Joe Prebich (00:00)

and you really wanna try to get growth, you're gonna have to try to do bold things.

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Cole Heilborn (00:04)

Was there a moment that you realized that creative wasn't doomed to be an expense, but rather had the potential to be a wealth generator?

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Joe Prebich (00:13)

Powerful content that connects and can break through the noise is worth a lot of money. it's worth, you know, millions and millions of dollars in in revenue and and more so than that, it's worth a lifetime of brand loyalty.

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Cole Heilborn (00:26)

Audience building inherently means you have attention. Human attention is also very fleeting. Is audience building an asset?

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Joe Prebich (00:33)

What are we trying

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to say and is this gonna be interesting? And what would somebody say back to us? Like what would their comment be? If we don't begin with that end in mind, I think we're not ready to go after that creative idea. That idea, that concept has to be bold enough to engage your audiences, right? Because otherwise it will be noise. It's pretty cheap to get your content distributed. So the question is, is your content good?

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Cole Heilborn (00:59)

Part of the reason why outdoor brands struggle to produce anything that's interesting is because they don't have a strong point of view. How do you think about point of view?

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Joe Prebich (01:07)

When you have a strong point of view, it means you're taking a position. Right? It means you're making a choice. You're saying this, not that. And lots of brands are like, but we kinda want that too. And so then you end up with like, cool, we're kind of the middle of this and that. You're gonna end up having to choose or you're gonna split all your dollars and make no impact whatsoever.

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Cole Heilborn (01:26)

On this podcast, we go behind the scenes with industry experts as they break down what it takes to produce creative work that works. If you're seeking insights from some of the sharpest minds of the industry, this is your guidebook to producing creative work that actually delivers. Joe, welcome to the podcast. It's good to see ya.

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Joe Prebich (01:44)

Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

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Cole Heilborn (01:45)

So you and I connected on our intro call a couple weeks ago. Basically, you said today creatives are being used to generate wealth in the future, whereas historically they were viewed as as an expense department. that's such a fascinating concept that I'm really curious to dive into and kind of dive into your experience and your perspective on creative at Benchmade. Can you give us a little more context? Like what do you mean by that concept and let's let's kick it off there?

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Joe Prebich (02:13)

For sure. And thanks for having me, Cole. It's it's great to be a part of it. I love the podcast. You know, it's a really amazing time to be, I'd say, a creative-led organization where we're able to really see how powerful content delivered authentically, you know, really is connecting with people and breaking through. There's so much noise in the world today. So the the comment around like where we're creative.

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used to be an expense and now it's, you know, the feature generating cash flows. It's it's really showing itself as true because powerful content that connects and can break through the noise is worth a lot of money. it's worth, you know, millions and millions of dollars in in revenue and and more so than that, it's worth a lifetime of brand loyalty. And I think that that's what Great Creative does is it truly expresses, you know, that

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You're more than just a product. And I think that that's what, you know, benchmate specifically, you know, really is that. And we believe deeply in our purpose and why we're here now, why we do it our way. And our creative, you know, looks to anchor on on that story and that authenticity of our purpose and and help give that kind of weight behind the product. When you carry a benchmate, it it is it is different. We believe it is different. And we hold ourselves to a high level of creative accountability.

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That creative also then goes out into the world and shows itself as either, you know, really deeply connecting or or maybe not. We've been lucky to, I'd say, you know, develop a creative team and strategy that has really embedded itself with our consumers and they they seem to love it and they seem to be excited to see more of it. And so yeah, the the future of, I'd say, from a creative perspective is is about, you know.

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generating revenue through those amazing creative ideas. And it's a fun time to have that dialogue as a leader at a brand helping to bring to the table, you know, the finance team, management teams, creative teams, all understanding how important that next big shoot is or that next big creative idea that might drive some excitement from your consumer's perspective. So really, really, really an interesting time to to be in in the business.

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Cole Heilborn (04:33)

Well, a an interesting time for a number of reasons. Like some people would look at the world of creative today and they'd say, Gosh, media channels are fractured, attention is everywhere. How do you track things given the complexity of tracking these days? The dark web, like you can't track that stuff. and then I but I'm curious too, like if you were having a conversation with a CFO that was skeptical about the claim you just made, yeah. How would you articulate what has changed?

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in the last I I don't know, like what is it, five, ten, like how many years? What is what has changed in this amount of time that now makes this a true reality?

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Joe Prebich (05:11)

Yeah. I think I think the thing that's changed the most is the amount of creative and content that all of our partners consume, right? So let's say the CFO, right, we're talking, I I would approach him and say, you know, you have a perspective on what you think good is because you see so many things every day. We know that our customers see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pieces of content. So when our customers come back and say, wow, I love it.

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It means that they chose us in the hundreds of thousands of pieces to say and to engage with and to say, This is this is my type of story. This is my type of experience. We love what you're saying. So I would I would I would meet my financial partner with an understanding that this is how you start to see through the digital landscape that you've broken through or you've made a connection. But then more importantly, you know, I'd ask him to join me, we'd jump on a flight and we'd go into the world and we'd start

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talking to our dealers and we'd start meeting people in areas that we know are benchmade fan bases and and we'd listen to those people and those people exist everywhere. Yeah, I travel a ton. I'm always kind of flying the flag, wearing the shirt, you know, wearing the hat. And I would say, you know, nine times out of ten when I'm on a plane, somebody's saying, what's up? Let me tell you my story about Benchmade. Let me tell you my story about Benchmade. Let me tell you when, you know, I was in the service. I got my first Benchmade. I still have it today. I passed it down to my son or my daughter.

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these are the real experiences where people engage with us. They feel a connection to the brand through the product and they connect with us on a daily basis based on the content. Right. So that to me has been a really powerful way for Benchmade to, you know, really evolve itself into this global brand that is defining, you know, more than just a knife company, really.

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a lifestyle of preparedness, you know, a mindset that helps us understand, see further through you know, the generations and and our way of expressing that is is a knife. And we think that that's a really classic way of talking about, you know, both preparedness for the now and for the future and what you hope to steward in the conversations and times with which you're you know using that tool. So again, I think meeting meeting the creative conversation

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at a financial point, I always try to bring a partner, like at any point in the business, to experience the brand for themselves, have that aha moment at like a trade show or a consumer event, and let them bounce that against what they see from the other, you know, big global brands and go, wow, you know, this really does connect. So Joe, help me learn more about then we go into the details on the numbers and the why and the what. But I always try to start

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it at more of a conversational level and let them experience the emotion that our customers bring every day to the brand.

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Cole Heilborn (08:08)

How much is that emotion worth? Like, you know, if someone sees you on a plane and they tell you a story about their first benchmade, do you think about that in a value equation or how do you think about a story like that?

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Joe Prebich (08:20)

Yeah. I mean it's a really great question. I don't value it in like a dollars and cents side immediately in that moment, but the aggregate actions equal some strategic thinking with our teams to go, now let's understand how we can let more people know that this brand exists doing these things in these moments. And I think predicates a lot of, you know, what we're doing. We're deeply invested in our grassroots dealer support strategies from a field and event side.

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So we have thousands of dealers all across North America and all across the world, but here in North America, we're actively invested on the ground in their backyard, supporting both the sales reps in the territory, but more specifically supporting the dealer experiences and those customer experiences with great events. We just had our Steel and Smoke Show, which is, you know, an event across the country honoring, you know, knives and smoking meat.

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Right. Like the idea of summer kicked off officially. And we had, you know, fifty plus events all across the country where, you know, that's a that's a lot of work, lot of effort that isn't really about return today. It's about experiencing that moment collectively together that's like, this is what we own. We own this area. And ownership over the TAM, right? Getting to the number side and understanding how to be a brand of relevance in that space.

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to me requires lots of those different things happening at the same time. And each one of those layers of the cake, you know, builds it to be, you know, better. and I think that that's where I've started to see, you know, the value equation. We go, okay, I met a guy on a plane, and it's like, well, well, there's a lot of these people who exist. How do we make sure that they have a place to gather in their area? And so that's really that drumbeat of having more presence in all these

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these areas where you can go live this adventurous lifestyle preparedness. so that that's predicated a lot of our ex event expansion and our localized kind of bottoms up support that drives so much of our business today that we're really proud of. and we have a team of people that's on the road constantly doing it, right? And again back to your question on, you know, finance, those things all do end up having to math to growth. and what we've said is these great interactions, right? These positive moments

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watch and they will show themselves as growth. And as we've invested and there is a bit of a a trust in brand building, especially in creative brand building, where you meet each other with a thesis and then you go out and test it, we've been able to to to see that really ring true for us. And it's been exciting to have the type of partnership that we do at Benchmade where we can try creative things. we can go and invest in these experiences and they continue to grow as a deal as a dealer should within within our brand family.

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Cole Heilborn (11:08)

Can you give me like a a a state of the outdoor industry when it comes to its advertising and creative? What's your what's your take on it?

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Joe Prebich (11:18)

Yeah, it's such an interesting you know, it's an interesting time. I feel I've been lucky to come up through the outdoor industry, at some some great brands. and seeing, you know, the media landscape and the content landscape, s you know, and the trade landscape just shifting dramatically, right? They're just there there no longer exists to me, you know, this really strong core of where we gather as a community. So it's it's really

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fractured and independent. And I think the outdoor industry from from my perspective is really following a lot of things versus leading in a lot of areas. You know, I f I feel like we we are we are collectively safer than than I like to be. You know, and the outdoor world is a space that, you know, will always be extremely important to me and how I grew in my career.

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But I feel like it today doesn't encourage the bold risk taking and potential polarization of different brands and and partners to come in and help more people get outside, right? And I think that that's the goal of, you know, when I view Benchmade's position as, you know, an outdoor lifestyle brand, we want people to go out and experience our product and try new things and have a great adventure of a lifetime and and create memories.

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And I feel like a lot of what I see today in the outdoor industry is very, very safe and very product focused. And it doesn't quite connect for me as much as I think that there's a great opportunity for it too. So I think, you know, personally I believe it's a great time for new brands, new thoughts, startups in that space. I'm excited by, you know, what I see from other creative partners trying to fix a problem, either via product or brand marketing.

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But I think the big the big business, you know, feels pretty safe and feels pretty same all over, which to me feels like a moment of transition and transformation for those who are gonna go kind of push the envelope and bring, you know, an audience towards what they believe their their their marching orders are and and what their their torch bearers, you know, really feels their purpose. So yeah, the outdoor industry, you know, always fun, but certainly isn't something that, you know, is is exciting today.

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Cole Heilborn (13:44)

That this is something I've I've wondered. It's like the individuals who who go outside and and you know partake in pick any activity, like it's filled with people who are well versed in managing risk. Yet when it comes to applying that risk management to business or creative, it seems like it doesn't translate from the crag to

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the piece of content that you're concepting. Like I've never understood why that is. do you have a theory?

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Joe Prebich (14:17)

I think at times the theory is I need this job to do the thing I love. So I'll make sure that I have this job so that I can keep doing the thing that I love outside of my work. and, you know, I think that that a a great mentor of mine very early on in my career cautioned me and said, you know, brands, right, they're gonna leverage your dreams against you. And

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I took that to heart, right? As something that I as a brand leader I never wanted to do. but I also saw exactly that be true in in so many senses. But I think the the makeup of the people who are so passionate about what they do personally and how they push themselves in the Anthor space, you're really not translating to risk in the boardroom. I think it comes down to maybe

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A lack of creativity at the management level, being able to encourage what you know may exist within your people to try and do things. you know, if if the budget is safe, then you're gonna get safety. but if you really wanna grow and you really wanna try to get growth, you're gonna have to try to do bold things, my point of view. and I think that that's usually a top-down culture piece, right? And those that can come in and and try to do amazing things and push their teams.

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to think outside the box. I think they're the ones that are gonna win. and and they're gonna bite off a big piece of this industry pie in a way that's gonna be very authentic for them. But it is so interesting to see so much of what I think we both see as kind of safety and comfort and consistency. But then you know these people are also like sending it on the weekend. we try to meet, I'd say like my world is maybe a you know a little bit of both. We we really have a big idea.

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philosophy. You know, I I was lucky enough to come up through Red Bull and they embedded, you know, what I think were two of the greatest things that I ever learned, which was you can be as crazy as you want, but you have to understand all of the risks and the cost. So Red Bull, from my my experience, was one of the most managed risk averse companies that understood how to calculate the risk reward relationship, didn't take callously like things

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without the downside really known, but then push their chips in and said, let's go. We're all aware of what the upside is. The risk of not doing is greater than the risk of doing. And that can be, you know, my experience to many of the things that they've done. So I I try to bring a lot of that into our world, but you know, understanding how to drive big bold decisions into a small, mid sized company comes with some emotion, you know, and I think navigating that boardroom maybe

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You know, the current outdoor landscape doesn't have those strong mentors or, you know, other people around encouraging us to be able to go and create the new frontier. But there are some exciting things that I think are showing themselves. even if we just take the current state of where people are investing, you know, we're investing in space stuff. You know, there's a big macro moment where the future from AI to, you know,

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data centers in space is stretching people's viewpoint so far into the future. And I think those who are meeting it from a creative lens are going, huh, maybe my canvas got wider today. Maybe more people are interested in what could be. Maybe I'll in take that next step and present that bold idea. I know I'm encouraging my team to do that. I was just on a call before chatting with you, encouraging that exact thing with one of my teammates saying, I think we can think bigger here.

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So, you know, my my hope is for the industry that there's more encouragement like that.

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Cole Heilborn (18:07)

Was there a moment that you realized that creative wasn't inherently or always doomed to be an expense, but rather had the potential to be a wealth generator?

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Joe Prebich (18:19)

yeah. I mean, it's kind of wild. Right early in my career I had, you know, a really great moment with Red Bull where my role was managing the snowboard team and Sean White specifically. And as we were going towards the two thousand ten Olympics, I put a big project out there. It was a secret half pipe training facility in Silverton, Colorado, called Project X. It was, you know, a napkin drawing from a trip in Japan that became, you know, work.

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Through the foam pit while surfing, and then hey, we have this idea of a thing. And you know, we we landed this big project during 2008, and there was a financial crisis. And you know, it wasn't the best time to be, you know, spending millions of dollars trying to do something. And luckily, I had some strong leaders who said, you know, we're we're good. Amy Taylor, she was leading the marketing side at Red Bull.

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at the time and and she she met this idea with support at an executive level and said, let's let's take this to the finish line here and see what happens. Well lo and behold, we brought, you know, an incredible project to life. Sean went off to win the the gold medal, kind of redefining this sport. But the content that we created became the vehicle and the engine to get into channels we as Red Bull could never get into. So we were

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We were across all of the Olympic broadcast. It was billions and billions and billions of media impressions. We were embedded into, you know, video games and we were end caps at Target. And the content that we created in this one cool moment was then exploded out into the world and created, you know, millions and millions and millions of dollars worth of revenue. And so for me, that was like an aha, the distribution, the partnership, if we can create that thing that's authentic, new, interesting, and different, many people want that thing. Very few can create it.

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And that's worth a lot. And so we leveraged that and we traded that position at Red Bull content for, you know, distribution and opportunity. And I mean, we were all over the NBC Olympics broadcast and they were running the Red Bull footage. You know, that had never existed and Coca-Cola was the sponsor, you know, of the Olympics. Right. So that was like total trench warfare of how content could go out and and really do the work of driving revenue and awareness and setting up this pedestal. And

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I've had that experience a few other times in my career and it's been it's been one where it's helped me double down on it's just gotta be that good though. Right. It it it doesn't work if it's not actually interesting, if it's not actually

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Cole Heilborn (20:50)

Like concept and then the execution of it.

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Joe Prebich (20:52)

Yeah, that the idea, the execution has to be worth somebody tuning in, right? Like if the content wasn't good, NBC wouldn't want it. It was the ability for those things to track all the way through. So we met in that room and said, guys, do you want access to all this footage? And they're like, yes, please. This is sick. Versus like, meh, looks kinda like a brand commercial, right? Like we knew how to I'd say maybe we didn't know, but

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We knew what we wanted to deliver from a storyline, and luckily that storyline tracked with the bigger macro thing that they were willing to buy off of us. So for me, it's really like that that idea, that concept has to be bold enough to engage your audiences, right? Because otherwise it will be noise and not break through, not do that thing. So it's a challenge to f to try to find those moments. And there's not, you know, they're not here every day, but sometimes they show up. I'm always like,

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If it feels right, probably worth investigating, leaning a little further and if you're gonna go, go big.

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Cole Heilborn (21:52)

So did that break that down for me more. Like why did that work? Was that the plan originally to put together the secret half pipe and then hope that Sean would podium at the Olympics and then figure out a way to as you said, trade content for distribution? Like was that the strategy or did it just happen to work out that way?

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Joe Prebich (22:10)

That was the strategy.

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Yeah. That was the strategy. Was we'll we'll we'll invest in this and we'll be the ones who own that. And then when people want it, which we hope they will, we'll be the ones who own it, and then we'll leverage that and trade on it. So from the napkin drawing to okay, what's the cost of all this thing? What story are we gonna tell? How are we gonna document it? You know, those were the things where it's like, well, we needed to spare no expense on a couple items, you know, we need to make sure that the cinematic cinematography was great.

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That, you know, we had the heli shots. That was before drones were like, you know, commonplace. We needed to fly the helicopter in with the Cineflex to do the stuff, to do the reveal. And that hook was a big part of what we were betting on. People would be like, that's really interesting, cool, and fun. I want to know more. I want to learn more. so you know, seeing that thing all the way through was a big part of the strategy. It wasn't like a 300-page deck, right? It was build really great story.

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Use incredible creatives to tell that story. And once they do, other people will love to listen to that.

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Cole Heilborn (23:14)

That seems like it worked because of the platform, the Olympics. It's obviously a a fairly large platform. Not every brand though has access to an Olympic athlete. what's what's the lesson there that can be scaled down for folks that don't have access to the Olympics?

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Joe Prebich (23:31)

Yeah, I think, you know, access to customers is relatively, you know, easy today. It's pretty cheap to get your content distributed. so the question is, is your content good? Right? Is it gonna track? So, you know, for for a brand that's in startup mode, you know, things that I would consider and things that are opportunities that we we try to work on every day is what are we

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Trying to say and is this gonna be interesting? And what would somebody say back to us? Like what would their comment be? This is something we work through when we're prepping a brief or a creative brief. It's like, great, what do what's the reaction we want people to have? It's like, my God, that's amazing, or yes, I can't wait to sign up for the thing. If we don't begin with that end in mind, I think we're not ready to go after that creative idea. and and and or put big or little money behind it, right?

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We want to create momentum behind our customer and meet them with their experience of the brand. And and you know, Benchmade such a great brand, you know, the way that we've talked about our world is setting this community table because we have a very diverse audience set. So we want to make sure that when our customers see it, you know, we're gonna be publishing an omnichannel, but we want somebody who came to the brand from a a military tactical side to meet our cutlery experience and post with like a nod.

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Right? I like a fist bump. That's like that's still my brand. That's cool. That's I feel that. Right. I feel connected. Even if I'm not a consumer over here, and same goes for the cutlery person to the military tactical over here. It's like cool. That's the crew I'm a part of. I got their back, they got mine. And so, you know, that kind of goofiness of imaginative play of what the customer sh reaction should be is is a real thing we do. and I I I I truly enjoy it because you get some fun.

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you know, moments with your team thinking through and trying to put yourself, you know, in this feature state. What do you think? I mean, what have you seen work? You know, you talk to a lot of guys. Is there anything that's interesting in your world? You know, how brands are breaking through on the content side.

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Cole Heilborn (25:41)

I mean, I'm really curious to see what happens if brands really embrace entertainment. and and really like I feel like there's I don't know, it feels like there's this opportunity in a world of advertising where a brand shows up and interrupts your time and forces you to watch a thing that you don't want to watch that isn't good. And then they ask something of you. They're like, Hey, watch watch this thing that we just interrupted you for and now go buy our thing.

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That seems so disrespectful. and and I'm really curious to see what would happen if brands focus on leading with entertainment, whatever that is, for whatever audience it is. like what would how would that have an impact? so you know, I I I've used this example a lot, but like Huckberry, they do a pretty phenomenal job at creating organic content that's entertaining. Totally.

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They provide value. It's like so simple, but it's so hard to accomplish. So

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Joe Prebich (26:43)

hard to accomplish. And those guys do a fantastic job. And it's been cool to watch them go from like idea test to like, now we're full on. Right. This is what we do. And their their narrative storytelling is exciting to see. And it's like, you know, from from my perspective, you know, we champion it, you know, from from afar and go, This is so cool. And it is it is exciting to see them all in on those ki type of content models. And they're pushing some of the narrative storytelling limits too. So yeah.

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Good to see ya. I love the idea of like, how dare you interrupt my day and then ask me to buy your thing that I maybe don't need or want. And it is such a it is such a disruptive world today. You know, you think about where we're at with, you know, news and AI and all your feed just filled with stuff. Like that attention is worth so much. And I do believe that that's where like the great the great thing I believe in is loyalty, right? It's like if you can

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If you can prove to me in the moment I need you that you deliver, I'll be with you forever. Right. And and and if your content continues to honor that original promise or continues to evolve how I can grow and age with you in my in my brand experience, I think that we, you know, can shut out a lot of noise. And I think that's an exciting concept, you know, for a brand to go, lots and lots of noise, but the the lane we own is here. And that's okay to own that lane. Let's own it deeply.

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Right. Authentically. Let's really be there. and those those avenues I think of creating content to be able to build that relationship, it takes effort, you know, it takes a takes a lot of effort to be able to actually like unpack who who who buys your product and what do they do with it.

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Cole Heilborn (28:27)

Right. As you know, we're in the middle of this public experiment we're calling the Relevance Project. Experiment makes it sound more scientific than it really is. But one of the questions that we have is, you know, if a brand produces entertainment and they lean into organic distribution, does that build an audience? And then they're what what is the value of building an audience? Like how do you think about audience building? Audience building inherently means

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You have attention, human attention is also very fleeting. Is audience, is audience building an asset? Like, how do you think through that for Benchmane?

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Joe Prebich (29:03)

Yeah, I think it depends on the goal. So it's cool, excited about the the the the project that you're talking about and and it's cool to be able to hear how you guys are thinking through like these concepts and questions, right? With regard to audience, you've got to be again, I'll go to the like, you've got to be really committed to an editorial narrative to build an audience and hook them and keep Right. We see this in just like the macro level, like Netflix, right? You gotta have a ton of content in order to keep that attention span.

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Right, because the whole goal is long form. I'm gonna watch you for a long time. My perspective, right, from a brand side, that organic, when you're talking about organic content developed that's there, you know, to tell a story, is it about audience creation? And thereby the audience created equals the future revenue opportunity, right? I would say probably not for me. Probably not in my in my my world or in my mindset. organically created content is there to tell our value and our story.

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And it's there to meet anybody anytime when they knock on our door and go, knock, knock, who are you? And we say, this is who we are, and this is the content that we create. Watch it, don't watch it, check in a hundred times, right? We want you to know that the first impression that you have of who we are looks like this, feels like this, smells like this, sounds like this. And the same goes for our existing customers. We want that organic content to be a reinvestment of slow stuff, things that

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You know, people go, wait, why did you why did you tell that story of that chef in that place? Why did you tell that story of that hunter in that place? 'Cause that's who we are. We're just a version of them in that space. So I don't judge, you know, the success or failure of our organic content based on views, you know, and that may be a cop out, but I view it as an opportunity to authenticate ourselves for people who come in going to Benchmade saying, Do you have space for me? Do you

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Do you look like me, you sound like me? Is this where I'm gonna find myself coming to engage a little bit more? So organic content is incredibly important to me, and we spend a ton of resources creating interesting stories. Like we talk a lot about yours for life as our concept storytelling kind of engine. And then we take down those longer narrative pieces and try to find interesting people across this country who we can just elevate their bit of craft. and it and it

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And it doesn't translate to like some viral hit, right? We're not building it to be like hook based content. We're building it to be like that slow cooked dinner, right? Simmering on the stove. It's it's ready in a while, but it's always there on Sunday. And that, you know, is is important to who we are as a brand when we think about organic.

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Cole Heilborn (31:53)

Yeah, why do you think about it that way? 'Cause 'cause on the flip side, you could also look at organic and say, well, success in organic, you know, above average success in organic is an indicator that we're onto something here. And we can leverage the power of the people to distribute that content rather than having to rely on paid or whatever.

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Joe Prebich (32:12)

Yeah.

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Cole Heilborn (32:14)

I mean, I I appreciate the like the slow cook mentality, and I think there's a degree of patience that absolutely you have to have. But tell me more about

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the business model that you feel like aligns like yeah, tell me more. Yeah.

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Joe Prebich (32:28)

So I think for us, it feels easier for us to spend money in the future on a potential paid thing when we have all of that organic content kind of unobstructed from a revenue viewpoint. It's like, does this tell our story? Does this tell the thing? Is it is it exactly tuned to the thing that we wanna say? If yes, then we're ready for people to come and meet us. And then we can go and

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Create different specific content on a paid side to try to engage, but we also don't feel it necessary to bug our audience that likes us so much today to do any more. It's like, we hope you love what we build. We hope there's enough content to keep you, you know, up to speed, but we're not the New York Times, right? We're not here to deliver you the news every day. We're here to tell you our stories as we bring them to life. And when we deliver them, there's real narrative.

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thread, there's a reason to engage and there's something that you're gonna probably enjoy. So when we say something, we hope to get a better organic reaction from it because we're not saying something all the time. Like, look at us, look at us, look at us. It's like, no, come and check this out, come absorb it, come and feel this. And then we hope you swing back in for the next one. so that's kind of the point of view. It helps us understand. Of course we you know, we have advertising that's out there, but I think advertising is hard to be anything other than advertising.

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Right. So we look at it truly in its advertising form, and then we look at the brand and the organic content in the is this building our story?

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Cole Heilborn (34:06)

Why do you separate those two?

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Joe Prebich (34:09)

I just think it helps us create, you know? I think it helps us put on the like, let's be in advertising, you know, land. Let's talk about this. What is the goal? What is the action reaction we want out of an ad versus what do we want somebody to experience when they're viewing this other content, let's say in a longer form model or they're engaging with our our website and really, you know, kind of research it. We we we we we have a lot of people spend a lot of time checking us out, right? Cruising through.

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Learning, you know, learning about this, checking that out. And we're not like, hey, hurry up and convert. We're kinda like, cool, that's cool. Check it out. Swing it anytime. Wanna talk shop? It's all good. and so I think we have a pretty well established platform for how we like to kind of enter into both of those conversations to make sure that we're honoring both needs and that we're not totally blurring those lines.

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Cole Heilborn (35:03)

Interesting. For a brand who is like brand new, where they no one knows who they are, would you have a different approach?

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Joe Prebich (35:12)

Probably a bit, right? I would say you still need that organic content to not sell so hard that it feels like your brand only cares about money. Right? Money is the byproduct of a a product somebody needs or wants and desires. So the money will come if the if the product fills that void and if the storytelling introduces people to that gap that is in their life.

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And immediately, boom, you'll get a purchase. It's easy to buy things today. So I think that's why, like for brands that are just starting, I think it's important to understand your positioning. What are you trying to do with the thing that you're great at? Make sure that when somebody pushes a little further into that thing you're great at, that it validates. And then sure, go maximize and monetize that thing. Right. But but make sure that you're feeling really good.

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About what your purpose is as you're going out. Because then I've found it way easier to convince, let's say it's a small company and you're a single investor, convince yourself, or to convince a board of investors that, hey, at the very least, we're going out with a strong point of view on who we are. The audience may not love us, but that's okay. We're not there to go after the five billion people. We're there to go after this slice of what we see as our opportunity, and we're gonna go deep.

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And we're gonna go hit them and we're gonna talk to them and we're gonna tell them our story passionately. And when we connect passionately about that thing, they're gonna buy and they're gonna come back and buy because our product is better. I have found that that strategy gets you a heck of a lot more yeses from people who are generally skeptical than modeling out like ROAS models and things and stuff. It's like, do you believe it? Does it is that the vehicle? Because when you're smaller, your money is worth.

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A lot more from an importance level. You got a hundred bucks, right? And it doesn't matter if you have a hundred or a hundred thousand, those dollars have to go out there and do that job because you you have limited resources at whatever that point in time is. And I've found most brands have limited resources no matter how big you are. So really working that dollar narrative and understanding that whatever we throw out there we're backing has gotten me a lot more positive conversation from boards and and financial partners.

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then then it has challenges.

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Cole Heilborn (37:37)

Yeah, so that's yeah, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this. So, like this is another one of the things I'm curious to test. is like part of the reason why outdoor brands struggle to produce anything that's interesting is because they don't have a strong point of view. They might know who they are, but they don't know how what does that actually mean out in the world. And then and then how do we translate that into something that's actually a commercial that's interesting or totally you know, entertainment that's interesting. Tell me more about

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point of view and how you think about point of view. Like when do you know that your point of view is sharp enough? Because as I've been chatting with some of these brands that we're gonna be working with, I've asked them like, what's your point of view? And it's it's like we make, you know, performance mid layers. And I'm like, okay. We

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Joe Prebich (38:23)

Yeah.

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Cole Heilborn (38:24)

there's some work to be done here. that and that tells you nothing about how to show up in the world. Yep. how do you think about point of view?

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Joe Prebich (38:32)

Yeah, I think about it as a really natural like experience and that you s you know you know it when you see it and you know it when it's not there. Right. And and I think like point of view comes when you meet people who are tenacious, you know, they're they're they're un unrelenting in their description of what they love about what they do in that place that they're at and they can real it's like, dude, please, like I get it. That's why you love that energy drink. I get it. Right. And it's that it's that robust level of knowledge that

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you feel immediately when you pose a simple question, right? And they can't go a layer deeper. It's like, ooh, that's not a strong enough point of view. And again, I think a lot of this comes from a fear base is like when you have a strong point of view, it means you're taking a position. Right? It means you're making a choice. You're saying this not that. This not that. And lots of brands like, but we kind of want that too. So don't alienate the that by choosing the this.

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And so then you end up with like, cool, we're kind of the middle of this and that. And I find, you know, point of view is polarizing, and that is the best thing you can have. Because you immediately know where you're going, and you immediately know if it works or doesn't work. Right? You're like, cool, like we chose red. my God, everybody said we w we should chose blue. okay, cool. Blue blue it is.

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Cole Heilborn (39:56)

Well maybe that's a sign that you've picked the right color.

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Joe Prebich (39:57)

Yeah, totally. And so our our our world on point of view, I think, naturally shows up when people feel connected to trying to drive growth. If they know their purpose and they've thought through what they have in their portfolio of opportunities and it's like that one, and this is why I think it's gonna crush. That is a leader role, right? And there are lots of leadership roles that don't push this tip the scales. I I I am one of those people who makes a choice.

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Right. And we look at the opportunities and we make calculated bets on the things that we want to be investing into. And you know, sometimes they pay, sometimes they don't, but we know what we tried to do. So, you know, I'm interested to know how you react when you get that like we may we manufacture midlayers, right? It's like how do you re s respectfully kind of turn that back to them and go, Hey, we gotta sharpen the pencil here.

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Cole Heilborn (40:52)

I mean, in this case, it was a founder, right? They're they are the one who is designing and sewing in their bedroom. So my first thought is like, well, why are you doing that? so and digging into like this individual's, you know, story, like they're they're super obsessed with sustainability. They're super obsessed with, you know, doing things the right way. They have a lot of thoughts and they've done a lot of research. Like this person actually like they have a

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They have journals of like thoughts on the world's manufacturing systems and the inefficiencies of them and the sustainability problems with these systems. And so it was like, okay, like we're getting somewhere. Like I'm starting to understand what makes you tick. Now we gotta figure out like how do we shape that into something that's meaningful. So like

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Do you think of point of view like does Benchmade have a singular point of view or do you have

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Joe Prebich (41:53)

Well, before we go to that, I think what what you're pointing at is such an interesting thing, like to to link our creative conversation. Like that's where like the doors about like like the works is up to like why creative exists. It's to meet that founder, right? And to help them articulate that point of view with them to validate whether or not those point of views may be accurate and true, but to help refine. It's like those are the moments that if if creative shows up boldly.

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They redefine businesses because the opportunity is right there, right? It's like very wide and open. so I think like, you know, again, to the power of how creativity can drive revenue, it's like from an undefined way to a very specific point of view, you can now see your pathway to acquisition, audience, con conversion, all of that stuff. So again, I just think like the narrative of creative, it shows itself up.

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But when it shows itself in the room, it needs to show itself bolder and a little bit bigger to help people, you know, understand how to take some positions in order to get to the next step. 'Cause most often, you know, it's it's it's not this and that because you don't have enough money to to to market to both. You got you're gonna end up having to choose or you're gonna split all your dollars and make no impact whatsoever.

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Cole Heilborn (43:10)

I see. Yeah, interesting. So do you have a singular point of view, or is it evolved depending on the audience?

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Joe Prebich (43:19)

it definitely evolves. Okay. It it definitely evolves. I think like from a creative campaign side, like we have a good process for how we make choices on stuff. And then, you know, we we have a good strong point of view. But our point of view as a brand is understanding the customer story. Like my point of view as a brand leader, like what is benchmade? We are here to listen to your adventures. Tell me your tale, right? This is a campfire conversation.

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My job is to keep the fire tended and the beers cold and people just keep showing up. And it's like, cool, bro, where'd you come from? Just came off the river, no doubt. Tell me your story. Cool. Interesting. Awesome. Just came in through the Jeep Trail. Cool. No way. You were cooking over there. Welcome to the campfire. So our job is to just keep that campfire humming, make sure that people want to come, tell us their story, because that helps us, you know, create and take that narrative and and bring it into a a different space.

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Cole Heilborn (44:11)

I see. How do you know? I mean, I think you you kinda said it and I think it is a sense of feeling. Like how do you know when that when you've arrived at that point of view? Cause what you're describing as Benchman's point of view doesn't strike me as particularly polarizing. Like any outdoor brand could claim, we're the we're we're the tender of the fire. does it does a point of view have to be distinct? Does it have to be unique or polarizing?

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Joe Prebich (44:37)

I guess our point of view as a brand is what I kind of keep talking to you about. It's that community table, that that that openness, right? That dialogue. So my point of view is don't close the doors right now. Listen to all stories. And I think that's where the outdoor industry, back to our conversation, you know, I find the outdoor industry has closed a lot of doors versus opened a lot of opportunities at the campfire. And so, you know, whether it be around sustainability or public lands or

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activism or hunting or fishing or, you know, whatever, right? Our inability to have kind of let people say how they use the outdoors and set a stage for people to say, well, this is my experience today. Like I love hunting and I, you know, I eat what I kill and that's me. Like a lot of the traditional outdoor companies have been like, well, we're not we're not we're not that's not us, right? That's not that we don't want you in this world. And so then there became two worlds.

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Right. And then there became even more polarization. And I think that's not necessarily great. It allows opportunity for, let's say, hunt specific brands to talk to hunters only, but it also minimizes the opportunity to naturally migrate a brand over to somebody who, you know, likes a cool camouflage but goes hunting and or goes hiking and not hunting. So you see that happening now as other micro brands have grown into the larger businesses and they're trying to naturally migrate towards the other audience, but they haven't set that ability to say it's

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It's cool. Come and share, share your stories here. So, you know, again, I think it's a fair pushback on the like singular point of view. Is it polarizing enough? You know, at this stage, I would say that's pretty polarizing in the outdoor space. Like hunter, vegan, here we are. How do you use and what do you do? Honor the conversations around each other as people. Listen, learn. Maybe it'll evolve. Maybe not, right? But we are totally comfortable at that seat.

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making sure that we can bring those people in to have that dialogue. So I think that has been a good bold move for us. and very few had done it. so I think it's it's it's working. and then on the like product side, you know, we're an American made manufacturing company. Right. That's our that's our

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Most polarizing thing is like our investment in people, in technology, in manufacturing, you know, the hundreds and hundreds of people who work every day building knives in Oregon City. Like that is a polarizing why. Why is a benchmade more expensive than a blah, blah, blah? Because of these people who make it every day, because of the thousands of people and businesses that are impacted by our economic impact, by the generations of people, not just the family owned business.

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'Cause we're a family owned business, but the generations of employees who have come in and come through those doors, those are the why, the polarizing whys. We've, I think, made really smart choices to do the hard thing here in America that has led us to really deeply invest that this is our thing. This is what we do and it's what we will do forever. So those are, you know, I think great ways for a customer to go this or that, right? this.

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It may be more expensive, but there's a why behind it.

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Cole Heilborn (47:52)

You

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brought up I think maybe the answer to a question I wanted to c ask you or a question I want to ask you which is which is you've got a culinary audience and you've got a tactical audience. Yeah. a lot of marketers would look at those and be like, I have no idea how we're supposed to speak to either of those. Yeah. How do you think about how do you break down your audiences? like what methods do you use that allows you to talk to those two very different worlds?

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Joe Prebich (48:19)

Yeah. Anybody hungry? It's pretty easy, right? We cook some food and everybody goes, Yeah, that's my that looks like my family. That looks like my thing. I might know a person who was in the service. I remember that was my uncle, you know, he he was in the military. It wasn't maybe my family's thing, but I remember that and that was there's there's this amazing connection to something that many families who have

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Had members serve our country quietly behind the scenes, those narratives are deeply woven into the family dynamic that sits at a dinner table. And no matter this, it is an apolitical conversation. It's about food, it's about choices people make, and it's about acknowledging those, you know, moments where people sign up to serve and having that awareness. So we feel it's our, you know.

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Our duty as a as a as a brand and also a provider of great products, to be able to understand that all of those things can equal a really happy moment where you learn about each other. And again, I'll go back to the like storytelling thing. It's it's only scary if you don't know anybody or anything about whatever it is. The minute you find yourself near somebody who does something different than you and you're able

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To hear a little bit more about who they are. Surprise, surprise, they probably have a kid, they take them to school, they're not sleeping. There's there's so much more human than just the maybe one or two things you disagree on or are polarized by. I think as a brand, our job has been to focus on the human element and to allow each, you know, each customer to kind of learn from it.

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Cole Heilborn (50:05)

So yeah, so tell me, like, as we're working on this and as we're I mean, one of my natural questions for these brands is like, well, who is your customer? Who is what is your audience? Like, how are you thinking about them? how should we be thinking about the audience personas, quote unquote? What are the do's and don'ts you would recommend we adopt?

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Joe Prebich (50:25)

Yeah. I mean, kind of right away, if it feels like you can't remember it and live it, then then it's not a persona. Right? If you can't naturally describe them out in the wild, it's like there they are. That's exactly it. Then it's not, you know, it's not tied enough. If it's just something that's coming from research and we're aggregating a bunch of data and giving them like a basic name, you know, this is Bobby. And Bobby acts like this. I would say as you're talking to brands, let them show you.

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Who their like alpha customer is in a person, in a personality, in a comment. Like, look at this crazy person who writes customer service every time we do something wrong. It's like, that's our guy or girl, right? That's the person we want helping make us better. So I would say, like, personas die in a presentation or in a PowerPoint when they don't feel like they're actionable or you can't see them in the wild and you don't hang out with them. Personas come to life when you find yourself meeting the thing in the world.

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And you're like, wow, now this persona feels like something we can evolve together. We all agree on how we discuss what they are and what the goals are. And then we know how to steward that persona through the journey of the lifetime value here at this business. So that would be my advice is you know, don't get so hung up on what the data is telling you. Let the data inform who you find in the field is actually doing something with your product and let that inform the lifetime behaviors of where your customers should go.

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Cole Heilborn (51:54)

Gotcha.

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Joe Prebich (51:55)

But that's just my thought. What do you think?

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Cole Heilborn (51:57)

I feel like I'm at this point in time, I'm I'm trying to do a whole bunch of research on this type of stuff to understand it all. And I feel like I hear so many conflicting reports. It's like audience personas are dead. Don't use them. use, you know, the jobs to be done framework. and then I've been reading Byron Sharp lately. I don't know if you're familiar with his research. He's got a book called How Brands Grow, What Marketers Don't Know.

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And he brings some really interesting case studies about what brands think their audiences are and in reality what they really are and how that mixes with brand loyalty and what marketers think loyalty means versus what the data shows. And so my head's kind of spinning honestly right now. I think what I'm what I'm focusing on or what I'm trying to focus on is like who is the person? Who is that person? Is it is it a new parent? If so, like

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Can you define what speaks to that new parent emotionally? And and maybe that's all you need to like get started.

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Joe Prebich (52:58)

There's so many different ways. There's so much research. There's so many things to get kind of like caught up in and all of it's probably really good. And call me like a bit old school. I still feel that the best way to solve any of this is to go live in the world. Right? Get on a plane, go sit in a store, go experience the world that we think is gonna be that thing. And I find it, you know, really telling when I see lots and lots of people who never spend time anywhere near their customer, their product, or their personas.

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And they're not comfortable naturally in the environment. So, you know, for me, my whole career has been about making sure I spend still tons of time on the road, making sure that like you're there, you know, that you're you're listening, you're experiencing it, you're you're trying to set that campfire, you know, have an event. Like l seeing it and experiencing it is scary for lots of marketers and brands because it might prove that no one cares.

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Right. It like might be the like you can always create a data point that's there's some addressable audience around something. But if you you invite a bunch of people to a campfire and no one shows up, that's like a head scratch and moment where you go, okay. We thought that that was like our big deal and that's not working, but it's at the very least trying. Right. It's physically trying to do something. Cause as as much as AI and technology is gonna change the world, robots don't buy our product. People do.

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So we need to have that human connection. And so there may be lots of technologies that help us enhance that connection, but it does come down to a connection. You know, it does come down. There is a real world moment that many of our products are built for. And I find marketers very timid in experiencing it for the fear of, my God, my cool brand that looks great on Instagram might not be that great. And I might feel some way.

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about somebody not showing up to the thing that I thought they would. And I would encourage you to go take that leap and try, right? Go have that campfire all by yourself when nobody showed up and learn, listen, think, get better, get stronger, because that helps you, I think, be very different from most of the the the creative and marketers out there. And tell your finance person it's okay. Use a test.

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Cole Heilborn (55:16)

So okay, let me run this by you. One of the questions that I have that I would love to try and find an answer to or some semblance of an answer to is can a brand that consistently creates audience versus content reduce its reliance on paid media and or improve its efficiency of paid media? Like tell me one, does that question seem like it has merit? And two, what's your what's your prediction and what do you think we ought to be considering as we're chasing that

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Joe Prebich (55:43)

Yeah. I mean, off the cuff, I think the question seems totally reasonable, right? It's like, yeah, that seems like it'll math, right? That's it makes sense. Right. It should get more efficient as more people like to engage and more people just love what we're doing. So I think high level, all of that, all of that tracks. The hard thing is making sure that your content, you know, and and the way that you're bringing whatever you're bringing to market hits the level of what they loved in the beginning. Right. You see this on on social all the time.

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Somebody will become very famous for one thing and there'll be one post with twelve million views and then there'll be a hundred and twenty posts with twelve views. Right. And so people loved that thing at that moment and didn't want any more. And so for me, you know, that you could you could sell and you could sell me that somebody has twelve million views on something, but in reality, the next post has has a hundred. And so I think that that's the world where audience first content needs to again

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Do something to encourage that audience to have a great relationship that you can project out recurring engagement. Because that to me is the the thing that I would question and try to monetize is like, cool, we know and can predict because we feel confident in our way we drop content and we're six months out, we can then go and ask for funding to do whatever we need to do, grow the audience whatever.

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But it's that forward looking projection of what this content is doing consistently and that you have a consistent pipeline of content full where you'd meet the investment moment. It's like, cool, now's the time to go.

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Cole Heilborn (57:17)

I see. Yeah, fascinating. So what would be indicators either leading or lagging that you know we're on to something there?

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Joe Prebich (57:26)

Yeah, I would say, you know, the ability for you to know how far out, you know, A, you want to go from a content side, like, okay, six months from today, do I know what story my audience should have? And am I actively building towards that editorial need? And then conversely, of the content we're posting, are we seeing very consistent engagement things? Right? Because if you're seeing your limited size audience engage at that same level and it's and it's good, then then you need to go say, hey, we need to do

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You know, an awareness poll because the content plays, but we don't have enough people organically, and these organic people aren't naturally telling their friends to make it happen. So now's the time to advertise what we do, what our audience loves, and the future content is going to meet the future advertising from a brand awareness side with traction. Right. And that's where for me, if you're trying to grow your audience, right, you have your small audience that loves you but doesn't go and build on your behalf.

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Then you have your future content that you're confident is going to meet your audience that loves you. So then it's time to bring your brand awareness thing that says, cool, this future content is gonna track to the same conversion. So it's the right time to invest in the business, right? so that those would be my kind of like KPIs. Are are we consistent and does that consistent engagement feel like what we believe our benchmark is? And if yes, how good are we feeling about the future ability to produce similar

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Like content. And if good, then great. Now what how how big can we go in asking more people to come and check this out?

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Cole Heilborn (59:03)

I see. Would you be concerned at all about trying to tie that to revenue?

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Joe Prebich (59:08)

Not not really. No. I I would directly tie it to revenue, right? I would say revenue today based on this and future content, it's checking the box. But if we can go and bring in this, you know, size of a brand awareness audience to come and check us out, we believe a revenue lift of this for the investment of that. that feels like a natural ask that any any marketer should feel comfortable and confident showing up to the finance team saying we need a hundred, we're bringing in three hundred.

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you know, based on this we think the early math helps us, you know, get to profitable at the very least. If not making money. If this works, we then you know, we scale content for a twelve month view and we ask for more money and we project more revenue.

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Cole Heilborn (59:52)

I see. A lot of this is just like based on observations and like conversations and s you know, theories in my own soapbox. Like what am I potentially getting wrong or missing in this concept? like like you brought up a really interesting point about how organic content for Benchmade isn't as important and as maybe as I would have assumed it could be or or should be or whatever. Like what other things like that?

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Joe Prebich (1:00:19)

Yeah. Thinking about in the context of how your project relevance is kind of being built, right? How to ask the question, like, where does this brand and I'm gonna use the word play, like where do you play? Like what is the play of this brand? How does it have fun? What does it do? I think the the the sense of playfulness at a brand is something to consider from your side, right, as you're talking with other brands. Like, where do you guys like, where's this playfulness? Where are you?

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Where you as a brand kind of like shaking it off a little bit. And and it's not a there there's there's nothing more than this is just creative mumbo jumbo, right? But it's the idea of like kicking your feet back and going like, all right, we're playing here. Like what do we like to play with? And how do we think about developing things? And I think you're viewing your role in helping brands as an observer at that point, right? Where you get key people into a room and you're watching them play.

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Not discuss the business. There's playing. There's like this is the thing. What what happens? I often think that you'll find a pick up a gem that could be a creative nugget that you could tease that's very uniquely that brand in that moment. It's like their room, their world, their comfort level. There's no polish. It's kind of like, aha, that's actually the coolest part of the thing you never said on the brief that you did, but you had the help of the person who cleaned it up and did this stuff. But the truth is

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kind of a badass feeling that you wanted to do this motorcycle trip when you were 16 and that actually got you into whatever you did. I don't know what that is. So I I don't know. for for what it's worth, a sense of playfulness, you know, and observation is a critical element of letting things just kind of marinate for a bit and then you as the creative gets to kind of choose if it hits or not.

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Cole Heilborn (1:02:11)

That's really intriguing. I was listening to a interview with Andy Pearson, the VP of Creative at Liquid Death. Yeah. And I'm actually interviewing him in like two hours. no way. yeah. but he said something, he's like, as soon as you take that nugget, whatever it is, and you put it in a deck and and you word polish it, it dies. Yeah. And to add to that, he also was talking I mean, I think there's a there's something to be said about a lot of the great brands.

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That have great creative, a lot of that is done in-house. And there's something really special about taking that in-house. So me as an outsider as an agency, like I am inherently up against something that an in-house team like is uniquely possible for them to produce. There's also other benefits of having an outside perspective. yeah. But tell tell me about like what what am I at risk of again, missing or

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over polishing to the point where it's dead and it no longer has its life because I'm not internal.

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Joe Prebich (1:03:15)

I think don't agency it up, right? Like when I when I c came to Benjamin, I was like, I'm an agency's worth nightmare. We in-housed all of our creative teams, right? Doesn't mean we only work with people internally, but it's the idea of seeing through the kind of agency thing. It's like, come on, like we're not here, we're not Pepsi, right? Like we're not here to have this big song and dance and 50 people on a shoot, right? So I think the like

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Being an agency and being an outsider is probably one of the strongest creative strengths you can ha bring to the table is challenging. I think where where I always push back is against an agency style, like kind of song and dance. And, you know, to the point of like the idea dies in a PowerPoint. I think that the lots of it is true. It it also needs to live in a PowerPoint to move through, but it's not like we look at the PowerPoint to be the thing. We look at the person to go, okay, now

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Person who wrote idea on PowerPoint, sell me on it. Tell me it, right? It's gonna be expressed in some creative fashion. And the PowerPoint's just how we track a line item moving through like the business, right? So for for for what it's worth for you, I would say don't think of yourself as an outsider so much as a creative catalyst for where many, many, many teams do not have strong inside creative.

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They have inside teams, but they're also working on the HR flyer. They're also working on the new thing for the lunchroom poster and the new ad campaign, right? So what I think outside perspective can be if you meet these people with not just an hourly billing, but a desire to help them break through is a way of working that's going to feel natural, different than a standard agency model. And to me, that's where there's always been a ton of trust built. And where you've

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you know, where you can be a great, you know, creative partner and also figure out how you can weave into the internal team, but learn more maybe than some of the internal teams. Cause yes, many have good internal teams. Many also struggle with the internal side and are are looking for external support.

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Cole Heilborn (1:05:27)

Gotcha. what other what other things should we be curious about as we're running this experiment? what other opportunities for leverage and opportunity should we be looking for outside of

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Joe Prebich (1:05:40)

Yeah, such a such an interesting question. I love the like idea of relevance, right? As you're talking about it, it's like how to become relevant. I think the like disarming questions are great. Like, why are you doing this? Sometimes people just do stuff, right? They just wake up and like doing it. It's like, wait, why? So, you know, I would encourage you to keep asking like the really provocative, simple, single, like why?

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And then and ask it again, like, seriously? See seeing how much people deeply believe, and you'll see like deeply convicted people will be able to take you all the way through a hundred whys versus people who are like, I don't know, they'll probably stop at one or two most. But by three, they're like, Maybe you're right, you know, maybe I'm wrong. And that helps everybody, right? Understand where everyone's at in kind of challenging the narrative of what the belief is for why we're gonna go out and create relevance. And

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We're talking about growth here, right? You're being met with a challenge that says, let's grow, let's become something. It's a hard thing to do. So I think deep conviction is a really important catalyst for helping everybody get on the same boat, road the same way, because there's a ton of headwinds and the currents going the other direction. So it is not easy, even though there's lots of tools to pretend like it is easy. It's really difficult to convince a customer that they need to buy your thing versus some other thing.

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And honoring that with the people who have the vision, letting them know that the journey is gonna be difficult, that there's no silver bullet, I think that's a great way of starting. I think it's, you know, it's it's one of the most important parts to say, you know, I I hear you, see you. I just wanna let you know it's gonna be a climb, it's gonna be a d it's gonna be a journey. And it isn't gonna be a walk in the park, but that's exactly why you call the people you call. Because you wanna be roped up on this on you know, you know, with the team that understands what you're gonna encounter.

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in this growth journey.

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Cole Heilborn (1:07:35)

what opportunity does paid provide that organic can't?

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Joe Prebich (1:07:40)

You can go anywhere, do anything, say anything to anyone at any time, right? You define it. You have an idea, you can go test it out and try it out. So I think paid is just like an incredibly important, fun way of reaching into the like idea world and going, aha, I'm gonna try this. Let me let me see what happens. So I think like the organic way of meeting new people is like, I know you and you know your buddy, right? And so if you and I are together, you might meet my buddy.

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But the paid version is I know you, you look like that. I want to find people like that so I can quickly understand if I can get nearer to you. It's not the same connection, right? Because the connection from me to you to your buddy physically is much stronger than the one where your buddy doesn't really know that I'm advertising to him, but I'm also buddies with you. So I think like paid is just, you know, it's a great weapon. I find it totally overviewed as an

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like a cash machine, right? And it's like, well, we wrote we spent this, we run a return that. It's like money is not magic here. It doesn't just show up. It only shows up if the content is good. If it's showing up a lot, that means the content in the product is great. Do more. Spend until it doesn't show up again. But ensure that you can encourage this, you know, this this tactic to be something more than just a cash generating thing that nobody views as a content

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you know, necessity, because that cash generating machine will dry up if the content is not good. What's

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Cole Heilborn (1:09:14)

the

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right balance in your opinion between brand and performance? I've heard numbers like sixty forty brand performance. Do you have a mixture that feels right to you?

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Joe Prebich (1:09:23)

Depends on the time in your life, right? It depends on where you want to go and what you want to do. At times we'll overweight to one, at times we'll rebalance to the other. so I think it really does come down to, you know, what are we trying to do as a business? And if what we're trying to do is beat the jum and wave the flag, then at times that's unencumbered from a return on investment. Of course it's mathed into the business that it works, you know, that we have the ability to do those things.

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and I think it's just it's about knowing what the right thing to do is. Cause sometimes you need to show up without the hook of like, I gotta return something. Right. Right. There's no trade-off. It's just like I just came here to tell you who I am, right? And what I do and how we do it. There's no trade off expected. And I think that that from a brand side, consumers know when it's advertising and they know when it's authentically just brand stuff.

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And they can just kinda sit on that and be enjoying it and be like, it's cool. You know, they're not gonna ask me for anything, but maybe I'd consider. I think that's a powerful thing, but you gotta know when to deploy that tool.

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Cole Heilborn (1:10:34)

I see. If you had to wrap things up, again kind of summarize it for the audience. Like why is creative so important?

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Joe Prebich (1:10:41)

Because it's the most fun you get to have while building a business. Right. It's it's birthing the new brand every time you send something into the world. It's it's the ability for people who, you know, come from all angles to create a concept and then to throw that into existence. creativity is the soul of what so many companies are valued on, right? We just went through the largest.

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I'd say reinvestment in creative marketing in the history of the world with the valuation of SpaceX. And, you know, that company on its financials alone doesn't equal what the world thinks it's worth. This is a way of telling a story about a future that people can choose. And I'm not an elon guy or not guy, right? I'm just saying that the math on how every other company was valued.

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didn't apply because the marketing, the story, and the journey allowed it to be bigger. So creative is filled across all of the brands, right? That you're seeing show up. It's about how a company is gonna see their value. And that value, that brand is something totally unique in and of itself to that thing. There will be other companies that do that thing, but there is nothing like that brand. And so

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Creative is the expression of that. It's how consumers understand what it is. And so, you know, for for the audience, I think it's the number one asset you can build into. It's the number one thing that your customers, you know, react to. And it's, you know, to me, the number one thing that you're gonna get bought by. you know, what people are gonna value is what is your brand. And there's a lot of intangible in that, but you know it with your audience and how they engage. And so being able to describe and know deeply.

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what your brand is, who your customers are, what your point of view is. If you're going through a process with people, that's where, you know, it's not about numbers, right? It's about that intangible feeling that helps people understand that there's more of those people out there in the world. So keep investing in doing bold things because that's the stuff that I believe is gonna, you know, remake the mold, especially at this interesting juncture that we're at, you know, across Outdoor and and tech.

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Cole Heilborn (1:13:00)

And for the person who's listening who's like, Yes, Joe, I'm bought in, but what's step one?

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Joe Prebich (1:13:05)

Yeah. I mean, have a big idea, write it down on paper, go present it to your CFO, see what they say. Right. Step one is saying what you think you need to do, and then going ask and asking the person who controls the money to go, trust me, let's do this together. That is the first step in starting a brand growth journey because that partnership is the most important that you'll have at any business.

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Cole Heilborn (1:13:33)

Anything else you want to leave the audience before we sign off?

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Joe Prebich (1:13:35)

Love the conversation. This is great. And just really excited to see project relevance, you know, take shape and and follow the journey of the different brands that you're working with. And appreciate sharing a bit of the story and to everybody out there that's working hard on building their businesses, you know, keep doing bold things and hope to see you out in the field.

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Cole Heilborn (1:13:53)

Joe, thanks for the time. Thanks for the thoughts. there's I took so many other notes and there's so many things we didn't get to. I I've got like, you know, three hours worth of more questions. So maybe I'll we'll we'll schedule a round two.

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Joe Prebich (1:14:06)

I love it. Round

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two. Let's keep it going. This was great. Thanks, Cole. And and love the podcast and appreciate the time today and thanks for letting me be a part of it. Have a good day. Yeah, thanks. Bye.

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Cole Heilborn (1:14:16)

Thank you for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please consider sharing it with a friend or leaving us a review on Apple. And remember, as you're working on that next piece of creative, the difference between creative that works and doesn't work often comes down to the hard questions that you ask while you're shaping it.

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