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Welcome to the Stacking Slabs, a podcast for sports cards collectors. There's been a tremendous amount of change to our Hobby over the last few years and the one constant has been the passion from the collecting community. Stacking Slabs is built by the collector and lives to tell stories for the collector.
what's going on everybody welcome back hobby jobs this is the show about the people building the sports card industry the roles that matter the skills that compound and the operating decisions that shape where the hobby goes next i am recording this episode outside of stacking slabs hq i am in the thick of it here in new york there is smoke in the air it does not feel very safe walking to and from the javits center but it is fanatics fest and it has been quite the doozy you know going to this event i always like to find time to go around and look at cards that's fun this one's a little bit different it is my first time at fanatics fest you know my mentality and mindset was really like let's go inside this insane event and start studying what you're saying start studying the intersection between sports collectibles and culture let's see what this looks like in action let's see how these businesses are trying to optimize around this and as i record this i i just have one day under my belt and i can assure you that there is a lot of thoughts wrestling around in my head and perhaps in the newsletter make sure you're subscribed to the newsletter the the hobbyjob substack link is in the show notes it is free perhaps i'll get some of my thoughts out in that or potentially in next week's episode but it's very fresh in my head and all i keep thinking about is the fact that the national is a couple weeks from now and how these two events are bringing so many people into events so yeah it's wild i would i would i would recommend anybody to get out next year if you have never been and just check out fanatics fest and gather your perspective gather your opinions i will say i had a moment where i was just standing there and the american nightmare cody rhodes just popped up doing his entrance out of nowhere and he was five feet from me so that was kinda dope so that's what this event does and there will be a lot that happens on the other side but this week i wanna spend time on a topic that sits underneath almost every modern hobby business whether people realize it or not and that topic is my favorite topic in this space content more specifically the difference between content built for entertainment and content built for information and before i go any further let me say this very very clearly this is not an anti entertainment episode i love entertainment i love to be entertained but the hobby absolutely needs energy it needs personality it needs moments it needs clips streams shows reactions and all the things that make collecting feel alive the entertainment focused content is by far and away the number one star of fanatics fest you've got streamers you've got breakers you've got the big hits all the clips i just came back to my hotel room i was exhausted i came back to my hotel room last night popped up instagram and it was just fed with entertainment content which gets people motivated it gets people excited and top says breaking has exploded in popularity over the last several years which we've all felt with millions of people participating on social media and live video platforms and ebay live is literally built building real time collectible entertainment around other streaming services you've got athletes interacting community getting involved and i think that stuff all matters because attention matters but attention is not the same thing as trust and in my opinion as a creator who spends all of my time building content i think one of the biggest opportunities in sports cards right now is for businesses to stop thinking about content only as a way to get noticed and start thinking about it in a way that makes customers smarter because once you make the customer smarter everything changes your buyer understands what they're looking at your seller understands why your process matters your audience starts coming to you for clarity instead of noise your candidate starts seeing the business as a serious business and your brand starts building authority that does not disappear the second the algorithm stops being generous that is the lane i wanna talk about today not content as a spike content is infrastructure not content as temporary hit content is something that compounds and i think the distinction matters a lot if you're trying to build on the professional side of the sports card industry if you look at where the hobby is at today there's no question that entertainment has helped it grow the chase is entertaining the reveal is entertaining live breaks trade nights card show clips literally the the fanatics fest is producing card content that's entertainment and involves celebrity you wanna talk about making the algorithm happy there you go i think this isn't bad though if anything it helps the market feel accessible it gives people an entry point i think not everyone gets pulled into cards because they wanna sit down for an hour with a guy like me talking about population reports historical supply category formation or the difference between scarcity and significance or hell even collector psychology i i i come at these episodes and come at my content with the mindset of like in order for you to enjoy this you have to have a desire to seek out information regarding collector psychology and why we do the things that we do that's my mindset i think sometimes they get pulled in because something looked fun fast and emotionally charged and that is real because that is the part that is the the modern hobby in a nutshell but let's ask the operator question because that's what we do here on hobbyjobs what happens after the first moment of attention this is where i think a lot of businesses in this space need to get more honest because if the only thing your content teaches the customers to how to respond to excitement then you're treating them to need more excitement if the only thing your content teaches them is urgency then you're training them to respond to urgency if the only thing your content teaches them is hype then you're building a relationship that is entirely dependent on momentum which is not a good relationship momentum always cools off this is why informational content matters so much informational content gives the audience context it gives the lang it gives them language it helps them understand what they're doing not what they're just reacting to and i put this in the newsletter this week put information creates staying power because it gives collectors confidence and confidence makes people more durable in the hobby i think the idea gets even stronger when you look at what the biggest infrastructure players are actually building look at tops yes they public published excitement driven post around biggest polls held there was went back to the instagram from last night i saw my good friend jameson port city sports collectibles i got a chance to stop by his booth at fanatics fest talk with him for a moment about wrestling cards and then i come back and see that he sold millions of dollars to mister wonderful and shine that that that is the perfect content that pops publishes they publish these things they publish these moments but topps also on the ripped site have a how to collect section a glossary and educational collector content they are telling you in public that the collector education belongs next to collector excitement psa is saying send your cards in not just saying send your cards in they publish grading standards pop reports visual tutorials they're spending time reducing ambiguity because ambiguity creates friction and friction kills trust ebay's got a price guide they're they want collectors to make more informed choices to access deeper context to understand the market better before buying and selling that's not entertainment card ladder my good friends at card ladder just full of insight information regarding basically everything they do the industry's serious infrastructure players are moving towards information because information reduces bad decisions and increases confidence underestimating where the value really is the value is helping your audience understand that isn't just my opinion outside the hobby the business data points in the same direction edelman and linkedin found seventy three percent of decision makers say thought leadership is more trustworthy way to access a company than standard marketing materials they also found that high quality thought leadership increases receptiveness to outreach increases the likelihood to getting into rfp conversations can drive actual buying behavior and even create pricing power in other words if your content teaches clarifies or guides the market does not supply simply appreciate you more it values you more now translate that back into sports cards if you're a consignment business teach sellers how to think about timing grading presentation liquidity if you are a breaker teach your audience product structure odds and why fun and smart are not always the same purchase if you're a dealer you can explain the categories you actually believe in and what could go wrong in them make the customer smarter that is the content move that compounds and i'll go one step further in an ai heavy informational content backed by actual experience becomes even more valuable the content marketing institute found that forty three percent of b to b marketers struggle to differentiate their content from competitors only seventeen percent rate ai generated content is excellent or very good and only four percent say that they have a high level of trust in ai output so if everyone can produce more words faster then speed is not the moat real judgment is the moat experience is the moat process is the moat original interpretation is the moat that is why i think hobby businesses should invest in informational content now not because it's trendy not because it sounds smart but because it is the one of the cleanest ways to build trust in a market where trust actually decides everything the next great sports card companies are not just going to be or have the best products or not just the most entertaining stream or most followers they are going to be the companies that help people make better decisions and the companies that help people make better decisions will keep them around longer and that is the real game this is why i wanna talk about my good friend mike at leahy make sure you go check out our episode in passion and profession this week because mike is not somebody making content in sports cards he is an example of what happens when you use content to build capability in the audience the newsletter framed mike up this way he is not simply handling out card calls he is showing work he is building a framework he's giving people a process not just the answer and when you look back on that conversation i had with mike on passion profession the focus was around research transparency decision making and helping people think instead of just helping them react that matters a lot in a hobby that often rewards speed the fast take gets distributed the bold prediction gets attention the big sales screenshot gets reposted but mike's model seem to be built around something different slow enough to think clear enough to explain confident enough to show reasoning that is very different content discipline and i think that is why people trust him trust is built when somebody makes their process legible and i think that's a critical point if i only if i only ever tell you what i bought you can copy me if i tell you why i bought what i ruled out what i am comparing it to what historical patterns am i looking at what demand structure looks like what risks i see and what i might be wrong about now i'm not just giving you a pick i'm giving you a framework this is where informational content starts creating independent thinkers instead of dependent followers and mike's own business language reinforces that on gridx exchange he says the goal is to create as many long term winners as possible and on his playbook pages he explicitly says he wants to begin with basics so everyone can start together and then move into a more nuanced thinking over time he even clarifies that his work is not investment advice but open thinking about what information is relevant as the categories evolve this is operator behavior that is someone trying to form judgment in a market not just extract attention from it and i think there's a larger lesson here for the industry the best content in sports cards should not create dependency it should create capability that's the line if your audience becomes more dependent on you every time they consume your content then maybe you are building a personality machine if your audience becomes more capable every time they consume your content then maybe you are building infrastructure that is the distinction i keep coming back to the best informational content does not leave the audience saying tell me what the next play is it leaves the audience saying i think more clearly now that is a totally different outcome and it is far more valuable for the long term health of this hobby another thing i like about mike as a case study is that he is working formula one which is exactly the kind of category where informational content can disproportionately matter and i think this is correct because categories do not mature just because the product exists categories mature when language exists when a category is young misunderstood niche informational content does some of the foundational work that the market hasn't fully developed yet it creates reference points it names the key sets it explains what is structurally important it gives people confidence to participate without feeling like they're blindly walking into someone else's conviction that is one reason his f one playbook matters he is not just saying f one is interesting he is trying to explain why the situation is rare why the certain sets matter how prior hobby patterns map onto this category and how someone should orient themselves to a market that still looks unfamiliar to a lot of sports card people that is category building work and i think more businesses in this hobby need to realize that is the kind of work it is not charity it's a competitive advantage because if you are a person who helps people understand a category process or service or a market better then you have a reference point you become the place they come back to you become the account they save you become the episode they replay that is exactly why broader thought leadership research is so relevant here high quality educational content does not just generate awareness it increases receptiveness it strengthens perceived competence it can move people into actual buying relationships the hobby should stop treating education like the soft side of content and start treating it like one of the hardest forms of commercial leverage available there's also a responsibility piece here if you have an influence in the hobby and especially if you can move attention quickly then the standard should not be can i make this go viral the standard am i helping people think better that means slowing down it means naming uncertainty it means showing your evidence it means telling people what could go wrong that means resisting the temptation to speak with total certainty when total certainty is not available and ironically that kind of restraint often builds more trust than volume ever could so when i look at mike's spotlight the takeaway for me is not be more educational in some generic sense the real takeaway is this show the work share the framework teach the audience how to think make long term winners not short term dependence that is content that has a chance to outlast the feed cycle and that is the kind of content more sports card companies should be building if they actually want durable trust hobby jobs time let's shift the role let's shift the role and highlight this week's edition the job that i noticed that that stands out is the corporate counsel commercial and legal operations at comsea and i think it's a perfect example of why hobby jobs exist because from the outside a lot of people still look at sports cards and mostly see product transactions and content they see card shows streams marketplace listings what they do not immediately see are the same systems required to make that trustworthy at scale as cards move through marketplaces consignments platforms seller policies privacy standards employee issues legal and commercial operations stop being hidden in some back office function and they start being a trust layer of the business and it lines up with what the broader market is doing ebay and psa have been explicit that their partnership is about streamlining building selling grading storage increasing trust and reducing friction psa itself positioned its label standards tutorials data tools as part of a broader confidence system so when i see a legal and commercial operations role at a company like comsee i do not see boring corporate job inside a hobby company i see infrastructure work and i see infrastructure work and i see visibility operating in operating logic that makes visible customer experience possible for anyone listening who wants to work in the industry this is the lesson the sports card business is getting more sophisticated whether the content layer reflects this or not the real opportunities are not only in front facing creator roles they're in legal operations product data trust and risk management they are in customer systems they are in all the jobs that make people make scale possible if you want a professional hobby industry then those roles are not side notes they are the backbone and one of the smartest things hobbyjob is doing is making the backbone visible entertainment matters keep it but if you are building a sports card business and you want something that lasts invest harder in informational content invest in content that explains invest in content that shows the customer down in a good way invest in content that builds language frameworks trust and better decision making because the businesses that win long term are not just going to capture attention they're going to deserve confidence they are and confidence is earned when you consistently help people understand what is going on if that is the kind of sports car industry you want to build then sign up for hobby jobs i got a newsletter i talk about it every week i get up here on this podcast tell a damn friend every week is focused around people skills role systems and operating decision shaping the future if you run a business want to work in the industry or simply want a clear view of where the professional side of the sports car is headed this is for you this is the signal here not noise it is not hype it is operator context and the more of that the hobby has the healthier it will get appreciate you listening i'll see you next time on hobbyjobs happy building talk to you soon