Date:TODAY 

Time:  12 - 1pm

Location:  This workshop will be held virtually.  To access go to:

Meeting link:

https://umbc.webex.com/umbc/j.php?MTID=m9cb04b05bad0a62ff70417b6cb9bb1ab

Meeting number:

120 681 3422

Password:

PCiX4nHMP47

Building your brand as an entrepreneur is extremely important if you want your company to stick  out from your competitors and be successful. Come join us for an interesting workshop with entrepreneur Jeremy Steinberg on October 7th from 12 - 1 -- Held Virtually. Jeremy, who is a managing partner of Antson Advisors, will work with you on building your own personal brand in this interactive one hour session.

You will learn how to differentiate yourself from your peers and competitors in a market that is continually seen as both overcrowded and noisy. You will leave the session with tangible takeaways that you will be able to apply before you walk out the door.

A little bit about Jeremy Steinberg:

Jeremy is a managing partner of Antson Advisors, a Baltimore-based management consulting and outsourced executive firm with a  specialization in growth of middle market organizations and head of the sales and marketing practice. Jeremy serves as the VP of Customer Experience with RocketDocs, and previously served as the interim VP of sales and marketing at Maryland Proton Treatment Center (MPTC), a free-standing cancer treatment center. At MPTC, Jeremy oversaw and led growth of costs by 82% while simultaneously decreasing the overall sales and marketing costs by 35%. As a result of that effort, MPTC was able to restructure over $277M of debt and equity and stabilize the Center for decades to come.

1. The idea
1. 25 years old, playing professional lacrosse and selling health care benefits in Annapolis, Maryland 
2. Comes home one day to find that his mother's homemade salad dressing was stolen by a friend 
3. Decides there must be an appeal if someone goes through the trouble to steal the dressing, so he sets up a meeting with a local Whole Foods for a tasting
2. The brand 
1. Lies about having an established company, and brings the store's supervisor a Tupperware container with lettuce doused in his mother's dressing
2. Supervisor is confused but likes the taste and sets up a meeting with Annapolis Whole Foods directors for Vetter. 
3. Vetter tries the same Tupperware idea again to avoid admitting he has no packaging, and bluffs his way through serious questions about manufacturing and logistics 
4. Meeting goes well and they ask him to send his legal documentation, and he bluffs his way through all the requirements because he doesn't understand half of them (He gets his HACCP from a Google Search on HACCP plans for dressing companies) 
5. Gets the contract anyway 
3. Sales and Marketing
1. Sells 4 cases of a dozen bottles at a Wholefoods demo in just 30 minutes.
2. Ends up breaking a national record by selling 650 bottles in less than five days just at demos 
3. Made the dressing with his two brothers in the middle of the night at a ribs restaurant by hand for two years. 
4. Expansion
1. Demoed across the country in various Wholefoods stores
2. Expanded to Costco and Safeway and had to expand product options to adapt
3. Expanded product line to all condiments
4. Expanded to 150 employees in 7 years 
5. Struggles and Lessons
1. "Never give up" 
1. Spent 2 and a half years manufacturing everything by hand in the middle of the night, but he never let that put him down
2. "Knock down 7 times, get up 8"
1. Got a small business loan for a piece of manufacturing equipment that went to waste because they didn't have the rest of the equipment to make it work. 
3. Be practical
1. His car was repossessed because he didn't pay himself, and couldn't make his car payments.  
4. "When it rains, it pours"
1. After two and a half years of struggling, every time something good happened, it ended up being a huge blessing (Safeway contract happened the week after the car was repossessed).
5. Prepare for the journey and appreciate it
1. 86% of consumer packaged brands fail, so it's worth being humble about success that can be so volatile
6. Be Authentic
1. The ability to sell an emotion will knock them down every time. Tessemae's is a homemade family recipe that's made by three brother's by hand out of all natural ingredients. It's one of the very last few condiment companies that make condiments that actually need to be refrigerated like real food. It's something that makes them stand out and be remembered. 
7. "Master the minute"
1. Being able to not waste time during the day by organizing, planning and acting and half of the struggle. Everyone has the same number of hours in a day, and people that are successful are those who make the most of them.