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Legacy Brand Growth: Modernizing Natural Foods Through E-Commerce with Mitchell Hagan · The Growth Class with Phil Masiello

• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everybody and welcome back to the Growth Class.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Phil Massiolo, and today we're diving deep into the intersection of health, legacy brand acquisition, and modern direct-to-consumer scaling.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: My guest today is Mitchell Higgin, the CEO and president of Country Life Natural Foods.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: But Mitchell's story is sort of fascinating because before he took the helm of Country Life, a trusted name in the decades of history in the organic, non-GMO, plant-based space, Mitchell spent his career as a healthcare administrator within Adventist hospital systems.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: That background gave him a unique clinical lens on human health and wellness long before he ever stepped into the e-commerce and retail supply chain space.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: He acquired the company.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so he's been bringing traditional health principles with aggressive digital growth, omnichannel marketing strategy, scaling a massive product catalog for a modern modern audience, all while staying true to the brand's deep-rooted mission, service, and wholesome living.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to talk about transitioning from healthcare administration to running a major national food brand and then the mechanics of scaling a legacy e-commerce business and how to build authentic customer retention in a noisy digital world.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Mitchell, thank you for taking the time to come on, and uh we really appreciate you sharing with us today.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's so great to get to join and and uh yeah, share about, like you said, a big transition from hospital administration to run a health food business, how we can keep people well and and uh still provide good products and get better products to people.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: So why don't you give us a little bit of uh uh of insight into that um background and how you went and how you made the leap and what was what did you see in country life bef to make that acquisition?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think from working in a hospital, hospitals are great.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: We need great hospitals, but they're really there to treat people when they're sick.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: So when they're not feeling well, you go to the hospital and things.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I was like, well, how can we help keep people well?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the key things is diet.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like what you put into your body is what you're gonna get out of it.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um and so yeah, from working in in hospital administration, um, some friends reached out, they're helping running this business, Country Life Natural Foods, and so I was able to go go join and is able to end up buying the business, really with the goal of how we can continue to keep people well.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and so really what we focus on is natural foods.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: We work with farmers all across America to get grains, beans, nuts, dried fruits, and we ship all across the US and Canada um to make it easy.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: How do we make it easy for people to eat to get healthy foods and then um and eat healthy foods?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have easy meals that make it simpler, but also a lot of our customer bases, people like to cook at home.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: So it's people that they they say, Hey, I'm gonna take a little bit of time cook cooking good food, um, but then you save a lot of time not being in the hospital and and have energy later on in life that that enables um Yeah, yeah, just the the wellness aspect of of a good diet.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: So um, but what did you see and how did you get involved with country life from from from that whole thing?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, how did you uh yeah, where did that come out of?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: So country life natural foods been around since the 1960s.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was a a kid, I lived in North Carolina, um, the Country Life Natural Foods, they used to drive a truck down um to where we were.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so my mom would say, Oh, we're gonna go get some products.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: We meet the truck at like a parking lot.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and so uh we'd go out there and they'd deliver all kinds of food to different customers that were at that stop.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and people used to call in to do your orders.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um and but now with this whole the pivot from uh how people used to order back in the 80s and 90s to e-commerce, whoa, what a what a big shift.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I feel like there's so much potential there to take an old and existing business model that has a legacy, a history, um, but really bring it into the the modern age.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're in an AI uh space with agentic commerce and all these these different things.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: But how do we keep foods that have helped nourish people for uh thousands of years?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, grains, beans, nuts, um seeds, uh, but bring it in in a way that it makes it super accessible and super convenient too.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what we're all about.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: How do we make it convenient where it just shows up right to your door and and you don't have to think the ordering process is just really seamless.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and and educational too.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things we do is we provide all kinds of uh recipes on our site.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: So people that maybe are just coming into hey, I've been eating a lot of processed foods, but I want to eat more natural.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, trying to make that that transition easy and simple.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's something we've we've developed our website, countrylifefoods.com.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone can go there.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't cost anything to use our recipes and and to look at them.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, yeah, just sort of trying to do the end-to-end uh process and in and making healthy eating simple and easy.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: So how how much of your business is e-commerce versus how much is retail?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, so our business is about 97% e-commerce.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so we do have a retail store.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you're ever in the small town of Pullman, Michigan, that's where we're based.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we have a nice store.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's out in the country, it truly is country life.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we do have, yeah, customers that come into our resale store, but but majority of what we do is we're able to ship all across the United States.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: But don't you sell to other retailers to sell your products?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: I also do.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we do direct to consumer, but we also do business to business.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so there's a lot of health food stores um that order from us, uh, bakeries, food producers, because where we come in is we're working directly with farmers.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: So we are working with farmers that grow beans here in Michigan or cranberries or um raisins in California and almonds from California.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're working directly with growers um that enable health food stores um to be able to order order through us, and we're able to um get it to them.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they don't want a whole truckload of raisins, they just want uh half a pallet of them.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we're able to help um yeah fill those um those needs as well.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: So how are you finding uh eat the e-commerce environment in today's world?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: It is amazing.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is ever changing.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's the amazing thing about it.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: But what we've been able to do, I mean, with AI now, like we can make changes to our website in in real time almost for things that used to take months or uh to to build out, and now a couple days or sometimes even a couple of hours.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's amazing, I mean, how quick things are changing and and um how we gotta sort of stay up.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: What is what is the latest trends um to to make an e-commerce business that can really deliver just an awesome customer experience, but also be profitable and and so we can continue to invest in further growth so we can ultimately serve more customers and build ourselves into more of a national presence, a national brand, and really a leader in the space.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: What about I mean, uh obviously you you have strong retention, you have people that come back, but what about the acquisition of new customers in in this world today?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because uh it's getting the market's crowded, there's a million people out there making the same types of claims about, you know, we work with farmers, we bring in products.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: How do you really uh differentiate it and keep it, keep that acquisition cost low because your your first acquisition cost's got to be fairly high for a new customer.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, yeah, the acquisition cost is a is uh a big thing.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so where we try to, I mean, we so we run Google Ads, we run um other marketing things.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, one of the things we do is that something we we we're doing for a long time, we stopped for a little bit, was a physical catalog.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: So who does physical catalogs nowadays?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we we it on our data, it shows that it really actually is really helpful and people because we carry close to 2,000 different products.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's hard on a website to really be able to see, hey, what are all 2,000 things?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of our legacy, our customer, they they appreciate physical catalogs every year.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: We do our, hey, what's our catalog?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: We we still send that out.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but what we've seen is the best acquisition channel is deliver an awesome customer experience to someone where they can't help but share it with their friends.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Where they're like, Sally, I've got to let you know about this brand I found, Country Life Natural Foods.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is just so amazing.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: They have all the things you want and they make it so easy.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's been probably our best acquisition channel is the classic word of mouth.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't cost you, it costs us really anything other than the investments it takes to deliver an awesome customer experience, which we want to do anyways.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's been one of our biggest growth avenues is just delivering a great customer experience where people can't help but share it with others, where they're like, I'm my neighbors have got to learn about country life because they're missing out.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're not um yeah, ordering from them.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: So do you do you have a program where you maybe uh incentify your existing customers to get their to to to get friends and family or you know uh into the pro in into the product or you just hope that they do have a a system.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: So people, yeah, that are customers of Country Life Attributes, they get um we have awards points or really cash back system.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yes, so people that they refer their friends, they can get cash back on their future orders at Country Life.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: So hopefully it's a win-win where they're like, hey, I've double share this with a friend, so it's a great experience.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: But then they also get um some reward too because hey, it saved us on the advertising cost.
• 10:26
  unknown: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: It saves us uh customer acquisition cost today in I mean, in most channels is is north of$40 or$50, you know.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it it really depends on uh what your average sale is and then what your long-term value is and um what you re which is affected by your retention rate.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: So the retention of existing customers is probably one of the best investments.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then the second best investment is is getting them to, like you said, getting them to bring in other customers, even if that costs you$10,$15.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I think that there's a lot of e-commerce companies out there that don't think about that as much.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but that is the cheapest way to do it.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because trying to uh we sp we spend so many, so much time, we spend so much time trying to talk uh a lot of our clients out of spending money on ads because ads are so expensive.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care where you're doing them.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: You can do them on demand side platforms, Google.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: We do a lot of connected TV advertising, we can do localized connected TV advertising, we can go down to a zip code.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, you know, your best uh your best return is your existing customers, right?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Harvesting your email list constantly, making sure that you're you're handling the existing customers and then getting them to bring in new customers.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: All that.
• 11:52
  unknown: Yeah.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And what we see from the the data is people that come in from word of mouth, they're much more likely to stay around because they're they're getting their information from someone they trust.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's their family member or their neighbor or something.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think what whereas with digital ads, maybe they border once, then we we don't I mean we try to do email marketing and and um but but yeah, word of mouth has definitely been our best acquisition channel, and so we're trying to figure out ways, hey, how do you just continue to deliver an awesome customer experience where people want to share?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then like you said, rewarding people for for bringing on good friends.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no question about it.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then um so but but you're obviously in a crowded uh today, in today's world, you're in a crowded uh market, right?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because you've got Whole Foods everywhere, and you've got natural food stores everywhere, you've got natural food brands everywhere, uh you know, every supermarket today is putting in natural food aisles and things like that.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: So you you've got this competition out there.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um how do you you know what's your point of difference?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Is it just better service, better quality?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I one of the things we've done is we've been intentional on crafting our product selection.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so everything we carry is plant-based and everything we carry is non-GMO.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we carry a wide array of organic options as well.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of the products we carry are ones that are hard to find.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're probably not gonna find that you're just your grocery store down the road.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're able to sort of get ourselves in more of a somewhat specialty uh space.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: But then also, like you said, I mean, there's a lot of players in the national natural foods space, and I mean there's Amazon, there's Costco, there's all these huge brands um that that have a presence in in the space.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so we just try to really double down on how do you deliver awesome convenience where the website's easy to use, it's you to order it, it shows up at your door.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then also competitive pricing.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we we try to cut out the middlemen so we can have some of the most competitive pricing out there um uh for people.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And and so um, while also delivering just a really good customer experience, um, where we have all if something did go wrong with your order or something, we have in-house, US-based, um, right here in Michigan, right in our office, customer support that will, hey, help guide anyone through the buying process or um there was an issue with an order.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, I think that's what helps build customer loyalty too, is if sometimes things are out of our control.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, we ship a box with FedEx, somehow they lose it or gets damaged, then what do we do to help make that customer right, make that customer whole?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's how you build just long-term customer loyalty is sometimes when things go don't go right, but how you take care of someone in that process.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's what helps you just make them want to come back and say, hey, if something does go wrong, I know this brand, this company, they're gonna take care of me.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Something always goes wrong.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can't say nothing's gonna go wrong.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Something's always gonna go wrong.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the question becomes, how do you handle it?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: What we found, and and I've been in e-commerce since you know 1999, you what we found with customers is as long as you explain it to them, as long as you communicate with them, they're fine.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you say, hey, this went wrong, this is what we're doing about it, then they feel better.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's when you don't respond, they don't know what's happening, you just sort of put them through the ringer of, you know, well, we have this chat bot, go through the chat bot, the chat bot just goes in a big circle and customers get frustrated, then that's when things get uh hairy.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: But as long as you communicate with your customers about every single thing, that's that's when you're in uh they consider that to be good customer service.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Something's gonna go wrong in a Costco, something goes wrong in a Whole Foods, something's gonna go wrong everywhere.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: I've never seen I have never seen a business where everything goes right a hundred percent of the time, every day.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: It just doesn't it doesn't happen.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: So having a good process in place to take care of people when something does go wrong, it goes a long way.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: So so what's uh what's your plan for growth?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: So yes, our plan for growth.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: We um so currently we're we're f we are shipping all of our orders out from our facility in Michigan.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we are so we're looking, we're gonna be opening a second location in uh I Idaho, Boise, Idaho, um area at the end of next year to just help us deliver a quicker transit times to customers all across the United States.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um along with we're gonna be doing a uh sort of piloting a new retail experience.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it's gonna be like a a bulk food store, um, sort of like a shoppable warehouse.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um where because currently here in Michigan we have about a 35,000 35,000, 40,000 square foot um warehouse where we do all our order fulfillment and everything.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna be piling a new location where it's gonna be a sort of a shoppable warehouse.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: So think of um sort of like a Costco uh Sam's Club meets Home Depot type type thing.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um but for really natural bulk foods.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things we do is um like wheat berries and oats and and beans, we we not only do small sizes, we also do bulk sizes.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's for families that like to cook at home a lot and like certain ingredients, but also for business customers and and and things as well.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one of the things we have in the pipeline to help us just speed up delivery time to um all over the U.S.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: But then also for locally um piloting that retail experience with a whole with a goal of expanding it to all different markets across the U.S.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's that new um I I'm trying to uh remember the name of it.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's uh it's actually a franchise um that has like uh I don't want there's they're sort of small uh stores, but it uh what's it called?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: BD Provisions or uh the source.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're familiar with those?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um where you know it's sort of bulk natural foods.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: But the the problem I see, which I've always seen, you know.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Let me take a step back.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what in when you got when you have like a Whole Foods, right, you've got the perimeter or a supermarket, any supermarket, any retailer, you've got the perimeter, which is always exciting, right?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: People go in there, you've got people manning the stations, you got display cases, everything's beautiful, and and then you sort of get into the center store and it's sort of boring, right?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, when early on before we we uh long story about how this is how we got into uh building a beauty brand, but I met this guy and he was making all these beautiful natural products, natural soaps and and and things like this.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: And he was trying to get it into retailers and I and he was making beautiful wheels of soap and and squares of soap, and they were gorgeous, and he had like, you know, herbs and and flowers in in them, and they they really looked beautiful.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: And we went to Whole Foods with it, and he was trying to just sell bulk soap, and I said, why don't we take a table, just like the cheese department, where they always have a wheel of parmesan and they have it all cut up.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: I said, why don't we do that in the in the in the soap aisle?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we did it, and it went over really well, and he wound up getting into Whole Foods nationally, and it was you know, it was great for him.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I always and I I went into this um BD Foods provision store, which there's one, and it and I walked in and it just looked so boring to me.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think if you're gonna have like a retail experience, like Costco, the thing that people love about Costco is the center, which is sort of a uh, you know, a treasure hunt, and then you've got the perimeter where you've always got people sampling and talking, you know?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so I oh I often wonder like, how do you bring that to a smaller environment?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're not going to build a warehouse.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe you are, but you know, it'd be pretty hard to stock that.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: But um you'd have to have a lot of volume for that, but unless you use that as your warehouse and your store.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: But uh how do you bring that?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: How do you bring life into that environment, you know?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: How do you how do you make it where it's just an enjoyable experience?
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're trying to figure all that out because we are gonna make it a sort of a hybrid of a fulfillment center and shoppable warehouse.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it's gonna be a mix of of things with associates that are pulling orders for online orders, but also knowledgeable on the products.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: So they can help people in store if they have a question.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, how do you cook, how should I cook my these garbanzo beans?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they can helpfully be knowledgeable uh on on the products.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: So helping the shopping experience, but also, like you said, how do you make it so it's not just just a dry environment, but how do you make it a little bit lively and and um that's awesome, though you shared about that the gentleman at Whole Foods with the soap aisle and having a cart there.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you have to do creative things um to make it memorable.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like how do you make it memorable too?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And and so, yeah.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I got I I had a um I had retail stores in Washington, D.C.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and which we built one of the first uh meal sites online.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, actually, probably was the first meal site because nobody was doing it.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: I had these retail stores.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: We were selling grab and go meals and food and things.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I thought, I wonder if you could sell food online.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Stupid me.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: And this was back in you know 1999.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we did.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: We got it off the ground, but it was just way premature.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: We did sales, we did about a million dollars in sales in the first year, but I mean it was so Difficult and just the supply chain wasn't built out.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll never forget, like we built five stores on our own, and then we we wanted to raise capital to make an acquisition.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: And uh everybody was coming to us.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Now the stores had great top-line sales and they had great profit.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: And all anybody wanted to talk about was this website.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sitting there going, dudes, this website I'm about to shut down.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm losing money on it every month, and and you know, I don't see any end in sight.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, no, no, no, that's gonna be the future.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, and it wasn't, but uh, we wound up, and long story short, we wound up getting acquired by a major supermarket chain.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: And they wanted the website at the time, nobody really understood websites.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: They wanted the website to turn into their shop at home uh business, right?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I I wound up going to work for them.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I I was amazed at how poorly run the supermarket business was.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I used to sit there going, you know, it's the your focus is all wrong.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're you're not focused on customers, you're focused on transactions, you're focused on average sale, you're not focused on how am I building customers, am I growing customers, am I retaining customers?
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, they used to look at me like I had three heads.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it was a very frustrating experience for me.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I I you know looked at retail after that experience.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: I looked at retail in a different way.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: And we've helped a lot of brands that work with us get into retail and do it in a better way.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I ourselves, when we did, we had a beauty brand that we built that wound up in, you know, Sephora and Ultra Beauty and Shoppers Drug Mart and all it was worldwide.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, we wound up in the shaving business and did it.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I saw retail from two different perspectives.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: But but you're 100% right.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you have to get people to come into your store and want to be in your store.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: You have to make it so that they want to spend time in there.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't know if you've if you've ever heard of Wegmans supermarkets, um, but in New York State, if you ever go to a Wegmans, they're they're they're down, I don't know if they're as far west as you, but they're they're definitely in Pennsylvania.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just it's exciting for people.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: The average supermarket in the country is doing, I think,$420,000 a week.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: Wegmans does$2.3 million.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: And they're big stores, but people love the shopping experience because it's every single thing they do makes it sort of exciting.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: Even the dairy aisle, which is boring, right, for most supermarkets.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, that's just not to go off on a tangent, but I always think about, you know, how are you gonna make it how you're gonna make something that's boring exciting for people?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it'll be an interesting pivot because currently we are very predominantly e-commerce.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and we continue to try want to continue to grow in the e-commerce space.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: But seeing, like you said, can we take e-commerce knowledge and apply it to retail?
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Many people have most people are going, I've gone the other way.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, they were brick and mortar store and now they're doing e-commerce.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but sort of taking an e-commerce store and then turning into retail.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, it's we're excited about it and um we're still trying to, yeah, uh think through exactly how the rollout's gonna work.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, it's exciting to to figure out how do you take best practices and principles from both.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot we can learn from historical retail brands, um, but also take e-commerce knowledge.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think I always thought about like, you know, looking at uh a somebody like nuts.com, right?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: Which I think does a really good job on the e-commerce side.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh as a consumer of uh at nuts.com and and also I like their I love their website.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think they make it sort of exciting to shop on the website.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's another thing.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: I can't stand boring websites.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and we build them.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we build them for people because that's what they want, but we try and get them to think about it differently and think about it, you know, almost as a store.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm walking into a store, what am I gonna do?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: And today I think with AI, you were talking about having so many items, you know, and having to do the catalog.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, today I think with AI and the ability to have a uh sort of a guided, what are you looking for?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like what are you what are you looking for?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: And almost I don't want to say chatbot because I can't stand that word, but it's more like a guided shopping tour.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because we have we have a sign company, for example, that makes outdoor signs and they have, you know, probably a thousand different signs, and then they c it comes in twenty different colors and five different sizes.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh how do you handle that, right, for a consumer and not make it so that you wind up with the um uh paradox of choice where people just get overwhelmed and walk away.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, not that I want to go off on a tangent.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Just things to do.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, how do you make it an easy shopping experience?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: We on our website we do have like a yeah, AI guided uh shopping concierge, so we call it.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, to help people with that buying process where you can you can um ask it questions and and learn product information.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: How do we make it our site educational along with hey, you can get products there, and that's the a core part of it, but also educational on on that?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: How do you cook things and how do you what are the nutrition benefits?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: What what are the best things to combine with with with with different aspects?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Really look at health holistically.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: How do we not just look at um really high quality products which you want to do, but how do we look at the wellness process like what we started off with?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, transitioning from hospitals to running a a a food brand to help with people have good diets.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: How can we be um a leader in that whole space is something we're we're looking for as well.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, great.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, any last minute thoughts?
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh how do people find you?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh how do people, you know, get involved?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: So our website's country lifefoods.com for check us out there.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, if you or your family do any cooking at home, check it out.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: All kinds of good resources for really good ingredients.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, because we're all about how can we make it easy for people to eat health uh eat healthy at home.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so um check us out there.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but also it's just amazing.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you, Phil, for all you're doing to help have these conversations with people, all these different um founders and leaders and the organizations.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because hey, we're all here trying to build build great brands and learn uh the the best practices on different things.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: No one, if you someone says, hey, I've got it all figured out, they don't know what they're talking about because uh we're learning, uh I know I'm learning every day on how do you how do you run a better brand and how do you how do you build a uh a better brand and that really can deliver an awesome customer experience ultimately.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I agree with you.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I've been doing this a long time.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: I never claim anybody that I know everything.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I coach founders and I had a guy on this morning, and I can help you think through the problem, but I can't tell you the answer because your problem is specific to you, but I can help you think through it, tell you what I would do and how I would handle it.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's amazing.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know anybody who says I have all the answers.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, well, actually, I have met people that say they have all the answers and they don't.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a pleasure talking to you.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and also, where is it, where where are you located in case anybody's up in Michigan?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, if you're in Michigan, southwest Michigan, we're in the little town of Pullman, Michigan, but we're just south of um Holland, Michigan, if somewhere in Michigan.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: Holland where the uh bulbs are.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, tulip festival.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if you ever want a great time, come here in uh end of April, really beginning of May, and you can get tulips, but then you can also get some great food too.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's fantastic.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for taking the time to come on.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great conversation, Mitchell, and uh I wish you all the success and luck.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, thank you, Phil.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: All right.