The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – NowMobile & Make-a-Wish Working Together To Make A Difference

Episode Date: February 26, 2020

NowMobile & Make-a-Wish Working Together To Make A Difference

Hi folks, Chris Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. We certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. Thanks for being here with us today. Be sure to refer the show to your friends, neighbors, relatives. Get them onto the show and check out all the wonderful episodes that we have coming out. You can also go to the Chris Voss Podcast Network. That's thecvpn.com or chrisvosspodcastnetwork.com you can subscribe

to all eight podcasts that we have going on over there there's actually a new one you'll want to go check out so go check that baby out subscribe to it and all that good stuff today we have kind of a follow-up when we went to the ces show in 2020 we profiled and in a booth interview for a company called now mobile and you probably got a chance to see that on our podcast we're doing a follow-up we're actually getting a chance to spend a little bit more time and have a sit down with the president of now mobile brandon hit and we're also getting a chance to interview the make-a-wish foundation people uh we've got their representative holly thomas with us and they're going to talk about what Make-A-Wish

is doing and what Make-A-Wish is doing in concert with Now Mobile but let me get to Brandon Hitt's bio here he's the president of Now Mobile subsidiary of Hitt Brands which is also a family-owned and operated consumer package goods company spent the first 15 years of his career at PepsiCo and then Newell Brands. He was the sales and marketing person responsible for brands like Gatorade, Tropicana, Sunbeam, and Yankee Candle. And he's been around retail his entire life. His father worked for Walmart on the operations side, moving every 12 to 18 months. And he ended up in Bentonville, Arkansas, and went to the Sam Walton College of Business, 20 minutes south. I think they teach you there how to get the blue light special.

Did they still do the blue light special? I don't know. That's Kmart. That's Kmart? Wow. Okay. I feel. All right.

Well, it's not the Blue Light Special. I don't know whatever the hell that other thing is. So, welcome to the show, Brandon and Holly. How are you guys doing today? Doing well. Awesome sauce. Awesome sauce. So, it's great to have you guys here.

I know we have some limited time with Holly and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. They've got to get back to helping those wonderful kids make their wishes come true. So I'll start with you, Holly. Give us a rundown of what Make-A-Wish Foundation is up to these days and how you guys are working with Now Mobile. Sure, I'm happy to. Thank you so much for having me. We're thrilled to be with you today. We have just launched a new partnership with Now Mobile in January of 2020. We were with Brandon at the CES show where we celebrated Tajari's wish for an in-home recording studio. And we're celebrating the launch of their new program called Help Grant a Wish Now. And it is Now Mobile's opportunity to donate from the sales of their mobile equipment to Make-A-Wish. So $1 to $2 for each mobile accessory sold will benefit Make-A-Wish and the work that we do with children for granting wishes for critical illnesses.

This is awesome. And everyone's seen the videos. I think we've all welled up in tears and just been just motivated as to the great humanity that Make-A-Wish Foundation does in bringing these kids hope. And sometimes a more positive outlook on life or at least a chance to make their wishes come true. And it's so important. And I think it's great what you guys are doing. And I think you guys are in some yearly milestones now, currently.

We are. I appreciate you talking about your passion for our mission. I think it's incredible work that our organization does to help children really at very difficult moments in their lives, in their families' lives, as they're dealing with medical treatments and the pain and uncertainty that comes with some of that. We really come in and provide children a moment and an opportunity to escape from that and to realize their one true wish. And it's such a blessing and a joy to be able to do that because we know that that is a moment and we have seen it over and over again, where it really marks a change in their treatment and how they progress and

feel after that wish. And we also hear so often from families how meaningful that has been for them and what it has done to really change the tenor of how they're dealing with the situation and the medical crisis they may be in. So we know that these wishes are really just such an important part of a child's medical treatment. And we're excited to share that we will be celebrating our 40th anniversary and it will launch in April of this year. Actually, April 29th is what we consider World Wish Day. And it is a celebration in honor of the first wish granted back in 1980 for Chris Gracious, who wished to be a police officer right here in Phoenix, Arizona. So we are really excited. We have a lot of exciting activity planned over the next 12 to 16 months to celebrate that important 40th anniversary and really to bring the right attention and an opportunity to help others who want to contribute to this organization and help grant wishes to give them the chance to do that. It's such a great thing that you guys take and do for kids. I grew up with a sister who had cerebral palsy,

and the first three, four months of her life was spent living in hospitals and living in ICU units and watching my parents sleep on the couch. At one point, we had a camper in the parking lot of the hospital. So I have a small inkling of the hell that these parents go through and the children go through. And you think of a child as this wonderful thing that, you know, you're just born into life and you seem to be perfect most times and you just want to run and have fun and enjoy life.

And a lot of these kids get robbed of that because of illnesses they do. So a great way they can support the Make-A-Wish Foundation is, of course, now mobile. We'll get into the back half of this talking about where if they have products they want to take and buy there, they can buy them and make contributions. What's also a way that they can look at your guys' website to take a look at more about what you guys do and maybe help out some other ways? Absolutely. There's so many ways to get involved. Anyone can visit wish.org. You certainly have the opportunity to donate there directly

if you want to support the organization financially. There's also ways to get involved with your local chapters. We have 60 chapters across the country that serve all the wish kids in every state and every community across the U.S.

And so there's ways to get involved from a volunteerism perspective, whether that's becoming a wish granter or helping with fundraising events or other activities that might be happening in the community. So there's a lot of incredible information on wish.org that will help you get involved in the mission. Awesome sauce, make a child's life better. What could be, what could be better than that? That's just awesome.

And this is a wonderful charity you guys are working with here, Brandon. And thank you, Holly. We certainly appreciate you taking some time lot of the stories as we, as we got to know, Make-A-Wish Foundation, you know, hearing the, you know, the way like, like Holly mentioned, a lot of times these wishes, you give the children, you know, the emotional and the physical strength to battle these critical illnesses. And, you know, at now mobile, we're very family oriented and some of those stories just you know really hit home i think um when uh you know maybe the average person thinks to make a wish you know a kid going to disney world or meeting lebron james comes to mind but as you know you you dive into this database and it's, it's, it just pulls at your heartstrings. There's

wishes like, you know, they want their grandma's van to be wheelchair accessible because the grandma's their primary caregiver or, you know, a wish for a new washer and dryer because their mom works two jobs. And, you know, when, when they're home for the weekend, they spend all weekend at the laundromat. So, you know, that was something that we weren't aware of. And we were looking for a partner, um, uh, with this brand for the, for this, for this campaign. Um, they just seem like sick kids. It just, it, it just doesn't get any more meaningful for us than that. This is one of the things I love. I love the opportunities you get in owning a company and building a business,

and being able to give back to the community, and being able to give a portion of what you're taking and doing. My company, back in the day, we used to give a lot to the local primary children's hospital here in Salt Lake City, Utah, and we donated to their child abuse wing. People that were, you know, dealing with child abuse and some of the injuries they may have acquired there or reasons they would be visiting the hospital. And so it's just really great to see companies giving back and giving a portion of what they're doing and help promoting these brands that go out and help people and make the world a better place. It doesn't get any better than that when it comes down to it.

So Now Mobile, according to your guys' website, is a global provider of mobile accessories for work, home, and school. And tell us more about Now Mobile. Give us the website if you want. So nowmobileus.com. We have a complete line of mobile accessories from sub-999 impulse that might ring, kickstand, charging cables, all the way up to some true innovation wireless charging cables, all the way up to some true innovation,

wireless charging technology, 10,000 milliamp power banks, docking stations, true wireless earbuds, waterproof speakers, really any kind of mobile accessory that you can think of. We're a complete but focused line. Yeah, rings, kickstands, chargers, power banks, car and auto accessories, USB charging cables, earbuds, and speakers. A lot of cool Bluetooth items there that you can

take and get. We got a chance to actually view your guys' booth there at CS. So if you got a chance, search back to the iTunes collection there and you can see the video interview that we took and did. Oh, it's crisp on show.com you know just search for it there so you guys have been in business for how long we've been in business nearly 20 years and you can find you can find our products on shelves across the country, Walmart, Dollar General, Family Dollar, Macy's.

Now mobile is a new line of mobile accessories that we had been incubating for a number of years and primarily stayed away from that category for a number of reasons. We've done a lot of private label charging cables and phone cases. But the fact that it was, or is, continues to be extremely competitive, a space where there's not a lot of proprietary technology, it's really a race to the bottom. You've got six or seven companies out here that are, you know, that are all getting their products from the same source. And those reasons, because there's just a lot of noise confusion within that space for a consumer, especially, you know, the average mom when she's shopping doesn't know if,'t know if this charging cable is going to – or where she's got her charging cable.

There is no brand loyalty with any – unless you're Apple or Samsung, those sub-$50 price points, there's not a lot of brand loyalty there. We think partnering with Make-A-Wish creates an impactful point of differentiation for ourselves and something that helps us break through that noise. Definitely, definitely. I mean, when my phone's dead, any cable will do. Right. It's almost a consumable or disposable item at this point. Yeah, and they can get very inexpensive charging cables from you guys. They can even get the USB-Cs,

which I'm seeing on everything now. They can get the lightning charging cable, the Apple proprietary thing. Yeah, you never can have enough of those charging cables laying around the house or your car. My biggest problem is I'll be like, hey, I think there's one of the cables in the car. And then I got to the car and take one out of the car. And then later when I'm in the car, so definitely having enough charging cables is something that makes a difference in your life. And that's what, and that's what we hope to drive. You know, when, uh, when you're at the, when you're at the point of purchase there and a dollar goes, um, to make a wish, you know,

we, we want you to buy two or three. Definitely. You can go to nowmobileus.com. You can check out all the wonderful products they have. Take advantage of them. Fill up your thing. It's a great way to contribute if you want to donate to Make-A-Wish to help support their cause and get yourself some good cables. It certainly beats going on to another retail site. You just, it certainly beats going on to like another retail site and you just know it's going to some corporate profit center there and doesn't really help anyone, I guess, sometimes.

So this is pretty awesome. You can get what you need, get some of the basics. The other thing about your products too is they're great for kids. So I see some speakers here that are fairly inexpensive. They're not something that are like the 400-hour speakers we review here on the Chris Voss Show that I wouldn't let a child near. But you've got some great portable waterproof Bluetooth speakers so the kids can have their speakers. They can have their cables. Chargers, of course, are important in charging pads for the inductive charging.

Those are great as well. Wall chargersgers i'm always trying to find you know it's funny we get sent all this product from all these different companies to review trying to find the wall charges around here sometimes it's a little stupid it's like i know there's like 50 of them somewhere and that's just my house like i can't have like and i get all this stuff so i if you're a normal, I don't know what it's like. Um, but, uh, definitely having some of this stuff, you guys got a really inexpensive dual USB power bank charger for 10,000

milliamp hours. That's pretty awesome. That'll get most of your phones two or three charges out of there. Uh, wireless charging stands and pads where you can charge your, um, phones with the inductive charging. I love that sort of stuff. Yeah, all sorts of good stuff. And so are most people you want coming to the website, to the nowmobileus.com, I guess? No, actually, the website is not meant to be, you know, an e-commerce machine. We are actively talking with retailers across the country about,

you know, feature opportunities for Q3, Q4, back to school, you know, holiday, back to college tax season, and, you know, meant to be more of a, you know, our assortment bundled in specific price points. So you could line price them. So you kind of have, you know, meant to be more of a, you know, our assortment bundled in specific price points. So you could line price them. So you kind of have, you know, again, your opening price points there with $9.99 and below up to, up to $29 or $39 retails.

Okay. So you guys have a retail partner opportunity page on your guys' website. I can see here. And it's got a huge Make-A-Wish Foundation, help with kids' wishes come true. And it's got a huge display. You've got end caps and counter displays and all sorts of different ways retailers can get involved. So I guess if I'm a retailer and I want to take advantage of working with you guys and also supporting a great cause, I should contact you guys and find out more about getting signed up to do this stuff. Is that correct? Yeah,

absolutely. And the way we've, you know, bundled these again, we're, we're, we're shipping and merchandising and preloaded displays. They're easy for retailers to feature around key holiday timeframes. You know, our pack, both our, our packaging and these displays are supported with impactful make-a-wish point-of-sale messaging to create that emotional connection and almost a call to action for consumers. The average consumer passes a charging cable two or three times a day when they're out going about their business. But again, when you can give a dollar to an extraordinary foundation like Make-A-Wish, that should be a call to action to buy. Certainly, if you're a retail operation, taking advantage of retail partner opportunities, you know, they can take advantage of setting up these end caps or counter displays, tower

floor stands you have, traditional floor stands, all these displays that promote the Make-A-Wish connection to now mobile and of course have all the different products that people can take and grab and on the fly. And they're relatively inexpensive, which makes it a good deal. And I'm sure that helps them fly off the shelves there and get those sales and much needed money for the foundation as well. Well, we know, um, um, you know, when, when executed properly cause marketing works and you know, like we were speaking or, you know, speaking to earlier there, we don't,

you don't want to, you don't want to put one cause against another, but it just doesn't get more impactful than children battling critical illnesses. But there's benefits for retailers to participate in these cause-related programs, And no one's doing it in this mobile accessory space right now. You see it in consumable. You see it in food. You see it, you know, in shampoo. But it works. And people, you know, there's beyond the sales lift that retailers, you know, get there's, there's a, there's some halo effects

where, you know, your customers hold a retailer in a higher regard when they support a cause that they believe in. Their employees hold their employer in a higher regard when they back a cause that they believe in. So there's a lot of ancillary benefits beyond just the, the sales growth that, that comes from a cause related program. So it's beyond just the sales growth that comes from a cause-related program. So it's a great partnership opportunity these guys can take and get a hold of and everything else. So, yeah, if you get a chance, check this out. Contact them at nowmobileus.com.

Is there any other good place? I see there's a contact tab here on your guys' website. Yeah, I mean, our 1 our, our, uh, you know, one, a one 800 number there. Okay. Info at now mobile us.com or, um,

email me directly. BH at now mobile us.com. And give us that full one 800 number so people can have it. Uh, let's see. One eight. It's, uh,

seven, seven. I might, I, no one uses the phone anymore, so you'll probably be fine there. Yeah. Let's see here. You guys have a nice form that you guys can use in your web.

Are you guys doing any more shows this year like you did with CES? Yeah, we have a show, ASD, which is in Las Vegas again. And that is the third week of March. We'll be back out at the Las Vegas Convention Center. I've got that 877, that toll-free number for you now. Okay. 877-756-4626. Okay.

And so they can contact you guys there or they can see you at the upcoming ASD trade show. And that's going to be in Las Vegas, March 22 through the 25th. I'm going to have to see if I'm going to that show or not. I love, I'm like, I used to live in Vegas, still kind of do, but I'm up in Utah writing a book right now, but I come down for all the different shows. I know NAB is going to have a big show there coming up. I'm going to go to the NAB show, but I'm going to look in the AST trade show.

I'm not sure if that's on our list, but we'll have to add it since you guys are going. It's a good show. A good show then. So you guys built this company over the last 20 years. Anything more we should know about your company, what you guys do and how you guys are doing it? Um, yeah, sure. So, you know, uh, I think we were talking about earlier what, you know, why the, you know, the why with this line and we've never been interested in me to products, um, where, you know, we're, we're just another, we're just another name or another brand. We want to, we want to have you know, products with purpose, whether that's

under our, under our fourth utensil umbrella, we do a line of sustainable straws, metal straws, familiar with the reusable, they're dishwasher safe, BPA-free, FDA-approved. It's a sustainable solution for plastic, which the plastic straw ban is permeating throughout the country. So everything we do has to have a plus one or some extra benefit to it beyond just the item itself. Awesome sauce. Yeah, it's great to give back and find ways to incorporate making the world a better place. There's a lot of brands that have done that where they where they uh take and uh donate to uh apportion their proceeds to um bettering the world and i'm i'm always for that anytime uh corporate interests

can can act to make the world a better place and and give people a leg up and and uh and contribute i mean that's that's really the whole point of being in business is as far as i'm concerned is to make the world a better place and And it's not always about the money. Sometimes it's about what you can give and the way you can change the world and have an impact on them. So that's awesome. You guys are taking and doing.

Anything else more we need to know about your guys' things and what you guys are doing there? I don't. You know, this is our big focus for 2020. Like I said, we debuted the line at CES last month and response has been phenomenal. Having active conversations with a number of retailers, you know, bigger, big, big and small, obviously, you know, sitting here in Bentonville, that's our, you know, our, our big targets are, uh, Walmart and Sam's club.

And, um, you know, like I said, it's, uh, we, we have a, our, our, our partnership with make a wish is for the next 12 months. And our goal story is a million dollars, you know, and that's, that's one product at a time. So, uh, it's a, uh, it's a bit, it's a big swing, but one a big swing, but one that we're excited to take. That's awesome. You're going to raise a million dollars for the cause of Make-A-Wish. That's great.

That's stupendous. Well, I certainly appreciate you guys taking time to be on the show. I appreciate Holly being here and Brandon. And if you want to find out more about working with now mobile, you can go to now mobile us.com and check out their contact page, or you can call the one, an 800 number there. Do you want to give us that one 800 number one more time?

One eight, seven, seven, seven, five, six, four, six,

two, six. And if you're going to the ASD, I believe it's the ASD show. Yes, the ASD show in Las Vegas. You want to check them out there. You'll be at ASD Market Week March 22 through the 25th of 2020. Las Vegas Convention Center.

My legs are still hurting from CES. Yeah, it's a lot of walking. But I feel bad for the booth folks that we interview because we do about 10 booth interviews a day at cs and most shows and i feel bad for you guys because you guys pretty much you're like standing in the booth and you're kind of trapped there for a while at least i get to walk around and get something to eat and i can go find a place to sit but you guys definitely put in the hours and the time there at those shows it's just yeah it's uh it's it's a lot of work but it's rewarding but you know definitely put in the hours and the time there at those shows it's just yeah

stupid it's uh it's it's a lot of work but it's rewarding but you know you do you catch yourself um you know giving the same uh sales pitch a thousand times i mean like a couple hundred times a day you know a week in a row and uh it's it so it's it's draining not only physically but but mentally but uh they're a lot of fun it's a lot of fun. It's a hell of a show. It's a hell of a show. In fact, I'm glad they got it out before this coronavirus thing. We were going to a big show in Europe, and they canceled the whole show, the coronavirus, and it was a huge show.

Yeah, that situation is scary. Yeah, most definitely. All right, folks. Well, we appreciate you guys tuning in today. Be sure to check it out. Refer to your friends who are retailers. Tell them if you have a good retail shop you like, say, hey, you ought to partner with nowmobileus.com

and support the Make-A-Wish Foundation and all that good stuff. If you see their products in Walmart or other different places where they haven have retailed, you'll see they have a little sticker on them on the retail boxes for the Make-A-Wish thing. So you know your money's going towards a good cause. So be sure and support it there. Be sure to refer your friends, neighbors, and relatives to the podcast. You can go to thecvpn.com or chrisfosspodcastnetwork.com.

There's eight podcasts there now. Holy crap, we just got done rebranding one to a new podcast. You want to check out the really cool name we have over there. I'm not even going to tell you because I want you to go over there and check it out and subscribe to it. You can also go to thechrisfossshow.com and see all the latest

things that we have reviewed as of late. And we thank you guys for spending some time with us. We'll see you next time, folks. Thank you.