Making Strategic Packaging Decisions that Maximize Profits

Curt Anderson  00:00

was hey, Damon who’s doing the intro? Am I doing it? Are you doing it?

Damon Pistulka  00:03

You’re doing the intro day, my friend.

Curt Anderson  00:05

I don’t have the intro today. Okay. Hey Damon. I’ll do the intro. Hey Damon, happy Monday. How are you?

Damon Pistulka  00:10

I’m doing great, Curt, we’re ready to go,

Curt Anderson  00:12

man. How was your weekend?

Damon Pistulka  00:14

It was great.

Curt Anderson  00:15

It was great. My goodness gracious. Could have been any better. What an honor. What a thrill what a privilege. We have just just just somebody extraordinary. I’m just gonna say extraordinary. Damon Okay, are you ready? Are you ready? This one? Jessir Schwartz. Good morning. Good afternoon. Happy Monday. How are you?

Jessie Schwartz  00:37

Good morning. Doing well. Thank you also have a remarkable weekend. So we’re all in the same place.

Curt Anderson  00:42

Let’s let’s hear about the weekend. Just what went on in the shorts household over the weekend.

Jessie Schwartz  00:47

We went up way up north went way up north. Yeah. Normally went to a cabin. Yes, exactly. It’s a little bit of Minnesota accent and therefore, you know, we were at a cabin. We did a bunch of tubing. Got a little drone. So we were doing some drone flying. It’s still in one piece. So that was great. And yeah, just enjoy. Enjoy the great outdoors because we all know in Minnesota, there’s only like a couple weeks where it’s warm. Right the rest of the time. It’s snowing.

Damon Pistulka  01:13

Yep. Well, then you have a few mosquitoes to when it gets warm.

Jessie Schwartz  01:20

Oh, yeah. This type of birds up here. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  01:25

What just one or two, Damon right. Just to call

Damon Pistulka  01:28

ya know, I’ve been in northern Minnesota where you’re talking about though Jessie it’s awesome. This time of year. It’s great to get up there like a tube and kayak and whatever you’re gonna do is such so many good things to do up there. That’s awesome. All

Curt Anderson  01:40

right. Well, good. All the kids survived the like the full shorts. family survived the drones. Movie, everybody. No

Jessie Schwartz  01:47

one. Everything survived. It was it was a good weekend.

Curt Anderson  01:51

No emergency room visits. Awesome. All right, well, let’s dive in. We have a ton to cover. And Jessie, I had the honor privilege, I believe you and I connected through Dave Chrysler. So our dear friend Dave pricer. Our friends out there drop us a note. It’s perfect. You want to connect with Jessie. She is a superstar founder and CEO of strategic packaging partners. My goodness gracious Damond is gonna be a new one because this is a topic that we haven’t really dug into. And you have an illustrious career. Just wealth. You’re I think you’re a Spartan in your background. Yes. Maybe we’re going to talk a little General Mills. But Jessie before we dive into all that I want to go back in time a little bit. curious minds would love to know we had we had some questions that came in beforehand, that we would ask Jessie Schwartz right Damon? Yep. Yep. Jesse, when you were a little girl growing up, little girl growing up? Who was your hero? Who was your hero as a little girl growing up?

Jessie Schwartz  02:53

Who was my hero? Um, oh my gosh, I need to preview these suckers. My hero. I think it overall is just I watched my mom had her own business. And my dad worked. And I just watched my parents. It was was fantastic to have my mom home to watch her run her business successfully. And so I’d say maybe I don’t know if necessarily a hero but sort of like, what would I want for my life? Like, what do I see the ideal state being how could I get there was sort of the guest, the hero of my life was being able to chart my own path. And watch. Watch that firsthand.

Curt Anderson  03:38

That’s awesome. So mom’s name, please.

Jessie Schwartz  03:41

Joanne

Curt Anderson  03:43

so join. So what type of business if I can ask what type of business to join? Have?

Jessie Schwartz  03:47

She recovered furniture? Oh, did she sure. Oh, no. Like back when furniture was made out of hardwood and metal? Yeah. It was actually worth re re upholstering recovering. And since then, I think a lot of furniture isn’t so much isn’t well as well made. And so. Yeah, doesn’t make as much sense anymore. Yeah. But she Yeah, she made a good living doing that.

Curt Anderson  04:13

That was a great thing. I had a client years like 20 years ago used to do that. So that’s phenomenal. Just what a great living. So were people showing up to your house all the time with furniture was your mom always going out? Like what did that look? Does she go pick

Jessie Schwartz  04:26

it up? And then she’d pay us like, you know, a nickel a staple to pull the staples or whatever. You wanted a little summer job once actually did restaurant chairs like 300 Restaurant chairs like the ones with the seat pad in the back? Yeah, yeah. unscrew them all tear apart.

Curt Anderson  04:45

Money. Yeah, you’re so you’re just dead. The screwdriver. Like would you have something like Well, there are specialty tools for tools. Yeah, so you had the staple removal tool. The

Jessie Schwartz  04:56

Ripper and yep, pliers and band aids, right.

05:01

Band Aids. Yeah, a lot of band aids a

Curt Anderson  05:06

lot of blisters callus fingers. So I That’s awesome. So mom was an entrepreneur and debt. And what did dad do? He

Jessie Schwartz  05:13

worked for a resource recovery center in Newport. Well, he did a few different things. Actually he did. He worked in savage Minnesota. He worked in an elevator that filled barges with grain. So yeah, it was kind of it was pretty cool. It’s fun to drive by there. It’s still there still operating thing. It’s ADM now. And then he did, he worked a long time for well sorted out as NRG was a municipal solid waste processing facility in Newport. But it was kind of advanced with the time they had an eddy current machine that would fling the aluminum off the line and they had different types of equipment is really cool. So he worked there, he also ran their safety program.

Curt Anderson  06:05

So I mean, you didn’t fire to fire off the tree right to Apple didn’t fall to fire. So entrepreneurial mom, dad, great work ethic. And so it kind of slides in. So you know, let’s dive into a couple of things. So today you’re an entrepreneur, you have a wonderful podcast, we’re gonna dive into that. But let’s lead up to so mom and dad were heroes growing up, you saw this entrepreneur thing going on? You go off to college, I believe you have a master’s degree at Michigan State. What inspired you led you to go into the world of packaging? Why? Oh, what happened there?

Jessie Schwartz  06:37

I fell into it. I had no idea it existed. Like completely clueless. I mean, we all know I love a package, right? Everybody knows things coming to package, but the fact that there’s a degree in a master’s degree for I like no clue. So I went to I went to school. And I went to school to be a teacher actually. And during student teaching, I realized this is absolutely not the degree. This is not the career for me like this. I will not survive. So one of my friends said, Hey, there’s a there’s a job fair in Minneapolis. You should we should go to the job fair. I’m like, Yeah, okay. Sounds good. So I went to the job fair against the last interview of the day for General Mills. And I literally remember telling her, I’m so tired. They’re like, all day, right. I went to school Mankato for the undergrad. So it was a couple hours away, whatever. I’m like, I’m so tired. We just skip the interview. She’s like, No, you got an interview. So you should go. I’m like, Okay, sounds good. So ridiculous. I mean, I’m a first generation college kid, I am clueless. I’m just navigating through this. And I made really good decisions. I did decide to say and I got a job at General Mills. I worked there for a couple of years, not in their technology division, or their r&d division rather, but a couple years into my career. I’m like, Okay, this is not I’m not really not really digging. This was customer service. So I was doing corporate customer service, logistics, accounts payable, accounts receivable type stuff, coupon fraud. And I found this okay, packaging, packaging engineer, packaging technician at the time, I’m like, Okay, that sounds kind of fun. I should have gone to school to be an engineer. But I didn’t realize that calc four and diff EQ, were wieder classes. Right? So I’m like, if I can’t get an A or you know, I don’t know. Like, I don’t know if I can survive, you know? Yeah, exactly. Oh, so I did. Thank God, I stuck with science. So but anyway, so I went over to packaging. And I’m like, Oh, this is kind of cool. It’s kind of engineering too, which is kind of cool. It’s kind of what I wanted to do. So I was in packaging for about at Mills, I think was about 11 years. 1011 years, almost completely in cost savings. Yeah. And then I got my master’s degree. Well, it’s over there. So it’s

Curt Anderson  08:58

awesome. Okay, so let’s unpack

Damon Pistulka  09:00

sort of what kind of products were you working on at General Mills.

Jessie Schwartz  09:04

So I did a lot of different things. I did a lot in bakeries and food service. And multiwall bags, flour, so retail flour and foodservice flour. A lot of paper, and then I did Betty Crocker, Betty Crocker baking lines, cake mixes brownies, things that I worked on Annie’s Jeremy has acquired them all the time on camera what year anyways, I have worked on that product line. Pillsbury. Kando buckle up there. Oh, 9007 inch. That’s the world I lived in. Yeah.

Damon Pistulka  09:43

Well, it’s it’s, it’s crazy. The technology that goes into the packaging for the consumer goods around us every day. Yes. The thought of I was watched some video someone was showing a how a paper cup really has a plastic liner in the inside of it to you don’t even notice it, you know and things like this and but when you look at, like you said just a bag of flour bag of sugar that comes to you. It’s not just a paper bag, there’s a lot more thought that goes into it. And that to keep that product fresh and and like it’s supposed to until it gets to you. Yes, you’re

Jessie Schwartz  10:19

right. Wow, very cool.

Curt Anderson  10:21

Let’s so let’s let’s think about this one for a second. Okay. Just think if you skip that interview, just, I mean, just it didn’t have any good life. You know, if you guys remember, you know, there’s a lot of stories or you know, there’s a movie sliding doors, you know, I think it was one of Paltrow. She’s running down to Subway stairs. And it’s she catches a subway is one side of the story. And then she misses the subway is the other side of the story. A little bit more dramatic of, you know, gee, do I turn left or turn right? You know, in your case, it’s like, at

11:01

Let’s blow off this,

Curt Anderson  11:02

you know, I’m not in the mood. I’m tired. You know, like, let’s not go. And just think like your whole career trajectory is completely different. If you just make that one decision and not go to the interview. Yeah. What so I have to ask, so when you did the interview, were you were you excited? Did you feel chemistry with the interviewer? Like, what do you remember that?

Jessie Schwartz  11:24

Yeah, I mean,

Damon Pistulka  11:25

I thought it went well. Yeah, obviously, because

Curt Anderson  11:27

they loved you. Right? Yeah.

Jessie Schwartz  11:29

Yeah. I had a great time there. I had an amazing career there. Yeah, I mean, just fantastic people. That

Curt Anderson  11:37

is, that is just absolutely fascinating. You go through the interview, changes your whole career. So let’s go there. Just so you you have a thriving career at General Mills, what encourage you, I want to what kicked off your entrepreneurial journey. I know you had another step in there. But here for folks out there, that they’re thinking, you know, what, I’ve been corporate or I’ve been doing kind of, you know, the working thing I got I have that entrepreneurial bug, walk us through your entrepreneurial journey. What was that transition? Scary, exciting? What was that? Like?

Jessie Schwartz  12:08

Um, well, I kind of was left with two options. So essentially, General Mills was about 2012 things in the food and beverage industry kind of got, I don’t know, I think ugly is how I’d say it. When you think about food and beverage, three G. Coming in Kraft, Heinz kind of clearing, clearing, clearing everybody out and really going after profit, and there’s a lot of pressure to meet new expectations around profitability. And I don’t know, a lot of organizations and still to this day, I mean, it’s every few years, they do a layoff, and it’s just kind of become part of corporate culture. And I get it like you can never stop hiring people, right? You always have to be hiring people bringing people in. And I guess people aren’t leaving as fast or you’re not, you know, whatever. There’s a lot of reasons why it’s happening. And every couple of years, I lose a lot of people I knew, and sure I missed the people that left, but also it just became more and more difficult for me to do a really good job. Because the ways of navigating the organization, were constantly changing. And I just didn’t see a lot of wasn’t sure how I could leverage my career to get the experiences that I want. And the education that I wanted, in different divisions or product lines. Even switching, potentially, what I did day to day from engineer to maybe somebody at ops, you know, things like that. And I just made the decision, like, Okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna leave, I think I think I’m good. And that was scary. I think I remember calling my parents and telling them that I’m like, you know, I’m gonna start looking for something different. They’re like, what, are you insane? And like, slightly, slightly insane. Yes. And also, I just have to do this, right. And you you look around and there’s a lot of people who move around right? Like people that are they they work in packaging, it listed their packaging engineer, they spent five years here five or six years there. And honestly, part of that isn’t it’s not bad, it’s you’re learning a lot of different things and you’re able to kind of transfer knowledge that you’ve gained, and help a lot of a lot of companies, you know, but anyway, so then I ended up leaving and I was looking for a part time something part time because at the time I had four kids. The youngest was, I don’t know a couple months old. And so I ended up finding like a small company, local company to work for and then they did layoffs like a year after I started and like first in first out they didn’t FIFO me for last last in LA So first

Curt Anderson  15:02

lastin first out LIFO. June?

Jessie Schwartz  15:05

Yes. So then it was kind of left with a couple of choices basically to, I guess, three, find something else part time, find something full time, or don’t go back to work well, the third one was definitely not an option. So I was like, Well, if I still want to keep a flexible schedule, I still want to work kind of part time. So I’m just going to see what I can do on my own, at least in the from a flexibility standpoint, Riley can maybe it can work while the kids are in bed, if I needed to whatever. So that kind of launched me into, okay, I’m gonna start an LLC and see what I can do. So then I did that. And then I started calling a lot of people and ask them if they have any work. And that worked. That worked for a couple of years. And then I realized, okay, I want to do things a little differently. I see needs in a different way, I want to organize in a different way, I want to do more, help more people find great jobs, help more companies find more companies that need help, it’s really hard to work in a business and not a business. So then I transitioned to, okay, I’m gonna lead this group of engineers, and we’re gonna go out and solve all the packaging problems in the world. So wow, there’s a lot of talking.

Curt Anderson  16:18

That’s what you’re here for.

Damon Pistulka  16:19

Awesome.

Curt Anderson  16:22

I’m loving every minute. So So let’s dive in. So your entrepreneurial journey, you are a packaging engineer, walk us through. So there’s manufacturer out there, you know, for our show manufacturing ecommerce success. You know, I know back in my ecommerce days Damon a huge portion of my time was spent in China like locked down right size boxes, right size this that? Oh, yeah, I wish I knew a Jessie, Jessie kind of share your superpowers how you make the world a better place, kind of let’s walk through your process on how you help manufacturers figure out this whole packaging thing?

Jessie Schwartz  16:56

Yeah, absolutely. So I think, to step back and just take a look at packaging as a whole. For organizations, typically, you’ve got companies spending a lot of money on the product that’s in the package, as well as the marketing, like how this product is in a shelf on the shelf, how it’s going to be differentiated from competitors, and get people to pick that up package up and, you know, hopefully buy it. A lot of times the actual structure that it goes in is an afterthought. So it’s like, Okay, we got all this other stuff the product, right, we get the branding, right? Oh, can I just go find somebody make the packaging? And that’s kind of a problem. And I think as we see, like, the current inflation, the cost of goods sold is just kind of bananas, everything has gone up. And it’s more important now than ever to take a look at, okay, what, what is happening with packaging? How is it a strategic spend? Or is it just kind of an afterthought spend? And I think for a lot of companies, it’s a tricky question. Because you look across an organization and packaging, right impacts everybody, right? From procurement, to operations, to quality, to logistics. But all those issues are kind of the kind of just, I don’t know, they kind of sink to the bottom a little bit. They don’t always, the issues with packaging don’t always like rise up to like impacting KPI the way most companies are looking at them. And so it’s really important to take a look at okay, what what’s happening? What’s happening for shelf? Like, if it’s if it’s sorry, if it’s a food product, what’s helping? What’s happening to the product during shelf life? Do I have adequate protection for the product? Am I over engineering it? So dialing it in the structure in After testing the product through shelf life? And then operations wise, like? Are you talking to your co man if you don’t own manufacturing? And even if you do, what structures? Are you currently using? On that line? Should you make considerations to use a similar carton size or at least a footprint? So you’re not changing all your equipment every time you’re switching skews? And then from a procurement standpoint, you know, again, like are you consolidating? Are you are you set up so that you’re using as many impressions across the web as possible with your supplier? Right? Like, what’s your scrap rate at your supplier? Think about that. So if your scrap rates like 3% great, but if your scrap rates like 25% and hopefully no supplier would set you up with a scrap rate of 25%. But what could you do to manipulate your carton or your film to maximize the packaging from your supplier? And then where is your packaging coming from? Are you shipping it from coast to coast? Or are you shipping it from someone you know, few hours away? And those are types of questions. I I think like when I say that people are like Oh yeah, that makes total sense. But there’s so much else going on that unless you have packaging representation, those types of questions they don’t get asked. Because everyone’s kind of just focused on what their deliverables are, you know what I mean?

Damon Pistulka  20:12

Yeah, and packaging, as you said, the inflation on packaging and just the the inefficiencies that you can get, if you don’t really pay attention to it, it can make a lot of difference on the profitability and like you said, the impression by the end customer because they get it, and it’s not like they want you know, on consumer goods, like you said, food quality, say the food quality grades in your because your packaging is not right, or it, you know, you’ve said something else, too, that I think is really important as people are thinking about, you don’t design a different size package for every single product, just because it might be a little bit different, you know, get along with the same one to really get that scale and economy of quantity. Just so many things you can do.

Curt Anderson  20:58

Yeah, I mean, everything that you’re working on, it has the has the impact to go right to the bottom line. Yeah. For people that are doing significant value, that that bottom line can be a significant number. So when so when you walk in, so just were you kind of laying out like a little bit of a checklist like so when you walk into a client? Do they? Do you know, like, you know, Damon, we always use that line, you know, not even sure what problem you have, you know, you know, I don’t know what I don’t know, when you walk into a client, is there a situation where they they know there’s a problem don’t know where to start? Like, what are you playing? Detective? What’s that look like?

Jessie Schwartz  21:34

Yeah, so a lot of times, you know, companies are siloed. And even though people try not to be that way, they kind of are inherent, because you have special specialties, right? And so when you talk about packaging, going across all the specialties, we ended up having a lot of discovery conversations around, okay, how do we dig into the data, right? So we do discovery conversations like that, or sometimes we do site assessments, and we’re strategic about the site assessments, and who we talked to, but really, the idea is, you’ve got Okay, you’ve got the C suite, senior leaders, they have their KPI or their metrics, right. So that’s, that’s, that’s what they’re delivering. And if, if they’re missing on one of those metrics, they gotta go a layer deeper and say, okay, my, my throughput or my, if you’re an operations, maybe you care about hitting target cost, hitting throughput, and, and, you know, reducing Change Overs, whatever. So then if you’re missing your KPI, you got to figure out okay, which one of those KPI do I need to dig further into? Because unfortunately, the conversation the data exists like two or three layers below, right? The the conversation or the data that the senior leaders are getting. And so you dig into the KPI, which specific one are you missing? And then okay, what products are causing you to miss, because there’s typically a family of products, a certain production line, perhaps a shift, a certain shift that just doesn’t perform the way it needs to. And it just drags everything down. So we like to come in and really get into the detail. And it’s funny, because I had had one client say, Well, if you’re just going to come in and tell me that I should spend $10 million on a new line, and then it could be more efficient that I don’t want to talk. And you’re like, that’s fair, that’s totally fair, I would never do that. I don’t know. Like, I think consulting agencies or consulting, consulting companies, maybe get a little bit of a bad rap, because it’s like, well, you’re just gonna come in, tell me what I already know. And tell me that what I already know, cost me, you know, 10s of millions of dollars. Whereas I think there’s a lot of scrappy, you know, we’re just a scrappy company that’s like, okay, what can we do with what you already have to save money and, and we can start the conversation and that discovery call to kind of dig into like the data, and then go to the site or start a project with, you know, whatever products are causing trouble. And that’s kind of how we approach it. But really getting deep into the data is key.

Curt Anderson  24:11

What if you could share with Did you have a, you know, we use the word like Avatar, ICP ideal client, like what’s, what size manufacturer? Do? Do you feel that you can really move the needle for what’s that look like?

Jessie Schwartz  24:26

So the primary, our primary group of clients is, you know, mid market to enterprise, so 500 million plus. And it’s it’s manufacturers, it’s organizations that own their own manufacturing, it’s Comins, and it’s also private equity. And then we do help we do sometimes help startups as well, because they need a lot of resources and they’re scrappy, just, you know, on their own and we do some connecting in that space, but the majority of our clients are luck. They need somebody with a lot of experience. They’re also spending a lot of money. And so it’s, you can, if you can shave off a nickel here or there, it makes a really big difference. Right?

Curt Anderson  25:10

Right. Are there? Are you seeing, you know, let’s talk technology changes AI, you know, are you seeing a lot of excitement on the technology front? Is AI impacting your industry? What’s that look like?

Jessie Schwartz  25:22

Yeah, um, AI is impacting the food and beverage industry, specifically, with packet packaging, I think it’s going to come down to vision systems and machine learning around inspection. So I’ve seen AI used for packaging, inspections. Making sure like a bottle, for example, doesn’t have any thin spots. But it, but it’s Yeah, I don’t know, we’ll have to see like where else we can leverage AI. Certainly, we’re leveraging large language models in our company through packaging specifications. We’re helping organizations get all of their packaging specifications in one place. So you think about packaging specs that come in the form of word PDF, Excel. And so we’re able to put it all in one place, right, so that you can see, holy cow, I have 15 carton sizes. How did that happen? And unless you see it all right there in front of you, you can’t, you can’t really imagine it right. Yeah. And it’s hard to figure out like, specifically around maybe films and what layers are in the film. So there’s, there’s some there’s definitely play and I went to the SAP Sapphire conference. And AI was everywhere. It was like the theme of every single day. And so around information systems, specifically, there’s a lot of ways to query data and to use AI to help you like there was this one scenario where the SAP scams news articles found that there was a bridge out or a storm in this one area, correlated it with vendor locations, and in popped up like, in the morning, you’d see a pop up that said, hey, Storm, you might be out. Where else can you get this product and make suggestions for you. So really becoming kind of that assistant, to preventing issues. So there’s a lot, there’s a lot in, that’s coming into the marketplace.

Curt Anderson  27:33

Nice. Okay. So technology is exciting, your entrepreneurial journey? What’s it been like? You know, we had an entrepreneurial family on the show on Friday, the husband and wife and they were kind of kicked around, hey, entrepreneurships, a little bit, you know, it’s up, it’s down. It’s up. And you know, you’re at a mat, you know, one of the largest corporations in the country. What’s it? What’s that transition been? Like, you know, kind of leaving that corporate? I don’t know, I guess we can’t say security blanket, because corporate is not secure. But what’s it been like? big corporate going to your own your own entrepreneurial journey?

Jessie Schwartz  28:09

It’s definitely a wild ride. Yeah. I think especially in the beginning, right, where people just don’t know about you. So how are you going to get yourself out there? Yeah. How are you going to make it known? Because I think you talked about protect fractional? No, I would think we’re kind of fractional, but that’s not really a term, people are kind of picking it up, but not familiar, I don’t think with with how it works. And organizations are now I think, to the point where they’re open to talking about different ways of getting work done. So like, Hey, I have a strategic project, it’s going to last nine months, their first thought isn’t, oh, I should go see who could do this. And I could have expectations of somebody that has 20 years of experience who could jump right in and help. People aren’t thinking like that? Yes, they’re thinking, okay, my fixed number of resources. So then I’m just going to prioritize work that way and, and see if I can get it all done by shuffling it around my team. So there’s definitely like an education piece to like, Hey, you can actually hire experienced people to do the work, right? Like we’re not consultants that come in and tell you what you already know. We’ll come in talk about what what you already know, help you prioritize it and get the actual work done. So that’s definitely a piece that we find ourselves educating people on, okay, it’s a different way of working that a lot of people have thought about. And then I think being an entrepreneur, you think that when you’re in corporate you know, you do these little these little self discovery things and you try to make yourself better and learn your learn your leadership styles, and you do all these things, which is cool, but then you get thrown into entrepreneur, like being an entrepreneur, you’re like, holy crap. This is like, this is like you’re getting schooled in personal development like you’ve never seen Before Yeah, It’s wild. It’s a circus. And so I didn’t realize how cool the people were who survived being an entrepreneur. Well, you really done a lot with yourself. Like I automatically, kind of Yeah. Because you have to know yourself really well, then you have to know, like, where you want your business to go. And then you have to pick the right. You to open the right doors, right. And yeah, it’s crazy. It’s crazy.

Curt Anderson  30:33

Damon so now you can tell why I was so excited to have just yeah, like when I saw Justin, I, again, thanks to our mutual friend, Dave Chrysler, and we just kind of became instant friends. And I’m like, Man, she’s really professional, I need to, you know, but when you talk to Jess, she’s like one of the funniest human beings I’ve ever met. And every time we get off the call, like, My cheeks are hurting, because she she just, but she’s but you, you it’s all between the lines. Like, she has the best sense of humor. And it’s all between lines, just as you’re describing, I love to go here. So and again, I’m kind of going off script on a question here. So a lot of times you hear consultants that remedy things. And you’ve talked about the vitamin, the preventative, versus the medicine to cure. Now, you’re just great. I thought you just described a great example of like, Hey, I have a problem. And I’m not thinking I need a 20 year experience person that really knows, you know, I’m just, I just don’t know that because like, this is a new problem me? How much would How much would it be beneficial for you to be working with someone kind of on a vitamin side of being proactive? Preventative? Versus Oh, no, we have a problem CEOs upset or accounting? Bottom line? Does that? Does that question make sense? You know what I’m Yeah, it

Jessie Schwartz  31:46

does. And we get, we will be brought in by people who upfront, like when they’re just kicking off a project, if the individual that’s kind of putting the team together has worked in a food company with a packaging engineer, because they see that packaging engineers have touchpoints across the organization, and they’re thinking of things nobody else is thinking of. And so it’s definitely good to bring in engineers early. I had a conversation not too long ago with a guy who said, Yeah, we really want your help, or I think we need your help. And they really did need her help. Like, well, we’re thinking of you as kind of like an insurance policy, like you’re an insurance policy. And I’m like, Well, no, like a failure, like an assessment of your failure. It’s like where you could fail, that’s your insurance policy. Like, you don’t even know if switching your product into a new packaging is going to import new flavors. Or if it’s going to make a change colors, or if the shelf life can be like a third of what it should be. So, you know, just kind of along the way of like, okay, what packaging engineers do and how they contribute? It’s interesting, depending on a lot of the person’s background, like whether or not they they inherently see the value or not. And sometimes it’s like, okay, well, here are the things you want watch out for, and then they’ll go away, and then come back and be like, Oh, my gosh, that was terrible. we’ve screwed it all up. Can you come help us fix it? You know? So, yeah, I still think that there’s a lot of leadership, a lot of leadership who sees the value in packaging engineers, like upfront, they’re still the early adopters of seeing that value, which is strange, but then when you kind of pair that with the fact that packaging is kind of an afterthought, then you’re like, Okay, I kind of make sense. But if people saw if companies saw their packaging, as sort of the strategic investment in their company, that’s where you start like, Okay, now we can start putting value stories together. But um, yeah, definitely. It’s better to take a vitamin. Absolutely. Yeah, no one wants scurvy. Very easy to prevent, just take your vitamin C. Yeah. Yeah.

Damon Pistulka  34:00

And it’s interesting to hear you talk about passion because you’re working with consumer goods and things like that. And in my world, prior to doing what I do now, it was in the, like, contract manufacturing for big companies. And we had to be just relentless on packaging design, you know, because if you’re say you’re you’re putting a mirror for a BMW into something that’s going to go to the plant for final assembly, it can’t show up damaged, you know, it’s got to be right. And it’s got to and then to they, for many years have thought about sustainability. So how are you going to how are you going to make it so they can fill up can lapse back down and go back and get used the gazillion times? And you know, and the farther down the food chain you get the more more important packaging design there plays a role because the the margins get get thinner and thinner. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, good stuff. Good.

Curt Anderson  34:55

Theming that’s why the so just Could you please you have a podcast asked, Can you please share the podcast title can be more perfect? Which

Jessie Schwartz  35:06

that’s how I used AI to. I asked Claude. Hey, Claude, what? What should I name my podcast? Something something. So it’s called the packaging therapist. Is that fun? Nice.

Curt Anderson  35:19

So, so Damon. So what we encourage people to do is when you’re having you’re in package crisis, you can get a couch, lay down on the couch, relax, and you can just go to the third packaging therapist, and you can just listen to her podcast. And she’s going to help ease your pain, right, Jessica? Yeah.

Jessie Schwartz  35:38

Or take a nap either way or ticket? Yeah, so like, the whole premise of the podcast is educate people so that if you think you want compostable material for your product, you can go listen to that podcast. And it might not give you the answer, but it will give you questions to ask suppliers. So you’re not just walking in, like not knowing anything. So it’s all about education. It’s all about giving people information outside of a sales pitch.

Curt Anderson  36:10

Yeah, I, I absolutely love it. So I just got we will start winding down. So we got Jessica, just Jesse, we’re all over the place. But let’s start winding down. I know like you’ve got you’ve got a lot of people, you’ve got a lot of therapy to provide here. So one question that I want to ask as we’ve been going into our entrepreneurial journey. And again, guys, what I’d love for you to do is checkout strategic packaging partners. Connect with Jessie here on LinkedIn, as you can tell, she’s a wonderful, she’s just an amazing human being just wonderful to talk to kill her sense of humor, and just a strategic partner with your business on all things packaging. Just curious minds would love to know here as you started your entrepreneurial journey. See, there’s a young your younger self, a young entrepreneur out there, maybe an older entrepreneur out there. Putting you on the spot. Are you ready? Are you sitting down? Are you ready for this one? I am

Jessie Schwartz  37:01

sitting down? Yes. Yes. There’s a chair back right here.

Curt Anderson  37:04

What was the what’s the best business advice that you received? As you kick started your business? What would you say is the best business advice that you have received?

Jessie Schwartz  37:19

Trust your gut, and read a lot of books, personal development books, leadership books. I think when you’re an entrepreneur, it’s really just you and sometimes can be a little bit lonely. Sometimes you don’t know. Like, what you should feed your mind to take it on this journey. And so I found a ton of books that audiobooks, just audible, listen, constantly listening to something. And then talking to other entrepreneurs, I’d say I did that a little bit. But then I got a good business coach. And a good business coach should not cost you a gajillion dollars. So in word of mouth, like if you’re going to get some resources, or you’re going to hire a business coach, you’re going to hire a virtual assistant, do it off of referrals. That’s the That’s the best. Yeah, that was like the best advice, like always do things through referrals. And then don’t be afraid to, to find resources when you need them or be thinking of them kind of ahead of time. So start kind of developing a plan, you know, have a spreadsheet of like, where’s your money coming in? And when is it leaving and do something, do something with a CRM. So I’ve gone back and forth from like a bunch of different ones that I’ve super like one page, it’s very basic, it’s like the iPhone of CRMs I think just it’s, it’s super logical. But getting systems in place and trying to create some kind of consistency around when you do work and what that looks like and put together like a little matrix of when you’re in a post on LinkedIn, so you don’t have to think about it. You just have to go look kind of like oh, because the topic and then you can just Google something or you can come up with something. But getting organized. And never giving up. It’s like that. Remember that picture of that frog? That’s like choking that stork that’s trying to eat him? Yeah. Do that. Do that

Curt Anderson  39:30

that was a great visual. Right that thank you. Yeah, I wish we had that image. We could pull that up. So so just recap a couple of things there. Trust your gut. Great instinct, right? Find those mentors find other people that have been down the path love that great humility be never give up. That’s another great one, right? Cash Flow. I heard you say you know that’s a little that’s a minor detail Damon that we should write maybe what’s going out what’s coming in that might you might need to pay attention. that one, right?

Damon Pistulka  40:00

Yeah. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  40:01

What? There’s a little bit so. Okay, great advice. Just as we wind down, what are you excited about for the future and packaging and just share with folks again? You know, how can people find you?

Jessie Schwartz  40:14

Yeah, I’m excited about the future in packaging. I think it’s getting more attention more now than ever. And so it’s leading to a lot of great conversations. It’s really helping a lot of companies out. And yeah, like you said, strategic packet strategic packaging partners.com Or on LinkedIn. Happy to have a call also with, you know, entrepreneurs that maybe are thinking like, Okay, what else could I leverage? What else could I do? Happy to help out fellow entrepreneurs as well. Yeah,

Curt Anderson  40:49

absolutely. Love it. Damon, your takeaways, your thoughts? I know you’re a fierce I saw you taking tons of notes over there. What are your thoughts on? Yeah, I’m

Damon Pistulka  40:57

not gonna go down the technical stuff of this, because I think packaging packaging actually started out in packaging design many years ago. That’s what I did. But it is it’s like you said though, Jessie, it’s overlooked. It’s, it is so critical in so many ways. And I think people just like you said, they come to the end, they’ve got a great product ready to market and sell and they they haven’t thought about? How are we going to get it to our customers? And that’s like an afterthought. Well throw it in something and it will get there. Right? Just doesn’t happen that way. Yeah. If they

Curt Anderson  41:33

even get there. So alright, so as we wind down, we strongly encourage you, we invite you reach out to Jessie. She is the packaging therapist. She will help you with those vitamins to those preventative vitamins. So you don’t find yourself in crisis. Jesse, I you know what, Damon, I have one last question for Justin. You’re coming. You’re coming to us live from the Twin Cities. Are you are you? Are you a twins fan? By any chance? Are you a baseball fan? I like the twins. You like the twins. I said, You see, I think your catcher was just in the Hall of Fame over the weekend. Did I say that correctly? Joe Mauer. Yeah. David. I think he got inducted to the Hall of Fame. Mr. Joe Mauer, you know, just a great Yeah, what a hero he is. So I just let’s just say hypothetically, Swartz family you guys are twins game but okay. It’s it’s tie score to bottom of the ninth. Okay, bottom of the ninth tie score. There’s somebody on second base and you’re paying playing the dreaded you know, who do you guys like you probably despite Who do you despise the White Sox? Maybe? I don’t know who Yeah,

Jessie Schwartz  42:37

yeah. Yankees. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. So

Curt Anderson  42:43

flavor of the day. Yeah, flavor day, somebody on second base, and the manager of the twins turns down the bench and looks at Jessie Schwartz and says, Hey, Schwartz. Grab a bat. Grab your helmet, please walk up to the plate and hit into when he run because we need to get this game over with okay. You got me. Okay. You grab your helmet. You grab your bat, you’re walking to the plate to go hit in the winning run. Jessie’s work shorts. What is your walk up song on the way to the plate to hit in the winning run?

Jessie Schwartz  43:16

We are the champions. That

Curt Anderson  43:17

a girl. Look, David. See. That’d be Miss.

Damon Pistulka  43:20

Right there.

Jessie Schwartz  43:21

Great. You stuck in my head all day. Thank you. Yes. You’re welcome.

Curt Anderson  43:27

That’s what we’re here for. That is what we’re here for. Just have we are champions stuck in your head. So hey, if you’ve been hanging out with us for that i This time just flew by. So just about a big a big round of applause for our friend Jessie Swartz, and just maybe just making the world a better place with her packaging, expertise and Gurunath. I just made up that word demon, her guru Enos. And so Jessie, thank you, applaud you. We commend you. Admire what you’re doing. Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for coming in and sharing your expertise. And Damon, I think we’re doing this again on Friday. Did

Damon Pistulka  44:01

you know that? Yes, we are Kurt.

Curt Anderson  44:03

We’re doing this. Again. We’re back. We’re back again on Friday. So Jessie, thank you for hanging out with us for one second. Hey, David, I think Do you have news do Is there a little course that you’re promoting? Do you have news that you want to share with

Damon Pistulka  44:16

people or Bob? By golly we do. Curt, we just launched that we just launched a live streaming course you and I, we’ve been you know, we’ve done like 500 episodes of this stuff. And we’re like, we get a lot of people asking how do you live stream? How do you live stream? So Curt and I actually produced a course. And if people want to learn more about it, we’ll have the link to it in the show links. And yeah, we just laid out all the steps that we go through to do what we do. That’s right. It is matter

Curt Anderson  44:41

of fact, Jessie, you and I talked a while ago. I think we need I think we need to talk about that little packaging course that you’re going to put together right? Yeah, yes. Let’s do it. That’s awesome. I guys, we’re gonna wind down have a wonderful, amazing, incredible rest of your week and Daymond like we always love love to say, just go out and be someone’s inspiration just like our dear Jesse was for us today in law make the world a better place so we will see you here on Friday Thank you God bless and we’ll talk to you soon

Damon Pistulka  45:08

have a great week peace