Are you ready to 10X?
Three meditations: something to think about, a “how-to” resource, and a marketing deep dive. Ommmmmm.
Something to Think About
A lot of marketing can be subjective.
There are many variables and time intervals of all descriptions.
I can appreciate a good postmodernist debate. But sometimes I need a quote like this from Musashi’s Book of Five Rings to remind me that there’s no debating whether the customer responded, whether the pipeline filled up, or whether the deals closed.
"How To"
Last month we participated in Utah Tech Week, a Mountain West version of similar events from LA and New York.
The topics covered in our sessions were:
- Events
- Pricing
- Marketing at different stages of growth
There were lots of “how-to” tips and resources, all of which you can access (along with the slides and recordings of the sessions) for free here.
On the other hand, having an audience and being an influencer, doesn’t automatically come with expertise. Popularity doesn’t equal competence.
It makes logical sense that people with the most credibility would capture the most attention. But illogical or not, it just isn’t the case by default.
When both expertise AND audience come together, that’s when you have a genuine thought leader.
Pete’s gone further with this idea in Trust Marketing and Thought Leadership, which he developed at Anglepoint. If your marketing program includes leveraging thought leadership and influencers, this is a great resource for honing your approach.
A Marketing Deep Dive
What Does It Take to 10X?
And how long?
Here’s a case study for a company that did it in 4 years.
Now 10X is easy if you’re going from $10K to $100K.
But what if you’re already doing $75M?
And it took you over 100 years to get that far?
Plus, now you’ve got well-heeled insanely popular competitors all around you?
What unlocks that kind of growth against those odds?
Because that’s what the world looked like for Stanley in 2019.
The catalyst for their rocketship growth was in recognizing and responding to key customer insights.
Here’s how it all started.
Founded in 1913, Stanley patented a process for insulated steel bottles.
These were great for keeping hot things hot and cold things cold.
They were sold to construction workers and campers, mostly men.
The classic thermos came in one rugged “hammertone” green color.
It was a known product with a known customer.
And Stanley didn’t expand on it until 2007.
Let me save you the effort of calculating. That’s 94 years, one product. 👀
It’s not hard to see why their identity was pretty well set.
But then in 2007, they started experimenting and launching new products.
Consumers began to recognize reusable water bottles as more sustainable and environmentally-friendly alternatives to disposable plastic bottles.
Even though brands like Nalgene had been around for decades, the category was in for a renaissance.
In 2016, Stanley experimented by turning the tapered thermos upside down to fit in cup holders, and the 40-ounce Stanley Quencher was born!
And it was a dud.
It just didn’t sell.
The market was dominated by Yeti, Swell, and Hydroflask (which sounds like it could have been named by J.K. Rowling).
By 2019 Hydroflasks were all the rage. Remember the annoying VSCO girls? (Tsk tsk.)
In contrast to the fashion-only rise of Hydroflask, early adopters of the Stanley Quencher—like co-founder of The Buy Guide Ashley LeSueur—were attracted by quality and features… in addition to its fashion potential.
Yet fans of the Stanley Quencher were almost out of luck.
The cup was about to be dropped for its tepid retail performance.
Ashley and her UT and AZ-based team at The Buy Guide—sister Taylor Cannon and cousin Linley Hutchinson—wrote:
“…it was one of the first things we ever posted and sold. We could only ever find small quantities on Amazon or Bed Bath & Beyond… Each time we shared, it sold out quickly. Then, Stanley discontinued it. We were shocked, confused, and devastated.”
“Luckily, we sent a quencher to Emily Maynard (of Bachelor fame) when she had a new baby (There is no thirst like nursing mom thirst!). She shared the cup and a little about us in her Instagram stories and a woman who works for Stanley-PMI saw it. Lauren believed in us and went to bat for us. We KNEW this product was special and that we happened to find an audience for it that they hadn’t considered-women. We knew that if women could sell this cup to women, it would be a winner.
“With Lauren’s help, we were able to put in a purchase order with Stanley and buy 5,000 cups on our own. Scary. Ashlee still laughs picturing herself on her couch filling out that PO. She had to google meanings of terms and abbreviations on almost every line. But, we turned it in and turned over all the money we had in our business account plus some from each of our personal accounts. Everyone thought we were crazy. Our husbands were a nervous wreck.
“The Buy Guide community bought all the cups in 5 days. It was more volume than Stanley-PMI had ever seen and we did it by ourselves. But, Stanley still didn’t believe in the cup. So, we did it again. By ourselves. And sold them out AGAIN. Still, Lauren got a lot of pushback when she brought up The Buy Guide in meetings. They just didn’t see what we saw – so much potential.”
This part blows me away.
These women are offering up key customer insights on a silver platter… and Stanley is still struggling to capitalize on this gift.
I see a lot of comments from men and women touting a newfound recognition of women’s purchasing power.
If it’s new to them, that’s wonderful.
But retailers have known for decades that women control the majority of household spending in the U.S.—a fact they ignore to their peril.
David Ogilvy, the original Mad Man, famously reminded a group of male execs in 1955 that their female audience was intelligent and capable of seeing through blatant advertising hype when he said, “The customer isn’t a moron, she’s your wife.”
Even though Ogilvy’s language comes from another time, his point is alive and well.
After the moms at The Buy Guide essentially beat Stanley around the head with their customer knowledge and independently sold 10,000 Stanley Quenchers, (something no brand has the right to expect), the company started paying attention.
Insights about colors, channels, and the relationship between the product and the women who bought it drove product and distribution.
The result?
Stanley’s sales in 2019 were $75M, with little to none of it coming from the Quencher.
In 2022, the Quencher became their top selling product.
And sales for 2023 were estimated at $750M, a 10X growth in company revenue over 4 years.
At $750M in sales, Stanley only accounts for a mere 15% of the $4.6B 2023 market for stainless steel reusable water bottles.
But without the customer insight driven by the team at The Buy Guide, they wouldn’t even be a player.
Instead, the Quencher trend is big enough to get parodied by SNL last month.
There were many steps along the way, but the genesis of Stanley’s success was the key customer insight that allowed them to understand how to market to women.
Men got them $75M in 110 years.
Women got them another $675M in four.
What customer insights might you be missing?
Are your customers telling you something that you aren’t ready or willing to hear?
How much is that costing you?
Until next time… namaste.
Chad Jardine, CEO
CMO Zen
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AI notice: This newsletter is human-written. Images however may be AI-generated.
