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Speaker 1: We’ve always kind of looked at like sales numbers and

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Speaker 1: you would look at what kind of media we had running.

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Speaker 2: We would get input from our field sales team.

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Speaker 1: But a couple of years ago, we started to build

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Speaker 1: this model out to really kind of help us in season,

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Speaker 1: be able to go and optimize our media plans.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: And so to be able to have a predictive model,

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Speaker 1: that’s going to let us know where we can maybe

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Speaker 1: ride the most emphasis has been pretty amazing. And it’s

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Speaker 1: not like something that just happened overnight either. It took,

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Speaker 1: a good 24 months to get where we’re at today.

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Speaker 1: And the model is significantly better and more helpful than

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Speaker 1: it was when we started. To be able to have

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Speaker 1: that as a constant access has been really, really helpful.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to Brave Commerce.

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Speaker 4: I’m Rachel Tippegraph, the founder and CEO of Micmac.

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Speaker 3: And I’m Sarah Hofstetter, chairwoman of Profitero Plus.

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Speaker 4: And this is a show that talks about what’s relevant

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Speaker 4: in commerce for the world’s biggest brands. Sarah, are you

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Speaker 4: a chat GPT girly or perplexity girly or Claude or Gemini?

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Speaker 4: Like who’s your best friend?

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Speaker 3: I am very promiscuous. Oh, I don’t have a personal favorite.

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Speaker 3: I feel like I have different things for different use cases.

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Speaker 3: I’ve been really getting into Gemini in Google Sheets, believe

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Speaker 3: it or not. I’m not a math native language. That’s

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Speaker 3: more of a foreign language to me still. And the

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Speaker 3: Gemini function within Google Docs lately has been really interesting

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Speaker 3: to me, helping me do better analysis. ChatGPT makes me

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Speaker 3: sound like lesbian asshole, which I like, but I think

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Speaker 3: it’s different, clawed for different things. And I’ve been using

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Speaker 3: the AI functionality within so many of my day-to-day tools,

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Speaker 3: whether that’s even Sparky on Walmart or Rufus on Amazon.

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Speaker 3: I think it’s been a little bit more how it

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Speaker 3: gets integrated into my daily use. Who’s your, you sound

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Speaker 3: a little bit more loyal than my promiscuity.

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Speaker 4: Well, I have paid for my friendship and that is

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Speaker 4: ChatGPT Pro.

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Speaker 3: Oh, I pay.

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Speaker 4: So you pay for all of these services?

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Speaker 3: No, but I do pay for ChatGPT Pro that I

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Speaker 3: will say I pay for. I also pay for Microsoft Copilot. Oh,

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Speaker 3: I also pay for my friendships. Oh yeah.

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Speaker 4: Okay.

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Speaker 3: I’m sounding very desperate right now.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you are. But no, it’s, it’s interesting. I’ve gone

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Speaker 4: so in on chat that I just have this rich history.

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Speaker 4: So even what you’re describing with Google Sheets, I’m like

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Speaker 4: literally looking at my browser right now. I got chat

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Speaker 4: and Google Sheets open and I was doing math and chat,

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Speaker 4: even though I know I could be doing it in

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Speaker 4: Gemini because I’ve just gone all in there. The point

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Speaker 4: that we’re both demonstrating is that these LLMs are starting

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Speaker 4: to become super apps and we’re using them for multiple purposes,

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Speaker 4: personally and professionally every single day to including commerce.

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Speaker 3: Most certainly. And also in that decision tree, if you’ve

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Speaker 3: got chat open on the regular, you’re probably asking it

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Speaker 3: questions you might’ve been previously Googling.

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Speaker 4: Oh, I stopped using Google. I’ll put it out there.

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Speaker 4: I was at Alphabet’s office last week and I told

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Speaker 4: them that point blank.

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Speaker 3: Listen, I will say chat’s ability to whip up recipes

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Speaker 3: for me based on what I’ve got in my kitchen,

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Speaker 3: not bad.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it’s amazing.

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Speaker 3: Not bad. So if that’s the case, then depending on

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Speaker 3: what brand ends up surfacing up, that would make me

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Speaker 3: more likely to purchase that brand. And I still don’t

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Speaker 3: know how they’ve determined that that is the appropriate brand

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Speaker 3: for me, but I don’t want to screw up my recipe. Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Well, you know, at Mic Mac, we’ve seen a 250%

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Speaker 4: increase in just our commerce loads within an environment like ChatGPT.

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Speaker 4: And the only way that we get discovered there is

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Speaker 4: through our brand customers. So there’s an absolute shift that’s

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Speaker 4: happening right now in search and And a category that’s

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Speaker 4: feeling it faster than many is lawn and garden. And Matt,

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Speaker 4: who leads commerce for Scott’s Miracle-Gro, is at the helm

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Speaker 4: of seeing this overnight change in the customer journey. So

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Speaker 4: let’s bring Matt onto the show. Today, we are very

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Speaker 4: excited to have Matt Taylor, the vice president of digital

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Speaker 4: at Scott’s Miracle-Gro. Hello, Matt.

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Speaker 2: Hi, how are you both doing?

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Speaker 3: Good.

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Speaker 4: Excited to have you. You know, we don’t use video

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Speaker 4: when we publish, but I wish everyone could see the

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Speaker 4: different plant garden you have in your office. We don’t

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Speaker 4: always get to see that. Scott’s is such an interesting

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Speaker 4: category to do e-commerce in because obviously it’s not the

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Speaker 4: easiest products to ship. And it’s also not an impulse buy.

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Speaker 4: So it’s pretty well suited for e-commerce. We’re currently living

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Speaker 4: at this wild time, which is the year 2025, where

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Speaker 4: consumer behavior is shifting in real time. And I imagine

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Speaker 4: for a category like yours, that’s often heavily researched, the

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Speaker 4: power of search moving from traditional search to generative search,

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Speaker 4: like you probably have a front row seat more than

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Speaker 4: anyone else. So what are you seeing and feeling in

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Speaker 4: 2025 that you think might change the business?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, definitely lawn and garden is not something

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Speaker 1: where you just kind of walk into a store and

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden like decide that you’re going to

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Speaker 1: build a raised garden bed, right? Like you’re going to

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Speaker 1: go and you’re going to do some research around where

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Speaker 1: you’re going to put it and how you’re going to

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Speaker 1: grow it. And being the leader in lawn and garden,

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Speaker 1: that really our kind of main focus is helping people

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Speaker 1: find more ways to grow and making them successful.

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Speaker 2: And so AI search is really interesting.

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Speaker 1: I think it’s going to be an amazing tool for

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Speaker 1: our consumers to be able to understand how to do

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Speaker 1: projects in a really simple way.

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Speaker 2: But it definitely changes the ecosystem, right? Like quite a bit.

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Speaker 1: And so now you’re looking at having to be able

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Speaker 1: to understand like how our content actually shows up in

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Speaker 1: these searches, right? Where you need to have partnerships so

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Speaker 1: that your content can also show up in these search

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Speaker 1: engines and then figuring out how you’re going to be

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Speaker 1: able to kind of monitor those. And so it’s a very,

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Speaker 1: very different dynamic. I also think it’s a very elevated

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Speaker 1: experience for consumers. And so now you have to think

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Speaker 1: about when you’re developing your own digital experiences and What

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Speaker 1: the expectation is now that you can get these really

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Speaker 1: amazing simplified answers and then what we need to do

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Speaker 1: as a kind of branded company to be able to

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Speaker 1: kind of provide an elevated experience as well, which we’re

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Speaker 1: very focused on at the moment.

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Speaker 3: For what it’s worth, on Mother’s Day, my kids, they

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Speaker 3: got me a bunch of seeds and I was like,

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Speaker 3: that’s stellar, but we don’t have a garden. And we

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Speaker 3: actually ended up walking into Home Depot, getting the equipment,

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Speaker 3: getting all the stuff. And basically a pallet full of

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Speaker 3: Scott’s Miracle-Gro to throw into the planter, the raised bed

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Speaker 3: planter that we made. And of course realized like within

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Speaker 3: five minutes that we did not buy enough soil. So

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Speaker 3: did the e-commerce thing and that worked out pretty well.

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Speaker 3: But I don’t see myself as the typical in that regard.

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Speaker 3: That being said, I immediately consulted AI for like, what

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Speaker 3: are the next best things I need to do? So

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Speaker 3: how do you see that kind of coming into play

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Speaker 3: as you think about the new consumer experience and the

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Speaker 3: new path to purchase, if you will?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it’s moving so quickly.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I do think there’s going to be the

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Speaker 1: starting point, right, where Understanding what those top searches are

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Speaker 1: and making sure that we have content that’s showing up

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Speaker 1: very frequently into those searches, right? And they’re not going

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Speaker 1: to be just getting it from us. It’s just how

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Speaker 1: we kind of partner with influencers and other people creating

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Speaker 1: third-party content and understanding how those algorithms kind of prioritize

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Speaker 1: those types of content going into it. And then knowing

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Speaker 1: that they’re going to be coming to us from some

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Speaker 1: of those links. Also looking at what are they coming

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Speaker 1: directly to our sites to versus where they’re going from.

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Speaker 2: These generative search engines.

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Speaker 1: And making sure we’re really making sure we’re providing a

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Speaker 1: personalized stellar experience for those people for the types of

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Speaker 1: use experiences that they’re kind of coming to us for.

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Speaker 1: And again, like you guys mentioned earlier, like it’s been

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Speaker 1: changing so fast. You look at some of these news

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Speaker 1: publications and just how quickly their traffic went away and

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Speaker 1: it’s almost overnight. And the way the speed in which

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Speaker 1: people are kind of adopting it is pretty amazing. And

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Speaker 1: so I think we’re looking at it now very differently

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Speaker 1: than we did nine months ago. And we might be

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Speaker 1: looking at it very differently six months from now. But

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Speaker 1: I think as we’re kind of paying very closely attention

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Speaker 1: to it, but I think it’s going to be great

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Speaker 1: for consumers.

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Speaker 3: What was that tipping point that said, OK, we better

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Speaker 3: pay attention? Like, was it the news hype? Was it

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Speaker 3: somebody in the C-suite that says, what is that point

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Speaker 3: where you’re like, OK, it’s time for us to take

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Speaker 3: this seriously?

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Speaker 2: We have quite a bit of marketers on our board.

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Speaker 1: So like soon as we started hearing like inklings, right,

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Speaker 1: of AI and AI search, right? We’ve had lots of

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Speaker 1: different questions kind of coming in. And so we’ve been

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Speaker 1: paying a lot of attention to it. But I just

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Speaker 1: think the integration into like every single app and search

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Speaker 1: engine and into your phones and how frequently it’s getting used.

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Speaker 1: And I think the quality of answers that are coming

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Speaker 1: back now make you pay attention.

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Speaker 2: I mean, like just even like personally, right? Like, Everyone’s

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Speaker 2: using it.

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Speaker 1: It’s not like you have to be like some big

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Speaker 1: tech maven that’s like ahead of the curve using AI search.

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Speaker 1: Almost everyone you know is using it in some regard

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Speaker 1: at this point. And so it’s amazing the adoption rate.

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Speaker 1: And so I think we kind of started early and

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Speaker 1: looking at it. But even just from personal experiences, just

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Speaker 1: knowing people and talking with consumers and just talking with friends,

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Speaker 1: like you see how quickly it’s been adopted and just

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Speaker 1: knowing the impact it’s having.

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Speaker 3: It’s interesting that you mentioned that the board was asking

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Speaker 3: questions about that. Rachel and I are good friends with

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Speaker 3: a gentleman who runs the Alpha Council, this guy, Stephen Wall-Pereira,

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Speaker 3: and a big part of what he’s doing is specifically

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Speaker 3: around raising awareness within boards about the role that AI

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Speaker 3: needs to play both in the boardroom and then with

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Speaker 3: the companies you oversee. And I think it speaks to, A,

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Speaker 3: contemporary nature of your board specifically around that. Does that

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Speaker 3: happen frequently where they’re the ones who are pushing you

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Speaker 3: guys to say, you know what, I think you guys

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Speaker 3: should like, have you looked into X, Y, Z? Like

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Speaker 3: when e-commerce started getting bigger, were they like, hey, can

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Speaker 3: we make money on selling our products on e-commerce or

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Speaker 3: is it just not conducive?

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Speaker 1: It kind of goes back and forth, but I would

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Speaker 1: definitely say we’ve been blessed with having a lot of

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Speaker 1: really smart marketers on our board. It’s a company that

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Speaker 1: was kind of founded by advertisers and marketers, right? Like

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Speaker 1: our person who started Miracle-Gro was Horace Hagedorn, that was

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Speaker 1: a Madison Avenue advertising person. So in general, that’s kind

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Speaker 1: of like the roots of the company that we’re very

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Speaker 1: much ingrained into advertising and marketing. And so with that,

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Speaker 1: our board kind of represents it. And so we do

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Speaker 1: have some really good forward-thinking people that are pretty connected.

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Speaker 1: And so- As we look at different technology and things

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Speaker 1: start to come out, we definitely have some great resources

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Speaker 1: that also make good connections for us as well.

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Speaker 2: Some good industry leaders. And so I think it’s been

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Speaker 2: super helpful.

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Speaker 1: That has been also been a board that’s wanting to

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Speaker 1: be more forward thinking as well.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: So it’s not a very like wait and see, it’s

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Speaker 1: not super conservative. It’s kind of like what is coming

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Speaker 1: out and making sure we’re not kind of getting caught

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Speaker 1: flat footed here, which is again, tend to be a

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Speaker 1: little more of a tidal wave here.

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Speaker 2: It’s like how AI is kind of coming through.

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Speaker 4: I imagine one of the things that didn’t come from

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Speaker 4: your board was the organizational consolidation of digital and retail

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Speaker 4: media living under one person, which in many companies still

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Speaker 4: is separate. So as you think about all the disciplines

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Speaker 4: that are organized underneath you, tell us more about what

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Speaker 4: is that scope and how did that come to be

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Speaker 4: within the organization?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the way that we got in pretty early when

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Speaker 1: it came down to retail media was And mostly a

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Speaker 1: lot of times because the way that we kind of

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Speaker 1: approached it early on was we saw the halo effect

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Speaker 1: that a lot of retail media actually has on the

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Speaker 1: rest of the business, right?

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Speaker 2: It wasn’t just for that particular retailer.

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Speaker 1: And then in addition to that, one of the things

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Speaker 1: that we did know is some of the retail media networks,

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Speaker 1: as you can imagine, are very tied to sales merchants

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Speaker 1: and things like that. And so once you start adding

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Speaker 1: budgets to those, those are not as flexible as maybe

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Speaker 1: like traditional media budgets were. And so we wanted to

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Speaker 1: make sure that very early on that we were managing

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Speaker 1: those in a very data-driven way of making sure that

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Speaker 1: we’re investing the right amount in the right platforms because

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Speaker 1: that justified it. But then in addition to that, we’ve

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Speaker 1: had some really great partnerships with these retail medias where

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Speaker 1: it’s not.

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Speaker 2: Just lower conversion media.

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Speaker 1: It is kind of full funnel between the Thursday night

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Speaker 1: footballs on Amazon or a great partnership we had in

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Speaker 1: March Madness with Home Depot. And so you have a

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Speaker 1: full portfolio of media assets that you can use to

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Speaker 1: these partners. And so for us to consolidate it, it

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Speaker 1: was really the fact that based on the brand’s objectives

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Speaker 1: and the business objectives, that might be the right tool

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Speaker 1: for the job. And so I don’t want to go

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Speaker 1: and plan a full media plan. And then, oh, after

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Speaker 1: the fact, we now have to go plan this retail media.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it’d be the main tool for that job that

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Speaker 1: brand needs to do. And so planning it all together

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Speaker 1: and having that as part of one team has been

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Speaker 1: super helpful. And I think also from a measurement perspective,

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Speaker 1: it’s been great because we’re kind of able to get

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Speaker 1: ahead and making sure all that data.

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Speaker 2: Is coming through and seeing the total impact on the business.

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Speaker 1: And I think the only kind of like hard part

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Speaker 1: about it really, and why probably a lot of people

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Speaker 1: don’t do it is the, a lot of collaboration that

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Speaker 1: is kind of required to do that.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: And so you no longer have brand objectives and you

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Speaker 1: have brand media and you have sales objectives between our

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Speaker 1: retailers and our sales team and like that media.

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Speaker 2: Like you have to reconcile those, right?

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Speaker 1: And so now you’re trying to reconcile across those kind

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Speaker 1: of three key stakeholders. But all in all, I think

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Speaker 1: our organization finds this like well worth it. And I

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Speaker 1: think credit to the media team here that kind of

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Speaker 1: puts in the extra work to kind of make that happen.

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Speaker 3: I’ve seen you guys go through various iterations over the

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Speaker 3: course of the past five and a half years that

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Speaker 3: we’ve been working together. I think you said it right,

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Speaker 3: just in terms of the mindset of what needs to

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Speaker 3: be true. And if collaboration is the biggest problem, that

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Speaker 3: shouldn’t be the biggest problem. So very sensible approach, but

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Speaker 3: also understanding what needs to be true in order for

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Speaker 3: you to get there. But the underpinning of so much

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Speaker 3: of that that gets you there is data. And you’ve

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Speaker 3: helped architect a model built on machine learning where you

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Speaker 3: figure out how you invest the next dollar. So it

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Speaker 3: kind of takes the emotional bias out of it, if

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Speaker 3: you will. Help us understand that without giving away your

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Speaker 3: state secrets.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we’ve had a very data-driven approach, as you’ve mentioned,

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Speaker 1: over the years. And as you can imagine, we’re a

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Speaker 1: very seasonal business. In addition to that, weather has a

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Speaker 1: big factor, right? Because if it’s raining out, there’s not

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Speaker 1: a good chance that you’re going to take on that

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Speaker 1: project of getting those flowers into your beds. And so

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Speaker 1: with that, we’ve always kind of looked at like sales

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Speaker 1: numbers and you would look at what kind of media

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Speaker 1: you had running. We would get input from our field

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Speaker 1: sales team. But a couple of years ago, we started

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Speaker 1: to build this model out. And what it allows us

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Speaker 1: to do is take really granular weather data, macroeconomics, our

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Speaker 1: current support programs, as well as other kind of key

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Speaker 1: variables to really kind of help us in season, be

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Speaker 1: able to go and optimize our media plans.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: And so you’re going to have what I kind of

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Speaker 1: call the skeleton of the plan. So you have your

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Speaker 1: things that you’re just going to have to build like

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Speaker 1: general impressions on, but. To be able to have a

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Speaker 1: predictive model that’s going to let us know where we

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Speaker 1: can maybe ride the most emphasis, where we want to

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Speaker 1: drive action that weekend, and where the next opportunity to

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Speaker 1: add dollars throughout that season has been pretty amazing. And

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Speaker 1: it’s not like something that just happened overnight either. It

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Speaker 1: took a good 24 months to get where we’re at today.

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Speaker 1: And the model is significantly better and more helpful than

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Speaker 1: it was when we started. To be able to have

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Speaker 1: that as a constant access to both be able to

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Speaker 1: kind of see where we’re at as a business and

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Speaker 1: have a good thorough understanding of what’s happening, but to

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Speaker 1: be able to kind of predict the bets over that

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Speaker 1: kind of next two weeks has been really, really helpful

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Speaker 1: for us as a whole.

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Speaker 4: It sounds like you have your hands on real-time weather data.

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Speaker 4: You have your hands on real-time media data. Do you

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Speaker 4: also have your hands on real-time like POS data?

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Speaker 2: We do.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So we were able to kind of pull that

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Speaker 1: in as well as other things that are kind of

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Speaker 1: just being tracked that we kind of found good inputs.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: And so that’s kind of like the big piece of

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Speaker 1: building these models is getting some data sets with some

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Speaker 1: pretty large length of time that you can kind of

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Speaker 1: get into them, but then also finding the gaps for

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Speaker 1: your own particular business that like, start taking out some

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Speaker 1: like unnecessary variability right and so it’s been kind of

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Speaker 1: neat to like play around with it we’ve had hypothesis

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Speaker 1: and then you put it in you test it and

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Speaker 1: does it work or does it not work and then

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Speaker 1: where we have it today it is pretty cool to

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Speaker 1: be able to kind of see and play around with

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Speaker 1: it and the stories that like you can pull out

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Speaker 1: that are pretty clear of what what’s happening in a

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Speaker 1: lot of regards.

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Speaker 4: How have the retailers and the media channels reacted to

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Speaker 4: this model Um.

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Speaker 2: It’s actually been really helpful.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I had a good example where a main

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Speaker 1: retailer merchant was saying like, Hey, our holistic, like the

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Speaker 1: retail was looking to kind of pull back on our

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Speaker 1: category and move into another one, just being seasonal. And

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Speaker 1: we said, no, no, like actually the data we have

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Speaker 1: is saying like, you should stay in it. And like,

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Speaker 1: we can actually provide the data and we actually were

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Speaker 1: able to pull in all the information kind of showing

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Speaker 1: what was going to be in season, what was going

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Speaker 1: to be left for the remaining of the season. And

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Speaker 1: they were able to actually use that to kind of

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Speaker 1: sell in and kind of continue to support a category,

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Speaker 1: continue to order inventory. And I thought that was extremely helpful.

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Speaker 2: And it was like a good kind of proof point

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Speaker 2: of like the power of having that type of data.

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Speaker 4: That’s awesome. There’s talks within a lot of the operators

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Speaker 4: that we bring onto the show of them wanting to

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Speaker 4: build this type of discipline and model. And so if

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Speaker 4: an organization is trying to get real-time data science off

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Speaker 4: the ground, what are some of the things that you

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Speaker 4: think they need to consider?

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Speaker 1: Making sure you have some really good, smart kind of

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Speaker 1: internal resources and data scientists. I think having some good

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Speaker 1: external kind of partners as well to be able to

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Speaker 1: help you to do this. And I think kind of

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Speaker 1: the biggest thing that really made us successful is level

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Speaker 1: setting with executives and the people that it’s not going

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Speaker 1: to be perfect to start off with. And so like

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Speaker 1: you’re not going to be able to just take it

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Speaker 1: from the first month and be like, this is what’s happening.

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Speaker 1: And like, we know exactly what’s going to be happening

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Speaker 1: in the future. It’s not a crystal ball and it’s

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Speaker 1: not going to be perfect, but they just knew that

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Speaker 1: it was going to be a work in progress and

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Speaker 1: being patient is going to take time to make it

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Speaker 1: better and better.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: Cause you need to kind of find out like, where

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Speaker 1: are these anomalies that are happening and then be able

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Speaker 1: to address those anomalies and what additional variables should we

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Speaker 1: be adding to make this even better? And so it

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Speaker 1: is a work in progress and kind of like level

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Speaker 1: setting with internal stakeholders that are This is not going

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Speaker 1: to be like perfect overnight, but it is something that’s

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Speaker 1: going to be worth doing in the end. I think

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Speaker 1: it’s probably like one of the biggest kind of insights

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Speaker 1: that we had or learnings that we had kind of

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Speaker 1: going through this.

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Speaker 3: Rachel mentioned your AeroGarden that’s sitting in your office. What

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Speaker 3: are you excited the most about planting right now?

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Speaker 1: For the fall, I mean, typically we’ll do a lot

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Speaker 1: of different cool season plants and stuff like that in

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Speaker 1: the garden. So we’ll kind of pull in some kale

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Speaker 1: and some other things like that. If you have an

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Speaker 1: air garden, you can grow year-round. So that’s just an

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Speaker 1: easy one. So just constantly kind of turn that thing

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Speaker 1: out and seeing what else we can grow.

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Speaker 3: I’ve been a big fan of air gardening for, I

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Speaker 3: don’t know, 12, 15 years, something like that, when I

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Speaker 3: first got exposed to it. We’ve got some green thumbs

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Speaker 3: and some black thumbs around our listenership. So any advice

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Speaker 3: you have? you’ve given some great advice on how you’ve

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Speaker 3: organized all that other stuff. But if all we want

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Speaker 3: to do is just make things grow.

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Speaker 1: I would definitely say like AeroGarden is a great start

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Speaker 1: because I mean, you just kind of add water, you

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00:19:31,880 –> 00:19:33,919
Speaker 1: put in the pods, it tells you when to add water,

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Speaker 1: it tells you when to feed.

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Speaker 2: And I actually gave my mother-in-law one.

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00:19:37,960 –> 00:19:40,080
Speaker 1: Who claims she also has a black thumb and even

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Speaker 1: she is having to be able to kind of grow

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Speaker 1: lettuce inside of her kitchen. So she’s super excited because

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00:19:44,119 –> 00:19:47,109
Speaker 1: she’s not had historically had a lot of success in

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00:19:47,130 –> 00:19:47,729
Speaker 1: that area.

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00:19:47,790 –> 00:19:49,970
Speaker 2: And so I think you can always start with a

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00:19:50,020 –> 00:19:51,040
Speaker 2: an aero garden.

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Speaker 1: And then obviously, once you get there, a little bit

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00:19:54,420 –> 00:19:56,640
Speaker 1: of success, you can always go outside as well.

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Speaker 2: It’s interesting.

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Speaker 3: Is Blackstone one of those words that you use in

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00:20:00,560 –> 00:20:01,639
Speaker 3: your search strategy?

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00:20:02,550 –> 00:20:03,119
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.

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00:20:03,510 –> 00:20:05,470
Speaker 2: Yeah, we should be able to hopefully help all of them.

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00:20:06,970 –> 00:20:09,740
Speaker 4: Well, Matt, we could pick your brain about gardening and

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00:20:09,800 –> 00:20:12,500
Speaker 4: commerce all day, but we got to ask you our

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00:20:12,619 –> 00:20:15,580
Speaker 4: famous last question, which is what’s the bravest thing you’ve

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00:20:15,619 –> 00:20:16,000
Speaker 4: ever done?

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00:20:16,280 –> 00:20:18,659
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking about this. I think the one

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00:20:18,680 –> 00:20:20,920
Speaker 1: thing I’ll go back as we probably earlier in my career.

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00:20:20,960 –> 00:20:24,220
Speaker 1: And so when I graduated as an undergrad, it was

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00:20:24,240 –> 00:20:26,280
Speaker 1: like probably the worst time ever to get a job.

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00:20:26,460 –> 00:20:27,899
Speaker 1: So like I knew I wanted to be in marketing.

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00:20:27,920 –> 00:20:30,400
Speaker 1: There was like literally no marketing jobs available. And so

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00:20:30,420 –> 00:20:34,360
Speaker 1: I took an inside sales role. at a little startup company.

456
00:20:35,280 –> 00:20:37,340
Speaker 1: And about after a year and a half, two years,

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00:20:37,420 –> 00:20:38,639
Speaker 1: I was pretty good at it, but I kind of

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00:20:38,680 –> 00:20:41,139
Speaker 1: knew I needed like some different experience if I wanted

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00:20:41,160 –> 00:20:42,840
Speaker 1: to take a marketing role, because there wasn’t one available

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00:20:42,859 –> 00:20:45,300
Speaker 1: in the company or really anywhere else at that time.

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00:20:45,320 –> 00:20:48,139
Speaker 1: And so one of the things I did was I

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00:20:48,160 –> 00:20:50,280
Speaker 1: looked at, there was an operations role that came available.

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00:20:50,340 –> 00:20:52,940
Speaker 1: And so obviously not marketing, but I kind of saw

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00:20:52,980 –> 00:20:55,160
Speaker 1: that it got to work very closely with the CEO.

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00:20:55,690 –> 00:20:58,250
Speaker 1: It was able to take on some more strategic projects.

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00:20:58,790 –> 00:21:00,010
Speaker 1: I was going to be able to work with some

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00:21:00,090 –> 00:21:02,909
Speaker 1: external partners and manage them. but it was going to

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00:21:02,930 –> 00:21:05,490
Speaker 1: be like a 30% pay decrease. And so like being

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00:21:05,540 –> 00:21:07,820
Speaker 1: early in my career and living on my own and

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00:21:07,859 –> 00:21:10,880
Speaker 1: like a city, like taking a 30% pay decrease was like,

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00:21:10,980 –> 00:21:13,240
Speaker 1: not like ideal, but I always kind of look at

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00:21:13,280 –> 00:21:13,680
Speaker 1: like careers.

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00:21:13,740 –> 00:21:15,240
Speaker 2: It’s a little bit like rock climbing.

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00:21:15,280 –> 00:21:18,139
Speaker 1: Like sometimes you go sideways, sometimes you have to go

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00:21:18,220 –> 00:21:20,200
Speaker 1: sideways and down to go back up to get where

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00:21:20,220 –> 00:21:23,120
Speaker 1: you want to go. And so I took that role

477
00:21:23,609 –> 00:21:24,869
Speaker 1: and that was kind of like the first time I

478
00:21:24,890 –> 00:21:26,990
Speaker 1: think I was like making a bet on myself and

479
00:21:27,010 –> 00:21:28,929
Speaker 1: like intuition where I think I can do with it.

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00:21:28,990 –> 00:21:31,760
Speaker 1: And Within 18 months, I actually was able to develop

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00:21:31,800 –> 00:21:34,919
Speaker 1: a marketing role at that company with the CEO that

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00:21:34,960 –> 00:21:37,979
Speaker 1: ended up coming into an entire department. And then I’ve

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00:21:38,020 –> 00:21:40,010
Speaker 1: done that, I think, multiple times kind of since then

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00:21:40,050 –> 00:21:42,150
Speaker 1: in my career. And it’s always kind of paid off.

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00:21:42,230 –> 00:21:45,250
Speaker 1: But it’s a little bit of kind of seeing what

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00:21:45,350 –> 00:21:47,610
Speaker 1: you kind of intuitively think might be the right next

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00:21:47,630 –> 00:21:51,129
Speaker 1: step and making that happen and kind of making it

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00:21:51,150 –> 00:21:53,760
Speaker 1: and then believing it will happen and making the work happen.

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00:21:53,820 –> 00:21:56,800
Speaker 1: So that was probably one good example of kind of

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00:21:56,820 –> 00:21:58,119
Speaker 1: just professionally just being a.

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00:21:58,080 –> 00:22:00,540
Speaker 2: Little more brave. And I think it has worked out

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00:22:00,600 –> 00:22:01,480
Speaker 2: in good muscle memory.

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Speaker 4: I love this analogy of rock climbing. It’s awesome that

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00:22:04,480 –> 00:22:06,320
Speaker 4: you took a bet on yourself, that you continue to

495
00:22:06,359 –> 00:22:08,600
Speaker 4: bet on yourself. And I think that’s a lesson a

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00:22:08,640 –> 00:22:09,880
Speaker 4: lot of people will carry with them.

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00:22:10,280 –> 00:22:10,520
Speaker 3: Awesome.

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00:22:10,540 –> 00:22:11,100
Speaker 2: Well, thank you.

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00:22:13,380 –> 00:22:15,040
Speaker 4: If you like what you heard and you want to

500
00:22:15,100 –> 00:22:20,780
Speaker 4: keep listening to operators talk about how they’re operationalizing AI,

501
00:22:21,220 –> 00:22:23,679
Speaker 4: go check out an episode that was from Brave Commerce

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00:22:23,740 –> 00:22:28,900
Speaker 4: Live that we published in February of this year with Meta, Nestle,

503
00:22:28,980 –> 00:22:31,679
Speaker 4: and Sirkana. If you like what you heard, tell a friend,

504
00:22:31,700 –> 00:22:33,459
Speaker 4: write a review. Thanks for listening.

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00:22:50,690 –> 00:22:54,650
Speaker 3: Hi, I’m Jackie Cooper, Global Chief Brand Officer at Edelman

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00:22:54,690 –> 00:22:57,449
Speaker 3: and the host of Touch of Truth, a new podcast

507
00:22:57,510 –> 00:23:00,950
Speaker 3: launching on the Adweek Podcast Network. My dad gave me

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00:23:00,970 –> 00:23:04,669
Speaker 3: this incredibly smart piece of advice. Meet everyone once. As

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00:23:04,710 –> 00:23:07,020
Speaker 3: a result, I’ve met some of the most fascinating and

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00:23:07,100 –> 00:23:10,220
Speaker 3: inspiring people on the planet. Now on Touch of Truth,

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00:23:10,420 –> 00:23:13,679
Speaker 3: we’re coming centre stage and sharing the mic to experience

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00:23:13,720 –> 00:23:16,580
Speaker 3: stories of truth, insights and visions for the future that

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00:23:16,600 –> 00:23:18,170
Speaker 3: will challenge your way of thinking.

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00:23:18,270 –> 00:23:21,209
Speaker 1: Touch of Truth is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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00:23:21,550 –> 00:23:24,350
Speaker 3: New episodes come out every Tuesday. I do hope to

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00:23:24,410 –> 00:23:24,910
Speaker 3: see you there.