YouSaid · the spoken record

Susan Griffin Black

lines on the record: 55
first: 2026-06-25
most recent: 2026-06-25
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Elaine Coates, JC Howard, Catherine Cypher, Carrie Thompson, and Neva Grant. I'm Guy Ross, and you've been listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyroz.com or on substack. And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues that you're currently facing because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298. Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Casey Herman with music composed by Rumtin Era Bluey. It was edited by John Isabella and our audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez. Our production team at How I Built This also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, Sam Paulson, Christmasini.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That Susan Griffin Black, co founder of EO Products. And by the way, if you haven't heard Susan's original episode, as I mentioned, you've got to go back and check it out. We'll put a link to it in the show notes.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think really understanding who you are as a person and what's important informs so much of and so many of our choices. This idea of starting locally and really, really engaging with people that you know and you take that first hundred miles and you really go hard and strong and see what you learn and who you learn from and all of that is a great foundation and base to start from without driving yourself crazy to be in this market or that market or that because those markets will always be there and you know relationships rule the day”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right. Cane dog coffee. See, it sounds like I've had 20 cups of coffee this today on this show, Susan. I'm all wired up. Susan, thank you so much for coming on the show. Before I let you go, though, I want to ask you this question, which is because you started this brand, right? And you have now all of this experience, because you've been doing this for a few decades. If you could go back to you and you started out, when you started this out, and you could say, Susan, you need to know this because I'm coming from the future, what would you tell yourself?”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Different small regional groceries and see which one is going to give you a shot and focus on that market first. Book a two-week long trip to the US and you go and you sell the hell out of this to any buyer you can, you give them this coffee and you say, this is what you're about to drink is going to blow your mind. And maybe you'll hit. Maybe one of them will say, okay, let's give you a shot.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it all depends on what kind of regional grocer you can get in with, right? So maybe that could be your approach. Let's say you got into HEB, then you'd go to Texas, and you'd say, okay, we're going to try to get into one HEB, and hopefully we're going to eventually get to 40 of them or however many they have in Texas. But there are these regional grocery chains, and I would think about it that way before you say, all right, I'm going to start in New York. I'm going to start in South Florida, or I'm going to go to Maryland. I would start by trying to identify and pitch”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Here's the thing because you want to get this in the hands of Americans, in the hands of people in the UK, big markets, very, very hard to do quickly, but you have an opportunity, I would say, take cane dog and start it and make sure if you're not already there, to be in every single island, Martinique and Saint Vincent and Guadalupe and Montserrat and Gilla and all the British Virgin Islands, make sure that that logo, that look, their stickers, the coffee, it's all over the Caribbean islands first and then you sort of prove the concept and you'll find that organically it will start”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, even something like premium Caribbean coffee on the front. Like you want to think about your brand as like a premium brand. Like, I don't think there's a single brand that people know of as a Caribbean coffee. I really feel like you want to really lean into that.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Want to tap into like hey, you can have this island experience at home with your coffee, right? You know what I'm saying?”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They would go back home and eventually they would see this product and they would evoke those memories. The challenge you have, and I think it's solvable, is cane Dogg says nothing about Barbados. I mean, you have a great story Caribbean, its hospitality, warmth, music, culture, sunshine. I don't see that in your branding, and I wonder if you can, because it's like there's a famous, this idea called the Provenceal paradox. I'm just quoting it because it's very funny. It's the idea that people go to Provence and they're sitting on a balcony somewhere and they're drinking the ros ⁇ that they're being served and they're like, wow, this is now I'm in Provence drinking this rose. It doesn't even matter what it is, but it's the pink wine and they go home and they bring a case of it home and then they order it because of the experience. And I feel like that's what you...”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, a couple things, right? We did an episode on Sunbum, the Sun 10 lotion many years ago, and it was created by a guy in Michigan. Who's going to buy suntan lotion from a guy who lives in Michigan? Well, he very smartly started by selling these in boutiques in Hawaii because he knew that affluent travelers went to Hawaii. They need suntine lotion. They would try it and then...”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Interesting dilemma. Susan, I have some thoughts. I'm happy to start. I would love to hear your thoughts or any questions you might have for Dominic.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Got it. And the idea is you want to turn this into a brand beyond Barbados. Correct. Actually, what's your question for us before we...”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right, and you're also selling Athena Mission direct to consumer too, right? So, what percentage of your sales are through your website?”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Culture wine company, check it out. We're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking your calls with EO Products founder, Susan Griffin Black. So Susan, let's go to our final caller. Welcome to the advice line. You are on with Susan Griffinblack. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Keep going. I hope we've been a little bit helpful, Peter. But it sounds like you're onto something. I mean, especially as the broader industries has some headwinds. So congrats, good luck, and keep us posted.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love the idea of the white wine focus also because it really seems to be happening and then anything that's more natural. And if they're growing regeneratively, then I would say make that just that word on labels and tucking about it with customers because it really sort of exceeds the expectations of organic that that would be a really good thing to focus on as well. Because that's a real differentiator.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so you're speaking to a broader industry trend. White wine is definitely outselling red wine these days. And it's partly why I started the wine festival. It only focuses on Shannon Blanc. Shannon Blanc, which is great.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think what you're really after is how do you create more demand for South African wine, right? And Susan may have a different view. And again, it may just be because of my age, but I really tend to only drink whites now because reds are harder for me to drink, right? I love them. And maybe your younger customers, it doesn't matter. But if there was a way where you could really focus, like 70% of your inventory is whites. I feel like that's been happening for a while. I might be wrong.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, it's like you're speaking my language. My goal, I think one of the biggest shortcomings with even the premium South African wines that have been here is a very small producers. And they're put into far too many states. There's not enough wine to satisfy those states. And then consumers don't know who they are. And so my goal is to be in a small set of states with distribution partners that are cities like Charleston, Nashville, Chicago. I want to be able to go to those markets and train the distributors, train the sales teams and the Somaliers and wine buyers. So to your point, I just kicked off with my distributor in Tennessee two weeks ago and we sold 100 cases of wine in three days”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But to me, it's, and you know this having been in the business so long, like there are strategic places where you really want to double down. I'm thinking Nashville. I'm thinking Austin. I'm thinking Chicago, not just New York and San Francisco, but Charleston, like places where there really is more of an intentional, that word is overused, but intentional conversations around food and wine.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Agree. You've been in this business a long time. You've got so many relationships and so many advantages. And I mean, I'm assuming most of your sales are still in California, right?”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My family was early in the wine business in Paso Roblis. They made small vineyard, windward vineyard, Burgundian Pinot Noir. That's all they made. So I've heard about all of the ins and outs of this for a lot of my life and really understand the relationship piece of it that the people you know and that trust you will work with you and grow with you. And you're bringing something of quality. It seems very organic and natural that it'll work.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So definitely a huge headwind 2025, it was 30%. So it was the highest of all major wine producing nations. It's now reduced to 10%, but now we have the fun of a weakening dollar and rising fuel costs. So that's basically brought us back to square one. And I think that the real challenge with South African wine within that is there's not as much price elasticity in regions like Burgundy or Champagne, there's kind of clout to it where you can say, hey, I have to go up in price 10, 15, 20%. You just don't have that type of ability yet with South Africa. So margin pressure is definitely a real concern.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So only 15% Basically, the way that I've used that channel to date is all the wholesale work that I'm doing kind of funnels people in to realizing I even exist. I haven't spent any money on digital advertising. I do have a pretty robust social media presence through Instagram and I keep wanting to try to build that. But it's been entirely organic. So there's a lot of opportunity there, but I've really just let all the work I'm doing wholesale kind of feed into the DTC side.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So now that I'm coming in and bringing these small artisan organic farms making seriously good wine, I'm trying to get the best somaliers and wine buyers to say like, just give me 20 minutes of your time. Let me show you these wines. And I promise once it's in the glass, it'll deliver. And it's been working. I've worked with several Michelin restaurants, Michelin Star restaurants here in the Bay Area and around California. And they're selling the wine. My California distribution channel has an 80% reorder rate.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How is the business doing? I mean, we're hearing a lot, we've had wine small wine businesses call into the show and we're hearing mixed things, right? I live in California too, and it's been challenging, to say the least, for many wine makers. How did you guys do last year?”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Awesome. Welcome to the show, Peter. So you bring in South African wines from these new wave winemakers. Tell me and where do you distribute them? Where do you sell them?”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Welcome to the advice line you're on with Susan Griffin Black of EO Products. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from and a little bit about your business.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Alright, we're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back with another collar and another round of advice. Stay with us, I'm Guy Ros, and you're listening to The Advice Line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Ros, and my guest today is Susan Griffin Black. She's the founder of the personal care brand EOPO products, and we are taking your calls, and let's bring in our next call. Are you ready?”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's it. It's all about that. And don't just give people free information that's useful. Don't ask for anything in return. Just give it to them. This is what we do. And this is the secret of this show. We just give out information that we know is going to be helpful for listeners. We don't ask for anything in return except for your attention, which is actually asking a lot. But we don't ask you to give us money or anything. Just listen to the show. Right. So I would definitely think about that.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you should do that. I mean, it's this free advice from a medical profession. This is really valuable information. I would take the blog entries and turn them into a monthly newsletter and just send it out to your customers. You're saying, hey, tell a friend and we'll give you 25% off your next order”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Great. You've got an email list. Are you sending reminders to people every couple of weeks or hey, time to reorder or anything like that”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I totally agree. I mean, this is a huge market, right? I mean, eczema, any kind of skin issues. Probably a huge number of people. We're talking about. And I think once people Discover it, you also want to make it really easy for them to reorder. Are you using QR codes yet at all?”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Pediatricians and medi spas and salons because it's about discoverability. And I would start in your area, like you're in Chicago, The Chicago area, I would really focus building it out there first because to build it out city by city is going to be more expensive. You've got to get a team to do that. But I think that's really where right now where you should put your energy.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But you also want to focus on the other side, which is your story and the trust that is embedded in this product. I mean, I think about Orgain. We had an episode on Orgain a couple years ago, and Andrew Abraham is a doctor, right? And he, as a young man, he had cancer, and he was fed, you know, those shakes to gain weight, and they were horrible. And so he wanted to make a natural better version of that. And that's how he created Orgain. And that's the story he tells on that packaging. I think that you could literally put your picture on there and say, I created this for my daughter, you know, in a research lab because your story is so compelling. And that's what you're selling. That's your asset. It's trust. It's not just the product. And so I think that you really, you know, while you continue D to C, you really want to see if you can get this into the hands of dermatologists.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Amazing. I mean, that's really great, right? So you already, you really want to double down on your existing customer base because that's really where you've got that long-term value. I think that you want to continue the D2C for sure.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah. I mean, the challenge, I mean, as you know, is the customer acquisition costs with D2C are just increasingly getting, they're just getting higher and higher. But it sounds like, I mean, by the way, what's the repeat purchases through the website”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. I saw that Well, I love offices that are recommending you. I think that's terrific. I guess it's how do you scale that? And how much effort it takes to scale that, right? With what Salesforce and, you know.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so you decide to start a skincare line. Tell me where you sell it and a little bit about how you can get it and how you're doing, how the business is doing.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I mean, I think a lot of people listening have a little eczema on a bit of skin. And my way of dealing with it, if I can avoid scratching it, is to just not touch it. And then again, Goes away. Sometimes it can take a week or two or more But that's not ideal.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right. Thank you for calling in. So you are a doctor, and I'm assuming you're a dermatologist or skin. What kind of doctor are”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right, let's bring our collar on. Hello, welcome to the advice line. You're on with Susan Griffin Black, co-founder of EO Products. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, again, we will put a link to it in the show notes. It's a great episode, especially to understand founder dynamics. I strongly recommend people check it out. Susan, are you ready to take our first caller?”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it was smart, and it was good for the business and good for our family and good for our children. And, you know, when you're a founder entrepreneur, your business is kind of like another kid in some ways, right? Was really the highest good in this situation. And I also want to say for the record, you know, there were no other people involved and there was not like a betrayal. So I have to say that out loud because I've had this conversation over the years so many times. And people ask us all the time and we've been divorced for longer than we were married, you know. We're family, you know. It's just how we are.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Divorced in the middle of building this company, and the two of you decided to stay running the business despite being divorced and despite going on and having new relationships. And it's a remarkable story because you together said this is the best thing for the company. We're going to scale it together. I remember when I interviewed you just thinking, what an adult decision, like what a smart, hard but smart decision that you and Brad made, because often you've got partner, founder partners breakups that they're not married, they just are falling out. And what you guys managed to do was just incredibly hard but smart.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I often come back to your episode because it really, and we've had versions of this in the show now, but it's so remarkable, and for people who haven't heard it, is that you started this company with your then-husband, Brad.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really was, you know, we Because we'd been around for 25 years, I think people cut us as much slack as they could and we worked together. It was very relationship based, a packaging company that we did maybe $30,000 worth of business prior to COVID. We were on the hook for $2 million. Wow. And I had to link in with the CEO and just explain our story and see if he would give us a promissory note for the next two years and work our way out of that, which they did. But it was that and dealing with the problem of, you know, just three times as much, five times as much inventory as we should have. And then also layoffs for the first time, you know, that was.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, from what I understand, I mean, do you sell like a 10x surge in hand sanitizer demand? During COVID. Thank you for sending some too. You did, that was so nice. But of course, as the demand fell, you saw like a 50% drop in sales. And this was, of course, a challenge. Probably one of the most challenging things you had to deal with.”
2026-06-25 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT