Whitney Bell shares with us growing Clutch through the pandemic,

• Giving birth during the pandemic to joining Clutch during her maternity leave
• Her goal to turn Clutch into an iconic brand while engaging with a diverse customer base
• The impact of her MBA on her career

So, Whitney, how are you doing today?

[00:00:30] Dave Forde: Okay, so let's dig right into things. What's the first brand that you fell in love.

I found it a very aspirational brand. I've always been very loyal to them. And I think I had a love for Michael Jordan when I was little and I had a big poster of him up in my bedroom. And, uh, it [00:01:00] was like he was running his Nike's. So I think that's one, I've always been a big thing.

You have skills?

[00:01:17] Dave Forde: All right, there you go. So I conic brand. What is an iconic brand?

I think most iconic brands are really compelling at storytelling and they can build campaigns based on great insights. So in a previous life, I worked at Unilever and I remember as part of our training, they always, they had this art framework. They said that any type of like good marketing or cons had to be authentic, relevant and have a, a good talkability factor.

[00:02:00] Dave Forde: Now you're, you know, for the last couple of years, you focused mainly on the marketing side of, of business, of all the possible career paths. Why marketing?

And then, I went back and did my MBA and really at the time I thought. Just switching to finance, which I kind of laugh at now. But I think when I was doing that, I realized I was really drawn to all of the marketing courses. And so then I did, I made that transition into, into brand marketing and I've specifically been really drawn to like B to C marketing.

[00:03:05] Dave Forde: So an MBA, what would you say would be, you know, one or two of the biggest takeaways after having completed the.

And it, for me, it definitely made me realize like marketing was my passion. The second biggest takeaway I think is just like the network that you get from this. So even like today I've had two messages on like LinkedIn or email, like with a colleague or like alum from my program. So I've kept in touch with people.

So it's been really invaluable in that.

[00:03:55] Whitney Bell: Yes, I'm probably got understatement of the century, but the last two years of [00:04:00] probably two of the biggest changes in my life.

So we were both like very nervous, but on the bright side, it gave us something to look forward to. So that's been a really exciting time. And now he's, he's 17 months old. It's really fun. And then professionally. And while I was on my mat leave, I actually made the decision to leave my previous role.

It was really like a dream job getting to build this brand from the ground up and to like hire a team. So yeah, during the last two years, those are two big changes that happened, right.

[00:05:17] Whitney Bell: Yes, exactly.

While I was on mat leave. Yeah. I made the change. So, yeah, it was, it was a lot, cause I, yeah, I guess it was also new for me. That's like figuring out the working mom life and how that was going to go. But, so no, so far it's been pretty.

So describe what is.

Or combing through classifieds and making risky purchases from private [00:06:00] sellers in like sketchy parking lots. So enter Clutch, which is Canada's first and largest online car retailer. So we offer thousands of quality pre-owned vehicles available to be purchased online and then delivered directly to your door.

So Clutch has really modernized the way that Canadians buy and sell cars like before this there's really no other options to do this. And with. You can browse this large selection of vehicles and then access fully digital purchasing experience. So you can get your financing, your insurance, seamless home delivery.

And then if for any reason you decide, you know, at this car isn't for me, it doesn't fit my lifestyle. Then we have a 10 day money back guarantee. So you can we'll come pick up the car for free. No questions asked

[00:06:58] Whitney Bell: a vehicle.

[00:07:09] Dave Forde: Now you were the first marketing person for Clutch. Was that scary?

But I think when, when they hired me. My role was really to come in and like build out the team and figure out, you know, which functions we needed. What was our strategy moving forward? How are we going to build brand equity? So, yeah, I felt there was like a lot of pressure, but I also thought it was such an exciting opportunity to work for a Canadian B2C company that you know, was really relatively unknown and get to build that from the ground up

Again, you say Canadian, you know, beta. Talk a little bit about the growth over the last few years. Cause it sounds like now you guys are in what, six, seven, how many provinces across the country?[00:08:00]

[00:08:13] Dave Forde: Pretty aggressive.

[00:08:36] Dave Forde: now, can you talk a little bit about.

The challenges of building the brand prior to COVID during COVID and what you expect post COVID.

So at Lyft, obviously it's a ride sharing company. So like really everything I was working on had to be. Completely pivoted. Obviously people were very nervous about getting into rideshare, as well as like taking public transit. And so Mo yeah, most of the work I was working on there, we had to kind of rethink come up with new campaigns.

I like a lot of the previous campaigns have been, had been around, you know, like take a Lyft so you can like go out and have a night out and you don't have to worry about. Like drink, like drinking or anything like that. Whereas, Clutch was kind of the opposite. So when I came to Clutch, it was interesting because during the pandemic, I think it actually helped accelerate the growth of the company.

So people were nervous about taking rideshare. They're nervous about taking public transit. So we saw more people thinking about purchasing pre-owned cars. I think also during the pandemic, people got a lot more comfortable with purchasing things online. So, you know, we've seen Scott's but like how e-commerce has grown and.

And then there was also a value props that from a marketing perspective we could lean into so we could offer contactless delivery. So we have our field specialist who drops off the car and, Essentially, like, have you fill out your paperwork, do most things online, drop off the car. They didn't even need to come in contact with you.

And there you go. Like you have your car. So I think for quite a few people that was quite appealing as well.

[00:10:41] Whitney Bell: Exactly. We've people have made that comparison, like it's as easy as buying a pizza where you literally order online, it can be at your door.

Like as soon as the next day.

[00:11:04] Whitney Bell: Exactly. I think, yeah. The whole founding story was like our founder, Steve, back in 2016 and had a really frustrating part buying experience.

And I think he realized like there has to be better, easier way. And when you look at like many industries, it's really. The auto industry is kind of the last major industry that hasn't been like modernized or disrupted, really. So that's really what Clutch is aiming to do.

[00:11:36] Whitney Bell: Not at this time. I think there's such a big growth opportunity in Canada. We still have so much to do here. Definitely like amping up our PR our production in the markets we currently operate in and then expanding to new markets. So, no, definitely just focused on Canada for now.

They obviously have a lot of competitors. As you are now building Clutch, I'm going to assume that there's a few competitors out there to coach that are doing similar, business models. What are, what have you taken from other brands? Maybe Nike, maybe others to be number one, to be top of mind in a.

So, you know, Warby Parker, Airbnb Wealthsimple, they took, again, these industries that really hadn't been modernized and then they made them much more. Easy and convenient for people. So I think when we're looking at like, how are we developing our funnel? What are we doing in terms of our design for both like product and our marketing assets, we often will look to them to those types of [00:13:00] brands for inspiration.

[00:13:14] Whitney Bell: Yeah, that, that's a great question. So when I joined the team, yeah, the team had been, I mean, it was a very, very lean team. Didn't have big budgets, so very focused on.

Getting people into the funnel. And then 20, 22 has really been about testing more channels and experimenting, but also building that brand equity. So that's where things like our partnerships, our first brand campaign, which we just launched, [00:14:00] that's really coming into play. And

You know, there's a lot of sports teams out there. What, what was it that made the NHL standout?

Scale and like brand love that they have. We felt like, you know, ultimately that could help serve us as well. So, with the partnership we're doing like lots of fun fan experiences and contests, and it's given us the ability to just reach customers really nationally across the country. Cause you can find, you know, NHL fans in every province.

[00:14:53] Whitney Bell: That's a great question. It's actually quite a broad customer. We think of ourselves as being able to really service [00:15:00] everyone and being accessible to all. I would say our core customer tends to skew. A bit younger. They're early adopters, pretty tech savvy, but really honestly, if you look at like our deliveries every day, it's skews from like 17 year old to like, I think we've had like 80, 90 year olds as well.

So, I find that really interesting and fascinating reading the stories lately. I've also noticed that women are really drawn to our platform. I think a lot of women don't love the haggling process of dealerships. They often feel like they have to bring a male companion with them. So we hear that. Yeah, which like I thought that was a stereotype, but we hear this all the time.

[00:16:00] Dave Forde: So, I guess essentially somebody could be in a different country who is looking to move here, go onto Clutch, buy their car. And then basically when they arrive here, they could pick it up or it gets delivered to them.

[00:16:14] Dave Forde: Wow. Okay. I'm I'm still a little bit in shock because again, it's, it's a great story.

And I look forward to seeing, what happens with you guys moving from.

[00:16:33] Dave Forde: So to become one of those iconic brands one day,

Yeah. Like a kind of Canadian brands, which is a huge goal of mine.

[00:16:51] Whitney Bell: Thank you so much.