In this episode of the Ecommerce Evolution Podcast, host Brett Curry welcomes Mickey Winter (CEO) and Carrie Weidenbach (COO) of Ascend, 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.

Key Takeaways

• Purpose-Driven Strategy During Tariff Chaos: Learn how brands like All Birds are weathering tariff challenges through diversified supply chains aligned with their sustainability values, and discover transparent pricing approaches that maintain customer trust.
• The Conscious Commerce Maturity Matrix: Explore the five-level framework that helps evaluate where your brand stands in balancing business maturity with purpose-driven initiatives, from "emerging" through "pioneering."
• Mission as Competitive Advantage: Hear real examples of how brands like Patagonia have leveraged their purpose to create unique offerings (like their "Worn Wear" collection) that simultaneously solve economic challenges and reinforce brand values.
• Internal Alignment for External Success: Discover why cross-departmental alignment around your mission is crucial for brand growth, and how leadership development can eliminate common roadblocks to scaling.
• Creative Revenue Models: From community pricing structures to marketplace expansions, learn how purpose-driven brands are finding innovative approaches to business challenges without compromising their core mission.

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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Carrie Weidenbach:

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.

Brett Curry:

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?

Mickey Winter:

Thanks for having us, Brett. We really appreciate taking this time to talk with you today.

Brett Curry:

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.

Carrie Weidenbach:

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

Brett Curry:

Because

Carrie Weidenbach:

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.

Brett Curry:

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,

Mickey Winter:

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.

Brett Curry:

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.

Mickey Winter:

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

Brett Curry:

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?

Carrie Weidenbach:

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

Carrie Weidenbach:

What

Carrie Weidenbach:

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.

Brett Curry:

And it really is a matter of running tests on at what price point does, how does that impact conversion rate. And then you

Carrie Weidenbach:

Can absolutely

Brett Curry:

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.

Mickey Winter:

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.

Brett Curry:

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?

Carrie Weidenbach:

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.

Brett Curry:

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.

Mickey Winter:

What do mean? They dunno who we are. Come on now. Nobody knows

Brett Curry:

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?

Mickey Winter:

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.

Brett Curry:

Love that. And some of the cool brands you've worked with over the years.

Mickey Winter:

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.

Brett Curry:

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.

Carrie Weidenbach:

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.

Brett Curry:

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?

Mickey Winter:

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

Brett Curry:

Repulsion or

Mickey Winter:

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.

Brett Curry:

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

Brett Curry:

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,

Mickey Winter:

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.

Brett Curry:

Great. Great. So then what about level two? What is level two and give us an example.

Carrie Weidenbach:

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

Brett Curry:

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?

Carrie Weidenbach:

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.

Brett Curry:

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

Mickey Winter:

Said

Carrie Weidenbach:

Three.

Mickey Winter:

We level three. Yeah, level three. So

Brett Curry:

Go for it. Does that back to you?

Mickey Winter:

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.

Brett Curry:

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?

Mickey Winter:

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.

Brett Curry:

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.

Mickey Winter:

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.

Carrie Weidenbach:

You can't

Brett Curry:

Choose it's decision by committee or everyone

Mickey Winter:

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.

Brett Curry:

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

Mickey Winter:

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.

Mickey Winter:

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.

Brett Curry:

Super interesting and a bit risky,

Mickey Winter:

So

Brett Curry:

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.

Mickey Winter:

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

Brett Curry:

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

Carrie Weidenbach:

Works money. So now maybe I

Brett Curry:

Save money.

Carrie Weidenbach:

Yeah,

Brett Curry:

We're always looking for the justification of how can I justify this purchase with logic? I already made it emotionally. Yeah, absolutely. Really

Carrie Weidenbach:

Great.

Brett Curry:

Absolutely. So that's level four. So then level five, bring us home. So back to you, Carrie. Yeah,

Carrie Weidenbach:

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.

Brett Curry:

Really interesting. So what is their primary objective with this marketplace or creating the Amazon for B2B? What's their objective with that?

Carrie Weidenbach:

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

Brett Curry:

It. I love it. It's

Carrie Weidenbach:

Brilliant with other companies that are selling to our clients, we've done all the work. Let's expand this.

Brett Curry:

Yeah, it's really what a great idea. We've already got the distribution system, the relationships, the system customer,

Carrie Weidenbach:

Our stuff, customers using our app or our website to purchase every week, what

Brett Curry:

Other products there

Carrie Weidenbach:

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.

Brett Curry:

So how can we create new revenue lines and new opportunities here through what we already have?

Brett Curry:

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?

Carrie Weidenbach:

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.

Brett Curry:

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,

Carrie Weidenbach:

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

Brett Curry:

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?

Mickey Winter:

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.

Brett Curry:

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?

Carrie Weidenbach:

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.

Mickey Winter:

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.

Brett Curry:

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?

Carrie Weidenbach:

Absolutely. Instagram, LinkedIn, even Facebook, you can find us. And we're always putting out value and advice for people, so definitely follow

Brett Curry:

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.

Mickey Winter:

Thank you, Brett, thank you so much for this time. Yeah, thank you for having us today, Brett. We appreciate it.

Brett Curry:

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.

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