In our ongoing quest to bring you the latest from industry-leading marketers, business leaders, and entrepreneurs – Digital Breakthroughs is back with CEO of Applied Nutriceuticals, Gabriel Flores. In addition to being a highly decorated martial artist, Gabriel has over 20 years’ experience developing, marketing, and launching hundreds of nutritional supplements.

National Positions CEO Bernard May (virtually) sat down with Gabriel to discuss not only the nutritional supplement market as a whole but also to uncover the secret to his success. Here are just some of the highlights from the fourth entry of the Digital Breakthroughs Podcast. 

Introducing Gabriel Flores

I mean, everybody kind of looks for a beginning of a path, and then I guess when you ended up finding a career you love, you stick with it. You mentioned earlier, I was a martial artist. I was an athlete, and not only at one point when I got a little bit older in my late teens was I training myself and working with great coaches and great nutritionists, but I found that I was attracted to nutritional supplements, and it was still very early in the infancy of the supplement industry.

Why Nutritional Supplements?

I’m the kind of guy that likes to learn everything I can and while I was training, and then began training other athletes, I decided to go to a manufacturing facility I was recommended to. Had a nice conversation with this gentleman who owned it. He really spent a year mentoring me and teaching me how to make supplements and about what ingredients do what. It got me really, really just into the whole amazing aspect of creating supplements, and what… It helped people get their dreams through nutrition and as a nice complement to training. That’s kind of how I did it.

How Gabriel Got His Start

You know what, honestly, in the beginning of the nutrition industry, obviously I’ve been in it for over 20 years, everybody played hard, fast, and loose, but that was good and bad. The bad of it was there wasn’t a lot of cause for safety, and people didn’t really think about what they were doing. The good of it was the great eccentric geniuses came out.

I got a chance to work on the cutting edge and really work for a company that helped introduce pre-workouts to the country and to the nation. I worked with a company that, MRI, which introduced NO2, which was the first supplement line to use nitric oxide science to elicit pumps and nutrition transfer in the body.

Are There Barriers to Entering the Nutritional Industry?

If you’d ask me that question eight, nine years ago, I may have said no. I may have said this is kind of a hard business to get into, and it’s a lot of fun, but the market is really about having a big print advertisement budget, having a lot of money, and really just know you’re going to grind it out. Over the last especially five or six years, anybody can attest to the growth of social media and the growth of personal brands and social awareness has given even the smallest budgeted entrepreneur with a good idea or a good story to tell an opportunity to get into the supplement industry and really have a lot of fun.

Start From Your Passions

I could speak to the good and bad of the industry. I have a disdain for people who get into this with the only focus about making a lot of money. Now, don’t get me wrong, making money is great. We all enjoy it. But if that is the thing that drives you, you will only work for dollars and you will not work for passion and you will not work for creating a legacy or a brand that you’re proud of.

I absolutely 100% tell people… You’re getting this advice I’m giving somebody right now who has a pretty decent idea. I said, “You build an influencer model to people to gravitate towards you, get to know you, get to know what you’re about. Do you have a story to tell? Is there a reason you really got into this?”

People Buy People – Not Things

I mean, people buy people, not things, and once you get them bought into this concept… and again, even if it’s you, you’re able to introduce a brand and you’ve worked out the mechanics of it, the look, the feel, the story. People will engage that. Truly, if you’ve got something… Even if there’s a thousand other brands that do what you do, if people are into you and what you are talking about and what you’re into, they’re going to buy you, and they’re going to buy from you.

Formulating Success

If you’ve never built a pool, you don’t go in your backyard with a shovel and build a pool. That’s where reputable manufacturers come in or great partnerships. When the FDA a few ago… not a few – it was more than 10 years ago… came in and introduced DSHEA, which was really kind of a governing philosophy for some nutritional supplements, it changed the industry. It changed a lot of people, the fly-by-night guys, the guys that didn’t care what they put in, the label regulations changed, advertising regulations changed.

Regulations and Transparency

When I hear people still say that supplements are not regulated, I point back to the FDA and DSHEA. I work with several manufacturing facilities that have been audited by the FDA that have had to adhere to guidelines and principles set forth by the rules the FDA set down. When an entrepreneur, a young or old or whoever it is that’s going to start a supplement line or supplement brand come and say, “Well, what do I need to look for?” I said, “If you don’t know how to do it, you need to find somebody who does,” and that is doing research, formulating properly, not overloading.

Staying True to the Consumer

I can find ways to get you what you want and still be safe, and the reason I can do that is because I do the research. I’m smart enough to ask the people to do the research. I grab materials or ingredients from companies that are reputable. I make sure that they have science or trademarks. I make sure I get copies of stuff so that I can read and know what I’m putting in at the proper dosages. Then at the end, we put together something safe, or safe as we can based upon the rules we are given and the science that is available to us.

Budgeting for Success

I’ve done everything from bootstrap of product, one-product startup for 20 grand to all the way down the line to having a million dollars of doing something. I think there’s really cost (in time and dollars) to consider –  you’re doing it, are you expecting to take a paycheck, and if you’re not, great, because we can pull that money back in….

Simply saying, “I have like 50 grand, lets go!” Is not enough. What do you intend to do with it? I actually try to walk people down and through how every penny should be spent. Most people who start supplement lines when they’re creating a budget and they say, “I only have 20 grand,” great, we can do it, but let’s measure what that really looks like…

Marketing With Influencers

If I say, “Oh, you’ve got 20 grand,” but if you have, let’s just say… There’s one gentleman. I can’t use his name yet because he has come to me, and we just started to discuss what he should be doing, but he’s sitting on half a million Instagram followers right now. He’s got a 100,000 TikTok followers. He’s got a big Facebook community. He’s his own influencing model.

He’s now wanting to do something to give to his people, like a brand, like a company or a product. He’ll have a lot of that. That cuts a little bit of the cost back because he has this audience, but if you don’t have an audience, then you have to have a budget for that…

Real-World Marketing Opportunities

It’s funny because I know somebody a little bit ago was telling me that they create viral videos. That’s what their pitch was. “I create viral videos.” I’m like, “Well, by nature, creating a viral video is something that happens organically. I don’t think it’s something you plan for,” so that was a weird pitch to have somebody say to me.

But I do like the idea of having a strong website. It depends on what your offering is how big the site needs to be and feel. I always like sites to feel like destinations, not gateways, come in, grab something, and leave. I like people to have a site that they can interact with and maybe create an engaged community.

Traditional vs. Digital Marketing

Let’s just start with TV. TV works, but at the same time, you’re in a sea of people trying to scream as loud as possible, and now, because TV is not a strong a medium as it used to be, your spend has to be so great to get the same amount of impressions from your customers as social media. You could spend less digitally and have a bigger impression than you do on TV. It’s easier to run, there’s a lot of avenues, it’s faster to change. If a commercial’s not working, it takes time. If a social media ad isn’t working, it’s quick.

Radio and PR

Radio is kind of a middle ground for me. I’ve seen moderate success with companies with it, just nothing big, nothing massive. PR is always good. Having a PR firm, having a PR strategy is always good. Unless you tell people… like you own a restaurant and the lights are off and there’s no open sign, you can’t expect people to think you’re open. You got to turn your lights on, click the open sign on, open the door, and you have to announce to people you’re open. That’s where I think PR really is all about. I think you have to have a good PR strategy.

Branding and Packaging

I’ve worked on brands that were like, “We could just simply stick it in a brown paper bag and send it out,” and I’m like, “That’s the most worst idea I’ve ever heard in my life.” I’m like, “Why would you do that? It cheapens the brand.”

Your packaging needs to attract people. It doesn’t matter if I order something online for the first time or the 100th time. I want my packaging to be just as good each time. If I ordered something regularly, and somebody sent me my nice bottle and all my stuff up front, and then by the 10th time, I’m on auto-renew, and I got literally a whopping brown bag, I would cancel my order. I would be like, “They’re taking advantage of the amount of money I’m paying them, and they really honestly are devaluing me. I love the bottles.” Packaging is important.

The Retail Environment

I look at bottled water as a great example of that (retail).

It’s bottled water, but I often find people will gravitate towards buying the VOSS bottle of water because of its packaging and how prestigious it feels, and, “I’m drinking a VOSS water, so I’ve got this great thing,” and versus just grabbing the 99 cents store brand bottle of water in a plastic ugly container. I do think packaging’s important. I don’t think you should spend so much on packaging that your product is not a good purchase, is not of value, but I do think you have to put some thought into how it looks and feels.

Nutritional Trends

Diet has a weird flat trend. Nootropics. Nootropics, brain products are an ever-growing product line. You see all these great companies, you’re seeing good companies, bad companies, and different companies. People are spending tons of money against brain products. There’s a lot of nice data out there about the buying habits of consumers and nootropics, so that’s a big one. That one is not trending down anytime soon, so I tell people, “If you get in something, get in nootropics…”

New Product Pitfalls

Oh, lack of efficacy, the efficacy is just getting it done, making sure you have a product that works. Lack of a story, like really lack of communication. How are you telling your people what they’re doing? How do you tell your customers why you’re different or better than the next one? What’s the vehicle you’re using to get people excited about you? That’s a big pitfall.

Staying Strategic in Nutrition

You really have to be strategic. I also find brands tend to, or people tend to over-purchase. They don’t test the market. They don’t start small enough, or they don’t plan accordingly…or they go to a manufacturer, the manufacturer, “The best price is at 10,000 bottles.” They buy 10,000 bottles, but they move a thousand, so they’re stuck on nine. The 9,000 they have to get rid of so they can recoup, so they start slashing prices, slashing prices, slashing prices. At some point, all they’ve done is devalue a great idea. I’d say to people start small, have a great story, and know how you’re going to communicate to people. Know what you’re going to say.

Locking Down Your Brand Story

Well, I think first, your leadership has to have a vision. You have to have a clear idea of who you are, even as a person. Sometimes I think some things have to come back to people and who they are as people, not just like, “Oh, I got this great product concept.” Well, who are you?

One of the best brands I worked with the last couple years had all the right pieces but the wrong leadership, and the wrong leadership really was the person who came up with it and had a great idea should never have run the company. He should always just have been a guy who had the great idea and went and got the right management…

The “Brain” Story

The brain story is: I’m young. I don’t want to lose my memory. I found these great ingredients, and they give me focus and energy and knowledge. Then if you can’t craft the story, you go hire somebody. You find yourself a good marketing writer or a technical marketing writer, and you have them help you craft what you can get out of your mouth, or… You know what I mean, like what you can’t put on paper, what’s in your head, but not everyone’s William Shakespeare.

Sometimes you have to find the right person who can help put that down. Once that brand story’s established, then making the product’s easy.

Recommended Resources from Gabriel Flores

I do like Dave Asprey and then there is Ben Greenfield. Believe it or not, if you listen to Tim Ferriss, the four-hour weekly guide, go research his history and how he started. He’ll talk about how he started with a company he created called BrainQuicken. But he had a very interesting upfront model for the young entrepreneur, not a lot of money.

Building Your Personal Brand

The other thing I think I would tell people, like I’ve just really begun to do recently, is create your own self brand, know who you are, and maybe do something for you.

Besides Applied, I’ve got this brand I’ve been working on right now. It’s called The Adventurous CEO, and I’ve been lucky. All of a sudden, I got a bunch of Instagram followers, and I’ve been able to get people to start listening, but I think you have to get out there and more or less not even read some people as much as create your own voice online and get people to listen to you too.

Final Thoughts From Gabriel Flores

“If you’re afraid, don’t do it. If you’re doing it, don’t be afraid. Genghis Khan. It’s one of my favorite quotes of all time, but it just is don’t be afraid of what you’re doing. Just do it.”

Wrapping Up

Gabriel was able to provide some fantastic insights as to what makes an entrepreneur’s mind tick, personally and professionally. While clearly there is no cut-and-dried formula, Gabriel echoes the values we see in thought leaders around the world when it comes to work ethics, strategic thinking, and willingness to take risks and lead with your passions.

If you want to hear the complete podcast you can click here to watch on YouTube, or if you would like to listen on the go you can listen to this episode and additional Digital Breakthroughs Podcast episodes on your favorite podcast streaming platforms. (Apple & Anchor)     

The post Digital Breakthroughs Podcast #4 – Nutritional Marketing with Gabriel Flores appeared first on National Positions.