Episode 505 - The Next Year
In this episode, Jeremy talks about what's happened with whistlekick in this pandemic and what's in store in the next year
The Next Year - Episode 505
Despite the Coronavirus Pandemic that shattered the global economy into pieces, there are things to be thankful for here at whistlekick. Incidentally, just when the global quarantine is starting, we've released our hot selling Strength and Conditing Program that kept us in shape through these tough times. Most importantly, the podcast that you love never ceased publishing episodes. Listen to this episode and learn more about the current state of whistlekick and what's in store in the next year.
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below and download it here.Jeremy Lesniak:Hello everyone, welcome! This is whistlekick martial arts radio episode 505. Today, we're gonna talk about what I see coming for us as whistlekick in the next year. My name is Jeremy Lesniak, I’m your host for the show, I’m the whistlekick founder and everything we're doing here whistlekick is in support of the traditional martial arts. If you’re interested in what we’re doing that end, hop over to whistlekick.com that’s our online home, it’s also the best place to find our store. In that store, you will find bunch of products for traditional martial artists and if you make a purchase, you support our work and you can even save 15% by using the code PODCAST15 they show more towards radio gets its own website and that is whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. The show comes out twice a week and the goal of the show, it’s about educating, and connecting, and entertaining traditional martial artist throughout the world because I believe we have far more in common and we do the divides us. If you would help the show and the work that we do, there are plenty of ways you can help. You can make a purchase, you can share an episode, follow us on social media, maybe tell a friend, pick up one of our books or programs, leave a review, or support the Patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick that’s the place to go. Patreon’s a place where we post exclusive content photos and videos and blog posts and audio. And if you contribute as little as five dollars a month you get access to it.A few weeks ago, we did an episode talking about where I saw the martial arts industry heading over the next while. There were some predictions, they weren’t pinned down any specific time but, people were asking me, Jeremy, what’s going on with you, what’s going on with whistlekick in the near future? And I’ve talked a little bit about this, honestly, I talk more about the stuff on Patreon because I feel like the Patreon contributors are the ones who really like the behind-the-scenes stuff the most but when you all reach out and you ask questions I’m happy to answer them. And that’s what today’s episode is about, it’s not going to be really long and in some of what I’m talking about you will likely see some further predictions about the industry and business and the world, but here we go.I don’t typically talk about dates when we record episodes but I am recording this on May 13, 2020. And what’s going on right now we are hopefully on the tail end of the economic impact of Covid19. It is probably no surprise to you that Covid19 has had a horrible impact on our business. We watched our sales virtually dry up overnight it was mind blowing and of course that create some economic difficulty. Now, what’s interesting about that is that, it’s starting to come back but it’s not going to come back overnight because there are losses. Our business like most business don’t operate at a huge profit in fact, whistlekick as still start a business, is trying to find its foothold in the industry, we’ve been running at a loss from day one. So, the losses are even worse because we can have the sales. We did not lay anyone off whether it was our part-time people, we don’t have a full-time people here, we do have a number of consultants, a number of subcontractors but we kept every single person on. I found a way to do that out of my own personal finances because it was important to me because the people that pay me found a way to do that for the most part in my consulting work and some the other things I do outside whistlekick to bring in money so I felt it was important to do my part where I could. Now the biggest revenue generator for us up until now has been product. Our film gear, our uniforms, our apparel and we still have plenty but were not selling any of it. Now what does that mean? That means that we are sitting on inventory and because of some complications with warehouse and storage and the way all that works and I’m not to bore you with the nitty-gritty, we’ve actually dropped prices quite a bit and that lines up with our push into programming and I’m gonna talk about that more in a minute. But bottom line, if you didn’t know, most of our equipment is sold on Amazon. That’s where we do a huge chunk of our business. We do sell stuff@whistlekick.com but most of it goes through Amazon because that’s where people are and we’ve been slashing prices trying to move that product out because Amazon charges us storage fees. And if we can get rid of it and even just rebuy it and kinda rebuild some things, well, I think that’s what we’re going to have to do. That’s the plan we’re moving forward with anyway. So, if you get this and you’re interested in something, check Amazon first you’ll probably get a really good deal on whatever is left.But what does that leave? Where are we headed in an attempt to make some money? Well, there are two kind of pillars that were putting our resources into, and by resources it’s really time because there’s not a ton of money, it’s time and those are books and those are programming. Now, books are pretty obvious. Most of you know that we release the martial artist handbook the end of last year and that sold well it’s done well and despite doing well, you know it’s not a big moneymaker but it is a moneymaker, it’s profitable because you have to maintain an inventory of books if you buy one of those books on Amazon. Amazon prints it, they ship it and they sent us couple bucks. What other can we have? We actually have a number of books out there and were starting to put more time into releasing books. Some of those books involve transcripts from podcast episodes and some of them involve some other things. But if you’re following our book releases, you’re likely to see more and more of those as time comes. In fact, one of the things that we do for our patron contributors if you’re in the $25/month or higher tier, we send you drafts of those books for free. So, if you’re a big fan of books and you want to read more of them and you want to read them for no extra charge, the best thing to do is to jump over the patron getting one of those $25 slot. I think we have a limited number of them.But the other pillar there is programming. We release the strength and conditioning program, ironically, because this was not planned, towards the beginning of Covid19 and that has sold really well and what’s nice about that is again, we don’t have to maintain an inventory. You buy it, it’s information, and you use it, and your life gets better and we get a few dollars, everybody wins. And so were doing more and more of that. As I record, this the first draft of the speed development program is nearly done and in fact by the time we release this episode it’s probably going to be up. So just pay attention, go to whistlekick.com you’ll see it in the store there. And this is where were headed because as I was working on speed program, I realized that there were a number of other things that my experience, my knowledge of, let’s say physical development, working on the body through all the various aspects of training that I’ve done in an outside martial arts, there’s a lot we can do there. So, there is going to be more. We’re going to release more of those in fact, there’s a roadmap it’s probably going to take us 3 to 5 years to work through because there are so many programs and I only got so much time. If you are interested in getting better at the physical skills that are related to not just martial arts but life through the perspective through the lens of martial arts, these are the programs for you because I am not writing these for every person, I’m writing these for martial artists and they work.I’ve mentioned Patreon a few times. Patreon, you probably know what it is by now and it’s not a big moneymaker, but it helps right? And this is where we have shifted. In the beginning days of whistlekick, it was okay let’s make foam sparring gear let’s make it better than anyone else and that will make us financially stable and that has never worked and it hasn’t worked because we don’t have the time and we don’t have the money to really address this industry. This is a big challenge because of the sheer investment that needs to happen. Now that doesn’t mean that I’m not still looking for financial partners in fact I sent off an email yesterday to an investment firm that I have some connection to to see; hey can we partner up? Can we finally put the accelerator down in this car and drive it the way it needs to be driven? I get emails from people all the time, well not so much the last couple months, but often saying when are you going to be back in stock with this size, this color. And it’s so much more complicated than you might imagine. Maybe you run a store, maybe you run office and you say you know we’re out of pens, let’s get more pens. It’s not that simple because we’re in charge of manufacturing don’t make it here but it is made in a single factory based on our designs, our proprietary information, and there are so many variables, so many more things I ever would’ve expected and so we had to diversify. But I still believe if we can get the right help, the right partners, and right money behind it, it will take off. Any of you who have used that equipment know what I’m talking about, it is good stuff.Now onto the content side if you’ve been paying attention to whistlekick in the last year, you know that we’ve been doing a bunch of different stuff content wise. Whistlekick live, which is the new kind of rebrand of whistlekick martial arts radio live. We’re calling it whistlekick live because it’s really expanded beyond the concepts and the vibe that martial arts radio has. That’s a show that were doing the first Tuesday of the month live on Facebook, of course we still have 1st cup live on YouTube on weekdays, and there’s more coming. There is a fictional reality, I guess we can call it a series, that were working on. I’m almost ready to release some of that content publicly and getting a lot of feedback on it as we try to develop that because you know what, doing fiction, acting, that’s not something I’ve done before and its hard work and shooting at myself is hard work. But were getting better, it’s getting better, and hopefully you’ll see that soon. Other types of content? I don’t know yet. But were continuing to look at it.What’s the goal here? The goal is to give you as much value as we can, to flood you with options for free content. Free video, free audio, free writing, because you know, we got the blog whistlekick.com and a bunch of other stuff that we do on the writing side, the newsletter, and the hope is that you get enough value from that that you want to kinda past back in a sense to buy something that maybe you were gonna buy it anyway or you were thinking about it anyway. And because we’ve given you so much value you say; you know what? I’m gonna buy from them because I appreciate what they’re doing and I want them to keep doing it. That’s not a secret business model, there are plenty of businesses that do things like that. In fact, that’s kind of the new business model on the Internet and it works well and it’s working well for us, it’s just going to take more and so that’s what we’re doing. We’re continuing to find more and give you more options for the things that you’re interested in and the things you’re willing to part with your hard-earned dollars for.Now, I hinted at apparel, I didn’t really talk much about that. The apparel falls into a slightly different category and this isn’t any secret if you make a purchase you can easily figure this out so don’t mind giving away this information. Our apparel is made on demand if you go into whistlekick.com, you buy a shirt, Like I’m wearing the… I think this one still available that kick heads pet dog’s T-shirt that we made a few months ago, we don’t make it, we don’t put it in a box, we don’t have it printed. There’s a company that we partner with, in fact there are a few of them depending on what you’re buying that when you purchase it, they make it, they ship it, they put our name on it and they sent us couple dollars. It’s not much money, but it saves us from having to pay for the inventory. And I’m really glad right now they were not sitting on thousands or tens of thousands of dollars of apparel inventory. One of the things we’ve done in the last few months is that all apparel is limited time and if you’ve been checking out whistlekick.com you see that we’ve been pulling down product even though it hasn’t been selling because of what we’re facing right now as Covid19 and were going to continue to do that. And that is because we tried the other way and people I think outboard of what we had. So now, there is this constant flow of let’s develop new product in fact, I’ve got a sketch on my desk something I came up with couple months ago that I’ve got to try to turn into a graphic for a shirt. And if you’re not checking those out you’re gonna miss out because were to continue to rotate that inventory or at least the availability, it’s not inventory and I hope that that inspires people to make a purchase.And that’s all I really know right now. Are there other things that are going to happen? Of course. If you know anything about me, you know that I’m constantly looking at what’s next, what we can try, what might make sense, what can we throw against the wall to see what sticks, and some of the stuff that we do sticks. Most of it doesn’t. But that’s part of being in business and I’m going to continue to maintain that mindset because I think that’s important and maybe we don’t all do that in our martial arts training but hopefully you’re trying new things all the time to see what works. Whether it’s your sparring or whether it’s where and when and how you practice. Experimentation is important. In fact, if you read the book or buy the course, yes, we made a course long time ago. How not to hold a martial arts tournament, the heart of that book is about changing 15% every year. If you host the tournament, some kind of competition really any sort of event, here’s the secret far as I’m concerned, make it 15% different every time. Because let’s say, you had a successful event you’re going to do it again new change 15% of it it’s still going to be at least 85% as good. Let’s say all the new things you try completely flop, you are still hitting 85% more than likely half of it more is going to be good and so now you’re somewhere in the 90% mark and then you keep that stuff and then you repeat year after year and if you do that whether it’s in martial arts, or in your professional career, or anything else. If you’re constantly looking at that iteration, that iterative model, things get a lot better and you come up with some really cool stuff. Don’t be afraid to try, don’t be afraid to experiment because, that’s what we’re doing over here and that’s what all success really comes from is some manner of trial and error, coming up with a new thing.I hope you got some value out of this whether or not you’re really interested in the behind the scenes. I hope you can appreciate why we did an episode like this and if you want to check out other episodes maybe this one was or wasn’t your bag of tea, don’t forget we got all of our episodes every single one we’ve ever done is available. A lot of podcasts, we’ll give you the most recent 100 for example, we don’t, we give you all of them. They’re available on YouTube, they are available in your podcast feed, they’re available at whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, check them them out and enjoy. And if you’re willing to support us whether that’s through a purchase or Patreon or sharing or anything, thank you. I appreciate it, I could not do this without the support, financial and otherwise, from so many of you. Don’t forget if you do make a purchase at whistlekick.com musical PODCAST15. If you make purchases at Amazon, we’ve got a number of automatic discounts as you buy more stuff. Other ways you can help share this episode, follow us on social media, all that good stuff. And remember if you see so many out there wearing something whistlekick on it or maybe you overhear them talking about a podcast episode, something, anything, say hello. Introduce yourself. The goal here is about, remember connecting martial artists so take that opportunity, make that connection. We have more that binds us than divides us. If you have suggestions, Guest suggestions, feedback, anything like that, let me know jeremy@whistlekick.com. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.