In each episode of The Playbook presented by FanFood, host Rob Cressy discusses how leaders are modernizing today’s customer experience through technology in sports, entertainment and hospitality. We invite industry veterans to talk about how customer expectation have changed in today’s world, and how businesses need to change accordingly for greater operational efficiency and better guest experience.
Carson Goodale, CEO of FanFood, joins Rob Cressy to talk about the evolution of FanFood. How has FanFood pivoted in the last few months in a way that allows them to serve new businesses? Why is cashless a necessity, not a “nice to have”. How is this podcast going to evolve? What lessons in leadership has he learned in building the company? What role has content and webinars played in the evolution of FanFood? What opportunities are there in the market right now? What about challenges? Why is it so important to be intentional about everything going on in your world?
To see how your restaurant, establishment, or venue can benefit from FanFood’s platform please get in touch here.Listen to the Gameday Playbook on:
Rob Cressy: (00:04)
Welcome to the GameDay Playbook presented by FanFood. A discussion around how leaders are transforming the sports and live entertainment industry by leveraging technology to enhance the fan experience and operate game day more efficiently. I’m your host, Rob Cressy. Joining me today is Carson Goodale, CEO of FanFood. Carson, great to have you back on the show.
Carson Goodale: (00:30)
Hey, it’s great to see ya. How are things? How are you?
Rob Cressy: (00:33)
Absolutely amazing now that I’m talking to you. We last spoke on a podcast at the end of March and this was right when the pandemic started and we were talking about the evolution of things and how we were going to be doing things moving forward. Well, guess what? We’re now recording this at the beginning of August and we want to reevaluate this and see, Hey, how are we innovating digitally? What opportunities do we see out there in the market? What challenges are there out there in the market? Also, we want to talk about the evolution of this podcast as well because we both believe in, as I sort of say, eating your own dog food, because if we innovate as business leaders, well guess what this podcast is going to need to innovate as well. Well, let’s start with this. Where are things at right now is FanFood and what has evolved since March until now?
Carson Goodale: (1:29)
Well, I think the big thing has been, as a growth venture back startup we had a lot of resources focused on acquiring locations and properties in collegiate and high school sports and athletic events. As well as like minor league sports and professional sports. And obviously when COVID hit, Oh shit, what are we going to do? Need to pivot. Because as a growing startup there’s never enough cash in time in a day. So, fortunate enough we had a couple of other, I would say non-traditional F and B kind of outlets and other markets under hospitality. And what we did was we tripled down on those. We really focused a lot of our time, energy, sales and marketing, product resources on those customers. And that resulted in us expanding in those areas and it has allowed us to maintain growth, you know upward. So, we’re pretty fortunate.
Rob Cressy: (2:44)
How important has the cashless side of things been in general? Cause as we look at the landscape right now, cashless is almost like the way that things are complete. I think about my first experience going anywhere in Chicago and we’re scanning QR codes and I’m not even using my wallet anymore. They’re like, Hey, you can do this all on your phone.
Carson Goodale: (03:05)
Yeah. Kind of refreshing, right? For the folks that have been trying to start businesses for the last six years, we’ve been preaching cashless and touchless and everything. And all of a sudden what was once, for the product and service that we were building in our original go-to markets were all around that concept. But what was interesting was the buyers kind of regarded FanFood as a nice to have, or a convenient solution, on-demand solution. Whereas now in this post COVID world that we live in and touchless is top of mind it’s a must-have solution.
Rob Cressy: (03:45)
It’s interesting because what you’re really talking about is being forward-thinking, but now that becomes a necessity where like you said, well, you know what, the reason you’re going to get a lot of excuses for why you can’t do it. Well now all of a sudden the demand from everywhere and this isn’t even just customer demand, this is now like health demand is saying, you must do this.
Carson Goodale: (04:08)
Yeah. And what are businesses doing about that and where are they going? I think there’s so much that can be Googled from digital products and services perspective. That’s partially the reason why we chose to pivot this podcast because I think the focus was there for sports stadiums in the like to provide this. The purpose of this podcast is to provide some of that best practices and forward-thinking thought leadership to folks within the industry. So, you didn’t have to reinvent the wheel. And so now what we’re looking to do is how can we help those kinds of customers modernize that entire experience? And how can we, when I say we, the podcast that we have here helped support that?
Rob Cressy: (05:07)
Yeah. So, this is a great segue because let’s talk now about the pivoting of the podcast. I know right before this we were talking about the description of it because when we create a podcast, we want to be very value-driven. Do we think about what can we do to give forward-thinking perspectives in the worlds of customer experience and technology? Because very much this is the world FanFood lives in. So, let’s find other like-minded leaders out there let’s have conversations with them so that we can go and help others, whether we work directly with you or indirectly.
Carson Goodale: (05:43)
That’s it, that’s the name of the game.
Rob Cressy: (05:45)
So, we will be sharing more information about the evolution of the podcast likely within the next month, if not sooner. There are things that we just need to firm upon it, but I’m really excited about this next evolution because what it’s really going to do is allow us to widen our network of potential thought leaders that we can bring on all within the world of technology in terms of how can we make the customer experience better. And it’s been a core tenant from day one for everything that we’ve done with the podcast because we’ve always talked about enhancing the fan experience. And what we’re really doing is evolving fan into a customer. A fan is a customer of yours, but the customer is a lot broader because fan oftentimes has a connotation of just sports and we’re branching out to more than just the sports world.
Carson Goodale: (6:39)
Yeah. I think that’s it really. I think you hit the nail on the head there.
Rob Cressy: (6:45)
So, I’m curious to hear from you as we get back to the business side of things, you as a leader of FanFood. What have you been learning and sort of taking us into your mindset of leadership during this time?
Carson Goodale: (07:01)
Well, it’s definitely challenging I would say. When we had certain expectations and plans as we were getting ready to ramp. I was super excited to realize a lot of new customers this summer, spring from spring sports, and to see and get feedback. But the way that I look at this event from a leadership perspective, there are two approaches that a company could take, right? There’s a defensive strategy and an offensive strategy. Then our data, I’m a data-driven kind of person, and so our data suggested that it would probably be in our best interest to go from a defensive strategy. By defensive, we mean pausing until events do return, right? And so I wanted to give the opportunity to test new markets, right?
Let’s take a look at the data. How can we kind of repivot or reallocate our resources to focus on new areas of opportunity that we otherwise would not have had had it not been for COVID? And so some of the examples that our company is doing, or how we are pivoting is we’re focusing in on Chicago. Offering residents inside these buildings to order food from local restaurants and local food trucks to have a regular food delivery service. And why we’re excited about that is because the alternative is a GrubHub or UberEats model. And that model got a lot of backlashes when that became the only means of keeping lights on for a lot of these businesses throughout America and their primary business model relied on taking a heavy commission. So, despite the fact that these third party F&B aggregators were driving more digital customers to their platforms, to the restaurants, not making them more money. It’s not making the restaurants more money. So, we’re fortunate in the position because we have an online and mobile ordering platform where you can pivot our business model. We can make it a 100% commission-free, and that resonates with me because we can create a real impact during this time. For months for us at Stanford is kind of a natural pivot in terms of resource allocation, because it’s not just selling, you’re like impact selling right now. There’s a purpose behind what you’re doing. And it’s something that’s really resonating with our team.
Rob Cressy: (09:56)
And one other area that I’ve noticed that you and FanFood have innovated on is on the content side of things. Certainly you’ve been forward-thinking and having this podcast, but guess what else I’ve been seeing from you? Webinars. Your ability to connect with others and deliver value by creating something that six months ago may not have been in place.
Carson Goodale: (10:18)
Yeah. And I think pre-Covid FanFood, love the name FanFood, right? We were focused on building a brand when COVID hit, we pivoted to a completely new industry and we’re targeting new markets that we have never been in before. The brand’s not going to resonate with the customers. So, what are we doing? What are we building? We have a great product, let’s double down on that. So, a lot of our content related things are also very product and feature functionality oriented with intent to show or highlight to potential prospects and leads of our capabilities and why that might be a more attractive alternative to what’s exists in the marketplace because it’s essentially free. It’s no upfront cost to you. It’s only upside potential.
Rob Cressy: (11:08)
Yeah. I think what it does a really good job of it, one, it gets a conversation started. Two, it delivers value and, three, it really allows your brain heartbeat to shine. I’m someone who is such a proponent of things that are hard to do, or at least the perception of them. Podcast, video live, stream webinar, why do I like those things? Because those are the things that everybody loves to make excuses on. Oh, we can’t do that. We don’t have the time, knowledge, budget, resources. Well, great. I’m like, well, there’s my opportunity. If everybody else thinks that’s too hard for them, let that be the thing that we double down on. And Oh, by the way, it’s more high touch because so often we want to do the least amount of work for the results. Well, wait for a second, things have kind of change right now where you almost want to be doing everything and if you can do something that is going to allow people to be like, wait for a second, that’s Carson, the CEO of FanFood on this webinar. Now you’re perceived as a thought leader and people can put a name and face to the brand. And there are so many brands out there that are faceless where you don’t ever hear from them other than just here’s a white paper.
Carson Goodale: (12:20)
Yeah. I mean, totally. Candidly, I was probably one of those people, pre-Covid, that wanted to go for the big opportunity and the biggest fish and create our resources around that. But it ended up kind of working out to our advantage because when COVID hit, you really start to hone in on, where are we going to be spending our time? What’s the best use of our time? And what we’re finding is the best use of our time in terms of resource allocation are in markets that we’ve acquired recently and not something that we’ve been focused on for the last few years.
Rob Cressy: (12:59)
So, with this, what opportunities are you seeing in the market right now? So, let’s look forward because I love to give a forward thinking perspective on this because anyone listening can say, wow, I liked the way that Carson is thinking about these things, because I can potentially apply that into my business.
Carson Goodale: (13:18)
Yeah, I mean if you haven’t digitized everything yet in your art to be a step behind, so you could probably get caught up to speed by listening to this podcast. I think what I’m very focused on right now is this idea or concept, and it was interesting too so it’s relevant. Did you catch how the four tech leaders, your Facebook, Amazon, Google, and who’s the other ones, Facebook were all brought in by Congress to get essentially grilled for a few hours? And looking for the responses about antitrust laws. At what point does the federal government have a right to say, and just have a right to step in and say you’re too big. And I think it’s funny because if I’m looking forward, I believe that everything will start to become more localized and more advantageous for small businesses.
From a marketing perspective, I think that customers, when Lyft and Uber Eats and stuff came out, I believed technology was diminishing brand equity because you’re what consumers really cared about was, as long I can get my shit as fast as possible and as conveniently as possible, like that’s really all I care about. Whereas now, I think COVID definitely put a microscope under some of the businesses. Are there more business-friendly alternatives? What I think, or what I see happening is that the brands that create marketing campaigns and awareness around their impact and the impact that they’re trying to create will resonate tenfold in this new world that we live in. I might even say, I will wait an extra five or 10 minutes because I know that my dollar is going to something good. So, it’s interesting. Convenience and on-demand where I thought it was taking you to know you know a seat over that. People don’t care about the brands, but now I think that’s kind of, people will choose products and services kind of based on that. As a millennial, and that whole trend, millennials coming in and millennial leadership coming in, that one I think is gonna really explode. What are your thoughts?
Rob Cressy: (16:13)
Welcome to my marketing ethos 101. Almost everything has become a commodity because you buy anything from anyone at any time anywhere. So, and it’s always just been, buy what I’m selling, buy what I’m selling. So, now you have to say, well, wait for a second, I’ve got to give people a reason to want to give a crap about what I’m doing and you need returns. Yeah. So, now you have to say, all right well, what is that reason? And I find that I have a greater brand affinity for a smaller amount of brands, but I have a very high affinity for some of those brands.
I think a great example of this would be anybody who purchases something from a Lulu Lemon. If you’ve ever seen it, their customer service is out of the world. Their product is out of the world. It’s a community, it’s a lifestyle. They are not a commodity because God knows you can buy yoga pants from anywhere, but there’s something different when you put on those pair of pants, which, Oh, by the way, are super expensive. But guess what? You put that on and you’re like, you know, these are the best fitting pants. And I loved the experience because the person who’s helping me right there, they look like what I look like, and I like that they have yoga in their studios at certain days. And all of a sudden the narrative on one pair of yoga pants is multilayered where God forbid, I would love to listen to a podcast from them or video. And then you start to see, I know they recently acquired Mirror. So, you’re like, well, wait a second. What do they do now? They’re elevating the lifestyle of everything. And that sort of mindset for me is, all right, well, how are you building relationships? Are you thinking about it as being community-driven? Are you mission-driven? Are you value-driven? Because those are the things. Even if I’m going to buy a hat off some random Instagram brand that targets me, but guesses what? All of a sudden you’re like, yeah, we donate 10% of something to something. And you’re like, Oh, that’s kinda cool. I care more about the brand than I do, just as you said, is this going to be the fastest or quickest? I’m used to that. Like, if I was, as you’re saying that I was thinking about Postmates versus GrubHub versus UberEats versus DoorDash. Do you know how I choose between one of them? Which one of them has the restaurant that I want? I have zero loyalty whatsoever to any of them.
And quite frankly, the only thing that they can do is decrease because we’ve all had the experiences with each of them where we’ve had a negative experience. I will never use Postmates again because I used it once and it was a terrible experience. Well, guess what? They have no messaging geared towards me to say, here’s why we do what we do. Here’s an opportunity to talk to our CEO or a podcast that delivers value. So, that’s sort of where I am which actually sort of goes to all right, next question. The biggest challenges we see out there in the market because, for everyone they’re going to say, we have excuses. We have no time, resources, budget, money, it’s already built-in there. But if you don’t overcome those challenges, you either going to innovate or die. So, I’m curious to hear from your perspective, what challenges do you see in the broad market? Cause I think we just identified one.
Carson Goodale: (19:37)
In terms of being authentic and genuine and transparent, I think adds a layer. It increases it even more. I think being truthful. I think one of the campaigns that GrubHub came out with during this time was that they’re going to be commission-free, but then you go into the fine print and you learn that it’s just the first commissions. It’s kind of bad like it’s a choice. The other night when I’m listening to Congress grill these technology leaders one of the questions was seeking their personal opinions, but it’s interesting to see how their personal opinions influenced the values of the entire organization. It was, do you swear, do you promise that you won’t, something around like, their hiring practices. So, what they would consider as slave labor practices in their factories like in foreign countries and stuff like that.
Do you promise not to, cause they have the option to do it, but they all kind of said they would never do that. And I think as organizations grow I just find it interesting that kind of question was asked to be honest with you. Because I think it kind of goes in back to what I think is gonna happen or what should be happening is more collaboration between partly private entities and our government system. Because the value that these four tech leaders could bring is tremendous. So, if technology solves for convenience and on-demand and solves everything that you want technology to do. Streamline your operations, make shit more efficient, provide better customer experiences. Technology is gonna do that, so at what point then, so what? What’s next? What’s to come? I think building your brand around something that’s gonna resonate with your consumers is only gonna make it a stick here product in the long run and probably create more happiness too.
Rob Cressy: (22:08)
Yeah. For me, I can boil that all down to one-word intention. I believe the biggest challenge that is going to present itself is businesses being intentional about every aspect of their business, which sort of goes to what you’re saying because they’re talking about hiring practices. Well, that’s just intentional on one side of things. Just like we’re intentional about the messaging we have on social and with our webinars and with the way that we lead companies and there’s no longer a, Oh wow. We didn’t know this was going on at our company or, Oh, this is the way that things have always been you. If you’re doing something you now are becoming accountable for everything. So, now for a business you really have to take a step back and say, alright, we need to be intentional about every single thing that we do is quite frankly the best of the best, we are all intentional about everything that we do because everything is always within our control. We can make excuses for things, but guess what? Those are just excuses. The ones who really make things happen have a reason why they do everything that they do. And guess what? When you’re intentional about all of this stuff, you’re now in control. And I think what we’re seeing right now is actually a lack of control in a lot of different areas for businesses. So, the challenge is actually the opportunity, just like the book, The Obstacle is the Way, by Ryan Holiday, one of my favorite books ever that you got an obstacle in front of you, cool, let’s be intentional about said obstacle. And now that becomes the way to make things better.
Carson Goodale: (23:42)
Definitely, definitely. I think personally I’ve had enough personal challenges during COVID. COVID is just another one of those challenges. But my uncle passed away a couple weeks ago. And one of the lessons that has stuck with me moving forward is like everyone and everything, whether your company or personal is going to face ongoing challenges. So, I think with COVID everybody can resonate with that. Everyone’s going to be down, everyone’s going to be feeling depressed, cooped up inside. People are losing jobs. People’s budgets are getting cut. There are all these challenges in this world. But I think the people are the folks that continued to persevere. It’s a story of perseverance and just continuing to identify those obstacles and just not giving up. Just keep overcoming and just keep going. And if you can ask yourself how, if you can answer the how, how you will do it. You will be fine. And just staying, and keeping it simple. Staying focused and keep it simple.
Rob Cressy: (24:56)
Well, I will keep it simple and help you understand how I stay focused and positive during all of this. And the way that I do this, and this is an action item that every single person listening right now can do is every morning I prime my mind. I write down or read a series of affirmations gratitude in things that help me or remind myself of who I am and the person I am going to be in the future. And you know what one of the things is that I write down, which I actually have right here? Chose to see opportunities. And why is that relevant? Because what you just said is, listen, we live in a world where a lot of things can go bad. You can dwell on the bad, or you can choose to see the opportunities or you lose your job. Well, you know what that does, that gives you an opportunity to find your dream job. And there’s always another side of things. And if you dwell on the negative, that’s never going to get you to where you want to go. So, my mindset is always let’s focus on the thing that I can do at this moment to get me to where I want to go. And what helps me do that is by setting my intentions every morning.
Once again, crazy how this goes full circle, by writing down a series of things. I am worthy. I am flexible and fluid. I’m the happiest person in the world every single day. So, every time someone has listened to this podcast, you can know, I’ve read, I am the happiest person in the world. I’ve done that for years. So, how does that work? You keep doing that over and over and over again to overcome the negativity and the challenges and the obstacles that are facing you as an individual, or you as a business owner because that’s what is required in order for you to succeed. Is it easy? No, but you can be consistent about it. It costs no money, but once again, all it takes is a little intention out of you to say, all right, what do I need to do to get me to boot up to be that person who’s going to make sure that I make things happen.
Carson Goodale: (26:59)
Yeah. And realizing that you’re responsible for that. Cause no one gonna say and feel sorry for you if you wake up every morning and say you’re going to do these things and you’re going to go out and do it. But you are your biggest obstacle. I think that’s the thing to remember. COVID is an obstacle, but a bigger obstacle is yourself getting up in the morning and telling yourself that you can do it. I think getting over that part is the biggest challenge.
Rob Cressy: (27:41)
I can tell you there’s certain times in my life that have been game-changing moments and the moment in which I became self-aware and realized that I was accountable for everything going on in my life, in all areas of my life is the biggest game-changer. It is a gift that I wish that I could give to everybody else. Because so often when doing podcasts or interviews, someone will say, Rob, who’s your biggest competition? I’m like, well, no one cause it’s myself because I have to execute. I have to overcome because no one’s ever going to do this stuff for you. I really wish people could understand this. I could give them that gift. When you realize that you are in complete control of every single thing going on in your life and your world, all of a sudden it goes from black and white to color, where you’re like, wow, I can now do whatever I want. Doesn’t mean it’s going to be puppy dogs and rainbows, but you have an element of control when right now a lot of people are feeling an element of no control.
Carson Goodale: (28:42)
I think so.
Rob Cressy: (28:44)
So Carson, I’m really excited about the future of FanFood. About the future of this podcast. Where everything is going to go because I know you are a tremendous leader. I know you have an amazing team behind you. I know that everybody is smart and passionate. You guys are forward-thinking and the best is yet to come. And here’s how I want to leave this with an ask for the audience. Do you have something that you would like to ask of the audience?
Carson Goodale: (29:11)
Do I?
Rob Cressy: (29:12)
Yes, you.
Carson Goodale: (29:14)
Put me on the spot, a new one.
Rob Cressy: (29:16)
Well, it is because is your opportunity to say, Hey, if you’re looking for this, or who would you like to connect with? How can we help you?
Carson Goodale: (29:27)
I mean, I think the biggest impact that we can create right now is if there is someone that’s listening to this and they’re exploring an online or mobile ordering solution, that’s commission-free where you can just get paid for every digital order and not get charged commissions for that. Hit us up. Go check out our website. The purpose of this podcast isn’t for me to like to sell our products and services, rather just to be helpful, right? To create an impact. So, how do we help them create business owners and operators an overall better customer experience through digital? How are we doing that? So, that’s my goal, to accomplish that.
Rob Cressy: (30:26)
You know what I would like to say is, if anything we said today resonated with you, shoot an email, make a phone call, make a tweet, and get in contact with someone at FanFood. Just say what’s up because you never know what one conversation can lead to. You might not be ready yet, but you might say, you know what? I don’t understand everything, but I’m willing to at least reach out and find a little bit more because I have always found in my life without fail the times in which I have taken action have led to something good. Because remember, if you don’t ask, the answer is always no, if you do nothing, nothing will happen. But if you reach out to FanFood and just say, Hey, just wanted to say what’s up. You just might be pleasantly surprised at what could happen.
Carson Goodale: (31:15)
Absolutely. You might be getting a DM from me.
Rob Cressy: (31:19)
I love it. Carson, where can everybody connect with you?
Carson Goodale: (31:23)
As always, LinkedIn or my personal email is carson@fanfoodapp.com. You can shoot me a personal note and I’ll read it and try the best I can to respond. So, appreciate all the feedback and comments and considerations.
Rob Cressy: (31:39)
And as always, I would love to hear from you about this episode. Did it cause you to think or take action? I’m curious to hear what opportunities are you seeing in the market right now? You can hit up FanFood on Twitter @FanFoodondemand. On Instagram @FanFoodapp or on LinkedIn. And as always, you can hit me up on all social media platforms @RobCressy.