Natural Skincare Industry Challenges and Innovations

Amanda Ballard 0:00

What do you think is the biggest challenge that our industry you know , natural products industry is going to face within the next three to five years ?

Peter Murane 0:10

I think it's dealing with .

Tina Smith 0:15

Welcome to the Natural Products Marketer podcast .

Amanda Ballard 0:17

I'm Tina and I'm Amanda and we're here to make marketing easier for natural products businesses , so you can reach more people and change more lives .

Tina Smith 0:29

Peter hi , Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today . We're excited to talk about MOX and everything that you're doing with your skincare product and launching that product and really growing it online and maybe in stores coming soon .

Peter Murane 0:46

Well , it's great to be here . Tina , thank you for having me , and Amanda , I look forward to chatting .

Tina Smith 0:51

Perfect . So why don't we start here ? Because Amanda and I always say that no one really dreams of growing up to be in the natural products industry . So how did you get into this business and get started ?

Peter Murane 1:05

Yeah , I got my start actually in a traditional like big company environment . Like a lot of entrepreneurs , I worked for the Clorox company for about seven years and I worked on 12 of their businesses . They actually own some really cool brands , like Kingsford , and you know things that you may not expect and I realized about seven years into it that I wasn't a big company guy . I was more

Getting Into Natural Products

Peter Murane 1:30

drawn to creative tasks and they put me in an innovation role where my job was to come up with new products for a whole portfolio of their businesses and I just couldn't believe I get paid to show up with a blank sheet of paper every day and to fill it up with ideas and commercialize them . A lot of the work there is de-risking things , because large companies you know they don't want to take a lot of risk . So you had to prove that an idea was good , that it was big , that it was easy to do . It was actually like shooting an arrow through a little needle hole and I ended up deciding that I'd be better off in my career if I could devote it to creativity and to really innovation as a career path . So I went into consulting for about 20 years and I helped larger companies or mid-sized companies build brands , come up with new product ideas . So it was basically like using my big right brain to help lead organizations through exercises like brand positioning , which is really about what you want your brand to stand for in the hearts and minds of your customers . Helping organizations build innovation roadmaps like how do we grow , what's the next step , what can we own in the marketplace . So it's very good . It's a good extension of my career for me , because it's largely about creative thinking and then success with people and I've always been , I think , good with people and I think you need to do that if you're going to do any sort of creative career . But the creative industry or the agency landscape is kind of a young person's game and after a while I'm like , yeah , there's got to be more to it . I want to build my own brands , and so that led me down a path to entrepreneurship or starting consumer products companies , and I met a man about 10 years ago named Ben Fuchs . He's a Boulder based pharmacist and cosmetic chemist and he's also a nutritionist very well known on the internet if you Google pharmacist Ben and at the time he had just sold one of his skincare companies . His non-compete was expiring and he's like I want to do this again . I said , well , let me just stop you . Why do you want to do another skincare brand ? And he said I just love helping people and that resonated with me quite a bit . I thought , ok , that's a cool reason to get up in the morning to go and help people have a better life , if you can through formula innovation and through sort of like meeting basic needs . And his knowledge is deep , but it's unbelievably deep in skin and nutrition based formulas for skin . And he and I started the brand called Truth . That's still out there . It's done really well . It's more of a med spa brand that you might find at an esthetician's office or at a dermatologist's office , sold in the US , sold in Europe , sold in Mexico , and it's been a great ride .

Peter Murane 4:30

I came on board initially . We didn't have any employees , we didn't have any revenue , just to help try and think through the business part of it . So he and I have been doing this business , but we'd always felt like that there was an opportunity . Initially we thought it was going to be in CBD based formulas for the skin and that's what originally started MOX . It was an offshoot of his chemistry designed to really leverage the anti-inflammatory properties of CBD and in skin has a lot of utility . So we commercialized the business against that strategy and it didn't quite work , which I can talk about , but that's how I got into the career . Arc is working for large companies and doing my own consulting work in innovation and brand strategy and then realizing , like I love creating brands and to do that you have to have a great product .

Peter Murane 5:25

The product is the most important thing and his formulas are magic because they just are built differently . They don't use the ancient Greek formula structure that most skincare brands use , which is blending water and oil together or water and wax together . That's how most brands create creams and lotions . They use an emulsifier to bind the water to the fat . That formula strategy is really antiquated because it's flawed . It doesn't have a lot of nutritional value . In fact , here's a good litmus test for your listeners . If you look at a

What Makes a Great Skincare Product

Peter Murane 6:00

skincare brand and you were trying to understand this is a good product , flip it around , look at the ingredients and if the first ingredient you see is water , you're pretty much paying for water . 90% of the formula is water . Then , to make it into a creamer lotion , there's a wax or an oil , and then there's an emulsifier to bind them together and then there's a preservative because when you put water in things you have to have preservatives . You just build as like an inferior structure and then maybe , yeah , there's some vitamin C in it or there's some essential oil in it for benefit .

Peter Murane 6:35

But his approach is much more health-centric . He said I can remove anything that's inactive , I can take the water out , I can take the wax and the oil out , because , guess what ? It doesn't do anything for the health of the skin and it sits on the surface of the skin . What I want to do as a health practitioner is to help promote cell health , and so mox and truth are built with a very innovative system that's vitamin rich and that is designed to go down to the cell . That makes your skin and make the cell healthy .

Peter Murane 7:12

We can talk about cell health for an hour . It's incredible what the cell knows how to do . It has its own intelligence . You can't fool it . It knows what nutrition is and what it isn't . And when you promote cell health , the things that people associate with beauty or with just looking good are enhanced . So you get just better tone . Your problems go away , like your eurexia . Some of your cells are well-fed . You get just a general healthy glow from better circulation . You get stronger skin because the cells create the collagen and the fibroblasts . So there's a whole bunch of strategies he invented to create strong and healthy skin from the inside out , and that's the innovation . On truth , it's what I was drawn to .

Peter Murane 7:55

But really the mission for mox and for truth is about how do you make people's lives better and in the case of truth , it's really interesting because our target is women who are very savvy . They're in their 50s and 60s , they've tried everything , they're searching for something better and when they discover truth , they can't believe it because they're getting a vitamin dose that's extraordinarily higher it's like 80 times higher than a typical skincare product and the skin response right , and they're like oh my God , I've been waiting for this . With mox it's a different animal because we're out to change men's skincare With mox , which is a nascent category , and it's really interesting what we've done to sort of to set that brand up for success , and I'll talk about that . That's my entry into this crazy world of consumer products and I love what I do . I'm really lucky I get to do it for a living , but I definitely I paid my dues for about 20 years learning the basics of business and learning what makes a strong brand strong .

Amanda Ballard 8:57

Awesome . I'm really fascinated

How to Attract Men to Natural Products

Amanda Ballard 9:00

to kind of pick your brain on with a men's skincare line as someone who's been in retail for eight plus years now in any retail environment , especially in , you know , grocery , natural products probably 70% of our shoppers are female , and so I've always been fascinated with this idea of how do I create more of a male audience , because they're not the primary shoppers in the home . So how have you guys been able to kind of target men with your skincare products , especially because it's like men in skincare oftentimes it's like , oh , I use , you know , head and shoulders all over my body .

Amanda Ballard 9:51

It's kind of just an afterthought , and so I'd be really interested to hear what you've found to be successful .

Peter Murane 9:58

Well , I think when you're building a category , you have to recognize where the category is . I think in our society that our family structures and gender roles , they really they've blurred a lot in the last 20 , 30 years , where it's not uncommon now for men to be changing diapers and to go to the grocery store and to cook the meals or to partner with a significant other to get the tasks done . It's true that there's a disproportionate amount of shoppers who are women In the world of skincare . You have to know the audience . So a young guy in his 20s who feels like he's invincible , he's not the target because he's probably not going to do anything and he can beat his body to death and it still looks good . But when you're in your 40s or 50s and you start to sort of get a sense of father time and your partner might say something to you or you might notice , compared to your friends , like I don't look that good . Guys have the need , they just don't have the know how . And in terms of targeting them , we've really spent a lot of time thinking this through Half the time the woman is buying the product for the guy and half the time the guys buying the product for the guy . So building a brand strategy that appeals to both shopper archetypes really is important and knowing your age targets important , because you can't invent a need but when you start to have a need you'll take action on it .

Peter Murane 11:21

And men , you know , in skincare I think a lot of the men's brands are boring . There's no emotion around them , there's no there . There it's just for men , like dove for men , clinique for men . These are brands that were built for women , that are trying to transport equity over to men , as a guy , has no credibility to me because I feel like a woman made that product line and I want something that a guy that speaks the way that I need to be spoken to as a man and the way that men approach skincare . You know they need more education and they want the regimens to be easy .

Peter Murane 12:02

The mox regimen , you know , one minute you're done . It's so easy to adopt . It's a couple steps . And recognizing that you know men are not going to do a complex Korean beauty regimen with eight steps is maybe the first thing you have to realize . And two guys need to .

Peter Murane 12:22

They adopt things for different reasons , right Like , men are hardwired right to . You know , find food , find a mate , there's all kinds of like anthropological systems working for guys at all times . They may not talk about it , but they want to look good , they want to feel strong , they want to show up in their lives , they want to kick butt . And understanding that guys adopt things that make them laugh , guys adopt things that they're approachable , guys adopt things that are easy , are all factors that we baked into our brand and into our product regimen . Actually . So we're not asking men to do a bunch of steps , we're not talking over their heads around the chemistry , and we brought on a celebrity owner that we are announcing on November 8th as a co-founder to help us speak to guys . I can't tell you who it is unless you hold this until November 8th , tina . That's your decision , but if you can , if you can hold it , I'll tell you .

Tina Smith 13:24

Yeah , we .

Peter Murane 13:24

The release date's actually going to be next year , so Okay , so we partner with a phenomenal actor in Hollywood named Simon Rex . Simon was an MTV VJ for a long time . He's been in a bunch of movies . At one point I think he was Paris Hilton's boyfriend , Kind of a .

Peter Murane 13:42

He jokes that he treated his body like a roller coaster for a good 20 years and in like and many people in his 40s and actually he's in his 50s he's realized no , he's , he's , he's in his late 40s , he's almost 49 that I can't do that anymore . I have to take care of myself because my face is my calling card . I want to feel good and he's practicing self care . That reflects almost like a renewed sense of like his role in the world . He wants to take care of himself because he wants to make a difference and when a man reaches that point in his life he's ready to adopt self care regimens . And Simon is . You know , he was in a movie I think it was two years ago called Red Rocket and he won a bunch of best actor awards for it and he , as a result , his phone is ringing off the hook . So he's in 10 movies in the next year that are coming out when the strike ends . He's beloved in Hollywood .

Peter Murane 14:38

But what we like about him so much is that he's on a wellness mission and he speaks guy . He is so funny , His content , that he's been developing for us . He's probably created more than 50 pieces of creative content for us . They just make you laugh , and I think that's what you need to do for men you need to make them laugh , you need to de complicate things for them to embrace it .

Peter Murane 15:00

But at the same time , you know , Amanda , given that half the purchases are by women , we have to also speak to women . And guess what ? Simon Rex is a great looking guy who is promoting wellness and self care , and I think he's equally attractive to women . So our strategy with mox was to build superior formulas that were simple to adopt , Easy regimens , speak the language of men to men , but also embrace women as a purchaser , and that's what we've thought through as a company . It's a really exciting moment for us . We spend a year and a half building the strategy . Getting a celebrity owner is brutal . It is a very hard process to go through and I can talk about that Not for the faint of heart and it's not cheap .

Tina Smith 15:47

As you were talking . It was just making me laugh because first , I gave the product that you sent over to my nephew , who is 15 . So the one minute or less is perfect . He has no interest in anything more than that . So success number one . And number two , as you were talking about how to build this product for men , that it has to be easy . Don't get into the chemistry too much . I felt like I was also getting dating advice from you , so I'm taking it in . I just want you to know . I am taking it in , peter . Yes .

Peter Murane 16:24

That's just a great advice . That part's free .

Tina Smith 16:27

Thank you so much . I appreciate that , but you've mentioned in some of these stories several pieces that we canども click into . I would love to hear a little bit more about CBD and how . Maybe that went a little bit . Wasn't the right

Why CBD Didn't Work

Tina Smith 16:45

hook to get into skin care ?

Peter Murane 16:47

It was a good . I think it's a good hook . I think it was . It's a different audience . I mean at the time Mox is really more of hey it's for everybody .

Peter Murane 16:55

And we went after CBD hard because what CBD does ? Cbd does on the skin is it reduces the friction at some level and makes it easier , when you knock inflammation down , to transport all the vitamins in our products down to the cell . So from a chemistry perspective , from a delivery perspective of nutrients , it really really helps . The problem is that the FDA never issued guidance on CBD and many of the brands in the hemp space thought oh my gosh , cbd is gonna be huge , it's gonna be widely embraced by national retailers , by慢 credit , by drug skulls to commercial brands , by , you know , the advertising platforms like Facebook and Google and Amazon . And and the opposite happened . The FDA never issued guidance on Regulating CBD and therefore you have like a Free for all of people making claims , some responsibly , some irresponsibly and the effect of that is that most retailers whether you're in natural products or you're outside of natural products , they do not like risk in any form or fashion , and when it's unclear whether or not a product at point distribution is legal or following , you know , ftc guidelines or FDA guidelines , a lot of times they just want to embrace the category . So some of the retailers adopted CBD early . Mox felt like okay , we want to be first . So we really were . We were one of the first brands , if not the first brand , into five different pretty big retailers .

Peter Murane 18:28

But as the FDA didn't issue guidance , and we all were thinking like , surely they're gonna provide guidance they have to because it's unregulated and needs to be regulated and they never did and , as a result , you couldn't run it out on Facebook or Instagram , you couldn't place it out on Google , you couldn't put the product on the Amazon and many of the retailers that would be good targets just wouldn't embrace the category . They just view the ingredient as hey , that's a dangerous ingredient . Well , cbd is so innocuous , it's so not dangerous . It's like our pharmacist describes it as Like aspirin . He said it's got incredible potency for inflammation and pain relief and it has next to no toxicity . And In his mind , his pharmacist mind , he's like that's what makes the perfect drug . Aspen's the same thing high potency , low toxicity . But for whatever reason you know , cbd got a little tainted and then people started going around Calling it different things and it just it just became a mess and so the category never really took off and we felt like we're doomed if we may make this our future , so we just walked away from the story and Step back and said , okay , where can we win ? And it was a really tough lesson for us .

Peter Murane 19:44

But sometimes when you're trying to be first or be quick to take advantage of an opportunity , you know it cuts both ways . You can . You can win and you can also die because either a retailer isn't ready or consumers not ready to adopt . But you know entrepreneurs who survive , they are wily and you know the path to success is not a straight line . I mean , that is fiction , the stuff you read in the Wall Street Journal , the unicorns . You know . Once in a while somebody would hit a hit out of the park within a unicorn idea like Airbnb or Uber and it seems like overnight they become a billion dollar brand .

Peter Murane 20:25

Most consumer products take forever to become successful and it looks like a jagged line to success , pivots and steps back and modifications . And you have to . As an entrepreneur and as a leader , you have to make decisions really quickly around Okay , what's going to serve you , what's not ? How do you pivot ? Change strategy , which can manifest in lots of different ways . So we pivoted a bunch of times and it was hard because you know you bet on a strategy and you're getting distribution , but the sales aren't good enough to maintain distribution , and you're looking at it going Fast forward two years . This is not going to be good . So that's why we we changed our Target audience , we changed our formulas and , if anything , we got more focused , which I would encourage everybody to do just much more Focus . Who is your target ? Why do they want to embrace you ? And that focus it for us , has resulted in much better , just better . Everything across the board , from advertising to pricing strategy to a general sense within the team of . I know what I'm supposed to do .

Peter Murane 21:30

So go smaller to get bigger , it sounds like yeah , we pulled back to go smaller and , you know , got out of the gold rush mindset and you know it was a good lesson .

Amanda Ballard 21:41

Yeah , and I think it's . It's interesting because , you know , being in a natural product store , when the CBD thing really blew up Like it was , it was crazy and I feel like it was every other week a new company was or not necessarily a new company a Company that's been around forever was releasing a new CD product and it was like what's heck are you doing ? Like you're a fish oil company , why are you Releasing a CVD ? Like it made no sense and I think it actually like ended up tarnishing people's reputation a little bit because it was like Okay , so you're purely in this just for the money and , like you said , the girl gold rush mentality and I think Pretty soon those products definitely like made their way off the shelves or never got in in the first place .

Amanda Ballard 22:25

It was like you don't know what you're doing in this phase , like what are you doing ? And so ,

Basing a Brand on One Ingredient is a Mistake

Amanda Ballard 22:30

yeah , I think that's it's really interesting to kind of just hear that perspective and to have Kind of your mindset on this , one thing to the but then to pull out , I think , is it , it's very wise and I think it . I think there's a lot of lessons that can be learned from , from your story . So thanks for sharing that .

Peter Murane 22:50

Yeah , big one too , I think , is a lot of new brands . They base their whole strategy off an ingredient . Typically , ingredient brands are low differentiation , they can be copied super easily . You can get price competition Overnight and a brand is bigger than the ingredient right .

Peter Murane 23:06

So for mox we're we're very much about sell health , but we're not a deep science story , because guys are not gonna embrace that . That's why Simon is short-handing a lot of these messages , like even just saying to you in some of the ads like , hey , guys , get your own shit , she doesn't want you using hers right . Like that speaks to men in a way that men understand . And guys have been busted lots of times for using their wife stuff or their girlfriend stuff and she's not happy that you're doing that and it's not that manly right to use her stuff . But the bigger point is , you know brands have to have a story and and meaning behind them . And for us , you know we're about Filling guys with a little more moxie right , a little more sense of confidence , a greater sense of like , yeah , I can , I can go out there , I can kick some butt , I love how I look , I feel confident , I know I'm taking care of myself . Those are all much more laddered up concepts . That then an ingredient story , and it takes patience to build meaning around a brand and it takes a lot of Persistence . And this is where focus comes in as well . They're not that many men's brands out there that have been widely adopted , mostly because they're , you know , kind of Brands designed by women for men .

Peter Murane 24:24

I think is part of the issue . They're too complicated or they're just a pure feminine . Guys want guys brands . Guys want to be spoken to the way they understand . And Men want to feel confident . They want to feel like they can go out there and slay it . They may not tell you that , but it's operating in the background . For guys , they want to look good , they want to go out and do their best . Most dads and Moms what are they telling little boys ? You know , do your best , love yourself . Like these . These messages that people get indoctrinated , doctrinated within their little . They still operate . When you're older , my dad was all about like how do you , how do you be a better dad ? How do you show up ? What does that mean to show up ? And I think guys are figuring it out . Guys are still a little bit like playbook changed . You know , what does it mean to be a man . I think it's something that we're trying to figure out in our culture .

Tina Smith 25:16

Yeah , that's , I think you're right about that , and it's really encouraging to hear that you guys have decided to step into part of that role and help guys kind of figure it out . So I think it'll be fun to follow and see how that works .

Peter Murane 25:34

You have to follow the content so good , and I mean , simon makes me laugh . The other day he sent me a song he wrote and we were just dying laughing , you know . So we're gonna do things that other brands have never tried , and I think that's part of the path too . From a marketing perspective , if you want to build something special , you have to do something different . You cannot market by other people's roles . Try and be your own brand , be your own person , have an identity , have a point of difference

Having a Story That's Compelling

Peter Murane 26:00

, be a little controversial . There's nothing wrong with that . In fact , there's a relationship that I was taught the smaller your budget , the more disruptive your brand strategy needs to be .

Tina Smith 26:11

Yes , we love that and we talk about that a lot . There are so many things that make natural products differentiated from some of the bigger commercialized products with big budgets , and so take advantage of that story , take advantage of that oddity . Whatever it is that you bring to the table , just bring it fully . Be that , and you're gonna win over . You're gonna win that target audience that you're trying to speak to .

Peter Murane 26:44

Yeah , and I think too , like having a story that people care about is a big deal . It's , you know , mox products are vegan . They're organic . We don't test on animals . Those are all attributes of the brand , but that's not a story that is enduring . Those are just good things to be as part of a citizen of the world for your business right . So a brand has to go beyond . It's kind of like owning ingredients . I mean , you can't really own them . And those certifications like vegan or organic at some level , they're aunties in a poker hand . You know they're not gonna help you win . They're just things that help you , like a clean formula , for example . That's a requirement . You can't load your stuff with junk or preservatives and expect people to embrace it in the Natural Products channel . But does that help you win ? No , it just helps you get to the table .

Tina Smith 27:35

Yeah , 100% agree . Let's talk about your innovation background a little bit . How did that really propel your success forward coming into the natural products ? Or , if any , did it hinder you from moving faster or getting something a little bit more right ?

Peter Murane 27:58

No , I mean I've been studying innovation for more than 25 years . I had this incredible experience when I first started doing consulting , working with a tiny Denver company called Orange Glow that made a brand called OxyClean , which was sort of a hyperbole brand . That was a laundry additive and they sort of cracked the infomercial model when it was coming out in the late 80s and early 90s and just the company blew up . And what I loved about that experience was these owners were so wonderful .

Using Retailers as Testing Partners

Peter Murane 28:30

They were just fast as lightning . They experimented like crazy . Their model was throw a spaghetti at the wall and see what stuck . They could do that because they built a channel partnership with a retailer that let them experiment and the things that did well with that one retailer . They gave them an exclusive period with that item and then they would take that and graduate into their other retailers . But they had , like this incredibly compressed timeframe between an idea's hatch to when it actually hits a retailer shelf and , having worked for Clorox , which I mentioned before , so risk averse . It would take Clorox two years to commercialize anything and they would try and test their way out of all the risk . But in consumer goods you've heard the statistic right 90% of innovations fail . That's a studied number . So 90% of new products they don't last longer than a year . And why ? Why , just you know we can't possibly be that stupid , right ? Well , the issue with new products is that when they are new , you have a massive amount of assumptions and very little knowledge . And in that first year of commercialization , getting into retail and seeing if people will actually buy what you are selling and the price you're selling it at , with the packaging you're selling it at , like the fall off is dramatic because knowledge kicks in and you're like , oh , we screwed this up or we screwed that up . And you know , small companies can weather that adaptation . Big companies a lot of times they'll just kill the item and move on and try and do the next one . So for me , I learned . I learned Big Company Rigor , which has its place , small company Insanity , sort of the harmony of the two . I actually wrote a book about it years ago called Lessons from the Vinyl Sofa , because the family that owned this small Denver based cleaning company . They would sit on this vinyl sofa and it was hilarious because you'd be sitting there and you would just slide , you'd just start sliding down , there's nothing you could do about it , and you'd like to pop yourself back up and . But I love that . I love this family . It's called the Apple family in Colorado is their name and they just were so innovative .

Peter Murane 30:42

But I think my approach has been a bit more of a hybrid . Um , you know , innovation for innovation sake is not a good thing . You have to have products that people understand . Innovation , when it's practice right , is holistic . So it's not just that what goes in a bottle right , it's the packaging , it's the marketing approach you're going to take to commercializing something , it's the advertising you're going to create or the social content you're going to create .

Peter Murane 31:13

And to me , I'm a big believer in test and learn adapt really quickly .

Peter Murane 31:20

And when you have that focus around who your brands for , why you exist , it's really easy to be innovative because you know what you're about . When you're not clear on the benefit of your brand , both kind of the functional benefit and more the emotional benefit , and you're not clear on your target and you're not really clear on your channels , your innovation has a much higher risk profile and it's just not as easy to go out and create New products , for example , or new ad campaigns , because you're just guessing more right , like the wider the aperture like , the harder it is to do it well . So for me , I Love innovation , we try and do it fast , we're lucky and that our pharmacists can prototype Really quickly . So if I say , hey , can you make a tinted mineral sunscreen that has some vitamin C in it , he go , yeah , I'll have some prototypes for you . And at the end of the week . Now they're not ready to commercialize , but there are things that we can go experiment with and we have an advantage in that regard .

Tina Smith 32:25

But um , yeah , so what I love and what you were just talking about is and we've we've talked about this topic before is how nimble some of the natural products manufacturers and retailers can be , because they are not the whole foods and amazons of the world who are trying to be all things to all people . They have a smaller market , they can make decisions in their stores or in their manufacturing Facilities and they can make things happen . So this just brings that home again , that that is a piece of differentiation that these , that this whole industry has against the people , that they think they're competing against the bigger boxes , the bigger consumer brands .

Peter Murane 33:12

I agree , one of the best things I ever did on a new product that I worked on From scratch end up becoming greenworks that that Clarke's launched . We were trying to figure out how do we test these assumptions , because I mentioned that your assumption it's like a seesaw . Your assumptions are so heavy at the beginning and really what you want is knowledge . So we found a little retailer in Boulder that would let us test on the shelves and we just gave them free product and in return we said can you just share the sales data with us ? And they did , and we learned so much in such a short period of time as to what sold , why it's all . We would talk to consumers in the aisles , we would do all kinds of crazy things just to learn you know around who was buying . Why were they buying ? Was at the right price point ? Do they have a good experience ? So we thought we we'd ask people hey , can we follow up with you , like in a month , to see what you thought of the product ? Like just really hands-on . And Sure enough , you can find problems in the formulas or problems with the experience . Fix them before you try and scale anything up . So that's something that I was a huge advocate of if you're commercializing something new , don't bet the farm , bet nacre , and just go and find a place to experiment with your assumptions and Vet them a little bit . Some people use e-commerce environments to do that . The e-commerce environments are hard , you don't get a lot of feedback from customers , but it is a place to test at some level .

Peter Murane 34:43

I think , or I have learned , the most of my career is actually Having a conversation with a customer , either before they buy something or after they've used it , and taking the time to Understand their experience . You know and the big companies they call that customer experience , right Like Proctor and Gamble breaks it down to you have a first moment of truth and a second moment of truth . The first moment of truth is in a , in a retail environment . Will someone buy the product , will they pick you versus the other choices ? And that is Is complex . There's a lot of things going on , from price to packaging , right To brand awareness , to trust , all kinds of dynamics . And then the second moment of truth is they put you in their basket , they've taken you home , they've used you for the first time . What was the experience like ? Was it what they expected ? Was it better ? Were there any problems , would they come back again and buy it ? Like all the questions around loyalty repeat get answered in the second moment of truth and Just thinking in through kind of like first moment of truth , second moment of truth is a good framework for people .

Peter Murane 35:49

And then the importance of Connecting with customers to understand real life experience that you as a leader can go back and say we got to fix this thing , or this part was right , that part's not right . And then when you bake it Guess what you go to bigger retailers and you say we've done extensive testing , here are the results and we've Really dialed this in . And I think that's what you want with retail . Like you want to build momentum , not lose momentum . When mocks first started , it was losing momentum . We went too early to retail . These were big retailers and getting in is a like a feat , so hard to get in , staying in is harder . So if you want to get into a retailer , bring credibility of success in other retailers . If you want to stay in retail , make sure you've solved the second moment of truth that people love your product , they love the experience , they're loyal , they come back and then you've got something really , really great if you've done those two things .

Tina Smith 36:47

There's so much more that we would love to talk to you about and yet I want to honor your time and we're like getting close to the end of our time here and we always do sort of a lightning round of questions .

Peter Murane 37:00

I'll be quick go .

Tina Smith 37:03

All right , Amanda .

Amanda Ballard 37:04

I'm gonna let you take it . Okay , I'm actually prepared this time , yeah , okay . So , like Tina said , rapid-fire questions , so don't think , just answer . So who do you kind of pay attention to , follow , listen , read , when it comes to Marketing or just business in general in this industry or outside the industry too ?

Peter Murane 37:34

I'm more listened to people who inspire me and I learn more by exploring other worlds than I do by poking around in the natural products industry . So for me , like someone inspirational like David Goggins or Joe Rogan I mean set aside the politics right Like podcasts , like smart lists just hearing the narratives of interesting people . I learned so much . I love reading the Wall Street Journal and it sounds crazy . It's people associated with big companies , but there's good nuggets for small companies too . Yeah , you know I'm a voracious reader , but a lot of times my reading is to get away , to go read fiction , to enjoy my life , and invariably I'm going to stumble upon something like oh , there's an idea . So I look outside the industry to gain inspiration for the industry .

Amanda Ballard 38:29

Nice , okay . So what do you think that most people in the natural products industry would change about marketing ?

Peter Murane 38:39

What would they change ? I mean , like what's not working ? Yeah , it's super hard to build a brand . It's expensive to build a brand , and that's why having like a really compelling narrative and amazing customer success stories are how you build long-term success . The most valuable asset any e-commerce brand has or retail brand has is their email list , and people aren't going to subscribe to you if you don't produce interesting , value-added content . Email is so efficient and it's a phenomenal way to build advantage , but you have to also commit yourself not to selling products but to selling information to people that they find value-added . So , for example , with Mox , we have a series called Men with Mox and it's really great . It celebrates people who are out there doing great stuff , maybe behind the scenes , when no one's watching , and they're just hustling every day when no one's looking . That's a guy that you know what he's trying to up his game and we celebrate that Cool .

Challenges for Natural Products Businesses

Amanda Ballard 39:36

What do you think is the single biggest decision that's led to your success ?

Peter Murane 39:44

Just getting clear about why we exist , and we're about helping guys up their game and showing up strong . That clarity is so good to run decisions through , and you have to have a filter for a business to know whether somebody's a good choice or a bad choice , and so we have a good filter , I think now . It took us a while , but now we've got a good filter for our choices .

Amanda Ballard 40:08

What do you think is the biggest challenge that our industry natural products industry is going to face within the next three to five years ?

Peter Murane 40:17

I think it's dealing with Amazon . I think these big retailers are getting bigger and the traditional retail model is very expensive , so it's just trying to defend against these big gorillas that absorb customer purchases .

Tina Smith 40:36

What do you think the best way is for combating that ?

Peter Murane 40:41

I don't know . I think that Amazon is easy , but it's low touch . There is no experience , there's no greeting , there's no follow up , there's no joy , there's just ease . So it's just having . If you're a retailer , having an experience that when people come in , here's an idea they feel welcome when they check out , they feel welcome that the store always has surprises . Costco does that really well , by the way , it's probably the best retailer for creating a surprise experience or people call it a treasure hunt sometimes at Costco why they go , and I'm surprised that more natural retailers don't think like that Just making the experience uniquely personal and interesting in this crazy AI world and big retail world . So I would say celebrate being small . Bring forward personal connections Like when's the last time you stopped someone in the grocery store to ask for their advice ? Who does that well ? And I think people that do that well . That's where you want to shop in this bizarre world of depersonalization and I think there's a counter swing to that , which is high personalization .

Tina Smith 41:52

Yeah , yeah . So I will guilty pleasure admittance here . Whenever I was younger and didn't really care about my health that much , I thought I was invincible . I would go to Costco for a hot dog and a drink and then go around for all of the samples that they had of everything around . That was my lunch . I was like $1.50 . I get a whole lunch . It's amazing , I don't know if that's awesome .

Amanda Ballard 42:21

So what do you think is some low hanging fruit that natural products businesses could kind of grab a hold of and run with ?

Peter Murane 42:30

I mean just being on the tip of trends . I think it's huge . We're going to see ketamine , psilocybin just eclipse what marijuana has done . I think CBD has done . I think , because these medicines are low toxicity and they're highly , highly effective at like single doses or single experiences . They're sort of the anti-pharma model , they're the anti-antidepressant model . I think brands that are embracing power plants have a real advantage because big companies are not going to touch that stuff for quite a while . The flip side is you're in unregulated spaces . So hence my experience with the CBD not getting guidance around it . It's higher risk , but I think there's more elbow room . But I don't know .

Peter Murane 43:31

I think that would almost come down to like a brand specific conversation and real introspection on how do we build something important which takes you more to what's the meaning of the brand and the products , and how do you build something enduring and enduring things . People delight in the products . They love your brand , they love your products . There was a book that CEO of Sachi and Sachi , the ad agency wrote maybe 20 years ago , called Love Marks , and it was a great book for just thinking through , like it's not about trademarks , it's not about products , it's about a love mark . Why should people fall in love with your product , Natural products , right Like ? Consumers want to love you . They want to know that you're different , that you're better , that you're soulful , that you are the anti big company , non GMO . You know what I mean . And but that's not just sticking a little bullet point in your package saying , you know , cruelty free . It's got to be bigger than that . And that goes back to storytelling .

Peter Murane 44:37

I think Video is so important . Just telling stories through video . It's cheap . It used to be when I was trained in marketing you'll laugh we would go shoot a commercial or a series of commercials for a big brand . We do it once a year . The budget would be $300 to $500,000 . Okay Now , I actually was out in LA last week shooting content . We shot about 50 pieces of content in one day and I held the camera and that was all we needed . So it just . You know you have this wide , open ability to create content , clever content , If it's fun . You have the right people doing it and the right strategy doing it . It's free , effectively , and I'm surprised that more brands don't just jump on that .

Amanda Ballard 45:25

Yeah , yeah , because it doesn't . I think the expectations have changed for what makes good content . It's not the studios and all like , oh , that's fine and you can do that , but I think it's just being real .

Peter Murane 45:40

Yeah , I think it's being real too . I think that with content , the algorithms change all the time , right ? But if you look at TikTok , you look at Facebook and Instagram , what are those social platforms trying to get users to do One thing stay on the app . So the algorithm rewards content that's entertaining . Content that's entertaining is not droning on about ingredients or what the product . It's actually more engaging than that . So brands that aren't thinking through how do I make my content entertaining or value added are really not understanding what you know social platforms are rewarding right now .

Amanda Ballard 46:16

Yeah , so if people want to connect with you , peter , or learn more about Mox , how can they find ?

Peter Murane 46:25

you Just Peter at moxmindbodycom , Hit me up . I'd be happy to have a conversation . I'm , you know , entrepreneurs love other entrepreneurs and if I can help I'd be happy to .

Tina Smith 46:35

And what about if they want to join in the newsletter where they get to hear about the Moxmen ? How do they do that ? Yeah , thank you .

Peter Murane 46:45

So moxskincarecom on November 8th . They can see Simon Rex and hear from him and that's where they can sign up for our content . They can follow us on Instagram , which is probably our focus right now , and and Facebook , but Instagram in particular . So Simon has been busy and I I love how he intuitively understands , like what guys need and , and you know , I think we're about to make this category interesting . It's been , it's been , too boring for too long and only about a third of men have a regimen and we can , we can do some about that .

Amanda Ballard 47:20

Well , I'm excited to watch how your brand just grows and definitely will be following you guys and just join the ride .

Tina Smith 47:31

Yeah , and we would love to have you back on after you guys have had some exposure with with this new influencer and talk about how you got you know , found the right person , how it's how the campaigns are going . So don't forget about us once you're big .

Appreciation and Call to Action

Peter Murane 47:46

All right . Thank you for your time .

Tina Smith 47:47

I appreciate it , thanks so much for joining us . This was so great . Thank you .

Amanda Ballard 47:52

Thanks so much for listening to the Natural Products Marketer podcast . We hope you found this episode to be super helpful . Make sure you check out the show notes for any of those valuable resources that we mentioned on today's episode .

Tina Smith 48:02

And , before you go , we would love for you to give us a review . Follow , like and subscribe on Apple podcasts , spotify , youtube or wherever you're listening today , and make sure you join us for our next episode , where we give you more marketing tips so that you can reach more people and change more lives .