We are are joined by Marketing Expert, Brenda Mendez. Brenda was part of the initiation of Snow; a premium line of oral care products where she helped grow it from $0 to a 9 figure multimillion-dollar e-commerce brand in just 4 years as the COO. The former COO She learned how to grow multiple teams, developed award-winning products, lead partnerships with A-list celebrities like the Kardashians and helped launch the products in major retailers like Target and Neiman Marcus. In this episode we will be discussing how to build a strong brand, the operations & scaling behind an eCom brand, why it’s important to diversify from online to having a retail presence, the customer journey and burn out!
Date: December 14 2020
Episode: 75
Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Brenda Mendez, Branding and Marketing Specialist and Former COO of Snow, a Premium Line of Oral Care Products.
Subtitle: How to Build a Strong Brand
Final Show Link: https://lunchwithnorm.com/episodes/episode-75-building-a-9-figure-brand-from-scratch-w-brenda-mendez/
In this episode of Lunch With Norm…, Norman Farrar introduces Brenda Mendez, Branding and Marketing Specialist and Former COO of Snow.
Brenda is an entrepreneurial leader with three years of startup experience building a product. She shared how she helped grow a company from $0 to a 9 figure multimillion-dollar e-commerce brand in just 4 years. She also discussed the importance of building a strong brand.
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Norman 0:01
Hey everyone, it’s Norman Farrar, a.k.a The Beard Guy here and welcome to another Lunch with Norm, the rise of the micro brands.
Norman 0:20
Alright, so on today’s show, I’m really excited. I can’t wait to talk to a branding expert and former COO of Snow. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Snow before, if you haven’t checked them out. It’s incredible. Everything that I preach, and that I love went into Snow. So check it out and Brenda Ruby is the person responsible for that. So in this episode, Brenda is going to be sharing how she built from scratch, a nine figure company. She also developed award winning products and built partnerships with A list celebrities such as the Kardashians, and also helped launch products into major retail chains like Target. But before we get into that, we are broadcasting live on Facebook, LinkedIn, and what’s the other one? YouTube. Had looked at it for a second. I knew there was another one. If you’re watching on a replay, you can just always skip ahead and for those watching on my profile page, you can always skip over to Norman Farrar, a.k.a The Beard Guy and get the whole episode clips and all sorts of other content. Where are you Kelsey?
Kelsey 1:40
Hello, Happy Friday.
Norman 1:42
Happy Friday to you sir.
Kelsey 1:43
Looks like we have Darwin joining us already. Hello, Darwin. How are you? Welcome, everyone. Yeah, how is your Friday going? Let us know what you’re doing this weekend. Lewis from Berlin is joining us. Hello, welcome. Yeah, let us know what you’re doing. Where you’re watching from. It’s always great to see. So getting through the show, if you’re new to the show, you can catch all the episodes on YouTube. You can find the full episodes, short clips, anything on the YouTube channel, just search Lunch with Norm or Norman Farrar and you’ll find it.
Kelsey 2:23
Okay, Simon.
Kelsey 2:27
Okay. Yeah, and we are a podcast, of course. So you can listen to us on Spotify and Apple and yeah, before you do anything, hit that like button, share this video. Get the word out and we do have a couple of great prizes today, which I think you guys will be super excited about. Guzman’s joining us.
Norman 2:46
Oh, the big winner from the other day?
Kelsey 2:51
Yes. Okay.
Norman 2:52
I hope you’re enjoying that by the way, Guzman.
Kelsey 2:56
Ron is joining us. Okay, so let’s get right to it.
Norman 2:59
Australia. Wow. Okay. So hey, before we get to that, I do want to talk about my other podcast. I don’t do this a lot. But I do want to talk about it because I’ve got a really incredible, well there’s two people that are going to be on it. So check out I Know This Guy this week and you’re going to see two incredible people. The one person is a Sherpa. He comes from Nepal. His name is Pemba Sherpa and Dave McKean and they own a company called Sherpa Chai. Now, it’s not a plug for their Sherpa Chai tea. But what it is, is a really incredible human being, a guy that was a guide in the mountains in the Himalayas, he left a village, a very poor village, he built a suspension bridge to help people because he saw one of his friends die at an early age and couldn’t save him. So he went back to the village, built a suspension bridge, so kids could also get to school safer and cut a three hour walk one way down to 45 minutes, built hydro electricity to come into the camp. Adopted people, brought people over the people in the company kind of built, bought into his culture and these are all Sherpas, but they started adopting people and little children from overseas may have lost their parents or anyways. It’s an incredible podcast. I love it. It’s just one of those that you think about and it’s just a really incredible company that has done incredible things and just a really nice guy. So check it out. Again, I don’t usually promote that podcast on this podcast, but I liked it. Okay, so to get this going, I know I’ve talked a little bit here. I’m always long winded. If you have any comments, just throw them over into the right hand side. Sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the show. So now I’m super excited. Brenda, where are you?
Brenda 5:08
I’m right here. Hi, guys.
Norman 5:10
Hi, how are you?
Brenda 5:11
I’m great, beautiful Friday in Arizona. It is the best winter that we have.
Norman 5:16
Oh, in Arizona? Oh my gosh, I’m looking at a pile of Snow, no pun intended.
Brenda 5:24
Well, I’m about to bring a blizzard today with all the knowledge I got from Snow. So we’re in the same boat.
Norman 5:31
I can’t wait. We’re just talking before the call. But I can’t believe the amount of people that don’t take that extra step even if they can’t, like looks, Snow is an incredible home run. It took a lot to do that. But the average Amazon seller or person bringing a product into the marketplace, if they only took the time to just research, go to a couple of focus groups, or just talk to the manufacturer, or packaging company, but what they can do differently and you did it and you grew a company from zero to nine figures.
Brenda 6:11
That’s absolutely right and like you said, people don’t take the time. But guess what, it doesn’t take a lot of time. It takes a little innovation and to look outside of your competitor industry to really stand out and that’s exactly what I want to tell you guys how to do.
Norman 6:25
Great. So before we get into it, let’s talk a little bit about you and your background.
Brenda 6:34
Yes, so how did I get here the short version, I’m a sibling of five. So five total children, single mother. So I say that background because of the work ethic that was instilled in me very young, super studious, academic, went to high school, graduated as top 2 person of my school then went to a university here at ASU, graduated in three years. I wanted to get out, I wanted to start working because in my household, we help each other and it was for my mom, right I wanted to help her out and say hey, all of the hard work that you did, I want to pay it off. So I went into Corporate America. I graduated with an accounting degree very analytical, that was very short lived, because I ended up wanting more, more impact and I was also really creative, hence the packaging that the whole innovative side of me so I left Corporate America. It was an amazing structural experience that I got and then I went into a marketing agency and that’s exactly where all my innovative and creative started helping entrepreneurs I have a big heart and I love the entrepreneur that just goes in the trenches and figures it out and I love to help them out and skip that learning curve and be more innovative and in marketing so I really fell in love with that and that’s where me and my partner Josh has started implementing with eCommerce internally as every marketing agency does and then that’s where Snow was built and from the very beginning, I mean everybody worked multiple hats at the very beginning and so that’s where I learned how to talk to customers. So I handle all the customer experience from starting just on an email, just Gmail straightaway on my phone. I had a template on my notes and I had exactly how I wanted to talk to customers and this is important why I say this is because I knew the customer from the very beginning from starting this so when I talked to them I knew exactly what they wanted and so then I ended up not knowing anything about supply chain. I just started producing the product’s packaging. I understood what the customer wanted and how they wanted to field and so I did everything from customer experience, fulfillment, marketing strategy, supply chain, the warehouse. I managed teams, I managed multiple teams remotely and in person and then going from garage to warehouse and then knocking down walls and then working with influencers and celebrities and I mean it was so intimidating for me but I grew so much in that short span of five years especially with Snow. The projectory of the growth that it had so quickly. I always worked 12-16 hours a day and it was such a passion for me to be in that company.
Norman 9:33
I’m later on going to be talking to you about hyper growth and how you handled that but before I get to it and please remind me because I’m an old guy, I forget these things. But anyways, when you started to look at Snow, I guess you had to, you came up, you did your product research, you did competitive analysis, but before you could package like your packaging did it all. I love it. But you also had an incredible product. So you had to go out and find that, those incredible ingredients and how did you go about doing that? How did you do your competitive analysis to find this incredible product that you knew would take off?
Brenda 10:17
Yes. So to begin with, I want to tell everybody, especially where they’re at, be patient, because Snow didn’t start with amazing packaging and now looking back at it, I almost want to throw up, but it was the slow, affordable growth steps that you take along the way. I mean, I wouldn’t suggest just go in and buy, spend a lot of money on packaging, just do it very strategically. So the way I did at the beginning, make sure the product is the best. That’s a no brainer. For us, it was developing the best product out there. So it actually works and speaks for itself and then slowly but surely, I added, invested more into the packaging and the way I did it, I knew that if I looked to my competitors, it would be a slow growth and like, standing out so I looked outside of my competitor industry and so I knew Snow and I wanted it to become a beauty company. I mean, it started as a teeth whitening, but it started as Snow teeth whitening and now we evolved to just Snow because Snow, it’s the umbrella to now attack to now a beauty industry and so what I did, I literally walked into, so at the beginning I said who is my customer? So knowing your customer 100% it’s almost like dating. I need to know, I need to know my customer, what they like, where they’re at and so for I know my customer is the high end, women who love to spend a lot of money and I say, Where do they shop? Where do they go? What do they enjoy? What do they like? So that was Saks Fifth left, that was Bloomingdale’s. That was these Nordstrom so I went into all these stores physically, touched the product, how does it feel? How does this smell? What do they have? Why are these brands that have been around for hundreds of years have this loyal cult following and so that was me stepping outside of the industry and so I saw, for example Lamere, which is $120 for less than an ounce for an eye cream. I was like this is such a strong brand that they build. How can I almost duplicate it in making my own and so that’s how I developed the lip balm. I made the lip balm look like an eye cream and then I developed this really nice applicator and so it’s also the wording they use and I love to show and tell. So this is the applicator that I developed that I saw and then what I said is, I want to make sure that it’s better. So I saw it and I made it better, it feels really heavy. So when I create packaging, I want to make sure I’m looking at all of the senses of people that how are they going to experience it at the very beginning. So I did it very detailed as well, you want to make sure it’s detailed. So there’s the branding of it and then it’s a different applicator, it’s not only an applicator for the lip balm, but it also acts almost like the rollers that we see. It’s cold, you can roll it onto your eyes. So when I develop packaging, I want to make sure it’s useful. I want to make sure that we’re not only spending money to spend money so it looks good. Make sure everything that you come out delivers value, and that it’s useful. This one can be used for anything and guess what, it’s free to the customer. So they almost feel like they’re stealing from the company. That’s the exact feeling I love to tell and so they’re like Oh my God, the buyer’s remorse is gone because they feel like they got so much value.
Norman 13:55
But even that applicator, so if you think of lip balm, you don’t think of that applicator. So just seeing it and I’ve seen testimonials, Snow out and did these great testimonial videos out on the street somewhere and people are seeing it for the first time and you can see that customer experience. I want it like the people that were doing the testimonials for the first time wanted the product and why it was so unique and even the packaging, the packaging within the packaging so that applicator comes in a really nice package as well doesn’t it?
Brenda 14:30
Yeah. First off, it fans out the gloss, everything I mean. One of the main characteristics is being super detail oriented and so this took multiple reiterations again, working with the supplier getting samples in like no, this imprint would fall off at the beginning and I went through multiple reiterations, the bag itself like there’s actually a little holder that you go into it so then you can take it. I take this in my purse and so every single detail matters and then that communication with the supplier, that extra detail goes a long way. Because what is that going to give you, an amazing review, a recommendation to their friends and the buyer’s remorse goes away, and then the value that they receive, they just want to keep investing in your company.
Norman 15:18
So you built out a buyer persona, you got to know your demographic extremely well. Then you have these ingredients that make it the best. So almost like Neil Patel says about writing a blog article. If it’s not the best, don’t even publish. It’s the same thing here. If your ingredients aren’t the best, why even bother? Then after that, what was your next step?
Brenda 15:43
Yes. For the active ingredients, I wrote down every single ingredient from the best product out there, from Sephora, from an eCommerce brand, from a long lasting brand, though, then add an Excel sheet, literally an Excel sheet is like all of the best top rated products that I want to create and I cross multiply of the exact ingredients they’re creating and then I make a little twist and an innovative to make it ours. So for example, on the lip balm, I added peppermint and lavender. Why? Because I wanted that soothing, and the lip balm is close to your nose. So that lavender, you’re going to get that smell again and smells great. I haven’t heard of that so that’s why I cross created it and then obviously talk to the scientist supplier to see if they can create it, got different samples to see that it feels right. If it is too easy to do. Does actually feel like lip balm and so after that, I worked it out and I was really quick with putting out products. Because I wanted that feedback again, I wanted to listen to the customer and I wanted to see what they were saying and you can even build down your email list or Facebook Messenger. Hey, I saw that you purchased the lip balm, how was your experience with it? So listening to the customer and reiterating, making it better and came out with the best product out there.
Norman 17:15
Did you ever buy it yourself?
Brenda 17:16
Of course, I always have.
Norman 17:17
I’m talking about to get the customer experience.
Brenda 17:23
Yes and I would send it to my friends that did not want to hold back, your friend that will tell you the truth, even though you don’t want to hear it. I shipped it exactly how we shipped it to the customer and say, tell me your exact reaction and please videotape yourself so I can see it, try it on, put it on your sink and tell me after a week, how does it feel on your lips.
Norman 17:49
One thing you said right at the beginning that is so important is that you have a good product. But you don’t have to wait around until you have the perfect packaging. You can release something and then on your next order, you can take a look at your reviews, you can take a look at your competitions and you can always upgrade. You can either create the bottle or create an outer package or an insert. But you can always be improving on it, but it doesn’t have to, don’t hold back because you can’t get the perfect packaging on round one and you might not think and it’s so important. I’m sure you’ve experienced this too, is that you have to have others and so many times, I think I’ve nailed it on a package or design, only to find out that my choice was the worst. Everybody else got choice A, B or C, I liked D. So using a focus group like PickFu or Usability Hub. Those are things that are very important, but don’t hold back and you nailed it by yeah, wasn’t the perfect packaging at the beginning. So let’s talk about how you got it out there. So you’ve developed it, you’ve tested it out, you send it out to your friends. Now what was the next step for you in the growth?
Brenda 19:14
So we definitely had our here of product in there and I always tell entrepreneurs come out with the best product, they hear a product and then expand into what makes sense for your customer always is asking what else can they benefit from in a little too because after you come up with something, they’re loyal to whatever you’re going to cut and that loyalty is there. So after the teeth whitening and it was the best, then doing the research and development for all these extra products. Again, very great upsells because we’re $150 teeth whitening out the lip balm at what 18.22, makes sense because it’s less and it’s an upsell and it goes perfectly. So then it was just coming out with it.
Brenda 20:00
There was this huge excitement on email then all our loyal following on social and coming out with it and sometimes we would do a freebie and give it out for free just again testing it, and it was a hit, and people loved it and we also added it to the step. So people love steps, especially in the beauty industry especially like, up you need just step one, step two, and feel that you miss out on step two, that they’re not gonna get that outcome and so we added the lip balm, as added for you during your teeth whitening process because your lips get dry and that’s also what I found out. I haven’t seen any other teeth whitening system that has a lip balm. Because for me when I was doing the application, my lips would get dry and again, going through your customer reviews and saying what happens during that process or what they are complaining about and so they were complaining that their lips would get dry and so that was how the lip balm was born. So we do to the process, how to whiten teeth, you put on that lip balm before and then you went in and so now as part of a process, now they can’t go without it and play this, it was really heartwarming to know, for people to point out the exact same things that I worked so hard to develop and when people said, Oh, the lavender smells really nice, or like the applicators just so easily, I can easily use it. Now I’m using it for my under eyes before my beauty routine at night, and are the things that I’m really grateful for in developing this and taking the time, being innovative stepping out of that zone, and listening to your customers and so it was a hit and so after the lip balm, then I came out the lip scrub and then I came out with other products and that was it, people loved it.
Norman 21:57
When we look at packaging or products, just by spending a bit more time getting to know your customers, the perceived value. So before I went on, and came on here, I already knew about teeth whitening kits and lip balms, but the amount that you can charge compared to the other because you did your research. People that are listening here will be very happy with I don’t know the cost of goods, right? I have no idea. But I can guess, and you guys are probably very happy with the profit, return on investment.
Brenda 22:35
Yes. Absolutely.
Norman 22:38
Yeah, so just spending that time and doing it because it looks good. I talked about a model that we did with dead sea mud, and people put it in a plastic container 16 ounces, we put it in a 4 ounce container, made the container look so much better and we were able to charge more than the 16 ounce, because it was just it, it looked that much more appealing and then had that premium look. Same with Snow. So it’s just it’s perceived at such a high value. Although it’s a good product, and that’s a key. It has to be a good product. Yeah, you can package it all you want. But if it’s not good people will get around that facade.
Norman 23:18
Kelsey, are there any questions?
Kelsey 23:23
Yeah, we got quite a few coming in right now.
Norman 23:27
I thought we would.
Kelsey 23:28
Yeah. Do you want to jump into a couple?
Norman 23:30
Yes, please.
Kelsey 23:32
Alright. So let’s see, Guzman. What did you focus on that truly made you different? Did you focus on packaging, or you innovated the product completely?
Brenda 23:43
To begin with number one, the product has to be great, the product has to work because the customer isn’t going to be a one off like if it’s not good, it’s almost like the drop shipping model, if it’s not good, people aren’t going to continue to buy so that lifetime value is not going to be there and the product has to be good and then innovating in outside of your industry. Adding more into the packaging, again, small affordable steps. But I would say the product, then innovate the product, make it better, improve on it, and then add packaging and you can add little things. I mean, there’s an educational manual. There’s a thank you card, little things at the beginning. So it’s like what can I do with a thank you card? It’s again, it feels good, it’s matted. This is an educational pamphlet. Let me just make it pretty cute. This is again like how can I tell my customers how to use it. These are simple things but then when you want to innovate on the packaging, then you go like okay, let’s invest a little more. I feel like a magician just coming out with all this stuff. But I’m just such a visual person and so we didn’t come out with these for a while but I wanted again, at Snow, I wanted the experience to be like Christmas every single day of the year and I managed to do that. But I didn’t start off with this. It was just really basic. But then you start we got the margins, we got a little more money to invest, then we came out with really shiny, beautiful packaging. So now you get that experience from the very beginning before you even see the product.
Norman 25:25
That’s it really truly is beautiful packaging. Congrats.
Brenda 25:29
Thank you.
Kelsey 25:30
Okay, so from Rad. Where are these beauty products made? If you don’t mind.
Brenda 25:37
Outsourced, and they are here in the US. We just came out with the toothpaste. Everything’s done in the US. No sulfate, everything. The toothpaste here and everything else, packaging, a 100% outsource.
Norman 25:51
Does the toothpaste have the peppermint flavor as well?
Brenda 25:56
Yes, it does and I have it in my sink today, I’m trying it out and I think it’s sold out. But yeah, I’m really proud of the toothpaste too and that was a hard one. Because when you come out with a product that’s disrupting the industry and you have to educate the customer on why your product is better. So a little quick for the toothpaste, we’re taking out the really bad ingredients that the customer is so used to using. So our toothpaste doesn’t have the foam when you use it, but people are used to that, but people don’t know that that foam comes from a bad ingredient. So the education process is a long time and that’s what you take with the best product but also educating the consumer to be a structure in your industry.
Norman 26:43
So that’s an interesting question or interesting comment that you made. So you have to re educate, how hard is it to open up basically a new niche with this type of toothpaste, like how hard is it to re educate people?
Brenda 27:00
It is extremely hard. But I think then the new norm and the new trend that it’s coming into it, it’s the same as being sustainable, it’s the same as eco friendly, like it’s gonna be more expensive, but the right people and the right customers are going to follow you and respect you and what you stand for. We’re going to take a really strong stand and say we stand for owning good ingredients, good for you ingredients and when you take that stand, people should understand Oh, really, you’re gonna make a little more money because in the back end they’re they’re taking the extra time to make whatever consume it’s good for me. It’s really hard, it’s really challenging, especially when they’re so used to a pattern, a habit. You’re coming in, you’re taking the Crest toothpaste out of your sink that you’ve been using for years and your parents. It’s almost like breaking a bad habit like it was traumatic for me is like this is a traumatic experience that we have to break from customers and again, that feeling of like, oh, when I brush my teeth, the toothpaste is foamy, getting that away from them and then using our toothpaste and it’s the best ingredients, but it doesn’t give you that foam. Again that’s a hard concept to break. But video form every single you market with that, you market exactly like that, Oh, this is what you can expect when you use our product and this is why. So yeah, take that extra time to educate as well.
Norman 28:36
I guess also before we get to any other questions, because you’ve got a premium quality, premium quality, premium quality, before you do anything, you’ve got to be way above the competitors. It’s always got to match that premium brand, Snow brand, right? You can’t go a notch below. If people don’t like it or if you don’t get those five stars and you start seeing four and a half. You’ve got to make it a five star. Right?
Norman 29:04
Okay, Kelsey, more questions?
Kelsey 29:08
Yes. Okay. Before we do, should we announce the one giveaway?
Norman 29:15
Sure.
Kelsey 29:16
The consulting tile. So Brenda, do you want to take it away?
Brenda 29:20
Yeah, so I’m super passionate and I really love what Norm and Kelsey are doing and creating this community and so one of my giveaways is an hour consulting with anybody, however you want to do it. I want to give an hour of consulting for anybody that wins.
Kelsey 29:36
Okay, awesome. So let’s see. So this is only for people that haven’t won in the past before.
Kelsey 29:45
So let’s see. Do you have a hashtag?
Norman 29:47
Yeah, and we’ll make it really simple.
Kelsey 29:49
Okay. Is it going to be we love Snow?
Norman 29:52
There we go. We love Snow. Okay, I wasn’t gonna say that one. But yeah, there we go.
Kelsey 29:57
Okay, so #weloveSnow in the comments and for those people that have not won before, we’re only taking new people. We don’t want double and triple winners right now, because we’re getting a couple of those. But yeah, #Snow or we love Snow.
Norman 30:14
Imagine this, Okay, so I would pay to have a one on one with Brenda. I love branding. I love perception. I love everything that she’s doing and she has grown this company from zero to nine figures. So this consulting is priceless. So whoever wins, congrats.
Kelsey 30:34
All right and for the question.
Norman 30:37
Can I enter too, Kels?
Kelsey 30:42
Alright, this is from Ryan Rigney. He was a guest actually, last week on Monday. Or this week, actually, would like to hear the breakdown of the influencer strategy. How to work towards getting celebrities on board and how Snow approached them, or worked out your deals? How does that look in the earlier days when you’re starting with micros? If you have the time, thanks and he’s listened to Josh quite a bit and he wants to hear your perspective on it.
Brenda 31:11
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this could be a whole other episode about influencer marketing, and especially how it has changed and yeah, I would say we were at the very beginning of the influencer trend where you didn’t have to do hashtag ads or partnership with and so yes, absolutely. We were at the front, right at the beginning and our competitor was the best at influencer marketing. So like, how did we end up blowing them out of the water.. So now looking back at it, I have almost like this pyramid structure of how to work with influencers. The bottom is getting as much content as you can through micro influencers. So get that content, don’t really look at the ROI, because it’s not really going to be there. But there’s so many great micro influencers who are even better at video in UGC, creation, rather than a top influencer, that has millions of views that took a selfie with bad lighting, right? So understanding that and going to the brand perception and brand awareness is like how can I get this everywhere? So I look for influencers that have a customer base, and that engagement, and then going up to ambassadors and the best ambassadors that I look for, it could be the mom blogger in Iowa that has that true transparent engagement with their followers, that the ROI is going to be through the roof and that’s what I ended up at the very beginning. The trial and error was we spent six figures on the influencer that we thought had an amazing following but one, the following wasn’t our customers, and the ROI wasn’t there. So then we pivoted and we switch and we found that our mommy blogger was we ended up putting her on retainer and it was like, she was the best ambassador for us because she was transparent and she was almost like a user, she was that customer that talked to influencers, so I get micro influencers for content UGC. YouTube is also very unused because the video is going to stay there, it’s SEO friendly. You get that video footage, so micro influencers for content they you go up the ladder for ambassadors and another thing that companies don’t do is look, there’s a tool that you can go add into Shopify and you see your influencer’s customers that already bought like imagine reaching out to those customers that have a following and that already bought your product and love it. So reaching out to them and then turning those loyal customers knowing that the LTV of those customers, they love coming, they’re recurring customers, they love you. You can you turn them into investors already and then you can structure it from either free product in exchange, there’s a fixed pricing, there’s a retainer, there’s an ambassador, there’s a fixed rate, and they you go up to the celebrities where now you’re giving them equity, just like we did with Gronk, their partner now and so they’re more than just like a one off influencer. They’re actually a believer of the product. It makes total sense. Again, we went after those influencers that for us is like we’re using a mouth guard and then we tapped into a market where now it’s okay for male’s to love our product and there’s so many selfies of male guys because it’s okay for floaties, it’s okay for gronk to use it, it’s okay for chuck to use it. Because it makes sense. So working with those influencers that make sense for your brand, again, what makes branding is being consistent with who you are, and then going after where your customers are at and who they already following. So associating yourself with that.
Norman 35:16
So one of the things you mentioned was an app. Is that the one I see on Facebook? Or I see it over here? Is it User Gems? Is that what it’s called?
Brenda 35:25
Yes, I believe that’s what it’s called.
Norman 35:27
Okay, that’s great and listening to you talk about the micro influencers, I love working with nano and micro influencers and when you start to talked about brand ambassadors, this is just in case the listeners don’t know, you can take those, there’s different types of influencers, but the smaller ones nano and micro influencers, pretty much you can easily get to them. But the ideal way of getting to them is converting them, like you said to a brand ambassador, and that brand ambassador, it’s just an influencer, that now lives your product. They love your product, they’re passionate about your product, they do tons of user content for you and they’re usually under contract. At least anything that we do with a brand ambassador under contract, that they have to do so many images, they do get something that gets a percentage off and they allow you, they transfer over the copyright for you to promote those pictures or videos or content anywhere. It’s priceless. If you can do that, it is priceless, which actually, I was going to talk about something that you did extremely well. One thing I was saying about lifestyle and social proof, I want to go back to those testimonials. It looks like you did a ton of the average person walking along a boardwalk, stopping and just testing out the product and you get the reaction of the person. So you must have set it up for a day or so and it’s just you’ve done it, I guess in multiple locations, but how powerful is that? That must have done, when you see a real person and you know it’s not an actor do that. I mean, it must have so much impact on your brand.
Brenda 37:25
100% because you can’t make that. It is the most authentic first impression reaction you get from a customer that’s never seen your ad that may not even know who you are and so it’s really transparent for somebody to see Wow, they don’t know the brand. They don’t know the product, but they tried it and their first impression, just let alone the packaging and outside but then they actually tried it and it was all like 10 out of 10 and so why wouldn’t the social proof, why wouldn’t you buy after that? It’s something you can’t fake and it was very effective.
Norman 38:02
Great, Kelsey, any other questions?
Kelsey 38:02
Oh, yeah. Okay, so Darwin, Brenda give me an idea. I have a baby brand selling dried grass, natural material products. What do you think about introducing a scent for packaging? Maybe dried lavender flowers?
Brenda 38:18
Oh yes. Scent goes a long way and even if you have multiple products, if they have one type of product sending a little how you to the story new Scratch and Sniff maybe sending that as an upsell and having like different types of scratches nibs of the next product you can buy or different scents that you sent out.
Norman 38:40
You’re also a fan, I’m putting words in your mouth but the user experience unpackaging unveiling the package right. So you unveil it once, you got the bag. Unveil the inner product so it’s like a little gift, Christmas is happening two or three times. So it’s also the texture, you use soft velvety type material. Everything that you’re doing has to do with senses. Is that correct?
Brenda 39:05
Yep. So the look of it, the touch of it, the feel of it the smell of it, I mean every single thing even down to like this is embossed so you could feel it says like let’s go down to the tub like Okay, it looks amazing it looks again high end, the color of just gold, the perception of gold then let’s go step further and do like embossing on it with your logo so it’s on brand, it’s very detailed and you can feel it. So try to hit all this in there.
Norman 39:39
Perfect. Alright Kels?
Kelsey 39:41
Okay, this is from Israel. For our small chocolate brand, we’re spending like five to 10,000 a month on influencer marketing. So do you have any tips to best monetize the influencer content in reach? What is your favorite platform with it for our small chocolate brand, we’re spending a lot on influencer marketing.
Brenda 40:03
So it’s a question, they’re spending a lot on influencer marketing and how do you get the best ROI?
Kelsey 40:10
Yeah, I believe so.
Brenda 40:11
Again, how Norm hit it right on the hell is getting that content. I developed the best case study for my best influencers and so I send that out. It’s almost like a brand guideline for my influencers and like, these are the best practices, this is exactly how it has worked. Obviously, catering to more organic and the way your followers already know you, but these are the best practices. This is some of the points that hit so making sure one content is there. So you’re just not like throwing it off and the great thing about working with my influencers is that you can work back and forth with them, like, Alright, hey, this is the video I did and then you can like give them tips and improvement and then you send it back before it’s even posted. Sometimes you spend six figures on an influencer, and they just post it and it’s like, Oh, it’s not right. You didn’t talk about the best points and benefits of our product. So the great thing again, I’m going to go back to influencer marketing, micro influencers and working back and forth to get the UGC and then seeing what’s working. Again, the UGC is going to go a long way. The natural organic feel, think about how people are scrolling, you have like a millisecond to get their attention. So, develop a template of like how you can set up that Facebook ad against social proof, testimonials right away, the unboxing. I do see a lot of my brands that I work with and one of the ones that works a lot is like me opening the door and the package is on the floor, and then I drop it on the floor and unbox it. There’s less barrier to entry now that we have apps like TikTok and Reels and that you can create this video with spending no money and so like igniting them going towards best improvement and the back and forth with micro influencers and then once you get that, once you get your case study of what works best, then spending a little more on those higher end influencers, because that’s the association. Again, once you have the social proof of everybody’s using it, you have the content, then you start going up the ladder and spending a little more and seeing your ROI through like oh, now we could be celebrities. Now we’re gonna get celebrities from the bachelor in paradise or like these shows, these beatless celebrities. So then your customers can start slowly associating your brand with those people.
Norman 42:42
Paul Barron, he’s a partner of mine over at chat agency. Anyways, his product he built solely on micro and nano influencers and what he has is a product I would never get into and he doesn’t mind me sharing. He has swim diapers. Tough Brett, tough thing to get into seasonal it’s tough. He did exactly what you said. He went to mommy bloggers and all of a sudden he started getting influencers on board. It took one month before he started to get the images coming. All of a sudden, they love the product. Now they’re brand ambassadors, he set up a landing page and got them to come over. He over the last three months on swim diapers has received 2000 images. Last month, he asked them, Hey can you show me to do this, whatever the benefit was, because he wanted to put it on Facebook or on Amazon live and he asked for a video. He got 30 videos within days.
Norman 43:53
It’s incredible what you can do when people really love your product. But I’m going to add to this, you’ve got to love your brand ambassadors too. If you try to push too hard, you’ve got to respect them and if they buy into your company’s culture, and you have a great company culture like Snow does. Oh my gosh, the power of these influencers is incredible.
Brenda 44:24
Yes.
Kelsey 44:27
Okay, you got some love for your branded bubble envelopes. Where do you get them? They are beautiful.
Brenda 44:37
It’s really hard to get them especially just the way they are and the shininess of it and again, I wanted a bubble wrapper because we have stuff that are like glass like you want to make sure. So supplier, it’s an outsourced supplier and I can definitely share who it is later. But yeah, if we work together, I can get some.
Norman 45:02
Okay and one of the other things that I want to get to too. So Kelsey, right after this. You exploded, you went from zero to nine figures and I know I’ve built companies and hyper growth. I want to see there’s challenges that come up. How did you do it? How did you keep your hair? Mine fell out.
Brenda 45:26
Well, I had 12 inch hair, now it’s short right? Now, I’ll be completely honest, the reason why I stepped away from Snow, and I’m still an equity partner. But I left last year and the last thing that really burned me out was taking this eCommerce brand to retail and I’ve never done retail, I’ve never even taken a product and so like I hardly even knew how to develop products on my own and so like, a lot of learning, a lot of figuring out, a lot of trial and error, a lot of spending a lot of money and mistakes and the hypergrowth and it was extremely hard, extremely stressful and that’s why I burned out. I mean, it was to the point where like, my physical body couldn’t get out of bed because I was handling all these departments, growing teams, working with executives and retailers, and they gave me a package of this big and I think about trying to build the airplane in the air and then it’s like, right on time, I have to like, get approved to take off in that lane. So that’s how I felt. I had to read this package, I had to rebrand everything to make it retail friendly and they were so specific, and they’re bullies and it was a nightmare. But I mean, that’s my personality. I love challenges. I’m a figured out type of gal that just gets in the trenches, rolls up her sleeve and says, let’s figure it out. When you’re in this growth, this is exactly what we asked for. Right? We wanted the growth and I believe that it’s such a graceful thing to say, my product has been validated by the masses, people are wanting them, begging for them. Being transparent with the customers, I mean, Black Friday, our biggest day of the year, we’re going to be backed up for a long time and so sending that transparent heart felt message in the email saying, Hey, guys, thank you so much for the love, we appreciate you, you’re gonna have to wait a couple weeks until the cocktail. I promise you, we will get your tracking number updated every single time. Here’s a picture of the warehouse and here’s 10 buckets of the USPS picking it up like being super transparent. Thanks for the girls, people will understand it will go such a long way instead of just like everybody leaves you in the dust. As you’re growing, I urge companies to keep the same small business entrepreneur communication with your customers even if you get to 100 million because people will appreciate that and they will be your loyal customers. It’s not easy but this is exactly what we signed up right? So why step down from something that you asked for and your product is being validated, you created a great product. I believe that transaction of that value of that customer saying, I believe in your product, I’m trusting you, here’s my money. That money goes to feed families of my employees then I’m gonna step it up and then do a great job at delivering.
Norman 48:34
So I just saw something come in from Simon. What were your major hurdles with hyper growth?
Brenda 48:42
Inventory. I mean when you’re growing a eCommerce brand especially delivering that a brand that perception brand and juggling everything at once when I talk about elevating your brand, you have to juggle creating that brand consistently everywhere so the biggest hurdle in growing was its cash flow like the inventory count getting, I developed such a unique product that has five SKUs in one bundle. So it you have the travel bag, then you have the insert, then you have the envelope, so keeping track of that supply chain of every single product and making sure they come in hand when maybe we were short of the velvet bags and so now the product the three different products that were inside the velvet bag is gonna be everywhere. So then that was the biggest challenge is the supply chain of keeping everything right on time. The shipping times working with suppliers and making sure like they can keep up so instead of depending on one supplier, now we have five different suppliers so then we can get the product on time.
Brenda 49:55
Cash Flow, I mean this is an eCommerce brand and then honestly as soon as we got, we were the most popular girl in prom as I would say, say no to things that hurt. So I believe that what you make as a brand is more than saying no to things, because it doesn’t align with your brands. So sometimes some partnerships wouldn’t work out and they didn’t align with who we are. Let’s just say for example, Walmart wants us to work with them, we say, oh, because we want to work with Target even though the count, the peel was smaller, but again, staying true to who you are as a brand and then that customer service has to be on point. A customer centric, I believe that it’s huge. So as you grow, staying true to your customers and your brand.
Norman 50:48
I want to respect your time. How much time did you allow for this call today?
Brenda 50:55
I’m pretty free. I don’t have my next meeting.
Norman 50:57
Because I’m just noticing I’ve got questions. I’ve noticed a ton of questions.
Brenda 51:03
Let’s go for it.
Norman 51:06
Okay. Kelsey, I’m going to be selfish and I’m gonna ask this question.
Norman 51:13
There’s a different business model, different type of cash flow, when you’re on Amazon or Shopify. When you transition to retail, that’s a whole new ballgame. How did you get through that? You’re talking you could be 90 days out, you could be further out, they could be huge demands, you’ve got to buy space. How did you come up with it? Did you have to bring in investors? What did you do?
Brenda 51:41
I have to give it to my partner Josh, he’s a great entrepreneur, great salesman, great negotiator and a great leader in terms of standing our ground and say no to a lot of things that doesn’t make sense, then it’s almost like, not fake it to begin, but just like retail, we said yes and we didn’t know how in the back end, I had no idea as a CEO. So I was like, oh, and thank you for saying yes to this deal. I’m gonna figure it out and like, stay up till 4am figuring it out. But that’s what it takes, it takes what is going to elevate your brand thinking long term and the hardest thing about going to retail, it’s knowing that as online, we already dominated the online presence and we know we can get sales. We turn on Facebook ads, and we say we want this many sales, turn it off, whatever it is, scale it whatever. Online, we have a little more control of saying, Oh, you want 1000 SKUs in a minute, let’s do it. With retail, oh, we’re gonna pay in 90 days and this is going to be your margins and we want a very curated product. Costco wanted a really nice bundle for this amount of margins and is like, it’s really hard. It’s a hard pill to swallow to know that you can scale online and you have that control and then you go to retail and say, we’re going to start off with 1000 SKUs and we’ll see how you guys do and it’s like, we can do that in a minute. Like we’re in control. But no, you have to swallow your pride and you have to work with them and you just have to make it work in order to elevate. So we knew going in that this was a brand play, that this wasn’t a distribution play. This wasn’t a volume play. This was a brand elevation plant. So now going into it knowing that.
Norman 53:40
Okay, great. Alright. So now that I was selfish, let’s go back to everybody else’s questions.
Kelsey 53:48
I just want to make a note for everyone watching. If you go, because we are right now broadcasting from YouTube, LinkedIn, and through Facebook platforms. So if you go to the Facebook group and ask your questions there on that platform, it makes it a lot easier to get back to you instead of hopping around because I know in YouTube in conversations, they’ll get lost after the live. So if you ask a question on the group, it stays in the group and we can answer back. So always something to keep in mind for the viewers. The Facebook group is the best way for us to answer if we ever missed anything.
Kelsey 54:28
But yeah, Simon has a question: how many followers should a micro influencer have and how do you measure their engagement?
Brenda 54:36
I wouldn’t go based on followers I would go based on engagement and then just their authenticity too. How they are, and how they portray themselves and again, do they have your customers? Are their customers your type, their followers your type of customers? So I do just the number of followers, is it the number of followers divided by the likes. Even the comments, how is the engagement? It could be fake likes, and there’s like two comments on a 15,000 likes post. What’s the engagement? So the engagement from comments to likes on the post, and then the engagement from likes to following and then usually, I like three to five is average. There’s some that have 10% engagement with, like 50,000 followers. So looking at that engagement.
Norman 55:29
Be careful of fake influencers, there’s all sorts of fake influencers, and they’re pretty easy to spot with their engagement and their one word answers are emojis, just tons of them in their comments. So just be careful of that.
Kelsey 55:46
Okay, and this is from Israel. What’s a good ambassador program?
Brenda 55:51
I can’t keep up with these Ambassador programs or platforms, there’s one new one coming out every month. So I can’t answer that. I don’t know which one is the trend one now, I grew a team of interns and VAs that do this manually, because again, I like the curated and I like understanding our own template. So there are great guides. The platform’s are great guides to understand who’s on there, what do they look for, their engagement, they’re all that I should be asking for. But honestly, everything in the house.
Norman 56:25
Yeah, and we did a podcast recently, where I was showing you how to find influencers using different search operators. So I’m not sure which one that is, maybe Kelsey, you can post that. But if you want to go in, I mean, there are paid services, but it’s free to search and, check it out, like Brenda was saying, you want to make sure that fits your personality, you want to engage with them, you want to get the flow going comment on them, and then just reach out and do not have the ego. A lot of entrepreneurs have ego, keep it out the door, comment and give the follower, the influencer the ego, great job, I really appreciate I’ve been following for x, and you’ll usually get the nano and the micro, it doesn’t take a lot to get talking with them. When you get to the mid tier or the mega or the celebrity. Now, it’s much harder to get in contact with them. But what we’re talking about right now, just reach out and there’s I think I gave five or six different search operators that you can go and find Instagram influencers, Facebook influencers, blog influencers on Google, that’s your easiest bet. Yeah and I think that’s what you’re saying you just do it in house, correct? Yes. Yeah.
Kelsey 57;51
Okay, from Rad, is it cost effective to design the packaging in the USA and manufactured abroad?
Brenda 57:59
Alright, yeah, designing the packaging, that’s exactly what we did. Again, we have our own designers, we understand what we want to design and what our packaging wants to look like and then it’s cost effective to just buy bulk and economies of scale through volume to do it. outsourcing.
Kelsey 58:20
Okay, and we had two questions that were kind of similar from Denise and Simon. Both are asking, what was your loss before you turned into profit and when did you start at zero?
Brenda 58:33
What was the last four we turned into profit? Starting this company, being in a startup and doing everything from the beginning, me and my partner, were super lean and we still are and we haven’t taken outside investors. So again, the quote I keep saying that I love is what is the next best affordable step to give you that ROI and that profit thinking long term. So again, your priorities, the product, then innovating, then the packaging, the customer experience. So we were always profitable from the beginning and then what was the other one?
Kelsey 59:15
Like when exactly did you start zero? I guess.
Brenda 59:19
So it was like 2015-2016 was an idea bait from we went from zero to amend to one to 10, 10 to be 30. So it was a very fast growth pace. So we had to figure out right away if that plane is going to crash. So yeah, that’s how we started.
Kelsey 59:41
Denise loves your eyebrows. I had to hold back but I have to say Brenda your eyebrows are everything.
Brenda 59:49
Thank you so much. Eyebrows on fleek.
Kelsey 59:54
Okay, so that one. What advice would you give to a new seller from Bronwyn and Bronwyn, I did see your we love Snow.
Brenda 1:00:05
Thank you. Honestly, I’m such an advocate for branding and it doesn’t have to be a high end product. Look at dollar stores, you know their branding, you know that green logo, it’s on there. That’s great, right? So I am a huge advocate for branding, always be true to your brand. What makes branding, staying consistent throughout every single touch point of that customer journey, and then enhancing that experience. So if I can give any advice is to build a brand. If you want to say long term, if you want to flip and just come out with something in and flip it and get out and exit in two years. That’s not the way to go. So thinking long term, building a brand, being customer centric, and enhancing that customer experience.
Norman 1:00:55
When you say customer centric, so many people’s impression of that could be so many different things. What do you do differently than the average customer service department?
Brenda 1:01:10
I developed the best customer service people and it was down to Okay, we have a customer that spent $1,000 on our store, I’m gonna call them up, I’m gonna know, Hey, is this fraud or what is it? No, Oh my God, I love your product. I just want to give it out to everybody in my family. So going the extra mile, like really understanding, I had a monthly meeting, where all we did during those two hours is let’s go back, see every single review. Let’s look at the great reviews and do more of that and use that exact review into our marketing. Let’s look at every single bad review. Let’s leave our ego outside of the conference room and let’s look at every single bad review, call them up, understand our customers wide. Like let’s message them. How can we make it better going the extra mile and really training your team to deliver that customer experience and a lot of things marketers do wrong, they think they’re their own customers? No, like, no, no talk to your customers the way you would like to be spoken to as a customer, not as a media buyer. That’s not how you sell. It’s so simple, like delivering a message storytelling like how you just conveyed the pain points and the outcomes and the benefits. So being customer centric is going that extra mile and even if like have set it, set a recurring calendar, where you meet with your customers reps, and you go down the reviews and like you call up. It’s gonna be almost like a war room like, Alright, we’re gonna call up this customer, you guys are all gonna listen to how we talk to them. There’s a customer that’s just really upset. Usually they just want to be listened to, call them up. Hey, what’s your problem? How can we fix it? Wow, people write reviews for two reasons. They either gonna love the product they’re gonna like speak about it, or they’re gonna hate the product and speak about it.
Norman 1:03:18
One of the things about leaving the ego at the door, Amazon does this and they do it really well. So I think I don’t know if he developed the letter, but a buddy of mine, Steve Simonsson sent over a letter called the Dear John letter and it’s how Amazon affected you negatively. So it’s like writing a letter, you’re breaking up with them and Amazon went one step further with it. They put it in their lunchroom, so their employees could read these Dear John letters to show and suggest better ways that they can handle their customers, which I thought was really cool.
Norman 1:04:01
Okay, Kels?
Kelsey 1:04:02
Alright. What’s been your biggest failure?
Brenda 1:04:07
Personally or in business?
Norman 1:04:12
Let’s keep it to business. The personal one will be on my I Know This Guy Podcast, I got to get you on that.
Brenda 1:04:22
I will be there. The biggest failure I would say at the beginning, taking way more than we can handle because you start lacking in other areas. So we wanted to do it all and I see this in a lot of entrepreneurs, they want to come out with 15 SKUs. But guess what happens when you diversify your focus and take on way much, even in resellers.There was one year when we took on three retailers from scratch and I don’t know how I’m gonna do this. So then what happens when you take on way too much, you end up under delivering with what you what they expected, and so you look bad and so that’s a Snowball effect, no pun intended, then you’re coming off as a brand, that’s Oh, they didn’t put the barcode right, or they didn’t do this right, then it looks bad. So again, staying consistent. The biggest failure was taking on too much at that growth stage. But someone’s like, you just have to figure it out and see what happens and internally, your culture starts turning into like, we’re just this factory, and we have to get done and we have to figure out is like really stressed like, every week, take a deeper there. This is a lot. This is a marathon. This is a long term effect. We’re in this for 50 years, we can sell it tomorrow. But we’re going to do this right and so make sure that you do everything right and some things you have to say no to. There are some things we said no to because we were focused on producing the best product for Target and we wanted to do that right. If you don’t do it right the first time, again, your first impression with retailers or with partnerships or with your customers with the first part you come up with, If the first impression is not the right one, then you’re gonna have a wrong impression. Is that what you want for your brand? Think about it.
Norman 1:06:18
Good answer.
Kelsey 1:06:20
Okay. Yes, we still have more coming in. So we can, depending on time, we can always wrap it up whenever.
Kelsey 1:06:30
Let’s see. This was, just a second, from Israel. Was Target a brand elevation play?
Brenda 1:06:40
Absolutely, because we could have gone with Walmart and had a bigger distribution strategy, and then X amount more stores. But if you think about the customer, again, where are your customers shopping, if we were to go with Target, and our customer saw a Facebook guide and walked into Walmart and saw our brand, there’s a decision of brand perception. Because that $150 value that they saw online, now they’re sitting at Walmart, and it’s just different, the customer is different. The brand perception is different and if you see that the products are in each store, it makes sense Harry’s isn’t in Target. All these different eCommerce brands Flamingo. So you have to be very strategic with who you go to bed with. It’s the same as dating. I always say it as dating is like, Who do you want to be associated with because the human psychology is like without them even knowing they’re gonna associate with you as a more affordable, cheaper brand. So for us, understanding your core values as a brand and who you are. It’s like we’re affordable, we’re attainable, but we’re aspirational and we’re that one brand that you just want to have. But maybe you’re going to save your money to get it. It’s almost the Louis Vuitton why they have key chains, because any customer can come in and buy that key chain, but they’re going to save up to buy a $12 purchase later.
Kelsey 1:08:23
Awesome. Oh, and we do have a second giveaway. We can start that up to now. This one, I think we can do some tagging. So Brenda, can you explain the second giveaway too?
Brenda 1:08:39
Yes, so I mean, I’ve been talking about this product forever. It is my baby and I love it. So my second giveaway is going to be a teeth whitening kit and if you don’t already have it at home, I would love for you guys to experience everything I’ve been talking about. I’ll make sure I add the extras as well. But it’s going to be a Snow kit. Yep, so here it is.
Brenda 1:09:07
Give you the whole experience on it. Oh, that would be the second giveaway.
Kelsey 1:09:12
Okay, and is there any like, is it US only?
Brenda 1:09:17
US only.
Kelsey 1:09:18
US only, okay. So if you’re from the US, and you’d like the give away, please tag two people and yeah, we’ll go into a second draw afterwards and yeah, we are an hour and 10 minutes and so maybe just one more question.
Norman 1:09:34
One other thing too, Kels. So let’s explain about tagging in case you don’t know how to tag. You could just mention someone.
Kelsey 1:09:44
Yeah, at symbol and then write the name. Yeah. So just two people and you’ll be entered.
Norman 1:09:53
Alright. I see him coming in now. Just like that.
Kelsey 1:09:57
Okay, great. Okay, so our last question as we wait for everything to come in. From Hone, Shopify versus Amazon, which one do you generate more revenue from? Or is there a favorite platform?
Brenda 1:10:12
For us it is clearly Shopify. I have Amazon and what I also encourage everybody is to diversify, and be an omni channel in building that brand. But one of my biggest things as well, it’s never built on rented land, if you are on that brand building long term goal. It’s great to have everything, Amazon is a cute little cherry on top for us, and we love it. But we own the customers, we’re on Shopify, and we’re building a brand.
Norman 1:10:49
Okay, so while we’re waiting for these results to come in, is there any step by step, step one, step two, step three, that you can give advice to Amazon or eCommerce sellers? Do this, then this, then this.
Brenda 1:11:07
You know what, I hate to be a record and keep saying this, but build your product, have the best product out there, become so obsessive in having a great product that people are going to refer you and talk about non stop. Then if you want to build a brand, I’ll make it really simple. If you want to build a brand, I came out with this branding framework with four pillars. So one is building that brand equity, how can you get so deep in your brand equity by having IP, intellectual property, having a great domain, going after those very strong extra stuff that’s gonna build your brand equity, your perception and that also entails the packaging, delivering that experience. So brand equity. Association, association goes with awards, being on magazines with PR, with influencer marketing, who are you associating yourself with? Who are you partnering up with? So that’s the second one. The third one is going to be community. How can you build a strong community? A strong following that quote following, that loyal customer? Then the last one will be diversification. How can you build those moats around your castle, a.k.a your brand, and diversify your efforts. Again, not making yourself super thin, but again, building those strong moats around you. So any competitor, any losses that come in, they won’t be able to touch you.
Norman 1:12:45
So let’s make sure we get those four pillars in the group Kels, that’s really great.
Brenda 1:12:51
Brand equity, Association, Community and Diversification will give that long term brand perception and brand elevation.
Norman 1:13:01
Perfect. Okay, so I think it’s that time, Brenda, it’s time for the wheel of Kelsey.
Kelsey 1:13:10
Alright. Okay, so we got a couple here, so we got two wheels. This time, I’ll share the first one.
Kelsey 1:13:18
Second, believe it’s one and then we got a second one.
Norman 1:13:33
Should we put the Jeopardy theme on while we’re doing it?
Kelsey 1:13:37
I think so. I’m just trying to find the right one.
Kelsey 1:13:45
Sorry, I’m jumping around here.
Norman 1:13:47
Okay. You’re gonna get your Christmas bonus this year.
Kelsey 1:13:53
Okay, here we go. Okay, so this is for the one hour consultation.
Kelsey 1:14:00
Yep. So if you guys are ready, we’ll do the countdown. 321.
Kelsey 1:14:13
Okay, Simon is a winner. Alright. Congratulations, Simon.
Norman 1:14:20
That’s a great package.
Kelsey 1:14:21
So that is for the hour consultation and then the second one if you can just give me a second. If you guys can shop around at the show and then.
Norman 1:14:34
Okay. Alright, so is there anything else that you’d like to add while Kelsey is adding everybody to the wheel?
Brenda 1:14:42
Yeah, you know what, I love about personal development. I’m into spirituality. So I just want to say as you’re building, this is going to be really hard and always understand your why this is long term. Understanding your why you’re doing this little exercise. I like to give group coaching is to write your entrepreneur oath, your vows, like, I know that to stay in this long term, it gets hard. For the days, I don’t want to get to bed, for the days I want to look at my emails that 1000 plus, for those days that I want to give up, I’m going to look at my oath, I’m going to sign in and say, this is why I’m doing it. It’s for your family. If it’s for your freedom, just understand your why because you can get really lost while you’re growing a company.
Norman 1:15:29
I got it, I just thought of a question. So you had this really successful, you still do your equity and you have equity in it. When you left, I experienced this, but when you left a company that you built from zero to 100 million, did you get depressed?
Brenda 1:15:46
Oh, absolutely. It was like I lost a part of me. Especially because it was by choice when I had to finally choose for myself and be selfish. That guilt creeps up that wanting to like, why do I do this for myself. But yeah, I got depressed and it’s been a really long journey, trying to kind of get that motivation backup and saying that it was the best choice for myself.
Norman 1:16:19
So curious, how did you get out of it?
Brenda 1:16:25
How did I get out of it?
Norman 1:16:27
So it was a long journey.
Brenda 1:16:30
So how did I step out?
Norman 1:16:31
Yeah. Sorry, maybe I missed a phrase that how did you get past the depression to move forward and start going again?
Brenda 1:16:43
It was through helping others. It was what ignited that fire in the belly that was turned off when I left and didn’t want to do anything and is like, how did you walk away from the successful company? The customers need, the employees need you and they’re still reaching out, like come back. Like, how did I get that back? It was through helping other entrepreneurs and that just lit me up ever again. Like I come in and I remember when Snow is at year two and you’re having trouble talking to the suppliers and the shippings and all this like let me help you and so just helping other entrepreneurs really helped fulfill that in me.
Norman 1:17:25
How do people get a hold of you?
Brenda 1:17:28
Yeah, so my email and I’m really active on social mostly on Instagram and I give so much value. I love unboxing. I love auditing brands and so you can get a lot of value out of me if you just follow me but my Instagram is rubyecom, R U B Y ecom and then Facebook. I’m sure I’ll be tagged here and then my email is info@rubyvc.com and so I love to chat to give value and if anything if I can consult you so I’m doing on my own terms this time around. I’m just consulting before I take another plunge into burnout, which I’m not in no rush to do and I’m doing it differently. I learned so much from my last experience. Yeah, so right now I’m just casually consulting.
Norman 1:18:18
Great and you are an active member in our group, which is great. Thank you. Always loving brand experts in our group.
Norman 1:18:28
Okay, Kelsey, almost done there.
Kelsey 1;18:31
Yep. Yeah, we’re done. So I added the people that have never won before. So we got three people. Here we go, this will be a lot easier.
Kelsey 1:18:43
Okay, so these three. Here we go. 321.
Norman 1:18:55
Okay.
Norman 1:18:56
Oh, there we go. Very good.
Kelsey 1:19:00
Alright. So I’ll go get you the information you need from them Brenda, and I’ll email you everything.
Brenda 1:19:10
Thank you.
Norman 1:19:11
Okay. So I think that wraps up today. Thank you for both of the giveaways. That’s fantastic Brenda, we’ve got to have you back and I already know the topic, influencer marketing. How about that?
Brenda 1:19:23
That’s a nice thing. Yeah, we’re on the same page. I think we understand that beast.
Norman 1:19:28
Okay, beautiful. So thank you so much for being on. I really appreciate it. Can’t wait till you come on again. We’ve had great engagement here. I think we have a bunch of questions that we still have to answer. Thank you for coming on.
Brenda 1:19:41
Thank you so much, guys. Again, thank you for allowing this platform and for us to share knowledge and thank you everybody who showed up.
Norman 1:19:48
Alright, so that’s it for today everybody. It went extra long, but it was worth it. I tell you Brenda is an incredible marketer and she knows what she’s talking about. So I loved having her on. Hopefully we can get her on real soon. If you’re looking to get more information again, go to Norman Farrar a.k.a The Beard Guy and check out the whole episodes there, as well as other content and highlights. If you want to see the video, go to YouTube at Norman Farrar, and you’ll be able to see the whole episodes plus a ton of content that Kelsey has put up and speaking of Kelsey, where are you sir?
Kelsey 1:20:34
Hello. Yes. Thank you everyone for tuning in. We got a huge turnout. Everyone loves Brenda here. Thank you, Simon. Thank you Bronwyn, Huisman, Hone. Yeah, it’s been a pleasure. This episode, I think everyone can say that they’ve learned a ton. So if you’re new to the podcast, and you’re catching the tail end of this, you can find the whole episode on YouTube. Just search Lunch with Norm Norman Farrar and it will pop up, maybe YouTube channel there, and that you can find everything and if you haven’t yet, please like and share this video and join our Facebook group. We’re I think hitting that 300 Mark today, which is awesome. We’ve got lots of great comments and insights and experts like Brenda. We have Ryan Rigney.
Norman 1:21:24
Ryan was actually listening today. So that’s kind of cool.
Kelsey 1:21:27
He was asking his questions too, which is awesome to see. So it looks like hopefully everyone’s learning something new, which is always a good thing to see and yeah, that’s it for me.
Norman 1:21:36
Okay, so we’re going to start Monday off with a bang. I’ve got a buddy of mine. Who is man, this guy is cool. His name’s Tomer Rabinovich. A lot of us have already heard of them. If you haven’t heard of them. Wait till you hear him. He knows his stuff inside and out Amazon listing, sourcing, you name it and he always comes with a ton. I’ve had him out to my live events. He’s come out to Greece with me and we’ve talked. I’ve been to his event in Israel twice. He doesn’t let me go anymore.
Norman 1:22:13
Anyways, Tomer is an inspiration. He does so much for the Amazon and eCom world. So tune in on Monday. I’m not overhyping it. You’ll love it and I think that’s it for me. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Friday at noon, Eastern Standard Time and thank you for watching and enjoy your day.
