James Benefico 00:03
There's a lot of wisdom that comes from launching failed products. You learn so much, so painful. I have a better idea of what's going to work and what's not going to work.
Narrator 00:13
Welcome to the E comm Show podcast. I'm your host. Andrew Mapp, owner and founder of blue tusker, from groundbreaking industry updates to success stories and strategies. Get to know the ins and outs of the e Commerce Industry from top leaders in the space. Let's get into it.
Andrew Maff 00:27
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the E comm Show as usual. I'm your host, Andrew Maff, and today I am joined by the amazing James Benfico, who is the founder, CEO over at organic muscle. James, how you doing, buddy? Ready for the show?
James Benefico 00:41
I'm doing great. Yeah. Thanks for the intro. Great to be here.
Andrew Maff 00:44
No worries. Super excited to have you on the show. I I love having supplement brands in the show because it's always very interesting at how it's approached, how certain things are marketed, how certain things are handled from an operational perspective. So I'm super excited to get into this, but I always like starting these off pretty stereotypically. I'd like to kind of give you the floor. Just tell us a little bit about, like, your background, how you got started in Organic Muscle, and then we'll kind of take it from there.
James Benefico 01:10
Okay, sure. So I used to be kind of a fat guy when I was younger, and I had a few catalysts in my life where that motivated me to want to lose weight. So I started hitting the gym, and I would drink these conventional pre workout supplements, like many people do, kind of try and get a little boost. And one day, I just had an absolutely awful experience with a pre workout where I felt like I was going to die. I almost called 911, on myself. I was like, This is it? What a way to go. Oh, so everyone I talked to has had a some kind of horror story with a pre workout, whether you get super jittery or bloated or sick to your stomach or you crash, whatever. So after this experience, I had the light bulb moment, because I just wanted to use a healthy, clean, organic, nourishing pre workout, not something that was filled with toxic ingredients and that was going to make me feel poorly. So I became absolutely obsessed with this idea. I talked to my friends, I talked to my family. Everyone was like, I would use that. And I really think that obsession is necessary when starting a business, because I'd had a million business ideas before that, but this was the first one I truly became obsessed with, and that gave me the drive to launch the first ever USDA pre workout in history. No one else had done it, so I figured it out. I talked to naturopaths and nutritionists, found an organic certified manufacturer, one of the only few ones in the country at that time, and it became a reality. And now today, that was 10 years ago, so.
Andrew Maff 02:48
The execution on that is insane. Like, you don't hear that a lot. Like, when someone's got, someone's got a problem, they invent something, and then they solve it. Sometimes it's kind of a quick and painless thing you have to go through, like, I, I know going through USDA stuff is like, that's a Yeah, that's good on you for going through that.
James Benefico 03:05
Thanks. There's no instruction manual when you're doing something. No, before I, and this is before AI and everything. Like, I just had to figure it out and where there's a will, there's a way, and I just didn't give up. Yeah, made it happen. But, I mean, I was a young kid, I made every mistake imaginable. I still do, but that's just the process. That's how you learn, that's how you build your character and your skill set.
Andrew Maff 03:30
Yeah. So one of the things that, first of all, I resonate with, with this so much I've taken so many pre workouts in my life that I was like, oh, let's try this one. And then the next thing, you know, you feel like you're just going to explode in one way, like, horrible. How they all vary so drastically. The supplement world, especially in, like, the exercise, you know, working out space, like, it's incredibly crowded. It is difficult to stand out. It seems to be relatively cyclical. Of like, you get like, these brands that come in, and then they're like, big, and then they kind of fall off. Like, I remember, for me, it was in high school, was it BSN? I think it was like, big, bright red, like, cans kids had all over the place. So, like, I remember they would have, like, these kind of moments, and then they would fall off. Have you seen that kind of change? What from organic muscle side? Like, what do you kind of do to combat that side of things?
James Benefico 04:30
Well, the market has totally changed since we started 10 years ago. It's gotten way more crowded. There's a lot more players. And, you know, in covid, a lot of big money came in, and a ton of brands were launched, and from an advertising perspective, it got way more competitive. I mean, I remember we used to have our greens powder many years ago, and it would be like 10-20 cents a click for ads, right? You have athletic greens, and some of these companies come in with. Like a billion dollar arsenal, or whatever it is, and now ads for greens are like $10 you know? So it's wild, yeah, it's crazy. So I've learned a lot. It's the game has totally changed. But I think what's kept us going is just the quality of our products. We have our niche people, know, organic certified supplements, organic muscle, you know. And some companies, I won't lie, are much better at advertising. They're really skilled in that department. I'm okay at it, yeah, but what I am good at is just developing products that I personally use sharing them with people, because I want to use them.
Andrew Maff 05:43
Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, it's, it's shocking to me how, like, how this industry is still loaded with a ton of just crap. Like, there's some of these big brands, the stuff in them is like, Oh, this is for people that are, like, really into taking care of themselves, and yet you loaded it with all of these things that you probably should not take so I find it, I find it really interesting. And I think that you know your space is definitely the more organic. Like, true like, clean eating kind of as some refer to it as, like, is really starting to take off. What is it like? How do you market it? How do you is there? Like, I know, it's kind of like a mission driven kind of, kind of aspect, correct?
James Benefico 06:27
Yeah, you know, we were kind of unique in that a lot of it is spread by word of mouth and through some of our ambassadors. Like, it's usually people who are really bought in on the organic vision, like they're true believers in reforming our food system and in natural health in general. And they usually come to us. A lot of brands go out to brand ambassadors and find them, and we do some of that, but not as much as other brands who are like, you know, we'll give you a couple thousand dollars to promote us. They don't even try the product, and they're like, Yeah, this is the best it's called, oh yeah. And we've been blessed to have a lot of really aligned people. We're also plant based. So there's a lot of vegan people who are really passionate about, you know, that kind of strain. So we just have congregated an amazing group of people who are, you know, fellow travelers, I guess you could say, and then they promote us. We send them free product that's gotten the word out a lot. I also have a podcast that does decently well, where we talk about some of these things. We talk about, it's more about spirituality. But we always tie nutrition and health into spirituality, because, you know, if God created us for a reason to be of service to some capacity in the world, and if you're sick and unhealthy and unconfident and tired, can't really do what you were born to do. So we on our podcast. It's called The Jesus Way. It's not a religious podcast. It's all. It's more about philosophy, like the philosophy of early Christianity. But, yeah, we, we believe that the mind, body, spirits, all one thing, and you got to care for them all.
Andrew Maff 08:16
Yeah, interesting. So you're but so you got the podcast. So it's obviously a channel that you're marketing on. What about where you're selling it? I know you've obviously got organic muscle.com but where else are you guys available?
James Benefico 08:28
We do well, on Amazon. We were blessed to get in early on Amazon and establish a presence. We have a ton of reviews on there. And, you know, a lot of Amazon's a double edged sword, a lot of people brain about it, and I get it because they take a pretty significant rate, and they can, like, delete your listing for no reason, and it's a headache, but, I mean, it's pretty amazing to get in front of so many people who would have never discovered your product. I mean, that's really been one of the best things for organic muscle is establishing a presence on Amazon and getting all these new customers in the door, and then, you know, hopefully they'll subscribe to our email and become part of our funnel. And there's some strategies to do that, but yeah, and when you really calculate the numbers, what the amount that Amazon takes isn't too bad when you consider how much it would cost for fulfillment and storage and shipping and everything for your own Shopify store. So Amazon's really good. You probably want to find a good partner who knows the game, as opposed to just doing it yourself, unless you are willing to commit you know your 10,000 hours to mastering Amazon.
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Andrew Maff 10:15
Yeah, I've found that Amazon's an awesome customer acquisition channel for supplement brands like it does a really good job at getting in front of them. And it's just about, what strategies do you put in place to kind of drive them back to, you know, your website, and then, obviously, in a perfect world, they subscribe, and then they're with you for a while. What? Uh, so you're obviously finding people on Amazon. You got your podcast. What other kind of and you mentioned you obviously do some ambassador stuff. What other marketing strategies are you kind of focused on right now?
James Benefico 10:43
Well, we also just launched in vitamin shop nationwide.
Andrew Maff 10:46
Oh, nice.
James Benefico 10:50
So that's a whole new world for me. I'm kind of learning it to be honest, because we've, we've had, we've been in jams and small supplement stores and health shops around the country for a while. We're never like a huge national retailer, and it's a whole new game for us, but it's going really well so far. And we're just, we have some certain strategies, you know, just emailing our customers and letting them know and doing some incentives to get them in there. But email marketing is great for us. We convert really well on that. Yeah, we don't have a massive list, but our list converts extremely well, and it's the main driver for our website sales. So yeah, I'm a big believer in providing value for your email list and not just selling them constantly. So we'll do like Mindset Mondays and Fitness Fridays. And I like to just share my story. And you know, fitness and mindset tips, health news, news about the organic industry, things like that really resonate with our customers and can be helpful to them. And it gets people opening the emails. Because, you know, when you get an email and they're always trying to sell you something, it's a little like, what am I a piece of meat? You know?
Andrew Maff 12:09
Yeah, honestly, I love, I love that you just said that. Because this is something that we preach all time, like we find too many brands treat, they treat email marketing like it's an ATM Right. Like, okay, I'm just gonna every email seems to get me X amount of revenue, so I'm just going to keep sending an email. Keep sending an email. I'm gonna send obnoxious amounts of emails, and then the next thing you know, you start upsetting your list. They start unsubscribing you, or they mark you as spam, which is even worse. Your revenue from email starts to come down, and it could take a really long time to solve it, but if you treat it more like a communication channel and provide value, and you know, if you want to send a couple emails a week, that's fine, but maybe one of them, or to both of them, should just be a value driven thing and some insight to connect your community. And then, every now and then, you put a sale in there. Yeah, so that's awesome. So you're, you've got to be, you mentioned the Monday, the Friday, so you're probably putting out a couple two or three emails a week?
James Benefico 13:09
two to three Yeah, that's the goal. And we'll really only do salesy ones, like, twice a month, two to three times. Yeah. So not too bad. But I'm a huge believer in getting to know your customers and like, treating them like a friend. Have really good customer service, like, have a real person, not an AI agent. I mean, that's fine for some businesses, but if you want to be in this for the long haul, it's, it's a relationship. You're building a relationship with these customers. And I actually, every year I'll, take, like our top 10 customers for that year, and I'll give them a call, and I'll thank them, and I'll talk to them and ask us what they like about the company, what they love and like, any products they would like to see or any improvements we could make. Is anything annoying in our flow? Is anything annoying? Are we emailing much? Are we mailing to what do you like? And you just learn so much. These are the people who are committed to your brand, and then they're going to even become more committed. One does a CEO call a customer? You know, it doesn't? So, I found that treating your customers as friends, and you know, a relationship that you want to nurture is really helpful.
Andrew Maff 14:25
Oh yeah, absolutely, that's really cool that you like actually pick up the phone and talk to them, because I'm sure that'll keep them around even longer. Excuse me, what um? So, okay, so we just talked about, obviously you're calling people that threw me off, because I love that. So you're what's the thought process on going forward? Do you look at more product expansion, or do you look at more sales expansion, or do you kind or sales channel expansion, or do you kind of do like a mix of the above?
James Benefico 14:56
Well, we're in an interesting period right now, because we've had the same branding and packaging for like, eight years. Yeah, actually, no six years. Excuse me. So I'm in the process of revamping our whole brands to get up to date, up to, you know, it's, it's a massive undertaking, but I'm really excited. So we kind of have a lot of our marketing stuff on pause because we're launching all new packaging and updated formulas in a few months. So once that comes out, we'll be doing a full marketing blitzkrieg and working to get these products. We have some SKUs in vitamin shop, but with the new formulas, we're going to work to get more in there and use that momentum to get into, hopefully, GNC, Whole Foods, so on, so forth, and then we're going to turn up our Google ads, our Amazon ads, everything, because we have a better product to promote. Our products already incredible, but now it's like, it's just insane what we're coming out with, and we have a new product that I'm really excited about, but I would caution everyone like it's so interesting launching new products for my company, it's either been the best thing I've ever done, or it's almost put me out of business, because you launch a product and it could cost you a couple hundred thousand dollars and if it fails, you could be screwed like that, could be the end of your company. However, if it works, you're a whole new company now, yeah, I would, and you don't really know for sure until you launch it, but I would encourage all entrepreneurs to be very mindful about the products they launch and do a lot of due diligence and talk to your customers. Because I got cocky and after I launched the pre workout, it did really, really well. Then I launched two other products that did well, and I was like, I'm a genius the Earth. I'm just like, and then I launched another product hastily, and it failed miserably, and it almost took out the whole company. Oh, so I'm ranting a bit, but I'm passionate about that
Andrew Maff 17:05
Thats what the show's for!
James Benefico 17:08
Good, yeah, So I guess there, it's just being very mindful and doing a lot of testing, interacting with your customers and talking to a lot of people before you launch a new product.
Andrew Maff 17:18
Yeah, I know that that's like, that's the entrepreneurial like, while it's the spirit, it's also the detriment to a lot of entrepreneurs . This is a great idea. I got to do this. Let's put this together. And you get so excited to put it out there that sometimes it just, you put it out too soon, and it's just you didn't think it through. And then other times it's like, you got meticulous with it, you hammered it down, you nitpicked it, and then by the time you launched it, everyone loved it. The worst case scenario, and the one that always stings the most is when you feel like you did everything right, and then you launch it and it still doesn't work, and you're like, it happens.
James Benefico 17:56
You know? It happens. It's kind of again, you almost have to do it to find out for sure. But yeah, there's a lot of wisdom that comes from launching failed products. You learn so much, so painful. Now I kind of have my batting average is definitely going up. Now, there you go. I know I have a better idea of what's going to work and what's not going to work. So yeah, cheers to that at least.
Andrew Maff 18:23
There you go. It's all learning curve. It's, uh, so awesome. So you're going to have kind of a whole new approach in the next few months here. So you'll be right at the start of Q1 which typically supplement brands. That's like, that's your season, because of the whole New year, new me, kind of thing that tends to kick in for a lot of people.
James Benefico 18:41
That's time of year for sure.
Andrew Maff 18:42
Yeah, that's awesome. It's like the one, it's like the one industry where, like, Q1 is like, that's the big that's the big time. So it's awesome. You'll have that by then. So what's so I know you've kind of got all your marketing stuff on hold. One of the things I always like to ask because, you know, podcasts, you get people on and they're like, Oh, here's how awesome my company is, and here's how great I am, and blah blah. And it's a lot of that I always like to say, like, well, let's be honest with each other real quick. What's like, the one thing that's just not working for you right now that you're trying to figure out?
James Benefico 19:16
We've had challenges with manufacturing that's kind of been it's, it's really tough. You know, our lead times back when I started the company were like eight weeks I order our pre workout. We have it eight weeks later. Now it's, it can be like 16 to 20 weeks now, which is extremely challenging. Yeah, not only cash flow, just for planning, for staying in stock, all these things. So that's probably the biggest thing I'm dealing with now. The other one is the cost of ads competition. It's gotten really, we're competing with behemoths that have big, you know, private equity behind them. So it's, it's not easy, but I kind of like being a smaller, independent company, and. That it's us against the world. We're trying to change the world in a positive way and help people get healthy. And, you know, it's like, yeah, David versus Goliath kind of thing.
Andrew Maff 20:09
Yeah, those tend to be the best ones that, you know, even though they're smaller, they tend to be you can be more nimble, and you can, you know, adjust, and you can pivot based on your customer's voice, as opposed to just whatever your shareholders want you to do at that time.
James Benefico 20:25
Right? Yeah, it gives us a lot of flexibility that other companies don't have. Oh, yeah,
Andrew Maff 20:31
James, this was awesome. I really appreciate having the show. I don't want to take up too much more your time. I'd love to give you the opportunity everyone know where they can find out more about you, and, of course, more about Organic Muscle.
James Benefico 20:40
Awesome. Yeah, I had a great time. Thanks so much, it was an awesome interview you can find me on Instagram, personally at James Benefico, and our website is organicmuscle.com We're also on Amazon and in vitamin shop. And, yeah, that's it. Check us out. And I have a podcast on my friend Aaron Abke's YouTube channel called The Jesus Way. Again, it's not religious. It's about history and philosophy. So check that out too, if you're interested in the, you know, early Christian movement and its history.
Andrew Maff 21:13
Beautiful James, thank you so much for being on the show. Everyone who tuned in, of course, thank you as well. Please make sure you do the usual thing, rate review, subscribe all that fun stuff on whichever podcast platform you prefer, or head over to the ecommshow.com to check out all of our previous episodes. But as usual, thank you all for joining us, and I'll see you next time. Have a good one!
Narrator 21:33
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