In this episode of the Amber Energy Podcast, we sit down with Mark Sandeno, CEO of Experiences and founder of Helpful Human, to discuss the power of experiential retail and how businesses can leverage community-building to create lasting memories for their customers. Mark shares insights into the experience economy, the importance of hosting unique events in retail spaces, and how to cultivate brand loyalty through meaningful interactions. Tune in to learn how you can transform your business by focusing on customer experiences and community engagement.

🎙️ Episode Highlights:

• The concept of the experience economy and its impact on retail.
• How businesses can create memorable experiences for their customers.
• The role of community-building in fostering brand loyalty.
• Practical tips for hosting successful events in retail spaces.
• Mark’s entrepreneurial journey and the lessons he’s learned along the way.

📢 Topics Discussed:

1. The importance of creating community-centered experiences in retail.
2. Strategies for implementing experiential marketing.
3. How to leverage customer interactions to build brand loyalty.
4. The challenges and rewards of running a customer-focused business.
5. Mark’s advice for retailers looking to innovate and stand out in the market.

🔗 Connect with Mark Sandeno:

• Experiences Website
• Linked In
• Facebook
• Instagram

About Our Guest:

Mark is the CEO of the Experiences app, a seamless solution for integrating bookable retail experiences into Shopify stores. Based in Seattle, Washington, he leads the app’s development and growth, focusing on enhancing user experiences. Under his leadership, the app allows retailers to upsell customers with bookable experiences that drive brand loyalty and increase customer lifetime value.

🔔 Subscribe to Amber Energy Podcast for more insights on entrepreneurship, business growth, and marketing.

#AmberEnergyPodcast #ExperienceEconomy #RetailMarketing #MarkSandeno #CustomerExperience #CommunityBuilding #BusinessGrowth #Entrepreneurship #ExperientialMarketing #BrandLoyalty #SmallBusiness #Innovation #CustomerEngagement

       

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Transcript

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:16:00

Hello. Welcome to that episode of Amber Energy, the podcast. Today we have guest Mark STANDEN now with experience as he’s the CEO. Mark, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and how we know each other?

00:00:16:01 – 00:00:41:08

Well, let’s start with how we know each other. You and I have been doing business things together for a number of years, going way back into, well, the arts at some point when I was running a consultancy consulting agency called Helpful Human, which I still do, I still have that. But now my primary focus is, as you mentioned, being the CEO of SAS START up called Experiences.

00:00:41:09 – 00:01:08:07

And what can I tell you about myself? I’m a Northwest native. I’ve lived various places around the world. I have three teenage boys. I’m enjoying the mild yet sunny summer we’re having here in the Northwest with intermittent bursts of rain. And just generally I like striving and trying and failing my way to success. But yeah, I mean, anything else you want to know, just ask.

00:01:08:08 – 00:01:29:10

I can hear you. Yeah. See, we are. We met because we’re both in the greater Seattle area. We both worked on a project together, I must say, like 20, 19, 20 together on a website redesign and relaunch Shopify experience four Or do is there a name we like to see the FSA Vision Tech Yeah, that’s the same vision.

00:01:29:10 – 00:01:48:09

Tech. They’re an awesome, awesome client of ours and it was a fun project and they were a great client to work with. So that was how we kicked off our experience together. And we’re both in the greater like, I don’t know where you live, I think I live in Everett. I was living in Marysville at the time and yeah, I miss, I miss Pacific Northwest.

00:01:48:12 – 00:02:12:15

I was just there yesterday and in fact over the weekend I was in Stephen’s path shooting an arch, an archery and archery tournament at Stephens past called the Northwest Mountain Challenge. And it definitely made me miss the mountains and the woods of Washington State. Is that something you do, Archery, I mean, or was it just something you picked up at the last minute and thought, how hard could it be?

00:02:13:00 – 00:02:33:04

No, it’s funny. Let’s see here. How do I get my husband won against archery, like maybe six, seven years ago, Maybe eight? I don’t know. It’s been a moment. He wanted to do that because he couldn’t shoot rifle season anymore for hunting. And so he started. He’s like, Well, how cool would it be to do archery during the rut in September?

00:02:33:05 – 00:03:07:05

And so he started picking the bow. He’s like, Oh, let’s do this thing’s been called Northwest Mountain Challenge. It’s going to archery, disc, golf in the mountains. So you take the chairlift up and then you have these three D phone targets all over Steven’s path, and it’s disc golf in the mountains with your bows and arrows. And it’s like each each course has like 20 holes or something like that, and you’re shooting at these foam targets that could be like, yes, an elk or a moose, but also could be Sasquatch or a rattlesnake or rather a like a funny animals, a crocodile.

00:03:07:05 – 00:03:30:08

We shot at last this last weekend that we shot at. We shot a lot of funny things anyways, but you do it for accuracy and then you have to, like, figure out how far away these targets are in, like the rock boulder fields, or they’re between trees or they’re like a hard shot and they’re up and they’re down and you’re trying to like, do a thing and you’re keeping score if that’s what you’re doing for the tournament.

00:03:30:09 – 00:03:53:09

Yeah, I guess that’s better than going up and shooting at disc golfers. I mean, a little less exciting but less murderous as well. Well, you’re up there with the mountain bikers and all the hikers, but this is a really good time. They have that that particular outfit now has about three different mountains students past Mt. Hood, now Hoodoo and Tamarack.

00:03:53:10 – 00:04:13:01

So it’s called the Triple Crown. If you win all three mountains, that whole shebang, it’s a lot of fun. So we’ve been doing that since like 2018 and since then, his his dad and his sister and his cousin have got them to it. And then the first year, maybe the second year that we went to this northwest mountain town, they would have like an auction and da da da da.

00:04:13:02 – 00:04:31:00

I think we entered in like $20 at this auction. I want a bow. So I was like, Well, I guess I have to get started now. Getting a bow. I want a bow. And so I wasn’t going to do it. And I was like, Oh, it’s your thing, honey. That’s cool. And so when you when you win a bow, though, you’re like, Well, I guess I should do this.

00:04:31:03 – 00:04:54:11

So anyway, now I’ve been shooting for I don’t know, five or six years and that’s fun. I like doing it recreationally. I don’t feel like I want to do it to harvest an animal with it, but I could very proficient just I do rifle season with my dad. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you were very outdoorsy and and you were rising to the Northwest challenge as they have named this.

00:04:54:11 – 00:05:15:14

So that’s cool. Yeah, I love it. It was fun. So it’s a fun weekend to be in Washington. And last night we drove, got home around midnight. So that’s always a good time. Yeah, that’s. Yeah, that’s a late day. Yeah, so we are. It’s all good. So Pacific Northwest. Well, tell us a little bit more about this experience project.

00:05:15:14 – 00:05:37:01

It’s a pretty cool thing because you’re urban. You’ve been kind of in on this track ever since I met you, you know? Oh, yeah, I do. This thing helpful human and Shopify experiences and Shopify development, the helping of websites. But the thing experiences, retail experiences has been your a real passion and something you’ve kind of brought up throughout the time.

00:05:37:01 – 00:05:54:08

Even when we were working with that client, you’re like, Oh, but these experiences, it is, you know, you can have stuff at your retailers retail experiences. So it’s a very cool thing. And we tell the audience a little bit more about what that means and maybe some of the clientele or types of experience that we’re having or what type of type of experiences you’re helping people have.

00:05:54:08 – 00:06:20:12

Yeah, but we start to absolutely be happy to. So we as a company build software to yes, we do stuff over Shopify and some more of what you would call agency works over the years. But the way we really made money was building custom software for businesses, and we would do that with other engineering firms, bigger agencies or directly with big brands.

00:06:20:13 – 00:06:53:02

And some of these projects were pretty big. And in the process of building a team that could do that kind of stuff, you know, like real nuts and bolts making of stuff, I started to look around and I thought, where could we make something that we could sell directly to those consumers? And one thing I wanted, because this isn’t my first rodeo as a subscription software business, I wanted something that didn’t require a big consultative sale upfront, like where you have to have multiple mediums and you got to win them in Dinham because it’s so expensive right there.

00:06:53:04 – 00:07:22:09

That is a strategy. When you’re launching software, it’s actually probably a smarter strategy to charge enough on a yearly subscription that you don’t need 1000 customers to really make a go of it. But I wanted something that customers could sell on board that was in a big marketplace. And so then I remember I was sitting with one of my employees, a guy named Pete Albertson, and we were just wondering what like, what are we really into?

00:07:22:09 – 00:07:41:10

What do we really love? What is like the best part of life? If we could do anything we wanted for the rest of our lives, what we would what would we do? And I don’t remember who was Pete or me who said it first, or we arrived at the same time to this conclusion. But it was we would just go have experiences, we would go create memories with the people we love.

00:07:41:11 – 00:08:07:14

You know, it would be all manner of, you know, travel. We would dine, we would create. And so we looked around and we thought, okay, who is doing that? Who is facilitating that? And we discovered this concept called the experience economy, which these authors, Joseph Pines and another guy named Gilmore, wrote this book called The Experience Economy about 20 plus years ago.

00:08:07:15 – 00:08:35:10

And they talk about sports, entertainment, travel and dining. And so we looked around and thought, who is facilitating that? And it’s with small businesses. And we thought, how can we empower small businesses in an in an era where you don’t have to leave your home to buy anything? So small retailers or retailers are getting their milkshake drunk by really good deal to see pure, purely DTC retailers.

00:08:35:11 – 00:08:59:00

What can they do? And what we saw they were doing intuitively as they were hosting experiences, they were creating community in their retail spaces, but they were having to use tools like Eventbrite or Evolve or myriad others where their brand was not front and center. So we thought, Hey, what would happen if we and of course that was clunky, clunky experience, right?

00:08:59:00 – 00:09:18:08

Like you had to like it was very clunky experience to get a customer to go through a thing. Yeah. Yeah. You’re so I’m, I’m, I’m in love with you as a brand and I click on oh, I want to do this and I say I want to go to their right and you click on it and then a whole other page pops up was like, Wait a second, am I in the right place?

00:09:18:09 – 00:09:43:13

And then the retailer, it’s like a black box. They don’t know what’s going on there. They can’t track it. They the data is no longer theirs and if they’re using something like an experience aggregator, like Airbnb experiences, those are now Airbnb’s customers and they will they will take you downtown and put the smack down If you try to get to their customers when their customer show up.

00:09:43:13 – 00:10:06:06

Yeah, host them, but don’t ever go directly to them. You’re always going to pay that 30% or whatever it is commission. So anyways, what we created at that point was a tool that in five clicks you are set up to offer experiences on brand, on your Shopify website, at your domain. It goes through all, it goes through the payment processing.

00:10:06:06 – 00:10:31:13

You have set up there and you can communicate and talk to your customer the way you want to. And we kind of sit in the background and we facilitate all that time based booking, all the reminders and all that kind of stuff. So on one hand it’s just a simple little utility. But really what we’re doing is we’re partnering with these retailers to help them host people, which is the coolest thing to create those memories that we’re all looking for.

00:10:31:14 – 00:10:50:11

Precisely. I mean, like as you and I were talking, like at the end of the day, it’s all about experiences with the people you love. And I think everybody’s dream, of course, is to travel and do this, go to the lake, have fun times, and a lot of people wait till retirement. You know, obviously, I hope that you can do a lot of those things before you get there.

00:10:50:12 – 00:11:21:04

But yeah, it’s about experiences and making memories and I think that ties back into having a good brand. What do you think about when you think about a company? What do you think about when you think about a brand, a product, a service, or whatever that is? It’s throughout the experience, the feeling that you have when you think about the company, that community that they’re building, you know, I could think all the way back to my time when I was living in Fremont and this this place had like trivia night, right?

00:11:21:04 – 00:11:36:10

And I was, you know, 20 years ago. But that was kind of a you know, they’d have trivia night and yeah, it was about share the beer, keep cool. Yeah, they had beer or whatever on tap. But really it was about creating that experience at a cool place and a cool area with cool people. And yeah, sure, you could win or lose that.

00:11:36:10 – 00:12:01:04

The trivia like who cares about the trivia? But it was just about meeting people and creating community and creating friends in a place that maybe you don’t know much about. And then, yeah, sure, you might drink the beer and you might drink the whatever and but that’s, you know, but when you think about that bar, when you think about that area or that community, that place, you’re like, Oh, it’s the stout, like this awesome feeling about that company, about that brand, because they hosted a cool thing.

00:12:01:06 – 00:12:21:10

Yeah, totally. Yeah. And the what is so what is happening? So you have the you have the utility of people going somewhere and they say, Well, I want to do this candle making workshop or I want to do distillery tours or I want to blend some wine or I want to go to this farm experience or I want to make a candle.

00:12:21:10 – 00:12:44:11

These are all the kind of customers we have. But. Right, totally. But like the candle, I think the candle making thing is, is peak experience economy because candles are commodities, right? And we know we have, you know, $200 candles and we have essentially free candles. You can get candles at the dollar store and they’re low tech. They’re easy to produce.

00:12:44:11 – 00:13:07:12

And so a lot of people, you know, say, hey, have a candle shop or I’m going to make these satchels or whatever people we have customers, we have lots of candle making workshops. We some of them do over $1,000,000 a year in revenue, 50 bucks per booking. Why is that happening? What is happening there? Is it that people are just like, Oh my gosh, thank God you’re here?

00:13:07:12 – 00:13:45:11

There was such a there was such a lack of supply of candles in the world. I’m willing to come and make my own. I just can’t find candles anywhere. No, what’s happening is, is people getting together with their besties or their spouses or their kids to do. And Yes, and it’s something fun to do, But there’s a deeper narrative that’s the same for all experiences, which is I want to create a positive memory with people instead of sitting at home or getting lit in a bar or an and maybe a multi-thousand vacation isn’t accessible.

00:13:45:11 – 00:14:06:04

So what I’m looking to do is I’m something to do to create a memory. And the thing cool thing about like a candle, for instance, is the candle itself. Yes, they’ll maybe it smells good when they light and everything, but it’s really a totem or a memory of the memory they created with people. And this is what humans want more than anything else.

00:14:06:04 – 00:14:26:09

They want durable positive memories. And it’s interesting to watch all these retailers do this cool thing. Super cool. I mean, I’m a mom of two sons as well. And like, I don’t want any more toys for the kids. I want a grandparent or people. I’d rather you buy them like tickets to the zoo or let’s go do something together.

00:14:26:09 – 00:14:44:05

Like let’s go build a memory. Let’s go to one Christmas. Let’s go to I know some kind of play or some kind of, you know, some kind of something. I don’t care what it is. Nativity scene. I don’t care what it is. Let’s go do something. Gather around. Around the hall harvest time. I want to go to, like, a pumpkin patch.

00:14:44:05 – 00:15:08:10

And then that’s what? Do something together. Don’t buy them another toy. Let’s go do something silly with my girlfriends. Let’s not go off for another silly milk meal. Let’s go out like my, my, my, my friend Rachel, she got us a cooking class at gosh, was like, Really? Oh, my goodness. His name is escaping me. But anyway, got cooking class in Seattle, A really famous, well-known chef, Tom Douglas.

00:15:08:11 – 00:15:31:04

Tom Long was. Thank you so much. My my words were escaped me and so anyhow like that but that experience, that was a long time ago, maybe seven years ago. And I still enjoy the memory that I made with my best friend, right? Yeah. That’s really cool. Yeah. And that’s what it’s all about. Yeah. Or a random yoga experience at the Seattle Glass Glass Museum there.

00:15:31:04 – 00:15:52:09

Look at the space. You know, they have yoga experiences in that huge greenhouse menagerie glass house with, like, the beautiful glass work everywhere around you, which you fully and yeah, it’s like a great experience and you know all you have you invite your friends and you have a wonderful time and you go to the coffee shop afterwards, but you have an experience.

00:15:52:09 – 00:16:19:05

I think those are the things that you, as you said earlier, humans value the most. And yeah, sure, we like the yoga instructor, but it’s and yes sir, that a certain yoga studio put it on. But it was really about that experience and the the other thing like the products or things that they’re hosting, let’s just say you’re now, you’re having, you’re going on a hike and yeah, it’s a hike brand or a retailer you is about the experience.

00:16:19:07 – 00:16:42:14

The products and services to me are sort of the gimme like they’re like the secondary, like the experience itself, the community that is the primary and like, yeah, if you like these products and services, hopefully you buy them, buy them from us and you remember us when you next time need a thing. But it’s really about hosting that positive memory, which I think is really cool.

00:16:42:15 – 00:17:12:10

Oh, it is fun. Yeah, it’s kind of one thing I’m trying to create with my hopeful nonprofit is what I’m trying to create with that, right? Yeah. Yeah. The tattoos and the present. Yeah, it’s okay to do that. But to them tequila, yeah, it’s sort of hopefully have be bridging that gap of like creating community and that social fabric that I think is a little know missing and lacking these days that we kind of need to have more of in our life.

00:17:12:10 – 00:17:42:13

So hopefully creating a, a positive crafting memory that then is useful and fun for other events perhaps, or ideas. So hopefully that’s kind of that’ll be my next something. Maybe I’ll have to work with you on that idea, but I have to. But kind of idea like creating, creating memories, crafting. I like that a lot. Well, let’s go back to we were talking, I think in our discovery about innovation creates opportunity.

00:17:42:14 – 00:18:20:14

Where do you see your app creating that opportunity? Well, so there’s opportunity for people who are just starting or haven’t started yet. One thing that you’ll often hear me talking about is so you have your technology, but then you have your mindset. So there’s innovation and technology and innovation and mindset. I believe that you can put together almost any type of experience and invite people into it and if you tell that story well or you tell, or if you really just share, hey, here’s what we’re doing.

00:18:20:15 – 00:18:49:02

You’re going to get people who are going to say thank you very much and they’re going to pay you handsomely to do this thing that they really want to consume, which is they want to create. They the experience itself creates what they really want, which is the positive memory and the durable, tangible thing. Right. So I was telling someone just the other night who was asking me the same question, it’s like, okay, so tell me about the technology or what’s it for?

00:18:49:02 – 00:19:18:04

And I say, Listen, one thing I’ve seen across the board is these entrepreneurs experience entrepreneurs or just brands who are saying, We want to innovate, we want to grow, we want to matter. And it’ll be a hobby farm doing goat snuggles, for instance, which is a category. You would you it’s it’s it’s really amazing how many of these long tail no pun intended categories are of of the things you would do you could never imagine.

00:19:18:07 – 00:19:43:13

But I was telling someone else like for instance in the northwest here we have Snohomish County, right? So it’s north of King County and we have the Cascade Mountains and we have Highway two that goes up to Stevens Pass, which kind of becomes King County at one point. But someone could create Snohomish County Adventures dot com and they could work with different vendors.

00:19:43:13 – 00:20:10:06

Are people already doing like everything from hiking to biking to kayaking to finishing, you name? And they could create a very thematic thing they could find in brand merch. They could create merch or find merch and they could brand merch and they could combine this offering of well branded merch with highly curated experiences, and they wouldn’t even have to do it all.

00:20:10:06 – 00:20:36:14

They could just negotiate with other vendors and they could have a multimillion dollar business. Oh yeah, you’re right, no doubt. And no one’s really doing that kind of stuff. People, people or people want that so stinkin bad. And I think some places like it, right? Like you said earlier, these third party things are trying to do that. You know, they give you sort of events in your area, but you’re not doing it very well.

00:20:36:14 – 00:21:00:09

Not that they’re not doing it as well as they could. And the mess may be on them. But people really want to feel connected probably now more than ever, post-COVID, that social fabric was really kind of torn during those COVID years. And I think it’s going to take quite a bit to get back to that. You know, building community and connection.

00:21:00:11 – 00:21:15:15

Tell me a little bit more about how you think we might be able to get back to that social fabric, that community that I think we’re all missing. What are some of those things that you think would be good to help us all? I mean, people go to it like flies to light, to be honest, or a moth to light.

00:21:16:03 – 00:21:36:07

I don’t know. Flies go to light, but moths, I mean, moths, I think maybe moths. Do you know? Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s maybe, you know, does. I mean, I love a good mosquito zap, but I think it’s. I think it’s flies to something else and moth to light. We won’t, we won’t mention what flies go towards, but people actually want to do it.

00:21:36:08 – 00:21:57:01

I think really what it is, is, is entrepreneurs and retailers have to create the path of least resistance. And where they provide resistance to people and friction is where they do not think of the experiential as the primary offering. Listen, if I’m going to buy a pair of shoes, I can buy a pair of shoes almost anywhere. Right?

00:21:57:01 – 00:22:25:02

Infinite places. But what I cannot do is have a highly curated running store fitting, plus running a club kind of thing and community at some small running retailer. And the reason I believe the reason they don’t do that is they see, okay, go ahead. I think some people are doing that, just not maybe doing it as well as they how smoothly they could be doing it.

00:22:25:02 – 00:22:45:10

So I know, for example, there’s places in green like area that are doing that rather well. Right. But it’s a small community. They don’t have the words. Words doesn’t get out very fast. It’s really just stuck to that, that small community and mostly through word of mouth, people know to go to a certain place, to go have a shoe trying, foot wearing experience and then go for a jog around Green Lake.

00:22:45:12 – 00:23:14:11

Yeah, totally. You got it. You nailed it. Yeah. But you wouldn’t know about a thing unless you were, like, in the community, you know, like, word of mouth, because it’s hard to get that word out if it’s not just a street sandwich board or whatever, because their options are not great right now to get the word out. And I think perhaps what you’re trying to say is that experiences your company could help definitely facilitate such a wonderful event and a more smooth experience for the consumer and for them.

00:23:14:12 – 00:23:42:02

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I would say yes. And the reality is that the technology is not special. What is special is when retailers have the right mindset about giving the customer what they actually want and need. Even if the customer doesn’t come in and say, Hey, I’m looking for experiences, unless you have something that no one else has, you know, you can only get it by going to this one place.

00:23:42:04 – 00:24:19:08

They’re they’re going to look for the greatest value they can consume. They’re going to price shop, they’re going to do all that stuff. But if there’s a if if your primary offering is the experience, they will prefer you for the consumption of the thing you’re signed, whether it’s running shoes, cupcakes, candles or whatever. I think a really interesting example is like a kitchen or a housewares store that does that does they have a small kitchen, a commercial kitchen, and they do a cooking classes, right?

00:24:19:09 – 00:24:46:00

Are they just passionate about teaching people how to poach a salmon? Like is that their mission? Well, probably, maybe. But while they even probably charge for those cooking classes and they it probably is a profit center or at least a revenue generator, their goal is really to holistically succeed selling all-clad and wood stove knives. And it’s called a loss leader.

00:24:46:04 – 00:25:08:06

I mean, a loss leader in the retail space like in grocery stores. It’s called a loss leader. They’ll purposely put like a turkey on like super low price per pound because they know that that’s going to a loss leader. But they really what they want you for, they want you for the pumpkin and the nurse and the diet and all the things that you need for your Thanksgiving meal that they’re charging, you know, maybe a I don’t know, upwards of 40% margin for those other goods.

00:25:08:08 – 00:25:28:10

So they’re going to purposely put on add the loss leader to get you in for everything else, because that’s what they really want to think. It’s a miss. I personally think it’s a mistake for retailers and I’ve had this conversation numerous times for them to position their experiences as just a marketing tool or a loss leader because people actually they come to find.

00:25:28:10 – 00:25:51:11

It’s like, actually this is what people are willing to pay the premium for because everything else is just consumptive. And so I have no problem paying a premium for really expensive terrarium like we do the plants in the glass. Like I had no problem paying a nice premium to have like a terrarium, this beautiful glass terrarium with these really cool plants in this whole the rocks and the plants and the massive thing.

00:25:51:11 – 00:26:07:12

Like nothing was not cheap, but the experience I have my best friend Karen was way more worth it. Like we had to be able to hold the all of it. We want to coffee we want made of Treasury. And that took a few hours and I didn’t mind paying a premium that day for that birthday or reconnection experience.

00:26:08:00 – 00:26:31:04

But so I think you’re right for sure. Like there is definitely a market for that. And I think I would rather have an experience than another silly little gift that I’m like, Thanks. It was good gift. Yeah. And here’s a question for you. So imagine a scenario where there’s a professionally made terrarium that is, by all accounts, very a very nice terrarium.

00:26:31:04 – 00:26:52:12

But you picked it up at terrariums r us and you really had nothing to do with the creation of it just looks good versus the terrarium you made with your bestie that you probably even paid a premium for that is maybe slightly janky in comparison to the professionally created terrarium. Which one would you rather own? All right, let me look.

00:26:52:12 – 00:27:16:06

Karen. Yeah, I love this. Even though it is quirky or whatever, I might not match my exact motif in my house. Right. Or whatever it is, but I like it more because it’s quirky and funny and lovely and I love it. Yeah. And I think that’s the magic of humans, really. That’s. It’s not your head around thinking I want a substandard thing.

00:27:16:10 – 00:27:38:10

I’m what I think is I want a heightened experience. Mm hmm. Like, I, for example, you got kids. I got kids. Like, I got over here on my little picture frame area, you know, little things that they’ve made. And I love them because they’re not perfect, right? I love them because they’re or I did this thing with my friend Heather, and it’s whatever.

00:27:38:10 – 00:27:59:00

And it’s a lot of it’s not perfect. I love it because it’s not it’s it is quirky and it’s got splotches or it’s not quite right or what. I love it because it’s not perfect. It’s imperfect and I love it even more. Right. Than than the perfect thing. Yeah. And if you think about, like, why do we buy anything, right?

00:27:59:01 – 00:28:29:01

So, well, we buy things because, like, hey, listen, I got to pay for my power. I need water and I need a gallon grocery bags. Right? Or a gallon freezer bag. I just bought some yesterday, so that’s why that comes to mind. But most other categories of consumption can be wrapped in the experiential. And quite frankly, there’s probably someone who could figure out how to take something like gallon freezer bags and turn it into an experience.

00:28:29:03 – 00:28:58:12

We’ve done it with almost everything else. So like tapping into the reason we leave our homes, right? You don’t have to leave your home to buy anything. Mom or dad, fix that for us. Well, yeah. And you know, Bezos and Cove it, right? You know, it’s kind of like, Hey, thanks, Jeff. You really popped the top and and got us to a place where we are totally comfortable buying anything online.

00:28:58:12 – 00:29:23:04

And then, you know, you have platforms like Shopify that make it really, really easy and others like Shopify to allow this small entrepreneur this to or the big entrepreneur to to sell directly to consumers. But the the question I find interesting is why am I willing to leave my home? Because I know I’m not willing to never leave my home, but why do I leave my home?

00:29:23:05 – 00:29:44:00

And retailers can take a significant percentage in revenue out of the reason you leave your home. Because I don’t always just go stand in a park or go on a hike. I’m meeting people. Doing things. Yeah, Doing things. Yeah, that’s exactly it. Like, if I didn’t, if I. If I didn’t need to. I mean, I don’t really need to.

00:29:44:00 – 00:30:00:04

I work live at home. You know, the reason why I leave my house right now is because my two sons are starting school or daycare or preschool or whatever. You know, I’m a fast paced mom. I own a business and I got things going on. I order my groceries, I go pick them up and my route to and from daycare.

00:30:00:04 – 00:30:15:01

Like, I don’t really need to do a lot unless I go seek it out. Like I won’t get Nervous Mountain Challenge. I go to birthday parties, I go, you know, I go shopping. I have to go do a thing that maybe I want to try something on in person or experience in person, but I don’t have to do that.

00:30:15:04 – 00:30:42:02

You know, I’ll take my kids to the lake. I’ll take my kids to go do things to create those memories and those experiences. But gosh, COVID very much proved that we don’t have to leave the house. Really, we don’t need to. Yeah. Yeah. So which is very unfortunate because I think that obviously caused a lot of other social fabric issues, but I’m praying that will come back to come back to life in years to come for sure.

00:30:42:02 – 00:31:10:12

We had that blend of professional and personal lives that happened and occurred. I call or. Yeah, Oh, that was rough. But here we are. It’s okay. I was thinking about a word. We are talking about the imperfect, imperfect thing. I was looking for the word Can Suki considered here her that with Japanese how they throw a broken bowl, They’ll put it back together with like gold to fuze it back together.

00:31:10:12 – 00:31:28:13

And it’s like, more beautiful than it was before. Your all your broken pieces, all your whatever you got going on. It’s really beautiful analogy for just human life in general. Whatever your path, whatever you got going on, whatever brokenness you come from, it can be put back together with gold lace and it’s even more beautiful than it was before.

00:31:28:13 – 00:31:46:06

And I think that’s one thing, you know, what about you? But as a mom and my husband, I’m like, we do a lot of we fix a lot of broken toys and we do a lot of funny things as parents. And, you know, we love them almost, you know, like maybe my kid breaks something in my bathroom, but I really loved by almost love it even more that my you know, my husband glued it back together.

00:31:46:06 – 00:32:03:10

And I still love and it reminds me of an incident with my kid or something. And it’s like, you know what? It’s okay. It’s just an object. This is a thing. It can get glued back together. It’s okay. And I love it even more. And you love yourself. And you love love life even more because all the brokenness and all the crazy things that happen in life.

00:32:03:11 – 00:32:36:14

Oh, yeah. Those experiences that makes us human. Yeah. And suffering is another way to in the process of being broken and fixed again, suffering is a necessary thing to create amazing humans. And so it’s a it’s a, it’s a beautiful metaphor. The gets huggy, I think, is how you say it and I was just I can’t help but pointing out I think your story is really good but we have customers that do those workshops they they they help people come in and do narrative.

00:32:37:00 – 00:33:03:06

Yeah, there’s a whole narrative behind it, which is, you know, there’s, there’s the Japanese, you know, kind of ethic and culture behind it. But in general, it’s 100% what you’re saying. It’s things are more beautiful having been broken. We really are. That it be an object or a human. You know, a lot of us have you know, whatever happens or we’ll have our own story and brokenness in the past, whether we have personal lives or things in the past, like But it’s just those that’s make us human.

00:33:03:07 – 00:33:29:08

That’s what makes us humanly. And each in our individual, individual ways, life happens, you know? I mean, we all have funny things that happen to us, crazy, funny, and also fun things, experiences, experiences happen. And that’s what makes us also very beautiful. And those tough times are those things, you know, that are going to, you know, they build character, they build, they make you who you are.

00:33:29:09 – 00:34:02:08

Definitely character building and then Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you can’t have happiness without sorrow, you know, you don’t know one without the other and you have to have both in order to appreciate the laughter. Yeah, love it. That’s great. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So that is, that is human experiences. And that’s just one thing. I think that we all crave, because we all know that our time on this earth is not endless or is not infinity.

00:34:02:09 – 00:34:23:08

Yeah, our days are kind of we don’t know if we’ve got two days, two years, two months or 20, 20 years or two decades. You know, we don’t know anything. It’s so crazy. It’s not so something we don’t have control of. That’s right. For some control freak, that’s super chilling. So it’s not up to me. Oh, my goodness.

00:34:23:09 – 00:34:43:03

Anyhow, so I think we’re kind of coming up to the top of the hour. Let’s kind of what’s something that just quickly, do you want to go through? Tell me about like maybe a business failure that you pulled out of or do you want to more promote something about your business or kind of where do you want to go with wrapping up a little bit about yourself before we end this?

00:34:43:07 – 00:35:21:00

Oh, jeez. So, yeah, so do I want to relive my my pain or do want to promote myself? Yeah. No, I, I honestly to, to continue to pull the thread on, on failure. You know, I, I do think the most interesting thing is the striving and, and the, and the transparent honesty about what’s going on. When I listen to podcasts like this, what gets me perked up is the story about the struggle.

00:35:21:01 – 00:36:00:04

Do I think it’s remarkable people success and where they ended up you know rolling around in their filthy lucre or having all the freedom, being able to give away all the money or whatever? Sure. Yeah. I mean, there’s very few of us who want to go there, right? Yeah, but I just for me, the reality is, is that I, I would say to any other entrepreneurs out there who are saying, Oh, I want to do my own thing or I want to do something like this, and they’re going to they’re going to end up working with a person like you to do communication and branding and, and all those things.

00:36:00:04 – 00:36:23:09

And I would just tell everyone that Amber is very excellent at these things. What is what is inevitable If your story is anything like mine is it’s it’s not a oh, I’m going to wake up one day and you’re like, Yeah, and you pulled the trigger and you’re like, Dang, look at me. I just shot through the roof.

00:36:23:10 – 00:36:51:07

Yeah, I mean, we have. We will and I have and you have and everybody has had these, these quick hit wins. But there’s to a degree, if it’s too easy, if there’s not enough resistance, you’re it’s probably not worth pursuing. I think there’s some of these these, these things that I have found to be absolutely true. I will say, oh, shoot, yeah, let’s build this experience, this thing, and then you create it.

00:36:51:07 – 00:37:21:14

You kind of it’s held together with duct tape and baling wire, and you say, let’s put it out there. And you immediately have dozens of customers, not enough to give all your attention to it. But now you’ve got a major problem. You’ve got a piece of software that’s not working particularly well. Like, for example, we thought it would be Betty Jo’s beach shack off an interstate highway, like an like a inner city highway, like, Oh, I’m going to sell some of my I’m going to do some female beat classes because nobody comes in to buy beads anymore.

00:37:22:01 – 00:37:42:05

You know what it was? It was a multimillion dollar candle making operation with seven locations. And they’re like How come this thing doesn’t work very well? It’s like, well, because you’re shoving like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of bookings sort two months. We didn’t plan for this. And they’re like, can you fix it? And it’s it’s just like, oh, that’s so cool.

00:37:42:06 – 00:38:08:08

But even but we’re not charging enough to to rebuild it, you know, because engineers are really expensive. And so just just the the crisis of of you go forward, you fall back, you go forward, you fall back. And in hindsight, obviously, everything is extremely clear. But any time, any time I have tried to do something new, I’ve come to the end of myself.

00:38:08:09 – 00:38:32:10

I’ve come to the end of my resources, and I have wanted at times to die, not just like I have there has been times when I didn’t even want to get out of bed. I was just absolutely depressed. And, you know, I don’t want to make light of of, you know, people going through that. But there’s there’s there are shades of that that empathy.

00:38:32:10 – 00:39:10:03

When I have tried to do anything meaningful, I have to push through that. And I just think it’s such a wonderful thing to be able to strive and fail your way to success. And one thing I’ve also learned that through some circumstances that have happened over the past couple of years is I have disabused myself of certain levels of success and just realized that I can be content to providing a really solid product for people serving their community and I want it to be sustainable.

00:39:10:03 – 00:39:37:06

And that’s good enough. And in that maybe there’ll be tremendous success. But I don’t know that maybe that that monologue is just a bunch of drivel. But I think that’s the most interesting thing about my story. Well, I think so too. I mean, a perseverance and pushing, you know, that grit that when times get tough or things happen that are oppressive variance, like, gosh, when you’re in it, it’s depressing and it sucks and it’s awful, it’s no good.

00:39:37:06 – 00:40:04:10

And it’s not an enjoyable experience. Like you wish you were not here, you know, she didn’t have to go through it. But then you had those times of like reflection and you know, you’ve gotten through it. Maybe the dust is finally settled. You’re on the other side of it and just reflecting and you come to find out that perhaps you learned quite a bit about yourself and about how to handle a certain situation and how to do it better next time or how to do it differently next time.

00:40:04:12 – 00:40:29:12

And that’s also, I think about something about the human experience, is that taking time to reflect and have a moment to to learn from experiences? I don’t know about you about now. I’ve been in business, you know, solo. I’ve been 100% full time in the business for eight years. And just in those eight years, you know, you’re constantly trying new things and you’re reflecting maybe hit rock bottom and then something happens and gains and the lows and the lows and all the different things in the business.

00:40:29:13 – 00:40:49:10

But the thing about a business or an entrepreneurial spirit is that you persevere, you find a way, you have that grit and that character. That’s something that that push, that drive that you’re like, I’m going to figure it out. I want to go do it, and by golly, I’m going to go do it. And you just like you’ll you try a new thing and you do it.

00:40:49:10 – 00:41:12:06

You try it, maybe you fail again and you fail again. But you fail. Yeah. And you keep trying and you keep going. And then maybe it’s not, you know, maybe it’s your goals there, but going to be here and there and then maybe you’ll finally get better someday. You have sunshine and rainbows, but sometimes to get there, you go through a few valleys and a few muckety mucks and some other things that you have to strive for in order to get to that.

00:41:12:07 – 00:41:40:09

The knight in shining armor or something, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I do think it’s interesting to watch yourself a hero’s journey. I think You call that a hero’s hero’s journey? Yeah, I do think it’s I do think it’s very interesting to the process of just getting mired down, getting discouraged and when you will can if you just stop and you say, well, what can I do now?

00:41:40:12 – 00:42:00:14

How can I use my creative faculties at whatever level I have them to, to go farther? And when you point your attention towards a problem to be solved that is one that you are particularly solving, it’s amazing how many solutions can come out of it. I was like, Well, I’m going to try this now and how about I try this?

00:42:01:00 – 00:42:36:07

And other people are not going to do that. And that’s that is what separates winners from quitters. It’s not necessarily your intellect or my resources. It’s my willingness and ability to persist and think outside the box, too. I think, you know, putting it, putting in whatever the thing is down and tabling it for a little while and walking away and then thinking on it, we’re going for it, you know, nature hike or whatever it is that you do to like, reset, nurture your self, self-care, whatever that is for you.

00:42:36:11 – 00:42:54:05

Sometimes you’ll find that obviously something will spark a thing and all of a sudden you’re like, Oh yeah, this thing has got to solve this. What if I think about this when all blah, I blah, just like, like all sort of thing. But something is on the table. The thing, you know, sometimes you have like get out of your email, get out of your get out of everything and like, try something else.

00:42:54:05 – 00:43:14:00

And like, don’t stop thinking about it for a little while and table it and then go do something else. And then maybe, perhaps, you know what? Maybe it comes back at you in a whole new way and you’re like, Or you’re doing something completely different in the garage. You’re like, Oh, I could apply this thing, this what I’m doing to this idea of magic.

00:43:14:01 – 00:43:39:01

Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, you nailed it. Another fun content on. Yeah, that happened to be in design. I’m stuck on, like, a problem. Something I got to solve visually for the user experience. I’m like, Oh, know, I need a table. That’s for a while. This is I need to think about this user experience in a whole new way because this is new and innovative and I got to go do something else for a while and come back.

00:43:39:02 – 00:43:56:07

I got to experience it my for myself in real life, sometimes you got to get your butt off a computer and go live life a little bit, get on the technology and go live a little bit. Go do a little bit. Go do it for yourself in real time. Touch it and then, oh, maybe that would make it better in the digital space, you know, since I do that as well.

00:43:56:08 – 00:44:26:15

Yeah, totally. Oh, my gosh. We go live life, right? Live life, you know, I don’t know if exhausting yourself, but one thing that someone said recently, they were they were saying something like the average person is trying to preserve themself until their last breath, keep their skin supple, keep their body, you know, pain free. And this person said, no, that’s not how I want to go out.

00:44:26:15 – 00:44:50:11

I want to have wrung every last bit of energy out of myself. I want to be a dried up, desiccated husk, having given it all and left it, left it on the door. And I just basically, you know, fade away as a you know, I don’t know, I’m probably extrapolating too much, but like, nope, I love that. I think it’s an athletic as an athlete.

00:44:50:11 – 00:45:09:15

I think that resonates really well with me. You know, when you’re I used to do cross-country, for example, and I also used to be a coxswain for the men’s rowing crew team at Western. And you always have a sprint to the finish line. Now, whatever else you got left in the tank, you know, you sprint to the finish line, give it to me all I want, all of it.

00:45:10:02 – 00:45:28:00

And I think that’s a really great way to live it. Right? You go. You live it, you live it hard, You work hard, play hard. And by the time you’re all done now, you should have all of the wrinkles that you should have. You should have all the white hair, you should have all of the broken bodies, pieces and whatevers because you went and lived it.

00:45:28:01 – 00:45:47:10

I think it’s a good way, though. I like that. Yeah, exhaust yourself. I like that a lot as a as a as a gosh, with all my coaches, you know, they push you to your limits, right? I don’t know. Did you ever do sports? Yeah. Yeah, I did soccer, did some baseball and in skiing. Snowboarding and mostly one on one.

00:45:47:10 – 00:46:02:15

But yeah, team sports. What? I knew it was grueling and you had to give it your all. So give it your all. So I think that’s kind of like a good you know as well as an athlete you give it your all and I think that’s a good way to live. You live your life. Go try it all.

00:46:02:15 – 00:46:26:09

Go do it all. Don’t say no. Go try it. Go do it. You’re not guaranteed tomorrow. That’s right. Absolutely. Well, I mean, that’s a good a good good one. A good one to end on. I think that’s going to be a nice way to go live life, go have experiences and yeah, I appreciate your time today. That was a really good talk.

00:46:26:09 – 00:47:14:10

I like that a lot. Could I share one final encouragement for any retailers listening to this podcast all while by all means, please do. Okay. Yeah. I just encourage retailers out there to recognize that these spaces, they’re paying premium dollars for are perfect places to host community. And you would be surprised almost regardless of what you do, how eager your might be to gather together with with you as the expert, not having to provide some lofty education, but just an opportunity to come together, to have some sort of experience, whether it’s a small pop up experience or maybe even a joint venture pop up experience you’re having with fellow retailers in a complimentary services and

00:47:14:10 – 00:47:44:11

just give it a go, try it, just build that mailing list and say, Hey, who wants to come for? I mean, and you can you can hit me up and I will for free spitball ideas with you and help you. You don’t have to use my software which you can find. It experiences app.com but we, we can just we can just spitball like ideas to test out whether or not your customers will do more than just engage you for consumption.

00:47:44:11 – 00:48:07:10

And I almost guarantee you will transform your business future. So like, try it whether you talk to me or not. I know it’s a good lesson, a good talk. Yeah, we’ll try it. Go experience it. I’m I’m very. You’ll not be disappointed and working with Mr. Mark May. Well, I really always enjoyed working with you, Amber and I.

00:48:07:10 – 00:48:28:09

And your. Your skills and abilities in the energy, obviously. Amber energy, the eponymous name, you you bring a lot of energy and you get the you get the work done. And it always looks amazing. So and I thank you for that. I encourage people talk to you as well. I appreciate that. Thank you. While I appreciate you today and your time.

00:48:28:12 – 00:48:47:06

Thank you for being a guest on Amber Energy, the podcast. Stay tuned for next time. Cheers. Thank you. Stop recording now and then more and stop recording.