Using Influencers to Help Build Awareness for Your CPG Brand With Mike Currie
LISTEN ON: APPLE | SPOTIFY
When you’re starting out creating a CPG brand, one of the most challenging aspects can be simply getting eyes on your product. It’s hard to sell when no one knows you exist, and it’s also hard to create an audience from scratch. But what if you could borrow someone else’s audience to jump start the process?
In this episode, Mike Currie, fractional CMO and marketing advisor, is here to break down how to get started with influencer marketing. He’s sharing what influencer marketing actually is, why you might want to use it, and how you can fairly compensate influencers in a way that is mutually beneficial.
Plus, he’s covering how you can find influencers who are as excited about your brand as you are and how they can help build a strong community around your CPG brand.
Subscribe to the Food Means Business Podcast with Hudson Kitchen founder Djenaba Johnson-Jones to hear the personal stories and “secret ingredients” of abandoning your day job and starting a CPG food business.
In this episode, you’ll learn...
[00:36] How Mike’s CPG career has evolved from corporate to entrepreneur
[03:29] What a CMO is and how they support growing businesses
[07:11] What influencer marketing is and how it works
[13:32] How you can pay influencers to work with your CPG brand and how you can tell if the relationships are working for you
[19:37] How influencers can help you build a community for your brand
[25:25] How fitness and quality time keep Mike grounded
If you’re considering using influencers in your marketing, this conversation is a good one!
To get more Food Business Bites right in your inbox, sign up for our newsletter at thehudsonkitchen.com.
About Mike Currie
With over 18 years leading Marketing for iconic national food and beverage brands, Mike brings a wealth of experience to help emerging companies in the CPG industry. Leveraging his proven track record of success, Mike now works as a Fractional CMO and Marketing Advisor, guiding passionate startups towards achieving their full potential. Besides serving as a Fractional CMO, he is also a Marketing mentor for the SKU and BeyondSKU CPG accelerators. Mike is here to help you translate your vision into a winning marketing strategy and propel your brand to the next level.
Some brands Mike has worked with: Frank’s RedHot, French’s, Cello Cheese, Twinings, True Scoops, Gourmend, Heather’s Choice, Dixie Grace’s Boiled Peanuts, Cleo+Coco.
Connect with Mike Currie:
Visit the Next Level CMO website
Stay Connected with Djenaba Johnson-Jones:
-
[00:00:00] Djenaba: You are listening to the food means business podcast, which features the personal stories and secret ingredients behind what it's like to abandon your day job to start a CPG food and beverage business. I'm Djenaba Johnson-Jones, former marketing executive turned entrepreneur and founder of food business incubator Hudson kitchen.
[00:00:20] Join our community of fellow food business owners and subject matter experts to learn and laugh with us as we explore a startup world. That's a little more culinary and a lot less corporate these days. All right, Mike, welcome to the food means business podcast. I'm so happy you're here.
[00:00:35] Mike: Um, so glad to be here.
[00:00:36] Thanks for inviting me.
[00:00:38] Djenaba: Absolutely. So I'd love for you to share with the audience all about you. This podcast is about going from cubicle to becoming a CEO of your own company. So we'd love to hear about you and what's going on.
[00:00:49] Mike: Great. Yeah. So, uh, I am a marketer by trade and by passion. I've been in the CBG industry for 17, 18 years and started right [00:01:00] outside of business school.
[00:01:01] I had a food company called Pinnacle Foods as a traditional brand management track marketer. So I was doing things like analyzing Nielsen or IRI data, you know, working on FSIs and, you know, creating websites for the brands that I worked on. So I worked on brands about. Timely answer mine on frozen breakfast, lenders, bagels.
[00:01:21] Then I went on to like French's foods and supporting Frank's red hot sauce. So kind of built my way up starting with smaller brands and then to portfolio brands and eventually began leading the entire marketing function and leading the entire marketing team and be kind of on the leadership team. And then my most recent corporate role was the VP of marketing at Twining's North America, which is a tea brand, 300 year old tea brand.
[00:01:47] And during that time, I kind of got this epiphany that I don't know if I'm built to support brands that are 300 years old. I'm built to create new brands or [00:02:00] support founders and creating new brands from scratch or putting them on the right path. So they, they might have some idea what their brand looks like, but I can kind of help them get it right for, for moving forward and kind of taking all this information and all the knowledge and all the skills that I've acquired working for these bigger brands and putting it towards working for smaller brands.
[00:02:20] So that led me to create my own company, just me, kind of a single shingle solopreneur as a fractional CMO, where I can go and support emerging and startup CBG brands and basically give them that guidance. And they had this idea, this little nucleus in their head about what their brand should look like.
[00:02:41] And I kind of helped them kind of massage it and focus their ideas. Focus what they they're messaging and really set them on the right path to succeed. And it's just such a, a rewarding career that I've now chosen because you're supporting these brands and these founders, they're just putting their whole life into it, you know, it [00:03:00] means so much more to them than maybe some big large multinational conglomerate that I used to work for, you know, it's just so much more personal and it just has such.
[00:03:09] You know, so much more impact on their lives and on the brands that they're creating. And it's just super rewarding. And I just, I just love it.
[00:03:16] Djenaba: So the name of your company is next level CMO. Can you talk a little bit about what a fractional CMO actually does?
[00:03:23] Mike: Yes, sure. So, you know, brands that are just starting out, typically it's just the founder or maybe a couple other folks, you know, supporting maybe a salesperson or someone in operations, they can afford to bring on a full time, you know, Marketing executive, but they might need some of that strategy work and kind of need someone to kind of help oversee the execution.
[00:03:43] So fractional CMO will come in and work basically part time a few hours each week to kind of oversee the marketing function. A lot of the founders, they might have more of a. You know, technical background, like they're great at building recipes and then creating great products or new [00:04:00] flavors, but not quite sure how to get the word out about that.
[00:04:03] That they don't have that marketing expertise. So they'll leverage a fractional CMO to kind of come in and manage that for them with something that they don't have to touch, they could say, Hey, I need someone to come in a few hours each week and just kind of like. Managing entire marketing process. And that's what a fractional CMO really does is like they basically oversee the entire marketing function, uh, for brands that can't really afford to pay for a full time employee to do that.
[00:04:27] Djenaba: So you mentioned working on strategy. Do you find others to actually execute?
[00:04:32] Mike: Yeah, I mean, with marketing, certainly for, for early stage companies, they might have, you know, kind of a junior person on staff to do a lot of the actual execution, or they might be bringing in other agencies or other freelancers to do the execution, whether it's like a social media agency, or, uh, you know, maybe it's an influencer, uh, agency, or maybe it's someone to, to manage their email marketing.
[00:04:55] So there are a lot of different. You know, marketing tactics that they kind of need to, to [00:05:00] employ, but they probably don't need a full time person to do each of those. So as a fractional CMO, you know, I would basically manage all those different agencies, freelancers, junior marketing people to do the execution.
[00:05:14] And that just frees up time for the founder to kind of do founder type things and not having to scramble and manage all these different groups and stakeholders that are actually doing the marketing execution.
[00:05:25] Djenaba: What level of companies do you work with? You mentioned emerging brand and startups, but is there a certain revenue threshold that they must hit before they can work with you?
[00:05:33] Or are you working with somebody right out of the gate?
[00:05:36] Mike: I work with everyone. I mean, I love to get my hands dirty with, with brands that are just starting out to kind of help them set them on their path, get their brand strategy, their positioning, right, maybe helping packaging or their website. So that's typically in a project basis where they can't afford someone, you know, on a monthly retainer ongoing.
[00:05:55] So I, I'll work with folks, you know, really early on and who don't have much, if any revenue, [00:06:00] but then as you know, the brands grow and they have a little bit of, uh, more money, they typically have more needs for marketing. So beyond just the initial upfront positioning work or website or packaging, they need someone to oversee the execution of social media or email or influence or what have you.
[00:06:17] And then it becomes more of a retainer basis. So I'll work from anyone for like pre revenue, zero revenue, all the way up to like typically 5 million is where I'm saying, Hey, you probably need someone to dedicate more time to your business. And that that's where I'll gracefully bow out and say, Hey, I've got you this far.
[00:06:37] I trust that you can take it the rest of the way or find someone who can take the rest of the way.
[00:06:40] Djenaba: There are so many aspects of branding and marketing that we could talk about. One of the things I'm most interested in is learning about influencer marketing. So I'm hoping you could talk to us about what that is and give us a couple of tips about how to do it.
[00:06:52] Mike: Sure. Yeah. Influencer marketing, I think has really become like a really big. Big tactic in [00:07:00] a markers toolkit, uh, more so recently, you know, with creators coming out of nowhere and just building all this new content, uh, people kind of believing in the, the, the people they follow on online more so than they believe the brands.
[00:07:12] So to leverage those types of people and have them in your corner and work on, you know, speak on your behalf, I think it's a, it's like a great way to kind of expand your, your, your marketing influence. So. With influencer marketing, there's basically to me, there's three steps. One is really kind of knowing your brand, like who are you and who you're serving.
[00:07:32] Then it goes into like building the community of influencers. Like, who do you want to be speaking on your behalf? And then the last step is really like, how do you leverage those influencers to expand your reach and to get new content? So those are kind of the three steps I'm going to walk you through.
[00:07:47] So, You know, the first step was like really knowing your brand, you know, what is the purpose for your brand? Why do you exist in the world? What can you do that no one else can do? You know, what problem are you trying to solve? How are you [00:08:00] better than other brands that are already out there? That's really important for you to know as a brand where they're doing influencer marketing or not, but it's really knowing what your brand stands for and why you're different or better.
[00:08:11] It's super important because then when you go and talk to influencers and say, Hey, this is what I bring to the table. And they're like, wow, that I've never heard of anything like that. So great. That's amazing. They get super excited and they want to really support you. So really being crystal clear on what your brand does, how it supports people and the problems that solves.
[00:08:31] It's really important to know that up front. And the second piece about knowing your brand is really around the target consumer, like who needs your product more than anyone else. So knowing that is great because then you can go and find the influencers that speak to those people. So say, for instance, you know, you have a product that supports gut health.
[00:08:51] You want to go and find influencers that talk about gut health because their fans or their followers are looking for content around gut health. [00:09:00] And then it's a perfect segue for your brand to kind of enter that conversation a bit more organically. So really understanding. Who your target consumer is, and then, you know, then finding the influencers that that kind of speak to them is really important and a bit of market research that you can do early on is maybe you've got a target consumer for their couple, maybe different ways in.
[00:09:22] So for example, say you have a vegan snack brand and you think that it could resonate with different types of consumers within that. So maybe it's really diet, hard vegan consumers. Maybe it's folks who are just looking for clean label kind of simple ingredients. You know, potentially it's fitness fanatics who are looking for clean plant based protein, or maybe it's just.
[00:09:42] Snack fans, like just, they don't care if it's vegan or not. They just love great tasting snacks. So you would go out to influencers that speak to each of those groups or personas, and you'd say, Hey, I have a great vegan product or have a great clean label product. I have a great product for new people going to the gym and so [00:10:00] on.
[00:10:00] You speak to those influencers, you put it out there to these groups. And you see who is excited about it, like who, which of those groups is really engaged. And wow, I really love this product. Then you can kind of focus your brand towards those kind of more narrow personas and really kind of hammer in on the groups that are really super engaged in it.
[00:10:21] So it's a little bit of market research you can do early on to kind of understand maybe where your product is going to resonate the most with.
[00:10:29] Djenaba: Well, so this also this conversation made me think about I'm doing a competitive analysis on the brains kind of like in your ecosystem, just to figure out because you mentioned we talked a lot about the target audience and I kind of how to figure that that out.
[00:10:42] But prior to that, you could really like. Look, do a competitive analysis and look into like, where are the other brands out there doing the same thing? Who are they targeting and how can I differentiate myself?
[00:10:52] Mike: That's absolutely, absolutely for sure. And you can look to see the brands in your set. Uh, you know, what influences are they [00:11:00] using and, and kind of really kind of understand exactly how are they going after their target consumer?
[00:11:04] So I think. That's actually a great segue into, you know, I'd say the second part of the influencer is like, how do you build your community? So now you understand who you are, why you're put on this planet, what problems you're solving, who you're going after. All right. Well, how do you find the influencers that are going to go and talk to your target consumer and preach about your brand?
[00:11:26] You know, there are a couple of ways that are, you can go about doing that. One is just look at who's. Already engaging with your brand as you're putting out content, who is saying, you know, who's liking commenting, sharing, because they're really engaged already and maybe they have a following of their own and maybe they're, they're engaging with the content because they.
[00:11:47] Have a community of their own that they want to like, you know, share this with. So, you know, Hey, flow hanging fruit. They're already engaged in your brand. See if you can leverage them to speak on your behalf in a little bit more of a formal way. Another way is as you were just talking about [00:12:00] looking at competitors or other brands in your category or just other brands that you love that, you know, wow, they always have great content.
[00:12:07] They always have people talking about it. You know, those are other areas where you can go and find out who's talking about the stuff that you want to talk about as you're just, you know, Looking on social media yourself, whether it's at, uh, looking at competitive brands or the brands that you follow or that you love.
[00:12:21] And then kind of a third way to do it is, is really kind of leveraging tools that are built for this. There are databases out there, platforms you can look at to kind of filter and sort by based on age and income level education, you know, are they vegan? Are they, you know, into sports, that sort of thing.
[00:12:40] So you really filter down on that. And some of those tools. You know, create our IQ search, social bizarre voice, you know, tick tock, create a marketplace. All of these are kind of, uh, tools, a few of many that you could tap into to really find influencers that fit your brand to a tee.
[00:12:59] Djenaba: So with [00:13:00] those tools, so I can go in and you mentioned, like I can give it a certain criteria and it would give me these influencers.
[00:13:06] Am I paying a fee for the, for the, for the tool or am I paying just the influencer if I decide to work with them? How does that work?
[00:13:12] Mike: It's typically both, like there's some free tools out there, like Tik Tok, creator marketplaces, where anyone that you can find creators on Tik Tok and, and, and reach out to them.
[00:13:21] Some of those other tools I mentioned have kind of tiered pricing systems. So, you know, some might be free and some you'd have to pay for, and then you would have to then compensate the influencers and another great segue, uh, is, you know, there are. I would say about three. Major ways of, of basically compensating the influencers for posting on your behalf.
[00:13:43] So the first of which is, is kind of like the, the low hanging fruit, like low cost is basically called seeding. We're just providing free product to people who you think would be excited about your product and want to talk about it beyond giving them the product. There's really no expectation [00:14:00] of compensation.
[00:14:01] So it is really kind of, uh, you know, a lower cost option. Now, these folks typically would have smaller followings. Maybe the audiences aren't as big, but if you cobble together a hundred of them, you know, that starts to add up and that can be really, uh, really impactful. Uh, and it's a great place to start.
[00:14:19] Because the people who will talk about your brand just because you gave them some for free. They're like, wow, this is amazing. I love this thing. It's such a great product. Like they're the ones who are like doing it because they truly love your product. Like they are going to be like loyal fans because if they're talking about it without any expectation of compensation, like they're doing it because they really like your product.
[00:14:39] So, you know, I think that's a great place to start. The next tier up is what's known as affiliate marketing. Which is kind of like a pay for performance model. So basically you would identify influencers or affiliates and they get like a link or a code that they can use. And they share that with their fans and their followers.
[00:14:59] [00:15:00] And when they post about you and their followers go and buy something, they get a percentage of the sales. So there's no upfront cost to you as the brand, but. If they're driving people, they're driving, uh, folks to your site to buy your product, they get a percentage of that. So that's kind of, uh, you know, a bit more costly, obviously than just seeding the product, but it's also like, you're only paying for sales.
[00:15:23] You're not paying for something that, you know, you don't know if you're going to get anything. So that's kind of the, the next tier down. And then finally, the third one is really kind of an upfront Influencer partnership where they're going to have lots of followers, tens, hundreds of thousands, millions of followers, and they know they've got built an audience and they expect to be compensated.
[00:15:47] So you've kind of a range in advance and say for X amount of money, you know, we expect you, the influencer to do X number of posts per week or per month to do videos, to mention our product, to wear our product, eat our [00:16:00] product, what have you, and you kind of negotiate that upfront. And as I mentioned, like that's the, it's an upfront commitment of money.
[00:16:07] So that's typically something bigger brands will do or brands that are further along because they have that money and they know it's worth it to, to get to a wider audience. So it's very way to scale quickly, get your product in front of people. A lot of eyeballs, broad audience, but it is costly. And it's, it's probably the third step that you would do after seeding and then the affiliates.
[00:16:27] Djenaba: So in the past I've
[00:16:28] Mike: run
[00:16:28] Djenaba: like Google ads and Facebook ads and like I worked with a small agency and they were saying give it three months before you figure out like whether it works or not. I'm wondering like, what is that timeframe for the influencer market? Is there something where you have, where you can say this is working or not working?
[00:16:45] This is worth it or not worth it? You know, the, at the stand to be able to do this.
[00:16:50] Mike: Yeah. So, I mean, for gifting and seeding that is, you know, Hey, it's the cost of the product it's sampling to me or trial demos. It's the simplest thing to do is the [00:17:00] cheapest thing to do. And anyone who decides to talk about it, I think is that's money well spent.
[00:17:04] Cause you can think of like CPM costs per thousand eyeballs. Like to get in front of a thousand people, say it costs 10. For a thousand people to see it, you send one product to an influencer who has a thousand fans. Like that's basically, uh, the, the, the simple math is it's about as effective as paying 10, 10 CPM on, on say ads or whatever, but.
[00:17:28] It can happen rather quickly. So you engage with an influence, an influencer, and they're excited to talk about, uh, your product. Then, you know, they'll talk about what their fans and you keep sending them stuff or keep giving new news. Hey, we just got into whole foods. We just got into target or whatever.
[00:17:44] They're excited to talk about that. It gives them content to talk about with their fans. And then that's just all kind of free impressions that you're getting on top of the initial gifting that you did. The affiliate side. It's just, you know, you work that into your cost model [00:18:00] and you say, Hey, how much could I afford to give them?
[00:18:03] So as I worked through my P and L, you know, the, the percentage ranges anywhere from five or 10 percent on the low end to the 20 or 30%. So if you really are trying to get a lot of engagement, a lot of people talking about it, you'll do it on the higher end. And if you can afford that from a P and L perspective, then, you know, you do that, you know, all day long, just because, you know, you're going to, it works in your P and L and you can get people to talk about it, then it'll pay back, you know, rather quickly.
[00:18:31] So it can be instantaneous, you know, just as quickly as they get, get the product, they get excited about it and it can be kind of longterm as you give them. New ideas to talk about and, and fresh content ideas for them because they're looking for things to put out there that their fans, you know, want to hear about as well.
[00:18:47] So I think it's a really fast ROI type of a tactic, which is, you know, you don't see that very often in marketing. So it's one of the first tactics I would recommend, especially for affiliate pay per performance, you know, [00:19:00] you're only paying if you get a sale, which is, you know, it's, it's great to see.
[00:19:04] Djenaba: That's a very good tip. Thank you. Is there any other tips that you would have around influencer marketing that you'd like to share with the audience?
[00:19:10] Mike: Yeah, sure. So as we get into, you know, we've talked about knowing a brand. Then we've talked about building that community. All right. Now that you've got this community of influencers, all right, well, now what are we going to do with them?
[00:19:22] So a couple of tips I have here is. How do you manage them? You've got say 10 or a hundred influencers like, all right, do you have a spreadsheet or emailing them? You know, that's probably not the most efficient use of time. So the handful of tools that you can use to manage and communicate with the influencers, the easiest one, and most people will probably have access to Shopify collabs.
[00:19:43] So everyone has a Shopify store, you know, they have access to Shopify collabs and can kind of keep track of them within there. So it's. Super easy and super cheap. It's, it's right there already, you know, kind of one step up. If you want to be able to reach out to the [00:20:00] influencers kind of within the app or provide them with missions or things to do, you might need another tool on top of that, something like a social snowball.
[00:20:09] So that basically allows you to give the influencers missions. So a mission is basically a little campaign that they'll, uh, you'll run to support a specific initiative. So. You have a new product in market. You want them to talk about, Hey, you have distribution in a new retailer that you want to get the word out, or you're promoting black Friday or cyber Monday, you know, you say, Hey, we're going to do something about this, then you get everyone excited about it.
[00:20:34] And they go off and do it. And it's a great way to kind of really have everyone talking about the same thing that you want them to talk about. So you have 10 influencers, they each have 10, 000 fans. And they're all talking about this new flavor. You just launched. It's the greatest thing in the world.
[00:20:49] They love it. It was a hundred thousand people that could potentially hear about it. So again, leveraging this community for reach a hundred thousand people, not very likely to [00:21:00] start a brand. We'll have that, you know, their own following that big. So that's important to know. And then what exactly. Are they going to post about, so, you know, you're getting them to post, but what is it really they're doing?
[00:21:13] They're basically creating content, videos, you know, testimonials, basically all the stuff that you would want to say about your brand, but someone is saying it on your behalf. So how they found it, why they bought it, what it does for them, how it tastes, how it works, how it performs all the stuff that you would put into an ad is basically being created by someone else.
[00:21:34] And they're posting it to their fans. And you can also post that on your own social channel. So it's user generated content. It basically, it's not scripted. It's just a fan talking about your product and you just put that out there. And it's so much more believable hearing it from someone else than hearing it from the brand.
[00:21:53] So, you know, the user generated content you get from the influencers is just, it's, it's gold, especially if you're [00:22:00] doing those missions where you kind of give them. You know, Hey, talk about this, this new product, or, Hey, we're now in distribution at Sprouts. Talk about that. Like you have them all talking about it on your behalf and it's wonderful.
[00:22:12] And then the last piece of advice I would give really is it's a lot of work to find, manage, provide missions and products to, uh, influencers. So it's a lot to manage by yourself. So if you're like overwhelmed and you're like, Hey, I don't want to manage all these platforms, super people, there are agencies out there that do this.
[00:22:33] And one that I've used to tremendous success is called Clutch Affiliate founded by Kim Biddle and Lisa Kimball. And they're amazing to work with. They work with all sorts of like early stage emerging companies and brands. And they, they're super flexible. They will definitely take care of you. Any question on influencers, affiliates, they're the ones to go to.
[00:22:53] So Clutch Affiliate, definitely an agency I would look at to kind of help you get started, you know, even if it's just like, Hey, if you want to get set [00:23:00] up on a platform, we can help you do that. If you want us to. Get you started and then you take it. That's fine. Or they'll take it all the way. They'll it's white gloves.
[00:23:08] You don't even have to think about it. It's all done for you. They'll do it all. So highly recommend clutch affiliate. Wow.
[00:23:14] Djenaba: So that just made me think about just a clutch creative or any, any other agency that you might work with. I'm wondering like, what do you, what did they give or what do you give to them to give to the, the influencer?
[00:23:24] So obviously they're going to have to taste the product, but there's got to be some kind of talking points or something like that they're given. Yeah.
[00:23:31] Mike: Yeah, there's like a brand guideline. It's like, uh, you know, all the stuff we talked about, but knowing your brand, you know, you know, what is your purpose?
[00:23:38] You're positioning. What problem are you solving? Who are you talking to? Or who's this problem solving that all is included in it. And then how do you talk about the brand? Is it kind of happy and a fun or is it more serious and more kind of like. You know, technical and maybe it's more data and jargon.
[00:23:55] So lots of different ways you could talk about a brand. So all those guidelines are set out [00:24:00] in advance. So the influencer, when they say, yes, I'm interested, they'll get a copy of that and they'll get product and then they'll try it and, you know, hopefully they love it, you know, if they're like, ah, I'm not sure I'd really like it.
[00:24:10] Or it's not, not for me. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we, you know, you don't want someone to just doing it for money or doing it for some compensation if they don't love it. So you got to make sure that they're really into it and they love talking about the brand and they love hearing new things about it. So, um, you know, they'll get that upfront brand guideline, they'll get product.
[00:24:29] And hopefully. Those two things together, they'll really start to see the vision and the, you know, really how big the brand can be. And they just wanna be a part of it. So it's kind of where the magic happens. Like, they get so excited about that. They're, oh my God, I love it. I can't wait. Tell me more. You know, I, I really wanna get this in front of my fans and my followers and, you know, that's, that's what you wanna see from an influencer.
[00:24:51] Djenaba: So let's switch gears here. So you are also an entrepreneur and so, and you've been doing this for a little while, wondering like, what do you do to take [00:25:00] care of yourself?
[00:25:02] Mike: Yeah, I belong to a gym, a local gym, and my wife and I try to go to classes together whenever possible. We also have three kids that we're trying to get the soccer practice and type on and stuff, but whenever possible take classes together.
[00:25:15] So a couple of classes we take are body combat. It's kind of like a. Punching, kickboxing, jumping, all set to like amazing fast paced music. And it's just like super fun to love doing that. Another one is, uh, it's called body pump. It's kind of more like lifting weights and stuff like that. So, you know, I just try to get to the gym like two or three times a week.
[00:25:35] It's just kind of like, you know, I forget all about the stresses of the world. Great music playing, you know, so a nice little community within those classes get to do with my wife when possible. So it's just a. Great way to, I wouldn't say relax because you're, you're jumping and kicking burning like a, you know, 800 calories, but it does, you know, afterwards you have like almost that runner's high afterwards and it just kind of like, you know, the world is, is, is okay again.
[00:25:59] [00:26:00] So, uh, that's what I try to do. A couple, couple of classes each week of kind of high intensity, fun. Classes with my wife.
[00:26:07] Djenaba: I always love those classes because there's like that hour or whatever during the day where you're like, you don't, or you're not thinking about that thing that's on your desk or at your computer that you have to get to.
[00:26:17] Like, you've got to focus. Cause I'm going to throw a ball at your face, but you're looking at really heavy weights. You got it. Absolutely. Yeah, that's true.
[00:26:24] Mike: Yeah, it is. It does
[00:26:25] Djenaba: just
[00:26:25] Mike: melt away when you're in that class. You kind of set your Apple watch. You set the, you know, I'm doing a workout now. And then for the next hour, it's like.
[00:26:34] You know, everything else just melts away. It's, it's, it's a nice little, uh, break from, from real life.
[00:26:44] Djenaba: At Hudson kitchen, we have what we call the money belt. We ring when someone is celebrating some things that could be anything personal professionals would love to hear what you're celebrating.
[00:26:53] Mike: I am celebrating basically the start of the holiday season. I love the holidays. It's like, [00:27:00] you know, There may be additional stresses and when it comes to like having to find gifts for family and it's more entertaining, something like that, but it just, it's just such an amazing time.
[00:27:09] You can spend with friends and family and kids, and they're just like all wrapped up in it. You're listening to holiday music, you're going to parties, you're just like. Just a much more relaxed vibe around the holidays. And I'm just so looking forward to that. Just spending time with family, uh, spending time with friends, just celebrating, you know, the end of 2024, the year hopes for 2025 being a better year.
[00:27:33] And it's just, it's just such a fun vibe. And I can't wait to get my Christmas tree and get it decorated and, you know, listening to Christmas carols in the car with the kids. And just so looking forward to it. So I can't wait to celebrate the holidays.
[00:27:45] Djenaba: I love that. Cause it's also the time when everybody kind of slows down, like collectively, like no matter what you celebrate, like, you know, it's like that time.
[00:27:53] So that's really good.
[00:27:55] Mike: Yeah, exactly. It's, uh, a bit colder than the summer also when the things tend to [00:28:00] slow down, but it's, it's just, there is a good time to get cozy and, and to kind of, you know, just kind of huddle up and not snuggle family and, uh, yeah, it is a nice slower time of year. So looking forward to some time off and some quality family time.
[00:28:15] Djenaba: Good. Well, Mike, thank you so much for being here. Please let everyone know where they can find out about you and Next Level CMI.
[00:28:21] Mike: Sure. So Mike Curry, uh, find me on LinkedIn. It's probably the easiest way to kind of reach out to me. I do have a, you know, the next level CMO. com. You can reach out to me, fill out the contact form on there.
[00:28:33] I'll be happy to get back to you. A couple of other plugs here. I'm also part of a couple of CBG accelerators, SKU, which is based in Austin and then beyond SKU based in New York. So if anyone's interested in learning about those programs, you know, you get surrounded by mentors and, you know, you go through.
[00:28:48] Uh, 12 weeks of intense programs to scale your business and love to kind of help people figure out if those programs are right for you. So happy to talk about that as well. Uh, but yeah, LinkedIn [00:29:00] or on my website, the next level CMO. com.
[00:29:03] Djenaba: Awesome. Thank you so much.
[00:29:04] Mike: All right. Thank you so much. Another take care.
[00:29:08] Djenaba: The food means business podcast was produced by. By Hudson kitchen. It is recorded at the studio at Kearney point and mixed and edited by wild home podcasting. Our theme song is by Damian DeSandis and I'm your host Djenaba Johnson-Jones, follow Hudson kitchen on Instagram at the Hudson kitchen, and to get food business bites right in your inbox, sign up for our newsletter at the Hudson kitchen.
[00:29:29] com forward slash newsletter, listen, follow, and leave a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts until next time.