BRAND SECRETS AND STRATEGIES

PODCAST #50

Hello and thank you for joining us today. This is the Brand Secrets and Strategies Podcast #50

Welcome to the Brand Secrets and Strategies podcast where the focus is on empowering brands and raising the bar.

I’m your host Dan Lohman. This weekly show is dedicated to getting your brand on the shelf and keeping it there.

Get ready to learn actionable insights and strategic solutions to grow your brand and save you valuable time and money.

LETS ROLL UP OUR SLEEVES AND GET STARTED!

Dan: Welcome. This week's story is about an inspiring entrepreneur, a real thought leader in our community whose advices us to have a bold vision and humility. In her story, she literally shares with us how she rose from the ashes to become the entrepreneur and the leader that she is. In this episode, we both talk about how we had a similar upbringing in terms of we went to traditional school, we got a traditional education, and how it really didn't fuel our souls. This is a common dilemma that a lot of people face. What she shares with us is how she was able to take her knowledge and her passion to give back, and to do something more, and to be able to craft a career that fuels her soul and gives her a great work life balance that she uses to inspire those around her.

I love the passion that she shares with us. Her enthusiasm and her zest for life is contagious. Sheryl shares a wonderful story about a brand that was born out of a mission and how it's disrupting the category. Here's Sheryl. Hi, Sheryl. Thank you for joining us today. Could you please start out by telling us a little bit about yourself and where I'm going with that is can you tell us your path to becoming an entrepreneur, your path to getting you from Clif Bar, to Plum, to REBBL?

Sheryl: Sure. Thanks for having me, Dan. I'm really excited to be with you today. Yeah, I can take you on a long journey or a short journey. Which part of the journey do you want?

Dan: The long journey is great, and the whole idea behind it is to inspire my audience to help them understand what it's like and to walk in the shoes of an entrepreneur, one. Then two, what are some of the troubles, tribulations, and things that they might go through? How did you navigate around that? Then three, what are the successes that you came upon, because you didn't give up, because you stayed true to your mission, and you kept pushing on?

Sheryl: That sounds good. Appreciate if you can jump in and ask questions.

Dan: Okay, sure. You started out in traditional CPG and then you became the CEO of Clif Bar. What was that transition like, and what skills did you learn in traditional CPG that you were able to leverage at Clif?

Sheryl: Yeah, well, I had been at General Foods earlier in my career doing consumer promotions. Then I went to business school, and went to work for Quaker Oats and was doing brand management. Working for companies like that was great, because it gives you at least at that time like what is the marketing gold standard, and I always felt like over time, as I learned the different way of marketing, what it also helps is, okay this is marketing gold standard that you can have in your head, but having that now allows you to be able to break the rules.

What I was looking for when I went on work at Clif was that I had actually gotten to a point in my career where I love what I was learning as a marketer and I just have a fascination as to how people's minds work. Honestly, I had gone into business not at all wanting to go into business. I had been raised by a single mom, and I was really into issues of social justice. When I got to school and my mom said over a period of time, "Well, we're not going to be able to pay for you to continue on with school after this." I thought, "Okay, what's the fastest way to make some money?" I ended up going into business because of that.

Actually, my very best friend in high school who lived next door to me was part of my dreaming. She dreamt too of really having impact on the world. I told her, she called me up one day at school and said, "Hey Sheryl, what did you decide to major in?" I said, "Well, I decided to major in business." Literally, I am not joking she said, "Shame on you," and hang-up on me.

Dan: Oh, no.

Sheryl: We did not talk for 15 years. Now, it's like time has not, you know, there was no passage of time, but she was mortified that I would make that choice, because we thought business was evil. I live with that cognitive dissonance for a long time, because what she was verbalizing to me was how I felt inside. That will come to pass as to why my experiences after that were so relevant to that conversation. Funny thing is she ended up actually going into business after studying sociology. The world comes around, but I say that to say that when I started feeling like I really wanted to work for a company, that was consistent with my passions.

At that time was passions with outdoors, and camping, and running, and all the things that I'd like to do outside of work. I ended up finding out from an alumni newsletter that Clif Bar was looking for someone to start a brand management function there. I had just discovered Clif Bar literally three days before. I was jogging on the Chicago Waterfront with my buddy Peter, who was always the guy in the know. He knew the latest equipment, what the coolest products were, and he introduced me to my first Clif Bar. This was in 1997.

I went into the company to do my interview. I was supposed to meet with the co-founder of the company and now owner of Clif Bar, Gary Erickson. I walk into this company in Berkeley, and literally there was no one greeting me at the door except for a bunch of dogs. There were bikes hanging against the wall, and I couldn't figure out where any of the people were. I walked through an empty building, I finally got to the back of the building, and they're hanging from the wall with this enormous climbing wall, and in front of it was the whole company participating in a stretching class.

Gary jumps up, and he comes and pulls me in his office with his four-year old daughter at the time, Lydia. He has Lydia sitting on his lap, and he starts asking me questions. In between asking me questions, she's whispering things in his ear, and he's listening to her, and then asking me questions. I was so stunned, because I thought, "My God, here is a guy who's talking to me as a dad, as an entrepreneur, as an adventurist, as a baker, as someone that was really passionate about cycling." I thought, "Here is a whole person talking to me and it was so different than my experience at the companies I had worked for before," because we always as marketers had been taught to separate ourselves from the consumer. You couldn't be the consumer or else you weren't objective enough.

I was floored. I'm like, "Okay, well, this is different. Let me give it a shot." That was the reason why I went to Clif Bar. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life, because it changed my life. It changed my whole philosophy of everything from marketing to why be in business.

Dan: I love the story. I have a traditional background myself, but I love working in this industry, because of what you shared. The unique, the mission driven, the passion, it's the balance between work life and not having to wear a suit or you know what I mean. It's all about what you can provide or what you can do as opposed to who you are. Tell me, how much influence did Lydia have on you getting the CEO role down the road?

Sheryl: Gosh, that's a great question. I have no idea. You'll never know. Maybe she was the deciding vote.

Dan: That's funny.

Sheryl: Yeah, but really what was so amazing about that is just a quick couple other stories packed in there. Clif Bar was the whole company and that came out of Gary's need to have a bar that could help him get through his really long adventure, cycling adventures and climbing adventures, but he was focused on being an athlete. It was in year 1999, we introduced Luna Bar, which was the whole nutrition bar for women. The reason why we did that is because the women in the company, we felt like, "Hey, we loved eating our Clif Bars, but we only did it when we're doing hardcore workouts. It was too much for us. It had too many calories, and it didn't have the nutritional needs that we felt like we needed as women."

When we launched Luna in 1999, it absolutely took off like a rocket. It became a $10-million business in a year, and a $70-million business three years later. The whole reason for that was it opened up this humongous opportunity for women to actually participate in the energy bar category in a way that was meaningful to them. We talked to them. We talked to their soul and instead of it being about men and power like every other bar was at the time, it was about women dancing under the moon and honoring life.

The deep connection we had with consumers of Luna, which actually included a lot of women but also men as well, because it just tasted good, so we had this intimate bond with women, because of what we stood for, but also it brought a lot of other consumers along with it. That was such a big learning for me to learn how do you do passionate marketing and really engage with consumers, and at the same time, people felt like, "Whoa, you're walking away from half the market by marketing to women," and what I believe is no. We were actually talking to someone really deeply and yet others come around for the ride, because the product was really good. So, that was a big defining moment for me.

Dan: I love the bar. I eat them too. I think they're great.

Sheryl: Yeah, and it will get you when, you can't even imagine the phone calls we got from guys during that time. I'm worried about that something might happen to their bodies as a result of eating the bar for women. Really, the amount of calls we got was incredible. Beyond that, what really I think rocked my world was in the year 2000, we had almost sold the company, because our competitors were all getting bought out. Gary decided to take the company off the market, because he felt like this was a time to use the power of his company and to do better for people and for the planet. That was a very unusual concept in the year 2000. No one was talking about that.

I was blown away, because I felt like, "My God, this could bring my life really full circle if this were true, if you could really make this happen." Then I had the honor in 2004 of becoming the CEO in order to really see that yes we could do this with the company. It bonded people even tighter to the company, and it can actually result in a really strong financially viable business. We grew the company from a hundred million to two hundred million in my time there, my three years of being the CEO.

Dan: Great job, Sheryl.

Sheryl: Thank you. That company became so profitable that Gary was able to get his stock certificates back and he now owns the company outright besides an employee ESEP program. I say that all to say, "My God, that changed my life." It rocked my world. It was the basis for how I thought about companies going forward.

Dan: Your story is so inspiring and like you, I took business because that was the easier way out even though I was really studying to be a CPA, went to work for Kimberly Clark and Unilever and struggled wondering, "This isn't what I want to be. This isn't who I am. This is not aligning myself with the mission and with the community." Again, that's why I'm doing this. By the way, I had the privilege of doing some projects for Clif Bar years ago when I was the onsite business consultant at SPINS at Natural Specialty Sales.

Sheryl: Right.

Dan: I know the category very, very well. I've done a lot of projects in the category as well since then, a tremendously competitive category. Clif is just an icon. So, okay let's move on. You then went to Plum Organics as the co-founder and CEO. How did that come about?

Sheryl: I had been at Clif Bar for 10 years. I felt like I had grown up at Clif. Gary was one of the greatest mentors I've ever had, but you get to a point in your career, at least I did where I felt like, you know what, I need to now explore my own passions and what I stand for as a person. I began to dream with a buddy of mine Neil Grimmer who actually was our VP of innovation over at Clif. We started dreaming about a company that was really consistent with something that was very important for us, which is that we had young families, we were really busy professionals and so were our spouses.

We were trying desperately to feed our kids healthy, and organic, and also good tasting food that they would really enjoy eating. So we'd pack their lunchboxes every day and every day they would come home with a bunch of food. It was because our kids weren't eating what we had packed in there. Neil and I started talking to other parents and also we're spending time looking into the industry realizing there's this great divide between healthy and organic food, and the all the other end of the spectrum, really good tasting food, yummy tasting, as well as packaging that was attractive to kids.

If you were to walk through a Whole Foods store at that point in time, it's totally different now. The food just didn't look appealing. Neil and I created this company at the time what was called, "The Nest Collective," and became over time known as "Plum Organics." The whole idea was to help little ones to develop a lifetime love of healthy eating. We did that from baby food up to kids food. It was in an amazing experience. We ended up selling the company to Campbell's in less than five years. It was really hard.

Fast forward after three years, it really burnt me out. I had to take time away from home. I had to leave my baby, and that was really, really hard. I just couldn't do it anymore. That led me to Stanford.

Dan: I was going to ask you about that in a minute, but you guys basically redefined the category. Actually, you created an entirely different category. You created a new way of looking at healthy food. I can only begin to imagine the idea of putting the product in the squeezable pouches and some of the other amazing products that you came up with. How did you come up with some of those ideas where it's just you and Neil together or what was your vision for doing that? Are you just looking for a solution like you said to help preserve the products in the bottom of the lunch box to make them so that the kids would be able to eat them and have them last longer?

Sheryl: Yeah, well, part of the reason why I wanted to partner with Neil besides him being someone that we just really had this mind meld so many times, is that he's a brilliant product innovator. He actually came from IDEO, which is a world famous design firm, and his way of looking at the world and empathizing with consumers and finding the most innovative things out there was a huge driver. We had identified this gap, and so the question was, "How do we fill this gap?" He had found actually over in Europe and Asia these pouches that you're referring to. It was used massively in those countries, but it was not here. I think there was a one tiny brand that was using it for applesauce.

We brought it over actually, because we were working at the time on this brand called, "Revolution Foods" where we were licensing the name "Revolution Foods" from a food service company, which is still around doing phenomenally well, and has such an amazing story in terms of helping school lunchrooms to have healthier, more sustainable lunches. We were doing their lunch bar. We were doing their lunchbox items. We brought the pouch over as a fruit puree that we could give to kids in their lunchboxes, and it was I think in 2009, we were showing it at the Natural Products Expo East Show, and a buyer, just to tell you a little bit of how this innovation really came about from the baby perspective.

We had this buyer come over. They always have their retailer names flipped, so you can't tell it's a retailer. This guy comes over and he's looking at the product and he's analyzing the nutritionals, and he's smelling it, squeezing it, and he turned to Neil and I. He said, "Hey, if I'm thinking about importing a product just like this, but if you can do this for me and baby food, then I will potentially look to you as being our supplier for this product and not bringing this other product."

Neil and I looked at each other and we're like, "Okay, sounds interesting." It ends up that this guy was Paul, the buyer at Toys R Us, Babies R Us. We went back to our company at the time. I can't even remember how many people we were, but maybe six, and we said, "Okay, we have this proposal from this guy from Toys R Us, and he wants us to create a product in two months." We had absolutely no freaking clue as to what we were doing. We have never done baby food. We made so many mistakes along the way before we gave him the product and then after, but we ended up making something happen in two months.

Paul was so blown away and he said to us, "I've never seen someone create a product that quickly." From then on, he took every product we ever made. He prominently displayed us in Toys R Us, and Babies R Us. It really was the catalyst that got the whole domino effect going, because basically we, to your point, had the first product in the squeezy pouch for the baby food category. What was so interesting about it, and there's a concept from a book that's called, "Building To A Billion." They talk about having a "Big Brother" as a small company."

We had a big brother. Our big brother was Toys R Us, Babies R Us, and they bring you along and build you so that you have this life that you take well beyond, well beyond that relationship. Paul really changed everything for us. What worked was one, consumers didn't have to use baby jars anymore, so it didn't break and they could pack it easily. It was light weight. Number two, it created a beautiful billboard on that pouch that actually looked attractive. Number three, very importantly for retailers, baby food was a loss leader category.

Every time a consumer went into the store and bought baby food, the retailer would lose money on it in order to get people into the store. We turned it on its head with this pouch where the pouch would sell for basically twice the amount of baby food jars, and would move to about the same velocity in the store. The retailer was able to make really good margin on the product. For them, it changed everything and they weren't having to throw away so much product.

Amazon I remember, one out of five of the baby jars they would ship would break. You can imagine, this changed everything. Not just for consumers, but also for retailers, and that combination which is why that category, if you will, or new subcategory within baby food took off as fast as it did.

Dan: I know, well, Kimberly Clark back to the diapers and used to spend a lot of time redesigning sets for retailers. That would include the baby food set. To your point, there was no innovation. It was the same old, same old. I remember when your product came out and it just completely created a whole new way of looking at the category. I had a really good conversation with this John Foraker a couple weeks ago.

Dan: I know that you're on his board. Yeah, about how they're taking it one step further, and it's such an important category.

Sheryl: Yeah.

Dan: Because as you said earlier, and I love the way you said this Sheryl, it's getting little ones interested in quality food, teaching them about food when they're younger, because that's how we get more people buying the quality foods that we're focused on in selling today.

Sheryl: Yup, absolutely. Yeah, John is an amazing guy with his new company, "Once Upon A Farm." I'm so proud to be part of that and fresh and more homemade baby food. Yeah, that was an incredible ride and really learning, gosh, what it took to go from a company like Clif Bar where it was relatively small, but that was huge now when going back and starting from scratch. Like you said, I had just gotten really burnt out and moved over to Stanford for a couple years and help to advice and coach young aspiring entrepreneurs.

I had written a book after my experience there called, "Killing It: An Entrepreneur's Guide To Keeping Your Head Without Losing Your Heart." Because one of the things that I was finding is that the students there, they had dollar signs in their eyes of how everyone was thinking, they're all going to start the company, which would be the next billion dollar company. At Stanford there's money growing off of the trees in San Hill Road, and millionaires and billionaires are teaching classes. I thought, "My God, we're not doing these kids justice, because we don't talk about the hard stuff. We don't talk about it in the media." The only stories we hear are the stories of all the money that was made.

That is what 2% of the companies that actually ever get there. I opened up in that book in a very vulnerable way about the challenges that I went through starting the company and also a company with my husband, which is family-based company we started that imploded. It's a message that I think is really important for people to understand that there's a reason why start-ups are said to be risky. What is so important for us is to manage our risk so that we can understand what we can handle as individuals in terms of what these circumstances are in their lives. It was hard for us, because we had a family.

Really, the attempt there was to help change the culture of what's happening, that I'm starting to see more and more conversations where entrepreneurs are openly talking about what's hard. That gives me a lot of heart to see that that culture is slowly starting to change. Then that's what actually led me to REBBL, the company that I'm now running and taking all the lessons that I learned the hard way and just having the most wonderful beautiful experience of my entire career.

Dan: That's cool. To back up a little bit, to what we were talking about earlier, part of starting out where we did in business and learning the way we did, we're not taught about the failures, we're taught about the successes. I’ve got to admit, I was absolutely dumbfounded when talking with Gary Hirshberg, and he was telling me about his struggles. You look at Stonyfield and you think, "Well, they're a huge success. Wow." Instant overnight success. He was telling his story and then it's good to hear stories rooted in reality. Thank you for doing that.

Let me back up to your book a little bit. I'm just starting to read it, and I love the book, and I love the idea that you go through and you help frame this about the work life balance. I think that one of the things I talk about Sheryl is that what makes natural natural, one of the key components is that the balance between work life, community, and the other people whose lives we impact. That brings us to REBBL in a minute, but wanted to get your thoughts around that, because it's not just you. It's everyone on your team. It's the people that supply the ingredients for you, and it's your backers, and everyone else.

Could you talk a little bit about how that inspires you, and motivates you, and keeps you going? How do you work within that work life balance there?

Sheryl: Yeah, that's funny that you used the word "balance," because I'm going to say I don't actually call it balance. What I call it is "managing an ecosystem." If you think about a living ecosystem, and it's a framework that so much of what we've been taught in the business world is about working in silos, it's about working very, from the standpoint of a machine in terms of the analogy, and as companies in the natural food world, we're making progress and really breaking what that analogy is, and that really starting to think about things as a regenerative ecosystem.

It's really hard, because it's not what we've been taught as entrepreneurs. I think about it as what are all the priorities that I have in my life, and that my people have in their life? It's all of the constituents that we work for all of our stakeholders within our organization, but also a key stakeholder in that organization are our families or our loved ones. A key stakeholder is how are we with our health? A key stakeholder is what are the relationships, the friendships that we have that help enrich our lives in ways, and all of those things go into nurturing a good life for us as individuals.

That also comes back to the company. I find when people have a rich life outside of work, they bring so much more energy and creativity to work, and they bring love. Love is one of those things you don't talk about a lot in business, but yeah we talk about passion. I'm talking love, like the love you have in relationships with people. I bring love to my work. It's one of the things I call myself, "Chief Love Officer," because I want people to feel like they bring their love to work.

A silly example of it is every year, we say, "People can bring a loved one to our holiday party or end of year party actually we call it." It could either be a significant other or it could be a friend, but just someone whose part of your life that helps to nurture your life, and so that we can get to know that person as well and they can get to know REBBL and feel like they're part of the whole ecosystem. An ecosystem, it’s in a constant state of rebalancing. I don't know if there's ever a perfect balance, because in any moment, anything is going to move out of balance. The point is how do we keep understanding that so that we can constantly work towards rebalancing, if that makes sense?

Dan: Absolutely. It makes tremendous sense. Going back to what you said a little bit ago, working in silos, that's what we're taught. The real achilles heel of the bigger brands is that they do everything in a silo. What I mean by that is that they have blinders on about what’s going on in the silo next door to them. Whereas in our ecosystem, it's, you know, we're all working together one happy family. To go one step further, the fact that you're able to empower, enable, and really get people excited, enthusiastic about working for you, you're getting your best from the people that are around you.

Because you're supporting them, they're going to bend over backwards to support you. Your business is sustainable longer. I'll bet that your turnover is nothing compared to what a lot of the big companies have.

Sheryl: Yeah, and we've only been around since 2012 and we've hired the majority of the people probably within the last four months. I can't really make a comparison, yet we're very lucky now and we have to keep nurturing this culture so that we can continue that. It's interesting, because I think that I'm learning ... I'm a part of this group that everyone's starting to talk a lot about regenerative agricultural practices, but I'm also part of this group, this community group and why a key is a part of it as well, and Numi, and some other really interesting companies.

Every month, we get together to understand the concept of regenerative business. This woman Carol Sanford has written a book about regenerative business. The idea behind it is to help us be able to see our business as living systems and nurturing living systems. It is so different, so we've been thinking to ourselves, "Oh, we're a natural food company. We're progressive, and yes we are in that way," but my God, all of us, all of us have been trained when we're not even being conscious of it in somewhat of an old school business framework, because that is the framework that business operates in.

It's nothing to say anything bad about big companies or small companies. We're all operating within this old paradigm, if you will. To shift the paradigm, you have to really understand very internally, and then within your team and within your community how are we reinforcing principles that are working against or being able to empower a living system. That includes people to be able to work towards their true capacity as human beings that are part of their growth out of their essence.

We talk a lot about strengths and weaknesses. That is the language that we have been using in businesses, but yet we've also trained people to do certain things. What we might perceive of as a weakness could be that somebody has never been able to be open up to learn how to really practice something that they actually are very capable of deep within their soul. That's not what they've been trying to do, so it's almost been trained out of them.

There's so many mind-blowing concepts, and this is a three-year community process. None of this is easy, but it is blowing my mind after how old I am, how long I've been around to see, "Wow, there is a whole different way of thinking about business that I could take all of our companies into a huge new trajectory of growth."

Dan: That's a lot of why I do what I do. That's why this podcast exists, to celebrate people like you, thought leaders like you that are doing something different. In fact, I bet you were talking about OSC2. I'm actually talking with Ahmed Rahim tomorrow on the podcast and I had Neil Blomquist on here last week. I also recently talked with Lara Dickinson a couple weeks ago. Katherine DiMatteo and many others are joining us. The point being is that this ecosystem needs people that are coming together really to change the way people are thinking about business.

Where I fit into this is I'm trying to help the brands that support this, get their products on more retailer shelfs and into the hands of more shoppers to fuel that, if that makes sense. The point being is that it's this new model. It's more valuable to the retailer, because it's the consumer that's buying the products like REBBL, Numi, Clif, et cetera. They want products that they can know, like, and trust. They want to feel good about the products that they buy. Again, celebrating what you're talking about, what we're sharing here is so vitally important, because consumers are really tapping into this. I call it "a hidden energy."

It's amazing, the people that are joining us that are really starting to awaken, especially during this climate that we're in today with the politics and the divisiveness, et cetera, and so I appreciate you're sharing that. Can you talk a little bit about some of the other things that you do with OSC2 before we get into REBBL?

Sheryl: Sure. It's interesting, because this group that I'm talking about the regenerative business group is a subgroup of us from OSC2 who are learning these principles. The community group I'm referring to is not OSCs, but OSCs is unbelievable. OSC2 stands for One Step Closer to an organic sustainable community. What is so great about it is it's a group of very progressive CEOs who want to push way beyond what the standard is. As regenerative agriculture is now being discussed more, but the first time I heard “Regen-Ag” was about a year and a half ago where Dr. Bronner's was bringing the concept forward to our group.

We've also now within OSC2, each of our functions within there, there's a marketing OSC2 group. So our marketing head can go there. There's an operations and impact group. There's a sales group. There's a finance group. Each area is supported so that area can be supported through this community of people to think about business very differently and think about finance for example from an impact perspective, from a regenerative perspective versus just a profit and loss perspective. I get such tremendous value from this group. I've never received so much value from a CEO group, because they're pushing my thinking. So, it's a joy to be part of it. Lara is doing a fabulous job leading it.

Dan: Oh, she absolutely is. I was going to say, being part of a mastermind group, that gets us, keeps us entrenched in what we're doing, it helps keep the guardrails on, it helps us out when we're feeling overburdened and overwhelmed. At the same time, it fuels our soul to help us keep moving forward. So, thank you for sharing that, and anything I can do to help support some of those groups here, let me know.

Sheryl: Oh, that's awesome.

Dan: Yeah, because that's one of the things I was talking to Lara about is my free Turnkey Sales Stories Strategies Course. As you can see, I'm pretty much going to interview just about everyone of the panel anyhow. Okay, so now about REBBL, I was looking at the videos, and I was trying to learn a little bit about the company. I love their product. I think it's fantastic. I remember trying it for the first time at Expo a couple years ago, I love how you're differentiating yourself, and I love the fact that the mission is giving back. You mentioned this earlier. You talked about impact sourcing and impact perspective. Can you share a little bit about that first?

Sheryl: Yeah, do you mind if I share what REBBL is so everybody knows some history?

Dan: Oh yeah, please do. I'm sorry.

Sheryl: Yeah, no, it's all good. REBBL is a super herb beverage that is based in coconut milk and it's made from the best of the Plant Queendom. What I mean by that is we have a very clean label only using real ingredients. We don't add flavorings or emulsifiers or anything to the product. It is what it is. It's all the best from plants. We highlight super herbs like turmeric, which a lot of people know what they are, what their anti-inflammatory properties, but also herb adaptogens. Adaptogens are herbs like Maca and Reishi mushroom, and Ashwagandha.

These herbs have been known for centuries, and yet now we're just starting to understand them in this country. Ashwagandha for example has a ton of clinical research behind it, which shows literally that it helps your body to adapt to stress. If you're overstressed, it will calm you down. If you're under-stressed, it will give you energy. If you think about it, we've been talking about personalized customized nutrition for a long time now. There are now companies that support it like my co-founder, Neil's company at Plum has one called Habit.

His is around customized nutrition and so is this, but it's all natural. It's literally herbs adapting to what your body needs. It's just a beautiful thing. The product is so delicious tasting because Paulo is an artist. He gets the art of food, and it's just such a joy to work with this guy, because it's almost like you could see into a world that nobody else can see in terms of the things that people have been doing forever. We talk a lot about our innovation approaches. We have one-foot in the known and one-foot in the unknown.

That's because we always want to make sure we're connecting with consumers where they are in terms of organic and non-GMO, and the goodness of coconut, and also working with fair trade practices. We also work in the unknown, which is bringing these herbs that until recently, people haven't known what they are, bringing them to the masses so that we can help to change how people think about managing their health, and so that the product in itself is so meaningful to me, because of everything that it stands for.

In addition as to what you're talking about in terms of impact. Actually, REBBL was born out of a nonprofit. The nonprofit is called, "Not For Sale." Not For Sale's vision is to create a world without human trafficking. Just some quick stats, human trafficking, which is the slave trade, and the sex trade is the largest growing illegal industry in the world. It is amongst the top three alongside the drug trade and the illegal weapons trade. 80% of the people impacted are women and children. This is where the company has come from.

To this day, we work with Not For Sale. In fact, Not For Sale, Dave Batstone, the guy who created it is a brilliant visionary. He's on our board, so really what we do at Not For Sale is an integral part of what we do today. We give two and a half percent of the net sales, net profits, the net sales of every bottle back to Not For Sale to do the work they're doing in rehabilitating people who have been trafficked. That includes through housing, long-term care, vocational training, education, counseling.

Then also and with them, we work on what we call, "impact sourcing," which is we work with over 70 different ingredients over 29 countries around the world in growing. In many cases, these are in areas where people could be vulnerable to trafficking. We work with them to make sure that they have a livelihood where they're thriving through living wage, and access to healthcare, and water, and education, and also regenerative business practices so that they can thrive and not be vulnerable to trafficking to begin with.

We work down the stream helping people who have been trafficked, but also up the stream and making sure that it never happens to begin with. Hopefully one day, we won't need the down the stream anymore, because it's not happening anymore. Do you know how powerful it is for all of us to come to work every day knowing that we are fighting human trafficking? It's mind-blowingly inspirational and motivational for each and every one of us.

Dan: I'm so glad you're shedding a light on that, because I don't think a lot of people really realize how significant this problem is. Thank you. I had heard a few statistics before but I did not realize that it was this big of a problem until a couple years ago. It's hard to fathom when you're sitting in the middle of Colorado and you're not seeing this stuff firsthand. You hear stories, but for you guys to talk about that, really shines a light on it and makes so much sense. I love the fact that you guys are doing so much about it.

Mission-based business, that's one of the things that I focus on here is being able to help brands like you, get your products or more retailer shelfs and into the hands of more shoppers that are commercial. Anyone buying your product I think is fantastic that you're giving it back, because again consumers want to feel good about their purchase. I love the fact that you guys have that built in there. In fact, one of the things I really like about your website is how you go through that story and how you talk about it.

Sheryl: Oh, thank you.

Dan: Well, yeah it's really great. It's one thing to say, "Well, here's our problem. We're going to solve it," but it's quite another thing to really shine a light on it and not just say, "Here's the problem, but showing how you're working within those communities." I think that's what really makes all the difference. I was talking to Seth Goldman a few weeks ago, and he was talking about how they're helping with the literacy rate. A little bit different, but they're tied together in the sense that like you said, trying to give people their own ecosystem be able to support themselves. In fact, it's effectively putting himself out of business, because they're training the workers to go beyond, to get better jobs.

The point was that being able to give back and making people, helping people to feel good about the products that they're buying is so very, very important. Again, what makes natural natural? The impact sourcing that you were talking about, one of the things that I really wanted to highlight, and I don't think people really understand this. The authenticity of the ingredients that you're using, people need to understand there's a big difference between that and something you might get say at a mainstream store. What I'm getting at is this. I have the privilege of supporting or working with MegaFood. Their turmeric is so much purer, so much cleaner. It does such an amazing job to relieve inflammation. Where I'm going with this is that it's far better than people really realize. Buying the cheap synthetic stuff is not going to be as effective. I'd like to go back to what you're talking about, about how you're getting the product from the source, organic, products that or not going to be adulterated or over-processed. The importance of that within your product, because I think that is something that needs to be celebrated as well.

Sheryl: Yeah, it is so important for us to be able to bring our consumers that purity. People are looking for it, they want it. To your point, we don't even know and again, we talked about how business, how we don't think about things as a living system. We also don't think of our body sometimes as a living system. That might sound really funny, but we still think about things and you look at medical practice and psychological practice today, and it's still addressing one piece of our bodies as a system and our minds as a system, and then another piece instead of looking at the whole.

When we're looking at real whole food, we don't have even any idea as to how much the complexity of that product is important to our bodies. Again, we made everything so synthetic when we've broken everything down to these building blocks that really don't just make a lot of sense. Michael Pollen has talked about this and really has helped the world to understand more about how important it is for us to be eating plants, pure plants, pure food.

Yeah, that philosophy is what makes it great to have REBBL and such a source of pride, but at the same time in innovation it's really frustrating. For example, when you're dealing with coconut milk, a lot of people use emulsifiers in coconut milk, because the coconut fat will separate. You don't want that to happen when a consumer is a looking for a consistent product, but we won't let ourselves put those thickeners in there.

Essentially, we're making it hard for ourselves to do it, but we have to do it and that's what makes us unique is because we pushed through and make that happen. There's a lot of work going into making sure that their product is pure to the core and every other product that we come out from here to eternity will have that same philosophy. If we can't meet it, we won't come out with it.

Dan: Good for you. I always say that today's consumers look at the product via the four cores of the package. Meaning, they want to understand how it's made, why it's made, everything about it. To your point, the consumers that are buying these products, the consumers that are fueling all the sustainable growth across to every category, I like to liken it to the ripple in the pond. If you throw a rock in the pond, you see the little ripple, those are where these trends are growing. The health and wellness trend is the better for you.

Before it becomes a tidal wave and ends up on a Walmart shelf or a Kroger shelf, that said, interaction of innovation, true innovation in meeting the needs of the consumer because you're developing a product that your customers really want authenticity. It's a big part of it. So another thing I say all the time is that if you are what you eat, then what you eat matters. What I mean by that is that if you're eating products that are produced or some of the ingredients and the products don't metabolize properly in your body, or don't properly fuel your body, then you're really doing yourself a disservice.

The example I would give is that if you go to the store and you buy the cheap generic bread, you're hungry almost before you finish eating it. If you buy the top of the line mainstream bread, you might be sustained for a couple hours. If you buy the organic bread, which better fuels your body from a nutritional standpoint, you might spend 30 or 40 cents more at the shelf, but you're sustained longer. Point being is that that is actually less expensive long-term, because not only are you eating less bread, but you're helping yourself be healthier, so you're reducing your dependency on medical, and prescriptions, and all that other stuff. You've got more energy to sustain you.

This whole ecosystem like you said, about bringing this all together and leveraging super or super herbs within your product I think is just a huge win-win. My point is that REBBL is taking it to the next level and well beyond. This is exactly what consumers are looking for. Products that meet their needs, that help reduce the needs for medications, for prescriptions, et cetera, and more importantly authentic ingredients that consumers can trust and that can benefit them in the long run.

I love the fact that you guys are able to put all this together and it tastes great. I’ve got to admit, when you first read the slogan and you understand, okay, its got bark in it? Wait a minute, this sounds a little weird. No, it's really good stuff.

Sheryl: Thank you. Yeah, it's fun to work on it, that's for sure. It's really wonderful product.

Dan: You guys are doing so many fun things with it too. Your brand is just on fire.

Sheryl: Thank you. Yeah, and it's challenging, because and I'm sure with all the folks that you're talking to probably share the same thing. We want to be able to get to this place where we are truly doing regenerative and everything we do in terms of regenerative agriculture and how in seeing more, seeing diversity and inclusiveness and our businesses, and pushing ourselves to make sure that we're doing the work which OSC2 has actually helped to generate in the natural food industry, which is to work towards reversing or as Paul Hawken will say it, drawing down climate.

For us, that's another area that's really important is we've made six out of the nine commitment areas that the Climate Collaborative asked us to make. The reason being is that for us, if we look at our guiding light and we want to create a world without trafficking, if people in indigenous communities throughout the world are hit by climate, and they can't work their land, then that leads to desperation and that leads to trafficking. For us, working on helping to draw down the climate is absolutely unbelievably important to what we're trying to do.

What I love about the OSC2 community and now as more and more companies in the natural food world was a beautiful thing to see at this past Expo, is all of these companies standing up and making commitments. What that's going to do is if we can work together as a community, then we can really make this happen, because this one company, each of our little companies, we can create a ripple effect, but it ain't going to be that big. If we can do it together as a community and push these practices forward, we can change the world.

Dan: Well said. I love that. On that note, one thing that when you were talking, I was thinking about when someone has a baby, their first thought is they're going to spare no expense to give that child the very best of everything they can. They're going to buy the organic milk, the very best premium, everything that they can get them, but wait a minute. We're going to pollute the world, we're not going to make it sustainable, you got to wonder what that disconnect is. The fact that you guys, companies like you, thought leaders like you are elevating that conversation and saying, "Wait a minute, if you really want to give your child the best, then why don't you start with a clean planet and a healthy planet, a regenerative agriculture, regenerative business?" An opportunity to go to work for a company that not only empowers you financially, but one that empowers your soul, empowers your mind, empowers your family and all those around you. Any thoughts around that?

Sheryl: Yeah, like I've said before, for us, it's just we believe in our heart and soul in everything that we're doing. It's really hard work, whether it'd be on the side of the product innovation with our philosophy, and also holding ourselves to the standard of not just doing no harm, but actually helping to create a more regenerative world and regenerative company. It's hard work, and it's frustrating work. You feel like every day, "Why can't we go faster? Why can't we do more? Are we doing enough in our transportation and in our packaging?"

For me, it's like the packaging, every time I think about it, that makes me crazy, because I want to do all these great things and yet we have to keep our consumers safe and healthy, and so what is the best package for a bottle to do that? We're hoping to move to a hundred percent post-consumer packaging next year, but it's going to be really hard to get there. We need to make sure that the integrity of the bottle is intact. I like to say that we approach things in our culture with bold humility. We have to be bold in terms of how we move forward. Then we have to see big things, and move forward on a bold vision.

However, we have to do it with humility. I think that's one of the notions that has been in the entrepreneurial world for so long is that you got to bust through, and use your own gut, don't listen to anyone else. Man, there's so much more you can do if you learn, if you sit back and you say humbly enough, "I don't know everything and I'm learning every day from my people and my company. I'm learning from the communities that I'm part of outside of the company. There's always another step to get better."

Okay, so the next step, we've got to address this bottle problem. We’ve got to. It's critical. We're not going to be able to do it tomorrow, but if we keep at it, we're going to make more and more progress with it. I think that part of it as you've brought up what's it like to work for a company like that, and it is so inspiring at the same time, it's so frustrating. I just talk to people about, "Okay, let's put the next step in front of the next step, and the next step." Then you look back at the end of the year, end of the couple years we're like, "Wow, look at the progress we made. Let's celebrate this. Then let's get back to the hard work of doing it again."

Dan: I love that. It's progress not perfection, and that's one of the things that stops so many young entrepreneurs. Back to where we started with this conversation, if you hadn't gone to business school, if you hadn't done the things that you did, then you wouldn't be in the position you're at. Like you said, that everything is building upon it. I personally don't believe in regrets, because even though as horrible things, yeah, there are things I'd like to say, "I wish I didn't have to get so bloody to get to this point, but yet it made me who I am today. It helped me learn lessons that I wouldn't have learned in other way."

Sheryl: Yeah, and to that I think it's a really good point. We've been through a lot of hard things in our family, and one of the things that happened over here, which really connected me personally to climate change, because we think of climate change as something that's happening over there, but when you think about this past year and what so many of us went through with between the hurricanes, and also the fires, and we lost our home in the Northern California fire, and this where in an area that's still going to be susceptible to fire. It's not going to go away and this climate change increase is that all the more is going to be something that we're faced with.

For us though, how we got through it? Step by step. Would I go back and say, "I wouldn't have wanted to lose my house and all that?" Yeah, but you know what, the lessons that we got out of it and the strength we built together as a family, and this opportunity to teach our kids who are now 17 and 14, our two boys to, "Okay, how to get through hardship, because hardship is going to happen. It just does. It's part of living. You put one step in front of the other and you keep going. Then you live through one day. Then you find that you live through a whole week. Then you live through months."

Now we look back and there were so many blessings in disguise that came out of it. Would I trade it? I have to say I don't know, because we got some of the most beautiful learnings out of that experience. Not for me just in personally, but also for my business. In terms of the importance of paying freaking attention to what we're doing to the climate.

Dan: I've always thought of adversity as a gift. It's hard to acknowledge it at times. Sometimes I wonder about that, but at the same time like you said, would you have the closeness? Would you have the connection to your kids? Would you have learned how to survive the next situation? Would they have the ability to leverage those learnings, those insights for something down the road? I think it's probably going to open up a lot more doors, and make them stronger as a result. Then help them give back. I think it gives back to your community. I think it also ties nicely into your mission at REBBL, you're teaching others how to do this.

It's one thing to say, "Well, here if you build a tent, or a crop, or make a crop, or farm this way then that's one thing," but when you have to do it yourself even though you weren't planning on it, I think that adds a whole different dimension of authenticity to it. So, thank you for that. Anything else you want to share that we haven't covered? I know we've covered a lot. What other thoughts would you have or suggestions, recommendations would you have for young entrepreneurs wanting to go down this path?

Sheryl: I think it's so important to make sure that you understand, that you have something that is truly unique, and it’s something that really your idea, your concept will bring forward to the world, something that the world hasn't seen before, and that consumers even if you're a little bit out ahead of them, it's something where they're going to be moving towards, and understanding that you have something that can create a sustainable, profitable business model is so critical, because we can have a lot of social entrepreneurs go into it thinking, "My God, I have this idea that's going to create this big change, and it has such strong purpose behind it and impact."

At the same time, if we don't have the ability to create a sustainable profitable business model, so if we find that ... We have to be able to find that we have something that will create a profitable sustainable business model, because if we don't, then there's no way that we're going to be able to help to build something that is going to have the impact that we want to have in the world. Knowing that growth and profitability are part of the life blood that creates the company is really important, and it's really important in my mind to start talking about culture from day one.

Because a lot of times, small growth competitors have to go back and reach out and say, "Oh yeah, profitability and growth is important." It's best to be able to start from the foundation saying, "This is part of what we do, and it is part of a bottom line for us, but they're more bottom line. There is how we treat people, our people in the company. There's how we treat our communities. There's how we treat our stakeholders." Those are all bottom lines for us, but without a growing profitable company, none of it can happen.

Dan: I think to go one step further, you're not alone. As you said, there are so many tremendous resources out there. Even if they just get it from listening to this podcast or reading your book, I'm trying to inspire natural organic brands, and my mission to make a healthy way of life, more accessible by getting healthy natural organic products on more retailer shelves, and into the hands of more shoppers. I do that by helping to teach these brands that you're not just an ATM machine. How to leverage that community, the things behind you, so that when you go to a retailer, and you've got a consistent story and you say, "Well, here's my consumer. When they buy my product, here's what else they buy. Here's why my products are more valuable than maybe the mainstream product, and help them get more runway on the category management expert."

The point being is taking these stories that help enrich in that storytelling that the brands can share with the retailers. My point is that entrepreneurs do not have to feel like they're out on an island. It doesn't make sense to recreate the wheel every single time. Improve upon it. Leverage the insights that you get from other people, and challenge yourself to do more. Thank you so much for all you've shared with us today, Sheryl. I really appreciate it.

Sheryl: Yeah, absolutely.

Dan: More importantly, I just really want to celebrate what you guys are doing. I think it's so important. I work in a lot of different categories with a lot of brands. I think what you've done is you're taking the best of the best and putting it all together, the super herbs, and being able to put it into a formulation that people can easily consume. You've got a mission-based brand, you've got talented people supporting you, and you're in a niche that is just on fire. Kudos to you.

Sheryl: Thank you. Thank you so much and thanks for doing this and inviting me. I really appreciate it. I really appreciate you sharing voices of all of the interesting entrepreneurs that are out there, because there's so many people doing such cool stuff, and we all can learn so much from each other.

Dan: Absolutely. Back to what you learned in business school, I'm sorry you're friend ignored you for so long because you focused on a business degree. I remember back then, this is what you did. Yet, I did learn how to ask questions. I think that's what I learned after five years of college.

Sheryl: Yeah. Yeah, seriously.

Dan: There's so many people in this industry that are willing to share and like yourself and John Foraker. John was just amazing. I actually thank John for all he does for our community. He said, "No, this is our community." I love that. It's so inspiring to have someone that you'll look up to and say, "No, this is all of us together." Thank you again for your time Sheryl, and I look forward to our next conversation.

Sheryl: Thank you so much Dan. Thanks for doing this.

Dan: I want to thank Sheryl for making time for us, offering such valuable thoughts and insights, and how to help brands succeed in this industry. I'll be sure to put a link to her book Killing It as well as REBBL on the show notes and on this podcast webpage. You can download the show notes at brandsecretsandstrategies.com/session50.

To help young entrepreneurial brands, I'm including as this week's freebie, my retail math cheat-sheet. You can get it instantly by texting "RetailMath" to 44222 or by getting it on this week's show notes.

Again, this podcast is for you and it's about you. I appreciate you listening. If you like the podcast, please leave a review on iTunes, subscribe, and share it with a friend. Thank you for listening, and I look forward to seeing you in the next show.

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