Setting a table is about more than servingware and linens—it’s about intention, connection, and creating a sense of place. The same can be said for building your storytelling strategy, too. Who are you setting your table for? Who are the characters you’re inviting to sit down and join your community?

Thinking about building your ideal customer profiles (or ICPs, as they say in the biz) is like writing different characters for your brand’s story. In fact, it’s why I put together a survey for my Perfect Bite listeners, watchers, and readers for this week—so I can really understand who is out there, what you all like, and how I can improve my content and offerings.

If you’ve ever listened to or watched an episode of The Perfect Bite, it’ll take just a few moments to fill out here—I’m choosing five respondents to send a $10 Starbucks gift card to! Thanks for your attention to my admin item here :).

Now back to my guest this week. Kira Corbin, founder of Standard Affair, is an expert at building her brand’s story and understanding exactly who she should be selling to. I can’t wait for you to learn more about how Kira is setting the table for success with her timeless pieces. You can listen to or watch our chat below, and then learn more about this week’s storytelling secret ingredient about honing in on your perfect customers!

FYI—Kira is offering you all 10% off orders on Standard Affair with code ‘PERFECTBITE10'. This is an amazing deal to level up your standard of plateware!

Kira Corbin is this week’s guest on The Perfect Bite! I met Kira at the absolutely wonderful Jubilee this fall—she instantly grabbed my attention with her gorgeous pieces and can-do attitude! I couldn’t believe Standard Affair had only been in business for about 6 months at the time of our conversation.

Kira and I chat through how her lifelong love of food, prop styling, and visual storytelling evolved into a modern homewares brand rooted in sustainability and timeless design—her ceramics are made from 90% recycled materials!

Kira shares her journey from working on food and lifestyle shoots for major publications and with celebrity chefs to launching Standard Affair, a line of ceramic dinnerware and linens designed to elevate everyday meals while reducing waste. The conversation covers everything from the emotional power of gathering around the table to the realities of entrepreneurship, creative pivots, and why persistence matters more than perfection. Don’t forget—get 10% off orders on Standard Affair with code ‘PERFECTBITE10‘!

You can follow Standard Affair on Instagram @standardaffair and Kira @kiracorbin. You can learn more about Standard Affair at www.standardaffair.com and see more of Kira’s work on www.kiracorbin.com.

When you’re not sure who you’re marketing your product to, any efforts can feel like shouting into the void. Let’s say you’re at the point where you’ve got a concept, you own the problem it’s solving (or understanding it’s a “nice-to-have”), and you’re ready to see how you can grow your audience. Now it’s time to build out your customer’s “character traits” so you know how to craft your storytelling.

As you’ve put together your concept, you’ve likely thought of a few demographic traits behind your ideal customer, or more likely, multiple customer profiles—where they live, what they do for work, their age, gender, and income bracket. But if you were reading a book, these traits alone wouldn’t give you any insight into a character. You need to think about what your audience enjoys, what they don’t, what really matters to them, and their ultimate psychographic motivations for why they want to buy or partake in your offering.

Kira does a great job at building her ideal customer profile for Standard Affair by thinking through their entire lifestyle. She thinks about when they’re using her pieces to set the table, what they wear, and how and where they’re shopping. She’s had to determine how to position her brand based on the person she is selling to: Someone who is interested in a “casual chic” style, perhaps a lover of “quiet luxury.” And while her pieces are made with intention to be very sustainable, she isn’t necessarily positioning Standard Affair as “eco-friendly,” which could open her up to a completely different type of customer.

By making these exacting distinctions in her customer profile, Kira is able to focus on creating all of her content and marketing pieces to sell to a particular type of person—not just to anyone.

Storytelling secret ingredient: If you’re “for everyone,” you’re really not for anyone. Get specific on your customer profiles to understand your segmentation and how to market to each of those ideal consumers.

Ever want to chat through your own ICPs? Feel free to set up a call with me!

These F&B brands and accounts are experts at identifying multiple customer profiles for their products and figuring out how to change their storytelling to meet each of these consumers where they are.

Over a decade into business and Tovala is continuing to shape and grow its messaging with its consumers. When I chatted with David Rabie on The Perfect Bite, we specifically talked through Tovala’s segmentation strategy, understanding that they’re growing up with their original customers and able to branch out from there. What started as a cooking tool for busy young professionals has proven to also be fit for those original customers that are now in their 30s, with families of their own and aging parents that need help eating deliciously and healthier in easier ways. Now Tovala gets to age up with its original core of Millennials for any next steps of their journeys.

by Andrea Hernández is one of my favorite food media and news sites to follow all because of Andrea’s voice. Yes, she’s reporting on the business of CPG brands and other food news, which can skew towards investors and even executives in the space, but she’s doing it in a funny, Gen-Z forward way that is bringing the next generations into the fold. Think memes of “matcha cowboys” and tales of “hypebeast grocers,” making her reporting style distinct and memorable. This is definitely not your baby boomer’s favorite food news source.

Evergreen waffles was built by busy mom Emily Groden for busy parents trying to feed their kids healthily. If you look at the brand’s Instagram, it’s incredibly family friendly, leaning into the Millennial moms and dads just trying to start their days with a quick win. Because Evergreen is made with such nutritious ingredients, packed with protein, and are just plain delicious, they also have to appeal to their secondary segmentations that have come into play, including athletes, body builders, and busy professionals on the go. Learn more about how Emily and team focus on marketing their healthy breakfast brand from our conversation here.

Thanks so much for being part of The Perfect Bite’s journey. Feel free to respond to any of these messages with thoughts on how I can improve my storytelling in the future or if you have any guest ideas!

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