#3. How to launch a brand (or startup / product) with no money, get attention, & look like a complete superstar!
Season 1: ‘The Branding Series’ / Episode # 3
‘How To Launch A Brand (or startup/product) With No Money, Get Heaps Of Attention, & Look Like A Complete Superstar’.Want to get some attention for your business? Nothing beats a brand or product launch for concentrated marketing power. Brand experts reveal what it takes, why it’s important, and top entrepreneurs share true stories that will help you ‘crack the code’ to growth in your own venture.
Feature Story: The founder of iconic food brand Pic’s Peanut Butter, Pic Picot, shares the story of why – and how – he launched ‘Peanut Butter World’ to take his brand to the next level.
“And so we had 5,000 people [to the launch], I imagine the entire population of Nelson came by looking to get in here. It was phenomenal. It was just so warming. You know, we had the kids, we had the school, they’d even written a song and sang a song with a brass band.” – Pic Picot, CEO of Pics Peanut Butter .
Guest Bios:
Pic Picot (https://twitter.com/pics_uk) is the founder international food brand, Pic’s Peanut Butter (https://www.picspeanutbutter.com/)
Andre Eikmeier – cofounder of $100 million online wine retailer, (https://Vinomofo.com.au) Also founder of The Good Empire and Year of the Planet.
Rachel Bevans (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelbevans/) is branding expert & director of The Healthy Brand Company (https://www.thehealthybrandcompany.com/)
Jon Michail (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmichail-imageconsultant-personalbrandingcoach/)– brand expert and and image consultant, director at the Image Group (https://www.imagegroup.com.au/)
What to listen out for:
0.45: Hunter S. Thompson quote on the nature of the music industry.
1.20: The story of how AC/DC launched their album Highway to Hell in 1976.
5.59: Brand expert reveals when is the right time to launch a brand.
8.14: Brand expert on the role of key influencers.
11.25: Why brand launches are so important.
12.40: Invite your bank manager to the brand launch, it might help you get a loan more easily in future.
16.42: It’s your networks that bring you back from failure.
18.07: The three phases of brand launches – ‘pre’, ‘during’ & ‘post’.
19.12: The importance of follow up.
19.55: How to work with media to get free publicity for your business.
21.41: The role ‘community’ plays in a successful launch.
24.05: The story of Peanut Butter World, and how that was launched successfully.
29.30: ‘Brands’ are a nonsense, it’s the people behind companies that make it real.
33.10: NERD UNDER PRESSURE – recurring segment featuring Jon Michail
Resources & links:
AC/DC album sales for Highway to Hell https://chartmasters.org/2018/02/cspc-ac-dc-popularity-analysis/47/
The city of Nelson, New Zealand, population 40,000 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson,_New_Zealand
On average It takes two to three years for a new business to become profitable https://www.freshbooks.com/hub/startup/how-long-does-it-take-business-to-be-profitable
Liverpool team song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWfmR_XgZxw
What is a goodie bag? https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/goody-bag
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Transcript
Hi there and welcome to the nerds of business podcast. My name is Darren Moffatt. I'm a director at Webbuzz, The Growth Marketing Agency. And I'm your host. It's great to have you with us for episode three of the branding series. If you're new to this podcast, our mission is to solve the key challenges. All entrepreneurs must overcome one problem at a time, and we do it with the help of a rotating cast of top entrepreneurs and marketing experts together. We all kind of nerd out on the topic at hand to get some definitive answers for you. Our listeners to achieve that. Sometimes we zoom in on one particular vertical to illustrate a wider point today. It's the music industry's turn
Speaker 2 00:45
"The music business as a cruel in shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."
Darren Moffatt:That quote is by the famous writer, Hunter S Thompson. And it always brings a smile to my face. And if you've ever worked in the music industry, you'll recognize both the truth and the delicious humor of those words. They were perhaps never more so apposite than in the freewheeling 1970s, which is where our opening story begins.
Speaker 3 01:33
inaudible
Speaker 4 01:33
The year is 1976 and a fledgling Australian rock band called ACDC are gearing up to the launch of their second album, their manager and record company, a desperately looking for a fresh angle to promote the new release. They know that if they can generate enough buzz and excitement about the first single sales for the album will be more likely to take off and make everyone involved a lot of money at the time. The band leader and rhythm guitarist, Malcolm young is good friends with Australian music industry figure Molly Meldrum. Molly is the host of new Australian TV show, a kind of precursor to MTV called countdown by 1976, ACDC are already infamous for their live performance. So Molly and Malcolm come up with the genius idea of setting up the band on the back of a flatbed truck and driving around the streets of Melbourne while they play the song to the public. And Molly ensures the whole thing is filmed by the countdown TV crew. The raw footage is then edited and dubbed the studio recording of the song. And rumour has it crowd noise from the stadium concert of another artist to make it sound bigger. The finished product is what we now call a music video for 1976.
Darren Moffatt:It was a revolutionary new promotional tool. The film clip is first played on the countdown TV show, and it's an instant sensation. It soon appears everywhere
Speaker 4 03:00
And eventually becomes the iconic tune. We know today, the song in question, it's a long way to the top. If you want to rock and roll, it's the first single from highway to hell, which goes on to sell a whopping 22 million copies. One of the biggest selling albums in history, and it all started with the launch of that first single on the back of a truck in downtown Melbourne, Australia.
Speaker 3 03:31
inaudible
Darren Moffatt:If you're wondering why I've begun this episode with a music industry story, I have a confession to make before I became a middle class, middle aged entrepreneur and podcast host. I played in and managed bands for years. And I can tell you that launching an album is exactly like launching a new brand or product for a business. And most bands just like most startups are competing for attention with hundreds of competitors who seem better, bigger and more well-funded. But a launch campaign is an opportunity to level the playing field. At least for a little while, if you bring enough creativity and energy, you might just elevate your brand above the fray for long enough to gain traction in the market. It is a long way to the top for most business owners, but what can you do to make your launch so successful? It sets your brand on the path to fame and glory.
Speaker 5 04:39
I love data. You need to have systems need to have structure. You're going to get chopped to pieces is unstoppable. We kind of hit a point where we were like, we need another layer around yourself with people who are smarter than you and Richard and you.
Darren Moffatt:This is nerds of business. So the problem we're trying to solve, and the title of today's episode is how to launch a brand with no money, get heaps of attention and look like a complete superstar. We've got some great guests with some truly amazing tales up soon. You'll hear our feature story about the launch of peanut butter world and how Pic Picot the founder of Pic's peanut butter created his own mini theme park to take his brand to the next level. But first here's just a quick reminder that if you're enjoying nodes of business, to please hit the subscribe button on your podcast player, it means you'll automatically receive each new episode every fortnight, and it makes it easier for us to stay in touch. It might sound like an obvious question, but if you're considering a brand or product launch, when is the right time, at what point in the lifecycle of the business, should you a launch campaign?
Rachel Bevans:I'd love to say when you're ready, but, um, I do. I do think, you know, when you're ready is a, is good. So yeah, you do need the product or thereabouts. Yeah. Um, you do need to have, you know, how are you going to communicate it? You need to understand what your objectives are. Do you have enough salespeople? Do, will you have enough stock? You know, all of these sorts of questions, there's no point in going out and launching a brand if you're not going to be able to supply people with product. Yep. So you do need to make sure that you have all of those, those four to seven P's, you need to have them all lined up and ready for launch.
Darren Moffatt:That's Rachel Bevans from the healthy brand company. She's one of our two branding experts for this series. And she's worked on brand product launches for some globally recognized brands. I asked her, what's normally involved for the brand launch of a small business or startup.
Rachel Bevans:So depending on how big or small you are, you obviously need your employees to all know what you're doing. So they are your first port of call and you give them the key messages. So if you've got a team of 10, they're your number one advocates. Okay. So really make sure that your team is all equipped. And actually it's one thing that people kind of forget to do. So whether it's your receptionist or your, um, even your, your accountant or whoever it is, is make sure that your employees know what you're all about and give them the messages to spread at the barbecue. Yeah. Then you've got, so that you've got that piece and then you've got the trade, the trade launch. So if you need to be appearing in the supermarket or, um, whether or in stores or wherever you're actually being distributed, you'll need to do some sort of point of sales stuff. You have point of sale. So out through the distributors partners. Yeah. Cause you'll actually launch to them as well. So if you want to be distributed, if you're a soup and you want to be distributed in winter, then you'll probably be doing your trade launch in December and January, sorry, November, December, so that they can then list it in February. So that then you're actually on shelf for the winter months. And what about events?
Darren Moffatt:Yeah. How should small businesses and entrepreneurs use events to generate some heat, some excitement, some interest about their, their new brand new.
Rachel Bevans:Yeah. So they're the, so the third element of those pieces. So the third are what key audiences, your PR and your key influencers. Yep. So that, and that's really why you have events is to get those people, involved. So you would probably bring, you may bring your trade along to that, as well as your, um, orders, your PR people with some key publications that you want to be involved in. Um, or as it might be some key influential customers, you know, you've identified some really, some influencers that you want to bring along. You might have, you should already have your brand ambassadors sorted. So, yeah.
Darren Moffatt:And what about the goodie bag? There's the goodie bag? How important is the good cause? You know, I've been to a couple of brand launches over, over time and, um, I've mostly blagged my way in, you know, through a friend. Um, but I, you know, inevitably they've got a goodie bag and you walk away with a goodie bag and, um, it seems to me that that's quite important because that's your little opportunity to say here's what we do, what we stand for. Um, but there's also the law of reciprocity. I'm giving you some free stuff. So you'll go away and talk about me in a nice way. So what are your thoughts on that?
Rachel Bevans:Yeah, absolutely. I think the goodie bag is, is critical, but also to get them, if you've got a product, they can try to get them to try the product and then they'll be, they will be advocates for your brand. And that will happen in a lot of personal care area. And a lot of the alcoholic drinks area, you know, when you've got sort of, when you've got products, it's quite easy to give them too.
Darren Moffatt:You're not insinuating that media and PR people like a drink. Are you? I mean, that's a new concept. Um, but sometimes a different approach to launch is required here. Rachel shares the example of how and why the brand launch of say a tech startup might differ to a standard,
Rachel Bevans:The consumer product. The only thing I would say about that is that, um, there are a lot of, um, technology brands out there that are probably not doing that and don't need to do that because they will launch in some, in some sort of beta version and they'll launch in a smaller version, a smaller version to try and figure out what the CA whether they've covered the need, have they got any problems and so forth? So they'll do like soft launch. It might be more of a, I mean, it's more of what I would classify a test market, but they're still launching to market and talking to people about it. And, and then, um, I guess narrowing their CA their user experience and also their, um, per customer proposition as they go over time. So I think that works quite well with technology as you can adapt that,
Darren Moffatt:But if you're running a straight out consumer product, you've really got to have everything ready before you go and launch it. So brand launches sound like they take a lot of time and effort to get, right. It sounds like a lot of work you might already be asking yourself, is it really all worth it? Why should a small business allocate scarce resources to a launch campaign that could easily fail? Well, let's find out why brand launches as so important
Jon Michail:Because you're, you're cementing your positioning. Yeah. It's, uh, you know, it's, it's like a jet it's about to elevate into the sky. If it doesn't get it right there, it's going to collapse and crash. You know, if I can use that as a metaphor, right. So you got, you got to get that right now. If you make this mistake, it's not the end of the world. Okay. Because I believe, you know, uh, with the right team miracles happen. Okay. But why create that? Why don't you do it right from the start?
Darren Moffatt:So the launch is really about setting the brand on the right trajectory, correct. And giving it some, some power and thrust to extend the metaphor so that the journey, his journey into the world has some energy, some momentum, and you're taking key influencers along with you. Would that be right?
Jon Michail:Spot on? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Influences of all descriptions, but of course we've spoken about media. Um, but it could be investors, you know, uh, it could be, it could be actually, you know, and this is interesting because this is small business. This is actually very important. It could be your bank manager that doesn't even know what you do, but if you campaign that right and keep him in the loop with some of the really cool stuff you're doing next time you got for a bank loan, they might look after you a little bit differently. And I say that because a lot of bank managers right now are giving small business and startups are hard time. Okay. If the business had been smarter along the way, but they don't because they get too busy chasing their tail. But going back to that, it's been proactive.
Darren Moffatt:That's John Michael from the image group. He's the second of our resident experts for this series on branding. And he's got some super valuable insights on the role, your personal networks play in the success or failure of any launch campaign. Um, I think part of what you're saying there is when you look at your invite list, who are you going to get involved in this lodge? Don't look just to the obvious look to the contacts that you've got in your network that, uh, maybe don't get invited to something like this every day, but could be great advocates or have their own powerful networks that they can hook you into. Um, is that something that you advise clients when they're doing a launch to really think hard about
Jon Michail:A hundred percent? I mean, we've got a whole system about the networks, right? That's why I said about leverage before. Yeah. Networks are everything, you know, networks, you know, I mean, what I say is basically honestly, give me a dumb guy with all the connections as a, as opposed to a smart guy with nobody. Now, what does that mean? That means at least with the connections, I'll be able to leverage those very quickly, but to actually build those connections takes 10, 20 years. So, you know, I think we ended up play that, right. We underplay that, but anyone that comes from, you know, and other different type of clients are right across the board, because again, I'm eclectic, but you know, some of my established clients, I let's say from, you know, a club system, right, a guy, a private club system, you don't even have to tell them about this. You speak to a lot of small businesses. They think they not, but they're done. Yeah. Now again, I linked this, the networks as an essential component here, because in the crisis we're entering right now that means you better have some damn good networks. And if you study and if you study individuals and businesses with strong networks, I promise you we can do it before and after. You'll see where they'll be in 12 months time compared to others with no networks.
Darren Moffatt:I, again, I think that's a really great insight, you know, there's that old saying that in business never walk alone. You know what I mean? The more partners and, and, and close, um, associates. No, I'm not. Uh, well, why do you ask that? Is that, is that it that's their song. They got never walk alone now. Um, it's a, it's just a little phrase that, you know, I've picked up over the years and I put great store in it. And look, I went through, uh, in my finance business, uh, uh, 12 years ago in the GFC. That was the last big crisis in the world and my little finance business at that time, I'd only been going for two years and it was, you know, it was vulnerable, but we got through and I look back on it now. And part of the reason we got through was because of the networks that I have. So I really see the value in what you just said there. And I think that's a really important message for anyone listening today that, you know, networking is kind of old school, you know? I mean, everything like, everyone likes the shiny new stuff these days, but it's kind of the bedrock to business and you really have to invest the time in building proper networks, not just social media networks.
Jon Michail:Yeah, that's right. And we're talking about offline networks, see, and not Facebook networks, real human beings. And this is the real networks, you know what I mean? You said about, you know, that you obviously, your business had, uh, some challenges to, uh, the GFC, well, my business in 87, 89 prior, you know, we had all this stuff going on plus we property development. I lost $10 million. Right. Yeah. And that was, you know, 30 years ago, virtually whatever. So my point, I make with that is, um, you know, this is what brings you back. It's your connections and your networks, including by the way, family networks. Yes. Let's not divorce that out and just keep a business. Cause for me, they're all intertwined. Right. So, um, you know, and that's a good tip for your listeners. It's good to actually make a whole list right now, who are your networks. Yeah. And if you haven't got any on me, trust me, you will some, okay. That's a great starting point. Yeah. Even starting with zero is a good starting point in reference to, you know, analyzing who are your networks. Um, so hopefully, hopefully, basically you can use that as an action step.
Darren Moffatt:So what are some of the key practical steps you need to take to give your launch every chance of success for this? I turn back to Rachel Bevans from the healthy brand company. What about the idea of that pre, during, and post? So for an event it's, you know, building up a bit of pre excitement, actually having the event, giving away some, um, example, goods, goodie bag, whatever, and then post, and I guess maybe the post might be an interesting thing to talk about. What should you do after you've had the event to maximize the effectiveness of the brand launch?
Rachel Bevans:Yeah. I mean, if you're talking to those key people, it really is following up those key people. So if you're, if you have sort of told them what, they're, what they're going to expect, why you want, why you're, why you're interested in them coming along and why you're really important to them. Then now it's, it's worthwhile having those conversations afterwards to say, okay, you know, what else, what can we work on here? How do we actually make this happen?
Darren Moffatt:Yeah. So you can't just like, leave it there. You know, you go to all the trouble and have the event, you know, get to know them a little bit. They walk away feeling good about your business or your brand, but of course, then you've got to follow them up. So that means probably some, some nice looking at email, putting them on the database, maybe phone call. Um, and, and what about just the sort of the classic tactic of asking for something? So that is high. Okay. Do you mind writing about writing about a Sydney in the next issue of X magazine or whatever?
Rachel Bevans:Yeah, exactly. And there are different editors and depending on what their workload is like as well. And some people really like to and happy to come up with ideas, um, and actually generate ideas for you and say you, so I end up with a longer term arrangement with them and say, okay, so we want this as a 12 month thing. What can we, what can we do in terms and have a partnership with them of some sort to really gain maximum effect. And it might be, let's say it's a publication. You go over the next 12 months. We'd like, you know, 12 different executions per whatever that is, whether it's a sampling thing or article written or it's a mini event or whatever it is and get them to come up with those ideas that actually where he worked for their audience and for, um, yeah. For their audience and their brand, that works well for you as well. So it was really doing, working that in copartnership and other, other editors really are stacked and they want the ideas themselves. They say, okay, you guys write the content for us, or you go and you do this, this and this, and basically
Darren Moffatt:Give it to us. And then we'll use that. Right. So brand launches, uh, really about, um, getting into the psychology of some of the media and the industry press that you're going to use and understanding that they've got some leads that you can help them out with, particularly around content. Absolutely. And influencers are the same. Like some are really great ideas and others say like, I just want to be at this point. I think it's also important to hear the entrepreneur perspective. Andre Eikmeier is the founder of online wine retailer, Vinomofo. Now you might remember Andre from episode one, he was out feature story on how to create a brand that's so good it can take you from startup all the way through to a $100 million brand - just like Vinomofo. Listen to what Andre has to say about the importance of community for driving customer enthusiasm for your launch.
Andre Eikmeier:I've always been of the school where quick, let's just get it up and get it out there and do it as we go. Yeah, well probably the most successful brand launch was Vinomofo so let's look at the steps to that. We had spent four years building a community of people who cared about what we stood for, not what the product was. We then drive user registration, like, you know, register your interest. This is coming. So we had a timeline. We had a countdown, created some impetus around that and we've built some excitement and momentum toward it. And then it launched and it was something very simple and easy to understand it was one, one a month. So I guess they were the ingredients of it. We had an audit, we had a community built that we're together because I cared about something and were, had it shared a common interest and a common set of values around it. Correct. And then we build up some tension to those people and use that tension to spread hopefully a bit wider than those people. And then, and then we launched with something that was simple and easy to understand.
Darren Moffatt:Fantastic. I mean, that's a real, uh, telling insight, you know, that I think a lot of entrepreneurs can really take from it's about building the community first, before you go in, wants the product. Um, and it's often, uh, it's not easy. You know, everyone could build a community. Um, there'd be a lot more people doing it. Um,
Andre Eikmeier:You don't build a community around a product. You build a community around what you stand for.
Darren Moffatt:If you're a lover of peanut butter, then today's feature story has probably already peaked your interest. But even if you're not mad for peanut butter, there's still loads of value in the interview with my next guest. You might remember him from episode two on brand positioning. Pic Picot is the founder of Pic's peanut butter, one of the world's most beloved peanut butter brands and operates out of Nelson in New Zealand and has an annual turnover of over $30 million. You're about to hear the fascinating story of how Pic launched peanut butter world and the impact it had on his business, of course, your peanut butter world. And I I'd really love to hear you talk about that. You've recently launched this and it must've been a huge undertaking. Um, can you tell us a bit about that and why you took that step? Why did you launch peanut butter world? Uh,
Pic Picot:Well, peanut butter world is, you know,
Darren Moffatt:Yeah.
Pic Picot:Experience so people can come here and see where their peanut butter is made and meet us. You know, so, and when our first set second little factory, we put a window in the side of the process room and invited people to come and have a look at. It was really popular. We couldn't get a lot of people through, you know, maybe 30 people a day maximum. Um, but to my mind, um, you know, we have these customers and fiercely loyal customers. It's just, I would never, before I got involved in this business, I would have never imagined people could have held such affection for grocery items. I was never like that, you know, and there was nothing like, wow, I could live without these, you know, whatever. Um, so it amazed me how much, you know, how much people love the product and, and they wanted to come here.
Pic Picot:They wanted to come and meet us. They want us to know about it. And these customers are everything to us. That's why we're here. You know, that they've paid for everything. And so it's our opportunity to thank them, to show them what we're doing with their money, because it's their money we're spending. And, you know, to hopefully, you know, be worthy of them, telling their friends and continuing to support us and that sort of thing. And it has been phenomenal. We have free tours here and we get, we get up to up know 150 people a day coming through and I'm seeing a spike in the peanuts. Wow. It's so valuable for us, for, for us here for our own staff, to see those people coming through and being so enthralled really, and so enthusiastic and interested in what we're doing. So it gives all of us who work here.
Pic Picot:You know, a reason why we love, why we're here, because we see their appreciation. These people hold our work in. So everybody in the factory making this stuff, they see these people coming around and they know that their work is valued. And that's really, really important. What aspects do you think were key to the successful launch of peanut butter world? I think it's the town that we're in. So we're based here in Nelson. It's a small town of 40,000 people. I, me and Nelson, it was the top of the South Island. And as an, a being in us, you know, it's where we're held the community here at Nelson has been incredibly supportive of us and anything we were able to do for the community really gets noticed. And, and we have such loyal who are all very proud of us and I think justifiably.
Pic Picot:I feel proud of having grown the business for us. You know? So it's the Nelson community that was, is here for the launch. I mean, there were a few people who flew in from around the place to be one or two from the UK and Australia. Um, but basically it was the people of Nelson here and I'd been watching the building being built over the last 12 months. We'd put a great big sign in the window on the 26th of February, you know? And so a lot of people had seen that. And so when that time came around, it was tested. It was unbelievable. The number of people, I mean, we, we had 5,000 people through the door. We had bouncy castles and, and, and food trucks and things here. But what was extraordinary was that just about everybody who I spoke to over that time, you know, who, who and Nelson friends, Nelson, I said, you know, we were going to come, but there was such a crowd.
Pic Picot:There was so hard to get apart. We thought we'll come back another time. And so we had 5,000 people, I imagine the entire population of Nelson came by and, uh, I'm looking to get him here. So, and it was phenomenal. It was just so warming. You know, we had the kids, we had to medical school, I'd written a song and I sang a song with a brass band. And, you know, we had our farmers here. We had three farmers over from peanut farmers over from Australia and, and they were able to make the people who are buying their peanuts. I may realize just what, how much their, their produce was appreciated, just loading up trucks and being arguing with somebody about how much they going to give them a ton of stuff, you know, you know, but to actually be here. And, you know, we had, one of these farmers was spent all day just shaking people's hands at the door was so moving, you know,
Darren Moffatt:And I, you know, that, I think, um, I'm really not surprised because I think the brand is obviously you've got such intense brand loyalty. People love it. Uh that's you know, again, I used a technical term that's brand advocacy, you know, you've got, you know, uh, half of Nelson, well, most of Nelson out there advocating for the brand. I mean that you can't buy that. That's so, so incredibly,
Pic Picot:I think you need to make a distinction, you know, brands and companies. I think brands are a bit of nonsense these days, because if you know a brand and a brand that gets flipped around from one big international to another, you know, it's sort of, but it's the company and it's the company behind the brand that I think is where the heart of a businesses, you know, it's the people who in the company that the brand is just a, you know, something that you tried. But I think a company is that's, that's what you need to be a company that
Darren Moffatt:People want to give them money. It's making it real as you, as you say. So the problem we set out to solve in this episode was how to launch a brand with no money, get heaps of attention and look like a complete superstar. Our branding experts, Rachel, from the Healthy Brand Company and John Michael from the image group revealed what goes on behind the scenes to make a brand or product launch successful and why it's so important for the trajectory of any business. And we've also heard some real life stories from our entrepreneur guests Pic Picot at Pic's peanut butter and Andre Eikmeier from Vinomofo. I hope their wisdom and insight have given you ideas to crack the code to growth in your own business for me. However, there are several important takeaways from this episode. Firstly, you need to plan extensively for all three stages of a launch campaign.
Darren Moffatt:The pre-phase the actual launch itself and the post phase, as Rachel said, you especially need to follow up. You must devote the necessary time and resources to cement those new relationships. You've worked so hard to develop. Secondly, leveraging your personal networks is crucial. As we heard from John Michael, this is the first thing he looks for. When working with new clients, you should make a list of all the personal connections that you can use to drive interest and engagement in your launch. This includes family, but importantly, we're not talking about social media networks here. We're talking about real people with whom you have some form of genuine relationship. Thirdly, harness the power of community. As Andre said, communities, don't just form around a product they form around shared values or what you stand for. It's an emotional connection. If you can build a community around your business first, then you'll launch will be easier and more powerful.
Darren Moffatt:I thought it was really telling that pic nominated his local community in Nelson, New Zealand, as the single biggest reason why the launch of peanut butter world was so successful. The locals have obviously formed a strong emotional bond with the business. As we heard in the ACDC story at the top of the episode, I launch campaign can propel the brand to extraordinary Heights. If done well, the stats show that it often takes a new business two or three years to become profitable. And for some technology ventures, it may take double that or even longer. So yes, it can be a long way to the top for entrepreneurs. But a brand launch is an opportunity to fast track the business to your vision of success.
Darren Moffatt:We're coming to the end. But before we go, it's time for our regular segment Nerd Under Pressure where a guest has to share one killer hack or tip, they recommend for you. Our listeners let's find out who our nerd under pressure is today. Recurring segment in, in Nerds Of Business. Uh, it's cold. So, so John, you know, you're the, you're the PR the branding nerd, the reputation nerd, you know, all about this stuff and, and lots of other things besides, um, can you give us today one killer tip for entrepreneurs on how to launch a brand and look like a superstar with almost no money. I'm going to give you five seconds thinking time, your time starts now.
Jon Michail:Yeah. Um, so basically I suppose the greatest hack I can give you right now is to feel abundant. Yup. Not scarce. Yep. Yeah. Scarcity, detracts people away from you. Yes. Okay. So that's where I'm coming from there. Of course I'm a big supporter of the homeless. Okay. And anyone else that is, um, you know, then is having a tough, but that's not what I meant. I, what, I mean basically is look abundant now.
Darren Moffatt:No, I think that's great advice, but I think for our listeners, it's important too.
Jon Michail:Deconstruct that a little bit because if you look desperate, people run away. Yes I can. That's what I'm getting at. And that's where I'm coming from. I mean, you get the humanistic element here. I'm fair dinkum about that, but you know, on a, on a, on a consumer psychology perspective. Yeah. Spot on. Yep. You get it.
Darren Moffatt:No, I get it. And I think listeners will too. And it's a very important point. Um, so
Jon Michail:This is, by the way, when, when I watched him in a second, look at your shirt Darren? Have a look at your shirt the checks a matching right now, a poor shirt, the checks would not be matching because it's, it's, you know, that's like crazy. What the hell are you talking about? But it's cut differently. Meaning the fabric that they use is a lot less than that. This has got symmetry. It's got symmetry. Thank you very much. Congruent, congruent.
Darren Moffatt:It's also has the effect of slimming me down, John, which is the main reason I got up, but that's okay.
Jon Michail:And that's fantastic because you know, check's normally don't slim you down. So that's a, you've done a magic job, special check.
Darren Moffatt:So thanks for listening to the third episode of Nerds of Business. If you've enjoyed it, please leave a review on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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It helps us climb up the ranks and become more visible to other people just like you. So we're obviously all about wanting to help entrepreneurs and businesses. And by leaving a review, you'll be able to help us help others. If you've got a question or some feedback we'd love to hear from you, you can engage with us at webbuzz.com.au/nerds . So feel free to reach out and say hello. I want to thank all our guests and the team at Webbuzz for helping me put this show together. We'll be back in two weeks with our next episode, which is rebranding, why it's hot when is the right time, how to make it satisfying for all.Until then I'm your host, Darren Moffatt. And I look forward to nerding out with you next time. Bye for now
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inaudible.
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