[Transcript starts at 1:07]
Maestro: Hey, hello, hello, hello my podcast people and thank you for joining me for getting another episode of my favorite podcast. So today we are talking about how to sell your own merchandise. Folks, going to the post office, that ain't the way. I love the idea, the concept of selling your own merch. I've been doing it for years.
And when I say merch, I largely mean swag, clothing. Uh, but I'm not trying to go to the post office. There is a better way. I have done that in the past and I have grown and evolved and I wanna talk to you about that today. So this is another question from Micah. Micah's just been crushing it with the podcast topics.
Um, but this is a question that my homie Micah sent in and I was like, you know what? That's a good idea. Let's talk about merch. Um, so if we back it up a second and just kind of zoom out, to me selling merch or let me flip that, to me having folks who want to wear your shirt, having folks who want to purchase your merchandise, that is the coolest thing ever.
It is something that I am just most proud of and just absolutely beyond words grateful for, right? It just kind of blows my mind, like these people want to be associated with what I stand for. These people want to be associated with my brand. These people who maybe I've never met in person and some I've never spoken to, not even in DMs, and they buy these things and I'm like, holy smokes. It's just, I am so, so grateful. And if you're listening to this and you have one of my shirts on, or you have my merch, you, you purchased at some point, thank you. Like it is to me, you know, the, the coolest thing.
So, this is something that I actually talk about, um, in my Instagram Intensive as it relates to building a, a personal brand.
Um, it's this concept of building culture, right, and creating something that people actually wanna get behind. Creating something that people are actually proud to be a part of, and kind of ultimately asking yourself, would people want to wear my shirt? Right? Would they be proud to be part of my team? Do they wanna support me?
Right? And, and a lot of that from like a, I don't wanna say strategy perspective, but I'm gonna say it, from a strategy perspective comes down to kind of shared values. And that's why you gotta lead with your values and lead with authenticity and show people what you're really about. Uh, and that is something that, you know, when I'm teaching and talking about building this personal brand that I want people thinking about is, this is not just about selling something, it's not about to transactions.
It's about literally building something, creating something that people wanna be a part of, that people want to get behind, that people are proud to be associated with. Right? When someone's like, I wanna wear your shirt, I wanna wear your logo, I'm gonna rep your, your merch, that is just pub, in my opinion, the highest of compliments.
So I've been selling merch since I, I wanna say 2015. Uh, that's when, like, I started, I started The Movement Maestro in 2014, late 2014. And so I'm pretty sure like the first time I sold, sold the shirt, um, was in 2015. And I partnered with a, a small, like a local, we'll call it, company, called No Matter What Apparel, I believe I found them on Instagram and we just kind of friends and, um, I used them. I sold a lot of those locally.
So I was like handing them out and giving them out at CrossFit, um, at the CrossFit box and things like that. If you're listening to this or you're watching this on YouTube, and you have one of those old school shirts, I should have worn it for this episode. But this, this, I, I strategically also wore this current, uh, hoodie because this is from the new company I use, but that other shirt, it had a, like a blueish kind of bluish purpleish M and it was at a two on the, on the top of it was M squared.
Um, but that first shirt, um, which I love, and I still have, I have two of them actually. And then subsequently I had the baseball tee with the big M and then the plain black shirt with the big, big M. That was from a company called No Matter Water Apparel. Um, and that was a, I had to get them, I had to pay them and like pay them up front and then they would give me the shirts and I had to ship 'em and things like that.
So if you have one of those and you're not local to New York, I have no idea how you got that. I have blocked that out of my memory. Likely I went to the, to the, to the post office and sent things out. Um, but I hate the post office. The, the people that work at the post office near me are very nice, but I, I never know what fucking form to fill out.
Like, why is this, this, like taking the hardest test of my life just to send something? So, if you have one, no idea how you got it. Amazing.
Um, but that process back then was that I would order them. I had to just, I paid up front and oftentimes I lost money on it. And to me, you know, selling merch isn't about making money.
It's marketing, it's community building. It's kinda like when you have a live event, uh, you don't do it to make money, you do it for the people, you do it to, it is advertising, right? So yes, there is a, there's a write off from it, but the ROI to me is not the money that you make. Um, it's just the fact that, wow these people want to rep my stuff. They wanna wear my stuff. This is, this is amazing.
So the company that I currently use is called BeezeTees. That is spelled B E E Z E Ts, t e e s. And Lex, uh, my right and left hand woman, she actually found them. They were local to her, um, in New Hampshire, and they're phenomenal.
I, I'm not gonna lie, I don't know how they turn a profit with the way they do things, but I know they have, they're getting a lot of business and I love using them of the process that we go through. I'm gonna, and I'm gonna outline all of that. Um, full disclosure, Lex does all the communication with that company.
I have pulled back on that. Um, so like any of the emails that are going back and forth are now through her, but we've launched so many times that it's, it's kind of pretty much routine and we can just tell 'em like, we want the same stuff as last time. Maybe a different logo, but like, it becomes very, it's very, very, very simple.
But with BeezeTees, it's amazing because they take care of everything. They make them, they stock them, they ship them. I don't have to go to the post office, UPS, whatever. FedEx. I don't have to go anywhere. They take care of it. So if this sounds like too good to be true, it actually is not. It is the truth. And you want to sell some of your own merch.
Email Anthony@beezetees.com. We'll put his info in the show notes as well. Thank you, Courtney. Um, mention my name. You'll save 0%, um, but they'll know that you're good people. So mention my name and mention Lex's name, um, and let 'em know that that's what you heard about them? Um, this is literally the only company that I recommend, right?
It's, it's BeezeTees or no one. And I say merch and I talk about tees, but they have everything there. You wanna make cups, pens, hats, things like that? They can do all of it. It's just that I pretty much exclusively am just doing like clothing. Um, we did stickers one year, um, for Pride, but I really recommend Sticker Mule if you want to go with stickers. The thing is you'll have to send 'em out yourself. Um, so that was the flip side. But if you like, you want, you really want like a high quality sticker, Sticker Mule is the way to go.
So the process that we go through with BeezeTees is number one, or step number one, I come up with a design and usually I I, with that I'm working with my sister, right?
It's my sister or no one, um, for me. And we come up with the design. So if you're watching this on YouTube right now, you'll see I have this Endless Maestro, ala, you know, Endless Summer logo on. My sister came up with that. So I will send her a design, kind of I, I can freehand something and she knows me and I'll be like, Maestrofy this.
And we kind of go back and forth just a few times and it comes out looking amazing. So I send the design to my sister. I pay her. Don't, don't get me wrong. I send the thing to my sister, she, she sends it back. We go back and forth and when you come up with the vector we want. Sends it to me, the files to me. Um, I send all the different file types to Lex, along with the swag specifics, meaning what do I want? I want t-shirts, I want crops, I want hoodies. I want long sleeve shirts. Again, I've done this so many times now that I can just say, Hey, I want the same stuff, and I'm not like kind of trying to figure out what brand or things like that. Right? It's just, I can repeat. Um, Beeze will then make a quote unquote store, they make the website and it has the picture of the garment and it has the logo, the design on it.
Um, and so people can go and go to that and order what they want and the different colors, the different sizes, whatever. We do, open and close cart launches, uh, for, especially for our Pride merch, because I need it to get shipped by a certain date. So it gets to people by Pride. Um, we usually get people about a week to order.
Realistically, people don't need longer than that. Like just make sure you're talking about it every single day. If you're talking about it once, well then that's gonna be a problem. So we bet, we do like an open and closed cart for about, um, a week for that. I also have my other swag, my MOAR You swag, my Endless Maestro, so this kind of design. Um, that is linked on my Instagram and also on my website. And that's always open. So we did an open and close to start off with to like kind of get the initial orders and now it just stays open, which is amazing to me. Cause people can go and they can buy this at any time. And they do.
And it blows my mind. So if you're wanting a MOAR You shirt, um, or if you're wanting one of this Endless Maestro, um, hoodies or shirts, we will link that in the show notes. Apologies if you can hear the damn dog outside that's barking. Don't know whose dog that is. Annoying. But we'll link that, um, in the show notes.
Thank you, Courtney. So again, yes you could do mugs and things like that. All that I do is clothing. Worth noting, you can also just order stuff for yourself. So I dropped a couple hundred bucks just to get a bunch of Maestro swag. So when you see these videos that I do, um, you see my posts on Instagram and I have the, the little Maestro M, all those shirts. I just went and got a bunch of shirts. These are the only shirts that I wear on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I'm client facing, and on Mondays when I'm doing podcast stuff. Um, and it's, it just makes picking out off outfits easier. And I ordered a bunch of different colors. I know the, the clothing that I want, I know the, the specific make and things like that.
Um, and so from an organizational standpoint, from an efficiency standpoint, maybe something that you wanna consider just to help out your day. So it's not like full, what is his name? Um, Steve Jobs where you're like, I just wear a black shirt every day. Like, I want some color in my life, but it's the same shirt.
It's just different colors. So if you are thinking about selling swag, I wanna break down kind of the, how I suggest you going about it. You go about it. I broke down how the current process that I use with Beeze, but in terms of what I would suggest, you know, before you even go to contact anyone would be this.
So number one, the design, right? You're gonna need logo work. If that's your skillset set. If that, if that is within your skillset, more power to you. If it's not, then hire someone. So I drew mine out, I worked with my guy Anthony, and then I drew it out. Um, I have the drawing over there. I I still have that.
It's pretty dope. Um, and then I work with my friend Caroline. She got her guy to, to make it final. Same thing for my podcast art. Um, excuse me, the little graphic thing. Not my podcast cover art. Um, Lex and I did that one together actually, but the little like logo that I used, that's Maestro on the Mic, that was Jimmy McKay's guy.
I played paid him. So work with somebody for the logo. The recommendations I have for people to work with, number one, my sister. Right .Cecilia, she's Silver Shield Maiden on Instagram. She's in the, currently in the process of a website revamp. So all of her stuff's gonna be, and the way to contact her is gonna be just through Instagram.
Um, we'll link all of these in the show notes. Of course. Second rec is my girl Kristen Mann. She's Kristen Mann. That's two N's, Designs on Instagram. We will link that. And then third would be Cams. My girl Cams. She's Cams dot Nutrition Design Lab. She works pretty much exclusively with folks in the nutrition space and helping them with, with all their branding needs.
So, reach out to somebody and have them help you. Best practices in terms of reaching out to somebody is take the Pinterest approach to start off. With meaning, go and save a bunch of things that you like and be like, I like that, I like that image. I don't like that. Right. So that's, that's key to note as well.
Have the things that you do like. The colors. You know, ideas that you do like as well as things that you don't like, and then you can give that to the, to the designer and they can help you out and, and kind of see your vision. I will say that when it comes to a logo, more simple is more better. This is gonna allow it to go on all, you know, the greatest number of products and different types of medium.
People have these really intricate logos and it's like, that's not gonna go well on clothing, that's not gonna look good if you make it smaller. Like you want it to be simple so that it, it translates and transfers onto all the different, um, products and mediums very simply. And the last part about this with the best practices, if you're gonna hire someone to help with the logo, is listen to the professionals.
They are professionals. So if they're like, Hey, that's not gonna look as good, here's why. Just listen to 'em. Alright? Don't argue with them. The more back and forth that you go, the more expensive it's gonna be as well. Which is why I said take that Pinterest approach, take that print, Pinterest approach. Go in with, this is the, the whole, you know, slew of things that I don't like.
Here's a whole, you know, bucket of things that I do like. What is this, you know, what patterns are emerging from this? And they can help you out.
The product itself, right? So especially if we're talking particularly about swag and, and clothing, test shit yourself first. N not that you have to reach out to the company and be like, send me clothes, but what t-shirts and shirts do you have that you like?
Cool. Look at the tag and then see if the company has that. So I am incredibly specific with the things that I order, um, and the things that we use for our product launches. I'm incredibly, incredibly, incredibly specific. The only thing that I, I can't trust as much is gonna be like crops. Because I don't wear those.
And like the racer back tanks. So we got the first order in and then kind of went from there of like, do we, do we like this? Do we not like this? Do people have ones that they like better? And then we switched, uh, switched accordingly. So go look at t-shirts that you currently have, look at the brand, take a picture of it, and then ask Anthony, um, for that specific garment type.
I also measure shit. Meaning I know I want the logo in a specific spot, and so I will measure and be like literally like three inches from midline, three inches down from the shoulder seam on an extra small. Yes, I wear an extra small, uh, on an extra small shirt or an extra small hoodie. Just so I know that I get it exactly where I want it to be.
Okay, so we went over the design. We went over the product. And then logistically, when you're going to try and sell your merch and you've reached out, you're gonna reach out to, to Anthony. Don't need a tight turnaround. Don't be like, I need this to be sold like tomorrow. It's not good. Give yourself sufficient leeway.
When we do Pride stuff, we, like, we wanted to get to people before June. Uh, so we are looking to sell that, you know, end of April at the latest so that they have the time to process it and actually send things out. So earlier is going to be better. You'll then email back and forth with whoever, whatever company it is.
Ideally, again, you're going with beezeTees. It's just they're great. Um, I do not, no, I don't think they don't need a minimum order number because they're not making it beforehand, which is amazing to me and kind of blows my mind. Some companies will require minimum orders. Some companies require that you order it and get it to your house.
I'm trying to get you away from all of that. I don't want you going to the post office. I want you using a company that's gonna take care of everything for you. All right. So that's, that's the process. It doesn't need to be this, this hugely complex thing. And I've seen people not do merch. Actually, I was listening to Jon and Alex from uh, give it to me straight.
Love them. Right? We all love that podcast. And they used to have merch and they stopped selling it cuz they was like, it was too difficult and they had to go ship it. And I'm like, immediately no. Beezetees, they'll take care of it for you.
So a few things to remember when it comes to, to making merch, creating merch, selling merch.
Number one, merch isn't for making money, it's for marketing. It's for advertising, it's for community building. It's for just celebrating, you know, your people. Um, it's a way that they can support you. Like I, I don't want you folks going in and being like, I'm gonna make a zillion dollars on merch. That, that it's not gonna happen.
I wanna manage that expectation right away. Um, but the ROI you get from seeing someone wearing your logo, your thing is amazing.
Number two, in terms of things to remember, care about the quality of the clothing. People will remember this. They will remember and they will order more. I know I'm thinking about my guy Jessie, thinking about my girl JPB.
They're like, literally all I wanna wear is Maestro stuff. They're also in the Mafia as well. And we use the same brand, um, for that which is Bella Plus Canvas. It's like Bella and Canvas. That's the brand. Um, and I will let you know this is how like specific I am, there's a type that's from Honduras and there's a type that's I think from, Ecuador, maybe two different places, and they're different. The quality material is different. So I go to the shirt that I already have that I like, and I'm like, I need this specific one again. Care about those things. Care about the details. Care about the quality of the fabric, care about how soft it is, care about how well it wears, because people remember that and they will or will not buy more based on that experience.
Last part here is that gamifying using merch is cool, but be prepared to work. And what I'm saying, what I mean by that is some people will send out merch when people have like completed a hundred workouts with them or you know, they've been in this thing membership for a year. I love that idea. But again, one, you're paying for it.
They're not gonna, you're not gonna have someone buy something to celebrate themselves. So make sure you consider that. And two, you're gonna have to work to do that. So whether you are just getting their sizes and then getting their addresses and then shipping or whatever, there's gonna be work associated with that.
So I love the concept, love the idea, but understand that there's going to be work. Um, I, I should back up and say as it relates to shipping, um, BeezeTees will ship, uh, to the United States and they'll ship to Canada. International orders, cannot do it. And that's, I, uh, a part of me is looking for another vendor, so we can do that.
Um, but I don't have any swag coming out anytime soon, so I'm kind of like holding off. Um, but international shipping can be really, really tough. So BeezeTees ,United States, Canada.
All right, let's wrap this up. In conclusion, my friends, selling merch is dope. I love it. Even more dope is the fact that people wanna buy it.
Your best bet with selling merch is to figure out how to remove yourself from the fulfillment side of the process as much as possible. To that end, it is BeezeTees or nothing for me. I'm not going to the post office. I'm not sending Lex. I'm not gonna ask Lex to go to the post office. Immediately no, it's rude. I'm not gonna do that.
Lastly, and this is where we started and we're gonna close it out with this. If you're thinking about selling merch, the first thing I want you to think about is looking to build something that people want to wanna join and they wanna get behind, right? You're showing up on social, however you're building this brand with content, whatever, you are leading with authenticity, you're leading with your values, leading with your truth, and you're building something that people wanna be a part of, that they identify with and they're proud to, to represent.
So show up that way, and then be so damn grateful. Practice so much gratitude for every single person who chooses to wear your shirt, because it's a big fucking deal.
All right, I'm looking at the outline here, that's all that I got for you. No, no calls to action on my end except for if you're thinking about selling merch, anthony@beezetees.
Drop the name Maestro and Lex. They'll take care of you. And cheers to creating and sharing your merch. It doesn't have to be some horrendous process.
As always, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
Watch this episode on YouTube!
Get your Maestro Swag HERE!
Email BeezeTees: @anthony@beezetees.com
Work with my sister: @silvershieldmaiden
Work with Kristen: @kristenmanndesign
Work with Cams: @cams.nutritiondesignlab
Catch me on the socials: Instagram | YouTube | Twitter | TikTok | Facebook