What Costco, Hangovers, and Pumpkin Pies Taught Me About Marketing Psychology

Before I built a $4M business…
I worked at Costco.

Not in sales.
Not in marketing.
In the bakery.

Hairnet.
Flour everywhere.
2 a.m. shifts during the holiday rush.

It wasn’t glamorous. But it taught me more about real marketing psychology than any course, copywriting trick, or sales funnel hack I’ve seen since.

Let me explain.

🥧 The 2 a.m. Pumpkin Pie Apocalypse

Costco during the holidays isn’t normal.
It’s a war zone made of whipped cream and chaos.

The bakery never closed.
We ran 24-hour shifts.

I’d roll in at 2 a.m. — sometimes still spiritually enhanced from Saturday night — and start boxing pumpkin pies like I was training for an Olympic event.

Box. Label. Stack. Repeat.

We weren’t selling handcrafted desserts.
We weren’t offering personal consultations or boutique packaging.

We sold the exact same pie. Thousands of them.

And customers would load up — three, four, six at a time.

Why?

Because the offer was obvious.
It was easy.
It was familiar.

That’s the core of great marketing.

🧠 Lesson 1: People Buy What’s Easy to Understand

We didn’t pitch anyone on shrimp towers.
We didn’t guide them through a menu of options.

We stacked pies high.
We slapped a price on it.
People threw them in the cart without blinking.

Clarity beats clever. Every time.

If your business has:

• Six pricing tiers

• Custom packages

• A “let’s chat and I’ll send a quote” strategy

…then you’re Costco before the pie tower.

Make your offer so obvious, they feel dumb not to say yes.

🧠 Lesson 2: People Want to Feel Smart for Saying “Yes”

Here’s the psychology Costco nails:
People don’t brag about spending. They brag about saving.

It’s not:

“Look at this luxury item I bought.”

It’s:

“Look how much I got for $7.99.”

And that’s how I build all my offers now.

• Low-friction entry

• High perceived value

• Simple payoff

So when people say yes, they feel like they won.

Your job isn’t just to sell — it’s to make them feel brilliant for buying.

🧠 Lesson 3: Fancy Is Overrated — Clarity and Volume Win

Let me be clear: nothing about our bakery display was pretty.

• We had pallets.

• We had cardboard trays.

• We had muffin towers that looked like an OSHA violation.

But people bought. In bulk.

Because presentation doesn’t matter when the value is obvious.

In your business:

• Clear beats clever

• Obvious beats beautiful

• One good offer beats five “meh” ones

You don’t need fancy. You need focus.

🧠 Lesson 4: Repetition Builds Trust

We didn’t change the pies.
We didn’t reinvent them every week.

Same recipe. Same process. Same result.

And that’s exactly why people trusted it.

In marketing, there’s this idea that you have to keep saying something new to get attention.

Wrong.

You have to keep saying the same thing until people believe it.
Until they repeat it back to you.
Until they think of you first when they feel the pain you solve.

“We’re the place with the pumpkin pies.”

That’s brand clarity.

The Costco Strategy That Changed My Business

I started with a hairnet and a hangover.

But what I learned in that fluorescent-lit bakery still shapes how I sell:

✅ One offer
✅ One promise
✅ Make it stupid-easy
✅ Stack it high
✅ Sell the hell out of it

You don’t need to be fancy to win. You just need to be clear.

Want Help Building Your “Pumpkin Pie” Offer?

📘 I wrote a book called UNSTOPPABLE — and it’s yours, free.

Inside, I’ll walk you through how to create a core offer that feels familiar, urgent, and damn near impossible to ignore.

Grab your copy here → themarcusanthony.com/book

Because the secret to growth?
Might just be buried in a pie box at 2 a.m.