Activating Your Voice with Kari Warberg Block, EarthKind: Show Notes & Transcript

Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.

In this episode of Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business, we’re talking activating your voice with Kari Warberg Block. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review!

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• Show Notes
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Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business: Activating Your Voice with Kari Warberg Block, EarthKind

There are so many powerful things you can accomplish once you have found your voice. Your voice is what breaks you out of the “I can’t do it” mindset. What you thought was once inconceivable and impossible becomes plausible and possible. We wanted you to learn from a trailblazer who’s used her voice to grow a super successful business, so we welcomed on Kari Warberg Block, the Founder & Chief Rebel at EarthKind. They’ve revolutionized pest control with solutions that are as kind as they are effective. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

• Why you should never waste a good crisis?
• How did Kari get EarthKind on the market profitably?
• Why is finding your voice and articulating the vision the most strategic thing you can do?
• Why is being in a community so important?
• What’s next for Kari and EarthKind?
• How did you identify and then keep and then grow mental toughness?

And as always, if you need help in building your Strategic Counsel, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:

Show Notes

• How Activating Your Voice with Kari Warberg Block, EarthKind
  • [0:29] Welcome to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business
  • [2:17] What’s Kari’s story?
  • [3:42] How did you figure out what to do next?
  • [7:19] On a farm in North Dakota, making $18,000/year, what are you going to start from here?
  • [11:38] What led you to build the discipline to transform an industry?
  • [12:52] What is the thing that pains you so much in the world that you don’t want to go to your grave without solving it?
  • [17:42] Finding your voice and articulating the vision is probably the most strategic thing you can do
  • [22:10] What did you put in that stuff?
  • [23:45] What do I need to know that I don’t know to serve you better?
  • [26:42] Who has the information and who can I learn from?
  • [29:22] How did you get EarthKind on the market profitably?
  • [32:13] What do good founders do?
  • [35:58] Why is being in a community so important?
  • [37:58] How to deal with challenging circumstances that challenge your mindset?
  • [41:32] What do you physically have the energy to do?
  • [44:46] Why you should never waste a good crisis?
  • [48:38] Was it what someone said or Kari’s internal knowing that lead her though those tough moments?
  • [49:07] How did you identify and then keep and then grow that ability?
  • Quick-Fire Questions
  • [52:57] Who is one person you could switch places with for a day?
  • [53:10] What’s your spirit animal?
  • [53:37] If you had unlimited funds, what’s one task would you hire someone to do for you?
  • [55:28] What’s next for Kari and EarthKind?
  • [57:15] What do you want to be? How can we make an impact in the world?
  • [58:42] Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
  • [58:42] Learn more at ForthRight-People.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn

What is Strategic Counsel?

Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.

Thanks for listening Strategic Counsel. Get in touch here to become more strategic. 

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

_

00:01

Welcome to the Strategic Counsel by Forthright Business podcast. If you’re looking for honest, direct, and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead and operate in business, you are in the right place. In our discussions, we push on the status quo and traditional modes of thinking to reveal a fresh perspective. This unlocks opportunity for you, your team, and your business. Now let’s get to it.

 

00:28

Welcome to the Strategic Counsel Podcast. I am Anne Candido. And I am April Martini. And today we’re gonna talk about how to activate your voice. So back in December, we had Israel Duran on the podcast to talk about finding your voice. I know that one was focused around public speaking more. There are just so many other very powerful things you can accomplish once you’ve actually found your voice. So our guest today, who we’ll introduce in a second, used hers to establish and grow a very successful business.

 

00:58

Now you’re going to learn through this podcast episode that on the spectrum of finding my voice, the other side is not not having a voice. The other side is actually, I can’t do it. And this is a very powerful transformation that happened when you can actually move from the I can’t do it side to the finding my voice side. And that is guided by purpose and fueled by confidence in your purpose. And so that’s all about what we’re going to talk about today.

 

01:25

Yes, and when you can embrace this process, amazing things can happen. What you thought was once maybe inconceivable or impossible then becomes plausible and possible. And you find this becomes a cycle propelling you to what we would call the next level, which is why seemingly ordinary people can then achieve really great things that they didn’t expect. That’s not meant to slight anyone, but really we want to embolden everyone who has the motivation to go for it.

 

01:53

Yeah, and that’s not mean we’re not calling people ordinary here, but I think it’s supposed to be an empowering mantra to say that, you know, whoever who you are, you can achieve great things. And the person here that we have today is a very special person who has transversed that journey from the I can’t do it to defining my voice in spectacular fashion. And that’s Kari Warberg Block of EarthKind

 

02:17

So, Kari, it’s so great to have you. Do you want to introduce yourself, EarthKind, and give the listeners a little bit of your story? I’m so happy to be here. Thanks for having me. I am the founder and chief rebel at EarthKind. So, I started my company when I had a mouse run at my leg on the farm. It was gross. There wasn’t any way to like…

 

02:43

It was just this terrible experience. And I was told, you know, mice are a fact of life on a farm. There’s nothing you can do about them. I didn’t want them crawling up me. I didn’t want them getting in our stuff. And I certainly didn’t want to use poisons to take care of them, which could affect my kids and my pets. And it did nothing to solve the problem. They just kept coming back and coming back. So I became an inventor

 

03:13

founded the first company that was controlling pests in a sustainable, humane, and highly effective way. And now all these years later, I’m here talking with you. So I’m so excited to get into it. Great, we’re gonna have a great time with this. I know it, I know it. Carrie, I mean, you had certainly quite a journey. You’ve told me a little bit about this when we got to do our pre-screening call. And you spoke initially of the

 

03:42

fear you felt when you were trying to figure out what you wanted to go do based on what happened and you definitely were, I think, even said, like, I’m in this, I can’t do it mindset. Can you speak more to this? Can you give us a little bit of the feel of like how that was for you and what really kind of like sparked the next piece? Yeah, the way he started the podcast out today was great talking about empowered because what it was is I was feeling guilty.

 

04:10

I should be empowered to do this. I must be, you know, have everything I need to do this. But I hadn’t rightly picked up the power and realized the power is always in us. It’s always been there. It’s just taking that first step and it made it so much easier of, I heard this thing called eat your frog in the morning. I think it comes from Brian Tracy. And that was one of those.

 

04:36

key moments, these aha thing that happened to me. It’s like, okay, I can do scary big things if I just take the one most distasteful bite in the morning. And I got over that fear and I started doing all of the really hard things first thing in the morning when I had my best energy and my best creativity. To give you a little bit of background of what I started with, I was a girl who barely graduated from high school.

 

05:04

I would have dropped out if I would have had to take speech class. I was told when my junior year, you’re probably not going to graduate because your grades aren’t good enough. And I was never a student that really liked school. Our family moved every year in my life. We had a different school. So I was always like behind.

 

05:24

Anyway, because of that, I really didn’t think I had the confidence. I really didn’t think I could do it. Nobody really thought I would go out to anything, certainly not go to college. So here I was all these years later on a farm. There’s this problem. I knew I was a really hard worker. I knew I was really innovative. I’d already started several businesses before this one.

 

05:50

to generate cash flow, moving furniture, delivering newspapers, cleaning houses, doing those types of things. But here I am with this problem and I had a near-death experience. I was hit by a 72-year-old lady on a train bike with a side car while I was selling my produce at a farmer’s market. And I laid on my back for a year.

 

06:20

and I had surgeries. It was a pretty devastating injury because my femur broke, the femoral artery broke, they had to put me back together. And so during that time, I’m laying on my back for an entire year, which this probably would have never happened had that happened because I was still like paralyzed to take any kind of a step forward because I’m like, there’s got to be a way to solve this problem. I know there’s a way to solve this problem and I’d

 

06:49

tried things and figured out things. And I thought, I think I could solve this problem. Well, I had a good long time to sit there and think about it, actually lay there and think about it. And every single thing that came up in my mind of you can’t do this, it was, you don’t have an education. You don’t have a background in any of this. You’re on a farm in Western North Dakota. You’re making 18,000 a year income.

 

07:19

Nobody knows you. You can’t even talk to people and convince people about things. So where are you going to start from here? Where I started was what the doctor told me when I woke up from surgery. He said you are really lucky to be alive. There must be a purpose for your life because you were dead. And from what I saw, he said he saw an angel in the room.

 

07:47

over the table, he was an atheist, it kind of freaked him out, he left medicine after that. I didn’t see anything, I felt like I got gypped, you know? Angelic kind of experience, I just woke up with the pain and I had to do the recovery and fight the ladies insurance company, you know, because she didn’t have enough coverage and it was like, you know, what do we do? Like totally devastating.

 

08:15

And so many things happened in that year. Our crops got hailed out. Both my grandmas died. My dad died. And it was like, everything was pretty much stripped away. And it was like, what is totally left? You know? And then I thought, there’s gotta be a purpose to all of this. There just has to be this purpose. The next step was understanding and realizing I kind of took an inventory of what I have. Like, well, you’re young.

 

08:45

You’re healthy. You’re really, you’re smart, even though other people probably don’t think you are. You’re really smart. You can certainly convince people of things. You’re selling produce and people are driving out here to buy things from you. You’ve started businesses. You certainly know how to balance the checkbook. And then the blinding glimpse of the obvious piece was, my dad was an entomologist.

 

09:12

Even though he died, I grew up with this father who went to get his PhD and he worked in the pest control industry. And I started to think about think back. I was always complaining to him of why he’s killing everything and poisoning the planet. And he said, don’t you know, you don’t need to worry about this. You have a house, you have a house, a roof over your head, a full stomach.

 

09:41

That’s the business model. That’s the way it works. So then I thought, oh, well, hey, maybe there’s something there. Maybe I can do pest control in a totally different way. If it is a purpose for me, then my faith and the universe and God will certainly help me. I just put my faith in that and took one step at a time and learned to get over those fears, eating that frog.

 

10:10

early in the morning and just taking one step after the other, all the way through from getting the patent to finding out I had to get the product EPA registered, which had never been done with a botanical natural product before. Our pest control is used to killing things, so we had to write new protocols. I got to learn a lot of skills and totally transform myself.

 

10:40

on the way to transforming a market. Oh, wow. Yeah, we’re going to get into some more of that. But I mean, it’s a pretty astounding story. April, what was your reaction? I’ve heard a lot of this, so I was prepared. But for somebody who’s just hearing it, what do you have to say about that? Well, I mean, I think the thing that’s coming to mind for me is that’s a lot, right?

 

11:10

And so I think for our listeners, it’s being able to come back from something like that, but also realizing that it doesn’t have to be that extreme, right? And I think this fear that we’ve talked about of being able to speak up, thinking you have the credibility to do so regardless of your story, all of those pieces. And I know, Anne, you said, you know, we’re not calling people ordinary, but I think there is a lot of that within all of us where it’s like…

 

11:38

who’s to say that I actually have the ability to do this? Or who’s to say that I’m the person that can accomplish this thing? And so I would love to hear more, Carrie, about how did you put one foot in front of the other? Like we’ve talked about eating the frog first thing in the morning. What are some of the other things that allowed you to build the discipline to make this seem less daunting? Because if I’m someone sitting and thinking,

 

12:05

I’m in the seat you were in originally, right? Like I don’t think that I have the right or the voice or the whatever it is. How do you start to put those things in place to turn that voice off, I think, and then make progress that’s meaningful? Yeah, well, absolutely. I’ll just take one step and then the next and the next and help unravel this. So oftentimes when I meet with…

 

12:31

entrepreneurs that they have this idea or they think they know that they have something in them, right? Maybe it’s an invention or a business idea, what have you. My first question is always, what is the thing that pains you so much in the world that you don’t want to go to your grave without solving it? I love that. I often find that’s where purpose can be found.

 

12:59

And if somebody has a purpose for doing something, it provides like so much energy and stamina and resilience that can be duplicated through your brand promise, through the way your brand is delivered. And for us, it lended itself really well because I was actually, as a farmer,

 

13:26

I saw the resilience of nature firsthand up close and personal. And I started this business from a farm. And we were, you know, we’re pretty broke farmers because we went against the grain. And we decided to turn our farm organic and regenerative, which is, you know,

 

13:50

They’re starting to do that now, but we were one of the few pioneers in the country way back when. And the reason we did that was because my husband on the farm had an accident and a round up bat. He was like kind of exploded and he almost died. So he was exposed. His mother died from a plastic anemia.

 

14:18

and the doctors had said it was from the mothballs on the blankets. My dad had died from cancer and he attributed that to the chemicals. So all of these things were brewing at the same time, right? And I’m thinking, wow, we can’t keep doing this, right? So it became more about creating something that was the right thing to do for my family.

 

14:48

and the right thing to do for the planet because we can’t keep poisoning it, right, and expect to get health out of it. So this whole resilience of nature, I brought that into our brand and thought, well, okay, next time I die, I’ll at least have done something noble. Even if nobody ever learns my name, nobody ever knows who I am. It really didn’t matter at that point. It mattered about

 

15:16

doing something meaningful to myself and for my kids and for our family. So I think purpose, finding a purpose, something that makes meaning for you really helps, especially as the business grows and it becomes a brand and a movement and employees wanna join for some of the same reasons. So we had a real timely mission. I was way before my time, way back when we started it, but it’s on trend now.

 

15:46

The next piece is the courage because the world cannot see what you see as a visionary, especially if you have a purpose. You might have this idea in your head or this vision, but you have to learn how to articulate it to turn it into action steps that are going to be practical yet strategic.

 

16:16

And when you don’t have money, it’s far easier to be practical and strategic. It’s like a removal game. I think most entrepreneurs, if they get money too early, they’re just gonna blow it because they don’t, they haven’t learned the lessons of how to connect all of those points in between, especially if you’re going out like with us, we’re a consumer brand.

 

16:42

It’s really important to get all of the elements right along that step. So the purpose has always been the lens from which we can take like those steps and all the decision-making, I created a decision-making checklist, so to speak, early, early on and it’s still used today to make sure every decision aligned in a very practical way with the goal of making sure

 

17:12

my kids and other families were safe. It didn’t have to die from pesticide exposure, which usually happens by an accident. That really helped create the framework. Now, as far as the finding the voice to articulate the vision, it’s quite a fun thing to talk about now with other founders, because they all agree on the same thing.

 

17:42

Finding your voice and articulating the vision is probably the most strategic thing you can do. A thousand percent. Absolutely. Speak in our language. And it’s almost the hardest. A thousand percent. To do. And every time somebody doesn’t agree with you, you know, with me, even though I have proven success now at this point, I still ask myself,

 

18:11

I may not have articulated this in the right way for this person to understand, you know, what we’re talking about or what’s at risk here, right, or what the reward is. And it’s so whether we’re talking to a merchant or whether we’re talking to a supplier, whether we’re helping an employee through a rough patch, right, or a decision, that communication is so, so important. And I think

 

18:40

It really helped me to be introverted. And it really helped me to grow up and where I didn’t really feel like I had a voice. And I grew up in a generation where kids were told you could be seen and not heard. It was just the way it was. So asking for what I wanted was a really difficult thing to do. And I always thought of it, think of the frog, Carrie, eat that frog first thing in the morning.

 

19:09

And I soon realized, here’s some things that are really cool about finding your voice that you don’t understand until after you’ve done it. One is when you ask for something, even if you’re nervous and scared and awkward, everybody in the room, they don’t even want to say no.

 

19:35

because they’re like, look at this girl, she has so much courage. I wouldn’t be able to do that. And so it immediately took away all separation and united us because they were they had this compassion for me because they knew I’m shaking in my boots, whether it’s a retailer or a regulator or somebody that I’m trying to convince of something. So.

 

20:03

It gave them permission also to be authentic in the way they communicate. I see it all the time and my girlfriend CEOs remind me like, come on girl, you have the power, you’ve always had the power because it’s just something that for some reason this world always tells us we don’t. I don’t know why that is, but

 

20:31

All my friends and my CEO friends say the same thing, and we remind each other of that, because it still takes courage to speak your voice, especially if you’re going against the grain. And there’s a lot of going against the grain for us. Finding your voice and asking for what you want. I would say to people, spend more time in the articulation.

 

20:58

phase in your head and practicing and writing those things out. So you can say it in 30 seconds, 60 seconds. And that’s been one of the biggest hardest lessons for me. Because I can tend to make things too complex and people don’t need to know all the details. They just need to know what they need to do at that particular place in time to make their decision or

 

21:28

you know, make their job go well. So the prep is 90% of it. One example, working with a merchant. We might, we have, we sell into about 35,000 stores and I had no experience doing this. I didn’t know how to do it.

 

21:51

But I asked our first retailer, it was a John Deere dealership. And I went in, I gave him a free sample of the product. And I said, put this in your radiest, stinkiest combine and see if it works. And he called me up three months later and he said, it worked. What did you put in that stuff? I said, well, it’s my invention. I’m using it on the farm.

 

22:19

I really don’t think I’m crazy. I’m pretty sure it works. I was able then to take everything he knew and I said, could you tell me what I need to know to go down to the next John Deere dealer and the next one? And he said, well, do you want better? I’ll make the call for you and I’ll introduce you. So from that point in time, I learned it’s really good to start local.

 

22:47

before you go regional or national, take that first step because you can learn from the retailers or the people that you work with by showing up as the one that doesn’t know. You know, I’m in the age now or the time now where like I’m hiring MBAs and all of this and they were schooled very, very differently than us scrappy entrepreneurs.

 

23:16

who had to go in and look somebody in the eye and say, I don’t know what I’m doing here, but I know you’re gonna have happy customers from our product. I know I wanna package it in a way that makes them pull it off your shelf so you make so much money, right? And then asking them for their tips and their guidance. And I’ve never once had a retailer, not even a big box retailer, close their mind.

 

23:45

In fact, they find it very refreshing and they wish that other brands would walk in there in a humbler way like that to say, I don’t know everything. Tell me what I don’t know. And I always ask that question of our key partners once a year. What do I need to know that I don’t know to serve you better?

 

24:13

And we learned so much from that. It’s unbelievable. And then we also go in and try to give them something that they don’t know, that can really improve their performance. I love that on so many different levels. It’s kind of almost a masterclass in branding and marketing, as well as how to embrace your personal brand. All these things that we talked about, you kind of pulled like,

 

24:41

15 episodes and summarize them all in that storyline. But I think it’s very powerful to hear all of that articulated in a way that you did in a very real life scenario. And I just wanted to hit on a couple of the points and maybe go deeper on some of these because I would say your concoction of the courage and the purpose and the vision and the…

 

25:10

The humbleness, like the lack of ego almost in a good way to want to learn, but ego in a way, also a good way to have confidence. Like all of that together feels like it’s a very unique concoction, very unordinary back to kind of our initial intro that we did. But I think what’s really important is that I know a lot of people are probably listening going, well, I can’t do that. So they’re still listening and they’re repeating in their minds.

 

25:39

I can’t do that. I don’t have that kind of courage. I don’t have that kind of like, you know, ability to go in and tell people that I don’t know what I’m talking about. And this is where I want you guys all to hear very loud and clear that, and Carrie, you could cut me from mine, but you didn’t know you had that in you either, right? It was like a constant state of like challenging yourself to some extent of, well, what can I do? What can I do now? Like, where can I…

 

26:06

When you’re talking about, I’m sure we’ll use the eating the frog analogy or the metaphor all the way through, but it is like this semblance of kind of wanting to know, well, what am I made of? Like, where can I take this? And you are fueled by your purpose, but there’s also this not listening to sometimes what the naysayers are saying, right? And then believing in yourself to some extent that if it’s not me, then who’s going to go do it? And then truly believing that the purpose is going to generate an impact that is, you

 

26:35

beyond you. You talked about how you wanted to solve this for not just yourself, but your family and all the multiple generations. And so I think what I really want people to hear is like, you guys have this in you too, right? And so it’s a matter of just maybe you can talk about how you kind of pulled it out of yourself, but like pulling it out of yourself is like asking yourself, well, what do I go do next? What can I go do next? Who has the information?

 

27:05

Who can I learn from? All right, I got that wrong. Then what do I go do next time? So maybe you can talk about that in the context of some of these other examples that you, I know you share with me and you started getting into, which is, I remember you tell me the story about how you went to a convention and you found out, hey, I’m a regulated product, right? And then how all the stuff you had to go from there. So I think it’s important for people to hear that these challenges that a lot of stop and block a lot of people,

 

27:34

and pull them back to that I can’t do it, can actually be the opportunities that break open so, so, so many other opportunities, right? So, Carrie, maybe you can take that string and pull on that for a little bit. Absolutely. I have two different stories, two different strings that I think connect well. We’ll knit a nice little blankie out of this one. One is Founder’s Traits. There’s three traits that…

 

28:02

highly successful companies that are founder-led over time have, and I have those same traits. So that gave me a lot of confidence to know, okay, naturally I’m a disruptor, meaning I don’t think it’s right that 98% of products sold to control a pest are toxic to use around your kids and your families.

 

28:32

That to me was not acceptable. I was gonna challenge that one to the end because for my own family. That’s a very disruptive mindset. And oftentimes pulling from that when you have something that you wanna do or a goal that you wanna go to.

 

28:53

It I didn’t make poison the villain in the in the show or the story here. I never did. You’ll never hear me bashing it, you know, or people free doing it. But instead, what I did is I thought, what’s the antidote to that? And it became about education, right? And it became about innovation, like, oh, well, that’s a dot, I have to invent a better product.

 

29:22

It got very challenging when it came like, how do you get that on the market profitably? How do you get it distributed? Just like, so I won’t even pull out those strings. Yeah, a different podcast episode for a different day. That’s right. The next trait is having this owner’s mindset. I was able to take responsibility on myself. I didn’t point a finger at anybody. I pointed it out myself knowing.

 

29:50

It’s up to me to sell my vision. It’s up to me to solve this problem. And one of the most powerful things that any leader learns is you have to give away all the credit and take all the responsibility when you become a leader and you decide to grow something. So always looking to myself to take the responsibility as an owner’s mindset has been a challenge.

 

30:19

And transferring that to employees is very, very, has been really incredible. And I think it’s why we’re debt free today and why we’re growing and why we’re profitable and why we’re a top place to work is giving other people the autonomy, if you will, to take on the problems. And when they see it, the situation, they learn from the mistakes, then they can get excited about it.

 

30:47

because like, wow, I’m learning, I’m doing something, whether it’s finding your voice or whatever it is in business. And the last trait is customer centric. Like these great founders enduring, well do it for that customer, like that their family. I’m seeing, I still walk down the pest aisles and I’ll go down in 18 feet.

 

31:15

and I’ll stand there and I’ll just listen. It’s one of my weekend activities. And I just listen to what customers say. You know, I’m like, I’ll take my coffee down there. It’s funny, we have a Lowe’s just a couple of miles down the road. I’m like, good morning, Carrie, did you bring coffee for me? And the retailers love it that, you know, that we’re standing in their stores and talking to customers and listening to those conversations.

 

31:44

It’s such a game changer for me every single time because I’d forgotten something that I thought I remembered. I’ve forgotten how scared people get when they stand there and they’re thinking about their dog and they can’t read the labels and they’re like, where do I even start? Right? A lot of our customer journey starts online. Because a lot of our customers have, you know, for instance, they have property already. They bought a house.

 

32:13

They have a camper, they have property they’re protecting from pests, so they do their research online. But a lot of them, they start their journey right in the store. So I can learn so much to better serve our customers that way. And I think good founders do that. I’ve had retailers say, boy, things business must be really bad if you’re in the store.

 

32:39

You know, I’ll never it was an ace retailer who last told me that I was in Boston. I was at a conference. I went in to see him and I brought a bag of goodies and swag and gave it to all the employees and thanked him for selling our products for 15 years or whatever it’s been. And he’s like, wow, how can you do this? Things must be bad. I’m like, no, you’re selling a lot of product. Things are good.

 

33:07

I’m here to say thank you and to meet you. I guess that could be part of its humility. I never think that I’m above that and other founders I know don’t think that they’re above that either. Keeping those things in mind of like who are you doing it for? You know for somebody going in to ask for a raise it’s like who are you doing it for? If you think of that in your heart you’re going to find the courage.

 

33:35

Even if you can’t find the words, just make yourself get the words out. And the next story, the second string we can knit our blanket here with is surrounding yourself with people who believe in you. This is a really powerful example, and I’ll give you one. I think it’s a pretty powerful story from Earthkind. So we hire developmentally

 

34:04

delayed, I’m not sure with the right term, we call them handicapable for 20% of our assembly in the factory. And we’ve been doing this for 18 years. And it’s really, it’s become part of our culture and really empowering, here’s this word, to see what happens with them when people believe in them.

 

34:34

They have, it’s just unbelievable the things that have been accomplished. We have employees that are living on their own now. We have employees with goals to get a car, to get a license. We have employees that have actually become fundraisers and ambassadors out in the community. We have one guy, he’s not with us anymore, but he became the first firefighter.

 

35:02

with the disability because he had the confidence that he could be there and help do crowd control. And he loves to talk to people. And so there was no risk for him doing that. So our company gets to attend events now, fundraiser events put on and I help them. Like, you know, our other leadership team will help them.

 

35:30

secure whatever it is they think that they would really love to do but they’re scared to do. So finding people around you that believe in you is hugely hugely important. For me there’s been organizations that I belong to, women’s presidents organization, Vistage. I’m a part of Five by Vayner right now. It’s just so so important being around that community and being transparent enough

 

36:00

you can share your blind spots so they can help you. They can watch you, right? And say, okay, once you get over that first few seconds, you’re gonna be good. Again, you’ve said so much there. And like Ann said, this is like, I mean, I’m just checking off different episodes we’ve had with the points that you’re making. But the one thing that I think is so important to this journey, we’ve talked to other founders and we’ve talked about things like legacy

 

36:30

building that authentically and what you want to stand for and all of that. And so what I’m hearing is that even though there’s been plenty of things you don’t know, you have a sense of who you are and that has been your personal brand that has carried you through all of this. And then as the founder set the right foundation for the mission and vision for the organization that can live long beyond you.

 

36:57

And it’s living in these people that you’re empowering and all of these different organizations that you touch and the customers that you’re in the store hearing and all of that. And I think that as I’m listening, this is the thing we talk to people about and your story exemplifies what happens when you actually are able to understand who you are, put that personal brand into action and then build into a vision for an organization so that other people are attracted to be a part of it. But then like you said, feel supported.

 

37:28

in that and then can go and do great things themselves. So that’s just one of the many things that you said that I think is important to emphasize for our listeners when we talk about that in other episodes. This story is exactly what we’re talking about. I echo everything that April was talking about. And I keep going back to the fact that what you did is not easy by any stretch. And I think too that is very daunting for a lot of people

 

37:58

it starts to challenge your own mindset about what you’re made of and if you have what it takes and how do you get through that? And I know we’ve talked about like purpose and some of those things that are really important to drive you through. But maybe, I mean, even example, Carrie, of a time where you’re just like, where the purpose just maybe wasn’t quite enough, where you maybe thought about like quitting and just like giving it all up. And then how did you kind of get through that point?

 

38:28

I’m human, so there’s lots of times throughout the business that that’s happened. I’ll never forget some of the things like standing in EPA in Washington, DC. And seeing how it actually works and seeing the structure that exists that’s now being challenged in this administration. So that’s going to be really fun to watch.

 

38:58

But being face-to-face with status quo and the need for disruption, but then understanding of does anybody really care has been really difficult and heartbreaking because it was 98 percent poison when I started in this category. People really didn’t care because they just wanted what was cheapest and what was fastest.

 

39:27

Right? They didn’t even think about, but they did not see what I saw on the effects down the road and they weren’t reading the reports I did on childhood cancer and, you know, pesticides causing that. So, it was really, really challenging to share my vision in a way that was like, honey, rather than like.

 

39:51

Turpentine, right? Because nobody wants to be around a negative Nellie. And I knew true change would require me to not take anything personally, not make any assumptions, understand that everything that was happening was happening for me, not to me. That’s a big one. These are lessons that can help you anywhere, but once you learn those basics,

 

40:20

Oh, and the other one, keeping your word, you know, because you sell this somebody or you get married to somebody. It’s like a big thing if you break your word. It’s it’s not just hurting you. It’s impacting other people too. But getting those things down. It’s a, it’s like a moral compass that can really help navigate through those really difficult times. But that that was probably the most difficult one. Another challenging time is when you

 

40:49

age, like me I’m 62, people see you in a very different way than they saw you when you were 40, for instance, right? And so being that strategic chair position, right, envisioning where the business is going, it’s more imparting wisdom on people, but

 

41:14

And you know, I just don’t have the energy and the snappiness and that, that I did, you know, 20 years ago. So aging is another thing that like really takes you back and you’re like, wow, can I really accomplish these big goals to go global?

 

41:32

And again, it’s like you have to just reinvent yourself. Well, what can I do physically have the energy to do? Like how much do I want to travel? How much time do I want to devote, spend, because I have seven grandkids now and I want to spend time with them. And so I had to remake everything all over again to be able to fill and satisfy, you know, that evolving landscape.

 

42:00

So that was another one. And then of course the stuff around money has always been a big, we were in 2017, we were probably within two weeks of bankruptcy. That was a very, that was another really, really difficult and pivotal time. Although, you know, my employees and everybody I meet, they say that was your finest leadership, Carrie,

 

42:30

you’ve ever exhibited. I learned that I was very, very good at leading through crisis and leading through transformation, at holding people and saying, okay, telling the truth, being authentic. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I do know this, right? I do know this. To make a long story short, what happened is I caught a supplier cheating us.

 

42:58

And so in a regulated industry, that’s like really serious. I was told everybody does it, just join the club. But it was this customer centric thing in me, and it was violating the beliefs and the values that I had, and I couldn’t do that. So I self-reported to EPA and that happened to be the year Trump got elected.

 

43:26

and he made this big declaration, I’m gonna make Christmas happen in DC again. So EPA’s interpretation of that was, let’s do that. Let’s hold all of our files until December 24th and do that. So our file got held until December 24th. And.

 

43:50

This is something that could have been resolved within a few short weeks and we went on nine months. So we lost over eight million dollars that year. And, but I went out to all the retailers and I said, I don’t know. I don’t know how long this is going to take because we, you know, you don’t get a straight story. They don’t. It’s like, well, we’ll get to it when we get to it. It should have been a three month blip at at worst. It was a nine month blip, but we recovered from that.

 

44:21

We chose to keep people employed and thinking it’s just going to be a short time. And it just, the time just kept going on and going on. And finally, yes, we got the paperwork done. That was all it was to switch suppliers. And we were, we were back in business, but that it did something more for the business. And there’s a saying that I have and it’s called never waste a good crisis.

 

44:50

So I got with all the employees and we’ve done this over every crisis we have. What is it that we can turn this into? It’s just like a miracle really. It’s like an anointing or something that happens because people say, well, hey, we’ve always wanted to try this. Let’s do that. So we came up with a whole list of things.

 

45:16

that we were able to go out to our retailers with and say, we’re not here. Okay, you’re a public corporation. I know this is, you’re in deep doo-doo over this, but here’s an option. And so I invited our customers, okay, why don’t you take these competitors? Cause we’d had several competitors by then. Why don’t you just test them, split test them on the shelf since we’re not there. And I’ll give you another alternate filler that at least you’ll make some of the revenue back.

 

45:46

We did things like that and got with the customers. And it was amazing how that built relationship for us because they said, all of them said, man, we wish the business world was like this, where people were honest, where people told the truth, where people would wouldn’t hide anything. They would just get right to the point and say, this is the impact. It’s going to have on you. I’m really sorry about this.

 

46:16

and not get scared to tell the truth. And I realized at that time how powerful merchants really are because they are like CEOs of their categories and they so admire the truth. They’ll take the good, the bad, the ugly, whatever. They don’t want anything like.

 

46:42

You know massaged over and word smith they just like just give it to me straight that was quite a big learning lesson there. And so it’s almost like CEO to CEO meetings right of. You know, I know I can lose your business. I’m really scared about this. This could, you know, really impact us and I’m so sorry this happened and. But the other thing that we did was we brought 100% of our manufacturing in house.

 

47:11

And that’s kind of rare for a company in consumer goods because we develop the products, we do our own research and development. We manufacture them fully, and we also sell directly to the retailers. We have partners that help us in that, of course. So we wouldn’t have bitten that off, but from a quality control standpoint, once I realized…

 

47:39

that most everything was adulterated out there that comes from China or that comes from other countries, I thought, wow, the future is transparency and making sure that our growers are treated well because we buy our ingredients from farmers. It really helped us to improve our relationships with our supply chain. And so it ended up making us far better off.

 

48:08

Yeah, there’s definitely a lot to learn from. You learned from Crysis’s, April. I know we definitely can share like tons of stories on that. Did you have anything you wanted to add, April? It’s interesting, the ability to kind of keep your head in those situations. And you said you got the feedback from people that, you know, that was the best that you’ve ever been. And like Anne said, we’re no stranger to this as well. But I would love to just

 

48:38

understand whether it’s what someone told you or your sense of of yourself how you were able to kind of like hold on to that in those moments and lead through that because I think that’s the other thing all that stuff you said about we just want honesty and transparency and openness and if people would just communicate like people and all of that that is a really great thing to say until the rubber really meets the road and you have to make those decisions.

 

49:07

and also to be right in the middle of it and still lead through your personal brand again, if we bring that back. But how did you identify and then keep and then grow that ability? Because you’re also saying now I’m pivoting again and reinventing would be my word, what this looks like for me in the role that I am in because my life situation has changed again. So whether it’s crisis or seven grandkids, right? Whatever it is, it’s all the same thing.

 

49:37

Yeah, well, there’s one. I always like to think of firm works, right, for thinking because we tell ourselves stories, you know, science tells us 70% of our thoughts are not. Positive and constructive and really good for us. It’s just a fact of life. So I did a couple of things. One is I had this belief that if God brought me to this, God will bring me through this.

 

50:07

So I had this unwavering belief that I was gonna get through it. I was here for a purpose that no matter how the outcome was, what was gonna happen, I didn’t even think about that. I just thought about I have to take one step and then another step and another step and have a knowing that we’re gonna be okay. And the employees, that’s some of their comments as well.

 

50:36

I brought a psychologist in when we hit COVID. So I was so concerned about people and their families were panicking. I’m like, can you just survey the people and help me see if they’re facing fears or there’s something under the surface that is going to impact them? She said, I’ve never seen this ever in my career and I go around a lot. I’m working with helping people get through this.

 

51:06

there’s no fear in your company. And I think it was, I’d started this thing called Coffee with Carrie. And once a month, I took on the tough conversations. And I’d sit down, like in my jeans, in my t-shirt, and say, what’s on your mind? Are you scared of, you know, the prices continuing to go up?

 

51:36

Are you worried about your family? Are people looking to you for all the answers and you don’t have them? So I was able to take my own experiences and say, remember when we made it through this, we didn’t know, but we made it through. And you thought of this and you thought of this and you thought of this. And it was just helping to remind them that they really had it within them.

 

52:02

And so this power of the collective, of the people you have around you, I think is really, really helpful. But that helped me because to be honest, I’ll look at myself in the mirror in the morning, I’m like, how the hell am I gonna go through this day? What am I gonna do, right? When you know, okay, geez, you could be going bankrupt and people still need their paychecks.

 

52:31

I mean, what an extensive conversation. We covered so, so, so many things. Before we let you go though, we’d like to hit on some rapid fire questions, just to kind of get a little bit of a different taste of Carrie. And then we’re going to give you an opportunity to kind of close this out, let us know like what’s next for you in Earth kind. But are you ready for some rapid fires? I have no idea what’s going to come out of this. I can’t wait.

 

52:57

I mean, I feel like I’ve known you forever just in this like 45 minutes. So, so here’s the here’s the first rapid fire. One person you could switch places with for a day. Jane Goodall. Oh, that’s a good one. That’s a good one. Since you are a farmer animal, you most resemble or reflect or like your spirit animal, if you will, a hawk. Ah.

 

53:26

Mine’s an eagle, so I like that. I like that a lot. I have a bird affinity too, so we all have that in common. Yeah, we got that going on. I see bird symbols everywhere. So if you had unlimited funds, one task you would hire someone to do for you, like all the time. I’d hire a driver. Yeah, right? I knew Anne was gonna say yes.

 

53:52

Yes, driver. And then that was my first as a chef and then it was a driver. I got the exact same thing. I love to cook, but I would hire a driver. And I say that all the time, we win the lottery. I get it a driver. A thousand percent. That would take so much stress and anxiety off of everything. So yeah, as a little aside, I was just in Chicago with the girls and they’re like, are we going to drive? Are we driving? I’m like, yeah, no, we don’t drive in Chicago because of the two city thing, right?

 

54:21

And they’re like, I don’t get it. I don’t get it until I asked, or I door dashed Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory, which was literally less than a mile down from our hotel on Michigan Avenue. And it took him 45 minutes to get to our hotel, one mile down from Michigan Avenue, because he kept going underneath the city. Because he couldn’t read his GPS, right? I’m like, dude, I mean, even the valet was on the phone with him, like you’re in the wrong place. So a driver would be awesome.

 

54:50

for those exact reasons. So after my little aside, I mean, this has just been just phenomenal. I’m hoping that, I mean, I know that people are like listening and then internalizing because there’s so much good stuff in what you had to say and so much I can reflect on my own journey. And I know April can reflect on hers and so much that reinforces everything that we say. So this has been such a really great compliment to all of the stuff that we talk about and we emphasize. But is there something that we missed?

 

55:20

put a bow on this for us. I know you’re kind of still in the reinventing stage. Like you are going to be going on to your next phase. So, can you tell us a little bit about what’s next for you and what’s next for Earthkind and tell everybody where they can find you going forward and where they can find Earthkind and all that good stuff. Absolutely. So you can find our products at all national stores like Lowe’s, Walmart, and that’s our stay away brand. And that’s specific for household use.

 

55:49

You can find our farm brand at Tractor Supply, Amazon, all the hardware stores. That brand keeps pests out of your tractors and tack rooms and implements and high value property. Of course, on our website, you can come to earthkind.com. We have a store locator there. We have the most extensive library out there, which we’ve been building for 20 years.

 

56:18

So any pest question you have, we likely have something there for you and our customer care line is amazing. We’re not the company that tells you what to buy, we’ll help you navigate and pest proof your property in the best way for you. As far as what’s next for the company, I’m at a really exciting time because I just stepped aside as the CEO.

 

56:47

hired a new CEO. So now I’ve become more of a visionary strategic role for the company. So I don’t have any of the day-to-day hands-on management. So I get a chance to sit back and re-envision what our brand can do in the world. So I have daily conversations now with the brand.

 

57:15

What do you want to be? How can we make an impact in the world? I look at other cross category type partnerships, innovations, so I’ll be really heavy on the innovation side, the customer experience side. Of course, the market disruptor side, which are the founder kind of led things anyway as you start to grow. And it’s definitely a challenge learning how to

 

57:43

be in a completely different role. So I even have, you know, coach helping with that. And I actually asked the new CEO and, and our, we have one at Minority Investors, like, please grade me. Please tell me how I’m doing because I want to be a good leader, right? And I want to be empowering and supportive and helpful in a way that’s, you know, really, truly helpful, not overarching. I guess most CEOs, when they transition out,

 

58:12

it’s like a train wreck. And it’s really, really difficult on the company, the team, the CEO. So it’s like anything it’s architecting and thinking through what those conversations need to be and how you can best coexist. So I’m really excited about what the future brings. Ruthie Oh, it sounds like it. And we’re excited for you. So good luck with that. And thank you so much for being on the podcast. And to all our listeners,

 

58:42

We encourage you to take at least one part of insight you heard and you’ve heard a thousand today. So maybe take more than one and put it into practice. Because remember, Strategic Counsel is only effective if you put it into action. Did we spark something with this episode that you want to talk about further? Reach out to us through our website, ForthRight-People.com We can help you customize what you have heard to move your business. And make sure to Follow or Subscribe to Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast platform!