Today on the podcast my guest is Michelle Ferron the founder of Good Tuesday (previously Once Upon A Tuesday), a female led brand and B Corp. Good Tuesday creates stationery for people who want to organise in all areas of life in style, from design-led annual calendars to diaries, weekly planners and notebooks printed in England and created in a sustainably conscious and ethical way.

If you're curious about what it means to become a B Corp and how businesses can achieve that status, this podcast is for you. In this episode, I dive into that very question with Michelle, but our conversation doesn't stop there. We also discuss what it takes to grow a successful brand, especially when it comes to building and managing a team. Michelle shared that she now leads a team of eight, and we explored how to know when it’s the right time to hire, the roles to prioritise, and the ins and outs of team management as your business expands.

If you're currently thinking about growing your own team or have plans to do so in the future, this episode is packed with insights you won't want to miss!

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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. So today on the podcast, I've been speaking to Michelle Ferran.

Michelle is the founder of Once Upon a Tuesday, a female led brand,

and BCorp. that create stationery for people who want to organize in all areas

of life in style, from design led annual calendars to

diaries, weekly planners and notebooks printed in England and created in

a sustainably conscious and ethical way. I had a great chat with

Michelle. Of course, I wanted to know what it meant to be a B Corp

and how you become one. That was one of my top questions to ask her.

But we also spoke a lot about growing a brand and particularly growing a team.

Michelle mentioned early on in our interview that she has a team of eight now.

And I was really intrigued to find out about how to know when to

hire someone, what kind of things to hire people in to do,

and all aspects, really, of hiring and

managing a growing team. And if that's something you've been thinking

about or have on your plans for the future, I think you'll find that particularly

interesting. So I would love now to introduce you to

Michelle.

So, hi, Michelle. Thank you so much for joining me today. Vicky, thank you

for having me. Oh, you're so welcome. Can we start? If you please.

Give an introduction to yourself, your business, and what you sell.

Definitely. So I'm Michelle, and I run a

small stationery brand called Once upon a Tuesday. And we specialize

in products like calendars, planners, anything really to stay organized

at home or at work. Amazing. Thank you.

So can you tell me how, why and when you started? Once

upon a Tuesday? Yeah. So we are one of the lockdown

stories. 2020. I

lost both my clients and wanted to do something. And I was

actually looking. I was learning to design. I've always worked kind of designing

in marketing, but never really did it properly. So I was

learning the Adobe suite illustrator and I designed a

birthday calendar because I couldn't find one that I liked. And then I

printed ten at a printer down the road just so I could get the price

down. And just for a bit of fun, and I popped them on Etsy and

I sold seven overnight. So I was like, whoa,

what's this? And then, so I designed a

few more calendars. And later in the year, when I designed an

annual 2021 calendar, Etsy featured it in their global

newsletter. And we just sold thousands and thousands of the

thing and we were just stuffing envelopes and. Yeah, it was so it was kind

of an accidental business startup, but once that happened,

we knew it had legs, so then started taking it more seriously

and eventually phased out the clients and full time

focus on this. Oh, that's amazing.

Yeah, that's really. Yeah, I'm just thinking to

put them on Etsy and then for them just to sell like that, I guess.

I know, it was really unexpected. Yeah. And, you know, I've worked in e commerce

and I never really took Etsy seriously as a, as

a platform, but honestly, it's brilliant. And it's still, we still sell there

now sort of nearly four years on. That's amazing.

So let's talk a little bit about going from putting a few

products on Etsy that selling and then sort of expanding

and growing a business. Can you talk us through that a bit? Yeah, I

mean, it's a lot growing a business. We're now a team of

eight, so we've expanded a lot in the last few years, which is super

exciting. But I think Etsy, we did everything we could to

optimize that really well, so we knew kind of what worked.

And then I wanted to have our own website because I

thought really, that's how we own the sales and we can sort

of do our marketing, release our marketing brains on that.

And so I built a Shopify site which is sort of highly recommended.

I love Shopify and

really started to focus on that. And then we hired first team members to

sort of support in that and also the support with

the packing of orders and things like that. Yeah. And sort of

just, you know, we're growing really organically but consistently. We're always focused on,

okay, what's next? How we can do better, and, you know, where are our

customers? What do they want? Amazing. Thank you for

sharing that. And I know your product range is so much bigger

than when you first started. Oh my God, how

have you balanced that? Because obviously in the early days you had such a lot

to do with getting set up on Shopify and I, all the things

around the business side of things, how did you balance that with coming up with

new products and rolling those out?

Yeah, it's really tricky. I don't really know how, but definitely

with help from a team, I think growing the team has been the only way.

And I've seen this with so many business owners that they get some

success, but then they get so caught up in the packing and the customer service

and that it kind of actually slows the design side. And I knew that I

didn't want that to happen. I really identified that early on as, like,

customer services is, you know,

I was good at it because it was my own company, so I knew what

to say, but I also knew that other people could do that just as well.

So one of our first team members was to come and do that

customer service, but also upload all the products. So that whole

process, after the designing of the product, I was

able to hand over to a team member, which meant that I could

then refocus on the next thing. So I think that's been the

real. The only way of being able to do that. Yeah, that makes a

lot of sense because are you the only person, Michelle, that does the product

design? No, I have lovely designer

called Lizzy with me. I mean, we have over

200 products at the moment, so it's a

lot. And then obviously, we really, we specialize in dated

products, so we have two peaks, academic year and new year

products. So sort of it's constant rolling of new,

new products out. So, yeah, it's the two of us. Okay. But initially, was it

just yourself? Is that right? Yeah, it was me. Lizzie joined

sort of maybe a year and a year and a half

ago. Yeah. Oh, wow. I love how much your team is great. Do you mind

me asking, actually, at what point, if you can remember, you took on

your first team member? Yeah, I think

it was right after our peak, because obviously we'd had cash in the bank. We

knew, okay, we've got this money now. We know we can.

We know we can afford someone as long as what we're

paying them is going to, you know, we're going to make.

The value they bring is going to be more than that. And it was really,

I think that's a really scary part, investing in big things like that and

specifically team members. So

really, when we knew we had that cash available, but also that

we knew there was enough work and enough growth opportunity for

me to sort of focus on, it was, I just felt, like, constrained for time.

So we got someone in sort of a dual role to, you know, to take

on lots of different things. The reason I asked about that

is I get the sense that you've grown your team, perhaps

sooner than a lot of other businesses I've spoken to. And that's the reason I

asked that, because I find that really interesting, because I think it can be really

tempting to hold on to everything yourself as long as possible

until, you know, you're completely burnt out and you can't cope and you happen

to lose my experience anyway. Yeah, I think most

people go through that experience, and I think, you know, one of the things that

really facilitated is that I had a business coach. In fact, I

had two business coaches because one brought the other one in because he wanted the

financial side. And so, you know, I had these two men that were advising

me once a week or once every few weeks, and it was just brilliant because

they gave me the confidence. And one of the questions he asked at the beginning

was, do you want to be, you know, you're

successful as a one man band? Is that what you want to do, just be

more successful and optimize your times, one man band? Or do you want to grow

it into a bigger thing with the team,

etcetera? And, you know, I sat on that for a while because it was really

easy doing it for my spare bedroom and the income was

comfortable, but I thought, you know, I know in

my nature, it's to focus on growth.

So kind of, I was like, actually, that's the direction I want to

go, so I may as well just try it, see how it goes. So. Yeah,

but it was helpful having that feedback from the coaches. Yeah,

that makes a lot of sense to think about where you want to go and

how you want to run your business. Yeah.

Thinking, I guess, with the end of mind a bit more. Yeah, that makes a

lot of sense. So, obviously, you do a lot of things because, I mean, you

haven't mentioned this, but I happen to know you have a fairly, you know, young

family as well. How do you stay organized, Michelle, with, like, you know,

running the business and then your family life, how do you.

I'd love to say we're very organized. I have three kids. I've got two older

girls and a little guy who was born a couple of years

into the business. I don't really know how, but I

offer a lot of the things that we design, I designed for myself

first because I know I need all these tools to stay

organized. I've got an ADHD brain, so there's a million things going

on. So I always have always been a list person that needs to get things

down. And, you know, one of the things I use religiously every week

now is my weekly planner, and I take the information

from ever, from my work calendar, from home life, from

birthdays, from everything, and I put it in this weekly planner. I do it on

the weekends, I know what's going on. And without that, if I ever skip a

week, I'm totally lost. And everyone's lost. You know, I put the meals on

there and everything. And I guess that's really. That glues it all together.

Oh, that makes sense. And it sounds like a lot of the products you're

creating, is it fair to say a lot of them are products that

help you and they just happen to help a lot of other people? Is that

where they. The idea comes from, really? Yeah. It almost

always comes from, I need this in my life, so. And then

kind of we work our way out from there. Yeah.

Yeah. That's brilliant. Let's talk a little bit

about sustainability, if that's okay, Michelle, because I know you have really strong values about

sustainability. Can you tell us what you're doing and why you've chosen

to do things that way? Yeah, so we've

become B Corp certified company in

February of this year. So that's really exciting. It's basically a

certification that certifies us to the

highest environmental

standards, but also looking at community transparency,

accountability, and those kind of things. So

I love business. I love the game of

business, but I'm not so fan of what the impact of business

in the world. And so I've always thought

I want to do it, but try and do it well. And, you

know, B Corp is really all about business as a force for good.

So I kind of want to run a business

how I'd like all the other businesses in the world to behave so

responsibly and kindly and lovingly.

So, you know, we try, and in every decision we make, we try and

consider all those elements. So kindness is really one of the most

important things in our business planet and

to our team members and to our community and our

customers, of course. Most importantly. That's amazing.

And can I ask, because I've never asked anyone this before, how do you go

about becoming a certified B Corp? Is it a

long process? Do you have to do a lot to get the unsure

long? Yeah, it is. It's challenging. So

it's basically, you get points allocated, so anyone can go on

and just look up the bhidden assessment. You can just sign up, and then there's

a whole bunch of questions that they use to give you points.

And on average, most businesses will score about 50

points, sort of, without doing anything, but you need 80

to achieve the B Corp status. So

they look at five areas of the business, including

environment, your workers, your community.

And so, yeah, it's just putting a lot of stuff in place to make sure

that you have those points and also that you continue

working towards improving what you're doing.

So anyone, you can just log into the assessment and

get familiar with the process and then there's loads of like local groups that

you can join. We were really lucky to have,

there's a really active community here in Cornwall where we're based, so we've

been on events and we were accepted on a program called B 23

that led us through the whole process, which was really helpful. So

if you can get outside help, it's great. It's a lot around

policies that you have in your business. Your supply

chain is really important and really understanding where your product,

if you're info manufacturer, obviously a service business is different

and businesses get points

in different kind of, businesses get assessed in different ways. Obviously

we, we create products, so that's important,

the supply chain, but yeah. So anyone can go in and have a look.

Yeah, there's a lot of information available. Well that's brilliant. And I

assume you provide evidence as well for everything you're

doing. Yes. Yeah, there's a lot of, you know,

there's. When you finished your assessment and you say, okay, I'm ready, you can

see how many points you have and then they'll assign an assessor to you

and they'll walk you through and see and just check that everything's

accurate and. Yeah, yeah, amazing.

And could you want to tell us some of the things that you're doing? Because

honestly, never be shy. It'd be great to hear some examples of some of

the things you're doing that helped you get those data.

So, you know, one of the big things is that we produce everything in the

UK. That's one of our brand promises and we source as local as,

as possible. So that footprint

lowering that, but also investing in our local community and

our local economy is really important. The other thing

we only print on recycled paper. So those are kind of our

two brand promises. We're also a plastic free company, so our

warehouse is completely plastic free.

We also speak with our

suppliers. We always know what their environmental

credentials are and make sure that they're doing the right

things like using the right energy

supply and things like that. And

then we've also, for example, one of the things we implemented was

we became a living wage accredited organization. So

we always pay at least the living

wage set by the living wage foundation. Yeah,

lots of things we do. Volunteering.

Yeah, lots, lots of air in all areas of, of the

business. Yeah, it definitely does. Sound like you're doing a lot.

And another question we don't mind is when you were expanding. So you

mentioned when you had your first products printed, you went to a local printer and

got them printed. How was it

scaling from that element? Because I assume that as your

range gets bigger and you get bigger, are you still working with the same printer

or are you having to look for other people to work with and

you have to source your own paper and ink. And especially now with the

thought of having these credentials as well, I guess it makes.

I guess a lot of thought has to go into everything. A lot of thought

goes into everything. And sometimes the decisions we have to make are not the most

obvious ones. Sometimes price is not the main driver,

and that's okay. But.

Well, we still work with the first printer I ever

went to, and we became one of their biggest customers and they're growing

with us. They've just bought some great equipment just to

be able to supply some of our products. So that's really exciting

to have been able to grow with them. But we've also

had to go to others because different printers specialize in different kinds of

products. And it's good also

to spread your supply chain out a little bit. And actually,

we've just taken on in December, so a few months ago, we've taken

on a product sourcing person slash

buyer. And that's brilliant, because actually, sourcing products,

it takes up so much time and getting

the right pricing and the right sustainable credentials and stuff.

So we're not yet at the point where we're buying our own paper, but that's

certainly something we could be doing as we grow.

So, yeah, a lot to think about developing products, for sure.

Definitely. And I'm also thinking as you're talking and about

your team as well, I guess there's also a lot to think about when you're

bringing people in in terms of what role does that person

need to fulfill and how does that fit in with the team you already

have? Yeah, that's, you know, that's taken

a lot of thinking around it. So I should say that I run

the business with my partner, Angus, my life partner.

And, you know, that's brilliant. He came on board a couple of

years into the business full time. He's always been sort of by my side, but

so, you know, we're able to share on that. And earlier this year,

we went away for a couple of night and just really sat down and thought,

okay, what do we need down? Everything that needs doing in

the business and sort of allocated it under everyone's name and gone, okay, and

these are the things that need doing, but no one, we don't have anyone to

do them. And they mainly were things that kind of ended up on my plate

but then didn't happen because of time limitations.

So now we've just hired another person

to help with marketing. So, yeah, we kind of

slowly, gradually building sort of a team

to take on everything that needs doing. So Angus and I can focus on

sort of the bigger picture. That's amazing. And

I don't know if I've spoken to anyone actually on the podcast who's

he's grown that, you know, who has managed to grow a team to this,

to this size. And I know to you, I don't know if it seems like

a big team or a small team, but I think it feels to me like

that's a big team. Do you have any advice

about, you know, finding the right people or

anything around managing a team? Because as say, I do think it's a struggle

lots of us have where we leave it almost too

late to find someone and then it's not always as

well thought through as it could have been, perhaps. Yeah, I think

it's, you know, it's really challenging and we definitely didn't get it right the

first 1st few times. So I've

really kind of, first of all, writing a really

clear job description, even if it's just for yourself to

start writing every little thing that you think this person should take on and then

see how it can, how it can work together as a

job. And then I've sort of built this

hiring process, which has become really important to

our process. So we basically do a Google form,

so all the applicants fill out the same questions

and they sort of automatically in a spreadsheet, we get rid of their names because

part of B Corp is also to sort of hire without

discrimination. And so we get rid of the names and then we just

look at people's answers to these questions and the questions. It's

so important to ask the questions that

mean something to you and your business and really just ask

everything. And so

that's been one of the best things because you

can compare people's answers and go, oh, actually,

yeah, that looks good, or that person might not

be quite fitting.

So rather than letting them decide what they send you, you

decide. So that's been a really great way of hiring them. And then in

interviews also, I've asked everyone exactly the same question. I explain in

advance how we do it so that you can really give them a

fair hiring process, but also just really to get a good, clear

idea. And then one of the key tricks also is when I hire someone, I

always, in the final few, when we're, when

I'm talking to people, I always ask them to do a task related to

the job and then also ask them

for some, I give them some feedback on it and then I see how they

respond to that feedback because, you know, these are people you spend every

day with and so much time. So when you can have a good, open

communication, for me, that's really important. So, yeah, that process has been really

important. And, you know, we just have a brilliant team now. I'm so, so lucky.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing. I think that sounds like a really good process, and

it sounds like it's really important to think about the person

and their character and their values, as well as perhaps their

experience, because I'm sure you've experienced that you can find

someone who, on paper, can do the job to a really good level,

but perhaps if the values don't quite fit or

personalities. So it sounds like your process looks at both

aspects. Yeah. It's really important to identify what's important to you

in a person that you're going to spend all this time with. And I know

it feels crazy, you know, every day we're still like, oh, my gosh, how did

this happen? How have we got. How are we eight, you know, including us, so

six others. And then we have a few freelancers we work with on other stuff.

But, you know, I think it's. It takes some real.

It's really some balls to do it. I should say

that, you know, it's really scary

investing in this, but. But I think it's been so the right thing

for us, you know, and having other people also to bounce off and

just, you know, if you can hire people who are just better than you, that's

also a really great trick. But, yeah, it's been. It's been amazing,

but also really scary, but just quite a ride.

Yeah. Yeah, I can see. And one last question on this, because I think

this will also be a useful thing for people to consider,

is at what point do you know,

okay, I could find someone else to do this, whether it's a task or

a specific job, because I think that's always the thing as well, isn't it? Especially

when you've been doing everything yourself and you'll make it maybe your first or second

hire. It's okay. Who am I looking for? What

exactly is this job? What am I outsourcing. Do you

have any thoughts on how to determine,

okay, this is what the job will be, or this is my priority for

outsourcing? I think if you are leaving

opportunities on the table because you're too busy uploading

products or

packing orders or doing all that stuff

that you're doing in the business, but there are opportunities to grow.

So maybe you're on one platform but not yet on another, and your one platform

is doing well. And, you know, if you went on the other one, you'll also

do well. So as long as there's opportunities that you

can make the most of in that time that someone's taking off your

plate, I think that's the right time. And if you know that

those opportunities are going to bring in the finances,

yeah, that's helpful. So I guess it's a case of looking

at what you're doing that you don't necessarily need to be doing,

because I think all of us fall into the trap of doing something because we're

the person that does it or has. Always done it, it's really

hard to let go of it, you know, and to

keep your own stamp on it, you want to, you know, it's

really hard to let go of that. But

we use Trello, for example, and we put

all our operating procedures in there, so everything we

write in there is how we do it. And so, for example, for customer service,

we have a really clear guideline. We're always

nice to people, regardless of how, you know, how

they, what they're writing. We're always there to serve them. If they're

unhappy, then we've done something wrong and let's fix it and

that, you know, and sort of just sharing those templates

and just making things as easy as possible to do in the way that you

would do it yourself. That's really helpful, actually.

So I think even just writing down what you do and how you do it

is something that a lot of us could probably benefit from. Oh,

yeah. Especially if you're, you know, you're not doing things all the time. We have

a board on Trello that just called how stuff works, and we

just. Every time you do something, if you've done it for the second time, I

always. If you've done it for the second time, there should be a guide on

how to do it so that someone else can do it when you're not there.

You do sound incredibly organized, I have to say.

I think it's you. Yeah. Without it, I'm so, my

brain is so unorganized. That I need the organization tools to, to

keep it organized somehow. Yeah, I think it's working.

So I have one final question, Michelle, which I ask all of my

guests, which is, what would your number one piece of advice be for

other product creators? Yeah,

I think pricing your products well is

one of the most important things. So when I first got my calendar

and I showed it to my friend who had a retail store, and I said,

well, what would you sell this for? Because she was exactly kind of the target

audience that I wanted to hit. And she said,

1795, or something like that. And I thought to

myself, my God, no way anyone would pay that.

But then I thought about it and I did go a bit lower,

but because we priced it well and we thought about the

wholesale pricing, because initially we weren't doing wholesale. Now we have

gone into wholesale. We sell, we've just, just, you know, we're selling

to major organizations and we've got major american companies

reaching out to us. And, you know, without having

that right pricing in place, we would never have been able to do

those margins for wholesale. And, you know, we see

there's a lot of brands that do a calendar now and again,

lovely artists and stuff, and they, there was one locally, and it was

priced so low, and it was such a beautiful calendar. And I know what

pricing is for calendars because we have source, we've spoken to almost every

printer around, and I was like,

how have they done this? But they're just underpricing themselves, which means that

they're not going to last, they're not going to survive, and they're making a beautiful

product, and then it undercuts us,

which is fine, where everyone is allowed to put

their product out there, but it's a lose lose for everyone if you don't

price well, and particularly for yourself. So, yeah, that's my biggest.

That's brilliant advice. Thank you. And I've definitely seen that as well. Where

you get into the, I don't know, the people will

price for, I don't know, to be competitive,

as you say, that's not always the best long term strategy. It's a

race to the bottom. Yeah. Yeah. And as you say, it really

harms everyone because then, you know, I've seen, so I

specialize in helping people sell on Amazon, as you know, and I've

seen this where someone will lower their price and then everyone else else lowers

their price and then. Yeah. And it just

doesn't work out well. No, it's really, pricing is one

of the hardest things because, you know, you're going, we all have so many

biases around prices and, you know, we're up against some of the major,

you know, M and s and every, every store sells some of the

things that we do. Obviously we, hopefully we do them better, but we can do

them better because we price for them. We print locally,

they're recycled paper and it costs us more because

we're not printing in China. But luckily people are happy

to invest in it. Yeah. And I think being confident in your

price is really key as well. And it sounds like you are because I think

having, pricing your products and getting a price right, but then

also standing by that and saying this is a fair price,

this is what this should be priced is really important as well because it can

be tempting if maybe sales aren't where you want them to be to the think,

oh, maybe I'm too expensive, but I think there are people who are looking

to purchase in different price brackets. And I think it's

just about as. Long as you're offering the right quality with it. I

mean, don't get me wrong, I love a bargain, but I think, you know,

for everyone in the long term, you're not going to last if you're, if your

prices are too low and you can't afford to do all the things

you need to do. So. Yeah, well, that's brilliant advice. Thank you so

much, Michelle. Thank you. Thank

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

you can get the full back catalog and lots of free resources on my website,

vickiweinberg.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.