Saalt's Viral Marketing Explained

Saalt's Viral Marketing Explained Speaker 4: Welcome back to another episode of Chew on This. Today we have Brendan who is the head of sales and marketing at a company called Saalt, which is a sustainable period company. We have some interesting stories from Brendan today because his background is really interesting and how he ended up at Saalt is a story that I think we're going to be lucky enough to hear and kick off with. And then just kind of go into the basics of sales, marketing, what you've been doing at Saalt, and we'll get pretty tactical. Brendan, thank you for being here today. I know it's been quite a trip for you. Speaker 1: It came from Boise, Idaho. Speaker 4: Yeah, it's pretty far from Jersey. Speaker 2: I grew up in Albany though, so it's close to home. Speaker 1: That's where I live. Where my parents live. Speaker 2: Niskayenna. Speaker 1: Niskayuna, dude, I went to Shaker High. Speaker 2: No way, okay, too funny. Speaker 1: Yeah, that's hilarious. Speaker 2: You probably know my cousins. Speaker 1: Wow. Speaker 4: There you go. Awesome. So for the few of those who may not know you, we'd love a little bit of your background and how you got to Saalt. Speaker 2: Yeah. So I've been at Saalt for about three and a half years. I joined leading the sales team, actually coming from Procter & Gamble. And my background is actually in mechanical engineering. And I spent the first five years of my career doing package design at P&G. So some of the projects I worked on is Olay eyes. So if you ever see the package on the shelf, I did that. Tide used to have a cap that had bristles on the top to scrub into the detergent into your clothes. I designed that cap and brought that to market. A couple other projects. I moved into sales in 2015 and never looked back. Speaker 1: You're an engineer at Procter & Gamble and then you move into sales. How does that transition even happen? Speaker 2: It was an interesting transition. At one point in my life, I just woke up and was Questioning what I was doing like I didn't really have a lot of purpose and honestly I was kind of bored in engineering. It was a very slow process like you're trying to move like a cruise ship up an ocean right and it was moving very slow. I would work on a project for a Six months, two years depending on the project and sometimes they would just cancel it and it had nothing to do. I hit all my metrics and you had nothing you could do and you can never really talk about it because you're under NDAs and it's all R&D that might come out in the future. I was having an internal struggle of trying to find purpose in my life and I was actually going to go into the military. At the time I was doing a bunch of go-ruck challenges, so adventure challenges and stuff like that and I met a lot of people in service and I missed kind of that aspect that I had in college and sports community. And then I ended up getting two herniated discs and the recruiter from MEPS was like, we don't really take people jumping out of planes with back issues. All right, well, now what? And I remember I was walking into work one day, which Still in pain with like sciatic pain from my back and I ran into my old roommate, Bao, who was on the engineering side of P&G and I was R&D. And he had a lot of the same feeling on engineering that I had for R&D. And he was saying that the sales side was hiring a bunch of people to help build out their sales teams. And I've had people my whole life telling me I should be in sales, I should be in sales. And so I was like, you know what, let's explore this. And I remember I was supposed to interview with Kim Mullen. And for whatever reason, it just kept getting rescheduled. And it happened to be when I was in person. So I was down at the central offices. Speaker 1: And Kim is who? Speaker 2: She was HR for sales. And I was down in the office and I remember seeing there was like intern posters and there was a girl I had met in North Carolina at some like weekend event like two years prior. I was like, I know that person. And so I called her up and she's the first person that wasn't in management that I talked to in sales and you know, it was like, this sounds like it's right for me. Let's move forward. So I interviewed, got the job and they placed me in Boise and I remember that day I was driving to Milwaukee to watch my brother race in tri-nationals and I was like, Boise, like I've never even heard about Boise. What am I gonna do for fun? And like I thought I would legit be riding horses and farming potatoes. But my brother, I get up there to see him in Milwaukee and he's like, oh my dance partner is from Boise and at the time he was living in New Hampshire. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: I was like, So all the signs are pointing like this was the right thing and I remembered if I wanted to do this, I have to take that step. And my director at the time wouldn't actually let me fully go into sales. He was like, if you don't like this or for whatever reason, if this is wrong, I want you back. And so he put me on loan to the sales teams. And then within the first three months, I was like, this is for me. It's totally different. It's much more competitive, faster paced. You have your goals, your targets. You're going after it. It's a lot more. Conversational. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: A lot more. You have a lot more empowerment to take smart risks, which is something we can get into a little bit later. Speaker 4: Right. Speaker 2: And go from there. And so that's kind of what kicked it all off. Speaker 1: That's amazing. So you just find a little bit more fulfilling than what you're doing before. That's great. Speaker 4: I love that. So for a CPG brand like Saalt, right, which I'm curious, what is that split between DTC and retail for you guys right now? Speaker 2: Yeah, so our split's actually pretty even. So we're about 25% retail, and then the rest is almost evenly split between DTC, our website, and then Amazon. So we're about 25% retail, 30% Amazon. And then about 45% website right now. Speaker 4: So for someone who's in this position of like have sales and marketing, right? I feel like at least for us, we have like our sales team and we have our marketing team and they kind of work in different silos. How do you combine the two and how does that kind of I would imagine you get a lot of insight from talking to a lot of people on the sales side, getting the feedback for the product. Is that what helps kind of lead the marketing strategy? Like, how do the two kind of come together? Speaker 2: I would actually say it's the reverse. So, also, when I started at Saalt, I was only leading the sales team, so only working with the wholesale partnerships. And then the company, I mean, a lot of companies have gone through tough times in the last two years, add tariffs, add the economy, etc. And so we had to scale back and really hone down on our expenses to get to where we needed to be. And that's when, about a year and a half ago, I took over the marketing side of the business. On the sales side of the business, it's interesting, right? Because we want to play where people are shopping for period products. However, the nature of those product categories doesn't necessarily fit in retail very well because on the cup side of the business, you have very low repeat, right? Which most retailers, you don't want to lose that trip for consumers because you lose that basket and then they're not coming to your store. And Femcare is one of the top trip drivers because if you're out of tampons, you're out of pads, you're going to the store and buying more. You're not ordering it on Amazon. You're not ordering it from a website because you're leaking and you need that product then. And so from a and then on the underwear side you have sizing and so you have really low productivity per SKU and it takes up a lot of shelf space to satisfy one customer whereas like a pack of tampons or a pack of pads can satisfy a lot of different customers. And so those productivity numbers plus the repeat are a lot higher. So on the marketing side, we really use the customer insight to sell the story into the buyers of why this innovation is needed. So we actually just launched our team product at Walmart. And one of the ways we were able to get that in was really understanding what is in the needs of teenagers. And when you have your first period, right, it's a very interesting moment. Where it could be scary, like there's not a lot of education. There's a lot of emotion and particularly embarrassment. And so we actually have stories from customers, particularly our founder's daughter. She has five daughters. Yeah. And where they don't even know when they start their period because they're just wearing saltware. And it just absorbs like, and it feels like normal underwear. So they just go about their day. They don't have the going to the school nurse calling your mom and saying, pick me up sort of thing. And so taking that innovation to the buyer to say this is what the consumer need is and how it's relevant and then how it's also going to help grow their category and then how we're going to market it and build kind of that segment in their category really influences the sales side. Speaker 4: I love that. Speaker 1: Sick. So you just talked about a lot of products and I was on your website earlier and you guys have a shit ton of SKUs. Speaker 2: Tell me about it. Speaker 1: You've got the underwear but then you've also got the cups, the discs, the steamer. You've got this teen line and then I think you did a Hanky Panky partnership. Speaker 2: That one was cool. Speaker 1: Yeah, that's cool. Speaker 2: Let me touch on that. Speaker 1: Yeah, talk about it. Speaker 2: About two years ago Hanky Panky actually reached out to us and they wanted to get into the the leak-proof underwear space and you've seen Victoria's Secrets done it, Hanes done it, a lot of brands are getting into it but it's FDA regulated so there's a barrier there for a lot of brands getting into it with that and then it's also just Not the technically easiest product to develop. We actually worked with a guy who consulted with the FBI on fabrics and forensics to help develop our Gusset technology, which we just got patented. Speaker 4: That's awesome. Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll trust that. Speaker 2: But so they reached out to us and said, We want to do this. We tried to do it on our own. We couldn't. And so we tested all the gussets on the market and we think yours feels the most like regular underwear. Would you be willing to partner with us? And so on the licensing agreement, I was very much a stickler on I wanted it to be hanky-panky powered by Saalt, right? To set us as like a technology company, almost like the Gore-Tex of leak-proof underwear. So that way we can start doing potentially other partnerships and then getting that branding and that knowledge out there as the best performance leak-proof underwear. Speaker 1: That's really, really cool. So with your background in engineering, you get involved a lot in the product then? Speaker 2: Not as much as you would think. They try to pull me in, I just don't have time. Speaker 1: I can imagine. Speaker 4: I'm just trying to get away from it. On this conversation of multiple products, multiple SKUs, I would imagine the focus across your three main channels, DTC, Amazon, Retail is probably spread across, right? On the marketing side, I guess in today's climate and with different channels that are obviously up and coming, where obviously people are advertising on meta a lot, TikTok shop is massive now, a lot of talks around TV, connected TV linear. How are you guys figuring out and creating the strategy around Alright, well, this skew we're going to push here, this skew we're going to push here, and then also figuring out what channels to really focus on as well. Speaker 2: A lot of our marketing efforts are driven towards our DTC website and part of that is because we really control that journey. We can have the engagement with the customer because it is a new category and there's a lot of education that has to happen to really use the products and have a great experience. Nine out of ten consumers that switch to our cups or discs from tampons never go back. The number one thing we see in our Tangential story of just like how much this can kind of change consumers lives which is one of the reasons why I love being here is we got a review back From someone that sent in that she used to go to her OBGYN and say, hey, I'm bleeding too much. Like this is an issue and they're like, you don't have endometriosis like your sister and your mom, you're fine. So like almost like gaslighting her, right? And she ended up fainting during her next period and had to go to the hospital to get fluids and liquid to be revived. And so she actually ended up buying our menstrual disc and She was able to quantify how much she was bleeding by, when she would dump it out, she would actually say, I used this many mls of blood and then show how big her blood clots were. And when she was able to take that to her OB, they were like, oh my God, I'm sorry, we were wrong. They got her on medication and she was finally able to have like her first normal period in, I don't know how long. And so she was super appreciative. We have an amazing CX team that works with our customers to make sure that if they buy the wrong size, we get them the right size, we help them learn how to use the products, what is the right regimen. It's not for everybody. There are some people where it just won't work, but majority of people it'll work and you can't really do that on Amazon or wholesale as well and drive that education. So a lot of our efforts go to those channels. But we still also want to drive, obviously, at partnerships at wholesale. So we spent a ton on Criteo driving on platform, but we're still a small brand, right? Like Kimberly Clark and Procter & Gamble, my former company, they have 80% plus of the category. And so they're dominating all those fields because they can't compete. But they're not competing on the DTC site, right? They're not driving to always.com or youbuycotex.com, right? So it kind of leaves that as a white space for me to go play in and try to win and drive that education there. Speaker 3: Chew on This is sponsored by, if you want to build a profitable e-comm brand these days, then you need retention. Lifetime value is the lifeblood of your brand. Especially when CACs keep going up. Being first purchase profitable is great, but you only really start to print money when that customer comes back over and over and over again. It's why subscriptions are such a big piece of our strategy here at Opti. There's a big reason brands, no matter the size, are using a tool like Recharge. What we like is that they're not just adding a subscribe button on your site, they're a complete subscription engine, helping you convert buyers to subscribers, preventing cancellations, winning back churn customers, and they're even driving more revenue through smart upsets. That's why big brands such as Dr. Squatch and even Vital Proteins are using Recharge. So if you're looking for a powerful, all-in-one subscription platform, head over to Get Recharged today to see how you can pump up your LTV for your brand. Now, let's get back to the episode. Speaker 4: The one thing that you said is obviously you have this partnership with these retailers. Obviously, we were talking about Walmart earlier, right? For us, I've found that striking the balance of advertising like, hey, we're on DTC, come by on DTC, but we're also on Amazon, but we're also on Walmart, and we're in a bunch of grocery stores. Speaker 2: It gives you that social credibility. Speaker 4: It does, but then it's a fine balance of like, Okay, well, if I'm advertising towards DTC and people are like, oh, well, I can just go to Walmart and pick it up, that hurts my performance there, right? So I'm always interested to hear from the marketing teams of other brands of like, do you see that being an issue? How do you kind of account for that and solve for that? Speaker 2: Yeah. Right now it's not something that we're super concerned about. Partly because if they're going to buy it at Target or Walmart, there's a lot of room for expansion for us there. And so that just helps our productivity and that's more of a long-term play. And so I am okay with that and then I am just optimizing for the metrics that I am seeing on DTC to make sure that we're hitting our first order profitability so that way we can hit long-term value. And then also similarly, we mainly have our cups and discs at our retail partners. Amazon's the only retail partner that has a ton of our underwear. But even that, it's not growing as fast as it has been on our DTC site because we see a lot more repeat on our DTC site. Because we have more cuts, colors, styles listed there. And three years ago it used to be 80% of our sales were cups and discs across all channels. Now it's 80% on our website is underwear and then at retail it's still 80% cups and discs. So if that continues to grow and underwear continues to be a larger factor, like we'll get a little bit more into what is the right advertising at those channels. But right now we want underwear to get to that 80% at those channels. So we're okay with the leakage. Speaker 1: Did you guys start with cups and discs? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. All right. Got it. That makes sense. Speaker 2: Yeah, it was interesting when I joined the company. Some people on our CX team were like, we want everybody to have a cup. And I was like, that's fantastic. But what would we do from a business standpoint then? Right? Because you only have so many people coming into the category. And what's interesting about a cup and one of the reasons why we use it for our impact, we've donated over 100,000 cups to help end period poverty. You can use that for your entire menstruating cycle, so all 40 years of your life. All you have to do is just boil it to clean it and so it actually helps cut down on disease in different countries because if you're given pads or tampons as a donation, if you run out of those pads or tampons, you don't have another product you can use. So a lot of people would try to reuse them and then you get disease, cleanliness issues and so on and so forth. Speaker 1: It makes so much more sense. I wonder why somebody wouldn't use a reusable cup. Speaker 2: When I was at Procter, the statistic was 65% of women still use the same product that they used when they were a teenager. It's such a taboo category. That's actually one of the issues that we have with our marketing. When I have conversations around period, even with my friends, you can see them physically tense up and just shut down. They're like, I don't want to engage in this. They just want the week to be over and to get through it. How do you get them to hear that there's a better way? I always use a story. When I was at Proctor, I sold Tampax and My friend Lexi would use Playtex. And so I had to talk about all the differences of the tampons where Tampax has width-wide expansion, the leak guard braid, Playtex is radial so it fits your anatomy better, yada yada. I would give her tampons and she wouldn't switch, right? She's like, I trust my pink box. Yeah, that's what she would say. And so she never switched. And then when I joined Saalt, I gave her a cup. She's like, ew, gross. How do I empty it? How do I clean it? No, like not gonna work. And it wasn't until she was going to Costa Rica that she was like, What am I going to do for my period? And so she tried the cup for the first time and she's like, oh my god, why did I wait so long? And now she buys it for her sisters and her friends and just completely changed her life. Speaker 1: No, you're so right because now this has me thinking, there's a Seinfeld episode. Speaker 2: I never watched that, what? Speaker 1: No, where Elaine, she's one of the main characters, There's this one tampon that she uses, this pink tampon. Speaker 2: Playtex. Speaker 1: Yeah, but it got discontinued. So she's going all over town looking for this one brand of tampon. So it makes sense that, I mean, I'm not a girl, but I'm assuming that they're loyal to their tampon brand. Speaker 2: It's such a high trust purchase, right? And so getting them over, you can put a ton of UGC, you can put a ton of reviews, right? Of people that where it changed their lives, but it's, how is this going to work for me? Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: Right. Speaker 1: No, it's very cool. Speaker 4: I want to talk to the, maybe the organics side of things. Before we hopped on, we were talking about you guys had some viral moments on TikTok. And to your point, it is a taboo conversation. And so getting, you know, the messaging out there and going viral is probably really difficult, right? Even for us, I mean, we're in that space where people are concerned about very personal beauty issues, right, with hair, skin, nails, weight loss. And you kind of look at brands that are like hymns. If you go look at their Instagram profile, the content they put out there is like... When you open up your Instagram account, it's like, wow, what am I looking at, right? So being able to like kind of cut through the noise and be unapologetically you, I'm very curious like how you guys are tackling the organic side of things and do you find that to be very important for the overall, you know, overall brand awareness across, you know, your multiple channels? Speaker 2: Yeah, so we actually reached, just this past week, hit a benchmark where for the last 13 weeks we've been averaging a million organic views a week on TikTok. And, you know, huge credit to Claire who runs our TikTok. She's been doing a great job there. Speaker 1: When did you guys start beefing up your TikTok, if you don't mind me asking? Speaker 2: It was really like August of last year. So we got reached out to, Femcare wasn't even an approved category on TikTok Shop until September of last year. And we got reached out to as one of the first Femcare brands to launch on TikTok Shop. And we became the number one reusable Femcare brand on TikTok Shop pretty quickly. And we're actually one of the top live sellers in beauty care on TikTok Shop right now. But to your point, we've really struggled with affiliates. So most brands do about 80% of their sales through affiliates on TikTok Shop. We do 12% of our sales. Speaker 4: Most of it coming from your brand. Speaker 2: Right. It's a huge lift on our direct team to do the lives, to put out the content, and to make the shoppable videos. And part of it is we have creators that they don't want to talk about periods, right? Or they don't want to, you know, be shown in their underwear on TikTok shop. It's not like a new eyeliner where you can instantly see, oh my God, look how much better I look with this. Go buy it, right? And it's that impulse buy it. There's a lot of education and learning you have to do to get there. And I actually recently met with a PR agency that we're looking at and they they came up with a campaign idea that was I personally thought was brilliant and they wanted to partner with like a high-end purse and do it basically like a mini cup purse and say like why is something like a luxury purse idolized whereas access to period care is stigmatized. Speaker 4: Yeah. Speaker 2: Right. And, uh, and so basically the idea was, you know, partner make the person, all the proceeds goes to ending period poverty, which in the U S one of one in five women can't afford period products. Um, and so like it's a huge need throughout the world and even here in the U S. Speaker 1: That's interesting. I guess like the approachability of the product makes a big difference, especially with like, we, we see it with supplements all the time where you'll go down the supplement aisle, And it's all very medicinal, so you almost don't want to approach it. Or if you do approach it, you're going to be in and out. Like, this is my thing. I'm going to get out of here. I'm not enjoying this process of picking out my B vitamins. So what we've always done is we've always tried to make our products look very approachable, our content be very approachable. And it seems like that's what you guys are doing. Speaker 2: Yeah. Our founders made a very distinct choice. When they started Saalt, at the time there was other products on the market, but it was either very flowers and pinks and like overtly feminine or blood and gorn in your face, right? And so we wanted to kind of take a different approach and be that mainline elevated brand that could relate to a lot of consumers and be able to have that experience in that conversation because both sides turn a lot of consumers away. Speaker 1: Absolutely. Speaker 4: I'm actually really curious on the TikTok side, because you did mention that the majority of views and revenues coming from the branded side, right? What are some tips and tricks that you can give to viewers on how to get that first viral moment, right? I know everyone who's on TikTok, it's like, it's a struggle, right? Yeah, it's a struggle because it's like, You can put out something that you think is going to be like a banger video and then you end up with like 300 views, right? So I'm very curious how you guys were able to create that momentum and maintain it. Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of it's reading the comments, right? Like people will tell you what they want to see. And so that was actually one of the ways, one of our more recent trends went viral. We had this idea of our menstrual disc. It seems like a large product, right? And so there's this question of, will it fit? Like, oh, that's never gonna fit. And so we came up with this idea of, well, let's pass it through a wedding ring, right? Because if it fits through a wedding ring, it's gonna fit, like, it'll fit inside me. And so we did that and people started saying, well, pass it through this, right? And we were just kind of like. Speaker 4: Why? Speaker 2: But we did it. So Claire went and she actually did the next iteration was she put it through, she toasted a bagel and then put it through the hole of the bagel and then ate the bagel. And so like it has that product education but then there's a little bit of like what is happening there that keeps people engaged and then more comments came and so the next iteration we ended up putting it through a P-Train, like one of those gummy P-Trains. Speaker 4: Jade's P-Train? Speaker 2: Yeah. I think she might have enjoyed that one. But you know how you know you're on to something when our largest competitor on the cup side started following our trends and started making content around the same thing which then just added Kind of more virality to our trend, right? Because it's putting more content out there in the same space, helps us in the algorithm, and keeps pushing a little bit further. Speaker 4: I love that. And then I guess from like a marketing perspective and just attribution, right? Like when you guys see these viral moments, are you seeing a lift across your channels and how do you think about these things? Speaker 2: Yeah, the biggest lift that actually we see when we organically go viral is actually on Amazon. And I was actually just recently at an accelerator event for one of the Amazon agencies and they said that they see to 71% of people that discover a product on TikTok buy it on Amazon. And then so making sure you show up well on Amazon and you can have that That purchase history and brand store set up so you can capture all those purchases is huge. Our AOV on our website is about five times higher than it is on Amazon because on Amazon they're only buying one product. Then on our website they're buying three to four. Speaker 4: For us, and I think a lot of brands out there that are like really just focused on maybe one channel and typically it's like meta, you have to have some awareness coming from another channel that's not just, you know, Facebook and Instagram. And I do think TikTok is that channel that if you get a million views on TikTok, like that will You'll see some lift somewhere, right? Whereas you get a million views on Instagram. I don't think it's as strong as it is for TikTok. So if people are like, oh, TikTok is going away. It's probably not. It's going to be around to double down and get on the platform, I think. Speaker 2: Well, and that was one of the reasons I was so bullish. And I was actually kind of blown away that sometimes I feel like We're always behind and I'm always trying to catch up and get to that next thing. But the brand Cozy Earth, they actually spoke on a panel at one of the events I was at recently and they said that They haven't started on TikTok yet because they just didn't have the resources and I was kind of blown away. I'm like this massive brand and here I am saying this is a big bet. We got to figure out how to win here. But I saw a statistic years ago that something along the lines of 50% of searches for people under 35, particularly females, is on TikTok. So they're using that to find recipes. They're using that to find All this information, so if we're not playing there, we're missing out on all that traffic and that awareness, right? And so that's where I made the bet of we need to figure out how to win here and so far it's been paying off. Speaker 4: I love that. Speaker 1: Should we get into the rapid fire? Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do that. Speaker 4: Alright, so we have a few questions. Right off the dome, don't think too hard into it, but I can kick it off. Speaker 1: Yeah, go for it. Speaker 4: First things first, this is a deep question actually. Speaker 2: I'm nervous. Speaker 4: Did you ever doubt your career change? Speaker 2: I think the first moment of doubt was when they told me I was going to Boise. Speaker 1: But just fair. Speaker 2: Yeah, I had no idea. Like, I could have thought it was Iowa. Like, um, but I remember my thought process at the time was, you know, I never thought I'd live in Ohio. And I had an amazing time in Cincinnati, made some amazing friends, had, you know, great experiences. And I kind of realized about myself is I kind of make the most of the situation I'm in. And so I just kind of told myself, like, figure it out. And so have there been moments where I'm like, was this the right choice? Yes. But, you know, at the point at that time, you just got to move forward. Right. And I don't dwell on that too much. Speaker 4: Love that. Great answer. Speaker 1: What does it feel like to build something that means something beyond the numbers? Speaker 2: I shared the story earlier about the person who was finally able to have a normal period. We are so connected to the consumer. I see reviews like that every day, which is, it's crazy. And it's something that, I mean, we're three guys in this room, so we never had a period. We never had to experience this. I feel like it brings me closer, almost to humanity. I mean, if it wasn't for periods, we wouldn't be here, right? That's how birth happens, right? And we populate the earth. So it's really interesting to dive into a problem That is a little bit more meaningful, right? And then also just see how little things can solve such a massive problem, right? So one of the projects we've done over in Africa was we actually dug a borehole for way less than I spend every day on meta. And it provides access to clean drinking water for a community of 600 villagers that they used to have to take pots and go to a stream Five miles away every day to get clean water and bring it back and that job was predominantly female, right? Speaker 1: That's crazy. No, good on you guys. Speaker 4: What is something unexpected about your role? Speaker 2: I think kind of what I was just talking about a little bit of how much time we spend talking to customers and women about their periods and about their experiences, right? Getting really deep into that connection. And it's interesting because it's always, like I was saying, it always starts off like, why are you asking me this? What's coming on? But then once you get them talking about it, it's really deep and meaningful that I feel like not a lot of people get to experience in their jobs. And then, you know, one other tangent, we actually tried to kick something off and It worked really great, but we just couldn't scale it. We called it TMI time, and so we actually tried to get people to host parties to talk about periods, almost like a book club sort of thing, but about periods. And then we got feedback like, these women, once you gave them the right to talk about it, they had such great connections, such an amazing time, and they were amazing. We just haven't been able to scale that yet. Speaker 1: No, that's actually an awesome idea. I feel like book clubs give women a platform to talk about, you know, books. And I feel like periods is something, if you give them the almost like, here's the permission that you can say whatever you want about it, it's like, okay, now I can talk about it. It's like not saying Voldemort. One last question. I got a bonus question for you. What's something about you that you're proud to say hasn't changed? Speaker 2: Something that hasn't changed. I've always just been naturally curious. Um, and so, and I've also, I don't take no for an answer. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: Um, and that sometimes gets me into trouble, but, uh, you know, you take what you learn and you keep moving forward. And, um, you know, it's led to some of the greatest moments of my career, but, um, yeah, that continual learning mindset. I never thought I'd be in marketing and here I am on a podcast about it. Speaker 1: No, that's awesome. Uh, and then one bonus question. This is kind of a Idaho question. Bluegrass or Greengrass? Speaker 2: Oh boy. Honestly, I played rugby. Speaker 1: Yeah, okay. Speaker 2: Football wasn't really my thing. I'll go with Greengrass. Speaker 4: This has been like super tactical. I loved it. I love the conversation around, you know, being so Close to the customers and learning from them and kind of providing a brand specifically for them that they can trust and obviously enjoy. And then also the conversation around TikTok, right? I mean, we're trying to figure it out too and you know, running into the same roadblock. So I appreciate the conversation. One last and final takeaway for the viewers and listeners. What would be one thing that or one piece of advice you would give For operators and brand owners to go back and implement in their business starting today, what would that one thing be? Speaker 2: I think that one thing would really be go call 10 customers a week and talk to them about your products, right? P&G really instilled that into me as the customer is boss, right? You can't walk around a corner without hearing that there. And at the end of the day, like what we do is for our customers, right? And so if we're not having those conversations with our customers to understand What's working, what's not working, like how can we do better? You're really doing them a disservice so making sure that you know at all levels of the company from leadership down to you know your shippers right have that touch point with the customer so you all understand why you're there. Speaker 1: Chew on that. Speaker 4: If you want more from us, follow us on Twitter, follow us on Instagram, follow us on TikTok and check out the website ChewOnThis.io.