Blues Brothers Coffee

"Welcome to the band."

That is how I was told that I was part of the Blues Brothers Coffee team. I love that. It said everything that I needed to know in order to confirm why I wanted to take part in helping to create this company and extend the incredible brand that has existed for almost 40 years.

Working directly with Tom Dier and Wayne Catania, in association with Dan Aykroyd and Judy Belushi Pisano, Ameet Nathwani and I were hired to help establish the brand and work to help launch the business extension of Blues Brothers into Coffee.

The opportunity nailed exactly all of the requirements that I have to work with someone. Great team. Great opportunity. Ability to be part of the strategic and leadership team. Opportunity to receive compensation based on results and performance, rather than hours.

Long ago, I abandoned the business of providing agency services, and have moved toward a much more immersive and strategic experience instead. I believe that branding and marketing services have become commodities and that too often agencies and talent were not aligned to the business needs and strategies.

That isn't to say that I think all agencies or talent are alike. They're not. Far from it. But I do think that aligning business strategies with branding, strategic direction and integrated communications, as well as team building and cultural development are required to push a startup into a scale up. Simply responding to a brief doesn't allow a brand to evolve, be immersive within and outside the company or allow the team to feel and be oriented to long-term results.

For this to happen, I believe it is better to have internal development of branding, marketing and sales initiatives as a core focus of the founders. How to build a company and the brand and the staff are intertwined, and there is no book on how to do it all.

Okay, there are lots of books, but none that really lay out the specific needs to launch your specific business matching your unique needs. I've been fortunate to have launched several companies in my career. It gave me an understanding of how to go from zero to one. It also allowed me to take my various skillsets and present them all with an entrepreneurial focus.

The ability to help launch the business and incorporate my branding experience was what attracted Blues Brothers Coffee to me and it was the fact that they wanted me to be deeply involved in their business that made the attraction mutual. 

I'm now involved as a CMO, but also as a mentor, guide and fellow executive who works with the founders to develop our launch strategies and to execute them across all key pillars to be successful. Product development, customer outreach, consumer communications, marketing, sales and financial management are all part of my contributions. And I love that. 

I want to help build businesses, not brands. It just happens that I'm able to help Blues Brothers Coffee do both and I'm really excited to be part of their band.