Brand Builder

When it comes down to it, what is a brand? Ask a hundred founders, and you might get a hundred different answers. But this week's guest has a simple, compelling answer -- Words. That's according to Dave Gerhardt, the VP of Marketing at Drift. Why words? Because at the end of the day, a brand all comes down to the stories you tell and the emotions that resonate with your customer. And the medium through which these flow are almost always words on a page (or a screen, as it were).

And if a brand is made of words, then copywriting is the most important brand building skill there is.

That's one reason why Dave and the team built Drift, the world's first and only conversational marketing platform. Drift helps businesses build real relationships with their customers by facilitating real conversations.

In addition to Drift, Dave co-hosts the Seeking Wisdom podcast, and it the co-author of the books Conversational Marketing and This Won't Scale.

Dave joins us to share his unique approach to marketing, gives us his top trade show tip, and describes the strategies you need to grow your business from $1M to $10M in just 12 months.

For this episode, we enlisted the help of our in-house marketing expert, SnackNation CMO and co-founder Andy Mackensen, to guide us through the interview.

Takeaways

• Copywriting = brand building. It's all just words at the end of the day. What you say and how you say it is the key to creating a powerful emotional connection with your consumer.
• The best ideas come from outside your industry. You have to zig when your competitors zag, so it often helps to look outside of your space for inspiration.

Recommended Reading

• Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy
• Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins
• Influence by Robert Chialdini
• The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy
• This Won't Scale by the Drift Marketing Team
• Conversational Marketing by David Cancel and Dave Gerhardt

Links

• Drift
• Seeking Wisdom podcast
• Connect with Dave on LinkedIn
• Connect with Andy on LinkedIn

Join our Exclusive Facebook Group!

What's your biggest takeaway from the episode? Join our invite-only, private Facebook group just for Brand Builder Community members, where you can connect with fellow entrepreneurs and founders, crowdsource ideas, share best practices (or lessons learned), and get your most important questions answered. Join now!

Facebook.com/groups/brandbuilderpod

Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.

Kurt Seidensticker thought he was building a paleo running company. Turns out he was building a billion dollar beauty brand.

Kurt is the CEO and founder of Vital Proteins, an all-natural collagen brand and category leader. Vital Proteins make collagen-infused water, lattes, and powders, and their collagen comes from natural sources like pasture-raised cows in Brazil and wild-caught fish in Hawaii.

And while he originally thought Vital Proteins would appeal to long distance runners like himself, it really caught fire with a different demographic, one who loves Vital Proteins for its anti-aging effects.

The rapid ascent of Vital Proteins is undeniable. The brand has been featured in top-tier outlets like Vogue, Men's Health, Well + Good, and People, and has celebrity fans like Jennifer Aniston and Kourtney Kardashian. In fact, Vital Proteins is the first product launch by POOSH, Kourtney's new wellness and lifestyle site.

We talked to Kurt about his unconventional path to entrepreneurship (he spent his early career teaching astronauts to fly the space shuttle), his successful influencer marketing strategies, and why #wesprint is his team's internal motto.

Takeaways

• Your customer chooses you. Kurt's actual customers turned out to be very different from who he thought they would be. Understanding and accepting this has been a catalyst for success.
• The case for vertical integration. Kurt lays out why relying on distributors and co-manufacturers can hurt your brand in the long term, and advocates building capabilities in order to add to your gross margin.
• The Importance of creating a framework for speed and agility. Vital Proteins' internal motto is #Wesprint, and Kurt even has a skunkworks program that enables the company to move even quicker and take advantage of market opportunities. He tells us why that's so important.

Links

• Vital Proteins
• Vital Proteins X Poosh Collaboration
• Connect with Kurt on LinkedIn

Join our Exclusive Facebook Group!

What's your biggest takeaway from the episode? Join our invite-only, private Facebook group just for Brand Builder Community members, where you can connect with fellow entrepreneurs and founders, crowdsource ideas, share best practices (or lessons learned), and get your most important questions answered. Join now!

Facebook.com/groups/brandbuilderpod

Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.

Aunt Flow founder Claire Coder talks about the "hidden cost of menstruation." What does that mean? Well, consider the following:

• 86% of women have had their period at work and didn't have access to menstrual products.
• 64% of women have left work because of this reason.
• School attendance for young girls decreases by 2.4% among young girls who don't have access to menstrual products.

To Claire, these stats are unacceptable, particularly because they all stem from one fact about how our society deals with menstruation - We don't talk about it. The good news is, that's a solvable problem, and Claire and Aunt Flow are committed to opening up the conversation and increasing access to quality menstrual products. Claire is in the midst of a critical inflection point for her brand, as she chases her goal of servicing 1,000 offices this year. Claire stopped by the Brand Builder studio to share her story, and break down how she is making the world a better place, one cycle at a time. Takeaways

• Customer Obsession - which customer do you obsess over? Claire sheds light on a dynamic that we see a lot, particularly in a B2B model like hers: serving the end-user vs. the decision maker/buyer.
• Raising her seed round. Claire recently closed a $1.5 million seed round, and it was anything but easy. She shares her tips, and why it took 86 meetings to close.

Join our Exclusive Facebook Group!

What's your biggest takeaway from the episode? Join our invite-only, private Facebook group just for Brand Builder Community members, where you can connect with fellow entrepreneurs and founders, crowdsource ideas, share best practices (or lessons learned), and get your most important questions answered. Join now!

Facebook.com/groups/brandbuilderpod

Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.

Ask yourself - as a leader, are you coming from a place of fear and uncertainty? Do you look for fault and blame in others, cling to an opinion and fixed worldview, and believe in scarcity over abundance?

Or are you open to outside interpretations, curious about the world around you, and committed to learning more about yourself and those around you?

In other words, are you leading below or above the line?

That's the topic of this week's Brand Builder, as we explore the concepts contained in The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, a fantastic read and a book that can help you become the leader your brand needs to level-up.

On the show is Diana Chapman, one of the book's co-authors and a founding partner at Conscious Leadership Group. Diana has coached more than 1,000 organizational leaders and many of their teams, is a TEDx speaker, and has given keynotes everywhere from the Mindful Leadership Summit, to the Stanford Graduate School of Business and UC Berkeley Haas School of Business - and a lot more.

To say that this book has had a huge influence on the culture and leadership style at SnackNation is a major understatement. We apply the precepts within it as we all strive to get better every day.

In this episode, Diana explains both how to practice conscious leadership and why it's so important, both to our businesses and our lives.

While we absolutely recommend reading the book, here's a quick rundown of the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership that Diana discusses.

Commitment 1 - Radical Responsibility

• The idea with this first commitment is to locate the "cause and control" inside us, not in external events. This means we stop believing that the world should be a particular way, and instead believe that the world just shows up.
• In the second part of this process, we move from rigid, closed mindedness to curiosity, learning and wonder (something that naturally occurs if the first shift happens.)
• But most of all, radical responsibility is not about being right! Letting go of the need to be right is something all top tier leaders do.

Commitment 2 - Learning through Curiosity

• Conscious leaders are passionately committed to knowing themselves (the basis of curiosity) and allow themselves to wonder.
• Success here depends on approaching people with an unreasonable benefit of the doubt, especially those you manage. Be truly curious in what they say.

Commitment 3 - Feeling All Feelings

• So many leaders stay in their head and don't access their guts or hearts enough. To be an effective leader, you need to acknowledge all your feelings.
• Emotions are just energy in motion. They're neither good nor bad - they just are. The key is learning how to deal with your emotions and process them. Every feeling we experience is a way for us to grow and improve in awareness.

Commitment 4 - Speaking Candidly

• According to the book, the team that "sees reality the best wins."
• So many people are scared to speak candidly, but when they do that they're robbing themselves and other people from the natural flow of energy, from what really needs to be said.

Commitment 5 - Eliminating Gossip

• Gossip is defined as anything said with harmful intent, that you wouldn't say in front of the other person. While gossip is a manifestation of our species' desire for deep social bonds, it no longer serves us, especially in business.
• Here we break down why we gossip, and discuss strategies for reversing and avoiding our tendency to engage in this destructive behavior.

Commitment 6 - Practicing Integrity

• Remember that integrity has nothing to do with being right or wrong, it's all about being whole. (The root of integrity is integer, after all.)
• We discuss the importance of not blocking the natural flow of energy, and the Four Pillars that help us maintain our integrity.

Commitment 7 - Generating Appreciation

• For this commitment, we talk about what it means to give people the unreasonable benefit of the doubt and why leaders need first and foremost to pay attention.
• Additionally, we dive into the various reasons why people don't accept appreciation, and what masterful appreciation really looks like.

Commitment 8 - Express Your Zone of Genius

• This commitment is all about finding that one thing that you do well and love to do. Similar to concepts like "unique ability" and flow state, your "zone of genius" is the area where you make the most valuable, creative contribution.

Commitment 9 - Remember to Play

• Contrary to what most of us are taught earl in life, work doesn't have to be nothing but stress, misery, and toil. Play, laughter, and improvisation are vital to being productive and fulfilled. (Besides, what good is life without a little bit of laughter?)

Commitment 10 - Consider the Opposite of Your "Story"

• We all have a "story" - it's the way we see the world, the assumptions we take with us when we approach problems. The idea here is to consider that the opposite of your story is as true or truer than your own.

Commitment 11 - Be Your Own Approval

• Commit to being your own source of approval, rather than relying on it from others.

Commitment 12 - Recognize You Have Enough

• How many times have you caught yourself saying "if only I had enough time. Enough money. Enough support. Enough space. Enough energy." This commitment reminds us that this imagined state of "enough" is never going to happen, and asks us to be satisfied in what we have now - and get stared solving problems!

Commitment 13 - See People as Allies

• Whether or not you consider someone an ally or obstacle is largely a matter of choice. So which would you rather have, enemies or allies? Choose allies.

Commitment 14 - Win for All

• Recognize that life is not a zero-sum game and commit to creating win-for-all outcomes.

Commitment 15 - Be the Resolution

• Finally, the most important commitment - be the resolution the world needs. Stop being content with apathy and recognize problems as opportunities to step up and become the solution.

To see more of what the 15 Commitments look like in action, check out the Conscious Leadership Group.

Links

• Conscious Leadership Group
• Connect with Diana on LinkedIn
• The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership

Join our Exclusive Facebook Group!

What's your biggest takeaway from the episode? Join our invite-only, private Facebook group just for Brand Builder Community members, where you can connect with fellow entrepreneurs and founders, crowdsource ideas, share best practices (or lessons learned), and get your most important questions answered. Join now!

Facebook.com/groups/brandbuilderpod

Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.

This week we've got Daina Trout, the CEO and co-founder of Health-Ade Kombucha. If you're not familiar, kombucha is a high acid, low sugar, bubbly beverage, and Health-Ade makes the best testing and highest quality kombucha you can buy.

One of the most fascinating things about the Health-Ade story is that they've successfully scaled the small batch, artisanal production that makes for great kombucha. It's pretty crazy - they are the fastest growing company in all of refrigerated beverage, yet they still brew in 2.5 gallon glass jars. (They just have 250,000 of them.)

Dainia gets real and vulnerable in this interview. She talks about the highs and lows of building a business, dealing with the self doubt you feel as an entrepreneur, and even near death experiences that changed her perspective on life and business.

And of course, we dive into the tactical. Daina breaks down the leadership style that helped lead Health-Ade into the massive success it is today.

Links

• Health-Ade Kombucha
• Connect with Daina on LinkedIn
• Stacy's Rise Project Are you female founder? Apply to the Stacy's® Rise Project for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to grow your business through funding, mentorship and community. https://stacysrise.helloalice.com/

Join our Exclusive Facebook Group!

What's your biggest takeaway from the episode? Join our invite-only, private Facebook group just for Brand Builder Community members, where you can connect with fellow entrepreneurs and founders, crowdsource ideas, share best practices (or lessons learned), and get your most important questions answered. Join now!

Facebook.com/groups/brandbuilderpod

Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.

"What we're going after is almost once in a generation."

Dosist CEO Gunner Winston has big plans for the brand.

Founded with the goal of creating the first cannabis products based on the science behind the plant, dosist first made a name for itself through product innovation. Their dose pens, which deliver a consistent dose of THC, even landed them on TIME magazine's 25 best inventions of 2016 list.

But what really drives dosist is a strong brand identity, one that elevates benefits over features, taps into customer aspirations, and has more in common with Nike, Apple, and Starbucks than your typical cannabis company.

Why is this the approach? That's what we cover in this week's Brand Builder.

Takeaways

• The greatest brands transcend their categories. That's the sort of brand innovation that dosist aspires to, and Gunner lays out the strategy to make dosist one of those transcendent brands.
• From Hmbldt to dosist. Pay special attention to what Gunner says about why the company rebranded from hmbldt to dosist, as well as their new brand positioning and the messages they lead with.
• Earn it before you start expanding. Gunner explains why brands have to lay out a vision, and then deliver on the promise before they can start expanding their offering.

Links

• dosist

Join our Exclusive Facebook Group!

What's your biggest takeaway from the episode? Join our invite-only, private Facebook group just for Brand Builder Community members, where you can connect with fellow entrepreneurs and founders, crowdsource ideas, share best practices (or lessons learned), and get your most important questions answered. Join now!

Facebook.com/groups/brandbuilderpod

Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.

We've interviewed a lot of great jerky brands on Brand Builder: Country Archer, Field Trip, Chomps, all progressive brands who have helped people see the category in a whole new light. But every single one of these brands give props to one brand that did it first and paved the way for the rest - KRAVE.

So of course, we've been dying to get Jon Sebastiani, the founder of KRAVE jerky on the podcast for a while now. The wait is over, as Jon joined us in the Brand Builder studio for this incredible interview.

Jon founded KRAVE way back in 2007. At the time, the brand was revolutionary - an elevated jerky that had more in common with gourmet foods or fine wine than the typical gas-station fare that existed at the time.

In fact, what Jon created with KRAVE is pretty remarkable when you think about it - a market big enough where all of these brands can coexist and be successful.

Jon walked us through his career path which has been marked with milestone accomplishments, including the founding of KRAVE.

What you might not know - Jon also founded Smashmallow, sits on the board of brands like Dang, and is now an investor through Sonoma Brands, his consumer products incubator and venture fund.

Takeaways

• What it's like to be a first-mover, and the importance of speed in today's CPG landscape.
• The emotional toll of entrepreneurship. Jon gives tips for dealing with self-doubt, anxiety, and gives you tips to stay focused.

Links

• Sonoma Brands
• KRAVE Jerky
• Smashmallow
• Connect with Jon on LinkedIn.

Join our Exclusive Facebook Group!

What's your biggest takeaway from the episode? Join our invite-only, private Facebook group just for Brand Builder Community members, where you can connect with fellow entrepreneurs and founders, crowdsource ideas, share best practices (or lessons learned), and get your most important questions answered. Join now!

Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.

To celebrate our 100th episode, we're launching The Brand Builder Playbook, featuring advanced tips to help you skyrocket sales, grow your brand, and become a household name.

We're living in a golden age of CPG. An influx of capital, lower barriers to entry, and a consumer that cares more than ever about ingredients, health, and the social impact of the products they purchase - it all adds up to massive opportunity for the right kinds of emerging brands.

But there's a flip side. Competition is at an all time high. The margin for error is razor thin, and there's a mounting pressure to grow quickly. One wrong move, and your venture can fail.

So what's the secret? You have to learn from those who've been there before. Sure, some lessons can only be learned the hard way. But if you want to win in the modern CPG landscape, you have to limit those failures as much as you can. You have to stand on the shoulders of those who came before you. That's why we put together this playbook.

We're also giving away a free ebook version of the Brand Builder Playbook, which contains two exclusive bonus tips.

So listen to the episode, and then download The Brand Builder Playbook for more in-depth details plus two exclusive bonus tactics.

www.snacknation.com/playbook

This week on Brand Builder we have a conversation about how to get close to the customer, and why that's so important.

It all stems from the idea of infinite supply - that in the era of nearly infinite consumer choice, the way consumer brands innovate has to change if they want to survive.

We have to give credit to the team at Drift and their book This Won't Scale, where the idea for this conversation first came. Here's the passage that inspired this episode:

"You can only achieve hypergrowth by being close to the customer… We realized that in a world of infinite supply, the customer has all the power." (p. 7)

The infinite supply dynamic has long been at play in digital products like software, but it increasingly applies to physical products like CPG and snack brands. Consumer choice is approaching infinity, which means competition is too, and brands have to realign their approach.

Here's what we cover.

Takeaways

• Tip #1 - Need Brand Innovation & Connection
• Tip #2 - Brands are Relationships
• Tip #3 - Practice Essentialism
• Tip #4 - Serve as a Guide to Positive Transformation
• Tip #5 - Go To Your Customer
• Tip #6 - Create Two-Way Conversations
• Tip #7 - Own Your Relationships

Links

• This Won't Scale by the Drift Marketing Team
• Connect with Sean on LinkedIn.

Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.

There are things you're doing right now that are hurting your business.

It's ok. You're not the only one. It can be hard to keep up in the constantly shifting landscape of social media platforms, direct to consumer retail channels, marketing best practices, and latest and greatest growth hacks.

Luckily, we've got a marketing expert to help you identify and avoid these mistakes. Joining us is Erik Huberman, the founder and CEO of Hawke Media.

Erik knows his stuff. Hawke is a full service marketing consultancy who has done work for literally thousands of brands, including household names like Red Bull, inCase, Proactiv, Verizon, and tons more. Plus Erik has been named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 list, Inc. Magazine's top 25 Marketing Influencers, and he's a frequent keynote speaker and contributing writer.

Erik starts with the fundamentals, then gets really granular and nuanced when it comes to tactics.

Pay special attention to the "three pillars of marketing" that Erik describes. If you come away with anything from this episode, that should be it. But of course there's a lot more to it than that:

Takeaways

• What to do when your customer isn't who you think it is. When brands discover this… most make this one big mistake. Erik tells us what that is.
• Do things that aren't measurable. Yes, of course do the things with clear ROI, but not all value is immediately measurable.
• Why direct response marketing is less important than it used to be, and what to focus on instead.

Links

• Hawke Media
• Connect with Erik on LinkedIn.

Brand Builder is a co-production of SnackNation and ForceBrands.