#52 - Katie Edmunds - TRIP [Senior National Account Manager]

0:00Katie Edmunds:Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to the Unfounders. Today I'm joined by the wonderful Katie Edmunds from Trip. Now Trip have been pioneering in the functional drink space for five, six years now and they are absolutely delicious. Their branding, the brand itself, is absolutely gorgeous. They've been growing from strength to strength every single year. They're just taking over in America and I really love to dig into Katie's background as the first official employee. Employee number four, they're now a team of 60. How's that expanded? What's that journey been like? how did you get into it from a geography degree there's so much in this if you haven't tried trip or haven't seen it before where have you been it's literally in every meal deal most corner shops you can't escape it and if you haven't tried it before grab a can crack it open and listen to the episode so without further ado let's get on with it are you a founder of the next exciting food and drink round are you looking to scale and grow well let me introduce you to mission kitchen london's home food and drink entrepreneurs and sponsor of the unfounders mission kitchen gives you the equipment, support and community to take your business to the next level.

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1:25Katie Edmunds:hello and welcome back to young founders today i am joined by the wonderful katie edmonds so katie can you please let everyone know where you work and what your role is hi um i'm katie obviously i work at trip um and i lead our national accounts in the us so i'm focused on growing our presence stateside working with our retail partners out there and kind of shaping our expansion strategy across the pond fantastic and for those who have been living under a rock and don't know what trip is or who they are um can you give us the story so who are the founders how did it all start like what's the the trip story and what do you do yeah for sure so trip started coming up on six years ago so feels like time's absolutely flown and it all started with Liv and Dan who are co-founders also family members of mine and my older brother who's the managing director now starting Trip way back when.

2:17So the story goes and it's something that over a sales career this kind of personal story of how it started is something I think I've told thousands of times so hopefully it's good but it's all started back in 2018. Liv and Dan working in law and finance respectively eight weeks out from their wedding and Dan was playing football with some friends, managed to tear his ACL and have to have knee surgery just a couple months out from their wedding. As you can understand, Liv was understandably a little bit stressed out about it. Their wedding wasn't easily, it was all planned and so she and Dan basically were trying everything they could to help with his recovery.

2:57That was obviously physio, loads of other things but one thing that they found really really helped was CBD and so that's kind of where Trip all started. It was actually Dan's brother who lived in America who a little bit further ahead of us in kind of the CBD world sent some over both topical and CBD oil for Dan to use. He found it really helped him sleep, helped his recovery, it's got anti-inflammatory properties and so he put so much of his recovery down to kind of introducing kind of plant-powered botanicals into his routine fast forward eight weeks um Dan and Liv at their wedding there's a video of Dan dancing with Liv on his shoulder and I don't think the surgeon was very pleased to see it afterwards but it's just kind of a testament to how quick his recovery was um so they came back from their wedding thought that was crazy like let's let's keep using cbd and lots of other kind of supplements and um you know they were living pretty stressful lives like pretty stressful jobs um you know taking cbd on the northern line but at that point you couldn't really get it apart from from quite kind of you know dodgy looking health stores and kind of brown bottles and they just found it was so instrumental to help like keeping them calm keeping their stress levels down they wanted to share it with people but you couldn't exactly just give someone kind of a suspect brown bottle of oil liquid and so they sat down and came up with Trip to make CBD beautiful accessible delicious and kind of the rest is history from there we actually have the first designs of Trip which is completely almost exactly the same to what you see on shelves now from when Liv and Dan actually wrote like drew them on the back of an envelope and so that's where it all started James joined in from the very beginning and then a few months later um I was 22 um and joined the business just part-time in field sales to help get it out there to like local health stores in London where kind of all these kind of you know drinks and FMCG companies often start so yeah that's that's a bit of the history

5:06Katie Edmunds:amazing I mean Tripp I remember when it first came on the scene like the branding the aesthetic the look and then the taste I think the was it like cucumber mint or something like that like the first one I ever had I was just like wow it's absolutely delicious um and I think for me personally first time I ever had CBD was from like Glastonbury and as you said some kind of very hippie looking shop and it came in almost what looked like a syringe that you would kind of like squeeze in your mouth in this horrendous tasting liquid and I'm like I get what CBD is supposed to be doing for me but that's not a way to do it whereas you guys have just taken it mainstream into the masses into the meal deal into like everyday people's routine so for you like getting involved with trip what was the appeal and what was the like yeah like i'm buying into this as well myself yeah totally i think you know it all started i obviously worked at a few other fmcg brands before trip and it was actually just about the time that dan live and james was starting trip i was it started out as a temporary thing that i was gonna help out i was applying to grad schemes in london but selling trip to health stores and all of these kind of you know smaller independence all around London I think it was it was quite quickly that I realized it was something a bit special and obviously that you mentioned like the flavor is exceptional the kind of two pillars of the kind of the product we stand on is authentically functional and uniquely delicious and it was just hitting all of those marks and the reaction from both like the store managers buyers all of that was so incredible as well as customers so obviously back at this point I was spending a lot of time doing sampling so I was at Planet Organic I was at Self-Cheers I was at the Independence and seeing the kind of customer reaction to the product was something that it was just like yeah pretty incredible to see and we were so small at that point and it was such an unknown brand but an unknown ingredient as well but the reaction was just amazing so a few couple months later I joined full-time and say three weeks after that we went into lockdown so I'm pivoted from what was quite a feel a kind of sales focused role into doing a bit of everything but yeah it was it was really the product and the mission yeah got me hooked well you essentially employee number four then because it sounds like it was very much like very early days then yeah very early days so it was just live down and james so and they're kind of technically all co-founders so in terms of employees i'm employee number one amazing well yeah we all know that brand is important right but what if i told you it can impact growth and customer acquisition costs by up to 50 against ordinary are a brand agency who help founders marketing departments scaling teams ensure their brand is the most powerful tool for growth from brand strategy tone of voice and visual identity to helping you get retail ready with ongoing brand growth retainers they really are the full circle agency for growing your brand being the team are absolutely fantastic just imagine what they could do for your brand so what are you waiting for see how they can be your grand growth partners against ordinary.com i'd love to know kind of how the team's evolved and grown like how big is the team now i mean it looks like that's an office so you've got a very on-brand house yeah watching the video but yeah how big is the team now what's your kind of setup like are you remote working like what what kind of things do you do as a team because obviously wellness and all these things are so important as the brand like i love seeing what you guys are doing with Calm and all these other great kind of campaigns and promotions.

8:26Katie Edmunds:So yeah, I'd love to dig into a bit more of the behind the scenes like team life. Obviously, there's not just four of us, we have to start hiring outside of the family. Although we still are trying to get my sister involved. She's resisting at this point. But there's over 60 of us now globally. We have an office in Notting Hill we've had for the last three years. At first, only had kind of one floor and I've taken over the whole building, which is amazing. Yes, I'm in the office, although I don't think people would put it past me to have a pink wall in my house. Our office is completely pink, which is beautiful.

9:00An old factory building, it's got huge windows, and it's just an incredible place to kind of come together, collaborate, which is one of our kind of key values. And it's just, yeah, it's kind of surreal for me from, you know, looking back at the days of working out of Living Down's flat to then some kind of co-working spaces to now having this entire office that's filled with people but yeah it's it's just a an amazing space it feels very creative everyone's in the office four days a week and i know some people like to work at home and you know really kind of love that kind of remote working but there's just a real bus when we're together it means you can work faster collaborate it's more kind of natural teamwork um i think that walking over someone's desk and asking a question beats like waiting for a reply on slack like any day of the week so yeah it's it's a great space to be in and the team obviously is evolving and growing by the second which is amazing and we are so lucky to have hired anything to know if it's if it's luck or if it's just how we work but have hired some just incredible people who are both incredible at their job but also like love to kind of get stuck in be part of the community that we have here um there's you know loads that goes on like amongst the teams we you know have such a big team now that we have to have a little bit more organized fun than just just ad hoc fun but um i think that's something that's you know so important you know the senior leadership team but also the kind of individual teams is that we have definitely have a real focus on celebrating the wins and celebrating you know what we're doing and you know work in all aspects for all people can be stressful and busy at times but really having those moments to celebrate the wins is is what we do really well um so that's yeah a really amazing part of trip um and I think I mean it all kind of comes back to the mission as well when you've got a mission like ours which is you know creating calm in the everyday chaos we want to help millions of people find calm you're all kind of focused on the same goal which really brings people together in a unique way so we actually have a slack channel called creating better days where our customer experience team and our social media team share messages from customers and our community of like how trips help them find calm and i think you know when you're having a stressful day or a busy day and someone's just like i'll just grab a little scroll through that channel and you know it'll feel better so yeah there's there's tons going on always fast paced but yeah it can be a kind of a better group of people yeah it sounds like it's

11:35Katie Edmunds:been quite the uh business journey to be part of considering tripper always winning fastest growing brand always winning lots of awards the year-on-year growth is just absolutely insane and then as you kind of mentioned america like you guys are now set up and expanding in america um what's your involvement been with like the american side and and what are some of the wins because i'm sure there's some big names i saw being shouted about about where you've already won listings um which I think is a real testament to how strong the brand is because as you've already said America is always so far ahead like obviously some states like weed is legal so THC as well as all the CBD products that have been around for many years as well so how have you guys kind of come in to kind of own your space in that market and what are your some of your big customers who you're already listed with yeah totally so it's been a really exciting journey for me you know working on the US I started working on about two years ago and it kind of felt like the beginning of trip again because I work really closely with James and Dan on that and then with our US team and it's kind of like that kind of real startup feeling again out there but it's been a bit of a wild ride it's just so incredible to see people respond to the products the same way there as they do here which isn't always the case we launched CBD there um earliest and so that was in you know Erewhon, Sohouse, Equinox, all of these kind of really brand-led places and still is and still thriving out there.

13:00And then kind of the real step change happened when we launched Mindful Blends out there. So a little bit of background on Mindful Blends because obviously we've spoken about CBD, but we launched that in the UK at the beginning of last year. It was a new range we've been working on for about 18 months. and so seeing how well we were responding to our cbd drinks we started looking into other natural botanicals that had kind of proven calming effects you know really authentically functional that we could create a new range from to give people the option of how they wanted to to find their calm and we're really listening like listen to our community during that time so we built trip basically during covid so our online community is super engaged because we had that like real like digital focus during that time when everyone was basically on their phones the entire whatever two three years so we basically just listened to them what they were asking for their only message being like why don't you have magnesium in your drinks why don't you do something with lion's mane all of this and our amazing product team and came up with mindful blends which is just an incredible range some of the same flavors some new flavors it's been absolutely killing it here in the UK and then we launched that in the US effectively at the beginning of this year um so we started making product in Q4 last year um we launched it this year so we launched into Sprouts so which is an incredible super fast growing their recent growth has been just incredible over the past couple years they're opening stores left right and center all over the US but it's kind of natural health food kind of you know similar um to Whole foods and kind of has an incredible proposition and kind of product range so we launched there in February and that's kind of 470 doors out there and growing fast so that's really exciting we've launched in lots of other kind of national health and kind of vitamin focused stores the vitamin shop GNC and then we had our kind of biggest US launch today in Target at the end of March which felt very surreal thinking back to how we started and then you know seeing the drinks

15:12Katie Edmunds:on traffic target this year was amazing yeah no it's fantastic yeah all great great names to have the brand and obviously from a UK business to then be kind of doing this in America is just a real testament to the brand that all of you guys have been building but I'd love to now kind of strip it right the way back to education and how you kind of fell into this world because if I'm not mistaken your degree was in geography and then you've ended up in the in the food world so I'd love to know kind of how that journey started and and what your kind of like first foot in the door was yeah for sure yes I did study geography at Manchester and I loved my degree and I you know looking back maybe it would have been more sensible to do some sort of business degree but that's what I loved and I don't regress it one bit and absolutely just you know adored my time at uni I ended up at the end of my degree doing a kind of focus more on social geographies, which is more the study of kind of like people, place, place.

16:10So my dissertation was actually in sustainable business practices within, you know, looking at greenwashing. And it was a research project and kind of deep diving into FMCG companies, large and small, and how they present. So I was already kind of, you know, spending a lot of time in deep in the world of FMCG while I was writing that. And at the same time, during uni, I was a student ambassador for what was called Proper Call at the time, but it's now Proper. And working, you know, kind of not set hours, but doing all things from samplings to store visits to even selling into independence, you know, working with uni sports teams and all of that.

16:50So it's kind of already deep in the world of MMCG with my part time job, but also for my dissertation. and then it was actually the and I don't think the team will maybe not remember this it was the intro day it was the second of second every year that proper had done this student ambassador scheme and we went to their office their old offices in old street um it was one of their sales team members who's kind of giving an introduction during that kind of day you got to meet all the teams and he was talking about his own experience when he first started when And marketing often seems like the more kind of, and brand, like the more like attractive part of these kind of startups and these companies.

17:31It's what you often get told about from the outside when you're a uni student, you don't really know what businesses even do. But he had someone who told him about kind of how great sales is and, you know, how important it is to the business, what, you know, having those wins feels like, how tangible the results are, you know, going out and kind of building it. And it's really hands on. and it was after kind of he explained that I was like this this sounds like something that I want to explore and so you know from then on kind of a little bit the rest is history I went graduated went and worked for the curators on fixed-time contract before going traveling you know that kind of real startup was at the time was only yeah five of us the curators doing a bit of sales a bit of marketing a bit of everything I kind of like drive and and um like passion was incredible and something I was like yeah I think this is it and then yeah I came back from from traveling you know felt a bit of the pressure of like what all my friends were doing applying to grad schemes and I was like okay I'll apply to some grad schemes you know all of that um and it was just very fortunate at that exact moment Sanlum and James started Trip and I started working there instead amazing well yeah i think like proper obviously great business they've built an

18:51Katie Edmunds:incredible kind of history of what they're doing and still going and and as you said the creators like max and ed i think them and the team what they're doing i think their recent releases and everything they're kind of doing in that space within the kind of the protein and the healthier snacking world it's fantastic so yeah um was there anything kind of within that experience you're like oh yeah i really like how this is done i'm gonna harness that and bring with me or the same with proper because I think what I really love is every interaction and everything you do like even your geography degree and as you said your your research there's things within all of these different moments that will kind of make you who you are and you take with you into every role so I'd love to know if you've got any like examples that come to mind thinking of like oh yeah this like that sales guy sounds like that's kind of really like wow I want to do that and yeah I completely agree I fell into sales but it is that feeling of chasing it getting all those no's and then as soon as you get a yes you're like wow this is amazing i need more of that yeah exactly team are worrying and the finance team's worrying yeah yeah all that fun stuff yeah all that fun stuff it's like you did i am hired to do sales so we're gonna have to make some more product um no totally i think you know it's you think back and there's definitely there's lots of different moments that stand out but there's there's kind of so many different learnings i think from proper a lot of it is you know student ambassadors you're kind of you're thrown in the deep end as kind of one or two of you in every city so you build that resilience and that kind of just like I'm just going to go and ask you know I'm going to go and do this and see if we can make something happen and then you know for sales like you know just jump in and that kind of resilience from getting the nose as you said but um all of that like well you may as well just you know give it a go and I think from from the curators I mean yeah like you mentioned Max and Ed just incredible their driver's incredible i think from from them actually particularly the way that they interacted with kind of buyers in kind of retail and grocery was something that definitely i've taken taken on board a lot of sales is about that personal connection um ed was just so incredible at building those relationships so yeah that's definitely kind of carried through yeah and it seems like you're doing exactly that with trip i know you've got some fantastic kind of partnerships and accounts and places you're working with within the UK and I saw the event you did with was it Soho House the other week um that looked absolutely stunning that whole setup and meal and everything it looked absolutely gorgeous so I'd love to know like from your experience over the like nearly five years now or um what are some of your kind of core memories or big wins or experiences you've kind of gone oh I really loved that day in the office yeah um it is hard because yeah we're five years coming up on six and I think I've kind of lived through lots of eras of trip you know from being kind of back in you know Leverland's Flat and kind of growing it from from the ground up and just watching them create something super special I think we've definitely um proved that don't work with your family thing wrong um and kind of experiencing the highlights and like all of the best moments with your family is something that I wouldn't ever exchange and And people always ask, how do you do it?

22:01I'm like, no, it's actually the best thing ever.

22:04Katie Edmunds:Like every milestone you get to enjoy together. Yeah, working with family this whole time. It's, you know, there's obviously, there's almost too many good moments to count over the years. I think, like we mentioned, you know, Target earlier and the US expansion. When we could have got that, yes, I was here in the office with like Dan and James and it just felt like very surreal. moment where you think okay i've got to remember this one like i've got to take a mental picture i always try and take mental pictures but i've worn lots of hats at trip over the years different channels you know used to look after the out of home channel in the uk um and there were just yeah lots of accounts that we brought on which were just amazing and just yeah like we were talking about that win feeling over the years but yeah i mean it's all been a pretty amazing amazing journey but let's uh let's flip it around then and say a tough day at the office then obviously where with every yes is a hundred thousand no's i'd love to know one of the days where something didn't go to plan or like oh that wasn't ideal yeah for sure i mean there's definitely there's been plenty and there's you know like we say there's some like retailers or partners that you invest months into and then they come back with the no or as we say in that trip it's not yet so nothing's ever a no some bit of the biggest wins come after someone said no to you for like the third or fourth time and then they you know they come back so I think you know those days when you when you get the no instead of the yes they're always the the super tough ones especially when you put so much effort into it uh you know I was saying earlier like our team and our community is so incredible that we kind of always get back to kind of back to basics you know sit around a table grab someone and go like okay like what went wrong what can we learn how can we how can we improve so yeah they definitely super tough days when you get the no but hopefully kind of you know expand and grow from that and then in the in the early days we definitely we faced a lot of kind of difficult conversations around like education especially around cbd and natural ingredients where one of the first brands to kind of bring it to the market and so we faced lots of people with very kind of strict views telling us that it wasn't going to work they wouldn't be listing it that you know it would never happen um and it's just kind of all built up the resilience to kind of where we are now yeah there's always going to be those kind of those tough moments and especially in sales you know from field sales to like you know national account management you're always going to get no's but it's got a push through yeah that adoption curve because you also had like the legislation in the uk changed um and i think trip were the first if not one of the first to kind of get all the the legal side correct because it kind of out of everywhere cb was in everything and then all of a sudden it was like no you can't do that like you can only do it if it's within this remit and doing this and you have to say this and do that um and i think trip managed to kind of navigate that really well and then obviously with the mindful blends i actually had my first mindful blend last week for the first time um i've had plenty of the the core range and and everything else with the cbd but it was the first time i had it um as part of a waitress meal deal which again i think the fact that you guys are in every meal deal i think as far as i'm aware um you seem to be everywhere um it just really makes it so accessible but there must have been that like those early days like you said the education like is this gonna get me high is this like all those kind of things and even advertising i know meta had a strange block on you couldn't advertise certain things or say certain words and yeah i imagine that's all been fun to to navigate over the years but recently it's now mushrooms and everything's evolving and people were just kind of like oh yeah i know cbd i know mushrooms i take lions man i do it like it's just exactly the world has changed within the last five years massively and consumer behaviors too like look at functional drinks look at that market and yeah in almost every fixture i see it still has its place and it always looks so nice on shelf so i think as you said like the brand and branding from day one has been perfect and gorgeous and has grown from there but yeah over the years what are some of the the challenges and how's that now changed so if you're speaking to someone I guess you've got a lot more proof yeah definitely exactly when Trip launched like the the guys did such an amazing job with the the branding and making it look like beautiful and accessible and that was that was the whole point of creating Trip and you know bringing this ingredient in what is more of a lifestyle product so people could easily you know put it into their their routines but obviously you do get as as expected or who do question it i think you know my first couple years that people asked me if it would get them high i think if i got a penny um i'd be very rich right now it's all of those like little conversations and working in kind of partnership with all your buyers and your retailers and you know if they take the chance it's helping them out when it comes to if they have questions about legality or questions from customers and all of that and really being in partnership with them about that as well as about how the brand's growing how it's being received and just being kind of like a source of truth and really kind of you know up to date with all the legislation obviously as you mentioned it yeah it came in pretty soon after we'd we'd launched and so obviously at the beginning there wasn't um didn't have everyone going well yes immediately because you know people didn't really know what it was but over the past five years I think something that you know trip and the team has done really well is that kind of education piece around cbd and now around all these different botanicals and then also just that kind of partnership with all of the people um in the kind of chain from from trip to customer that need to kind of be in the know you know partnership all along that chain um so that we can kind of build that uh community and build the kind of successful product i mean essentially you know follow our mission which is helping people find calm so yeah lots of lots of obviously challenges across the way one thing yeah was definitely difficult was we couldn't meta advertise still tricky um and so being a kind of launching a product with you know quite a significant deed you know side of the business during covid where you're not necessarily we weren't in any retail and not being able to advertise it on meta certainly wasn't easy but building our community across social media kind of allowed us to um meet the people where they were without necessarily those kind of those targeted ads yeah yeah no i think one thing to also mention is obviously we've been talking solely about the drinks but that's not all that's in the range like you guys have gummies or powders and other things like i remember do you still do the tinctures i remember like the tinctures were in sainsbury's however many years ago that was now and it was just giving people all those different opportunities and I think that's the beauty it's it's being where people are and those different need states so aside from the drinks which you've mentioned what else is in the range?

29:05Yeah definitely so we've always had the CBD drinks and then the CBD tinctures you still get them in you know Sainsbury's Boots wherever which if you don't want to be kind of drinking a whole drink before bed you can just have a few drops of CBD oil underneath your tongue it's very relaxing is actually very they're very delicious which is quite hard for cbd oil i'm a wild mint fan because i tend to have already done my teeth and then so we have kind of always had those and then more recently brought out the magnesium gummies magnesium powder and ashwagandha gummies as well and it is it's like what you said we're meeting people where they are we're all about helping people find calm so it's not just okay you need a drink with your meal deal you're having a drink a pub that's not alcohol you're having a trip it's okay so I want to feel calm at home I want it in a in a gummy format how do we make that the most delicious the most effective version of that that kind of need state and so they have been absolutely flying which is amazing and it's it's really exciting to be able to kind of touch you know it's all day every day that people need to find calm and it is different for everyone so it's how do we you know exactly meet them where they are and when they need their calm throughout the day yeah i mean i think the the nice thing as you

30:19Katie Edmunds:said it's not just kind of your lunch times it is it's a really nice kind of it tastes like an adult soft drink and i think that was for me the first time i had it i was like wow this is such a good on alcohol alternative if you're out for the evening or with friends or whatever you can drink it in any setting um and i think that's the the other beauty on the side of the the brand itself and the accessibility and the logistics around you can almost find it everywhere these days which is amazing it's also those need states of you're out for dinner with friends you are having it for lunch so I think it's it's a really really clever kind of brand evolution to add the gummies and the powders and all these kind of things and I'd love to know from like the American operation as you kind of said what you're launching and how you're doing it are you doing this all from the UK yourself and then you have a team there or you over in the states all the time at the moment like How does that kind of work for you?

31:08Yeah, so I think my job is I work on, you know, our national accounts out there alongside our VP of sales, Ryan, who's out in the US. And we've got a growing team that are out in the US in operations and brand and sales, which is really exciting. But obviously Trip was born here and the founders are still here, kind of the brand and the personality of the brand. and so I'm kind of that like conduit between Trip Original and you know how Trip expands into the US so yeah I work directly on US retail as well so I'm out there quite a bit always you know on calls later in the day to adjust for their time zones but also yeah working on kind of linking our kind of UK functions with US team as well.

31:54Katie Edmunds:I think that second part you said there about the time zones I think it's amazing like the what remote working's done in terms of like not only just remote in the UK but actually international um I mean yeah I was speaking to customers in Dubai or like other places recently and it's like time zones and stuff you can kind of make work but obviously that will then affect your day-to-day so gives you time to to go and do your your gym or your walk or all those kind of things so outside of work what what are some of the things that you kind of have as your passions trip feels like from the outside it's all about wellness and i imagine employee wellness is a big thing so do you guys have gym memberships do you guys do kind of retreats like what's your kind of setup in terms of that to allow your team to to do these kind of things so you know we have a partnership with calm so we have all have access to the calm app i am terrible at meditating i've tried i will keep trying but i love the sleep stories on that and then from kind of a wellness point of view we do tons of things so like lunch action lands we kind of ensure there's like team socials team lunches all these things we all get a wellness day so it's a day that you could take any point in the year on top of your your original kind of like leave where you can just go and do something for your wellness and whether that is just sitting in the park and you know reading a book because that's what calms you down or you know like some of the guys cycling wherever but yeah there's I mean there's lots of different through self-space which is this amazing amazing good people that have like in-person locations where you can go and get therapy also online therapy and yeah just you know tons of different things I mean personally to to wind down love cooking I love going to gym classes so someone else tells me what to do um so I don't have to think about it I recently got into painting as well which I'm not very good at yet but it's definitely a good kind of like brain space saver where you're not thinking about anything else.

33:49Katie Edmunds:No, I love that. Yeah, I think it was during COVID, adult colouring books became all the rage as well. But I personally, I have not got the kind of attention span to do it. I mean, I still can't colour within lines. I still can't write on lines. Like, thank God I have a computer rather than actually doing handwriting because I'm terrible. I think my daughter's probably going to be better at colouring in than me. Nice. It's nice to kind of have those moments and stepping away and going, you know what, I'm just going to spend some time doing this. and you already mentioned you have your packed berries in your freezers so uh exactly a good little plug there um yeah but for anyone else who is kind of coming out of university or in another role and going how do I get into this like what do I do like where do I find my passion obviously it helps if your family's doing something you're like you know what I'm gonna back back my family and give this a go with them jump in outside of the supporting your family side like what would some of your kind of top tips to anyone who's new into the scene and new into whether it's sales was on marketing or just getting involved in brand like what are some of the early learnings that you had that have crafted what you're doing now yeah definitely I think it's it's like what you just the word you just used it's all about kind of learning and kind of being really curious and not afraid to get stuck in I think with the world of FMCG there's obviously much bigger companies but most you know companies that are really kind of exciting are smaller and you need to get stuck in and whether that is sales marketing or whatever you definitely kind of not be afraid to wear a lot of hats to just kind of give it all you've got you know it'll hopefully it'll work out I think for me it was you know one of the key things is it's actually quite a small world and connecting with people is so so valuable like there's people that I am still friends with that I met randomly from other brands when I first started out and things like brand jam festival etc I know that yeah lots of people are very involved with it but I actually during covid was religiously watched their webinars and obviously now go to like the events and the in person things but um there's tons of like great um panels and amazing things starting by people who work in fmcg now zoe who works at the coconut collab collab i always get that in the collective yeah it's a it's a week to stay clean ours and yeah i know zoe really well yeah yeah i've yeah I had known her for years and Ash does amazing kind of like panel sessions and you can go and it's like free tickets to learn from people who've been in this industry for however long, from like two to however many years.

36:18And so just kind of meeting people, networking, although it's scary, especially when you're just coming out of uni and you're like, people are telling me to network and how do I do it? And so, yeah, look out for those events, connect with people on LinkedIn. I think LinkedIn is a tool that is completely underestimated. connected connect with people they'll they'll accept you and then you can look at what they're doing and then i think you know from more of a sales perspective get into some sort of field sales i think most people at trip but most people who have worked with in sales over the years have done some sort of job in the field at some point i think that gives you that like real world experience and that resilience even if you want to go into brand get out there anyway because you're with the products where they're being sold and you're working with the people who are you know are buying them so that's yeah that's my advice field sales and call centers are two things

37:10Katie Edmunds:that i think if you want to get into sales are such good learnings because field sales as you said even from a brand perspective you start to learn how to get the sale across and how to get the brand across shorter and shorter or more concise exactly so it lands so whether it's more emotive or however it is but you're refining it every shop you go to every site you visit or every pitch you do or every email you send there's always that level of like okay i'll learn from that and i'll improve that and i'll do that till it's like okay like i know what i'm doing now like it's it's comfortable so it's just yeah to repeat and and when you get those little wins it is that moment of like yes on to the next one yeah totally and i think you know it's you get that kind of like elevator pitch you learn what works and what doesn't and then that's also where like a network comes in as well like you need people to bounce stuff off being like did this you know i have happened to like work with this partner you know what works with them when you were working with them how do we create and you kind of share all that knowledge across brands and within brands um to kind of eventually get that that yes and refine you know your your pitch in yourself and kind of what you're kind of actively trying to do well final question is the music one and i'd love to know what song kind of really represents your your working experience like what's your go-to yeah so it's actually i loved thinking about this question because we've had And so we have Spotify in the office for, you know, however many years.

38:33For a long time, it was my brother's Spotify. For a long time, it was my Spotify. And so it was always just the random songs that kind of went off your playlist. And there was one time the playlist that was kind of on in the office all the time when it has the suggested songs that come on. And it was Enjoy the Ride by, I think it's Isaac Waddington, Joe Beard and Matilda Warner, I think, three people. And if you could, yeah, look, definitely look up the lyrics. but it's all about kind of taking those moments sitting back and enjoying the ride like when things are tough or moving really fast like just remember to enjoy the ride and so it is yeah I listen to it now all the time one of my favorite songs it's on in the office quite a lot and yeah it's all about kind of taking those moments like I said earlier those mental pictures Liv our founder has been taking Polaroids um all the way through the trip journey and that always reminds me to just like that mindset of kind of documenting and just remembering to actually enjoy what we're doing.

39:28Katie Edmunds:No, I love that. I'm going to definitely add that to the playlist. I've got a very eclectic playlist that's built now. So it's in the show notes of every podcast. If you want to check it out. Yeah, I love it. It's absolutely wild, but there's some good ones in there and you kind of get a feeling in a theme. You're like, oh yeah, I can relate to these lyrics, but that sounds like a great addition. And I love that kind of mental snapshot and even the physical snapshot with the Polaroids. So yeah, no, I've really, really enjoyed this. As I hopefully it's come across, I'm a huge fan of Trip and everything that you're all doing.

39:58Katie Edmunds:So exciting to see the expansion in the States growing and hopefully new MPD and all sorts of exciting things to come in the UK. So for anyone who wants to keep in touch with you or find out more about what's going on with Trip, where are the best places to do that? LinkedIn is probably the easiest and best way. Reach out, drop me a message. I'm pretty much always on there at some point. So yeah, just reach out. Happy to chat. Fab. Yeah, I'll tag you in the show notes. But I really, really enjoyed this. And for anyone who still hasn't tried Trip, what drink would you say this is the one you need to go and try?

40:33I think, see, this is really hard because I feel very strongly towards the entire range. But we have just launched Strawberry, the wild strawberry, and it is so, so delicious. So definitely go and try that one.

40:45Katie Edmunds:And you get free Calm, what is it, 30 days or something? You get three months. So it's three months free premium membership to Calm. I'm actually drinking one right now. calm on the front yeah yeah so and it's give it a go Matthew McConaughey can tell you a sleep story I've never actually finished that sleep story um yeah I'm always asleep I think the other one is the soundscapes they are so good for white noise especially if you have a child like we we use the soundscapes almost every night even if I want to nap on a Saturday or something it's like right get the uh the sounds on like crashing waves or rain on leaves like all these ones it's just so nice just kind of tune out to so i rarely do the meditations but that is so worth doing but um no really really enjoyed this and thank you so much for spending your time with us of course thank you so much and to everyone listening we will see you on the next episode goodbye