What is a foam sommelier?
It’s a great question and we are so glad you asked. We sat down at the Furniture Today Bedding Conference held this past week in Orlando, Florida with Scott Smalling, Founder of Relief Bed International and more recently, Chief Commercial and Innovation Director for Emma, The Sleep Company, to chat the bedding conference, foam, his role is at Emma, and we get an update on Relief Bed since our last conversation in April 2021.
We discuss the shift facing D2C innovators and their strengths and struggles, what Relief Bed is doing to help in the Ukraine and how Scott is working to become the industry foam sommelier through Emma.
We also honor Roger Magowitz of the Seena-Magowitz Foundation who received a Lifetime Achievement award this past week. Congratulations, brother!
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Mark Kinsley
Live on the scene at the furniture today bedding conference with the one the only. I call him
Mark Quinn
Scott. What do you call I call him Scott
Mark Kinsley
What do you say Scott and it’s an official tease. How about that? The does Marco show begins in 30 seconds wow
Mark Quinn
I forgot you’re doing a deep
Mark Kinsley
when now here we are at the furniture today bedding conference Scott Smalling your mark Mark quick roll everybody wants to take to the dance
Mark Quinn
is certainly not because of my looks. It might be because I’m with a very large mattress retailer and that’s Mark Kinsley best hair by far here at the I’m sorry, but he’s got the best hair,
Mark Kinsley
guys it gets kind of flat down here in the Florida humidity. Okay, so Phoenix exciting conference here is way better than Orlando.
Mark Quinn
Gotta have more product. Hey guys, we want to start off because one of the exciting things about this event is the fact that they are going to honour Roger Maga wits from the scene immaculate foundation. He’s going to get a Lifetime Achievement Award for something big and fancy like that salute. There are people flying in from all over the country to be here to honour Roger just for that event. Roger as you may or may not know, his mother passed away from pancreatic cancer. Roger has been in the fight big time. For I don’t even know how old the charity is at least a decade old raising millions and millions of dollars to help people suffering from pancreatic cancer, live a better quality of life. God bless that man. He’s done such an amazing job. And how cool is it that furniture today is going to honour him? You guys
Mark Kinsley
I saw Roger you had a big smile on his face and gave him a big congratulations and a hug. And he’s had a tough year this past year. Roger, we love you. We love to see him backwards foundation. We’d love your heart for people for this industry. And speaking of heart for people in the industry, they say,
Mark Quinn
wow, it’s almost like he’s done it before. I
Scott Smalling
know. Almost like we’re really close to each other. I know. There’s a lot of closeness here.
Mark Quinn
Well, and we’re having cocktails. So this is a good thing about being we should. First of all here is to the official does Marcos test here is to great sleep and living
Mark Kinsley
your best life man. Cheers to you, everybody listening. Watching you. Can I hear the glasses, Clank? Thank you for the drink, Scott very much. It’s
Scott Smalling
club soda. It’s called something else.
Mark Quinn
We do love our audience that way. They’re the best. And we are here representing you and trying to learn everything we can. And we want to bring you to the furniture bedding conference, and kind of fill you in. So let’s talk a little bit. We’ve had some great sessions today. Let’s start with you, Mr. Small. Who? Can you think of anything that has landed hard with you that maybe you want to share with everyone?
Scott Smalling
I really think it’s around the digital space. Yeah. I mean, there’s no question that, that hockey sticks happened during the pandemic, right. And I think everybody’s got to be prepared with obviously the the obviousness of role packing, and then the digital space and then learning what specifically you want to target in the digital space. Because there was a lot of conversations today about people being all over the board with their digital work. And sometimes that’s not very effective. So being very focused on 234 things instead of 10.
Mark Kinsley
Yeah, you know, one of the things that kind of landed with me today was a panel with some of these DDC providers, there was GhostBed there was nectar there was Ben the box, and there was Suraj from the marketing agency. And one of the things they started talking about that really, the bells and whistles started go off for me was this idea of attribution. And it was really interesting to hear GhostBed talk about building their model around the idea they were going to go to retail, and then that kind of became the new you know, hat like back and forth around this idea of okay, now great. We’re moving from DTC into brick and mortar how do we attribute all the money we spend online to that customer crossing the finish line in the brick and mortar store because even McCarthy said that you know one to 2% of people convert on these websites well they want to give the rest of path to purchase in a store because they want to touch and feel it and now it’s we’re gonna get into a big conversation I feel like about managing your return on adspend and attributing more accurately where that money is being spent.
Mark Quinn
Well any of your goes bad you want to attribute it because nectar all these guys these digital native brands that are now trying to expand into brick and mortar
Scott Smalling
you that’s a good segue for Emma Yeah.
Mark Kinsley
But we kind of teeing this up Yeah. Emma for those who don’t know a huge yes the biggest brand and you’re outside of the
Scott Smalling
DTC actually in though in the world only because some people break their brand up into different smaller brands. And so currently am a we believe is the largest in the world well from a DTC brand stamp right?
Mark Quinn
And I want to get into that I want to make one comment before we leave the bedding conference thing though. One of the things I thought was
Scott Smalling
leaving Yeah, I can’t leave I’m between YouTube and that topic, Scott sandwich here. So got
Mark Kinsley
Mark and Mark and Mark on right Made.
Mark Quinn
Sourdough can be anything. Yeah, it was, for me the idea of making raving fans. So we talked about that. I mean, like everyone, but the examples that were being used with chewy is the dog, the dog food company. Yeah. Now, literally Petsmart is now they’ve got the brick and mortar because it relates back, right, they’ve got PetSmart, which is the brick and mortar, store front for everything. And then they bought CHEWIES, which is a great digital first brand that does a incredible job with customer service. They’re taking photos of people’s dogs, and literally sending out grief cards and sympathy cards for anyone who loses a vet. So the whole point of it was just a good reminder that if you’re going to create raving fans, it doesn’t cost a lot of money. It sometimes just takes a note, it takes a clever email to really wow someone and stick with them and give them some affection for your rent. So I love that part
Scott Smalling
of well, let’s sum it up because that means the podcast is going to the dogs. I mean, I’m just saying this podcast, just because that’s where we’re headed with chewy and PetSmart. Yes.
Mark Kinsley
Oh, I went to the dog that’s getting
Scott Smalling
clearly you don’t get it?
Mark Quinn
That’s okay, you took a shot. So let’s talk about your your we got
Mark Kinsley
exactly the trouble Yes, with my phone, by the way, because I’m gonna pull up an arm.
Scott Smalling
Are you literally, ma’am?
Mark Quinn
Family, so I’m gonna get him into MSO Scott. So okay, so we talked about the size of the brand. So talk to us about what you’re planning for the United States. And and like, what you’re what you’re gonna bring, and how it’s gonna be exciting for you and for other people.
Scott Smalling
So completely different than what Emma does around the world. Emma is now in over 30 countries, five offices worldwide we normally produce from the country that we’re in. But we have done it with a with a more efficient model. We’ve done it with a kind of right down the middle type product. But in the US, and you guys know better than anybody is this is a very sophisticated market when it comes to product innovation. And so we want to bring innovation to the brick and mortar market, we’re not going to do this with another bed and then try to buy our way in, we’re going to let everyone else’s do we want to do this with a way that we can differentiate who we are at a relatively premium level. So we’ve got some exciting technologies that we’re out working with that we’ll be launching in Las Vegas, in in July, and very excited about it. What the main focus behind that innovation is, is having the consumer have the ability to change the comfort and the support of the mattress without having to have it plugged in having a controlled by
Mark Quinn
power and non powered adjustable comfort.
Scott Smalling
Exactly. So so pretty novel. And very exciting. All the while keeping my nickname I don’t know if you saw it on the board today, when we were all putting boards and stuff up. You guys had those markers, podcasts and assuming somebody somebody I don’t know if you saw a foam geek that came in. Yeah. So that to be said that we will not shy away from having the best of the best when it comes to the foam and the different layers in the bed along with our you know, our technology helps people understand
Mark Kinsley
for those who don’t know, your background around product innovation, because you’ve been doing this a long time and when you say foam geek and we talk about adjustable comfort without plugging anything in help people understand your background.
Scott Smalling
Okay, so foam geek, which I was hoping over the years would turn into foam sommelier, right because because foam geek. Yeah.
Mark Kinsley
Your own trademark, Right exactly.
Mark Quinn
You put foam sold me on a shirt. I don’t think it would fit.
Scott Smalling
Yeah, it’s a long name. It’s like having like a whatever name. Yeah. So
Mark Kinsley
really, we have
Scott Smalling
we have the best potential person on the planet to be judging us on what we’re gonna sell.
Mark Kinsley
Can you come stand in like so people can see you in the background.
Scott Smalling
make people think that Dr. B is in the house. It’s kind of like sneaky. Very.
Mark Quinn
What we were hoping would happen. We just read so
Scott Smalling
we want you as we’re talking about the product, you can be going like, yeah, he’s right or No, he’s full of crap. Well, we
Mark Quinn
were just talking about how Miss Kelly’s was going to take on a tonne of Miss Kelly. And mostly we shouldn’t
Scott Smalling
we should have talked with Vince about this is this is kind of like you’ve seen the movie Tommy Boy Remember how we ran into the microphone? Can you remember how we wrote the purchaser with Dan Aykroyd? Yeah, so we’re writing one right now with Miss Kelly’s and with that, isn’t that amazing? 500,000 brake pads. Anyways, so 76 years ago, my grandfather started phone company and So it’s been in my jeans, it’s been in my family my whole life. And so when I broke out of the foam company and started to the foam bed come from Pedic, it had to be special, we had to do something around foam. That was that was unique. And the two things that we brought to the table one, which we think were truly first on, which was speeding up the memory foam, yeah, but it was had a faster recovery. So not slower, you’re not slow response. And then we just promoted other companies that had creative good airflow in the foam, hence why foam geek and hence why we will always have the foam component within our beds have a lot of married. Good.
Mark Quinn
Did you hear him just use the word hence two times?
Mark Kinsley
Yeah, therefore,
Scott Smalling
hence. In fact, today
Mark Quinn
we’ll really talk like that, or is this podcast Scott?
Mark Kinsley
He was working with an attorney. What are you in trouble?
Mark Quinn
And I love that. So
Mark Kinsley
there are two for
Scott Smalling
the name of our product that we’re bringing to market is called shift because you can shift your comfort today. Carolyn, who’s one of our new team members with Emma, every time somebody on the stage said shift and trust me they said it a lot. We would like cheer or bottled water and take a drink. It was not a fun. You’re gonna think about that. Now when you ship he’s gonna be like, drink grab
Mark Kinsley
your dust. Marcos indestructible tequila shot glass and take a shot at tequila. Every time we say ship ship ship ship ship
Mark Quinn
ship ship ship. Yeah, it reminds me of ship my pants
Scott Smalling
there. Alright, so we can ship your bed anywhere you want it anyway.
Mark Quinn
Scott, before we go out of here, because we know you’re a very busy man, I want to talk about relief bed because you’re doing such great stuff. And I know that there’s a lot coming up. So tell us like, what’s an update with relief bed.
Scott Smalling
So the update is I have to remember to have had hats. See the Ukrainian flag in the hat right there. So that’s for you to do is almost like there. Yeah. So relief bed. Started. Seven years ago, we’ve distributed and donated about 32,000 beds, to mainly homeless shelters in disaster relief. Our favourite project, which is on your hat is we proactively before we had the donations, but thank goodness they float in. We sent 1000 beds to Poland to support the people flooding out of the Ukraine. And it was it’s just been a blessing. It was something that was so such a passionate thing on our hearts that we just did it without, you know, being real responsible about whether or not we can raise the money. But thankfully the donors came around and helped us out.
Mark Quinn
Think about the impact of that right now in Poland as people are Yeah, that’s amazing, great
Scott Smalling
job. They’re sleeping in train stations underground. I mean, it’s insane. So what’s also important is, we’re not there, right? We’re not on the ground there. No, and we’re not going to ship this stuff over to a country just hope it gets there. So we have partners like convoy hope and world concert World Vision, excuse me, that are actually on the ground. So they’re actually handing out the beds and putting them in the different pop up shelters and things like that.
Mark Kinsley
And at some point, I’m sure you’re gonna start hearing stories about the impact that makes I know, we talked in the past about relief bed. And people in disaster zones and things of that nature. No top priorities are getting people up off the floor. And most of the time, they don’t have any place to sleep, maybe maybe a pile of blankets, but they’re lucky to have that sometimes. And so I love the work. You’re doing 32,000 beds, 1000 of them went to Poland to help people in the Ukraine relief. Great job to relief that thank you to all the donors out there. Thank you. Yeah, the mission. We love that.
Mark Quinn
So final to build on what you just said what I think is so crazy as so many people take a bet for granted. If you don’t have a bed, a whole different game. And so you guys are raising the importance of that. The importance of a bed and you’re helping
Scott Smalling
people and we sell sleep and we’re in the business. We’ve all been in it for a long time. So why kind of shouldn’t our philanthropic part of our world be around sleep? Yes.
Mark Quinn
Well, that’s exactly right. Yeah. Why not? I mean, that’s what we do. So Scott, from Mark and I both really grateful for your time. Really excited for what you’re doing with Emma, and very excited for what you’re doing is really bad. We appreciate your heart, your servant’s heart and everything that you’re doing. And, man, just keep it up and let us know how we get out.
Mark Kinsley
Yeah, we can’t wait to get to know more of the team from Emma. Yes, we know you really well, but we’ve seen some of the new team members around you like you know, satellite planets. You’re the winner though.
Mark Quinn
Well, you’ve got Winnie, Winnie, Winnie. Well, Vinny, but you’re German in
Scott Smalling
the it’s it’s Winnie. They can say VP 20 Then he keeps winning. So we thought that’s actually a cool name. If you think about if your nickname was winning. Yeah, I mean, it’s not like it’s losing. It’s winning.
Mark Kinsley
Win Win win no matter what What Money on
Mark Quinn
my mind? Well, a lot of people call me Quinny and they call him Kinsley so it all works together. It’s like Kinsley Kinsley
Scott Smalling
Smalling on it. The problem is when this portion of this podcast ends I’m in the mark sandwich. Oh, you’re
Mark Kinsley
not getting out that you’re not knocking.
Mark Quinn Well we appreciate all you guys we wish you’re here with us. We’re at the bedding conference more to come. We’ve got a couple more interviews to do. But we appreciate guys more than you know and stay tuned for more direct contact and more information from the furniture today Vedic conference in Orlando. Yes
