Free Zone

Foreign.

Welcome, everybody, to another edition of CPG Insiders. I am your host, Dr. Mark Young, with my co host standing by, Justin Gerard, who has graced us with his presence.

Oh, wow. You're welcome. You're welcome, everyone.

I am so honored to see you here.

I know, I know, I know. Oh, good.

So, Justin, we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about a Strategic coach thing today.

Yeah.

For those of you that aren't familiar with Strategic Coach, Strategic Coach is the number one business coaching operation in the world, founded by Dan Sullivan and his wife, Babs Smith. When you think about a business coach, you think about a guy who like, you know, shows up at your office and talks to your people and stuff. This is a coaching operation with about 165 employees.

I mean, it's amazing.

Yeah. And it's, it's a huge operation. Dan's a brilliant thinker. He's become a dear friend. In fact, we do a podcast together, another podcast together called American Happiness. And Dan has some great thinking in a lot of areas, and we want to share one of those today. And the area is called Free Zone. Now, I happen to be a member of the actual Free Zone group. There's only about 50 of us, and it's 50 of the most innovative entrepreneurs in the world. I mean, it's, it's. The things that people are doing in that group are amazing.

Yeah.

But we're going to talk about what the concept of the free zone is. So we think about a free zone, some people also will refer to as a blue ocean? And here's what, here's what it amounts to. One, how do you find a space? How do you find a lane that your business can operate in where you cease to have direct competition? That's step one. Step two is how do you elevate that business to such an extent that the people who you would have previously considered as a competitor now actually want to become a customer or a collaborator?

Yeah.

And the other concept of the Free zone is collaboration. So I'm going to cover that one really quick. Collaboration is very different than partnerships.

Explain the difference.

So partnership is you and I get together, we both put some money in, we start this business.

Okay.

Okay. We're partners. Collaboration, which is, which happens a lot in the Strategic Coach. Free Zone is more based on you have a working company that is a cash confident, successful business with a specific set of unique skills. You have a free zone. Okay, you are meeting with other people who have free zones, but their unique ability is something different. Two Three, four of you look at what you do and you realize, boy, if I combined what you do and we combined it with what what I do, look at this new third thing we could put together that would be better than what both of us are separate and another free zone.

It sounds very much like Dean Jackson's theory.

Well, Dean's a part of the free zone.

Right, Right.

So when we, when we think about this, we're really talking about two or more companies, people getting together. They're going to do something bigger, better, greater than they've done. And as a rule, cash and profitability are number three or number four on the list of what's important. And the reason is, is because both collaborators are already cash confident with their current businesses. So I'm not doing this because I need payroll. I'm not doing this because I need the money.

Right.

I have money. I'm doing this because this is going to allow me to do something bigger, better and greater for my industry, for mankind, for whatever the case is. We're going to develop something that's going to be bigger and better than ever. So that's the collaboration side. Now let's talk about the free zone side. When we think about consumer packaged goods. Consumer packaged goods as a rule is very commodity driven. And that's why there are so many store brands of so many products. So as an example, let's think about hydrocortisone. So hydrocortisone is obviously a popular product for topical itch. Most consumers view hydrocortisone as a commodity.

Yeah, it's the same stuff.

It's 4% of a drug in a cream that I can rub on my itchy body.

Yeah.

And if you look at the category, so if we go to IRI or to Nielsen scan data, we see that store brand is actually the number one seller in the category. Now you've got companies in the place in the market, like, what is it, Cortisone 10 or Cort 10, which would be, you know, the brand in it. Yeah. But chemically they're not really any different than the store brand. Pretty similar.

Yeah, it's pretty the same stuff.

The inert ingredients might be a little different. Maybe they use cheaper lotion, whatever the case is.

Yeah.

So that's not the area that you want to play in with your consumer packaged goods. So the space you want to play in, if at all possible, is a free zone. So what is a free zone? Well, a free zone would be what if we could enter into a commodity space? So we'll call it, you Know what? I'm going to use an example from years past. I'm going to use the hairspray category.

Okay.

So we had a client in the hairspray category, hundreds of skus in the category. Lots of big players, lots of, lots of commodity players, lots of super cheap players like Aquanet and White Rain. And then in the space you have the salon brands. So if you go to retail, the salon brands are sitting on a shelf by themselves. And that's where you have big sexy, where you have Sebastian, Paul Mitchell. Those are in the salon category. So the particular client that we had was called Salon Graphics. And they were number 376 in IRI when they became a client. Eventually after about four years, we got them to be number one. But they had a free zone. And the free zone they had was simply this. Sebastian, which is a salon product at that time sold for between 15 to $20 a can.

Okay. Okay.

Aquanet sold for 99 cents a can. And by the way, the Aqua Net can was probably bigger.

Okay. Disgusting to think about, but you can't go on.

So pretty, pretty big.

That's huge.

Big price gap, right?

Yeah, that's huge.

So one of the things that we know about premiums is usually the difference between the lowest price and the top price is usually 10x.

Pretty consistent.

But the cost to make the top product versus the lower product is 4x.

Yeah.

So what our client did is our client actually went to the same factory, the same plant that formulated and can Sebastian, and they redid it, called Salon Graphics in a can, packaged very similar white and black font. White, black font on a white can to look like Sebastian. And we went to market at 9.95.

Okay.

And sometimes, you know, with bogos and discounts get down to six bucks.

Right.

So the marketing we put in place was we. Our first television commercial was everybody knows salon products are the best. Okay, what is that a universal truth?

Yep.

But $15 for a can of hairspray, what's that? That's another universal truth, man. That's a lot of money for a can of freaking hairspray.

Yep.

Then the talent actually took a can of Sebastian, tossed it off screen, picked up a bottle, a can of Salon Graphics and said salon Graphics is the same great formula as the best salon products, but at half the price. That was it. That was the entire spot. So the free zone they occupied is for them. And now you. As you know, we did that 20 years ago. 20 plus years ago. And we changed the industry because now, you know, think about how many Brands are on the market now which are salon quality products at an affordable price. But in this particular case, the client started that trend. They were the first to come out with salon quality at a retail price. So my challenge to people is, where's your space now? Your space doesn't always have to be about price. So that's not the only way to have a free zone.

And that was going to be my next question. So leveraging that example, which is a great example to, to again, as you talked about in the beginning, free zone, similar to Blue Ocean. And they're, they, they're kind of in similar veins. But for all of our listeners, what do you believe the process is like for them to try to identify what their potential free zone is?

Well, this gets back to something that we've covered in previous episodes where we talked about, you know, the organizing idea for a company when we've talked about what is your reason for existing. So if your reason for existing is I make body lotion and I came up with body lotion, I want to get rich doing it, which, by the way, is actually not a bad goal.

It's not terrible.

But as a consumer, it doesn't speak to me. I'm not interested in your wealth.

Right.

I'm interested in my wealth and I'm interested in my outcomes. So the question becomes, when we're trying to discover this, I think first the brand has to figure out who they are, what they stand for and what are they, what do they do better than anybody else? And I would go one step further and say, what is the hill they're willing to die on?

Interesting.

And, and I'm going to tell you why I say that. Let's take a look at black rifle coffee.

Well, and I was going to wonder, like, what do you even mean by that statement?

Like, black rifle coffee is a line of coffee started by military veterans.

Yeah.

Right. All military vet owners. All military vet employees. A product made for people who love the military, are proud of America and are patriotic and love blowing crap up.

Yeah.

That was a hill they were willing to die on. Because when I say they were willing to die on, they were willing to let half of the country go away.

Yeah, that's fair.

So I don't mean literally dying, but. But it is. They're willing to say, we. So we are so sold on who we are.

Right.

We are so organic. We are so authentic in our mission, in our goal, in who our customer is, and we want to so serve our community, which in this case was military. And people military Families and people that support the military. Part of their profits went to, you know, to veterans. We so believe in this, that it's okay if half of the country says, you know, screw those people, I don't want anything to do with them.

Right. Well, it's interesting because again, what you just said, what I heard anyway, maybe not what you said, but what I heard is that it's, it's the foundation of understanding, again, who you are, your purpose, what you stand for, understanding who the customer is, what their values are. And then you use the word service. You said, what do you serve? Right. So again, it's about value creation. Right. Even getting back to Salon Graphics, that example, that was about value creation. It was, yes. We found, I mean, at the foundation of it, we found that we can make this product at a price that we can still sell at a lower price than them and still be profitable. But there were still at that time giving customers access to a product at a price that they never had access to it before. So they were serving. Yes, they were making money at the same time, but who is not? But that wasn't the point. It wasn't what, slang, you know, as much hairspray as we can. They were providing value and how.

The goal is, the goal of Salon Graphics was we're going to provide a line of hair care fixatives that are equal, equal or better in value in formulation to anything bought in a salon. And we're going to make that affordable to the middle class and the people who can't afford.

Right.

Or are not willing to spend 15 and $20 on every can of hairspray.

Yeah, well, and that's, you know, that was always the one part of when, when you first, you know, brought free zone, the concept of free zone back from strategic coach here years ago. What always stuck with me was that that end goal that it really talked about was. And you talked about it here, but about creating new value. Right. It was not about necessarily, it was not about the me toos of the world. Right. It was what is, what is something new? What's something innovative that we can create that only we are creating? And then you talk about the collaboration, which is, that's even. That's multiplying. Right. That's how now we can go to someplace no one else has really ever thought of or gone before together.

Well, let's look at Dan Sullivan's model of entrepreneurship. There are entrepreneurs and there are people that are self employed.

Yep.

Okay. I could run a barber shop and own it. I'm not an entrepreneur. I'm a self employed barber.

Right. Which is great. That's what you want to do.

So when we look at, if we look at the word. So the word first came into the vocabulary is a French word that first came into the vocabulary or in the 1800s, late 1800s. And the word means someone who takes something from a lower level and raises it to a higher level. That's literally what the word means. So these are people who have vision, who look at a space that is at, let's say, sea level and then they figure out, how can we elevate this? And that's the word I want you to think about. How can we elevate this category? And by elevate, elevate the experience, elevate the relationship, elevate the product, elevate the outcomes, elevate the delivery. That's entrepreneurship. And when we think about entrepreneurs, every great entrepreneur has a secret. And the secret is I know how to do something or make something better than anyone else in the world. And with all the entrepreneurs that we deal with here all the time, what's your opinion of the ones who show up and say, well, we just made this product and we say, what's unique about it? Not much. It's pretty much like the other 10 on the market. But we're going to wrap it in a pink bottle. No. Once in a while that works.

Yeah, I mean, I never want to use the word never because every once.

In a while, once in a while it works. But that's not really entrepreneurship. That's not really elevating something from one level to a new level.

Now it's not.

So when you're thinking about your products, how are you going to elevate the category? There is no money in being a me too product, especially for the majority of the people listening for this broadcast. Because here's the simple truth of it.

Race to the bottom and you can't win.

You cannot win this because you will never have the manufacturing clout of Procter and Gamble.

It's never gonna happen.

P and G can make a bar of soap or a bottle of hair shampoo.

Right.

Cheaper than you will ever hope to do this.

Yeah, it's never going to happen.

So that, that is not entrepreneurship. That is not elevating the category. So now it becomes let's use the bar of soap. Well, P and G owns Ivory Soap, which of course is a major brand. Can you make soap that's better. Can you make soap that's, that's, you know, GMO free. That's chemical free that, you know, that improves the skin. That's going to help me with these conditions. How do you elevate the category?

Right.

The second thing, Justin, you asked, how do people find out? Well, the second reason. The second thing to do is you need to do a lot of research on the category you're in.

Yeah.

So what's the category? How big is it? How many people are playing in it? Who are the big players? What are the unique voices of the. Of the 10 or 20 biggest players? Because I guarantee you that if you start analyzing them, you will find out that. That 10 companies selling pasta sauce are not selling it to 10 of the exact same people.

Right, right. Even in a category like that, which has such massive household penetration, that there can be a lot of crossover and there is a lot of substitute still.

But. But the hardcore Raos buyer is not the hardcore Ragu buyer, and the Ragu buyer is not the Prego buyer, and the Prego buyer is not the Botticelli buyer.

They're very different.

Now, can you take a Prego buyer and make them a Botticelli buyer? Yes, if you. If you are like Botticelli and you elevate the experience.

Yes.

So in the case of Botticelli, who is a client here, Botticelli has taken the steps of growing their own tomatoes, farming them at the farm. Their. Their kitchens are within 15 minutes of the farm. Fresh raw tomatoes go right into the. The vats. And they're delivering product that was made with fresh tomatoes. But they're doing it at a kind of a Prego kind of price.

Yeah, yeah. A little bit higher, but a little higher.

So they've elevated the experience.

Yes.

Now, when we look at Rao's, actually, the Botticelli product is actually a better product.

It is.

Than the Rao's product. So what is Rao selling? Rao's is selling the restaurant experience because Rao's is a famous group of restaurants in New York. So that's what they're selling. They're selling. You may not be able to fly to New York and get a reservation at Rao's. Right. Because it might take you three months to get a reservation at Rao's.

Right.

But you can have that experience at home. Completely different story now, by the way, there's room for Rao's, there's room for Botticelli, there's room for Ragu. They don't have to put each other out of business, but they have to understand we are sometimes competing for a customer, but for the most part, we have our own niche. In this category, there's a group of people who. Who like what we're about.

Right.

And for Botticelli, on top of being all fresh, it is made in Italy. So it is the experience of I'm having pasta sauce that is really made in Italy.

Right.

And shipped to me.

Absolutely. Well. And to your point, you know, like, I'll use another example of one of our clients here. So. So we have a client right now that is in the false lashes category, and they've been doing well, they've been selling well. They're sitting right in the middle of the pack, and they're great people who are trying to think, how can. How can we make this process easier? How can we innovate the experience when it comes to false lashes for everyone? Because it's still not approachable for everyone. And you can see that, folks, where can we do. So they innovated a new product into the category that is easier to use, that lasts longer, and all of a sudden, they're seeing that they are bringing in consumers that were not in the category at all.

Good point. My wife and I were at a CVS store over the weekend, and we were walking by the eyelash category, and I mentioned to her, yeah, we have a new client in who's in the eyelash business. And her comment was, I just cannot use those things because they're too difficult for me, and I get glue all over my eyelid, and I make a mess out of them, and I just can't do it. Yep.

Yeah. And. And so it wasn't the fact that there wasn't the desire from other consumers to get the results. I mean, look at the eyelash extension business. Massive. Right. But people pay for that. Because I want to do this. I'm not gonna. I can't do this myself, but I'll go pay to do it. And so they found a way to completely innovate the category with that, with a new product. That is. That is when you think about category expansion. Right. And it's what they can own. And that's what we're talking to them about right now. As far as where to go is we're getting back to those core questions that you talked about earlier, which is, who are you as a brand? Why do you exist? What are the value creation and that? And what is the experience that you're trying to create, the connection you're trying to create? Because that's how you can take the innovation that you've done at the product level, and now you can own the entire experience. So that when somebody else figures it out, doesn't matter, because they're not you. They're not making the connection that you're creating. They're. And so therefore, you have the ability now to. To your point, from a beauty standpoint, find other collaborators that they could work with, other brands they could work with. And. And they could be creating a whole new. A whole new, you know, experience, because they are focused on the eye only. But there's so much more that could be happening here.

Right. Could they collaborate with a company that specializes in eyebrows?

Exactly.

Collaborate with a company specializes in makeup. Or.

Or, you know, there's so many opportunities. Right.

Yeah. When we. And when we think about this. So. So where I'm trying to get people's heads in is, again, we have to do the research. And the research is, how big is this category? Who are the big players?

Yep.

What are the lanes that the big players own? Because I assure you, they all own a different lane. They're not all, believe me, they are not all bringing in the exact same consumer, even though they're in the exact same category. Now, as we analyze this, and this is something we do here, as we analyze this, we look for the holes in the market. Where are the opportunities? And this gets. Gets down to how it's interesting how different companies make things. Some companies make products because we know how to make this.

Right.

We know how to do it. So let's keep making more stuff without an eye towards, does anyone need this thing?

Right.

Because I don't know if anybody needs it, but damn it, I know how to make it. Then there are companies who go out and they search the marketplace and they find the opportunity and then they fill the need. Now I'm going to make the product that fills the need. This, as a rule, is the better way to go, but it's not the way most products come about.

Right.

In the invention and in the area of inventions and entrepreneurs, many times the products came because you were solving a problem for yourself or someone close to you.

Yeah.

I look at Fell by the name of Abraham. He's a doctor and he created. We worked with him long ago. He created the product or game.

Yep.

He created or game because he. He got cancer.

Right.

As a doctor, and he was losing weight through his chemotherapy and the radiation. And his oncologist. Now keep in mind, he's a doctor. His oncologist told him he needed to start using meal replacement drinks to up his calorie intake and his protein. So he started looking at boost and insure and all this stuff. And he realized the stuff was all sugar. Now he's a doctor, he's asking himself the question, why would I give sugar to a cancer patient?

Right.

Since cancer feeds on glucose. So here's a doctor fighting cancer, which if you've ever or known anyone who's been through chemo and radiation, you're pretty beat up.

Yeah.

But he was a young guy, by the way, Very young guy at the time. Here's this guy now. He's in his kitchen and he's trying to figure out, how can I make protein drinks that won't grow my cancer and will solve my problem of being under caloried and under protein? And he came up with his own formula and he beat cancer. Then he said to himself, okay, I think there's other people in the world trying to do what I'm doing or what I've just done. And I just created an option that clearly doesn't exist because I had to make this for myself. So that's how Orgain came to be, and that's how a lot of products came to be. I was thinking of another company we've worked with for years, and he was in the. He was a. He's a foot surgeon, and he created foot products because his father was a diabetic. And he just wanted to solve a problem for his father, who was a diabetic, and did solve the problem and realize, well, my father's not the only person with a diabetic with a foot problem.

Right.

So these are the ways that these inventions get made. And the inventors who are solving problems, as long as the problem they're working on is widespread, we can build a free zone for them.

Right. There has to be enough of a market, of course.

Right. To be able to say, well, there's lots of people in the foot care business, but not a lot of people dealing with, let's say, diabetic ulcers. Right. Okay. That's a free zone that we can go own or start from the top and find the openings. What usually ends up happening, to be honest with you folks, what usually ends up happening is someone has made the product, they've created the product, they bring the product to us. They have not really defined who needs it or who's going to be passionately in love with it. And then we have to go out, we have to find that audience, and then we figure out how to adjust the message, adjust the packaging, and adjust the product to fit this demographic. I think that's probably the most likely scenario.

It's Mostly what happens. And like you talked about before, right. There's a lot of other things of. When it comes to the. The identity, for lack of a better term, you know, of the business of the brand that we have to help guide. Because that's, that's. Those questions are. Are. These questions are easy to ask but very difficult to answer. Right.

And I want to go back to something I said, when I said you need to know who you are, why you exist, and what you would die for.

Yeah.

And the reason is this. When we're. When we're trying to sell something to someone, we've got these four simple steps. The first step is, who am I? So I'm Product X. You recognize I'm Product X. The second thing is, why do I exist? What do I do? I solve problems for diabetics. I. Whatever it is, my product does this.

Okay.

The next thing is, okay, so this product solves this problem. Do I have that problem? If I have that problem, will this improve my life? So once we've crossed that Rubicon, we have another big gap that we have to get into. And that is, how do I build rapport with you? How do you and I go into rapport? Which is another word for saying trust.

Yes.

And. And I'm using the word rapport instead of trust. It is trust, but I'm using the word rapport. And I'm. And I'm using that because I'm talking to you right now, putting my therapist hat on.

Sure.

And if I was your therapist, unless you and I have rapport, I'm not going to be your therapist because you don't trust me. I need to look interested. I need to look concerned. I need to mirror what you're doing. If you talk really fast, then I'll probably talk really fast. If you talk really slow, I'll probably talk really slow. If you like to sit with your hands behind your back, then maybe I'll sit with my hands behind my back. I'll mirror you because that will help us go into rapport. So what am I saying here? People trust people who are like them.

Yes. We need to be connected.

So what is it about your brand that makes me think these are people I can trust? Because they're like me. Now we'll go back to black rifle coffee. I'm an ex. I'm a veteran. I'm a cop. I'm ex military. My father was in World War II. Whatever the case is, these dudes are like me. We have the same set of values. We might even be Able to be friends because we share these values. So until we have established rapport or trust, we have not earned the right to ask someone for their money. It's as simple as that. I have no right to ask you for money. I can ask you, but you're not going to give it to me because I haven't. In your mind, your unconscious mind is saying, he hasn't earned a right to ask me for money. I don't even know who these people are or why I would trust them.

No. Why would I invite you into my life? I don't understand.

So how does your brand get in rapport with the consumers? And this is why. And I'm going to leave you with this. And that is, I don't care what you make. It's not for everyone.

Right.

People will call us up and we'll say, well, who's your demographic? Every adult, 18 plus. So you're saying that there is a. Let's just use this as an example. There's a human being out there on the planet right now that every adult above 18 plus is passionately following. Tell me who that is.

I don't think I can, sir. I don't think that.

Because we can't. We can't pick a president without it being razor thin.

Right?

Right.

No, it's impossible.

I was gonna throw in Taylor Swift's name, but think about the. Think about the big group of people that are anti Taylor Swift.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. They're still.

That's a big group of people.

A lot of haters. Leave my teeth swizzle alone.

And I'm going to use myself as an example. I know Taylor Swift's story. Incredibly hardworking young woman.

Yes.

She started. She was not even 10 or 12 years old when she was literally going from record company to record company in Nashville, handing out her demos.

Yeah.

By the time she was six or seven years old, she knew what she was going to be, and every minute of her life was spent trying to get to where she's at. So I don't begrudge the girl. I think she's talented. She can sing, she can write songs, she can dance. She's got terrific talent. However, she has no appeal to me.

Right.

So even though I can admire her accomplishments, she can't sell me a song she can't get any money for. I'm never going to buy a ticket to go see her. I'm never going to buy a song. It's not because I'm an anti Taylor Swift person. I'm not the Buyer, you just don't have a soul.

Yeah, I get it.

I'm just not the customer for it.

Absolutely. No, no. I mean, you know, it's as you said. Right. We are, we are trying to figure out brands have to create tribes, they must create communities and their communities. Right. There are multiple communities in our world. We. And we are not. We're as con. If you look at people as just consumers that are buying my thing, then at you may be able to get them to buy a thing. And so when you have what we constantly run into and Mark, we talk about this all the time. Right. There's another example that of what we're talking about here, which is usually when we have, when we're talking to a lot of new prospective clients that are coming in here, we say, great, so tell us about your product. At best they're going to list off a bunch of features and we'll say, okay, but what's the benefit? Why do I care that it does that thing as your do you know your customer and you know why they care about it doing X and they don't.

And why do I trust you?

Exactly how going into rapport. In order for us to be able to speak at a benefit level, you must understand them and therefore you understand why, why you're here to say, yeah, this is the connection we're trying to make. It's this, this is where we're going to share an experience. Oh, wonderful.

But most don't know that you think about the product. So Dollar Shave Club. So you could say, you could say shaving products that every man above 16 or 18 is a potential customer for shave products.

Yeah, absolutely. You could.

Okay, now what a dollar Shave Club do when they came out, well, they made an equally good razor for less money. But that was not the end of the story because lots of other people could make a good razor for less money. So they started doing these incredibly funny campy videos. And what did that do? That, let me say, okay, the CEO of this company is hysterical. And I like this guy.

Exactly.

I relate to his humor. I relate to the way he wants to stick a finger in the eye of big razor companies. I like some of the just stupid gags that he does, which might be a gorilla walking by with a razor or whatever the case is.

That's the guy I want to go get a drink with. So. So local buys products.

Correct. Because those videos let me get in rapport with their CEO.

Exactly.

Now I'm, and I'm not saying that every inventor, every CEO needs to personally get into rapport with their customers. But your company does.

Yep, absolutely.

Sometimes it's a company and sometimes an individual. Elon Musk is in rapport with tens of millions of people because they love what he stands for. It's beyond Tesla.

Absolutely.

I mean, Jobs was like that.

And you've talked about, especially as it relates to Tesla. Right? I mean, especially the first Teslas that came out. People weren't buying it because it was a. It was an amazing car. That's not why they bought a Tesla at all. It was what Elon Musk was creating. It was the movement. They wanted to be part of that tribe. They wanted. They wanted to be driving around that symbol and let other people see it and let them know that this is. This is the tribe I'm a part of. This is what. This is my world. This represents me.

And let's take a look at Elon for a minute. Now, Elon makes electric cars, which you would think electric cars would really gravitate toward the climate change side of community. The legend, right? These would be the people that are afraid of the earth and global warming and global freezing and global cooling and whatever global thing you got going on.

Right.

Elon Musk has actually come out and he has now proclaimed himself to be very pro capitalist and anti socialism. And a lot of the people who bought electric cars or would be attracted to electric cars actually could fall into that category. But what. What is Musk done? Musk has said no. The hill I'm willing to die on is my truth.

Right.

I'm going to be Elon Musk come hell or high water. I'm going to be Elon Musk. If you don't like me, sorry, Right. Go buy someone else's amazing electric car because, oh, by the way, I still make the best one in the world. But hey, if you want to go buy an inferior car, knock yourself out.

Yeah.

So people can still people relate to him and relate to the brand because he's genuine.

Right.

He's real.

Right. And so, you know, again, to wrap it all up, a free zone can come in many ways. So don't simplify your thinking to it being a technology feature. Don't. There's so many more ways that you can create a free zone outside of what the product does.

Right. A celebrity can be a free zone.

It can be. Absolutely.

Yeah. If Taylor Swift was out drinking your energy drink.

Right, Right. Well, look at Prime. Or is it Prime. Is that the. Is that the energy drink? I think it's called the Prime.

There Is one Prime?

Yeah, yeah, that. Yeah, Logan Paul's exactly right. People didn't keep buying prime, and I'll still keep buying prime because it's an amazing product. Because it's not. The formula is. It's as basic as any other energy drink on the market.

But in that particular case, the free zone is the endorser because there's only one of them.

Yes.

There's only one Dwayne the Rock Johnson. There's only one Taylor Swift. Like, you know, Dwayne Johnson has an energy drink out, and there's only one of him. If you're a big fan of his, that's the free zone.

Right.

So your free zone can be a cause. Your free zone can be who you are. Your free zone can be your endorsements.

Right.

Your free shoes, Tom, Shoes. Your free zone can. Can be. You have a technology that no one else has. Your free zone could be as simple as your packaging.

Yeah.

So you look at. There's a razor company out right now called Billy, and Billy makes razors just for women.

Oh, okay.

And what's their. What's their game? Their game is we're defeating the pink tax. Their whole thing is, why are women's products double the price of men's products and not as good?

Well done.

And they call it the pink tax. So Billy's whole thing is we're defeating the pink tax. We're making products as good as the men's products at the men's products pricing.

Well done.

And if you think about it, we were the first to do that in.

The shape we did.

We did that because we took Cremo shave cream, which was made for men. And if you remember, we launched a campaign at women with the product still in the men's aisle. And we told in our campaign was, why is. Why are the men's shave products. We did the same thing. Why are the men's shave products so much better than the women's? And then we said, well, here's the secret. Ladies go to the men's aisle and look for Cremo. It's the slickest, most impossibly smooth shave cream you'll ever find. And not too long after we did that, it was such a success that we then launched Lady Cremo.

Yeah, exactly.

And now we had Cremo in the ladies aisle. But we first had to bring women to the men's aisle to convince the retailers that there was a market for a lady Crema.

Yep.

But we created a free zone, and we built that free zone around a Universal truth was that women's products are made less quality for more money.

Exactly.

Now this company's come behind and done the same thing.

Right?

So that's really what we're talking about. We're not going to solve your Free Zone problem here. We want you to start thinking.

Yes.

About your Free Zone product.

Exactly. Think about.

Any last thoughts, Justin?

Nope. Just think about the value, the new value creation experience that you can create that is not currently happening. That's what it comes down to. An experience can be anything. So take some time, think on it.

As always, if we can help you with any of this, feel free to reach out to us. You can find us at cpginsiders.com or jekyllheid labs.com you can go to either one.

Yep.

And reach out to Justin or myself. We're always happy to help people. We'll always happy to talk about what Free Zone is and listen to what you have going on. If you enjoy today's podcast, please go to wherever you get your podcast. Leave this five star review and if you haven't subscribed to the show, hit the subscribe button and that way you won't miss any episodes. But be honest with you, it helps us lift up in the ranks. And believe it or not, I don't know if I mentioned this, Justin. CPG Insiders is like in the top three or top five of all podcasts about the consumer packaged goods industry.

All right.

Yeah, we actually are one of the top shows in the category.

I mean, that's thanks to, to all you listeners. So I appreciate all of you and please keep spreading the word. We, again, we, we thank all of you for your time. We really appreciate it. We respect it. And, and I just wanted to say again, thank you and never hesitate to let us know if there's anything you want to talk about because that's what we're here for.

That's it, folks. We'll see you on the next episode of CPG Insiders. Oh, okay.

Yep.

And, and what's the YouTube? How do they find it? Okay. And by the way, folks, if you want to actually see Justin, not just, but if you actually want to see him in person, you can now go to the CPG Insiders YouTube page, which is CPG Insiders. Or just go to the show notes for this episode and you'll find a link to it. If you're looking to greatly increase sales on your CPG product, don't hesitate to contact us at Jekyll and Hyde Advertising and marketing. By the way, the only advertising agency with a guaranteed result. Just go to jekyllheidagency.com or feel free to give us a call at 800-542-10SA.