Catherine Langman:
Welcome to the Productpreneur Success podcast, your weekly dose of inspiration and education for all things product business related. I’m your host, Catherine Langman, award-winning productpreneur and digital marketing expert. It wasn’t that long ago that I was just starting out with my E-commerce, which I started from the dining table while on maternity leave. Fast forward to today, through all the ups and downs and hard learned lessons, I scaled that business into an award-winning international brand and then went on to sell it. And now I get to share what I know to help other ambitious productpreneurs. Each week here on the podcast, I’ll be sharing bite-sized morsels of practical information with you, as well as stories from other amazing, successful brand owners that you can easily implement into your own business to increase your profitability and get you well on your way to growing your brand.
Catherine Langman:
Before we get started on today’s episode, I want to let you know that today’s show is sponsored by my record-breaking Black Friday Blueprint. Now, did you know that typically E-commerce brands can increase their revenue, their sales, by over 30% just on Black Friday alone? So our clients actually regularly generate a whole month’s worth of revenue in just four days with the Black Friday to Cyber Monday promotional event, which is pretty much the biggest sale event on the E-commerce marketing calendar. With that right strategy, these particular promotions can kill two birds with one stone. You can actually build your audience, giving you more people to sell to, and can lead into an absolutely huge bumper Christmas and holiday promotional period.
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Catherine Langman:
Well, hello there. It’s Catherine Langman here, back with another episode of the Productpreneur Success podcast. I’m super excited about today’s episode. Today I’m going to be welcoming my client and really good friend, Kristi Rigby from Babiators Sunglasses. I’m going to be welcoming her onto the show in just a minute. Kristi and I met many years ago now, and I have been working with her in a couple of different ways over the years. Initially I met her because she was a stockist of mine in my first business. And then we went on to work together because I started this business now, and she was looking for some help to scale and grow her business. So that’s what we’re going to be talking about on today’s show and in particular the focus of the show today is how to go about building a premium brand without constant discounting.
Catherine Langman:
I know this is something that many of you, my listeners, are keen to be able to do, whether you are a E-commerce retail store or you are brand owner or distributor. How do you go about building a store without constantly relying on discounts? I know it can be super tempting to be just quickly putting together an offer on an incentive or a discount because you need to drum up sales. But of course it can become a little bit addictive to operate in that manner and certainly if you build a business like that, it can be really hard to pull away from those tactics and start to try and sell things at full price and really protect your margins and to build a brand that people, customers see a lot of value in.
Catherine Langman:
So we’re going to talk about how Kristi has done that. And she has done it in a really big way, super successful way. She is a big deal business these days and a really lovely person to boot as well. We literally just wrapped recording the interview and she shares such a huge amount of absolute juicy gold. Pull a chair up, grab yourself a pen and notepad and maybe a cup of tea and enjoy the episode. So welcome to the show, Kristi.
Kristi Rigby:
Hi, how you’re going?
Catherine Langman:
Really, really good. I’m really pleased to have you here.
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah, great to be here.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Before we kick into some of the juicy content that we’re going to through for our listeners today, how about you just share who you are, what your business is all about, and let’s go from there.
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah, awesome. We’ve got a few different aspects to our business but the primary business that we’ve been working on over the years is we’re the Australian and New Zealand distributor for Babiators, kids and baby sunglasses. This is a great US brand and we sell it exclusively in Australia and New Zealand through retailers and also directly on our own website. We purchased the boutique brand business, which is the distributor for Babiators probably about six years ago. Prior to that, I had an online store and boutique brands was one of my suppliers and when it was available, I basically purchased one of my suppliers.
Kristi Rigby:
It’s quite interesting because when we purchased Boutique Brands there was actually 13 brands within Boutique Brands that were being distributed. We actually grew Boutique Brands’ business from 13 brands to one, because what we found is that while these were all great brands, we only had a limited amount of cash flow and a limited amount of brain space for really doing things well, and we just decided that we just wanted to do one brand really, really well and then we could build from there. So we’re still five years down this track working on that one brand because it’s just gone gangbusters in Australia, everybody’s loving the Babiator sunglasses.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, it has gone nuts. Well, how long after you’d bought Boutique Brands did we start working together, because it’s been a little while now?
Kristi Rigby:
Oh, yeah I was trying to work out-
Catherine Langman:
Maybe a year or two?
Kristi Rigby:
-whether it was… Yeah, it was at the end of 2014 that we started working together or the end of 2015
Catherine Langman:
2015.
Kristi Rigby:
I can’t… yeah, 2015.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, so maybe about five years, five or six years.
Kristi Rigby:
I think we’d had the business so Max… I’m just trying to work out when my youngest was born. 2013, 2014. So we bought the business in 2014 and you and I started together at the end of 2015, so probably about 18 months after we bought the business.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Yeah.
Kristi Rigby:
That we started together. So it was a primarily wholesale business when we first purchased it. But we did a website as well where we were selling all the brands direct to public. But it just had no focus to it. There were all baby and kid’s brands but it was a little bit generic in a way. People when they were dropping on to our site didn’t really know what they were there to look for, because we had everything from high-end nappy bags to kids coloring in, to awesome reusable lunch bags or nursing covers. We have heaps of different stuff. And so it was a little bit confused and one of the first things you did was basically get me to put aside my multi-brand site and just focus on the Babiators. Because we had decided at that point that the Babiators was the brand that was selling through really well.
Catherine Langman:
It was always selling the most I think, yeah.
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah. In just a really organic way, people recognized the brand from the US, it had a good roll on it from the US. And so we just separated the Babiators out onto its own website, and just went hard just at the Babiators product because people knew what they were coming to get. They were coming to buy baby and kids sunglasses.
Catherine Langman:
That’s right.
Kristi Rigby:
And so we could just talk specifically to the customer that wanted that baby and kids sunglasses. I remember one thing you made you made me do that I really didn’t want to do right back in the day. I know you’re laughing at me because you laugh every time I say this, but I really didn’t want to do a customer survey.
Catherine Langman:
No.
Kristi Rigby:
But we didn’t really have a great idea of who the customer was and what they actually were looking for. See, me, when I think of sunglasses, I think of sun safety. I think of looking after little eyes. But what was really interesting is when we did a customer survey, what we realized that most of our ideal customers, yes they’re interested in sun safety, they’re interested in baby’s eye comfort more than the sun safety aspect that baby was uncomfortable, they were uncomfortable out in the sun without their sunglasses and so they then went, “Oh, baby would be uncomfortable outside without their sunglasses.” But then the other thing was it was very much fashion orientated. I as a pretty daggy unfashionable person, was not thinking of the fashion aspect.
Catherine Langman:
No.
Kristi Rigby:
And so when it came back to us that a lot of people were interested in the look and style and Babiators had great looking style, that was something that we started to stick more to and that whole comfort aspect and fit aspect of the glasses rather than just drumming the whole sun safety all the time. So that really helped us to really position our marketing directly to what customers actually were looking for.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, and that I recall was a big turning point in the business.
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so we pretty much went on to follow your whole if anyone’s ever come across Cash Productpreneur website formula course, you pretty much you had just developed that I think and we were some of the initial guinea pigs. You pretty much just walked me through that, and we built our business from the Babiators website from the ground up using the same principles you’re teaching in the course today. And so on the back of that customer survey, knowing what people were looking for, we designed the website to make sure that people got the right information at the right time as we designed the website. So it’s like okay, let’s make sure that they know that this is a really cute brand of sunglasses or fashionable brand of sunglasses straight up visually. And then let’s tell them about the other great features about how they’re comfortable, how they fit really easily, how there’s a style for every kid, how’s there’s a bunch of different sizes and let’s also tell them about our lost and broken guarantee.
Catherine Langman:
Exactly.
Kristi Rigby:
And so we were able to build all of those things into the website because we knew that the information that the customers were looking for.
Catherine Langman:
That’s right.
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah.
Catherine Langman:
I was actually auditing a website yesterday, it was not a fashion product, it was a hair oil product. And so I was auditing this website because it’s just not selling.
Kristi Rigby:
Yep.
Catherine Langman:
Obviously that’s not cool for the brand owner.
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah.
Catherine Langman:
It reminded me a little bit to back before you really went into just focusing on the Babiators sunglasses. So I got onto this website and they didn’t have a clear idea. They weren’t communicating what their product value was for the customer. It was literally, “Here’s the product, and I’m going to hit you with a discount straight away. So either you’re ready to buy or you’re not, but I’m not going to tell any of that product value.” So that really stood out to me but it’s such a, I think it’s a really easy situation to fall into. I guess we know our business and our product really, really well but forget somebody who hasn’t come across your website, they don’t know that yet.
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s really in lots of ways, you need to tell people how to value your product before you tell them the price or before you even talk to them about the price. So offering a discount straight up means you’re talking to them about price almost immediately.
Catherine Langman:
Yep. Yeah.
Kristi Rigby:
And so if you ever go to our website, if we’re ever offering some kind of incentive, it would generally be as an exit pop-up as opposed to one that just pops up as soon as you arrive on the site. Because we want to talk to you about the value of our product before we ever even mention anything about pricing.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, that’s right.
Kristi Rigby:
Because we want to get to that point where you go, “These glasses they’re so good. They’re durable for your kid. Your kid won’t be able to break them even if they can break them, we’ve got a guarantee to replace them for the cost of shipping if they break or lose them. They’re going to look super cool. These are all the different styles, these are all the different sizes.” By that stage, people are like, “Okay cool, what’s the price? Oh, that is price is all right.” Bang, here’s the money.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, for all of that. Exactly.
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah.
Catherine Langman:
For those who haven’t come across Babiators yet, they’re not cheap kids’ sunglasses. They definitely are a premium brand.
Kristi Rigby:
Yep. Yeah, oh absolutely. I mean, hey if you go to Cotton On and they say basically, “Would you like [inaudible 00:15:51]” Cotton On version of would you like fries with that.
Catherine Langman:
Yes.
Kristi Rigby:
They’ve got cheap kind of cute looking sunglasses that you can get for five or 10 dollars, I don’t know how much they are these days. But the thing is I don’t know about their sun safety standards, they certainly put a pair of those in your kids hands snap they’re broken and you may as well have paid twice as much for them. So all of those kinds of things, we give people the confidence that our product is going to do what you interpret that it’s going to do. It’s going to protect your kid’s eyes, I know the sunnies that come from various different stores are that good but I do know that our sunnies are exceptional at protecting kid’s eyes. And so all of those kinds of things people need to know up front before we talk to them even about the price proposition of what they’ll need to hand over.
Kristi Rigby:
At the same time our price point is still on a lot of people’s almost impulse buy level as well. It’s not so much that if it’s the right customer whose one of our ideal customers see and they get the information in the right order, won’t be able to go, “Cool, you know what I reckon that’s a winner, I’m going to press buy right now.” Rather than needing to see us a whole bunch of times.
Catherine Langman:
No, it’s not like a car or something where you really have to think about it.
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah, it’s not a $200 purchase or a $300 purchase or $1,000 purchase, it’s a 35.95 or 57.95 proposition which for our ideal customer-
Catherine Langman:
That’s okay.
Kristi Rigby:
Is almost a no brainer. And this is the thing, one of the things I think you and I have talked about a lot in the past is about when to discount and when to not discount because what I’ve seen a lot of and remember in the early days when I told you I had an online store back in the old days and that’s when you and I met isn’t it, Cat?
Catherine Langman:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Kristi Rigby:
Because I was purchasing your cushy tushy for my little online store.
Catherine Langman:
That’s right.
Kristi Rigby:
Anyway I had a product in that store that was fantastic, it was this great product, it was a well known product, people were looking for that product. And I was discounting it to try and get a share of the market for that particular product and I had the supplier ring me one day and she said, “Why don’t you try, just try, selling it for full price and see if it impacts your sales.” I’m like, “Okay, challenge accepted. Let’s give it a go. Worst case scenario is I go back to discounting in a little while.” Anyway, I stopped the discount on it and you know what, the sales didn’t drop it actually just continued to increase. So people weren’t buying that product because of the price, they were buying it because it was a great, valuable, awesome product. And so that really set my mindset up really well to thinking about selling because firstly you’re just handing away your margin. We don’t go into business so that we can serve customers all day long, though that is a wonderful part of what we do, and we don’t go into business so that people can get super cheap stuff.
Catherine Langman:
No, because then you work for nothing.
Kristi Rigby:
They’ve got K-Mart for that, they’ve got Target for that. We go into business because we want to support our families with a decent lifestyle. And so I’m in business not because I want to make money but I want to make money so I can support my family’s lifestyle. That’s the whole reason I’m investing all of this time in a business. And so if you’re just handing away 20 percent of your margin just for no good reason you’re not actually doing yourself or in some way your customers any favors because you won’t be able to survive-
Catherine Langman:
No.
Kristi Rigby:
Long term providing a fantastic product at a fantastic service. I often think when I see people discounting regularly I think you probably just haven’t priced your product right or you haven’t found the right customer.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah one of the two.
Kristi Rigby:
And so both of those things you can resolve with a customer survey and doing your customer journey properly. And so I always go back to that thing that you told me to do that I really hated doing but was the best thing that I ever did for my business which is survey my customers and find out what they really like, what is their price threshold.
Catherine Langman:
It seems so obvious now doesn’t it?
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah, it seems so obvious and every time you tell me to do it I still have an internal groan but I go ahead and do it because it’s worth doing because then I have full confidence, I have more confidence in my product, and if I’m more confident in my product then I don’t feel the need to discount because I understand the value of my product to the end consumer. So I know that at 35.95 that product is going to be super valuable in the eyes of the person that receives it from me.
Catherine Langman:
Exactly.
Kristi Rigby:
And so I don’t feel the need, I don’t feel beholden to anyone to provide them with a discount from that perspective because I know my product is valuable to them.
Catherine Langman:
Exactly. And just on that note I think sometimes it’s easy to forget particularly for people who are quite new to business and they’re going out into this world for the first time that customers actually they do have a psychological correlation between price and value.
Kristi Rigby:
Absolutely.
Catherine Langman:
So something that is priced cheaply we just don’t innately believe that it’s going to be high quality.
Kristi Rigby:
Absolutely. And I’ve got some amazing friends who’ve developed a business over the last few years while I’ve been in business and their products are luxury products and I’m like, “Oh my goodness, how are they selling that product for that price?” To me I’m like wow that just blows my mind that they would sell a product like that for that premium level price. And I’ve watched them sell it and I’ve watched the beautiful way that they’ve sold it, and I’ve watched the value that people have received from receiving that product, and I’ve watched the beautiful attention that they’ve put into developing that product and I’m like, okay well actually their product is worth, in the eyes of their ideal customer-
Catherine Langman:
It’s worth it.
Kristi Rigby:
The price tag that they’ve put on it. And so that whole valuing of your product in your own mind sets you up for a really good positioning because firstly we were primarily, the business that I purchased was primarily a wholesale business where we were selling a lot to our retailers, and so there was always the big question in my mind when we started selling from our own Babiators brand website, whether that would impact our wholesale business, impact the people who were selling in store on our behalf. And so, one thing that we’ve always been super mindful of is we sell at full recommended retail price with shipping, plus shipping.
Kristi Rigby:
And anytime we do even consider running a promotion because every now and then there’s products that are discontinued or just the time of year that’s a bit slow where we might either offer a discount or a value add promotion. We plan that out carefully so that we can give our stockers the opportunity to jump on board with the same promotion that we’re offering direct to the public. So if we’re just going on sale here there and everywhere all the time then we don’t have time to roll that out to our stockers so that our stockers can be selling our product just as well as we’re selling it.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah you never are undercutting at all.
Kristi Rigby:
Never undercutting them at all, we always give them a great way of incentivizing their customers to buy our product so we’re supporting their selling of our product as well. And then it’s a win-win for everybody so everybody’s selling at the same price, nobody feels the need to win customers by selling their Babiators at a discount, in fact some of our stockers sell it at more than recommended retail price because they have margins that they need to achieve because their [inaudible 00:24:39] customer base really appreciates the service that they receive from that store now that the products that they can buy at the same time when they’re there and all of those kinds of things.
Kristi Rigby:
And obviously in store they’re not paying shipping so they’re like, “Okay well rather than ordering it online and paying shipping I’ll just buy it in the store.” And that works for everybody. So, we always want to make sure that we always support our stockers and to support our stockers we mean and get them to value our product, we need to value our product first.
Catherine Langman:
Yep, absolutely. And really the end result I do recall now that the idea of pivoting your main focus, well I guess it’s… Would you say it’s your main focus selling online versus wholesale? Well, anyway putting more focus on direct customers then there was before, I remember there was a little bit of, maybe fear’s a little bit too strong, but just concern that you didn’t want to lose the wholesale because that’s what you’d always done so well and in reality it’s taken off more because you’ve been able to really build the brand up with that certain brand positioning and yeah so it’s actually helped-
Kristi Rigby:
Absolutely.
Catherine Langman:
Helped your stockers.
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah, we had a few stockers express concern that by our selling direct that they wouldn’t want to stock us anymore because people would just buy from us direct but this is the thing, people have to find your website.
Catherine Langman:
Absolutely.
Kristi Rigby:
Have to find your store in order to buy from you. Nobody knows where your store is they’re not going to buy from you. Their customers already know that they’re there and they’re coming in.
Catherine Langman:
And they’re coming in for other stuff.
Kristi Rigby:
They’re coming in for other stuff and so what we’ve found is while I’m promoting Babiators as a brand, our stockers are actually getting better sales because people were recognizing the brand and then they were seeing it in store in their trusted local kid and baby store and they were going, “Oh cool they stock Babiators brand. Oh awesome I’ll just buy those because I already know this deal about the lost and broken guarantee and that they’re good and that their bendy and let’s just try on in store, and great they fit my kid, awesome! I’m going to buy them.” And also you know occasionally people through our advertising would come to our website and I didn’t want to buy online so they would find one of our stockers and go into the stockers and purchase there so they could try them on and all of those kinds of things and that major value to us is having stockers is that there’s people that can provide the same level of service that we would like to provide directly to people that they can provide in the local location.
Kristi Rigby:
And so we just love that, we always make sure that the stockers that we are bringing on board are people who represent our brand the way that we would want it represented. And so we get heaps of stockers requests all the time and we actually do turn stockers away because we might look at their branding and we go, “You know what, I don’t think our brand works alongside your brand just yet,” or a variety of different things and we’re just like, “Actually thanks so much for your interest but maybe come back to us if there are changes in this area or whatever.” Because we want our brand to be presented beautifully and with friendliness and helpfulness and all of those kinds of things wherever it’s presented and so we choose our stockers carefully.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, the confidence that the Babiators kind of customer actually is going to be shopping in that particular shop.
Kristi Rigby:
Exactly, well yeah that’s right and not setting that stockers up for a fail.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah that’s right.
Kristi Rigby:
Of them stocking our brand and only to find that they can’t sell a whit of it to their existing customer base because their existing customer base were never looking for that kind of product anyway. And so then they have to sell it off at clearance prices and then that degrades the perception of value of the product because someone’s found it on clearance price.
Catherine Langman:
Exactly, yeah.
Kristi Rigby:
So, we want to make sure that each of our stockers has a win when they stock Babiators and that Babiators has the potential to become one of their best products that they’re really excited about and that they really want to sell.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah it’s really good. So, one thing about oh actually one thing that you alluded to before is that there are times when discounts and incentives useful or that you might use them?
Kristi Rigby:
Yep.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, do you want to elaborate on that a little bit?
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah, obviously there is a perception out there that sunglasses is a summer brand, reality is if you’re an adult have a little think about when you wear your sunglasses, do you just wear them in summer or do you wear them in winter as well?
Catherine Langman:
All the time.
Kristi Rigby:
Exactly. But there’s a perception out there that people basically need sunglasses in summer and so people tend to buy sunglasses more in summer than in winter and so we do have a fairly major summer season and then it’s a little slower in winter and so sometimes we might offer either a promotion that has a small discount on a particular product or it might be a value add like occasionally in winter we have done a promotion that’s buy a pair of Babiators and get a strap for free. We have some incredible screen savors which are just a new product from Babiators which are glasses, blue light blocking glasses for your kid to wear when they’re on the computer so much and I don’t think people really realize that Babiators sell those yet and the advantage of them. So, at the moment we’re doing a promotion where you buy a pair of sunnies and you get a discount off the screen savors so it’s an upsell because we want more of our Babiators customers that are looking for the blue light blockers to know that we have them and that our blue light blockers are worth using. So it’s a promotion to get a little bit more buy in.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah bit of product trial.
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah bit of product trial. And so that’s kind of when we do some discounting. And another thing that we do do is for big sale times of year like for goodness ake Black Friday, we’re Australians not Americans but it’s become a thing in Australia. Now that everyone provides a discount on Black Friday and Cyber Monday and the week surrounding that for some reason, and so while it didn’t make logical sense to me I was like, “Okay well I’ve noticed that people actually on that day do pick up their purchasing regardless of whether I offered discount or not because I think if you-
Catherine Langman:
People are just out shopping really.
Kristi Rigby:
A number of savvy people they’re out shopping on Black Friday because they know there’s lots of discounts around and so one thing that we have been known to do is there’s another amazing business who I know is interested in doing a podcast before called Snotty Noses and Laura’s a legend, she rallies the troops at different times of the year and says, “Hey let’s do a collaboration. How about when you send and email you send some information about my promotion and I’ll send some information about your promotion.” And then it’s all people who are all selling to the same market so same ideal customer and we all promote each other’s promotion across Black Friday and we access customers from another brand that they-
Catherine Langman:
That’s already trusted.
Kristi Rigby:
That they feel connected to and loyal to and trusted and we sell our product to there’s, and their customer become our customer. And so in that situation we’re always going, “Oh can you provide a discount at around this level.” And one year it was like, “Oh I don’t usually discount at that level but I’m like you know what I’ve got some stuff of a style that’s not selling that well and it’s going to be discontinued so I’ll offer a decent discount on that particular product.” And what was interesting was we sold more of our full price products than the discount products across that time. But people came to the discount but stayed and purchased because there was value in our full priced products.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, those ones get me all the time.
Kristi Rigby:
And bought the full priced ones they want. Yeah. Yep.
Catherine Langman:
It’s like the shoe sale that say’s 40% off and you go in and it’s like, “Awe they’re all size five and I’m a size eight so I’ll go to the full priced new stuff.”
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah. And we’re not trying to trick people with that.
Catherine Langman:
No.
Kristi Rigby:
The glasses that we were offering at the big discount are actually I think some of the best sun safety glasses for kids out there and they are super cute as well but they’re just not our best seller. And so people could come and legitimately get that 30% off this great pair of sunglasses or they come and are aware that they actually would like something with colorize or they’d like something a different shape or fall in love with one of our other products and buy that other product instead, or buy them both.
Catherine Langman:
Or buy them both, exactly.
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah exactly. So, both offering a discount in that way and also collaborating with the other people puts more eyes on our product, more customer’s eyes on our product that maybe we wouldn’t have reached those customers if we hadn’t. Well, we may be able to reach them, we could probably target them using Facebook ads to reach that exact same customer but when it’s a brand that you already trust telling you about another brand, you’re more likely to go, “Oh okay cool, well let’s have a look at what this other brands that Snotty Nose thinks is really cool is all about.” And they go and they have a look and they fall in love with another brand or another product. And it’s great for everybody involved and it’s just one of those things where small businesses can be supporting each other, your mum’s in business or women in business or whoever in business can be supporting each other to reach a broader market and really it costs nothing to do because we literally just use our organic social media and our emails and all of those ways to do it and to tell others about another great brand that they can fall in love with.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, no it was super, super successful and I know that it’s worked for Laura as well, I think she is going to roll out something similar or she has done a few times.
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah, we’re doing something, we’re doing Black Friday with Laura again this year.
Catherine Langman:
There you go.
Kristi Rigby:
Because it worked really well, her new customers and our new customers are very well aligned.
Catherine Langman:
That’s right.
Kristi Rigby:
They’re people who see… Snotty Noses is about another health product for that zero to two age group as well as assortment of products that fit other age parents. And our customer primarily advertiser is almost exactly the same as hers and so we’ve got a whole lot of customers this year because we were out of control selling Babiators this year because everybody just wants them. And so we’ve got a whole lot of new customers who their first time Babiators customers and they might never have come across Snotty Noses before.
Catherine Langman:
Exactly yeah and she would be in the same boat.
Kristi Rigby:
And she’s in the same boat. So she’s selling out of control at the moment as well and so she’s got new customers who’ve never seen a collaboration previously with Babiators and then we both get the advantage of that.
Catherine Langman:
That’s right. Yeah. Such a cool strategy I love it.
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah and I really appreciate the business owners who actually take the time to organize those kinds of collaborations because it’s obviously a strategy that’s working for them and I get to I suppose piggy back on, not piggy back on the back but participate in that. But it’s fantastic and when I stop chasing my tail because I’ve got more orders than I ever expected, I’ll be in a position of being able to organize that kind of thing-
Catherine Langman:
As well.
Kristi Rigby:
For other brands as well.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah totally. Yeah so good. One last question for you if I can, and I think we may have kind of touched on this when we were chatting before, hitting record but, sometimes in business, well probably for everyone’s business, it’s not a straight line from start to success and there are times when the things that you’re doing stop working or for whatever reason you don’t get a result that you expect when you’re planning something. And I know that you’ve been through some times like that as we all do. So, what do you do when that happens, when things stop working or just don’t work out?
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah, well yeah sometimes some things take a while to work. And that’s the thing to remember firstly. And so sometimes I’m like okay well how much is this costing me, can we afford it, is it an investment that we’re prepared to continue with because what are the possible outcomes of that thing? And we track it carefully and we keep watching our spending and watching the results and all of those kinds of things but we make sure that we give it enough time to work because what I know and this is why I went looking to you in the first place is what I know about myself is because my business stared in the day where you could post something on Facebook and everyone of your followers would see it.
Catherine Langman:
Saw it, yeah.
Kristi Rigby:
And you would get sales from it. And I know some other business owners that are listening now probably started in the Instagram era where that was true too. But shortly after that time it started becoming a pay to play environment where you post something on Instagram nobody sees it.
Catherine Langman:
That’s right.
Kristi Rigby:
Or 10% or 2% of your customer base actually see that product. And so I was really wary of spending any money on advertising because I hadn’t had to initially in my business and every time I went to spend money on advertising I’d be like, “Okay, I’ll make the investment.” And I did a few things that actually did work, actually got taken for a ride on a print advertising thing that I did one time which we all…
Catherine Langman:
Oh yeah, I did that, I can put my hand up for that mistake too.
Kristi Rigby:
And so what I wanted is I wanted somebody who had been there and done that, that could help me hold my nerve while I advertised. Firstly that they could tell me that the type of advertising that I was doing was going to get me a return on investment, and secondly someone that could tell me when to hold them and when to fold them. So, when to keep going with putting money towards those Facebook ads and you know what that one really just isn’t working, let’s just pull it. Or hey listen you just have to hold your nerve just a little bit longer until that starts to get a result because you need to learn from the process and we need to try a few things with that process. And so having somebody that could give me input like that on where my advertising dollars could be spent, that was really important for me.
Kristi Rigby:
And so what happens when it doesn’t work? Well sometimes you need to know when to hold them and when to fold them. I still have an aspect of my business that I haven’t managed to make work or the little side project that I’m doing that’s the poor cousin who-
Catherine Langman:
Inches forward and then it goes back.
Kristi Rigby:
Inches forward and it goes backwards and all kinds of things because I just never like all of a sudden Babiators which is doing great, pulls ahead again and it needs my attention so I have to give my attention to where the money is. And so that’s always the thing, you need to be tracking what’s going on, how your money’s going out, is it getting you a return for what you’re spending, if it’s not getting you a return you need to hold them or fold them, and then making a well informed decision about those kinds of things. I previously to working with you I had a knee jerk reaction, I go, “Oh crap no that’s not getting me a return, I’m pulling it.” And it just doesn’t work like that does it? It really just messes up the whole process and you don’t get anything.
Catherine Langman:
No.
Kristi Rigby:
You don’t move forward.
Catherine Langman:
And then also not giving it maybe, I can’t even remember if this was a truth for your journey but I do see it a bit where not giving a strategy the full support that it needs in that one channel is not the be all and end all, it’s like an ecosystem and so for you this past year you’ve definitely knuckled down and been super consistent with all of the content and the emails and the this and the that and the product launches and you’ve really pulled it together because it’s become this solid consistent ecosystem that you’ve executed on.
Kristi Rigby:
Well, that’s right and we built the foundations firmly to start with, by starting with our customer survey, build the website as a result of what our customers were actually looking for, then we built all the email pillars into place, we had a way for people to opt into our email list and then we also had automations for price cut post purchases but also for nurturing any leads that came in. And so we had those things in place and so that really helped us with both converting a first time to [inaudible 00:43:31] website but also getting other people who’ve purchased from us before to purchase again. And then on top of that we built a consistent content plan, I have an incredible team member called Kirsten who writes amazing emails and blog posts for me and so we work together on always having a content plan and then we loop Sally whose one of your team, manages our Facebook ads for us and we loop Sally into that process.
Kristi Rigby:
So we’ve got a consistent content plan. We plan our promotions in advance so that we can give our wholesalers advance notice by email and give them a chance to purchase. We let Sally know that we’ve got this promotion coming up so she can plan some ads around that and then Kirsten can write some email sequences around that. And then so once those promotions are in place by these place markers in our calender, we then go back and okay how can we add value to our community. So we go okay what does our community really value? Well they value holidaying and unfortunately we’ve got a bunch of blog posts on traveling with kids that we just haven’t even bothered with posting this year.
Catherine Langman:
Soon hopefully.
Kristi Rigby:
Because a lot of our customers are taking kids on holidays which is why they buy their sunglasses.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah not right now.
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah exactly. Rachel from our team wrote a great blog post on how to do air travel really well with your kids and so we find things like that that add value to our community and help them with their purchasing decision or just help them generally. Kirsten wrote this great blog post a few years ago called The Supermom Myth and I love it.
Catherine Langman:
So good.
Kristi Rigby:
Every time I read it I just love it because it talks about that whole concept of us feeling like we need to be supermoms and letting us off the hook a little bit.
Catherine Langman:
So good.
Kristi Rigby:
That supermom is a myth. And another great one that she wrote last year that I loved too was Our Sorts Around Halloween. Is it an American thing? Is it something that we really need to do in Australia? Regardless of what you think of it how could you turn it into a positive experience for your kids. And so Kirsten and I put our heads together and talked about what we thought was a great response to Halloween but for our kids and we shared those thoughts with our community and that content we can use every year now because it’s still valuable content. And so we pull it out, dust it off, anyone got any ideas based on what they experienced last Halloween I can tie it up and resend it to our emailers half of who because they’re new will have never seen that content before.
Kristi Rigby:
And so we have our promotions or our big place markers in our content calender and then we add our value, and then after that we’re like okay well what do people need to know more about our product? Have we got a new product that’s coming out? Have we got a product that’s undervalued by our community because they haven’t really seen it or because they know what polarized verses non polarized really means. And so then we scatter in between there just some either product features or featuring a specific product color style or featuring a particular benefit of one of our products. So, why where blue light looking glasses? How blue light impacts your child’s [inaudible 00:47:08]. So, we write stuff like that which is kind of a value add but it’s also featuring a particular benefit of one of our products.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah educating about the product.
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah exactly. So they’re our three pillars we do in our content plans promotions, value adding, and product features. And we pretty much cycle through that in our content plan and we’re always asking ourselves the questions: Have we added value this month? Have we educated people this month? And, have we given them an incentive to come back? For example people who have bought Babiators because they’ve got a 12 month lost and broken guarantee, they generally only buy Babiators for their own kids once a year when they want to spruce up the fashion or they get to a bigger size or something like that. So, we want to incentivize them to buy Babiators for their friends and family. Aren’t Babiators such a great deal that your kids love them so that don’t you want to give the gift of sun safety and super coolness to your nieces and nephews for Christmas. And I know Sally who manages our Facebook and has made it a regular Christmas purchase of Babiators [crosstalk 00:48:22]
Catherine Langman:
She does I know. Well she does have three kids.
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah.
Catherine Langman:
That’s three purchases.
Kristi Rigby:
And my kids always want the latest colors and now they’ve got the screen savors as well and then there’s the submariners, the goggle that we just love, we have half a dozen pairs of them that go in and out of our pool and into the beach and all of those kinds of things. Yeah so it’s just working on different ways to see your product and the other thing I was saying to someone the other day, don’t be afraid of sending too many emails.
Catherine Langman:
No.
Kristi Rigby:
Or having a pop up on your website, because you know what I’ve got this cool dashboard on our Clavio, which Clavio is the platform we use to send our emails, that tells me how much money each of my emails make for me. And every time I see that I’m like yes okay I can send another email then. I’m okay with people unsubscribing, I’m okay with people self selecting that they don’t want to be on our email list anymore because there’s no point in having a list unless I send emails to it and make money from it, it’s just wasting everybody’s time.
Catherine Langman:
That’s it.
Kristi Rigby:
Oh I don’t want to send an email, oh I don’t want to send emails too frequently because I might annoy people. Well, squeaking wheel gets the most oil and I’m not usually a squeaky wheel person but the older I get the more inclined I am to be a little squeaky sometimes because-
Catherine Langman:
What are you here for.
Kristi Rigby:
What am I here for? Am I here just to make everybody else in life happy? Or am I here to achieve my goals and see others around me achieve their goals. Feel free to squeak at me if I can help you achieve your goals. And if I can’t help you, your squeaking might be annoying, I’ll just gently let you know that I don’t want you squeaking anymore and I’ll unsubscribe. Well good.
Catherine Langman:
I love it.
Kristi Rigby:
I’m okay with the squeak these days. Hear me squeak.
Catherine Langman:
So good.
Kristi Rigby:
I am business owner hear me squeak.
Catherine Langman:
Oh what a fabulous, fabulous analogy, I love it. On that note lets bring us to a close, I so appreciate all of this juicy good stuff that you’ve shared today, it’s been absolutely sensational having you on the show.
Kristi Rigby:
Awe, pleasure.
Catherine Langman:
And where can people go to find more about Babiators or get their hands on a pair if they would like?
Kristi Rigby:
Yeah, yeah so Babiators.net.au is our website, we’ve also got another website called mumstoolbox.com.au where we have not only the Babiators brand but a bunch of other awesome brands that are being developed by mums to help them with different challenges that they experienced during their parenting journey. And so you can get Babiators from either of those two websites, yeah the mum’s toolbox is kind of a new development over the years because we have been working together with some other local Australian brands to support them. And we provide them with some services like we pick and pack their product for them so that they can get on with designing beautiful products and marketing their product and all of those kinds of things. So our Mum’s Toolbox is all apart of that process of supporting other particular mums in business but those products also then support the mums who buy them because we just think that they’re the best parenting solutions in the marketplace.
Catherine Langman:
Yep, cool.
Kristi Rigby:
So babiators.net.au or mumstoolbox.com.au.
Catherine Langman:
Awesome and I will absolutely share those links in the podcast show notes and I will also link to your socials as well if people want to jump over there.
Kristi Rigby:
Oh awesome.
Catherine Langman:
Cool.
Kristi Rigby:
Sounds good.
Catherine Langman:
Fabulous, thank you again Kristi.
Kristi Rigby:
Thanks Cath. Yeah my pleasure.
Catherine Langman:
Awesome, all right so we will leave it there. Listeners, lovely listeners I will see you on the show again next week, by for now.