Ian Faison & Jordan Schenck 38 min

Mobilizing Your Customer Base to Drive Sales


Jordan Schenck, Chief Brand Officer at Flashfood, shares some unique strategies for mobilizing your customer base to boost sales and brand awareness even without Coca-Cola dollars.



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[MUSIC]

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>> Welcome to Pipeline Visionaries.

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I'm Ian Vizan, CEO of Caspian Studios.

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Today, we are joined by special guest, Jordan.

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How are you?

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>> I'm doing well.

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>> Decided to have you on the show.

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We're going to chat marketing,

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we're going to chat brand,

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we're going to chat all things flash food.

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As always, our show is brought to you by our good friends.

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I qualified, you can go to qualified.com to learn more.

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Qualified is the number one conversational sales marketing platform

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for companies, revenues, teams.

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Go to qualified.com to learn more.

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First question, Jordan, what was your first job in marketing?

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>> I initially had this brand vision that I was going to,

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I'd studied Mandarin Chinese and Finance,

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and I had assumed that I was going to go the route of banking and for whatever

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reason.

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My giant live stream was to go into mergers and acquisitions or some form of

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Asia-Pacific

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center work.

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I did not do that, obviously, because I am here with a background in doing a

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lot of marketing.

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My first job was actually, was out in New York City.

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I had decided to not take the route of finance and some of the situations were

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like a friend

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of my mom, knew some people at Interbrand that had just started a sort of spin-

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out agency,

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and they hired me as a contractor, though I think I was a glorified intern to

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essentially

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do a whole bunch of market research, UX research around a couple of projects at

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a time, one

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was rebranding the country of Mexico, which was a really interesting body of

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work.

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Another piece was repositioning this company that everyone experiences, but no

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one knows

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about, it was underwriters laboratories, which is essentially the governing

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body of approving

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the safety of products.

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That was what I was doing, but I was also a contractor living in New York, so I

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had 19

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other jobs working, doing data entry for a hedge fund, and then working at a

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bar on

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Thursday so that I could have my tab paid for kind of saying, it was very true

2:28

to its

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form.

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There was not a lot of glory at the time.

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And flash forward to today, tell us a little bit about what you're doing at the

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amazing

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company, Flashfruit.

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Yeah.

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So I think a lot of folks in the States, at least, won't have heard of Flash

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fruit yet.

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We have just started the journey in building market here in the US, but company

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started

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about a little over seven years ago, initially in Canada.

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What we had seen was something that is true globally, is that within our

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grocery stores,

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40% of all food is thrown out.

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The majority of that food is fresh food, so meats, produce, dairy, you name it.

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And it's thrown out for a number of reasons.

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I mean, it can be anything from over ordering damage, didn't sell.

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While we still have an issue of food insecurity is greater than ever, and you

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even compound

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that with the past couple of years, post-pandemic, where food has become more

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unaffordable than

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ever.

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And so our mission is effectively to partner with the best grocery retailers,

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to feed families,

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not landfills.

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We've started that journey in the States.

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We're sort of on the edge of what I would say is sort of a moment of reintrodu

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ction that

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brands do.

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But I am the chief brand officer there.

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So I oversee our marketing function, our comms function, and our marketing

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function is inclusive

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of our marketing technology, as well as our retail and brand marketing.

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That's a pretty cool job.

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And I got a lot of things I could say about it.

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I feel like you got a lot of questions.

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Yeah.

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Well, first off, obviously, a slightly different type of company that we

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normally have on here,

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a lot of B2B tech companies.

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But you're a technology company, and you're obviously making the world a much

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better place.

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Let's get to our first segment, the Trust Tree.

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Trust Tree is where we go and feel honestly trusted, and you can share those

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deepest, darkest

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marketing secrets.

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You told us a little bit about what y'all do, but who do you sell to at Flash?

5:00

Yeah.

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We're a double-sided marketplace, and we're a double-sided marketplace that's

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moving into

5:07

sort of that hyper-growth side of things.

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So we sell to a couple of different people, right?

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We have to sell to our retail partners and brochures because we are an

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infrastructure

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change, not only in terms of the, call it more, I mean, software tech that we

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have, but

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we also have quite a bit of hardware.

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It's not deep hardware tech, but we have giant refrigeration units that end up

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in sort

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of the front of the grocery stores near a rent box or wood, is where you

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typically

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seen where you would typically encounter us.

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So that's one interesting part of my job in terms of how we sell, how do we

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integrate,

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how do we market G-Well?

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The other side of our marketplace, which is our consumer side, so how do

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consumers shop?

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How do they buy the suit?

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How do they think who are we acquiring, how do we command?

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So that's, it is separate, but it's also integrated.

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Like the deepest, darkest marketing when you're in startups that I would say

6:06

are early market,

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pre-market are one, sort of all of the things that you would have once known

6:13

around.

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Like how do we deploy a traditional campaign or what does this, what does a

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cyclical calendar

6:18

look like is important, but in some ways, Austin's age of the company.

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So when I think about my job was just scaling on either side of it, oftentimes

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the tactics

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that you would once overlook and other roles become that of your greatest

6:38

success.

6:38

So I'll use impossible as an example.

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In the early days, we built this sort of crazy amount of press.

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The whole launch strategy was around, but these big partnerships was shaft.

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The amount of events and launches I did was like, I saw like a hundred within a

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year kind

6:53

of thing.

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So what was happening though was the pull through in places that impossible was

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not.

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So if you think about it, we were effectively in a couple of places in New York

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City with

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like billions of impressions.

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We had no scale across the country.

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We also didn't as a company philosophically believe in let's deploy like big

7:14

advertising

7:15

campaigns because we wanted to create advocacy from the ground up.

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So what we did was knowing that we had this massive email list of people who

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had opted

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in to just learn about us, the majority of them obviously were not based in the

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United

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States.

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We created like a campaign that was a demand generation campaign where we and

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this is a

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crazy thing about retail.

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So grocery is still very much.

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It operates very close to its community.

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So things like submission boxes in a grocery store are still used to pull

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products in.

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You like that gender that manager reads those still like it's paper.

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Like if you want something new in your grocery store, you will still request it

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to your store

7:58

manager or put it in the box.

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And we knew that was a reality even at the level of the biggest supermarket.

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That's how it is.

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And they actually read them.

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That's I think a really beautiful thing about retail.

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You don't realize is that they care a lot about those sort of groups or

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communities they

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serve.

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There are meetings where they'll go over it.

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So we were like, what if we totally blitz those boxes and mobilize this base of

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people

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to go out and do the submissions for us and we'll figure out some sort of like

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reward

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system, which I think was a tote bag at the time.

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Like my team was like packing thousands of tote bags like in the office.

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But what we did was employ our fan base like our building sand base to

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essentially go out

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and be our sales team.

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That's a crazy thing to do.

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It's a ton of manual labor.

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Like we had to have like people emailing us back pictures of like submissions

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that they

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had made.

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And then we like honor it.

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And it's just this whole sort of like on and on kind of thing.

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But it was a really cool campaign because it allowed the retailers to obviously

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they

8:58

to read the press, then they would go to their submissions box was going to be

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like,

9:01

when are you getting impossible here?

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And it would happen with food service as well.

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So I thought that was just like a one of those, it feels so tactical, but like

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the impact

9:10

of it brought us into some of the biggest grocers and restaurants in the

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country.

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And so those are the things that I often in growth don't it's not to overlook,

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but to

9:21

actually over leverage on because you can do a lot with the community or the

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sort of

9:26

customer early adopters you have to make things sticky.

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And we know that the word of mouth side of things is what drives the sale.

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So the more you can mobilize that, that's the better.

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Yeah.

9:38

And the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

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Exactly.

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And a lot of times you can't ignore what your customers want when you're sort

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of dealing

9:44

with this like B2B, B2C sort of thing, which was the same impossible was no

9:48

different.

9:48

Like we still had to sell the technology to the industry in addition to

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generating consumer

9:55

demand.

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The product itself was like, you know, meat tech, not, you know, tech tech in

10:02

the way

10:03

that we would like British define it.

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And then you think about like when you're dealing with double sided marketplace

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is so

10:08

like, okay, how do I leverage customer demand?

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Well, then how do I connect that back to the retailer demand?

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I need to generate.

10:13

So then what we would do is have a really robust LinkedIn play where we would

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be building

10:19

lists and cloning lists off the emails and LinkedIn profiles of the hundreds of

10:25

people

10:25

that reported into any one person of sort of power and targeting all of that

10:29

media back

10:30

at them at LinkedIn.

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So we never lost the sort of relevance in the feed.

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So we had these sort of, there was a play going on there, or we would have

10:37

really smart

10:38

buyouts of certain publications at certain push periods.

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We even marketed the campaigns.

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We were marketing on the consumer side on the side of the retailers.

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Because one thing that I think is also overlooked is like people on the

10:51

business side are consumers

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too.

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We often forget that like they're not like it's all of a sudden you become a

10:57

business

10:57

person and then you don't know how to be a consumer.

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So we would actually just parlay that off of each other so that we were using

11:05

both sides

11:05

of it to generate just excitement and demand.

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And I think it were.

11:11

Right.

11:12

Yeah.

11:13

As you're thinking about the two sided marketplace, how do you budge it

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accordingly to both sides

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of the market?

11:25

Is there like some sort of calculation that you do there?

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There's never a perfect equation for any of this and it all comes back

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ultimately like

11:33

the volume of customers you need to sort of make the call.

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I'd say on the account side, there are a lot more implications that goes into

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sort of standing

11:42

up a public partnership.

11:47

It's not going to be just based off of can I in the same way with performance

11:51

marketing,

11:51

you know, move folks through whether it's social or digital ads.

11:54

Like there it's actually less of a formula there.

11:58

When I think about the, let's say on the business side of it, I'm always

12:03

thinking more about

12:04

what are the milestone events that I need to do in terms of like where I'll see

12:09

central,

12:10

you know, moments of gathering of the right people.

12:13

If I am running performance or anything in life cycle, how much of that I need

12:18

to do,

12:18

I can oftentimes like, I'll just be real.

12:19

Like it's a hard one to predict and project.

12:22

And a lot of times like with our org, for example, you know, marketing is a

12:27

service function

12:29

to making sure that like awareness is scaled.

12:31

And when our, you know, our growth team gets out there, they've actually shown

12:34

up and folks

12:34

know who we are.

12:35

That's sort of my KPI and how I think about it, which a lot of it is like Palm

12:39

's Lead.

12:39

So my budgets tend to be relatively light there just in terms of if you're

12:42

going out

12:43

for customer acquisition, where I know when I'm turning on a market, I need at

12:47

least a

12:47

you know, a hundred thousand people to know about this sort of knowing where my

12:50

conversion

12:51

data sits and then the estimates I can make in terms of like retention, that

12:55

can be a

12:55

little bit more formula.

12:57

But that's how, I mean, it usually nuts out that you'll put more in consumer

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demand and

13:01

then more in sort of like longer sort of term activation that deals with it

13:06

different.

13:07

But there is no formula.

13:09

This is like the art and the science of it.

13:11

So who's in the committee that you were talking about on the account side, like

13:15

these retail

13:16

partners who's making those type of decisions and who in the proverb.

13:21

Yeah, I mean, I think it ranges.

13:23

You know, for us, we've something I heard earlier is that we're different in

13:27

that when

13:28

a CPG like a straight sort of call it an average, if you will, or a piece of

13:34

impossible

13:35

meat ends up on the shelf.

13:36

It's a very different relationship at a grocery level.

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Given that there's the buyers, there's the preexisting sort of shape of a shelf

13:44

in

13:44

category.

13:46

When we're coming in because we have refrigeration units that pick up on a

13:51

space, we have new

13:53

ways in which the store is potentially calling food and moving food instead of

13:58

it going out

13:59

on the dock and then out to the landfill, it's now going, you know, into a

14:03

fridge.

14:03

Like there's some big infrastructure changes that do happen.

14:07

We tend to work with leadership teams, but we're still engaging and we work

14:10

with leadership

14:11

teams with like how we move it in.

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We need that's where the alignment comes from.

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But then the actual activation of it is at a store level.

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So we work with full.

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We have to ultimately get by in at the sort of lead level, but we also get by

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in the regional

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manager level.

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And we're still done training store to store.

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We go with everyone when we do it.

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And there's a lot of stakeholders that have to get by in.

14:35

And I'm sure it's similar with when you're talking to different folks sort of

14:37

in the SaaS

14:38

realm.

14:39

Some of these infrastructure changes are like the stakeholders go up and down

14:45

the chain.

14:46

Yeah, I think that the most recent statistic was if it's a hundred thousand

14:51

dollar deal

14:51

or more, there's 17 stakeholders in a BDB sale at this point.

14:57

Or like the buying companies like 17 people.

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Yeah, I would say that it's still that and more depending on sort of the size

15:06

of what

15:06

you're rolling out.

15:07

And one interesting thing for us is because we have so much sort of mission and

15:13

goodwill

15:13

tied to what we're ultimately doing and the why behind what excites brochures

15:17

about us

15:18

is going back to brochures care about their communities.

15:20

They don't.

15:21

No one loves throwing out.

15:22

That's not something it's that anyone goes into business for.

15:26

What tends to happen is our value proposition becomes like an incredible

15:29

marketing and comms

15:31

vehicle for them as well.

15:33

So not only are we building technology to integrate into their handhelds, like

15:36

there's

15:37

this whole technical side of it where IT security, the tech teams are coming

15:41

together.

15:42

Then you've got the store teams, which is like, how do you train the store

15:45

floor to

15:46

like move product?

15:47

Then you've got the whole other side of it, which is how are we building the

15:51

marketing

15:52

story, the comms stories that ultimately help build a greater sense of goodwill

15:58

for the

15:58

brands that we work with.

15:59

So we end up, you made me think 17, I was like, man, I wish it was 17 because I

16:02

feel like

16:03

some days it's 80 that you end up working with.

16:08

But again, it just comes down to like the value chain is so expansive and like

16:11

the

16:12

change that we are sort of moving through on the floor is really neat.

16:17

We celebrate even on assistant manager level.

16:19

So a big program that we created to recognize as we have our sort of store

16:24

champion program,

16:26

right?

16:27

We recognize the champions or the leaders within the stores, whether that's on

16:30

LinkedIn or

16:32

sort of in our regular newsletters.

16:34

And that's again, going back to it's not even just like the regionals aren't

16:38

the ones sort

16:38

of in the in it doing the work with us on the sort of floor on the floor level

16:43

outside

16:43

of our champions.

16:44

But you know, every department in a grocery store participates in a program

16:48

like Flash

16:48

Food Meat, produce dairy, everyone's a part of making sure that the food that

16:53

they're

16:54

moving to sell through the platform is coming from their department.

16:58

It's pretty massive when you think about letters of one individual behind every

17:00

single

17:01

one of those departments in a grocery store that runs that particular

17:05

department.

17:06

And so we do a lot of work to recognize that because without them, the food

17:11

doesn't end

17:12

up on the platform, right?

17:14

You know, a lot of how I would I've been comparing it like lately internally is

17:18

if you remember

17:19

Airbnb in the early days, do you remember like before they trained house, help

17:23

make

17:23

things interesting?

17:24

And it was like, totally wild west.

17:27

All the photography was like, we're sort of in that, I would say that equitable

17:32

stage

17:32

in that we've got a labor like an amazing force that takes pictures of the food

17:38

, gets

17:38

it on the platform.

17:39

It's similar to that of the house, right?

17:41

It makes it attractive to be merchandise and sold on the platform and

17:44

everything we sell

17:45

is 50 to 75% off.

17:47

So you're working with like highly discounted, which is super cool, affordable

17:51

stuff.

17:52

And then you have to like connect the consumer to it.

17:54

It's like truly a very comparable reality.

17:57

And we have products like our tech products are built for both of those, right?

18:01

Which is similar to that of Airbnb.

18:02

Like you have to have a posting platform in the same way you have to have a

18:06

market place

18:07

to shop.

18:08

But we're early days in sort of that journey as far as like, how do you sort of

18:14

mobilize

18:15

a one group to like, A, do something completely different that they haven't

18:19

done and B, make

18:20

it like super interaction to the consumers that are going to come in and shop.

18:23

So I don't know if you check the app out, but like that's the easiest way to

18:27

compare

18:27

what we're doing and where we're at, which I think it's a super cool challenge.

18:32

So I was going to ask that I did check out the app and also I checked out the

18:35

website.

18:36

So I'm curious, you know, it's very much built for the consumer.

18:39

How do you, uh, no figure out a way to speak to both audiences?

18:44

Yeah.

18:45

So the consumer app you engaged with will always be the app for the consumers.

18:49

Right.

18:50

Yeah, web is there's an update coming next year, which will be exciting.

18:55

But then on the question of the technology we develop for retailers, we, that's

19:00

where

19:01

I said we have a full separate product there.

19:02

So our technology integrates with our retailers.

19:06

So we on our sort of, we, on our retailer, the retailer tech that we've

19:10

developed is,

19:11

it is obviously connected by how data moves through the two because obviously

19:14

we need

19:14

to make sure that the products that are getting posted on one side end up on

19:17

the marketplace,

19:18

but the actual tech itself is different because we're integrating into door.

19:23

Some super new, some 25 years old, you know, and we actually build that tech to

19:31

integrate

19:31

within those systems so that there isn't disruption to the day to day way in

19:37

which grocery

19:38

stores, um, essentially manage their inventory and make this where things go.

19:43

So it's very technical.

19:45

And I wouldn't put that on the sort of full shrine of like customer, like it's

19:49

not going

19:49

to drive consumer demand, but when we go into sort of our sales cycles, it's

19:53

much more,

19:54

um, it's much more robust with that.

19:59

So typically we'll sort of hit that with the usual face to face conversations,

20:04

you know,

20:04

we're developing some more sort of explanatory video content to help make that

20:09

a little bit

20:10

more simplified so that as we think about scaling beyond chains, because we've

20:14

worked

20:15

with sort of larger chains to grow as we think about, you know, a strategy for

20:20

independence

20:21

or bringing on our goal would be all brochures, right?

20:24

And that doesn't just mean the big ones that have 10,000 doors.

20:27

It would mean, you know, the family chain down the street that's got a couple

20:32

of like

20:32

really solid restaurants that are still dealing with food waste and want to do

20:37

it.

20:37

So it's a lot of stuff that we're like in progress of building today, which is,

20:44

I mean,

20:45

it's super cool.

20:46

Like I said, you're catching me on a day, fresh out of planning, fresh out of

20:50

like all of

20:50

that.

20:51

So I'm like, ah, come pull me back on in six months and you'll be like, dang,

20:55

what we

20:55

are first shot and everything you said was true, Jordan.

21:00

It all came true, but it's a perfect time to chat about planning.

21:04

And that's what we're going to talk about in our next segment, the playbook

21:07

where you

21:08

open up that playbook to talk about the tactics that help you win.

21:12

What are your uncuttable budget items?

21:15

So philosophically, this is then this is me as a marketer.

21:20

We I think that we should always try to operate in a world where we're getting

21:24

as close as

21:25

we can to sort of the zero sum marketing game, like in terms of how we don't

21:30

get ourselves

21:31

in a situation where we're sort of on that always on burn of performance

21:35

acquisition.

21:36

How do we rely on our product itself to do harder work for us, like incentiv

21:41

izing pearls

21:42

or, you know, drumming up a much tighter sort of life cycle system?

21:47

Like those are not just like where I operate philosophically.

21:51

So naturally, when I'm looking at the scope of my budget, things that I'll

21:56

always the

21:57

always on things that I'll always make sure we have is a healthy level of sort

22:00

of commitment

22:01

to owned and earned.

22:02

Like how are we thinking about the storytelling piece of this with how we

22:07

leverage, whether

22:08

it's things at a press level, things at an influence level, things that I am.

22:13

And how do we maximize that with a Juliet, for example, like how can we

22:16

maximize that

22:16

with different publishers to drive that?

22:19

Because as we know, and the reality is the media will always generate sort of

22:25

that halo

22:27

effect, especially for growth startups, because we don't have Coca-Cola dollars

22:31

Like we can't go out and buy a bunch of out of home.

22:35

That doesn't fundamentally make any sense for the business.

22:38

We don't also have the budgets to be doing like full digital takeovers on a

22:41

certain website.

22:42

And we also should be really sort of stringent with how we look at the

22:46

performance budget.

22:48

And so that would be sort of the first thing.

22:50

I'm always very I'm always looking to make sure that's funded in a way, because

22:54

what

22:54

I've seen in my time, whether it's with my own business and even with

23:00

impossible, obviously

23:00

with flash food, the amount of awareness and what I say awareness directly

23:06

attributed to

23:07

downloads or sell through that can happen when you have a viral thick talk

23:12

video that

23:12

ends up on Good Morning America that cost you all of a nothing to do because

23:20

the person

23:20

did on their own free will.

23:21

We just happened to parlay the story up at the right time.

23:25

Has a greater impact than going out and spending hundreds of thousands of

23:29

dollars on a campaign.

23:31

And then when I think about campaigns, where I start to where I don't budget in

23:35

the budget

23:36

is always looking at my year and saying, and this is what all sit with finance

23:41

or other

23:41

things like, what is the push periods that we are going to pick a bet on.

23:45

If we don't have the data that tells us exactly when we've seen sell through be

23:49

the easiest or

23:51

or building a new product, like when can we when do we as a team want to choose

23:56

a moment

23:56

in time that we're going to anchor spend around because what I've seen with a

23:59

lot of businesses

24:00

is the second you start to get in that flow of just we always have to be

24:04

spending 100 grand

24:05

is the second you stop looking at and asking yourself why and how do I make it

24:10

work harder.

24:11

So what I'll usually do is plan to have that moment in time to really

24:17

galvanize the teams and the organizations to to put action around something

24:22

versus getting in

24:24

that cycle of spending just to spend. And you can sort of center that around

24:27

your sales calendar.

24:29

If you know you've got these launches coming, let's do it. If you know in Q1,

24:34

people are like

24:35

the cheapest time to advertise, but people are much more interested in trial

24:38

because it's less

24:39

crowded. Don't spend all your money in Q4. And it's actually quite hard because

24:44

what you'll find is

24:45

you know, you'll have those early conversations with finance and as you want

24:48

this whole budget

24:49

to be secured and you want all these resources and I'm actually probably the

24:53

first one to be like,

24:54

I don't need that because I am not going to spend it because I'd rather have

24:57

that resource

24:58

though to make sure that the product gets sharper because if I can put that

25:00

investment towards a

25:02

build on the product side, it's going to be way better for my martech side or

25:06

my acquisition side.

25:07

But if I can get you to commit to this quarter, we're really going to go for it

25:12

. It's always going

25:13

to end up a little bit better. But I think we're naturally inclined to think we

25:15

have to score

25:16

all as much as possible. It's what's the period that we're putting our chips on

25:19

the table and then

25:20

like, how are we investing in programs that can get us sort of those like PR h

25:25

alo moments that get

25:26

it done. I always try to out a settling one moment in time where we invest in

25:30

research,

25:31

where we say, hey, we're going to go out and do this is going to be the one

25:35

time a year

25:36

and it's again, it could be multiple times a year, but this is the time of year

25:39

that we're going to

25:40

say, who's our customer base, we're going to say, and who is out there to

25:44

acquire and interrogate

25:45

that. And that work typically not only sort of sets the standard of where and

25:49

who our customers

25:50

are today, but it also informs the product roadmaps, right? Like maybe where we

25:54

went,

25:54

didn't get us there. Maybe we acquired more of an audience that we didn't

25:57

realize and why. So I'll

25:59

always have a period where probably before a push period that we invest in some

26:05

quantitative as

26:06

well as qualitative understanding of our customer base, because that's where

26:10

you know how to like,

26:11

where to throw the spear. And I think again, going back to like when people

26:15

sort of get in

26:15

that flow of like, always spend to spend, you don't have those moments where

26:19

you're like, okay,

26:20

how do I spend effectively? What about like sort of like,

26:24

experimental budget? Is there something that you want to be investing in over

26:28

the course of next

26:28

year or something that you're trying to invest in or debating thinking about?

26:33

I'm always keen on, as we think about where we spend, I mean, actually always

26:39

where we spend on

26:40

sort of the various like social channels and digitally is always like, it's an

26:44

interesting one

26:44

that like with Sunwing, for example, Sunwing company co-founded mission is to

26:53

essentially

26:53

make plant-based wellness accessible. We have beverage and powder line. I would

26:57

say the success

26:58

stories is like within the year that we developed a powder line, we were

27:03

already, you know, moving

27:04

into national park at Walmart, all of these things. There was a lot of hyper

27:08

growth with

27:08

sort of the product market in the world like, oh my god, how are we going to

27:12

support the velocities

27:14

that we need? And so we we really got sharp on how do we double down on certain

27:21

channels? Like,

27:22

I was mentioning that of TikTok and what tactics outside of like traditional ad

27:27

development,

27:27

like deployment, can we leverage to either sort of scale up acquisition and or,

27:35

I mean, maximize

27:35

spend to be real? So we developed this alchemy of white labeling as well as

27:41

organic influence that

27:43

directly drove our sort of success and that of different retailers like Target

27:49

or others to move

27:50

product on the shelf in a way that was like competing with some of their

27:53

biggest sort of

27:55

whales, like the vital proteins of the world. And we were just doing it all

27:58

through

27:59

paid influencers and then occasionally like boosting white listed. And that was

28:06

really

28:06

surprising to me because if I had again come from like the world priority even

28:10

impossible when I

28:11

was at a place like widening Kennedy, I'm dealing like a hundred million dollar

28:14

ad budgets, right?

28:14

Like these are bucco bucks that just kind of go everywhere. And in this day and

28:21

age, I'm like,

28:21

wow, I can tell you that with that campaign with, you know, that small like 40

28:27

grand of money,

28:28

we were able to like become a compact like a meaningful competitor on shelf.

28:33

And so I get

28:35

really excited about like new platforms that are coming out because I think,

28:39

yeah, I mean,

28:41

any of us sort of get wild west, you can test, you can break, you can figure

28:44

out like ways to get

28:46

the algorithm to savor you. So those are the things that I get a little bit

28:49

excited about.

28:50

I'm excited to continue to scale it. Another big thing for next year, like bets

28:56

would be

28:57

there's one piece of it, which is like the affiliate marketing side kind of

29:02

going back to

29:03

one is cool thing about our product is we have an amazing amount of just like

29:09

the fandom at

29:10

flash food is like unbelievable. And this is what got me, you know, I was on

29:14

the board of the company

29:15

initially. And so you sort of see these like tidbits of, you know, what's going

29:20

on and you're working

29:21

with the company, the things that always got me really excited was like the

29:24

amount of positive

29:26

customer outreach the company has is like unparalleled. Most of the times you

29:31

see that as like

29:32

bulk complaints or resolutions, but you know, in any given week, there's

29:37

hundreds and sometimes

29:38

even more just positively reaching out saying thank you so much for existing.

29:43

Oh, that's awesome.

29:44

Which you don't which to me is like a marketer. And like something that I've

29:47

always been really

29:48

passionate about is like, how do I mind for, for like fandom? And it goes back

29:53

to like demand

29:54

impossible campaign. Like, how do I understand that there's like a deep fan

29:59

base there? And

30:00

we absolutely have that. So as I think about next year, things like affiliate

30:07

programs that

30:08

incentivize our base to continue to share the message of what they love, you

30:14

know, outside of just the

30:16

like email and feel rewarded for that is something that I want to drive. We

30:19

also want to drive that

30:20

on the side of our press partners. Because what I also have found is the, you

30:26

know, our relationships

30:27

as we build this with our journalists is also really positive. So how do I

30:30

create like an incentive

30:31

structure not only for them and then also the rest of the influencer. So I'm

30:34

very eager to sort of

30:36

mobilize that for next year. Because again, it goes back to like, how do you

30:41

get to sort of like

30:42

the zero some marketing budget if you will. And if I can leverage this amazing

30:46

group of people that

30:47

love us to do, you know, the work of helping share our message, that's much

30:52

better than like

30:53

cranking something out all Facebook, you know, it just means something. And so

30:57

I always write like,

30:58

if you can get your brand to be loved so much, like, this is a bad Jordan KPI

31:03

that someone get

31:04

the tattoo of your brand, like you've made it. Like as soon as someone like

31:10

physically puts your

31:11

logo on their body, like you have created a brand that like, is like deeply

31:17

loved. We had that with

31:18

impossible in the first like 18 months when we launched, people were getting it

31:23

like tattooed on

31:24

their bodies. And I was like, wow, like we've really built something that works

31:27

. And I'm hoping,

31:29

like I said, if we talk again, you could ask me, you know, has someone gotten

31:32

the tattoo yet of

31:34

a slash now whole thing. This is on a different show, but I interviewed the one

31:38

of the marketing

31:39

leaders at liquid death and their CEO got a tattoo of one of their customers

31:44

who I think had a tattoo

31:46

or something, but it was like a whole crazy thing. But they basically they have

31:50

customers that have

31:51

tattoos and so their CEO got a tattoo of that customer. That's so funny. I

31:56

think it's a KPI that

31:57

sort of sits in the realm of folks that like to push the boundaries of culture

32:01

and the zeitgeist and

32:02

a lot of like stuff that I've dealt with, like with impossible, we had to like

32:07

we just shift the

32:08

zeitgeist around like what I am faced was right like it wasn't, you know, the

32:12

burgers in your frozen

32:13

aisle that like felt like weird, you know, hard rock had it like that was the

32:17

consumer perception.

32:18

I was also we also had a product that like has GMOs is made in a large

32:23

seemingly

32:24

scientific looking bioreactor like a lot of headwind, right? So like, how do

32:28

you sort of take all

32:29

those things like know that they're sort of real challenges and get it in there

32:33

into the heart

32:33

of what consumers want? I think a lot what excites me a lot with flash food is

32:37

we're taking something

32:37

that's like the whole industry knows that it's bad and no one likes to do it,

32:41

right? Consumers

32:43

are sort of like, why would I? It's like you say in one sentence like when you

32:49

're out the shelf,

32:49

like, why would I buy something near its best buy? But then like go to your

32:52

fridge and you like eat

32:53

whatever, like if you sniff it, you're like, I'm fine. So there's something

32:57

really interesting in that

32:59

tension for me to like, how do we actually if you can change behavior or you

33:03

can create a

33:04

really full movement around doing something totally novel and I'm like, how can

33:08

we make this idea of

33:09

food that's like near its best buy the same with like how cool it is to shop

33:15

for vintage clothes?

33:16

Like what de-pop did for Gen Z is really cool, right? And we've got that same

33:23

sort of thing going

33:25

where like, how do we sort of create that sort of spirit and moment around the

33:29

perfect window

33:29

of this food? Like truly, it's the perfect window. It's like food ready to eat

33:32

and the cheapest,

33:33

like boom, go. You shouldn't it shouldn't be that much more complicated than

33:37

that.

33:37

Yeah, and it's doing, um, doing the world a lot better. Yeah, great. But you

33:44

know how

33:45

consumers are, we want to care about it, but oftentimes accessibility around

33:50

things that

33:51

are sustainability, like it's just not there, right? You've got like plant

33:55

based is amazing,

33:57

but it's still 10x a commodity. So like, until you get there and you're like

34:03

truly

34:04

beating it, like good luck, right? But when you think about things like where

34:09

we are, like we're

34:11

actually beating commodity prices and it happens to be doing better. You know,

34:16

the consumer doesn't

34:17

have to think about it. They don't have to think about it or put their dollar

34:19

out there to make

34:20

it. So I just think that's like really cool. Aside from like the, you know, the

34:23

things that we figure

34:24

out is like an early stage startup with the clunkiness that happens with

34:27

technology we all know,

34:28

but I think that's again, it just goes back to like the most exciting kind of

34:32

business to get

34:34

the grow. And then I think on the side of our retail partners, it's a great

34:37

value proposition,

34:38

right? And retailers obviously like they sell food, they shrink out food. They

34:44

're

34:45

margin sensitive businesses. We help alleviate some of that while supporting

34:49

the community

34:50

that they serve in terms of accessibility and not again, no one wants to like

34:56

put this stuff

34:57

on the trash truck. And even at the landfill, like the land sold guys, we like

35:00

the big problem.

35:01

We like to figure out how to break down telephone calls and chemicals. If we

35:04

could actually not

35:05

have this whole place filled with food, we're in a better situation, just sort

35:09

of what you'll

35:09

hear sometimes when you're engaging with waste management, you know, nobody

35:13

sort of wants that

35:14

to be the outcome of all of the work, right? The labor that goes into making

35:18

food and how it gets

35:20

from point A to point B. So let's get to our final segment. Quick hits, some

35:24

quick questions,

35:25

quick answers, just like how qualified helps companies generate pipeline

35:31

quickly. Tapping

35:32

your greatest essay website to identify your most valuable visitors instantly

35:36

start sales

35:36

conversations right there on your website, go to qualified.com to learn more.

35:41

Quick hits,

35:42

Jordan, are you ready? Yes. Do you have a hidden talent or skill that's not on

35:47

your resume?

35:47

Not on my resume. Insane cook posts, epic dinner parties that you see vast

35:54

anyone in the

35:55

berry I have attended are like, that's crazy. Where is my invite Ben? You can

36:02

have one if you

36:02

want to come out to one. They're a good time. We just did like a surrealist

36:06

dinner party and I like

36:08

crazy. Followed all did a bunch of like thing from Dolly's cookbook, but then

36:12

also like a bunch of

36:13

other weird stuff. It was a good time. Fun. Do you have a favorite book,

36:18

podcast or TV show that you

36:19

recommend? Oh, I so favorite book, business book I've ever read, making of a

36:24

manager. My team is

36:25

just reading that right now. Julie Joe wrote that. It's one of the best books I

36:29

've ever read in terms

36:30

of tactical. A very tactical sort of description of what happens to that point

36:35

when you become a

36:36

manager or how to be it like straight up through the one on ones reviews

36:39

everything. It's a beautiful

36:40

book. It also gets it makes you really uncomfortable. Like you wonder if you're

36:43

actually doing a

36:44

good job, which I also love about a good book and then favorite podcast right

36:47

now is normal gossip

36:48

because I love good tea and I love comedians unpacking random events that

36:56

happen with strangers

36:57

like the drama on a kickball team. I need to hear that because I think the

37:02

world's really heavy

37:02

and it's more fun to hear like some of the levity that happens in the world

37:07

around the gossip around

37:09

the corner. Last question. What is your best piece of advice for a first time

37:16

chief brand officer

37:17

or CMO? Partner with your finance org early. Partner with your security org

37:25

early. Become BFFs

37:27

with your legal org early. I love it. Jordan, so awesome having you on the show

37:33

for listeners.

37:34

Just go download the flash food app and it's going to become a California scene

37:39

which is extremely exciting. We're going to follow along. We're so excited for

37:45

all the

37:45

progress that you're sharing and that you've achieved any final thoughts,

37:49

anything to plug?

37:50

No, you guys are on the journey now. We've got to, if we want to solve this

37:55

stuff,

37:57

we got to do it. There's only so many pretty looking things that I can put out

38:00

there,

38:00

but it's on a lot of us to sort of get in there and do it.

38:04

I love it. Austin Jordan, thanks so much and take care. Thank you.