Marketing with Empathy with Ryan Pintado-Vertner

Ryan Pintado-Vertner, Founder Smoketown

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Meet Ryan Pintado-Vertner

Ryan Pintado-Vertner is a Chicago-based Activist and Strategic Marketing Impact Expert with two decades of experience guiding Fortune-level brands, building startups, and leading nonprofit organizations. 

Ryan believes it's not enough to create yet another brand in the marketplace, we have to go beyond the basics to create brands with empathy, purpose and vision -- brands that will bring more justice, regeneration, equity and wellness to the world.

He is the Founder & CEO at Smoketown, a boutique brand consultancy whose fractional CMO services and strategy practice help mission-driven consumer brands maximize their growth and build more traction, all while having a transformative social and climate impact. 

Episode Highlights

During this episode of The Food Means Business Podcast, we discuss:⁠

  • Ryan’s journey from working as an activist to discovering the intersection of building great companies and having an impact on the world

  • How he reinvented himself after being laid off from a career in corporate CPG

  • How brands can market with empathy

  • Maximizing your brand’s growth while making an impact 

  • 00;00;00;01 - 00;00;25;20

    Ryan Pintado

    All right, so let's go. So, Ryan Pintado Bertner, thank you for coming to the Food Means Business podcast. I appreciate you being a guest. I wanted to start by just congratulating you on your your four years in business with Smoke Town. So congratulations on that. It is a it is a huge to be in business that long, actually.

    00;00;25;20 - 00;00;42;05

    Ryan Pintado

    So yeah, I feel like I don't know I don't know what the stats are, but you know, it's a year or two. Like if you can get past year two, then maybe you'll survive. And so the fact that we've gotten past year two and we're in year four. I'm super blessed.

    00;00;42;24 - 00;00;59;21

    Djenaba

    Yeah, that's great. That's great. So I would love to start by hearing your story. This podcast is all about going from being in a cubicle to being the CEO. So I'd love to hear your kind of career progression.

    00;00;59;21 - 00;01;31;26

    Ryan Pintado

    Sure. So I started out my career in the non-profit sector. I had no interest in corporate America. I, frankly was deeply skeptical of capitalism. I felt like it was on the wrong side of of too many things that I really cared about in terms of making sure that people have enough food to eat, that they have shelter that's guaranteed that they can, you know, live fulfilled full lives.

    00;01;32;08 - 00;01;56;05

    Ryan Pintado

    And so I was an activist for the first half of my adult life. And what happened for me is, as I was working at a nonprofit, I lived in the Bay Area at the time. My wife and I and I was working at a nonprofit and we were trying to figure out ways to generate revenue other than raising philanthropic money.

    00;01;56;05 - 00;02;24;23

    Ryan Pintado

    So I was co-director at the time, so fundraising was a big part of what I was responsible for, and I was tired of it. We were tired of it. And so we were looking for ways to build a revenue generating business within the nonprofit that would offset some of our need to have foundation dollars and individual $2. And what I discovered is that all the people that I was asking for advice and the consultants that I would hire all had an MBA.

    00;02;25;11 - 00;02;52;16

    Ryan Pintado

    And so I remembered that my mom had an MBA and I had run the opposite direction, I guess like I had I wanted nothing to do with it. And then it finally made sense to me and I discovered the intersection of of building great companies and and having impact on the world. So I wound up going to business school completely focused on social enterprise, social enterprises, what that sector was called at the time.

    00;02;53;28 - 00;03;21;19

    Ryan Pintado

    And then one thing led to another. And a funny story I went to, I learned that I loved consumer products. I'm a total nerd for like consumer behavior and what makes people tick. And you know, the story I was to I was told is how is it that and why is it that I'm willing to stand in line to buy a pair of Jordans every single year?

    00;03;21;19 - 00;03;44;22

    Ryan Pintado

    You know, like that's what I was. Yeah. So anyway, I went to this trade show that is big in the natural products industry. It's called Natural Products Expo West and I had a big stack of resumes. I was I had completed my first year of business school, big stack of resumes looking for a job. And I got rejected over and over and over and over again.

    00;03;44;22 - 00;04;06;06

    Ryan Pintado

    They all told me I had to go work at a big CPG company and get trained. So that's what I did. I spent what turned out to be like, I think 13, 14 years in the PGA. I thought it was going to be like three years. I'd punch my ticket right out because that's completely not how I saw myself.

    00;04;06;06 - 00;04;27;16

    Ryan Pintado

    But I learned a lot and and my career progression was pretty good, actually. And work life balance was, was for the money that I was making was was wonderful. I had two kids. I wanted to play an active role in their life. So, you know, I look up 13, 14 years later, I'm still in CPG. And then I got laid off.

    00;04;28;14 - 00;04;42;14

    Ryan Pintado

    First time that had ever happened to me in my life. First time had even been close and it knocked me flat at first. But then, you know, my wife scraped me up off the ground and now says.

    00;04;42;14 - 00;04;44;13

    Djenaba

    Do do do they always ask.

    00;04;44;13 - 00;05;12;17

    Ryan Pintado

    About exactly like as as partners do, Like I did exactly what I needed scraped me up off the ground off and said, you you've been give a chance to reinvent yourself in a way that you know that you've been wanting to. And it was 100% correct. It took me a minute to figure it out, but once I figured it out from from that realization to starting smoke test, maybe one week, I was like, wow.

    00;05;12;21 - 00;05;21;04

    Ryan Pintado

    As soon as I went off, I had a URL. I had the, you know, LLC, I had the name and we were off and running.

    00;05;21;04 - 00;05;21;21

    Djenaba

    Amazing.

    00;05;21;27 - 00;05;27;03

    Ryan Pintado

    That's that's how I jumped from from cubicle two to founder.

    00;05;27;13 - 00;05;42;24

    Djenaba

    That that's great and thank you for sharing And I'm and we mentioned that yes I've been for years in business but also can you tell us a little bit about the inspiration tell us what your company does and also what the inspiration behind your company is. It's really important for sure.

    00;05;42;26 - 00;06;18;14

    Ryan Pintado

    So what small Town does is we're a boutique consultancy that helps mission driven brands primarily in the CPG industry, but consumer brands of any kind get more traction, make fewer pivots and scale without compromise izing their mission. So it's all about how do you grow revenue and increase success while also increasing impact and increasing mission at the same time without one compromising the other.

    00;06;19;10 - 00;06;57;20

    Ryan Pintado

    And the so that's our core. That's our core goal. That's that's our mission is what we what we're about. We build brands that are going to change the world and the inspiration for that was two things. Like one, I saw that the things that I, I had been taught in at companies like Clorox, some of it was extraordinary, like really, really smart, proven to work reams and reams of data that proves that it works.

    00;06;58;08 - 00;07;21;25

    Ryan Pintado

    And those skills and capabilities were not really being applied to early stage brands, or at least I didn't think that they were. I had a feeling that there aren't too to make an impact there. So the first part of the inspiration was very rational, let's call it. I know how to do something. These businesses probably would benefit from what I know how to do.

    00;07;22;07 - 00;07;23;12

    Ryan Pintado

    Let me see if that's true.

    00;07;23;12 - 00;07;23;20

    Djenaba

    Right?

    00;07;23;20 - 00;07;46;01

    Ryan Pintado

    I was the first piece and the second part was and this ties to the name the company is is Newtown for for no the reasons that most people assume. Most people here smoke town and they look at me and they think this is barbecue or they think this and.

    00;07;46;24 - 00;07;47;20

    Djenaba

    Oh, wow, we.

    00;07;47;20 - 00;08;16;08

    Ryan Pintado

    Do it like we do it. It depends on where you live. Like for people who live in like, you know, legal like legal cannabis states, their first is, oh, okay, you're in the cannabis hustle, right? Got it. And of course, neither are true. So Smoke Town is a neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky. It is the neighborhood where my grandfather grew up, and he was an amazing storyteller.

    00;08;16;08 - 00;09;00;04

    Ryan Pintado

    He would he would tell these almost tall tales about the ridiculous stuff that happened to him and his family growing up in Smoke Town. And one of the things that always stuck with me as I thought about him and thought about those stories and what they're theme was, it was that he and his and my grandmother who lived there with him for part of their marriage, they had a relentless commitment to their their potential at a time in history where to black folks in the South had no business having an optimistic outlook on what was possible for them.

    00;09;00;04 - 00;09;42;21

    Ryan Pintado

    Right. Like everything, every every signal America could send was was counter to that conclusion. And yet they they just had a dogged commitment to their potential and then eventually a commitment to their daughter's potential, which, you know, two generations later has me with an MBA from, you know, a super good school and and and so that idea of potential and realizing my potential and helping founders realize their potential and helping brands realize their potential, it occurred to me that that's kind of a through line from me in my life like realizing and maximizing potential, whether it's mine or the people I know and care about.

    00;09;43;00 - 00;09;53;11

    Ryan Pintado

    So the name is really a nod to potential and a nod to the fact that what we try to do is help founders and CEOs realize the full potential of the brands that they've built.

    00;09;53;22 - 00;10;11;17

    Djenaba

    Wow, that's amazing. So I actually had a chance to watch one of your videos. You did a talk on empathy, So I'd love to. I, I was it actually kind of it struck me as I've been thinking about it honestly for the past couple of days. And I would love you to talk about marketing with empathy and how brands can do that.

    00;10;12;12 - 00;10;50;01

    Ryan Pintado

    Mm hmm. Yeah. Well, let's start with just let's define the term for the for for your audience's benefit. I mean, empathy in the most literal kind of like dictionary definition is the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes and also feel what they're feeling like genuinely experience the world in the way that they're experiencing it. And what I for whatever reason, am naturally pretty empathetic, like it's been true for me from a young age.

    00;10;50;08 - 00;11;09;14

    Ryan Pintado

    That's the reason I was an activist. You know, I would I would hear stories about, you know, my friends getting, you know, harassed by the cops or beat up by the police or, you know, friends and family members struggling to make ends meet and needing to borrow money from my family or all of that stuff, which is break my heart.

    00;11;10;05 - 00;11;46;02

    Ryan Pintado

    So empathy was a big part of kind of how how I'm wired. But empathy also turns out to be the foundational principle in in, in marketing. How so? That that that is the way that I was taught and what the data proves is that at the end of the day, the brands that succeed and this is true in any sector, but let's just kind of focus on on consumer packaged goods and we can even be more specific and focus on food business instance.

    00;11;46;02 - 00;12;17;19

    Ryan Pintado

    I know that's a big part of your world every so the brand that succeeds, so succeeds. Has it found a neat ID that consumers have and it's this vibe that eat in a buzz differentiated and powerful consumer the need on understanding the need is an exercise empathy. It's an exercise of being able to put yourself in your consumer's shoes.

    00;12;17;28 - 00;12;33;12

    Ryan Pintado

    It's being able to not think of the brand as something that you created to satisfy yourself and it but thinking of the brand as something that you created to satisfy and and address the needs of other people. And so so.

    00;12;33;12 - 00;12;54;12

    Djenaba

    But it's it's deeper, right? It's deep. It's it's deeper. Meaning like it is. It's not just I've solved the problem, right? I'm solving a problem. I my child was lactose intolerance. I created a dairy free food item for, you know, for them or for people that need dairy free items. But so it's more it's more than that because that's kind of a very surface level.

    00;12;54;22 - 00;13;22;00

    Ryan Pintado

    Correct? Right. Yes, I'd say that certainly. Here's one way to think about it. There are levels of empathy. And the more layers, the more levels of empathy that we can unpack, that we can sort of on on get get down into the more powerfully you can market and build your brand. So certainly there is a surface level need.

    00;13;22;00 - 00;13;53;28

    Ryan Pintado

    Let's stick with lactose intolerant kids. Certainly there's a surface level need there. And if you created a lactose free smoothie or a lactose free, you know, snack, you've you've addressed a surface level need that might mean that you'll sell a few units, but what's the next level need below that? What else is going on in that mom's life?

    00;13;53;28 - 00;14;21;18

    Ryan Pintado

    Well, she might not just want to serve her kid a snack that's lactose free, but she might want that that snack to be amazing and unwrap cognizable different from other snacks because she doesn't want her kid to look or feel weird or different because they showed up at school with a snack that's that looks generic or looks like it's going to be disgusting.

    00;14;21;18 - 00;14;54;18

    Ryan Pintado

    So there's another level of need that is, I want my child to feel normal or to feel like she will thrive or right. So imagine how like now with that additional piece, now you're you're building a brand that that has a more meaning. And and so the idea is you just keep going and and the more layers you want, you peel away, the more points of difference you can build into your brand, the better your marketing choices, the better your innovation pipeline, the stronger your story.

    00;14;54;18 - 00;15;01;15

    Ryan Pintado

    When you sell into retailers, the all of that stuff starts to work and become and becomes synchronistic.

    00;15;02;12 - 00;15;07;01

    Djenaba

    So what are steps that brands can take to start to do this work?

    00;15;07;01 - 00;15;45;01

    Ryan Pintado

    The first one is obvious, but shockingly few founders do it, which is get to know your consumer. What we we work with a lot of founders. I mean, probably like in an average year, if we're working with ten or 15 brands, 80% of them are founder led. So and what's the first transition that a founder has to go through is the jump from I made this for me and my problem to I'm I am selling this and I'm building something for them in their problem.

    00;15;45;05 - 00;15;45;16

    Djenaba

    Right?

    00;15;46;02 - 00;16;22;06

    Ryan Pintado

    So that's the first job. And with jump, the next step is I need to get to know the people who are learning with, which is their research, what to do actually like the heart is not as a brand is not to serve you personally and making the decision to get to know your consumer. It's actually very straightforward. So if it's a DTC business, it's about every week talking with consumers, especially consumers who reach out to you through customer service.

    00;16;23;04 - 00;16;57;28

    Ryan Pintado

    It's about reading every single review. It's about having conversations with people who make reviews. So that's like in the DTC world. And by the way, doing that same thing with your competitors, looking at what your competitors reviews are saying in the brick and mortar world, especially like depending on COVID situation, if you're able to do sampling, having real conversations with people, if you're at a farmer's market or at a pop up, it's having conversations with people.

    00;16;58;07 - 00;17;22;01

    Ryan Pintado

    So the first step is to just make a commitment. Well, the first step is recognize that you are not your brand, like you're not selling to yourself. The second step is to commit to literally every week talking to real people who are actually either buying your product or rejecting your product. And over time that naturally starts to like pattern start to emerge.

    00;17;22;01 - 00;17;44;04

    Ryan Pintado

    But the third step after after that is to create a structured way to to begin making sense of what you're learning, to recognize the patterns that at that step you probably need a third party, an outsider, or somebody who's your foil that you can sort of bounce ideas off of and who can help you make meaning out of what it is that you're learning.

    00;17;44;04 - 00;17;53;04

    Ryan Pintado

    So I'd say that those are three steps that the founders can take to to to deepen their empathy for the consumer that they're selling to.

    00;17;53;26 - 00;18;10;27

    Djenaba

    The funny thing about that is talking to people, people where people are scared to have conversations with people about their product. Yeah. So I actually when I was starting my own my business, I talked to people all the time. I had two hundreds of entrepreneurs. What did they need? What do they need in a kitchen? What kind of education do they need?

    00;18;11;00 - 00;18;21;23

    Djenaba

    And after a while I got a lot easier. But in the beginning it was definitely a challenge for sure. It's really hard. It's people are scared to get out there and get beyond the friends and family and start to have conversations.

    00;18;21;29 - 00;18;47;11

    Ryan Pintado

    Especially beyond friends and family. Yeah, yeah, it's hard. I mean, it's hard because you're being vulnerable. It's hard because you feel like you're imposing on people. It's hard, right? So no question that it's that it's tricky and yet it's the single most accessible choice that you can make as a founder. It costs you nothing, and it is the most powerful thing you can do.

    00;18;48;06 - 00;19;09;21

    Djenaba

    It is truly like a foundation, like people people don't think about. They think about, Oh, I'm going to sell, you know, millions of units or whatever, and they're not thinking about it starts with that one person that's across from you at a market or sampling at a store. So that's good. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. So.

    00;19;09;21 - 00;19;22;24

    Djenaba

    Oh, so you specialize in helping CPG brands maximize growth while making an impact. Can you talk a little bit about that and what types of what brands you'd be thinking about when they are kind of taking on that work?

    00;19;23;05 - 00;19;54;20

    Ryan Pintado

    Mm hmm. Yeah. So there's the way that we approach that looks different depending on the stage of the company. I like my team and I have gotten to a point where we're talking to so many CEOs and founders every year, whether they're our clients or not, that we can we recognize patterns and we can sort of we can guess at the rough size or stage that a company has had just based on asking the questions.

    00;19;54;20 - 00;20;27;19

    Ryan Pintado

    And so the way that we approach that, that maximizing growth and maximizing impact depends on the stage. So let's say it's an it's a relatively early stage brand, hasn't yet raised outside capital maybe is only in a few dozen stores or not in stores at all. And they're just selling online. The businesses at that stage are the the biggest step that they typically need to take.

    00;20;27;19 - 00;20;56;00

    Ryan Pintado

    And the way that we tend to be the most supportive is a lot in what you and I just discussed. It's facilitating the process of getting outside of themselves as the consumer target and getting clear about who it is that they're actually winning with. Right. Who it is that they actually should be should be defining as their consumer target and what that means for the way the brand should position itself and should talk about itself.

    00;20;56;22 - 00;21;18;00

    Ryan Pintado

    So that's that that's core to that first stage of work. And then the way we build purpose into that is a question that we always ask and help founders work through is why are you doing this? Like, what's the impact that you want to have on the world? And it's not that you want to make a bunch of money.

    00;21;18;00 - 00;21;53;01

    Ryan Pintado

    I mean, maybe you want to make a bunch of money. Got it. Right. But what do you what do you actually want to do in the world and how have you built that into the business in a tangible and concrete way? So that's the that's what we do at the early stages and and sometimes at that. In that case, one of the roles that we play is playing the fractional outsource marketing leadership team for brands that need that that level of sort of day to day support, but just can't afford to bring in top talent like that.

    00;21;53;01 - 00;22;16;16

    Ryan Pintado

    So then as you move up in stage, the challenges shift because now you're going from servicing a few dozen stores that you can drive to and that you yourself personally are doing the demo and you know, it's very tangible. You can get your arms around it to unlocking big regional accounts or unlocking accounts that are across the country.

    00;22;17;06 - 00;22;42;29

    Ryan Pintado

    And now you actually have to build a marketing plan. You have to think about how you're going to drive velocity and drive demand for a brand that you can no longer service. Personally. So the challenge there tends to be how do I build a marketing plan? What are the elements of that? How do I navigate the million in service?

    00;22;43;11 - 00;23;14;25

    Ryan Pintado

    You know, service providers who are all constantly telling me, if you, you know, I can come to me like, I've got the best widget to help you sell more stuff in, you know, Schenectady, New York or whatever, right? It's a it's a it's like a bazaar. It's like the number of of companies or or consultants selling their service to help brands build marketing is staggering.

    00;23;14;26 - 00;23;15;05

    Ryan Pintado

    Right?

    00;23;15;05 - 00;23;16;03

    Djenaba

    So many. Yes.

    00;23;16;03 - 00;23;45;14

    Ryan Pintado

    Very difficult to navigate. So the role that we play at that stage is helping a brand and a team fine tune, what it's going to actually take to be successful outside of a small handful of stores that vary. Often what happens at that stage is we need to rethink packaging design. We need to rethink price point because those are the two levers that are the most effective and and have the highest impact.

    00;23;45;28 - 00;24;06;12

    Ryan Pintado

    And there we build purpose into it again, because now we're we're we've got more resources to think about storytelling and how are we going to to tie our brand's purpose into the way that the brand shows up in the world. What's the right communication hierarchy, that sort of thing.

    00;24;07;27 - 00;24;27;03

    Djenaba

    So what's an example of purpose for a brand like what you hear about brands that you know they have a give back with their If you buy, if you purchase their product, they'll give back to a certain organization. Is there something specific that you could point to that some of that's doing a really good job at at purpose showcasing their purpose?

    00;24;27;11 - 00;25;01;13

    Ryan Pintado

    Yeah, we have a very specific way of thinking about this. We call it the big fight. So the big fight is a brand's blueprint for how they're going to maximize growth and maximize impact with the same set of strategic choices and the same set of activities that that that big fight is is picture a Venn diagram and there's four circles.

    00;25;01;13 - 00;25;31;19

    Ryan Pintado

    And the four circles intersect that at the at the center point, the those four pieces of of building a strong and big fight are understanding what, what motivates your consumer. It's understanding what's truly differentiated and different about your brand. It's being clear about what you yourself are motivated by. That question I asked earlier, like, what's your why? Like, why are you like, why are you in the world?

    00;25;31;19 - 00;25;51;29

    Ryan Pintado

    What's the impact that you're trying to have on the world? So really being dialed in on what's that impact that I'm trying to have? And then the fourth is at my level of scale than at my company's level of scale and resources. What impact is actually possible? It doesn't make sense for me to take on, you know, eliminating poverty globally.

    00;25;52;09 - 00;25;58;29

    Ryan Pintado

    If I've got $100 in the bank and I'm selling, you know, 100 units a week, right? Like right.

    00;25;58;29 - 00;25;59;09

    Djenaba

    Right.

    00;25;59;09 - 00;26;26;25

    Ryan Pintado

    So at the intersection of those four things is what we call the big fight and an example of a company who they're not a client of ours, but I'm a huge fan of what she's built. Who who's big fight is is just exceptional. Is a company called I might even have It Here, a moonshot. It's founded by a woman named Julia Collins.

    00;26;27;22 - 00;27;07;18

    Ryan Pintado

    It is a a brand of snacks right now. Crackers is their lead item that are regenerative. We sourced from regenerative AG. So regenerative we farmed wheat. And also. Well, let me let me lay out more of what she's up to. So what what what's powerful about that brand's big fight is that it's not just about scaling and bringing regenerative agriculture to market.

    00;27;07;18 - 00;27;45;18

    Ryan Pintado

    The way that she's built her business and her team is radically diverse. So there's an anti-racist commitment that's also embedded in the way that she's built the brand and in in the way that she thinks about her impact in the world. And the reason that she's done that is what she knows as a black woman. And what I know having been an activist, is that the environmental catastrophes that await us because of the poor climate choices that we're making are choices that will disproportionately impact people of color globally.

    00;27;46;06 - 00;27;50;10

    Ryan Pintado

    They will disproportion, really impact low income folks globally. Right?

    00;27;50;24 - 00;27;51;11

    Djenaba

    So true.

    00;27;51;17 - 00;28;00;11

    Ryan Pintado

    And and so a commitment to regenerative agriculture, which if you look at it, is sort of a lily white field in the way that it sort it's like presented to the world.

    00;28;00;27 - 00;28;01;09

    Djenaba

    Right.

    00;28;01;10 - 00;28;33;07

    Ryan Pintado

    It's actually a radically anti-racist decision because you're bringing about a version of commerce and a version of agriculture that, for one, black and brown people were practicing for hundreds of years before industrialized agriculture showed up and screwed it all up. But also the opposite. Like the the positive benefits of that will accrue to or should accrue to black and brown folks.

    00;28;33;07 - 00;29;08;24

    Ryan Pintado

    So she's built this brand and this business that is first and foremost a delicious, inviting cracker that also is has positive climate impact, that also has one of the most diverse cap tables in terms of who her investor base is. Right in the industry. So that's an example of like think about how different that is than posting a BLM hashtag on Twitter, right?

    00;29;08;29 - 00;29;11;00

    Djenaba

    Or a black or a black square on Instagram.

    00;29;11;01 - 00;29;39;28

    Ryan Pintado

    Like black square on Instagram, you know, like give me give me ten Julia Collins's who have who have made foundational business decisions, like their purpose is anchored in every aspect of their business. Give me ten of them and they will outperform both financially and in terms of impact on the world. They will outperform a thousand brands who posted a black square, right?

    00;29;39;28 - 00;30;03;15

    Ryan Pintado

    Like right that. So the idea of a big fight and the idea of building purpose into a business is to get beyond the basics of marketing communication and get into how do the fundamentals of your business change the world? How are black people going to be better off because your business grows, right?

    00;30;03;17 - 00;30;24;25

    Djenaba

    Wow, that that's amazing. I definitely have to check out her product. I have heard of it, but I haven't. I had an interactive with her before that I never. Okay, Wow. This is that's really great. Thank you so much for sharing. So we have a what I call a moneyball at Hudson Kitchen. And we bring it when we celebrate things, it literally is in the lobby and we people walk by and ring it.

    00;30;24;25 - 00;30;32;04

    Djenaba

    When there's some people ring with they get their paycheck or whatever. But so when they leave, my question to you is, what are you celebrating right now?

    00;30;32;21 - 00;31;07;01

    Ryan Pintado

    You know, you you named it at the top. I'm celebrating that that we made it four years and and that's that's nothing. That is that's that's nothing that I take for granted. The the number of people who needed to the number of people who've been involved in that, who've made that possible, who've come alongside me and trusted me and supported me and, you know, picked me up off the ground when I'd been knocked over.

    00;31;07;01 - 00;31;32;27

    Ryan Pintado

    And I am deeply indebted to to so many for having been able to get to that milestone. It's just coincidental that you and I are talking in May and May of four years ago is when we were founded. So so if I were, you know, if I were where you are, I was coming through the lobby or whatever, I'd be ringing the bell for the fact that that were four year strong.

    00;31;34;00 - 00;31;41;02

    Djenaba

    Amazing. Congratulations. And thank you so much for being here. Where can people find you and learn how to work with your team?

    00;31;41;02 - 00;32;05;03

    Ryan Pintado

    Yeah, so there's a couple of different ways. One is our website WW W dot smoke town strategy dot com that's there's a couple of things you can do there one we've got a ton of videos tools resources all free that you can just check out if you go up to the content tab at the top and navigate your way to that.

    00;32;05;03 - 00;32;41;28

    Ryan Pintado

    There's there's a wealth of stuff there. The second thing, the way that people can get to me in particular is I'm really active on LinkedIn. That's that's my social media platform of choice. And so you can find me on, on LinkedIn and, and I do my best to share content that that that swings between sort of think about how to build businesses with more purpose but also helps us make better marketing decisions and be empathy led in those marketing decisions.

    00;32;41;28 - 00;32;46;12

    Ryan Pintado

    So those would be the best two ways to get to get to us here.

    00;32;46;23 - 00;32;51;17

    Djenaba

    Thank you so much for being here. I truly appreciate it. It's all right.

    00;32;51;17 - 00;32;55;28

    Ryan Pintado

    We're good. I'm I'm honored for the by the invitation anytime.

    00;32;57;14 - 00;32;58;15

    Djenaba

    Great. Thank you.

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