DTC & B2B Ecommerce Strategies for Manufacturers

In this MFG eCommerce Success show to hear Bonnie Sussman Strominger, Founder/CEO, GoLidZ, shares how GoLidZ has approached building a brand and what they have learned using direct-to-consumer and B2B sales.

In this MFG eCommerce Success show to hear Bonnie Sussman Strominger, Founder/CEO, GoLidZ, shares how GoLidZ has approached building a brand and what they have learned using direct-to-consumer and B2B sales.

Bonnie is helping foodservice operators increase revenue while elevating the customers’ lifestyle and convenience.

Bonnie leveraged her twenty-plus years in management, product development, consumer marketing, and sales to become an entrepreneur and purposeful inventor. The GoLidZ brand is based on passion, leadership, team effort, and execution. This innovative thinking transformed beverage cup lids into a new packaging category.

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Bonnie and the team started building brand awareness with an “in the streets” approach that introduced their products to consumers and foodservice operators to show them the real-world benefits. This foundation launched its DTC & B2B sales efforts.

Curt and Nicole host this episode of Manufacturing eCommerce Success for Damon is unavailable owing to a wedding.

The host mentions that Bonnie has been a repeat guest on the show and asks her about her hero when she was “a little girl growing up.” Bonnie says her source of inspiration is Annie—a famous character from an eponymous 1982 movie.

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In the same vein, she shares a story from her childhood when she went to audition for a singing role in a theater in Manhattan. The auditions required the candidate to be at most four-nine. Bonnie’s father measured her and told her that she was four-nine. She made it to the top 100 out of 5000 girls, but the producer later informed her that she couldn’t move to the next round because she was over four-ten. Bonnie was devastated, but her father comforted and told her not to let a small detail hold her back. In retrospect, Bonnie understood why her father did that because he didn’t want her to miss out on an opportunity due to a small detail.

Curt furthers the agenda of the Livestream in the right direction. He admires Bonnie and her company’s innovative products, including a small container for food and drink.

The host asks Bonnie to share how she came up with the idea.

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Bonnie reveals, as a former college sophomore in Arizona, she had a terrible date at Harkins theaters where she was left to carry all the food and drinks. She ended up falling and spilling everything. “Three different rows of soap people were yelling at me, cursing at me, or whatever.” The traumatic incident prompted her to sketch a product that could prevent similar accidents.

She waited until smartphones became popular before founding the company. Now her invention is in high demand. The product benefits millennials and Gen Z, who are constantly glued to their phones, often dropping things in the process. Bonnie further adds that she left her corporate job after 20 years to focus on the company that recently celebrated its 10th anniversary in August.

Curt asks Bonnie about her transition and experience during “the leap of faith.”

Bonnie describes her experience of taking the entrepreneurial plunge as “super scary” because she had no idea where to start. Her first step was to go to a lawyer’s office to protect herself. Then she started recruiting former Pepsi and Coke employees as advisors to cover up the knowledge gap in the food and beverage industry.

Nicole praises the combination of confidence and humility in entrepreneurial style. She notes that an overly confident entrepreneur risks making mistakes, while an excessively humble one may lack the confidence to take their product to market.

Bonnie emphasizes the importance of humility and willingness to learn from experts when starting a business.

Bonnie discusses how the pandemic forced them to pivot their business multiple times, leading them to become B2B and B2C enterprise. Online shopping boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Curt credits much of Bonnie’s success to her aggressive marketing. Similarly, he comments that the product is an amazing innovation that provides a solution for busy moms.

Bonnie clarifies that they do not make cups. Besides, they replace standard food service cup lids with their innovative GoLitZ.

The guest and Nicole discuss the role of struggle in establishing a successful brand. Bonnie relates to the struggles faced by Joy Mangano, who she mentions as the inventor of a popular product sold on QVC. She talks about how Joy’s story, as portrayed in a movie, resonates with her, as the struggle of entrepreneurship can take a long time and be filled with setbacks.

Curt wants to Bonnie’s “aha moment” that opened the doors of success.

Bonnie says that they initially offered pallets of products, which frustrated smaller businesses because they wanted to try products without a large investment. To address this, they moved inventory to a third-party logistics (3PL) provider in Chicago and began offering cases of their product. Bonnie now needs help improving their SEO to make their product easier to find online.

Likewise, Curt mentions the common problem of innovators being unable to reach their target audience. He compliments Bonnie’s video skills and asks her to share her story. The guest adds that their biggest hit has been a video she posted on LinkedIn. The video has garnered 33 million views.

Curt, impressed, requests Bonnie to talk about her video strategy.

The guest brings to light the ever-changing nature of marketing and how it isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. It’s important to continually switch things up and craft a new version of the company’s story while still telling the same story.

The e-commerce guru notes that staying top of mind with consumers and businesses is crucial, especially on platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. She acknowledges that marketing is even more critical in e-commerce, where running ads is necessary. To engage potential customers, Bonnie emphasizes that effective marketing should include videos, warm stories, and relatable language.

Bonnie explains to Nicole that organic reach on TikTok has decreased significantly, and the platform has changed its algorithm to prioritize longer-form content, causing difficulty for their company which creates short-form videos.

She compares the success of her videos on TikTok and Facebook, noting that TikTok’s algorithm is different and more favorable for virality. However, diversifying platforms is wise to mitigate algorithm changes or platform interference risks.

Meanwhile, Curt praises the guest’s understanding of the ideal buyer persona and mentions a “hysterical video” of a woman spilling everything in her van at a red light. He then asks Bonnie to share her approach to bold and courageous marketing.

While talking about her boldness, Bonnie says that her unique product required a non-traditional marketing approach. They found success by capturing moments of people stopping them to ask about the product and using those interactions as leverage for marketing. Even though 96% of people said “no” to being filmed, the 4% who said “yes” added up to many people. They, however, created confusion in some locations because people assumed the product was sold there.

Curt seeks Bonnie’s advice on helping those starting their e-commerce journey. Bonnie discloses that her company sells reusable lids that snap onto various cup brands. The packs come in small, medium, and large sizes, and the company initially launched them as a pack of twelve. However, the company learned that some customers felt they didn’t need that many and preferred to buy smaller quantities, like six or two. Therefore, the company realized that getting the offer right is crucial in e-commerce.

Bonnie gives a bird-eye view of her product. She explains that their product is a convenient vessel for holding food. Consumers can use it for healthy foods like salads. It has a lock in the front to prevent it from opening unexpectedly.

She further advises businesses to identify where their product fits and create a shortlist of hero customers to whom they can deliver massive value instead of calling hundreds of different companies.

Lastly, the manufacturing-cum-marketing wizard suggests sending a personal video to the email of the executive you want to reach out to for B2B sales.

Toward the end of the discussion, Bonnie thanks the people surrounding her. Nicole calls the guest a tremendous inspiration for women in manufacturing.

Curt ends the conversation by thanking the guests and sharing two pieces of advice: to get involved and be someone’s inspiration.

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1:04:15

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

bonnie, lids, people, b2b, talking, ecommerce, consumer, product, pack, nicole, linkedin, marketing, manufacturing, food, e commerce, companies, story, tick tock, platform, customer

SPEAKERS

Nicole Donnelly, Bonnie Sussman Strominger, Curt Anderson

 

Curt Anderson  00:00

Roll the call you can play a song. Oh hey wait we’re live look at look like oh my goodness. Hey Damon, I don’t see Damon here. We’re I don’t know where he was the guy you know? Alright, so hey, we have no Daman today.

So hey, Happy Friday everybody Welcome to Manufacturing ecommerce success man and I fired up look at these two lovely ladies. So I have a new I have a little co host today David Pustaka. could not be with us. He’s at a wedding. He’s at a wedding for his with his family. He’s out traveling. So hey Damon, we miss you, brother. Nicole Donnelly is filling in the seat, Nicole. Happy Friday. How are you my friend?

 

Nicole Donnelly  00:42

Happy Friday. It is a good Friday because next week is spring break.

 

Curt Anderson  00:47

Next. Spring break last day the quarter and what a great way. First quarter of 2023 with one other. The one the only. Miss Bonnie, how are you my friend?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  01:04

How are you?

 

Curt Anderson  01:05

Hey, I’m doing awesome. So guys, happy Friday. A razor guy knows here today. Ray. Happy Friday, brother. Appreciate you. Thank you for joining us. Anybody out there? drop us a note. Let us know that you’re here. Boy, you absolutely want to connect with our dear friend Bonnie Founder CEO extraordinaire of gold lids. And we’re gonna be talking Hey, what’s a gold lid by the way? It we’re gonna be talking about this thing a little bit right here today. So right it was yours that right there it is.

So we’re gonna be talking about this. Fine. Before we go. There you are a you know what? I’m sorry to say this. You’re a repeat offender of manufacturing ecommerce success. You were like one of our first guests. When we first started doing this little this little shindig if you will. Yeah, I don’t think I asked you this question. I my opening question I’m going to ask of you today is this Are you ready? Are you sitting down? Are you ready?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  01:54

I’m sitting because I’d be laying down United Cindy’s

 

Curt Anderson  01:57

fine your body my dear friend. We go way back. When you were a little girl growing up. Who was your hero? Who was your hero when you were a little girl growing up? How little great question.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  02:19

I was ever little. I was never a little.

 

Curt Anderson  02:24

You’re a tall, right? So eight years old. Young. How about young, young, young little girl?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  02:30

I’m gonna go with Annie.

 

Nicole Donnelly  02:33

Oh my gosh. And oh my gosh, Annie Oakley. Oh.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  02:39

Any any any Broadway any Broadway any?

 

Curt Anderson  02:42

I tried out for any. You tried out for Annie on Broadway,

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  02:47

Broadway show.

 

Curt Anderson  02:49

All right, do share. Let’s give it

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  02:53

I’m gonna make a long story very short. I sing. And so when I was younger, I took singing lessons, whatever. Any auditions opened up. And I wanted to go try out. So you couldn’t be any taller than four nine. And my dad measured me and he told me and my mother that I was four, nine. He liked. I was 14. Here’s an interesting thing. This is where I started to learn about taking big shots, even though you might have a low probability of success. He taught me that because he sent us to the city.

I tried out. I made the top 100 out of 5000. Girls. Nice. Nice. Yeah, we were there till for morning album theater in Manhattan. We were there all night, like into the wee hours of the morning. And the producer came over to my mother pulled us backstage and he said I’m very, very sorry to tell you. But Barney can go through to the next round. And we said why not? And he said because you said she’s four nine.

My mom said she is four nine. He said she’s pushing for 1014 411 Almost all what? No, no. And she said my husband measured her he I’m positive. He did it several times for nine. And he’s like, Well, I think your husband may have tricked you a little because he maybe he thought we’d make an exception but we can’t. Okay, so imagine little Barney my eyes out all the way home my poor mother all the way back to Long Island. Just to get home my father ran out of the room with it was like 4am and he’s like what happened?

And I said that Gina had a measure, measure. And I Oh, what happened to the screen? Oh, what’s happening and how to measure and I said did you know I was over 410. And he just kind of like you went like this. We were like, did you like us? Did you say? And he’s like, look, I don’t want to miss out on an opportunity, because of a small detail.

So yes, I love you. And that’s, you know, that’s what happened. But I understand now why he did it. Because he figured why let’s thing hold you back. Right? That detail is yes, it was important. We didn’t How important was and so we were standing in this theater, talking to the producers, and they do speakers picking up the sound and they didn’t want any to be a certain height. She was supposed to be a smaller level than the other girls that were in the show that were a little bit taller. So don’t ask but yeah, so Annie,

 

Curt Anderson  05:52

Annie, so so far,

 

Nicole Donnelly  05:54

you had to at least like that’s a cool, you know, you made it to what round was that like to the top 100 out of 5000 is that which I

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  06:03

found that? We were there? We were in the theater for about 12 hours. I mean, it was nonstop auditioning on and off the stage stage. One of the best experiences I’ve ever had. Get it ended in tears and anger. But you know, and then after that I actually wanted to pursue a singing career. But you know, clearly it wasn’t because because we’re here with this thing. So

 

Nicole Donnelly  06:30

I think I think you just need to give us your rendition of tomorrow this is your platform you know

 

Curt Anderson  06:38

finding was bigger than Broadway is right here on manufacturing ecommerce success. We would love to hear the sun comes out tomorrow Can we can we just get a little taste? No, no, we’re not gonna go there.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  06:52

I cannot I can’t have that living.

 

Curt Anderson  06:56

Without recording it just

 

Nicole Donnelly  07:02

sation

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  07:03

imagine like another CEO or another brand and looking me up now. Like, what is this woman doing?

 

Curt Anderson  07:10

Sales will be like a hockey stick. Are you kidding? Tomorrow, little Annie. So guys, happy Friday. If you’re joining us, drop us a note. Let us know that you’re out here. We’re here with Barney the founder CEO of go lids and we’re going to be geeking out on manufacturing Made in USA women in manufacturing recycled plant you know sustainability in manufacturing, e commerce and manufacturing. Bonnie we’d like to do you like you check every every box right? And so we have all sorts of fun things to try to.

We try to so it’s just an honor privilege to have you back on the show you and I go back aways and I’ve just been following your I think I might be self professed president of the gulets fan club. You know I’ve always been cheering you on rooting you on. It’s matter of fact when we have a little little drink why we take a little break here to our Go lead right here. Look at this. You know you put your sandwich you put your donut your soda right here. It is so tiny. How did you come up with this idea? Can you please share with everybody how on earth did this brainchild come about?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  08:16

I actually thought of this. This is the part of the story that always shocks everyone. I thought of it back in 1990 9090. Before the phone before anything, I mean, before we had social media. We were still living with Atari and everything dinosaur that we all know and

 

Curt Anderson  08:42

you’re like you’re in diapers and weren’t you were like two, three years old?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  08:45

Yeah, right. I was. I was a sophomore dating myself, but I was a sophomore in Arizona going to college. And the long story short is that I went on a date, a really lousy date. We went to the movies in Arizona and it was actually Harkins theatres, where we went if they’re listening by the way, they should let us in by that, by that fact alone.

And we got all this food we got like popcorn, hotdogs, candy, sodas, everything that you get. And for some reason, this moron gave everything to me to carry. Like, who does something like that? But the worst part is that I was young and just plain old stupid. And I took all of it. I didn’t I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to be difficult. So just took everything. And I was carrying all of it. I was overdressed. I was wearing a little black dress and heels.

And I’m 510 So I was already like now wearing the heels. I’m six two. Yeah. at the movie theater. I mean if I go to the theater now with my husband, I wear jeans and a T shirt and sneakers. I don’t know young over excited to go on a date. I don’t know. So we get to the theater and he doesn’t have any seats and we climb into the middle of the row and there’s always like a big man there. Someone would like gigantic me He’s waiting. There is my heel got like stuck on his knee.

And I just went over. And I didn’t just go over, I landed on the ground and the process, the popcorn, the lids came off the sodas, the candy, the hotdogs, I mean, I soaked like, I can’t tell you how many people have stood in front in the row. And then behind them, like three different rows of soap people, they’re yelling at me, they’re cursing at me or whatever. And it was really, it was really horrible. And I just I sat in the seat, and I the whole time, all I could think about was like, that should not have happened, you know?

Why can’t some of those things be attached or whatever, was just like a thought in my head. And I left the theater, I actually went home and I drew it, I drew a sketch of what of what I thought it should look like. It was actually like Spongebob had drawing, not the best, not the best sketch artist. So if you I still have it, by the way, I should have brought the book. I’ve always pictures that I do. I drew our trademark, I drew all these things. And then I graduated. And I went back to New York, and just move on with life.

I got into the corporate world. And I kind of moved on. And everyone always says to me, why didn’t you do anything. And the main reason is because of this, because at the time, I felt like it was a nice to have type of thing. It was solving an inconvenience, but it wasn’t really solving like this massive problem, because we weren’t down at hand, you know, you didn’t give your phone away yet to Steve Jobs at that point. So I waited, and really until like 2099 2000, where the cell phone came out. But just the kind that like the Motorola flip phone, right?

Kind of like rang and text, you didn’t walk around with it, because it didn’t do very many things. 2007 smartphone 2008 And now everyone has a smartphone. And now you’re doing more business on the phone, and then you are from your laptop. And you know, I’m sitting outside Starbucks, Dunkin, all these places in the city. And you see people now totally different. They’re, you know, they’re walking through the streets, they’re glued to their phone, they’re bumping into people, they’re dropping, dropping food dropping beverage, and you can see they’re struggling, that can can’t manage it all.

Because suddenly now this thing is like attached to our hands. Especially depending on the generation, you know, I mean, it’s attached to all of us. But then if you drop down into like millennials, and then Gen Z, look at tick tock, they don’t they don’t put it down. Everything’s a moment, everything’s an opportunity to post a video, wherever they are. Which is one good thing we love about this, because it’s very, it’s very, you know, video friendly to show off something that you just found that you just got. And that’s really what happened.

You know, we just kind of saw an opportunity. Later on. Timing is everything. And every I think every inventor and founder will say that. The timing is everything. If your timing is off, you can have the greatest product in the world and wrong timing, lack of success. So I felt like for us, that was it. That was our moment. And that was that I got out of the corporate the whole corporate world after 20 years. And here I am. I’ve been here for the last 10 years. 10 years, we celebrated 10 years, this past August.

 

Curt Anderson  13:30

Well, congratulations 10 years. So I’m gonna I’m gonna hit that for a second. So 20 year corporate warrior, you know, you know, safe dot o safe, secure, you know, paycheck. somebody’s out there. Like, you know that man, I have an entrepreneurial dream. I wish I could get out of corporate or job or what have you. What going back 10 years ago, what was that leap of faith? Scary, exciting. What was that entrepreneurial? Plunge? What did that look like for you?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  13:57

Super scary. I mean, super, truly, because the reason the biggest reason, it’s because you don’t know what you’re doing. And you have no idea where to start? You know, what do I do? Who do I call? Do I go to the you know, you have an idea. So if you have an idea, and you’re out there, and you’re thinking, Well, what do I do first? For me, my first step was a cab ride to the lawyer’s office in rockville center.

Because that’s the first thing I mean, you have to begin protecting yourself. And from there, you learn a whole slew of stuff. I mean, the patent process is crazy in its own right and very expensive. So I didn’t even know what we were doing. But we started there. And then I guess my next thought was, well, you have to learn because you don’t know so you’ve got to start learning. So what do you do surround yourself with the best and the brightest that you can possibly find? Anywhere?

You know, so I’ve just started recruiting people on onto the team, former Pepsi, former coke former employees that were now kind of in advisory consultant roles that I could learn from. And that’s, you know, that’s what I did. And I owe them a debt of gratitude, because I really didn’t know much about food and beverage. You know, I came out of one industry I was in was fashion for 10 years. And then the other industry I got in for 10 years was real estate. So, all I knew about food and beverages that I really liked it. I love food, and I love beverage. But that’s it. I didn’t know I didn’t know, I didn’t know the business.

 

Curt Anderson  15:36

And I love and you didn’t want to go on any more embarrassing dates. Of course, that was another

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  15:42

black guy, you know, I should call him.

 

Nicole Donnelly  15:45

I want to raise that now. Yeah, I was just gonna say like, to me, I think this is a really great example of being confident but also being humble. Because you were confident enough in yourself to say, Hey, I believe in this what I have this vision, but I’m humble enough to ask for help. And I think that like that’s like a really magic combination.

Like, if you’re overly confident, not humble, you can get yourself into real trouble, right? Like, if you don’t know, we’ll stop and ask for help. But then on the other hand, if you’re too humble, you don’t have the confidence to go out there, you’re never gonna get your product out there. So I just think that’s like, such a great example of like being confident, but also being humble and not being afraid to ask for help where you need it. You know,

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  16:21

it’s such a good point, Nicole, really, it’s a good point, because I think you sometimes will come across a founder who’s got all the answers. You know, the answer’s no, at all already. You know exactly how it’s gonna go.

And I don’t think any, I don’t think there’s any chance of that working out in the long run, because there is so much to learn, especially if you’re getting into an industry that you really don’t know, as well as so many other experts will tell you that they know. For me, yeah, I didn’t know. I didn’t know it. And I oder of what I needed to know. So I was humbled. And it was I talked to these people, and I told them the idea. And I said, you know, I’d love for you to join us, and I’m really here to learn from you. And they were amazing. I mean, I learned so much from these people. Yeah,

 

Nicole Donnelly  17:11

and I think you’re never done learning as an entrepreneur, because you’re always having to pivot, right? There’s always something new that you’ve got to figure out, there’s a change and, you know, whatever, you know, how people live, maybe you know, who knows what’s gonna happen with phones in the future, you’re always having to think ahead and like, what do I need to be doing to continue to innovate for my customers, and it just never ends? It’s always the joy of it.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  17:36

It is it is the joy of it. And it’s also you constantly are pivoting. Look at pandemic, you know, we we pivoted many times in the pandemic, we had to, I mean, that’s really what led us you know, talking about ecommerce, I mean, that’s what led us to that door.

Because food service, I mean, everything was kind of up in arms as what are we going to do? So that’s really what started us thinking about b2b e commerce and direct to consumer ecommerce. That’s exactly how we got there. We started realizing that we needed another way to reach b2b customers, we need another way to reach consumers. And, you know, and during the pandemic, and obviously, it’s continued. But online shopping, that was, you know, the boom of everything. food shopping products, that’s all we did all of us, we sat home, and we ordered all day long, you know, spent a fortune that way.

 

Curt Anderson  18:38

So binding so let’s go here. So guys, if you’re just joining us, again, we’re talking about goal lids. You absolutely want to connect with Bonnie on LinkedIn. And I’d love to you know, we’ve got a ton to cover Bonnie, but also you are a fierce marketer videos tic tac, you’re like your opponent and you’re like boots in the streets, getting people to test your product out.

But I just want to show everybody this product, it’s just an amazing product and talk a little bit about we’re going to dig into ecommerce you’re hitting like direct to consumer, b2b, pivoting everything that you’ve talked about, but i just i i I’d be remiss if we didn’t really dig into like what an innovative solution that you’ve provided for like the busy soccer mom hockey mom, whatever, you know, on the run Mom, mom fan, right? And guys, what she’s done is she’s created this cup with this attachment here. But Bonnie just talked about like how just like what does it take to invent this thing?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  19:35

I’m gonna lean over. I’m gonna take one off. You should see what’s going on here in my office. You can see which is a good thing. Yeah. Looking from the ceiling, like everywhere,

 

Curt Anderson  19:52

goes through we’re gonna repeat with your with your you know, whatever food item you have, but this is just such a brilliant, innovative piece. Some of equipment

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  20:07

let’s just say a tower just went over. Looking at me right now, like, what did you just do. So just to be clear for everybody, we don’t make cups. We set on a mission not to make cups. So we’ve never made a cup. We basically we just replace a standard food service cup lid. So this lid and you could see the lid is like engraved. It’s actually a lid engraved into this container. And this lid snaps on in place of the food service cup. And it snaps on the cup and just becomes the lid that holds food. You can close it. Straw goes through the air, like I Kurtz, and then you wind up with this.

 

Nicole Donnelly  20:57

So cool. Now, are there different sizes for different size lids? Or does it there are

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  21:01

so we have we cover like the main industry standard sizes like 20 hours, 24 ounce, 32 ounce 40 ounce, like I drink that drowns you with 711 with the gigantic bank that surrounds your organs, that thing? Yeah, I could i i could never drink one of those. I even 32 ounces.

Like this is a Starbucks trenta. And that’s like 30 ounces of liquid. And that’s it’s still the big drink. It’s a lot. But it’s super popular. That size is probably that’s our best selling sizes, the larger size. And yeah, and you know, it’s funny, because back to like the whole process, it took forever to get here. This thing was not when we started, you know, this is like iteration number 5050.

So this started out this thing was tiny, like I could, I could grab one and show you what it was tiny. It didn’t hold anything. Like nothing fit in this thing. Now this thing holds two hotdogs, but before it didn’t hold, you know, we were still iterating we’re still learning and trying to figure it out. The functionality was off. I mean, we went through years and years and years of struggle and problems. Just the product and manufacturing issues. What did

 

Nicole Donnelly  22:20

you know it reminds me of that movie? Have you seen the movie joy? It’s about that. She She

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  22:27

is really it’s one of my favorite movies come up really

 

Nicole Donnelly  22:30

amazing immediately.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  22:34

Like your joy.

 

Nicole Donnelly  22:35

Yeah, exactly your joy. It’s a story of this woman who created this I don’t know what kind of the name of the I don’t remember the name of the mop but it’s massively

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  22:44

popular magic not that they sold on the 18th and QVC. Yeah, Bradley Cooper was in it. Yep. Every now every time I watch it, I bought crying and I know a lot of people like you cried or enjoy for me I do. Because watching her go through what she went through the struggle trying to figure it out and then she lost all her money. Then standard manufacturer tried to steal her her moles she had to go to Texas and fight this guy to get it back and she lost her house.

She lost her husband like yeah, it is such a true story. It’s about joy Manzano who’s still you know, who’s still inventing and still a genius businesswoman now yeah, I relate to that so much because the struggle is real and a lot of people will look at you and say like 10 years what’s taking so long is that 10 years in the world of an entrepreneur it’s not that long doesn’t it? Doesn’t you know nothing happens in two years three years no way and rare instances but most of the time now it’s like a climb to the top of the hill and it takes forever

 

Nicole Donnelly  24:00

what keeps you going up that hill Bonnie when it’s like really hard and you just get like knocked down and you’re like man knocked

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  24:13

out All right boys, I’m gonna flag this and take it down. Yeah, they might they might. Yeah, she said alcohol she said something unsavory

 

Curt Anderson  24:29

so funny. So let’s go here to the so let’s slide into E commerce and you know, like walk us through like kind of the sales process like who your ideal customer is that you were trying to open up the door to and then like, what was there was there an aha moment?

You know, like COVID Everybody’s gonna ecommerce but what you know, and I remember being in my garage, you and I having a long conversation about ecommerce, like probably three years ago, right? Yeah. It’ll walk us through your so you’ve shared your entrepreneurial story, that leap of faith scary The plunge that you took, let’s go into your ecommerce story now,

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  25:04

the E commerce for us, like I said, during the pandemic, we started with b2b since EDC was an afterthought that did not happen until this past August, even though we were working on it for a year, the b2b occurred. Because what happened was interesting for us, during the pandemic, we were getting a lot of phone calls, a lot of emails from some angry, angry businesses. And we were like, what’s going on, and they were angry, because we only were offering pallets of product. So in order to try new innovative products, we’re saying yes, you have to spend close to $5,000.

That just doesn’t fly. Especially not in an economic moment of turmoil. You know, no one’s they’re just not willing, but they want to try it. And especially for us, this cover, you know, that love, it seals out, you know, all the air, that was really top of mind, it still is top of minds. But that’s a big, big deal through outside, you have your food, you want to protect what you purchased, your family, your kids, and they’re like, we don’t get why can’t we just order a Casio to like, because we’re just not set up for that.

We were not set up for that, because we manufacture out of New York. And that manufacturer, you know, they’re not accustomed, just like the business that they’re in, is a pick and pack. So that led us to the whole three PL world need a three PL and if you want to be in that business, you need a three PL unless you’re gonna do it out of your house, which is insanity, nobody will do that.

So we had to move over inventory over Chicago, get a three PL, that’s a month, month, month long process, I mean, months and months it took to get that done. And we started offering cases. And that made them very happy. Because now instead of saying, want to try our innovation, you know, 1000s and 1000s of dollars, it’s now you can buy as little as one case you can buy. So someone can go onto our site, purchase a case, try it out, if they love it, come back in order more at your own pace.

If they hate it, then don’t ever don’t ever order again, you know, basically taking all the risk out for them. It T risking the offer, which I think is a huge component of all manufacturing, like for all ecommerce. If anything is too scary online, they’re going to run away from it. So we were like, how do we make this as easy and risk free as possible? So what’s their risk here? You know, what are they spending on one case? That’s the total risk?

What that’s a total exposure. It’s nothing. But asking people to spend $5,000 That’s not nothing. Especially for a small business. I mean, we’re not talking, you’re not talking McDonald’s or Dunkin, you know, huge companies that would never order for their business online, talking smaller establishments that have one, two, maybe even 10 or 20 locations. But they’re not, you know, they’re not looking to place an order for a million units. truck over to their, you know, to warehouse, it’s, it’s a different type of business for them.

So that’s what led us then that’s been that’s doing well, I think there’s still a component of how you get found, which is what you do. You know, how do you how do you stop being the best kept secret? How do you make your SEO your show? I watched it the other day with the colon. So great. I mean, I’m not done with you guys. So I’m going to be enlisting you guys that we’re at that point where what do you need help? You know, I do need to find out how to get people to the pink Nike shoe.

You know that Kurt talks about the pink seeker? Yeah. Yeah, you have to figure it out. And it is so hard to do. And with a product like ours, it’s even harder. We’re not a cup, we’re not a lid. There’s not a lot of other companies, you can log on to and find something like this, which is good, but also creates a bit of a sting when it comes to what are they searching for. You know, if you’re searching for something that you don’t know exists, that’s tough. To find a way to like, show up in other people categories,

 

Curt Anderson  29:31

that you know what, and this is a very common problem for our manufacturing space, especially innovators. We’re like, you know, you’re the inventor, you’ve created something new on the market, where it’s like, you know, I’m not typing, running shoes, I’m not typing. You know, pizza, I’m not typing your commodity flowers or whatever it is. I don’t even know that the solution exists.

Honey, you are absolutely amazing with your videos, and you are absolutely not the best kept secret and never lie. tons of wonderful comments this week. People are super fired up to hear your story here today. But just share a little bit of like how you took that plunge. It’s perfect like couple of years ago, you’re like, hey, Kurt, have your daughter check out my tic tac like you’re blown like you had some videos were like literally hundreds of 1000s even like one had, like, was it like 5 million views or something crazy? No, actually

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  30:21

our biggest hit so far. And I posted about this on LinkedIn. About a week and a half ago. Yeah, we have video that hits 33 point 2 million views. 33 million.

 

Curt Anderson  30:31

Wow. So for folks that are new.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  30:35

We have one today that just hit 10 910

 

Curt Anderson  30:38

Oh my god, this is phenomenal. So guys, you you want to check out Bonnie, go to her LinkedIn profile, go to go lids, check out what she is just such an inspirational story here. As you can tell, we’re just talking about like, you know, how you decide to like, collectively intentionally I’m going all in on social your video strategy, let’s let’s go there.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  31:00

I mean, you know, it’s, it’s ever, it’s ever changing. We’re actually in a moment right now where we’re taking a step back looking at it and saying, Okay, gotta switch it up. Because that’s one, that’s one rut that I think everybody gets into marketing. It’s not, it’s not a one size fits all.

And it’s not a forever timeline. So it’s not like, Okay, we figured something out, we’ll just run that for the rest of time. No, it gets stale, it gets boring. People start seeing the same thing over and over, and they get bored, and they tune you out. And especially on Tech Talk, Facebook, Instagram, it needs to be fresh. And I feel like we’re at an inflection point where we’ve been posting a lot of the same stuff.

And yeah, we’ll switch this, we’ll switch that. But I think we have to craft another version of our story. And yet tell the same story, if that makes sense. A new spin and new twist. But yeah, we did go all in on these platforms, because you have to continually stay, you know, top of mind front and center to these consumers to these businesses. And if you, if you fall off the map, you disappear, nificant all about you out of sight, out of mind, I will say that one big component of E commerce and any anyone that’s listening, that’s considering starting to sell, you know, b2b e comm or D to C, it’s tricky.

It’s tricky, you need to use it, and leverage the marketing to get sales, but at the same time, the world we’re living in now, a lot of it has to do with running ads. And I’m not gonna lie, when we launched our direct to consumer packs, I didn’t really know that. I know about ads, of course, but I didn’t know that you need to continuously run ads over and over and over and over.

And it is a lot of money. It’s very expensive. So that’s why good marketing is even needed more than ever. Because if you don’t have that budget, you don’t plan on dropping that kind of money for ads on a monthly basis, then your marketing needs to be good. You know, needs to have videos needs to have, you know, a story that is relatable to the products. Kind of like a warm, you know, a warm story like an entrance into the company to feel like, okay, I can relate to that I can actually they’re speaking my language, I want to know more. And it’s a tough thing to figure out how to do it. It really is.

 

Nicole Donnelly  33:35

Yeah, so tricky on the organic reach on these social platforms, especially Facebook, Instagram, and it’s just going down over time, it’s getting harder and harder to reach organically and increase their ads to get their ad. You know, they want to get people to pay advertising. So it’s kind of sad.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  33:52

Yeah. And Nicole, you know what, that’s a really good point. Not only has the organic reach gone down tremendously, and actually tick tock, they just changed their algorithm to then you know, they, they became a short form, content platform. That’s what they became known for. You could go viral by running a video for seven seconds, and be a viral success.

And that was the beauty of it. That’s what everybody loved about it. And you including companies, now they’ve just made an announcement that they are now prioritizing longer form content. And they are they’re trying to go head to head with YouTube. And for us, we’re like, we’re a bit stuck now on tick tock, because that’s what we do. We do 6789 10 That’s all we need for our videos. And now, you know, they’re kind of like cutting all that short form.

They extended you can now video on there for 10 minutes. Some people not everyone has that feature, but some people do. Yeah. So you know, that’s that’s what like you said Add it’s it’s forever changing, your organic reach is gone down. And then if you have a business account, which of course, ours are all business accounts, yeah, they’re cutting off your reach because they want you to start paying. Yeah, it’s,

 

Nicole Donnelly  35:13

that’s a tricky thing about social is you’re really at the mercy of their algorithm, you don’t have any control over how they’re gonna change. It’s the same thing with Google search the same thing, which is really performed the best for you.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  35:25

Up until, like, now, tick tock. You know, based on the fact that we, you know, we have so many videos that like, 8 million, 9 million, 10 million 12 million. You know, Facebook, it’s rare that you go viral on Facebook, we had a video two months ago, went viral, crazy vine, 10 12 million on Facebook, which is Facebook, you know, their algorithm is very different than Tik Tok.

Rarely do you get picked up like that on a Facebook. So like, it’s hard, I would say for us, the best performing is tick tock, and that’s probably going to change now. That’s a tick tock doesn’t get banned. Let’s not forget the news and the government might not be. And that’s why you really have to diversify the platforms, if you put all your faith in one platform, and the algorithm changes, or the app completely goes away for something like, you know, interference. What do you do? What do you do? A lot of trouble?

 

Nicole Donnelly  36:29

Yeah, I think reinforces how important your owned assets are your website, your email list, like how can you build your email list and build off of that?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  36:37

You know, right. I know that audience, right on the platform. Know, your audience, it’s not their audience, and they pull the plug. Yeah, it’s got it’s

 

Nicole Donnelly  36:49

read this really great book about community led marketing, which kind of is talks a little bit about that, how build your audience on social, but then you’ve got to create your own community that they’re engaging with you. And you see that all the time. But that seems like a good way to safeguard your growth long term is to have those engaged in evangelists that buy your product over and over again, that will be your marketing arm for you.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  37:13

Yeah, and it’s hard to do, you know, especially on a platform like tick tock, you know, the profiles are all kind of hidden. Like Facebook, there’s names and stuff, tick tock. It’s all like you don’t know, you don’t know who the person is. It could be an 18 year old, it could be a 50 year old. So it’s tough. It’s tough to target your followers on a platform like that.

 

Curt Anderson  37:37

So finally, let’s go here. So it guys, if you haven’t checked it out, you have to check out Bonnie’s profile in braid on LinkedIn. You can see a bunch of her videos. If you’re an older guy like me, or like Tic Tac, you know, yes, go on to you know, give a teenager in the house, just have your teenager do it, though they’ll do in about 10 seconds or three seconds for you.

And just you know, what I love is like you really understand your buyer persona, that ideal buyer, Nicole, we love to call them those soulmates, but you have like a hysterical video, woman pulling up to a red light and like she spills everything all over in, in her van and she’s looking at the person next to her and they’re sipping on a gold lids and, you know, funny videos like that one in Texas, you know, the one I’m talking about with those.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  38:21

We had the we had the woman who pulled up next to her. Yeah, I had her. She kind of had her drink and her food. And she saw the woman next to her was like stressed out with the kids. And she was like, cheers, you know? Yeah,

 

Curt Anderson  38:34

absolutely brilliant marketing. So let’s, let’s go there for a little bit. So, you know, we work with a lot of, you know, through the MEP network, we encounter a lot of manufacturers where again, like they’ve solved their own problem. And now they’re the inventor, the innovator, nobody knows that this product exists, they’re not going to google it. But just like you really, I feel like your marketing is bold.

You’re courageous, you’re in the streets talking to strangers, I show you like, as matter of fact, like you’ve been my benchmark for three years, I think every single one of my LinkedIn workshops, has your profile. And now like you’re walking up the streets of people in New York, showing your product, but just talking about like, what’s what’s it take to like have that courageous mark, you know, that courageousness that boldness with your marketing message? And I feel like you really represent that just can you share that for us?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  39:23

Yeah, I think if you have that kind of a product, that you have to find another way to break through, it’s not a traditional, not traditional path, you know, you’ve got this unique product, and it’s something that the world not seen before. So if I find another way, like approach it with people, the people on the street for us. That was our plan, like we did not, that was not I can’t take credit for like that marketing plan.

We just were being approached everywhere we went the airport, the street, anywhere we went inside Starbucks inside, something like that. Inside locations, people tapping on the shoulder and saying, Excuse me, well, what?

What is that? Where’d you get it? And that’s when it dawned on us that I was like, why aren’t we? Why are we capturing these moments? You know, are we using this as leverage for the marketing? That’s how that was hatched? And people were stopping us for a long time, we were just like, Oh, thank you for wanting the light didn’t go off for a while. And I kept like, after all those people, it was like, why are we not taking a hold of this? And we can video them. Don’t get me wrong. 96% of these people, they say no, why?

Not Turn on your camera. But 4% of them say yes. And that turns out to be a lot of people. I can’t leave the house with this in my hands or walk through the street without someone somewhere along the way, saying Excuse me, what is that? You know, we’ve, we’ve cut, we created ruckuses. Inside locations, because there was confusion about if I got it there. Right. You know, how do you explain to someone that it’s mine, but it didn’t get it here? Right? Right. It’s

 

Nicole Donnelly  41:09

like, so cool. It’s like a happy accident, those happy accidents that happen that can help us like, figure out the direction that we need to go.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  41:17

Yeah, and for anyone listening, if you have that kind of a product, if you have a really innovative product, something that is not a commodity, that you can go log on to 10 other companies and find the same thing with a different with a different mousetrap, then you do have to find a way you have to find another way to strike and to the market, whether it’s through consumers, whether it’s whatever the approach is, it’s got to be different. It can’t be a traditional, hire an ad agency, hiring marketing agency, and they’re gonna do what they do for the sneaker company. For you. It won’t work. Right?

 

Nicole Donnelly  41:54

Well, it’s an example of being really really scrappy, like my partner in crime over here is so I love it. Scrap. Yeah,

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  42:03

you got to be scrappy, is the best thing you could be me do what you can with the resources. When I first started, I taught myself how to edit videos. Yeah, I remember blown edit. Like I could take 10 minutes of footage and chop it down to 20 seconds. And that could take me about five minutes.

 

Curt Anderson  42:21

Right? Right. You had it down to a science, right? Yeah. So

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  42:26

I don’t do a ton of it. Now we do have people who help us obviously, I can’t do everything. But I can step in and knowing that is great. Like I can be scrappy, I can step in, in a patch and say you know what, I’ll do it Give it to me, I can edit it.

 

Curt Anderson  42:41

So let’s so let’s go here with E commerce. So again, we’re here to talk about direct to consumer ecommerce b2b e Commerce Guys we’re here with Bonnie Founder CEO of go lids you absent want to check out her website. Any words of wisdom advice, things you would that went really smooth went really well on E commerce things that maybe you would devise and do a little bit differently. So somebody out there starting their ecommerce journey, what would what do you have to share there?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  43:07

Oh, yeah, well, I mean, we’re, like I was saying earlier, you know, we only launched our direct to consumer goal. It’s consumer packs. And if anyone, they’re probably thinking, What is she talking about? They are packs of go lids that snap on all your favorite brands, cups.

So it’s what Kurt has, but they come in a pack of I don’t have the box right in front of me, it’s over there, I would have to get up and go get it. But they come in packs, and they come in small, medium, large, and they snap on everything. Hello. They snap on all your favorite brands. And there’s actually a brand guide tells you exactly what fits on what. But when we launched that, we put these packs out and we did a pack of a pack of 12. Right. And so we were learning Okay, well, is that going to be well received? It is well received. But we also got we learned along the way that a lot of people felt like they didn’t want that many.

Why can I Why can I buy for why can I buy six what can I buy two? So you know, that’s one main thing we learned is get the offer right? Hmm. I think the feedback we were getting a lot of the feedback was it’s kind of cold. It’s not a warm offer. It’s not inviting. You like it by you know, in their minds. I guess they were we were pushing a family pack. You know, why don’t we need 12 they’re reusable. You can wash them out there so rock solid. I mean you have one with you. Yep. How long have you had that?

 

Curt Anderson  44:36

You sent you send these out to Damon to myself probably two, two and a half years ago Right? So it’s in perfect condition guys. And again, like I somebody just typed in guys, thank you for joining us here today. So for demo. So if you take your sandwich, take a doughnut hotdog, whatever. And what you do is you pop it in here I’ve taken a separate lid and as Bonnie said she doesn’t manufacture the cup, but this is fully recycled plastic. She Has it, you know, extremely cost effective.

And so you can put your sandwich in here. Now you’re driving, you’re at the movie, you’re at the ballgame, wherever you’re at. And it’s just, it’s one is Bonnie was describing, if you miss it earlier, I’m on my phone here. And I’m just kind of like enjoying my refreshment over here. So just genius innovation here, Apple, love what you’ve done. Finally, just talk about the sustainability. And I know we’d like you shared with me, like, it took you quite a while to get this little look at the new straw comes through here, where it doesn’t impede my sandwich. So I get I can put it right in the cupholder of my vehicle.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  45:34

You know, you can it’s got all these great features over time that we that we added, which really make it user friendly, like you can lock it up. Yep. You know? This is my, this is my little girl is prop today. Yeah, I don’t know, I couldn’t find anything. I was like, What do I throw in there,

 

Curt Anderson  45:54

I’m just gonna throw my power bar there.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  45:57

All the time, I’ll go to the car, I’ll throw like protein bars on top, because it’s just, uh, we always say it’s just a convenience vehicle, you know, the vessel to put anything you want put food salad, healthy foods, they go, it holds more than it looks like, that holds a lot of good. And then he could lock you know, it’s got a lock in the front. You know, so it doesn’t like go flinging open.

And, yeah, I mean, it over time emerged into like this really convenient vehicle. But the whole back to the whole direct direct to consumer, we’re learning as we go, we did add a four pack. Now, instead of just a 12 pack. But you know, I think you also learn that you have to take everything that you hear with a grain of salt, and it is not all gospel. And what I mean by that is consumers will complain, and they will request different things. But at the end of the day, like in our case, we added the four pack, it took us a month and a half to put this together.

Not easy, you know, you gotta get back to the three PL they have to start kidding different sizes. And guess what, we’re still selling more of the larger pack than we are of the four pack. Right? So we, we grabbed on to that consumer feedback, like it was, you know, a religion. Turns out that it just, it’s a lot of complaining, but they’re still buying the larger packs. Right. So I think it’s important to take what you hear, you know, they’re always gonna say something and you have to kind of decipher, what does that really mean?

 

Curt Anderson  47:32

You know, that’s a phenomenal point. And I’m a big history buff, and Nicole and I were big history buffs. And I know like, you know, Steve Jobs always says, like, you know, like, he almost says, like, you don’t listen to the customer. Right? That, you know, I guess, you know, he was a bit of an anomaly. But even like Henry Ford with the famous, you know, boy, if I listened my customer, I would have just delivered faster horses, you know. So you’re, it’s hard finding that balance of like, where do you like, really dig deep and understand the customer and salt?

Because that’s exactly what you did is you solved your own problem from your movie theater story, which is now hysterical. You know, but how many moms, dads, kids, whatever been in that position that we need your solution? But like you said, it’s like, where do you find that fine line of like, Wow, maybe I know, not necessarily better than the customer. But I’m going to stick with what I’m, you know, like the 12 pack versus the four pack. So that is that it does become challenging finding that balance, right.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  48:26

Yeah, it does. And you have to get you have to manage how, how many hoops you’re willing to jump through? Right. You know, and is it worth doing? Right? You know, when we got the feedback I was ago, you know, yes, right. Right. Hi, everyone wanting in a million directions to make sure that we had a four pack. We need to get it up. We need to get it up. And now that it’s up on the site. Still not not that popular?

 

Curt Anderson  48:55

Sometimes you overreact. Right. So I don’t worry. I know, man, by the Unite like is when I went by when we talked on the phone, it’s like I looked down and I got so like an hour goes by like that. So we just love to geek out. And I want to be mindful of time here.

But as we start coming down, we’ve talked a lot about direct to consumer ecommerce, you really you know, you’re in a b2b play, you’re attacking like 711 types, you know, franchises, you know, folks that would use your product as an add on, talk about a little bit about your b2b side of things for anybody out there that’s like, hey, they’re an inventor, you know, what does that look like? Or b2b e commerce specifically? What’s that journey look like for you?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  49:33

I tell them either b2b e comm or b2b Just in general.

 

Curt Anderson  49:36

It looks looks at both Let’s start b2b Generally, and then let’s dive right into the b2b e commerce

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  49:41

b2b generally. You really I think the best thing you need to do the smartest thing to do is kind of narrow into where do you Where does the product fit? Like, where does it really belong? Because one thing that we learned early on is you just can’t Start, like dialing for dollars and calling, calling 100 Different companies, you know, it’s not a good strategy, you want to put together a shortlist of kind of hero customers that you think you can deliver massive value to.

And those the ones who want to go, you know, those are the ones you want to go to. It’s kind of, even if it’s a real shortlist, like I would say, put together a list of 10 Hero customers. And then I would chop that down, like you’re at some kind of a beauty pageant, you know, like you, you start with 10 and then go down to like the finalists, and chop it further, keep researching, keep researching and go down and knock it down to four.

Or, and even let me tell you, even for b2b, well crafted pitches are full of information that are worthy of being seen by an executive, all those companies, that’s all work is a lot of work. So you might think, Oh, 10, that’s not a big deal. 10, massive deal, I would start with four. So it’s not so mind blowing. And kind of take your team, whoever surround you, and dive in, start, you know, make sure you’re ready. We could spread this one all day long.

You’re talking about being ready all day. Because when we, we won’t get into that. But when we first started our first patrons to one of the biggest beverage brands in the world, and we were not ready, but we took something on that did not work out. And it’s all fine. That’s part of the process. You know, failure is part of the process. So but yes, maybe you’re ready before you go swinging for the hills. And then when you are ready, you know, break it down and take it piece by piece. You know, I’m a big fan of, kind of, I’m not a big fan of like the whole email, lengthy sales pitch because they don’t stop coming.

And they’re they’re rarely well received. Not because maybe what you said isn’t great. It’s just because there’s just too many. Right? I’m sure you guys can relate to this. I mean, I get I get 30 emails a day, pitching different services, and they all blend together. So I don’t know, I like the old fashioned approach. Some might say, I don’t agree. But I still think picking up the phone and trying to connect on a more personal level. Or send a handwritten letter. Yeah, old school was a pen, pens and pencils. They’re still very popular world. Yes, the phone works. There’s nothing

 

Nicole Donnelly  52:45

out there really isn’t. I cherish all the handwritten notes I’ve gotten from clients and partners. And you know, you

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  52:53

there’s something too, when you get a handwritten note, from a if I’ve gotten handwritten notes from my customer, or your customer, there’s something about that, you opened it up, that person took the time. And so I think if you can find a way to connect with any of these executives and these companies that you want to get into try and do something anti digital, honestly, they will appreciate the anti digital approach, because so few go down that path. You know, you want to do something digital.

What I also liked I love this approach, because everybody sends the email and it’s like, Oh, more emails in my inbox more work for me to take through. Everybody loves to send the LinkedIn notes. DMS. Don’t do that. Don’t ever send a LinkedIn DM to a major executive.

 

Curt Anderson  53:45

Body. But you get you have to explain to everybody you know what’s the famous line on LinkedIn that you shouldn’t use? Can you please share with everybody?

 

Nicole Donnelly  54:01

How can I help you?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  54:07

Can I help you? Now let me explain to your audience might happen will help you sucks. It is not good. When people hear how can I help you? You know they hear? How can you help you? Help me to your wallet. How can I help myself to your project? Oh my god. We were wondering we’d love to know how we can help you know, you’re asking how you can help you. Just you self.

Help yourself. Hell give yourself a hand because honestly, it’s a bad thing Try saying this phrase, how can I help you till the beginning of time? Forever? It’s never well received. No one ever thinks you’re actually. Right. So, today instead Oh my god. How can we get involved? No, we love what you’re doing over at Nicole and Kurt’s place. How can we get involved in that project? We have something we can offer value to the project. Instead of how can I help you today? How can I be

 

Nicole Donnelly  55:42

more transparent? Right, like, how can I help?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  55:47

Sensitive? Yeah, you know, how can I help you today?

 

Curt Anderson  55:52

So, Bonnie, Bonnie introduced that to me a few years ago. And I kills me every time you do that. But you could be a stand up, I told him to call I go Nicole, wait to meet Bonnie. She, she missed her calling.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  56:10

But when I as if as an entrepreneur, I will say this, if you don’t laugh, then you will cry. I cry a lot. I’m not gonna say that. I don’t cry. But the best, best thing to not cry would be to laugh as much as humanly possible. Right.

 

Curt Anderson  56:27

And so I, Nicole, and honestly, if you go into my like, I have my Google Slides. I have like every LinkedIn workshop that I’ve ever done in person, since I’ve met Bonnie, and she is she’s I feature her every single time. And for a while I had I had a slide, can I help you? And it was an I would I would recite Bonnie’s routine about like, How can I help you is basically how can you help me? You know, it’s just reverse? And I don’t do I have this funny as body does?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  56:57

Help me, help me. Help me help you. Help me,

 

Curt Anderson  57:07

help me help me. So all right. So we’re coming.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  57:11

I didn’t finish telling you my last bit of advice. Like if you want to reach out for a b2b for an idea, then send a video send a personal video to the email to the executive you want to

 

Nicole Donnelly  57:28

Yeah, and you can do like there’s Vinyard is free you can get

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  57:33

that one thing for sure you have to stand out. Because you have to know that there’s 50 Other companies right trying to get in the door just like you’re right.

 

Nicole Donnelly  57:43

Yeah. And if you like I just think about for myself, I hate getting those cold emails in my inbox. I never read them. I just roll like if I hate it that everyone like you know what I mean? What do you think about

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  57:55

such it’s so dinosaur that approach that you’ve got to find it you’ve got to find another way to break through honestly get in your car and drive to headquarters parking lot will be less scary than the amount of emails that come through everyday

 

Curt Anderson  58:11

walking with a pizza or something you’ll be be creative, you know, do something

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  58:15

back in the day when we started we had a whole plan I’m not going to mention to the company that we were going to do this to but we were going to send their their beverage that all their products with golod snapped on top a huge tray of them with names went on to be handed out. But as we dug a little deeper, we found out that that probably wouldn’t get past security.

 

Curt Anderson  58:38

Yeah. So that’s another note so I Bonnie we’re coming into an hour I want to be respectful of everybody’s time here and I want to be respectful of your time. So a couple of things I want to recap it was critical you talked about you know that product market fit, making your customer hero you know our friend Allison afford that’s a great line of furs. You know how to use your line.

How do you have you know, anti digital I just I think that was absolutely brilliant you talked about you know doing you know as you’re saying go out get your now that COVID hopefully is going away go make that visit the handwritten note just so much value today. Tom so many great tips strategies helped me help me that was that is over. That is forever in my heart I love when you do your routine on that one.

So as we wind down we’re going to close things out. My last question for you we talked about Annie was your hero as a little girl though you were never really little right at 10 but his little girl and he was your hero coming in. We just finished the quarter take you guys believe that today. We’re like finishing the quarter first. Coming into two q who or what is your inspiration moving forward who or what is your inspiration for you go lids? What’s that look like?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:00:00

Who or what

 

Curt Anderson  1:00:01

is your inspiration?

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:00:05

I would have to say that people that surround me nice. Oh, yeah, that’s the truth. Because, you know, I say this all the time no one does anything on their own. No,

 

Curt Anderson  1:00:16

you just, you just post it on LinkedIn yesterday, I think that you are this is

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:00:21

true. You see all these stories and you look around and it looks as if you know, one person or one this one that and it’s not. There’s so many behind the scenes that aren’t getting credit for everything, including the pose, including the creative, including the copy, including the picture or the video that was done. So yeah, that’s where the inspiration comes from. It’s the people that surround you. Those are the people that make you that make it great. You know.

 

Curt Anderson  1:00:52

There are multiple multiple drop the mic moments here today, there always is when Bonnie’s on has the mic. So Bonnie, thank you. Thank you for the bond, my heart. Thank you for your relentlessness, your inspiration. And again please connect with Bonnie on LinkedIn you you’ll thank us later, Nicole parting thoughts words of wisdom and he’s like again, we need to give a shout out to Damon Damon hopefully you caught this time when you Damon we missed your Damon so Nicole, any any parting thoughts that you want to share?

 

Nicole Donnelly  1:01:23

I just think Bonnie, you’re just a tremendous inspiration not to everyone but to women of just like fears, tenacity and just perseverance and I just really admire that and the other day, I had a post about you know, what is your spirit animal? I would love to end by you telling everyone what your spirit animal is. Because I think it’s amazing. And I would love to for you to share.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:01:49

I said that my spirit animal would be a golden retriever mixed with a pitbull. No, I didn’t know I said I didn’t. Actually I said golden retriever and a bull in a china shop. And everything I just think

 

Nicole Donnelly  1:02:06

that is just such a magic combo and it is so true about you just

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:02:10

is like the the empathetic big hearted. And that I really am. But then on the Chinese pop is the other side of me which is charged through and knocking everything over in my wig trying to get where I want to get. That’s right. Yeah, so I think the head of a golden retriever. It’s very strange looking.

 

Nicole Donnelly  1:02:37

I challenge everyone to channel Barney, you know, be that bull in a china shop. But also make sure you have that heart to lead the way you know, I think that’s really cool.

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:02:47

And really truthful because you can’t you gotta people in the china shop. If you want to make it as an entrepreneur and you have an idea. You’ve got to be that person. But you can’t do it if you’re a jerk. So you got to be a nice person you got to be kind you got to have empathy and you got to be a good leader. So you got to you got to find a way to be the nice bull not the one that hurts people you know

 

Curt Anderson  1:03:12

Hey, so on that note body again guys have Nicole have a huge round of applause for me for just absolutely crushing

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:03:24

you guys too. Thank you for having me so much fun as always.

 

Curt Anderson  1:03:26

Thank you body and soul guys parting thoughts have an amazing safe, incredible weekend. And two things. Words of wisdom from body. Get involved. Don’t ask how you can help how can you get involved number one number two, man just be someone’s inspiration. Bonnie was just such a wealth of inspiration for us today. Be somebody’s inspiration. Bonnie, hang out with us for one second. guys have a great weekend. And you know what are taking a week off next week, little spring break. And so one footnote

 

Bonnie Sussman Strominger  1:03:56

if anyone here if anyone watching is like oh, I want to get the you know the consumer pack. Go to my profile. There’s actually a link in my profile. It says go live consumer packs will bring you right to the landing page.

 

Curt Anderson  1:04:07

Cool. So All right, guys, have a great weekend. We’ll see you bye bye

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