Celebrating 250 Episodes: Top Tips for Product Businesses

Welcome to the bring your product idea to Life podcast. This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products or if you'd like to create your own product to sell.

I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly, practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses. Let's get started. Hi.

So I am recording this episode and I'm so excited to be here because this is episode 250, which just feels amazing. It has been almost five years since I launched bring your product idea to Life and I was about to say, I can't believe it's still going.

I can believe it's still going, so when I start something, I finish it, but I just couldn't, you know, imagine what this podcast has become. So thank you to everyone who's. Whether you're a new listener or whether you've been here for the past five years. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And I've selected guests who are expert in their own areas who are invited on the podcast to share their advice with you about how to create and sell your products. So, as I say, this is a roundup episode. You will have heard all of this advice before, or hopefully you will have if you're up to date on episodes.

And even if you have, please do still listen because I think there's so much value to be gained. There's going to be lots of advice coming at you in a fairly short period of time, so you might want to make some notes.

As always, I really hope you enjoy this episode. Please share it. Please subscribe to the podcast. Please do review if you haven't already.

250 episodes is a huge milestone, and the best way to celebrate would be with some lovely reviews or with you sharing this episode of someone else you think might enjoy it. So I will stop talking now and hand over to my wonderful guests.

First up, we have Alison Pollecut talking about how to use spreadsheets to help you in your business.

I think I would say don't be scared, just have a go. You know, it's, I suppose, going back to the point I just made, there are you.

You open up a blank spreadsheet and it might look really scary, look really daunting. There's all these buttons to press, all these Things I don't understand. I don't understand all of them.

I'm not going to pretend I know every single function that there is in Excel, because I don't. But I do know the ones that are important for me, for a business, as a business owner, and I know the things that I use all the time.

So honestly, there were probably, probably about 20 things that I use all the time and there are probably 500 things that I either never use or use very infrequently. So you don't need to know a huge amount to get a really decent amount of value out using a spreadsheet. So just start.

And again, I suppose the thing I said before, we all, we all sort of start off doing things in a, maybe a simple way and, you know, we do, we learn what we need to learn to, you know, carry out whatever tasks we need to carry out in our business. But if you do that with a spreadsheet, you might find that you think, oh, that actually, that wasn't as hard as I thought.

So, you know, if you do some simple things and they help you. Perfect. If you do some simple things and they intrigue you and you think, oh, I want to know more, what else can I do with this?

Then that's even better because then that's kind of started you on a journey, which is, I guess, I guess my journey. I've, I've pushed and pushed and pushed to see what I can learn because I think it's a, because I've enjoyed the process of learning.

But yes, don't be scared, just start, just have a go. Maybe just kind of find some people that can, that can help you and share a few really simple ways to get going, going.

And then, you know, your imagination will probably run right and you'll think, maybe I can, maybe I can do this, that and the other. And it, it will just help you so much, I think.

Next up, Rosie Davies Smith shares one thing to take away. If you are looking to work on your PR this year.

I could say imagery, but I've talked about it a lot. So it would be that you are. Completely capable of doing PR if you run a business.

If it's just you or, you know, you're working with one or two other people, I can't tell you how capable business owners are of doing their own pr. You have all the skills you already need. It's not rocket science. It's really, really easy. So, yeah, I would say just kind of start doing it so you can start building those blocks.

Now. We're going to hear from Helen Williams about how to confidently get visible online.

So the number, yeah, number one piece of advice would be to not overthink it.

Just have a rough, you know, have a rough idea of your purpose, what you want to talk about, or if it's a particular thing you're, you know, pushing or trying to sell at a particular time, obviously have that as your guide. You know, you always need to have a purpose.

I think sometimes people go live on Instagram and you, if you don't know what they're talking about on the purpose, that's when I sort of switch off. So it's good to know what somebody's talking about. But, yeah, just, just do it.

You know, just start doing it because everybody, even the big, you know, the big hitters, like, if we're talking about Stephen Bartlett, you know, he, he would have had a first podcast. He probably looks back and cringes on it now.

I'm sure, you know, you yourself, when you look back at your earlier ones, you wish, you know, you may have done them a bit differently, but over the, you know, over the time, things perfect themselves. You know, you reflect on what you like and what you didn't like.

No one is going to turn up with their first time, you know, their first video, getting their face out there and, and it's 100% perfect. But unless you have that first time, you're not going to have your hundred, hundred one. That was perfect.

So it's just getting started and, you know, you don't even have to watch them. Back to you. It's kind of, that's why stories are quite nice. You're never going to see them again.

So, you know, if you fluff your words, no one else would have noticed.

And, you know, just don't, don't let these things prevent you from doing it because you're, you know, you're, you're preventing your potential clients or getting your product or your service. You know that that's why you're there.

You're providing a service or a product to someone and they, they need it and they want to hear, you know, they want to hear from you. So, yeah, get out there and do it and quit the excuses.

Now we're going to hear from Rebecca Hilliard about how to keep your customers coming back.

I'd say in order to do anything, you need to know who your customer is before. If you don't, if you don't know who your customer is, you don't know how to speak to them. You don't know what channel to speak to them on.

So I'd say at the very core of everything, the foundation, step one, knowing that data that we talked about earlier in this conversation is key. And then you can make really informed decisions about what channels you speak to them on, how you speak to them and when to speak to them.

Next. I asked Maddie Shine for her best advice about how to market your business and add some personality.

Play around with different styles, different platforms and find out what works for you. Before you start finding out, you know, before, before you burn yourself out. Find trying to find what works for other people.

Because without you, there is no business. And that's what the main thing is.

Now Mark Endacott is going to tell us how to sell more products.

Understand what emotional connection people have to your product. If you don't like, it's easy to think like, oh, I sell kitchen spatulas. There's no emotional connection to that. There is.

This is the spatula that will serve your kids their favorite meal. This is the spatula that will whip up, you know, your son or daughter's wedding cake. Yeah, sell the emotional attachment.

Why are people going to be emotionally invested in your product? Because that's how you generate a following. That's how you generate a brand. That's how you generate real interest.

So understand it doesn't, you know, mugs. This is my choice of mug for when I am on calls because it's plain and quite boring. I have a whole plethora of really quirky mugs.

My favorite mug that I use a lot of the time says daddy's mug because I'm a father to a one year old. I, you know, somebody bought that for me when he was a week old.

It's my favorite mug because one of my favorite facts about myself is that I am now a dad. So, you know, the emotional attachment I have to that mug is tenfold to my boring plane mugs that I use for things like podcasting.

Hannah Spicer is now going to give us her best advice for using Klaviyo.

I think what's really important is to send regular emails.

That sounds very simple, but I think lots of businesses feel a bit reticent that they think they're going to bombard their subscribers or they're not finding the time to prioritize it.

And I think that's a huge mistake because hopefully they'll probably know that every time you send an email, you do drive sales and your subscribers have shared their data with you and they want to hear from you and if you email to infrequent, they'll almost kind of forget who you are or whether they signed up with you in the first place. So please don't hold back, please do send frequently, whether that's once or twice a week and then also set up these flows.

So they're helping you get more emails out too because you'll see the results in terms of the revenue.

Next, I invited Claire Hill to give us her best advice on how we can overcome self doubt and procrastination.

And I imagine myself at the beach with my feet in the sand and the waves are coming at me.

And you know when you stay in the shallow bit of the sea and you can feel the movement of the waves coming in, you've got to sort of find your core muscles and stand up straight. I imagine that's happening and the waves are coming.

And just as I think that's it, I can't do it, the tide starts to go out and it's that grit and determination of just keeping going. You will know if things aren't right, your intuition will tell you that.

But if your intuition is still saying but maybe, but what if, keep going, keep staying there till the tide goes out because everything is happening exactly as it should. You just need to hold your nerve and trust the process.

Now we have Sara Jones giving her best advice for how to best use Google shopping ads.

So Google will make recommendations and say, oh, you need to up your budget, you need to tweak this target, you need to change this setting or whatever. But there's also, but unless you switch it off, they will do that automatically. You kind of have to go in and tell it not to.

So that would be my biggest thing would be to say you need to turn off this auto apply. They call it Auto apply. Recommendations need to be turned off.

Otherwise, especially if you are not in your account regularly, you can go back into your account after a month or two and you're looking at and going what on earth is going on? You're like, what's happened?

Because Google has just applied something that it thinks is going to be good and 9 times out of 10 it doesn't work out well for you. It just gets you to spend more money.

Next up, I asked Lucy Jeffereys for her best advice. If you're looking to sell your products via fair, if you're already doing well.

On fair and want to do better, speak to your current customers. That's my main thing. Just try, just take one customer, your best customer, and try and speak to them if you haven't already.

But my main overall advice is actually go and find the customers yourself. Think of Fair as a sales platform that you're using to help with your sales, almost like as an admin and marketing tool.

But you need to go out there and find those customers and bring them into you. Because the platform is so saturated now, just sitting there waiting for the sales to come in won't do anything anymore.

I then asked Mel Eilers to give her best advice for how to use chat funnels to amplify our content on social media.

Success of chat funnels is quite closely linked to organic content. So. And I think many product brands do very well on Instagram with their organic content and their engagement.

And it's probably because product brands are naturally quite creative, I think.

And if, because if you, you need that kind of existing presence and engagement on your organic content in order to run chat funnels, because chat funnels will amplify that. And it comes down to anything, you know, don't ignore your organic. If there's tumbleweed going through your organic. Content, you know, chat funnels aren't going.

To magically bring you those sales leads and engagement. It's very much there to amplify what you have an existing, existing already.

Next, I asked Denisa Parker for her best advice when it comes to packaging for your products.

Don't underestimate the power that design has on your packaging. It's so, so important. Your packaging is more your logo and the brand's name.

It needs to tell a story, to create a certain feeling for your customers, to create a connection with your customers, because that's what's going to help them make a decision whether your product is for them or not, and help them make that decision whether they want to buy it or not. So think carefully about the colors, the fonts, the layouts that you use.

You can hire a designer absolutely, if you want to, but what you, you know, sometimes you, you just can't afford that, and that's absolutely fine. Some things that you can do if you do want to elevate your packaging or, you know, your packaging needs work, is start simple.

Start with, start looking into colors and into color psychology and think about what do, what do customers want to feel? And look into creating a color palette around those colors. Same with fonts. What do you want your customers to feel?

There's so many resources online that break down different types of fonts and what they each communicate and all of that. So definitely start looking into things like that. If you're Unsure.

Or if you feel overwhelmed and you just don't know where to start, just start simple and work your way through every single element.

And finally, I asked Kate Freeman for her top tips if you're going to be pitching your products to retailers.

Patience, I mentioned it earlier. Patience, patience to get the pitch. It might take time. Do not give up, just keep persisting.

And patience, when you're in the room, like, don't try and rush through things. Like, you've got time, like, be calm, be collected and patience to, like, you may get that meeting. Don't rush to put it in right.

Give yourself a bit of a window to, like, prepare fully for that, for the pitch, for the meeting.

Because the more prep, as we've said before, and I know we keep saying it, but honestly, the more prep you can do beforehand so it becomes second nature, the better. Once you've done loads of pitches, you'll be like, I don't need all this, like, time and preparation.

I can do this, you know, standing on my head in my sleep. I feel really confident about it. Then you can like, go, yeah, do you know what? I could do it tomorrow. That's fine.

Because all you need to do is your research about who you're pitching to. But I think if you're early doors and you're like pitching kind of career, shall we call it, or process within your business, just have patience.

These things take time, they need time spent on them. So don't rush.

So there we are. Didn't we fit a lot of advice into a very short space of time?

I really hope you found this episode useful and as I say, that was a lot, wasn't it, in a very short space of time.

So do listen again if you feel like you need to maybe take some notes, if you haven't already listened to the full episodes, definitely go and do that. All of the links to those will be available for you in the show notes.

Thank you again for sticking with me for 250 episodes and can't wait for the next 250. Thank you so much for listening. Right to the end of this episode.

Do remember that you can get the full back catalogue and lots of free resources on my website, vickiweinberg.com Please do remember to rate and review this episode if you've enjoyed it, and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful. Thank you again and see you next week.