was that all about? So I was at the designer forum and I get a DM. People DM us all the time. I always say, I was just having this conversation with, not to name drop, but I'm going to name drop Christopher Corey. Ever heard of him? We were uh hanging out with him a little bit after one of the days. And I said, you know what? I bet your brain is picked. Oh, it's so picked. All you wanting to pick my brain. I'm so sick of it. And I got a DM. I was at the designer forum, and one of you wants to hop on a free call to pick my brain about something. It's like, get your ass to the designer forum. I'm standing here in the hotel lobby. You're missing out because you won't spend any money to come to this stuff. I'm here. I would take you out for dinner. I would invite you to our plans. We could go, we could do something. We could sit down and have coffee. We're here. But I'm not what I'm not going to do is schedule time out of my day to let you pick my brain for free. You don't just get to take, take, take. That's a really good point because that is that is our mentality. When we're at the show, I'm in work mode. We are in work mode and we are having work conversations all day. And it's not the two of us necessarily having King Brothers conversations. It's work conversations with people like you. We're having industry conversations. We're talking about the state of the industry, about custom clothing. And we love running the business. We love this industry so much that we are happy to continue a conversation over coffee or at dinner or whatever. Over Heineken zeros or you can have a real Heineken and I'll have a zero. We are happy to do it, and that's something that we plan to do. But we schedule time for that. But when we get the DMs of you who want to work through something that is super urgent in your business and you want me to call you and give you my time for free, it's not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen that way. I used to be fine with it. I'm not fine with it anymore. I'm not gonna do it. It's not fair to me. It's also not fair for our luxury clothier collective members who are paying to be in the group and are prioritizing the time. What would that do for the value of what we offer if I was also hopping on the phone with random people to talk about their problems for free? And it teaches you a bad lesson. Let's say that we did hop on the phone. What would you learn? I mean, you would probably learn the answer to the whatever question you want to ask. You'd get your answer. But what you would learn is that you don't have to do anything. You get to have what you want to have when you want to have it. That is not life. That is not business. If you are unwilling to invest in yourself, then you don't get to have the things that are at the other side of that investment. If you don't want to pay for it, I don't want you to have it. Jinx. No, Danny can't talk the rest of the time. And that is a business lesson that you better be applying in your custom clothing business, but it applies to you too. If you don't want to pay for it, you don't get it. Sorry, millennial. Sorry, entitlement generation. We're millennials, so we get we get to say this because one of the things that has bothered me forever about my generation, and it I remember it started bugging me in high school. And we just while we were in New York, they hosted our 20-year high school reunion. So you can do the math on how old we are. But this has bugged me for at least that long. It's just the non-committal attitude of millennials. The noncommittal, the participation trophy era. And I will say, I I I am not the person who says, oh, millennials are the laziest generation. No, we're not. We're actually some of the hardest working. We are the least entitled. Don't let the boomers tell you otherwise. But see, that's that's where I some of us are. That's where I disagree a little bit. You think we're entitled? I think that they're I think that we were told that if we do XYZ, then XYZ is the result. College education, this, that. Then you get to have a booming career in your industry and uh this and a that. That is what we were told, and we had to learn the hard way that that is not the case. I think I'm I'm not saying we never were entitled. I'm saying we're as 38-year-old people, we're not entitled anymore. We don't get to do the rent starter home, dream home downsize. That's not gonna happen. That's not how it works anymore. Right. So we're we're learning here in our late 30s, or some of us are in our early 30s, and some of us are in our mid-40s. This whole generation, we're kind of like the curtain's been lifted, and we're not feeling so entitled anymore. We know that participation trophy is a piece of shit. Yeah, let's throw it in the trash. It's not even worth trying to sell at a at a garage. A green ribbon? What's that? Right. We know now it's blue or it's nothing. We know now. And we learned the hard way, and some of us are still learning that lesson, and it sucks. But but I think I think where where I disagree with a little bit of the entitlement is I I did I also talked about this in one of the episodes where we used to ask people, oh, what are you up to when we'd run into them at five years after we graduate from college? And they'd say, Well, what I really want to do is this, but what I'm doing is this. And it's like, I didn't ask you what you want to do. But it's like this attitude of like, I deserve for this to happen in my life, even though I'm not willing to do the things to get me closer. And when you're in the DMs asking to hop on a phone call and you're not just doing it to us, you know, we were talking, like Kenny said, we were talking to Christopher Corey. He gets these DMs too. We got these DMs long before we started clothing year coaching or appointment all. Yeah, we get a lot more of them now, but we've been getting them forever. And and there's an element of you know, mentorship that you can find for free, of course. We benefited in a major way, huge way, still do from mentorship. But that's different than emailing people who have done things you want to do or are running a business you want to and and and expecting them to hop on a phone call to help you with your problems when there's something that you can do to actually get those answers. This turned into really like a quite quite the soapbox. Quite the soapbox. Let's get back on track. I don't even know why I was oh, I was just saying that for those because I'm around, I'm at the designer forum. It's being in the mix. That's what we're being in the mix. You gotta be in the mix. And if you can get that. You can get the free advice, the brain picking, the ideas, pick on creating pick, pick, pick. When you put yourself in the situation, but you gotta be in the room, you can't just be in the DM. Got it? All right. So let's uh bring this home and let's talk about at the designer forum every year, every I say every year, but every season there is a keynote presentation. And it can be any sort of thing, all sorts of different things that are sometimes a little bit more relevant to certain people than others. But this year's topic was about scaling. They brought in some experts who have scaled, successfully scaled businesses and um and who have uh like business growth software or programs, yes, that you can enter into as a business and ramp up and scale up evaluation, all encompassing business growth solutions. Yes. So that was the topic, and it was it's all almost always like a forum or like a panel style. So there's the president of the CTDA sort of has a list of questions, and then he asks both panelists the questions, and then at the end there's a question and answer time. And uh sometimes people ask questions, and other times people like to raise their hands and and talk about themselves. And you get a little of both at this, always. And I think that's probably the case in anyone's industry when you open things up to the to the crowd, you can't control what people say. But it was we want to just share a little bit about what we liked about the keynote, and then we just want to point out a couple of things that is feeling like we should say it just for those of you who are running your own custom clothing businesses. So, one of the things that I loved that I can't remember either of their names, and I can't remember who said it. So perfect, super helpful. But he said something that you know, we've been saying, not to say, I will tell you this, I don't think he took it from me. He didn't learn it from us. I don't think he's plagiarizing, I don't think he's copying me. I think he figured this all out on his own, and then he's sharing it also in his world. But he said something along the lines of you gotta change your thinking from something being an expense to something being an investment in your business. And I was just so glad to hear him say that. That's something we say a lot, but for some reason, I think it's just something that people don't see. They only see the dollar signs. They don't, and this is what we want our clients to see too, by the way. We want our clients to see what we provide as an investment, not an expense. You probably say it to them, but are you doing that in your own business? Do you have things in your business that cost you money, but you're not seeing it as an expense, you're seeing it as an investment? Think about that. Yeah, if the answer is no, then why on earth would your customers operate that way or your clients operate that for you that way for you? If you're not doing it, if you're not practicing it, all you're doing is preaching it. No, thank you. And you know what? The good clients, the luxury ones, the people who have a little discernment, they can tell. They can tell if if you're actually believing what you're selling. And if you actually take yourself seriously, they can tell. And they can also tell if you don't. Yeah. So that was a great uh a great line that one of the one of the experts said. I think overall, I I did really enjoy the conversation and the questions that were being asked because it is very, it was very clear that these these people were experts in their field. We and we always go. We always go to the keynote, and there've there have been many, plenty of times over the years where the topic it's like, I don't know. I don't know if I'm gonna get anything out of this, but we go anyway, and of course I always do. Yeah. You always get something out of it. It's always valuable, you always learn something. Sometimes the topics feel a lot more relevant than other times, but we're there, we're in the mix. This is what we're here to do. Of course, we're gonna attend and we're gonna listen and we're gonna take what we can out of it. So it's it's always great listening to experts in their respective fields because you you get a sense for how they phrase things, how they communicate, what they do, uh, their sensibility, their mindset. There was a lot of mindset talk. A lot of mindset talk in in the keynote. Yeah. Um, I do think, generally speaking, the conversation topic was a little bit too high level for where I know must most custom clothe years are existing. It was a lot about growing your team beyond like that 50 person mark, which let's just be honest, I don't think any of us, us included, are are planning to do. So uh some of that I think this is this is their world, this is their field, this is what they get paid the big bucks to go and teach companies how to do. We brought them in to have this conversation. So I'm you know, of course they did. But most of us running custom clothing businesses are not gonna scale to that degree. I also just uh deep down I dislike the word scale because I I think it is so misunderstood. And I think uh as a culture, we look at the the influencers and we think passive income and we think you know scaling to billion dollars and all these things that are just I don't even know if I believe them, to be honest. Not that I don't think people have ever done it or people can do it. Danny doesn't believe in billionaires. It's all and it's not true. I'm not saying that that that people don't scale. I'm just saying I feel like when people talk about it, it sounds so glamorous and it sounds like you're just one tweak away, but you're not you're one viral reel away from scaling passive income. Yeah. The way in which I think the business that we all run can scale is higher spends and more targeted clientele, which leads me to where I feel like the industry exists today because there was an opportunity for questions and answers at the very end of the presentation, and everybody was asking questions about marketing. Classic. It is classic. How much should I spend on it? Where should I do it? What things work? And these are not marketing experts, these are business experts. And they had some great advice and they had some great answers, and they had some really wise counsel about the dollars you put behind things and seeing them as an investment, not as an expense. But that's where I'm looking at that conversation and saying, oh, I think some of the, you know, once you get past 50 employees, it's really important to have these systems and processes. Like that's beyond where this industry is existing. This industry is asking for answers to their marketing questions. Yeah. Looking to for where to where to pour not millions of dollars into marketing, where to pour a couple grand with their small team or their solo operations. Exactly. And and what what I wanted to do was I wanted to like pull them off to the side afterwards and say, like, if you want this, this, we talk about this in million-dollar manual. If you're serious about making real changes, luxury clothing your collective, but that's not appropriate. And I'm we're on the board of the Custom Tailors and Designers Association. And one of the whether you're on the board or not, you're it's it's not allowed to be soliciting people out of the Custom Tailors and Designers Association for your stuff. So I didn't even do that or anything like that. But it's like that's really what they need. Yeah, that's really what they're looking for, is sort of that like in the weeds, but what should I do in this situation? It's like the the conversations that we're actually having week to week in luxury clothier collective. Here's this opportunity, what should I do? How much should I spend? Yes or no? You know, we've we've been through that stuff too, and we certainly have some experience in things that we believe are and are not worth even a dollar, right, for paid, paid-to-play things. And one thing that I think was really important is one of the experts on the panel said, well, it kind of depends on like where your target demographic exists. And then he gave some examples and some things that he does for his own business. But I think that was really wise. And I think what it told me is that if you're asking a question about how should I market, you probably haven't figured out who you're after yet. And that I truly do believe is where most custom clothiers live today. In this ambiguous place of not really having any real focus, still trying to be everything to most people and offer something to everybody without a honed-in focus. Without a honed in focus, not only will your custom clothing business not scale, but it's it won't grow. It will be, you know that term, watered down. That's what it is, without a focus. It's just watering it down. And so I think as much as I enjoyed the keynote, and as much as I thought the experts brought a lot of really positive things, and you know, another thing that they mentioned was you gotta have systems. You gotta have processes. Right. Whether you're plugging directly in verbatim to what their system and their process is, is not the point. It's you better have them. Yeah, you have to have something, some system. But I think what what a takeaway from me from that was is man, these experts are sitting in front of you. You have the opportunity to ask such high-level questions, and we're talking about marketing. Yeah, your focus is you you want to know if you should boost your post on Instagram. And it's because you're not honed in. Yeah. It's just a, it's unfortunate. And that's sort of, you know, that's what's out there, and that's what we're doing here on appointment only. That's what we're trying to, we're trying to get the industry as a whole to get some of these questions answered. That's why we have our clothing or coaching resources, is to try to help you with those sorts of questions so that when you are in a position where you can really, you know, take your business to the next level, you know what direction you're headed and you know what way you want to go. And if you get in front of an expert because you've put yourself in the room and you're in the mix, you can ask a high-level question instead of feeling bogged down by, you know, what if you should take out an ad in a magazine. Yeah, you can you can ask a growth question as opposed to an own identity question. Because we're super transparent in our in our clothier coaching stuff and an LCC. Like we're not coaching you on how to scale your custom clothing business. We're coaching you on how to run a profitable, small business that grows at a manageable pace in a way that you can tolerate to give you the life you want. We're not teaching you how to open up 25 locations across the country. Or how to 10x your revenue year over year. Right. Or how to, right. I mean, there's different focuses for different people. And we've never pretended to be the scale experts. Our coaching and our expertise is in how do I turn this thing profitable? How do I make more? How do I work with more of the right types of people who are going to spend those, you know, 20s and 30s, as opposed to everyone I work with only wants to spend 2,000. How do I, even though I run a really small operation, create systems and processes to help me work smarter? Yeah. Like that's where our focus and our sweet spot is. The people who are on the panel for the CTDA keynote are so much, they're higher level than us. Oh, big time. By far. Big time. Like, because they are talking about these processes and these systems for 50, 100,000 employee companies. And our industry needs us both. Yes. Our industry needs us, and it needs clothier coaching, and it needs luxury clothier collective, and it needs a bunch of us who are doing this really fucking well. Our industry also needs people who are higher level, who want to propel the industry, who want to turn this industry into something that has a little bit more of a technology-friendly attitude, who want to bring those uh clothiers and these you know old school mentalities into 2026 or the 2027 and beyond. Our industry needs all of us. And different businesses in this industry need all of us, also. So just a little uh our thoughts, our two cents on the show, why we go, why we think it's an important show to attend and be involved in, as well as our thoughts on the keynote. You know, I always, I always am pleasantly surprised for the most part on the keynote and how it goes and the things that were said. And I I just love listening to people who have expertise because they have expertise for a reason. And you don't have to be the smartest person in the room to have expertise in your field. And we already mentioned that they uh they haven't announced the dates for January. Oh, they did. They did it via email. Yep. Oh, yeah, we got an email about that. How how irresponsible of me to not look at that email. So the dates are announced. You can plan for it for January, and we will be there. And you know, if you follow us on Instagram, you know where we stay. So you know where to run into us. But you we will also be at the trade show. So just run into us there. You can stay at the hotel, you can stay across the street at the Hilton. That's what most custom clothiers do. There's the big, I think it's like one of the biggest hotels in the city, is right across the street. So stay there, stay anywhere, stay somewhere in Times Square. I don't care. You can you can spend 25 bucks a night and stay in New York City. Wouldn't recommend it. Yeah, done it before. Zero out of 10 stars would not recommend it. But you can. You can do it for you can do it on the cheap. And we are happy to, we would be happy to meet you at that point. And you can plan for it, start planning now, get there. It's important to be in the mix, and you never know what sort of impact your business will have if you just do the thing, see it as an opportunity to invest versus an expense, because that really is what it is. If you have any questions for us, please shoot us a DM. I'm not gonna hop on a call with you. You're not gonna pick my brain for free, but we're we might talk about it on the podcast. Yeah. That we're always, you know, we always we want to answer what is feeling relevant and what you're really going through. And if you're interested in actually making that investment in yourself and your business, there are ways to do that too on clothearcoaching.com. Uh, we've talked about many times Luxury Clothier Collective and all of the other things that we have to offer. This is not, you know, this is what our industry needs. And this is what we wish we would have had when we were asking those exact same questions. The answers are there. They're out there for you, but you're not just gonna get them for free and you're not, they're not just gonna land in your DMs. Sometimes you got to do something for it too. Thanks so much for listening. Uh, hope you found this valuable, and we will talk to you next week. If you're a custom clothier and you want to be more profitable, less stressed, and work with more of your target demographic client who spends more and buys more often, we share our exact strategies on how to do that and our resources available now on clothiercoaching.com, including Million Dollar Manual, our playbook for turning your sixth-figure business into a custom clothing business that makes more than a million dollars every year. For higher touch, more direct access to us, we have a small mentorship group called Luxury Clothier Collective, where we're actively helping clothiers around the country become their markets leader. If you're serious about finally building that profitable luxury custom clothing business you've always wanted, this is your next move. Join the wait list and we'll let you know when enrollment opens again. Thanks for listening.