0:00

There was a little bit of luck there. You

0:02

know, we could have never expected this to

0:04

happen, but we had built the business

0:07

to be as diverse as we

0:09

could at the time that we were living in,

0:11

and that gave us legs that

0:14

really helped us weather that early storm.

0:17

Hey. My name is Jenna Cotter, and

0:19

I am obsessed with all things business

0:21

marketing numbers and helping you to navigate

0:23

both the messy and the magical seasons

0:25

of this thing called Life. I'm a small town

0:27

mama who took a three hundred dollar camera, grew

0:30

a successful photo biz, and now I work

0:32

from home and run a seven figure online business.

0:34

I teach you the tried and true secrets

0:36

to building a career you adore. Sh shy away

0:39

from the real talk? No way. Money,

0:41

hardship, growth loss in marketing are all

0:43

topics we discuss here. Think of this

0:45

as your one stop shop for happy hour with

0:47

a Gal pal mixed with business school. Pull

0:49

up a seat make sure you're cozy and get ready

0:52

to be challenged and encouraged while you learn.

0:54

This is the gold digger podcast. When

0:57

actress Jay Mitchell launched

0:59

her travel brand base in twenty

1:01

eighteen, travel was not laid in with

1:04

the nuanced challenges it is today

1:06

in a recovering pandemic world. When

1:08

twenty twenty hit, president of base

1:10

Adela Hussein Johnson worked side

1:12

by side with Shea to navigate the

1:15

big upheaval in their space. If

1:17

people weren't traveling or if people

1:19

couldn't travel, what did the business

1:21

need to do in order to adapt? It's

1:23

question they answered together. and

1:25

they answered it really, really well.

1:28

From idea conception to launching,

1:30

building and running base, Adeela

1:32

in the small but growing team have shifted,

1:35

modified and adapted their products, their

1:37

content marketing, and their strategies

1:39

to almost pandemic proof the brand

1:41

despite its foundation being in the travel

1:43

space. A deal is here to talk

1:46

about content marketing and strategies that

1:48

you can use in your own business, whether you're

1:50

a product or service based brand, as

1:52

well as the changing role of influencers

1:55

and how your brand can carve out a

1:57

niche in a crowded market even if you're

1:59

not a big celebrity.

2:00

Here she is, a dealer

2:03

Johnson.

2:05

Do I have a new podcast recommendation

2:07

for you? If you like the gold digger podcast,

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you'll love tuning into content is

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This episode is brought to you by

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percent. Adeelah,

3:10

I was just telling you

3:13

off error. Just how grateful I am

3:15

to have this conversation with you today

3:17

and how excited I am to

3:19

really talk about you and your story

3:22

and the pivot and the ingenuity

3:24

and everything that happened. So welcome to the gold

3:26

digger podcast. Well, thank you so much

3:28

for having me. I'm so thrilled to be here.

3:30

Oh my gosh. Okay. So catch us up

3:32

to speed first. Where did your

3:34

story begin? And did you see any

3:36

clues in your early life or career that hindered

3:39

at the work that you're doing today? Howard

3:41

Bauchner: You know, it's it's an interesting question

3:43

because hindsight is twenty twenty -- Right. --

3:45

you can look back and be like, oh, are these moments

3:48

that, you know, did it set

3:50

me here? I'm a super firm

3:52

believer in life that everything

3:54

happens for a reason. And so sometimes

3:57

I do take moments to just sit back and be like, I'm

3:59

gonna let whatever supposed to be be.

4:01

I'm not a next essential or, like, overly

4:03

spiritual person, but I do believe that

4:05

things happen for a reason. And so

4:07

it's just interesting. I don't know how far back you

4:09

want me to go, but I was born in Pakistan, raised

4:11

in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.

4:14

immigrant moved to the United

4:16

States when I was ten. And,

4:18

you know, I'd bring that up because

4:21

my father who is very much a role

4:23

model for me and my mother, both

4:24

of them, gave up a lot at

4:27

that point in their lives. My father had a career

4:29

already as a doctor had

4:31

many years under his belt, had to start all the

4:33

way over

4:34

to give us the opportunity to live

4:36

out what

4:37

we all call the American dream. And

4:39

what it built for me very early and my

4:41

mother was

4:41

working, we we were latch key kids.

4:43

What it built for me very early in my life

4:46

was nothing comes

4:48

easy. You know, you have to work for

4:50

things that you want. And if you wanna

4:52

be successful, it takes a lot of

4:54

work and it takes a lot of sacrifice and it

4:56

takes a lot of compromise. And, you know,

4:58

if I'm talking about hindsight, I

5:00

think those philosophies

5:03

and those approaches are very applicable

5:05

in business and very applicable, especially

5:08

as a working mom in the business world.

5:11

And so a lot of those are just core

5:13

to who I am and I think have shaped

5:15

the decisions I've made, that the

5:17

path I've taken coming out

5:19

of Undergrad, I I

5:21

can't say I thought I was gonna be a

5:22

lawyer. I interned in a

5:24

firm and and wasn't super thrilled with

5:26

the career path that ended up not being

5:28

exactly what I wanted. Like, I think a lot of people

5:30

learned in their first jobs or internships.

5:32

I ended up joining the financial industry,

5:35

which was not necessarily

5:37

an industry I would have foreseen

5:39

myself in. Mhmm. But I

5:41

was building I joined at the time it

5:43

was American Express financial advisors, they

5:45

spun off to become Ameriprise. And

5:47

what appealed to me in that

5:49

career was was building a financial

5:51

practice, and it was really about relationships. And

5:54

it was about forging relationships with

5:56

people, helping them realize a

5:59

vision or a goal for their life and helping

6:01

them get there. And again, you

6:03

know, looking hindsight, that

6:05

also is very applicable

6:07

to my life. and very very

6:09

much the way I build business.

6:11

I'm I'm very strategic

6:12

by nature, and I I'm always

6:14

looking several steps ahead

6:16

of where we are to see what are we

6:18

doing now even even in base today? What are

6:20

we doing now? And what's the objective? Or where

6:22

is it gonna get us? in two years and

6:24

three years and five years, like, what does that goal look

6:26

like? And that's how I started my career. I

6:28

did that for people in their financial life.

6:30

Then I went back, if I'm being honest,

6:33

I left the industry because

6:35

I didn't see a path forward from

6:38

me as a female

6:39

leader

6:40

having balance with being a mom, which

6:42

was very important to me and having

6:44

a family. It was

6:45

a very

6:46

grueling industry in terms of time.

6:48

I think for

6:48

anybody who's in it probably knows. And

6:51

I had to make a decision at that point

6:53

that if I'm going to continue to invest

6:55

in my career, it's a long term career. You

6:57

don't put those hours in at the

6:59

upfront to build a career in financial planning

7:01

just to give it up a couple years later. So

7:03

I made the decision to go back to business

7:05

school.

7:05

very intentionally picked the Kelly School

7:08

of Business because they're

7:09

known for career changers. And I

7:11

wanted to join them. I can't say I knew

7:13

exactly what that career change would

7:15

be, but I knew I wanted to be

7:17

in an industry that was a that kind of gave

7:19

me

7:19

a little bit more of a GM

7:21

experience so that I could tap into

7:24

a lot of little things and learn how, like,

7:26

businesses

7:26

run from beginning to end. Went

7:28

through business school, got an offer at

7:30

Target. I joined there, and Target is

7:32

known you

7:33

know, for building leaders and providing

7:35

a

7:35

very well rounded experience, which

7:38

has

7:38

served me so well in

7:40

my career now and in the past path

7:42

that I've moved forward. I ended up

7:44

leaving Target because I just, you know, circumstance

7:47

in life happens. I moved to Canada to

7:49

help run the Canada operations soon

7:51

after I I found out I was pregnant and

7:54

they decided to shut Target Canada

7:56

down. So I was gonna say, you know, I worked

7:58

for Target. Did you know that? I

7:59

did not. Yes. I was in

8:02

Target. I'm from Minnesota. Live in Minnesota

8:04

still. I was in ETL while

8:06

I worked for Target. And it was during the

8:08

Canada expansion. So

8:10

I was, like, close to

8:12

you. You know, Los At Home.

8:15

Absolutely. I love this. I

8:18

moved there in August to find out I

8:20

was pregnant with my first in September.

8:23

My

8:23

husband left his

8:25

career, came and got a two year

8:27

consultancy gained Tarana because I was on a two

8:29

year expat assignment, He

8:31

moved there in October. We sold our home in

8:33

December, and on January fifteenth, they announced that

8:35

they were closing. So,

8:37

you know, but this and this is kind of what

8:39

I mean by a firm believer of life

8:42

happens and everything happens for a reason. I

8:44

was stuck in Canada several

8:46

months pregnant. We all know that

8:48

no Canadian company was about to hire me because

8:50

they'd have to give me a year off

8:52

for maternity leave. So and I didn't

8:54

have a work permit. My husband just

8:56

committed to a two year gig, and I'm like, what

8:58

am I gonna do? And I

9:00

just kinda sat back. I started networking,

9:02

connected with a bunch of people I knew at

9:04

Target, one of the leaders there, connected

9:06

me with somebody who's now become a close friend of mine.

9:08

And she introduced me to this

9:10

organization at the time

9:12

was doing essentially

9:14

like clarify private label for retail

9:16

specifically target, which is why they were interested in a

9:18

lot of people from target background. I think I

9:20

was, like, employee number five. It was

9:22

called cheeky

9:22

and we produced paper plates

9:24

with a cause because at the time

9:27

that was

9:27

kind of the schick. You know, cause

9:29

related brands were really taking off.

9:32

This was, like, two thousand fourteen, two thousand

9:34

fifteen time. So I came to the

9:36

company as I think my, like, original

9:38

title was, like, director of marketing and

9:40

merchandising. And like it is with

9:42

any startup, you wear so many

9:44

hats and you play

9:46

so many roles. Now Target had

9:48

kind of primed me for that because that

9:50

GM back around really helped. But

9:52

moving into a startup environment was a

9:54

really difficult decision for me.

9:56

I actually almost

9:57

didn't do it. Because moving

9:59

to Target Canada, it was kind

10:02

of like the best of both worlds. You were essentially

10:04

in a startup culture because everything was

10:06

super entrepreneurial. but you had

10:08

the backing and the resources of this enormous

10:10

enterprise behind you and that

10:12

didn't work out. You know, so I was a

10:14

little a little nervous as a

10:16

new mom of well,

10:18

startup. It just didn't seem like the

10:20

path for me. And I had always

10:22

thought I

10:22

was like a big corporate person. I

10:25

love resources. I love data.

10:27

I love just stuff,

10:29

like access to information. And

10:32

in startup culture, we all know that that's

10:34

very limited and often just

10:36

not present. So startup was not

10:38

I did not think would be for

10:40

me. I was very nervous that took a

10:42

lot of convincing And then I

10:44

just did it, and I kind of like tell people

10:46

who are, you know, I think I think a lot

10:48

of people might be facing this now, especially

10:50

as we kind of call it, like, you

10:52

know, I think what I don't know the term. If I forget

10:54

the term, they're using it. A bunch of people just, like, leaving

10:57

companies and leaving work and

10:58

looking for other things, but

11:00

Moving into startup world is amazing

11:02

because you get this

11:04

autonomy and this entrepreneurial

11:06

and you truly just

11:08

own things. and I loved

11:10

that. I I never knew I would love it

11:12

as much as I did, but I loved it.

11:14

And I just started to grow with

11:16

the company and and We evolved

11:19

very much as the

11:21

environment as consumers evolved. And

11:23

several years after I joined, Sean

11:25

Neff joined our organization and

11:27

he is very well networked

11:29

in the LA area and had a lot of

11:31

friends who are either celebrities or

11:33

influencers and kind of came

11:35

to us and said, hey, like, I

11:37

think what you guys are doing is great, and I think you

11:39

have an amazing team. I just

11:41

don't think this is strategy that's going to

11:43

be long term. I think you need to get into, like,

11:45

influencer led brands. And,

11:47

you know, that it was just at the beginning of when

11:49

that was starting And so we

11:52

essentially, like, realigned all our resources as a

11:54

company, renamed

11:55

ourselves to beach house group, and

11:57

that was the beginning of what is

11:59

now

11:59

this phenomenal company that's

12:02

essentially an incubator for building

12:04

brands, influencer led brands

12:06

that

12:06

start on a very small, like, startup scale and

12:08

now we're blowing up. So I I

12:10

was one of the first. I was kinda,

12:12

like, the gimme fig, call it, and I will

12:14

never forget. Sean came to me.

12:16

He's like, I want you to attend this meeting.

12:18

It's with Shay Mitchell. And I joke with Shay

12:21

sometimes because I was like, I'm terrible with

12:23

Nathan. So I had to, like, look her up before I walked

12:25

into the meeting. And I was like, oh, yeah. So I

12:27

sit there and I you know, it's she

12:29

was so personable, so

12:31

approachable. And she just said, like, I

12:33

wanna build a brand and I wanna be

12:35

an entrepreneur.

12:36

And, you know, and we've said, like, well,

12:39

what are you passionate about? Like, what

12:41

what do you love to do?

12:43

And that just evolved, that conversation started.

12:46

It evolved. It grew. And

12:48

it almost naturally came to

12:50

this place of travel because

12:53

she had is

12:54

already established herself in that

12:57

industry

12:57

through her platform on YouTube

12:59

called Shakeations, which had

13:01

long been established before we ever met

13:04

with her. And, you know, she is

13:06

a visionary and a creative, like,

13:08

at heart. And she joked with us

13:10

that she used to sit on planes

13:12

and kind of, like, draw out

13:15

like

13:15

dream bags

13:16

because she could never find

13:18

in the marketplace the perfect bag.

13:20

And she would literally quite literally draw

13:22

them on cocktail napkins. We're like,

13:24

well, like, what do they look like? Well, you know,

13:26

and that just started this brainstorm

13:29

and base was born. We

13:31

had experience as an organization in

13:34

luggage and bags and travel

13:36

goods.

13:36

She had experience in

13:38

the life style side. And so it was such a

13:40

natural synergy of talent, of

13:42

experience, of interest,

13:43

of passion

13:45

that we decided to build a brand

13:47

together. And I I think I

13:49

was, like, one of two or three

13:51

people supporting the business at the time, and

13:53

that was I actually just looked this up

13:55

the other day, June seventeenth two

13:57

thousand and seventeen was our first meeting.

13:59

And it was a meeting literally in

14:01

a conference room and we were drawing things out

14:03

on pieces of paper. So

14:05

to fast forward, you know, almost five

14:07

years now and

14:08

to have the business that we have and

14:10

have

14:10

built together is kind

14:13

of pinch worthy, to be honest. And

14:16

sometimes, I have

14:16

to sit back and be like, wow. Like, I just I

14:19

can't believe

14:19

we're even here. but I'm

14:20

again for a believer of everything happens for a

14:23

reason. And Shay believes that pretty strongly

14:25

too. And I think one of the biggest

14:27

reasons it's worked

14:28

for us is It

14:30

was this

14:31

compilation of expertise,

14:34

interest, passion, authenticity, and

14:37

and consumers see that. And I think that's

14:39

kind

14:39

of built

14:40

into this amazing brand that we have

14:42

today. Oh, I love

14:45

this story so much. And I also just

14:47

love kind of it's like a marriage of,

14:49

like, here's what I can bring to the table.

14:52

here's what you bring to the table and

14:54

there's so much power a deal in what you're

14:56

talking about because nowadays, I'll

14:58

look at influencers And I'm

15:00

like, okay. You think you have like

15:02

a brand, but you don't have an

15:04

actual business. And a lot of them don't

15:06

even own their platform. Right?

15:08

Like, they are just leveraging these

15:10

free platforms. And I think that

15:12

there is this deeper desire to have

15:14

something other than one off partnerships

15:16

or sponsorships. There's that level of

15:19

ownership that also there's this level of,

15:21

like, you have created

15:23

something on your own there's

15:26

something really powerful in that.

15:28

So I am so curious because

15:30

you lead us up to this part of

15:32

the story but let's use some target

15:34

terms, resilient and adaptable. Does that

15:36

ring a bell for you?

15:37

So

15:39

as a

15:40

travel brand, you are

15:42

now navigating a world that is in a pandemic

15:45

that cannot travel. Walk

15:47

me through what that looks like for

15:49

you and how you were resilient

15:51

in the dashboard. Did that

15:53

bring you back? Yes. So, like,

15:55

let's bring us back to March. I think

15:57

it was, like, thirteenth, which just happens

15:59

to be

15:59

my anniversary. oh, actually, like, a couple

16:02

days before my anniversary. But March

16:04

thirteenth, I think we all kind of I can't remember

16:06

if that was the exact day or the day we all kind of

16:08

realized

16:08

this was happening. and

16:09

I I will never forget it. Like, it's like

16:12

literally bored in my memory. And I picked up the phone

16:14

and I called Shay and I said, okay,

16:16

I here's what I think is happening. And,

16:18

you know, we even when it first happened, I

16:20

don't think any of us could

16:23

have possibly understood this

16:25

open scale of what was happening to the

16:27

world. But I think we all

16:29

recognize and especially in business,

16:31

we all

16:32

realize, like, something

16:33

is coming, it's big, and

16:35

we need to brace ourselves. And we need to

16:37

figure out what the path forward

16:40

is. Now we have

16:42

a team in Asia who had been

16:44

impacted by this several months before

16:46

us. So we had already

16:48

started to think about Okay?

16:50

We need to, like, again, not necessarily

16:53

understanding scope and scale, but we had already

16:55

started to think about, okay, we need

16:57

to kind of contingency

16:58

plan and risk mitigate

17:00

to some degree because

17:01

something is happening. I don't think anybody

17:03

thought it was coming to us, but we

17:05

knew something was happening. and we

17:07

needed to plan for that side of the business. So we

17:09

had already started to put a couple things in

17:11

the work in terms of forward

17:14

buying inventory. In terms

17:16

of ensuring we had our best sellers

17:18

well stocked, making sure

17:20

that we placed whatever POs we

17:23

needed for the businesses in advance. Like, of

17:25

those things had already started.

17:27

What hadn't is this understanding

17:29

that the world is about to be grounded and wearing

17:31

an on the go business. Right? Like, no

17:34

scope there. So I remember speaking

17:36

to Shane saying, okay, like, I

17:38

think we need to design a bunch of

17:40

products that's not travel. And

17:42

she was like, what do you mean? I was like, well, I think

17:44

we're gonna we literally had a launch scheduled,

17:47

I think, like, a couple of weeks

17:49

after. It was

17:49

our first color drop, and it was

17:51

a bunch

17:51

of rollers. And

17:53

it was like our first

17:55

first set of color rollers. And

17:57

I

17:57

was like, I don't you know, we can't afford to

17:59

sit on this

17:59

inventory, so we're gonna have to launch it.

18:02

But soon following,

18:04

let's come up with those smaller pieces.

18:06

And she went back with the design team

18:08

and product team, and they basically re

18:11

purpose a bunch of our resources to redesign

18:13

into smaller pieces because our

18:15

intuition told us at the

18:17

time that Okay. People are so gonna have

18:19

to move. I don't think we realize like

18:21

everyone's gonna be literally locked in their

18:23

home, but people are gonna go

18:24

on walks people are

18:26

gonna go to the grocery store, people are gonna have

18:28

to move around from one place to another,

18:30

and they need something to put their stuff

18:33

in. So

18:34

though we

18:35

probably wanna be hands free because everybody was not wanting to

18:37

touch anything. So let's, like, let's create a

18:39

bunch of hands free stuff. Let's create a bunch

18:41

of stuff that can

18:43

give people

18:45

a way to get

18:45

from point a to point b a little bit easier, but it's

18:47

not necessarily the roller that

18:49

they need for the plane.

18:51

And

18:51

so we repurpose a few of our resources

18:53

to help support kind of

18:55

new innovation or support pulling up innovation that

18:58

was expected for the end of the year. The

19:00

other thing we did And

19:03

this was this was to the benefit of the

19:05

strategy we had set at the launch of the brand.

19:07

So when we launched Base,

19:09

Shane and

19:10

I have very intentionally

19:13

decided

19:13

that we don't wanna be a roller brand.

19:15

There's amazing brands out there that had

19:17

paved the way for rollers

19:20

and and luggage to be a

19:22

DTC marketplace, which by the

19:24

way was, like, unheard of. before

19:27

those brands launched because it's very

19:29

big bulky product and to ship

19:31

it is very expensive. So

19:33

this was a brick and mortar category

19:35

almost exclusively. So we

19:37

wrote the coattails of the people who

19:39

had already kind of paved the

19:41

way for travel or on the

19:43

go being a category that

19:45

people were willing to buy via

19:47

D2C. So that

19:49

was helpful. But we very intentionally said, we don't

19:51

wanna be a roller brand. Like, that's not what we

19:53

wanna stand for. When we

19:55

launched in October of twenty eighteen, we

19:57

didn't launch with rollers. Again, very,

19:59

very

19:59

intentionally. We launched

20:00

with our weekend or our backpack

20:03

because Medicaids, we launched with things that

20:06

kind of created this well rounded lifestyle of

20:08

just on the go. And in any

20:10

form or fashion, and those items can

20:12

be used on your whole

20:14

countertop if you

20:15

wanna keep your cosmetic cases and then zip it

20:17

up and take it with you wherever you're going to work to

20:19

the gym on a plane on a

20:22

trip. And so we built the brand with this

20:25

diverse portfolio that, you know, a

20:27

couple months later, we launched rollers, and a couple

20:29

of months later, we launched items

20:31

that met other categories, so we had already

20:34

established ourselves intentionally

20:36

to have a very diverse portfolio.

20:38

So when COVID hit

20:41

we had the opportunity to pivot

20:43

our marketing, pivot our

20:45

messaging, to be able to support

20:47

items that weren't rollers, and we already

20:49

had the portfolio to do it. So

20:51

there was a little bit of luck there. You

20:53

know, we could have never expected this

20:55

to happen, but we had

20:57

built the business to be

20:59

as diverse as we could at the time that

21:01

we were living it. And that

21:04

gave us legs that really

21:06

helped us weather that early

21:08

storm. Then as we learned the

21:10

way people were moving and what people were responding

21:12

to, like, don't get me wrong, those first

21:14

couple of months were raw freight for

21:17

everybody. from us to I

21:19

think any other business, it

21:21

was rough. It was not what we

21:23

expected it to be. Even though we were still

21:25

beating our forecasts, at the time it was

21:27

very exciting, it was still a lot

21:29

of fear, a lot of concern about

21:31

what the future would bring. And as the

21:33

months went on, it just felt more and more

21:35

severe. But we just I think our

21:38

team and everybody in the business, we

21:40

really believed in our product. And

21:42

I think if there's advice I can

21:44

give is, like, lead with the thing that you

21:46

know you do really, really well. And

21:48

there's two things we

21:48

do really, really well. We

21:51

do product exceptionally

21:51

well, and we do content exceptionally well.

21:53

And those are the two things we leaned

21:56

on. We created a bunch of content

21:58

to help speak to the

21:59

way people were

21:59

living and respond

22:02

to what's happening in our environment

22:04

and give people ways to use our

22:07

our pieces meaningfully in their life.

22:09

And then we led with exceptionally

22:12

good, highly purposeful product.

22:14

And that made

22:16

sense to the consumer in the way they were living their

22:18

life at the time. And that

22:20

that got us through. And

22:22

as the pandemic went on, we continue to

22:24

innovate the areas that were successful

22:26

and kind of continue to

22:28

pull away from things that were maybe not.

22:30

Though we knew this time would come

22:32

one day where you things would pick

22:34

back up. So we still had rollers coming.

22:37

We still had rollers in kind of our back

22:39

pocket. We just didn't lean on them. We didn't spend

22:41

as much as many dollars on

22:43

inventory. We were just a little bit leaner

22:45

there and that helped support

22:47

both cash flow as an organization.

22:49

it helped us give the consumer the product that they needed and

22:51

wanted. And once things

22:53

started to open up a little, we saw a

22:55

huge resurgence in kind of weekend travel

22:59

and day trips and

23:01

kind of going close by. Okay. So we

23:03

created a bunch of product that help answer that

23:05

need. And that, I

23:07

think, was really helpful. Being a small nimble

23:09

organization, we can move quickly.

23:11

And we

23:12

we were able to respond really,

23:14

really almost immediately to kind of consumer

23:16

demand, and that paid us

23:18

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23:18

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23:21

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23:23

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23:25

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23:27

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23:29

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23:32

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23:35

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23:37

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23:39

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25:41

You know, it's really interesting

25:43

because I think as product

25:46

based companies, a lot of times, specifically

25:48

for the small businesses that have

25:50

products,

25:50

they don't necessarily

25:52

know

25:52

how to create content around the

25:54

product. Right? Like, it just becomes

25:56

sales pitches features, you

25:58

know, why somebody should buy it. But

26:00

I think what is most fascinating

26:03

about your efforts and I think really

26:05

speaks to how adaptable you

26:07

are, is this content

26:09

creation piece? Because you

26:11

are not only sharing your product, you're

26:14

showing it, and you're showing how to use it and

26:16

enjoy it and why it matters in helping

26:18

somebody prequalify themselves as

26:20

a customer. they even know that

26:22

they need the object. Yeah.

26:24

So for business owners that are listening

26:26

to this that have products,

26:29

Can you talk a little bit about how they

26:31

could leverage this content marketing

26:33

piece a bit more so that it's

26:35

not constantly sales pitches

26:37

But it's more of, like, a show and

26:40

tell.

26:40

Yeah. The

26:41

best advice I can give and I'm

26:43

I'm never one to assume the advice

26:46

I give can work for everybody. So I think

26:48

take from this, you know, what might make

26:50

sense for your business and the industry and

26:52

category you're in. But I think

26:54

the

26:54

number one thing. And and when

26:56

I've spoken to business owners or when

26:58

I speak to people that I'm mentoring, you'll

27:01

be shocked at how often this answer

27:03

is not as clear as it should be. But the first thing

27:05

is

27:05

like, what do you do

27:06

better than everybody else? Like,

27:08

what

27:08

is the thing that

27:11

consumers

27:11

give you the most credit

27:13

for? In

27:14

terms of, like, your actual product, like, why

27:16

would somebody come by your product

27:19

versus all the other product on

27:20

the market, which there's very,

27:22

very few

27:24

categories where it's not

27:25

proliferated and where there's not many options

27:28

now. So what is that? Like,

27:30

what is that thing? And

27:32

once you figure that out, for us, it's

27:34

like hyper function. You know,

27:36

for us, we build product that's

27:38

super chic and super kinda

27:41

trendy to look at, but if it has

27:43

hyper function in it, it provides a ton

27:45

of organization, but it

27:47

doesn't make you compromise on fashion. Like, that

27:49

is what we do better than,

27:50

in my opinion, almost any other

27:52

bad company

27:53

out there. So if

27:55

that's the case, like, then you have to

27:57

figure out, like, how do you speak

28:00

to the consumer and tell them that

28:02

this is the thing you do better than everybody

28:04

else in a way that makes sense for

28:07

them. And this was a test and learn for us.

28:09

So the other thing I'll tell kind of

28:11

companies and business owners is give

28:13

yourself legs to test and

28:15

learn because

28:15

the kid What

28:16

works for one company might not work for

28:19

you, but you have to test a lot of

28:21

concepts because if you're

28:23

not doing that, you're not

28:24

gathering information. And your consumers

28:27

will very quickly tell you in our

28:29

environment today of this immediate

28:31

gratification, what works and what

28:33

doesn't. So you just need

28:35

kind of

28:35

like a strategy around, here's what I'm trying to achieve.

28:37

Let's create some content quickly, put it out

28:39

there and see what works. And do that a

28:41

couple times until you figure

28:43

out what consumers respond to. But for

28:45

us,

28:45

what we learned

28:47

is

28:47

because

28:48

function and kind of

28:50

organization is

28:52

our point

28:53

of differentiation. We need to

28:54

find a way to do that in a way that's like

28:57

authentically us. We're kind

28:59

of a little bit cheeky. We're a little

29:01

bit funny. We like to be

29:03

kind of a little

29:03

over the top when it comes to the way we communicate

29:05

to consumers and sending our

29:08

message. And so we tested this concept of

29:10

a

29:10

walk through. Like, Well, like,

29:11

when you're going to buy a car, right, you wanna, like, look

29:14

through everything, you wanna sit in it, you want so

29:16

what's that concept look like for

29:18

us? So we

29:18

literally had Shay do a walk through, and

29:20

it took our weekend are quite literally tripled

29:23

almost

29:23

overnight. So

29:24

we learned, okay, people want

29:27

that. And, you know, if if you've ever watched

29:29

a walk through, like, Shay, It's

29:31

her. Right? It's it's her personality. She's

29:34

funny. She can laugh at

29:36

herself. She uses words incorrectly or

29:38

she mispronounces them and that's fine.

29:40

And and she's got this

29:42

personality that it just

29:44

makes you interested in what she's talking

29:46

about. So we had the

29:48

voice. Right? And that's that

29:50

is the huge benefit of having, like, an

29:52

influencer celebrity led brand that's

29:54

authentic to your product. You have

29:56

a

29:56

voice. You have somebody to speak your message

29:58

that people can relate to. So

29:59

that walk through worked really well. Okay.

30:02

So then we took that concept and

30:04

we said okay. Like, how

30:05

do we do

30:06

that in different ways? because you can't

30:08

just have a one trick pony. How do we

30:10

do that in different ways? The other thing we know

30:12

about our consumer is our brand

30:15

is kind of approachable,

30:17

aspirational. Right? So, like, we wanna be

30:19

aspiring to the consumer because it's

30:21

a lifestyle that that is exciting

30:23

and traveling the world is

30:26

fun, but it needs to be approachable,

30:28

otherwise they're tuning you out. So what

30:30

does that look like? So we use

30:32

content as a way to communicate the

30:34

lifestyle and kind

30:36

of that editorialization that

30:39

we all kind of know Instagram is.

30:41

Right? That we all take a picture.

30:43

And if you're filtering it, it's not exactly what

30:45

it is. It's like the souped up version. So what

30:47

does that look like? It almost to, like, a

30:49

funny degree. Like, sometimes we're

30:51

using our product in ways that are

30:54

kind of comical, and we kind of poke

30:56

fun at ourselves. Like, the one that I'm

30:58

thinking about is our collapsible line.

31:00

You know, it was launching on Valentine's Day, and

31:02

so we did a bunch of content around

31:04

like things being big or small and kind of

31:06

poking fun at the occasion and

31:09

using kind of sexual innuendos

31:11

and puns and

31:13

people respond to that. And so

31:15

I think when it comes to content, it's

31:17

all about, like, lead with

31:19

your strength. Lead with what consumers know

31:21

you for? Are you what you want consumers to know

31:23

you for?

31:24

And then figure out,

31:26

like, what's the tone and what's

31:27

the look and feel that

31:30

takes away kind of like

31:32

the seriousness, then that takes away from

31:34

the salesy piece of it, like you were

31:36

speaking about. You know what? It's not

31:39

product product. People

31:39

you want people to buy into a lifestyle. You

31:42

want people to buy into

31:44

a

31:44

brand beyond just the product.

31:46

and so you

31:47

need to exude that and the best way to

31:49

do that in our environment today

31:51

is is content. Show

31:52

them the lifestyle that

31:55

is

31:55

your brand. It's more than just

31:57

a product. Most of our images

32:00

and content have product in it, but

32:02

it's not always like in your face. And

32:04

I think that is why

32:06

it works so well, and it tells a story.

32:08

And that's the last thing I think is you

32:10

have to tell a story with whatever you're

32:12

doing. Any marketing content needs to

32:14

tell a story you need to tell your story.

32:16

And that's something I feel like as I

32:18

look at other brands, I

32:19

don't always see or it's not always very clear

32:22

to me. And so have that

32:24

story, tell that story, and have

32:26

kind of a message that you're trying to

32:28

send and send it. Right? Like, be

32:30

fun with it, be kinda lighthearted,

32:32

and what works, you'll know, you'll know super

32:34

quickly, and then continue to find

32:36

ways to replicate that. Yes.

32:38

Oh, this is so powerful.

32:40

I'm so curious, Adila,

32:42

how you guys are

32:45

creating base as this standalone

32:47

brand, but then also leveraging

32:49

Shay and her platform in her influence.

32:52

Because honestly, when you go to the

32:54

page like you could know that she's

32:56

behind it and you also couldn't. It's

32:58

actually really powerful and

33:00

super strategic. I know it's intentional.

33:02

No. You know that. Yeah.

33:04

So if it wasn't the first meeting, it

33:06

was the second meeting, she is

33:08

she's

33:09

incredibly bright. Right? And she similar

33:12

to me. I think, look, sometimes a couple

33:14

steps ahead to understand, like, well, what

33:16

do I want this to be? She's a vision boarder. Right?

33:18

Like, she I think if you've ever if you

33:20

follow

33:20

on Instagram, she quite literally, like, vision

33:22

boarded her daughter. It was like, she had a

33:24

picture on a vision board, her daughter looks just like

33:26

it. It's kind of

33:28

amazing. So she's similar to me kind of looks ahead a little

33:30

bit. And we had

33:31

a conversation yeah. Again, in meeting

33:33

one or two, and very

33:35

intentionally decided this was not gonna be

33:37

called based by Shay Mitchell. Mhmm. Because

33:40

the brand needed to live with

33:42

or without her. And when we say

33:44

that, it doesn't mean that she wouldn't support the brand

33:47

complete opposite. Shea gets more

33:49

excited when she approaches somebody at

33:51

an airport, and they don't know who she is they're

33:53

caring base than when they do know

33:54

who she is. Yeah. Right? Like, that was

33:57

very, very intentional. And

33:59

the

33:59

reason is It kind

34:01

of goes back to authenticity. People aren't

34:03

buying Shay. They're not buying

34:06

her life.

34:06

Her life is gonna look different.

34:08

and

34:09

come to fruition differently in everybody's own independent lives.

34:11

But what she can provide us and

34:13

what she can

34:15

provide the consumer is

34:17

her vision, is

34:18

her design aesthetic, is her attention

34:20

to detail, is the vision she

34:22

provides for marketing and content. That

34:25

more and

34:25

more I would say now especially with

34:28

influencer and celebrity led brands

34:30

becoming as common as

34:32

they are to

34:33

me, that's way more powerful than trying to sell

34:35

kind of your life. Right?

34:37

It's selling pieces

34:38

that

34:40

you are with again, it's the same thing as product leading with

34:42

your strengths, finding what works

34:44

really well, and that's how that's

34:47

how we've been successful and that's how she has been

34:50

successful. She's not going to

34:52

sit on a call

34:54

and wanna talk about the accounting of the books. Like, that's not interesting to

34:56

her. It's not where her passion is. It's not what

34:58

she like, what

35:00

drives her. she will send and talk to

35:02

you all day about creative and vision

35:04

and product and features and

35:06

benefits. So that's the role she plays in

35:08

our business.

35:09

And very intentionally, we only

35:12

use her in content

35:14

sparingly, you know, so that

35:17

in ways that we know work. So

35:19

walk throughs, highlight those things

35:22

that she does really well. It helps her

35:24

talk about product, creative,

35:26

all the things that she

35:28

essentially owns in the business and

35:30

it gives her a platform to discuss it

35:32

and it comes through when you hear her

35:34

do a walk through. You hear that passion because it's real. It is

35:37

very real. She is just

35:39

that passionate about product. So

35:41

again, it's kind of the same story with

35:43

product like find, what works, what

35:45

are the strengths? One person can't

35:47

be everything to our brand or everything

35:49

to our consumer. So find out what role

35:51

they're gonna play in your business and make sure you're

35:54

building a business that can live with or

35:56

without them

35:58

because consumers,

35:59

you want again, you want people to buy into

36:02

the brand, into the lifestyle, and that's

36:04

gonna mean something different

36:05

to every single person. So

36:07

instead of kind of putting somebody out there and

36:08

that being the only

36:09

voice of the brand and the only way you're

36:11

communicating your brand,

36:12

sell them the

36:14

product, and then use

36:16

the person and the voice to

36:18

help kind of

36:19

grow that, grow that message, and build

36:21

that message. And, of course, it's

36:23

no surprise she had

36:25

a stage and a platform to

36:27

help us talk about that. Right?

36:29

Like, thirty

36:30

million people gave us this

36:32

platform

36:32

and a voice that would have been

36:34

very hard to achieve or would have taken a very

36:36

long

36:36

time to achieve early in the brand's careers. But

36:38

it was parley Shea. Right?

36:40

We had models. We had the

36:42

product would speak for itself. And, yeah, that was always very intentional

36:45

to your point. And I think

36:47

it's super important,

36:48

and I

36:50

think there

36:50

are certain categories where maybe that doesn't work, maybe in beauty, in

36:52

perfume,

36:52

in areas like that, like

36:55

the name actually matters

36:57

more

36:57

than even product.

37:00

But in our category, we're a

37:02

functional category. Like, you have to

37:04

sell the product. The product has to stand on

37:06

its own. and

37:07

then you use that voice and you

37:09

use the notoriety to help,

37:11

like, accentuate it and build

37:13

it. That's super awesome because

37:15

I feel

37:15

like having that clear

37:18

division and, like, the very

37:20

defined roles of how she

37:22

steps in and what she provides is

37:24

really inspiring. because then it's

37:26

not just reliant on her pushing.

37:28

It's also a standalone brand. And I think

37:30

that's where some people can

37:32

get stuck. especially in that kind of marriage of

37:34

leveraging someone's influence with products, but

37:36

also making sure that it's not reliant

37:38

on them to have a

37:40

true business And so that brings

37:42

me to my last question.

37:44

If there is somebody listening,

37:46

regardless of which side of the queen they're on, if

37:48

they're like you a dealer and they're really good

37:50

at like operations and strategy and marketing,

37:52

or if they're an influencer and they have this

37:54

platform, but they want to create something

37:56

bigger with it, Do you have any

37:58

tips of advice for finding the

38:00

right partnership or ways to

38:02

establish a partnership that

38:04

truly works? I

38:06

mean,

38:06

this is my philosophy of building teams,

38:08

and I don't think it's any different when

38:10

I think about kind of like

38:12

this worked really well, why this worked really

38:14

well. And there's other businesses within the beach house group platform that are working

38:16

equally as well, I would say, using

38:18

kind of this a similar model

38:22

but

38:22

you have to trust in the

38:25

experts

38:25

and get experts to

38:27

run your business.

38:28

run your business I

38:30

believe and I trust that there are celebrities

38:32

and influence out there who know

38:34

how to run

38:35

business and that's

38:37

their wheelhouse. Great. we'll then figure out what they're

38:39

really good at, and then you have to

38:41

build a team to be experts in

38:43

what they do, and then

38:44

you have to

38:45

get out of their way. And

38:47

I think that is, to

38:50

me, the same philosophy in building

38:52

a team. You know, you can't you

38:54

can't do everything You can't be good

38:56

at

38:56

everything. And that's okay. And I don't

38:58

think anybody expects that in the

39:00

same way that's not

39:01

true for people. That's also not true

39:03

for a business. So like

39:05

I kind of talked about in that

39:07

very first meeting, it's

39:08

you know, Shay and I talk like, well, what do you like,

39:10

what are what are you passionate about? What are the

39:12

things you're exciting about? Now it worked out really well. Right?

39:14

Because the things that Shay is exceptionally good at

39:17

are not my strengths and the things

39:18

that

39:19

I'm exceptionally good at, she's

39:21

not super passionate about. So it works really

39:23

well because there's not a lot of overlapping. We're not stepping on

39:25

each other's

39:26

toes. And we trust that

39:29

we're

39:29

running that side of the business. I don't get

39:31

super involved on the marketing side and the

39:34

creative side because I

39:36

hired somebody who does that better than a hundred percent of the people

39:38

out there. You know, and that's one

39:40

of our VP of Marketing and Brand. She

39:42

works directly

39:45

with Shay and I get out of

39:47

their way and the same with digital

39:49

and the same with ops. And and

39:51

I think that is when

39:53

building a business, you have to invest

39:55

in the people. There is just

39:57

no other way. And

39:59

this business is

40:01

absolutely successful because

40:03

we have an exceptional

40:06

product, but

40:06

an exceptional product doesn't sell itself.

40:09

and

40:09

it doesn't produce itself and it doesn't come to market

40:11

on its own. It is the team. And

40:13

the same way you would as

40:15

an influencer, as a business person, seek out

40:17

to find the team that can

40:20

help support and complement

40:22

skills and be experts in what they do.

40:24

You have to invest there, you have to nurse there, and you have to make

40:26

sure that's where your time and resources are going

40:28

because that is why

40:30

we are successful.

40:32

It is all the other stuff would fall flat if you

40:35

didn't have a team of

40:37

super passionate exceptionally

40:39

hardworking experts

40:42

doing

40:42

what they do best and letting them and

40:44

empowering them to do what they do best. And

40:46

that to me, if there's any

40:49

advice I can give is

40:51

find find the niche that you play in. Don't try to be

40:53

everything to everybody, hire experts to fill in

40:55

the gaps, and

40:56

then let people do their

40:58

jobs. Yes. Oh

41:00

my gosh. That's like a mic drop moment

41:02

right there.

41:03

Where can everybody

41:05

find you, connect with you,

41:07

learn more about base. Give me all of the

41:09

places for connection. Well, we can follow us on Instagram, which

41:11

is at base handle, base travel dot

41:14

com is

41:16

our website So that's a great

41:18

place. We have I have

41:20

a growing and very,

41:22

very engaging TikTok

41:22

channel as well, which is all our

41:24

handles are the same as that base. so you can

41:27

follow us. And that's also where you'll hear about all our upcoming

41:29

launches, all the fun things that are

41:31

coming to

41:31

the market, which

41:34

there is so much come fall of this year. So I

41:36

highly recommend anybody who's interested in the brand

41:38

to get on those channels because that's where you'll hear

41:40

it first. Email is

41:42

another way, so you can join our email list

41:44

through our website. When we try to

41:46

be really good about getting that communication out

41:48

first, even though sometimes

41:50

things leak, through our Instagram. Our consumers are very

41:52

passionate and they see things that you'd be

41:54

shocked that they see. And

41:55

so they tell people

41:58

things a

41:58

little sooner sometimes than we'd like, but it's thought that having

41:59

that type of a consumer is really

42:01

that's really engaged is really

42:03

exciting and it helps us.

42:04

They're also like our product team.

42:08

we

42:08

go to them all for it's great.

42:10

So, yeah, please join us on

42:12

all our social channels and

42:16

check

42:16

out our website because we have an incredibly diverse portfolio that

42:18

we hope can meet all kind of

42:20

the on the go

42:21

needs of consumers. thank

42:24

you

42:24

so much for coming on

42:25

the gold digger podcast. This was a

42:28

treat. Oh, it was my

42:29

pleasure and happy to be

42:32

here anytime.

42:33

That interview

42:34

was fascinating

42:36

to me. I love watching