Meet the Geeks: It’s Danielle!

It’s been a minute since we did a “Meet the Geeks” profile, but we’re back with a chat with one of our members of the sales staff, Danielle Carr.

How did you originally hear about Geeks Who Drink? For several years, [my husband] Bryan [Carr] has been a writer and editor for Geeks. Before the pandemic, I would sometimes help him out with the administrative stuff behind his editorial work. But in the midst of the pandemic, he moved into a marketing role and I would also help a bit behind the scenes with various tasks. But, as the company started moving back into in-person events, I started working in other facets. They needed people to call Quizmasters to see if they were willing to come back and ready to start going back into bars. Then I started calling bars, to see if they were willing to sign up [to host Geeks Who Drink]. After that, I learned how to code the quizzes in the Digital Answering System (DAS)! I started out working part time and was offered a full-time sales job last October. 

Is that your current role? Yes, I’m still working full-time in sales, and really like it. I like talking to people about Geeks and explaining what we do and how it’s going to help their business. 

When you’re reaching out to bar owners, what do you tell them about us? I always tell them that Geeks Who Drink is the best, mostly because of our social media presence. We have thousands of followers across all of our platforms. We help bars as much as we can too: we send them posters, digital images for their social media pages, and if they tag us on their socials, we’ll share their posts too. And of course our questions are above anyone else’s, because we have the best writers. Bar owners, though, mostly want to know about the marketing and social media aspect, and what we can do to help them there. They also like that each venue gets its own page on our website, so you can see how many teams played each week and pictures from each weekly quiz. 

Our online and social media presences really carry that much weight? Oh yeah. They really like that they’re going to be represented among the other venues. And we have such a big following, it really sets us apart from all of the other [trivia companies].

Do you communicate with bar owners on a daily basis? Yeah, I do. Just today, I’ve emailed around 30 bars just to check in and see how things are going with them. I’m constantly emailing and calling, so during any given day I could be talking to someone in California, New York, or Texas. Every bar owner I talk to is so nice and it’s fun to work with them. 

What do you enjoy the most about your job? I think the most enjoyable thing for me is getting a contract. Sometimes I’ll talk to a bar for six months or even a year before they sign up with Geeks, but after following up, when they say ‘Hey, let’s do this, I want to work with you guys,’ it feels like a big celebration. It feels like all that work has paid off. 

Do you have a bell that you ring in your house or a sign that you high five or something when that happens? Ha! No, but I have some great co-workers on the sales team. So when I get a contract, I have someone I can email to be like ‘Yay!’ 

Do you ever get out to play any of our quizzes? Yeah, my husband and I live in St. Louis, so there’s a dog bar that has Geeks called Bar K and I swear, they can get 20 or 30 teams in a night. Sometimes we go to a board game bar called Pieces, but it can be so full that you can’t even get in. They’re both awesome bars – but with dogs and board games, how could they not be?

What about interests other than trivia? You can either find me at any of the Kaldi’s coffee shops around the city, walking through St. Louis’ beautiful botanical garden, or volunteering by walking dogs at the St. Louis County Pet Adoption Center.