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In this episode, we talk (actively) about listening! Plus, you’ll get to know the benefits of biophilic design in your office. That’s a way you can keep employees happy, potentially reduce sick days, and make your office more productive and also more attractive. Kasey Riley, CMO and Co-founder of The Fat Plant Society is ready to walk us through what’s possible in the world of moss.
Transcript:
Jeff Randolph:
Welcome to the Small Business Miracles Podcast. I’m Jeff Randolph. This small business podcast is brought to you by EAG Advertising & Marketing. We’re going to talk about marketing. We’re also here to celebrate entrepreneurs. We have marketing news and advice business owners can use to keep moving forward. Don’t miss our featured interview, this time with Kasey Riley from The Fat Plant Society. We’ll talk to her about that and the benefits of biophilic design right after this marketing tip.
Today’s marketing tip deals with something we all do, or at least we should all be doing better, and that’s listening. It doesn’t matter who you are, what your role is. If you’re in sales, obviously, listening to the person who is on the other side of that prospecting call or a meeting is heard, so that you can understand what their needs are, and address those. But it could also be because you’re in HR and you’re doing some kind of employee evaluation, and you’re listening to somebody’s concern, whatever that may be. You could have a meeting where everyone needs to collaborate and you all come together so that everyone is heard. Listening is one of the things that we don’t get right very often. Being an active listener is good. Being an active listener helps, because you’re listening, you’re giving verbal cues kind of like I do all the time when we’re doing an interview with a business owner and I’m interrupting all the time.
“Uh-huh. Yeah, no, absolutely.” Those kinds of things, you’re showing that you’re paying attention, but you can also be asking an open-ended question. You could be nodding and paying attention. You could certainly be off of your electronic devices while you’re doing that, so you give them the time of day. Why are we so bad at listening? And it turns out there are three big reasons why we typically don’t listen, and all it takes to get it right is just to pay attention and know that this is what you should be doing, that you should give that person the respect and benefit of actually paying attention to them. One of the reasons we don’t listen is because it’s a repeat problem. Imagine you’re in customer service and you’ve heard that same problem over and over again. “I can solve this problem in my sleep,” so we stop listening, we listen just enough to hear what that issue is, and then we stop listening at that point, because we can already solve it.
“I’m already six yards down the field, ready to solve your problem for you. I’ll just wait for you to catch up.” And others, just having experience. You can imagine if you are a physician, you’re a doctor, and you’re listening to a patient, and you’re having them describe what their symptoms are, and those symptoms are, “I can’t smell or taste anything.” “Well, obviously I stopped listening because I heard that you have Covid, is basically what I heard. So I’m going to stop listening at that point, and I’m not going to say anything else, or I’m not going to really pay attention to any of the other symptoms that you’re speaking about, because I already have diagnosed what the issue is.” If we stop, and we just pay attention, and we listen to the rest of that story, there may be something very, very valid in there, very valuable piece of information that we can stop and pay attention to, and that may change the way that we respond.
The other, the third reason we don’t listen is a heavy workload, right? I have six other things to do. I have other things that are priorities, and I may be under the gun. I may have a deadline. We’re stressed. And when we’re stressed, it’s tough to hear what’s happening. We’re focused on the chaos and productivity, and to me, you are an interruption, and nobody likes to feel like they’re an interruption. So if we give everybody the attention that they’re due, and we stop, as difficult as this can be in all instances, just stop and actually actively pay attention to what they’re saying. Listen and hear it. Repeat things back to them in summary, so that you are on the same page and you’re saying, “I understand what you’re saying. Here’s what I think I hear you saying.” So many different active listening techniques that we can employ to show that we’re listening, not just on paper, but actually show that we care, that we actually care about you and what you are saying to us, that will help us move forward. So go ahead, give it a chance. See if you can listen, and thanks for listening to this, too.
Hey, welcome back to the podcast. You may have been walking around your favorite locations in Kansas City, like restaurants, or sport in Kansas City, or a library and have noticed green walls, moss walls, some with a design, some with a logo, some a set of frames. You’ve probably noticed that these brightened the room and made you feel good. What you were seeing quite probably came from The Fat Plant Society, which is where this episode’s guest comes from. Please welcome Kasey Riley, the Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of The Fat Plant Society. Kasey, welcome to the show.
Kasey Riley:
Thanks for having me.
Jeff Randolph:
So first, let’s talk. So full disclosure, we have moss walls. We have three of them in our place, and every single time somebody comes in, they go, “Wow,” it’s a showstopper. What is The Fat Plant Society? Tell us more about that, as though we don’t have that in our office and know exactly what it is, for the listener at home.
Kasey Riley:
Sure, thank you. Well, we love to hear that. We love to hear that people like the work. The Fat Plant Society is a biophilic design studio. We specialize in real moss for interior design. So biophilic design, of course, is pretty large, and I wouldn’t say it’s complicated, but it’s a-
Jeff Randolph:
It’s a deep topic.
Kasey Riley:
It’s a deep topic. There are lots and lots of ways to approach biophilic design. We specialize in utilizing real nature of the various analogs and means by which someone could bring biophilic design into a space. We focus on utilizing nature itself. We specialize in moss, because it is so wonderfully sustainable. It doesn’t need to be watered, it doesn’t need to be misted. It doesn’t require any maintenance whatsoever. So it’s a wonderful way to bring greenery, real greenery into a space, without dealing with the maintenance part, both in terms of budget and time.
Jeff Randolph:
Now, I’ve heard you talk about biophilic design, because we both exist in the same kind of American marketing association, speak in circles and other places around that you’ve done speaking. And specifically on the biophilic design part, there are a lot of benefits that business owners and others, regular humans should know about. Tell me, just benefits of biophilic design. Why do we care? Why do we want to bring nature inside?
Kasey Riley:
Gosh, Stephen Kellert, who passed away some years ago, he was one of the first theorists to really start talking about biophilia. And one of the things that he said that I think is so important and poignant is that we know that not only is nature good for us, but that we actually need it. We’re sort of biologically hardwired to need nature. We love having green things in view. We love seeing them grow, and the benefits, they’re numerous. It restores attention. So just looking up and out, if you’re task oriented and you look up and away from the computer screen and out, say, to a window that has a beautiful tree-lined view, or you look up and you see a pillow moss frame, within about 40 seconds, your attention is going to be restored. Your brain is going to just take a, “Ahh,” relax, and allow you to focus once again on the task at hand.
So in that attention restoration piece, it’s also improving productivity. But there are other benefits of moss, specifically. Moss happens to be a noise dampening material. So it’s an acoustic material. It cleans the air of volatile organic compounds, particularly the reindeer moss we use. If you look at, it’s so porous. It’s cleaning the air of volatile organic compounds. So there are numerous benefits, but for the average person, and when I think about your listeners, it brings greenery, and we like to think joy, into a space. And without outlining the things that make for a bad space, we do know that poor building design actually accounts for about 10% of absences of absences.
Jeff Randolph:
Of sick days, right?
Kasey Riley:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah, because you’re not able to keep… Yeah, so it reduces the number of sick days. I think that’s between two and $4,000 per year in savings, for recapturing sick days from employees that didn’t take them.
Kasey Riley:
Exactly right, exactly right. So when you think, I mean, we’ve all had that moment where whether it’s a meeting, you wake up in the morning and you think to yourself, “Oh, I don’t want to go to that place.”
Jeff Randolph:
Yes.
Kasey Riley:
We don’t want that place to be the office where you go every day. We want that place to be the place where you think, “Oh, okay, I’m going to go to work, and there I’m going to see my teammates, and my coworkers, and my colleagues, and possibly some friends, but I’m also going to see some greenery. I’m going to have a better experience than I would…” The isolation we all experienced during the pandemic was not insignificant. I know my ideation suffered for it. So the idea behind it is that you want to create a space that people look forward to going to.
Jeff Randolph:
I caught a stat from, I think it was just honestly from one of your blogs that you did, that was 33% of workers say the office environment itself influences whether or not someone wants to work there. And that if your environment has plants, and is bright, and lively, that is preferred by two thirds of respondents. So you walk in for an interview, and if the place looks like, and here, I’m just saying, EAG has moss walls in places, you should want to be here. And I think people do.
Kasey Riley:
Well, and I love… You’re also positioned so that when someone, the minute they walk in the door, that greenery greets them. And I love everything about this office. I love everything about this building. It’s staggered rooms. There’s so much color and it’s vibrant. I look forward to coming here.
Jeff Randolph:
I know later I may ask a question about a favorite project or something, but I don’t want it to be this one. You should…
Kasey Riley:
I’ll try to be impartial.
Jeff Randolph:
Strive for something else.
Kasey Riley:
I’ll try, I’ll try. But yeah, people, you want them to look forward to going to a place. And I think with regard to whether it’s recruiting or retention, I know my takeaway from people who have plants, or have greenery, or just have taken the care to create an environment that is productive and happy, and conducive to both task oriented work as well as collaboration. When you don’t see visual cues that tell you that that’s in place, to me, that says that this might be a place that doesn’t care about me, either. And now, granted, I’ll acknowledge my own bias. That might be my bias, but I’m thinking if you don’t care about the place you’re working, then how do you care about the people that work there? Those two things tend to go together for me.
Jeff Randolph:
Fair, fair. When you’re doing projects like this, tell me the scope of the different kind of projects. I know you do not just the walls, but you can do your logo in moss. That’s a very customized kind of piece, but you also do frames and stuff. Tell me, what does the product line look like? What is possible in moss?
Kasey Riley:
Well,, anything, anything, just about any… Truly, one is hard pressed to think of what you couldn’t do. One of my favorites truly is a project that we did for VMO, [inaudible 00:12:21] excuse me, [inaudible 00:12:22]. They wanted a heart, and that heart was… Oh, my stars, it’s five feet wide, three feet long, and it’s comprised of metal. That was a wonderful, fun project to work on, but it’s a giant heart with Kansas City right there in the center.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, wow.
Kasey Riley:
And so that was what VMO wanted to do as that [inaudible 00:12:45] change was taking place, and they were bringing in visitors from across the globe. They, which I love, wanted to show their Kansas City pride. They wanted for people to associate, especially those who might not be familiar with that abbreviation, KC. So that was something they did as they flew everybody in from all over the world, to have them meet here in Kansas City. Custom projects like that, all the way to large, full walls. We had the wonderful opportunity to create a full wall that goes around a corner out at Sporting KC.
Jeff Randolph:
I think I saw the Sporting KC one on Instagram. Same with there was one at Fresh Karma Dispensary here in town, where it wasn’t just the wall, because I think dispensaries love that for all of the greenness that it’s bringing in. But the light, there was a hanging light, a drop light, and then a circle of moss, and just vibrant green life around the light. Is there nothing you can’t do, I guess?
Kasey Riley:
Well, thank you. Those are really fun to create. And actually, it’s kind of an interesting story behind that light fixture. The wood that’s used for those, we work, that’s a collaboration between ourselves and another Kansas City company, HKN Design. And what HKN does is they actually utilize recycled drum drops. So when you think about the construction of an orchestral drum, with any production, there’s always going to be a little bit of waste. And so this wood that’s being used to create these drums, when they slice it off the top, you end up with this curved wood. And what HKN does is they just go ahead and they take that curvature a little bit further, and they’ve created these beautiful wood circular frames, that one afternoon, we got to thinking, “Hey, turn it over, see what can happen.”
There’s probably no place we haven’t tried to stick moss to see what would happen, up to and including outside, just so we know what it does. And it’s a rootless plant, so it’s a very interesting organism in and of itself. But an LED strip, and we worked with, that was HKN Design, Deluxe Lighting & Electric, and ourselves. And those fixtures are also, they may be seen at Tower Tavern. Tower Tavern’s got those, for our Tower Tavern fans, that’s in their event room, and their location up on 31st Street. And yeah, I got to admit, I am partial to those light fixtures. I really like them.
Jeff Randolph:
And I like, it bears repeating, I think, that if you’re hanging something upside down, it becomes very difficult to water that. And because this doesn’t require water, it doesn’t have that same upkeep and maintenance thing.
Kasey Riley:
Exactly
Jeff Randolph:
It is a fascinating product. So we know what The Fat Plant Society is, and what you do, and the benefits of biophilic design. I want to shift a little bit and talk about promoting the business, because, of course, we’re talking to business owners here, because I have also heard you speak, and I know that you talk at length about content marketing. Let’s talk a little bit about how you promote The Fat Plant society, the kinds of things that you do. You also have that chief marketing officer hat on. So tell me about content or the kind of marketing that you do.
Kasey Riley:
Well, it was interesting. When I first started writing about biophilic design, it was not a commonly used word yet. Most people, I would say nine out of 10 people had never heard of it, didn’t know what it was, didn’t know anything about it.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah, term that’s been around since the ’70s, and yet-
Kasey Riley:
And yet…
Jeff Randolph:
Nobody qualifies for those keywords.
Kasey Riley:
No, it’s true. Thank you. It’s true. So the content that I was creating and just explaining, “What is biophilia?” Biophilia means, basically, it’s a love of life and things that are living, “biophilic” is “of life”. So it was very, frankly, I don’t want to say “easy”, but it was kind of a no-brainer to just explain that terminology, just kind of start with the basics. And so those posts, there’s a couple of posts that I consider foundational for the content, and I try to be diligent about updating them annually. The first one is moss walls versus living plant walls, which one is best for your needs and desires?
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, God, yes. Yes, please.
Kasey Riley:
And isn’t it surprising that the SEO world would even take that? That title is long, but it also speaks to how we feel about plant, and I really mean it. The title is not only for SEO purposes, it also reflects how we feel, right? We adore living plant walls. We think they’re absolutely wonderful, but we want to spell out for people which one is best for your needs and desires. What are you trying to achieve and which one of these is going to work best for you? And then the other article that I would think of as a foundational article is the article that explains those terms, biophilic design, biophilia, biomimicry. What are these terms, and what do they mean, and why do they matter? And what’s been wonderful is since 2016, the interest in these topics has grown exponentially. It was surprising.
Jeff Randolph:
More research is done, we find out more about why biophilia matters, especially in a working environment. And so people start looking for it more. Your content is there, ready to go. That’s a delightful way to go. And one of the things I like about the kind of content you put out is that you’re educating, right? You’re talking about the benefits of the whole program. You’re not super hardcore, say, “Hey, have you ever thought about having a logo made out of plants?”
Kasey Riley:
Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
And it’s not that. You’re teaching, you’re educating, and yet all of the content sells. It makes the point for you, you’re doing those things.
Kasey Riley:
Thank you. Thank you. Well, I mean, you want to write what you know, first of all, and you want to write who you are. William Bernbach, DDB Worldwide-
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah, I know him, yeah. Doyle Dane Bernbach.
Kasey Riley:
Exactly. That guy, he’s done a few things. And it’s like, he’s got a few notches on his belt. He said that actually he felt that good communicators have a particular insight into human nature, and that it is that insight into human nature and sort of understanding how people want to be spoken to, and spoken with, and spoken about. If you’ve got that insight, and that’s a really vital skill to develop, because then it will improve all of your communication. So you want to write, you want to patronize, you want to educate, well, not patronize…
Jeff Randolph:
Yes, right. And you’re putting out content that you’re sharing in different places and everything. But the other thing that I like about what I just heard was that you have this foundational content, you know that’s foundational content for your website, and you don’t have to rewrite new content all the time. You update the current content. You can just improve the thing that’s there, update it with new information, make it longer, make it more of a real solid piece on the website, and that’s doing the work for you. You don’t have to come up with 10 new ways that you’ve never phrased it exactly this way before to say the same thing, so you’re doing a great job.
Kasey Riley:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, thank you, thank you. Well, the other thing that I think has been beneficial was, and there’s a big debate, as I’m sure you know, do we keep dates on our articles or do we strip it of dates? What to do? What to do? Many people, when they go to look for articles, they want to see something is fresh.
Jeff Randolph:
Fresh, yeah. “Is this from 2016? Because the world has changed.”
Kasey Riley:
Exactly. Well, I mean, so then there’s the pre-pandemic/post-pandemic world. So you go, “Oh, wow, 2019, is it?” So that was what sort of pushed me toward updating those articles, because I knew the content was still relevant. I did genuinely refresh the content, and I would do fresh research, because I wanted the links, and I’m always very careful to cite and link, and give everyone the credit that they well deserve, but I want my links that I’m utilizing to be relevant and fresher as well. And so again, when we look about when think and look at our environments, our physical environments, pre-pandemic versus post-pandemic, I mean, I think many of us really truly conceive of our environments very differently than we used to.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. You share this content out. I know, I follow and see things on Instagram and on LinkedIn. You’re in the social media channels you would expect. Does one of them play first place and then second place, or how do you favor one versus the other?
Kasey Riley:
Yeah, and there used to be a time where I was trying to make sure that I hit everything, that I was covering every single base, from here to the end of the road. And what I have found in recent years is that I might be better off focusing on two to three, and doing a really good job with those, or doing the best job I can do with those. And that might mean that others sort of drop by the wayside, the Metaverse. So Instagram is my number one-
Jeff Randolph:
Primary, yeah, highly visual. When somebody sees the Sporting KC wall, for example, that does everything you need it to do.
Kasey Riley:
And the whole platform was designed to be visually focused. That’s what it’s for. That’s what it does. And then when Meta decided to marry, and I do thank them for this, when they married your sharing, and it enabled me to be able to share that content to Facebook at the same time-
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah, easier for sure.
Kasey Riley:
That was handy. I mean, I can tell you it’s cut hours from my day, being able to do that simultaneously. And I do now, I will say it’s important to check. I think it’s very, very important to check. You don’t just share blindly. I know that it’s sharing to both platforms, but then I’ll go into Facebook and make sure that nothing looks wonky and that things are appearing as they should. Of course, there are always glitches, and that’s what the delete button is for.
Jeff Randolph:
True.
Kasey Riley:
But those, picking a few channels, in our case, it’s Instagram, our website itself, and to a degree, LinkedIn, because of course-
Jeff Randolph:
It’s the business audience who is buying and you should be there. Yeah.
Kasey Riley:
Exactly. And I find that I encounter some content that’s relevant to my life and it’s serving me up things that… So I generally, I never open LinkedIn without finding an article that piques my interest and gives me something. So even that 15 minutes, trying to glean as much as I can out of it.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah, absolutely. I’ll take the chief marketing officer hat off for a second and put on the business owner hat. What’s the best business advice you’ve ever gotten?
Kasey Riley:
That’s a good one.
Jeff Randolph:
Talking to those other business owners out there, what do you think?
Kasey Riley:
You’re going to make mistakes. I mean, I know that’s not advice, it’s just a fact.
Jeff Randolph:
Well, it can be good advice, though, let’s say, “Just understand this happens and you can move on.”
Kasey Riley:
You’re going to make mistakes. And sometimes those mistakes are going to be expensive, and that is not fun. But arguably, the more… I believe it was a wonderful person in our lives who shared it with us, the more expensive the mistake, the greater the lesson.
Jeff Randolph:
True, true. Totally true.
Kasey Riley:
And I sound like I belong to the cult of DDB, but William Bernbach also said, “The principle only counts when it costs you something.”
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, yeah. Very deep.
Kasey Riley:
I know, it’s very deep. And that quote is on my refrigerator, and it’s there for a couple of reasons. And it all goes into that sort of pot of mistake making. In making mistakes, you kind of figure out where your values lie, and who you are and you aren’t. So another piece of advice that is very, very valuable that we received early on was don’t say yes to everything. Because you can’t.
Jeff Randolph:
You can’t.
Kasey Riley:
You can’t. No one can. And then knowing when not to, but I think those principles, so in our case, we tout ourselves as a sustainable and environmentally conscious/friendly… Insert any other number of words here, but we want to walk the talk. We want to make sure that… So we made a decision a few years ago to not source our moss from overseas.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah.
Kasey Riley:
Reduce that carbon foot-
Jeff Randolph:
The green. Yeah, still being the green thing. Yeah.
Kasey Riley:
Yeah, so our moss is sourced entirely in the United States. That has cost us money sometimes. That has meant at times, “Sorry, your project. We can’t get to your project for at least six weeks, maybe eight weeks, maybe 12,” because luckily we know enough about where our product comes from, that we know that one has to allow for regrowth. So you don’t want to-
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, yeah, yeah, so it’s sustainable.
Kasey Riley:
Exactly.
Jeff Randolph:
Because that’s important to the whole thing, too.
Kasey Riley:
We don’t want to kill off moss. We don’t want to over-harvest moss. And it was easy. Although while it had a price tag associated with it, it was an easy decision for us not to decide not to ship from overseas, because that’s a pretty significant carbon footprint.
Jeff Randolph:
Well, and I know that you use reindeer moss as one of those things, and we don’t grow as many reindeer as we can. If you’re going to harvest reindeer to create reindeer. No, wait, that’s probably, may not be how it works… I’m not used to…
Kasey Riley:
It’s interesting that they call it reindeer moss here in the US, because actually, a lot of that moss that many of the producers across the world are using actually comes from Norway, in the land of reindeers, or reindeer, reindeer, reindeers?
Jeff Randolph:
We’re going to have to look that one up, yeah.
Kasey Riley:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
Anyway, okay, so let me do this. Let’s switch to the lightning round. Are you ready for the lightning round?
Kasey Riley:
Ooh, I’m sitting up at my chair.
Jeff Randolph:
Here’s what’s happening with the lightning round. You don’t have any advanced knowledge of anything I might ask. So we gave you a broad direction on where our conversation might go before, now you have no idea. And so everything is for real now. These are shorter answer. You can sound bite it if you want. If we need to dive into something, we certainly will. But let’s go into the lightning round. Ready? Here we go. What’s the best part of your job? What is it that you look forward to doing?
Kasey Riley:
I love working with the moss itself.
Jeff Randolph:
Really, the product?
Kasey Riley:
Yeah, and I don’t get to do… “Get to,” I just felt my husband roll his eyes. You can feel that, by the way, after you’ve been married for so many years, you can feel your spouse roll their eyes even when you’re not in the same room.
Jeff Randolph:
And I should pause just long enough to say that your husband, Morten Klinte, is the other co-owner. You are both in this together.
Kasey Riley:
Yes.
Jeff Randolph:
We didn’t do a good job of describing his role in any way when we started this podcast. Sorry about that. Sorry, Morten.
Kasey Riley:
We didn’t, we didn’t. So I just felt another eye roll.
Jeff Randolph:
Another eye roll. One more.
Kasey Riley:
Yeah, there it was. One more. Yeah. And Morten Klinte, born and raised in Copenhagen, Denmark. We chose to return from Copenhagen, and founded this business together, and it’s been wonderful, but I don’t get my hands in the moss as often as I would like. This week, for example, I had an opportunity on Monday, when it finally stopped icing, when it’s finally safe to walk on the sidewalk, I had an opportunity to go down to the workshop and finish off of an installation that we did this week. And it makes me happy, the tactile aspect of it. I love it.
Jeff Randolph:
Next question, your moss wall installations, and logo, and branding stuff has been in some of the coolest places in town. We may have touched on a favorite at some point. If we had to officially say, “This is my favorite project,” I would stare at this every day. If I had a new business prospect walk in, I would immediately send them this picture. You should do something cool.
Kasey Riley:
Yeah, real talk. I struggle to not over-post EAG photos. No, because again, I love this workplace. There’s just so much going on here visually. Again, the staggered work areas, the bookshelves, the ladder that complements the-
Jeff Randolph:
The library feel.
Kasey Riley:
Yeah, the library feel, just all of it. And then the frame that you’ve got in the back of the building as well. I like everything about it. Another one of my favorites is River Market Dental.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, really? Okay.
Kasey Riley:
And that is actually, we worked with a local interior designer, Josue Montes. 1 Dapper Latino is where you can find him on Instagram. And he created what I call a moss alley. So River Market Dental, of course, in the River Market. It’s a historic building, like this one. And maybe that’s my… I love these historic buildings. They just seem to have some, just…
Jeff Randolph:
Character.
Kasey Riley:
Yeah.
Jeff Randolph:
Real character.
Kasey Riley:
Yeah. Things happened here. Many things have happened here over time. And so they’ve got a lot of dark wood paneling and he created this one, it’s a moss alley, and it’s just a row of pillow moss frames, one down the other. And I like that project also because I am petrified of the dentist.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, it calms you right down when you’re walking back there to get the scraping done? Oh.
Kasey Riley:
We like to think so. And then you stop thinking about, “Oh, what are they going to do to me?” And you get fixated on that instead. And you couldn’t see it from some of the dental chairs. I like the way that one turned out.
Jeff Randolph:
Everything you just said, and I think this is very much the whole back in touch with nature and that kind of thing, everything you just said about that process is screaming Temple Grandin to me, and that she created the cattle shoot where they don’t know what’s going on until the very last minute, when it’s about to be a bad day. Everything screams that. You’ve recreated biophilic design and Temple Grandin cattle slaughter into the dentist’s office. Well done, Kasey. Well done.
Kasey Riley:
Right? Everything just goes more smoothly when we’re not panicking.
Jeff Randolph:
Perfect.
Kasey Riley:
When we’re not frightened and panicking.
Jeff Randolph:
Next question, you are an entrepreneur. What part of your business do you wish you knew more about?
Kasey Riley:
Pricing.
Jeff Randolph:
Interesting.
Kasey Riley:
Pricing, hands down.
Jeff Randolph:
Easiest thing to change, toughest thing to get right.
Kasey Riley:
Exactly. It’s complicated. It’s very, very complicated. On the one hand, obviously ,you’ve got to earn money. On the other hand, you want to make sure that the product remains accessible. And then where that overlap between branding and pricing, that’s… Talk about a deep and complicated topic.
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah, the case studies of brands that put out a product and they charge too little for it, nobody wanted to buy it, and as soon as they raised the price, it flew off the shelf, because it can’t possibly be this cheap and be good.
Kasey Riley:
Exactly. And the flip side are products that people may be willing to pay far more for by virtue of the fact that it’s considered a luxury item. And so, we try to find that middle ground between the two. Because we feel that biophilic design is so important and biophilia really does make a difference in people’s lives, we don’t ever want to price ourselves out of the market or become this super exclusive thing. That doesn’t feel right, so it’s riding that line.
Jeff Randolph:
Pricing. Good answer, good answer. I’m going to ask you a question about a takeaway from being a professor, because we first met at Abilene University, where you were part of the full-time faculty. I was somewhere between working in the marketing department and teaching as an adjunct in the MBA program. But you’ve also taught English language and business in Copenhagen. What do you take away from all of that time as a professor?
Kasey Riley:
Oh, that’s a great question. That’s a really good question.
Jeff Randolph:
See, that’s why we do the lightning. That’s for this kind of thing.
Kasey Riley:
Gosh, it’s not answering the question. See, because my first response is the thing that I miss most about teaching.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh yeah, no, go ahead.
Kasey Riley:
In general, is how much it energizes me.
Jeff Randolph:
Oh, I hear exactly what you’re saying. You’re on your toes, you’re listening to somebody, you are reacting to whether they get it or not, and you’re dialed in. Absolutely.
Kasey Riley:
And you’re watching all those non-verbals. And as I used to tease my fundamentals of communications course, I’d be like, “Hey, everybody,” when we would do the unit on nonverbal communication, “By the way, just because I’m standing up and you’re sitting down doesn’t mean I can’t see you. Roll your eyes.” See how that works?
Jeff Randolph:
Yeah, yeah.
Kasey Riley:
But it’s all of that real time. And then the best part of teaching is the questions that you get, the questions. A, you want people to be engaged, and then B, being surprised by a question. And then further, being able to say, “You know what? I don’t know. Let’s find out.” And I think about being in the classroom today and how technology lends itself so well to being able to do that. When to be able to go through the, “Hey, you know what? I don’t know.” And how could anybody know everything anymore?
Jeff Randolph:
Exactly, yeah.
Kasey Riley:
“But let’s find out together.” And then that gives, one, an opportunity with the student. And this is at any age and any discipline, to really focus on media literacy. So if we’re going to find out, let’s learn from each other about how we suss out the information that the Google machine is feeding us. How do we sort through that?
Jeff Randolph:
Right, right, and when you have a class that is actually engaged and they can immediately Google something and call you out on, you got the brand right, “You said Motorola, but it’s actually Nokia,” whatever that is, they can do that. And you have that live discussion where everything is, “Ah, yeah.”
Kasey Riley:
Yeah. Then they hold up their phone and they point at it and go, “See? See how wrong you are?”
Jeff Randolph:
That’s right. They love that, they love that. This is our last question. We’re done with the lightning round. I’ll get you out of the lightning round and we’ll say where can people find you? If they want to know more information, if they want their own everything wall, if they need to develop a green cattle chute before the dental practice scares you to death, what happens?
Kasey Riley:
The Fat Plant Society. The name was chosen because we, just by virtue of appreciating green things, you’re a member. So thefatplantsociety.com, @thefatplantsociety on Instagram and Facebook, and @thefatplantsociety on LinkedIn. But you can also find me personally, I will admit that I utilize my personal LinkedIn more than the company. So if you wanted to interact with me, please feel free to find me, Kasey L. Riley on LinkedIn, and you’ll see the company name there as well.
Jeff Randolph:
Well, Kasey L. Riley at LinkedIn, Co-Founder and CMO of The Fat Plant Society, thanks for being with us on the podcast today.
Kasey Riley:
Thank you so much for having me, I had fun.
Jeff Randolph:
And that is our show. Thanks to Kasey Riley from The Fat Plant Society for being with us today. And thank you for listening to the Small Business Miracles Podcast. Remember to subscribe. Leave us a five star rating and review. Drop us a line on the website at eagadv.com, if you have any thoughts. Until then, we’re going to be out here helping entrepreneurs with another small business miracle.