Episode 839 - First Sponsorship Wrapup

In this episode Jeremy Lesniak and co-host Andrew Adams are joined by Victor Guarino to talk about how things went with our first sponsor, Kataaro.

First Sponsorship Wrapup - Episode 839

In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew, along with whistlekick brand ambassador Victor Guarino talk about how things with with their first sponsor, Kataaro.

They talk about all aspects, from what lead to wanting to get sponsors, how they went about contacting

After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it. Don’t forget to drop them in the comment section down below!

Show Transcript

You can read the transcript below.

Jeremy:

Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome. This is whistlekick martial arts radio today Andrew and victor and I we're going to talk about the results of our first ever sponsorship campaign We talked to you about that this was coming actually we just started talking about this years ago But we've had our first campaign actually on our second campaign But we're going to focus today on our first sponsorship campaign as related to martial arts radio and how it went Because some of you were kind of interested in this stuff. Some of you nerd out on the behind the scenes But before we get there, a few things. Today's episode is not sponsored, but that's OK because, well, we kind of sponsor every episode, don't we? Whistlekick and Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. There's a reason we throw the name in there. If you want to find out about all the things we do with this show, if you want to check out all the past episodes, the things that Andrew works on behind the scenes because Andrew plus what are we at, Andrew? There's like eight of us that work on each episode. It's something insane

Andrew: Yep.

Jeremy: like that. You can go to whistlekickmarshallartsradio.com. You can learn so much more about what we've got going on there. And if you go to whistlekick.com, that's where you're gonna find all the things like shirts. And we've got two of the three of us have whistlekick shirts on. Indirectly, this most indirect call out of anybody I can make. Only one person doesn't have something right now. I wonder who it could be as he drinks his tea. I love it.

Vic: Yeah, my whistle-kick cup's not even within arm's reach of me, which is

Jeremy: Well,

Vic: abnormal,

Jeremy: that's okay.

Vic: so...

Jeremy: It's all good. Believe it or not, I don't always wear Whistlekick things. Just, you know, it's only three quarters of my wardrobe. But if you go to Whistlekick.com, you can find things like this shirt or any number of things that we do. And you can use the code podcast15 to save 15%. Other ways that you can help us in our mission to connect, educate, and entertain the traditional martial artists of the world on the path to our goal of getting everybody in the world to train for six months. Well, you can share this episode. Maybe probably less so this episode. This is kind of a, for those of you who have been around episode, this would be a weird one for someone to come in on. But I guess at the same time, we're super open. We taught, like we are a full disclosure, cards on the table sort of organization. So maybe that would be cool for somebody. But otherwise, telling people what we do, sharing our mission, sharing our social media, joining our family, Patreon, whistlekick.com. Sorry. patreon.com slash whistlekick, I've been messing that up lately, as well as basically anything you can think of. And the last one I'll throw on the table, because we're talking about it, if you have a brand that has some relevance to martial artists, and remember, martial artists are people, you might want to reach out to Victor and we'll give you Victor's contact information as we get deeper into the show. So there we are. Guys, thanks for coming on. Victor, you may be very quickly marching towards Craig Wareham's title of number of episodes of Martial Arts Radio, and he's gonna hear this. And I sort of expect that Andrew and I are going to get requests. We'll probably get some episode topic pitches.

Vic: Yeah. Oh, for sure. I mean, we just, Andrew, Craig, and I just sat down

Jeremy: Right.

Vic: and recorded a couple episodes altogether. So,

Jeremy: Yeah, I...

Vic: he's still nudging ahead, you know.

Jeremy: He's got you, but it's by less of an overwhelming lead than it used to be. Yeah. It's good times. Thanks for being here. Andrew, of course, you know, you and I talk like every day,

Andrew: Yeah,

Jeremy: but

Andrew: pretty

Jeremy: thank

Andrew: much.

Jeremy: you for being here regardless.

Andrew: Yes.

Jeremy: Uh, yeah. So. Let's kind of frame this conversation in a sense. Andrew, I think it goes back to some of the, I think this was early your time with the podcast when we said, okay, if we were going to have sponsorships, how would we do it? Right. That was you or was that.

Andrew: Yeah, no, and I think so. And I don't want it to sound like I'm the one that brought the idea of sponsorships to you because I'm sure you've thought about it years ago. But when I did join the podcast, as the listeners know from other episodes I've talked about, I listened to a lot of podcasts and many of them are sponsored. And when I came on board here, I brought up like, hey, why aren't we sponsored? Uh, you know, like I'm sure there are people out there that we could get sponsorships from, um, and, you know, and we, we did an episode on sponsorships, you know, a couple of months ago before we announced that Kotaro was going to be our first sponsor and, you know, we made it, you made it very clear to me at that point that we, whistlekick didn't want sponsors that were random. Um, nothing against Casper mattresses, for example, but There's not a huge, there's not huge synergy between Casper mattresses and martial arts. Having said that,

Jeremy: And that's...

Andrew: we all sleep, but, but

Jeremy: Right. Relevance,

Andrew: it was.

Jeremy: yes. Synergy,

Andrew: Yeah.

Jeremy: no.

Andrew: And

Jeremy: Right?

Andrew: you said that it was really important to you that if we as a brand are going to promote something, there really needs to be value to our listeners.

Jeremy: Yeah. And that's the key word. And Andrew, while I say a piece and then throw it to Victor, if you wouldn't mind looking up that long episode that if we did sponsors, if you could pull that episode number, that would be awesome. You know, and when really, for the audience, what you don't know is that I use the word value probably in an annoying amount with the team, because it is all value, one of the things that I say to my clients, one of the things I say to the team, remember everything that we do is based on value exchange. If, if you are. Listening to or watching this episode is because you believe that is more valuable than listening to or watching a different episode or a different show or Going to bed right like we make our choices based on that value and you know it Once in a while somebody will push back on me. Here's the cliche example Well, you know, I don't value paying my taxes. Well, you value paying your taxes more than being in jail, right? so you are making that choice, right and you know Victor, we did an episode and maybe you know what that one is. One of you might be able to pull that. The, okay, this is coming. We have an episode that is going to be sponsored. We have this relationship coming. And I want to make sure we get that episode number out there. People want to go back and connect these dots, but you know, you and I started talking quite a while ago, this was, you started doing something else with whistle kick and I, from like week two, I was like. I think he's the guy for this. And you didn't know. I think it was like three, four months before I even told you, but I had a pretty good sense. And you started hunting. And what I think I'd like you to do in just a moment, we'll get the episode number from Andrew, but something happened as you were calling around, as you were making emails, something happened because I remember you reaching out to me saying that you would talk to Gage Hanlin at Kotaro. and something was different in that conversation. So I want to hear that from you in a moment. Andrew, you look like you've got that number.

Andrew: Yeah, episode 797 was the ethics of sponsorships.

Jeremy: Okay, that's the recent one. Wasn't there one like back in the fours?

Andrew: Oh gosh,

Jeremy: There's

Andrew: okay.

Jeremy: one that goes way back. If we did sponsorships, what would we do?

Andrew: All right, I'll need

Jeremy: So

Andrew: more time.

Jeremy: that's the new one. So thank you for pulling that. Victor,

Andrew: Yep.

Jeremy: what happened when you talked to Katara?

Vic: Uh, yeah, so I used to, not used to, there was this one time that I was doing renovation inside of a comic book shop and the owner, yeah, I know, it's

Jeremy: Okay,

Vic: a story, but the

Jeremy: hold on,

Vic: owner

Jeremy: hold on. I wanna press pause. So when Victor and I first started talking, when he was like, I've had 36 jobs.

Vic: Yeah.

Jeremy: Something whatever that number is. It's it's a lot of jobs and If you only ever listen to shows you might think oh Victor's a hundred and two years old. He's not He's younger

Vic: Right,

Jeremy: than I am and he's

Vic: yeah.

Jeremy: had an insane number of jobs So this is one of those things that like every time I talk to Victor He'll pull context this story from something and it's always a different job like

Vic: Yeah.

Jeremy: oh That time that I dug ditches That time I was detailing cars, right? Like it's always some different job. It's for those of you who might get this reference, he's basically Kirk from Gilmore Girls.

Vic: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeremy: Please continue.

Vic: That, anyway, so I was, I was the owner of the comic book star, used to like, oh my gosh, he was a very loud but like rambunctiously jovial loud person and he used to walk around yelling, you know, KYC, Victor, KYC, and I was like, what are you talking about? He's like, know your customer and like, I watched him sell hundreds of dollars worth of comic book stuff. to someone who came in for like a $2 comic book, right? Because KYC, know your customer. That kind of has always stuck with me. So when you gave me this job to find people, that was my whole thing. That's why we didn't just get a sponsorship by Casper Mattresses. I was trying to figure out like what's important to our customer based, for lack of a better word, our listener based, right? what would they find your word value in? And those were the people that I kept trying to have conversations with. And I emphasized trying, as I probably did in the previous, because I've sent a lot of emails, text messages, those direct chats in whatever, and then I ended up getting a email back from Gage at Kotaro, and he's like, yeah, I'll have a conversation with you. And after my conversation with him, Not only did I realize that our listener base would find value in what Kotaro does, but he was the first person that I had a conversation with that was like, oh yeah, this makes sense because of the people who are listening. to you. I mean, there's, there's so many different ways and gauge saw it. And then when he talked to his PTBs, his powers that be, and I came back and talked to you, like everybody saw that it makes sense. I mean, you can take a bucket of paint and you can throw it in the general direction of a barn and hope the barn gets painted, or you can take a direct approach and take a smaller brush of paint. specifically to the part that you want to paint. And that's pretty much what Gage at Kotaro saw. I mean, it's not enough that we saw, Hey, this is a product that the people who listen to our show would find value in. He saw the reach maybe not be what the general advertising reach would be, but it's a focused reach. Instead of putting it in front of hundreds of thousands of people, who, you know, a fraction of which, of.0 whatever percent, may be interested in it, we're gonna put it in front of the exact people who we know would be interested in it. And that was the real difference that I had, was the vision. I always like

Jeremy: Hmm

Vic: to speak to people who can visualize not where we are, but where we could be. and then we work on how to get there together. And that was

Jeremy: Right.

Vic: the conversation that I had with Kataro people.

Jeremy: And there's the three-way value exchange, right? We made sure that this was something that our audience, that we've worked really hard to build a relationship with back since, Andrew, did you find it?

Andrew: No, what I found was episode 115 was money in martial arts competition.

Jeremy: Okay, no, it's more recent than that.

Andrew: Yeah.

Jeremy:I'll let, when you talk in a second and I'll hunt, I'm pretty sure there's something out there. So we wanted to make sure that, of course, that there was value to the audience. And that's why we don't read ads. You know, we don't, we're, I should, read, it's why we don't pre-record ads,

Andrew: Hmm.

Jeremy: right?

Andrew: Yeah.

Jeremy: It's why we try to make them a little more dynamic because we've all had that experience listening to a podcast. It's like, I've heard this exact ad 75 times and I know that in three seconds the person reading it's going to stumble over that word, right? Like you get to know it that well and it doesn't, it just doesn't land, right? People skip it. So we had to make sure that we were doing ads in a way that still carried value to people. We have people who don't train who listen to our show. We have people who don't wear belts who listen to our show. How do we make a Kataro ad? interesting enough that they won't hit the skip button. Right, how do we deliver enough value that Kotaro is happy with parting with some money that they give to us as we also build a relationship, right? So there's all that exchange in there. Now, Victor, as you put this together, obviously it was a trial, right? You know, there wasn't anything guaranteed, but. You know, we also got Andrew involved on the back end, and I wonder if the two of you might talk about how that works.

Andrew: Yeah, so, you know, one of the things that, you know, we worked out in terms of the sponsorship, Victor, was, you know, X number of episodes are going to be sponsored by Kotaro. And so, you know, we sat down and looked at upcoming episodes that we had and topics and said, which ones make sense to be sponsored by Kotaro? You know, and obviously the interview episodes, you know, could be sponsored by anybody. But we did have a little bit of a conversation about which ones would make the most sense.

Vic: Right. Yeah, yeah, we did. And that's because my overall experience with this, with some of the people that I've had conversations with in regards to sponsorship and that I had with Gage, which was their, their biggest hurdle was negative past experiences. And like, it's just, that's why a lot of the sponsorships that you see are heavily weighted in the favor of the sponsor. because they're like, we don't care if we don't make money, we just don't wanna lose, right? We just don't wanna lose money. And so one of the things that it was important to me, and not so much that. I had the conversation with Gage because this was more about the conversation that you and I had, Andrew, was we need to make sure that the episodes that Kataro is sponsoring are worth their time. Like an extreme example would be like we wouldn't have a topic episode with two people talking about whether or not martial arts shouldn't have belts. This episode is sponsored by Kataro, right?

Andrew: Yeah,

Vic: That

Andrew: yeah, yeah.

Vic: just would be so antithetical to... ourselves, shooting ourselves in the foot. So, so there was some thought that goes behind that and we didn't just do it for Kataro, it's just they're the first ones that we're talking about.

Andrew: Exactly.

Vic: We did that again for our other sponsors, right? Because those things are important because one of the unique things that Whistlekick does... to pat ourselves on the back and toot our own horn is our episodes stay out of the realm of modern discussions, which is a safe thing to do, but also makes it that I can go back, which I have, and listen to episode 200 and whatever and not feel the date of it, right?

Andrew: Yeah.

Vic: And unlike a lot of episodes. or other podcasts, which I told Katara, is where it's like, hey, when your ad is done, we're not gonna go back, I'm not gonna have Andrew go back and re-upload those episodes without your ads in them. Right? So what's happening right now, even though their campaign is technically over, they paid good money for those episodes to be put out and that money, and that ad is constantly running. Every time you go back and listen to those four episodes, they're there. Those episodes are sponsored by Kotaro. That's their value, which is evergreen and consistently adding onto, which you don't see a lot of.

Andrew: Now,

Jeremy: I looked.

Andrew: yeah, what's that episode number?

Jeremy: It may have been an internal conversation that I'm pretty sure it was a Thursday episode. I'm pretty sure it was you and I in my living room. I have vague memories of this, but I've also known to transpose memories. So.

Andrew: So Victor, my question then, you know, we, Kotaro sponsored four episodes. We, you know, we released two interviews and two Thursday episodes that were sponsored by Kotaro. And they, in those episodes, which will always be there in perpetuity, you can go back and listen to them. We gave out a discount code for people that wanted to

Vic: Mm-hmm.

Andrew: purchase, if they were interested in purchasing a bell from Kotaro. They could use the code. I don't remember off the top of my head.

Jeremy: WK10,

Vic: Yeah, definitely.

Andrew: WK10.

Jeremy: with capital letters.

Andrew: Okay. And save.

Jeremy: you can still use it.

Andrew: Yeah, so that was my

Vic: and

Andrew: question.

Vic: still use it.

Andrew: Is that still active? Or was it only active

Vic: Yeah.

Andrew: for that month?

Vic: Nope, it is a still active code, just in regard, and the reason, one of the reasons why this has been very successful that I've discovered, and I was just having a conversation, an internal conversation with another member of our core team at Whistlekick about something completely unrelated to this. But we were talking about the Goldilocks period of time when seeking sponsors, right? If you ask too soon, too much time passes before the thing that you're looking to sponsor goes by, and they lose interest and they disappear. If you ask too late, you're now running around like you chicken with your head cut off, no idea what you're doing, and the results you put out is subpar, right? I made that mistake with. with some things not just here, with my 36 some odd other jobs in the past. And so it's the art form of what we do, is finding that Goldilocks period. And one of the things that Gage and I talked about a lot with is, okay, this is our idea. Is it okay if we go slow? Is it okay if we crawl a little bit before we run? Because I wanted to make sure that we... we did right by them because like I said, their main hurdle was things just haven't worked out before. So it's just easier to risk for yourself and do your own ads and do your own thing as opposed to risking on some another company. So that being said, I had a conversation with Gage just about... how everyone was feeling, right? After the ad was run and astronomical, they loved it. They said their experience was, you know, 10 times better than any other experience that they had ever had with running ads or doing some sort of campaign via an avenue that was not in-house. be like, sweet. So in that, cause that was just a logistical conversation with us just talking about number things. So then I was like, hey, so let's talk about our partnership moving forward. Let's set up another time. That other time because of the holiday just happened to be two weeks later. When we had that conversation, two weeks after our first conversation. The numbers that we talked about the two weeks prior were already useless. They had already changed. They had already grown exponentially to the point where everyone was already even more over the hill and thralled with how this relationship had worked out. And that's what happens when you have two people, two groups that... say, hey, you have a product, we have a reach, and we both value the people that we're reaching towards enough to give them a quality thing,

Andrew: Mm-hmm.

Vic: and a real human experience opinion of that thing. And so now, I mean, now they're under the opinion where, it's not they'll do anything for us because that's not how we got here. We got here. by being methodic, by thinking about things. But everything now can be a conversation because they see our value to them, our listeners value to them, their value to us. Everyone is winning in this situation.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Vic: And so that's why the conversation with Kataro is continuing to go, because everything now is a conversation. It is, whoa. What do you think about this? Well, how could we do this? How could we bring more value to each other?

Jeremy: How do we continue to win mutually? And this is something, if you know Whistlekick's history, you know that pretty much everything we've done, it's never been short-term money. It's always been medium to long-term money as we build this brand. And this is the difference. For those of you out there who maybe are starting a business or starting a martial arts school, starting anything, this is the difference between a business and a brand. How hard, there are a few brands that I look at that I'm like, man, these brands are killing it. And we've talked about some of these internally. Harley Davidson. How bad would Harley Davidson have to screw up to lose its customer base? I mean, they went through a decade where they released terrible unreliable, I mean, horribly unreliable motorcycles. People still bought them. They're like, this is Harley.

Andrew: Yep.

Jeremy: Nike. Nike is a brand that is incredibly valuable worldwide to the point where. Unless something has changed recently, you don't see Nike on social media. They don't need to be there because their brand is so valuable. If you want Nikes, you want Nikes. If you don't, you don't. They've put in the time to build that brand and they've done that. Both of those brands have done that by focusing on what is going to happen longer term, not okay, we could take this route and make a bunch of money right now, which I'll be honest. I've been very honest with the audience over the years. It is incredibly difficult for me to make some of these decisions knowing that we could do this and flip that product and put Casper mattresses on. Casper should probably send us a few hundred bucks at this point just because

Vic: just because we mention them

Jeremy: it's

Vic: all

Jeremy: like

Vic: the

Jeremy: the

Vic: time.

Jeremy: fourth mention. But hey, if we're gonna mention a product, we might as well mention a good product that we just don't happen to sponsor.

Andrew: Yeah.

Jeremy: Does your mattress suck after class? And I think that this is something philosophically that probably resonates for a lot of martial artists, that we're building relationships. We've built relationships internally. The three of us are friends, in addition to working together. We've built a relationship with the audience. We've missed in... 800 whatever episodes we've missed one I Have made sure that we've always showed up. We don't read broadcast episodes. We don't take the way that a lot of Podcasts do no we just keep the hammer down and we continue to release good stuff because we're trying to serve this audience and Kind of like showing up to class right you might not feel like going to class every time But if you continue to show up if you build that habit you continue to improve even on the days that you don't think that you do and it leads somewhere. And we're at a point now with our events and with this, where it's all coming together. I mean, without spoiling surprises, there are things that are happening. Marshall Summit is going to be the culmination of eight plus years of effort,

Andrew: Mm-hmm.

Jeremy: not directly, but indirectly setting up the platform. And so all of these things are coming together and it's gonna be an absolutely insane event. And if you do happen to listen to this, sometime You know July well one air in July August September October of 2023 You should come to the first ever Marshall Summit. It's gonna be incredible, right?

Andrew: Mm-hmm.

Jeremy: But this is what we do right we step over the short-term money because our eyes are up Right if you're thinking about self-defense and you look down at your feet You're gonna miss out you're gonna fall in a whole bad things are gonna happen

Andrew: Yeah, yeah and quick sidebar for those that want the quick info Marshall Summit is a I can't even say a weekend long Event in Key, New Hampshire because it's starting on Thursday and ending on Sunday So we're

Jeremy: days.

Andrew: looking at four days event the second weekend in November in Key, New Hampshire, just quick the quick details You can find information on Facebook and what and whistlekick.com

Jeremy: So we've talked about how we got here. We've kind of hinted at what is happening, what's going to continue to happen. Are there, you know, and I guess, Andrew, I'll kind of ask you because you've been, of the three of us, I guess, the least involved. You know,

Andrew: Mm-hmm.

Jeremy: are there things we haven't talked about? Are there questions we haven't asked that

Andrew: No, I

Jeremy: the

Andrew: don't

Jeremy: audience

Andrew: think so.

Jeremy: might want?

Andrew: Coming into this conversation, the questions that I had revolved around, which Victor, you already answered, the discount code for Kotaro is still active. Moving forward,

Jeremy: Because why not? Right?

Andrew: yeah, no, absolutely. And it wouldn't be up to us, it would be up to them.

Jeremy: Right, right, but they get that, right? Like this

Andrew: Yeah.

Jeremy: is,

Vic: Yeah.

Jeremy: we're building, again, there's the difference between short-term and longer-term.

Andrew: Yeah, so there was that question. And then I'm assuming that as we move forward with other sponsors, that those same sorts of things will be handled and taken care of. And the other question revolved around how often are episodes being sponsored? And we already talked, Katara did a four episode sponsorship with us. I'm sure it's conceivable. I assume that they could sponsor more episodes in the future

Jeremy: We're hopeful. Is

Andrew: Or

Jeremy: that the right word

Andrew: other

Jeremy: to

Andrew: things

Jeremy: use, Victor? Hopeful

Vic: Yeah.

Jeremy: at this point?

Vic: Expectant. More

Jeremy: Expectant.

Vic: like. Yeah.

Jeremy: It seems like it because, you know, we're on the same page that there's value there, you know? Yeah, and you know, Katara was not our only sponsor. We had Safest Family on the block as

Andrew: Exactly.

Jeremy: well. The reason we're talking about Katara is because they were first, right? It's the first time anybody does something especially like this, you know. We had some processes in place that Jason from Safest Family on the block was able to kind of ride along. Kataro was, okay, let's figure this out together because we didn't know what we were doing. We knew what we wanted with the result we wanted was,

Vic: Yeah.

Jeremy: but we had to figure

Vic: And I would

Jeremy: it out.

Vic: say with Safest family and Jason, the process was infinitely shorter because there were some stars and heavenly bodies that needed to be moved and aligned with us and Gage and Kotaro and all of their moving parts, which I'm sure, I have no idea all the moving parts in there on his end of things, but we figured that stuff out. And then when it came to to talking to Save His Family on the block, I was like, oh hey listen, here's the form that of all of the crap I went through

Jeremy: Right, right.

Vic: to try to get these heavenly bodies to do what I needed them to do. And here, look, you benefit for the fact that now it's just a quick turnaround. And that process is just gonna continue to be better. And if, I mean, if we're having this conversation about future sponsors and maybe you're listening to this and you have a product like. I said this I think the last time that we talked about this before we even had Kotaro's first sponsored episode air like if you have a product have some vision please like think a little bit outside of the box like I've gotten no's from companies because they think that their product isn't usable by a traditional martial artist There was one company, I won't mention who they are, but I texted you Jeremy, where I sent them my proposal and they told me that for brand cohesion, they only like to work with 18 to 50 year old athletic, fitness and health minded individuals. So they're gonna have to pass on my proposal. So either someone didn't read my proposal, which I think is likely, or they saw traditional martial arts and said, well, that's not health and fitness. That's, that's not going to a gym and lifting heavy things. I know plenty of martial artists who go to gym and lift heavy things, right? So, so have some vision and think, well, martial artists are people. That's how you started this episode. We're humans. We like things. And if you're

Jeremy: Yeah,

Vic: willing

Jeremy: and-

Vic: to think outside of the box, and you have

Jeremy: If...

Vic: a quality

Jeremy: yeah.

Vic: product or service, there's something that could fit there.

Jeremy: Yep. Yeah, we're... We're never just gonna take somebody's money. We've had offers. In fact, this is something, you know, when Andrew and I did the episode, why we don't pay for guests, right? We mentioned that we also do not receive money for guests, and we've had offers. There's another one that's come through recently that... I didn't even bother sending it because it's just gross. Like it's just, no, I don't want that. I don't want us to be associated with that. And we're gonna work for strong results because wouldn't it make more sense to find a way to keep supporting our sponsors and build relationships so we can all win together and at the same time, it's less work for everybody. It's like, oh, okay, you know, so we're doing another. three for this company or four or eight or you know, maybe somebody sponsors for a month or Particular topic or whatever, right? We're gonna we're gonna keep doing that and building that relationship based on mutual value if people want to get a hold of you Victor if they want to talk sponsorships, you know if somebody wants to I was

Vic: Yeah,

Jeremy: looking

Vic: they can

Jeremy: for something,

Vic: shh,

Jeremy: a funny segue,

Vic: yeah.

Jeremy: but I lost it.

Vic: They can shoot, they can email me at victor.whistlekickatgmail.com. That's kinda where I do all of that business. And then from there, what will most likely happen if we're gonna have a conversation is we'll set up a time that we can talk because I don't like to communicate. Emails and text messages are for quick relaying of information. They're not for figuring out how things can work

Jeremy: Yeah,

Vic: and vision

Jeremy: collaboration.

Vic: casting, yeah.

Jeremy: Yeah, for sure. Awesome. And Andrew, anything you wanna add as we fade here?

Andrew: No, I don't think so. I think just the biggest word that I think really fits our sponsorship model, for lack of a better word, is synergy. That, you know, we really work hard to make sure who we're partnering with is mutually beneficial for everybody involved.

Jeremy: Yep. And the last thing I'll say before I roll out here is Victor is not simply heading up sponsorships for the podcast. Victor is heading up sponsorships, partnerships for the entire brand. Because remember Whistlekick is not just martial arts radio. Whistlekick is also First Cup and our events and our teacher trainings and martial journal and so many other things that we do and.

Vic: Books published.

Jeremy: books, right? And that gives you an opportunity to craft something unique with every brand as necessary to deliver to them the best, what's the word we've been using, value. So yeah, there's a good chance that if you have a company that has non-geographic reach, right? Like if you're a construction company that specializes in building martial arts schools in Montana, we're probably not gonna be the best way to go.

Andrew: Yeah

Jeremy: But if you're a company that specializes in consulting in architectural design for building martial arts schools globally or nationally in the US, that might be a fit. Right, see the difference. Okay, all right, well audience, thank you for being here. Thank you for watching or listening. I appreciate you. I will speak for the other two gentlemen. I believe they also appreciate you and you being here because without you, we would be not one crazy person talking to himself, but three. people talking to each other and then pretending other people listen to it, which, let's be honest, is most podcasts. We are thankful that we actually have an audience. It means a lot to us. If you want to support us, the first thing to remind you, if there is an episode that has sponsorship, please, at the very least, check out that sponsor. Know that we have worked very hard to form a relationship there. And let's take the hypothetical example of Katara. Maybe you're not in the market for a belt right now, but go check out their website. And If there's something going on that you can commit to memory, maybe you want that belt, or maybe you bump into somebody else that wants that belt, that needs a great custom belt, right? So it's not just short-term. Again, we're not doing short-term transactional stuff. We're building relationships, and we want you to be part of them. If you wanna help us out beyond that, share episodes, follow us on social media, we're at Whistlekick. Remember that we offer consulting services, seminars. teacher training. There's so much going on. Check out whistlekick.com. And if you have questions or something, if you want to reach me directly, it's and I am not Andrew. You are Andrew at whistlekick martial arts radio.com. I am Jeremy at whistlekick.com. Having an identity crisis apparently. And that takes us to the end. Thanks for being here until next time. Train

Andrew: straight,

Jeremy: hard,

Andrew: hard, smile, and have a

Vic: and have a

Andrew: great

Vic: great day.

Andrew: day.

Jeremy: smile and have a great day. Oh, that was terrible.