Comments on: Episode 13: Brand Building Insights Part Two

By: Grant Chen

Grant Chen — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 22:13:34 +0000

In reply to Jackie.

That’s a good point Jackie and always good to get another opinion. I’m such a guy that bleach is bleach to me, but makes sense that people could get an attachment to it.

I know of the EDC market and that is certainly an interesting field. I would say that you’ve got lots of room to move there, because your customers are quite passionate about the niche and it’s already loaded down with “commodity” items like knives, flashlight and etc that a new comer to the arena could have a lot of traction. If you have 2 or 3 such items, then you’ve essentially created your own brand that and your upsell at that point is just the commodity items.

We will definitely keep you in mind for the project site as well and hope to see you around more on the blog!

By: Grant Chen

Grant Chen — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 22:02:08 +0000

In reply to Kris.

Thanks Kris! Mike has employees and I’m in the middle of hiring employees for sales and chat.

When we started out though, we both did it ourselves because we think it’s important to be the person that knows how to do everything. I would say that if you’re working a day job, then the minute you’re break even on the help, you should hire. This frees up more time to build the business. If you’re being an entrepreneur FT, then it’s pretty much when you realize that you don’t have enough time to build your business. If you’re doing nothing but fielding calls, pushing orders and answering emails, it’s good for maintaining sales, but does nothing to increase.

We both use 3rd party companies for fulfillment though, as that is the most labor intensive, as well as in-house fulfillment.

By: Kris

Kris — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 21:32:24 +0000

Thanks guys, loving the content you produce. I’m new to the podcast but am catching up with the past episodes. My question is, do you delegate tasks such as live chat, customer service, fulfillment, etc. or at what point do you see that becoming necessary?

By: Jackie

Jackie — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 16:17:39 +0000

To the point on emotional appeal of Clorox Bleach, I would challenge your POV here. If you look at who is buying Clorox and using it, it is going to be BY FAR dominated by women. I think when you look at brand building, it’s important to put together user personas and put yourself outside of what “you” would do and make it about your customers. In my opinion, it’s smart of Clorox to help create the emotional bond with their target audience (and I will tell you as a woman who buys and actually uses Clorox, I know there is a big difference between “bleach” and Clorox-brand bleach). Social media can be used to take something as mundane as bleach and give it a personality and an emotional connection to the brand.

We are currently working through where to start with our own products. “Everyday carry,” which is our product category, is so vast and so broad, we really can go anywhere. “Made in the USA” is very important to our buyers, which makes it more complex and expensive. It doesn’t make sense to create something like a pocket knife or multitool (it takes much knowledge and skill), but we are exploring other areas to get our feet wet that is different that we can get made here in the US.

I’d love to throw our name in the hat as a potential site to explore in a future podcast, which I think was mentioned on episode 2. Keep up the good work; I enjoy these and they help challenge my thinking.