The Exchanges

Q um, was, was that initially you focused on a community Of people that you were a part of, which in your case was cyclists. You are an avid cyclist. You go, I know you do these long cycling trips through Europe and Italy multiple times a year. You started by getting the product into their hands, into cyclists' hands. Was that critical, do you think, to Clif Bar's eventual success?

A It was the path to success, for sure. Um, many ways to say that, but that's how I feel right now. Um, I, I think the two sports that I was, uh, deeply involved in were, well, three, actually, um, cycling. I did some triathlons before that, and then I was, uh, a client, I climbed since, at that point, I was about into 20 years of climbing, and so I went to each of those groups and would just pass out bars. And I knew I had a tiger by the tail when I was able to go to multiple, like, either climbing crags or bike races or whatever, and just literally hand out the bars out of my, out of my car.

AI assessment note: “It was the path to success, for sure.”

Q I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz and I'm with Gary Erickson. Um, so Gary, market share is obviously super important, right? Especially in a, in a crowded space. And, and as more and more competitors, uh, started to get into, into the energy bar space, um, how, how are you able to fend off the competition and stay ahead? Like what, what were some of the strategies that worked?

A I would argue that we were built through grassroots marketing. You know, we didn't, we did some print ads at the beginning, which did put us on the map. Um, but Kit and I would fly all over the country. And be cutting up bars and thousands of pieces of bars just at these marathons, and it was, it's so hard, but, and then we started hiring people to do that for us. We had a team of 25 people around the country, and then they had local people that they would hire for the weekend events, and I really think that's what put us on the map, but our product was, ah, inexpensive enough where we could actually give out whole bars, and they could experience that, and then the next thing you know, they're buying 12, 2400, and we built a lot of loyal I mean, we have such loyalty with a small group of people that buy the majority of our product.

AI assessment note: “I would argue that we were built through grassroots marketing.”

Q So your headquarters essentially in Emeryville is closed down right now, but you also, your manufacturing plants are still operating because presumably there's a demand for cliff bar. People are kind of want to keep things that, that are shelf stable and last for a while, I guess, is, have you seen a big increased demand for cliff bars?

A We did, and we did, there was a pretty good spike. At first, um, we were maybe in third place behind toilet paper and sanitizer. Um, but it's calmed down. You know, I think the, the uptick has, has mellowed out a little bit, but we're still, there's demand, demand is high. And, and also, you know, we know that our product is a really essential food for healthcare workers. So far, we've given out in the first part of March, 3.6 million bars to food banks and healthcare workers and frontline. And then we're on another, we're on the second round. We're now committed another three million. Uh, through a program we're calling, uh, um, baked with love and sent with gratitude.

AI assessment note: “We did, and we did, there was a pretty good spike.”

Q to conferences and just given talks, and, but there was something, like, what, what was the thing that prevented you from doing that? From, because that was, that would have been an easier route. You would have, and the quality of your life, like, the things you could buy and own and the way you could live would not have been substantially different from what, The way you live today.

A True. True. It would have probably, probably the same. Um, well, obviously it wasn't about money. There is, there was something deep about, you know, wanting to grow this business. And I mean, I think my wife says it very well, you know, it's, um, it's the, you know, the power of, yeah, the power of a lot of money could be good. You could donate a lot of money. You could start a foundation, all that, but the power of a business done the right way Is way more powerful than two rich people. Um, I don't want to overstate that because, you know, there's rich people that are doing some great things, but as the company has grown, we've gone from 60 to 400 employees now. You know, our community service program alone contributed over 10,000 hours of community service last year. We couldn't, we can't do that as two individuals, but we can as a company.

AI assessment note: “the power of a business done the right way Is way more powerful”

Q So you guys are sitting at the table. Quaker Oats says, we'll give you a hundred and twenty million bucks. This is in 2000. That meant you would have gotten sixty million. Your partner would have gotten sixty million. And you could walk away, and like, did you seriously, I mean, you were seriously thinking about doing this, right?

A Uh, more than serious. We had, uh, the deal essentially done on April, I know the date, April 17th, 2000. We were gonna meet our investment banker, the people from Quaker, and as well as all the lawyers to sign the deal, and that would have been it. And we had told the company what we were doing, told all the employees, and they trusted us. It was a naive Naive thing to say that things wouldn't change, but I still said it, and it was not true, and I knew it wasn't true, that of course it's going to change. I mean, it could be better, it could be worse, but you can't say it's not going to change. It's going to change. Yeah. And so, I left that morning for the office, knowing that's the day, and I was sitting in the office, waiting, and my partner was on the phone, talking to the lawyers, you know, dotting the, dotting the I's and crossing the T's on the contract, and she was, she was ready to sell. Oh, absolutely. It was, it was done deal in her, in her eyes, and she couldn't wait because she was very fearful of the future, and I understand that to some degree, but why would people walk away from buying our product if we didn't sell the company? I, I, I never, I was, for the three months that we were selling the company, I was just living in the dark. I was not sleeping well. I was not riding my bike. I was probably not very fun to be around, and I think I just, I was fighting i…

AI assessment note: “Uh, more than serious. We had, uh, the deal essentially done”

Q How did you, like, cope with that emotionally, mentally? Like, you had to run your company, and you were fighting off this other company that was trying to take you over.

A I, I think I've learned a ton With other things I've chosen to do in my life, like rock climbing, um, my friend uses the term, ah, sharp end of the rope, which means when you're rock climbing, you, you're either leading or following, and when you're leading, you're on the sharp end of the rope, you could take a pretty big fall, and I had done a lot of leading in my life on, in rock climbing, and I would, I was used to being in that position of facing danger, but being able to stay composed. The weird thing is, I actually climb better when I'm on lead than I'm following. And I'm still trying to figure out that, how that metaphor works, but it, because you are, you're in more danger if you're leading, but I, but I think I'm more focused when I'm leading. And so I was on this big lead. Now I've got this lawsuit. I've got the company growing. I've got all the manufacturing issues and, you know, collections and blah, blah. But I think because that, I was so focused, nothing was going to stop me.

AI assessment note: “I was used to being in that position of facing danger, but being able to stay composed.”

Q Gary, when you have been in crises in the past, certainly with this business, and when you think about it from a leadership perspective, what kind of advice could you give to somebody who is a leader, even if it's a small business, and they're kind of dealing with what's going on right now?

A Um, I, I, what's helped, what's helped us are a couple things. One is, um, don't be afraid to ask a question that has no answer. Um, kind of, that's off of a Wendell Berry, um, Mad Farmer manifesto poem of his about four decades ago. I mean, we are asking questions every single day that we have, we don't have an answer to, but you can't be afraid to ask those questions. And then if, and if you don't have an answer today, maybe you will tomorrow. And we've, I can't even count how many of the questions we've had to ask that don't have an answer. Maybe one could be like, um, what are we, what is it going to look like when we go back to the office? Like when we first step back into the office, when is that going to happen? And are we going to be walking around with face masks on? And are we going to be social distancing when we're back in the office? And how's it going to work when people, you know, eat and, you know, like we, we don't have an answer for that right now, but we're talking about it. And then the other part of it is just being attentive. You have to be hyper attentive to everything, every day, Um, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. And when, and if you're attentive to something that comes up and we get people emailing us saying, have you thought of this? What about this? How come this is, how come we're not doing this? Then you kind of figure out, then you ha…

AI assessment note: “what's helped us are a couple things. One is, um, don't be afraid to ask”

Q So your, your question was about breaking through, right? And, and your question for Gary is why should somebody eat a Clif Bar versus a competitor snack, you know, which you're trying to figure out how do we get people to get educated on what we're offering? Gary, where do you, where would you even start?

A No, boy. It's a tough one. It's changed over the last 30 years. It's changed so much. Uh, I, I'll start with our story. You know, in 1992, Um, it was really only Power Bar, and a few bars had come out during that time, but they were kind of like, they took the Power Bar ingredients, and they added, you know, a little more vanilla, or they, you know, a little more peanut butter or something. We created a completely different product, ok? And you're, you're, you're kind of like that, you're kind of not, like you're, you're, there's so many sunglass companies, I don't have to tell you. And there's some beautiful designs out there in all these companies, but you know, what is the difference? And we had this radically, we had to educate people that it is an energy bar. It just tastes better. And so we sampled a lot, which was, that was instant sale, but you can't get to everybody. So we did some print ads and we did a print ad called It's Your Body, You Decide. And it was going directly after Power Bar. And in five days, we had a lawsuit against Power Bar.

AI assessment note: “we had to educate people that it is an energy bar. It just tastes better.”