How does a founder approach marketing? When you’re wearing multiple hats, do you even have time to treat marketing as a key part of the strategy? On this episode of The Marketing Mix, I’m talking to a bootstrapped founder about his approach, and how he drives value from his marketing investments. In this case, marketing is largely around engagement with internal and external stakeholders. And, perhaps most importantly, the understanding that he’ll only do marketing that’s fun. I think we could all learn something from that!
[Intro Music]
Steve:
Today I’m talking with Chris Heffernan, co-founder and CEO of Dlivrd, which is a company that solves that last mile problem for restaurant catering and for same day food delivery. So he's working at the intersection of technology and logistics, and he's also working with two sets of external stakeholders, the restaurants and the delivery drivers. So I guess you could say he has a lot on his plate. And today we'll be talking about Chris's approach to marketing as a founder and how it's helped him to scale the business. Chris, welcome to the Marketing Mix.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Happy to be here and chat.
Steve:
Fantastic. So first off, let's talk about where Dlivrd fits into the delivery ecosystem. Everyone's familiar with DoorDash and UberEats. So what is different about Dlivrd's positioning?
Chris Heffernan
Yeah, Dlivrd is more of a, we call it like high stakes, white glove, so to speak. So we'll never be a door to Dash and Uber, right? Like that's just, that's just silly talk. It's impossible. Where we focus on is more like high quality earnings for drivers and that could be more in like the catering realm, some more routed work, anything that requires more than just pick up, drop off and maybe leave on your porch or at your front door. That's where we kind of fit into the fold.
Steve:
Gotcha. So, you know, a lot of my work, I spend a lot of time thinking about positioning and what I realize is for a lot of startups, the positioning sort of came later, right? The founder has this great idea. They work out how to fix this problem. And then the marketing folks come in later and talk about, well, how is it positioned in the market? So, what was your moment of inspiration that made you think, okay, I'm going to start Dlivrd and this is what we're going to do.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, I mean, uh, so before Dlivrd, I was doing on demand delivery. I was door dash before door dash existed in like a suburban marketplace. Right? So we had an app, drivers or customers order on it, drivers Dlivrd. And we focused on those same things, those $10, $20 on demand orders. And that moment really came at a national chicken brand.
Where the manager was like, Hey, I appreciate that you're bringing to me this $20 combo order, but I need help delivering this $250 order to a pharmaceutical rep. We have a bunch that come in every day at the same time. Like, can you do that? And it was kind of like, right? Like mind blown. Like you mean, I don't have to worry about the customer, the marketing, the credit card fees, you just need somebody to show up, pick up and deliver this order like.
Yeah, I can do that. And then from that moment, like we started focusing more on that, like the logistics engine as opposed to more of the, you know, the consumer side of it. So more B to C as opposed to, you know, consumer to business to consumer.
Steve:
So it's a little bit of that idea of the other people that get rich in the gold rush are the people that Sell the picks and shovels, right? So you're not selling the food, but you're making the whole process You're making it work, right? So it sounds like a classic founder story. Somebody throws you a problem and you think hey, I'm the person that can fix that.
Great so let's dive into the marketing side of things What does marketing mean to you particularly as a founder and how do you apply it in the day-to-day running of Dlivrd.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, marketing has always been kind of twofold for us, right? So we have to market to clients to get them to know that we exist and be like, yeah, I need some high stakes delivery done for me, or I'm tired of this national brand or, you know, whatever it is. So we need to market to them, but we also need to market to the, to the drivers, to the gig workers, right? They have lots of options out there. Lots of way to make money.
I would say more of our budget and more of our energy is spent on getting drivers to buy in to taking orders, than it is spent on getting clients to sign up and work with us.
Steve:
And is that something you've done intentionally or have you just found that's where you have to spend the money because getting the drivers on board is the more difficult part of the equation?
Chris Heffernan:
It's been, it's been intentional. A lot of our, luckily, like a lot of our marketing has come like word of mouth on like the client side, right? But at the end of the day, it's like chicken and the egg. We could go out and spend a ton of money and get restaurants or brands to sign up with us. But if we don't have drivers to take the orders, then what's the point. But if we don't have orders to give the drivers, what's the point of getting the drivers on? So, you know, we have some good integrations and some good clients that feed us some good constant work and that intros us to more, uh, but for the most part,
It’s been intentional and a lot of it ties to what we want to be like not only do we not want to be the door dash and the Uber for like the scale of it, right? We want that more that high touch for the brands for their customers, but we want it for our drivers as well. So we focus on like the old commercial with the milk. Happy cows make happy milk or you know, happy cows make better milk.
So if we can provide a better platform for these gig workers, ideally they will provide a better service for the client, which will create a reorder situation for the customer. So now that customer is going to order again from that brand, which means they're going to send another delivery through, which means we make more money, which means the driver makes more money and it's just chicken and egg and all over the place.
Steve:
Gotcha. Yeah. I remember years ago, you know, when Richard Branson and the Virgin companies were being held up as the standard, right? He always had this philosophy that you look after the employees first, you know, they look after the business. Uh, and then by looking after the business, it looks after the shareholders. So we sort of flipped that, that model upside down. I, I like the, uh, happy cows make happy cheese version of it. I think, I think that sticks very nicely. so
I think in most growth companies, technology is the sexy side of it, right? So I mentioned at the beginning, you're sort of working between technology and logistics, but you mentioned to me previously that really you focus on, or you think of yourself more as about the experience and tech isn't really the differentiator for you, right? So, but there is a large tech part to this. So do you see yourself as a tech entrepreneur or a...logistics entrepreneur or somewhere in between.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, depends on the day, right? Like today I just, I literally ended a call with our tech team on like our tech initiatives and what we've built and what we're building right now. I feel like a tech founder, right? This afternoon, we have a call with like our driver team. We had a new initiative on connecting with the drivers in our most popular markets. So I'm going to feel more like a staffing founder, right? Like
a staffing in the gig world founder. And then, you know, I'll meet with our experience team and I'm going to feel like an experience, like an experience founder.
So it's really the intersection of managing a lot of personalities between the drivers, the restaurants, you know, the corporate employees.
uh, and managing, you know, expectations in the technology realm, right? Like tech can only take you so far. So you can have the flashiest tech in the world, but If your experience isn't great afterwards, like we tell the brands that we work with, you could have the best online ordering experience ever. The customer could give that a 10 out of 10, but once they click order, they're not going to remember how great that experience was. They're just going to remember that lack lackluster delivery experience. The driver was rude. They dropped it off at the wrong place. The order was a mess. They didn't set it up. They don't care about anything else. And they're now not going to reorder, because of that. So you could have the flashiest tech ever if the experience isn't there to back it. Doesn't matter.
Steve
Yeah, it's an interesting approach because I follow a lot of Reddit communities and for whatever reason, one of my followers is DoorDash, DoorDash drivers, I think it is. And you can see that the reputation of DoorDash is very much driven by the experience that the people are receiving through their drivers, but also the experience of the drivers themselves. And as far as I can see, DoorDash really doesn't take ownership of that, right? They really look at it as individual contractors. And what you're saying is your approach is...
You know, make your delivery team feel like they're part of the team. And then they're going to deliver that better experience. And then that reflects, it actually reflects well on your restaurant partners first and then reflects back on you. So you have quite, quite a convoluted value chain, I guess.
Chris Heffernan:
100%. And at the end of the day, for the most part, right, especially now with first party ordering, when a consumer orders, they don't know that it's, they're ordering from XYZ brand, Joe's Pizza. And if Joe's Pizza uses Deliver to fill that order or DoorDash or Uber or any of these other fleets around, they don't know that. They know they ordered from Joe's. This experience is from Joe's.
That person isn't going to our Google page to leave a bad review about the driver experience. They're going to Joe's pizza page and they're not saying our driver from Dlivrd, wasn't great. They're just saying our order from Joe's was messed up. Cause the driver was rude or the driver did this or the driver did that. And it kind of stems to a larger rabbit hole, right?
And there's limitations on what you can, what you can do for the drivers or what you can do for these gig workers before you, you know, dance into, you know, a misclassification, but it's just little things like we host driver engagement events, we invite the drivers from markets to Dave and Buster's, we play games, there's food, there's drinks, you get to meet the team, you see a presentation on what the company's doing and where we're going. And like, we're asking these individual businesses, right? These drivers are technically businesses as independent contractors.
We're asking them to make business decisions all day, every day on what orders they want to accept, how they're going to pay their bills, how they're going to do this. Like they deserve, they deserve more. And again, it ties all back to that. Happy cows, happy or happy cows, better milk, right?
Steve:
Right. So, so you're basically creating an emotional connection between the drivers in your company, even if there's not a permanent employment relationship, I guess the emotional bond is probably stronger than somebody pulling a, pulling a paycheck anyway.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, I like I won like a realtor connection, right? Like go through your junk drawer. I'm sure you have a realtor's business card in there or multiple right? Because everybody is a friend who's a realtor put a social media post up. I'm looking for a realtor. You're going to get a hundred like hundred tags instantly. But if you look at those business cards, they have a person's face on it. Their picture is there why because it creates it's harder to throw someone's face in the trash than it is to not.
So business card with no picture on it garbage business car with picture on it ends up in your junk drawer. But, and we're trying to take that as we get these drivers on the platform. I don't want them to be like, I don't want to take this order. Like I want to take this order because it's good for delivery. I want to take this order because my account rep is Charlie and I want to do right by Charlie, right? Like
like normally I wouldn't take an order that pays this, but I've gotten some good ones and like, I want to help out so and so like, like get that kind of connection.
Steve: (
Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's hugely valuable. It's funny. You bring up the realtor business cards. I had a conversation a few years ago, a business owner, and he wanted to put his, his photo on his business card. I said to him, well, yeah, the problem is you're going to look like a realtor, right? And we, and we went back and forth about it. And, and he was doing exactly what you said. He wanted people to have that instant emotional connection. I think in the end, I convinced him not to do it, but I've never actually worked out why realtors are the only people that have their photo on the business card. And I agree with you, the reason they do it is you're correct. I just don't understand why it's only realtors to do it. Yeah.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, why did it not transcend other place? Like even like a barber, like a hair stylist, like their card should have their picture on it with their hair done really nice to like be an extension of their brand. It's just, I guess, yeah. I never even looked at that angle of it. I'm just trying to create it virtually, you know? Never thought about why it doesn't exist in other markets.
Steve:
Well, of course, I mean, who uses business cards now anyway, so it's probably a dying argument. So you talked a little bit about these driver experience events, driver engagement events. And that seems to be a big part of your marketing strategy, at least on the driver's side, because you take those events and then you take a lot of content out of them, right? You're taking video, you're taking photos, and then you sort of push that out. Was that sort of an intentional marketing strategy or is it something that you sort of just evolved into?
Chris Heffernan:
It evolved. Our first driver event was at one of our brands that we partner with. Like we work with a Qdoba franchise in the Philadelphia area and we're based in suburban Philadelphia. So we're like, let's organize a driver event. Who doesn't love tacos? We'll get some tacos. Drivers can come to the restaurant.
And they can do like, they can just come there and like, it didn't, it wasn't really much, it was really just driver focused. We didn't really get any content, uh, from it all. And then I was visiting a client in Austin. We work with a taco group down there. Apparently tacos are a big theme in my life, but, uh, so no, there isn't. And I went to a Dave and Buster's because it was right across the street from the hotel I was staying at and I was down there and I was like, you know what? I just, I just need a quick bite, like get out of the hotel.
And I'm like, I'm sitting there with the guy from our people team. And I was like, you know what, like we should do driver events here. Like people can come, they can bring their family. If they have kids, we'll give some play cards. There's food, there's parking, right? Like there's, they're in all the major metros that we're in. So let's switch up to that. And then it, then that's when it kind of became more of like a marketing piece where it was like, all right, let's, let's shoot some content at them. And like, not everyone is like a marketing expose per se, but like,
You know, we do two a month, give or take in different cities. Like next weekend, there's one in Philadelphia. Probably three, four times a year, we make like a bigger deal out of ones that have, you know, that have our videographer there. We shoot some content, we get some driver testimonials. The last one in Indianapolis, after the driver event, we had a pizza cook-off. I challenged the driver on who makes the better pizza. The video’s on my YouTube channel, it was a great time outside of a Colts game. So it really kind of evolved and it became another marketing piece that I didn't even really think of. Like as we're putting these videos and this, content on LinkedIn, these brands are seeing it right? And they're really looking at it like and they get it like the right brands get it like well, this is how they work with their drivers their drivers are going to create that better experience. So not only is it now a marketing strategy like, yeah, you know what I want to deliver for Dlivrd and we create that realtor business card moment, but it also has its advantage as far as these brands seeing it and be like, you know, they buy into the happy cows make happy milk.
Steve:
Right. And I'm guessing a lot of these brands that you're working with are local brands. I mean, you mentioned Qdoba. It's a local franchisee of Qdoba, presumably. So they are looking for that. I would imagine the bigger corporate level probably wouldn't hit, right? But these folks have probably struggled to get their own drivers and maintain their own driving staff so they can see the value as it comes across. So...
So I think we've talked mainly about how you are marketing to drivers, right? The experience, the engagement. What you were talking about there, it does cross over a little bit to how you market to your restaurant partners. Anything different that you do at any way that you target to try and expand your catering partners?
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah. And a lot of it ties to like, like different things. And we're not going out there. We sell on value, not on price. Like a lot of people, they come to us and they're like, Hey, we're working with national company X and they charge us Y - can you beat that price? And it's typically no, but this is why, let me tell you the differentiators and like a big thing we work with ecology. They're a B corporation. Uh, every mile that it Dlivrd driver drives, there was a lot of, a lot of drive in there.
we offset their carbon footprint on every single order. So through ecology with planting trees, water reclamation projects, rainforest restoration, solar projects, a lot of different stuff, and it's all trackable on their website, on our widgets, the clients can see what their individual offsets are. And that's actually helped when we post about these things, we post about things that we do that any business can do just to be a good business, right?
But it has this offshoot of good and of like, of marketing value. So we found one restaurant group that's in Texas and they were like, Hey, we saw that you do this carbon neutral thing. A big thing for us, sustainability. All of our ingredients come within X miles of all the restaurants and we use biodegradable packaging. So we want tp work with you because of this.
Last year, we just put out a press release. We worked with over 25 different nonprofits, all across the U S from things like local, like sports teams to dog rescues to autism awareness, to, you know, mental health support. And those are different ways as opposed to putting money into like LinkedIn advertising or Facebook spend.
We're taking that money, working with these nonprofits, generating content. And then, you know, we put that up as a way to attract clients kind of to us, almost like a fly trap. Like, yeah, we could spend a ton of money at this conference or we, you know, we could do this advertising, but we're gonna put it into giving back to the different communities. And if that's something you jive with and you wanna help us support, let's work together, right? Like, so just a different way to kind of come across it, in my mind.
Steve
Yeah, I love that. I think it's very smart. I mean, it's, you know, you could spend a ton of money doing that, that outbound, right? You could have people dialing, you know, dialing for dollars, as they used to say. Could do all the Google ads, but yeah, bringing people in and doing good. Right. I mean, that's, that's the other part of it. Even if it's not as effective immediately, you know, you're still spending money to help people out versus helping out the big social companies.
And the other thing is you're talking about it. I would imagine there is room for some kind of a referral program to help you bring in either more drivers or more restaurants. Is that something you've done any work with?
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, yeah. So we have a driver referral program. Drivers, when they get signed up on the platform, they get a kit, their kit has like a QR code. That QR code lands people on like a referral page after a driver makes X amount of orders, they get a bonus and the driver that referred them gets a bonus. Ironically though, like 85% of the markets that we operate in right now, we have an onboarding hold on. So we're not actively recruiting drivers, in most of our markets, you know, eight, 8.5 out of 10, because we have the drivers we need and we don't want to, you know, over dilute that.
And then for clients, we work with a lot of like aggregators, you know, uh, APIs that have order volume, uh, thinking like your POS companies and things like that. And if they refer us clients, they get a piece of, you know, what they send us as like, quote unquote, with a kickback. but like ironically, like we, I turned down, I don't know, like $2.5 million worth of business last quarter, like a yearly, it just happened to happen last quarter, because the brand wanted to share tips with the restaurant. They wanted the kitchen staff to get half the tip and the driver to get the other half of the tip. So, you know, not every customer is the right customer. And that's why we kind of go with the marketing tactic we have. We don't want the price conscious customer. We want the people that, like I said, jive with the things we're doing and, you know, creating that realtor experience with the driver and giving back to all the communities that we, you know, deliver in. So that's why we find more value in the marketing strategies that we use versus your, you know, over saturate ads, pay for referrals. Because we want we want the right partners, not every part.
Steve:
Yeah, I mean, it's got to be tough, right? As a founder and you're scaling your business to say no to a big piece that comes along, that would essentially make you zig in a direction you don't want to go in. So I give you credit for keeping to the core on that.
Something you said at the beginning sort of resonated with me as well, this idea that as a founder, you wear a lot of hats, right? So you're a tech entrepreneur and then you're a service entrepreneur and then you're a people entrepreneur.
And I think that is one of the challenges that the founders come across is, you know, yeah, they would love to do more with marketing, but they just don't have the time because they've got these other five or six hats on there. Having said that, what is next for Dlivrd in terms of marketing? Is there something in that puzzle that's missing or something that you wish you could get to if you had more time?
Chris Heffernan: (22:33.214)
Yeah. Uh, well, the one thing that's next in marketing for us, like for me is only things that are fun, right? Like, and like, luckily we're kind of at that point where we can say no to the wrong partners and like, like that pizza cook off competition with the driver. I did that because it's fun, right? Like
And that was, that was a marketing tactic where we're going to shoot a TV show, la a la bar rescue for how to help restaurants, uh, digitalize their catering offerings and integrate with Dlivrd. And we have a bunch of other vendors that are signing on and I'm going to host it. And that's going to be fun. So that's, that's really what's next for us is just like more fun projects.
Like if I'm spending 80 hours a week doing this, like I don't, I don't want it to be mundane. I don't want it to drain me. I don't want to hate it. Right? Like I love it. I love scaling. I love coming up with new ideas. you know, so if it's going to be fun, we're going to do it. We're not going to do any kind of like boring promotions or, you know, you're no status quo marketing from us.
Steve:
Yeah, I agree. Marketing should be fun. That's why I do it for a living. But there's some drudged stuff in there and, you know, Facebook ads and SEO and that is not the fun part. So I can understand where you're getting at.
I have noticed you seem to have invested a lot in video. You have some really nice videos that you're pushing out there. Was that something that you really thought would resonate with the company or is it more that, hey, this is just something I love doing so I'm going to do more of it.
Chris Heffernan:
Uh, no, I mean, video is king, right? Like if you look at the statistics for like Instagram reels or, you know, look at, I mean, the explosion of tick tock, right? Like I was meeting with a buddy of mine who sells furniture and we were talking about like your ad game is strong, but it's not engaging, right? Like the video is there and like not to toot my own horn, but like, I, like I have a charismatic personality, so it plays well on video. Uh, no, it just, it just kind of worked out. I had met a videographer on Upwork for like a project, one of our first video projects and he was great. And then he flew to Florida and helped with another project. And then I would record some stuff and then I would send it to him to get edited. And I mean a $500 investment to like a self-flying drone and a gimbal and some microphones and some LED lights.
And now I'm like a little like mini content creator, right? Like, and it doesn't have to be anything crazy.
Steve
So a lot of founders that I talk to, they know they should do video, but they really don't want to, they don't want to be in front of the camera. You know, they want it to be somebody else. any, any words of advice to somebody that wants to get in it, but they're just kind of hesitant.
Chris Heffernan
Yeah, I mean, start small, right? Like in my first video, like I just did like an intro and then it was a bunch of like B-roll driver footage doing a delivery driver testimonial. My first video, it was 30 seconds of me, three minutes total. So 10% of it, right? I say there, if you're not comfortable with it, you find a good storyteller, right? There's a difference in someone who can shoot video. Anybody with a camera can shoot video, right?
But if you want your video to be impactful, you need to tell a story in it. And that's where I was lucky with the videographer I found he's great at storytelling. So find yourself a videographer, find yourself someone that can help you with storytelling and just do voiceover, catch B-roll of what's happening at your company, B-roll of you walking into a conference room, something at a client.
even stock images and you know, just make an impactful statement with it and do a voiceover and tiptoe your way into that. And I get it. Like being in front of the camera is uncomfortable for a lot of people. For me, I did a 30 second video yesterday on a meal that I cooked because I'm in food tech. So I'm passionate about food and it was a great meal, but I had to do it. I had to do it in 30 seconds for the premise of this video. It took me 17 tries to get the video right. Like,
A lot of good blooper reels, but you just gotta keep, keep going. Like just get comfortable, do it. You're going to mess up and honestly embrace the mess ups, right? It kind of humanizes you. If you were perfect at being in front of a camera, you'd be an actor, but we're not all Leonardo DiCaprio. So mess up and just roll with it. When you're playing musical instrument, if you skip a note and you mess up, you don't stop playing the song, you just play through like it never happened.
Steve:
There you go. And I think, you know, that it is the change in video over the last few years because of reels and Instagram and what have you, and Tik Tok, people are almost looking for some of the, some of the screw ups, right? I mean, if it, if it's overproduced and looks too perfect, it's almost like people aren't interested now. So yeah, I, and I like your idea of, you know, start off with a voiceover and B roll. I mean, it's a great way actually to get
your team members into a video, right? Maybe they don't want to speak on it, but you know, you can do sort of the shots around the office, people working, whatever, and then do the voiceover. So I think that's good advice. But as with all these things, just have a go, right? I mean, even if you don't publish the first few ones, just shoot them and get comfortable with it, and then work it from there.
Chris Heffernan:
And look at it. I mean, if you go back like Mr. Beast, right? Arguably probably the most successful in my mind in the social media video world. I bet if you looked at his first video you ever put online, it probably sucked. Right? And then the second one was marginally better. The third one was a little bit better. There's no reason. And if you think about it as a founder, the product that you probably first built when you think about it now, it probably sucked. But what did you do? You made it better. So just like, take that and
And if a video is more than two minutes, it's really not like engaging per se. So if you're uncomfortable being in front of camera, it doesn't have to be for long because
Nobody's watching that clip for more than 90 seconds, give or take.
Steve:
Yeah, no, that's very true. Very true. Good. It gets some good ideas there.
We all know things are changing all the time. How do you keep up with trends? Uh, you know,
Do you read books? Do you listen to podcasts? It sounds like you, you watch a lot of Instagram rails. Anybody you would recommend people follow or read or look at?
Chris Heffernan
Uh, yeah. I mean, I make all of my business decisions based, based upon what I see on Instagram, right? So no, that's, that's completely a lie. We would be doing horribly there. Uh, no, it's funny. Like I, it's so hard on like social media to like drowned out kind of like the lies and like the influencers that aren't really influencers that are like, I scaled my business by doing this. And it's like, do you even really have a business? You know, like you just revert.
Steve:
It's exhausting, isn't it?
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, you just typed into chat GBT like five things a successful person does and like maybe you just bought a bunch of followers or like you have a you're good at, you know, an algorithm.
I don't know. I don't really read a lot of books. I have like eight books on my like on my bookshelf and then, but I haven't I haven't read them. Audio books. I can't like, I can't really like listen to because
I just like start daydreaming about other things work related. so a lot of what, a lot of what I get is just like from the team around me, like conversations with people in the industry, uh, like not from my company and, and people like in the company and, and the clients, right? Like I listened to them and I take phone calls from drivers. I go to the driver events, like I visit clients. I, you know, so I take a lot of inspiration on what we should do and where we're going from the people that have the biggest impact or it would have the biggest impact on.
Steve:
Yeah. So really living within the company and listening to all of those inputs from everybody and sort of that receive wisdom makes a lot of sense.
So I have two more questions for you. These are probably the two most important questions of the interview. The first is you've mentioned the pizza cook-off twice and you haven't told us who won.
Chris Heffernan:
It was a tie.
Steve:
All right, and you both had fun doing it and you got to eat pizza at the end. So everyone's a winner, right?
Chris Heffernan:
Right. And we went, we went to a Colts game, the Colts lost to the Texans, but still great. Good time. Really nice stadium. So, and just a good time engaging with people that put so much into the platform, you know, and I'm looking forward to it. I also invited other drivers. Like if you have something you're good at, like challenge me or someone else on the team, it doesn't have to be cooking related. Like let's make this a thing.
Steve:
Well, and it hits on so many levels, right? You're spending time with the drivers, presumably they're bringing in their friends, their network. It's more video, it's more content, and you just get to spend time, and you're sort of absorbing all this great input, and you get to eat pizza.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, it's fun. It ties to my mission of doing things that are fun. Yeah.
Steve:
There you go. so, so when I first started out this podcast, my whole point was I like talking to people about marketing. Preferably would do it over, over a coffee or a cocktail, but you know, not always so easy these days. So if we were to have had this chat over a cocktail, what would be your drinker choice?
Chris Heffernan:
I typically am a sucker for a good old fashioned.
Steve:
Can't go wrong with that.
Chris Heffernan:
And like the you know, the more unique the better like I had like a like a burnt maple caramel old fashion when I was up in New York the other week, it's just it's just nice. It's a gentlemanly a drink. I typically like if it was just like, hey, we're gonna go sit at a bar. We're just going to drink with the intent of drinking. Give me a captain and Coke. Right. But a two ingredient cocktail is an emergency, not a cocktail. That's a Don Draper quote, but
So yeah, so give me a good old-fashioned any day of the week.
Steve:
Yeah, I'm with you on that. And the other thing I like about it is that its not the same drink every time. In Wisconsin they make it with brandy instead of whisky.
Steve:
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts with me on Marketing. I hope we do get a chance to share an Old Fashioned face to face sometime soon. But again, thanks very much Chris. I appreciate your time.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, no, thanks so much for having me on and listening to my insane ramblings. Uh, it was, uh, it was a great time.
[Intro Music]
Steve:
Today I’m talking with Chris Heffernan, co-founder and CEO of Dlivrd, which is a company that solves that last mile problem for restaurant catering and for same day food delivery. So he's working at the intersection of technology and logistics, and he's also working with two sets of external stakeholders, the restaurants and the delivery drivers. So I guess you could say he has a lot on his plate. And today we'll be talking about Chris's approach to marketing as a founder and how it's helped him to scale the business. Chris, welcome to the Marketing Mix.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Happy to be here and chat.
Steve:
Fantastic. So first off, let's talk about where Dlivrd fits into the delivery ecosystem. Everyone's familiar with DoorDash and UberEats. So what is different about Dlivrd's positioning?
Chris Heffernan
Yeah, Dlivrd is more of a, we call it like high stakes, white glove, so to speak. So we'll never be a door to Dash and Uber, right? Like that's just, that's just silly talk. It's impossible. Where we focus on is more like high quality earnings for drivers and that could be more in like the catering realm, some more routed work, anything that requires more than just pick up, drop off and maybe leave on your porch or at your front door. That's where we kind of fit into the fold.
Steve:
Gotcha. So, you know, a lot of my work, I spend a lot of time thinking about positioning and what I realize is for a lot of startups, the positioning sort of came later, right? The founder has this great idea. They work out how to fix this problem. And then the marketing folks come in later and talk about, well, how is it positioned in the market? So, what was your moment of inspiration that made you think, okay, I'm going to start Dlivrd and this is what we're going to do.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, I mean, uh, so before Dlivrd, I was doing on demand delivery. I was door dash before door dash existed in like a suburban marketplace. Right? So we had an app, drivers or customers order on it, drivers Dlivrd. And we focused on those same things, those $10, $20 on demand orders. And that moment really came at a national chicken brand.
Where the manager was like, Hey, I appreciate that you're bringing to me this $20 combo order, but I need help delivering this $250 order to a pharmaceutical rep. We have a bunch that come in every day at the same time. Like, can you do that? And it was kind of like, right? Like mind blown. Like you mean, I don't have to worry about the customer, the marketing, the credit card fees, you just need somebody to show up, pick up and deliver this order like.
Yeah, I can do that. And then from that moment, like we started focusing more on that, like the logistics engine as opposed to more of the, you know, the consumer side of it. So more B to C as opposed to, you know, consumer to business to consumer.
Steve:
So it's a little bit of that idea of the other people that get rich in the gold rush are the people that Sell the picks and shovels, right? So you're not selling the food, but you're making the whole process You're making it work, right? So it sounds like a classic founder story. Somebody throws you a problem and you think hey, I'm the person that can fix that.
Great so let's dive into the marketing side of things What does marketing mean to you particularly as a founder and how do you apply it in the day-to-day running of Dlivrd.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, marketing has always been kind of twofold for us, right? So we have to market to clients to get them to know that we exist and be like, yeah, I need some high stakes delivery done for me, or I'm tired of this national brand or, you know, whatever it is. So we need to market to them, but we also need to market to the, to the drivers, to the gig workers, right? They have lots of options out there. Lots of way to make money.
I would say more of our budget and more of our energy is spent on getting drivers to buy in to taking orders, than it is spent on getting clients to sign up and work with us.
Steve:
And is that something you've done intentionally or have you just found that's where you have to spend the money because getting the drivers on board is the more difficult part of the equation?
Chris Heffernan:
It's been, it's been intentional. A lot of our, luckily, like a lot of our marketing has come like word of mouth on like the client side, right? But at the end of the day, it's like chicken and the egg. We could go out and spend a ton of money and get restaurants or brands to sign up with us. But if we don't have drivers to take the orders, then what's the point. But if we don't have orders to give the drivers, what's the point of getting the drivers on? So, you know, we have some good integrations and some good clients that feed us some good constant work and that intros us to more, uh, but for the most part,
It’s been intentional and a lot of it ties to what we want to be like not only do we not want to be the door dash and the Uber for like the scale of it, right? We want that more that high touch for the brands for their customers, but we want it for our drivers as well. So we focus on like the old commercial with the milk. Happy cows make happy milk or you know, happy cows make better milk.
So if we can provide a better platform for these gig workers, ideally they will provide a better service for the client, which will create a reorder situation for the customer. So now that customer is going to order again from that brand, which means they're going to send another delivery through, which means we make more money, which means the driver makes more money and it's just chicken and egg and all over the place.
Steve:
Gotcha. Yeah. I remember years ago, you know, when Richard Branson and the Virgin companies were being held up as the standard, right? He always had this philosophy that you look after the employees first, you know, they look after the business. Uh, and then by looking after the business, it looks after the shareholders. So we sort of flipped that, that model upside down. I, I like the, uh, happy cows make happy cheese version of it. I think, I think that sticks very nicely. so
I think in most growth companies, technology is the sexy side of it, right? So I mentioned at the beginning, you're sort of working between technology and logistics, but you mentioned to me previously that really you focus on, or you think of yourself more as about the experience and tech isn't really the differentiator for you, right? So, but there is a large tech part to this. So do you see yourself as a tech entrepreneur or a...logistics entrepreneur or somewhere in between.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, depends on the day, right? Like today I just, I literally ended a call with our tech team on like our tech initiatives and what we've built and what we're building right now. I feel like a tech founder, right? This afternoon, we have a call with like our driver team. We had a new initiative on connecting with the drivers in our most popular markets. So I'm going to feel more like a staffing founder, right? Like
a staffing in the gig world founder. And then, you know, I'll meet with our experience team and I'm going to feel like an experience, like an experience founder.
So it's really the intersection of managing a lot of personalities between the drivers, the restaurants, you know, the corporate employees.
uh, and managing, you know, expectations in the technology realm, right? Like tech can only take you so far. So you can have the flashiest tech in the world, but If your experience isn't great afterwards, like we tell the brands that we work with, you could have the best online ordering experience ever. The customer could give that a 10 out of 10, but once they click order, they're not going to remember how great that experience was. They're just going to remember that lack lackluster delivery experience. The driver was rude. They dropped it off at the wrong place. The order was a mess. They didn't set it up. They don't care about anything else. And they're now not going to reorder, because of that. So you could have the flashiest tech ever if the experience isn't there to back it. Doesn't matter.
Steve
Yeah, it's an interesting approach because I follow a lot of Reddit communities and for whatever reason, one of my followers is DoorDash, DoorDash drivers, I think it is. And you can see that the reputation of DoorDash is very much driven by the experience that the people are receiving through their drivers, but also the experience of the drivers themselves. And as far as I can see, DoorDash really doesn't take ownership of that, right? They really look at it as individual contractors. And what you're saying is your approach is...
You know, make your delivery team feel like they're part of the team. And then they're going to deliver that better experience. And then that reflects, it actually reflects well on your restaurant partners first and then reflects back on you. So you have quite, quite a convoluted value chain, I guess.
Chris Heffernan:
100%. And at the end of the day, for the most part, right, especially now with first party ordering, when a consumer orders, they don't know that it's, they're ordering from XYZ brand, Joe's Pizza. And if Joe's Pizza uses Deliver to fill that order or DoorDash or Uber or any of these other fleets around, they don't know that. They know they ordered from Joe's. This experience is from Joe's.
That person isn't going to our Google page to leave a bad review about the driver experience. They're going to Joe's pizza page and they're not saying our driver from Dlivrd, wasn't great. They're just saying our order from Joe's was messed up. Cause the driver was rude or the driver did this or the driver did that. And it kind of stems to a larger rabbit hole, right?
And there's limitations on what you can, what you can do for the drivers or what you can do for these gig workers before you, you know, dance into, you know, a misclassification, but it's just little things like we host driver engagement events, we invite the drivers from markets to Dave and Buster's, we play games, there's food, there's drinks, you get to meet the team, you see a presentation on what the company's doing and where we're going. And like, we're asking these individual businesses, right? These drivers are technically businesses as independent contractors.
We're asking them to make business decisions all day, every day on what orders they want to accept, how they're going to pay their bills, how they're going to do this. Like they deserve, they deserve more. And again, it ties all back to that. Happy cows, happy or happy cows, better milk, right?
Steve:
Right. So, so you're basically creating an emotional connection between the drivers in your company, even if there's not a permanent employment relationship, I guess the emotional bond is probably stronger than somebody pulling a, pulling a paycheck anyway.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, I like I won like a realtor connection, right? Like go through your junk drawer. I'm sure you have a realtor's business card in there or multiple right? Because everybody is a friend who's a realtor put a social media post up. I'm looking for a realtor. You're going to get a hundred like hundred tags instantly. But if you look at those business cards, they have a person's face on it. Their picture is there why because it creates it's harder to throw someone's face in the trash than it is to not.
So business card with no picture on it garbage business car with picture on it ends up in your junk drawer. But, and we're trying to take that as we get these drivers on the platform. I don't want them to be like, I don't want to take this order. Like I want to take this order because it's good for delivery. I want to take this order because my account rep is Charlie and I want to do right by Charlie, right? Like
like normally I wouldn't take an order that pays this, but I've gotten some good ones and like, I want to help out so and so like, like get that kind of connection.
Steve: (
Yeah, yeah. And that's, that's hugely valuable. It's funny. You bring up the realtor business cards. I had a conversation a few years ago, a business owner, and he wanted to put his, his photo on his business card. I said to him, well, yeah, the problem is you're going to look like a realtor, right? And we, and we went back and forth about it. And, and he was doing exactly what you said. He wanted people to have that instant emotional connection. I think in the end, I convinced him not to do it, but I've never actually worked out why realtors are the only people that have their photo on the business card. And I agree with you, the reason they do it is you're correct. I just don't understand why it's only realtors to do it. Yeah.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, why did it not transcend other place? Like even like a barber, like a hair stylist, like their card should have their picture on it with their hair done really nice to like be an extension of their brand. It's just, I guess, yeah. I never even looked at that angle of it. I'm just trying to create it virtually, you know? Never thought about why it doesn't exist in other markets.
Steve:
Well, of course, I mean, who uses business cards now anyway, so it's probably a dying argument. So you talked a little bit about these driver experience events, driver engagement events. And that seems to be a big part of your marketing strategy, at least on the driver's side, because you take those events and then you take a lot of content out of them, right? You're taking video, you're taking photos, and then you sort of push that out. Was that sort of an intentional marketing strategy or is it something that you sort of just evolved into?
Chris Heffernan:
It evolved. Our first driver event was at one of our brands that we partner with. Like we work with a Qdoba franchise in the Philadelphia area and we're based in suburban Philadelphia. So we're like, let's organize a driver event. Who doesn't love tacos? We'll get some tacos. Drivers can come to the restaurant.
And they can do like, they can just come there and like, it didn't, it wasn't really much, it was really just driver focused. We didn't really get any content, uh, from it all. And then I was visiting a client in Austin. We work with a taco group down there. Apparently tacos are a big theme in my life, but, uh, so no, there isn't. And I went to a Dave and Buster's because it was right across the street from the hotel I was staying at and I was down there and I was like, you know what? I just, I just need a quick bite, like get out of the hotel.
And I'm like, I'm sitting there with the guy from our people team. And I was like, you know what, like we should do driver events here. Like people can come, they can bring their family. If they have kids, we'll give some play cards. There's food, there's parking, right? Like there's, they're in all the major metros that we're in. So let's switch up to that. And then it, then that's when it kind of became more of like a marketing piece where it was like, all right, let's, let's shoot some content at them. And like, not everyone is like a marketing expose per se, but like,
You know, we do two a month, give or take in different cities. Like next weekend, there's one in Philadelphia. Probably three, four times a year, we make like a bigger deal out of ones that have, you know, that have our videographer there. We shoot some content, we get some driver testimonials. The last one in Indianapolis, after the driver event, we had a pizza cook-off. I challenged the driver on who makes the better pizza. The video’s on my YouTube channel, it was a great time outside of a Colts game. So it really kind of evolved and it became another marketing piece that I didn't even really think of. Like as we're putting these videos and this, content on LinkedIn, these brands are seeing it right? And they're really looking at it like and they get it like the right brands get it like well, this is how they work with their drivers their drivers are going to create that better experience. So not only is it now a marketing strategy like, yeah, you know what I want to deliver for Dlivrd and we create that realtor business card moment, but it also has its advantage as far as these brands seeing it and be like, you know, they buy into the happy cows make happy milk.
Steve:
Right. And I'm guessing a lot of these brands that you're working with are local brands. I mean, you mentioned Qdoba. It's a local franchisee of Qdoba, presumably. So they are looking for that. I would imagine the bigger corporate level probably wouldn't hit, right? But these folks have probably struggled to get their own drivers and maintain their own driving staff so they can see the value as it comes across. So...
So I think we've talked mainly about how you are marketing to drivers, right? The experience, the engagement. What you were talking about there, it does cross over a little bit to how you market to your restaurant partners. Anything different that you do at any way that you target to try and expand your catering partners?
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah. And a lot of it ties to like, like different things. And we're not going out there. We sell on value, not on price. Like a lot of people, they come to us and they're like, Hey, we're working with national company X and they charge us Y - can you beat that price? And it's typically no, but this is why, let me tell you the differentiators and like a big thing we work with ecology. They're a B corporation. Uh, every mile that it Dlivrd driver drives, there was a lot of, a lot of drive in there.
we offset their carbon footprint on every single order. So through ecology with planting trees, water reclamation projects, rainforest restoration, solar projects, a lot of different stuff, and it's all trackable on their website, on our widgets, the clients can see what their individual offsets are. And that's actually helped when we post about these things, we post about things that we do that any business can do just to be a good business, right?
But it has this offshoot of good and of like, of marketing value. So we found one restaurant group that's in Texas and they were like, Hey, we saw that you do this carbon neutral thing. A big thing for us, sustainability. All of our ingredients come within X miles of all the restaurants and we use biodegradable packaging. So we want tp work with you because of this.
Last year, we just put out a press release. We worked with over 25 different nonprofits, all across the U S from things like local, like sports teams to dog rescues to autism awareness, to, you know, mental health support. And those are different ways as opposed to putting money into like LinkedIn advertising or Facebook spend.
We're taking that money, working with these nonprofits, generating content. And then, you know, we put that up as a way to attract clients kind of to us, almost like a fly trap. Like, yeah, we could spend a ton of money at this conference or we, you know, we could do this advertising, but we're gonna put it into giving back to the different communities. And if that's something you jive with and you wanna help us support, let's work together, right? Like, so just a different way to kind of come across it, in my mind.
Steve
Yeah, I love that. I think it's very smart. I mean, it's, you know, you could spend a ton of money doing that, that outbound, right? You could have people dialing, you know, dialing for dollars, as they used to say. Could do all the Google ads, but yeah, bringing people in and doing good. Right. I mean, that's, that's the other part of it. Even if it's not as effective immediately, you know, you're still spending money to help people out versus helping out the big social companies.
And the other thing is you're talking about it. I would imagine there is room for some kind of a referral program to help you bring in either more drivers or more restaurants. Is that something you've done any work with?
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, yeah. So we have a driver referral program. Drivers, when they get signed up on the platform, they get a kit, their kit has like a QR code. That QR code lands people on like a referral page after a driver makes X amount of orders, they get a bonus and the driver that referred them gets a bonus. Ironically though, like 85% of the markets that we operate in right now, we have an onboarding hold on. So we're not actively recruiting drivers, in most of our markets, you know, eight, 8.5 out of 10, because we have the drivers we need and we don't want to, you know, over dilute that.
And then for clients, we work with a lot of like aggregators, you know, uh, APIs that have order volume, uh, thinking like your POS companies and things like that. And if they refer us clients, they get a piece of, you know, what they send us as like, quote unquote, with a kickback. but like ironically, like we, I turned down, I don't know, like $2.5 million worth of business last quarter, like a yearly, it just happened to happen last quarter, because the brand wanted to share tips with the restaurant. They wanted the kitchen staff to get half the tip and the driver to get the other half of the tip. So, you know, not every customer is the right customer. And that's why we kind of go with the marketing tactic we have. We don't want the price conscious customer. We want the people that, like I said, jive with the things we're doing and, you know, creating that realtor experience with the driver and giving back to all the communities that we, you know, deliver in. So that's why we find more value in the marketing strategies that we use versus your, you know, over saturate ads, pay for referrals. Because we want we want the right partners, not every part.
Steve:
Yeah, I mean, it's got to be tough, right? As a founder and you're scaling your business to say no to a big piece that comes along, that would essentially make you zig in a direction you don't want to go in. So I give you credit for keeping to the core on that.
Something you said at the beginning sort of resonated with me as well, this idea that as a founder, you wear a lot of hats, right? So you're a tech entrepreneur and then you're a service entrepreneur and then you're a people entrepreneur.
And I think that is one of the challenges that the founders come across is, you know, yeah, they would love to do more with marketing, but they just don't have the time because they've got these other five or six hats on there. Having said that, what is next for Dlivrd in terms of marketing? Is there something in that puzzle that's missing or something that you wish you could get to if you had more time?
Chris Heffernan: (22:33.214)
Yeah. Uh, well, the one thing that's next in marketing for us, like for me is only things that are fun, right? Like, and like, luckily we're kind of at that point where we can say no to the wrong partners and like, like that pizza cook off competition with the driver. I did that because it's fun, right? Like
And that was, that was a marketing tactic where we're going to shoot a TV show, la a la bar rescue for how to help restaurants, uh, digitalize their catering offerings and integrate with Dlivrd. And we have a bunch of other vendors that are signing on and I'm going to host it. And that's going to be fun. So that's, that's really what's next for us is just like more fun projects.
Like if I'm spending 80 hours a week doing this, like I don't, I don't want it to be mundane. I don't want it to drain me. I don't want to hate it. Right? Like I love it. I love scaling. I love coming up with new ideas. you know, so if it's going to be fun, we're going to do it. We're not going to do any kind of like boring promotions or, you know, you're no status quo marketing from us.
Steve:
Yeah, I agree. Marketing should be fun. That's why I do it for a living. But there's some drudged stuff in there and, you know, Facebook ads and SEO and that is not the fun part. So I can understand where you're getting at.
I have noticed you seem to have invested a lot in video. You have some really nice videos that you're pushing out there. Was that something that you really thought would resonate with the company or is it more that, hey, this is just something I love doing so I'm going to do more of it.
Chris Heffernan:
Uh, no, I mean, video is king, right? Like if you look at the statistics for like Instagram reels or, you know, look at, I mean, the explosion of tick tock, right? Like I was meeting with a buddy of mine who sells furniture and we were talking about like your ad game is strong, but it's not engaging, right? Like the video is there and like not to toot my own horn, but like, I, like I have a charismatic personality, so it plays well on video. Uh, no, it just, it just kind of worked out. I had met a videographer on Upwork for like a project, one of our first video projects and he was great. And then he flew to Florida and helped with another project. And then I would record some stuff and then I would send it to him to get edited. And I mean a $500 investment to like a self-flying drone and a gimbal and some microphones and some LED lights.
And now I'm like a little like mini content creator, right? Like, and it doesn't have to be anything crazy.
Steve
So a lot of founders that I talk to, they know they should do video, but they really don't want to, they don't want to be in front of the camera. You know, they want it to be somebody else. any, any words of advice to somebody that wants to get in it, but they're just kind of hesitant.
Chris Heffernan
Yeah, I mean, start small, right? Like in my first video, like I just did like an intro and then it was a bunch of like B-roll driver footage doing a delivery driver testimonial. My first video, it was 30 seconds of me, three minutes total. So 10% of it, right? I say there, if you're not comfortable with it, you find a good storyteller, right? There's a difference in someone who can shoot video. Anybody with a camera can shoot video, right?
But if you want your video to be impactful, you need to tell a story in it. And that's where I was lucky with the videographer I found he's great at storytelling. So find yourself a videographer, find yourself someone that can help you with storytelling and just do voiceover, catch B-roll of what's happening at your company, B-roll of you walking into a conference room, something at a client.
even stock images and you know, just make an impactful statement with it and do a voiceover and tiptoe your way into that. And I get it. Like being in front of the camera is uncomfortable for a lot of people. For me, I did a 30 second video yesterday on a meal that I cooked because I'm in food tech. So I'm passionate about food and it was a great meal, but I had to do it. I had to do it in 30 seconds for the premise of this video. It took me 17 tries to get the video right. Like,
A lot of good blooper reels, but you just gotta keep, keep going. Like just get comfortable, do it. You're going to mess up and honestly embrace the mess ups, right? It kind of humanizes you. If you were perfect at being in front of a camera, you'd be an actor, but we're not all Leonardo DiCaprio. So mess up and just roll with it. When you're playing musical instrument, if you skip a note and you mess up, you don't stop playing the song, you just play through like it never happened.
Steve:
There you go. And I think, you know, that it is the change in video over the last few years because of reels and Instagram and what have you, and Tik Tok, people are almost looking for some of the, some of the screw ups, right? I mean, if it, if it's overproduced and looks too perfect, it's almost like people aren't interested now. So yeah, I, and I like your idea of, you know, start off with a voiceover and B roll. I mean, it's a great way actually to get
your team members into a video, right? Maybe they don't want to speak on it, but you know, you can do sort of the shots around the office, people working, whatever, and then do the voiceover. So I think that's good advice. But as with all these things, just have a go, right? I mean, even if you don't publish the first few ones, just shoot them and get comfortable with it, and then work it from there.
Chris Heffernan:
And look at it. I mean, if you go back like Mr. Beast, right? Arguably probably the most successful in my mind in the social media video world. I bet if you looked at his first video you ever put online, it probably sucked. Right? And then the second one was marginally better. The third one was a little bit better. There's no reason. And if you think about it as a founder, the product that you probably first built when you think about it now, it probably sucked. But what did you do? You made it better. So just like, take that and
And if a video is more than two minutes, it's really not like engaging per se. So if you're uncomfortable being in front of camera, it doesn't have to be for long because
Nobody's watching that clip for more than 90 seconds, give or take.
Steve:
Yeah, no, that's very true. Very true. Good. It gets some good ideas there.
We all know things are changing all the time. How do you keep up with trends? Uh, you know,
Do you read books? Do you listen to podcasts? It sounds like you, you watch a lot of Instagram rails. Anybody you would recommend people follow or read or look at?
Chris Heffernan
Uh, yeah. I mean, I make all of my business decisions based, based upon what I see on Instagram, right? So no, that's, that's completely a lie. We would be doing horribly there. Uh, no, it's funny. Like I, it's so hard on like social media to like drowned out kind of like the lies and like the influencers that aren't really influencers that are like, I scaled my business by doing this. And it's like, do you even really have a business? You know, like you just revert.
Steve:
It's exhausting, isn't it?
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, you just typed into chat GBT like five things a successful person does and like maybe you just bought a bunch of followers or like you have a you're good at, you know, an algorithm.
I don't know. I don't really read a lot of books. I have like eight books on my like on my bookshelf and then, but I haven't I haven't read them. Audio books. I can't like, I can't really like listen to because
I just like start daydreaming about other things work related. so a lot of what, a lot of what I get is just like from the team around me, like conversations with people in the industry, uh, like not from my company and, and people like in the company and, and the clients, right? Like I listened to them and I take phone calls from drivers. I go to the driver events, like I visit clients. I, you know, so I take a lot of inspiration on what we should do and where we're going from the people that have the biggest impact or it would have the biggest impact on.
Steve:
Yeah. So really living within the company and listening to all of those inputs from everybody and sort of that receive wisdom makes a lot of sense.
So I have two more questions for you. These are probably the two most important questions of the interview. The first is you've mentioned the pizza cook-off twice and you haven't told us who won.
Chris Heffernan:
It was a tie.
Steve:
All right, and you both had fun doing it and you got to eat pizza at the end. So everyone's a winner, right?
Chris Heffernan:
Right. And we went, we went to a Colts game, the Colts lost to the Texans, but still great. Good time. Really nice stadium. So, and just a good time engaging with people that put so much into the platform, you know, and I'm looking forward to it. I also invited other drivers. Like if you have something you're good at, like challenge me or someone else on the team, it doesn't have to be cooking related. Like let's make this a thing.
Steve:
Well, and it hits on so many levels, right? You're spending time with the drivers, presumably they're bringing in their friends, their network. It's more video, it's more content, and you just get to spend time, and you're sort of absorbing all this great input, and you get to eat pizza.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, it's fun. It ties to my mission of doing things that are fun. Yeah.
Steve:
There you go. so, so when I first started out this podcast, my whole point was I like talking to people about marketing. Preferably would do it over, over a coffee or a cocktail, but you know, not always so easy these days. So if we were to have had this chat over a cocktail, what would be your drinker choice?
Chris Heffernan:
I typically am a sucker for a good old fashioned.
Steve:
Can't go wrong with that.
Chris Heffernan:
And like the you know, the more unique the better like I had like a like a burnt maple caramel old fashion when I was up in New York the other week, it's just it's just nice. It's a gentlemanly a drink. I typically like if it was just like, hey, we're gonna go sit at a bar. We're just going to drink with the intent of drinking. Give me a captain and Coke. Right. But a two ingredient cocktail is an emergency, not a cocktail. That's a Don Draper quote, but
So yeah, so give me a good old-fashioned any day of the week.
Steve:
Yeah, I'm with you on that. And the other thing I like about it is that its not the same drink every time. In Wisconsin they make it with brandy instead of whisky.
Steve:
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts with me on Marketing. I hope we do get a chance to share an Old Fashioned face to face sometime soon. But again, thanks very much Chris. I appreciate your time.
Chris Heffernan:
Yeah, no, thanks so much for having me on and listening to my insane ramblings. Uh, it was, uh, it was a great time.
