Belmont Coffee Service
Belmont is the modern office’s coffee service. Providing rental-free equipment, great coffee, cool drinks, and fresh snacks delivered directly to your breakroom and managed with ease.
My work in marketing helped land Belmont on list for the Fastest-growing Private Companies in Oregon.
-
CMO
Branding, design, management.
Growth Strategy
Positioning
Web Design
Customer Research & Analysis
Workplace Design
Ads/Campaign Design
Company Culture Lead
Customer Experience
Copywriting
Packaging Design
Product Development
UI Design
Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? It was years of work.
The Process
The heart of office camaraderie is the breakroom. This is where gatherings happen, friends are made, and also where people quietly sit and stare at their phones with numb Monday minds.
When a company improves the food and drink of the breakroom—poof—the perception of the company changes.
While most things in the office modernized, breakroom services stayed the same—until Belmont.
Positioning
[Confidential on behalf of client.]
Branding
I aimed to make Belmont the funnest choice an office manager gets to make.
After speaking with dozens of office managers, I learned the task of choosing a B2B vendor is almost always a dull experience. Having to deal with dry sales calls, hidden information, spreadsheet proposals, and negligible differentiation. So the brand experience of Belmont is to escape from all that bullshit.
Eric Hermeling, the owner, had built an incredibly personable customer service model. One that made delivery drivers seem like your regular barista. So, I wanted to highlight this person-to-person care in everything the brand represented.
Inspired by hip cafes and good times at work. Expressed with considerate design and playful aesthetics for office managers. Belmont is the vendor you love.
Simple brand wrap to compliment any office decor. Included is interchangeable coffee tags for all coffees in the office.
A better work life.
Marketing meets Sales.
One hand washes the other. So it goes with Marketing and Sales.
Daily conversations with Sales always uncovered ways to help potential clients. We aimed to create sales materials that continued to answer questions long after the salesperson had left. This meant we had to anticipate the next questions, clear areas of confusion, and reassure unspoken concerns.
Design plays an important role in building trust. So, each page was made for the reader’s natural flow through the information.
Our goal was to help the office manager be confident, excited, and to feel like a real pro when the boss asks a dozen questions in a meeting.
A proposal should be a confidence-boosting experience. Not just an Excel spreadsheet of prices.
EX = CX
A brand is nothing if employees aren’t participating in it.
By giving employees clarity on the brand promise; showing them how to succeed or fail; and giving them the freedom to participate in the brand allows for organic business relationships between employees and clients. These relationships become associated with the brand.
-
Defining Culture.
With the Belmont Culture book, I set out to create something that was honest. I opted for few, but certain words so employees could quickly plug in to the culture and begin contributing with their unique skillset.
-
Creating a Path.
Don’t you hate when someone is telling you about the company culture and it’s just inspirational bullshit? To great success, I told people the truth of how to succeed and fail—then let them work hard for themselves within those rules.
-
Developing People.
If the rules employees play by are not nurtured or upheld by management—a gap grows between the two. So, I collaborated with the indispensable Laura Boley in creating the Leadership Guide to ensure everyone was playing the same game—even during challenging times.
Workplace Design
Step one: Remove petty obstacles that prevent people’s best work.
Step two: Design a space that communicates the brand, creates camaraderie, and makes people feel they’re part of something unique.
I redesigned the warehouse disposal corner for additional office space.
Artist, Isaiah Pottle, brings the details to life.
We designed and built an employee bar for morning meetings and after hours drinks.
Employees who try the product, sell the product.
The employee bar.
I love a good sky jack.
Employees who understand the culture--quickly expand it to take on a life of its own. There's no better feeling for people than to know they are molding the place they work.
Tea education for the team sparks conversations with clients.
Web Design
I designed Belmont’s website with three things in mind: lead-gen, a content strategy that offered genuine help for office managers, and to streamline customer service.
Customer service is about removing obstacles for everyone involved.
Prior to building an online shopping experience of Belmont’s products, customers had to email for a spreadsheet of products— making something as simple as switching coffees a time sink for everyone involved.
Lessons Learned
Developing a brand experience is one of the best investments a company can make in the longterm. Advertising costs go down, margins go up, sales process shortens, and talent is attracted.
A true brand experience connects every part of a business through a shared image and clearly defined values unique to that company.
It’s also one of the funnest things a company will do.
Outcome
100%+ growth 3 years in a row.
Portland Business Journal’s Fastest Growing Companies of 2020