[0:00] What is marketing trends and innovation?Hello, the guest today is Robin Carter, Class of 1996. She is a marketing trends and innovation expert. She works with the biggest brands in the world and helps them with their marketing trends. So hi, Robin, what is a marketing trend? Hi, Tony. I'm so excited to be on your podcast. Yay. So my company is Jump Rope Innovation. I started it about 20 years ago and what we do is consumer insights and category trends. And so we help big brands mostly, but sometimes smaller brands across categories to understand the real lives of the real people they serve. So consumer insights, what do people need and what's driving those needs? And then category trends, what's happening in the world around us. And then we put those together for innovation, sometimes for innovation, sometimes for communication purposes, sometimes for activation, sometimes it's before brand positioning. But we help brands to understand what consumer want need and to understand what the world around us is calling for and how their brands can sort of lead in those environments. Oh gotcha. Well what's the example of categories? What do you mean by categories? Oh, by categories, so category could be food and beverage, category could be Wellness, category could be media and entertainment. So we look at those sort of big picture and then say how could an individual brand apply what we're, what we have learned to their category and to their specific brand? Gotcha. So I prefer like a specific example. I've been drinking a lot of these sparkling waters recently. What category is it in and what's the example of a marketing trend? Yeah, so I see you're drinking the spin drift there. Yeah. And they have a great episode of How I Built this if you want to hear a little bit about the company from the founder. So the category for that could be CPG, also beverages. So Consumer Packaged Goods, which are the things like you buy in the grocery store or at a convenience store that those kinds of things like things that are packaged for us to use. And the category could be beverages specifically because it's a it's a beverage product. And when people are looking for spin drift, the other things that they might be considering would also be beverages like they're thirsty, they want to drink. So, so beverage be that immediate category. And then what is a trend that I think is driving interest in spin drift? I mean, I think it's there are a few things, but I think I would say Wellness people are looking for healthier choices and easier ways to make those choices. That's a lower calorie, very transparent option that has some real fruit juice. So you have some of that flavor that you people look for with a lot of kind of hydration benefits and without a lot of additional ingredients. That makes sense. So, so, so these trends, for example, like how would a company like Spin Drift use that trend in their work? So let's say we were talking to spin Drift and we were talking to them about proactive well-being. And let's say we called the trend, you know, there's the specific area of Wellness, proactive well-being, right? And we said, all right, people are trying to take good care of their health. They want easy ways to do that. Maybe there are some benefits that you want to consider adding to that. Maybe there are naturally occurring benefits and some of the ingredients that you're using are those at a level that that they're efficacious? Could they be at a level that they're efficacious? So if you have a certain juice that has a certain vitamin in it, like tart cherry is good for recovery right after sports. So can you can you offer that to people in an in a natural way? We might think about other proactive solutions that they could be offering people. So is it just that they have these these beverages? Could they have a pre sports hydration kind of thing that gives you a little bit of the carbs that you need, right? Because it's got a little bit of sugar and also gives you, you know, a boost of hydration? Is there something extra they could be doing for that? So we would help them to understand like here's what this trend is, here's what it looks like, here's how it's coming to life across categories. Here's what people are looking for and why they care about this. And here's how you might act on this in a way that feels new and different in your category, and also feels authentic to your brand. Gotcha. Oh, interesting. Consumer like tastes like the people who drink a beverages, their taste might change over time. They might want proactive well-being. So as a result they end up choosing a spin drift because of that. So are you working with like the R&D team within the beverage company to come out with a new formula or are you working with their marketing team to focus on certain areas like what's what happens on the company side usually to react to these trends? Yeah, that's a great question. So we don't work on the formulations. We're not food scientists, although we know some, but we're not food scientists. So we don't work on the formulations. But we do like to work with a cross functional team. So it's not just the marketing team because the R&D team for example will know, oh hey, there are new technologies around that that we could be using. So maybe we can, you know, if we know there's an interest here, we should investigate those more or maybe they're aware of some of the benefits that are just inherent in the product, right that that we might not know about. So we like to work with a cross functional team because ideas come from all sorts of places and because everybody can contribute from their area of expertise too. So that's really that's really helpful. But mostly our direct clients are the consumer insights people and then the next level out would be the marketers. Interesting. Is this like a very common thing? Like do every company have like consumer insights people? Where is it just like new companies like Coca-Cola, for example, where they have consumer insights because they've been so successful for so long? Oh yeah. So large companies have consumer

[5:33] Consumer insights departments and workflowsinsights departments because they need to understand who their consumers are, how their lives are changing, how their needs are changing, how the way they're shopping is changing. So they need to always be aware of those things and thinking about those things because we don't want to make things just because we can. We want to make things based on a need. So big companies have this function. Smaller companies might not because a newer business or a smaller company might have just built their business on something that was the need of the founder, right? Like somebody needed something, they, they saw a gap in the marketplace and they built something. And they're not really at a stage yet where they are saying we need to take a step back and understand who's buying our product, why they're buying it, and what we can do next to surprise and delight them. For smaller companies, it's also, you know, expensive to have all that overhead of how you need an insights department. So sometimes those companies do well with fractional insights people too. Are you mostly working on the individual product level or are you working on like a portfolio of product level, like which products within the portfolio to weigh more as the insight trends change? Yeah. I mean, I think we, we typically like most of our projects that in this regard are on a product level or on a specific product level, but we do do work around, around portfolio. So how do you manage your portfolio so that if there are 5 trends that we think are driving your category that the right brands are speaking to the trends that make sense for them, but you're kind of spread out across these trends, leveraging your brands as appropriate because every brand shouldn't be speaking to every trend all the time, right? We want to have some differentiation and, and some brands stand for something and others stand for something else. And so they have a natural fit here or there. Gotcha. To give some more context, like some other examples of trends and what are some examples of products that fit those trends?

[7:33] Examples of trendsSure. So nostalgia is an easy one. That's a trend that we talk about all the time, and that's a trend that we've been looking at for years. And I think one thing that's important to understand about nostalgia is that part of what's driving just that serious interest in nostalgia is just this era of uncertainty that we're living in. And with fewer, more and more stress and more and more things to sort of feel unsure of, people turn to comforting things. So nostalgia becomes more important. And I've been saying that for 10 years, more or less. So nostalgia is something that's important and I think a pretty prominent trend right now. We see that come to life in different ways. Another thing we like to say about nostalgia is that here in the US, it's not just Wonder Bread and Coca-Cola. Like nostalgia is polycultural because it's this is a polycultural society. So as we become increasingly polycultural, as our general market becomes increasingly polycultural, nostalgia itself is increasingly polycultural. So there are flavors or formats like, you know, all the excitement around dumplings or, or matcha, those are things that are nostalgic for some people, Mochi, right? Those are things that are nostalgic for some people. And so those are valuable and, and people get excited about those, but those are new innovations for others, right? Some people are just not familiar. So, so there's that intersection, right, of people getting excited about something because it's nostalgic for them. And then something people discovering something that feels new to them. And there's also this desire for authenticity. When you see something like a matcha, right? That's that's been here for a while and people are really excited about it's, it's nostalgic for some people. But in discovering that it's exciting for other people because there's an authenticity to that because it came from somewhere. It's real other people. This is how other people are enjoying a caffeinated beverage, right? So you see that intersection there too. So for these trends, like how do these trends usually get started? Is it because it was featured in the Hollywood movie and then everybody watched it and then they as a result feel that trend? What creates a trend? So, yeah, So what you're talking about are more like manifestations of trends, right? So what we think about when we think about trends are, are things that endure over time. So trends endure over time for as long as the forces that are driving them remain in place. So there are things happening around us all the time, like, you know, economic uncertainty, right, polyculturalization, shifting household dynamics like family sizes and things like that and who's living at home. Some of these things are are happening around us and are really outside of our control, right? Like the housing crisis, that's outside of our personal control. And so trends are really born from the interaction between these macro forces, these things that are happening around us. Another one would be like AI and technology, right? Those are things that are happening around us, US and our attempts to meet our basic human needs. So we have these things happening around us. It kind of goes back to like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? We have these things happening around us. We're trying to get our needs met. And so trends really are born from that intersection between these forces around us and our, our desires and our, our, you know, attempts to meet our basic needs. So the trends themselves remain in play for as long as the forces that are driving them remain in play. And some might become more important over time and some might become less important over time, depending on what's happening, you know, in the immediate environment. But those remain fairly constant over time. What changes year to year are the manifestations of those trends. So nostalgia, for example, has lots of different manifestations and, and that evolves over time. Sometimes you see like throwback packs, right? Like they're bringing back the Doritos pack from 1980, 86 or something, right? And you see that on the show, but sometimes you see reboots of things. So something that was old, like an old TV show that's made new again. So either with the same cast, you know, advance later on, like the Gilmore Girls did that, or they just remake the whole thing. And so that's another way of of bringing something nostalgic to life another way. These are manifestations. Right. These are manifestations of the nostalgic trend. Another thing that we see are the adultification of childhood things. So you see a brand like Good Ol's right, that takes a childhood thing like macaroni and cheese and makes it for the adult palate, right? With flavors that maybe appeal more to adults or even with a nutritional profile that might fit in more with your personal goals as an adult today. So those are the different manifestations of nostalgia. And sometimes you see a lot of one or you see a lot of brands kind of doing leaning into one area of that and then that will shift over time. That's really interesting. Are these like these trends are, do they affect America as well as Mexico as well as Brazil? Where do they most? Do you have like a niche that you really understand really well? Yeah, these trends do affect us around the world and I think increasingly so as we become more of a global society where we're really interconnected and you know, and, and also where we're sharing information so fluidly, right, via social media and things like that. You know, certain trends will be more prominent in different parts of the world where the forces around us are are having more of an impact. So if you're somewhere where you know, it's really the, you know, the economic environment is really particularly difficult. You know, proactive health and Wellness might be very important to you because you cannot afford to get sick and be become part of the system. And you know, where you're not getting adequate care, you don't have money to do things. So so yeah, I mean, these trends exist globally. And when we work with brands talking about these trends and bringing these trends to life, and we look at examples that are global in nature too. And then like, how precise can you get if like a brand wants to be more precise, like if a brand wants to target more Latinos in America because Latinos are growing a demographic, like is there, are you able to be more precise as well with these trends? Yeah. So yes, yes, we are. But we also are not a quantitative research company. So, so, So what that means is that if you want to validate something, then you need a large number of consumers to give you an answer that statistics significant. So right. So that's one piece of things. And we're not a quantitative research company, although we don't, we do work with quantitative partners at times. But what we but what we can do is talk to Hispanic consumers and do research, the research that we do around Hispanic consumers and just understand what people's lives are like and what are the things that are most prominent to them, What are they trying to achieve and what's standing in the way. And that helps us to know like, OK, here are that here's where we should be focusing if we're speaking to these consumers. Gotcha. Interesting. So, so you're more on the qualitative side. So you create like a framework and then within that framework more quantitative analysis gets done. Well, we're on the qualitative side, so we we can partner with quantitative agencies or with our client at a different phase in the process. So we are working on front end innovation, oftentimes helping to understand what do people need, what is this consumer trying to accomplish and what's standing in her way. And then we can do an innovation workshop from that and come up with ideas that would help to meet that consumer's needs and that also feel appropriate for that coming from that brand. And then we can collect those ideas. And then we actually have a tool where we can test them or they can use other quantitative testing methodologies. The tool that we developed allows us to test ideas with general market consumers, but also with influencers, category influencers, so that we can see not just what people are interested in now, but where do we think things are going, What are people likely to be interested in in the future? And the value in that is that usually ideas are validated only with consumers. And consumers are great at telling you about their lives today and what they need today and less good at telling you about what they're going to need three years from now, five years from now. You know, and it takes, it takes brands oftentimes that amount of time to get a product from concept to the shelf. So we like to be looking ahead, you know, as well. Gotcha. Because then when it does get into market, it'll be following the trend still. That's right. What's the example of work that marketing trend people do? So what's an example of what marketing trend people do to figure out trends or to work on specific projects?

[15:48] How to figure out new trends, and How to apply that to brandsSo there's like 2 separate workflows then. So let's start with the trend part first then. Well, how do you marketing trends people figure out what trends exist? Yeah. So we're that's a great question. So we're constantly monitoring different things. So we look at reports from around the world, we look at social media across different categories. And because we work across different categories, that's a big help to us because we're able to see when something is manifesting across when something's kind of sticking because a trend will a trend isn't just isolated to one category. If we care about proactive health and Wellness, for example, we're going to see that coming to life across categories. It's going to come to life and the way people are shopping for personal care, it's going to come to life and the way people are shopping for things for their home, it's going to come to life and food, right. So we're, you know, because we work across categories that allows us to kind of see where there's something that's that's that's bigger, you know, and not just isolated and, and that helps us. So we do that kind of work. We get out into different cities and we go around and look at what's happening in unique places and cutting edge shops. We talk with consumers, we talk with influencers and then we meet internally as a team and then talk about what we see and what we think it means and put together kind of a list of of the trends that we think are you know or driving behavior and innovation. Gotcha. So you have to like keep the posts on many different things and then you can follow along the trend. Yeah. And I think it's important to have that bigger view because because nothing exists in a vacuum. Yeah, Yeah, because the nostalgia trend in the food category would also affect the social media category and other categories too. Yeah. Yeah, print is coming back, right? Like lots of different things, right. So there's so nostalgia's coming to life in in a number of different ways. There's new soap operas. There's like a lot of different things that are happening that are reflecting that. Gotcha. A desire for nostalgia. Gotcha. Like a what's like a like, how do you tell is there like a cut off point, a threshold that you hit? And then you're saying this is a trend where is like how do whether it's a trend where it's just like a fad and then it might go away quickly after a little bit. Yeah, that's a great question. And it's, it's a little bit of alchemy, right? Like it's, it's not an exact science. The social sciences are not exact sciences. So it's not an exact science. But I would say that when we see something coming to life across categories and when we start to see multiple manifestations of that thing, then that feels like something's happening there. And as I said, the trends themselves remain intact for as long as the forces that are driving them remain intact. So the So it's not often that we're discovering a brand new trend. We might discover new manifestations of things, but we're not often discovering a brand new trend. People will will sometimes, you know, send out these trends reports each year. You know, the trends from 2025 aren't going to go away when the calendar turns to January 1st, 2026. So it's, it's not like that exactly. The trends themselves are fairly constant over time and it's the manifestations that change, right? So, so that's important distinction. But I will say that we have recently discovered what we think is a new trend, which we're calling return to real. And it has a little bit of nostalgia in it. But it's this idea that people are so overwhelmed with art, with AI, with other things that they can't determine, is this real? Am I only seeing one side of this? Is the algorithm just showing this to me? Is this a real person I'm talking to when I'm watching something? Are those real people? So people are are just kind of overwhelmed by that. And that's what's driving this this like technology boom. And also just this general just distrust, particularly in this country. And so people are kind of this trend that's developing is about returning to what's real and tangible. So people are interested in face to face. I want to talk on a phone to somebody. You know, I don't want to always be texting. I want to, you know, more real connection points. I want to go to a game night in person and play with my friends. I want to do these, you know, connection is a really big piece of that. So I want these opportunities to do things in real life. Like you see soap operas coming back, even smoking is coming back with these kinds of things that are real. We understand what they are and for better or for worse, who's to include them in our lives? But but that's that's something that's a new trend. And the way we identified that is by seeing those examples coming to life across categories of people rejecting the. Digital virtual version of things and looking for something that they can touch and feel and see. Gotcha. That makes sense. And then once you identify this new trend, then the different brands will have different manifestations of this new trend. Yeah. So then the different, so then the manifestations will will start to emerge, right. So maybe, maybe right now it's about kind of throwback activities, right. So that's that's the manifestation. It's like, bring me the thing that I had from years ago or give me the experience that I had from years ago. Maybe that starts to come to life in creation of new experiences. So new ways to immerse yourself in some of these things that you that you knew. So if it's like the soap opera, soap operas are coming back, well, maybe we want soap opera experiences and maybe they're going to be a lot of experiences created where you can walk through and whatever the sets and things like that. It's real. I can see it, I'm there, I understand. Like I can touch it with my hands. I, I know what that is. I think, I think another way, another manifestation that we're seeing already in that vein is just this desire for transparency and like real ingredients. So we have all these artificial sweeteners and things like that and, and they serve their purpose. But we also see people saying, I just want a little bit of the real sugar. Like I know I shouldn't have a lot. Just give me the real thing with the real ingredients and with pantry ingredients that I recognize, right? And we'll go from there. Same with the return to meat. I mean, that's another piece of that, that we had all these artificial things. And, and I think people start to question, is this really better? Is this worth pay more for? I'm not sure what this is really about. And so when the kind of shininess and excitement of that has worn off and people are making hard decisions at the grocery store, it's easier to say, OK, I want to go back to I'm just going to get a good quality piece of meat. Gotcha. That makes sense. So, so back to like what the marketing trends people do in their work. So, so the first they figure out the trend, then they have to do like a specific like do it for specific projects for like the meat company for example, like what would be specific project for a meat company? A meat company is that that's a tough question. Like a real meat company. Yeah, real meat. Not the artificial meat, but the return to real real meat. Company so if I were a real meat company, I would be trying to figure out what are some of the pain points that consumers are experiencing who have tried other things right aside from meat. What are some of the barriers that they have and and some of the pain points and and also what are some of the pleasures of meat? What do they enjoy about having real meat, right? What do they need to hear about real meat to feel like they can start including it again or including it more in their in their diet? What do they need to know about the companies making it or to see like do they need transparency? Do they need to see the what's happening where the cows are grazing or, or whatever? So those are the types of questions that we would want to understand. And then also how are people cooking today would be an important thing to understand. What equipment do they have? How long do they want to prepare something? Those kinds of things too. Like, would you do it by finding a couple customers who eat that meat and they ask them those questions? Like what's the process for figuring out the answers? Yeah. OK. So so we might talk to people who have chosen other meats, like who have gone away from real meat but are open to going back to real meat. That would be one group of people that we would talk to. And then we might talk to people who are meat lovers, who are, who already have meat in their diet. So we want to understand like what are all the great things that people love about meat from the people who are eating it? And then we also want to understand the trigger and barriers for the people who have stopped using and then who are interested in starting to have more meet again. So so how do you find these people done and how do you decide what type of questions to ask? What format of questions do you do over Zoom? Do you do in person? Yeah. So we find the people via a recruiter. We write a Screener that has specific questions in it that help the recruiter to identify who we want to talk to. So might be people of a certain income level or a certain age or in certain cases maybe they live in a certain part of the country, depending what the project is. But here we would ask for people of a certain age and probably income level. And then we would have we would have other questions in there about their behaviors that would be screen questions. And do they, you know, do they eat artificial meat or have they gone away from eating meat completely? Are they interest, would they be interested in trying meat again or including it more than they are now in their diet? So they would have to answer in certain ways to those questions and then we would recruit them. And then we would have either focus groups where we would talk to several of them at a time or one-on-one interviews where we would talk to one consumer at a time. We might even have them do homework assignments where they show us how they cook. They show us the appliances and what, you know, what their typical recipe that they might make, things like that. And then we'll talk with them and we write a discussion guide that helps make sure we're going to cover all the things we want to ask. Or we've talked generally about how they eat and what they eat. And then we get more narrow and specific to talking about this, the category, the meat. And then from there we would talk to a number of consumers. And then from there we would sort of synthesize what we heard to say, OK, these seem to be the major pain points. These seem to be the major opportunity areas. What they would need to see are these things you know. Our recommendation is XYZ. Gotcha, gotcha. So, so these are much more specific than anyone trend. These are like very specific like how you cook the meat, not just the return to real. Right, right. So exactly. So if return to real is driving interest in meat consumption, then the meat people might say, OK, this is our moment. We need to figure out how we can get these people back because if they're open to this, we want to make sure that we are in their consideration set. And so how do we make sure that we are as appealing to them and that we're saying the right things and that we're telling the right things about our company to make them consider us choose? US gotcha. That makes sense. So the trend is like a big overarching one, but within that there's a lot of specific questions you have to answer too. Yeah. How do you act on it, right. How do you act on it in a way that will be meaningful to consumers and make sense for your business? Robin, you also started your own

[26:10] Starting her own firm, entrepreneurship!!firm, So what was the process in starting your own firm? We need more entrepreneurs. We need more entrepreneurs. So I started 20 years ago and it was a very different wow. Yeah. So that was a very different time. So 20 years ago we were doing everything in person. I left like a full time in person job when my son was born and then started from there. So and that was the norm, right? Nowadays everything's virtual. There's, there's a lot more sort of room and flexibility for doing things, things like that and, and also just more of that entrepreneur culture. But when I started, it was just sort of the beginning days of that kind of thing of that like hustle culture and, and starting your own businesses in that way. And I was lucky because I had my husband and so I didn't have to worry about immediately making enough money to replace my income that I had from when I was a full time employee. So I was able to grow organically. That doesn't work for everybody. If you know, if you don't have the benefit of those, those things and time to scale. So when, you know, I started, a client of mine had reached out knowing that that I wanted to do some consulting after I left my full time job and had reached out to me about a project and said, Hey, I, you know, I have this idea for projects and would you like to be, you know, would you like to work on it? And I said sure. And so, yeah, so I did that. And I think the first thing was a newsletter. And I had written a newsletter in college. I worked on writing the scoop sheet newsletter for student employment services. So I kind of knew how to do that. And I thought, OK, I can do. And then I said, wait, how do I do that? And that's part of it, right? As an entrepreneur, it's like you say, yes. And then you figure out what you need to know and that and how to get it done. But so that, that was 1 project. And I worked on some other projects for that client. And then I met other people from her team. And then they reached out to me about different things. And then some of those people left to go to other teams and within the same company, some of them left to go to other companies. And then they would reach out to me from those places. And then as we grew, we brought on more people to service those businesses. And as our clients kept moving from place to place or even within their organizations and we work on more of the brands that they work with. And then sometimes people reach out to us because they've just heard about us through someone else. But usually there's some link to we worked with somebody somewhere and then they moved on and then somebody else from their team reached out or something like that. Gotcha. Our growth has been really organic. From that first client, you were able to grow to more. Because we had the benefit of time. And so for me, that was really important too, because it was important to me to be homeless with my kids. Like that was a choice that I we made, that I made. And that was the most important job to me, the most important thing ever. So as they got a little bigger, I was able to take on a little more responsibility and, you know, a little more, you know, some more projects and things like that. So the business grew as I was able to just handle more. A lot of people worry that they start their own firm and then it's just crickets, no sound at all. It's just quiet. Like, how did you get the momentum going? And did you use LinkedIn to post about things like was the process of getting the word out? So, well, Once Upon a time, there wasn't any LinkedIn. There wasn't LinkedIn. Oh no. I know you can't imagine that world, Tony, but. But yeah, I mean, it's, you know, something that I've always done and it's a lot easier to do now with LinkedIn, but something that I've always done is to, you know, to just be aware of who I know and what would be useful to them so that when I see something that's OK, well, that's kind of an interesting thing. Like these guys should know about that. Or I wonder if they ever thought about this or this is going to help my client to look smarter in this situation. If they know about this, we'll all just send that along. And I'm just saying like, hey, I saw this, I thought of you. Here's what I think it could mean. So that it's, they know that I'm thinking about them and their business because we do like, that's part of our culture. Now we have this culture at our company is that we care about the people that we work with and we want to help them to do what they're trying to do and to look smart and, and to, you know, know things. So that is an important piece. And then another piece is just being open about like, Hey, I would love to just hear what you're working on. And because I genuinely care and maybe I have a suggestion about something they could be doing or not, but it's also helps to keep us top of mind. I think when you're and my friend and colleague Brooke is good about this too and has said this, that, you know, you got what's the give, you have to always be giving. And I think especially if you're in a situation where you're hoping that business will come and you're like more anxious, rather than thinking about rather than spiraling in that anxiety, you have to think about what could I be giving? And that helps to turn things around. Gotcha. And then because these trends are like over many different categories, you always have something to give in terms of insights. Yeah. I mean, not to every client every day. And I don't want to do it in a way that feels like overwhelming or artificial, but my eyes are open. So when I see something that I think like, OK, that's a really interesting opportunity, I wonder, or that's just interesting news. I wonder if they thought about that or they saw this, I'll send it along. And and that's, that's one piece of it. I think another piece is just staying connected. And LinkedIn makes it really easy to you see somebody's having a work anniversary or something like that. And you know, you can just reach out. Also, I am always happy to make connections. It's just being willing to help and make connections. So I know I have this friend who's who's an artist, who's a painter and has this like amazing catalog of work. But then, oh, I met this woman who buys art for companies. Like maybe those people would like to know each other. So I'm always happy to make those connections and or to talk to a client about something that we're not going to work on that maybe they just need a little perspective. So I think just trying to be your best self in these situations helps you to grow your business. Gotcha. That makes sense. And then as you're scaling up the consulting firm over time, did you have like optimal size and shape that you were going for like this number of people, this percentage in BD, this percentage in a focus group work? Like how did you how did the scaling? Yeah, so scaling and, and I

[32:16] Scaling up the firmthink probably a lot of entrepreneurs will feel this, that you're not ready or at least for us, we weren't ready. I wasn't ready to hire somebody until. Well, two things. One is if there's something, there's a difference between something that needs doing and something that needs to be done by me, that's, that's two different things, right? So, OK, right. So there are things that need to be done, but design work needs to be done. But I'm not a designer. It doesn't need to be done by me. It's not going to be best done by me. That's not going to be my best use of time and it's will produce an acceptable result, but not the best result. So that added something that I quickly, that was the first thing that I kind of realized and, and from there hired a designer. So when we have design projects, we, that person is freelance and she's wonderful. When we have design related projects, we involve her in those projects because she'll be more efficient and produce a better result. So that's one piece is trying to figure out like what what needs doing and what needs doing by you, right? So that's one piece. And then the next thing is when you are at a point where you're absolutely to the wall and you feel like I can't do another thing or we're going to start to sacrifice quality, then it's time to hire somebody. And that might be the wrong way to think about it, but it's always worked for us. The quality is the most important thing and I will take on as much work as I can while managing my life and whatever that allows me to produce great quality work and or allows us to produce great quality work. And when we get to the point where we cannot take any more without sacrificing something or without really like hurting our team, you know, then it's time to bring on someone new. And so I didn't necessarily have a plan for this is the size of the organization or this is how I want to structure it. We're kind of building the plain midair as the needs evolved. But that's OK. And you know what we did have a strong vision about, and I'm saying we because it's not just me anymore, but what I did have a strong vision about was the kind of the way that I wanted to work with people and the kind of company that I wanted to have and the culture that I wanted to have. So even as a very small company, having some of these things like benefits and whatever in place for our employees, it was really important to me, you know, giving 20 weeks off, you know, for somebody who had a baby, you know, that was really important to us. So that kind of thing. And, and also just the culture. I, I hired other, you know, working moms, like other moms who had had careers and still had amazing skills, but wanted more flexibility and to be with their kids. So that's sort of how I started doing that because there are lots of people who had these amazing skills and didn't want to make the sacrifice of being in an office all the time, could afford to choose otherwise, I guess, and, but still wanted to work. So I don't need somebody to be sitting in front of me to know that they're doing their, their job. So building a culture like that of like trust and understanding that we're, we're all trying to do our best and we're all responsible people and that work shouldn't feel like a terrible sacrifice if it doesn't have to that all of those things were really important to me. And then the right people come because you just feel, you just know who fits. You just feel like people who have similar values fit and then are really kind of protective of the culture. And, and I think it's part of it's part of what makes us unique. It's part of why people work with us. They know that they can trust us. They know that we have their backs and that we're working overtime thinking about their business. That makes sense. Another worry a lot of people have for consulting firms is the revenue goes up and down a lot, the cash flows up and down. Like did you have any techniques to balance it out a little bit overtime? So cash flow is a tough one because especially if you're working with big companies because the terms are not very favorable to small businesses. So some of our clients have terms that are as long as 120 days until payment, which is like a lot, you know, if you're a small business and you have vendors, you have to pay to not be paid for four months until after you're able to build a project is is really hard. You know, as I said, we grew slowly, relatively speaking. So the amount of risk that we had to take on in that regard was smaller and we were able to kind of manage that. And we also didn't have a lot of like external expenses in the beginning. A lot of it was work that I was doing. It was my time was the was the cost really. So that helped in terms of how we manage cash flow now is with a lot of planning. So we, we work with a business accountant and we've done that for maybe 15 of the 20 years that we've been in business. And that's been really helpful to just be have that, that picture of like cash flow and when are we going to get tight if we don't bill by a certain point in time. And is there anything we can do? I mean, during the pandemic, one of our clients shortened up the payment cycle time for small businesses and that was helpful. But yeah, it's it is that is a tricky piece and you have to have to be out ahead of it because it's very easy for things to snowball if you're not planning ahead. And are is there ways to move the work towards more like recurring revenue over time as well? I mean that's ideal. Our projects are pretty custom. So it's it's not usually recurring revenue for qualitative work, but we do have some trends things that we do year year after year. And so that becomes revenue that repeats, you know, over time. And then we also have some panel set up where clients can buy into these panels and and then they might choose to buy into that again, you know, in the next year. So something like that is recurring revenue too, but most of our work isn't set up in that way. Because like a lot of it's like a new trend or a new manifestation and they want custom. Yeah, or it's like they have a new project, so there's, you know, there's a there's a new product that's going to launch and they want to understand what people think of it and how they should talk about it. And that's really on the, you know, each individual clients, each individual, you know, cycle.

[38:22] Closing questionThat makes sense. Super. And then Robin, for the closing question, I, I always ask the guest, what was the kindest thing that anyone's ever done for you? That's, that's a hard one, but I do feel like I've had a lot of people looking out for me over the course of my life. So I think I had a guidance counselor in high school who understood me and like knew that I had maybe like a more difficult situation at home and was looking out for me. My college counselor in high school also was looking out for me. And when I applied to Cornell, I applied to ILR. I didn't, I wasn't necessarily #1 two or three in my class. So those people advocating for me, I think was was helpful. You know, my aunt also was always looking out for me and gave me a lot of opportunities to do things and pushed me to go to Cornell. My parents didn't go to college. And so I was the first in my, in my family in that way. And so I had pushed me to to go to Cornell. So I've been lucky that there have always been people in my life who have helped me out in those in those ways. And at Cornell, I would say Jim McPherson, who passed away, he was an ILR advisor. And he interviewed me before, you know, because ILR was all, you know, you had an interview. And he interviewed me. And, you know, his closing question to me was, you know, anything else I should know about you? And I said, well, I'm going to change the world. I'm just not sure how. And I think this will help. And I don't know where I got the nerve to say that, but I think it made an impression. And I think he saw something in me that maybe others might have missed. So that, yeah, all of that I would say, are good things that people have done for me in my life. That's really wonderful. Thanks for sharing, Robin. You're welcome.