#24: Get to Know the Ins and Outs of Food and Beverage CPG with Consultant Trish W.

[AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT MAY BE SUBJECT TO MINOR TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS/VARIATIONS]

Alison Smith: (00:17)

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Karin Samelson: (00:45)

Welcome to the Umai Social Circle where we talk consumer goods tips to help business owners and marketers grow. We’re Karin and Alison, co-founders of Umai Marketing, and we’re being joined by Trish Wesevich, Food and Beverage Consultant and founder of Capital Kitchens and LaunchPoint Culinary Services. Thanks for joining us, Trish.

Trish Wesevich: (01:06)

Thank you for inviting me.

Karin Samelson: (01:10)

Absolutely. All right. Well, let’s jump into it. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got involved in CPG in the first place?

Trish Wesevich: (01:17)

Okay. Well, I started in Austin, really as a food writer, a long, long time ago, as a personal chef and as a caterer. And eventually, that led me to launching an incubator called Capital Kitchens, and it was for food and beverage startups. And it supported all aspects of the industry. I owned and operated that facility for eight years and sold it in 2019, still going strong and is an affordable and nurturing community of other food entrepreneurs and a great spot to launch a business from. During that time frame, I had the pleasure of working with all sorts of food businesses and beverage concepts from artisan food and beverage companies, private chefs, restaurateurs, corporations doing R&D and farmers markets brands and CPG startups. And so back then, we weren’t even using the word CPG really, I guess some industry experts who were from Austin were, but in general, not so much.

Trish Wesevich: (02:30)

So it just kind of happened organically when I had originally launched Capital Kitchens with a business partner, and we knew that there was a demand for commercial kitchen space in Austin. And we weren’t exactly sure who all would need it. And the first two clients we had basically were CPG brands, and so that’s kind of how it all started. And the first CPG brand that launched at Capital Kitchens is still going strong, and they have an almost national brand now, and it’s called Good Seed Burger. And I still think it’s the best burger on the market, vegan, plant-based burger on the market.

Karin Samelson: (03:16)

I got to try that.

Alison Smith: (03:18)

I’ve had it. It’s great. That’s wild that they were your first person.

Trish Wesevich: (03:25)

They had started in the back part of Daily Juice, which was a little juice shop in Hyde park. And I mean, this is a typical trajectory for these CPG startups back in the day and even still today. They started in that little space in the corner, and they had very limited ability to use the kitchen. And they used it off hours, and then they couldn’t really scale in there. And then when we opened Capital Kitchens, we had this big, huge facility. Well, it’s not that huge, but 3,600 square feet. But to them, it was huge and it allowed them to scale.

Alison Smith: (04:06)

Absolutely. So you were saying that when you started Capital Kitchens, you weren’t really sure if there was a big need for CPG brands or you thought more…who was going to be your Capital Kitchens members.

Trish Wesevich: (04:23)

We knew that there was a need for shared commercial kitchen space. I had just finished being a part of a startup to-go space, which doesn’t exist anymore. In fact, it’s probably about 10 years ahead of its time because, today, we all know to-go food is very popular and necessary. But back then no one had really quite adjusted to the concept yet. So I had just finished going through the process of helping to build out that space. So, when I realized that, I had been approached just really literally out of the blue by someone who said, “I want to open a shared kitchen.” And I knew what that meant. I knew there was one already in Austin, and I’m just so in love with food entrepreneurs. I was like, “Yeah, I want to be a part of that. Let’s do it.” And that’s all it took, just we agreed. And then we started pursuing. We were very naive about what we were getting into, but I would say that maybe that helps me actually be able to relate to some of the food brands who launch because they’re also usually very naive. And so I understand what that means.

Alison Smith: (05:44)

But it was so necessary. I mean, it was very much needed.

Trish Wesevich: (05:50)

Yes.

Alison Smith: (05:51)

So that’s awesome. You had a great hunch, I guess. But tell us more about your consulting business. Who do you work with? What are the pain points and issues that you’re working with your brands on?

Trish Wesevich: (06:07)

So during the time that I got to work with such a myriad of food and beverage types of businesses, CPG and beyond, I learned a lot and we learned a lot together. So sometimes my value to someone wanting to enter the industry is that I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t work. I’ve seen what paths others have taken. I had at least 60 CPG brands that I worked with and one way or another at Capital Kitchens and probably a couple of hundred other concepts, as well as food trucks. We had a huge food truck business as well. So I’ve seen a little bit of everything. And then my background as a personal chef and caterer, I also was already what I call a product geek on my own. I spent every day at Central Market for 10 years, pretty much, and so I knew who all the distributors were, I knew who all the employees were. And so I just learned a lot about the industry, and all of that now kind of is what I utilize when I’m working with clients.

Alison Smith: (07:32)

When you say you spent 10 years at Central Market, do you mean as a consumer, you just would go every day?

Trish Wesevich: (07:39)

So I was a personal chef.

Alison Smith: (07:41)

Okay, okay.

Trish Wesevich: (07:42)

I would go every morning and shop for my clients, and then I’d go to their home and I would prepare food. And I was a caterer. So yeah, I learned a lot about the grocery industry.

Alison Smith: (07:56)

[inaudible 00:07:57] I would love to be in Central Market every day, that’s a dream.

Trish Wesevich: (08:01)

It was great. It was a dream really. Yeah.

Alison Smith: (08:05)

Amazing.

Karin Samelson: (08:06)

So you’ve worked with dozens and dozens and dozens of CPG brands, so you must know, what are some key things that you think set successful CPG brands apart from ones that just don’t grow as fast?

Trish Wesevich: (08:22)

Well, I think if they can set realistic expectations for themselves, that is key. Of course, commitment is key. You almost have to want to see your product on the shelf above and beyond everything else, but you have to be smart along the way and you have to be coachable. That’s also, I would say, very key. Most people don’t know what those expectations really are or even should be. But by going out and talking to others and then, like I said, being coachable and understanding, okay, this is how hard it really is going to be, I’m going to move forward. Those are the people that are truly committed.

Karin Samelson: (09:18)

Yeah. That is so in line with a lot of idea behind just like what makes a good client and what makes a bad client? I mean, no, no bad clients, right? But the good clients that we have worked with are just super open to testing, to learning, to trying new things. And I think that’s really important to be open-minded in this field because the moment you think you know everything, I think you kind of show that you don’t know a lot. So that’s a really, really good note. And we’ve talked before about the importance of connecting within the CPG community, so can you talk a little bit about that and what you would recommend, places that CPG folks can connect?

Trish Wesevich: (10:08)

Sure. So a lot of times people come to me and they want to launch a product and they have maybe come from a tech background and they’re thinking food beverage is easier. They’ve quickly learned that it is not or they’ve been maybe a stay-at-home parent or a school teacher even or have a full-time career on the side and don’t know anything about food and beverage. They don’t know that there is a very strong network CPG community here in Austin. And it makes sense because it’s like being a musician. Musicians like to congregate with each other and talk to each other and compare where they played or what songs they’re working on or music, and it’s the same with food and beverage. So that community definitely exists in Austin, and there’s so much to learn from what others have done.

Trish Wesevich: (11:12)

And I find that people in Austin who’ve been here a long time doing this are open, will sit down with you and tell you everything they know. And then the new people coming into town are learning very quickly that that’s how it is here, and they either adjust and become that way as well and become open, even if they came from a community that wasn’t that way that they’re not used to it. I’m seeing that they’re going, “Oh, this is a much better way to operate and function, like let’s be supportive to each other. And that community continues to grow. So there’s so many resources out there that are available, so that you don’t really have to reinvent the wheel necessarily, but it depends how much someone has available time so that they can go out and make those connections, right? So was your question like exactly where they can go?

Karin Samelson: (12:16)

I mean that’s super helpful. I think that that advice to reach out to experts, reach out to people that you really admire, reach out to people that have something to teach you, and you’d be surprised at how many of those people are going to be super generous with their time. Obviously, I don’t take advantage of it, but I think that’s something we have personally been really surprised about too. It’s just like a very open community, and I know that a lot of people aren’t from Austin, but even if you’re not, you can still reach out to us.

Trish Wesevich: (12:49)

Exactly, exactly. And I have a client right now I’ve been working with, and she’s been self-producing her product for a while now, and that’s getting harder, and she’s growing very rapidly and realizes, okay, I need, I need production options. And so the first thing we did was call someone who makes the same product in another state, not the same product, but a similar. I guess you would normally think that’s a competitor, right? But they really aren’t going to be competing very much. We contacted them, and now they’re going to be co-packing their products. So they were super supportive, and then they were like, “Well, we could do this for you and we can tell you how to do that.” So you just never know. You have to be willing to really go out and start asking questions, and if people close the door, fine. Don’t let it discourage you, that someone else will open the door.

Alison Smith: (13:40)

I really love that and I love that about the community aspect. Everyone is so helpful. CPG can be very confusing. It’s like, where do I start? There’s not this clear roadmap. There’s so many different channels you can go into, you don’t have to go into. It’s confusing. So wanted to ask you, what are the manufacturing options that these food and bevs brands have? Is it straight-to- commercial kitchen or are there other options? Can you tell us about that?

Trish Wesevich: (14:20)

Well, before the shared kitchens, there were as many as there are now and there are more coming online, which we’ll talk about, it was really these brands. And I mean, I’m thinking legacy brands in Austin. People have been here 20, 25 years with a product at Whole Foods or Central Market. They literally would go and knock on the door of maybe a bakery or a commercial space that was dedicated to one company or a restaurant, and they would just ask, do you have any space for rent? And so many brands launched that way. It’s incredible. I actually kind of have an idea one day, I would like to bring those legacy brands together with the new people on the block, just to kind of compare stories and see how things have changed so much. So there are still brands that have launched in the corners, like Good Seed Burger did in the back of Daily Juice. There are still some of those.

Trish Wesevich: (15:28)

And finding those can be kind of a gem because then you end up, if the space is big enough and you can scale to a certain point in there, the rent can be pretty reasonable and you have your own space with only maybe a couple of other businesses in there. If you don’t have that opportunity, if you don’t find that kind of space, then going into a shared kitchen is ideal because it’s not such a big commitment. You can rent by the hour or most of the kitchens have minimums. You can get started and you can go a long way or you can even live there and make your product. Well, the idea would be you start in a shared space or sharing or in the corner of another kitchen and then you grow to the point where you either need a co-packer or you need your own facility.

Trish Wesevich: (16:33)

And so back in the day, everyone would always say, well, you just go to a co-packer. But nowadays, a lot of food companies, even those who are with co-packers, are kind of bringing it more in-house again and realizing, no I’m going to do my own production. There’s pros and cons to both. It was so hard to find available space five years ago, six years ago. Really, really hard. It’s still really hard, but now that the industry has boomed and Austin has become really a Mecca, there’s more opportunities. There are plenty of spaces. It’s almost even better to just choose a space that is close to where you live, that’s more practical. And it takes time to find the right space, and a lot of people don’t always take all the time that is really needed to find the right space for them, but it’s important.

Alison Smith: (17:44)

Yeah, I’ve noticed driving home. There’s two new kitchens right next to me that just popped up out of nowhere. So that’s great that they’re solving that issue. But can you tell us more about the pros and cons about co-packing versus using a commercial kitchen or a shared kitchen?

Trish Wesevich: (18:09)

So when you’re in a shared kitchen or using your own facility, you’re doing all the labor, a large part of your week is spent in production. And so people often have other full-time jobs. And then at night, they’re in the kitchen, and they’re producing product. And after a while, that can get pretty hard to maintain. And going to a co-packer is hard to find, it’s a long process. It’s usually about a year. It could be longer to find the right co-packer, and you’re not going to find someone to make small batches for you. So you have to be pretty far along in your business to engage a co-packer.

Trish Wesevich: (19:02)

There are exceptions, and that’s the thing. That’s why there’s no rule book or guidebook for launching a food business. There are exceptions to everything. There’s so many variables. There isn’t just one path. But here in Austin, we don’t really have any small batch co-packers. So you pretty much have to be pretty far long to approach a co-packer. Having your own facility, taking your production in-house means you’re responsible for a lot; you’re responsible for the lease, you’re responsible for the electricity and the maintenance, and all of those expenses add up very quickly. And then you have the labor, you have to create a team and you have employees. And so that’s a big business to manage all of a sudden. So those are the challenges.

Karin Samelson: (20:01)

Yeah. And so a lot of people that are going to be listening aren’t to that co-packer stage, so when does a brand know when they are ready for that next step? Are there minimums that they should be thinking, like I should be selling at least blank to get to that co-packer step?

Trish Wesevich: (20:26)

It really, really varies. So I have a client now who is launching, like she’s not out on the shelves yet, but she’s starting with a co-packer. And so the minimums are somewhat small, and we’re having to kind of invent the process for her product, but it’s expensive for that co-packer to make each one, so the price is already pretty high. Could she make it for less money? Probably in a shared base, yes. So there isn’t like one number. There’s not like 10 or 20,000 units. It’s not really standardized. That’s typical. You kind of have to weigh all your options. I mean, if you’re someone who really doesn’t have time or does not see yourself doing production, then you’re not even going to consider that in the beginning, you’re going to launch a product, finding a co-packer right from the start.

Karin Samelson: (21:37)

So what do you think the food industry can improve upon to make manufacturing easier for small and extra small brands?

Trish Wesevich: (21:47)

So co-manufacturers and distributors, which are going to be usually a part of your business at some point as you scale, but they’re elusive. They’re hard to find. So I guess there are many food manufacturers who want to be elusive. They’re not looking to add new products necessarily. And then there are others, they’re constantly manufacturing. They don’t have marketing people. They don’t have someone who could answer the phone and answer questions. There’s a company in Round Rock who manufactures ingredients that a lot of food businesses utilize. And I had a conversation with them recently, they get maybe 60 inquiries a week. And so, they can’t even handle that kind of volume. So, what can food manufacturers do? I don’t really know if there’s a solution. If there’s a solution, I don’t know what it is.

Karin Samelson: (23:08)

Have better marketing and have more employees to be able to handle all of that, yeah.

Trish Wesevich: (23:15)

Yeah. Ideally, that’d be great, but they’re already usually challenged with their own labor challenges. The key employees are on the floor doing the manufacturing, right? So it’s why they are elusive, it’s because it’s just not a piece. The customer service piece is not, I guess, that valuable to them because the demand is there. I mean, I guess, if everyone really started bringing their production in-house and the co-packers started losing business, then maybe that would turn around.

Alison Smith: (24:01)

Gosh. I mean, this whole, the manufacturing piece is something that a lot of people struggle with, at least the conversations we have, and it’s wild. But we’ve hit that on the head a lot. So I’m curious, what are some of the other challenges that the brands you consult with, are dealing with, and if you have any solutions, by all means.

Trish Wesevich: (24:32)

Some of them are really not prepared financially for the amount of capital it really takes to grow and to maintain. So that’s a challenge, especially right now when ingredient prices are higher than ever and packaging is hard to find. So hopefully, we’ll get past this pandemic, supply chain shortage and challenges. And then we’ll be back to normal, which is still challenging. But everything is in flux right now, so it’s really even hard for me to advise my clients who are launching products and just jars are not only hard to find, but really expensive. And it doesn’t really always make sense to launch this time. But someone who wants to launch a product is going to launch their product. They’re pretty committed to that concept. And then the other piece is everyone wants to use sustainable packaging. But again, that’s pretty hard to find and it’s pretty hard to find affordable packaging. But it’s really what we have to do it all together. We all have to do it together. The entrepreneurs are the ones who can go out, some of them and really dig around until they find the right solution.

Alison Smith: (26:16)

I mean, the supply chain issues that we’re having, I can’t imagine being in logistics for that right now. What do you foresee happening? Do you think it’s going to get better? Do you think there’s going to be new innovation because of it?

Trish Wesevich: (26:34)

I think there’s new innovation now, absolutely. I try to stay as engaged as I am available to on several LinkedIn groups who are discussing intently and discussing packaging solutions. So there are people out there really trying to solve that and connect dots for everybody else. And that’s just one example. There are people you can find, like that goes back to that networking, being really savvy and realizing that there are communities you can tap into, and really should be tapping into, to bounce ideas off of and find solutions for that are on LinkedIn, Facebook groups, et cetera. But I don’t have the solutions for all of this.

Karin Samelson: (27:33)

We’d be really, really successful women if we had the solution to this problem.

Trish Wesevich: (27:41)

Exactly.

Karin Samelson: (27:42)

Not that we aren’t successful women, let’s be real.

Trish Wesevich: (27:44)

Right.

Karin Samelson: (27:45)

So you talked a little bit about how you spent really 10 years, every single day, going to a place like Central Market. And we get on the grocery lost in, not lost on. We’ll go to the grocery store, and that’s one of our favorite past times to just go and look at all of the products and see what innovation there is, what new products there are. And it’s all really, really exciting and fluffy and beautiful. Then we go to their social pages, we go to their websites, and it looks insane, but we know that on the back end, nothing’s perfect. There’s a lot of comparison and shiny object syndrome that happens. But on the back end behind the scenes, are you seeing some issues pass that glamor of being on shelves and having this amazing brand?

Trish Wesevich: (28:38)

You mean challenges or positive pieces that-

Karin Samelson: (28:41)

Challenges. I would say challenges. Yeah, because there’s a lot of positives that are really apparent. But what do you think are some struggles the founders have behind the scenes?

Trish Wesevich: (28:53)

Okay. First of all, just the grittiness of having a food company and being in the kitchen is hard work, and you’re physically tired. And so I remember seeing brands in my kitchen who maybe even had been in the SKU accelerator program or other programs, opportunities that they had been offered and they would spend their days in those programs and then come into the kitchen and just be so exhausted mentally, but then they have to start the physical part of it. So that’s one piece of it.

Trish Wesevich: (29:38)

When you have a product and you have to get the product to the store after you’ve spent all those hours in the kitchen making the product, then you have to get in your car and drive it to the retailer. And sometimes usually retailers, if you’re self-distributing, need you to come in the back door. And the times that you can do that is from 5:00 AM to 8:00 AM before the customers are really… So again, that’s not really a lot of fun. Just the stresses of getting a purchase order and being able to fulfill that purchase order and then having to wait to be paid for that purchase order and all the delays and that games that can be involved in that are really, really stressful.

Trish Wesevich: (30:20)

Sometimes it’s just the simple thing, like just knowing that you have just created a product and you spent all this time getting to that point, and then you know which retailer is right for your product. You’ve already figured that out, but you can’t get them to return a call, answer an email. You can’t get it in the door. But there’s a lot of “no”s. It used to be a little easier to approach a retailer, certain retailers than it is now. And then on the other side, there’s a lot more local grocery stores now than we ever had before. So that’s always evolving, and you can go outside of Austin and find more retailers to carry your product. But again, you have to make the product, put it in your car and drive it there or hire someone to do that for you. It just can be exhausting.

Alison Smith: (31:21)

Yeah. So do you see a lot of burnout with the brands that you work with?

Trish Wesevich: (31:26)

Definitely.

Alison Smith: (31:27)

Yeah. I mean, I can imagine. And I mean, what’s your piece of advice when they just can’t do it anymore?

Trish Wesevich: (31:36)

Hindsight’s 2020. I definitely recommend to brands that before they even launch to sort of have in their mind that concept of having an exit strategy, because, I mean, do you see yourself doing this for five or 10 years? I mean, let’s say you haven’t progressed out of doing your own production. That’s what you’re doing, and you’re physically so tired, but what are your options? If you want to change careers, do you just shut the business and walk away, which I’ve seen happen. Can I sell my company? Yes. But realizing that also takes a while. Sometimes people hit the wall before, and then they’re impatient. Like no, I want to just call someone and offer. They want to buy my business, I’m sure. It’s like, no, that’s going to take you at least another year to potentially find someone who may be interested in purchasing your business.

Trish Wesevich: (32:42)

And then there’s going to be a negotiating process, and that’s going to be very stressful too. Or finding someone on your team already, I see this happen who is really engaged. And then they’re interested in actually taking over the company. That can happen as well. And if you nurture your relationships with some of your own key employees, then that’s also a possibility, but it is something that a founder should think of when they’re launching, like, okay, how am I going to get out of this? Because sometimes getting out of a business you started, I’ve done it before, it was really hard.

Alison Smith: (33:25)

Are most of the brands that you work with, is their endgame selling? Is that generally people’s goals?

Trish Wesevich: (33:35)

So many people now are on the… they have this idea that I’m going to launch this brand that no one ever thought of before, and then some big food company’s going to acquire it and I’m going to get rich. Just isn’t the way it works.

Alison Smith: (33:51)

I wonder what the percentage of that is, I would love to know.

Trish Wesevich: (33:55)

I don’t know what the percentage is, but it isn’t very much. Although, it’s perfectly fine to admire and learn from those who have had that experience. And as we all know in Austin, that has happened multiple times, and it is inspiring, for sure, and there’s a lot to learn from those people. But it is not norm. So often, founders launch alone and then finding a consultant to help them is helpful. Finding people, other like-minded businesses to collaborate with is helpful. But it is also helpful to start with a business partner. And then again that can be challenging because maybe they haven’t found the right business partner in the beginning. And then after a while, if they realize that that isn’t going to work out, then it’s hard to separate from that business partner.

Alison Smith: (34:55)

Yeah. I mean, running a CPG brand isn’t exactly a lifestyle business, unless you’re able to hand it off and have someone else run it because you got to grind in this industry. So I was just curious what the goal was for most of your brands.

Trish Wesevich: (35:17)

I would say I think people have more short-term goals than they have long-term goals. Maybe that’s just our human nature, right?

Alison Smith: (35:28)

Yeah. And it’s a beautiful industry. I mean, you get to make food and beverages for people to enjoy. So yeah, I mean that in itself is wonderful.

Trish Wesevich: (35:43)

Yes, it is. It is. And it’s very rewarding. And there’s value in…you learn so much. I would say at Capital Kitchens, I would look around and I’d see everybody really working hard and I’d say everyone’s kind of pretending to be running a food company, but really what everyone really is doing underneath is they’re becoming better humans because they’re learning to work with each other and to collaborate and to be considerate. And they’re learning about business, and they’re learning about sales and they’re learning about food safety. And there’s so much to gain really. And whether their food business is successful in the end, I mean, of course, we want that to happen, but if it doesn’t, then there was definitely value in the experience.

Karin Samelson: (36:26)

Yeah, absolutely. And we obviously want to encourage anybody who has the dream to build something that they’re passionate about to do it, to try because you have one life to live. And if this is something that you want to be passionate about, do your best. And like we said, you got to grind. But as long as you know that and you don’t expect it to be like an easy ride, especially these people that are coming from different industries and coming into CPG and have no experience and have no idea how robust it actually is, I think they should go for it. But I really love that. So we were talking about a little bit of the negatives of like if you do decide to bail, but what they can gain personally and what they can learn about themselves is super powerful. So thanks for reminding us.

Trish Wesevich: (37:35)

Yes. Yes.

Karin Samelson: (37:37)

Awesome. Well, Trish, it was such a joy to get to talk to you. We really enjoyed learning more about how you got started and what you’re seeing in the industry now, but would you like to leave the audience with a link or call to action or a final statement?

Trish Wesevich: (37:52)

Sure. So I do consulting, and I’m kind of the person that will kind of hold your hand along the way and kind of be the business partner that you don’t have to break up with eventually. I’ll just help you, take as many steps, thoughtful steps forward as possible. So my company’s called LaunchPoint Culinary Services. My website is launchpointculinary.com. I put some resources up there. I have a blog I’ve just kind of started to get more serious about, and I’ll start putting more practical resources up there. And I run a little Instagram product review page. That’s kind of more for fun called CPG Find. And you can see me around town at various networking CPG events and accelerators and incubators. So I kind of make the scene, make the rounds. And I love to chat with people about their concept. And so I’m pretty much just an email, phone call away.

Alison Smith: (39:08)

Awesome. Thank you so much, Trish. And we’ll be sure and link all of those in the show notes as well. So you can contact Trish, and you all can talk food and bev.

Trish Wesevich: (39:19)

Well, thank you guys so much for reaching out and interviewing me today.

Alison Smith: (39:22)

Thank you.

Alison Smith: (39:25)

Umai Social Circle is a CPG agency-driven podcast based out of Austin, Texas. We’re excited to share more behind-the-scenes insights, chats with industry leaders and whatever else we learn along the way. Follow us on Instagram @umaimarketing or check out our website, umaimarketing.com. Catch you back here soon.

#23: Navigating In-Person Brand Activations with Dragon Spirits Marketing

[AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT MAY BE SUBJECT TO MINOR TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS/VARIATIONS]

Alison Smith:

Welcome to the Umai Social Circle, where we talk consumer goods tips to help business owners and marketers grow. We’re Alison and Karin, co-founders of Umai Marketing, and we’re being joined today by Lamar Romero. He’s CEO, executive dragon from Dragon Spirits Marketing. Dragon Spirits is the number one brand ambassador gig marketplace, that helps match growing brands with passionate brand ambassadors for activations across the US. Welcome, Lamar.

Lamar Romero:

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Alison Smith:

We’re glad to have you. So, let’s get right into it. We’re curious, how did Dragon Spirits… First of all, we love the name and we love the background. We like how you just own it, so tell us more how Dragon Spirits came to be.

Lamar Romero:

Sure. Yeah, my wife and I actually started in the tequila industry. I came out of high tech, and one day my wife came to me and she said, “Hey, think about helping this tequilero. He needs help with his tequila, and we should do this.” And I was like, “Great. I’ve got some 401k left to sacrifice. Let’s go and do that.” And so we helped push a tequila in Texas for a whole year, back in 2012, and figured out we really like the industry and there was a lot of things we wanted to change. So, Dragon Spirits became a thing because while we were doing that, I’d see a lot of promotion going on that was typically by model types that are in their early twenties, and unfortunately didn’t know a lot about the brands that they were pushing.

Lamar Romero:

And so, I mistakenly or unmistakenly looked at my wife one day and I said, “If I work in this industry, I’m going to change everything. I’m going to teach these people how to sell. I’m going to train them, and educate them, and make sure they can go out there and do a great job.” And for better or for worse, that’s what we did. And we chose the name Dragon Spirits because we wanted to be different. We didn’t want to be model company this, or model company that. We wanted to basically… We were the first in 2013, to my knowledge, to change the paradigm. We didn’t hire people based on looks at all, we’re one of the only companies at the time that didn’t have body measurements on their website application. We just said, “Hey, if you have a great personality and you want to promote, you can come be a dragon.” And that’s how it took off.

Karin Samelson:

What an old school crazy approach, that happened for so long, even in CPG, at trade shows and things like that. And you just never really… Have you ever stopped to actually think about what’s happening, models being hired because they look good?

Lamar Romero:

It’s still a thing. And I’ll tell you, when I was just beginning, we had businesses that literally wouldn’t hire us because they’re like, “No, we’ve seen your people in the field.” And I’m like, “Yeah, but that person I just hired who’s not a model looking gal, just sold 20 units of that thing, while that other gal who was right next to her sold two.” And so, that just became our thing. And then now you fast forward to 2021, now look, models are still a big part of the industry. And I have nothing personal with a model or somebody who’s attractive, if you can be attractive and go out and sell great, then you’re a triple threat, and you’ve got a great personality. And so, we welcome folks from all walks of life. Some of my best dragons have been retired 70 year old people, that go out and just do a great job. So yeah, but I’m with you there. It is an old school industry, and it still is, but it is shifting just because everything’s shifting. We all have to, we all have to change.

Alison Smith:

I’m really glad you noticed that, and decided to make a change with the brand that you started. And just thinking about that, it’s like, I am much more likely to approach a 70 year old woman or man who wants to give snacks or liquor, than like a super hot person. That is much more relatable.

Lamar Romero:

It is, and that approachability is important. I had a small liquor owner tell me that at a trade show. He was like, “You know what I like about your folks? Is that I feel comfortable, because the mom who’s shopping with her kid can be approached and have a conversation, and not feel like,” like exactly what you just said.

Karin Samelson:

Awesome. Well, so let’s just talk about the current state of brand activations in person, especially with how crazy the past couple years have been, and how it kind of looks like it’s going to be shaping out to be in the future. So tell us more about this, and what you see happening in 2022 with this shift.

Lamar Romero:

Yeah, absolutely. First, let’s define brand activation. Brand activation is a tasting, or a trade show, or festival or a street team. It’s basically activating your brand where crowds get together. And regardless of what’s going on with COVID, or any other social shifts that we’re seeing with technology, people still like to get together. So, we feel like this type of brand activation is going to continue, and now it’s going to be offset or added with other strategies, such as social media marketing and advertising as well.

Lamar Romero:

But the brand activation industry is definitely going to a place where, especially for small and medium businesses, it needs to be affordable, and it needs to be available. And I’m seeing a lot of small businesses really like what we’re doing. In other words, being out there, even if you can only afford a couple of activations a month. To be at that clutch store, or that clutch festival, and have some help have, some hands there that know your brand, can do the heavy lifting while maybe you’re off meeting with the store owner who might be present at that particular festival or activation, is absolutely critical. And so, part of what we’re trying to do is set up a system to where small businesses can utilize our technology without having to spend a lot of money every month.

Alison Smith:

That’s cool. And you mentioned how brands, this goes beyond just having an in person activation, what data are you collecting and using, that brands can use across all platforms, and digital marketing and everything else?

Lamar Romero:

Yeah. When we go back and talk about what an old school industry, I can remember one of my competitors back in 2016, was literally having their brand ambassadors fill out a piece of paper, take a picture of it, and submit the at as a report. Like, what are you going to be able to do with that data? While we were exporting everything to a spreadsheet, and giving nice rows, and columns and tables, that was considered, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you actually do that.” Now, as we go forward in 2021, it’s all about data visualization. And so, we’re doing a WeFund right now, we’re raising a million dollars so that we can take our homegrown software application, the Dragon Engagement Network, or the dragons’ den, where the dragons live, and we’re trying to reshape it to where we can give true data visualization to our customers. So that if you had 10 reports done in the state of Texas, and they were at all different cities, you could be able to say, “What was my spend in Houston, versus Austin? How many units did I sell SKU, versus that SKU?”

Lamar Romero:

If you’re a national company, you’re a big company, that’s doing hundreds of activations a month, what is it looking like per region? What is it looking like per store? What is it looking like when I went to that festival? Where did my follow through come after that festival? And so, that kind of data is what we’re providing, I would say, in a light way, and hoping we’re going to be providing that in a heavy way as we go forward in 2022 and 2023, when we add some of these features to our software solution.

Alison Smith:

That’s pretty cool. And I imagine just collecting a ton of in person, real qualitative data along the way, helps people define their core customer and all that.

Lamar Romero:

Absolutely. Capturing maybe some demographics that you’re seeing, capturing how many people you saw, how many units you moved, those are the basic metrics that we’re looking at. But also, even when we get to the nitty gritty details, like what were some of the comments about my product? I remember one time we had a client that we simply, after reading all the reports we’re like, “I don’t think I can help you. I don’t think this is working.” And a lot of the comments would come back that it just didn’t taste right, didn’t have the right feel. And I tried to communicate that as honestly as I could, because I never want to be in a place where we’re not providing value. We agreed to walk away, but those were good comments. That is what you want brand activation, whether it’s good or bad, you want to hear whatever data that’s being provided, so that you can go out and do a better job. And so for better or for worse, that’s the kind of data that we collect when we do these brand activations.

Alison Smith:

Yeah. It’s easy to forget, but it’s does need to appeal in some way to some sort of people. So that is extremely important, and just on the digital marketing side, we need that sort of data as well. We’re looking through Amazon comments and social media comments, to try to really understand the customer, and their pain points, and what they are like, and what they’re interested in. So, it’s really cool that you’re collecting that kind of data.

Lamar Romero:

Thank you.

Karin Samelson:

Yeah. A big question I have, and I think that some people that are listening may have is, wait, how do you set these folks up for success? What does training look like for your dragons?

Lamar Romero:

Yeah. We got to remember that we’re part of the gig economy. And so, this was the gig economy before it was cool. When models were doing this in the eighties and nineties, nobody called it that. They’re like, “Yeah, I got a modeling gig.” But this is a core part of the gig economy. So one, we’re trying to get gig workers out there to realize that they could do this. If you have a personality, and you want to make 25 to $30 an hour being in one place for three to four hours, not putting wear and tear on your car, and telling the story of a brand and exciting people, then this is the job for you. But now when we find those folks, that’s the secret sauce around how at least we do it.

Lamar Romero:

We actually have a culture test that a dragon must pass in order to even be interviewed in the system. So, half the dragons that apply don’t even take it. Of that half, about 70% of them pass it with an 85 or greater. Once we get that core brand ambassador, and they do the interview, the interview process is more like, “Wow, you’re going to educate me? You’re going to teach me these brands? The other seven firms I worked for didn’t. They didn’t give a damn, they just gave me a sheet.” And so, they get a quick expectation that man, you’re going to be taking a lot of tests here. Because we can’t train gig workers, but we can educate them. And so, then we have over a hundred courses set in our own learning management system within our software. So for instance, there’s a beer course. How do I be deadly just knowing what beer is, and how it’s made, wine, scotch, bourbon?

Lamar Romero:

But then it goes to brand-centric, now you got to pass this achievement, and get this badge on your profile for, like 50 Cent for his Branson brand that we represent. I personally made that achievement for 50’s team, because 50 Cent wasn’t going to make a branding video for nine or 10 minutes to do this. But we wanted to make sure that we went out and represented him well, to really hit the core things that he wanted to talk about. Like, “This is a luxury brand. This is a brand for people who are celebrating life.” And so, to get those essences to a brand ambassador, you have to have a good, repeatable, scalable solution to do so, and that’s what we do with our Dragon Achievement System, to basically educate these dragons so they can go out, and they can promote and really tell the story, and not just say, “Hey, I’ve got a sample of this thing.”

Karin Samelson:

That’s so cool. I mean, at 25 to $30 an hour, take some tests, and get your expertise up and go kill it. If you’re an extrovert, you’re good at talking to people, you can absolutely do this. So, do you only do this for spirits brands? Or have you ever done it for just like food and beverage?

Lamar Romero:

Oh, absolutely. We do this for beer, wine, liquor and food CPG brands. We’ve had some good success with selling cassava flour pretzels. Once the COVID relinquishes itself a little bit and grocery opens up more, we’re going to be doing tastings around a pickle salsa. So, CPG is something that I’m really wanting to attack more. Even though there’s spirits in the brand, and that’s how we started, we’re Dragon Spirits, but we’re the spirit of a dragon. And so, we want to go out and really promote any type of small and medium sized business that’s growing, to do this all across America. And right now we’re in… We went from three states in 2020, to a little over 30 this year. And that’s how we’ve expanded our footprint so quickly. And I’d say we have our toes in a lot of these other states, but we do have like five or six states that we’re core in right here in the United States so far, while we’re still bootstrapping.

Alison Smith:

Fast growth. Well, unfortunately I have to ask it: You’d brought up COVID, and I am so interested to hear what happened when COVID happened? It’s still happening, obviously. How did that change the trajectory of your business, and people who rely on activations?

Lamar Romero:

Yeah. Well when 2019 ended, I can remember doing a champagne toast to my wife and having a tear in my eye. Because we had been building our business for seven years, and we finally felt like we were going to make it, like 2020 was going to be our year. In March of 2020, we canceled every activation in the system, we waived all fees, and we sat on our hands for six months as we waited to see what was going to happen. I have to say that government assistance was hugely important to us. I furloughed everybody except for myself and my financial person, and they all got paid well enough to be furloughed, and to take care of their families during this time.

Lamar Romero:

But I found that coming out of COVID, was a lot of pent up demand. So at the end of 2020 Q4, we went from no revenue to instantly profitable in Q4 2020. Because when the floodgates started opening, brand activation was huge. And then finally karma happened for our company, in terms of our achievement system, because I had made an achievement based on the COVID, that you had to wear your mask, and you had to pass our test, and you had to watch our video and understand you need to go out there with gloves and a mask, and you weren’t going to argue with nobody, and you were going to go do it, and you’re going to be good at it, and you’re going to get an extra $5 in pay for doing it. And that really worked, because then all of a sudden we had stores going, “Hey, go hire those dragon guys. They know what they’re doing. They’re the only ones showing up completely COVID ready.” And so, we got a lot of business coming into Q4 2020.

Lamar Romero:

So when I look back at it, [crosstalk 00:17:14] yeah, and then government money too, with PPP loans that were forgivable. So when I look back at it, I think I actually might look back at COVID and go, well, that might have been a real turning point for our business for the better. We’re not out of the weed yet, so I can’t go back and look at it like that yet. But we learned to adapt. And just I’ll always keep saying, digital’s extremely important, but people aren’t going to stop congregating in groups, we’re human beings. So this type of brand activation’s always going to be important. It’s going to change, and it’s going to alter itself. But getting in front of a group of people and going, “I’ve got this wonderful thing, and you need to try it,” is still going to appeal to folks as we continue in this post COVID world.

Alison Smith:

That’s really cool to hear, that you guys were prepared and keeping it safe, and it sounds like you did it right. I am curious though, do you talk to your brands openly about this? And what’s the backup plan that brands should have in their back pocket, if things are to shut down, if or when things are to shut down again?

Lamar Romero:

Yeah. I always tell my brands that brand activation strategy is just one part of your marketing strategy. When I see a brand’s just doing that, I actually try to have a talk with them of like, I can have an honest conversation, say, “Hey, you might need to back up some of these efforts with some social media.” Maybe drive people to our brand activations, whether it’s a festival or a trade show, or a tasting or a demo. Because you have to have a full, round strategy, and we can only control what we can control. So, as Omicron is the new scare, and we’ve already seen our Northern markets start to shut down, New York is shutting down right now. What we do, is because we already have a very friendly business way of doing things, we don’t have any contracts. We’re of the only companies that I know that do this, that don’t have contracts, so you can come and go as you please.

Lamar Romero:

So, if somebody’s got 20 activations in the system, that are going to be fulfilled for the rest of the month, and COVID shuts it down, usually there’s cancellation fees if you pull something out. But we’re like, “Hey, we’ll waive all cancellation fees. It’s not in your control.” And so, we just try to do the right thing, and hopefully that brand’s got some other marketing strategy, because now that brand activation part of it is being shut down. And that can really hurt a growing brand, especially if you’ve just got an A to B, and you’re like, “Man, I’ve got to really show some movement in my product,” and they killed one of your main marketing engines, which is, “I have to get this liquid to lips, or this food to mouth, because everybody’s going to be amazed by it, and now I can’t do that.” Find some other great folks that you can consult with, that can help you in your or other marketing. I know two other individuals I could think of on this line, that could help with doing that type of marketing. Because for right now, brand activation ain’t part of it.

Karin Samelson:

Wow. We love that omnichannel approach, you got to be hitting people from all sides.

Lamar Romero:

Absolutely.

Karin Samelson:

For brands that aren’t in retail yet, what are some amazing other places that they can have brand activations?

Lamar Romero:

Yeah. We just did a great brand activation for a client of ours, at Startup CPG, which was basically out in front of about a hundred to 150 folks in Austin, right at Ellis Bar. Brand activation can happen anywhere, and we actually encourage brand owners, especially just starting out, you need to go do it yourself. First of all, you’re the founder, or you’re the founding group of people, and you’re going to sell better than even a trained brand ambassador could. For the most part, we do have some brand ambassadors that can run circles around everybody including me. But for the most part, a founder’s going to do better. And then go and feel that pain, and then when you start getting to a place where you can’t be at five places at once, that’s when you’re going to call us.

Lamar Romero:

But you have to be at house parties, or farmer’s markets, or anywhere you can, where you can get in front of a group to start showing off that brand. Because you never know what’s who’s going to be at that party. I actually remember doing a brand activation, I used to do event parties. And so, I did a brand activation at some wealthy folks’ house, and one of the folks in there was a person that worked at HEB. Came up to me and said, “Hey, what do you know about this? I’m in love with this.” And I said, “Hey, I can put you in touch with the person who makes this.” And then a few months later, that product made it into HEB. So you just never know, so you got to go out there and you got to get in front of groups, however and whenever you can.

Karin Samelson:

The power of networking. It’s super intimidating to be an introverted person, somebody who really is uncomfortable talking to others, and getting out there and doing it. So, what would be some of your best advice for founders who are nervous to really sing their own praises, and to really sell?

Lamar Romero:

Wow, that’s a good one. We all have our talents and our strengths. I’ve actually seen introverted dragons over the years do very well. You don’t always have to be the loud, boisterous one to have a good conversation, or to attract attention. But in some of those cases it might help, if an introvert founder really had a hard time being out in front of a crowd and doing that, then you’ve got to hire help. That needs to be a part of your team strategy, you need that cheerleader on your team. Unless your product’s just that damn good, and it gets in the right mouth, and the whole world’s buying it. Whether they’re buying it on a D to C strategy, or for a retail store.

Lamar Romero:

But for the most part, every brand needs a lot of promotion in order for folks to know. I even know that from my own business. We’ve grown from word of mouth the last seven years, but one of the first things brands say when they find my company, they go, “Where the heck have you guys been hiding? And why haven’t I heard about you before now?” And I’m like, “I know, I’m a marketing company, and I suck at marketing my company. Because I’m marketing 200 other clients.” And that’s something I’m aiming to fix. I had to hear that 15 times before I was like, all right, I’m going to go to WeFund and raise a million dollars so I could stop bootstrapping.

Lamar Romero:

Because it’s all about getting out there and having good presence, and especially right now having a great digital presence. And having a good digital strategy, it really, really does help. And I’m talking to a lot of entrepreneurs that are taking a more D to C approach, and that’s really interesting to me. Because it can work and it can’t work, and it just really depends on how you’re going to do that, and do you have the right people or the right talent to do it? But it’s something that I’m definitely seeing more and more.

Alison Smith:

Yeah. So before this call, you said something really interesting. You told us that there’s trends in activations, and you were telling us that in the beginning of the year, you see health brands who run activations have the best results. Which at first we were like, hmm, and it makes perfect sense. Everyone’s got their body goals, their health goals, all those things. So what other interesting trends do you see throughout the year, in terms of activations with brands?

Lamar Romero:

Yeah. Well, I would say that you need to be activating, especially brand activation, if you’re a seasonal business, pick that season and go and do it. If you have to spend 50% of your marketing budget on the three months, or that quarter that’s good for you, then go and do it. For spirits, that’s OND, that’s what they call it. OND, October, November, December, Q4. 50% of all the beer, wine and liquor that’s bought in America is bought in OND. And so, that’s a great time to go out and promote.

Lamar Romero:

But in January when everybody’s got a hangover, if you’ve got a health brand and you’re not promoting, what the heck’s the matter with you? I don’t care if you need to be on the street yelling at the top of your lungs, if you’ve got something that’s non-alcohol or it’s healthy, January and February is your time. Because that’s when minds are open. And they’re like, “Oh yeah, I’m hungover from the last three months, man. I really need to make a change.” Whether that’s a protein product, or a healthy energy drink or whatever the case be, I don’t see a lot of brand activation from health brands in Q1, and I always wonder why. So, you really need to understand that trend and follow that. And I hope that answers that question.

Alison Smith:

Yeah, it does. It’s very interesting, and just to be clear, I was just thinking about the last thing you said about brands only going D2C. That’s like you said, it’s totally fine if that’s the route you want to take, but activations aren’t just for pushing retail traffic, activations are for brand awareness, like Karin was saying, word of mouth. They’re extremely important, whichever avenue that you’re working towards.

Lamar Romero:

If I was D to C, I’d be at a trade show festival with my, with my QR code on my paper going, “If you scan this and you go to my website, you get 25% off today.” That’s how you would drive that D to C behavior, but you still need the brand activation to do that. And so, but you’re absolutely right. It doesn’t have to just be retail, though that’s typically what we think about that.

Alison Smith:

Yeah. And I would love to hear more. So, when I think activations, I think in groceries or festivals. What other places are you seeing good results come through? Can you get really niched down, I guess, depending on your brand?

Lamar Romero:

Yeah, you can. It really just depends on what you’re promoting, and what your strategy is, and have you identified your audience? So if you haven’t identified your target audience yet, that might take some time or some consultation, but find with that is and stick your brand activation strategy around that. For instance, I had a really great client called BeatBox Beverages. And in the beginning, they had this five gallon bag of wine. And they hired us for brand activation at HEB stores, and that was tough. You’re in the fine wine section going, “You want to try my five gallon flavored bag of wine?” And even at the HEB store, people were like, “This is crazy. What are you people in here for?”

Lamar Romero:

But that worked. We had a lot of orders, we did a lot of it. And then they went to Shark Tank, got a million dollars from Mark Cuban. And Mark Cuban was like, “We’re not doing that anymore,” which sucked for me, but it was great for the brand. Because they were like, “We’re going to go to college campuses. And I’m going to get you on planes, you’re going to fly to different fraternity, sorority houses.” And that was the right strategy for them, at that time of their life where they were. And so, sure, that wasn’t good for me, but it was great for the brand. And so, you have to understand that audience, and make sure you’re doing those brand activations the right way.

Lamar Romero:

But it doesn’t have to be… First of all, I’ll say this, I’ll give you all some free advice: don’t ever give your product away for free without sending a representative. So when somebody says, “Hey man, give me three cases of your stuff for my party, I’ll talk about you.” You say, “Yeah, but I’m going to send either myself, or my co-founder, or somebody from my company, or a dragon, or whatever, who’s going to go and talk about that product for at least five or 10 minutes.” Because that’s the cost of the free. And where can I buy it, where can I get it? I see that happen all the time, where products are just given away for free without any strategy alongside of it to do it.

Lamar Romero:

So, it can be a party, it can be a festival, it can be a trade show, it can be a street team. It can be just about anything you can imagine, and put some organization into, but it’s an important part of, especially any kind of retail brand, CPG brand, because there’s a lot out there. If you haven’t noticed, there’s a new product being developed in America every two minutes, that’s an actual fact. So, now that you made it to of the shelves of HEB or Spec’s, you’re like, “Great, I made it here.” But yeah, there’s a hundred other vodkas now. So, are you going to differentiate your vodka from the other hundred? So you have to be cognizant of that, and know that half the battle’s getting on the shelf, the other half of the battle is depleting it, and putting it in the hands of consumers, and their minds, souls, so they’ll go out and tell their friends and family. And that’s the basics of a just good marketing strategy.

Karin Samelson:

I love that advice, to never give away free product without having someone there to talk about the product. Because we see that a lot, it’s like somebody reaches out, you can afford it, you want to get your product into all these people’s hands, but what happens, what comes from it? And usually not much. So, I love that piece of advice to send someone there, because the optimization of that is probably like tenfold. That’s super exciting. In terms of timelines, like if somebody wanted to work with a dragon, what does that look like?

Lamar Romero:

Yeah. We generally make sure that, one, we have a consultation call to go over what fee structures look like, how much they cost, all that type of deal. But the most basic thing that it still behooves me today, is that I say, “Well, I need a product marketing presentation.” We internally call it a PMP. And they’re like, “What’s that?” I’m like, “Well, it’s about a two to six page document that we can have at the brand activation, so we can show pictures, maybe show where it’s made, or the founder’s picture.” That can either be in a flip-board, or it can be on a tablet that I scroll. But it, instead of having handouts that are very expensive, point of sale is so expensive. You can have it, but it’s expensive.

Lamar Romero:

But instead of having that, we require our dragons to have a PMP. And that’s the thing that usually slows us down the most, I’m like, “Hey, I need your PMP,” and it will take the company a week or two to get it to us. But that’s it. Other than that, if we’re activating at a location, we need a week’s notice, sign a CLA, put a credit card on file. But basically make sure that we understand how we’re going to communicate that story, so that we can go on and do that great job for you.

Lamar Romero:

Because we called it the dragon engagement model, but there’s a hook, there’s a story, and there’s a close to everything. So the hook might be, “I want you to try 50 Cent’s cognac. He had every hand in making this. It’s delicious, it’s way better than Remy. Give it a try.” That’s the hook. Then I’ll tell you the story about how, “50 Cent made it. Here’s his picture. Yeah, he was a rapper from the nineties, it’s really cool.” And then the emotional close might look something like, “I’m so glad you like it. I’d be honored if you take a bottle home, share it with your friends and family, this is how we get our word out.” So, those three need to be a part of your brand activation strategy. Whether you’re doing that yourself, or you’re hiring us to do it, but make sure you’re putting that in there. Because it’s all about putting that product in the heart and mind of people, so they’ll take it home.

Karin Samelson:

Yeah. I mean, step one, two, three, closing deals. I like that. When it comes to training the dragons to know who the customer is, to really understand the customer avatar of the brand, is that part of the process? Is that something that the brand owner should really, really understand and be able to communicate to you?

Lamar Romero:

That depends on the type of brand activation. Because at a retail store for a tasting or a demo, we don’t want to discriminate against anybody. But it is good to know in the back of your mind that this is a product for 25 to 39 year olds. And so if you see somebody that fits that demographic coming, you’re probably a little bit more amped to go, “Hey, hey, hey, you need to come try this.” That education is definitely communicated towards our dragons. But that is something that when it comes to general brand activation, you never know. A lot of times, I’ve done over probably 700, 800 tastings at this point, myself personally. And I’m still surprised when I give a sample to that one person. I’m like, this person ain’t buying nothing, and they’re like, “Oh, I’ll take a case of that.” I’m like, “What?” You just never know. And so, when you’re doing a brand activation, try to not exclude anyone. But obviously if you know what your demographic is, you try to go after them a little bit harder too.

Karin Samelson:

Oh, that’s great advice. Yeah, because in digital marketing, there are so many people to speak to, we have to narrow it down. That’s so true, in person you have no idea. And if they can taste it, if they can walk away with it right then and there, anybody’s fair game.

Lamar Romero:

And I’m glad you said that, Karin, because that is the time to dial in your marketing, with digital marketing. And when you want to attack your demographic, that’s when you should do it, is in your digital marketing strategy. But don’t do it in your brand activation strategy, because you never know. And BeatBox actually had a great following with folks that was way out of their demographic, I’m talking about old people like me, because of the activations we were doing at HEB. And for a while there, they had a social media following which was surprising. Now they’re a grown up company and they’re in little Tetra packs, they’re not sold in five gallon bags anymore, I am their audience. And so, it’s just things like that evolve as the company evolves. Sometimes you start out with a 25 demographic, and now you’re at the 35… I know I’m only using age here, but it’s important to understand that. And digital marketing-wise, go after your demographic, but in brand activation don’t exclude anyone.

Alison Smith:

Yeah. That was apparent, I had a little chuckle about you, imagining someone explaining who 50 Cent is to just some older person who just has no idea. But if you can get that story across, then it’s pretty cool.

Lamar Romero:

Sometimes they’re just like, “He’s a what?” “Never mind, sir, this is a great cognac, you want to try it?”

Alison Smith:

He makes Cognac.

Lamar Romero:

It’s just sometimes you have to find that little thing right then and there, that works. So yeah, definitely.

Alison Smith:

It’s all about pivoting. That’s cool.

Lamar Romero:

Yes, ma’am

Alison Smith:

All right. Well, you gave a couple of tips. If any, you talked about smaller brands getting the founders out there. What are some other tips for those small brands who aren’t maybe ready to hire Dragon Spirits, who want to get out there and run some activations themselves? What are maybe three tips?

Lamar Romero:

If you’re just getting started, one, get with as many friends and family as you can, do parties with AB testing, and make your friends fill out your survey, or they don’t get the free product. And what I mean by that is, maybe you have a new coffee drink. Invite 50 people over and tell them, “This is the reason for it, I’m going to do mine in one cup, and another. And you’re going to fill out a survey at the end, and that’s the cost of the party.” That way you can start knowing right away. Tito changed his vodka formula like 50 times or something, before he found the right formula back in the late nineties. So, that would be one.

Lamar Romero:

Another one would be, do the brand activation yourself, and I think we kind of covered that. And three, start your social media presence early. If you don’t know how to do that, get with folks that do, and experts. Don’t spend a lot of money at first, don’t be running ads in the beginning, just get it set up right. Your website, how it looks, and how your Facebook feels, and do some organic posts until you kind of have it dialed in, before you can start really spending that money and spending that social. Because all of it is a part of the overall strategy, because it’s a loud world out there. I always think of Twitter, and when I think of Twitter, I think of people just yelling at the top of their lungs. And that one million follower guy, he’s louder than everybody else, right? But you’ve got to navigate that noise with a joint marketing strategy, and find your fans, find your lovers, and build that relationship.

Lamar Romero:

And then I’d say, if you want to raise money, once you have that audience, do a WeFunder, man, because now you turn your customers into investors, and it’s ching, ching, ching all the way. Because once they put money into your company, then they’re going to push you even farther. And now they’re not going to have 50 beers at their next party, they’re only going to have your beer. Because they’re an owner, dammit, and they want to show all their friends. And so, you build brand evangelists. But that’s the next stage, that’s for part two.

Karin Samelson:

That’s awesome, Lamar. Well on that note, great advice. Is there anything you would like to leave the audience with? A link, final statement?

Lamar Romero:

Sure. I will take this moment to say we are doing our own WeFunder. If you like our strategy and how we think, check it out. Wefunder.com/dragonspiritsmarketing. We are at current, at this time, 220 K into a one million dollar raise. And then I’d also say, I don’t mind offering my time, 10 minute calls for a free consultation, just to ask a quick question. So if somebody heard something here today they liked, feel free to find me, I’m easy to find online. Write me through any of my social channels, and you mention this podcast and I will definitely give you a 10, 15 minute call to help you out.

Karin Samelson:

Awesome, Lamar. Thank you so much. We’ll provide all the links to how to get in touch with Lamar in the show notes. So, thank you again for joining us. We really enjoyed it.

Lamar Romero:

Karin and Alison, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate being here today. Thank you.

Alison Smith:

Thank you, appreciate it.

Alison Smith:

UMAI Social Circle is a CPG, agency-driven podcast based out of Austin, Texas. We’re excited to share more behind-the-scene insights, chats with industry leaders, and whatever else we learn along the way. Follow us on Instagram @umaimarketing, or check out our website, umaimarketing.com. Catch you back here soon.

#22: Formulating Authentic Better-For-You Products With Marissa Epstein

[AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT MAY BE SUBJECT TO MINOR TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS/VARIATIONS]

Alison Smith:
Calling all consumer goods business owners and marketing professionals. Does planning content ahead of time stress you out? Do you want to run Instagram and Facebook ads but just aren’t sure where to start? If your answer is yes and yes, then our mini course was made for you. It’s 100% free and packed with essential tactics that you can implement as soon as today. To join in, visit our website at umaimarketing.com/minicourse. All right, let’s get on with the pod.

Karin Samelson:
Welcome to the UMAI Social Circle where we talk consumer goods tips to help business owners and marketers grow. We’re Karin and Alison, co-founders of UMAI Marketing and we’re being joined by Marissa Epstein, a registered dietician and Truman scholar recognized to her commitment to health education, lecturer at the University of Texas McCombs Graduate School of Business where she teaches nutrition entrepreneurship, and a general partner at Springdale Ventures, Austin’s very own 70% women owned VC firm on a mission to grow transformative consumer brands. Awesome. Thanks for being here, Marissa.

Marissa Epstein:
Thank you so much for having me.

Karin Samelson:
Great. Well, let’s get a little bit of a background. So, can you tell us a little bit of what inspired you to inspire nutrition and become a registered pediatric dietician?

Marissa Epstein:
Nutrition was on my radar growing up. I am from small-town Texas and food was such a part of our family and community as a cultural component. My mom actually immigrated from Mexico and so the dominant food culture in our home was traditional Mexican. And it was really beautiful, but over time, I found that we were becoming statistics. My senior year of high school, I was looking at photos of myself at my high school graduation party. And my mom had assembled all these pictures from Marissa from kindergarten, every year through high school, as moms do. And I was kind of horrified when I looked at a picture of me when I was graduating compared to going into high school. I had just gained so much weight and I was also pre-diabetic. I had sleep apnea. I had acid reflux. All these symptomatic issues that are born from not maintaining a healthy body weight.

Marissa Epstein:
And I see how it just shocked me and also gave me this ability and to have this beautiful thing, food, that brought us all together as a family had also evolved over time, away from the simple ingredients that is Mexican cooking into what’s more American, as my mom assimilated and became more Americanized over time. And of course, the standard American diet is pretty unhealthy. So, I went to college and my first, my primary goal was to really get myself back on track and take care of myself. And I just had this fundamental thought that, this was the time to get healthy. I went to Texas, UT Austin, I was on this amazing campus, I was in a dorm room, food was kind of taken care of for students with dining halls and stuff. I just like, “Wow, this is probably the easiest it’s ever going to get for me to control the choices of my food environment.”

Marissa Epstein:
And so I did and so I spent my entire freshman year getting fit and exploring food choices and learning about what I was eating, what was in the food I was eating. I kept a food journal for nine months and just started connecting food to what food I was eating and how it made me feel. I didn’t have a scale. I didn’t check my weight. There was none of that. I literally just slept, stopped drinking coffee, and ate according to how food made my body feel. And over time, as I started pattern matching, I started seeing that the foods that made me feel the best were all plants. They were vegetables, they were fruits, they were those lean proteins and fish.

Marissa Epstein:
And I didn’t really cut anything out ever, I just started to pay attention to the meals that made me feel great and the meals that didn’t make me feel great. And over time, spent more time eating foods that made me feel great. And those are the really hydrating food groups that we know and love today as plants. So, nuts and seeds and beans and every type of vegetable and every type of fruit and just nicer, cleaner meat and seafood selections.

Marissa Epstein:
So, as this diet transformation was happening, I was also starting to exercise again. And by the time that year was over, I had lost like 25, 30 pounds. And not in an unhealthy way, in fact, like I said, I didn’t even have a scale. I found out in my annual physical. And I didn’t have a mirror, a full-length mirror in my dorm room, so I tell this story and I just want to emphasize. I was very much separated from the aesthetic obsession of losing weight. It was really a special experience and from that, it just opened the Pandora’s Box for me. Like, “Wow, how hard it is to eat healthy.” And this was back in 2005, a long time ago. How hard it is to eat healthy, how counter-cultural it is, how much sleuthing you have to do, and planning you have to do. The environment is not encouraging you to pick fruits and vegetables as your meals and as your snacks on a daily basis, right? We’re flooded with processed foods wherever we turn.

Marissa Epstein:
And I thought, “Gosh, of course my family is in the situation we’re in. We’re subject to the environment. How can I change this?” And so it just really lit a fire under me to learn more about nutrition and to learn about what was in the food that we’re eating. So I took my first nutrition class at UT. It became a passion and an obsession, the science of it was so exciting to me at the mechanistic level, how these nutrients behave in the body and how our physiology interacts with the science of food. And the more and more I got into it, the more I loved it. So I decided to pick up a second degree in nutrition while I was at UT and worked my butt off to graduate on time.

Marissa Epstein:
And then went into my dietetics training in pediatrics and maternal health, and just fell in love with this moment that you have with children to introduce them to how things grow, introduce them to how to cook and prepare foods. It’s just a really special moment when women are pregnant and when families are being started and when kids are getting off to their first fights to excite them about plant foods, basically. And try to influence that palette early to obviously prepare them for a lifelong positive and sustainable relationship with food. So yeah, that’s how I got started.

Alison Smith:
I love that story and I love that you’re focusing on getting the kids set up for success. I grew up with meat and potatoes and vegetables usually were green beans that came from a can. And that’s just how we grew up, and totally fine, but I just wanted to share this anecdote. I just got from Guatemala for my 30th birthday and off this lake, everyone is basically vegan or vegetarian and I’ve never eaten so many delicious fruit and veggies in my whole life. And I had that same moment like, “Holy crap. I feel so good.” And it’s really not that difficult, you just have to go to the store more often I’ve learned. But just realizing how they make you feel, how veggies make you feel, I’m kind of just on my journey now, but I think that’s super cool story that you shared.

Marissa Epstein:
Yeah. I grew up the same, vegetables came out of a can for me growing up too, and we didn’t have a lot growing up. I wouldn’t have known that there was another way to experience vegetables but my mom would tell us stories about her childhood in Mexico and I was just enchanted. My mom in my mind, she lived this… She lived in like the Garden of Eden or something. They just have fruit trees growing everywhere and they all have gardens and she just spoke about that with so much nostalgia and grew plants in our… We had lots of fruit trees growing up in our house. And there was, I don’t know, the values that came around how she talked about that were just so clear to me.

Marissa Epstein:
We grew a lemon tree because lemons were expensive and she didn’t want to buy them from the grocery store. And we grew pomegranates because pomegranates were this very coveted fruit in our family. They only happen in season, they’re very expensive, we would only get one when we got to the grocery store. There would be no seed left unturned in a pomegranate once we opened it. We planted a pomegranate tree 10 years, at one point whenever we, like 10 years after planting it we finally had robust pomegranate fruit, really good grocery store quality fruit. And I just remember this appreciation for how hard it is to grow food, how resource intense it is, how when you connect how much is required to create food, you don’t want to eat a lot of it. You can’t eat a lot of it. You know how precious it is.

Marissa Epstein:
And that always struck me as so different than American culture where we have as much food as we want, it’s beautiful, no zucchini is unlike any other zucchini, it’s all identical. And once you unpack all of that and start to understand the supply chain and why that’s the case, turns out that something like 40% of our food all goes to waste. But it’s so counter to this land of plenty, it’s so counter to that values-based resource-constrained attitude towards food that made me, at least, appreciate it so deeply. And instead, consumers, we know now, are deeply confused by how many choices there are. You go to the grocery store and north of four out of five consumers report today that they are so confused that they actually walk away from the decision. Instead of-

Alison Smith:
Vision fatigue.

Marissa Epstein:
Exactly. Right?

Alison Smith:
Yeah.

Marissa Epstein:
And so, we have this, I think it is false, the economics of it aren’t exactly capitalist with all the different subsidies and tax economics that go into how we grow our food, but it’s a false pricing in that you have so many foods that are so cheap and those prices don’t really capture all of the work that has to go into them, and they certainly don’t capture the resources that we’re losing and are wasting as a result. And so, I’ve always, I mean on a daily basis and I think what I’ve been obsessed with is like, how can I help people make these healthier choices that are unnatural in our food environment? It would be easy if we were living in my mom’s home town in Mexico, right? Just the way things were.

Marissa Epstein:
Yeah, here it’s not the norm. You really have to go out of your way or pay more to build that healthy diet. And can you imagine, Alison, if we lived the way you were living and it was just at your fingertips [crosstalk 00:13:07] and everybody did it and you didn’t have to think about and talk about or obsess about it. It’s just normal, like all-

Alison Smith:
It was just grown. And like you said, we are growing an avocado tree, a peach tree, and a lemon tree. The avocado tree is not doing so well, but the others maybe in a couple years will get there, but-

Marissa Epstein:
Yes, [crosstalk 00:13:28] personalities.

Alison Smith:
Yeah, I think he might’ve given up on us actually, but we haven’t given up on him. But I like that, I’ve started to try to envision, and I’m sorry, we’re off a tangent here, but starting to envision, when you eat your fruits and vegetables, where they came from I think is really helpful. Thinking about all the background to how you got this banana in your hand is kind of, gets you nostalgic about food but… I could talk about that forever, veggies for life.

Marissa Epstein:
I like the idea of teaching kids this and helping connect them what their food is [crosstalk 00:14:11].

Alison Smith:
Yeah.

Marissa Epstein:
It’s really fun. Yeah.

Alison Smith:
That’s cool. Very cool.

Karin Samelson:
I think something that really struck me with that was you mentioning people going to the store and not really understanding a lot of things and I had that experience when I worked at an egg company where we were coining the term pasturaised and it was pasturaised, it was free ranged, it was cage free, it was conventional and there were so many terms, so much terminology at the grocery store on the shelf. So with all of these product and packaging nutrition claims in particular, non-GMO project verified, certified, organic, gluten-free, fat-free, sugar-free, all of these claims, while some are really vital to the health of the consumer, like gluten free if you have celiac, this is very helpful. How do you feel about the buzz worthy claims? Like natural and organic that just flood the shelves, and I feel like, personally, they can confuse the consumer.

Marissa Epstein:
They do confuse the consumer. Take organic as a great example. Before we had to create the organic certification program, we didn’t know that there were pesticides used in conventional farming, right? The consumer didn’t. And so what the labels do, first and foremost, is draw a distinction between what you didn’t know you didn’t know about your food. And so this, I think, has inspired an extraordinary amount of fear across the consumer population about, what is really in the food I’m eating? And how is it really grown? And what am I really putting in my body? And the more has been revealed via the front of package labels, the more fearful we all are.

Marissa Epstein:
I mean, you just look at the GMO debate over the last 20 years, and at a fundamental level, there’s this concept that our food is being grown in a way that’s harmful to me, one, why don’t I know about it? And two, why is this happening? There’s a baseline trust in the system and then a label shows up and you realize, “Whoa, I can’t just assume everything that is conventional is okay for me.” And I’m not saying that it is or it isn’t, what I am saying is that that’s the characteristic, the emotional underpinning of the labeling conversations.

Marissa Epstein:
So then you start to pinpoint, okay, well all these different aspects about food, they need to be understood and then they need to be communicated to the consumer, and there are an infinite number of characteristics to choose from, right? Whether it’s growing methods like the USDA certification, organic certification covers, whether it’s the Clean Label Project and measuring the number of toxins in the food. Or whether it’s leached from the soil or if it’s used in manufacturing. It’s extraordinary.

Marissa Epstein:
So yeah, does that confusing? Yes. And does it end up putting a huge burden on the consumer to have to, I used the word sleuthing earlier, and that’s the only word I can describe, what investigative reporting requirement is incumbent on the every-day shopper. I mean, I’m a dietician, this is my profession, and I get confused at the grocery store. You should not have to have a nutrition degree to go grocery shopping. And so, yeah, it’s confusing but I think what you’re really asking about is like, what’s the fairness of that? And is that okay? And how do we feel about it being confusing? And I feel very strongly that the baseline should be safety and that it should be safe until proven… It shouldn’t be incumbent on the consumer to have to distinguish whether these choices are safe or good for us, right? Wouldn’t it be great if the baseline were good and that we could trust that and that we could not have this extraordinary cognitive burden every time we go grocery shopping?

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. Absolutely. And do you have any recommendations on how the brand can help with that burden on the consumer? So, is it through messaging? What can they do?

Marissa Epstein:
The brands need to tell… Well, let’s start at what the brands need to do behind the scenes before they talk to the consumer. They need to know their supply chain. They need to know their manufacturers. And they need to know their producers. That’s a lot of work, and right now, there are very few barriers to entry in the food business and you can really just build a food brand and launch it with pretty low burdens. That being said, your consumer will end up finding out what you’re about and what your product is. And you may cross that first point of meeting at point of purchase and with your packaging, but if you’re looking for repeat customers, we know the educated household shopper, primarily moms, they’re going to get under the hood and I always tell brands like, “You will be found out.”

Marissa Epstein:
So first and foremost, the best way to bring authenticity and transparency to your consumer is actually to know your product better than anybody. So you need to know, where are your ingredients coming from? What do they go through to get to your manufacturing site? What manufacturing practices are happening on site? What implication does your packaging have on your product? That formulation, people are always so quick to brag about the grams of protein or the amount of calcium, a very nutrient focused, but the formulation itself, is it legit? Or are you just reassembling synthetic nutrient inputs and putting together the new version of a cracker that’s supposed to be better for you? And so they really need to believe in that formulation and be working with a nutrition professional who can help really interpret the product in a way that has meaningful health benefits for the end user.

Marissa Epstein:
So my first piece of advice is, you need to know your product better than anybody else. And then the second is, okay, now how do you communicate this? Well you need to tell the truth, period. Anything that is an implication or that is trying to create a health aura about a product, and you can do that just with the colors of the packaging that you choose, right? Or I work with so many entrepreneurs who are so quick to want to make all of these outrageous claims about what their product can do. And I know that there is a market opportunity for that. We are aware that people buy based on whether they think a product is healthier than its side by side competitor. But in the long term, that will not win because when you claim to have all of these benefits that the consumer doesn’t end up experiencing, they’re going to drop you. And your product will win or lose based on the function of whether it “worked”, instead of whether it tasted great and made someone feel really good.

Marissa Epstein:
So, I always ask entrepreneurs to go through an exercise of all the things you want to say about your product. Which ones are unquestionably true? Which ones do you know are illegal? You’ve already gone through the FDA checklist and are sure that you’d like to, but you can’t put on your packaging? And then which ones are maybes? And basically if something’s a maybe, it’s not true. You need to stay really tight and buttoned up and clean about this and instead of trying to put everything in front of your consumer on the outset and over communicate and oversell, think of your product like an onion. And you’ve got the first layer that people see and you need to prioritize what goes on that first interaction, but invite your target customer to peel back the onion and get to know you better. And then ask yourself, as they get to know you, your founding team, your brand values, your vision, your product, your formulation, the ingredients, the nutrient panel, the nutrition panel, are they more delighted when they learn more? Are they happier with what they see? Are they more excited that they selected you as a pancake mix versus any other pancake mix on shelf?

Marissa Epstein:
And the fact is, if you take that approach, you will engender longer term loyalty. That’s what all the data shows. When people feel like they look on back of package and they see, “Oh, the front of package said this has 20 grams of protein, but that’s actually from some soy isolate that I don’t understand that got put in here that I don’t even know what the… When they see unfamiliar ingredients, they’re like, “What? Why did you do this to me?” They get upset. None of us want the wool pulled over our eyes. Or if they see a highly-functional beverage that is promising energy all day long because it’s plant based, and then they look on the back of pack and they see, “Oh, there’s just caffeine added to this,” there’s dissonance there.

Marissa Epstein:
And so I’m always trying to encourage entrepreneurs, “You’ve got to think about your product like you think about people.” Good people with strong values have great long-term relationships with their friends. They’re consistent. They do what they say they’re going to do. They deliver on promises. They’re there for you when you need them. And so really, great products are like great people.

Alison Smith:
I mean, as marketers, our whole job is to improve someone’s life but you can get in a lot of trouble with just making those direct claims. There’s a lot of different ways to do that. But I wanted to ask you, as a consumer, what are some red flags in terms of claims that are on packaging or elsewhere that a consumer should be worried about?

Marissa Epstein:
Yeah. There’s a totally new generation of front-of-package attributes that are coming out that many of which are, we’ve never even seen before. And so really, it unfortunately is incumbent on the consumer to try to figure out what they mean. My first response to that is, well, front of package isn’t the only place to look for information on the real story. You need to look at the side panel or the back panel. Sometimes you have to even go online, I do all the time, to try to figure out what the actual product is. I think the ingredient list is the most telling piece of information about a product. And that’s always going to be on the nutrition panel, right under the nutrition facts.

Marissa Epstein:
So, reading that ingredient list and really trying to identify, are these ingredients familiar? Do you know what these words means? Are you comfortable with this? And if not, don’t hesitate to just put it back on the shelf. We market products based on the nutrients that they have, but your body is actually receiving foods in the food matrix. So, we can extract protein from soy, or we can feed people whole soy where that protein is accompanied by fiber and antioxidants and all these other benefits that exist in the matrix of the actual food. So when you deconstruct these food items and just extract one component, it doesn’t behave the same way in the body as it otherwise would accompanied by the rest of the substance that the food contains in nature.

Marissa Epstein:
So, the further we get from the way that whole foods exist on the planet, the more likely it is that these nutrients in isolation, these nutrients are being formulated in isolation and that front of package is marketing something that’s just nutrient focused and not food focused. So, my first advice, look at the ingredients label. When I go grocery shopping, I ignore so much of what’s on the front of package, and look at the nutrient label. So things that-

Alison Smith:
It’s pretty, but just turn it over.

Marissa Epstein:
Turn it over. And then what you’ll find is that that is so exhausting that I try to spend as little time as possible in aisles where I have to be looking at nutrient labels. And I’ll tell you the areas that do not require labels in the grocery store are probably the best areas to be spending time in. So, labels, I would say front-of-package attributes I’m excited about, I do think that the USDA-certified organic program is extraordinary. It’s stellar. It’s strong. I spent time at the Department of Agriculture and I know there’s plenty to critique, but it is truly one of the most well-run programs that we have in the country to certify organic agriculture practices and so I’m always looking for that label.

Marissa Epstein:
You mentioned natural, there’s no technical definition for that. So it’s just another nice word, like plant based, to put on the front of the package. But I’m always looking among packaged foods, foods that are made with fruits and veggies, you can put that on the front of the package and so I’m always excited to see that there’s different vegetables and different fruit components being used in packaged food. Whole Foods, I think, does a really great job of manufacturing its own 365 brand for example, with whole food based ingredients. So, if I’m looking at snack bars for example, I get more excited about labels that say, “Made with whole almonds,” than I do about almond extract on that ingredient list. And that shows up front of package.

Marissa Epstein:
There are technical definitions for the source of claims, so the nutritional claims, made with or good source of vitamin A, great source of vitamin A, [inaudible 00:29:22] vitamin A. And so those definitely call my attention and then I’ll look at back of pack to find out, “Okay, is this vitamin A because there’s butternut squash in this? Or is it vitamin A because it’s been fortified?” Always thinking through the bang for my buck on ingredients versus nutrients. But I would say those are some of the call outs that I’m excited about.

Marissa Epstein:
On the manufacturing side, there’s all kinds of cool stuff coming up. Obviously in the coffee space, fair trade has been around for a really long time, but now there are labels that are even showing up that are more, I think, fair and exciting and demonstrative of what good supply chain practices look like. I mentioned the Clean Label Project, I love what they’re doing to really bring transparency to the leaching of heavy metals and other toxins that are showing up in food, especially categories like baby foods. GMOs are really interesting, because the GMO-Verified Project… Well GMOs are covered under the USDA Organic Certification, so I know that there’s a lot of confusion about that, so for I always go back on the GMO issue. What you can, if you can buy organic, and if companies can use organic ingredients, then you can even speak to a degree about your product being able to be made with organic ingredients or made with organic X, Y, Z input.

Marissa Epstein:
So yeah, I think in the spirit of looking for the most nutrient-dense and the most wholesomely grown products on the market, as many of us are, and as I’m sure many of your listeners are trying to create, you want to put the most legit claims on the front of package. And then be aware that people are going to flip that package over and when they try to interpret what’s on the front, you want to have legit information on the back. It builds a whole narrative, your packaging and then how your packaging then relates back to your own media online and how they discover your brand in social. And you just want consistency through that whole thing, like I said, an onion. If I see USDA, if I see made with organic fruits and veggies on the front, I’m going to flip to the back and say, “Okay, well what vegetables are in here? Which ones are organic?” Double click on that and explore it and if I’m happier with more I found out, the more loyal of a customer I’m going to be.

Marissa Epstein:
So for those brands who are coming out with some of these new labels, or new attributes and claims, I just look for opportunities to tell the story about what those attributes mean. I was looking at a company the other day that was claiming it was wild harvested, and I’d never heard that before, and so we got under the hood. What does that label mean? Why are you using that term? Describe it. To me, how can we describe that to the customer better? And I think it’s very, very cool. They want it to mean that the main ingredient that they use is grown without really being touched by any sort of industrialized, agriculture process. It’s just wildly grown and it’s wildly harvested. And in a natural state, actually in honor of indigenous practices hundreds of years since. So, very cool story and you would want to unpack that attribute for the consumer to really help them appreciate the thoughtfulness that you’re bringing and trying to describe the brand to the customer.

Alison Smith:
I was just going to say, I like that whoever you’re speaking of didn’t follow just the hot claims list and kind of went with storytelling and was really, like you were saying, true to their brand.

Karin Samelson:
Totally. And it’s one thing to put things on your packaging and it’s another thing to tell that story just like y’all said through your marketing, through everything on your website, through everything you’re pushing out on social.

Alison Smith:
But we talked about basically what consumer goods brands should portray on their packaging, but we’re curious, are there some new consumer behavior changes that you’re noticing that people are looking for? I mean, we talked more about basically that the average consumer is just more curious and educated. So, what are those and how can CPG brands just get ahead of these changes?

Marissa Epstein:
Yes. The average consumer today is much more educated about nutrition than they were five, 10 years ago. I think the trends that I’m seeing are the need for, with that increase of understanding of what nutritious foods are, is also coming a frustration with how difficult it is to eat that way. And therefore, a real lean into convenience. So, I think frozen foods have really just exploded over the past year or two. What a great way to get freshly-picked, nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables that have a long shelf life because they’re frozen and can be packed with great benefits that you would get from fresh food that you would otherwise be worried about wasting in the fridge. So, there’s lots of innovation happening in frozen that I get excited about. And I think people have moved down that aisle more frequently over the last couple years, especially with the pandemic.

Marissa Epstein:
Another trend in the convenience space is what I’m going to call like whole food packaging. So, everything from snackable miniature English cucumbers to [inaudible 00:35:19] which is a portfolio company of ours rolling out prepped vegetables. The smoothie blends obviously. Easy to make or easy to throw in your blender. We all watched that happen with Daily Harvest, but it’s a format that really works. And I’m seeing it across categories, baby foods to adult snacks and breakfast. So I think these semi-prepared grocery ready items that with just a few steps, people can have ready to go is an exciting trend.

Marissa Epstein:
The other consumer trend that I’m following is really this extraordinary aware of plastics and how… It used to be the case that we all said we really cared about the environment, but it wasn’t a lead in our purchasing behavior. But now, if you stack up two very similar products next to each other and one has more sustainable packaging than the other, people are choosing the more sustainable packaging. It’s a great way to differentiate and it’s also, as we’re all thinking through and corporations are thinking through what their footprints look like, how to reduce these non-renewable materials in the supply chain is showing up in consumer interest.

Marissa Epstein:
So, I get to excited about that. The technology isn’t there yet to really, especially for early-stage brands, to be able to afford to bring about that level of transformation, but it really feels like we’re moving in that direction where one day it would be pretty standard, to have renewable, recyclable materials and eliminate plastics from the supply chain.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. And it’s really something that small brands can truly aspire to. One of our clients, Serenity Kids baby food, if you’re familiar, they partner with TerraCycle to recycle their pouches, but it’s so very expensive, so getting there eventually I think is really admirable, but understanding that shipping glass is really heavy, and it breaks, and things like that. So knowing that you can eventually get there is something that you can aspire to.

Marissa Epstein:
Yeah, definitely. And I think that all those steps that you make along the way as you move from small marginal changes at every packaging refresh is an opportunity to tell your customers that you’re progressing towards that aspirational goal.

Karin Samelson:
Can you share some of your favorite consumer goods brands right now? Any brands that you can see are really innovating or making a difference? A brand that other founders can look up to and get inspired by?

Marissa Epstein:
Well, I love all the brands in our portfolio, obviously. One of the brands that I am just so excited about Caraway, they do just an extraordinary job on product and experience in building out cleaner cookware. This is just an area, again, where that same feeling of toxicity in our food translates to the toxicity in the equipment that we use to cook. And so using cleaner cookware and providing a solution for everyday people that’s still stick free is just, it’s beautiful and it’s inspiring and they’ve thought through everything from not just product but all the way to how it arrives in your kitchen by providing sleeves for the lids to the pots and pans, because all of us know how messy our drawers get. And then even organizers for inside of your drawers or your pantry for you to keep your pots pristine and unscratched. So I think the thoughtfulness that I’ve seen in that brand and how they’re conveying their values to their customer with little touches like that has been really cool.

Marissa Epstein:
I’m also really exited about our company, one of our portfolio companies, Atlas Coffee Club. They are a subscription coffee company and they, I mentioned fair trade earlier, they’re going above and beyond fair trade standards, and communicating these story lines to the customer of how coffee is actually grown all over the world and that there is more to explore and I think that that adventuresome invitation to get to know and explore coffee is a relationship they’ve been able to build with their consumer that’s really exciting to me. I think it’s so differentiated.

Marissa Epstein:
And then the other brand I’ve mentioned is In Good Taste, another portfolio company. They did… The genesis, born out of the pandemic to start a company that sends tasting size bottles of wine to your house for you to experience a wine tasting at home. So clever and also really changing the way we think about exploring wine, going from having to take ourselves to Napa or Italy is certainly not feasible for me right now. And I think bringing that experience into your home is just another way that a brand has really thought through the consumer and their experience and how they can activate that experience in house.

Marissa Epstein:
So, I really get excited about brands that obviously know their end user really well and are putting themselves in the shoes of the end user and trying to not just solve their pain points and then go above and beyond to also surprise and delight them.

Alison Smith:
Those are three very cool brands. Thank you so much for sharing. I felt like you were speaking directly to me about having an organized drawer, so I’m going to go check out Caraway for sure.

Marissa Epstein:
Yes.

Alison Smith:
And also, yeah, I mean the wine too, that’s cool. But Marissa, thank you so much. I feel like this, we just learned so much. Sorry for going on a tangent in the beginning, but it’s just so interesting and I think what you’re doing is really cool. With that being said is, how can someone reach you? Is there any way for someone to send you an email or chat with you?

Marissa Epstein:
Totally. Yeah. I’m just marissa@springdaleventures.com. Feel free to send me a note, and I’d be delighted to meet any entrepreneurs in your audience and hear more about what they’re building.

Alison Smith:
Thank you so much.

Karin Samelson:
Thanks so much Marissa.

Marissa Epstein:
Thanks guys.

Alison Smith:
UMAI Social Circle is a CPG, agency-driven podcast based out of Austin, Texas. We’re excited to share more behind-the-scene insights, chats with industry leaders, and whatever else we learn along the way. Follow us on Instagram @umaimarketing, or check out our website, umaimarketing.com. Catch you back here soon.

#21: Joi Chevalier on Thoughtful, Repeatable Management Systems

[AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT MAY BE SUBJECT TO MINOR TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS/VARIATIONS]

Narrator:
Calling all consumer goods, business owners, and marketing professionals. Does planning content ahead of time stress you out? Do you want to run Instagram and Facebook ads but just aren’t sure where to start? If your answer is yes and yes, then our mini course was made for you. It’s 100% free and packed with essential tactics that you can implement as soon as today. To join in, visit our website at umaimarketing.com/minicourse. All right, let’s get on with the pod.

Karin Samelson:
Welcome to the UMAI Social Circle where we talk consumer goods tips to help business owners and marketers grow. We’re Karin and Alison, co-founders of UMAI Marketing, and we’re being joined by Joi Chevalier, founder and CEO of the Cook’s Nook, a truly mission-driven food and tech culinary incubator cultivating community here in Austin, Texas. The Cook’s Nook provides commercial kitchen space to its members, as well as business and entrepreneurship development consulting. Thank you so much for joining us, Joi.

Joi Chevalier:
Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it and like being with you guys.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. Awesome. Well, let’s dive a little bit into your background. You have an extensive background in product management and strategy in big tech. Can you tell us how the Cook’s Nook even came to be?

Joi Chevalier:
Well, sure. I make light of it. I was working on my PhD and literature in technology, and talking about this thing called a product manager, and where we turning our instructors, teachers, into product managers in early days of developing online pedagogies and tools and systems and network-based classrooms. I was one. I was building an entire classroom to teach British literature, 16th century, 17th century, British literature, in fact, in network classrooms.

Joi Chevalier:
I was actually in building asynchronous chat systems, tied to them, and all kinds of things. Companies saw all the stuff I was working on and writing and doing talks and papers on. You could still find them all online, probably in the way back internet way back card type somewhere. I ended up working for technology companies, director of marketing and products. Eventually, after startups here in town and acquisitions on some products, my focus was really around community personalization and customization of technology and data and platforms and experiences.

Joi Chevalier:
I wound up at a very large Fortune 50 here in the area in Round Rock, and basically eventually owned all of their authentication systems as the senior product manager and strategist global. Got to be the in-house… Product management, I’ve always believed, since you have a number on your back is the owner for a strategy and a revenue. It is the inbound marketing owner. It is the one who determines what needs to be in the market, how to get to market, what is the product market fit, the customer market fit? What is the thing that is supposed to make money? What is the thing that is supposed to drive the business?

Joi Chevalier:
I mean, the idea of getting a product to market means you have to have a process and a means and a vision on how to get products to market, and what is the product. And you have a clear notion of your relationship to a customer. There is nothing but them. Then the rest is, how do you organize the business and how do you speak clearly to a development and operations process, in a form of a series of requirements that are clear, unequivocal, and represent a set of features that you know speak to a persona or personas that have real utility to them in the market that will help them solve a problem and get something done? And give development a real set of criteria that are acceptable and you know the cost of those things.

Joi Chevalier:
But the cost of those things, if they’re done well, will be far less than the revenue you know that you can make with that audience at the end of the day. And you have a pretty high confidence that you can do that in that feature set. I just define product management. And to get that product to a launch effectively, knowing what that market needs and expects, and to go out and talk to a whole bunch of folks and a whole bunch of analysts and get my product marketing teams, and then eventually PR teams and others to do the work, to speak to those folks, doing their outbound work, to get that out there.

Joi Chevalier:
You get good at doing this process over and over and over and over and over again. And so, after doing it so much, and you start to get to a point where it’s all you think about, and it’s what you know how to do. That’s great, and it does lead to success and it does lead to… I mean, I had a very successful career doing that. But after a while, you know that that can be put to good utility in other places and for other benefit.

Joi Chevalier:
For me, that other benefit was how do I see other people being successful in this way? Can I show this to someone else? Are there women? Are there Black and Brown entrepreneurs who need to know this? I see so many products and people trying to make products. And to me, it is by that time is now natural. It was learned, but it now comes naturally. And so, I decided to go to culinary school at night while I was running those kinds of things. I would run a program that runs stuff during the day, and about four o’clock, I would jump the car, come back down I35, put my little Cami hat on, put my little jacket on, and run into school here at Escoffier, right across from a Highland Mall, jump out.

Joi Chevalier:
Nobody noticed I wore chef pants during the day. Black is black. Black is black. They didn’t notice, and would do that from 5:00 to midnight. I would just show up at work with a lot of food during the day. “Would you like some brioche?” They were like, “What are you doing? Brioche?”

Karin Samelson:
Made it last night.

Joi Chevalier:
“Made it last night.” Exactly. Most of my team knew. “Got focaccia.” It was funny. They just started coming around to my desk. “What did you make?” “That was rice last night. You don’t want that.” They knew. They knew because it wasn’t a secret. Had a great circle. I had great vice presidents and I had great others. “Joi is always doing something, because she could do products all day long. She’s been doing them for a long time.”

Joi Chevalier:
And so, it just happened to be that one year in 2014, Dell stuck something out. It said, “Put your name on this list for a voluntary separation.” What the hell is that? It was like a lottery. It was like secret Santa or something. You’ve got to pay to play and stick your name on it, and find out what it’s about. You’re like, “Okay. The hell.” Well, a lot of people put their names on it. Let’s just be honest. There was a lot of names, and my name was on it.

Joi Chevalier:
Vice-president, actually CTO of the company, saw my name on the list and said, “Your name can’t be on this list.” I mean, what’s the list? We don’t even know.

Karin Samelson:
I just want to find out what the [crosstalk 00:08:31] is.

Joi Chevalier:
I want to [inaudible 00:08:31] what it is.

Narrator:
I want to win.

Joi Chevalier:
I want to win. I know, exactly. Is this [inaudible 00:08:39]? What is this, seriously? I mean, I had an idea, but what is it? He said, “Your name needs to come off the list.” I was like, “Okay, well, make me an offer. I’ll take my name off the list.”

Narrator:
Does that basically mean they over-hired or were having a year that they didn’t expect, and that’s how-

Joi Chevalier:
No, that typically means they’re trying to get rid of an entire sort of thing they’re [crosstalk 00:09:04]-

Narrator:
Program? Oh, okay.

Joi Chevalier:
It’s a band of folks. They were looking to get rid of everybody between seven and 15 years. They were just trying to cut dollars.

Narrator:
Wow.

Karin Samelson:
Corporate world. We’re not a part of it.

Joi Chevalier:
That’s just corporate. Yeah.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah.

Joi Chevalier:
That’s exactly what they did. They got rid of directors, all of us who were at director level.

Narrator:
Wow.

Joi Chevalier:
Yeah. They were-

Karin Samelson:
Well, they gave you the opportunity to do a passion project that’s turning to a career.

Joi Chevalier:
I saw it as an opportunity, and that’s why I was okay with my name being on the list. I mean, I wasn’t crazy. Come on, I was corporate.

Karin Samelson:
I’ve been here.

Joi Chevalier:
Yeah. I knew I was putting my name in a hopper.

Karin Samelson:
Okay. That happened. Then the Cook’s Nook. Was that always in the back of your mind or did it-

Joi Chevalier:
It was. It was.

Karin Samelson:
… take you a while?

Joi Chevalier:
No, it was actually my project while I was in culinary school.

Karin Samelson:
Okay.

Joi Chevalier:
When that happened, if I was going to go, I was okay with it. If I was going to stay, I was okay with it. That’s why I suggested for them to make me an offer. You had to make me an offer to stay.

Karin Samelson:
Love it.

Joi Chevalier:
They did, actually. They made me an offer to stay. It was a good offer too, actually. But I ended up leaving. And so, it gave me the opportunity to execute upon the project that I product managed, which was this thing I had written out while I was in culinary school. I had drawn the pictures for, had done the SWAT analysis, and the feature lists, and written up the requirements for. I did exactly the same work. I had gone around, gone around town, done the zip code work, done the demographic work, and then the same exact work I would have done for any new product.

Joi Chevalier:
Determined that there was a gap in the market that was not here, which was how do we have a space in a place that spoke directly to entrepreneurs, that gave me centralized place to rally around, to talk about entrepreneur issues and functions was a turnkey solution for entrepreneurs to come in, to use the space, have a co-working space, a smaller event space, the production facilities space, and the business services around them to try to help them launch their products and least get first initial traction into the market. That was the definition. And then it had a set of requirements, what needed to be there. Sounds like a product?

Karin Samelson:
Sounds like a product.

Narrator:
Yeah. I love how you somehow simplified it. I mean, it seems like this abstract idea about the way, I guess, your brain works is you’re able to simplify it and make it something that makes sense, and as consumable, really…

Joi Chevalier:
Yeah. That was it.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah.

Joi Chevalier:
It needed to have these features. I wrote out all the features. I Moscowed the features, just like you do, must have, could have, should have, would have. I gave each feature an approximate cost. I started to prioritize them and an approximate cost for those features. Right. And then I had to go to a development team, aka general contractor, and an architect to tell me how much it would cost to get those features.

Narrator:
You’re solo, besides your devs? Is this just you? Awesome.

Joi Chevalier:
It was.

Karin Samelson:
Wow.

Joi Chevalier:
Yeah. Me and my devs, and I went and got a marketing team, aka Flywheel Creative. That Karen Barry and her company. Yeah. That was pretty much it.

Karin Samelson:
I think the one thing that’s really sticking with me as you’re talking about the product management and how it has translated into the Cook’s Nook is the huge importance of processes. Once you have them down, they can be repeatable and they can be successful. How important is it for CPG business owners to have these established processes in place before they really start doing the work?

Joi Chevalier:
They can be, but they don’t have to be. But once you realize that you have a process, you should commit to it, write it down, and know when you do it again, that you have to edit it, which means you had to write it down and put it someplace. So you can’t come back to it and say, “Here’s how I just changed it. Was it better or did I make it worse?” If you’re not willing to commit to the mental work of process management, or process change, then you’ve captured nothing about what you’ve done. You’ve captured absolutely nothing.

Joi Chevalier:
You can’t even examine what you’ve done. You can’t even learn from what you’ve done. You can’t take any benefit from what you’ve done. And so, you’re learning it every time you step in it, and that’s slow. It’s slow and costly. Let alone take benefit of looking over and seeing what somebody else has done. You’re not even looking at what you’ve done. Some people get that and it just pains me, because you can hear it in my voice when I can’t get that across to somebody, to look at what you’ve done for yourself.

Joi Chevalier:
I get that it’s overwhelming for some people sometimes, and maybe that’s just I’ve got to find a way to not make it so overwhelming. The idea is to get that under control over time, but it’s still not pretty at first. It is not. It is not. Your days are long and heinous until that process improvement starts to kick in and you start to realize the benefit of it, because you’re not stepping in it as much. But you’ve got to commit to writing down when you do learn things so that it benefits you later, so that you get control of your time, your SOPs, your processes to benefit you later.

Joi Chevalier:
You’re going to invest the time upfront, so you get it back in droves later. You can share it with others because you’re going to have to give it away. You will not just be you by yourself hopefully soon enough.

Karin Samelson:
Such [crosstalk 00:15:42].

Narrator:
Right. That’s so [crosstalk 00:15:43]. That’s a good lesson all in itself. I mean, you have to get your process that may be so apparent to you, and the explanation about your product, that’s so apparent to you… I mean, we see it a lot in the marketing world where you’re not communicating it properly to your team or your consumers really. But thank you for that.

Joi Chevalier:
I will tell you. That’s the reason why I was struggling today is because I was doing the transition with someone, and felt that things were not written. It was somebody transitioning for another role, somebody else in my company was transitioning. And because it wasn’t written, I was having to go back and do that for somebody else.

Narrator:
Right. Yeah. Just, I mean, systems should be in place with any business, because, I mean, it’s not just a tech thing or what have you. It really is important for every business. So I love how you explain that. I can’t wait to learn more about how you think about entrepreneurs as how entrepreneurs should think of themselves as product really. You talked about that earlier, but I really want some more background first on-

Joi Chevalier:
Sure.

Narrator:
… big tech to food. I’m assuming you have a passion for food. If that’s correct, where does that come from? What does food mean to you?

Joi Chevalier:
Great question. I would say it’s in my own family. The week of Juneteenth, I did three food demos. It’s so funny because we’ll talk about this and CPG and food and tech don’t actually ever see me actually do foodways work. Foodways folks, who I do, lots of talks with, don’t ever see me do this stuff. It’s really funny how these are really completely split. But yeah, I do a lot of talking on foodways and African-American foodways and food history. One day I’ll write a cookbook. We’ll eventually get there.

Karin Samelson:
Ooh, cookbook.

Narrator:
[crosstalk 00:17:51] for that.’

Joi Chevalier:
On coastal Texas cuisine. I’ll get there. My family’s from Houston, and East Texas, and Southwest Louisiana. My family was one of the first early families in old French town in Houston, which is in Kashmere Gardens, 5th ward, in Settegast, and started a couple of the Black Catholic churches in the area. That’s just a tradition I grew up in, fish fries and [inaudible 00:18:21], and bazaars. Went to Catholic school all of my life until I came to UT.

Joi Chevalier:
And so, grew up around food, and cooking food, and making food, and especially the food on special occasions. Just real food made… I don’t say real food, but just that very earthy food. In particular, the East Texas, that was very vegetable forward, through my grandmother and her family, and still the food that I work a lot with and celebrate. I still cook. I cook a lot. I’m notorious for food and my friends love coming to eat when I cook.

Joi Chevalier:
And so, the idea that when I was sitting there at days wondering, “Adele,” What my next act was going to look like.” It was, “Wow. I could be yet another technology company, but I don’t think that’s what it is. What is that thing?” I think it’s in food and, God, it is not a food corporate. Geez. Can you imagine me at a brand company? I think I would look at those folks even crazier than I was looking at tech corporate.

Joi Chevalier:
I have a tendency to look at my own uplines like, “Really?” It’s a terrible habit of mine, because I was notorious for that too. They’re like, “You can’t even hide your face in a corporate meeting.” No, I can’t.

Karin Samelson:
Zoom camera off now.

Joi Chevalier:
Yeah. I’ve done that. I mean, I wish. If he would just go, “You’ve got something to say, boy?” “Oh, no, keep going.” But again, it just ended up being it was in food. And then what is that? And before for Dell, I had been at startups. I mean, I was in startups more than I was at Dell. Going into a fortune 50 was… I mean, to this day, my friends who I was in startups with for the longest time here in the Austin area, are they still laugh? Because they were like, “Really?”

Joi Chevalier:
When I said I was going to go to Dell, they were like, “Really? They still crack up at that. That was a shocker for me to go someplace so big. They all stayed in startups, very successfully so. But that’s all they ever did. And that’s what my crowd always did. And so, it was going back to something small. If it was entrepreneurs, food entrepreneurs, all right, then. So what does that look like, and who is that, and does that make sense, and what are they missing?

Joi Chevalier:
Then that’s how I got into that product process. What is this? And let me go figure out what that is and what that looks like. Yeah. Yeah. And so, it’s afforded me a platform to be able to talk about these issues in food and tech, label it in food and tech. I mean, we were some of the first to talk about that five, six years ago. And first started talking about it, “This food and tech, what is it?” It’s not big ag. It’s not corporate food. It is this marriage of food and entrepreneurs.

Joi Chevalier:
I’ll yank that back all the time when I’m in corporate food conversations or national calls because big ag tried to yank it. Nope, not you all. This is entrepreneurship in tech is about entrepreneurs. It’s about new food and it’s about innovative food. It’s not brand food stop and it’s not big ag. Well, big ag is a source of new technology. I understand what you’re saying about technology. And a lot of new tech is coming out of ag. But when we say food plus tech with the little plus, food plus tech, we’re talking entrepreneurs, kids. In specific one of those categories, and that is CPG, let’s be clear. But they did try to yank that.

Joi Chevalier:
And so, what does food in tech. Food in tech is this ability to try to take what we’ve learned in technology about these iterative processes, getting to launch as quickly and getting through iterations quickly and bringing that into a culinary space, to the benefit of entrepreneurs, the food entrepreneurs, and teaching them these same methods and methods of thinking, in order to get them there fastest because they need to get there fastest.

Joi Chevalier:
It’s not restaurant work. It’s something else. Even at the Cook’s Nook, we have a minimum of… A lot of times, people, when they go into a space, they have a year’s lease. Our minimum has been four months. Why? Because the idea is that you should be able to get into a process quickly enough, fast enough, get launched and get some early traction. And if we’re good, it should take you four months.

Narrator:
Wow. Are you saying on average, generally… I know a lease is usually a year, but because of that year lease, does it take others on average a year to get up and running and you’re able to cut that down to four months?

Joi Chevalier:
No. What we’re saying is we ask them for a minimum of four months. And then folks can just go month to month after that.

Narrator:
Do a lot of them get there that quickly?

Joi Chevalier:
Many of them do.

Narrator:
Nice.

Joi Chevalier:
Yes. If they get at least something out into the market and get themselves and trying to get others to talk about it. Yeah. Some people don’t, but most of them do. I’d say more than 50%, 60%, they get something in there and out the door that they’re comfortable with, and start to try to talk about it, try to get a sales process going. Get into a store, get into some early events, try to co-brand, a little thing with someone else, do pop ups. Whatever the events might be, they start to do some things. Yeah. Yeah.

Karin Samelson:
That’s so interesting because so many CPG founders, they have full-time jobs. They’re doing what you did after their corporate job, 5:00 to midnight or later, grinding for this mission-based product that they believe in. That’s who we honestly love to work with as well because when they have a product they believe in, they work hard.

Joi Chevalier:
They work hard. The question is, do they know the right things to work on, and say no to not work on the stuff that’s easy, that comes easiest to them. Even I had to. It was, “Hey, let’s go build a website, Joi.” Yes. Of course, Joi wants to go build a website and make some brochures. No Joi. You’re not going to go build the website and make some brochures. What are you going to go do, Joi? You’re going to go do the horrible hard thing.

Joi Chevalier:
Well, not horrible, hard. It’s just the one you don’t enjoy. Go Moscow this stuff. Go and stand down there in the development office, and try to get this building done, that you don’t know how to get done, that you can’t get these people to move on and go do the horrible parts. Or what is your process for getting entrepreneurs in here? Go figure out how you’re going to go find and meet entrepreneurs and tell them about this place. It’s easy for me to sit in the background because I do products.

Joi Chevalier:
The day I woke up and said, “I need to go find somebody else to build me a website and an e-commerce process,” that was a revelation for me. I had to give it away. That’s not mine anymore. It’s not me. Wow.

Narrator:
That’s hard. That’s hard as an entrepreneur.

Joi Chevalier:
I can’t do that. I’m not allowed to do that. Okay, then what do I do? Well, but I’d save money if I did it. But, God, it would take me weeks.

Karin Samelson:
And somebody can do it better.

Joi Chevalier:
And they’ll do a way better job than I would. Way better job. Okay.

Karin Samelson:
Leaning into the hard stuff, even if it’s not the things you want to do. I think that’s a good lesson for anybody who’s wanting to build something with their own two hands.

Joi Chevalier:
Yeah. Joi, go stare at your spreadsheet and figure out where your holes are and make equations in an Excel table and spreadsheet. I could do high level. Sure. But having to really dig into Excel, that was painful. I mean, [crosstalk 00:26:46]-

Karin Samelson:
I hear that.

Joi Chevalier:
… I can always get that back from the finance group. I had somebody else to do it for me if I really had to. Nope. Not anymore. God, I hate that. I had to have a Come-to-Jesus about them, I mean, literally in the middle of the night, “There’s nobody else coming for you, Joi. There is nobody, and you have to know these numbers. You have to make at least an attempt to figure out how to make these sums, because if you don’t know this math, you are going to screw yourself and your husband, and it’s your money. It’s not Michael’s money. It’s your money. And it’s your retirement money. And there’s no more money coming because you’re not making six figures anymore. So suck it up and figure it out.”

Karin Samelson:
Yep. I’ve got to grind.

Joi Chevalier:
Yeah.

Narrator:
That’s such a leap of faith. It’s really cool to hear.

Joi Chevalier:
Yeah. Can you do this or not? Are you good enough to do this or not? You have done this and you know how to do this. Can you do this or not? Then shut up and do it.” Yeah.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. When you were in this process of the shut up and do it, how much did you have to lean on your community to support you?

Joi Chevalier:
That’s an interesting question. This is one of the areas I will say, “Do as I say, not as I do,” because I’m unusual in this regard because I did do this professionally for a long time. It was my job to build the spreadsheets, build a business case, build plans, demonstrate this to somebody else, get the funding, and do this work. So I could sit at my desk and build this because I’ve been doing it for 20 years.

Joi Chevalier:
As an entrepreneur, I think you will find it very difficult. I’ll be honest, I don’t think people understand entrepreneurs. I think sing and think, “Wow, entrepreneur is great,” but I don’t think people really understand it. I think it’s a mindset that people don’t get because it’s a level of risk in faith, in leaping, and risk that most people will never, ever, ever consider. Not do, just not even think about. There’s something wrong with you at the end of the day underneath it. There’s something not there’s something not right.

Karin Samelson:
You’re putting yourself in just a huge non-safe place.

Joi Chevalier:
Yeah. It’s the ultimate non-safe thing, and you made some other people non-safe around you.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah.

Joi Chevalier:
No, I’m serious. There are some that [inaudible 00:29:28] safe.

Narrator:
That’s absolutely right.

Karin Samelson:
There’s a true vulnerability. Absolutely.

Joi Chevalier:
There’s an exposed thing about you, that people go, “Oh.” I mean, you could feel it. There’s a slight thing, “Okay. Wow. That’s amazing. You’re entrepreneur…” I just look at them. And so, I think it’s really hard for entrepreneurs to find a community of non entrepreneurs, family, friends, and others who will commit to them in their endeavors. I think that’s tough. If we keep knocking on that door, I think it’s really hurtful because they’re not going to be that vulnerable, exposed with you in that way. I think that is a very tiny universe that will.

Joi Chevalier:
Spouse, partner, maybe, and maybe to an extent. They’re going to commit the dollars or the relationship or be there, but not be with you in it all the time, every day. But they’re in it with you because they want you to be successful. They’re going to commit their home, their household, their dollars. But they’re not going to be standing next to you in the business, doing what you do every day.

Karin Samelson:
They’re just not going to fully get it.

Joi Chevalier:
Yeah. They’re not totally get it, but they’re [crosstalk 00:30:47].

Narrator:
I like what you said. It’s not fair to pull them into our crazy world sometimes.

Joi Chevalier:
Yeah. And I’m okay with that. My husband’s down. He’s been down. He knows it’s his money. This is his household. It’s his business, X, Y, and Z. Call him for anything, he’s down. But I’m not asking him to be right here every day. He doesn’t understand what’s happening in here all the time, and I don’t ask him to. He’s got a corporate job. And so, there’s always a little bit of distance about this topic, and that’s okay. That’s okay. I think we need to understand that and be okay with that.

Joi Chevalier:
Where do we find that that community you ask? I think that’s why it’s important to find other entrepreneurs. I think you’re going to have to. Here’s what I eventually did. A 20-year seasoned product manager, I went and registered in Tech Ranch’s Venture Forth class. Can you believe that? Kevin Koym looked at me like, “Well, don’t mind me. I’m going to sit right here in this class.” It wasn’t a negative to hear all this stuff again. But it was to go and meet people. I’m an introvert anyway. And to look at people and listen and see what’s being done and be okay with my own vulnerability in this.

Joi Chevalier:
“You’ll do a pitch at the end.: “No, I’m not.” “Yes, you will.” “I don’t need to do a pitch. I’m not looking for money. I don’t need to pitch anything.

Karin Samelson:
I’m just here to meet people. Don’t get me.

Joi Chevalier:
I’m just here to see people. Oh, I don’t need to do that exercise.” But I did. Then they brought the mentors in and I talked my company and it got better each time I talked about. I went, “Oh, I’m getting better at this.” My pitch got better, and my definition got better, and my four-piece got better. E Even my requirements got better. Then my pitch got better. Then I did do the pitch on the last pitch night. I did have an ask where I didn’t use to have an ask. Okay, I get it. An entrepreneur has to have social capital because you can’t build your product in a vacuum. That became the-

Narrator:
That is a great statement. I just have to point that out.

Joi Chevalier:
That became the brand new definition of the Cook’s Nook. None of us build a product in a vacuum. I could in a corporate, but you can’t out here.

Karin Samelson:
We don’t have Michael’s money out here.

Joi Chevalier:
We don’t have free money out here. That’s exactly right. Even in there, you weren’t supposed to either. That’s an artificial thing where we can’t go out and talk to every customer and jet on jets everywhere and go do what we need to go do. That became a defining statement in the Cook’s Nook. We still said that you can’t build a company in a vacuum. We are the first line at the Cook’s Nook for you to meet other entrepreneurs and start to get into places and events and activities, so you can meet others who help make you and your company better and your product better.

Narrator:
I love the tie to community, and that leads me to the next question we wanted to ask, is previously you were talking a lot about how [inaudible 00:34:30] should influence the CPG world, the changes that the CPG world needs to do based on what tech is doing. But what can the tech world learn from CPG?

Joi Chevalier:
Oh my gosh, remember that bit I just said about not making products in a vacuum.

Narrator:
It’s what I was hoping you would tie in here.

Joi Chevalier:
[crosstalk 00:34:52]. Oh my God. One of the things that we still do in our corporate section, if you stand aside, is we still engage with corporates in a lot of arenas. Some of that is still on product innovation. If I could tell you what some corporates are doing, you would just… I mean, there’s a reason why that some of them just are not growing in food spaces. They’re just not, and why they are desperate to do acquisitions, because they don’t know how to grow new products.

Joi Chevalier:
They don’t have a process from within to grow entrepreneurs. They are driven by R and D because we made some stuff and we should do something with it, or better yet file it. A brand group that says, “You know we don’t have anything in the CBD gummies sector. Did you all make something and put it on file?” That’s what happens. “Well, this is going to be a $300 million space. We don’t have anything in it. Let’s make up something.” Then they go build an AB tester package. A package, not a product. A package.

Joi Chevalier:
Then they dump $30 million in the hopes that they’re going to make a two, $300 million product. Then it doesn’t work and then they look confused, and it takes them two or three years to do it because it comes out over here in R and D and they have to test the heck out of it. They can’t make any claims about it. They have protocols about it. It takes these guys two years. These guys are testing a package on Facebook, seriously, on Facebook, and do some intercepts. Then they get somebody in China who’s going to do a scaling operations. That is how products come together. That does not work.

Karin Samelson:
What’s the first thing you would say to someone who took that route?

Joi Chevalier:
First thing I said was, “That’s not going to work.”

Karin Samelson:
What’s the second thing?

Joi Chevalier:
Second was, “Who’s actually making a product? Who owns product management? Who’s making a product? Who actually asked anybody, did they want a product, and what’s the product they want, and what’s the product they want to eat?” They didn’t have an answer for that. Those roles did not exist. They have brand marketers and then they have R and D. So who owns product? Who has a target on their back with a number? Maybe brand marketing. Yeah, but who owns the thing that somebody has to consume and ingest?

Joi Chevalier:
And so, we actually worked with a company to actually build a rather detailed product innovation process to try to get them there. Extremely dealt with deliverables at every step. “Here’s the documents deliverables that should come out of that and here’s a map of the process. And then during the process, here are the deliverables at each of these points. Yeah. And then here are the roles that are still missing for you.”

Joi Chevalier:
I mean, they were about ready to start having a entrepreneurial process, and out the gate, at the AB testing of a package, they were going to give them a quarter of a million dollars. But they didn’t show anything. They didn’t have any deliverables. Well, they AB tested a package. That gets you a quarter of a million dollars? Shoot. I need to come over here. You do something else and you got another 500,000. They were trying to create a portfolio that was somehow going to return in three years, $300 million portfolio.

Joi Chevalier:
I was like, “[inaudible 00:38:43].” I come back to your point, what can they learn is what does it take to really do innovation inside a corporate environment? What does that really look like? How do you carve that out? What are the roles? What are the timeframes and targets, or the expectations? We talked about what do those months look like for us? And what does that time look like? What does that time look like for them? What does it mean not to be in a vacuum?

Joi Chevalier:
What does that mean giving the leeway and the ability to actually allow people to go back out into the field? What are the real dollars around that? What are real expectations around products? What does that start to look like? And put that back in. What are real processes to get to the shelf, that are reasonable? It’s reasonable for those kinds of companies to believe they can get a good, solid product to the shelf in six to eight months.

Joi Chevalier:
If you told that to a large brand company, they would laugh at you. They would laugh. They don’t know how to do that anymore. They don’t know how to do that. But I bet you guys do. You guys know how to do that? They can’t. Okay, a year. They would still laugh. But you guys know how to do that, and on less than $250,000.

Karin Samelson:
Benefits of being small and nimble.

Joi Chevalier:
How do you be small and nimble and really need it and let them pull out a quality product with processes?

Karin Samelson:
Can’t bring up the processes.

Joi Chevalier:
With processes that they can see, because they’re going to want them, and that’s understandable. They don’t want people to be sick. Totally get it. Nobody wants people to be sick. Nobody. Entrepreneurs don’t either. They’re traceable. They still have SKUs and UPCs, and has some distribution, and affect an audience. You could still do that. They wouldn’t know how to do that. But you guys will, and that’s the thing that we can give back to them. They don’t have to buy it. They can learn it.

Joi Chevalier:
They don’t have to buy it and mess up another company or just leave it alone in isolation. But have it become part of their culture. That’s what they still haven’t figured out how to do.

Narrator:
So interesting.

Joi Chevalier:
That was a bit long.

Narrator:
No, no-

Karin Samelson:
No, I love it.

Narrator:
I just love that, speaking from someone who has 20 years of experience, knows that the food, CPG in specific, can show tech something, give them a little run for their money.

Joi Chevalier:
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Narrator:
Good to hear. Good to hear.

Joi Chevalier:
Yeah. I mean, it doesn’t matter. It could be food corporate or it could be just pure tech. I mean, if I walked in certain Fortune 50s today and said I was going to do that, “You couldn’t do that.” I was notorious for getting large products done on no money. No money. The year I made 10 billion, I probably spent two million. One year, I was supposed to make two billion. I asked for three million. There were companies were around that were valued at 30 million who were doing the same work, and I think I got 750,000. I mean, it’s crazy. I mean, it’s crazy. You get nothing and expect to make big dollars.

Joi Chevalier:
But you don’t get the opportunity to be innovative and you can’t get quickly to market. And those things may or may not be persistent product to use. [crosstalk 00:42:37]-

Narrator:
That’s, I mean, something-

Joi Chevalier:
End up being throw away.

Narrator:
Right. That’s something that we tell the small, extra small, even medium-size CPG companies, is that you have the ability to pivot where these big brands can’t. It’s going to take them a long time if they need to. That is what can set you apart and make you successful, is you can pivot and you can listen to your audience and quickly change your offering or your communication, your messaging.

Joi Chevalier:
You absolutely can. But that means you had to already be thinking about it, and it’s okay to think about it.

Narrator:
But just listening really.

Joi Chevalier:
Yeah. Or just listening or spending the time, what’s next and what else could we be doing? And putting it in your back pocket. It’s not a betrayal of your current audiences and your current work to always think about, what else can I be doing and how can we be doing it better, or what’s next for us? You’ve got to have it on the side, and exactly last year showed that. That’s exactly those who in our space survived. That’s exactly what they did.

Narrator:
Right.

Joi Chevalier:
Because they already had a sense of what they could be doing or thoughts that they had had in the past, that they had set aside, that they came back to, or whatever it was.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. Speaking of innovations, are there some innovations that you can think of right now that you’re seeing in the CPG space that are exciting?

Joi Chevalier:
Innovations in the space that are exciting? I think delivery… I don’t mean delivery mechanisms, but how things get to audiences, in that I like that somehow we’ve been forced to say we really need to meet people where they are. So we need to find ways to get food to where people are. If that is really finding solutions around vending mechanisms, then folks are going to do that.

Joi Chevalier:
I am thinking, “Well, I mean, I guess it’s not that far away.” You’ve seen people with lockers, but I’m thinking about getting beyond lockers. Remember, I come from a place where it is all about individualized, customized, personalized experiences. So how do I have a vending system that is ultimately customized, but it is your food customization? In that, here’s the example. Let me be very specific. You remember Alpaca Market? You guys remember?

Karin Samelson:
I don’t.

Joi Chevalier:
Okay. There has been food vending, cold food vending systems, or prepared meal vending systems that have been in markets and stores in places for a while. But they’ve not gone over horribly well because it can be high touch to supply to them. And if the prepared food does not sell very quickly, then you’ve got a lot of turnover in those spaces. They can be high cost to do that. But how do you have fresh food for salads, for smoothies, or things like that? And some sort of co-branding mechanism.

Joi Chevalier:
Even more so, how do you have something like prepared meals in them? Even more so, how do you have groups of prepared meals in them, especially if you’re doing food in secure places. And so, finding ways to solve those kinds of challenges and issues I think is the next great thing that still has to get solved because I’ve got to not only have it be able to be indoor-outdoor, I’ve got to be able to have it locked. But I’ve got to have it know you.

Joi Chevalier:
I’ve come back to this authentication question and how much it knows, not just the storage of it. But I’ve got to be able to manage it remotely. It’s easier for it to know you than for me to have to check it, if that makes sense.

Narrator:
That makes total sense. It’s hard to think on how that’s possible now since we’re leaning into this more era of privacy, I guess, is the way I would put it.

Joi Chevalier:
Oh, this is the ultimate in privacy. It’s easier for the system to know you, than for me to have to check on it. I only want to check to make sure that it’s gone. I don’t want to have to handle or manage it knowing you. And so, whether that’s fingering, knowing this is the Smith family, or somebody from the Smith family who’s coming to get all of their food out of one of the slots, and all of the meals.

Joi Chevalier:
It could be anybody from the Smith family, I don’t care, to come by and pick all the meals up. It’s only the things on that one slot, not opening the whole thing. It’s by slot. So I can put 15 meals for the Smiths in there, six meals for the Samuelsons in here, whatever that is. That can control that level of individual personalization and customization.

Narrator:
I see. Okay.

Joi Chevalier:
But manage the system.

Karin Samelson:
I feel like we need to put this in a time capsule, come back to it in five years and be like, “Wait. You’re talking-

Joi Chevalier:
I’m waiting for somebody to come and talk to me, the product manager.

Karin Samelson:
I look forward to this. It sounds so spacey right now, but-

Joi Chevalier:
Oh, it’s not that spacey. I mean, if you can have an individual small robotic vehicle drive up to your address with your hot pizzas inside, that costs way more and has way more technology in it than a standing multi-door locker that has individual coding on each of those-

Narrator:
How has-

Joi Chevalier:
[crosstalk 00:48:54] the recognition.

Narrator:
And face recognition. How are you thinking the food is produced? Is there…

Joi Chevalier:
Yeah. Somebody would have to produce that, but yet.

Narrator:
Okay. Okay. I wasn’t-

Joi Chevalier:
[crosstalk 00:49:06] those items in there. That’s fine. That’s actually pretty standard transport. It is about the mechanism itself and making that viable and affordable. And having to write [crosstalk 00:49:21]-

Narrator:
You can partner with Amazon.

Joi Chevalier:
I’m sure Amazon already has. I used to talk to them. I need them to call me back. [inaudible 00:49:27]. The real issue is, yeah, but that one slot, the Smiths don’t use it anymore. Now it belongs to the Chevaliers. I don’t need anybody ever to touch it. I just need that to be reprogrammed. And then tomorrow it’s the Smiths again?

Narrator:
Pretty neat.

Karin Samelson:
Food and tech.

Joi Chevalier:
That is pure food and tech. I want that. I want to make that. I want to be the product manager who does that. I need somebody to call me.

Karin Samelson:
Call her.

Narrator:
Hold your line, please.

Karin Samelson:
We’re going to have your information in the show notes. If anybody hears that-

Joi Chevalier:
I need to own that. I want the IP for that.

Narrator:
Yep.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. You heard it here. I mean, [inaudible 00:50:13] down.

Joi Chevalier:
That, to me, is huge. Then the other part is I still think we haven’t gotten there yet in CPG. I think CPG can get there, but I’m still not sure how. I don’t think it will take a huge investment. I think it’s just a commitment in the teams and that really is the move to food is medicine. I’m not sure we have the right tech for that yet. It’s not something like a food lab determined the pH of your food it is. I’m not quite sure we have the technical support for that yet. And it’s not just a nutritionist on staff. It’s something else.

Narrator:
That is a tough one with lobbyist and big pharma working maybe against food is medicine.

Joi Chevalier:
No, I don’t think so. I think that’s going to be driven by the insurance companies. I think the insurers want it as part of their benefits packages, because it’s risk management and it’s quality.

Narrator:
That’s correct.

Joi Chevalier:
They’re driven by quality scores, like NPS scores, except there are benefits and insurer scores. They see more dollars by higher NPS scores. What drives NPS scores? It’s those benefits packages they call you about in saying, “Hey, do you know we also have a gym membership that you can get and we have food that you can get? And we have these other things that you can get. Your diabetes strips and your glucose monitor is also free in our programs. Those additional what they call those, the support programs or benefit packages programs, that’s all about quality and risk management.

Narrator:
So that’s saving them money in the long term. I mean, I wish my insurance company would call me twice a week and tell me to go work out and eat a salad. I mean, I would-

Joi Chevalier:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, some programs you can, and having CPG realize that they’re looking for you. What do you need to have in your company to have your food be eligible to be in these programs? What does that look like? And what does that start to look like?

Narrator:
Very cool. The big question I wanted to ask, and you had mentioned it before the call, and just really want to wrap my head around this, from a products expert, you have said that the entrepreneur needs to think of themselves as a product. What do you mean?

Joi Chevalier:
That at the beginning of your company’s life, the thing that most often is being sold and thought is you, that you are the brand of the company that people will… What people and what investors often look for, you know this, they will take an 18 and a B product, right?

Narrator:
Yep. That’s so right.

Joi Chevalier:
And many entrepreneurs don’t realize that. I had to have one of my own friends and mentors remind me all the time. They tell me, and I know people don’t believe it, I am an introvert. He says, “You will never get away from it, Joi. You are the face of the Cook’s Nook. No matter what you do, no matter how you try, no matter how many people you elevate, no matter how much of a website you stick out there, it will always be about you.”

Joi Chevalier:
He saw me do this in the chair. No matter how many good ideas, it will always be about you, and I just have to say, “Okay.” And it’s true. People are going to invest in you or me, and that’s okay. I tell my other fellow introverts, “That’s okay.” For the extroverts, they’re like, “Okay.”

Narrator:
I’m ready. Been born ready.

Joi Chevalier:
[inaudible 00:54:39].

Narrator:
So CPG founders, think of yourself as a product.

Joi Chevalier:
As your product.

Narrator:
As your product.

Joi Chevalier:
As the first product. What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats? What are your best features? What are the ones you have to work on? Where do you need to make those investments? Where are the cells that you have to work on, on that spreadsheet? Those same questions you have to ask about you and the business because you and the business are the same. No, that didn’t say product, but you and the business are the same. And you have to sell you in that business.

Joi Chevalier:
That’s where those processes and all those other things become really important. Have you done those things to make sure that they see that there’s a healthy company around you, that you come as a healthy package and it’s something they could do business with. They can do business with you.

Narrator:
That’s not only going to help you attract the actual consumers, that’s going to help you attract that rock star team that everyone wants.

Joi Chevalier:
That team you need and the investors you need. Exactly, exactly.

Narrator:
Very interesting.

Joi Chevalier:
And we haven’t even talked about the product yet.

Narrator:
Right.

Joi Chevalier:
The other product, the one you actually eat.

Narrator:
The other.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah.

Joi Chevalier:
Yeah. The other product.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. We talk about that so much in marketing, how people buy your brand story and how important that is. Really believing in it is the first step solving that pain point for yourself or for others.

Joi Chevalier:
Exactly. It is. You know what’s so hard, is feeling like you’re always delivering on the brand promise, and delivering on it every day as best you can, delivering on it every day, and having your team deliver on it every day too. We can always get so caught up in the weeds, and reminding your team about it too. Here’s our brand promise, and how are we delivering and shaping and delivering on it every day. God knows, some days you feel like you didn’t.

Karin Samelson:
A lot of days.

Joi Chevalier:
Yeah. You’re just like, “Ooh.” You’re sticking at it every day. Every day.

Karin Samelson:
Well, Joy, it’s been such a pleasure. This has been such a nice conversation. We’re so excited that we got to meet you and learn from you. I can’t wait for our next conversation, hopefully in person.

Joi Chevalier:
I know. You guys actually had real questions and stuff. I had to actually think and talk. I can’t believe you got me to talk about Venture Forth. I haven’t talked about that in a while. Kevin’s going to go, “Oh my God.” [inaudible 00:57:33] tell you was that, I mean, that affected me enough where I had to put him on my little board of advisors.

Narrator:
Wooh, Kevin. Okay.

Joi Chevalier:
I know. I know. I learned a lot in Venture Forth and a lot of it was about myself.

Karin Samelson:
Hey, that’s good learning.

Narrator:
That is really cool. Yeah. Thank you so much. You’ve shared so much wisdom and just the marriage of tech and CPG, I just love it. So thank you, Joi. If people are listening to this and they want to reach out or check you out, how can they find you?

Joi Chevalier:
Oh my gosh. You can find me, I am Cook’s Nook Austin on Facebook, and on Instagram, and I think on LinkedIn. But you can just find me as Joi Chevalier on LinkedIn. You’ll find all my professional stuff there. But definitely Cook’s Nook Austin. And on Twitter, Cook’s Nook Austin, on Facebook, Instagram-

Narrator:
Okay. Ooh, on Twitter. Okay.

Joi Chevalier:
And on Twitter, yeah. Sometimes we’re on Twitter. Actually, everything from Instagram goes to Twitter too. Yep. And then I think that’s it. Then on the website, cooksnook.net. Then we have workshops on different topics with folks in the community. I think there’s one on Saturday with Brian Marshall of BCL, Business of Community Lenders of Texas. He’s talking about getting new channels and new partners.

Joi Chevalier:
You guys remember Ben Ponder and the guys in [inaudible 00:59:07]? Well, we’re supposed to have a talk with Ben, though he’s gone to Dallas and they’re running their co-packing facility up there. We convinced Ben to have a talk and hopefully he will be on one of our talks in a few weeks. So it’ll be good to talk to Ben again.

Narrator:
Awesome. Check out the events page at cooksnook.net.

Joi Chevalier:
[crosstalk 00:59:29]. Yeah, cooksnook.net, but we’ll also post it up elsewhere too.

Narrator:
Okay. Great. Joi, Thank you again. This was really great, and great to meet you as well.

Joi Chevalier:
Oh, thank you guys for coming. You guys [inaudible 00:59:41]-

Karin Samelson:
Thanks so much, Joi.

Joi Chevalier:
And thanks for all the stuff that you all are doing.

Karin Samelson:
[crosstalk 00:59:45].

Narrator:
We try to show up every day, just like you said [crosstalk 00:59:48]-

Joi Chevalier:
I know. Every day. All right. I’ll talk to you guys later.

Karin Samelson:
Thanks, Joi. Good luck today with everything, all the systems.

Joi Chevalier:
I know, right? Exactly. All right. Talk to you later.

Karin Samelson:
Bye.

Narrator:
Bye. UMAI Social Circle is a CPG agency driven podcast based out of Austin, Texas. We’re excited to share more behind the scene insights, chats with industry leaders, and whatever else we learn along the way. Follow us on Instagram at UMAI Marketing or check out our website umaimarketing.com. Catch you back here soon.

#20 Financial Planning Success with The Good Food CFO

[AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT MAY BE SUBJECT TO MINOR TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS/VARIATIONS]

Narrator:
Calling all consumer goods, business owners and marketing professionals, does planning content ahead of time stress you out? Do you want to run Instagram and Facebook ads, but just aren’t sure where to start? If your answer is yes and yes, that our mini course was made for you. It’s 100% free and packed with essential tactics that you can implement as soon as today. To join in visit our website @umaimarketing.com/minicourse. All right, let’s get on with the pod.

Alison Smith:
Welcome to the Umai Social Circle, where we talk consumer goods tips to help business owners and marketers grow. We’re Alison and Karin co-founders of Umai Marketing, and we’re being joined here today with Sarah Delevan. The Good Food CFO, she’s helping CPG business owners understand their finances and build profitable food businesses with confidence. Welcome, Sarah. We’re so excited to have you.

Sarah Delevan:
Thank you so much. I’m super excited to be here.

Alison Smith:
Awesome. Well, you have a really unique background and perspective to the food biz because you’ve been in the food business starting all the way back in 2012. So can you tell us a little more about that journey and how you got to where you are today?

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah. This is a great question. And I often joke, “how much time do you have?” when I get asked that question, so I’ll try to keep it concise for the listeners, but I do want to mention that my journey into the food industry in general started through my skin and the health of my skin and the health of my body as well. I struggled with acne for years as a teenager, that only seemed to get worse as I got older, really painful and really uncomfortable. I’ve seen dermatologists for a really long time. When I moved out to Los Angeles from the East Coast, I met a doctor who for the first time really looked at my skin and asked me questions like “How many green vegetables do you eat? How much water do you drink and how much soya are you consuming?” Which turns out for me soy is not good.

Sarah Delevan:
Soy might be great for other people, but I had to, for the first time really think about what was I putting in my body and how was it affecting me? And so we cut out certain things like soy and cows milk cheese and things that she thought maybe were not so great for me. And that combined with the fact that Michael Pollan’s book Omnivore’s Dilemma came out at the exact same time. And I read that I was like, “Oh my God,” food is medicine. Everybody needs to read this book. I’m only going to shop at farmer’s markets. I mean, I went all in. It was like very, very intense. I wanted to quit my job and start working at farmer’s markets except no one would hire me because I had an MBA. And I worked in an office for eight years or whatever it was.

Sarah Delevan:
And people were like, “You’re going to lift boxes and get dirty. That’s not going to happen.” So I weaseled my way into a marketing role. I was a strategic marketing person, numbers based marketing strategy in my previous life. And I weaseled my way into a volunteer role at a farmer’s market by doing some analysis for them, and then quickly jumped into a marketing manager role. And it was in that role that I saw how meaningful local sustainable food was for so many people, regardless of what their income level and demographic was. And that for me created my first vision for what my life might be like. And that was, I wanted to own a store that sold all of this amazing food that was grown and raised and caught locally.

Sarah Delevan:
And fast forward. I met a woman we were introduced to one another, the City of Santa Monica, or the mall in Santa Monica wanted to open a store, very aligned with what I just described to you. And we were introduced to each other to open this store together. It didn’t work out in terms of the lease and all of that was sort of crazy, long story, a little bit shorter. We ended up starting a pop-up at Handsome Coffee Roasters, which is just like new coffee shop in Downtown LA. And that was our food business. That was our entryway. And we still had our eye on the prize of opening a store. We built our business according to what I would consider industry standards, right? How we priced, how we attempted to grow our business. It was all based on what we saw on Google and what other business owners were telling us. It didn’t work.

Sarah Delevan:
We were working our tails off literally from 4:00 in the morning, till 10:00, 11:00 at night. We had amazing customers. Our sales were growing, but the expenses were growing along with it. And we ultimately just reached a point of exhaustion where it was like, we can’t do this anymore. If we do do this, the whole model has to change. We have to become a delivery business and that’s not what we got into it for. So we made the really difficult decision of closing down the business. And that was pivotal because we saw firsthand what the closure of a business like ours, how it affected the community and how it affected their connection to their food and to the farmers. And all of that. And then I became so keenly aware of all of the other good food businesses that were making amazing products, had amazing clients, regularly selling. They were very busy, but they were still having to close their doors because the numbers just weren’t working out.

Sarah Delevan:
So that’s the path to the point where I became a buyer. And in that role merged my buying experience from my own business, with the financial stuff that I had just learned and that I wanted to contribute to that business in an effort to make them more financially sustainable. And the work we did there was super exciting. And when I left, I was able to do that same kind of work for three more businesses. And then I had a really great job opportunity at a startup and quit my job, gave notice, was going to start that business. And they called me three days before my start and they were like, “So we lost our funding and we’re going to be closing. And so you don’t have a job.” And I was like, “Okay, great. Okay.” I was like, sat on the ground. I was like, “I do not know what I’m going to do.”

Sarah Delevan:
And I’m not kidding you that day. An email came through from a chef that I had worked with before, who was asking me to consult for April Bloomfield at the restaurant that she was opening in LA. And I was like, “Okay, universe, let’s do this.” And so that was the start of my consulting journey. And it’s just kind of been evolving from there.

Alison Smith:
Wow, what a ride.

Karin Samelson:
Oh, that’s so amazing. Yeah, I do love how the universe just answers a call when you need it. Very cool. So you said that you were a buyer primarily for that grocery business. Right? So that’s incredibly interesting how you have that perspective as well. I mean, this is really all encompassing for CPG brands.

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah. I do. Yeah. You guys are so right. That my experience is extremely unique because number one, I don’t have buyer experience at a corporate level. My buyer experience is at farmer’s markets. We traveled to farms. We traveled to ranches. We would meet the fishermen at the dock and some cases, I’ve been up at 3:00 in the morning to do that and buy fish right when it came out of the water, it’s a unique perspective and a unique experience I would buy from behind the tables at farmer’s markets. So I did that. And then I was also understanding how a food business, because I worked for a catering company after my business closed. And I could see how cost does matter and how important pricing is and just how to put together a recipe and all of these really interesting things. It’s like so crazy that I can look back and see how every single part of what I’ve done led and allows me to do what I do today. I don’t know that anyone would have the same kind of perspective as I do. It’s pretty wild.

Karin Samelson:
And a passion for good food. I mean, that’s so important to us as well, to work with mission-based brands and that’s where you’re rooted. I think that’s super incredible. And what a great place in California to be able to have so many farms around you.

Alison Smith:
Yeah. I especially love that aspect that you made those relationships. You went and you talked to the fishermen and the ranchers and met them on their grounds. I think that’s helps you understand how the full spectrum of things actually works. Really.

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah. It’s interesting too. One of the big things that I learned through the process is that greenwashing is a thing and it can be harmful to farmers sometimes. Right? So organic certification is great, but it also costs a lot of money. And there are a lot of farmers doing really great work that is beyond organic standards. And because they don’t have that certification and it can turn people away from buying from them. So that has always been part of our mission too. And especially at the catering company that I worked at, it was like, people would call and say, “Is everything that you sell organic?” And we had a script. “No, it’s not, but here’s why. And here are the standards that we buy from adhere to.” And so that’s really important for me too. And that’s why I don’t just talk about organic or use buzzwords and just stick with good food or mission driven, because it’s just such a variety of ways that food can be grown and raised. That is good for people and for the planet. And it’s just exciting to be a tiny part of that universe.

Alison Smith:
Yeah. We definitely see terms get misused by the bigger brands. And I think that’s something that consumers should definitely be aware of, for sure.

Karin Samelson:
I have lots of experience with being on the customer service side of a CPG brand, where you were getting all of these questions that were like, “Do you really know what that means?” But going back to, you’re the Good Food CFO. So that is a beautiful explanation of how you got to where you are now. So moving into the financial part and how to build profitable food business with confidence. You’re super active on social, which we love always any brand owners, any brands that are active on social, of course. And you had this video that’s reel on three tips for growing a profitable business. So can you dive a little deeper into those tips because we all need to know these three tips?

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah, for sure. Thank you for complimenting me on one of my very first reels. So I’m still getting used to that whole thing, but yeah, I think that these are three really important tips for especially new or budding food business owners to think about and to implement. So number one was create a financial model and people get a little bit nervous about this because financial model sounds technical, but at the end of the day, it’s just a spreadsheet. And it’s purpose is huge though, right? So this simple spreadsheet allows you to see the future of your business. It allows you to see what are my expenses? What do my sales goals need to be right to cover these expenses? To be able to pay myself? I love to share this example of a cookie business.

Sarah Delevan:
The business owner reached out to me, it’s early on in my consulting business. And she was like, “I had this great idea, everyone loves my chocolate chip cookies and I’m going to open as a cottage food business. And I just want to make sure that I’m charging the right price.” And so we did the work of building a super simple financial model. And what she realized in the process was that the number of cookies that she was going to have to churn out to make any money was basically going to provide her with maybe three hours of sleep, no free time. And she was never going to want to make another cookie or even see another cookie after a couple of months. Right? So that’s kind of the power that starting with a financial model has it eliminates burnout, right? It helps you see what is the reality of my business?

Sarah Delevan:
What does it look like if I don’t like what it looks like I can put it on pause and I can think about how can I build this business from day one in a way that aligns with the life that I want and the financial life that I want and also be the business that I want. So my tips for making a financial model would be just start with your expenses. The things that you know are going to cost you money. If you’re looking at renting a kitchen or having the production space, you might not know exactly what that amount is, but just put in your best estimate, plugin an amount of money that you either want or need to pay yourself from the business in order to really commit yourself and work in it full time. And then from there build the sales goals.

Sarah Delevan:
And that helps you to see that cookie business owner. What is the reality? What is the production need to be? How much do I have to sell? What are these goals look like? And how do I feel about that? And then number two is identify your most profitable sales channel. And this is important because primarily I work with businesses that are zero to five years old, right? And probably all three of us know that this is a critical time for businesses of any kind, but particularly food businesses. Right? Getting to two years is a big achievement. Getting to five years is like, “Okay, I’m secure.” My job is to get food businesses to succeed. And primarily we need to focus on zero to two. And then we can look ahead after that. So CPG brands, a lot of them think I got to get into retail. I got to get a distributor agreement, right? I’ve got to grow my business this particular way.

Sarah Delevan:
And I want to share the message that you don’t have to do it that way. You don’t have to grow your business, just like everybody else. You have the power, you have the opportunity to say, “What’s my most profitable channel? Through which channel can I best sustain my business and meet my financial goals?” And so I support this idea of identifying that channel and then going there first and building that. And it’s all with the idea of, we want to change our food industry in order to do that. We have to be successful. Let’s get past year two, let’s make sure we’re making enough money to get there. And then we can look to the future after that.

Sarah Delevan:
And then the third tip there was to track your results over time and to take action based on the data. And I’m sure that both of you can relate to this, right? When you’re doing marketing campaigns or marketing strategies, you’ve got to say, “Okay, well, what did I do? What was the return? And then either, do we keep doing that? Do we need to tweak something? What do we need to tweak?” It’s the same for food businesses when we’re looking at the inside and the operations. So let’s take someone who’s producing their product internally. We want our labor cost, for example, to be a consistent percentage of revenue. Because what that means is that we’ve got consistent productivity and that we can count on what our profit margins are going to be month to month and week to week.

Sarah Delevan:
So we want to track that, what are our labor cost as a percentage of revenue over time, right? What are my ingredient costs over time? And we track this information and if something is unstable or something is kind of hopping around over time. We can look into that and say, “What can I do as the business owner, as the leader to change this, to get some more consistency inside my business, to be more financially sustainable.” So I think those are three super important things for all food business owners to do. So I’m glad that it resonated with you as a real.

Alison Smith:
Definitely. And I love that you talked about not every channel is for every brand. So for example, we’ve worked with brands that don’t initially get into retail. We know retail is so important, but they don’t do it initially. So I’m curious to know how you identify that, is that brands preference, or are you testing and then tracking profit and making decisions based off hard numbers?

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah, that’s a great question. So it’s a little bit of both. Whenever I start working with a new client or someone joins the group coaching program, the very first thing we do is talk about what are your big business goals. So what do you want for your brand? And then what do you want for yourself? Or in other words what do you want your money to do for you? Because we start businesses both with a mission, but also to earn a living, right? Most of the time from that business. So we start with what do you want to be? And if you want to be a national brand, then you’re going to have to go retail. Like, that’s part of that big goal. If you want to be the best regional, let’s just say sauerkraut, right. Or fermented foods brand in your region.

Sarah Delevan:
Well, that maybe could involve retail, but it might not have to involve a distributor. You might be able to distribute regionally direct to the retailer. So first getting real clear on what do you want to be as a business? And then looking at the options for how to get there from where you are is one of the big steps. A lot of folks are in multiple channels when they meet me. So they’ve got their e-commerce, maybe they’re on Amazon, maybe they’re thinking about working with distributors. And at that point we do go through the process of analyzing what each channel look like now, are there areas for improving the profitability there? And or which one is most profitable and how do we feel about growing in that channel? Sometimes the most profitable channel also isn’t someone’s favorite, or it doesn’t have a huge opportunity for growth. So in that case, we’re like, we identify, okay, we’ve maxed out that most profitable sales channel. What’s the next one? And then let’s tackle that.

Alison Smith:
That’s so interesting.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. I love how you take it step by step and first looking at goals, because you never know, not everybody’s goal is to be the number one brand in their category across the nation, so I think that’s so smart. And then looking at hard numbers data first, I love that.

Sarah Delevan:
You can’t have a conversation with me without data coming up of people will ask me hypothetical questions from time to time. And my answer is always, I got to see the data. There’s no instinctual of responses for me. It’s like, what numbers do you have? Let me analyze the numbers and we’ll make a decision from there. So everything – data drives everything for us.

Karin Samelson:
Cool. Well, we have more questions based on that and forecasting and whatnot, but next we want to talk about how should, especially with super small CPG brands, maybe they’ve just at the farmer’s market. They haven’t really got into retailers yet, or they haven’t put their product online. How should they even go about pricing their products? And when, if ever, should they reassess how much their products cost? Because things changed so much over time.

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah, I love this question. It’s probably the number one most common question that I get asked, “How should I price my product?” And I’m going to take it back to the financial model. There’s a reason that that’s one, the number one tip on the three tips for building a profitable food business. Because when it comes to pricing, I take totally take a holistic approach. And that means looking at your business as a whole. And in addition to that, you’ve also got to really understand the cost to produce your product. So if it costs a dollar, let’s say to produce your product, that’s really important information. If in your financial model, you’ve identified that you need to hit, let’s just say a cost of goods sold target of 30% of revenue. You’d now have all the information that you need to price your product.

Sarah Delevan:
It costs you a dollar. Then what is your price point need to be to hit that 30% cost of goods target? And I’ve got that formula somewhere on my blog, I always forget it despite the fact that I talk about it all of the time, it’s cost times one minus or one divided by the cost of goods sold percentage, but literally you just need those two pieces of information and you’ve got your suggested retail price and you understand, “Okay, this is what I need to do to have a gross profit margin. That’s healthy enough to support my operations and paying myself.” So that’s how you do it. And then I recommend that you assess your costs as often as possible. So this is going to look different. So for CPG brands, I’ll use a popsicle company that I work with for example, they buy their ingredients twice a year, some ingredients they’re only going to buy once a year and they buy it by the pallet, right?

Sarah Delevan:
They’re going to analyze their costs every time they buy that pallet of product, they’re going to say, “Okay, what is it going to cost to be this year? And how does that cost increase or decrease affect the cost of my product? And then the profit margin of my product. Do I need to shop around for another resource to get this ingredient?” So they’re looking at their costs and then how it affects their pricing. Whenever they’re making these really big purchases. Someone who’s buying let’s say seasonal strawberries or figs, or one of my clients makes dandelion jam. And I don’t know if she’s buying the dandelion or if she’s foraging it, but let’s just presume she’s buying it from someone.

Sarah Delevan:
She’s going to analyze her cost when every time she purchases her ingredients, it’s just a good practice to know, especially for a seasonal business. When does the price drop for the seasonal product? When is the optimal time for me to buy this ingredient? All of those things just provide a ton of impact, power, knowledge, in your business and for you as a business owner.

Alison Smith:
That’s interesting because I feel like the first steps when you start to realize as a brand maybe you’re just up on you come to market, you don’t work with anyone like you when you first get out there really the first steps would be looking internally to try to make efficiencies, but that last ditch effort to increase your profit margin of actually increasing your cost to consumers. When does that happen and how do you go about that?

Sarah Delevan:
You mean raising your price to the consumer?

Alison Smith:
Right.

Sarah Delevan:
When it’s happened? That’s also a really good question and I’ll preface it by saying it’s different for everybody, right? It depends on the goals of your business. So let’s say for example, you’re at the farmer’s market, you’ve done all of the efficiencies that you can and you know what your sales limit or sales capacity is there, if that sales limit and that price or that profit margin on your product is not going to get you the bottom line results that you need to stay in business long-term, that’s when you know you’ve got to raise that price. There’s a really, I love the episode. I think it’s episode number six of the Good Food CFO Podcast. And we talked about a goat farmer who sells goat milk. And he was having a conversation with another consultant and saying “I just I’m closing my business because I just can’t imagine selling my goat milk for $12 a jar.”

Sarah Delevan:
And she was like, “So you’re going to take the reality of not being in business? I’m sure that there are people out there who will pay $12 for your goat milk, because it’s so beneficial to them and to their health and to their family.” So it’s interesting – if it comes to the point where your business isn’t going to work, absolutely raise your price. You might find that there’s other points in time before that, that you might also want to raise your price. Maybe you’re not paying yourself right. Or maybe you want to invest in a team member and you just need those finances internally, the dandelion jam, she was a group coaching member. She just shared with me the other day that she used to sell her jams for $5 a jar at the farmer’s market. She now sells them for $12 a jar.

Sarah Delevan:
And it takes a lot of mental work to be able to get there. But she reached the point that you just described, where it was like, I’ve done everything internally. It’s not going to work if I continue to sell at $5, but can I really raise the price to what it needs to be? And she did it, she had the courage to do it. And now she’s growing her brand, which is really exciting.

Alison Smith:
Her customers are willing to pay and stuff is there.

Sarah Delevan:
Absolutely.

Alison Smith:
Yeah.

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah. I mean, it’s dandelion jam. Hello. For other jam is like chocolate pear. I’ll have to share the name of you if-

Karin Samelson:
Please do.

Sarah Delevan:
… I don’t know it’s in the show notes maybe-

Karin Samelson:
We want the show notes.

Sarah Delevan:
… I just linked to her because it’s like…

Karin Samelson:
That is incredible. And I feel for that goat farmer, but it has been proven that people are, and you’re the Good Food CFO, right? People pay more for good food. One that is raised with purpose. And I think that that’s just really important to note because that fear of pricing too much when people would never pay that much for X, Y, and Z is so real for so many.

Alison Smith:
Yeah. Very scary. So we wanted to ask you about more about setting sales and revenue goals for small to extra small of CPG brands especially the ones that are newer to market. So you’ve been talking a lot about different, key metrics. So can you just explain more about the best way to pull those metrics, best form of action to actually understand and set these goals?

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah. So if you’re a business that’s operational and that’s already selling, you want to be tracking your data, your financial data on a monthly basis. Right? And I highly recommend that everyone invest in a bookkeeper. It’s one of the best investments that you can make in your business particularly if you can find one who has food industry or CPG specific experience, we’ve got a great list of bookkeeping resources and companies that we refer people to inside our community. So if you’re looking for someone we can help you out there, but these bookkeepers range in price from 250 a month to $500 a month. So we can find someone that meets your budget, but it’s so important because number one, time is your most valuable resource, right? And you don’t want to be spending your time as the CPG brand, founder and probably key employee also doing the bookkeeping.

Sarah Delevan:
And it’s potentially not your strong suit. You may not know how to utilize QuickBooks right. So if you can budget for a bookkeeper. Number two, if you can’t budget for a bookkeeper, get an Excel sheet and just start to track your expenses. We have something called the know your numbers template inside the group coaching program, which is a really simple way to categorize all of your expenses. So the data entry is really easy, the categorization is really easy and it spits your monthly numbers out into this, what we call a profit assessment. And you can see high level, the key metrics that you’re talking about. So what’s our revenue, what are our costs of goods sold by both ingredient and packaging, labor and then our other cost of goods sold, but just like shipping and merchant fees and all of that kind of stuff.

Sarah Delevan:
So it breaks that down for you. So you can see what are those numbers look like in my business? What are my operating expenses, right? All of these high level things that you need to be keeping your eye on so that you know where to focus your attention if you see what I call an orange flag, like Hmm. My ingredient costs are creeping, creeping up. That’s an orange flag. Let me look into that. So it just starts with seeing this high level analysis of your numbers. So that’s my recommendation on how to get access to that information. Hire a bookkeeper if you can afford it, or just make a simple spreadsheet or utilize one of our tools to get that information down.

Sarah Delevan:
And then I think there’s five. I haven’t gotten them in a while, but you want to track your revenue month to month. And literally have it side by side. So you can see how it’s trending, track your cost of goods sold as a percentage of revenue, do that monthly side-by-side so that you can see how that’s trending, do the same with your operating costs and then break out your ingredients, your packaging, and your labor costs, and look at those as a percentage of revenue as well. And because that information alone is going to provide you with a ton of insight into your business.

Alison Smith:
Totally. And you’re saying once a month, really-

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah.

Alison Smith:
… is all that you need to look back at these numbers?

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah.

Alison Smith:
Good decision.

Sarah Delevan:
Absolutely. If you get into it, if you’re trying to look at these numbers once a week, it’s like things aren’t hitting like your rent you might pay your rent on the first, and then you look at your numbers at the end of week one. Well, you’re probably not going to be profitable for the month or for the week because you just paid a big bill. So you want to give yourself a little bit of time for the numbers to fall into place and then analyze them on a monthly basis. And it takes, depending on how many receipts you have, and depending on if you have a bookkeeper or not, the process of reviewing your numbers is like a 15 minute situation. 15 minutes to 60 minutes and you’re done once a month.

Alison Smith:
Totally doable.

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah.

Alison Smith:
And I like how you said what to look for. So you’re looking for orange flags, which basically is just like creep, anything that’s creeping up. And that’s where you know where to focus your energy for the next month and try to reduce costs.

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah. I mean, we know this as business owners as well. There’s never an end to your to-do list. It’s like an endless amount of things that you think you should be focusing on or feel like you need to focus on when you’re looking at your numbers on a monthly basis, they’re telling you “These areas of our business are good. Keep on doing what you’re doing.” These area is a creep area where things are maybe inconsistent or looking a little, like “I might need to investigate it.” Great. That’s where you’re going to focus your attention. So it also helps to streamline your mind and how you’re spending your time. And I think there’s a lot of benefit in that.

Alison Smith:
Yeah, because otherwise you’re just kind of guessing, right?

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah.

Alison Smith:
The data.

Sarah Delevan:
The gut instinct is great to have in life, not so great when it comes to your numbers. Emotional decisions are also not super great when we’re reactive, we can make decisions that aren’t necessarily warranted. People raised their prices a lot when they don’t need to, which I think is a really interesting thing because they feel like, “Oh, no, I don’t have enough money on the profit line. I must need to sell more or I must need to raise my prices.” And it doesn’t always have the effect that they want it to. And it’s like, if you took your emotion out of it and you had the numbers there, you could see really what was going on.

Alison Smith:
Right. And just to reiterate, that would be final step, right?

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah.

Alison Smith:
Okay.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. And that’s so interesting. I mean, we see the same thing on the marketing side with the emotion that you have as a brand owner where some decision-making can be a little bit rocky, just because of how invested you are in the brand and the product. So yeah, looking at data to be able to control that a little bit more, and I think that’s a really good note across the board as a founder. So this is a question I was really looking forward to hearing from you is we talk with business owners all the time, obviously about offering steady promotions, steady discounts throughout the year to drive traffic, to drive sales. And a lot actually are nervous about being seen as a discount brand. But promos are so essential to digital marketing efforts. So how should business owners approach implementing discounts?

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah. I love this question so much and I do want to put a little disclaimer on this one’s like, I’m not a sales strategist, I’m not a marketing strategist. So this is from my purely financial lens and I’m going to take it right back to that financial model again. If you are going to be offering a discount or a promotion, you need to know how much of a discount you can offer, right? So if your business is operating with a 20% gross profit margin, that means 20% of all the revenue you’re bringing in is available for you to cover the operating and other expenses in your business. If you offer a 20% discount. And this example is like, if you discounted 100% of your sales for a month, at 20% off, you would have no gross profit. You would have no money in your business to cover those expenses. Right?

Sarah Delevan:
So it’s kind of an extreme example, but it’s just to illustrate what the effects are. So you need to know how much can I give and still be operating in a financially sustainable way. And once you understand that, I think I heard a CPG consultant give this tip in regard to retail discounts, do a little bit of trial. And see, for example, if you get the same results from a 15% off discount, as you do from a 20% off discount, and if you do then just stick with the 15. Because you’re getting the same result, the customer feels like they’re getting a great benefit and you’re maintaining that 5% difference. So I think those are my primary tips for approaching that, know how much you can give and then see what the least amount you can give is while still making it a good deal for your customers.

Alison Smith:
Right. I like that you said basically AB test it. AB test, like go with the least amount. But again, through just your purely financial lens, we wanted to ask you about how brands should think about pricing on different channels. So do you break out your channels? For example, your e-commerce if you’re on Shopify, your Amazon retail into those monthly financials so that you can understand, okay. We price it here on Amazon, we price it here on retail or is it across the board?

Sarah Delevan:
You’re spot on. So one of the big things that I do talk about it but I surprisingly have not mentioned here yet, is that your financials, if you are working with a bookkeeper, they should be as detailed as possible in terms of the sales channels that you have. So exactly what you just said. If you’re selling on, let’s say your own Shopify website, you’re selling on Amazon, and let’s just say you’re selling direct to retail, just to keep it simple. You want to have your revenue broken down by each of those channels that you can see very clearly what’s coming in from each and then your expenses are going to be detailed as well. So with Shopify, we’ve got Shopify merchant fees, we’ve got our Shopify monthly fee for just being on the website. Then if you’re shipping through Shopify, you’ve got your shipping costs through there.

Sarah Delevan:
If you’re using any apps, you’ve got that there. You want to collect all of that information and see what are those costs for Shopify? Because that’s how you see how profitable that channel is for you. So, same as what we’ve been talking about before, just sticking with the Shopify example. If your profit margins are lower on Shopify, maybe it’s because you’ve been offering free shipping and the actual shipping costs are eating in at your profits. You might decide to charge for shipping. You might decide to do what one of my clients does, who I don’t want to give too many details about her business. So it’s a ingredient will say she sources and sells and ingredient. The ingredient is fresh. So it has to be shipped frozen. The shipping costs are astronomical. For her to offer her product on her Shopify site, with shipping as its own line item, people would say, no, they would abandon cart over and over and over again.

Sarah Delevan:
So for her, the strategy is to increase the price of her product to build in the cost of shipping. And as people buy more and the shipping cost per unit reduces, she passes on that savings to the customer. So that’s all to say, when you record that information separately, you have, again, just so much knowledge and information to make really informed decisions about your price. And about which sales channel to grow on. And Amazon is another great example because I had, and maybe you guys agree with this, I’m not sure, but people often say that if you’re going to be on Amazon, you want to be available via Prime because people go to Amazon and they want stuff fast. So if you’re in the Prime program, it’s going to cost you a little bit more as a business. And so people who shop on Amazon, they’re like, “Okay, I want it tomorrow. Or I want it this afternoon. And so I’m willing to pay a little bit more for it.”

Alison Smith:
They’re not price shopping, yeah.

Sarah Delevan:
No. So crank up your price on Amazon to whatever it needs to be for you to maintain your margins on the channel. And you’ll know what that is. If you’re looking at your revenue and all the costs associated with that channel, and then just to hit on the final example, retail. We don’t have total control over what the retailer sells our product for. We have control over what we’re selling our product to the retailer at. And of course that influences the shelf price. But I try to tell people, don’t get too hung up on what the final retail price of your product is. If for example, I’m trying to think whole food. They want to sell your product for a dollar or $2 more than what you ideally want it to be. You have the power there to offer an everyday low price situation for them and bring your shelf price down. But just remember that that affects your costs, that affects your margin. And so make that decision really wisely with all the information that you have at your fingertips.

Karin Samelson:
Trusting that the retailer, they want to sell your product. They want people to buy it. So they’re going to make it competitive, hopefully. But I think that advice is so incredible where a lot of people are like, “Oh, I can’t be a couple dollars more on my website than I am on Amazon.” It’s like, “Wait, why not?” You want to be able to make money from this. And we’ve had clients that are refrigerated and glass and it’s just like, ooh, and people still purchase. It’s the convenience and it’s the loyalty to the brand. So building that community is so important and then pricing.

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah, and I think this is an area where I’m all about collaboration. So I’ve got a range me expert that I worked with for some of my clients, I’ve got a co-packing expert that I work with some of my clients, I’ve got a branding person that I work with with some of my clients and the same would go right like when someone is thinking about what is the price point and what is the discount that I want to offer? What is the promotion that makes sense? Having the financial information and also the customer insights and the market research and all of that, it comes together. My belief is that we can’t do anything in our business, in a vacuum. And that goes for financial decisions as well. I might say to you, “Oh my gosh, your product absolutely needs to be $15.”

Sarah Delevan:
And that part you might say, “But I’ve done the research and it’s not going to sell, the max that I can do for my consumer is 13.” It’s like, “Okay, well then let’s work with that.” But it’s just, again, going back to the information that you have, gives you power to make really smart decisions.

Karin Samelson:
Leading with data. You say it again. Awesome. Well, so what is a common denominator that you see with working with smaller CPG businesses that are just struggling to grow at the rate that they want to be growing at?

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah. This is an interesting question. What’s floating through my mind right now is the definition of the word grow. What does growth mean? I actually think it’s a little bit different for every business. Do they want to grow units sold? Do they want to grow profits? I think number one let’s get clear on that. I think that’s big. And I think that that’s something that a lot of people don’t think about. But I will say with that said, typically when someone says, “We want to be growing,” we’re talking about sales, right? We’re talking about top line growth. And I actually think that a common denominator is that people focus on that instead of efficiency and bottom line growth. And that the case for me when I owned my food business, we thought in order to be successful, in order to pay ourselves more, in order to stay in business for a long time, we have to sell more.

Sarah Delevan:
And so that’s what we did. That was our approach. And that’s, as we sold more, our costs went up. And the reason that that happened was because we had not done the work yet to get efficient inside our business. How could we add another location? What were those costs going to be? And then how much would we need to bring in from that location to make this worth our while? And we just weren’t thinking that way, we were solely focused on that top line growth and it was eating away our profits. So that’s a huge, common denominator that I see. And I want to change the language tip to be a bit closer to the question that I pose, which is like, what is growth, right? What is it that you want to accomplish with growth? And I think if we start thinking about it like that, there’s going to be a lot more clarity, there’s going to be a lot less burnout and there’s going to be a lot more successful food businesses out there.

Alison Smith:
Yeah. And that is not just food that is every single business where, yeah, you’re thinking of all what you’re saying. You’re thinking about more sales, more sales, more sales, but you’re not looking internally.

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah, how many-

Alison Smith:
It’s so easy. I mean, I’m not faulting anyone because everyone does it as a business owner, you’re just in it and so you don’t really always consider those things.

Sarah Delevan:
I think we’re also inundated and I fall prey to this in my business as well. There are people out there who are like, “I make five figures a month and I’m a six figure business annually or and I get to do it from a hammock somewhere.” And it’s just like, that’s not, you just need to shut that out and go, what are my goals? What are my goals for me? What are my goals for my day-to-day life? What are my goals for my client and how can I best serve them? And it’s so funny this morning, I had an exchange on Instagram from another real that I posted. We’re talking about right-sizing, build the company that is right for you.

Sarah Delevan:
I had a conversation recently with a business owner who said to me, “I kind of liked being at home with my girls.” He’s a dad, he’s been working like crazy. He would love to be home to make dinner for his wife who has a great career. And to his girls who I think are both under the age of like 10 or 12, then if that’s what you want, you can create a business that achieves that goal for you. And your financial goals. So just, what do you want?

Alison Smith:
What do you want?

Sarah Delevan:
Build that business?

Alison Smith:
Love that

Karin Samelson:
Did you call it right sizing?

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah.

Karin Samelson:
Never heard that before.

Sarah Delevan:
Which I can’t take credit for creating that word. I first heard it on second life when the host was talking to, I can’t remember her name. Oh Joy. She was talking to Oh Joy and Oh Joy was talking about how she was on this rapid growth in her business. And at some point she was just like, “Wait, why are we doing this? We’re growing for the sake of growing. I have this huge team now there’s this pressure to continue to sell and to continue to increase that top line. But I don’t feel the joy that I used to in my business.” And so she had at the time gone through the process of rightsizing and I didn’t think much about it at that point in time, but it’s one of those things that just sits with you. And I think about that conversation often, and I think about what’s the right size for my business.

Sarah Delevan:
And when I have a client coming to me and they are stressed out and they’re burnt out and they need a break, it’s like, “Do you want to close up shop? Or do you want to take a vacation and come back and rightsize and build the business that’s right for you and stop chasing what you think you should be chasing?” I think it’s something that every one of us, I think as one of you just mentioned, every one of us has to work through this.

Alison Smith:
Really. I love that term.

Karin Samelson:
Me too.

Sarah Delevan:
It’s cool, right?

Alison Smith:
Love it. Yeah. I mean, we talk about marketing FOMO all the time, where businesses look at other businesses and they’re experiencing what looks like just like overnight success. And it just makes them feel down in the dumps and that they’re not doing enough. And it’s really like, the food business is so fun, but if you allow it to, it can take over your life. And I liked that. You’re asking people to really think about what is that work-life balance? What do they want out of this? Instead of just saying, how do we make more?

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah. The answer is not always more revenue or more sales. It’s kind of.

Alison Smith:
It’s interesting. You don’t usually hear that, but I couldn’t agree more, I think, that’s such a logical and effective way of doing it because man burnout is real and no one wants to get to that place.

Sarah Delevan:
Okay. I’ll share a little burnout story just to relate. At the end of our food business back in 2012 is when it ended. Right? Or no ended in 2014. I think that’s like a blur. I had a stress rash on my left hand that literally took up my whole hand and it was embarrassing, I was having a drink with a friend and we were talking about “What am I going to do?” And talking about the business. And every time I would talk about it, my hand, it would itch. And she was like, “Are you noticing that every time you talk about the business, you’re itching your hand?” And I was like, “Oh no, I didn’t.” I didn’t even notice that. And it was like the burnout, the stress, the anxiety had gotten so real for me that not only were my so tired and so puffy, but I had a physical rash on my hand that took time to go away.

Sarah Delevan:
And I think just like when I talked about acne at the beginning. And for me putting food into my body made a big impact on the outward appearance, like stress and anxiety affect us. And I didn’t realize it until it was on the outside. And I could only imagine what it was doing to me, on the inside. And that is with me. I don’t forget that. I don’t forget the discomfort and the pain of making the difficult decision to close the business. And I think it’s important that I carry that with me when I have conversations with food business owners or conversations like this with you, it’s like, I get it. I understand how real that is. And I know that it might sound crazy because not a lot of people are saying “Don’t sell more.”

Sarah Delevan:
But there’s a reason, there’s a reason that I say that and I want you to sell a ton, but I first want you to sort out the inside of your business so that when you start selling a ton, you’re not going to get burned out, your profits aren’t going to disappear. And you’re going to like, again, I said it already, but you’re going to be able to create the life and the business that you want for yourself.

Alison Smith:
That’s amazing. It’s a way to think about things that I’d like to continue with because yeah. I mean, the stress is real. And it’s so crazy that your body was trying to tell you that in so many ways, but you’re so wrapped up and doing the grind every day that you don’t don’t even notice, so.

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah. People were telling me like, “Oh, it’s like, don’t eat this kind of fat or stop eating potato chips.” That doesn’t have anything to do with it.

Alison Smith:
It’s not the potato chips.

Sarah Delevan:
No.

Alison Smith:
Oh, we’re going to switch gears a little bit. But this is a question we really wanted to ask you just because we think that you are someone who is changing the financial space in the CPG world. So what are some CPG financial innovations that you’re seeing or some new tactics maybe that CPGers are using?

Sarah Delevan:
I’m going to be a little bit brazen and say that what we’re doing is a trend. And what we’re doing is what I hope more CPG founders and business owners will connect with if it’s right for them. But when I set out at Sarah Delevan Consulting, the mission is to change our food system and to do that one profitable food business at a time. But it has evolved since then to what we’ve been talking about doing it right. Still achieving that mission, but on our own terms, by creating the type of business that we want to. And that’s what I want the trend to be. That’s the innovation that I want to see. I don’t want finances to be overwhelming to people. I want them to be easy to understand. I want people to feel confident about it.

Sarah Delevan:
And have help when they need it, but to own some of it themselves with confidence. And I’ll share this with you too, inside the coaching program. There’s a particular founder that I have in mind. It’s very important to her that her team is well educated and walks the walk of diversity equity. All of that, that she has an education fund for them, that she is supporting them both as humans and as teammates and that she wants to keep them around for a really long time. And I think, I might be speaking out of turn here, but I think most financial advisors would say, “Well, you don’t have the money for that. That could be a goal in the future when you’ve got XYZ, number of sales or when your profit margin is a certain percentage.” The approach that we want to take is if that’s what you want, if that’s meaningful to you, and if that’s core to you and your business, let’s figure out a way to make it happen.

Sarah Delevan:
Let’s figure out how much you need to be allocating or putting aside for that fund to make that happen. And that is what I want to see in the CPG space and in the food industry as a whole, because I don’t know a single mission driven food business owner who doesn’t have some other goal for their business, whether it’s like that person and her and her team and wanting to be an active participant in changing the way that people act right in her business and in the world, or if it’s donating to environmental causes or political causes or whatever it is. I want people to be able to do that and for their vehicles and their business income to be a source for that. So I want us to be the trend. Yeah.

Alison Smith:
I think you’re doing it.

Sarah Delevan:
I hope so, yeah.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. I think that’s inspiring and important to say, because I feel like all of these smaller brands that do have these really tight budgets and there’s all these wishes to be this or that, or all these conversations about becoming a big corporation and things like that. It’s just like maybe later, maybe later. It’s like, if something means a lot to you, figure out a way to get it done. I think that’s really awesome that you’re helping to do that.

Sarah Delevan:
Thank you.

Alison Smith:
And even from a marketing perspective, that’s such a powerful way for those extra small brands to stand out is to have those types of platforms where consumers can relate. And like these people going beyond just liking their product.

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah.

Karin Samelson:
Okay. You’re benefiting the marketing too.

Alison Smith:
Yeah, thank you.

Sarah Delevan:
My pleasure.

Alison Smith:
So closing it out a little bit, we understand that you’re the only food business consultant in the world certified in the profit first method. We have to hear more about this.

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. It’s kind of wild. To think that you could be the only person in the world of something it was a little bit mind blowing, but yeah. I’ll give a little bit of a backstory in the beginning of this year. So January, 2021, I read the Profit First book after hearing about it from so many people for two years. And I recently did a podcast episode about my journey to discovering Profit First and implementing it in my own business to see how does this really work? Is it practical? I was immediately hooked on the process. I think every business of every kind should be utilizing this strategy because it is so powerful. But despite that, when I read the book at first, I was like, “Could this be helpful for food businesses, particularly mission driven, food and beverage businesses?”

Sarah Delevan:
And so I went to the certification team and I was like, “Hey, I want to learn more about this.” And I mean, to be honest, I wanted to challenge them and be a little bit tough on them. And I think I was, and they were equally tough on me, which I totally respected. Because they have a philosophy that they believe in and that they believe can work in any industry. And I wanted to prove that it could work for food and it does. And so it’s really exciting. We are the only financial consulting agency for food businesses. I’m the only food business financial consultant that has this certification. And we worked with them to make customized tools. So if someone has read the Profit First book and they’re like, “Well, I’m not sure how to implement this in my own business.” We’ve created tools that speak directly to mission-driven food and beverage businesses to help them identify what we call the financial success formula. And to roll that out, according to the Profit First philosophy. So super exciting.

Karin Samelson:
Oh, that is super exciting. I mean, it’s a book that we have on our list to read now. So encouraging everybody else to pick it up and learn something new.

Sarah Delevan:
Yeah. I think the other thing that’s super exciting about it to me is that all the things we just talked about, building a business on your own terms and doing what matters and putting money towards the things that matter Profit First has proven to be a tool to make that a possibility. So the founder that I was just talking about, we’re in the process of implementing Profit First in her business. And it’s given her the strategy is basically, okay, let’s take a percentage of your income every month and put it into this bucket for education so that you can support your team in the exact way that you want to, and you don’t have to wait until you’re making a million dollars a year. You can start to do it right now. And that’s, oh, so exciting.

Karin Samelson:
Giving them their financial freedom. I love it. Awesome. Well, Sarah, it’s been such a pleasure to have you and to learn from you and grow with you. So would you want to leave the audience with a link or call to action?

Sarah Delevan:
For sure. So I’d love connecting with food business owners on Instagram. So you can find me @sarah.delevan.consulting. See all of my reels that I have been creating these days. And check out the website sarahdelevan.com or the goodfoodcfo.com. We’ve got brand new programs if you’re interested in Profit First, there’s a bunch of information there about that as well. And so just check it out and connect with me. I’m here to support you and to support our joint mission of changing our food industry.

Alison Smith:
Amazing. Thank you so much, Sarah.

Sarah Delevan:
Thank you guys for having me.

Narrator:
Umai Social Circle is a CPG agency driven podcast based out of Austin, Texas. We’re excited to share more behind the scenes insights, chats with industry leaders and whatever else we learn along the way. Follow us on Instagram at @umaimarketing or check out our website, umaimarketing.com. Catch you back here soon.

Read – #19: Andy Kurtts Unwraps the Mysteries of Branding and Packaging Design

[AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT MAY BE SUBJECT TO MINOR TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS/VARIATIONS]

Narrator:
Calling all consumer goods, business owners and marketing professionals. Does planning content ahead of time stress you out? Do you want to run Instagram and Facebook ads but just aren’t sure where to start? If your answer is yes and yes, then our mini course was made for you. It’s 100% free and packed with the central tactics that you can implement as soon as today. To join in, visit our website at umaimarketing.com/minicourse. All right, let’s get on with the pod.

Alison Smith:
I’m Alison, Co-Founder of Umai and we’re being joined by Andy Kurtts, Creative Director and Founder of Buttermilk Creative, a full service design studio that’s done the branding and packaging for The Fresh Market, Fire Cider, Publix grocer and Wegmans and that’s just to name a few. Welcome, Andy.

Andy Kurtts:
Thank you so much for having me, Allison.

Alison Smith:
Thanks for being here. I’m excited because to me, branding and packaging is just a difficult mystery, so I’m hoping that you can demystify some things for me today.

Andy Kurtts:
I’ll try.

Alison Smith:
Good. Well, let’s start with your background. How did you get into design?

Andy Kurtts:
Sure. I always knew when I was little that I wanted to be in some creative field. I was lucky enough, through sixth grade on, I have some art class in every single semester, whatever. As it got closer in high school, I got closer to figuring out what I was going to study in college, I started being very intentional about the classes I could take. We had a vocational high school here that you could travel to, and so I filled up my courses, junior and senior year with computer arts and photography and commercial art and all that kind of stuff. Digital illustration.

Andy Kurtts:
When it came time to going out for college, I knew I wanted to do something creative. Initially I went to study fine art painting and realized very quickly that that’s basically one in a million kind of thing. That’s like training to be a star athlete or star actor. The thought that a gallery is going to pick you up is crazy. I quickly retooled and recalibrated and ended up going to the Ringling School of Art and Design. Now it’s called College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, to study illustration and design there.

Andy Kurtts:
That’s really where that it all jelled with me of this intersection of fine art and business. Studied there for four years and then worked at a print shop right out of school, doing everything that they needed. That was eye opening because in school they don’t teach you about separation, print plates, all the kind of limited color printing, offset, all that kind of stuff. And so I got a bit of a trial by fire because the woman who ran the press was just, she didn’t take anything from anybody. If I mess something up, she was right there.

Alison Smith:
Were you printing shirts or just anything that-

Andy Kurtts:
Anything. Business cards, brochures, they did digital printing an offset and letterpress printing. It was everything, as a full service print shop. That was really neat, because I got to literally design something and then see it be made into a plate, and then go on the press and then get printed like 5,000 copies or whatever.

Andy Kurtts:
Then my wife and I moved up to North Carolina and I started working at the fresh market and running their in-house design team. It was really there that I really found a love for packaging design and especially food and beverage, which is what we now focus on. During that time there, we did a ton of stuff, that I think when we started tracking our projects, we had 500 projects a year or something.

Andy Kurtts:
A lot of that was the packaging design and that was really interesting to work on it there because there was no line work. Which when you think about a private brand design, look at a grocery store, it’s normally, put the logo at the top, product photography, item name, it’s sent. For them, everything was a blank slate. What we did was we would look at the maker and the manufacturer for inspiration, the product, if there were any history there, and really just dug into that to inspire the look of the packaging.

Andy Kurtts:
While it was maddening having to restart every time, we wish we had some plug and play options for some of this stuff. It really helped me refine how to design packaging for a wide variety of people. I was there for seven years, and then six years ago started Buttermilk Creative, just basically doing what I had a lot of experience doing with the fresh market, but just with our end clients. It’s really neat, the specialty food and beverage industry is very, actually pretty small. A lot of the folks that I worked with at the fresh market went on to work at other places or for other brands and just the network really grows itself.

Alison Smith:
So cool you get to do your passion every day. That’s awesome. But with the fresh market, when you’re saying you’re doing packaging design, is that their self-produced products or is it other brands got help from y’all, or how does that work?

Andy Kurtts:
It’s like any kind of private label program.

Alison Smith:
Okay. Cool.

Andy Kurtts:
They would go out source manufacturers that are offering white label service or whatever. That was interesting too, because we would have to design with them whatever parameters. For instance, there was this company that made croutons, and their box was very distinct. We had that on the shelf at the first market, and then the fresh market started working with them on making fresh market brand crouton, but it came in the same shape of box. We had to be very clear in our design, because already the form tied them together, and so we had to be very clear on how we designed that crouton packaging so it didn’t look anything like the people who made it. Unless it’s some kind of exclusivity thing, like grocery stores don’t really want you to know who’s making their products.

Alison Smith:
Interesting. I just love that you have that background in grocery. I’m really curious, now that you’re working with other clients, how does that affect your overall design?

Andy Kurtts:
I reference it all the time, daily. It really has built this great foundation and education for designing for brands. Because even if you’re trying to get on to a mass market conventional grocery store or a super-duper specialty grocery store, the rules of the shelf are pretty much the same. Even before you get on the shelf, you have to get on a grocery buyer’s radar.

Andy Kurtts:
Then even before that, there’s a category review schedule. I got exposed to all this really inner workings of grocery stores that help my clients navigate all that. Now, by no means am I a broker or anything like that? I have no idea. That is not our specialty, but if a client calls me up and is like, “Hey, I need quick samples or mock-ups because I’m going to a category review meeting or I’m sending stuff in for category review meeting with our broker in two weeks.” I know exactly what they need and I could just crank it out for them. No more, no less.

Andy Kurtts:
Just being able to see that, and then also being able to see when there were samplings and cuttings. That’s where they get a ton of samples and they lay it all out in the test kitchen and just go around and rate and eat everything, and sample everything. There’d be a whole-

Alison Smith:
That sounds awesome.

Andy Kurtts:
Oh man. But if you were invited to, let’s say the ice cream cutting, you also had to go to the olive oil cutting. Something that’s, or the vinegar tasting or whatever. They were like, “You guys can’t just cherry pick. If you want to be involved in this process, then you have to take the good with the bad.” But no, it was really neat because we could really see from the VP level to the coordinator level, to a specialist level.

Andy Kurtts:
What resonated with them packaging wise, outside of all the other stuff, ingredient quality, margins, distribution, all that kind of stuff, all that business stuff but then we also could hear what aesthetically stuck out to them, but then also, what disqualified a maker. If their nutrition facts panel wasn’t formatted properly, or they didn’t have a UPC code on their packaging, it could be the most amazing, best story, the greatest product ever. But if it wasn’t compliant, wasn’t shelf-ready, then it was too much work to go back to that maker and say, “Hey, you need to do this. You need to do that.”

Alison Smith:
But they’d get cut just because of those?

Andy Kurtts:
Yeah.

Alison Smith:
What do you mean exactly by the nutritional facts not being formatted? It’s oblong or what?

Andy Kurtts:
Yeah. It’s crazy what people do to… The FDA provides lots of different formats for your packaging. Most people just think of that traditional just table version. But there’s a version where it’s just words. That would go on a really small package. But a lot of folks just take… Because you get a JPEG image of your nutrition facts and from whoever, the lab or whatever. Then you’re like, “Okay, well I need to take this format and then just slap it on this label or whatever.”

Andy Kurtts:
They just shrink it or they squeeze it or they compress it. While technically you have a nutrition facts panel, well for one, it’s not doing the consumer any good because they can’t read it. And then there is a potential that it’ll get flagged by the FDA, and then you have to fix it and there might be fines associated with that, so just that awareness of all the different formats in which one can go with which size of label. The size of label really drives everything.

Alison Smith:
Wow. That’s something so small I feel like a lot of people could easily overlook but… So those are the no nos. Are there any, you talked about grocery buyers resonating with certain types of packaging. Is there anything that stands out that people should look to add to their design?

Andy Kurtts:
I think it’s always having, if you don’t clutter the packaging but having good call-outs that are relevant to your customer and the category that you’re in. If it’s like, this is a very generic example, but if you’re making an energy bar, then make sure you mentioned keto and paleo or whatever. Really being able to… Then any relevant certifications or logos, like USDA Organic or Non-GMO, that kind of stuff. That really resonates with grocery buyers because they know that all of those certifications to use those logos costs money.

Andy Kurtts:
Well, first of all, you have to get your product approved and your facility approved and all that kind of stuff. Then you have to keep it up and you pay for that every year, so obviously you’re invested in whatever-

Alison Smith:
The standards.

Andy Kurtts:
Exactly. I think that means a lot. Beyond that, it’s very… They’re really looking for stuff that is going to stand out on the shelf, it’s going to be different than what they currently have. If you have the ability, then you go to whatever store you’re going to try to get into and really look at the set and really understand, okay but everything’s dark or everything’s brown here. Let’s say like the granola set. Everything’s either really light or really brown, so maybe we do a bright bag four ours or whatever.

Andy Kurtts:
They’re also, this is nothing I have control over, but they’re also looking for what the format is and how many they can get on the shelf and all that kind of stuff. If you have some funky shape or something and your competitor can get four bags on a shelf, and because you’re a crazy shape, you can only do two, that’s going to hindering you. And aesthetically, it’s all very subjective, I think from from the… Everybody has their own tastes.

Alison Smith:
Yeah. Like fresh market’s going to be different than Walmart.

Andy Kurtts:
Even within those organizations, we had super conservative people that were grocery veterans that were like, “No, you got to have the Starburst in the corner. Then there were other folks who were really in touch with cutting edge trendy design, and they would push us to be more out of the box and be more subtle and whatever. It just ran the gamut there too. You’ll find the same wherever it is.

Andy Kurtts:
That’s why we work with a lot of other grocery stores, is that we have worked in-house at a grocery stores, so there’s already a bit of a learning curve that we’ve already gotten over. Because it’s a quirky world and to take a designer who maybe has been working in an agency environment and then say, “Okay, now you’re going to freelance with this in-house department at a grocery store.” It’s a totally different animal. That’s a value add that we bring, is that we can just get plugged into the team right away.

Alison Smith:
Very cool. Huge value. I love that tip, just go to the store. When you’re starting your branding journey, go to the store and just be different. It’s so obvious but. We talked about grocery buyers, what they’re looking for. Like you said, it’s going to vary. But anything specific that consumers are looking for? How can brands know what their consumers are going to look for on the shelf, I guess?

Andy Kurtts:
Well, that just goes back to knowing who your target customer is, and speaking to them. And really having a laser focus on who that is, and being as specific as you can. Way too many, I think, brands out there skip over that process. We talked to one of our clients early on, and we were like, “Okay well, who’s your target customer?” And they said, “Anyone with a mouth.” And then we say-

Alison Smith:
Oh gosh. I’ve heard that so many times. I’m like, “That’s not right.”

Andy Kurtts:
That’s not right. It’s understanding exactly who that is, and then that’s creating your messaging and your packaging all around that, detaching yourself from it and really focusing on who that… Because you could be a 30 something year old dude like me, who wants to make something that’s targeted for older women or something. I’m going to need to really research, which we’re actually doing right now. We’re making a packaging for powdered supplements that is going to target gen x women. I had to take a step back and say, “Well, what’s going to resonate with that?”

Alison Smith:
How do you figure that out? Or you’re just on tic-tac?

Andy Kurtts:
Well, not tic-tac. Did I say gen x? What was the ’90s? Who was the ’90s and early 2000s? Was that gen x?

Alison Smith:
Millennials.

Andy Kurtts:
Before millennials. Whatever that generation was before millennials.

Alison Smith:
Gosh, I don’t know.

Andy Kurtts:
It would be people like women who grew up in the ’80s, late ’70s, early ’80s into the ’90s come of age in the ’90s. It turns out that that demographic is not spoken to, really. Our client, we worked with a person who does marketing research. When you think about powdered supplements, you’re going to automatically think, it’s a younger crowd. It’s possibly skews female, health-focused exercise, and you do all that and you’ve basically just described every core customer for every powdered supplement brand out there.

Andy Kurtts:
She uncovered this untapped demographic for this type of product. I think those folks are… That demographic’s just as interested in eating good food and being healthy and active and all that kind of stuff, as the younger crowd. We didn’t make the packaging look like a Nirvana album cover.

Alison Smith:
But you’ll be sick.

Andy Kurtts:
[inaudible 00:19:51] to me. But we knew that that, again, that wasn’t really… That while they might’ve listened that music, it’s visually probably wouldn’t have… it would have been weird. We just worked on how do we get just really try to put on our target customer hat? Because it doesn’t look like a design that I would necessarily be attracted to. But-

Alison Smith:
I think that must be really difficult to… Like you said, you’re 30 something year old man, constantly having to design for other people, which makes a great designer. But tell us more how you get into that, like you said, the customer avatars. Are you listening to Nirvana every night and drawing like you do or what?

Andy Kurtts:
I just try to immerse myself in the research and just really try to check all the assumptions at the door. I also have great help from my wife who isn’t in the creative work on a day-to-day basis. She’s a studio director so she is invoicing and sending emails out and doing that kind of stuff, and managing other things. She really can look over my shoulder and say, what are you doing? Who’s who is that? Who are you designing for? And really helps ground me. Because I will get fall back into some just things that I like visually that do not fit. And so that’s a super help as well, having someone with fresh eyes look at it.

Andy Kurtts:
But it’s just leaning into it and by now I think I don’t really… My goal is not to make something cool. It’s to make something that the client is going to be happy with and is hopefully going to make them a lot of money. Whether I think it’s cool or not, or aesthetically pleasing or whatever is… It’s part of it and I’d like to think that what I’m making is going to look good on the shelf, but would I put pink at the top of a box or whatever? Maybe not, but if that’s what the client wants and feels that it’s going to resonate with their customer and it’s going to fly off the shelf, then I’m beak up there.

Alison Smith:
I like that. We just talked about the customer avatar, how you get in that zone. But how do you tell the story of a brand in such a small space? How has that done?

Andy Kurtts:
Oh man.

Alison Smith:
Sounds like a challenge.

Andy Kurtts:
It totally is. It’s even more challenging. I worked on these gourmet butters, and the cup is about an inch and a half tall. That design space was about an inch and a half tall, so then the cup is slightly taller. I had to sum up this whole story of this amazing butter that is developed by this the maker is from France and he’s got this whole culinary background and his grandma made this type of table-flavored table butter or whatever, all into this little tiny thing.

Andy Kurtts:
It really, you’re just looking for anything that you can pull from the history or from the story and integrate. If it’s a color, if it’s a little symbol, if it’s a… I don’t know. Then you have to also accept that you’re not going to be able to get everything across on that packaging too. There’s other opportunities with the website and other places to further tell the story. It’s a balance.

Alison Smith:
Finding that customer, that target customer, if you’re a part of process in any way-

Andy Kurtts:
Yes, that’s right.

Alison Smith:
… how can branding people help with that process?

Andy Kurtts:
Yes, we are part of that process. There are plenty of specialty studio or firms that help with that specifically, but we can help embody that avatar. Once you nail down who that persona is, then that is really when we can start humming along with… Because that’s going to inform objectively the work that a founder might… This goes back to what I was earlier saying. You as the founder might hate the color orange. But when I present something orange to you and you bring up, “You know I hate the color orange.” It’s like, “Well, but your target customer, prove to me that your target customer hates the color orange.” It just gives you as the designer a leg to stand on when… Because that’s the worst thing, poison pill for a design project, is the subjective feelings that come into play.

Andy Kurtts:
When people give criticism or try to give criticism who aren’t used to giving criticism, like art school, we were so used to being torn apart at a critique that that really doesn’t… none of that bothers me. Also giving constructive criticism. But a lot of the founders that we work with, they’re not used to that, and it’s uncomfortable to talk about design. You can either accept that you don’t really know what you’re talking about.

Andy Kurtts:
Because I can’t tell you how to run a snack company. I don’t know the first thing about how to set up a line to fill bags of chips. I’m not going to tell you anything about that. I think a lot of people assume that, “Design is easy. I can get feedback.” And it’s not. The sooner you can accept that and just say, “I’m out of my element, but I can help you walk through what you’re feeling.” And then translate it into actual feedback that will help the design.

Alison Smith:
Design is difficult to talk about. Because I don’t know how you communicate design. There’s Pinterest and I think that’s a bridge to help people communicate their feelings.

Andy Kurtts:
Exactly.

Alison Smith:
But it’s hard.

Andy Kurtts:
Anywhere along the way… A good way to do it is through a mood board, which is basically just creating a Pinterest board and aligning on what a client means when they say clean and modern. It’s like my interpretation of clean and modern is going to be different than your interpretation of clean and modern, so let’s align on that. Then if that’s what you want your packaging to be and it aligns with your target customer, then we have a baseline.

Andy Kurtts:
But sometimes a mood board is too conceptual for a client, and they’re like, “What am I looking at?” So you’re going to actually use that font. It doesn’t say our name or whatever. Because you can also put font choices on mood boards, along with color and along with just overall look and feel. We do a case-by-case basis because we’ve presented mood boards where people just got way too literal with them and just couldn’t get away from them. And they thought that literally that’s what their packaging was going to look like. And it was like, “No, we’re just trying to capture a mood here. Mood board.”

Andy Kurtts:
Then trying to help your client. I know that it’s hard to give feedback, and so I’m not going to overwhelm them with a bunch of design terms. Because I know if a client doesn’t like a font, they can’t reference and say what it is. They’re not going to say, “Well, I just want the surf to be more humanist.” Or whatever. I know what that means, but-

Alison Smith:
I did not.

Andy Kurtts:
When they say like, I don’t know, just that font feels too cold. If it’s like a sans serif, then I’d probably need to explore some serif more warm, friendly fonts that’s more human looking. Versus something that looks more computer looking.

Alison Smith:
That’s so interesting. It really is. I love that you have to dissect what someone’s trying to say on a constant basis to get it right. It’s very cool. But you did talk about the evolution of brands, so I just wanted to ask, should a brand design their packaging knowing that in the future they’ll most likely want to do a refresh, or should they design something that’s withstanding time?

Andy Kurtts:
Sure. Especially for a startup brand, you can almost guarantee that whatever packaging you launch with, no matter if you invest $500 or a million dollars, you’re going to redo it very quickly. A lot of the startup brands, we try to steer away from. They should look at more economical options because… Then come to us afterwards when they’re out there for a year or so.

Alison Smith:
Because I can see that getting someone really stuck on launching, is the branding has to be right and it’s just like just put it out. Okay, cool.

Andy Kurtts:
Yeah. I just, an article that I wrote for the Startup CPG Spotlight blog. It was whatever, published last Friday. It’s going to be a series where I talk to founders about what kind of packaging they started with and launched with, and what the packaging looks like now.

Alison Smith:
That’s the social media trend that’s happening right now. I love it.

Andy Kurtts:
Exactly. That’s what it’s called. It’s called, what is it? The, this is how it started, this is how it’s going.

Alison Smith:
And this is how it’s going. That’s so cool.

Andy Kurtts:
Thank you. The one that just published is with the folks who started Bare Bones Broth and it’s Kate and Ryan Harvey. I talked to Kate about it. When you look at how they started, looks nothing like what it looks like now. Some of that was due to just the challenges of a small brand. They had to do a label on a stock bag. Versus now, they can get bags printed, and it’s beautiful, full color bags.

Andy Kurtts:
But then it also was, you can tell the design aesthetic wasn’t as obviously polished. But they just needed to get out there and just learn along the way, versus getting hung up because you can almost guarantee it’s going to get redesigned. Then for more established brands, then obviously I’m trying to create something that’s going to be somewhat timeless so it doesn’t look like… you can tell something was designed in 2020 or whatever.

Andy Kurtts:
But you can pretty much guarantee, just based on a lot of different factors that you’re going to get a redesign, or you should start exploring a redesign around five years. That’s really… But then the shelf life of most designs, if the company sticks around, is around 10 years. But if you really want to keep things fresh and keep on top of revisiting call-outs or revisiting small tweaks that might improve your packaging and visibility, then five years is a good rule of thumb.

Alison Smith:
Great. I love having those hard numbers. I know it’s not a hard number, but I think that’s really helpful to wrap your head around. I would love to get your input on sustainability where sustainable packaging, what things you’re excited about in that realm or where we’re moving towards for that.

Andy Kurtts:
I’m really excited, but then also frustrated because the options are super limited. And it’s really going to take someone like a Coca-Cola or one of these large CPG companies to really lean into sustainable packaging, then that will help everyone else be able to-

Alison Smith:
As it’s got to go down the chain.

Andy Kurtts:
And it’s just so expensive right now. But it’s critical. Now, I did hear something interesting the other day, that we focus a lot on compostability and making something that you can throw away. They were basically like, “No, no, no, whether you’re throwing it into a landfill or doing some compostable thing, you’re still generating trash and waste. And really what we should really be focusing on is reusability.” That’s one thing that I’ve been really inspired by seeing how folks are doing the reusable thing.

Andy Kurtts:
There’s this soap company that sends out a little dissolvable pods. Your kit that you buy has the pump in it or the whole thing. Then you do a subscription and then in a month or whatever, they just send you a little pod, pop in there and shake it up with water. That’s really neat to think about how you can apply that reasonable, re-fillable to other industries.

Andy Kurtts:
Every client we work with, we try to help them navigate sustainable packaging or explore sustainable packaging, or just lesser impact packaging, just because it’s hard. Sometimes just that the investment just isn’t there and the budget isn’t there. Our business is on the line and so we can’t push them too much, but we do try to have a conversation when it comes to format and substrate. We try to bring that up.

Alison Smith:
You give the options. I completely agree. It’s got to start from the top because it’s just, it’s probably way too expensive. I know a lot of brands start with glass and things like that, but as they grow, they just can’t keep up with that, so… Any other packaging innovations that excite you?

Andy Kurtts:
Let’s see. There was this really interesting company that I talked to, that they do this neat thing, I think it’s called Phantom Graphics maybe. Basically what they do is it’s only with clear pressure sensitive labels right now, but they’re exploring other materials. But basically, they through printing on top of the label and behind the label, a certain pattern, it looks like the image that you’ve printed is moving. It’s hard to describe but it’s really cool.

Alison Smith:
Like a 3D thing?

Andy Kurtts:
Yeah. When you were a kid, did you ever have books that had overlapping black and white images and when you moved them over, they look like they’re moving?

Alison Smith:
Yeah. I think I know what you’re talking about.

Andy Kurtts:
It’s not a hologram, it’s not a lenticular printing, which is like when you have something that you move back and forth and it’s like texture. This is something totally different. I don’t know, it was just fascinating to me that they have been able to… Pressure-sensitive, printing on clear pressure-sensitive labels, it’s not the oldest type of packaging printing, but it’s not particularly new. But they’ve been able to make something that’s old new and interesting.

Andy Kurtts:
You can think about the implications for… You could put a clear label on a beer can, and that would be really neat. Because it’s already a funky category and always looking for ways to innovate. We are actually potentially going to work with them on one of our clients who she makes, called True North Beauty. She makes skincare with chaga mushrooms, and she’s got this beautiful Malakai pattern as part of her packaging. To just think about how, if that Malakai looked like it was moving, almost like water moving around.

Alison Smith:
Cool.

Andy Kurtts:
I don’t know. That would be appropriate for a category. Because you just expect to have really beautiful rich packaging experiences with health and beauty.

Alison Smith:
Well, if that project goes through, definitely ping us. I need to see that.

Andy Kurtts:
For sure.

Alison Smith:
Cool. Well, that’s exciting. My final question is something that we like to ask everyone. It’s a difficult one though, so what are some of your favorite brands or packaging designs right now that we can all look at and get inspired by? It’s hard to choose favorites. We know.

Andy Kurtts:
I know, I know. Let’s see. Who are some of the… Okay, here. I’m going to name some studios that I am constantly amazed with what they’re putting out. Just because I followed them, and then you get to look at their work. Is that okay?

Alison Smith:
Yeah, that’s great.

Andy Kurtts:
There’s this one that’s basically who I consider just about the leader in this natural products packaging design world, is Interact in Boulder. Think of any like when you’ve gone to Expo West or one of the trade shows and there’s a really cool brand and packaging, that they probably had a hand in it. I’ll always look into them on a daily basis like, who are they working with or who did they launch, or I try to guess if I see a cool new, natural product out there. I’m like, “I bet Interact had something to do with them.”

Andy Kurtts:
Another really neat one is Miller, I think it’s Miller Creative in New Jersey. They do a lot of super great work. Look on their Instagrams. That’s where the best place I think to see things. But it’s funny. I do packaging on a daily basis, but it has become noise to me as well. I look for inspiration outside of packaging.

Alison Smith:
That’s cool.

Andy Kurtts:
Because if you just look at packaging, then you’re just going to [crosstalk 00:40:10] forever-

Alison Smith:
They all merges together maybe.

Andy Kurtts:
Yeah, what everybody else is making.

Alison Smith:
How do you get inspired? Let me ask you that.

Andy Kurtts:
Oh man. By art and just trying to expose myself to as much things outside of the design world as I can. You have to on one hand, be in tune with it so that you’re creating things that are within the same visual trend or vocabulary, so that customers, what you’re designing is going to resonate with customers. But on the other hand, you can’t. You have to infuse different new inspiration so that you don’t look like everyone else.

Andy Kurtts:
Just because of my background, I love art and I love painting, and so I’ll pull out… I’ve got a whole bunch of art books and that’s where I’ll look for… A few years ago, there was a California olive oil that I was designing, and one of my favorite movements is painting was the Bay Area, figurative movement. There’s this one particular painter named Richard Diebenkorn, and he did these really neat geometric paintings.

Andy Kurtts:
They were basically looked like landscapes, but they were geometric. They’re amazing and they have a lot of texture and everything. I basically designed the… Because it’s California olive oil, this was a California art movement. I tied those two together and made the label look like that. One of the ideas.

Andy Kurtts:
The other idea was a cliff with the ocean, would look very quintessential, like Highway 1, you pull off the side of the road. That’s the option they went with. But I still had that other option which had a ton of all this art history associated with it. I’ll do that a lot.

Alison Smith:
Were you like she’s so [inaudible 00:42:25]?

Andy Kurtts:
Yeah. I was like, “It’s a slam dunk.” And they were just like, “I don’t know. I just really liked the seaside one. It just really sums it up.” And I was like, “Okay.”

Alison Smith:
Oh man, that must be hard. You need to frame all your favorites too and just be like, this should have won.

Andy Kurtts:
Oh man, I long ago have stopped to pick and favorites with my designs and just… You just can’t put anything out there that you wouldn’t be proud being associated with. That was the rule of thumb when I first started was… One of the techniques we used was always included a really bad one so that the other two look really good. And-

Alison Smith:
You actually do that?

Andy Kurtts:
Yeah, we would.

Alison Smith:
Also behavior 101 is like, “Don’t really give them choices. Give them a bad choice and a good choice.”

Andy Kurtts:
Yeah. Now we just limit the options and we only present just a couple options that we feel really strongly about, and they could pick either one and we would be happy. But my favorite designs, my hard drive is filled with so many of those that just never see the light of day.

Alison Smith:
Sad. You should have a second website of Andy’s graveyard or something.

Andy Kurtts:
Yeah.

Alison Smith:
That’d be cool.

Andy Kurtts:
I’ll try that.

Alison Smith:
Well Andy, this was really fun and I learned a lot. Thank you for talking to us about branding and packaging.

Andy Kurtts:
You bet.

Alison Smith:
Everyone needs to go check out Buttermilk Creative. Can you tell people where they can find you or reach you?

Andy Kurtts:
You bet. Yeah. Buttermilkcreative.com is where you can see us. Then on Instagram we’re Buttermilk Creative. Then we are on Clubhouse and I love Clubhouse. I host a show every Tuesday at 3:00 PM Eastern with my friend, Kirk, who’s also another… Kirk Fizzola, who is another packaging designer on the West Coast, and we just have a blast. We talk for an hour just about anything packaging related.

Narrator:
Umai Social Circle is a CPG Agency driven podcast, based out Austin, Texas. We’re excited to share more behind-the-scene insights, chats with industry leaders and whatever else we learn along the way. Follow us on Instagram at Umai Marketing, or check out our website, umaimarketing.com. Catch you back here soon.

Read – #18: Food Styling and Product Photography Tips with Ashleigh Amoroso

[AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT MAY BE SUBJECT TO MINOR TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS/VARIATIONS]

Narrator:
Calling all consumer goods, business owners and marketing professionals. Does planning content ahead of time, stress you out? Do you want to run Instagram and Facebook ads, but just aren’t sure where to start? If your answer is yes and yes, then our mini course was made for you. It’s 100% free and packed with essential tactics that you can implement as soon as today to join in visit our website@umaimarketing.com/mini-course. All right, let’s get on with the pod.

Alison Smith:
Welcome to the UMAI social circle, where we talk consumer goods, marketing tips to help business owners and marketers grow. We’re Alison and Karin co-founders of UMAI, and we are being joined by photographer, stylist and educator, Ashleigh Amoroso. So she’s led and worked on beautiful campaigns for Target, Patron, Vitamix, Tillamook, Noosa and that’s just to name a few. So Ashley, welcome.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Hi, thanks for having me.

Alison Smith:
Of course. Well, we’d love to just dive right in and learn how you got into the world of photography.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Yeah, so it was kind of in a roundabout way to be honest, which is kind of how I feel like everyone lands in some creative field. But I did not go to school for it or anything. I never really considered it to be a possibility as like a full-time job. So I just kind of learned photography alongside, I apprenticed for a wedding photographer when I was in college and really just learned the technical stuff.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Then I knew I wanted to do that, but I didn’t know what that looked like. I knew I didn’t want to do weddings. So after I moved to Austin, I had a friend who was here, she has a food blog and she’s very well connected in the industry. She was like, “Hey, you do photography. Can you do this ebook that I want to do? And take pictures of the food for the blog.” I was like, “Sure.” So I tried it, I was horrible at it, but I really loved it. So that was in 2008 and I’ve been really interested in growing and doing it ever since.

Karin Samelson:
I love that.

Alison Smith:
What do you mean horrible at it?

Karin Samelson:
I was going to say…

Ashleigh Amoroso:
So horrible. When Instagram first came out and everyone takes pictures of their food and like puts filters on them and their like, “It’s so good.” Yeah, it was like that. I go back and look and the photos are kind of green. They had an Instagram filter on them. It’s like, “Is that macaroni and cheese? I don’t really know.” It’s just, it wasn’t good.

Karin Samelson:
Oh my gosh. The shame of scrolling to the very beginning of Instagram, seeing the Valencia pics and just all of the photos that we thought were like, “Oh yeah, this is art.”

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Totally, yeah. Very, very abstract, avant-garde start to my food photography journey.

Karin Samelson:
That’s awesome. So how did you, I know that you also have super established Instagram feeds like Instagram profiles. Did that come after you really got started in food photography or is that like right alongside?

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Yeah, that actually came much later. That was kind of just a weird little kickstart blessing, to be honest. When I started doing the food photography with my friend, who I was telling you about for the e-books earlier, I realized that I love taking the pictures, but I just didn’t have a good grasp of the business side that I needed to understand. I didn’t know how to do my taxes. I didn’t know how to, you know what I mean? I just really, client communication, setting expectations, all of those things, I just really did not understand very well. So that part took the fun out of it for me. So I actually went and worked for Apple at their corporate offices for a few years. I was with their executive relations team. I had an amazing boss, an amazing team I worked with and I learned so much. Because essentially my job there was communicating with internal business partners and doing all of those things that I didn’t know how to do before.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
So that helped me tremendously. My boss was just so super supportive. So when I told them I was considering doing this full time, my husband was very supportive and said, “Okay, let’s let’s make it work.” Then my boss said the same thing. So I then left Apple and started doing this full-time. So I had kind of a weird roundabout way of getting here, but I’m so thankful that it went that way because I needed to learn the stuff I needed to learn from the corporate setting.

Alison Smith:
You were just doing photography on the side as when you were at Apple? Yeah?

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Yeah.

Alison Smith:
What a big leap of faith and it worked out. Well, I think this is the hottest question we would love to know. What’s your go to tools, props, et cetera? What does every photographer, aspiring photographer need?

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Let’s see, I guess in regards to like an aspiring food photographer, I would say really the best place to start for props is just a defined style. The best way to really kind of do that, if you’re not really sure where to start is to just spend some time on Pinterest. Pin the images that you love, that kind of speak to you, and you’ll start to see kind of a style come together and then without copying, but practice those styles, practice finding out what are they doing in their lighting in those situations? What colors are they using? Are they using hard light, which is probably a flash, are they using soft muted diffused light. Those kinds of things will point you in a direction to give you the kind of props that you’re going to want. So for that, I would say a diffuser, you need a sheer window curtain. You really don’t need a ton to be honest. A seamless is always a good thing to have whatever color. I mean, white is kind of a go-to, but…

Karin Samelson:
So a seamless would be like a backdrop that goes into…

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Yeah, it’s almost like a waterfall kind of effect.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Seamless are always super helpful. One other thing I would say would be just a really great textured, either table or backdrop that you make, which could be out of plywood or contact paper or something like that. Then depending on what you’re trying to take a picture of, you can use that as your background, typically texture can be missing from a lot of photos. So, that’s something I like to incorporate in my backdrops.

Karin Samelson:
I like that.

Alison Smith:
Yeah. I feel like anything can be used as a surface. I know our in-house photographer. She’ll just go to the tile shops and get leftovers. I think that’s, I mean, it looks gorgeous in the photos. That’s cool.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Yeah and you have no idea what you’re looking at. Yeah.

Alison Smith:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Zoomed in, probably looks like a mess. Yeah.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
It’s so great. When I first started, I used to use this… First of all, money was tight. So I was trying to get really crafty with these surfaces because you can spend tons of money on this stuff.

Alison Smith:
They’re expensive.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
So, I went to Ikea and I bought the desk tops and I would paint them or I would sand them and rough them up. Then the one that I still have that I use all the time is this matte blackout shade in black. I use it as just a backdrop in a scene so many times, because it’s just this perfect matte. There’s no reflection. It was $30. It’s like my favorite thing I have.

Karin Samelson:
Oh, I love it. Yeah. I really liked the note to first and foremost, define your style. Because I feel like so many times we’ll be talking to a business owner who’s like, “Oh, I really like this. I really like this.” One is just a major studio shot with a really strong flash. One is just that outside, ethereal like shadows. Sometimes it’s really hard to put those two together. So finding your style, I love it. Cool. So what are some of your favorite campaigns that you’ve worked on so far and what made them your favorite?

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Oh my gosh. That’s such a nice question. A couple years ago, I worked on a cookbook for about three months in Los Cabos at the one and only Ponia Resort, which was ridiculous. Everyday I was like, “What am I doing here?” I worked with this brilliant chef and this amazing team and, oh my gosh, we were just right on the beach. It was wonderful. That one was a favorite. I worked on a campaign with Delta where we went to Tokyo.

Karin Samelson:
What?

Ashleigh Amoroso:
That was crazy. They were launching this and you know what I don’t even think they do it anymore because of COVID. But they launched a direct flight from Detroit to Tokyo. So they brought me on the inaugural flight to capture the food and the drinks. They had this fancy new first class. So, and then I got to hang out in Tokyo for a week. It was crazy.

Karin Samelson:
Those don’t seem like jobs.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Yeah I think that’s so wild. I was like, “Any minute somebody is going to figure out that they asked the wrong person to come.”

Ashleigh Amoroso:
What else? Let’s see. Oh, when Camille Styles, who’s a local blogger here. Actually, I shouldn’t even call her a blogger. She’s an author, an entertainment guru. She’s totally brilliant. When she signed her campaign with Target, so she’s one of their partners. She brought me with her to LA, which was so fun. I shot that partnership and I’ve done several campaigns with them since, and Camille is just so fun to work with because she completely has a very defined brand. Her team runs like a well-oiled wheel. Everyone has a direction and everybody knows what they’re doing. So I love working with them. I guess, lastly I haven’t really told this one yet because I haven’t been able to. But most recently I’ve been working with Joanna Gaines for her show Magnolia Table and photographing the food and her for that. So I’m really excited to see that.

Alison Smith:
Wow.

Karin Samelson:
That is so exciting. We named a few brands and campaigns and had no idea that those were the peanuts.

Alison Smith:
I know, I’m in the wrong profession. That is amazing. Very cool. I’m from Waco, so Joanna Gaines is my hero.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Shut up, you are? Oh my gosh. Waco is so cute.

Alison Smith:
It’s popping. It was not popping when I lived there. It’s because of Joanna Gaines. It’s totally different, totally transformed.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
They own that town, it is amazing.

Alison Smith:
They literally do. Yeah. Wow. Thank you for sharing all that. That’s amazing. So, one thing we wanted to ask you is, because I do think that, like you were saying, your style is really defined and you come with the dark textures and a lot of shadows that we see a lot and compared to everyone else who’s light and bright constantly. I think it’s really cool to see. So we wanted to ask you, are you trying to evoke emotions or how do you think about what you’re trying to portray when you’re shooting?

Ashleigh Amoroso:
So, those images that you’re talking about are really probably, either they’re jobs that I’ve been given complete creative freedom or their personal shoots.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
I just love those because I like to think of when I’m just creating stuff for myself. I like to just make up an entire story in my mind about where the scene is taking place, probably somewhere in the French countryside. There’s this smell, I make up an entire story in my mind.

Alison Smith:
That’s so cool.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
It’s so easy for me to style the scene and to let everything unfold, because I have a really clear snapshot in time of where this is all taking place. So yeah. I want it to be calming, but I also want it to be undefined. I love capturing a moment where it’s easier for you to look at the photo, like someone pouring or moving or whatever, so that it’s easy for you to look at the photo and just be able to envision what’s happening next.

Karin Samelson:
Oh, that’s really awesome. When you say you’re really telling the story of it, and when you said the French countryside. I love Jamie Beck as well, if you knew who that is. It’s all a story. It’s all the French countryside. I feel that way. I’ve always been drawn to your photography as well, where it’s so put together and it’s well thought out and it looks different than the massly produced things we see. So if somebody was trying to do an at home photo shoot, is that kind of the advice you would give them, set the scene, know what’s taken place at the beginning to the end.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Totally. Yeah, totally. I mean, I haven’t really been teaching the workshops as much since COVID, but when I was doing those more frequently, that’s exactly how I would tell my students to set up a scene. I would have them go on Pinterest, create a mood board, essentially walk them through like a client interaction. What is the story you’re trying to tell? Where are you? What does it smell like? What do you see? What do you feel? Clearly define all those things and then everything else just comes in really easily,

Karin Samelson:
Such good advice. That’s awesome. That’s something I’ve never done. It’s just a hobby of photography, so I think really honing in on, what am I trying to do here? Not just, what’s pleasing to my eyeballs. I think that’s awesome.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
That works too.

Karin Samelson:
A little bit more strategy, I can dig it.

Alison Smith:
What are some more, I mean, give us more tips and advice that these small or extra small CPG brands can create better content.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Yeah. So, oh my gosh. I was so scrappy in the beginning. I’ve got lots of these and I actually still use a lot of them because now that I’ve figured out a way to do things in a hack way. Which I don’t know, it’s not always great, but sometimes it’s great. Well, for CPG brands, if they’re wanting to create their own content in the beginning for budget reasons, the best thing they could do, I mean, they’re going to hate me. I’m driving it home, define your style, do some brand colors, find a color palette, create a mission, define your perspective, create a mood board.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Because a lot of people, it’s easier for them to speak visually than it is to explain verbally. I’m sure you guys encounter this all the time too. But when a client comes to me, the first thing we do is work together to create a mood board so that I understand what they want. Because sometimes it’s very different than what they tell me they want. So for the CPG brands, create a mood board based upon what you’re trying to capture and then invest in a few small things. Like the surfaces I would recommend looking at, I mean, Facebook Marketplace is a treasure trove. Don’t be too good for Goodwill. I still find really cool stuff there. Contact paper on Amazon. Seriously, it’s so cheap and you can get stuff that looks very textural and it’s really, really cheap. Let me see, oh and you know what else is a good thing is, I mean, depending on what you’re trying to share. But for food for me, and I still do this, I contact local ceramicist. We work out trades, let me borrow your ceramics for the shoot.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
I’ll provide you imagery that you can use for your social media.

Alison Smith:
What a great idea.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Yeah and work local where you can, build those relationships because those people are in your industry too. So, somebody’s going to come to them. I mean, whoever’s buying from them is in food or looking at food or loves food because they’re spending that kind of money. So then, they’re going to have your name. So, anything in that realm, I would look out for making connections with people who are in that industry, even distantly in the industry and everything is negotiable. Everything can be traded. You don’t have to spend $400 on a surface and then be stuck to that forever. There’s literally the driveway is sometimes really good.

Alison Smith:
Right. That’s such a good tip. The making connections, how cool is that? Then you’re sharing assets and tagging each other and just getting the word out. But I have to ask how important is the camera? Can it be an iPhone?

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Totally. Oh my God, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Iphones are freaking amazing now. Honestly, the video capabilities are bananas too, but 100% it could be an iPhone. First of all, no one would ever even have to know, especially now that there’s COVID because you can work with clients without ever meeting them. You can take a really good, high-quality image on an iPhone and make it really beautiful. It’s funny. When I was doing the workshops, I used to show, my students, the photo I would take it on the iPhone. Just so that they knew it’s really not about the camera. It’s everything else.

Alison Smith:
Yeah. That’s great to know.

Karin Samelson:
So when you say everything else, when you’re talking about the composition, is more always better, or how would you advise people setting a scene for the first time?

Ashleigh Amoroso:
I would say, I think people’s biggest mistakes with setting a scene is incorporating things that don’t make sense in the scene. So I’m hesitant to answer about more or less and really just say, make sure it’s relevant to what’s happening in the picture. Don’t have a spatula next to a cupcake or… Well, no, that would make sense, but don’t have olive oil sitting in the picture with your cupcakes. It’s like, “Doesn’t make sense at all.” But it looks pretty so you think… So I see a lot of people making that mistake. So as long as it tells the story or it works for the scene. Yeah, more or less, do it.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah so you started offering courses. So what’s going on with that? Are you still doing it?

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Oh my gosh. So yeah, I have a lot of big lofty ideas. I have a friend who is actually going to help me bring these back out this year and we’re going to do them in videos. So now that I have the studio, we’re probably going to start filming that in a couple of months. So, I’ve been doing the in-person or virtual workshops, which is really either one-on-one or in a group setting for a few years. I love doing them, but I was doing them in a way, where they were very tailored to the individual who was attending the workshop. I started to see that that was really just taking up too much time to do it that way. So I needed a general format that could reach a lot more people. So we’re kind of transitioning now into something where it’ll be like an a la carte kind of thing. They can buy whatever, if they want to know about the technical stuff, if they want to know about the business side, if they want to know about styling.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
That way people can come for what they need. Because I’m such a perfectionist and I would want to spend so much time, I’m not spinning my wheels, creating this very specialized course for each person.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah.

Alison Smith:
When are those set to launch?

Ashleigh Amoroso:
I would love to know. Let me know.

Alison Smith:
We’ll follow up with that question. That’s a great call. I mean shoot, I would love to learn more about that and take your course.

Karin Samelson:
I know, can I take the course? When we’re talking about the business side too, what can brands, who do have the budget, opening up to hire somebody like you. What can they expect when they hire you on?

Ashleigh Amoroso:
That’s a great question. I would say they should maybe enter with trust.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. Good for anybody working with a creative in general. I love that.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
You know what, this is very specific to a brand, who is for the first time able to allocate a budget for something like this, which is going to be expensive. It’s going to feel like a lot of pressure. It’s a big deal. I go into those situations with a very good understanding of that, this is a big deal. Their expectations are huge. So it’s hard for them to enter into the kind of partnership with me, a stranger, not want to micromanage that situation. So what we did was, a lot of people don’t come to me, like I said and to you guys too I’m sure, with like a clear vision. So we essentially speak visually.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
We have them create a mood board if they don’t already have a really clear, defined brand, which I want to clarify, you don’t have to come to me with that. We can get you there. We walk through a process together, where before the day of the shoot, there is zero ambiguity. You know everything that we’re doing, you know what you’re going to get. Everything is very clear and you can kind of sit back and relax. Then what I end up trying to do is over deliver in those situations, because I have a very clear definition of what they’re looking for. So, I know it’s hard, but come in with trust.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. That’s great. Great advice. But when it comes to even the smaller stuff, like if it’s food and beverage brand. Do they need to come in with the supplies and do they need to have a chef with you cooking? How does that look?

Ashleigh Amoroso:
So it kind of depends. I have a really awesome team with me now that I’ve worked on several shoots. I’ve got a food stylist. I have a videographer. I have a wonderful chef. Myself and my assistant do a lot of the prop styling just because we enjoy it. But I also have a prop styling partner. So when they come to me, that’s one of the initial questions that we’ll ask without trying to overwhelm them really. But like, “Have you identified a prop situation? Do you have samples? If you’re a new company, are you able to get them? Can you ensure shipping?” We kind of make sure that we run through all of that stuff first. Then if they say no, I send them over information for all of my people and offer to do a full production for them and just take care of everything. So they can be as involved as they want or not, and they can really just sit behind their computer and say, “Yes, no, yes, no.”

Karin Samelson:
One stop shop. That makes it so much easier for brands around the nation to work with you. Especially when they can just fill out that mood board, show you what they are inspired by, what they’re aspiring to be like.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Totally.

Karin Samelson:
It’s great.

Alison Smith:
How difficult is it as a photographer to blend your aesthetic with the client’s aesthetic expectation, et cetera.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
So I like this question because a lot of the work that I share is work, that either is emotionally or personally me. However, a lot of the work that I do, I don’t bring that vision in. I have a very defined technical skill. While I do appreciate a certain style of things myself, I only bring them in when they’re necessary. A lot of places, brands contact me for things that are different than what you see on my page. They want the bright. They want the white, they want the cut-out, they want the hard light, they want something totally different. So I want to be a chameleon to be able to do those things because I want to work. So when appropriate, I am make suggestions that I think would work. But sometimes my personal aesthetic doesn’t work for the brand I’m working with. I like the challenge of trying to evoke the message that they’re trying to say.

Alison Smith:
Sure I liked that you said, I mean, you just have to be a chameleon and be a blank slate coming in.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah I think that’s such a good note for business owners. Because a lot of times things that we see with creatives is that they do bring their look and feel and aesthetic, a little bit too much. Where it kind of all looks the same, and you can’t really tell what brand that is because it looks like that brand. So super respectable. So when you think of a consumer packaged good brand, that you would have a dream collaboration with, a dream client who would they be.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Oh my God. Okay. This one is tough because I mean, to be honest, every client that comes to me as a dream client, because it’s another day that I’m working. Every email makes me excited, small company, big company, every single one. So I mean, I feel like I’ve worked with my dream clients. I feel like I am working with my dream clients. Every day I get an email with a new client. It is my dream client.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah, that’s amazing. Even if they can’t fly you to Tokyo or Cabo, still a cool client.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Those were exceptional, that’s not realistic.

Karin Samelson:
All I think is you’re photographing on a plane and I’m such a novice. But man, the pressure of it.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Oh my gosh. It was so weird for the people flying. Because they’re like, “What’s this girl doing?” I’m like, “Hi, can you hold your champagne into the light?” They’re like, “Who are you?” I’m like, “I’m going to Tokyo, just come on.”

Karin Samelson:
I want to see these photos. That’s awesome.

Alison Smith:
I know, me too.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
We actually, so they had a whole team that was doing a social media kind of campaign and they ended up creating a whole video. I’ll send it to you guys. So it was really cool.

Karin Samelson:
That’s awesome. I also love how you’ve worked with super and are working with really powerful women in Texas, too. It’s just like, “Wow.”

Ashleigh Amoroso:
That’s your dream come true too. Also commercial photography is only 9% women, which is garbage. I mean, I feel really fortunate to be somehow a part of that. But I mean that industry, those people hiring, those agents, those people with the ability to make those hires really need to be paying attention to the women photographers. There’s just so much talent. It’s crazy. It’s crazy that there are not more women. So whenever I am hired, in specifically a women owned business or women of power position, I’m beside myself. Because that’s what I want to be doing, that’s where I want to be.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. How are you making these connections to these people?

Ashleigh Amoroso:
I don’t know. Okay. So you asked me this earlier and I probably just didn’t answer it, but kind of Instagram. Whenever I left Apple, I started really focusing on the Instagram and this was back in 2015, because it was, at that time and even kind of still now, Instagram is the best way to connect with people about your craft. I mean, before that you had Facebook, but Facebook was more of a personal platform and food photographers before that had books that agents would take around to other agencies and pitch you. So unless you were in New York or LA, who’s going to see your food photography, hence the rise of Instagram.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
So then what happened was people realized that they could find talent in other places other than New York and LA. They could find new talent, talent that didn’t have to operate on a $30,000 budget. So that just kind of opened a ton of doors. I think what happened was I got put on a bunch of agency rosters and if I’m not with the agency, they’ll recommend me either for local reasons or because someone has worked with me before. I think that’s how a lot of stuff comes to me to be honest.

Karin Samelson:
That’s awesome. Yeah. I mean, that’s how I was led to you. I have been, fan girl moment. I’ve been following you for a very, very long time. I end up unfollowing a ton of people. I don’t do a lot of personal social because my job is social. I want to be on it as little as possible. So I would absolutely follow Ashleigh. She has two really amazing accounts and I think it does tell a story, the way you post, the way you do everything on social.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Oh thanks.

Karin Samelson:
So I think that’s wonderful. Yeah and speaking of that, you just bought, you just started renting a studio space downtown, tell us about it.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Yeah so I just leased a studio space downtown, it’s on Eighth and Congress, which is even weird to say. This was a dream that I just, I don’t know. I never really saw coming to fruition because I just didn’t see it as feasible. But the stars aligned and it worked out and with Claire Brody Designs, she’s like a vintage dealer. She’s an interior designer, moved to vintage dealer. She’s on the bottom floor and then in another room is Jenna McElroy, Who’s also a photographer, but she does more personal branding and family’s portraits, that kind of thing. And then me. So we’re all in the building together. We’ve literally only had the keys for two weeks and we’re all renovating the place. So it’s my goal to put in a modular kitchen, because I try to rent food photography studios all the time.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
There’s always just a missing element or it’s an Airbnb that wants this crazy permit or there’s just some complicated element. It’s difficult to find a fully functional food photography kitchen that has the offerings of a photography studio. So, I’m going to make everything that I’m missing. I have lots of grand lofty ideas here, but the ultimate goal is for me to start doing all of my shoots out of there. Then to also rent it out to other kitchen creatives, to either do shoots or film or whatever they want to do in that space as well.

Alison Smith:
How freaking cool. Is there a name for it or is it Ashleigh Amoroso?

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Yeah, it’s just Ashleigh Amoroso Studios right now.

Karin Samelson:
But yeah, I love it. So cool. I mean, we hope to rent it out from you one day because that really is such a pain point. I feel like, it’s finding the space, finding a really beautiful space where you can do everything. So Austin Brands, someday, rent this spot out for your photo shoots.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Yay and then we’ll work together.

Alison Smith:
Well, this was really fun. Ashleigh, do you want to leave our listeners with how they can find you? Is it your Instagram or any anywhere else?

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Sure yeah. My Instagram, I have two there’s my personal one, which is Ashleigh Amoroso, which is spelled A S H L E I G H. I know, but I like it. That’s my food one and then my personal one is Ashamor, A S H A M O R. Then all the stuff is linked in those places. Instagram’s fun. That’s where I’m probably the most active.

Karin Samelson:
Awesome and you’re available for hire. So hit her up, if you need a photographer.

Ashleigh Amoroso:
Come get me.

Narrator:
Ooh, my social circle is a CPG agency driven podcast based out of Austin, Texas. We’re excited to share more behind the scene insights, chats with industry leaders, and whatever else we learn along the way. Follow us on Instagram at UMAI marketing or check out our website umaimarketing.com. Catch you back here soon.

Read – #17: Amplify Snack Brands’ Sr. Supply Chain Planner Explains Big-Picture Inventory Strategy

[AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT MAY BE SUBJECT TO MINOR TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS/VARIATIONS]

Narrator:
Calling all consumer goods, business owners and marketing professionals, does planning content ahead of time stress you out?

Do you want to run Instagram and Facebook ads, but just aren’t sure where to start? If your answer is yes and yes, then our Mini Course was made for you.

It’s 100% free and packed with essential tactics that you can implement as soon as today. So join in, visit our website at umaimarketing.com/minicourse. All right, let’s get on with the pod.

Alison Smith:
Welcome to the UMAI Social Circle where we talk consumer goods tips to help business owners and marketers grow. We’re Karin and Alison co-founders of UMAI and we’re being joined by Ellen Wilson, Senior Supply Planner at Amplify Snack Brands. Thanks for joining us, Ellen.

Ellen Wilson:
Thanks for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Alison Smith:
Yes. And Ellen is a dear, dear friend. She’s not just a really amazing supply planner for CPG at Amplify Snack Brands, she is a dear friend, so we’re really lucky to have you and we’re excited.

So let’s start with just your background, did you always have an interest in working in operations or in CPG? How’d you get here, working for Amplify Snack Brands?

Ellen Wilson:
Really randomly to be honest. I was working at a marketing studio I went to school for marketing and we just had a friend Charlotte Taylor, who was doing recruiting, at the time was working at a recruiting firm and she had a random job for a customer service role at a growing CPG company. And, I was ready for a change from my current job and so I took a chance and five years later here I am at Amplify Snack Brands.

Alison Smith:
I completely forgot that you were hired as a customer service person.

Ellen Wilson:
Yes. So it was just a random customer service representative and it turned out to be better than I thought because the customer service, it wasn’t like consumer-facing, it was like Target and Kroger and those were my customers so it was almost like a fulfillment logistics role more than it was customer service.

So, it ended up being even better than I thought it would be going into it.

Karin Samelson:
And, then it naturally progressed into planning or did you end up that job and you’re like that’s me right there?

Ellen Wilson:
Yeah. So, it was super random. I had just gotten over being in customer service, I just wanted to do something more and what was so great about Amplify Snack Brands at the time, it was still such a small company that if you wanted to try something else, it was just really easy to do so.

So, the role for the supply planner at Amplify Snack Brands opened up and I just was either going to leave Amplify Snack Brands or wanted to do something else.

So, I got the chance to try it and it really just clicked for me and it’s been such a good fit for me and it’s something I would’ve never even thought to try before being at Amplify Snack Brands.

So, it’s really just fun how that was so random, but it’s been such a wonderful fit for me and how my brain works.

Alison Smith:
So, how your brain works? What traits would you say that people should have if they want to have a career in this?

Ellen Wilson:
Very logistical? So, I think of it as a giant puzzle that I’m putting together every single week at Amplify Snack Brands.

So, I just take all of our Amplify Snack Brands products, all of our commands, I’m scheduling six different commands every single week and there’s just tons of different inputs that I’m taking every single week and having to say what I need them to make in their specifications of what I can run each week.

Ellen Wilson:
So, it’s just a giant puzzle that you’re always having to figure out and that’s fun for me, I don’t think that’s fun for everyone, but for me that is really gratifying and when I can get it there it feels really good. I would say it keeps you on your toes every single week, especially with such a growing company.

What I planned last week isn’t necessarily what’s needed this week, so that I’m having to go back and say, “Okay, I said 5,000 this week, but now I need 10,000 because it’s much bigger than I thought.”

Ellen Wilson:
So, definitely thinking logistically, willing to… I’m looking at my planner right now, it’s always on my brain. Just willing to pivot quickly to figure something out, find creative solutions for something that might not be going well is really a lot of my job.

Karin Samelson:
Like, an organized problem solver.

Ellen Wilson:
Exactly. Yeah. Something like that.

Karin Samelson:
I think organization skills. I think that might be a must based on that explanation.

Alison Smith:
And, someone who loves spreadsheets as well.

Ellen Wilson:
In my arms, like my baby.

Karin Samelson:
You must love Excel. Oh, Gosh. Okay.

Ellen Wilson:
Absolutely. And, that’s what’s also been so fun.

It was like, I didn’t have a ton of Excel skills before I came into this role at Amplify Snack Brands and it was just something where I got pushed into it and would have to be like on Google every day being like, “How to do this and how to do that.”

But, I have learned so much and this is such a nerdy thing to say, but Excel is amazing and you can do so much and I feel like I’ve just even scratched the surface of what you can do.

So, for anybody starting out, it’s doing any kind of inventory, planning, forecasting, anything like Excel is where it’s at 100%.

Karin Samelson:
Wow. That’s the nerdiest thing I’ve ever heard you Ellen.

Ellen Wilson:
I was embarrassed to admit that for a while, but I’ve gotten to the point where like, I am who I am and I love it so.

Karin Samelson:
I love it. I really do. Well, let’s backtrack a little bit and tell us more about Amplify Snack Brands. So it’s the umbrella company for a lot of CPG brands. So, what are those?

Ellen Wilson:
Yeah, so SkinnyPop is like Numero Uno that’s what it started with and then now we have Pirate’s Booty, which is puff for children. Yeah. For children. It’s for everybody.

Alison Smith:
It’s for children [crosstalk 00:06:24]?

Karin Samelson:
Yeah, I didn’t know that.

Ellen Wilson:
It’s a children’s brand, but-

Alison Smith:
I did not know that.

Ellen Wilson:
Is it? I don’t think so. Yeah. It’s for everyone. And, then we have Paqui Tortilla Chips which is kind of a better for you Dorito lime and Oatmega Protein Bars.

Karin Samelson:
Wow. So, you’re working on planning at Amplify Snack Brands for all of those brands? Are you-

Ellen Wilson:
No, right now I’m just doing SkinnyPop for Amplify Snack Brands.

I have worked on all of them in my years at Amplify Snack Brands, which has been interesting because they’re all so different with such different requirements and planning cycles and everything but right now I’m doing the big dogs SkinnyPop.

Alison Smith:
Big dog.

Ellen Wilson:
Yeah.

Alison Smith:
So, walk us through your day to day. I have never been in operations. It’s kind of confusing to the people that are doing it right now for their own businesses. On daily basis, what do you do as a senior supply planner at Amplify Snack Brands?

Ellen Wilson:
Yeah. So, I’ll go through my weekly buckets, because its like the same process every week. So every week I’m taking a new set of our open sales orders, open work orders, open transfer orders, forecast, inventory at all of our warehouses.

And, I’m putting that into a model that we’ve built. Everything’s in Excel which is wild for doing this when you’re big planning manufacturers.

So, I put all of that into a model for each manufacture that I’m planning for and I’m basically finding what I need to make in my next open production slot.

Ellen Wilson:
So, that’s the main core of my job is making those production plans for all of our commands, but also anytime I see something that’s off on an item or inventory or something, I have to go figure that out.

And, I’m talking to demand planning all week long, I’m talking to our transportation team all week long to figure out where my inventory is, I’m talking to our deployment team to say like, “Hey, your rush order on this.

You need to get it to this place.” I’m talking to our customer service team, they’re asking, “Where’s this product? Can we get sooner? Can we get it and this too instead of this?”

Ellen Wilson:
So, I’m talking to everyone in operations because everything changes so quickly all the time especially with such a growth-based company. If we get an opportunity to do something, it’s not like, that’s not in the four week block window of forecast. You need to push that out. It’s like, what can we do to make it happen?

Ellen Wilson:
So, there’s just fires, there’s opportunities, there’s just situations, shut down the manufacturers, everything like that I’m just having to deal with every single week. That sounds negative, but you have to do it.

And, then there’s just lots of weekly meetings about everything going on. So my main job really is to make those production plans, but I would say 50/50 making the production plans from a base set of data and then going and tweaking for exceptions and fires and situations that come about.

Alison Smith:
Yeah. So, that’s so interesting. And the projection part rattles my brain in a lot of different ways. And so you’re talking about base data. So, you’re more established company now, but how does a small brand go about figuring out those projections without that base data?

Ellen Wilson:
It’s still hard without base data. So, a forecast for us is like, Bible for us. Without a forecast, I can’t do anything. I can react to what’s in our open sales orders but other than that, I have no idea what to make in the future.

Alison Smith:
And, that’s like if you were only focusing on that, you’d be a step behind all the time.

Ellen Wilson:
I’d be late. Nothing would get anywhere on time. So, especially being a more established brand, I’m having to lock things out weeks in advance. So, I’m having to predict the future based on the forecast, which is a production of that nature.

So, I would say someone who is just starting out that doesn’t have a robust forecasting system, anything like that, having a really close relationship with whoever is doing your sales is so key because they’re going to be the only people that can help you with that.

Yet, they’re going to be able to tell you what they’re trying to sell, what they are selling, what’s expected. So that is just like, I would say the most important thing is to just have that really close relationship and constant communication with them.

Ellen Wilson:
Another thing is just to really watch consumer trends in your sector. So like for popcorn, we’re always watching our competitors, we’re watching just the buying habits, but it really is just trying to predict the future more than anything. And, a lot of it relies on us building safety stock.

So, I’m building the amount that we’re saying we need in two weeks, but I’m also building a couple of weeks buffer so if that doesn’t happen, I’ve got something to play with.

Ellen Wilson:
So, finding that amount of safety stock that is going to cover bumps in the road, but not be too much that you’re just like holding products you don’t need, or like is going to go expired before you can sell it or whatnot.

That’s that sweet spot of being prepared for the bumps in the road, being prepared for what’s going to happen, but not just building inventory you don’t need all this.

Karin Samelson:
Let’s talk about safety stock. I really liked that. Is there a certain percentage that a brand should keep in the back?

Ellen Wilson:
Yeah. So for me, I base it off of… So there’s the full shelf life of your product. That’s from production to when you shouldn’t eat it anymore. And, then pretty much, I wouldn’t say probably all, I don’t know for sure, but I’m assuming all brands with an expiration also have a sellable shelf life.

So, we have a portion of our full shelf life that we can still ship to customers so that they can guarantee they get the product with enough time to sell it on their shelves.

For me, I take that sellable product window and I do enough that like, so for instance, if it’s eight weeks, I won’t produce more than four to five weeks of stock at a time.

Ellen Wilson:
If I produce anything close to eight weeks, there’s the opportunity that we won’t get the forecast and then it’s just, we’re throwing it away or selling it in distress where we don’t get the margin.

And, I’m trying to build four to five at the most so that I can have enough to cover a few weeks if something comes in double the forecast that week, I’ve got it, but it’s not so much that we’re paying storage fees for it. We’re potentially just throwing it away because I’ve made too much.

So, it’s just that sweet spot where you feel comfortable with the weeks of supply. That’s how I judge everything, it’s like weeks of supply. And, finding that weeks of supply that makes you feel comfortable that you have a buffer, but that you can also get through it before it goes short dated.

Karin Samelson:
Gosh, I-

Ellen Wilson:
[crosstalk 00:13:40].

Karin Samelson:
It seems pretty stressful to handle all this. It’s a lot.

Ellen Wilson:
Operations is not for the lighthearted.

Karin Samelson:
Right. Yes.

Ellen Wilson:
It’s a very stressful job. I like it and it’s busy all the time and I always have something to do but there are there’s some days-

Karin Samelson:
Like throwing away product, that would be so difficult. Yeah.

Ellen Wilson:
Yeah. And, it’s funny because two of my biggest schools are Caseyville, which is making sure our orders get fulfilled a certain percent and then waste, they’re making sure about waste, but it is small.

So, I’m truly having to find that middle ground where I can build enough to service everything, but not throw it away.

Alison Smith:
So interesting and so for a big company, like SkinnyPop, you’re doing like 50% in that anticipation and maintaining your supply levels?

Ellen Wilson:
Yes. Four weeks is really like, I would say the sweet spot for us but another thing you have to think about is with a huge company, always having four weeks of supply is a lot of storage and just tons of pallets.

I think it’s like 50,000 pallets if I were to get up to four weeks of supply.

So, you have to also understand your budget for warehousing and make sure that you found a warehouse that you can hold all of that and then if I am getting up to four and we’re just busting at the scene, then that throws everything off where I can’t produce what I need to produce in a month of trying to fix that and trickle that down and like fix it. So it’s a giant puzzle.

Alison Smith:
Puzzling, every day.

Ellen Wilson:
Every day.

Alison Smith:
Cool. So, let’s talk a little bit about the acquisition. So, hot topic. So in late 2017, Hershey acquired Amplify Snack Brands, you were there you’ve been there for so long for a whopping $1.6 billion. $1.6 billion.

That is nuts and you were there and you are there now. How has your job changed from working for this small company where you were thinking, I was just going to be customer service, to now with this being owned by Hershey?

Ellen Wilson:
Yeah. The company itself has changed dramatically. I would say my job of planning is not that different because we’re still doing it in Excel and we still, for the most part, have the same manufacturers that we were using before.

So as far as my day to day, it hasn’t changed dramatically but our company as a whole has changed so much.

Ellen Wilson:
Before the acquisition, during the acquisition, right after the acquisition, we went through a ton of like ELT leaders. It was just like in and out, in and out, in and out and part of that comes with-

Karin Samelson:
What is ELT, Ellen?

Ellen Wilson:
Executive leadership team. So like the C-level people.

Karin Samelson:
Got you.

Ellen Wilson:
And, really like VPs and directors as well. So a lot of that is to be expected when you’re at first going public you just get a bunch of money and you move on.

That’s just what some people do and then with the acquisition that also happen. A lot of people had stock, they got paid out, they’re just like, “Okay, that’s all I needed from it.”

Ellen Wilson:
So, since Hershey has acquired us and we’ve really gotten into being with Hershey, it has been much more stable in that sense, which has been such a good thing for us.

We got some people that worked at Hershey for 15 to 20 years to come over and be in that team and it’s just provided us a lot of stability that things aren’t just drastically changing and our strategy year to year, isn’t just a fully different strategy because we have a new CEO or a new president or a new CFO.

Ellen Wilson:
So, I think that has been extremely helpful for us to just get that stability that we needed to go to the next level and we also just have a lot more resources to do things with, which is helpful.

We’ve got Hershey backing us for procurement and contracts and we can use that Hershey muscle to really help us get to that next level.

Alison Smith:
And you have chocolate in your office now?

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. Three chocolate bars for life.

Ellen Wilson:
There was constant candy bowls which was a lot of fun.

Karin Samelson:
But you still maintain the small brand feel and all of the outward facing is the same?

Ellen Wilson:
Yeah. We definitely are part of Hershey, but we’re also still very much Amplify Snack Brands, so we do our own thing, we’re tied to them, we report to them and we use them when we need to, but it’s not something where everything we do is the same thing as Hershey. It’s nice to keep that.

Ellen Wilson:
We can do little parties with ourselves and we can do decision-making on our own, we don’t have to always call Hershey and be like, “Hey, can I do this?”

So, I think it’s been the best of both worlds where we get what we need from a big company, but it’s not… We’re not just like this big corporation now.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. Wow. That sounds like a great acquisitions.

Ellen Wilson:
And Hershey, it’s a really good company. They do a ton of philanthropy, they’re really great people who award, really caring about the people, like when we were acquired Michelle Buck, our CEO came and had lunch with a group of us.

It’s one of those where it’s a large corporation, but it doesn’t feel like I’m just this little minion and a huge corporation. They’re good at people which is surprising sometimes.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. Very cool. Well, so what are some maybe tools or some tips from you that smaller CPG brands who don’t have this full operations team, how can they get better at planning and supply chain?

Ellen Wilson:
I think I talked about it earlier, but Excel, Excel, Excel.

Karin Samelson:
Know Excel, okay.

Ellen Wilson:
Know Excel. There’s tons of resources to like take classes, learn more, dive deeper into it until… We’re still doing all of our planning out of Excel, that’s four brands, 15 commands just doing all of that in Excel and like fairly accurate.

There can be things that are helpful with the system, but for the most part it’s worked just fine and until last summer we were doing all of our forecasting out of Excel.

Ellen Wilson:
So, where a company that doesn’t want to invest in some kind of system early on you can do everything in Excel. So, just diving into that. As far as like other resources, I don’t know as much because I was lucky to come into an already established system.

So, we just had resources, fellow employees and coworkers and stuff so I don’t know of other resources but Excel.

Alison Smith:
Yeah, know Excel.

Karin Samelson:
And know your numbers and put them in Excel.

Ellen Wilson:
Exactly.

Alison Smith:
So, what’s common, since you see what’s happening with SkinnyPop and Pirate’s Booty and Oatmega and Paqui, what are some common issues that you see all of these brands running into and how can you avoid that in the operations?

Ellen Wilson:
Yeah. So, one of them that even we have struggled with is being prepared for growth. Any small CPG, that’s your goal. You want to grow, you want to get bigger, you want to maybe be acquired someday or go public.

So, being able to hit go when you need to and have that plan already prepared, I think is something that we aren’t necessarily always ready for and it’s probably something that happens to a lot of companies faster than they think.

Ellen Wilson:
So, I would say having that plan when you don’t need it is so critical, it takes a really long time to set up manufacturers. It takes a really long time to set up a new warehouse.

Things take a lot of time so if you are starting that process, when you’re starting to see that bubble burst, you’re going to be screwed for a long time. So, just being prepared for that and being able to jump into it, I think is something that a lot of brands don’t do soon enough.

Ellen Wilson:
Another one is being strategic about who you are selling into. It’s so tempting to say like, “Oh, Walmart, Target, Club that’s where I want to be.” And, you do want to be there when you’re ready. Club is huge.

If you get into Costco and BJ’s or Sam’s your inventory and your demand is going to skyrocket and again, if you’re not prepared for that, you could ruin your relationship with those brands and not have another chance for a while.

Ellen Wilson:
Or Walmart and Target if you are a very high end unique niche product being in Target and Walmart might not be a good idea for you, at least in the beginning, because they’re going to get in there and no one’s going to buy your product and then it’s going to be like, fail.

Maybe you need to start with the natural channel and really focus on that versus just the allure of being in a big-box store. I think those two are probably the biggest that I’ve personally experienced.

Alison Smith:
That’s such a good note about the big-box store. We’ve heard the same from our friend Mark Nathan having the same sentiment.

Ellen Wilson:
We had a Kettle Chips brand that we scored a big deal with Walmart and that was like, it was going to be Walmart exclusive for a little bit and it just did not sell. And for me that makes sense.

You go to Walmart, you’re not going to try the new hot thing, you’re going for your staples and you’re going for good prices. So seeing a luxury potato chip brand for sometimes triple the price of another bag, I wouldn’t buy it, that’s not what I’m there for and we don’t have that brand anymore.

Ellen Wilson:
So, it really is a testament to you have to put it in, in the right places especially when you’re starting off.

And, once you have customers and you have people that know who you are, that’s when you can go in and you’re prepared for that but starting out at those big-box stores just can be a tough load sometimes.

And, they’re high maintenance. You have to be ready to pivot to what they want from you versus you being like, “This is what I want to sell.”

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. That’s so interesting because it’s just the allure of it is just like, “Yes, I want to be in Walmart.” [crosstalk 00:24:49] Everyone’s there, but it’s really interesting.

Ellen Wilson:
Whole new ball game once you’re there.

Karin Samelson:
Yeah. Earlier you talked about having waste from product, is there anything that you’re seeing that brands are able to do with that waste or any other new trends in your industry?

Ellen Wilson:
So, what we do is, every month we go through a distressed sales process so we take all of our inventory, we take the lock codes and the expiration dates, anything that we know is past that shippable window to customers, we sell it to the distress channel.

So, we have a few customers that just purely buy distressed product from us. So they’re fine with taking it a little short dated because it’s still good.

And things like, the stuff that you see at TJ Maxx, Grocery Outlet is our main on, I think they have actual stores and I don’t think they have them in Texas, but there’s like actual stories that just sell our distressed product, which [crosstalk 00:25:49] it’s not bad. It’s just not to be long shelf life that a Target, Kroger Tom Thumb would require in order to put on their shelves.

Ellen Wilson:
So, that’s what we do with a lot of it and then once it goes past, even the shelf life that a distressed customer will take it out, we will try to donate it to different companies that will take it, like Feed the Children is one that we send a lot of products to and then we’ve even donated to like pig farmers, they’ll take popcorn and some of our brands and just put it in their pig food.

Alison Smith:
That’s exactly what we did at vital farms.

Ellen Wilson:
Yeah. So, for the most part, we get through a lot of it. We do end up just destroying some of it. Stuff like our spicy chips, those aren’t going to go to children and those aren’t going to go to pigs.

So, sometimes we just don’t have a home for them, but we try like multiple steps to just get it to someone that will use it before we can trash it.

Karin Samelson:
Very cool. I always wondered like shopping at Marshall’s and TJ Max, like all the foods, they’re always like really delicious, I’m like, why are you here?

Ellen Wilson:
I know, that was such an eye opener for me because I thought the same thing. I was like, “Well, I’m not going to buy it, it’s bad.” But then I realized it’s not bad. It’s just like slightly shorter than-

Alison Smith:
[crosstalk 00:27:15]. Its’ distressed.

Ellen Wilson:
Perfectly good stuff.

Karin Samelson:
Any other trends happening with Amplify Snack Brands or just in operations?

Ellen Wilson:
Yeah. Just with like SkinnyPop, well I guess SkinnyPop and Pirate’s Booty probably for the most part in the last couple of years, multi-packs have blown up. So the smaller 100 carrier, just smaller bags within a pouch or a box, those have blown up in the last few years.

And it makes sense, you have kids, you’re going to work, you just grab a bag instead of having to use your own plastic bag. But that is actually a lot harder functionally to make in a manufacturing plant versus just a big bag.

Because with a big bag, you’re sealing less often, you’re using less films, you’re just making one bag versus a ton, it’s less people because you’re not having to put a bag inside a bag and then seal that bag.

Ellen Wilson:
So, that has been something that we have had to adjust so dramatically because we have to figure out, how do we get our manufacturers to be able to make more?

How do we get it out faster? How do we get it out in 15 different packouts, 15 different flavors? Whereas before a lot of our manufacturing plants were set up for big bags, mainly big bags with a little small bags.

So, that’s been a trend that we are still to be honest, struggling to keep up with it because it’s new flavor, new variety, new packout, we have a 16 count, now we want a 30 count, so it’s just like constantly, that’s what everybody wants.

Ellen Wilson:
But what’s actually funny with COVID, the last year when everything started to shut down and everyone was rushing to the grocery stores and even news outlets were saying, “These are the items to buy.”

SkinnyPop was luckily one of them, but it was this giant flip back to big bags. So we were like, “We got it. All the small bags multi-packs got it, got it, got it.” And all of a sudden it was like, “Nope, nobody wants that anymore.

No one’s going to school, no buying of that. I want big bags again.”

Ellen Wilson:
So, there’s one item that we sell on Club stores that I make every single week no matter what. Always being produced at multiple facilities and I had to actually shut that down for like a month because just no one was buying them.

So, it’s just funny how life really does affect the market and you have to pay such close attention to buying habits and time of year, like summers are so hard for us because everyone’s purchasing back to school stuff and there’s back to school sales and all this stuff. Just watching the trends over the year, what’s happening and life really affects what’s happening in manufacturing.

Alison Smith:
Do you even know where your forecasters track those consumer trends other than just your sales?

Ellen Wilson:
So we have a whole department, it’s like five people, it’s not 50, but we have a department that…

Can’t think of what their titles are, they’re part of the sales team but they track consumer trends and they are giving that influence to our actual sales team just on what’s happening in competitors in the world.

Just the trends that are happening. So, there’s that piece and then we do have a pretty robust forecasting system now, so it reads seasonality, it reads our years of passive data and then that plus having weekly, sometimes biweekly conversations with our sales team, that’s where that information comes together for our forecast.

Karin Samelson:
Was anyone on your team able to foresee that? People are hunkered down or that was a total-

Ellen Wilson:
It caught us all by surprise. We were having literally daily meetings in the beginning at 5:00 PM to discuss what was happening and what we were going to do tomorrow.

And, especially with COVID, some of our plants just shut down because people got COVID and once someone in the plant is, they all had to be out because they’re working close to each other.

So, it took us all by surprise. And I think last March was the most sales we had ever had in the history of Amplify Snack Brands because everyone was just running to the grocery store to get stuff. So it was a wild couple of weeks there.

Alison Smith:
What a trip.

Ellen Wilson:
Yeah.

Karin Samelson:
What a trip.

Alison Smith:
Okay. Ellen, well nuggets. So pretty much, if you want to really, really dig into supply chain operations, you got to be organized, you got to be good at communicating with a whole lot of people, you got to be flexible, right? It’s just like-

Ellen Wilson:
Absolutely.

Alison Smith:
Nothing is set in stone.

Ellen Wilson:
Nothing. And it’s funny because we’ll have calls about promos coming up, like with Costco, they have what they call MDMs. You get in the mailers once a month and when you are part of one of those mailers you have a coupon, your volume skyrocket.

So, it’s a huge deal to be a part of that but it’s also like you’re watching that like your little baby, just making sure the MDM goes well.

Ellen Wilson:
And so we’ll have meetings every week on how it’s going and I’ll just be like, “At this very moment in time it’s okay.” And people laugh at us at work because that’s a lot of what operations says is like, you’re asking me at 11:52 on a Tuesday. Yes, it’s okay. If you ask me in an hour, it might not be okay.

Alison Smith:
Oh my gosh.

Ellen Wilson:
It’s just one of those things that it changes minute to minute because if something happened and there’s like a fire at a plant and that goes down, you can be screwed for weeks on your inventory because it’s just gone so wild.

Alison Smith:
Wow. Sounds like a great time but for real, you’re making it happen. You are literally getting this product on the shelf for us purchase.

Ellen Wilson:
It was fun when my family or friends send me a photo of a bag or something I’m like, I made that for you.

Alison Smith:
Yeah, I made it.

Ellen Wilson:
It is very gratifying and especially we track our case file every single week. So if I get like a good case file the week prior, that is again very nerdy, very gratifying for me because I did that and I got it there and I succeeded at that puzzle I was trying to figure out.

Alison Smith:
Puzzle. I love it. Awesome, Ellen. Well, thanks for coming on and talking with us. Would you like to leave the audience with like a link or call to action or a final statement? Go but SkinnyPop.

Ellen Wilson:
Yeah, go buy a SkinnyPop, go buy a Pirate’s Booty, go buy Paqui. Paqui is like very underrated I would say.

Karin Samelson:
I love Paqui.

Ellen Wilson:
It’s better for you. Dorito has all real clean ingredients. I think those people sleep on a lot, but they’re delicious.

Karin Samelson:
Go buy them, take a photo, send it to us, we’ll send it to Ellen, she’ll feel great about that week of operation.

Ellen Wilson:
Yeah. Exactly.

Alison Smith:
We did it. Awesome. Thanks Ellen.

Ellen Wilson:
Thanks.

Karin Samelson:
Thank you, Ellen.

Narrator:
UMAI Social Circle is a CPG agency driven podcast based out of Austin, Texas.

We’re excited to share more behind the scene insights, chats with industry leaders or whatever else we learn along the way. Follow us on Instagram @umaimarketing or check out our website, umaimarketing.com. Catch you back here soon.