Transcript

Bennie F Johnson

Hello, and thank you for joining us for this episode of AMA’s Marketing And. I’m your host, AMA CEO, Bennie F. Johnson. In our episodes, we explore life through a marketing lens, delving into conversations with individuals that flourish at the intersection of marketing and the unexpected. We hope to introduce you to visionaries whose stories you might not yet have heard of, for exactly the ones you need to know.

Through thought-provoking conversations, we’ll unravel the challenges, triumphs, and pivotal moments that have been shaped by marketing. Today, I’m really excited and honored that our guest is Erin Levzow. Erin is currently Chief Growth Officer for Batch & Box, which is connecting people through, of all things, cookies. She was Chief Commercial Officer and Marketing Officer at the Museum of Ice Cream and has previously served built by girl serving as an advisor to the vice president of Del Taco. Erin brings more than 20 years of experience in marketing and sales development, looking at both innovation, impact, and profitable digital solutions. Erin, welcome to our podcast today.

Erin Levzow

Thank you for having me.

Bennie

So my first question just starts off simply with this. Guilty pleasures. When I think about the career that you’ve had, you’ve been able to lead marketing for some really fun spaces that we all kind of light up when we hear, whether the Museum of Ice Cream, the work you’ve done with tacos or other food and wings, it’s always the guilty pleasure. So talk a bit about your career in that day.

Erin 

Mm. Yeah, I never thought anything could get better than tacos, right? I have a sign in my office that says, everyone’s not going to like me. I’m not a taco. And now then I went to ice cream and I thought, I was wrong. Nope. It gets better, but guilty pleasures. mean, I have a lot of them. have hobbies like dance and ballroom dance. And then, I don’t know, but we all, we all like something great. The batch and box cookies that I get to advise on now are absolutely amazing. In fact, all three of my kids have said,

Bennie

Right. Hahaha!

Erin 

They are the best cookies they’ve ever had.

Bennie

Wow, see that that’s high praise when your kids say their best cookies because they’re going to naturally run away because mom is working on them.

Erin 

Mm-hmm, exactly.

Bennie 

So we talk about kids and family and the work that you’re doing. A lot of it has been targeting in the marketing sense, trying to create experiences for kids and families. How is being a mom and a parent and a marketing leader kind of informed the way you think about the work?

Erin

Well, it’s great because I have a focus group, right? I quickly have a focus group surrounding me all the time. and they’re not shy about telling their opinions ever. Like in case anyone else, you don’t know if they’re being truthful. My kids will always tell you the truth. Which is great and humbling, but being able to build experiences, whether like my career started in Las Vegas, where I worked in casinos, I couldn’t really bring, there was like, no, bring your kid to work day and casino life. And that then all the way the

Bennie 

Yes. Right.

Erin 

Complete other end of the spectrum with Museum of Ice Cream and Figure 8, where it’s all about experiential and families and kids playing and engaging. But what all of my positions have had in common is this ability to drive not just targeting, but human connection. And so whether in Vegas, why do you go to Vegas? You go to escape, you go to feel like you can be someone else or be seen or just let your hair down. Why do you go to Museum of Ice Cream?

Bennie 

Mm.

Erin 

Why do you enjoy running through the Del Taco drive -thru? Like there’s something about that experience that need to want to connect with people and with cookies, the same thing. And so I love the technology behind how we can help emphasize how we connect and really at the core, it’s human connection and experiential.

Bennie

Right. I love also how the human connection and the way and the work you’ve done also being layered with creating an environment to play and innovate.

Erin 

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I love building teams. and when I build teams about, I believe work should be fun. You spend more time at work than you do anywhere else. So we have to have fun doing it. And I surround myself with people who want to have fun. And in fact, I had a conversation the other day with a gentleman who goes, he was very stressed. And I said, you know what? When I get like that, I think I’m not a brain surgeon. No one dies at the end of the day. If someone didn’t jump in sprinkles or get an extra taco or get their hotel room. No one does. But I didn’t choose that career. What I chose is this great place where I can have fun and do things that bring people to something they didn’t realize they needed.

Bennie 

You know, not realizing what you needed. I thought about when we looked at like the flavors that inspire and either inspire love or curiosity or gross us out. Like the Museum of Ice Cream to work there, you were always creating things that we didn’t know we needed.

Erin 

Exactly. So we did like a hot sauce, like a sriracha on ice cream. And I thought that’s the grossest thing. I would never eat that. People lost their minds. They love that. Right. And we always paired different things together, whether it was partnering with Kendra Scott, someone would go, well, what does this nice jewelry have to do with Museum of Ice Cream? Well, we created a fun place, playful atmosphere.

Bennie 

What? Yes!

Erin 

And partnering together, we actually decided to hide jewelry in the sprinkle bowl. And so one, in case you were wondering, I will dive for jewelry, it turns out. So I’ll jump right in. like, I got it. Like I’ll push and whatever I need to do to get to that jewelry. Scott does a phenomenal job. And the partnership made sense when brought together because we both had this need to want to bring people to a better place, to help them show this great opportunity together.

Bennie 

Right. Right, right. Wow, you know, I love how you’ve been able to take things that are intimately meaningful to us and then really amplify it out to a shared experience.

Erin 

Yeah. So in Vegas, what was fun is, everybody goes, well, we’re just selling hotel rooms. And I was like, no, we’re not. said, that’s not why you come to Vegas, right? You come to escape, you come for a dream. You come for that Vegas vacation. That’s not a hotel room. That’s the experience. And so when you bring people there, you want them to create memories. You want them to go home and be like, we got to do that again. Whether it’s a boy’s trip, a girl’s trip, your couples, whatever it might be.

Bennie 

Mm-hmm. Right, right.

Erin

Whether you’re solo and you’re doing your first ever solo trip after a breakup, whatever it might be, we want you to create a memory. And so what do we get to do? We don’t just build nice hotel rooms. That’s the bar. You have to have a nice hotel room and a nice casino. What we build is this experience around it, which is when you walk in, someone knows your name. They know your preferences. They know what you like and dislike. They know which way you want to go and when you want to eat and.

Bennie 

Right, right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Erin 

Are you getting a bottle of water? Because we understand that check -in sometimes sucks, right? So there’s so many things. And that all adds to the experience that creates a memorable moment.

Bennie 

Right. Right. It’s so powerful that you said that because, you think about these life moments, they’re there in the hotel or they’re in your brand experience for just that moment in time. But that moment’s been 20 years in the making. It’s been 10 years in the making. I think about another big brand that we won’t name that talks about the fact that when families come there, they may have this may be the only trip they take as a family and they may have spent their entire children’s formative year saving up for this space.

Erin 

Mm

Bennie

Every experience matters.

Erin

Every moment. Yeah. Every experience, every moment matters. And we actually call them like moments that matter. How do you create them? How do you create that? Whether it’s what’s that thing that whatever your product or experiences that you are out there telling people about, what is that thing that makes them not walk away and go, I can take it or leave it. No, I have to go. I have to get in the line for museum of ice cream. I have to go to Del Taco versus the other competitors or to Jack in the box versus the other competitors.

Bennie 

Right?

Erin 

Or to this hotel because it sets it apart and that’s the moment. That’s the moment that matters.

Bennie 

Right. I’d love to ask you a bit about your approach to partnership. Because you’ve had these spaces in which you’ve been able to have these brand activations, these brand multiplications, these brand hybrid spaces, however you want to define it. What do you look for in one, a good partnership opportunity, and two, a good partner brand?

Erin

Yeah, so a couple of things. I’ve had a, we’ve done a lot of partnerships. One, it has to make sense, right? It has to be like, what’s your vibe? What’s my vibe? Do these vibe together. But then do I want to work with you? Meaning, are you a good person? Right? Are you trying to do what I’m doing, which is to put good into the world, right? Are we going to have fun doing it? Is it cost effective? Like what’s in it for both of us? So it could be real dollars. It could be, that you get something or I.

Bennie 

Mm-hmm. Right. Right.

Erin 

Customer acquisition or retention? Why are we doing this? Is it because we have a new story we get to tell together? And then how are we going to make it work? is it worth the kind of that saying the juice worth the squeeze, right? And how much work is going to be involved in order? And I do a lot of partnerships that you think, who that must have taken years. And it wasn’t years. Last year for Museum of Ice Cream,

Bennie 

Mm-hmm. Mm.

Erin 

We said we wanted to celebrate National Ice Cream Day. And so we built a 60 foot sprinkle pool in Hudson Yards next to the vessel. We worked with Hudson Yards who were phenomenal to work with. We went out and worked with Friendly’s Ice Cream to hand out ice cream and we did everything. And it was, we had people coming up to us who produced this and we were like, we did. And they were like, no, where’s your team of 50? And we’re like, no, we did it. Cause it turns out.

Bennie 

Mm-hmm.

Erin 

The whole will, when there’s a will, there’s a way. When you get good people in a room together that are there for the same purpose, you’re going to build something amazing. And we served probably a hundred thousand people in two days, free ice cream and joy. So, it could be anything in Milwaukee, my boss at the time, Greg Marcus had said, I want to build an arts hotel.

Bennie 

Wow. Mm-hmm.

Erin 

He said, okay. and so he said, what kind? So we went out and we looked at all the different arts hotels in the U S and decided what’s cool about them. What’s not cool. What do we like? Just like, and we put it all together and what we built was an amazing experiential hotel called St. Kate based after St. Catherine, the patron saint of arts. In that hotel, we built giggly. Giggly is a Milwaukee’s only champagne bar. And of course we partnered with

Bennie

Okay. Yeah. Haha.

Erin 

Someone, champagne is called Giggly Juice or can be named Giggly Juice. So partnered with Veuve Clicquot  to create these cool experiences in there. We partnered with Museum of Wisconsin Art to bring a museum into the place. So it had to make sense, but then are we going to want to work together? And that’s where these partnerships come from. Just like Kendra Scott and Museum of Ice Cream or Del Taco and YouTube sensations. It’s like, does this make sense? Is this natural for both of us?

Bennie 

Huh, right. Mm-hmm. Right. And I think that that’s, you know, and asking and thinking about the question that way is so important because you can have things where it looks like the brands should kind of play nicely together, but the magic comes when you really can internalize that. these fun people you’re working with? Is this a dynamic chart? Can we build something, you know, really fantastic together?

Erin 

Yeah. Yeah. It’s so important. To work with good people is just the best part of the day.

Bennie 

So when you think about that, when you’re hiring a team, you talked about your love of building teams. What is it that you look for in a team member? Ok. Right, right.

Erin 

So I don’t think you can see it on a resume. A resume again is the bar, right? Like someone sends me a resume. I’m like, cool, cool experience. Like that’s great. But I now need to talk to you to feel, do you fit? Are you flexible? And I always call it like, you have to be structured. You have to be organized. You have to be able to do all the things that are required in the job. But are you flexible? Are you someone who’s like, no, it’s my way or the highway? Are you a team player? Do you like showing up to be part of the team? Do you invest into others? How do you give back? Right? Those things I think make a well-rounded soul. And that’s what I look for. And then having a diversity and dichotomy of different types of folks, because if we all look the same and sound the same and think the same, we’re never going to move forward. Innovation comes out of hearing from different viewpoints, but then being able to go not just yours, but someone else’s, right? There’s all those studies around when you get into a brainstorm, the loudest person wins. And you’re like, no.

So like you start with notes, you start with ideas on paper, and then you build it into a conversation so that you really are getting everybody’s best thoughts out there and then building them together.

Bennie 

Right. That’s so true on how we set the frame around innovation in the brainstorm, because we’ll come in and we’ll pull this out and you’ll have these natural structural bias in the conversation where this one is more amplified, this person is more external, and it gives you a or seniority. I know I tell my teams all the time, we’ll do brainstorms and I’ll completely take away the markers for the board. I’ll take away the list and take away the desire of somebody to mark a list because when you start to put things on the board,

Erin 

Or seniority or whatever.

Bennie 

You automatically start to imply a false ranking. Is it first because I put number one? Or is it first because we said it was first? It doesn’t mean it’s best. So we hold off to get through. So by the time we get to placing it on somewhere, we’ve kind of beat it up and look for these other opportunities. Yeah, it’s kind of that unexpected flavor that comes up in either ice cream or tacos.

Erin

Yep.

Bennie 

Unexpected surprises. We talked a bit about unexpected surprises with ice cream before. So to keep us thinking about guilty pleasure food. What taco combination blew your mind over when when you’re the marketing lead, you see this menu item, what blew your mind?

Erin 

In tacos. man. I mean, there’s lots of them. Like the Chaco taco, right? Like the chocolate dessert taco. Delicious. There are plenty of different combinations, but I remember the first time someone said, we’re basically going to take a taco and put it in like a sandwich bun. And I went, isn’t that just a sandwich then? But it just tasted so different. It was so good. There’s so many different things, but like,

Bennie 

Huh, right. Right? Right?

Erin 

If you can dream it, you can do it in a taco, right? There’s no limit to what you can put in there.

Bennie 

But what I love for you is the metaphor that comes in there. I think we all should have in there. Just because it sounds gross doesn’t mean it will be gross, Yeah, some of them like it, but being open to try it and experiment it because there’s some things that come in and I’m sure if there were five taco creations, three of them were probably abominations, I’m sure.

Erin

Mm-hmm. Someone will like it. Mm. Well, and that’s the whole point is you test trial and go and you can’t be afraid to fail. And there’s the second city leadership book called Yes, And. And I always talk to my teams about like, and. So we’ll be brainstorming. Someone’s like, we can’t do that. And I was like, I think what you meant to say was yes. And here are some other thoughts and let’s build off of it. And in the back of your head, you might be like, that’s never possible, but you’d be surprised what we can get to when you just keep building on it. And then.

Bennie 

Yes. Yes.

Erin 

We’ll decide later. It doesn’t mean it’s going to market tomorrow. It means we’ll decide later what happened.

Bennie 

Right? Let’s talk a bit about that, like your influence beyond just the marketing team. How are you able to take those lessons and drive your influence as a marketing leader across the rest of the business?

Erin 

So I think it’s a lot of psychological understanding, like psychology. When you think about what makes someone close off, well, when they feel like their voice isn’t heard, when they feel like they have to be defensive, when there’s a culture of fear, when someone tells them no. The word no, we have built in our society as a bad word. If someone hears no, they immediately are like, you hate me. Versus.

Bennie 

Mm-hmm. Right.

Erin 

Okay, well, let’s flip that. What creates openness? What creates the ability to not feel defensive, to feel like you can put it out there without judgment? One, some of that takes time. How do you build a culture of that? Two, how are you an active listener? And then three, the yes and versus the no. Like, okay, I hear where you’re going or tell me more. I do a lot of that too. Like tell me more why you’re thinking that. And a lot of time other departments, other stakeholders, they just want to be heard. And a lot of times they’re not wrong.

It’s what their priorities are and what they’re getting kind of judged against. And those might not match with marketing. And so it’s figuring out, okay, well, who matters at this? The business matters, right? The business people matter. And the best way to get to that, right, is to figure out if our priorities are misaligned or where they lie with each other. So it’s a lot of active listening. It’s a lot of wanting to do there.

Bennie 

Right. Right.

Erin 

To be in those situations because a lot of people shy away and put their silos up and go, I’m going to sit here in marketing. But marketing, we’re a support mechanism. I can bring the horse to water, but everything else has to be running smoothly for the horse to drink, to leave and tell all their other horse friends to come back to the water. None of this matters.

Bennie 

Right. Right.

Erin

If I do my job, great, but nobody else does theirs, great. So how we work together is such a key part of that. And being open, active listening, saying yes, understanding how our priorities line up, it’s all part of it.

Bennie 

So you’ve also had the great privilege, and I say that working in federated models all the time, to have a space in which you have multiple doors, multiple experiences within your brand. As you get this alignment, what advice do you have for people who have brands that show up in multiple locations or brands that show up in partnerships with franchisees or other spaces in there where you have influence but not necessarily direct control?

Erin

Yeah. So I love working with franchisees because their business is their baby, right? They want to make money for their business. when you go in and you go, well, you’re a franchisee to a concept. No, you’re a business owner. I’m going to talk to you like you’re a business owner and tell you why this is going to work or not work. And it turns out if you talk to them and they talk to you, they own a business. I’m trying to help support your business. You get a lot further than me coming in and going, here’s something we’re doing from corporate. No one wants to hear that. I don’t like when anyone tells me what to do.

Bennie

Right? Right. Right.

Erin 

Let alone, like the quote unquote, the man, right? Like, so corporate is not coming in and tell you anything. I’m coming in to partner with you to help your business succeed. That’s what I’m doing. So there’s lots of ways of how we approach people, but understanding what drives them, what’s important to them. And then helping them see like that you can help them get there because at the end of the day, they want their business to do well. I want everybody’s business to do well in my umbrella, all the franchisees. Let me help you do that.

Bennie 

Right. Right.

Bennie

Right. So recently you had a lot of time to be advisors for organization. Talk a bit about, it gives you a little bit of freedom of not being anchored to the core brand, having that objectivity, but talk a bit about what you’ve been excited about to be able to bring to these companies as this great expertise.

Erin 

Yeah. So I think what I do really well is emotional and technology. I understand the emotion behind the consumer, the psychology behind the consumer, emotional intelligence, and then the technology and how it works. Right. And a lot of times you find someone in my shoes that understand one really well or the other really well. They’re really tech savvy, but they’re going to give you the tech whether you need it or not. Or they’re really emotionally intelligent, but they don’t really understand how that technology works.

Bennie 

Mm-hmm. Right.

Erin

And so what I found the most interesting about all of the companies I’ve worked with is being able to bring the right technology solution, whether it’s the CRM, the CDP, or one of the other million acronyms we’ve decided to coin in marketing to the table and go, here’s how we’re going to set it up. Here’s what it looks like. And then how we drive that business. What’s important. Sometimes it’s as easy as looking with a new lens. Sometimes it’s no, we got to really dig in and get deep.

Bennie 

Mm. Mm-hmm. Right. Mm.

Erin

But I love the mental shifting that comes along with it, right? It’s not just one consumer, one business. It’s all these different things. And I loved it when I worked on the agency side at Hathaway, which is now Bountyus. You were constantly mental shifting with technology. And I will tell you in my next life, I will likely work in technology more and customer experience, bringing those two together, because that matters so much in how you drive your business forward.

Bennie 

Mm-hmm.

Erin

And what I’m hearing out there is all these companies going right after COVID, we had COVID tech boom and everybody’s going, do you guys think we have too much technology? Does everybody have too much? And you go, interesting. You might be right. so figuring out how do you consolidate to what really drives the needle for you? What really helps your customer and what is just a nice to have that we’ve coined one in one form or another as a half to have. But maybe if we take a step back and look at it, we don’t need all this.

Bennie 

Right, right. Right. Right. It’s a nice day. You know, it’s interesting. Last night I was listening to a popular press business segment and they were talking about employee engagement and satisfaction. And one of the areas that’s triggering now with terms of lack of productivity and time, the number of apps and software platforms that people are having to navigate through is the downside of our contemporary space, whether it’s work from home or work from anywhere.

Erin 

Mm-hmm.

Bennie 

You know, what people are starting to feel the pain is I’ve got 20 apps for 20 different things that I thought about you, but like too much technology. And I’m spending all my time having my apps fight each other for space.

Erin 

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Erin 

Yeah. And the push notifications and how that deters your brain. And, I once got into it with someone because they were like, there’s no such thing as multitasking and there’s a bunch of articles on it. And what they’re actually finding is that the younger generation, and I’m going to pretend I’m in that, is can do some multitasking and it’s not necessarily multitasking as much as they’re able to quickly shift. And we’re teaching the brain how to quit, right? We only have six seconds attention span. So we’re constantly like, yeah, I heard that. yeah, I heard that. yeah, I heard that.

Bennie

Right.

Erin

And so, I guess it’s one of the best things about my ADD is I’ve been able to do that, but there are still a lot of people who can’t do that. And so it is overwhelming to your point with the apps of like, I’ll pick up my phone after having it down for 10 minutes and there’s 40 push notifications. And so then you start, everybody goes through these purges where they’re like, clean it up, clean it up, clean it up. Right. Unsubscribe. What do I got to do? Like I want to clean up my life. And then it all comes.

Bennie

Right, right. It comes back. And we check the boxes, and we miss the greater impact. emptying the phone is not the reason why we wake up in the morning. Or yeah, it’s human connection. And sometimes we may artificially believe that I’m waking up this morning to resolve my email. But that’s not really why we’re doing it. It’s not what grows it in. So I’m going to ask this question. What drew you into marketing?

Erin 

And so it’s how do we set those boundaries? Correct. Yes, it’s human connection. Yeah. No.

Bennie

You’ve got a great background in all these other spaces in there, but you always wonder what’s the gravity that drives us into marketing?

Erin

Losing my job. It was in Vegas and my degree’s in theater. And so when I moved out to Vegas from small town Illinois, I thought I’d be a famous actor. And maybe, now, jury’s still out on that. But I did that for a while at Caesars corporate and then fell into training and talent development after I took a training course for Caesars. And then the recession hit and everybody lost their jobs.

Bennie 

Yes. Okay.

Erin 

And they, Caesar’s corporate recruiter said, we still are hiring a few jobs. Is there something you want to do? What interests you? And at the time I just needed money and the, the recession was horrible, but it was really horrible in Vegas. And they said, well, what do you want to do? I said, I’ll be a housekeeper. Like what do you got? And they go, what do you know about internet marketing? And I said, I have the Facebook from being in college. And I just got in there and I worked my way up and.

Bennie 

Right. Right, right.

Erin

It was a little bit later that a training position opened and someone said, do you want to go back into training? And I looked at everything I was doing and I said, no, I said, I have a skill here. have a natural ability here, with a trainer or with an actor. Everybody thinks they can do those jobs. I’ve sat at tables where now to be fair, thinks they’re a marketer too, but, I’ve sat at tables where like lawyers are like, you know, I’ve always thought.

I could be an actor and I’m like, cool. It’s a skill that I worked really hard to cultivate, but that’s fine. and so I knew in marketing, I was actually building this skill set. And so I stayed and that just led me down the path. And yes, and I just, when someone said, Hey, you want to try this? I was like, sure, let’s do it. And worst case I failed at it. Best case, great learning opportunity.

Bennie 

Right. It’s wonderful how we kind of, when we have the yes and thinking, we open ourselves up for the space in there. can be that. So when you think about your career you’ve had, and you’ve gotten lots of accolades on being a dynamic marketing leader, if I ask your team what they’re most proud of, they’ll give me one answer. But I’m asking you, what are you most proud of in this career you’ve been working through?

Erin 

Yes. Well, you just answered it, my team being able to help people. So when I help others, I feel the most fulfilled when I help someone solve a problem. and it could be with anything. mentor a lot of women in the space. I mentor a lot of men too, but mostly women who come to me and they say, how do I balance kids and, and work? How do I do this? How did you do this? how do you know what questions they ask? How do you know how to negotiate a job? how do you get over imposter syndrome?

I get to help with that. Like that’s so fulfilling to me. And that’s truly what I’m most proud of. When I see my team, almost every person who’s ever worked with me, I’m still in contact with in one form or fashion or another. And they come back and they go, Hey, you remember teaching me this? got to use it today. That is what I’m most proud of. When someone emails me and they’re like, I was just thinking of you because remember when you told me that I tried it and it worked. I’m most proud of that. And it does it. There’s this sense of like,

Bennie 

Mm-hmm. Right. Right.

Erin 

I might not be able to change everything for myself, but I can sure put lot of tentacles of good into the world to help other people change their lives.

Bennie

Right. That’s incredible and powerful. And we think about it. I know you’ve done work with an organization that helps girls grow and lead and seeing that extension through your team and also working with younger folks in there. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to ask this question because it made me smile so much. And I thought about my own bio when we talked. So let’s talk about your youngest. So we were going to have this conversation. You know, not only

Erin

Mm. Okay.

Bennie

Is entrepreneurs, even marketing is eternalizing it. You have a portfolio marketer like living under your door without any training, just talk a bit about how it because the pride in your face is just wonderful.

Erin 

So. My God. He just, he makes me laugh every day. So his name’s Liam, he’s eight years old. And he, I was working away, which this all started because I had told you that I’m excited for my kids to go back to school, because summer has gone on too long. And I was working away and I look up and out my office window, my son has a Ninja Turtle little table set up and he’s selling things. on the corner and I’m like, what is he selling? So I yell out the door. like, what are you selling? He’s like, just some house stuff. So he’s selling household belongings on the corner of our driveway. And I go, what household stuff? He’s like, just my stuff. And I’m like, whatever. Thinking like, who’s going to buy it? So he comes in, he’s made some money. And my 14 year old comes out of her room and she goes, where’s my painting? And my son’s like, I got 20 bucks for that. And I’m like, what the? And I said, you can’t sell.

Bennie 

Yeah Right?

Erin

Other people’s things. You can only sell your own things. And he’s like, whoops. And so of course my daughter’s like, well, give me the 20 bucks and we’ll call it even because that great deal. So then the second day after having this conversation with him, I look out, he’s not there. He’s gone to the next street over. I can still see him, but he’s a little further away. And he had asked me earlier if he can make a pan of brownies. And I thought he just wanted to eat brownies, which he’s eight. He likes to eat chocolate.

Bennie

Right, right.

Erin 

And he’s taken this whole pan of brownies out there. Now he’s selling brownies the very next day on a new corner. And he comes in, he goes, mom, I made $60. And I’m like, what? For a pan of brownies at the box cost a dollar 47. And I’m like, that’s a pretty good margin, buddy. And so then the next day, his sister, his 12 year old sister has now gotten wise to this. And she’s like, Hey, I want to help you sell something. And he’s like, let’s do lemonade.

Bennie 

Right. Hahaha. Right.

Erin 

He’s like, mom, how do you make lemonade? Can you show me that real quick? And I’m like, really? First of all, I failed there. They don’t know how to make lemonade, but okay. I show them. They head out. I go to leave to run the other one somewhere and he’s now on the other side of this road. And I said, what are you doing? He goes, well, I think it’s better. The traffic’s coming this way. They stop more when they’re coming home versus when they’re leaving. And I said, huh. And so he comes in last night.

Bennie 

It’s all right.

Erin 

With his sister and he’s like, we made $95 selling lemonade in one day. And so I’m, he’s like, what should we sell tomorrow? And he tells my 12 year old, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to paint paintings. She’s a very good painter. I’ll sell them. We’ll split it 50 50. And I’m like, this kid has now learned about product diversification, knowing your target market trade area and flow of traffic.

Bennie 

Hahaha! My goodness.

Erin 

And understanding your consumer. And I’m like, also based on his profit margin right now, I might need to go to the corner and start selling brownies and lemonade. It is shocking what he’s able to do. And now he’s upstairs. He’s like, mom, I have $240. And I’m like, I don’t even know what to say. Like, good, good job. Way to go. I’m going to put it in a bank. And he’s like,

Bennie 

Right? Right?

Erin 

I would, but I don’t know how you get it out of a bank. And I was like, that’s a problem for all of us, buddy.

Bennie 

And he’s eight. So in being eight, it’s a great kind of opening conversation about the future. What gets you excited about the future and marketing?

Erin 

And he’s eight. Well, it’s these kids, it’s their… So you match what they’re understanding about the world with creativity that they naturally have, right? And they’ll ask me questions like, mom, why can’t we do this? And I’ll… I’m like, I don’t actually know. Why can’t we? Why hasn’t anyone created that? We should do that. And he, it’s just so thoughtful and smart, ideas. The only difference is they don’t know how to make their ideas.

Bennie 

Yes, yes. Like it? Why not?

Erin 

The next level. And so that’s where we get to come in. And so that’s what excites me is because we have all these people in the world, like one of the built by girls, young women I mentored, she came to me and she goes, I have this business idea. I’ve already started it. They found that there weren’t enough bilingual books that were truly bilingual in the way of like, they were just translated by like a machine or like a basic thing, but they weren’t really written as if.

Bennie 

Mmm.

Erin 

That was their native language. And so it made it really difficult. There were still issues with reading them. And so she created them and it’s specifically for children. And I went, that is genius. And this young lady was 18 years old and she had this idea. She had been cultivating it for a year and then she reached out and I sat with her and we talked about how we get the word out and how we spread the news and how we get people who want to talk about it and share it. And especially like celebrities who are bilingual.

Bennie 

Mm.

Erin 

How they, what they could benefit from seeing these books for their children. And she just, she just needed the guidance. She had the idea. She had the ability to say, I want to do this. And she needed someone to go, you can do this. And Simon Sinek talks about this a lot, which is all you need is one person in your corner. You’re saying you got this, you can do this. And 10 times out of 10, they’re going to do it versus when nobody believes in them. And so what I like to do is

I’m going to believe in you. I’m going to cultivate you. And that’s the next generation of marketer, the person who’s going, I think I know what I’m doing, but I’m not sure. Yeah, none of us do. None of us have a clue. The difference is they just don’t know that we don’t have a clue yet.

Bennie

Wait. Right, and that doesn’t have to stop you. So I’ve asked you about ice cream flavors. We’ve talked about tacos. So I’m going to ask you this. If cookies are a gateway to the future, what’s your favorite batching company, batch and box cookie?

Erin 

No. My gosh, they have a s’mores cookie, which is out of this world. But nothing is as good as a warm chocolate chip cookie. Like it’s still so good.

Bennie 

Wow. I think, you know, it’s funny. We’ve been talking and I love sitting down with you. That warmth and that moment and that reflection of a brand of leaving on nothing is better than a warm chocolate cookie. Feels like the best way to pause our conversation today. I love, I love the energy and the commitment and the embrace of all these things that are a guilty pleasure. Building the next generation of marketing, thinking about technology and engagement and being open for what’s next. Erin, we love your approach and the work that you’re doing. We’re always rooting for you. Not just because we like ice cream tacos with cookies, but we love how you’ve been able to make marketing powerful. So thank you for being a guest today and challenging us. And if you’re looking to invest, you can invest in Erin’s son. We’re going to have him join us next time we get together.

Erin

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Bennie

So six months, my friend, let’s come back again and have this conversation and talk a bit more. But as I said, it’s been so helpful and so powerful to hear your story and narrative and to see your journey, whether it’s tacos, hospitality, ice cream cookies, or more. Thank you, Erin, for leading marketing with heart in the warmth of a chocolate cookie. And thank you all for joining us for this wonderful, fulfilling episode of AMAs Marketing And.

Erin 

Thank you so much.

Bennie

Once again, I’m your host, AMA CEO, Bennie F. Johnson. Learn more about dynamic marketing and the future with AMA. Check out more of the work that Erin has done in the past, either with the Museum of Ice Cream or currently with Batch & Box to see more of the dynamic ways in which marketing leads with heart. Thank you all again.