Marketing. Public relations. Influencers. Guerrilla tactics. Social media marketing. What does it all mean, and which businesses should use which tactic?
After 30 years of bringing new products to market, I have only one answer: It depends upon the profile of your customer. If you are even slightly flummoxed by marketing, do this: Stop listening to what everyone is talking about, and take a deep dive into the reasons why customers buy your stuff. This is not based on who they are (their demographic characteristics like sex, age, location, education level, salary, etc.), but rather their psychographic characteristics (the attitudes and proclivities that drive them). At the top of that heap are pain points that make someone, or a company, really need what you have to offer. According to sales guru David Sandler, humans buy things based on emotions — their frustrations, upsets, disappointments, worries, annoyances, concerns, anxieties and struggles. This applies to everything from original equipment manufacturer technologies and hydraulic oil to glitzy skincare lines and Jimmy Choo shoes. I’ll add to that and say that humans buy things they have heard about from others, something I call the, “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that” response.
To prove my point, think about the last time you were looking for a great new restaurant. You probably googled it or asked a friend for a recommendation. When you saw two or three mentions of the same restaurant, I bet you said to yourself, or aloud, “Oh, this looks like it’s good.”
There are three parts of any business, no matter what industry or whether it offers a consumer or business-to-business product/service.
1. Product: everything it takes to get a product ready for sale.
2. Operations: the sales methodology, systems, money and people required to make it a business.
3. Marketing: any maneuver used to get the product into the hands of the end customer, who is inspired to buy it (and quickly).
I call these the POM principles, and they are the three pillars necessary for any business to launch, grow and be sustained for years to come. They apply to massive corporations and to startups. If any of these three pillars is not very well developed, a product is likely to fail (sorry for the harsh reality check).
Here’s a secret: As you develop a product, start with a picture and list of the attributes of your customer. Do not take one more step, or spend another dime, until you are exceedingly clear on this. Over the past 30 years, I have worked with more than 10,000 entrepreneurs, many of whom are so in love with their own ideas that they overlook the needs of the customers whose purchases make their idea into a true business.
There are so many faces of marketing; influencers, social media and online marketing may not be part of your marketing mix. How can that be in today’s climate?
Well, imagine that your customer rides the bus every day, they don’t own a computer and they are paid in paper checks every week. Buying ads on buses, on bus benches and at depots and partnering with check-cashing services would provide direct access to them. If you sell a glitter filter for selfies and videos, you have a good chance of reaching your customer on TikTok or Instagram. If you make a human resources technology built for human resources professionals in manufacturing, you need to get to the decision makers who buy that kind of tech. Why would you waste your money trying to reach them where they are not going to be?
Did you know that 80% of the global workforce don’t sit at a desk to do their jobs? Think about the size of that 80% and what kinds of opportunities exist there. As two of my favorite authors, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, wrote in Blue Ocean Strategy, “In today’s overcrowded industries, competing head-on results in nothing but a bloody ‘red ocean’ of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool.” So why thrash about in bloody red waters of competition when there’s a huge blue ocean out there?
When you know who your customer is, and whether they’ll pay for your product, and have set an operational basis of business, it’s time to build a marketing mix. I use a simple Excel sheet with a row of the 12 months of the year and a column of different modalities. I get costs for the methods that appeal to the customer, choose the ones for which there is a budget and then execute. Here is a list of some options to put into your vertical axis.
• Advertising (online, print, broadcast, trade).
• Affiliate marketing.
• Ambassador marketing.
• Association marketing.
• Awards.
• Branding.
• Cause marketing.
• Corporate communications.
• Demand generation.
• Digital KPI-driven marketing.
• Direct mail.
• Email marketing.
• Guerrilla tactics.
• Influencer marketing.
• Networking.
• Online marketing.
• Packaging.
• Partner marketing.
• Pay per click.
• Promotions.
• Public relations (a.k.a. publicity).
• Referral programs.
• Retail coop marketing.
• Sampling.
• Search engine optimization.
• Social media marketing.
• Special events.
• Sponsorships.
• Trade shows.
• Viral marketing.
• Word of mouth.
And the list goes on.
To make it easiest, think about this as reverse engineering. Deciding which marketing method to use requires thinking backward from the customers’ needs first and how you want to present your product second. Why? Well, if you don’t sell your stuff, you don’t have a business. It’s not rocket science, but it’s incredibly practical.
Few people speak and think in several languages while building a career in the highly specialized industry of interpreting. Fardad Zabetian has innovated the technology that allows presidents, princes and parliaments worldwide to be able to speak with one another.
Zabetian has built a multilingual conference infrastructure through his videoconference and real-time interpretation platform, KUDO. Launched in 2017, the company has paved the way for enterprising businesses to globally interact.
The concentrated amount of highly influential people, dialogues, debates and arguments he has witnessed—and made possible—is staggering. The engagements and storied institutions involved include world and nuclear summits.
Most interesting, he has innovated how this occurs in a completely disruptive manner that has evolved this ultra-niche industry through the eons of its existence.
Ancient origins
The fascinating history of interpreting provides crucial context for appreciating the significant contributions Zabetian has made.
In days of old, kings kept interpreters by their side to whisper in their ear. Explorers brought interpreters with them to communicate with people they encountered and with whom they wished to trade.
But in 1945, when World War II ended, an extraordinary reconciliation process began with the Nuremberg trials. This birthed the world of multilingualism that is at the crux of Zabetian’s world.
During this series of interactions, former Nazi leaders were tried as war criminals in the International Military Tribunal. As the Nazis took over many countries during the war, victims who spoke many languages were brought to the table and interpreters were needed to make the connection.
For the linguistic industry, this was a heyday for those who spoke the needed languages. They were flown in from all over the world to do globally weighty work.
This time was an important evolution of international diplomacy within the United Nations. Its interpretation service was created to provide interpretation from and into many languages in the UN’s New York City headquarters, and throughout the world for meetings such as the Nuremberg trials.
Shunning AI
“Interpreters are an incredibly intelligent and interesting group of polyglots,” says Zabetian, who speaks English, Farsi and some German. (Editor’s note: Polyglots? See sidebar.)
“At first this profession grew naturally as a result of revolutions and wars moving people around the world. But today, they (interpreters) are specialized academics and highly trained specifically, usually for very high-level global interactions.
“Interpreters can simultaneously translate in real time, which is a very special gift. I have spent my career providing the equipment they use and most recently, a huge change has occurred in the need for physicality, being replaced by video conference technology.”
What Zabetian has done has technologized this industry in an unprecedented way. More important, he has created a business model that includes the real-time interpreting skills of these actual talents— without artificial intelligence.
This was intentional.
“This is a time in history when one might expect AI to be the technology that does the actual interpretation,” he explains. “From my 20 years being up-close and personal with this process, in highly significant situations, I have learned that the human cognitive skill of making split-second determinations is crucial for success.
“Any institution or enterprise organization that conducts global business cannot afford the mistakes that could happen without a professional who can quickly determine considerations we call legality, fidelity and neutrality.”
Another thing AI cannot do is provide nuances of communication such as tone and body language. Zabetian built his company with this in mind.
“Researchers agree that in many situations, non-verbal cues can affect a vast majority of what’s communicated,” he says.
“On video, we can obtain visual cues from a person’s body language. This was missing in the booth infrastructure, where the interpreters were most often in another room and only connected by cables and earphones.”
100-plus languages
KUDO’s interpreters speak in more than 100 different languages. Zabetian provided another feature benefit created through KUDO: access to 147 sign languages.
Though nothing can replace the value of a physical meeting, Zabetian’s video conferencing platform has vertical drop-down menus from Albanian to Chinese, French to German. This year, he launched a self-serve scheduling platform called KUDO Marketplace that made it even easier to access the thousands of KUDO Pro Certified interpreters.
KUDO features instant feedback, screen sharing, document sharing, and live polls to make web conferences more efficient.
The company is headquartered in New York City, with other offices in London, Brussels and Geneva. Among its clients are the United Nations, World Bank, Council of Europe and myriad major enterprise companies that do business globally.
Although its clients in America, Europe, Asia and South America are mostly governmental institutions and enterprise business concerns, Zabetian says “now startups can afford to think globally from the very beginning, as it no longer requires full-time multilingual salespeople or product managers on staff and expensive travel to overcome language barriers.”
Due to the global reliance and acceptance of video conference technology, accelerated during the pandemic, KUDO’s staff exploded in 2020 from 10 to more than 100. In a three-month span last year, the company’s usage increased from 16,000 minutes per month to about 500,000.
An engineer by education, Zabetian is a masterful “people person” with a talent for team building. “I know that ideas are only as good as the people who make them manifest.”
One of KUDO’s cofounders is a former chief interpreter of the United Nations, Ewandro Magalhães. He and Zabetian worked together in cities all over the world, with Zabetian setting up the equipment and Magalhães sourcing and assembling teams of qualified interpreters to do the work. Magalhães left the UN to pursue this startup.
KUDO’s other cofounder, Parham Akhavan, is a Silicon Valley engineering savant. Ironically for a technology architect, he thinks from the standpoint of product innovation—a coveted quality for any startup.
No competitors—yet
KUDO is a lone wolf in a very specific niche, with no direct competitors. This is exciting for Zabetian, but he is also well aware that this opens the door for others to come in with new tweaks and more money. As such he felt it was important to invest, grow and—most important—continue to innovate.
“At KUDO, we truly value each team member’s input, and we foster the approach of letting the best idea win,” he says. “It’s also important to consider how this idea sets KUDO apart from others.
“I am passionate about breaking down language barriers. I believe that the smartest and most talented potential hires, greatest customers to acquire, and those lifelong business partners don’t necessarily need to speak my language.
“Every day, we serve as a connector for people worldwide. When businesses, thought leaders, innovators and creatives are able to develop ideas through collaboration, true progress happens. This means that our efforts make others’ dreams and opportunities limitless. I feel good about that.”
Fardad Zabetian
Occupation: Cofounder and CEO, KUDO, Inc.
Born: Tehran, Iran
Home: New York City
Hobbies: Persian calligraphy, soccer, skiing, cycling, whatever sparks my children’s interest
Favorite book: “Monetizing Innovation,” by Madhavan Ramanujam and Georg Tacke
Favorite quote: “Hearing ‘no’ is the beginning of a negotiation.”
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Notable Polyglots
Sigh. We wanted to define polyglot before providing you five A-Listers, but the world can’t seem to agree on what a polyglot is.
The first definition we saw was, “a person who knows and is able to use several languages.” Ilanguages.org says a polyglot is “a person who speaks more than two languages, but used often for four languages or more.” Huh?
There is also a definition of a polyglot as someone who speaks five or more languages (about 1 percent of the world’s population). We’ll stick with that one because it’s easier and more impressive.
J.K. Rowling: We’re cheating already; the heralded “Harry Potter” author speaks four languages. Her mother was half French, so Joanne Kathleen spoke that language as a child. She picked up English and German in school and Portuguese during her travels to Portugal, also marrying a Portuguese man.
Roger Federer: The tennis star speaks Swiss French, Swiss German and Italian as a part of being a Swiss national. He also learned Swedish, as well as English because of all of his travels to America.
Audrey Hepburn: The late silver screen icon spent much of her childhood in the Netherlands, speaking English at home and Dutch everywhere else. She learned Spanish to help her acting career, later moving to Switzerland where she learned French and Italian.
Shakira: Born in Colombia where she learned her native Spanish, the superstar singer’s travels enabled her to also learn English, French, Italian, Arabic and Portuguese. Many of her social media posts are written in different languages.
Natalie Portman: The Academy Award-winning actress was born in Jerusalem. Acting in foreign-language films has played a role (no pun intended) in her learning Japanese, Spanish, German and Arabic, adding to English and her native Hebrew.—Reid Creager
Here’s why your competitor’s invention got on TV—and yours didn’t
Notice that often, the story is not about the product itself but the product as it fits into a relevant story.
BY ALYSON DUTCH
Ever wonder why your competitor’s invention or product got on the local morning show and yours did not? Why that business is burgeoning and yours is not?
Have you ever opened a magazine and seen a two-page profile (with a picture!) about someone in your industry you’ve never heard of?
Did you say to yourself: “Their product isn’t even close to as good as mine!” or “How are they getting this kind attention?”
The reason has nothing to do with how good your product is. It probably has nothing to do with how good their product is.
It’s how you say it
Here’s the deal: The one with the loudest voice wins.
After launching thousands of products during the past 30 years, I’m here to say that’s 100 percent true. I’ve worked with some of the best in their industries, but it’s the company that takes the time to tell its stories to the world that grows.
I recently was flipping through a catalogue at a friend’s house. I saw a leather duffel bag that caught my eye. I came home looking for it online but could find it.
Though there were lots of leather duffels in the first five pages of Google, none were the one I saw in this catalogue. When I returned to that house, I went straight for it and purchased the bag for a Christmas present.
The company was a small one, Moore & Giles, Inc.—a name I’d never heard before. Had it never sent that catalogue, I never would have made that purchase.
Granted, it would have been ideal that the company had bought some pay per click on Google to find it more easily, but it did produce a beautiful catalogue that resulted in a $650 sale.
As far as I know, the Moore & Giles leather duffel bag isn’t any better than the next one. But I really liked it. I saw it in the context of a catalogue that appealed to me and I bought it.
The local morning TV show, magazines, .com ezines, newspaper, radio programs and magazines are actually looking for stories. They need products to review and put into gift guides.
It is entirely possible that you can pick up the phone right now, call a local TV station and get some reporting about your product.
The reason your competitor got the press to sit up and take notice is because it made more noise than you did. Moore & Giles got the word out by producing and distributing a uniquely appealing catalogue.
How to make it happen
Moore & Giles could call a TV station and suggest its CEO be interviewed to give a local list of cool holiday gift suggestions. The company consists of leather specialists, so it might suggest a story about how to buy leather that’s sustainably farmed.
The company also makes luggage, so it may suggest a story about how to pack for holiday travel without airline fees, or how to pack for a honeymoon in the summer when weddings are happening.
A few tips:
While you watch the show, notice that the reporting happens within the context of a story, a trend or a subject matter. The products Peter is talking about are talked about as they relate to that story.
Notice that often, the story is not about the product itself but the product as it fits into a relevant story.
Think about your product. Who are your customers? What specific benefit does your product provide to them? What “pain” does your product solve for your customer?
Loud example
Here is a fun pitch I’ve written that will give you an example of the format I’m talking about:
They are hot. They are smart. They can tell the difference between an Austrian or Washington Riesling with a sniff. They’re all under 35.
On May 22 in Culver City, Wine & Spirits magazine will introduce 10 of the city’s brightest young wine experts to a Gen Y group of wine lovers.
The “Coachella of Wine Events,” the uber-hip Project Ethos will spin a loungey vibe while the magazine’s “Hot Picks” wines from all over the world are presented. There’ll even be a taco truck. Have we whetted your appétit to attend or report?
Once you have something fun and punchy like the above, call the producer at the local TV show and leave the first few lines of your pitch on voicemail with your name and return phone number. Email the pitch.
Keep it short. (No one has time to read the Constitution.)
The idea is to capture someone’s attention. You can give all the information later.
Entrepreneurial superstar Kym Gold is obsessed with innovation, not copycats
“You know you’ve done something right when you get knocked off.”
—Kym Gold, founder of Style Union Home, who sold True Religion Brand Jeans for $835 million
BY ALYSON DUTCH
Kym Gold approaches business and intellectual property with unapologetically maverick style.
Since running her first business—in which she sold clothes on the Venice Beach boardwalk and around college campuses for $50,000 a month—Gold has started five fashion brands. Most notable is the iconic True Religion Brand Jeans, whose company sold for a historic $835 million in 2013.
The author of “Gold Standard: How to Rock the World and Run an Empire,” Gold is one of a triplet set of determined Taurean sisters who crave nothing but the best whether it relates to appearance, smell, sound, touch and taste. She’s a powerhouse of creativity with an unusually non-linear business mind who has turned virtually everything she’s touched since age 18 into, well, gold.
Recently, she moved away from style for the body and toward fashion for the home. Her newest venture, Style Union Home, launched in 2020.
SUH is a line of luxurious, handmade ceramic art pieces from the imagination of a famed designer. Gold said her latest endeavor requires the same set of business skills as fashion, only that now the medium has gone from fabric to clay.
The line, inspired by her mother’s Sunday night dinner Caesar salad bowl, is filled with SKUs that serve dual functions and are so substantial they are meant to be passed from generation to generation.
Telltale thievery
Gold’s uncanny business smarts come with an unconventional perspective on intellectual property that is often shared in the fashion world.
“It’s tough and very expensive to patent something that with one tiny tweak can become distinctive and saleable by a copycat,” she said. “You know you’ve done something right when you get knocked off.”
Gold told a couple of stories from the early-2000s days of the denim empire that illustrate this style industry dilemma.
She walked out of the New York City True Religion store one day and saw a cart street vendor hawking a copy of the company’s white saddle-stitched, large back-pocketed jeans.
Never at a loss for words, Gold approached the seller and said calmly: “Those are my jeans … I designed them.” She asked the vendor to give the jeans a chance to grow before undermining what True Religion built, “or at least go to Canal Street and not sell this stuff in front of my store.”
Gobsmacked by the candid exchange, the rogue vendor obliged and moved off.
Gold also related a funny story about a megastar NBA player with whom she was designing a signature line of clothing. During their meeting, he wore True Religion jeans.
The outspoken designer asked: “What size are those?”
“I’m a 38,” he replied.
She shook her head. “Those are counterfeits. We never made that size.”
Gold found it ironic. “What’s interesting about designer brands is, customers won’t stand for anything that’s not real. They don’t buy fake Cartier or Fendi.”
Although she is one of many fashion entrepreneurs who parrot that IP is not something they spend time and money trying to defend, she did eventually patent the True Religion look.
IP’s fuzzy areas
True Religion was known as one of the first designer jeans that was selling like hotcakes for a whopping $200-plus—among the court of names such as 7 for All Mankind, Paige Jeans and Lucky Brand. Designer jeans were not anything new at that time; before them came industry behemoths such as Chemin De Fer, Jordache and Guess. But True Religion claimed a different kind of red carpet status.
Because the very nature of fashion is to be unique, IP is built into every designer’s creations. In the case of True Religion, Gold engineered jeans with many specifics that made them a favorite for curvy women, attracting voluptuous celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce.
Building for fit was part of her natural creative instinct and something she did for herself.
“I was never model thin, but I did have a booty. Look, anyone can make a stick-thin woman look great, but designing to accentuate the favorable and downplay the flaws of a normal body is no easy task.”
Gold remained true to that commitment in 2014 when she became the first licensee of the Fitlogic Sizing System, invented by Cricket Lee.
By answering five online questions using the internationally patented system, 95 percent of women around the world are able to find their exact size and shape, Fitlogic says. This confidence in perfect fit sizing increases sales and reduces returns to 10 percent or less. The system identifies three basic shapes: high hip curve (slimmer thighs), hourglass (mid-hip curve) and pear-shaped (fuller bottom and upper thighs).
IP can also be considered stylistic and memorable—difficult things to prove when in a court of law. It is easy to remember True Religion’s thick white saddle-stitched jeans with the large back pockets. For Style Union Home, the rough matte, unglazed-with-glazed looks—some with suede braided handles and accents—are as stylistically unique as they come.
Bella Dahl was another of Gold’s brands that created a massive trend by mixing vintage denim with kimono fabric embellishments. This line crowded the racks in the top retailers of the time that held real estate throughout the country: Contempo, Judy’s and the junior sections of every major department store.
Bella Dahl wrote a couple million dollars of new business at its first trade show. The look hit a nerve in a way that has been patentable, but in this case Gold decided to not pursue it.
“At the time, we were buying old Levi’s and making them into something totally unique. Technically, Levi’s might have not liked this, but at that time they saw what we did as a boon to their reputation.”
Gold’s advice to entrepreneurs? “Wait until you have a buying customer, money rolling in and a reason to fear being knocked off.”
Creativity wins
Though True Religion and Bella Dahl were constantly thieved by enterprising knockoff artists globally, Gold calls it the highest form of flattery.
Counterfeiting abounds throughout the world marketplace. Even wine collectors and organic food industries are facing issues.
“In Hong Kong, there are two buildings filled with nothing but counterfeits for every major brand,” Gold said. “Back in the early 2000s when my brands shipped internationally, we used authenticity barcodes when shipping for Customs so they could know it’s real.”
The organic food industry—expected to grow to $305 billion at an annual growth rate of more than 16 percent through 2022—has had issues with distributors receiving conventionally grown food ingredients in one door, stamping them with fake USDA Organic stamps, and the bags going out the other door. A lawsuit involving the USDA organic problem is currently in the U.S. Attorney General’s office.
With the launch of Style Union Home, Gold has spoken with her attorney about IP issues. But her preference is to counteract with innovation: “Style Union Home is filled with interesting innovations that make a home beautiful and functional.”
She designed a soap dish with a little spout that hangs over the side of the sink. Bowls double for holding ice and champagne, fruit, or an armful of flowers. Vases hold kitchen utensils or lavender iced tea. Tri-footed spice holders are so charming on the counter, who would not want to mound pretty pink Himalayan salt or fill them with fragrant cumin seeds?
When something she has created gets copied, Kym Gold moves quickly to the next best thing.
“When I can move faster than the copycats, it’s a good day,” she said. “When you are the first one putting something out, you’re still the first and that gives you more credibility than anyone else.”
Kym Gold
Born: Hollywood, California
Home: Encino, California
Education: Santa Monica College, AA, Business
Business highlights: Founded Bella Dahl (1997-2002), Hippie (2002-2004), Cofounded True Religion Brand Jeans (2002-2009), founded Babakul (2008-2014), founded Style Union Home (2020).
Biggest inspiration: My mom
Favorite book: “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg
Hobbies: Working out, jewelry making, pottery
Favorite quote: “They may forget what you said—but they will never forget how you made them feel.”—Maya Angelou
Without a focus on marketing, inventor/entrepreneurs can succumb to the daily details
As time goes on, your goal is to spend more than 60 percent of your time being the chef and have other team members doing the cooking and bottle washing.
BY ALYSON DUTCH
Becoming an entrepreneur is supposed to be a ticket to freedom and financial independence, right?
No more demanding bosses to please. Morning serenity replaces the sting of a 5 a.m. alarm clock shriek. Malicious office mates are a vague memory. The angst of morning traffic fades. A happy dog snores under the desk.
Pantyhose? Tie? I think not. Best yet, you may get to work in your underwear. These perks are worth their weight in gold, right?
However, while you were dreaming, no one told you that the entrepreneurial adventure would force you into the positions of chef, cook—and bottle washer.
Are you a boss or an operator?
I’ve been in this game since 1996 and can tell you I’ve never worked so hard in my life. All the complaining I did about the apparent easy life of my bosses when I was an employee soon dissipated into a cool sense of compassion.
Having the shoe on the other foot even inspired me to call former bosses—one of whom fired me—apologizing for assuming I understood their role.
One of the hard-learned lessons for most entrepreneurs is how to focus on the forest and less on the trees. In case you’re starting to feel bad reading this, this took me 10 years to understand, let alone do.
So many entrepreneurs spend their days doing the actual work, hiring others to help and zero-time planning, building and scaling.
How can you tell? Here is how I figured it out.
When I met my partner, he would plan grand trips all over the world—adventures that would realistically take at least 3 weeks. If your business is going to suffer without you there for 3 weeks, you’ve not built a company, you’ve just enslaved yourself to being an operator.
It’s OK to remain connected and ensure you have your laptop and a Wi-Fi signal when in Moscow. But if you’re up at 3 a.m. trying to do a conference call with a client in Los Angeles, like I was, that’s not a good sign.
Make yourself known
Your dreams of success, freedom and financial abundance will never become a reality without taking the time to stop doing the business to plan and grow it.
As mentioned before, there are three aspects of any company that must be in place for it to become its own entity: the product (or service), the operations, and marketing to make it all go.
Without these three pillars, which I call the POM Principle, your dreams will crumble.
If you were to sell your company tomorrow, would it stand alone with all the intellectual property, systems and marketing to have value? Would someone be able to unlock the proverbial door and seamlessly keep going and grow?
Even the coolest widget or most intoxicating service will fail without telling potential customers that it exists (the marketing). No company can grow without systems that automate mundane tasks. The most brilliant ideas will not expand unless there is a customer who really wants and needs that product.
The first two of those pillars—the product and operations—usually are set forth in the first few years. Then you spend the rest of your days and budget finding new customers.
Think of it this way. Launching a new product of any kind without marketing is like having a party and forgetting to send invitations. Who will come? Who will know it exists? Worse yet, your competitors who are taking the time to market will stomp you before you have a chance to say, “Who are you?”
In the United States, we live in a very competitive market. No idea is original. Even if it is great. Even if you have customers who are dying for you to solve their problems. If they don’t know you exist, you will wither and fade away.
Buried in bottle washing
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 20 percent of small businesses fail in the first year. Those are the guys who spend their time and money hiring lawyers to get patents and set up corporations without making sure they have a market. They are the people who are so busy making their product and go home dog tired every day but have not thought twice about how to reach their customer.
My company consists of product launch specialists who work with inventors and startups every day. We’ve seen this over and over again.
Starting a business and launching a product is confusing. It’s like having kids; few know what to do. You make it up as you go along.
My business started because I got fired from a PR agency job and was going through a divorce. Who knew that kind of pain would create my dream life in Malibu? I happen to be a marketer, so growing my business was second nature to me.
There are thousands of ways to market your business, but you need to just choose one for now. Once you choose that path, hire a great marketer to do the work and focus on watching all three aspects of your business and make them better.
Go find money to add on the next marketing tactic. Look for partners and relationships with other entities that will expand your footprint. Do that for at least one year until you have a solid customer base, operations humming along smoothly and revenue coming in the door.
After that, you can think about adding more product and other layers of operations and marketing to support that.
Marketing choices abound
Your goal is to remain the chef. You want to have the freedom to create, to be a visionary. You may spend some of your time being the cook, making things happen.
You will still have some moments when you’re washing bottles, but not much. As time goes on, your goal is to spend more than 60 percent of your time being the chef and have other team members doing the cooking and bottle washing.
You’re going to have to make decisions, the best ones that you can, as fast as possible. Use the information that you have to move forward every day.
If you find yourself back in that same familiar place of doing all the work—and worse yet, not being able to delegate to your team, you have had a setback. It’s OK. Take a breath and start over again.
Once you have a product, you know who your customer is and your operations are fairly stable, you’ve got to make marketing method selections.
Here’s a way to make a good decision and do it quickly: Find an approach that’s quick to implement. Look for something that does not require a PhD to understand. Find a tactic that gets you the widest possible spread of communication to your customer as possible.
The most important thing about this first marketing choice is that it provides a way for a customer to transact—give you money. You can do your homework and look into all of these marketing choices, then see what fits:
PR: Cheaper, more effective
I wrote an article titled “Mysteries of Marketing,” which lists a slew of marketing choices, how they work and what they cost.
It’s endless and confusing when you aren’t familiar with it all. I could spend a few hours explaining the entire marketing landscape to you, and maybe I should sometime. But for now, just know that PR is the cheapest marketing method. It’s also the most effective and believable to your customer.
You can start with advertising, but I do not recommend it. First, it’s the most expensive way to go. Second, every kind of paid advertising loses credibility in customers’ minds because they know you paid for the space and can say whatever you want.
This includes influencers. Everyone knows they are paid to fawn over a sweater or recommend a mascara; it’s not a real opinion but a biased advertisement. But if your product is mentioned in an article, in a TV or radio report, it gives context and information that is perceived as objective. Your customers get to make their own decision about why it’s helpful to them.
I know this, because PR is what I do for a living. But there is an integral part of this process that you can do yourself. You can write your own press release. You can send it to the media and try to persuade it to report about you.
You don’t have to be Richard Branson for the press to report about your product!
The chef/cook/bottle washer syndrome must be in your control if you want to succeed.
Former actress Amanda Horan Andereck invented seamless bra that eliminates back bulges
Andereck created a prototype from a pair of control-top pantyhose and cups she snipped from an old bra, found a manufacturer, and created the product.
“You can have the best product on the planet, and if no one knows about it, you will not succeed.”
—Amanda Horan Andereck
BY ALYSON DUTCH
“I’ve always had a bit of a shopping habit,” says Amanda Horan Andereck, the former co-star of TV’s “B.J. and the Bear,” one of Calvin Klein’s first models at 16, and current CEO of Sassybax.®
One day in a dressing room, she tried on a tight sweater and noticed the unsightliness caused by her bra straps. So she invented an undergarment to eliminate visible bra lines and became a fashion solution maven, the first to eradicate the look of what many women call “back fat.”
Andereck strived to create a seamless bra, which 44 manufacturers told her could not be done. Her inspiration came from control-top pantyhose: She cut off the legs, flipped them upside down, and slipped them over her head. She put her arms through the leg holes, cut apart her bra and slipped the cups inside, anchoring them with a few hand stitches.
After trying on that tight sweater again, she had completely eliminated the bra strap indentations.
This was the beginning of a wild success story, eventually starring a 360-degree knitting machine that could knit in contours and bra-cup type support. This piece of technology became a seamless garment-making icon now used by popular brands Lululemon, Nike, Athletica and many others.
Her Sassybax brand, founded in 2004, was quickly adopted by women nationally; Neiman Marcus was its first customer. She sold $1 million of product within the first year from her garage in Marina Del Rey, California. The brand soon became an intimates staple at other iconic retailers.
Overwhelming satisfaction
When internet sales began to burgeon, many in the fashion industry never believed that people would buy clothing online because they were used to trying it on.
Andereck says that assumption is particularly false for the intimates sector, especially because women abhor trying on bras.
“If it doesn’t fit, you have to put all your clothes back on, after which the dressing room locks behind you,” says Andereck, who knows how people think after seven years as a clinical psychologist. “You’ve gotta go out to the floor to see if you can find another size and then, if you’re lucky, you’ll find one of the three sales associates staffing an entire department store floor to let you back into the locked dressing room.
“Women hate the experience. It’s worse than trying on jeans and bathing suits.”
When the retail business began to wane more seriously in 2012, Andereck noticed that her online sales were growing and boasted a smashingly low return rate. Most e-tailers plan for up to a 50 percent return rate, but Sassybax bras hit such a nerve for women that the return rate was a stunning 2 percent.
No one-hit wonder
With dozens of appearances on major TV shows and movies during the 1980s and early ’90s, Andereck always avoided the “one-hit wonder” syndrome. This is also a potential pitfall for entrepreneurs; retailers often turn away brands that don’t have a larger catalogue from which to choose.
Andereck started with the “no back fat bra” she called the Bralette that came in four sizes and four colors, then added length on the body of the design for a mid- and complete-torso option. From there, she used the same seamless knitting technique to craft booty-lifting leggings, and racerback and strapless bras. In 2007, she received a U.S. patent for the unique knit structure she developed to incorporate into her company’s leggings and bottom shapers.
Sassybax eventually expanded its catalogue—developing a line of pretty lingerie-looking shapewear, arm- and thigh-shaping undergarments, slips, briefs, camisoles and tummy-taming thongs.
But as time marched on, she listened more carefully to her customers and decided to get back to basics and hyper-focus on Sassybax’s core products that women voraciously continued to order: the bras.
A patent? Not always
Andereck is a no-frills, tell-it-like-it-is business owner. Having grown up in Kansas and Minnesota, she says she’s “a Midwesterner by ethic.”
Though today she focuses on running the business, she has performed every function from designing to delivery, legal to accounts payable and inventory to marketing.
She generally does not believe in patents in the garment industry. “Sale is proof of utility, and that’s what matters,” she says.
There are important reasons for her not to pursue a patent on her main product: “Patenting in the garment industry is a false sense of security, because someone can change something ever so slightly on that garment and then sell it to compete with your product—and that’s legal. Shocking, but those are the facts.
“In addition, patent law is wildly expensive, with the possibility of long, drawn-out legal battle that’s nearly impossible to prove.”
Marketing is queen
Andereck’s experience as an actress helped her understand the crucial importance of marketing. She says Hollywood agents agreed that “no one went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
“A lot of companies have been built on genius marketing and less-than-genius products. You can have the best product on the planet, and if no one knows about it, you will not succeed. Though no one plans to have a mediocre product, it is true that a less-than-amazing product with brilliant marketing wins every time.”
She has always made her products in America, having personally witnessed what she says is an unhealthy emphasis on work in Chinese factories.
“I was saddened that the factory employees were treated as if all that mattered was work. The factories are owned by their government, and they are expendable workers. … That’s what kept me from manufacturing there.”
She refused to use toxic fabric dyes, such as the ones used in Chinese factories. For a product such as Sassybax, an undergarment that sits directly on the skin, she felt it imperative that the dyes were non-toxic. Consumers are looking for products that match this health value, so her marketing is changing to bring this to light.
Inspirational resiliency
As the coronavirus pandemic dawned, consumers’ points of view have changed dramatically, Being tone-deaf to this could alienate a consumer base; it’s crucial to communicate with customers in a way that makes them feel they are heard and seen.
Often, people schooled in adversity grow into those who are the most resilient and adaptable—the two foremost qualities inherent in the most successful entrepreneurs. Andereck was a Miss Texas USA and a TV star whose personal life was followed in the tabloids, but she is no stranger to adversity.
She built Sassybax through the fallout of being diagnosed with two cerebral aneurysms “that I chose to have surgically corrected via two separate brain surgeries at UCLA, to avoid them rupturing and possibly killing me. Due to brilliant surgeons and Screen Actors Guild insurance which paid $300,000, I am 100 percent corrected and kicking!”
She earned her degree in psychology and built a practice in Los Angeles before getting into the bra business.
She is a woman who never takes no for an answer and is filled with more moxie than most. Perhaps it is a Midwest upbringing that develops a personality like this—but regardless, it is a blueprint for success that most would be fortunate to follow.
Born: New York City
Title: Founder and CEO, Sassybax
Education: Bachelor’s degree in psychology, Master’s in clinical psychology
Awards: Miss Texas USA, 2nd runner-up Miss USA
Acting experience: 33 TV and movie credits, including “B.J. and the Bear,” “Cheers,” “The A Team,” “Hart to Hart,” “CHiPS,” “Matt Houston,” “The Fall Guy,” “Fantasy Island,” “Remington Steele,” “Quantum Leap”
Other work experience: Ran a consultant practice for women’s issues
Interests: Charitable causes involving breast cancer, human rights, the Humane Society