Natalie Pace
📍Brooklyn, NY | Head of Partners, Harry's at Mammoth Brands
📝 Editor’s Note | Rob Belk
I’m back! I took a month-long break to focus on getting up to speed with my business, Sales Factory.
My biggest learning is that everyone who said don’t make any major changes for the first 90+ days is right. However, that’s incredibly hard to do and goes against my personality. The ownership change is hard enough for the team to process, introducing new concepts, workflows, and other pieces can compound unease. I think change is healthy but I need to remind myself to steer like it’s a cruise ship and not a jet ski.
My wife saw my desire to get in the weeds coming from a mile away. I’m fortunate to have in-house experts in consumer research, creative and marketing. I need to set the brief, the strategy and let the experts do their thing. I’ve been writing a newsletter for almost 5 years, I don’t think its a surprise to readers that I can’t help but want to get in the trenches with the copywriters.
Lastly, I would say I remain convicted about our niche of leveraging consumer insights and research to service brands selling to the trades at retail and online. I’m encouraged that we are also finding luck in convincing consumer brands that there is immense value in developing products and ad campaigns that target trades pros. One of our unique differentiators is we know the next generation of trades pros, their values, motivations, and shopping habits better than any other agency.
Oh, and last but not least for my AI doomers, I’m really bullish that marketers like Sales Factory can provider our partners a huge service by helping them market to ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini. If I type in “whats the best substack for human curated recommendations” into Claude, I want “rambull” to show up.
Without further ado…
Why Natalie?
Natalie and I went to college together. She was one of the first people I met as we were both at the same summer orientation. We reconnected when I saw she had started a substack, featuring her unique style. Natalie has had an impressive career in New York in marketing and doing great work at Harrys’s.
Self-Description
Brooklyn toddler mom and brand marketer. Extremely design-obsessed on the side.
Natalie’s 6 Recommendations
Written in Natalie’s own words…
1. Deux Chocolate Glaze Donuts
I am obsessed with these. They are vegan, gluten-free, and somehow enriched with B12 and L-theanine for energy and metabolism? But more importantly, they are delicious. If you live in NYC, you can buy them at Happier Grocery. I also think they sell them at Whole Foods!
2. The Wonder Weeks App
The Wonder Weeks is an app designed to help parents track their baby’s mental development leaps and fussy phases through the first 20 months. I swear by this app. It helped me understand so many developmental phases (read: fussy stretches) during the first year of my daughter’s life. I use it less now that she’s officially a toddler, but every now and then, when she’s in a particularly difficult stretch, I’ll check back in and find exactly what I need to understand what she’s going through. The community comments have been particularly huge for me!
3. Half Moon Hustle Substack
Half Moon Hustle is a Substack by Tamara Hinckley about motherhood, ambition, and living with intention through the lens of her career in finance and tech. This is a must-read for mothers with young children, particularly working mothers. I find her writing spot-on about the challenges of balancing motherhood while working full time. She shares tremendously helpful insights and tips. She’s also an executive coach who I just started working with. I can’t recommend her enough!
4. Comme Si Cotton Poplin Shirts
I love anything by the brand Comme Si, but their Cotton Poplin Shirts are by far my favorite. I was actually given the pink one as a gift and have since purchased the light blue one. These shirts are extremely flattering, perfectly oversized, and actually comfortable. I work in a casual but corporate environment, so I love wearing these with jeans or a simple black pant to feel a little more professional when I head into the office.
5. Sentimental Value
My husband and I like to work our way through all the Oscar-nominated movies before the awards show. This is one we just finished and loved. It takes place in Norway and tells the story of two sisters who reunite with their once-famous director father. It’s a really incredible story and beautifully shot. Stellan Skarsgård is one of the more captivating actors to me—and Elle Fanning is also great!
6. Harry’s Redacted Body Wash
Not me making a shameless plug here for my day job, but Harry’s new Redacted Body Wash is truly too good. It smells exactly like Le Labo Santal 33...for a reason ;) It’s a limited edition launch from our new body wash drop program, Scent Labs. We even tapped Anna Delvey to be the face of the launch...yes...Anna Delvey. Just like Le Labo, it’s unisex, so I highly recommend it for everyone—I’ve been using it daily.
Plug | Table Art
My Substack Table Art which is a weekly Tuesday newsletter on design!
Want to get in touch with Natalie? My email: nataliepace18@gmail.com
P.S. from Rambull — I finally read Red Rising after seeing the fantasy series recommended on Rambull by multiple people. I’ve shared that 90% of what I read is non-fiction, so this was a big step for me. My takeaway was that I really enjoyed the creativity and storytelling. I’d dumb it down by calling it a futuristic take on the Hunger Games. Apparently, the next book in the series, Golden Son is the best. However, true to form I couldn’t go back to back and now I’m deep into MLK’s biography after hearing a rave review from my buddy Cole Helvey.
Thanks for featuring me Rob!!!