Podcast Episodes

Ep 36: Benefits of Acquiring a Manufacturer

Oct 10, 2023

Manufacture your own product.

[00:00:02] Sean: One of the biggest issues in starting the business was trying to find out who the manufacturers were, what their capabilities are, and how you can participate with them, especially if you are brand new and you're just starting your business. So traveling around visiting the manufacturers, seeing what their capabilities were is how I got our start, but some of the problems were quality control, lead times, consistency with the work, and really them prioritizing us as a new business and as a new customer to them.

[00:00:35] Andrea: So to address issues, you acquired the manufacturer. I’m curious to learn about the benefits of acquiring a manufacturer for your business. And because I'm sure that involves a lot of work, how can you make sure to manage it in a way that allows you to succeed and keep scaling? Let's find out.

[00:00:52] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is one of our Minisodes, [00:01:00] which are shorter episodes packed with helpful information for those of you who want a quicker binge. On this episode we'll be talking about manufacturing and some of the best practices for managing inventory and supply chain with Sean Brownlee, the CEO of Ravenox, a direct-to-consumer retailer of custom ropes and cords. You can find them in the Amazon store along with most of the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business. Also, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:01:36] Sean: Ravenox really started with a sense of finding purpose for me as an individual. You know, and just creating jobs more than anything. I had spent 12 years on active duty in the Marine Corps, where I really had a strong sense of purpose and I knew transitioning out. I was gonna need to find that in my life and continue in that manner. And for me, it came down to creating jobs and how would I go about doing that? [00:02:00] I looked at Amazon and Amazon's business model and how many jobs they've created and how would I be able to participate in that in some manner? And so I ended up forming a rope company that worked with American rope manufacturers because I knew that from my time in the military as far as being able to understand how rope and cordage was made and how it was used and what demographics I went into.

So worked with a lot of American rope manufacturers, private label the products, and sold them on Amazon. And one of the manufacturers that we had worked with, we had grown to be about 90% of their business in 18 months. And due to all the complexities with that manufacturing and how we were selling, we had great discussions and we ended up acquiring our manufacturer. So we in turn became manufacturers and continued selling direct to consumer on Amazon.

[00:02:50] Andrea: What led to you acquiring your manufacturer?

[00:02:53] Sean: One of the issues that we had was our manufacturer was not able to keep up with us. [00:03:00] We were turning down a lot of business and we were unable to, in essence, really continue to be able to meet the demands of our customers. So what we ended up doing is we had a great relationship with this manufacturer that we acquired. I had traveled out here quite a bit in the past. And we were able to continue to push forward and, and really just have a great conversation with them. And they were at the phase of their business too where they didn't want to continue to scale with us. So it was really, for us, it was halfway luck, halfway preparation. And that's where the opportunity came together.

[00:03:35] Andrea: So you needed to keep growing and they didn’t want to keep up, so you decided to take the reins yourself. So what are the benefits of becoming a your own manufacturer?

[00:03:45] Sean: The biggest benefit was being able to expand our product line, having the ability to give our customers the same thing we were looking for as a new business, which was that quality control, that consistency, that short lead time. We all saw it during Covid. [00:04:00] We experienced it as consumers, as businesses, how much time it took to get products and supply chain issues, whether you're importing or domestically manufacturing. And we were able to bring that in-house, we were able to continue making that product and getting it out to our customers in a timely manner. And so it got us through Covid and it taught us a lot of lessons. And that's really the meat and potatoes of how it benefited us as a business. I don't know if we'd be here today if we were to rely on our other manufacturer vendors that we've partnered with, because their lead times just were extended, we had no control over their supply chains. Whereas we have control over our supply chains. We can focus on the sustainability of our product, the fact that, it is made here in America, that we are 100% sourcing here on American soil for everything we make. And keeping that going all the way through.

[00:04:55] Andrea: What are some of the best practices you could suggest to early-stage business owners on how to manage inventory, [00:05:00] especially since you mentioned that this was one of your pain points in the beginning?

[00:05:05] Sean: It's software, it's taking advantage of the technology that's out there. And using software integrations, I am absolutely appalled at how many manufacturers today are still using PDF documents or only tracking their inventory on a monthly basis. We are tracking everything through software. We've applied all those best practices that we had, that helped us with online retail. And we applied that all directly to our manufacturing. I could tell you exactly how much down to the cone, how many pounds of yarn we have, and just about everybody we've partnered with. They don't do that. And I think there's a lot of catching up to do, for a lot of manufacturers, but use inventory management software tools and take advantage of 'em to their fullest.

We're using Amazon FBA for a good portion of our business for the smaller items that we're fulfilling, and Amazon has a lot of tools to help track inventory. [00:06:00] There's a lot of API integrations and a lot of different software companies. We've gone through quite a few of them. If you wanna maintain a 30 day or 60–90-day supply of inventory, how much we need to have, which that segues into us looking at every single level from our partners, our vendors, where their business is at for our suppliers, for the raw goods that we're bringing in, and their best practices for how much we would need. So say my minimum order quantity is 2000 pounds of raw goods to bring in to manufacture our products. I can run a trajectory of how long based on our daily or weekly turn rate. How much we need to actually have on hand to, to be able to run that. So those are just some high-level ones, but I, I believe we looked the other day, we probably have over 60 different software integrations at different levels of the business.

[00:06:55] Andrea: Ok, so, leveraging software integrations to keep up. [00:07:00] And you also mentioned that quality control was another issue that came up. How did you tackle that?

[00:07:05] Sean: The way we're manufacturing, I mean, we have machines that are 125 years old, and yeah, new machines, new technology, robotics, AI, it'll get your hands off. I mean, I can tell you a lot of the stuff that comes in a human hand hasn't touched, and yes, that saves you a lot of time and money, but if there's a problem, that problem is at scale. So the products that, that we're manufacturing, you have four or five hands on that all the way through. We don't have the same quality control issues because anybody can stop the production line at any time and say, we've got a problem and we can stop it immediately before it becomes a bigger problem. And, so no, we don't have the quality control issues. We also are getting feedback. We're asking for feedback from our customers every single acquisition, every single time we have an interaction with a customer, we're asking for their feedback and collecting that feedback just like Amazon is doing with reviews, we're doing the same thing [00:08:00] across the board on different marketplaces on our website and saying, how are we doing? And we can figure out really quickly if there's a problem and how to fix it.

[00:08:10] Host: That was Sean Brownlee, the CEO of Ravenox. He talked about manufacturing and what you can do to stay on top of your inventory and supply chain. As always, here are some quick key takeaways from this episode:

One. There's a lot of benefits that come with manufacturing your own product. You can expand your product line, be more consistent and have a lot more control over the quality. So, if you feel like the manufacturer you're currently working with is hindering your workflow, then maybe getting your own manufacturer is the next step to continue growing your business.
Two. Take advantage of all the software out there to manage your inventory. There are a lot of tools out there for this. Sean also talked about using Fulfillment by Amazon. To learn more check out our show notes. Whatever you decide to use, make sure to keep it up to date!
[00:09:00] Three. Quality control is super important. When you’re a small business and even if you manufacture your own product, it sounds like nothing beats having at least a couple of human hands touching and looking at the product before it’s out the door and in customer hands. This reminds me of what Chevalo and Monique from Charleston Gourmet Burger talked about in Season Two where we dedicated a full episode to learning about the dos and don’ts of partnering with the right manufacturer. They like to open random boxes of their sauces and testing them to make sure everything is meeting their quality standards.

That's it for this episode of This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so please please please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone. Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

[00:10:00] CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:10:10]

Ep 35: How to Differentiate Your Product

Oct 3, 2023

Help your product stand out.

[00:00:03] Aaron: In business, I believe fundamentally your job is to bring something to people that they do not have, right? You wanna fill a need, fill a void that's in the market. There’s millions and millions of products, and literally over a million sellers, how are we gonna do something that will stand out in that market?

[00:00:22] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. On This is Small Business we cover all things small business that will help you start, build, and scale your business. We will hear from guests with diverse backgrounds, point of views, and stories, with the hope of hearing from many types of small business entrepreneurs. And by the end of each episode, I'll point out key takeaways that you can use on your business journey.

In today's competitive marketplace, product differentiation has become an essential strategy that every business needs to know to stand out and thrive. Seems pretty obvious right? So then, how can you effectively differentiate your product from the hundreds of other products out there? [00:01:00] Especially if you're in a saturated market?

Coming up -- I'll talk to Rita Gunther McGrath, a best-selling author and professor at Columbia University Business School, about how you can differentiate your product from your competitors. But first -- I want you to meet Aaron and Whitney Cordovez, Cofounders of Zulay Kitchen, a brand that sells kitchen tools and appliances. You can find their products in the Amazon store along with most of the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business. One of the reasons I was excited to talk to them about product differentiation is because they're doing business in a saturated market and still thriving and reinventing themselves to stand out. As you might know, there are tons of brands that sell kitchen appliances so, I wanted to find out what Aaron and Whitney did to differentiate their products from the hundreds of others out there in the market. So, if you're passionate about starting a business and are trying to figure out how to stand out, then this episode is for you.

[00:02:00] Also, don't forget that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:02:15] Aaron: The name comes after my mama. Her name is actually Ingrid Zulay Martinez. But she doesn't like her first name, so she always go by Zulay. She likes Zulay. It sounds cool and fun. And she's a cool and fun person. And she basically, dedicated her life to me and my brother in helping us, and then helping our family as well. And so when it came time to make a business and make a company, make a brand, I thought what represents something that's, to honor my mom for everything she's done, we named it after my mama.

[00:02:48] Whitney: Nine and a half years ago. We had nothing. We were both working in nonprofits and when we left the nonprofit. She was the only one out of both of our families that had our back. If our crazy plans [00:03:00] and different testing things that we would do, like entrepreneurship didn't work out, she was always there for us. So when we were actually working on a name for this company. She was the one person that always had our back, so I was like, yeah, of course.

[00:03:18] Andrea: How beautiful. And I'm sure having that connection makes it easier to wanna make Zulay kitchen into a successful business. So, tell me more about Zulay Kitchen? How did it start?

[00:03:30] Aaron: A friend had told us, hey, you know, it's possible to sell on Amazon and make your own brand. And we said, uh, I told her, hey, I wanna try this Amazon thing. The course was, we paid it – for a course. Put everything on a credit card. We bought our first product, money credit card.

[00:03:40] Whitney: We had no money.

[00:03:41] Aaron: But the concept was, listen, in business, I believe fundamentally your job is to bring something to people that they do not have, right? You wanna fill a need, fill a void that's in the market. There’s millions and millions of products, and literally over a million sellers, How are we gonna do something that will stand out in that market? [00:04:00] And that was what my job was for about a month and a half to two months to find something that would fit in the market. That there was a need and we could bring something of value. And that was the goal from the beginning. And that first product was the lemon squeezer. We have a two in one lemon squeezer. It is actually a patented product. It's not our patent, but we do license it.

[00:04:18] Whitney: And I wanna say that basically when we, when he went through all the different products and decided to do that one, we ordered probably about 10 different variations of the lemon squeezer and there was rigorous testing against the top competitors to make sure that the one that we chose was gonna be the best and number one.

[00:04:35] Aaron: We wanted the best one cuz the first page had so many different types and models and this, and I said, Which one's the best. And I had, we ordered the top one and it was not the best, it was not very good. And we found and tested this two in one, which is spectacular. And we have people that bought from us the very first year in 2015 that still have it today and understand this is the best, one of the best purchases I've ever made in on Amazon. But we started with a lemon squeezer. Now we have over a thousand different, products. So, it's expanded quite a bit in eight years. [00:05:00] We have spatulas and milk frother, lemon squeezer, garlic, garlic presses. We have cheese boards, cheese slicers, cheese slicers.

[00:05:10] Andrea: So, I want to dive deep into what makes your product different. Let's choose any of the ones you would like as an example. How does that product differ from competition? What are the considerations you made there?

[00:05:20] Aaron: One thing that we started, we, you know, we came early when this product was just kind of emerging in the market called the Milk Frother, right? And we had a very good experience and Amazon does a fantastic job at making sure that every single product is up to speed. I mean, it's up to the quality that the customer wants because the first milk frother that we tried, we had kind of not tested it as much because I couldn't find, it's the only one I could find that I could produce. And we brought it to the market, and it sold very fast. Just, you know, a couple hundred units, that's all we had ordered. And it sold out and the reviews came in and they were pretty bad. But that's feedback that Amazon allowed us to get.

[00:06:00] And then based on that, we found a much better place to produce them. I actually went all the way to China to find someone who had a better motor and over there I spoke to hundreds and hundreds of different vendors to try to find a place to produce this milk frother that would actually last long, that would address all of the reviews that we got that were negative that would address those problems. And so, we partnered with a factory, and we actually iterated over that product.

[00:06:26] Whitney: And I wanna say we also started that and obviously the competitors came in.

[00:06:30] Aaron: Yeah, correct. We were the first in the markets like, and everybody had a black, we came out with five colors, started selling a lot, and we added more and more and more so, we’ve been pioneering in this space to give people more options. And because Amazon, we call it like the unlimited shelf space, right? So we have marble, we have the, the walnut color, we have like wood colored, we have, uh, sparkling, we have UV light ones. We have so many different types of that product and we improve it, and that's not available anywhere else. So that's one thing that makes our products different.

[00:07:00] Andrea: And so would you say then that because of all this research, and because you continued to test out your products and improve them and see what's out there that makes a exponential difference on the success of your business. Do you think that's why you continue to grow and continue to do better?

[00:07:16] Whitney: I would absolutely say that has a lot to do with the growth and there's no limits on the growth ability of our company.

[00:07:25] Aaron: And it's really, you do the work because in, in any business, whatever you're doing, you have to do the work that other people are not doing, right? So if there's your peers, whatever competition, other people, if they're doing one thing well, you have to do one thing. The second thing, the third thing, the fourth thing. And so the success comes from going a bit over and beyond just the what's necessary, because we didn't need to add another 10 colors when we already had 50 or whatever. Like it's not required. You don't need to do it, and it's a lot of work and you have to actually design it and test it, and the different packaging. There's a lot of work involved, [00:08:00] but we know that our job is to do the work to make the end experience better for the buyer.

Just like in any business, in anything you do, you must stand out. So if we don't stand out, then we're not gonna get the sales, right? It's a free market and if you have a better product, then you can get more sales. And if your product is just mediocre, well then you're probably not gonna succeed very well. So we have to do what other people refuse or do not want to do.

[00:08:30] Host: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. You just heard from Aaron and Whitney Cordovez, Cofounders of Zulay Kitchen. You can find out more about Zulay Kitchen in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

Aaron and Whitney gave us a lot of insight into how they ensure that their products stand out from the sea of other kitchen gadgets out there. They focus on quality above all else because that's what's going to keep the customers coming back. And they also offer as many colors as possible [00:09:00] because they noticed that not a lot of businesses did that.

Like Zulay Kitchen, the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business are some of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

So far, we've talked about how Aaron and Whitney differentiated their product from their competition which involved a lot of testing. So let's dig deeper into what else you can do to stand out and if there's other -- perhaps cheaper -- options that can help you achieve that with my next guest: Rita Gunther McGrath, a best-selling author and professor at Columbia University Business School.

[00:10:00] RITA: So, I went to Barnard College, and graduated with a degree in political science, and then intended to go into the political arena. I actually started two small businesses way back when, and I made the kinds of rookie mistakes that you make when you're just getting started. I did a political consultancy, you might think of it as, but this was like a long time ago. And what I forgot was that elections don't happen every year. And so, business kind of morphed into a business that was, you could think of it like a Kinko's, you know, typing and word processing and stuff. And then I realized I wasn't interested in typing and word processing, I was interested in the politics part of it, so I ended up selling that to my partner, and I went on to work in government. After a few years doing that, joined Columbia Business School after a stint at the Wharton School where I did my Phd.

So I teach mostly in our executive programs, I run a one-week course called Leading Strategic Growth and Change. [00:11:00] So my work tends to be at the intersection of strategy and innovation. And those two topics have gotten very much closer than they were perhaps at one point. And so I teach executives how to think about change, how to think about new technologies, how to think about inflection points, strategic inflection points, those kinds of topics.

[00:11:25] Andrea: So excited to have you on This is Small Business Professor. So to jump in, if I may, could you talk to me about what discovery driven planning is?

[00:11:32] RITA: So discovery driven planning had its roots in some studies that absolutely fascinated me back, back in the day of large successful companies that had tried to do something new and failed spectacularly. I call them my flops, and I have a file at home I keep, it's called my flops file, and to get into my flops file you have to lose your parent 50 million dollars. And when I went through these case studies, what I realized was [00:12:00] that they all shared a common set of symptoms. You know, untested assumptions, taken as facts, very few opportunities for low commitment testing, big teams and all the funding up front, oftentimes leaders, sort of heroically committed to a specific course of action.

And what I realized is that what these companies were doing was planning uncertain projects as though they had a solid basis of foundation in fact. And we took a page out of the entrepreneur's playbook, the small business playbook, and said, well, how would you plan if you didn't know what you were planning for? And the result was a technique called discovery driven planning, which has five elements to it.

So the first is defining success. So before we even start, what, what would good look like? Like, let's get aligned around that. The second thing is that once you've defined success, you think about what's your unit of business, what's your unit of impact. And that allows you to then say, well, am I being realistic? [00:13:00] So if I'm planning to sell, you know, widgets, right, and I want to make 100, 000, in profits, and my profit margin is 20%, that means I've got to sell, 500, 000 worth of widgets. So what starts to happen is you begin to realize that innovation rather than being this weird, unplannable, magical process actually has deep, deep rigor and deep, deep discipline to it. It's just a different discipline than you use when you have more facts to work with.

So define success, figure out if we're being realistic, then map out what operationally has to happen to get this thing to be a reality in the world. As you're doing that, you're going to be making assumptions. And what I recommend is that you document them. So firstly, you remember them because we tend to forget the assumptions that we made. And secondly, so that you can get evidence that says whether you're being more or less realistic. And then the last piece of the process is you plan, but you plan around checkpoints. And a checkpoint is simply a moment at which you're going to learn something. And so the, The core of the technique is you, you budget using a funding mindset rather than a budget mindset. [00:14:00] So rather than saying, here's my 18-month budget and at the end of it I'm going to have a hockey stick, which we all know is often completely unrealistic. Instead of that, what you're going to do is say, okay, I'm going to do some customer interviews. I think this is a million-dollar opportunity. I want to spend 2,000 to figure out if there seems to be a problem we can solve. So it's a step-by-step planning methodology. And it's very useful for small businesses, very useful for entrepreneurs.

[00:14:25] Andrea: Can you take me through what type of research would have to happen for a small business owner to be in a position where they understand how they stand out among their competition or in the industry that they're in?

[00:14:38] RITA: Well, I think the first thing you have to begin with is something I call the job to be done. Which is content that was created by Tony Ulwick and Clayton Christensen. And they said, customers don't really buy products and services.

As a small business owner, the thing you really want to understand is what is the outcome that customer is trying to drive in their lives? [00:15:00] So what are you being hired to do? What do you get fired for not doing, right? And if I want a particular outcome, there's many, many ways I might get an outcome. As an example, I'm working right now with a small regional theater, and they're trying to figure out what, what's changed about their industry, what's changed about their audience. And I pointed out to them that, you know, 40 years ago, when that whole category was in its hayday, Um, you know, if you had two and a half hours to spend, what was your competition? It was three television channels, you know, appointment TV. It was, you know, other ways you could get out in the community and make yourselves known. I said, today that same two and a half hours is being competed for by everything, from streaming services to, you know, you name it. And Netflix very famously has said it considers its primary competition to be sleep. You've got to think about differentiating yourself around something that really matters to getting a customer an outcome that they deserve.

[00:15:52] Andrea: In application, how would I go about finding this?

[00:15:55] RITA: Well, you can do interviews, but I think you have to do them in a very specific way. [00:16:00] So a mistake a lot of entrepreneurs make is they'll have a concept, right? And they'll say, Hey, would you buy this thing? People are pleasant and they're nice and they say, sure, I would buy this thing. But what they don't, what they're not able to articulate to you is, well, I would buy it. But not if it meant I wasn't going to be able to buy lunch that day, right? So you you really have to be very very careful about the things that people say.

So a good sort of needs oriented or or job to be done kind of interview might go something like, hey, you're a vegetarian, right? What are the challenges that you have when you're dining out in a new city, right? So you, you want to really get narratives. You want to see what they do. You want to look at the tradeoffs that they make, right? My friend Alberto Savoia, he wrote a terrific book called The Right It, and he has a concept that he calls the skin in the game caliper. And what this is, is it's a metric of how much is a customer willing to commit to a particular thing. And the way Alberto puts it is, he says, why create something and figure out if somebody will buy it. [00:17:00] Why don't you figure out what it is they want to buy and then create that.

So for example, if they're willing to come to a half an hour product demo. Maybe you get some points for that because they gave up their time to actually come and find out about this thing. Most compelling of all would be would they place an order, and at this point a lot of entrepreneurs say to me, well, but I haven't created the product yet. It doesn't matter. Tesla advertised their cars and took deposits on them long before they had a working automobile. But what they were able to do was demonstrate that there was real customer desire for this EV, environmentally friendly, very cool car. And so what you want is you want as much demonstrated market desire and acceptance as possible before you spend a lot of money.

[00:17:45] Andrea: Thinking about how to spend money is such an important thing, but also how to set yourself up at the beginning as a small business that in the long run will do more good than harm. What are some of the considerations that a small business owner should make [00:18:00] when they're starting out that can set them up competitively apart from doing all of this very necessary research?

[00:18:10] RITA: Well, you want to make sure that you've got a handle on cash flow. What kills a small business is you run out of money. So you want break evens daily, weekly, monthly, that that would be an excellent best practice. And you want your incoming cash to exceed your outgoing cash. And you want to really be thinking about that over a decent period of time. So, so that's a good best practice. You want that source of differentiation to be relatively durable. So if somebody can easily copy something that customers are finding attractive, that's usually not good. So you want something that is difficult for others to simply replicate. So that could be a brand, that could be an affiliation, that could be personal relationships that differentiate you. Ideally, you want a business model that's somehow sticky, right? So, once somebody's adopted, it's a pain to move. Or, it just is problematic for them to switch to a different competitor. [00:19:00] And so, to do that, you want things like contracts that extend over some period of time or some kind of commitment on the part of the customer that it's not just going to be transactional, right? It's, it's, it's building a relationship. Those kinds of variables can be very helpful in establishing something that's not just going to get instantly copied.

[00:19:20] Andrea: If someone is really passionate about a business idea that's in a really saturated market, should they just go for it? Or would it be better to look for something that they might not be as passionate about but has less competition?

[00:19:35] RITA: Well, competition signals there's interest, right? I mean, competition, if you think about it, is, is sometimes a good thing. We talk a lot about, oh, blue oceans where nobody is, but there's an awful lot of businesses that don't exist because nobody's interested enough to pay to get a particular kind of problem solved. So I would go with what you're absolutely passionate about. I would also say you want to go with something where you have more than just an external understanding. [00:20:00] Some experience that you've had, or some background that you've had.

So, as an example, one of my friends is Kirk Carlson. He was the CEO at SRI International when they invented Siri, and they invented HDTV, and just a really, really great guy. But what he would tell you is that part of the way that he ran that company was based on his experiences at learning to play the violin. He was a nationally ranked violinist at one point, not quite good enough to make a living on it, but very, very good. And he said, what you do as a violinist is you, practice with other violinists. And so you play, and then your peers and your teacher coach you. And so when he ran an innovation program, he did the same thing. He brought all of his teams together that were working on different projects. And each of them would present their progress for the week, say in a ten-minute pitch. And then they would have big, really candid conversations about what was good about the thing, what progress have they made, what should they do next, those kinds of things. [00:21:00] So, you want to have some kind of background learning that differentiates you.

[00:21:06] Host: Great way to end, reminding us that we should probably pursue what we’re passionate about, because that passion could also be part of the way you differentiate your product. That was Professor Rita Gunther McGrath, a best-selling author and professor at Columbia University Business School. As always, here are some key takeaways on product differentiation.

One. Quality is super important. And you can make sure that your product is great quality through lots and lots of testing. And really listening to customer reviews and figuring out what can make your product better. First start by understanding what problem you’re solving for your customer to make their lives better. Professor McGrath poses the question: what is the outcome that your customer is trying to drive in their lives? And solve backwards from that answer.
Two. There’s a technique that Professor McGrath mentioned called discovery driven planning that might help you succeed if you’re planning on trying to do something new. [00:22:00] The tool is defined as planning for a new venture by recognizing that there will be a lot of unknowns and envisioning outcomes. This technique has five steps. One, define success. Two, figure out if you’re being realistic. Three. Map out what operationally has to happen to get this thing to be a reality in the world. This leads us to four. You’re going to be making assumptions as you map out your plan to bring your vision to life, so make sure you document them so you don’t forget them and so you can double check if you’re still being realistic. And five. Plan around checkpoints, aka moments where you're going to learn something.
Three. Competition signals interest. So just because a market is saturated, it doesn’t necessarily mean you should give up on an idea. That’s where standing out is important and doing what others aren’t like Aaron and Whitney with Zulay Kitchen.

[00:23:00] Lastly, an important tip that was mentioned was knowing how to manage cash flow. Which is a topic that has come up often and we will actually be talking more in depth about it during upcoming episodes.

I'm curious – Have you been thinking about how you can differentiate your product? Or maybe you've already successfully done that. I'd love to hear about your journey! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, and I hope you are if you’re listening to This is Small Business. Or maybe you already have your small business up and running and you’re ready for the next step. A super valuable resource that can help you is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. Take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

That's it for today’s episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. [00:24:00] Until next week – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:24:20]

Ep 34: How to Find Your Ideal Price Point

Sep 26, 2023

Know how to price your product.

[00:00:00] MARK: I always put myself in the shoes of the buyer and say, what decision are they making? How are they making this decision? And that's how we figure out what's the price point we should be charging or approximately what's the price point we should be charging. A lot of companies use something we'll call cost-plus pricing. Oh, it costs me a dollar. I want to make 50 points of margin. Therefore, I charge $2 for it. But that has nothing to do with what your market's willing to pay. What if you have customers who would pay you $10 for that? Don't you want that? And so now we're thinking through; what's a customer really willing to pay. And that's what should be driving our pricing.

[00:00:42] ANDREA: So pricing is a little more complicated than just figuring out your cost-plus pricing. What you should be doing is trying to figure out how much your customer is willing to pay, but that's a lot easier said than done. So, let's figure out how we can get into the minds of our customers and if there's any other considerations a small business owner [00:01:00] needs to keep in mind when thinking about pricing.

[00:01:05] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is one of our Minisodes, which are shorter episodes packed with helpful information for those of you who want a quicker binge. On This is Small Business we cover all things small business that will help you start, build, and scale your business. You’ll hear from guests with diverse backgrounds, point of views and stories, with the hope of hearing from many types of small business entrepreneurs. On this episode we'll be talking about pricing and figuring out how to set prices for your products or services with Mark Stiving, Chief Pricing Educator of Impact Pricing. To learn more about him visit our website at thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com. Also, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:02:00] ANDREA: There's a lot to learn here so let's jump right into it, Mark, how do you think that a small business should think about pricing their product or service?

[00:02:05] MARK: The very first thing is what's your company strategy? Businesses will say my company strategy is I need to grow users so that I can get a higher valuation and get my next set of investors. In which case what we're trying to do is we're trying to put some relatively low price on our product because we want to show investors that people are willing to pay for it, but we want to keep the price low because we want to get as many users as possible. On the other hand, there are a lot of small businesses that are trying to grow more slowly. As in, I need to pay my bills while I'm growing my business. And in that case, we do what almost all large businesses do too. And that is understand what does value mean to our customers? What is value-based pricing? And to me, value-based pricing simply means charge what our customers are willing to pay.

[00:02:56] ANDREA: How do I figure out what my customer would be willing to pay?

[00:03:00] MARK: There's a lot of different statistical market research type things that companies can do. Possibly my favorite and easiest is Van Westendorp's Price Sensitivity Meter. It's been around since the 1960s. But they essentially ask four questions. First you describe the product as though you're trying to sell it. And then the four questions you ask are something like, at what price do you think this is so expensive you would never consider it? At what price do you think it's so cheap, you think the quality couldn't be very good? At what price do you think it's starting to get expensive, but you still might consider it? And at what price do you think it's a bargain, a good buy for the money? And of those four questions, the third one is absolutely the most important.

Let's call that technique that we're going to use for B2C type businesses. So if you're going to sell to a consumer, we really go after this concept of how much are you willing to pay for something. In the world of B2B, typically, when we sell a product to another business, [00:04:00] the only reason another business is going to buy something from us is because they're going to make more profit after they buy and use our product. Value to that business is what's the additional profit. When we know what that additional profit is, that guides us in understanding how much we're willing to charge for what it is that we're trying to sell as a general rule of thumb, if there's no competition in a deal and I'm trying to get somebody to do something new, they've never done before, I can typically charge in the ballpark of 10% of that number. Now, of course, once competition gets involved, that goes down but that's how we think about it in the world of B2B. How much more money are you going to make because of this product?

[00:04:42] ANDREA: Usually customers associate a higher price with a higher quality product. Should a small business start at a higher price point because of this assumption, or would that be too risky?

[00:04:52] MARK: Typically, what you want to do is try to sell at a higher price point. [00:05:00] And that's only because what you're trying to do is create a product that's better than your competitions. It is really, really hard to start, run and succeed at a business where your competitive advantage is we charge a lower price. So you want to be thinking about how do I differentiate my product? How do I differentiate my company? How am I better than my competitors? And then how do I get to charge for that? However, we often hear the saying, we should start pricing high because it's easier to lower a price than it is to raise a price. It's really true. If when you release a product, everybody knows you release this product at this price point. And now it's hard to raise that price because people will dislike you. On the other hand, if we're a small business, most people don't know our price points. So it's easy for us to come out at a lower price point, prove that nobody says no to us. Guess what? We better be raising our prices. People don't get upset because the new customers don't know what the original customers paid.

[00:05:58] ANDREA: How about when it’s a subscription model. [00:06:00] What are the differences in considerations that a small business should make there?

[00:06:05] MARK: If you have the ability to build a subscription business, then they get much higher valuations. It's easier to do your business. If you think about it at the end of a year. You've probably got 70% of next year's revenue already booked at the end of this year. But the real trick is once you've won new customers, now you have to focus on how do I keep my customers. And, by the way, in order to win a customer, they have to believe our value story. As soon as they buy and start using our product, they now know the real value of our products. We have to deliver on value. So it's no longer perceived value. When we've done a great job at delivering real value to those customers, then we start to focus on how do we grow those customers.

There's really four basic ways you can do that. You can raise their prices, which often isn't that hard to do on subscribers. [00:07:00] You can upsell them. We often do good, better, best packaging. And so what that means is that a customer who bought in at the good level, They want more capability. They upgrade to the better level or the best level. So now we're getting more revenue from them. Another one is cross sell. Maybe I've sold you one capability and now that you trust me and love me, you're willing to solve another problem with my technology, my capabilities. And then the fourth way to grow a customer is usage. And this has a lot to do with pricing because if we price our product in a way that, as a customer uses more, they pay more than as we get them to love and use our product more, they end up paying us more.

[00:07:45] ANDREA: How do you think that a small business can remain competitive while still growing when talking about price setting?

[00:07:50] MARK: One of the most important things any business, small business, big business can do is understand how their customers value their products. [00:08:00] And one of the most important decisions we have to deeply understand is; are they making a “will I” decision? Or a, “which one” decision. A “will I” decision is; am I going to buy something in that product category? A “which one” decision is, this typically happens, once I've decided I want to buy something in a product category, I then say, okay, which one am I going to go buy? This is really important because sometimes people don't look at competitive alternatives. And if we understand when that happens, we understand that our buyers are much less price sensitive and we're talking to them about the value of solving whatever problem it is they're trying to solve.

If they're going to compare my product to a competitor's product, now what I want to know is, how is my product better, different than my competitor's product? And what's the value of that to the market that I'm going after? If I were trying to remain very competitive, I would make sure that my products are always highly differentiated. [00:09:00] I would know which customers value that differentiation. And I would focus on selling to that specific set of customers because they value the things I do better than my competitors.

I work with companies all the time, and we create these things I call value tables, where we start with Well, what's your product? What's the solution that you've already built? What's a feature that people love that your salespeople talk about? You put it on your website because you think it's an amazingly great feature. What problem does it solve for your customers? But when you can say that really clearly, then you're starting to understand what your customers really value.

And then you ask yourself, okay, if a customer has this problem and they buy our solution, what's a quantitative result they might expect? Once you can create that, then it's typically business acumen in a B2B setting that says, how do I take this

result and say, here's how much more profit a company might achieve because they bought this feature of our product. [00:10:00] Now notice what I just did. Was put a dollar value on a feature. This is so important because not only does it help us set prices, but once we've learned how to do this, we're now only going to develop new features, new capabilities that actually have value to our customers.

[00:10:25] Host: That was Mark Stiving, Chief Pricing Educator of Impact Pricing. He talked about pricing and figuring out how to set prices for your products or services. As always, here are some quick key takeaways from this episode:

One. Figure out your company strategy. Are you trying to get more users and customers so you can impress investors? Then you'll probably want to lower your prices to increase your users. Or are you trying to pay your bills and grow your business? Because then, you'll have to figure out how much your customer is willing to pay for your product and charge that.
That leads us to, Two. When you're trying to figure out how much your customer is willing to pay for your product. [00:11:00] Try asking these four questions about your product or service: At what price do you think it’s so expensive you would never consider it? At what price do you think it's so cheap, you think the quality couldn't be good? At what price do you think it's starting to get expensive, but you might consider it? And at what price do you think it's a bargain?

That's it for this episode of This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone. Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:12:00]

Ep 33: How to Self-Publish a Book

Sep 19, 2023

Self-publish your book.

[00:00:00] JANE: It is exceptionally rare for anyone to make a living off book sales alone, especially if you're early in your career, if you're not a celebrity, if you're not already an influencer of some kind with brand recognition, then that first book that you put out there is just the first step of a very, very long journey. And I think many writers just have misplaced expectations about what those sales will look like regardless of how they publish, regardless of the genre. It is very hard to sell a book.

[00:00:35] Host: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. On This is Small Business we cover all things small business that will help you start, build, and scale your business. We will hear from guests with diverse backgrounds, point of views and stories, with the hope of hearing from many types of small business entrepreneurs. On each episode I end with key takeaways that you can use on your business journey.

[00:01:00] Aright, so you've written a book, and now you wanna share your stories with the world. The next big step on your journey as an author is to navigate the daunting world of publishing. Today, we'll demystify the process, step by step, to help you understand how to release your work to your readers aka your customers. From refining your manuscript to selecting where you wanna print your book, we will delve into the essential considerations that pave the way towards a successful book release.

Coming up -- I'll talk to Jane Friedman, a publishing industry expert, about how to start the process of publishing a book. But first -- I want you to meet Business owner, Naibe Reynoso, a journalist and the founder of Con Todo Press, a company that publishes and creates award-winning bilingual children’s books that amplify the stories and voices of underrepresented communities. Naibe is also a multi-Emmy award-winning journalist and author and has contributed to various regional and international networks. [00:02:00] Like most of the small businesses we feature on the show, you can find her books in the Amazon store. Also, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description. Here’s a question that one of our listeners had:

[00:02:25] VM: How do small businesses go about scaling? I feel like we’ve reached a point where we want to scale more and go to that next level but find it a bit difficult just because there’s not blueprint, but um, looking for some strategies and ideas on how to level up and go to that next level with your small business once you feel like you’re ready.

[00:02:42] Host: Scaling is something that a lot of the businesses that we have on the show are thinking about and it’s something that we also like to dive deep into because how you scale has a lot to do with your business model, how you’re set up, where you are in the journey of your business, and of course, resources available. We’ve talked about this subject on previous episodes [00:03:00] like the one with Back to the Roots that features Alejandro Velez and Nikhil Arora as well as Chuck Templeton. That episode talks about how they made the jump from small to medium. One of the key takeaways they mentioned through their journey to success is zigging when others zag. Since there is a lot of competition out there, it’s important to think about how you stand out and take risks. Don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis and seek advice from the people who are where you hope to be one day. We’ll also be talking about this subject on later episodes in this season so keep a look out. So let’s get this show on the road and meet Naibe!

[00:03:35] Naibe: So I'm a journalist. I've been a journalist for over 25 years and I feel like everything came together at the right time, right? The perfect storm. I'm a mom also. I walked into a bookstore and I took my son because I was really looking for something where he would feel represented, seen, [00:04:00] and he would feel pride in his culture because the climate at the time wasn't so warm and fuzzy for minorities, especially Latinos. So I really wanted him to get the other side of the story of how amazing we are as a culture and how many, how much we've contributed to the United States. But I did not find anything for his age range. Right. Between five- and eight-year-old age range. I found books for babies and I, there's obviously history books, but not for his age range.

So that's kind of where the seed was planted of why don't these books exist? Why can't I create them? I'm a journalist. I've been doing stories about my community, highlighting my community for over 20 years. I'm multiple Emmy award-winning journalist so I can do this. That's what, you know, that's what I was thinking. So that's how Con Todo Press was born. And even the naming, like give it your all. Con Todo.

[00:04:50] Andrea: I know this is going to sound cheesy, but, GRACIAS Naibe. As a Latina, this is so inspiring to hear. [00:05:00] Not only am I a Latina but I also LOVE books so this story is especially close to my heart. What I also love about your books is that they're both in English and Spanish. And as a bilingual myself, when I was little, I would've loved to have this because it was either, you read everything in English or you read everything in Spanish. And because I went to school in the United States, most of my reading was in English, so growing up my parents were always worried about me being able to speak Spanish correctly. And so I think instilling that is very important at a younger age. So, I want to jump into our topic today. The first step to publishing a book is, obviously, to write it. But what comes after that?

[00:05:40] Naibe: So after you write the book, you have to know what category is your book fit into, right? There's a lot of different categories, whether it's a board book, whether it's for five to seven or a little older, young adult romance, et cetera. So once you've, really narrowed down what that book that you wrote is for, what audience is it for, [00:06:00] the next step is finding a copy editor, right? You have to find a copy editor that's really gonna fine tune your words. Sometimes we feel like, but my words are perfect cuz it's my words. But this is a product that's gonna go out to hopefully thousands of people and you want the best work, right? So you hire a professional copy editor to look at your manuscript, the words that you've written, and to improve them, not only, with grammar, but also contextually like improve the script.

You might have a blind spot where you're not realizing that it doesn't make sense or this character, why is this character here, et cetera. So that's the next step. The way you find a copy editor is you go on different platforms such as Read Z, which is kind of like a Fiverr or an Upwork specifically for people in the publishing industry. And there you will find freelancers who have or still do work for big publishers and just are looking for extra work. [00:07:00] So I've found amazing publishers that have worked for the top publishers in the industry. So you really have that confidence of like, okay, this manuscript has been vetted by a true professional.

After it's been copy edited, looked at for grammar, et cetera. Then you hire your illustrator. Right now I'm talking specifically about children's books, but you still need an illustrator or a graphic designer, even if you have a romance novel, right? What's gonna be on the front cover? We'll go with the example of a kid's book. You need illustrations, so that's the next step. The way I've found my illustrators is different ways. One is, there's another platform called Behance, where illustrators put up their portfolios and you can skim through. But before you do that to save yourself some time, do a mood board as far as what kind of vibe do you want this book to have? There's so many different styles, right? So that way you don't waste your time looking at portfolios that aren't ultimately gonna be a good fit for your manuscript. [00:08:00] So you have to make the decision, is this gonna be watercolor, is this gonna be vivid colors? What style? Once you have that style and then you start looking at portfolios not only on Behance, which is an option, but also on Instagram. I have found some of my illustrators on Instagram, so you search the, the hashtags. I've wanted to work always with Latina or BIPOC illustrators. So I'll search hashtag Latina illustrator or also just illustrators. In that hashtag, so many different amazing illustrators come up. You make a list of all of your favorite ones based on that concept of your mood board, and then you reach out to them, and you see, do they have an agent? Are they just work for, hire, et cetera. So that would be the third step, right?

Hiring that illustrator, writing a contract, making sure that everything, you know, all your ducks are in a row because there's a lot of different elements that go into copyright and who's gonna own the artwork. So do you wanna own it? As a small self-publisher, if you do, [00:09:00] you have to do work for hire. And you have to put that into the contract where you're outright just purchasing the rights to their art. If you're gonna do royalty based, then you do a contract based on royalty. How much royalty are you gonna give them? Write that in the contract and be very clear. I personally did hire a publishing attorney, cuz I just wanted to make sure I did things the right way. I highly advise you to hire a publishing attorney so they can give you a template of contracts or look over a contract that you are going to have for the rest of your publishing life, right, with that specific illustrator.

[00:09:30] Andrea: Small pause here, and I bet you already know what I’m going to say listener. But we can’t stress enough how important it is to consult a legal professional. Know that none of the things mentioned on this episode should be taken as legal advice. We’re here to provide you with general information. So before you do anything, please seek qualified professional counsel on your specific matter. The hiring of an attorney is super important so don’t make that decision lightly or based solely on anything we cover today on this episode, or any other for that matter! [00:10:00] And if you want to learn more about hiring legal help, check out our third episode of this season with Cynthia Dahl, where she covers different types of free legal resources available to small business owners, or take a look at our show notes! Ok now, back to Naibe.

[00:10:17] Naibe: So after illustrations are done, contracts are signed. Now is the last step, which is the book formatter. And the book formatter, I like to call them the chef. The chef puts everything together, all of the ingredients. Right before that there's a tiny little step that seems complicated but isn't that complicated. Once you do your research, it's getting your ISBN, which is that barcode, that number in the back of the book that we all see that identifies your book, figuring out the price, getting your barcode, which is not difficult at all. And then submitting it for copyright. So after you have all of that, like I said, you get the chef, which is the book formatter, [00:11:00] who gets all those ingredients together, gets your manuscript or your text, the illustrations, puts them together, your copyright information, your author's note if you have one, and then, basically gives you this document that's a PDF format and that is your print ready PDF format and now you're ready to go to print.

So you can decide whether you wanna do print on demand or if you wanna go and do an offset printing with any printer either in the United States, there's printers all over the world that you can work with. I print through Amazon, but I also print through an offset printer in China. But I do have print on demand through Amazon which is a really, really cool tool because with print on demand, if you don't have a lot of money to fork out thousands of dollars for offset printing, you don't have to, you could just write your book and then put it up on the Amazon KDP platform, Kindle Direct Publishing, and they will print the book as people order the book. [00:12:00] You don't have to mail the book, you don't have to even process shipping, nothing. All you have to do is upload it onto the platform and then you receive a royalty depending on how many books were sold in a period of time. Every month I get a royalty from Amazon, from all the print on demand copies that are sold. So it's an amazing, amazing platform cuz it's like you literally set it and forget it, you know? It's, it's like pretty much just money that's coming in. You've front-loaded all the work, and now the rewards just are gonna come for the rest of my life. Basically On KDP.

So that's the last step. And then obviously putting out, releasing it finally and promoting it.

[00:12:42] Andrea: Thank you for taking us all the way through. Ok so let’s unpack a bit. You mentioned that the first step you have to go through is finding an editor, and you talked about where you can find that editor in different places. And then after that you found an illustrator. [00:13:00] You specifically found illustrators that aligned with the content of the book and could carry out your vision. And then after that you got a publishing lawyer, you figured out what your ISBN code is, found a printer, and then you finally published it, mainly through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. I want to know more about the ISBN, and that stands for the International Standard Book Number, as I just quickly searched, and the process of getting that.

[00:13:26] Naibe: That little ISBN number seemed the most intimidating because it's like, that looks so official. Do I have to take a test to get one of those numbers? Do I have to be certified? Like how do I get an ISBN? And it's as simple as going to BOWKER.com, create an account, and literally you can have an ISBN right then and there within minutes because all you have to do is pretty much tell them what's the name of your book, how many pages, what audience it is, what you're selling it for, and bam, it'll spit out the ISBN number and there you go. [00:14:00] You do need an ISBN in order to publish a book, it's an identifier if you wanna sell on Amazon, or if you wanna sell to a different small bookstore or libraries. All of these need that official number because that's how they identified it within their system, and it's kind of like a uniform system, identifying system that everyone uses.

So yes, you definitely need it. And then another number, some people don't get it, but I always get it, is the LCCN number, which is a library of Congress control number. And that's super easy to get too. But the LCCN is basically the identifying number that all libraries use for their system. So it's good to like get all those numbers so your book feels and is official, official, official. And it's not just pieces of paper bound by stitching. It actually has all the numbers that all of these different institutions will want to use for their categorizing systems, et cetera.

[00:15:00] Host: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. You just heard from Naibe Reynoso, a Journalist and the Founder of Con Todo Press. You can find out more about Con Todo Press in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

Naibe gave us so much valuable information on the process of publishing a book. And she made even the technical intimidating parts of publishing - like getting your ISBN or LCCN easy. And I love that she shared her experience with printing her books via Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. It’s helpful to know just how easy and seamless the process can be.

Like Con Todo Press, the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business are some of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. [00:16:00] You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

So far, we've talked about the process of publishing a book and we'll dig deeper into other considerations that you might need to make before you publish your work with my next guest: Jane Friedman, a publishing industry expert with nearly 25 years of work experience in the industry. Here’s Jane.

[00:16:30] JANE: I've spent 25 years working in the publishing industry in some capacity. I started out on the traditional publishing end, but about 10 years ago I went full time freelance. I run my own small business which focuses on helping writers navigate the book publishing industry, and also the, what I'll call the emerging creator economy, but mainly, I'm helping people understand the business, because publishing isn't necessarily the most transparent business in the world.

[00:17:00] Andrea: We just talked to Naibe Reynoso about her experience writing her books and went through the step-by-step process. I’m curious if your steps align. What is the next step you think an author should take as soon as they finish writing the book?

[00:17:12] JANE: I think it really helps to have a cooling off period. Usually the first impulse of writers after finishing a book, the first draft is to submit it somewhere, or to show someone. And I think, if you are the normal author, if you're like 99% of most authors, you're gonna need to revise it in some way and usually it's, it's not that I think you have to run off and hire an editor, or find a critique group, or find beta readers, which of course you can do all those things, but I think the most valuable thing you can do is just let it sit for a little while, whether that's a week or a month, so that you can look at it with fresh eyes and decide: What have I missed? Where do I feel like I need to address some issues? What do I feel confident about? And then proceed from there.

[00:18:00] Andrea: You work with authors to help them understand the business of publishing. What are some of the first considerations an aspiring author should make if they’re looking to make a profitable business out of writing books?

[00:18:12] JANE: It is exceptionally rare for anyone to make a living off book sales alone, especially if you're early in your career, if you're not a celebrity, if you're not already an influencer of some kind with brand recognition, then that first book that you put out there is just the first step of a very, very long journey. And I think many writers just have misplaced expectations about what those sales will look like regardless of how they publish, regardless of the genre. It is very hard to sell a book. And what I find is that a lot of writers will short circuit. They'll put in a lot of time and energy into selling that first book, treating it as a sprint rather than a marathon, and then they give up. [00:19:00] They might even abandon writing altogether because they're like, What? There aren't any rewards here. I essentially got paid one cent per hour, and actually that might even be a good rate. And so you have to look at the bigger picture of how this book is going to support your career, your visibility, and some other ways that you might earn money as a result of now having this book.

Now the answer to that is, what the business model will be is going to differ, whether you're fiction, nonfiction, children's, etc. But I think every writer has to give some thought to what that business model will be, which will include book sales, but book sales is typically a very small percentage to start.

[00:19:36] Andrea: Because we spoke to Naibe who writes children’s books, what business model would you suggest for someone who just wrote their first children's book? And what I'm hearing is that it has to do with volume, right? Like don't expect the first one to just hit it out of the park. You kind of write a lot of them, it sounds like.

[00:19:55] JANE: Yes, yes, regardless of what you're writing, it helps to have a series, [00:20:00] it helps to have spinoffs, it helps to build over time the number of books you have in your library as an author. But aside from that, in the children's market in particular, one thing most authors love to do is library visits, classroom visits, other visits like that, that sometimes come with an honorarium or a speaking fee, other times they don't. But if you are comfortable in that role as a speaker or a teacher, that to me is like the number one path that I would be looking at. But, you know, the thing is you have to remember until you're an author with some name recognition, it can be tough to get that payment with your very first outings and so you may have to do some things on a free basis or for less money than you would like as you gain experience, and the word starts to spread about what you do.

[00:20:53] Andrea: Are there any technical elements that you think a lot of people don't think about prior to trying to sell a book?

[00:21:00] JANE: The book foundation is very important, and what I mean by foundation, aside from the content or the story itself, is like all of the things that go into the package and into how that book is going to be discovered. So it includes things like the title, the cover design, the subtitle, if there is one very important for nonfiction, the pricing, the format, the page count, all of these things when you put them together. It turns it into a title that people are often assessing against other titles that they know, and so it's really to your benefit as an author if your book abides by whatever the industry standards seem to be for your category, and so it helps to look at those comparable titles, comparable authors, to see if you're in the ballpark of what readers are expecting or looking for in your genre or your category.

And then there's another level beyond that, which helps with discoverability, which has to do with keywords, categories, some people refer to this as the metadata, which is just a fancy word for how books get discovered, [00:22:00] especially in online environments and the book description itself and some of the different ways that you describe a book and retail a book at places like Amazon. You know, there are things like customer reviews and professional or editorial reviews and other assets that go into making a better presentation for your book, what it's about, who it's for. And so what I sometimes see is authors will just take the first thing that pops into their head for like the back cover copy, which often ends up on the book description page or the retailer page, and they haven't really put much thought into is this saying something that's persuasive or effective in an online environment, especially if people can't pick up the book or, you know, flip through it very easily. Am I hitting on the keywords or the phrases or the terms that people would be searching for when they're presented with an online bookstore environment?

And so, this is really, I think, the [00:23:00] shortcut to all of this, of knowing what is the right thing to do, is understanding those comparable titles and authors, seeing what they've done, and pulling out, you know, the things that are going to make sense for your book given the genre or category that you're in. This is one area where you don't want to break the mold or be different from everyone else, especially in fiction and in children's literature, people tend to like more of the same or they're shopping for very particular likes and they want clues, signals that, oh yes, this book is for me because it's going to have that great thrilling twist at the end, which you would mention in your book description. So I consider these fairly technical issues where you can actually hire people to help you, or if you do enough study and research, you can handle it on your own.

[00:23:50] Host: Judging a book by its cover in the publishing industry is real. That was Jane Friedman, a publishing industry expert with nearly 25 years of work experience in the industry. [00:24:00] Thank you for listening today -- As always, let’s end the episode with some of our key takeaways on self-publishing your first book:

One. Take a breather. Once you've finished writing your book. Let it sit for a while and come back to it after a week or even a month to revise it. Taking a break from your writing will help you look at it with fresh eyes and spot some mistakes that perhaps you didn't before.
Two. After that breather, Naibe gave a great timeline of what you should do when you've decided that your book is ready to publish, so let's quickly go over it. One. Decide the genre of your book. Once you've narrowed it down then you can move on to Two. Get a Copy Editor that'll help you fine tune your words and make sure your book is ready to be seen by hopefully thousands of people. You can find a copy editor on different platforms like Red Z. And Jane did mention that you should make sure your copy editor is the right fit for you and that might take a bit of time to find. But it’s worth it. [00:25:00] Then, we move on to Three. Hire an illustrator or a graphic designer. You can find them on sites like Behance or even Instagram, but before you look through examples of their works, make sure you create a mood board of what you want your illustrations or book cover to look like so it's a lot easier to pinpoint what you want when you're looking through their work. Four. Get your ISBN and LCCN codes, it's as easy as making an account on bowker.com and the Library of Congress and uploading your work. And finally five. Figure out your printer, there are tons of options to print your book. You can find a local printer and/or use Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.
One last key point mentioned was discoverability. Descriptions and titles are important to help your audience find your book. Jane suggests that you should do research on what other books in your genre look like and try to emulate that. Do judge a book by its cover in this case.

[00:26:00] I'm curious – Are you thinking of publishing a book? How are thinking of printing it? Or maybe you’ve already gone through this experience and have self-published many books! I'd love to hear about your journey! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

That's it for today’s episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Until next week – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening! [00:27:00]

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:27:15]

Ep 32: How to Hire Your First Employee

Sep 12, 2023

Hire your first employee.

[00:00:02] Keirsten: What are the things that you don't need to do? And I think some of those are not just unique to me being a recruiter, but things like scheduling, things like putting up social content, things like, you know, things that are taking up my time that are also taking away from my real subject matter expertise. So it's the things that you have to give up. And then again, I think it's a matter of looking at, you know what, I'm turning down a lot of work and I would be able to do these other things, these cool, fun things, if I had some help, if I had some assistance in these areas. There comes a time when you do need to scale and you can bring those things in house and do them under the banner of your own brand.

[00:00:48] Andrea: So, you'll know when you need to hire an employee when it starts to affect your workflow and you find yourself turning down opportunities because you're too busy doing work that someone else can take on. [00:01:00] So as a next step, I want us to talk about how to go about hiring employees when you’re first starting the process as a small business.

[00:01:08] HOST: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is one of our Minisodes, which are shorter episodes packed with helpful information for those of you who want a quicker binge. On this episode we'll be talking about hiring and digging deep into key considerations you should make when you’re first starting to hire employees for your small business with Keirsten A. Greggs, the Founder & Principal Talent Acquisition Consultant of TRAP Recruiter. To learn more about her visit our website at thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com. Also, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:01:50] Keirsten: I'm Kirsten Greggs, originally from South Jersey. I am a talent acquisition consultant and founder of Trap Recruiter LLC, [00:02:00] which is a small black woman owned business that bridges the gap between job seekers and employers who are looking for historically excluded talent. I bring trust, relationship building, accountability, and a proactive approach back into the recruiting life cycle. And that's what the TRAP acronym actually stands for.

[00:02:20] Andrea: Jumping right in here, given your expertise, what are some considerations you think small business owners should make when hiring, especially if there isn't an HR team yet and it’s some of their first hires?

[00:02:33] Keirsten: Well, you definitely need to consider the “why” you need to hire someone. Do you even need someone to fill a new role? You need to decide if it's going to be a longer-term position, meaning you're going to actually develop that person and they're going to have opportunities to grow into either an adjacent role or go up the ladder in some way. [00:03:00] You have to think about how much money you have to spend and how much of that is going to be dedicated to the recruitment of people. You can look at your networks and say, you know, do I know someone who can maybe take, take this role on for, like I said, if it's just going to be a short-term project, a few months or so you might, you know, do better just reaching out to a staffing company that, you know, has a bunch of people who can fill that role for you. So cost is always a consideration.

Time is always a consideration, like how quickly you need to do it. And again, thinking about time, not just in hiring, but thinking about time and retention as well. I think a lot of us, regardless of the size of our companies, we don't think about retaining talent as much as we think about hiring them with like, let's get them in the door, but then we have no plan for them once they get there. So retention is also going to have to be a consideration when you're looking to hire people. And then, you know, the type of work schedule, all those things like, you know, am I going to advertise? Am I going to spend money? [00:04:00] Am I going to create things? And first and foremost is knowing the why. So did we win a new contract? Or, you know, do we have so much work that the current employees are overwhelmed and they're not working up to their previous level of output. Are we having to turn down business?

Because again, we don't want to overload our existing employees to the point that they don't want to work for us anymore and they go someplace else. And then again, just think about is there someone internally who is maybe , a web designer who likes to do other things, and is good at it and they want to transition into a different type of role or the role that they were initially hired to do is, I don't want to say obsolete, but no longer gives them the satisfaction and again, no longer gives the organization the value it did when you were a startup or when you were at a different time frame in your organization. [00:05:00] So, there's a lot of considerations, but the one thing I do want to caution folks on, for the small businesses that I do support, be aware of like how big you are and don't try to compete with a company that has 20, 000 employees when you have 20 employees, you're not going to go about the hiring process in the same way that they are.

[00:05:22] Andrea: How do you think that small business owners can go about finding the right fit when evaluating applicants? What types of questions should they be asking?

[00:05:30] Keirsten: I ask people in every phone screen, what their must haves are. Because a lot of people don't think about that, like, what do you want from the role? What attracted you to this position? That's a great question for anybody. And there are ways to garner interest above, again, you're like the up-and-coming small business, you're a great place to work. People have heard great things about you, but you know, that person may not really be connected to the work. [00:06:00] So they talk about it in more lofty ways, like, Oh, I just want to work here or I'll do anything, you know, when they give those kinds of answers, you know, there may be someone who's better suited, but asking questions that are generalized or can be applied regardless of the role, like I said, what are your must haves, like, what are your deal breakers? What are you looking for your next role? What attracted you to this position? And you will get the answer that you're looking for from the right person or persons.

Also think about retention, like if you're going to hire someone, I'm going to say it every time I get an opportunity, always think about retention and what that really means for you. Like, how long do you really want this person or how long do you really want these employees to be in your organization? Again, do you have a plan for them to develop? And if not, how are you going to help them to move on to their next step?

[00:06:52] HOST: That was Keirsten, the Founder & Principal Talent Acquisition Consultant of TRAP Recruiter. She talked about key considerations you should keep in mind when hiring employees, [00:07:00] especially as you’re making your first hires. As always, here are some quick key takeaways from this episode:

One. For a small business without an HR department, hiring can seem daunting. So before you go out and look for an employee, think about why you want to hire someone. Maybe you could get away with outsourcing help or freelancing. Kiersten suggested that you know when it’s time to hire your first employee once you’re missing out on opportunities because of doing work that someone else could be doing. Think about time and cost and evaluate the benefits of adding someone to your team.
Two. Retention. When you decide you want to hire someone, retention is just as important - if not even more important - than the hiring process. An important question to ask a potential employee is: what are their must haves for this job? And then think about the plan you have for them to develop once you hire them.

[00:08:00] That's it for this episode of This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so please please please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone. Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:08:45]

Ep 31: Why You Should Protect Your Intellectual Property

Sep 5, 2023

Protect your brand.

[00:00:00] Jeannell: I still run into customers to this day that say, I've been looking for you all these years. I didn't know what happened, and we thought we did a good job announcing it and sharing it, but apparently not. Some of our customers, they were like, why did you change the name? How dare you take it away? You know, all these businesses are selling out. I mean, they just assumed all kinds of things were happening, and we were like, listen, I'm still the owner. It's still the same product, it's just a new name. But they didn't believe it. They didn't trust it. They were endeared to it. That was the first time that I realized how connected people get to a brand and how much it means to people.

[00:00:38] HOST: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. On This is Small Business we cover all things small business that will help you start, build, and scale your business. We will hear from guests with diverse backgrounds, point of views, and stories, with the hope of hearing from many types of small business entrepreneurs. On each episode I end with key takeaways [00:01:00] that you can use on your business journey. Today, we talk about protecting your brand. Something that a lot of small businesses tend to brush over is protecting their IP or intellectual property. But if you want your business to grow and to have a competitive edge then safeguarding your IP is essential to your success. So, how do you protect your IP? At what point in your business journey should you start thinking about it? And what are some of the consequences you could face if you decide to put it off?

Coming up -- I'll talk to Cynthia Dahl, Practice Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, about how you can protect your intellectual property. But first -- I want you to meet Jeannell Darden, CEO of Moisture Love, a vegan beauty brand that helps women love their curls and you can find their products in the Amazon store along with most of the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business. So the reason I was also really excited to talk to Jeannell about Moisture Love is because, [00:02:00] Moisture Love actually used to be under a different name -- Cocoa Curls. But as her business grew, Jeannell had to change her brand name because of copyright issues and although her business is still doing great, changing her brand definitely impacted her. If you’re at the stage of thinking about the name of your business, logo, and brand identity, then this episode is especially for you.

We’re going to talk a lot about lawyery things on this episode, so just know that none of the things mentioned on this episode should be taken as legal advice. We’re here to provide with general information. So before you do anything, please seek qualified professional counsel on your specific matter. The hiring of an attorney is super important so don’t make that decision lightly or based solely on anything we cover today on this episode, or any other for that matter!

And lastly, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:03:00] Jeannell: So I like to tell people I've been in the beauty industry since I was a child. My mom's a licensed cosmetologist. She taught me how to do hair at 10. Most people have chores, like sweeping floors and doing dishes, and my chore was to do my hair, my mom's hair, and my sister's hair every Saturday. So I learned to love beauty. And then the summer before high school, my mom had gave me a relaxer. And because I'm a professional at this point, I colored my hair just two weeks afterward, and it broke off really bad. And for three years I held onto this damaged hair while I was matriculating through Georgia Tech. I took an African American entrepreneurship class. We had a project where we had to do a writeup on a famous CEO and I chose Madam CJ Walker, and I was so inspired by her story and how she fixed her hair challenges with her products. I was like, oh, surely, I can do the same thing.

[00:03:53] Andrea VO: For those of you who don’t know, Madam CJ Walker is recorded as the first Black woman millionaire in America. [00:04:00] She ran her own haircare empire and was inspired to create her hair products after experiencing hair loss. She came up with a treatment knows as the Walker System and sold her homemade products directly to Black women. If you don’t know her full story, I encourage you to check it out. Back to Jeannell’s story.

[00:04:16] Jeannell: So I started summer of 2011, we launched my first brand, which was called Cocoa Curls. We went through a crazy trademark opposition that lasted like three years, and then in 2016 we rebranded to Moisture Love and we named the brand Moisture Love because moisture is the number one challenge that women with curly hair have, and loving and embracing their beauty and feeling good about their hair is a close second similar to how I felt when my hair was damaged and broken off. So now our mission is to help women with curly hair find joys and ease in loving their curls.

[00:04:50] Andrea: Tell me more about your experience with trademark opposition with Cocoa Curls. What happened there and why did it happen?

[00:04:55] Jeannell: It was intense. So someone had told me, hey, you need to trademark your brand. [00:05:00] And so this being my first real business, cuz I've been an entrepreneur since middle school. I sold candy to pay for my trip to go to New York, and so I just go to the state trademark office and I paid $10 and I filled out the paperwork and I'm like, oh, cool. I did that. Check. But then I think I was working with a mentor or someone and they were like, do you have your national trademark? I was like, yeah. And I showed it to them and they're like, no, that's just your state trademark. Um, and so we filed our USPTO trademark, um, and we had gone through the process, updated, uploaded everything, and we, there's this period called opposition. Where in the last, I think it's six months for anybody to oppose your trademark to give any reason. It's kind of like at a wedding where there's like, if anybody objects to them getting married. And we had one week left and we received a cease and desist from another company saying that they had first use before us and that they were opposing it. And that was the beginning of our journey. And crazy enough that was sent to me the day that I was in the hospital having my second daughter. [00:06:00] So it was like, Happy Birthday to her. This is what I had to deal with on that day, so it was a lot.

[00:06:05] Andrea: That’s terrible! Sorry you had to go through that. But also what a hard intense lesson to learn right? I mean you had to change the name of your brand, and that probably influenced not just your rebranding, but your relationship with your customers.

[00:06:22] Jeannell: Yes, it did. It did. I still run into customers to this day that say, oh, you're Cocoa Curls. I've been looking for you all these years. I didn't know what happened, and we thought we did a good job announcing it and sharing it, but apparently not. Some of our customers, they were like, why did you change the name? We love the name and the Cocoa Curls lady. It came with a character. So she was a character, and she was really cute with curly hair. We love the logo, we love the Cocoa Curls lady. How dare you take it away. You know, all these businesses are selling out. I mean, they just assumed all kinds of things were happening, and we were like, listen, I'm still the owner. [00:07:00] It's still the same product, it's just a new name. But they didn't believe it. They didn't trust it. They were endeared to it. That was the first time that I realized how connected people get to a brand and how much it means to people.

[00:07:10] Andrea: When you rebranded to Moisture Love, what were some of the considerations you made in terms of trademarks and protection now that you know more about it?

[00:07:20] Jeannell: So, well, first I'd like to tell everybody I'm not a lawyer, didn't go to law school. Four years of engineering, really five years of engineering nails it. So definitely consult a trademark attorney. And actually that is the first thing I will say. Consult a trademark attorney on the front end. Um, a lot of times as small business owners, we get really personally endeared to a name, a brand, a color, a look, a feel, and before you get too far in that process, just make sure it's safe, especially if you plan on having a big business. So otherwise, if your goal is just to be a mom and pop and do, you know, farmer's markets, nothing wrong with it, not bashing it at all, then maybe it's not that important. But if you intend on having a hundred-billion-dollar brand that I intend on having, then you definitely wanna make sure you consult someone on the front end.

[00:08:00] The second thing is understand what the brand means to you and what you intend for it to mean to other people. Like, where are you going? What's the, what's the mission, vision, values, what's the, what's the purpose? What's the pain point that you're solving and how can that name easily connect and resonate with the people that you intend to serve, not sell to, but serve. And if you think about a brand, as I'm positioning myself to serve someone, then it really kind of changes the mindset with which you go into thinking about how you name it.

[00:08:30] Andrea: So once you consulted that trademark lawyer, did you do anything differently when thinking through that rebranding that you didn't do the first time around?

[00:08:40] Jeannell: I did a lot differently. So the second time around it was like, how can the name tell a story? So like I said in the beginning, moisture is the number one challenge that women with curly hair have. Loving and embracing themselves is a close second. I wanted the brand to invite the feeling of love and, and beauty and confidence. [00:09:00] Oftentimes women with curly hair feel like they have to cover it up, cut it, color, change it to be something else. So that played a huge part. What are the colors? What do the colors mean? I actually consulted with a brand consultant to help me think through this, cuz I wouldn't have known to think through this the second time. How are we gonna position this brand? How can we make sure that when they see the brand, that it feels inclusive to them? Is it gonna just be domestic? Is it gonna be international? Like how, how do we play out all those things? How do we spell it in a way that's easy for people to spell? And it's not so long and complicated, so we had all kinds of other names that got kicked off the list for different reasons.

[00:09:40] Andrea: When you thought about that name, it’s meaning, and felt in a confident spot to adopt it, at what point did you start the trademark process?

[00:09:48] Jeannell: Immediately. Immediately. Because everything about trademarks in the US is about first use date, right? So for instance, with us, had there been somebody who could prove back in 1989, [00:10:00] they sold a hair product under the name Moisture Love and never trademarked it, then they could oppose my trademark right now to this day, or at least during that process. And they could have shown their paperwork, they could have shown their bill of sale. And I wouldn't have been able to select that name. So the moment that you know the name that you wanna go with, you can file an intent to sell. So even if you know you're not gonna sell for another six months, you can file a 10 sentence and sell. And you wanna be able to document that as early as possible.

[00:10:32] Andrea: Are there any other things you had to do to protect your brand apart from filing for a trademark?

[00:10:36] Jeannell: You file your trademark. Um, you make sure you have all your legal, uh, docs in place, so your LLC, your EIN, your operating agreement, all those types of things. You make sure when you file your trademark, it's clear who owns your trademark. So do you the individual own it? Does the company own it? Does some other entity own it? That's really important because typically when you go to sell your company, people kind of think of your company and the brand as one of the same, but they're really kind of mutually exclusive. [00:11:00] Cuz you can have company A with six brands and maybe only brand three has any real value. So it's very important to make sure that you own the brand ie the trademark and you're clear on who owns that so that if you ever did a transfer of ownership, the person who's buying knows that they have clear use in ownership to that brand, if that makes sense.

[00:11:23] Andrea: Ok so once I’ve done all of that, then I’m done right?

[00:11:28] Jeannell: Know that it's not done. Just when you file it, you still have to every five years prove that you're still using it and go back in and refile it and submit more paperwork. So know that it's not done. Certain things you keep an eye out for you, keep a process in place to make sure you stay on top of it. And then, yeah, every brand you think of, trademark it. You may have a brand that sells the product, but you may have another brand that you know, you do YouTube videos under, or a class that you teach under. Just trademark it all. It's worth it. And if you start selling internationally, know that you're not protected internationally just cuz you're protected domestically. [00:12:00] It may not matter initially, like if you're just sending a couple of cases of product to somewhere. But if you are really an international brand with international distribution, then you need to do international trademark for the EU, for Africa, for Australia, for wherever it is that you're doing business, that you want to be protected.

Because what can happen is, people in another country can be making your product, shipping it into the US and there's ways to also protect against that or to check against that. But what people will start doing is knocking off your product. So getting it made somewhere else. Sending it in across the border and selling it here. And they will take your label and duplicate it word for word font for font, placement for placement. Um, but you can put certain protections on your brand that when anything is entering in the country at the border, they can check to see, okay, is this actually coming from Moisture Love or is it coming from somebody else? And I don't know that every case can be found, but it can be caught. But I know a lot of them can.

[00:13:00] Host: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. You just heard from Jeannell Darden, CEO of Moisture Love. You can find out more about Moisture Love in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

Jeannell's journey was definitely a difficult one but I'm glad that she was able to overcome it and protect her current brand name against any other trademark issues in the future. She talked a lot about how the customer connects to the brand, so making sure you find a name that'll resonate with your customers is super important. And as soon as you get that name, make sure you trademark asap.

Like Moisture Love, the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business are some of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. [00:14:00] You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

So far, we've talked about Jeannell's journey with copyright and trademark and how she's currently protecting herself against any future issues. So let's dig deeper into the process of what that looks like with my next guest: Cynthia Dahl, Practice Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.

[00:14:35] Cynthia: I've been an I. P. lawyer for 20 years and tech lawyer. I started straight out of law school at a law firm where I did some litigation. And then after a couple of years of that, I recognized that I really liked transactional law. So I went in house for a while. And then after that, I decided I wanted to pivot and teach. And so I've been a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Carey Law School, now for about 10 years.

[00:15:00] Andrea: Let’s jump right in, Cynthia, what do you think are some of the considerations founders should make in terms of trademark and protection?

[00:15:06] Cynthia: So IP stands for intellectual property. And the way that we think about it really is IP is a business tool. It's whatever is the asset of your company that helps you to compete with your competition, whatever's special about your goods or your service. So trademark is a kind of IP, or more accurately, I guess, trademark is an IP protection tool. People have brands to identify them as the source of a good or a service and trademark protection is the way that you protect that brand and keep others from using your brand in a confusing way. I think that small business owners should think about their IP even more broadly than trademark. I would say really that they've got three questions to answer. And the first question is what makes me special? [00:16:00] What makes my small business faster, better, cheaper, my product better than my competitors. And that's where they should start thinking about using IP protection. So the first question I guess is to identify the asset.

And the second is to then match the asset to the tool because trademark is a great tool to protect brands, but we also think about patents. We also think about copyrights, patents protect processes, copyrights protect content and trade secret actually is useful to protect things like data, or important information. So first, identify the asset. Second, identify the tool that would best protect the asset. And then third, then talk to a lawyer about how to use that tool effectively. And so, although small business owners may not be thinking about IP first, it is critical to think about IP when they want to compete with a competitor and roll their product out.

[00:16:52] Andrea: So do you think a small business owner should look at intellectual property protection as an iterative process? Something continuous? [00:17:00] This makes me think of all the large companies that change their names throughout the years to reflect the landscape.

[00:17:08] Cynthia: So I think it's an iterative process. I think that small business owners are wise to think about it at various times of their company's growth because as you grow, you change and then your needs change. Things happen, you roll out new products, you find a new competitor and then you need to revisit these questions. But I would say if a small business owner starts in the beginning to think about what they're hoping to do, then they can think about how to use IP to help them to grow. So I would say start in the beginning thinking about these things and then come back to it as the company grows and changes. But as soon as the small business owner comes up with a name for their good or their service, they're already starting to think about their IP. IP should come early, but IP protection shouldn't come first. First, the small business owner needs to think about their product and their market and to make sure they've got something that, [00:18:00] that people want to use or to buy. But as soon as that small business owner starts investing in developing that product, then they should start thinking about what they should protect.

[00:18:15] Andrea: What’s something about the process of protecting your brand that you think small business owners could be confused by, especially if this is their first business?

[00:18:23] Cynthia: There's a difference between what you call your company and what you might call your good or your service and so there are actually two different registries, and I think a lot of early-stage entrepreneurs get this confused. They think if they pick a name for their company and then they register to do business, say in the state of Pennsylvania, where I am, that they also have locked down their trademark rights. But that's not true. You can call your company one thing and call your good or your service something else. And what you call your good or your service is your brand. And so I think once you, as the small business owner, [00:19:00] decide on a trademark, which is the source identifier for your good or your service, then you should look and see if anyone else is calling their good or service the same name or a similar name. And if they have registered with the U. S. government for trademark rights. And there is a website that people can go on. It's USPTO.gov, which stands for United States Patent and Trademark Office, dot gov. And if you go on that website, you can search to see if anyone else has registered for the same name that you're interested in using to mark your good or service.

[00:19:34] Andrea: So, if you’ve done it for the name of the product or service, do you have to do the same thing for the company name, as in the owner of the good or service?

[00:19:42] Cynthia: When you register to do business you go on to the Secretary of State website and you, again, can't register the same name company as somebody else already has in your State. So it's a different registry for a different purpose, but you do similarly have to pick a unique name.

[00:20:00] Andrea: So, thinking about Moisture Love, Jeannell didn't fully learn the process of intellectual property protection until she was in a bit of trouble. And it affected her customers who recognized her brand, who already bought her products because they thought that they were discontinued or didn't exist anymore. And it felt like she was starting all over again. What are your thoughts on going through a situation like hers?

[00:20:24] Cynthia: That is not the first time I've heard that and when that happens to our entrepreneurial clients, it's so sad. So we try to really help them to get ahead of that and I think that's where your question came from, where you were saying, like, should IP come first? Should IP protection come first? And I would say very soon in the process before you lose your heart to a name. You should see if it's even viable and you raised a really good point to that. I think it's important to talk about. So when you talked about the trademark Apple, many people know of that trademark affiliated with a, you know, a computer company, [00:21:00] but you could also imagine that there might be an Apple daycare in a local place. And so how is it that the Apple daycare is able to use Apple and not get sued by the computer company? And the answer to that is that trademarks are class specific.

So the world is divided into 45 classes and you really want to be careful of anyone that has the same or a similar name in your class for the same kind of good or service. Because trademarks are all about trying to keep the consumer from being confused. And so you could see that a consumer would be confused if two companies with the same name are selling very similar products. So it's best if you can pick what we call a distinctive name that distinguishes you from everyone else that's selling similar products in your market. And sometimes, the reason that you have three different companies battling over the same or similar name is because the name was descriptive to begin with. [00:22:00] And the more distinctive the name is that you come up with, the more likely you are that no one else is going to be marketing under the same or similar name.

[00:22:08] Andrea: So something that came up in the conversation with Jeannell was registering your business name, your logo, or both. What are your thoughts on that? Are you supposed to also register your logo?

[00:22:18] Cynthia: When you say register your business name, again, we come back to that point of registering a business name is different from registering your brand name. And so as long as we're talking about the same thing. So, should you register both? You should register whatever you are using as a brand, and you've got some choices. And it's always about cost benefit for small business owners, right? Limited money in the beginning, especially. And so you're trying to get the most coverage you can with the least amount of cost. So, if you use the logo separately from the name, then I would say you should think about registering both.

[00:23:00] Sometimes people use the name in conjunction with the logo. If you always use them together, know, and you have coverage over at least the name, you know, you have some coverage over your branding, but filing trademark applications is not that expensive, even for a small business owner. It's not like patents where it's thousands of dollars. It also doesn't take a ton of time to get feedback from the USPTO about whether or not you're going to get a registration. So our advice generally to small business owners is to register what they are using consistently for identifying their brand, for identifying their goods or service so if you like your logo and you want to protect it, I would say, yeah, register for your logo.

[00:23:44] Andrea: Any last thoughts?

[00:23:46] Cynthia: So I'd like to just get back to what I said before, which is that it's good to educate yourself and to revisit these questions over time because needs of businesses change, find someone that has some knowledge about IP protection [00:24:00] that also understands the needs of small businesses and can give you some advice about again, how to get sort of the maximum coverage for the minimum price while you're growing, not closing out any options in the future.

[00:24:16] Host: Ending by reminding us to get the specific help we need, especially if it’s legal or financially related. And I was curious to know just how much a small business could expect to spend on getting legal help. It all depends on your specific needs and I asked Cynthia her thoughts on this, and she mentioned that typically you pay an hourly rate. There are also IP clinics that can help early-stage entrepreneurs that can do it for free or the client pays the cost of the government fee only. There is a list of these resources you can find at USPTO.gov and in in the show notes of this episode.

And Cynthia also wanted me to share another resource you could tap for something like this. A simple trademark filing tool you can find at [00:25:00] www.pennipc.com. Penn with double n. It has two parts - the first guided interview helps entrepreneurs understand if they should file a trademark application and the second guided interview walks entrepreneurs through an annotated version of the USPTO application.  

So many resources available!

That was Cynthia Dahl, Practice Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Thank you for listening today. As always, let’s end the episode with some of our key takeaways on understanding intellectual property protection:

One. I know I’ve said this before but you can never be too sure, CONSULT A LEGAL EXPERT. Do that before anything else. This will ensure you’re covering all your bases that could help you avoid problems in the long-run.
Ok now that I’ve made sure to mention that, Two. When thinking up names for your brand and product, try not to get attached to it early on, because someone else might already own the rights to it. [00:26:00] So make sure you go to USPTO.gov to check if someone else is using the name you're considering using. And remember that this is an ongoing process that doesn’t stop. You have to keep checking in to make sure that your paper work is still relevant and prove that you’re still using it. And if anything in your business changes, as we’ve seen major companies rebrand themselves, then you have to go through the process again.
Three. Remember that the parent company name is different to the brand name. To be on the safe side, protect both. It’s two different processes so make sure to cover both. And trademarks are also class specific, meaning, you could have the same brand name as another business, as long as you’re not selling within the same class, so that you don’t confuse costumers. And if you use your logo a lot and it is closely tied to the name, protect it too.

I'm curious – Have you been thinking about how you can protect your IP? Have you consulted a legal expert? [00:27:00] I'd love to hear about your journey! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:28:06]

Ep 30: How to Know When You’re Ready to Launch Your Product

Aug 29, 2023

Know when to launch.

[00:00:04] Trinity: So you only have one opportunity to make a first impression, and that can be really nerve wracking because on one hand, you know, I mean, we're talking about the concept of MVP, right? It's about like getting something out so that you can start to get some feedback. However, at the same time, if someone tries your product once and doesn't like it, the chances of them ever giving you a second chance are low.

[00:00:30] Andrea: First impressions are everything. Once you lose a customer it's difficult to get them back. So I want to know how you launched your minimum viable product. What worked and what didn’t. Some of it was surprising. Let’s get into it.

[00:00:45] HOST: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. This is one of our Minisodes, which are shorter episodes packed with helpful information for those of you who want a quicker binge. On this episode we'll be talking about how you can prepare and launch your MVP, [00:01:00] or minimum viable product - with Trinity Mouzon Wofford, the Co-Founder and CEO of Golde, a superfood brand that sells matcha turmeric blends, coconut collagen boost blends, and more and of course, you can find them in the Amazon store along with most of the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business. Also, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description.

[00:01:37] Trinity: Golde is a superfood health and beauty brand that I started with my high school sweetheart, so we do all sorts of different superfood blends. Think about like powders that you're adding to your smoothie or making a super food latte with matcha, turmeric, collagen. I started the business almost seven years ago now, really sort of focused on this idea of [00:02:00] wellness routines and how to make them more easy, more approachable, and also more fun for the everyday consumer. If I take a step back to like seven-ish years ago when I was dreaming up the brand, I had just parted ways with my original dream of going off to med school. I was really inspired by my mom's journey with chronic autoimmune disease, and so I had seen her see all of these incredible improvements when she saw this holistically minded doctor, of course, I decided that was going to be my career path.

I ended up hearing from my mom as I was in college that, she actually had to stop seeing that doctor because she just couldn't afford it anymore. And so that really forced me to reckon with this piece of health and wellbeing and how accessibility plays into it. At the same time I was sort of looking at my own experiences [00:03:00] in the wellness world and was feeling sort of left out of the conversation as a young woman of color, as someone who couldn't really afford the, you know, $85 protein powders and had this idea to start something new.

[00:03:16] Andrea: I think that's such a powerful story behind your brand, and it adds to understanding the why behind it. As someone with a mother with cancer, and who thinks about this a lot because of it, I relate strongly to that idea of being intentional and conscious of the types of foods you consume that boost your immune system. So, talk to me about how you launched your first product. What was that experience like?

[00:03:40] Trinity: Our first product was our original turmeric latte blend and back then it went by a different name. It was original Golde. The reason why the company is called Golde is because we started with turmeric based products because it has so many incredible health benefits. So whether you're talking about immunity, digestion, [00:04:00] skin, there's something that turmeric can do to support your health and wellness. As far as really beginning the process of getting this product ready to share with the world. It took so much longer than I remember thinking it was going to, I mean, this is like a five-ingredient blend of powders. You would think that it's just like, okay, we're gonna mix it all together. And, there, there was so much tinkering that we did with the sourcing of ingredients, making sure that we were really sourcing high quality super foods. The packaging itself, so, at the time -- so the we is, myself and, my now husband -- we were doing everything ourselves. We were self-funding the business with, I think we had like $2,000 in savings between the two of us. And we were 23. So, you know, it was very sort of like limited resources. And so we had to design the packaging ourselves. We had never designed packaging before. We had no experience in it, but we had this idea of bright colors [00:05:00] of, you know, sort of like a bit of a maximalist approach to the packaging. So from end to end, like ideating this concept of we want to do a turmeric based powder mix, to actually having the product in our hands, finding who was gonna print the packaging for us, et cetera was probably about a year, end to end.

So when we got started, we had that one product, we were living in Brooklyn. We would pound the pavement and go around to all the different little lifestyle shops and cafes and drop off samples with handwritten notes and ask if they would pretty please consider carrying our product. We were, you know, posting about our experience, starting the business on social media and all of these things that feel like overnight successes -- I've had so many people say, oh my gosh, you guys blew up. You guys came outta nowhere -- It really is months and years in the making of like those early moments of just trying to make it happen.

[00:06:00] And so we started to get some bites. We started to get the brand into these sort of destination shops and cafes mostly in New York. And it was at that point that I noticed that people were starting to say that they had seen us around, and what I realized was because we had chosen this sort of distinctive packaging style, bright colors, they're much more common now in packaging. But if you're going back six, seven years in the wellness industry, everything was much more minimalist. It was black and white sand serif, you know, typefaces. So to come out with four colors all kind of mixing together was like, whoa, you remember that you saw it. And so we had this wonderful strange experience of in our first year, I think people thinking we were a lot bigger than we really were because they kept, they were seeing the product around. They had the sense that it was familiar to them, that it was exciting to them, but in reality it was still just [00:07:00] myself and my partner mixing up powder and, and getting it into bags and, getting it out into cafes.

[00:07:06] Andrea: So color went a long way with your packaging when you first launched. Can you tell me some of the things that didn't work when you first launched and what you learned from that?

[00:07:15] Trinity: When you are in this entrepreneurial journey, you have to look at yourself as you're sort of a scientist, you're a great experimenter, and so you're gonna try a lot of different things as you try to understand what works, what catches your audience's attention, what drives sales, what creates more brand love? And for every 10 things that you try, maybe one or two of them really work. The challenge I think, is making sure that when you are hitting the other eight or nine things that don't really work that you are seeing them as the necessary part of the experimentation process versus seeing them as like, [00:08:00] I keep making mistakes. I keep failing. What did not work as well for us was any time that we tried to sort of emulate what we saw another business doing, especially a larger business. I'm just thinking like a, a specific marketing tactic or something that a much bigger business was using just wouldn't necessarily do much for us because we didn't have the budget. And it just, frankly, it just wasn't as impactful for us. I think what in the end did work for us as a very small business with very few resources was to sort of really lean into doing things the way that we wanted to do it. Really telling our own story and bringing people along for the ride. You know, even today, I, I think the consumers that are going to support you very early on in your business journey are the ones who want to know who's behind the brand, and they want to feel that they're actively supporting a small business. [00:09:00] So really putting your, your ethos front and center, and not trying to emulate the multi multimillion dollar conglomerates that don't have that, that special secret sauce that you have anyways.

[00:09:15] Andrea: What advice would you give an early stage entrepreneur who is about to launch their MVP?

[00:09:20] Trinity: I think it can be really smart to put the product out to a limited audience like friends and family, um, depending on what the product is, just to get early feedback and a little bit more of a safe space. Once you do have it out there and people are trying it the hope I, I think at least on my end, was really that we were, we were serving something up that people were going to love, and was going to make them want to try more things from us as they came out.

[00:09:46] Andrea: How did you know you were ready to launch?

[00:09:48] Trinity: I remember thinking that we were actually too late to launch. We launched probably six months later than I intended for us to, and at the time some other company [00:10:00] popped up that seemed to be doing something that was vaguely similar. And I remember thinking to myself, it's too late. We've missed our opportunity. It's so funny now because that company, I wouldn't even really consider them a competitor at this point. We've kind of gone in in very different directions, so, that moment of actually launching versus, you know, what you think it's going to look like can be very different. The timelines can really shift. I think you, you know, when you're ready, when you don't wanna keep working on it anymore. When you look at it and you say, okay, yeah, let's do it. It's not necessarily done. You probably are going to do more with it at, at some point you might tweak the packaging or tweak the formula or whatever. But you have a feeling that you're just, you're done working on it and you're ready to let it see the light of day so you'll know when you're ready.

[00:10:55] HOST: That was Trinity, Co-Founder and CEO of the wellness brand Golde, [00:11:00] talking about her experience launching Golde’s MVP. Make sure to check out her products in the Amazon store. I especially love the Macha Turmeric blend. And as always, here are some key takeaways from today’s episode:

One. First impressions are everything. So before you launch, try launching with your family and friends first if you can. That way you can get some early feedback and you won't lose potential customers because they didn't end up liking your product.
Two. Try to stand out from the competition. Trinity's products stood out because of their bright packaging - which at the time was less common in the wellness industry -- but that made people remember them.
Three. Sometimes doing what others are doing doesn’t necessarily help. Especially as a small business trying to emulate what a larger business is doing. In the case of Golde, Trinity and her partner decided that they were going to do what worked best for them, and it paid off.

That's it for this episode of This is Small Business Minisodes, brought to you by Amazon. [00:12:00] If you liked what you heard, make sure to subscribe and tell your friends about us by sending them a link to this episode. And we would love to know what you think, so please please please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It's easier to do it through your phone. Or send us an email at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com with your thoughts.

Until next time – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:12:40]

Ep 29: How to Find Your Ideal Customer

Aug 29, 2023

Identify your target market.

[00:00:06] Darian: If you think of someone who is going to become your customer, you could look at them as a regular, everyday person. Someone that you hope to become a customer one day. So, if you look at them right from that kind of far-reaching level. What does it look like to get them from disinterested, not knowing about you, to slightly interested, to considering, and then converted to actually purchasing. And then ideally, to the point where they are becoming an advocate. And that's kind of like the textbook, picture perfect customer journey. And ideally, they go on and become an advocate and recruit others to purchase your service or product as well.

[00:00:42] HOST: Hi, This is Small Business, a podcast brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. On This is Small Business we cover all things small business that will help you start, build, and scale your business. We will hear from guests from diverse backgrounds, point of views and stories with the hope of hearing from many types of small business entrepreneurs. [00:01:00] On each episode I end with key takeaways that you can use on your business journey. Today, we talk about the customer journey. A business can't function without its customers because well - without them your business can’t exist really. So understanding your customer is a crucial part of building your business. But how can you determine who your target market is in the first place? And when you do figure out who your ideal customers are, how do you reach them? Two questions not many ask towards the beginning of their business journey.

Coming up -- I'll be talking to Darian Kovacs, founder of PR, digital ads & SEO company Jelly Digital Marketing, about understanding the customer journey. But first -- I want you to meet Amber Murray, founder of Fidget Stickers, a line of textured stickers that you can find in the Amazon store along with most of the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business. [00:02:00] Also, remember that if you want to hear your story on This is Small Business, we have a voicemail line where you can ask questions or share your entrepreneurial story. We want to hear from you! Find the link to the voicemail line in the episode description. Here’s a question that one of our listeners had:

[00:02:16] Voicemail: So my question around starting or more building a business is marketing and visibility. What do companies do to try to be more visible and I guess be more out there in regards to just the internet? What are some out of the box ideas around being visible in our markets?

[00:02:32] HOST: We have some episodes planned this season that will help us answer this question. But actually today’s episode starts answering that question by first asking “what is your customer doing?”, “where are they living?”, “and what’s the best way to reach them?” Things we’ll learn about today. Let’s meet Amber.

[00:02:50] AMBER: Well, I'm a mom and I have two daughters that have autism, and so we've been doing PT, OT, all the therapies for many, many years, [00:03:00] and I realize that they have a lot of sensory issues. One daughter would chew holes in her shirt, another one would just rub almost holes through her jeans even and leave her hands kind of raw. And I thought, man, it would be so great if there was something we could take with us that could be reusable and could stick on anything that was cute and maybe it would help alleviate some of this need to have that sensory stimulation and so I have always loved stickers and make stickers, and I thought, well, maybe I could make some textured stickers for this. And two years of searching out some material that would work and was durable like with Stan kids because kids can be a bit rough on things. Here we are. Fidget stickers was born and happy to be here.

I have a 25-year-old son who comes and helps manufacture all of my stuff for me. I have lupus and it's made it increasingly difficult for me to actually do a lot of the physical labor of things in the business, which is okay. [00:04:00] That's what business is: finding the problem, finding the solution, right? So we just need to delegate to people. So my son is one of the people that does that, and he comes over and he packs the orders, and he looks at what's going on. I still write little, you know, thank you notes on the little order sheets, but. He helps make sure that we're not running low on inventory and tracks more of the day-to-day what's going on in that area as well. He loves being able to work without distractions and do his own thing. He also has autism as well, so it works really well for him to just put things together. It's what he loves to do.

[00:04:38] ANDREA: Fidget Stickers came to be due to something very specific. Now that you’ve been in business for a while, did expectations of your target audience change at all? Who would you say is your target audience now?

[00:04:50] AMBER: Really anybody that was neurodivergent. You know, fidgeters people that were maybe had autism or ADHD or anxiety is a huge one. [00:05:00] That's what I have and panic disorder. And so, for me it was kind of a gift of love of I use these, and I need these to, to function in society as well. So that's where it started. But interestingly enough, like I say, it started picking up with people who weren't neurodivergent, who were more neurotypical, and they just also felt the need for these things. And so that was an interesting surprise to me. And also the number of schools or children's hospitals, community health organizations, areas that I necessarily hadn't really even thought about because initially it was just kids wanted these.

[00:05:38] HOST: Neurodivergent is a nonmedical term that describes people whose brains develop or work differently for some reason. This means the person has different strengths and struggles from people whose brains develop or work more typically. While some people who are neurodivergent have medical conditions, it also happens to people where a medical condition or diagnosis hasn’t been identified.

[00:06:00] ANDREA: Amber, can you walk me through the customer journey for fidget stickers?

[00:06:05] AMBER: So a typical customer journey as it relates to business definitions. There's five steps. There's awareness, consideration, then the decision purchase, retention, and advocacy. So awareness is letting people know these exist, right? Everybody knows stickers exist with water bottles, but they don't know stickers with texture exists. So if they don't know it exists, they don't even know that you're trying to help them with a problem that they're having and solving a problem that they're having.

You're gonna have to let people know that you exist but you can also do things in real life to help with that. Another term for it is brand awareness, right? You want just people to see it. You're not so worried about, oh, I need to get a sale right off of them right now, or anything like that. You're just trying to educate. And then there's the consideration stage, and that's where the customer is thinking, oh, okay, so there's textured stickers. Hmm. I wonder what other textured stickers are out there. Right? [00:07:00] They're gonna compare you to other people and they're gonna check out your price, and they're gonna check out, you know, your materials, they're gonna check out all the different things. So you wanna make sure that you are addressing some of that in the brand awareness and that we're, they're going to look for that information. Maybe if it's, you know, your Amazon listing or your website or wherever that you're actually thinking about those questions they're probably having and making sure that that's in your messaging because they're comparing you now.

Then is the decision and purchase. So they go through the comparing and maybe some of them say, eh, no, uh, that's not for me. Okay, that's fine. Right? It would be great if there's a way to capture why it's not for them, which is a lot easier to do in person if you're selling something at a market or, you know, when you're just starting out a business I highly recommend doing that, getting in front of your customer to get some opinions. But, but let's say they decide, okay, they're gonna buy for you from you. Fantastic. There's so many things that happen at that stage. One of them being the next um, phase is retention. So they bought from you, but we want them to come back to us, so we need to make sure we have our customer service nailed down, right? [00:08:00] We need to make sure that our packaging is fantastic and is like, thank you so much, or some sort of like experience for them to feel connected to the product, to you. Those kind of things. We wanna make sure that when they're thinking about the stickers next time they aren't going through this, they, they don't have to go back to the consideration phase. They're already like, oh, I, I know where I'm going. I'm going to my fidget stickers. I don't need a different brand.

And then the last stage is advocacy. We want to help them be our champions. So a lot of times people really love what you're doing. You have no idea because you're just wherever you are selling whatever you're doing, right? If you're not face to face, you have no idea that they love it. But a lot of times they really, really do and they're out telling their friends about it. We wanna provide opportunities for them to do that. So we wanna make sure we're always, you know, if it's on Amazon sending out for that review, we wanna make sure that if it's on our website, we're sending out for that review to put on our website. We wanna make sure that we're giving them a way to let the world know, hey, this is fantastic. [00:09:00] Another thing that I personally do is right now I fulfill my Amazon orders myself. And I'm able to, when I see an order come through, I always check if they've previously ordered with me, and if they do, I include a little bonus, a little rainbow that says something like, thank you for being amazing. And a little card inside with it that says, oh, I appreciate your support so much. Right? We wanna be wowing them with what we're doing. Like, oh, it's, you actually care that I'm coming to shop with you. This isn't just, I'm picking something up and especially if you do have a product similar to, you know, fidget stickers, where there is that personal connection where you, you're, yes, it's a sticker, but it's also, you know, it really is from my heart, me saying, hey, here's something that came from my needs and my family's needs, and I wanna help you with this too. I want my customer service, that customer journey to always continue that.

[00:10:00] ANDREA: That was a great way of breaking that down and using your business as a case study. Do you recommend that entrepreneurs who are starting out to sit down and write this and put it out all on paper before doing anything?

[00:10:12] AMBER: 100000000%. Yeah. I mean, at any stage of entrepreneurship, you should, because you should always be evaluating all of these stages and thinking, what can I do better? And taking the feedback that you receive from your customers and changing your journey, right? If you're finding, like in the consideration phase that you are losing out because you are not as cheap as somebody else, well, you have some decisions to make there. Do you wanna lower the price? Or what are you gonna do to make it perceived more valuable? Or how are you going to add more value? Right? So any person in the entrepreneur world out there should definitely, definitely be visiting this, you know, every six months. Sit down, write out these stages. These things will make such a huge difference in your business overall.

[00:11:00] ANDREA: Are there any other considerations you think that early-stage entrepreneurs should make when they are laying out that customer journey at the beginning?

[00:11:10] AMBER: A couple of things come to mind. People get really attached to their idea and they think that it's the best thing ever. And then they have friends and family tell them, you're a genius. This is fantastic. This is the best thing ever. And then it's not selling, and they aren't sure why it's not selling, right? Or they don't have repeat customers and they can't figure out why they don't have repeat customers or, what seems to be the problem? Step one is being open to the fact that you don't know everything. That just because your product or your service is your baby, and like I say, they all come from your heart, doesn't mean that everybody else's heart is ready for what you've got. And it could be that you have the wrong customer lineup. So being open to the fact that you don't know everything, taking a good hard look at who your customer is [00:12:00] before you start all of this customer journey is so important cuz you could be making customer journey to the wrong person. Right. If you were ordering say auto parts and then your repeat customer, and you get like a sticker that says You're amazing at it. Thank you for supporting my thing. You're gonna be going, uh, this does not resonate with me. I'm just buying, you know, auto parts. So the customer journey wouldn't make any sense. Understanding that customer at the very beginning, then you can tweak the things they like and how to communicate effectively with them along the journey.

[00:12:38] ANDREA: Okay, so the two things you mentioned right now are: One. Don't get too attached to your idea and don't just rely on your family and immediate circle to be honest about your product because they'll probably tell you that you're doing great no matter what. And two. You might not be targeting the right customer for your product. You might launch a product [00:13:00] then realize that the target audience wasn't the right fit for your product. With that being said, I'm wondering if you can find out who your right customer is before the product or business launches.

[00:13:12] AMBER: You can look at market demand, you can look at competitors and things like that but the most important thing in, here's another like fancy schmanzy term for you. It's called proof of concept. And in the proof of concept, you're really gonna figure out who that customer is because you're gonna actually put it in front of people. I liken being an entrepreneur to playing a video game. I grew up, you know, with the very first Nintendo, I think I was like 11 or 12 when it came out, when original Mario Brothers, and you had to do a jump over and over and over again, right?

So somehow inside of me, I have that tenacity built in, and you need a sprinkle of that. Because you're gonna need to take whatever it is you're doing and put it in front of people over and over and over again. Whether that's surveys, whether that's you're selling locally, you know, in front of somebody, [00:14:00] whether that's your, talking to maybe, the organizations or businesses who would be buying your stuff that's going to give you that feedback and you need honest feedback from them. So maybe you're saying, I'll give you a percentage off of this, or here's stuff for free. I need honest feedback on what you think. You're gonna find out really quickly whether people like what you're doing or they don't like what you're doing. You might get your feelings a little bruised and hurt in the whole process. But there is no sort of magic bullet at the beginning, and that's where I see a lot of entrepreneurs struggle. I'm also a business advisor for a nonprofit here in Utah. I read business plans and cashflow projections all day long and so forth and an area that I see people struggle is in that they don't realize that, again, just because you think it's great, you have to go out and prove that the demographic you think wants, if I only focused on kids and moms like me for their kids, [00:15:00] I would miss out on all of these other demographics that hadn't even occurred to me. I mean, a special victims unit purchased a whole bunch of packs, and I'm thinking I hadn't even thought about that, but if I didn't put it out there and, and start paying attention to what's going on so that I could go, oh, well, if one special victims unit wanted to buy a whole bunch, then that means all the other special victims units would wanna buy a whole bunch. You're just not the smartest person. And some things, you just really have to play that video game and do that jump over and over and over again to see.

[00:15:34] HOST: You're listening to This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. I’m your host, Andrea Marquez. You just heard from Amber Murray, founder of Fidget Stickers. You can find out more about Fidget Stickers in our show notes on our website: Thisissmallbusinesspodcast.com.

I loved how Amber broke down the customer journey into 5 steps: awareness, consideration, decision purchase, retention, and advocacy. But as we found out, it takes a lot of work to make sure your customer goes through [00:16:00] all 5 steps and turns into a loyal customer. You've got to make sure that you give them the best experience possible, so they come back. And that you're putting effort into reaching your target market.

Like Fidget Stickers, the small businesses we feature on This is Small Business are some of the many small businesses selling in the Amazon store who have tapped into some of the tools and resources offered to help them succeed and grow. One of those resources is the Amazon Small Business Academy where you can find the help you need to take your small business from concept to launch and beyond. You can strengthen your skills at no cost with live and on demand trainings, Q&As, events, and even find more This is Small Business content. If you don’t know where to start, you can take the free self-assessment on the Amazon Small Business Academy site at www.smallbusiness.amazon.

So far, we’ve talked a lot about the customer journey and now we’ll dig into how to find and reach your ideal customer with my next guest: [00:17:00] Darian Kovacs, founder of Jelly Digital Marketing, a PR, digital ads & SEO company. Here’s Darian.

[00:17:08] Darian: So we started a company called Jelly Marketing officially ten years ago. So I started mostly because I was excited about giving away little jelly jars as a business card. But we took the idea of how do businesses use social media, digital ads and public relations, and SEO to really grow their business and kind of get their name out there in the market.

[00:17:28] ANDREA: I love that the name came out of the idea of wanting to sell jelly jars. That’s so unique. So Darian, when I first started working in marketing agencies, one tool I was taught was the think, feel, do model and making sure that you consider everything that you would ideally want your customer to think, feel, and do when working on the marketing for your brand. What are your thoughts on that model, and do you have any other models that you would recommend when it comes to the customer journey?

[00:18:00] Darian: I think what I like about that, what you're saying is the memorable factor. Some people use the idea, especially when you're in event marketing, is when people walk into your event, you think of all the senses. What do they see? What do they hear? What do they smell? What do they taste? So you think about, you know, what's the coffee you have, or what's the, uh, tea that's available, or the snack. What smell is in the lobby, or what smell is the stuff they pick up, the booklet that they get? What are they hearing? Is it music, or is it quiet? Is it exciting music? And what are they seeing? Is it the, you know, agenda for the day, or is it really clear markings? And so when you think of that online, you know, it's very hard to get smell and taste online. We're not there yet. But until then, what does that user experience flow look like? Is it fun?

[00:18:45] ANDREA: What are some tools you think that a small business owner can use to learn more about their customer and their journey pertaining to their business?

[00:18:52] Darian: There is some amazing websites right now, and I wish I had these when I was starting off my business where you can actually test your product or service before you launch it. [00:19:00] So people can sponsor it, pre purchase it, and actually advocate for that business or that concept or that idea. A lot of people do that with board games or businesses. And I've actually seen the opposite, where someone puts out a product in one of these websites where you can actually get people to pre purchase it or, you know, sponsor this idea. And it doesn't take off. It doesn't do well. So in a lot of ways, they walked away and said, wow, I just saved myself a huge headache. And from there, the other piece being is back in the day, you used to be able to find it very difficult to get published in like the newspaper, or in a magazine, or getting on TV, but nowadays we have, you know, this incredibly powerful tool at our fingertips that everyone's a publisher, everyone is a videographer, and our ability to put something up on YouTube, put something out on the internet has democratized the ability to amplify a message and things can go as viral as a Wall Street Journal article or as viral as something goes up on a well-known TV station in your country. [00:20:00] So taking advantage of that algorithm right now is pretty amazing.

[00:20:06] ANDREA: So to recap, you mentioned that nowadays it’s easy to test your product or service before launching and doing that allows you to see what the reception is before you go all into your business idea. So, you learn a lot about your customer journey through seeing who's responding to your product and how they're responding to it. And you also mentioned that businesses should leverage the internet and social media sites to promote their business and attract their ideal customers.

[00:20:36] Darian: So the definition of social media is any sort of media you can socialize with. And so when we think about that, I highly encourage any entrepreneur startup business owner, your newsletter is often the forgotten social media channel because it's a form of media people can interact with. They can reply, they can forward, they can click on, they can engage. And it really, sadly, today is one of the only social channels you actually own. [00:21:00] All the rest, you're on leased land. You don't own your TikTok followers. You don't own your Facebook followers. Every time Facebook makes an algorithm update, when you do a post, maybe it used to be 5% of your followers would see it. Maybe now it's 2%. Maybe it's going to be 0. 5%. So, your e-newsletter, I'd say, is the number one thing to be concerned about and nurturing and growing. If you have a bricks and mortar store, you have a location-based business, Google My Business, which is now on Google Maps. would be the number one thing to be thinking about and concerned about and developing.

In some cases, I'll give you an example. We worked with a brand that sold knitting equipment. So it was like the needles and the wool and all the things for making quilting and really cool crochet stuff. And they were the sweetest couple out of Manitoba in their 60s and they were saying, hey, our daughter had us set up on Pinterest and we're doing some stuff on Instagram. But it's, you know, it's doing okay. So we told them about this site called Reddit. And within Reddit there's what's called Subreddit. So again, a social media channel they hadn't considered. And I remember the daughter actually phoned me a week later and was like, You put my parents on Reddit? What were you thinking? [00:22:00] But then was like, thank you so much because they saw an 80% increase in sales when they started going into these subreddits, which were these online bulletin board communities that were all about knitting and crocheting and quilting and they started just being the sweetest couple and just being like hey everyone just want to let you know what we have some new products we got in or hey I'll let you know about some ways that people are using our product. Here's a little video tour of our warehouse. And all these people in, in America, they were mostly doing sales in Canada. In America we're learning about them, in the UK, in Australia, and they just took off. And they became essentially the grandma and grandpa of this subreddit. And because of that they have stopped putting so much energy and time into Instagram and Pinterest and realize their world, their community, their customers were on Reddit.

[00:22:45] ANDREA: What I'm hearing is you basically have to try it all out at the beginning and see where you get this high level of engagement slash positive response, and then lean into that. So, it’s a lot of test and learn.

[00:23:00] Darian: Totally, and it's one of those also just energy levels and time levels that you have as an entrepreneur. It might be like, you know what? I really only have time for two channels. And so I'm going to sit with maybe someone really smart or, or, you know, maybe more experienced and be like, hey man, can you just give me 20 minutes, let me tell you about my business and tell me which channel I should be on, you know, someone who maybe knows social media. So one of the benefits of agencies or experienced marketing folks is, you know, use them for their brains and not necessarily their brawn. Have them kind of assess and test to be like, where is the best place for you to be? And maybe it's Twitch. Maybe that's where you need to be. Maybe it's Quora. And it's being able to say, okay, what if I did one channel really, really, really well and double down on there? The other thing to be considering is maybe it's none of the channels except for your e newsletter.

[00:23:42] ANDREA: Darian, are there any other tools you think could help in understanding a customer journey?

[00:23:48] Darian: I'll just close with this, you gotta understand Google to help your business grow. The first thing Google is doing is, looking at what content is on your site. What are you writing about? Are you writing about cat sweaters? Uh, you know, is there cat sweaters on your sweatshirt? [00:24:00] Is the way your website is coded, is it all about cat sweaters? So as you kind of think about coding your site and how it's written, the blog content that's on your site, the address that's on your site, are you all about cat sweaters in Alaska, because that's your target audience?

That's what you want Google to know you as, as an authority on. But because back in the day, people could be really good coders but not have a relevant site, Google's like, well that's not going to be our only way we judge sites. And so about the other 50% of SEO, and this is explaining and breaking down SEO, is as your website walks in the hallway, Google's watching to see who talks to your website in the hallway, and what are they talking to you about. So again, you walk down the

hallway, no one's talking to you, you're probably not an authority on a subject. If you walked in the hallway and two or three people asked you about cat sweaters, and maybe one asked you about Alaska, you're probably an authority on that subject in Alaska. And again, if you can get really high domain authority sites, so again, you can get an article or a backlink in like a newspaper or a website that's been around a while that has a good reputation. That's kind of like the cool kids in the school. [00:25:00] But think about how do I build up people and how do I find friends or family or get the press or media interested in my story so I can get those really great backlinks so I can alert Google that I know all things cat sweaters in Alaska.

[00:25:15] Host: That was Darian Kovacs, founder of Jelly Digital Marketing. Thank you for listening today. As always, let’s end the episode with some of our key takeaways on understanding the customer journey:

One. Amber gave us five steps to a typical customer journey. One is awareness. That’s where you try to get people to notice your product and brand. Two is consideration. That's when the customer starts comparing your product with other similar products for them to decide which one to buy. Three is decision purchase. That’s when the customer hopefully decides to buy your product. Four is retention. Once the customer decides to buy your product, you want them to come back to your store. You could do that by giving them a good experience when they're shopping with you. [00:26:00] Maybe you could have cute, personalized packaging like Amber, or great customer service which by the way we’ll be talking about on another episode coming up. You just really don't want that customer to go back to the consideration, keep them onboard and in love. And five is advocacy. And that's when your customer becomes a loyal customer to your products and even starts recommending your product to other people.
Two. Don't get too attached to your product. Try to get people that aren't your family and friends to give you their honest opinion on your product and service. And you can do that risk-free using sites that allow you to put your product out there and see who might be interested in pre-ordering it before you invest your all into your business.
Three. There's gonna be a lot of trial and error. You could have customers that you didn't even think could be interested in your product like Amber did with the special victims unit. And as Darian mentioned, you'll also need to try out different social media sites in order to see where you can best reach your customers. [00:27:00] And eventually you’ll find the perfect place to speak to them because you’ll understand their customer journey more.

I'm curious – What’s your customer’s journey? How did you determine your target audience? And how are you reaching your customers? I'd love to hear about your journey! Reach out to us at thisissmallbusiness@amazon.com to tell us what you're up to. Or let me know what you think of the episode by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts – it’s easier if you do it through your phone. And if you liked what you heard -- I hope you'll share us with anyone else who needs to hear this!

[00:28:00] That's it for today’s episode of This is Small Business, brought to you by Amazon. Until next week – This is Small Business, I'm your host Andrea Marquez -- Hasta luego -- and thanks for listening!

CREDITS: This is Small Business is brought to you by Amazon, with technical and story production by JAR Audio. [00:28:30]

Introducing Season 3 of This is Small Business

Aug 22, 2023

We're back for a third season!

Filter

Topics

Series

Season

Ep 36: Benefits of Acquiring a Manufacturer

Ep 35: How to Differentiate Your Product

Ep 34: How to Find Your Ideal Price Point

Ep 33: How to Self-Publish a Book

Ep 32: How to Hire Your First Employee

Ep 31: Why You Should Protect Your Intellectual Property

Ep 30: How to Know When You’re Ready to Launch Your Product

Ep 29: How to Find Your Ideal Customer

Introducing Season 3 of This is Small Business

Help us improve