Speaker 1: Welcome to TPGi's Real People, Real Stories Podcast where you'll find interesting and diverse stories from folks working to make the world a more inclusive place. Mark Miller: Hey, welcome to the Real People, real stories podcast brought to you by TPGi. I am your host, Mark Miller, thanking you for helping us keep it accessible. Do us a favor, if you're enjoying Real People, Real Stories Podcast, share it. Tell someone about it. Hey, even link to it from your accessible website. Thank you all for joining. We appreciate all you guys listening. I want to welcome as always Marissa and Dara, our intern who is new to the podcast. And of course our guest today, Isaac Shapiro, who is with Cleanlogic. So, Isaac, thank you for joining us today and tell us first of all a little bit about who you are, what you do for Cleanlogic, I think you have a pretty important job and a little bit about the brand itself. Isaac Shapiro: Well, thank you for having me on and I'm looking forward to speaking with you and talking a little bit about what we do, but yes, I am the founder of IMS Trading, which we are the manufacturer in honor of the brand Cleanlogic and I consider myself a social entrepreneur, since I started the business about 20 years ago in my senior year in college and it took me a while to figure out where we wanted to go. We started out with items like fish picks and wine and cookies from South America and then really started to find our ways when we started to bring in our own products with our brand from China and different categories like household cleaning. So over the years, definitely probably sold everything in the supermarket, but today we're pretty focused in our core brand Cleanlogic, which is a line of bath accessories and our whole niche and what made us different was exfoliation. Isaac Shapiro: At the time when we got into the market, there was natural loofahs or these back claws coming from Japan and Korea where they're really big on exfoliation. And so we came up with a solution where we wanted something to be a little bit more gentler and softer in terms of exposure creation and a lot of those bath accessories, they sit in the shower and collect mold and bacteria. So we were one of the first to put anti-microbial solution to prevent mold and bacteria. Isaac Shapiro: So that's where we've been growing our business and then the unique side of where I consider myself a social entrepreneur, we put braille on our packaging inspired by my mom. She's been visually impaired since seven and her role through after she graduated from the school of Alamogordo. Alamogordo still can't remember the exact name. Apologize on that one. But she had learned how to use technology early on.And she started the technology training center at the time in Tucson Association for the Blind. Isaac Shapiro: And so I got to watch her really impact people's lives in using technology, adapt technology. And so when we created Cleanlogic, we wanted to be inclusive, figure out a way how we can give back to the blind and visually impaired. And so we used braille as a way to communicate and donating to our foundation called the Inspiration Foundation. And I started that with my mother to continue her work and we started out by giving technology grant awards to recipients in Arizona and California and now we partner with VisionServe Alliance. And if your listeners are not familiar, it's an organization that makes part of the leaders of all the nonprofits that serve the blind and visually impaired. And so we partnered with them to donate to agencies that are less than $2 million in funding for adaptive technologies. Isaac Shapiro: So that's what we've evolved to a lot of parts of donating and creating. But the great thing about what we've seen with braille since we've had it on our packaging for over 15 years, as we've noticed that it creates a conversation around blind and visual impairment. The key things that I've recognized in working in the business community that most people just don't know, blind or visually impaired people could do certain things. So this is where we've been able through our stories and as we continue to build out our social media and storytelling around blind and visually impaired people, we have really been finding our braille has a lot of different meanings that talk about the issues that are going on with people of vision impairment. And I think a lot of people don't know is that you don't die from it. And so that's been my career the last 15 years, learning and hearing feedback and about the braille of the different components or speaking points about issues that are out there, that we can help make an impact on. Mark Miller: That's fantastic. And I can see Dara and Marissa and smiling and nodding your head because so many of our are blind and visually impaired. And that perspective that you have where you put the right tools in anybody's hands and they can do anything. And some of these people are, our bosses are people that work for us are as effective if not more effective than their sighted colleagues, because they have the tools to do what they need to do. And just anything that brings awareness to that is fantastic because I know when I have conversations with my friends who aren't as lucky as I am to be exposed to people with all sorts of different types of disabilities, they don't always have that perspective that this is another human being and given the right tools, they're participating in society and the workplace and everything no differently than you are. Mark Miller: It just may be the way they accommodate to do their job is slightly different. And I think that it's interesting that you say that because I would not have thought about braille on packaging as a conversation starter. That's the new thing to me here. I would think about it from an accessibility standpoint, how wonderful that you're creating a packaging that is accessible to people with disabilities but it's really going beyond that and it's creating this conversation that's important to us, important to you, important to your mom and really facilitating I think something that's important to all of us. What I'm really curious about Isaac is, do you get direct... You must get direct feedback from people with vision disabilities that get ahold of your packaging and say, "Wow, this is wonderful and this is a different experience than most things I pull off the shelf." What kind of reaction and feedback and things do you hear from the blind community? Isaac Shapiro: I think about multiple things about this because one, when I think about most recently with Cleanlogic being in the market for almost 15 years now, one of the things, not all of our products have braille on it. And so we most recently did a rebrand. And so we took a lot of our products out of the packaging. We were recognized for these bright silver high-end looking pro packaging that looked like it was in a department store but you can find it at a grocery store or a Walmart. And so the biggest things that we see is moving out and putting braille on all of our products so that we have this brands of braille mission and it makes sense that our products now all have it because we couldn't put braille in poly bags. Isaac Shapiro: So that's been a thing that we have braille on everything. The new and great thing about the rebrand is we've invested heavily in marketing. We've brought in a VP of marketing as well. And so it's been really exciting to build out our full social platform, our direct to consumer and being able to market the product. So we're not out there in the last 15 years pushing it is but as strong as we are now. So we are doing a lot of work in our company where we have an individual who's doing nonprofit outreach. So we're building our outreach to educate and create awareness about our braille and what we consider a movement. Isaac Shapiro: And then on the other side, we have received comments. The big thing that we always hear, especially it's such a touching moment for me when parents see our product in the store and they talk about their child being blind and how important it is for them to have access for braille product. And so I think it's been amazing to see people write their personal feeling about it. And that's I think has been such an amazing thing for me is to learn that the braille has different meanings for someone that is blind or visually impaired that we find this such a strong impact, especially with parents who have children that are blind or visually impaired. Dara: So you were talking about the rebrand. What made you decide two years ago you said that things should rebrand at the company since it's been around for over a decade. Was it just a change of pace or something else? Isaac Shapiro: It's being married to an amazing marketer. So my wife's been in branding for over 20 years. And so we've always had great looking products and packaging and my business partner, Mike his wife has also been very integral on our success because she's been the designer of our products and our packaging. So Cleanlogic's always had this premium look and feel, but what was happening is we started innovating new concepts. Mike and I are very entrepreneurial and reacted on our gut and would get into this charcoal infuse or let's set the standard for sustainable organic cotton products. Isaac Shapiro: And so we would come out with these things where most bigger companies probably have systems and testing and because we live and breathe our business. Out on the market, I was calling on all the customers and many different states around the US. My business partner and the one that traveled to China and working with the factories and suppliers, we really understood that and innovate, but we were creating different concepts and so we wanted to really start to simplify what Cleanlogic stood for. And then we've always had a strong work ethic and strong values in our mission and so it was just getting confusing as a salesperson and be like, "Here's our hair by Cleanlogic or here's our detoxify line." And so we wanted to bring everything under the Cleanlogic brand name and simplify it with all the different types of innovations and segments we offered and really make it easier to market and build a brand around our great products and our social mission. Mark Miller: So when you made the decision to put braille on all the packaging, it makes sense that you would get a lot of feedback from individuals who are blind, parents that have children who are blind or visually impaired. Was there any reaction from just the people without a disability or people who do have sight? Are you finding that there's an impact there as well and a reaction there as well? Isaac Shapiro: Yeah, definitely. We've had braille on our products for 15 years. And so we've had the same consistent story, donated to Inspiration Foundation. I've always been the salesperson out there on the road telling the story and that was the amazing part about being out and telling the story. We also put braille on my card and so we connect the dots and I feel like everybody out there being on the road and going to all the different trade shows. So many other different vendors at a trade show, there could be two to 300 vendors there and there's 100 buyers. Let's call it from different retailers from your local supermarket to a Walgreens or a Walmart and it would be a thing that at the end, you'd send your followup email and I'd make a phone call and people were like, "Oh, I don't remember what you sell." And I'm like, "I'm the one with the braille." And, "Oh no." Marissa: That's great. Isaac Shapiro: So it was interesting. And so I fast forward now and I have a lot of great relationships with these individuals who are customers. And it's amazing how many of them always ask about my mother but they've never met my mom. So that's where we see the story and the impact. And the amazing thing that I had mentioned earlier is as we built Cleanlogic as a premium product, in exfoliating and pioneering a category, today we are the number one brand in the supermarket channel. We are the fastest growing brand in the US market and bath accessories for the third straight year through IRI Nielsen data. Isaac Shapiro: So I think the exciting part is as we get out there and talk about braille more, I think we'll continue to see some impact that we're doing from the rebrand and having more braille. And then another exciting thing that we've done with the retail partners out there and being involved in a lot of the trade shows for over 20 years that I've been involved with, one of the organizations that I work with and I'm on their board is GMDC and they do these retail event around the different parts of the US, going into different cities to check out the technology that's going on around... We call it the world that's disrupting retail and what we call the online shopping. And so they've been really good events for us to learn how to innovate in our business. And they talk about storytelling. We went and did a whole influencer program and went to Google's headquarters in LA. Isaac Shapiro: And so we did an event in Boston where we were talking about different technologies at MIT and Harvard and they asked us to do a dining in the dark event in one of the evenings and it was great. We had a bunch of executives from different retailers and also CPG companies like, Johnson and Johnson or Clorox, Unilever. And we had about 80 executives in the room. We brought in Kim Carlson who is with Perkins to speak about the importance of putting braille. I spoke about my mom and then my business partner talked about the importance of putting braille on packaging and how easy it is and hiring blind and visually impaired individuals. And so we created this two hour experience for them to then experience what it was like and so people that had attended the event have been asking us to now do this in partnership with their retailers. So we looked at some other retailers that when we get back from the pandemic to doing social events, we'll be partnering in creating inclusive dining and dark events at our retail partners events. Isaac Shapiro: So I think through these, as we incorporate executives from retailers and getting people to experience and then seeing how our brand is successful, we think we can continue to create that conversation around more braille products. And then I think are important piece is talking about employment for blind and visually impaired people because I think that's where the big opportunity and our conversation's about. So, yeah. Marissa: Tell me more about your foundation. How do you do that and run a company? They are both pretty large all involved organizations. Isaac Shapiro: Well it's actually something I wish I could spend a lot more time on, but I think it's always been the hardest part of being a social entrepreneur because when we got into it, it was just starting to begin and starting to happen and because we never went for investment money early and we really grinded that early on in our... At an early age, I made sure to keep the foundation working with my mother and being advised by VisionServe to keep it as simple as possible. Isaac Shapiro: So it's been great to partner with VisionServe where they are offering tech grants to agencies that are under $2 million that can't afford to adapt the technology or in most cases, a lot of what we're seeing is, the iPhones and the iPads because that's where people are utilizing, that in terms of training. But the whole goal that I really see with the foundation, just what I've watched my mom being able to do in her whole life, either working with an agency side when she built the training center from the ground up and then working with the state is just really how you just... Making sure that you're creating opportunities for blind or visually impaired individuals. Isaac Shapiro: Because I do think there is a lot of discrimination out there we know about it in terms of people with disabilities. And it's funny, you don't hear it. I don't know if it's funny, but I think it's interesting we don't talk about. Discrimination is a big conversation and topic but we don't talk about discrimination around people with disabilities. And so that's where we think the work that we're doing on our business side and on the nonprofit side will be able to create those opportunities and job placement and stuff. Marissa: That's amazing. I think that there's just a lot of misunderstanding like you mentioned earlier. People with disabilities, they can do everything that anyone without a disability can do without certain limits obviously if you have a physical disability where you can't live without a wheelchair or something. But the idea that it's cumbersome to hire a person with disability or they wouldn't be able to do the work or how are they going to use technology? All of these things are things that TPGi tries to advocate and make more clear to our clients the fact that they can and they make amazing employees a lot of times because people with disabilities, they tend to run into more challenges than a person without a disability. And it makes them into a person who's always innovating. Who's always trying to find a solution because that's their life. That's the experience that I've had. Mark Miller: I think it's a great point, Marissa. One of the things Isaac when I listen to your story is there's sort of like a, I don't know if it's a moral to the story that bubbles up. And to me, it's a story of how infectious doing something like this can be. You're doing something as basic of a concept as let's put braille on a package. You have your foundation and simply by doing that and telling that story, it's grown into something that other people, other organizations, other companies are listening to and it's infectious in a really good way. And I just imagine when I'm listening to you talk the influence that you're having on other organizations. Mark Miller: It's not just you guys doing braille and making people with vision disabilities happy because the packaging has braille. It's you really influencing an entire community, an entire sector of business out there and it evolves into things like the dining in the dark and all these other events that ultimately lead to understanding. And I think it's that understanding that's going to combat the discrimination as you pointed Isaac. Mark Miller: When people really develop a understanding and do see the things that Marissa's talking about how a person with any type of disability can be just as effective of a contributor as a person, without a disability. Then we're getting somewhere. And what I appreciate about you and what I really hear in your story is just the way that your simple acts that you've chosen to do as a business that are socially responsible are now having a larger impact and affecting a much larger community. Do you even see it that way, Isaac? Or is it not something you think about, you just go about your business and that happens around you. You should know from our perspective that we really see that and that it's impressive. Isaac Shapiro: Yeah. It's very methodical and I think we're just getting started. Right now a couple of things are happening as we look at our D2C site. So that's direct to consumer. Excuse me. I'm using my industry jargon. I don't expect you guys to know everything about these jargons, everything that they throw around in retail and use all of these terms. And they have probably like the one term, there's probably like five different acronyms or something. So apologizing. So at B2C we see, building out more hiring. So we look at building out a customer service program for the visually impaired individuals. And so we've been talking to agencies about how do we get the best train in looking at people like Visions in New York who has call center training and they do a lot of employment for Amazon. Isaac Shapiro: And then this summer we're working on a big project to bring some of our production into the US so we are opening up a production line in factory here in the States to start to bring some of our organic cotton product. We've had the natural consumer is always asking, "If you're making it in China, why can't you make these in the States?" And so we've thought a lot about this and with some of the challenges that are going on globally with supply chain issues, we've been taking it serious and we are partnering with Chimes and we've been talking to them about coming in and they're an organization that hire people with disabilities, especially on autism and stuff. So we're building out a full production line around bringing people with disabilities in. And so really bringing added value to the product rather than just we're making the best product at the best price. Isaac Shapiro: And so those are some things that we're really focusing on. And then even some little things as I've been working to do our outreach to different nonprofits we work with that are VisionServe and where you look at other things that we're also trying to build out from the outreach side. How do we get more people involved in what we're doing? And so we are very excited about the hiring initiatives that we're moving forward with and we do think that's going to set the standard. We do think with the relationships we have that people will watch what we're doing. And we think they will take that. And we're seeing it with one of our partners in San Antonio agency, where we're working on a program for an impact promotion for blind awareness month in October. Isaac Shapiro: And so we're going to partner with San Antonio Lighthouse for the Blind and we're creating a whole awareness event around that. And we've already got a program called Bridges where they're bringing in people with disabilities to hire. So you're seeing more and more people and companies doing it, but I think the more you have people doing it and there's personal stories, I think personal stories will always make change happen. It's never someone that just, "Oh, I'm going to do this." It's a personal story that someone feels it's going to make the difference. Marissa: That's why we had this podcast. It's about real people, real stories. So we can really connect this ambiguous concept of digital accessibility and inclusivity with real people. So that's fantastic. Everything that you're doing. I love it. Mark Miller: Great. Great story Isaac. I think that it's wonderful. And I imagine that you have a mom over there that's super proud of her son for many reasons. Not just the fact that he's putting braille on the packages, but just your overall success has got to make her proud and obviously you and your mom have a fantastic relationship if she's influenced you so much. She's influenced this whole direction and your social responsibility and all of that. We need to wrap up but is there any last minute questions that you guys have or anything that you want to want to say Isaac, that we've missed? Isaac Shapiro: No, I thank you for allowing me to talk about our story and what we're trying to do out there. That'll make a true difference and really measure our business around social impact. I think everybody's talking about social enterprise and what it is but I think it's going to continue to get measured higher in how you're doing things. So you're not a nonprofit but how is your business making a difference? And you're seeing more and more companies setting the bar with what they're doing. So we're just excited to be a part of it and I appreciate you allowing me to tell our story. Mark Miller: Oh, it's our pleasure and we appreciate you being out there and setting an example so that more and more organizations can do things similar to what you guys are doing. That's wonderful. Isaac Shapiro: Thank you, Mark Miller: Dara and Marissa, do you guys have any last minute? Marissa: No. Mark Miller: All right. Perfect. Well, thank you so much Isaac for joining us. We really appreciate it. We really appreciate you sharing your story and please say hello to your mom for us. She is the hero in all of this, the spokesperson, the hero or whatever you want to call her. So please tell her that we said hi and that we're very proud of her son, too. Isaac Shapiro: I will. Thank you so much, Mark. Mark Miller: You're welcome. Isaac Shapiro: Thank you everybody. Thank you Dara, Marissa. Marissa: Thank you. Dara: Thank you. Mark Miller: This is Mark Miller. Thank you Isaac, Marissa and Dara and reminding you to keep it accessible. Speaker 1: This podcast has been brought to you by TPGi. The experts in digital accessibility. Stay tuned for more Real People, Real Stories Podcasts coming soon.