YouSaid · the spoken record

Tom Rinks

lines on the record: 122
first: 2026-07-13
most recent: 2026-07-13
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“So, yeah, so I went to most boards shop in Ann Arbor right on campus. It was really cool. It's not there any longer. It was an institution there for so many years. Showed them, they bought it. And then Ulrich is the bookstore there and sold it to them. And they sold 10,000 shirts that season.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ah, it was, it just said big Navy blue letters said slam and then a Michigan M in between it and then at the bottom it said dance in the University of Michigan written underneath that but in the middle was a huge M. And a guy that kind of looked like Weber swinging from Had Carl make it at Perrin, screamed Printing, and he thought it was cool and I on one of my couple of days off, I took it. University of Michigan.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it was insane. So I got the license and went back and I came up with a shirt called Slam Dance that I did on my living room floor.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I didn't. I showed him nothing. I just asked what it would cost to get a license. I still would have to get the designs approved. But I didn't have to show them anything. I just had to get a license.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I just walked in. And at the time, he was the one that ran the licensing. That was part of his job later. It would go to, you know, there's this college licensing companies now that just handle all of the licenses for all the schools. But at the time,”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, they were kind of like just changing college sports as well. They were rebels and they were cool and they were, but we were wearing black socks and they're the ones that started wearing the really long shorts. And I was at Meyer, and I was looking for a Michigan shirt. And the only shirts with Michigan with basketball was just said Michigan XXL basketball or Michigan with like a clip art ball going through a hoop basketball. Know there was nothing cool, and I couldn't believe it. I couldn't figure it out. So again, on a day off, I drove to University of Michigan and talked to the AD and actually got the license for Michigan.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I did all the art, took him there, printed em and I at the time, you know, you can't do this anymore, but I put them in back into the Haynes beefy tea box and put the right name on them and delivered them myself and then went back to work.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I got to print at a place called Parent Screen Printing, a guy named Carl Perrin in Grand Rapids. I just found him in the phone book. And he was cool enough to make me one t-shirt, you know?”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I still know her. I still talk to her. Wow. Yeah, she changed my life. Yeah. She yes, she walks in and looks at me and looks at the wall and sees that one t-shirt sitting there and I just came clean. I had only one choice just to come clean. And I just said, hey, I work at Art Van Furniture. I'm not a surfaw rep. I just was at the beach a few weeks ago and saw this. These guys surfing and thought I was funny. And I'm so sorry for wasting your time. Here it is. And she looked at me and said, let's take a look. So she looked at the shirt, looked at the drawing, spread them out a little bit, smiled, and ordered eighteen hundred t shirts.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Your sweatshirts and t shirts and hats and everything. You just make, you could show it all together. And so I just put my one t-shirt on the thing, a little wire hanger, hung it up, turned the lights on, and spread the drawings out, and waited. And then Vivian Dreyer walked in as the buyer and she.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As a prep for a surf brand, had one t shirt, so I. I got an appointment and then on my day off I went to that appointment, this big, huge corporate office is super impressive and they told me to wait over here in the lobby and there was guys with rolling racks and I think somebody had one of those big huge cell phones at the time and I had one t-shirt In a little suit bag, I was sitting there with my bad corduroy suit. I almost left when they called my name and said to go set up in one of the rooms and wait for the buyer. So I walked into the room. It's this huge room and has this big grid on the wall where you can put all your”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and without really even knowing what I was doing one day at Artvan furniture on my break, I called Meyer, which is a chain of about 100 stores”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Totally. I thought it was funny. It was just kind of a joke. And then I ended up deciding to make a t shirt with it and I made one t-shirt on a Haynes beefy t-shirt, big neon letters on the top chest at Surf Michigan. And then it had the drawing and then a little caption underneath it waiting for the big one.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I was with my wife at Holland State Park, which is a really nice beach there in Holland, which is 45 minutes from Grand Rapids. And there was surfers in the water. Wow. Yeah, they were on long boards, and I was just in shock because there's no waves, really, you know. You know, I would learn later that there actually was waves. Most of my kids learned to surf on Lake Michigan. But these guys were out there and I thought it was funny. I commented to my wife about it and I went home and started sketching some cartoons and I made like an old guy sitting on a long board with a beard and really skinny and cobwebs on him and it said surf Michigan waiting for the big one.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And say that the customer pickup door five, even though there was no customer pickup just to kind of create the impression that people are buying stuff. Anyway, learned a lot. It was a great experience.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We'd say, you know, customer pick up for Johnson door three, customer pickup for Smith, door five, just to get a frenzy going with nobody picking up anything. Oh, you would just.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ended up becoming sales manager there because I was getting so good at it and then people would come to me and ask me as they had different people on different types of furniture what to do and I give you an example like if somebody was on a leather sofa if it was a woman I would send a guy salesperson over there and he would use words like soft and sexy and smooth as he touched the leather and if there was a man customer on the same leather sofa I would get a woman salesperson to go And if it was a family, big family jumping around on it, the old timer in and to talk about, you know, what a great investment it is, how it wears like iron, and it's easy to clean. So just knowing what those customers want it to feel about what they were purchasing.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I wouldn't say I was happy doing that, but I was being successful, I was supporting my wife. We'd had a kid and she was able to stay at home, so I was feeling good about that. I was just learning how to sell, which was it would end up being everything. There's a, I think his name's Ogilvy. Oglevy and Mathers. He's like the father of marketing, I believe. He said something like, you know, in the modern world, you could be as creative as you want, but unless you know how to sell, you're just not going to make it. You have to be able to sell your ideas. So I think those years, those five years at Art Van, it was called Art Van Furniture were just hugely, hugely important for my career.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it was just a full commission. No salary. Wow. Yeah. It was really known in Michigan as like the shark-infested waters because the salespeople wouldn't get off you. So if you don't sell something, you don't get paid. So you could work for weeks and get nothing. They did everything they could to sell you. And as retail, so as crazy hours every weekend, which is brutal. And my wife, for sure.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it was just a big chain store. They're out of Detroit. They were opening one in Grand Rapids, and I was one of the first ones to apply and actually open that store in Grand Rapids on 28th Street.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, so we'd be on the phone. Nobody ever lied, but we did say, you know, if they call and ask how the weather is, just tell them it's unbelievable. If it's snowing outside or whatever, because then you're not lying. It's unbelievable.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we got a PO box. Cocoa Beach. And then we, you know, all the calls were getting transferred up, you know, and then they were getting transferred up.”
2026-07-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Sun Bum: Tom Rinks. The Secrets of a Master Brand Builder (2023) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT