168. Health-Ade Founder Used Craigslist To Get Their Product Into 300 Stores In 2 Weeks

Cubicle to CEO

Ellen Yin

Business, Marketing, Entrepreneurship

5.0 • 580 Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2022

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you love a scrappy startup story, today’s case study is a true standout. I’m joined by Daina Trout, co-founder and Chief Mission Officer of Health-Ade, the fastest-selling Kombucha brand in America, currently carried in 60K stores across the country and doing an impressive $250 million in retail sales annually. Far from an overnight success story though, we’re taking a trip down memory lane to the brand’s early days in 2013, when they were quickly running out of money and only carried in 10 stores. With the three co-founders already at max capacity trying to keep the business alive and no funds available to hire traditional sales reps, Daina turned to Craigslist to recruit commission-based, independent sales reps to hit the pavement and open new accounts on their behalf. In just 2 weeks, Health-Ade’s products exploded into 300 stores. Daina gives us her full playbook today for exactly how she incentivized total strangers to sell her products with no guaranteed pay, the training process, compensation plan, and lessons learned from being in the field interacting with customers. Press play to apply her scrappy sales strategy to your own business! Connect with Daina: https://health-ade.com/ https://www.instagram.com/healthade/ https://www.instagram.com/dainatrout/ If you enjoyed today’s episode, please: Sign up for our text notifications at ellenyin.com/superfan so you can be the first to know when a new case study has dropped! Post a screenshot & key takeaway on your IG story and tag me @missellenyin & @cubicletoceo so I can repost you. Leave a positive review or rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Subscribe for new episodes every Monday. Want to hear all the ins and outs of what is happening in our business? Check out all our previous quarterly income reports at https://ellenyin.com/incomereport ! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Kivocalda CEO, episode 168. If you love a scrappy startup story, today's
0:05.9	case study is a true standout. I'm joined by Dinah Trout, co-founder and chief mission officer
0:11.7	of Health Aid, the fastest selling kombucha brand in America, currently carried in 60,000
0:17.2	stores across the country and doing an impressive $250 million in retail sales annually.
0:24.1	Far from an overnight success story, though, we're taking a trip down memory lane to the
0:28.3	brand's early days in 2013 when they were quickly running out of money and only carried in 10
0:33.9	stores. With the three co-founders already at max capacity trying to keep the business alive
0:39.1	and no funds available to hire traditional sales reps, Dina turned to Craigslist, of all places,
0:45.3	to recruit commission-based independent sales reps to hit the pavement and open new accounts on
0:50.8	their behalf. In just two weeks, health AIDS products exploded into 300 stores.
0:58.0	Dinah gives us her full playbook today for exactly how she incentivized total strangers
1:02.7	to sell her products with no guaranteed pay, the training process, compensation plan,
1:08.3	and lessons learned from being in the field interacting with customers.
1:12.6	Press play to apply her scrappy sales strategy to your own business.
1:19.4	Welcome to Cubicle to CEO, the podcast. I'm your host, Ellen Yin. I quit my job without a
1:25.5	backup plan and bootstrapped my first $300
1:28.0	freelance project into $2 million in revenue by age 28. On this show, you'll hear weekly
1:33.9	case study interviews with leading entrepreneurs and CEOs who share one specific strategy that
1:39.7	successfully grew their business revenue. Skip the expensive and time-consuming learning curve
1:44.8	of testing everything yourself by borrowing what actually works from the best and brightest
1:49.6	mentors. You'll also get a front row seat to my founder's journey through transparent
1:54.4	income reports and behind the business solo episodes. Subscribe now so we can grow together
	...

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