Marshall Morris is one of the friendliest, most humble guys with an amazing beard you’ll ever meet.
He’s the COO of Homelife Media, a media company that went from owning a single site about dogs to one of the biggest brands in the pet industry in three years with over 17 million fans and followers across Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- What Marshall learned from spending $11 million on Facebook in last 3.5 yrs that you can apply to your business.
- Why they’re doing the opposite of everyone else and moving from online to retail (and how customer feedback played a huge role it that process).
- Marshall’s three time consuming customer care strategies that don’t scale but are totally worth it.
Show Highlights
How They Launch 15 New Products a Week
They started w/ products for dog owners but found they could offer products specifically to people who want celebrate their specific breed of dog (eg. boxer, poodle etc.) and they’d sell more than a general dog products.
Their early products were all on-demand. No warehouse or inventory.
They still create 50 new designs a week have about 8,000 designs total for things like shirts and apparel.
Why They Decided to Risk Getting into the Pet Food Market
Building a business in the gifts for pet owners niche is great but the real opportunity is the $60 billion plus market that is for pets, not just their owners.
This presented a huge risk. Why? Because whenever you sell something that can be ingested, it’s a lot different than putting on a t-shirt. You can’t get sick and die from putting on a T-shirt.
Marshall talks about why they decided to do it the hard and expensive way to become the best at what the do.
Marshall’s Trust Building Strategies
The most impactful email their customers get is a personal email from Marshall.
Why they’re big fans of doing things for their customers that that have no transactional value.
Why they send random handwritten thank-you letters to their customers in the mail without asking for anything in return.
Links & Resources
Where to find Marshall:
Iheartdogs
Marshall on Linkedin
