Scaling Startups and Building Brand Trust

In this episode of Chief Advertiser, Samir Balwani interviews Alex Gassner, Director of Growth and Ecommerce at The Absorption Company, about building a high-impact brand.
Key Results

Scaling Startups and Building Brand Trust

In this episode of Chief Advertiser, Samir Balwani interviews Alex Gassner, Director of Growth and Ecommerce at The Absorption Company, about building a high-impact brand.

Alex Gassner is the Director of Growth and Ecommerce at The Absorption Company, a highly absorbable supplement brand. In her role, she has led website optimization, overhauled email flows, and launched paid media campaigns. Before The Absorption Company, Alex was the Director of Ecommerce at Moon Juice.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

  • [0:42] Alex Gassner shares how she entered the marketing industry
  • [5:01] How The Absorption Company enhances supplement absorption
  • [8:51] The challenges of growing a startup brand and building consumer trust
  • [13:36] Alex talks about the unique dynamics of celebrity-founded brands
  • [17:54] How brand awareness impacts sales, especially during peak seasons like Cyber Week
  • [20:21] Measuring marketing performance and communicating results to leadership
  • [28:44] Best practices for managing agency partners and external teams

In this episode...

Many brands struggle to stand out in a crowded market, especially when launching a new product in a competitive industry. Beyond product quality, companies must educate consumers, build trust, and create a compelling brand story to drive conversions. How can businesses balance brand awareness, performance marketing, and consumer education to fuel long-term growth?

With businesses struggling to communicate their true value to potential customers, growth and e-commerce marketer Alex Gassner emphasizes the importance of brand trust and communication. Companies should craft compelling messaging, strategically leverage organic and paid marketing, and build a long-term strategy rather than relying solely on promotional spikes. Well-crafted narratives can differentiate companies in a saturated market, and partnering with authentic influencers can build credibility, helping to reach new audiences.

In this episode of Chief Advertiser, Samir Balwani interviews Alex Gassner, Director of Growth and Ecommerce at The Absorption Company, about building a high-impact brand. Alex talks about the challenges of launching a brand with celebrity co-founders, the importance of balancing short-term revenue tactics with long-term brand building, and how to manage agency partners and external teams.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

  • "It’s nice when the brand I work for aligns with what I’m interested in in my personal life."
  • "Brand awareness plays a huge role in everything. It’s not just promoting and spending."
  • "The way to grow as a business is by looking at the underlying KPIs on a weekly basis."
  • "It’s important to make agency partners feel like they’re truly part of the team, not outsiders."
  • "You can’t educate until people appreciate you as a source of truth and actually trust you."

Action Steps:

  1. Invest in brand awareness early: Building recognition before focusing on conversions helps establish trust and credibility with potential customers. Without strong brand awareness, performance marketing efforts may struggle to generate meaningful long-term results.
  2. Educate consumers on your product’s unique value: Clear, compelling messaging helps potential buyers understand why your brand stands out in a crowded market. Consumers are more likely to purchase when they fully grasp the benefits and differentiators of a product.
  3. Leverage influencer partnerships strategically: Selecting influencers whose audiences align with your brand’s mission ensures more authentic and impactful promotions. Rather than focusing solely on follower count, brands should prioritize engagement and credibility.
  4. Balance short-term revenue with long-term growth: Relying too heavily on discounts or promotional spikes can lead to unsustainable business practices. A well-rounded marketing strategy should include both immediate sales drivers and brand-building efforts.
  5. Develop a strong measurement framework: Tracking the right KPIs allows brands to make data-driven decisions and optimize marketing spend effectively. A clear measurement plan helps companies identify which strategies are driving the most sustainable growth.

Episode Transcript

Samir Balwani 0:03

Hi. I'm Samir Balwani, host of Chief Advertiser and founder of QRY, join me as I talk to industry leaders about their strategies, challenges and successes in managing their advertising and marketing. On our episode today, I have Alex Gassner, the Director of Growth and Ecommerce at The Absorption Company. I've known her for quite a while. I've learned so much from you, and I'm so excited to have you here today. Thanks for joining us today, Alex.

Alex Gassner 0:31

Yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me. 

Samir Balwani 0:34

Well, let's get started with kind of the background stuff. So how did you get started in marketing? Talk to us about your career path. How'd you get to The Absorption Company?

Alex Gassner 0:42

Yeah, I mean, so I actually I majored in marketing in college, which I feel like most people say that they they don't use their major in their career, necessarily, but I actually majored in basically exactly what I'm doing, which works out, I've definitely learn it a lot more on the job, I would say, than I learned in school, because there's so much that changes every single day, and you can't necessarily learn that in the classroom. But yeah, so I did. I did major in that in college. I always thought I wanted to be on more of the influencer side of things, actually, early on in my career. So that's really where I started out at agencies that worked with influencers. I interned for influencers, so I kind of was interested in managing both sides of that piece of marketing. Because, you know, I graduated college 2018 and I would say, while I was there, was kind of when the influencer creator space started to really become a thing. There wasn't nearly as many content creators back then. It was like a lot of bloggers, a lot of YouTubers, but we didn't have TikTok Instagram stories, like wasn't even a thing. So that's kind of where I got started. And my first job out of college was working in influencer marketing at another supplement brand called Peak, which was super early on. I think they were year three when I joined. And so I actually joined there as an influencer marketing manager. But the great thing about that role was, because the team was so small and it was a startup, they really valued kind of what I was passionate about and also what I was good good at. So they allowed me to see all different sides of the business. I also managed the social media at the time, and they were just launching paid ads. So as they were doing that, they kind of invited me to in to help manage that, help manage our agency, manage the creative process. And I really, really love that, as well as also the e-commerc side of things. So they had, they were super, super serious about conversion rate optimization, which is so important. I still think it's so important, all of the A/B tests that they were doing. And just like, really being able to see the customer journey from a social media post to an ad to what actually was happening on the website during that role, really kind of like, opened my eyes to just how impactful the digital space can be and how many touch points it truly does take. And ever since then, it's really been, like, I like to be part of small startups that have really aggressive growth goals, and it's happened to be all kind of in this, like health and wellness space, which is also something that I'm really passionate about in my my personal life as well. So I think that helps, like, it is my interest. It is what I see all over my TikTok for you page, like trends and like the best supplements to take and clean ingredients and clean skin care and all those good things. So that's kind of always been. It's nice when the brand I work for aligns with what I'm interested in my personal life. Yeah, and then I went, I was at Moon juice for three years, which was great. I learned so much in that role. I was director of digital there, managing paid ads the website. Amazon was a really big part of my role there. We really focused on growing the Amazon business, which was a fun challenge. And then, yeah, I've been at The Absorption Company for about six months now, doing growth and e-commerce, which is kind of where I've found myself to it's been my sweet spot. It's what I really like to do. It's challenging, it's exciting, and this role is really fun, because I joined when the brand was only six months old, and I've never been anywhere that early on. So coming from, like, the industry, and coming from other startups, I kind of was like, Oh, I got this. Like, I've done this before, but it's honestly been so different than anything I could have expected. So it's been great. 

Samir Balwani 4:47

I love your career path because you've seen like, every step of the way, right? And you kind of build it on it every step of the way. Talk to me more about Absorption Company, what is the brand? What makes it special? Why does it exist? 

Alex Gassner 5:01

Yeah, so it exists because there is an issue with absorption in the supplement space, about 84% of the supplements that people take on a daily basis aren't being absorbed. And why that's important is because absorption is what makes a supplement work? It is bio availability. It basically means your body can actually put the nutrients that you are taking to use. It actually absorbs them. Otherwise, it's more technical than this, but essentially, we'll say you're peeing it out. And it kind of goes back to honestly, it goes back to farming and the nutrients that we are getting from our foods. If you think about why people even have to take supplements today, it's because the nutrients you get from your food today is not as much as you would have gone 50 years ago. So an apple today is not as nutrient rich as an apple 50 years ago. Because of modern farming practices, there's soil nutrient depletion in the soil, and so that's why people have deficiencies, like vitamin D deficiency, for example, is a very popular one. I think over 74% of people have a vitamin D deficiency. So then people turn to supplements to bridge those nutrient gaps, and 84% of the supplements that people are buying to help them bridge that nutrient gap aren't being absorbed, which means it's essentially not doing its job. So that is the whole premise of why The Absorption Company exists. We make highly absorbable supplements. We use a patented technology called capsule, which takes certain nutrients and basically makes them up to 500% more absorbable than they were. So we use capsule technology, and then we also use all of the other ingredients in our blends are in their most bio available form. So everything that you're getting is just super bio available, super absorbable, which means it actually works. You can feel it working. It's a fun way to take supplements, I will say, like it's a powder that you pour into water so they all taste good. They're enjoyable. We have a solution for energy, for calm, for sleep and for restore right now, and there will be more to come, but yeah, and they're honestly great products. Like I said, I'm super passionate about all this stuff in my personal life, like I love health and wellness. I love researching what ingredients do what and what you need to take if you are suffering from this. And so part of the reason why I joined the team is honestly just because I believe in the mission so much, and the products are so good, and they are so far beyond anything else that's out there on the market. And I really think the next frontier in supplements is going to be absorption, like I've already seen other brands start to talk about bio availability, but we really have the science to back it up, so really trying to be frontiers in that kind of conversation, in that space, which is really exciting.

Samir Balwani 8:02

I love that, because anytime you talk to anyone on your team, they are so passionate about the brand, the mission, and it's great because it's true, like, Do you have a mission that's actually fulfilling the need for people? And the idea of modern farming practices reducing nutrients was not something I knew. I knew. I ended up doing a lot of research, running and really understanding the impacts of it, and changed the way I take vitamins now too. So it is an educational thing, as well as then a product piece. So, you know, it's interesting, because Alex, you said early on that you love this role because it is challenging yet fulfilling. And so let's talk more about the challenges. What are the challenges that you guys? It's a new brand. You got a lot to do. What stands out for you? Yeah.

Alex Gassner 8:51

I mean, like, I kind of alluded to this before, but obviously I come from the industry. That's where my whole experience has been. And so I was kind of like, oh yeah. Like, I know how to sell supplements. I can sell in my sleep. And being so early on as a brand has been a lot more challenging than I anticipated. I've I've joined companies like I said, like, year three is probably the earliest that I've joined, but joining, you know, six months after a launch is a whole different ball game. I know we've talked a lot about brand awareness being really important, and that's really what can help paid performance, like it helps everything to succeed more and trying to build the brand Well, brand awareness while also building the paid marketing side of things, I would say has been the biggest challenge, because it's not like, I don't know five years ago anymore, where you can just like, spend and see results right away. I think consumers are a little bit more jaded and. Yeah, it's just really important to build that, that brand awareness, that brand trust, and that's something that we're trying to do, while also building the paid side of things. So it's been fun, but it's been challenging. And the other thing I would say is the education piece, I think, in general, I think something like 77% of people take of Americans take a supplement in some form every single day. I think the part of understanding why people are doing that like I don't know that people necessarily grasp, like you said, that whole, whole concept of the reason that we have to supplement is because our food is not as nutrient rich, is one thing to educate on, because I even had a conversation with my mom this weekend, and she was like, Oh, well, you know, I I like to get my nutrients for my food, like I try to eat organic, I try to eat vegetables. And I was like, that's great, but you probably aren't even getting everything from your food, which is just the reality, yeah. So I think the emotional part of it too is that you can be doing everything right. You can be eating all organic and eating your vegetables and eating your protein, and still not be getting the results or the health or whatever it is you might be looking for. And so then the fact that you turn to a supplement, a brand that says it's going to do one thing, and then 84% of them aren't actually even doing anything at all. It's kind of like you're just wasting your money, is like. So it's an emotional story that we also have to tell as much as an educational story. And so that's been another challenge, I think, is getting that education across. Because it's, they're kind of like, why? You know, like, why would i Why does absorption even matter? Why? Yeah, or

Samir Balwani 11:41

Yeah, even, like, I'm already taking a supplement and I'm still nutrient deficient, right? Like, getting people to understand that it's the supplement that they're taking and and it's not being absorbed, versus, that's just how my body is, right? Like, it's, it's just, like, there's so much ambiguity in terms of how people's bodies work also, and like what they learn and how they feel. It's so subjective. So there is this, like, huge education piece, plus, going back to your first question around, like, building a brand and brand trust, you can't educate until people appreciate you as a source of truth, right? Like no one's gonna care what you say. And I talk about this all the time, because I think Shopify and Amazon have been amazing for us as consumers, and been the most frustrating thing as brands, because anyone can spin up a Shopify store, anyone can start selling on Amazon. And so, you know, people always ask, Well, why do we have to do brand awareness now, and it's well, opening and selling products has been democratized, so anyone can do it. If you can invest in actually standing out, then people will start to trust you more and and like, that's, that's where you know cost of starting a new brand is increasing, right? Because you have to stand out from everyone else, and you have to show that you have a brand. So yeah. 

Alex Gassner 13:01

And I think especially like being a little bit of a higher price point to lens its challenges, you need to, just like, be more of that source of truth and that education and have that relationship with the consumer even more so when you are at a higher price point as well.

Samir Balwani 13:16

Yeah. So I mean, you, like you said, You've been in this world for a long time. What is the challenge that surprised you the most? Like, what was the one that you were like, man, that's not I just they came out of left

Alex Gassner 13:29

field that surprised me the most. I would say, sorry, give me a second. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how to say this, but the other piece of our brand that's interesting is we're celebrity co founded as well, which is great, and it's so it does give us that brand awareness that so many other brands starting up don't have. And it's been challenging, in a good way, to understand how to best leverage that piece of the puzzle, like we have these great people with millions of followers, huge platforms, people that do trust them, and figuring out how to best tie that in with, like, what we're trying to achieve as a brand, and leveraging that so that people don't just buy when we're on sale and promo and like, our celebrity co founders are promoting it, but really, you getting their audiences to also buy into our brand messaging and understanding the education. It's a good it's a good challenge to have because, like I said, we're lucky. Like so many other brands, don't have a built in platform of 10s of millions of people. But just like figuring out the best way to use use that to our advantage, I'd say is the biggest challenge that's been the most unexpected for me.

Samir Balwani 14:45

Yeah, it's really interesting, because everyone thinks, oh, I'm celebrity founded. This is going to go great and, like, there's going to be no problems, and we're just going to scale, you know, forever. And then you realize, oh, wait, I still have to build a brand, right? Like, I just, like, this is. It needs to be able to stand on its own, and it needs to be able to kind of grow on its own. And so, yeah, I think that that, yeah, I love that, because I think that's definitely a watch out for celebrity backed brands, influencer backed brands, even brands that really lean in on influencer to grow. How do you grow from influencer without losing control of your brand or being a brand that's tied to the influencers, though, right? Yeah,

Alex Gassner 15:28

yeah. And I think also like not relying on those for pops of like, revenue, or being like, Hey, we're down to our goals. Like, let's have this person throw up an Instagram story. Those things can take away from the time that could be spent in like building the brand. It's like

Samir Balwani 15:47

a drug. It's like a It's a between that and promos, right? Like it's the two drugs that everyone goes straight to, yes, and it is. It can hide a lot of the underlying issues then, yeah,

Alex Gassner 16:01

yeah, exactly which I think the way to grow as a business and grow in a strategic way is, is by looking at the underlying things, like all of the underlying KPIs on a weekly basis, and making sure that you feel good about where those are and rather than to your point, hiding them through whether it Be a TikTok live, or, like, a big influence, or whatever it may be, which could look good on the surface, like, what does that actually? What kind of consumer are you bringing in? Are they going to come back? What's their LTV, like, those sorts of things below the surface have to also be sound. Yeah,

Samir Balwani 16:34

we were talking about this before too, because it's at one point you start to ask, what's more important, revenue or profit, right? And when sale is the drug or celebrity influencer is the drug for, like, the moment, and you get that pop of revenue, and you hit your goal, and everyone's high fiving, and then you go, All right, well, now I gotta anniversary that next time. And like, what am I gonna do to anniversary this? Am I gonna have to do a sale on top of that? And is that going to hit my bottom line or what? So it is, you know, it is an interesting and I think this is where good or great marketing people differentiate themselves in that they can tell that story. Because, you know, marketing is complicated now, right? Like, it's not a straightforward story to be told. So being able to say, hey, our baseline revenue is this. We're going to hit our revenue number, but our baseline revenue is this, and we've been doing these things to help bully us in the short term. Yeah, these are short term versus long term tactics, yeah,

Alex Gassner 17:30

which is kind of how we've also tried to, like, build out this year. I actually just thought of another big challenge and and surprise, something that was super surprising to me, was cyber week for us in 2024 was not as huge as anticipated and as I have experienced my past. And I think that was really the moment for me where I realized, oh, brand awareness plays a huge role in everything, like it's not just promoting and spending. If people are only hearing about you for the first time, they're still not going to make a purchase just because you're on sale. Like, yeah, yeah. So that was that's just another thing. I think cyber week, and on its own, could be a whole episode for you, because it changed so much, and no one knows what to expect every year. Going into it every

Samir Balwani 18:18

year, it's fascinating to us. We try and forecast as much as we can, and we get pretty close. But every once in a while, a brand or something will throw a wrench in something, and something unique will happen. It is interesting on the brand awareness side there, McKinsey has done this study called the customer decision journey, and it talks about how brand awareness is key, because there's usually a trigger where a customer has, where they build their consideration set. And the consideration set is, who are the brands that I am thinking about purchasing from when I find that I have a thing. So in this instance, I know I need vitamins. Who is who comes into my consideration set if you don't even make it into the consideration set, it doesn't matter if you're on sale or promo, because it just you're not, like, why would I spend the dollar when I don't even know that I want? Like, it doesn't matter to a sale is a value exchange. So if you're taking 20% off of nothing, because that's what you're worth to me, then it's still 20% off of nothing, and it's still so. So I think that that's an important takeaway for a lot of people, to start your prospecting for q4 in September, October, and really build brand awareness. It's, you know, when in all of our media forecasts, it's a it's a constant CFO conversation. They're like, why is our brand, why is our spend so high in October as a percentage of revenue? And we're like, well, you want to hit your November your November, December goals, right? It's like, one of those situations. So, yeah, I love I love that, and we should definitely do a Black Friday Cyber Monday entire episode. You know, one of the things that I think is really interesting with a brand as young as yours is. Um, all the complexities of measurement year over year, results are almost like you just can't even look at them half the time, because every the business is like brand new every few months. So talk about your challenges in measurement, and more importantly, like your measurement challenges, but then communicating to leadership and internally, yeah,

Alex Gassner 20:21

I mean to your point like we literally our first birthday was 10 days ago, and so year over year has been hard, because also the way we launched was based on our celebrity co founders, and so we actually didn't spend anything until I started in June of 2024, so the first six months of the business was all based on organic celebrity. You know, we had an end cap and arrow on. We had a smoothie in arrow on doing bigger brand activations. And those things are all hard to measure as they are, and they're also, to your point earlier heart day anniversary. So that's one piece of it is. Like a lot of the business originally was built off of organic and we achieved some great things, some great numbers. I mean, I think the way that I wasn't on the team yet, but the way they launched was with a private Instagram page, which is just brilliant to me. They essentially, it was a private Instagram our celebrity co founders promoted like, hey, go follow this so you can be the first to hear what we're doing. They went on pre sale in January. It was super successful. It was only available if you were a follower of that Instagram page, and then they kind of opened it up in February. But that, I mean, I just think it's brilliant. It's like a huge kudos to the team that started pre launch here. But to the question like that is hard to measure, right? Like, how do you you can see how many followers that page had, and I guess, clicks to the website and whatnot. But also another challenge was, I'd say, at the beginning of this business, when you're just trying to get a business up and a website up, you're not necessarily thinking about all the measurement tools that you need to put in place. So like, things like GA for like, weren't even in place until June. So that's one thing that just makes it challenging is like everything was being pulled from Shopify, which does not tell the whole story. I think GA four also doesn't tell the whole story. So that can be tricky as well. In platform measurement doesn't tell like it's, it's, the challenge is how to tell the whole story and put it all together. But to the question of of measurement, I think it makes it easier for paid and for digital, and that's kind of the world in which I exist. So for me, I I can very much be like, Oh, our meta ad, did this, our email. Did this? Like it. It is easier to measure, but when you layer in the brand, stuff that you need to achieve that makes it hard. And I think one of our challenges has has been okay, we didn't hit necessarily. Maybe we had a revenue goal that we didn't hit. Pinpointing why, like from a branded perspective, is really hard to do, because you can set, you can see, like, oh, well, conversion for conversion rate from organic search was not where we wanted it to be. And maybe it was a certain landing page that wasn't converting. But, okay, where did that? Those people first hear about us? Like, right? That whole journey, pre even coming to the website, like the that measuring, that is what I think is the biggest challenge, yeah, it's

Samir Balwani 23:39

almost like an entire journey, right? Like the entire cut, like all the touch points, especially for a growing brand, it's like, because there's so many touch points, where it's just seen, it's not even like, engaged with, and then you guys don't have enough revenue, or it's not even revenue, it's just like, there's not enough data yet to want to do marketing mix modeling, or all those, like large data model measurement programs. And so it's almost like, yeah, you're kind of, you're the one having to mold and tell that story and build it,

Alex Gassner 24:13

yeah. And I think, you know, a lot of the team that we have is marketing like that. Marketers are mostly what makes up our team. And so we try to do a really good job of recording everything. Like, oh, this influencer went live on this day, so that in a year from now, we're not like, Oh, what was that random pop of something and like, oh, this TikTok went live like, things that are off platform and not measurable. I think it's really important to just keep account of that, so that when you are looking at past performance or trying to anniversary stuff, you can remind yourself what has worked in the past, what levers you could potentially pull, or things that just maybe aren't possible to but I do think, yeah, to your point, it's all the stuff where you just see a brand for the first time, someone has an action on it. We don't necessarily know that. Part of the journey is really hard, and then the measurement tools in themselves, I've used them in their past, in my past, and they also it was like, still, also hard to take actionable insights away from I would say that was just my experience like, because there is a fear, I think, still, to dump a lot of money into super top of funnel stuff, if you're not a huge brand. And so that's been, I've always been part of companies that are successful in their own right, but they're not like a Coca Cola, right, where you can spend 50 million in like a commercial so even if those attribution tools, or whatever it may be, are telling you, hey, you actually had this thing that was super upper funnel that did drive a lot of this over funnel conversion. It's hard to take that to a board or to leadership and risky. It's super risky and, like it takes a huge investment most of the time as well, which I think that's how brands probably get to the next level. Like you sometimes just have to take that risk, but it does feel a lot more comfortable to spend and to invest in the metrics that you can see and the channels that are very measurable.

Samir Balwani 26:14

Yeah. I mean, I think that's, I think you said the exact word, where it's it's comfortable, right? Like you can run the performance marketing, you know, the performance marketing is going to work. You know, it's going to drive revenue. And I think actually, the worst stuff that we see is when it's all performance marketing, and then someone wants to dip their toe into brand awareness, and we get, like, here's, you know, $5,000 for CTV. And I'm like, that's fine. Like, we don't, but it's not going to do anything. Yeah, it's like, how? And then you can't go to a board and be like, I want $150,000 for ztv for this month. And they're like, no, like, what are you doing? Just so, yeah, I can see the risk, the comfort, but you're right.

Alex Gassner 27:01

Yeah, and another thing with that too, I think, like, to your point, if you do maybe 5000 is a huge, a huge budget for someone, right? And they're like, hey, we want to test CTV 5000 like, if that's a lot to them, and then they don't see results right away. It's really easy to pull back and pivot. And with a lot of those things, it's you to invest over long periods of time. You need to test and optimize and make sure you have a plan for like, hey, maybe right away, we're not going to see a return, but in six months, we expect to see this and kind of, like, mapping out that journey early on, I think, is important so that you don't have the ability to to, like, pull the plug on it after a month of it not working. Yeah.

Samir Balwani 27:40

I mean, that query our role, is it you have to invest enough that we can run an incrementality test over the next 60 to 90 days? Yeah. And so that's like, our priority, that is our purpose. Like, because you're right, people don't see results and they pull the plug. And the reason why they don't see results is you should right, like your brand awareness stuff shouldn't have high conversion rate and conversions, then you're just competing with your performance marketing, right? So, so it until you can run an incrementality desk, until you have an MTA tool in place to actually show you how it all fits together. Early brands are unable to do that right away. And so how do you kind of build to that? And how do you get to there over time. It becomes a media strategy. Alex, I love it. So last question for you. I think you are amazing at managing partners, so I want to, I would love for you to just share because you had so much time experiencing so much experience managing so many different kinds of partners. What works best for you? How do you get them excited? How do you motivate them? How do you keep them on the same page? Like, what what's your secret sauce, though? 

Alex Gassner 28:44

Yeah, it's so funny, because in my roles, I I've, I've managed, like, hands on, I think the most I've had reported to me was four people. But if you add on all of the agencies that I have managed, it is, like, you know, 15 at a time, which is fun, and it's they all kind of present their own challenges. But I'd say my one thing, and we're actually going through RFP right now for for an agency, for Amazon, and one thing that's really been important in the process, and I've kind of learned this, is meeting the team that will actually be managing your account or trying to or asking for that if you can. Because for me, a huge piece of being able to effectively manage a partner is feeling like you have open and honest and trustful communication and and I'm that's very empathetic, and I'm a people person, like I can read people and people's vibes, and it's important for me to know that we can have that kind of relationship. So I always try to meet the team that's going to be actually managing the account, if possible, because I think when you're going through RFP and whatnot, and even deciding on what agency to go with. Which can be risky in itself. You're talking to their best sales people, right? People that aren't even necessarily in the weeds, doing the work every day, maybe not even necessarily understanding how it works, but kind of just knowing enough to make the sale and get and do the pitch, and then they get the client, and then it's off their plate, right? So I think even more it's important that you have a good relationship with those people. But I think even more, what's important is being able to meet the people that actually are going to be working with you on a daily basis, and building a relationship of trust and understanding. And what, what I always say, too, is like, I obviously, I am responsible for the revenue goal. At the end of the day, I want our partners to feel as responsible as I do, and figuring out how to best help them to feel that responsible. I think open communication is really important, and so like keeping all partners updated on, hey, this is where we're pacing to. This is where we're thinking pivoting. This is what we've tried, and what hasn't worked. Like, our leadership is really interested in looking at this KPI right now, just kind of like making them feel like they're not in the dark. Because I've also been in situations where, you know, maybe, maybe someone is in the dark and, and that's no one's fault necessarily. Like, maybe you're busy, maybe you have too much going on. You've kept someone in the dark, and it makes it hard for them to feel ownership over action, over their actions that they can take, or even recommendations that they can make to you. Um, so I think just keeping everyone, like, on the same page honestly, and shooting someone a quick email or a quick slack if, like, something's changed or something's pivoted, or things that you're going through in your brain, helps them to feel like they're more part of the team and they're not part of like a third party agency that's not necessarily in house with you, making them feel like they basically are in house with you. I'd say is the most is the best trick.

Samir Balwani 31:56

Yeah, I think the best managers we've had are the ones that follow the hub and spoke model, where they are the hub, and they really recognize that it's important for them to keep all the spokes aligned and spinning in the right direction together, and because otherwise, like, you know, we're on paid media, and their affiliate team is off doing something else, and we we might be negotiating with the same vendor and not even know it. And so just being really aligned on that stuff, and being sure that we're aware of all of that stuff, because you scale and media gets complicated. Channel conflict becomes more and more important, right? Yeah, so that becomes a key piece of it. Totally,

Alex Gassner 32:32

yeah. That is an interesting we it's funny because, like, right now, I, like, I said, we're early, so we have, we have only a few agencies like, we haven't necessarily pulled all the levers for digital yet, so things like affiliate SEO that we still have to implement down the line, and figuring out how that's going to play in with, you know, your performance marketing agency or your influencer team, and making sure that everyone feels like they have their responsibilities in order to is another important piece

Samir Balwani 32:59

of it. Amazing. All right, well, Alex, that is a great place for us to end. So thank you so much for joining us. If someone wants to find you online, where can they learn more about you?

Alex Gassner 33:09

Oh, my LinkedIn. I think is just LinkedIn comm slash. I think I'm Alexandra Gassner on there, which is my full name. 

Samir Balwani 33:16

Put it in the show notes, and people can click off and find you. But thank you so much, Alex, thank you. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Chief Advertiser. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please subscribe@chiefadvertiser.com share the episode with others who might find it valuable and consider leaving us a review. Your support helps us bring more insights with each episode. See you next time.

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