Full Transcript

Sari 0:04
I'm Sari Kimbell and I've done just about everything in the food industry. I have helped hundreds of packaged food business entrepreneurs and now I want to help you make your delicious dream a reality. Whether you want to be successful at farmer's markets, online, or wholesale on the store shelves, Food Business Success is your secret ingredient. I will show you how to avoid an expensive hobby, and instead run a profitable food business. Now let's jump.

Welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for being here. Today's episode is gonna be a really fun one, I think you're gonna get a lot out of it. To start with, I'm going to read a review from one of my favorite people on this planet. "I love this podcast. Her knowledge and background in the industry really shine through with the passion she has for helping other business owners thrive. 10 out of 10." Thanks, Rachel. And you guys definitely need to go check out Life's a Buch. She does social media like a badass. And I just love how far she's come. And actually, she really embodies the the topic of this episode, think like a scientist. So definitely go check out Rachel and everything she's doing to grow her business. So in today's episode, we are going to put on our white lab coat and we're going to step into the lab of your business, creating a packaged food business or growing that business. And this is inspired by a book I've been listening to by Adam Grant called Think Again. And it's been a really fun read and really got me thinking about how we can apply this to your business. You know, honestly, like, I love this concept, but I have not been in a lab since high school probably. That was definitely not to my major or my interest. But now I can see how much this applies to my own business and how much it applies to you guys, both the people I work with now and the hundreds of phone calls and, you know, one on one consultations I've had with people and I see how this really can slow you down. Or it unfortunately can be the demise of your business and ultimately quitting.

So Adam talks about two biases that really can get in our way and be used as a weapon against ourselves. The first is confirmation bias. And that is seen what we expect to see. So if we expect that everybody's gonna love our product, we're going to look for that. And we're going to be blinded by a couple of people who love it. And we're not going to want to see all the other people potentially, who have other opinions. And then the other bias that can really harm us is desirability bias. And that is seeing what we want to see. So they can actually really work for us or against us. If we think about if you really think that the world is a great place, that you're an optimistic person, that you see good in the world, then you're going to see good in the world, and you're going to kind of let people off the hook more easily. But if you want to see if you believe that there's the world is mostly bad, then that's what you're going to see. And so when we come to our business, do we have confirmation bias and desirability bias clouding our judgments and our decisions? And it's actually true that the smarter you are, the brighter you are, is that you are actually overconfident in in your confirmation bias and your desirability bias, and you will be far less likely to rethink your business, rethink your strategy.

So a couple of other things that I really thought were awesome out of this book is that, you know, as we put on the lab coat, and we think about our business like a science experiment, and that's how I want to encourage you to think about your business is to release the attachment. Attachment is what blinds us. It's those biases I just talked about, where you become overly attached to what you want and the way you think it should be, rather than kind of detaching and playing around and seeing what works and applying the scientific method which I honestly, I'll be honest, I would have to go back and look that up. But I remember the general concept is that it's all about coming in with a theory that we're going to test, right? And we're going to release our attachment to the outcome. He talks about the joy of being wrong, embracing being wrong, because there is no benefit in being wrong for longer. Let's actually apply this play testing and fail fast, right, and then pivot. They actually did a study he was talking about in the book, the Milan study, and they split up graduate, or I think they were college graduates. And they were going into entrepreneurship, and they split up into two groups and one was encouraged, one group was encouraged to really see their, their developing entrepreneurial businesses as a as an experiment, that they came in with a hypothesis, they tested it, they use their minimum viable product, the MVP as an experiment. And what they actually found, it's pretty amazing is that the ones who thought about their business this way, and their ideas is that they generated over $12,000 in revenue versus the control group only generated $300 in revenue. They also found that they brought in money twice as fast and brought in more customers faster, because they were willing to rethink, they were willing to pivot, and they pivoted twice as often as the control group. So super interesting. So this idea of thinking of your business, like a science experiment, detaching from the outcome, and separating the opinions, your opinions from your identity. I talk with a lot of people who are really attached to their one concept, their one idea, and it's got to be this way. And if I challenge that in any way, either the concept as a whole or some pieces of it and ask them to like is that really the right way? Is that the only way that they can get very defensive. And I've really tried and really experimented with how do I present this and, you know, I don't want to make you guys defensive. But I am an expert in the food industry and bringing your packaged food to market and making it profitable and successful. And so letting go of your opinions that they are not connected to your identity. And in fact, I really think if you can make your identity more

along the lines of a profitable business owner, who's creating the best products for my customers, that is actually going to let you detach, open up your mind to possibility, be willing to pivot versus I have to do this one product this way. And it's got to be in this sales channel. Like the only outcome that you have is, you know, to go into Walmart's or certain or Whole Foods right? Or on Amazon or wherever it's going. So you really lock yourself into one product, one sales channel, and that's it. And that's the only way. So instead of detaching your identity from that one very tight tunnel, you know, narrow, focused idea to know I just want to be a successful brand owner of foodprenuer, and opening yourself up to possibility. In the book, Adam really encourages that we start with intellectual humility, and that we list out the things we know and what we don't know. And then we question everything. We question the information. What are we missing? Here's a great quote, If knowledge is power, knowing what we don't know is wisdom. And I love that because what I see from working with hundreds of packaged food business owners, the most successful people are the ones who say, I don't know what I don't know. I want help. I want to not have to learn all of this myself. Certainly being resourceful is is absolutely crucial to being successful. Getting help is the best thing you can do for your business to help us know your blind spots, and especially in those areas where you're particularly weak that you just don't have the knowledge in those areas and what's so crazy is in. So I want you to consider this, this little quiz here. How much do you know on these topics, then you think the average person knows? More or less or the same? So here's your questions. There's five of them and just answer in your head. Why English became the official language of the United States? why women were burned at the stake in Salem?

What job Walt Disney had before he drew Mickey Mouse? On which space trip did humans first lay eyes on the Great Wall of China? And why eating candy affects how kids behave. So how did you rank yourself on those five questions? More knowledgeable, less knowledgeable, or the same as the average person? So I love this because I definitely I was like, more about the same. The whole point of this is that none of these are true. English is not the official language, there is no official language of the United States. Women were hanged, they weren't burned. While Disney did not draw Mickey Mouse. We cannot see the Great Wall of China from space and candy has no scientific they've done studies that there are no effects on how kids behave. Which I know we all want to think that it does but apparently, in science, it does not. I think that's a great test to kind of test our overconfidence. He talks about the rethinking cycle versus the overconfidence cycle, where we in overconfidence cycle, we validate what we think we know, we spend out in confirmation bias and desirability bias. And we really lock into that. Think about if you've ever had conversations with someone who has really different beliefs than you. If they are caught in confirmation bias and desirability bias, they will actually dig in harder, like the world is flat kind of thinking. And they will actually believe it more, rather than less. So are you open? Are you willing to go into the rethinking cycle instead? And a rethinking cycle is confident humility. So you're confident that you have a great idea, but you're humble to say I don't know how it's going to come together. You're competent, that you can make the investment that you can take the risks, and you're going to do the work to make it successful, you're going to take action, but you're constantly going to be reevaluating that and detaching yourself from the outcome. I do see this working sometimes against you guys, and that you want to over test before you take any action. And I think that working that out in your head can be good at the beginning. Getting information, getting facts, getting data, I mean, go back and listen to the podcast episode with Lara Fordis about doing market testing. There certainly are great opportunities to test your idea before you ever launch. But I do think I see some of you guys spinning out in that and you you're just too scared, there's just too much fear of actually taking action, going to the next step. And I would just say that there has to be a balance of testing the minimum viable product as much as you can, kind of in theory, and then putting it into action. Let go of your perfectionism. Go back and listen to 80% rule, doing b minus work, getting it out there and go on a mission to discover, to question, to actually enjoy the surprise of being wrong. Because what if just humor me for a minute, what if part of this is all about the journey of discovery of going through the process? And what if you knew you were going to be successful, it just meant being wrong a certain number of times, to failing a certain number of times. All great discoveries come from lots and lots of trial and error. So that famous Edison quote that comes to mind I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. As he was trying to invent the light bulb. So why do you think your business is any different? Why do you think you get the easy way where you try One thing and it works perfectly? That's not how any of the things that we have now, whether it be an iPhone or Airbnb or any other product or service we have was created on failure. Failure is just data. It helps us make new decisions. Let's help us figure out what doesn't work. And your journey is not going to be the same as anybody else's journey. This is a concept that I am constantly trying to figure out better and better ways to share with my clients and people in Food Business Success: that

there is no one prescription- there is no one way to create a successful profitable food business. You need to follow your own journey and be open to that. Release your confirmation bias, release your desirability bias. Put the goal as being a successful profitable business owner and open yourself up to possibility to experimentation, whether that's testing your recipe formulation, trying new ingredients, figuring out how to scale up, or how to get followers and optimize your social media ads, or Amazon or how to make that pitch into the grocery store, or your pricing or your flavors or your packaging or your labels right? Like all of this can be fun. Don't be afraid to put on that lab coat. Go into the lab of creating a profitable food business, having some fun experimenting, playing with new ideas, getting data, pivoting, trying again. That is what this is all about and you are going to become a better version of yourself your business will be better than you ever thought it would be when you first started if you're willing to put on the hat of being a scientist. And if you want help in the lab with an expert to help guide you and teach you best practice and help you skip a lot of the mistakes that people make then go and apply for Food Business Success. But either way, step into confident humility. Be willing to be wrong and revise and pivot and I know you will create a successful packaged food business. Alright, until next time, have an amazing week.

Are you ready to start that delicious idea that you make in your home kitchen or grow your existing packaged food business and take it to the next level? The most successful food business entrepreneurs have support, guidance, focus and accountability to help them make it happen quickly without wasting time or money. Plus, I think starting your packaged food business should actually be fun. Food Business Success is your secret ingredient to creating your food business dream. Please don't go this alone. Check out the private free Food Business Success Facebook group to connect with other foodprenuers, get your questions answered quickly, share your wins and receive special training and tools I only share inside the private community. Just search for Food Business Success on Facebook, or get the link in the show notes. Curious about how Food Business Success can help you? Head over to FoodBizSuccess.com and fill out the application to see if you're a great fit for the program. Together let's make your food business dream a reality.

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