Marketing Workshop: Selling Cookies on LinkedIn

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman today we're doing something a little different I'm here with Sean busy CEO of Kinesis which is based in Portland Oregon and works with small businesses on marketing culture and strategy and this is the first in the series of episodes Sean and I are calling marketing workshops Sean remind me again why are we doing this yeah Lauren thanks thanks so much this is our 23rd year in business at Kinesis and and our our customer pretty much that whole time has been the owner operated business and one of the things I've noticed is that marketing is probably on the top three list of of struggles that business owners have and when I search the landscape for like where's the good advice and who can help these folks it tends to fall into categories that don't help the business that's that's doing well and has figured some stuff out but isn't like a large corporation the owner operator who's rolling up her sleeves and getting to work every day you know is maybe responsible for sales maybe responsible for marketing there's not a lot of great uh resources out there for that person and I've picked up a few things over the years and I've also got some great people in my network that I've learned a lot from and I think when we bring those stories to the front uh I think they can help people my experience has been very similar to that talking to business owners there's just so much confusion out there the the idea here is to to Workshop it to talk to business owners and entrepreneurs about what they've tried what's working for them what's not and with that in mind today we're going to be talking to Grayson hogard who is co-founder of Grove cookie company he's figured out that the most effective sales channel for his cookies is of all places on LinkedIn which is kind of intriguing how'd you get to know Grayson yeah so uh if you know me I'm a big LinkedIn fan you know my customer base we're we're only in the B2B space we only work with with businesses that are trying to sell to other businesses I've been doing LinkedIn for a long time but especially when the pandemic hit I was like oh boy this is going to be even more important than ever and so I was really investing a lot of time and and energy into LinkedIn in the last few years and I'm pretty sure Grayson popped up in my network at one point or another but then I heard from him directly you know he reached out to me with the solicitation but he did it in you know such a Savvy smart way that I actually paid attention to it and I cannot tell you Lauren how many solicitations I get every day I mean dozens dozens dozens daily you know between email and Linkedin and and yet somehow this like broke through the noise and and then the more I paid attention to what he was doing just kind of watching him was like this guy's got some stuff figured out I mean this there's something going on here anything in particular you're hoping to hear from him yeah for sure um you know I get a lot of folks asking me what to do on LinkedIn what I'm hoping to learn from from Grayson is like what's his flavor you know of of LinkedIn how does he use it all right as usual this episode is brought to you by our principal sponsor the great game of business let's get [Music] started welcome great Jon tell us a little bit about how you got into this how'd you get started in the cookie business well it wasn't a lifelong dream but um it it just it it happened so we launched we're two years old we actually just celebrated our second uh anniversary congratulations yeah thank you we launched in January of 2021 and yeah this whole thing started because obviously in 2020 we had our you know the go around and um my wife had been working from home I had just started a new position um and I started working from home and uh you know kind of time you had a little extra time on your hands and um really a side hustle was born I'm kind of curious you know in terms of there's a lot of business models you could do right you could make Rice Krispy treats you could do you could mow Lawns I mean there's a lot of things you can do as a as a side hustle how did you settle on this this idea so my wife um in November of 2020 she's not a baker let's point that out first and foremost she doesn't like to cook she doesn't like to bake uh her dad asked her to make some cupcakes that he really liked and uh R nailed it she did a great job and uh everyone was just like raving about it and you know I think the the encouragement side of baking came out of like wow these are really good Marie thank you so much for making them so uh December end of November rolled around and she's like I think I going try and make cookies and like I said no Bing experience this is made cookies so how do she get to become an adult and never had made cookies how does that it's it's one of those funny things and I've always been a cookie snob I just like soft cookies that's it you know there's no there's no need for frosting there's no need for extra toppings it's like give me a soft cookie and um yeah so she went to Google you know and uh started tinkering with some recipes she found and um landed on this one recipe and the recipe was an Oreo cookie what we currently have on our menu is the Oreo cookie um she tweaked some things put her own little twist on it and literally I took a bite out of it you know after it had cooled from the oven I'm like wow this is like completely soft from the outside to the inside and like I said I'm a big cookie snob when it comes comes to soft cookies I was like wow these are really good and um so she you know getting that positive reinforcement from me now and um I really think she just like really enjoyed like that side of it it was like seeing people like happy again with baking and then the cookies were kind of born from there friends and family had them we took them to family dinners for Christmas and it was just you know it was one of those things that's like you just keep getting told wow these cookies are wow these cookies are good and then so my wife was like I think we should sell these I was uh I was like sure what what are you thinking she's like well like people can like come pick it up from the house I'm like perfect let's do it and so I just one weekend I got the LLC EIN number bank accounts website logo you know kind of the whole thing literally in a weekend I had it done on Sunday and um started on Friday so that's how it was born sounds like I'm getting a hint here that maybe part of your superpower is execution I like to think that um I i' love to do it I like to see start to finish all done clean my hands of it and there you go here's your product I mean you spun up a business in a weekend right which like like that's pretty pretty pretty interesting so how did you then go from hey we're going to sell cookies out of our house to we're a B2B thank you appreci cation gift company well um we quickly realized that no one really wants to come to someone's townhouse to pick up cookies was it was it market research that made that determination well you know you just like have these like visions of like you know you see it on Instagram like just whatever you're like man these people are killing it like oh my gosh this is so easy you just post a photo and people just come knocking and you know it just doesn't work like that so I've been really blessed to have a strong Network um that I never wouldn't say worked for but like they've just been my friends my whole entire life I've had the same group of friends for um since really kindergarten and um all through middle school high school and forever and ever so um we actually took these cookies to my buddy's house um him and his dad have a really wellestablished wealth advisory firm um in Lake Osgo Oregon and um we took the cookies over there just so they could try them not like any idea of like yeah we could start using these like client appreciation gifts but um they loved them we actually left the whole box and then um this was on a Sunday and then on Monday my buddy Matt emailed me he's like you think you could ship these cookies to our office and um I was like sure my background is in warehousing and Logistics and so I'm a little confident in uh in my shipping and packaging abilities and um it's so funny when I think about it so you know I packaged them did the whole logistic side of it had him shipped there you know his next day delivery he facetimed me and um he's like I'm opening the box right now and he opens the Box the cookies are perfectly in their little plastic sleeve yeah so that's when it was born that B2B um gifting strategy angle what what month was this so you start the business in January and when when did you kind of make this pivot or realis end of February end of February so this is what's crazy so they have a a really big book of business lots of clients and they are huge on touch points so I'm actually a client of theirs um and I get you know birthday cards I get you know every quarter I'm getting some sort of card like XYZ and um so they actually intertwined us into their birthday send out strategy so we got you know 500 600 clients just from that right because they're sending them birthdays and um you just see it right it's like plain as day if you didn't see it that wow this is the better model from doing this from the house so that's how that kind of took shape so you know real typical a lot of businesses get started on the friends and family model right you you you reach out to friends see if they'll buy something from you you get a positive response and and then then you know a lot of business bu they struggle at that point because they don't know how to get past how to sell to people in their Network yeah but you've clearly done that so to take us through that Journey how how did you start to get customers that you'd never met before well um after three months of working with uh my buddy's firm I was at a bachelor party and all my friends were making fun of me as the cookie dealer and um literally It's the funniest thing ever and my buddy Matt same guy he goes why don't you call other wealth advisers we all do the same thing we send you know client relationship gifts you know client touch points and I was just thinking to myself I'm like huh that's a really genius idea and I've I've kind of just been that outgoing like I really don't mind calling someone out of the blue and and doing that so it just so happened uh that across the hallway from my buddies dad's wealth advisory firm is another wealth advisor firm so well this other wealth advisory firm after like stopping in there three times agreed to like start utilizing us as their client engagement uh company and uh so then we started shipping them so there we had our second client within a week and a half okay are you still cooking out of your kitchen at this point yes totally yeah yeah yeah so we uh yeah we're still in our house at this point probably made like 3,000 cookies to that point so then we acquired our second client I had listened to a podcast um actually because I have never been on LinkedIn prior to the cookie Adventure I listened to a podcast in July that had a businessto business LinkedIn video expert on and her summary and how I took it was if you are a B2B company and you're not utilizing LinkedIn you are missing out on like the biggest opportunity ever and so I got home that day I made sure my password and everything worked for my LinkedIn updated my photo kind of put a new bio there you know cookies blah blah blah and from there I just kind of hit the ground running with it then so you know aside from tuning up your profile um and and it seems like you went after the like personal brand as opposed to making it about the Grove Cookie Company in the beginning what are the what are the other things you did uh in those early days since you just got on the platform and you didn't have thousands of connections well Sean you you happen to fall right in my little web of connection requests yeah I my real strategy was you know a connection request but with a message not just like rapid fire connection requests yeah I just think you know the slightest personalization and like presenting what you're offering and why you're connecting is like you know it's like meeting a stranger it's like hey why am I meeting you right now um that's how I that's how I took it um from that strategy of trying to build my following and um I got really lucky that there's not a lot of like cookie companies on LinkedIn um so you know you start posting photos of cookies and you talk about cookies and you like angle it from the client appreciation standpoint like that B2B gifting yeah was the unlock I remember you reaching out to me I don't remember exactly how you positioned it but I do remember it was very it was customized and I get so many requests and all of them go in the trash because I know that as soon as I accept the requests they're going to start selling me something um but somehow you broke through that and you know yes I he was selling cookies Sean well that helps that helps but it was more about what he said and maybe if you can remember I don't know if your script is the same or if you even have a script I know do do you customize everyone that you sent out so I I do customize it very minor in the customization you know really if you have founder CEO VP or any title in there I'm I'm going to offer you like a free sample box of cookies in that connection request got it okay so I'm coming in there my thought is and I've learned this just over the two years is like I'm basically get you know it's like reciprocating like I'm sending you a connection request but I'm also sending you free box of cookies if you want it right that's a good deal yeah I think it's a very fair deal you just had to click a button so yeah I actually have the message pulled up I went into LinkedIn and pulled it up you want me to read it yeah yeah hi Sean my name is Grayson my wife and I founded Grove Cookie Company in baverton Oregon if you enjoy out of this world soft and delicious cookies we'd love to connect let me know if you'd like to try a sample box and then I just put our website with like our about like I always kind of forwarded people to our about page because yeah most people want us see that you know right um and yeah and you you responded with the funniest thing I don't remember to read it what did he say yes please John goes hey Grayson great intro I get a ton of connection requests and ignore 90% of them because they aren't relevant or it's someone looking to sell me something but free cookies genius and you go your timing is funny too I was just telling someone that the untapped opportunity is for Consumer Brands to use LinkedIn for marketing anyway nice to meet you Sean and from there like you you gave me that positive re like oh this is like smart that worked yeah yeah so right and this was October of 2021 and I don't know if either if you read the book uh influence by Robert calini um the the psychology of persuasion I have not it's it's kind of a must-read if you're if you care about marketing and so essentially Grayson said the word uh reciprocity and that's a big Concept in that book it's the the idea that you by giving something to somebody without a you know expectation of a return you're you're you're setting up a situation where the person actually will then want to help you and and that's you know the reciprocity idea you see it when you go into Costco and they give you free food you know anytime somebody gives you something for free they're generally leveraging that idea of reciprocity that that you will feel some level of obligation to help that person and I think that's a really really Savvy way to do I literally think about that all the time like I call myself Costco 2.0 on cold calls CU they're like you're going to send us free samples and and I think it's the funniest thing but no one's really laughed at it but that's exactly how I modeled that whole thought process of like sending samples so one of the crazier things that we've just eclipsed in two years mind you is we've shipped or delivered 500 sample boxes of cookies in two years so you talk about like trying to accelerate you know and I'm talking about that organic side of things that's how we've been able to accelerate it have you tracked you know are you are you like of the 500 our conversion rate to a actual customer is you know 10% 5% 50% I don't have an accurate data um because I changed the way I was tracking it from using HubSpot to then moving it to Shopify but I would say it's about 15% it's actually yeah the beauty of what we're trying to do is create that lifetime value client who is going to utilize us throughout the year and the next year and the year after that right right I don't know what it cost you to send out a box but let's say it's 10 bucks you know say this is say round number is 10% so now you've got 50 you you've basically secured 50 customers for $5,000 right and then then you can start to do the analysis on you know how frequently do those customers buy from you what's the value of them and it's not the year one value right it's year two three four all compounded together correct I'm guessing you're still too early days to like have all that information at your fingertips because it's moving so fast yes so like I could really benefit from some data clean up um we do a good job you know obviously we have Shopify do a fantastic job of like breaking down numbers for me like some of the cool backend things of Shopify is like they have like cohorts so if someone buys in July it will track them for the next six months to like see what their percentage of buying again is oh wow okay yeah so yeah it's so cool but yeah so like we've been hovering like at 14% And that's through a six-month period right so 14% of what can you explain what that means a 14% returning customer rate uh okay so they buy from you once 14% % of them will return to you correct and oh that's over six months right so it's like just six months right yeah so it's like it jumps 14 it goes down goes up goes down goes up yeah it's like it's a really cool I got to do a LinkedIn post on it because I think it's just the most fascinating thing ever you know it's like all this data like Shopify is the best so if you're trying to start a business that's selling something online Shopify number one what's really cool too is you're taking an industry B2B sales and you're applying the tools of b2c sales to that industry and and now you're starting to get information that informs your decision- making around marketing and and sales efforts correct Grayson do you know what percentage of your sales are B2B versus b2c we just opened up local delivery and pickup here from our shop in Tiger Oregon um so we've seen a little uptick in like door Dash delivery but over 90% is need to be client gifting and what do you charge for a box of cookies with shipping it's for six cookies is $25 but that includes and this is like our big selling point is the customized note card with the logo so like Sean saw that with like the Kinesis logo and um that is the value ad that separates us from anyone Cookie Company on the market right now yeah what's the what's the competitive landscape like Grayson how and how do you think about it I really don't pay too much attention to it because I'm you know you know we're still like you know I don't have enough time to like look up you know um I do my best to uh just kind of like I hear the feedback right like I'm really big on just following up so I just hear what our customers are saying and you know it's it's always the same thing cookies are soft and we absolutely love the note right so that's the best part about sending samples is like we get this unfiltered feedback especially from you know B2B clients from a competitive landscape there's just no one that's putting notes outside of a packing slip if you're familiar with that right like you received a gift online it's on a white packing slip size four font I think a few other cookie companies put it in bold now but you know it's like there's just nothing to it right whereas our notes right on top of the cookie you see it right when you get it there's no questions about who sent me this gift which is you know the worst part about gifting is not knowing if like the client even figured out who sent it to one of the things you just pointed out which I think is worth highlighting I had thought about it but I was thinking about your 500 sample cookies as you know $5,000 for new customers but it's actually you could you could take that cost and say it's actually market research too so you're sort of figuring out what people respond to in that space that is a fantastic point you've built a model in which you get a two for one you're acquiring customers which is the the job of marketing and you're also getting market research which is also the job of marketing but they're usually thought of as two different you know line items and cost and activities Grayson did you hit on the idea of giving out free samples this way right from the beginning I mean that's kind of a time- tested strategy but it usually happens in a supermarket or a Costco or something you you have a an interesting Twist on it was that always the idea or how did you come up with that well it really came about my insecurity of cold calling because I have never I had never done it before and my thought was like okay if I can like get out in like the first you know two minutes or so that you know we love sending free samples if this is like an interesting opportunity for you that that's how it was all born and plus uh because I was were so heavily involved with like the wealth advis of community I think they're going to be more hesitant to send their clients gifts without trying them anyways I find it really interesting because you know especially during the early days of the pandemic there were a lot of brands that talked about how they were styed because their marketing strategy was to give away free samples and you know in in a in a store setting and that venue was that was just shut down that wasn't an option anymore and it never would have occurred to me to just uh reach out to people on LinkedIn and do it that way instead yeah so um it it it just it just happened that way and we haven't stopped doing it and you know it just like Sean kind of alluded to it it provides us instantaneous feedback of how we're doing right so like I I did a follow-up call from samples we sent out last week and two wealth advisor firms were like we were blown away like packaging was great we absolutely love the note with our logo on it you know because I don't tell people like that the the sample I'm sending will have their logo on it I just tell them we're going to send a sample box and um so yeah it's just uh instantaneous feedback that we really enjoy and you're delighting the customer with something they don't expect which is always a winner in terms of you know delight and sticking with you and wanting to learn more that's that's a great strategy you've kind of given us a snapshot of where you are now where would you like to be what do you imagine this uh looking like in two years say and and and how are you going to get things yeah that's a fantastic question so two years is pretty quick but you know it took us two years to get out of the house and into our own shop so things happen extremely fast um but ideally we have this Nationwide presence right and really with that comes just bigger space more awareness and that's where I kind of talked about like organic versus paid marketing is that more awareness of what we offer as a client gifting experience so in two years ideally it would be regionally we're like known and then nationally is is making that presence more felt so that's our two-year goal and that's the beauty of where we're at with our um setup right now is really it's it's not a matter of like creating more shops or creating more you know that capital investment just isn't necessary really is just bigger equipment so you think you can scale you can scale with bigger equipment versus adding a lot of more people correct yes so you know there's the yeah there's the automation Machinery side of things right so everything is hand scooped right now but you know there's no dividers that kind of are very very cool I've seen videos of them um and so now you you know you 10x with two people what it's all from just one machine right so you know it's just those types of things you get a bigger mixer so now you're your yield more and that's how scaling with e-commerce is so lucrative and so appealing versus like trying to potentially franchise you know getting more getting more Concepts in place and plus we're bootstrapped um so you know you you you have those parameters right of um a capital right so yeah that's really our to your vision well take us through the uh you're thinking on the the marketing that's going to expand the awareness of what you do regionally and nationally it's it's all LinkedIn you're not messing with other platforms we have Instagram WE Post plenty there but just because of our like businessto business client gifting approach right the I mean your just Market is like right there right so yeah with with the paid side of things you know I've been hearing a lot it's like if you can't figure out organic you're paid ain't gonna work either so what's fun is I've kind of figured out not to get at you know too far ahead of my skis but I've figured out kind of that Cadence for organic so what you can do on top of the positive organic outre reach you're doing you can boost right you can start boosting posts you know and then you can go into ad creative but you can like boost posts and like Target those to everyone with founder in their name or you know how that works with like this digital advertising so that's like really trying to figure out how to maximize that can you walk us through the boosting process a little bit I mean how much money are you spending and and how do you target it well that's the hardest part that I don't know because I can you know zero dollars right now yeah zero dollars right now exactly you haven't played with it at all you haven't boosted at all yet not LinkedIn not LinkedIn at all so um meta Facebook Instagram is is very simple I imagine linkedin's pretty simple is just a matter of like coming up with a real game plan with like Facebook meta you I I have a game plan don't get me wrong but it's it's that marketing presence paid versus organic that I'm figuring out our next steps in you seem like an incredibly Adept DIY guy do you anticipate continuing to DIY that kind of work do you say you say well I'm really good at the organic stuff maybe I bring in somebody to help me on the paid stuff or do you just feel like I I got to figure it out myself uh you know we talked a little bit about budget and um you know some some firms agencies charge quite a bit so it's it's a matter of kind of keeping um those costs in line and that's where the DIY right like keeps those costs very low minus my time I've definitely fielded phone calls on how those all work but they're all kind of they all seem to be kind of the same to me which it all revolves around SEO kind of all this stuff so I've had reports drawn up you know because people are trying to pitch me to work with them but right I love seeing the data they provideed me because they show me my SEO really good and uh I'm like fantastic thank you so much because I don't know how to search that you know I can type in Google like Grove cookie company and it'll pop up so you are now the recipient of free things right folks are coming to you and saying we've done an analysis on your social media and here's a report we've generated and we think we could help you improve it so they're giving you something for free it's a free box of cookies but you're not buying you know you're like nope and you know tell tell us a little bit more about why you think that is do you think that's where you're at in your business's growth like we just don't have a ton of free money sitting around so I know I can't afford this do you think it's a mindset like I really want to understand this myself before I hire somebody to do it and I may never hire anybody to do it where's your brain on that one well I think the mindset portion of it it's huge um you know it's almost like a you could classify it as a scarcity mindset but it's also like you have your own money writing on the line so you're going to be a little more hesitant especially this being like our first uh journey in entrepreneurship so there's that and then obviously not having you know $3,000 a month to hand off to someone but also I am huge on the Fulfillment side of things and that is my biggest fear is like not being able to like fulfill our product to the standards we are known for so you know my my thought is is like okay now you start putting you know some gasoline on the fire and a lot of Wishful Thinking in a sense how do I get that on the back end with like our systems and processes so yeah so you haven't you have quite a few things kind of affecting my decision on working with you know an outside agency and those are just things I'm kind of working on we've also I haven't really talked about this yet but we've had a business strategist working with us since last since November of 2021 so that's been huge right like I talked about systems and processes before November 2021 I didn't know it like I system and process like really metant outside of like using those at like my corporate job so she's been a blessing were you looking for a strategist or did you just happen to connect with her how how did that happen it's all for the love of cookies we uh actually first met her at back in 2021 we were doing some events almost like a farmers market but this was called Cars and Coffee here in the Portland metro area where all the people with the cool cars come up and you know they're open the hoods and you know there's quite a hundreds of people there and uh we just had networked our way into being like a vendor there and that's how we actually met our coach because she came and had one of our cookies and she's like wow these are really good and anyway she kind of just introduced herself and then we ran into her again at the Porsche dealership so by chance I got invited to be a vendor at the Porsche dealership here in our area and um she happens to have a Porsche and anyways we reconnected and I was like we're actually really looking for like a business like strategist of sort to kind of like guide us in the right direction because things were picking up and um yeah so she had me read emth and then reach out to her so on one area you're like H I want a DIY I want to figure things out you know I don't want to pay for it and then in another area you're like I'm so stoked I hired this person and it's really helped us out uh what do you think the difference is after reading like emth and then more podcasts I've been a big podcast junkie if you will um from the entrepreneur mindset space I mean you can't grow you can't scale without systems and processes so really that was like my whole side of like because I'm just my whole personality is driven on just doing what I say I'm gonna do is this a learned habit or is this something like ever since you a kid you're just like i' say what I'm gonna do I do it I S I see you've got a military background I the people I know from the military they're very much about that I think um you know just growing up I was just always around friends families and just like they ask me to do something or whatever like I would just do it um make sure it's done that kind of moved its way just growing up and then it obviously transitioned really well into the military because it's like you mean you just get padded on the back when you just go follow orders that is is like fuel to my fire and just with my corporate job like a lot of people just don't seem to have that kind of connectivity with like completing something someone asks you to do just through my corporate experience as well it's just kind of reinforce like you say you're going to do something you need to do it 100% do you have a goal for when you want to walk away from that corporate job yeah um I'd really like to do it at the end of this year that's that's the goal I have um wrote it down so that's really how we're kind of positioned in a way so my wife still has her corporate job you guys are busy I yeah I mean it's no joke I mean it's a lot but you know it's part of the journey and it's one we signed up for I'm wondering Lauren if this is maybe a good point to you know kind of wrap things up go for it really great marketing is often about the idea of you know beating a drum being consistent doing something figuring it out um I think of it as like a good habit so I'd be curious if you could share with our listeners what you think is is your good habit you know what's your winning habit that's uh allowed you to be successful and to scale and and maybe even you know leave your corporate gig and get into this thing full-time it would be really difficult for me to say LinkedIn has not been a blessing so that's allowed that whole like putting yourself out there networking you know Marketing in itself as like really easy um from my point of view and with that is like LinkedIn you you've ever heard the term of like the lurkers you know like 95% of LinkedIn is lurkers the other 5% creates content so I just like have found this like sweet spot where I really enjoy the content making of LinkedIn so I am committed to like doing that twice a week at minimum and that's where that habit like you just alluded to kind of has helped me stay top of mind which is what marketing really is all about um in my opinion is especially when you're like a consumable that we are and that's uh that's been really like my driving point with this whole entire Endeavor is like stay consistent enjoy it don't make it a job and um be open to to meeting people gron you don't have to answer this question if you don't want to but if the listeners of this podcast would like a free box of cookies what should they do yeah well find me on LinkedIn let's chat yeah no um yeah you can find me on LinkedIn Grayson hogard h o g a r d um I'm like the only one on LinkedIn with that name so pretty proud of it all right but yeah like you know I we love just sending cookies because really I mean enhancing relationships one cookie at a time is really our that's our motto that's what we really prioritize in our whole entire business so we we love connecting with people and we don't ever go yeah I don't think you'd be a right fit so really if anyone asks I do it thanks Grayson thank you Lauren and Sean I really um really appreciate it and like I said I'm really honored to be uh on the podcast all right Sean so uh now that Grayson's gone and it's just the two of us what do you think oh man I I couldn't have had a more invigorating fun you know first interview you know what what I loved about Grayson is you know he's he's in the relatively early days of his business but in a two-year time period he's probably done five years worth of work I mean this guy while keeping a corporate job I mean this is still a side hustle for him right and his wife who's also working in the business they're both doing this as a side hustle and I you know my prediction they're going to outgrow that real fast um so you know I'd say lesson number one from today's interview is you know the the execution speed you know figuring out the right Channel and the right message is just un unbeatable I mean he's just really impressive in that regard what did you think Lauren I was just amazed at how quickly they figured out who who they are and what they're doing you know they're selling cookies and they picked an untraditional route to do it and and maybe some of there was some luck involved there always is you know he was fortunate enough to have a friend in the wealth advisory business and that led to him figuring out that uh client gifting uh would be an opportunity but you know it's only luck if you seize the day and boy did They seized the day they realized that this was the way they wanted to go and then you know if that wasn't enough they figured out that they could sell the cookies on LinkedIn and you know to do that so quickly is just really impressive to me yeah yeah that's that's a really good point you know I I was thinking about how you know Grayson is doing something that I see very sophisticated and larger businesses really lose sight of which is he knows his customer and he's learned more and more and more about that customer with every step and as he builds more and more knowledge he adjusts the business and makes it more attuned to what that customer needs so he's just kind of constantly tuning the machine that also ties in to me to another piece that we we talked about a bit in there which is part of you know his strategy of uh giving away free cookies you know it's it's such a winner in terms of customer acquisition you know you're going to you're going to get some business by doing that but it's also such a win in terms of it insights and learning from those from those customers and potential customers super smart is there anything um that concerns you do you see any potential pitfalls ahead for him yeah I mean I I'd say there's there's the the realm of you know I always ask the question like how easy is it to replicate this business to where there might become competition I think he's okay there for a while you know I often find like it's one thing to say we're going to copy a business it's a whole another thing to be good at execution on the copying and I he's that's his superpower is he's able to move so fast it's going be hard for people to catch him I think from a Persona perspective the piece of advice I might give Grayson if he were interested would be to just keep an eye on that DIY propensity you know that desire to kind of do a little bit of everything he's the guy who figured out yay we're going to plug in Shopify which is a b Toc kind of consumer Centric you know platform and we're going to use it in a in a B2B environment I mean that's like genius you know and he's he's looking at the analytics and he's getting to know what's working what's not I think that's really really awesome skill and I've also seen that the shadow side of it is you know knowing when to bring an outside help I am optimistic though when you did talk about bringing in a consultant he brought in a business consultant already already yeah and and that to me tells me I think this guy's on the right path all right my thanks to Grayson hogard of Grove cookie company and to Shan busy of Kinesis and of course to our sponsor the great game of business which helps businesses Implement open book management and employee ownership you can learn more at Great game.com wait wait don't leave yet if you have a question or a comment that you'd like the 21 hats owners to address send it to me by replying to your Morning Report or by email at Lauren at 21h hats.com that's l r n@ 21h hats.com do it now before you forget and don't be afraid to tell Jay what you really think you can take it and if you got something out of this conversation help us reach more business owners tell a friend subscribe and review us wherever you get your podcasts follow us on Twitter subscribe to the morning report at 21h hats.com this episode was produced by Jess thubron founder of blank word Productions okay now you can leave thanks for listening everyone [Music]