Luke Schneider is the Founder and CEO of Fire Dept. Coffee, a certified veteran-owned coffee company. Fire Dept. Coffee gives back to and supports injured firefighters and has been named to the Inc. 5000 list three years in a row. Luke is also a retired firefighter, paramedic, and US Navy veteran. In 2023, he received the Leadership award for Citizenship from the Specialty Food Association.

In a business environment dominated by duplicate products, brands must employ creative measures to stand out and capture consumers’ attention. This requires more than having a widespread presence on popular social media apps. How did a community-focused coffee brand gain recognition in thousands of Walmart locations?

Former firefighter and US Navy veteran Luke Schneider credits his coffee company’s growth to a robust community presence and a resonant mission. He emphasizes building a local community to convey your mission and cultivate a brand identity. For a broader reach, you can communicate your message on various social media platforms by targeting audiences who align with your mission to differentiate your products in the market. Luke maintains that a motivated team and influential culture can promote your community efforts and amplify your mission.

In today’s episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris chats with Luke Schneider, the Founder and CEO of Fire Dept. Coffee (FDC), about building a robust community and team to scale. Luke discusses social selling, FDC’s subscription offers, and how the company received its first publicity and navigated a trademark lawsuit.

Andrew Gerrie is the Founder of Mend, an independent public relations and communications agency for outdoor and active lifestyle brands. With nearly a decade of experience in PR and communications, he has built media strategies for brands, including Tecovas, Sims, Filson, and Costa Del Mar, helping them craft and amplify their unique brand stories. Before founding Mend, Andrew held several roles at Backbone Media, including Senior PR Account Manager and PR Account Coordinator.

Modern PR methods have become inauthentic, making it challenging to maintain genuine brand narratives. As the influencer culture evolves and the digital landscape becomes oversaturated with sponsored content and poor storytelling, how can brands cut through the noise to tell their authentic stories?

According to media strategist Andrew Gerrie, building relationships with writers and journalists is the first step to improving storytelling quality. This may involve offering these media professionals free products as gifts, allowing them to understand your mission and product initiatives to craft authentic messages. When expanding locations or launching new products, you can partner with local media outlets to generate a regional community presence and stand out in the market. If you want to reach a broader audience, consider integrating current trends into your PR campaigns, ensuring they align with your brand voice and story.

In this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris sits down with Andrew Gerrie, the Founder of Mend, to discuss PR strategies for e-commerce brands. Andrew shares why products are the secret to effective PR campaigns, how to measure results from your efforts, and how to appear in popular holiday gift guides.

Mike Robinson is a Founding Member and the Head of Retail Solutions at The Eighth Notch (T8N), a technology platform enabling sustainable e-commerce delivery for shippers and carriers. With 30 years of executive experience, he has driven an $8 billion P&L and interfaced with the board of directors of a $27 billion public company. Mike also serves as an advisor and board member for several nonprofits, public companies, and startups.

Consumer deliveries are often made in multiple trips, with various delivery vehicles fulfilling orders at the same houses numerous times a day. Consumers are becoming more conscious of the environmental impact of these deliveries. One study found that 87% of people are willing to wait longer for eco-friendly shipping. How can brands minimize deliveries to improve profitability and environmental sustainability?

As an eCommerce executive, Mike Robinson advocates for fewer delivery trips by having the two major carriers — the Postal Service and Amazon — consolidate packages for each household. This condensed delivery method reduces packaging, shipping, and delivery costs for brands, saving the e-commerce industry hundreds of millions of dollars each year while reducing carbon footprints. Brands can offer eco-friendly box options at checkout and incentivize customers to select them by promising and fulfilling one delivery date for multiple packages. This also allows consumers freedom of choice and the ability to make a positive impact on the environment.

In today’s episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris welcomes Mike Robinson, the Founding Member and Head of Retail Solutions at The Eighth Notch, to discuss delivery density and optimizing last-mile delivery. He talks about delivery route optimization, the emerging role of automation and robotics in logistics, and his perspective on social media addictions.

Nancy Harhut is the Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at HBT Marketing, a consultancy that applies human behavior to marketing. As an internationally recognized creative director, she blends best-of-breed creative with decision science. Nancy is an international keynote speaker and has been named a Top 40 Digital Strategist by Online Marketing Institute, a Top 100 Creative Influencer by Ad Club, and a Top 50 Email Marketing Leader by Social. She is also the best-selling author of Using Behavioral Science in Marketing.

Some marketers today are so immersed in numbers and metrics that they often neglect the customer. Others may focus excessively on visual ads, distracting customers from the overall message. Yet 95% of purchasing decisions are made in the subconscious mind. How can you tap into these behavioral insights to influence purchasing decisions?

Behavioral science researcher and innovative marketer Nancy Harhut says the key to driving purchasing decisions is persuasive messaging. Creative marketers can leverage unconscious behavior drivers like the endowment and Zeigarnik effect, social proof, the uncertainty reward, and autonomy and reciprocity bias. For instance, the endowment effect involves generating urgency and scarcity through limited-time offers, whereas the Zeigarnik effect can be used to spark customers’ memories about abandoned carts. You can also offer customers purchasing and discount choices to harness autonomy bias while generating a desired result. When utilizing social proof, Nancy recommends featuring testimonials that begin with skepticism to increase credibility and reach uncertain customers.

Tune in to today’s episode of the Up Arrow Podcast as William Harris chats with Nancy Harhut, the Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at HBT Marketing, about behavioral science tactics for e-commerce marketing. Nancy shares customer decision-making shortcuts, the true drivers of purchasing decisions, and why you should optimize for lifetime value rather than one-time purchases.

Will Haire is the Co-founder and CEO of BellaVix, a full-service Amazon and Walmart marketing agency. He has managed over half a billion dollars worth of sales on e-commerce marketplaces. Will specializes in helping brands dominate their categories.

Many sellers understand the competitive and cutthroat nature of Amazon’s marketplace but may miss the more technical aspects like fees and pricing policies, making profitability and sales growth a recurring challenge. What tactics can you implement to maintain steady growth on the platform?

With deep insight into Amazon’s e-commerce marketplace, Will Haire has witnessed brands triumph and fail based on their knowledge of the platform’s nuances. For instance, if you don’t develop and enforce a firm Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) Policy, your brand may become vulnerable to unauthorized resellers, which decline sales significantly. To avoid sales decline or stagnation, Will proposes optimizing your product listings with quality photos, catchy titles, and compelling copy that includes key features, a description, and a brand story. You should also diversify your ad spend both on and off the platform to drive traffic to your listing and familiarize yourself with Amazon’s fees to structure your budget accordingly.

In this week’s episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris chats with Will Haire, the Co-founder and CEO of BellaVix, about optimizing sales on Amazon. Will explains Amazon’s fee structures and pricing requirements, the importance of building an audience, and the key differences between Vendor and Seller Central.

Kristian Alomá, PhD, is the Founder and CEO of Threadline, a brand-building agency. He is also a lecturer at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School Center for Nonprofit Management, where he teaches branding for nonprofits, donor stewardship, storytelling, digital fundraising, and behavior design. With over two decades of experience applying narrative psychology, identity, and behavioral economics to marketing and market research, Kristian has helped some of the world’s largest brands, including Coca-Cola, Harley Davidson, and FedEx, improve their narratives. He is also the author of Start with the Story: Brand-Building in a Narrative Economy.

In this episode…

Advertising and marketing have poor reputations for deceiving customers, often stemming from brands that position themselves as the heroes of their campaigns to manipulate consumers into making purchases. In an economy that relies on stories to make sense of experiences, consumers are the primary drivers. How can you craft a brand story that strengthens your customer relationships?

According to behavioral marketer Kristian Alomá, every brand-customer relationship must begin with a story encapsulating your unique value proposition (UVP). To identify your UVP, it’s essential to define your target audience’s main struggle, your solution to the problem, your company’s objective, and the reward customers receive from engaging with you. However, the UVP should only form the basis for your story rather than dictate how it’s conveyed to consumers. Instead, you should view your organization from the customer’s perspective, informing your approach to storytelling and services.

Tune in to this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast as William Harris chats with Kristian Alomá, the Founder and CEO of Threadline, about building a brand story to foster authentic customer relationships. Kristian explains the seven elements of a customer-brand relationship, how to market ethically, and the significance of the narrative economy in brand building.

Anthony Ciavirella is the Co-founder of Manmade, a boxer briefs brand. He manages the brand’s online community and works with content creators to deliver exceptional customer experiences. Before co-founding Manmade, Anthony worked in the finance industry as the Co-founder and Director of Business Development at RIISK, the Senior Relationship Manager at B2Billing Payments Inc., and a Financial Advisor at TD.

If you’ve plateaued at the $10 million mark, you may have become complacent in your growth. Yet you’re limiting yourself by not striving for that next level. You must identify and align your “why” to achieve results for your business. What growth strategies can you harness to elevate your brand?

Having built a brand by identifying a market need, two-time entrepreneur Anthony Ciavirella emphasizes remaining dedicated to your mission and consistent in your efforts to reach your goals. This requires aligning your team with your “why” and disciplining yourself to reach your maximum potential. Anthony also notes the role of Meta Ads in his growth, explaining that creating consistent content in-house allows you to communicate your brand’s story and generate value for the customer. You must also measure campaign performance by identifying key costs and metrics like AOV, LTV, CPA, and COGS.

In this week’s episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris chats with Anthony Ciavirella, the Co-founder of Manmade, about building and scaling a purpose-driven brand. Anthony shares his company’s early days and how he acquired his first customers, how to produce content in-house, and the innovative stunt that kick-started his brand’s awareness.

Justin Mares is the Co-founder and CEO of Truemed, a payment tool that allows health and wellness brands and providers to harness consumer tax-free funds. He is also the Founder of Kettle & Fire, the Co-founder of Surely and Perfect Keto, and an investor at Long Journey Ventures. Justin strives to make health accessible and sustainable and create a food system that heals rather than harms.

Nearly 90% of the US population is at risk of chronic disease. While health accounts like HSAs and FSAs give consumers access to tax-free healthcare, they can only use them to cover qualified medical expenses. DTC wellness brands can offer the option to pay for products with these funds. How can these brands optimize this payment method to drive conversions and growth?

Health and wellness serial entrepreneur Justin Mares capitalized on a market need for affordable chronic disease prevention. Health, wellness, and supplement brands can integrate one-click HSA and FSA payment options into their Shopify sites. Consumer drop-off rates between add-to-cart and check-out are 30-50%, so when provided with alternative payment methods, consumers can save 30-40% a year on wellness products, increasing brands’ AOV, LTV, and conversion rates. Consumers can even make interest-free monthly payments on more expensive products.

Join William Harris in today’s episode of the Up Arrow Podcast as he interviews Justin Mares, the Co-founder and CEO of Truemed, about his tax-free solution for consumers with chronic illness. Justin also talks about his experience bootstrapping a brand, including transitioning from DTC to retail, his methods for scaling and gaining brand awareness, and how he became a serial entrepreneur in the health and wellness space.