How to Become a Boss at Any Age with Suzie York (LOVE GOOD FATS)

My guest today is Suzie Yorke - the Founder and CEO of Love Good Fats  - the #1 Top Growing company in Canada in 2021 in Globe & Mail Report on Business.

A former triathlete, Suzie created this delicious line of snacks so North Americans could eat and enjoy "good fats" on the go.  And in just over 3 years, her rocket ship food start-up exceeded $100mil in revenue.

I invited Suzie to be a guest on my show to talk about her mission. I wanted to learn why a single mom with a well-paying career took a risk - at 50 years old I might add- to launch her own brand. And, was curious to hear about her new venture and what her plans are with that.

𝗕𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗯𝘆 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸 - 𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗡𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮’𝘀 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗵 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝟰𝟬 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀.
From promotional products, custom uniforms, and clothing, to sports co-branding, web stores and warehousing - Genumark is your #1 partner for creating brand awareness. And being ISO certified – you can rest assured ethical sourcing and sustainability are front and centre. If you’re looking for help  with your next project, email brandingmatters@genumark.com

Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star rating along with a brief review.

About Me
Hey there, I'm Joelly - the Branding Badass. My badass superpower is helping you build a brand that matters. From branded merch to brand consulting, when you work with me, you get results!

Need help creating brand awareness?
Learn more here BADASS MERCH

Let's stay connected!

instagram - @Branding_Badass
linkedIn - Joelly Goodson
website - BrandingMatters.ca
email - jgoodson@genumark.com

Transcript

Joelly Goodson : 0:10

Hi I'm Joelly, your Branding Badass. Welcome to Branding Matters, a podcast I created and host to help you create brand equity. My guest today is Suzie Yorke, the founder and CEO of Love Good Fats - the number one top growing company in Canada in 2021. In Globe and Mail report on business. A former triathlete, Suzy created this delicious line of snacks so North Americans can eat and enjoy good fats on the go. And in just over three years, her rocket ship food startup exceeded, are you ready for this? $100 million in revenue. I invited Suzie to be a guest on my show today to talk about her mission. I wanted to learn why a single mom with a well paying career took such a huge risk, at the age of 50 I made an add, to launch her own brand. And I was curious to hear Suzie's story about her new venture and what her plans are for the future. Branding Matters is brought to you by Genuemark - one of North America's most trusted branded merch makers for over 40 years. Do you know branded merchandise is one of the best ways to create brand awareness? It's true. Whether with your team or your fans, there's no better way to show your appreciation, connect with your audience and build community than by combining thoughtful design with great products that tell your brand story. When you partner with Genuemark you get more! More personalized service, more creativity, more innovative solutions. And more importantly, you get it all from a talented team of branding experts who have the experience and know how to make your job easier and more fun. From promotional products, custom uniforms and clothing to sports co branding, web stores and warehouses. Genumark makes it happen. And being ISO certified, you can rest assured, knowing ethical sourcing and sustainability are front and center. Genumark is big enough to matter, but small enough to care. So if you're looking for the right partner to help you create brand awareness, email brandingmatters@genumark.com. That's Branding Matters rs at G.E.N.U.M.A.R.K.COM And now on with our show, Suzy, welcome to Branding Matters!

SUZIE YORKE: 2:28

Well, thank you for having me.

Joelly Goodson : 2:30

I'm so excited. I'm really excited to have you here. You have been on a whirlwind for the last few years, I think, if not longer. So thank you for taking the time out of your crazy busy day. So back in 2021, you are ranked the number one top growing company in Canada in 2021. Is that correct?

SUZIE YORKE: 2:47

Yeah, the Globe and Mail, they get their annual Top growing companies. So for private companies, and then because of COVID They did a three year. So when you looked at our three year numbers we outranked

Joelly Goodson : 3:01

That's amazing. So first of all, congratulations on that. And that full disclosure. That's actually how I discovered you when I read that and saw that you were number one. I'm like, Wow, I'm impressed. I have to have her on. And then when I found out that you started it when you were 50 I was even more impressed because I'm a late bloomer, myself and, you know, started over at 48 and started this podcast when I was 54. So I had so much admiration for you. So I really appreciate you being here. And I'm so excited for you. So can you tell me a little bit about love good fats?

SUZIE YORKE: 3:32

Yeah, I think the story is very similar to a lot of a lot of startups where, you know, the founder has a personal experience. So in my case, I had been struggling with a low fat diet for 20 years, and I hit my mid 40s. And that wasn't working. But we all thought, you know, we were being really good by cutting out fats. And then I read a book and it said, you know, we've all been duped for 40 years good fats are good. And sure there's you know, fried fats that aren't good. But there's a lot of the fats are not only good, but they're essential. Sugar is not essential and was the culprit in that one study that prompted Ancel Keys and the American Heart Association in the 60s to go on national TV and repeatedly say you know, move to margarine and avoid saturated fats because they cause cardiovascular and all of that misinformation. So that was enough for me to say, Okay, well, you know, what I've been doing is not working. So I switched to entirely cut out sugar finally, and I was able to do it this time because I started eating fats and like the 20 times before that, I tried to reduce our, this week I'll reduce my sugar. I would always kind of come back because your body is craving the essential fatty acids and we know your brain is fueled by fat. So it just all worked. So it was pretty easy. As soon as I started like coconut oil in the morning, there's a bunch of Alzheimer studies that doing that now. But I just literally started like four years ago, coconut oil, my coffee, you know, I used to have skim milk for 20 years. And that's how it started. But I didn't have guilty

Joelly Goodson : 5:10

I have to say I'm a skim milk person. So now I question it

SUZIE YORKE: 5:14

or ever ever and but you know, I wasn't my body wasn't getting the fat, so I wasn't processing nutrition the same way. And then I was mid 40s. I took a job in Vancouver. I was getting up at 3am on Tuesdays coming back at midnight, and my two kids just on that weekend. It just wasn't working. But fundamentally I didn't have

Joelly Goodson : 5:33

so sorry. I gotta stop you right there. So true. When you say it wasn't working. What do you mean by that was

SUZIE YORKE: 5:38

like my body? Like I was mid 40s. And I was running out of energy. I had to get on prescription medication. I was on two prescribed pills, one for blood pressure and one for IBS.

Joelly Goodson : 5:51

Oh, wow. When you're fit like you're not Yeah, right. I was

SUZIE YORKE: 5:54

I had to be done a lot in Iron Man's I did the last one. Like two years before this. I was doing yoga, daily hot yoga. But it's just so my doctor was like, you know, we're doing the right diet. So it must be you're exercising, check check. So it must be genetic. But it was diet. Like as soon as I changed my diet to nearly eliminate sugar and watch carbs, I had to get off. And then I did a tiny bit of intermittent fasting and basically skipping breakfast. And now there's a new fancy name for that. And my blood pressure tanked. I had to get off the meds. My doctor was like, no, no, okay, good. Stick with that diet. So for me, it was pretty shocking. You know, you read a book, you've experienced your own thing that worked and not works. I did dash and every other diet, it did elimination of everything, to really just realize that for me, what made more sense is a higher fat, medium protein, but really cut sugar out.

Joelly Goodson : 6:51

Okay, so then you read this book, can you share, say what the book was called?

SUZIE YORKE: 6:55

Yeah, the big fat surprise by Nina titles. Okay,

Joelly Goodson : 6:59

and so you read this book, and then you decided to start a company. So tell me about that. And what were you doing before as far as your work goes before you decide to start the

SUZIE YORKE: 7:08

company. So my last VP of Marketing cmo job I kind of left the full time world and I reluctantly, I kind of said, well, I'll do consulting for now. I was, I guess, a fractional marketer, they would call it I had four retain contracts where it was their mini VP of marketing. So all in the natural space. And it was literally, you know, every morning, I would wake up and I'm like, I'm not a consultant. I'm not a consultant, right, like, you know, I'm just doing this in the meantime. But I think that was part of like, my inner voice had been telling me for 35 years that one day, I want to start a company. So now my inner voice was making absolutely sure that I wasn't going to get too cozy in just doing consulting, which I you know, I was really good at because I'm very multitask. And having more than one brand at the same time is perfect for me, I get a little bit restless if you don't have quite enough to do so it was just perfect. But it was I was just waiting for the idea. Oh, I'm now waiting for the idea. But then suddenly, I got off the plane and then I'm like, oh my god, like there's another marketer that's gonna want to drum up the thats brand like that was like Okay, so now I'm like googling on the way to the show that the trademarks on USPTO now I'm walking the show. And I'm like, it's as if like, I'm wondering if someone sees me, right. I'm like, Okay, I want to launch a fast brand, the brand that's going to make fats legitimate Chobani made protein legitimate through the yogurt and Atkins made And was

Joelly Goodson : 8:37

there anything out there that when you saw when you decide to do this? I mean, is that what was the impetus because you couldn't find what you wanted?

SUZIE YORKE: 8:44

Yeah, well, that was a bit nervous because like being first America it's a pretty big deal. So I kinda was checking out that show that spring to say, Okay, well Is anyone else thought about it, you know, there's a bunch of brands, this type of water or this type of plant base, something. There's butters, there's hundreds and hundreds, hundreds of brands at one point and then you're like, oh, wow, that's pretty hard to remarket. So I did want to have a bit of a first to market advantage and I was excited you know, there was a fat cream it was called fat something and that's it. And so there was no nothing in food but already in 2016 the trends were there you could see all meat products, all high fat yogurts, all butters like all really natural food products, olive oils, butters meat, everything was like you could see that it was prepping. So then I kind of rushed back I wrote the concept the way to come up with a brand and is what was paying the bills before this is how to come up with a brand so you write a concept and then you can have a brief once you have the concept you can write your brand positioning your brief your packaging brief and then your marketing brief for you knew

Joelly Goodson : 9:52

how to do all that already from your past experience. So So

SUZIE YORKE: 9:55

I had been kind of coaching people would hire me to say oh my brands not kind of Working? What do we do? Or I want to launch a new brand? How do we do that? Well, you hire a marketer. So that was my career of knowing how to build or rebuild rebrand brands that have stagnated, for example, or declining. So I knew how to do all that, but I'd never done it, you know, with my own money for my own, you

Joelly Goodson : 10:20

know, right. It's totally different experience all of a sudden. And so why chocolate?

SUZIE YORKE: 10:25

So from a strategy perspective, again, it's kind of the same thing you do in the larger companies, right? You kind of have a positioning idea. And then you have to figure out the channels and the categories. So approaching it pretty much the same way, like what's the best way to have a brand that would have multiple SKUs that would basically say that C fats are good, and they would taste really good, because we all know that fats makes food taste good. You remove the fats, and you have to add sugars, so they taste good. And another Hold

Joelly Goodson : 10:53

on, I gotta stop you right there. So you're saying you can have fats and remove the sugar and it tastes good? Yeah. Oh, it

SUZIE YORKE: 11:01

tastes phenomenal. Like,

Joelly Goodson : 11:02

is there no sugar?

SUZIE YORKE: 11:03

Yeah, the first brand I launched I love good fats, one, one gram of sugar, too. So that's the whole magic is if you put that in, like fats play an incredible role in your mouth and connecting with your brain. Like they send all these signals, they trigger all of these reactions. Bats make stuff taste good, or grandparents all know that right? It's bone good, say good, don't bone right.

Joelly Goodson : 11:30

You know, my son is funny. He's a budding chef. And he Oh, he puts butter and everything. And he says, butter makes it better, ya know. And so,

SUZIE YORKE: 11:38

like, we grew up knowing that and then olive oil make things better, like, so the issue is that desserts have all of the good fats have a bunch of that, but they also have sugar, and carbs. And the whole idea behind the low carb diet, which is Atkins and then the keto diet, ketogenic diet is to really eliminate your carbs. But more importantly, just try to eliminate sugar, but then boost your fats and keep your protein moderate excess protein converts to sugar in your liver anyway. So if you have more than whatever grams per your weight, it's just too much. So your liver says, Okay, well, here's converted as sugar instead.

Joelly Goodson : 12:17

So you decided to launch it, you decide to make it specifically this category, because you felt that there was a need in this category. So your launch came up the name love good fats, which is a great name. I love the name. So were you nervous? I mean, even though you had all this experience, I mean, you are 50. Again, you're 50 years old not to keep the age but you know, I know like as you get older, it's harder to take risks, right when people are starting over. So here you were, you had this great career. And now all of a sudden, you did this where you tell me about like that experience? Were you scared? Were you getting support from friends and family? People tell you you're crazy. Or tell me about that experience?

SUZIE YORKE: 12:55

For me, it kind of worked out really well. I had been single, I've been single mum for 10 years. So I was kind of paying down the mortgage, my daughter had a learning disability. So she was on a private school to get help plus some some coaching on top of that. So financially, it was it was a little a little bit tighter as I you know, I had some expenses that are higher than I wanted. I'm here to Yeah, I get it. But you know, the one of the pieces of advice I give to a lot of founders, and it's the same that I followed is, you know, I kind of worked out with my daughter, Nikki was 18 at that time, and, you know, she kind of said, the wisest words like Mommy, what's the worst that can happen? We can sell the house and live in an apartment, right? For x x, right? So she hadn't like I grew up in an apartment, shared a bedroom with my mom for 13 years, etc. Right. And I never been that motivated by money. So I think like, for me having that conversation. And that just kind of gave me permission, like a lot for me has come from my inner voice, whether I connected through yoga or whatever, like all of the right things have happened to me at the right time in my life, because of my inner voice.

Joelly Goodson : 14:01

Like intuition, you have a situation like

SUZIE YORKE: 14:04

so I knew there was an opportunity for a brand I knew it was now time, you know, practically speaking, Nicky kind of brought my inner voice and said, Okay, well, what's the worst that can happen? So then I did what all founders do, right? You have a little bit of a game plan. I'm going to start by doing this, I'm going to spend this amount of money. So you kind of know that Ooh, wait, you know, I'm gonna give it six months and 100,000 say, right, like you, you kind of frame it. And then you say, hey, what's step one? Do we have a big idea? So then I spent all the first amount of money on the consumer research and the packaging and the name. So then we had a PowerPoint deck that I recommend to all founders to do. I did a training session on founders helping founders in your PowerPoint deck. What's your insight and your enemy? So the problem you're solving and what's boom, here's I'm solving it with your packaging. Yeah, and then you show it and then I I only think I must admit, I initially 200 people, like sequentially where hey, you know, I'm looking for contract work, because I was still doing trying to pay a bit of bills part time. Oh, but by the way, I have this idea I want to launch. Everyone wanted to talk about the idea. Everybody has great meetings. Yeah. Like it was so energizing. Like,

Joelly Goodson : 15:20

nobody say to you, like, Suze, you're crazy. What are you doing? There's so many chocolate bars out there. There's so many protein, whatever, no, I

SUZIE YORKE: 15:26

haven't one person out of 200. Kind of say no, like, don't take your savings don't do this. And he was an intrapreneur. And it's funny, because we reconnected last year. And I said you

Joelly Goodson : 15:39

do? And you're like, totally. So yeah, so

SUZIE YORKE: 15:43

but that was really encouraging. And I encourage all founders to do the same. Like, if you walk around with your little deck, right? Your brand positioning, this is the insight and problem solving, this is how I'm solving it, then this is why you should believe me, so inside benefit reasons to believe. And oh, by the way, this is my tagline, this is my packaging, you just walk around with that. And you'll get a lot of really good insight and their good ideas. Everyone reacts immediately, you know, I'm meeting all these founders, now. They show me their product, like right away, you know, right, wow, like, that's a really good idea. So you can as being the core of the brand new shop at around eight, you get valuable feedback, and it really gives you the confidence. So those are the plans I kind of had, right I had family that was supportive, I had saved some money from the consulting, I could take a risk for a couple years, I felt that was still young enough, like worst case, I go back and slug out a marketing job. So and it all kind of worked I worked with the last little piece of advice is worth sharing is I had worked really, really hard to find a partner. So I kind of interviewed the four or five potential partners because like, I didn't feel secure, just doing this by myself, like in my head, like we needed a partnership. And it's funny because all the senior people I asked for advice all told me don't do a partner will find a partner. Because it's hard, right? Yeah. So I didn't find it. Like we didn't couldn't find someone who also wanted to do this full time and with complementary skills. So when I buy my own, that worked out really, really well. I was still very envious. And everyone's a little bit different. But to me, I prefer the team approach all my all my testing that I've done through my large companies, yeah, always kind of said collaboration like I even in my leadership positions, I wanted to be surrounded. So I can get a lot of input, gather data and make the best decision.

Joelly Goodson : 17:43

So one thing that you said that really stuck out is, you know, there's so many great ideas. And it's funny, because I hear so many times and you know, you come across people all the time where they have so many great ideas, but I think not people don't execute them. And that's the that's the difference between when you see all these startups, like people always talk about, oh, I shouldn't do this, or I should do that or start a business. But then to actually take it and execute it and do what you said is go around and with this deck and talk to everybody, you know, I mean, that's the that's the leap that I think holds a lot of people back. Do you agree with that?

SUZIE YORKE: 18:18

Yeah. And the second leap, so my advice is leap it but the second leap is actually selling it, like sell your first unit. And often, you know, you can be stuck in theory land, which I was I needed the nudge out of theory, I have this idea to like, oh, wait a minute. Now, you know, I'm committing to a launch date, I'm finding suppliers, I want to sell the stuff. That's the second little push that often founders need to just get over the line because they kind of stop at the concept. And then oh, it's kind of hard. But then you have to spend start spending money to get to that next step also, and then you're off to the races. Once you start selling, it just

Joelly Goodson : 19:00

will flow through you have to persevere, right? If you believe in yourself, and you know what, ultimately when you say selling, it's selling yourself, because that's what people are buying into, right? You're always taught people talk about the brand and relationships. And so do you remember that when you got that first big order that put you over the edge? Like Tell me about that experience? Because I mean, here you are, you're working hard you start this new idea you're going around, what was the tipping point for you?

SUZIE YORKE: 19:25

It was so the first three or four years that love good fats before COVID like COVID really kind of recreate things so awful. But then these were the best years of my life. Every week I was like It doesn't get any better than that you're

Joelly Goodson : 19:41

so passionate about even talking about I can just see you're so excited. I love it. It was so

SUZIE YORKE: 19:45

much fun and it was fun admits and you know about a year into having lunch we had more problems than fun stuff every day. So I would come to work and it'd be like 10 new surprises and it was like oh, okay, you know when I I'm a planter. And the whole idea is you get ahead so you don't have, you know, that awful quadrant of urgent not important stuff. So I did get to that really kind of brutal, like, Okay, we don't have the foundation and we're just like solving all day long. But everything was pretty amazing. The first Pio was received for under $5,000. By both unify and purity in August of 17.

Joelly Goodson : 20:25

How long were you into your business? When that first $5,000?

SUZIE YORKE: 20:28

You hadn't sold anything? So we were just your first

Joelly Goodson : 20:31

Pio was $5,000. Yes.

SUZIE YORKE: 20:33

So then, oh, and then within? Within 12 months, we were a million a month.

Joelly Goodson : 20:40

That's amazing.

SUZIE YORKE: 20:42

This is food products, right? So you don't have you can have some crazy numbers and other sessions. And then within 24 months, we had like, three, two months at $7 million a month. Do you just

Joelly Goodson : 20:57

like pinch yourself and go like, Is this really happening?

SUZIE YORKE: 21:00

I remember I remember like the first POS were like, unbelievable, because now there's like five, and then I was counting the boxes. I lived at next and Leaside to the whole foods. So I was literally going to the whole foods on my bike every day. And then I would count how many had sold. So this four boxes on the shelf, and then I would go okay, well, because the idea is, you know that if you're selling 12 bars per week per store, like on in natural, you know that you're selling really well. So that's what you do the first couple of months. And then the little store buyer at Whole Foods bought 60 boxes, and she put them above the hot food tray. And then I was so surprised to trade. Yeah, but it was it was okay. They didn't know. Okay, okay. I was like, Okay, I know, just the end now. And then I was like, Oh, 60 boxes, that's gonna take like eight months to sell like, oh, no, right, within 30 days that sold down. So then I kept reporting back to the board saying, well, like the like, if you know, when I would go to all of the whole foods that I could drive to, and I would be counting the boxes. And I was like, oh, wait a minute, like this is really going well. And then I got to the downtown Whole Foods on October 16. And then, as soon as the manager heard, I was in the store, he came to get me and he's like Suzie, Suzie. And he said, come see your bars are selling really well. And I'm like, Okay, how well are they selling through my number one and number two, best selling? And I'm like off your 500 bars? And he said yes. And I was like, wait, you walked me to the shelf? And he's like I said, Well, who was you? Who was your best seller before? So he tells me the to the brand that was selling better just before and he said you're beating them by 50%? I've never seen that. I'm like, so that's following my board members on the way back. So right that our we made a decision to spend another 100,000 and launch two more flavors. So I took you know, I only had 200 in the bank, by made a decision will take 100 to make two more flavors I had already decided and had the formulas for the flavors and had mock ups. So I literally call the plan, cut the PIO the next day, then we said okay, well, we need to raise another 200,000. And we raised 250, then was January and then it was just the beginning of the races because the large broker took us on Walmart took us on like, then it just just exploded.

Joelly Goodson : 23:21

I love that. I love that story and aesthetic little steps. I know. But that's amazing. But here's something I want to talk about. Because that is such a fantastic story. And this is really ties into the whole concept of brand. And you know how important it is to have a strong brand. Because let's be honest, they're not the cheapest bars out there. There's a like, I went to Walmart and I bought them and I bought them. But you know what, when you put so much into creating a brand and adding the value and everything that you've done, then and the quality and everything I put into it, price isn't even on the table, right? People will just buy it. And clearly that's because even though yours was the number one selling I guarantee you correct me if I'm wrong, it wasn't the most least expensive. No. And I think a premium bar Yeah, no, I think that's so important. Because you know, we're living in a time right now and with everything that's going on, and people talk about pricing and commodity and everything else. And it's like this is where this is why I'm so passionate about branding, because this is where having a strong brand and creating a strong brand. And putting all into it is going to pay off and then people will they always say you know, people don't buy brands, they buy into brands and they buy into everything that you offer. So I think that's such a great story. And it really just solidifies things that I'm sharing all the time. And I bring guests on and they talk about that. So kudos to you.

SUZIE YORKE: 24:39

And a small little addition on the brand like our bars are tiny right I launched the smallest bar you could buy which is 39 grams, so I went at a high price with the smallest bar. So that's the whole you know, precise small why just like with the they were too expensive like I'm replacing sugar which is pennies per pound with adds, which is like 100 times more expensive and more. So, but the consumer got it right, like the consumer clued in like she would try bars, and then you feel really full. So even though there's some consumers would be like, Oh man, I only get this smaller bar, but then you eat the bar, like, I could never eat an entire bar only half because they've had to fool. So it was super cool. It reminds you to go back to positioning the three P's positioning product, and then price value because they're connected. So we were brave to be able to go at a premium price at 299 to 4999. With a smaller the smallest bar on the market, but the product delivered on the promise of a delicious and B you'll feel fuller longer because healthier, eating good fats. Yeah, I'm not just eating sugar like you, you get a crash and you burn. Well, in fact,

Joelly Goodson : 25:54

satiate your hunger longer, right? Like that's the whole thing about them is that you can have them and then you state you not hungry for a longer period of time. So I love that story. That's so great. Okay, so I know you're chomping at the bit to share what's going on now. So why did you you're at the top of your career, you're super successful, what made you decide to say, Okay, on to the next,

SUZIE YORKE: 26:17

well, things again, happen. Sometimes you're not sure why things are happening, your thinking is not really good. But then kind of stay with it. There's like a master plan out there for us. The it just kind of worked out, I was CEO and on the board and the largest shareholder of let's get fats, but then you know, I've been there for five years, and kind of we're working through like what makes the most sense through after COVID. And then to take the brand to 100 million a year. And then all the good things that happen when you get your brand 100 million a year. And it made sense to just kind of hire a professional CEO that has done this before. Like many founders, your roles can shift. So you know, we worked through that that took the eight or nine months, so I was kind of so now I still have the board role. And that's actually pretty busy. And there's committees and stuff. But then I kind of really don't have a full time job. So I was starting to kind of figure out okay, well, I did some consulting back for an old boss. And then another old boss called me with something else. And I was doing consulting. But there is this idea that I kind of bumped into when I was at lunch, good fats, and they pass on it the they were like, no, no, like, you can go play in that sandbox. But that's a lot of work. It's environments, right chocolate fortified or vitamins and a chocolate format or chocolate fortified with vitamins. So I was like, oh, okay, well,

Joelly Goodson : 27:41

did someone present that to you? Like, did someone come to you and say, Hey, here's an idea. Yeah. Okay,

SUZIE YORKE: 27:47

so the love good fats has just launched thins chocolates, they're Ecuadorian little disc, and their little kind of bites of pure dark chocolate with flavoring on top. That was one of my innovations that while I was CEO, and then I was transitioning, I brought that innovation. And then the team executed, the supplier who's providing these awesome little bites of heaven said, Hey, I have this whole other idea. And I have these products here. And I'm looking for a partner because we want to launch a premium brand, instead of just private label, because they do private label for a bunch of really good retailers and brands. So I'm like, Oh, cool. Well, I'm a marketer, you have a product you're looking to have both because they had tried to launch a brand but without having like a marketer like myself. It's hard so their brand wasn't working. So they knew they needed like a me. I was like, Okay, well, I know how to launch brands. I didn't think I would ever do another one because like I couldn't, how can I talk? Right love good fats? Like how can I come up with a better or equally as good idea? Yeah,

Joelly Goodson : 28:57

lightning strikes once Yeah, yeah, I know.

SUZIE YORKE: 28:59

It just there's not a lot like there's some founders and who that have done a second brand, but not a lot like the all the big brands that you hear of the founder. didn't wind up doing another one, but I was like, oh, okay, well, my first one has an exited, so I don't have the luxury of retiring. So I really started exploring this. And as soon as I started exploring this, my my partner, my fiance said, I know you said you'll never do another startup but you have to reconsider. It gives you it was just everything was just adding up right like you're just dabbling into it and then you're like, oh, but it's the chocolate is from Ecuador, and Ecuador has the best cackle beans in the world. Most people know that but a lot of North Americans don't know that you Okay? resources from these NGOs. Okay. And then the list started going up and then there's no grandmas sugar look how good they taste, taken four years to figure out how to infuse infused this, the adaptogens and the vitamins without wrecking the taste.

Joelly Goodson : 30:00

What is the name of your new brand? Now new business?

SUZIE YORKE: 30:02

So the new companies, the better chocolates, the brand name is for x better chocolates for extra

Joelly Goodson : 30:09

chocolate. Okay, vitamin infused chocolate. Yeah. Why vitamins? And tell me a little bit more about that. Because again, you're looking at an industry that is so saturated, right? Like there's so many supplements and vitamins. And I'm just curious what what made you decide to go in that direction,

SUZIE YORKE: 30:26

say the exact like, when I launched into bars, it was like, oh, but there's so many bars and bars are so hard. And then, you know, I would just remind everybody, you just need the right bar, right? You look at our x bar, and you look at Quest bars, and you look at kind. Once you have something different and unique, you can break through in these busy cluttered categories. It's the same for vitamins, you know, bars is about five or $6 billion. Vitamin is 50 in the US. So it's a much, much larger category. And right now there's everybody and their brother and their cousin is launching gummy vitamins. Because a lot of consumers don't like to take pills, including myself, but no one has really thought about a pure chocolate as a format. So there's been some dabbles, there's compound chocolate, depending where you live. There's some brands that have some sort of Chews and stuff, but nothing in a big way. And certainly not a pure chocolate where you only have like the good fats of the cacao butters, and we've added MCT oil. So now you're taking something that will allow your fat soluble vitamins to be absorbed. Because with vitamins you probably remember your mom saying, take them with food. Yeah, they don't get absorbed. Well, now you don't need to take your chocolate vitamins with food because they have the fat so you can they'll just naturally be absorbed. So

Joelly Goodson : 31:51

you can actually feel good about eating chocolate, right? Yeah. So how would you describe your new brand? And what's your purpose? Like? What's your purpose other than financial,

SUZIE YORKE: 32:02

at the end of the day, whether you're running a charity or your small company, you had to pay a little bit of attention of how am I going to make sure that it's a sustainable so I could pay the bills, pay the employees and all that the huge, exciting part of having my own company the first time and now is that, you know, you get to choose, like who you're going to be what you're going to stand for what you're going to support the first company and now definitely LGBT, lesbian mom, and I want to scream loud and proud about encouraging and modeling one of the few women founders, that's gay, and it's like, it's just there's less role models. So I definitely wish that message, I went to every retailer in Canada, myself in 2019, to say I had this come up with this idea. And I would welcome support from all of the retailers in June to do displays in stores. Either floor stands, or PDQ, like just displays in the front of the store with our theme Love is love and the pride flag and $1 that goes to LGBT charity that we are supporting rainbow railroad. So we're doing I'll do kind of the same thing. You know, we're getting certification for LGBT, we're getting certification for women, we're supporting the NGOs in a big way, without the NGOs in Ecuador, we wouldn't be able to get the CaCO beans we have and then it then you just settle for less. So we're definitely those two groups are a big, big deal. And a big chunk of our marketing and our investments goes there first and then making sure that you know, our employees feel proud to celebrate that we value diversity. And that's the, you know, a message that we're very vocal that I choose to use my voice to kind of call that out and the retailers are all starting to jump on board

Joelly Goodson : 33:49

jump on board. That's great. You know, you hear a lot these days about purpose washing, right? Yeah, you hear a lot of companies hop on board, and they're supporting the like the cause du jour or whatever. So I love when companies like yourself actually have experience and have a real passion from it from a personal level. So you know that it's really mean something to you and that you you know, just as much as your passion about your business, you're passionate about the cause and about your purpose that you're trying to help others and give back and do everything that you're doing from a real genuine, authentic self before we go for someone out there who might be listening who has started a business or was thinking of starting a business. Do you have any advice that you would share with them?

SUZIE YORKE: 34:31

Yeah, two quick things. One is you know, sweat your positioning, do all of the work on you know, what is your brand, your brand name and the difference and the packaging and all that before you go to market and if it's not working, then you have to go back and revisit but the positioning is really really key. So the more time you spend on optimizing your positioning, the better hits my doggy and the second thing is with WeChat it start just start like sell that first box sell that first pallet which you know, just get out there and start and then learn. So it's really is this iterative, but the core of solving everything is your brand positioning. So the more you can make that relevant and meaningful, the more your sales will be higher, and then everything flows from there.

Joelly Goodson : 35:18

Well, that's really great advice. I do want to ask you, though, so how would someone who knows nothing like when you say, find your brand positioning? Do you? How do you even find your brand positioning?

SUZIE YORKE: 35:28

So you write you write it down, you write down? What is the insight? What is the benefit to the consumer? Or the problem? Am I solving your problem by solving? What's my brand benefit? You know, Brand X is the brand that provides what benefit to whom, you know, like, you just write the sentence and then you write the Why Why should people believe that brand X does that. So that's a process we learned in goods. It's called concept and writing and optimization in CPG. That's what we learn how to optimize and there's rounds of research. And then you have to take that brand positioning, you have to make it come to life, on your packaging, and in your ads. So there's a whole process for that. So there's people like me, so

Joelly Goodson : 36:09

if you don't understand any of that, make sure you partner with someone who's really good at that, like a strategic

SUZIE YORKE: 36:14

Yeah, like that's like you'll, you'll see like strategic brand marketing, that's kind of the whole approach to optimize your brand and make it stronger and stronger. And then every dollar you spend to get awareness and trial you're spending on a stronger and stronger brands. So it kind of plays into it all kind of works.

Joelly Goodson : 36:34

Well. Thank you. Again, I just want you to say the name of your new company that

SUZIE YORKE: 36:38

better chocolates.com And the brand is for x better chocolates, but it's the better chocolates on LinkedIn, and Instagram and Twitter, and our website.

Joelly Goodson : 36:49

Okay, great. And if people want to get in touch with you, or connect with you, personally, where's the best way for them to find it?

SUZIE YORKE: 36:54

I answer all my LinkedIn myself. So I'm a little bit overwhelmed with a lot of DMS these days, but LinkedIn is the best best way to find me directly. Personally, you'll get right to me,

Joelly Goodson : 37:06

and she will get back to you eventually.

SUZIE YORKE: 37:07

Right. Yeah.

Joelly Goodson : 37:10

All right. Well, thank you again. And I hope we will chat again soon. And I'm excited to watch this new brand take off and get you on more very exciting lists. Perfect. Thanks for the support. Okay, we'll talk soon. Bye. And there you have it. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed the conversation and maybe learned a few things to help you with your branding. This show is a work in progress. So please remember to rate and review on whatever platform you listen to podcasts. And if you'd like help creating brand awareness for your business, please reach out to me on any of the social platforms under you guessed it, Branding Badass, I promise you I reply to all my messages. Branding Matters was produced, edited and hosted by Joelly Goodson, also me. So thank you again, and until next time, here's to all you badasses out there!