Editing The Pen Addict 247/transcript (section)

== Aurora Pens ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' How do you even? I mean, I can't even. Like, how do you get to a million? Do you mean, like, how? How?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's just all on the jewels. I guess so. It's bonkers. The quality of the diamonds. Give me the highest-rated quality of diamond and give me 300 of them. And then I'll put them on the pen and boom, million-dollar pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Only the best for you, right? Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Only the best. So, I'm glad you said that about the interview because I didn't know how I was going to do it. So, I'm not a journalist and I'm not used to writing while I'm talking to someone. So, I didn't. I had a microphone that I just sat down on the table. So, I could go back and I prayed that the audio worked because I wasn't taking notes while I was talking.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And so, luckily, it did. And, you know, I thought the whole time I'm talking to her, this isn't going to be like a transcription type interview. I don't like to do. I'm not going to go from question to question to question. I want to have a conversation. So, I took that. I listened back to it several times, figured out what I wanted to do. And I was like, let me just do this like I'm telling a story of my conversation and then interject like the important parts that Linda discussed and things like that. So, like I was hoping it came out well. I've gotten really good feedback on it. So, it was kind of nerve wracking to post that because I didn't know was I doing the best thing to capture the interview. But I'm happy with how it turned out and I'm glad everyone else is. So, yeah, it was very cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, I didn't really know much about Aurora, which I think was kind of the point, right? Like you spend a lot of time in the article talking about how they really refocused on the U.S. market with, you know, help from Kenro and others. But they sound like a really cool company with good values about people, right? Like that seemed like a thing that was peppered throughout the interview.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, they really do. You know, it's a family run company. The people that have worked there have worked there for decades. It's female dominated as far as like headcount goes. It's not a big company like in the necessarily. But, you know, it's got just a disproportionate amount of women working for them, which Linda says, you know, obviously, you know, is the best way to go. And I fully believe that, too. She says, you know, it's just a really, really cool company. And what Linda's only been there for six years. She came from the fashion industry. And what she was telling me that her job is to basically listen. Like she goes out to the market. She works with her distributors and tries to understand what Aurora needs to do for specific markets. Like Aurora does not have a worldwide strategy. They have an individual strategy tailored for the market they're in. So she's able to work with someone like Kenro Industries in the U.S. to say, hey, what's good in this market?

'''Myke Hurley:''' What are the tastes? What are the trends?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And she can get that information directly and, you know, can ask, you know, and I don't know the full extent of that conversation. But I'm assuming in the past it went, why aren't we doing as good in the U.S. as we are in Europe and Asia and the Middle East? And they figured out a few things, talked about different products, made some pricing changes to get them more competitive. And they hit on everything they were trying to do. And now Aurora is like a thing, right? That's all you can ask for from as a company is to what you make becomes a thing. And Aurora has now done that where two years ago they were just Aurora. Now people were looking to them and looking at their designs and looking at their quality and, you know, checking out their products and understanding more about them. And trying some Aurora pens out, seeing what they're all about and enjoying them. So to see them directly try to get into a market and adjust in a pretty short time frame, it's kind of cool to see a business do that. I will tell you, I mean, like she told me, and I don't know if I explained this perfectly in the interview, we're the only market that got the price decrease on the optimus. She doesn't have to decrease the Optima in Japan because that's their number one selling pin and has been for like 40 years. Right. So it was interesting to talk to her about how they're able to be flexible like that with different product lines in different regions based on everything that goes into what makes a pin sell. So it was very cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, you know, from their perspective, the articles worked because I've become interested in buying an Aurora.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, like I bought my first one last year.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. And you, I mean, you can't shut up about that thing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, and I'm going to tell you a story right now, which is a massive downer. I broke mine. So it is now back at Aurora getting fixed. I don't know what I did, but I broke the barrel somehow or the barrel broke. So, and I miss it. Like I miss having that pin because it is, I love it so much. Like I can't wait to get it back and try it again.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And you have to demonstrate her, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So somehow it split like in the middle. I don't know what I did. I mean, I carry it all the time. So I don't know if I did something or there was something wrong with it, but my Optima is in the shop getting, getting an overhaul.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So say it's in the shop to me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I mean, you could say it, but you shouldn't say it. My Optima is in the shop to me. You should say it because now there's going to be like 50 show titles that's saying my Optima is in the shop to me. So I just wanted to spell that out for everyone again.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Just so we can make sure that it definitely gets them for the contention for title of the episode.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But like that doesn't even faze me like, oh, I hate Aurora. Now my stupid pen broke. Like I cannot wait for this pen to come back to me.