Speaker 1 (00:00:04) - Welcome to the business podcast. A show all about helping you as a retailer, brand or creative. Understand the actual business side of running your business. I have a straightforward practical advice about the nitty gritty of making money from your creative passion. We will be covering bite size, business and marketing lessons, as well as interviews with experts and trailblazers in the fashion, homewares and design industries. My name is Melissa Robbins. I'm a business coach, colour loving, non coffee drinking Melburnian. Let's get into it. Hello and welcome to today's episode. I am super excited to have a guest with me today. I have Janet Poggers from Fox and fellow who is has a gift in Stationery range based in Brisbane, Australia. Thank you so much for being here, Janet. Oh, thanks Mel. I'm very excited. I'm very honoured to be on your podcast. I'm so lucky it's your first one. Oh, I know, I know. Podcast version for sure. This is exciting. Yeah, yeah, it should be good.

Speaker 1 (00:01:05) - Tell me a little bit about what Fox and Fellow is. Yeah, so we're kind of a design focused company and we make gifts for like life's big, beautiful events. So anything from birthdays to weddings to having your first baby graduations, retirement, and then even some of the more like somber sort of life events like, you know, death or stillbirth, which is a little bit harder to to talk about. But yeah, we basically make a range of stationery and wedding products and baby products. So we've sort of expanded our line from stationery, which is where we started. Yeah, over the years. And yeah, now here you are. So let's talk about what you did start with. So going back, you know, like where you were when you came up with the business idea or you sort of had it thinking about it for a while, what was that like? Okay. Well, basically, I was a graphic designer. I was working in sort of design and advertising studios in Brisbane and kind of was getting a little bit frustrated with sort of building everyone else's brands up and kind of just wanted something of my own.

Speaker 1 (00:02:14) - So I was kind of moonlighting on the side for a couple of years. I started out, I just did a photography course actually, and thought, Yeah, look, maybe I could be a wedding photographer and there was a wedding fair locally. And I thought, Oh, I'll just sign up and see what happens. And they were kind of like, Oh, we don't really have any more spots for wedding photographers. And kind of I didn't have a folio or a website or anything, so they kind of went, Oh, maybe you could do like wedding stationery. I can see that you've done your own wedding invites and stuff like that. So I'm like, Oh yeah, all right. That sounds like a good idea. I might might give that a whirl. So over the weekend we kind of went, Shit, let's make a business. And kind of we're like, Oh, we got to name it something. And it was back in, you know, the day, I think it was 2013 where everything was very rustic and we just had our own wedding.

Speaker 1 (00:03:00) - So it was all very rustic and hipster. So we thought, Oh, Fox and Fallow. That sounds kind of cool. It it's a bit hipster like, let's, let's roll with that. So yeah, we just made that up, register the business name. I, you know, made a little poxy little website and sort of put together some like fake wedding invitations, you know, a bit of a portfolio and did this like wedding fair and started doing that and then, yeah, so throw yourself in the deep end straight away. I just I tend to sign up for things and then go, Oh, I might have to work that out later. And that's sort of how we ended up doing the stationery line and everything that came from it later. But yeah, so for a couple of years, like on the side, I didn't tell my boss. I was sort of keeping it really on the down low because I didn't. I thought if he found out, he'd be like, Oh, you're not really dedicated to your job.

Speaker 1 (00:03:47) - Or If I was showing up to work and I was dog tired, he'd be like, Oh, well, you know, it's because you're like the side hustles taking over. So I didn't tell him for like two years and I was just doing like, yeah, wedding invitations and stationery and like, we started doing like chalkboards and timber signs and everything was really, you know, rustic back then. So that was kind of the vibe. And then, yeah, after about, I think two years or so doing that, like we would do crazy things, like we'd go to work and we were doing long hours to like working at a in advertising, like sometimes you'd work till like 10 p.m. or midnight. But then, yeah, we'd go, I'd go home and like Darrell would make chalkboards and timber signs in the backyard and I'd sort of chalk them up and hand paint them and we'd be cutting things out on our little like K and zing thing. It's like a, you know, cutter thing.

Speaker 1 (00:04:34) - So we were doing a little cutter. Yeah, it's like a cricket. But yeah, it was a bit old school. But yeah, we were hand making a lot of stuff and I was, you know, doing all of that for about two years. And then I was just, I started to get a bit frustrated with like just doing all this work for just like a one off event. I'm like, okay, you're really good. If I could just make a product that I could just make it design at once and then just keep producing it and just selling it, keep selling it. And yeah, and back in that sort of era, you know, I was following like blogs like, oh, so beautiful paper that was kind of like the blog to follow back in the stationery days. And like there were all these beautiful brands that all went to the stationery show, and I was like, Oh man, I just want to go to this stationery show. Like, I kind of didn't really know what it was.

Speaker 1 (00:05:15) - And I'm like, Oh, this is a New York one, right? This is basically yeah, this is the one in New York. So I was like, I just want to go. Like, I just want to go and be there and like, have a booth and do the whole thing. And I didn't really understand what I was doing. I just kind of signed up and as you tend to do. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I was like, Darryl, can we just, like, go to this thing? And he was he's always been really good and supportive of me and. Just like lets me do my ridiculous adventures. And he just went, okay, yeah, look, let's do it. And I think he had we had a bit of savings saved up from, you know, doing all this wedding stationery on the side. So I went, okay, look, I'm just going to sign up and we'll work it out later. So I think we signed up in like November or something and I went, Shit, okay, I've got about six months.

Speaker 1 (00:05:57) - I need to pull together a brand and, you know, products that I've got to sell. And then I realized, oh, it's like a wholesale show. Yeah, cool. Like you got to sell it for like, half the price. I was like, Oh, oh, okay, cool. That's cool. We can work with that. So like, this is like how green I was like, did no, no research in terms of that. Like I knew like there were beautiful brands there and they made beautiful greeting cards and all this sort of stuff. So I thought I can I can bang out some greeting cards, I can do some notepads and can use your talent or, you know, you had your back, obviously background skill. So it wasn't like you didn't know how to do that. But it's just the actual implementation of the actual product and the pricing to yeah, be able to wholesale and retail at the same time. Yeah, 100%. Like I didn't know anything about margins or, you know, manufacturing a knew a little bit about sending stuff to print, but I didn't really have like printers and stuff lined up.

Speaker 1 (00:06:51) - So anyway, I sort of figured it out and then we, you know, had to go there and build a booth because in, in New York, like the stationery show is not like the shows here in Australia where you get walls and stuff and it's a little bit easier here. There it's like you get a spot on the floor and that's it. And you've got to you've got to get your walls made or you've got to bring your booth. And, you know, I was we were painting them on side. I was like painting like a like a floral mural and stuff and just like sort of bring our furniture over like plinths and cupboards and stuff like that, which Darrell sort of made at apply. Like we do a lot of stuff with just cheap ply from Bunnings. Yeah. Um, yeah. And then just had to, yeah, figure it all out. So we went to the first show and it was terrifying. I had no idea what to expect. Yeah, everyone was kind of like, So what are your best sellers? And I was like, Oh, it's my first, my first show to do it was You tell me I was such an idiot.

Speaker 1 (00:07:47) - Like, I had no idea what I was doing. Yeah, like they were just looking at me like you're a fool. But, um, I think the people that didn't, you know, I figured it out after about day one. Like, Oh, probably don't say that then. Yeah, like, people kind of assumed. I think that because we were from Australia, they thought, oh, well if they're front, they've come all the way from Australia and they've gone to New York. Like there must be like they must be big or must be big, that must be good, they must be a proper brand. So like that's, you know, take a punt credibility right away. Yeah, yeah. So it kind of worked in our favor and did the whole thing like it was a big thing to send out like mailers to key retailers and stuff. So I did that. I sent out like these personalised chalkboard things and sent them out in hand, chalk them and personalize them to to sort of key retailers and a bit of press people that go to the show.

Speaker 1 (00:08:36) - And that really helped and brought a lot of people to our our booth and stuff. And yeah, about that now like with you know when I do the trade show essentials and sort of, you know, helping people get ready for trade shows, it's like you've got to do something beforehand. It's not like you can't just turn up to trade shows, I think, and expect everyone just to come to you. You've got to do a bit of prep work, you've got to do a little bit of, you know, who do you actually want to target? What stores would you love to be in and find the right stores for your who your customer is to totally, totally. Like we think if we hadn't done that, like no one would have come to our booth. So I'm glad that we did that in the in the US, I think too, like there's a lot of people who just go to particular booth. They don't do the whole walk around, which you know is different again to here as well.

Speaker 1 (00:09:18) - But okay, so sorry I'm interrupted there. Sorry. How did you go in that first show? Not at all. No. It was it was good. Like, I mean, it was such a big show back then. Like it was, you know, there was like hundreds of stationary exhibitors, and we're all just, like, right next to each other, like, rows and rows and rows of us. So we did pretty well. Like, I mean, we got 30 orders, which we thought was pretty good for our like first show, like straight off the bat. Um, you know, we were like, That's great. How did you stoked how many of those you still have? Would you think like at least a couple. A couple, A couple like, yeah, I mean, some of them have clothes, but like we got a couple years ago now is it or not quite. No, not quite. Yeah. Yeah. Oh about Yeah about eight. About eight.

Speaker 1 (00:10:00) - But yeah. Like we've got some of our like you know our best customers who are still with us you know, at that show or even if it wasn't the second show like one of our retailers in San Diego who's amazing for us, they called pigment. They I think they found us at the station show. If it wasn't the first show, it was the second one. But they've stayed like super loyal and, you know, continue to buy from us regularly. And they're a great customer or a great retailer for us. So yeah, it was great. It just really, you know, helped launch us and I think with a bit of a bang. But I didn't I didn't even know that there were shows in Australia. Like I just wanted to go to the stationery show, but that doesn't exist anymore, does it? No, it ended up rolling it. That's it? Yeah. It rolled in to New York now and then it sort of had its own, like, sort of separate section, but I don't know if they'd still do that.

Speaker 1 (00:10:47) - And then, yeah, I, I was in New York now in August last year and there was definitely rows, you know, like the sections of different categories. And there was a definite stationary, but nothing like obviously what it used to be like. Yeah, it's a bit sad because it was really good. But then over the years people sort of started to drop off. Just I think the expense of it was hectic and then fare kind of came along and that's other options. Yeah, yeah. And so with your with you obviously came out with some bestsellers after the show so you probably knew them after what worked or what were some key things that people responded to. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we figured out like what our best selling products were in terms of like greeting cards and stuff. And then, you know, we've always done like planners and calendars which do well. And then, you know, a few years later we sort of launched like our wedding planner and some of our like journals, like memoir journals and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (00:11:39) - They've become like really big sellers for us. So we know now what our best sellers were. But yeah, it took us a couple of years before we figured that out. And yeah, obviously and that's the thing. Like I think at the start people can just sort of, you know, not, not continually add like you might just drop off some things, but you're continually testing aren't you, and seeing what works or seeing what people respond to. And often you would know this from having both. But the things that people respond to wholesale might be different to retail as well, so that you can get quite different bestsellers in the different sales. Yes, 100%. Like our wedding planners is probably are probably our best selling products for retail, but wholesale like they they do well, but not nowhere near as much as like. Yeah. How many we sell like retail. It's just. Yeah, yeah. It's just one of those products that I think a lot of people are just finding online and buying from themselves.

Speaker 1 (00:12:29) - Yeah. Yeah, they're picking and choosing. Yeah. Okay. So let's keep going back. We're going to keep going back to the beginning there. So I remember meeting you at the New Zealand Gift fair, so that must have been in like 2016 or 2017 or something. We were, yeah, I was there showing some Australian brands and you were there with your brand and obviously just, yeah, walking around, you meet other Australians and I remember meeting you there and your stand up pretty sure won an award that that show like. Oh yes that's I think I think yes I think so. I think that was our first yeah it was our first New Zealand show because we were just like, what's this award stuff? But yeah, it was, yeah, it was really cool. It was really cool. They had a little like little designer kind of section, like yes, what it was called. But yeah, that's what we were in. And it was cool because like we got like a really big stand in New Zealand because it's like a lot cheaper over there.

Speaker 1 (00:13:17) - So we're like, Let's go and get like double the size, let's go for it. It was cool and I think pretty short painted all pink or peach or something like that. Yeah, probably would have been, would have been I think like the next year we went to the New Zealand show and we had an issue with our passports. We realized the night before our passports had expired that actually go to New Zealand too. I had to wait a day and delay my flight to go get my passport. Oh, I know it's the worst. It was so stressful. We had I think we had to wait two. I think we lost two days. Or did we lose one day? I can't remember. But yeah, we were running around like crazy. Got the got the passports eventually. But like that, that show, we decided, oh, we're going to get this like nine meter long stand. And wow, when I went over and had to like go to like there, go to Bunnings anyway, it was like go on a Bunnings buying wood paint here, doing all this stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:14:06) - We're so stressed. We had to like set it all up in a day because you know, and Daryl like so cheap. We like to do everything ourselves. We're like, Yeah, painting and building stuff on the spot. It was a bit stressful, but it was good. Yeah, it was so fun meeting you in New Zealand. Well, New Zealand is a great market as well, so that's interesting. So you obviously started with other international shows before you did Australian shows. Yeah. So we kind of just tried a whole bunch of different shows. Like we started with New York and then found out from an Aussie retailer who happened to be at the stage to show that she's like, you know, there are shows in Australia. I was like, Oh, are there really? So she told me about Life and Style. I went, Oh, cool, all right, I might give that a shot. So we tried Life and style. I think maybe in 2017, 2018, after we did a couple of station shows, like maybe 3 or 4, then we did New York now and then we yeah, we were doing Life and style by that stage, like both of the shows, Sydney and Melbourne each year.

Speaker 1 (00:15:05) - And then we started doing New Zealand, did a New Zealand shows, a couple of those. Yeah. And then yeah, it was, it was, it was a tricky time because like I was bringing, like we just had our first baby Ziggy and we were taking him to New Zealand and taking him to Sydney and Melbourne and doing the whole like sneaking out, breastfeeding in between. It was, it was a bit hectic. And then we had our second daughter, Frankie, so but after we had Frankie Will cut away. We can't lug both of these kids overseas for these shows. We've just got to like cool it for a bit and we'll just do Sydney and Melbourne. Like that's that's manageable. That's okay. And they're a bit older now. They can stay home. We don't have to bring them along. So for the moment where we're at, we're just going to stick with Australia for a while, but never say never. Yeah. And, and do you think that's been instrumental in helping you get the number of stockists that you have? Like you've obviously got I think, did I look on your website? I think you've got over 1000 Stockists Yeah, we yeah, we definitely would.

Speaker 1 (00:16:01) - And if you counted up, I guess like the bigger retailers and how many stores they have, like it's, yeah, it would be definitely over the thousands. So yeah, definitely. Like we basically have been a wholesale brand for many, many years now. We're sort of doing a little bit more direct to consumer. But yeah, that's, yeah, trade shows have been sort of instrumental. Like I love doing them. I find them like it's just really exciting and it's nice to just have all of your stuff on display and you can make your booth look really pretty and it really sells it. It's, it's that in-person experience and just that physicality of being out of touch and texture. And as you say, talk to you talk to Darrell, like really get to know the brand, get to know what the whole range looks like because, you know, there's only so much you can buy from digital and email and even like I encourage people to do physical catalogues because I'm like, people need to touch something and take it away.

Speaker 1 (00:16:56) - And it doesn't have to be a 70 page catalogue or anything like that, but having something physical to see and touch is so important. Yeah, totally. I totally agree. And like we. Yeah, always do a catalogue or now we sort of pared it back to just more of a new releases, little sort of shortened version of our catalogue. And then we have like a digital version of that online. But yeah, yeah, we, we always like to give them something that they can take away and yeah, it's just nice to it's nice to catch up with your retailers, see them in person. Yeah. That relationships isn't it. Yeah totally. Yeah it's, it's good we love them so I think we'll keep doing them for a long time I think. Yeah. Because I think that's the thing as well. It's interesting because some people, once they've sort of established they don't continue to go. But I think that importance of connecting with people, not just, you know, other other exhibitors, obviously.

Speaker 1 (00:17:43) - I see you. I've seen you every every twice a year, every year for however one thing going. And, you know, it's just that as you actually might chat with the retailer for 20 minutes as opposed to just an email or a phone call. So it's really connecting with people in person and deepening those relationships. Yeah, totally. And I like just talking to other like vendors, like other exhibitors as well, like just you'd have to talk shop and it's like it's so easy to just like make friends with people. You just sort of like amble up to their booth and be like, Oh, hey, how's it going? I like your stuff. And then you just start chatting on this like deeper level because we're all sort of in it. We're all like, you know, doing the Small biz Hustle and we all kind of know what it's like. So it's just, it's just cool. Like, it's like your people you get to, yes, hang out with your people twice a year.

Speaker 1 (00:18:30) - So yeah, it's cool. It can open up connections to suppliers or collaborations or, you know, podcasts, whatever. Yeah. Oh yeah. There's so much stuff that happens at a trade show that you just like online is fine, but I think that's a nice way to, you know, keep things going in between the events like trade shows. So yeah, now that's good. And so in terms of products like how, how often do you introduce new products all the time or how does your product range work? Well, I like to I use sort of life and style as our sort of big, big release times. It's like a nice hard deadline for me that makes me actually pull my finger out and get stuff, you know, made. Because when Covid happened and the shows were not, I was a bit like, yeah, I might do a catalogue, might make some new products, but I was just very lazy. So it was, it's really good to have these like hard and fast.

Speaker 1 (00:19:24) - Deadline. You're going to show up, you've got to have your stuff ready and it better be good. So that's when we do our big releases. So like February, we'll do our biggest release of the year. This year we did, I think it was about 140, 150 products, which is huge, a lot. But I think I like making new things. That's the thing that I like to do. So that's why we do so much. And then, you know, I mean, our product line keeps expanding, but there are things that we do drop off as well. So yes, you know, we discontinue stuff as well. So it's not just ballooning every year, but then we'll also go to like Melbourne and then probably drop another 50 ish products or so. Yeah, but you know, sometimes it'll be like planners, we'll do like eight styles of planners or three calendars or like, you know, 80 greeting cards or something, which is a lot. But you know, once, you know, it keeps it keeps it going and it's a lot of product to keep our retailers happy for the next year, basically.

Speaker 1 (00:20:20) - Okay. Yeah. So we dropped like four collections and in. February in Sydney, which was a bit of bit overkill, but wow, whatever. I don't know. I just. I don't know. I just. I just had it ready to go. Ready? You were just on a creative bubble. Just got it going. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. And I think sometimes the more we make them always sell. So it's just. I don't know, It keeps. Keeps our retailers happy, I think. Yeah, We're just not one of those brands that can just focus on like one particular product and just keep selling that I get to board. So that's why so many things. And with your with your retailers, did they have you got quite a mixture of like some might be just greeting cards or some are just the planners Do you have a real mix there? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, we definitely do. We've you know, we sell to a lot of like straight up stationery stores.

Speaker 1 (00:21:09) - So they buy a lot of the greeting cards and the journals pens like the more traditional stationery items. But then we've got a lot of baby stores as well. So we've got quite like our baby ranges expanding. So we've got baby books, milestone cards. Um, swaddle and blankets and where you add a gift to your range and stuff as well. Yeah, definitely, because like the baby stuff does really well for us and also life and style being like a it's got the kids and star component. You get a lot of the baby and kids stores. So we've really sort of fleshed out that range and we've got some cot sheets coming, cot and bassinet sheets coming in in Melbourne. So that'll be cool. So we've got a lot of baby stuff. Yeah, yeah. I can't wait as well with, I think you know, the sayings, you know, always if you're in births, deaths and marriages like that, whole thing of people will always be having new babies, you know they'll always be getting married or you know, people always dying obviously.

Speaker 1 (00:22:04) - So it's like, how do you know? You're just, you know, obviously helping people with those situations and add in for those things. But people will always, no matter what the economy sort of is as well, like people will be buying for those activities or events 100%. And I think people spend a bit more on gifts than they will for themselves sometimes. But yeah, yeah, but then yeah, we also have like wedding stuff we sell to a lot of florists, bookstores, they're good for like a lot of the journals and stuff like that. But yeah, we've got sort of a fairly broad range of different, quite mixed. I love it. Stockers Yeah. And so obviously I was just going to ask the question, but I think you probably answered it a little bit, but what are some of the big risks that you've taken in the business? Oh well, I don't know. I think launching in New York was pretty risky. Like I hadn't I hadn't sold a single greeting card at all.

Speaker 1 (00:22:54) - I hadn't sold anything. Um, I think everyone was just like, yo, freaking crazy. But, you know, I thought, like, I felt like I can probably pull it off to an extent, you know, if it didn't work, you still had a trip to New York, so it wasn't exactly. Yeah, it's fine. We'll just. We'll give it a go. We'll try it out. But I think it was it was really good. It was a great way to jump in. And what I learnt in I think those first 3 or 4 days was probably the best education and the quickest, quickest education like intro to Wholesale. Um, now there's, you know, business coaches like you and like, you know, courses that you can do that'll help educate you so that you don't go in looking like a fool. But, you know, that's just what we do to jump in. Yeah. And you've got a retail store as well, right? Like how that for a little while.

Speaker 1 (00:23:43) - Like what was, what was that? That was. Yeah. So we got approached by Westfield just to sort of have it as a bit of a pop up. Um, that was about 2018, 1909. Yeah, it was a, it was just before Christmas because I know I was, I was pregnant with Ziggy at the time. And then, yeah, I had him about six months later after we'd opened it. So we open just before Christmas in a Westfield up in Westfield Tameside in Brisbane. Yeah. So we started it. We did, I think it was a three month thing. And then we thought, look, this did pretty well, let's extend it. And then I think we kept it for about three and a half, almost four years, really. Was it that long? We didn't realise it was that. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I'll have to check the exact numbers. It was. It was, it was a while but yeah. No it was good.

Speaker 1 (00:24:30) - It was good. But I think we've just spread ourselves really thin. We had like, you know, young kids and was sort of figuring out how to keep the business running while sort of figuring out what it's like to be a new parents for the first time. So that was just it was hard. And like, you know, even just keeping wholesale going was really hard. Like I remember doing like all nighters in between, like breastfeeding sticky, like, you know, I'd feed him, put him to sleep for three hours, go work on the catalogue. He'd wake up again in three hours time, do the whole thing, just repeat, repeat all night long just to get my catalogue done for life and style. This was like six. It was about six weeks old, and I brought him to the show. It was. It was just horrible. Yeah, it was just horrible. And like, we were so stretched and I was I was just like, you know, running on no sleep.

Speaker 1 (00:25:13) - And I mean, those those were the early days, but it was just hard. Like we. Yeah, we're trying to keep wholesale going. Wholesale is like, you know, the majority of our business, we were doing a little bit online as well, but having a store and the store was like. An hour away from where we live as well. So makes it harder as well. That made things like a little bit tricky. I think it it was like, you know, just down the road it would have been a bit easier to keep it like stocked and managed and stuff, but it did well. It was great for the brand. Like it was great having a store just to show like everything that we offer and, and just sort of show our brand how we wanted to present it. Yeah. And it was great. Like so many people were like, Oh no, why are you closing? But we just we actually like, they actually didn't renew our lease. That was the reason.

Speaker 1 (00:25:55) - This is it then. This is a Yeah. Sign almost of Yeah, okay. They kind of went, you guys got to leave and we're like, oh, okay, fair enough. But they only wanted you for three months. But no, I know. Yeah, I know. That would kind of just, yeah, like you guys got to get out. So anyway, we just went, look, we got a call it. At that point we were like, this is this is really hard. It's making like it was just spreading our resources really thin. Yeah. So we just went, Oh, look, we've just got to stop it. Um, you know, I'm not saying we won't open another store again later. Yeah. Down the track or something like that. Yeah. I like the idea of pop ups to, like, just more like short stint things. But yeah, it was just sort of just was starting to really kill us and then going away for trade shows and stuff as well and keeping wholesale running.

Speaker 1 (00:26:39) - We just were like, Oh, we're spread so thin. Yeah. So it's not easy. Like retail can be very tough. And also, as you say, it's like it's that being held to that one time of space that you have to be there or you have to if someone's taken, there's just a lot to manage. There's a lot to 100% in like seven days a week. I mean, you ran a retail store so you would know, like the intensity of it. It's full on. Yeah, I know. And I think you've got to give it a lot of love. Like you've got to be in there. You've got to be merchandising it. And yes, you know, showcasing what's new all of the time. Yeah. Which was something that because I wasn't in the store all day long, like I couldn't really do that. So yeah. So now what are your roughly like, what would your percentage of wholesale versus retail sales be? Well, we probably now wholesale is probably about 60%.

Speaker 1 (00:27:27) - Retail or direct to consumer is like 40%, I would say. But prior to Covid, I'd say like wholesale was like 95% of our business. It was, yeah, like we've always just focused on wholesale like that. That was our focus for many, many years. And then Covid happened and we were kind of like all of our stores. We've just been to a trade show, just done, you know, had all these orders to fulfill and almost every retail was calling up going, Can I cancel that? Can yeah, can I want to cancel that? Like I was like, oh my God, no. Um, but anyway, it was, it had to happen. So anyway, we're kind of like, Oh God, what do we do? So we kind of moved. Well, didn't pivot completely, but we're like, we really need to grow the, the focused online stuff now. Okay. So yeah, the trade shows didn't happen for a while, then they sort of were happening and then getting postponed.

Speaker 1 (00:28:17) - So we're like, we've got to really focus on the direct to consumer side. So we, we sort of put a little bit more effort into that and hired a marketing agency and sort of, yeah, started to really grow that. And so yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good. And then sort of it just, yeah, as you, I always say to people like spreading your eggs, you know, like just around so they're not all in that one basket and having different margins for the different things and you know even do you do many boutique markets or things like that like we did? Yeah, we definitely did. In the beginning. We did a lot of markets, especially like Christmas time. Yeah. And that just grows your customer base, right? Like it's just a great way to get in front of more people. New, more and new people. Yeah, totally. It was really good. It was really good. Especially like getting local people to sort of find out about us.

Speaker 1 (00:29:04) - And yeah, Christmas time was really good for markets and stuff, but I think right now where we're at with the kids, we're just like, I think our market days might be over. Yeah. But I think like, I think it is an evolution. Like you don't have to keep doing it or you might have like, I've got one client that I work with and she has a particular person who just runs markets for her, so she employs someone to do it. So she's not doing it like she does turn up and go, but she has one employee just for markets. Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah. So it's not you being the one to be there all the time. And it's not saying that. Not every not every brand has to be at markets, but some of them obviously can be great for that exposure to new people and stuff like that too. Yeah, 100%. Markets are really good for us. Like they were like super profitable and just like really fun to do.

Speaker 1 (00:29:50) - But you know, at the at the moment we just try to do everything as ourselves. We're not really good at delegating. Is in your team or a team working well myself and Daryl sort of the, the business owners, the founders and Daryl has only really been working with the business full time for a couple of years now. He was always sort of part time or he had his full time job and then was doing it on the side. But in total I think there's eight of us. So we're sort of the founders and then we've got my sister actually takes care of like bit of customer service and. But at the social media and that sort of thing. And then we've got a whole bunch of girls who pick and pack for us, and then sometimes they do a little bit of content creation for us, but predominantly like picking and packing. Yeah, yeah. So we fulfill everything ourselves. So yeah, yeah. So a small team. Hello, lovely. If you're looking for a way to grow your product business without relying on Facebook ads or posting daily on social media and invite you to register for my free masterclass.

Speaker 1 (00:30:53) - This is happening very, very soon. And inside of this masterclass, I'm sharing the strategy behind building a profitable, product based business so you can attract consistent customers and scale to six figures and beyond. I also emphasize how to create a sustainable long term business, which is such an important factor for me. I'm so excited to be teaching these Masterclass students to make sure you go and register for your free spot by heading to the link in the show notes below with your wholesale. I'm just thinking how do you manage that? Do you just have people? Because I know this is something people ask all the time, Do you just people order through your website or do you have a separate. Yeah, yeah. Well, we've just consolidated it all into just our regular website now. So previously we had separate wholesale websites for Australia, New Zealand and the US or international, which was a bit crazy to manage. And then recently we've just upgraded a Shopify plus. So we've brought you can put it all together.

Speaker 1 (00:31:46) - Yeah. So they've got like a really sweet like B2B portal, which is great and oh, it's so good. You can have multiple currencies and you can have, you know, different catalogues attached to each customer. So they check out in their currency and they're building their currency because I think we've always, you know, separated it out when we've gone to shows. We want to make sure that they're ordering in their local currency and they know 100% price isn't going to fluctuate with the exchange rate. So it's been really good getting it all consolidated. So that's pretty new. We've only just done that in the past sort of month or so, but it's so nice to just manage like one product and not have issues with Yeah, trying to sync it and update it across multiple websites and yeah, inventory situation like I know it's not cheap to do the Shopify plus, but it's like how much time that saves and how streamlined the process is. It's saving you money almost probably by having to pay for that. Like this is the hard bit.

Speaker 1 (00:32:43) - I think sometimes like people are like, Oh, I want to pay for that. It's going to cost this much money. It's like, Yes, but how much energy and stress and problems can it, you know, solve for you? So then you don't have that. So we'll be able to help you generate more money because you're doing other things and yeah, yeah, totally. Like we were at that point where we got to that breaking point where we were like, Oh, it's just taking so much time to, to maintain all of these things. And people would always go to the retail website and be like, Oh, I'm trying to check out, but the prices aren't right. And we're like, Oh, you got to go on the wholesale website. And now that we've changed it, they're trying to go on the old wholesale website and say, I can't find it. What's going on? I'm like, Oh, but it's really good. Like the time it's saving us and the effort.

Speaker 1 (00:33:23) - And yeah, it is a big jump in cost, but we're at that point where we're like, Look, you gotta do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it's worth it. And so just, I mean, on that question, I had, one of the questions I had for you is like, what? What would you suggest to others about investing in from the start of their journey or you know as they. Yeah. Look having I mean, initially having a beautiful product and beautiful packaging I think is like super important. Yeah. Um, you know, hire a graphic designer if you want one. Like, I think it's really important that, you know, it looks professional and the packaging looks great. You know, obviously the product photography I think is really important. Like if you can't sort of shoot things yourselves, then hire someone or write shots. Yeah, because that's what's selling the product. If you're not, because there's so much digital selling, that is actually what's selling the product, not, you know, what the product is.

Speaker 1 (00:34:15) - Because if you can't see it well in the imagery, then no one's going to actually engage with it. Exactly. And you see the brands that have got beautiful photography, like they just do super well because people, they fall in love with the product through the photography. Oh yeah, that's super important. I think, you know, having a really good website and then a wholesale portal or a website or, you know, using apps to sort of allow your wholesalers to order online I think is super key. But if you don't have that, there's like, you know, fair is a really good option. Great addition to Yeah. Marketplace. So allow people to have that choice to buy through that I think it's such a I think it's something that I always say to people well why wouldn't you be on it? Like, why not add those extra marketplaces to allow you more people to find you? Like you can't just be always trying to find people yourself. You've got to go out and market yourself to get incoming leads and then obviously you're going to try and market to new people as well.

Speaker 1 (00:35:08) - But then if you've got marketplaces which do that for you almost, then that's another avenue to sell. Yeah, totally Like and you know, they're bringing your customers throughout the year. You don't have to be at a trade show. But I think doing doing both is is super key. But yeah, if you haven't got a wholesale website, I think just jumping on fair and using that as your wholesale platform I think is totally a great idea. It's just we had already built our wholesale side out prior to fair coming, so you know, you sort of had invested a lot in that. So we do want to keep that as sort of our primary. Yeah, our retailers order and stuff, but we do like fair as well. It's really good. And there. Seems amazing. But yeah, I think just in general, like being scrappy, like you don't have to spend a lot of money on things. Like I see some, some sort of people who are just starting out. They've spent a lot of money on accommodation or spend money on getting people to yeah, their booth, like getting people to paint their booth.

Speaker 1 (00:36:03) - I'm like, just paint it yourself. Like you don't you don't have to pay that money. Like the, the, the shows are going to rip you off when they charge you for some of that stuff. And you can just stay in like a dingy hotel, like we stay in the dangerous places, usually like Ibis budget is your friend like. And some of the places I remember in one room in New York, we stayed in New Jersey because we were too cheap to stay in Manhattan. Yeah man, we sanded the Dodgers crazy, dodgy, like. Like motel. And it was like smelled disgusting. Like the curtains. I swear I'd been, like, spewed on. They smelt disgusting and the carpet was just foul. And we just catch like the community bus over to the show each year because we're like because we're like, Oh, if we go in an Uber, it'll take like an hour to get there and we'd be paying like an absolute fortune. So we caught this community bus and it would be like literally like duct tape on the backs of the CS.

Speaker 1 (00:36:56) - Like, that's and they'd be like, we'd be like, How much is it? And they're like, Oh, $2. And then the next day they'd be like, Oh, it's $3. But we're like, okay, whatever. It's so cheap. That's great. So that's, that's like how like scrappy and cheap Daryl are like we we're like literally, like, make everything ourselves. I mean, not everyone has like, you know, carpentry skills does is very handy. He can do that sort of thing. But like literally we just go to Bunnings, buy a lot of ply, buy a lot of paint and like we make, make most of our stuff ourselves. Yeah. I for a trade show in I think it was in Sydney Yeah we had better blocks and then pieces of timber in between like that was the stack and that's cool fit with the brand at the time. But yeah, you don't have to spend huge amounts on, you know, you spend any money on the trade show, like that's a good investment because you're actually getting in front of people.

Speaker 1 (00:37:45) - And I think that's something as well. I talked to someone about yesterday, like the money that you if you are sort of apprehensive about spending money, spend money on things that actually generate your sales like a salesperson or, you know, actual trade show. So or marketing. So actually things that generate you sales if you can, you know, even learning new things like I said to people, the things you learn in the stuff that I teach you, you'll have that forever. Like it's not like you have it once and you can use it. Like you'll be able to apply it for everything else that you're going to keep doing. So it's going to bring you money on going like it's not a limited time span. Yeah, totally. What do you think are key areas for I mean, maybe we sort of touched on that already, but like to business success, like for you, you know, do you spend time on that, as you said, design or development? Like what are some key things that you think are relevant for building that success in a product business? Yeah, I do spend a lot of time on the design.

Speaker 1 (00:38:42) - Like I look around and try and, you know, keep everything as part of like a collection. So there's like a concept for everything. So everything sort of sits nicely and it merchandises nicely. Yeah, I think keeping it fresh, keeping your line really fresh, especially when you're showing up to trade shows and people are like, What's new? If you haven't got anything new to show them? I feel like they're a bit like, okay, I don't know. That's just what they like with us. I mean, and it's easier. The products that we make. It's not like we have super high, like they're fairly low price items, so it's pretty easy for us to keep things fresh and keep coming out with new products and stuff. But I think that's, that's, that's important. They like, you've got to keep evolving and you I think people need to you know you're always going to have new customers find you so it's okay if they look at they might look at the view things differently but then also have new things for the people and continually evolve.

Speaker 1 (00:39:35) - And I think that's another point actually, where if you're a brand that sells direct to consumer and wholesale, getting that mix right is not easy because you sort of want to have new things for your wholesale, but then you also want to have things constantly for retail dropping in. So it's also keeping those customers interested. Yeah, and that's, that's tricky to like we have like, you know, products that don't really sell to direct to consumer, like greeting cards, like some people buy them, but generally you wouldn't be marketing greeting cards because they're such a low priced item. And why would you buy them online? It's a it's a thing. So that's more of a wholesale product for us. But then there's things like our wedding planners or our memoir journals or our baby books there and like swaddle some blankets. They're definitely like key retail products, but luckily they do well for wholesale as well. But yeah, like retail, it's trickier the cadence of things, I guess because wholesale will, you know, drop like a massive amount of products in one go and then sort of I guess throughout the year we're dribbling it out to retail saying, Oh, this is this new collection that's just launched.

Speaker 1 (00:40:38) - And sort of it's tricky because, yeah, we don't like intent, I guess. Sort of. Yeah. And I guess as well. But you don't. I guess understanding that your customers that you have online are probably different to the customers that the stores have to. So you're not necessarily talking to the same people. Yeah, exactly. Like the people that go in and shop and store. Like what a different experience for the people who are shopping online 100%. So yeah, we find that there's not a lot of like overlap or issues with selling to both. Yeah. And so with your marketing, what do you focus on? Like, what would some, you know, some key elements that you use? We do. We try to do a lot of DMS. You know, DMS are great for us. And yeah, we're giving a bit of money to Zach's with stuff. Yeah, he's taken a good chunk of our cash, so yeah, you know, doing Facebook advertising. But that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (00:41:33) - You've just said two things that like, you're obviously using that to attract new customers or retarget customers, but then you're nurturing your customers with your email marketing. So it's like they're working together like that. Facebook ads is like that top of the funnel bringing new people in. But then your email marketing is really focused in on on nurturing and keeping the customers and getting them to buy longer and increase that lifetime value of them. Yeah, totally. And then we've got like Google sort of set up for like the bottom of the funnel people who are already looking for our product. Um, and, and yeah, so I mean that's, that's sort of our strategy at the moment. We've done a little bit of stuff with influencers, but not, we're not like heavily with, you know, that's not really a huge part of our strategy. But yeah, at the moment that's sort of working well for us. Yeah. And then you've got obviously had a little bit of press lately. I read something in a was it.

Speaker 1 (00:42:23) - Oh yeah. Article recently. Yeah. It was like a seven news thing. It was just, it was actually about our side hustle planner and also just a bit about our story. So yeah, I created a like a side hustle planner to sort of help people start from scratch and yeah, because it's kind of like a bit of a passion project. It was kind of about like where we were at like, you know, there's so many people that I talk to and friends of mine who are like, Oh, I really want to do this thing. And I'm like, Just just do the thing. Just like, just, yeah. I'm like, just start. Like, I think that's the hardest step sometimes, just having that confidence. And I guess they feel like they need permission from someone to just do it. So I think the way that I've done it is always just signed up for an event. So I'm like, Oh God, I've got to, I've got to do it now to do it.

Speaker 1 (00:43:10) - Yeah, that's yeah. So that kind of like I created the side hustle planner, which was one of the it was an idea from one of the girls who used to work for us. She was like, I was like, Oh, I want to do more planners. And I was like, Why don't you do a site as a planner? Like that's right up your alley? I'm like, Yeah, okay. So it's kind of, you know, all the the knowledge that we've gleaned over the years of being super scrappy and doing a business on the cheap and starting from scratch and then just lots of like research and a lot of things about, you know, you know, what do you want to do? Like if you don't know what you want to do, here's some ideas. And then taking it like registering your business and um, yeah, getting good markets go to show, go to trade shows. This is how they work. Like it's just it's a brief overview like this is how digital marketing works but it's it's a brief overview but it just it's enough to of a taste to get people started with their side hustle and sort of know the next steps that they need to take, you know.

Speaker 1 (00:44:04) - And so what would you would you change anything about your journey or do anything differently to what you've, you know, what's a good look? If we've done a bit more research, probably would have saved ourselves a lot of pain and heartache. Had some shocking like, you know, print runs where things have arrived from China and they're just completely unusable. I'm like, Oh my God, what do I do? And then, you know, trying to get, you know, get them to reprint it or get a refund, like you'll never get a refund. Um, so I don't know, we probably, you know, stuck out, stuck it out with some dodgy suppliers for maybe a little bit too long and should have just gone. You know what? We need to find a better quality supplier. But sometimes you just don't know. You don't know what to what the expectations are. Exactly. It's a good question. Like, do you have like as in, you know, you probably don't just have one.

Speaker 1 (00:44:51) - Do you have multiple? Yeah. So, I mean, we don't have that many, but we work with like sourcing people in China so they aren't the print factory, but they find the factories for us. So I've got two two people in China that we use. One person is great for, you know, journals, printed stuff and then the other person is great for like swatters. She does our swatters, our blankets, you know, the random thing she makes our like card spinners, any sort of packaging, things like she's great for all of those other random products. Yeah. And good with textiles and stuff like that. So yeah, it's pretty crazy. Like I found her on Alibaba when I was looking for erasers and then there you go. But that's the thing. People often ask about how to find manufacturers. And I think it's just like research asking people trial and error, like sourcing agents, like there's multiple ways and. That is just about getting some samples, you know, figuring out what works.

Speaker 1 (00:45:47) - Been very particular about what you want you. That would be something I'd recommend, like anyone working with the manufacturer be over overly specific about what you want and what you're actually. Yeah. And then get like three quotes from China. Yes. And probably Australia too. But yeah, get three quotes, get the samples, make sure the samples like match the physical product. Sometimes that doesn't always happen. So yeah, like we probably burned a lot of cash over the years with like, bad quality. Yeah. That we just, you know, we couldn't sell it or we'd have to sell it at a discount. So that, that was a bit. Yeah. And maybe, yeah, just doing a little bit more research. Maybe engaging a business coach would have been a good idea, would have saved us a lot of heartache. I'd say get get things faster. Yeah. I'm so stubborn. I'm just like, no, I don't really want to ask for help. I'll just figure it out myself and I'll just make the you figure it out and spend all this money.

Speaker 1 (00:46:45) - And it took me years to figure out that I needed to, like, literally put like, pricing on my products. It shows like people coming to my booth and I'd just be like, okay, so these are five, these are six, this is seven. And then they're just like looking at me like, How am I supposed to remember that? And I'm like, You know what? I need to start pricing the products. It was because we were doing multiple shows. Like we went to New York and then we came home and they would do Sydney and then we do New Zealand. So we're like, I don't want to have to price things three times and we've got so many SKUs. So I didn't do that. But now in hindsight I'm like, Oh yeah, it's one of the first things I do in my trade show. Yeah, Essentials webinar like and same with retail stores. It drives me mental when I go to a store or trade show and I'm like, I have to ask, I don't want to have to ask.

Speaker 1 (00:47:26) - I know something up and see what the price is. Don't make it hard for me, people. Yes, I have learned. I have learned now, but I probably just yeah, just did things totally wrong for a long time, but eventually figured it out after people have just figured out I don't think I wanted to ask about is having a business running a product business. It's not easy, but I guess the thing is setting up the business how you want it to look is super important as well. Like knowing what success looks like to you is different, right? Like everyone's different what they want. So how would you say what advice would you give on that? Well, I mean, I think we've gotten it's taken a long time, but we've gotten Fox and Fallow to like a really good, comfortable, nice sort of phase. Now, like, you know, we've got good suppliers, we've got a good team. You know, we've got a good amount of like Stockists and online is doing well so it's it's taken a long time but once you can get to that point it's amazing.

Speaker 1 (00:48:24) - And then it's that stress and those sleepless nights sort of fade away a little bit. I mean, you still stress about cashflow and how you're going to like, you know, keep things, you know, pay for your new print runs and stuff like that. But yeah, we've kind of designed it to just be work around our lives and we've got the flexibility of being able to like pop in for a school thing or pick up the kids or, you know, and we're also pretty flexible with our staff as well. Like we, you know, if they're sick, if they've got something on, we're just like, Yeah, whatever. It's cool, man. Like it's no, it's no huge deal. So we like to try to like, not make it a shitty corporate environment where people like, you know, feel like they're going to get in trouble if they're laid or they have to take a day off. Like, yeah, you can just, you know, when you're sort of the boss, I guess you can call the shots and make it like the environment that you wanted it to be.

Speaker 1 (00:49:11) - When you're working at a corporate job before you can sort of make it better. And yeah, learn from the things that you didn't like. But yeah, it's, it's great. Like, I don't know, it's I really love, like making products and, you know, making new things and selling them. It's like super exciting for us. And you know, we're still pretty small. So on come to life and yeah, yeah, totally. Like, we're small and nimble. We can do it, you know, sort of wing it and do things how we want to want to do things. We don't have any investors or sort of any sort of constraints. So it's really cool. Like me and Daryl will jump in the van and drive down to Sydney and Melbourne and it's a nice little road trip for us and you know, we can be really last minute and stuff. So we get to design it how you want it to look, how we want it to be. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:49:58) - It doesn't feel like constraining, like working in a corporate environment was, I think. But And so how long did it take you to even just say, you know, get to your first million dollar a year or anything like that? Like, I know people sort of yeah, people, you know, I've sort of have webinars or things like that like, you know, get, build your million dollar business. It's like it's sort of something that, you know, I guess people want to look at or see, but not saying that you have to be doing that, but it's just obviously just a number to aim for or and obviously it doesn't mean it's all profit, but yeah, yeah. And also no people. No people should know that it doesn't happen like in a year or two years. Like it takes a long time to build yourself up to that point. 100% like it didn't happen. We weren't one of those brands that just launched and things just sold out like that never has happened for us.

Speaker 1 (00:50:48) - And I think, you know, the products that we sell, they aren't particularly like Buzzy, So it took us years before we got to $1 million in revenue and that was like a such a huge milestone for us. And we've managed to be really lucky that we've grown, you know, really, really well since we hit that. And like, you know, our revenue is seven figures every year. So we've been, you know, so, so grateful that people keep still buying our stuff, especially like when, you know, things are the economy isn't looking so great right now. We're still like seeing really, really good growth. So like, yeah, but it took a long time, like before we even paid ourselves a proper wage. Like, yeah, we didn't pay ourselves for many, many years. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think we were like, Ziggy was in daycare, I think, and we were paying ourselves like 30 grand a year or something like that. And my CCS was like amazing, like the best like rate.

Speaker 1 (00:51:42) - It was like 85% subsidized. I'm like, Oh, that's amazing. I love sushi. So daycare wasn't too expensive at that point. But then we were like, Oh, we actually wanted to buy a second house. So we're like, Banks going to need some proper wages. So we started paying ourselves a lot more after that just so we could get the home loan. But yeah, it took a long time and you know, we didn't want to take money out of the business. Like everything that comes 100%, like every, every bit of money that comes in, we're spending it on inventory. Like that's our biggest expense. Like it just goes straight back into inventory and we hold a lot of inventory. So yeah, that sucks up most of the profit for sure. But then at least if, as you say, if you're got a wage, it's separate. Now that that's kind of make sure that you're sort of getting that at least. Yeah. Yep. Totally. Like I mean yeah, we probably should have paid ourselves, you know, a lot earlier and a little bit more, but you do what you need to.

Speaker 1 (00:52:33) - It's hard. Yeah. I always say to people, look, even if you can try, like I remember with my retail store, I was like, I need to get something. So it's like 200 bucks a week to start with. Like, was like, okay, I can get that. Okay. And you push it up. Can you push it up? Can you push it up? Like, Yeah, yeah. Can you just sort of gradually because you've got to and I think I've got someone coming on the podcast actually soon again to which about like the profit first system like there's all different things to try and help you. But definitely if you can try and give yourself a little it just makes it that all that effort or work totally rewarding, but it's hard to get to but you can get to it. I think that's the point that it takes all the time and it takes a little bit of that growth stage. But now you're at that point, what, eight, eight, nine years in or Yeah, eight years in now this year.

Speaker 1 (00:53:19) - Yeah. Eight years in that you know you've, you've got consistency, you've got continued growth and you can obviously spend time on what's next. Mm. Totally, totally. What is next. What's next. Oh what is next. Well we don't have a huge grand plans but we've got, we've got the Melbourne show coming up so we'll be seeing you there which will be really fun. We've got new cot sheets and blankets launching so slightly different categories. I like it. Yeah, yeah. We're really I really love the baby stuff. And I think once you have a baby or a couple of babies, you sort of you're in that headspace. It was a bit like doing the Wedding Planner. We were kind of was in wedding mode. So I like was I was all over it. And now we're sort of building out the baby and the kids stuff. So we've got that. We've got all our new planners and calendars for 2024, some stickers coming. That's pretty much what's coming up new for us.

Speaker 1 (00:54:09) - Yeah, just, yeah, just building and growing and space seeing, seeing where we can take it. Love it. So I had one question which was, what are you selling that no one knows about you or something that you're passionate about right now? Oh, that. I'm probably just a big country. Bogan I think it's like I think when people see our brand, like they might think that I'm, you know, it's quite like pink and pretty and pretty and old and shiny and like, yeah, I try to, like, sound a bit more professional, but I think just coming from Mount Isa in the country and stuff, like I'm just way more bogan than they expected. Oh, that's very funny. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, your roots and keeping it real, obviously I'll put all the show notes in the show notes. I'll put all the links for, you know, where people can follow you and to what your website is. But it's all just Fox and fellow, right? You can find it all there.

Speaker 1 (00:55:06) - Pretty much, yeah. It's just Fox and fellow.com. All our handles are just fox and fellow. Yeah perfect. I'm sure lots of people will be checking out all your different offerings and all the new things and yeah. Look forward to seeing you at the next trade show. Oh, I can't wait. Thanks so much, Mel. It was like super. I'm super honoured to be on your podcast and listen to all of your podcasts all of the time and see you on. You're always at the top of my feed. Every time I open up my Instagram reels. At least it's good. It's good. But like every time I listen to your podcast, I'm like, Shit, I've got so much to do. It's like. Come away with like five points of homework. I'm like, Oh, Mel, I know you're killing me, man, but it's good. One of the things that people say, it's like that overwhelm. But yeah, you know, everyone experiences it, I guess as well.

Speaker 1 (00:55:56) - But no, it's super helpful and super good advice. And like, I think what you're doing with The Loco is amazing. It's like no one's doing that in Australia or overseas. I think like I think just the knowledge that you give to people is incredible. So thank you so much. Anyone who's like starting a brand or is like exhibiting a trade shows or just, yeah, trying to run a small business, I think needs to listen to everything that you've got to say because it's super valuable. Thank you so much. That's all right. That like I think it's the combo as well. Like, you know, there's obviously lots of e-commerce advice or different pieces, but it's the whole whole thing that I sort of try and have that is different. Like it's wholesale. It is also your pricing, your margins, how you run your business, how you market your business like it's the whole bit of kit and caboodle. So it's not just like one thing, which might be too much for some people, but it's like how to have that profitable product business that's going to be, you know, around in five, ten, 15 years.

Speaker 1 (00:56:51) - That's what you want to have. Yeah. I'm totally. Yeah. And you've actually like done it yourself. You've been there, done that. Like there's a lot of coaches I think out there who are, you know, they haven't actually experienced what it's like. So you've been in the trenches, you know what it's like. So I think that's like you've got that unique, honest perspective. Yeah, I was painting my booth at around midnight one night back in Sydney in the day. I know. It's So they won't let you do it anymore though, because I think we've got too many places anyway. So funny. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here. I really am. I think everyone's gonna be excited to hear your journey and to hear more about it and to follow along and see what we're Fox and logos as well. And what else do you bring out next? Oh, I hope so. Thank you, Mel. It was super fun chatting to you. I'll see you in soon.

Speaker 1 (00:57:39) - In Melbourne. Yeah, see you soon. Thank you so much for listening to the Loco Business podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure you subscribe to receive future episodes as they are released. And I'd be so, so grateful for a review on Apple podcast. If you would like a copy of the show notes or any of the links mentioned today, please jump on to my website at the Loco Dot Forward slash podcast. Have an amazing week and I look forward to chatting to you again soon.