Don't Just Sell A Product. Champion An Idea!

0:00From Entrepreneur Media, this is Problem Solvers, a show in which entrepreneurs do what entrepreneurs do best, solve unexpected problems in their business. We were completely wrong. And I'm just like, it's not selling. It was like, we have to start from scratch. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine.

0:22There's this story that I love repeating. And it's about this entrepreneur who was developing a very unique kind of butter dish. And as she was doing that, she wanted to do some market research on it, figure out what are people going to pay for this thing? What colors do they like? All that stuff. But market research was super expensive, way more expensive than she thought. And she thought, there's got to be some better way to do this. And then one day, she's waiting to board a flight at the airport. And as I'm sitting there at the gate waiting to board the plane, I'm looking around. I'm like, well, heck, there are all these people right here that I could ask.

0:59And that's what kind of got me going. And so I started just walking up and down from gate to gate to gate, passing out my questionnaire. It's perfect, right? I mean, people sitting around waiting to board a plane have literally nothing better to do than answer questions about butter dishes. And this entrepreneur doesn't stop there. Doesn't stop with this one experience. Oh, no. And then a year later, when I had my prototype, I went back to the airport. I bought a one-way ticket to Vegas, which cost like$39. That way I could get through security. And then I just spent the day going like from gate to gate to gate asking people, you know, would you buy this product?

1:33What would you pay? What color would you want? And then by the time I made it to the end of the terminal, everyone's already like gone on the plane. New people are queued up. And then as I'm doubling back, I've got new people to ask. Anyway, you can see why I love this little anecdote. I've been repeating it for so long. It's just so perfectly entrepreneurial. It takes so much, so much creativity, so much chutzpah to just see doors where other people see walls. Anyway, it's time to introduce this person because this is not her only crazy idea. Oh, she's got another one. We're going to dig into it.

2:08My name is Joelle Mertzal. I'm the president of Kitchen Concepts Unlimited, and I am a national advocate for countertop butter. Oh, and by the way, the butter dish is called buttery. That's B-U-T-T-E-R-I-E. And what's clever about it is that it is a butter dish on a hinge. So you can kind of open it up and down. And the reason for that is so that it doesn't bump into the butter because this butter dish is meant to be used with butter that is left outside the refrigerator. Because as it turns out, you don't need to refrigerate butter, which goes right back to that thing that Joelle said that maybe you stopped on and we were like, wait, what?

2:47What did you just say? Yes. A national advocate for countertop butter. And what does that mean? That means I have made it my mission to eliminate confusion about keeping butter on the counter. and I'm educating America that butter does not need to be refrigerated. Why? Because as Joelle was thinking about how to grow her business, she realized product only scales so much. Ideas expand more. What if she wasn't just a person who promoted a product? What if she was a person who championed an idea? And as it turns out, the idea that she was existing in, that butter doesn't need to be refrigerated was in need of a champion.

3:31Today on Problem Solvers, I am going to talk to Joelle about this very intriguing idea and the lengths, lengths that she has gone to implement it, to embody it. This is just an absolute delight of a concept, of a way of thinking. I just, Joelle emailed me. I hadn't been in touch with her in years since I last heard about the airport thing. She emailed me about what she was doing now. And at first I said, well, that's kind of funny and weird. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, no, this is actually pretty genius. Because if you want to succeed in business, you don't just make a product, you stand for something, whatever that thing is.

4:09Today on Problem Solvers, Joelle Mertzel talking about the value of standing up for a big idea, even if it's countertop butter. I'm Charlotte Alter, and this is Person of the Week, a new show from Time about the people who shape our world and the forces that shape them. As a senior correspondent for Time, if there's one thing I've learned is that to understand our world, you need to understand the people who influence it. So this summer, I'll be having more conversations with the humans behind the headlines, a lot more, and I'm bringing them to you firsthand. Are you ready to meet Time's Person of the Week?

4:47Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we're back. I am talking with Joelle Mertzel today, the president of Kitchen Concepts Unlimited and the national advocate for countertop butter. And where did that idea come from? And how scalable is it? And how has it already led to national press and possibly, spoiler alert, governmental change for real? Well, we got to back up here. Walking back to the very start here. Okay, got it. So I grew up with butter in the fridge. My parents did too. I had no idea that butter could be kept on the counter. And I learned that about 12 years ago. It was my aha moment.

5:29Blew my mind. What? It's dairy, doesn't need to be refrigerated, but no, it doesn't. It can stay on the counter. And when it's on the counter, it's soft, it's easy to spread, tastes better, so much easier. That led me to inventing buttery, which is the world's only flip-top butter dish. And in the selling of buttery, I always would talk about how butter doesn't need to be refrigerated. Because to me, that was the most exciting part. And to be clear, the reason why this idea about warm butter led to buttery is because what you were solving for, as I remember it, but correct me if I'm wrong, what you were solving for was the problem that most butter dishes would bump up against the butter if it's warm and then it gets a big mess.

6:07And so what you had done is you had created a butter dish on a hinge and therefore it was always predictable how it was going to open and close. Is that right? Yeah, but let's put a little time out on the warm butter. Okay. Oh, we don't like warm butter. Okay. Warm butter is a bad phrase. It's room temperature butter. Right. It's room temperature. Right. Soft, it's breadable. It's room temperature. I'm sorry to have said something offensive to the butter gods. That's okay. Well, I mean, people think they're like, if you keep it out, is it going to melt? And I'm like, no, it doesn't melt. It just holds its shape and it's just soft.

6:35So anyway, so it's... Okay. This is the kind of thing that a national butter advocate needs to flag. So you're doing a good job. Thank you. So, right. So create this butter dish that makes using and storing countertop butter so much easier. It's like you said, it's got the attached flip top lid. So the lid's not dragging through the butter when you cover and uncover it. And in selling this product on my packaging and my trade show booth on my Facebook ads, I'm always talking about how butter doesn't need to be refrigerated. And the engagement that I get on that subject is just like off the charts.

7:09It's really, it's like a heated subject in a lot of homes where there's like fights between husband and wife or his and hers butter. And so it just kind of became a fun, almost like tangential subject in the selling of my product. But it's really what my product was all about. So sometimes it was even hard for me to kind of see between sort of the two messages. Am I talking about this butter dish that I made or am I talking about keeping butter on the counter? And this is an interesting problem that you had identified early because oftentimes when people make a product, the greatest challenge that they have is convincing people that it solves a problem that they have or should care about, right?

7:52Like, you know, it's like, there are two kinds of things. There's a thing that solves an active problem and there's a thing that solves a problem, but it's a problem that people don't really care about that much and don't think about that much. And therefore the big challenge is getting somebody to care about that problem as a means of getting them to care about your solution. You're in this very interesting space place where it's not a thing that keeps most people up at night, but it was clearly enough of a question in a lot of people's minds that it was an easy thing to get people to engage on.

8:20That almost makes it feel like you were in this unexpected third category, which is to say, not a thing that identifies a problem that most people don't even think about as a problem or don't care enough about or not going to spend money to solve a problem, but rather somewhere in the middle where it was a thing that people had wondered about and a solution to something they didn't necessarily think was a problem, but that was very exciting to them once you introduced it. What do you think about that? Okay. So I hear you. And I actually do think I was solving a problem, but I didn't know what problem I was solving.

8:53Ah, okay. So I was either, if they kept their butter on the counter, then I was solving the problem of having the messy lid and the slippery yucky butter dish. Right. If they didn't keep their butter on the counter, they didn't know they could. And now they've got hard butter in the fridge and they don't have a problem with a messy butter dish because their butter is in the fridge. I had no idea which problem I was solving. That's very interesting. How did you answer that question? I don't know. I think I came up with the messaging, enjoy soft butter anytime. Okay. And I felt like it kind of straddled the two issues.

9:34Okay. So one, people are like, well, how do I get soft butter? And then it's like, then I go down the path. We'll start, keep your butter on the counter. And here's this great butter dish to keep it in. Okay. Or enjoy soft butter anytime you're already keeping your butter on the counter. Now we can make it a more enjoyable experience. Because we've got this great butter dish with the attached lid. So that was my best way of going about it. Because really, when I would be presenting my product, it was like a flip of the coin, whether someone knew butter could be kept out or not. It was one in four, whether they had it on the counter.

10:09And you just don't know when you're presenting kind of where that person is at. Right. Well, I really love now thinking back upon it, enjoy soft butter anytime is not focused on the butter dish, right? A tagline that was focused on the butter dish would be the better way to hold your butter or something like that, or no more messy butter. But that's not what you did. The tagline was actually funny enough, not about the product at all, but rather about the thing that's inside the product. And also funny enough, people don't actually need your product in order to keep their butter outside the fridge.

10:49Yours is a better place to put that butter, but I could walk to my fridge right now and take my butter out and put it on the counter. And I have initiated room temperature butter. Totally agree. So in this way, you are also somewhat following the path of, let's say, Coors, which has what I think is just one of the world's funniest marketing approaches, which is that the thing that they market is the coldness of their beer, which has literally nothing to do with their beer or the way they make it. It is just that somebody took their product and put it in the refrigerator, but it works for them Because ultimately what it's about is the experience of the thing.

11:27And the experience is what people really want. Right. And I thought about that so much in the beginning. It's not about what my product does. It's about how it makes them feel. That is great. And so what did you see once you started rolling that out? Well, it was working. Happy to report. I mean, I have great sales and people are getting on board. People are keeping their butter on the counter. I'm changing consumer behavior, which is just mind boggling that people are now keeping their butter on their counter because they've learned from me that they can do that and how much easier their life is in the kitchen because of it.

12:04So, I mean, it's extremely satisfying to make an impact on people and to do it on a mass scale. So, so far, we've just been talking about the product and how to market the product. But going back to how you introduced yourself as a national, give me the title again. National advocate for countertop butter. Fantastic. Okay. So that comes out. It's not a niche, right? It is so good. It's so niche, but it sounds very official. I have to say, it sounds like somebody gave you that on a plaque. And so that comes out of you zooming out further, which is to say, it's not just about the butter, but it's also, and it's not just about the experience, which I guess would have been zooming out further.

12:45It's also about you and the role that you can play in shifting people's perception of the butter in the first place. So tell me how you got there and why this has become part of your thing. So I started my company in 2015 and I was right on schedule for the seven year slump. So here we are, it's 2022 and I am feeling stuck. And I'd heard about the seven year slump and I was like, no, I'm good, I'm good, I'm passionate, I'm loving what I'm doing. And then all of a sudden, I kind of hit a wall where I used to love Mondays and going to work. And I was so pumped about everything I was doing. And I started to notice I was starting to be more excited about the weekends.

13:26That's not good. And so I just was like, all right, I need to shake it up. I need to do something different because I'm finding that work is starting to feel like work, you know. And I always used to just brag how like, this isn't work. I love it. Yeah. Work is starting to feel like cold butter. Right. so I was like, okay, what can I do differently that will just kind of like reinvigorate me? And I mean, I kind of gone through some different ideas, you know, I've launched different products, I have new inventions, I've got more patents. I mean, it's really all very exciting what I've done, yet I didn't still have that like initial passion and drive that I felt when I first started.

14:08And I wanted to recapture that. And so I really had like this kind of quiet conversation with myself about what can I do to kind of kickstart what I'm doing here at Kitchen Concepts. And I realized like, you know, what did it all come from? How did it all start? It all started when I learned that butter doesn't need to be refrigerated. I mean, that blew my mind and it continues to blow people's minds when I talk to them. So I thought, why don't I just get behind that? And I used to joke in the beginning, like I was so busy. I mean, I was a solopreneur or whatever that expression is, one woman show, right?

14:40You know, I didn't have time to do anything. And so I used to joke like, oh, when I have time, I'll go like lobby the government and stuff like that on, you know, making change about better. I'm like, but who's going to do that now? Now I'm like, oh my God, I have time to do that now. I can do it. I reached that point. So let me back up and tell you kind of what I did. Okay. So I decided that I am going to be a national advocate for Countertop Better. And I crystallized my mission. I put it up on the wall in my office. So that way I see it and my team sees it every day. Like, what are we here to do?

15:12We are here to eliminate confusion about keeping butter on the counter. I spent a lot of time actually even working on that wording. Like, am I here to educate America? Well, yes, I am. I do want to educate America. Butter doesn't need to be refrigerated. But I really wanted to eliminate the confusion because people would talk about butter debates. I'm like, there's no debate. This is just being educated and then making your own choice, you know? Right. So in other words, eliminating confusion is also different from trying to convince America to leave its butter out. Correct. Right. I just wanted to eliminate the confusion.

15:45And you do that by educating and by presenting factual information. And so I had done that too. And I was like the only one who had ever done it. Like I had a food safety lab test better that was at room temperature. And I did it multiple times because I was like, let me do salted. Let me do unsalted. Let me try all these different brands. Let me make it more current. So I have current shelf life studies. I mean, I've gone to this food safety lab so many times to test better. So I have the data that better can be kept on the counter for three weeks and it's perfectly safe at room temperature. It's usually plenty of time to work through a stick of butter.

16:19I'd written a book. It's a children's book, you know, change your life for the better. And that was just, it was like a fun project that I did. I'm like, I'm going to write a book. Sure. Why not? So I had done like, you know, kind of these different like elements. And then I decided, okay, so I've kind of like, I've got the credentials. let me just really like run with it. So what was the thing that was like driving me the most crazy was every time I would see an article that said like, can butter really be kept on the counter? Do you need to refrigerate butter? And the article would always cite the USDA who says on their website, yes, you can keep butter out, but only for one to two days.

16:56And I'm like, no, that's not right. Like it's 21 days. And so that would just perpetuate the confusion, right? Yeah. So I contacted the USDA slash FDA. They're all kind of under one umbrella. And I asked them, I said, where did you get your information? You've got this published on your website. People are citing it left and right. And they didn't really have an answer for me. They didn't have any like data to deliver. And they just, I don't know. There's no origin to that fact? No, not that they can show me or yeah, deliver. So like a little scary. What else were they saying? Yeah. But we don't need to go there.

17:35So I said, well, we need to change it because it's not right. And how do we change it? And they said, well, you need to submit a petition. And I was like, okay, how do I do that? You know, and they kind of talked me through the process. And so I submitted a petition to the FDA to have them update their butter storage recommendations so it will finally be accurate. So I'm in the process of doing that right now. Okay, very exciting. Thank you. Thank you. And so then what I did is I wrote a press release, which I put out to all the media, letting them know that Kitchen Concepts has petitioned the FDA to update their butter storage recommendations to kind of get the conversation going.

18:10Yeah. And that resulted in a nice little like kind of stream of press. You know, it was an article in the Wall Street Journal, which was... On the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, it was on the front page. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. I mean, that's crazy. People should step back and just appreciate that. I mean, this is starting in a place that sounds fun and depending on your perspective, a little frivolous, which is a conversation of where the butter belongs. but you have turned this into a thing that is engaging with the federal government and also landing on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

18:40So this is something people care about. Yes, absolutely. And not only that, I also did a little analysis on the article was in a section called A-heads, which is like a section on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Yeah. For people who don't know that, that is a very famous section in journalism circles. So the A-head, if you look at the Wall Street Journal, which is otherwise the front page of Wall Street Journal is otherwise a very sober piece of real estate, but there is always a column. It's just a news story. And it often has that fun pixelated little headshot, or sometimes they'll do the headshot of some like a dog or whatever the thing is in the story.

19:17And it's just a funny, but real news story about some, just something that's just going to get people talking, I think is the function of it. It's just, it's a thing that would get people talking and reported about something. And it's in there every single day and it's called the A-head. And so you got the A-head. I got the A-head. And then actually to your point, so the online version, the average number of comments on the article is about 130. We had over 600 comments. So it got people talking. Definitely. People are passionate about this subject. You know, I mean, we go like, is this really a problem?

19:50It is. People want soft, spreadable butter. They also want to feel validated when they keep their butter out because here's the other problem. This is going to be like chapter two for me is it says on better packaging, keep refrigerated. And it's sold in refrigerated cases. Right, so now you're going, now you're going to try to get the whole industry to shift. Yeah. Yeah, a second ago when I said that the Ahead image is pixelated, they're like, it's not pixelated for like the one person who thinks that you're right. It's pointillism, it's pointillism. I said the wrong word. But number two is that I'm curious before we go any further, Did the coverage of your campaign lead to sales of butter dishes?

20:30For like a minute, it does. I mean, which is honestly, I had a sales spike for like three days. Okay. It goes back down to normal. Right. So it's not even about that. It's about establishing myself as the national advocate for this subject, being the spokesperson for Countertop Better, educating America, eliminating confusion, making life in the kitchen easier. That's what it's about. The company's success will ultimately follow when I am the voice of this subject. I trust it will follow. I'm not worried about what my sales were the day the article came out. Right, so this is part of this. You're thinking about this as a long game and just boosting the holistic credibility of the company and that sales follow from that.

21:18Okay, so how are you going to go up against, I mean, it's not even going up against because what you want is to work with them, but big butter, big butter probably doesn't change things on the label very easily. Right, so well, that's part two. So right now, part one is we're working with the FDA and the USDA to update their recommendations. So let's get that tackled first. And when we get the recommendations updated, and they even have, the FDA even has like a time temperature control study published on their website from like 20 years ago or something. that says butter is the exception to time temperature control.

21:52So they have it on there. They know it. Once we can get the USDA, FDA to update their recommendations, then I'll have the kind of the ammunition I need to go to the dairy manufacturers and see if we can get the labeling requirement changed. Because people go home with their butter and they're just following the rules. It says keep refrigerated, so I'm going to keep it refrigerated because that's what it says. So, okay, here's what you need to do. Ready? Okay. I was thinking about this as you were talking, And I'm realizing, all right, so Big Butter doesn't, Big Butter wouldn't, I think, be resistant in theory to this idea because you're not trying to change butter sales.

22:29You're not trying to impact sales butter. In fact, you are an encourager of butter sales. And so why would they feel one way or another about this? But then I thought, oh, wait a second. I would bet, maybe you've done studies already. If not, maybe this is the next study to fund. I would bet that if butter is left on the counter, people eat more butter because they see it. Whereas the, and also it's easier. It's easy. Maybe they, maybe they just, uh, cause they can spread it nicely. They, maybe they just take more butter off, which means you're going through the stick even faster. Whereas when it's in the fridge, out of sight, out of mind, maybe you don't eat the butter.

23:02So I bet that there's a way to do some kind of research in which you establish that butter being left out of the fridge actually is consumed more, which means that getting rid of the refrigeration recommendation actually drives more sales of butter, at which point, big butter, very excited. That is a great idea, Jason. Thank you. Thank you. And yeah, sometimes I equate it to like an open candy jar in the kitchen. It's putting butter on everything. Yeah, fascinating. So I love this. And what else do you think, what else can you do with this? I mean, are you showing up at trade shows as this authority?

23:43Does this position you in a different way in the food industry than if you were just the person behind this clever butter dish? Where do you see the opportunity here with this reframing of who you are? Right. So, I mean, definitely trade shows. This has been part of my message in my trade show booth since the beginning. I've got a big sign that says, counter a fridge, where do you keep your butter? And that engages people as they walk by and And obviously helps me with the sale of my product. But it's just, I mean, I'd love to see me on like Good Morning America and the Today Show and talking about keeping butter on the counter and educating people that this is an option and giving them the validation when they do it already that they're not doing something wrong.