EP387: Mastering Strategic Planning for Startups With Chad Price | Grows Green

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Welcome to marketing mistakes and how to avoid here’s your host, Stacey Jones.2
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Welcome to marketing mistakes and how to avoid them. I’m Stacey Jones and I’m so happy to be here with you all today and I want to give a very warm welcome to Chad Price. Chad is the founder and CEO of Life Grows Green, a lifestyle brand focused on promoting a greener planet through innovative products. With over a decade of experience as an entrepreneur, Chad excels in strategic planning, marketing and quality assurance to drive growth and success within his business. For over a decade, Chad was the founder and managing partner of Kettle Kings, an online provider of a variety of different types of kettlebells, which he successfully sold last year. His expertise in startups has guided both companies into impressive success, gaining recognition from Ink 5000 for four consecutive years and features in publications such as Bloomberg News and Men’s Fitness magazine.3
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He is also a published author of the book preparing for battle that was released this last fall. Today Chad and I’m going to be chatting about practical tips for turning startups into success. Through strategic planning and tools, we’ll learn what works from Chad’s perspective, what should be avoided and how some businesses miss the mark. Chad, welcome. So happy to have you here today.

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Thank you for having me. Very nice to meet you.

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You as well. What I always like doing is asking how you got started on your journey. We talked beforehand, you are Texas born, just like myself, and you are living in Austin now. But what got you on this path of deciding that you were going to be an entrepreneur and of all things, kettlebells?

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Well, I mean, I think, you know, a journey not too different than a lot of people in terms of trying to figure out what you want to do after college and going into corporate America and getting your feet wet, kind of trying to figure out what corporate path is best for you and which one is the quickest to success. And I went on a similar journey myself after college. So growing up here in Texas, I’ve always kind of knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. But after I graduated, I didn’t really know if I had the experience that was necessary to kind of run my own multimillion dollar operation.

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So I figured I would work for some companies, kind of get a ground level of experience, work from some small businesses, and then if the time was right, I would have an option either to go into starting my own business or continue with my quote unquote successful career in corporate America. For me, I got into oil and gas and was working in corporate America, which was what I consider a good example of a traditional corporate job. I had been there climbing the corporate ladder, and I really felt like I had potential to go as far as I wanted to go inside of that company. But I knew at that time that if I didn’t start my own brand, that was going to be something that I would regret, and it wasn’t going to be as fulfilling going down the corporate path, if you will.

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So in 2012, I basically reached out to all of my friends and network, and I was trying to put like a small team together of people who were interested in starting their own business. And from that, several different companies were born, and Kettlebell kings being the most notable one.

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And so when you started off, did you ever think that this was your path, that you were going to be an entrepreneur, that this is what you wanted to do?

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From the earliest days, I really didn’t know. I think because I played so many sports growing up, the analogy of kind of being on a successful team is what I always knew I wanted to be. So when I finished playing sports, I knew at one day I wasn’t going to be able to play on a physical team sport anymore. I would be able to find an organization that I could apply that same level of passion and kind of effort towards and something that I really had a passion for and something that I believed in. And going through my corporate career, I had some kind of glimmers of that through the companies that I worked for.

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I think there were quite a few companies that I really appreciated the experience and the lessons that I learned there, but I never really found anything that I would say I can dedicate my life to this. And that’s what really made me kind of start my own business, is I was like, I have to create something that gives me that kind of sense of fulfillment that I really needed to me to kind of reach my maximum potential.

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And obviously, you found a way to take what you spent your entire youth and early 20s going into with fitness into a business that made sense to you and you were able to have passion about as well.

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Yeah. And I think the thing I loved about the journey the most, and I talk about this some in the book, is at the same time I started the fitness company, I started a nail salon with my girlfriend as well. And those were kind of two different paths. And I didn’t know at the time anything about nails, and I didn’t know anything about actual ketlebells. I did have a background in fitness, and I had a good amount of discipline that I conditioned myself to be able to achieve difficult tasks, let’s say, by graduating from rice and trying to apply myself intellectually as I’m growing up as much as I am from an athletic perspective.

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But creating those communities in those two different niches really kind of taught me more than I ever would have thought I would learn and more than I ever learned prior to being in my entrepreneurial career, just because I got to kind of build online communities for people that weren’t for myself. So I kind of got to step out of what was I looking for and really observe the community as a whole and try to see markets and see what types of content and what types of things people engage with before they purchase. So I can try to create a space that gives a user experience that is unique to each individual brand. And I think that’s what I really specialize in is kind of creating those niche communities and rabid fans, if you will, for whatever brand that you’re trying to push.

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And then, so when you did this and you started it, how did you figure out how to first market? You created a product, you figured out how to get it. You built a website, you created this whole ecommerce plan and machine. What was your first step and foray into marketing this beast that you were building?

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Well, I think just like everyone else, you try to just hope that you can just plug your product photo into some system and you pay for an advertisement and people purchase it. And we learned pretty quickly that’s not going to sell kettlebells. Even with the nail salon, I learned that wasn’t going to get people to drive across town to come see you. You had to have something that was unique and engaging. And so depending on what product that you’re trying to push, I think you can do market research to really understand what those people are engaging and try to put yourself in the perspective of a shopper. So what am I doing prior to purchasing something from even one of your competitors, for example? I actually try to go on those journeys as much as possible.

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So I’m learning like, okay, well, I probably click this site and in that site and I have a list of all the potential sites that people would reference for reviews or people may reference for workout videos, whatever that may be. I’m trying to give myself some point of reference of the type of content that people are engaging with and absorbing already. And I start from that. So it’s not some crazy idea that I created. I’m trying to improve on whatever content that I see is already currently being engaged. Once you start that process, then it’s just an A B test over and over. And you get to take your shots here and there in the a B testing, but you’re starting with trying to improve, let’s say, the content journey for a potential buyer, whether they buy from you or from someone else.

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Were there any things that you tried that just did not work at all, that you’re like, this is going to sell so much? And then it just fell flat on its face?

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Yeah, I mean, we thought at the time, just having good pictures of our ketlebells because our kettlebells are actually better. They were actually better than the other things. So we thought, yeah, we’ll get good pictures and you have kettlebells, and our pictures are equal to or greater than the competitors. People will buy and people didn’t care at all. No one impulse buys a Ketlebell. I would equate it to like a sword or something where people really do spend more time. It’s something that’s potentially dangerous. A lot of people don’t have experience using it before. So instead of us going for a straight sales approach, went more for a lead generation approach where we might have started our campaign completely trying to make sales. Where we ended our ad budget is now 95% lead generation.

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And the sales are made through the emails and the text messages and the other ways that we have now connected with you. That’s where the sales move to after you’ve already experienced maybe months, if not even up to a year worth of content before you actually become a customer.

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And so content marketing really was the go to strategy for you to be.

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Able to make it for sure. And not only that, once we started connecting to the community, I think is really the larger thing. So us having that marketing or that kind of approach to like, one of the things we would say is we want to be the ESPN of the Kettlebell world as well. So we want to be the central location that not just creates the content, but also collaborates with other people who are in that space making content, who also basically we’re the aggregator of the highlight reel of whatever niche that we’re in. So if you want to find the best of the content available for kettlebells, you find it through our channels.

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And that’s one of the things that we became quite good at in our niche, where if you were trying to find the latest Kettlebell lifter, or the best Kettlebell news, or the best article about something happening in the Ketlebell world, it was going to be through us. It wasn’t going to be through another platform. And we looked at that competitively. So if there are other people that are doing that, we need to excel, we need to beat them. And I think there’s a comfortability that comes with knowing that you don’t have to figure it out before you start. You’re just continuously seeing what the market is doing and going after and competing day after day. And it just becomes a process that’s easy to do.

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And so with that, what would you do? Or what are you doing now? Are you following the same strategies with this new business?

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So with the new business, it’s a lot harder because obviously in this business I sell, especially the original product lineup that I released for this product lineup was hemp and some CBD products and things like that. And those marketing and advertising channels are pretty much closed to you in this space. So it’s a much more difficult journey. But more than just life grows green. I’m still doing, obviously, more things with my time. I’m doing that through the promotion of the book. I’m also promoting chatprice.com and my personal brand, my consulting agency that I’m working right now. So I’m using the same philosophies of building fans, regardless of where I do it, the strategies or the channels that I get to implement them on.

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That may change, but ultimately I’m trying to find people who all have the same end goal or have some type of service goal that they could potentially buy. And then I’m trying to figure out what pieces of content can I generate for those people so that they consistently absorb that content and one day feel comfortable purchasing from.

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And so with that, how would you encourage other entrepreneurs to start their own journey? Obviously, you’ve written a whole book about this.

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Yeah, I think self reflection and kind of having self awareness is a good first step in starting your own journey, not being kind of afraid to put yourself out there. So I talk about this in the book quite a bit, finding mentors, really trying to map out mentally how far you’re prepared to go to win, to kind of compete in this space. I think there’s a big difference in the intensity level when you switch from an employee role to an ownership role. And a lot of times people collapse in just the sheer weight of the responsibilities or the amount of problems that hit you on a regular basis when you take over an ownership role. So I tell people it’s not about the amount of information in the particular space that you need to gorge yourself on.

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It’s more about getting yourself mentally prepared for this battle to come.

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And so along the way, I bet you’ve made some mistakes. Thousands, one or two. Personally, as an owner of an agency, I’ve never made a single one. In fact, I’ve just made probably more than 1000 or two. So what are some of the things that if you could share that you would be sure not to do again, that you would want others to stay away from doing too?

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I think when I say even in the book, I talk about kind of preparing for battle in the mindset, I think you have to realize that you’re always going to have fights, you’re always going to have obstacles. Even when you figure it out, it’s going to change in six months or there’s no such thing as kind of this cruise control, no problems, no fires to put out that really does not exist. And I think that’s a dangerous place to even try to get your business to because you’re not growing and actively kind of proactively going and trying to make your company a better value for the customers. But at the end of the day, taking on those obstacles is actually what galvanizes your team and makes you stronger. So I would look at those as opportunities. I look at customer service complaints as opportunities.

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I look at any feedback that I can really get that allows me to target my efforts a little bit better. To me, those are all opportunities. And for me that comes pretty easy because of my sports and athletic background. I tell people all the time, when you play football, you watch the bad plays you did the day before. Every day you don’t go and watch all your highlights. You literally go and watch. You should have went left when you went right and you kind of become numb to it. It’s not like someone’s criticizing you in a negative way. It’s literally you trying to perfect yourself and perfect this particular play or perfect this motion. And in business, I think you can implement these types of sops inside your culture where you enjoy that process. You know it’s going to be there.

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You enjoy that process and you don’t look at it as demoralizing and let you kind of bring down the energy of the brand.

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And so where can people find your new company?

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Several different places. The best starting point is probably Chad price.com because I have everything connected from there, but I’m also obviously lifegrowsgreen.com. The book preparing for battle is on Amazon for sale right now. It’s only 299 for ebook version, so it’s not a heavy lift financially there. And then I’m on all social channels at real Chad price or Chad price. So you can find me pretty much everywhere.

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And so continuing our conversation about marketing and mistakes and all things along those. So what has been successful as far as have you tried social influencers? Have you tried other digital campaigns? What along the lines has been the one that you’ve seen the most successes with?

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Well, fortunately for came the timing of me graduating from college. When I was in college, Facebook came out. So I remember being one of the first people that I even knew at college to have a Facebook page. And I could understand at the time, like, hey, I’m going to use social media to create online communities for my businesses, and I can do this at any business. And I could see how companies could take advantage of this even when it first came out. So we technically were doing fitness influencers before that term ever even existed, just because were trying to reach out to people who were generating content that people wanted to absorb. And I think it’s become a little bit more commercialized at this point. And I don’t think it works as well as when you look at it like a commodity.

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I don’t think any influencer that I sign up on a website can sell Kellebells, but I think if you have a strategy and a plan that complements each other’s business models and it’s more of a strategic alliance between their business and your business, and you make collaborative content together, I think that’s more of how I would look at going after social media influencers, and that’s what were able to do. So we really created relationships from the big, let’s say a high level influencer with a million followers to someone with 500 followers, and we’d grow 500 followers to 50,000 followers for them. And for someone like that, now you have a lifelong affiliate that it’s not based off of a financial exchange from a website, it’s based off of alignment of our resources and our actual businesses.

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So when we make more sales, they make more sales and we complement one another. And those are types of relationships that we would try to go after.

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And then what have you learned that didn’t work so well with that?

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What doesn’t work so well is just looking and trying to just judge based off of judge a book by its cover. I would tell people all the time, you see someone who has a million influencer who has a million followers online, and you think they’re going to sell something, and I can look at their entire digital presence and tell you whether or not they’re actually doing business or not. And you should look for the ones that are doing business. People who are looking for attention are not looking for customers and they’re not looking for clients that you would actually benefit from joining your community. So they may have a lot of eyeballs because of the things that they’re promoting.

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We may or may disagree, may or may not disagree on what types of things those are, but I think it’s important for you as a company to align yourself with people who have a business model in mind. And we would even help people put a business model in mind if you’re that type of person. But it’s important that be the judge of how you exchange value between one another. If your exchange in value is just cash, you won’t make the sales or the ROI that you’re trying to get back. It just doesn’t work. There’s not enough $50 post or $500 post in the world to make the ROI yoU want. If it’s not deeper than just that exchange of cash up front, well, you’re.

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Talking about building a mutually beneficial partnership with the influencer where you actually stepped in and you helped them build a business model where they could make more money. Where we have a lot of influencers who are under the perception, the delusion, the belief, the ideation that if they just post for a brand and it’s a piece of content that it will be enough. And for some brands it is. Especially your larger companies out there. They’re looking for that content creation because there’s a value to influencers and the fact that they’re the director, the producer, the actor, the writer, the editor, all those things in one for you of creating this lovely piece of content.

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But if you’re a brand who’s actually looking for sales to happen from that lovely piece of content, then 99.9% of influencers are not actually going to be the best ones to work with in that way. And there’s other ways that you can go about it. You can add in, you can whitelist and you can put dollars behind their post. So now it’s actually targeted to a very specific audience that you’re trying to dial into and you’re using it more like they’re a magazine and you’re buying an ad in it and you’re just running with their creative. But yeah, a lot of people, I think, have not clued in as well as you have that all influencers are not equal.

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Well, I think once you, and that’s the benefit of just starting the journey, I think it calibrates your perception of reality. You help other people. So I would have to tell influencers all the time, I don’t think you know how many ketlebells are bought per month and how much like, let’s say you sold 1000 ketlebells. This is how much money I can give you, total, if I gave you all of it, and that’s not going to change your life. But if we set up a structure that complements another business that you already have, and we’re driving traffic to complement both of our businesses, that’s something that can change things. We can take someone who is a fitness trainer with 500 followers to 50,000, and their followers are growing quality leads like we’re growing quality leads.

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We use the same strategies because we are working with other influencers already who are doing this successfully. We have the perfect network business models, types of content to create. We can work together to create these types of things. We’re looking for those alliances. We’re not looking for the latest TikTok who just did some cool dance and now they’re charging $1,000 a post or whatever that may be. Like that to us, that’s not very important. That’s not someone who we say is a genuine part of the community. And that’s what the credibility of having someone genuinely want to bring value to the community, I think goes a long way in people’s sincerity and joining.

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And then what are any last words of parting advice you have to our listeners today?

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Well, if it’s in regard to starting your own business, I tell everybody, I think it’s one of those things that anybody can do. I don’t think you have to be a genius to start your own business, but I do think you have to have self awareness and have a different level of grit, more grit, more perseverance than the average person. I think that’s more important. And one of the kind of the key characteristics to survive an entrepreneurship is that kind of never give up attitude. I’m willing to learn every day and try to actually be an expert in the field that I want to be whatever multimillion dollar success in. And I think a lot of times people don’t want to do that. They just want the lifestyle of what they think an entrepreneur is.

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And I try to prevent those people from going down that detrimental path and at least having the proper assessment of what they’re getting themselves into, I think is the most important.

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Well, I will say I really enjoyed having you on today. Thank you for joining us.

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Thank you.

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And congratulations on your success as well.

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Thank you for having me. It was nice meeting you.

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Always like having another texan on the show. To all of our listeners, thank you for tuning in to another episode of marketing mistakes and how to avoid them. I look forward to chatting with you this next week. And until then, if you have any questions on how you can get your brand interwoven into movies and tv shows or music videos or with influencers and celebrities, reach out. Happy to connect with you. Hollywood branded is my agency and I look forward to chatting with you again soon. Take take care. Bye.