Kerry Michaels: Lessons Learned from Building Bill Murray's Golf Brand

Kerry Killoren Michaels is the CEO of William Murray Golf. Kerry built WMG during her time with The Chive, pioneering what was originally one licensed product into a full lifestyle brand. Today, WMG offers numerous individually curated pieces inspired by Bill and the Murray brother’s life and family.

Before starting WMG, Kerry spent time working with brands like Waterworks and Oakley where she learned the full scope of operating premium product businesses. Her more recent success with WMG earned her the title of Women 2 Watch in 2022 from the Women President’s Organization.

This Episode’s Heavy-hitter’s:

William Murray Golf was actually built within The Chive, and then as it grew, it transitioned out and into its own company. Kerry saw the vision for a full lifestyle apparel and sports brand that they could disrupt the stuffy world of Golf with William Murray leading the charge.

At first, though, it wasn’t clear that Bill would be on board. After his lawyer shot down the idea of expanding into a full line from the one logo The Chive had licensed from Bill, Kerry was able to pitch Bill’s brother at a Golf tournament.

Bill actually named one of the first drops they did, which was a Cubs-jersey-styled polo. He called it “This Is The Year” and luckily, the year was 2016, and just weeks later they won the World Series.

One point of pressure for Kerry and the team is the expectation of Bill’s involvement in the brand. Although he is extremely involved and has literally been known to answer customer emails, they take embodying his voice and spirit in everything they do very seriously.

Spoiler alert! Kerry’s favorite Bill Murray movies are Ghostbusters, Stripes, and Meatballs.

Check out Willam Murray Golf @ https://www.williammurraygolf.com/

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review:   https://ratethispodcast.com/thepozcast

#thePOZcast is brought to you by our friends at Interseller – the prospecting + outreach platform of recruiters and sellers. Whether you’re doubling down on business development or recruiting talent, Interseller does all the heavy lifting of finding contact data, automating the email and follow-up process, and syncs all that rich data into 20+ CRMs and ATSs. Reach out and get going in a 2-week *free* trial today and let them know you heard about them from Adam on #thePOZcast.

Check out a free demo today! https://bit.ly/2Fbm/BZ

Thanks for listening, and please follow us on Insta @NHPTalent and Twitter @AdamJPosner.eth 

For more, please visit www.thePOZcast.com