Interview: Life of a Brandrunner™ with Enzymedica’s Gary Kazmer
Gary Kazmer is a Brandrunner™ for Enzymedica, serving as the central, multidisciplinary individual that leads the brand’s pursuit of growth in modern commerce. As Kazmer shares in the interview below with Netrush’s Chief Strategy Officer, Raj Sapru, this role entails managing a diverse and robust set of levers and navigating between a variety of functions, internal teams, retail and marketing platforms, and more.
The interview brings to life the Brandrunner’s day-to-day and shares the skills and qualities that are required of the role. This is a great read for current Brandrunners, senior leaders that support Brandrunners and anyone else with aspirations or curiosities on this important, emerging role.
Raj: Gary, if you were to say the role has become a little bit of this, a little bit of this little bit of that, what is that list of stuff? I know it's long, but what are the things that jump out?
Gary: Well, it’s 12 p.m. here, and you guys are my seventh meeting so far today. Prior to this, I had a weekly meeting with all my reports, including all the consultants. Then I had a deep dive into SEO. Then I had a Webex learning about a new tool we’re using. Then we had an all-hands company meeting to talk about the weekly results across all channels. Operations was in my office to talk about out-of-stocks and forecasting. Then I had a deep dive with my content production group. And now I’ve got you guys.
Raj: That’s amazing. That says a lot. It sounds like you’re crossing disciplines multiple times a day.
Gary: Oh, yeah. It’s Operations, it’s SEO and SEM, it’s HR and my hiring needs, it’s on-Amazon and off-Amazon and knowing all the different platforms that are out there. I've got to pivot into new content, new copy. So, yeah, you’re right. Sometimes it can be frustrating.
Raj: Well, you're right at the leading edge and in the front, so it seems like frustration has to be part of the job, unfortunately. It also sounds like getting your hands dirty has to be part of the job.
Gary: If you don't want to get your hands dirty, you shouldn't be in the business.
You don’t know what you don't know. And if you don't ask the right questions, people are not going to tell you that they don't know what they're doing. I added 40 different pieces of software this past year. And if they’re all looking at Amazon, as an example, they’re all coming back with slightly different takes. And you’ve got to be able to understand why this is a little bit different and can I learn from it. You have to keep asking those questions that nobody really seems to know the answer to.
Raj: A couple of things that you said that jumped out at me. One is you can't get enough tools and data because you're trying to get an edge. This is not unlike other Brandrunners we talk to that feel like they just want everything, any little edge. And with that, you’re very data-driven. I think that's part of the job now, too.
Gary: Yes, absolutely.
Raj: You're confronted with first-party customer data more so than other parts of your business. You can get feedback from DTC or even via Amazon a bit. You're confronted with the screen of actual customers, which is different than other parts of the business, right?
Gary: Within the retail business, you don’t know too much about who your customer is. It's all about the relationship, it’s about the handshake. It's like, “We got this great product and you should put it on your shelf.” What I want to do is roll out a new product through digital and make a huge splash. Then, I can go back to the food, drug, and mass channels and say, “Look, this product is new. Look at how it just took off. You need to put this in 1,000 stores.” So, I need to use digital to push other channels from that point of view.
Raj: I'm seeing you pulling your organization into the future and rallying around the customer, which is not a different customer between Amazon and Vitamin Shoppe or whoever else. It's all the same. Do you feel like you're the champion of the consumer within your broader organization?
Gary: Very much so. Other parts of the organization do not have the tools to really talk about the consumer. I've got 17 different dashboards going on – direct-to-consumer, Amazon, SEO, SEM, and so on. And I’m using these dashboards to look at the trends. Is it trending up? Is it trending down? And what caused that trend? And I think with what you’re talking about, being able to pull out those trends before anybody else sees them, is incredibly important. That's what I'm trying to do for the organization.
Raj: Another perception we have on the Brandrunner is that you're making a lot of little decisions all the time, that you’re just confronted with decision after decision, testing and pivoting. Is that true, and how does that decision-making work in a Brandrunner’s mind?
Gary: Yes, always testing and pivoting. But understanding what to test for is the most important part, I think. That’s why I said I look at the trends and see the number is going up or going down. Let's test and let's fail fast. Let's pivot. Let's move on. Let's keep testing. This came up as I was working with the catalog team recently. Is our headline correct? How many characters? What should it say? What are the keywords that should be in there? And that's just the headline; now let’s get into the bullets. What should the bullets say? How long should they be? Should they be lifestyle? Should they be education? Should they be keywords? And then we can get into the A+ content, and so on.
And it's not about going slow and testing only one thing at a time. You're testing 10 things and if it moves the needle, then you know something in those 10 worked. So, let's do it again. Let's do it again. Let's do it again. And eventually you're going to find the three or four things that are moving the needle. But it's not one new thing at a time, wait until I do it very well, and then move on.
Raj: Two things you said there stood out to me. One is kind of a bias for action. You’d rather do something than nothing. You said “fail fast,” which implies that a bit. It also implies what I’m going to call a bit of fearlessness that you have to have in this role.
Gary: And you've got to be really good with numbers and finance. With our pay-per-click, as an example, we’ve got to have a 3-to-1 return, and we measure it every week. Sometimes that’s how I can keep other people moving forward, is if we agree upon these metrics. Back to the headlines for a minute: Let’s measure them for two weeks. If they don't cause a lift, we’ll put the old headlines back in. But let's measure them.
Raj: I think Brandrunners tend to crave as much measurement as possible, and maybe look at different metrics compared to the rest of the organization. Is that true?
Gary: Yes, absolutely. A lot of people look at metrics after the fact. This is what we did, this is what our conversion rate was, this is what the sales were. And what I look at are the trends of those numbers. Are they going up? Are they going down? And what is causing the movement? I don't really care what we did last month. What I care about is the trend.
Raj: And digging into what caused the movement implies you’re interested in using the data to impact the future. Would you say you have your eye on the future and where the world is going to a greater degree than others?
Gary: Absolutely. Every quarter I put out a periodic update for the company. This last one was 22 pages typed. It starts out with what has changed in the last few months – digital is an extremely fluid environment and changes are happening at a very fast pace. And then I gave three examples. The first was hiring people, and how it’s all about being remote. The second was about the impact of influencers in this space, and how influencers stole a large share of brand sales on Singles Day last year. The third talks about climate pledge friendly, and what is happening from a social point of view in terms of what our consumers are now looking for in a company.
Things are changing very fast. I am constantly bombarded with changes, and I think, from a Brandrunner point of view, if you can't handle change, then kind of get out of the way.
So, to answer your question, it's all about where we are headed. And if I can think of where we might be headed, then I can see these trends and figure out how I get these trends to take us to where we're headed. How do I beat somebody else with this? That’s another piece; I think a Brandrunner has this need to win above all costs and beat everybody else.
Raj: I love that. And what’s the underlying reason to put out those periodic updates?
Gary: I like to over-communicate. Now, 22 pages – do I expect that everybody is going to read it? No, but it's there if they want to read it. If they want to learn, they can. I'm trying to drag them along. They have to have enough faith in me to know they just need to give me the tools to go ahead and run. That’s one of the things my CEO, Scott, has been very good about.
He’ll say, “I don't understand everything you're doing, but my job is to give you the runway you need to do whatever it is you think is right.”
And as long as I do well, I guess they’ll keep me in the job.
Raj: One of the expectations for success of a Brandrunner is a certain degree of freedom. I guess that goes with any job, but this one even more so perhaps, since you're likely to get into a lot of other people's business across the organization.
Gary: Absolutely. I mean, I'm in regulatory affairs. We're talking about starting to sell on Amazon Europe. So, what are the rules with Brexit and everything else? I'm learning the legal pieces. I’m figuring out with conversion rates. Is my pricing strategy going to be different? What about my product mix? It’s a lot of different things. And then you’ve got to create a forecast for production. I’m going to have to set up a logistics facility. I’ve got to set up a business entity in the Netherlands.
Raj: Wow, so again, you're really having to get your hands dirty. And it sounds like you can rely on others, but only if they have the capabilities and are fast enough. What kind of framework do you use to figure out what you should do yourself, when you should pull in someone else from the organization, and when you should outsource completely?
Gary: That's a very good question. I've always said that I can do things myself and do a good job, but if I enlist the aid of other people, I can get a lot more done. So I try to get as many people in the organization to do my job as possible. I lean very heavily on all members of my organization for support and when I need their silo expertise. As you can see behind me, I will use whiteboards. I will periodically erase the entire whiteboard and I will start from scratch. I will re-prioritize what the strategy should be based on where we are right now, and I'll write down people's names and what I need from them and what the expectations are, so that I can let them run.
I tell people, “My job is to keep you from driving off the highway. You're going to make mistakes. If you're not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough. I’ve got your back. You need to drive down that road as fast as you can. And if I can't keep up with you, that's my problem. That's not your problem. I want you to go as fast as you can.”
Raj: Tell me if this picture I’m painting is accurate: You’ve got screens in front of you, 17 dashboards in front of you, whiteboards behind you. You want to win at all costs. You're having to place bets all the time. Is there a bit of a gambling mentality, trying to get an edge? Or maybe more of a day trader? Does that resonate with you, of just wanting the number to go up a little bit so I can know what happens, like on a stock portfolio?
Gary: Yeah, you're probably onto something because I have so many tools, and I'm trying to get better numbers than anyone else. I can understand the nuances, I have the tools, and I am, in essence, gambling a little bit. But the more you know, the less of a gamble it is.
Raj: What does a win look like to you? When do you celebrate? What gets the adrenaline going?
Gary: Every morning when I look at Stitch, I want to see if we hit our daily sales goal. If we did, that's a win. If we didn’t, I start to look down through all the other numbers. What was our bad score? How many people came to visit? What products are not doing well? Was it out of stock? Find a reason for the drop, right? Or find a reason for the win, too. What product is selling really well? Why is it selling really well? Is it part of the testing that we're doing? So, I don't know. It's just innate. You have to want to beat everybody.
Raj: I want to go backwards for a second to the marketing work you’re doing, your 3-to-1 return expectations, and the measurement of it. Now, there's a never-ending number of places to put your marketing dollars, right? How do you figure out where you should really be spending? Is that where your test-and-learn mentality comes in, too?
Gary: Well, that's why I’ve got 17 dashboards. I test and learn, and I've got to have a dashboard. Because if you can't measure it, you shouldn't be playing there. When I look at the measurements between the different channels as you're talking about, if one channel is doing better than another, I'm going to move more money into it. So, I'm constantly moving dollars around to kind of level everything, because the more dollars you put into one channel, your ROI is going to come down a little bit. I try to get a constant ROI across all channels. That would be a good day because everything is firing on all cylinders, and everything is equal.
Raj: It’s interesting even that you say “good day.” The time frame that you're dealing with is days, not quarters or months.
Gary: And we're actually looking at day parts, as well.
Raj: So your universe is much smaller than others. The next closest thing that most people really talk about is probably a month.
Gary: Yeah. We look at the month every week.
Raj: You look at the month every week. Yeah, I like that. I think it's common among Brandrunners because if you find something early in the month, there might be levers that you can pull to hit the number by the end of the month. We’ve covered so much ground here on what it means to be a Brandrunner. If you had to sum it up to the most important tools that Brandrunners must have in their toolbox, what would those be?
Gary: One would be the ability to absorb massive amounts of data fast and identify trends. Two would be the ability to communicate to the organization what you're doing and why, so that you get the freedom to unify and make things happen. And three would be never being satisfied with a number, and you only get what you measure. You have to measure, you have to have many metrics, and they have to be at a granular level.
WRITTEN BY CLAIRE MCBRIDEClaire McBride leads Research, Insights and Education for Netrush. Claire’s entire career has been centered in the consumer and retail space, spending the last five years helping brands grow and optimize their ecommerce businesses through written research, events, share group discussions and one-on-one consulting.
