The Space Between…

Original Publish Date - October 29th 2018

What being a really good CBD company means.

Years ago, (and I do mean YEARS ago) when I was first starting my marketing career, I had the pleasure of working for a true marketing genius. I was a “wet-behind-the-ears” 24 year old novice with a year of sales experience behind me and a desire to be a whiz kid. Don was a middle aged family man, with graying, close-cropped hair and who carried too much weight around the mid-section, who had spent his entire career working for the same hospital products distribution company…the largest, oldest and most innovative in its time. Don had risen to the level of Director of Marketing, an enviable spot as he had the final say on any new products added to the system. Every company trying to add it’s products to the distribution catalogue had to get Don’s blessing, or be forever banished to the hospital distributors no one cared about.

As a young kid, I watched in amazement how Don would simply look at a product, and literally know in 10 minutes whether it would be a hit in the hospital world…or not. No extensive market research, no sales trials, just an intuition that seemed almost unworldly. Once the decision was made, that was it. And Don was never wrong…ever!

After witnessing what was to me, the most amazing display of marketing intuition for 6 months or so, one afternoon I walked into Don’s office, sat down in the institutionally-upholstered chair and asked “ Don, got a minute?” He looked up from his desk covered with papers and memos, peered over his half-readers, raised his eyebrows and simply looked at me. Assuming that qualified as a “yes”, I proceeded. “So let me ask you something, if you don’t mind” I began. “How do you figure out what products are winners, and which ones are losers? How do you do what you do? You know, have this uncanny knack for picking the right product?”

Don sighed a bit, and followed that with an ever- so- slight chuckle, dropped his pen (a Monte Blanc if memory serves me) and looked intently at me for a moment before answering. Then he proceeded with my very first lesson in intuitive marketing.

“Well, Tom” he said, “It’s not really all that complicated. It has to do with analyzing a product from a universal perspective.” He reached in the pocket of his suit pants and pulled out a large Swiss Army knife, and held it out in front of him. “See this?” he asked. “Notice there are 2 large red panels on either side. That’s not what makes this product such a valuable winner in the marketplace. It’s what lies between. Packed in these contraptions are all the different utensils that one could imagine needing throughout the day, or one of our way-too-many business trips (back then, there wasn’t any airport security to go through, so carrying a Swiss Army Knife while traveling was no issue). And that’s the secret in picking the right product. What need does it truly fill, and does it fill it better than anything else? If you can answer those questions, you’ve probably got a winner.”

He carefully folded the exposed blade of his knife, slipped it back in his pants pocket, pushed his glasses back on his nose, picked up his pen and returned to reading the memo I had interrupted. I sat there for a moment, trying to absorb what he had said, nonchalantly stood up, and eased my way back to my office.

This many years later, I can still vividly recall that conversation like it was yesterday. It’s a lesson that I’ve applied to the products I’ve developed and even patented throughout my career, and the same one I’ve applied here at Imbue.

We know what need or needs CBD can fill. That part’s easy. It’s the second part that’s oh-so-much-more difficult. You see it’s all about making a CBD product that truly works better than anything else. And in an industry filled with mediocre or worse products, making sure our customers can count on us for a truly efficacious product becomes even more crucial.

So that became our mission, indeed our mantra…to deliver the most efficacious products on the market.

And we think we’re doing just that. And for all of you who support our endeavor, we are most grateful. We’re pleased with what we’ve done. And I think Don would be too.

with all our best,

Tom