You know I love a good history lesson or two. That's why I'm sharing with you about some real business brands that made pivots and turned into the successful companies they are today!
If you're a teacher seller who has not made as much money as in previous years, not seeing the growth and success you were hoping for, you may need to pivot or make a change. Pivoting can be the key to success!
You're listening to the creative teacher podcast, a show for busy teachers looking for ways to engage, inspire and make an impact in their teacher businesses. I'm Kiersten, a teacher business owner who is all about simple and actionable tips, strategies and resources that result in wins, big or small. If you're looking for that extra spark of creativity, you've come to the right place. Let's dive in together.
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Next, we're going to talk about Plato. So believe it or not, Plato started out as a wallpaper cleaner. And what they were doing was combining flour, water, salt, boric acid and silicone oil. And they were using it to basically lift the suit off of wallpaper that could not get wet. So that was kind of something they were selling the people who were owning this company, and it was called something else. I'm not quite sure the name of like what it was called before it was playdough as we know it today. But eventually, in the 50s. They were realizing that like nobody was buying these wallpaper cleaners, nobody was using them. So in the mid 50s, they gave this gunk, what they you know, this like, you can hold it just like that playdough texture. They gave that to preschools and kindergartens, throughout their hometown of Cincinnati. And actually, the kids and teachers loved it, they got really great reviews on it. So what they did the following year is add some dye, some color, some almond scent, and they actually sold the paste as what we know it as called playdough in these buckets, so they were marketing it to schools. And they were selling really well on that. And so they also later added having individuals being able to buy these. So like in those small little containers, they invented the three pack of the blue, red and yellow clay. And that's when they started making a lot, a lot a lot of money. They also during that time, found ways to refine the formula, they were trying to find ways to keep it from drying out too quickly. And even losing its color when it did get dry. And they were able to make $1.50 per can on a product that used to sell for 34 cents. That's an amazing transformation right there. And while different companies have owned and acquired playdough. It is a very clearly successful Kids Toy today.
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All right, the fourth one we're going to talk about is one of the favorites, Netflix. So in the late 90s, Netflix started as a DVD rental by mail service. And this competed with the blockbusters in the Hollywood video, if you remember that. And because I remember this trips to the store was always so fun to be able to go into Hollywood Video, we would rent some VHS is and pop them into our VHS player. And it was great, you know, you could rent it, return it and all of that stuff. And there were movie snacks, there was some good times there. And so this was interesting, because Netflix is like, you don't have to go to a brick and mortar store, you can just get it in the mail, then there came a point in time, where a lot of consumers just didn't really use DVDs as much, or they just kind of had this premonition that we need to change something we need to adapt. So this mail, you know, old DVD by mail, this is not really going very great. It's not as stable as it could be. And it started gradually becoming less of a priority. And they kind of put more emphasis on streaming videos on the platform that we know of it today. So being able to download an application and on our phones or TVs or computers, and being able to just stream it on the go. So their ability to see the change in the market see the change in the trends. And rather than double down like no, we need these people getting these DVDs by mail, this is the way it's gonna go. We're not changing it, they decided to go with what the times were changing to. And this is just an example of how pivoting to streaming has led to their massive success. And I feel continues to be one of the streaming leaders people are following suit. Now we've got things like Hulu and Amazon Prime, video, and sling all these different streaming services and even networks that have their own version of streaming that we can also view so Disney plus is another one. So it's just something that they were able to set precedent. And because they were able to kind of see the shift and the trends.
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All right, so hopefully you learned a little bit of history lessons in this and also some business lessons of how we might as sellers need to pay Have it and do things differently. If something in our business isn't working, whether that's in our marketing or the type of products we're selling, it's just not making the earnings that we're used to or it's just not selling at all. And we haven't seen any growth in our business in a while. Sometimes making pivots can make all the difference. Alright, so hopefully you enjoyed this episode. I'll be talking again with you next week. Thanks for listening to the creative teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to today's episode, feel free to subscribe and leave a review. I'd love to hear your feedback. You can also follow me on Instagram at the southern teach dot designs. Have an amazing day
