Building visibility and trust for your products – with Amber Taylor, Chomp

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.

Hello and welcome as always to Bring Your Product Idea to Life. Right at the outset, I'm going to say if you enjoy this episode, please do subscribe. Do please leave me a review.

Please tell people about this episode. It really, really helps me.

So today on the podcast, I'm speaking to Amber Taylor, founder of Chomp, a multi award winning children's tableware brand supporting families with feeding essentials that bring more ease, style and magic to meal times. This is a fantastic episode.

Of course, they're all fantastic episodes, but this one is brilliant, particularly if you are at the beginning of your journey creating your products. Because Amber very kindly talks us through the entire process, from initial product idea right through to launch, which is brillian.

She goes into so much detail. Amber has also had lots of success recently. She has been featured on Small Business Britain.

She's won lots of awards for her products, she's had lots of press, she's been on tv. And she tells us how all of these opportunities came about and importantly, how you can find these kind of opportunities for your business as well.

So whether you are right at the beginning of your product creation journey or whether you are more established, there's definitely something for everyone in this episode. So I'm now really delighted and excited to introduce you to Amber. Hi, Amber. Thank you so much for being here.

Very happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

You're very welcome. So can we please start with you? Give an introduction to yourself, your business and what you sell.

Absolutely. So my name is Amber Taylor.

My business is Chomp, and we specialize in joyful children's tableware to bring more style, magic and ease to those messy meal times.

Amazing. Thank you. So what inspired you to start Chomp? Did you see a gap in the market or what was your inspiration for getting going?

It was really a mix of things. So my inspiration was my son.

And I think a lot of us female business owners, we really tap into a pain point that we have experienced and look at how we can create a business out of that. So for me, in my business, I am actually the core audience, which I think always helps. But with my son, he's the second child and my.

My daughter was Amazing. At weaning, she would try everything. She was very adventurous. My son, however, was the complete opposite. He did not want to try anything.

We were weaning in Covid, so it was just an added stressful time and extra anxiety. But as I looked around my kitchen, I realized that all the products that I had were cheap plastic. They really weren't supporting him at all.

They were chipped, they were cracked, but also they weren't supporting me and the kind of products that I like. And I think when you have a child, one of the biggest shocks for me is the amount of plastic that comes into your home.

And I was seeing it in the lounge, I was seeing it in the bedrooms, and now I was seeing it in the kitchen. And that was just a huge frustration for me. And I really wanted products that would address both his needs and mine.

So for me, that was really the catalyst for setting up chomp was my frustrations weaning my son. But I really saw the gap in the market to be mealtime products that would address his needs and support him.

And in that, I mean, products that are ergonomically designed, products that support his development as he's learning to eat and develop all of those skills, but products that are also fun to use and make mealtime a joy.

And for parents, the gap really is products that are good quality, that are safe, that are easy to care for, that aren't going to chip and scratch, that are really going to last the duration, that are going to be versatile and last beyond just those first few months of weaning, but also products that are esthetically pleasing and stylish as well. I wanted to tick all of those boxes, and I feel like I've really achieved that with my branch on.

You really have.

I was going to say when you were going through your list of things you were looking for, I was hoping you were going to mention your products looks great, because that was on the first things I noticed, because I'm out of the age of needing to buy the products. When I look at your website, the first thing I think is they look lovely.

And back when I was weaning my children, I think a lot of the products were more childlike in design, so they would design more to appeal to, you know, lots of bright primary colors and all good things. But they definitely weren't things that I would have chosen to fit in with.

My home and my style. Yeah, absolutely.

And that has always been my frustration as well, is that children's products are naturally designed for just children, but actually Us, as parents, we're the ones that are using them, that are washing them, that are looking at them every day. So they need to address the needs of both. And that's really where.

Where I'm excited about our product design and how we pull things together is that we want things to look nice, but they need to be very functional and very practical as well.

That makes sense because also we're the ones that choose them and buy them, so the child isn't making a decision, you know, when it comes to a bowl or a bib, things like that, they're too young to be choosing those products, but yet they do seem to be designed more with the child in mind. So I do stylish. Your products are.

Thank you. And you absolutely want them to be functional and exciting for the child to use and easy for them to use as well.

But it's really balancing the needs of both because those are both your primary audiences.

So what was the first product that you launched?

Amber. So I actually launched a suction plate and Cutler Reset. That was the very first product that I launched.

And I launched on Amazon first because I really want to kind of test the water, see where we were at.

And yeah, that was an absolutely huge learning curve, as you will know from all the product owners that you work with for Amazon, there is a lot to that platform. It is quite the beast. And so that was really a baptism of fire for me when I first launched the first set.

Now, I don't want this to obviously to be all about Amazon, but as you've brought it up, is there anything in particular, anything you'd want people to know if they're embarking on Amazon at the moment? Any learnings or just things to be aware of that you can think of?

Absolutely. So my first learning was that I think when you're a business owner, you need to fail fast and you need to learn faster.

And for me, Amazon was that first punt. And in the time that I did all the research about products that were selling well, costs making sure things were commercially viable.

But in the time it took me to manufacture my product, the market became hugely more competitive. It became much more price sensitive. There were a lot of suppliers selling directly from overseas, which really pushed the price down.

So by the time my product came on market as a more stylish, high quality product, it struggled. Honestly, it did struggle. And I think the biggest learning for me is that not all products are a good fit for Amazon.

And I know you talk about this as well, but some products can absolutely thrive.

There but other products, especially if you are operating in a niche in a competitive landscape that is very, very much driven by overseas sellers where the prices are very low, it does become much more difficult to get the sales that you're wanting to achieve, but also get the cut through as well. And the biggest learning for me was about not just the niche in which I operate, but also the ad spend that is required.

I think going into it I thought that I could just, you know, spend for a few weeks and get my rankings up and then stay there. But actually I wish that ahead of time I had accounted for ad spend as one of my ongoing costs from selling on Amazon.

Thank you. That's. I think that's really useful for people to hear. And you're right, if the niche is competitive, it can be really, really hard. And especially.

And also, and I'm sure you'll say the same, Amber, I don't advocate on competing on price at all. I think if your product is, you know, you've done all the work into what your product should be priced.

What I don't like to see is people suddenly cutting their prices because everyone else is and they want to be the cheapest. I think if you have a premium product and you price it as such, then you should, you should stick by that.

Totally agree.

So you know, you have quite a range of products. Could you walk me through the process of sort of how you develop your product? You pick any product you like.

So what's the process from coming up with an idea or a concept to actually launching?

Absolutely. So I'm actually going to pick the Bop baby suction plate, which we'll come on to discuss in a bit as to how this the start of this one.

But I think it's a really good example for talking through the process in develop of developing a product which can be quite extensive. So the first step for me is really focusing on identifying that problem you can fix or the desire you can meet for your target audience.

So when I looked at kind of all the other plates and suction products in the market, there was a few things that kind of weren't great that I wanted to address. I think the main problem for my audience, which is mums who are in that weaning stage, is mess. So they're very concerned about mess.

If you go on any kind of Facebook, groups, blogs, all the rest of it, everyone's trying to reduce mess.

And mums don't like it when I say mess is actually good because when child is messy, when they're eating it Means they're exploring, it means they're developing. It means they're really having a well rounded kind of weaning experience.

But I totally appreciate as a mom that you want to try and minimize that mess where possible, as cute as those little messy faces are. So I really wanted to focus on how I could reduce mess, particularly when it comes to suction products.

Because suction plates and suction bowls are one of the kind of top three products that you will buy when you first start that weaning stage. So wanted to address suction power.

Also wanted to address not just the plates going overboard when you're weaning, but also like the cups and the cutlery and all the rest of it. It becomes a very messy experience that we want to try and reduce.

But also some secondary areas that I learned were important to parents were having that desire for versatility, having that want for kind of aesthetically pleasing items that we talked about being able to bring kind of more fun and more magic to mealtimes.

Because I'm a huge advocate about mealtimes being a positive experience for children because these are the stages and the months where they're going to learn about food, they're going to learn about their perceptions to food, they're going to learn about how meal times are within their family. So it's really important that that stage is as positive as it can be.

So that's the first stage, identifying your problem that you can fix or the desire that you can meet for your audience. Secondly, it's about validating your problem.

So when I mean validating, I mean speaking to your ideal customer, making sure that this problem that you want to fix is actually a thing that they are passionate about it, and they are passionate enough about it that they're willing to buy a new product. And in doing research, I did a lot of in person talks with my target audience.

I looked at a lot of blogs, I scrolled through Amazon reviews, which I know you recommend to do. So I could really understand what the state of the market was, what those complaints were that mums were having on existing suction products.

So I could ensure that I could address those with the new design. Thirdly, it's about creating those solution options. And for me, that's just sketching it out.

So some of the early drawings that I created for the bot baby suction plate, Please bear in mind, I'm not a product designer in any way, but it was just about kind of really starting to sketch out what this product could look like in order to address some of the concerns. Now, when I really delved into some of the issues with suction there, there are a few.

Firstly, the surface in which you apply the suction needs to be very smooth. It can't be porous. It struggles on wood, it struggles on the tripp trapp highch. But also this is like a suction bowl. And here's another example.

Obviously they come in all shapes and sizes, as you'll be aware, but for a lot of them, parents will. And this is a handy tip. When you put a plate of food down on a highchair, the natural behavior is to press around the edges to create that suction.

And especially with a plate like this, if it's full of food, you obviously won't put your hand into the food, you'll press around the edges.

But engineering wise, that's not going to create a solid suction suction because you need to expel the air from the center of the suction cup in order to create that suction. So by pressing around the edge, as we naturally do as parents, it's not creating a firm suction.

There needs to be a central push point to push down on.

And that was really the core of my design for the bot baby suction plate was having almost like a central plunge point that you could push on in order to create that firm suction. I can show you here, for those that are watching on YouTube, having that central point that you can really push on make it fun for the child.

But also it means that you have a much better firm grasp to the table beneath. So sketch all that out and then the next thing to do is to research again.

Now, I would say research after every single stage when it comes to product design, because you need to ensure that it is truly addressing the needs of your target audience, not just the needs of you and what you're thinking about in your head. So research again. Does the solution meet the needs of the customer? Secondly, is the solution commercially viable?

This is where you really need to do a deep dive into the market and into your niche that you're looking at.

Looking at sales of competing products, looking at the sector, looking at whether you feel like you can create a product that has a cost, which has a high enough margin to make it worth it for you.

And then thirdly, like is the solution that you're creating is what you've sketched new or unique in market, have a really strong look at your competitive set so you know what you're going up against.

Step five for me is speaking to a professional so this is the stage where you'll really need to put your hand in your pocket and ideally speak to a product designer.

So a product designer designer will look at your drawings, will look at your idea and they will give you some solid advice as to whether that is feasible manufacturing wise, or whether there are changes that need to be made in your overall design in order for it to be manufactured en masse. And at that stage, your product designer will create your first CAD drawings.

These are your in depth product drawings that are very professional, are definitely not your sketches anymore. They are created in order to demonstrate to you the different angles, how the product can work, the sizing and all that detail.

The sixth stage is to create your prototype. So your prototype is when your product actually comes off of the page, off of the drawings and becomes a real thing.

And for the most part, your first prototype probably won't look very nice, but the real point of it is to show its functionality. So in my case, the prototype just showed that the suction could be improved and much more superior with that central suction point.

Step seven for me is protecting yourself. I've seen so many small business owners at the moment be copied, have their design stolen.

And so really speaking to a legal professional about whether you should be getting a patent or a design right for your product, considering the markets that you might want to sell in, again, this is likely to be a stage where you may be able to a legal professional for 30 minutes for free for a discovery call. But then after that, when it comes to legal protection, you will have to invest in order to protect your product and that design.

Next, I'd say speak to a manufacturer.

So you can either do this kind of through an intermediary or directly yourselves, really depending on what your product is, will affect where your manufacturer may be.

But looking at the feasibility, the costs, the likely shipping, the minimum order quantities, and being so on the ball with your numbers, because every single penny counts in working out how viable your product is for commercial sale and the margins that you can add onto that to make it viable for you as well. And at that stage for me, there was adjustments that need to be made.

So that's when it went back to the product designer in order to make a few tweaks, in order to make sure that the molds can be created as cost efficiently as possible.

Again, do research again, again, keep going, making sure that it's still viable, it still looks the way that your target consumer would want it, and it's still functional as well. And then next you'll probably want to look into exploring funding options. So obviously going to mass manufacture with a new product is not cheap.

You're creating a bespoke mold just for you and having that factory dedicate kind of their time and their energy towards producing as well. So you want to look at funding options.

There may be options for grants, there are options for crowdfunding and pre ordering your product, but also there are options in private investors. And then from that stage you go to mass manufacturer.

So that is when you'll be producing, ideally thousands, but often it can be hundreds, but obviously that will be a higher per unit cost in order to bring that to market. And then explore all the sales channels that your product fits well on. Be that your own website, be that Amazon, Etsy and other marketplaces as well.

That's brilliant. Thank you so much, Amber. That was so comprehensive. That's so useful. Thank you.

I'm sure people will be listening and relistening to that part because that's a really good walkthrough of all the steps involved. And I love how much you speak about research as well, because you probably know I'm a big advocate for research as well.

And I think often when people launch something that doesn't go as planned, it usually comes down to the amount or the lack of research done at a certain stage.

Absolutely. It needs to be more than speaking to your friends and family as well. I think when you speak to your friends and family, they have a. They. They're not.

Well, they're biased, aren't they? I mean, they want you to do well. They want to support your mission.

And actually a story for me is that when I first launched my plate set, I asked a group of friends to help me pick the first colors because I wanted to be very focused on just picking three colors. I didn't want them to be the obvious kind of blues and pinks. I wanted to make sure that everything was gender neutral to.

To give families that versatility. And all my friends came back and they were like, the Terracotta. The Terracotta is all about the burnt orange. It's so stylish, it's so cool.

And that was my worst seller.

So actually if I'd have spent more time looking on Amazon and what was selling and doing variations of the best sellers there while still making sure things were gender neutral, then I think that first set would have done much better. So, yeah, it's really important that you speak to your target audience, not just your friends and family.

Absolutely. And also on the other side of that, I Know that depending on how your friends and family are inclined, they might also try and put you off an idea.

I know when I started Tiny Chipmunks and my baby brand, this was years ago now, I had people who said to me, oh, I don't think anyone will buy that, or I don't. That's quite expensive. And it was, it was the opposite. And I know it came from a place of love, by the way.

This wasn't all negativity because also people, they don't want, as well as they want you to succeed, they don't want you to fail.

And I remember having conversations with people who, I think and they were saying it from like a good place, but they were like, oh, that seems a bit risky. Oh, there's quite a lot of those out there already. And that also wasn't what I needed to hear. And it shouldn't be about what you need to hear.

But actually, like you say, I spent most of my time researching for those products on Amazon and that's exactly where I was finding what I was wanting to hear. Because like you mentioned earlier, I could find out all the things people didn't like about the products already on the market.

And that was so, so helpful.

Absolutely.

I think even if you're not planning to sell on Amazon, or at least you're not planning to do that to start with, it is such an amazing resource of information because, I mean, it's the biggest shopping marketplace in the world. It is packed full of every single product.

So it gives you a really good guide as to what is already in the market, what things are priced at, but also how customers are responding to those products.

You can literally read through every single review, which I've done in many cases, and I'm sure you have to, to see what are the complaints, what do people love, what do people hate? And look at how your products can address that.

And obviously there are some great softwares that help you scroll through that, such as Jungle scout, such as Helium 10. But as a resource, I think Amazon is absolutely great to do so much consumer research and save you a lot of time.

Definitely.

And I'm glad you mentioned people don't necessarily have to sell their either because I think sometimes people are put off by doing the research there if they think, oh, that's not a platform I'd sell on. But actually the amount, just the sheer amount of reviews are there.

I don't know any other website that has the amount of sort of review information as Amazon.

Absolutely.

Maybe some, maybe others do, but I don't think anything really comes close. So there's just so much out there, as you say, and even the, even the products that don't have reviews could tell you something as well, right?

It tells you that maybe those products are being bought as frequently. So, yeah, there's a lot of information you can get from Amazon, definitely. So, Amber, you have had a lot of success.

I mean, the last couple of months I've seen so many exciting things popping up on your socials, things you've been involved in. So let's run through them.

Not to embarrass you, but you've been in Stacey Solomon's Small Business Spotlight, you've been featured on Small Business Sunday, you've had lots and lots of award wins. Tell us first, before I ask for advice, tell us about some of these things. Don't be shy, tell us about some of the things that.

So I mean, one of my biggest pieces, advice for small business owners is you have to get yourself out there, you have to put yourself out of your comfort zone and do things that might not otherwise come naturally to you. I think one of the biggest things that happened to me this year with going on the Big Idea Works, which was a BBC One series with Sara Davis.

And that opportunity came about because I saw there was a call out for this show and for anyone that hasn't watched the Big Idea Works on the BBC, it is all about people with big ideas that want to bring them to life.

So for me it was a perfect opportunity to get mass profile awareness for my brand, but also really help in the development of the box baby suction plate, which is what I went on the show to, to help with. Sara Davis heads it up.

She is the host, obviously a dragon, lovely, lovely lady, amazing entrepreneur, huge inspiration and going on that show again, totally out my comfort zone.

But I knew it would be an amazing opportunity to get this product idea ahead in order to get mass exposure for my brand that otherwise would never happen because obviously you can, you can't advertise on the BBC. So that was an absolutely huge opportunity and I just saw the call out and I applied for it and hoped for the best.

So I would say when you see these things pop up, do, do just jump in, make the most of it. But as for all the other things that have gone on that you've listed, obviously hugely proud of a lot of it.

But I mean, as a new brand, you need to focus on building your awareness through visibility, but also building trust and making the most of all of those opportunities that come up in order to gain that visibility and obviously gain that trust as well. And in order to do that, you need to make sure that you are in the right places for support and exposure.

The first thing I would recommend, especially if you're new or at any stage of your business, really, is to join Business Networks. I've joined a lot of them and there are a few that I like would highly recommend. And maybe you can pop these in kind of in the info for the episode.

But the first one would be Theo Paphitis, Small Business Sunday. This is an incredible community of small business owners. It's led by kind of former Dragon and entrepreneur Theo Paphitis.

And there's a huge opportunity to get involved in so many big opportunities and exposure chances. So for me, through this network, I now sell via Robert Dyess, which is obviously owned by the Theo Vitas retail group.

I got a free place at the Spring Fair, which is the UK's biggest trade show, via a competition that that group ran. He hosts annual conferences for everyone that's part of the community to come along and learn from. So many amazing, great speakers.

He's associated with the NatWest kind of mentoring and a small business coaching scheme. And it also was an opportunity for me to connect with Stacy Solomon, who I'll come on to in a bit.

So, as a network, I've only been part of it for 18 months, but it has opened so many opportunities for me and there is an opportunity every Sunday night on Theo's Instagram account in order to apply to be part of that community. So that is the first one that I would highly recommend. The next one that I recommend is Small Business Britain. Anyone can apply to be part of this.

Again, that was a competition that was run by Small Business Britain, which really celebrates female business owners and would highly recommend that network as well. The fourth one that I recommend is Buy Women Built.

If you are a female business owner and you have a product business, you must, must, must join this. It is packed with business owners who have so much great experience. There are a lot of great big brands in there. You just need to apply.

It's a very minimal member ship fee. I think it's £30 every quarter.

And within that community they do a huge range of keynotes, workshops, but also the community is just so knowledgeable. So you can go in that community and ask any Question.

And someone will have gone through exactly the same experience of you and be, you know, years ahead of you as well, and be able to offer such high quality kind of notes and community support as well. So Buy Women Built is another one. And then fourthly, Simon Squibb, if you know him, he has the help bank.

Again, this is another passionate community of small business owners who are all there to provide each other with advice and support and that is free to join.

So those are the top four for me that I've experienced over the last four years that have massively helped me with my exposure, but also opened so many opportunities for my business. And the key thing is you can't just join them, you have to be active in them as well.

So make sure that you are giving as much as you are taking, offering your own experiences and advice to other small business owners within there.

So definitely join those business networks when it comes to building trust, which as a small business is just essential, especially in an industry like mine, where you are looking to sell items to children like building that trust is absolutely essential. And there are kind of two key ways I'd recommend doing that. The first one is awards.

Now, awards aren't for everyone and I say this very carefully because I think when you enter awards, you have to be very careful with what you're entering and also do a lot of research and making sure they are credible. I'm sure we've all had the email that says, congratulations, you've been nominated for this award.

And whilst it really plays to your, your ego, it's so important to look at the awarding body, making sure they are credible because there are so many out there now that operate as businesses where you have to pay to enter, you then pay to attend an event, you then pay for the logo, even if you win. And so being aware of those things before you enter is really important so you don't get stung later down the line, in my opinion.

And my advice is to lean towards awards that are voted for by an expert, expert panel.

There are a lot of awards out there where you have to rally votes and then it becomes a bit of a popularity contest and obviously the bigger brands will be able to rally more votes and therefore they'll win.

So in my opinion, going for vote for awarding bodies like the Junior Design Awards, where they have an expert panel that is pulled together specifically to judge your products, would be my preferred route in gaining awards as well. Just be mindful of those.

But I think when you achieve the right awards and you have those logos that you can use on your websites, but also you then tap into a network as well off the back of them that's really successful. The other thing that has worked so, so well for me in building trust is influencers and collaborations. So I've been very fortunate.

I've had Stacy, Solomon, Annabelle, Carmel, various celebrities, radio DJs, fashionistas like weaning in home accounts, all posting about Chomp and I've never once paid for it. And I think the key, the key advice I have here is to identify again, do your research, identify which influencers have the right audience for you.

So if you are targeting moms, again, looking for mommy celebs, mommy influencers, where they will have the right audience that follow them that you can lean on and you can almost borrow for you when you're first starting out, especially engage with them every single day. I think I engaged with Stacy every day for like 18 months before she said anything about Chomp.

Because you need to kind of show them that you're willing to support them. You're not just trying to take from them, actually, you're supporting them. You're supporting their content.

You are showing up every day, like in their comments, in their stories so that they can start to get to know you as a brand, but also their audience that follows that influencer will also start to see you as well and then look at what you're saying, making sure that it's adding value and then hopefully come over to your page. So it's really about borrowing influencers, audiences and borrowing that credibility for your brand, but doing it in the right way.

I'm so not up for a cold calling.

I think when you kind of shoot an influencer a DM and they just don't know you and you're kind of trying to get something from them, like that's never going to go down well.

It's really about learning about them, engaging with them, supporting their content, and then when the time is right, then reaching out and explaining more about your brand, why your brand might be relevant for them in their family, why it might be relevant for their audience and what you can offer them. And in my case it's always, can I send you a bib? I notice that your child is using some bibs. They're getting really messy.

They're going through weaning at the moment. I really think that our bibs could really help you because or same with teething. I noticed that your child's teething at the moment.

Actually we have some products that I think can help you so it's really about giving back as much as possible.

And with this approach, I've had really, really successful full rate of influencers coming back and saying absolutely would be very, very happy to kind of try your products out. And I never put any pressure on them to post or to say something specific about my brand. I think their channel is their channel, it's their audience.

They know how that audience will respond to different content. And so in some cases I will send them a product and they will post about it six months later.

And that's absolutely fine because for me, that is authentic content that they have posted at the right time for their audience, using our product in the right place and time. And that is when I've really had the most success with not just extra followers coming to my account, but sales as well.

Because the influencer has been so authentic with how they've talked about Trump instead of it kind of feeling forced or pushed, which really kind of goes against kind of my integrity.

As much as I would love, you know, loads of info to be posting about Chomp all the time, I want it to be, I want them to talk about Chomp in the right way at the right time for their audience and their children. So that's what's really important.

That makes sense. Thank you.

And thank you so much for sharing all of that because you've had, as you say, as well, as I outlined at the start of this question, you've had a lot of publicity and a lot's happened. But then what's really positive to hear is this is all things that you've corrected, gone out and saw.

So I think that's really great for people to hear that it's there. You just have to go out and look for the opportunities.

Totally. And I think if you're just starting out, just focus on how you can build the trust and visibility.

And so I think, you know, business networks, awards and influencers would kind of be the top areas that I would focus on.

That's brilliant advice. Thank you. And I'm going to ask my direct question here. You can tell me if you don't want to answer, but have you seen.

So when you've had an award win or you've been featured in Small Business Sunday or any of these things, have you seen an impact on sales?

So when it comes to sales that is primarily driven by influencers, I think the awards wins helps generally in your long term brand awareness and brand trust and credibility which will impact sales in ways that you can't measure.

But I think when it comes to knowing exactly where sales have come from, when I get an influencer post about Chomp and do it in a really authentic way, I will see an immediate knock on effect on sales.

Thank you. And I hope you don't mind me asking. I just want everyone listening to be clear about what the impact might be.

I wouldn't want people to think, okay, if I enter lots of awards and I win them, suddenly I'm going to see a huge spike in sales. I hope you don't mind.

That's the reason for us to know. The whole thing with marketing is that you are building up your brand visibility and you're building up your trust.

And so every step that you take contributes towards your long term success. Having that kind of immediacy in doing something and seeing an immediate reaction like that is quite rare.

But know that every step that you make in getting an award in joining a network, like, it's all taking you on to the next stage and overall helping your ability to sell your product because you have higher credibility and higher trust. So in the most cases I would not focus on like immediacy of sales.

But I would say when creators and influencers have posted about Chomp in a way that feels truly authentic, I do see an immediate hit in sales. And then down the line I can benefit from those.

Because if someone buys something from Chomp once, they then sign up to the newsletter, I can then retarget them and then it has kind of an ongoing positive effect on the business versus it just being that kind of immediate first sale as well.

That makes sense. Thank you. And one final question on this, if you don't mind, is obviously you're really good at going for the opportunities that you see.

Do you have any advice for anyone about where they can find all the, you know, lots of different opportunities for them to get their business out there.

So the networks that I mentioned, they are absolutely packed with opportunities. Stuff gets posted nearly every week that you can sign up for. There's a lot of competitions that you can enter.

So I definitely sign up for those networks so you get visibility of all of that. There is a great press group on Facebook called Light Bulb. I'm sure some of your previous panelists have probably talked to you about that.

Light Bulb is only five pound a month and they post on there regularly. Lots and lots of great opportunities to get involved in press. The other one, press wise, that I use is editorial.

So again, that is a monthly subscription. It's quite affordable.

But they will send you daily updates with press Opportunities where journalists are actively looking for products and stories to feature.

That's amazing. Thank you. Well, thank you so much. You've given us so, so much. How are you? I've got one more question before we end, if that's okay.

Amber and I asked this to everybody, which is, what would your number one piece of advice be to other product businesses?

Right, My number one piece of advice, I'd say don't give up. I think. I think everyone's feeling it at the moment.

I think there's a reason why you decided to set up your own business, and I think where you can focus on that, like, why are you doing this? What is your dream? Like, who are you trying to help? What is your purpose?

Like, that purpose has to be your passion, and that's what will keep you going. You know, the economy is really tricky right now.

I think I'm hearing from so many of my kind of product business friends, service business friends, that, like, it is really, really tough. So I would say don't give up when the days are hard. Focus on what's keeping you going, what is your purpose, what is your drive, and what.

Why you're doing it. I think there are times when you may need to tweak your approach and evolve what you're doing along the way. And, like, that's totally okay.

You need to evolve as the market evolves. Don't feel like you need to be stuck in one way because that's the way you set something up.

I think in order to keep going and to not give up, you do have to evolve. But the thing that I said earlier, which is really, really important, is like, fail fast and learn faster.

I think so many of us are scared of failure and things going wrong. But I think when you become a small business owner, you have to embrace failure and actually look at it as a bit of a gift.

Like, you are being able to. You can learn something from that and you can not do it again. So, like, things for me, like Amazon, like, I tried and I tried and I tried on Amazon.

I really, really pushed it.

But now I can just acknowledge that, like, there are other places where I can spend my energy and my time and my budget that I have in order to drive sales. I shouldn't keep pushing the same thing because I feel like I should be there.

If my product isn't a fit because of the quality and the price, then I should actually look elsewhere. So that's really what I mean in, like, evolution. Like, look at how you can evolve, how you can change as you go.

And by learning from what's gone wrong, it means you can push forward even faster. And really, if you're not like, failing, you're not learning.

So you need stuff to happen in order for you to, like, grasp that, learn from it, and push your business on in ways that will be far better than they would have been before.

That's brilliant advice, Amber. Thank you so much.

You are welcome.

Thank you so much for listening. Right to the end of this episode. Do remember that you can get the Fullback catalogue and lots of free resources on my website, vickyweinberg. 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.