In this episode of the Ecommerce Evolution Podcast, host Brett Curry welcomes Mickey Winter (CEO) and Carrie Weidenbach (COO) of Aysnd, a digital agency specializing in purpose-driven ecommerce brands. As industry veterans with decades of combined experience, they share invaluable insights on maintaining brand mission during economic uncertainty, particularly amid recent tariff challenges. This conversation delivers practical strategies for navigating market pressures while staying true to your brand's core values and purpose.

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Sponsored by OMG Commerce - go to (https://www.omgcommerce.com/contact) and request your FREE strategy session today!

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Chapters: 

(00:00) Introducing Carrie & Mickey

(02:22) Navigating Tariff Chaos and Supply Chain Diversification

(04:19) Defining Purpose-Driven Brands

(06:29) Pricing & Profitability in Uncertain Times

(12:25) Carrie & Mickey’s Background

(16:50) The Conscious Commerce Maturity Matrix & Level One, Awareness

(22:29) Level Two, Scaling

(27:06) Level Three, Optimizing

(32:38) Level Four, Leading

(36:15) Level Five, Pioneering

(39:38) Staying Mission-Driven in Uncertain Times

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Connect With Brett: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebrettcurry/ 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@omgcommerce 
• Website: https://www.omgcommerce.com/ 

Relevant Links:

• AYSND: https://www.aysnd.com/
• Mickey’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickeywinter
• Carrie’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carrie-weidenbach-a5272aa
• BOOM! Beauty: https://boombeauty.com/
• Patagonia: https://www.patagonia.com/home/
• AB InBev: https://www.ab-inbev.com/

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Past guests on eCommerce Evolution include Ezra Firestone, Steve Chou, Drew Sanocki, Jacques Spitzer, Jeremy Horowitz, Ryan Moran, Sean Frank, Andrew Youderian, Ryan McKenzie, Joseph Wilkins, Cody Wittick, Miki Agrawal, Justin Brooke, Nish Samantray, Kurt Elster, John Parkes, Chris Mercer, Rabah Rahil, Bear Handlon, Trevor Crump, Frederick Vallaeys, Preston Rutherford, Anthony Mink, Bill D’Allessandro, Bryan Porter and more

Every one of us that starts a

business, we have this vision,

this creative vision of

doing something important and

providing a service or providing meaning.

And sometimes as companies

grow, they lose sight of that.

Well, hello and welcome to another edition

of the E-Commerce Evolution podcast.

I'm your host, Brett

Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce.

And today I have two very special guests.

We got female co-founders of Ascend.

And when I say that these two are

legends in the e-comm and D two C

space, I'm not exaggerating,

they've done some amazing things,

worked with some amazing brands you're

going to hear about in just a minute.

But we've got Mickey

Winter, the CEO of Ascend,

and Carrie Weidenbach, the COO of Ascend,

and they focus on working

with purpose-driven

e-com brands and creating

solutions for them.

And so we're talking about today is one,

how can you remain purpose-driven

in a time of uncertainty?

So when there's margin pressure,

which there has been in our space for

some time at the time of this recording,

there's tariff chaos in the industry

that no one knows exactly what to

do with. And so when there's times

of uncertainty or change or chaos,

how do you stay purpose-driven in that?

And then we're going to look at what they

call the maturity matrix and see where

you are as a brand on that matrix and

how you can get to the next level.

And so with that, Mickey, Carrie,

welcome to the show and how's it going?

Thanks for having us, Brett.

We really appreciate taking this

time to talk with you today.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And it's one of those things we connected

because Carrie, you and I go way back,

Mickey, we've met more recently, but

Carrie and I go way, way back. In fact,

I think it'd be interesting

to note, Carrie,

when did we first start working

together through Classical Lama?

That was like 2011 or

something like that, maybe 12.

I dunno this forever ago.

It's definitely over 10

years ago, over a decade.

And we've done a ton of

exciting projects together.

But let's dive into this

tariff conversation.

Because.

People have to be nimble and

quick and adjust to this.

And what we're seeing across

the board is if you have

a strong foundation in your

values, in your purpose,

you can really weather

this storm of tariffs.

So we look at brands like Allbirds,

they build sustainably for

their shoes and they have

their resourcing based on that,

their suppliers based on that.

They have a diverse supply chain

based on the sustainability. And so

they can adjust and

refocus their supply base.

So I would say that's your

number one strategy is having a

diversified supply base divers.

So you're not just dependent on China.

Brazil is a really appealing

country to do work with.

That's what All Birds

has as an alternative.

And so they're just shifting more

of their supply base to Brazil.

Yeah,

we're hearing that from a number of

brands and the brands that are in better

shape now than others are those that

have been working on diversifying the

supply chain,

not something you can just kind of snap

the fingers and get a new factory or a

new group making your

stuff in another country.

So those that had the foresight and

we're like, Hey, see this coming.

We've heard of some that

have pre-purchased inventory

for the year that was a

winner. I've talked to a

brand today that did that.

So they've locked in their pricing,

gather, got everything imported.

Not everybody can do that.

But then others have worked

to diversify the supply chain,

which makes a ton of sense.

Do you think there's,

and we would love if you have a

point on that as well, Mickey,

but is there something

also about being, well,

let's maybe step back and define what

does it mean to be purpose driven or

mission driven and give some examples.

You want to tackle that one, Mickey?

Sure.

Sure.

So it's taking your values

as a brand and using that as

your north star when it

comes to making decisions.

It helps to create this pathway that

you can balance and take

trade-offs on when you're

consistently looking at what

your ultimate purpose is,

be it being a sustainable

brand. Being a brand who,

one of the brands that I've worked

with in the past Garden of Life is

supplements. So thinking about them,

they focus on creating

supplements that are fully

organic made with Whole

Foods and sticking to that

as their base mission

and not veering from it.

Because ultimately what it's

going to do is create this

strong connection with

their customer base.

And the customer base can trust

that they will consistently

follow their mission and use

that as the driving strategy,

but then making the decisions based

off of your mission. So it's

really whatever your purpose is,

it's really using that

as your guiding light.

Yeah, I love that.

And in some ways that can really

help with messaging during this time.

So you are Garden of Life and maybe you

are about to have to raise your prices.

You communicate to your customers, Hey,

here's why we will never

compromise on these ingredients

or this approach to our product.

We're going to be sustainable.

Come hell or high water,

we're going to deliver good ingredients

for you because we believe this is why

we're here.

So to do that and to not

to keep the doors open,

you think of an elegant way to say that

we've got to raise prices a little bit,

and I think your core audience

will likely understand that piece.

And when it comes to the

prices and the price increase,

you want to be as transparent

as possible with your customers.

So we've even seen

examples where brands are,

you're in the checkout flow, you didn't

even enter the checkout flow, actually,

you're in the cart and within the

cart you see your estimated tax,

your estimated shipping,

and the estimate on tariffs,

the additional charge for tariffs.

So it's not something that's hidden,

it's not something you're burying.

And we've always found that e-commerce

brands who are very transparent about

the total cost of ownership and the total

expense that their customers are going

to have to spend, then they're

more likely to convert in the end.

Otherwise you're going to get a lot of

abandoned carts and people are going to

be confused as to why is everything

so high once I'm ready to

pull.

The trigger. Interesting. So yeah,

I've heard a few people talk about

that and I would love to hear your

perspectives and make you

sort of laid it out there,

but would love to hear how this has gone.

So I know that there's one

camp of people that say,

just raise the price and

for certain categories,

the consumer will just deal with it,

other competitors are raising prices,

it's just going to be the new normal.

Others say some of what

you just said where hey,

keep the price the same in the cart,

we're adding a line for tariff,

obviously then customers will see that

that's going to change the total things

like that.

Does that cause a spike

in abandoned carts or

have we not seen that have that

impact? Is it too early to tell?

What's your perspective on that?

Yeah,

so Mickey and I are always proponents

of testing things with your customers

using test strategies to

determine the tolerance

for pricing changes.

So there's a lot of tools out there

that are dynamic pricing tools where you

can test this also with customers to see.

What.

Their level of tolerance is for just

tacking on this tariffs surcharge.

In some industries, it's very

dependent on the industry,

how price sensitive your product is

for what your strategy's going to be.

There is no one size fits all.

So we recommend being transparent,

testing this,

seeing what the reaction is

for what people will tolerate.

And it really is a matter of

running tests on at what price

point does, how does that impact

conversion rate. And then you.

Can absolutely.

Chart that out and see what that's

going to do to your business.

But this is significant in a lot of cases.

I listened to the Operators podcast,

which is one I highly

recommend Mike Beckham,

who's the CEO and

co-founder of Simple Modern,

their drinkware brand.

And they import everything from China

is what it sounds like from the podcast.

He said that they would

have to raise prices 25%

and sell the same amount of

volume to stay profit neutral.

So to keep profits where they are,

25% increase in price and

keep the same sales velocity,

not super likely that

they'd be able to do that.

But that's one of those

things where to me,

maybe there's a limit here to what

that tariff add-on at the end can be.

If it's 25%, I think people are going to

be like, what is this? I'm out of here.

In that case you want to

add it upfront I think,

but it probably is worth testing doing

it both ways depending on how much of a

tariff upcharge there is.

And it's not always, the solution

doesn't always have to be raising prices.

It could be a little bit more

creative in even what you're offering.

So one of the brands that I

always look to as a leader in the

space is Patagonia.

And I don't know if you're familiar

with their worn wear collection,

but it's pre-warn items and they also,

you have the ability

to refurbish products.

So instead of buying a whole new jacket,

you can get your zipper

repaired or maybe you

snagged it on a tree hiking or

climbing a rock or something. But

in those cases,

they were creative in

staying within their mission,

but also creating a whole nother

less expensive way to purchase their

products. And now you're refurbishing,

so you're not having to bring

in from the manufacturers.

Super interesting. And that requires

a build out of services or build,

but way easier than spinning up a

factory or getting out of manufacturing

relationship. And so that's an interesting

spin as well. I really like that.

What else are you hearing

brands do right now?

And also I wonder if you

are purpose-driven or

mission-driven,

you can probably protect the

margins a little bit better.

You may have had better margins anyway,

but are you hearing anything else?

What are purpose-driven brands doing

right now to protect margins and to keep

their mission?

So I think doing broader

communication of that mission and

developing that

relationship with the brand,

the more that you can

increase loyalty and talk

about other value that

you provide as a company,

your culture focusing on that, taking

the focus off of price, I

think is really helping brands.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.

I realized a few minutes ago, but we were

in the flow so I didn't want to stop,

but we just got right after

delivering value to the people,

telling people what they need

to think about and do right now,

we didn't talk about your backgrounds.

I said, you guys were legends. I said,

we known each other for a long

time and we got right into tariffs.

What do mean? They dunno who we

are. Come on now. Nobody knows.

Who. For the audience that doesn't

know your names immediately,

let's give the 32nd

background because Mickey,

you've done a lot of amazing things.

What have you done in the industry

and why did I call you a legend?

Yeah,

so I've been in the space for a

little over 20 years probably.

My longest stint was actually as the

chief creative officer of something

digital, was an e-commerce

based solutions provider,

digital agency,

and worked with a number

of brands back then.

I come from the creative

side obviously. So

I am always looking at creating

customer experiences that are based on

data. Like Carrie said,

I'm a huge advocate of

creating a culture of

experimentation, not only internally,

but with our clients as well.

And aside from being in

the e-commerce space,

I am also a painter, fine artist.

And my first career,

actually, I was an educator,

so I taught high school nice art

back in the day, way back in the day.

That's pretty the 20 years in this space

and also at the college level. So for me,

it's always important to

have that educational element

in everything that I do,

be it with our internal

team or with our clients.

Love that. And some of the cool brands

you've worked with over the years.

Oh yeah.

So some pretty big brands like Nestle and

L'Oreal,

but then everything from

high fashion and boutique

fashion brands like Love Shack, fancy,

more mission-based brands like Bur Bees,

burs B's Baby was one of our

clients for quite a long time

as well as Bake by Melissa

really. So it runs the gamut.

And even pre e-commerce,

a lot of nonprofit organizations

we are focusing on.

So in the creation of Ascend

with Carrie, my goal was to go

back to the heart of things and

working with brands who are,

we don't care if you're just

starting out or you've been in,

you're a successful leader in the space,

we want to work with you regardless.

And we want to be able to

provide value to our clients

and helping them excel and lift their

mission and their impact make their impact

greater.

So good, so good. And then

Carrie, what about you?

You've been A-C-O-O-A long time,

you've been running ops

at some amazing agencies.

You've worked with some

amazing brands and companies,

but give the quick

background for you as well.

Yeah, for sure. Brett,

when you and I first met,

I was COO at Classy

Lama and then eventually

became president of that agency.

I was a COO of another B2B

e-commerce agency called E seven

Solutions.

And then I was vice president of programs

at something digital in Wright Point,

where Mickey and I got a

chance to work together.

And my superpower all along

in this space has been

creating value by delivering e-commerce

websites,

the software development

on time and on budget with

quality.

And you would think that that

would be the norm in our industry.

But for everybody who's ever

done a build out of a new site,

I can tell you it's not the norm.

It's not the norm at all. It's

like construction always late,

always over budget, just the way it goes.

But yeah, I got to see that firsthand.

You guys deliver real solutions

that work and on budget and on

time, which is very impressive. Okay,

awesome. Now that people are like, Hey,

I got great tariff insights and

now I know who you guys are,

so let's get after a little bit.

So let's talk about this maturity matrix,

five levels to the matrix. I'm not sure

who's doing which level, but level one,

what is it?

And give us some examples and then where

do people get stuck in level one and

how do they move to the next?

Yeah, sure. I can kick us off. So overall,

we call it the conscious commerce

maturity matrix. I know it's a mouthful.

Anyone has better ideas and

what to call it, we are open,

but basically it's a framework that

helps us evaluate in e-commerce

business,

digital maturity and then balance that

with their purpose and their impact.

So each level outlines like

key marketing strategies,

e-commerce capabilities and functionality,

and then brand positioning to help

that business scale effectively.

So the first one is we call it emerging.

So this is a brand that's in its infancy.

They're establishing like

a e-commerce experience,

and they're beginning to explore

purpose-driven initiatives.

So basically they have

a basic online presence,

minimal optimization, they're

reactive in their marketing.

They have very limited, if

any customer segmentation,

and we're really focusing on

helping them define their why and

then piloting their first initiative.

So there's a brand that we

work with today called chena.

They're a new gym in community

center in Brooklyn in New York,

founded by on Acosta.

And we work with them to create on our

offering that we call our

minimum lovable brand,

which is very similar to

a minimum viable product,

but from a branding purpose.

So you're focusing on the foundational

elements and you are focusing on

making those foundational

elements lovable, right?

Because you want people to have an

emotion as soon as they interact with your

brand, a good, a positive emotion,

not.

Repulsion or.

Right, exactly. A affinity,

some love goodbyes.

So in working with them, because

they're a brand new brand,

it's really about establishing the base

visual identity and then

what that brand strategy is.

So we ended up building their site

on Squarespace and integrating with

mindbody. I'm not sure if

you're familiar with that,

but all of the e-commerce

engine is run by mindbody.

It's very much a platform

for businesses who are in

the wellness space, spa

salons, gyms obviously.

And so right now we're

just speaking with her

just yesterday actually,

I was speaking with Anna about

how are they going to react to all

the tariffs and the chaos and everything

that people are feeling, right?

Everybody's uneasy and is it time

to buy a new gym membership or

do you have any extra money to spend here?

So we're looking to develop

community pricing model

where you can pay as you a

lower priced model interesting

for customers.

And it's really about the messaging

there because if you can afford it

and pay the standard fee,

you are helping to support other

people in the community that can't

and creating a balance there.

And that's part of the mission

of isch is to really create

this open inclusive community in that

area and fostering wellness and joy.

And I think during times of

uncertainty, change and stress,

never a more important

time to work out than now.

And so the last thing you want

to skimp on or cut out of your

budget is something that's going to

improve your health and your wellbeing.

But I love that where you can kind

of present the message of, hey,

if you can't pay full price, great,

because what you're doing is

you're supporting Those that can,

and we got this community pricing,

and so then it kind feels like, Hey,

I'm doing my part. I don't like

the tariff, but I've got money.

I'm just going to pay the full price

that can allow someone else to get in

there. And so that's an

interesting angle. I love that.

So at this emerging level,

we're building the foundation

of a minimum lovable brand.

We're creating all the branding

and all the foundation,

the messaging and things like that.

Anything else to add to level one?

And then what are the things we have

to solve for to get to level two.

Right?

It's basically working through the list of

strategies.

So getting to a place where you have

an email subscriber list that

you can consistently market to

and start segmenting if you

have less than 500 emails,

does it even make sense?

So it's not just from an

e-commerce experience perspective,

but also the marketing and

the brand strategy behind it.

Blockers could just be as

a new brand is just getting

awareness, making people

aware of the brand,

and so increasing membership

at this particular

gym so that you can start

putting money back into

evolving the business.

Great. Great. So then

what about level two?

What is level two and give us an example.

So level two is when we want

to start to scale the business,

we feel that we have a solid

foundation and we're ready to

grow.

So that starts with a

structured marketing plan,

and that's often where teams like yours

come into the picture after we've built

the site and we have

that foundation stable.

But what we see a lot of

times is we start with the

roadblocks and the misalignments. So I

don't know if you remember this, Brett,

but years ago you and I worked with a

brand that was up and coming that nobody

had ever heard of called Johnny O.

Right now everybody knows Johnny O,

but when you and I worked with them,

I was working on the marketing strategy

with you and we were sending traffic to

their site, but it wasn't converting,

the message wasn't out there, the brand

couldn't sell it. And so John O'Donnell,

when he created that brand,

he had this vision of

taking East Coast Prep

Ralph Lauren and combining it with

Southern California grunge and

relaxed where,

and we were sending great traffic

to them, but it wasn't converting.

So we really had to focus on

improving the CX and improving

the story there.

And so what level two is in scaling

is you try something and you

tweak,

you try something and you tweak

and you're really learning on how

to get there.

And I just love to see the

transformation of the Brandon Geno

and now they give back

by giving away clothes

to disaster relief areas is.

It's amazing. It's amazing. And it's

one of those things where first of all,

love Johnny O. Love their style, love

the way they approach things. But yeah,

when you start to see, hey,

we're driving traffic or we're

getting people to the site,

they're not converting it, what is

it? Is it the shopping experience?

Is it the promise or the message isn't

the same as what they're seeing on the

sites? There's lack of congruency. Are

we just pulling in the wrong people?

What is it that's not working?

But that's really what takes a little

bit of time to figure out time and data.

But then when you do get it right and

it is the right message to the right

person at the right time and

then a good shopping experience,

it can create some magic as is the

case with Johnny O. So that's awesome.

Good. So what then are

some of the blockers?

What are some of the things we've got

to solve in level two before we get to

level three?

So misalignment, inconsistent messaging,

not evoking that emotion and that

feeling that you're trying to convey

with your brand. We see all kinds of stuff

sometimes. And so we watch that

conversion funnel all the time.

Where are people not getting it? Where

are they bouncing? What's happening?

And like we talked about and then we test,

we do that conversion rate optimization.

It's so much less expensive for our

clients to do a test on the

front end to change something

before changing code, right?

Code's expensive to change,

you've got to do a deployment,

but we start tweaking with testing.

Yeah, yeah, I love that.

And it's one of those things where it's

both on the messaging side up front but

then also on the site and some things

you think are going to work, don't. Boom,

beauty longtime climb.

My buddy Ezra Firestone runs the

company and there's always been skincare

for women like boomer women and older,

and they thought most women view

themselves as so young and whatever.

So for a while they always had the age

appropriate models in their ads and they

thought, well, let's just try women

in their late forties or whatever.

And there was almost a

coup, there was a protest,

the people reached out and

they're like, that is not me.

What are you doing in these

at? And you're like, oh, sorry,

we'll go back to the core.

No problem. But yeah,

you got to test stuff like that because

sometimes little things like age of the

model or how we're displaying this thing,

you wouldn't think it would would've a

big impact. It could have a big impact.

So really, really important. Good.

What about then what

level are we ready for? I.

Said.

Three.

We level three. Yeah, level three. So.

Go for it. Does that back to you?

What is level three? So level three

is optimizing, talking about testing.

So level, level two, you start

dipping your toe into that.

But now level three is

taking that data and then

using it to make the actual change.

So you're testing,

but now you are implementing those

tests that have proved successful.

You're leveraging automation

and personalization.

So now you know more about

your customer, who they are,

what they're looking for.

You had mentioned with Johnny

O and sending possibly maybe

unqualified traffic to the site

and people were converting.

We know who the audience is at this level.

And there's also from an impact

perspective or purpose perspective,

there's a structured

impact strategy in place.

You know what you're trying to convey,

what the values are

within the organization,

and you're putting that

first as you execute.

So you're looking at holistic

marketing strategies,

data-driven marketing automation, like

I said, even ai predictive search,

if you're thinking about the

customer experience on the website,

loyalty and rewards programs.

But you always ask also

what might be a roadblock,

what's stopping them from

moving to the next? Right.

At level three,

one of the blocks that we see is a

lack of cross-departmental alignment.

So the marketing team might be

misaligned with the technology

team

while the purpose and

the mission is there,

not everyone's bought into it internally,

everyone has their own

initiatives going on.

And so that can really prohibit

the overall brand from successfully

moving forward. It's not always

what's happening with the customer,

you got to look inside as well.

Yeah, it's such a good

point. What tips do you have?

What examples do you have?

And then do you have any suggestions

on tools or other things that are

appropriate for this level?

So specific tools,

there's so many tools out there from if

we're thinking about functionality and

everything from Algolia search and

VU and things like that to help with

AI driven search,

but tools in thinking

about how do you mend

that disconnect internally,

think about maybe there's

leadership training that

you're giving to the leaders

within your organization.

Carrie and I are actually in the process

of taking this really great conscious

leadership training

this month and I'm like,

everybody should take

this course because it's

been very eyeopening and also doing things

internally to get other people aligned.

If you're more friendly with the

people within your organization,

you respect them and it's really

working together to do that.

And you need that leadership from the

top to help encourage the teams to

really get along and to

get on the same page.

Yeah, I love it. I really believe

businesses only really has two things,

brand and culture. Brand

is the outside perception.

It's what the marketplace

believes about you,

thinks about you when they see your

logo or your product, what do they feel?

What are those emotions

like we talked about before?

But brand and then culture and

culture is who you are on the inside.

How are those departments

communicating with each other?

How are you actually operating?

Are you actually mission-driven or is

that just something you say and it's not

real? What is the culture?

Because ultimately the culture will

influence the brand and it will

shine through and people will

see that. So both are important.

So I love that you brought that up.

Sometimes it's not just a tech solution,

sometimes it's an internal

department solution.

Maybe that's part of the blocker

that's keeping you stuck where you are.

It's the need to get more alignment

and better communication and better

leadership inside your team, which

impacts culture overall. It's great,

great insight.

Just a very visual

example that you can see

where there might be misalignment

in a brand is just the

carousel that they might have

on the homepage. There's five,

six slides of different,

maybe it's products,

maybe it's mission-based

branding and messaging.

But when there's so many different slides

within a carousel,

it's because everyone in the organization

is fighting for the top spot.

You can't.

Choose it's decision by

committee or everyone.

Gets a choice.

Everybody fighting internally of they

want their thing to be upfront and

center. So the carousel

kind of in my opinion,

developed because of internal

struggle and less about trying to

assist the customer in their experience.

Yeah,

it's a really good call out when something

looks kind of Frankenstein together

or where are we going here?

This is a committee decision thing or

everyone fighting internally or whatever.

Yeah, that's a really great example.

Okay, cool. So level four ready for that.

Back to you. What is

level four? I'm going to.

Take this one. Oh, sorry. Just to

mix it up, make things up for you.

But I wanted to take this one because

the name of this level is called

Leading. And like I mentioned before,

Patagonia is one of the

leaders in this space. And so

if you're at level four,

you're recognized as a leader in the

e-commerce space and as well as the impact

you're integrating

sustainability, employee wellness,

customer experience at every touch point.

And they are a great case study for that.

They're strong brand loyalty

driven by values and innovation.

Their purpose is what differentiates

them from their competitors.

Deep personalization happening on

the site. There's very high loyalty.

What I mentioned earlier about

the wear as a solution to

a different perspective on how

to deal with increasing costs.

One of the things that could be

a blocker though is losing your

authenticity as you continue to scale,

as you continue to grow. That would

be one area that you'd really need to

keep an eye on because you

don't want to lose that mission.

I'm not saying Patagonia is doing that,

I'm just saying for an

organization in this space,

that's one area you definitely

want to pay close attention to.

But outside of the warm wear collection,

I don't know if you're familiar in,

I think it was 2010 or 2011,

they created this campaign

called Don't Buy This Jacket.

And it was a Black Friday

ad that ran in the New York

Times and it was like featuring

their bestselling product

at the time, I think it was a fleece

or something. And it wasn't about,

they were saying don't buy this jacket

because what they're saying is they want

customers to buy less and repair more

and they were really encouraging them to

go through the process of using

their wear collection or their

refurbished products.

So you can just send in your products

that are Patagonia and then have them

repaired by the brand.

Super interesting and a bit risky.

So.

Don't buy this. But the cool thing

about that is everybody's like,

wait a minute, what? Definitely a pattern

interrupt, not what you're expecting.

So then you lean in potentially a little

bit more, which is super interesting.

And their sales that year increased

I think by 30% after that.

And so their purpose and

profit can coexist, right?

It's not one or the.

Other.

And it's also one of those things too

where that resonates with their customer.

So people that are active that

are climbing and affluent,

they're also conscious about the

earth and environment climbing,

things like that. So that feels

good. Just say, wait a minute, yeah,

I do have this awesome coat, I'm

just going to get that repaired.

But you know what, we all

like to buy stuff too.

So there's also a lot of this

people that are like, yeah,

but I'm going to buy this

pair of pants as well.

I'm going to buy this new

thing for sure. Just I want to.

And now I feel like I'm giving back

sort of even though I'm just buying

something. So yeah, it just all.

Works money. So now maybe I.

Save money.

Yeah.

We're always looking for the justification

of how can I justify this purchase

with logic? I already made it

emotionally. Yeah, absolutely. Really.

Great.

Absolutely. So that's level four.

So then level five, bring us home.

So back to you, Carrie. Yeah.

Yeah. Level five, pioneering.

So I have spent the

last five years working

with a very pioneering

brand in the e-commerce

space, AB InBev,

the parent company of Anheuser-Busch.

I worked with them on their

digital sales transformation,

B2B globally.

And they really went from an

in-person sales strategy to

transition to online

selling in a space where you

wouldn't expect it,

where you're selling to bars and

restaurants and corner stores,

beer.

But they have done some incredibly

pioneering things in this space.

They custom built and

algorithmic sales predictive

engine using AI and using

historical data of what

customers were purchasing to say, okay,

now we think this is what your

next order is going to look like.

And so they would build up the entire

next order for the customer and present

that to them so they could put the entire

thing in the cart and just check out.

And that increased sales significantly.

And after they built this

infrastructure and we launched it

in 24 countries in four years,

they said, you know what?

We're going to take this a step further

and we're going to become more like an

Amazon for B2B.

Now they've taken their e-commerce

platform and they're using it

as a marketplace for other

consumer goods companies.

They've onboarded Nestle and Mondelez

in a bunch of countries around the

globe into this platform.

So that's when you're

transforming business,

then you're a pioneer in this space.

Really interesting.

So what is their primary

objective with this marketplace or

creating the Amazon for B2B?

What's their objective with that?

They were really smart about it.

They have 2.5 million customers that

they're selling beer to around the globe,

and they have the infrastructure already.

They're shipping weekly to all of these

locations. And they said, wait a minute,

why don't we share this

infrastructure? Love.

It. I love it. It's.

Brilliant with other companies

that are selling to our clients,

we've done all the

work. Let's expand this.

Yeah, it's really what a great idea.

We've already got the distribution system,

the relationships, the system customer.

Our stuff, customers using our app or

our website to purchase every week, what.

Other products there.

For their store. If you

have a grocery store, a bar,

a restaurant, a corner kiosk,

you're replenishing the beer every

week, you're in there ordering.

So how can we create new revenue lines

and new opportunities here through what

we already have? I think that's just such

an important business skill of how can

I leverage existing

assets, existing tools,

existing relationships to

open up new opportunities and

really create a solution. I love that.

What are some of the things that

you're hearing right now from

your clients? Are they

doubling down on mission?

Are they a little bit fearful

because they're mission driven?

Because to me it seems like this is not

the time just to start slashing prices.

Nobody's slashing prices, I guess,

but it's not the time to go cheap

or to just go into survival mode

necessarily.

This is the time probably to lean into

whatever your purpose is or whatever your

mission is. And there may be a

little bit of riding the storm,

weathering the storm,

but I think you can use this

to your advantage and to your

customer's advantage by

leaning into your mission.

So what else are you hearing or

seeing from your clients right now?

I think you're exactly

right. I think leaning

into the mission and why you're

in business in the first place,

every one of us that starts a

business, we have this vision,

this creative vision of

doing something important and

providing a service or providing meaning.

And sometimes as companies

grow, they lose sight of that.

And we focus on

all the nuances of our

business. The bottom line this,

the how are we going to change this?

And sometimes we forget

that original purpose.

And what we see time

and time again is every

company who focuses on that culture piece,

on that purpose piece,

they really start to thrive.

It's more of a sustainable

model in multiple ways.

It's more of a sustainable brand when

you have a real reason for existing,

that's not just selling a widget,

which we're always all here to sell

stuff and make money and make profits.

Obviously we can't exist without

that. But if there's more to it,

usually you're a little more

insulated and a little more stable in

times of uncertainty.

Right? And what all the studies show

also is your team is more engaged,

they're more motivated to help

you pursue that purpose. So.

I like it. I like it. Well, as we wrap up,

who should be reaching out to you? So

if people are listening and thinking,

I'm liking these tips and suggestions,

and I maybe I'm a level three and want

to go level four or wherever they may

find themselves on the maturity matrix,

who are you guys really best

equipped to help and how can you help

who should reach out to you and why?

Like I said earlier,

it is not a specific type of brand.

It is anyone who

is maybe struggling to define

a mission for their brand,

a brand who might just be

starting up in the space,

but also brands who are just looking to

engage with their customers

in a different way.

So we provide everything from,

like I talked earlier about the

minimum level of brand offering.

We can help you establish

a brand from the start.

Or if, I don't know, say for instance,

you're looking to do a refresh of a brand,

really start focusing on a

mission. We are here to assist you.

There's other ways in dealing with

the tariffs too and the uncertainty

thinking about testing and

really increasing the

conversions that you have.

You still have the same

traffic that you had yesterday,

but how are we going to get

those people to convert more?

We can assist with AB

testing, conversion rate,

optimization testing,

and even if you're looking

to maybe switch platforms,

we are a shop wear partner

and we work with Shopify as well.

So anyone who might be out there

looking to make a little bit of a

change and start thinking

more about their mission both

internally in the organization as

well as externally to their customers.

So from the branding piece

to the technology piece,

you guys have really built and been

involved with some very complex

technology deployments.

You talk about the AB InBev

app and some of these things.

You guys have really executed

and delivered some very complex

technical solutions,

but you're also good at the branding

piece and tying that in with mission.

And so really, really good.

So how can people find you?

So if someone's listening

to this and like, Hey,

I want to talk to Mickey and Carrie

Edison, how can they find you?

Yeah, so we are as send a

YSN d.com,

our Y is you.

It's all our clients that we serve

so they can reach out at hello at

Ascend and talk to us.

And we wanted to offer all of your

listeners a chance to connect with us

and let's test out this

conscious commerce maturity

model.

We'd be happy to do an assessment for

where they're at and share their level

with them and

how they can level up in their business.

We can help look for those

gaps and opportunities for

them if they're just maybe

even feeling a little bit stuck

and not even sure where to look.

Yeah.

And you guys have such a keen eye for

what's actually going to move the needle

with a business, and here's what

you're trying to do with your brand,

but I don't think it's resonating.

And so here's how we need to pivot.

You have a breadth of experience and

technical knowledge and brand knowledge

that tied together is

a really unique thing,

really unique offering

and unique skillset.

And so A YSN

d.com, check it out. And are you

guys on the socials as well? Sorry,

I butchered that. But are you guys,

you're on LinkedIn as well? Both of you?

Absolutely. Instagram,

LinkedIn, even Facebook,

you can find us. And

we're always putting out

value and advice for people,

so definitely follow.

Us. Cool. So reach out, get

that maturity matrix assessment,

see where you fall on that. And hey,

now is the time to stay mission driven.

Stay the course. Look for ways

to pivot and stay profitable.

Reach out to good partners

like Ascend or like OMG.

And with that, ladies, thank you.

Thank you for bringing your knowledge

and your experience and for your time and

keep up the good work.

Thank you, Brett, thank you

so much for this time. Yeah,

thank you for having us today,

Brett. We appreciate it.

Awesome. Absolutely. And as

always, thank you for tuning in.

We'd love to hear from you. What would

you like to hear more of on the show?

And if you've not done it, please leave

us a review. That always makes our day.

And with that, until next

time, thank you for listening.