050: Tactic Tuesdays: How to Make Small Bets on New Products

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Welcome everybody to the Brand Fortress HQ podcast on this Tactics Tuesday.

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First of all, we're doing our first LinkedIn live event, so if you want an opportunity to ask us questions, we're going to be on LinkedIn doing events every Tuesday so you can find you can search myself at John Stojan on LinkedIn at Matt Atkins as well in order to find those events.

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Mike is usually AWOL on LinkedIn so you can look him up.

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You may or may not find the event, but it's a great opportunity for anybody who's listening out there to ask questions and be a part of the conversation and get insights into exactly what we're talking about when we have these Tactics Tuesdays as well.

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So I encourage you to join us over there.

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Today.

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What we're going to be talking about is just the concept of launching new products is really scary, or can be.

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For new brands, it kind of they can get stuck with it.

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So what we want to talk about today is this concept of we all want our products to be home runs, but how do we look at it from a perspective of if we're at the table, we've got some chips, having those new products be, or those product launches being base hits, doubles or possibly home runs, and looking at it more from a strategic perspective instead of an individual product in order to build a brand.

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So with that you know, first I'm going to kick it over to actually to you, matt, or actually who wants to start on you know kind of your experience with you know this concept with products and how you think about allocating resources to launching a new product.

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You're muted.

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Matt this all started because of a conversation about a LinkedIn post that we saw that you know, not all products have to be home runs, and that was a lesson that I learned.

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Not all products are going to be a home run is is how I should better say that but knowing that you do need some singles and doubles in order to build like, in order to build a brand I mean, like I said, there's not every brand has every single skew of theirs is a home run, and those singles and doubles a lot of times are complimentary type products or products that get you into a different category.

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Like you know, when you're thinking about a person, particular person, and my person, for one of my people, for example, is someone that is a diehard smoker of meat.

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That person buys things that are not just necessarily in the barbecue accessory space but also in a lot of other categories, and exposing myself to those other categories, those kind of complimentary type of category, just allows me to speak to a little bit more of a broader audience.

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And when I do that every single time, I've ever done that in a category that was kind of adjacent to the barbecue accessory space.

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It wasn't a home run, nor did I need it to be, but in some cases it was a good thing that I could use as a loss leader.

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Or in some cases it was a good way to partner with another brand, that we could leverage a giveaway and share a list of people that we got to join that giveaway.

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So, thinking of this, when you look at product research and you're understanding that it doesn't have to be a home run and it's not going to be every single time, it really kind of takes the pressure off of it needing to be.

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And I think that's really where a lot of people get stuck in analysis.

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Paralysis is trying to find a home run, knowing, thinking that every single product has to be like that.

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Well, and and the thing about that is too is that you, you, you have to.

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If you're going to be a brand like you, you have to build out.

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You can't just be a single product.

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That's not a brand, you know you, you're going to have to have other products that are complimentary.

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The other thing is is that they don't all have to be necessarily sold on Amazon.

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Even you know they, you, they can be sold on your website as a back-end product.

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So there's a lot of opportunities there.

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I think the biggest thing is that when you're considering a product launch, it's deciding what is the strategy behind the launch, because certain products are valuable for different reasons, as you mentioned.

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You know, maybe the product is valuable because it's a good tripwire product.

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You're going to get a lot of volume out of it, but you're not going to make any money on it.

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Well, fine, that's fine.

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You know like, that's not necessarily a problem, as long as you understand that that's the nature of the product and you use it appropriately.

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So you're using it to build your list on the back end and do your post-purchase stuff, you know, and get them in the door.

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So it's all a matter of deciding does this product fit into our overall brand strategy in some way, and how would we move forward with it if it is?

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You know, if it's a tripwire product, how do we move forward with that?

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How much money can we afford to invest in the actual launch?

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How much money do we have to invest in the launch?

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If it's not a tripwire product or it's a back-end product that we're going to launch on our website versus on Amazon?

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Now we can launch at a higher price point because we don't have competition.

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It's on our website.

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We're selling this product to our list and bringing them into our website so we can have a better profit margin there.

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So you know, it's all a matter of that strategy, of just deciding what is the product going to be, how does it fit the strategy and what does the launch look like as a result of?

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You know?

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knowing what that strategy is.

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Yeah, I think there's some great points there that I really just want to double click on, which is the first is looking at what is the role of that product and whether that's you know, you might start, it might start out with, you know, one role of like, hey, I really hope this to be a complimentary product, and that's okay, that that changes over time.

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And then also looking at you know, especially if you've got a hero product that you're, you know, selling quite a bit with, that gives you the opportunity, like you said, to build out you know more of a portfolio where you're looking at, you know products that are those tripwires that are designed really just to bring more people into your brand.

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Or you know complimentary products where you know, like you said, that maybe you only sell you know five a day or 10 a day, but your profit margins on them are dramatically higher, and that might be because of how the product is constructed.

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It might also be because you're not having to spend a ton on PPC in order to keep a bunch of visibility, because you're okay of you, okay of selling five of those a day and spending pretty minimal on PPC for that particular product, because you know that you're going to get a lot of eyeballs from your hero product.

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So I think that there's a lot of value in having some different tools in your toolbox other than, hey, I'm going to launch this to Amazon and I'm going to drive as much traffic as possible, and if it's not a hero product, then it's not a win.

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You know.

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Another thing that came to mind that I think is important to point out is that I think you have to recognize that your product is stepping up to the plate every day, like it's it's not.

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You know, yes, maybe your launch is a home run or maybe it's not, but the reality is is that that product is going to continue to step up to the plate every single day, and the question is can it continue to be a home run product?

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But then there's a lot of competition that comes into the space with that very same product.

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Maybe you didn't differentiate quite as much as you might have liked, and so now there's a lot of me too's that are at a much lower price point.

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And so I think there's value in not only taking the stance of trying to determine on the front end whether a product really needs to be a hero product, or if you should try and launch it as a hero product, or if you should try and launch it in one of these other strategies, but also re-evaluating on a regular basis if a product starts to slip, you know, can this product still be a hero product?

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And if so, what do we need to do?

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To say, relaunch it to make it that hero product, that home run product, or is it moving into a space where it's becoming more of a complimentary product, and that's fine?

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Maybe we raise the price on it a little bit, we allow it to be a complimentary product at a higher margin and we go after something else that becomes, you know, the new hero product, or maybe it's already been replaced by some other products.

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So don't be afraid to change strategy.

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And that's really hard because when you bring out a product and you hit a home run with the product and you know it's good and maybe you get a year or two or three out of that product, you know you get used to that being your hero product, you get used to it being a home run product and as soon as it turns out that maybe it's not anymore, your immediate gut tells you I need to relaunch.

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This is our hero product.

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So we need to fix this, and I'm not necessarily saying it's wrong to take a look at that and see if you can fix it.

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But don't assume that that is the right strategy forward.

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Maybe the right strategy forward is to allow it to now become a complimentary product and let it be replaced by something else.

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What's really hard with what you just said and I think that a lot of other entrepreneurs will agree with me is, while I do understand that from a theoretical standpoint, it's and I know that that a lot of times decisions like that need to be made, but it's so hard as an entrepreneur to make those types of decisions because there's a lot of emotion involved.

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Like that's, you know, like that's my baby, that was my home run product.

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This is what we've designed.

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You know this has this whole business and all of our other products have been designed around this hero product product.

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And knowing that, or coming to the realization that it's not anymore and that you may need to pivot, it's easy to say that, but it's a lot more difficult when it's a piece of your heart that you're talking about.

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You know what I mean.

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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 you know, and as soon as it turns out that it's not now, now it feels like you failed, when in reality it's just the market change.

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Well I think that's a great point, matt is the difference between what we know rationally and what we feel emotionally, because as entrepreneurs, I mean, you put a lot of thought and effort into developing that product, getting it manufactured, getting it into Amazon, launching it, caring and feeding for it, all those types of things and it's hard to say you know what, that's not gonna be my hero product anymore.

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Or even worse well, even scarier saying you know what, we're not going to sell that product anymore and just completely discontinuing or killing a product.

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Right?

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Yeah.

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So I wonder my question and we've talked about this before and I think and I'm trying to remember we've had so many of these conversations over the years.

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Mike, I thought that there was a product at one point that you said that either you weren't going to sell it on Amazon at all or that you were planning on removing it from Amazon but still selling it on your website.

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John, you just mentioned, like you know, making a hard decision of just cutting a product off for whatever reason.

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You know.

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I think this highlights the importance of having a website or other channels that you sell on, because if something doesn't work on Amazon, or maybe the Amazon fees became too high and the economics don't work anymore, like, there's always room for on your website.

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And if you building that kind of awareness about your brand and people are going to your website because they love your products and they want more of them, you know that's good places Like, even though it's not maybe a good fit for Amazon for whatever reason, maybe it still could be something that you drive traffic to on your website.

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That then, you know, gets people excited about your brand, like a loss leader, a tripwire that we were talking about, you know.

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I think that highlights when you have your website and you're doing it intended with Amazon.

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There's a lot more control you have on your website and the margins are a lot better in a lot of cases.

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Well, and it gives you a lot more opportunities to change strategy, right?

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I mean, if you only sell on Amazon and that's all you do, then your strategies are to some degree limited because you can only utilize strategies that are going to work in that situation.

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And so you know, maybe you run across a product that would be a good product but it's not a good Amazon product.

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Or, like you said, maybe you have a product that used to be a good Amazon product but it isn't anymore.

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Well, the question is okay, so do we cut that product entirely or do we just decide okay, we're going to only sell that on our website, or maybe we're going to shift and sell it on Walmart, where the fees are lower, and so maybe we've got a better opportunity for profitability.

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The thing about that is is to recognize you've put a lot of effort into that product.

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You know you've developed the packaging and you maybe you develop the product itself and it's got some unique features.

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Or you know you've got suppliers set up and you have.

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You know you kind of know the rhythm of ordering products and stuff.

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So there's a lot of effort that you've invested in that product.

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Don't just throw that away just because it doesn't sell on Amazon profitably anymore, there are opportunities to at least still take advantage of that product, potentially in another marketplace or on your website or something, so that you don't throw all of that effort away.

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So I think that's a really important piece.

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Another thing is we talked about the strategy piece, and so I'll give you an example.

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So because we do the lifetime warranty and it's unlimited free replacement, we obviously have to sell at a pretty high price point in order to make that work.

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And so one of our products that was the original hero product.

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It was the first product we ever sold.

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It's been a hero product in our line ever since, and technically it still kind of is.

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But profitability on that product is falling, and a lot of that is Amazon fees.

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But a lot of that is also a lot of competitors that have come into that niche that are very low price.

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They may not be nearly as good a product, but you know, if somebody is new to brand and they don't believe that we're going to fulfill on the warranty, well then it's hard to justify our price.

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So one of the things that we decided to do with that is to change strategy a bit, and so we are now going to start offering a two-year warrantied version of that product in addition to the lifetime version of that product.

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And the idea behind that is is that with the two-year we can sell at a much lower price point on that product and be able to fulfill on that warranty and be much more closely aligned with the price points in our category so that we can get a lot more volume out of that product.

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And because we know that generally speaking, our product has a two to three-year lifespan, we know that offering a two-year warranty even though it's still fairly extreme in the category, hardly anybody offers a warranty at all, much less a two-year.

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So we should still get good sales out of that at a decent price point.

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But then we can upgrade them on the back end.

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You know, like we can have an insert.

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You know our insert basically could be hey, you know, upgrade your warranty or you know, or whatever, and so we could sell the upgrade on that, you know, for less than we charge on Amazon for that full lifetime version, because they're not paying the referral fee on that and still get, you know, some lifetime customers out of it.

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But again, change in strategy, right, like this was the hero product.

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It was one of our best sellers.

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It kind of still is, but it's not nearly as profitable.

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So how do we make use of it?

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And I think this is a good way.

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We'll find out.

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We haven't yet launched that.

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It starts very soon, but that's one strategy and one option that you could utilize.

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Yeah, well, I think you make some good points there.

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I think I just want to highlight a couple of things, which is the first is talking about okay, so if you have a product that doesn't launch successfully, what are your options?

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And really killing know, killing a product is probably should be last on your list.

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The first thing that comes to my mind and for you know, folks that are listening, I really encourage them to listen to the episode that we did with John Lee from PickFu, because you know, basically he laid out how you can spend a few hundred dollars, you know, in PickFu polls and potentially, by changing your main image or different aspects of your listing, you really can take it from a product that's kind of failed to launch to something that at least has some traction.

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Will it be your best seller?

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Maybe not, but just taking that investment from something that's not moving at all all the way to you know, something that is at least contributing to your business and you're getting, you know, break even or better, is a big win.

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Yeah, yeah for sure.

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I think that's super valuable.

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I think it's easy to make the assumption that if a product doesn't succeed, you know, if your launch fails, let's say in some way that it must just not be a good fit for the market.

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Or, you know, if your launch fails, let's say in some way that it must just not be a good fit for the market.

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Or, you know, people just don't want it.

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Maybe that's true, you know you could be right, but I think it's more valuable to take a step back and say what did I potentially do wrong in this launch?

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Or what is wrong with our listing?

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Or what is wrong with you know, whatever that has led to this.

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You know apparent failure, you know with the launch.

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I think that's definitely a much better strategy.

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Very little expense is required to kind of test that theory Again.

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Like you said, pickfu is perfect for something like that, you know to evaluate.

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Another thing that I was going to mention that I think is important to consider it's a little bit off track from what you were just saying, but it was something I thought about earlier and that is the longevity of a product as a home run product, if you intend for a product that you're about to launch to be your hero.

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Either it's the first product that the brand has ever launched, or maybe you're trying to replace a hero product with this new product.

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Whatever that is, if you intend for it to be a hero, then I think the best thing that you can do, if you want to give it some legs and give it some longevity, is to make sure that you really are differentiated in some significant way over and above what else is available on the market, and probably if you can pull it off in some sort of a patented way, because you know, let's face it, whatever differentiation you do with your product, eventually there's going to be competitors that copy it.

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But if you can create a differentiation that you patent, then you have a much stronger position in that market.

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So that if you really feel like this can be a hero, well then solidify it as a hero so that it actually can maintain that position for longer and you don't continually have to replace it with some new hero product.

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Yeah, I think that's a great point.

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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 to identify some sort of marketing issue or listing issue with it which, by the way, for anybody who's listening, I highly recommend that you, at least you know have, if you've never done it with your your hero listings is to put it through you know, have 50 people who aren't familiar with your product look at it, who are Amazon Prime customers.

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I just find that so fascinating to see what they pick up from that.

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We have incorporated that into our standard process for listing optimization because there's just so many things that we find out of that that are great golden nuggets.

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But beyond that, what I would say is and I think is important is thinking about how to serve your customer best and if you have a product that you know is a flop or doesn't work out, thinking about how you can modify that product, you know, adding something to it or modifying or, you know, changing the product somehow to better serve your customer and thinking about it from a perspective of solving a problem for a certain group of people, I think really helps steer in the right direction, where that product needs to go in order to be successful.

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Well, I think a lot of.

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I love what you just said and I think a lot of what you would find in that exercise is maybe I know that, mike, you were we've been having a conversation about you where you think that you may have been targeting the wrong avatar.

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This whole time You've been targeting the user of the product instead of the purchaser of the product.

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And you know if, if a launch doesn't go as you think that it should and you're basing it off of a hero product and maybe this is your second or your third, you know, maybe it's just positioning, maybe it's how you you know the images are speaking to the wrong person.

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Like having people I love that what you said, john having people that are just regular Amazon shoppers and you know, and I think a great place to do that and this is something that we've talked about before Like I'm in a lot of groups, like in all of the different categories that I sell in, I'm in Facebook groups that are along those same lines, whether it be barbecue accessories or meal prepping or something like that, where I can actually ask people and say whether it's your audience or someone else's audience.

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Like you know, this product didn't do well, or you know like, can you take a look at this listing and tell me what you would change and how does?

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Would I better speak to you the differences of what my products are?

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So you know, not just writing off a product and you know, going and liquidating it right away, but also looking at, looking at what you did and what you put in front of the consumer, and was that even the right thing?

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Were you even talking to the right consumer?

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I think there's a lot more lessons that you can learn if you go a whole lot deeper than I didn't sell as many as I thought I did, or the advertising I couldn't make profitable.

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There's maybe a lot other answers to the questions besides going just from a data analytics standpoint.

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Well, and I also think, don't lose sight of the fact that there's a lot of things that you can do after the fact to evaluate why a launch went wrong and what you might be able to do to potentially relaunch that product and still turn it into something valuable.

00:21:44.510 --> 00:21:52.933
But better still would be implement a lot of those things before you launch so that the launch goes well.

00:21:52.993 --> 00:22:03.800
So it's like if you would use those tools to evaluate why a launch went bad, then why not institute those tools on the front end to figure out how to make sure the launch doesn't go bad in the first place?

00:22:04.221 --> 00:22:32.895
Make sure that you're polling the individuals that you think are your target audience and find out what they think of your listing, what they think of your product, whether they think it's the, whether you're right about that avatar and how they feel about the product.

00:22:32.955 --> 00:22:46.821
And maybe pick multiple different avatars that you think could be the avatar for your product and pull them all, because my guess is one of them will probably stand out as the more impressive avatar for sale of that product and it might not be the one that you think it is.

00:22:46.821 --> 00:22:54.221
So taking that time on the front end to evaluate that product is valuable, there's a limit.

00:22:54.221 --> 00:23:02.925
So I would say, if you intend for this to be a hero product, then spend more time on that and make sure you get that launch right.

00:23:02.925 --> 00:23:21.442
If you're looking at this product as being a you know, a secondary, complimentary product or a backend sale type product, well then maybe there's not as much time and resources available to do that and maybe it's not necessary, but if you're looking for a home run, then you better do the research on the front end to make sure that you get the best chance of hitting it.

00:23:22.884 --> 00:23:24.689
Yeah, that's a great point.

00:23:24.689 --> 00:23:37.071
So what do you guys, what's your take on because I've heard this from a few different places from as advice from people of hey, every, every brand should be launching at least three to four new products every year.

00:23:37.071 --> 00:23:39.243
What are your guys' thoughts on that advice?

00:23:40.626 --> 00:23:42.171
I think that's I don't.

00:23:42.171 --> 00:23:44.924
To be honest, in my opinion, I think that you should be launching more than that.

00:23:44.924 --> 00:23:48.925
You know, and what I learned, and there's a lot of learnings that you get when you have a product.

00:23:48.925 --> 00:24:08.022
So you know, for me it doesn't necessarily have to be a completely new product or in a completely new category, but like you're going to start learning, you know, like let's take a meal prep example, meal prep container example we chose a particular color in the beginning because of what we thought that we would want if we were buying the consumer, if we were the consumer buying that product.

00:24:08.022 --> 00:24:13.865
But we learned right away that there were other colors that people were either asking about or we heard in other places.

00:24:13.865 --> 00:24:16.347
So a variation is also a product.

00:24:16.347 --> 00:24:26.294
So, like, I think, if you're including variations in that, I my opinion is five, you know, five to eight products a year, I think is kind of what our target is in most, most cases.

00:24:26.294 --> 00:24:29.075
So I think it's a little bit more than three, I would say.

00:24:29.955 --> 00:24:34.357
I think there's also some other components that come into play there that have to be thought through.

00:24:34.357 --> 00:24:41.872
A lot of it is somewhat brand dependent and a lot of it is also what levers do you have at your disposal?

00:24:41.872 --> 00:24:44.990
What sales avenues do you have at your disposal?

00:24:44.990 --> 00:25:01.193
So, again, if Amazon is your only sales channel, you're not selling on any other marketplaces, or you're not selling on your website or through TikTok or something like that, well then I think things change a little bit, because launching on Amazon is certainly harder than launching in other ways.

00:25:01.193 --> 00:25:13.222
You know, like, if you're just launching a complimentary product on your website or something, that's a very different launch than than trying to launch on Amazon and be profitable with that product launch, than trying to launch on Amazon and be profitable with that product.

00:25:13.222 --> 00:25:15.468
And so I think there's, you know, you have to make some of those decisions.

00:25:15.468 --> 00:25:25.509
If you're not able to launch it as a backend product on your website or something and you have to launch on Amazon, well then there's other decisions that come into play as to whether you even launch it at all, you know.

00:25:25.509 --> 00:25:27.722
So that's important to pay attention to.

00:25:27.722 --> 00:25:30.929
I also would say, like, for instance, our brand is.

00:25:30.929 --> 00:25:49.608
I would agree with the perspective that you should probably be launching as many new products as you can, while also taking into account, you know, the level of quality that you have to offer and you know how.

00:25:49.608 --> 00:26:00.642
How strongly is your, is your customer base going to depend on that level of quality and and are they going to, you know, shy away from your brand if you make a shift.

00:26:00.642 --> 00:26:01.484
You know like it's.

00:26:01.484 --> 00:26:02.608
It's very brand dependent.

00:26:02.628 --> 00:26:06.722
Like with us, we offer a lifetime replacement warranty on everything.

00:26:06.722 --> 00:26:11.282
So then the question becomes okay, do we offer some products that aren't lifetime replacement?

00:26:11.282 --> 00:26:14.571
You know, do we offer some other products that don't have a warranty at all?

00:26:14.571 --> 00:26:15.682
You know, like, is that?

00:26:15.682 --> 00:26:17.086
Is that a direction that we want to go?

00:26:17.086 --> 00:26:19.480
Do we want to add consumables to our line?

00:26:19.480 --> 00:26:21.909
And if we're going to add consumables, that changes things.

00:26:21.909 --> 00:26:23.420
So, again, we're back to strategy.

00:26:23.420 --> 00:26:26.221
You know, like, where can you sell the product?

00:26:26.221 --> 00:26:30.103
What types of products are you, are you interested in and willing to release?

00:26:30.483 --> 00:26:57.136
And, based on that overall brand strategy, I think that, then, is what really kind of determines how many new products can andurn and that you, you know, a hero product this year isn't necessarily going to be a hero product next year, and you do need to have products in the pipeline.

00:26:57.136 --> 00:27:00.857
I would say three to four products a year probably makes a lot of sense.

00:27:00.857 --> 00:27:14.744
And that's an area where we have struggled because the pipeline was, you know, like the constraint was me, because I'm the one who's doing the product development, but I was also doing a lot of other things in our business and so you know, as a result, product development has been fairly stagnant.

00:27:14.744 --> 00:27:19.662
We'll probably release more products over the next year than we have in the last five years.

00:27:19.662 --> 00:27:23.029
So you know, in that regard we've been pretty stagnant.

00:27:23.029 --> 00:27:37.621
But I do think three to four products a year probably makes sense for most brands and if you could do more, you should do more.

00:27:37.682 --> 00:27:50.871
Yeah, and I think, matt, you made a great point, which was you know some of it is is just kind of keeping the muscles and the learning going forward, because launching a product you know right now, in 2024, is way different than you know launching a product in 2015 or 2019, or even you know 2021.

00:27:50.871 --> 00:27:55.897
In 2015 or 2019, or even you know 2021.

00:27:55.897 --> 00:28:02.287
And so really having a heartbeat on you know what it takes for a product to be successful, I think adds a lot of value and also keeps your brand healthy.

00:28:02.287 --> 00:28:05.794
You're muted, matt.

00:28:07.421 --> 00:28:11.990
I said totally agree, and I think Mike's is he back on, he's got to keep jumping through his internet.

00:28:11.990 --> 00:28:12.732
It's not working great.

00:28:13.079 --> 00:28:19.688
Our first live event and, of course, Mike has technical issues, just how life goes sometimes it is.

00:28:19.688 --> 00:28:23.522
Yeah, I'm trying to think of.

00:28:23.522 --> 00:28:32.125
So what else do you think you know for brands that might be listening out there and they're thinking about their next product that we haven't discussed so far, I guess one.

00:28:32.125 --> 00:28:42.520
The other question that I have is how do you guys think about kind of resource allocation in the sense of you know I know it's going to depend on how much, how big your brand is.

00:28:42.520 --> 00:28:55.769
But let's say you know you're launching a new product, do you put, how much resource do you put towards in capital towards developing that product, ordering, inventory and then also marketing that product?

00:28:55.769 --> 00:29:04.281
If you know our brand, let's say a hundred percent as a whole, how do you think about allocating resources towards those necessary steps in the process?

00:29:05.506 --> 00:29:11.318
You know, I think, again, like the last answer that Mike was was kind of alluding to, is that it's there's a lot of variables that go into that.

00:29:11.318 --> 00:29:12.635
But I, you know, I think, again, like the last answer that Mike was kind of alluding to, is that there's a lot of variables that go into that.

00:29:12.635 --> 00:29:29.836
But I think and this also goes along 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 head most of the time, that is their superpower.

00:29:29.836 --> 00:29:31.921
Their superpower is understanding the consumer.

00:29:31.921 --> 00:29:37.964
Their superpower is realizing what types of problems or what type, how they can enhance the lives of their avatar.

00:29:37.964 --> 00:29:52.202
So, you know, from a resources standpoint, launching new products, I think, I think that that you know, I think clearing off your headspace and your tasks so that the entrepreneur, the business owner, can focus on what comes next in a product line.

00:29:52.222 --> 00:30:04.839
You know, I think, I think that needs and I think Mike was, like I said, mike was alluding to that and what he was saying is that he hasn't been spending that much, that a lot of that time this last last couple of years, because most of his headspace was in growing the brand.

00:30:04.839 --> 00:30:24.856
So, in terms of resource allocation, I think that a founder, a business owner, should allocate, you know, at least 20 to 30% of their time constantly looking at how to iterate or how to innovate or how to make things better, and I don't think very many people are doing that, and I think Mike's story of the last couple of years of his brand is a good indicator of that.

00:30:31.700 --> 00:30:32.785
Yeah, absolutely, and I think that's a good point.

00:30:32.785 --> 00:30:34.732
So, mike, I know you've kind of cut out of here a little bit.

00:30:34.732 --> 00:30:40.931
The question that we were talking about is how do you think about resource allocation for either launching or relaunching a new product?

00:30:40.931 --> 00:30:55.837
Because I think one of the things that gets entrepreneurs really stuck and brand builders is they feel like they're betting the farm on one product or they're afraid to invest in whatever that next product may be.

00:30:57.181 --> 00:31:10.644
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 that is, you know, coming back to that idea of building that list.

00:31:10.644 --> 00:31:14.861
Now, if it's your first product, then you know different story.

00:31:14.861 --> 00:31:29.503
But then, as john has said, you know, or Matt rather has said in many occasions you know, connecting with a said you know, or Matt rather has said in many occasions you know, connecting with a community, you know, in order to use that, utilize that community for a launch can be a much less expensive way of doing a launch.

00:31:29.503 --> 00:31:48.269
It's time consuming because you have to build a relationship with the community or the the administrator of that community, but but I think it does give you the opportunity to take a swing at something and not have so much writing on it.

00:31:48.269 --> 00:32:08.191
Because if you're trying to launch a product without any sort of audience, that is really expensive and you have to really do some heavy discounting and you know heavy marketing and PPC and all of that, and so it is guaranteed that you're going to lose money on that launch if you don't have an audience that you can launch to.

00:32:08.576 --> 00:32:18.022
So the question is, can you get to viable profitability fast enough on that product that it becomes a successful launch and you don't know from the beginning.

00:32:18.095 --> 00:32:41.740
You can guess, but you don't know for sure and so I think it gives you a lot more confidence to actually take a swing at a launch when you have an audience that you can launch to and you know that you can launch profitably, that you can launch with maybe a 10 or 15% discount to your, to your you know your community, community, your audience and still be profitable on those initial launch sales.

00:32:41.740 --> 00:32:50.547
I just it's so freeing to know that you don't have to go into debt to launch a product that I just cannot stress enough.

00:32:50.547 --> 00:32:52.050
You need an audience.

00:32:52.050 --> 00:33:01.260
You need to be building an audience off of products that you're already selling on amazon and or you need to be connecting with communities before you do a launch.

00:33:01.260 --> 00:33:11.039
If it's a new product, like your first product, and you don't already have an audience, one way or another, invest the time to build that audience, because it's going to help you in the long run.

00:33:12.385 --> 00:33:18.624
Well, I think, as we wrap this episode, that is an incredible action item for listeners to take away, matt.

00:33:18.624 --> 00:33:22.619
Anything that you want to leave listeners with for an action item on this episode.

00:33:23.623 --> 00:33:25.999
Yeah, mike touched on it and it's really been my.

00:33:25.999 --> 00:33:32.082
You know what we've used Growing an audience for a lot of people that's an overwhelming thought.

00:33:32.082 --> 00:33:33.359
It takes a long time.

00:33:33.359 --> 00:33:34.861
It's a special skill set.

00:33:34.861 --> 00:33:48.644
I personally have always tagged along with someone else's audience and there's a lot of audiences out there that the person that created that audience has that skill set but has no idea how to monetize that audience or how to serve that audience.

00:33:48.644 --> 00:33:52.743
They just know how to get a bunch of a group of people around to talk about a particular subject.

00:33:52.743 --> 00:34:01.981
So there's a lot of audiences out there that are just waiting for someone like you to come along to help them solve the problems or enhance the lives of people that are in their community.

00:34:03.104 --> 00:34:03.704
Fantastic.

00:34:03.704 --> 00:34:13.639
And then I think the action item that I'll leave our listeners with is you know we talked about, you know, three, five, eight products a year of.

00:34:13.639 --> 00:34:15.565
You know, quote, unquote, what you should be launching.

00:34:15.565 --> 00:34:20.918
What I would say is you know, if you haven't launched a product in a while, just start with one.

00:34:20.918 --> 00:34:23.282
You know, just get the ball rolling.

00:34:23.282 --> 00:34:38.436
And you know, start with one product in order to build up that muscle, and I think you'll be surprised at how much progress you'll make just by having a system in place and kind of shaking off the rust in that and what it takes to launch a new product.

00:34:39.219 --> 00:35:04.637
Well, an important piece of that, before we wrap up, is documented, like, if you haven't launched something in a while, first of all, research what it looks like to launch a product right now and again go back to that idea of using an audience and be careful about the information that's out there about how to launch a product, because, realistically, most Amazon sellers are still launching products without audiences and that is a much harder lift than to launch it with an audience.

00:35:04.697 --> 00:35:14.416
So, you know, take some of what you read and what you see in some of these videos with a grain of salt, because it's an expensive launch strategy and there's other, better ways to do it.

00:35:14.416 --> 00:35:29.807
But as you walk through the launch if you haven't done it in a while document what you're doing, create an SOP of sorts of what you did and then figure out after the fact what things you should have done better or what you should have changed or whatnot.

00:35:29.807 --> 00:35:39.344
But at least if you document it as you go, you've got a foundation on which to build an actual SOP for the next launch so you're ready for it and you can more easily walk through that process.

00:35:39.344 --> 00:35:41.644
On the next launch so you're ready for it and you can more easily walk through that process on the next product.

00:35:41.644 --> 00:35:44.858
I guarantee you it'll make that next launch much, much easier.

00:35:46.804 --> 00:35:47.284
Absolutely.

00:35:47.284 --> 00:35:51.016
I think that's a great place to end for today For our listeners out there.

00:35:51.016 --> 00:36:00.467
If you've got questions on these types of topics that we're going to be discussing every Tuesday, find us on LinkedIn, whether it's myself at John Stojan or Matt Atkins.

00:36:00.467 --> 00:36:08.434
You can also find Brand Fortress, and we're going to be having these Tactics Tuesdays live, so that way you can ask questions.

00:36:08.434 --> 00:36:24.657
So I think this was a crucial discussion for brands that are looking at how do I continue to build on Amazon and beyond, and we'll continue to talk about these types of strategic necessities that you need to have in order to build a brand.

050: Tactic Tuesdays: How to Make Small Bets on New Products

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