Tina Smith: 0:00

I was just thinking about, like, what might be coming up next. So, look, we could talk for days probably about all of these interviews, because there were so many hours that we put into them, talked to these people, had before and after with them, and then we relistened to all the episodes. But I am so excited about what's coming next season. Welcome to the Natural Products Marketer Podcast.

Amanda Ballard: 0:32

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: 0:44

Hi, amanda. Hey, we are here to talk about season one of the Natural Products Marketer Podcast, and I was just thinking about it because I got a notice in January that it was time for our one year renewal of the domain naturalproductsmarketercom. So do you remember over a year ago when I reached out to you and said hey, I have a crazy idea.

Amanda Ballard: 1:13

I do. I actually remember where I was. I was like in a Starbucks parking lot, had just picked up a drink and get this message. It was like do you want to hear my crazy idea? I was like, absolutely I do. And the rest was just great.

Tina Smith: 1:30

That is not the last time I sent you a message like that.

Amanda Ballard: 1:32

No, it seems to be a weekly occurrence lately.

Tina Smith: 1:37

Yeah, do you want to hear this crazy idea? And you always say yes, which is so encouraging to me.

Amanda Ballard: 1:43

Maybe you're not so crazy.

Tina Smith: 1:46

No, I'm definitely crazy, and there have been just so the listeners understand there are times when Amanda has been like, yeah, no, that is not happening or it's not happening right now, but I do have a lot of ideas around helping natural products retailers win and grow. It's a huge passion for me and I think it's all started with because I have the end customer in mind. Like they deserve to have people like you in their lives, and so I want to help them find you. I want to help people find the resources that they need in order to take care of their own health and wellness, and it's been a passion for a very long time. But a year ago I was like, hey, do you want to help me make a bigger impact on the natural products retailers? And you were like, yeah, I'm in.

Amanda Ballard: 2:44

Yeah, no, it's been super fun and just reflecting on the past year of all the work that we did to prepare for the podcast and finally launching it it's been the way that I view it and I would say that you would feel the same is I've gotten way more out of just doing this show than I have put into it, and there's a lot of stuff that goes into every single episode. But, man, I just feel like I've just been so blessed by all of the interviews that we've had just our conversations and I view it almost as my continuing education. It's like there's so many things that I could do to further my knowledge in marketing, but I'm like I get to do this just for fun and help people along the way, so it's been a joy to be on this journey together.

Tina Smith: 3:39

Yeah, no kidding. I mean, I just think about all of these wonderful resources that we've been able to interview, both in the industry and out of it. It's stuff I wanna know as much as I want retailers and other people, manufacturers in the industry to know. It's things that I'm asking questions about too, or that our clients are asking questions about. So it's so wonderful to be able to spend time with these people picking their brains and it doesn't seem to be a huge ask for them and they teach us all kinds of things. And then, after the episodes, I'm always really excited because I'm like oh, we can take this back to the people we're working with and we can do all these new things or try and experiment, because I think this information it just sort of unlocks a piece of something that we've been chewing over maybe for a long time. So it's been so helpful for our clients as well.

Amanda Ballard: 4:43

Yeah, so I know we wanted to spend the bulk of today's episode just talking about things we've learned from our guests in our interviews with them and things that maybe will pique our listeners' interest to maybe go back and listen to some of these episodes that they might have missed. So let's dive into that.

Tina Smith: 5:03

Yeah. So just to start with, I'll say we're on episode 22 now, I think, and I didn't even realize that we had done so many and, as we were saying, okay, let's go back and review it. Listening to all the episodes over again, I was like wow, that is a lot of content that we've covered. And yet there were some themes that came up over and over again. One of them that just comes to mind was echoed from Ryan Simpson-Brinner, chris Sorenson, billy Jones, seth Spears, peter Moraine, that we have to be marketing on our differentiators. We have to talk about what makes this different than other retailers or other people in our industry, and we probably don't do that enough. A lot of times. It's this consultative approach and people aren't talking about it in the marketing as much as they probably should.

Amanda Ballard: 6:03

Yeah, I made a note of something that Peter Moraine said on his episode. He said that the smaller your budget, the more disruptive your brand needs to be, and I was like that is just a golden nugget that I think all of our listeners because I think no matter the size of your business and a lot of our friends in this space are operating on smaller budgets you can be disruptive with little money and even when you start to increase your revenue and all of that it's so. I feel like it's really hard to be like I'm gonna spend all this money on marketing, even though I know I should, but it's like you don't have to spend a ton. I mean, there's definitely recommendations of what you should spend, but I think it gave me hope of you can still do a lot with little resources.

Tina Smith: 7:00

Yeah, which reminds me of something in Ryan Simpson Brenner's interview, which was all about lowering the volume or the amount of choices that you have, bulking up the volume of the few lines that you spend money with so that you can capitalize on the number of human resources that you have. So small resources, whether it be in budget for marketing, or smaller resources with people, because it's tough to find good people to work in retail these days, and that just makes you more creative. So what are some of the ways that you can sort of work your way or get creative outside of that and I think all of our podcast interviewees had something to say- about that.

Amanda Ballard: 7:47

Yeah, I think that reminds me of I know Chase Ballard talked about this as well as Chris Sorenson. You're talking about utilizing our human resources wisely. They both talked about merchandising and product selection, and I think Ryan even talked about this too. You don't need to have more. More does not equal better. So choosing just a few products that you really believe in, having this good, better, best mentality when you're making these purchasing decisions and when you only have five options for vitamin C as opposed to 20 because there's more than 20 out there it's like it makes your staff's job easier to merchandise them. It makes it easier for the customer to decide what do I pick? Well, there's five choices instead of 20. So it creates a path of just less resistance on multiple fronts when you kind of just pair things down.

Tina Smith: 8:52

Yeah, and that just reminds me of our interview with Billy Jones when he's talking about okay, then who do you partner with? If you only have five manufacturers that you're working with around vitamin C, who do you partner with? And Billy's not the only one that talked about this, but finding those manufacturers that are protecting the independent retailers is so important If they're enforcing map policy, which I know is difficult we've talked about this with vendors and how do you do this and it's very difficult to do but people do dedicate resources to make that happen if they're in the business of furthering the independent retailers in this industry. So I think that's one key is finding people that help protect this channel so that you can deliver the best customer experience and also finding the best products.

Tina Smith: 9:50

So Dr Gregor, who wrote how Not to Die and how Not to Diet, has come out with a new book called how Not to Age, and he sits and talks in the introduction to this book.

Tina Smith: 10:07

He says there's no guarantee that a supplement bottle even contains what's listed on its label. In one study, only two out of 12 supplement companies were found to have products that were labeled accurately, and the New York State Attorney General commissioned DNA testing of 78 bottles of commercial herbal supplements sold by GNC, walmart and Target, and four out of five bottles didn't contain any of the herbs listed on their labels Crazy. So you know that independent retailers are not carrying those brands. Those are the same brands that you find on Amazon. This is a point of differentiation and finding the manufacturers that actually have their products tested, they stand by good manufacturing practices, they do not have fillers in their product and they have what it says on the label. That's another way that, first of all, you're protecting the consumer, like Deborah Short talked about, like we are the gatekeepers, and you are also protecting yourself from claims like this. That just shouldn't be. This is not how it should be in this industry.

Amanda Ballard: 11:23

Yeah, and I think you mentioned Deborah and I was going to do the same thing. Trade shows like Soho Expo are a fantastic place for people to find these brands that support the independent retailer, because that whole association, senpa, is designed to protect the independent natural products retailer, and so supporting shows like Soho Expo, soho Health Fest and being a part of that, I think, is just one additional way that we can filter through all the crap that's out there, because the brands that show up to shows like that they really do care and the vast majority of them are doing things the right way.

Tina Smith: 12:08

Yeah, and we know they care because it's a big investment to show up at shows like that, so they are investing in the independent retailer channel and because there's a lot of training that goes on at those shows, including hey, here's a way to grow your business. I know Ed Jones was one of the presenters at last year's Soho Expo, did a brilliant job just talking through different ways that he markets the business, different partners that he has in the industry, so that they are really the health and wellness hub of Chattanooga, and he was completely open book and transparent in his presentation about the tactics that he uses. I don't know where else you find that kind of training, and putting on an event like that requires people to invest in booths and sponsorships and everything, and so the manufacturers that are investing in that show are manufacturers that care about the retailers, getting them the right training and protecting that channel.

Amanda Ballard: 13:18

Yeah, and I think it's really easy to overlook the independence because they definitely are shrinking in size. But our conversations about these trade shows is making me think of our interview with Mike Maddock and how his whole interview. He talked about how this David and Goliath story and how oftentimes Goliath is afraid of David and I think we get that wrong as independent retailers and maybe smaller natural products businesses where we're so afraid of these big box retailers. And the fact of the matter is we don't have to be, and I was so encouraged listening to his episode and I came away with it with so much hope that the mobility that these smaller retailers have is so far beyond what these big corporate giants will even let you consider doing. You have no freedom when you work for a corporation like Target to build a display the way you want it. It's like no, it has to be built this way. It's like where's the fun in that?

Tina Smith: 14:32

Yeah, no kidding. I mean Chris Sorenson talked about merchandising and how you could get so creative with it. So if you have not listened to that episode and you've got some crazy ideas you'd like to implement, highly recommend it. And to go back to Mike Maddock for a minute, he is the just agreed that he is the Senpa Soho Expo keynote speaker in September, so it's very exciting that he's going to be there. If anyone wants to register for that event to come see him speak, of course, listen to the episode.

Tina Smith: 15:08

One of the best little quotes or things that I took from his episode was the use of the voice of the customer versus talking about the benefit load.

Tina Smith: 15:22

So he was talking about how we always talk about, hey, vitamin D or vitamin C or whatever it is, does this and this and this and this.

Tina Smith: 15:31

And what we know is true.

Tina Smith: 15:33

We found that with retailers that we're working with and since Sembraner talked about it in his episode as well is when you start talking about use cases is when you really start to sell more product, because you are speaking to the exact pain that the customer is feeling and the only way that you know what problem that product or you personally are solving is if you are listening to what they're saying and using their words.

Tina Smith: 16:00

So I think one of the things that Mike talked about is, when he's looking at supplements and vitamins, that people are saying all this stuff like bioavailability and big words that he's like what does this even mean? And when we talk about it, we like to say things like hey, your body can absorb this much, instead of using words like bioavailability, because it's just easier for the consumer to understand and those are words that they use anyway. So just recognizing changing language can help you sell more product. And talking about specific use cases, like I have heartburn today, is there something that can help me speak to people about their actual problem, and it does help you sell more product while you're solving an actual problem for someone Right.

Amanda Ballard: 16:48

And that's pretty much what John Jance was talking about in our interview with him too about the customer journey and really having your customers know you and trust you, and if you're speaking a language that's so above their comprehension, it's hard to build that trust.

Tina Smith: 17:07

Yeah, 100%. So talking to them, doing customer interviews look, you know I talk about this all the time Google reviews, customer interviews. Google reviews, customer interviews. You always ask like what's one way that people can change their marketing today or make a bigger impact with their marketing today? And I always go back to talk to your customers. Look at Google reviews, pull more Google reviews in. It helps organic traffic, but it's also just. It gives you so much marketing fodder that you can use to have a whole plan. Just talk to five or 10 customers. You get a whole plan for the rest of the year as to the topics that you need to cover, the language that you should use when you're talking about issues and the way that you serve people, because it's different than going on Amazon or walking into Target where no one's going to help you find what you need. And so talking to customers is huge.

Amanda Ballard: 18:04

Yeah, and I think you reminded me of our conversation with Katie Coleman at Nutrition World, and I know we already talked about them a little bit. But one thing and partially because I was there when a lot of this was happening but when she started her family, I think it ignited a passion for providing options for new moms, young families, young children that we didn't have before, and it's in developing that community something that John talked about so much of the power of community. We were hearing things like oh man, I wish we had a good baby formula option, or how do I know what vitamins are safe for my infants, and things of that nature, and I think she really took a hold of that and implemented that in a way that I just thought was brilliant, to the point where I hadn't been to that store in several years and I went back and visited and I was like you can tell that their demographic has changed because of building this community with young families in that city and bringing them products that are meaningful to them in that season of life.

Tina Smith: 19:19

Yeah, which reminds me of. I loved Katie's interview she talked so much about mothers, intuition, female intuition and trusting yourself and that there's this gap that's happened over the years. We're used to we would trust our guts when it came to treating minor illnesses for our kids and even for ourselves, and that we have lost that sense of trust. Maybe it's because we don't listen to ourselves as much. But I've been listening to other health and wellness podcasts and when I heard this parenting podcast recently that talked about one of the easiest ways to make your child full heard and to make them a confident adult is to say to them I trust you, I believe you and I hear what you're saying and I believe you.

Tina Smith: 20:15

And it made me think of this women's health experience, because there's such a dearth of information around, like hormone balancing or a lot of different like age appropriate things from the medical community, as women's health changes in life.

Tina Smith: 20:33

And it's because when we've gone to the doctor and this has come up with, you know, like heart conditions and emergency rooms, that women have heart attacks and they are less likely to live through that because the health providers don't believe they're actually having a heart attack, because it happens to us younger it looks different than men.

Tina Smith: 20:53

There haven't been a lot of medical studies around all of our health needs and especially when it comes to hormones and, as we're aging, those things are just like well, maybe you've got a mental health issue versus there's something actually going on in your physical body that is also causing this and we haven't been told enough.

Tina Smith: 21:13

I believe you, but this is happening in your body and so we don't even trust ourselves anymore, and I love that Katie has decided and been very passionate about. I believe you that when moms come into the store and when women come into the store, she believes what they're saying. Their medical and health experience has been, and then she's helping them provide an avenue to treat that and I think some big learning for all the retailers and manufacturers out there that for a long time, we women have been not believed about our own health, even though we know our body is better than anyone else, and I think a lot of different providers can take hold of that and put into the world. Hey, we believe you and we've got things that can help you manage this thing that's going on in the body.

Amanda Ballard: 22:05

Yeah, and when you're saying trusting within yourself to believe these things, it reminded me of our interview with Terry Hoffman, and her whole thing is trusting your gut as a business owner, and whether it's deciding to bring a new product or service to market, you can have all the data in the world. But at the end of the day, if it doesn't sit right in your gut and your spirit that it's like you know your business better than anybody else and so even if all of the going back to Katie's example if all of the data is like, oh no, you don't need to pursue that side of the industry, maybe there's not a lot of money in that or whatever it's like, but if you know I can make this work, at the end of the day, that's really all that matters if you believe it, because at the end of the day, you know data changes.

Tina Smith: 23:02

Well, and I left Terry's interview that she worked with PNG and these large corporations and they got it wrong by just looking at the data. So it's not. I love data and it is not the only thing to look at. There's an experience that you've had.

Tina Smith: 23:21

Data gives you direction and then you can interpret what that means because you are listening to the customer, and that's it brings us back to the micmatic interview, which was hey, these big companies are afraid of you because you are on the ground in the stores every day talking to customers. They're giving you feedback, so that when you see the data, you actually know what it means. They don't, because they're so far removed from working with the customer every day. And even if it's Amazon that just has an online transaction, online is not the same thing as the one to one interactions that you're having in your store every day. So I think that should give everyone a lot of hope that first, you're not competing with the Amazons of the world because you're doing something entirely different, but also, if you were, you can win because you have a different thing to offer than Amazon or any of those big corporations.

Amanda Ballard: 24:17

Yeah and I think you know Chase said this so well is that he said people don't come to your business for your products, they come for you, and I think that there isn't a truer statement out there, when it comes to natural products retailers, that the people are why they are so successful, and we hear that all the time. It's our you know consultative approach to, to healthcare, to supplementation everything's custom and tailored to you. You can't get that through AI.

Tina Smith: 24:51

Yeah, absolutely.

Tina Smith: 24:54

And that kind of brings me to figuring out problems that are happening in your store, listening to the voice of the customer as to what those might be, whether it be their experience online or while they're in your store. You can hear that happening, as it happens, because you're right there with it. And it made me think of that very first interview that we did with you, amanda, which was about getting buy-in from your boss, and I write this down because it's just so. It couldn't be more true. It's most business owners do not have time to solve their own problems, and if you want to make a difference, let's say you're an up-and-coming next-generation store leader, but they're still an owner in place, or you're about to own your own store or just started owning your own store. If you are a problem solver, if you listen to problems and then bring solutions to the table, you're going to be looked to every time as the best resource on that team. So getting buy-in from your boss is really putting those two things together listening, providing solutions, listening, providing solutions and realizing that your boss doesn't have all the time in the world to solve every single problem that comes up. So I think you can become an indispensable part of the team at your store or at the manufacturer that you work for by doing those two things. Yeah, absolutely.

Tina Smith: 26:23

I was just thinking about what might be coming up next. So, look, we could talk for days probably about all of these interviews, because there were so many hours that we put into them, talked to these people, had before and after with them, and then we re-listened to all the episodes and I am so excited about what's coming next season because we're not finished. This is the end of one season, just getting started. That's right. So we have half a year worth of content and we're going to give everyone a little bit of time to go back and take a listen to those While we're recording new interviews. We've already got things scheduled. Some have already taken place.

Tina Smith: 27:10

But just to sort of tease some things out there, as we were talking to Deborah Short, she brought up Deshae and I've been popping around the country at different retailers just to see what's going on. She mentioned that you can't put a book with cause and effect next to the product in your store and it reminded me of. We write articles all the time online and put them, but we don't talk about the specific item to buy. It's just the category of items, so that we're walking that fine line for Deshae. But the truth is that we don't have all the answers when it comes to Deshae and other compliance issues, and we do have a lot of questions and we're hopefully going to get some answers.

Amanda Ballard: 27:57

We have Aisa Waldstein. He's a compliance guru. We have him coming up in season two. One that I'm really excited about just because she's like the digestive queen of the world is Brenda Watson. I think she's definitely a fan favorite for all of our retailers out there. She's such a champion of the independent channel, so I'm really excited to have her on the show next season.

Tina Smith: 28:26

Yeah, and someone else I'm excited to have back. We're going to have Mike Maddock again as a sort of teaser before the Soho Expo, so I'm looking forward to one of the things that's so fun about having people like Mike, as he's worked with Fortune 100 companies, so he is the guy that's working for the Goliaths and he can give us some intel into what they're afraid of, which is what we talked about last time, but also how either we're not competing with them or how to compete with them. So I'm excited to have him back before Soho Expo to give you a little sneak peek of what you might be interested in hearing if you attend the event.

Amanda Ballard: 29:08

Yeah, and I'm also just always excited to be able to talk to retailers that are really crushing it, so we have a few retailer interviews lined up for this year that I'm really excited about different business models that we can learn from, and people that are relatively new, owners, people that have been doing this for 40 years. We're all over, covering as many different avenues as we can, so I'm really looking forward to this upcoming season.

Tina Smith: 29:38

Yeah, I'm so excited about the retailers that we've got in store.

Tina Smith: 29:43

We have someone who's going to come talk to us about EOS.

Tina Smith: 29:46

If you don't know what that is, there's a book called Traction out there that you can wet your appetite with while you wait before we get that episode in place. But it's really about how to efficiently operate a store. And look, that's so hard because there's so many things competing for your time as a store operator or owner, and I think putting that process in place is going to be huge for us to talk about. So we're going to talk to someone about using EOS, that entrepreneurs operating system, in a store. We're also going to talk to different retailers of different sizes. So some of these that are in big cities and how they partner with other people to become even bigger and better, and then some people that are in really rural locations but they are out competing some of the stores that have a lot of population and traffic in their areas. So I'm so excited to bring that to the table because it's a diverse experience but people are winning in all kinds of situations and that again brings me more hope for the other retailers that are out there.

Amanda Ballard: 30:57

Yeah, it's not a one size fits all solution.

Tina Smith: 31:00

No, absolutely not, but I do think there are themes again that we can talk about all throughout the retailers and manufacturers' experiences. And look, I hope we solve some problems too, because we are trying to bring manufacturers and retailers to the same table to fix issues that maybe all of us are having, whether it be some distribution things, co-op money, how to advertise and bring people into the stores, bigger baskets, more foot traffic. I think it's something that we all want, and so how do we solve some of those problems? I think listening is probably key to that. So we're going to listen to more manufacturers and more retailers and see if we can come up with some solutions for both to bring everyone to the table and solve some big issues for the industry, because I think, at the end of the day, we all have a common goal of it's all about the end user and having them live a happier, healthier life.

Amanda Ballard: 32:05

And whether you're a retailer or manufacturer, you're doing what you're doing because you believe in the product or the services that you are supplying and I think, when you get down to the root of it, it's all the same.

Tina Smith: 32:20

Yeah, and then from our perspective, amanda, I think some of the topics that we're going to cover are some benchmarks. We've been looking at a lot of different retailers and talking to a lot of different retailers and manufacturers and they're just some things that we're finding the best retailers have this much of a margin on most of their products or this kind of a product mix. There are some themes that we're finding as far as benchmarking whether or not you have a healthy retail store or a healthy manufacturer, p&l so I'm excited to have some of those conversations. And then we got some feedback, which was fun last season, which was that we should disagree more. So I am looking for places where we don't agree Okay, so that we can maybe have some of those discussions while we're here.

Tina Smith: 33:16

And the big challenge to that is, I think we're both pretty agreeable and that we're open-minded enough to see two sides to an argument. So even when we don't agree, it's usually like well, I see why you think that, and so it doesn't really sound like a good argument. I know it doesn't sound like a good argument, which is funny because I think in Mike's episode he talked about if your business partner is too agreeable or you like each other too much, it's probably not a great partnership. So anyway, we're going to try to argue more.

Amanda Ballard: 33:54

We'll make things more entertaining. And just trying to argue Like we have to do this.

Tina Smith: 34:01

No, and the truth is, if we bring Chase on here more often, he would argue with us.

Amanda Ballard: 34:08

You're just saying you're crazy.

Tina Smith: 34:12

You do say that a lot More and more. I know it's very healthy, though, because I like his pushback and I get more creative around. Well, wait a second. That might be crazy, but here's a way that we can make it happen. That's not so crazy.

Amanda Ballard: 34:27

I'm just like yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tina Smith: 34:29

Yeah, it's just probably good that we have Chase in our mix to tap on the shoulder sometimes so that he can disagree with us. Oh man, yeah that's good. Yeah, a lot of other topics are coming our way too. We're definitely getting into ads. What are some of the other topics that you're excited about covering?

Amanda Ballard: 34:55

I would like to really spend some more time in the content creation space. I think we talked a lot about email this season, but I'd like to do some deeper dives into content marketing. I think it's a source subject for a lot of people and want to try to make it seem not so intimidating. I think that we did that well with email, but I think it expands beyond that. I'm excited to do some of my own research in between now and when season two starts to roll out, of what are some other things that you can do to get even more creative and make this easier than it already is.

Tina Smith: 35:35

Yeah, I'll just tell you I'm always excited about this topic because it's a specialty. I've got some good case studies where I can show hey, we did this. Some of it was just rearranging content that was already there. The search traffic just goes up, up, up. We can talk about the details of how we did that, because some natural products retailers are just content machines. They are pumping it out but it's not making a difference on their numbers. So we can talk about why that is. Then others, how to be the most effective while not wanting to do content marketing.

Amanda Ballard: 36:12

Yes, Because you don't have to go crazy.

Tina Smith: 36:16

No, you don't have to go crazy. There are some less expensive resources that you can use to help you do the thing. If it's something that you don't like doing, yeah, exactly.

Amanda Ballard: 36:27

That's one thing that I really want to touch on more in season two, again, just bringing more and more experts to the table to talk about their different specialties and just give our listeners the best overarching education that we can in all things. Natural products marketing.

Tina Smith: 36:50

Look, there will be reappearances. I mentioned Mike Maddock. We'll have Billy on again. Billy Jones with Save Naturally Definitely have Ryan Simpson-Brinner again. We will have people that will be coming back. If you loved their previous episode, listen for that again, but we'll always be bringing new topics, new people and new resources to you to help you grow your business so that you can reach more people and change more lives.

Amanda Ballard: 37:22

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: 37:33

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.