Episode Summary
In this episode of the 7 Figures and Beyond Ecommerce Marketing Podcast, Greg Shuey interviews Gentry Jensen, the owner of Cordova Outdoors, an ecommerce brand specializing in coolers and outdoor gear. The discussion revolves around the process of purchasing an ecommerce brand, focusing on key considerations and steps involved. Jensen shares his journey from a Navy SEAL to acquiring Cordova Outdoors during the COVID-19 pandemic, detailing his approach to evaluating the brand, assessing financial health, and conducting due diligence.
Key Takeaways
- Barriers to Entry and Infrastructure: When considering buying an ecommerce brand, assess existing barriers to entry such as proprietary manufacturing equipment and intellectual property. In Jensen’s case, the heavy capital investment in manufacturing and unique product features provided significant entry barriers that made Cordova Outdoors an attractive acquisition.
- Financial Health and Due Diligence: Evaluate the financial health of the business by examining tangible assets and past performance, especially in times of market upheaval like COVID-19. Transparency with existing banking relationships can simplify this process, but be prepared for more subjective evaluations during unusual market conditions.
- Customer and Market Assessment: Understand the customer base and market potential by engaging with existing customers and exploring different sales channels. Jensen expanded Cordova’s reach through direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales, Amazon, and corporate channels, finding new opportunities for growth.
- Intellectual Property Evaluation: Assess the value of the business’s intellectual property, including patents, proprietary technologies, and branding assets. Jensen valued Cordova’s unique cooler designs and features, which contributed to the brand’s differentiation in the market.
- Negotiation and Deal Process: The negotiation process can be lengthy and complex. Having pre-existing relationships with financial institutions and stakeholders can expedite negotiations and reduce friction. Jensen’s experience underscores the importance of persistence and effective communication in securing a favorable deal.
Episode Links
Greg Shuey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-shuey/
Gentry Jensen LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gentry-j-17b42a9/
Cordova: https://cordovaoutdoors.com/
Episode Transcript
Greg Shuey (00:01.038)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Seven Figures and Beyond Ecommerce Marketing Podcast. I hope that everyone is absolutely crushing it today. I’m really excited about our discussion. Our guest today, his name is Gentry Jensen from a really cool brand up in Idaho called Cordova. And we will let him introduce himself and tell you a little bit about Cordova in just a minute. So our discussion today,
is going to be different than anything that we have discussed to date on the podcast. So we are going to be specifically talking about purchasing an e -commerce brand and some of the things that you should be looking at and considering in order to vet opportunities and make really good decisions about these acquisitions. I know a lot of people I’m talking to
Brand owners and people who don’t already own brands, they’re looking to diversify their business portfolios through different kinds of acquisitions. And a lot of folks are looking at picking up e -commerce brands right now. So this should be a great little discussion. Gentry, thank you so much for being with us today.
Gentry Jensen (01:16.894)
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Greg Shuey (01:18.756)
So before we dive into our discussion, would you take a few minutes and introduce yourself to our listeners and share a little bit about your personal story? I know it’s fascinating because I’ve heard it before. how you’ve gotten to where you are today as a brand owner.
Gentry Jensen (01:31.594)
So fascinating.
Gentry Jensen (01:38.66)
yeah, sure. So, let’s see. My favorite subject me. I guess, I spent the formative years of my life in the Navy, grew up in Kansas before that got out of the Navy, in the early two thousands when, started a family, the sort of
tried and true route for transitioning was to go get an MBA and then work for a big company. So I tried that for a little bit, worked in New York in finance and just felt the tug of family to move us back out West. I mentioned I’m from Kansas, my wife’s from Utah, so we compromised and ended up in Utah. with that, of jumped off the big company track and
worked for several smaller companies, was fortunate enough to be able to get some equity in some of them as time went along and career progressed. And then have a friend from business school and business partner that I’ve worked with for over 20 years now. And we identified Cordova Outdoors as an available company in the spring of 2020. So think like.
NBA just shut down, everybody’s mad at Rudy Gobert, that’s when it was.
Greg Shuey (03:06.415)
That’s funny
Gentry Jensen (03:07.614)
I think everybody’s still mad at Rudy Gobert actually, but I don’t know. It feels like nobody ever got over it.
Greg Shuey (03:10.093)
Are they?
Greg Shuey (03:13.796)
That’s funny. Correct me if I’m wrong. You were a Navy SEAL. Is that right?
Gentry Jensen (03:16.852)
Yeah.
Gentry Jensen (03:20.968)
Once upon a time, yeah, back in the day. It’s been a minute. Thanks, it was fun. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Yeah. Well, I should caveat that by saying I was fortunate enough to go to the Naval Academy and the deal is, you know, they’ll fund your education, but you’re going to owe them some time on the back end. I was fine with that deal and figured if I owed them the time anyway, I might as well try and make the most of it. So that’s what led me in that direction.
Greg Shuey (03:23.052)
I mean, that’s incredible.
It was fun. Nice. I love it.
Greg Shuey (03:48.312)
amazing I haven’t met very many seals in fact I’ve only met two one other and you so that’s so cool I love it
Gentry Jensen (03:56.788)
There’s a few running around Utah and I’m up in Boise right now, but yeah, there’s a few running around. We try to not stick out too much.
Greg Shuey (04:04.068)
That’s great. All right. So I have never purchased an e -commerce brand. I’d like to at some point. But I would imagine that there are some things that you really need to dig into before coming to a brand and saying that I’m interested in buying your company. Is that correct?
Gentry Jensen (04:27.432)
Yes, I would say that sort of in this particular instance, the stars aligned a little bit as well, just with the, you know, the macro mega shock that was COVID hitting, employers and Cordova is also a manufacturing company. make our own coolers on site here in Idaho, where I am right now. there was a lot of sort of, I just, just distress in the market and that.
I think change the paradigm some too, right? Like the world’s office access, how do we adapt? I don’t know, nobody knows, but let’s take a swing at it.
Greg Shuey (05:03.908)
Yeah. I think that we’re, before we jump into our conversation, I think that we have quite a few brands that are feeling a little distressed right now as well. Like it’s a good time to buy brands in, 2024. And so, I think that these will be some good discussion points. So when you started down this road, when you started this process, like what are some of the key things that you looked at or key factors that you considered before saying, I want to buy this company.
Gentry Jensen (05:33.566)
Yeah, good question. So I think one of the early considerations was what are the barriers to entry, right? Like what would keep somebody else from coming and doing exactly what we’re doing? And where I believe there is a barrier is that the manufacturing equipment had already been purchased and set up here in Idaho. So that’s a pretty substantial capital expenditure, right? In terms of the molds to make the coolers, the oven,
to melt the resin into the shape of the cooler within the mold. And then the infrastructure behind that, all the component fabrication and sourcing for anything that was bought through a vendor rather than manufactured on site had all been set up. that’s, you know, it’s not impossible, but it’s a heavy lift. And that was all here, ready to go.
the second thing was that I did like the product, but I also thought we could make some design improvements and enhancements to it to sort of step the game up a little bit. so those, those two things, and I should say also, I’m a little biased. like manufacturing, but I just, I think it’s a cool industry and I like the outdoors and, and so the, the, product.
just was sort of in my wheelhouse too, I guess. And we thought the story behind it was good. Cordova, Alaska is where the company gets its name. And that’s a really cool place up on the Gulf of Alaska and Prince William Sound. it’s on the mainland, but it’s only accessible by boat or plane. So for all practical purposes, it’s an island and just a beautiful.
place and we thought it just kind of spoke to what we wanted the brand to be about. So we liked the story. We liked that the heavy lifting on the ground work had been done.
Greg Shuey (07:40.3)
I like that. I like that you mentioned barrier to entry because a lot of ecommerce brands these days, I think of fashion, right? We’ve got fast fashion, right? It doesn’t take much to go over to China and find something very similar and buy a container and bring it over here, right? The barriers are very low. And so if you can find that business that has some barrier to entry, I think that it’s going to be far more beneficial for a brand and someone looking to
Gentry Jensen (07:50.111)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (08:09.998)
to buy a brand. So thank you for bringing that up. That’s great.
So how did you go about assessing the financial health and performance of the business before making your offer?
Gentry Jensen (08:23.278)
not to be to that horse, but just one more time. was crazy times, right? mean, yeah, the depths of COVID couldn’t really use, you know, the trailing quarter or projections as any sort of guide, just, you know, windy genelevation. What do you think, we should, shoot for? And so definitely more art than science. You know, there is a.
Greg Shuey (08:27.672)
It was so good.
Greg Shuey (08:36.003)
Yeah.
Gentry Jensen (08:51.39)
There is a value to the capital equipment. There’s book value. There’s all the different metrics, you know, drunk monkeys throwing darts, however you want to quantify it. But we just tried to put a value on the tangible assets based on, on, you know, where the world was at that point and just sort of, the situation the business was in. So I, you know, I, try to be value buyers. know Warren Buffett was famous for saying by, you know, cigarette butt companies and then.
Greg Shuey (09:03.961)
Yeah.
Gentry Jensen (09:21.834)
Charlie Munger talked him into buying good, great companies at a good price. We were somewhere in between there. You know, the company needed some work, but it, definitely had a foundation laid as well.
Greg Shuey (09:33.016)
Yeah, okay, cool. So that kind of leads into the next question is the due diligence side of things, right? Like, what what did that look like? What steps did you take to verify the accuracy of the businesses financials, their performance metrics, the value of the manufacturing, you know, establishment that they had built? Like, what did that look like? It was probably pretty complex, I would imagine.
Gentry Jensen (09:57.738)
It was, it was, I think greatly simplified by the fact that the banking relationship that the seller had is the same banking relationship that we had. So there was transparency on that front and cooperation and mutual consideration and all those really good things that took a lot of friction out of the process. you know, it was
talking with existing customers. And honestly, Cordova was new to e -commerce at the time that we came in. They had built a platform on big commerce, but it had really only been up and running a few months. We had in our head the idea that we could expand on that. I had a couple of companies that I thought would be good to try to emulate in that space. Or just, I mean, the e -commerce direct to consumer space. One in particular was Tacoma’s
footwear, you know, boots, I thought they told a really good story and they’ve expanded past just direct to consumer since then. But where you’ve got a good brand that’s going direct to consumer, we thought the premium brand in the space yet he was overpriced. We thought we were a better value than the sort of bottom tier of products and that we could take advantage of again, the fact that we’re an American manufacturing company.
making stuff that’s supposed to last a lifetime offered at a great price. so, yeah, one of the first things we did after coming in was devote a lot of resources to rebuilding the site, stepping our game up and trying to expand our reach directly that way.
Greg Shuey (11:41.614)
That’s awesome. Great. And I mean, I have one of your coolers and I have an Arctic cooler and a Yeti cooler. And when you stack them side by side, you can tell that the quality is insane. Like it is, it’s so good. And so I like that that you can kind of evaluate where they’re coming from with their financials.
Gentry Jensen (11:56.67)
Thanks man, thank you.
Greg Shuey (12:07.458)
and then areas of opportunity, how are you going to expand and how are you going to grow the business and what are projections look like? That’s a key part of it, right? Not just like where are they coming from, but like, what do you truly believe that you can do with the business and how can you, you know, create that value to be able to, you know, get something out of it at the end of the day, right? So, you you talked about e -commerce being relatively new when you bought the business.
and you had a small customer base, how did you evaluate all of that? Like I know you said you talked to some customers, but like, can you describe the process you use to evaluate the business’s customer base? Factors like customer retention, lifetime value, because all of that goes into how am I going to extract value? How am going to build and grow this thing? Right?
Gentry Jensen (13:01.288)
Yeah, I wish we’d use that level of sophistication to shoot you straight, but you know, there’s a D and B is a local regional retailer up here in the Boise area that we’ve had a great relationship with. And just in terms of what you want sort of a vendor customer partnership to look like, they’ve been just exceptional to deal with. So that was probably the touchstone for us on the wholesale front and whether that
you know, relationship was enough to sustain the business or sort of, you know, build off of talking with those guys where they thought, Cordova could live going forward with them. then the buying groups that retailers like that are part of how can we leverage those relationships to build? That was one aspect of it. Another was what are the other channels that we have available to us that either aren’t being,
capitalized on right now or could use some fine tuning. And we happen to have a great OEM relationship with some boat manufacturers. And that’s actually what started the company was designing coolers to the unique specifications of high -end ski boats. And so the OEM channel, the original equipment manufacturing channel is one that has been a real feather in our cap for us, right? It’s a legitimizer for the business.
You know, these high end boat builders trust us to make their coors. We got to be doing something right. And yeah. And then, I will say Amazon was a channel that was not being used at all. That took us some time to unlock. And we’re still trying to figure out how to, appropriately capitalize on that. It’s only been four years. So give me a minute. and then, the, other channel that, has been.
Greg Shuey (14:35.64)
We’ve got something there, yeah.
Gentry Jensen (14:58.964)
great for us that we didn’t really pro forma accurately is the corporate channel. So corporate gifting, corporate recognition, corporate promotional, those types of things. We have some unique customization capabilities in -house here to make a cooler, stainless steel, vacuum sealed bottle, a backpack really pop with a brand’s logo and presence and custom design.
if that’s what they’re looking for. so that, that one’s been a really nice surprise to the upside. was something I frankly didn’t have much situational awareness of coming in. Does that answer your question? I don’t want to dodge it. Okay.
Greg Shuey (15:40.324)
Yeah, it totally. No, it totally does. I mean, I like that you talk about identifying different channels that you can attack, right? You had the manufacturers and you had a nice relationship there. But like, in addition to DTC selling directly through your website, what are other revenue streams that you can tap into? Amazon, you know, is always an option for any DTC business. I like that you’ve gone corporate and customization and those types of things. And so
Gentry Jensen (15:49.855)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (16:10.532)
The trick is, how do you continue to optimize those and your D to C and continue to grow those? I think that’s great.
Gentry Jensen (16:19.946)
Well, that’s where you come in, Greg. Appreciate you.
Greg Shuey (16:21.732)
So this next one’s a little bit tricky. And we’ve talked a little bit about it. like, how, how did you assess the value of the business’s IP? I’m talking to like, the manufacturing, the molds, the brand, the domain, any proprietary technology? How did you? How did you do that?
Gentry Jensen (16:44.872)
Yeah, that’s an art that’s beyond really my set of expertise or skill set as well. But I will say there were a couple of patents that the business had on the hard cooler design that I thought were great. One is the ability to lock the lid open because the lids on our coolers aren’t like igloo where it’s just a hollow shell. They’re filled with foam. And on the big coolers in particular, the lids have got some heft.
to them and so you don’t really want them flying around. So that lid lock holds the lid up once it’s opened past a certain point and there was a patent on that. Another one of the features I like is our handles. They’ve got bottle openers built into them and they’re not just rope and PVC pipe, they’re machined aluminum, powder coated or anodized depending on the color you get with a foam pad.
really gives you positive control of the cooler. So that was another differentiator that had some IP around it. One that I wish had been protected, but there wasn’t before we came along and then the window closed was the top loader latches, right? Cause you can put the coolers in like the bed of your truck up against the bed wall and just pop the latches without having to get your hand down between the cooler and the bed wall to pull the latch down. So we liked those features. What sort of dollar
value to attribute to them wasn’t something we went into very deeply. Just again, given the nature of the transaction when we came along. But I do think you can put those sort of in the camp of barriers to entry, right? Like I know what our cooler looks like the second I see it. It’s not going to get mistaken for anybody else’s. The first time I saw the latches, I thought they looked a little funky, but once I understood the design consideration behind them, the lending of form and function. was like, okay, that was pretty smart actually. So the other things like the domain was great to have. Cordova Outdoors is the domain you would want, right? CordovaOutdoors .com. You didn’t have to deal with any sort of funky hyphens or anything like that. And so that was good to have. It was kind of set up to go. And so that definitely helped, yeah.
Greg Shuey (18:42.552)
Yeah. Yep.
Greg Shuey (19:05.06)
Right? Very turnkey. Cool. That’s awesome. And like you mentioned, those those functionality of the coolers, those are the we’re going camping this weekend. First thing, I whipped out the cooler, cleaned it out yesterday. And my son’s like, we got a new cooler. This lid. Look, this lid stays up. Look at these handles. man. So yeah, I love that. So
Gentry Jensen (19:25.522)
Alright on. cool. Thanks, man.
Greg Shuey (19:34.372)
What were some red flags or warning signs that you looked out for during your evaluation? Or if you didn’t look for red flags or warning signs, what are some that maybe you think back on that people should consider as they’re looking at vetting out businesses to buy?
Gentry Jensen (19:51.048)
That’s a good question. You know, the obvious question is why is it available? Right? Why is this? Why is this business on the market? And, you know, without delving too deeply into the situation out of respect for the seller and previous owner, we were satisfied that the reasons were legitimate. And given the
Greg Shuey (19:57.921)
Yep.
Gentry Jensen (20:19.346)
mutual relationship that I mentioned with the bank, felt like we had transparency into the financial condition, which was crucial. But yeah, why is it available? And there’s good answers, right? There’s good reasons. Sellers reach the point in life where they want to move on to something else. You know, that happens. I was all in on the Navy. Yeah, you know, there can be good reasons. So knowing the answer is key. But the fact that it’s, you know, looking
Greg Shuey (20:38.008)
got work.
Gentry Jensen (20:49.172)
to transact in and of itself just merits investigation, not our red flag in and of itself. I think the biggest one for us was just the state that COVID had sent the place into. know Utah never got shut down, but everything that was deemed non -essential in Idaho was shut down. And so when we came in the first time, the machines weren’t turning, right? It was quiet.
And there’s, it’s just kind of eerie to walk into a factory and see it idle, especially during what would normally be production hours. So what is it going to take to get it up and running again? Do we have the labor force? Do we have the expertise in house? Cause you know, I, I know that you got to pour the resin in and turn the oven on, but I don’t know how to turn the oven on. Right. And.
Greg Shuey (21:47.204)
Right. Or how much resin to add or whatever that is, right?
Gentry Jensen (21:48.358)
I don’t
Yeah, or what temperature to get it to so you don’t overcook it. Yeah, all those things. Do we have people that can help us out with those? And are our customers going to be there for us when we get it turned back on?
Greg Shuey (22:03.682)
Yeah. Those are some great insights for sure. I think with other brands, I’m glad that you bring that up is is what is it going to take to get it to where you want it to be? Right? And first, we can even come back to fashion, right? If someone’s selling a fashion brand, you need to know that like, we do drops every quarter and these drops cost us x to be able to bring product over and then x and marketing and can you sustain that? Right? And is if not, is that a huge warning sign?
Because you may buy a business and not be able to take it anywhere and end up upside down at the end of the day, right?
Gentry Jensen (22:39.966)
Yeah, that’s a good point.
Greg Shuey (22:41.739)
So that’s definitely good to think about and consider. So what did the negotiation process look like to ensure that you got the best deal profitable?
Gentry Jensen (22:53.674)
That’s a good question. It looked like we came in and took a look at it, made an offer and got told to go to hell and went away for six months. It’s a matter of perspective. A matter of perspective. But not quite six months, more like five. Just as the summer progressed and we came back, re -engaged and worked it out.
Greg Shuey (23:02.872)
You love all them.
Greg Shuey (23:08.067)
Alright, fair enough.
Greg Shuey (23:16.142)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (23:23.714)
Yeah. All right. How long I mean, second round, how long did that take?
Gentry Jensen (23:25.161)
Yeah.
Gentry Jensen (23:32.842)
pretty quick I would say. I’m going off of memory here but I’m going to say less than a month. Yeah, again, not to beat a dead horse but it did help to have the bank sort of locked and loaded. They didn’t have to do diligence in terms of getting familiar with the business itself. Not that that made it painless but it definitely helped.
Greg Shuey (23:40.89)
that’s fast. Wow.
Greg Shuey (24:00.684)
And because you guys knew the buyer, right, you didn’t have a broker in between that was and I think all of those things remove the friction and speed up the process for sure.
Gentry Jensen (24:05.428)
That’s correct.
Gentry Jensen (24:10.994)
Yeah, and I might be a little off, but it didn’t seem like it was that long after we sort of re -engaged, but there was definitely a, no, it’s not, know, no thanks, period in there.
Greg Shuey (24:22.104)
Yeah. So I think my favorite question for you of any that I wrote up is what were some of the unexpected challenges you faced during that acquisition? And then how did you address those head on? So I’m sure you probably got caught off guard on quite a few things.
Gentry Jensen (24:39.306)
Yeah. funny things happen to supply chains in pandemics and funny things happen to commodity prices when $6 trillion is injected into the economy. Right. So one example would be we have, we do import some components and soft goods by the container, by the shipping container. So a 40 foot container.
Let’s say in the summer of 2019 was about $1 ,214 to ship from a port in Asia to here in Idaho. So that would include, let’s just say port to port. So from Asia to the West coast of the U .S., call it 1 ,500 bucks just for round numbers. In the summer of 2020, fall of 2020 going into 2021, that number went to about $24 ,000.
to ship a container. you know, what is that? 18X, something like that. You can double check my math, but extraordinarily expensive to move goods and everything was coming one way, right? Empty containers were going back, full containers were going over. You couldn’t book a room on a vessel, you know.
Greg Shuey (25:56.472)
Right.
Gentry Jensen (26:07.402)
Less than a couple months out and once you got it, was it was $24 ,000 to ship a container that Yeah, it has. Yeah, it’s it’s back about to where it was but there’s definitely volatility there that It’ll it’ll punch you in the face
Greg Shuey (26:13.188)
Has that come back a little bit that’s
Greg Shuey (26:26.424)
out of nowhere with no warning, right? It’s just like, by the way. Yeah. Yep.
Gentry Jensen (26:29.258)
And no alternatives. There’s not like you can do anything about it. Another would be the resin that we use that is what is molded into the cooler and lids. You know, that’s coming from mostly the Gulf Coast of the United States. And it went up about 80%. So relatively small increase compared to shipping containers, but huge compared to
What you’re expecting to pay when that is your single largest, you know, cost component for the, for the, your main product. So cost of goods went through the roof. availability, was a real challenge. Like, you know, if you weren’t going to pay that price, there was a point, I’m going say it was all a 2021 where those, those, manufacturers, vendors had plenty of other people down the line that would take it. So you.
Greg Shuey (27:28.127)
Yes they did.
Gentry Jensen (27:29.426)
get to what you get and you don’t throw a fit. So I think those were the major challenges, but was there anything else in your question that I didn’t address?
Greg Shuey (27:40.068)
No, I think I think that’s great. I think it’s important to note that things can change overnight. And you probably aren’t going to see those coming. And so making sure that you have processes and procedures in place to be able to tackle those because that that kills your margin typically forces you to raise your prices. When you raise your prices, people have bought from you before like, why is this cooler $60 more?
Gentry Jensen (27:46.441)
Yeah.
Gentry Jensen (28:02.217)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (28:07.822)
Hurts the customer experience and there’s just so many different things that you might not be thinking about that could hurt your ability to start growing and scaling the business that you just.
Gentry Jensen (28:20.414)
Yeah, well said. Yeah.
Greg Shuey (28:23.492)
Cool. Well, can you share any lessons learned or best practices for others considering buying an e -commerce business?
Gentry Jensen (28:31.688)
Yeah, I would say get your hands around the data that is in the ERP quickly and make sure that it is accurate. And if it’s not, that’s a huge red flag right there, right? Like are the inventory numbers right? Are the bomb, the bill of materials components built correctly? Is the cost associated with them right? And you you got to just dig into that. Are these polling?
the right components when you’re manufacturing products that ERP you’re going to live or die by. And then how do you add efficiency to that? Right? you’ve got to, I’m going to, it’s going to sound like I know what I’m talking about with tech, but I don’t. That’s again, that’s why you’re here, but you’re going to have to integrate your ERP with your CRM and figure out how to, what is the value of my customer base? How can I, best capitalize on this in a way that
grows the brand isn’t detrimental to the brand and that earns customers trust. And how do I do that efficiently, right? Like setting up email flows and campaigns and drips and making sure that you’ve got the product in stock or easily manufacturable to fulfill the orders that do come through. Just going through it from…
the customer side and making sure it’s seamless takes a whole lot of work on the back end of all these programs that you now have to have to run a business. It’s the level of attention to detail that’s required is, it’s kind of mind boggling and it’s certainly beyond the abilities of any one person. So you need to find yourself some good smart people that are in my case, a little more tech savvy than me that understand how to build these things correctly and meticulously.
Greg Shuey (30:05.401)
Yeah.
Greg Shuey (30:25.796)
I like to throw in, talk to someone who’s done it before, right? Find a mentor or talk to four or five people who’ve bought in brands and have successfully grown those. I know I post on LinkedIn a lot. One of the things that I do say is like, if you want to be a million dollar brand in a year, like talk to the $5 million brand and find out how they did it.
And like these people are willing to tell you their story. They’re willing to take time out of their day to mentor and help. Go out and find that person. And it’s gonna solve a lot of problems for you as well.
Gentry Jensen (31:03.434)
That’s good advice.
Greg Shuey (31:04.93)
Yeah, well, any final words of wisdom?
Gentry Jensen (31:08.808)
No man, I got none of those. Yeah, that’s all I got.
Greg Shuey (31:10.732)
I’m empty. I’m done. That’s funny. Well, thanks so much for taking some time. We’re right on time. And, you know, I really I love the story of Cordova. I love what you guys have been doing. I love, you know, learning how you’ve come out of COVID and built the business. And now it’s time to just kind of throw gasoline on the fire, right?
Gentry Jensen (31:34.74)
Yeah, start cooking with white gas is what we used to say in the Navy. Yeah. Yeah.
Greg Shuey (31:37.976)
Yeah, buddy, I love it. Cool. Well, thank you again for being with us today. So that’s it for today. I hope everyone were able to take a couple of nuggets out of what we discussed and can take those things and take action against those. So as always, take what you’ve learned here, make a plan, and take massive action this year. Thank you, everyone, for joining.
Gentry Jensen (31:42.58)
All right, thanks, Greg.
Greg is the founder and CEO of Stryde and a seasoned digital marketer who has worked with thousands of businesses, large and small, to generate more revenue via online marketing strategy and execution. Greg has written hundreds of blog posts as well as spoken at many events about online marketing strategy. You can follow Greg on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.
