Building one of the first Men’s Grooming E-commerce Brands – Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Hey there entrepreneurs, my name is Sushant and welcome to Treptalks. This is the show where I interview successful e commerce entrepreneurs. business executives and thought leaders and ask them questions about their business story and also dive deep into some of the strategies and tactics that they have used to start and grow their businesses.

And today I’m really excited to welcome Mike Gilman to the show. Mike is the founder of Grooming Lounge. Grooming Lounge is a grooming products brand and online retailer specializing in men’s grooming products. And today I’m going to ask Mike a few questions about his entrepreneurial journey. And some of the strategies and tactics that he has used to start and grow his business.

Uh, now before we dive into this interview, if you enjoy this kind of content, please make sure to hit the like and subscribe button. And for more content like this, please visit our website, triptalks. com. And with that, Mike, thank you so much again for your time today and really appreciate you joining me today at Triptalks.

Really [00:01:00] appreciate it.

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Yeah. Thanks for having me. So,

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: um, very interesting business. And I was just, uh, on your website and I saw that you started in 1999, which is almost now 25 years.

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Yeah.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So it’s been a long time. So what, what is your story? What kind of motivated you to get started in the grooming business?

And how did you kind of start this grooming products brand?

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Yeah. So I’ll, I’ll, I’ll try to make what is a very long story. I’ll try to make it a lot shorter, just, Because I know we don’t have all day, but the nutshell is, is that I grew up in a family that was in the professional beauty business. So not the men’s grooming business, but in the professional beauty business, my grandfather almost 90 years ago started a business that was a distributor for salon, uh, professional beauty supplies sold to salons.

Um, and while I never worked there, Um, myself, my [00:02:00] father took over the business and turned it into a really nice size business, which they eventually sold. Um, and while I never worked there directly, when I got out of college, um, well, my whole life I used to go to the different various trade shows they’d have.

But when I got out of college and I lived in different parts of the country, I would come back. Um, and go to the trade shows, and then I connect with old high school friends or friends from home. And when I would go to these trade shows, I would always get samples from all these different hair care brands and skin care brands and stuff like that.

And when I would go, go see old high school friends, um, who I categorize as beer drinking, football, watching slobs, um, I would always bring this bag of goodies and just say, hey, if any of you guys want any of this stuff, take it. And I remember that in like 1998, I did this and a couple of my friends who I would not categorize as very well groomed, called me up a couple of days later [00:03:00] and said, Gilman, you know, you got to get me some of those, uh, some more of that skin cream or, you know, that, uh, that those bath salts you gave me are amazing.

And it just put a light bulb off for me thinking to myself, you know, if these guys are Into taking care of themselves. Guys who I didn’t traditionally think of as, you know, people who focused a lot on how they looked or smelled. Um, if that was important to them, then I can’t even imagine what the marker would be for men who, uh, For whom appearance is a huge, huge factor in their success.

So, you know, started looking into it immediately. And this was right about, you know, the idea was launched in 99, but right around 2000, 2001 is when, um, there was really a term and that term metrosexual came about, which I don’t think is a great term, but also there was a show in addition to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and all this kind of stuff where it was booming.

Guys were [00:04:00] getting into their own. Personal grooming and taking care of themselves and it was less and less taboo. And I just got the idea and thought to myself, well, wow, if we could create not only a website where guys could go to get the products that they’re too embarrassed to get from a department store or salon, usually just being totally transparent because there was a pretty girl behind the desk and they wouldn’t want to go up to the woman behind the desk and say, Hey, can you You have anything that can help my bald spot here?

This acne that I have? Guys don’t want to do that. Um, or if they could even go online to get the stuff that they wouldn’t want to buy, or just make it easier to buy, it would be a huge success. And then we thought, You know to the next step what if there was a place where guys could go to get the services that they’re already getting Um, but in an elevated manner, so they were getting haircuts But what if there’s a place that was high end and specialized just in men’s haircuts but you could also get spa services or other services that guys wouldn’t want to get [00:05:00] in a kind of um, in a more female environment and we just took it from there and launched, uh, the website and opened our first store and Um, it’s just grown and grown from there

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So this was, uh, this was all started in 99.

Um,

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: yeah, we came up or did

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: you start the, the, the, the online business in a little bit later?

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Yeah. No, the online business launched in, uh, 2001. Okay. And, uh, we opened our first store in Washington, DC in 2002. And this, the online, the online store wasn’t much to begin with. I think it was a Yahoo back store.

And, uh. You know, I think we launched it for about three thousand dollars had about four or five brands um, and we were doing all the pickpacking shipping out of my basement and my wife was literally our our Our warehouse manager in the basement while I got the store up and running. So, um, yeah So you

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: you really got the first I guess the first wave of e commerce I mean that was really the [00:06:00] early days of e commerce, right?

I mean,

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: oh, yeah Yeah, it was early. I remember very vividly going out because we had no idea how to build a website or where we could build it and going out to these companies that were building websites. I don’t know what they were even building them on at the time. And the quotes and the bids that came back were outrageous because this was like right during the dot com boom.

So, you know, people were saying, Oh, you know, be a half a million dollars, 750, 000 to create this e commerce website. That obviously was not going to fly for us. So, um, found somebody who knew about Yahoo, which, uh, did e com stores. I don’t even know if they still do it. Um, and we created a, uh, a Yahoo e com store for, you know, two or three grand, put it up there.

And, uh, luckily, like you said, we were, we were kind of the first to market specifically in men’s grooming. And so, uh, You know, the ability to get publicity and notoriety and stuff really just exploded just because we were, [00:07:00] we, we did some quirky stuff, but we were also the only game in town. So, uh, it was, it was a good, it was a good way to start and it, it, it helped us to kind of, to get a little torque going at the beginning of our business.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, that’s awesome. So right now, are you completely online or have you, I mean, I mean, I see that you have your own brand, uh, but you also send sell other brands as well. Do you have your own brand distributed now in like, uh, uh, big brand, like, uh, big retailers and so forth, or you’re completely online?

Well, we

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: have, we kind of have three components to our business now. So we have our e com store, um, which we sell about, we sell Uh, about 25 high end men’s grooming brands. We’ve had as many as 40. Now we have 45. We’ve really narrowed it down. Um, but we also online sell our own, our in house brand, which is, uh, grooming lounge products.

And we have about [00:08:00] 25 grooming lounge SKUs. And the rationale for coming up with grooming lunch products really came very organically. You know, we, when we opened the store and we had the website, we started selling a bunch of products. And what we soon realized was that most guys who came into our, our barbershop or online, they didn’t know anything about the brands they were buying.

They just You know, they saw a name, they liked it and they bought it. And we thought, well, you know, if they’re coming to us to get advice and information and to buy products, um, and especially when they’re coming to our store to meet our barbers or skincare pros, um, why wouldn’t we offer them products that we made, that we formulated ourselves in conjunction with our barbers?

Barbers or skincare pros, um, because there’s just that trust factor there. And also just from a pure business perspective, uh, there’s a lot more margin in it for us than buying from another, um, wholesale company. So, you know, starting in about 2005, [00:09:00] we, you know, made about three or four products a year. And we’ve continued that, you know, all the way up until now.

So we have the. com where we sell our, our products. So the third party brands, we also have grooming lunch products on there. And then we have a physical, uh, barbershop and spa in Northern Virginia. Prior to the pandemic, we had several of them. Pandemic was the whole different story in terms of brick and mortar locations.

Uh, but now we have the one in Virginia, which is our flagship, um, and was pretty much the first upscale barbershop and spa for men exclusively in the country. And it’s just a, uh, it’s a great business. And it’s a great. Testing and development and, uh, educational hub kind of for grooming lounge as a whole.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Uh, so you said, I believe you said you have three different, um, uh, I guess channels. Uh, so you mentioned you’re online. Was there another two, two different as well? Yeah. So we

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: have our online business. Um, then we have our [00:10:00] Grooming lounge wholesale business, which is our product business. And we obviously sell our own products, um, on our website, but we also have, um, some distribution outside of grooming lounge to, uh, probably about 30 to 40, uh, small to midsize retailers across the country, um, that we sell grooming lounge products and grooming lunch fragrances.

And then we have our store.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome.

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Our barbershop and spa.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: A little bit about your, because, you know, a lot of businesses or a lot of, um, entrepreneurs who want to create businesses, of course, you know, one way is to sell other people’s other brands products. And another way is, you know, what you just said, create your own brand.

And that gives you better margins and, you know, better control over your own brand and products. Can you talk a little bit about that process of product development? How do you select which? Products to go to market with and [00:11:00] who is manufacturing your products and and how are you?

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Sure. Um, well when we first started at least online It was pretty easy to figure out what products we’re going to carry because there were like three or four men’s exclusive grooming products out there So that was pretty easy now with you know, men’s grooming has just exploded and now there’s Literally thousands.

Um, and what we, you know, quality is very important to us. Um, and we’re lucky that we kind of have an in house lab. Um, so everyone who works in our barbershop and our spa, before we bring on a new brand, we let them test and if they kind of give us the thumbs up that the stuff works. Smells right doesn’t have any adverse effects on people or anything like that.

Um, then we usually bring it on, but, you know, being transparent as well. You need some brands with name recognition too, especially because. The internet and e [00:12:00] commerce is so competitive. So, you know, I think the days of building a brand, um, or somebody else’s brand online are gone. It’s just too expensive.

So, um, you know, the, the ad spend and the, the, the work you have to do to sell somebody else’s brand, the juice is usually not worth the squeeze, um, at least in our opinion. So, um, we have some well known brands that have some great quality that we carry. Um, and for our products. Um, you know, it’s been a learning process over the last 20 years about how our products are made and distributed.

But, you know, we, we really just went and found, uh, you know, some, uh, third party, uh, kind of manufacturers and there’s, you know, they’re all over the place. The quality levels of them. Uh, varies, but we found, you know, some great partners and we just went through a process of perfection with them where [00:13:00] we went to them and we said, Hey, we’re looking for a shave cream.

That smells like this. That feels like this. Um, here’s another product that’s somewhat similar, but we don’t like this or that and then they send you samples and then we give it to our barbers or. Spot professionals and they give us their feedback and they try it on guests. And you know, it’s an ongoing thing where you just do it until you get it right.

And so with all the products that we’ve created, um, that’s really been the process for our grooming manage products. And, you know, that’s what we’re doing with products moving forward as well.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I think that’s a great, a advice advantage that you have a, uh, a channel and a team to actually test out the product before you, you know, put it out in the market and it’s get feedback.

Yeah.

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s really nice for us, not only that it worked, not only that it helps us create great products, um, because these people know what they’re doing, but there’s also, uh, an aura of authority or legitimacy because the people who are testing and helping us create our [00:14:00] products are people who do this as a job every day.

It’s not just, uh, me or a friend of mine or a family member saying, oh, that smells really good, and I think it’s good. These people are cut hair and. Shave and provide skin care every day and if they like the stuff and then it’s good enough for us And then it’s good enough for our guests

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: For sure. Um, what have you learned about your market?

Of course, you know, you’re selling to men and, um, as you said, you know, over the, I think over the last couple of decades, it has become more mainstream for men to go out and buy grooming products and so forth. Um, so what, what have you learned about your target market? Um, uh, given that there are now a lot of different, um, Men’s grooming brands as well, uh, in the market.

Um, who is buying specifically from you? Like, is there a target market that you kind of, uh, appeal to the most?

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: I think men’s grooming market has really expanded now. You know, I think when, when, when we [00:15:00] started, you know, maybe, or even a decade ago, um, There was definitely a bit of a younger demographic, you know, 35 and under maybe that 18 to 35.

But over the last couple of years, at least our niche, um, that works for us is kind of that 35 plus. I mean, we have. You know, it could be even 35 to 65. Um, and, you know, it’s established guys who have disposable income, who are willing to pay for a luxury product or a luxury service. Um, and that’s what we have to value.

We, we, you know, as a small business, we can’t compete on price really. So, um, you know, there’s tons of smaller, not smaller, but, uh, you know, more mass men’s grooming brands out there. That might be selling a shave cream or shampoo for 12 or 13 dollars. Um, and I’m sure they’re good products, but, you know, we just can’t, that’s not a [00:16:00] business that we can compete in.

Um, so that, you know, that kind of little older, more mature market, um, willing to pay for quality, uh, that fits right in our wheelhouse.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: No, I, I definitely, uh, that makes sense. I, and I think maybe, um, it’s better to sell to a more, um, affluent market. Uh, as you said, you know, you’re, you consider your brand to be more of a luxury brand.

Um, maybe there’s a better margin in that segment as well. Right?

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And we try to be like affordable luxury. There’s certainly people that are much more expensive than us. Um, so we try to sit a little bit below that because, you know, you know, we know that not everybody is, um, flush with cash, but, uh, you know, maybe a little more.

Um, and we’re hoping that the quality of the product or the service and the support, um, you know, makes it more than worthwhile.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I want to discuss, uh, your marketing a little bit. I know you [00:17:00] mentioned that it’s becoming more and more expensive to kind of, you know, especially specifically target, I think, uh, the direct to consumer segment, right?

You know, you have to go out either advertising or, you know, be really creative in your organic marketing. Um, What, what is, um, can you talk a little bit about your marketing strategy? What is working for you in terms of paid, organic, otherwise, and, uh, has it become challenging in the last 25 years? How, how has it evolved?

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: It’s, it’s evolved, uh, you know, I don’t think it’s evolved being transparent. It hasn’t evolved for the better for, you know, the little guy, which we, we still are, um, you know, certainly when we started, it was. Kind of the wild west online, you know, it was wide open and we planted a flag as being kind of the first to market in men’s grooming and, you know, for the first eight to 10 years of our business, it was kind of shooting fish in a barrel because we were kind of one of the only [00:18:00] games in town.

And so from like a organic search perspective, if you typed in any shaving or men’s grooming question, you were getting pointed to us. It was easy. Um, and by the same token, we were also able, my background prior to this, I worked in, uh, marketing and public relations, and we were able to obtain a ton of, Unpaid media or free media PR, um, whether it be from the products that we carried, um, or some goofy promotions that we would run and stuff like that.

And so it was great. Um, but that’s, that’s changed a lot now, you know, with the growth and, uh, growth of the industry. And now there’s, you know, where there was five men’s grooming sites or brands, now there’s Literally thousands. And then you have Amazon too. So, you know, it’s not an [00:19:00] easy market at all. Um, and we’ve done every marketing thing that any e commerce company has done, whether it’s Facebook or Google or SEO and all that kind of stuff.

Um, and those things are, it’s tough to compete in those markets now. You know, it’s tough to tough to get a return on ad spend like anyone would want. So we’ve done it all. What we’ve found to be most. You know, there are kind of our wheelhouse right now for us is kind of is email or SMS text marketing, you know, over the, over the first decade and a half of our business, we were able to grow a substantial list that has sustained has, you know, been able to sustain.

To sustain us because, you know, we, we talk to those people, we listen to them and we send them offers and things on things that they actually want. And it’s, that’s, uh, that’s been good for us. We still do dabble in all the other kind of paid stuff, but to a much lesser extent than we used to just because, [00:20:00] um, the return on investment, you know, certainly as of late hasn’t been there.

We also sell our own products on Amazon. Um, yeah. Because you have to, you have to, you know, you’ve got to meet people where meet customers, where they shop. And that’s obviously a place that a lot of them shop. So, uh, why not be there? We have to be there.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Do you get good response from Amazon? I mean, from what I hear, they take away a lot of your margins, right?

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Yeah. You know, you, you end up at the end of the month saying, dude, is this worth it? Do I, you know, should I do this? Am I making money? But, um, yeah. Yeah, they take away a lot, but it’s kind of one of those things like you got to be there. And, and if you’re making your own product, if you’re the manufacturer, hopefully your margins are large enough that you can still make a little money.

Um, you know, in the first, Decade of our business, we carried, um, we were the Amazon arm for a lot of the third party brands that we had. And, uh, you just can’t make money doing it that way. There’s just not [00:21:00] enough margins when you take into all the fees and everything that comes out. You just can’t, it’s not, it’s not a profitable business model.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: So, I mean, I would consider you as the, I guess the e commerce veteran now. I mean, you, you, you basically 25 years of e commerce experience under your belt. Um, have you ever thought about, you know, with all this experience, of course, you know, you have this one niche that you, you’ve kind of mastered. Have you ever thought about like starting a different kind of product category or something where you can take all your learnings and really have another go at it?

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Yeah, we’ve thought about it, but, uh, you know, I, I don’t know if this is a good or a bad thing, but this is like a business that we really know. And I really know, and that we’re passionate about because we have our barbershops and the products that we make and stuff. And, you know, I don’t know that it’s a great business strategy for huge growth, but, you know, we like what we do.

We’re experts in our little corner of the internet and, uh, we enjoy doing that. And I, you know, I, I don’t [00:22:00] know that I would ever be. Fulfilled selling widgets, just because I know how to sell them because we, we kind of have the marketing, um, background behind us. So we have, and we’ve looked into it and we, you know, thought about selling women’s products.

And we’ve even tried to expand out our site over the years. We, you know, we’ve, we’ve sold some clothing and some, you know, accessories and stuff like that, but it’s always kind of just led us back to stick to your knitting type stuff, um, which is men’s grooming.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: What is your kind of, uh, How do you see your business evolving in the next, I would say five, 10 years?

I mean, have you ever, I mean, you still call yourself small business, right? And do you ever think about mass distribution and do you ever think about like becoming more of a. Uh, well known brand available, uh, in retail shops and so forth.

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Yeah. And once again, if I’m being honest, it’s not, it’s [00:23:00] not for a lack of trying.

It’s, you know, we have our brand, we have a lot of experience. The products are great and we’d love to get it out there to the masses. Absolutely. But you know, it’s a grind to do it. And, you know, we’ve seen a lot of. Companies that we work with that we respect that are small and emerging men’s grooming companies who have gone into Whether it’s a target or a Walmart or you know, even you know years ago Bloomingdale’s or Macy’s or Nordstrom and While you can get in there and it’s great and it’s nice to brag about to your friends or put on a presentation Deck when all is said and done most of those people can’t make any money between you know Mm Fees that you have to pay to be slotted in those department stores, um, or having a person on site to sell the stuff, um, that you are responsible for paying, um, and just the, you know, the margins that the manufacturer, I mean that the, the [00:24:00] big, bigger box retailers have, um, The finances just haven’t worked out for us.

And so I’m not ruling it out as something we could do. We, we’ve done some work with Frank, with some fragrance lines that we’ve come out with, with some mass retailers, and we’ve had some success for that. But I think with kind of the skincare and shaving products that we have, um, unless something changes, I don’t see it’s something being on our radar in the near, near future.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, I mean, it’s, uh, these products are so kind of fundamental and, you know, they’re available, I guess, you know, commodities and so it’s, I guess it, it’s, it’s difficult to kind of, uh, Um, stand out and unless I think it’s more and more, I guess more would be a branding play where you, you know, you really got to bring celebrities or something and really try to stand apart, I guess.

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Yeah. And it’s, it’s hard to do that. And we’ve, you know, we’ve done. Crazy stuff in the past that has been good and help build our [00:25:00] business. Um, and had partnerships and stuff like that as help us get there, but it’s just so noisy now, um, that I don’t even know if doing stuff like that helps you break through.

And so, you know, we’re kind of staying the course with our solid business fundamentals and what we do and providing good products and great service. And, uh, You know, open, that’ll keep us moving forward and keep us growing, you know, slow, but steady.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Uh, in your role as the entrepreneur, as the CEO of the company, what kind of, I mean, what is your day to day look like?

What, what kind of things you focus on and what are your, what are the metrics that you are kind of optimizing? Are you, um, of course, you know, you’re adding new products. to your line, but from an e commerce perspective, are you kind of, is your focus on conversion? Is your focus on, you know, return, you know, your marketing, uh, spend, um, what, what, like, what, what are you thinking about, uh, on a day to day basis?

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: I mean, I think as [00:26:00] any entrepreneur who’s running a small growing business, it’s, it’s all of the above. You can’t just do one. So, you know, I do a lot of the creative, um, and then just keeping a really heavy focus on, Kind of, uh, user experience, um, you know, offerings, what we offer our customers, and then, you know, kind of always looking at new and cost effective and return effective ways to acquire new customers.

Um, but what we’ve learned, I think over the years, even in our, even in our physical store in here is kind of the best marketing is great service and great products and, you know, the hope. That if you treat the people who come in right and you send them a great products and you send it to them fast and they love it that they’ll tell a friend and they’ll tell a friend and [00:27:00] on and on and on.

And that’s really, that’s, that’s really the one kind of guaranteed marketing idea or philosophy. That we rely on all the other stuff goes up and down, but that’s kind of the guaranteed way to do it is by kind of running your business, right? And making people feel like they got a value even when they spent a good deal of money.

So that’s what we’re that’s what we’re kind of honed in on because everything else is so noisy and there’s so much money out there. It’s just hard. You know, it’s hard to compete if you, you know, with that. So kind of sticking to our knitting with doing things the right way is what we hope will kind of expand our business.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: For sure. Can we talk a little bit about your fulfillment and shipping? You know, a lot of your products are, of course, liquid items. And you said, you know, of course, shipping, shipping speed is important. Um, are there any challenges in storing, shipping these items? And, uh, you know, what is kind of your, um, shipping strategy?

Do you, do you get free shipping? I see on your website, there’s [00:28:00] free shipping or 50. Um, can you talk a little bit about your, um, fulfillment shipping?

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Yeah. So we have, um, for the last 15 years, we’ve had our own kind of, you know, Fulfillment center that’s right outside of Washington, D. C. Um, and we’ve done it all ourselves and, uh, it’s been great.

Um, we’ve got a really good team doing that. We actually, uh, starting next year are going to be moving to 1 to a 3 P. L. facility. Um, a 3rd party logistics facility, just because, uh, the, the economics. Of it are they’re undeniable. You can’t avoid it. It’s you know, you can have your own place where you have your own team um And then you pay utilities and you pay for it stuff there And then all the kind of stuff where you can go to a 3pl where they have 10 other brands Um, and they get all these economies of scale Um, and so that’s that’s unfortunately fortunately, that’s a no brainer for [00:29:00] us something to do moving forward um And in terms of challenges, we really haven’t had a lot of challenges with our fulfillment.

Um, the only thing that we carry that we have issue with is sometimes when we do a lot of fragrance business, um, some of that stuff is flammable. So with international shipping or even some of the stuff we’ve done with Amazon, that gets in a little murky waters and is difficult. Um, but it’s been, it’s been pretty smooth and you know, we’re on, we’re on, we’re a shop, we’re on Shopify.

Bye. And Shopify is great. It’s even kind of enabled us to really streamline our international shipping as well. So, uh, not a lot of problems with that. And I think there’s just so many apps and businesses and technology stacks now that, uh, You know, it’s, it’s, it’s not that difficult anymore, where there was a time where we were, you know, we would get all our orders faxed to us from, I don’t know, I think we used to use Magento and Yahoo, and, um, it wasn’t a nightmare, but it wasn’t streamlined [00:30:00] like it is now with, uh, Shopify and some of the other, uh, plugins that they offer.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Um, thinking about switching to 3PL, is that something that you’re going to do, like, uh, all in one go, or is that, are you going to move, shift that, uh, in phases, because sometimes, I mean, 3PLs, I’ve heard some horror stories with 3PLs. Oh, yeah,

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: yeah, yeah. Well, we’re in the process of doing it now, so, you know, between now and the end of the year, um, the hope is to get everything over there.

Um, and it’s not an idea like the lease on our current distribution center is up. So it made it kind of a no brainer for us that we have to do. And we’re working with a company located on kind of the eastern shore of Maryland. So they’re semi local, um, that do a lot of businesses and Econ business on our side.

So the hope, um, and prayer is that it will be pretty seamless. I think, I think it won’t be, obviously there’ll be some hiccups. There always are, but I feel good about it.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Uh, can you talk a little bit about [00:31:00] your team? Um, and, uh, who’s responsible for what?

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Yeah. So we, um, it’s changed a lot and changed a lot since COVID, but, uh, you know, we have a small, um, marketing team.

And they are responsible for design, um, UX, and they also do kind of outbound marketing. So kind of all of our emails and social media stuff and things of that nature. Um, We have our distribution center team, which also includes customer service, um, positions to respond and interact with customers. Um, and individuals within there also are in charge of our, um, our inventory and product procurement and, uh, uh, I work with them together on our grooming lounge product procurement and working with the labs and things like that.

[00:32:00] And a lot of stuff now, we out, you know, kind of accounting, um, and other stuff like that are, um, outsourced now. We used to have it pre COVID. We used to do it all in house, but, uh, with the ability to just work from home and, you know, work with firms that are based anywhere, you’re able to kind of get great people at prices that are reasonable in different parts of the country and sometimes different parts of the world.

So that’s what we do for most of our other stuff.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Wow, that is so interesting. I mean, that’s, uh, it seems like, uh, that’s really changing the landscape of how people work now. Is most of your team working remote?

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Everybody. We don’t, yeah, I mean, we don’t, not, not the store, obviously, but, uh, everybody else is remote.

You know, a lot of zoom teams, calls, emails and stuff like that, but everybody else is, is remote and, you know, you just check in obviously that our fulfillment center is not remote. Cause they’re all there, but, [00:33:00] uh, everybody else is, is remote.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Um, in every entrepreneur’s journey, there’s always mistakes made lessons learned failures.

Uh, of course you’ve been doing it for a long time, but, um, what has been like, One or two things that come to your mind in terms of big mistakes that you may have made. What, what were the lessons that you learned? What, what are the lessons other entrepreneurs can learn from your mistakes?

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Yeah, um, well, I mean, I think any entrepreneur who’s been doing it this long has made a ton and I certainly have made, um, a ton.

I mean, I think a lot of it is, you know, some of the, I wouldn’t call them get, get rich quick schemes. But, you know, as of recently, a lot of the. A lot of the stuff surrounding kind of influencers or, um, yeah, influencers and things like that, uh, that we’ve done for years, but we’ve, we’ve, we’ve invested a significant [00:34:00] amount of money over the last five, five or six years in influencers.

And things of that nature. And at least for us, I’m not saying it doesn’t work for anyone else, but the long term ROI for us has not been great. You know, we’ve noticed with a lot of the influencers, you know, in order to. In order to try to sell your product the best way that that works is to have some kind of amazing offer And when you have an amazing offer people jump, but they’re not your customer.

They’re not coming back once they get past the offer Um because they’re always looking for another offer and that’s not sustainable for us And so I think you know, it took you know, it only took me 20 tries to realize like While that might work for some people, that’s not our business. And that, that is not a silver bullet that works for a business of, of our size.

Um, or at least in [00:35:00] our segment.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: I think, I think I, I hear that message. Um, I think, I think it’s, I think influencers are becoming dimer dozen now. And I

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: feel like it’s, I feel like it obviously works for some people or people wouldn’t do it, but. It it’s kind of nonsense. Like it just doesn’t it. You just don’t see the return.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah,

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: we don’t. I’m sure other people have great results, but for us, it is a, you know, I have a note on my thing that I all my in my office, like saying, do not do it any kind of influencer or partnership marketing like that. Because it’s not for us.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yes, that’s definitely challenging. Um, I’m going to move on to our rapid fire segment.

In this segment, I’m going to ask you a few quick questions and you have to answer them maybe in a word or a sentence or so. So the first one is one book recommendation for entrepreneurs and why?

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: It’s not a specific book, but an author, and I haven’t [00:36:00] read one of his things for a couple years, but there’s an author named Seth Godin, who is a marketing guru, and his stuff is just so spot on for any type of marketing, no matter what the business, um, that he’s kind of my go to for any kind of books or books on tape.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, definitely. Very smart guy. Um, an innovative product or idea in the current e commerce retail or tech landscape that you feel excited about.

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: You know what? What we’ve had a lot of success with recently, and this isn’t like a brand new technology, but doing SMS or text messaging, um, to people who opt in, we’ve seen a great kind of open rate and click through rate and response from doing that, as long as you don’t kind of overuse it.

But that’s been a, that’s, that’s been a real boon to our business as of late. So I really like that SMS, those SMS emails or offers.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, that’s so interesting. I mean, I, I, I, I see SMS has, is becoming kind of [00:37:00] the new email channel, but I also see a lot of spammers just, uh, reaching out for your,

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: especially during, uh, especially during, uh, during COVID.

Election season. I mean, that’s all I get is donating money to whoever wants some money for their campaign. So it’s hard to it’s hard to break through it. But yeah, yeah.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: A business or productivity tool or software that you would recommend or a productivity tip? I know you mentioned Shopify, but anything else?

Shopify

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: is great. And I don’t get any money from these guys, but this is the best App technology that we’ve realized lately is there is a payroll company called gusto or gusto and We use it in our shop and and online but we used to use some of these big payroll companies and Uh, it was super expensive and it was complicated and this is just an uh, An online platform [00:38:00] it makes it so easy in terms of dealing with payroll and taxes and everything Um, I think it’s great Awesome.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Um, another startup or business in e commerce retail or tech that you think is currently doing great things.

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Um, I don’t know about a startup, but you know, I mean, one of the retailers that, that I always go in and I know this, this is anything but a startup, but, uh, I was just in an underarm bar store the other day.

And, uh, they don’t need my help certainly, but, um, but their merchandising, um, and the way they design their store and the flow is just, it’s so impressive. I thought, I think, just think it’s great.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Uh, a peer entrepreneur or business person whom you look up to or someone who inspires you?

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Um, I think it’s probably corny to say, but my dad was an entrepreneur and still [00:39:00] is an entrepreneur, even though he’s retired.

And, uh, when I need advice or kind of some grounding, um, he was never in the e comm space, but he understands business and selling. And so he’s kind of my go to.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Yeah, at the end of the day, e commerce is still business, you’re just using technology, right? So the fundamentals are the same. Final question, what is the best business advice that you have ever received or you would give to other entrepreneurs?

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Um, this isn’t this isn’t mine, but, uh, there’s a quote talking about success being in the agency of others that I just think is so dead on. And I think it’s just basically hire good people and let them do their thing, you know, lay out expectations and let them do their thing because I’m not the smartest.

So I got to hire people who are really smart and know what they’re doing and just let them have at it. Um, you know, I can’t do it by myself. And so, you know, success is definitely. All about [00:40:00] having great people surrounding and supporting you.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: That is a great lesson for sure. And, you know, any entrepreneur who wants to scale can do it on your own.

You didn’t, you definitely need help from other people. Well, Mike, those were all the questions that I had. Thank you so much again for sharing your story, for sharing your, uh, business lessons, successes, and some failures. Uh, if anybody wants to try out your products, buy your products, um, what is the best way they can do that?

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Just go to groominglounge. com. Um, or if you live in, you know, in Maryland, Virginia, or DC, you can come to our shop in Northern Virginia, but either way, we’d love to love to help make you more handsome.

Sushant Misra of TrepTalks: Awesome. Well, Mike, thank you so much again for, uh, for, for sharing your story and for joining me today at Treptalks.

Really, really appreciate your time and wish you all the very best in your business.

Michael Gilman of Grooming Lounge: Thanks Sushant. Appreciate it.