“I’m not changing the world; I’m just trying to sell you pants.”

The TPF Q&A with A Continuous Lean founder Michael Williams

ACL founder Michael Williams

Michael Williams was writing about menswear when all the dudes hanging outside Aimé Leon Dore were still in diapers. He founded the influential style blog A Continuous Lean (ACL) in 2007, which eventually turned into Williams’ brand consulting work, where over the last 15-plus years he has helped brands—Hestra, Crockett & Jones, Buck Mason, and more—grow and find new audiences. His writing has appeared in GQ and The Financial Times, among many others. Before we started Three Point Four Media and I was on deadline for GQ or Men’s Fitness or some men’s magazine that no longer exists writing a story about leather goods or the #menswear trend du jour, he was always good for an authoritative quote.

A Continuous Lean

is now a must-read Substack while ACL & Co. still works behind the scenes shaping some of the coolest brands in America and Europe. He also hosts the

Central Division

podcast with

David Coggins

where they discuss fashion, flying Delta, fly fishing, and AL Central baseball. Oh, and he makes very nice sweaters for ACL Golf. He’s a man of many talents. We talked about inbound business, surviving in an increasingly difficult creative environment, and pants. But he flipped the script and started the interview by asking me a question.

Michael Williams: Do you work on retainer? How do you guys structure your work?

Three Point Four Media: Great question. We do it all. We always have a handful of retainer clients. We do project-based work. Sometimes, when we’re figuring out how to work with a client, we’ll do a batch of hours and spread those across the client’s needs to see if it’s a good fit.

Did you read that story in The New York Times about Gen X creatives?

I did. It made the rounds in my Vanity Fair alumni group chat.

I know a lot of people who have washed out of their careers. I'm lucky to have survived this long doing the same thing. I only bring this up because of the retainer thing. I work only on retainer, and it's just harder and harder. I can only do so much with brands. Clients have to be willing participants. Some of them think they’re going to sign me up, plug me in, and then I’ll just do everything without them having to lift a finger.

I think a lot about the future of these things, and how this stuff is structured. What you’re doing is really smart.

How is your work structured?

A mix of PR and brand marketing. It’s like a little circle. We’ll come up with an idea for a special collaboration, make intros, do the strategy, help execute it, produce the content around it, and then promote it.

We're not charging huge money for our retainers. The idea is to give us longevity in the relationship so we can be more effective—and there's a little more purity in that setup. I have 10 clients and three people that work for me. I've had amazing years; like two years ago I had a crazy year. I couldn't even take on more work. We were so busy. Then last year was super soft and weird. Because of interest rates and the economy I lost four clients in 30 days, which is very rare. And right now with all this, I don’t know.

You work with a lot of American-made brands. How are they handling the tariffs?

They’re laughing all the way to the bank! Kidding. Anyone that’s making stuff in America is so used to being beat down, making something from nothing, and being scrappy as hell that they’re not intimidated. They’ve dealt with a tsunami of offshoring. They’ve felt the pressures of supply chains. The world is very complex—nothing is truly made in America, components are coming from everywhere. Everyone is in the same boat.

Have any of the American heritage brands you work with reached out to say hey this is a PR opportunity for us?

Some brands don’t want to talk to the press about their strategies or their factories. But we did a little thing in Business of Fashion this week with one of our clients that makes stuff here.

How do you balance ACL and its newsletter output with ACL & Co.’s work? Is the newsletter the front door for the consulting? What’s the mix?

Honestly, when I started ACL I was doing it because I thought this would help me get in front of the clients I wanted to work with. I had no motivation to work with brands I didn’t like. Then it just took on its own life.

It does serve as a lead generator for me in some way. But they’re separate beasts. I do intermingle some things and talk about my clients sometimes. Right now, it’s like 60% of my time consulting, 40% publishing. I keep telling my friends I want to get the ratio to 70% publishing, 30% consulting. The thing is, it’s hard to convert newsletter subscribers to paid!

"Going out on your own is hard short term. Long term, it's going to pay dividends."

Are there any ways you’ve found success in converting people to paid? Discounts?

Paywalls are the number one way to convert people. Blocking content works. It's annoying, but that's the one thing that works well. I like paywalling too because then subscribers are the only ones who can comment on the stories. That helps build a community and an audience.

Publishing a lot is the other way to get subscribers. My problem is I can only do so much volume. Even if I didn't consult, I don't know if I could publish every day. It’s not the act of writing it—it’s the idea, contextualizing it. These things take time. The most recent story I did about being healthy was a year in the making for me. That’s stuff I’ve been thinking about for a year that I finally condensed into one email.

It was the best performing email I’ve ever sent: number one sign-ups, most read. And it was about middle-aged man health.

Why do you think it resonated with people?

It’s very age-appropriate for my audience. [Laughs.] I think no one talks about health in a way that’s approachable. The newsletter is how I am in real life. My friends ask me Michael, what bag should I get? Where should I stay? I’m not the coolest guy or the fittest guy. But I’m 10% cooler than guys you know. I can help with a recommendation for a bag and pressure you to go see your primary care doctor because I care about you and don’t want you to get colon cancer.

Do you cold pitch brands you want to work with?

Very rarely. I only do what I do now because I never could have worked for a big company. I just don't think they would hire me. I didn't go to a great school. I didn't work very hard in college. I've lost every RFP I've ever done. The only skills I have are by my own invention.

I have conversations or get to know people, and then it’s easier for them to see the body of my work and what my principles are. For me, that’s a much better situation to get clients and work.

We’re the same. Almost all of our business is inbound. So we spent all of 2024 trying outbound. And it didn’t really work. All of our current clients are relationship-based.

It can be hard to match up a client’s need with your service. That’s the problem with outbound and what we do—it’s all very specialized stuff. Clients reach out to people like us when they have the need for our services. With outbound, it’s hard to find a potential client in the moment when the need is there.

What are clients coming to you for these days?

I'm pretty good at helping reposition brands. I care a lot about it and I understand how brands make people feel. I call it black ops, doing the things behind the scenes. But I think my unwillingness to talk about the wins has maybe limited my career to some degree because I’m not out there trying to get credit for everything. From a new biz standpoint it would probably be better if I talked about it. But I’m not changing the world; I’m just trying to sell you pants.

Well then, what is something you’ve done you’re really excited about?

Now I’m on the spot! When I help an old brand get discovered by a new audience and looked at in a new way, to me that's the biggest win of anything I do. Getting people to see something that’s very old in a new way is very satisfying.

Final question: What trends are we going to see in the streets this year that will make me feel old and crazy?

Kids now dress so insanely, I find it both infuriating and amazing. I went through a phase where I dressed like a maniac and wore lots of regrettable things. There's just so much personal style in the world, and that's a good thing. But then you see it on the streets and it’s alarming. I can’t feel good about sweatpants with cargo pockets. I don’t know if these things are created to drive other people nuts or if they really like them.

Everything happening in the world of pants is insane. If you’re under 30, your pants are insane. If you’re over 30, your pants are too skinny. I’m in the straight leg zone. So that’s my answer: pants.