Wellness Marketing: Educating consumers is crucial for building trust and driving change (podcast episode #114)

Action Box: Conversion Pro

In this episode, Dell’Accio emphasizes consumer education. The Conversion Pro expert in MeclabsAI can help you understand how to optimize your marketing strategies to not only educate but also convert your audience effectively (MeclabsAI is MarketingSherpa’s parent company).

Marketing is about helping your ideal customer perceive the value your products deliver.

But before they can perceive that value, you have to create it.

When I received the podcast guest application for my next guest, in my due diligence I found that Consumer Reports named its Stratami mattress one of the 9 best mattresses of 2024.

To hear key lessons and stories from building the company behind made that mattress, I talked to Jack Dell’Accio, CEO and Founder, Essentia.

Dell’Accio originally funded Essentia himself, investing $3 million to develop the products and build the brand. The organic mattress company is projected to surpass $50 million in revenue in 2024. He oversees the company’s 100 employees, but does not manage the marketing team directly.

Listen to the full episode using this embedded player or by clicking through to your preferred audio streaming service using the links below it.

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Stories (with lessons) about what he made in marketing

Innovation driven by personal passion can lead to extraordinary outcomes

Dell’Accio’s journey began after a close family member was diagnosed with cancer. This experience motivated him to investigate the impact of environmental toxins on health, particularly those present in conventional mattresses. This personal drive led him to create Essentia, a company that produces mattresses free from harmful chemicals. His passion for improving sleep health through non-toxic solutions filled a gap in the market and set new standards in the industry.

Keep pushing forward

Developing Essentia’s proprietary natural memory foam took years of research and development. There were numerous setbacks, from technical difficulties in achieving the desired foam quality to challenges in scaling production. However, Dell’Accio’s commitment to his vision kept him pushing forward, eventually leading to a breakthrough that allowed him to produce a mattress that met his high standards and received good reviews from Consumer Reports.

Educating consumers about the products they use and the impact on their health is crucial for building trust and driving change

Dell’Accio faced a market largely unaware of the harmful chemicals in conventional mattresses. Instead of merely selling a product, he educated consumers about the long-term health benefits of his mattresses. This approach not only helped build a loyal customer base but also positioned Essentia as a thought leader in the health-conscious community.

Today, they work with what Dell’Accio calls “not influencers, but influential users of our product” like Ben Greenfield and Dr. Mark Hyman, customers and users of the product who have a reputation in understanding wellness and performance, who share their experience with Essentia products.

Lessons (with stories) from people he collaborated with

Find a strategic partner who understands your vision

via Brett Wilson

One of the most significant collaborations in Dell’Accio’s career was with Brett Wilson from the Canadian TV show “Dragons’ Den.” When Dell’Accio appeared on the show, he wasn’t just looking for financial backing – he was searching for a partner who understood his vision for expanding Essentia’s retail presence.

Brett Wilson became that partner, investing not just money, but also his time and resources to help grow the brand. This relationship blossomed into a friendship, and the strategic support from Wilson was pivotal in expanding Essentia across North America, establishing it as a leading name in organic mattresses.

Collaborate to bring greater visibility to your brand

via Dave Asprey

Dell’Accio’s collaboration with renowned biohacker Dave Asprey was instrumental in advancing Essentia’s mission. Together, they explored the intersection of sleep technology and biohacking, discussing ways to optimize sleep for better health and performance. This collaboration brought greater visibility to Essentia and also helped refine its product offerings.

The insights gained from working with someone as influential as Asprey helped Dell’Accio innovate beyond traditional mattress design.

But Asprey was just one collaboration. Some potential collaborations have been a near-miss – Essentia was selected to be one of Oprah Winfrey’s ‘favorite things’ on her last show, before a pivot by the producers to focus her last show on her previous favorite things, not new ones.

However, there have been many hits. People like Jim Kwik, who have been users of the product and then shared the story.

Or professional athletes. One day his executive admin said there was someone on the phone who was dropping names like Sidney Crosby and Jonathan Toews. It turned out the caller was NHL agent Pat Brisson, who found Essentia because he asked strength and conditioning coach Andy O’Brien to find the best-performing mattress for Crosby.

Discussed in this episode

Female Entrepreneurship and Marketing: Having built a big community doesn't mean you will be able to monetize it

Marketing is Teaching: 3 examples of high-performance marketing that worked by educating the customer

Strategic Marketing Collaboration: Find your partner in crime (podcast episode #68)

Marketing: It’s not about you, and when you make it about you, you are never going to succeed (podcast episode #53)

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Transcript

Not ready for a listen yet? Interested in searching the conversation? No problem. Below is a rough transcript of our discussion.

Jack Dell'Accio: A lot of the opportunities. I walked away from was kind of the ones that were easier to market, and that those were the tough. Those are the tough decisions, because that's when my CFO was kind of saying, well, Jackie, you you can't be so stubborn because there's so much opportunity if you just create a non-google product, if you just added some polyurethane here.

So it was always the push that I always had to push back on, and I have always pushed back on is compromising and the product just for penetrating the market because those opportunities have been there, had been there for 19 years, and I've kept saying no to them, maybe to the detriment financially of the brand. Maybe we'd be $1 billion company.

Who knows? And I think we probably could be. But that's not my journey. That was not my path.

Intro: Welcome to how I made it in marketing. From marketing Sherpa, we scour pitches from hundreds of creative leaders and uncover specific examples, not just trending ideas or buzzword laden schmaltz. Real world examples to help you transform yourself as a marketer. Now here's your host, the senior Director of Content and Marketing at Marketing Sherpa, Daniel Bernstein, to tell you about today's guest speaking.

Daniel Burstein: Marketing is about helping your ideal customer perceive the value your products deliver. But before they can perceive that value, you have to create it. When I received a podcast guest application for my next guest, in my due diligence, I found that its strategy matches what's considered one of the nine best mattresses in 2024. According to Consumer Reports lab tests.

Then, June 27th article published by the well-regarded independent product testing nonprofit. That's called Creating Some Value. So to figure out how we created that value, how we built the company, and to share some of the lessons and stories behind it. I've invited on Jack D'Alessio, CEO and founder of Essentia Organic Mattresses. Thanks for joining us, Jack.

Jack Dell'Accio: Hey, Daniel, thanks for. Thanks for having me on before.

Daniel Burstein: Awesome of me to Jack. This is gonna be fun. Let's take a look at some of Jack's background so you know who I'm talking to before I get into them. I grew up in an entrepreneurial family. Said you worked in marketing and sales for an Italian furniture brand, but he's been at it since, you know, for 20 years.

He founded the company 20 years ago. He originally funded Essentia himself, investing $3 million to develop the products and build the brand, and it is projected to surpass $50 million in revenue this year 2024. The last year oversees a company of about 100 employees. It does not manage a marketing team directly himself, but is deeply involved in marketing from everything I've seen him do.

So he's going to teach us a lot today. But first, before we jump into some of these, you know, lessons from your career. Jack, what is your day like as a CEO and founder?

Jack Dell'Accio: My days is pretty busy. So I guess obsessive in a sense where my, you know, the, the I start my day off, trying to be just in the moment with the family, but, you know, with that, that that doesn't last too long, you know, because everyone's off to school. Off to work. So. So once that 15 minutes is gone, I'm straight to catching up on emails, any communication.

And I'm obsessive of being the first to, to be responding in the day and and the last to be responding. So, so the reason I do this is because when I walk in, I want to be there for the people around me, whether I'm going to my marketing team, I want to be in the moment. I want to be engaged.

I want to be, you know, attentive to what they're doing and not distracted of what I need to do. So part of my routine in the day is that I'm fully caught up before I even got into the office, and I'm sure a lot of people probably do this, but for me, that's been key. So that when I walk in at 8:00 in the morning at the office, that I start engaging with people, I get to talk about them.

I get to talk about their issues because my key role here is to support everyone else around me. Support goes in that direction. And, hopefully I'm inspiring people, helping them with campaigns and strategies and, and I touch a little bit on everything. So I duck into the finance team, I duck into the marketing team, I duck into the ops team.

And R&D is my specialty. So. So I wear a lot of hats. The way to do it is to always be, never fallen behind.

Daniel Burstein: Now, I like that. Get that stuff out of the way early. Yeah. So you're going to focus on other people. That's nice. So let's talk a look a little bit about some of the lessons you learned from the things you built for you. You know, a lot of times we talked to there's a lot of CMO, Don, we talk about building brands.

They build products, they build, you know, campaigns and all these things. And sometimes we have founders on. It's fun because not only do they are they involved in building the campaigns, but they're involved in building the value like I talked about. That's the whole point of marketing, just communicating this value. So let's start here. You said innovation driven by personal passion can lead to extraordinary outcomes.

So tell us the story behind this.

Jack Dell'Accio: Well, for me, I mean that's that's kind of what drives me as well. I know in typically in the industry that I'm in right now, a lot of companies, start with the marketing. They do the, you know, they check the landscape, they look at what, you know, what people are searching for, and, and they they create a product or they buy a product specifically to fit that need.

I come out this as a founder and a creator a little bit in a different way. I'm passionate about, about a need and or a problem and solving an issue. And I haven't even evaluated if there's a mass market for it. But, you know, I drive down into, product first, solutions first. And that's that's kind of the approach where the passion is there, the passion for a purpose is there.

We create a product, and then from there, we then put on our marketing hats and see, evaluate, is there a need for this outside of that specific niche that we've seen? And a lot of times, you know, how do we how do we bring it to a broader audience? Because sometimes what's essential and necessary for a small group, it has great value for the larger group as well.

But coming from a position of, of passion and commitment to everything we do and starting with, product and standing behind it, it makes everything easier for every team. Our marketing team, faces the challenge that I've given them, potentially a product that is really solves a problem to, a specific niche and a category that needs it.

But I also give them, a wealth of, of of opportunities because as a company and the people behind it stand behind passionately behind this product, making it right every time standing behind the product. So a lot of the sales and service that we put behind in this commitment helps the marketing team moving forward and knowing with a lot of confidence that we can go out there, we we can, find the audience for it, get people seeing us and knowing that, we'll follow through as a company behind it, because from the passion and commitment and everything we've done on it.

Daniel Burstein: So take us back to maybe these early days. I'm still going to unpack this journey over time, but I think my understanding was someone close to you got cancer and you're kind of unpacking. Well, what are some of the things that cause cancer? And it seemed like chemicals was one of those things and chemicals and mattresses. And I got to mentioned you're doing this 20 years ago.

I know this was talked about back then, but it seems like that was somewhat pressure because this has only grown more so in the past 20 years. But how back then, did you get that sense, like you said, okay, there's a big enough need in the market for a chemical free mattress, that this is something I'm going to take $3 million out of my pocket and put it into, like, can you take this into your head?

Jack Dell'Accio: So, so interesting. You know, obviously as a young age, not not not quite as seasoned, but, you know, back then. So, it was an interesting journey. I've always had that entrepreneurial mind. I mean, from when I was in college and I, I, you know, had a part time, part time business that I started and realized, hey, just the just the tax deduction.

So it made sense for me to be entrepreneurial, even during school. But, I had a different business. I was in the furniture business back then. And when, at that time, my dad became ill and was, battling cancer. And, initially we were just learning about, the problems, that he was experiencing personally, a lot of it with, you know, the indoor air quality, which, which when somebody is fully, you know, compromised, you know, they become more sensitive to, to to the air around them.

The, the products around them could be, you know, irritability with, respiratory system or, or breaking out into a rash. So there's the when you're, when your body is sensitized that way, everything's exaggerated. The, the body overreacts to so many things in its environment. So as we're cleaning up the home environment for him, for his journey, for his battle, and then seeing other people, going through treatments, having the same type of environments.

So. So we were there just cleaning and detoxing his space, creating and, products in his environment that made sense for him and supported his journey. And my mind went into that entrepreneurial spirit and saying, well, what can I do? What can I do in my current business that makes me sensitive to this? And, I've always been driven to to be doing something that's good for people and good for community and good for the environment.

And I didn't find that in the product that I, that I was the furniture product, you know, and as I was observing some of these things and specifically, at the time, we realized, like the highest, off gassing that came in a person's home or person's sleep environment came from the mattress and pillows. And it was because of the high level of toxins and chemicals that were in the mattress and below.

So so I figured there had to be a better way. So as we were researching product, we were realizing there wasn't the product that address all of these issues. So my R&D cap, because I was doing product development even when I was in furniture, said, well, let me start understanding this. So I started by, you know, hiring some, it kind of a little basement lab and hired my own, chemists and start understanding and breaking it down how this, polyurethane was made, how latex was made, and it it wasn't like I said, I'm dropping $3 million, and we're going to develop this.

It was one of those things where, well, we're going to put $100,000 on it. One became 505 hundred became a million. And every time you're getting closer and then you're driven by this mission to do something, and three and a half years later, it was over $3 million that was invested in this project. And then, you know, by that time it was like, okay, well, we're bringing this to market, right?

So it sneaks up on you. It kind of was through fields, through my other business, I was able to invest in this, project was. Which was passionate. At the time, I really thought I was developing this product, and then I was going to license it and get a royalty or something like that. So I didn't think I would be founding Essentia as I did.

But again, my my passion and commitment wanted me to make sure that this made it to market properly. And it was not just marketing spin, but that it was well marketed and kind of backed up by a real product that really benefited people and really hit the the people who cared about most, which was the consumers. So that's where we ended up being a direct to consumer brand.

But yeah, that was that was the journey that, that got me there. It was, it was that entrepreneurial hat that I always look to be part of. The solution.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. No, I love what you said. Not just marketing spending. And that's creating the value. But let me put on my skeptical hat for a second. Right. People listening and hearing them and they're like, okay, like, I love what you're saying about passion. And, you know, we do want a passion employee and passionate brand, but they're like, what is the business case?

Right? There are people are listening. They're like, oh, that all sounds nice. What is the business case? I want to ask you specifically, how do you use organic certification to help with your marketing, right. Not just to customers. Right? I mean, we see that a lot. Stopping a website. I wonder, like, can you use that organic certification to to non-customers channel investors to partners to when building that business?

Right. Because for example, while you're thinking of that, I interviewed Cordelia Pflugerville, marketing director at AEW, and one of her lessons was having a clear purpose will always guide the way. And she talked about in her career working with VCs, how you would think, okay, VCs. All right. They're just, you know, looking at numbers. They're looking at balance sheets.

They're looking at PNL. But like, no, they also look at that purpose because they know those are the brands that are going to build. And also hopefully they're human beings. And on improving the world in some small way, I hope. I saw for your product, it is, certified by both the Global Organic Textile Standard and the global Organic LaTeX Standard.

I am not familiar with your industry, but from my little research, those are like the gold standards for your industry to show that they're nontoxic and chemical free and some of the stuff. So again, those are, you know, doing the right thing, doing the passionate thing. But how do you use that organic certification, you know, throughout the time you've had the company to win over invest or other non consumers, vendors, partners, all these things to make kind of a business case for being organic and chemical free.

There's a good business here.

Jack Dell'Accio: Well in many ways of being falling under this umbrella and going through the audits of, you know, following the standard being audited third party, it does a whole lot more typically investors, savvy investors, institutional investors. It's sort of like an ISO. You get into a company ISO, you know that there are certain standards, certain protocols are done.

Same thing with Gots and Gals. One is, you know, from, end to end, everyone in the company needs to be educated on these processes, make sure that they follow these guidelines. So one it to an outside investor coming in if familiar with certifications, they will know that everyone in the company is is on board familiar because that's part of of what you need to be to be ISO or to be gores and gots.

So so one, it creates an excellent culture of communication from every department, from production floor, to sales to the executives. Everyone knows what we believe in, what we're doing and the standards, and everyone follows it. So it keeps, the company running and flowing a whole lot better. On top of that is that does it. That's not just within our four walls.

The certification expands to all the supply chain that we use. So everyone we use need to be goals and got certified as well. So we know there's no, there's fair, fair trade wages. There's no child labor. You know, we're not working with, Chinese factories that, you know, I don't think there are any that are goals. And that's, just to say we know that the supply chain has our values, has our standards, and has been audited to make sure that the chain of custody for everything being carried through to us is following all of our standards.

So our vendors, we talk the same language, our communication, our understanding of what our goals are, are aligned because they're also certified in that way. So operationally, it shows a much better run company as well through and through. And this is adds value if you're talking to institutional investors or partners or anything about that banking because, through evidence of just doing a walk through and talking to the people, you know, that there's accountability, you know, that there's documentation and backup and the flow of, of the business, usually benefits from that.

Daniel Burstein: Oh, that's great. It kind of leads to our next question here. One less thing you mentioned is keep pushing forward. So what you're talking about there with goals and got certification. But just in general, this is not some easy. Not to mention, as I said, you started this 20 years ago where I think the world is kind of moving in this direction, but certainly wasn't there yet.

So keep pushing forward. What was one of those biggest things you had to overcome when it came to either building the business or the marketing of the business, to get it to where it was today?

Jack Dell'Accio: Well, there are some there's a lot of challenges when go up that but especially going back 20 years ago, trying to take a product that was the mindset initially was cancer patients. So that's a really small little subset. And and pushing forward was, this we know that this is great for everyone and pushing forward on our research, pushing forward on how this resonates, to, to to different communities.

So as a company, we started off with a very niche customer base, which would started with people going through these earlier cancer challenges. And there were those were the early adopters. From there, we went to people in remission. From there we went people for prevention. From there we went people for organic lifestyle. From there. On the R&D side, I kept developing this product, pushing it forward in the technology.

So the product we make today, you know, the industry hasn't caught up to us from 20 years ago, but we have far exceeded what we did 20 years ago. By 2012, we started doing, case studies and test studies on sleep, and we really moved move the needle on what our product was able to offer back that to the point where it hit for, pro athletes.

So by 2012, we are selling to pro teams, across the board from NFL, NBA, NHL. And we're doing really well because of the results that they're getting. And now the their audience just keeps getting larger and larger. And we're pushing forward on the R&D, which we're pushing forward through every obstacle. Because I'll tell you, it's the hardest thing is to sell a premium product in a world and on a platform.

I'll say that is not meant for a premium product. What I mean by that is, as the 2007, we decided that the way to bring this to market was online mattresses are now being sold online, and everyone thought we were a little nuts and we were trying to do this online. But if you look at the, you know, you don't picture this when you when you're searching for a car, you're not going to find Ferrari advertising with Ford.

You're never going to see that. But yet that's what at a center, that's all we had to do. We had to find ourselves competing with products and price levels that are not even close to what we do, because most of the products going on online with with Google Ads and PPC and everything out there is not the Ferrari's of the world, they are more in the wheelhouse.

So it's the challenges are great because as we're looking at all the analytics and, and the marketing team has to pull out and make AB testing and try it out, how do we get a piece of it and without overspending because it you know, if we can, we can be in front of everybody's eyes. But 99% of them are not going to click it.

Or if they do, we're paying for it, but they're not going to buy. So. So a lot of the analytics challenges that we face is trying to market a Ferrari on a platform that, basically has more economic brands out there. So is it you know, the challenges were every day constant. And we've we've pierce through them and, we have an amazing team that is always looking at the numbers, always looking at every little detail, on where to be, how to be there and and how we resonate, for people because we truly believe that the product itself is, fit for everyone.

Just because quality sleep is essential for everyone. So, that, that that's that's been our challenge. And when you say about obviously as a company pushing forward is because we've tried things and failed as well and and when you try and fail, hopefully you have the wherewithal to fight another day. And we, we at the point where, we opened up 20 essential locations at one point, you know, over the last ten years.

And today we, we, we find ourselves that the still how we started in 2007 direct to consumer online still is where we exist and where we thrive and do well. But it was again, part of our, part of what we've done. And, and you just got to pack it up, whatever hasn't worked. And, and, and move on, in every sense of the word.

There was the some, some of the tough lessons.

Daniel Burstein: So that's really I want to ask about that. You said you used to have 20 brick and mortar locations. I wonder what you learned from that and why you changed. Because when I look at you right now, I think you've got three brick and mortar locations and when we see kind of what's going on with that direct to consumer, those online stores, they've kind of moved in that direction.

It was funny. They they had that direct to consumer online thing. And then they said, okay, Warby Parker and some of these others we're going to start, untuck it, we're going to start opening, you know, physical locations and where there becomes there's not as much differentiation between these channels of the physical store retailers in the online. So I was going to ask you about that because I saw you had three stores.

I was like, okay, is that how is that going? Is that something you're going to grow? I found it, you already grew it, and now you shrunk it. So what did you learn from kind of going that van route?

Jack Dell'Accio: So, Covid was huge for us as far as understanding the model. And what were you we were doing again, because it was such a premium product. The way we were coaching our team is that we were going to we push all of our inquiries, all of people interested in learning more about our product. We directed them to our 20 stores.

So we were the our online presence was was the feeder to our 20 locations, and our 20 locations were doing well and everything was fine. However, and when Covid hit and we were shut down for 90 days, all locations were shut. Now we had to regroup and we we told everyone, all right, listen, we are no longer pushing people towards our brick and mortar locations.

Now you need to be answering your questions. Be available to clothes, whether it be chats, whether it be emails, phone calls, be available and always be closing at the end of the day. And and so when we changed, that and then made that pivot immediately over those first 90 days during those shutdowns, revenues were growing up.

They were not going down. So, there's a kind of there's a there's the right business decision for me right then would have been to shut them all down and just keep going there not could have been short lived. Who knows if it would have, maybe that wouldn't have expanded. But the approach we did, we needed people answering calls, answering chats.

So I had reached out to all the managers and said, hey, whoever wants to come in to work, you're on your own store's closed. You can go there, you can work, answer chats, answer calls and all that. A lot of them did not come back at that moment. People were not comfortable taking subways was a lot of fear everywhere.

Three months after that, I started the journey of getting out of leases, negotiating out of all those leases, and, one by one, by the time, Covid was ready to, gone and businesses were ready to reopen, I was down to three locations. From there, we we stuck with it. We're actually down to two locations, because, one of those three locations happened to be in Florida, and Florida is booming.

And then the building we were in got torn down to put in another high rise. But ultimately, as as leases came up, I didn't I didn't renew them. I, you know, I wasn't chasing to expand. And I do see a lot of people in the space who are a lot of them are, you know, figuring out what's their next step.

And they were online, online, direct to consumers, and they're opening up shops. And, listen, I've been there. I've done it. That's not the direction of our brand. We see continued growth without having the brick and mortar. And, you know, a lot of it has to do with with what we've built over the years as far as brand reputation or brand promise.

So so it's on one side, I believe our team is really strong and marketing well and finding our customers, through different platforms online. But beyond that is, we, we give them support by making sure people who can review the product. Well, and, and and having repeat customers and so, all the way through, you need that balance and harmony from all departments in the company doing it.

Right. So yeah, we've and I see, I see others opening, and, like to myself, I wonder when are they going to realize that they need to close that one down, that hasn't probably going to move the needle for them, but it could be wrong. That's I was for those for our business.

Daniel Burstein: Are you keeping these two or.

Jack Dell'Accio: They're all the only exists for the people that are there. I kept our Toronto store open. It's a first store we ever opened. And, committed to our sales team and manager. That's there to say, hey, you guys are here. We're. We'll we'll keep the doors open for you. So that's the reason that, that that's one there.

The other one is in Laval at, our factory. So we have a factory. So we happen to have a store there. I mean, there is thoughts of opening up one here in Boca Raton, Florida, just because it's a male backyard. But if the right opportunity comes, I it's I'm not I wouldn't be opening it for profit purposes but more as a, as a window to where I am and being in my community.

But I don't feel a need for any, any brick and mortar stores for, for our brand.

Daniel Burstein: Okay. Well, you mentioned the premium product and you also had this lesson here, educating customers about the products they use. And the impact on their health is crucial for building trust and driving change. So how did you learn this lesson?

Jack Dell'Accio: Well, you know, to me it was, we're working with the athletes a whole lot. And, you know, there's two different groups of people that I learned a lot from. When it came to my product. And then in marketing, my product has been the cancer patients. They were super hypersensitive to everything in their environment and everything they were touching when it I found a similarity in the pro athletes.

They were really much in tune with their body. So as I was changing some of the formulation and eliminating some stimulants that they got to the way and we were measuring their sleep one, we were able to see that we're moving the needle on REM sleep in deep sleep. So we know we were getting the performance, where I was also getting feedback from the athletes.

I'm feeling this in my shoulders. I'm feeling this on my lumbar. They're able how they're feeling the next day, happier, better, stress free. So the lot of that feedback that was coming back from the pro athletes really, made me understand that the importance of sharing this kind of information. So from that point on, we kept doing case studies with, you know, double blind test studies with athletes and showing those results and sharing those results that brought us into the biohacking communities who are trying to move the needle on their wellness, the anti-aging.

So, so this high performance through sleep is not just for athletes. Athletes benefit from it on all their contract renewals, obviously, so they're directly linked to their revenues. But we all are. I mean, if I'm not going to be 100% as a CEO, my business will suffer from it. And if my team is not 100% in everything they do, something will suffer from it.

And whether it be in business or whether it be at home, if you're if you're going to be completely spent and not sleep well, you can't give as much to your family. You can't give as much to your friends of yourself, of your true happy self. So sharing this kind of, that data was really interesting. And we just noticed that people want to know that the end user, the consumer really wants to know really the granular details on, on, on, on the product, on how it performs, how can benefit them.

And that's the direction we ended up taking. My guess as of 2014. So as of 2015, maybe. So it's close to ten years that we've taken this evidence based approach on what the product does. And I think number one is it's not a it's not an approach that anyone can take because most people are not selling Ferrari's in sleep.

But when you are, you get to talk about the construction, you get to talk about how it's made, you get to talk about how it performs, and you get to be very transparent about it because it's so awesome. I can see where in my industry people are not so much performance driven, because a lot of these companies are not manufacturing their product.

They're not even designing their product. They go to third party manufacturers and see, well, what can I get? What's the color of my cover? Where's my branding going to be? So they are pure marketing companies that are just taking a product to market. We're a little different. We're so focused on performance and wellness and what this product delivers to consumer.

We get that opportunity to to to get really into the trenches on, on everything, on specs and performance and on all those metrics that make a difference to a user.

Daniel Burstein: So and that's great. And a lot of that is health education. Right. And so I want to ask how do you bring credibility to your health education. Because definitely see brands take more of a role here. For example, I wrote an article, did a case study a few years ago with, dsm's over-the-counter Azo health brand. I got this quote from it focus on a key insight that shows how your product provides value, and then provide more value value that is outside of your product.

Consumers expect more from brands and the brands that understand that win, and I thought that was perfect. Very much ties into your brand. That was several years ago, and since that time we've seen more and more of this kind of online, people become more skeptical of online health brands right now, as we're talking, like a few days ago, the Senate was, talking about a possible log where there's going to be big fines for influencers and telehealth firms for misleading promotion of drugs online.

You know, so in that milieu, right, you're online. This is what you have to communicate all through this noise. So how do you bring credibility to the health care education you're doing for your brand?

Jack Dell'Accio: Well, that's that's the for us, obviously we have a bigger challenge because it's all about the truth behind it and the authenticity of it. So we get to work with, you know, we get the privilege of having some influencer, like they're not influencers, but they are influential users of our product. And, you know, people like Dave Astbury, Ben Greenfield, people who have become a doctor.

Mark Hyman, these are people who are our customers, are users of our product, but who have, have a reputation in understanding wellness, performance, anti-aging. And they've they've shared our stories, they've shared their experience with our products now, whereas the easy way to do this, which is what government is trying to get involved in, is that you can pay influencers, you can pay websites to evaluate your product, but a lot of times they're paid to play and you'll always get a great result from them because it's it's really just a commerce exchange and they're delivering promotional.

That kind of sounds like education. That's where governments trying to get involved. And you know, these these, these, sites need to say that, that they're being paid for it. They need to try to communicate to consumers, hey, this is not an authentic study. This has been a paid study because a paid study, you can kind of get the outcome that you want.

But, for us, it's been through our authentic users. We have, you know, over 30% of NHL players sleep on our product. So we're part of the NHL on the back end where the the PA has, has an interest, interest site where they tell their players that Essentia is, is the right product. So, so having these type of authentic, non-paid relationships is what's kind of brought us their service.

Unfortunately for us, there's just not as many as those. Right. So we don't get to say, hey, we're on 2000 sites that say that we're number one. That would be awesome. But we we we need to be a little bit more, paced. Where where in the reality is true influencers are not as, not as common and not as authentic.

And that's the only route for us because we can't be, on the paid, the paid to authenticate or paid to influence, world.

Daniel Burstein: That's great. And I appreciate you talk about some of the people you collaborate with, because that's what we'll talk about now in the second half of the episode. But first, I should mention that the how I made It in Marketing podcast is underwritten by MC labs. I the parent organization of marketing Sherpa. You can build a new artificial intelligence strategy or optimize your current AI strategy with an AI quick Win intensive from MC labs.

Learn more at intensives Dot labs ai.com that's intensives.mc labs, ai.com. All right I appreciate you mentioned some of the people you collaborate with. I see hockey photo behind your head right there. It looks like a, a testimony from someone. But let's talk about some of those people you collaborated with in your career. Learn from, first person you mention was Brett Wilson, and you said, from working with Brett, you learn to find a strategic partner who understands your vision.

So tell us that story about how you learned that from Brett.

Jack Dell'Accio: Well, Brett was awesome. When? Early on, I believe that was in 2009. My marketing guy, at the time I was, I was, I was at my Montreal office. We still based I was still based in Montreal. And, I'm always there to support my team, whatever my needs. I'm game. So he ducked his head in, and he says, you okay to go on TV?

Like, no. Yeah. You okay? If we write a pitch for the dragons, then, dragons, then basically was a show back then in Canada equivalent to the shark tank. And so he asked me if I would pitch to be on the Shark tank. I can remember just my my my my, my my workdays were so jam, so packed and yet.

Yeah, all fit in anything. So at the end of the day, we recorded a 62nd pitch. He sent it in to, shark to, to, Dragon's Den, I should say. And I went on that show and I was picked to be on that show. And, again, for me, there was no there was no plan. There was no strategy is like, hey, we're just here for exposure.

And, one of the, dragons again, for, for for for us, listeners, would you be equivalent to a shark? And actually had, Kevin O'Reilly. Mr. Wonderful was on that show. So he first starred in the Canadian show.

Daniel Burstein: Right, guys off that America of Canada. Off with the shark.

Jack Dell'Accio: Well, well, Canada rifted off from the UK. So? So the Dragons then came frigging from the UK and then was televised. But I think at the top of it all, I think Sony is behind all three of them. Okay. Well we.

Daniel Burstein: Started making money from.

Jack Dell'Accio: Them, but ultimately Brett Wilson, you know, huge entrepreneur, really successful in Canada. He was one of the, one of the investor of potential investors. And he made an offer to, to invest. He never became a partner. But when we met after the show to talk about the potential investment, and I was very honest and transparent, I'm on the show to get eyes on, on our brand.

We weren't really looking for financing, but I kind of felt. But, Brett, if you want in, we'll find a place for you. And, you know, we'll take your money. And Brett said, well, you know, like, his goal of me on the show was for philanthropic, philanthropic purposes. He wanted to try to get as many businesses off the ground.

He believes in entrepreneurship, and he wanted to support whoever needed the support, but then offered right there and then. Even if you know, I'm not a partner, whatever you need, Jack, I'm here for you. And and we we we then, you know, I remember before I went, I had to open up so locations, I would pick up the phone call, Brett would make a few calls ahead, and he knew so many people, and we were able to, accelerate connections with people, really have people taking us seriously in a world of trying to sign leases in different cities when we were open up these doors.

But I think what I really got out of Brett the most was his his spirit of giving you know, I was on, on, fundraisers with him. I've been to events where he was specifically giving back and, and to me, that was, that was important. And from from immediately from Brett, you I came back and said we need to do be we need to be doing something, as a company.

Sure. We're giving a great product. We know that we're helping people with their health and wellness through sleep. But there's also more. There has to be a philanthropic arm of the company, and we develop what we call better hood. Then my whole thing is every community that we go in, we need to make it better through our better hood.

And it didn't have to involve sleep. It didn't have to involve anything. But but every manager, every store manager had to be doing something within their community. So yeah, Brett was definitely the one who inspired me that, you know, no, you don't have to be a big mammoth company to be giving back. You can be giving back a little, even when you're small.

And as you grow, you give what you can. And and so that was the spirit. And I love that spirit. And I love, you know, and I got to tell you when I presented to our, our, our, our, our team of executives who you think are just focused on building the business and all that. I mean, as soon as I mentioned it, everyone, everyone was volunteer.

I could do this. I can, you know, everyone was saying, I can be a part of the philanthropic mission that we have here. So so that was again, he taught me that some of the leadership of, how we're doing good really uplifts everybody in the company. And they're proud to come to work for a company who's giving back.

So, yeah, from other than the connections that he's made, really, observing his, his is giving back. And that type of leadership was, was pretty cool.

Daniel Burstein: So you talk about the team jumping in, I imagine that wasn't just luck. I imagine it's because you built the right team. So I wonder, do you have any specific examples of something you learned to build a team with a complementary skill set and values? Because, for example, when I interviewed, Colin O'Brien, Colleen O'Brien, sorry, the chief Communications officer and head of strategy and or more on how I made it marketing, one of her lessons was find your partner in crime.

She talked about at the time, we're going to Microsoft is a very big company, you know, partnering with the senior data scientist where they kind of kind of have this trade off where she traded her business insights for his analysis expertise. Right. That's really important in a big company, when a smaller company is even more important and not only do you have to have the right skill sets, I'd imagine you can't just grab an off the shelf marketer with the right skill sets.

They also need to have values that align with yours or it's not going to work. Did you have any specific example of how you learned to build that right team?

Jack Dell'Accio: Well, to me, the the and I'll tell you some, some of the lessons learned along the way as well. To me, first of all, work is our life where we're at work all day. So the people you work with, you have to, have a connection with them. You have to care for them. You have to want to be with them.

Day in, day out. So. So every single person that came in, I had to have the vibe that they were good people that I'd enjoy hanging around with because not just work. We, you know, it's our extended family. So number one, there had to be that, that, that that connection and compassion with everybody that, that we hired.

One of the things, you know, you have to surround yourself with people who complement or take over your weaknesses. And, that was probably one of the earlier challenges, because sometimes, with that passion and enthusiasm, people tend to just jump on board and don't challenge anything. I say, you know, challenge anything I do because they're enjoying the ride and they're just.

But then I realize at one point there's something wrong here. Nobody's nope, nope. Nobody's kind of like hitting the brakes on something. Everyone's just rah rah. Sounds great, Jack. And that really is not the best, formula for what we, had to achieve and where we had to go. So ultimately, you know, to me, I'm more of a long term visionary.

You know, today I'm thinking about what I'm doing over the next 3 to 5 years. I'm not, you know, so, so really making sure that I had a president that was focused on the day, the activities because early on, I noticed that we would be working on certain things. And I had an idea and we'd run with my idea, but we would abandon some of the day to day marketing tasks that were working as well.

So that was one of the early on. Things like, oh, what guys, is something wrong here? You can't just be running with me and dropping everything to go so, so in fact, having people that were, you know, maybe inspired by my long term, but also able to say, like, hold on, Jack, I still need this stuff to do here.

Great. So so I realized that they would they wouldn't want my updates on a weekly basis because it was a distraction more than anything else from from everything that was working and everything that needed to be done. So really surrounding myself with people who were, again, focused on the moment, what needed to be done this year for the company and not necessarily jumping one two years ahead, just having the updates as they needed to go to prepare when it was time for them to prepare, whether it be in the finance team again, finance people can easily be, come on on the ride with marketing.

But hey, marketing, we know how to spend money. So that's maybe not where where the financing needs to go. So somebody hitting the brakes, somebody saying, hey, look at this projections. Are you sure you want to do that? And sometimes, even though they didn't make financial says yes, we still want to do it. And we did it right.

But but always having somebody complimenting and hitting the brakes and putting some red flags up was really important, you know, and in the operational side, having the right engineers who were just as passionate as I was. But again, really focused on specifically what they were working on and not rushing to the next project that I already have in the back of my mind was really important, and that's where, you know, I've assembled a pretty good team that I'm proud of.

They're awesome people, and they're on a mission to do things right. And to build the company and to keep building the company. I there's a lot of pride from from door to door, which, which is awesome. That's a, you know, a one example which I was, like, amazed at this passion about, I guess it's been 3 or 4 years ago.

We did a little bit of a rebranding, cleanup or a cleanup. So so we changed our logo and our fonts and, and colors and so photography, something, you know, for, for, for all of our merchandise and website and all that was not a drastic change. But when it came time to the logo, I had such pushback from everybody.

You're not changing our logo. There was pushback from the marketing team, push back from engineers, push back from my financing. The finance team were the most stubborn. They were invoicing people with the old logo. I think it's for as much as like six months ago. I go, guys, you need to update, update the paperwork because, hey, this this logo has changed.

So that that and basically at the end, the logo barely changed because of that input from everyone. So the font slightly changed a proportion of, of the symbol to the name slightly change, but most people don't even realize it change. I'm actually looking across the room here and I see two boxes the old logo, the new logo there, like 90% the same.

So again, for everyone to have so much pride in just our logo was was pretty awesome.

Daniel Burstein: I love that there's that famous quote, if we're all thinking alike, no one's really thinking, right? Something like that. So yeah, I think.

Jack Dell'Accio: That is.

Daniel Burstein: Especially good for your company, because when there's a strong mission or a value oriented company, it can be harder to get that push back. And it's definitely easier to get into a group. Think of like, hey, let's just march towards the mission. What's your problem? That's essential. Here's another lesson you mentioned collaborate to bring greater visibility to your brand.

You specifically mentioned learning this from Dave Astbury, but you kind of talked to this earlier, a bit about, hey, we're not just going to go out and pay some influencers. We're going to, you know, work with the right people. So can you give us some insight into how like, is this just like people just happened to find you or like how you how you build these partnerships and do them in a in a correct way.

Jack Dell'Accio: So, I mean, early on, when we were, we were trying to hit certain people that we thought would be right. And it just, it was this the, the, the right influencers for a product like ours, are not for sale. So that that's makes it really challenging for the, the, the new an on board to be able to really stand out.

I remember going back, the very last season of Oprah, we were selected to be one of her favorite things. And right before jumping on a plane to go to Chicago to be part of that show, the producers called us. Sorry. It's been canceled. They've. David changed direction, and they've decided for her last show, they're only going to feature her favorite things from the past and not new things.

That could have been a game changer for us right there. But you can't buy that. You can't buy Oprah's endorsement. Right? Same thing with, people like Dave Astbury. Jim Quick, these are people that became users of our product and then shared their story, shared their experience. Ben Greenfield, you know, these are guys that have been buying my products.

Doctor Mark Hyman. They've been buying my products for the last ten, 12 years. They've all day and every new place, every time they move and relocate, they get another Essentia. And it's just been that type of relationship. And years in, after using our product, they decide to share their story, with, with with their people. They became influencers.

And we, we then have built, after years built this relationship where we share their stories on our website and collaborate. And it's become a commercial, agreement from there. But, again, it was a little bit more, not, not, not so easy, to get in because the real the real right influencers are typically not selling that.

Daniel Burstein: So you also mentioned, like sports. So you went into sports leagues and I wonder, you know, I, I would think there may maybe specific, I don't know, features that you have to put in your product to kind of go after a market like that or to specific change, you have to make it to market. So when it comes to a strategic decision like that, that's a long term investment.

Can you take us inside how you make some of that decision? For example, when I interviewed on Jason Landis, the vice president marketing at octane and how I made a marketing, one of her lessons was imperfect action today is better than perfect action tomorrow, right? And she told the story of her time at Capital One, taking on a new role where her team grew forex overnight.

She just became paralyzed. Make a decision, she realized, I can't make the decision. I got to make some decision. So something that really interested me before what you mentioned was well, can you build this team is multifaceted team where they could pump the brakes. Right. So you got that. You seem, as you mentioned, like I'm the visionary guy.

I'm looking 3 to 5 years out. I don't have a problem with this, you know, not taking action. I can take action. I want to do all these things. This team is pumping the brake. And in the middle of that milieu, you got to place your bets. Because I'd imagine once you invest, pay, that's going to be something you're committed to for several years.

You're a manufacturer, right? This isn't just a little change you can make on a website. So can you take us into that decision making process of how you choose? Okay, either we're going to go after the sports market, or we're going to add whatever feature or function to the product, or launch whatever new product.

Jack Dell'Accio: So that's the one place where no one has been able to pump the brakes on me is R&D and product development. I'm completely obsessed with it. And and I don't, I don't stop that technological advancement feature. So that's something that, I believe it started for me, you know, three and a half years of developing the product.

Then there was a, I'll call it the commercial break to bring it to market. But then by 2008, I was back on the develop in 2009, patented new technology, new core using our formulas. And that's just the one thing I've taken very few breaks from that, you know, over, over the last 19 years, I can probably say that there were maybe 3 to 4 years where I wasn't pushing forward on product development, but other than that, that's that's how I'm wired and I'm obsessed and passionate about it.

And so, whether it was going to go to athletes or everyone, I think, athletes, I'll give you that fell on our lap. And that guy there, Jonathan, it was one of the first, early adopters of our product in the NHL. To give you how this is going to be completely luck, but I was consulting with the Montreal Canadiens.

They came, one of their doctors came to me and wanted to understand, sleep, understand how they could move the needle for the player. So I happened to be consulting with one of the, one other staff doctors there. And at the end of, like, two weeks, he's like, saying, you know, you need to speak to Pat Brisson.

Now I go, I know he's a hockey agent. I go, why do I need to speak to Pat for I've never met him before because you need to speak to Pat. He's got all the top players in the league. Are, under his agency. All right. Well, yeah. One day I'd love to meet him. Two days later, I'm walking back to my office, and my office was a position right after the sales team.

And I have one of my girls was there, and she says, Jack, I've got someone on the phone and he's just dropping names, and he's talking like Sidney Crosby and Jonathan Daves and oh, what's his name? And Janine pronounce it right, but she say basically in her own pronunciation, she said, it's Pat Brie. So I go, I'll take the call, just transfer him to me.

I end up getting on the phone with Pat and speak to him for, two hours. On that phone call ended up. Yeah. Has become a personal friend or a great guy. And, from the after that conversation, he's there. Well, where can I try it and goes, where are you located? And he happened to be in, Marina del Rey in California, and we had a showroom in Santa Monica.

So he goes, I it's right down the street from me. He visited the store from there. So the way he found out about us is that Sidney Crosby plays for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Asked him to, to ask him to find the healthiest mattress for him, who then tasked Andy O'Brien, which was strength and conditioning coach. And he did the research.

He went to see us, found us online, went to see us at our Toronto store, would see us at our Calgary store, vetted all the white papers that we had and made sure that, you know, with doctors that what we were saying was accurate and true. And then he gave his is is, green light to pat to negotiate purchasing for for for Sid.

But from there we ended up expanding way for. So before Sidney Crosby even got, an opportunity to, to purchase and and Dave's was, was a player that also, was under contract with, Pat breeze. So he's in Chicago and, he, he, he reaches out to me and through Pat and says, you know what? I'd like to try this product.

He because he's he's vegan. He likes organic. He wanted a lot of the features that we, we have. After two weeks that he slept on the mattress. He then calls me up and he goes, Jack, is it okay if I bring my team to your store? I go, absolutely, when you want to come. It was 11 a.m. because we could all be there by 1 p.m. so within two hours we shut down the Chicago store, the Blackhawks came in and everyone's kind of getting measured up for for their essential mattress and all that.

And that was kind of how we started in hockey and how we started and pro sports and, and word of mouth went around from, from team to team. And eventually we were part of the PA. We've done some, some case studies with, with the at the time they were the Oakland Raiders but worked with the team in the strength and conditioning coach there to, you know, really convert some of the players and, you know, some concussion protocols on helping sleep a concussion.

So, so yeah, I've had I've had the technology hat on, with Essentia since 2012. Really hard core with, with pro athletes. And it's been fantastic as they push me to, to keep, the development going, and get, get the results. The REM sleep and deep sleep results, to make them better, make them stronger. And I share that information with Dave as reason.

Ben Greenfield's and the doctor, Mike Hyman's and on our website. And we we just have a whole bunch of educational papers on our website for people who want to know. So, so education is has been key and making this available to everyone. So, so the stubbornness to keep doing R&D and pushing forward on the product, luck has come along the way and found us in a sense, which has been, part of what we had to build on.

Daniel Burstein: Well, forget the Raiders. You got to get my Jackson Jaguars some of these matches because they're not doing to on the field. And they need the help. They need some rest. Let me ask this in a different way because this priority question. And so I'm kind of pushing hard here. I mean, this is a key question for marketers to decide where they should invest, what channel they should invest in, or, you know, what, where they go with the brand and with business owners of how they're going to invest their company.

So maybe you can give us an example of, in there, some details you might not have to leave out, but what is a path you didn't go down and why didn't you go down it? Right. Because I agree with you. I love how you want to push the product. The R&D constantly make it better, but at the end of the day, you know it is a business.

And so I am sure there are some things that you could do where you could go so far where it's like, okay, we can't profitably do this. And I'll as an example, I think we talk about premium, but I want to set the table maybe for the audience and you can correct me. Your mattresses are going for roughly $3,000 and up range roughly.

Other mattresses are going for like I mean, they're all different price points, but 800 or something, right? So I mean that there's a significant increase in cost. We talked about gods and goals and a lot of things to do for the mattresses. These make a better mattress, but they also increase cost. So I wonder if like like is there a time where you've had to say no, like, hey, there's a certain place we want to go or feature we want to invest in?

Here's how we kind of did the research on it. And maybe we're not going to go there yet, because that would put us in this place we don't want to be in terms of marketing, you know, to our audience. Right. Does that make sense? It is. Is that ever come.

Jack Dell'Accio: You know, part of the development that I always strive for, I've always been striving in is how do I make an economical, version of this? Is there a way? And I have always, been passionate to make this available and accessible to everyone as much as possible. And I think our starting point is around $2,000. But, yeah, it goes up to 10 to 10 to $11,000 on some.

But and there's not a vast variety. We only have six different models to choose from. So they do jump, but ultimately a lot of the opportunities I walked away from was kind of the, the ones that were easier to market. And those were the tough those are the tough decisions, because that's when my CFO was kind of saying, well, Jack, you can't be so stubborn because there's so much opportunity if you just create a non Got Girls product, if you just added some polyurethane here.

So it was always the push that I always had to push back on. And I always push back on. Is compromising in the product just for penetrating the market because those opportunities have been there. They've been there for 19 years, and I've kept saying no to them, maybe to the detriment financially of the brand. Maybe we'd be $1 billion company.

Who knows? And I think we probably could be. But that's not my journey. That was not my path. So, and a lot of times some people along the way have not stayed with a brand because maybe, hey, we we moved too slowly for them. That's not where they want it to go. They want to bring this to $1 billion company.

And, I've made the decision not to go down that path. So a lot of times making the decision that seems easy and not to go, I think, in my opinion, in my brand promise, it was the right decision. You know, I would have just essentially would have been just another generic mattress company. On the other hand, deciding what to dive in on.

We've dived in a lot of things. We have tried different, opportunities, different collaborations. And, a lot of times they, they, they, they don't move the needle as much as they should. And that's, that's the, the, the, the, the main problem, the main issue that we have, we don't fall into a luxury brand is a luxury brand.

Hey, we can just be sponsors at a, at a tennis tournament or a golf tournament and luxury and luxury, that is where is where those things are our showcase. You know, wherever you see a Rolex sign, hey, we can go there and be luxury, but we're performance. We're not, we're not, you know, like, you we're not defined by the color of the fabric of our thing.

It's not like about being hand-stitched. It's it's the formula. It's a performance. So. So we need to be in performance. Sleep. Not in luxury. Sleep. We're not in, you know, and we're on a platform online where most people are selling eight, $900 mattress, $1,200 mattress. They are stretching and they have a premium product that they rarely sell.

That's $2,500. That's our starting point. So we're we're we're we're kind of in this odd place. But our team has been awesome because they find a way to take a limited budget because obviously we can't be everywhere and make sure that they are pulling from these different platforms from these different, these that our target customer, somebody who would be interested in performance, sleep better, sleep better outcomes.

So I gotta hand it to them as being able to take this restricted budget and do it right. Online. But we have we have tried different things from events to showcases to partnerships. A lot of them have not moved the needle for us. So so I've learned over the over the time is, is to not get as excited about a potential partnership and be a little more skeptical and, and remember, the failures, if there's a failed attempts over the years.

Daniel Burstein: Well, I really want to dive into something you said earlier. And I want to ask, like, how do you build and communicate a value proposition throughout your company so the whole company understands me? You mentioned that you're over 100 people. It's gotten bigger. So the whole company understands what you just said, because what you just said is so like, if we could bottle that up and just give that out, that is what everyone needs to hear and understand.

But you said it with the founder's heart, right? You understand that? Because the thing that's so brilliant is the we could have gone down this path that other mattress companies did, but that's not us. That's not right for us. And a mistake I see so commonly among brands, among companies, among marketers is they haven't delineated that unique value proposition.

And so when they're going at it, they're a software company. Okay. Let's just take the blueprint of these other successful software companies. I mean, look, online marketers will see these all the time, right? Here's how we did it. Here's how you can do it. Here's what another software company did. Here's what another mattress company did. We'll do that same thing.

Right. And and I think it can get harder as a company grows. You've got more marketers coming on. They see what other companies are doing. They want to do that. They don't. They don't feel it in their chest the way you just said it. That's not us. We could do it, but that's not us. So as that companies grown as as you mentioned, you in like a basement lab with a few few chemists.

How have you like delineated or clarified that unique value proposition? So the company understands it and feels it and marches along along with you?

Jack Dell'Accio: There that that's been you know, almost everyone that's been hired in the company, has gone through, maybe not an interview, but a conversation before being hired with me. And, you know, the every stage of the hiring process, it was an interview process, but we're not only they were interviewing, the candidate, but the person, doing the, the the the interview was also explaining what we're about, what we're passionate about, what we believe in.

And then it would, you know, by the time they sat down with me, I would share my passion, my commitment, what we were on to. A lot of the people we ended up hiring were the people that were moved by our passion and jumped on board to this mission and this journey that we want to take place. So.

So if someone was indifferent about it, they probably didn't get that job. If they weren't moved by how passionate we are, they likely didn't join our team. And as they all become onboarded with this enthusiasm, dispassion, this direction, and I communicate. So to me, I still communicate what we're doing on the forefront, even to everyone in production. What we're about.

I talk to everyone, every line operator. I take the time to talk about who our customers are. I make them understand why it's important that everything meets the quality standards, who it's for, who, who's trusting us with respect. So we're speaking with all this passion all the way along. And I got to tell you when, when, when I was put to the test and trying to make inferior products and, and I'd be in production meeting with some of our guys in production and it says, oh, what are they talking about?

Why would you want to do this? This is not us. You know, they don't just build something because I told them to build them. Ultimately, I can tell them, you have to do it and you have to do it, but my production guys on the floor push back if they feel it's not based on the promise and the brand that they they bought into and that they're passionate.

And, you know, I've got some of the same guys working for me for the full 19 years. So, people that, you know, and these days there's not many people that work for the same company from day one. An ongoing. Right. So pretty proud of the team, I guess proud of myself that I've been able to share and constantly communicate with everybody what we're about and stay, stay true to to that direction and line.

Daniel Burstein: Absolutely. There's a lot of hack marketing tactics we can all do, but, like, sticking to a value proposition for and for 19 years. My hat's off to you. So we've explored a lot in your 19 years at Essentia, unpacked all different things about what it means to be a founder, what it means to be a brand, what it means to build a brand.

If you had to break it down for our marketers, listening, what do you think? In your opinion? What are the key qualities of an effective marketer?

Jack Dell'Accio: Well, to me, who's listening, is is is to be open to, everything around you. And that's part of the reason why I show up to work already with my work done, is because I want to be engaging and listening to what people have to say, not just forcing it out one way. So I think a good marketer has to be aware of everyone is surrounding, listen to all the voices, listen to all the people.

And obviously the job of that marketer is to weed out and figure out what is the right path for us. But again, listening is is is a key thing. I listen when I'm doing R&D, I listen to the engineers, I listen to, everyone on the line, I listen to my athletes. I've listened to those cancer patients.

I listen to my marketing team on what they're saying. I listen to my sales team on what they're hearing, and you need to be able to absorb all this and then calmly come up with the path forward. So I think a good, listening and absorbing it's all around us, and you just need to be aware of it and allow that to be part of your process.

Daniel Burstein: Well, thanks for sharing your journey with us today, Jack, and letting us listen to you. I learned a lot. Thanks a lot for your time.

Jack Dell'Accio: Thank you Daniel, this is a lot of fun. I really appreciate it.

Daniel Burstein: Thanks to everyone for listening.

Outro: Thank you for joining us for how I made it and marketing with Daniel Burstein. Now that you've got an inspiration for transforming yourself as a marketer, get some ideas for your next marketing campaign. From Marketing Sherpas extensive library of free case studies at Marketing sherpa.com. That's marketing rpa.com and.