Interview with Justin Nedelman of Pressed about the business of plant-based foods, why the uphill climb is better then down, and replacing CRM with GRM.
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00:00 Welcome to Restaurant Influencers presented by Entrepreneur.
00:03 My name is Sean Walsh,
00:04 a founder of Cali BBQ and Cali BBQ Media in life,
00:09 in the restaurant business,
00:10 and in the new creator economy.
00:12 We learn through lessons and stories.
00:14 I want to give a special shout out to Toast,
00:16 our primary technology partner at our barbecue restaurants,
00:19 but also they power so many of the restaurants that we have on the show,
00:23 and they give us the opportunity to talk to the greatest minds
00:27 in the storytelling space and hospitality space.
00:29 And today we have one of those minds.
00:31 We have one of those leaders.
00:32 His name is Justin Nettelman.
00:34 He is the new CEO of Crest Juicery.
00:37 Justin, welcome to the show.
00:39 Thank you for having me, Sean.
00:40 Good morning.
00:41 Good morning.
00:41 We're going to start with our favorite random question,
00:44 which is where in the world is your favorite stadium, stage, or venue?
00:50 Wow, good question.
00:51 I would say the most memorable experience I've had was probably Coachella a few years back
00:58 on my Eureka days when we were slinging burgers out there.
01:02 And then when I get an opportunity, I always try to get to the Hollywood Bowl
01:05 in LA with my wife.
01:07 We're going to go to Coachella because no guest has picked Coachella yet,
01:11 and except we're going to replace the raving music fans
01:15 with hospitality fans and storytelling fans.
01:18 And I'm going to put you center stage and say, Justin,
01:22 can you tell me who are you and why do you believe in Crest?
01:27 Give me the TEDx style.
01:30 Why do you believe in Crest?
01:32 Well, I'm a user of the product.
01:35 And to me, I said this when I started, I don't believe in kind of work-life balance.
01:40 I believe in work-life integration.
01:42 It's kind of been my superpower my entire life.
01:46 So for me, Crest has a great base, a phenomenal following, a strong brand,
01:52 a lot of brand integrity around what we produce, and we've got a platform.
01:57 We're all over the US, both in wholesale and with our corporate-run stores,
02:02 almost 112 as of today.
02:05 So the base is here.
02:07 The brand is strong.
02:08 The product we create is amazing.
02:10 And the opportunity was huge for the brand and really me coming in and seeing
02:15 where we can take it.
02:16 So I think the foundation is here, and I believe in what we do.
02:21 Can you bring me back?
02:23 So your team, your marketing team, they were phenomenal, and they sent me a
02:28 packet of six different Crest juices.
02:33 This one that I'm drinking is the Simple Cleanse.
02:35 But can you bring me back to the first time that you interacted with the brand,
02:39 the first time you tried Crest?
02:42 It's interesting.
02:42 I was living in West LA where the brand started, and a user of the product as it
02:50 was launching in West LA, I think, almost 13 years ago.
02:54 So I was beginning my restaurant journey at the same time that almost Crest was
03:00 getting going, and to really expedite and speed up my wellness in terms of I didn't
03:06 have time to pull out the Vitamix and make a kale smoothie at home.
03:10 Crest was kind of early in this kind of cold Crest, healthy revolution around
03:17 vegetable-based and fruit-based juices as a kind of a base to launch or kind of
03:21 continue health.
03:22 So I was a user of the product, believe it or not, in the original store off of 26th
03:28 Street and San Vicente in West LA, in Brentwood, and kind of watched the brand
03:33 evolve and eventually, obviously, heard about this opportunity to come on, jump
03:39 on board, and kind of bring what I've done in restaurants and hospitality and retail
03:44 in general over to Crest.
03:45 But yeah, I've been a user of it and watching it for a long time, and it's kind
03:49 of an amazing story seeing kind of how big it's gotten over the last 13 years.
03:56 - So learning about your story, doing some research, we have so many restaurant
04:01 tours, people, professionals that listen to this show.
04:07 You built Eureka Restaurant Group to over 100 million in sales, 1,800 employees,
04:12 and then that wasn't enough for you.
04:16 - No.
04:18 My motto in life is passion and the endless pursuit of excellence, and it's probably
04:24 the endless pursuit of the uphill climb, which I like more than the downhill.
04:29 I don't have an e-bike, right?
04:31 I like to go uphill, relying on myself and the team around me.
04:36 But the Eureka journey and the story has not even probably been told in its entirety,
04:43 but it's a really interesting entrepreneurial journey going from real estate
04:47 development, building shopping centers as a young developer, to the 2008 recession,
04:54 and literally taking a vacant space in my shopping center and creating Eureka off
05:00 Eureka Street, an hour and a half from where I lived, kind of taking the lemons
05:05 of the '08 real estate meltdown and turning it into lemonade.
05:10 So it was really survival as much as anything, but also it's kind of like,
05:15 "Hey, what widgets do I have?
05:17 What can I control?"
05:18 And I'm going to do something here with real estate that I had built with my partner
05:23 there off Eureka out in Redlands.
05:24 So it's a crazy kind of story back at that time in '08, seeing, again,
05:29 real estate kind of fall apart all around me and going, "What are we going to do here?"
05:33 And there was definitely nothing to do in real estate other than hold on to your
05:36 assets, but restaurants were always something I thought I'd do and money didn't matter,
05:41 and money definitely mattered when we launched that.
05:44 Pretty amazing to kind of turn into what it did.
05:47 - Bring me back to opening the first Eureka.
05:49 I mean, that's a thing that I think most of our listeners can resonate with, the first.
05:55 Do you remember back in those times of like, from real estate development to restaurants?
06:01 This is a crazy path.
06:03 - Yeah, I like brain damage.
06:05 I'm a restaurant guy in terms of I love travel, I love food, I love hospitality as a consumer.
06:13 I'm a natural kind of…I like hosting, I like taking care of people naturally,
06:18 so it's in my DNA.
06:20 When we started Eureka, it was essentially a very hard time.
06:25 No one would return your calls to leased space.
06:27 We had raised capital, built a small shopping center.
06:30 Knock on wood, I had never done a capital call to an investor after we had initially funded a deal.
06:36 It's usually a no-no.
06:37 And instead of kind of putting our hands up and going, "There's no one willing to lease space out
06:43 in Redlands," which is, again, about an hour and a half east of West LA, about halfway to Palm Springs,
06:49 we came up with a concept, kind of borrowed what we were seeing in more urban, kind of Class A markets
06:56 where the burger, craft beer craze was starting to happen.
07:00 This was, you know, obviously 2009.
07:03 And so let's take what we're seeing in these more urban, kind of first-to-market trade areas
07:10 and take it out to a market that had disposable income but really didn't have access to what we were seeing
07:15 in, let's say, New York and LA at the time with the whiskey, beer, and kind of burger craze.
07:21 And brought that sophistication to a smaller market but brought that level of execution
07:25 that you would see in a five-star restaurant or at least try to in a modest price point.
07:30 So, you know, I joke when I was at Eureka, I used to flyer cars in my fancy suit that I wore in real estate
07:38 with the team hand-in-hand because the marketing budget was zero, right?
07:42 The motto was get it for free or better when it came to PR.
07:45 And I still have some of that ethos in me today, even running a bigger company.
07:50 But yeah, flyering cars, partnering with local.
07:53 Before there was Facebook or influencers, just partnering with the people that were the tastemakers.
07:58 I would call it old-school guerrilla marketing.
08:01 I still believe that works, you know, if you can scale it.
08:05 And getting the locals in there.
08:06 And we intentionally tried to let the community perceive us to be locals.
08:14 And many people thought we were even though we didn't live in that trade area.
08:17 So really like a disciplined approach around like localism and community.
08:20 And that still resonates today out there, you know, 13 days, or maybe it's about 13 years later almost.
08:26 But yeah, you know, it's hand-to-hand, guest-to-guest.
08:29 The budget was make money in 30 days.
08:32 There was not this disciplined approach to raising capital and saying it's like, you know,
08:36 six months until we break, you know, start producing positive cash flow in a restaurant.
08:40 It was we have enough reserves for a month.
08:43 We're going to make money out of the gate, which is truly, I would say, overly optimistic.
08:50 I would not recommend most restaurateurs believe that to be true, that they're going to make money in the first month.
08:54 But yeah, it was exciting to be out there kind of hand-in-hand doing the guerrilla marketing day one.
09:00 What was the secret to 18% unit level margins?
09:06 Yeah, that's a good question.
09:08 Counting every grain of rice, looking at how everything is designed to minimize the amount of people needed to execute the highest level of service.
09:21 It was always about high service.
09:22 So the distance between, you know, the greet stand and the bar.
09:27 So midday, if someone walked in and you didn't have a greeter, could a bartender greet someone with a happy hello or a gracious goodbye as they left?
09:36 So it was really just thinking about efficiency.
09:38 And because I wasn't from the industry, like nothing was sacred.
09:42 Right. So we went all American beer and all American whiskey and intentionally not carrying mainstream products that differentiated us entirely.
09:52 But so that we had a niche and then we could also leverage that with purchasing.
09:57 So better margins and really, I would say, borrowing from a team service model and hospitality where every guest is potentially a guest of a team member on the floor.
10:11 So no team member could walk past you and not serve you.
10:14 I used to get annoyed by, you know, five star steak houses and, you know, the bus boy can't get an extra drink for you, but your server can.
10:22 Well, the restaurant's paying everybody.
10:24 So if everyone's on the floor, like everybody can help everybody and tip pulling and really creating a team service environment, which is really, really hard to do because most restaurants don't function that way.
10:36 They have sections and servers have tables, but everyone is everyone's table and kind of pitching in all hands in.
10:44 Right. You walk, walk out of the kitchen with full hands.
10:46 You walk into the kitchen with empty dishes, speed with everything, really trying to bust tables, move tables.
10:52 We never took reservations, which is intentional.
10:56 We were asked to do that forever, but the goal was to fill the restaurant.
11:00 So if you needed a reservation or your kids were going to be screaming, come at five rather than at six thirty.
11:06 So now we pack the restaurant earlier, no matter what.
11:09 I just looked at everything from the guest perspective, like me walking into a restaurant and the server saying it's an hour wait for nine, nine, Eureka.
11:17 But then there's five empty tables because they're waiting for people to show up.
11:22 Which I knew inherently would never make sense at our price point.
11:25 Like you could not afford vacant tables at the cost of wages and our price point.
11:29 So speed, efficiency, trying to improve after every restaurant we opened.
11:36 So never say, all right, this is our model.
11:37 We're going to go do 20 of these.
11:38 It was and this is sometimes challenging to work with even someone like myself where it's like, all right, what do we do great?
11:45 But now what can we do better next time?
11:47 Even though everything was pretty good, no matter what, how can we always tweak it?
11:52 So the balance is obviously making sure that the team feels super appreciated for the success we had.
12:00 But if we're at 18, how do we get to 19?
12:02 If we're at 19, how do we get to 20?
12:03 If we're at 20, how do we get to 22?
12:05 And we knew kind of what our limits were.
12:06 Some restaurants were packed seven days a week, five days, three shifts, lunch, midday, evening, even four, even into the evening.
12:15 And you knew that was the max capacity a restaurant of our size and price point could generate.
12:20 Being highly disciplined around the rents we would pay, no matter how good the real estate,
12:24 I knew that there's only so much revenue you could drive out of four walls within a certain size, no matter what.
12:31 And being, I would say, fanatically disciplined around our real estate to sales ratios, which were almost unheard of in full service.
12:42 We were at 5.8%, maybe 5.7 all in with triple nets and percentage rent, which is very hard to do.
12:50 We had to say no to a lot of locations.
12:52 And I asked myself sometimes, should we have had 50 locations with a 9% occupancy?
12:57 Or is it better to have 26, 27 when I left with a 5.8?
13:02 I don't know, but it was always thinking about if I was going to run this business for the next 30 or 40 years, not just like build it, sell it, what's it going to look like?
13:11 And that real estate to sales ratio, because that was my background, was like a point of pride that is very, very hard to do.
13:18 You have to say no to like some amazing real estate and put your ego aside and focus on does it make sense financially?
13:26 Does it not? Forget about that's in your backyard.
13:29 And we never opened any Eureka's in our backyard over that period of time.
13:33 We have a brand new show called Toast Family Style.
13:37 It is on YouTube. It is a travel show where we go and find the best operators on the Toast platform and share the secrets to their success on location.
13:47 Check it out. Our first episode was with Novo Brazil at a Chula Vista, California.
13:53 They have a brewery location there and consumer packaged goods.
13:56 They've added additional revenue streams, but we also feature Toast's new app.
14:01 Go to the App Store right now and download the app.
14:05 It is the Toast Now app. It will give you the power of your restaurants, sales, your forecast, your labor costs, allow you to turn on and off third party delivery.
14:16 It is mind blowing how cool this app is.
14:19 It has been the most requested thing of Toast. Leadership built it with so many of you that listen to this show.
14:26 So many of the Toast customer advisory boards. I was there in lots of those meetings.
14:31 It is one of the coolest things that I have seen rolled out.
14:34 I can't wait for you, the listener, to download the app.
14:37 Give us your feedback. Make your Toast app unboxing video.
14:41 So check out Toast Family Style and also check out the Toast Now app today.
14:46 How do you take the principles, the real estate principles that you learned at Eureka and apply them to the real estate strategy for Prest?
14:55 It's a good question. One, thankfully, we have a nice team here in real estate and with the size of our business, I can't be the director of real estate.
15:02 Obviously, as an entrepreneur at Eureka, I was able to wear that hat as well as CEO because it was my passion.
15:09 It was my baby. And we grew slow.
15:12 Prest is big with 112 locations, some really, really good real estate.
15:18 We're pausing our footprint for a minute to add new stores.
15:21 And we're kind of re-evaluating our four walls and trying to figure out how to make them more productive.
15:25 So going forward, we'll take the same approach.
15:29 Now, thankfully, Prest can handle a higher occupancy cost with our labor model and just our overall model than a full service casual dining restaurant like Eureka could.
15:39 But looking at our existing real estate, me providing insights and structure to our real estate team on ideas because I was a developer,
15:49 but I was also a tenant and a finance guy when it comes to real estate.
15:55 So looking at it from all sides, I think is a powerful perspective for me here where I can think like the developer.
16:03 I know what they want, which is obviously the highest rents and the least amount of calls over your lease term.
16:10 And then I know they're going to take, generally, that's the job is to run renewals, push us to our edge before we cry uncle and can't renew.
16:21 So be willing to say no, unfortunately, willing to shut something down if it doesn't fit pencil, even though it's not the goal.
16:29 So it's a different role today because we have this existing portfolio and we have some amazing real estate.
16:34 And in some locations, yeah, the rent's too high.
16:39 But rather than me say, oh, I would have never cut that lease because that doesn't do anything for us.
16:43 The question is, or how can we now activate dead parts of the location and monetize empty walls with new shelving to sell more?
16:52 How can we activate day parts by adding?
16:55 We can talk about what we're doing right now, adding different offerings.
16:59 There's no good looking backward. It's like, hey, here's where we sit. This is what we have.
17:03 What are we going to do about it? And in many cases, it's going to be really activating the four walls.
17:09 And we're going to have to sell a lot more out of those four walls to afford some of this amazing real estate that was signed because the market shifted.
17:16 Cold press juice has changed and consumers.
17:20 They don't really care how much rent you're paying, they will come in if it's good and they will not if it's not right.
17:26 When you look at cold press juicery, that's where they started.
17:32 And when you look at Starbucks starting with coffee and you think about what can you learn from Starbucks?
17:41 I think Starbucks is a phenomenal operator from the outside looking in, it feels like they have nailed efficiency speed, right, in terms of the digital experience.
17:53 I'm more of a boutique coffee guy from a consumer standpoint, but I can definitely appreciate scale.
17:59 And I would say consistency and what that brand represents.
18:03 I think there's a lot of trust in that brand wherever you're at.
18:06 If people need that experience and need that caffeine, there's a trust factor for Starbucks.
18:13 So that's a large company. But from us to that, that's a long journey.
18:18 I think the question is, I believe that trust exists today at press.
18:22 That's one of the reasons why I came here.
18:24 I think if the brand had been broken or there had been actions taken that really jeopardized that trust, that alone is a multi-year journey to change the consumer mind, let alone to drive sales.
18:35 I think the trust exists. I think the question is, how do we leverage the brand?
18:39 How do we take this kind of wellness as a platform, let juice be the base, and then introduce our guests to either new styles of wellness through some of the stuff we're doing even right now,
18:51 through some of these unwind tonics and getting into the neurotropic space or getting into supplements,
19:00 other things that are one dot away from juice as a wellness, so long as it makes sense.
19:06 So yeah, I think it's actually infinite where we take it.
19:09 The key would be those natural steps so that there's high trial, so the guest doesn't feel like there's any risk.
19:16 And then obviously, it's got to be good.
19:18 We can market anything, but it actually has to work and it has to be good.
19:22 It's got to taste good. Otherwise, who cares?
19:25 But yeah, Starbucks, definitely a North Star. That's big.
19:29 I think the question for us is, how do we continue to grow in a real smart way,
19:35 but then also leverage this brand into wholesale and channels that maybe reach more people faster than building another 112 brick-and-mortar stores,
19:44 which we can easily do once we kind of reimagine the four walls.
19:50 Can you talk about menu development?
19:53 Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, it's interesting.
19:55 How are you going to go about that? Are we a commissary model bringing in food?
19:59 Are we actually cooking at each of these locations?
20:02 No. So we currently have acai, pea protein infused acai bowls, which are really unique.
20:12 The opportunity when I got here six, five and a half months ago was to tell that story.
20:16 So as a consumer, that story wasn't being told to me.
20:20 When I look at everything from the consumer standpoint, like what does it feel like from the guest,
20:24 from a digital as well as from like walking into the four walls or even walking past our store?
20:29 So leaning in harder to those wellness bowls.
20:33 It's a great product. And Sean, you probably didn't even know that we have literally paid infused pea protein into our acai.
20:40 Like who does that? And if you don't tell people that you just have higher cogs and you feel good at night, but you don't drive sales.
20:48 So we are telling that story.
20:51 We're seeing our bowls, the sales increase almost 50 percent year over year since I got here.
20:58 I think it'll grow to over 100 percent. So leaning into the bowls.
21:02 I think what that does is it provides a higher use occasion and then allows us the opportunity to kind of engage and then talk about our juices.
21:10 You're going to see us first part of next year, hopefully well before summer, like hopefully in the end of Q1,
21:18 maybe the beginning of Q2, do a whole revaluation of our bowls.
21:22 So it becomes a more trusted kind of lunch occasion. And you're going to see wellness.
21:27 You're going to see things like collagen infused into your dairy free soft serve.
21:33 We all know people are taking collagen in their water, but why aren't they just adding it into their routine?
21:39 A lot more of the traditional healthy fats in different seeds and the bee pollen,
21:45 all the things that we've seen in these kind of one off niche healthy bowls and smoothie locations.
21:51 But we can execute that. I'm also being thoughtful that we're not a restaurant.
21:56 We have a giant manufacturing facility. I can easily take us there, which would fundamentally change everything,
22:01 but also cost a lot. But we manufacture all these juices and we need to make sure we don't overcomplicate the business.
22:08 So leaning in hard on bowls, I think it's going to be a huge driver for us next year.
22:14 We have a phenomenal dairy free soft serve. You probably didn't even know we were dairy free, Sean, right?
22:20 Like, how do we tell the story? And there's very unique followers that come to us for that.
22:26 But we know that the world is looking for these indulgent options that are still good for you.
22:31 So really telling that story around the dairy free and then getting into supplements and different bars.
22:40 We're still kind of contemplating the use occasion for the bars.
22:43 It's always got to solve a problem. Like, where's there open?
22:45 Where's there something in the market that doesn't exist that we want to solve?
22:49 Or where is there an area that we want to compete and we think we can compete because of our brand and that trust that I think people will try?
22:57 So I think our stores will ultimately be these little beacons of trial.
23:03 And then it'll lead to more of an online and or even into the wholesale space as it relates to these other categories we get into.
23:13 We're currently partnering with a local food provider in 14 of our stores and we're testing various healthy salads that kind of fit within our brand.
23:22 And we're seeing that see some momentum. So we we may be looking for a national partner to partner with there, or we may go more regional, which seems unscalable, but actually is better for the gas.
23:33 What we don't want to do is lower quality just because we get the same exact salad from New York to L.A.
23:38 I'd much rather have three or four partners and actually at a higher level.
23:42 If we're going to bring in someone else's salads, then think it has to be completely the same.
23:47 But then you think about quality that may not be possible.
23:51 So it's scalable so long as we kind of set that up by regions.
23:55 We're not going to have a commissary making salads just yet, but that definitely could be an option.
23:59 But, you know, one problem to tackle at a time.
24:02 I don't want to create a new set of challenges that before we solve all the current things we're working on.
24:07 But, yeah, really making our four walls, you know, drive foot traffic.
24:11 That's the goal. Like how do we get more people in and then introduce them to these other things and or find brand partners, other partners and brands that we like, that we believe in their mission?
24:21 We want to be affiliated with. They want to be affiliated with us.
24:24 How do we help each other out? So we are looking at kind of brand partnerships as well.
24:28 Again, all with that notion of how do you bring in more people?
24:32 And then also, how do you get your existing guest base to just consider buying more?
24:36 You don't always need more guests. Sometimes you need just a wider offering to your existing core guest, which is quite fanatical.
24:44 We have fans that are religious about what we do. It's it's really, really cool.
24:51 So you have an app, a phenomenal app. You have twenty two thousand ratings on the press juicery app.
24:57 You also have an Instagram page with three hundred and sixty five thousand followers.
25:01 When we think about storytelling in today's modern society, we think about four C's content, commerce, communication and community.
25:13 And you guys seem to be nailing all of those aspects.
25:16 But as we grow, there's tick tock channels and YouTube channels and all of these different places that press shows up through user generated content,
25:25 but also through branded content. When you think of what I call digital hospitality,
25:30 how do you think about digital hospitality and all these different touch points that someone can consume your brand?
25:36 And to your point, how do you cultivate that CRM, so to speak, and get them to come back for more repeat visits?
25:44 Well, the first thing we did is change it from CRM to GRM, so guest relationship manager.
25:52 That's the first time our marketing team has ever heard that we were looking for someone for a GRM.
25:56 No one applied until we told them what it really was. Right now, customers are transactional, right?
26:03 Guests imply a relationship and forever. And we've already changed the kind of verbiage here to the word.
26:12 We were treating everybody like guests, but we weren't using that word.
26:15 So now I think the team understands these are guests, right? And they're guests on our app.
26:19 They're guests potentially or existing on tick tock.
26:22 They're guests when they go into Whole Foods or Sprouts or whatnot and see our product and they're guests on our four walls for sure.
26:28 Right. We are going to completely reimagine that digital experience, hopefully, next calendar year.
26:35 It's really obviously a function of allocation of resources and human capital as well as real capital.
26:42 I think it's good today, but it could be better. And that's kind of my overall mindset always.
26:47 Like, what could we do better? And I think to me, it's all got a tie, but it's got to be authentic and real.
26:54 And it can't be too programmed out. Otherwise, I think guests, well, they won't fall for that.
27:01 They want to know it's real. So there's a lot of organic content with our product.
27:06 We're really fortunate that the biggest influencers and stars and athletes are already posting on their personal accounts without us doing anything, which is really amazing.
27:18 Which is great. It helps. But ultimately, how does it all integrate and seamlessly flow?
27:22 And I think actually we have work to do, Sean, even though there's a lot of followers. I think that's the work that was done before I got here.
27:28 Now, the question is, how do we get to a million followers or two million?
27:31 How do people trust us for even more content around, I would say, editing all the noise around wellness?
27:38 I'm a wellness person in my own way, but I've found there's I call them tribes.
27:43 There's tribes of wellness, all kinds of tribes. We can't be something to everyone.
27:49 But how do we demystify all this and simplify it and help people on their journey?
27:54 And we say either you're beginning your wellness journey, maybe it's your first day on a cleanse.
27:59 You're already super fit and we're just helping you maintain.
28:02 Or maybe you're switching because whatever you're doing isn't working. But everyone's on this journey.
28:06 So how do we help people along that journey wherever they're at and meet them where they're at and not have ego really say, hey, this is where you're at.
28:15 Here's what we can offer you. And I think from a digital question,
28:19 we're going to build up that team, we're doing a great job engaging, but there's such an opportunity for ritual and systems.
28:28 And we've already started that with that seven day simple cleanse you raised when we first started.
28:33 I think trial is nice and fun, but ritual is what we really want. And that's where we built the business.
28:40 So whether someone's doing X, Y, Z cleanse once a week or once a month,
28:44 or they're using our unwind tonic that we just launched in the last month, which I really, really love as kind of an evening ritual.
28:52 Personally, I've already hacked it and I make it hot and put it in the microwave as opposed to drink it cold.
28:57 But as a healthy way to kind of wind down your day, be more mindful.
29:03 We now have that skew. And how do you weave it in all these channels is really the magic question in a real way and not overspend.
29:13 Right. At the end of the day, we can spend all the money in the world to get you into our four walls or try it,
29:19 but it has to be a ritual, be part of your overall wellness routine, or it's just you're just you're like on a hamster wheel.
29:25 So we're moving into this systems. You're going to see us kind of lean into our core beginning around these,
29:31 you know, half day, full day, multi day systems. And that seven day simple cleanse is a phenomenal success as a top skew for us.
29:39 And we just recently started amplifying the kind of the noise around that.
29:43 It's been really exciting. But I think the digital experience, too, has to be seamless.
29:47 And I think there is friction in our in our system as good as you say it is.
29:52 And I think of friction is always like, where's their friction in the buying process?
29:55 Where's their fiction in the ordering process? Where's their friction in the kind of like knowledge?
30:01 Like, what should I buy? I think it's there's still a lot of skews on our website with over 30 juices and 11 shots.
30:07 That's a lot. We start adding supplements and bars. There's going to be a lot of noise.
30:11 Really, how do you customize that experience for each guest based on their needs and help them kind of narrow in on what they want,
30:19 whether it's because of some tests they take or like minded people? But it's all about the clicks.
30:24 I always say you should be able to order product with your thumb, right?
30:29 Like it should be that fast. If it takes a couple of fingers, it's too complicated.
30:33 But yeah, we're fully integrating in our team is really getting that guest journey right from the time you become a member to the time you become a VIP.
30:44 And that's been a huge focus. We have a really, really robust, active member count and VIP group and leaning into perks and just like creating that own tribe of people that follow that.
30:56 And how do you really expand it beyond juice? Right. People are trusting us for anything.
31:01 So how can we partner with the right brands again that are that are part of that whole digital ecosystem?
31:05 But I don't know if that answers it other than it's good, but we want it to be even better and even slicker and just less friction.
31:14 Right. It's good. But like, let's get let's just keep pushing ourselves on the digital.
31:19 Well, Justin, I think, you know, I'm fortunate that thanks for to to entrepreneur.
31:24 We get to interview some incredible CEOs, some incredible founders that are doing really cool things in the in the spaces that we play in.
31:32 But, you know, I recently just saw a post about Red Bull actually and Red Bull.
31:37 They have 18 million followers just on Instagram alone and in all of their content, not one piece of content.
31:44 You will you see a Red Bull drink? They talk about all of the things associated with brand.
31:50 If there is a company that is poised to to be the Red Bull in the wellness space, I think pressed juicery.
31:57 I'm challenging your team so that we can look back on this interview, whether that's three years from now,
32:02 five years from now, and we can see, you know, all of the followers, but all of the impact.
32:06 More importantly, when you think about wellness, when you think about the things that you guys can do, I think it's it's inspiring.
32:12 I appreciate you taking the time. Where's the best place for people to follow along with pressed outside of social?
32:19 We'll put all the links in the show notes, but any specific Instagram.
32:24 Yeah, Instagram is great. I think I asked people, you know, become a member.
32:27 It's free to be a member.
32:30 But you start seeing kind of the emails and things that provide updates.
32:34 And really, I didn't begin this journey 13 years ago, but starting this VIP program where people commit to basically not paying,
32:42 but just spending ten bucks a month with us, that's the most intimacy you're going to engage with as a brand.
32:49 And as long as you're buying two juices a month, you get pervert pricing.
32:53 So we intentionally, I would say, discount and incentivize people to become VIP so that we can, again, get them engaged more off of them.
33:02 That's the best way to follow us, either become a member or really ideally a VIP.
33:06 And we're seeing thousands of those literally every week sign up, which is really, really exciting.
33:13 And how do we parlay that into wellness retreats or other experiences that reinforce that kind of press logo and that press brand?
33:22 And just like you said with Red Bull, people already do it over the next five years as you see the logo, to see the brand.
33:28 People just know I know what that means. I'm wearing that hat.
33:31 So I identify with you. I believe in it. Like minded. I believe in it.
33:34 You maybe you like your green swan or you like your roots one or you like your simple cleanse.
33:38 And there's like this sub tribe of people that really, really love press.
33:43 And we're going to come up with some new merch and really redevelop a few of our stores in a kind of a flagship way that will reinforce that.
33:50 But yeah, become a VIP. That's the easiest way to do it. It's a great deal.
33:53 It's actually insane not to unless you don't like healthy juice or whatnot.
33:59 Unless you don't want to live long. I want to live long.
34:02 I want to be there for my daughter when whenever the magical day is that she gets married and hopefully one day have grandkids,
34:09 but I need to take care of myself and I'm a huge fan of the brand.
34:12 I love the I love everything about what you guys are building and I look forward to having you on in the future to see see where the story goes next.
34:21 Great. And if you guys want to connect with me, it's at Sean P.
34:25 Welch F. S. H. A. W. N. P. W. A. L. C. H. E. F. I am weirdly available to hear your story.
34:31 Connect with me. I'll connect you with digital hospitality leaders all over the globe.
34:36 Justin Nettleman, CEO of Press Juicery. Justin, appreciate the time.
34:40 This was awesome. Thank you. Just a reminder.
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