Full Transcript – Billy Thompson – Wild Business Growth Podcast #244

This is the full transcript for Episode #244 of the Wild Business Growth Podcast featuring Billy Thompson – Pit Stain Punisher, Founder of Thompson Tee. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Billy Thompson 0:00
You know, dollar in dollar out, you can do the math right? You got to know what’s coming in, you got to know what’s going out, you got to figure out where you can cut those expenses and cut and cut and cut.

Max Branstetter 0:23
Hey, you, welcome back to the Wild Business Growth Podcast. This is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning who’s turning Wild ideas into Wild growth. I’m your host, Max Branstetter, Founder and Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting. And you can email me at to save time with your high-quality podcast. This is Episode 244. Shout out Hammerin’ Hank Aaron, and today’s guest is Hammerin’ Billy Thompson. Billy is the President and Founder of Thompson Tee, the original sweat proof undershirt. And in this episode, we talk Billy’s journey from the Entourage-type agency world at William Morris, we talk his journey with hyperhidrosis aka excessive sweating and what ultimately led him to start and create the Thompson Tee. And he shares some tips for dealing with any sort of financial pressure because he’s been on a roller coaster of that in his life and has some awesome tips there. It is Billy, Billy, Billy. Enjoooooooy the shooooooow!

Aaaaaaalrightyyyy we are here with Billy Thompson, President and Co-Founder of Thompson Tee. Which is just terrific. I mean, just to throw another T in there, but really, really excited to talk to you today. Billy, thanks for joining. And how are you doing today?

Billy Thompson 1:57
I’m doing good Max, you know, a little bit of a late night last night my youngest youngest was up with a little bit of an asthma issue and coughing into the wee hours of the night. But, you know, that says life parenthood the joys of parenthood, so but other than that, I’m super stoked to be on the show, Max. And, you know, as I mentioned earlier, you had a bunch of great people on this show from the creator, the voice of you know, Bart Simpson, which is awesome to the creator of the Razor to the laser tag and all the way to the NFL RedZone commentator, Scott Hanson, who I’m a huge fan of and believe that he should definitely be one of the highest paid commentators in the business. It’s absolutely amazing what he can do. And I would love to have his job one day.

Max Branstetter 2:38
Well, thank you so much you, can I hire you as my hype, man, I guess that was awesome. You’ve done your research and done you’re listening. And, you know, it’s a lot of really good interviews, and I think this one is probably just gonna be awful. So we’re gonna turn anybody away, you know, you don’t have an interesting story at all. So yeah, she’s thanks, Billy. So, super pumped to get to the Thompson Tee story. But before that I saw in your background, you know, as you were stalking me, I was stalking you a little sock and back and forth. And I know you’ve had a variety of jobs in the in sales roles, but kind of mixed in there is you were trained at William Morris, which I think anybody who’s familiar with the agency representation world knows, you know, WME, yeah, whatever you prefer, is like one of the biggest most well known companies in the world. Yep. With some pretty famous clients there. How was your experience overall from that?

Billy Thompson 3:34
They it was I, you know, it’s everything that people who know what it’s about, it was everything that lives up to its reputation, right. I mean, it’s, you’re in the, you’re in the epicenter of the entertainment industry, you’re touching all the different parts of, you know, from television, to music, to commercials to film to writing, I mean, you name it. And so it was a great experience. And it was, you know, I do have a sales background. I was living in LA at the time. And, you know, a friend of mine, in hindsight, I don’t know if this was a was an insult or a compliment. He said, Hey, you’d be a great agent. Right? And so it’s like, okay, well,

Max Branstetter 4:06
that can mean a wide variety of things, depending on Yeah, exactly.

Billy Thompson 4:09
Right. Exactly. So I mean, anyone who’s been in that agency world, you know, that that show Entourage that was that was on HBO many years ago. I mean, that was a very accurate depiction. And then when there’s so much insider stuff in there that I’m sure the general public just isn’t aware of, because that, you know, they’re not in the business, but that that whole experience is, you know, I started in the mailroom, right, the storied mailroom of William Morris where the likes of you know, Barry Diller and you name it had walked through there and you know, you’re getting paid $400 a week to wear a suit and walk around and deliver people’s mail, you know, and that setup is, you know, by design, you get to meet every single agent that you’re delivering mail to, you’re walking into their office, you’re dropping it off, you’re seeing their assistance. So you’re going through this training program, where they expose you to all the facets of the business, but you are starting in the mailroom and you know, you’re in there with Ivy League educated law degree folks who are trying to get there started in the business. And you know, it was it was really cool. It was really cool. And I just I decided I came to an inflection point where I was like, Well, I’m either gonna be all in on this agency thing, or, you know, I gotta get out while I can. Because I was up to start working on the CEO’s desk at the time, his name was Jim Wyatt. And, you know, that’s a big commitment, and I knew was a big commitment. And so if I did that, I was going to have to stick it out. And I just realized that, you know, being an agent maybe wasn’t necessarily for me. I mean, it’s, it takes a very specific skill set and tolerance, if you will, to be able to manage, you know, that role and do that as your job for you know, however, however long you end up doing it. And so I ended up getting out of that. And then I had segwayed into selling private jets, but the, the experience was really,

Max Branstetter 5:48
that’s, that’s a segue to just, oh, yeah, I just went to selling private as one does.

Billy Thompson 5:55
Yeah, exactly. Well, you know, I didn’t sell the entire aircraft, if you will, right. We sold those what they call fractional shares and jet cards, where you could buy 25 hour blocks of private flying time. And, you know, that was something that I didn’t, that came out of nowhere it was a recruiter had called me coincidentally enough, they called me when I was driving to a job fair on the wrong day, stuck in LA traffic, I usually don’t take phone calls, you know, that were I don’t recognize the number. But I was stuck in traffic. So I was like, I’ll take that I’ll take the call. And at the time, I was very focused on like biomedical. My girlfriend who’s my wife now was in the pharmaceutical industry, and you know, those are cushy sales jobs. So I thought, Okay, well, let’s get into biotech, biomedical, something like that. So I was very focused on that. And when this guy called, you know, he had mentioned Hey, I got this this job. And I was like, I’ve never even heard of that before. Right? I was like, what I was like, Okay, I started researching some more and I was like, Yes, I can do this. And so very under sort of under qualified for the job that you know, I met with my boss who became a mentor of mine and she’s still crushing it I mean, crushing it out there her stars continuing to rise, huge influence on my life and she took a chance on me and I just went in and you know, I crushed it for them setting some revenue records and you know, their sales director of the year and you know, all that kind of good stuff. And I got to the coolest part of that was meeting all of these high net worth individuals and hearing their stories and learning about what they did and you know being exposed to all of that which was really cool was already had an interest in that to begin with. I was always interested in the success that people had and just trying to figure out like, Well what did they do right what was their path? What did they do? Why did they make it what happened and that put me right front and center with that so I really enjoyed that job because I got to talk to these people just you know about what they what they got going on and how they do it while you know selling them their their you know their private jet travel?

Max Branstetter 7:50
Well, that’s how we actually met you know, it was in the market.

Billy Thompson 7:53
That’s right I remember Max know

Max Branstetter 7:57
nothing about that world Global Express, you

Billy Thompson 7:59
know, the law ultra long-range $50 million. Right to start.

Max Branstetter 8:03
That’s what it was this Thanks for the reminder. But it’s funny that you mentioned sitting in traffic on the wrong day because back to like your your agency, William Morris routes with Entourage, I think there’s definitely parts of the show that that people say are realistic. But the one part that people always point to that they say is super unrealistic is how they just like, bounced around to like different parts of LA like super quick. Like, oh, it’s so so easy to get from like, Santa Monica to like, you know, down to Orange County, just like that. Oh, yeah. So obviously, you know, living in LA, you know, that is not the case.

Billy Thompson 8:41
No, no, I think I had a 6-mile commute and it was 45 minutes to an hour door to door.

Max Branstetter 8:48
God that’s like quicker to run than it is to

Billy Thompson 8:50
Yeah, I thought about it a couple of times. But unfortunately, I had a suit and tie on. So I didn’t think I can, you know, jog all of it at the office. And that,

Max Branstetter 8:57
that actually, you know, alludes to your t-shirt business a little

Billy Thompson 9:00
bit. Yeah, exactly that

Max Branstetter 9:03
if you would have stuck with the William Morris route, you know, besides like getting the start in the mailroom, which, you know, is so, so common, like you’ve lived that, what is like an approach you’ve heard from others in that world that actually, you know, truly does help people move up the ranks over time.

Billy Thompson 9:20
You know, there’s a lot of your classic stuff. I mean, you know, just just to even get in there, like, and I don’t want to skip over that because that, you know, just getting in there is pretty big, right? And I’ll be it I had a, you know, a week referral, if you will, right. I wasn’t I didn’t, I didn’t have connections in the business. I didn’t have family connections, which once you’re in there, you realize there’s a lot of family connections that you know, people have throughout the industry that allows them to open a door to even get a shot to have a position you know, in the training program. And so I didn’t have that but I did have a my roommate at the time had a friend who was there and made the intro and so he at least got me in the referral pile, which is huge, right? And so I did get a call from HR but I was actually out of town at that time. And so when I got the call, I couldn’t schedule the interview right away. And so when I got back to LA, I called and followed up and I was I was getting nothing, right? Like nobody was, she was not returning my phone call the lady from HR. So what I did, again, this is some cold calling sales skills, which I believe everyone can benefit from having some of that right, just like you had mentioned, getting the redzone Scott Hanson on multiple temps. But so I actually took it upon myself to go down to the William Morris office, I knocked on the HR door, I asked for the lady, she happened to answer which was caught me off guard, I was like, Oh, my goodness, but I handed her menu from a local place that delivered lunch right around the corner. And I said, Hey, you know, I just wanted to come down, introduce myself, and I figured, you know, you’re so busy, I don’t have time to get lunch. So here, I want to bring lunch to you. And I gave her a menu and I gave her like a $25 gift card from that place to have lunch delivered to her. And I stuck my resume in the menu, right and so I can get it to her. And then she just played poker face thanked me close the door, I walked out of there feeling completely rejected. But I was like, You know what, I’m gonna go to the rest of the agencies, right, because I had already gotten this far and got the bugs, I was going to hit up ca ICM and be like, do the same thing, right? So I end up going home, kind of licking my wounds a little bit. And then boom, three o’clock that day, I get a phone call. And that started, you know, the six rounds of interviews, you got to go through and get vetted to get in there. And so I would say, you know, in an environment like that, really any environment without sounding cliche, it’s your basic networking stuff, right? I mean, you’re you’re you’re getting the opportunity to be put in front of every one of these agents, you got to network with their assistants, you got to look at the hierarchy and a path to kind of pick and choose where you want to go. Right. And that’s big to kind of knowing where you want to go. Do you want to be a literary agent? Did you want to be a motion picture agent? Do you want to do you know, actors? Or did you want to go to the music side? Or did you know, so you kind of get the feel for that while you’re there. And then you know, you start working in these and these assistants that work for these agents, they’re going to eventually move on, get promoted, or do whatever. And then you get to move in to say you want to be for me, I wanted to be a literary agent, because I had gotten into the position thinking that eventually I wanted to produce movies. I love stories and whatnot, I thought, how can I you know, be an integral part in bringing this to the table? I had a little bit of a business acumen. You know, I couldn’t really actor, writer, director or anything like that. So I thought, Okay, well, that’s where I wanted to go, I saw the scripts as the equalizer in the business. Like, everything starts with a script, nothing gets done unless you have something on paper. And so I thought, Okay, this is where I could kind of fit in and eventually maybe migrate to, you know, producing films down the road. And so that’s, that’s kind of where I had set myself up and the path that I wanted to go into. So I would say again, networking, right. And, you know, again, without sounding cliche, that whole luck is when opportunity meets preparedness. Well, you know, if you continuously put yourself in positions where you can start receiving these opportunities, and if you’re prepared to receive them, then I’ll on hindsight, you know, it’s like, Oh, you were lucky? Well, it’s like, yeah, of course, there are some luck involved. But as you know, it, you know, you you, you sort of create that luck, the opportunity for luck. Let’s put it that way. And that’s kind of how that all happened.

Max Branstetter 13:16
So from free lunches to sweating through your suit. Yeah. Six miles on the way I know and the way to work. Yeah. Let’s get to Thompson Tee. Yep. And that the way I said it sounds like a tea company like drinking tea, but no, t-shirts. Really, really cool company. And I think from a it original pain point that I think so many of us can relate to. So I want to start out with sweat. What is your background slash history with sweat personally?

Billy Thompson 13:47
Well, necessity was the mother of invention, Max. And, you know, it was an issue that once I, you know, probably around seventh grade, you’re probably hitting puberty, I realized I had and again, I won’t forget the day that this happened cuz I was wearing a blue, you know, a blue t shirt, which as everyone knows, shows moisture, clearly, right. And I had this t shirt on, it was the beginning, you know, beginning of school, so we’re just coming out of summer, so it was still probably a little warm. And it was home room. And I was probably talking to a girl at the time. And I remember when we left, I was walking down the steps to go to the first period and I felt this wetness in my arm. And I looked down I thought, oh my goodness, what is that? Like, what is that right? And then the sweat cycle? You see that? And the anxiety is like, oh, no, here it comes. It’s coming even more. And so from I suffered through that day, right, tried to do my best to get through that day. And then from that day moving forward, I was wearing an undershirt under a t shirt under everything, right because I What else did you have? Right? You had to wear an undershirt. And my saving grace, thank goodness at the time, you know, it was probably the early 90s graduated in 96. Like baggy clothes were really in at that time. Right? I mean, shirts. Yeah, yeah.

Max Branstetter 14:57
And now they’re back. I saw I hear time. We can think Billie Eilish for that. Yes,

Billy Thompson 15:03
I saw that right that no more skinny jeans, I guess. And that was a bit of a saving grace for me because being having such baggy clothes, I would, you know, I’d be able to conceal it by wearing an undershirt that kept the moisture close to my skin and absorbed to where it wouldn’t hit my outer garment. And so, you know, I would have these basketball sized Pitts things by the end of the day, and I really empathize with kids in school because they can’t leave, right, you’re there, you’re there six hours a day, right? You’re in your closed, like seven hours a day, you can’t get out of that. And so, and I grew up in a very small town in Pennsylvania, 126 kids in my graduating class of my little circle of friends, you know, a handful of them had the same problem, right? And I thought, oh, my gosh, and I remember when degree came out the antiperspirant degree, they had that whole advertising campaign, which was great. It was like when, when you know, when the temperature turns up, like degree turns up to this little temperature dial that turned up, of course, I’m running to the store, we’re all trying these new techniques. Friend of mine was like, one of my very earliest customers to he was like, I got it, you put the degree on 10 swipes on each underarm go in front of the wall mounted AC unit, and let that blow your armpits dry. And then you should be good, right? And so it just hit me that like, you know, in my small group of friends in my small town, right, you know, if you know, three or four guys, or I had this issue, right, you extrapolate that across the, you know, across the population, it’s like this is obviously a much bigger issue than, than just me and what I’m dealing with and you know, at that time, again, early, no internet, that stuff wasn’t big. So you didn’t really know you couldn’t reach out to these forums and groups. And even after that, when I really started tracking this thing down. There wasn’t much on hyperhidrosis. I mean, literally over the last 10 years, when we started coming on the scene is when it kind of you know, the tide started shifting right when you know, more pharma companies were getting involved, the International hyperhidrosis society was established, and they were putting information out there. So there was a lot more resources. I mean, now than there was then way back then. And so, but still, I knew enough to think, Okay, well, if I’m dealing with this, and few of my friends are dealing with this, then how many people across the country and let alone the world are probably dealing with this. And a lot of us are wearing undershirts as it is, I thought, gosh, if you could just have an undershirt that would block it from reaching the outer garment, boom, problem solved, right. And so of course, I tried all the silly things. I remember putting duct tape on my shirts or taking my mom’s you know, by the

Max Branstetter 17:23
way, that’s a my dad is a huge proponent of of duct tape, and I’m becoming as well, so I think that would be his solution. Yeah,

Billy Thompson 17:28
exactly. Right. It’s the MacGyver of all things, right. But if you have some duct tape, you can pretty much get out of it. You can land a plane with duct tape. And so I tried that even tried to, you know, maxi pads and putting those in those were terrible. And I even tried, okay, well, what if what if those like, you know, I remember, I played sports, and so I had the laminate, when they would laminate the numbers, and I thought, well, let me go do that. I even tried to get that lid, and nothing really worked. And so, you know, I just kind of toyed around and I just dealt with it again, baggy clothes, I knew how to live with this problem. And then in college, obviously, that continued baggy clothes were still in and you’d have a lot more freedom in college. So I just lived with it. And then I don’t know, probably like, man, late 90s, I really started thinking about, Okay, it’s time, you know, I there’s an opportunity here a product like this doesn’t exist, it could help a lot of people, I really need to start working on this thing. Because I needed it. Right. I needed it myself. It was something I needed. And so I thought, Okay, well, let me try and figure it out. And I had a friend in my hometown at the time that was going to, you know, we were trying to get this thing off the ground. But obviously, you know, he had no background in apparel, textiles and all that stuff. And so, you know, I reached out to a couple because the biggest the missing ingredient, Max was a material that was washable, dryable waterproof and comfortable, right? I needed those four attributes. I didn’t want any silly inserts or, you know, I didn’t want to change the process. I wanted people to put an undershirt on because we’re normally doing that, take an undershirt off, throw it in the washer, throw in a dryer done, right. And so when I finally found this material, oh, and circling back to the private jet days, when I was trying to get this product off the ground, I had a client that I had reached out to, you know, I had befriended and I and he was working on some projects that he was working on, like an incontinence project that he was trying to get off. And so I said, Oh, well, I got this project to that and, and I told him about it. And he was like, Hey, why don’t you come to my house? And like, show me your plan. And that was that was the spark that I needed. Right? You got a guy like that who’s super successful who could finance your project? Once he you know, once he showed an interest in it, it was like Okay, I’m off to the races. I gotta do something here. I was getting you know, I was I was in the sales gigs. But I was like, You know what, sales I can do it Sure. But it’s not for me because it’s, it’s a grind that just, it just wasn’t for me. I was getting bored with it. And I thought, Okay, I need I need to figure out something that I can create some equity in and create something that you know, has some residual value. Again, I’ve been very fortunate to have some really good mentors in my life. The first one being, you know, I had a college I went to work for a.com company that had raised like $100 million in private equity. I ended up befriending the CEO there who was a guy who sold a company when it’s two Wanna use, he was like, mid 30s. At the time, I read a book because I was interning there, I read a book called selling to the veto, which is very important top officer. And that helped, you know, tell you like, hey, get to the decision makers. Here’s how you get through the gatekeepers, and I literally put that in play, be ended up you know, befriending his his assistant, you know, when she needed something, she would come grab me because I was an intern and, and next thing you know, that was my intro to the man, right? I knew he went to this one gym. So I ended up going to this gym, and I would read all these crazy equity reports about the industry at the time, and I would drop these little sound bites on him, like posted up next to him on the treadmill. So slowly worked my way in there. But anyways, longtime mentor, he was like, Billy, listen, if you ever you need to get equity in something, you gotta get ownership in something. And so I just, you know, I was about to have a baby, too. I got married, he’s about to have a kid and I thought, Okay, I gotta, I gotta figure this thing out is now or never. And I just went for it. And that investor up ultimately didn’t invest. Right? Surprise, surprise. I mean, this is normal. And so I was kind of stuck with Alright, well, I can’t turn back now. But and at that time, I brought my business partner and he was a family friend, who coincidentally happened to have hyperhidrosis, which is the clinical term for excessive sweat. And so he had an apparel background, he was a private label manufacturer, which is a guy you would call if you wanted to start a clothing line, or some of these big brands would reach out and do a domestic line, like quick turn, you know, quick run stuff. And so I got with him, and I said, Hey, this is what I’m trying to do. And he instantly knew because he had hyperhidrosis. So he knew how strong the motivator was, right? And I said, Well, hey, you know, I’m looking for a partner on this thing. Let’s let’s let’s do this. And I had brought him in, we had created the first prototype for my for the potential investor. And then we went back to him with this crazy pie in the sky direct response, Dr. You know, business plan where it’s all formula driven. You just punch in the numbers, and they all laid, everything goes up, right? Anyways, he ended up not he ended up not wanting to invest. But my business partner, I were already invested at that point. And so we had no choice but to slug it out and create this thing that had no distribution, like prior distribution didn’t exist on the market wasn’t a shirt wasn’t an antiperspirant, what was this thing? And but we just, you know, we had to just figure it all out as we went.

Max Branstetter 22:19
And not not even many questions to figure it out there. You know, it’s also natural, but no, well, first of all, shout out your business partner, Randy. Yes, my uncle’s name is Randy. So we got that going. Yeah. But also, there’s so much there that I think is like, you see the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. And like, there’s so many promising things, but also, you know, the harsh reality of certain things. And I think it’s kind of cool that you, you basically tricked yourself into starting this business, because, you know, you thought you had this good investor, and then it didn’t work out. And it’s like, Well, shit, well, we’re here, we might as well do it. Yeah. But um, that’s one of those biggest problems early on, was creating the material. So how did you find the actual material that you use to this day,

Billy Thompson 23:00
I started digging into it, I looked at, you know, different military applications and whatnot. And I ended up finding just through, you know, trial and error and looking at sampling and ended up finding this, this material, you know, we wanted to originally look at GORE-TEX. Because my investor, actually, he went to school with one of the gore, you know, one of the Gore’s family members, right, he’s like, oh, yeah, I know, this guy. GORE-TEX, you know, went to school with and maybe we could reach, I was like, wow, okay, but GORE-TEX at the time, you know, would would melt in the dryer, right? You can’t, you know, you can’t stick your GORE-TEX jacket on high heat, and a dryer would melt. And so we ended up finding this material that didn’t have a medical It was born out of a medical application to keep beds and you know, things like that sterile. And the great thing about it was it could be steam sterilized, and you know, steam is extraordinarily hot, right? And so, steam Yeah, exactly has a four way stretch. And then you know that so that was that was problem number one. And then we encountered another problem, because you can’t just put this like sort of waterproof material next to your skin, because it’d be like laying down on a leather couch or sitting in your car, you know, leather seats in your car without any without a shirt on. Like, could you imagine that right, you’d be sweating even more to exacerbate the problem. And so I had to figure out a way to mitigate the thermal heat transfer from your body, you know, to this thing, and so we had to come up with a layering system, and a stitching system. This is where our patent is involved. That allowed, you know, like you move your arms, you know, these are independent layers in here, even though there’s a middle seam, it’s not actually because you can’t punch all the way through it, you punch a hole in something water is going to come through. So we had to come up with this layering system in the stitching system that allowed for what we call billowing effect, right, you move your arms and it’s going to draw air in and it’s going to push hot air out, right and it facilitates one of the natural properties of this material that would allow vapor to escape through it right. And so we had to come up with this layering and stitching system that we had to use to make this thing applicable. Right. So it was really a two prong problem, you know, wasn’t just, you know, a waterproof membrane if you will, that was washable dryable the comfort piece of it was important and so that’s where the the layering piece came in and and that was again trial and error just trying to figure this thing out applying some you know, some some science and physics if you will and so so for so for something that seems so rudimentary oh, we’re just putting a patch on your underarm. You know, a lot of thought went into the comfortability and how this thing would work and you know, luckily it proved successful.

Max Branstetter 25:30
The billowing approach if anything that sounds really really cool. You’ve put a lot of heart into the to the actual approach but it’s a fun journey of fun and also probably you know nightmares for you but a figuring out something that you’ve laid out that criteria of like it needs to be washable, it needs to be drivable. It needs to be waterproof, it needs to be comfortable and you knew how important it was to for the sake of your business and your product to actually you know, use material that does those things so for sure cute kudos to you for putting in the groundwork before that. What would you say after getting to the point that you’ve created a t shirt design that you’re comfortable with selling to people? What was the next like big stepper inflection point in your business and in growing in those early years?

Billy Thompson 26:18
Well, right you so you create this product you battled test it right? And then the next immediate step was Okay, I gotta get it out of our internal testing, right? Like, I can only test something so much right? I understand I have I have this problem. But I needed to get other people to test it. So what we did immediately thereafter, once we had this was I started reaching out to anyone and everyone who, you know, who had this problem. There was a couple bloggers, I went out to the international hyperhidrosis society. There was a there was a blogger called the undershirt. guy.com. Who was all things undeserved. Oh, my,

Max Branstetter 26:48
that is too perfect. Yeah, yeah, exactly,

Billy Thompson 26:51
exactly underscore guy.com. And, and I ended up he had a section called sweat management, because, you know, one of the reasons why people were under shirts is because sweat masks, so I reached out to him, and, and we got some people, you know, 20, 30, 40, I think was like 50 people in total, I would send them free shirts. And one thing we asked for was their feedback, and to post their feedback in the comment sections. And it blew doors. I mean, that was such a nerve wracking moment, right? Because this is your baby, you’re ready to put it out in the world. And it exceeded our expectations, right? It went out there. Because there are people who they’re going to breach this protection area that we have, I mean, it’s gonna come down to their sweat marks gonna come down to their waist, right? You know, so we didn’t know to what degree is. And it exceeded our expectations. It did great people wrote in gave us these amazing testimony. I mean, amazing testimonials, which, really quick is the at the heart of what we do, because people who deal with this have such an issue, you know, impacts their quality of life. And, you know, we had people, you know, I haven’t taken my jacket off in 10 years. You know, a mom had wrote in my kid had dropped out of school, and now he’s back in school rebuilding his social life. I mean, I get goosebumps when I talk about it, because these people and I understand I dealt with this, right? So it just, it really hits at the heart of what we do, and why we do it every single day. And it never gets old. Matter of fact, last week, we had a guy who was a contestant on the prices. Right? Right. And he sort of showed us a picture of it. And he talked about how he was and he got called up to go on the show, like, you know, come on down, right. And he got he was on the show. And he said he was able to raise his hands. He’s always a sweaty mess, he but he’s able to go on that show with confidence. And he wrote it and just thanked us for it right and send us the picture like because you know, you got to be exciting on the show, you got to raise your hand you got to and he said I was able to do that and confidence because of your products that he wanted to thank everybody at the company. And that and that’s again, that’s, that’s always a fresh reminder running a business to grind the nuts and the bolts and whatever. But then you get something like that. And you know, like, Hey, we are making such a positive impact on people’s lives, not just here in America, with customers in 135 countries around the world. But you know, every day, people around the world are reaching into their claws and putting their Thompson tees on and going forth with confidence because of it. And that’s literally why we keep doing what we’re doing. And so it was just it was really cool.

Max Branstetter 29:06
You can tell from I mean, your own experience, but also just the outpour you’re saying I’m sorry to use that term,

Billy Thompson 29:12
before turning to visual with a sweater. Yeah, exactly. But

Max Branstetter 29:16
of like supporting really life changing this that can happen when you there’s something that can make an impact on like, you know, your physical appearance and just right, mental standard day to day. And I also It cracks me up that you’re testing is like having people wear shirts, because it’s like something we all do every single day. Yeah, but for you like that’s valuable insight. So that’s a pretty fun, super huge aspect of it. Yeah. There are two aspects of your business. Two big milestones that at the time of this recording, you’ve hit somewhere recently that I want to hit on because I’m really, really, really curious. And I think it can apply to so many other businesses out there, right. First one first one is you’ve officially been in business for over 10 years now. So congrats on that thing.

Billy Thompson 30:00
Yep, thank you,

Max Branstetter 30:01
what would you say is been a secret to your longevity in the business and entrepreneurship world?

Billy Thompson 30:07
Oh, oh, man. Wow. I mean, people write books about that, right. So,

Max Branstetter 30:12
and this is my, you know, way to get you to write a book, while we’re recording this.

Billy Thompson 30:19
You know, at the end of the day, there’s really, again, without sounding cliche, is not, there’s no secret, you know, you just Well, first off, you have your mission, right, you’re going to be driven by your mission, the passion for your mission has to be big, because if you don’t have passion for it, then you’re not going to make it through the tough times, you’re not going to keep working, and people are going to outwork you, because those who have the passion are going to outwork you, right. So you got to bring an incredible, you know, work ethic, which is typically fueled by a passion for your, for your mission, why you do what you do every day. And then, you know, a firm believer, right, and that, again, it’s pretty simple. These are fundamentals, that, you know, we want to put the best product out there, backed by the best service, you know, bottom line, that’s what we do, right, we want to put the best product backed by the best service, drive the value for our customers, so we can keep getting their business, keep earning their business and their trust. And then you know, you focus on those things, and you build around that, and you put out all the fires that happen, and you and you persevere, right, you have to have perseverance. Because it’s going to be tough, I’ll never, I mean, the first year, we did 90,000, in sales, right? 90,000 in sales after, you know, three 365 days of grinding and trying to figure this thing out, was not going to make, you know, we’re not going to cover my bills, right, we’re not going to cut it. And I remember at times, like, oh my gosh, we gotta you know, we got to get to a million for probably mean even covered my, you know, my living expenses. And you know, we’re not even close to that. So for like, the first two years, you didn’t take any, any paychecks, right, no pay came out, all the money were bootstrapped, all the money went back in to the company. And so you have to persevere. And I remember my wife telling me at the time, like, hey, look, these things have to be hard, right? They have to be hard. Because if you you know, for you to in order to do it, you know, everyone else would be doing if it wasn’t hard. And so, you know, expect it to be hard. And that kind of changed the mindset a little bit. So it helped, you know, persevere, and you keep you keep doing those things. And then you know, you try and innovate, you try and stay on top of things stay on top of your competition, right, you know, contend again, to continue to provide the best product backed by the best service, you know, earn the customers business, get their repeat business, and just keep it going from that standpoint. And those are the things that have kept us around, you know, for the last time and kept us on top. I mean, there are, I don’t even know countless meat two products out there right now that we, you know, that are popping up left and right, and literally just following in our wake, and probably creating a decent business for themselves. But again, they’re just me two products. And you know, there’s a reason why we have are on top and we stay on top. Because again, I do believe we put out the best product backed by the best service out there.

Max Branstetter 32:49
And on that note, so the other milestone I was curious about was you have sold over a million T shirts. Yeah, it is awesome. I think so much so many of us. You know, think about it, especially if like, you know, you got a friend or yourself who’s like, you know, like a good graphic design or something like that. You kind of toyed with the idea of like, Oh, what if we just started making T shirts and sell them? And you have officially started a company that has people have purchased over a million T shirts from so that’s awesome. Yeah, congrats on that.

Billy Thompson 33:18
Thank you, Max real quick. This is I mean, we haven’t shared this with anybody, but it’ll be coming down the pipe soon. We’re actually getting close to 2 million shares. So

Max Branstetter 33:27
very cool. I thought you’re gonna say we’re getting close to 900,000 we have Yeah, no, no, yeah, no, no, yeah, we’re getting real close to 2 million very cool. So either way you slice it now you’re okay. So you’re selling millions and millions of shirts, it million is a large number, it takes a long time to count there and to get there. But in terms of creating a product that gets sold and purchase, you know, same thing over a million times. What works really well that allows you to do that at such a scale.

Billy Thompson 33:53
Wow. And you know, again, it was you know, it’s the tortoise and the hare right? I mean, it was a slow and steady approach. You know, first year we did 90,000 to put in perspective you know, we could do $90,000 In a day now when we have a promo but we you know again who was that the old fashioned way right one customer at a time because we built well you know, so after we did a test trial max width I thought immediately I had no no understanding how big box retail work but I thought immediately boom, we’re going to big box right? It was like test trial. We’re like three months into this venture. The product is proven we’re going big box you know, my business partner had experience with big box retail Of course, he was in the apparel industry. He knew out work he probably thought I was crazy, right? Because I was so naive to how that all were I thought I give you product Max and you pay me money, right? Like quid pro quo like this for that right? I thought that’s how it worked. I didn’t realize that there was terms and you know, 120 day payouts and markdown money and guarantee sell throughs and where a deal could quickly go sideways and end up bankrupting your company. Right. So I had lined up all the buyers for the just using sales skill right? I lined up all the buyers for The major retailers in like two weeks, and I think my business partner was a little surprised at that point, right? Just like oh, like and he had to like pump the brakes. He was like, Hey, listen, there’s this whole other world of like EDI is in compliance. And we just did a production run of 300 shirts, right? We bootstrapped this with $10,000 A piece. Like I don’t know if we can necessarily go into big box yet. And so I learned all that I had to pump the brakes on that pullback. Meanwhile, we had set this website up, it was a $20, you know, template website that we broke, because we were, you know, bootstrapping everything. We wanted all these cool little features and design points. We broke the template which came back in business in the, in the rear whenever, you know, mobile optimization was big, well, you break the template, it’s not going to be mobile optimized, right. And so we just had this website going, it was trudging along, I reached out to bloggers, and all that other stuff. And we were slowly but surely getting some sales in, we hit the PR train. Right? I thought, well, we don’t have money for advertising, right? We’re not gonna get in big box retail. These people, you know, this problem affects there’s no real like, target demographic. I mean, yeah, we have, you know, we know what our target customers are, per se. But it starts at puberty, people will let you know, I’ve had professors and teachers who are, you know, fit in their 50s, the big old pit stains in their dress shirts. So it was like, Okay, we just got to take the PR approach. And we went out there and as many bloggers and as many articles and as, you know, as all that stuff. So we really built the business in the early days off a PR driving traffic to the website. And then we found a an advisor through the and I do want to plug this because it’s I think every entrepreneur should know about this startup entrepreneur, is the score program. Are you familiar with score?

Max Branstetter 36:41
I wasn’t back of a basketball player. So no, it does sound familiar is the score stand for anything? You know, I can’t

Billy Thompson 36:49
remember what if score stands for anything. But it’s it’s a SBA funded business consulting initiative that a lot of retired executives will donate their time. And they’ll set up these business consultant, it’s free, it’s completely free. Again, SBA funding is completely free. It’s for people who want to start up their businesses, they can reach out to score set up these consultations, which is amazing, right? We still talk to those guys. And you know, when we were in California, one of the score mentors that we had worked very hard to get to know two guys actually, one of them was a big executive from an advertising giant day in LA, they you know, he was responsible for the 1984 Apple commercial, right? And the other guy was, you know, the where’s the beef, Wendy’s commercial aging myself, right. So we had relied heavily on them. And we were looking, I was looking to do a test market. In retail, it was I thought to myself, Where does all of our customers intersect at the retail level? And it was the antiperspirant aisle, right? Of course, where they sell deodorants. antiperspirants, so I had the crazy idea to tell my business partner, hey, why don’t we see we can sell shirts in the antiperspirant aisle. You know, you’re either gonna be a genius, because you figure that out, or you’re gonna be a fool, because you can’t sell shirts and anti diapers. But well, the latter happened. And it was it may maybe it was the retailer at the time, it was Rite Aid. They were the I reached out to all the big box grocery stores, targets and Walmart’s and you know, you name it. And Rite Aid just happen to be the first one that responded. So we did a test market with them, I had to come up, I was in the Rite Aid, measuring the anti-personnel trying to figure out how can get a box, a t shirt in this little space. And so we did like 20 stores, and we, you know, we put them in there. And it didn’t do well. And at the time, I think this was year two, because we went from 90,000. And then year two, we did 500,000, right? And so at the time, my advisor advisor was like, Listen, you have this channel that you really haven’t spent too much time on. I mean, it was there. But my business partner, you don’t have ecommerce experience, we didn’t have Google Analytics installed. We didn’t know what really what SEO was or any of that stuff, email marketing, none of that stuff, right? So he said, Why don’t you guys focus on this distribute channel, forget about retail, just focus on this channel and grow it grow your database. And that was a turning point. And that’s when we said okay, that’s what we’re going to commit to doing. And then you know, you flash forward to, you know, COVID and all that. Have we been retail heavy? I probably wouldn’t be here talking to you right now. Right? I mean, because we had the database, we control the customers, you know, and obviously the amazing margins that are at direct consumer versus wholesale. It allowed us to stay alive and do all that stuff. But you know that you so so to answer your question, how do we get those sales, it was slow and steady. It was focusing on the channel that we had sort of started already and was optimizing it. And when we brought in the digital marketing firm that we work with, to this day, the gentleman who we met him through kind of networking, actually through score. Coincidentally, we met him through score,

Max Branstetter 39:37
wanted to score Stanford. Now I’m just gonna,

Billy Thompson 39:40
he had he had the problem too, Max. He suffered from underarm sweat. He was a digital marketer. He was doing digital marketing and he actually wanted to come work for us, but at the time, it was so funny because you know, he’s a six figure guy, right? He’s getting paid six figures doing digital marketing, and he’s coming to Randy and I, we were we had just moved out of a sublet office into our, you know, single office that him and I was sharing. And you know, we weren’t even really paying ourselves at that point. And we had to ask them, well, well, how much would it take for you to get there? And, you know, he was like, well, I’ll take a pay cut, you know, and you know, back it back down to like a buck 50 or something like that. And we were like, Oh, my God, but do we can’t eat, we’re not even paying ourselves anything remotely close to that. So we couldn’t afford him. But he ended up starting his own company. It’s called human marketing. And so we literally were there when that transition happened. And he came in, optimized all things digital, installed the Google Analytics on our site, and then just has been driving that digital marketing ship ever since. And that’s how we grew our direct consumer business, you know, to get to where we are.

Max Branstetter 40:36
If you want to grow as both an entrepreneur and a podcaster, then the Podcasting to the Max newsletter is for you. And I’m trying to think of something that rhymes with “you.” And it’s blue! No, just kidding. But, you sign up at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. It is an email from me every Thursday that has entrepreneurship tips and behind the scenes stories from the Wild Business Growth Podcast, it has podcasting tips, ways to make you help you get better as a podcaster and it has terrible puns and jokes that are sure to make you roll your eyes but you’ll want to roll your eyes again the next week because the jokes are that good. Sign up at MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. Now, let’s attempt to grow this interview. So let’s grow this interview to in a really corny way to wrapping up with Rapid-Fire Q&A. Are you ready for it? Yep,

Billy Thompson 41:35
absolutely.

Max Branstetter 41:36
Alright, let’s get Wild! We are not going to sweat through it or we are but nobody will be able to tell. Exactly. Let’s get Wild. What is the biggest difference between visiting Vegas and living in Vegas?

Billy Thompson 41:49
There there is life normal life and great well and great life outside of the strip.

Max Branstetter 41:58
It definitely there has to be I imagine it’s a it’s pretty different than going there for like a bachelor or bachelorette party or something exactly about what is a hobby or something you do in your free time that you’re you just have a knack for you’re really really good at.

Billy Thompson 42:13
Oh, well, one of my favorite things to do. Max is nothing I literally strive to do nothing because as you know as a father,

Max Branstetter 42:21
I’m so I’m so sorry for breaking up. You’re not?

Billy Thompson 42:26
Yeah, exactly. See, I could be doing nothing right now.

Max Branstetter 42:29
No, I really appreciate you doing Yeah, it’s goals.

Billy Thompson 42:31
I appreciate my nothing is I really do. I know it sounds weird. But I really do. I like to just not have anything on my plate. And I have in it. Because it happens. So rare now, right? I mean, it’s as a father, as a husband, as a business owner, those opportunities to do nothing are there. But you know, as far as like weird things, I mean, that’s probably the, I guess the weirdest thing but my other hobbies too is like, you know, I got into like, you know, I try to get out and golf every now and then I try and you know, I got into kind of RC car hobby, right? Where you’re bashing around little RC cars, it’s way cheaper than going out and bashing real ATVs and your trucks and all that stuff. So that was kind of cool. I enjoy that. And I read a lot to write. I mean, that’s one of my favorite things to do is just read and you know, I can I can read a lot faster than I can watch things. I prefer to read more so than watch. But yeah, that was those are those are sort of my hobbies. I you know, of course you work out a couple days a week try to anyways, I mean, there I guess that’s a I don’t know if that’s a hobby or an obligation. But you know, there are benefits to that.

Max Branstetter 43:25
I mean, it’s definitely doing something it’s not doing nothing. So it’s yeah, it was it was more to it, but I appreciate you and then nothing front. What is no, this can often turn into like a full list of books been a challenge you for one, but what is one book that you’re like, really, really excited about that you’ve read recently that that people would benefit from?

Billy Thompson 43:43
Oh, well, I mean, recently, you know, of course, you have your list of your favorites. But the one that I’m reading currently right now, and I found this from you know, Bill Gates has a blog. He has a blog out there where he recommended this book, and it’s been fascinating. It’s Bob Iger, I think it’s called The Ride of a Lifetime.

Max Branstetter 43:59
Oh, yeah. I just, um, yeah, this is about so it was it’s the one about like, his 15 years as the Disney CEO, right. Yeah, yeah. And wow, that seems like it just an awesome in spite of Disney’s, obviously, you know, it’s bearing on its own.

Billy Thompson 44:12
It is it is. And the big takeaway from that was like, and this is, you know, you see things, you see things from the outside, right, and you don’t realize, so many things that are going on in the background, and you know, you see people’s lives out there, and you think, Oh, they have a charmed life and all it’s, you know this because that’s just what you see, right? And let’s face it, everybody who’s human has got their own problems, right? I mean, if you’re human, you got problems. And if you’re human, and you find some success, that success is not going to be you know, it’s not gonna be easily achieved. You’re gonna have issues. And so it was just, you know, and I remember when Bob took over Disney, right? I thought Michael Eisner, he was like, you know, Disney king, he ran for like 20 years and like, all of a sudden, here’s this guy who was the I think the CEO at the time, right and and I thought, Okay, well, he was just a filler, right? Like he just, you know, something happened with Michael he had to get out of there. So he’s just to fill Larry probably won’t last long until they find someone. And, you know, he talks about all that in the book, right? He talks about that perception and everything else and come to find out, I mean, all the amazing things that he had to do. And what I also realized too, again, talking about, you know, nothing is ever, you know, what it appears, so to speak, right, everyone has their issues, the challenges that he faced that Disney are the same challenges that, you know, I think any any business, I think, once you get past, I don’t know, say maybe maybe $1-2 million, you know, in sales are really maybe going to apply to any business, whether it’s a restaurant or whatnot, but really, the issues and the challenges that you face, even as a small company, you know, they’re no different and the same for us, like, you know, they’re no different as you get bigger, the mistakes just get bigger, you know, you’re moving a much bigger ship, but you still have the same issues that you face as a smaller business that you’re going to face as a bigger business, right. And so to hear him talk about these, they get you think Disney, all they own everything, and this and that, and they just keep cranking things out. I mean, he talked about some of the tough times they went through, and some of the things Bob had to navigate, you know, it’s just really, it’s refreshing to know, because you it’s easy as a little guy to be like, Oh, I just wish I was, you know, Google when I had mountains of cash sitting around and you know, insane margins that are common in the tech industry, and this and that, and it’s like, it’s never what it appears, the problems that they gotta face, the amount of stress that they got to deal with to is just, it was eye opening, in a weird way comforting, right? Because it’s like, okay, look, they’re going through it too. And to see all that stuff. I mean, he talked about the Pixar deal, and like, meeting with Steve Jobs, and, and so you know, and so, you know, just all these things where you’re like, Whoa, man, he was going through it, you know, and so it’s not all just perks of being a CEO, right? I mean, it’s, it’s a lot of stress on his on his shoulders that he had to carry and take through. So that book that books been amazing, it just, I’m almost done with it. Actually, I think I’m gonna like the last chapter. And it’s an easy read. So great book.

Max Branstetter 46:48
You mentioned earlier that, you know, there are times in your life when things are a little bit tighter from a financial standpoint. Oh, yeah. Anybody that’s been through that, or, you know, experienced any sort of financial pressure knows that it’s, you know, it’s kind of like can be a constant stressful thing there. What’s your biggest tip for somebody who’s, for whatever reason, you know, experiencing some financial pressure of how to get through it and kind of get out of it?

Billy Thompson 47:14
Well, I mean, I read you know, early on, I read a book called The Millionaire Mind, I’m sure you’re familiar with it, it’s like The Millionaire Next Door. And just some personal insight to my mother is Korean. And I know typically, Koreans are notorious for being very frugal, right, and saving their money, working hard and saving their money. So, you know, I kind of grew up around that. But you know, I didn’t learn that lesson till very later in life. Really, it’s just, it’s saving as much as you could possibly safe, right and make a game out of it, I have this rule that I don’t pay full retail for anything I just believe in and then like, so instead of getting that you reverse the dopamine hit, right, instead of having the dopamine hit of going out and buying all this stuff that you don’t need, reverse it, you know, I get a dopamine hit, so to speak, and satisfaction and gratification, whenever I can save money, when I can buy something at value, when I can buy something that is a great deal, you know, and stick to things you need. It’s like your people talking about, oh, I don’t have any money for this and money for that. But you got, you know, five, six bucks a day to spend on you know, Starbucks, right? You’re going out to eat lunch every day, or whatever you’re doing, you’re dropping 20 bucks there, right. And, you know, my first job, I was the sales guy for Pitney Bowes selling office equipment, you know, one of one of my first jobs and, you know, that taught me a lot, right, but there’s a lot of cold calling involved. But, you know, I was packing my lunch every day, I was probably making like, you know, $28-29,000 a year at best. And I was packing my lunch every day. And after like a year, I managed to save up like five grand, right. And so, whatever, you know, it’s and the thing is, with numbers and money, as some people understand is, they get very emotional about it, right. But at the end of the day, the numbers are about as pure as they can get. And when it comes to money, you’re dealing with really small, small amounts, like yields and investments or like, you know, let’s face it, you know, 10% or less, typically, right, but at the end of the day, it’s, you know, dollar in dollar out, you can do the math, right, you got to know what’s coming in, you got to know what’s going out, you got to figure out where you can cut those expenses and cut and cut and cut. Here’s the thing, all the people I sold private jets to that were self made. Right? That was the fundamental there, that was the it was like you don’t get rich by giving your money away, you got to pay yourself first. So anyone who’s going through this, make it a point. And when I can guarantee you just by the virtue of living in America alone, the majority of people who think they can’t cut any more causes, you probably can, right figure out a way to cut your costs, make it a game, reward yourself by seeing your savings pile up. That’s what and then obviously, the flip side of that cutting, it’s like a business cut your costs as much as you can, right and then on the flip side is you know, try to increase your earnings continuously looking to improve your your situation, whether it’s your professional skill or your job or whatever, you just got to increase your earnings, decrease your costs. And here’s the thing that never changes, right? Until you reach the point where I you know, again, it’s subjective to whoever wants it, but, you know, you reach the point of where, you know, hey, I don’t technically have to work anymore. Are Good for you, right? And then you reach that point that maybe you can loosen up a little bit, but there’s no magic, the numbers don’t lie you do. It’s simple math, right? The numbers don’t lie. And some of the wealthiest private jet clients that were self made is very important self made, you’d be amazed at their frugality. I mean, we’re talking like we’re about to drop hundreds and hundreds of 1000s of dollars on, you know, private jet time can range anywhere from like, you know, $3,000 an hour on for $10,000 an hour to fly. And if I could somehow, you know, knock off a small percentage or, you know, throw in a $5,000 catering, you know, creditor, it just seals the deal, right. So, again, cut your costs, increase your earnings, it sounds boring, it sounds rudimentary, but make a game out of it. And, you know, trust me, you’ll feel a lot better, you know, not buying that whatever consumer item it was, and, you know, seeing some of the security pile up in the bank, because at the end of the day, you when you make more money, you just buy more expensive crap, right? You buy more expensive watch you buy a more expensive car, fundamentally, it’s still watches still a car, just don’t fall into that trap. And know that like, Hey, this is your money, right? This is your nobody’s gonna give you any more. No one’s gonna pay you, you know, download us you got to keep it and protect it.

Max Branstetter 51:05
That’s a really, really good rundown there. And yeah, I mean, it’s a good reminder. Finances, it comes down to the number like keep it to its simplest form, what’s coming in? What’s what’s going out. I think that’s a really good way to look at it. Speaking of cutting expenses, let’s cut to the last question, which I’m been dying to ask since the start. What is a celebrity story that you can share from your will? William Morris days? Oh,

Billy Thompson 51:29
my gosh, I got. I got so many lows. Oh, man.

Max Branstetter 51:32
I know. We might need extend for two hours. Yeah. Well, here

Billy Thompson 51:35
you go real quick. Well, and this you know, you know, Kevin Bacon, right. Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, everybody that you know, ends up knowing Kevin Bacon somehow.

Max Branstetter 51:44
Yeah, he was on the podcast last week. Yeah.

Billy Thompson 51:48
We were. We were at we were we were at a premiere his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, right? She had a movie that she premiered. And of course, we got invited to it, you know, which didn’t happen much as a trainee. Right? So it was a big thing. You got to go to this thing. Fortunately for me, they sat they sat right in front of me by again, by chance. It was the right place at the right time. But at the at the reception afterwards, I walked up to Kevin, I tried to be witty, right. I tried to be witty, and there was a show. You probably don’t remember this because I was really young at the time, I probably would probably have been around five or six years old. It was called V. They rebooted it. But it was I don’t think it did very well. But it was basically these these humans that were lizards, like reptiles and their skin would peel off. Right? It was called V. There was an actor called Marc Singer. He was in The Beastmaster. That was another old you know, 80s film? Well, he looks very much like Kevin Bacon. Right? And so I roll up to Kevin Bacon. And I’m like, Hey, Kevin, you know, my name is Billy, I’m, you know, I’m a trainee at the he was a client of the agency. Of course, I’m a trainee at the agency. You know, I just want to let you know, I’m a big fan of yours. I’ve been a fan ever since you did that show v. A, and he looks at me. He goes, I didn’t do that show v. And I looked at him. I didn’t know what to say. I totally didn’t expect that. I thought I’m gonna go Oh, yeah, I remember that show, blah, blah, blah. So he caught me off guard. And I looked at him. I said, Are you sure? That’s if he would know whether he was in VA or not? And he said, he said, Yeah, I’m sure. And he patted me on my back. And he said, You better stay in that training program. And he walks away, right? And he walks away. So I’m standing there like, I can’t even believe that just happened, right? First, the immediate embarrassment. Second. It’s like, you know, you do that kind of stuff in the entertainment industry. And you get fired. Like, if Kevin Bacon happened to go to his agent be like, this idiot trainee said this to me. And you know, they would fire you for stuff like that, right? And so I was like, Oh my gosh, but here’s the crazy thing. All my trainee partners, you know, our co workers, right? They nobody was with me when I kind of broke away from the pack and walked up to him just approached him. All they saw was this exchange from afar. And so when I left, they’re like, dude, what was that? Like? What did you know? What did Kevin say? Like what you guys told me? I saw him like laughing and patting you on the back. Like, would you guys talk about that the benefits from project he has he’s working on? So yeah, that was my Oh, and then I’ll never forget the next day. Then the very next day, I come off the elevator with this mail cart. And there’s Kevin Bacon in the lobby. And I’m like, oh my god, I beeline and just go the opposite direction because I didn’t want to be like, view again. So yeah, that was my little Hollywood story. embarrassing story.

Max Branstetter 54:40
Oh, that’s amazing. I mean, you are the You’re like the seventh degree of Kevin Bacon. Six degrees and then you and then you got Billy. Oh my god. I can just imagine the sheer embarrassment there. Well, it was really, thank you so much. This has been fantastic. I mean, it feels like I just interviewed Kevin Bacon, you know, because he’s everywhere. But But I really really appreciate all your stories and tips and everything from the finance world to Thomson Tee and it’s so cool what you’re doing where is the best place for people to try out a Thompson Tee if they’re interested as well as to connect with you online?

Billy Thompson 55:16
Well, you know, ThompsonTee.com Obviously, you can get them there. And then Amazon we sell we sell through Amazon and even internationally, we expanded through Amazon so those two channels you can get a Thompson Tee. And then obviously, I you know, I’m not too much on those social media scene, but I am on LinkedIn. So you know, there’s only one of me at Thompson Tee on LinkedIn. So they’re I’m pretty active there. So feel free to reach out to me there. And otherwise Max I mean, time just seem to fly by I love talking to you. I love I love the show that you’re doing on the platform. And, you know, thanks again for having me. And it’s man, I wish you all the best of luck,

Max Branstetter 55:49
Billy. Yeah, thank you so much. Just really appreciate everything and your energy and, and your newfound Wild Business Growth Podcast fandom, means a lot. It was great speaking to you and Kevin Bacon. And last thing, Final Thoughts. It could be a quote, words to live by, you know, words of advice, whatever you want, just send us home here

Billy Thompson 56:09
is what I would tell everybody like no matter what you’re going through, you know, bad times, good times, but everything is temporary. Right? Everything is temporary, even the good times, right. Everything is temporary. You’re gonna go through it and every no that everyone else is going through to okay, you’re not alone. No matter what you’re going through. You’re not alone going through it. Okay, everyone else is going through it too, no matter what it looks like on the outside. So just you know, find peace in that know that it’s temporary. And don’t give up. Just keep trying. Right? Just keep trying keep persevering. And you know, you’ll get through.

Max Branstetter 56:41
You are not alone. We’re here for you. Billy’s here for you. We’re here for Billy – works a million different ways. Billy, Billy, Billy, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, sharing your incredible Thompson Tee story. And I said again, like like a tea company but no, not that tea. And thank you, Wild Listeners, for tuning in to another episode. If you want to hear more Wild stories like this one, make sure to follow the Wild Business Growth Podcast on your favorite podcast app and tell a friend about the podcast and try out Thompson Tee with them and then run a marathon next to each other go sign up for the marathon run all 26.2 mile that’s what it is right 26.2 miles together and check each other’s sweat with Billy’s legal team is probably going to be coming after me for that. I’m not sure if that’s stress tested to that amount. But you can also find us on Goodpods, where there are fantastically good podcast recommendations and podcast people. And for any help with podcast production, you can learn more at MaxPodcasting.com and sign up for the Podcasting to the Max newsletter. All you gotta do is go to MaxPodcasting.com/Newsletter. Until next time, let your business Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!