H hi, everyone. Welcome to your business, the show dedicated to helping your growing business. These four actors never imagined entrepreneur would be a role theyd take on but then they saw something they could not forget. We sat down to talk about the Snack Food Company this Bar Saves Lives and how their day jobs helped them get the word out about this snack that is anything but subtle about its mission. Its in your face. This Los Angeles BasedSnack Food Company is anything but subtle about their Mission Statement. The name first of all is i think our biggest calling card. They dont mince words. The name of the company says exactly what theyre trying to do. This Bar Saves Lives. We want to end childhood mall nutrition worldwide. Its an insanely huge goal, but thats really whats at the heart of the company. It all started with a humanitarian trip, the actors took to liberia in 2008. We toured a refugee camp where we saw dozens of kids who were literally wasting away because they didnt have enough food and it crushed us. And we left that place that day and we decided that we had to do something. That something ended up being this Snack Bar Company that gives life saving food to malnourished kids all over the world with every snack they sell. When they first started, these actors knew exactly what their mission would be. But they had zero idea about how to begin. So they started to make calls to people they knew including fellow performer robbie patel. So ryan is one of my closest friends and he goes listen, i know youve done some business stuff before. Todd and i have this idea, i want to talk to you about it and about two hours later, i had not only given him whatever advice i could think of but also decided to join the movement. Their next call was to another famous friend. Kristen bell. We gave it to kristen as well. We wanted her take on it and she had the same reaction. I want in. I want to be a partner and so really from the getgo it was the four of us. Four cofounders with tons of acting experience and lots of passion, but no clue about how to make a tasty snack bar. We started just trying to make granola bars at our kitchens and they came out in these sheets of just brick. I mean it was like you could have knocked somebody out with it. The one thing we know we have is we have some famous friends so a bunch of celebrities helped connect us with various people in business, people who became advisors and our closest confidants as we ran this business. They knew their fan base would help with that first sale but to get repeats it would be all about the product. It took them five years to finally launch something that could hold its own in the crowded snack industry. Nobodys going to buy our bar unless they love the taste and how it feels and ill tell you, this is the best bar out there. Were trying to save the lives of children who are dying because they dont have enough food and if we have to be audacious and in your face about it we have no shame about that. We put this Bar Saves Lives all over the place and we put our Mission Statement at all points of sale. We are not shy about saying this Bar Saves Lives on everything. From the start they knew theyd need reenforcements. Because we were actors, wed never started a business before. I dont think any of us really knew how much work it was going to be and how hard it was going to be. We were working to bring in more people more experienced and could run it better than we could run it and it just got to that point naturally. So in 2017, they brought on ceo paul yu whether or nots no stranger to celebrity businesses. He was working with Jessica AlbasHonest Company when he first heard about this Bar Saves Lives. Theyre now working on contributing their strengths to the company and leave the rest to paul and his team. I really love it because each founder has their own secret sauce and secret weapon so i call upon their expertise whenever i need it. Im not an actor and i dont ever profess to become one and its wonderful that we could leverage each one in their own individual flare to get out and tell our story and not just our story but more importantly the stories of the people were trying to help. Its all about experience. Being many the world of formal story telling is not unlike being in a world of trying to impact people through a product. Its just instead of a movie its a granola bar and a Virtual Reality experience thats on our website. People can be in touch with the people, the lives that theyre actually changing. You can find this Bar Saves Lives in Retail Locations all over the country including star you can bes, whole foods and target. And the companys donated over 3 million nutrition packets to children in need and counting. I want people every time they pick up one of our bars, i mean, i dont want them while theyre eating the bars to think of anything other than how delicious it is but when they look at the wrapper i want them to think something good just happened as a result of this thing that i was going to do anyway. We take a lot of pride in giving as much as we can in the best way possible and to me, from a business perspective, that is symbiotic with success. I want people to look at our company and be like, those guys did social enterprise better than everyone else and they redefined what social enterprise could be and hopefully as a result of this more and more companies pop up doing the same thing. Would you turn away a customer because you dont agree with their political or maybe some other opinion . Well, that was the case in lexington, virginia, when the owner of the red hen restaurant asked White House Press secretary sarah huckabay sanders to leave because of her affiliation with the trump add min station. This comes on the heels of a Supreme Court of a bakers right to refuse to make a wedding cake for a same sex couple on religious grounds. How wise is it to reject any customer based on their believes . Daniel has conducted research on employee and consumer reactions to companies that take controversial political stands and chairman of the delfi group and good to see both of you. Thank you, j. J. This is so interesting to me. And i actually want to flip this discussion, because there are some cases where you want to make a stand, you probably know what youre getting into. Right . You maybe not know the extent of the backlash or support, but what happens when people are asking you to make a stand . Im going to start with you, tom, how do you make thats the hard decision because this is your customers, consumers saying theres going to be a backlash if you dont take a stand and then you fear the backlash from the people that you do want to take a stand. First of all as a Business Owner you cant avoid this topic. Its not one that youll be able to side step. And in some ways its getting much more pronounced because through social media my ability to influence isnt based on a capital campaign. I dont have to pay folks to get out and protest. I can do it very effectively just online. So my advice to most Business Owners is prepare for this. Talk about it. Have the conversation at least internally and decide where you want to come down in terms of a value jew statemestatement. And have a team that can deal with it. You wont be able to avoid this. Its a pr crisis, so daniel, we were talking earlier if you could give the example of what happened to delta. Yeah, delta wanted to stay neutral when after the parkland shootings a few months ago and they announced that they were going to eliminate a discount for nra members because they want they wanted to be neutral and stay away from the topic. And despite their best efforts they got dragged right back in and because people interpreted that neutral signal as a stand in itself. Right. So what does your Research Show . How can your Research Help people make Business Decisions . It starts with the re realization that consumers and also employees, these different stake holders, they have much different expectations than they used to. They used to look to companies for purchasing a product at the quality of the product. Now theyre asking much more frequently who is the company, what do they stand for and so their expectations have changed a lot. Some of these expectations are based on messages that the company is sending themselves so the company is saying, we, you mow, the environment is important to us. We value diversity and then when one of these issues comes up politically its only natural for a customer to say i saw that statement of yours about the environment, we just pulled out of the paris agreement, what what do you think about it . So its those expectations that are driving a lot of this and that companies are finding that they made some statements in the past that are coming back and theyre going to have to honor them. So do you think, tom, that if you are not willing to put your money where your mouth is then, then you need to stop standing for something . I mean, as a company now, do you not only need to stand for something in the way you run your own business, but you better be prepared to stand for it politically as well . Part of what i here daniel saying and what i see in his research is that you have to come up as an organization with a values proposition. What do we stand for and be ready to have your board and your chief executive message that. So whether its gun control or whether its a certain aspect of human rights or whether its protecting animals or whatever it happens to be, you have to be ready to take that stand. Right. If youre talking about it publicly. Yes. Because surely a lot of founders, ceos, have very strong believes about things right now, and daniel, they are not transferring it to the company and what the Company Stands for. Yeah, this is a question that comes up a lot and i think a lot of ceos, they can sometimes be overeager to put their own personal views on the company. I think thats a mistake. I think that the if a company does take a stand its got to come from the organization. It has to come from the desires or either the values or the performance needs of different stake holders. So for example, if its going to affect service to customers, thats an important aspect. If its going to affect the performance of the company, then employees are going to be affected. So what ceos have to do is they have to balance what they see as the values of the company with what they see as the performance, you know, how the performance is going to affect and those are the two main dimensions that ceos have to do but it shouldnt come from their own personal opinions because then it comes off as heavy handed and youll see a revolt from consumers and employees. Well, and i think to what you were saying before, tom, its almost not fair to the organization if this comes out of nowhere. Rig right . It has to be we are all on the same page here, this is our mission, join us or not. Right. Its up to you, but because there may be a negative effect on your company. Of course. On your company, on your employees, on your customers, on your brand. I mean, they actually took the employees to the back to the kitchen and decided what are we going to do . Which is a great way to do it. You have to take a stand. As a ceo to impose strictly your values unilaterally on your customers, on your employees that is the wrong way to go about this. How long the companies that youve studied and im sure there is quite a range but how long have the effects gone on . So there was a big dip or a big increase in customers because of a stand a company took and then does it stay that way or does everything sort of right itself after a few weeks . It yeah, it is so hard to untangle the effects of these things. We do see some some short term blips, you could say, in stock market prices. Some companies, we see some changes in sales, but thats something that is still being sud the died. I studied. Im working with a colleague on that to look at the longterm effects. The jury is still out on how long these effects are. And i think youll have more examples to study as customers become more activists with social media. No doubt. I would love to continue this discussion, sorts of revisit it again in six months or so because i bet well have more example. No doubt. Thank you. Who doesnt love a surprise . I know i personally love them and the owners of a Notebook Company discovered the power of surprising their customers and the impact it had on getting people to talk about their brand. Part of the thrill for them is also trying to figure out how to keep the latest surprise a secret from their anxiously awaiting fan base. If we made it easy for the word to get out, the word would get out. And so we dont make it easy for the word to get out. Every year, four times a year, this chicago based company, field notes, goes into full stealth mode. I think weve learned that we need people in the area will stop by and try to get a peek. And all the while excitement is building for the newest limited editions for their vintage style notebooks. Everybody loves a surprise and Everybody Loves being part of the secret of the surprise. This tradition started about a decade ago. Whether owners realized they wanted to spice things up around the company. It would be easy to make a couple of products and keep making those products and selling them, but coming from a design Firm Background we always worked best when we had a new project to jump into. So weve given ourselves four very important projects a year. Jim was inspired by an unexpected gift he got. Aaron one christmas made a bunch of little notebooks by hand, called them field notes and send them out to husbais friends. And he said what do you think about my crazy notebooks i made . I said i dont think theyre crazy. We made a short run and whacked together a website quickly and put it on the web and the first day they were available weve made 13 sales. Since then theyve sold millions of field notes because of their limited runs. The element of surprise is now at the core of their company. The launch day, that day, that week is tense and nervous and then that day and the next few days are the best. It has the field notes loyal fan base chomping at the bit to get the latest designs which have been created with different themes, colors and types of paper in mind. We always have something new to talk about with our customer base. It serves a purpose not only as a Revenue Source but the center piece of our marketing efforts. The print runs have grown from 500 to 40,000 and who knows where we go from here but its an interesting problem. The key to the surprise strategy is taking it seriously. Everyones told to be careful about what they put in the trash and youd be hard pressed to find any designs lying around. We have one printer who had a company wide meeting to say like, were working with field notes now and they do these limited editions and if anybody spills the beans, you know, youre gone. Die hard customers have been known to hunt for clues. A riz sit to headquarters is a chance for people to buy more notebooks and look out for any signs of what design is coming next. Mostly its people coming into the store and trying to sneak a question by someone. Theyll say im going to place an order but i dont want to order if its coming out next week. Ill say well, we cant say. So you probably should wait. We had people guessing urls and things. And to keep the internet buzzing jim likes to have a little fun with the field notes fan base. People anticipate them and they want to try to figure out what theyre doing next and we leave hints around the world that are indecipherable but it doesnt stop them from trying. The real fun happens when customers start getting their packages. We try to keep people on their toes. Weve been good at surprising people and doing things that they dont expect. And zigging when they think were going to zag. We dont want to be predictable. Were selling that experience. These campaigns are about more than just building relationships with the field notes customers. It also gives the company a chance to work more closely with its retailers. We announce to our retailers a couple of days before we announce to the public asking them to keep it quiet. They will get their orders on the day or a couple days after the launch and so theyre able to capture on the excitement. Its valuable to have them in stock. When the excitement online about the new product they can say we have it, come in and say it. There was one time their cover was blown after someone posted a picture of a special edition online. It was a big deal because its a disappointment for us to have the surprise spoiled and i think for a lot of our customers too. They really want to know what the next edition is but part of them really doesnt and i think they the theatrical nature of the product launch. After all of this time, jim and aaron still love the creative process, and, much to the delight of their customers and staff, field notes is still finding ways to raise the bar. We have a backlog of ideas. Some of them we may do and some we may never do. Some people have asked for and some people havent. Its a big commitment once we commit to an idea, but its key to us we find something new to learn along the way and communicate it to the customer base. I hope, i think they appreciate that. When we come back, how to get funding when you dont have a history of running a company. And why you should actually see your critics as your allies. Its Pretty Amazing out there. The world is full of more possibilities than ever before. 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