Building Your Business With Video

In this week’s The Faces of Business episode, our esteemed guest was Bonnie Sussman Strominger. Bonnie is the CEO and Founder of GoLidZ.  She has created a cup lid that also acts as a plate or a one handed to go container.  Bonnie has used video to create a huge brand following and show potential customers her product.

When it comes to building business with video, people often get hesitant to take the first step. Therefore to understand how to manage this and take the first step, we had our talk today.

In this week’s The Faces of Business episode, our esteemed guest was Bonnie Sussman Strominger. Bonnie is the CEO and Founder of GoLidZ.  She has created a cup lid that also acts as a plate or a one handed to go container.  Bonnie has used video to create a huge brand following and show potential customers her product.

Today, Bonnie talks about her revolutionary product and how she is building business with video content. The conversation started with Bonnie sharing the story of how she got into her current business.

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She said that she was always a creative person and she worked 10 years in fashion and 10 in real estate. However, in both jobs, she put a creative spin. At that time Bonnie knew that she would end up in a creative place and that was GoLidZ for her.

After this Bonnie talked about how to run a creative business. She said that one thing that people look for in a new product or service is just convenience. The more convenience your business provides, the more people will like it.

In between the conversation, Bonnie talked a little about building business with video. She said that once they started marketing on LinkedIn and other sites, they took some help from various places for marketing.

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However, it was extremely difficult for them to understand the concept of her company and what they did. This is why this was of no use. Then finally Bonnie decided that they had to do something of their own.

So, therefore, they got into creating videos on LinkedIn for their marketing. This according to Bonnie helped them a lot.

After this, Damon asked Bonnie about her Tik Tok presence and fame. On this, she responded that when you start posting on something, you keep learning all along. So for this, she said that their first post had almost 70 views and now she has around 17 million views. So this is the difference that building business with video makes.

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She further talked about the difficulties of creating a business that’s completely new and even the concept is new to people. In the end, Bonnie encouraged people to start developing video content even if they’re shy about it.

The conversation ended with Damon thanking Bonnie for her time.

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ABOUT EXIT YOUR WAY®

Exit Your Way® provides a structured process and skilled resources to grow business value and allow business owners to leave with 2X+ more money when they are ready.

You can find more information about the Exit Your Way® process and our team on our website.

You can contact us by phone:  822-BIZ-EXIT (249-3948)   Or by Email:  info@exityourway.us

Find us on LinkedIn:  Damon PistulkaAndrew Cross

Find our Companies on LinkedIn: Exit Your Way®,  Cross Northwest Mergers & Acquisitions, Bowman digital Media 

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Other websites to check out:  Cross Northwest Mergers & AcquisitionsDamon PistulkaIra BowmanService Professionals Network (SPN)Fangled TechnologiesB2B TailDenver Consulting FirmWarren ResearchStellar Insight, Now CFO, Excel Management Systems  & Project Help You Grow

1:19:18

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, lids, linkedin, product, video, bonnie, thought, business, talk, e commerce, nice, soda, question, watching, good, put, hear, views, phone, walk

SPEAKERS

Damon Pistulka, Bonnie Sussman Strominger

 

Damon Pistulka  00:04

All right, everyone. Welcome to the faces of business. I’m Damon Pistulka. And with me today, I’ve got Bonnie Sussman stronger. So Bonnie, welcome.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  00:17

Thank you, Damon.

 

Damon Pistulka  00:20

Awesome. Awesome. Glad to have you. So I just have to say, Bonnie, it’s awesome to get you on. I’m a little nervous because you’re so good at video. And I’m such a hack that it’s, it’s it’s interesting to be, you know, it’s to be in this situation, but glad to have you’re not.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  00:37

You’re not a hack. Let me tell you. I can’t believe how many shows you guys actually do.

 

Damon Pistulka  00:43

Yeah, we do. It, we have fun with them. But we really honestly play it by ear a lot of the time. So it’s good.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  00:53

You guys are brave. I mean, we we do a lot of video. But it’s, it’s, it’s different than what you do. You know, you do lives. You have guests, you have a format. You’ve got questions? for us. It’s more. Yeah, I mean, I do some video, obviously. But yeah, the other stuff. You know, I don’t have to come on. It’s just, it’s just a crazy lid. Yeah. Moving around.

 

Damon Pistulka  01:19

Yeah. Well, I’m excited to have you on body because I think it’s really cool to see what you’ve done with a with a product that some people would look at it and go, what the heck are you using video for? You know, and yeah, use it well, and in some of the different ways, so I’m excited to, to be able to dive into that a little bit more, and go into the background, you know, and and just kind of say, start back at the beginning or even further back and give us a little bit of history about you and your background and kind of you know, how that led up to you deciding?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  01:54

How did all this happen? Yeah. Here,

 

Damon Pistulka  01:57

go LEDs? I mean, how did how did that come out of this background and stuff? So go ahead, tell us a little more.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  02:03

It’s outside back. I mean, really, that’s my early business days, you know, corporate days. Yeah, I was in fashion for 10 years. I was in real estate for 10 years. And it was always of a creative nature. You know, when I was in fashion, I was coordinating lines. And we were always putting a creative spin on everything that we did. When it came to real estate, much of the same, you know, selling real estate, you can’t just walk in and show someone a $5 million home and say this, is it?

Yes, you know, you’ve got to get in there and ask a lot of questions and ask the right questions, and kind of give them a vision of what’s it gonna look like? You know, a lot of people don’t have that. So when they walk in, you have to paint a beautiful picture of what that home will look like, when all your furniture is in. And your family is there rounded up watching movie together. How do we feel here? That’s not easy to do. So I always had that creative urge. And that that bug to, you know, get in there and dissect. And that’s where my mind has always been at really like my whole life.

So I’m that person that has a pad. It’s actually right in front of me. Yeah. Next. Concept constantly, if I think of something, it doesn’t matter what hour, I will wake up the page to a clean page and start writing. Because you know, in the morning, you wake up, it’s gone. Yes. So you have to do it. The second you think of it. And I always tell people that when they asked me about creating an idea, and whether it be an invention, or an idea for something else, a different type of business. In that moment, when it when the mood strikes, you need to capture that moment, you need to sit down, write it as much as you can. You No, ever send an email to yourself about a post idea that you had.

Yeah, you know, at one o’clock in the morning, because you know that if you don’t so many details of what you thought of, they’re gonna fade away. So I always had this urge for that for the creative imagination. And I think some part of me always knew I was going to wind up here. Somehow, I don’t know if I knew it was going to be with this. But I knew that I would wind up in a creative space somehow as an entrepreneur, be it you know, after college, I actually went to a lot of magazines. wanted to get on their creative teams and get into the advertising kind of branding, marketing, space and really hard when you get out of school for someone to give me an opportunity?

Yeah, well, you’re not the coffee girl, you know, you’re not. And you’re not, you have to pay your dues. Obviously, nobody just comes out and lands on this team as a major player, but at the same time, it’s it’s a long road, you know, if you go look at ad agency back then at we’re talking the 90s, dating myself a little bit, a lot, maybe. But it’s a long road, before you actually have a chance at running a campaign or being on that team. So it didn’t really work out for me in that space. And then that’s when I got into fashion. Because at least, you know, I could, that’s a different type of field, you can really get in there and get pretty involved pretty quickly.

 

Damon Pistulka  06:02

Okay, so

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  06:04

that’s, you know, that’s my background, and I was thriving in both careers, there was really no reason for me to step out, per se. Both were successful, both thriving, both kind of started here, and climbed the ladder to get to a much higher place. Yeah, and I, you know, so it wasn’t, it wasn’t a bad place to be. It just wasn’t my happy place. You know, if that makes any sense, makes total sense. I didn’t, I didn’t feel like I was growing and living the way I wanted to have my life be.

So now I’m going to take you back to the idea for go lids, and this happens in the 90s. And that’s what a lot of people don’t know. I’ve shared it on a bunch of podcasts, but it’s an easy detail to miss. It was back in 90s. I was in Arizona, at getting my my bachelor’s degree. And I went to a bad movie, I had to eat. And this idiot guy gave me you know, popcorn and soda and candy and hotdogs and everything to carry the mean now. The me now would have taken it and thrown it back at him and said, Yeah, why am I carrying everything?

But I did. And I was overdressed. You know, now I go to the movies, my husband’s. We go in jeans and sneakers, you know, casual, relaxed and comfortable. Dress head out heels. I don’t know why don’t ask. young and stupid, I guess. Long story short, we get in the theater. I’m 510 barefoot. So with heels. I’m six feet. Once we got in, I knew I was going to go over. You always have that man sitting in the row who’s got the knees that are as high as the seat in front of him. Mm hmm. And there was one guy that’s like, he’s gigantic, like six 610 seven feet tall. Yeah, that’s a climb over to get into the middle row.

And that’s what happened. He was there. We didn’t have any seats. Of course, the date that asked you to carry everything. Of course he didn’t have seats. Yeah. And we climbed over. And I tripped on this knee and everything. Everything went over. I mean, the lids came off the soda. The popcorns exploded, the candy opened up the hotdogs went flying. I mean, when I tell you what I did two rows of people. And I felt so I was on the floor, this sticky theater. Yeah, you pour your feet stick to the theater on the ground round. Yeah, I wanted to die. I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know if I I was hurt actually landed on my elbow.

I hit my face. But I didn’t know if I should cry or just die. I know what to do. I had to actually get up and get to see the movie was starting in like four minutes. So I sat there the whole time. And I kept thinking, this is outdated. It shouldn’t have happened. I should have had some leverage, you know when something but instead of this gigantic tray and stuff onto my arms, and I just sat there thinking about it. I thought that’s all I thought I had no idea what was going to be I just said these should be connected. And not not in a flimsy kind of manner. Like Connect, like literally connected. can’t shake them off. You see our video last night?

 

Damon Pistulka  09:49

Yes, I did. Yes.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  09:52

Well, I’ll explain. I’ll explain how that came to be. It’s actually a challenge by Apply it. And we took it. Because there’s a lot of things about the product that could be misconstrued in a video. Video can also make a lot of things look a certain way that potentially are not that way. Yeah. So the best way to debunk that is to be flat out honest about it. Yeah. And, you know, you can’t really hide this. Yeah, it’s no way to fake that.

 

Damon Pistulka  10:28

Yeah, I would. I would be scared doing that right now. And

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  10:31

yeah, every, every time we do it on zoom calls, the other side it’s like, oh, no, no.

 

Damon Pistulka  10:37

Universe wants you to do that.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  10:40

Right there your computer? Yeah. Yeah. You know, you can’t fake it unless you like Krazy Glue together, which we would not do, obviously. Yeah. Um, so that was it. I left college. I drew it. I sketched it. I named it a very strange thing that obviously not go with. And I moved on with my life. And the reason I say that is because and I tell this to people all the time.

When you’re creating, I think you have to be very cognizant of it. If it’s a nice to have, or you’re actually solving a problem. And if it’s nice to have. That’s great. But it’s nice to have is not. It’s not sweetspot. Yeah. Nice to have, please. So I don’t think I thought it was as necessary as it became, you know, we weren’t that mobile, then. Our lifestyles, grab and go. We would we didn’t even use those words. Back in the 90s. There was no on the go grab and go. Take out off premises. Like we didn’t even speak. Nobody spoke that way. So

 

Damon Pistulka  11:54

you’re right. Yeah.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  11:56

And we you know, we didn’t have this. Yeah. So you haven’t given your hand away yet to Steve Jobs.

 

12:02

Yeah.

 

Damon Pistulka  12:04

So this wasn’t stuck in your hand. Exactly.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  12:07

And, you know, I knew, I mean, one guy that had a phone in a suitcase. He was the only person on campus. We were friends with him. But we made fun of him because we were like, who no one’s calling you. No one is calling you. He would walk around with this suitcase. And little did we know. I mean, he came from a well off family. And he had access to one of the really early phones that came like that. Yeah. And but we thought he was a pop. You know, he was pompous, you know? Yeah. I think we were just jealous that we didn’t have a phone too. But, but it was bizarre. I was like, look at that idiot.

He’s walking around with a phone. like someone’s actually gonna dial that phone number. And then, you know, everything shifted. Yeah. 2007 Well, 2000, the Motorola flip phone. Which my husband laughs at me all the time. Because I had one. And I got so attached to the phone and the texting. I didn’t want this. Like, heat when when I met my husband in 2008. When we met, he’s like, what are you holding right now? That is that Motorola flip phone. He was He’s like, with the store. Like, it has to go in the garbage. You need to get one of these. Yeah, well, the padding of Blackberry, which, you know, well, where did they go?

 

13:43

Yeah,

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  13:43

that’s it. That’s a whole nother that’s a whole nother topic on a whole nother podcast. Yeah, um, but I just I got addicted to it. But it also got addicted. Just having it in your hands. The thing is, before this came out, that Motorola flip phone or whatever version that you had, it wasn’t essential. It rang. You could text but you didn’t need it in your hands all day. You had it somewhere in your pocket with new in the bag, but it wasn’t like constant access. Now it’s constant access.

It’s, I mean, I do more business on my phone. Not gonna get I mean, my emails, LinkedIn, everything on here. It’s constant on my phone. I’m on my laptop about 20 to 30% of the time if that you know, and that’s really more for work and, and spreadsheets and contracts, you know, stuff that needs to be up on the screen. Yeah. But emailing and everything else is, is this and that’s when I realized that this is now an inconvenience. And everyone’s watching came out with them. And as you know, you know, convenience for now,

 

Damon Pistulka  15:05

just like you are now that

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  15:07

you are now like that. But you think about this, and I realized it in my own day. That’s really what happened is I had this revelation. I kept going to Starbucks, Dunkin, all the typical places. We all go to, that we all love to go. It’s part of our day. And I realized how many people were getting off the line that had this in their hands. And they were passing.

You know, either they were passing on the food passing on the beverage, because with this without this, you have a bag. Yeah. Now you got packages with you. What if you have a child or stroller? Yeah, yeah, who knows what you’ve got. I mean, we all love our stuff around like a bunch of bellhops. So, you know, luggage who knows you come and go into the airport coming back from the airport.

 

16:00

Yeah.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  16:01

And you realize that it does affect all the decisions that you make. And as time has gone on, we’ve realized that the role of convenience plays in our world. It’s, it dominates everything we do. I mean, there’s a reason why Jeff Bezos is Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s Amazon, Uber, everything is focused on how fast and how easy. Can you make it for me? How much easier to my life get? 5%? easier? 10% easier, but anything easier and no pay for it? consumers will pay we pay every day for convenience.

Yes. You know, we were laughing earlier I said, You know, I said to someone who I say to I forget but let’s see what a taco bell into your house. Right? Yeah, by the time he gets on paying the fees on that chalupa shows up. Yeah, it’s like a $25 chalupa. Yeah. It’s not Taco Bell anymore. It’s taco gourmet. It’s the service charges, the delivery fees. The tip that I hope everyone gives, yeah. Which we try to tip really nice. Especially Yeah, these guys are out there. You know, making it possible for you to have your favorite snack. But actually, it’s a fortune that people pay for it. Yeah, cuz I mean,

 

Damon Pistulka  17:26

twice. Yeah. 100%. Because just like you said, You run down Amazon with the the prime getting stuff in a couple days, it was so huge for them to go to one day and as much as they could before, you know, COVID yet, but getting to that and like doordash and UberEATS, and all these other ones that can deliver food and you do you look at and you go, I got a $10 meal here from my local Mexican restaurant because I really needed the nachos. And it costs you like 30 bucks by the time it sits down. So

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  17:58

you think about the $30 that you could potentially you could go out Hey, Ira, Ira, you could go out to a restaurant. You can have a steak.

 

18:13

Yes, you

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  18:14

know, you can have something delicious. I’m not saying that the food’s not good that’s coming to your house. But sometimes you just get the food. You look at the bill and like this is crazy. This is takeout. It’s not supposed to be so expensive. But that convenient element. That convenience is what sets the bar for everything. And it goes on for takeout. It goes on for delivery.

And now the drive through the drive thru. That is the focus of every conversation that we’re having all day every day. plans that want to be the best drive thru out there. Like every little thing, what can we do to make it better make it better make it better? And we have to we have to note the fact that, yes, they want to make it better. They want to make this comedian part as possible, but not at the expense of crushing their bottom line. Mm hmm. So they want to sell what more of this? Yeah, what combos? You know, they want to make sure that no one leaves without food and beverage.

Yes, you don’t come for just this. You don’t come for just this. You come for both because we make it easy for you to say yes. And you take it goes, you know, through the window cupholder everyone’s got their own, everyone’s happy. And it’s you know, now it’s a win win situation because you’ve got loyal consumers, happy happy. You’re taking care of them and they know that you’re taken care of. So that brand loyalty that brand experience can’t even be elevated any higher. You know, you keep setting that bar Yes, you make them feel good. Especially now. Yours for life.

 

Damon Pistulka  20:05

Yeah, that’s for sure.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  20:06

I’ll never forget you, right?

 

Damon Pistulka  20:09

Yep. Yeah. Awesome. Well, we got a couple people. Chris Webb stopped by and he said well said, Bonnie, Chris. Awesome. Chris. Chris is up here in the northwest with us and Dr. Sandeep, and I’m not going to try to say your last name. But thanks. Thanks for the comments. That

 

20:26

last comment.

 

Damon Pistulka  20:28

Yeah. All right. So that is that it’s interesting, because when I’m sitting here thinking about that, so first of all, let’s go back to the strange name that you came up with first. What did you try to do with the product first, come on, you gotta tell us.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  20:42

Alright, this this. There’s this the story and then there’s an even funnier part of the story. I’m gonna have to nip and tuck the story. Share the real story of what happened. So when I walked out of the theater, I named it soda snack. Soda sack. Okay. Soda snack?

 

Damon Pistulka  21:03

soda snack. Soda

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  21:04

snack. Stupid. I don’t know. For what reason? I

 

Damon Pistulka  21:09

don’t know. That’s the first thing that came in your mind.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  21:11

I was I was thinking soda snack mess. Soda snack? Yeah, I walked around all four years of college. All my friends. They’re like, could you find soda snack? We could use that right now. This is really inconvenient. We need soda snack. And it was like a big joke. They’re like, Bonnie, do you have any soda snacks left? And like I think we’re all out. I was like a big joke.

That I need that that and but everybody knew that I thought of it. And I named it. Yeah. Fast forward to 2012 when we actually you know, launch? Well, we didn’t launch founded founded in March lot different. Yeah, certainly didn’t watch. We found it. We found it. Go into 12. Go lids was not the original name of this company. How do I tell the story? On a live? Let’s see, okay. I’ll be I’ll be generic. And I think maybe you’ll get part of it. We needed a name. We filed for a registered trademark. We spent a lot of money on that registered trademark. not inexpensive to get that are.

It’s not the lawyers the whole thing. And that’s on top of the patents and everything else that had already been filed. Yep. So we finally we find out and it was a, it was an interesting name. And I’m not gonna say the name for fear that someone’s going to go and Google it. Yeah. And well, someone’s probably going to do that anyway, because takes a long time to abandon a trademark. And well, we abandoned a trademark. It’s pretty rare that you abandon a trademark. But we had to file to abandon the trademark. Law. So in short, we find out as we’re in discussion with another organization, that the name is associated with something.

 

Damon Pistulka  23:06

Oh, no. It’s like, Oh, yeah, we didn’t know that.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  23:14

And I’m just absolute shock. And, you know, when you file for trademark, you do research. Yeah. So I had looked, we have looked, that’s their lawyer. That’s lawyers job. Yeah. They have to do search. They didn’t come up with anything. I made up a name. I made it up on paper. I took three words around snacky, nibbling and drinking and created a word that no one heard of before. So I thought,

 

Damon Pistulka  23:52

Oh, my,

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  23:54

you can’t even fathom. And and I’ll tell you sometimes you got it. You gotta watch what’s out. Because Yeah, I was. I was pretty bothered. When I found out a that it existed. Yeah. And urban. Kind of dictionary way. Yeah. And and what it stood for, and and that they didn’t find it. Yeah. That’s their job. So if I got cleared, you know, who knew? So this organization was like, Let’s, uh, let’s start here.

If you need to rename your product. Yeah. Um, I guess we’ll get right. We’ll get right on that tomorrow. Right away. And and that’s, well, that’s what we did. And so and ultimately, things work out for the best I can’t imagine it’d be anything but gullets Yeah, now, you know, it just seems it’s a golden age. You know, it gives you It gives you the ability to add food or beverage because it does you know, yeah.

Whatever you’re not taking, you’re adding. And I think, you know, we were trying to be like Snapple. What does that? What does it mean? Nothing. And that’s what I think my mind was at the time, was trying to think of this word that meant nothing. Only something to the people that you would have met. Yeah, I don’t know. I like the name. What would have been nice is if my family and my friends told me that they didn’t like the name. I found out later that nobody liked the name.

 

Damon Pistulka  25:33

Oh, no.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  25:34

Oh, including the people on this team. So no one wanted to tell me that they thought the name was lousy. And I I was pushing it so hard. I mean, I have marketing materials, videos, we paid money to have special things done with the logo. I mean, oh, my goodness, talk about a waste. But, but it was a lesson really was Yeah. Yeah. And the lesson was, don’t be so quick, especially with the trademark, make sure that you want that trademark, you want to be associated with that name, because it’s not going to go away for a while.

And again, we had to, we had to abandon, we had to literally contact the USPTO and disassociate, you know, Google, Google caches everything for a very long time. So you can abandon something all you want.

It doesn’t mean that Google didn’t cash it, and it’s not in there. Yeah, you know, you might have to dig through pages. But eventually it will populate. Yeah, so well. So moving on from there, you know, that’s, we started prototyping. And really, when you start out, you’ve got little to no resources. Uh, you know, you can’t possibly figure out how this is going to be made. And it’s it’s a complicated design. I mean, it’s it’s not what even what it looks like it starts this way. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s, it’s flat. And it’s got bills and

 

Damon Pistulka  27:10

yeah, it’s it’s nice to work in in plastics. Not that kind of plastics. But you the kind of things you’re doing there with the fact that somehow it cold just broke

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  27:19

through. Okay, I’m here. I’m here. Damon.

 

Damon Pistulka  27:23

I am I’m here. Yep. I can hear you. You lost my voice. You lost my voice there. So David, difficulties,

 

27:40

David.

 

Damon Pistulka  27:41

I see you like it. I can hear you.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  27:46

It’s got to be the logo story. Yeah, it’s a logo. It.

 

Damon Pistulka  27:51

Yeah, I can hear you. Yeah, I can hear you though.

 

27:56

Not Not good.

 

Damon Pistulka  27:58

Yeah.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  28:00

Yeah, it?

 

Damon Pistulka  28:02

Yeah, he’s gonna call the ITN. We’re good. We’re good. I yeah. Yeah. I’ll keep it going. Until then. It drops. Chris is gonna have some chris chris had a question here while we’re doing this, and and they’re gonna they’re gonna fix it. So. Yeah, it’s a beauty alive. That’s for sure. It is a video live, Chris. So this isn’t as bad as the other day. So I’m gonna mute your mic, but can you hear me now? No.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  28:32

Can you hear me? Yes. You can hear me? Yes, I can. But I can’t hear you. That is correct. I’m pretty sure it’s the old trademark. I was speaking of it might

 

Damon Pistulka  28:43

be coming around to bite you again. One second. Oh,

 

28:50

microphone.

 

28:53

Like, smaller.

 

Damon Pistulka  28:55

So I’m gonna I’m going to Yeah, I’m gonna mute her for a second while they take care of the technical difficulties. Are you back? That’s unmuted. Are you there? Boom. You’re hearing us.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  29:11

Okay, one second.

 

Damon Pistulka  29:12

Okay. We’re getting there. We’re getting there. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  29:18

What do I do? I get off the Bluetooth.

 

Damon Pistulka  29:24

There we go. We’ll get this figured out. So the other day, Chris.

 

29:29

I don’t know what to do on the other day

 

Damon Pistulka  29:31

at delivery where the delivery person wouldn’t be on your settings. So it was pretty funny. And I actually had to stop for a second and talk to the delivery person through my ring. And let them know to leave this stuff lie at the front of the house, because they kept ringing the doorbell so that’s what happened the other day. It was it was pretty funny live. Those kind of things. So

 

29:56

what do you want?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  29:58

I don’t have it. I don’t know how to fix this.

 

Damon Pistulka  30:00

Okay, just wait, here we go. A little private chat.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  30:04

Hold on.

 

Damon Pistulka  30:08

And what we might want to do is have you sign this. Okay? Awesome. I’m just gonna, I’m gonna use the

 

30:18

default. We’ll

 

Damon Pistulka  30:22

get this taken care of here shortly. So let me know where you where you’re at on Java

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  30:27

right now.

 

Damon Pistulka  30:29

Let me know where you’re listening from. And we will talk about that for a minute until Bonnie gets her technical difficulties. These are bloopers. Yeah, we could call them bloopers. But I don’t know. Some of this stuff is just kind of normal life, I think. But life is full of bloopers. And that’s the fun part. All right.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  30:56

I’m coming back. Okay. All right. All right. I’m

 

Damon Pistulka  31:01

back. There we go. Good. We’re here.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  31:04

Okay. I Oh, yeah. Just hate my new headphones. And I’m never wearing them again. Yeah.

 

Damon Pistulka  31:12

Yep. Well, you know, what, a couple more tries, and then you’ll be old hat at this. So

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  31:20

I haven’t had this issue yet. I mean, I’ve been on a lot of podcasts. And I’ve done a lot of lives. But today, I got the you know, my husband. Yeah. And my ad awesome. Husband, he got me a light ring. You got me headset, a whole setup. But this is my first time using these. And after I saw what just occurred. Wow. Okay, where are we? Yeah.

 

Damon Pistulka  31:46

Now we were talking and we were talking about we’re talking about you’re just finishing up on the the trademark you you had to leave in the dust, which I think that had to be almost You almost had to throw off when somebody said this is what it means. It was something I can only imagine

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  32:04

what it means. And here’s the bill, this is what it costs you.

 

Damon Pistulka  32:09

Oh, my goodness.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  32:11

I don’t know what was worse. I don’t know what was more painful looking at the bill? or looking at the definition. Oh, my goodness.

 

Damon Pistulka  32:20

Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Just say

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  32:22

that. I was like, we cannot be in the food and beverage space. With that name.

 

Damon Pistulka  32:27

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  32:29

So

 

Damon Pistulka  32:30

moving on. Moving on. Some didn’t have a question. He said he asked the weight distribution, does it cause when the product on the top gets heavy? Does that cause you problems?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  32:42

No, it doesn’t actually that that was we put up a video last night, Chris. So if you go to my profile, and you pull up posts, you’re gonna see a wacky presentation. And we did that because we got a lot of questions about weight to drink ratio. And you know, what happens when the drink starts to go down? Wouldn’t it naturally topple? Right over? And it doesn’t.

There’s a lot of seat, you know, we have a lot of patents, but there’s a lot of secrets that aren’t in the past. Yeah. That that. stop that from happening. And so yeah, it’s not, you know, it’s not top heavy. And even if it was fully loaded, I mean, we know from now feedback customers and, and their consumers that people typically go for the food first. Yeah. You know, when you get food, most people don’t because of the drink and say I’ll eat the food at the end.

 

Damon Pistulka  33:42

Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. We will

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  33:43

dive in. They really want it they want to eat. Yeah, no. It’s the drink. Usually there’s more drink left than the food. I find when I get takeout or go to a drive thru, or you go to Dunkin or Starbucks, I find that I’m hungry. So I eat eating quicker than I can drink. This 30 ounce drink. Yeah, yeah. And you don’t you know, you don’t have to get 30 ounces. We have we have every size but um, but yes, and no, it doesn’t it doesn’t topple. Go over. It could be knocked over just like anything. You know, could be. Yeah, it also has a lock in the front. Yep. So that stops this thing from you know, popping open. And just the food goes fine.

 

Damon Pistulka  34:33

Yeah. I have got to imagine though you think about that. I remember putting the kids in the backseat. And then you know, in whatever vehicle you got, it seems like you’ve got the center console where you can put the drinks in it. That’s got to be awesome for that because otherwise the kid you know you’re sharing four bags is junk and bags falling on the floor and everything. It’s got to work pretty good.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  34:54

It really is fantastic. I mean, we’re we’re about to launch e commerce. You know, we’re gonna be working on all of our SEO, and all that and we’re looking at, you know, keywords and all these things and the car is a major player for us. You know, even on tik tok, like we were, we’ve been on tik tok for about five or six months. And I mean, I can’t get over how many views we’ve amassed in this pretty short window of time. I mean, yeah, it’s like,

 

Damon Pistulka  35:30

let’s talk about that a little bit. We got on because of video, we’ve been talking about gold LEDs a little bit, we’ll get back to that. And this because I want to talk about the e commerce too and talk about that when we get get farther down the road. But we got on here because of video. And now we’ve seen the product we’ve done that so I’m gonna go back. How did you decide to do video? What did what made you think about, hey, listen, this video this product? And then and then talk about Tick Tock and what you’ve learned with that and going through the video process.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  36:00

It’s such a good, it’s really like the best possible question. And I think the question that will help anyone out there who has a product, or the manufacturer, it’s, it’s the absolute number one best thing to do. And maybe it’s not in the forefront to do it. Especially the way we do it. Part of that wasn’t planned, which we’ll talk about a minute, but it gives it life. That’s really quick.

And for us when we started marketing us back on LinkedIn, and our early days of marketing were pretty lousy. And that’s okay to say, yeah, you live in you learn, you know, everyone, everyone starts with the first step. That’s why I always say to everyone just get started. Most likely, you’re going to suck. When you start. We all do. Yeah. And you live and you learn. And as you get better, you look back on your work.

And if it doesn’t make you physically ill a little you didn’t do it, right. Like when I look at our first prototype, it’s right over here. I leave it on my desk as a stark reminder. And you know, sometimes it makes me a little nauseous. But it’s a great reminder of how little we knew at that stage. Yes. So where we are now. So back to video, we were posting photos, where we’re getting a lot of inquiries from brands, companies we wanted to hear from, but the thing is that, you know, looking at this in a picture of flack dimension. Yeah. So yeah, we would show we would shoot some great shots.

You know, we thought we’d hire someone, and they would come and shoot great shots in the card and the cup holder, and it just didn’t do it. Because no one this is what they didn’t see. Yeah, I couldn’t imagine what was going on here. They couldn’t understand how this came to be. Was it in one container? Was it a package? How does it connect to the thing? Does it come with a cup? I mean, I you know, any messages that got between the years of 2014 to 17, of how much of the lids have been to the cups. Like, we don’t sell the cups are compatible, compatible, compatible that word. And I kept saying to myself, God, I wish there was a better way for us to market this product.

And to explain, really, how does it work? What does it do? And why is it so innovative? You know, we did this? and LinkedIn didn’t have video that, yeah, then LinkedIn. You know, video starts rolling out out if you weren’t first in the first tier, second tier, third tier fifth tier to get it. That was it. It’s kind of like LinkedIn live, you have it. Most people don’t need to apply to get it. And it’s a luxury, it’s a luxury to have a lie. You’re able to run a show and do things that other people can’t do. Not everyone would want to there are some people that can’t even fathom, doing a 10 second video with their phone. But want to run a show and you don’t have live you can’t force it.

They’ll give it to you when they feel like giving it to you if they ever give it to you. Yeah. And we were in that boat when it came to video. So everyone I knew had video. And I did. And I was like this is this is insane. I can’t tell you how many letters I wrote to LinkedIn. When Jeff Lena was CEO back what Yeah. And I was like this is you know, I feel like we’re being penalized. It’s hurting us. We can be doing better. I finally get video That’s, that’s where everything changed everything. Because now, like Chris’s question that he just asked, yep. Now that that question could be answered, we can answer that question responds with a video.

 

Damon Pistulka  40:19

tipping point. That’s a great point. Because if someone asks a question, you can respond with a video specifically targeted at their question. That’s pretty cool.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  40:28

And not, you know, a not a lot of this. Yeah. Because words are words, action is action. Any level any, any spectrum business, what you say. And what you do are two different things. What you say won’t make someone trust you. But what you do with that winning formula right there. And so, for me video, when I’m really dug in, granted, I don’t shoot all the videos, I don’t do all the videos.

I’m not completely crazy. We have help. But But once I started to realize what we could do with video, I was like, this could be the one element that that solves our problem that makes this less complicated. Yeah, that explains that there’s a lid embedded in the bottom here, literally. And that is, yeah. And all that. Know, how does it form and all those things that we couldn’t do? In blacks? And Aflac? Yeah. And I think that that’s why hip hop is taking off. And as we’ve amassed, I think it’s like 70 views. Today, how many 17 million?

 

Damon Pistulka  41:56

Wow, that’s a lot more, because you’ve bumped it up a lot since the last time I thought it was like 6 million the last

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  42:03

time. We know we we actually no, you know, when I was on your show, it was closer to 12.

 

Damon Pistulka  42:10

Okay, so that’s, that’s. So you might, even though even then, I mean, that was a few months ago, it wasn’t or when we were talking about that on the Yeah, we

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  42:19

we’ve gone through a bunch of topics. Oh, wow. A lot of times, we just one file. I think it’s going but even on I have to shut those I shut those off those notifications.

 

Damon Pistulka  42:38

Yeah, I was just gonna flip up Tick Tock. But I know it’ll get noisy if I do that. Because I was looking through your, your profile. And I mean, you you got some obviously go berserk. And you’ve got but you’ve got a ton of them that have, you know, 2050 100,000 views on them. Which, which most people would just be loving that. And and it’s

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  42:59

great. The ones that have 50,000 were like, didn’t do so good. If, if you got 50,000 views on a video on LinkedIn, you’d be having like a Mardi Gras celebration in your house. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s unheard of. I mean, unless you put up some, you know, you take a video from another site that already got 10 million views. And you know, you’re gonna

 

Damon Pistulka  43:25

Yeah, you’re gonna

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  43:26

do that where original creators, so we don’t, I don’t post other people’s innovations and other videos and, you know, stuff like that. But yeah, I mean, it’s it’s very different algorithm. But then we have a bunch, I think, maybe 678 that have two and a half million, 6 million, 2 million, 2 million, 1 million, 3 million. I’m like, those. I mean, those are exciting.

 

Damon Pistulka  43:51

Yeah, yeah. No, no, keep you up all night. Oh, yeah. You’re just watching the Dover just, I gotta imagine. You just see it. It’s like one of those things that you see it on TV, when they the numbers just go crazy. It’s almost got to do that kind of thing.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  44:07

And people are writing. You know, I’m like, Look, did you see it just hit to it hits me like, you know, you’re losing your mind. But it gets less exciting.

 

Damon Pistulka  44:17

Yeah.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  44:19

times and then you’re like, Alright, this is keeping me up all night. And I need to now shut off notifications because I can’t get anything done. Yes. Even though the day I shut LinkedIn little kid notifications off. I’d set aside a period of hours where I am not part of the LinkedIn world. Exactly. Can’t be on there all day. What I think happens. Yeah, you know, you work for LinkedIn. And you can I can’t possibly get anything done if all day I’m checking, checking checking. Yeah, you know. Yeah, like, don’t you posted certain times on LinkedIn as well? Yeah.

 

Damon Pistulka  44:54

Yeah. Yeah, we posted a certain time but I don’t have the I mean, the only notifications I See, my phone is is tax. And if someone calls me because I shut off email, I shut off everything.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  45:09

Everyone have to you really have to I think Digital’s great, but is is an amazing of a character as it’s been. It is as distracting and noisy as it. Yes. And I mean, there are days it’s happened to all of us. And I don’t know if it’s happened to you where the hours go by you just don’t know what happened. Exactly. Oh, luck. And it’s like the it’s the worst feeling. Yeah. Because you look at your to do lists. And you look at the whiteboard behind me. Which, which I claimed I create my whiteboard for you. Most of it.

Yeah, it was good. Good. It looks good. But I realized it wasn’t me behind my head. And it was like, well, a some proprietary. Yeah, things out there that I can’t put out. I was in trouble but but I was like, well, this looks like a mess. You know, things in different colors going in every direction. thoughts and conversations and dates and times and stuff to put my calendar. So yeah, I cleaned it up for you. Look at that. It’s so if you can even see the ring light. Yeah, it’s that can be that’s a shine. So yes, a video. You know, if it’s motion and moves the product, it also allows you to connect on a much deeper level. Yeah, that’s what we started to really dive in.

Like you’ve seen us we shoot from the manufacturer. Yep. You know, I get I get in trouble for that sometimes. Because you know, my hair is on fully in the hairnet. You know, they’re like, Bonnie, put your hair back in the net. I’m like it’s in. It’s in kind of, you know, look that internet. Yeah. But I understand. I can’t walk around that whole place. And, you know, food and beverage location and have your hair lover. But it’s nice, because you can bring your customer behind the scenes. Yeah. Tell them a little bit about what’s going on. Team culture, the process. A great day and a bad day. Yeah, show the bad stuff, too. You know, I don’t like to paint this rosy picture. glorify this journey.

 

47:39

Yeah,

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  47:40

yeah, it’s everyone says, enjoy the journey. Yes,

 

Damon Pistulka  47:44

you have to I really have

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  47:46

a lot of days, you’re gonna wish the journey didn’t exist? Yeah.

 

Damon Pistulka  47:50

Yeah. Because, I mean, I don’t care who you talk to, you know, it doesn’t matter. You can talk to the most successful person in the world, and they can tell you 100 stories about when they just got kicked so hard. They didn’t think they’re ever going to get back up again.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  48:03

And and we have had, and I’ve been very open about it. You know, we’ve had some big failures along the way. Yeah, flatten flattened out, right under the new york city street does street sweeper. You know, flattened. But what are you gonna do? You know, that’s, that’s, that’s the most honest moment for an entrepreneur is either you peel yourself up, and you keep going. Or you just lay there and play dead. Yeah. And that’s the end of the road. You know, that’s where it ends. So get to be one tough. not for the faint of heart.

 

Damon Pistulka  48:45

That’s for sure. Chris says something good here said, goals we’re calling Joe go. But the journey will never be there again. And it’s right. I mean, the you know, you go through these things and the people around you that go through it with you. And when you see those successes, they’re just so sweet and so special. Because, you know, all you know, just you and that tight knit team know how much you put into that to get there.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  49:09

And how much pain and disappointment. Yes, much disappointment. I always say like, I’ve adopted this whole attitude about that word. No. You know, and now when someone says no, now it’s, it’s an opportunity. It’s a word to me is Why?

 

Damon Pistulka  49:34

Why? Yeah, there you go.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  49:35

Wanna know? I want to hear why. Because perhaps that can help us to get better. We can figure out what the reason is. We can fix it. Instead of falling up in a sad little puddle. You know, having a little pity party.

 

49:55

Yeah,

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  49:56

no, no doesn’t deserve a party.

 

Damon Pistulka  50:00

That’s so funny you said that about the pity party because I just read something this morning that it was a inspirational thing by I forget the guy that hill the guy that wrote thinking Grow Rich, but it says there’s four parties I refuse to attend a pity party. Patsy party, a pride, pride party and a big party. So you know, it’s just there’s there’s four parties in the pity party was the first one it says I’m not gonna do that. So. But

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  50:35

the worst trap?

 

Damon Pistulka  50:36

Yeah, yeah, cuz you’re all gonna get knocked down. And, you know, it is, as you said, you can just sit there and you can choose to let it knock you down and squish you into a little ball or you can fight back and get back up.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  50:49

Yeah. Yeah. And I take phone calls all the time. Yeah, no worse. I know, it’s a lot of people are gonna say, you know, time is not free to give it away. I disagree. I think maybe to give it as much as you can, as often as you can, and ask for nothing. In return, that that is my bill of rights. Over here, I have a lot of people and other founders and other and they disagree. Yeah, everyone has their own way. But I think that’s the way to be. And kind of carves out the kind of leader that you’re going to be with the people that work with you, as a team.

And I always say the same thing is, if the know, if the pain, if the disappointment, if the pity party knocks you down, and you can’t get back up, then this isn’t for you. It’s just not me, you know, you need to do some learn more about yourself more self awareness, because it’s painful process. And, and the more interesting it is, the harder it is meaning. And I’m not insulting anyone who makes potato chips right now. It’s just an example that I use. I love potato chips. But there are some days, and it’s kind of like an internal joke. And I’ll be like, Don’t you wish we sell potato chips? Because that’s easy to me. It’s not easy.

I know, to the guy who founded a chip line, there’s nothing easy about that at all. I get it. But it’s different. You know, it’s it’s a different type of product. Whereas when you do something like this, you’re literally creating a category that doesn’t exist. So not only do you have to explain it, defend it, demo it. It’s everything under the sun. You’re trying to bring something into existence in the world that isn’t there. You’re also changing human behavior. You’re also changing corporate behavior. I mean, why don’t we just I mean, it’s like, it’s like a jumble of everything, isn’t it? And I don’t know what I don’t know what is spicier in there, but it’s a big pot of poison. Yeah,

 

Damon Pistulka  53:15

yeah, that’s for sure. And you’re right, because you’re you’re trying to you’ve got a product that changes the way they think about people taking food out of their establishments, whether it’s a drive thru, whether they’re walking in or taking out and they they’ve never contemplated doing that before.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  53:30

And yet, exactly, you’ve nailed it on the head. And on top of that, there’s nothing really more sacred to any of these brands than often the operation of their business. Yes. It’s the lifeblood of everything they do. So when we come in, we’re, we’re kind of getting in there. You know, we’re like, hey, let’s get married. Yeah. You know, not that way. Obviously. You know, we’re not rolling into a massive chain and rolling out across the country in a week. Yeah, no one does that. And we wouldn’t want that.

That’s not smart for anybody’s gonna test and perfect and go. But we’re still, you know, from a b2b standpoint, it’s an operational product. And, yes, it’s super simple to use. But it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t require training and explanation. Just how these, I can see a little child understanding what this does, but I just used it and somehow something went wrong. Yeah, I still don’t know what I don’t even think I want to know what terrified to these things. I went, I went dark and dead of life. You know, my whole voice was gone. That couldn’t be but that’s a problem. Apple, you know, you smile and just kind of

 

Damon Pistulka  55:02

you just keep going with it. Exactly.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  55:05

And you squeeze the IT department, which was my husband? Yeah, I’m like it?

 

Damon Pistulka  55:12

Well, you know, they’ll show up. If they’re your husband’s happy.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  55:15

I know he’ll show he showed. Yep, get it out. But, you know, I encourage everyone I, my best advice would be that if you’re not doing video, and even if you don’t have a product, everyone belongs on video. And that’s, that’s a hard pill to swallow. For a lot of people are going to say that. I do not belong on video in any sense. I don’t think LinkedIn is video capacity.

In terms of users, it’s never going to get to 30% 50%. Never. But according to LinkedIn, it’s at like, 2%. Yeah, it got up there. It used to be 1%. Yeah, but it’s it’s such a whitespace. And there’s such a huge opportunity to to get your audience. Again, you have to be engaging, you have to do things that they want to hear, see, be it education, innovation, imagination, creation, whatever it is that you’re doing. Something that adds value to to maybe the minute that they’re going to spare you if they spare you that minute. You know, 60 seconds on LinkedIn is?

 

Damon Pistulka  56:36

Yeah, it is.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  56:38

Usually it’s, you know, like there’s a reason why LinkedIn only counts. They count three seconds is a view. Yeah.

 

Damon Pistulka  56:45

Yeah, that’s, that’s that’s a scary thought.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  56:47

It’s consistent. barely got through the intro.

 

Damon Pistulka  56:52

Yeah. Yeah. You don’t even hardly Yeah,

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  56:54

that’s four seconds could be on the outro. Yeah, we didn’t see anything you were saying. Yeah. So

 

Damon Pistulka  57:01

that’s a good point. Because they can live they can live an intro or a girl edits of you.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  57:08

And it’s the same concept. It’s like all these great guys that create the create content. I mean, there’s so many great, yeah, those out there that that I try to emulate. I think we all do, because they’re so good at it. And it’s that that hook line. And you know that that top sentence is huge. Because if someone doesn’t like that they’re not clicking on it. Right away. Yeah. Right. It’s the same with video. So if the video starts off with, you know, good morning, what a day. Oof. Okay, so let’s get into it. It’s 30 seconds in you’ve said nothing. Huh? You know, it’s my best advice is like, get to the point and get there fast.

 

Damon Pistulka  57:53

Yes,

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  57:54

really quickly. And we learned our lesson. We learned we used to do the videos, and we will do all kinds of things leading you to the big moment. Now we just, we just go right in there. Yeah, don’t waste time. Make time. Just go right for it. Because if we don’t do that, no one’s gonna stick around. Yeah. But it’s, it’s such an asset really is. And if you’re terrified, if you’re out there, and you’re just scared like hell to do video. Do it, do it. Do it in your room, do it in the car, very safe place to try out

 

Damon Pistulka  58:33

it is.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  58:35

I do some videos in the car. That’s because I’m often in the car. A little less now than I used to be. Where any of us going these days. Yeah. But I still go, you know, go to the manufacturer or go here, go there. I have to go certain places, but it’s really quiet. And you can kind of, you know, play with your angles on how you look and play with the tone of your voice. And try and get it right and then use that as like a testing ground. Beginning then from there. Get a little bolder go into the street. You should see me now. I mean, when I started out I was terrified. Right? So I did it in the car. Let me show you this. This is how bold I’ve become. So this is a it’s like a slinky.

 

59:32

Yeah,

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  59:34

it goes around your neck. And then this goes right in here. Yeah. The sad part for this is I thought of this in a dream. And when I when I could like make it and packed it. I found out someone else is ahead of me. Look at that. Yeah. And you could pull it out. So now I went from, you know, the shy person in the car was terrified a video to walk into the street. I mean, imagine when people walk past you think,

 

Damon Pistulka  1:00:12

yeah, what are the ones she got on front of her?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:00:16

And I’m, you know, and I’m walking and of course, I’ve got this so I’m like, yeah, you know, and usually it’s it’s it’s usually further out. Like, I’ll put it out here. Mm hmm. You know, and and I’m walking around. I got this and people walking by and you’re like, crazy lady with the crazy photo on her neck. And the phone holder? And let’s head crazy. And then crazy sauce to the crazy.

 

1:00:45

Yeah,

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:00:46

yeah. Yeah. What’s in our hand? Could you look any crazier? Yeah. You know, this is this is I don’t care how introverted you think you are? You can you can come out of that in a very big, big way. And really surprise yourself. Yeah, what you’re willing to do. And I think the more passionate you are, about what you do, and the more you love what you do, it kind of becomes a non quest. It’s it’s not a question. If it’s gonna get duck. Yeah, it’s just a matter of timing. Mm hmm. You know, and that’s, that’s, that’s what I didn’t know in the beginning. I don’t think any entrepreneurs know that.

 

Damon Pistulka  1:01:33

No, no, I agree. You know, we, I was just talking today on we did, we do another live and you know, it’s on Thursday mornings. And, and I was I was looking back to last year, and this week was actually the first week that we did one in 2020. And I had never other than on video calls. I had never done video before. And it took me about six months. Last year, I think before I even watched any videos that I made.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:02:00

And did you feel totally? Oh, just

 

Damon Pistulka  1:02:03

just weird. It was just like, what am I watching myself? It is so ridiculous. That’s

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:02:09

the thing is you? There’s an element of it, where you kind of feel like I don’t know, like, Who am I? Who am I? Yeah, that might be on video. Yeah. Speaking to this gigantic audience, if you want to really scare yourself, you’re 750 million people. Yep. That’s how many users LinkedIn has. And sometimes it goes further. Because of the other platforms that you can tie into stream yard. Yeah, right. So you could be you could be going on Facebook,

 

Damon Pistulka  1:02:42

we are now

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:02:44

he go okay. And to be on Instagram wheels. Or stories it could be could be on lots of things. So it is a scary notion. But I feel like you You kind of have to just block it out. It’s like when you it’s like have you speak to anyone famous who’s ever gotten an award? Right. Oscar Grammy, and that’s that. We’ve been fortunate enough to know a few people in our lifetime. And you know what they say?

I didn’t see anything. Like it’s so bright. Yeah, barely see what’s going on out there. You know? Yeah. So it’s like, if you’re giving a speech, you know, you can’t really see so much is bright lights is a huge crowd. And it’s scary, but at the same time, you know, pretend that there’s no one there. Yeah. And you’re talking to a room of empty air. Not much different than that. You know, if I could see all the people right now watching me. Mm hmm. I would be terrified. Yeah, but I can only see you.

 

Damon Pistulka  1:03:57

Yeah. And that’s what I like about the live and this interactions. Like we have here with a few people on because it’s it’s so nice. Because, for me, I feel like we’re having a conversation and it’s you and I in a room and and yeah, we see that the comments rolling, but that’s really what I see. And that’s why it’s it feels comfortable for me when I do it.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:04:16

Yeah, it’s it’s and you know, what’s nice about live is so many people go back. Of course, it’s always great to get a proud while you’re running live. Mm hmm. But people come back. You know, that’s the tough thing about video. And that’s another element is is the timing. Yeah, you know, you put something up at time, it doesn’t work. They’re not gonna show it no matter what you do. Yeah. You know, unless you wait gold, you know, gold bars. They’ll find a way to screw up. Yeah. No stock certificates or then they’ll show but yeah, but doesn’t mean they’re not gonna come back later on.

 

Damon Pistulka  1:04:56

That’s for sure.

 

1:04:59

And watch it. So That’s for sure.

 

Damon Pistulka  1:05:01

So I’ve got a couple of questions you this year we’ve been we’ve been on about an hour in it. And and I don’t, I don’t mean to rush, but it’s a great conversation. But I want to make sure we include some stuff. You said something about e commerce. So you guys, are you guys planning on? You know, going on to Amazon or something like that? What are you going to do?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:05:18

We are going to show you something? Yeah, let’s

 

Damon Pistulka  1:05:21

see it. Because I’m excited about that. I mean, you know, obviously not obviously, but we do a bit of work in e commerce and, and it’s always, always fun to see people taking off. We have

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:05:32

a big plan for e commerce. Really? I will tell you that. It’s very complicated. It is. Wow. Yeah. to drain the life out of you. Yeah. I didn’t, you know, it’s like a whole new business. Yeah. I mean, literally. So we are there are two elements of e commerce that we have decided to go after one is, we don’t feel that we are serving the needs of small businesses, and b2b. So 1000s upon 1000s, upon 1000s, what this country was built up of small businesses, and they don’t perhaps want to spend money on pallets they want to buy, you know, let’s buy a case of the 32.

The 30 ounce lid, yeah, let’s let’s buy one case of the 20 ounce, let’s buy one case of their 24. And try it out. If we love it, we can order more. But we don’t need to lay out X amount of 1000s. right this minute. Yeah. Right? Or go on terms or whatnot. Yeah. And so we realized, especially during this pandemic, economic element is can’t look away from that. possible. So I feel like, I feel like a good job as an organization, and we should be making it accessible to the masses.

And the only way to do that is really through e commerce. Yeah. Because, you know, yes, distributors, of course, but even still, distributors will take in pallets for customer. But you still need to take that product, you know, on a weekly bi weekly basis. So you don’t have that’s not the same flexibility. Yeah, of deciding that we tested it. And we’re low on money right now, as a business. So we’re gonna take a break and bring it back for another LCL in a month. You know, I get our cash flow back in order. So I want to be able to serve that need, we get tons of requests every day. Yeah, through our website on LinkedIn.

Hi, Bonnie, etc, etc. Is there any way we can just order a couple cases a product? Yeah. And we’ll pay right now. Yeah, I realized we only ship pallets and our our comm where we manufacturer manufacturer out in New York, actually. Yeah, they don’t. That’s they’re not in the pick and pack business. They don’t do. So. No, I guess though, you can’t. But now you can. So we’re doing that nice. linking them up. Where are we doing our website? It needs a lobotomy. Yeah, he had a heart surgery after Google bought me and then another lobotomy, but it’s gonna have a lot of procedures that currently and should be a couple weeks.

We’re making progress. We’re going to link that with Shopify. Yeah. She takes customer from go on. Boom, boom, boom is how to video. There’s a video with all the whole you know, pitfalls I showed last night? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s it fit does it fit all the questions are answered in 45 seconds. So that’s going to be there. How to use it menu suggestions, combo creations, what does well what you know what we see as being the biggest success options for the golance combos and the ones that aren’t as popular. Yeah, much as we can give.

And then what I’m really excited about also is we’re putting out a consumer package. So this is what its gonna look like this. We’re not putting out a white box, Don’t get nervous. We have it. We have someone doing phenomenal graphics. Go lids and it’s going to be compatible with their favorite plants. Nice. So it’s going to be graphics and how to graph alongside recycled materials reusable, reuse, reuse, reuse, reuse, we are going to knock that home as hard as possible because the thing you saw last night, we We hit that. That goal it, we hit it with a mallet twice and then and then a hammer. Yeah. And nothing happens. So there’s no reason to use this and chuck it in the garbage. Yeah.

 

1:10:16

And that’s a great thing. That’s a great thing.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:10:18

It’s just, it’s why Why? Why wasted? Yeah. Even stadiums were talking to for preparing when they come back beyond 10%. You know, really come back. But yeah, why have taken home? Why not? Yeah, no. People love novel things. They love finding what’s late. What’s the latest, greatest newest innovations and creation? So we don’t want to put it out as a product that goes in the garbage can. Yeah. I we wash them out. And we use them all the time. Nice. And I know so many people, we’ve given lids to friends family, LinkedIn, friends LinkedIn connections relationship. They still have, they’re still using the same ones.

You got hot water soap, scrub Daddy, or whatever. You have. lay flat. They’re not machine washable. So no dishwasher. Yeah. And then they dry. While Ah, the only time that suggests we’re gonna put this on the box too. If it’s covered in cheese sauce, or gravy, or cookie dough or something? Maybe, maybe you do want to throw it away. Yeah. If it’s a bagel, if it’s, you know, some donuts if it’s a muffin, and there’s some problems in there. Keep it. Yeah. So yes, there’s gonna be a package like this. We’re gonna have six. Nice. How do we come up with six? I don’t know.

 

Damon Pistulka  1:11:57

It’s a nice amount, though. anything

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:11:59

good for? Of course, we said four. Because the average American family. Yeah, right. When shipped to US and Canada. Okay. We’re, for the moment. Not doing International. Yeah, Canada, but not beyond. We’re keeping it close to the best for the moment. We just, we don’t want it to get out of control. Where we’re shipping to every country. So USA, Canada was pretty busy.

 

Damon Pistulka  1:12:33

Yeah. I got a lot of good stuff coming up. And and this is this will really be able to help, like you said, Get your product to those small business owners that want to try out something different that will help their business.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:12:49

Yeah. And and you know, the consumer angle. After we’ve done now that we’re we did Tech Talk. We got that many views. And that many, by now requests? Yeah. Where can we buy these? Where can we buy these? Someone’s sticking a needle in my eye? Yeah. The answer at the moment in time was nowhere. Yeah. I can’t send you to an Amazon link, where you can purchase a path for your home. Yeah, but God, it was torturing me, really. And we were already working on it.

But I was like, oh, how do we speed up the process like this is going to slow Who? someone’s not doing something, we have to go faster. But not at the expense of disastrous mistakes is a lot of details. There’s, there’s FDA stuff, you got to put in all kinds of stuff, and details and gonna make some mistakes, guaranteed, you always do. But um, we have a compatibility grid. So like, let’s say you get a pack of like 32 ounce lids, there’s gonna be a list of compatible, what it’s compatible with?

 

Damon Pistulka  1:14:00

Yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot to it. That’s for sure. Details. And so

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:14:06

you know, we want to do it. Right. So we don’t we don’t wind up with a, you know, a bevy of horrific Amazon reviews.

 

Damon Pistulka  1:14:14

Yeah, that’s for sure.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:14:16

Well explained it to us. I think I watch these kids, these Gen Z’s at the drive throughs their favorite places that they go to. And you should see what they do in the car. I mean, they’re mixing foods or adding sauces or creating their own recipes. And so I don’t see, you know, yeah, though, they’ll definitely take this take off the lid and clip this on. It also allows you to get out of the car, go to the park.

 

1:14:46

Mm hmm.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:14:47

This is probably the number one thing that is talked about in every conversation out of the gate is the cover.

 

Damon Pistulka  1:14:57

Yeah, well yeah. I’ve been Being good, I think of going to the ballpark. And and grabbing a beer and grabbing a sandwich or whatever hot couple hot dogs and throw it in there and be unable to walk to your seat with a free either cell phone in hand or a free hand even or a hand if you got a little kid to hold the kid in your hand, which you have to do obviously at the park. Well, it’s it’s really, I mean, it’s really

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:15:24

to mention, what are you going to do when you’re at the park? And you’ve got two hotdogs and the guy behind you? He’s coffee?

 

Damon Pistulka  1:15:32

Hmm, yeah.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:15:34

So this is what?

 

1:15:37

Yep. Yeah.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:15:40

And that’s, that’s an expensive combo. Yeah. You know, you know, buying a combo at the ballpark for, you know, seven $7. No, no. You know, here like, they’ll give you the souvenir cup. Yeah, I’m sure that that’s not your team.

 

Damon Pistulka  1:15:56

No, I can appreciate it.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:15:59

That’s the Braves. It’s not my team either. Yeah. Yes, it is. I love the breeze. This is just a presentation. But, you know, but this is expensive. Yeah. A couple of dollars. Yes. Before the food and the drink. Yeah. And then this and

 

Damon Pistulka  1:16:20

yeah. If you’re lucky, it’s $8. And you’re lucky. It’s all your lucky dollars. Yeah.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:16:26

And they can really maximize it. Because now you you know, they can put it can before those in a tray. Yeah. Right. Cheese tray of four and hand them out. And they’re covered and protected and safe. And everybody’s happy. Yeah, so I’m over happy people.

 

Damon Pistulka  1:16:43

Yeah, it’s good stuff.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:16:45

If we can, we can add to the world and make people happy and make their days. Even, you know, 2% easier. 1% easier, then I, in my opinion, we’ve done we’ve done a good job.

 

Damon Pistulka  1:17:00

So yeah, that’s awesome. And your product is really cool. And I use the the way that you guys use video is awesome. And if you haven’t, haven’t gone on, you gotta go to tick tock and look, or get on LinkedIn. Connect with Bonnie, if you want to talk to her. Go to go live.com Check out this stuff. It is so awesome. Bonnie, thank you for being here today. How can people get a hold of you if they need to get ahold of you?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:17:32

You know, I I am one of those people that I really try to get back to everybody. So I have my business email. Okay, listed on my profile. Okay, good. Not some gmail account. It’s actually the email that goes to me. And dm can always dm and get connection request. Yeah, I’m very, very open to to connecting.

 

Damon Pistulka  1:18:01

Awesome. And,

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:18:02

uh, you know, we don’t we don’t hide, and then there’s always the website. So we get a ton of requests, and letters do info and go lids.com Mail comes through there. So there’s always a way.

 

Damon Pistulka  1:18:15

Very good, very good. Well, I know Chris, Chris Webb said that he had sent you a connection request and the message is somewhere here so you’ll see that when you get off but thanks again. I’ve got Bonnie system strong here with me today from go lids talking about video. She’s a video Queen, killing it on Tick Tock guy like, what 12 plus million views, showing us how her product is us and showing us how you can use video to create a connection and build a brand. Thanks so much for being here, Bonnie.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:18:46

a footnote. I don’t need everything that’s in here. I usually don’t need any of it actually. Yeah, really. It’s really fun show cuz everyone’s always like, well, you really don’t need it. But not you know, a lot of it. Oh,

 

Damon Pistulka  1:19:04

great stuff.

 

1:19:04

Thanks a lot.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:19:05

It’s been a real pleasure.

 

Damon Pistulka  1:19:07

You bet. We’re gonna jump off LinkedIn live here and come back next Tuesday. We’ve got more guests on Tuesday and Thursday next week on the faces of business. See you later. Bye

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