57 - Intern(view) Part Two

Episode Transcript:

 

Rich: Hey, Caitlin.

Catelin: Hi. Hi. We are, It's, it's Tuesday, right? Yeah. It

Rich: is another Tuesday. We tend to record on Tuesdays. I don't know why, but that's just what that's doing. Um, and we're doing our second, By the time you're hearing

Catelin: this, It will not be Tuesday.

Rich: No, it'll be a Thursday because that's when these go out at like five in the morning or something.

Rich: Um, I know. Well, we don't have to be up. I think Zach just schedules it. So it just flies out and everybody has it there for their commute or whatever. Um, so we're doing our intern of you, uh, part two today with Casey. I can't wait. Yeah. So if you haven't listened to intern view part one, it might be good to go back and find that one.

Rich: It would have been at the beginning of summer sometime like may or June. I don't know exactly what episode it was. Um, Zach can link to it in the description. Um, but that kind of sets the stage and we'll have Casey give us a, an update of what he did, uh, as an intern, but intern view number one was all about that.

Rich: Um, And so, yeah, so Casey's gonna, his internship is done as of tomorrow. Um, and

so

Rich: I know he's been a fun addition to the team. I had somebody in the office with me in Omaha. It was great. Um, but yeah, so he's going to give us kind of his retrospective on 71 shirts. Uh, our first intern to launch the site and launch some advertising.

Rich: So that's exciting. He'll talk about that. Um, and then what he thinks about working with a group of crazy, weird people. We're a bunch of weirdos! We are, but in the good way. We

Catelin: are.

Rich: Alright, so in honor of Casey, as we generally do with interns who are not 21 yet, he'll be 21 next year, uh, by the time, if he comes back, um, We'd love to have him back, right?

Rich: But, we're, we're Doing a mocktail love. I know, I, I bring back, I mean he's sitting there listening to us talk about this, but I would a hundred percent bring him back as if he's not gonna listen

Catelin: to it later.

Rich: I know. So, uh, we're doing a mocktail, it is, um, kind of the mocktail to end all mocktails. It is the Arnold Palmer, which is also very hard to say.

Rich: Arnold Palm, Paul, Paul. There's something about the L and the m Arnold Palmer. You have to be very, um. Precise about it. Just

Catelin: like Arnold Palmer. Just great.

Rich: So, I mean, that's why a lot of people call it an, I would just like an iced tea lemonade because those words are easier to say. Um, but it's named after the famous golfer, Arnold Palmer.

Rich: Glad I was not a golf announcer when he was doing his thing. You could probably have just called

Catelin: him like Arnie.

Rich: I think they probably did. AP, give him a nickname, Palmy, that's probably not a good nickname, um, so we'll not, we'll not go there. Sorry, Arnold Palmer. I don't even know if he's still alive.

Catelin: He's definitely not.

Catelin: I don't think so. I don't know.

Rich: Um, but the drink came back when, uh, Palmer goes back to when Palmer and his wife, Winnie, uh, would make pitchers of iced tea for lunch when he came home from golf and he would ask Ask his wife to leave some room for lemonade. Um, and he loves the drink so much. He would actually bring a thermos of it with him to the golf course.

Rich: So

Catelin: precious.

Rich: I mean, people had put lemon in tea for a long time, but he was like, eh, more lemon, more lemonade. Just is it lemonade or is it

Catelin: the sugar? Cause I

Rich: think it's both. So, and what's interesting to me, like I, and I'm sorry for anybody in the South who's listening, but I hate sweet tea. Absolutely hate sweet tea.

Rich: Tread lightly. Um, but I love me an all Arnold Palmer. Um, so it's just the right amount of sweet for me. Like to the point where if I get iced tea at a restaurant, I'll sometimes, especially if it's one of those fountain things, I'll sometimes hit it with that minute made lemonade, um, just to, that seems like

Catelin: blasphemy.

Catelin: In comparison to a southern sweet tea. I am, I'm also sure that

Rich: Winnie made her own lemonade, probably from fresh squeezed lemons, sugar, and water.

Catelin: He has since passed. He passed away at the age of 87 due to, uh, heart disease.

Rich: Okay, I mean, I think you could pass away at the age of 87 due to your 87 also, like, that's a good, healthy, like, beyond the average age, I think.

Rich: Um, all right, well, good. So You could just pour some iced tea and lemonade into a glass, but that's not how we roll here. Um, no, you could make

Catelin: it exceptionally more difficult, which is what I like to

Rich: do. So how do we, how do we do that? Well,

Catelin: for the lemonade, you need two ounces of simple syrup, four ounces of water and two ounces of freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Catelin: Do you know what I would love is like a fair lemonade. Oh, that is just like, Mm-Hmm. , lemons and shirt. I can feel it. The, yeah.

Rich: We're pointing to our jaw back here by the ears where that bitter like hits you. Mm. That sour, I guess it is not bitter sour, is it? I love it. But yeah, it's just like

Catelin: that zing, uh, and you, I think makes, just, makes all of that together, you know?

Catelin: Uh mm-Hmm. . And then for the, this is. For the cocktail.

Rich: That's because the vodka is optional. So I think mocktail and then you could throw vodka in it. Like anything, honestly, like any drink in my house, you can put vodka or gin in it and it will be fine.

Catelin: Thank you for qualifying gin. Um, yes. Two to three ounces of lemonade, which is what you just made.

Catelin: Uh, two to three ounces of iced tea and a lemon meal for garnish. You can also garnish with a mint sprig. I don't know

Rich: if it's kind of fun.

Catelin: It's fun. I don't know.

Rich: You don't have to eat it. It's just green just for color. All right. Um, and then of course if you are over 21. Basil would be cute too. Uh, basil, basil would be fun muddled in this actually.

Rich: A basil lemonade ice, a basil, is it a basil Arnold Palmer or is it a basil lemonade iced tea?

Catelin: I think it's a

Rich: Basil Arnold, Basil Palmer. They should have named their child Basil. And then he could have had like, or if they were

Catelin: British, it could have been Basil,

Rich: Basil. Um, yeah. So like everything, you can throw two ounces of vodka in this.

Rich: If you're over 21 and, uh, able to drink in the U S, um, which is where most people are listening to this. So

Catelin: probably, uh, in a cocktail shaker filled with ice, put your simple syrup, water, lemon juice. You can strain that if you want to remove the pulp and the seeds. I think the pulp makes it a little bit more authentic.

Catelin: I like a pulp. I don't like a seed. The seeds,

Rich: no. The seeds, like, jeez. Whoa.

Mm hmm.

Catelin: Uh, strain that into a tall glass. And, uh, then you can mix your, um, optional vodka in a highball, top with equal parts, iced tea and lemonade, garnish with your lemon wheel, your mint sprig, or basil, if you're, Trying to be extra and then enjoy I feel like before the

Rich: summer is over I would want to do this with muddled basil.

Rich: I feel like that's the way to go.

Catelin: I had, do you know, I'm retracting because I had a cucumber mint lemonade at Hardline Coffee

a

Catelin: couple weeks ago and it was so good. It was the perfect balance.

Rich: Well, we don't do cucumber in our house due to the allergy. That's right. Cause of the allergy. Yeah. Um, Okay, so you were going to tell us where this comes from

Catelin: yes, this is the recipe is from the spruce eats

Rich: But really it's from Arnold and Winnie Palmer like if you really want to get into it

Catelin: They probably weren't I mean, I guess I don't know Winnie, but maybe they weren't putting the vodka in so it's probably where the distinction lies I Wonder if you could do different kinds of tea Cause you could do like an earl gray

Rich: or you

Catelin: could do like,

Rich: oh, you could do like a blackberry herbal tea or something if you wanted to not have the caffeine.

Rich: That'd be really good. I think you could also put like fruit in there. I mean, you could just do anything. I'm

yeah.

Rich: English breakfast is going to be pretty tough or like bitter, I guess, but maybe.

All right.

Rich: The point is

Catelin: there is room to experiment, which is really what Casey has done. In launching

Rich: 71 shirts,

Catelin: ads and, and all that stuff.

Catelin: He's actually sold some things, which I think is the most exciting part.

Rich: Yeah. Well, we remember the first sale, but I'm not going to get into that. We will take a break. And when we're back, we'll talk with Casey about that and we'll find out if he actually likes Arnold Palmers or not.

Rich: Okay. And we are back with Casey the intern. Um, though he has more of an identity than just the intern. He's also a runner, but most importantly, Casey, do you like an Arnold Palmer?

Casey: Yes, I do enjoy Arnold Palmer's. He can also say it really. Wow.

Rich: Good pronunciation. Wow. Applause. Except you can't hear my applause because the mic is on voice isolation.

Rich: Um, and you like sweet tea also. So when I was saying like, sweet tea, you were like, I saw you make a face. Like, I cannot believe you don't like sweet tea.

Catelin: The eyes got real big. He's like,

Rich: Trouble. I'm just, I'm not a sweet person in general. Like I didn't really like Kool Aid like all that much. Now the raspberry blue raspberry Kool Aid I do like and blue raspberry like popsicles, but that's just more about artificial sweetener, like than anything or artificial flavor color.

Rich: All right. All right. All right. So, um, I know. So good. Good on the Arnold Palmer. Um, would never put vodka in it cause until you're 21. So that's good. Um, How have you changed since you started this interview? Like what, what's been, like, have you gotten a new perspective? What's different? Do you feel like a new human?

Rich: Probably not.

Casey: Um, I guess I don't feel like a new human, but I've definitely done, um, a lot more things. I think at the beginning I was mainly just doing like the website design. And I think, I don't remember the exact day, but I think we just launched this store. When we did the first, um, the first interview, um, so since then I've gotten to be able to like stick my toes in a lot of different like areas.

Casey: So, um, I mean I work on the website, um, I work on the social media, I work on the Facebook and Instagram ads. Um, I even had a email to respond to from one of the people that ordered. Yeah, had to tell them sorry. Which was kind of tough because they ordered the wrong size, but um, yeah, it's been great to work in like a multitude of different things and I I mean that's what it's for it's gaining experience and um kind of learning my way around different things and I definitely feel like You I got to be able to do that this year.

Casey: So

Rich: very cool. Do you feel like you, um, you came, you like the things that you were kind of thought would be a challenge in the beginning. Do you feel like you worked through those? Do you feel like you've kind of smoothed out the challenges or do you think there's still some things there that are kind of a rocky road?

Casey: Yeah, so I think, um, I think the biggest challenge for me was just kind of coming in and smoothing things out. I think a lot of things were either like rough ideas or just kind of like getting stuff off the ground when I came here initially. So like the beginning stuff that I did where like I had to go through and make sure all the shirts were the same price and like making sure that.

Casey: They all had the same colors, or not the same colors, but like, some would have 25 color options, and some would have 16, and some would have, like, some would be available in 2xl, and some wouldn't. So I just wanted to go back and make everything, um, kind of consistent. Um, and then I think a lot of the stuff that I do as well, is going to set like a good precedent for, um, the future.

Casey: I think like the social media, I mean, I found like some drafts and stuff from last year, but like when I got the Instagram and the Facebook, there wasn't anything that was like still up. Um, so those might've just been ideas. I don't know if they got like taken down, but. I just hope that whoever like comes next can just kind of like look at what I did and like build upon it.

Casey: So I just want to create a good starting point for the next person as well.

Rich: Oh, very cool. Yeah. And you, I know that like with the colors and the sizes, we can only have so many variations the way that the service we're using works because it's a print on demand. Uh, and by cutting it back to, I think it was 14 colors.

Rich: Is that right? Um, for each shirt,

Casey: I think it's a 16 cause we got five sizes. Yeah. And 16 colors which makes 80 variations So we can have a

Rich: hundred max. I think

Casey: yeah, so my goal with the variations is that um I have it at 80 right now so that in the future if they want to do Like extra small or a 3xl like they if they want to add a size We would then be up to 96 variations.

Casey: So there's room to create an extra size or if they want to release like new colors You Because I know you can do custom colors. I didn't really mess with that. Um, I think every new color would be like 16. Every color would be It'd be just five more for five more. Yep. It'd be different sizes. So you can implement a lot more color.

Casey: So much math and figuring out what you're

Rich: going to sell. I do like that. You got every shirt now is a 2XL because you're right. It was like every once in a while. I'd be like, oh, this one's a 2XL, but I can't get this one at a 2XL. Um, so that's cool consistency. So you, uh, you evened it all out. That was,

Casey: that was my goal with, with that was creating consistency and then just kind of looking ahead for, for colors and stuff like that.

Casey: And also like

Catelin: in terms of a like user experience, like I was trying to shop for a purse the other day. This is a long. Unrelated thing, but they had like the size. It's called a tangent, Caitlyn. It's called a tangent. And I am happy to go on it. But it was like, there was one size of bag that I was looking at.

Catelin: But when I clicked on the size of bag, it didn't have all of the color variations. Like, it wasn't on a single page with the different instances. It was like it would take me to a different page, and then I couldn't get back to the, to the, It was very frustrating. So oh, wow. Consistency across. Yeah.

Casey: That was, uh, another decision I had to make.

Casey: I mean, it was, it was pretty honestly easy for me, especially cause like I came in and I was an outsider at first, like I worked on building up the website and creating it. So me coming in and kind of looking around, I don't do a ton of online shopping, but I do have my opinions on like different stuff.

Casey: So, um, that was another thing I changed. Some of the. Okay. Like even when you look at a page and you can see like you've got the colors and the sizes Those are the two things that you got to pick. Well, which one do you put first? well With t shirts the size is the one thing that you're gonna know first.

Casey: So you got to put the size first

And I'm not

Casey: sure how stock works for for this but like most shops like It'll depend like if they have the colors and whatever sizes, but you don't want to select a color first only to figure out it's not your size. So you want to put the size first because that's like the non negotiable thing and then look at your options at what you have for color.

Casey: So looking at things like that is, was another thing I kind of looked at.

Rich: Mm-Hmm. I mean, you could always do what I've done before and you could buy it in a smaller size and just assume you're gonna lose weight. And then you don't lose weight and then it just hits. Oh girl. Then you donate it eventually

Rich: No, I know. You buy, buy for your body. Don't,

Catelin: we don't do aspirational. We don't do aspirational wardrobe No. Anymore. And that's something that's very 2019

Rich: I hadn't even thought of is like, pick the size first because you're right. Then you'll get that little slash on the colors that aren't available in that size.

Rich: So you know, okay. Now I need to pick from the available colors.

Casey: Yeah. Hmm. And it was, it was really nice too, because, um, the website that was run by Shopify, they actually did have a lot of, um, customizable like features. I know with like some of those website builders, sometimes they're very like restrictive, um, with all the stuff you can do, but I actually found it pretty intuitive to kind of do the stuff that I wanted to do.

Casey: And I think even, um, since the day I got here versus what it looks like now, it looks like a pretty different site. So I'm kind of proud of that.

Rich: Yeah. And that, uh, you've teased our next episode really well. We're going to talk about Shopify how they work together. And I think for, For people listening and thinking about Shopify, like we're actually using a free theme too.

Rich: Like we're not paying for anything except yeah. And we're using the cheap 29 a month, which restricts a few things that we can do with like workflows and things like that. But we can do those in HubSpot. Um, but yeah, it's, uh, you can do a lot with it. It's surprising how you can make it your own, uh, and make it work.

Rich: Right. Um, and you sold a shirt, right? Talk to us about that. I know you've done some analytics, you've looked at some things. What happened? What was your success? Like what? What's going on? Yeah.

Casey: So I think the sales today, I think we've sold 15 shirts.

Catelin: We had,

Rich: we had two come in yesterday. Somebody bought two shirts yesterday.

Rich: That was,

Casey: that was my mom.

Casey: Yay. Casey's mom told me. She told me she was going to buy some and I was like, you should buy them before like I make my presentation so I can put two more.

Casey: That is the

Catelin: ultimate like group project hack. Casey work in the streets, work in the family.

Rich: My mother in law bought a shirt too, but legitimately, like I didn't even know it. She just loved the sunshine one on a blue on the light blue. Cause she's like, it's like it's on the sky. Um, she wore it the other day.

Rich: She wore it over the weekend.

Casey: Yeah, but we've sold 15 shirts total. I think, um, 12 of them have been from the website and three of them have been from Facebook, um, which is actually pretty impressive considering that the Facebook ads I launched, um, late July, late July. So since I've gotten three sales from that is pretty impressive so far.

Rich: And we're not spending a ton of money. It's like, what, 10, 20 bucks a day, something like that.

Casey: Yeah. And I've, I've gotten like almost all the ads on my Instagram. I don't know if it's because I follow her because every time I see it, I like screenshot it. So like the interactions, it's like, Oh my gosh, they must really love it.

Casey: But I get them all the time on my, my Instagram now.

Rich: I get a bunch of them though. Like I get woven and like I get random unknown t shirt shops constantly on my feet. I think it's partly because like I like graphic tees and I do buy them. Occasionally, so the algorithm I like

Casey: looking at them and I like seeing what they're putting out too.

Casey: So that's scoping out the competition Seeing what they're doing But yeah, I'm proud of the the ones that I put out and I I'm not exact like I I was telling Zach a little Bit, but um, I'm not exactly sure what all the analytics mean and going into meta. They're very They have every metric you can ever think of.

Casey: I'm not 100 percent sure how to analyze all that but So, like I said, just building a groundwork of like releasing these Facebook ads and um, I think the next person that, I mean, I wrote it in my thing, but I think they'll know a lot more about, um, kind of meta and how to analyze what I did good and what didn't do well and kind of how to build off of that as well.

Rich: Well, and you were a hybrid so normally this is two people There's a designer and there's more of a business digital person And you were kind of the hybrid of that and did both pieces So you had to kind of be more surface on both I think yeah

Casey: Yeah, that's what I had to consider too. Yeah

Rich: Yeah, well, we got a job fair coming up for a fall intern.

Rich: So we'll see We'll see how that goes. Um, but yeah, ideally we'll get a couple of them. I think megan's gonna go do A job fair at morningside

Catelin: how fun

Rich: Yeah, we got invited

Catelin: Uh, did you learn anything about e commerce?

Casey: Uh, I mean, What else? Okay, um, I don't know if I've touched on, like, organic social as much. Oh, you haven't

Rich: talked about that at all, no.

Casey: Yeah. Um, so that was another big thing that I had to do. Uh, obviously running the social media for Instagram and Facebook was a big thing.

Casey: Thanks Um, I worked with Megan really closely on a lot of that, um, something like developing a content plan. Um, so I had to do some content calendars, which they don't look super pretty. Cause I got through them for a lot of loops. I know, um, this internship has provided me with a lot of agency, which is good, but sometimes it's been like too much agency.

Casey: I know Megan messaged me and she was like, She's like, so I gotta ask, like, who's been approving your social posts? And I was like, uh, nobody. I mean, she's like, I'm going to show you how the, uh, approval process work through whatever. And I was like, okay, I can, I can do that. But

Rich: yeah. And we do shortcut some of that for this.

Rich: Like I've been watching the posts. And if you've done anything like. Agreed. Yes. I pulled it down, but we do try to, cause you're only here for a short time. We try to condense it, but part of it is not only for you to have a good experience, but we take some of our junior employees, um, so like instead of Jesse is chief creative officer, like supervising your graphics, Megan was super and helping you with graphics.

Rich: Uh, and I heard she's kind of tough as a boss, like giving her feedback. She's, she's

Casey: really tough. I mean, there'll be some things where I'm like, cause I, I like to think I'm a pretty detail oriented person too. And I'd like. I'd be like, Oh, maybe there's just like one thing that I should fix. And I was like, Oh, I think it's all right.

Casey: And then I like send it to Megan and she points out the exact thing. And I was like, damn, I should have, should have considered that. Like, uh, I, I saw it too.

Rich: Well, you know, your intuition is right then you just gotta like act on it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, really fun. But no, she was,

Casey: she was really helpful. She's probably my most valuable resource throughout this whole internship.

Casey: I talked to her a lot. Yeah.

Rich: We do we do love our Megan. I've got a meeting with her tomorrow about a logo and branding for a food truck. So that'll be Talk more about that when we do we're just doing a discovery meeting tomorrow, but it's an in person meeting which would be fun

Catelin: I I'm curious what? What has changed since like completing your internship.

Catelin: So like we had talked a little bit about kind of where you see yourself after graduation. Like what, uh, if anything, what has changed?

Casey: Yeah. So I'd say towards the beginning of the internship, I was looking more into like graphic design and stuff like that. But I really do did enjoy like the, um, the digital marketing portion of it too.

Casey: Cause I mean, essentially I was running multiple functions of a small business. Yeah. I was like, I was like, wow, this is like something like I could see myself doing cause I mean for a lot of the times it was like, I was kind of marketing to a group that like I didn't necessarily feel like I fit into as much cause like some of the shirts, um, the audience would definitely not be like me or.

Casey: Um, maybe necessarily my age group, but I was like Like I I would kind of imagine myself like Doing something. I mean, I don't know what I would sell or something like that. But um doing something that i'd i'd be like passionate about but I was like, I I feel more confident that I could do that. I was really into like entrepreneurial like stuff in I went to so many seminars and like Elementary and middle school about like entrepreneurship and then there was somewhere along the line that I was just like I don't think I'm like Self assured and self disciplined enough to do that.

Casey: So then I'm just kind of like scrapped in kept with like the Other stuff in business, but I mean it's all related and I think it'll all Um, give me opportunities. Um, I think that you, I, Oh, you can go. Oh, no, go ahead. I think

Catelin: anybody who gets up and run six miles before they do anything else probably has the self discipline to run a business, but that's just one woman's opinion.

Rich: And I think now if you, if you hit that idea and you're like, Hey, this is something that I'm passionate about. And I think I could build a business around at least at the base level, you know, you have kind of those skills to get it going, you'll need some support and help from other places, which everybody does.

Rich: Um, but yeah, that's a really cool thing. Um, I think we have time for one more quick question and then we're going to close, but your favorite memory from your time at antidote 71.

Casey: Oh, my favorite memory. I really like the pool party. I can say that. I actually, I got to, um, I got to meet everybody, which was cool cause I do a lot of zoom meetings.

Casey: And I like Rich, but I mean, I know I'm a lot. It's nice to meet other people too, so that was nice. And

Rich: you'd spent a full semester with me in class, and then a full summer with me, as like the one sitting next to you for your internship. Yeah, and Zach even was able to come back from, um, Yeah, yeah. North Carolina for it, so you got to meet him, because I know you worked with him a little bit.

Rich: Was

Catelin: it the candy salad? That was what really put it over the edge.

Casey: Oh, the candy salad was a lot. I was eating that and I could feel my teeth rotting by the second. He's like, I got to run six

Catelin: and a half miles tomorrow.

Casey: Well, I have a good, like I have a pretty decent sweet tooth, but some of the candy like that, I'm just like, I cannot eat that much.

Casey: And in one sitting,

Rich: it's a lot. All right. Well, um, Thank you, like, so much for being our intern and sharing all these thoughts with us. We really enjoyed it. Um, and I think it's time for us to wrap up the episode. I

Catelin: just want to say very quickly that it takes a special kind of person to like gel with the, the crew that exists here and, uh, you did a great job even with the, uh, generational and all.

Catelin: divide that sometimes exists. Uh, I just, um, it was really lovely getting to know you and, and, um, I know we didn't work together at all, but it was fun to, uh, to chat with you and hang with you. So, uh, I think you say it

Rich: was, it takes a very special person to like work beside me, like all day, but anyway,

Catelin: you're part of the crew, but, uh, all right.

Rich: Well, , thank you Casey, uh, for everything. And, um, we do have an upcoming episode, so inbound is coming. Woo-hoo. Um, and so we will be there. I think there's five of us going. That'll be interesting. Yeah. So we're gonna do a drink called Ward eight. I have no idea what that is. It sounds like a prison thing. Um, and it's gonna be things we're looking forward.

Rich: Neighborhood, neighborhood, I think 2024. So that's gonna be our next, uh, next one. And then we'll of course do an inbound recap after that. So can't wait. Uh, look forward to that.

Catelin: Thank you for listening. As always, you can find our agency at antidote underscore seven one. And if you have a question you'd like to send our way, you can go to ctapodcast.

Catelin: live to shoot us a message even better. Still, you can leave us a voice message on our hotline at 402 718 9971 and your question or comment will make it into a future episode.

Rich: Absolutely it will. So thank you, Casey. Thank you, Caitlin. Thank you everybody for listening and we'll see you next time.