Menswear Style Podcast
The Menswear Style Podcast is a leading men’s fashion and menswear podcast exploring men’s style, clothing, grooming, lifestyle and the business behind some of the world’s most exciting fashion brands. Hosted by Peter Brooker, each episode features conversations with menswear designers, fashion entrepreneurs, innovative brand founders and industry experts from across the global fashion and apparel industry. Discover the stories behind established and emerging clothing brands, from the first idea and challenges of launching a fashion start-up to building a successful international business. Guests share their experiences and insights across fashion design, sustainability, manufacturing, marketing, branding, eCommerce, retail, social media and business growth. Whether you’re interested in men’s fashion and style, discovering new menswear brands, starting your own clothing label, or learning how successful fashion businesses are built, the Menswear Style Podcast takes you behind the scenes of the modern menswear industry. New conversations with the people shaping the future of menswear, men’s style and fashion.
Menswear Style Podcast
David Evans of Grey Fox, Greg Dillon of Great Drams & Antonio Centeno of Real Men Real Style
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In this episode we speak to some of the heavy hitters within the blogging world and ask them how they monetise their blogs. What are some of the best practices and what advice would they give to people just starting out. We speak to David Evans from Grey Fox Blog, Greg Dillon from Great Drams, and Antonio Centeno from Real Men Real Style.
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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Menswear Style Podcast with me, your host, Pete Brooker. And this week we're going to see how the fudge is packed in Blogger World. How do bloggers make money? What are the best practices? Is there any point blogging, or should we all down our big Byros and just become full-time narcissists? I mean Instagrammers. So we'll be speaking to David Evans from Grey Fox Blog, which features fashion and style for the older man and is read by men and women of all ages. It's got a target audience of the man aged forty and over and represents an often forgotten but large and affluent demographic. David talks about not just the blog, but how he manages to balance his time between his other lines of work, such as racing Shetland ponies, being a professional crazy golfer, and officiating over wet t-shirt competitions.com. He's an avid whiskey collector and enthusiast. Greg talks about how he makes ends meet and bringing extra revenue streams to his blog. He speaks candidly and bravely for the first time about being a nude art model.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, as you say, you have to keep the lights on and pay for the you know, life.
SPEAKER_05Lastly, we're also going to be speaking to Antonio Centeno from Real Men Realstyle.com. That's a community where men freely educate themselves about timeless male style rules. He told us he's helping guys who are looking to wear their pajamas in the workplace.
SPEAKER_01They feel that their image is holding them back. And my goal is to be able to give them the information, the tools, and literally to give them the one-on-one coaching so that they can develop that mindset so that they're not afraid to walk into a room and be the best dressed guy.
SPEAKER_05How about that? All that to come, but first a little bit of housekeeping. Make sure you're checking out the menswear style site at menswearstyle.co.uk. There you'll find all the reviews, features, interviews, and competitions. Make sure you're following us on the social at MenswearStyle and you've downloaded the Menswear Style app. Simply punch in menswear style in your app store. Once you've downloaded that, we can notify you with posts, fashion tips, etc. Make sure you've subscribed to the Menswear Style Podcast on iTunes and leave a review or comment if you have an opinion on the show. And lastly, if you want to get in touch with the show, then you can email me at peter at menswearstyle.co.uk, okay. Without any further ado, here is that interview with David Evans from the Grey Fox blog. Okay, I'd like to welcome to the podcast now David Evans, founder and creator of Greyfoxblog.com. How are you doing today, David? I'm good, thanks, Pete, yes. Excellent. Great to great to talk to you again. We've been bumping into each other quite frequently over the last week, but it's been a renewed pleasure each time.
SPEAKER_03Yes, indeed, by the riverside and uh at lunch as well, all in the last week. It's been great.
SPEAKER_05It's a small world, the bloggersphere.
SPEAKER_03Indeed, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_05So, David, would you mind just giving us um a quick backstory, your background, how you got into blogging, and just brag a little bit, if you will, please.
SPEAKER_03Yes, well, yes, I'll try to. I I've been blogging for what five and a half years now. Um and I have to say I have absolutely no background in fashion, menswear, anything of that sort. My background is that I was a lawyer for probably at least a quarter of a century. Uh I stopped that because I was getting fed up with being a lawyer, so I retrained as a teacher and I taught in a primary school for a few years. Um and it was while I was teaching I started the blog. Um, and I found the blog was taking more and more of my time. Uh and so I retired from teaching, did a little bit of uh a little bit of tutoring, uh, but now the blog really takes up uh most of my time.
SPEAKER_05Right, okay. Um I wanted to really ask you you're talking about time, how you effectively manage your time. So the blog is becoming more and more successful when people are inviting you to more and more things, I assume. So now it's a case of where I'd like to come to that, and I'd like to do this, but how do you effectively manage those layers of time?
SPEAKER_03Uh with great difficulty, I think, is the answer to that question. Um I do have some sort of structure to my day. So um the highest priority in my day is my is my Labrador, Harry. So the first thing is Harry has a very early walk from sort of before eight o'clock for an hour and a half or so. And so by about half nine or nine o'clock, I've settled down and I'm dealing with emails, I'm writing features for the blog, I'm sorting out my diary. And that sort of goes on sporadically throughout the day until mid-afternoon when Harry tells me he wants to walk again, so I take it out again, and then I do a little bit more work after that. The thing about blogging is you know it's it's not just the blog itself, it's also all the social media, and it's interesting how that has grown even in the five and a half years since I started the blog. Um, although I was on Twitter and from a reasonably early stage, Instagram, I found they now take more and more time and are are are more and more important. So I'm sort of trying to weave all these things into the day, and uh it can be a bit of a juggling act, but uh I think I'm lucky in that I really enjoy what I'm doing, so I don't necessarily think of it as work. I I see this largely as a hobby. Yeah. Um, and I'm I'm doing it because I enjoy it.
SPEAKER_05So when it comes to the writing element, do you have a practice like you'll you'll turn the emails off or you'll put the phone in another room and go, right, I need to punch out 500 words, whatever it must be, but I can't be in between a conversation and have five different plates to spin.
SPEAKER_03That's an interesting question. I mean, I my first reaction was to say no, but actually I think I probably do because once I get into the writing sort of vibe, then I find I just really focus and I I just get it done. I have to say, I think my the way I've written features on the blog has changed a lot since I started it. When I started, I was a lot more wordy. I think even in those five years, because of the rise of Instagram and and and to an extent Twitter as well, people are uh a lot less patient about reading thousands of words. So I will write a blog post and I'll cut it back and I'll cut it back until it's it's fairly slimline. Um and that that's time consuming, but not as time consuming as writing sort of a couple of thousand words, you know.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And how do you see the the blog going on, say maybe for the next five years? Do you think you'll open it out to other writers, you know, kind of delegate your time so other people can do social media, or is it very much your voice and you want to see this as your your baby as it takes?
SPEAKER_03U I I I'm not quite as possess possess possessive, if I can get the word out as that. I mean, I I I obviously do see it as mine, but I would love to have other people writing for it in a very controlled way. I don't want to become the sort of blog which has a an army of writers, all of whom maybe contributing equally to it, because uh, you know, it is Grey Fox blog and Grey Fox is me, so there is that sort of control over the amount of contributions I would get to it. But I'd I'd love to have other voices on it, and I'd love to have other voices maybe contributing on subjects I'm not so hot on. Um, but but that is something to think about for the future. I think also I I was just thinking the other day, I'm not sure if I was starting as a blogger now whether I'd even actually have a blog, I might just be an Instagrammer. Um but having said that, I don't think I'm gonna give up the blog. The blog has a place because there is a place, I think, for text and for expanding on objects, products, whatever it is, experiences in writing. Um uh because you can't always do that through image and photography. Yeah. A large part of my time is being spent on Instagram and on Twitter. And indeed, I mean this is quite time because just two days ago I sort of launched myself an Instagram story, so I'm just giving that a go to see how that uh develops. So and and also it's very difficult to predict what might come up in the next few months in terms of uh of new forms of social media, all of which will have to be explored and tried uh and used in a sort of controlled way.
SPEAKER_05And all of these platforms, I don't know if you find this, but it's it just becomes like another mouth to feed, effectively. So once you've conquered the art of Instagram or you feel like you've got uh enough of a firm footing to know what you're doing, Twitter, etc., then something else crops up. It's like, well, now I have to deal with Pinterest, even though Pinterest has been around for donkeys years. You think, well, now everyone's doing Snapchat, and you think, oh Jesus HP. Yeah. Um so it just becomes um like you take in just drag you away from perhaps what it started out to be. For me, it was very much the writing element, because I like to turn a phrase, I like to put something down and produce um I'd like to produce content that could be reviewed maybe or digested, as opposed to that very disposable format, which is even more disposable than blogging, which is Instagramming. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't really have a question, I just had a little rant, that's all. Um regarding your your blog, so you're you're still with Blogger. Um have you ever thought about uh transposing, if that's the word, that to another site?
SPEAKER_03Um I have, but you know, I don't have the skills, and um I I keep thinking what I'd like to do is is sort of earn enough to to to to pay somebody to develop the blog for me. I'm slightly nervous of doing that. But you know, I have a blog here which has got five and a half years of history in it, some of which is now outdated, but which a remarkable amount of is is probably quite valuable resource, um if I may say so. Um and what Blogger doesn't seem to allow is easy access to that. And what I want is a sort of magazine sort of approach where you maybe have a front page on the blog where you can have access to all sorts of different um parts of the blog and to archive and so on, and really use it as if you're flicking through a magazine. Um I don't have the skills to do that. I'd love to do it and I will do one day, but I have to say I've been talking about it for two years and it hasn't happened yet. So we could be having this conversation another two years and it won't happen then, but uh that would be the ideal, yes.
SPEAKER_05But I mean it's it's a very accessible format still, the the blog is everything's on the homepage. So like your first blog or your um very recent blog will just be front and centre. So that's what people would like to see when they go on, perhaps the latest update and topic. But like you say, it's good to archive stuff and maybe have an ease of access when you want to refer to something. That's perhaps what other sites can um can do.
SPEAKER_03I think it'd be nice to sign them in because you know th there are hundreds and hundreds of of features of posts on there, and uh that they might visit, they will see the most recent post there, but they actually might want to explore a little bit more, look at um you know related posts and uh the I mean blogger does allow that to an extent, but uh not in the sort of sophisticated and attractive way that I'd like it to. Um so that is something I will work on eventually.
SPEAKER_05David, just a couple more questions. What's um what's the plan? Are you are you thinking of doing anything in print? I saw the other day that you were doing something with a cycling mag um uh Kickstarter uh book that that's coming up as well, and we'll leave note for that in the show notes. So you you obviously got an eye for something that's going in print. Uh do you see yourself as doing something like a book later on in down the road?
SPEAKER_03I do, yes, and I do have uh I do have a book proposal written. Uh and actually I am looking for a publisher at the moment. So if you're a publisher who helps we need we need a couple of people. We need someone to do the website, someone to publish the book. Come on, audience. Exactly. Yeah, well, you know, I I really think that what I'm talking about here is style for older men. This is a demographic which is getting larger and larger. Nearly 50% of consumer spending is by people over 50, and yet still it's a demographic which is largely being ignored. And this is uh an interest, there's an interest among older men just waiting to be ignited. And that's what I want my book to do.
SPEAKER_05I wholly agree. I wholly agree. And it's a great name as well. I've never really stopped to think about it, but it's a very Were there any other names in the hat? Like, Silver Fox blog or no.
SPEAKER_03A neighbour's daughter very kindly described me as a silver fox one day, and I just thought, well, I'm not actually silver, I'm grey, so I'll be grey fox. So it really was as easy as that.
SPEAKER_05Okay, great. Um, David, listen, thanks for jumping on the podcast. Just lastly, what did you want to do outside of this? We've I think we mentioned uh at the regatta even that you might want to do perhaps hotel reviews or travel a bit more, incorporate that into the blog. Is that is that gonna happen down the road, you think?
SPEAKER_03Yes, I uh to an extent that sort of more lifestyle stuff is happening. I'm writing about watches and cars and uh and things like that. I I I need to keep careful control over what I do because at the moment it is just me, so I can't do too much more. But I think as a general sort of lifestyle blog, I that there is much to be developed there, and that's what I try to do.
SPEAKER_05Great, excellent. Well, I'm I'm sure it will happen um as it's already happening already. I'm sure it's just gonna be a lateral move. Um great to have you on again. Thanks, David. Uh, David Evans, founder of Grey Fox Blog, that's greyfoxblog.com, and you can follow him and his wonderful Instagram stories uh at Greyfoxblog. Um it's just got a great voice. I mean that's uh that's what I like about the Instagram stories, because you can see all these things that you're describing, and uh it's just nice to have a thorough tutoring through those um.
SPEAKER_03I think what bloggers have been saying to me is that people like to actually see a face behind you know what they're reading and what they're seeing on Instagram images. So I'm giving it a go anyway, and so we'll see what happens.
SPEAKER_05Well, it they like to say that if you're easier on the eye, David. It's when they say, Oh, actually, do you know what just stick to the photos and we don't we don't need to see the the cash register, but thanks anyway.
SPEAKER_03Well, I I want people to fully understand that I am 62, you know, and that's uh there is life after 40, really, and so that's what partly what it's all about.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, definitely. Excellent. Well, it's great to see you going stra uh the the blog's great, it's greyfoxblog.com. And um we'll I'm sure we'll probably bump into each other at the next, I hope so.
SPEAKER_03Thank you very much. Thanks for having me anyway. Brilliant. Cheers, David. Alright, cheers. Bye.
SPEAKER_05David Evans there. Now, a word from our sponsor.
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SPEAKER_05Ben Affleck there from the boiler room. And now we're gonna speak to Greg Dillon, founder and editor of greatrams.com. Welcome to the podcast. Greg Dillon, who's the founder and editor of greatdrams.com. How are you doing today, Greg?
SPEAKER_02I'm doing very, very well, Pete. How about yourself?
SPEAKER_05Yes, I'm really good. Thanks for joining us and taking the time out to speak about blogging.
SPEAKER_02Any time for you, mate, you know that. Yes.
SPEAKER_05So, Greg, uh, tell us a little bit. We've had you on the podcast before, so listeners will be familiar, but just for those uninitiated, tell us a little bit about Great Drams and how it all got started for you.
SPEAKER_02Sure. Uh so greatdrams.com is uh um my website, blog, kind of um, you know, it's been going for I think three and a half years now, and is the reigning UK food and blog, uh food and drink blog of the year. Um, so it's all very exciting, and it's won a bunch of awards in the last six months as well for design and engagement and all that kind of jazz. Um, and essentially it covers most spirits um but focuses heavily on whiskey, as that's a huge passion of mine. And as I now work within the whiskey industry as a brand strategy consultant and writer, author, and all that kind of lovely stuff.
SPEAKER_05Okay, so um to begin with, when you first launched it, what did you have in mind? What were the aspirations? Did it start as a hobby and then you thought, well, I can actually start to monetize this later? How did it all be?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure. Uh so uh quite the opposite of what pretty much any other whiskey blogger that I've met uh did. Uh so I was consulting within the industry and the brands for uh before starting the blog, and then realized I'm spending all day, every day, pretty much at the time, speaking about, thinking about and strategizing about whiskey brands, and thought, why the hell am I not talking about this wider and see if it works? And so the whole thing was geared to be a revenue generator from the beginning. It was it was obviously a passion, but it was a passion that had to work for me. Otherwise, you know, labors of love are lovely little stories, but it doesn't quite work um when you want to buy something. So um, yeah, it was all mapped out on post-its and whiteboards, and yeah, it was the hardest part was actually getting the name because I have this really annoying thing that each kind of company I uh I start or kind of or website that I have has to have my initials G D in them. Uh so finding a whiskey-based GD reference was bloody hard. Um, and it that part actually took about three and a half months of brainstorming, and then I couldn't believe Great Drams was available, and so registered it in near enough every country. And the only uh the only part I had a hassle with was Instagram. So I got it on Facebook, uh, Twitter, um, YouTube, wherever. But the um Instagram, someone in Sweden had great drams, and I was absolutely gutted. Uh, because it's like it's a huge channel. It's now the one of the biggest drivers of engagement for great trams. And so I was like, all right, fine. I'll just do for this one Great Drams, Greg. Let's humanize it a little bit and have a picture of me instead of a logo and all that. And within a week, I got an email from the guy saying, Would you mind uh change sorry private message? Would you mind changing your username? It's far too close to mine. I was like, easy there. I've registered the trademark for great drams in like seven countries. Really?
SPEAKER_05Oh, was this this was the Great Drams guy getting in touch with you? Yeah, yeah, telling you, can you just take off the word Greg, drams and great?
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And the irony was he'd only had his account for like two weeks longer than me. But I'd done I'd only set up Instagram a year after greatdrams.com started because I I hadn't really got involved with it. So all my trademarks and website and everything were pre-existing his account on Instagram. So he didn't really have a leg to stand on.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, and so it was fine, but I didn't want to be a dick, so I just kept it as it was and politely declined, and then registered greatdrams.se, so he can't have great drams in his own country.
SPEAKER_05Oof. Jesus, don't get on the wrong side of you, Greg. I like it.
SPEAKER_02It costs me 40 quid a year, but I'm happy every time I get the invoice.
SPEAKER_05That's a nice little reminder of uh one upmanship, shall we say? So so how did it start to snowball from there? Do the whiskey brands get in touch with you and then do they try and go for banner space? Uh do you mind just talking us through the infrastructure of the site?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sure. Uh so uh it actually started off uh weirdly, I was looking at the stats the other day. Um just give me a second, I might have a quick look now. The uh so the first two months, it was literally myself, um, my wife, and my father-in-law reading the website, which was you know lovely. But um then you kind of need someone else to read it. And within, I think actually by the end of month two, I'm just looking at the numbers now, uh, it shot up to uh 1,000 readers. And I was very, very excited. I was like, oh, how the hell did that happen? And then it was starting to get noticed on uh social media, and so my whole take on it isn't your classic nose palette finish uh spirit review. While that's lovely, and that's for some people and a lot of people. For me, there's there's more. There's a lot of storytelling, there's a lot of history, myths, fun that we had with uh whiskey brands and whiskey the liquid, and also uh crucially the packaging. Um my background in the the strategy side and the design side had I'd always had and still always have uh an absolute love for different bottle designs and all of that kind of stuff. So I was approaching it incredibly visually, which no one really was at the time, um, not hugely anyway. Um, and so brands started to notice, and I think the first brand that uh invited me away was Ardbeg. Um and so I went to the my first Ardbeg day uh in 2014, and it felt like an absolute honor. Um when you know they're paying for flights, they're paying for hotels, and it's a completely free bar, as much as you bloody want, which is lovely. Drink responsibly. Um but then when you kind of wake up on day two and And you're then having a peat football competition and you're in one of the teams and you're literally getting just beaten up for four hours. Things kind of got real. And so it's like, was this an honor or a punishment? Why was I being punished? Um yes. What did you say about hardbag? Oh no, I love hardbag. It's one of my absolute favourites and go-to's, especially in an old-fashioned actually. And a Negroni, an hardbeg Negroni, it's unbeatable. Anyway, sorry, digressing. But so they were the first. And then after that, um started to get more and more traction and started to get invited to launches. Uh, bars started caring about my existence and wanted me to come down and have a look at their whiskey menus and their food menus and pairings and that kind of thing. And now, and at the time it was, you know, it's lovely to go down and enjoy some free stuff and write about it. But again, with the commercial hat on, had to turn it round. And now there's there's an element of that because you have to do quite a sizeable amount of that uh non-revenue generation uh stuff. But then now I pitch out to um uh brands for different ideas for how we can work together and what we can do, and um and also putting sponsored content on the site. Sorry, Pete, can I just pause there for a second? The postman's at the window. Give me one sec, sorry, mate.
SPEAKER_05Is that another bottle of Ardbeck turning up?
SPEAKER_02Do you know? It's actually another sample of the Bernard 46 because the first one got lost and ended up at someone else's house. Um they sent a replacement because I needed it for the event last night at home, and now I've got to post this one back to them.
SPEAKER_05It's like Christmas every day at your shop. So you even have um uh a whiskey workshop within your own abode. So you're you you're at your own office. Your office is your home essentially, but you have uh a whiskey workshop where you can do your videos, your your podcasts, etc. So uh uh don't let me put words in your mouth, but I'm gonna I'm guessing that the way for you to actually bring more traffic and engage more people is to not just write about whiskey like you say, but to try and angle it from different places so that you can bring in different content, different tractions from different platforms, all of which are starting at you, the the the nucleus, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure. And so now there's you know there's uh the podcast, there's YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and the main website. Uh so it's a hell of a lot of content being created. Um, but what I would say is a kind of a tip for making it work properly is planned well in advance. So I'm uh absolutely militant with the scheduling and planning of all of this kind of stuff. And so uh Great Drams at the minute, and this may sound a bit weird, but last week I was going through and scheduling, I schedule stuff in batches and design all the pages and everything in batches because otherwise it'd do my nut in if I had to do it every day. And so I was scheduling about 35 different articles. And the last one, which isn't time sensitive, so it's just a review of a normal whiskey which isn't going anywhere ever. Um that's going to go live. I think it's the 23rd of June 2019. Wow. Correct. Let's hope the internet's still alive. I know, otherwise, well, we'd all be screwed anyway. So it wouldn't be the biggest waste by but planning ahead and leaving gaps for like news items and you know stuff that comes up. But it means that when I get busy on the consulting side, I then don't get really stressed about the site um not being updated properly. And so just to finish on an earlier point as well, the yeah, the whiskey workshop uh and tasting bar is obviously a lovely, lovely part of my office. Um, but it's all kind of become possible now through the consulting side, but then also engaging with brands to find out what works with them. So run a load of competitions on the site, and all are planned around specific dates and times that are relevant for the brand. There's um minimum value of prizes, there's uh you know, all kinds of conditions that I put in place for the brand side so that it's not just a oh, here's a bottle of 15 quid blended whatever that you probably don't want to try. It's fine, you can put that as a competition prize, but you need to put something else with it to bring the value up so that people engage. And it's all about making sure the engagement is right and getting people to actually care and comment and ask you questions and all of that kind of lovely stuff.
SPEAKER_05Interesting, yeah. And to again touch upon an earlier point you were saying about how it's nice to go places and do stuff for free, but eventually your diary builds up right and there's not enough room to do all this, and you've got to keep the light.
SPEAKER_02Saying no, as you well know, it really does my head in. Um, especially when something sounds really fun. So I'm actually supposed to be away uh or supposed to be down in London yesterday for the launch of a 46-year-old uh Bernhaven whiskey, which you know it's I thankfully they sent me a sample when I've tried it and it's exceptional. Um, but the event would have been amazing because I know a bunch of people that would have been there, nice to catch up and all that kind of thing. But travel got in the way, personal travel got in the way, um, and was unable to do so. But yeah, as you say, you have to keep the lights on and pay for the you know, life. Um, so the consulting takes up the biggest bulk of that, and that's kind of my background anyway. Um, but yeah, sponsored content, social media campaigns, paid competitions, that kind of thing is how how to bring in the revenue on the actual website.
SPEAKER_05Great. Um and Greg, what's the what do you see like the end game for great drams? I don't want to make it sound terminal like it's it's gonna die. But um like do you do you uh consider yourself like someone that the top of the tree that you can now farm out different things to different people and other people can write for you, or do you see this as very much your baby and people come to you for your for your trusted opinion on things? So these this is your audience essentially.
SPEAKER_02Um both more the latter. Um, but I do have a couple of freelancers who work with me when I get really busy to do some of the researchy side um behind it all and help construct some of the articles. So if I don't have uh time to do absolutely everything, uh I call upon a couple of them to uh help me out. Um and also one of the keys is getting rid of the boring stuff. So I have a guy in uh Sydney who if basically when I play about with the website and accidentally break it or the server crashes, he goes in and fixes it. Lovely man called Chris. Um then I also have a lovely lady called Catherine over in the Philippines, I believe, who does a lot of the designing of the um the scheduling and the inputting of the content. So I send her the raw stuff and the images, and she helps out putting some of that on. Not all of it, but a lot of it. Um, and then she also goes through, and for example, last week I had this thing that my god, I haven't bothered to put Amazon affiliate links all over the place. Uh, why have I not done this? And um, I did back in the day, but then it became a pain in the ass, and then thought, right, I need to do this again. So I, you know, set her the task of doing that. And so she went through the entire website, blah, and put links on from Amazon to, you know, if people buy stuff because of reading or review, which you should do, you know, why not?
SPEAKER_05Um and I guess all this comes to uh a point where the actual site's getting monetized anyway. So anyone wanting to start a blog now, um, they're not going to be able to afford this because you obviously people need to get paid as well, they can't get paid in whiskey or in in free boots. Well, I suppose some people can, but um for people that this is this is a certain status that you reach with your your website, but you're right. The the time, the management of time is perhaps the key thing because you can't be everywhere doing everything. So um leasing out these boring jobs and the tedious jobs where you can be busy making money, essentially, is what it's all about.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, totally. And also uh to uh just to uh kind of answer the other part of your question a second ago, it is a case of getting to a point where the industry knows you and you can pick up the phone and just say, Can I interview you for this? or call up or email or text a master blender for you know one of the biggest whiskey brands on the planet, and just say, Hey mate, how are you doing? Quick one, can I get a quote for this? You know, and that you won't get that instantly, but it comes with time and spending time with people, and that's the early doors investment uh you have to put in, and then you continue to put it in, like and take people for drinks every now and then and you know uh just kind of genuinely be a nice guy and not a dick is one of the big things. No, no, it's always there's some people within the industry who have I've heard about, I've never met them, thankfully, but I've heard about who pretty much just kind of demand free stuff, and that's in return for nothing. And you know, you can do contra deals where if the brand hasn't got budget for something, fine. You send a bottle of this, I'll do this, and then everyone's happy. But to say, send me a bottle now, that's not cool, and you soon get found out, and people talk as a small industry, so um, yeah, you have to go about things the right way.
SPEAKER_05Greg Dylan there from greatdrams.com. Thank you, Greg. And now for our last interview, we're gonna be going stateside and talking to Antonio Centenno from Real Men, Realstyle.com. I'd like to introduce to the podcast now Antonio Centeno. He is the founder and editor of RealMens RealStyle.com. How are you doing today, Antonio?
SPEAKER_01I'm good, Peter. Good to be here.
SPEAKER_05Brilliant. Thanks for jumping on. Listen, Antonio, whereabouts in the world are you?
SPEAKER_01I live in Wittenberg, Wisconsin, but right now I'm in Wasa, Wisconsin, which there's not much going on here in Wisconsin in general. I'd say it's a relatively obscure U.S. state right here in the in the central uh USA, but it is definitely not the fashion capital of the world. But that didn't stop me from building uh my business. And actually, I kind of enjoy living in an area where I'm just surrounded by farmers and uh really guys that you know are I would say they've got more traditional jobs. I'm talking like blue collar, uh, we got a lot of loggers in my area, but uh but I enjoy it. It's good, clean living.
SPEAKER_05Excellent. It sounds like a place where people have real job titles. Um, I miss the time where you could actually call someone a sheep shearer or a locksmith. Nowadays it's graphic design content creator X you know, put an extra amount of words onto your title and it gets more convoluted. So I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, no, it's it's a good place, and uh, you know, I I definitely you know I I'm fortunate to be here.
SPEAKER_05Do you mind telling us a little bit about Real Men Real Style, how it came to be?
SPEAKER_01Sure. Well, you know, if ne if anyone has never heard of this website or haven't haven't hasn't come across our content, I'd actually be kind of surprised because we nowadays get uh quite a bit of traffic on our YouTube channel, about half a million visitors a day. On our website, about uh about a hundred thousand visitors a day, uh, with our infographics, with uh basically what I do is I make style simple for the everyday guy. A lot of guys, you know, they're making that transition. Let's say you are the son of a sheep shearer and you're you went to, you know, you grew up in Australia, you went to school over in London, and you're kind of worried, you know, like, you know, I'm I'm or I'm heading out to school in London, I don't know how to how to wear a suit, I don't know how to dress well. So you would find my website and I would walk you through the basic foundations of men's style, assuming that you know nothing, and then working our way from that. It's not, I would say, and I really like that because I feel the basics are something that every man can get sharper at. And it's something that, you know, oftentimes we forget about this basic stuff and about how to set up systems in our life so that we can consistently dress well. And that's what I try to instill in guys. Uh, so we take the very simple things today. We put out a video on how to iron a shirt. But you'd be surprised how many men don't know how to do that properly. We talk about how to roll your shirt sleeves, which believe it or not, that video got millions of views. And it's something that whenever people though, they watch these videos, they realize, oh wow, there's actually five ways to do this. And if I iron my shirt in this, in this method and following this path, I can iron it quicker, uh, more efficiently, I can save time. And then, of course, we get into more advanced topics, uh, just mixing and matching clothing, uh, you know, talking about, you know, if you're out looking for a leather bag, how to find the right leather bag. Some guys are looking to spend thousands of dollars on a bag, and I try to give them the things that they should look for so that they can keep as much of their hard-earned money and not waste it on something that's gonna fall apart.
SPEAKER_05That's interesting. So, uh, I mean, we were trying to catch on to the idea of how to make money in the blogging industry and how people can then sort of cross-pollinate between their blogs and e-commerce. So, do you cater for people that have the budget to spend that sort of money on a leather bag? And and and if so, how do you target that?
SPEAKER_01Sure. Well, uh, you know, just from a if I were to talk about the specifics of how I would make money from somebody, you know, those leather bags oftentimes sell for $500. I'm looking at a few in my office here. That's why it came up. Uh, one of them's uh a $1,200 leather bag. This other one by JW Hume is a $1,500 bag. So all of a sudden, these bags, you can see they get the price of them shoots up quite a bit. I am an affiliate with many of these, so I'll get a commission, sometimes 10 to 20% of the sale if I help make it happen. But that's just one way. I also do a lot of advertising with my website. So I'll have companies come in and they will pay me to be part of the actual content we're creating. And I work very hard to make sure that I've got the trust of my audience. I put out solid content, stuff that I try to keep very objective. I'm very careful about the sponsors I bring on because I can only can talk about companies that I I can I could use myself and I do use myself and I stand behind. So there were certain things like I've turned down $10,000 advertising deals, and I mean it would have been pretty simple. Would have that that deal, and it was a it was a supplement company, it probably would have taken an hour of my time. $10,000 for an hour of my time. But I said no to it because I didn't want I don't use supplements and I don't know enough about this. I felt I would lose the trust of my audience. So, you know, that company moved on and I moved forward with my company. But I think that you you definitely, you know, if you want to make money blogging, you've got to take a step back and realize you're not gonna make money blogging. You're gonna make money doing business the way business has been done since the beginning of time. And that's when you've got a buyer who solves the problem, who wants his problem solved, and you've got a seller who can solve that problem, and the buyer trusts the seller enough to give him or her their hard-earned money, and a transaction takes place. And you want to be, you know, some people choose to be the middleman to make it more fluid, or sometimes you can actually find the more profitable route, which is kind of what I go with many ways, is I'm not only the middleman sometimes, but I'm also the seller himself building the product. So we also have information products.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Um I mean, that's super interesting when you were talking about having uh products and sponsors being congruent with what you know and what your area of expertise is.
SPEAKER_01But I'm not saying, you know, one thing I want to be clear to the audience is that you can diversify. You can find, like I found that for me, business communication is something I mean, I talk about how to present yourself in front of an audience, how to speak, how to how to, you know, negotiate. These are things which for me fit into the business style that I initially started with. There's also natural areas like grooming that, of course, fits into this. I start to talk about travel. But yeah, if I make a leap into fitness, that's probably a little bit too much for me at this point. Now I do have friends like Aaron Marino over at Alpha M or Jose over at Teaching Men's Fashion. One third of their business is actually to talk about fitness with the style because there is a connection there. But they've also conditioned their audience to expect that type of content. They've they've kind of made that connection with their own personal style and the way that they've consistently put out that content. But yeah, if you just make a jump over, if I were to talk about supplements and have no sponsor, but talk about, hey, this is something, it's one of my secret weapons. It's how I've actually been getting into better shape and feeling better about myself over the age of 40. And I've actually read this book, many guys may not know I actually have a degree in you know biology, so I go in and I study this. That actually would make sense if I and then I could build myself up as that expertise and build the trust. But if I just push a product and I haven't built up the trust, I feel that that's where you can get a lot of backlash.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Um I'm just curious as well, Antonio, did you start off the site as a blogging site, or was it always with videos and um like podcasts? And it seems like there's a lot of arrows in the quiver, which I guess you need now to bring people and generate traffic through the site. But did it start off as a blogging site?
SPEAKER_01It did start off as a blogging site. I was writing with a friend of mine named Brett McKay over at the Art of Manliness, and I saw what Brett was having, the the traffic he was driving to the Art of Manliness. And this is back in 2008, 2009. So I created Real Men Real Style as the marketing arm of my first cup uh company, which was a custom clotier, a tailored suit. And the idea was to create something separate so I could build up the trust, because there's always an inherent, I think, suspicion of people of let's say a business that's actually trying to put out content, and they they don't they always feel like they're trying to loop them around to actually sell to them. And that's probably the case, you know, the vast majority of the time. But I realized if I created this separate business, because I couldn't afford to hire a PR team or a marketing team. So I was like, oh, you know, I'm pretty good at this content creation thing. I'm guest posting for this other uh blogger, and he's able to make a living doing it. So maybe I can I can build something with this. So yeah, it started off as written articles, and then I I saw a video as something that I was very comfortable doing, and it was a lot easier for me to actually create the videos than it was to write. I'm I'm a horrible typer. So it just simply made sense and it was easy. Now, the podcasting is actually something I do now, is it's kind of a part of our workflow, and I I actually record the podcast before I do the video to help prepare me to actually speak better in the video. You can imagine like walking myself through it. So my podcast, I don't actually consider uh very polished because it's really the first time after I've written out my notes that I'm going through the content. But I've I thought, why not actually record that and turn it into another piece of content? Hence interesting that the podcast. And I have I have a team, you know. You you introduced me as the editor. I I am not the editor of my company anymore. I used to be everything. I used to be the the janitor, the editor, uh, the guy that you know the t the video talent, the CEO. T-boy.
SPEAKER_05Did you ever do the T?
SPEAKER_01I yeah, I I'm everything. And that was well, that was the case. Now I've identified where I can bring in people to add a lot of value, pay them well, and they just execute and make my life easier, and our company's able to scale.
SPEAKER_05Interesting. Um, I was going to ask you something. Um, you just reminded me that I was speaking to a guy from Joe Blow, the editor of the film website, Joe Blow.com, and I asked him about what his average day's like, and he said, Well, it's up at the crack of you know what, and it never ends. There's a six-hour period from when I get up, and it's just relentless, and then I can do an hour down the gym. But during that time, it's just a lot of plate spinning, it's answering this email over there, it's dealing with these freelancers. So when you're kind of operating all the strings, it's uh there's a freneticism that you have to deal with and you have to be on top of. Is that is does that sound familiar to you?
SPEAKER_01Could you just walk us through your day or your Yeah, that used to sound familiar back in maybe 2009? Yeah, up to probably 2009, I was comfortable doing that, and then my sister died, and uh and everything stopped, except my business didn't stop. And then I realized that people that live a life like that, I mean, and I'm my friend Aaron Marino, he loves that. He live he works seven days a week. He loves he has no kids though. I got four kids. I've got a wife that I want to spend a lot of time with, and we just returned from a six-month trip. But it was uh it was when my sister passed away in 2009 when I was so busy I couldn't even grieve that I realized, you know, this isn't what I want. And it's it's it's unfortunate that reminders like that need to come in sometimes to kind of wake you up and get you to rethink about what do you want out of your business? I wanted my business to run like a watch. You don't have to, most watches you don't have to do much too. If they're battery powered, like change the battery every couple years. If they they're wind up, you know, they're automatic, or you know, you basically shake them a bit and they kind of run on their own. And that's what I kind of have with my business now. And I I now I do I do work 40 to 50 hours a week still because I love what I do. But I try to spend a lot more time working on my business, not being trapped in it. And so you know, I've got people that answer my emails. Now they follow a set number of rules. This interview, like it's the first time we've talked, but it was set up. You probably went through my assistant. You know what? I only do interviews on Thursdays. I only talk to people on Thursdays. Why? Because I don't want to because the other six six days, I've got enough going on. I don't want to remember that there's a meeting in the middle of my day. So I returned from that six month trip was was awesome. We got to, you know, I wouldn't check in with things for like a week. And and I wanted that out of my business. Now there's things, a lot of things I give up because I'm not. If I worked more, I probably could make more money. Although I find that, you know, past 70 or 80,000, the research shows that does it make you happy or not really? Uh, and I'm I'm happy with, you know, the way we've got it set up. Now, this summer I am busting my butt and I'm focused in on a project. But uh, but yeah, I try to avoid um being too, you know, getting too wound up about things. I'm happy sleeping in till seven o'clock like I did this morning, uh, and spending time with my my wife.
SPEAKER_05Sleeping until seven. I'd like to finish with something that you'd give to somebody else that are looking to do something similar that you've set up there at Real Men Real Style. What would if you were to do it all over again and you were to start now, what advice would you give?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, I like the idea of getting started because so many people like they approach me with ideas or their thoughts for this, or you know, I I would go through maybe do a simulation in college. And we I I got my MBA at Texas, and that was it was good that I and I'm glad I didn't pay for it because it it was uh I was a combat vet, so I got to go through the University of Texas MBA program for free. Uh, but it was one of those things that looking back, I'm like, man, I wish I would have started a company while I was there. Because there's so much that you you learn and you don't know that you even need to learn. Uh one it's funny, you go through two years of business school and they never teach you how to sell. You got to believe in what you're doing, whether it's a service, whether you're trying to get a nonprofit off the ground, no matter what you're doing, you got to be able to sell your idea. Because people, even if even if they're using your product for free, it's not free. It's taking up their time. And you've got to figure out like that is something that when you realize that you can emotionally connect with people so that they they feel like you can solve their problem, whether it be boardroom or whether it be helping them choose the next jacket they need to buy. If you can do that, I mean, there's always going to be companies that want to hire you, or you can start a company and you can make it work because you can make it rain. You can bring in, you know, the money and you can really. Now, I'm not saying, you know, there are many people that they never want to go down that route, but I think that it's such a valuable skill. If you're a programmer and you can sell, I mean, gosh, like you could just you can get anyone to put month fund money into your company and make things happen. If, you know, that that skill, and it's got a bad name. And I don't, I I feel, you know, it's kind of, I guess maybe that you can use that as your to your advantage, but so many people view salesmen or the sales team as the enemy, and rightly so, because many of them are just out for themselves. But if you could leverage that and the ability to get people excited and to be able to solve their problems and for them to pay for it, you know, it it's gonna make things a lot easier.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Um, listen, for people that haven't, and I can't believe there won't be, but if they haven't heard of you or your site, it's realmenrealstyle.com. The podcast is great, and the infographics, like you say, it's it it takes people through step by step, and it's a really easy way to kind of get the basics down. I like what you say that a lot of people and a lot of uh magazines will already assume you know like a set knowledge, like you'll have this base knowledge like ironing a shirt, people should know how to do it, but there will be people that might be even embarrassed to say, look, I I don't really know how to iron a shirt, and when I do, it just turns out to be a car crash, so it'd be good to actually get these uh these basics under my belt. But um, do go check uh check Gue out on the Instagram and uh Twitter and all that sort of stuff. Tell us about the the project, Antonio. What what you mentioned it earlier, what have you got your teeth in at the moment?
SPEAKER_01Well, right now I'm uh I'm really taking my coaching to like I stopped coaching a couple years ago, and part of it was I was just too busy, had too much going on, and I didn't feel comfortable taking people's money and not being able to give them the best effort. And we start we sell a lot of information products, and those are cool. They're automated. People, you know, I get all these testimonials, people using the information. But I do know that a lot of people buy it and they never use it. It's kind of like that that that jacket or you know, those pair of jeans that you buy, those shoes, and you just don't really wear. And my goal is to, you know, this year we're gonna be launching, we're gonna call it the style system VIP. And then the idea is whatever industry you're in, like what does, in your mind, what does that VIP look like? And let's take, you know, Mark uh Zuckerberg over at Facebook. Well, we all know he dresses pretty casual, but he's actually got that's a uniform for him. And he has thought through this. And he is the VIP, so he can, he's got the power to dress however he wants. I can tell you, if he was just starting off and trying to work for a law firm in New York City, it would be of he wouldn't have the power. And he would be going in and needing to understand the tribe and the way that these people dress and be able to use that to his advantage. So my goal is to, you know, get in people, maybe that are making that transition, jumping into an industry, or maybe they've been in for a while, but they they feel that their image is holding them back. And my goal is to be able to give them the information, the tools, and literally to give them the one-on-one coaching so that they can develop that mindset so that they're not afraid to walk into a room and be the best dressed guy, realizing that, hey, if you're the lawyer at a construction company, you probably do need to be the best dressed guy because that's what that's what those 200 guys who rely on you and your your what you do to keep them safe, you know, to keep them you know out of hot water and avoid lawsuits, they expect you to be that guy.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Excellent. Well, listen, I Antonio, I could listen to he listen to you talk uh for the rest of the night. Um conscious that there'll be somebody else in after me. Uh, I want to thank you for jumping on the podcast. Do you ever come to London at all?
SPEAKER_01Oh, you know, we we need to. My wife is pushing on me to come visit, but if I if I do, I it sounds like I'm gonna have uh quite a few people that I need to catch up with.
SPEAKER_05Well, I hope I'll be one of them. Definitely drop me a line and uh I'll show you around a couple of cocktail bars in Marleybone. It's really the best place to go if you need some cocktails.
SPEAKER_01Appreciate it, Peter.
SPEAKER_05Okay, I hope you enjoyed that one. That was Antonio Centeno from Real Men Realstyle.com. Thank you to Antonio and to all my guests this week. David Evans from Grey Fox Blog, Greg Dylan from greatdrams.com. Make sure you over at the website menswearstyle.co.uk, we'll put all the show notes up there. And until next time.
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