How Organic Muscle Won the Supplement Space with Trust, Reviews & Retail Growth | EP. #210 - The E-Comm Show

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
James Benefico (00:03):
There's a lot of wisdom that comes from launching
failed products. You learn somuch, so painful. I have a
better idea of what's going towork and what's not going to
work.

Narrator (00:13):
Welcome to the E comm Show podcast. I'm your host.
Andrew Mapp, owner and founderof blue tusker, from
groundbreaking industry updatesto success stories and
strategies. Get to know the insand outs of the e Commerce
Industry from top leaders in thespace. Let's get into it.

Andrew Maff (00:27):
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of
the E comm Show as usual. I'myour host, Andrew Maff, and
today I am joined by the amazingJames benefico, who is the
founder, CEO over at organicmuscle. James, how you doing,
buddy? Ready for the show?

I'm doing great.
Yeah. Thanks for the intro.
Great to be here.

No worries. Super excited to have you on the show.
I I love having supplementbrands in the show because it's
always very interesting at howhow it's approached, how certain
things are marketed, how certainthings are handled from an
operational perspective. So I'msuper excited to get into this,

(01:05):
but I always like starting theseoff pretty stereotypically. I'd
like to kind of give you thefloor. Just tell us a little bit
about, like, your background,how you got started in Organic
Muscle, and then we'll kind oftake it from there.

Okay, sure. So I used to be kind of a fat guy
when I was younger, and I had afew catalysts in my life where
that motivated me to want tolose weight. So I started
hitting the gym, and I woulddrink these conventional pre
workout supplements, like manypeople do, kind of try and get a
little boost. And one day, Ijust had an absolutely awful

(01:32):
experience with a pre workoutwhere I felt like I was going to
die. I almost called 911, onmyself. I was like, This is it?
What a way to go. Oh, soeveryone I talked to has had a
some kind of horror story with apre workout, whether you get
super jittery or bloated or sickto your stomach or you crash,

(01:52):
whatever. So after thisexperience, I had the light bulb
moment, because I just wanted touse a healthy, clean, organic,
nourishing pre workout, notsomething that was that was
filled with toxic ingredientsand that was going to make me
feel poorly. So I becameabsolutely obsessed with this
idea. I talked to my friends, Italked to my family. Everyone

(02:13):
was like, I would use that. AndI really think that obsession is
necessary when starting abusiness, because I'd had a
million business ideas beforethat, but this was the first one
I truly became obsessed with,and that gave me the drive to
launch the first ever USDA preworkout in history. No one else
had done it, so I figured itout. I talked to naturopaths and

(02:36):
nutritionists, found an organiccertified manufacturer, one of
the only few ones in the countryat that time, and it became a
reality. And now today, that was10 years ago, so.

The execution on that is insane. Like, you don't
hear that a lot. Like, whensomeone's got, someone's got a
problem, they invent something,and then they solve it.
Sometimes it's kind of a quickand painless thing you have to
go through, like, I, I knowgoing through USDA stuff is
like, that's a Yeah, that's goodon you for going through that.

Thanks. There's no instruction manual when
you're doing something. No,before I, and this is before AI
and everything. Like, I just hadto figure it out and where
there's a will, there's a way,and I just didn't give up. Yeah,
made it happen. But, I mean, Iwas a young kid, I made every
mistake imaginable. I still do,but that's just the process.

(03:27):
That's how you learn, that's howyou build your character and
your skill set.

Yeah. So one of the things that, first of all, I
resonate with, with this so muchI've taken so many pre workouts
in my life that I was like, oh,let's try this one. And then the
next thing, you know, you feellike you're just going to
explode in one way, like,horrible. How they all vary so
drastically. The supplementworld, especially in, like, the

(03:54):
exercise, you know, working outspace, like, it's incredibly
crowded. It is difficult tostand out. It is, it seems to be
relatively cyclical. Of like,you get like, these brands that
come in, and then they're like,big, and then they kind of fall
off. Like, I remember, for me,it was in high school, was it
BSN? I think it was like, big,bright red, like, cans kids had

(04:18):
all over the place. So, like, Iremember they would have, like,
these kind of moments, and thenthey would fall off. Has that,
have you seen that kind ofchange? What what from organic
muscle side? Like, what do youkind of do to combat that side
of things?

Well, the market has totally changed since we
started 10 years ago. It'sgotten way more crowded. There's
a lot more players. And, youknow, in covid, a lot of big
money came in, and a ton ofbrands were launched, and from
an advertising perspective, itgot way more competitive. I
mean, I remember we used to haveour greens powder many years

(04:51):
ago, and it would be like 10-20cents a click for ads, right?
You have athletic greens, andsome of these companies come in
with. Like a billion dollararsenal, or whatever it is, and
now ads for greens are like $10you know? So it's wild, yeah,
it's crazy. So it's a I'velearned a lot. It's the game has

(05:15):
totally changed. But I thinkwhat's kept us going is just the
quality of our products. We haveour niche people, know, organic
certified supplements, organicmuscle, you know. And some
companies, I won't lie, are muchbetter at advertising. They're
really skilled in thatdepartment. I'm okay at it,

(05:35):
yeah, but what I am good at isjust developing products that I
personally use sharing them withpeople, because I want to use
them.

Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, it's, it's shocking to me
how, like, how this industry isstill loaded with a ton of just
crap. Like, there's some ofthese big brands, the stuff in
them is like, Oh, this is forpeople that are, like, really
into taking care of themselves,and yet you loaded it with all
of these things that youprobably should not take so I

(06:05):
find it, I find it reallyinteresting. And I think that
you know your your space isdefinitely the more organic.
Like, true like, clean eatingkind of as some refer to it as,
like, is really starting to takeoff. What is it like? How do you
market it? How do you is there?
Like, I know, it's kind of likea mission driven kind of, kind
of aspect, correct?

Yeah, you know, we were kind of unique in that a
lot of it is spread by word ofmouth and through some of our
ambassadors. Like, it's usuallypeople who are really bought in
on the organic vision, likethey're true believers in
reforming our food system and innatural health in general. And

(06:47):
they usually come to us. A lotof brands go out to brand
ambassadors and find them, andwe do do some of that, but not
as much as other brands who arelike, you know, we'll give you a
couple thousand dollars topromote us. They don't even try
the product, and they're like,Yeah, this is the best it's
called, oh yeah. And we, we'vebeen blessed to have a lot of

(07:11):
really aligned people. We'realso plant based. So there's a
lot of vegan people who arereally passionate about, you
know, that that kind of strain.
So we just have congregated anamazing group of people who are,
you know, fellow travelers, Iguess you could say, and then
they promote us. We send themfree product that's gotten the
word out a lot. I also have apodcast that does decently well,

(07:35):
where we talk about some ofthese things. We talk about,
it's more about spirituality.
But we always tie nutrition andhealth into spirituality,
because, you know, if Godcreated us for a reason to be of
service to some capacity in theworld, and if you're sick and
unhealthy and unconfident andtired, can't really do what you

(07:57):
were born to do. So we on ourpodcast. It's called The Jesus
Way. It's not a religiouspodcast. It's all at all. It's
more about philosophy, like thephilosophy of early
Christianity. But, yeah, we, webelieve that the mind, body,
spirits, all one thing, and yougot to care for them all.

Yeah, interesting.
So you're but so you got thepodcast. So it's obviously a
channel that you're marketingon. What about where you're
selling it? I know you'veobviously got organic muscle.com
but where else are you guysavailable?

We do well, on Amazon. We were blessed to get
in early on Amazon and establisha presence. We have a ton of
reviews on there. And, you know,a lot of Amazon's a double edged
sword, a lot of people brainabout it, and I get it because
they take a pretty significantrate, and they can, like, delete
your listing for no reason, andit's a headache, but, I mean,

(08:51):
it's pretty amazing to get infront of so many people who
would have never discovered yourproduct. I mean, that's really
been one of the best things fororganic muscle is establishing a
presence on Amazon and gettingall these new customers in the
door, and then, you know,hopefully they'll subscribe to
our email and become part of ourfunnel. And there's some
strategies to do that, but yeah,and when you really calculate

(09:16):
the numbers, what the amountthat Amazon takes isn't too bad
when you consider how much itwould cost for fulfillment and
storage and shipping andeverything for your own Shopify
store. So Amazon's really good.
You probably want to find a goodpartner who knows the game, as
opposed to just doing ityourself, unless you are willing

(09:36):
to commit you know your 10,000hours to mastering Amazon.

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Yeah, I've found that Amazon's an awesome
customer acquisition channel forsupplement brands like it does a
really good job at getting infront of them. And it's just
about, what strategies do youput in place to kind of drive
them back to, you know, yourwebsite, and then, obviously, in

(10:38):
a perfect world, they subscribe,and then they're with you for a
while. What? Uh, so you'reobviously finding people on
Amazon. You got your podcast.
What other kind of and youmentioned you obviously do some
ambassador stuff. What othermarketing strategies are you
kind of focused on right now?

Well, we also just launched in vitamin shop
nationwide.

Oh, nice.

So that's a whole new world for me. I'm kind
of learning it to be honest,because we've, we've had, we've
been in jams and smallsupplement stores and health
shops around the country for awhile. We're never like a huge
national, national retailer, andit's, it's a whole new game for
us, but it's going really wellso far. And we're just, we have

(11:12):
some certain strategies, youknow, just emailing our
customers and letting them knowand doing some incentives to get
them in there. But emailmarketing is great for us. We
convert really well on that.
Yeah, we don't have a massivelist, but our list converts
extremely well, and it's themain driver for our website
sales. So yeah, I'm a bigbeliever in providing value for

(11:34):
your email list and not justselling them constantly. So
we'll do like Mindset Mondaysand Fitness Fridays. And I like
to just share my story. And youknow, fitness and mindset tips,
health news, news about theorganic industry, things like
that really resonate with ourcustomers and and can be helpful

(11:55):
to them. And it gets peopleopening the emails. Because, you
know, when you get an email andthey're always trying to sell
you something, it's a littlelike, what am I a piece of meat?
You know?

Yeah, honestly, I love, I love that you just said
that. Because the this issomething that we preach all
time, like we find too manybrands treat, they treat email
marketing like it's an ATMRight. Like, okay, I'm just
gonna every email seems to getme X amount of revenue, so I'm
just going to keep sending anemail. Keep sending an email.

(12:32):
I'm gonna send obnoxious amountsof emails, and then the next
thing you know, you startupsetting your list. They start
unsubscribing you, or they markyou as spam, which is even
worse. Your revenue from emailstarts to come down, and it
could take a really long time tosolve it, but if you treat it
more like a communicationchannel and provide value, and
you know, if you want to send acouple emails a week, that's
fine, but maybe one of them, orto both of them, should just be

(12:54):
a value driven thing and someinsight to connect your
community. And then, every nowand then, you put a sale in
there. Yeah, so that's awesome.
So you're, you've got to be, youmentioned the Monday, the
Friday, so you're probablyputting out a couple two or
three emails a week?

two to three Yeah, that's the goal. And we'll
really only do salesy ones,like, twice a month, two to
three times. Yeah. So not toobad. But I'm a huge believer in
getting to know your customersand like, treating them like a
friend. Have really goodcustomer service, like, have a
real person, not an AI agent. Imean, that's fine for some

(13:30):
businesses, but if you want tobe in this for the long haul,
it's, it's a relationship.
You're building a relationshipwith these customers. And I
actually, every year I'll, take,like our top 10 customers for
that year, and I'll give them acall, and I'll thank them, and
I'll talk to them and ask uswhat they like about the
company, what they love andlike, any products they would
like to see or any improvementswe could make. Is anything

(13:53):
annoying in our flow? Isanything annoying? Are we
emailing much? Are we mailing towhat do you like? And you just
learn so much. These are thepeople who who are committed to
your brand, and then they'regoing to even become more
committed. One does a CEO call acustomer? You know, it doesn't?
So, so I found that treatingyour customers as friends, and

(14:20):
you know, a relationship thatyou want to nurture is really
helpful.

Oh yeah, absolutely, that's really cool
that you like actually pick upthe phone and talk to them,
because I'm sure that that'llkeep them around even longer.
Excuse me, what um? So, okay, sowe just talked about, obviously
you're calling people that threwme off, because I love that. So
you're what's the what's thethought process on going

(14:47):
forward? Do you look at moreproduct expansion, or do you
look at more sales expansion, ordo you kind or sales channel
expansion, or do you kind of dolike a mix of the above?

Well, we're in an interesting period right now,
because we've had the samebranding and packaging for like,
eight years. Yeah, actually, nosix years. Excuse me. So I'm in
the process of revamping ourwhole brands to get up to date,
up to, you know, it's, it's amassive undertaking, but I'm
really excited. So we kind ofhave a lot of our marketing

(15:17):
stuff on pause because we'relaunching all new packaging and
updated formulas in a fewmonths. So once that comes out,
we'll we'll be doing a fullmarketing blitzkrieg and working
to get these products. We havesome SKUs in vitamin shop, but
with the new formulas, we'regoing to work to get more in
there and use that momentum toget into, hopefully, GNC, Whole

(15:40):
Foods, so on, so forth, and thenwe're going to turn up our
Google ads, our Amazon ads,everything, because we have a
better product to promote. Ourproducts already incredible, but
now it's like, it's just insanewhat we're coming out with, and
we have a new product that I'mreally excited about, but I
would caution everyone like it'sso interesting launching new

(16:03):
products for my company, it'seither been the best thing I've
ever done, or it's almost put meout of business, because you
launch a product and it couldcost you a couple hundred
thousand dollars and if itfails, you could be screwed like
that, could be the end of yourcompany. However, if it works,
you're a whole new company now,yeah, I would, and you don't

(16:26):
really know for sure until youlaunch it, but I would encourage
all entrepreneurs to be verymindful about the products they
launch and do a lot of duediligence and talk to your
customers. Because I got cockyand after I launched the pre
workout, it did really, reallywell. Then I launched two other
products that did well, and Iwas like, I'm a genius the

(16:50):
Earth. I'm just like, and then Ilaunched another product
hastily, and it failedmiserably, and it almost took
took out the whole company. Oh,so I'm ranting a bit, but I'm
passionate about that

Thats what the show's for!

Good, yeah, So I guess there, it's just being
very mindful and doing a lot oftesting, interacting with your
customers and talking to a lotof people before you launch a
new product.

Yeah, I know that that's like, that's the
entrepreneurial like, while it'sthe spirit, it's also the
detriment to a lot ofentrepreneurs of just like, this
is a great idea. I got to dothis. Let's put this together.
And you get so excited to put itout there that sometimes it
just, you put it out too soon,and it's just you didn't think

(17:39):
it through. And then other timesit's like, you got meticulous
with it, you hammered it down,you nitpicked it, and then by
the time you launched it,everyone loved it. The worst
case scenario, and the one thatalways stings the most is when
you feel like you did everythingright, and then you launch it
and it still doesn't work, andyou're like, it happens.

You know? It happens. It's kind of again, you
almost have to do it to find outfor sure. But yeah, there's a
lot of wisdom that comes fromlaunching failed products. You
learn so much, so painful. Now Ikind of have my batting average
is definitely going up. Now,there you go. I know I have a

(18:17):
better idea of what's going towork and what's not going to
work. So yeah, cheers to that atleast.

There you go. It's all learning curve. The It's,
uh, so awesome. So you're goingto have kind of a whole new
approach in the next few monthshere. So you'll be right at the
start of Q1 which typicallysupplement brands. That's like,
that's your season, because ofthe whole New year, new me, kind
of thing that tends to kick infor a lot of people.

That's time of year for sure.

Yeah, that's awesome. It's like the one, it's
like the one industry where,like, Q1 is like, that's the big
that's the big time. So it'sawesome. You'll have that by
then. So what's a so I knowyou've kind of got all your
marketing stuff on hold. One ofthe things I always like to ask
because, you know, podcasts, youget people on and they're like,
Oh, here's how awesome mycompany is, and here's how great

(19:05):
I am, and blah blah. And it's alot of that I always like to
say, like, well, let's be honestwith each other real quick.
What's like, the one thingthat's just not working for you
right now that you're trying tofigure out?

We've had challenges with manufacturing
that's kind of been it's, it'sreally tough. You know, our lead
times back when I started thecompany were like eight weeks I
order our pre workout. We haveit eight weeks later. Now it's,
it can be like 16 to 20 weeksnow, which is extremely
challenging. Yeah, not only cashflow, just for planning, for

(19:37):
staying in stock, all thesethings. So that's probably the
biggest thing I'm dealing withnow. The other one is the cost
of ads competition. It's gottenreally, we're competing with
behemoths that have big, youknow, private equity behind
them. So it's, it's not easy,but I kind of like, I like being
a smaller, independent company,and. That it's us against the

(20:01):
world. We're trying to changethe world in a positive way and
help people get healthy. And,you know, it's like, yeah, David
versus Goliath kind of thing.

Yeah, those tend to be the best ones that, you know,
even though they're smaller,they tend to be you can be more
nimble, and you can, you know,adjust, and you can pivot based
on your customer's voice, asopposed to just whatever your
shareholders want you to do atthat time.

Right? Yeah, it gives us a lot of flexibility
that other companies don't have.
Oh, yeah,

James, this was awesome. I really appreciate
having the show. I don't want totake up too much more your time.
I'd love to give you theopportunity everyone know where
they can find out more aboutyou, and, of course, more about
Organic Muscle.

Awesome. Yeah, I had a great time. Thanks so
much, it was an awesomeinterview you can find me on
Instagram, personally at JamesBenefico, and our website is
organicmuscle.com We're also onAmazon and in vitamin shop. And,
yeah, that's it. Check us out.
And I have a podcast on myfriend Aaron Abke's YouTube
channel called The Jesus Way.

(21:02):
Again, it's it's not religious.
It's about history andphilosophy. So check that out
too, if you're interested inthe, you know, early Christian
movement and its history.

Beautiful James, thank you so much for being on
the show. Everyone who tuned in,of course, thank you as well.
Please make sure you do theusual thing, rate review,
subscribe all that fun stuff onwhichever podcast platform you
prefer, or head over to theecommshow.com to check out all
of our previous episodes. But asusual, thank you all for joining
us, and I'll see you next time.
Have a good one!

Narrator (21:33):
Thank you for tuning in to the E comm show. Head over
to Ecommshow.com to subscribe onyour favorite podcast platform
or on the BlueTuskr YouTubechannel. The Ecomm Show is
brought to you by BlueTuskr, afull service digital marketing
company specifically for Ecommerce sellers looking to
accelerate their growth. Go tobluetuskr.com now for more

(21:56):
information, make sure to tunein next week for another amazing
episode of the Ecomm Show!

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How Organic Muscle Won the Supplement Space with Trust, Reviews & Retail Growth | EP. #210

Episode Transcript

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}How Organic Muscle Won the Supplement Space with Trust, Reviews & Retail Growth | EP. #210