Be aggressive
How to take the lead on putting a good face on your brand
By Mark Scott
Smart Business Northern California | September 2009
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Kara Goldin, founder and CEO, Hint Inc.
Kara Goldin is passionate when it comes to spreading the word about Hint Inc., but she knows that no one can feel as strongly about the bottled water her company sells as she does.
“The people that care most about your brand are you and your company,” says the 30-employee company’s founder and CEO. “So you constantly have to be checking to make sure it’s happening. No one else is going to do it for you.”
Goldin’s passion for Hint’s unsweetened, flavored water comes from the heart as she and her husband did everything to make the company run in its early days. But despite the challenge that comes with getting others to feel your passion for your product, Goldin knew the company needed more people to make Hint a successful brand.
Today, Hint is available in more than 2,500 retailers across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Smart Business spoke with Goldin about how to make the right connections to get your brand out there.
Know your needs. We have had a ton of resumes over the past few years from people that have said they built organizations. I have built brands, and often if they have just worked for one of the big guys like Pepsi or Coke, that does not really say they have been in a start-up and that they can roll up their sleeves and get dirty.
You need a combination of people who have been in small organizations and have watched it grow to a larger organization and who have also managed teams and understand how to manage teams.
It is important to have people who have done this before, but you also need to have people who fit your company culture and live the brand. If our sales guys are out there on the street drinking Red Bull or Vitamin Water that’s filled with calories, it is not believable.
Bring in other people. We have a lot of people in on interviews. If one person is not comfortable with them, then we don’t hire them. It is important that if somebody sees that the person is not going to fit in well, it’s probably best for everybody, including the person looking for the job, not to hire them.
In some cases, we’ve learned that the hard way. I’ve said, ‘Oh, that person will be terrific and great,’ and our COO said, ‘I don’t know; I have concerns about this.’
Look beyond the resume. You want people to be inquisitive. You have to be able to be articulate about the product and ask the right questions and be able to engage in dialogue with these buyers. We always want people who have different experiences than we do and more experience than we do.
Why hire people if you can’t learn from them? That’s what life is about for us. I would much rather surround myself with people who know more than I do in certain areas or are better at tennis than I am so maybe I can learn from them. That’s life.
