We were lucky to catch up with Brit Williams recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Brit thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

When I decided to create a granola bar business, I knew that there would be a lot of competition with how saturated the market is and I needed to come up with something special to differentiate myself. At that same time my first child was 2 years old and we were teaching him manners, I noticed that I felt much differently when he would yell “No, Thanks!” vs “No!”. Although, “no, thank you” is still a “no”, it comes with a sense of respect and consideration. I thought, if manners could change how I feel when talking to a toddler, what could more manners do while talking with others – friends or strangers. That’s where our first name, Please & Thank You Granola Bars came from.

When the business got bigger, I wanted to register my business name and found out that Please & Thank You was already taken by another company that sells cookies, which in the mind of the people approving trademarks, cookies and granola bars are too similar. So we came up with P&TY Granola Co. – “granola bars that say Please & Thank You”. Fortunately, P&TY was recently approved and we’ll be fully moving forward with that name!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

We are P&TY Granola Co – granola bars that say, “Please & Thank You.”

Our granola bars are made with gluten-free, pantry-friendly ingredients, including nut butters that we make ourselves.

Our bars are the perfect snack for kids and adults who are on the go. When you bite into one of our chewy bars, it will taste delicious and fill you up with all the right nutrients. Beyond how good they taste; our bars are an invitation to act with respect. We name all our products after manners to spread kindness and remind people that even though we may not agree with each other, we can still respect each other as humans. Our mission is to make loyal fans who eat our bars every day and in turn, every day are invited to act with respect and make a difference.

I also aspire to be a part of the solution, not the problem. I want to ensure my granola bar packaging doesn’t add extra to the earth. I want to be apart of the solution where we have a good way to package single-use convenient snacks that are affordable for businesses, meet the requirements of food safety and quality and consumers can easily recycle them.

I first started making granola bars for my husband because I just didn’t like the bars he was eating from the store with empty calories and no nutrition. I set out to make a granola bar that he liked, but was also jam-packed full of good nutrients. I eventually started bringing them onsite with me as an event planner for my staff, as a little bit of home-made goodness to provide energy on long days. In 2019, one of my clients was a national health food grocer and the staff there asked me if I sold my bars.

“No…. but should I?!”

That was in April of 2019 and by June 2019 I sold my first granola bar! Since then we’ve sold almost 50,000 granola bars.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I started my career I was working for a fortune 500 company in the financial industry. I had worked for the same company for 10 years, since I was a senior in high school. I was very career-driven and goal-orientated. I worked hard and was loyal to this company because of the opportunities and career growth I had experienced. I was excelling in the Chief of staff role, but after about 10 years I found myself waking up in the morning and not being excited or motivated for what I was doing. After some thought and consideration, I spoke to my then leader about how I was feeling. We came up with a plan for me to take on additional projects in the areas of interest I had to see what it was I really wanted to be doing. After a year of research, informational interviews, and projects, I ended up taking a very big career pivot into Event Planning.

Given the industry, my background and skills, I needed to take a role at a third party event planning firm to gain the right type of experience and knowledge to be a great event planner. With that pivot came leaving a company I had spent my whole career at and taking a 50% pay cut. It was a difficult decision, but the right decision to reinvigorate my passion and excitement.

I’ve now been in the event planning industry for over 6 years and have grown my career back to the level I was at prior to leaving while also allowing for space to build P&TY Granola Co. I love the direction that my career and passion have taken and appreciate the lessons I have learned along the way.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

My customers are everything to P&TY and I love to stay in contact with them. I keep in touch with customers through regular newsletters, daily social media and emails. My favorite thing to do that is getting more engagement from customers is sharing the “behind the scenes” of being an entrepreneur and how I make granola bars. I have talked about how we finally got our company name trademarked, a recipe that we got approved through testing, being in the kitchen making thousands of granola bars, getting ready for shows and meeting with a student who is also studying entrepreneurship.

It’s special to share the process with those that are invested in my product. I love that they are along for the journey and make it so much fun!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ptygranolacompany.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ptygranolaco/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PTYGranolaCo
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/britneybryant/
• Other: https://ptygranolaco.faire.com