Speaker 1: All right. This is Jeff Crampton from Hokatoke, Alberta, Canada,
Speaker 1: and I play at the Roco Golf Course in Calgary,
Speaker 1: but like Fred, I also like to play EPCs on
Speaker 1: Santi Bay and Baja Mexico. This is golf Smarter number
Speaker 1: of nine fifty nine.
Speaker 2: I know one of Brad's good friends, Jason Logan, the
Speaker 2: editor of Score Golf. He was a guy who's like, hey,
Speaker 2: I don't wear a golf glove, just grew up, didn't
Speaker 2: need it, didn't want one, and he finally tried one.
Speaker 2: I think he got a free glove in a tournament
Speaker 2: or something, and he just hadn't worn a glove in
Speaker 2: like fifteen years, and he was amazed at the difference.
Speaker 2: My golf spy did some testing with golfers who wore
Speaker 2: a glove and didn't wear a glove, and you'll hit
Speaker 2: the ball further, so you have better control of the club,
Speaker 2: and there's data on it can actually increase your distance.
Speaker 2: I think it was fairly nominal, but it will have
Speaker 2: an impact on your game. I can't imagine playing golf
Speaker 2: without one. I get fairly sweaty hands and sometimes I'll
Speaker 2: chip without a glove. Maybe for a little bit of
Speaker 2: extra feel, but I couldn't hit a full shot, couldn't
Speaker 2: imagine it. I think the data is something like ninety
Speaker 2: five percent of golfers wear golf glove.
Speaker 3: Red Rooster golf Gloves continues to raise the bar and
Speaker 3: turn heads with co founder Kerrie Mark. This is Golf Smarter,
Speaker 3: sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf minds to
Speaker 3: help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ.
Speaker 3: Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome back to the Golf
Speaker 3: Smarter podcast.
Speaker 2: Carry Hello, Fred, great to see.
Speaker 3: You, Bud, so glad to have you back on the show.
Speaker 3: And before we go anywhere, I just want to say
Speaker 3: thank you so much for supporting our Golf Smarter Ambassador
Speaker 3: program and giving gloves and glove storage compartments to the
Speaker 3: Golf Smarter Ambassadors who request them. We give them a
Speaker 3: choice of gifts and yours has been one for a
Speaker 3: long time and I really appreciate your generosity with this.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: It's been great. Yeah, they seem to really enjoy getting
Speaker 2: to choose from our wide range of gloves. And I
Speaker 2: actually have a really cool update for you on the
Speaker 2: glove compartment. We're working on the two point zero version
Speaker 2: that'll be able to share one of the pre production prototypes.
Speaker 3: So yeah, well, I you know, you recently sent me
Speaker 3: the latest glove compartment. It's beautiful. It's like, I don't
Speaker 3: know if it's leather, but it feels like it. It
Speaker 3: looks like it.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're upgrading from that.
Speaker 2: So I have an update on that. So we're doing
Speaker 2: we do have an upgrade on that. We're starting to
Speaker 2: do working with customs. We're working with some golf courses,
Speaker 2: we're doing some corporate events, member guests. To be able
Speaker 2: to while we're talking, I'll show you we can do
Speaker 2: like embroidery, okay, so we can customize it. And then
Speaker 2: we're doing this is the latest and greatest. It's sort
Speaker 2: of like an etched pewter, so you can sort of
Speaker 2: So we're starting to be able to customize that. We
Speaker 2: obviously been selling a lot of them to our own customers.
Speaker 2: It's the higher end version of the glove compartment. We
Speaker 2: call it the cockpit, and it's more of a you know,
Speaker 2: go in the in the shoe locker. You can you know,
Speaker 2: throw it in your bag, as opposed to the glove compartment,
Speaker 2: which hangs on your bag and you know, you sort
Speaker 2: of dry the gloves during the round, so they.
Speaker 3: We just call them all cockpit. I think that's so funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great name. That's a Brad's wife. She
Speaker 2: comes up with all these amazing names. She's just got
Speaker 2: a great marketing mind. And most of the names of
Speaker 2: our products.
Speaker 3: She let me ask where red Rooster golf. That name
Speaker 3: came from.
Speaker 2: Well, that's that's actually my nickname.
Speaker 3: So you can see my Oh you have red hair,
Speaker 3: so red rooster.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my dad, I mean I have My mom and
Speaker 2: dad have of dark brown hair, and all my siblings
Speaker 2: I have. I have four siblings. I'm the only redhead
Speaker 2: in the family. And my dad used to call me
Speaker 2: the red Rooster. That was my nickname. And we liked
Speaker 2: the idea of the tagline, wake up your golf game,
Speaker 2: and we kind of came up with the name and
Speaker 2: tried to beat it and and we couldn't come up
Speaker 2: with anything better.
Speaker 3: So it's I'm glad it's not the ginger golf. And
Speaker 3: how's business. I mean, it's really come a long way
Speaker 3: since we were first introduced to red Rooster golf. When
Speaker 3: you were just had this idea of creating a glove
Speaker 3: subscription service, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean we've been chatting since our Kickstarter launch, so
Speaker 2: you've been with us from the start and that that
Speaker 2: started as well. And you know, I know you were
Speaker 2: intrigued by the subscription service and I remember having a
Speaker 2: really good chat to just kind of talk through that.
Speaker 2: That's still, you know, you know, our most popular I
Speaker 2: think it's our best service. It's just it's hard to
Speaker 2: know when to change a glove, and when gloves arrive,
Speaker 2: it's that nice reminder and it's you get our best price.
Speaker 2: But of course we sell lots of gloves just people
Speaker 2: can buy them as needed. It's so easy with shop
Speaker 2: pay and once you create an account, and we're always releasing.
Speaker 2: You know, I've got eleven new glove styles to kind
Speaker 2: of show you here. We're doing lots of fun things
Speaker 2: with colors and with different celebrating you know, Fourth of
Speaker 2: July Canada Day, the British open, so there's lots of
Speaker 2: call them like sort of mini drops, So lots of
Speaker 2: lots of our customers are just flexible to see what's
Speaker 2: the latest and greatest kind of like color or style
Speaker 2: we come out with, and they want to be flexible
Speaker 2: to grab them. But it's ever since the Kickstarter and
Speaker 2: we launched later that fall, it's just been you know,
Speaker 2: that hockey stick Curve just continues to grow.
Speaker 3: Canadians love the hockey stick Curve.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, and so and so do entrepreneurs.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: That's great. It's it's so viral. You know, golf such
Speaker 2: a social game. So when you find a product and
Speaker 2: if it delivers and it meets your expectations, you tend
Speaker 2: to brag about it and recruit and golfers, you know,
Speaker 2: talk and share. So product's good and we get lots
Speaker 2: of word of mouth advertising, so we just continue to grow.
Speaker 3: Congratulations, the product is very good. Thank you, very good.
Speaker 3: But when you first kicked did the Kickstarter campaign? What
Speaker 3: what did you have a five year plan and think
Speaker 3: about expansion. I'm sure that you did, because you do
Speaker 3: have a great business mind. But what were you hoping
Speaker 3: to achieve with Kickstarter? And then how did you see
Speaker 3: that developing?
Speaker 2: That always, yeah, that's a good question. We did. We
Speaker 2: did do some strategic planning. That's how we came up
Speaker 2: with We did envision ourselves five years down the line.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that that exercise really helped
Speaker 2: us do is we thought about we imagined ourselves being
Speaker 2: fairly successful, and I would say we're ahead of expectations
Speaker 2: at this point going into year three, which is which
Speaker 2: is great. I think we tried to be fairly conservative
Speaker 2: and I was a big fan of the Kevin Kelly
Speaker 2: one thousand true fans. That was kind of we felt
Speaker 2: like we needed to start there. And the Kickstarter goal
Speaker 2: was to get eleven get a thousand backers. We thought
Speaker 2: if we could, if we can convince a thousand people
Speaker 2: to buy gloves from us, it'll sort of you know,
Speaker 2: they'll tell a friend of a friend and things will
Speaker 2: sort of mushroom and grow. And the Kickstarter we got
Speaker 2: was eleven hundred eighty seven backers, so it you know,
Speaker 2: met the expectations, exceeded them, and we felt like we
Speaker 2: could build a business around that, especially on the subscription model.
Speaker 2: We have more than two thousand subscribers, but this year alone,
Speaker 2: we'll have more than fifteen thousand customers. You know, we'll
Speaker 2: probably sell seventy five thousand gloves this year.
Speaker 3: You are kidding, no, So it's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been going great.
Speaker 3: I mean, where does that put you in the glove industry,
Speaker 3: Are you like serious competitors.
Speaker 2: Now, No, we're still we're still pretty small. You know,
Speaker 2: the market's huge, you know, there's there's there's no definitive data,
Speaker 2: but it's between sort of fifty and sixty million gloves
Speaker 2: are sold every year in the United States alone. Oh
Speaker 2: so it's a huge market, but most of it is
Speaker 2: through appropriate the gloves are sold through pro shops and
Speaker 2: so that's still you know, we're a direct to consumer brand.
Speaker 2: And when we did the five year visioning, the first
Speaker 2: thing we identified was if we're successful, we want to
Speaker 2: give back. What would that look like. That's how we
Speaker 2: came up with the Play at Forward program where we
Speaker 2: donate gloves to youth golf and that's been amazing, just
Speaker 2: super rewarding to give kids these gloves. And our youth
Speaker 2: gloves come in eight sizes, you know, four sizes for
Speaker 2: each hand. We have the smallest glove available in the
Speaker 2: market period. Because I have three daughters who I'm you know,
Speaker 2: desperately trying to convince to play golf, and they're tough
Speaker 2: nut to crack, but all three of them, even though
Speaker 2: they're twelve, ten, and seven, they wear our smallest glove
Speaker 2: and they're tiny girls with small hands, and there were
Speaker 2: no gloves that fit them that we could find, so
Speaker 2: that we sort of it was sort of problem solution.
Speaker 2: That give back has been great. But I think the
Speaker 2: other thing is, as we sort of thought about the
Speaker 2: five year visioning, we never we thought we would be
Speaker 2: direct to consumer. Maybe maybe forever we didn't. We didn't
Speaker 2: really think about the sort of retail slash golf shops,
Speaker 2: but we're really being pulled in that direction. We get
Speaker 2: a lot of golf clubs reaching out to us because
Speaker 2: they see a lot of their members or a lot
Speaker 2: of their guests wearing red rooster gloves. They know, they
Speaker 2: hear about the quality, and they they'd like to carry them.
Speaker 2: So we're planning on attending the PGA Show next year
Speaker 2: with the intention of I call it sort of tiptoeing
Speaker 2: into to retail. We will work with, you know, some
Speaker 2: select partners where there's a fit. There's obviously no golf
Speaker 2: shops that aren't already selling gloves, so what we're offering
Speaker 2: isn't novel, but our our approach is a little bit different,
Speaker 2: our price points a little bit different, and obviously our
Speaker 2: give back programs unique. So that's kind of going to
Speaker 2: be the next phase, which five years ago we couldn't
Speaker 2: have envisioned, you know, year four moving into retail, but
Speaker 2: here we are.
Speaker 3: What's the advantage of being a direct to consumer company
Speaker 3: in a space like golf that is so attached to
Speaker 3: pro shops and retail stores.
Speaker 2: I think it's owning the customer experience, So we don't
Speaker 2: in the direct to consumer space, We're not handing that off.
Speaker 2: So you know, we take full responsibility for the product
Speaker 2: and for the relationship. So we love that. So our
Speaker 2: customer service is a big part of what we do.
Speaker 2: We love you know, we're still doing and I remember
Speaker 2: when we did the Kickstarter we old twenty five hundred
Speaker 2: gloves to eleven hundred customers, and when we finally got
Speaker 2: those gloves, you know, three or four months later, we
Speaker 2: did handwritten notes to everybody we were really appreciative of.
Speaker 2: We call that group OURRGS, our Red Rooster Original Gangsters.
Speaker 3: And yeah, every time I received a glove and I
Speaker 3: saw a handwritten note, I'm like touching, going, oh my god,
Speaker 3: they really did. This isn't printed on here, They actually
Speaker 3: wrote this note with my name on it. I was may.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we still do it, We enjoy it. We know
Speaker 2: all the customers and even though we're growing and we've
Speaker 2: got you know, lots of them, will be fifteen thousand
Speaker 2: this year, we we take the time so we we
Speaker 2: we own that relationship and we enjoy it. And obviously
Speaker 2: there's a you know, it's it's good business. There's a
Speaker 2: you know, if you like our gloves and you play
Speaker 2: a lot of golf, you'll be back you were you'll
Speaker 2: tell a friend. But we also we offer we call
Speaker 2: it our best Glove Guarantee, like any issues. You know,
Speaker 2: it's free exchanges. We ship all of our gloves for free,
Speaker 2: and any issues it's and no questions asked, you know,
Speaker 2: typically exchange. I can't remember ever issuing a refund. You know.
Speaker 2: They're they're golf gloves. They're made of soft leather. Sometimes
Speaker 2: they tear, sometimes there's an issue, but we take full responsibility.
Speaker 2: We've also got a great manufacturing partner, and it's rare,
Speaker 2: but we enjoy the interaction. Live chat, lots of email,
Speaker 2: lots of social messages, so our teams busy, but the
Speaker 2: overwhelmingly the feedback so positive that it's so fun to
Speaker 2: interact there versus you know, and we're prepared to go
Speaker 2: to retail rope, but then you sort of hand off
Speaker 2: that relationship, you know, you ship the gloves to them
Speaker 2: and they take over, and they're now you're playing middle
Speaker 2: you know, playing a bit of telephone. You know, if
Speaker 2: they have issues, we'll fully support them, but we're not
Speaker 2: interacting directly with that customer. We really enjoy that part
Speaker 2: of the direct to consumer experience.
Speaker 3: And would you rather be in pro shops or retail
Speaker 3: or PGA superstore type of situations? Do you have a
Speaker 3: preference on where you want to go next when you
Speaker 3: do go on retail side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we want to start with with golf courses. So
Speaker 2: we've we've had a number We've.
Speaker 3: Been a lot of customization there too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, and that and we're at the point
Speaker 2: now where we can handle that. So, you know, the
Speaker 2: first couple of years a we were just trying to
Speaker 2: figure out the direct to consumer space period and our
Speaker 2: own manufacturing and fulfillment and everything was new. We're, you know,
Speaker 2: three years in, we've got that pretty dialed in. Now
Speaker 2: we're learning, you know, a new channel. So we're going
Speaker 2: to move slowly. We have a number of courses that
Speaker 2: have expressed interest for you, and so we're going to
Speaker 2: kind of like start with our best friends where there's
Speaker 2: the right fit, and kind of slowly branch out from there.
Speaker 2: So we're looking for partners willing to you know, we will.
Speaker 2: We're pretty honest that this is all new for us
Speaker 2: and be all new for us next year. We'll probably
Speaker 2: have a bit of a learning curve and some pickups
Speaker 2: along the way, So we want to have, you know,
Speaker 2: the right partners who really appreciate our product and want it.
Speaker 2: We're not sort of pushing our way in making a
Speaker 2: lot of sales calls. We actually just have a bunch
Speaker 2: of golf courses that have expressed interest and this is
Speaker 2: the year where we're going to start to work with
Speaker 2: them and meet those needs. So we'll kind of start
Speaker 2: there and kind of branch out slowly learn from it,
Speaker 2: see how things go. But yeah, we're excited about it.
Speaker 3: That's great. That's great. So by going to a retail
Speaker 3: direction when you get there, does that make it more
Speaker 3: healing for larger companies to buy you out? Is that
Speaker 3: a goal for Red Rooster Golf? For you guys, now
Speaker 3: now that you're seeing your your hockey stick, hockey stick trajectory.
Speaker 3: It's like, no, no, we're in this one. We're taking
Speaker 3: it to the to the top on our own.
Speaker 2: No, that's not really a consideration. I've never really thought of.
Speaker 2: You know, I have how a serial entrepreneur I have,
Speaker 2: you know, I've bought and sold businesses, and this is
Speaker 2: one I've never been in a business that I'm been
Speaker 2: this passionate about. So I'm really enjoying it. You know,
Speaker 2: we're doing really well, which is great. We're making a
Speaker 2: really good living, we're having fun doing it, and we'll
Speaker 2: and I've been through that where I did sell a
Speaker 2: business and probably had some regret after just that, Like,
Speaker 2: I was enjoying it. It was making money, we were
Speaker 2: having fun, and we sold it and we did well.
Speaker 2: But all of a sudden, I had a couple of
Speaker 2: years there I was sort of soul searching and I'm I'm,
Speaker 2: you know, forty six turning forty seven in a few weeks.
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm looking to do this for a long time,
Speaker 2: And so that wasn't really a consideration. I think we
Speaker 2: actually just we're excited about the retail space because we've
Speaker 2: got partners who really want us. So it's it's just
Speaker 2: the right fit. We we kind of had said no,
Speaker 2: and then we're like, why would we say no? These are,
Speaker 2: you know, perfectly good partners. It's a good channel. We're
Speaker 2: not trying to you know, push our way in or
Speaker 2: we don't. It's a bit sort of stress free, and
Speaker 2: we have a great manufacturing partner who can support us.
Speaker 2: So we're just it feels like the next logical step.
Speaker 3: You're an August baby, Yes, me too, August eleventh, August fourth, okay, Leo, Yeah,
Speaker 3: but I think I've got twenty plus years on you.
Speaker 3: You said forty seven.
Speaker 2: I'll be forty seven on August eleventh. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sixty nine, okay.
Speaker 2: Looking good for it? Looking good for sixty nine.
Speaker 3: Well, well, it's because we're both wearing our red shirts today.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 3: You guys have won some awards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've done Yeah, we've done well. My golf Spy
Speaker 2: has been awfully good to us score golf as well.
Speaker 2: The you know, the product's really good. It's uh, we
Speaker 2: we built It's funny because we tried. We wanted to differentiate.
Speaker 2: So when we came into the market, the idea was
Speaker 2: build a glove that last. There's this expectation from golfers
Speaker 2: that when you buy, you know, the more you spend,
Speaker 2: the longer that glove will last. But usually the more
Speaker 2: you spend, the thinner and softer that glove is. And
Speaker 2: you know, for instance, like the titleist players glove, it's
Speaker 2: a beautiful glove, but it's built for touring pros. It's
Speaker 2: good for a round or two realistically, especially in the heat.
Speaker 2: But you know, most golfers expect to get eight, ten,
Speaker 2: twelve rounds out of a glove, so we built a
Speaker 2: glove that will hold up to that. And then I
Speaker 2: think the only knock was we don't have the thin
Speaker 2: soft glove. So last summer we came up with the
Speaker 2: Sussex that is our call it our tournament glove. And
Speaker 2: it's funny because we only offer one glove in that
Speaker 2: style and it's now our number one seller.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: So we were sort of known for our durability and
Speaker 2: known for our you know, still super soft glove, but
Speaker 2: we'll sort of meat expectations and now our thin soft
Speaker 2: glove is the glove that is outselling everything. But it's
Speaker 2: nice to have options.
Speaker 3: It's interesting because if you think about you want to
Speaker 3: build a glove to last, I wonder if the consumer
Speaker 3: impression of a subscription service, oh I can get a
Speaker 3: new glove every month, I wonder if they're not very
Speaker 3: good gloves. I mean, you know, you think the mindset
Speaker 3: could be if they want me to change it out
Speaker 3: every so often, then how good can the glove be?
Speaker 3: And yet you're like, no, no, no, these gloves will
Speaker 3: last you. And the other thing is, you know, I
Speaker 3: live on the West Coast. I don't have to deal
Speaker 3: with humidity, so I don't go through gloves that fast.
Speaker 3: The times that I've played in human weather, I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: this thing's changing color and sticking to me, you know,
Speaker 3: because I like taking off for putting, So I don't know.
Speaker 2: We have found with subscribers that if anything, they because
Speaker 2: our gloves last so long that they move off the
Speaker 2: subscription because the reminder comes up and they're like, you
Speaker 2: know this thing, I don't need it replace brand new
Speaker 2: so far. So, but there's a lot of flexibility with
Speaker 2: the subscription too, so it's not doesn't have to be monthly, right.
Speaker 2: We have some who are on buy we you know,
Speaker 2: or they get multiple gloves when the gloves come in
Speaker 2: a month, or you can get them every two months,
Speaker 2: every three months. Every quarter, you can skip a shipment,
Speaker 2: you can set you know, you can get a glove
Speaker 2: in October and set your next one for April. So
Speaker 2: it's the customers using the subscription are the ones who
Speaker 2: are pretty active with it because you can change gloves.
Speaker 2: You can get rain gloves one month, you can get
Speaker 2: our practice glove, the range rooster, you can get a
Speaker 2: new style, and you can so it's pretty flexible and
Speaker 2: I think that are customers that use that flexibility are
Speaker 2: the ones that that kind of appreciate it. And if
Speaker 2: you know, others like to get five six gloves at
Speaker 2: a time and there's their gloves for the year. So
Speaker 2: it's it's more just giving people as many options as
Speaker 2: possible so that they choose which one suits them best.
Speaker 3: I have, I think one friend who doesn't wear a glove.
Speaker 3: Everybody wears gloves. Why do we wear gloves when we're
Speaker 3: playing golf? And how do I convince this one friend
Speaker 3: that he really needs to be wearing a glove.
Speaker 2: Well, you're right. We actually have a lot of customers
Speaker 2: who wear two gloves. Oh wear among both hands and
Speaker 2: sometimes it's for sun protection and for sometimes it's for feel.
Speaker 2: But the gloves started it. It's for feel, right, especially
Speaker 2: like in humid conditions, and it's that you know that
Speaker 2: soft ca bread of leather, it's really tacky, so it
Speaker 2: really it's for grip. I know one of Brad's good friends,
Speaker 2: Jason Logan, he's the editor of Score Golf, and he
Speaker 2: was a guy who's like, hey, I don't wear a
Speaker 2: golf glove and just grew up, didn't need it, didn't
Speaker 2: want one, and he finally tried one. I think he
Speaker 2: got a free glove in a tournament or something, and
Speaker 2: he just hadn't worn a glove in like fifteen years,
Speaker 2: and he was amazed at the difference. And I know
Speaker 2: golf my golf spy did. They did some testing with
Speaker 2: golfers who wore a glove and didn't wear a glove,
Speaker 2: and you actually you'll hit the ball further, so you
Speaker 2: have a better you have better control of the club,
Speaker 2: and there's you know, data on it can actually increase
Speaker 2: your distance. I think it was, you know, fairly nominal,
Speaker 2: but it will have an impact on your game. I
Speaker 2: can't imagine playing golf without one. I get fairly sweaty
Speaker 2: hands and I can't hold on. Sometimes I'll chip without
Speaker 2: a glove. Maybe for a little bit of extra feel,
Speaker 2: but I couldn't hit a full shot. I couldn't imagine it.
Speaker 2: I think the data is something like ninety five percent
Speaker 2: of golfers wear a golf glove.
Speaker 3: Incredible. Yeah, it makes total sense. And again I probably
Speaker 3: when I pull out a wedge and definitely the putter,
Speaker 3: I'll pull the glove off. So it goes on and
Speaker 3: off and on and off. And I've never had any
Speaker 3: problem with any tearing or wear like that. If I
Speaker 3: have anywhere at all, it's probably in the the left
Speaker 3: of the palm of my hand, opposite of my thumb.
Speaker 2: That's where we see the most wear for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, but I think figuring out what size glove
Speaker 3: to wear is probably a huge issue for most consumers.
Speaker 2: That's what we see we do. I mentioned we're doing
Speaker 2: a pro am brad Is a Brad's in Ottawa in
Speaker 2: late July playing in the PJ Tour America's event, and
Speaker 2: that program is two hundred people in it. And when
Speaker 2: we fit up those two hundred people, I would estimate
Speaker 2: that just about everybody's you know, got a glove. Most
Speaker 2: of them are like they hide it when because it's
Speaker 2: usually like pretty old and ratty, even though they've spent
Speaker 2: you know, these pro ams. You might they're spending thousands
Speaker 2: of dollars to play in this event and they've got
Speaker 2: this you know, rolled up glove.
Speaker 3: But they can stand up on its own.
Speaker 2: Probably yeah, yeah, pretty crusty.
Speaker 3: Give you the finger right with one fingers sticking.
Speaker 2: Up or holes in it. So everybody's happy to get
Speaker 2: a new, fresh glove. But I would estimate that at
Speaker 2: least half of them will lead or upwards of that
Speaker 2: will leave with a glove in a size that they're
Speaker 2: not currently wearing. In a lot of cases, most people
Speaker 2: just don't know what cadet sizes are. So that's slightly
Speaker 2: shorter finger in a wider palm, and most people just
Speaker 2: know it's not a very good name. It sounds like
Speaker 2: you're in the military, or they say, or it sounds
Speaker 2: like a kid's glove. So the industry needs to come
Speaker 2: up with a better name for cadet.
Speaker 3: Late yet can change that now, but maybe could change mind.
Speaker 2: And normally it's and I would say one hundred percent
Speaker 2: of the time when we're changing their size, they're going
Speaker 2: down at least one size sometimes too, they're never going up.
Speaker 2: I've never come across someone who's wearing a glove that's
Speaker 2: too small. They're always wearing one that's too big, right,
Speaker 2: and you want it. The glove should be really tight.
Speaker 2: Most people will wear it almost like a regular glove.
Speaker 2: You can just see most gloves are just a bit loose.
Speaker 2: They're pulling the strap way over. The thing gets so
Speaker 2: you get a more wear and tear in that case,
Speaker 2: and the glove doesn't last as long and obviously doesn't
Speaker 2: perform as well. So we love doing events where we
Speaker 2: do glove fittings because we expose them to you know,
Speaker 2: our gloves come in thirty four sizes when you include
Speaker 2: thirty six sizes, when you include our youth gloves, you
Speaker 2: know talking feet, nail, female, right, left hand, cadet and
Speaker 2: regular that it's a really wide range. And when we
Speaker 2: lay them out on the table and everybody sees how
Speaker 2: many size options they're, they're often blown away because they think,
Speaker 2: you know, there's probably like eight to ten sizes and
Speaker 2: both so we can really fit up, you know, and
Speaker 2: we go up to you know, double xcel. So often
Speaker 2: females are wearing like a men's size because the female
Speaker 2: sizes are pretty a pretty small range. Some women wear
Speaker 2: a kid's glove, you know, and some guys need to
Speaker 2: wear a female glove they've got a smaller hand, and
Speaker 2: so yeah, we love those events. It's just it's fun
Speaker 2: to get somebody fit properly. For In a lot of cases,
Speaker 2: it's the first time they've ever had a glove that
Speaker 2: you know, fits them really well. Makes a big difference,
Speaker 2: and you've educated them on something and they, you know,
Speaker 2: modify that moving forward. So we try to do as
Speaker 2: many events as we can fit in the calendar.
Speaker 3: And what's the process of getting fitted for a glove.
Speaker 2: So often will when they come up they've got a size,
Speaker 2: we get them to put on their glove. We can
Speaker 2: tell right away if the glove they're wearing fits or not.
Speaker 2: It's usually too big. So they usually start with, you know,
Speaker 2: this is the size I wear. We either, you know,
Speaker 2: if that glove fits properly, then we'll give them an
Speaker 2: If they're a medium, then we'll give them a medium.
Speaker 2: And often but we'll do a fitting. We'll put the
Speaker 2: medium on. We'll get them, you know, to try that
Speaker 2: glove on. We look at the fit and we'll see
Speaker 2: if if it's a little bit loose, you know, we
Speaker 2: might go down to a small. If it's a little
Speaker 2: you know, tight in the palm, we might go to
Speaker 2: a cadet medium, which gives them a little bit more
Speaker 2: space through. We call cadet like a construction hand. It's
Speaker 2: kind of like it's that sort of meaty palm and
Speaker 2: shorter fit. And there's you're a cadet.
Speaker 3: I am yeah, medium, medium large cadet.
Speaker 2: There you go medium large cadet and.
Speaker 3: Talk about specific size.
Speaker 2: And I think also as a direct to consumer brand,
Speaker 2: we're finding that a probably a higher percentage of our
Speaker 2: customers were cadet because they have a hard time finding
Speaker 2: cadet in pro shops. A lot of pro shops just
Speaker 2: carry regular gloves. Red Rooster carries the widest range of
Speaker 2: sizes of any brand, including Titleist. Titleist doesn't carry right
Speaker 2: hand cadet. They just don't do it because it's a
Speaker 2: relatively small market and they are not worth it for them.
Speaker 2: And those customers are our customers because we offer it
Speaker 2: and they can't find it other places. So I think
Speaker 2: we tend to skew also with lefties, you know, they
Speaker 2: have a hard time finding gloves we offer, you know.
Speaker 3: And clubs and clubs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we go kind of like deep on the
Speaker 2: on the sizes and kind of build those relationships. So
Speaker 2: I do think we're kind of probably if you look
Speaker 2: at our customer data, it's probably not industry data. We're
Speaker 2: just finding maybe those we serve the obscure sizes that
Speaker 2: are maybe hard to find.
Speaker 3: And that's one of the advantages of direct to consumer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so one to one.
Speaker 3: Communication as opposed to you know, surveys to middlemen whatnot.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: What about women who have long nails and they have
Speaker 3: you know, like they're really concerned about the quality of
Speaker 3: the life of their nails and the look and stuff.
Speaker 3: Does that change the size of the glove if they
Speaker 3: have the longer nails.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what they'll often do is we'll see the those
Speaker 2: are now that the women's gloves do have longer fingers
Speaker 2: relative to the men's glove simply because like that is,
Speaker 2: women have kind of longer, thinner fingers, and so those
Speaker 2: gloves are kind of fitted to that. Anyway, they are
Speaker 2: slightly longer, not for the purpose of the nails, and
Speaker 2: certainly like some nails just can't be accommodated. I hear
Speaker 2: some women they actually cut the top and of the
Speaker 2: fingers so that the if you have very long nails,
Speaker 2: so that they can go through. In other cases, the
Speaker 2: gloves are sort of allow for that little extra room
Speaker 2: so that the nails fit in there. We have a
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of female customers and we've rolled
Speaker 2: out I think I showed you these rainbow of colors.
Speaker 2: We've got, you know, a beautiful lavender, you know, sort
Speaker 2: of purple glove, and this pink glove here a soft pink,
Speaker 2: and this yellow canary color and this really nice soft
Speaker 2: green emerald color. So we've we've also tried to not
Speaker 2: only offer enough sizes and for women, but also like
Speaker 2: styles that appeal to them. So these gloves that I
Speaker 2: showed you, they were offered to female only. We would
Speaker 2: often make a glove and it's realistically more styled for
Speaker 2: men offered in women's sizes. And now we're featuring more
Speaker 2: styles that cater to the female audience, fit their personal
Speaker 2: you know, style tastes, match outfits. Just trying to be
Speaker 2: flexible to meet that market. That's one of the biggest
Speaker 2: growing markets right now for new golfers is female golfers.
Speaker 3: Especially with lots of colors women buy like just the
Speaker 3: rainbow of colors all at once, just depending on the
Speaker 3: outfit that they have.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's right. We would see like all four
Speaker 2: of those gloves.
Speaker 3: Even if I did that from my various styles of
Speaker 3: clothes or colors of clothes. Nobody would notice. But the women,
Speaker 3: they're like, wait a minute, didn't you wear that colored
Speaker 3: glove last time we played together?
Speaker 2: That's right? The details.
Speaker 3: Okay, so let's talk about the product line because you know,
Speaker 3: again when we first started, you had a couple of gloves,
Speaker 3: and you have really gone way beyond that. Now again,
Speaker 3: the Red Rooster brand is so strong and it looks
Speaker 3: so good that you know, you've just found other places
Speaker 3: to put your logo on it and it's not just
Speaker 3: gloves and hats.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right. So the first products who did it
Speaker 2: was the gloves, and we offered it an accessory, the
Speaker 2: glove compartment, and we're coming up because.
Speaker 3: They're the original one. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so this is the second version of this
Speaker 2: is going to be like a two point zero. We've
Speaker 2: made this is it's waterproof. We've improved the velcro here,
Speaker 2: we've improved the zipper. It's a more rugged, easy to
Speaker 2: open zipper. It has the inside has a closed pocket.
Speaker 2: Now it used to be open, so now you can
Speaker 2: put your phone in there, you can put some of
Speaker 2: your accessories, ball markers, et cetera. And then we have
Speaker 2: the dividers so you can put you know, three or
Speaker 2: four gloves, keep them separate so they don't you know,
Speaker 2: stick together.
Speaker 3: Thick. Does that make that thicker?
Speaker 2: It is, it's slight. It is slightly thicker, yeah, so
Speaker 2: it can carry a little bit more. That's kind of
Speaker 2: like the upgrade on that product. I'd mentioned the what
Speaker 2: we call the cockpit, which is the higher end version,
Speaker 2: the leather version for those that want to keep the
Speaker 2: gloves kind of safely either in their their locker or
Speaker 2: inside their their bag. We've come up with you know
Speaker 2: that we had launched in the last two months alone,
Speaker 2: last sixty days, we launched eleven different you know glove styles,
Speaker 2: everything from our Canada a glove flag gloves to the
Speaker 2: we called the Liberty for Fourth of July, or our
Speaker 2: US flag or we got the Scottish glove to celebrate
Speaker 2: Royal true and the British Open.
Speaker 3: So I love that it's a that you have it
Speaker 3: as a wide glove, but you have the thumb colored, Yeah,
Speaker 3: to match the velcrow flat. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's been really just how we're just kind of
Speaker 2: trying to have some fun with some of the styles.
Speaker 2: Some of them are limited edition, and then we're starting
Speaker 2: to come up with like some of these accessories like.
Speaker 3: The way this wait before we go there on the
Speaker 3: limited edition? Do you number them?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: That I mean, if you want to make them collectible,
Speaker 3: is limited edition? You got a number them and be like,
Speaker 3: oh I got number twelve.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you can do that for some other accessories,
Speaker 2: but gloves don't last too long, so and you're not
Speaker 2: likely to put them in a drawer, want you to
Speaker 2: use them.
Speaker 3: But some of them put them on the wall. You
Speaker 3: have them on the wall.
Speaker 2: Well that's to celebrate our kickstarter Okay, but yeah, we
Speaker 2: certainly could we could, We could try. We are working
Speaker 2: on some limited edition headcovers, leather headcovers that we're working
Speaker 2: with our with our partner, and some of those can
Speaker 2: can be fun. We are finding that in some cases,
Speaker 2: like the Scotland glove here called the Saltire, I mean
Speaker 2: it we only made a hundred of them, so you know,
Speaker 2: they didn't last the day you know, we sent an
Speaker 2: email out and they were all gone. So sometimes we're
Speaker 2: we're learning that lessons more.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, and what other accessories that let's talk about
Speaker 3: your hat line. Do we have a bucket hat yet
Speaker 3: or a big brim hat. I've been bugging you for this,
Speaker 3: Yes we do.
Speaker 2: We've got we have fourteen new hat styles coming, everything
Speaker 2: from performance hats to visors and bucket hats.
Speaker 3: We have good idea.
Speaker 2: What's a performance hat just super breatheable so for the
Speaker 2: heat so and and really like holds the dries quickly
Speaker 2: and actually really good in the just more of a
Speaker 2: performance material. We do have some a couple of dad
Speaker 2: hats as well, so the you know, traditional kind of
Speaker 2: like cotton hats, we're trying to have a and they're
Speaker 2: the lower profile. The performance hats are made of the
Speaker 2: you know, dry wicking material and have some breathe ability,
Speaker 2: some holes in them. And then we've got you know,
Speaker 2: four styles of two different styles and and two different
Speaker 2: colors of visors, and then two different styles and two
Speaker 2: different colors of bucket hats. So we really want to
Speaker 2: have that wide range of of hats. We've got you
Speaker 2: know a lot of customers who that's great real estate too,
Speaker 2: I think, you know, marketing wise, if you can get
Speaker 2: customers who love our gloves that's not near as visible
Speaker 2: as say a head cover, of course, which we've been
Speaker 2: in the head covers for a while. That's probably the
Speaker 2: best real estate on a bag. If you can get
Speaker 2: a red rooster head cover on one of your customers,
Speaker 2: that's highly visible. And of course you can't beat a hat,
Speaker 2: you know, so uh and then you know, I'm a
Speaker 2: I'm a guy where you know, sun's sleeves, and obviously,
Speaker 2: as a redhead, I'm pretty sensitive to have always worn
Speaker 2: bucket hats. So we wanted to produce some of our
Speaker 2: own and I'm really I'm really happy with the with
Speaker 2: what we've come out with, and as soon as they're ready,
Speaker 2: I'm going to send you some some pictures of the
Speaker 2: pre production samples and you can you can choose your
Speaker 2: bucket hat. Fred. I know you're a proponent.
Speaker 3: I'm big proponent of big brim hats too, because I
Speaker 3: think that I still think that the PGA should make
Speaker 3: it that baseball caps are just they don't do anything
Speaker 3: other than protect you, you know, your eyes from the sun,
Speaker 3: but the side of your head and your back of
Speaker 3: your neck, you're exposed and it's just not healthy.
Speaker 2: You see you always see you see a lot of
Speaker 2: caddies right now wearing but not players.
Speaker 3: Right right, and like too cool? Come on, guys, you're
Speaker 3: playing that club. It may not be a cool club
Speaker 3: playing it.
Speaker 2: So I think Joel Damon and even his not a
Speaker 2: wide brim really.
Speaker 3: But no, it's bigger than most. I like his hats.
Speaker 3: I would love to. I've always wanted to, you know,
Speaker 3: and then Full Swing came out, but I want I've
Speaker 3: been trying to get in touch with him for a
Speaker 3: long time to talk to him about why because he's
Speaker 3: a cancer survivor. But his feelings about getting other players
Speaker 3: to wear the larger is so.
Speaker 2: What guys, Yeah, that would be interesting.
Speaker 3: You know. I mean, like, if you're a golfer, you're
Speaker 3: supposed to drop your ego anyway, So let's do this.
Speaker 3: Are are you still looping for your partner Brad.
Speaker 2: Well, he's he's not playing much these days, and uh,
Speaker 2: but I I love to caddy for him because I
Speaker 2: just love to see that kind of game up close,
Speaker 2: and I love to to see how he I don't
Speaker 2: want to say picks a part of golf course. He's
Speaker 2: actually ultra conservative. So it I learn a lot just
Speaker 2: in seeing.
Speaker 3: How conservative play very and you see.
Speaker 2: That's what it is. He's very you know, when we
Speaker 2: would you know, in a practice round, he's choosing lines
Speaker 2: off the tee. He's he's looking for the biggest landing area.
Speaker 2: Now maybe that requires flying a you know, a bunker,
Speaker 2: but often it means, you know, playing conservative, maybe it's
Speaker 2: a threewood or an iron off the tee. Then he's
Speaker 2: looking for the middle of the green. And so as
Speaker 2: we chart stuff, I'm often surprised at sort of how
Speaker 2: you know, the better rounds come from playing the most conservative.
Speaker 2: You kind of let the birdies come to you. You
Speaker 2: try to you avoid the bogies, and you know, par
Speaker 2: is always a good score on any hole, and it's
Speaker 2: funny when you play that way and you sort of
Speaker 2: lay back the you know, the birdies do tend to
Speaker 2: come to you, and when you're pushing for them, that's
Speaker 2: when the bogies show up. So yeah, I love looping
Speaker 2: for Brad and I'm always trying to get him out
Speaker 2: to play more tournaments, kind of selfishly so so I
Speaker 2: can get on the bag and just so I can
Speaker 2: get him playing more. He still plays just I love
Speaker 2: playing golf with him period because it's he's just on
Speaker 2: another level.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. When I was up at the Lab Golf
Speaker 3: Factory and got a chance to play with Sam and
Speaker 3: his tour development director Liam Bedford, these guys have a
Speaker 3: completely different game. I mean it was it was really
Speaker 3: fun to watch their swing and to watch the ball
Speaker 3: flight and their intention. It was amazing. And I learned
Speaker 3: a fascinating stat when I was playing with them that
Speaker 3: there was an experiment done by I don't know if
Speaker 3: it was a chorus or a group or whatever it was,
Speaker 3: but they they had golfers play without a flag on
Speaker 3: the green. Oh, and statistically they hit more greens because
Speaker 3: everyone was just trying to go for the center of
Speaker 3: the green sure, instead of flag hunting. So without flags,
Speaker 3: there was better results on greens and regulation. I thought
Speaker 3: that was absolutely exciting and interesting and something to keep
Speaker 3: in mind. Just go for the center of the green,
Speaker 3: you know, It's.
Speaker 2: Like it's hard to do sometimes, especially when you have
Speaker 2: like a wedge in your hand or you but.
Speaker 3: It flags up front.
Speaker 2: Sure, Statistically, you're right, that's how you play your best golf.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well, I want to I want to thank
Speaker 3: the audience for for hanging tight on this interview because
Speaker 3: I'm sure it sounded like an infomercial for Red Rooster Golf,
Speaker 3: and maybe it was, but it's only because I I'm
Speaker 3: excited about your product, I'm excited about your company, and
Speaker 3: I'm always fascinated to learn more about the guys who
Speaker 3: on a Kickstarter campaign come on that can actually turn
Speaker 3: their company into a success and grow with it and
Speaker 3: grow with demand. So it is just an honor to
Speaker 3: have you guys as part of our our family and
Speaker 3: watching you grow. Congratulations man, Yeah, thanks Fred.
Speaker 2: It's fun. You know, when we started, we had some
Speaker 2: i think conservative expectations and we've met them, but we've
Speaker 2: enjoyed it along the way. Brad and I, you know,
Speaker 2: we grew up playing junior golf together, so it's been
Speaker 2: a great way to you know, rekindle our friendship and
Speaker 2: get involved in the game that we love so much,
Speaker 2: and you know, with our give back programs. So it's
Speaker 2: it's something that we really enjoy. And I want to
Speaker 2: share one other thing with your audience where we're working on.
Speaker 2: It's a contest that's going to come out later this fall.
Speaker 2: It's it's our Golden Glove twenty twenty four's it's called
Speaker 2: our Golden Glove Contest, and it's a way to kind
Speaker 2: of like a reward some of our customers, but it's
Speaker 2: also to sort of educate consumers on the breadth of sizes.
Speaker 2: So our adult gloves come in twenty eight sizes, and
Speaker 2: we have one glove, a Golden Glove, in each one
Speaker 2: of those sizes, and it's like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
Speaker 2: those are going to be seeded into orders over a
Speaker 2: couple of months, and when though that Golden Glove shows
Speaker 2: up in your order, that customer will automatically win a
Speaker 2: two hundred dollars shopping spree on redroostergolf dot com and
Speaker 2: then they're entered in a draw for a trip for
Speaker 2: two to stream Song. So that trip will be in January,
Speaker 2: it looks like probably just before the PGA show. So
Speaker 2: I wanted to kind of share that with you. It's
Speaker 2: something that we're having a little bit of fun with.
Speaker 2: When we saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and their
Speaker 2: sort of remake, we came up with this idea and
Speaker 2: it was a way to kind of celebrate our customers
Speaker 2: and educate them on the different sizing and just kind
Speaker 2: of have some fun.
Speaker 3: Ah, that is brilliant. I love that idea totally. The
Speaker 3: chocolate factory, the Golden Glove. Yeah, that is great, all right,
Speaker 3: so look for that for the fall of twenty twenty four. Kerrie.
Speaker 3: Great to talk to you again, man.
Speaker 2: Congratulations, Thanks fredppreciate it.
Speaker 3: Well. It's been almost a month since we recorded last
Speaker 3: week's episode with Sam Han and I've not touched my
Speaker 3: club since because of summer travel. But I'm headed back
Speaker 3: out to the course this week and could not be
Speaker 3: more excited to get out there again, especially to keep
Speaker 3: improving with my new lab broomstick putter. But also I'm
Speaker 3: going to start testing out an electric caddy from MGI.
Speaker 3: Now I'm going to use it for the next month.
Speaker 3: You know, I always walk the golf course and I
Speaker 3: have a three wheel push cart, and it's pretty hilly
Speaker 3: here in northern California, so sometimes my back gets tested
Speaker 3: pushing the cart up and down the hills. So testing
Speaker 3: out an electric caddy is something I've wanted to do
Speaker 3: for a long time. They've reached out to me. They
Speaker 3: sent me one to try out. And I'll use it
Speaker 3: for the next month, and then we're going to have
Speaker 3: a conversation with their VP of US Sales about the product,
Speaker 3: the benefits of walking, and the latest statistics on how
Speaker 3: so many golfers are walking now more than ever. And
Speaker 3: if you have any questions about these electric caddies that
Speaker 3: you'd like me to ask their VP, then please write
Speaker 3: to me and let me know what you want to
Speaker 3: hear and I'll make sure that gets discussed now. This
Speaker 3: week's Golf Smarter Ambassador Jeff Crampton, who lives and plays
Speaker 3: in Alberta, Canada. He mentioned that he also plays at
Speaker 3: TPC Donzonte Bay in Loretto, Mexico, located on the east
Speaker 3: coast of Baja California. I'll leave a link in today's
Speaker 3: show notes of a video I created about one of
Speaker 3: the most beautiful holes I've ever played, and that's number
Speaker 3: seventeen at TPC Donezonte Bay, which is the only TPC
Speaker 3: course in Mexico. And when you come up over the
Speaker 3: hilltop to get the view of this par three that
Speaker 3: is looking out to the Sea of Cortes onto a
Speaker 3: green that is elevated about one hundred fifty feet above
Speaker 3: the wh It's breathtaking, and I'll make sure so you
Speaker 3: go to Golfsmarter dot com and click on today's show
Speaker 3: and you'll see the video. Or I'll just leave a
Speaker 3: link in the show notes. It's a short video and
Speaker 3: you can see it. It's again, it's mind blowing. Anyway.
Speaker 3: I love that golf course and hoping to get there
Speaker 3: again before the end of this year. Jeff wanted to
Speaker 3: see Tony Manzoni's video of the Lost Fundamental, and he
Speaker 3: got it for free just by sharing with us where
Speaker 3: he plays, where he lives, and which episode number this is. Now,
Speaker 3: now that we talk to Carrie about the Great Gloves
Speaker 3: and the multitude of choices they offer a Redrooster Golf,
Speaker 3: I want to remind you that when you sign up
Speaker 3: to be a golf Smarter Ambassador, you get a choice
Speaker 3: of three free gifts, and one of those choices, along
Speaker 3: with Tony Manzoni's Lost Fundamental video, is a glove and
Speaker 3: glove storage compartment or cockpit from Red Rooster Golf. I
Speaker 3: can't think of how I could make it any easier
Speaker 3: for you to become one of our ambassadors. All you
Speaker 3: need to do is introduce a future episode just write
Speaker 3: to Golf Smarter Podcast at gmail dot com and I'll
Speaker 3: get back to you because you know, I just can't
Speaker 3: give the instructions here because I give specific instructions on
Speaker 3: which episode it's going to be. So I'll get back
Speaker 3: to you after you write to me with some simple
Speaker 3: instructions on how to call in record and I'll even
Speaker 3: give you a script of exactly what to say if
Speaker 3: you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for upcoming episodes,
Speaker 3: like the suggestion that I got this week for getting
Speaker 3: Jeff Mangum of the Putting Zone back on the show.
Speaker 3: We haven't talked to Jeff since twenty seventeen, and I've
Speaker 3: already written to him and he has already said, let's
Speaker 3: do it. So stay tuned. We'll have Jeff Mangum to
Speaker 3: talk about putting again, and that's always an adventure with Jeff. Anyway.
Speaker 3: For any of those things, right to Golf Smarter podcas
Speaker 3: Cast at gmail dot com or click on the Heyfread
Speaker 3: button when you're at Golfsmarter dot com