Transforming the Australian food & beverage industry with Dr. Hazel MacTavish-West

In today's episode I speak with Dr. Hazel MacTavish-West about Seedlab Tasmania and Seedlab Australia, an international incubator for food and beverage producers.

We talk about how the pandemic turned out one of the best things that happened to Seedlab Australia and about how the program attracted $4million dollars in support from Woolworths.

We also talk about how Hazel and her team support their students and alumni through and after the programs, and how it's really one of a kind here in Australia.

We also talk about how Seedlab offers its programs entirely free. I highly recommend tuning into this episode if you want to learn more about attracting big sponsorships and government grants, pivoting from offline to online and building a business that 100% supports its students and alumni.

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https://seedlabaustralia.com.au/
https://seedlabtasmania.com.au/

Connect with me

Website: www.newschoolofmarketing.com
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Transcript

Welcome to the New School of Marketing podcast, the place for smart, simple strategies that will amplify your business results, sharing practical tips, insider knowledge, and actionable advice. Because marketing is something that every business owner can do. Now, let's get started. Introducing your host, Bianca Mackenzie. Mum, lover of snow, sports, camping, horse riding, and in demand launch strategist and Facebook advertising knowledge bank.

Bianca: Welcome to the New School of Marketing podcast. I'm Bianca Mackenzie, and today I am talking about transforming the Australian food and beverage industry with Dr. Hazel McTavis West. Hazel is a strong believer in together we are more. And in 2019, Hazel had a vision to help startup businesses start, scale and grow. This vision led to Hazel founding Seed Lab Tasmania, an incubator and accelerator program to support startup Tasmanian agri businesses to start, scale and grow. Hazel's contagious passion, combined with the high economic and social impact delivered by the accelerator program, drew interest from the Woolworths Group. In 2021, the Woolworths Group committed to $4 million of funding to help small businesses and founders become retail ready and pitch to national retailers. And so seedlab. Australia was born. As co founder and CEO of Seedlab Australia with her business and life partner Darren West, hazel leads an executive team of trusted advisors, nurtures a connected community of over 400 founders, and has made dreams real for Australian entrepreneurs.

Bianca: Welcome to the podcast. I'm super excited to have you on board, Hazel. Can I call you Hazel?

Hazel: Sorry, you sure can call me Hazel. And it's great to be here, Bianca.

Bianca: Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on board. This is completely different. I have had a lot of podcast guests that are in the online entrepreneur space, and you are too, but with a very different business. So I would love to hear a little bit about you and about your background.

Hazel: Okay. Where do you want me to start?

Bianca: At the start, how did you get to do what you do?

Hazel: Okay, well, what I do now is that I run an international incubator program for producers of food and drink and other consumer products. But how I got there is a long and tortuous story. Everything from wanting to be a vet to actually studying agricultural chemistry, being fascinated by food science, and especially plant science and the chemistry of plants. And I spent a lot of my career understanding how plants do the amazing things they do, everything from fielding off herbivores to attracting pollinators, using their chemistry. And with a passion for product and food development behind that, I've sort of evolved into becoming a food scientist and a food technologist who develops new products, and now I help businesses and people who do that. That's a very short version of a very long career.

Bianca: Yes, by the sounds of it. I love it. I actually just watched one of your videos. I've watched a few of them, but one of the videos on seed Lab Tasmania. And in that you tell a little bit of the story, but I would love to hear it here as well. So how did seedlab come about?

Hazel: Well, seedlab came about because I had been, as I said, developing products for everything from broccoli producers to gin makers. And as a consultant out there on the national and also in the UK. So international stage, I suppose people would find me and ask me if they could help me, help them to get the shelf life longer on their products, or how to get their labeling correct, or how to scale up production, or what to do with this huge amount of something that they managed to grow. And a lot of them were reinventing the wheel themselves every time from finding packaging suppliers to understanding food science. So when I was lucky enough to have a Churchill Fellowship in 2018 and travel around Europe looking at food factories and really taking a strategic focus instead of a very much focused focus looking for solutions for a specific client, I actually really enjoyed taking that helicopter view and looking at the bigger picture. And so when I came back and once I'd recovered, because it was huge.

Bianca: Yes, it sounds like it was, I.

Hazel: Thought, well, what's the next big thing I can do? And so I started putting together a program that would bring together all the nuts and bolts and the experts and the support that businesses producing products need and that evolved to become Seed Lab Tasmania, which then evolved to become Seed Lab Australia.

Bianca: I think it's wonderful. It's amazing how many small businesses start and they work in their own little silo and lacking that support is really tricky. And I guess this is why a lot of businesses go under within a few years. I'm seeing it around my area. You see one business pop up and the next year they're gone. And I just feel so sad about that because there is support. And I love that you have, in a way, changed the food industry, because I don't think there is anything else, or at least was anything else like your program out there for food producers. Because it's very specific. It's not generic advice that you can give them.

Hazel: Wow, that's a big question. Yes, well, let's work backwards. Yes, we are very much specialists. We have a very small team of very experienced specialists in their areas and that's something that I, as a founder myself, setting up both my consultancy business and I suppose Seed Lab have benefited from, is realizing you cannot be all things to all people. So by focusing and becoming very good at what you do and specializing, it does enable you to stand out from the rest and to really carve a name for yourself to answer your earlier part about being alone and the risks of failure. Absolutely. And even with Seed Lab, sometimes the biggest success for a business is to realize this isn't going to work. I need to stop now and go away, regroup and maybe come back with another idea or a different model later. And I've learned myself through a failed business enterprise in the UK, just how expensive, time consuming, painful and hard work that is and there is no short circuit and there's no guarantee of success. But I do feel that, and I hear on a daily basis, that the businesses that take part in our program do genuinely feel supported. They genuinely feel connected to a group of other people who are all on a similar mission which is otherwise very difficult to find. Those people and also they have a hand holding theirs and support behind their back to really share the successes, maybe weather some of the storms and also guide them through a path more likely to lead to success. And yes, you're quite right, I haven't seen anything else out there like that. Nothing that cares and nothing that's as generous and nothing that's as well connected and able to actually create change. Yeah, very proud of it.

Bianca: I'm very proud of it, too. And I'm not even part of it. But I've watched you from when I found you and watching all the videos and sort of seeing your story. And then you added being at the Salamanka markets. You've added all these things that I can see the driving people and the community and how it brings people together. And I think that is where I can see some of the uniqueness. Can you tell us a little bit more about the reasons for putting on the events that you do and the seller maker market? You were at AG Fest recently, how does that help your students?

Hazel: Okay, so yeah, we run lots of events. I actually wrote a report for our Seed Lab Tasmania funding which comes from the Department of State Growth in Tasmania just last week. In the last six months we've run 18 master classes and workshops throughout our Seed Lab community. And we have a policy that if we run a master class or a workshop in Seed Lab Australia for example, we always make them available to our Seed Lab Tasmania and our Seed Lab Sisters participants and their opportunities and information on anything that you can think of. The diversity is actually astounding from intellectual property to finance to how to pitch to what are the story of other businesses, but coming to specific face to face events and also opportunities to present products to consumers or to retailers or other distributors, they're quite big events and they take a lot of organization. For example, every six months we run an expo at Woolworth's head office for our Seed Lab Australia participants who are ready and they get to present to category managers and sample their products with hundreds of Woolworth staff. And they're big events that take a lot of work. But we've had an opportunity recently in Tasmania to collaborate with the city of Hobart and Salamanca Market. And that has made an opportunity for our Seed Lab Tasmania. Participants again, who are ready, who have something that people can buy, whether that be a product like jewelry or food or drink or maybe it's an experience like an agritourism venture or a sauna. We've got businesses with developing mobile sauna. They can come along for two weeks at no cost to them. The costs are born by ourselves and the opportunity made available by the city of Hobart. They can have a fully decked out marquee at Salamanca Market, which is the number one tourist attraction in Tasmania, actually.

Bianca: Is it? It is huge. It is huge.

Hazel: It is huge. And it's also very cold when we get a breeze through there on a Saturday morning at 07:00. So to have a proper marquee and we cater it with anti fatigue mats so that the participants actually get to experience the event as it would be for a hardened marketeer. And they get to help with visual merchandising. That's how they set their products out. They get help with how do you talk to people. And we illustrate that by having we always have team members there to help them. And we'll step in sometimes just to ask a question or to try and close a sale that maybe otherwise is a missed opportunity. And the businesses get to sell their products and talk to people and test out new products. And it's just fantastic. The community it's building around our seed lab businesses means that there's two businesses there each week. They haven't sometimes even heard of each other before they get to meet. We find that other seed lab alumni come and say hi, so that's a great community. And we're also obviously meeting the stallholders and visitors themselves. So it's just a fantastic, highly visible opportunity and they come home with money in their pockets.

Bianca: Yeah, it's brilliant. And I bet market research absolutely.

Hazel: Farmers markets and getting out there and talking to your consumers face to face is the number one best method of testing out new products or getting real feedback. People will stand there and say, yeah, that's lovely. And then they walk away and you think, yeah, okay, so it's not obviously that lovely, but what it's a lot better than is some of the businesses saying, mum, do you like this? And mums love everything. So they say, oh, it's wonderful, dear. Yes, you'll make loads of money doing that. It's actually real feedback.

Bianca: Yes, I would totally agree with that. And seeing people's expressions, seeing people's faces, really sort of getting that feedback. And obviously, yeah, money in their pocket is really good as well. And it is such a busy market. Well, at least we were there a few weeks ago and it was super busy. The weather was great, thankfully, that time. And it is really good to, I guess, having that networking meeting the other stall holders, because word of mouth, I have found, is a really big thing still in Tasmania and it travels. People tell other people about things and having those connections, I think, are invaluable. So you touched on it a little bit earlier. You are, in a way, supported by Woolworths. Would you mind sharing a little bit about how this collaboration came to be and any tips for anyone who in a way dreams of attracting kind of like support like that, or even having the big guys, as you would see, really noticing your business.

Hazel: So just to clarify if anyone's listening, because I have sort of mixed up the two programs. We have Seedlab Tasmania, which is currently fully supported by the Department of State Growth in Tazi, and that's for producers of all sorts of consumer products, everything from jewelry to books to food and drink, alcoholic beverages, whatever, whatever it is that somebody can tangibly buy.

Bianca: Yeah.

Hazel: Seedlab Australia is a newer program that's about 18 months old now and that is fully supported by Woolworths. And that's specifically for producers of better for you food and drink products and personal and home care products sustainably produced. So it's very specific in its criteria and its focus is very different. It's more around getting into Woolworths or building your business so you could supply a national retailer, whereas Seed Lab Tasmania is around any stage of business, whether you want to be a lifestyle business or you want to build a business to sell and or supply Woolworth. So just so that that's clear, that's.

Bianca: A good yeah, thanks for clarifying that because I didn't really know that either.

Hazel: No, I know and we do, we do talk about Woolworths a lot because they have been a very strategic and important partner for Seed Lab since the very beginning. In fact, arguably Seedlab wouldn't exist at all if it wasn't for them. Seedlab in the beginning when I'd sat come back from my Churchill and spent some time with my Whiteboard drawing out what this program I thought needed to look like. And I had never run an Incubator before, I didn't even know really what an incubator was. And once it was explained to me, I kind of realized that's exactly what I was planning on doing anyway.

Bianca: So that's kind of had a name.

Hazel: Yes, there's a name for it. I had been presenting products to Woolworths, particularly vegetable value added products, for a number of years. And as a consultant, it's really important to be visible and to be at events like for the vegetable industry, the Horticulture Innovation Australia conferences or OS Veg conferences or other vegetable events around the country. And I had built a relationship with the fresh produce team at Woolworths and that went all the way up to very senior levels because of who those people were and the promotions that had happened. So there was already a sort of a first name basis with decision makers in Woolworths. And I think what that illustrates is that people give business to people. If you're applying for a grant or you're trying to sell a product, it's about making a connection with people first and that's something that you can do via social media, through storytelling and pictures, videos and things. But I never set out to build a relationship with Woolworth specifically to get funding for Seed Lab. It was because I had a very good working relationship and they knew that when I said I was going to do something, I did it. And also that I was able to communicate what I was doing at a strategic level. And my Churchill Fellowship, which was around the vegetable industry, had been very highly documented by myself and shared nationally. And I had also done a number of projects with Horticulture Innovation that had engagement with Woolworth. So there's a big track record there that they felt they knew who I was, they knew what I did. So when I approached them and said, I'm looking to secure this much funding to match with some federal government funding to put this incubator program together, to do X, Y and Z. And I'm going to do this and this and this and this and this in Tasmania. And I'd already focused it on a group of people because initially, Seed Lab Tasmania was just for food and drink products, and it was around being export ready and it was about value adding. So they were all areas that I already had a track record in and lots of connections and experience. So when I said, look, this is the amount of money I'm trying to raise, I'm going to put in a quarter of the money myself from our company. I'm looking for a quarter of the money from you, Mr. Woolworth.

Bianca: Mr. Woolworth.

Hazel: It was really very small amount of money and because of the history and various other things, they felt that they were able to actually offer the 100% of the money that I was asking for, which was like, oh, okay, I wasn't expecting that. And that made the whole thing bigger because I still put in my equivalent of the same amount of money for what we were going to was going to be 25%, which was now 100. And I can't do the math. So the program became bigger and Woolworths were a very key player in it and that opened up opportunities straight away for the businesses in Tazi who had products that were of interest. So we sort of did a mini. What has now become our Expo at Woolworths head office in Sydney was a little event we did in Sandy Bay two and a half years ago, three years ago, that led to a number of products being in store in Tazi. Things like House of Fudge and Thailada fresh Thai curry sauces and things. The other thing that happened was when we started Seedlab tasmania. It was early 2020, in fact, and there started to be talk about Coronavirus and Distancing. And we ran our first boot camp programs around the state by driving places, booking venues, sorting out catering, and we packed everything into two days. And we had 45 businesses that took part in that boot camp series of boot camp programs. And then suddenly we all had to go home and lock ourselves at home and not travel anywhere and not spend time with people. And because of the fact that we'd been self employed and running our own company for a number of years, and my husband and long suffering business partner is a very technologically savvy person, we literally, within three weeks had set up an online learning management system, learned how to use Zoom, taught our participants how to use Zoom, and got a program that could be delivered via online learning, but live the content that was interactive. And so we just got going with that and supporting the businesses that were taking part in our accelerator for six months. And they met for the first time at their graduation ceremony face to face, although they'd been Zooming in almost every day for six months. We did a lot of stuff in that first six months. So we had built community, we had managed to help businesses grow throughout that time. And so when Woolworth said, well, can you take this program that's obviously very successful and it takes the pain out of finding new products or getting new founders businesses into our business. You've delivered this in Tazi. Can you now do it nationally? We were like, well, of course we can, because we can just scale out what we do and we won't fly around the country and we won't have a head office in Sydney. We'll just do it from Hobart like we do everything else. And that's what we've done. And so we're very lean and we're very effective because of the ways that we have to be. Thank goodness for COVID, in our case.

Bianca: Yes, and you're not the only one. It has opened up so many doors and so many opportunities, in a way. How did your students go with the transition to online learning? Because that's it it's a bit of a change, I guess. Everyone had to adapt. Even children had to do online learning.

Hazel: They did. I feel very sorry for those families that were stuck at home with two full time working parents and children and then trying to find space. I really do feel sorry we weren't in that situation. We just had two Smithfield dogs that we had to manage. My daughters had already moved out of home and were on with their own lives. But I can still remember the first Zoom session that we had with our group of we had 17 businesses, went through the first accelerator program called Cultivate, and we literally spent the first hour showing people how to get their cameras sorted how to mute and unmute. We slowly discovered the chat box, we very much more slowly discovered how to share screens and we just provided little videos which we would send to them, or we used our private Facebook group to show them this is how you do this. This is how you do that. We were just very patient and it was lucky in a way, because everybody was in the same situation. They were all stuck at home and even some of them were stuck on dairy farms and beef farms and sheep farms and goat farms, donkey farms, you name it.

Bianca: All the farms.

Hazel: All the farms. And we tried to plan things so that it fitted in with their lives. So we did things at lunchtimes, we did things in the evenings, we did things on Saturdays and it was really a lot easier than when we all went back to work. And now they've got the day job, their evening job, their farming job, and they're trying to build this other business on the side and then fit in seedlab. It's actually a bit more difficult now to get people to focus on online learning when there's a bit of an urge to want to all be together in a room again. Yeah, we're a bit reluctant to do that very often because the view people have is odd. No, I'd much rather be in a room for a workshop. But the reality is when you have to get up 3 hours earlier and drive for two and a half hours to get there and then get home and manage the family, it is a barrier and it's just trying to make the online learning and engagement process fun and effective. And you don't always deliver everything for everyone. There's always the people who don't quite get what you're doing. But I find their voices are a minority and the vast majority of people, 95% of them, get it and they go along with the program and they see the impact it has for their business and then how they're thinking. So I feel reassured that whilst it doesn't suit everybody, it suits the majority of people. And that's all we can ever hope to be. We can't be all things to all people after all.

Bianca: Yeah, I totally agree. And this way it has opened it up to the whole of Australia. It's not just people around the Hobart area. Tasmania is pretty small.

Hazel: You say that, but it isn't really when you start driving around it. I mean, we've had businesses in Marawir connecting up with businesses in Copping and Bernie connecting up with businesses in Dover, the length and breadth of the state. And we don't have always very fast roads, or we did have until we decided to fix them. And now we're full of roadworks.

Bianca: Yes, there are roadworks everywhere.

Hazel: That we offer a statewide program. And Tazi is regional as the whole state is considered to be regional. We feel we've demonstrated that we can bring the world to Tazi, so therefore we can bring the world as in best practice, in anything you want to think about to every nook and cranny cranny across Australia. And we're also increasingly doing business with participants in New Zealand as well.

Bianca: So it's amazing further afield and I guess it could even open it up to the rest of the world in a way which is absolutely incredible. So yes. Thank you. COVID yes, you've touched on how it's beneficial to Woolworths as well because they don't have to go out and find the products. In a way, you are delivering them a business that is already a product that is ready, which is super, super helpful. And in the process, you are helping businesses get to that point without because I'm just sitting here, I can just imagine people stumbling through everything that would be necessary to setting up a business that has enough product and doesn't get into stock shortages. How does that work with you teaching, especially the food businesses? Do you help them and prepare them for any of that to work around those kind of things?

Hazel: Yeah, for sure. So we're talking Seed Lab Australia now, I guess the whole aim of that program is to help businesses become retail ready. And there's two main parts to it. One is called Boot Camp, which is a six week part time program. They do about an hour and a half live online a week and two to 3 hours of on demand video watching and thinking on their business. And that's to help identify how close they are to being retail ready. And it also helps identify the gaps in their business or on their products that if they were to try and present to Woolworths, would mean a, they don't get anywhere near presenting Woolworths because they can't figure out how or they don't know where to go. And even if they can figure that out, they won't get anywhere because they haven't got the right information all in one place that Woolworths will say, well, where's this document? And then there'll be blank looks and confusion. And Woolworths don't have the time, energy, resources or manpower to actually work with each business individually to help get them ready. So Boot Camp helps identify what people don't know. And some of it's that they don't know that already either. They don't know what they don't know.

Bianca: Yeah.

Hazel: And we're filling in gaps on anything from intellectual property protection to food production protocols to packaging and labeling to what is the cost of goods, how much does it cost you to make this? What margins do you put on this to sell it? Who is your target customer? What are Woolworths looking for? What is the process of pitching and supplying products to Woolworths? And so that's all just covered in Boot Camp. And then about a third of the businesses who do that are really ready to actually go further. They have got a product that is potentially close to being retail ready or it is already retail ready. And we work with them then in our four month accelerator program called Cultivate to support them one on one with mentoring and opportunities and also more training to really get the pitch documents to get the understanding of what supplying Woolworths really looks like and understanding how Woolworths works all in one place. So, we have a lot of content from Woolworth directly. We've provided a portal that they can effectively communicate to hundreds, if not thousands of businesses at a pre supply stage and support them to troubleshoot the strategy around how they can position their products and how they can present them. And then the Expo does provide them with the opportunity to have those conversations. It doesn't replace the normal range review process that Woolworth goes through, that the businesses will still have to go through, but it gives them a leg up and gives them a bit better preparation than just coming in cold and doing that.

Bianca: Yeah, it sounds like a lengthy, very well informed process. If it comes through, it's huge.

Hazel: And I think that's the thing that every time I try and explain how big the program is or we go through the breadth of the content that we have, people sit there and you can see this look in their eye of horror and shock, and overwhelm you go, yeah, it's big, but you don't have to do it all today. It's here for you. They don't lose access to the Academy when they finish the program. They keep access to that and they keep being invited to our events. And by the way, I think the thing I need to stress is that all of these programs are 100% free for the participants to take part in. And that's something I vehemently fight for because that's what we got the funding to cover. The businesses that are looking to do this to grow their jewelry business from marijuana or their Thai curry sauce business from Seven Mile Beach don't have the money to pay for all the things they need and to find the trusted experts to ask the questions to and to be able to pay for a mentor to do this for them. And that's why the programs and that's why we, our team, are very good at getting support and funding because we know how difficult it is and we're able to fight that corner on the businesses, the participants behalf.

Bianca: That is incredible. I actually didn't even know this, but that is incredible. And thank you so much for the amazing work you do because there are so many awesome products now in the shops thanks to what you do. I guess everyone gets the benefit in a way when all of this gets shared and gets created and then shared around. And not everyone will end up in Woolworths. So what about the businesses that will not be retail ready? Do they also get, in a way, support and training on how they can market and sell their products, like on a smaller scale that will still support their lifestyle or their dreams and goals?

Hazel: Well, absolutely. And both programs support those businesses and continue to support them. And the other thing is as well, that sometimes it takes the unknown elements and the one that often gets overlooked, particularly in government funded arrangements, is that things take time. So one of the businesses in Tazi, Ty Lada, who are just this week going into 270 woolworth stores in Queensland, New South Wales and Tazi, they came into Seed Lab Tasmania three and a half years ago with an idea. And the only reason that they are now full time in their business, supporting their kids through school and scaling up and working with contract managers for retail supply or how to sell to a consumer at Salamancha Market, it's the same principles. So we are able to tailor the information and tailor the conversations depending on where the business is at. And the other reason that I'm very keen to keep a number of programs going and different funding sources is because there are different agendas. And yesterday we ran a 1 hour lunch and learn on using storytelling to sell more products. And we had a business join via Zoom, who we've been working with for the full time in our program. She came to our first boot camp program in Tazi and she is 100% a lifestyle business. She has a beautiful agritourism place in southern Tazi, she makes amazing ceramics, she keeps a hive of bees, she makes essential oils and she continues to evolve. Amazing experiences that tourists can experience through the off season, which is where we're bringing loads of mainlanders and international visitors into Tazi in winter. Who would have thought of that years ago? She feels supported, she feels connected. She knows if she drops me an email asking for information on X, Y or Z or simply lets me know she's really struggling at the moment with something, that I will be there to reply, send her some information. When I catch up with her, we give her a hug and we also point people in her direction who are looking for what she has. So if that's not support for businesses, that no way on earth does she ever want to supply woolworths. If that's not what that looks like, then I don't know what it does look like.

Bianca: That is absolutely incredible. And that sense of community, that sense of being part of something, you don't always get that everywhere. And the online space, I feel like I've taken some of it away. It's a bit of both sides of the coin. It's brought the world together in a way, but at the same time it's taken a little bit of that away as well. That community feel so that's why I love following what you do, because you're doing both things really well in terms of the online side. You've got all the learning materials and everything. People from across the world, basically, but across the ocean, can follow, can participate, can learn this way. And then you have the Tazzy side. And I can just see how you're bringing people together and in a way, you're creating this big web, this big network of people that will continue to support each other but also refer to each other.

Hazel: I love it. And I tell you what, I had no idea, however many years ago it was now, four years ago, when I was drawing circles on a whiteboard, I was trying to plot out a project for myself that might take three days a week. That's what I was thinking. And then I would do other stuff as well. I had no idea that Seed Lab would go on to be what it is. I certainly didn't have this vision then. But also, I had no idea that the thing I would come to love the most were the people that took part in our program and that we met along the way, the community that we've built. And I absolutely love the emails and phone calls or statements people make when I catch up with them to say, oh, I just got this grant funding. We've just had this listing, I've just won this award, I've just quit my job. I've just put my daughter into university with, paid all her fees for money that I've earned in my business. And that has become the thing that happens on a daily basis. And every time I just think, I am so lucky to be connected to this group of vibrant, energetic people who are just out there doing things and yeah, I had no idea that was ever going to become a thing.

Bianca: Isn't that a great lesson for everyone though, that start and you don't always know where you're going to end up, but enjoy the journey. And yeah, I share that feeling with you when you hear back from people that it might not feel like a big thing that you've done, but you've made a big difference in someone's life. And I don't know, that's what I live for as well. It's just so great to be part of someone's journey and see what they can achieve and where they can go and whether that is woolworths or whether that is the local market. But making that difference in someone's life is just incredible. And then, yeah, I would totally agree with you with bringing people together and having that community. I think that is part of I feel like it's part of Tazzy life. I love how communities get together and for anyone who hasn't watched any of your videos, I'm going to send them to watch some of your videos because you just get that feeling of almost being part of the event and the community. So I'd love to know if you have any parting wisdom for my listeners, if anyone, because people that listen have their own businesses or starting their own businesses, I would love to know if you have some wisdom for them.

Hazel: Wow. That's another big question.

Bianca: It is a very big question.

Hazel: Look, the thing is that everybody I meet, including myself, has been through a journey and it's been difficult at times and you don't realize, as we just discussed, where what you do can end up. And I think the thing I would just encourage people to do is write down what they would really like to happen, what would the dream look like, what does success look like here? And we also encourage people to separate out what that looks like personally from what it looks like from a business point of view and to try and make sure that if you do achieve success with what you're trying to do in your business, that that also will make you happy personally. Because I've seen people build a big business that meant they were running food factories and employing lots of people and turning over lots of dollars. And part of that was their business dream, to employ locals, to utilize waste streams from primary production, and.

Bianca: To have.

Hazel: A business of a certain value. But actually what they wanted to do was to enjoy the land they live on and have time for their grandkids. And now they're running this big food factory and they've just got pain from all their employees. So sometimes the key to success isn't necessarily to be big, it's to understand where you want to go and then find think about different options for how you could get there. The most successful people I have met over the years have one common theme, is that they write things down so that it becomes tangible, visible, and it becomes part of what you're doing. I've written down my goals for the big vision, both personally and business wise now, and I totally believe they're going to happen, but I'm not sitting around every day just waiting for it miraculously to come. I write it all down and then I get on with the day job and know that I'm building this for a bigger vision. But if that answers your question, then I'm a happy bunny.

Bianca: Yeah. No, I love it. That is great. And sometimes our reality becomes bigger than the vision.

Hazel: Yes, clearly. Clearly.

Bianca: Sometimes you just don't know what you don't know and you just follow the breadcrumbs. I love that you write it down. I'm looking at my I've got a big board that has goals, family goals, my goals. And my husband hasn't written anything down yet, so I'll set the goals.

Hazel: Nothing wrong with that. If you've chosen the right life partner, then they are key to helping your goals happen. But sometimes they're quite happy to just be the key and not necessarily the face.

Bianca: Exactly. Tag along. I have a tag along. I love that. Thank you so much for sharing all of that. I am sure that a lot of my listeners have gotten so much out of this. And like I said at the start, yeah, our interview is a little bit different from what I normally do because I have been in the online space since 2017. So the online learning what I love so much about your journey is that you started on the road first and then had to transition into online learning. And I feel like a lot of my listeners can learn so much from that because they started online, and that offline in person element is sometimes missing. And I think you've brought that together really well, and there's definitely a lot of food for thought for a lot of people in there. So thank you so much for sharing that.

Hazel: No, I'm really glad of the opportunity, and I think if it's a last minute thought, none of what we've done would have been possible without what Darren West, my husband and business partner, made possible through the use of technology. He had a very big career in technology at a global level, and that enabled us to cut through all the noise of options and possibilities and very quickly get a path forward. When COVID hit, that meant we didn't stumble for a second. We just embraced best practice in everything we did from a technological point of view, and then brought the human element to it. Because I don't take myself too seriously, and I think that has been a secret of making Zoom rooms work, that you can build humor and self deprecating comments to it that just make everyone feel comfortable. But also, we don't have a situation ever where the technology well, very rarely when the technology doesn't work. I mean, even the Bass Strait link being down for a day didn't fox us because we had a team member on the mainland, and she very quickly just registered for Zoom and then hosted the meeting, and off we went as if nothing had happened.

Bianca: Amazing.

Hazel: But it's understanding technology and using it as a tool and an enabler instead of making it a barrier is really important to our success, I think, and just encouraging people to embrace technology. Just get your lighting right, just get your microphone working, just learn how to share your screen and be part of this group and connect, and then let's focus on what we're really here to do. That's what we approach to everything.

Bianca: I would 100% agree with that. It's like, it doesn't have to be perfect.

Hazel: No, it just has to be good enough.

Bianca: Exactly. And yeah, you can improve from there.

Hazel: Yeah.

Bianca: All right, I think it's time to wrap up. Thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge, sharing all of your wisdom. Thank you so much for sharing that and I will pop all of the links to your programs in the Show notes so people can find more about Seed Lab Australia and Seedlab Tasmania.

Hazel: Thanks very much Bianca, and I look forward to seeing some engagement from your listeners going forward.

Bianca: Wonderful.

Bianca: So that's the end of this week's show. If you have questions about transforming the Australian food and beverage industry, head to Seedlab Australia.com Au. I will pop all of the links.

Bianca: In the show notes because there are.

Bianca: More links than just Seedlab Australia.com au. Thank you so much for listening. If you like the show, don't forget to subscribe and leave a five star rating and review on itunes, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you heard the podcast. Your review will help others find the show and learn more about the amazing world of online marketing. Don't forget to check out the show notes for this episode@newschoolofmarketing.com, where you can also learn more about Hazel. Check out Useful links, download free resources and leave a comment about the show.

Hazel: Our channel.