Help My Small Business: Your Customers Are Worth More Than a Big Influencer Deal

WEBVTT - Help My Small Business: Your Customers Are Worth More Than a Big Influencer Deal It was the last time you took your team somewhere that genuinely shifted how they think and how connected they are. Not just another meeting room and experience the where matters. HG Hotels and Resources has more than four hundred diverse meetings and event venues across Asia Pacific, from day meetings in every major city to incentive retreats in Fiji, Hayman Islands, food Quock and beyond.

Whether it's five people or five hundred, every detail is taken care of so you can focus on your team, not the logistics. And if you haven't already, enroll in IHG Business Rewards and earn points on every single event you book. Find out more at meetings dot IHG dot com. Welcome to the Lazy CEO Podcast.

I'm Janelu. I escaped the corporate grind a twenty four and started my own business, Chowpro, a global nine figures online fashion brand, and now I want to share my learnings here with you. Every you say to join my conversations with the entrepreneurs behind the iconic brands we all know and love. In between interview weeks, you'll find me talking about hot topics that fascinates me in the world of business and personal development, alternating with Help My Small Business episodes where I did dive into a small business every month to help them grow and why the lazy ceo you ask, Well, give a lazy person a problem, they'll find the simplest way to solve it.

Hey, Pleavan, Welcome back to another episode of Help My Small Business. Today, I'm joy by Natasia Nicolaus, founder of Conserving Beauty, the science backed skincare branch's scaled to eight figures to review Namilia's brand do Less, a natural refillable deidriant that she started from New Zealand to launch into the Australian market. Before we get into it, pullow your phone or laptop and pull up do Less online and on socials so you can play along with us at home. By the end of this episode, you'll learn why Australia and New Zealand are not the same market and the classly mistakes founders make by treating them the same way, How to build genuine relationships with influences and media without a big budget or an established network, and why going deep with a small loyal audience will always outperformed.

Chasing Beach and how to find the right people to start with. All right, let's get into it. Help. I need business advice.

Please do tell the business business, shall we? Well? I need your revice on official business now. Hey, Jane and the team and the lazy CEO.

My name is Amelia and I am the founder of do Less, a natural personal care brand, with our hero product being a refillable and uni sex natural theodorant. If you can't tell by my voice, I'm a Kiwi and I've recently moved to Sydney to bring the brand to the Australian market. When she saw orders coming in from Australia, but realized that it was costing our customers twenty dollars per deodorant to send it over here, which obviously isn't sustainable. So I made the call to pack up my life and go all in over here.

Since launching in New Zealand, we've sold out three times. We've built a really engaged community, and I thought that taking what I knew about launching into New Zealand and applying it here would be the right way to launch into Australia. But I'm finding that it's not quite that simple. Everything from setting up the business abns, trademarks, bank accounts, understanding the consumer, and just how much noisier the market is.

It really does feel like I'm starting over. And one of the biggest differences I've noticed is around media and influencers. In New Zealand, you can reach people, there's more accessibility, but here the audiences for influencers and media are bigger and boxes are fuller, and it feels much harder to get genuine cut through or even a response. So my question is, how do you actually suggest approaching a launch into Australia with a limited marketing budget, and more specifically, how do you build meaningful relationships with influencers and media and get cut through when you don't have big budgets or an established network kit.

Thank you so much for answering our questions. I'm so excited to hear your thoughts. Hey, Amelia, thank you so much for writing into how Much Small Business or Video in in we actually met at Chcon, I believe so thank you for submittingan I'm so excited about your business and I think I've got a perfect person here. I'm excited as you to help me with reviewing it.

So tell me what do you think Okay, I've thought so many things. So for first of all, branding beautiful and obviously I like your specials very well done. I think a few things that stood out to me immediately. I was like, Number one, the price points quite high for Toyota in thirty five dollars, and I think something to think about would be maybe like could you show how long that's going to last?

The cost per uses break it down by. Day, because when you're selling a personal care item, it's very different to selling high end makeup and skincare because there is a ceiling in which people, yeah, would be happy to pay for deodorant. That was the first thing I thought of. The second thing I thought of was on your website, you don't link your socials, so I had to like manually go search.

That's just an easy fix just to have your insta in your TikTok there. But when you were asking about like how do I launch in Australia, how do I get brand awareness with no budget? If I was you, I would be thinking about your customer because if your customer is buying deodorant, where are they buying it? Are they going to discover you on a website where you have no brand awareness and no traffic, or would you be better off finding a way to get into retail and wholesale where they're actually going to buy deoterant?

You know, Like I think about. George's brand Gem, like she's done an amazing job, but her brand really exploded when she went into a pharmacy and supermarket because that's where everyone buys deodorant. Personal care items. It's hard to get someone to buy those types of things online, Like you really have to be you have to sho up where your cstoers shopping, Like where do you use that?

I think it's like really hard to get people to like remind themselves to like to go and get something specific unless you love it so much. They have to love it so much, and it it's very hard to change your behavior. Like am I thinking about when I'm actually. I am an anomaly, So I don't like to go into stores, so I Amazon and everything, but even Amazon.

But that could be a great point for her that maybe start on Amazon, like Naked Native, that deodorant brand Native, I think they killed it on an Amazon. But yeah, I would focus on trying to show up where your customer is already going to buy deodorant because automatically you're in the conversation then and you're going to be more visible and you don't always have to have the biggest brand to get a retailer. I assigned mine before launching. Yeah, I would be focusing on trying to get up into like a supermarket, a pharmacy, Amazon somewhere, especially when.

The product itself, the packaging looks great and there's a clear usp. Definitely, I think that's the most important thing if you want to like pop on shop and the brand was beautiful for you. And I think like in terms of like the Australia first New Zealand thing, I think the biggest thing is to not treat Australia like a bigger New Zealand. So I think New Zealand has I mean speaking of somewhat this is just sorry.

I don't want Keyways to be like that's not us. But I think it's like there's definitely a bigger, more of a community and that accessibility you can drive growth much quicker because the market is smaller and the relationships are closer. I even think about how like you will have a probably I don't know, do you think you have a bigger customer base in Victoria. I feel like I don't know my community.

I do have a bigger community just in Sydney, just by being a Sydney local, having like started here, people remember people like I've been to your show Pro store back when it was called show Pony. You just have that doing the events here. And so Australia as a whole is so much more fragmented and so much more saturated, and so I think that is the key difference. And I think so the biggest thing for her biggest advantage is like that founder story and then the fact that she is early, and then she has an actual story.

I think the story of like being a key we founder who's moved, who's moving countries because her customers were buying despite her crazy shipping prices, or like or the fact that she's moving herself for her business. She's starting fresh. She is like I just she's gonna make it hard better. This is the people that succeed, right, There are people that success.

That is the narrative, That is a strong narrative. I think a big mistake people can make in Australia it's trying to look too big too early and being okay, just to be small instead focus on being impossible to ignore within the small niche and then being deeply loved by that smaller audience and then being repeatedly seen within the same circles. Are you know, being like people can't they can't ignore you, like we said, I think actually, like we said on your podcast, the difference to Australian New Zealand, sorry, Australia and the US, I think in Australian general, people need more touch point.

They do they time to convince it any time time. And then so it's very hard and we'll get into the influencer thing. It is hard to be able to have that in terms of spending on influences. Like that'll drain your budget.

Yeah, so so so quickly, because cut through in Australia it doesn't just come from one big influencer moment. It's from kind of concentrated relevance and then repeated activities and repeated moments, and so that I think will come from you know, like we talked about on your Q and a podcast, having customer moments, definitely having like social being you know, having social media moments. And I think as well, like since she's moved here because she's got an Australian customer that was happy to pay for shipping.

Don't focus on influencers, you probably can't afford them. Take those customers out, yeah, you know, literally take those customers out, gift them one to gift a friends. You'd be surprised the power of like referral and product in hands. If that buy was you, all I would do was focus on a trying to show up at a retail where people would buy deoterant and be looking after my core lich all customers in Australia and getting them to convince their friends to use it.

Getting your team out of the office is one of the best things you can do as a leader, But where you go matters. IHG Hotels and Resorts has meetings and event venues right across Asia Pacific. Dedicated concientge support and personalized itineries means less stress for you and more impact for your team. Enrolling IHG Business rewards and every event you book earns your points towards your next break.

Find your venue at meetings dot IHG dot com, take your customers and then do like an event that could be like maybe a local Polarate studio and then you can do like little cloud. Clouds Definitely know another key we brain give your products. Yeah, and you know, customers get sorry and then they the POLARATEI studio just has to donate an hour of a trainer's time. Like you know, it's a great Definitely cloud moment.

This almost sounds cliche to say, but you iinely don't need the big influencers because their audience is almost diluted by having so many brand deals and gifting so many products and it's going to be stopped by a manager anyway, and the inbox is overloaded. So these are some. Of the little points that I had whilst I was preparing for this. But then as we're talking and thinking, like, actually, you've had such amazing success when one a big US influencer did post about your product, but it wasn't the gifted share she brought the SEP bought the product.

And you know what our best influencer moments have actually been when an influencers either bought it or done it because we haven't paid it. Yeah that is also but an you think you actually paid for these offs, you would be. For your money. Yeah, don't even bother I fee anything I would just focus on being looking after your core customers here and getting them to maybe get a friend to try the product because referral and web a mouth spread.

Oh yes, that's what we're going to say, everyone on the podcast. Get everyone, everyone did everyone? One person tell their friends to listen to the podcast literally, and then we'll double our listenership. Thank you.

That's exactly right. Just tell one person, okay, I'll tell just it's all about our audience in terms about creators. You know, again, this is I feel like this might be what everyone knows, but in case people don't, it is about the micro creators, the niche community figures people with strong engagement, and then just doing repeated seating. Yeah, gifting is great.

Yeah, and gifting doesn't cost a lot. It's just probably exactly. And then don't treat them like media buyers. Treat them like long term relationships.

Agreed, and I think like Australian I think probably more quiable, not just an Australian thing, but these creators want to feel included and seen and part of your journey. And I think if you can bring them along the journey, that's really incredible. And that's actually back to your when we had your interview, you talking about how much you've brought people on to be part of your journey. Like, yeah, if the people who gave you, the guy who gave you the formulation or product acknowledg G technology, you brought it onto your journey.

Also, like you know that you've had sold the dream to the Mecca buyer. You know, it's all about selling the dream. And selling the joy. Definitely, I think things that relationship building is like the key to success in business, and you have to have the same real like a good relationship with your customers or your retailers, or your supplies or whoever you work with.

So anytime you're doing business, I always think about how are you leaving that person feeling and how's your relationship with them? Never have a transaction of That's what I. Always think, exactly, Yeah, and then I've got three practical tactics. Love it.

So when it comes to seating, I think it's about doing it manually and doing it thoughtfully. So it's not about five hundred gift pr boxes, especially at this stage of the business, it's about twenty million amazing ones so personalized, handwritten and then everyone chosen them for a specific purpose, and the goal at this stage isn't necessarily reach, It's about genuine, genuine advocacy because I think you know you want because just reach doesn't necessarily convert. No, you can't afford to not have some conversion at this stage of the business.

That leads into the second one thing. You are the prioritized creators who can actually convert conversation, not just views, So you can look at things like the common quality about the actual engagement, how much they have repeat audience engagement, and then looking for creators who people actually do ask them for recommendations, not just views. Totally. Yeah, I think you're sorry, right, especially about the engagement stuff.

And I think also practically even just remembering like your website's beautiful and your brand's beautiful, But you always have to think if someone landed on your website after seeing you on social media or an ad or wherever, are you actually telling them in the most simple way? Are you answering the questions of why they wouldn't buy you? Like I always have the lens if I'm looking at my product page, what's wrong with that? Why would they not buy?

What's the first question? Answer me? For example, looking at it going it feels expensive. Okay, well give me the price per use.

How long is it going to last me? Yeah, because then all of a sudden it's not expensive or you know, are you showing me how to use it? Is there's somebody in the imagery that I feel like represents me or do you know? Do you know what I mean?

They just I feel like doing some work. When you were talking about with your rebrand, yes, I thinks I'm done terribly in the past. Yeah, but you've actually like, Okay, what do people actually has one hundred? And how do we address it?

Like what do people actually want to see? Yeah? Like you just need to make it easy for your customers to understand it in two seconds and give them enough information that would make them feel comfortable to purchase to try you, but not too much information and not like features and benefits because also people don't give a shit about features and benefits. I learned that too, And then so and it's like what's in it for them?

How they send me features? Like actually everyone has the fees. It's like I think it's that's just not test on animals, like you know, like no one would actually people, No one's assuming tested on animals. Nobody's animals these days.

But it's not you. It's like a, there's the things that you're going to sell people? Is that description page? You can have all those features that that's to get people across the line, but you're not gonna get someone just stick stay on your page and keep looking and look at all those details by feeding them the details at that level, like exactly a say.

Yeah, why are people not buying? Why? Figure it out? Figure it out?

And I always think that everyone's so focused on the content and the marketing and all that, which absolutely matters, but everyone forgets about the storefront because once they hit you, are you actually going to convert them? And actually I do say you're You've hit the nail the head. Back to your very first point, The biggest thing that actually impacts your conversion rate is your price. Oh one thousand percent?

Yeah, making people feel comfortable with the price. Can I sold things that are somewhat expensive? But once you show people the breakdown, yeah, how they're going to use it? How long is it going to last?

That? What's the price per use? All of a sudden, you're making people feel more. Comfortable exactly and so exactly it's not about changing your actual price line, it's about actually.

Proving the value for money. Definitely, definitely, Well, were you go? I think we're excited. Hope, hope we've held We hope the launch goes extremely well.

Yeah, all the rest. Yeah, we're rooting for you. Okay, that's it from me for now. Thanks for listening.

If you're loving the podcast, don't forget to follow, and I would love it if you can do me a favor. And leave us a review. And if you are more, join the conversation on a podcast Instagram at the Lazy CEO on the Score podcast all link in the show notes. Catch you next Tuesday.

If you're thinking differently about how your team spends time together, this is worth a log. IHG Hotels and Resorts has one of the most exciting and diverse meetings and event portfolios in Asia Pacific. Think Emerging dinners in Fiji or private experiences in Sapporo. Every group is different and every detail is handled.

Plus you are IHG Business Rewards points on every event your book. Find your next venue at meetings dot IHG dot com.