Catherine Langman:
Well hello there, it’s Catherine Langman here, back with another episode of the Productpreneur Success Podcast.

Catherine Langman:
I want to ask you a question. Have you ever had a situation where maybe a major component of your product is suddenly no longer available, or some kind of a disaster has struck and all of a sudden you just don’t have anything to sell? I know that happened to me several years ago when the Brisbane floods hit and it wiped out our entire shipping container of new product that had just arrived at the customs port, and we literally had nothing to sell.

Catherine Langman:
Something similar, well similar but different I suppose, just happened recently to our guest today, Pearl Chan, from the brand Resparkle. In Pearl’s situation, what actually happened was right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, a major part of her product, the packaging, was suddenly unavailable, and this happened right in the middle of the pandemic when her customers were absolutely screaming out for her products. The demand was there, but she just could not fulfill it.

Catherine Langman:
Thankfully in Pearl’s instance, she was able to see this as an opportunity and she actually used it as motivation to pivot and to nail down her niche and to almost reinvent the way she was doing things, and in the process gained more customers and more brand awareness and was able to really grow her business as a result, which is a pretty amazing outcome. I think many of us want to just throw in the towel and just give up when it’s all too hard and things just don’t feel like they’re working at all, and it’s challenge after disaster after a challenge gets thrown at you everywhere you go.

Catherine Langman:
It’s a really inspiring story to hear Pearl’s journey, so buckle in and let’s welcome Pearl to the show.

Catherine Langman:
So welcome to the show, Pearl. It’s absolutely fantastic to have you here.

Pearl Chan:
Thank you so much, Catherine. I’m excited to be on your podcast.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah. It’s so good. And we’re going to have a chat about your brand Resparkle and really excited to dive into this story of your business and your inventions. And, I guess to kick us off, I’d just love to invite you to tell us a little bit about your background and maybe the origin story of Resparkle.

Pearl Chan:
All right. Sure. I started this business almost seven years ago. It was a side hustle for me for quite a while. So I started off with just three spray cleaning products that was all natural. We actually launched into farmer’s market where I lived in Mornington. So every morning I used to trek down or weekends carrying my products and selling it to the community. So we started off in a very grassroot level, which I really enjoy. Yeah. Fast forward to now. We are growing really quickly, mostly online.

Catherine Langman:
Yes.

Pearl Chan:
So no more early morning at the farmer’s market.

Catherine Langman:
Thank goodness for that. Hey? Those farmer’s markets, you’re often up well before light to get to those on time. Aren’t you?

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. They open at nine so usually have to be down by maybe about 7:30 to set up. Because you have the tents and so then you get windy in Melbourne.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah.

Pearl Chan:
So you do want to give yourself more time to set up the store, have a coffee, calm yourself down before the crowd start to get in.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah.

Pearl Chan:
But, yeah. Really, really early morning. Yeah.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Absolutely. And then, so I guess being able to try and reduce that load is a good thing and move to more of an E-commerce business model. But, no doubt, starting with that grassroots kind of an approach you would’ve had those early adopted customers that really took you on and fell in love with the products at an early stage. I imagine.

Pearl Chan:
Yes, exactly. So, when, when you’re there you get to meet the people who want to buy your product. You get really good feedback from there and from the three products, I have now 13 products. I think I’ve lost count, but we try to keep it small. I don’t want to go into too many products as well. But from three to now 13.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah. And so just for the benefits of our listeners, the product range is a range of plastic free cleaning products. Is that the best way to describe it?

Pearl Chan:
Cleaning and hand wash. So we have cleaning and personal care would be hand wash, although we are trying to expand more into the personal care range. So I’ve got pretty exciting products coming in the pipeline next year.

Catherine Langman:
Oo, very cool. And if anyone wants to go and check you out, we’ll obviously share the links later. But it’s really, really cool to see a brand like yours bringing out products that are cutting out that plastic packaging. For a consumable product population would go through a lot of this stuff, wouldn’t we?

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. Thank you. It came naturally, actually. I was just trying to solve the different problems that I think customers are facing when it comes to switching to eco-friendly products. I touch about that later on. Going plastic free was a byproduct of trying to solve the problems that customers are facing.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Well, let’s talk about that a little bit. I love the fact that your approach is research based. So what are some of the problems that customers face? I think this is fantastic.

Pearl Chan:
Well, the number one obstacle I think is probably cost because my products are 100% natural and it’s just more expensive to produce something that’s generally non-toxic and it has to be effective as well. The cost is a number one factor and obviously trust. People might be willing to pay little bit more, but they wonder, “Oh, is it going to work if it’s a natural ingredient? Do I need chemicals to clean?” People are just facing that two big issues. So I had to find a way to bring costs down without compromising on the quality of the product. And the only way I could do that was to innovate. I’m not sure whether you know, but most cleaning products, even hand wash products is made up of 80 to 90% water and only 10 to 20% actual active ingredients that clean.

Catherine Langman:
Wow.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. I didn’t know that as well when I came to this industry. It didn’t make sense to me? Why are we paying for water? Why are we transporting so much water across the country?

Catherine Langman:
Exactly. It’s absurd.

Pearl Chan:
We are just so fortunate to have clean drinkable water from the tap.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah.

Pearl Chan:
That was when I hit my light bulb moment. Why not just sell the active ingredient and people just add in with their own type water.

Catherine Langman:
Jeez.

Pearl Chan:
So by selling our concentrate. Yes. So we started off with selling liquid concentrate. That’s only like 30 ML that would make 500 ML of cleaning product. So by doing that, I cut down so much on packaging, packaging waste, packaging costs, and transport cost, which is a really, really big one in Australia, especially.

Pearl Chan:
So with this cost savings, I was able to price my product quite affordably. Actually, right now our refills are not more expensive than what you buy in the supermarket. In fact, if you compare our hand wash, it’s probably the same price as what you pay for a supermarket house brand.

Catherine Langman:
Wow.

Pearl Chan:
So I’ve really taken that cost factor out of that big obstacle.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s how I came about this plastic free little sachets and it’s so tiny that it’s the size of a pen. It’s 10 grams and it’s easy to put in an envelope and send it.

Catherine Langman:
That’s incredible.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. So it’s just really exciting how far you can go if you really think of the box and find ways around it.

Catherine Langman:
Yes.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. And obviously I’m also very concerned about what we are doing to our planet. Being industry for seven years, we are one of the pioneers. When I first started out people weren’t really thinking about plastic. We thought that as long as you recycle that’s fine, you’re doing the job.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah.

Pearl Chan:
But a lot of people didn’t know that we’re actually sending our plastic waste to countries like China, developing countries.

Catherine Langman:
Mm.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. We were sending our plastic waste there. So a lot of people didn’t know that.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah. It’s kind of absurd that we would think we’re recycling, but in actual fact it’s being just shipped offshore somewhere, our waste.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah, exactly.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. And most of our recycling is actually ending up in landfill still. So things are not actually improving. In fact, it’s getting worse, especially with the pandemic. People are doing takeaways. So the plastic pollution problem, it’s a really big one.

Catherine Langman:
Mm.

Pearl Chan:
So I’m really on a crusade to convince people that switching into eco-friendly cleaning product. It is really easy step to make and if every one of us was to take that one step we can save so much plastic from the landfill.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah, totally. Absolutely. And so these would be the values and the mission then really that are underpinning the Resparkle brand. Is that right?

Pearl Chan:
Yes, that’s right. So now our mission is not just to tackle plastic waste. We want to end the use of plastic altogether, and it’s completely doable with our range. A lot of people don’t know that the plastic economy is actually the second biggest accelerator of climate change. So basically the whole process of creating plastic, it’s made of fossil fuel. It’s actually made of 99% fossil fuel.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah.

Pearl Chan:
So it’s not a good thing that. You are focused on fossil fuel, but a lot don’t know that plastics actually made of fossil fuel.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah.

Pearl Chan:
So with our plastic brief we just basically don’t need to create more plastic.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah.

Pearl Chan:
And you don’t create more plastic you’re not creating more plastic waste. So it’s so cost efficient.

Catherine Langman:
That’s fantastic. It’s just ingenious. I love it. Obviously you’ve been in business for a little while now, and we’re going to talk a bit about the story and the journey along the way, it can’t be an easy product category or an easy industry to start getting a foothold in. What are some of the things that you’ve done along the way to really become a bit known, gain that brand awareness with consumers?

Pearl Chan:
Honestly, in such with marketing, we didn’t really do a lot of it in the beginning. At the same time we’re also doing a bit of everything.

Catherine Langman:
That’s a familiar story with many. Yeah.

Pearl Chan:
Yes. I’m sure. You would know. You understand as a entrepreneur.

Catherine Langman:
Yes.

Pearl Chan:
You can’t sit back and hopefully it will die. Yeah. So we did everything. At the time we didn’t really have to a lot of money for Facebook ads. You would you get traffic. We’re pretty lucky in the sense that we had really good word of mouth because our products are so innovative at that time, people love to talk about it. They love how to buy in concentrate and using their own tap water. The concept itself was something that people were sharing with their own friends. And, we had a lot of really good engagement on Facebook, to be honest. Obviously you don’t see that kind of engagement anymore now.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah.

Pearl Chan:
So I think the beginning was really being connected to our online community who were just talking about us and that’s how we grew very organically.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Oh, well done. You obviously got into the social media side at the right time, I guess, for that organic reach, which is fantastic. But things have definitely changed along the way. And I want to dive into your pivot because you did make a bit of a pivot in 2020. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?

Pearl Chan:
Well, before the pivot was actually a disaster.

Catherine Langman:
Oh, let’s talk about that.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah.

Catherine Langman:
Let’s talk at that first.

Pearl Chan:
In 2019 I actually was back in Singapore because I just had a baby. So actually I adopted a baby in Singapore.

Catherine Langman:
Ah. Congratulations. Yeah.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. Thank you. Because we manufacture our own products all along from the beginning, but because I had to be back in Singapore, although I was living up and down for quite a bit, it was really hard to be doing manufacturing when you’re not there. So I had to outsource my production for the first time in then six years to a contract manufacturer. And it was a total disaster. I don’t really want to go into that.

Catherine Langman:
No. It might reopen old wounds.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. Yeah. So it was really bad.

Catherine Langman:
It wouldn’t be an uncommon story for a lot of people. I’ve had some manufacturing disasters as well. Let’s-

Pearl Chan:
Oh. Yeah.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah. It’s a very common story, unfortunately. But-

Pearl Chan:
Oh really? Oh my God. I thought I was the only stupid one in the industry.

Catherine Langman:
Oh, gosh. No. Gosh, no. I actually don’t think I’ve ever met a product entrepreneur who’s never had a disastrous manufacturing story.

Pearl Chan:
Oh no.

Catherine Langman:
If you’re a listener and you’ve never had a disastrous manufacturing story, please tell me.

Pearl Chan:
Oh my God.

Catherine Langman:
What did you do to get past that?

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. So long story short. I lost about 80,000. My stock, my bottles, my raw materials, it was just gone and that was in 2019. And then when COVID hit early 2020 I sold out all my complete stock in two months. So by February 2020, I had basically no products to sell and because of the supply chain disruptions, I was not able to secure plastic bottles. I couldn’t buy plastic bottles. Oh, well, you could buy plastic bottles, but all the manufacturers were expecting 100,000 minimum order. Even if I can afford to buy 100,000 plastic bottles, where am I going to store them?

Catherine Langman:
Yeah, that’s right. There was a big packaging shortage in Australia. Wasn’t there? Yeah. Forgotten about that now.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah, exactly.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. So basically, the first quarter of 2020, I had nothing to sell. So it was I could easily just shut down my business and call it a day because I couldn’t continue. So it was really bad.

Catherine Langman:
Yes.

Pearl Chan:
So I was really tempted because I just became a new mom and I thought why not just focus my energies and bringing up this little human being. It’s so much more pleasant and less stressful.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Yeah.

Pearl Chan:
Well maybe not less stressful, but…

Catherine Langman:
Slightly more rewarding feeling of stress, perhaps. I don’t know.

Pearl Chan:
Well-

Catherine Langman:
I know what you mean.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah, exactly. What did I say. Yeah. So, yeah. So I was really tempted to just focus on being a mom because I had no product to sell anyway. But the fact that I’m here to try to save to planet. I’m not trying to save planet for myself. I’m obviously trying to stay to planet for the future generation.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah.

Pearl Chan:
So all the knowledge I had about what we’re doing to our planet became really real when I became a mom, because you hear things like by 2020 or 2050 there’ll be more plastics in the ocean than fishes.

Catherine Langman:
I know. It’s just awful.

Pearl Chan:
It sounds very it’s abstract. Yeah. It’s awful, but it still sounds really abstract because where are you going to be in 2050? But now, since I became my mom I said, “Oh my God, 2050 my son is going to be 30 years old and he wouldn’t be able to go into the ocean. When he scuba dives or snorkels he’s not going to see fishes he’s going to be plastic.” So it became really real to me.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah. That makes it immediately real. Yes, exactly.

Pearl Chan:
Or he could be drinking all the micro plastic in his fish or on the water. So I thought I had to give it another go. With all the knowledge I could not sit back and do nothing.

Catherine Langman:
Yes.

Pearl Chan:
When I decided I think, “If I can’t secure plastic bottles,” I didn’t really want to buy more plastic bottles as well, “What else can I do?” So at the time our laundry detergent would be in the powder format and obviously you know dishwasher tablets are in tablet form.

Catherine Langman:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Pearl Chan:
So I thought, obviously, cleaning ingredients can come in a dry form. So why not look at how I can turn my liquid concentrate to a dry product? Just by taking water out of the equation, you take the need for plastic out the equation.

Catherine Langman:
That’s right. Yeah.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. So then I said, “Oh. Okay. Maybe I should look into that.” And I worked with the chemist to come up my formula. We went through about six months worth of research and development. I could buy an off the shelf product, but I didn’t want to because I really wanted to control what goes into the product. It had to meet my standard in terms of cleaning performance, ingredients have to be 100% natural and non-toxic. So I can’t go to China and buy hand wash tablets, for example. So, I was basically spending the most of 2020 working on our new formulation, our new packaging and, and every touch point of the product. I put a lot of thought into making sure that it has got minimal impact on the environment.

Pearl Chan:
So obviously our sachets are made of plants. It’s actually made of corn. So it’s completely plastic free. Yeah. So it’s just plant based inside and out. So I had this opportunity to really turn things around. And we launched our new range in the powder format in October and the sales has been phenomenal. Because, I thought that my customers would probably have forgotten about me. They have not heard from me since the beginning of the year. But I was really, really surprised. We did a soft launch just through my old mailing list and we double our online sales within two weeks. Yeah. So at the moment seriously really building ever since then.

Catherine Langman:
That’s amazing. Congratulations. Do you sell also, is it metal and glass jars? I’ve just got the homepage of the website in front of me as we are chatting and I can see the pump bottles of some description, what are they made from?

Pearl Chan:
So the bottles are glass and there’s a silicone sleeve on the outside because you don’t want kids to break it or you don’t want to drop it and break it but it will still break but the silicone does provide a bit of protection. And it looks good. The whole point of making it look good and feel good is people are investing the bottle because you’re supposed to be using a bottle forever or as long as possible. If you feel good buying that product, it’s an investment. It’s definitely more expensive than buying a plastic bottle, obviously. But you’re investing in this. It’s like you buy your coffee cups. It’s more expensive buying a plastic one versus a stainless steel one. So the fact that you invest in that bottle, you will try to use it as much as possible. Yeah.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Oh. They look gorgeous. I can totally imagine having that sitting on my kitchen bench, which is the point I suppose and then by the sachets to pop in it. My business journey, I started out designing and making a reusable nappy product, which again was, well especially at the time, mid 2000s, it was unusual. People didn’t really know what it was or how it worked and there was that big education gap that was required to get people over the line to give it a go and to buy it and to adopt it. Have you faced some similar sorts of challenges in your business? Is there a similar sort of education gap, trying to get people over the line to try it in the first place? I know once they try it, they love it because you said how high you’re returning customer rate is, which is amazing. But yeah, the initial part can often be the hardest, just getting people to try.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. It is a very novel concept although there quite a few similar brands that’s popping out in the market. But education is a really big part of our brand pillar. I think from the beginning we’ve always been talking about how you should be cutting chemicals out of your lives and in July this year we launched a eco campaign. It’s called It Only Takes a Minute. That’s an educational campaign that was focused on creating more widespread awareness about how serious the plastic problem is. It’s called It Only Takes a Minute because it only takes a minute for Australia to generate one ton of plastic waste.

Catherine Langman:
Oh gosh. Yeah.

Pearl Chan:
And yeah. So by the end of this call you probably would have 50 tons.

Catherine Langman:
Mm. Mm. God.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. It was a really big campaign. We got quite a few brands on board because I wanted to combine our voices to create bigger impact and a wider reach. And we had Sarah Wilson come on board as well. So yeah. Education is really part of how we acquire customers in a way because I feel when people are aware without preaching too much at them, they’ll naturally become the customer. We don’t have to hard sell. And a lot of our customers support us because they see what we’re trying to do and they want to support what we’re trying to do. So we are not just here to make money. Obviously we have to make money to be a viable business, but people connect with brands who align with their values. We don’t put lots of money behind a Facebook ad. We don’t have that kind of resources, but we try to nurture our customers by showing who we are, what we are, and what we’re trying to do. And yeah. Naturally people just come to us and give us a go.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah. That’s amazing. That’s really cool. And then obviously once they give you a go, the idea is that they love you and they tell their mates and they come back and buy again. There’s consumable parts of your products, which is where the replenishment side comes in and then there’s the single use, the glass and silicone bottles. So they don’t need to come back for that. So it must be pretty important then for your sort of a business and product category to have that repeat purchase rate, I imagine.

Pearl Chan:
Sorry. What’s the last part?

Catherine Langman:
Oh. Just to have that repeat purchase rate, having customers coming back again and again must be an important part of the business model.

Pearl Chan:
Oh. Yes. For sure. It is built entirely on that, actually. And I’m really happy with our retention rate. I think we’re about 75%.

Catherine Langman:
That’s incredible.

Pearl Chan:
So 75% of our customers come back for refills and they buy a lot of refills. I think they probably stock up for a whole year because you need 12 little packets to last the whole year, which is nothing. And ultimately, there’s no marketing strategy behind this. The only strategy behind this is a good product. If people hate it, they don’t find that it works or, or it irritates the skin they’re never going to come back. So we have to deliver a good product. No amount of marketing is going help people come back.

Catherine Langman:
That’s saying you can’t Polish a turd or something like that. It’s true though. I mean exactly what you just said. All of us in business, if we want to have our customers come back and buy again, which we want to, if we want to be profitable, that just means we have to do a really good job. The product needs to do what it says on the tin. Doesn’t it?

Pearl Chan:
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Marketing is one part of it, but I think a big part of it is product. But obviously you can’t not do marketing. You have to, to get the bottles into people’s hands. But people are pretty happy. I think we’re averaging about 4.8 stars for all our products and they love how it smells, how well it cleans, and how it looks. So these are the most common feedback we get. And obviously they feel good that they’re not contributing more plastic to the landfill.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah. It’s fantastic. Isn’t it? And I want to dive in next to your recent new product launch, which I understand sold out in a couple of days, which is fantastic. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that one?

Pearl Chan:
All right. Well, I created this product because my house is really stained and dirty because I’ve not been cleaning. Often I don’t feel like I should because-

Catherine Langman:
Which is ironic.

Pearl Chan:
And I call it a universal stain remover because, honestly, a lot of cleaning products in the market, you are buying duplicates of everything. It’s usually the same ingredients in my kitchen end of the day and make you buy another bottle. That’s why you sink you see so much products when you actually really only need one or two of them. So the universal stain remover, we launched it really quietly through our own mailing list, actually. It’s kind of in beta stage as in our packaging is not the final one. So we just wanted to get it out and get feedback from customers to make sure that they happy with the performance. But, I was just really surprised because I didn’t do much marketing, hardly any marketing. It was just one email and one Instagram post, and we just sold out a 48 hours.

Catherine Langman:
That’s nuts. I need to just jump in here and say to listeners is, Pearl has mentioned a couple of times now in this chat about how she’s emailed her list and they’ve just come and bought. And so really the important point there is we all have to put a bit of effort into growing that email list, because it’s clearly very powerful. I think a universal stain remover might be necessary in my house with three rambunctious children. Were you expecting that kind of a reaction from that product launch? I imagine not if it was a soft launch.

Pearl Chan:
You mean this one? The stain remover? Or-

Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Just launching that new product out, the stain remover, did you expect to get that incredible fast sales result?

Pearl Chan:
No. Not at all. But, I guess, we have built a reputation among our customers and our database that we do deliver good quality products so that might be the reason why every time we launch even through our mailing list, they just jump at it. Because you liked it, the trust is there. We’ve been around for quite a few years. They know that we won’t release anything that would be harmful to their health. For sure. Yeah. So my mailing list has been growing really well. And I think that’s something that we want to focus on, to build our own community versus trying to build Instagram followers, for example, because it’s getting so expensive to even get your post in front of anyone on social media now. Yeah. Yeah. Our mailing list has been the one that has been giving us really good results.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Fantastic. Also, the point is, none of us own our audiences on social media anyway. So it’s pretty risky to just rely on that. Anyhow. Yeah. I love it that you you’ve been focusing on that over the years and now it’s really benefiting you. So what do you love the most about being a product entrepreneur? What do you love the most? And then what do you find the most challenging? I think these are two big questions. Aren’t they?

Pearl Chan:
So what I love most about being a product entrepreneur is actually the product creation process. I love coming up with new ideas. I love coming up with smart solutions to problems that I face personally. The whole product development, come up with a formula working with my chemist. I love the part where we come up with the scents, the fragrance.

Catherine Langman:
Yes.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. I like that part. And obviously designs. The design of the bottles, design the packaging. Yes. I enjoy that part a lot-

Catherine Langman:
Oh. That’s interesting. I think that comes through, actually, because when I was having a look at your packaging just this morning, I just thought it’s really beautifully designed. So yeah. I can tell that’s the passion of yours. Yes.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. And you think that in holding the final product in your hands, now that’s priceless feeling. You get so excited and it never gets old. I like that part of it. I guess the most challenging is making it sell.

Catherine Langman:
True.

Pearl Chan:
I think generating to marketing, it’s just so much. There’s so much out there now from where we started. We only had Facebook and then there was Instagram. And then now you have Six Sells, you have Snapchat, you have Twitter, you have Finsure. It’s just so much out there.

Catherine Langman:
There’s a lot of choices there.

Pearl Chan:
Honestly, [inaudible 00:32:07].

Catherine Langman:
Yes, absolutely.

Pearl Chan:
There’s plenty. It’s a small business and ultimately marketing spend is just what propels your brand, honestly. If you want to hit the market really quickly and acquire customers and create that hype, you need a lot of money to put you there. And most small businesses don’t have that. We bootstrap, We have not got any external investors on board. We’ve not gone and raised funds. So we can’t compete with brands who have got investors pumping in two million dollars.

Catherine Langman:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Pearl Chan:
Yeah. So I think the challenge is always getting heard above all that noise and finding creative ways to do marketing without a big budget. So I think that’s my main challenge. Or what I find most challenging.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah, absolutely. I think lots of people will agree with you there. That’s for sure. But number one tip, I reckon, is growing that email list, because that’s the gift that keeps on giving over time. Certainly from your story anyway, which is fantastic.

Pearl Chan:
I’m sure a lot of your clients probably would have the same problem. They might have a much better product, but because of limited marketing spend, it’s a struggle to beat someone who’s got more money behind them, for example, even though they don’t have a better product. You know what I mean? And if the money options are there-

Catherine Langman:
It can definitely feel like that’s the case because the brands that have the biggest budget to spend on marketing are making the most noise and it can be very difficult to shut that out sometimes and stick to your own yoga mat. As I like to say, “Just focusing on what you are doing and building your own brand and talking to your own customers and trying not to worry too much about what someone else is doing.” Just because someone else is making more noise and spending more money on marketing actually doesn’t guarantee that they’re going to be the more successful long term profitable brand. So there’s a couple of challenges there. That’s for sure.

Pearl Chan:
That’s true.

Catherine Langman:
One last-

Pearl Chan:
But I think the most important is to keep your current customers happy and get them to talk about your product. And providing value, I realize it’s working really well offer us. Whether it is value in terms of information or better products or good products or I don’t know, just providing value instead of just sell, sell, sell.

Catherine Langman:
And you’re educating people as well. That’s certainly hugely valuable. I love that you’ve shared that. And I have one last question for you today and that is what’s next for Resparkle? What’s the future hold for your business?

Pearl Chan:
Well, definitely more products. And I think I really want to build Resparkle to be a easy solution for everyone who wants to go eco-friendly. Whether or not it’s to do with cleaning their homes or cleaning their face. I think as long as it comes to cleaning, we want to own that space where we’re providing a viable solution that is plastic free, 100% natural, and works really, really well.

Catherine Langman:
Yes.

Pearl Chan:
But I really see that if each of us can just one simple switch in your home, the future can be a lot cleaner than what it is now. We can cut the amount of plastic used in your home so easily. My recycle bin is hardly anything in there because I don’t have plastic bottles to throw out.

Catherine Langman:
So good. That’s just fantastic.

Pearl Chan:
Yeah.

Catherine Langman:
So where can customers go? Where can our listeners go if they really want come and check out what you have? Where are they going to find you?

Pearl Chan:
Well, online would be the easiest. So resparkle.com.au is our website and we have free shipping on most of our bundles so you don’t have to worry about the cost of shipping and our refills comes with free shipping. So, it saves you the trip to the supermarket. You will never run out of cleaning products because you can buy eight go and it will last you six months. Oh. More than six months actually.

Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Fantastic. That’s awesome. Well, I can’t thank you enough for joining us on the show today, Pearl, and sharing your story of Resparkle. It’s definitely been quite a journey that you’ve been on so far in this seven years. So hopefully the next seven years are a little more smooth sailing and no more big challenges like one that you’ve had to mitigate over the past couple of years. It’s huge. So thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

Pearl Chan:
No. Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a fun chat. Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to share my really long story, actually.

Catherine Langman:
No. It’s fantastic. Thanks, Pearl.