Why We Love Being Product Designers

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 everyone, welcome back to Product Launch Hazards. You're going to see on our show, on our podcast show, but also on our membership platform, you're going to see a lot of great experts in all aspects of the things of the areas of product launching, all aspects of it. And I think it's kind of an interesting thing where our personalities and our expertise and all those things are sort of coming across in little bits and pieces over the episodes because we're not doing one of these, like, oh, let me interview you. I mean, we did our intro of what Product Launch Hatsuits was about and who we were, but you're not really getting that. We had this older, it's a few years old video that we did that was kind of this interview style of answering a question and what does it mean to be a good designer? And what about accolades and things like that and how. I think this really sets up Tom, who we are, what we care about. I don't want to be self promotional about this or anything. I think this gives you all a little insight into our approach to what good product is, what good product design means, what our intention is for this community. These are the ethical roots of that. These are the guiding principles that we use. And so I thought we should share it. What do you think?

I think it's a great idea. And just to be clear, certainly our background and our discipline we were educated in and have practiced for many years is about product design and has become development. But I think as we talked about maybe in that first episode, is that because we're designers, we've experienced everything from the boardroom to the factory floor, to selling out on sales trips, to the legal wranglings. Yeah, legal things. And so while our actual discipline and expertise is definitely has always been in design and it is probably the most important thing to us, we certainly have experienced enough of all different aspects of bringing a product to market that that really what we've learned and what we're trying to help everyone with makes perfect sense. Segueing into Product launch hazards as a membership site to help everybody, regardless of what aspect you need help with.

Right, right, exactly. And I think that that just really sets our principles up really nicely. As to what we care about. And what we care about is that that this sells, that your product sells, because if it doesn't sell, you don't have a sustainable idea, you don't have a great invention, you don't have a business. And at the end of the day, everything needs to make that happen. But not in sacrificing, of course, any kind of ethical principles along the way. I mean, that's how we define it.

Sure. And I think our angle is if you have a better design, your own unique aspects to a product, the product will have a lot more longevity and you won't just be constantly trying to find another horse to run to.

You know, it's not a shotgun principle. I had to explain that to somebody else. So the shotgun principle of design is we had this company at the Prosper show when I did my talk there, which is available also as a podcast and as a video on our platform. So you can see my talk there. But there was this guy who was talking about how he had 10,000 SKUs.

And he was really bragging about that.

He thought it was great.

It was like a badge of honor he was wearing.

Right.

And so I said, how big is he? And so I did some math on it, and I came up that the best that I could imagine he was doing if he was still here at the show and because of the seller level, was that he was probably doing about $800 per year, on average. Per skew.

On average. And I'm sure that's a mischaracterization. He's probably got some skus that are hardly selling at all and a couple of serious home runs of skus that.

Are doing that are carrying the rest of them. Yeah, exactly. But on average, that's terrible.

I think it's a horrible ratio. Or average.

Yeah, it's a horrible. It's a horrible look at it. And it's an example of the shotgun approach. And so many companies practice this. That is not a small business. It is not an inventor. It is not E commerce sellers that are unique to this. There are big brands that practice the same approach. Now, luckily, they probably don't go past the sampling stage because they have the buyer at retailer who's the gatekeeper, who goes, yeah, not that, not that, not that. But we have had companies who make us design hundreds of items to show at trade shows. Hundreds that we know won't work. We are pretty confident when we design these, five or six will be the likely ones chosen. And 99% of the time we're Right.

Well, you know, that's a really good point, Tracy. I remember many times with salespeople that I would work with at bigger corporations say, when we come up with these great designs, that absolutely fits the needs and fits the bill for what buyer at retail is looking for. And the reality is we know that it's right, that we fit the bill, but the salespeople like, yeah, that's great.

But we need more.

We can't just go in with three or four options. We gotta have. I mean, what if they don't like those? We gotta have many, many more. And they keep throwing quantity at it at the expense of quality just because they're afraid. They're like, they use all these typical and unfortunately, I think typically male cliches like, oh, gotta have more bullets in the gun.

That's why we call it the shotgun approach for a reason. Yeah. But anyway, we wanted to share with you this clip of how we define accolades, how we define what we've been successful on behalf of our clients, because I think that that should be the broader definition of success of your product.

What do you believe is the ultimate accolade to being a designer?

I think ultimately what we want is for our products to be bought and used over and over again. That they have some longevity.

Yeah, I mean, we have 80 products that are still being sold today, and some of them are 15, 20 years old. They've been in the market that long. So, you know, I mean, that's to me, the ultimate. If people are still. Are my product timeless, that means that's a good thing.

I think we all have the feeling that in America we have kind of a disposable culture and we try not to really perpetuate that. And in fact, even when it's. Yeah, but a couple of our products, not only have they been on the market for 19 or 20 years, but the products have survived the client. And the product was so valuable and successful that it was sold from one company that was needed an exit strategy because they were going out of business, sold to another company, and at least once, if not twice, in its 20 year life. But the product is still manufactured and sold today in really the same form that it was 20 years ago.

And while I want to be timeless and everything, I don't want to be a Twinkie. So let's be really careful about that.

So the Twinkie brand obviously survived from company to company, but I hope that.

It'S because my product's good and not.

Because it's, you know.

Well, like we say, we it can't be killed. But like we say, we develop products pretty much everything except food and fashion. So I think we can forgive the Twinkies.

We can forgive the Twinkies.

Anyway, we don't love to.

Design awards are filled with a lot.

Of things that look really pretty in a magazine but aren't useful to the consumer. And I want people to recommend my products.

What I really love is nowadays I.

Can read the comments.

So, like, if I've got a product.

For sale on staples, I can go read the comments from all of my customers.

I love that.

That just gives me that sense of satisfaction that I did a good job, that they love my product and they're recommending it.

I think actually a lot of companies don't look at those comments enough because you can learn a lot from it to improve future products. But like you say, fortunately, the feedback that we're getting on products is very positive and reinforces that we did a good job.

Yeah.

So I think that's probably the biggest accolade for us.

Have you thought about what you would do as a career if you weren't inventing products?

Kind of like that question.

Because you just always wanted to be a designer.

I don't know.

You love being a designer. I think there's no question.

I would just be a writer.

It's my favorite part about when I get to write copy and I get to write blogs and I get to write things about our company that I get energized by the writing portion of it. I'm working on some books, so I may actually get to fulfill that part of my dream.

For me, I'm not sure what I would be. I mean, it probably would have been an offshoot of being more of an engineer or maybe in computer software or something if I wasn't a designer. But honestly, at this point, I can't imagine not being a designer. And I don't have dreams of being an actor or somebody famous like that either.

Lastly, what's next on your list? What new products would you like to design?

We've been lucky, and we've done a lot of really diverse things. Consumer electronic accessories and furniture of all kinds, in commercial as well as in retail.

So we've gotten to do a lot.

Of really interesting things over the time. But when we were doing our gender blend lecture that we gave in Vegas, I guess it was a year ago. Yeah. We used some other examples that were outside of our design realm, and I kind of got excited about grills. I would love to design a grill.

And I think it's because it's the perfect gender blend product in reverse, like.

More women are grilling and it's such a man's domain and I'd love to just make it female friendly. And I think there's so many things that are wrong with it, like the heat shields right where your boobs are.

I just think that that's really a.

Scary thing for a lot of women. Or I'm short and I can't reach my arm in. It's like there's just so many ways.

That you could functionally make it better.

And physically it should just look better. Why shouldn't it be as great as our ovens and our ranges?

I think there's a lot of opportunity in that market for a maybe a bit of a revolution, if not a significant evolution in the product and something that I still think men would feel manly grilling. But if we can make that grill be a much more desirable or certainly interesting product to women, have it function a bit better because they all work the same way. It would be.

The other thing is that I like.

The idea of adding design to that where it seems like such an engineered product. And really it probably is just factory.

It's all direct, right? I mean, there are certain factories in Asia making grills. They're all making them the same way. And just like we've experienced in other areas, they know how to do only what they know how to do. And until somebody comes along and tells them it can be so much better and you can gain more market share by doing it a little differently than.

Yeah, I like that challenge.

So I think that that's what I.

Definitely want to do a grill in the next couple of years.

I agree.

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