https://www.listennotes.com/e/ea577a4cc13b4f548ec1f79abe2066ff

Protect your brand, product or invention from the hazards of consumer product launching and go from idea to product to big brand with guidance from retail product design and development experts Tracy and Tom Hazard. Get the insider secrets to put the right things in the right order with the right resources so you can out design, outsource and out profit your way to retail success.

Hey, product launchers. Tracy Hazard here with another episode of Product Launch Hazards. And I have an interesting Guests to bring you today. I have Sarah Shaw. She's an entrepreneur designer and CEO of entrepreneur net. Entrepreneur, I love that. And she has a background in product business. She had her own product business, but she's got a really interesting edge that I wanted to bring you today. She has a celebrity placement program. She helps get you celebrity access for your products. So where you might get your celebrities photographed with your product, you might get them using it, you might get them talking about it, you never know, maybe they'll take a picture on Instagram. It's not always a clear cut and dry, this is going to work out perfectly, but she has got a system that really works for most products. So not every product that you guys have invented, some of them are industrial and some of them aren't quite right for this sort of retail model, but the ones that are really ripe for retail are really ripe for celebrity influence. And so she's got a really great both coaching and done for you service in which she does this. She started in media and has a background in that, so she really understands the entertainment industry. And she has launched her own products, so she gets what you're going through. She had a successful handbag and home accessories line. She also has a podcast, get a street smart MBA, of which I've been on. So anyway, Sarah Shaw is just such an interesting person, so I really wanted to bring her to you today. So let's listen all about this celebrity placement idea. Sarah, thanks so much for joining me today.

Oh, I'm so looking forward to talking to you.

You know what I think is so interesting is that we've both been in this marketplace for a pretty long time and we've seen a lot of shifts, but influence hasn't changed. It's just changed how and where the influence is coming from.

Right.

So tell me a little bit about how you got started and with your first product.

Oh, Lordy. So, yeah, so my first line was a handbag line that I started back the end of 1997. And it was kind of on a whim. I just, boyfriend actually dared me to get this idea going and had never, ever in a million years thought I would be an entrepreneur. I was working in the film business. I thought that was just like my live and die job. And I'm actually a fourth generation entrepreneur. All my siblings are entrepreneurs.

Which probably made you not want to do it more.

Exactly. But it seemed like everyone was doing really well with their life. It just, I didn't have that like bug hit, right? Like I think you have to get hit by the entrepreneurial bug, right? Or you can't just, you don't just wake up one day and go, Hmm, I think I'll try that. Right? You have some idea or something that prompts you. So anyway, I started this handbag line and it was kind of a big disaster for a few years.

And we're all about the hazards here. So what goes wrong? So why consider it a disaster?

Well, I wasn't making any money. So I was selling a lot. Yeah, big problem. Right. And I didn't know anything about margins.

That is not uncommon.

What's the problem? Right? Or you're doing a product. And so I was kind of just guessing like how much I should sell my stuff for. I didn't know to look for a formula or to figure out like how much leather or fabric was I using. And obviously I knew how much they cost to sew because I wrote a check right to the manufacturer. But I was buying all the fabric and the leather. So it was kind of airy fairy to me. Oh, it's maybe about this much. And that was sort of how I did things.

Well, but you know what? That's not uncommon. I mean, you're talking 1997, so it's not like we had Google and you could just Google formulas and, like, under, like, what's margin? Like, you know, you had to go buy a book, figure it out, get a. Get an advisor. Like, it wasn't as easy, so it's not surprising.

And I felt the same way in our first business as well. I mean, you're just kind of winging it, right?

Yeah.

I didn't know, like, what the process was. You know, I would just call stores, you know, hey, it's Sarah Shaw. You know, I have this new line. Do you guys want to check it basically, I mean, I'm sure that's what I said. And, you know, we were having some guy who knew how to use Photoshop, right? Get making our line.

It was a big deal.

Right. Yeah.

I mean, it was so expensive. It was like hundreds and hundreds of dollars, right, for this line sheet. And I just kind of winged it. I would go over to. My office was in downtown LA in the garment district, so I would walk over to the California Mart, where all the showrooms were. during market week. I finally figured out there was a market week. And I would go and steal everybody's line sheets and postcards because I didn't know how else to learn. So that's how I would figure out what they were doing and the ones that were popular. I was like, well, I'll just copy that. This is how I'm going to do it. And that was my Google. I just kind of pushed, comes to shove, I ended up getting a showroom in New York in my second year, kind of towards the end, I think. and they just catapulted my line. My handbag line was very unusual and different and they just, you know, like in the first year, I think I had done about 120,000 myself and then by the end of the second year, I'd done half a million in sales.

So for those who don't know, because you're new to this and everything, you know, that showroom model, especially in New York City, but in Los Angeles as well, as long as you were in the right district, right?

Yeah.

And it makes a really big difference because what was happening was that there wasn't really a directory. There was not an online shop. There was not a way to search for people. So if you were going to go to this district or this building and you were going to be found by the right buyers. And so we don't have that anymore. Like it's just gone. It doesn't work like that. There are directories, online listings and everything, but there's this kind of like screening and filtering and all sorts of stuff. So they don't just walk by and then go, oh, that's really cool. You may never even show up in their list because you didn't use the right keyword.

Right.

And so it's so different today. And so I feel like some amount of, I'm going to call it merchandising retail buying has lost that edge that it used to have when we used to walk into these buildings and get inspired and say, I know my customers are going to love this.

Yeah, yes. I mean, it's so different. It's just night and day. Yeah. I mean, back then, like I was saying, buyers weren't on email, right? So we actually had to mail them a line sheet and we had to mail editors our line sheets as well and press kits and it was so expensive and we'd have press parties in the office, right, with beer and pizza packing, you know, 400 or 500 envelopes.

So let's fast forward a little bit because How long did you do that business?

So I did it for five years. And then after 9/11, my investors pulled out. And so I ended up closing the company in 2002. And I kind of just did some other things. I did some random consulting for people who just called me. And then about a year later, I patented a closet organizer for handbags. And that was a whole new category. There had never been anything like it. And so basically taking everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly that I learned over those five years, in the first two years with that company, I did half a million in sales out of my garage. And there still wasn't any social media, right? Facebook was just coming on at the end of the first two years. And so again, it was, at least buyers were on email then, but it was still a lot of personal contact with people, which I still to this day think that it's really important.

I agree.

And I probably closed all of those sales on the phone. It was probably rare that somebody got an email and went, oh yeah, I'll take 24.

Yeah.

No, you know what? I think that that's so important. The relationship building is really key. And what I think we don't realize is that because we're so comfortable today with all of our emails and all of our directory listings and how we filter and how we search for things, you have to realize there's no trust in that process though. And so when I walk into retail buyers and they know I have a track record of success, they're like, it's a very different conversation about what are you seeing? Where's it going? Oh, let me take your advice. And that has a whole different catapult than it would be if you just got a random email.

Right, totally.

And so that's where that relationship building, the right rep, the right advisor, some connections can really make a big difference in moving you forward. So let's talk a little bit about what you're doing now because I think it's really interesting because one of the things successes that you hit on in your handbag business was that getting the right person to be photographed with your bag was really useful.

Yes. Yeah, a famous face can really make a difference in the bank account.

Yeah. Yeah.

So with my bag line, I started getting products to celebrities and making bags for movies and that just changed the whole face of our business. We went from probably half a million to a million dollars in sales within a year. And so now I teach other women, mostly women, men too, how to do that. And so that's kind of the basis, or I should say the linchpin to my business. And I teach people how to get their products into stores, small stores. I mean, I just come from a background of get your products into hundreds of boutiques because those are usually sure sales. and you can have easy direct contact to those buyers. And then you can move into big box or department stores more as like icing on the cake where one of them returns an order, you're not going to go out of business the next day. And then using celebrities and gifting celebrities as a way to get into more stores because it builds your credibility, sell online, and then also get into magazines.

So have you found over the years though that it's gotten to be such a pay to play kind of model and that it gets more and more difficult?

No, not at all actually. We have a really great track record in getting products to celebrities. I mean, if we reach out to 25 celebrities for a client, for example, we'll probably get back 10 to 15 yeses in a week or two weeks.

See, most people think of it as like this whole influencer marketing thing has made it kind of ugly in a way.

Well, I think there are two different categories really. I think there's like the Instagrammers, right? Who do it for money.

Yeah.

Whereas what we do with gifting celebrities, not endorsements, because endorsements in indicates there's money exchanging hands. So this is a gift. And so it's free. And you're sending them a present, right? You know, hey, I thought you'd like my pink t-shirt because you're always in t-shirts and you always wear pink or whatever you're sending them, right? and finding that, again, the connection, right, to the celebrity and how your product will make their life better or make them happy or whatever reason you're sending it to them. And I think a lot of people these days don't really pay as much attention to the actual like connection that you need to have with people. It's like when you think about if, you know, if you watch the Facebook movie, you go back to why they started it, right? It was to make that social connection easier. Right. How you communicate with people. And that's still a lot of what social media was, what it was built on. Now it's really built on making money and ads. But the crux of it, right, is still that relationship building. Whether you message people or post on their page or read or comment or something, you're interacting all the time. Maybe people don't notice it so much anymore because it's become just something you do, right? Get up and check your Instagram or your Facebook and who's talking and whatever. But it's that same relationship building that you're doing all the time. And I think with influencers, when I think of like, quote unquote influencers, I think of more people who have that social media presence, right? Who can post something and 8 million people see it and then maybe, I don't know, even 3,000 people might buy something from you if the right person is pitching the right product to their people. And so it's the same with celebrities. People look up to them, right, and admire them and want to be like a lot of them. And so when they are wearing something or showing something in a magazine or on their social sites, people want, again, want to buy it because they want to be like them.

So this is something interesting that I found over the years. So as we've sort of seen this influencer market merge and grow, is that the celebrities, it's a little bit different. So there are editors of these magazines and publications who are watching them all the time. It's like, oh, you know, celebrities are just like us. They shop at Whole Foods, right? You know, or Costco or wherever. And so, yeah, so they're always getting like these random pictures taken. But what they're also really doing is being analyzed. Like, what are they wearing in their off time?

Yeah.

What are they doing?

What are they drinking? What bag are they carrying? Because that's more of a sign of who they really are and what they really like.

Right.

And it is what they wear on the runway. Exactly. What they're carrying out in public for their next premiere.

Right.

So because that's all structured and orchestrated.

Yes.

And so for big publications, when you watch for that, you're getting a better sense of what's trending and what should I be presenting in my beauty product section or what should I be presenting as hair accessories, like whatever that might be.

Yes.

And so it's giving you a better idea. So the trend editors and the beauty editors and the fashion editors pay very careful attention to those photographs. So that's actually your best in to getting the publicity. It's not the picture of the celebrity, it's who sees that picture, who is influential, that is powerful to you. So I just wanted to kind of put that into context for people where the influencer is very different because they have a following who's looking to them not being filtered through that editor mod, editor lens. So that's why it seems like it's more direct. But at the same time, the bigger the influencer get, the bigger the following get, the less conversion you get and the more money it actually costs you, ironically, which is just the worst part about it. So it's costing you more because they have 8 million followers, but you're going to get way lower return on investment than if they had 800,000.

Yes.

I totally agree.

I know, it's so back.

Isn't that ironic? Yes. But too many brands skip those smaller influencers that are on their way up.

Yes.

And I think that's really where the big mistake is, because the smaller your influence base is, the more you're having a direct relationship. See, it goes right back to that thing. And the more people are then saying, oh, well, then I'm listening and I'm acting on it. The bigger they get, they're constantly sold to and they're like, like that, don't like that. And they actually are filtering it for themselves.

Yeah.

Interesting. So tell me a little bit about how you got into the bigger picture of helping more product entrepreneurs.

Oh, it was a total fluke. Some friends hijacked me one night and took me out for a drink and basically told me I needed to start this business, which I thought was the dumbest idea I'd ever heard. and they said, well, look at all the life coaches out there. I mean, this was 10 years ago, and life coaching was just kind of coming on the scene then and making a big splash. And they were like, you're actually teaching people something tangible, right? Life coaching is more airy fairy. What do you want to do? Let's talk about your life.

And you have to take a lot of work in it. This one, you're like, here's steps.

Exactly.

Right.

Boom. One through 10. This is what you do, right? Or one through a thousand. And so I investigated and hired a business coach, and she taught me how to put Packages together because I didn't know how to sell what was in my brain. I was like, can't I just tell people? And I had been, like I had mentioned earlier, I'd been doing a little random consulting here and there and I had thought it was fun, but I just never thought about making a business out of it until my friends kind of sat me down. But that's really how all my businesses have started. I've had six.

You're getting dragged into it.

Basically everyone's like, ding dong, that's a really great business idea. And I'm like, oh, okay.

I love it. I love it. So does it always excite you? Do you see a lot of ideas and you go, oh, that's not, no celebrity is ever going to carry that. Or do you see a lot of really good ones?

I see a lot of really great ones, but there are the occasional scary ones that I've had to turn people away before because I just know I couldn't help them, you know, do get their products to celebrities and that the media would never be interested in it.

What are those characteristics where when you look at something you go, that's not going to work. What is there specific things that make it not a fit for celebrities?

I don't think specifically that it's not a fit. I think it's just not a fit for anyone. It's more that. Yeah, it's really like too small an idea or too like way, way too niche, right? It's like one billionth of the population or something would be interested. So I like to look at things or feel more comfortable, I should say, working with people who have more of a mainstream product. You know, and I don't mean it has to be on the shelves of Walmart to be mainstream, but just something that the general public would be interested in. interested in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, this is the thing. I. When someone comes to me, usually it's an inventor, and they'll say, oh, yeah, I have this amazing thing. Everybody loves it. And I am the only one who's ever created it. No one. There's no competition out there.

Yeah.

All the red flags go off. All the bells are going off in my head. Like, okay, this does not have legs. Because when you have no competition, that's the sign of no Market.

Yes, well, you know, but I'm just going to play devil's advocate for a second because when I invented my handbag hanger, there was no competition for it. It was something brand new.

But there was a huge problem and people were probably making stuff. It just wasn't as apparent because you didn't have social media. So you didn't, you couldn't go check Lifehacker and see what people were making or go see some Pinterest of people like hacking together, like regular hangers and trying to organize their stuff. So you would have seen evidence of it, whether or not that exact product existed. Right. I search, there's nothing. Like that's what I get. I'm like, no, there's probably something you probably just missed it.

Yes.

First thing I usually recognize, but if there truly was nothing, then there's truly not a need.

Exactly.

And so I love it when you find something that people are hacking together, because that's a sign that you're early on the need. You actually have a better chance at having a long life cycle on your product at that point. That's always a really good sign. But for the most part, it's like, oh, you just didn't look hard enough and you didn't Google it and you didn't go on Amazon and I could find 12 things that are just like that.

Right.

Like that. Yeah, exactly.

So, yeah, I know research is, don't get me wrong, a lot of them will go to their lawyers, but legal research is extremely different from shopper research.

Exactly.

And you've got to realize the difference there. So does patented products and does that help, you know, when you're presenting stuff like, oh, it's really unique. Does it really make a difference?

I don't think so. I mean, I think there's certain places that might be interested because it has a patent or more, it might pique their interest, right, to even look at it. But I don't think in the long run, personally, I mean, like you and I have talked about before, it's almost, unless you're a gazillionaire, you can't really afford to enforce your patent anyway and that you're just hoping it buys you more time.

I look at it as a business strategy. I've been on your show and we talked about that specifically, right? It's a business strategy. It's a behind the scenes. It's an asset builder. But it's not something that you really, that most consumers care about. There's very few niches where that matters to anyone. And yet I see people all the time like, oh, that's the big deal to them.

Right.

Like your focus is in the wrong place because the the big deal should be who's buying this and how can I get more of them?

Exactly. Where are they?

Where are they? How can I get to them? Yeah.

Yeah.

So anyway, well, so interesting. So, Sarah, what makes the, like, right stage of product? Because I think that's, that's probably sometimes you get things that are maybe a little too early or maybe even too late. So what's the right stage of product to be starting to look at celebrities as an influence?

Well, you really need to have a finished product so that you can send it to them, right? Because you don't want to wait. I wouldn't say to people, oh yeah, go out and use this as a testing field, right? And see if celebrities will take it and then run out and make it and then six months later send it to them because whoop, you're done, right? They've moved on.

Well, yeah, because I mean the minute somebody finally picks it up in a publication and it's all there, you want to have that available and orderable and ready to move. So the timeline for it, let's talk a little bit about that because I think that also has a problem with something that might be too seasonal. So like if you're making a limited run of something or you're making something that's fall specific and you run into like, oh, they don't pick it up and the photograph doesn't get happen until April and now you have no more of it because it's gone.

So here's a little trick if that should happen, because it happened to me. I don't think anything hasn't happened to me. So what you can always do, let's say you have a bag that you sold for fall and you got it to a celebrity, but then in the spring or the summer they show up like you did it in fall of this past year and then this coming summer. They show up in a magazine and you're like, oh my God. So you just put it back up on your site and put a little sign that says sold out due to our placement in whatever magazine. And nobody will be the wiser.

And you're like, but we have this new model.

Exactly. Collect something else and then you'll see that they will just go buy other stuff by you, especially if it's a style like maybe your signature look or something, they'll go buy the other thing. That happened to us when I was on the O list once and they forgot to credit check. It just slipped through the cracks. So the magazine dropped and we didn't have We had like two left of this product and couldn't get any more fabric. It was, oh my God. And we just put this little notice up and we still sold like 5,000 of the different colors. It didn't matter.

So very, very good tip product launchers.

Listen to that one.

Well, so what other things make it ideal for a celebrity?

Well, I think that the biggest thing it comes down to is researching like how, what I was saying before, how your product would affect them as a person, 'cause they're just people. like us, right? They eat poop and sleep, right? And so they just happen to be famous and if they're a movie star, right, you see them 10 feet tall on a screen, but they grew up just like we did, right? They're just normal people and so you want to look into their life, right? And maybe if they just had a baby and you sell a baby product, you might send them, I don't know, a blanket or a, I don't know, whatever you sell clothes or hair do's or something, right? And it can be, oh, I see you go to the park all the time. There's pictures of you at the park. And I thought you might like these play clothes or something for your kid. And so it's that kind of relationship. It's finding a way to connect with them so that it feels like you are not trying to be their friend, but being friendly about it. And that it's not just, oh, hey, here's my diaper bag. And there's never been a picture of that person with a diaper bag ever. most likely they're never going to use it.

Right.

So you want to look at photos of them and do some of your own research on Google and find pictures of, there's bazillions of pictures of every celebrity doing everything like you were saying, coming out of Starbucks, walking into yoga, whatever they're doing.

So much easier now. We don't have to sit through and troll all the magazines and take pictures of her being photographed and, you know, and everything.

Now we can just Google it. Exactly. And so it's fine, again, it's fine back to the relationship, right? It's all in how you can try to build that relationship with a letter and a gift. Yeah.

So this is something that happened to me recently was that somebody gifted me a bag, actually a purse, a bag, which, because I carry, I kind of carry cute bags when I go to trade shows and, and I'm always interviewing people and, and I end up with a photograph somewhere in it, and I'm usually holding my bag. And so, but it's interesting. I was like, I'm not an influencer. Like, why would people care? Whoa. But I'm up on stage all the time. And so within that Community, There's a lot of business women in the right profile who see me. And so I get comments. So I got this adorable bag for my mother-in-law for my birthday and it's Star Wars bag. It's geeky. I cannot tell you how many men and women have asked me, where did you get that? And what is it? And I was like, I mean, like in Starbucks, it's just this random thing. So do not discount the level of celebrity you're looking for. They're in contact with many, many people.

Totally.

That's a good way to go.

Exactly. Yeah, I love get, we get, I get swag all the time and I always post pictures on my Instagram.

Yeah, exactly. And so let's talk a little bit about that because I belong to a group that I just absolutely adore and it's about servicing celebrities. So we're all of us have celebrities as clients in some way, shape or form. And it's really we brainstorm and we discuss how their teams are issues a lot of times. Their teams are blocks, but they're also aids in that process. So it comes up all the time is like the biggest problem we see with most working with celebrities, if you're a service provider to them, is that their teams are very uninformed sometimes, but they also are the ones with all the access. So you have to learn to work with them, right?

Totally, yeah.

So how do you work with these teams? How do you get through these teams?

I think one of the easiest ways is just to make friends with them right away because they're mostly usually overlooked, right? They're working overworked. Overworked and overlooked, over everything. They, you know, and their boss is a gazillionaire, right? Especially compared to them because they're usually way underpaid. So what we like to do is make friends with them right away and offer them some kind of freebie as well. maybe not the expensive handbag, maybe you offer them a wallet, right? And so they start to feel wanted and needed right away and important.

Right.

And everybody wants to feel important. And so that's one of the little tricks that we do to try to win them over in the beginning because like you were saying, they hold the key to the castle and they can just be like, eh, she's a.

Well, yeah, this used to happen. So sometimes I would get things and I would be like, oh, my nieces and nephews will love this. And I would just drag hand them out and the next thing you know, like they're being photographed, you know, stuff like that. So you never know.

Exactly.

So because of that, there's a law of reciprocity.

Yes.

We need to talk a little bit about that. So do you want to mention that?

Yes. So really it's giving to if you give, right, you have to give to receive. And so the more you can give, which is again, like why we like to offer the Gatekeeper something is so that they feel like they want to help us. Right.

There's this always this sense of maybe a slight imbalance in it that I was given to and wow, you're calling me again and you're mentioning that you've got yet another thing for me. Oh, this time I'm really going to make sure that the celebrity gets it. It's because I know what you need. It's not that very obvious. I, you just need me to make sure that she gets it this time or he gets it this time, right? It's not a, oh, I gotta write out a check back to you or anything like that. So it's not a big ask. So this is something that happens to me all the time as a columnist. So very often I get a lot of authors and people who want me to write about them. And so the ones who send me their book are much more likely, the ones who give me their course are much more likely to get written about than the ones who are very closed about it saying, oh, no, you should write about me. I'm amazing.

Right?

It's like, no, right. It's like, I know you're interested. I know you have an interest in this. I can see it from reading your column. I'm sending you my book. You know, I don't expect you to read it. I know you're really, really busy, but, hey, if you or anyone you know really would like it, then I wanted to make sure you had it. I'm like, wow, that was a great, like, no expectations kind of gift. And a lot of times if it is truly of interest, I will pick it up and I will read it. And the next thing you know, they're getting a call saying, Hey, I'd like to interview you. So there's really some power in that. But you got to do some research to make sure it's a fit. Otherwise, I've got a stack of books behind my desk that have nothing to do with what I'm going to write about for you.

Right, yeah.

Where do we get rid of this? Donate.

Exactly.

So it would be so amazing if we could track where some of the products that you have sent out over the years end up.

Yes. I know. The life of this tracker on.

Where did it go? It may be in someone who really, really appreciates it, but have no idea where it came from.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Now I only place I see my bags is on eBay.

Isn't that funny? Oh, my gosh. I just found out from some people that they didn't know that their courses were being resold on eBay. So, like, if, when you used to do box set of courses, like, they're like 50 bucks on eBay now. And, like, people didn't know that.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

If you're wondering why you're not currently getting bodies and seats, it's because it's available on eBay for $50. Exactly. Well, it wouldn't be Product Launch Hazards if we didn't talk about some of the hazards. And so we talked about a little bit at the beginning, but what are some of the really big pitfalls that people fall into when they're pitching celebrities or when they're trying to get through this process of really getting that placement?

I think kind of, I would say the biggest pitfall kind of goes back to the reciprocity and that they're more talking about themselves and not how the product relates to the celebrity. We like to do it. This is why I invented it, like very two or three lines. And this is why.

So if that message is a fit for this particular celebrity, then you say it. Otherwise, you want to start all about them.

Yes. and the other thing really, we just don't encourage people to pitch anything that isn't a really great match just because they might like it or think it's cute, right? But then it's just going to the housekeeper. You know, we want to send something that they're actually most likely going to wear or put on their kid or put on their mantle or hang on the wall or whatever it is you're sending. And so that fit of this is why we Created this and this is why we think you'll like it. Our formula just seems to work.

Well, because it's personal, it shows interest in someone else. And so there's a quote by Dale Carnegie that you can get more in two months by showing interest in other people than you can in two years by only talking about yourself or pitching your sale or whatever it is. There's something like that. I will get the right quote and put the actual put the actual quote in the blog post for this episode. But it's basically that. And so, yes, that really in and of itself though is a problem I hear so consistently with, they get all in their heads about their invention or their product and it's all about that. And the reality is it's not, it's about whether or not it would fit my life and I want to use it. And so if we start that place, it's the same.

Right, and it's the same philosophy when pitching store buyers or magazines.

Right?

Why is it good for the store customer? Why is it good for the magazine readers? Why is it good for the store?

Well, I also want to touch on before we go one thing that you said earlier about those small store buyers. Like we tend to have people who skip that so quickly. They'll be like, oh, direct sales is so much faster. So I'll just do it online and then I'll be big enough to just get into the stores. And the reality is, is that there is so much learning that happens about Margins and packaging and, and branding and like so many things that you could scale through without a lot of risk at those boutique levels and have more direct conversations instead of at the retail big buyer level, we just get yes, no, there's not really much time for conversation. So then when stuff fails, we don't know why we don't understand it.

Yeah.

And you also at a big at the big box level, you can't just say, oh, well, just can you, why don't you test six of them in your store? So you can't scale it yourself.

I love that.

Either.

No, I, you know, I love that to walk, you know, crawl, walk, then run. Exactly. Take it in the right pace of it. So, yeah, I mean, this is something that my friend Brian Smith of UGG's founder, the UGG's founder, he says you have to, you know, you have to grow a brand and it has to be, it's a birth of a brand, so it has to go through infancy, toddlerhood, primary school, teen angst, which is usually right about the time that you try to get into the store. And it is angst.

Exactly. Exactly.

Right.

See, he's in that great again.

Exactly. But celebrity success, they did not happen overnight. It took 15 years, right? Yes. And so, and so that's really, this is not a fast route. Like, I think that's the last thing we should really talk about here. This is not fast. It's effective. But it's not fast. Let's talk a little bit about why.

So, I mean, it can be. I think there's times, like where it can be, you can send something to someone and it's in a magazine.

It just resonated in it.

Yeah.

Exactly. Or the person loved it. You sent them a t-shirt or a handbag or a baseball cap or some shoes or whatever, and they're just out there. Oh my God, I love this. Right? And they're writing to you and asking for more and whatever. Right? And those things do happen. but it's less often than it could be a long lead. Like the first time one of my bags ever showed up in a magazine, it was nine months after I sent it to someone. And it was the very first celebrity placement in a magazine I ever got with my handbags. And another client was nine months before Angelina Jolie and her kids showed up with the product in the photo. But, I mean, but then it's like now it's everywhere, right? It's so. Global.

Thank goodness we don't have to wait for print cycles, right? Print magazine cycles. So now at least it might appear online somewhere, appear in somebody's Instagram feed, Pinterest, right? Exactly.

So how do you capitalize on that when it happens? So you have to be on it immediately, right? You want to send an email to your online shoppers, get it on your website, send it to any media editors that you're hoping to get into those magazines, and then you want to send it obviously to other celebrity magazines. if it comes out in People, you could let other magazines know about it. Unless the photographer sells them the photo, they're probably not going to run it. But Redbook or Vogue or whoever your target is, they would be interested in it if it came out in a celebrity magazine or if there's a photo of a celebrity online or on social media. You just have to be prepared to get that out immediately. Have your email templates ready to go. You probably have something you could use right away because you've been emailing the media anyway, hopefully, and you're online shoppers, right? And so it's just all about that.

So here you wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. It appears and now you have to rush, rush, rush because there's a timeliness in what you have to do in response to that to capture the momentum.

Totally. Yes. It's kind of like if you don't have a celebrity section on your website and you have all these celebrities that you've gotten products to, well, you're missing the point.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah. I mean, you know, right? You and your mama, but nobody else knows. And that's not going to bring in any sales.

Product launchers out there. Just want you to be aware of social proof matters. Right. Celebrity proof says this is a on Trend. This is valuable.

Right.

It's the same thing when you have your website and you get written up in ink. If you don't put the logo on your site, you're missing. the opportunity for the proof that you were valuable enough to be written about. You are valuable enough to be photographed, right? So these things are really important to not skip. And I see it happen so often. They're all excited about it, but then besides posting on social media, they do nothing with it. There is a long-term residual value in that, and it does have tremendous value to the buyers in the future when you say, Wow, look at over the last year, every time I've introduced new lines, they've been picked up by somebody. Wow, okay, this must be someone I definitely want to take a meeting with. And getting your foot in the door.

Exactly. And it proves your power.

Exactly. So there's short-term and long-term benefits and it's not always about sales. That's the message that I think Sarah really does get across really well when she's talking with you. Is that There's residual value here, but it's not always going to directly translate into sales. Right.

Yeah.

And a lot of times it can be huge ching ching, but there's other times where it's not. But it's still that credibility factor.

So are you as excited about what your work is you were back when it was your own product? Do you get excited about other people's stuff?

I do. Yeah, I really do. I mean, I love developing products and watching these brands grow and seeing pictures of celebrities with people's products and it just warms my heart. I mean, it just makes me smile every time I see it or think about it. Especially like if you get, you send out the 25 emails and you get 15 yeses, let's send it. You're like, yes, all right. This is so awesome, right? These people and then especially if it's the celebrity's gatekeeper wants one as well, to me that's an even better sign. If they don't want one, Then I'm like, yeah.

You'Re in a good place, right?

Yes.

I love it. I love it. And, you know, actually, that was something Brian Smith said when he gives a talk all the time, is that evidently Sting's wife used to place orders for her team every year. And like, it was all of a sudden, one year he gets this rush request for a totally different size than they'd ever gotten before. And it was for another celebrity. And so it was just-- so like, he was like, oh, this is really good. But him being accommodating over the years to her made it so that it was really, you know, that that that could happen. So yeah, well, so interesting, Sarah. So tell me a little bit about because I want everybody to hear the types of service because you don't just do this done for you. You have a whole bunch of different services and ways that you help help entrepreneurs.

Yeah, I do. So I do do the done for you. But I also have, I think pretty much, I think it's the only one I've seen.

That's how I found you.

I was like, Yeah, so it's called Celebrity Confidential and it's six week training program takes you behind the scenes on how to do everything. It's video training and it's got downloads and templates and do this, write this exact sentence and this is how you do the research and we also show you how to promote your celebrity when you get one and how to- so.

That leverage we were talking about is in there.

Exactly, yep, and how to send it out to magazines and to your online shoppers because that's right where the money can be.

I want you guys to hear this because what she's offering you is the opportunity to learn how to do this. And especially when you're a startup and you're really trying to get yourself going, you don't have as much money, but you maybe you have some more time because you're trying to build this brand. That's a great program for you. But the done for you services she provides is really valuable to those of you who have so much else in your business that you need to concentrate on. you just need an expert like Sarah to be taking off. Because remember, here at Product Launch HazaRds, we're all about the right things in the right order with the right resources. So your order sometimes is what stage are you at and what are you ready for? So I want you to avail yourself of Sarah. She is going to have a full profile because all of our guests have full profiles on Product Launch HazaRds. You'll be able to connect directly through to her website to those courses that are there and all of those things that all of the services that she offers there. Product launchers, get in touch with Sarah if your product is a right fit for celebrity placement. Thank you, Sarah. I appreciate your time. Oh, thank you. Sure.

Thank you for joining us on this.

Episode of Product Launch Hazards. To get the most out of your membership, visit productlaunchhazards.com to join the Expert Office Hours live and ask us your burning questions. Check out the resource library for document templates and guides, and get exclusive articles and shares each day. Don't forget, you can always book a private consult with any expert so you can out-design, outsource, and out-profit your way to product launch success.