The Secrets To Branding Your Product With Tracy Hazzard From The Big Brand Formula Podcast With Gerry Foster

Don't settle for any ordinary brand. Let Jerry Foster, the branding evangelist, show you how to have a world class brand here on Big Brand Formula. No more spinning your wheels wondering what it takes to have a great brand that can have great things happen for you. Jerry wants you to think big and go big through his interviews and inspiring teachings. Each episode is devoted to giving you the guidance, support and tools for big branding, your business, product or a service, or even yourself as a personal brand. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host, Jerry Foster.

Hello. Welcome everybody to the Big Brand Formula podcast. I'm Jerry Foster, the big branding guy, otherwise known as the branding evangelist. And I am so excited today because I have as my special guest, the incredible Tracy Hazzard. Now, before I introduce Tracy to you, you should know that in the world of branding, you can brand a product, a service, a nonprofit, you can brand a company, or you can brand yourself. And of course, one of the areas that is of most concern to people is how do you brand a product? How do you take what you have and ramp it up? And as you get to know me through my podcast, I talk a lot about how there's many layers to a brand, right? But one of the important layers is making sure that the product is designed and then packaged the right way so that you can stand out, get notice, and attract the types of customers you're looking for. And so the person who is my first guest to interview is Tracy Hazard. She is the co founder of Has Designed and Potatoes Inc. And she is also a columnist and the co host of some very top notch podcasts. Oh, feed your brand product launch hazards. WTFF question mark? Right. 3D printing and the new trust economy. And her brand cast stream of strategized content reaches over 100,000 thousand listeners and viewers each month. And what's also so great about Tracy is that she's got over 25 years of innovation experience. She has ghost design 250 plus products and 37 patents that have brought $2 billion worth of retail sales to small and large design leading brands. And so, in our voyage together through all of these podcasts, I'm going to be bringing in the very best of the best. And I cannot think of anyone who is more deserving of being known as not just an expert in her field, but a true authority. So all my Big Brand Formula podcast listeners, let's welcome Tracy Hazard. Hey, how you doing, Tracy?

I'm great. Thank you so much. You know, I'm honored to be your second guest. Most people are nervous about coming on A podcast. Too early. But I know you, so I know this show is going to be great. And being one of the first guests is an honor.

Yeah, I mean, you are my first guest because how else could I kick off this podcast than having you? So, Tracy, this kind of set things up for our listeners and our viewers. What do you want them to know about you and the work you do?

You know, this is the thing. Look, I'm a designer, so most people think I'm going to come in there and I'm going to talk all product stuff to them. Right? I'm going to be about my thing. And you and I both know that I don't believe in that, that I'm the opposite of that. I believe in market and brand focus first. Because when you get those things right, when you understand your brand, who you are at a core, who your company is, who your audience is, you understand those two things, you bring them together. Now you can make. I can make any product when I know that I can design anything, it makes my job easy.

So what's the secret to that? So out in the world, you know, we've got millions of small business owners, we've got entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, mom and pops, independent professionals. We got all these different people out there who have great talents and skills for a personal brand as well as services. And of course, you've got your product manufacturers and your resellers and that whole crowd. But what do you want to say? Let's start off with the product manufacturers. What would you say are the main things that are most important to them when it comes to this whole thing called product design for a rock star, world class brand?

Yeah. You know, see, here's the thing. Product people, people who are focused on the product, whether you're the manufacturer, you're an inventor with that mindset, right. You're the idea people, you're the product people, you're the creatives in the world, and I absolutely love you. But you get caught up in that and you forget that it has to be sold. It has to fit on a shelf, it has to be seen on Amazon or on Facebook or however you're going to sell it, the media by which it's going to go across is equally as important as the design of it. But if you get caught up in the design and you forget to test that market side of things, and then you start to fall at a point at which you could be spending way too much money on your product and not enough money on your marketing and branding, and you need Both to come up together. So I'm a big, I call it market first approach. And so what I like to do is I call it a hypothesis brand. Because sometimes we think we know who we are, but we've never sold anything yet. So if we haven't sold anything yet, we come out there and we say, this is what I want to be. This is who I want to be. It's what I want my product to represent. It's the brand identity for me. But I might be wrong because when I go out there in the market, maybe the market doesn't perceive that brand that way. And so, but you have to go out there and test it somehow. And if you're going to go out there and test it, I don't want you to spend a fortune putting loads and loads of product in your garage. Right. I want you to test it in the cheapest, fastest way possible, as early as possible. Because if you can test that connection between the market and your product, then actually you might be able to amp up your brand.

I really love what you're saying here because you also stated how you want to shape perceptions, right? It's all about getting the consumer to see your product, your brand, as something that's really distinct. Share more about that.

Well, you know, I mean, there's a big perception gap. So I've written about this in my ink column many, many times. There's a big brand perception gap whether you're a big company or a small company. Because we're drinking our own Kool Aid.

Right.

So like we, you know, we believe in our stuff. We believe passionately about, you know, the organic dog products we're making or, you know, whatever that might be. And, and we're so passionate about it. And the dogs eat the dog food and we've got all this research testing about how amazing that is, but we forgot that a human has to agree to buy it.

Yes.

And so if we can't reach those humans, the dogs will never be saved. The dogs will never be eating this wholesome diet. It's not going to happen. And so finding that connection and how you speak to them is really important. But there's also a big perception gap in that we have to remember that 85% or more of what sold it mass market retail, at consumer retail level is bought or influenced by women. And at many of our big corporations, like our big cpg, our big consumer product goods companies, they're all men in the organization, in the leadership, and so they don't have enough input. So if they're not out there reaching to their customers and finding out what their customers really believe about them and think about them, then you have a perception gap. You think you're great and your customers don't.

So what you're also getting at, though, is that it's okay for the product manufacturer, the owner, the founder, the president, whoever. Right. To have his or her own perceptions about what they think.

Right. It's. Cause it's what you want to put out there.

Yeah. But they also need to make sure that they're on point in terms of putting something out there, in terms of the look and the packaging that's really going to connect with that consumer. And they need to do some research to make sure.

That they're on the Right.

On the nose. Right. Research is the key. Because just because we're doing it, and this is like. You and I both know that the lovely inventors of the world, they ask their friends and family, and their friends and family say, it's amazing. It's so great. And everyone around them is surrounding them with this. We love this. And there are two kinds. Sometimes you get. I call them the yes men and the no men. Because we get the people who are all around us supporting us. And then we get the people who like, like, are very worried. My dad is always very worried that you're gonna, like, you know, go bankrupt doing this. So let me say, no, it's not any good. And then you want something stupid. Right. So you have those people, and those are the people like most inventors in the world want to rise up against and prove them wrong. And that's great that you have that drive and ambition. But what if they're actually right? What if it's not any good and you have it checked with the people who will actually buy it? And so checking with the people who actually buy it to make sure that the brand image you put out there, that the packaging you put out there, that the product that you put out there, that that perception is the same as you intended it. Because they may be looking at that and going, yeah, that doesn't mean anything. And we see this a lot because we do work with a lot of Asian manufacturers. Right. When you work with people from other countries and they come into America and they're trying to sell products on an American shelf. It's not even just the fact that sometimes they misspell stuff on their packaging and other things like that. I mean, that happens. But it is also the brand doesn't resonate. It has a dissonance with the audience. And it doesn't mean what they thought it intended to mean because it means something different in their culture.

Yeah. So to that point, how important is it for perhaps that manufacturer to deviate from the rest of the category? Right. I can remember when I used to work in the citrus juice and drink industry, it was a company called Tree Suite and we used to compete with Minute Maid and minutemay.

It's a big brand, a black package.

Okay. And when you looked into that frozen case of frozen orange juice, I'm going way back there, you saw this black and orange, primarily black container, minute made orange juice, whereas all the other brands were traditional colors. So how important is that to really separate yourself from the competition when you're thinking about your look?

Yeah. So separation is a good thing. If that's what you intend. You need to play up what's special about you and what you intend it to be. So if that separation is for separation sake, it can go terribly wrong. Right. So I joke about this, that I mean there's no packaging involved, so it's a little clearer example. But I had a couple of guys, you probably know them from CEO space, but they would came to me and they said, we've got this hydroponic lettuce and it's absolutely made with less water and it's grown with all these amazing things. And we built the whole system by how it's grown. And we're going to test it on the shelf at like a Trader Joe's in our area and we're going to get a side by side test and that side by side test and we're going to sell it for 50 cents less. And I went, no, stop right there. Because if you're not on par with your competitors from a pricing standpoint, from a packaging quality standpoint, from all of those things, then the first thing I think is, wow, does it taste good? Like, is there something wrong with this? Is like, you know, so quality level. Yes. Perception wise, if it's giving you something that is expressing what's really special and unique about you and about your brand, then yes, go do it. If it's just different to be different and it may not quite work there. Yes. You always want to stand out, but you want to stand out just a little bit. You don't need to stand out a ton of. And separate yourself out to the point where people are questioning like, is this any good or have they got this completely wrong? You know, you want to make sure that that's the right amount of difference.

And I'm glad you used the word you, because the principles of design for a product carries over to the individual. Right. Who wants to brand his or herself. Can you talk about that a bit?

Yeah. I mean, because I own a podcast network in addition to the product business that we do. So in that podcast network, we have over 200 podcasters and 220 or 30 or something like that now. And they, you know, they e need to stand out in their category. And so how do you do that? And we do that with beautiful cover art with a great name. And it's branding all in and of itself. But the mistake that most people make is they make it about them. And so this is the number one thing that I tell my podcasters is you don't name the show after yourself. Don't put your face on the COVID art unless you are truly famous or unless you do it in kind of a fun and quirky and whimsical way. Like, we have some that are. Are just kind of like they're. They're almost like pop art versions of you. And so if they knew you, they'd know it was you. But if not, it just looks like, you know, the art you bought, right? And so, you know, you can do it in that way and have a little bit of fun with it, but, you know, you've got it. The reason is because, you know, just like buying products, it's about me, the listener, the, you know, shopper. It's about my life and how I'm making it better. It's not about you. When you're pushing you into my face or into my ears or, you know, right there for me, I don't really. I'm like, I don't know, it seems too much right now. And we're in a generation that is looking for just the right qualities of things. They're looking for features and benefits. They're looking for lifestyle. And so being all about you is really not the best way to go about it. It's just not going to. It's not going to help you get traction. And so the interesting part is that we have a study done with all the podcasts that launched and the ones that launched and do their face, their name like that kind of thing. First, they have lower growth rates than the other shows at the beginning. Now they can catch up. If they do a lot of advertising, they have to spend more money to get it to get traction later. And so if you want to do something lower cost, if you're trying to do something grassroots, then the best way to go about that is to be about what the audience cares about, be right there in it with them and be all about them. And that is what works. It gets traction faster, it moves product faster, it moves your show to more listeners, whatever it might be. And really, at the end of the day, people want to reward you for knowing about them, for understanding them, for getting them and believing in them and sharing with them. They want to reward you for that. And so then when they see, oh, you have these products and you have these services, I'm going to go buy them, I'm going to go check them out.

I really love this because, as you know, I'm all about big branding, right? A business owner can replicate the principles and the methods and the approaches used by the big boys, right? The titans of branding. And you're saying the same thing here, because big companies do exactly what you just said. And the small business owner can do the exact same thing in terms of looking at the market and finding out what's most important to their buyer, what's going to connect with their buyer, as opposed to what you think is going to connect. And that's like a big disconnection, right?

Yeah. Well, you know, this is the thing is to. Nowadays, we are more nimble as entrepreneurs, right? We're more nimble at the small business level. And there's so much less barriers to entry than there ever used to be. It's why I have a podcast on 3D printing, right? It's one of the easiest ways to create prototypes. It used to take hundreds of thousands of dollars to create, get through prototyping and get through all that. Now I can do it for a few thousand easily, and I can even make 3D printed product, test them in the marketplace and sell them just as is, without ever tooling for anything. So you can go a lot farther as a small business owner, as an inventor, and you can put your brand out there in a more nimble way than the big corporations can, because they still have to go through channels and justify things and have endless meetings about things. So you can do that, but the mistake that we make is that we make it about ourselves as the founder of something. And so, you know, I'm an evangelist, just like you are. I'm an evangelist for my podcasters, right? I'm out there looking for the things they need, what they want, the services they need, the advice they need, and I'm constantly on the search and doing what's in their best interest. So I am the spokesperson for that. But at the end of the day. It's not the Tracy Hazard show. Right. It's not all about me. You do hear from me a lot, and that's really good, because people want to know there's a real person behind your brand and not a bunch of lawyers. Right. Or a corporation. Right. They want to know that there's some real people who care and who are going to be, you know, who are on the hook for this, who have put their livelihood into this, who have given it their all. They care about that. So you have a big advantage over corporations and bigger brands today. But you still got to play the game, because you and I both know that the big brands have insider tracks that most small businesses don't.

Exactly.

So the one example I use all the time is trying to get on the shelf at Costco or Walmart or Target or whatever. So many people think I'll just keep pitching my stuff. I'll go to this pitch fest, I'll use one of these invention groups, or I'll go and I'll send all these letters and product to buyers. And it's such a mistake. I mean, you will take 10 times longer to do that than it will to hire a great rep. Because at the end of the day, the rep knows that in order to get to the buyer, you have to get to the assistant first. And they know exactly who that assistant is and exactly what makes her or him tick and how to get their attention and how to make sure that, you know, something gets on the desk of that buyer eventually. So you can get invited for the meeting.

And to that point, once it's on the shelf, how do you even get noticed? Right. How are you even seen? I mean, when I walk into grocery stores in different, say, different companies, right? Drugstores, department stores, but let's just say grocery stores, supermarkets, and that sort of thing. I can go into certain sections, certain aisles. Like the pain relief category, right. And you look on the shelf and you. It's like thousands of brands and everything is a giant blur. Everything is just sort of blended in. What's your advice to an owner who. Who says, listen, I want to make sure that I stand out on the shelf. I want to make sure that in my category, in my field, right, I get noticed. What are your thoughts on that?

So the thing is that a lot of retail today does a lot of test marketing. So if you want to get in Whole Foods, you're going to have to run through a test. If you want to get in Costco, no matter how good they think you are, they do not trust themselves.

Wow.

They want data at the end of the day. So if you've got good data to begin with, you're going to be 90% there.

Yes.

You already know it's going to play. You're going to know that Whole Foods is the right market for you. You're going to know that. That's right. And you're going to feel really confident then when you're there. The reality is that it is hard to figure out how to do that. I mean, a lot of people pay for space, Right. There's a whole bunch of that that goes on which most people don't know about. But, like, you know, grocery space is kind of paid for, shelf space is paid for, and you can kick out a competitor by buying off their shelf space. Like, there's a whole bunch of stuff that can happen that way. So it's pretty cutthroat and nasty. We, Tom and I used to joke that sometimes dealing with the office superstores was like dealing with the mob. There was, like a lot of payoffs going back and forth. Right.

When I left P and G and went to work for Tree Suite, they're no longer around. But in the juice and drink industry.

I thought it was bad.

Now, we were $100 million company. Right. But we were going up against Coca Cola Foods with Minute Maid. And then you had Tropicana. Right.

Giant.

Exactly. And the only way, to your point, that we could often get onto the shelf was to buy our way in.

Right? To buy your way in some place.

Oh, my God. It was cutthroat.

Yeah. And so, you know, that's really common. And so. So not knowing that. Not knowing that ahead of time is really dangerous. But the reality is, is that if your margins are really good for the buyer, so if you've got really good percentages that they're going to make more money off your product than the other products, that's the first thing that you can really do. And a lot of small businesses can do that. Because you can provide more margin because you have less overhead. Yes. And so you can, if you plan your product and you design it right. And yeah, your volumes are a little low now, but if you know that when it scales up, you can offer that kind of higher volume pricing, then you can go in there immediately and say, yeah, we're going to give you this pricing and it's hurting us right now, but we know when you start buying 100,000 units, we're going to really be able to make that pricing work for Both of us. But we want to give it to you now because we want to make sure that you're offering it at a perfect price point. So this happened to Tom and I. Oh, I'd say it was about seven or eight years ago, maybe. Now. We designed a product for. For a company in San Diego that's an office chair. And we designed this office chair to be at a $99 price point. And it was a mesh chair, kind of. I used to work for Herman Miller, so I helped with the Aeron chair. And you know that mesh material where you see through it and it breathes? Right. So we designed it with mesh material with arms that flip up and were adjustable and adjustable lumbar support. It had like all these crazy features for this rock bottom $99 price. But Costco also offers lower margin themselves. They accept a 15% overhead on any single product. So they were really the only store we could actually do this with because they wouldn't over market up. And so we could give them just the right price point and be able to get this in. So when we built this in and we designed it so that it was optimized perfectly so that it would price out right. And it would be so hard for someone else to compete and bring it in. And so it, of course, it stood out, and it was beautiful because we knew exactly what the consumer wanted. We had been working in chairs for. We probably designed like 800 chairs in three years. So, like, we really knew what the market wanted. Yeah. So it was. Yeah. I mean, sometimes Tom and I get like, really deep in a category, and that was one of them. And so, yeah, so we knew it was the perfect chair, and we knew it was the perfect price point. They still tested it anyway, but it outranked every test they'd ever done. And they were super happy, brought it in. And that chair lasted for seven years in the store, and then they took it out for six months and Tom. And they just put it back in because people missed it. So they back in now. So now it's in its eighth year of going. It's still 99.

You put your chair in the hall of fame or something.

I know. Seriously. So when you look at that, like, for us, that's a platinum record because that did about $20 million a year for our client. And so that's an amazing seller. But to get to that point, you really have to know the exact things that stand out that the user cares about.

Yes. That matters the most. Yes.

I mean, because, you know, I can dress stuff up in pink and purple and, you know, make it look wild compared to all the other black office chairs out there. Yeah, he wants that.

Exactly right.

Yeah. So it's got to be a right fit for that audience. And they know it because they've been looking for it. It's been missing.

And we're talking about all types of products here, from food products to household, every category.

It's even services. Thinking about it that way, it's like. It's like they're out there looking for that one thing. Now with services, it's more of a word thing than it is a visual thing out there with this. The one feature I've been missing and I've been looking for. It could be anything that you're doing that is setting yourself apart from the other, that is giving you that unique specialty that makes you you.

I love that because I call that the set you apart quality.

Love that.

That your customers can fall in love with because they want to experience that brand itself.

Right.

Wow.

Yeah. The set you apart quality. I love that because, you know, it's not setting you apart for your sake. It's doing it for the consumer's sake.

Hello. Yes.

Not in it for me. I'm in it for my audience. I'm in it for my listeners. I'm in it for my consumers. Right. I'm in it for them. And. And I have their best interests at heart. And it shows. At the end of the day, it's deep to me, it's the brand integrity. It's deeply embedded through everything that you do. Which is why, to me, I'd rather not design the product till I know you have a brand integrity in place, that you know your market and you know who you want to be to that market. I can design you anything.

Now, let me ask you this question, because, as you know, because this is another one of your areas of expertise is Amazon. Right. So over recent years, you've got so many product people now who want to get their products on Amazon. What are your thoughts about that from a package design standpoint? Because as you know, and you and I have talked about this, you've got people who are taking products and putting it into a plastic bag.

Like a bag. Yeah.

Oh, my God. And expect to make a fortune because it's on Amazon. What are your thoughts about it?

So, look, I'm okay with that. If you're testing. If you're testing conversion, if you're testing products. So one of the really great examples is someone came to me and they wanted me to design Them this really special juicer, blender. That's a huge, expensive undertaking. You're redesigning a motor, you're designing a whole housing, like, very, very expensive. So I said to her, instead, go out there and find a juicer and a blender that already exists on the market. Put a brown box on it, put your label on it. It doesn't have to be super fancy, right? Just go out there and test the sales of it and get 100 consumers or 1,000 consumers and sell this other thing to them. And then when you have those consumers, now we can have a conversation about what they really want in their product. And now we can have a more deeply embedded conversation. And you learned I can access the market, I can attract them, I can sell them something. Even if it's not the thing I really want to sell them, I can sell them something. And I know how that marketing works. So when you do that, now, you're creating a dialogue with the right market for yourself.

So talk to the consumer, talk to your customer.

So I love an Amazon first approach for that, and that's why I'm a proponent of it. Because if you were to, like, distribute it all yourself, figure out how to get it out to them and deliver it to them, like, you're inventing too many things in the system. And Amazon already has that. They already have shoppers. You don't have to look for shoppers. Right? They already have shoppers. Right. There are people looking in that category. So you do have to learn how to push ads and you have to do some things on it, but you only have to focus on that side of things. You don't have to focus on all these other things that you need to learn how to do. And then after you've got that right and then your product's right, and now that is working, now you can add that great packaged component, amping it up every time.

Now, where does the brand strategy kind of work with the product design, as, you know, you and I are all about? Because there's a lot of layers of branding, as I said at the beginning. So how do you weave in and what's the sequence? What do you do first? What's your advice to our viewers?

So I actually treat branding like it's over here on its own. And then I have a process that I call the 7P process that I operate on all the time, but it's always a check back into the branding. Like, it's always like every time you finish a stage, you go back to the branding and check and you go back to the branding and check and then re inform it and move on to the next stage. And so we have a, we call it prove it first. And in the prove it first we're checking that market product fit. Right and that and we don't really care about our branding as much there as we care are we able to access the market and when we find that market, do they want what we have to sell? And then, then we go. And so we're just doing that at a test stage. Like it might not even be our actual product. So it might be we just found something in China and relabeled it and put it in just so we could see if we could access it. That's that example. And then when we find that fit is going on and that it's people, not our mom, who likes it and who bought something in this market, now we can go and have that next conversation. Now we plug in brand again and so now we start to have that plugin and now we go on to the next part which is pricing. Because if you can't get your pricing right at retail and this is the same thing in services. If you can't get your pricing right and it cannot go from this is how much it costs me to do it, this is how much I'm marking it up. And now here's my price. That's cost basis pricing I prefer. And almost everything today is market basing. Here is what the market will bear. Now I might be able to go up from that if I have a really great brand, but I might have to go down from it if I don't deliver or if I need to discount. So I want to know where that market parity is, where that basis is for me and for what I think I am going to put out there, we will test the viability of it later. But we got to find that sweet spot right at the beginning because if we can't make a design that fits that, then we should stop right now because later we'd go in too high and we'd never sell.

So what would be the three first steps that a product manufacturer would have to take?

So yeah, so that's it.

Make sure they got the right design. So what are your three best tips here?

Yeah, so we prove it first, we really are checking that market, we're pricing it second. And then we really plan the heck out of things because we really want to plan what we're going to do because we want to preserve money for our to really pull our brand all the way through our systems, our customer service, we want to pull the brand through everything. So you want to have money for that. You need to have the majority of your money for budgeting, for marketing, because it costs a whole lot to market today. And so, you know, I look at, if you've got $100,000, you're spending 50,000 of it should be reserved for your marketing.

Gotcha.

And so you should reserve at least half of your budget for that. And so you can't eat up all the remainder, which is product. You're going to have to have your branding in there, your packaging in there, your ip. You've got to go and have a intellectual property of some kind. I'm a big proponent of patenting. Even if the patent attorney says it's not that special, maybe you shouldn't do it. I'm a big fan of doing it. This is because there's a certain level of. And with not the intention of like, going to say, I'm going to enforce this patent, that you have to have a lot of money in your back pocket for. The patent isn't. Isn't a precious thing to me. It's just a tool. And that's why we have as many as we do. It's a tool because it's a tool that allows you to. When somebody. It's easier to buy you out than it is to try to invalidate your patent. Or it's easier to go ahead and say, I have all these assets, not just this product. I have intellectual property in the process. So even if it's in the process. So Tom and I have sold many of our patents at the provisional stage before they ever became issued. Some of our most. The ones we made the most money on, we sold really early.

Wow.

Yeah. So not waiting for your patent issue to get your product to market. And we never wait. But it's kind of like filing a copyright or a trademark. If you're putting something out in the market and there is something special in there for file it. Do not spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars on it. But a provisional patent will cost you a few hundred. And maybe with an attorney doing all of the things that they need to do, maybe 1,000 or two. Very inexpensive, but worth the sort of barrier to entry for others, because they're like, oh, there's a patent there. It's not issued yet. I don't know what that is. Will I compete against it? It's a deterrent and we use it that way.

Yeah, because you got to have your proprietary whatever, Right. Intellectual property so that your competition cannot duplicate, imitate or negate what you have, because you've got to have that one of a kind brand, especially with the product design itself. Now let me ask you this question.

Yeah.

As you know on the Internet, there's a lot of product design companies out there. And all of this. What sets Hazard Design apart from the rest of the product?

What do you think? First off, we don't take clients that often.

Oh, there you go. How about that, everybody? They don't take.

We're very picky about the client. Well, because we're busy with our podcast business or anything. But like, I met.

You're like me. I don't. I don't have time for grumpy people. I'm very selective on who I work with. I.

Right. I really want to. I only want to work with people who I'm excited about where they're going with their product, and I want to be along for the ride and have some fun with them. So I take a couple of projects a year if I. And if only if I'm going to enjoy it. But I have an entire team of people. You're one of them, Right. On my product launch Hazards podcast, those are the people I work with every day. So I refer almost everyone to those team of people because they do a great job. I mean, the thing is that most people today don't need design. And that's the issue. I want to design. I want to conceive an idea. Most people come to me with like, I've got this thing and now would you design it? No, they just want me to do a drawing and make it pretty. That's styling, you know, that's not what I do. It's not what I'm great at. And then most other people just need sourcing. It's like they've got something pretty. They just need to know how to get it made. And maybe it needs some redesign so it can be manufacturable, better, but it doesn't need me. And so I'd overcharge them, really, for what I can do. What I do is when a company comes and they are like, we don't know what to make next. We've got this brilliant market and we know exactly who our clients are and we know our brand, but we don't know what product, what great, innovative thing do they want, what should be next. That's where I come in, and I can be brilliant and come up with something amazing for them that they never thought of. And I can have fun doing it. It's exciting. And I don't have to reinvent everything. I don't have to find them new sources. They probably already have manufacturers to work with. That's like what we did. That's why we could design 800 chairs. Because they already had a group of manufacturers that we could work with and trust, and we could bang them out. Like, we could just design new ideas and really get across what is the market looking for. And we were testing things and we were researching and having fun. Developing new materials is kind of my thing. So we were having a lot of fun with that. Of course, after 800, I was like, that's it. I'm done. I don't want to design another chair again. I think I've designed everyone under the sun right now. So, yeah, I'm done with that. But, hey, I had fun for a time, right? And so, you know, that's kind of thing. Tom and I. Actually, the one thing that we probably will. The project we will take at some point in the future is we would love to redesign the grill.

Redesign what now?

A grill.

Oh, whoa. A barbecue grill.

A barbecue grill. Because it is not user friendly, right? Smoke blows into your face.

Yes.

You know, like, women were kind of afraid to reach over. Our arms are a little shorter. Like, there's nothing.

I know.

Yeah.

There's burn yourself. Oh, my God.

You know, but so much of it is not designed. It's all engineered. And so they don't. They aren't thinking about how a user interacts with it. And so, like, if somebody came to us and said, would you design the next grill? We'd be like, I'm in. Because it's something we complain about every single day. Right. That's the example of, like, we can add a lot of value to something like that that no one's ever thought of before because they haven't been willing to switch the paradigm on what it looks like and how it functions.

I remember when I was in college, in graduate school, and I decided to have a little cookout in this apartment complex I was living at. So I said, I'm going to run to the store and buy a grill and put it together, and everyone's going to come over. So I run to the store, I buy the grill, I get home, I open it up, and here's like, all.

These screws and all, like, I'm under pieces.

Oh, my God.

What?

Whiskey tangle Foxtrot, right? What the.

So I'm like, I got company coming in, like, two hours. So I put it all back in a box. I ran back to the store and I said, there's one of these right there on the way. I'll just pay extra. Just put that in my car. So you are right on with that. Because it's not only those problems. Oh, this whole thing about assembly, right. It's like ikea. I mean, I get it. And that's a brilliant branding concept, right, for ikea, when you can assemble your own furniture, that's another, you know.

So Tom and I are the king and queen of ready to assemble products. Like we have done. Most of our products are ready to assemble, but we design new mechanisms and all of these things. And I can tell you the whole industry doesn't want to change. They're like, this is cheaper, this is easier. We know it works. We don't want to try anything, even if it's better. And so the only patent that we've never been able to sell or move is the one that we invented around a mechanism. Wow.

Well, I'll tell you this amazing. You certainly are extraordinary. What else do you want people to know about Hazard, Tom? And by the way, listeners and viewers, this company is a family business. You've got your daughter. She's 24 years old. What is her role? Alexandra.

So Alexandra runs Potatoes. And so she is our coo, and she built all of our systems and manages our entire 50 person worldwide team. So she's incredible at what she does. And then Tom is the cto, so he manages the technology and the new things and hands us all of our sales right now because we haven't grown a new sales team yet, which we will be shortly. And then I'm the CEO and I get to run around and talk about how amazing our company is and all the things we're working on and how great our team is. I get to work with great podcasters and help them grow their shows and strategize with them. So I get to have a lot of fun. And this is, to be honest, it's way more fun to be a part of someone else's success and growth. That's just how I feel about it. I love that. It energizes me. So that's our Potatoes. Company on has design. I mean, Tom and I built it and we love what we built and we're really proud of it. But the reality is its day has come because U.S. design doesn't exist anymore. Less than 10% of our products are designed in the U.S. whoa. Yep. And less than 2% of those products are designed by women. And yet 85%, as I pointed out, you know, are bought or influenced by women purchasing. So these small startup companies, the little brands who are beginning like this is a change and a shift to that industry. And I give them a lot of power and I want them to succeed because it's the way we're going to shift that back again and take that power back to what does America want to buy? What does my local community want to buy? Just like we used to when we were more like merchants.

So are you saying that American manufacturers, not only are the products being made in other countries, the design itself is being outsourced as well for the majority.

Of our consumer products, electronics, aside from that, because we have Apple and big companies like that. So electronics are sort of an exception. But our general consumer products, the things we buy every single day, including a lot of our clothing, like, we really don't have the same level of fashion designers that we used to. Lot of it is bought. So it's. It's like shopping. And I just gave a speech to 200 women in New York who are investing in VC. They're part of VCs, investment banking and all that. And what I told them was is that this is actually a critical problem in our future retail markets because our consumer product goods are not going to fit us. They're not going to be the quality standards that we stand for in the US and all of these smaller brands have a great opportunity to disrupt the big brands and the big retailers because they are caring and they are paying attention. What they aren't doing, though, is that they don't have the deep level of product experience or material experience or quality experience, because they haven't been running their company for a hundred years like some of our consumer product brands, right? So they don't know the problems that they're gonna face. And just one last story on that is, so I met this sock company and they made these beautiful socks. They're gorgeous men's socks, absolutely beautiful colors. And Tom loves socks. So, like, good colored socks. Yeah, I know you do too. That's why I was mentioning to you. And these were super soft and beautiful and they had everything. And they found this manufacturer overseas and they were working with them in China, and they were. And they sent back samples again and again and again, but all they kept saying was, I want them to be super soft and super bright, like the colors to be vibrant. Right. And so that was their criteria for everything. And so what happened was they asked me to write an article about them. And I said, okay, these are really interesting. Let's hear your story. I'll put together. And so I put together a story, and I was just about to publish the article, and they had sent a pair of socks to us, and Tom wore them for, like, five days over the course of a couple of weeks. And they busted a hole in them really quickly. And so he was like. He was like, I know you're going to publish this article, but there's a quality problem already. So when I turn them inside out and really took a look at them, I realized they made a classic mistake, that anyone who knew anything about sock design or about quality of socks would have known the difference. And I have a material background. So this is. I know knitting and I know weaving, and I know all of that. I have a textile design degree. And so when I looked at it, I knew instantly what they had done wrong. And so I called up the CEO of the company, and I said, hey, I can't publish this article because I don't want to say something negative about you. I just don't. It's not my thing. I'm not here to. Gotcha. I don't want to take your brand, but you have a quality problem. And he was like, I'm devastated about this because I have all this product on the water right now. And I said, look, here's what you're going to have to do. And I said, I learned this lesson really early on in my career when we had. We were making a pen and it popped apart on people. And I said, we sent a message to everyone we sold the product to. So do that. Send your sock and send a message. Send them the socks because they placed pre orders for them, right? Send them the socks and send them a message saying, we know there's a quality problem with this sock. We are going to replace this for you within the next 30 days or 60 days or whatever timeline you are, and you're going to go back to the factory and you're going to fix them, and it's going to cost you, but that customer is going to stay loyal, and they're not going to abandon you because you sent them the snow. So that's how you're going to do it from a brand integrity standpoint. But here's what's wrong with the sock is basically, you kept saying to the factory, you want softness and you want vibrancy, and the two things compete against durability. Forgot to emphasize durability. And you didn't test them because you didn't know that you should run these set of five tests. So I said, go back to the factory. Here's the part. Beef this up, do this, change the stitch design underneath. No one will notice that it's not as vibrant because it's the part that doesn't show. And you'll be okay there. And so the quality will improve. And run these five tests. Color, fastness, uv, like all of these things that I told them they needed to run because they deteriorate the product. And when you have bright colors it in and of itself, that dye deteriorates the fiber faster. So it was the bright color and the combination of the knit stitch they were using. And so they did all of that. And I think I, you know, I never really check back in with them. I like, I, I drop my thing and I'm like, I'm done and I go away. But I should probably check in and see if they still survived all of that. But you know, that's a costly mistake. And these are the mistakes that the smaller brands make because they don't get an X, who knows what they're doing like you do, like an insider. And that's why I love the name of your podcast. Because when you're an insider in something, it makes a big difference. You understand what went wrong. You can see what you could do differently because you're not encumbered by this big organization.

Exactly.

And you're closer to the customer because you're more dependent on them every single day. You know, it shows. And we could have a real revolution of small business owners.

Well, I gotta tell you, it's all about us being able to see what the small business owner cannot see. And number two, for those of you who are watching this podcast and listening in, listen to what Tracy just said. Buy America, Design America. I mean, you can, if you're looking for someone right here that can get you the kind of design that you're looking for for a world class rock star, top shelf brand, they're right here. They're here in Southern California.

That's right, both of us are here.

You don't have to go overseas. And I assume your fees are prob. Comparable. You're competitive, Right? Or anything you want to say about that?

Yeah, you know, this is the thing is most small, most startups don't budget that in. They think they can get by in it and that's okay. Right. But it will keep you from growing. And so our specialty is really hitting to the people who sort of meter out like they get to a Million dollars. And they can't get to 10. They get to 10, but they can't get to 100. And, like, we can introduce them to people, bump them to that X stage or do it with them. And so, like, there's always something. And, you know, I really love the small guy, right? I really love the small guy. And girl, I want them to succeed. So that's why I put my podcast out there. Because at minimum, product launch hazards information is stuff that you cannot pay for. You cannot pay for the amount of experience that all of the experts that I've assembled and Tom's and my 25 years, we've made every mistake under the sun. We've picked up the pieces for every mistake under the sun. Learning from those and really listening in. That's free. That's education that you can utilize at any budget price. So.

Exactly. Wow. So how can people get. Get in touch with you? Is there a website you want to take them to or how.

Yeah, so you're gonna put that in the blog post because there's too many ways to find me. So, like, you're gonna absolutely put that in the blog post for this episode. And so, you know, and, you know, the reality is, is that I'm out there on social and my preferred platform. So if you want to get in touch with me, my preferred platform is LinkedIn. And you can find me. It's hazard with two z's. That's the only difference. You got to find Tracy Hazard with two Z's. And so, you know, that's my. If you want to get in touch with me, I talk to people all the time, but, you know, via that media, because that's my preferred method.

Well, Traci, I love you. I just honor you. I'm one of your biggest fans. For my first interview, I could not have chosen anyone better than you. And you are such a fountain of wisdom when it comes to everything, product design and in podcasting. All right. I mean, we should do a probably another separate interview just on podcasting, given who you are. So thank you so much for being my guest. And you and I will stay connected, of course. So thank you, everybody. And I cannot wait for our next interview because I'm going to be continuing to take you on these big branding journeys with these amazing small business owners who are rocking it with their brands, experts, authorities, and this whole thing called branding. And remember, if you want to get in touch with Tracy today's guest, simply go to my website at www.jerryfosterbranding.com. again, jerryfosterbrandy.com and you'll be able to discover how you can connect with Traci. Until then, take.

You have just listened to Big Brand Formula. Thanks for joining us and make sure to Visit our website jerryfosterbranding.com podcast where you can subscribe to the show and access our resources. If you found value in this show, we'd appreciate a rating on itunes or simply telling a friend about us. Join Jerry again on the next episode of Big Brand Formula where he can further help create your world class brand.

Sam.