A Cookie Feeds All Ages - Loren Brill - Defining Hospitality #004

Is anything as universal as a cookie?

Loren Brill, founder and CEO of Sweet Loren’s, stops by to talk about continuing her company's meteoric growth during a pandemic, building an inclusive culture, and setting an example for the next generation of female entrepreneurs. Check out some takeaways from this episode below:

• Food is more than just nourishment, it’s a way for us to connect with each other. Sharing food, especially healthy food, is a great way to build communities & make our bodies feel better in the process
• Loren’s advice for getting people to feel comfortable and open up: no judgement. Trust your team & celebrate their diversity by creating an open & welcoming environment.
• Loren grew her company on both coasts during the pandemic by non-work team building opportunities and being flexible with things like scheduling or remote working. And going up against established giants in the packaged food industry, their success comes from thinking about how they can outsmart their competition, rather than try to spend millions on marketing.
• One of the best ways to promote gender diversity in entrepreneurship is to give more visibility to female entrepreneurs. It helps normalize the idea for young girls that they can achieve their dreams and be part of the next generation of business leaders. 
• The key to a good hospitality experience: make everyone feel important. Going the extra mile for your customer, whether it’s a hotel guest or purchaser for a supermarket chain, is something that can be set up as a system and built into your culture. 
• Innovation and growth can come from anywhere, even customer suggestions. Good customer relationships can allow you to test new ideas in a way that creates honest and constructive feedback, while still relying on traditional industry research to identify open space in the market for innovation. 
• Loren’s advice to her younger self: Take advantage of every day. Make sure you’re enjoying as much of life as possible, and don’t be so hard on yourself. Because you’re capable of conquering your wildest dreams.

Quote of the Show:

20:46 - “We have amazing fans and we get emails and messages all the time from parents that say that their daughter loves our cookie dough and loves seeing the back of our package. I have the story of how I created Sweet Loren's in a picture of me. And I think them just seeing that and being like, oh my God, that's it, that's a pretty young female, like, I could do that. I can do whatever I want, and I think just having more, seeing more role models out there of women just normalizes it so that, whoever you are, whatever age you are, you don't think it's weird or super hard. You're not at a disadvantage. If you're female it's totally been done, it's totally doable. And women should dream as big as they want.” - Loren Brill 

Links: 

• Website: www.SweetLorens.com
• Twitter: @SweetLorens, @LorenBrill  
• Email: hello@sweetlorens.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sweet-loren's-llc/

Ways to Tune In: 

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0A2XOJvb6mGqEPYJ5bilPX
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-hospitality-podcast/id1573596386
• Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZGVmaW5pbmdob3NwaXRhbGl0eS5saXZlL2ZlZWQueG1s
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrpt8C461L_9n_6vezzZtkQ