HSH 040: How to Make Marketing Human with Quest Nutrition COO Bruce Cardenas
Today we’re speaking with Bruce Cardenas of Quest Nutrition, the company that’s on a mission to revolutionize food and make clean eating fun! They show that regardless of what industry you’re in, building relationships is key. We also discuss how to handle naysayers, and Bruce shares why there really is no competition in business!
Bruce started out in the Marine Corps, and then became LAPD while running his own successful business. He met the founders of Quest Nutrition initially at the gym buddies, which transpired into joining their company.
They started making the nutrition bars in one of the founder’s wife’s kitchens, making them by hand and started selling them online. They then built up traction in the online space.
“We were one of the first companies that early on jumped on the Facebook bandwagon when companies hadn’t really embraced it yet.”
They grew traction by offering two free bars to anyone that requested them on Facebook. This built their fan base and Bruce shares that the company still leads the category in terms of social media followers and fans.
He admits that they never had a plan to go into manufacturing the bars, but they discovered that the only way they could stay true to their clean ingredients was to produce them with their own facility using modified machines.
“We could have taken the easy route and probably came up with some formula that would have been acceptable, but it would have gone against everything we believed in.”
Bruce says one thing that led to their success was having a core group of people on their Facebook page that were loyal to Quest and provided feedback. Another way they did this is they started up a “Quest Lab”, where they would test inside of their core group of followers before going to the market.
“We listen to every angle and every approach, we listen to our core our fans and our customers because we want to give people what they want”
When it comes to strategy on social media and content, Bruce says they’ve had to learn quickly what people wanted.
“We are always innovating to keep up with what people are looking for (and) asking for.”
By providing the content that people want, customers see how responsive Quest is to their client base.
Maintaining the human connection is something that is important to Quest. They will reach out to bigger names, football players, and NBA players to provide product samples, and not ask for anything in return.
“We will go to of our way to build these great relationships, and they are all authentic.”
To Bruce there is nothing better than people supporting people in their endeavors, and he doesn’t consider other companies as competitors to them.
LINKS:
HSH 031: A Fresh Spin on Getting Publicity and Creating Value with Selena Soo
HSH 020: How to Flip $140 Into Your First $1K Launch with Leadpages & ConvertKit
