SBBM #14 – How “seeding” can help grow your brand – Scott Kilmartin from Haul.
We chat with Scott Kilmartin from Haul about how he’s turning old billboards into highly sought after street wear. Scott shares some of his marketing secrets including how “seeding” upcoming music artists is helping promote the Haul brand to his target audience.
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Duration: 41:32
Small Business Big Marketing Podcast
What We Mention
- Haul
- Scott Kilmartin (Twitter)
- Flippa (Buying and Selling Websites)
- Ideas Culture (Twitter)
- Sticky Names Workshop
- Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion
- Stuff White People Like
- Enquire About Spotilight
Podcast Transcription
Tim: Lukey, Lukey, Lukey. How are you, mate?
Luke: Good, Timbo. How are you, mate, more to the point?
Tim: Well very good, thank you for asking. A little melancholy.
Luke: Yes.
Tim: I wasn’t as sort of sprightly at the start as what I normally give. But, you know, there are reasons, there’s always reasons.
Luke: Would you like to share them?
Tim: I would, I would. But, first, before I do, before I vent, because I’m going to vent, I’ve had a crook old morning, you know, so…
Luke: You weren’t happy when you walked in.
Tim: No, no. And in the true spirit of Small Business Big Marketing honesty is what counts. And we will share, I will vent. But, mate, welcome back.
Luke: Thank you.
Tim: Holiday, yeah.
Luke: Yeah. Just had a week up in Eden, which is on the…
Tim: Lovely.
Luke: …New South Wales south coast.
Tim: Looking beautiful in your sarong.
Luke: Thanks.
Tim: My pleasure, my pleasure. Tell me, why holiday, mate, is there something going on?
Luke: Well actually, yeah, it’s a little bit of a break before I start work at flippa.com.
Tim: Flippa?
Luke: Yes.
Tim: Ooh, nice, nice.
Luke: So three weeks off and then starting work as marketing manager at Flippa.
Tim: Righto.
Luke: Which is a business that’s grown out of SitePoint.com.
Tim: Oh, you’re a name dropper, you are dropping all the big ones.
Luke: And essentially, if you’re not familiar, it’s essentially eBay for buying and selling websites.
Tim: Nice, okay. You know, Mick Jagger said to me once never drop a name.
Luke: Did he really?
Tim: Yep. Tell me, I love how you described it SitePoint for, what did you say, SitePoint for where?
Luke: eBay.
Tim: eBay for websites.
Luke: Yes.
Tim: Yeah, great way of describing, trying to get an idea across. I think we’ve spoken about that before in, great book, Ideas that Stick, or Getting Ideas to Stick or something like that.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: But if you can compare something to something, people kind of immediately get what it is you’re saying. It’s a good exercise to do with your own business.
Luke: Yeah, I think it’s a good…it’s a good explanation for the uninitiated.
Tim: Yeah, yeah. So like, you know, Small Business Big Marketing is like Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Titanic, you know. Or something like that. Hey, listen, I’m going to vent. Can I vent?
Luke: Yeah, go ahead.
Tim: Righto, okay. Oh, by the way, I’m say, I am sad, before I vent about what happened to me this morning, I am genuinely sad and I’ve been waiting for us to be recording and to express my…
Luke: I’m actually surprised you’ve kept it from me for this long, Timbo.
Tim: Yes, well, Luke, I want to share it with our listeners as well, because, listeners, Luke and I were going to work together and, yeah, he’s taken the big gig, you know, money, you know, chauffers, I don’t know what…I don’t know what the package involves but clearly clearly I couldn’t offer him what Flippa have offered him. And, look, the good news is…it’s not going to affect the podcast, is it?
Luke: Oh, no way known.
Tim: You sure?
Luke: Absolutely sure.
Tim: You sort of hesitated a tad.
Luke: Not at all, no, I’ve…
Tim: Look me in the eye, Luke.
Luke: Timbo, I aim to keep up this…
Tim: You looked at the microphone then and you didn’t look at me when you said it. Okay, promise our listeners, just look at the microphone and say…
Luke: Listeners, I promise I’m going to keep up this podcast as long as Timbo and I want to do it so…
Tim: Luke?
Luke: And as long as it remains interesting and informative.
Tim: Oh, yes, well that will, it will. You are so obedient too. You did, you looked at the microphone that entire time.
Luke: It’s like looking down the lens of the camera.
Tim: Yeah, yeah, looking at the barrel.
Luke: Correct.
Tim: Looking to all our beautiful listeners. So, yeah, that’s sad and…
Luke: It’s a nice new microphone too.
Tim: It is a nice new microphone. Listeners don’t care.
Luke: Mmm.
Tim: So, Luke, that is sad. This morning, okay, so this is a lesson in respecting your suppliers. And I don’t like the word suppliers anyway. So what happened is I was getting ready for a meeting which was completely the other side of town from me from where I live, but that’s okay, that’s not my client’s problem. But I rang up two hours prior to say just confirming the address and the agenda and he goes, oh look, we’re not going to do it. And it was like were you going to call me and tell me that…
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: …or was I just going to turn up and I’ve done all this work and what’s going on there. So, you know, it’s not my client’s problem that I live a long way from where the meeting is, not at all, that’s my problem. But there is a lesson here for all us small business owners to communicate clearly and I think freely with our partners. And by partners I do mean suppliers, you know.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: Because we are going to get a better output.
Luke: Yeah, I think it comes down to respect, Timbo, you know.
Tim: Yep.
Luke: I think, as I said to you before, I used to have a web development business, you were actually one of my clients at the time.
Tim: I was, I was.
Luke: And, you know, the people that respected me and respected my business tended to get the best out of us. And I think that probably applies to most people, you know.
Tim: Yeah.
Luke: You want to work with the people that want to work with you and that respect you.
Tim: Look, it’s a pretty obvious thing. But I think sometimes we forget it and I think if we do take the mindset as business owners that we have partners and we respect them and communicate with them and keep them along for the journey of running a business, we’re just going to get a better result. So enough of the venting, okay, so…oh, I’ve got another vent. I have.
Luke: One more?
Tim: Yeah, I think so. So this is about, listened to a new podcast this morning.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: Oh, no, it wasn’t this morning. Last week, I don’t know why I’m saying this morning. But 37signals.
Luke: Yes.
Tim: Which is this wonderful online brand, you know, that I have never known what they’ve done. But I like the name and it’s one of these brands that you kind of hear all around the place, you know, if you’re kind of…
Luke: Yep.
Tim: …into the online world. They launched a podcast, right, and it went straight to No.1, which was infuriating because we’ve been No.2 for so long.
Luke: So you’re dirty at that to start with.
Tim: Yeah, I’m dirty at that that we’ve been trying to get to No.1 business podcast on iTunes. We’ve made it to No.2, that’s cool. They’ve gone straight to No.1 and that is the power of their brand.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: So I go, bloody ripper, new podcast from the 37signals guys, can’t wait to hear it, I reckon it was an absolute letdown.
Luke: Really?
Tim: Yeah, totally.
Luke: Didn’t like it? I actually haven’t listened to it, Timbo, so I’ll take your word for it.
Tim: Okay.
Luke: I do know that they are a good brand.
Tim: Look, I don’t doubt their brand and you told me they have brands like…
Luke: Basecamp.
Tim: Mate, that is an amazing product.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: Beautiful brand, you know.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: But their podcast, I thought was really self indulgent. They still didn’t explain what 37signals is which I think…you can’t assume people know who you are, you know.
Luke: Yeah. So they haven’t set themself essentially?
Tim: No, they haven’t, no. And they just went straight into this kind of self indulgent talk about their different products and how they did it and stuff and it was…I didn’t find it captivating. I will listen to the next one. I’d be really interested to see if they hold that No.1 position for five or ten episodes or whether people will go, feeling a bit like me. I think the geeks will love it.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: But I…maybe, and that’s just who they’re appealing to but…
Luke: So is it really about trying to remain humble when you’ve got a big brand?
Tim: Wasn’t humble.
Luke: No, I’m saying, you know, should…are you saying they should still…you should still try to remain humble when you’ve developed a brand?
Tim: Yeah, I think absolutely. And I just think they just…it was just more in the way they communicated their brand. I think there was an assumption that you know who we are and you just want to hear some technical talk and, look, maybe that’s what their about, you know.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: But maybe they would have been better to stick to the online thing.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: And maybe not gone down the track they are. Could be wrong. Have a listen, listeners, send us an abusive…
Luke: Don’t…
Tim: …email if you…oh, send Luke an abusive email.
Luke: Questions@SmallBusinessBigMarketing.com.
Tim: That’s it, that’s it.
Luke: Yeah. And whatever you do, don’t subscribe to their iTunes feed because it will actually knock us further down the rankings.
Tim: Yeah, yeah. And leave some feedback on our iTunes too because we would love you for it.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: Now, listen, we’re going to get straight…now we’re going to get stuck into our guest.
Luke: Yes.
Tim: And after which I am going to announce, although it’s not ready, Luke, I am going to run a marketing workshop in the tropics.
Luke: Yes, you have done this just to spite me, haven’t you, Timbo?
Tim: I have, I have. I thought, Luke’s going to go and take the fulltime gig, I’m going to the tropics. I’m going to put on the loud Hawaiian shirt.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: It’s actually not in Hawaii but I’ll tell you a bit more about it after this interview.
Luke: Fantastic. Sounds very exciting, Timbo.
Tim: Because I am, I’m really excited about it.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: And so interview guest, this guy is crazy, we love him.
Luke: Yes, Scott Kilmartin from Haul. He’s a…
Tim: Yes.
Luke: I’m really excited about this episode. Just as an aside, I actually read…
Tim: You say that about every episode.
Luke: Well I’m exceptionally excited about this one.
Tim: Okay.
Luke: As an aside, I actually read Gary Vaynerchuk’s book, new book, called “Crush It!”.
Tim: Yeah.
Luke: And I think…I think Scott Kilmartin is absolutely crushing it with his brand…
Tim: Right.
Luke: …and with his products.
Tim: Yep.
Luke: He’s authentic, he’s passionate, he’s got some great novel marketing ideas and…
Tim: Mate, this is a small business guy who is just…who’s so willing to break the rules, to challenge the status quo and who doesn’t mind a word or two.
Luke: Yeah. And he’s also using social media really really well.
Tim: He’s…yeah, he’s got three…in fact he’s got three identities on Twitter. He’ll share the reason why during this interview. But he’s got Scott Kilmartin, he’s got Haul, which is his business.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: And Gus the Boxer.
Luke: Gus the Boxer.
Tim: Why has he got his dog a Twitter ID, you will find out in this interview.
Luke: Indeed.
Tim: Lukey, lovely to see you again.
Luke: You too, Timbo.
Tim: And we will be…
Luke: Don’t tear up.
Tim: I’m not going to tear up. And don’t you go changing. Here’s Scott.
Luke: Here’s Scott.
Tim: Welcome, Scott Kilmartin, from Haul.
Scott: Thank you, guys.
Tim: Our pleasure. Welcome aboard. Luke…
Luke: Welcome, Scott.
Scott: Hey, Luke.
Tim: …you will not get a word in tonight, so do you just want to say anything now?
Luke: And Haul is spelt, H-A-U-L?
Scott: Correct, yep.
Tim: H-U?
Luke: Not H-A-L-L.
Tim: Oh, okay. Okay. So, Scott, building accessories by hand by recycled materials would be what you do.
Scott: That’s the kind of elongated version. So we basically turn old billboards into messenger bags and laptop sleeves and beanbags. We use truck inner tubes, make them into…because they’re rubber, and turn them into again bags. We’ve just done a deal where we’re using old printing blankets that newspapers are printed on. They’re like a rubber sheet. And we’re making those into things like belts and wallets and…
Tim: So is it effectively finding old media, old printed media, is that the criteria for your raw material?
Scott: Yeah, look, it’s not necessarily media. It’s…the way we kind of work with things is can we get materials in a consistent way, can we get a lot of them without having to kind of be searching around rubbish dumps, we want to be able to get it by the tonne, and has it got something where people are going to…it’s got to have some wow factor about it. So are people going to look at a laptop sleeve and go, yeah, I can kind of see a bit of a billboard in it, it’s got something unique about it.
Tim: So how do you control that? Because clearly there are advertising agencies all over Australia, if not the world, creating billboards for their clients, you then go and say I’ll have those and turn them into a laptop sleeve or a bag, how do you control the design?
Scott: There’s a couple of issues there. One, initially when we first started out we faced a lot of IP issues. So we got all these billboards, let’s say you’re, I don’t know, you’re Austereo and you’ve got a Triple M billboard or a Fox billboard…
Tim: Overseas listeners, they are local radio stations.
Scott: Radio stations, yeah. If you…obviously they’ve got logos on them, they’ve got a whole lot of trademarks and bits and pieces and they, although now are happy for us to use those and actually have become kind of a client base for them, we’ve got our street wear stuff and we also do things for companies as well, but we’ll touch on that a bit later. But the biggest issue was they were…
Tim: How long are you planning on being here?
Scott: Oh, you never know. The thing is, I guess for us, getting hold of the materials we knew they were going to landfill but we couldn’t get access to them because all the brand managers are going well if we can’t control what happens to the brand afterwards, we’re not going to let you have them. So we faced a lot of hurdles there.
Tim: Wow, isn’t that interesting. That’s actually like, that’s what’s…that’s social media is causing all that at the moment, you know, losing control…
Scott: Control.
Tim: …of my brand.
Scott: Yeah.
Tim: It’s like get over it.
Scott: We…the bit…the story that I often tell is we got a whole lot of Kylie lingerie billboards when she did a deal with one of the lingerie companies, brought out a brand, I think they were called Love Kylie.
Luke: Yep.
Scott: And we get…they were there, they were in a storeroom about to be thrown out and we couldn’t get hold of them because the brand manager told me over the phone, she’s like well how do I know that this billboard is not going to end up covering some farmer’s hay out on a freeway somewhere, how do I know that you’re going to make products out of it and how do I know those products aren’t going to adversely affect our brands. So those were the little initial hurdles you went through and we…
Tim: So there was a confidence thing there.
Scott: Correct.
Tim: I mean, you had to get some runs on the board in order to demonstrate that, hey, you know.
Luke: So how did you go about appeasing the brand manager that you were going to make good quality products out of their billboard?
Scott: We initially…
Tim: Sent a bale of hay round wrapped in a Kylie billboard.
Scott: We initially went to…went through advertising agencies, got no joy there at all, we were too far away from the clients and they didn’t see a lot of value in it, so the story trickled down before…we couldn’t get to present in front of the client. So we then were trying to get marketing and brand managers. Still had limited…limited ways of going about it, we just couldn’t get enough, you know, enough people in…get in front of enough people. And so ultimately we ended up going to sign in stores and kind of getting billboards through the backdoor. So we were getting these billboards that they wanted to throw out because they didn’t want to store them anymore, the campaigns had ended. We were making them up and were just avoiding using any kind of brand or logo on the front of any products. Gradually over a period of time more and more brands became aware of us and either gave us the okay or turned a blind eye to it or, you know, wanted us to make products for them out of their billboards as promo products so.
Luke: It’s a great story for them really, isn’t it, I would have thought.
Scott: It is now but…
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: Do they use it?
Scott: Yeah. Look, we’re about to actually split the business into two. So Haul will remain as our street wear brand, we make the kind of accessory stuff. And then another business we’ve just launched called Riveting. Which effectively, I’ve got to think of a better term for this, but they do…we’re going to do eco corporate gifts. So…
Tim: Eco corporate gifts, okay.
Scott: So if you’re like…if you’re a big company, you’re Jetstar, one of our biggest customers, you’ve got a couple hundred billboards a year in Australasia, we chop them up and turn them into document satchels or pencil cases you can donate to schools.
Tim: Yeah, right.
Scott: They’ve all got the bright orange…Jetstar is an airline in Australia.
Tim: Yep.
Scott: They’ve all got this…all their billboards have got a bright orange logo on them, so everyone of them is embedded with the brand, which is one of the terms that we use.
Tim: Love your…you’ve got a good naming strategy. Haul is clearly a good succinct name and says what it does, which is carry, transport things around, is that kind of where it came from?
Scott: Exactly.
Tim: And then you’ve got Riveting. So there’s kind of a like nice succinct kind of coolness about the way you’re naming things.
Scott: A bit of fun and games trying to get hold of those names and I’ve heard you boys podcast about names and, you know, getting URLs and all that stuff. So Haul, we…I mean, when initially I started this business it was called Urban Boomerang which kind of one of those logical names, you know, Urban was a bit streety and Boomerang…
Luke: Yep.
Scott: …kind of all Australian.
Tim: Yep.
Scott: And Boomerang meaning coming back but it didn’t work at all with the street wear brand.
Tim: Yeah, yeah.
Scott: So we got rid of that.
Tim: Over logical.
Scott: Yeah. So Haul has been great. And there’s lots of wordplay, short haul, long haul, you can play…
Tim: Town haul.
Scott: You can play with it. Town haul, exactly.
Tim: Just as a story for our listeners, Scott was looking for some space in the CBD of Melbourne and created a little web page off your site which effectively said you were looking for the next town haul, H-A-U-L, very nice.
Scott: Yeah, so we…
Tim: Very nice.
Scott: We’re using a bit of social media to try and, you know…
Tim: Yep.
Scott: …instead of us walking the streets or talking to real estate agents…
Tim: Yeah.
Scott: …we got our, kind of our punters and our customer base to look for us.
Tim: Hey, Lukey?
Luke: Yes, Timbo.
Tim: We had to sneak out, because it’s hard to get a word in with Scott and he has got so much good stuff to say but every now and then we do need to interrupt.
Luke: Yes.
Tim: And the only way we can do this is walking out of the studio and being able to talk freely. Sorry, Scott, no, it’s gold, mate. But listen, Luke, what I wanted to say was, love naming. I love business names. I love it when I come across a good business name.
Luke: Yes. And you’ve even developed a few exercises in naming business…
Tim: I have.
Luke: …haven’t you, Timbo?
Tim: I have. I had a sticky names workshop which I run for clients. But what…and I love Scott’s naming strategy, as we were just saying, you know, like Haul and Riveting, they’re such great names. And obviously that Boomerang thing he was talking about wasn’t and he realised it…
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: …and made the change, which is a courageous thing to do. But I just want to share with our listeners a little technique which I learnt from a lovely lady on Twitter, her name is Yvonne and her Twitter ID is Ideas Culture.
Luke: Yes.
Tim: And what she showed me was the ability to…what you do is you create…so like right now I’ve got to name an organisation, a not for profit organisation, so what I’ve done is create a Google document, and this is a really simple thing to do and it’s free, created a Google document where I’ve put the brief on the document.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: And the question, can you please help me come up with a name for this. It’s a mental health organisation.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: And there’s the little brief to give people an idea of what we’re looking for and then I get a link from Google. It’s an easy thing to do, it just says, you know, request link and it gives you a link, and I just email that link out to colleagues and friends and I’ve been putting it on my Twitter feed asking people to contribute their thinking. And I know that it’s been up there now for about five days and I think that there’s about 150 name suggestions.
Luke: Wow.
Tim: Yeah.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: So, which is a great…whether there’s a good name there or not, at least it’s going to give me some good stimulus for then going on and creating.
Luke: Essentially it’s social media crowd sourcing, Timbo.
Tim: It is crowd sourcing, my friend…
Luke: Yep.
Tim: …at its best.
Luke: And I’ve seen this, it’s actually a Google…it’s a spreadsheet doc.
Tim: Yep.
Luke: And I reckon it works really well.
Tim: Google Docs is just a great collaboration tool.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: Maybe that’s another episode in itself.
Luke: Indeed.
Tim: But naming is everything, listeners, I just think, and there are so many points of view, I don’t know which one is right. If you’re a small business, one school of thought says have a name that clearly explains what it is you do, therefore you don’t have to spend as much money telling people what it is you do.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: The other one is have a name that just is funky, you know?
Luke: Yeah, I tend to prefer the latter. Have something that’s unique and develops a personality of its own.
Tim: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I do too. I think if you’re going to have a whacko name then you have to have a tagline…
Luke: Yep.
Tim: …that qualifies what it is you do.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: But many schools of thought, not sure which one’s right or wrong, probably the one that you’re, you the business owner, are most comfortable with. Hey, we’ll sneak back into the studio. Because I know Scott is still talking, he doesn’t realise we’ve actually gone out, so back to Scott.
Luke: Back to Scott.
Tim: Tell me, how did you get Haul? Was it hard getting haul.com.au?
Scott: Yeah, it really was. So my criteria for when we changed the name was, one, no one had…it had to be trademark free in any of the areas we were in or wanting to go in. I wanted a short name and I wanted to be able to buy a top level domain name. Haul.com was actually owned by a really early level Internet marketer in the states called Scott, funnily enough. He wasn’t going to sell it and then haul.com.au was registered. So we looked at all these other names and we were probably going to go with haulbags.com. But didn’t really want it because it limits you, because we make a lot of things that aren’t bags, we make wallets and belts. So that was a bit of an issue and then, this is back before the domain name resellers got their act together and you could track names or you could have someone buy them for the broker, someone didn’t renew it and just…
Tim: Oh.
Scott: …it was there. This is 2002.
Tim: It fell out of the sky.
Scott: And then we started using it in 2004.
Tim: What about Riveting?
Scott: Same way. Bizarrely enough, Riveting I got only a year and a half ago. It just hadn’t been…hadn’t been registered. As well as the misspellings.
Tim: Dot au has a bit of a history of that. I mean, dot com is where the action is, you know.
Scott: Of course, yeah.
Tim: Dot au, I mean, really in the scheme of world domain names, Luke, and you’re the expert here, but dot au is a kind of drop in the domain ocean.
Luke: It certainly is. But it’s always…com au is better if you’re marketing and selling locally so if you…
Tim: Is it, why?
Luke: Because it has like a relevance. And if you’re selling a product usually, unless you’re exporting, you’re just selling it locally and particularly in the search engines eyes com au has more relevance for local search.
Tim: Yeah, okay.
Scott: I’d agree with that. We’ve found that as well. I mean, we…even if…I mean, down the track I’m looking to buy haul.com, hopefully they won’t be listening at the moment, jack the price up on me. But we’re kind of in that negotiation space right now.
Tim: That would have to be…I’ve kind of had a…spent a lot of time, as Luke knows, about a year ago, like bought a lot of domains.
Scott: Yeah.
Tim: Luke and I go back and forward on the emails all day…all times of the day and night, looking at domain names. Mate, Haul is…not only dot com, it’s four letters.
Scott: It’s a real word.
Tim: It’s actually a dictionary word.
Scott: Yeah.
Tim: I would be guessing and, you know…
Scott: What are you thinking?
Tim: I’d be almost be talking, it’d have to be six figures.
Scott: It’s gone from being in the US150.
Tim: Yep.
Scott: And because of the world we’re living in currently, it’s probably somewhere between 40 and 60 depending on what will happen.
Luke: Yeah, yep.
Scott: It’s got some real value. And down the track, I’ll get it one way or another, somewhere somehow.
Tim: Yeah, yeah.
Scott: But it’s just a matter of time before we got hold of it.
Tim: Yeah.
Scott: But ultimately we’ll still…
Tim: He says. He threatens.
Scott: …keep in market with haul.com.au because it has that localness. And some of the brands that I track and watch that are in and around our space, or that I admire, definitely use their local URLs locally, yeah.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: Yep.
Luke: Timbo, we’re just going to sneak out for a tick, we want to have a quit chat about registering domain names.
Tim: He’s still talking, look, have a look.
Luke: Now, when you’re registering a domain name for your business, Timbo, and you find that it’s registered, what do you suggest that people do?
Tim: Don’t give up.
Luke: Don’t give up?
Tim: Don’t give up, no, no, no, absolutely not. So there’s a couple of things. One is clearly if the dot com or the dot au are not available…
Luke: Or your particular country.
Tim: Yeah, or your particular country, whatever it is, find out who owns it and you can do that through, is it Whois?
Luke: Yes, you can, yeah, through Whois.
Tim: Yeah, I know like Go Daddy, for example, which is a domain registrar, if it is taken, there’s a little button that says find out who owns it.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: And it takes you to Whois. So it’s public domain information. So don’t give up if it’s taken. Go and find is there a real website at that domain name and often you’ll find there might not be or it might be parked, which means people have just parked it and are earning some advertising revenue from it. But approach them.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: And, you know, yeah, they might…well they will, I mean, my experience is they want a silly amount of money but enter…depending on what the domain is, but enter a negotiation.
Luke: Yep. A little story I’ll quickly share is that I worked, previously worked, for an antivirus business and they were a reseller and distributor in Australia for AVG Anti-Virus and the owner of the business actually spent quite a lot of money purchasing avg.com.au from the previous owner and long term it’s probably one of the greatest assets he’s got…
Tim: Yeah, well that’s the other point too. Like you are buying something that is going to appreciate, particularly if it’s, you know, if it’s a dictionary name or a short name.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: It is something…it is not going to depreciate, you know.
Luke: And also if you’re spending a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money developing your brand and people remember you for your brand name, you want to have that domain name registered.
Tim: Yep, yeah. And last point on domains is that don’t get big long complicated ones. You know, look, and if you do can I just suggest that in your marketing materials where the domain is visually presented, capitalise the first letter of each word.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: Otherwise it just looks like a long string of words and it becomes unreadable.
Luke: Indeed.
Tim: Back to Scotty, Luke.
Luke: Scott, you’ve got a fantastic story behind the business but how do you actually go about marketing your products?
Scott: We’re, I guess we’re…we don’t advertise at all. So we do some sponsorships. We do things like we sponsor local community events that are, like graphic design awards and things like that, because our crowd tend to be that kind of young creative urban inner city metro cliché cliché cliché. I mean, the blog or the book “Stuff White People Like”.
Luke: Mmm.
Scott: You heard of that one?
Luke: Yep.
Tim: Yep.
Scott: That’s our crowd. People ask me who do we sell to, that’s our crew. So they don’t really respond to advertising too well. So we do a lot of stuff with social media as well, the Twitters and Facebooks and that kind of stuff.
Luke: Yep. I’m very impressed with your website too.
Tim: It is good, isn’t it.
Scott: Thank you.
Tim: It is good.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: We’ll come to that in a minute because Scott has just declared earlier that he’s going to be here for a few hours anyway.
Scott: Indeed.
Tim: But Twitter is clever. Are we going to reveal a secret by saying that Haul on Twitter is the business.
Scott: Yep.
Tim: There is, and correct me if I’m wrong, Scott Kilmartin.
Scott: Is me ranting.
Tim: The man.
Scott: Yeah.
Tim: Ranting and raving. And if you’ve got something that’s going to get people’s backs up, it is?
Scott: Oh.
Tim: Your dog.
Scott: The dog. So I’ve got a dog called Gus who I’ve had for a long time who sits in our shop window in North Fitzroy and he’s kind of inadvertently become the face or the ambassador of the brand. It’s funny when you’ve got a…when you’ve got an identity on, or a personality online called Gus the Boxer you can say a lot of things to people that you probably wouldn’t be able to say if you were human. So we have a lot of fun. I mean, Gus is partly me but even now some of my staff really kind of use it. And it’s one of those really interesting things, because of the crowd that we sell to, I was very wary of really joining Gus to the brand too much. A lot of people see pets as being a bit kitsch and can be a fit folksy, which is not the space we’re in, but we just kind of…over time it really evolved of its own volition and now people really associate the dog. And especially when…if people have seen us online and they’re in Queensland and they’re in Melbourne and they come out to the store and the dog really is in the window so it gives a bit of authenticity as well. So all our customer service, we do a bit of a play with it. If you email the business and go, hey, I’m after a 17 inch MacBook sleeve, is that red one still on the website, the email you get back will be signed off as Gus. So it kind of tells us who’s paying attention. People then respond to you and go, hang on, I know that’s the dog. Or other people just, you know, go, hi, thanks, Gus. So it’s a bit of…
Tim: I remember meeting…
Scott: …a bit of a joke.
Tim: When I first met you you sent me a Tweet saying nice to meet you, Scott Kilmartin, or it might have been from Haul. And then it quickly followed, Gus came in and said, look, I’m sorry, I couldn’t get a chance but I was in the car.
Scott: That’s right, yeah. You can do a lot of stuff with it, it really is fun and it kind of…you see who’s paying attention as well.
Tim: I was just seeing if Luke was paying attention.
Luke: I was actually thinking of the next question.
Tim: Not a visual medium radio, but I just punched Luke in the arm…
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: …because he wasn’t laughing at my joke. Hey, Luke…
Luke: Wouldn’t be the first time.
Tim: What did you like about Scott’s website?
Luke: It’s clean. It’s simple. It’s also search engine optimised. I notice there’s been a bit of work done in that area too.
Tim: How do you pick that up as a layman, how do you look at that and go that is search engine optimised if ever I’ve seen a website?
Luke: Well one thing was that each of the page titles relate…are different and they relate to the area that you’re in. So messenger bags, messenger bags, you know, laptop sleeves. So that was one of the things I picked up on and I thought it was pretty cool. Going back to your brand, and perhaps some other similar Australian brands, I’m just wondering if you’ve taken any inspiration or perhaps they’ve taken inspiration from you. Crumpler would be possibly a competitor.
Scott: Don’t swear around me. Crumpler is the one that we often…because we…for a long time we were making messenger bags predominantly so we were seen as a bag company, being a street company, and they precede us by a couple of years and they pretty much own that inner city kind of messenger come street wear space and…
Luke: Yep.
Scott: …now that we’re doing less and less in the bags, we’re not…we’re still doing a lot of bags but we’re doing lots more things like belts and wallets, we…I guess make…building our own identity. But for a long time I was very sensitive to hearing the C word. But not so much anymore. So Crumpler is a brand that we, I mean, I think those guys are a huge success, I mean, they’ve done exceptionally well.
Luke: Yep.
Scott: I mean, the other brands in Australia that I look at, not necessarily because they’re a competitor of us, but because of how they’ve done it, one would be aussieBum.
Luke: Yep.
Scott: They’re kind of metro come…
Luke: Yep.
Scott: …almost gay, I guess, swimwear brand.
Luke: Brutopia is another one that comes to my mind.
Scott: Brutopia is good. I mean, even Little Creatures.
Luke: Yep.
Scott: Kind of in the beer space. Someone that’s a little bit, they’re not a mainstream and they’re not trying to be mainstream, although Little Creatures is getting, you know, more taps and doing more things. But in terms of the way they’re authentic, they’ve got a similar crowd to us. We would probably compete for spend sometimes with those guys.
Luke: Yep.
Scott: But in Australia they’re probably the brands that I look at. As well as even brands that are not at all competitors to us like…like Mimco and those things because of the way they’ve built their business and done well with them.
Luke: Yes.
Tim: You’re really competing at an emotional level, aren’t you, because the way you’re talking is like, you know, Crumpler, yeah, bag company, baggage company, whatever, you’re a street brand, you know, it’s like…
Scott: Yep.
Tim: …well so all of a sudden that opens up, that makes, you know, Haul could be anything in the future, yeah, it might be a phone company.
Scott: Yeah, long haul the phone company. I don’t think we’re going to be gumboots to Nokia type stuff.
Tim: Yeah, yeah.
Scott: But, I mean, I look…we…the brands I look at are…would be like a Sass & Bide, the denim brand that goes out of Sydney, Ksubi, I guess in the early days. So I reckon, I mean, we compete…people ask you who your competitors are and I say our competitor is Apple, our competitor is anyone selling $12 graphic design magazines. It’s just…it’s partly entertainment and partly product. And our stuff is a product with a story. So, I mean, it’s a pretty expensive bit of vinyl if it’s just a bit of vinyl. But if someone goes, hey, like your MacBook sleeve and then they go, oh, it’s actually made of a…it’s a recycled billboard…
Tim: Story.
Scott: …then you’re into that kind of, that…it’s a whole different game.
Tim: Story, story.
Scott: I got a good story off…
Luke: I’ve noticed that on your website too you’ve just brought out the Mac sleeves, is that correct?
Scott: Yeah, yep.
Luke: So, I guess in that way you’re appealing to people that are design centric quite often. And your…your products are unique so I think it’s just a great…a great avenue you’ve gone down in terms of appealing to your target audience, by the sounds of…
Tim: You sound like an Idol judge. Are you going to give him a, what do you call it, a touchdown?
Scott: Does that make you the nasty Idol judge?
Luke: Yeah, you’re the (28:42).
Tim: Hey, Luke, Luke was asking before how do you promote your business. So you don’t advertise and I’m not even going to ask why, because we know why. You sponsor, and clearly sponsor things where your people are hanging out, where the crowd is hanging out.
Scott: Yep.
Tim: What else do you do to get your name out there?
Scott: So, look, we do a lot of seeding. Seeding I guess would be, you know, giving people that are probably influentials or someone that’s seen as kind of one of the people that we would sell to like someone in a band, a DJ, so we seed those guys some product, so we give them stuff. And some of those times you get lucky, you know, we’ve given our…some stuff to products and it’s ended up in Rolling Stone photo shoots and things like that and that has real value. And we definitely get a lot more bang for our buck than we would be just advertising that way so.
Luke: Seeding. So how do you go about finding the right person to seed?
Scott: Yeah, stalk managers. Yeah, so look the best…the way…
Tim: Stalk managers, as in of public figures?
Scott: Yeah. So, look, if…it’s actually probably not even really true now. Because we try and find especially bands or DJs that are on the rise that haven’t quite made it yet. Once they’ve made it, they’ve got a manager, they’ve got a deal with a record company, they’re looking to get sponsorships and endorsements and those kind of things. But someone that’s a Triple J unearthed band that’s still struggling to pay the bills, you give them free stuff they’ll love you forever.
Tim: Yep.
Scott: So we get them on the verge, that kind of stuff. I mean, it sounds a bit stalk-ish, but I mean win for us, win for them.
Luke: Yep.
Scott: You know, they’re spending all their money travelling around in the Tarago trying, you know, trying to put together iTunes podcasts and bits and pieces to get their music out there, give them stuff, it really has worked quite well for us. Once the band has made it, it’s a different game. I mean, if they really really like your product they’ll buy it anyway.
Tim: Listeners, we’ve just snuck out of the studio. Luke?
Luke: Timbo.
Tim: Did you get a MacBook cover from Scott?
Luke: No. Did you?
Tim: No, no. It’s a bit awkward, isn’t it?
Luke: So he didn’t offer to seed you?
Tim: No, no, I thought…I thought, oh, maybe he’s seeded Luke. But you didn’t get seeded?
Luke: No.
Tim: I wasn’t seeded either. Awkward moment really.
Luke: Perhaps you should mention a previous…
Tim: Oh. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Luke: …project that you worked on.
Tim: Okay, okay, okay. So we won’t…like we’ll just go back in as if like, you know, nothing has happened and I’ll just talk to him, I’ll explain this previous project that I worked on where we did get seeded.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: So, and so just pretend nothing has happened, okay?
Luke: It might encourage him to be…
Tim: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, like let’s just be like, not be looking to be like grabbing at freebies or anything.
Luke: Yeah, that wouldn’t be us.
Tim: No, no, no. Just be kind of really cool about it. So we’ll go in and I’ll explain this project.
Luke: Okay.
Tim: I worked on a project, and I won’t go into the details of the project, but it is…it does involve that C word and it was many years ago and all of a sudden in our office arrived a whole lot of Crumpler bags out of nowhere. This project I was working on had a whole lot of…it was getting a whole lot of media attention and all of a sudden Crumpler left to right, like big bags, small bags, you name it, just arrived at the office. And the people involved in that project…
Luke: (31:41).
Tim: Yeah, one of them is in this room, you know, they…it was gold. And, you know, like that project mind you was also receiving support, financial support, from Apple, Telstra, PS2, all of which were getting coverage in return on their investment, but those Crumplers were being carried around everywhere. So you’re seeding idea is clearly, for our listeners, you know, a great one. You know, just involves rolling the sleeves up and kind of getting the word out there.
Male speaker: The other thing you might want to add, Timmy, is that not only do we all still have our original bags but all of our friends bought the same bags, which is Hamish and Andy.
Tim: Yeah, wow.
Male speaker: We’ve all got, like Josh and Jessie still have the same bag.
Tim: Yep.
Scott: The flow on effect is pretty amazing. I mean…
Tim: Yeah.
Scott: Crumpler have done some really smart marketing stuff.
Tim: Yep.
Scott: They’re…they’re ground level grass roots kind of under the radar marketing has been phenomenal for them. It’s really helped them grow in a pre viral world in a viral way.
Tim: Yep.
Scott: You know.
Tim: Yeah, yeah, yeah, great stuff.
Scott: So they’ve done some smart stuff.
Tim: Lukey.
Luke: Timbo.
Tim: What have you got, any other questions for Scott Kilmartin from haul.com.au, soon to be dot com if he can just find that extra few thousand…
Scott: If the guy that owns it isn’t listening to this podcast.
Tim: Yeah, that’s right.
Luke: So looking into the future, any marketing campaigns you’re looking at doing that you can tell us about?
Scott: Yeah, sure. So right now the step for us is to actually open some more retail. So we’ve got a couple of retail spaces right now. I want to, one, open a bit more kind of what we’re going to call kiosk retail which is like little small hole in the wall spaces in…
Tim: Oh, brilliant.
Scott: …in the city in Melbourne. The plan is to open two in Melbourne and one in Sydney next year.
Luke: Yep.
Scott: The other bigger play is to…are you guys aware of Dare Jennings’ business these days Deus ex Machina, the motorcycle…
Tim: Never heard of it.
Scott: Go to deus.com.au. Dare was a guy that started a street wear brand in Australia called Mambo. Sold it, got bored. Into these…
Tim: Yep.
Scott: Into these 1940s motorcycles. He’s bought this space in Sydney where it’s a motorcycle showroom out front, it’s a workshop out back.
Tim: Oh, yeah.
Scott: It’s a cafe on one side.
Tim: Yeah, I have seen it.
Scott: And an art gallery upstairs. It’s at the end of Parramatta Road in Camperdown. What we want to do is a version of that where…and I kind of refer to it as our winery cellar door model. You can buy your bottle of wine out front and look out the back and see the grapes being crushed.
Luke: Wow.
Scott: So we’ve got…we’ve got, you know, I’ve got a lot of machines, cutting machines and whatever, that not only do the job but actually kind of look the part as well, they’re old.
Tim: There’s a coffee shop around the corner here, St Ali…
Scott: Yeah.
Tim: …which kind of offers…what you’re talking about is experiences, like people…
Scott: Correct.
Tim: It’s a day out.
Scott: The industrial tourism will be talking about that…
Tim: You are making a shop a destination. You know, it’s great. Interesting enough, like bricks and mortar, you think, oh, you know, the crowd that you talk about, oh, they’re living online, but here you are off going and leasing, buying, bricks and mortar. But clearly not just to sell product but to…
Scott: Yeah, a bit of both. One, it enhances the brand, gives you that…more of that authenticity. And also with our products, they’re a bit odd, so people have got to see them and touch them for the first time. Once someone…using the analogy of when one of your group had a bag, then the other guys were really happy to go and buy it. We often find, especially in online sales, if someone at a firm buys a bag, like a graphic design firm, or especially a MacBook sleeve, then we often get five orders from that firm the next like month from guys that work for them…sorry, the firm.
Tim: Yep.
Scott: So once someone has seen and touched it, so if we can provide an experience where they can touch it and do it in a pretty edgy way, one, it enhances our brand, and, two, people see how real it is. The other thing is Melbourne is traditionally the kind of textile manufacturing heart. There’s lots of spaces in and around the city that have a history as well. So if we can kind of put some of that back where the rest of the world has gone offshore, it gives us a point of difference as well.
Tim: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: Big time. Scott, I’m going to put you on the spot here, we run little competitions for our listeners, mainly in order for them to then leave…
Scott: I knew this was coming.
Tim: Did you? Oh, well, get the prizes out now. Luke, we’re going to run a competition that…for anyone who leaves a customer review on iTunes…
Luke: Yes.
Tim: …for Small Business Big Marketing, they are going to win, drum roll.
Scott: A Haul MacBook sleeve made out of recycled billboard.
Tim: Stop it.
Luke: Lovely.
Tim: Stop it. Luke, that is huge.
Luke: I’ll be submitting a review.
Tim: I’ll be entering.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: I’ve actually already reviewed our show on iTunes and so have you.
Luke: Yes.
Tim: So, and Scott, you can’t. Sam, can you do that before you go home?
Male speaker: Clearly the best show I’ve ever heard.
Tim: Clearly, that’s right. Hey, that’s great, mate. Okay, so we’ll do that.
Scott: No dramas.
Tim: And we’ll, from the moment this show goes up, we’ll give it two weeks, Luke.
Luke: Yes.
Tim: Is that a good idea?
Luke: Yep, indeed.
Tim: Because that’s great, thank you, Scott. And, mate, thanks for coming in. Ripper product, interesting product, unique product really.
Scott: Thanks for the invite. I mean, that’s…part of our story is some people buy it because of the recycled aspect of our stuff. A lot of people buy it because of, you know, a lot of them, depending on what was originally printed on the billboards, no two are ever the same.
Tim: Mmm.
Scott: So it’s that one off uniqueness that very few other companies can claim, whether you’re the super high end, the Guccis of this world, or the other street wear brands that we compete against. You know, you buy one of these, no one else is going to have one.
Luke: That is something that I did want to ask. Once again back to your website, all the products on there are unique. Now, when you sell one of those, that automatically comes off?
Scott: It does, yeah. So we, I mean, our website has been complicated to get it right in terms of getting it setup but we at various points in time, I think we’re a bit low right now, we’ve probably got two and a half thousand products up there, but as we run into Christmas we’ll probably have 5000 where if you buy one of them, then that one instantly comes down and it’s gone forever. And we can’t…
Luke: So every time you produce a bag, let’s say.
Scott: Yep.
Luke: Photo is taken, goes up on the website, description, individual product number, warehoused and then someone orders it, it comes off the website?
Scott: Correct. So we’ve got in…where head office and the House of Haul is out in North Fitzroy, upstairs we’ve got a photo studio, so they literally come back, do the quality control, check all the sewing and all the stitching and then it gets shot front and back and pretty soon, if we can sort out the IP issues, you’ll actually see an image of, in the billboards’ case, the billboard it was from. It’s a bit tricky showing that at the moment.
Male speaker: Its parents.
Scott: But if you can it would be great, yeah.
Tim: Lovely.
Luke: Fantastic.
Tim: Scotty, brilliant, mate.
Luke: Thanks, Scott.
Tim: See you.
Scott: Thanks, boys.
Tim: Well, Lukey, that was a long interview.
Luke: It was a long one.
Tim: But a very worthwhile interview.
Luke: Yeah, I enjoyed it immensely actually. Scott was really good.
Tim: Mate, there is more marketing goodness in there than…I’m not sure what the end of that sentence is but, you know…
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: …than you can poke a stick at, I don’t know.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: But it’s bloody good.
Luke: And Scott’s really creative. I think he’s doing some really fantastic stuff. Very inspiring.
Tim: Creative, courageous and just right out there, you know.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: Scotty, well done, mate. Now, Luke.
Luke: Timbo.
Tim: In closing, yes, I have got a very exciting little plan in progress.
Luke: That you’re hatching.
Tim: I am hatching. I am going to take ten, well not lucky, because they’re going to be just paying me to do it, but taking…looking for ten, and I haven’t got all the stuff yet ready, but I’m just, this is a bit of a teaser.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: I’ve created a workshop called “A healthy approach to marketing”.
Luke: Mmm.
Tim: It’s going to be in Bali.
Luke: Wow, nice.
Tim: Yeah, yeah, yeah, nice, nice. And it’s going to be in April next year.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: Maybe March. March/April next year. Five days of me sharing lots of lots of marketing goodness with a balance of, you know, a bit of yoga, a bit of cooking classes, a bit of this, a bit of that, a bit of life balance stuff.
Luke: Oh, fantastic.
Tim: Yeah. And it came out of the spirit of how do I get back at you for taking a fulltime job. But, you know, no, so, look, listeners, stay tuned for that. Probably by the time the next episode gets put up…
Luke: If they want more details…
Tim: Hey, mate, good idea.
Luke: …in the interim?
Tim: Yeah, look, if you are interested, it’s going to be reasonably priced, it’s going to be full of great stuff. You’re going to learn a lot about how to market and brand your business and there’s going to be a whole lot of fun kind of life balance stuff as well.
Luke: So it’s a five day intensive that’s not that intensive.
Tim: Oh, yeah, she’ll be intensive.
Luke: Balanced though.
Tim: Balanced, yep.
Luke: Yep.
Tim: And you can email me, if you’d like to get on the waiting list you can email tim@theideasguy.com.au, tim@theideasguy.com.au, and just say, hey, Tim, love the idea of it, let me know when all of it’s up and send me some guff. I’m going to have a little web link off my homepage.
Luke: Good stuff. Now, in regards to the competition.
Tim: Yeah.
Luke: Scott so kindly giving away a MacBook sleeve.
Tim: Interesting how he’s going to give away to our precious listeners…
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: But, yeah.
Luke: Yeah.
Tim: Oh, well, we’ll wait and see.
Luke: Anyway, yep.
Tim: Yeah, yeah, right.
Luke: Anyway, what you need to do is leave a review on iTunes and send us an email at questions@SmallBusinessBigMarketing.com and just leave us…tell us that you’ve left a review and also give us your address, your postal address, as well.
Tim: In case you win. And it doesn’t have to be a great review. Like, you know, hey, look, five stars and like glowing words, cool. But…
Luke: We love constructive criticism.
Tim: We do. We do.
Luke: So, yeah, leave one there.
Tim: And, finally, Spotlight which is our little product where we do a review of your business and create a tailor made show just like you’re listening to now, but all about your business, if you’d like to take that offer up, go to our website, go to the show notes and read all about it. It’s 497 Aussie dollars and you get your own dedicated exclusive version of Small Business Big Marketing sent directly to you, not posted anywhere, but straight to you and we hope that helps grow your business. Lukey, that is the longest show we’ve done.
Luke: It is.
Tim: So no more, enough, no more words. Have a ripper time. Good luck with your new job, mate.
Luke: Thanks, mate.
Tim: Okay.
Luke: We’ll catch you next time, guys.
Tim: Next time. Bye.
January 22nd, 2010 at 9:16 am
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