Do you know what your top 3 sellers are? Do you know what your slow sellers are? Or your average gross margin?

In this episode we dig into the importance of knowing your numbers when looking to scale your business with this week’s guest, Kate Freeman.

Kate Freeman helps product businesses to make more revenue and most importantly more profit! Kate does this by helping you to secure wholesale retail listings, optimise their supply chain and maximise sustainability to drive growth. Kate has over 15 years experience and spent 10 of those years working for a leading female entrepreneur.

We discuss how to tell if it is the right time to scale, and the sort of things that you will need to have in place. We cover the importance of knowing the market, understanding your customers, gathering customer feedback and making sure your supply chain can handle growth. If you are ready to take  your business to the next level, you won’t want to miss this episode. 

The Bring Your Product Idea to Life Podcast  - Best Business Podcast Award, Independent Podcast Awards 2023

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Podcast Episode: How To Keep Your Customers Coming Back with Rebecca Hilliard

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Welcome to the bring your product idea to Life podcast.

This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products or if you'd

like to create your own product to sell. I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product

creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly,

practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses.

Let's get started.

Hi. Today on the podcast, I'm speaking to Kate Freeman. Kate helps

product businesses to make more revenue and most importantly, more

profit. She does this by helping them to secure wholesale retail

listings, optimize their supply chain, and maximize sustainability to

drive growth. Kate has over 15 years experience and

has spent a lot of those years working for a female leading

entrepreneur in the product space. So she absolutely knows her

stuff, as you will hear during our conversation. And before I

introduce you to Kate, I'd also like to let you know that Kate and myself

are jointly hosting a masterclass on Monday, the

24 June. So just ten days after this episode is

released, focusing on getting your business ready to scale

and what to do if you decide that as part of that scaling, you'd

like to sell your products on Amazon. So all the information and a link

to book will be in the show notes for this episode. As always,

really hope to see some of you there. And now I would love to introduce

you to Kate.

So hi Kate, thank you so much for being here. Oh, thank you for having

me. I'm thrilled to be joining you today. So can we please

start with you giving an introduction to yourself, your business and what you

do? Yes, thanks. So I am technically a growth

strategist and sustainability expert and I

spent the past ten years working for a leading female

entrepreneur before moving to set up my own consultancy where

I now help product brands to scale and grow and

most importantly, to make more money. And I do this through kind of growing

their B two B wholesale channels, helping them to optimize their

supply chain and build sustainability kind of into every area

of their business. So yes, that's me in a

nutshell. Amazing. Thank you so much for explaining that so succinctly. I think

we all understand what you do now. So I would love now to talk a

little bit about how you can help us.

So let's start by talking about scaling up, although perhaps we can touch

on sustainability throughout the conversation. Or if not, we'll

definitely come back to that because I think that's something that'd be really interesting to

talk about. But talking about scaling up your business

and making more money, how do you know when it's time to

scale so if I'm listening to this podcast episode now, how do I know

whether I'm ready to go into that growth phase?

Yeah, I mean, that's a super interesting question. And often, one, a lot of

clients come to me with either that they're kind of stuck and they

can't reach that next level of growth, or they're

not reaching their growth expectation that they kind of set

out at the start of the year. I mean, scaling

your business is always like, quite a big decision. It's one that

shouldn't be taken lightly and requires a lot of strategic and financial

planning. No matter what stage you're at, whether you're taking it from kind of

startup to that next phase, or you've been operating for three, four years and are

looking for that next level of growth, I think it's really important

as a business leader and owner that you really consider, like

your business and taking it to the next level and what that

implication might have on you and your work life balance,

whether you're ready for it. Are you excited by it? Are you ready

to kind of manage a team if that expansion and scaling is going

to mean that you increase kind of your workforce and you're hiring and

outsourcing, more like, are you ready to kind of

carry that responsibility? I guess

before you then kind of go on to look at proving

that you've got market concepts like you've got

a reliable supply chain, you know, you've got product market

fit. You've nailed your udp, which I talk about quite a lot when I

work with clients, which is around your unique differentiating point. So

what makes you really, truly stand out in your

marketplace? Hopefully, you've got repeat

sales and a growing customer base that are kind of loyal.

And market research shows you that there's growth within

that sector. I think those are really important alongside

having a strong cash flow position. That makes

sense. Thank you. Tell me if I'm

summarizing this right, Kate, but I guess it's thinking about are you at a

point where you feel like you could be selling more?

So obviously we're talking about products where you could be making more sales, and you're

at a point where you're prepared to invest, whether it's the time,

money, effort, whatever it is, into

doing that sounds.

Oh, that's really helpful. Thank you. So I guess it'd be

useful to take a little bit of a step

back because obviously I've been reading up a little bit ahead of us

speaking, and I'd love to talk a bit about some of the things that it's

important to know before you jump in and say, yes, I'm absolutely ready to scale

off. I. And I guess the two big ones are

sort of knowing a bit about your market and your customer.

So can we talk a bit about the market first and why you feel it's

important to know the market, know who your competitors are,

where you sit within it? Yeah, I mean,

whenever I work with clients, I'm always like, try not to get too hung up

on what the competition are doing. Right, because you'll spend all your time worrying about

that and not focusing on your own business. But at the same

point, you can't just be oblivious to it. You need

to know what they're doing, how they're

operating, what's their price, positioning, how are they positioning themselves

in the market? Because you don't really want to be coming in and doing exactly

the same thing. That's just never going to be

useful or healthy for either of you in terms of generating growth.

So I think it's about understanding what they're doing, how they're

positioning themselves. And I like to get clients to draw

a matrix and you can pick two scales that you want to

look at, whether that's price or sustainability or

premium, and then you can start to plot brands

on that to see then where you sit, because you might find that there's a

cluster of low priced products that aren't

particularly sustainable and you're coming in as something that's slightly more expensive

and more sustainable. So you've got this sort of pocketed niche

in terms of where you're operating. And it just really helps to inform your

pricing strategy, your messaging, your sales strategy, your

marketing piece, and knowing where to go and how to pitch your

products. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you. And it's such a

balancing act, isn't it, between not being too hung up on what everyone else is

doing? Because I say this to people a lot, you know, you can't just focus

on competition, especially when you're comparing yourself, because that's not

helpful. But then equally, I guess you need to know

what other products are they coming out with,

you know, what's, what's going on in general. You can't just shut your eyes to

it completely because you need to know where you fit

and what makes you stand out. So, yeah, I think it's quite a balance, isn't

it? Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah. It's tricky. And

sometimes it's helpful to follow them on social media. Sometimes it's not.

You know what I mean? It depends, I guess, a bit on your character and

how much that might faze you or not phase you

as to how closely you kind of follow people, whether you can

distance from it and go, that's fine, they're doing their thing. I'm in my lane

doing my thing. Yeah, that's true. And you

can dip in and out as well, can't you? Because, I mean, I've definitely been

through phases where I followed people or businesses because it's useful

for some reason. And then you get to a point where you go, actually, right

now this isn't useful because it's either making me

compare myself or it's making me feel negatively about myself, my business. And

then you can just stop and take a break. Yeah, definitely. Yup.

So let's talk a little bit now about customers, Kate.

So why is it important to know who our customers are?

I mean, it informs absolutely everything within your business.

If you don't know who's buying your product, then you don't know where to sell

it, who to market it to. Something that I work a lot with,

with my vip clients is getting them into other

wholesale retailers, and we don't know which retailers to

pick until we understand who their core customer is because then it allows

you to put your products into the right shops and stores

where your ideal customer is going to be looking for them.

It also allows you to use

messaging and wording that, like, really resonates and lands with them when you're

talking about your product. But obviously, when you run a product

based business, it's much harder than a service based business to get that

customer feedback. And you actively need to kind of go out

and have conversations. And I know that you had previously,

Rebecca Hilliard, speak a bit about this and looking at the data in

your business. And obviously, thanks to social media

and Google Analytics and things, we've got a lot of data that we

can gather and that's really, really helpful. But you

also need to move beyond those numbers and actually have like a actual

conversation with your customer. So customer interviews

and really picking out and gleaming out words and phrases that they're

using because that will help you to market the products in a

really authentic way that lands with your ideal customer.

So you're just building sales, building customer trust.

It's such an invaluable tool. And I would always say to businesses to

look at their core customer and profiling them at least once a

year just to make sure that they're kind of

tracking in the right direction and understanding who their audience is.

That makes a lot of sense because I think a lot of us will think,

okay, well, I know who my customer is, but I've definitely seen examples. I've had

people on here who've spoken about the fact that their customer has either

changed or their customer ended up not

being the audience they first thought it was. And I think you're right in

that, especially if you're looking to scale up. And if part of your strategy is

maybe wholesaling, as in the example you shared, or

moving your products onto a new marketplace or whatever it is, I don't

think you can decide maybe which channel you're going to use or which retailers

if you don't understand who's actually buying your products and where they shop. So

that was a really good example. Yeah. And in terms of getting this

real feedback from our customers, Kate, how would you suggest we go about it? Is

it surveys? Is it emails? Is it focus groups?

Because I think for a lot of us, we wait. You know, we

sell our products, the reviews come in, maybe some social media posts,

but in terms of actively going out and asking

questions, how would we do this? So

I would try to go through your

database, like your email database, and hopefully within there, you're going to have some

customers that would have bought regularly. You'll have some that have bought maybe once or

twice but not come back again. Maybe someone that signed up but has

never bought from you. And I try and get a cross section of those different

people and I would email them and just see in exchange for like a

voucher or a free product or discount whether they'd

speak to you and you do a phone conversation with them and ask them

questions and kind of gather data from them in that way. Yeah,

you can run focus groups. I found sometimes when I've done this before, you always

tend to have like, one or two voices that might dominate the conversation and then

it sort of sways data and information that you might be getting out. And

it's harder to kind of dig deeper and keep asking kind of

why in a larger group setting and the same thing, you know,

you could do an online survey and get people to fill that out, but that

only gives you so much. And that might be a great

starting point that you could start and do an online survey and then at the

end of it say, look, if you're open to having a conversation,

like, please fill in your details. And that way you could gather some more

data from people that are happy to have the conversation with you.

But normally people love sharing their opinion. They love talking about their experience

of using your product or someone else's product or why they haven't bought.

So normally, I mean, I've genuinely found that I've probably had, when

I've reached out for brands to do this, more people wanting to speak than

we actually needed, and then you're kind of going, I'm really sorry we can't take

you this time, but we'd love to speak to you in the future. Like, can

we keep you on our books as someone that we could speak to going

forward? But it's so invaluable. And I'd just be writing down, like,

little nuggets of things that they might say, because those words you can

use on your social media posts, in your sales

pitches, like, everything, it's just invaluable.

I love that. Thank you, Kate. And it's so interesting. I'd love

to know how many people, if you're listening and you're doing this already, please tell

me, because I'd love to know how many of us are doing this already. Because

as you answering the question, I was thinking, wow, it's so strange that

I have to ask you how to do this. And then you say, well, you

get on the phone to people, because I feel like over the last couple of

years, I don't know whether you feel the same, Kate, but that's almost a bit

of an alien concept, isn't it? Actually picking up the phone and having a conversation

with somebody. And I think maybe ten years

ago, that would have just been accepted, that that's what you would do

if you wanted to. In fact, I remember back in the days when you used

to just get phone calls on your home phone, did you ever get these people

doing surveys and they would just phone you at home and ask you

questions? And now it just seems such a strange concept. But

I think. And I think it might feel daunting to do that.

Yeah, it is. Yeah, definitely. You've really convinced me of

the benefits of it. Yeah, I think you've just got to kind of put that

aside and go, actually, people love chatting, they love talking about their

experiences, good or bad, and you're

offering them a little reward for doing it, which would hopefully drive sales to

your own site as well. It's a bit of a no

brainer. I mean, sometimes you might find it helpful and it's quite difficult, if

you're the owner and founder, to receive the negative feedback. So

that's where often brands have worked with me to come in and I kind of

manage that interim bit for them so that the person can feel they can

be totally honest without offending anybody.

But, you know, for every bad review, there's always going to be positive

things that people are going to say. And actually, sometimes the

negative things are really helpful. Right. In helping you to grow and

develop and build the brand.

So. Yeah, absolutely. That makes a lot of sense.

And also for anyone who's still feeling a bit unsure about it, I mean, obviously

you're asking people's permission, you're not cold calling them, you're putting a

request out or emailing people saying, can I speak to you? So just to

sort of get any of those fears out, because I think it sounds like something

that all of us should be doing. I mean, whether you have a

product or a service business, because, I mean, in my business, I could definitely be

speaking to my clients and say, how would you feel about working with me? And

I think that it's just that thing about isn't there? You're just scared of

what people might say. Although I will say if people are buying your products, they

probably like them. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

So you're only likely to get maybe more negative

feedback off of someone who hasn't bought or was buying and

stopped buying. But generally it's probably because of price I've often found,

or their needs have changed. And so actually you just kind of go,

okay, well, there's a reason that they've stopped buying because they don't need our

product or service anymore. You know, they're,

they're not our ideal client. And that's fine. And, like, we can take what they

say, but we don't have to use it. You know, it's about picking the data

that's helpful and reading between the lines and understanding that they might not be

your core customer. Yeah. And people's circumstances change as well. I mean,

I know that this year there was things that I used to buy regularly or

have on subscription that I've just gone, you know what? Actually, right now I'm not

going to spend the money on that something, you know, things change,

you might pick up again. But I think often, in

my experience anyway, I think often if someone stops buying from you, it's

about them rather than you. That their circumstances.

Yeah. And understanding and reading that between the

lines and just going, okay. And that's, and that's fine because for every one

of those, there's going to be ten more people that will buy my product, that

are buying my product, that love it. So, you know, let's focus

on what they're loving and enjoying. And if there's anything that we need to tweak,

we might. But also, that's an another valid point. And I see this so many

times, I'm like, please don't do it. What happens is someone will get a customer

that's like, oh, I'd really like it if it was in red. So

off everyone goes and makes like a 300 red

whatevers. I'm just like, no, no, no. Because what you've then

done is like created more products, you've tied up

more cash in stock just because one person said to you, oh, I definitely

buy it if it was in red. So whenever that happens, it's always

about just taking a step back, going, okay, that's helpful.

Let's do some competitor research. Like, has another

brand got a red version of whatever it is? Has

somebody else asked for it in red? And just build

up more of a business case for suddenly

diversifying your range into something that you

previously might not have been doing. Because especially as

a small business and as a startup business, having lots of cash

tied up in stock is not that helpful.

So it's just being really mindful of that and like, taking the data and

like using it and then gathering more data

to build a reason behind maybe

diversifying or expanding your range. That makes so much

sense. Thank you. And I can see why people do it because I think as

business owners, we're just, we just really want to please our customers and

it can be really easy to go, that's a great idea, and run off with

it. I can totally see why that happened. But thank you. Because that's a really

great reminder that a good idea is a good idea.

But as you say, you need to think a bit more before investing cash,

especially in something. But then on the other

hand, I think as well, something else to be mindful of is that

if you're hearing over and over the same thing, for

example, this would work better in red. Let's just say

this would work better in red, or this could be fixed.

I think there can also be a tendency to sort of bury ahead in the

sand a little bit as well. Yeah, yeah. And just go, oh,

it's always very complicated to change it. So it's like, actually, no,

if the feedback is consistent, then it's

time to, like, you know, listen and take action. And if

you're sat there thinking, but I can't afford to do another one in red. Okay,

well, what color isn't been selling? And this is where it's really important to know

your data, and that's so important in any phase of

scaling is to know your kind of sales data, your

numbers in your business, what's selling, what's slow moving, is there any

seasonal trends? Because all of that will help to inform

the potential switch to something in red,

because actually that's the right thing to do for the business and the numbers are

giving you the confidence to make that decision.

Thank you, Kate. So I think we're hopefully clear on

when it's, when to think about scaling our businesses, what kind of time

and how. Before we even think about

scaling, we need to have these fundamentals. So we need to know about our customer,

we need to know the market, what else do we need to have in place

before we either make the decision that we're going to scale or we

actually go ahead and do anything?

Well, money and finance, right? Because as a product based business owners

and you're creating scale and growth, you're going to need more products.

So it's about ensuring that you've got the finance and the money to

fund that stock. And if you don't, are you taking

preorders and then using the

pre order payments to fund that stock, coming through to fulfill

those orders, you know, that you've got

product market fit, it's been achieved. So your customers are loving using

and continuing to use your product. So that gives you the kind of confidence and

minimizes the risk slightly.

But you need to make sure that you've got your solid profit margins in place.

And obviously the benefit of scaling with a product based business is

hopefully that, you know, the additional numbers lead to better

product costs, which lead to better margins. So it's kind of self

fulfilling in that sense that you're able to buy better,

but you need to make sure that your supply chain can support that

growth. And if it can't, I'd be starting to

look at, how can I switch? Who's

supplying this? How is it all working in order to. Because the last thing you

want to do is have massive growth and this wave

of orders and new customers, and then you can't fulfill it and

can't keep up with that demand

because it would just be catastrophic almost for

your business. You've got all these hungry customers they can't buy. They've kind of bought

into your concepts. They're going to go elsewhere, aren't they, if they can't buy it

from you. So I think it's just making sure that you've got that really

robust supply chain set up to support the growth

along with the finances. That's so helpful. Thank you.

And I know, as you say, these are all fundamentals, but they're just good things

to just go through and just make sure everything's in place

because as you say, I'm sure you've seen this before and I certainly have,

where businesses have grown at a rate where they're perhaps sold

out of stock and they have a waiting list, which is obviously a really good

place to be. But as you say, it's really hard when you can't

actually take money and deliver a product. Yes,

customers there waiting and often having that

out of stock for a period is great because it drums demand, but it can

only be out of stock for so long before you start to annoy people.

You know, it's just being mindful of that. And especially, and you

will know this, working with Amazon, they do not take that out

of stock favorably. Neither does a large wholesale retailer. For

them, going out of stock is a big kind of no no. And

all the growth and traction that you'll have built in that

channel sort of then I don't know, the algorithm just doesn't

like it, does it? And it's just like you've upset us, you've run out of

stock and then you have to work to build that back up again.

So it's just being really mindful of that. Yeah. And that's

so hard because, yes, you're absolutely right on Amazon, as soon as you go out

of stock, your rankings just drop. All the hard work you've done just day

by day just falls away. I'm not saying you can't get back to where you

were, but it's a slog again. Yeah.

So I never recommend going out of stock if you can avoid

it on any platform, actually. Yes. Yeah, yeah, they do.

They really penalize you. And if you've really worked hard to

generate that growth and you've put money into all the advertising and

things behind it and the listings, then yeah, you want to, you need to maintain

that and maintain your position. And the other sort of practical thing around

that, that I'll just let people know is to consider if you're thinking, oh, it's

not so bad, is the other thing is if your product has been selling well,

when it goes out of stock, presumably there'll be someone else on, whether it's Amazon

or whatever marketplace selling something similar to you. If your product isn't

there and someone else's is, they're probably going to buy that rather than

wait around for you to come back and stop on your own website. You know,

you can have pre order lists or whatever, waiting

lists. But on a platform like Amazon or Etsy or anywhere else, I

think nine times out of ten someone else is going to get that sale. Yes.

Yeah. They're going to swoop in. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for letting us know what we need to have in

place before we think, okay, we're going to scale our business now.

But. So I guess my final question is how

would we know exactly what we need to focus on? So let's

say we've got to a point where we're getting consistent sales and we think, you

know what? Be good to have some more. In the

very simplest terms, what then how do we know

exactly what it is that we need to focus on to grow our

business? So I would first

of all, well, I think there's two things that you need to focus

on. One, if you've got the demand and you've got more customers coming through, whether

that's through your own channel or a wholesale retailer, to go, okay,

how much growth is there within that particular market that I want to focus

on? And if I do really want to scale and grow, what other markets do

I need to look at? Because

obviously selling is always your number one focus within your business.

But then I'd also at the same time be looking at myself supply chain and

going, okay, can they support me upping my

orders? And if I do, what price are they going to give me? And it

might be time to go out to tender and get, you know, two or three

other businesses to give you pricing for whatever your

product is. And I'd be starting to look at that and

really build out, okay, what does this scale and growth mean

to me if I'm picking and packing the orders myself, right, is this now

got to a point where because I'm picking and packing and doing all the orders

and running to the post office, I'm now not able to do x, Y and

z within the business. Actually, do I need to start to look at getting a

warehouse in that can do the pick pack and distribution for

me? Okay. Yes, I do. Right, let's start costing that

into the product costings and the business model because

what was free, you pickpacking is now going to start costing you

money because you're having to pay someone else to do that and store the stock.

So I'd just be looking at making sure that all of those

numbers are kind of added into your product costings to make sure that

you're still operating profitably with the correct margins.

So, yeah, I would be really focused on those kind of more

logistical pieces as well as. Right, like which

sales channels are right, which you will know off the back of having done your

core customer profiling work. So you'll know straight away,

actually, yeah, it's these channels I need to be going after, and that's going to

be my focus. And what do they need

in order to service them? Because if you're going to a big wholesale

retailer, it's going to be things like barcoding correctly. You know, are your products

in the right size boxes? They got the right codes

on product codes, their codes, you know, there's all these things that

suddenly become quite demanding that you

maybe didn't have to worry about before. So it's just getting all of that knowledge

in place as well. That's so helpful. Thank you, Kate. And

I guess what you're saying is that by doing the work on looking at

the market and speaking to your customers, that will actually inform

what your next steps would be, because you will know

who your customers are, where they're shopping, how they're shopping,

what the rest of the competition is doing. That's so helpful. So I guess there

isn't a definitive answer. It's looking at

your product, your customers, the market, and

figuring out what's the next logical step. Yes. Yeah. Because it might be

that your business is already set up for that in terms of

supply chain, for that growth already. So that's not your worry. Yours is

more about sales and selling and the correct sales

channels for you. Whereas other people might have the flip reverse that they've got all

of this demand and they're on different marketplaces and they've got retailers

chomping at the door ready to buy the product, but you haven't got the

supply chain set up to meet that demand.

So, yes, it's normally, it's very

business, you know, it's business bespoke, isn't it? Depending on your

product and if someone. Still isn't sure what that

is or what the things specifics are they need to focus on. Is

that something you can help with? Yes. Yeah, definitely. So I work

a lot with clients, either one to one on a three or a

six month program, and we work together to kind of help to grow and

scale your business. Looking at both supply chain but

also sales channels, and I guess I'd say my kind of magic

superpower is uncovering those kind of hidden opportunities that might

be within your business that you can't see but also

costing commercial certainty into all of those deals that you're doing to

create the scale and growth. I think it's very hard

sometimes as business owners. You know, you're so in the weeds and doing the do

of your business to kind of step outside and see

from a fresh perspective. And so that's something that I definitely offer

clients when I come in. So, yes, that is absolutely something I can help

with. Thank you so much, Kate. And I'm going to link through to your website

and your socials in the show notes for the episodes. People can find you really

easily. And so the final question I

have for you is what would your number one piece of advice be when it

comes to scaling your business?

Know your numbers. Know your numbers. Know your

customer. The number of businesses that

don't know the profit margins that they should be operating at, what their top

three sellers are, what their slowest moving lines are.

You just need to be able to know these numbers, like, off the top of

your head, what's your average gross margin? All of this is

so important. And who

is buying your product? And as we kind of touched on, it might not be

who you initially like, kind of thought and set out to

be. And that's why it's really important to have the conversations with the

customers, because as your brand grows, it might change.

I mean, I definitely had it with a brand that I launched with the,

with the entrepreneur. We set out in our minds with,

like, the brands for this audience. And it was only after kind

of six months of selling and we did our market research that we went, oh,

we weren't expecting them to buy it. That was a bit left field,

but we'd done that research. We'd had the conversations that then

allowed us to kind of shift the marketing slightly more towards that

target audience. But it was fascinating. We just really didn't

expect it to be more male dominated in

our marketing. We thought we'd have kind of a 70 30%

split, like female to male purchasing, but actually it

was the other way around and we had more men than women purchasing the

product. So, you know, it's important to do the

research of whatever stage your business is at, because who might have

bought it in that kind of growth innovation stage may not be the person

that's, that's buying it three, four years down the line and the

brand's growing. That's such an interesting example.

And did you actually find out why that was so, why more

men were buying than women? Were you able to get that?

I think it was to do with the marketing messaging

that we'd put around the business. Funnily enough, it was

a completely female led team, but clearly we'd written the marketing and

the copy in a way that appealed to a male audience,

which wasn't at all our intention, but that's how it landed

and it was. We were category

disrupting. And I think that often makes it harder to

identify who your customer is going to be. When you come in with a challenger

brand, that's kind of upsetting the norm. Which,

side note, retailers do at times find a bit challenging to deal

with because you've kind of come in and gone, well, I don't sit in that

category and I don't sit in that category, but you need to take it seriously

because we're doing something different in the market. That's always going to lead to

a bit more of an unknown in terms of what you're

doing, because the customer's kind of not expecting

it either. You've changed the status quo a bit from what they're

expecting. And that's why it's even more important to do

much more regular kind of customer research versus someone

coming in and going, oh, I sit neatly in this category.

It's probably a bit more predictable about who's going to buy it.

That's really interesting. Well, thank you so much, Kate, and thank you for everything that

you've shared. I mean, I'm definitely taken away from this, that knowing your

business inside out is key. Really? Yes. Yep,

definitely. Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening. Right to the end of this episode, do remember

that you can get the full back catalogue and lots of free resources on my

website, vickywineberg.com. please do remember to rate and review

this episode if you've enjoyed it and also share it with a friend who you

think might find it useful. Thank you again and see you next week.