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

By Alyson Dutch

Marketing. Sales. PR. Promotions. Online marketing. Guerilla tactics. Direct response TV. What does it all mean and how do you know which is for you? Never fear, the product launch maven is here to reveal the truth and help you navigate this new process of getting your product into the right hands. Talk about the right hands — that, in a nutshell, is what marketing is. But before I go into details, let’s start from the beginning and back up to a 10,000 feet view and you can see this in context.

Every company, or creator of a product/service, consists of 3 parts: the product itself, the operations and the marketing. The product or service includes everything it takes to have a tangible thing/service; this may include the research and development, the creation of the prototype, sourcing of materials, manufacturing, packaging and inventory systems. Operations are all of the systems and people it takes to make a business run. At the moment, those “people” are probably only you and perhaps a few outside vendors or independent contractors. Included in the operations of a company are the systems that in the viewpoint of Ray Croc (creator of McDonald’s and the master of replication) are 100% repeatable and anyone, with instruction, can re-create. And, speaking of Ray Croc, he’s one cat you should read about; I recommend Grinding it Out: The Making of McDonald’s by Ray Kroc. Did you know that McDonald’s isn’t a restaurant, but one of the most brilliantly executed operational marvels of our lifetime? Aside from reading about him, I had the good fortune of learning this from my uncle who was his VP of Marketing back in the 50’s when McDonald’s was just getting started in Ohio. He has some incredible stories about their early days that I’ll share with you another time. Operations are systems for your company developed to stand alone without you. If the operations manual for your company was handed over in exchange for a nice fat check when you’re ready to exit, it would be a turnkey business for someone else to run and grow. Marketing is anything you do to get that product into the hands of not only someone who wants and needs your product, but will happily and easily pay you for it. So, therefore, what marketing modalities every company chooses will be different.

So, follow the logic here (and by the way, it is backwards), if the marketing is based on who your paying customer is, who are they? Do you have some good guesses about where they are? What makes them tick? Do you know why they want, or better yet, do they need your product? There are many questions to ask yourself about your customer, much of which will be conjecture in the beginning, but as soon as you have up to three customers, two of whom are similar, you’ve got a line to go on.

Here’s a big secret: as you are developing your product, begin developing a picture and list of attributes of your customer. And, do not take one step further, or spend another dime, until you are exceedingly clear on this. I cannot tell you how many entrepreneurs I meet who have a great solution for some problem they’ve experienced and are so incredibly enamored with it, they don’t care what anyone thinks (except waxing poetic about why it’s so incredible). Guess what? That’s not a business; that’s a vanity project; and an expensive one. If you are truly interested in making a scalable product/service that becomes your retirement, the only thing you should care about is your customer and why they will want to pay you for something. So, if your customer thinks that the shoe laces on your new sneaker should be green instead of blue, or the design needs to change, you better darned well do it. Why? Because they are your customer and you have no business without customers.

So, let’s focus on marketing. What exactly is it? How does it work? What are its many faces? It starts with the “marketing umbrella,” under which there are many different ways to get your product into the hands of the customer who will pay you for it. Here is a list of some of the different varieties of marketing:

Sales / distribution *

Advertising

PR

Promotions

Guerrilla tactics

Online marketing

Social networking

Sampling

Trade shows

Word of mouth

Email marketing

E-marketing

Direct response TV

Direct mail

Special events

Viral marketing

Networking

Professional associations

Awards and recognition

Referral programs

Network marketing

Pay Per Click

Search Engine Optimization

And, the list goes on.

So, how do you know which method will work best for your product? Should you employ one or perhaps several of them together? This is a question that only you can answer based on who your customer is and where you think they gather in numbers. It may be that your target customer is someone who hangs out at the Moose Lodge. So guess what? Sampling your product there is a good idea. You may have an online business that sells a product that is desired by those who ride the bus every day. So, your marketing should probably be on buses and on bus benches. Just because you have an online business, by the way, does not necessarily mean that you only market online. You certainly want to ensure that you are directing traffic to your website, but it better be from those bus riders. Maybe they are online buying bus tickets. See how that works? You just think backwards and it becomes quite easy. It’s not rocket science; but it’s incredibly practical.

A few words about *sales. Like all the other modalities I mentioned above, sales is also a method used to get a product into the hands of someone who wants to buy it, but it’s the one marketing aspect in this list that is 100% necessary, no matter who your customer is. As for the rest of the list, you have choices about which to use. You have no business without sales.

When you start a company, the marketing is an integral part of the launch. The best way to approach it is to create a marketing mix. Use an Excel sheet to list all the marketing methods you might use to find your customer. Choose the ones that you can afford first and build from there.

If you’d like a sample of a marketing mix and descriptions of all the marketing methods above, go to The PR Handbook for Entrepreneurs website and click on the banner for Inventors Digest readers. My special gift to you.

Have you ever noticed that trade shows are often a conglomeration of brands who have difficulty conveying what the heck they do? I’ve seen this first hand in the tech industry where the catchphrase “better solution” runs amok…

A Review of Cosmoprof and MAGIC 2018 – By Alyson Dutch

Have you ever noticed that trade shows are often a conglomeration of brands who have difficulty conveying what the heck they do? I’ve seen this first hand in the tech industry where the catchphrase “better solution” runs amok… Or the food business where words like “organic” and “non-GMO” constantly shriek “I’m here!” But nowhere can you find actual thing a company does, makes or provides. As a marketer, I wonder why brands don’t prioritize differentiation while surrounded in a sea of competition. How else will consumers spot them? My curiosity piqued, I took two back-to-back trips to Las Vegas to experience the legendary Cosmoprof and MAGIC trade shows, bastions of the beauty and fashion business. In these highly creative worlds, I expected to see the most dazzling, unique marketing. The following documents my mid-summer, 108-degree traipses to the City of Sin.

Cosmoprof: a medium-sized show replete with must-be-seen beauty products from skincare potions to hair fixes, makeup cases to Hello Kitty eyelashes held in the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. The media center was wonderful, friendly and even fed the journalists who gathered for their stories. After a day and a half, I found myself nonplussed. Then, just as I saw Kylie Jenner walk past in fatigues with the roundest, most bouncy (and large) derriere I’ve ever seen, I stumbled upon a glorious find. At the very back of the show was a new product pavilion brimming with titillating new product companies, each one better and more interesting than the next. I wandered past the ones that caught my eye and stopped to ask what they were doing for their marketing. I was delighted to find inventive packaging and impressive product development.

First, I met the CEO of an established and elegant Montreal bath ritual company. I was uncontrollably drawn in upon seeing his magical polar bear-branded, non-allergenic baby line. The branding was so beautiful, it seemed you could puff snow flurries off the nose of the white furry fellow. The Boule du Neige (“snowball” in French) line was charming beyond words. Ah, I thought, these guys are doing a great job using packaging that pulls on the heartstrings of soft-hearted – and worried – new moms.

Next, I couldn’t help but notice an impeccably dressed New York investment banker whose family in Carrera, Italy supplies him with stunning customized marble bottle caps for his apothecary-styled skin oil brand. His positioning: a brilliant explanation of how cremes are just a watered-down version of oils and filled with all kinds of unnecessary ingredients. Again, the incredible packaging was so truly different and his brand story, well honed, pithy – and true. The bottles were also magically shaped and stood out among the sea of things one might see on a modern beauty shelf.

A Finnish entrepreneur with fun Hello Kitty pink high heels had created a line called SuperMood. Her line of ingestibles and topicals were inspired from one’s sadness, excitement, joy – or need for sleep. Her “Beauty Sleep” supplements in their simple, antique-twinged branding were fascinating and wonderful.

Then, around the corner, I spotted a few Fanta machines swirling around a delicious looking cool tea-like elixir; in it: collagen powders in refreshing lavender flavors! Who would think that you could drink your beauty regime? Thanks to Vital Proteins, it’s now possible. Gotta love powdered beauty vitamins.

Next, I ran into Gina, a spikey short-haired, atomic-blonde hairdresser whose styling tools are about to launch on the Home Shopping Network. She’s got some serious marketing smarts. Her publicist explained how they are launching a line of hair styling tools, using her 8000 employees in her 400 salons to upsell her product. Though they retail for $200+, this gal had it goin’ on in the marketing department. Brilliant distribution choices and using her big personality for a differentiation platform was as good as it gets.

Back outside on the floor, I was just saying to myself how bored I’d become. I floated listlessly past one eye shadow purveyor after the other, when I stopped at a familiar and beautiful brand known for their high-end Hawaiian pedigree. The Charlie Brown “wah, wah, wah,” pounded in my ears as the owner extolled their “innovative” marketing techniques: “we’re using influencers to convey our skincare solutions…..”

I was ready for lunch – or to leave altogether.

After a long sigh, I looked up to be absolutely delighted by The Vintage Cosmetics Company, a UK beauty tool darling. Their booth beamed and made me smile at the Daily Candy-esqe drawn women, lots of pink and white vertical stripes and tiny flower-dotted wallpaper-edged packaging. It was so refreshingly retro, reminding me of a home brand I adore called Nellies.

I flew home to Los Angeles for a week and returned this time for MAGIC, the fashion industry’s darling of gatherings. I’d never been and was looking forward to seeing what jewels lie ahead.

After a hoping to get some recommendations from the exhibition publicists in the Media Center, who had no direction to provide, I slowly meandered to the trade show floor.

I admit that my curiosity was momentarily shanghaied by the sight of the ChainXChange, featuring Steve Wozniak, but back to the fashion industry show I went. After a few hours relishing in the fascination of what’s happening on the edge of blockchain technology, the fashion business paled in comparison, but I did find a few things that were indeed dazzling.

I wandered past scads of jersey casual wear lines, innocuous shoes from China, plenty of trucker hats with cute sayings on them and a lot of sock companies donning animal faces, and each even fuzzier than the next. Unsurprisingly, I spotted many rhinestone cashmere hat companies.

A Romanian banker who moon lights as a designer presented a line of exquisite organza capes with a fascinating pressed felt technology she’d created. Though she could barely speak English, all I wanted to do was take her to New York with me and get her incredible apparel in front of the fashion reporters at Harper’s Bazaar; I am certain they too would have drooled. “But,” her British sales guy said: “we have no sales yet, we want to get a pulse from the buyers here first before we start our marketing.” Good thoughts and an excellent test, I thought, a trade show is the perfect place to get a valuable reading.

Next, I stumbled up on a handbag company with a few shelves of the most interesting wares. They had re-imagined fancy cork wallpapers into fabrications for bags that were crisp and incredible. The Chinese creator was so proud of the transformation – and she should have been.

The funny thing about fashion is that it really is just a copy cat show of “interpretations” of color, shape and timeline trends. The truly original ones were the ones that I noticed because they were doing something newsworthy – not just another collegiate-styled shoe line.

As I checked to make sure I had enough phone battery left for an Uber to the airport, the last booth made my jaw drop. “Did I just see Barbie clothes for real girls?” Sure enough, a vintage clothing designer with a 60-person staff doing classics from the 50’s and 60’s had gotten her paws on a “collaboration deal” with Mattel. She’d taken all the classic Barbie outfits, dresses and handbags and made them into a line of gorgeous apparel. A marketing genius, she even had the original Barbie dolls in their glass cases, which she had managed to wrest from the Mattel vault to show the doll to real-girl comparison.

There were the many, many duds I found at both shows as well: lazy marketers who didn’t understand what I meant by asking what they were doing for their marketing. The Tommy Bahama marketing people were flummoxed by my question. I had to give them an example of what I was asking: “you know how your brand created the Marlin Bars? I’ve been to your restaurant in Palm Springs and think it was a brilliant way for your brand to convey the Tommy Bahama lifestyle.” She looked at me blankly.

I left.Good marketing means that you know what your customer wants and then you find them in the places where they hang out. It can show up in the form of how one creates a product or designs the packaging – language, images, colors, representation. You may use inexpensive (but expansive!) PR, or make buys with influencers, but for God’s sake… DO something interesting – and do something that makes your customers salivate. If you really dial it in well, you will get them to pull out their credit card faster than you can say: “I need a booth” for one of these giant shows. When you do, please make sure that your booth conveys exactly what you do, for fear that some cranky marketing reporter, like me, will come by and request: “what do you do for your marketing?”