September 22, 2025 • 22 mins
John Laun, CMO of Earthbar, joins Zack Oates to share how a wellness brand with roots in the 1970s is scaling nationally while keeping guest experience front and center. With over 60 locations and a strong partnership with Equinox, Earthbar focuses on energy, consistency, and culture to make every visit the best part of a guest’s day.
Zack and John discuss:
- How Earthbar grew from supplements to smoothies to 60+ stores
- Why “energy” is a core value for team members
- Using real-time feedback to recover service instantly
- Why happy guests are the brand’s best marketers
- How AI serves as a trusted advisor for growth
Thanks, John!
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlaun/
https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=Earthbar&sid=UbS
https://earthbar.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another edition of Give An Ovation, the
restaurant guest experiencepodcast.
I'm your host, zach Oates, andeach week I chat with industry
experts to uncover theirstrategies and tactics to help
you create a five-star guestexperience.
This podcast is powered byOvation, the feedback and
operations platform built formulti-unit restaurants.
Learn what is actuallyhappening at your restaurants
(00:21):
and how to improve without justa long survey.
Learn more at OvationUpcom.
And today I am so excitedbecause it's really interesting.
Being a part of Ovation andbeing able to see the back end
of what brands are surfacing tothe top and there is one brand
that I have seen consistentlynot just care about the guest
(00:44):
experience but see how muchtheir guests love them has been
inspiring.
I've got John Lawn.
He's the CMO of Earth Bar andJohn, welcome to the podcast man
.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Thanks a lot.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Thanks for having me Excited to be on You've been
doing some amazing things, andso maybe not everyone might be
familiar with Earth Bar, thoughDo you want to give a little
update on what is Earth Bar?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, happy to.
Earth.
Bar is a really exciting brand.
I'm proud to be a part of it,been here just under four years
and as a company.
The brand itself has beenaround since 1971.
So one of the wellness OGs, aswe like to say.
Back from the early days ofpeople would eat red meat and
smoke cigarettes and go to thedoctor when they got sick things
(01:27):
started to move in thedirection.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Those were the days, John.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Those were the days, the bad, you know, the madmen
days and really, as thingsshifted to people being aware of
how food can be medicine.
Oranges have vitamin C and ifyou eat enough oranges maybe you
don't get sick, so you don'thave to go to the doctor.
And then I moved into well,what if I don't want to eat 12
oranges a day?
What if you eat your vitamin Cfrom a pill?
So Bernie Budman, who's one ofour founders, still very active
(01:51):
in the brand today If you go byour West Hollywood or Brentwood
stores you may bump into him hewas one of the first people to
put vitamins in a retailenvironment.
We could go buy vitamin C pillsand take them as part of your
morning routine.
Proactive wellness and how toreally get ahead of the curve.
And as that evolved, thatreally became the underpinning
of the brand of giving your bodywhat it needs when it needs it.
(02:12):
And as the smoothie crazecaught on, we were at the
forefront of that in the 90s andsmoothies are a great way to
get those whole fruits andvegetables which are packed with
great nutrients, but also a wayto work those supplements into
a smoothie makes it even easierto take something.
You know we were both chatting.
We both have kids.
Anytime you can make somethinga little tastier, a little bit
easier, more enjoyable.
It's easier to do regularly andmake a part of your daily habit
(02:34):
, daily routine.
So smoothies really became thetip of the arrow for the brand
and it's our supplement deliverysystem and we really focus on
amazing functional wellness.
But supplement delivery systemand we really focus on amazing
functional wellness.
But if you walk into an EarthBar location today, we've got
over 60 locations across thecountry, predominantly in
California and New York, butwe're really focused on
functional wellness solutions,what your body needs when your
(02:55):
body needs it, especially postworkout.
We're proud to have a nationalpartnership with Equinox.
We're in over 50 Equinoxlocations across California over
30 in Manhattan and we reallylove showing up for that Equinox
member as California over 30 inManhattan and we really love
showing up for that Equinoxmember.
As well as street stores acrossthe country.
And for anyone that doesn'tlive near an Earth Bar, we sell
some of our leading supplements,including our Earth Fusion
plant protein, which has been inliterally hundreds and hundreds
(03:16):
of thousands of smoothies ayear.
We sell that at earthbarcom.
So we really want to make surepeople get wellness solutions
when they need it.
But one of our big gaps andlearnings with that many
locations is how do we, withoutscaling a very large internal
team, how do we keep a pulse onthat guest experience?
To keep that consistent, we'vedoubled our footprint.
We had around 30 stores a yearago.
Now we're over 60.
So in scaling at that level, wereally want to make sure we
(03:38):
have the tools to keep a pulseon the customer and guest
experience every step of the waytoo.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
And I think it's so powerful that, as you've been
able to expand even innon-traditional locations, it's
really tough to do that.
It's tough to do thatsuccessfully and it takes a
focus on that guest experience.
So what would you say, John, ifyou're looking at the guest
experience, what is the mostimportant aspect of guest
experience nowadays?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
So I think one thing that we really focus on is one
of our core values energy.
And I think people leaving thegym if they've just finished a
walk, a workout, they're justout for a break and they need
something.
Food is energy, food is energy,food is medicine.
And generally people cominginto an Earth Bar, they want to
feel better.
Either they feel great and theywant to feel amazing, or maybe
they're under the weather.
They want some immunity support.
(04:21):
But people are coming intoEarth Bar because they want to
feel better than they feelbefore they walked in, and so
our team members' ability toexude that energy we call them
master mood shifters, right, ourability for you to walk out of
Earth Bar in a better mood thanyou walked in, for that visit to
be the best part of your day,the thing you look forward to is
really important, and that'sthe hardest thing to quantify.
We can quantify speed of service.
(04:41):
There's a way to figure out howfast you got through the line.
We can quantify how well we'vehelped people add on to their
check and our average ticket.
There's a lot of things we canquantify if they use the app or
not.
One of the hardest things for abrand to quantify is what was
that experience like?
And surveys and things likethat can be a lagging indicator.
But we really love the tool ofOvation because we get that
(05:01):
real-time feedback and, in a lotof cases, our ability to handle
that guest experience.
In the moment we've really beenable to democratize the way that
we respond to guest feedbackthrough the ovation tool and so
we've even seen situations wherea guest has a negative
experience.
They send in instant feedbackabout that experience on ovation
.
But they're in the space still,they're having their avocado
(05:22):
toast, they're still talkingwith friends and we've been able
to fix that experience orrectify it.
And someone's like oh, you know, and more often than not what
you find out is for whatever theissue was, it's sort of the
bark is worse than the bite.
And sometimes, especially withsocial media, someone gives
feedback and then you help them.
(05:44):
It's like oh, like anything wecan do to be the best part of
that person's day, to make surepeople feel the energy we have.
And that really helps us findout within our organization
who's really crushing it, who'sreally helping elevate the guest
experience.
It gives you metrics about yourteam that you wouldn't find
ordinarily just from what youcan get from your report, from
your POS system, for example.
Really just from what you canget from your report from your
POS system, for example, youreally find those diamond in the
(06:05):
rough team members who arecreating amazing moments that
exude our culture, that tell youwhat we're about, and it's a
way to sort of to cut a secondlayer deep and really find out
what drives the business.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
And I love that.
Here we are.
You're a CMO and you're talkingabout guest feedback.
Normally, when people talkabout feedback, they're like, oh
, that's an operations thing,no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Well, I think in discovery today, the way people
discover brands, the people makeshopping decisions based on
friends recommendations, socialmedia recommendations.
We have a beautiful Instagramfeed.
I love the work we do on socialmedia.
I love our email.
That's all foundational stuffthat when you go to find out
about Earth Bar, you find outwhat we're about and who we are.
More often than not, it's afriend saying you've got to
(06:55):
check this place out.
And then when they go to ourwebsite they go to our Instagram
.
It's deepening the connectionto.
I love Earth Bar because they doX, y and Z, but our best
marketers are happy guests.
If we focus on happy guests andwe focus on that relationship
and especially in theenvironment we're in, we're a
very unique concept becausewe're inside of Equinox but
we're not part of Equinox.
But that Equinox member eventhough many of our locations are
(07:17):
open to the public that Equinoxmember makes up a large
percentage of that business,which is a double edged sword,
because if they love you, that'sgreat and they're going to be
loyal, but if you have anegative experience with
somebody that walks by you everyday, it's easy for them to make
that decision of oh, I justdon't do earth bar after my
workout anymore.
That's not a guest.
You get back necessarilybecause the gym has so many
(07:38):
members and so it's reallyimportant to take especially
good care of the experience ofthat guest, because if they're
loyal, you have a really loyalrepeat guest and if you create a
negative experience that you'renot able to really help work
through with them, a negativeexperience will happen all the
time and we welcome it becausewe learn from it.
But if you don't do anythingabout it, that repeat guest
intent starts to drift over timeand that's where you lose
(08:00):
connection.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
I love that you said a negative experience could be a
positive thing, right, becauseyou learn from it, and I think
that that's something where, ashumans, we tend to shy away from
that feedback.
We tend to shy away fromsomeone who had a negative
experience.
I don't necessarily want todive into why is that?
Or, like, why does this personnot like me?
And, as humans, we have theability to kind of like, pick
(08:23):
our friends, and we don't needvery many friends to be happy.
But as a restaurant, we don'thave that luxury all the time.
And, yes, there's always goingto be cases where we should be
able to fire guests who maybearen't a good fit for the brand,
and that's OK.
But for the most part, you needa lot of people to come in and
buy a $5 smoothie in order tomake a successful business,
(08:45):
right, and so I love that you'refocusing in on what does that
guest think, and then how do youimprove that best think and
then how do you improve that?
And one of the things I see youguys using well is the Goals AI,
where you're able to take thatfeedback, look for those trends
and actually then recommend thegoals to the GMs to help them
(09:06):
improve, and your GMs are doinga great job at making sure that
they're improving, category bycategory, every single goal
period, and I think that'simpressive to see, and
especially coming at this from amarketing perspective.
One of the things that wealways talk about is that if you
want great marketing, you needto have exceptional operations,
(09:28):
because you can't do all thiswork to bring someone in or
bring someone back, and thenthere's a negative experience
because there wasn't goodtraining, because there wasn't
good preparation, because,whatever the case is, restroom
isn't clean right.
The operations really are socritical to be married to
marketing.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
We're fortunate.
We have an amazing relationshipwith our operations leaders and
we're in constant communication, constant contact and and all
those tools.
You know we love AI, we lean onAI and everything we can
advances in technology to makesure that we're serving each
store and each guest correctly,and we do.
We've got a really wide varietyof store types, sizes, layouts
(10:09):
and setup, and so we're not aone size fits all concepts, and
so a goal that makes sense forone location just simply doesn't
track for a new location, andone example of that is we have
an app, and our Earth Bar app isa great way to order ahead and
save time, and whenever we opena new location, it's very easy
to get everybody on the app.
It's everyone's first day atthe gym and it's a little bit of
(10:31):
like this is where this is howyou do the lockers and this is
where you get the towels and youorder on the app, and so it's
almost like first day of schoolEverybody just gets in line.
And then there are otherlocations where we've taken over
from a previous operator thatdidn't rely on the app so much
and was more of a walk up or await in line or different flow,
and so that's a really slow boatto turn, because now you're
(10:51):
changing behavior of thousandplus people a day that this is
how they get their smoothieafter the gym, which is very
different than a place thatmight be three blocks that way
in Manhattan, and so to tellthose two stores you need this
to be your app.
Adoption percentage isn'trealistic, and so it's really
important for those two storesto have goals that are
meaningful for them so that theyknow what success looks like,
(11:12):
and also for us to reallyunderstand the ins and outs of
every store across the system,and all the changing dynamics
takes a lot of manpower, takes alot of people, a lot of
analysis and a lot of data flow,and more often than not, ai
will do that more nimbly to justthe same degree, if not better,
of analysis, and it will learnand see what's happening, and so
(11:32):
we've really found it's a greatway to help the stores find
room for improvement, and thenalso, whether the goal makes
sense or not, we can help trainthe system a little bit.
So it's really just the sameway marketing and operations
work together.
We, as a business, are workingwith AI to not just take
whatever AI says, as I guessthat's what we're doing now, but
as a trusted advisor with a tonof feedback, it's basically
(11:55):
like if you could press pauseand go spend a month asking a
ton of people across theindustry how they do something.
You would still synthesize allthat data and decide what you
buy and what you don't, and whatreally aligns and what doesn't,
and AI just speeds up thatprocess.
It's a way to get a lot ofcollective feedback in a short
time, but it's still just likeany tool.
It's what you do with it.
(12:15):
But for us it's an incrediblegame changer because our entire
customer service operation runsthrough one individual, and
she's a very talented individualand she's got a lot on her
plate.
But without those tools, therewouldn't be a way to give
thoughtful feedback to everysingle store in the system, and
so, rather than have one personfor every five stores just sort
(12:36):
of watching the data all thetime, it's really important for
us not only for us to have thatbird's eye view, but for those
operators to have access tothose tools, having the Ovation
app to sit down with the generalmanagers and see here's what's
happening with your store overtime.
So we're most efficient wherewe teach our operations leaders
how to use the tool to guidewhat's needed at each store and
we focus on is the tool servingthe stores?
(12:57):
Is the tool set up correctly?
Do the reports look correct?
Are we measuring the rightthings, training on the right
things?
And that's where our trainingteam comes in play, our
operations team.
So it's really helped us justorient around.
It's a single source of truthfor what's the guest experience?
And there's always differentangles and feedback and any
(13:20):
concept in some of theselocations without a ton of
feedback.
If you get five pieces offeedback that are really
actionable in a month and two ofthem are about your price, you
have to make sure to notoverreact and say, well, our
prices are too high, we have toslash prices.
And the same thing, if threepeople say you've got incredible
service, that doesn'tnecessarily mean that that's the
best store that's ever existed.
But over time, the totality ofall this data, they're all data
(13:41):
points that you take intoaccount and it gives us that
single source of truth ofeveryone can orient around this
one metric or this one tool and,just from my standpoint, just
being able to see the alerts onmy phone and Clay Sanger, who's
our CEO, he wants every alert onhis phone all the time.
It gives you this great pulse,and so, for him especially, he's
got this amazing ability to hisgut.
Feel of just I feel like I'vebeen seeing a lot of questions
(14:04):
about this in this location moreoften than not is right, and so
that's another example of youcan get buy-in from across the
organization without everyonehaving to dive into the data.
So, depending on how peoplelearn or react or how people
want to be engaged with, givesyou a lot of different ways for
people to engage.
Some people that love the datawant to dive into the
spreadsheets.
Some people want to see a dailyrecap, and so they just get the
(14:26):
daily recap.
Some people want to see theweekly recap.
So it also gives us a lot ofways to get leadership buy-in
and connection to what's goingon without us having to send out
some massive daily.
Here's what's happening in theworld of customer service, and
it's more of a self-servesolution for our internal
leadership to have a pulse onthe stores.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I think it's so important to keep that
connection right, because, forOvation, we actually use Ovation
right.
So at the bottom of every emailthat you're talking about, we
have smiley faces where peoplecan give feedback on what they
love or what they don't loveabout Ovation, and similarly, I
get everything to my inbox andright to my phone, actually, and
like if there's an issue that Isee, yeah, we jump in and we
(15:06):
help navigate through any ofthose issues, and I like that.
How you describe that, though,of like that company alignment,
where we're all seeing the samethings, and so it's not like
someone's shocked that wait,what happened over there, but
we're all on the same thread,we're all working towards the
same goal, which is creating agreat guest experience, and
(15:27):
building value.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
It takes any politics out of it.
Also, where it takes out thisnotion of like you're telling on
a store, if it's like, hey,like I saw this thing on
customer service and now I'mgoing to tell leadership that
one store is having an issuewith one thing, it's really more
, hey, we've all been seeingthis trend, or hey, we can all
see, or we can all agree, or thenumbers say this, and so it
takes any personal feelings outof it, and so the data is the
(15:49):
data.
We all see the numbers, we allsee it in real time, personal
feelings out of it, and so thedata is the data.
We all see the numbers, we allsee it in real time and, like I
said, we're a brand that wewelcome feedback.
We're not a huge corporateinfrastructure.
We've got a lot of storesspread out nationally and that
footprint's growing, and so theonly way we're going to be able
to keep a pulse on the qualityof the experience and how guests
are feeling is using technologyand using tools, and so all
feedback helps us get better at.
(16:10):
Any piece of feedback thatleads us to a solution saves us
someone having to fly out tothat market, to that store, to
troubleshoot what's going on, tosee declining sales four months
later and find out that there'sjust been some gap.
That's creating a negative guestexperience.
It's turning members off overtime.
It's like that's.
We don't have time to wait forthe problem to show up, and so
(16:31):
it's a great early warningsystem for anything that might
become a larger problem down theroad.
It's helped us a ton on productquality too.
We've certainly made decisionsfrom a product standpoint where
we thought that we could changethis ingredient for this
ingredient, and we've tested itand we try it and we take a lot
of pride, and when you dosomething at scale across the
market, you find out that theguests experienced something
(16:51):
different than you did.
We've been able to reversecourse on decisions before, say,
just based on feedback, so it'sreally helpful for us.
It's like having thousands ofsecret shoppers across the
country.
That's invaluable feedback andthings we wouldn't see ourselves
.
We find out all the time.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Well, that's awesome, john, and I was going to ask
you about tactics, but I feellike we've been talking tactics
this whole time and, especially,I think the one thing that I
really want to pull out for ourlisteners is the fact that AI is
a trusted advisor.
You shouldn't look at it aslike, hey, this is going to do
my whole job now, but you lookat it like if you hire a
restaurant consultant that comesin and they say, hey, john,
(17:27):
here's 10 things that you shoulddo, and you're like okay, based
on our brands and our goals andwhat we're doing, these three
are the most important, and soit's about really focusing in on
using AI as a way to enhanceyourself and not as a way to
replace yourself.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
One thing that I've shared with my team in a cross
organization is it's trickybecause AI looks like a
technology and it is.
It's based in technology, butif you treat it like a
technology, you won't get muchout of it.
So if you treat AI like Googleor if you treat AI like email,
you won't get much out of it.
As we try to roll out AI across, even our teams, like you, get
(18:06):
questions, which are totallyvalid questions of can we get
training on AI or how can we getsome training on how to use AI,
and we'll use it more.
What I share is almost like justpretend I said, hey, the thing
that you do for your role, I'vegot somebody for you to talk
with, that's done it before,that's really good at it.
Just take it all with a grainof salt, but I'm gonna give you
their info.
And they love to do like a 30minute call with you and that
(18:27):
person wouldn and say, well, canyou train me on how to have
that phone call?
Can you train me on how to talkto the contact you're
connecting with?
You say, oh yeah, I guess I'llsee what they have to say.
So it's awkward because it's acomputer program and it's a
keyboard, but you almost have totalk to it.
And you have to be more honestthan you would be even on that
phone call with that expert andsay, hey, I've got a question.
(18:48):
There's something that I shouldknow how to do in my job and I
just don't.
And where should I start Right?
Hey, my bosses have asked me todo something and I don't know
where to start.
Or I'm having a challenge withsomething that doesn't quite
make sense.
What are five ways I shouldattack this problem right?
Or we've even done it just fromdoing internal surveys with our
team, right?
(19:08):
If we wanted to do X, y and Zwith a future product launch,
what do we want to ask our teammembers?
Right?
So it's really treated as anadvisor and a sounding board of
bounds.
And have a conversation with itand you'd be surprised how it
learns over time, and that'sbeen a big shift for us as well.
As, just don't be shy to showyour thorns.
It's a great place to ask thosesilly questions you might be
embarrassed to raise your handabout on a call.
(19:30):
It just speeds up the iterationcycle so much.
And then the caution of allthat is to make sure that you
don't copy paste and loseyourself in the process, right,
and make sure you still applyyour own filter, your own layer,
your own expertise and and youdon't get lost in.
That's better than what I wouldhave come up with, because
that's where you sort of can gosideways with it.
But you know, manage correctlyand treat it like someone you're
(19:53):
just having a conversation withand you're going to come back
from that conversation and shareyour best ideas.
One of my coaches.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
he's like hey, I had an hour conversation with
ChatGPT yesterday or had a twohour strategy session with
ChatGPT on Saturday, and so likehe talks about it just like
that of not using it as like aplug in, plug out, but JetGPT
does strategy so well and sothat's something to leverage.
I love that.
John, now you know a lot ofpeople in this industry.
(20:20):
I know we're out of time here,but like I'd love to get any
advice on like who is someonethat we should be following,
who's someone that deserves anovation?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
So there's a brand that is in the restaurant space.
It's called Carla Cafe, which Ijust love, and it's a couple
that, during the pandemic,started making sandwiches out of
their house and then startedmaking them available for
friends and then, before youknow it, it was one of these
Instagram, if you know, you knowkind of things where you could
DM them and you could Venmo themand pick up a sandwich.
(20:48):
It was there's a nightclub onSunset Boulevard that was
obviously closed during COVID,but out the side window you
could pick up your sandwichafter you Venmoed for it, and
they were just amazing amazingsandwiches and great quality and
there wasn't much to do at thetime, and so I would drop my
daughter off at preschool and gowait for my sandwich and my
wife thought I was crazy she'sjust going to go sit in your car
(21:10):
and wait for your $17 sandwich.
I was like there's not a wholelot else to do and watching them
grow and they've opened theirfirst brick and mortar location
and it's just a fun brand.
But I think what I love about itis they're really committed to
the food, to the quality and tonot cutting corners and they
stand for something in theirfood and the sandwiches are
amazing and I'm a huge sandwichand salad fan.
(21:32):
I love a good tuna chop, whichis my favorite there, and we'd
love to do something with themone day.
We'll see if there's ever anEarth Bar, carlyle cafe collab
in the works, but I could seelike a protein smoothie sandwich
.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
you know something there?
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
They do great.
They do great cafe drinks.
It's been a fun brand to follow.
I love stories like that, thosestories where there's a similar
one down the street from mehere in Redondo Beach in Hermosa
called Proudly Serving.
Similar story with burgers andsomeone that started making
burgers in his driveway duringthe pandemic and is now up in
two locations and just veryinnovative, very committed to
the food and very committed tothe vibe, just creating a great
(22:06):
guest experience and great vibe.
When you see brands like that,you know what they stand for.
There's a real fingerprint onit and I love to see that.
So it's been fun to watch thosetwo brands grow, which are
local brands which I'm sureyou'll be hearing more about in
the future, but I'm big fans ofboth.
Super cool, john.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Well, john, thanks so much for joining us today and
for, Coast to Coast, helping uslive healthy and happy.
Today's ovation goes to you.
Appreciate you so much comingon here with us.
Thanks a lot, appreciate it.
Have a good day.
Thanks for joining us today.
If you liked this episode,leave us a review on Apple
Podcasts or your favorite placeto listen.
We're all about feedback here.
Again, this episode wassponsored by Ovation, a
(22:43):
two-question, sms-basedactionable guest feedback
platform built for multi-unitrestaurants.
If you'd like to learn how wecan help you measure and create
a better guest experience, visitus at OvationUpcom.
Welcome to another edition of Give An Ovation, the
restaurant guest experiencepodcast.
I'm your host, zach Oates, andeach week I chat with industry
experts to uncover theirstrategies and tactics to help
you create a five-star guestexperience.
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And today I am so excitedbecause it's really interesting.
Being a part of Ovation andbeing able to see the back end
of what brands are surfacing tothe top and there is one brand
that I have seen consistentlynot just care about the guest
(00:44):
experience but see how muchtheir guests love them has been
inspiring.
I've got John Lawn.
He's the CMO of Earth Bar andJohn, welcome to the podcast man
.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Thanks a lot.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Thanks for having me Excited to be on You've been
doing some amazing things, andso maybe not everyone might be
familiar with Earth Bar, thoughDo you want to give a little
update on what is Earth Bar?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, happy to.
Earth.
Bar is a really exciting brand.
I'm proud to be a part of it,been here just under four years
and as a company.
The brand itself has beenaround since 1971.
So one of the wellness OGs, aswe like to say.
Back from the early days ofpeople would eat red meat and
smoke cigarettes and go to thedoctor when they got sick things
(01:27):
started to move in thedirection.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Those were the days, John.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Those were the days, the bad, you know, the madmen
days and really, as thingsshifted to people being aware of
how food can be medicine.
Oranges have vitamin C and ifyou eat enough oranges maybe you
don't get sick, so you don'thave to go to the doctor.
And then I moved into well,what if I don't want to eat 12
oranges a day?
What if you eat your vitamin Cfrom a pill?
So Bernie Budman, who's one ofour founders, still very active
(01:51):
in the brand today If you go byour West Hollywood or Brentwood
stores you may bump into him hewas one of the first people to
put vitamins in a retailenvironment.
We could go buy vitamin C pillsand take them as part of your
morning routine.
Proactive wellness and how toreally get ahead of the curve.
And as that evolved, thatreally became the underpinning
of the brand of giving your bodywhat it needs when it needs it.
(02:12):
And as the smoothie crazecaught on, we were at the
forefront of that in the 90s andsmoothies are a great way to
get those whole fruits andvegetables which are packed with
great nutrients, but also a wayto work those supplements into
a smoothie makes it even easierto take something.
You know we were both chatting.
We both have kids.
Anytime you can make somethinga little tastier, a little bit
easier, more enjoyable.
It's easier to do regularly andmake a part of your daily habit
(02:34):
, daily routine.
So smoothies really became thetip of the arrow for the brand
and it's our supplement deliverysystem and we really focus on
amazing functional wellness.
But supplement delivery systemand we really focus on amazing
functional wellness.
But if you walk into an EarthBar location today, we've got
over 60 locations across thecountry, predominantly in
California and New York, butwe're really focused on
functional wellness solutions,what your body needs when your
(02:55):
body needs it, especially postworkout.
We're proud to have a nationalpartnership with Equinox.
We're in over 50 Equinoxlocations across California over
30 in Manhattan and we reallylove showing up for that Equinox
member as California over 30 inManhattan and we really love
showing up for that Equinoxmember.
As well as street stores acrossthe country.
And for anyone that doesn'tlive near an Earth Bar, we sell
some of our leading supplements,including our Earth Fusion
plant protein, which has been inliterally hundreds and hundreds
(03:16):
of thousands of smoothies ayear.
We sell that at earthbarcom.
So we really want to make surepeople get wellness solutions
when they need it.
But one of our big gaps andlearnings with that many
locations is how do we, withoutscaling a very large internal
team, how do we keep a pulse onthat guest experience?
To keep that consistent, we'vedoubled our footprint.
We had around 30 stores a yearago.
Now we're over 60.
So in scaling at that level, wereally want to make sure we
(03:38):
have the tools to keep a pulseon the customer and guest
experience every step of the waytoo.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
And I think it's so powerful that, as you've been
able to expand even innon-traditional locations, it's
really tough to do that.
It's tough to do thatsuccessfully and it takes a
focus on that guest experience.
So what would you say, John, ifyou're looking at the guest
experience, what is the mostimportant aspect of guest
experience nowadays?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
So I think one thing that we really focus on is one
of our core values energy.
And I think people leaving thegym if they've just finished a
walk, a workout, they're justout for a break and they need
something.
Food is energy, food is energy,food is medicine.
And generally people cominginto an Earth Bar, they want to
feel better.
Either they feel great and theywant to feel amazing, or maybe
they're under the weather.
They want some immunity support.
(04:21):
But people are coming intoEarth Bar because they want to
feel better than they feelbefore they walked in, and so
our team members' ability toexude that energy we call them
master mood shifters, right, ourability for you to walk out of
Earth Bar in a better mood thanyou walked in, for that visit to
be the best part of your day,the thing you look forward to is
really important, and that'sthe hardest thing to quantify.
We can quantify speed of service.
(04:41):
There's a way to figure out howfast you got through the line.
We can quantify how well we'vehelped people add on to their
check and our average ticket.
There's a lot of things we canquantify if they use the app or
not.
One of the hardest things for abrand to quantify is what was
that experience like?
And surveys and things likethat can be a lagging indicator.
But we really love the tool ofOvation because we get that
(05:01):
real-time feedback and, in a lotof cases, our ability to handle
that guest experience.
In the moment we've really beenable to democratize the way that
we respond to guest feedbackthrough the ovation tool and so
we've even seen situations wherea guest has a negative
experience.
They send in instant feedbackabout that experience on ovation
.
But they're in the space still,they're having their avocado
(05:22):
toast, they're still talkingwith friends and we've been able
to fix that experience orrectify it.
And someone's like oh, you know, and more often than not what
you find out is for whatever theissue was, it's sort of the
bark is worse than the bite.
And sometimes, especially withsocial media, someone gives
feedback and then you help them.
(05:44):
It's like oh, like anything wecan do to be the best part of
that person's day, to make surepeople feel the energy we have.
And that really helps us findout within our organization
who's really crushing it, who'sreally helping elevate the guest
experience.
It gives you metrics about yourteam that you wouldn't find
ordinarily just from what youcan get from your report, from
your POS system, for example.
Really just from what you canget from your report from your
POS system, for example, youreally find those diamond in the
(06:05):
rough team members who arecreating amazing moments that
exude our culture, that tell youwhat we're about, and it's a
way to sort of to cut a secondlayer deep and really find out
what drives the business.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
And I love that.
Here we are.
You're a CMO and you're talkingabout guest feedback.
Normally, when people talkabout feedback, they're like, oh
, that's an operations thing,no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Well, I think in discovery today, the way people
discover brands, the people makeshopping decisions based on
friends recommendations, socialmedia recommendations.
We have a beautiful Instagramfeed.
I love the work we do on socialmedia.
I love our email.
That's all foundational stuffthat when you go to find out
about Earth Bar, you find outwhat we're about and who we are.
More often than not, it's afriend saying you've got to
(06:55):
check this place out.
And then when they go to ourwebsite they go to our Instagram
.
It's deepening the connectionto.
I love Earth Bar because they doX, y and Z, but our best
marketers are happy guests.
If we focus on happy guests andwe focus on that relationship
and especially in theenvironment we're in, we're a
very unique concept becausewe're inside of Equinox but
we're not part of Equinox.
But that Equinox member eventhough many of our locations are
(07:17):
open to the public that Equinoxmember makes up a large
percentage of that business,which is a double edged sword,
because if they love you, that'sgreat and they're going to be
loyal, but if you have anegative experience with
somebody that walks by you everyday, it's easy for them to make
that decision of oh, I justdon't do earth bar after my
workout anymore.
That's not a guest.
You get back necessarilybecause the gym has so many
(07:38):
members and so it's reallyimportant to take especially
good care of the experience ofthat guest, because if they're
loyal, you have a really loyalrepeat guest and if you create a
negative experience that you'renot able to really help work
through with them, a negativeexperience will happen all the
time and we welcome it becausewe learn from it.
But if you don't do anythingabout it, that repeat guest
intent starts to drift over timeand that's where you lose
(08:00):
connection.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
I love that you said a negative experience could be a
positive thing, right, becauseyou learn from it, and I think
that that's something where, ashumans, we tend to shy away from
that feedback.
We tend to shy away fromsomeone who had a negative
experience.
I don't necessarily want todive into why is that?
Or, like, why does this personnot like me?
And, as humans, we have theability to kind of like, pick
(08:23):
our friends, and we don't needvery many friends to be happy.
But as a restaurant, we don'thave that luxury all the time.
And, yes, there's always goingto be cases where we should be
able to fire guests who maybearen't a good fit for the brand,
and that's OK.
But for the most part, you needa lot of people to come in and
buy a $5 smoothie in order tomake a successful business,
(08:45):
right, and so I love that you'refocusing in on what does that
guest think, and then how do youimprove that best think and
then how do you improve that?
And one of the things I see youguys using well is the Goals AI,
where you're able to take thatfeedback, look for those trends
and actually then recommend thegoals to the GMs to help them
(09:06):
improve, and your GMs are doinga great job at making sure that
they're improving, category bycategory, every single goal
period, and I think that'simpressive to see, and
especially coming at this from amarketing perspective.
One of the things that wealways talk about is that if you
want great marketing, you needto have exceptional operations,
(09:28):
because you can't do all thiswork to bring someone in or
bring someone back, and thenthere's a negative experience
because there wasn't goodtraining, because there wasn't
good preparation, because,whatever the case is, restroom
isn't clean right.
The operations really are socritical to be married to
marketing.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
We're fortunate.
We have an amazing relationshipwith our operations leaders and
we're in constant communication, constant contact and and all
those tools.
You know we love AI, we lean onAI and everything we can
advances in technology to makesure that we're serving each
store and each guest correctly,and we do.
We've got a really wide varietyof store types, sizes, layouts
(10:09):
and setup, and so we're not aone size fits all concepts, and
so a goal that makes sense forone location just simply doesn't
track for a new location, andone example of that is we have
an app, and our Earth Bar app isa great way to order ahead and
save time, and whenever we opena new location, it's very easy
to get everybody on the app.
It's everyone's first day atthe gym and it's a little bit of
(10:31):
like this is where this is howyou do the lockers and this is
where you get the towels and youorder on the app, and so it's
almost like first day of schoolEverybody just gets in line.
And then there are otherlocations where we've taken over
from a previous operator thatdidn't rely on the app so much
and was more of a walk up or await in line or different flow,
and so that's a really slow boatto turn, because now you're
(10:51):
changing behavior of thousandplus people a day that this is
how they get their smoothieafter the gym, which is very
different than a place thatmight be three blocks that way
in Manhattan, and so to tellthose two stores you need this
to be your app.
Adoption percentage isn'trealistic, and so it's really
important for those two storesto have goals that are
meaningful for them so that theyknow what success looks like,
(11:12):
and also for us to reallyunderstand the ins and outs of
every store across the system,and all the changing dynamics
takes a lot of manpower, takes alot of people, a lot of
analysis and a lot of data flow,and more often than not, ai
will do that more nimbly to justthe same degree, if not better,
of analysis, and it will learnand see what's happening, and so
(11:32):
we've really found it's a greatway to help the stores find
room for improvement, and thenalso, whether the goal makes
sense or not, we can help trainthe system a little bit.
So it's really just the sameway marketing and operations
work together.
We, as a business, are workingwith AI to not just take
whatever AI says, as I guessthat's what we're doing now, but
as a trusted advisor with a tonof feedback, it's basically
(11:55):
like if you could press pauseand go spend a month asking a
ton of people across theindustry how they do something.
You would still synthesize allthat data and decide what you
buy and what you don't, and whatreally aligns and what doesn't,
and AI just speeds up thatprocess.
It's a way to get a lot ofcollective feedback in a short
time, but it's still just likeany tool.
It's what you do with it.
(12:15):
But for us it's an incrediblegame changer because our entire
customer service operation runsthrough one individual, and
she's a very talented individualand she's got a lot on her
plate.
But without those tools, therewouldn't be a way to give
thoughtful feedback to everysingle store in the system, and
so, rather than have one personfor every five stores just sort
(12:36):
of watching the data all thetime, it's really important for
us not only for us to have thatbird's eye view, but for those
operators to have access tothose tools, having the Ovation
app to sit down with the generalmanagers and see here's what's
happening with your store overtime.
So we're most efficient wherewe teach our operations leaders
how to use the tool to guidewhat's needed at each store and
we focus on is the tool servingthe stores?
(12:57):
Is the tool set up correctly?
Do the reports look correct?
Are we measuring the rightthings, training on the right
things?
And that's where our trainingteam comes in play, our
operations team.
So it's really helped us justorient around.
It's a single source of truthfor what's the guest experience?
And there's always differentangles and feedback and any
(13:20):
concept in some of theselocations without a ton of
feedback.
If you get five pieces offeedback that are really
actionable in a month and two ofthem are about your price, you
have to make sure to notoverreact and say, well, our
prices are too high, we have toslash prices.
And the same thing, if threepeople say you've got incredible
service, that doesn'tnecessarily mean that that's the
best store that's ever existed.
But over time, the totality ofall this data, they're all data
(13:41):
points that you take intoaccount and it gives us that
single source of truth ofeveryone can orient around this
one metric or this one tool and,just from my standpoint, just
being able to see the alerts onmy phone and Clay Sanger, who's
our CEO, he wants every alert onhis phone all the time.
It gives you this great pulse,and so, for him especially, he's
got this amazing ability to hisgut.
Feel of just I feel like I'vebeen seeing a lot of questions
(14:04):
about this in this location moreoften than not is right, and so
that's another example of youcan get buy-in from across the
organization without everyonehaving to dive into the data.
So, depending on how peoplelearn or react or how people
want to be engaged with, givesyou a lot of different ways for
people to engage.
Some people that love the datawant to dive into the
spreadsheets.
Some people want to see a dailyrecap, and so they just get the
(14:26):
daily recap.
Some people want to see theweekly recap.
So it also gives us a lot ofways to get leadership buy-in
and connection to what's goingon without us having to send out
some massive daily.
Here's what's happening in theworld of customer service, and
it's more of a self-servesolution for our internal
leadership to have a pulse onthe stores.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
I think it's so important to keep that
connection right, because, forOvation, we actually use Ovation
right.
So at the bottom of every emailthat you're talking about, we
have smiley faces where peoplecan give feedback on what they
love or what they don't loveabout Ovation, and similarly, I
get everything to my inbox andright to my phone, actually, and
like if there's an issue that Isee, yeah, we jump in and we
(15:06):
help navigate through any ofthose issues, and I like that.
How you describe that, though,of like that company alignment,
where we're all seeing the samethings, and so it's not like
someone's shocked that wait,what happened over there, but
we're all on the same thread,we're all working towards the
same goal, which is creating agreat guest experience, and
(15:27):
building value.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
It takes any politics out of it.
Also, where it takes out thisnotion of like you're telling on
a store, if it's like, hey,like I saw this thing on
customer service and now I'mgoing to tell leadership that
one store is having an issuewith one thing, it's really more
, hey, we've all been seeingthis trend, or hey, we can all
see, or we can all agree, or thenumbers say this, and so it
takes any personal feelings outof it, and so the data is the
(15:49):
data.
We all see the numbers, we allsee it in real time, personal
feelings out of it, and so thedata is the data.
We all see the numbers, we allsee it in real time and, like I
said, we're a brand that wewelcome feedback.
We're not a huge corporateinfrastructure.
We've got a lot of storesspread out nationally and that
footprint's growing, and so theonly way we're going to be able
to keep a pulse on the qualityof the experience and how guests
are feeling is using technologyand using tools, and so all
feedback helps us get better at.
(16:10):
Any piece of feedback thatleads us to a solution saves us
someone having to fly out tothat market, to that store, to
troubleshoot what's going on, tosee declining sales four months
later and find out that there'sjust been some gap.
That's creating a negative guestexperience.
It's turning members off overtime.
It's like that's.
We don't have time to wait forthe problem to show up, and so
(16:31):
it's a great early warningsystem for anything that might
become a larger problem down theroad.
It's helped us a ton on productquality too.
We've certainly made decisionsfrom a product standpoint where
we thought that we could changethis ingredient for this
ingredient, and we've tested itand we try it and we take a lot
of pride, and when you dosomething at scale across the
market, you find out that theguests experienced something
(16:51):
different than you did.
We've been able to reversecourse on decisions before, say,
just based on feedback, so it'sreally helpful for us.
It's like having thousands ofsecret shoppers across the
country.
That's invaluable feedback andthings we wouldn't see ourselves
.
We find out all the time.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Well, that's awesome, john, and I was going to ask
you about tactics, but I feellike we've been talking tactics
this whole time and, especially,I think the one thing that I
really want to pull out for ourlisteners is the fact that AI is
a trusted advisor.
You shouldn't look at it aslike, hey, this is going to do
my whole job now, but you lookat it like if you hire a
restaurant consultant that comesin and they say, hey, john,
(17:27):
here's 10 things that you shoulddo, and you're like okay, based
on our brands and our goals andwhat we're doing, these three
are the most important, and soit's about really focusing in on
using AI as a way to enhanceyourself and not as a way to
replace yourself.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
One thing that I've shared with my team in a cross
organization is it's trickybecause AI looks like a
technology and it is.
It's based in technology, butif you treat it like a
technology, you won't get muchout of it.
So if you treat AI like Googleor if you treat AI like email,
you won't get much out of it.
As we try to roll out AI across, even our teams, like you, get
(18:06):
questions, which are totallyvalid questions of can we get
training on AI or how can we getsome training on how to use AI,
and we'll use it more.
What I share is almost like justpretend I said, hey, the thing
that you do for your role, I'vegot somebody for you to talk
with, that's done it before,that's really good at it.
Just take it all with a grainof salt, but I'm gonna give you
their info.
And they love to do like a 30minute call with you and that
(18:27):
person wouldn and say, well, canyou train me on how to have
that phone call?
Can you train me on how to talkto the contact you're
connecting with?
You say, oh yeah, I guess I'llsee what they have to say.
So it's awkward because it's acomputer program and it's a
keyboard, but you almost have totalk to it.
And you have to be more honestthan you would be even on that
phone call with that expert andsay, hey, I've got a question.
(18:48):
There's something that I shouldknow how to do in my job and I
just don't.
And where should I start Right?
Hey, my bosses have asked me todo something and I don't know
where to start.
Or I'm having a challenge withsomething that doesn't quite
make sense.
What are five ways I shouldattack this problem right?
Or we've even done it just fromdoing internal surveys with our
team, right?
(19:08):
If we wanted to do X, y and Zwith a future product launch,
what do we want to ask our teammembers?
Right?
So it's really treated as anadvisor and a sounding board of
bounds.
And have a conversation with itand you'd be surprised how it
learns over time, and that'sbeen a big shift for us as well.
As, just don't be shy to showyour thorns.
It's a great place to ask thosesilly questions you might be
embarrassed to raise your handabout on a call.
(19:30):
It just speeds up the iterationcycle so much.
And then the caution of allthat is to make sure that you
don't copy paste and loseyourself in the process, right,
and make sure you still applyyour own filter, your own layer,
your own expertise and and youdon't get lost in.
That's better than what I wouldhave come up with, because
that's where you sort of can gosideways with it.
But you know, manage correctlyand treat it like someone you're
(19:53):
just having a conversation withand you're going to come back
from that conversation and shareyour best ideas.
One of my coaches.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
he's like hey, I had an hour conversation with
ChatGPT yesterday or had a twohour strategy session with
ChatGPT on Saturday, and so likehe talks about it just like
that of not using it as like aplug in, plug out, but JetGPT
does strategy so well and sothat's something to leverage.
I love that.
John, now you know a lot ofpeople in this industry.
(20:20):
I know we're out of time here,but like I'd love to get any
advice on like who is someonethat we should be following,
who's someone that deserves anovation?
Speaker 2 (20:27):
So there's a brand that is in the restaurant space.
It's called Carla Cafe, which Ijust love, and it's a couple
that, during the pandemic,started making sandwiches out of
their house and then startedmaking them available for
friends and then, before youknow it, it was one of these
Instagram, if you know, you knowkind of things where you could
DM them and you could Venmo themand pick up a sandwich.
(20:48):
It was there's a nightclub onSunset Boulevard that was
obviously closed during COVID,but out the side window you
could pick up your sandwichafter you Venmoed for it, and
they were just amazing amazingsandwiches and great quality and
there wasn't much to do at thetime, and so I would drop my
daughter off at preschool and gowait for my sandwich and my
wife thought I was crazy she'sjust going to go sit in your car
(21:10):
and wait for your $17 sandwich.
I was like there's not a wholelot else to do and watching them
grow and they've opened theirfirst brick and mortar location
and it's just a fun brand.
But I think what I love about itis they're really committed to
the food, to the quality and tonot cutting corners and they
stand for something in theirfood and the sandwiches are
amazing and I'm a huge sandwichand salad fan.
(21:32):
I love a good tuna chop, whichis my favorite there, and we'd
love to do something with themone day.
We'll see if there's ever anEarth Bar, carlyle cafe collab
in the works, but I could seelike a protein smoothie sandwich
.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
you know something there?
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
They do great.
They do great cafe drinks.
It's been a fun brand to follow.
I love stories like that, thosestories where there's a similar
one down the street from mehere in Redondo Beach in Hermosa
called Proudly Serving.
Similar story with burgers andsomeone that started making
burgers in his driveway duringthe pandemic and is now up in
two locations and just veryinnovative, very committed to
the food and very committed tothe vibe, just creating a great
(22:06):
guest experience and great vibe.
When you see brands like that,you know what they stand for.
There's a real fingerprint onit and I love to see that.
So it's been fun to watch thosetwo brands grow, which are
local brands which I'm sureyou'll be hearing more about in
the future, but I'm big fans ofboth.
Super cool, john.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Well, john, thanks so much for joining us today and
for, Coast to Coast, helping uslive healthy and happy.
Today's ovation goes to you.
Appreciate you so much comingon here with us.
Thanks a lot, appreciate it.
Have a good day.
Thanks for joining us today.
If you liked this episode,leave us a review on Apple
Podcasts or your favorite placeto listen.
We're all about feedback here.
Again, this episode wassponsored by Ovation, a
(22:43):
two-question, sms-basedactionable guest feedback
platform built for multi-unitrestaurants.
If you'd like to learn how wecan help you measure and create
a better guest experience, visitus at OvationUpcom.
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