An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Identify opportunities for positive change • You should always be looking for ways to develop and stay ahead. Your ideas might not always be feasible — maybe you don’t have the right technology, the cost is too high, or there’s some other hurdle — but that shouldn’t stop you from ideating.
As part of our series about how to create a trusted, believable, and beloved brand, I had the pleasure to interview Stew Lawrence.
An accomplished senior executive and market leader, Stew Lawrence brings nearly 20 years of successful experience in sales, marketing, business development, and enterprise management in the consumer packaged goods and energy related fields. Stew is currently CEO of CleanWell, LLC a Denver based manufacturer of homecare cleaning products.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I started working with consumer packaged goods back in college, actually. I was living in Boulder, Colorado and interning with several startup CPG companies that had products being sold in small grocery markets, local places. After college, I had the opportunity to work with larger CPG brands, but still in the food industry — like Hot Pockets and Nestle — and I did that for quite some time.
When I was approached about joining the CleanWell team it was a particularly intriguing opportunity because, frankly, this was a product I already had in my home — and that’s always exciting to be able to work on something you’re already interested in and passionate about.
Can you share a story about the funniest marketing mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
This is a tough question — because honestly, despite making my fair share of mistakes throughout my career, I can’t think of many that I would consider particularly notable or funny.
I do have one anecdote I can share, though. My team was developing messaging for a cookie, and our angle was to compare the nutritional value of this cookie to the nutrition value in a serving of fruits or vegetables. The goal was to try to bridge the gap in consumers’ minds so they equated this cookie to these other, in theory, healthier options.
But, in reality, sometimes consumers just want a cookie — so this messaging didn’t resonate at all with our audience. It was a miss in terms of consumer thinking because really, it’s okay to have a cookie in moderation — and that’s the messaging consumers actually wanted.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
As a company, we’re extremely nimble and supportive of each other — and this past year has really proven that; because we needed to continue delivering great products, while also taking care of each other during a pandemic — and really, it’s CleanWell’s culture that made both those things possible.
Let me elaborate a little further.
Since we only have one owner — and there aren’t that many layers between him and the rest of the team — it allows us to be quick to make decisions and adjust to trends. And, since we’re one of the more established companies when it comes to using botanicals in cleaning products — we’ve really grown together as a team, making us close — kind of like a second family — and that’s really what shines through to make us stand out.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
Well I can’t tell you all our secrets! Kidding, of course.
The biggest thing we’re working on right now is enhancing our current products. We’re continuously renovating our products. A big focus for us, at the moment, is pushing the envelope in terms of sustainability and recyclability. We’d love our product to eventually be completely biodegradable — and while these may seem like older trends, when you’re dealing with a disinfectant — it takes a lot of work because of the product ingredients and navigating the regulatory agencies.
Also, we’re working to develop a few products to be used in commercial environments — whether it’s food service or an office space — because they deserve a clean, botanical cleaning product as well.
In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between brand marketing (branding) and product marketing (advertising)? Can you explain?
I would delineate those by saying that brand marketing is defining who you are and why you exist, really the tenets of your business — mission, vision, clear objectives, how you partner within the industry, etc.
Product marketing, on the other hand, is a focus on the benefits you provide — the what you are. This is where you are more functional with your messaging and advertising so you can explain the benefits to any audience you’re targeting.
Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?
Loyalty. Without building your brand, it’s harder to build brand loyalty — which is what allows you to get repeat purchases and really become a part of someone’s life. If you only focus your advertising efforts on your product’s attributes — frankly, there are a lot of other products with similar attributes — and you’re not building a relationship with consumers, which is really important.
Can you share 5 strategies that a company should be doing to build a trusted and believable brand? Please tell us a story or example for each.
Focus on Quality • Delivering a high quality product and experience is what allows you to build a long lasting relationship with your consumers. It’s what keeps them coming back time and time again.
Speak with your consumers • Your brand lives and dies with your consumers — so get to know them. In my opinion, Consumer Affairs should always be an internal department — because while outsourcing it could save some money, having your consumers interact with someone who’s invested in the company not only is a better consumer experience, it allows for a direct line of feedback to business decisions being made.
Identify opportunities for positive change • You should always be looking for ways to develop and stay ahead. Your ideas might not always be feasible — maybe you don’t have the right technology, the cost is too high, or there’s some other hurdle — but that shouldn’t stop you from ideating.
Define your purpose • It’s important to find something to stand for and live by it. This can be something related to your product or culture — but whatever it is, make sure you walk the walk and talk the talk.
Look and feel matters • Make sure the look and feel of your products is positioned in a way that reflects your brand personality, product attributes, and purpose. If you are looking to reflect lively, progressive, and clean — don’t present your products in a dull and overly cluttered manner, for instance.
In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job building a believable and beloved brand. What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?
Patagonia.
There are so many things they do well. They consistently deliver on their promise of providing high quality, well thought out products. They make products from recycled materials — oftentimes from their own recycled materials — and give back to the causes they support, just to name a few.
But, really, that all that boils down to the biggest, and the most repeatable takeaway from their brand, which is that they truly live their mission and culture in all aspects of their business — which is what really impresses me about them.
In advertising, one generally measures success by the number of sales. How does one measure the success of a brand building campaign? Is it similar, is it different?
Directly measuring advertising by sales is sort of the age-old challenge for marketers because there are so many other variables — pricing, channel, competitive sets, etc. — so even from a high-level, it can be difficult. But when thinking about successfully building a brand, however, it’s really getting that repeat purchase. It shows you have loyal consumers. Also, when you have a successful brand, there’s no gap between how you intend to be perceived and how you’re actually being perceived.
And you can get a sense for all of this from your consumers when they reach out — whether that’s on social media, through anecdotal consumer affairs, or direct conversations your team has.
What role does social media play in your branding efforts?
Interestingly, we do less direct product advertising on social media than some of our other mediums — because, honestly, it’s a little boring and repetitive to sell your products to consumers directly when they are really there to build a relationship with you. So for us, when it comes to social media — we start with who we are in a consumer’s life and trust that our attributes will come into the conversation after as a way to validate that we’re the right brand for them to work with. Bottom line, though — it plays a major role.
What advice would you give to other marketers or business leaders to thrive and avoid burnout?
Take lots of deep breaths — and then take calculated risks. We don’t live in an academic world where things have to be 100% validated before making a decision — that’s part of why working in marketing and advertising is fun.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
This one’s already happening — and that’s general transparency.
Obviously, my mind goes first to the world of consumer packaged goods first — and what we’re seeing right now is that in general, products are becoming more transparent with what’s in them. If we look at cleaning products, specifically, in the past you didn’t have to disclose what was used to make a disinfectant, for instance — and now you do. And that’s really important because people should know what they’re putting on their surfaces and in their homes, just like they do when considering products they’re putting on or in their bodies. In my opinion, this also extends to corporate transparency. Other than keeping certain intellectual property information to yourself for obvious competitive reasons — I like the idea of providing as much transparency as possible for your end users and employees.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I have two that I’ve always liked.
The first is from George H. Allen. He said, “One of the most difficult things everyone has to learn is that for your entire life you must keep fighting and adjusting if you hope to survive. No matter who you are or what your position, you must keep fighting for whatever it is you desire to achieve.”
And I had this taped to my locker in high school, and now hangs in my office, as a reminder to keep the foot on the pedal, but adjust when you need to.
The other one is from Henry Ford who said, “You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.”
We are blessed that very prominent leaders in business and entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you would like to have a lunch or breakfast with? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them.
This is sort of a cliched answer, but it’s the honest one, and it would be both my grandfathers. They were both in business, but not in my industry, so I’d love to sit down to talk with them about their careers, the highs and lows, etc. They did some pretty interesting things during a very different time and I think there’s a lot I could glean from them that could be adapted and applied to my career, and my industry, today.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
Personally, I don’t have a big social media presence. I’m more of an observer, rather than a content creator. I am on LinkedIn, so that would be the best place for readers to find me.
To find CleanWell, visit https://cleanwelltoday.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cleanwelltoday/?hl=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cleanwell/
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
Stew Lawrence of CleanWell: Five Things You Need To Build A Trusted And Beloved Brand was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
