Best of GTM Season 3 - How to Build a Lasting Brand with The Squeeze Cofounder Sarah Sitz

speaker-0: Hype Man! Rog Nation! The GOAT! GOAT to market!

From Hype HQ in Chicago, Illinois, Startup Hype Man presents The GOAT to Market Show. What's up everyone? I am your host, Rog Nation, the founder and chief pitch artist of Startup Hype Man. This podcast is where we bring you founders, company leaders, and creatives who are built who are doing it, who have been there and done that.

⁓ And they pull back the curtain on their go-to-market strategies so that you can build a venture that you love ⁓ and become the GOAT of your industry. Want first listen on episodes before anyone else? Subscribe to our newsletter at StartupHypeMan.com.

You will get alerts every Sunday morning when we release new episodes. All right, let's hear how today's guest is becoming the GOAT. you Ladies and gentlemen, making her way to the microphone from Chicago, Illinois. She is the co-founder of The Squeeze.

Please welcome Sarah Seen. speaker-1: You're really good at that. training and radio. speaker-0: Well, as many listeners of this show know, I do professional ring announcing on the side.

So that's where that talent comes from. speaker-1: How many side hustles does he have? speaker-0: Human slash mark, maybe human backslash mark. All right, like I mentioned, she is Sarah Sitz, co-founder at The Squeeze.

The Squeeze is a marketing, a creative, branding agency developing tailored brand marketing and retail strategies to help brands scale. They've got a distinct perspective that meshes together creativity along with data and analytics to ultimately unlock a brand's full potential. The Squeeze has been around for about a year prior to The Squeeze. Sarah was employee number 14 at Foxtrot.

You might remember Foxtrot from our two episodes ago when we had the co-founder, Mike Lavatola on in our special airing from the Startup Grind Chicago event where we interviewed him. While the VP of Integrated Marketing and employee 14 in Foxtrot, Sarah helped scale the grand from series A to series C. She was able to build and execute. several marketing plans to help open 18 new and expand six existing retail locations across four different markets.

And she also led the development and rollout of their go-to-market for private label brands. So I would say if you go back and listen to that episode, then you come back for this as your part too, this will be a whole lot deeper dive into really what goes into the marketing, the branding and the kind of the strategy behind growth. What we're talking about today with her experience there and now with the squeeze, plus a whole laundry list of other great brands she's worked at before is the topic of how to build a lasting brand.

Sarah, once again, welcome to the GTM show. Why is this on your mind? Why is this important to you? speaker-1: I think in today's landscape with so many brands entering the market, I think it's more important than ever to focus on being a brand-led business.

It kind of separates the has for the has-nots, so to speak, because of the fact that the people that really invest in time and energy and to really understanding who they are, why they exist, and how to connect. with their customer base in the world tend to thrive. You know, the world of the heyday of hate social and just like hitting Facebook market ads to drive traffic is slowly, not slowly, quickly has moved away. And I think it's more important than ever to build a lasting brand that people can find connection to to help organically grow at the end of the day.

⁓ with digital landscape and AI and everything ever changing, it's more important than ever to be investing, you know, in brand and a brand that can grow and change over time. speaker-0: We are gonna learn a whole lot more about Sarah's take on this, but before we do, let's learn more about Sarah, the person herself. Sarah, I think when you're in marketing circles or when you're in startup circles, you can probably speak a certain way, because there's an implied understanding ⁓ of the general landscape and the terminology, et cetera.

I'm curious, how does your family describe what you do? speaker-1: That's good question. Yeah, I feel like I have a family of doctors and lawyers. So I get called out on marketing jargon a lot, but also called to be like, can you help me with my social media?

Can you help me with, I think people just think equate marketing now, or least my family with social media. And obviously it's much more than that. But I think they probably think that I sit on Instagram all day if I had to guess. speaker-0: Yeah, I also have a family ⁓ of physicians, medical professionals and engineers.

⁓ it's all I think my mom's still trying to figure. My dad seems to have it down, but I think my mom's really still trying to figure out what exactly I do. And I always say, I'm like, if you're ever scared, if you're scared to send an email to someone because you think they're too important, just remember they're another person. going through this world whose family has no idea what they actually do for a living.

speaker-1: I love that. I mean, at the beginning, I obviously, you tap your network and I had a few folks that wanted my dad to connect me with, but I was very strategic about writing the notes and how he was able to forward them because I was so nervous that he was just gonna turn it in the other direction. So I was like, just here you go. Because he wants to help so badly, but you know.

speaker-0: Meet my daughter. think she's really good at this Instagram thing. OK, so early in your career, you had a stint at Vienna beef. What was it like working at a hot dog company?

An Italian beef company, I should say. speaker-1: Yeah, basically. Yeah, don't forget about the time base. Um, you know, it's 20 2009 the market was awful.

speaker-0: Hot dog sales are probably up in that economy though. speaker-1: Yeah, speaking of my dad, he was good friends with the owner and you know, they they had a desk in customer service. And I was like, I need a job. I have a I need a job and I don't care what it looks like.

And so quickly, I think about two months in while I was taking orders for hot dogs and cases, they were like, probably should move this girl to the PR team. But I what I learned from it, you know, was that I, and I like to say my superpower is connection now that I can find commonality with anybody, right? Like half the people, you know, that have worked there, it's a family-run business, an incredible business, they're actually a client now, we've come full circle, so it's fun.

But, you know, people have moved their way up from the factory when working there for 20 to 30 years. So I think like, no matter what your background looks like, I think being able to find a place of commonality as humans is super important. And it's candidly helped me in no matter what job I've worked in since then. So, I also was the coolest girl in my 20s because I would show up with hot dogs at every party.

at least it got me some street cred with like showing up with pretzel dogs all the time, you know. speaker-0: Okay, so you had you had some experience with the beef early on in your career ⁓ I also learned just from the last time we spoke ⁓ that you are a now also a Pilates instructor or you've at least been trained and certified as a Pilates instructor are there any similarities between Pilates and branding and marketing speaker-1: ⁓ think very just discipline, right. And, focus.

And I always like to say, can tell how, what kind of day someone's had based on how they are performing in a Pilates studio, because like you're directly, your ability to listen, to take cues, to like run through the moves is dependent on how focused you are or how connected you are to the workout or the experience. Cause it's like speaking another language. And so I think that's very similar in the world of random marketing. Like it takes discipline and focus and connection and the ability to listen, listen to your customers, listen to your clients.

So I think, yeah, it doesn't change people or people no matter what industry you work in. And you have to acknowledge that there's like greater things happening besides just what's happening in the moment, I think. speaker-0: Right. So for everyone listening, I asked Sarah, was like, by chance, are you a yoga instructor?

And then I had, was like, she's got to have some like emphasis on mobility in her life. And then the reason is because we were on a zoom call and I could tell the way she was sitting was, ⁓ it was like half cross legged, but the other knee like kind of pointing up. So if you can picture that, like not both legs crossed, but one leg crossed the other one, you're almost like you can like hug your shin into your body. And as a part-time yoga instructor myself, like game, recognize game and like we, know, yoga and Pilates and mobility instructors are kind of the only ones who will opt to sit like that.

Cause we can't, tend to. Yeah. So, ⁓ you can always spot posture out in the wild. I guess, I guess is the point there.

⁓ okay. So Sarah, ⁓ you. speaker-1: right now. speaker-0: have a great run at Foxtrot and we'll dive into a little bit more of that and kind of some of the strategies that came out of that.

But I want to know like, what was your decision to start the squeeze? And then the second follow-up question to that is I gave a very brief introduction. You kind of casually mentioned Vienna beef is now one of your clients, but kind of give us the full understanding of really what the squeeze is. Yeah.

speaker-1: So, you know, I had done close to four years at Foxtrot, obviously four years in startup land is like 10 years in real life. You know, I adore the business. I'm still cheerleading for it on the sidelines. Like I was for the first time in my career being able to work for company that I also saw myself in as a consumer.

And just it was so much fun. Like we just outkicked our coverage, I like to say a lot of like a hyper local brand, but that got to do really awesome things that got national attention. Like it's not very often that a convenience store gets covered in Rolling Stone for, you know, partnership with Wilco. So, you know, like the ride was really fun.

And what we, when I was about to have my second baby, you know, you start to take a look at where, you know, what you start to weigh as far as importance factors. And, um, I'd always wanted to kind of do my own thing, but never really had the motivation to take the leap. Um, and as you know, the company started to change and move towards growth. was just the right time to kind of part ways.

And so I dipped my toes into consulting. ⁓ A good friend at Beyond Chicago took a chance on me and was looking for some marketing support. And I was like, I really think I like this whole working for myself thing. But I candidly missed, I'm self and group described as like a cross-functional ninja.

So I missed kind of the aspect of having community within my day-to-day work outside of a client base. So Ashley, who's my co-founder, led merchandising at Foxtrot. She was employee nine there and found herself in a similar place. And I kind of just, she was about to have her second baby and I just really hard pitched her, which I'm finding out is a fun skill that I'm enjoying in the side of the fence and said, like, I think we could do something together.

Like her, she's very the yin to my yang. Like I'm very brand development, storytelling, messaging. She is like this data nerd, but that like is hyper intuitively into trends and how consumers are changing. so together we feel like we have this unstoppable, you know, approach to growing brands and marketing.

So long story short, after her pitching her for a long weekend and many, many iterations of naming, you know, we started the squeeze and we purposely. build a brand of our own because we felt like if we were gonna ask people to trust us to help develop their brand that they needed to see that we could develop one for, know, our original name was the Consumer Collaborative. And I remember being in my shower like, this is so lame. Like I can't name my company this.

I can't have another just like XX consulting, you know? And so we like to say the squeeze is where authentic brands brand their juice. Like our brand is very like old school meets new. You'll see like, fun, playful fonts that are nostalgic but also modern at the same time in our brand.

And we really focus on, as you said, what does brand marketing and retail strategy really mean? We like to say we're a cross between a fractional marketing team and a scrappy agency. There's only two of us. We do all of the work soup to nuts.

Whether that's more on an advisory basis with our clients or as a full-time fractional role. No project is really too big or small for us. We just like to say that founders are so close to their business every day and similar to what I experienced, it's super lonely. And sometimes you need a third party to kind of help show you things that you're too close to see, whether that's from an innovation or growth or brand development perspective or where you're missing your mark on your messaging or partnership strategy, it can look and feel different based on the client.

But really, if you have a consumer brand and you're a cool person, we'd love to work with you no matter what size or shape your business is. speaker-0: You know, we're I'm finding we're similar in more ways than one. that is that ⁓ my first business about a decade ago was called Idea Lemon. And we had, you we had a half lemon, a cut open sliced open lemon as our logo and the thought.

Yeah, yeah. The behind it was ⁓ you can't try to remember how we how we message it. But the idea was like you can't you got to squeeze the juice. speaker-1: it.

speaker-0: out of every single lemon to know what's not a lemon ultimately. Something to that effect. So yeah, I think we think a lot in the same. When we think about branding, I think we think very similarly.

Here's a random sidebar from what you just said. The phrase soup to nuts. I'm like, there are never nuts in soup. where does this phrase come from?

Unless it's like S-U-P-E, like you souped something up and you go down to the nuts and like what? speaker-1: ⁓ speaker-0: Do know the origin of this phrase and what it actually like comes from? speaker-1: Chad, do you hear me? speaker-0: Live GPT questioning on the GTM show.

speaker-1: I mean, you can't use your resources in real time. while it's thinking, to come back to it. speaker-0: I was like. speaker-1: Apparently it's frozen.

I know, I wonder if it's like... souped up you know what Yeah, that's where my head goes at least because like nuts and bolts soup it up like that would make speaker-0: Pimp my Ride version of like... When you when you say that phrase, do you in your head? How are you spelling it?

Are you spelling it? S. U. P.

E. or S. O. U.

speaker-1: No, I'm spelling it as soup, so I don't know. ⁓ it says it originates from the world of dining, particularly in a former elaborate meal context, it refers to a full course meal from the beginning, the soup to the end, the nuts. So the meal ends with nuts. So we were both very wrong.

speaker-0: Hahaha! ⁓ okay, like dessert was just like premium nuts, I guess. ⁓ Okay, let's talk about meaningful things. ⁓ speaker-1: Yeah, we learned from this potato.

speaker-0: Our topic is how to build a lasting brand. So what do you feel it means from your perspective? What does it feel to lead with your brand as opposed to, let's say, lead with your product? speaker-1: Well, one of my old bosses and mentors always used to say, your brand is your product and your product is your brand.

To me, they're one and the same. So if someone comes to touch your product, they're experiencing your brand. So really, one can't exist without the other. I think the distinction for me is more like when people tend to be growth-led a lot, they maybe don't think about what it means to have a brand.

They're like, I just have this service, it's the thing I'm doing. ⁓ It's pretty hard hitting. I just am focused on conversion. over everything versus maybe thinking more first, like how do I drive awareness, like our connection to a brand?

So I think when the schools of thinking, I think there's a world where both exists, right? But people that tend or brand led businesses, like Fox Shroud is a brand led business because it means like from day one, it was like an investment in not just financially, like time, energy, and fit in building something that feels brand defining that people can see themselves in that felt human ⁓ versus like, I think a lot of people just tend to, a lot of dollars right into Facebook ads and just be like, how do I get as many humans as possible, you know, to my site as quickly as possible?

So for me, it's just more an intentionality around the ecosystem you're building and how it uniquely distinguishes you and your why at the end of the day. speaker-0: Well, what I find interesting, especially, you know, dovetailing off the other episode with Mike, the Foxtrot co-founder, again, in that interview, he talks so much about the value of the Foxtrot brand and how it can be kind of Foxtrot can be a delivery store. It can be a coffee shop. can be a e-commerce company.

⁓ And it can be a few other things along the way as well. It can be a private label. but all of that unites under a single brand. And I think it allows the customer base to kind of move with you ⁓ when you make a decision to do something different or add on a layer.

And I think I almost feel like if you're solely like product focused, then you start to confuse people when you do something a little bit different, when you make a pivot or you add a layer to the product that's not like. Obviously the next step, but it's kind of like a big step forward. ⁓ speaker-1: I think that's so true. I mean, it's the idea of building trust and credibility.

You for us, it was like, I trust that they're going to find the best new and next item food. Like I will pay $9 for a soda because like they've done the guesswork and they've brought me along on the ride and they haven't steered me wrong. So if I'm going to introduce a new, we're going to make our own wine brand. They're probably gonna make some pretty great wine.

Like because I trust their tastes and preference, right? There isn't. necessarily a world where you should be having attachment to a convenience store, right? And want to the merch, but like, people want to wear the merch of a brand they feel connected to, right?

And wrap it on the streets because they feel like it understands them, it gets them, you know, there's plenty of brands, like a razor brand, like ⁓ a poppy, like a soda brand. There's, it doesn't make sense, right? That in theory, that an item that someone would have a connection to, but someone that's doing it well is going to build that kind of trust, credibility. ability to navigate like new worlds to your point because like they're along for the ride like they're in with you.

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, it's. It's feeling, I think that point you mentioned is so important. It's like you trust that they know how to make the right decisions and they're almost making those decisions on your behalf. They're not eliminating you from the process, but like they're the curator for you.

So you don't have to think about every possible decision to make. just, you you get to decide from a small narrowed set. speaker-1: And if you're doing it well, right, like it should be informed by data. It should be like, it should have an analytical approach to it, right?

But it doesn't have to see that, right? Like we knew if we brought you in through wine, like you were a much higher value customer than someone that came in through gifting or bought a chip bag, right? So we're like, we're gonna do everything in our prior. Like you have a five times spending power.

If you come in through wine to be like, get you in and hook you that way, right? You're just a stickier customer for us. So like. Our customers don't know that, right?

But we can present it in a way like, have you seen this awesome women-led wine brand that's like straight from Napa that's first on our shelves, right? Like, let's get you in through that way. So I think it's just being crafty about it too, where it can be very much informed by driving conversion, right? But it's telling it in a story in a way that makes you feel more connected too.

speaker-0: ⁓ I feel like though a lot of people mistake brand as like my logo ⁓ or like I got a style guide created for me so that's my brand or here's my colors. Maybe it's like my mission statement ⁓ or my values. Is that the right way to look at it? if yes, why and if not why?

speaker-1: I think that's a really great question. A lot of people actually do spend time on what they believe is brand, right? They're going to spend a decent amount of time and energy building amazing brand guidelines, visually appealing, they get their brand book, but then it's like, we see a lot in our clients, like the application of that work is not necessarily as intended either, right? Like it's, you can be handed a great brand, but it's like, how does it live in the world is how it really is.

How is it being received? How are you optimizing it? That could be as much as like, ⁓ what's your belief system and your values? We like to say beyond mission, it's like mission, vision and values.

And then the values start to translate into what channels are you investing in? What's your content strategy? What are the pillars that are help guiding the things that you create? Do they ladder back up to your brand orientation and your DNA?

Are you walking the walk in the way that's intended or are you? Have you built one brand, but the that you're living in the world is very different. And maybe that's not, and if that's the case, is that because of what your customers are telling you or is it because you're not able to articulate what that brand looks like? So to me, it's like the total ecosystem of every touch point of where you live in the world, where you decide to invest from a channel perspective, what you do on those channels, and then how you start to think about, you your community at large.

speaker-0: So let's say that's like the blocking and tackling, right? Is the visual side of it, but there's a whole strategy component to it too. You know, one of the things that you talked to me about before was this idea of like content verticals. What is a content vertical and how does it fit into the overall brand picture?

speaker-1: it's just starting to help organize the way that you talk about yourself in the world, right? Like the way that we build them, there's like usually four. A lot of people can actually tend to have the same hero content burnals, whether it's like education, ⁓ sell, ⁓ like storytelling, and then like play or something, right? And how do you start to build your brand underneath that umbrella, right?

Like the squeeze as a... brand has an education vertical that looks very different than my Japanese sauce client, you know, that, but there's, still exist to educate in some way. that mix of how you do a little bit of each and the way that it's received, right? Like not every vertical is going to have your highest level of engagement, right?

But they exist in more of an ecosystem to tell your broader story to your customer, right? Like our education content might be the least engaging content we get. But helps build credibility that we know what we're talking about in brand space. Right.

But the minute I put up a video of me and my business partner, we see higher, higher engagement, right. Because they want to see more of us, but there's a need for both of that in the world because you get to see us see what we believe in. also want to teach you and show that we know what we're talking about. So I think it's just trying to organize around key thematics, right.

And then underneath that, a test and learn approach to how you put your own content on the world, right. That could be how you build. thought leadership, how you think about a LinkedIn strategy versus Instagram. Like it can be channel agnostic.

but I think it's one thing you should be coming back to on probably a quarterly basis to help organize the things you want to try, see where you're seeing the responses that you want, double down on those things and then rinse and repeat. But I think it's just having a, I think a lot of times people don't know where to start, especially when it comes to social or content and having this place that feels like a strategic lens first, that feels like it overarchingly. tells the world what your story looks like to move from.

And then you can go down deeper. Like a weekly calendar is like gonna be beneficial for everybody in the world. But in order to build that calendar, you need to first figure out what the pillars look like or the way that you're presenting yourself to the world. speaker-0: This idea of these verticals, you said like it's like education.

So go through it again. Education play sell. And what was the fourth one? speaker-1: Storytime.

speaker-0: And storytell, this actually aligns pretty closely to in the newsletter growth accelerator we're running right now. ⁓ One of the early lessons that we talked through was the, like when people seem to be overwhelmed about what they could put into a newsletter and we broke it down into like, look, there's really three types. You're either gonna choose to be a curator, you're gonna be a commenter or a commentator rather, or you're gonna be a creator. And if based on which vertical you pick or which route you pick in this this structure or framework we call the content ladder, which rung you want to step into in that ladder.

That's going to make it really easy to dictate what decisions you should be making with the content you're going to send out through your newsletter. ⁓ just for everyone listening, we're doing that accelerator might run it again, but at least it was for now, the plan is one time, but if it goes well enough, we'll run it again. We're doing that in partnership with active campaign. so not only have we been walking through like the the thematic messaging and strategy stuff, but then also the hard like setting up of campaigns and actually launching on the, the end of the program.

And for anyone, even though if you're not in that program, if you do want to check out active campaign for yourself, I use it. I love it. ⁓ And I recommend everyone else use it too. ⁓ The day you decide you want to start a newsletter or if you want to relaunch your existing one and just move to a platform that works for you.

We've got the ⁓ the code to get, or excuse me, we've got the link rather in the bio of this episode to get a free two week trial of active campaign. Just head to the episode description. You can check that out there and then reach out if you're, if you're curious about running a second or being in a second cohort, if we run that for the newsletter growth accelerator, the, the, the revelations that are coming out of that are just like really positive from everyone who's participating.

And so I love to see that. And I'm really excited to see the newsletters they put out. But again, that comes back to like one of our starting points was knowing like what sort of lane you want to travel in and not feeling the pressure to have to be all things at once at all times in all places. I believe Sarah that that sort of mentality, regardless of what the platform is, whether it's your packaging, your newsletter, your blog, your video content, your social media, that I need to be everything.

all at once at the same time in all these places. I feel like a lot of that comes out of this seeing what someone else is doing and being like, ⁓ we need to do that. And it's like, you start doing that and then you forget you're doing this because you see what a different brand is doing and you're like, ⁓ we need to be doing that too. And then all of a sudden it's like five different whirlpools are all spinning at once and you're like drowning in each of them.

⁓ What's your take on this like kind of copy the competitor because I actually feel like to get started, it's not the worst thing to just like copy what's out there and then find your style. But you tell me your take. speaker-1: I think there's a time and a place for mood boards, like an early development, right? Like we talk about market opportunity all the time.

Like I could do a whole podcast about understanding your market opportunity. We tend to speak on it a lot. I think it's super valuable, right? Like understand your competitive landscape, understand what you're drawn to as like a human and as a business owner, build mood boards that help inspire you at the beginning.

Right. And then like, I like to say, pick, I feel the same way about motherhood. I tell people this, like pick three like resources that are like your single source of truth, right? Like the world, you know, the example in motherhood is like, you can go down an Instagram hole very quickly with people that are like crazy anti-formula, right?

And like only like breastfeeding world, right? And this is very specific, but like, I, I clicked, I remember clicking on something once that I got down a different wormhole than my own belief system, right? But if I had just kind of stuck to the three parenting resources that I connected with most that I believe to be true or to be reputable enough, right? Like you don't believe everything your source tells you, but it just helps like call the world out, right?

Like just there's an endless source of information. And if you're constantly like, oh, I should be doing this or this or this. Sorry, my dog left. in here.

You know, you're going to get caught up. not even understanding what yourself, you know, and we feel that all the time as even like consultants were like, ⁓ that was a cool series. Like, I think you can respect something and be like, that's something I could, I would want to try maybe without being like, I need to be like that completely. Like, because I think you then lose your own voice a bit, you water down what your intentionality looks like to begin with.

It happens a lot, a lot in the design and packaging world. ⁓ One of our resources that we love to call is SnackShots. She's pretty influential in the CPG. space, like she always calls a trend three years earlier, but it just incredible seeing like the Garza impact of the squeeze bottle and like 30 brands that essentially mimic it to a tea, but it is like a mildly different category.

It's like almost subconscious. If people don't realize like they're trying to hurt to be the next family or ⁓ liquid death that they don't know necessarily like where their own orientation began or started. So I think it's just natural human instinct to be curious, but like, bringing the world to a little bit more narrow place when you're building to just like, and like figure out who your trusted resources are, who your mentors are, like who the people that you want opinions from also, cause I think otherwise it's just a lot of noise.

speaker-0: From your experience then, especially given that you said it's a lot easier when you're getting started to just copy what else is out there, one of your responsibilities when you were at Foxtrot was launching the private label brand. Can you just walk us through from brainstorm to being on the shelf? What was that process? speaker-1: Yeah, I mean, we had a credible cross functional team.

will not take credit for like the entire program by any means. Ashley's ⁓ team on the merchandising side was incredible at one, looking at our data, like what's performing. like tortilla chips are rocking. Where is there opportunity for us to create our own iteration of that endlessly trying product, you know, to see like where the taste and preference is.

And then working with really awesome creative design resources and like, and really tight brief to be like, this is what we want to do. And then I think from us on the marketing side, was being really thoughtful about the ways that we brought things to market. Like sometimes we had handcuffs around ourselves because like we couldn't even put our name on it. Like alcohol, can't, fact, you can't put like a brand attached to it.

Like it's illegal in our state. So some things we'd have to literally, we got really pushed creatively to be like, okay, let's just launch this. Like we would launch a wine brand, like take Foxtrot out of the picture. Like we need to launch our wine brand.

Where would we invest our time and energy? And like, would be cool? partners that would make sense for this. So I think we just got really creative about thinking very singular about the category, knowing what the market and the landscape looked like.

And then like Ashley does an incredible, we do T-shirts all day long, but understanding white space to be like, I don't need it to be the 85th cookie dough brand, you know, that's shelf stable this week, right? Like how do you put your own spin on it? And that could be something that smells like price changing. quality, what your ingredient list look like, at least in the CPG space, right?

But it can be, that can be utilized. use that for real estate clients, insurance, financial, you name it. There's always gonna be a sliding scale where people are sitting and you can start to figure out where you want to play. It feels like the most opportunistic for you.

spending a lot of time in the, in the upfront to just see like where all the fish, where are you all the fish fishing? What's the statement? Like where all the fish are and how do you be like a little bit more of like a, a leaper. And being okay to have a couple of flops too.

It's not always going to be perfect. Not everything we created was our best performing products, but more often than not, it was top three seller within the category. And that was because a lot of time and energy with the research and then also through the go-to market. speaker-0: So you mentioned, you kind of casually mentioned like we, we would use these T charts, talk us through that.

I'm not familiar with how a teacher, you know, I know what a teacher art is in accounting. What does it mean when you're doing brand development? speaker-1: Well, I will give credit to my business partner because she's the t-shirt master. I have done a couple while she was out on that list.

It was very humbling. Essentially like things X and Y access. a cross section. then finding, you know, a lot of times it's price on the access.

like value versus ⁓ premium. And then a lot of times on the Y access, can be like innovation in the category versus like approachability. It's very, it's we do it very different for every single category. tends to be like, where are the commonalities?

Where is the customer? And then starting to see where that kind of opportunity takes shape. So you put a big circle on that chart and you're like, here's where I can own. Or if like I could own maybe here and here, but where is more of that connection point to what I want to build also.

Cause sometimes there's the whole world could be your white space, right? speaker-0: So in finding that sort of zone ⁓ that you wanna own, is that a intuition exercise or are you using data to be like, well, no, they do really like, it's like, we think they have this corner or it's no, they really do have this corner. speaker-1: ⁓ we like to say, and that's why there's two of us in this business, but there's an art and a science, right? Like some of it is just intuition, deep knowledge, but candidly, like we now like to say, like, it doesn't matter the category.

in like a few weeks we can quickly delve in because it's combination of like Mintel, Nielsen, you know, reports that are easily downloaded full within the category or like players in the category in order of times without amazing pieces. And then also just personally knowing how to organize, you know, information and where you sit. and being pressed a little bit. I think it's both.

But I think it's very easy and accessible to get information within no matter what category you're living in. speaker-0: One of the things that's gonna end up mattering a lot, if we think about the idea of brand is almost like the way you get people into your funnel is the presence you put out there, whether it's the label on your packaging, whether it's the content you put online, whether it's the website, whatever those things might be, that would be the thing that gets people to you.

So now once they are to you, you gotta make sure. particularly, I mean, if you're any kind of company, but if you're a software company, you got to make sure that what they're going to use is going to be an experience that lives up to that front end brand that they came in for in the first place. And so for everyone listening right now, if you've got a software product or you've got dreams of developing a software product, you need to make sure that you've got the right people in your corner and the right people to have in your corner is a CAVA, the team at a CAVA.

They are the goat of software development. And the reality is I have firsthand seen so many startups, ⁓ some of which are clients from startup hype, man, who gets screwed over by offshore or budget dev shops. Those companies are order takers and they do the bare minimum and the bare minimum often means that they provide software that has gaping holes in it. And you don't find out until something bad happens.

You're like, wait, that was, they never actually developed that part or they left that part open. ⁓ or that means you're forced to pay hidden release fees to claim ownership of your code or some of the other just litany of like nonsense that you've got to deal with when you try and just like save a buck today versus investing in the thing that's going to ultimately be what your customers live off of, which is your product. So you don't want to have to, you don't want to be put in that position where you go offshore budget just to save a dollar today.

Cause it's going to cost you so much more down the road. The other side of that spectrum is a KVA. Akeva actually builds strategically for scale from day one. They help you make product decisions.

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And I'm telling you, that can be quite expensive. We've had one client or one person in our ecosystem tell us they've got to pay about 12 grand extra just to have the code delivered to them afterwards. That's what you don't want to have to deal with. And that's what Kavas is not going to do with you.

And to show you just how much in your team or in your corner and part of your team that they want to be, they've got a killer offer for you. And it's called a You Call It code review. This is really only available to the startup hype man community. And a, call it code review goes something like this.

A cable will review the most critical parts of your code. So you can see exactly what your tech needs to launch or to scale. They will do this completely free and then you call it from there. So does that mean you want to handle things on your, like you get there right up and then you want to handle things on your own?

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Think of the premium version for that. You're paying no money for it and you're getting the best possible information in return. So are you ready to, are you ready to see if you qualify for a you call it code review? All you have to do is head to Acava's website.

That's akava.io. akava.io, akava.

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Goaded, not goaded. Today on the Goat to Market show, are with Sarah Sitz, co-founder of the Squeeze. So Sarah, as we talk about the idea of really building a lasting brand, you mentioned a couple times earlier on how like, it's not, know, pouring money into Facebook ads just doesn't work. ⁓ Or it's not really the right play for everyone.

I work on a lot of pitch decks myself and part of that process ⁓ many times ends up being at least providing some ⁓ additional like just thoughts or just some free consulting on go-to-market strategy if I feel like what they're saying is not good enough. ⁓ And there's a decent number of times where the go-to-market strategy is like, they'll say like, like Facebook ads or social media ads or we're gonna figure out influencer deals or. we're gonna sponsor podcasts, ⁓ but they don't really have like a budget to do these things.

So what is your advice for these companies who are thinking like, hey, to play is what they should be doing from day one to be able to actually scale and get customers? speaker-1: Yeah, and don't get me wrong. Like I'm not anti Facebook. I think it just, I think there's a misconception of just like, does my money into Facebook and everything will be okay.

Right. And not nurturing it. And it, that to me, it's just not like the only strategy that you should be thinking about. And there's a time and a place of like when you're growing, you're like growing as a business.

Um, you know, I've had worked for companies that like have very much figured out their strategy. I've worked for always that the whole time is they're respond, trying to figure it out. it kind of, it just really is like brand. market dependent.

But really for us, what we like to say is, especially in early days is to taking, I know it's like community like 20 times today, but building a community first approach to your go-to-market strategy. And really, we like to say also like focus on two channels from the start at least, like pick two and do them incredibly well. Like your stretch so thin, like there's a million operational things happening. you're trying to balance your books and your business, like something is always on fire and your ability to maximize like five plus marketing channels without a team and finite resources, like something's got to give, right?

Like you have to be, and like it might not be the right channel for you either, right? Like maybe you're going to go to active and you're going to set up like a newsletter and focus on email, you know, and, and and wanna nurture and spend time there and learn and then grow that channel and then shift, right? And then maybe you're building your blog content, influencer strategy. So I think there's an opportunity to just walk up where you run a little bit and thinking about where you spend your time and your energy.

When I say community, I think we just think like, where organically are your customers today? And where can you find four of those people, right? Like, yes, influencers are important, but I like to not work with any of our clients or even brands that I've worked for. We tend to steer away from like, influencers that are just influencers, right?

Where we tend to work with is people that are influential, people that have built industries, and then they have a following to go along with that, right? You could be an incredible photographer and be an influencer because you have hundreds of thousands of people or just maybe less than 5,000 people that are hyper-engaged that just like the way you think and trust you. So I think, I like to think about people that are organically already drawn to your brand and actually talking about your brand.

for us at ProcShot, we just knew people that happened to come in the store, were tagging us anyways. like, do you want to build a deeper relationship here? Because anything that feels forced, people sniff that out so quickly, and it just doesn't serve you in the way that you want it to, right? You want to take the benefit of incremental audiences to drive more eyeballs to what you're doing, but ones that make sense for you and your brand versus just paying an influencer that has a million followers.

I would say there might be 10 micro influencers that are super local or within your industry that might make 10 more cents that, you know, are probably not going to make you pay as less. there's, am, call me old school, but I think I believe in a partnership driven strategy. Like there is mutual, it should be mutually beneficial, right? The idea to be able to barter in a way that serves both people involved.

And then it's going to be even better because people that want to work together are going to produce better things. So I think. There just tends to be more, when I say organic, like, yeah, you're put some money behind things, right? To build a partnership, there's gonna be dollars attached to it, right?

But I think there's a way to be thoughtful about it that feels more like an extension of your business versus just like a channel for channel sake. speaker-0: That's so that that strategy is actually almost to a T what active campaign is doing. Like, you know, I am I'm quote unquote an influencer for them, but it's not like I'm not an influencer. I'm just I guess to use your language, I'm an influential person and I have a need for a new.

I've been sending a newsletter for 13 years, like in different capacities, and I had a need for something new and We arranged an agreement where. My job is not necessarily to like when you think of influencer, you think of like the Instagram personality who just like goes on trips and is like, I'm drinking Saratoga Springs water on this trip, right? Whereas here it's like, well, here's a business owner who uses a newsletter regularly. Here's how he's using it for his own purposes.

Maybe you should be thinking about using it for yourself as well. And the things I say carry merit because I've built up an audience over the years and some credibility through doing things that generally help the ecosystem, but not necessarily in a, in a hard influencer way and the way we tend to think of it. And that's what I think is actually probably the future of at least in B2B. And I would hope to see it more in B2C as well.

That's what I think is more of the future of influencer is being a person who is influential versus a quote unquote professional influencer. speaker-1: And I think I would hope, I'm going to speak for you, but that you wouldn't be repping the brand if you didn't believe in it because you want to keep the trust and credibility with your clientele. So there's this natural, I actually believe in this thing. So it's an easier thing for me to promote because like I'm aligned with it, right?

And the values and the opportunity, it's not just like another service. So I think it's like what works for you too, like for us right now, like as consultants, I actually consider like one of our core channels is thought leadership and presentation, because we tend to when people hear us talk or the way that we think, they're just like, ⁓ I need to, I want to work with those people. I would hope we would come off as intelligent. We have a unique point of view.

We have experience. And that is like, I would rather give an hour of my time all day to thought leadership than, you know, spending. two grand this month, like to boost my Instagram posts. So I think it's just like, it's going to be different for everybody.

think you just, you start to see where you get the returns from and then like you double down on those things, right? Like if Instagram right now was my primary client referral source, like I would be doubling down there. It's been all my energy there. would be boosting and then figuring out how to turn that boosting strategy into a paid strategy, right?

And maybe down the line, it will be that we're just on the early days on that channel. but like you have to spend and give your energy to the places that you're getting back from also. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah.

And to kind of answer your question upfront, like, yeah, it's. I it's a product I want to use and and part of the arrangement too, is I was like, I need to like have my hands on it for a month first before I ever start talking about it to anyone else. So I actually feel good about what I'm saying and that I know what I say is actually standing on something, not just like a hypothesis. ⁓ And that's kind of, you know, that is my approach going forward to with a lot of these things is.

you know, as a additional revenue stream for the company is to look at what are these influential. You know, again, let's not call them influence or let's call them influential or influence based ⁓ partnerships to establish like, you know, I've been a power user of Calendly for five, six years now. It's not out of my realm to reach out to them and be like, maybe we should take this relationship to the next level. And even like.

the idea to do the newsletter growth accelerator with ActiveCampaign, that was something I came to them with. was like, hey, rather than just like writing about you guys online, I think a way more effective thing I could do that's really gonna help people is actually teach people how to launch or relaunch a newsletter. And I think that'll be way more meaningful than, you know, if I'm like, hey, I commit to doing four posts over the course of this timeframe. No, let's just actually like get in the weeds of this thing and, and, and make like, let's experience value in the product by teaching someone something.

And I, and again, to come back to like Calendly, I'm like, what's stopping me from going to them and being like, Hey, why don't we run like a accelerator program focused on sales. But like I happen to use Calendly, not just for scheduling meetings, but as a sales tool. And as part of that, we can teach people Calendly as a sales tool. and then you'll be able to onboard X number of customers as a result.

speaker-1: And to bring this full circle, it's because you know the value of your own brand. Know the brand that you've built yourself and what it can bring and what you bring to the table and why. Like it's worth spending time in the upfront to be able to build that, right? Like obviously it takes years too, to be able to build the confidence behind you.

knowing what your value is, what you bring to the table makes you more confident and you're able to do external reach outs. to be like, I'm bringing something here. So this makes sense. Like how are we, let's grow together.

You know, like I think, and that's the importance of brand building. Like you and different, like you and me have personal brands, right? And like they're reflective of our business, right? And you become this powerful engine for your business, you know, as like, know this is a question later, I'm skipping, like, you know, like it's those personal branding right now is like more important than ever.

When I say product is your brand, like your personal brand is a brand also. And I think like in today's landscape, it's more important than ever to make sure that you're spending the time and energy in yourself, no matter what business you have, even if you own a software business, like who you are as a part of that business, how you reflect that business, what connections you make on its behalf, how you're presenting yourself to the world, it's more important than ever because in today's world, people see you as one in the same.

speaker-0: Mm hmm. Yeah. And I've seen so many good examples of executives at a company who really invest in the content they personally push out and create ⁓ and how that reflects back positively on the company, because they don't have to talk about what their product does. They can just talk about their expert opinion on something in that industry.

And then people are like, Well, if that's the kind of person who works there, the product must be really strong if they've hired that kind of person to like lead the company. The other side of it too would be if ⁓ not just on the customer acquisition side, but on like the recruiting side, you can become the brand that people want to work at because of the personal brands that are putting their name out there who happened to work at the company. And it's like, ⁓ I've seen that company a lot because, you know, the COO puts a lot of cool content online.

That seems like a really cool. I got to make someone I would want to work for. speaker-1: Thank you. speaker-0: The last thing I want to ask you before we head to our wrap up.

So, you know, I've got a couple of stories of some friends of mine in the industry who have worked at high growth startups from the early days. And then. Something happens where, they achieve enough growth. And to get to that point, you know, they were punching up, they were taking risks, they were doing edgy things.

And then there's almost this like they get to a certain growth point and then there's like this regression to the mean where it's like the edginess goes away. It's, know, and it could be everything from like, we need to talk a little bit more conservatively now to let's dim down the brightness of our brand color is because, you know, that's going to scare off the enterprise or something like that. ⁓ what's your stance? Like, is it okay to lose the edge?

Should you keep pushing at, know, at that level? speaker-1: I think sometimes losing the edge is timed with cost cutting scenarios too, right? Like you hit this natural growth plan and then there's whether you're positioning yourself to sell or be merge or whatever it looks like. I think there's sometimes it's growth trajectory and there's a moment in time where it's not that it's panic, right?

But you're just like, it's easy to dilute or dull a brand when you're just being like, we can't spend any dollars right now, right? but I think it's, I would challenge the universe listening right now to, you know, use it as a way to level up against yourself. Like I, in a, in a good way, I've tried, it was like, we almost stopped realizing what was good enough because we always were like, we have to do something bigger and better. Right.

And so that, that might be good or bad. Right. Because sometimes we were like, it was like, this is actually good, but like, we're so used to operating at this level that we can't see that, you know, necessarily, but it forced us to be able to be like, we can't like rest on our laurels here, like what's new and next, because like, there's going to be somebody that comes in and does it better, you know, in some way, or scoops up like what you're not. So not out of like fear, but I think like, maybe it's like, you just hold yourself to like an innovation, like threshold, at least to make sure that it's still prioritized as a part of your business, if it's been an important part of your business, like from the jump and like not if it feels like at odds with what you're building.

I think you can still grow and develop a brand and not lose your DNA as you get bigger. think you can still, like we always say this to clients now, and we did this a lot, just lay twice a year, lay all your stuff out, see how you physically, like we're doing this with a client tomorrow, print every touch point out and see your macro universe of what you look like in the world and whether or not you are delivering your message as it's intended, right? Or where are you missing the mark?

Where are the things that you said you were going to invest or evolve in? that you're not ⁓ because you might be surprised at the way that like you're intending versus how you're being received. So I think it's like a natural as you get bigger, as things get more stressful, you know, to lose sight of that. But I think it's important thing to not lose if it's like a part of your brand to not lose sight of that.

speaker-0: Let's head to our wrap up. Where can our listeners learn you or find you and learn more? speaker-1: So two places right now, ⁓ you can go to our website, ⁓ www.squeezeth-squeeze.

co, or you can find us on Instagram, at the underscore squeeze co. ⁓ Both are good places, or you can just message me directly, Sarah Asit. speaker-0: My next question, who is one person who you want to shout out who's been helpful on your professional journey? speaker-1: ⁓ one of my mentors is from my days at Grubhub.

⁓ he's name is Steven Young and he's the CMO at Poshmark now. ⁓ but I think, you know, one thing he's taught me is one, he's just never been big, too big to pick up my phone call. So it's been just so nice as someone gets bigger in their career to always like remember your people. ⁓ and he just taught me always to not be complacent, like.

I always just strive for bigger and better and think really thoughtfully about what's new and next and taking that leap. ⁓ So it's been just an important part of my journey. speaker-0: We'll now do our top one or two lessons or takeaways for the listeners based on our discussion today. I'll go first and I'll talk to you.

The topic today was on how to build a lasting brand. We talked a lot about a lot of good stuff. There was really an aha moment for me and that was when you mentioned the difference between the influencer versus the influential person. So my big takeaway for everyone today is Assess if you are a brand that should be investing in influencers or influential people.

There is a big difference between the two and perhaps the influential person is more valuable and will create more returns than a straight quote influencer. Sarah, top one or two lessons or takeaways? speaker-1: Don't think about your brand in a silo. Like I think hopefully people have learned today just like how many, where a brand can be received can be through you as an individual, through your product, through your service or through your channel strategy that isn't just like a brand is more than just what you put on a page.

Like how do you live that truth through your content, through your strategy, through your investment decisions. and that all those things are received by your customers as your brand. ⁓ So to just really understand the importance of why investing time, energy, commitment into branding is important. speaker-0: My final question, which is how we end every episode on this show, fill in the blank.

Entrepreneurship is blank. speaker-1: messy but incredibly rewarding. speaker-0: but incredibly rewarding. I like it.

Thank you, Sarah, for joining us today on the GTM show. For everyone listening, it doesn't stop here. Join us in the after party. That's our Ask Me Anything, the whole first week that this episode is live.

Sarah's hopping into GTM Club and hosting an Ask Me Anything. So if you had any follow-up questions as you were listening to this episode that you wanted to ask Sarah directly. This is your opportunity to get direct one-on-one communication with her, get her responses. She can talk to you about branding.

She can talk to you about your go-to-market strategy, growth scaling. She can talk to you about Pilates. She can talk to you about her takes on motherhood and all, all of the things in between. It's an ask me anything with Sarah.

The whole first week this episode is live going down exclusively inside of goat to market club. That's our online founder and GTM leader community is completely free to join. You can find it at startup, hype man.com slash GTM dash club startup, hype man.

com slash GTM dash club. You can hang out with Sarah there for the first week. This episode is going live and get access to the answers from our past AMAs plus on top of that, our monthly strategy drops and recordings of past strategy drops as well. There's a whole lot going on inside GTM club and we want you there.

for the after party and more. We are taking a mid season break coming out of this episode. We're halfway through season three of the GTM show. We will be back after a mini break.

We'll catch you in a couple weeks. Thank you again, Sarah, for joining us and we'll see you in the Ask Me Anything. speaker-1: Thank you so much. speaker-0: That'll put a bow on this one.

Before we head out of here, a couple quick housekeeping items. Number one, did you like what you heard? Well, if you want to subscribe and a follow, maybe share it with one friend who you think would find this valuable. Number two, remember that Ask Me Anything I told you about at the end of the episode?

That goes down exclusively inside of Goat to Market Club, our online founder and startup community. And you can access it for free. Membership is 100 % free at StartupHypeMan.com slash.

GTM-club. Number three, need pitch help? Startup Hype Man is your man. ⁓ Whether it's a fundraising narrative or a go-to-market or category narrative, we've got you covered to make sure you have messaging that doesn't help you just go to market, but of course what?

Helps you become the GOAT to market. All right, we will see you next week here on the GOAT to Market show. Thank you for listening. And remember, why be a unicorn when you can be the GOAT?