Bringing Heavy Metal to the Business World with Craig Martyn, Episode #35

In this episode of The Power Producers Podcast, David Carothers and co-host Kyle Houck interview Craig Martyn, Founder and President at My Metal Business Card. Craig discusses how his experience, expertise, and passion for making products has led him to create his brand and his ability to provide a modern business style.

Episode Highlights:

• David introduces Craig Martyn. (1:24)
• Craig shares his background and his career. (2:31)
• Craig mentions that he is passionate about making products. (3:01)
• Craig shares that he founded the business in the year 2000 but he built the business in the year 2011. (3:21)
• Craig shares that he started his metal business card because of his passion for design and the chemical etching process. (3:30)
• Craig mentions that on their website, every year they post a blog about the progress of their company. (5:04)
• Craig shares that in general, they want to be a one-stop-shop for marketing however, he’s not interested in being in the promotional product space. (5:47)
• Craig thinks that what they do is a much higher level of impact and quality. (6:04)
• Is Craig still in the model train business? (6:20)
• Kyle shares a story about his childhood years when he was at his babysitter’s house. (8:47)
• When Craig decided to launch his product, what other social media platforms did he use, besides Facebook? (10:33)
• Craig mentions that he’s passionate about the product just as he was about the model trains, and he thinks that they’re helping people. (13:26)
• Craig shares that most people look at business cards as an office expense however, the impact of those cards when you give them out is not similar to the metal card. Therefore, metal cards are more into the marketing budget. (13:47)
• Has Craig done anything on YouTube? (14:58)
• David talks about internet advertising. (16:04)
• Craig shares that his company is a B2B, and they’re dealing with a lot of businesses. (17:59)
• Craig mentions that they want the people to trust their product and trust them, as well. (21:07)
• Craig thinks that everybody that orders will have a positive impact on their business. (21:24)
• David mentions that in e-commerce, the first battle that you have to win is to get the person’s name and address. (22:53)
• Craig shares a story about the time when he was at a dinner with his friend who worked for a small software company. (25:21)
• Craig mentions that he has a personal app on his phone that can check their numbers, anywhere in the world. (27:21)
• When customers are placing an order, what does the process look like for them? (27:37)
• What do they have to go through to get their product made, and what kind of timelines are typical for a product turnaround? (29:47)
• Is Craig starting to see traction in some of the other cards? (35:12)
• Craig thinks that they have all the systems in place to help people have a fluid process, whether it’s the artwork, the production, or the shipping. (39:58)
• Craig mentions that in the future, they will launch a website strictly for tumblers and other products. (40:14)
• How does Craig do it without becoming a promotional product company, and fit into where he wants to be? (40:36)
• Craig shares that most of what they’ve done is trying to make it easy for people to find products that they can have personalized and sent to their friends, or do for their own business, and make it easy to make somebody smile. (44:35)
• What’s the coolest project that Craig has done so far, custom wise? (45:08)
• Craig talks about his Jim Beam project back in 2015. (46:08)
• Craig mentions that he also did metal business cards for Mike Tyson’s production company. (46:31)
• David mentions that If you’re interested in using these cards then, by all means, you should request samples. (52:52)
• Craig mentions that there is a lot more work that goes into creating metal business cards than there is with paper. (53:55)

Tweetable Quotes:

• “It revolves around passion, right? So when you’re in something, whether it’s sports or whatever, it’s a hobby, but there’s a business side to any hobby.” – Craig Martyn
• “It boils down to our whole mission is to give people the means to stand out, and leave a memorable impression.” – Craig Martyn
• “Let’s put it this way, we have a vision of a world where anybody related to business, has seen or touched a metal business card. At this point, a lot of people still haven’t seen or touched a metal business card.” – Craig Martyn
• “This business has grown consistently, year after year after year, we got to a point where I could see that the wheels were gonna fall off the bus if we didn’t have some robust systems in place. And I’m talking about everything, from order tracking to a CRM type system for follow-ups. We were very analog, very kind of old school. We weren’t going to be able to scale if we didn’t do anything.” – Craig Martyn

Resources Mentioned:

• David Carothers LinkedIn
• Kyle Houck LinkedIn
• Florida Risk Partners
• The Extra 2 Minutes
• Craig Martyn LinkedIn
• My Metal Business Card
• My Metal Business Card YouTube Channel