IAM592- Chef Helps Clients Nurture Business Relationships

After a lifelong love affair with food, eating, and feeding others, Chef Lucia decided to make her fantasy a reality and enrolled in the California School of Culinary Arts Le Cordon Bleu Program in Pasadena, California. After being inspired by classic French culinary traditions and techniques, she attained her goal and graduated at the top of her class on the Dean’s list with a Perfect Attendance Award.

In 2012, she grew her passion and love of food into the corporate gift business, Lucia & Co., and it is this venue that brings her the most satisfaction. “Creating unique gourmet gift boxes and helping our clients nurture their client relationships is an extraordinarily gratifying endeavor,” she says. “I love hearing about the successes and growth our clients experience, the visibility they receive, and how happy their clients are, really feeling so deeply appreciated. All this is because of our little black gift boxes and the lasting impression of thoughtfulness they leave behind.

• CEO Hack: Writing things down
• CEO Nugget: Have fun with it and enjoy the journey
• CEO Defined: Leading by example

Website: http://luciaandcompany.com/

Facebook: facebook.com/luciaandcompany
Twitter: @luciaandcompany
Instagram: @luciaandcompany
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/luciaandcompany
Media: https://luciaandcompany.com/index.php/media/

Books and television:

You can find her as one of the featured chefs in Chefs’ Specials of California: Signature Dishes and Favorite Recipes from Celebrated Chefs and Restaurants Cookbook. In 2009 Chef Lucia was featured in a national Diet Coke commercial with award-winning Chef Tom Colicchio of the hit TV show, Top Chef. In 2010 she was on the TLC reality show, Fabulous Cakes. Chef Lucia was featured in the Taco Bell Cantina Bell 2012 commercial campaign with celebrity chef Lorena Garcia and most recently in the newest campaign for McDonald's morning breakfast.

Chef Lucia was also recognized in 2011 for the Exclusive Tea Gift Box. It was reviewed and featured by Lifestyle + Charity Magazine.

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Transcription

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place, Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello. Hello. Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today I have Lucia Robles of Lucia & Co.

Lucia it's awesome to have you on the show.

Lucia Robles 0:39

Thank you for having me. Thank you for inviting me appreciate you.

Gresham Harkless 0:41

No problem, I appreciate you as well. What I want to do is just read a little bit more about Lucia so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.

After a lifelong love affair with food, eating, and feeding others, Chef Lucia decided to make her fantasy a reality and enroll in the California School of Culinary Arts Les Cordon Bleu program in Pasadena, California. After being inspired by classic French culinary traditions and techniques, she attained her goal of graduating at the top of her class on the Dean's list with A Perfect Attendance Award. In 2012, she grew her passionate love of food into the corporate gift business, Lucia & Co.

And it is this venue that brings her the most satisfaction. She says creating unique gourmet gift boxes and helping our clients nurture their client relationships is an extraordinarily gratifying endeavor. She also says I love hearing about the successes and growth of our client's experience, the visibility they create, and how happy the clients are feeling so deeply appreciated. All this is because of a little black box, little black gift box, and the lasting impressions of thoughtfulness they leave behind.

Lucia, it's great to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Lucia Robles 1:43

I'm so ready. Thank you. Wow, I love it. Sometimes I wonder, you know, especially in looking back, and people talk about going to college and jobs and I'll just different things and like, I have no idea how I found the time to do a lot of those things all in one day.

Gresham Harkless 1:58

I know.

Lucia Robles 1:59

Like, I get tired thinking about some of that stuff. So it's like, it's really kind of cool. So thank you.

Gresham Harkless 2:03

Yeah, but I've always felt that a lot of times, well, thank you for doing all the awesome work. I just read it out there like a lot of times when you're on the right path, and you're doing like what you are called to do. A lot of times I think everything starts to just flow naturally, a lot of times you do so much. But it doesn't necessarily feel like that. I don't know if that's been your experience.

Lucia Robles 2:22

Yeah, no, I would agree with you, I would agree with you. Because the idea is that if you're passionate, and you're really excited about what you're doing, it's not work. You know, and I think it's easy to if we all think about like when we were kids, and we were playing or whatever. And all of a sudden you're like, wow, what happened, it got dark outside, it's because you were busy having a good time.

It didn't work. It wasn't like, oh, gosh, I gotta spend time with my friends. You know, you were having a good time. And I think, um, you know, it's really a blessing to be able to do that, you know, as an adult, especially in a career. And yeah, when you really find that passion in that niche. You know, it's just time Time flies by time is not an issue.

Gresham Harkless 3:00

Yeah, the world starts to become your oyster. I wanted to ask you for your CEO stories. I wanted to go back a little bit before your path, could you take us through what led you to get here and how exactly you became a chef, Lucia?

Lucia Robles 3:15

You know, led me to go into culinary school or led me to the company.

Gresham Harkless 3:20

Your company in culinary school.

Lucia Robles 3:22

Well, in culinary school I did because I've always been in the kitchen, I love to cook, I love to play with food. It was actually at the suggestion of a few family members and my resistance to it was like, I don't want to be locked up  in a room where there are no windows and I don't talk to anybody. It's just doesn't sound like fun, right? But it's funny because I ended up doing that. And, you know, like a lot of people kind of get concerned about, you know, well, if I have a hobby, and I started needing to do it for a living, and there are demands made on me, and maybe I won't like it anymore.

Maybe I'll you know, grow to hate what I thought I loved and so I was kind of that was I think that was like my initial resistance to it. But clearly, that's not the case, I was locked up in a hot box with the windows but I didn't care whether or not I was talking to anybody. I was having a good time. So um, so yeah that's kind of, you know, going to culinary school and then making my way out and wanting to be a pastry chef and wanting to make a difference and, you know, really wanting to have this like amazing career. It just wasn't really turning out the way you know, it was cracked up to be. And I started my business as a hobby. It really is an evolution of where I started where I was, and just a long evolution of my career. I did not set out to be a gift company.

I was really kind of just rolling forward in the direction that I was being guided you know, clients were asking for catering at the time so I did catering then we were asking for this and then that, and then it kind of eventually evolved into getting fast. gets. And then gift baskets were like, well, this is kind of kind of a little bit of a problem because people want certain specific things. And to me, a gift basket is very limiting because there's only so much you're going to fit in there. And then beyond that, you know, you've got to, you've got to make some adjustments. So, um, it's honestly just an evolution. And I think a lot of our success is due to the fact that you know, we really do want to be open to ideas, too and feedback from our clients is what would serve them better. You know, what their experiences are.

I think a lot of it because this was something that was created comes from feedback, from what I've heard about working with other companies, I ask people all the time, as a matter of fact, I was talking to somebody earlier today. And I said, So what wasn't working for you with this other company? And if you and what's the stopping point for you, in working with other companies? Like, what's the hiccup for you? What do you like about these companies, and what kind of doesn't serve you not necessarily, that they're not doing well, but you could care less about what you could do without, and people will very readily tell me.

So a lot of what we've built is built on that and, you know, got to just wanting to have fun, you know, get some food, get some pretty gifts, we get to, you know, play with packaging and stuff. And so, um, so that's kind of how that's evolved. And it's continuously evolving. You know, I certainly haven't planted my flag and said, Hey, we're done, you know, Everything's all set to go, you know, there's always, you know, different ways, especially as we grow, that we can evolve, and, you know, implement things. So there is, you know, seamless transitioning for everybody.

Gresham Harkless 6:41

Yeah, I would definitely say that, and especially with business, in general, you kind of have to have that evolutionary aspect. But I definitely, you know, appreciate you for talking about the evolution and the growth and the organic nature of the business as well, too, because I think, just as you gave that visual of, you know, being a kid and playing until the lights go down, a lot of times you have we have resistance to things in our head, that we may not want to do it because of x, y, x, y, z reason. But in reality, when we're in our path, and we're doing what we love to do, sometimes we completely can ignore the fact that we're in a hot box, we can completely ignore the fact that the lights and the sun are down because we're just in our zone.

Lucia Robles 7:18

Yeah, absolutely agree with that, you know, and, and, you know, it's, I mean, like I said, I mean, I love what I do. So, you know, it's always interesting to me, when I talk to people, and they ask about retirement plans, retirement planning, or they're commenting on their retirement planning, like, well, you know, this is what I want to do when I retire, or, This is my, my goal, or whatever. And I always find it really interesting, because I associate those things with doing something that you don't really like doing, there's an element of something in there, that's not making you happy. And, you know, and because people don't, you know, like, if you're doing something that makes you happy, you don't think all day long, man, I can't wait to not be doing this.

You know, it's one of those things where you're really excited to be doing the work, working with your clients developing products or programs, whatever it might be in whatever service industry you're in. So for me, it's, it's really not uncommon for me to work at least a half day on the weekend, kind of nice to go in by myself and get some things done, or to have my, you know, laptop in my lap, and just kind of, you know, coming up with ideas or whatever, you know, on my own. So I'm in very often I'm walking around with a notebook at minimum.

So if some idea comes, you know, I can write it down, or I can take a picture, you know, whatever, because a lot of, you know, I mean, I come up with a lot of great ideas, but our clients come up with great ideas. There's a lot of inspiration I find in the environment if you allow it in. So, um, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I, that's probably a great analogy, you know, you're playing until it's dark. And it's like, wow, this is really cool. Let's do it again. And, and it's nice to be able to carve out I think more people should carve out careers where they're really happy and excited about what they're doing.

Gresham Harkless 9:07

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, a lot of times it's died is that you want to escape from whatever you're doing whatever reality is retiring, it might be Friday, it might be happy, or whatever that might be or however it manifests itself. But it's kind of like the quote that says, you know, build a business or build a job even or create a job that you don't want to have to escape from. And I think that you know, being able to do that is definitely a sign of success. So, I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper. I know you touched on it a little bit. Can you tell us a little bit more about Lucia & Co., tell us exactly what you do for your clients and also like your secret sauce, or what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

Lucia Robles 9:43

Um, we, you know, I like I said, I didn't start off with the idea like, this is what it's gonna look like big picture. It was really what our clients needed. They wanted gifts. They wanted specific things, and our company evolved from gift baskets to gift boxes, and It was really in having these relationships in place, because some of these people really, you know, really are our friends, not just clients. And I really do pride on having great relationships with our clients, I really enjoy the aspect of getting to know people and really connecting with people. So um, and I love hearing people's stories, and you know, what, you know, learning about their businesses and in different things. So our company is designed and was always designed in line with B2B services. So as I like to say, it's the service behind the chocolate chip cookie.

So what we do is we offer automated done-for-you gift services that are really designed custom design, behind our clients, businesses, and what they're actually going to end selling into their business. So everybody's different, and I get the question all the time. Even earlier today, you know, um, you know, what's the typical spend? What are most people sending out? What, you know, what most people do? In that kind of a thing? And I always find it an interesting question, because what I'm getting from our clients, and what they really appreciate is they want to do things differently, right, they really want to stand out, because, you know, we're all kind of, you know, there's really nothing new under the sun, right, we all to a certain degree, kind of all do the same thing.

We all have our own personalities, and our own twist that we put on things, we're all kind of doing, you know, similar things. And so, with that being said, a lot of people market themselves with. Yeah, that's right, I do this, but I'm different from the other guy this way. And so they're wanting to set themselves apart, where they fall short a lot of times is in the little details, like the gifts, you know, they ended up doing something last minute, they run to their local candy shop or their club warehouse. And here they come with an armful of things, and just kind of, you know, just kind of, you know, dishing it out. And what our clients really want is their wanting to set themselves apart and do something different.

And I think the attraction is twofold, is what we're producing is different, you know, it's not something off of Amazon, it's not something you know, where the client is, their client is going to go and see it in the bargain bin, right at the checkout on their way out, this is something that is different. And they think the other reason that our clients like working with us is because we make it we simplify the process. So we rarely actually try to do a lot of follow-up, we try to do a lot as much of the heavy lifting as we possibly can. So our clients aren't on their own having to do different things, you know, we guide them through the gift selection process, we do offer a lot of our items, ala carte, meaning outside of the gift box.

So rather than forcing them into, you know, you have to spend $50, or you know, get anything, you have to spend $50, and then picking out yourself, you can just get the one singular item. So, those are just the things that we do. That's, that's a bit different. And like I said, we we try to provide, as one of our clients describes consultative service to them. So it's not just about the gift, it's about really learning about their business, and how can we actually support you, you know, in the way of chocolate chip cookies and outside of the chocolate chip cookie process.

So I like to learn about their businesses, find out who they're serving what they're up to, and, and see what else we can do to support you never know, I mean, we know a lot of people will. And being a b2b business, it does mean I can do platform to be able to be a connector of people, which is one of my favorite things to do so. So that's kind of that's kind of my take on the business, and how we clients and how we try to support them.

Gresham Harkless 9:47

Alright, and I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app or book or habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Lucia Robles 13:46

Writing things down. So wherever I go, I always have a big pen and paper person, whether it's, you know, next to my bed, whether it's on me whether it's next to the computer, but I find a lot of value with that rather than trying to play the memory game. I think people try to have this idea of really doing things all themselves.

Gresham Harkless 14:06

Now I want to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So that could be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice or if you could hop into be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Lucia Robles 14:14

I would tell my younger business self to have fun with it. You know, have fun with what you're doing and be sure that what you're doing is something that you really enjoy doing. I would say enjoy the journey.

Gresham Harkless 14:27

Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different quote and quote CEOs on this show.

So Lucia what does being CEO means to you?

Lucia Robles 14:37

A lot. It's really about leading by example. I think in order to be effective, you do need to be a bit of a good teacher, because you need to be able to guide and inspire people in their growth because you've got team members in place to support you to complete different jobs and to do things because as a CEO you really can't do everything yourself. Obviously, when you're starting off, that's not the case. I think everybody, when they're starting off, they do way more than they would you know, 10 years down the road, or after hitting a certain level of success.

In doing that, and having those team members, I think it's really important to be a good teacher to be good at like supporting them, and cheering them on and encouraging them.

Gresham Harkless 15:23

Truly appreciate that and appreciate your time even more. What I want to do is pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you can let our readers and listeners know. And then of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things we're working on.

Lucia Robles 15:35

Oh my gosh, thank you well, um, if you're curious about our company, you can always find us at luciaandcompany.com So it's all spelled out. We've got our gift boxes there and you can always fill out the contact form page and we'll get back to you. So thank you for having me. This is really cool. I really appreciate all you do. You've been really super supportive of my business and I appreciate you including us in your articles and having us on the podcast too.

Gresham Harkless 16:07

No problem. No, definitely the pleasure is all ours and you're doing phenomenal work. So I appreciate you for letting us showcase you a little bit and we will definitely have a link and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you.

But thank you so much again, Lucia, and I hope you have a phenomenal day.

Outro 16:22

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

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Thank you for listening.

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