Robin Dimond - Founder and CEO of Fifth & Cor: Building Partnerships, Hosting Events, and Creating Experiences

Robin Dimond  00:00

I thought panic attacks were fake. I didn't think they were real. I never had one, woke up one morning, I thought I was having a straight up heart attack. And I decided it was the biggest blessing that happened. I also had a stroke when I was twenty-nine. So I'll explain. So I thought, oh, my God, here it comes again. And it was like, you didn't learn the first time, so I'm getting your attention, you can't do everything. And it was one of those breaking points that I put the job up on LinkedIn that day.

Callan Harrington  00:29

You're listening to That Worked, a show that breaks down the careers of top founders and executives and pulls out those key items that lead to their success. I'm your host, Callan Harrington, founder of Flashgrowth, and I couldn't be more excited that you're here. Welcome back, everyone to another episode of That Worked. This week, I'm joined by Robin Diamond. Robin is the founder and CEO of Fifth & Cor. Fifth & Cor is at the intersection of strategy, innovation, and creativity. They're an innovation and immersive marketing company, harnessing the best tools to support brands, consumers and communities. Robin brings over eighteen years of marketing experience. She also aspires to uplift communities through sitting on multiple school boards, and actively participating in various charitable initiatives. This was a really fun conversation. First, Robin doesn't hold back at all. She didn't sugarcoat a single thing when it comes to the ups and downs of being a founder. We talked about the times that pushed her to make specific hires, how she rebranded the company to get it back to its roots, and really the steps that she took to be, in her words, unapologetically authentic. She also gave a great playbook, gave us the step by step examples of how they put on events at Fifth & Cor. And I can tell you, I have heard now from multiple people that have attended one of these events that say they're unlike anything else. And I thought it was excellent. Now, the part of the conversation that I loved the most was talking about partnerships, more specifically, how she nurtures partnerships. I have found a ton of information out there on how to find potential strategic partnerships, but I don't see nearly as much on how to nurture those partnerships once you started them. Often what happens is you find a strategic partner, it makes a lot of sense on paper, and then it doesn't go anywhere. And the key is in deepening those relationships, which sounds easy on the surface, but there's a lot more to that. And I will tell you, I have already started directly applying what she shared in this conversation. So with that, let's get to the show. Robin, I am excited to hear the story. I've heard it a couple times. But I'm excited to hear it firsthand. Tell us about this Blow Pop business that you had.

Robin Dimond  03:21

Alright, so as a kid, I've always been interested in making money. I don't know why. It's just like a thing. So we went to a small church, that's probably not really the best way to start this whole thing about talking about how to make money.

Callan Harrington  03:33

It's the best way you could start it.

Robin Dimond  03:35

But, um, so people wanted them. We'd have to raise our hands, we had to know all of our Bible verses, and we would win these bags of Blow Pops. And so it became my challenge every week to get as many as possible. And it would be, I mean, when we talk about hundreds of Blow Pops in this big gallon sized bag, and they had blue raspberry and black cherry, and everybody who is of my age knows all these flavors. And so what we would do is I would win every single week, like hands down. I would make sure that my brother like was right next to me, so just in case I couldn't get my hand up fast enough he would. And we would get these Blow Pops, and I started taking them to school, and started reselling them, and it was running like a smuggling ring of Blow Pops. Like let me just tell you that my whole like, locker would be stacked full of these. And I would be, one for twenty-five cents, five for a dollar. If you wanted to get the fifty cent one, it was like blue raspberry, one of the flavors that no one could get. And I just remember walking, I stopped eating my lunch, because I would just walk up and down. It's an old gym in Florida, and it was so hot in there. And every kid would just like trade, so we'd either do trades, or I would just be making this money. And I remember my parents- my mom was a school teacher, so this is worse. I remember them getting called in to our principal's office, and this was a normal thing for my parents, unfortunately for me, that they got called in a lot. Let's just say I've always pushed the envelope with things. And so my mom was like, they said that you're taking business away from the cafeteria, and they're making you stop. And I was like, what? Like, to me that was so crazy, like I was running this whole business of Blow Pops and selling them. And the funny thing is, I wasn't a really smart kid, is what they say. So they put you in dumb math when you're not a smart kid. So dumb math just helps you learn how to do stocks. So I took all my Blow Pop money in eighth grade, and used it to the stock market, which I still have today. And I still have my investor. So like, if you want to talk about what's been able to help pay for homes and school, it is this Blow Pop business, and it's kind of just continued in my life in every way.

Callan Harrington  05:45

I love it. I love it for so many reasons. One, I remember when that blue raspberry one came out, because that wasn't part of the original set.

Robin Dimond  05:52

No.

Callan Harrington  05:53

And when that blue raspberry hit the streets, it was amazing. I was partial to sour apple, as well. But I remember the black cherry, because sometimes you thought it was another flavor, and then you got black cherry, like, oh, man, this is a big win for today. So I love that story. I also love the the example that you gave on the math that you did learn, you were applying it immediately. But I wonder how often that actually happens? Is that been something that's just been kind of a common theme for you, when you learn something, you immediately implement it?

Robin Dimond  06:22

Yes. So I don't say I'm an innovator, I say I'm an early adapter. So as soon as someone starts to show something, and this kind of goes into like our business now, like, people started talking about augmented reality, and then Apple Vision Pro came out, and I was like, we're just gonna adapt that. Like, we just adapt changing our content to be for Apple Vision Pro. And so no, I didn't come up with augmented reality, or spatial computing, or leveraging your phone for that. But 100% it becomes part of our lives. And I think the math thing it was, you know, for me, I have severe dyslexia. Everyone who watches me speak will see me go on slides. I memorize all of them. And I'm okay to share this with people now, but some of my friends still joke, they're like, "what sign did you read? Those are not even the letters up there." And I'm like, it's always been a struggle. So when they put me in that in school, they didn't think I was ever going to make it out of high school. And so for me, becoming an early adapter has been like something that's been like my saving grace in every area. So I learn things, I do it, and I apply it right away. And if it doesn't work, and it fails, oh well, I fail fast, I fail hard, cry, get up, and do it again. That's it.

Callan Harrington  06:33

That's so cool. And I'm actually very similar. And it drives my girlfriend insane, because the second I'll do it, she's like you were just all about this thing. And I was like, yeah, well, it's not really working anymore. Like a piece of it worked, but it doesn't. So I can empathize with that. And you started to hit a little bit on some of the new tech, and some of the research that I did for this interview, I really want to hear your backstory. So now I want to talk about this now, because it's too interesting. And I love to take that you had on this. You mentioned that, it's not a content creation anymore, it's content curation. Walk us through that. What does that mean to you?

Robin Dimond  08:06

Wow, you just wanted to dive in the backlash I got. So I said that, and I was not ready for the straight hate that came from artists. Like, creatives attacked me, sliding into my DMs on LinkedIn, on Instagram, and they were like, I can't believe you said this. That's not it. And I was like, but it's art has always been a curation. When we go to the MoMA or we go to the MET, it's about curation. And we are curating new kinds of art. We are curating new creative, and it doesn't displace photographers, it doesn't displace influencers. It enhances what they're doing. Because they're now learning, nothing is new. And if you think you're coming up with something that's brand new, I'm sorry, look back in history. History repeats itself. You maybe come up with a different way. And that's what I meant when I said, we're becoming curators, because art is taking its effect. I actually saw a LinkedIn thing today, and someone was using AI, and I, instead of saying, hey, thanks for the happy holiday wishes, I was like you used AI. This is so unauthentic of you. But way to put a spin on this deep fake, and so just like calling it out, and being able to say that there's curation now, was what I meant. We'll still need creatives. Creatives will just have a new way of doing tools.

Callan Harrington  09:21

So, one, I had no idea that you had any backlash.

Robin Dimond  09:24

So much! I'm so sorry, everyone. That's what I meant. It was like it's a curation of things.

Callan Harrington  09:31

Yeah. I mean, I think Tim Ferriss talked about this. And he talked about this on the Huberman Lab podcast, and I thought it was really interesting. And he talked about it from the standpoint of, and I'm curious to get your take on this, is there's going to be so much content that's going to be generated. AI is just going to take it to a whole new level. And there's going to be a premium on the people that can sift through and curate through all of this content and be a trusted source for all of these different pieces of content, whether that's from somebody that's a content creator, whether that's from somebody that's doing this with AI, whatever it might be, this is just going to put it on a whole new level. That made a ton of sense to me. I'd be curious, is that similar to kind of what some of your thoughts are around this? Or is it different than that?

Robin Dimond  10:20

No, it's 100% that way, that's exactly what I'm thinking it's, you know, we're pulling different things, you know, being able to place products in different areas, we're seeing collaborations take place that have never taken place. Leveraging AI, leveraging spatial computing, like you're taking things to the next level, it's just like having a vehicle for the first time and not, instead of a horse and buggy. You get to do things faster. You get to be a better creator now. People say AI will replace you. AI won't replace you, but a person who uses and leverages AI will. So if you're not using it, you're not adapting it, you're not learning how to leverage it to the best of it, that's what's really gonna happen.

Callan Harrington  10:58

Yeah. I mean, at the pace in which it's moving, even just being able to read PDFs now, and this is gonna be dated by the time we release this stuff. Like I'm positive of this. But being able to like, the rate it can read larger PDFs, and digest that information, is crazy. And if you were to try to do all of that- And that's another thing too, is like AI is really good, and this could change, but it's good at doing things that can already be done. A creative is still going to like, you know, a true creative is going to come out and create something that nobody's ever seen before. I don't know that we're gonna get that- I'm not saying we won't get that from AI, but like, that's always going to be there in my eyes.

Robin Dimond  11:33

And you still need originals. So like, you're gonna now have creators holding a bigger power of what the original was. And I hate to- Oh, I'm ready to like just step in it. Oh man, why are you going to ask me this? So let's go to NFTs. Let's step into it.  When the brands who embraced NFT's and did a really great job, they were able to do a digital asset, but also a physical asset. So the creators, if they actually have the original or the physical asset, AI can take it and make it different things. And so we're seeing these trends every year. Two years ago it was NFTs, and then we saw AI be the biggest thing talked about. Next year, it's going to be spatial computing and how you shoot content. Because literally, if you uploaded your phone, your new phone, did the apple upload last week, spatial computing video content is able to be captured on your phone. Why are they doing that? For augmented reality for the Apple Vsion Pro headset. So that'll be this whole new spin this next year.

Callan Harrington  11:47

Okay. Yeah. Okay. I want to come back to this. But I want to talk a little bit about, you had the Blow Pop business, and I know that there was dreams of this was going to go public, but you ended up founding other companies after this. Walk us through that. What were some of those early companies that you founded?

Robin Dimond  12:46

Okay, great. So in my life, I have owned a restaurant. I ended up owning a construction company. And it's gonna go with the story, so I'm gonna explain this, because people are going, "what is now happening?" So construction company, then it was, I did a furniture flipping business, which ended up some of my pieces are in Black Dog Salvage, which is a TV show, if you haven't watched it, so understood redoing old furniture, and then it went into a marketing business. And I want to explain the circle of why those all happened. So restaurant, I think food is a love language. It should be. It should be the sixth love language that no one talks about. It transcends ethnicity, it transcends people, you don't even have to speak the same language to fall in love with food. And that's really where my passion and my heart was. It brings people together. And I'm very big about community, hence how I met Mary, very big about community and bringing people together. And then why not share something that you can all be excited about? And so if you were like, "Robin, what do you do in your free time, if you had extra free time?" It is cook for people. If I cook for you, I love you. And I probably will. I love making cocktails, I love making anything, and I love doing challenges. From that spun into the restaurant business, obviously, because when you bring people together. What I realized in the restaurant business is I was great at bringing events together. So that's where marketing came from, because I could advertise the hell out of it. But it was exhausting hamster wheel being in a restaurant industry. And everyone who has been in that industry will be like, yes, whatever she said. Construction was because I love flipping things. And I believe that some girls should own shoes. I would like to own houses and real estate. And so when they said, oh, you have to get a contractor, and I was like, how hard could this be to pass this test? And they were like, it's a hundred dollars to get your Contractor C license. And I'm like, I can totally do this. So got my license and started fixing and flipping homes and renting them out. I've been doing that since I was twenty. And I would rent them out to my roommates, and they're probably gonna watch this and be like, yep, she did. So I could live rent free. And then from that was redoing furniture, and so I'd find pieces of furniture people threw away in Virginia, re flip it, resell it, put it on Facebook, and then that turned into its own thing, and there's still YouTube videos I can't take down. So they're out there.

Callan Harrington  15:02

Let's talk about events for a little bit.

Robin Dimond  15:04

Sure.

Callan Harrington  15:04

And one of the things that I've kind of taken from previous interviews you've done, and just some of the content that's out there that you've produced is the common theme that I feel that I've seen across all of these is just hyper focus on the experience. Would you agree with that?

Robin Dimond  15:22

Yes, like experience is everythin. It's in our name. So Fifth represents the five senses. So when we came up with a name for Fifth & Cor, and I was sitting at 5th and Broad in Nashville, and the wind was hitting my face, and the music was playing, and I was eating great food, and I looked at the sign that said 5th, and I was like, a company has to be more than just a company, it should embrace all your senses. And so it's in our name, it's Fifth. And Cor is Latin for heart or the root of courage. And at the heart of who we are, it's about experience. It's about going through life. I worked for a tech company. And they were like data, data, data, data, data. And I'm like, cool, data goes so far. But there's people behind that data. And if you don't know how they think, and you don't know the psychology behind people, and you don't create an experience, they will never come back. So for the data scientists out there, and I sat on a panel with one this past week in Vegas, yeah, great. Data is great, but it's only as good as the people behind the data. And if you don't create an experience for them, and you don't create an event that makes them want to come back, what good is it? And so we have been very intentional about making experiences.

Callan Harrington  16:29

What goes into that? If you could, could you walk us through like a playbook on an event? Like, what does that look like? What is the planning for that look like, the build up, who you're inviting? What does that look like?

Robin Dimond  16:40

Okay, I'm gonna tell you about our last event, which was really about our community. And we wanted to embrace every sense. So hence, where Mary came from. Baron, who you've seen me do things. I'm gonna shout out as many people as possible, but I wanted people to walk in- The worst thing is you go to an event and you're like, it's weird to mingle. Like, you know, like, you're like, I don't want to walk up to these people. So we created eleven different experiences, and it had to touch a sensory. So if you walked in there, you got to see a podcast being filmed live just like this. But we brought the community in from the event into the podcast. So hearing was embraced. We had augmented reality, and people were putting headsets on, and they were able to interact with it. Not VR, but AR. And people were like, oh, my gosh, I really understand this now. We had my friend Joe, who owns his own coffee place, every business owner needs coffee. So why not taste it right when you walk in and awake. Like it was a night event, you wanted to get your sensories going. And we obviously had food stations. And so it allowed people to have these little moments of just bonding with other people and ways to talk to people. My good friends, Josh and Andre did this- they're coaches, and so they walked people through a physical tangible thing. So embracing that sense. And what we wanted to do is break down those barriers where people might have questions. I don't know your name, but if I'm put in a situation where now we're drinking coffee next to each other, or we're doing a podcast, and we've never met each other, we're about to wife up pretty quickly. And so that's what we wanted to do. And that's the planning. And I am crazy. I truly- like when you do an event with me, like be ready to be signed up for some crazy stuff. But from the lights, the scent in the air, we made sure that the sense was going, like everything plays a role. And so when you plan it out, you bring people who are like minded to you, or at least trust you to do this. And nobody wants to hear anyone talk for two hours, like no one. No, no, nobody. So we do a panel, we ask people questions, and we walk around, and it's an experience. And after that, if no sales come from it, that's not what it's for. It's to really bond us in a community and help us get to be the next level. I can guarantee that not one sale for my company came through that event. But yet all the other companies there are like, oh my gosh, I've got so much business because of it. I'm like, great. That's what it was for.

Callan Harrington  18:53

How do you deepen the relationships, post events? Because one of the things, and I love events, I'm a big believer, and actually I think I will say like myself, I think I over committed on content. And I'm getting back to some of the events, because it's, as you know, it's easy to do. It's so easy to do.

Robin Dimond  19:08

Oh yeah.

Callan Harrington  19:09

If you got the resources. Great, right? You can hit every single channel and you could do as much as you want. A lot of times you have to pick, and I got away from events. I've always loved events. When you throw a good event like that, what do you do to build the relationship? To deepen that relationship? But I don't mean necessarily, how do you get sales from the event? Because the sales are oftentimes naturally come from just deepening the relationship. What do you do to do that to take that part?

Robin Dimond  19:34

There's a couple of things. One, if everyone's watching, I have a QR code on my phone. It's a Popl. That is right away. It goes into my CRM. So I remember exactly where I met this person, what they were talking about. And then we follow up. The day after an event is completely blocked out in our calendar to follow up with every single person. And then we become awkward. We send you cards in the mail. We'd become so sticky with them to get to know them. And so when I'm on stage, I say two things: coffee or cocktails? I'm about to email you after this. Which one do you want to do? We can do it virtually or in real life. And I'm buying if we're doing it, so it's coffee or cocktails. And it really becomes this relationship that you have to follow up. You have twenty four hours before people start thinking about something else. So we try to set that up. We also try to do events on, I'm just gonna be really honest, Tuesday or Wednesday, because then we have the whole week to like, kind of follow up and get them set up for the next one. We have three days after we touch them the first time. But one thing we're not talking about is my team. If I died tomorrow, this company would still go on. And if you don't have a good team, I think for business owners, if you're out there trying to do it by yourself, you can't can't follow up. You can't. You're either swung over to content or swung over to this. If financially- and I did that the first year. I was like a little hamster, just pulled, all my little limbs, pulled all different ways. And it was absolutely horrendous. Is that going to get us canceled? Hopefully not. So my limbs were pulled, I'm talking about getting pulled apart. It was terrible.

Callan Harrington  21:03

Figurative hamsters. Yes, absolutely.

Robin Dimond  21:06

That was me. I was- figurative hampsters.

Callan Harrington  21:07

We are no longer canceled.

Robin Dimond  21:09

Okay, great. It was so weird because I was trying to be cheap. And then I realized, I need someone to follow up. And now we have an entire partnership and community team that's six people deep that follows up with people right after the event. It's not just me. And that has grown, and it's helped our business, and partnerships, and community. And that's what they do. And people are like, oh my gosh, I got this. Rochelle writes all these cards. My handwriting is terrible. Rochelle writes. I write what I want her to say, but she writes them all. So Rochelle is my mom, she came out of retirement to come work for me. Great, but I know that I need people. And I know that as an owner, you can't do it all.

Callan Harrington  21:43

What was the final straw to hire that first person?

Robin Dimond  21:46

Oh, man, we're gonna go there. I thought panic attacks were fake. I didn't think they were real. I never had one, woke up one morning, I thought I was having a straight up heart attack. And I decided it was the biggest blessing that happened. I also had a stroke when I was twenty-nine. So I'll explain. So I thought, oh, my God, here it comes again. And it was like, you didn't learn the first time, so I'm getting your attention, you can't do everything. And it was one of those breaking points that I put the job up on LinkedIn that day.

Callan Harrington  22:18

One, thank you for sharing that story that is such- I think almost everybody can relate to that. It is almost that breaking point where so many people, where it's like, I wish that I hired that first person. I wish I could say I hired that first person strategically, like knowing that this was going to be a problem. But it's almost always, you broke, so you found somebody to get to get help with it. So I love that story. What impact did that have? How fast of an impact did that have?

Robin Dimond  22:44

So I talked to my good friend Mike Out, and I was just on his podcast this past week. And I want to say he's the goat in partnerships. If you haven't talked to him, you need to, he taught me this, and he said, hey, partnerships are not- they're like relationships. It's like dating. You talked about your girlfriend. If I go in expecting this from you right away, like sit on a date, I'm gonna be like, hey, so later on in life, I want this, this and this, like, you'll be like, holy crap, like, let me back up. So partnerships takes a while. It's not a quick return. So we knew we were going to be investing in ninety days and expecting no sales leads. But what it did is it took off those relationships in that follow up off my plate, and allowed me to see which relationships and where things were coming from. So we were able to track it better. So it was a good full six months before we were like, oh, this is where it came from. But now it's just a ripple effect. And we go back into our CRM and we're like, okay, so we met Callan because we met Mary. We took a risk on Mary, and we invited her to this, and Mary met, like, that's how we go back. And we're like, you can't just look at it as one. So I'm gonna hate on data scientists. It's not just because I met you, and something comes from this. It's because I met Mary who invested in me. And so it's been a year process, and it's grown and her team has grown. But we know that we can never take partnerships or community out of our jobs.

Callan Harrington  24:02

When do you say partnerships, what would be an example of a partnership?

Robin Dimond  24:05

So a partnership is anybody who- We have four different levels of partnerships. One is community, it means somebody we give back to. So we work with a lot of veterans, so they're partners. Like anything they ask of us, if it's a press release, a social thing, we get that up, we get back, we help them get notoriety. We have tech partners. So I could step into it, but there's some people who are just better. So it's just a referral agreement, could be white labeled, could be just something that we give over. We actually have a partner, her name's Tammy, I met her on stage two years ago. I was just in Vegas with her this last week, and I will tell you, Tammy is better at branding than I am. So I send business over to her. Which people be like, are you nuts? You just give her business? Yeah, but she also does the same thing in other areas for me. She sends me business. And so it's a partnership. We expect no financial exchange from each other. We just introduce each other. And then we have partners we call vanity partners, which are your Pinterest partner. Pinterest doesn't care about me. But I'm a Pinterest partner. Congratulations. We put those in vanity partnerships. And so those are our different groups of partners. And it's really about what can we do for you? Who can we introduce you to? It may never lead to a financial exchange between us, but it would lead to growing your business that way?

Callan Harrington  25:20

How do you manage those relationships? I'm super curious, because most of our business comes through partnerships, as well.

Robin Dimond  25:28

A whiteboard. Everyone's color coordinated, everybody has a partner that they have. So it's like when you get into a relationship, we know your love language, we know your favorite food, we know what you drink, we know your kids birthdays, if you have kids, we know your dog's birthday, we make sure it's in our calendars. We wife up with our partners, we check in on them, we don't ask them, we send them. If we see something that comes out, we get picked up in a podcast, we send it to him, we tell them about everything that we're doing. Or if there's an industry news that happened. Our partners are the ones we communicate with the most, more than our clients, because they have a bigger value, because they bring us clients. And so we know everything about them. We do check ins, we collaborate, we evaluate the partnership. I'm gonna go back to dating. If I didn't do that, and you didn't evaluate the partnership, if it's not mutual, then why are we doing this?

Callan Harrington  25:28

Yeah.

Robin Dimond  25:31

So it's a give and take, you're going to be better at some things than I am. And I'm going to be better than you. And so we kind of help each other along that ride.

Callan Harrington  26:26

I've got like five million questions, because this is the number one thing that I'm personally working through as well, because, as I mentioned, most of my business comes through partnerships. Now, what I heard there was, you've got all the details. And what I what I kind of take that, and maybe this is the lifelong salesperson in me, you've got all these natural events, right? You have events that you can reach out to people that are: hey, I noticed you didn't send any prospects over lately. How are things going? Right? Nobody wants to get that message. Nobody cares.

Robin Dimond  26:58

No.

Callan Harrington  26:59

But you've got the birthdays, you've got the family's birthdays, you're looking for articles or pieces of content that are interesting to them based off of these previous conversations. Do you have any type of cadence where you're looking to you know, whether it's better to meet with them in person monthly, or quarterly? Or what does that look like? Or no? Or is it just purely organic?

Robin Dimond  27:20

It's a relationship. I saw one of mine, one of my partners had surgery. She's in London. I was like, well, how the heck do I get flowers to London. So I went on her Instagram, and I saw she liked a different flower, and I found the florist, and I just sent it. And then I saw another partner who's headed to Vegas, and I was like, you're going to Vegas without me? And he's like, actually, I have another ticket. Why don't you come to Vegas? And I was like, perfect. Like, I've never asked a partner, you haven't sent any prospects. And I don't evaluate you that way. Ever. It's not- Again, I'm gonna go back to dating. It's like, oh, well, you didn't earn enough money for me. No, we're in this together. If it organically comes up, we think about you, we check in whenever we're supposed to. And it can be a real quick text. It can be like, hey, Josh, met this person, was thinking of you, read this article. It doesn't need to be a novel. Like stop with like, dear Josh... just Josh doesn't care. I'm like, hey, dude, check this out. I think you should steal this idea. And he's like, cool, thanks. Like, we don't need to, like have this long, fake relationship. Like, unfortunately, you can't get rid of me now. I'm sticky. You're gonna be like, how does she know that I like whiskey and my girlfriend has a wine tasting from California? And like, you're gonna, it's just gonna show up at your house.

Callan Harrington  28:31

I love that. And you said that you're managing this process right now through whiteboards and everything else. I have not found a good CRM for this yet. I've looked.

Robin Dimond  28:40

So Notion is who we use. And we color coordinate people. So if you're tech, we have a pop up. If your birthday is blue, we know like you're in December, and we need to send you a gift. So like we use Notion, and Notion goes all the way through the process. And Notion does not pay me to say this. So that's the best one that we found. It's like eight dollars a seat. Incredible. Don't be using HubSpot. Like, it's just- it becomes tedious. Notion goes straight from my Popl right into Notion.  Yeah. Love it. Okay, switching gears a little bit. When it comes to the people that you hire, tell me about the combat partner. Okay, so talked about veterans. I have- giving back to veterans is huge for me. I have family who was military. And I learned a lot of things from them. And one thing that I learned is that you cannot go into war, which feels like that's almost every day now, you can't go into war without having someone have your six. And so you can't do it alone. You can't do life alone. And if you are that person, I don't even care if you're David Goggins. He even talks about it as when he was in Navy SEAL training, you have to have a team. You're only as good as your team. And if you think you're the strongest one out there, you're going to fail really fast. And I do this with my own life. I've done 75-Hard, I've read David Goggins's book, I've done all of those things. You need a battle buddy. I have several battle buddies in my life, that I couldn't do life without them, that they check on me. I will tell you right now, as soon as I get off this, Romi, Maria, and Nicole will be in my DMs and being like, how did it go? What did you say? Should you have done this? You know, they're the ones at four o'clock in the morning. They're the ones that you can hear them, if you call them, they're putting a shovel in their bag, because they know you're their ride or die. And we did that. And we adapted that for Fifth & Cor, is you have a battle buddy. And you're only as good as your battle buddy.

Callan Harrington  30:32

What does that look like in practice? Is that, you know, do they have regular check ins with this person? I mean, as I understand it, in order for them to even get promoted within Fifth & Cor, they have to bring somebody else up. Is that right?

Robin Dimond  30:44

100%. So I'm gonna give the best ones together. And they call each other their work wives. So they're totally okay with me saying this. They say on stage, if they can. Kira and Lexie, they started pretty much pretty close to each other, they will check in on each other. They know everything about it. They help. There's no lead that comes in that wouldn't go to the other one to help. Can you do this deck? Can you stand in for me? They are completely opposite in what their jobs are. One is more operations, while one is more partnerships and relationships. But those two go together. They've been promoted together this whole time. Because they are covering each other. They're finding each other as replacements to. And that's really how we work in that situation.

Callan Harrington  31:24

Do they get evaluated on that? As far as annual reviews or anything like that?

Robin Dimond  31:28

No. You're so corporate. Why are you so corporate? (laughs)

Callan Harrington  31:33

(laughs)

Robin Dimond  31:33

Like it's about relationships. Your battle buddy might go on in life. Your battle buddy might leave and go to a different company. And that is okay. Here's my thing, you're not going to stay with me for life. These are like children, I should not call them my children, but they're going to go on. They're either going to move up in our company, they're going to take my job, which please, for the love of God, one of them should take my job. They should take my job, or they should go someplace else and have a different thing, they're going to move up. If they stop growing, then I'm a terrible boss slash terrible mom. You don't want your kids never to leave the house when you have them. So you should, and I feel like companies are like, well, you'll be here and here's our twenty-five year plan. And at year ten, you could become a manager. And I'm like, at month ten you should become a manager. You should be moving up and finding people to replace you. If we don't have the job, make the job. We had no PR two years ago, and someone kept telling me, have PR, have PR, like I don't know PR, I don't want to bring PR in. It's one of our biggest things now. Because I said if you want the job, then make a system, make the operations, and make your own title. And she went: PR specialist, PR manager, director of PR. And now it's a whole practice underneath of us.

Callan Harrington  32:40

I wholeheartedly agree with that. And that was something for me. I told every single person I ever interviewed, because we I was always in high growth startups. And I said, the reality is two things. One, you're either going to move up really fast, or you may not. And you may hit a cap. I expect you to take that job somewhere else, we're going to train you to do that. And that was my number one recruiting source by far. People knew if they came here, that they were going to grow up and then get to that position, whether it was I hope it's with us, but odds are, it's not going to be, because it's so unpredictable. So I think that is such a great way to look at it.

Robin Dimond  33:16

And I want to share, I've had two people get hired through me. This was years ago, and they got hired through me. They both found new opportunities, they left, both have come back, and have offered to refer business to us. So if that tells you the circle six years later that we might work again together. How freaking awesome is that? So don't burn bridges. Now some people burn bridges, and I'm like lit, goodbye. But two people have come back. So it's you've moved up and you've come back in a senior level position. And you wouldn't have been able to do that if you didn't go out and see other things.

Callan Harrington  33:49

Oh, it's such a good point. And that's all I've made in- I've thought about this, because I think about some of those early bosses. And I think of as like at the time I'm like, oh, I hate these decisions. These make absolutely no sense. And then later in life, I'm like, oh, actually, I get exactly why they made that decision. That makes total sense. I'm an idiot. It's just different situations. You look at it differently. And those those connections come back around so often. You're so right. How did you found Fifth & Cor? What is the founding story of Fifth & Cor?

Robin Dimond  34:18

So Fifth & Cor is actually a spin off of another company. So I was the VP of marketing for another tech company. I've sat inside that company. We had rapid growth over the five years that I was there. Rapid, like on Inc 5000 rapid growth, which was super exciting. I thought it was my forever home. I was never going to leave. So to Manish, thank you for letting me leave and also making it possible. I was the island, is what they called me. And it was a joke, I always felt sad because I was marketing out there, an island in a tech company. And we were working on clients in the marketing. So the opportunity came, they were going to start becoming more lean, and start falling traction. The opportunity came for me to spin off into my own company. And so that was the opportunity, got a whole new name, we still have a great relationship, as I just said his name on here, obviously. I would send him business all the time. We spun off into our own standalone company, we have nothing to do with them. They still operate how they do. They're doing amazing. We operate now how we are. I wanted to switch the focus, because it's data. And I'd really don't like to always be held accountable to that part, which we still do. So we have a tech background, but Fifth & Cor became that, and so we really hyper focused on being more experiential, and really taking marketing and innovation to the next level, which is emerging tech.

Callan Harrington  35:36

Gotcha. What was the hardest part in that first year?

Robin Dimond  35:40

Oh, my God, everything. I can actually talk about this now, because we're about to celebrate two years. One, financially, I put my house on the line, I sold my car, was about to donate plasma, asked my parents for money. I didn't realize that carrying the cost of having so many employees, coming from a tech company with bloated salaries, I'm gonna just say that. They all had unlimited PTO, which I restricted to two weeks of PTO. I would say that carrying all their insurance, health, dental vision. Remember, everything that was coming out for their paychecks for six months, was out of my personal bank account. And then getting the clients, you know, for the first year, it was a very slow transition, because the clients still knew us as a different company. And we didn't have our own identity. So now I'm building my own identity out there, plus still having someone else's identity, and it was crippling. If I would do it all over again, I would have made people interview again. I probably wouldn't have given out the giant bonuses that I did, to keep the people who were planning on leaving anyways and I didn't know. I would have found a better source of people. I didn't have a good friendship. I didn't have anybody who held me accountable. I kind of worked in an isolated bubble. I didn't know the value of partnerships. And so, the first year was a shitshow.

Callan Harrington  36:58

How'd you get out of that?

Robin Dimond  36:59

Remember that panic attack I talked about? I got burned really bad by some ex employees and lost a lot of clients that way. And I realized that something had to change. And it was me. I was willing to like, bring people in, and I didn't expect them to earn what they were doing. I just wanted to keep people, and that's kind of- I'm a firstborn, I just bring you along, and I adopt you really quickly. And I realized that no, you have to have rules. You have to think outside the box. The world has changed. COVID changed everything. And so it was that day, and I will tell you I was in Tampa, Florida, going to present in front of a client. They had all flown in, I was on like three hours of sleep, I took my computer and I threw it across the room, and I was like I'm done. I don't want to do this anymore. And they're like, we have to go downstairs now. And I was like, shit. And it was one of those things that I said, okay, I need to- There was no time to stop and pause. Everyone's like, go on vacation and think. I'm like, I have clients, and they will fire me. I can't stop and think, I can't, I was the whole thing. And I realized I needed help. And so I started thinking differently. And I was doing it intertwined. And some people, unfortunately were like, that's not what we want to be part of it. I was like, great. Go see other people. Again, let's go back to that dating thing. Go see other people. We don't have to stay in a toxic relationship. Go, go be free, you're going to be happier, I'm going to be happier. And it was okay to let people go. And they say if you love something, let it go. And it will come back if you're supposed to, and my business came back, literally, to exed this past year. So I wish I would have made that decision a lot sooner.

Callan Harrington  38:36

Was that a culture change?

Robin Dimond  38:37

Oh my God, it was a culture change.

Callan Harrington  38:39

Yeah.

Robin Dimond  38:40

It became, this is who we are. I mean, our branding changed. In Vegas, we were at a restaurant, and the branding had gotten- Again, and I was listening to everybody else though. Employees were like, well, we like these colors. I was like, but it's not me. I wear all black all the time. Why is this like this foundation tan and pink color? Like I hate pink. Like, our brand started changing, and I was like, this is not who we are. The messaging started getting super corporate. I was like, no, we're unapologetically authentic. We like dark colors. This is what we're going to do. Why did we start changing? We're mysterious. We do stray on the masculine side, even of how we present things. And I was like, I forgot who I was. So we did a full rebrand, messaging, wording, website. Even how I dress is literally full rebranding and the culture change too. I went back to who we said and why we founded this company. And I really, really wish I would have done it from the start. And I didn't, and that was the biggest mistake. So if you're a business owner listening to this, call me up. I'll get you wine sent to your house, and we will cry together in your pillow, and I will tell you all the dirty secrets of what I made a mistake because no one would talk about it either. Everyone's like, no, you'll be fine. I'm like, can someone please tell me if I'm doing this right or wrong, please. And so I started just sharing my story with people.

Callan Harrington  39:56

Well, that is such a cool story. How do you maintain that culture? What do you do to enforce that, to keep it alive? Is it acting it every single day? Do you have certain things where you recognize people that are, you know, aligned with that culture? What does that look like?

Robin Dimond  40:11

Culture is what you make it. So when people come in, they're like, what's the culture? I'm like, what do you want? If you want to celebrate Thanksgiving, and you want to have a potluck, then go ahead and make it. I empower my team to make the culture. If the culture comes from me, that's going to be toxic, and it's not going to be real, it's not going to be authentic. I appreciate what Kira brings to the table. I appreciate that Jennifer goes out and does things that are totally different than I would. I appreciate that Juan is his creativity. Is it the way I would do it? No, freaking, no way. Does he do it way better? Absolutely. Juan, if you're listening to this, he knows that I love absolutely love him. It's how David goes and envisions something. It's not me. Culture is who you come in. There are eight fluent languages spoken on our team. We are culturally diverse as a team. And so I say bring that in. If you celebrate something, then we're gonna go start celebrating it. I celebrated Hanukkah. I'm not Jewish. But that was part- that's very important to be part of your team's culture in their lives. If their family is everything, if their dog is everything, then bring that in. The only people who don't survive are the people who are like, well, what are you doing for me? I'm like, we're not going to do a potluck. We had an employee get sick. So we sent food to her house. Why not? Why wouldn't you do that? That's tiny bits of culture.

Callan Harrington  41:26

Yeah, I love that. What comes next? What's next for Fifth & Cor? What's next for yourself?

Robin Dimond  41:31

Did you ever watch Pinky and the Brain? I don't know how old you are.

Callan Harrington  41:33

Well, we're probably about the same age, because everything that you're saying is hitting about the exact same time it hit me. So I, I would assume we're probably the same age. Okay.

Robin Dimond  41:42

So in Pinky and the Brain, if anyone doesn't know it, they say "I'm going to try to take over the world." That is actually Fifth & Cor's goal. So we are launching our own product line. And it has all the sensories, because we send gifts to everybody. So we wanted the sensories and the products to match who we are as a company. So each gift and product will actually be something that goes with the senses, and we're gonna be sending them to our clients. We are really, really heavily stepping into, and have already stepped in, emerging tech projects. So we are looking, like I said, we started shooting content, even the people who capture content for us, our videographers are all doing it for Apple Vision Pro. So we are thinking outside the box. But this next year, we are going international. So that is the biggest thing that's happening. And I'm super excited about that. So we realized our partnerships need to expand outside of the US. And so and I don't mean employees, our employees will all be here. But we are going to start going in and actually flying outside the country to start doing stuff. So that's really where we're headed. I don't think three years down the road, I think now, but that's really where we go.

Callan Harrington  42:46

Huge goals and also not surprised, based on this conversation. Those seemed like the right goals. Last question I have for you, Robin, is: if you could have a conversation with your younger self, age totally up to you, what would that conversation be? What advice would you give them?

Robin Dimond  43:02

Oh my gosh. So I'm forty. We might as well just go through this. I'm forty. I just want to say, every decade I have this like almost epiphany. So for looking at my younger self. I didn't own who I was until the past two years. And I wish I would have said, you being a giant dork fish is okay. And if people don't love it, that's okay, lose them. I am a dork fish. I'm totally fine with being a dork fish. I embrace it now. I used to be so worried about what other people say. And I think that it hindered my business. It hindered my friendships. I'm unapologetically authentic, that's who I am. If you call me up, I'll ride or die for you. You really can't burn a bridge, unless you really just want me out of your life. And so I would tell my younger self, be who you are authentically, back when I was twenty.

Callan Harrington  43:54

It's amazing, the weight that gets lifted, once you start to do that. It's almost immediate. Did you find that to be the case?

Robin Dimond  44:03

Yeah. So I did something that broke me. Again, so we had the panic attack. And that like broke me in a negative way. But from there, I said, I'm gonna do 75 Hard. So if you haven't done 75 Hard, do it. I challenged myself for seventy-five days. On day twenty-three, my dad said. you're not doing it right. And I was like, what? So I had to start over again. So I did it for more than seventy-five days. But I challenged myself, and I said if I can do this, I can do anything. And it was me figuring out who I was. And it was me to stop apologizing for the person who I thought people wanted me to be. If you're looking to be making a million dollars and sitting on my team, that's not going to happen. I don't even make that. So I started just being really transparent with people I started being transparent with clients. I'm not the best fit for every client. That'd be super weird if I was. It was okay. We lost some business, but we gained so much more. And so this weight off my shoulders, and I push myself every day. I am so push myself, I'll just share this because no one knows. I bought a sauna and a cold plunge. I cold plunge in my garage, it's thirty-two degrees in a freeze every day. If you can do those kinds of things, you challenge yourself and people be like, don't share that Robin. My mom's like, don't share that. Don't say you get Botox, and like, if I don't tell people I get Botox, then people think I'm not aging. I'm okay to be so transparent about what I'm doing in my life.

Callan Harrington  45:19

You bring up the cold plunge at the end of the interview, and I have so many more questions because I want one horribly.

Robin Dimond  45:19

Okay, ask. Cut something else out so you could ask it. So I could answer the cold plunge stuff.

Callan Harrington  45:23

How big of a change has it made? I've heard the maintenance on these things are kind of a pain in the ass. Is that true?

Robin Dimond  45:35

No.

Callan Harrington  45:36

Okay, super it and it's in your garage, which actually makes it somewhat potentially possible for me living in Ohio. So walk me through, walk me through like the whole thing.

Robin Dimond  45:44

So, I was so scared, again, was being scared. So I've done something that scares me, my best friend Libby from college, I wear a bracelet, I have one for Jay, one for Libby. And then my girls got me one for the team. And then my other friend got me a charm to go on here. So they're a constant reminder that I never walk on stage alone. And they're cheap bracelets. So when one of them breaks, then we go on a trip together. So just so you know, they're like seventeen dollars. So they challenged me to do something that scared me. And I have always been scared to get into a sauna. And so I did the red light sauna. I fell in love with it. And I was like, oh my gosh, and they're like, well, you can do contrast therapy. And I was like, okay, that seems crazy. Let's try it. So I did contrast therapy, and they said you will never focus more than you ever have. Let me just tell you, if you haven't done it, do it. It's three minutes of your life. And I actually got the real one that has like a pump and cleans itself. It does all of that. Like it's sterile, I got the expensive one, not just an ice bucket. But it's changed me physically. Anybody who knows me knows that I traveled to eight cities in two and a half weeks. So to be able to do that and physically keep up with this lifestyle. I feel better. You feel like you can do anything, but it's the mental shift. So a week and a half ago, I was in a race car going 160 miles an hour. And I was like, I just went to that cold plunge thing. And that's also how I do my revenue numbers when I'm forecasting. You go into this place, and you just think of the same thing, and you just stay calm. And that is the only peace I find in the morning. So do I love it? No, I frickin hate it every day. I'm like, dammit, I hate this. But sauna, cold plunge, sauna, cold plunge, sauna, cold plunge, and then you spend the first forty-five minutes of your day trying to wake up or like stop shivering. But it's been amazing.

Callan Harrington  47:22

I love it. That's just another example. You've provided so many today. Robin, thank you for coming on. This has been a blast.

Robin Dimond  47:28

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Callan Harrington  47:31

Yeah, absolutely.  I hope you enjoyed Robin and I's conversation. It is so clear how much Robin values experience when you listen to her talk. If you want to learn more about Robin, you could find her on LinkedIn in the show notes. Also, if you really liked this episode, you could find me on LinkedIn to let me know. And if you really want to support the show, a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify is very much appreciated. Thanks for listening, everybody, and I'll see you next week.