Intro (00:00):

Welcome to The Taylor Ten. A fast-paced, 10 minute deep dive into the minds of those shaking up the marketing world, bringing you the sharpest insights, boldest ideas and breakthrough trends driving the industry forward. So tune in, get inspired, and stay ahead.

Naomi (00:18):

I am Naomi Balla, Senior Vice President here at Taylor's Strategy, and welcome to another episode of The Taylor Ten. I'm super excited to be here with Alexandra Schrecengost, who is the founder of Culture With Us. I'm here to talk to Alex about how she really turned her passion for spirits, wines, just overall entertaining and hosting to create a business. So I wanted to just start off with a little bit about what is culture with us.

Alex (00:51):

Thank you for having me on. I'm really, really excited and for culture with us, I wanted it to represent inclusivity and food and entertainment and having everyone around the table really enjoying themselves, whether they're around a virtual table or in person. And so we're hospitality concierge essentially is the best way to describe us. We do corporate gifting and corporate events and experiences for folks that are geographically dispersed. So we work with the likes of Google and Amazon and Netflix, and we host these experiences not only for their sales teams to really have a dialogue with their clients and prospects, but to also for internal teams that don't necessarily sit in the same office, whether they're all in the United States or not. We started to see that a lot of folks have employees in India and in England and in Illinois and in New York and in California. And you can't always pay a significant amount of funds to fly everyone out to one location. Some companies do, some companies don't. And so we saw that there was a huge gap there, and this provided an opportunity to really create that comradery, that culture and to dive in and have a really good time and have everyone have a seat at the table.

Naomi (02:05):

Great, great, great. And correct me on the timeline, you guys kind of came about in the Zoom era of 2020. Was this an idea that was always burgeoning inside you or was it like, I remember a time where everyone was just rekindling relationships with friends and having happy hour, virtual happy hours. Was that kind of the inspiration or was this a little nugget in your head and that kind of blossomed it?

Alex (02:31):

So I always wanted to do something that was lifestyle and I was leaning more towards consumer. Initially I'd been working at a wine importer and distributors, their head of comms and digital, and it was just such a place of not comfort and not what I wanted to do. And I was in a very male dominated environment and I was like, really, things of entertainment should be approached with that inclusivity piece. And so I started thinking about it and it was smack in the middle of COVID where my husband was like, know customers are willing to meet with me. I don't know what I'm going to do, and it's his job. And then I had friends calling me saying they couldn't pay rent, and they were some as that I had gotten to school with because I studied, I'm the level under master of wine. So we were all sitting there studying together and my one girlfriend was crying and she said, I can't pay my rent.

(03:25):

I don't know what to do. And I was like, well, you can come here. And so Sean, my husband was like, why don't we do a wine tasting with her? And I was like, I have a better idea. Why don't we rule out programs and offer this to all of your friends that are in sales, that are in tech and see where it goes. And so we hosted that first event in July 5th, 2020. Literally after the 4th of July, we were still on lockdown. There were no vaccinations. Everyone was like, what are you going to do? How are you going to get the wine there? I called a wine shop in New York. My friend worked there and he was like, I'm literally hiding in a closet right now just shipping out boxes anyway, how many do you need? And once we sent it out, then people started coming to us and saying, Hey, we need you two and we really need us hit the ground.

(04:13):

Running with Johnson & Johnson found us because of my background in PR. We had myself and then a mutual friend of ours was doing my public relations, someone that I trusted to do the pr, and she got us in vogue about discussing entertainment and how virtual entertaining can be more than just awkwardly on Zoom. Johnson & Johnson found us and said, you're our exclusive vendor, let's go. And that's where we hit the ground running. And so from there I really started to build out programs and then as kind of COVID restrictions lifted, people are like, oh, it's going to go away. You can't continue to run a virtual experiences company. And then lo and behold, companies were like, well, we hired a bunch of people everywhere and we don't want to necessarily fire all of them, and we also allow people to have working from home a few days a week, and then our customers are also everywhere, so we don't know what to do.

(05:13):

Are you going to fold the other companies? I said, no, I'm not. My plan is to evolve and create gift packages and different ways of entertaining. So let's figure this out. We really started to build out more programming for these companies and now we fulfill in over 79 countries. We have the support of FedEx. We were their grant winner for their small business two years ago, and they support us through their marketing channels every year, including last year and last month. I meant we're doing their holiday gifting and they come to my house every day because we're a small business. So we have a warehouse out of my house out of Wayne, New Jersey, out of California, out of Berlin, and we're just kind of continuing to run the aspects of entertaining so that everyone can be there and participate no matter where you are. So it's been really cool to see it unfold.

Naomi (06:05):

How do you think your career in PR really prepared you to start your own business?

Alex (06:11):

So the organizational skills and you know this more than anyone, but the attention to detail of the timelines and releases and announcing when something is going to launch and then the associated press trips that go with them or the dinners and the events and how they have to be planned diligently and with thought and with branding. And it needs to be the right brand guidelines and appropriate look for what you're representing. That really prepared me for what we do because we are working with these large corporations and they have a vision on what their eventually look like, because like I said, about 70% of our business is sales organizations and marketing teams hosting their customers. We're representing them to others. And so it's a lot on our shoulders to ensure that they're represented in the right way. And that's very similar to pr. You're essentially, you're their spokesperson and you are representing that customer, and if you say one thing wrong, that's what they're going to be known for a long time. That's how PR really prepared me. It's like how should this box look and feel before it goes out to the customer.

Naomi (07:25):

You mentioned a little bit about your experiences and navigating the world, the hosting and entertaining world, and being the only woman in the room, and I don't think it's a leap to say that you might've been the brownest in the room too. So just curious, how has your experience as a woman and also a Latina woman made your unique entrepreneurial story different than others?

Alex (07:49):

The biggest thing is I always make my voice known in the room now and I didn't before. And I mean, you could probably attest this, you knew me, but I wasn't one to shout from the rooftops. I was typically a bit more timid or just angry and frustrated, and now I make my voice known in the room of like, Hey, this is not how we should be approaching the business. And then on the other side, this is why you should work with us. Less than 1% of women in the United States not even looking at color, race, religion, anything are funded. So even going into rooms where I was trying to raise money and not be self-funded because we're self-funded and I have had multiple grants, and with the grants, I went and believed in myself. I spoke up and I said, we're a culture company. We support over 289 small businesses. And that's a big thing for really small company running out of part-time out of my house. And we're in over 79 countries, like I said, and we have people from all over the world represented in every piece of our box. And then we have hospitality folks from all waves of life.

Naomi (09:00):

So if you were on a stranded island and you could only bring a little app, a little bite and a bottle,

Alex (09:07):

So I would bring a Philly cheese steak with me, preferably with provolone and the works, onions, peppers, mushrooms, everything. Just a little ones then. So I'm a huge champagne girl. I believe that you should have champagne all times of the day. So the Alexandra, not because it has my namesake, but it's really good. It's with Champagne Laurent per, and it's just a stellar wine and I love it. And the bottle's also really pretty. It's got rose gold and it's definitely my vibe and it goes great with Philly Cheesesteaks. I don't know if they'll agree, but that is me.

Naomi (09:42):

That is an amazing way to add. Thank you so much, Alex. This is such a good time to catch up and I'm just really excited about everything that culture with us is doing. So thank you everyone for tuning into The Taylor Ten.

Alex (09:55):

Thank you.