July 9, 2024 • 37 mins
Are you ready to unlock the secrets behind successful product launches? Join us as we break down the complexities of bringing new products to market and why not every launch needs to hit it out of the park. In our latest episode, we dive deep into the strategies that can make or break your brand, from leveraging singles and doubles to understanding the roles of complementary items, loss leaders, and tripwire products. Learn how to navigate different sales platforms, such as Amazon and your own website, while maintaining a holistic brand strategy.
We also tackle the tough decisions entrepreneurs face when products underperform. Should you discontinue or re-strategize? Discover the value of maintaining alternative sales channels like Walmart and dedicated websites to preserve your investment. Through our engaging case study, you'll see how tweaking your product warranty strategy can attract a broader customer base and maintain profitability. Emotional and strategic challenges are a part of the journey, but with the right approach, you can keep your brand competitive and thriving.
Finally, we stress the importance of consistent product launches and the continuous evaluation of your strategies. Learn how tools like Pickfu can provide unbiased feedback to turn underperforming products into assets. Our episode covers the importance of thorough research, documentation, and creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to streamline future launches. With actionable advice on audience building and collaborating with existing communities, we offer a roadmap to minimize financial risk and ensure sustained success for your brand. Tune in to transform your product launch strategy with insights that go beyond the basics!
🚀 Transform your brand on Amazon by building a powerful customer list with the After Purchase Funnel Blueprint course. Click here to get the full course for free.
➡️ Ready to go deeper into your Amazon FBA journey to accelerate your success? Get your hands on ALL of the Brand Fortress HQ resources, mentorship, and knowledge base by visiting us at BrandFortressHQ.com
⭐️ Want to help our show grow so we can continue bringing you the very best of guests and actionable content for your Amazon FBA business? We'd greatly appreciate if you took two minutes to give us a five star rating and review. Thank you!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everybody to the Brand Fortress HQ podcast on
this Tactics Tuesday.
First of all, we're doing ourfirst LinkedIn live event, so if
you want an opportunity to askus questions, we're going to be
on LinkedIn doing events everyTuesday so you can find you can
search myself at John Stojan onLinkedIn at Matt Atkins as well
(00:20):
in order to find those events.
Mike is usually AWOL onLinkedIn so you can look him up.
You may or may not find theevent, but it's a great
opportunity for anybody who'slistening out there to ask
questions and be a part of theconversation and get insights
into exactly what we're talkingabout when we have these Tactics
Tuesdays as well.
So I encourage you to join usover there.
(00:41):
Today.
What we're going to be talkingabout is just the concept of
launching new products is reallyscary, or can be.
For new brands, it kind of theycan get stuck with it.
So what we want to talk abouttoday is this concept of we all
want our products to be homeruns, but how do we look at it
from a perspective of if we'reat the table, we've got some
(01:04):
chips, having those new productsbe, or those product launches
being base hits, doubles orpossibly home runs, and looking
at it more from a strategicperspective instead of an
individual product in order tobuild a brand.
So with that you know, firstI'm going to kick it over to
actually to you, matt, oractually who wants to start on
(01:27):
you know kind of your experiencewith you know this concept with
products and how you thinkabout allocating resources to
launching a new product.
You're muted.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Matt this all started because of a conversation about
a LinkedIn post that we sawthat you know, not all products
have to be home runs, and thatwas a lesson that I learned.
Not all products are going tobe a home run is is how I should
better say that but knowingthat you do need some singles
(01:59):
and doubles in order to buildlike, in order to build a brand
I mean, like I said, there's notevery brand has every single
skew of theirs is a home run,and those singles and doubles a
lot of times are complimentarytype products or products that
get you into a differentcategory.
Like you know, when you'rethinking about a person,
particular person, and my person, for one of my people, for
example, is someone that is adiehard smoker of meat.
(02:23):
That person buys things thatare not just necessarily in the
barbecue accessory space butalso in a lot of other
categories, and exposing myselfto those other categories, those
kind of complimentary type ofcategory, just allows me to
speak to a little bit more of abroader audience.
And when I do that every singletime, I've ever done that in a
category that was kind ofadjacent to the barbecue
(02:44):
accessory space.
It wasn't a home run, nor did Ineed it to be, but in some cases
it was a good thing that Icould use as a loss leader.
Or in some cases it was a goodway to partner with another
brand, that we could leverage agiveaway and share a list of
people that we got to join thatgiveaway.
So, thinking of this, when youlook at product research and
(03:07):
you're understanding that itdoesn't have to be a home run
and it's not going to be everysingle time, it really kind of
takes the pressure off of itneeding to be.
And I think that's really wherea lot of people get stuck in
analysis.
Paralysis is trying to find ahome run, knowing, thinking that
every single product has to belike that.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Well, and and the thing about that is too is that
you, you, you have to.
If you're going to be a brandlike you, you have to build out.
You can't just be a singleproduct.
That's not a brand, you knowyou, you're going to have to
have other products that arecomplimentary.
The other thing is is that theydon't all have to be
necessarily sold on Amazon.
Even you know they, you, theycan be sold on your website as a
(03:44):
back-end product.
So there's a lot ofopportunities there.
I think the biggest thing isthat when you're considering a
product launch, it's decidingwhat is the strategy behind the
launch, because certain productsare valuable for different
reasons, as you mentioned.
You know, maybe the product isvaluable because it's a good
(04:10):
tripwire product.
You're going to get a lot ofvolume out of it, but you're not
going to make any money on it.
Well, fine, that's fine.
You know like, that's notnecessarily a problem, as long
as you understand that that'sthe nature of the product and
you use it appropriately.
So you're using it to buildyour list on the back end and do
your post-purchase stuff, youknow, and get them in the door.
So it's all a matter ofdeciding does this product fit
(04:36):
into our overall brand strategyin some way, and how would we
move forward with it if it is?
You know, if it's a tripwireproduct, how do we move forward
with that?
How much money can we afford toinvest in the actual launch?
How much money do we have toinvest in the launch?
If it's not a tripwire productor it's a back-end product that
(04:56):
we're going to launch on ourwebsite versus on Amazon?
Now we can launch at a higherprice point because we don't
have competition.
It's on our website.
We're selling this product toour list and bringing them into
our website so we can have abetter profit margin there.
So you know, it's all a matterof that strategy, of just
deciding what is the productgoing to be, how does it fit the
strategy and what does thelaunch look like as a result of?
(05:17):
You know?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
knowing what that strategy is.
Yeah, I think there's some greatpoints there that I really just
want to double click on, whichis the first is looking at what
is the role of that product andwhether that's you know, you
might start, it might start outwith, you know, one role of like
, hey, I really hope this to bea complimentary product, and
that's okay, that that changesover time.
And then also looking at youknow, especially if you've got a
hero product that you're, youknow, selling quite a bit with,
that gives you the opportunity,like you said, to build out you
know more of a portfolio whereyou're looking at, you know
products that are thosetripwires that are designed
(05:58):
really just to bring more peopleinto your brand.
Or you know complimentaryproducts where you know, like
you said, that maybe you onlysell you know five a day or 10 a
day, but your profit margins onthem are dramatically higher,
and that might be because of howthe product is constructed.
It might also be because you'renot having to spend a ton on
(06:19):
PPC in order to keep a bunch ofvisibility, because you're okay
of you, okay of selling five ofthose a day and spending pretty
minimal on PPC for thatparticular product, because you
know that you're going to get alot of eyeballs from your hero
product.
So I think that there's a lotof value in having some
different tools in your toolboxother than, hey, I'm going to
(06:42):
launch this to Amazon and I'mgoing to drive as much traffic
as possible, and if it's not ahero product, then it's not a
win.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
You know.
Another thing that came to mindthat I think is important to
point out is that I think youhave to recognize that your
product is stepping up to theplate every day, like it's it's
not.
You know, yes, maybe yourlaunch is a home run or maybe
it's not, but the reality is isthat that product is going to
(07:09):
continue to step up to the plateevery single day, and the
question is can it continue tobe a home run product?
But then there's a lot ofcompetition that comes into the
space with that very sameproduct.
Maybe you didn't differentiatequite as much as you might have
(07:30):
liked, and so now there's a lotof me too's that are at a much
lower price point.
And so I think there's value innot only taking the stance of
trying to determine on the frontend whether a product really
needs to be a hero product, orif you should try and launch it
as a hero product, or if youshould try and launch it in one
of these other strategies, butalso re-evaluating on a regular
(07:53):
basis if a product starts toslip, you know, can this product
still be a hero product?
And if so, what do we need todo?
To say, relaunch it to make itthat hero product, that home run
product, or is it moving into aspace where it's becoming more
of a complimentary product, andthat's fine?
Maybe we raise the price on ita little bit, we allow it to be
(08:15):
a complimentary product at ahigher margin and we go after
something else that becomes, youknow, the new hero product, or
maybe it's already been replacedby some other products.
So don't be afraid to changestrategy.
And that's really hard becausewhen you bring out a product and
you hit a home run with theproduct and you know it's good
and maybe you get a year or twoor three out of that product,
(08:37):
you know you get used to thatbeing your hero product, you get
used to it being a home runproduct and as soon as it turns
out that maybe it's not anymore,your immediate gut tells you I
need to relaunch.
This is our hero product.
So we need to fix this, and I'mnot necessarily saying it's
wrong to take a look at that andsee if you can fix it.
(08:59):
But don't assume that that isthe right strategy forward.
Maybe the right strategyforward is to allow it to now
become a complimentary productand let it be replaced by
something else.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
What's really hard with what you just said and I
think that a lot of otherentrepreneurs will agree with me
is, while I do understand thatfrom a theoretical standpoint,
it's and I know that that a lotof times decisions like that
need to be made, but it's sohard as an entrepreneur to make
those types of decisions becausethere's a lot of emotion
involved.
Like that's, you know, likethat's my baby, that was my home
(09:32):
run product.
This is what we've designed.
You know this has this wholebusiness and all of our other
products have been designedaround this hero product product
.
And knowing that, or coming tothe realization that it's not
anymore and that you may need topivot, it's easy to say that,
but it's a lot more difficultwhen it's a piece of your heart
that you're talking about.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
When it feels like a failure, like even though it's
been a success all this time,you know, there's this idea that
it should always be, that youknow, and as soon as it turns
out that it's not now, now itfeels like you failed, when in
reality it's just the marketchange.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Well I think that's a great point, matt is the
difference between what we knowrationally and what we feel
emotionally, because asentrepreneurs, I mean, you put a
lot of thought and effort intodeveloping that product, getting
it manufactured, getting itinto Amazon, launching it,
caring and feeding for it, allthose types of things and it's
(10:30):
hard to say you know what,that's not gonna be my hero
product anymore.
Or even worse well, evenscarier saying you know what,
we're not going to sell thatproduct anymore and just
completely discontinuing orkilling a product.
Right?
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah.
So I wonder my question andwe've talked about this before
and I think and I'm trying toremember we've had so many of
these conversations over theyears.
Mike, I thought that there wasa product at one point that you
said that either you weren'tgoing to sell it on Amazon at
all or that you were planning onremoving it from Amazon but
still selling it on your website.
(11:05):
John, you just mentioned, likeyou know, making a hard decision
of just cutting a product offfor whatever reason.
You know.
I think this highlights theimportance of having a website
or other channels that you sellon, because if something doesn't
work on Amazon, or maybe theAmazon fees became too high and
the economics don't work anymore, like, there's always room for
on your website.
(11:25):
And if you building that kindof awareness about your brand
and people are going to yourwebsite because they love your
products and they want more ofthem, you know that's good
places Like, even though it'snot maybe a good fit for Amazon
for whatever reason, maybe itstill could be something that
you drive traffic to on yourwebsite.
That then, you know, getspeople excited about your brand,
like a loss leader, a tripwirethat we were talking about, you
(11:46):
know.
I think that highlights whenyou have your website and you're
doing it intended with Amazon.
There's a lot more control youhave on your website and the
margins are a lot better in alot of cases.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Well, and it gives you a lot more opportunities to
change strategy, right?
I mean, if you only sell onAmazon and that's all you do,
then your strategies are to somedegree limited because you can
only utilize strategies that aregoing to work in that situation
.
And so you know, maybe you runacross a product that would be a
good product but it's not agood Amazon product.
Or, like you said, maybe youhave a product that used to be a
(12:15):
good Amazon product but itisn't anymore.
Well, the question is okay, sodo we cut that product entirely
or do we just decide okay, we'regoing to only sell that on our
website, or maybe we're going toshift and sell it on Walmart,
where the fees are lower, and somaybe we've got a better
opportunity for profitability.
The thing about that is is torecognize you've put a lot of
(12:35):
effort into that product.
You know you've developed thepackaging and you maybe you
develop the product itself andit's got some unique features.
Or you know you've gotsuppliers set up and you have.
You know you kind of know therhythm of ordering products and
stuff.
So there's a lot of effort thatyou've invested in that product
.
Don't just throw that away justbecause it doesn't sell on
Amazon profitably anymore, thereare opportunities to at least
(12:58):
still take advantage of thatproduct, potentially in another
marketplace or on your websiteor something, so that you don't
throw all of that effort away.
So I think that's a reallyimportant piece.
Another thing is we talked aboutthe strategy piece, and so I'll
give you an example.
So because we do the lifetimewarranty and it's unlimited free
replacement, we obviously haveto sell at a pretty high price
(13:21):
point in order to make that work.
And so one of our products thatwas the original hero product.
It was the first product weever sold.
It's been a hero product in ourline ever since, and
technically it still kind of is.
But profitability on thatproduct is falling, and a lot of
that is Amazon fees.
But a lot of that is also a lotof competitors that have come
(13:41):
into that niche that are verylow price.
They may not be nearly as gooda product, but you know, if
somebody is new to brand andthey don't believe that we're
going to fulfill on the warranty, well then it's hard to justify
our price.
So one of the things that wedecided to do with that is to
change strategy a bit, and so weare now going to start offering
(14:04):
a two-year warrantied versionof that product in addition to
the lifetime version of thatproduct.
And the idea behind that is isthat with the two-year we can
sell at a much lower price pointon that product and be able to
fulfill on that warranty and bemuch more closely aligned with
(14:25):
the price points in our categoryso that we can get a lot more
volume out of that product.
And because we know thatgenerally speaking, our product
has a two to three-year lifespan, we know that offering a
two-year warranty even thoughit's still fairly extreme in the
category, hardly anybody offersa warranty at all, much less a
two-year.
So we should still get goodsales out of that at a decent
(14:52):
price point.
But then we can upgrade them onthe back end.
You know, like we can have aninsert.
You know our insert basicallycould be hey, you know, upgrade
your warranty or you know, orwhatever, and so we could sell
the upgrade on that, you know,for less than we charge on
Amazon for that full lifetimeversion, because they're not
paying the referral fee on thatand still get, you know, some
lifetime customers out of it.
But again, change in strategy,right, like this was the hero
(15:14):
product.
It was one of our best sellers.
It kind of still is, but it'snot nearly as profitable.
So how do we make use of it?
And I think this is a good way.
We'll find out.
We haven't yet launched that.
It starts very soon, but that'sone strategy and one option
that you could utilize.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, well, I think you make some good points there.
I think I just want tohighlight a couple of things,
which is the first is talkingabout okay, so if you have a
product that doesn't launchsuccessfully, what are your
options?
And really killing know,killing a product is probably
should be last on your list.
The first thing that comes tomy mind and for you know, folks
(15:50):
that are listening, I reallyencourage them to listen to the
episode that we did with JohnLee from PickFu, because you
know, basically he laid out howyou can spend a few hundred
dollars, you know, in PickFupolls and potentially, by
changing your main image ordifferent aspects of your
listing, you really can take itfrom a product that's kind of
(16:12):
failed to launch to somethingthat at least has some traction.
Will it be your best seller?
Maybe not, but just taking thatinvestment from something
that's not moving at all all theway to you know, something that
is at least contributing toyour business and you're getting
, you know, break even or better, is a big win.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, yeah for sure.
I think that's super valuable.
I think it's easy to make theassumption that if a product
doesn't succeed, you know, ifyour launch fails, let's say in
some way that it must just notbe a good fit for the market.
Or, you know, if your launchfails, let's say in some way
that it must just not be a goodfit for the market.
Or, you know, people just don'twant it.
Maybe that's true, you know youcould be right, but I think
(16:54):
it's more valuable to take astep back and say what did I
potentially do wrong in thislaunch?
Or what is wrong with ourlisting?
Or what is wrong with you know,whatever that has led to this.
You know apparent failure, youknow with the launch.
I think that's definitely amuch better strategy.
Very little expense is requiredto kind of test that theory
(17:15):
Again.
Like you said, pickfu isperfect for something like that,
you know to evaluate.
Another thing that I was goingto mention that I think is
important to consider it's alittle bit off track from what
you were just saying, but it wassomething I thought about
earlier and that is thelongevity of a product as a home
run product, if you intend fora product that you're about to
(17:36):
launch to be your hero.
Either it's the first productthat the brand has ever launched
, or maybe you're trying toreplace a hero product with this
new product.
Whatever that is, if you intendfor it to be a hero, then I
think the best thing that youcan do, if you want to give it
some legs and give it somelongevity, is to make sure that
you really are differentiated insome significant way over and
(18:01):
above what else is available onthe market, and probably if you
can pull it off in some sort ofa patented way, because you know
, let's face it, whateverdifferentiation you do with your
product, eventually there'sgoing to be competitors that
copy it.
But if you can create adifferentiation that you patent,
then you have a much strongerposition in that market.
(18:23):
So that if you really feel likethis can be a hero, well then
solidify it as a hero so that itactually can maintain that
position for longer and youdon't continually have to
replace it with some new heroproduct.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yeah, I think that's a great point.
I think that also, just you know, really dovetails nicely into
you know, if you have a product,you've done you know kind of
you know pick food to try toidentify some sort of marketing
issue or listing issue with itwhich, by the way, for anybody
who's listening, I highlyrecommend that you, at least you
know have, if you've never doneit with your your hero listings
(18:59):
is to put it through you know,have 50 people who aren't
familiar with your product lookat it, who are Amazon Prime
customers.
I just find that so fascinatingto see what they pick up from
that.
We have incorporated that intoour standard process for listing
optimization because there'sjust so many things that we find
out of that that are greatgolden nuggets.
But beyond that, what I wouldsay is and I think is important
(19:22):
is thinking about how to serveyour customer best and if you
have a product that you know isa flop or doesn't work out,
thinking about how you canmodify that product, you know,
adding something to it ormodifying or, you know, changing
the product somehow to betterserve your customer and thinking
about it from a perspective ofsolving a problem for a certain
(19:43):
group of people, I think reallyhelps steer in the right
direction, where that productneeds to go in order to be
successful.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Well, I think a lot of.
I love what you just said and Ithink a lot of what you would
find in that exercise is maybe Iknow that, mike, you were we've
been having a conversationabout you where you think that
you may have been targeting thewrong avatar.
This whole time You've beentargeting the user of the
product instead of the purchaserof the product.
And you know if, if a launchdoesn't go as you think that it
(20:13):
should and you're basing it offof a hero product and maybe this
is your second or your third,you know, maybe it's just
positioning, maybe it's how youyou know the images are speaking
to the wrong person.
Like having people I love thatwhat you said, john having
people that are just regularAmazon shoppers and you know,
and I think a great place to dothat and this is something that
(20:33):
we've talked about before LikeI'm in a lot of groups, like in
all of the different categoriesthat I sell in, I'm in Facebook
groups that are along those samelines, whether it be barbecue
accessories or meal prepping orsomething like that, where I can
actually ask people and saywhether it's your audience or
someone else's audience.
Like you know, this productdidn't do well, or you know like
, can you take a look at thislisting and tell me what you
(20:55):
would change and how does?
Would I better speak to you thedifferences of what my products
are?
So you know, not just writingoff a product and you know,
going and liquidating it rightaway, but also looking at,
looking at what you did and whatyou put in front of the
consumer, and was that even theright thing?
Were you even talking to theright consumer?
I think there's a lot morelessons that you can learn if
(21:15):
you go a whole lot deeper than Ididn't sell as many as I
thought I did, or theadvertising I couldn't make
profitable.
There's maybe a lot otheranswers to the questions besides
going just from a dataanalytics standpoint.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Well, and I also think, don't lose sight of the
fact that there's a lot ofthings that you can do after the
fact to evaluate why a launchwent wrong and what you might be
able to do to potentiallyrelaunch that product and still
turn it into something valuable.
But better still would beimplement a lot of those things
(21:49):
before you launch so that thelaunch goes well.
So it's like if you would usethose tools to evaluate why a
launch went bad, then why notinstitute those tools on the
front end to figure out how tomake sure the launch doesn't go
bad in the first place?
Make sure that you're pollingthe individuals that you think
are your target audience andfind out what they think of your
(22:24):
listing, what they think ofyour product, whether they think
it's the, whether you're rightabout that avatar and how they
feel about the product.
And maybe pick multipledifferent avatars that you think
could be the avatar for yourproduct and pull them all,
because my guess is one of themwill probably stand out as the
more impressive avatar for saleof that product and it might not
(22:45):
be the one that you think it is.
So taking that time on thefront end to evaluate that
product is valuable, there's alimit.
So I would say, if you intendfor this to be a hero product,
then spend more time on that andmake sure you get that launch
right.
If you're looking at thisproduct as being a you know, a
(23:06):
secondary, complimentary productor a backend sale type product,
well then maybe there's not asmuch time and resources
available to do that and maybeit's not necessary, but if
you're looking for a home run,then you better do the research
on the front end to make surethat you get the best chance of
hitting it.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, that's a great point.
So what do you guys, what'syour take on because I've heard
this from a few different placesfrom as advice from people of
hey, every, every brand shouldbe launching at least three to
four new products every year.
What are your guys' thoughts onthat advice?
Speaker 3 (23:40):
I think that's I don't.
To be honest, in my opinion, Ithink that you should be
launching more than that.
You know, and what I learned,and there's a lot of learnings
that you get when you have aproduct.
So you know, for me it doesn'tnecessarily have to be a
completely new product or in acompletely new category, but
like you're going to startlearning, you know, like let's
take a meal prep example, mealprep container example we chose
(24:01):
a particular color in thebeginning because of what we
thought that we would want if wewere buying the consumer, if we
were the consumer buying thatproduct.
But we learned right away thatthere were other colors that
people were either asking aboutor we heard in other places.
So a variation is also aproduct.
So, like, I think, if you'reincluding variations in that, I
my opinion is five, you know,five to eight products a year, I
(24:23):
think is kind of what ourtarget is in most, most cases.
So I think it's a little bitmore than three, I would say.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I think there's also some other components that come
into play there that have to bethought through.
A lot of it is somewhat branddependent and a lot of it is
also what levers do you have atyour disposal?
What sales avenues do you haveat your disposal?
So, again, if Amazon is youronly sales channel, you're not
selling on any othermarketplaces, or you're not
(24:50):
selling on your website orthrough TikTok or something like
that, well then I think thingschange a little bit, because
launching on Amazon is certainlyharder than launching in other
ways.
You know, like, if you're justlaunching a complimentary
product on your website orsomething, that's a very
different launch than thantrying to launch on Amazon and
be profitable with that productlaunch, than trying to launch on
(25:12):
Amazon and be profitable withthat product.
And so I think there's, youknow, you have to make some of
those decisions.
If you're not able to launch itas a backend product on your
website or something and youhave to launch on Amazon, well
then there's other decisionsthat come into play as to
whether you even launch it atall, you know.
So that's important to payattention to.
I also would say, like, forinstance, our brand is.
I would agree with theperspective that you should
(25:35):
probably be launching as manynew products as you can, while
also taking into account, youknow, the level of quality that
you have to offer and you knowhow.
How strongly is your, is yourcustomer base going to depend on
that level of quality and andare they going to, you know, shy
(25:58):
away from your brand if youmake a shift.
You know like it's.
It's very brand dependent.
Like with us, we offer alifetime replacement warranty on
everything.
So then the question becomesokay, do we offer some products
that aren't lifetime replacement?
You know, do we offer someother products that don't have a
warranty at all?
You know, like, is that?
Is that a direction that wewant to go?
Do we want to add consumablesto our line?
(26:19):
And if we're going to addconsumables, that changes things
.
So, again, we're back tostrategy.
You know, like, where can yousell the product?
What types of products are you,are you interested in and
willing to release?
And, based on that overall brandstrategy, I think that, then,
is what really kind ofdetermines how many new products
can andurn and that you, youknow, a hero product this year
(26:52):
isn't necessarily going to be ahero product next year, and you
do need to have products in thepipeline.
I would say three to fourproducts a year probably makes a
lot of sense.
And that's an area where wehave struggled because the
pipeline was, you know, like theconstraint was me, because I'm
the one who's doing the productdevelopment, but I was also
doing a lot of other things inour business and so you know, as
(27:13):
a result, product developmenthas been fairly stagnant.
We'll probably release moreproducts over the next year than
we have in the last five years.
So you know, in that regardwe've been pretty stagnant.
But I do think three to fourproducts a year probably makes
sense for most brands and if youcould do more, you should do
(27:37):
more.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah, and I think, matt, you made a great point,
which was you know some of it isis just kind of keeping the
muscles and the learning goingforward, because launching a
product you know right now, in2024, is way different than you
know launching a product in 2015or 2019, or even you know 2021.
In 2015 or 2019, or even youknow 2021.
And so really having aheartbeat on you know what it
(27:59):
takes for a product to besuccessful, I think adds a lot
of value and also keeps yourbrand healthy.
You're muted, matt.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
I said totally agree, and I think Mike's is he back
on, he's got to keep jumpingthrough his internet.
It's not working great.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Our first live event and, of course, Mike has
technical issues, just how lifegoes sometimes it is.
Yeah, I'm trying to think of.
So what else do you think youknow for brands that might be
listening out there and they'rethinking about their next
product that we haven'tdiscussed so far, I guess one.
The other question that I haveis how do you guys think about
(28:37):
kind of resource allocation inthe sense of you know I know
it's going to depend on how much, how big your brand is.
But let's say you know you'relaunching a new product, do you
put, how much resource do youput towards in capital towards
developing that product,ordering, inventory and then
also marketing that product?
If you know our brand, let'ssay a hundred percent as a whole
(28:58):
, how do you think aboutallocating resources towards
those necessary steps in theprocess?
Speaker 3 (29:05):
You know, I think, again, like the last answer that
Mike was was kind of alludingto, is that it's there's a lot
of variables that go into that.
But I, you know, I think, again, like the last answer that Mike
was kind of alluding to, isthat there's a lot of variables
that go into that.
But I think and this also goesalong with what Mike was just
saying, I think in most cases,the brand owner, the person, the
visionary, that entrepreneur,the one that has all these ideas
running around in their headmost of the time, that is their
(29:29):
superpower.
Their superpower isunderstanding the consumer.
Their superpower is realizingwhat types of problems or what
type, how they can enhance thelives of their avatar.
So, you know, from a resourcesstandpoint, launching new
products, I think, I think thatthat you know, I think clearing
off your headspace and yourtasks so that the entrepreneur,
the business owner, can focus onwhat comes next in a product
(29:51):
line.
You know, I think, I think thatneeds and I think Mike was, like
I said, mike was alluding tothat and what he was saying is
that he hasn't been spendingthat much, that a lot of that
time this last last couple ofyears, because most of his
headspace was in growing thebrand.
So, in terms of resourceallocation, I think that a
founder, a business owner,should allocate, you know, at
least 20 to 30% of their timeconstantly looking at how to
(30:15):
iterate or how to innovate orhow to make things better, and I
don't think very many peopleare doing that, and I think
Mike's story of the last coupleof years of his brand is a good
indicator of that.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yeah, absolutely, and I think that's a good point.
So, mike, I know you've kind ofcut out of here a little bit.
The question that we weretalking about is how do you
think about resource allocationfor either launching or
relaunching a new product?
Because I think one of thethings that gets entrepreneurs
really stuck and brand buildersis they feel like they're
betting the farm on one productor they're afraid to invest in
(30:54):
whatever that next product maybe.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Well, I mean, I hate to beat a dead horse because we
come back to this, you know,really frequently, but I just
think it's so important and thatis, you know, coming back to
that idea of building that list.
Now, if it's your first product, then you know different story.
But then, as john has said, youknow, or Matt rather has said
(31:18):
in many occasions you know,connecting with a said you know,
or Matt rather has said in manyoccasions you know, connecting
with a community, you know, inorder to use that, utilize that
community for a launch can be amuch less expensive way of doing
a launch.
It's time consuming because youhave to build a relationship
with the community or the theadministrator of that community,
but but I think it does giveyou the opportunity to take a
(31:43):
swing at something and not haveso much writing on it.
Because if you're trying tolaunch a product without any
sort of audience, that is reallyexpensive and you have to
really do some heavy discountingand you know heavy marketing
and PPC and all of that, and soit is guaranteed that you're
(32:03):
going to lose money on thatlaunch if you don't have an
audience that you can launch to.
So the question is, can you getto viable profitability fast
enough on that product that itbecomes a successful launch and
you don't know from thebeginning.
You can guess, but you don'tknow for sure and so I think it
gives you a lot more confidenceto actually take a swing at a
(32:26):
launch when you have an audiencethat you can launch to and you
know that you can launchprofitably, that you can launch
with maybe a 10 or 15% discountto your, to your you know your
community, community, youraudience and still be profitable
on those initial launch sales.
I just it's so freeing to knowthat you don't have to go into
(32:47):
debt to launch a product that Ijust cannot stress enough.
You need an audience.
You need to be building anaudience off of products that
you're already selling on amazonand or you need to be
connecting with communitiesbefore you do a launch.
If it's a new product, likeyour first product, and you
don't already have an audience,one way or another, invest the
(33:07):
time to build that audience,because it's going to help you
in the long run.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Well, I think, as we wrap this episode, that is an
incredible action item forlisteners to take away, matt.
Anything that you want to leavelisteners with for an action
item on this episode.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Yeah, mike touched on it and it's really been my.
You know what we've usedGrowing an audience for a lot of
people that's an overwhelmingthought.
It takes a long time.
It's a special skill set.
I personally have always taggedalong with someone else's
audience and there's a lot ofaudiences out there that the
person that created thataudience has that skill set but
(33:44):
has no idea how to monetize thataudience or how to serve that
audience.
They just know how to get abunch of a group of people
around to talk about aparticular subject.
So there's a lot of audiencesout there that are just waiting
for someone like you to comealong to help them solve the
problems or enhance the lives ofpeople that are in their
community.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Fantastic.
And then I think the actionitem that I'll leave our
listeners with is you know wetalked about, you know, three,
five, eight products a year of.
You know, quote, unquote, whatyou should be launching.
What I would say is you know,if you haven't launched a
product in a while, just startwith one.
You know, just get the ballrolling.
(34:23):
And you know, start with oneproduct in order to build up
that muscle, and I think you'llbe surprised at how much
progress you'll make just byhaving a system in place and
kind of shaking off the rust inthat and what it takes to launch
a new product.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Well, an important piece of that, before we wrap up
, is documented, like, if youhaven't launched something in a
while, first of all, researchwhat it looks like to launch a
product right now and again goback to that idea of using an
audience and be careful aboutthe information that's out there
about how to launch a product,because, realistically, most
Amazon sellers are stilllaunching products without
(35:00):
audiences and that is a muchharder lift than to launch it
with an audience.
So, you know, take some of whatyou read and what you see in
some of these videos with agrain of salt, because it's an
expensive launch strategy andthere's other, better ways to do
it.
But as you walk through thelaunch if you haven't done it in
a while document what you'redoing, create an SOP of sorts of
(35:23):
what you did and then figureout after the fact what things
you should have done better orwhat you should have changed or
whatnot.
But at least if you document itas you go, you've got a
foundation on which to build anactual SOP for the next launch
so you're ready for it and youcan more easily walk through
that process.
On the next launch so you'reready for it and you can more
easily walk through that processon the next product.
I guarantee you it'll make thatnext launch much, much easier.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Absolutely.
I think that's a great place toend for today For our listeners
out there.
If you've got questions onthese types of topics that we're
going to be discussing everyTuesday, find us on LinkedIn,
whether it's myself at JohnStojan or Matt Atkins.
You can also find BrandFortress, and we're going to be
having these Tactics Tuesdayslive, so that way you can ask
(36:08):
questions.
So I think this was a crucialdiscussion for brands that are
looking at how do I continue tobuild on Amazon and beyond, and
we'll continue to talk aboutthese types of strategic
necessities that you need tohave in order to build a brand.
Welcome everybody to the Brand Fortress HQ podcast on
this Tactics Tuesday.
First of all, we're doing ourfirst LinkedIn live event, so if
you want an opportunity to askus questions, we're going to be
on LinkedIn doing events everyTuesday so you can find you can
search myself at John Stojan onLinkedIn at Matt Atkins as well
(00:20):
in order to find those events.
Mike is usually AWOL onLinkedIn so you can look him up.
You may or may not find theevent, but it's a great
opportunity for anybody who'slistening out there to ask
questions and be a part of theconversation and get insights
into exactly what we're talkingabout when we have these Tactics
Tuesdays as well.
So I encourage you to join usover there.
(00:41):
Today.
What we're going to be talkingabout is just the concept of
launching new products is reallyscary, or can be.
For new brands, it kind of theycan get stuck with it.
So what we want to talk abouttoday is this concept of we all
want our products to be homeruns, but how do we look at it
from a perspective of if we'reat the table, we've got some
(01:04):
chips, having those new productsbe, or those product launches
being base hits, doubles orpossibly home runs, and looking
at it more from a strategicperspective instead of an
individual product in order tobuild a brand.
So with that you know, firstI'm going to kick it over to
actually to you, matt, oractually who wants to start on
(01:27):
you know kind of your experiencewith you know this concept with
products and how you thinkabout allocating resources to
launching a new product.
You're muted.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Matt this all started because of a conversation about
a LinkedIn post that we sawthat you know, not all products
have to be home runs, and thatwas a lesson that I learned.
Not all products are going tobe a home run is is how I should
better say that but knowingthat you do need some singles
(01:59):
and doubles in order to buildlike, in order to build a brand
I mean, like I said, there's notevery brand has every single
skew of theirs is a home run,and those singles and doubles a
lot of times are complimentarytype products or products that
get you into a differentcategory.
Like you know, when you'rethinking about a person,
particular person, and my person, for one of my people, for
example, is someone that is adiehard smoker of meat.
(02:23):
That person buys things thatare not just necessarily in the
barbecue accessory space butalso in a lot of other
categories, and exposing myselfto those other categories, those
kind of complimentary type ofcategory, just allows me to
speak to a little bit more of abroader audience.
And when I do that every singletime, I've ever done that in a
category that was kind ofadjacent to the barbecue
(02:44):
accessory space.
It wasn't a home run, nor did Ineed it to be, but in some cases
it was a good thing that Icould use as a loss leader.
Or in some cases it was a goodway to partner with another
brand, that we could leverage agiveaway and share a list of
people that we got to join thatgiveaway.
So, thinking of this, when youlook at product research and
(03:07):
you're understanding that itdoesn't have to be a home run
and it's not going to be everysingle time, it really kind of
takes the pressure off of itneeding to be.
And I think that's really wherea lot of people get stuck in
analysis.
Paralysis is trying to find ahome run, knowing, thinking that
every single product has to belike that.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Well, and and the thing about that is too is that
you, you, you have to.
If you're going to be a brandlike you, you have to build out.
You can't just be a singleproduct.
That's not a brand, you knowyou, you're going to have to
have other products that arecomplimentary.
The other thing is is that theydon't all have to be
necessarily sold on Amazon.
Even you know they, you, theycan be sold on your website as a
(03:44):
back-end product.
So there's a lot ofopportunities there.
I think the biggest thing isthat when you're considering a
product launch, it's decidingwhat is the strategy behind the
launch, because certain productsare valuable for different
reasons, as you mentioned.
You know, maybe the product isvaluable because it's a good
(04:10):
tripwire product.
You're going to get a lot ofvolume out of it, but you're not
going to make any money on it.
Well, fine, that's fine.
You know like, that's notnecessarily a problem, as long
as you understand that that'sthe nature of the product and
you use it appropriately.
So you're using it to buildyour list on the back end and do
your post-purchase stuff, youknow, and get them in the door.
So it's all a matter ofdeciding does this product fit
(04:36):
into our overall brand strategyin some way, and how would we
move forward with it if it is?
You know, if it's a tripwireproduct, how do we move forward
with that?
How much money can we afford toinvest in the actual launch?
How much money do we have toinvest in the launch?
If it's not a tripwire productor it's a back-end product that
(04:56):
we're going to launch on ourwebsite versus on Amazon?
Now we can launch at a higherprice point because we don't
have competition.
It's on our website.
We're selling this product toour list and bringing them into
our website so we can have abetter profit margin there.
So you know, it's all a matterof that strategy, of just
deciding what is the productgoing to be, how does it fit the
strategy and what does thelaunch look like as a result of?
(05:17):
You know?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
knowing what that strategy is.
Yeah, I think there's some greatpoints there that I really just
want to double click on, whichis the first is looking at what
is the role of that product andwhether that's you know, you
might start, it might start outwith, you know, one role of like
, hey, I really hope this to bea complimentary product, and
that's okay, that that changesover time.
And then also looking at youknow, especially if you've got a
hero product that you're, youknow, selling quite a bit with,
that gives you the opportunity,like you said, to build out you
know more of a portfolio whereyou're looking at, you know
products that are thosetripwires that are designed
(05:58):
really just to bring more peopleinto your brand.
Or you know complimentaryproducts where you know, like
you said, that maybe you onlysell you know five a day or 10 a
day, but your profit margins onthem are dramatically higher,
and that might be because of howthe product is constructed.
It might also be because you'renot having to spend a ton on
(06:19):
PPC in order to keep a bunch ofvisibility, because you're okay
of you, okay of selling five ofthose a day and spending pretty
minimal on PPC for thatparticular product, because you
know that you're going to get alot of eyeballs from your hero
product.
So I think that there's a lotof value in having some
different tools in your toolboxother than, hey, I'm going to
(06:42):
launch this to Amazon and I'mgoing to drive as much traffic
as possible, and if it's not ahero product, then it's not a
win.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
You know.
Another thing that came to mindthat I think is important to
point out is that I think youhave to recognize that your
product is stepping up to theplate every day, like it's it's
not.
You know, yes, maybe yourlaunch is a home run or maybe
it's not, but the reality is isthat that product is going to
(07:09):
continue to step up to the plateevery single day, and the
question is can it continue tobe a home run product?
But then there's a lot ofcompetition that comes into the
space with that very sameproduct.
Maybe you didn't differentiatequite as much as you might have
(07:30):
liked, and so now there's a lotof me too's that are at a much
lower price point.
And so I think there's value innot only taking the stance of
trying to determine on the frontend whether a product really
needs to be a hero product, orif you should try and launch it
as a hero product, or if youshould try and launch it in one
of these other strategies, butalso re-evaluating on a regular
(07:53):
basis if a product starts toslip, you know, can this product
still be a hero product?
And if so, what do we need todo?
To say, relaunch it to make itthat hero product, that home run
product, or is it moving into aspace where it's becoming more
of a complimentary product, andthat's fine?
Maybe we raise the price on ita little bit, we allow it to be
(08:15):
a complimentary product at ahigher margin and we go after
something else that becomes, youknow, the new hero product, or
maybe it's already been replacedby some other products.
So don't be afraid to changestrategy.
And that's really hard becausewhen you bring out a product and
you hit a home run with theproduct and you know it's good
and maybe you get a year or twoor three out of that product,
(08:37):
you know you get used to thatbeing your hero product, you get
used to it being a home runproduct and as soon as it turns
out that maybe it's not anymore,your immediate gut tells you I
need to relaunch.
This is our hero product.
So we need to fix this, and I'mnot necessarily saying it's
wrong to take a look at that andsee if you can fix it.
(08:59):
But don't assume that that isthe right strategy forward.
Maybe the right strategyforward is to allow it to now
become a complimentary productand let it be replaced by
something else.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
What's really hard with what you just said and I
think that a lot of otherentrepreneurs will agree with me
is, while I do understand thatfrom a theoretical standpoint,
it's and I know that that a lotof times decisions like that
need to be made, but it's sohard as an entrepreneur to make
those types of decisions becausethere's a lot of emotion
involved.
Like that's, you know, likethat's my baby, that was my home
(09:32):
run product.
This is what we've designed.
You know this has this wholebusiness and all of our other
products have been designedaround this hero product product
.
And knowing that, or coming tothe realization that it's not
anymore and that you may need topivot, it's easy to say that,
but it's a lot more difficultwhen it's a piece of your heart
that you're talking about.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
When it feels like a failure, like even though it's
been a success all this time,you know, there's this idea that
it should always be, that youknow, and as soon as it turns
out that it's not now, now itfeels like you failed, when in
reality it's just the marketchange.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Well I think that's a great point, matt is the
difference between what we knowrationally and what we feel
emotionally, because asentrepreneurs, I mean, you put a
lot of thought and effort intodeveloping that product, getting
it manufactured, getting itinto Amazon, launching it,
caring and feeding for it, allthose types of things and it's
(10:30):
hard to say you know what,that's not gonna be my hero
product anymore.
Or even worse well, evenscarier saying you know what,
we're not going to sell thatproduct anymore and just
completely discontinuing orkilling a product.
Right?
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah.
So I wonder my question andwe've talked about this before
and I think and I'm trying toremember we've had so many of
these conversations over theyears.
Mike, I thought that there wasa product at one point that you
said that either you weren'tgoing to sell it on Amazon at
all or that you were planning onremoving it from Amazon but
still selling it on your website.
(11:05):
John, you just mentioned, likeyou know, making a hard decision
of just cutting a product offfor whatever reason.
You know.
I think this highlights theimportance of having a website
or other channels that you sellon, because if something doesn't
work on Amazon, or maybe theAmazon fees became too high and
the economics don't work anymore, like, there's always room for
on your website.
(11:25):
And if you building that kindof awareness about your brand
and people are going to yourwebsite because they love your
products and they want more ofthem, you know that's good
places Like, even though it'snot maybe a good fit for Amazon
for whatever reason, maybe itstill could be something that
you drive traffic to on yourwebsite.
That then, you know, getspeople excited about your brand,
like a loss leader, a tripwirethat we were talking about, you
(11:46):
know.
I think that highlights whenyou have your website and you're
doing it intended with Amazon.
There's a lot more control youhave on your website and the
margins are a lot better in alot of cases.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Well, and it gives you a lot more opportunities to
change strategy, right?
I mean, if you only sell onAmazon and that's all you do,
then your strategies are to somedegree limited because you can
only utilize strategies that aregoing to work in that situation
.
And so you know, maybe you runacross a product that would be a
good product but it's not agood Amazon product.
Or, like you said, maybe youhave a product that used to be a
(12:15):
good Amazon product but itisn't anymore.
Well, the question is okay, sodo we cut that product entirely
or do we just decide okay, we'regoing to only sell that on our
website, or maybe we're going toshift and sell it on Walmart,
where the fees are lower, and somaybe we've got a better
opportunity for profitability.
The thing about that is is torecognize you've put a lot of
(12:35):
effort into that product.
You know you've developed thepackaging and you maybe you
develop the product itself andit's got some unique features.
Or you know you've gotsuppliers set up and you have.
You know you kind of know therhythm of ordering products and
stuff.
So there's a lot of effort thatyou've invested in that product
.
Don't just throw that away justbecause it doesn't sell on
Amazon profitably anymore, thereare opportunities to at least
(12:58):
still take advantage of thatproduct, potentially in another
marketplace or on your websiteor something, so that you don't
throw all of that effort away.
So I think that's a reallyimportant piece.
Another thing is we talked aboutthe strategy piece, and so I'll
give you an example.
So because we do the lifetimewarranty and it's unlimited free
replacement, we obviously haveto sell at a pretty high price
(13:21):
point in order to make that work.
And so one of our products thatwas the original hero product.
It was the first product weever sold.
It's been a hero product in ourline ever since, and
technically it still kind of is.
But profitability on thatproduct is falling, and a lot of
that is Amazon fees.
But a lot of that is also a lotof competitors that have come
(13:41):
into that niche that are verylow price.
They may not be nearly as gooda product, but you know, if
somebody is new to brand andthey don't believe that we're
going to fulfill on the warranty, well then it's hard to justify
our price.
So one of the things that wedecided to do with that is to
change strategy a bit, and so weare now going to start offering
(14:04):
a two-year warrantied versionof that product in addition to
the lifetime version of thatproduct.
And the idea behind that is isthat with the two-year we can
sell at a much lower price pointon that product and be able to
fulfill on that warranty and bemuch more closely aligned with
(14:25):
the price points in our categoryso that we can get a lot more
volume out of that product.
And because we know thatgenerally speaking, our product
has a two to three-year lifespan, we know that offering a
two-year warranty even thoughit's still fairly extreme in the
category, hardly anybody offersa warranty at all, much less a
two-year.
So we should still get goodsales out of that at a decent
(14:52):
price point.
But then we can upgrade them onthe back end.
You know, like we can have aninsert.
You know our insert basicallycould be hey, you know, upgrade
your warranty or you know, orwhatever, and so we could sell
the upgrade on that, you know,for less than we charge on
Amazon for that full lifetimeversion, because they're not
paying the referral fee on thatand still get, you know, some
lifetime customers out of it.
But again, change in strategy,right, like this was the hero
(15:14):
product.
It was one of our best sellers.
It kind of still is, but it'snot nearly as profitable.
So how do we make use of it?
And I think this is a good way.
We'll find out.
We haven't yet launched that.
It starts very soon, but that'sone strategy and one option
that you could utilize.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, well, I think you make some good points there.
I think I just want tohighlight a couple of things,
which is the first is talkingabout okay, so if you have a
product that doesn't launchsuccessfully, what are your
options?
And really killing know,killing a product is probably
should be last on your list.
The first thing that comes tomy mind and for you know, folks
(15:50):
that are listening, I reallyencourage them to listen to the
episode that we did with JohnLee from PickFu, because you
know, basically he laid out howyou can spend a few hundred
dollars, you know, in PickFupolls and potentially, by
changing your main image ordifferent aspects of your
listing, you really can take itfrom a product that's kind of
(16:12):
failed to launch to somethingthat at least has some traction.
Will it be your best seller?
Maybe not, but just taking thatinvestment from something
that's not moving at all all theway to you know, something that
is at least contributing toyour business and you're getting
, you know, break even or better, is a big win.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, yeah for sure.
I think that's super valuable.
I think it's easy to make theassumption that if a product
doesn't succeed, you know, ifyour launch fails, let's say in
some way that it must just notbe a good fit for the market.
Or, you know, if your launchfails, let's say in some way
that it must just not be a goodfit for the market.
Or, you know, people just don'twant it.
Maybe that's true, you know youcould be right, but I think
(16:54):
it's more valuable to take astep back and say what did I
potentially do wrong in thislaunch?
Or what is wrong with ourlisting?
Or what is wrong with you know,whatever that has led to this.
You know apparent failure, youknow with the launch.
I think that's definitely amuch better strategy.
Very little expense is requiredto kind of test that theory
(17:15):
Again.
Like you said, pickfu isperfect for something like that,
you know to evaluate.
Another thing that I was goingto mention that I think is
important to consider it's alittle bit off track from what
you were just saying, but it wassomething I thought about
earlier and that is thelongevity of a product as a home
run product, if you intend fora product that you're about to
(17:36):
launch to be your hero.
Either it's the first productthat the brand has ever launched
, or maybe you're trying toreplace a hero product with this
new product.
Whatever that is, if you intendfor it to be a hero, then I
think the best thing that youcan do, if you want to give it
some legs and give it somelongevity, is to make sure that
you really are differentiated insome significant way over and
(18:01):
above what else is available onthe market, and probably if you
can pull it off in some sort ofa patented way, because you know
, let's face it, whateverdifferentiation you do with your
product, eventually there'sgoing to be competitors that
copy it.
But if you can create adifferentiation that you patent,
then you have a much strongerposition in that market.
(18:23):
So that if you really feel likethis can be a hero, well then
solidify it as a hero so that itactually can maintain that
position for longer and youdon't continually have to
replace it with some new heroproduct.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yeah, I think that's a great point.
I think that also, just you know, really dovetails nicely into
you know, if you have a product,you've done you know kind of
you know pick food to try toidentify some sort of marketing
issue or listing issue with itwhich, by the way, for anybody
who's listening, I highlyrecommend that you, at least you
know have, if you've never doneit with your your hero listings
(18:59):
is to put it through you know,have 50 people who aren't
familiar with your product lookat it, who are Amazon Prime
customers.
I just find that so fascinatingto see what they pick up from
that.
We have incorporated that intoour standard process for listing
optimization because there'sjust so many things that we find
out of that that are greatgolden nuggets.
But beyond that, what I wouldsay is and I think is important
(19:22):
is thinking about how to serveyour customer best and if you
have a product that you know isa flop or doesn't work out,
thinking about how you canmodify that product, you know,
adding something to it ormodifying or, you know, changing
the product somehow to betterserve your customer and thinking
about it from a perspective ofsolving a problem for a certain
(19:43):
group of people, I think reallyhelps steer in the right
direction, where that productneeds to go in order to be
successful.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
Well, I think a lot of.
I love what you just said and Ithink a lot of what you would
find in that exercise is maybe Iknow that, mike, you were we've
been having a conversationabout you where you think that
you may have been targeting thewrong avatar.
This whole time You've beentargeting the user of the
product instead of the purchaserof the product.
And you know if, if a launchdoesn't go as you think that it
(20:13):
should and you're basing it offof a hero product and maybe this
is your second or your third,you know, maybe it's just
positioning, maybe it's how youyou know the images are speaking
to the wrong person.
Like having people I love thatwhat you said, john having
people that are just regularAmazon shoppers and you know,
and I think a great place to dothat and this is something that
(20:33):
we've talked about before LikeI'm in a lot of groups, like in
all of the different categoriesthat I sell in, I'm in Facebook
groups that are along those samelines, whether it be barbecue
accessories or meal prepping orsomething like that, where I can
actually ask people and saywhether it's your audience or
someone else's audience.
Like you know, this productdidn't do well, or you know like
, can you take a look at thislisting and tell me what you
(20:55):
would change and how does?
Would I better speak to you thedifferences of what my products
are?
So you know, not just writingoff a product and you know,
going and liquidating it rightaway, but also looking at,
looking at what you did and whatyou put in front of the
consumer, and was that even theright thing?
Were you even talking to theright consumer?
I think there's a lot morelessons that you can learn if
(21:15):
you go a whole lot deeper than Ididn't sell as many as I
thought I did, or theadvertising I couldn't make
profitable.
There's maybe a lot otheranswers to the questions besides
going just from a dataanalytics standpoint.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Well, and I also think, don't lose sight of the
fact that there's a lot ofthings that you can do after the
fact to evaluate why a launchwent wrong and what you might be
able to do to potentiallyrelaunch that product and still
turn it into something valuable.
But better still would beimplement a lot of those things
(21:49):
before you launch so that thelaunch goes well.
So it's like if you would usethose tools to evaluate why a
launch went bad, then why notinstitute those tools on the
front end to figure out how tomake sure the launch doesn't go
bad in the first place?
Make sure that you're pollingthe individuals that you think
are your target audience andfind out what they think of your
(22:24):
listing, what they think ofyour product, whether they think
it's the, whether you're rightabout that avatar and how they
feel about the product.
And maybe pick multipledifferent avatars that you think
could be the avatar for yourproduct and pull them all,
because my guess is one of themwill probably stand out as the
more impressive avatar for saleof that product and it might not
(22:45):
be the one that you think it is.
So taking that time on thefront end to evaluate that
product is valuable, there's alimit.
So I would say, if you intendfor this to be a hero product,
then spend more time on that andmake sure you get that launch
right.
If you're looking at thisproduct as being a you know, a
(23:06):
secondary, complimentary productor a backend sale type product,
well then maybe there's not asmuch time and resources
available to do that and maybeit's not necessary, but if
you're looking for a home run,then you better do the research
on the front end to make surethat you get the best chance of
hitting it.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, that's a great point.
So what do you guys, what'syour take on because I've heard
this from a few different placesfrom as advice from people of
hey, every, every brand shouldbe launching at least three to
four new products every year.
What are your guys' thoughts onthat advice?
Speaker 3 (23:40):
I think that's I don't.
To be honest, in my opinion, Ithink that you should be
launching more than that.
You know, and what I learned,and there's a lot of learnings
that you get when you have aproduct.
So you know, for me it doesn'tnecessarily have to be a
completely new product or in acompletely new category, but
like you're going to startlearning, you know, like let's
take a meal prep example, mealprep container example we chose
(24:01):
a particular color in thebeginning because of what we
thought that we would want if wewere buying the consumer, if we
were the consumer buying thatproduct.
But we learned right away thatthere were other colors that
people were either asking aboutor we heard in other places.
So a variation is also aproduct.
So, like, I think, if you'reincluding variations in that, I
my opinion is five, you know,five to eight products a year, I
(24:23):
think is kind of what ourtarget is in most, most cases.
So I think it's a little bitmore than three, I would say.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I think there's also some other components that come
into play there that have to bethought through.
A lot of it is somewhat branddependent and a lot of it is
also what levers do you have atyour disposal?
What sales avenues do you haveat your disposal?
So, again, if Amazon is youronly sales channel, you're not
selling on any othermarketplaces, or you're not
(24:50):
selling on your website orthrough TikTok or something like
that, well then I think thingschange a little bit, because
launching on Amazon is certainlyharder than launching in other
ways.
You know, like, if you're justlaunching a complimentary
product on your website orsomething, that's a very
different launch than thantrying to launch on Amazon and
be profitable with that productlaunch, than trying to launch on
(25:12):
Amazon and be profitable withthat product.
And so I think there's, youknow, you have to make some of
those decisions.
If you're not able to launch itas a backend product on your
website or something and youhave to launch on Amazon, well
then there's other decisionsthat come into play as to
whether you even launch it atall, you know.
So that's important to payattention to.
I also would say, like, forinstance, our brand is.
I would agree with theperspective that you should
(25:35):
probably be launching as manynew products as you can, while
also taking into account, youknow, the level of quality that
you have to offer and you knowhow.
How strongly is your, is yourcustomer base going to depend on
that level of quality and andare they going to, you know, shy
(25:58):
away from your brand if youmake a shift.
You know like it's.
It's very brand dependent.
Like with us, we offer alifetime replacement warranty on
everything.
So then the question becomesokay, do we offer some products
that aren't lifetime replacement?
You know, do we offer someother products that don't have a
warranty at all?
You know, like, is that?
Is that a direction that wewant to go?
Do we want to add consumablesto our line?
(26:19):
And if we're going to addconsumables, that changes things
.
So, again, we're back tostrategy.
You know, like, where can yousell the product?
What types of products are you,are you interested in and
willing to release?
And, based on that overall brandstrategy, I think that, then,
is what really kind ofdetermines how many new products
can andurn and that you, youknow, a hero product this year
(26:52):
isn't necessarily going to be ahero product next year, and you
do need to have products in thepipeline.
I would say three to fourproducts a year probably makes a
lot of sense.
And that's an area where wehave struggled because the
pipeline was, you know, like theconstraint was me, because I'm
the one who's doing the productdevelopment, but I was also
doing a lot of other things inour business and so you know, as
(27:13):
a result, product developmenthas been fairly stagnant.
We'll probably release moreproducts over the next year than
we have in the last five years.
So you know, in that regardwe've been pretty stagnant.
But I do think three to fourproducts a year probably makes
sense for most brands and if youcould do more, you should do
(27:37):
more.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah, and I think, matt, you made a great point,
which was you know some of it isis just kind of keeping the
muscles and the learning goingforward, because launching a
product you know right now, in2024, is way different than you
know launching a product in 2015or 2019, or even you know 2021.
In 2015 or 2019, or even youknow 2021.
And so really having aheartbeat on you know what it
(27:59):
takes for a product to besuccessful, I think adds a lot
of value and also keeps yourbrand healthy.
You're muted, matt.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
I said totally agree, and I think Mike's is he back
on, he's got to keep jumpingthrough his internet.
It's not working great.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Our first live event and, of course, Mike has
technical issues, just how lifegoes sometimes it is.
Yeah, I'm trying to think of.
So what else do you think youknow for brands that might be
listening out there and they'rethinking about their next
product that we haven'tdiscussed so far, I guess one.
The other question that I haveis how do you guys think about
(28:37):
kind of resource allocation inthe sense of you know I know
it's going to depend on how much, how big your brand is.
But let's say you know you'relaunching a new product, do you
put, how much resource do youput towards in capital towards
developing that product,ordering, inventory and then
also marketing that product?
If you know our brand, let'ssay a hundred percent as a whole
(28:58):
, how do you think aboutallocating resources towards
those necessary steps in theprocess?
Speaker 3 (29:05):
You know, I think, again, like the last answer that
Mike was was kind of alludingto, is that it's there's a lot
of variables that go into that.
But I, you know, I think, again, like the last answer that Mike
was kind of alluding to, isthat there's a lot of variables
that go into that.
But I think and this also goesalong with what Mike was just
saying, I think in most cases,the brand owner, the person, the
visionary, that entrepreneur,the one that has all these ideas
running around in their headmost of the time, that is their
(29:29):
superpower.
Their superpower isunderstanding the consumer.
Their superpower is realizingwhat types of problems or what
type, how they can enhance thelives of their avatar.
So, you know, from a resourcesstandpoint, launching new
products, I think, I think thatthat you know, I think clearing
off your headspace and yourtasks so that the entrepreneur,
the business owner, can focus onwhat comes next in a product
(29:51):
line.
You know, I think, I think thatneeds and I think Mike was, like
I said, mike was alluding tothat and what he was saying is
that he hasn't been spendingthat much, that a lot of that
time this last last couple ofyears, because most of his
headspace was in growing thebrand.
So, in terms of resourceallocation, I think that a
founder, a business owner,should allocate, you know, at
least 20 to 30% of their timeconstantly looking at how to
(30:15):
iterate or how to innovate orhow to make things better, and I
don't think very many peopleare doing that, and I think
Mike's story of the last coupleof years of his brand is a good
indicator of that.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yeah, absolutely, and I think that's a good point.
So, mike, I know you've kind ofcut out of here a little bit.
The question that we weretalking about is how do you
think about resource allocationfor either launching or
relaunching a new product?
Because I think one of thethings that gets entrepreneurs
really stuck and brand buildersis they feel like they're
betting the farm on one productor they're afraid to invest in
(30:54):
whatever that next product maybe.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Well, I mean, I hate to beat a dead horse because we
come back to this, you know,really frequently, but I just
think it's so important and thatis, you know, coming back to
that idea of building that list.
Now, if it's your first product, then you know different story.
But then, as john has said, youknow, or Matt rather has said
(31:18):
in many occasions you know,connecting with a said you know,
or Matt rather has said in manyoccasions you know, connecting
with a community, you know, inorder to use that, utilize that
community for a launch can be amuch less expensive way of doing
a launch.
It's time consuming because youhave to build a relationship
with the community or the theadministrator of that community,
but but I think it does giveyou the opportunity to take a
(31:43):
swing at something and not haveso much writing on it.
Because if you're trying tolaunch a product without any
sort of audience, that is reallyexpensive and you have to
really do some heavy discountingand you know heavy marketing
and PPC and all of that, and soit is guaranteed that you're
(32:03):
going to lose money on thatlaunch if you don't have an
audience that you can launch to.
So the question is, can you getto viable profitability fast
enough on that product that itbecomes a successful launch and
you don't know from thebeginning.
You can guess, but you don'tknow for sure and so I think it
gives you a lot more confidenceto actually take a swing at a
(32:26):
launch when you have an audiencethat you can launch to and you
know that you can launchprofitably, that you can launch
with maybe a 10 or 15% discountto your, to your you know your
community, community, youraudience and still be profitable
on those initial launch sales.
I just it's so freeing to knowthat you don't have to go into
(32:47):
debt to launch a product that Ijust cannot stress enough.
You need an audience.
You need to be building anaudience off of products that
you're already selling on amazonand or you need to be
connecting with communitiesbefore you do a launch.
If it's a new product, likeyour first product, and you
don't already have an audience,one way or another, invest the
(33:07):
time to build that audience,because it's going to help you
in the long run.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Well, I think, as we wrap this episode, that is an
incredible action item forlisteners to take away, matt.
Anything that you want to leavelisteners with for an action
item on this episode.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Yeah, mike touched on it and it's really been my.
You know what we've usedGrowing an audience for a lot of
people that's an overwhelmingthought.
It takes a long time.
It's a special skill set.
I personally have always taggedalong with someone else's
audience and there's a lot ofaudiences out there that the
person that created thataudience has that skill set but
(33:44):
has no idea how to monetize thataudience or how to serve that
audience.
They just know how to get abunch of a group of people
around to talk about aparticular subject.
So there's a lot of audiencesout there that are just waiting
for someone like you to comealong to help them solve the
problems or enhance the lives ofpeople that are in their
community.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Fantastic.
And then I think the actionitem that I'll leave our
listeners with is you know wetalked about, you know, three,
five, eight products a year of.
You know, quote, unquote, whatyou should be launching.
What I would say is you know,if you haven't launched a
product in a while, just startwith one.
You know, just get the ballrolling.
(34:23):
And you know, start with oneproduct in order to build up
that muscle, and I think you'llbe surprised at how much
progress you'll make just byhaving a system in place and
kind of shaking off the rust inthat and what it takes to launch
a new product.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Well, an important piece of that, before we wrap up
, is documented, like, if youhaven't launched something in a
while, first of all, researchwhat it looks like to launch a
product right now and again goback to that idea of using an
audience and be careful aboutthe information that's out there
about how to launch a product,because, realistically, most
Amazon sellers are stilllaunching products without
(35:00):
audiences and that is a muchharder lift than to launch it
with an audience.
So, you know, take some of whatyou read and what you see in
some of these videos with agrain of salt, because it's an
expensive launch strategy andthere's other, better ways to do
it.
But as you walk through thelaunch if you haven't done it in
a while document what you'redoing, create an SOP of sorts of
(35:23):
what you did and then figureout after the fact what things
you should have done better orwhat you should have changed or
whatnot.
But at least if you document itas you go, you've got a
foundation on which to build anactual SOP for the next launch
so you're ready for it and youcan more easily walk through
that process.
On the next launch so you'reready for it and you can more
easily walk through that processon the next product.
I guarantee you it'll make thatnext launch much, much easier.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Absolutely.
I think that's a great place toend for today For our listeners
out there.
If you've got questions onthese types of topics that we're
going to be discussing everyTuesday, find us on LinkedIn,
whether it's myself at JohnStojan or Matt Atkins.
You can also find BrandFortress, and we're going to be
having these Tactics Tuesdayslive, so that way you can ask
(36:08):
questions.
So I think this was a crucialdiscussion for brands that are
looking at how do I continue tobuild on Amazon and beyond, and
we'll continue to talk aboutthese types of strategic
necessities that you need tohave in order to build a brand.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.