Cath Langman:
Well, hello there, it’s Catherine Langman here back with another episode of the Productpreneur Success Podcast. And today on the show, I’m really excited to welcome a guest. Helen Trigg, who is the founder of New Zealand brand Healthy Dog & Co. And, it’s been such an amazing… I’ve just literally got off the interview with Helen, and it’s just been an amazing conversation with loads of insights that I can’t wait for you to hear, but just to give you a little bit of background on Helen and her Healthy Dog & Co brand. So she’d been in business for a few years, but it was a wholesale business model initially. And, so literally they just had their major trade show for the year in 2020, March 2020. Landed a bunch of wholesale stockists, and things were looking good. And then of course COVID hit, and whilst many of her stockists did survive, it was certainly really, really tough time for those retail businesses.
And it made it pretty clear for Helen that she really needed to up the ante with her own e-commerce website, and needed to start kind of moving a little bit more of her effort and marketing towards selling direct to consumers on her own online store. And, obviously that’s a scenario that would be familiar for any e-commerce brand getting started, regardless of whether you are just moving straight into selling on your e-commerce store, or if like Helen, you were sort of pivoting a little bit from wholesale to e-commerce. And so when Helen was really trying to get going there, she just was really kind of struggling, and trying a lot of different things that are pretty common, I guess. Posting a lot on social media and trying to collaborate with people and trying to get people to help her with ads and stuff like that, but she just was not getting anywhere. She was not getting traffic to the website. And of course with no traffic to the website, there’s no sales coming through, and she just didn’t really know what was wrong and why it wasn’t working.
And so, that was kind of when she came across our radar. And what we talk about in this interview is what were the things that she learned and implemented through our course, that really made the biggest difference to her website traffic and her website conversions. And one thing that I just… I mean, there was this amazing takeaway that Helen shares, she’s a very smart lady. About how she’s implemented the customer avatar piece of research that she did, throughout her entire e-commerce website and all of her marketing and how she continues to use it today. And for Helen, she actually had some almost overnight results coming in. She sort of implemented a whole bunch of this stuff and started to get traffic and sales, like from cold traffic. People searching off Google almost overnight, which is just incredible. So without further ado, I don’t want to hold Helen back from you any longer. Let’s welcome Helen to the show, and let you hear her amazing story.
Cath Langman:
Welcome to the show, Helen.
Helen Trigg:
Hi, Catherine. Nice to be here.
Cath Langman:
It’s awesome to have you here. We’re going to have a bit of a chat about your business, Healthy Dog & Co, but maybe before we kick off, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself? Introduce yourself and your background that led to starting your business.
Helen Trigg:
I am a married mum of two boys, teenagers. One’s turning 18 this weekend. Scary.
Cath Langman:
No way.
Helen Trigg:
I originate from England, Northern England and came to New Zealand about 17 years ago. Most of my experience in the past has been to do with retail and wholesale. So a lot of my businesses in the past have been focused around them. But I’ve been running my own businesses on and off for about 20 years now before-
Cath Langman:
Yeah. So, you’re an old hat now, aren’t you? This gig.
Helen Trigg:
Yeah. Amazing how I should learn a lot of the time, but I’m always learning.
Cath Langman:
Yeah. Well, it’s always changing too, isn’t it?
Helen Trigg:
Exactly.
Cath Langman:
Yeah.
Helen Trigg:
So that was my big background. I did a bit of interior design and I’ve studied a lot of art stuff, and I suppose that’s where the design aspect of Healthy Dog comes in. That’s what I really [inaudible 00:01:26] doing, is the designs and the prints that we bring into the dog wear, which is great.
Cath Langman:
That’s so fun. We’ll get to that, I think. But I know that there was a bit of a story around the impetus for you starting Healthy Dog & Co. So what actually happened?
Helen Trigg:
I had a major slip disc, which compressed the nerve on the right side of my body, going down my legs. One of the big ways to rehab after that is walking. And I was doing so much walking, my dogs were getting tired of it. So I started taking other people’s dogs out for walks, and grew a dog walking business from it. Which in fact we’re about five, well, three or four years. Yeah. And then we sold that business on. I wanted to do something a bit different, really wanted to progress the dog side of things because they are my main…
Cath Langman:
So they’re like your extra children, right?
Helen Trigg:
Totally. It’s like having toddlers in the house again. They’re always getting up to something naughty, and causing chaos, but I do love them.
Cath Langman:
That’s so cute. And I suppose, what you’ve said to us, through the last course that you were working with us through, you were talking about how you were already making and selling your own dog treats. So, at what point did you decide to really grow that part of the business, or turn that into this business that it is now?
Helen Trigg:
So, last year we bit the bullet and decided to invest quite a bit of money by bringing in our own dog range, and designing it. I wanted to do something really different, because here we only have two pet stores. We have, Animates, obviously, and another one called Pet Stop, but they just sell quite boring products. You buy a red, blue, or a black lead. And I was just fed up with that. I love bright colors, and I knew that there was a market for it, but I didn’t want to go to pet stores. I had this idea of putting together a product that could slip into any type of retail store. So we were building, the whole design of that area of the business was around wholesale, and building point of place that would make it look fantastic. So you could just put it anywhere. So we have pharmacies, gift stores and even building, hardware stores, that stock our products now.
Cath Langman:
Yeah, wow. And just quickly, tell the listeners what products that you have, because it’s not just dog treats, is it?
Helen Trigg:
No. So we make dog harnesses, collars, leashes, poop bag holders. We do a natural balm for paws and skin. We do two different ranges of soaps. And then we have a few add-ons from other businesses, local businesses, that we add to our products.
Cath Langman:
Are you selling them in Australia yet? I think we need your stuff over here.
Helen Trigg:
No, but we so want to. That’s the next step.
Cath Langman:
Definitely. Absolutely. So, you started this out as wholesale, but then obviously COVID hit, right. And that probably moved you away from that, well, maybe not away from it, but made you pivot a little bit, to include more eCommerce. Is that about right?
Helen Trigg:
Yep. Yeah, we had to change quite drastically. So our major trade event was in March last year, and two weeks later the whole of New Zealand went into enforced lockdown-
Cath Langman:
Yeah, which was a long one, wasn’t it?
Helen Trigg:
It was a really long one, and a lot of the retailers we were dealing with suffered quite dramatically, and we knew we had to pivot and do something different. We already had a website up and running, but we weren’t really pushing it out there, or working hard on social media like you’re supposed to be, and we were doing all the wrong things. Then we came across your course, and it really pointed us in the right direction to push the eCommerce and make it into something much bigger and better.
Cath Langman:
Yeah. Super. And just quickly before we do dive into that side of things, because I definitely want to dive into all of that, but when you were, getting started with, Healthy Dog and Co, and really drawn to starting it, you were telling us a little bit about why you really were drawn to doing that, and the important part of your life that your dogs play, for you. Do you want to tell us a bit about that?
Helen Trigg:
Yeah, so they are a major part of my life. I have mental health problems, that I’ve suffered with since I was probably about 13, and took a long time to get diagnosed as bipolar two. But the dogs really helped me. They’re a really good support system for me, they keep me company all the time. I can tell them whatever. And they really don’t treat you like humans do, which is really-
Cath Langman:
They wag their tails and they want to hug, regardless, don’t they?
Helen Trigg:
Yeah. And you have to get out of bed for your dogs. You can’t just say, “I’m not going to adult today, or do anything.” They still expect you to wake up at half past six and take them for a walk, and- [crosstalk 00:04:39]
Cath Langman:
Which is probably the best thing for us, right? When we’re feeling a bit- [crosstalk 00:04:42]
Helen Trigg:
Yeah. Yeah. And I think they do make a huge difference to mental health. And you just have to look around you at how they’re used around the world now, in therapy and different versions.
Cath Langman:
Hospitals.
Helen Trigg:
In fact, they even managed to train the dogs to sniff out COVID-19 within about six months.
Cath Langman:
No way. Really?
Helen Trigg:
So yeah.
Cath Langman:
That’s incredible.
Helen Trigg:
So they’re a major part of our lives now, and with lockdown here, I noticed so many people got more dogs.
Cath Langman:
That’s right, yeah, we’ve noticed that too.
Helen Trigg:
It’s just an ever increasing thing. And I think people are really starting to see the benefit of living with dogs.
Cath Langman:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think there’s probably a whole lot of dogs, too, around the world, that are getting very tired from lots of walks through the COVID lockdown, hey?
Helen Trigg:
I know, far too much attention. My lot slept a lot when everyone went back to school.
Cath Langman:
That’s so funny. But of course they all need some fancy, Healthy Dog and Co gear when they go out on their walks.
Helen Trigg:
Yep.
Cath Langman:
Cool. So, let’s have a bit of a chat then about moving to eCommerce, and obviously when you made that decision that you really needed to incorporate more of that, that was about when you came across our radar, and joined us in the program. So, tell us a little bit about what made you sign up to our course last year? What were the struggles that you were specifically having in your business that you wanted to get help with?
Helen Trigg:
Well, we were really struggling with getting traffic to the business. We had really good local support in our area, which is great, but we needed to go further. We needed to reach more people, and whatever I was trying wasn’t really working. We tried doing a couple of things with different people, and they’d not really worked, or panned out, we’d spent quite a bit of money without getting anything back from it. So I was wary, but then I spoke to a couple of New Zealand girls, who had friends who’d been through your course, and they said it was quite a dramatic turnaround.
And you get to a point where you suddenly realize, “Actually, I just need to invest in something very good, to get through that technical bit where you don’t know.” I had no idea how to put a Facebook advertisement together, and was just randomly doing that. You can only do that for so long and then realize, “Actually, I’m wasting my money. I need to do something better.” And then, so we signed up to your course, and it was just an eye opener, the amount of information that we got so quickly, that we could act on immediately. It was just so different from any of the other things we’d done.
Cath Langman:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s so good. One of the things that we all noticed about you, and many of the others in the group, as well, but you were so onto it. You were very dedicated, and you really implemented quickly, and I think that’s probably why you did start seeing the results so quickly. But one of the things early on, you did a lot of work on your website during the course, and we all have absolutely love how fun and easy it is to navigate, and of course, all the gorgeous images. So, how did you find that process of working on the website and keeping the customers in mind, I guess?
Helen Trigg:
It was really good. I’m very good on the visual aspect and what things look like, and I spend a lot of time on those types of things, but what really helped with the course was actually learning how the backend works, and learning what I needed to change, and how to word things to make them more searchable by the creepy crawlies on the internet. And I didn’t even know that I could change my titles on products to make them better for those kinds of things. So all of that stuff was really, once you heard it, and read it, and saw it, and talked about it, it was just logical.
So it was really easy to get working on it, and because the whole country’s, well, whole world, is in and out of lockdown down at the moment and stuff, I think with small businesses, we’re getting a lot more downtime than we normally have. So, having something really positive that you know is going to make a big difference to your business, to work on, you don’t mind putting those hours in and doing it, because you know that it’s going to create a massive difference. And for us, it was almost overnight, once we finished doing all the SEO stuff. We were suddenly popping up and people were finding us from Google, and we even got three new wholesalers, just from Google.
Cath Langman:
That’s incredible. And you popped this awesome comment in our course group at the time, that you were getting no, or very minimal visitors, onto your site, initially. And then, once you did all of this work on your website, all of a sudden you making sales from first time visitors who found you from Google, which was pretty awesome.
Helen Trigg:
I know, it’s crazy. I didn’t think we’d ever get to that point. And the nice thing is, I know we still have tons of growth in that area. We’re still getting first time visitors buying on their first visit.
Cath Langman:
That’s so good.
Helen Trigg:
So we know the product’s working, and we know there’s a huge amount of growth that we can tap into. And that’s just really exciting.
Cath Langman:
Yeah, it’s incredibly exciting. And I think, from my perspective, when I see that sort of thing happen, and that momentum that you get straight away, it just demonstrates to me that you’ve got that perfect match between what the customer sees on the front end, when they land on your website, and there’s no disconnect between what they’ve searched for, and what they’re finding when they get there. As well as, obviously, you’ve got all of the right things in the right place, in the backend, so that you are searchable and find-able on the, “Internuts,” as we call it.
Helen Trigg:
Yeah. It makes such a difference. And what I loved about, when we did some deep diving into the emails and stuff, is that you could really have fun and create things with it. So, what we’ve done with that side of the business is, now, everything that goes to a customer comes from Sprinkles and Buzz, my dogs. So we have thank you cards from the dogs, and they write it to the owner’s dog. We get their name in the sign up process, so that we can personalize it. All your emails talk about the dogs chasing the couriers, and having loads of fun. So I think that, and the brightness, and the nice pictures and stuff, it just creates a really nice vibe.
Cath Langman:
The personality coming through is just awesome. And I think this is why you are really standing out, because you’re giving the customers such a fantastic experience, not just when they first get to your website, but all the way through. Once they receive your emails and once they receive your products, and the delivery, and all of that stuff. So, of course they’re going to remember you, when they need something else, they’re going to come back, and they’re going to tell their friends, as well, at the dog park, no doubt.
Helen Trigg:
It does make a difference, I think, and it’s more fun for us. There’s nothing more boring than sitting down to write 20 emails for an email sequence and trying to knock them out. But then when you’re trying to think of them from a dog’s perspective, it makes it a little more fun.
Cath Langman:
It’s really genius. Yeah. Totally love it. I do want to touch a little bit on the visual side, a little bit more. I know this probably comes easy to you, because of your design background, but we are such big advocates for getting some professional photography, and working hard on your product descriptions, that really speak directly to your customers. And you definitely nailed both of those aspects. So, maybe tell the listeners a little bit and, listeners, you can all go and have a look at her website, right? So, we’re going to share the link in a little bit, but, Helen, if you could tell us a little bit about who this ideal customer is, and the problems that they’re having and they’re looking to solve. Because you start there, right? And then, obviously, you try and address that with the images and the descriptions.
Helen Trigg:
So, a lot of our customers are struggling to find the right kind of harnesses for their dogs, looking for the right fit and size. It’s a hard thing to sell online, a harness, because people have to guess a bit. So we’ve taken a pain point out of that. We have a couple of videos telling you how to measure your dogs. And we had got an amazing New Zealand illustrator to do some lovely illustrations of our harnesses, showing all the bits and pieces and how they work. So that takes a bit of that away.
And one thing we are adding at the moment is, the more customer pictures we get back, we add them into our product images, so that people actually see dogs of different sizes. And I think that really helps them get a better feel, from their size of dog, but also do a really good returns system. So, whoever buys from us, if it gets there and it’s a little bit too tight, or they’ve over estimated, we’ll simply send them a bigger size or smaller size. We don’t mind. And as long as that comes back fine, it’s fine. And if it comes back a little bit damaged, we’re not that bothered, because we have a rescue program we work with, where we hand off seconds, or anything that’s damaged, or things like that go off to a rescue group. So we’ve got that [crosstalk 00:14:49] circle going on.
I think that makes a difference to the customers, because our customers range from quite young, in their twenties, all the way up to about 35, 40. So we’ve got a real cross section of customers there, that then we try-
Cath Langman:
So I guess some of them are more savvy on buying online, compared to others, in that spectrum.
Helen Trigg:
Yeah. We have a huge amount of Instagram followers. I have to spend a lot of my time on Instagram. But it’s good, because it’s all dog accounts, so that’s fine. Yeah, most of our people, Facebook and Instagram are our big pulls.
Cath Langman:
Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. So, clearly then, in terms of being able to tailor the content and the design of your website and your marketing to your customer, clearly, it’s been really important for you to have this deep understanding of your customer, and their pain points, and what’s going to help them get over the line to choose, and also, I guess, what they want on the other side, the benefits that they’re looking for, right?
Helen Trigg:
Yeah. It made a big difference. And I think what really helped us get to that point of knowing what they wanted was doing the customer questionnaire and survey, that we did through the course, and the responses for that was great. We have them up on the wall now, so that when we’re thinking of writing different things, like blog posts or Facebook posts, we can go and look at them and I go, “Okay, what’s this person struggling with? Well, some dogs come in different sizes, and are a bit wonky, so they’re not sure whether the harness is going to suit them,” so we can talk about how soft our harnesses are, and how they mold to a dog’s body shape. So, that really helps, deep diving into those back stories of what your customer-
Cath Langman:
And probably these people are searching on the internet for solutions for this stuff too, right?
Helen Trigg:
Yeah. Yeah. So we’re using those search words in our blog post titles, “How to find a perfect fit,” or, “Will my dog walk in a harness?” Or, “Training tips for dogs and walking.” so we’re using all of that type of stuff as well, which really helps.
Cath Langman:
Yeah. Awesome. And I want to touch a little bit on the copywriting, the text, as well. And I want to just ask, obviously now you’ve hit on this idea of writing everything from your dogs’ perspective. So everything is written in the dogs’ voices. At what point did you hit on that? Was it a bit of a process before that, where you’re trying to figure out how you’re going to write the product descriptions and all of the other bits of content?
Helen Trigg:
Do you know, we stole that.
Cath Langman:
Brilliant. I love it.
Helen Trigg:
I was on another Facebook group page, and someone had put a post up saying, “I just got this most amazing email.” And it was sent to her after she’d placed an order, and it was about everyone in the office running round, and then all the staff in the warehouse running round, and how excited they’d been, and all that kind of stuff. I thought, “Oh my God, we could do that. We can do that really similarly, but with the dogs, and how cool will that be?” So that’s when we really started thinking about it, and how can we push it, and we’d done it with our order emails, but we hadn’t followed through into our regular emails that went out to people. And it wasn’t once we started thinking about it, going through the whole course and going, “Actually, why aren’t we doing this? Why aren’t we just doing all of it like that, and having that unique voice to make us a bit different?” So-
Cath Langman:
Oh, I absolutely loved it. I just thought it was genius. So I’m glad. And imitation is the greatest form of flattery, or something like that. So it’s such a cool idea to take.
Helen Trigg:
You can’t always come up with individual ideas, sometimes you just have to borrow and tweak.
Cath Langman:
That’s it, that’s it. Actually, it reminds me of a past student in the course, who had a kids’ clothing boutique, and she did something similar, because the business was named after her two daughters. And so everything was written from their perspective, in the emails and stuff. So that was really cool. Yeah.
Helen Trigg:
Yeah. I think it makes some angles.
Cath Langman:
Oh, definitely. It just makes you stand out. A bit more memorable, right?
Helen Trigg:
Yeah, yeah. And if you think about it, I think most of us could do something along those lines.
Cath Langman:
Absolutely.
Helen Trigg:
We’re all doing something unique in our business that we can push through.
Cath Langman:
Well, we should be, because if we’re not, then we’re not giving anyone a good reason to buy from us, compared to the next one. So, yeah, that’s so good. So, obviously, our whole team really enjoyed having you as a student in our Productpreneur Website Formula course, and really impressed by the work that you consistently put in. And I’d love to ask you, what do you think are the three main takeaways that you learned from going through the course?
Helen Trigg:
Metrics, because I know you love that. Know your metric and how much you’re spending in comparable to what you’re getting back. I think that was a real key takeaway, to actually follow your numbers, which now I do quite regularly, every Sunday.
Cath Langman:
Fantastic. Music to my ears.
Helen Trigg:
So that was a big one, and also really working hard to make sure that you’re continually updating and working on things. Because your website shouldn’t should sit still, and it’s never finished. With every product you add, you’ve got to tweak the back, and do it, and it’s all those little bits that add up, I think. Really, that was a big thing to come away from the course with.
Cath Langman:
Yeah. Sensational. Yeah. No, it’s so good that you mentioned the metrics. I know it’s not the most exciting thing for a lot of people, to be thinking about the numbers, and trying to analyze the performance, and all of that sort of stuff. But at the end of the day, people ask me all the time, “How do I know if it’s working?” And honestly, it is the only way that you can work that out, right?
Helen Trigg:
Yeah. I’m still really bad at working it out, but I still write them up.
Cath Langman:
You get better over time, though, it’s like anything.
Helen Trigg:
I’ll get better. Yeah.
Cath Langman:
I’m sure I was pretty lousy at it as well, I trained as a musician, so I’m not an analytics genius at all, but I have certainly made it my business to learn this stuff. And it’s like any skill, if you practice it, you get better at it.
Helen Trigg:
Yeah. I think it just gives you confidence to keep going and doing stuff. I’m much more confident taking business risks, now that I know where my business sits, if that makes-
Cath Langman:
Yeah, absolutely. I think it does give you a level of comfort, and confidence, doesn’t it?
Helen Trigg:
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.
Cath Langman:
I want to say, one of my big takeaways from our conversation today, from what you’ve been sharing, is how you have used the results from your customer survey, and the research piece that we do at the start of the course, because you’ve used it not just to inform the website and how you’ve designed and put the content together for that, and your emails and your ads and stuff, but I love how you’re still using it, and you’ve put it all up on the wall, and you’ve got the words from your customers there, that are really guiding all of what you’re doing. I think it’s absolutely brilliant, and everyone should be doing that. [crosstalk 00:22:50]
Helen Trigg:
It just makes a huge difference. And you remember to write stuff down, now. So we’ve got all those surveys, but we also now add to it. So, if someone sends us an email, and they point something out, we’ll put it up there, take a lot of comments from Facebook and Instagram and add them up there. Because it’s all really rewarding, as well, seeing what people are saying about you makes you feel much better, because it’s all value and good, but it’s all good fodder.
Cath Langman:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s genius. So, two more questions-
Helen Trigg:
My husband’s not so keen on me sticking stuff on the wall though, Catherine.
Cath Langman:
Well, my husband learned a long time ago with my businesses, it’s best that he just shut the door and walk away.
Helen Trigg:
It’s why he’s got a study.
Cath Langman:
That’s it. Exactly. So, I’ve got two more questions for you today, Helen, and the first is, how would you describe the difference in your business now, to perhaps six months ago, before the course?
Helen Trigg:
I would say we are now thriving, instead of just surviving. So before, we were just trying to put out fires in the business, and scramble to hold on and get the odd sale here and there. Now, I don’t have a day go by that have we haven’t got a sale. So, that’s lovely.
Cath Langman:
That’s awesome. That’s progress.
Helen Trigg:
And by the end of the week, I can just turn everything off and have my weekends to myself, knowing that the business is running well.
Cath Langman:
That’s amazing. Yeah.
Helen Trigg:
It’s a big difference.
Cath Langman:
How good is that? That’s huge. That’s absolutely brilliant. So, and final question for you, where to from here, for, Healthy Dog and Co?
Helen Trigg:
We’re just about to do, two weeks’ time, we have our major trade event of the year. So, our aim is to take on another 30 stockists, we’ve set our goal for, this year. And then, probably with your help, we might be tackling Australia soon.
Cath Langman:
Yes, awesome. That’s so good.
Helen Trigg:
Yeah. Onwards and upwards is the only way forward.
Cath Langman:
Yeah, I think that’s fantastic. And I know that, I think I told you, my daughter is desperate to have a dog now that we’ve moved into a house that’s suitable to have pets. And so, you’ve got to get your stuff over here so that we can have some.
Helen Trigg:
Definitely, definitely, because dogs need lots of different outfits, Catherine, one for each day.
Cath Langman:
Of course they do. Especially when there’s a 10-year-old girl in charge of that fashion. It’s so good. And for those who listeners who would like to come and find you on the internet, do you want to share your web and social links for us?
Helen Trigg:
So we’re at healthydogandco.com, on the website and you can find us @healthydogandco, all one word, on Instagram, and healthydogandco on Facebook as well.
Cath Langman:
Brilliant. Excellent. And I will absolutely share those links on the podcast show notes page, as well. So, really, really appreciate having you on the show today, and it’s been fabulous hearing all of these insights from your business journey to date. So, thank you so much.
Helen Trigg:
My pleasure. Thanks, Catherine.