SPEAKER_02: 0:00

It's very simple. You're one step at all times away from somebody changing the whole trajectory of your life. Power of authenticity and business is critical. I'm not asking for people to feel bad for me. I'm asking them to just be part of the journey with me. And if you don't like me, it's all good. There's seven billion people in the world. We'll get someone else. Your story is boring to you because you live at 24-7. The person on the left of you or the right of you does not live your story 24-7. So they might find it interesting. They might take one tidbit from it and say, I like her, I like him, and I want to support them. There's a lot of eyes out there, a lot of ears. Someone wants to know your story. Someone really does. Make sure they hear it.

Trevor: 0:33

Yo, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. With me as always is my co-host, Mark Goldhart. Mark Goldhart, how are you doing? I am fantastic. Excited for our guest today, though. Yeah. New year, starting off with a new guest. New guest, but also not a new guest. Like you've been on the pod before. But a lot of learning since then. It's been probably like 18 months, and you weren't on it. I was not on it. You were like sick or something. So it's just you and I. Yep. He couldn't be here. And we weren't in person. No, no, yeah. I'm in Utah. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01

This place is gorgeous.

Trevor: 1:02

Yeah. We caught, we caught so so if you're hearing a voice, if you're listening and you don't see the you're hearing the voice of Jake Carls, who is the co-founder of Rainmaker at uh Midday Squares, which is a CPG company. Uh, you know, good for you snacks, uh, particularly in like the chocolatey world. How would how what is what chocolatey treats? This is this is the whole thing.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23

So when we started the company, it was build a functional chocolate bar company. That's right. Hybrid of, you know, you meet function meets indulgence. Then we now have moved into what I call we want to be the most trusted and loved afternoon snack in the better for you space globally. That is that is the mission, that is the vision, that is what we're trying to execute every day. So we start with chocolate products, now we're moving into like we're in breadless, peanut butter, jelly products. So any afternoon snack that has better for you know ingredients, but also an indulgence is what we're trying to focus on. Who are you hence midday?

Trevor: 1:53

Intentional. Who who are you, who do you look to? Like, is there a certain brand or like yeah, a certain brand you're looking to to be to like cast that vision?

SPEAKER_02: 2:02

So there's two things. So from a storytelling standpoint, which I know we're gonna get into today, which is super um you know, that hit hits home for me at least. I'm a very big believer in storytelling, but Nike, I like, you know, I have no affiliation with them. I just love how they've storytold their brand for, you know, 40 years with Phil Knight and how he envisioned that early on of, you know, not about the shoe, but about greatness. So like that reminded me that we can be not a commodity, but we have to be a product that has an emotion to it. So that's one thing. But from a second standpoint, you know, there's a brand called Perfect Snacks uh that's based in San Diego, I think. Okay. They spent the last 20, so 20 so years building the refrigerated snacking category. They did a phenomenal job. Our products are completely different, but we live next to them. So they did a phenomenal job building a brand new set in the grocery store because we live in the refrigerator. A bar that lives in the fridge is something relatively new. So we look up to them in terms of infrastructure, not in terms of their products, very different products, but that's something that we've learned a lot from. And now we're joining that party of fresh snacking and building that out to be hopefully one of the fastest growing sets in in the grocery stores.

Mark: 3:02

Across all, like across the streets. I actually feel bad. Usually we have midday squares in our office. We do.

Trevor: 3:09

We always get 16 bucks a month on midday squares. Yeah, we buy them just here.

SPEAKER_02: 3:12

Harman's man. Yeah, Harman's is awesome. They were one of our first or earlier retailers in in Utah that gave us a chance, and there was these two guys there that were working there, they're not there anymore, but they they really believed and they wanted to go all in with us. And um, when we get a chance to go all in with a retailer, we take advantage of that because that could change everything from your retail. You know, your merchandising can go up, you can get multiple placements in a store. Otherwise, you're just like everybody else. There's typically 30 to 40,000 products in a grocery store. Yeah. Like, how do you supposed to compete? If you don't have the money and the budgets to buy up space, you need relationships, people that believe in you. And then once they do, you got to lean in. And like, you know, we've had great retail partners now, like Whole Foods, Target, um, you know, uh, Fresh Time, you know, all the Harmons that have leaned in, but some just don't. And uh, we see the difference when a retailer doesn't lean in compared to one that really leans in. The volume is so different. Sure.

Trevor: 4:00

When you say leans in, explain, explain to the audience what you mean by them leaning in.

SPEAKER_02: 4:03

Believing. I think the belief of not just a transaction, uh, but like a that they they like us, we like them, and there's a two-way communication. What I mean by two-way communication is partnering, not and collaborating rather than this just being, okay, it's a it's it's a transaction. We need this to be a win for them, yeah, a win for us, and a win for the consumer. Does that involve the product placement in store? Yes, where it places, the price point that you structure it at, because like again, price architecture on maybe your multi-packs versus your singles versus your your big box, but also secondaries. Like if you can get NCAPs, you know, when you're in an NCAP, you're you're you're disrupting someone's shopping, it pops, right? That could be good for trial, but sometimes they charge really big dollars for that. And as a startup brand or an early stage brand, it's very expensive. Number two can be like, you know, you do like a collaboration within the store with another company, they they set that up. So there's all these different things you can do.

Trevor: 4:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 4:51

Um, but what we've noticed is when a brand, uh, when a partner actually leans into the partnership with communication and actually wants to work hard, we get to do really cool social media stuff. We get to do really cool collaborative stuff, and the sales velocities per week drive up every time.

Trevor: 5:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 5:04

And um, you know, I give always an example early on. We were a little brand in Montreal and we were hand delivering products at the time, and there was this retailer called Marche T-A-U Toe. And they're like a better for you store, uh, six stores, not that big, but in Montreal, it's big for our community. It was a dream to get in there. And we met with the owners. Um, we had a first meeting, and one of the guys named Andrew, they're a family business, and he took a chance. He's like, yo, you guys are bold. You're three young entrepreneurs trying to build something, you're crazy, you're whacked out, like, you know, you guys have so much energy. I want to give you a chance. We had one item, one SKU, one product. And instead of just putting it in one spot in that store where he has 30, 25 plus thousands products, he told his team, let's blow this brand up. And what they did was that they put us in multiple spots in the store and they put multiple facings. We saw a growth and an increase like we've never seen before. The amount of trial, the amount of hype, the amount of energy that happened from that belief from him passing on to his team, his store clerks, his, you know, the cashiers, the managers, it changed everything. So once we understood that early on, I said, how much can we replicate that in bigger retailers?

Trevor: 6:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 6:07

And we've been able to do it with some mass retailers and some smaller ones, regional. But anytime we get that chance, we feel the energy between people, we go all in, like guns blazing, full throttle, all gas to the metal, and we'll dedicate resources, time, and energy because we know that that's that's the easiest way for us to win at retail and um own that category. Totally. Because Harman's does that.

Mark: 6:28

Harman's is not not to get too deep-dived into this like whole retail situation. It's a regional, but they have at least in the last five years, they've pushed that refrigerator to the front. Yep. On all end caps. No way.

SPEAKER_02: 6:41

Yep. I'm going to Harman's after after my speech after there's one downtown. Right.

Trevor: 6:46

Literally down the street from where you're where there's and there's one down the street.

Mark: 6:50

Yeah. But they have a a fridge kind of like in the front of the column. So you don't have to go down an aisle. It's right down, like right by the cashiers. And that's where they have all their healthy options, like their healthy snacks. And then like the whole aisle is around supplements, yep. And healthy options.

SPEAKER_02: 7:06

Better for you is not going anywhere. It's actually going. You know, I just saw all this data. Like, and that's where you find midday squares, by the way. Exactly. We're in this better for you fresh snacking set. And like everyone always makes fun of us at the beginning. Why be a refrigerated bar? It's so hard on supply chain, it's so hard for retail, it's so hard for shipping, for D2C. And what we told them was we really believe the future of snacking is going to be going towards that direction, anyways. And it's and for the last seven years that we built this business, we've seen an increase in placement where it's gone from the back of the store to the front of the store where it's impulse, it's grab and go, it's now front and center. Because consumers are requesting that. They're having that behavior. You're giving your kids healthier snacks. You're you're not growing up necessarily on the high sugared, high-processed as much as you would have when we grew up, or maybe other families grew up differently. But for me, I grew up on you know high-processed stuff because my parents didn't know better. Sure. Now, you know, I see my brother and his kids, he's giving them midday squares. He's giving them and they're eating it. And it's like it's so fascinating to see. So, what I think the next 10 years is gonna look like is, you know, you're going to see fresh snacking that grow through not just bars and and product squares and things that's gonna go into all different things that were never in the fridge, they're now in the fridge because that's the movement that's happening. And I don't think you want to miss it. Like if you have a brand, CPG brand today, don't go the opposite direction. Or if you're gonna go the unhealthy, unhealthy, be very unhealthy and be indulgence, and that's great too. But like but own it, lean into it, be authentic. Don't be in the middle of that ground. That ground is a weird gray area that I think is slowly disappearing more and more. That's funny.

Mark: 8:33

In our snack drawer, we've got midday squares. They're in the fridge. But then we also have another Canadian brand. It's uh Smart Suites.

SPEAKER_02: 8:42

They're they're based in Vancouver. So we're there, they're on the others, the West Coast. They're on the so they're they're a great brand that built something very fascinating. So this lady named Tara started it, brilliant entrepreneur. Um I don't know if she's still involved, but she superstar scaled that business and they did they crushed it because they were changing, reframing the way candy was being eaten, and and it's delicious. I find it great. I have it. And um their fish are amazing. They're sweet as fish. I think that's my favorite one. They're incredible.

Trevor: 9:08

Have you ever had Haven sweets before? Have you guys heard of Haven sweets? Is it based on the newer one? No. I don't know where they're based, but they're like uh Hai Chew-esque. Oh, cool. But better for you, like no dyes.

SPEAKER_02: 9:18

Form factors is critical too.

Trevor: 9:19

It's awesome. I think I'll bring them in.

SPEAKER_02: 9:21

Textures are a big thing for like even bars like you know, we have a peanut butter flavor, peanut butter, smoother peanut butter, and then we have a crunchier peanut butter. That's I actually enjoy the crunchy peanut butter 10x more, and uh, we're seeing that now consumers are eating a lot more of that one because the texture is mouthful. You actually have to work, not like chew, like sticky and chewy, but you have to work your mouth a little bit. And people enjoy that experience. We've noticed that consumers actually want, you know, differences in their mouth and the sweet chews or the big fish, or whatever you call those uh from smart seats. How endorphins release when you have to chew? Yeah, it gives you an example.

Mark: 9:51

It's like a whole brain chemistry thing. Yeah. That's why milk duds are so addictive to the thing. We just got into all kinds of functions.

Trevor: 9:56

Let's let's jump into it. So what I what we really want to talk about is like content, storytelling, authenticity. So let me give some context here. Context is I don't know if you remember this, but uh I found you guys uh what how when did you guys launch? Twenty and end of 2018, like towards the end of the day. So I probably found you in 2020-ish, I would guess, you know?

Mark: 10:16

And hasn't stopped talking about you since, honestly. He's a good guy. He texts me a lot, he's a good guy.

Trevor: 10:21

And I I uh created a piece of content because I started noticing that brands we started just noticing this happened in 2018, actually, where the algorithm stopped, it was it became more pay-to-play, and brands were no longer organically being seen. Um, and around 2020, 2021, it was becoming a serious problem, especially as iOS 14.5 hit in 2021. And so I started doing a ton of research, like, how can brands turn organic content into a distribution channel instead of an like extension of their website? Yep, you know? And you were one of the first brands that I saw. I'm like, they're doing it. And so I just created this piece of content and I found like two other brands who are doing somewhat similar stuff. And I just like I pee I created this piece of content. Hey, Midday Squares, this is why I like them, this is what they're doing. Brand XY, I can't remember what the other two brands were, anyways. Anyways, someone on your team commented, like, so midday commented on it. The video blew up. It did blew up. It was like 300,000 views or something like that, which was awesome for me. And for us, yeah. And so, and then somebody started messaging back and forth, and I was like, dude, I'd love to have you guys like no, I asked them, like, do you guys just have like, do you guys just have people following you 24-7? And somebody's like, uh, kind of. Like, we kind of just have people filming us all the time. And and then I started talking back and forth. I might it might have been with your sister, probably my sister.

SPEAKER_02: 11:39

She was she's all over the Instagram.

Trevor: 11:40

Her name is Leslie Leslie, yeah. I think it was Leslie. And then yeah, anyways, I was maybe a year later or something like that. I was like, I love to have you on the podcast. We had them on the podcast. So this is where it comes. Like, this is this is that's the full circle story. And so what Midday Squares is best at is telling a story and turning their content into a distribution channel. Sure, I know you guys run ads, don't get me wrong. I know you guys do that, but probably in the early stages, you probably weren't.

SPEAKER_02: 12:07

No, you know, or it's very way less, way less, very minimal.

Trevor: 12:11

Um, and you're one of the few brands I would say in the top probably 5% of people who are actually getting organic reach outside of just what's happening from a paid perspective. And so we want to have you on and let's talk about it. Like, what made you guys decide to take that approach and prioritize the organic side of your business?

SPEAKER_02: 12:33

I love what you I love this. It's full circle moment to be in person, is it is super cool. Um, you know, early on, my partners they were building this product in their condo kitchen, like my sister and brother-in-law, as like just an afternoon snack that was for them. And then they wanted to commercialize it and they did that, and then they were like, wait, we need to blow this up. If we're in CPG, it's one of the most competitive spaces, competitive spaces. If you can't, you need you need noise, you need attention. If you can't have attention, you're screwed, right? So they looked around and they were looking for people maybe in marketing. And I was coming off doing a business, throwing parties on college campuses across Canada and trying to sell clothing. I went bust on the business, but the brand was hot. Like I had so many people coming to the parties. I was using Instagram as a storytelling source on stories, on, on, on, on posting, building community. So they asked me, like, do you want to join us the third founder of this business? And what you need to do is just blow it up for us. We're introverts, you're an extrovert, you know how to do the storytelling, you're a horrible CEO, we'll be the co-CEOs. And I looked at them and I said, To be honest with you, like, you're competing in such a hard industry. I don't know if I could even help. Like, I was I was like coming off a breakup at the time and like I closed the business. My I was a little bit depressed at the time. And they're like, just you're in or you're out. And I joined in because I needed a distraction in my life. I need to like figure out my life, dumped all the money in and I pitched them on this one concept. I said, guys, if we're gonna win in CPG in the consumer, which is one of the most competitive industries in the world right now, I said, we're gonna have to do something so different. And what I did was I took, I took, I looked at the industry of artists, like like music and bands, girl and boy bands, and I was like, we are gonna act like a girl in a boy band, like whether it's Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, but instead of selling records like they do or concerts, we're gonna sell chocolate. We're gonna tell our story in a way that builds fans. Instead of customers, we're gonna focus on fandom. And what that meant was we're just gonna show how we build this business behind the scenes, similar to artists make you fans. Like you could be a fan of one artist in the band rather than the other one, and you'll wanna listen to their music, you'll go to their concert, you'll buy their shirt, you'll do all these things. So I pitched them that and they were like, what the hell does that even mean? I was like, dude, cameras are gonna follow us, whether we're gonna put it on tripod because we can't afford people right now. We'll film, post the raw, unfiltered. And I said to them, if you want even more detail, I said, look at Shark Tank. People are sabotaged entrepreneurs at the time, and this is in 2018. And then you look at reality TV, people love the drama. And then you look at, you know, some entrepreneurs out there that were very bold, like, you know, like you had the Elon Musk's The World, Richard Branson's, you had all these people that are out there posting and creating marketing through their posting, whether you like them or not, they were creating attention. So I said, let's just build a hybrid of this. Act like a band together. We're all different, let's share our stories, let's be bold and let's show everything behind the scenes. So, like people like Shark Tank because it's entrepreneurship, but they're not seeing anything. They're seeing raising money. That's one thing. What about the drama? What about the chaos? What about the shit that goes wrong? The most in the moment where you're about to throw in the towel and just make a decision, capture that post-raw. And slowly five views, 10 views, 20 views, 30 views, 100 views, 1,000 views, products are getting purchased nonstop. Because people were like, wait, these people are wild. They're like a it's like an underdog story. This is like they're hustling and we're living through it front row in this journey, seeing it. So when they went to the store, they didn't just look for a chocolate bar at that point. It was, I know Jake, Nick, and Leslie. Yeah, I either hate these people or I love them. So that emotion drew them to the store to want to buy the product. And when I learned that in the first retailer we launched, where it drove the community to go buy it, I was like, holy shit, we need to go all in on storytelling. So I said to my partners, we need to hire a videographer and an editor, ASAP. This was before like food scientists. And my partner's like, we don't have the money. I was like, guys, I can't keep pulling out a camera in the middle of an argument that we're in, like saying, Hey, hold on. It's like it's inauthentic.

Trevor: 16:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 16:05

I said, I need the authenticity to come through the camera. This is a good investment. They said, okay, if we're gonna do that, we need you to do something for us. So I said, What is it? I said, they said, we're gonna go to therapy together. I said, therapy? They're like, Yeah, we're family. I need you, we need you to show up once every seven to ten days in good or bad times, perpetual for the rest of your life if you want to do this business. And we'll in return, we will get on camera and document and share and get videographers and all that stuff, even though we're introverts and we want nothing to do with content. We both made those agreements, signed papers. I went to therapy, I committed to it, six sessions. They were some of the best sessions ever constructive criticism, communication, group therapy, group therapy, filmed with cameras.

Trevor: 16:42

And keep in mind, so what he's Leslie is his sister and my brother, and Nick's her brother, my husband.

SPEAKER_02: 16:47

Nick's her husband, right? So it's a brother-in-law. So that's what he means by family. Yeah. Very touchy, right? And we all have past history, we're very big personalities in terms of like, you know, egos and things like that. So I went to six sessions and I loved it after it was constructive criticisms, like bullets being fired at me. It was insane. And they started to see the vet the benefits of storytelling. They're like, whoa, we're introverts, but wait, this is driving fandom. It's building community. So those have been the two best investments that we've stayed true to till this date that we go once every seven to ten days in good or bad times, to have decision making and therapy. Sometimes their COO, CFO come too. And then also, storytelling has been at the forefront of every part of our organization from the sales team to the media team to the customer experience team to the manufacturing team that produces the products. And that's the mindset. It's a mindset of what we should document, get in the mode of we should tell this story. We have to tell it. It will be a quality or safety thing. The quality team will be like, get the call the videographer, we got to capture this. That's the mentality at our business. And what it's done is driven tens of millions, if not over a hundred plus million of organic views, but built a fan base. And I don't always say it's about views. I actually think it's about how much engagement these people care about your business. Are they showing up at the store when you launch a product to buy and tell their friends about it? Are they fixing your merchandise when they see it's a mess in the store? That's what real community is. It's not just let's go viral 25, 35 times and get tens of millions of views. Nobody knows who your product is, your brand is. That's not what we're trying to do. So storytelling is is that's what it is to us. And it's helped us raise money, it's helped us get into retailers, it's helped us hire new team members. So it is a secret weapon that I think the cats out of the bag for everyone is if you tell a story authentically, you have a chance of getting all that if you want.

Trevor: 18:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 18:24

And again, I say authenticity as a critical point. If you don't have that, it won't work.

Mark: 18:29

Yeah. Now I know we want to get into like the investment. Like what is the investment in storytelling? How do you do that? How do you look at that as a business? But before we do that, what is your framework of storytelling? So you say, I mean, it's okay, we're documenting. But you have a story in mind that you're trying to capture. And I'm like, is this like a reality TV? Did that inspire you of how they're capturing these moments? And it's like semi-documentary, but it's semi behind the scenes or kind of framing it in a certain way. So I'd love to hear about how are you thinking about your frameworks in the stories you want to tell.

SPEAKER_02: 19:04

Big inspiration came from the Kardashian show originally on like you know, uh how they documented and shared. You know, they they now have consumable products if you look, you know, and they've built it. Every single one of them has one. And they're they're they're they're billions of dollars. Yeah. And they built their fan base, right? So I watched them, I studied them, and uh I studied how they storytold. And basically what I what I what I admired was they were just showing and and building, but they controlled the narrative. No one else controlled it. It was their narrative, right? They own that narrative. So I said to my partners, like, the framework is very simple. We put our tripod at the time, let's film and then let's just post as we go. And we call the series The Road to 100 million. And we document as if we have a documentary coming once we hit the hundred million of the story that happened every moment in between. So we would document and upload things to Google Drive, like saying what moment it was in time, whether it was a fight about, you know, our first retailer or was we lost an investment, here's the emotions. It's all documented and put in thing. We have actually six terabytes of content since that day, since day one. Of just B-roll of the business. Once we hired a videographer and an editor, we let them, you know, capture and and then edit in a storytelling. So at first it was just show everything. Then now it became more like, okay, like let's be a little strategic on what we're showing and what makes a difference. So, like, okay, we're talking about getting into retailers, let's talk about that. Let's tell the story about, you know, not just about being on the shelf, but what was the behind the scenes of getting it to the shelf? So that way it was still the road to 100 million, but it was just showing you like how it all actually happened, right? Now we're at a weird turning point where it's like we've scaled the business, you know, we're in 10,000 stores, we're across the United States and Canada and, you know, all states, all provinces, and we have millions of customers, but some of them didn't even know our early story of the three of us being like the front facing of this business. So now it's not about the three of us anymore. It's about how can we evoke an emotion in our content? So, for example, does it evoke sadness, happiness, anger, inspiration? That's number one. And number two, do we even enjoy watching our content? And it could be the number, it could edit the biggest piece of content if we hate it, but not posting it anymore. So instead of just like focusing on everything, we're now focused on bigger campaigns that still tell the story authentically. But the framework now is is it a campaign about launching a new product? What was the storyline behind the whole bad thing? But like it has to be able to relate to everyone now, not just the early people that watched us day one. It has to relate to them, but also relate to brand new people who have no idea who Jake, Nick, and Lesia, these three characters. So we're opening up more characters, we're becoming less dependent on ourselves in the story. We're just part of the story now. It's not about us, right? So it's an interesting framework. And then, like, look, we you know, we start leaning into LinkedIn. This is a new one that we start doing personally, each of us. So we said, like, how can we use that platform to now drive more industry folks, so like investors, retailers, and like CPG people to just know what we're doing?

Trevor: 21:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 21:43

So there we just start posting personal stuff that had to do with business, which start getting millions of views. And what that did was it created in relationships with private equity firms, venture capital firms, government officials, um, you know, banks that were like, we're familiar with these guys now. Maybe we could work with them. So that became the framework now is each of us tell our own stories, but we uh the Midday Square story is now dedicated to big campaigns. It's not so much the day-to-day of like the drama, the reality show of what we started with every day. We still document and capture, but now it's more targeted towards campaign style videos, meme style videos, but again, with authenticity of the city.

Mark: 22:19

Well that has more to do with just the size of Midday Squares. Like if you if you were helping someone start out today, would you still recommend the the route that Midday Squares took?

SPEAKER_02: 22:30

As long as it's true to you. And what I mean by that is I was just speaking at a conference today and I gave this pitch on storytelling and preaching that whole thing. That's that's my passion. And someone came up to me after and said, Well, I used to watch your story and I had a CPG brand, and um I wanted to be like you guys because by then I tried it, it didn't work. It wasn't working. And I said it didn't work because you were trying to do it, what we do as authentic. We were showing therapy sessions. You don't need to show up. That's not true to who you are. Yeah, don't get involved in that. You need to identify early on what is true to you. You can get inspiration from a company like Midday Squares or like a Richard Bramps or whoever's a good storyteller, you know, like Jesse It's or he's a wild storyteller. I watch him a lot. But I'm not taking what he does. I'm taking maybe inspiration than saying, what is a true authentic to Jay Carl's or Midday Squares? How do we apply that through? So my advice to early on is that is find your authenticity day one. Who are you? What does your brand stand for? What do you want your story to be? But don't do it for attention, don't do it for views, don't do it because everyone else is doing it. Do it because you want to. And I think that that's the big lesson I would say is yes, maybe you need a videographer to capture, but or maybe you're just doing text, like post a picture with like a big text and it's on LinkedIn, and you don't need the videographer to fall around, but you need to capture, you know, real life photos and you could do that yourself, right? So for us, we knew that the investment in media was a mindset, not a okay, we're just doing content. No, we had to get ready to understand that our whole team had to learn how to tell to create content and be okay with cameras showing up in your face in meetings. Yeah, like not even stopping you, just camera put in your face, doesn't matter how uncomfortable it is, it's being filmed. And you have to be yourself. So we trained our team to be okay with that. But now it's just, it's not so much in the face, it's more bigger moments. But I would say at the beginning, the big lesson is find your authenticity and make sure it's so clear and then just try to stay within those lanes as time goes on and grow. But you can veer a little bit to learn, but don't veer too much and copy people. You're gonna lose that game.

Trevor: 24:25

Uh, I want to say something about authenticity because what happened was like in in 2018, 2019, 2020, authenticity became like a huge, huge buzzword, like where everyone was using it. And then I've noticed that over the last couple of years, people hate the word.

Mark: 24:39

But it became synonymous with like deep.

Trevor: 24:41

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like people started looking at it as like yeah, like like deeper, heavier, you know, moments, you know. But I I think the word is super important still because what Jake is saying isn't like like what Mark said, like go and like deeply express your feelings and share things like this happened to me when I was a kid. That's not what he's saying. What he's saying is you have to figure out what you are comfortable with doing. If you're not comfortable with a camera in your face documenting you, then it will not work. Like if it doesn't come somewhat natural, I don't want to say 100% natural, it doesn't need to be 100 natural, just just inclination of matters. Yeah, if it doesn't come pretty natural, or you're like, hey, this is fun, that that's probably another way to put it. Like, am I having a good time doing this? Um, if it's painful, then you probably shouldn't do it. You just gotta figure out what that is. So that's I want that's why I want to like just clarify that. He's not saying, Oh, yeah, authentically talk about how you were hurt as a child and how you are now. Now, maybe that story works in whatever you're talking about. I'm not saying not to do that, but that's not what he is suggesting. It's just what is your type? What is the format that works for you? I'll tell you this.

SPEAKER_02: 25:50

You're your best version when you are playing your own game. So when I was when I talked about CMO before that I started CMO, I wasn't playing my game. I was playing the game that I I thought people expected of me. Then when I stepped into Rainmaker, I became fucking, you know, bold as sin and I was I was living life and I was crushing it. The difference is that I was authentic in the second one, not the first one. Now that story is I'm comfortable sharing that story because that was part of business. That was part of my life. I'm not gonna share, you know, deep, deep personal things for the sake of getting attention, right? And that's it's a very fine line, right? So you got to be aware that the moment you start sharing some authenticity, whatever that authenticity is, again, it could be you just, you know, you're into sports and that's your whole thing. That's your authenticity, is you love sports hockey, and talk about 24-7. But don't do things because you're chasing views or chasing attention or chasing, you know, pity or um or or or or or all that stuff. Do it because you truly believe it. Once you have it, that's the authentic thing. That's the true authenticity. And in our case, we did share like moments of therapy and things like that, but that was part of what we were building, right? It was, you know, that's not for everyone. Sure. And not everyone likes it either.

Mark: 26:56

Also, that's just yeah, I mean, that's a that's an authentic dynamic between a sister, a brother and a brother-in-law. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 27:02

So we shared, and we were very careful how we shared that story. We didn't share everything. Yeah. You know, again, we always say we documented it all, yes, but not everything was shared. You know, we what we believed was meant to be shared, we shared and we made mistakes. But I could tell you this. I started on my LinkedIn, and this is a great example of authenticity. I started off my LinkedIn three and a half years ago, four years ago, posting nonsense, quotes, literally quotes of like business. Yeah. Because I thought that's what people wanted because of corporate culture and quotations. Then I realized I was getting five views, 20 views, 50 views, nothing was working. Then I started posting me dancing in the grocery stores, sometimes my shirt off, having the time of my life, 50,000 views, 10,000 views, 20,000 views, 100,000. I was like, holy shit. And the moment I realized me having fun, being myself and posting it and sharing it was what got what was contagious and getting people excited because they felt the realness. It wasn't gimmicky.

Trevor: 27:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 27:50

Because they saw it consistently. They're like, this is Jake for who he is. He's not trying to get something out of it. Maybe there's some bad comments here or there, trolls and all that stuff. But that's that's five, two, two under five percent. And what I realized was the power of authenticity in business is critical. I'm not asking for people to feel bad for me. I'm asking them to just be part of the journey with me. And if you don't like me, it's all good. There's seven billion people in the world. We'll get someone else. And um, that's changed my dynamic on how I think, how we tell our story. And lead with an eye open heart, like a kind, be kind. And if you have that, then you should always be yourself.

Trevor: 28:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 28:20

And look, we don't get involved in world events, politics, or things like that. That's not that's not authentic to who we are. Right. So, like that's also thing. Some brands do that, right? So again, your authenticity is what you choose is true to you and what you believe, and how much you want to share of it is you're up to you. One thing I would say is it worked for us. Doesn't mean it's gonna work for you. Yeah.

Mark: 28:37

Can I just I want to uh I want to say something, I'll make a statement and then I want your opinion on it. Go for it. Because I think sometimes think I think people often assume that authenticity is like this documentary style, right? But from when I hear you talk, it's there's ways to deliver authenticity. And sometimes if you're not comfortable in a camera doing like a documentary and they're, you know, nitpicking your life or whatever, that's not authentic to you. But sometimes it can be authentic if you like to do skits, right? So it's not necessarily how you deliver this. What you're saying is just make sure that it's real to who you are and your identity.

SPEAKER_02: 29:19

Aaron Powell I love it. You know, you you nailed it. And like how you deliver it is your choice. You know, like for me, a big part of my delivery is physical. So like it's actually going to speak at conferences, speak at colleges, go on panels, be in podcast rooms. Like that's who I am, and I love doing that. And people feel that energy when they see it, whether it goes digital after or they're physically there. Some people would say that, you know, just documenting on TikTok is their authenticity, and that's how they deliver it, and you feel the energy. But then they go on a physical thing, and it's like, what is this? Like there's a it's uncomfortable. So you're right. How you deliver it is part of the authenticity. And you don't need to do it everywhere. You don't need to be a documentarist or whatever it's called, how you document your life and share it. That's one person's version or one company's version. And look, I don't, I'm not good on TikTok. I'm gonna be honest with you right now. I thought I would, but I still haven't hit it. I don't understand it. I I maybe my content's not resonating, I'm acting different, I don't know what it is. Yeah. But then when I go on Instagram stories, I'm uh that's who I am. And when I'm physically in places, I really feel alive.

Trevor: 30:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 30:16

And the way you know if you're being authentic is it should feel like flow. It shouldn't feel like there shouldn't be so much friction. There shouldn't be so much um anger or unhappiness. It should be exciting.

Trevor: 30:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 30:25

You should feel alive, you feel joy. That's where your real authenticity is, no matter how much pain you're going through, whether that's like a moment of heart failure or something like that, that's where you got to know that's authentic. And you'll know I can't tell you what your authenticity is. I can't tell you what yours is. Yeah. But what I could tell you is in speaking with you and now getting to know you, is you guys have an authentic energy. Like we're conversations, not, it doesn't seem like this is fake or artificial or for just views, or it just it feels like this is a genuine conversation. You guys care about storytelling, you guys care about this, and I love it. And I feel the energy, and even the text, you were always very encouraging to my brand, supporting my brand. I felt that, and that's why we became friends.

Trevor: 30:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 30:59

So it happens all over your life. It's just how you put that into your business. Yeah, you choose. And there's not one way, it's not one size fits all. It's it could be million sizes.

Trevor: 31:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 31:07

And know that.

Trevor: 31:08

You know, I I went through something like this. So, like, you know, I create content and I used to be I like at first I was like the tips and tricks marketing guy, right? And then I'm like, oh, I want to do this documenting storytelling side of things. And I started doing it, and I went from like crushing my views, good things happening, good things happening for our business to like everything tanking. And it was because like I am not the guy to get a camera and be like, okay, I need to film myself doing it. Like, it was just painful for me to do that. And so I did that for like a year. Things were not working good for me. And then I'm like, you know what? I am like, what whether I like it or not, like, I am comfortable being the tips and tricks guy. Like, I like giving people information. I like giving value. Storytelling, documenting is a value of entertainment. That's what it is. Tips and tricks isn't a value of entertainment, it's a value of learning and education, you know? And so there's a different way. And so I went through that journey like over the last three years and over the last maybe eight months. I think it's a lifelong journey. You know, oh yeah, for sure. So it happens, you know, whether it's a personal brand, whether it's a brand brand, whatever it might be. Um, I like that concept. What one thing I want to kind of like revert this conversation is so I was meeting with a client yesterday, and they're in the baby apparel space, like baby clothing space. Okay. And we're talking about how they can grow organically. Like we're having this conversation, and I'm kind of like saying, Okay, here are the the three different ways you can do it. You can either be entertaining, and the way you entertain is you're funny, you're documenting and storytelling, um, you're inspiring. You know, like that's that's the way to entertain. You're or you're providing value. Like those generally tend to be the ways like you can can grow as you're providing value, or you're just being wildly polarizing that's doing neither. I guess that is val that's entertaining too. I think Donald Trump. Yeah, like he's not necessarily doing anything specific, but he's just so polarizing entertaining, you know? Um let's call it. And he does it intentionally. Yeah.

Mark: 33:06

This is intentionally polarizing.

SPEAKER_02: 33:08

But intention, and and and this comes back to anything, whether it's polarizing or it's it's skits or it's comedy, you need intention because that's part of the authenticity.

Trevor: 33:17

Yep. It really is. But one of the questions they asked, and I think that this is a qu I mean, I get this question all the time. And it's so I thought I I love that it happened to me yesterday, and I want to ask it to you. The question was so Midday Squares at any time, I'm like, you know, I've got a list of probably 13 brands now that I like really love to show that are doing it all a different way. Midday Squares is one of those 13 brands, right? Thank you. And so I'm showing them like, you know, walking through the different like avenues they can go down, and I bring up the documenting, you know, side of it and the storytelling side, and I tell them everything you've said. I'm like, if it doesn't fit feel natural, you can't do it. Yep. But if it does, you totally can. And their question was but what mom who's wanting to buy kids' clothing, baby clothing, is gonna want to see us building a business?

SPEAKER_02: 34:03

Let me let me answer that. Yes. My opinion. We have a natural tendency as humans to think our story is boring. And that comes back to insecurities fear I've had in my life many times that I was like, you know, and who wants who else wants me see see me make a chocolate by that? It's the most boring thing ever. Like, you know, you pour chocolate and you mix some things. It's just boring. But when changes when you change to how do I build a business about that, it became entertaining. It became there's emotions. There was, wait, that was really cool how they make it. It was so hard to get one product to even a shelf. Like there's real things on the line too. Real things, there's wrist, there's there's energy, right? So what I would say to this person, and it doesn't matter if you're selling plumbing, baby clothes, chocolate, uh, podcasting, whatever it is, your story is boring to you because you live at 24-7. The person on the left of you or the right of you does not live your story 24-7. So they might find it interesting. They might take one tidbit from it and say, I like her or I like him, and I want to support them. And this business, making clothes, baby clothes, wow, she's putting so much effort, so much craftsmanship, so much time. She's dedicating her life, her passion to building this. I want to, I want my baby to have something from someone like that. I want to give that person a chance. And then when the product comes and there's product market fit, repurchase. Boom. You can't build a brand without product market fit. So let's let's give them that. Yeah. But we find we have an innate ability to be fearful of what people think of us and what we're judged or public failure or all these things. You got to work on the muscle in your head, in your brain, in your body that, that, that fights that. And I think it was Jeff Bezos, I'm not sure. But he wrote in his last, in his last, uh, one of his last uh uh article, uh letters as chairman to the board, I think he wrote paraphrasing, fully paraphrasing, something along the lines of like, you should spend all your energy in your life to protecting your atypicalness and like letting that shine. So you spend all your energy fighting the conformity because the world will conform you. It it business conforms you. And when you have the conformity, you just want to fit in, you don't want to take the risk, it's not worth it, it's scary. So why should I do it? No one's gonna listen to me. I'm boring, no one's gonna care about my building a baby thing, business, a baby clothing business. But that's incorrect. That's what's unique about you. You're doing something great, you're doing something against all odds. No, there's many, there's not that many entrepreneurs in the world. People think there is, there's not as many as people think. Not many people have a podcast. You might see a lot of podcasts, but it's not actually that many in the grand scheme of things, right? And I think showing that side is already putting you, I want to learn more. This is different than the current lifestyle I live. Yeah. And I don't know, when I use when I teach guest lectures at university, I always document and share it because I'm like, you know, I didn't do well in school and now I'm at school. So my story is like, it's super cool to be in a classroom. It's a privilege to now give kids, you know, students inspiration about storytelling. But the cool part about it is that, you know, I find it interesting because not everyone's doing that. So the people are like, oh yeah, what a story this is. Yeah. And I think once you build that muscle over and over and over and over again, compound it, you eventually become so strong where you don't, you don't care. And you're just like, not everyone's gonna love it, and I'm gonna do it. And you start selling a lot of products because there's again 360 million people in the United States, I think. There's 40 million in Canada, that's 400 million in North America, and then you've got 7 billion in the world. There's a lot of eyes out there, a lot of ears. Someone wants to know your story. Yeah, someone really does. Make sure they hear it.

Mark: 37:14

Yeah, what I love about what you said so far, Jake, is another ingredient of storytelling, because we talk about the frameworks, but maybe the best kind of storytelling starts with zooming out from yourself, right? Because we get so caught up in our own world, right? Because we're just experiencing one slice of the world. I can only experience what I perceive. And so you tell yourself stories without zooming out and thinking, like, well, everyone loves gossip. Yep. And why do they love gossip? It's because it's stories about other people. Exactly. It's emotional, it's emotional. So why do people like gossip? And it's not even bad gossip. People just like hearing stories about other people, like, oh, tell me more about that. Like, and if they feel a personal connection to that gossip or that person, it has even more weight. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_02: 38:04

And if you look back to how the brain works, like, you know, for generations, we've been our our ancestors were telling stories about, you know, believing in something, uh, working together, sharing wisdom, working as villages. They fell in love with each other, they made babies, they continue to pass that on. So our brains have been hardwired to understand stories. And what that means is when I share a story with you two, your brain, whether you realize it or not, releases a chemical called oxytocin, which is the trust and empathy chemical. And what you do is you start to feel part of the story, you put yourself in those shoes. So you start listening. Your brain starts to light up six, seven spots. Rather than if I told you, hey, Midday Squares has four grams of protein, six grams of fiber, and these ingredients, you'd be bored as stiff because there's nothing, there's no story there. It's just facts. So once you understand that you want to release the six to seven parts in people's brains, someone's gonna care about your story. You think it's boring because it's your story, but you're living something different than seven billion people in the world.

Trevor: 38:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 38:58

We're only different because of what we've experienced in the world and our DNA. Other than that, we're all very, we're humans, right? Yeah. And we might live in different parts. You guys living in where you are compared to where I live, we've had very different experiences. We both have businesses. That's maybe one commonality, but I have millions of different experiences. You and you, you have millions of different experiences me. So I'm automatically going to find your own.

Mark: 39:16

You probably understand French.

SPEAKER_02: 39:17

So, yeah, say it's France where I'm from. I'm it's French where I'm from. That brings a whole new culture.

Mark: 39:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 39:23

So I don't know. Like for me, like if anyone's listening to this that's that's starting out or scared to share their story or be authentic, it's very simple. You're one step at all times away from somebody changing the whole trajectory of your life, whether that be an investor that invests in your business, whether that be someone sitting next to you on the plane that hears your story and says, I want to be your partner, whether it's someone at our dinner restaurant on a date that you fall in love because you're sharing stories that becomes your you know who you marry, increase your surface level. The world allows you to do that with the internet and social media. Yes, there's paid ads, that helps, it amplifies, all that stuff. But you have a chance for the first time in history to reach anybody. You could reach the president, you could reach the prime minister, you could reach anyone by chance.

Mark: 40:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 40:06

But you can only do it if you do it. So once I understood that, I said, screw it, I'm doing it every day. Good, bad, ugly, it's gonna go up. Deal with the negativity, deal with the positivity that comes from it, but at least I'm increasing my surface level, and there's a chance. There's a chance that my life changes from it.

Trevor: 40:22

Yeah. Good or bad. This podcast is brought to you by BFF Creative. BFF Creative is a software that meets services. Any marketing collateral you need, whether that's ads, emails, print designs, or social media, all you have to do is submit it a request, and one of BFF Creative's qualified designers will create a design for you and it'll be completed in two to three days. BFF Creative allows you to submit as many requests and as many revisions as you can with just one monthly fee. And the best part is that it's month to month. No contracts, no hidden fees, no nothing. And if you use promo code unstoppable30, you'll get 30% off for your first month on us. Just go to bffcreative.co, pick your plan, and sign up today. One thing that that makes me uh nervous. So so we all know AI, like we're in the wake of AI. AI is awesome. Like we use it as our agents in our agency all the time to help us with operations, efficiency, etc. I think you talked about you using it as well. Right now, there's a huge exodus of people being like, hey, I can push all of my content to AI because AI can do anything. It can train my voice. Like, literally, we could train my voice and me to look like I'm giving tips and tricks all day long. It's wild. Like, what are you, what are your thoughts around that right now?

SPEAKER_02: 41:48

Again, huge fan of AI. Like you guys are, we are manufacturers, we we use it for a lot of our ops, and my partners love it. I love it. Where I think there's one blind spot potentially is I think one of the last unfair advantages in this world, especially in storytelling and communications and building fandom or community, is being human. Yeah. So as everyone rushes to do the content that you're talking about, or using that people that have never done content before ever, yeah. You have an inflow of information, overload and overload, and you could identify a lot of similarities in it. The unfair advantage is just be the opposite. And the opposite is just you being your actual self and letting that humanization come through. And I'll give you an example. You know, I go through Instagram and Facebook and and LinkedIn every day and TikTok, and I'll look through the DMs from people commenting on our products or or saying like how much they love it or posting about it. And, you know, I'll go spend 20, 30 minutes a day typically if I'm in Montreal, where I'm from, and I'll send a video. I press the button. First, I look their profile up. I see what they like. I see they have a dog, a cat, they like hockey, whatever. And I thank them. I say, hey, this is Jake, one of the co-founders of Midday Squares. Alex, you know, I was looking at your profile. You're awesome. You got this energy. I that's what I feel. I just want to say thank you on behalf of everyone here. We really love you. And you just promoting our stuff, getting it at Harman's, we appreciate it. Send the video. It's so human that every single reaction is like it's refreshing to the consumer. And I had a friend say to me, Why don't you automate that? AI will do the same voice to get the video. I said, because uh the replication of the feeling that I see from those 20 people a day is whacked out. It's true fandom. So I believe if you want to continue to build true fandom, use your last unfair advantage and content and storytelling and in in in in how you show up, is just be yourself. And AI can amplify certain things about it, use it, but still bring that human of who you are, who you are and who I am. That's what makes us great at the end of the day. It's just a tool to help us become better. Yeah. But keep what makes you great originally. Yeah. Keep sharing that.

Mark: 43:50

It reminds me a lot of uh what is that art forum in Japan? I love Japan. Were you it's I don't know. I don't know it either, but it's like Kinsugi. I know, usually our producer, he's jet you know, he's half Japanese. But um it's called Kinsugi, I think. But it's like that po pottery that's broken. And then they fill so they remake the pottery after it breaks and it like has gold in it. So, anyways, it's like the the beauty of something that's broken, that's remade, that has you know it's relatable. It's relatable. So it's almost like that's becoming the content, you know. And it already has with social media and TikTok. It's like, hey, be more authentic, be real, like we don't care about your glamorized life or whatever. But I like what you're saying because the more human you are, the more rough edges there's going to be.

SPEAKER_02: 44:42

People are gonna dislike you, that's totally fine too. I'd rather I always say, I'd rather be chaotic and unavage than be mediocre and be be like safe. Yeah. It's the worst to be safe. You're not gonna do anything. No one in the world that did any greatness was mediocre. They all took unavage decisions, which is just them being themselves.

Mark: 44:57

Okay, last question before we let you go. How do you convince business owners to invest in content? It's easy for them to spend money on ads, but a lot of times it's like, hey, if you're gonna spend 100 grand, why don't you invest 10 grand into creating content? What's your message for them?

SPEAKER_02: 45:14

From a personal experience, we've raised$10 million from posting on social media organically. Them watching our journey on LinkedIn, investors not saying anything, just watching consistent posts of our good, bad, ugly, building trust without us even knowing. So then we reached out, the foot that was already in the door. They said, We love you guys, we trust you guys. Let's see, let's get this due diligence done quickly. Like that. Second, retail partners that we work with, some of the biggest in the world, I'm not gonna say some of their names, some of the biggest in North America, have literally reached out to us because they've watched the content and they said, You guys are wild, entertaining, we want to work with you. The leaning in that we talked about at the beginning happened because of the stories. They felt connected, emotionally connected. Without those people, that investor, I wouldn't be with you today, number one. Without those retailers, our business wouldn't be as big as it is today. The simple commonality in both of those was storytelling was what caught their eye and what got them engaged, and then product market fit was what actually kept them in. So knowing that you know that from just this simple case study, why not create your surface level where you can get opportunities like that? Love it, love it. Where can people find midday? W.middaysquares.com. We'll show you the store locators of anywhere. Um, but in the stores here in the in the US, Target, Albertson's, uh, Fresh Time, Whole Foods, Harman's, uh, many, many more in the refrigerated section or on our website at you know, on www.middaysquares.com. Add me on social, uh, Jay Carl's, LinkedIn, Instagram, and follow Midday Squares. You'll f you'll you'll follow the reality show on The Road to 100 million.

Trevor: 46:39

Love it.

SPEAKER_02: 46:40

Let's do it.

Trevor: 46:40

Well, thanks, brother. Appreciate your time. Um, enjoy your conference. I know you're speaking at another thing here in the energy again. That's right. Let's do it. Thank you everybody for listening, and we will see you guys next week. Thank you for listening to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. If there's a brand campaign strategy or marketing tactic that you want us to review, please DM me at the TrevorCrump on Instagram or TikTok or at the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. And of course, if you got value from this episode or if you like it whatsoever, please make sure you're subscribing, you're liking, you're following, and for sure go leave us to review to let us know that we're doing a good job. We will see you guys next time.