Persuasive Techniques That Will Help You Accomplish Your Goals with Marc Howland

Hey everyone and welcome to our Throwback episode. In our Throwback episodes, we are reintroducing you to some of our most popular episodes. This is great for new listeners who want to learn more about the work we've done in the past and it's a great refresher if you've been a listener for a long time. Enjoy. Mark, thanks for joining us my friend.

Really excited to join.

Yeah, it's great to have you. So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Yeah, sure. So my name is Mark Howland. I grew up in a small lower middle class household in Cleveland, Ohio. My mom was a public defender for 40 years and committed her entire life to improving the quality of life of others. And she really instilled those values in me and had a lot of opportunities that I was presented. I was able to do pretty well in school, got scholarship to go to a top college preparatory high school and led to an opportunity to go to Brown University. I was a business econ major, also a dual sport athlete in football and track and ended up going to the financial world. Got opportunity to work at Goldman Sachs as an investment banker for several years and then at the Carlyle Group, a private equity fund after that and was able to get an opportunity to go to Harvard Business school for my MBA and I've been an entrepreneur ever since post 2018. And most recently I was called to to build a company called Breadless. It is a quick service restaurant chain that serves savory on the go breadless sandwiches made with leafy super greens like red Swiss chard, turnip greens, collard greens that power a health conscious lifestyle. We don't use any bread or lettuce. It's all leafy super greens with chef crafted combinations that taste good. And you know what really gets me particularly excited about what we're doing is that I firmly believe that we are on the path to democratize the health and wealth of of neighborhoods everywhere. Because not only are we bringing healthy options to the communities, but we want those communities to be able to own the revenue streams through affordable breadless franchisees so that that wealth can circulate back into the communities that are being served healthy food at the same time so that we can authentically build a more equitable and healthy society in unison.

Wow Mark, I get more impressed every time we chat, man. It is impressive what you've built and it's so cool seeing where where you are now from where you were like last year and the difficult conversations that had to take place in order to make that happen. It's really, really cool to see.

Yeah, it's funny because we are so early in our journey, but yet I feel like a lot has transpired at the same time. You're exactly right.

Absolutely. Well, great. So today we're talking about how to gain buy in for your idea. And so again, this. You had an incredible vision, but you needed buy in. You needed a team. So the first thing we're going to talk about is how you got team buy in. The second thing we're going to talk about is how you got community buy in and then now how you got investor buy in. And again, for me, seeing it from the beginning and how we kind of work together to craft these conversations earlier to get the team on board. It's cool to see where you are. So let's tell the listeners about that part of the process.

Yeah, it's interesting and it's funny you say sort of team, community, and investors, and I actually think it starts one place sooner, which is yourself. So for me, I realized it's super critical to get buy in on your own for yourself authentically, before you can get buy in from others. And I think that that comes from authenticity, which usually comes from some form of story, which forms your why. And I had a very clear story that transformed my why. Because I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, where if I wanted to eat healthy, the options were, or, excuse me, not if I want to eat healthy, but if I just wanted to eat something that was relatively convenient, it was burgers, fries, or fried chicken. And that informed how I grew up. And so ultimately, at one point, someone even said I had a gut. And that was something that really made an impact on my sense of self. And thankfully, I grew up in a city that is really big into sports. So I pushed myself into becoming a great athlete in football and track. And that helped me to transpire up until adulthood. But then the world of finance is not one that is, that serves a healthy lifestyle very well. And so it was very difficult to find healthy options. So that was my story. And I'm motivated to want to ensure that others can also get access to these healthy options, which is my authentic, true story. And I'm certain about that story. And so then when I was communicating with others to join the team, it actually stemmed from an initial point of trust and relationship. So just for example, our co founder and chief product officer, Ryan, I met him in 2015 through a barbecue that was called a Baby Q in New York that another friend was hosting. She introduced us because he was a friend of hers, and she had a lot of, obviously, faith and trust in him as the chef, and they had opened a restaurant together, and. And she had a lot of faith in me and knowing our background, so wanted to connect us, and that was where our relationship started to flourish. So that foundation was built upon mutual friends and having a trust that each party was going to be. Was. Was going to be able to connect with one another in a meaningful way.

That's fantastic. And so what we're seeing here is the fact that your reputation, in many ways, was carrying the weight of persuasion for you, right? For. For Ryan as the Chief Product officer, it was. It could have been a big ask because he. He has a business. He's already pretty successful. Right. And so now you're asking him to take on more responsibility. So there were. There were reasons for him to say no, but just because of the relationship he has with you and how you've already created this level of credibility with him, it became an easier decision for him to make. And now one that is often overlooked is the fact that your fiance, now wife, Elsie, is. She's. She's part of the team, too, and that there. There is some interesting dynamics there because you still needed to get her to buy in as well.

Yes, absolutely. And that one was, I think, a lot easier, because when I was. When I first told her about the concept, she had already known me, obviously, our entire lives. We had been consistently talking about my way of eating, because I've been the guy going into every single restaurant for the past 10 years saying, can I get a lettuce bun or lettuce wrap instead of bread? And the options that have come back have, to say the least, like subpar, sloppy, inconsistent, falling apart, watered down. So I was always venting to her about the options that were coming back and taking photos of it. So at one point in 2019, I sent her a photo that was sort of the last straw of an option that I was eating and said, this is ridiculous. Like, why can't I get a delicious sandwich without bread? With any consistency whatsoever, a place should exist that is solely focused on delicious sandwiches without bread. And I remember after sending her that photo, she just started sending me back fire emojis and said that I don't think this is just you. I think that this is something that we should further explore and that you can run with. And that's where that whole conversation started. She's like, I'm in business school. I want to get involved. And I want to help build this with you. So that was a more kind of. She actually propositioned me to be a part of the team because I didn't want to put that on her, if you will.

This is great. And there's something really important here because with Ryan, we're talking about the credibility. With Elsie, it's the fire emojis, the passion. So it reminds me when we think about old school persuasion, like the Greek philosophers, we were talking about logos, ethos, pathos, so the ethics, the logic, and then we have the passion. And so the ethics. That's the side where you're saying, listen, this is wrong. There are other people like me who are experiencing this. And that led to the passion, the fire. But none of that is persuasive without the logos. You have that. Having worked on Wall street for a long period of time, being a Harvard mba, people know that you have that fire, but you can also get it done. And so when we think about buy in, gathering buy in, we have to think about the various approaches that we use to persuade the people in front of us. And so it can't just be the, the brains, it can't just be the facts, the data, statistics. That is persuasive, but not. It usually doesn't win the day by itself. It has to be paired with other things in order for people to fully be bought in.

That makes sense.

Kwame's dropping bombs. Yeah. No, that's cool, man. I like this. This is great. And so, so we have the team now. Now we talk about the community. And so started this off with two questions. Why was it important for you to get Community Buy in? And then how did you get Community Buy in?

Sure. Well, ultimately we have a product that is going to serve the community. And how can you serve the community without fully understanding the community? And so I felt it was our duty and obligation to get as great of understanding as possible. You know, as I stated, I'm from Cleveland. My now wife, fiance at the time is from Detroit, so she knew the community well. And Ryan was also in Detroit. But as the visionary for the company, I felt it was super critical. Even though Cleveland is right down the road and has similarities, I wanted to authentically get into the Detroit market as much as possible. But that also leads me to like, why did we even choose Detroit? Right. And that all came to the. That was wrapped around the conclusion that I had that Detroiters don't have access to healthy foods the same way that Clevelanders didn't have access to healthy foods. And I Talked to a lot of individuals who, when I was mentioning to them a concept, the concept of breadless, they would say, well, hey, why don't you bring in this concept to California or out west or the east coast and areas that you might traditionally associate with healthy food? And they'd say, midwesterners don't eat healthy food. And I'm like, well, Midwesterners don't have access to healthy food, so is it the chicken or the egg? And so for me, it's. It was super important to be in a market that needs us the most and then to expand those other cities afterwards. And I wanted to make sure that I authentically got into the community. So every single opportunity I had, I took advantage of. So, I mean, for example, like, Elsie's aunt would invite me to an event on a Wednesday night, and I would just. With members of the community having a tasting event, I would go there and meet as many people as possible. When we were just trying to get our product into the market and test with various community members, I would call all the gyms, like Ellie Fitness, Crunch Fitness, the ymca, et cetera, and tell them, hey, I'm selling delicious sandwiches without bread. And the GMs would say, we hate bread. This sounds great. Come on in. And so, next thing you know, I'm the guy in there with the standing banner that says, delicious sandwiches, no bread, Selling sandwiches inside of these gyms, talking to as many people in the community as possible about what they like, what they don't like, why they chose to stop here, where else are they eating? And some incredible stories came out of that. I mean, there was this woman named Tracy, for instance, who. When I was walking into the gym one time, there was a note for me on the counter from the GM saying, mark, Tracy said, you need to call her. I'm thinking, oh, no, what did I do? I'm in trouble. What happened? And I called Tracy, and she said, is this. Is this Mark? Is this breadless? Are you set up yet? And I said, hi, Tracy. Like, yes, I'm getting set up right now. And. And she's like, don't go anywhere. And I'm like, okay, I won't. Tracy came back in to the gym maybe 20 minutes later to buy two sandwiches from us, meaning she worked out, but she went home. Then she drove back to buy two sandwiches. I'm like, tracy, why did you come back and buy these sandwiches? And she's informing me, I have diabetes, and there's very few options for me to eat healthy in the neighborhood. And I think this product is really great. Please keep doing what you're doing. And that just sort of floored me. I'm like, well, what kind of world do we live in where somebody has to drive to this random pop up at LA Fitness to get something that they view as the only healthy option in their community? And that is really an inspiring story that, that kept me going at the time to realize people actually really need this in the community. And we're right here, we're in the community. So let me just continue to dig in further.

Yeah, And I love how you started this story, like just your experience in Detroit with the fact that you, it was, it started off with Elsie and her aunt who connected with other people. Right. Because it can be difficult to get a start in a new city, but if you have somebody else who's vouching for you, it makes it a little bit easier, right?

Oh, it was, it was actually incredible like how much support there has been with just getting into the city. I mean, I was going to every little event that I could or every single. There'd be a event about microlending, there would be an event with other entrepreneurs and their, their food startups and I would go to all these events, meet as many people as possible and continue to share what I was trying to do. And in that process, there was just an incredible amount of, of serendipity of others who were aligned with what we were trying to do, saying, oh, you need to meet this person, need to meet this person. You need to meet this person. All the way up until the partners of Detroit Venture Partners who invested in the company. And that was just an organic process of really trying to learn as much as I could and meet as many people as possible. And very grateful for all the people who have come around us thus far.

That's fantastic. Now, when you think about community buy in, were there any situations that were more difficult where you really had to work a little bit to get people to get on board and see the vision.

Well, in any company or if any new product or concept, there's. You have to get extremely comfortable with rejection. And I know that this is not going to be. It's not a product that everyone looks at and knows exactly what it is. Right. Especially when you're in a pop up and you have a product that is prepackaged in a brown paper bag and I'm telling them it's a delicious sandwich without bread. Some people are looking at me, well, what the heck does that mean? Can I, are you giving out free samples and some instances we would give out free samples. Other instances we would not give out free samples because we only had limited product. We didn't have a legitimate infrastructure yet. So if I gave a free sample to this person, then I don't have the option to share this with other people as well. And so there was, you know, as you can imagine, there's, there's a lot of pushback. There's, there's a lot of rejection that you will face. But then at the same time, there's an overwhelming, there's an overwhelming wave of evangelists and people who are super excited about it and are like, I've been waiting for this forever. And it's those people that we really try to hone in on.

Yeah, it makes sense. And I think one thing we have to recognize is that with negotiation, life in general, rejection is part of the process. These, and I'm using air quotes for the listeners who are just on audio. These failures are necessary parts of the process. Right. And I know for me, when I was starting my business, I learned a lot through the, some of the disappointments when people didn't see the vision, those type of things. But I collect that data, and you could use negotiation as a tool for further investigation. Okay, okay, well, what, what's the concern that you have? What can I do better? You're getting that information so you can then improve through the process, even if you didn't get what you wanted in that specific interaction. And now when we transition to the investors, I think a lot of folks who are the business savvy portion of the audience are like, yeah, let's talk about the money, right? So let's talk about the money. Right? How did that process go for you? What was your strategy? How did these difficult conversations and negotiations play a role?

That was a longer process than it may have appeared. From the moment we started aggressively raising capital over the summer, we ended up closing the $1.1 million round in, in September. So it was. The process itself was short, but I think the key component of that is the process didn't start when I started talking to investors. The process started when we made the decision to pursue this concept and to get into the community and sell it. It started a year prior to that. Plus when we tried to just get into gyms, which evolved into catering. I mean, my fiance was at the University of Michigan telling everybody about this, and they were all consistently ordering catering for a lot of different student clubs and organizations. And so they were saying, like, wait a minute, can we cater breadless this sounds great. And so we said absolutely. And we were just figuring it out as we were going and learning in the process. And I think over the course of all that time we were getting feedback, we were getting reviews, customers were ordering again and again, and we were getting that buy in. And that was also at the same time building our own sort of processes in our systems and our own confidence in what we were doing. And so by the time ultimately Covid hit, and that was around the same time that we had, that we had feel like we accumulated enough information and buying to say we need to get a legitimate infrastructure in place for what we're doing. Because everything to date had been ad hoc, using whatever kitchen that was certified that we could get our hands on to make things happen. And, and that wasn't sustainable. We knew it wasn't sustainable, but we thought of it all as beta testing. So our entire sort of first year we thought of as beta testing to iterate and improve and refine. So that when we eventually were going to have conversations with investors, we had stories to tell and we were buttoned up and we knew how the product work and how much money we could make from the product and had thoughts on our margins and built a business plan and all these investor readiness type projects that we, that we focused on to make sure that we were prepared right and getting the proper organization set up and making sure everybody had proper agreements and all that. So at the moment we pressed go, we were truly ready to take on investor capital. And in thinking about all the type of capital that we were going to bring on, we considered everything from debt financing to equity financing. The debt financing would be great because it's non dilutive, but at the same time we are launching a new concept and we wanted to have the flexibility to withstand any variables. And so we wanted to have patient aligned investors who not only could help us to have the Runway that we needed, but then could also help us help to add value to us in a material way. And in thinking of who we would want to bring on as investors, we were looking for people that had a track record of successful investing in some type of food related concept, because we knew we were building a food related concept. So we were looking for aligned strategic investors who, who invested in food related concepts. And so we did a lot of research to figure out who any of these people were. And at the same time I realized that because I didn't know any of these people, that the first step to all of this would be to utilize the social capital, the brand Capital and the work that we put in to get the immediate people closest to us to buy in first. Because I knew before approaching those third parties, they want to just see as much buy in as possible. So we started with basically friends and families talking to our former bosses, friends from school, and those people who I guess you could think of as like the, you know, the minnows, if you will. We were able to get the. Not that they're small people, but they were, you know, writing smaller checks, relatively speaking. And then the. Before we were going to catch the sharks. And so that's exactly what we did. So we were able to thankfully get a lot of people to come around us and to get some momentum in the fundraise. And then we're able to connect with Calvipuri, who had seed funded sweetgreen, Allbirds and Warby Parker among many other successful companies. And so he had understood the space and at one point even asked us to overnight him sandwiches to New York City. And we had no idea what we were doing. Ended up calling a friend who was at UPS who called somebody else who then told us about a company that could help us with cold shipping and found a way to somehow get this product packed and shipped to him to New York. And we had no idea how it was going to turn out, but it ended up not being a complete disaster. And he emailed us back and actually took photos of the sandwiches and laid them all out and said this was all great. But by the way, here's also some incremental feedback. So I think the fact that he also was giving us feedback at the same time where he was even evaluating investing the company further gave me confidence in him as somebody who could add value and be a great investor. And I think getting the initial traction with other people and helped him also get the confidence to come on board as well. And how did we connect with him? It was ultimately using friends who helped me get access to a data source that had a list of all these investors and then putting every single investor into LinkedIn and seeing who I had a mutual connection to and saw that I had a mutual connection to, to Cal through an attorney that was our attorney, was also his attorney. And that person ended up connecting us and that's where the relationship started to build. But I think that whole process started when we thought, well, how can we really test this idea? Well, it's to get into the market as efficiently as possible, which we did. And then it was a lot of beta testing and that was a year long process with a Lot of trials and tribulations. And then getting the buy in from people closest to us as investors to lead the momentum for the round and then getting somebody who was going to write a much larger check to then become like the formal lead for the round. And then because we were launching in Detroit as well, and we had a ton of respect for Detroit Venture partners, we were excited to be able to bring them into the round as well. Particularly because we're also a Detroit based concept that plans to scale like nationwide, but we're launching right here in Detroit. Want to build the city up and build our communities up and they were aligned with our mission, what we're trying to do, and we're grateful to have them on the team.

That's fantastic.

Yeah.

And listeners, you can see the strategy here, the strategy that was intentional and then the strategy that was just organic and relational. Right. Because what we're seeing is the fact that you've been intentional about creating these relationships and you've nurtured those relationships. That's how you're able to make these, these connections. That's how you're able to reach out to the people who are close to you and get buy in for the investments too. And then it led to the bigger opportunities. And I especially like the fact that you talked about how you were strategic, about making sure that you were fully prepared before going to the sharks. Right. To the, to the major investors. And I feel like a lot of times people, they jump the gun and they start to take that shot too early when they're not fully prepared. But I think an undervalued portion of your story is the patience that it took to get there. Even though from the outside looking in, it seems like it's all coming together really quickly.

Yeah. And I think, I think one element I even forgot to mention that was a key component of this as well. I mean, at the beginning of the process, when we were even beta testing, I even got a job at Jimmy John's as a sandwich maker so that I could just learn as much as possible about the quick service restaurant space. And to be if I'm going to authentically launch a company focused on the quick service restaurant arena, I better understand as much as possible. And then, you know, there's a lot of amazing people who have come around us as investors and advisors that I've been maintaining relationships with and even some people who potentially intended to just be an advisor and I would flat out ask them, well, if you're going to be an advisor, you might as well just be a small investor and they then decided to actually invest in the company have been very helpful because they're now even more aligned than if they're just providing advice. They're actually invested in the outcome, figuratively and literally.

Absolutely. And for the listeners out there who are listening, what piece of advice would you give them? If they are, if they have some idea, whether it's within their career at the organization where they work or in the business, if they're struggling to get buy in, what would you say is the first thing they should do?

The first thing that I think you should do is make sure that number one, you have absolute certainty in what you are doing and that you've convinced yourself that this is what you want to do. And the next thing would be to just get. And if you don't have that, which is okay, build your certainty by just getting it in the product in front of people. Right. Get the real true reactions to it. You can talk about what you're going to do all day and then you talk to the customer and that customer may tell you that this is not such a great idea for XYZ reason. And you have to talk to multiple customers because maybe you're just not talking to the right target customer. So I would encourage you to have the courage to just get out there and do it in the cheapest, most efficient way possible, which for us was just selling sandwiches in gyms. And that will help you to learn as much as you can and also build your own confidence around what you're doing. But always make sure to ask yourself why you're doing it and make sure that there's an authentic story behind it that drives you because you're inevitably going to encounter a lot of rejection and you want to be able to fight through that rejection with a powerful why Absolutely.

Oh, that's great, Mark. I appreciate it. Before you go, let the listeners know again about the company, how they can get in touch with you and where they can learn more.

Yes, absolutely. So the company is breadless and we are a quick service restaurant chain that serves savory on the go breadless sandwich made with leafy super greens like red Swiss chard, turnip greens, collard greens that empower a health conscious lifestyle. We're launching our first location right outside of downtown Detroit. So if you're in Detroit, come check us out for sure before we're in a city near you. Our website is gobreadless.com you can reach out@contactobreadless.com fantastic, Mark, thank you so much.

Appreciate it. Congratulations. You've just joined an elite club by listening to a full episode. You're now officially on the Negotiate Anything team. So welcome aboard. What most team members do is they subscribe to the podcast because that allows them to automatically get the latest episodes of the show. The best things in life lie on the other side of difficult conversations. Keep learning, keep practicing, and keep getting better. Your relationships will improve, your career will soar, and you'll have the confidence you need need to get the most out of these crucial conversations. Again, thank you for joining the team. We are excited to have you, and I will see you in the next episode. I'll catch you later.