The Bring Your Product Idea To Life Podcast is perfect for anyone just starting out in product sales or looking to create their own product to sell. I’m Vicki Weinberg, a product creation coach and Amazon expert, here every week with friendly, practical advice and inspiring stories from small businesses.

Today, I’m speaking with Candice Mason from Mother Cuppa. Candice is a tea sommelier and herbal tea blender focused on supporting women’s hormone health and overall wellbeing. Her journey, shaped by experiences with endometriosis, induced and reversed menopause, and early menopause, led her to create blends that not only taste great but also support holistic health.

In this episode, we explore:

• The art of tea blending, its origins, and how different ingredients can enhance your health and wellbeing.
• How Candice turned her passion into a business with a strong focus on ethical product creation and sustainable packaging, free from microplastics.
• The benefits of marketing to a niche audience and growing her customer base naturally through ecommerce and face-to-face events, including high-profile festivals like CarFest and Happy Place. These in-person interactions have helped her build genuine connections with customers, creating a unique experience beyond typical customer service.
• The introduction of a subscription-based model, allowing customers to enjoy her unique tea blends regularly and conveniently.

There’s lots to to take away and try in your own business. 

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

USEFUL RESOURCES:

Mother Cuppa Website

Mother Cuppa Facebook 

Mother Cuppa Instagram 

Candice Mason LinkedIn 

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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.

Hello and welcome as always to the podcast.

Today I'm speaking to Candice Mason from Mother Cuppa.

Candice blends her herbal tea to support women's hormone health and well being.

Following a journey with endometriosis and induced and reverse menopause, and now early menopause, Candice uses her skills as a tea sommelier and blender to create blends that deliver on flavor and support your holistic health.

I don't think I've ever spoken so much about tea.

This was a really fascinating insight into where tea comes from, how you can blend tea, and what different ingredients can do for your own health and well being.

I think you're going to find this episode so interesting and informative.

And I should also add that if you would like to see this episode, all podcast episodes are available as full videos on YouTube.

So if you prefer to get your podcast content there, do head to my YouTube channel, which of course is linked in the show Notes.

I would love now to introduce you to Candice.

So hi, thank you so much for being here.

Pleasure.

Thanks for having me.

Please, can you start by giving introductions to yourself, your business and what you sell.

So my name is Candice.

I'm the founder of startup brand Mother Cuppa and I produce herbal teas to support women's hormones, health and wellbeing.

Amazing.

Thank you.

Let's start with what inspired you to initially create your teas.

So I was diagnosed with endometriosis about 24 years ago now and I had to have quite a major operation as part of my treatment.

And I was also placed through a medically induced and reversed menopause in my early 20s.

So it was quite a difficult time for me.

And in the lead up to that, I'd been on a lot of medication and kind of passed a bit from pillar to post.

So when my treatment had finished, I didn't really know what my cycles should be like.

I didn't know what my body should really feel like.

I felt like I'd never really had a normal period in my life.

And so I made a conscious choice to try and reduce the medications that I was on, maybe come off most of them and look at other holistic and more natural approaches and were there other things that I could be doing to support my body?

And I got introduced to medicinal teas in a book that I read and I thought, oh, that sounds like something I might like to explore a little bit more.

And I would go along to the health food shop every week and just be like, right, what would you give me for this, that and the other.

And the lady in there was so amazing and she always encouraged me to put the ingredients into a tea because it was a really nice way to take it.

And that's kind of where it really started.

And then it just became a bit of a hobby of mine and a fascination of mine, so something I've been doing for 20, 20 years now.

So, yeah.

Oh, wow, that's a really long time.

And how long has it been a.

Business for Mother Kappa will be 2 on the 1st of October.

So just coming up as we speak now.

Yeah.

So, yeah, it's been an event for two years.

Really.

What happened was in that first lockdown, I was in a really.

I was in a really stressful position and it was a really difficult time.

I think, like, for lots and lots of people, it was, everybody's got their own lockdown story, haven't they?

I really started to struggle with sleep issues and anxiety, which I'd put down to being stress related because of the circumstances that we're in.

But when we started to come out of that normal life, nothing seemed to improve.

And some things were changing with my cycle and just something wasn't right.

So I finally got myself off to the gp, who ran some tests and did some blood tests and said, no, you're in early menopause as.

And, and probably as a result of some of the treatments that I've had and the fact that I always seem to just have problems related to how that part of my body works.

And I think when you're told you're in early menopause, I don't know about other people, but it made me feel really like a little bit old before my time.

And I wasn't quite ready for that yet.

And I had a little bit of a wobble in a moment and just felt like, okay, what am I doing with my life?

I don't want to really go back to doing the things that I was doing before.

And I feel like I'm about as far away from the things that interest me.

Probably very similar to a lot of ladies who reach that sort of midlife phase and start to question what they're doing.

And I always Knew I wanted to launch a business.

So through a little bit of time, Mother Kapha became the natural next step for me.

Thank you for sharing that.

And I'm so sorry for everything you went through to get there.

Well, do you know what?

I think it's a good thing.

I think I can look back on it now and think it's a good thing.

I maybe didn't think that at 3 o'clock in the morning, several sleepless nights, but yeah, no, look, it's the right chapter for me and I think things do happen for a reason.

And I think that's.

This is part of my journey.

And so it's just.

It's just helped me go to the next step.

Really.

Yeah.

And it's amazing that something that's been a hobby for such a long time, by the sounds of it, is now something, you know, that this is now your business.

I think that's amazing.

Yeah.

I feel very lucky and it feels.

Like it's meant to be as well, as you said, because it sounds like this was something you've already spending a lot of time thinking about and looking into.

Yeah, I never, I never anticipated it being a business because I think sometimes your hobbies are the things that you want to protect and they're your free time and you're kind of downtime.

So it wasn't a conscious decision that that be a business.

But I.

It makes complete sense to me.

And I'd.

I'd retrained as a tea sommelier and I was specializing in blending and I'd gotten myself involved in sort of volunteering on tea tasting awards and things like that.

So I'd already started to move around in that circle and when I knew I wanted to launch a business, and I think because I'd been sort of having this feelings of, oh my goodness, I'm a little bit old before my time.

I haven't done all the things I wanted to do.

Yeah, it just, it just all sort of came together really.

And I feel very lucky to be in this position.

But launching a business is not easy.

So it's.

I don't want to sugarcoat the fact that, yeah, I've got this 20 year passion and I've just turned it into a business overnight.

You know, lots of work goes into that.

I know, absolutely.

And we'll get into all of that because.

Yeah, absolutely.

First, though, I would love to know what is a tea sommelier?

I don't know what one is.

Sorry for being so ignorant.

No, please don't.

And I get asked that A lot.

So you may well have heard of wine sommeliers.

Tea sommeliers are really similar.

So wine comes from grape.

Tea comes from one plant, the tea, the camellia sinensis plant.

And very much like your red grapes in wine, depending on where it's grown in the world, what terrain, what temperatures, you know, above sea level, below sea level will start to produce different types of wine.

And you get them very regionalized.

Well, tea is exactly the same.

And so you can.

You can get a tea from India that will be tasting very different to the one that you get, you know, grown in the hills, mountains of China and places like that.

So.

So a tea sommelier understands the history of the tea industry and also more around the flavors, what you'd expect from different regions and different areas, and is able to advise and offer expertise on that.

So, for example, a t sommelier may work with the likes of Tetley, helping them provide, you know, a consistent range of teas across their ranges.

They may advise.

Lots of hotel chains use tea sommeliers to try and get their products right in, you know, big sort of fancy hotels.

All sorts of bits and pieces that you can get involved in.

To be a tea sommelier in the UK is fairly unique.

We'll meet a lot of people.

I mean, I met a wonderful lady recently who specializes in Japanese teas, and her whole profession is solely around Japanese tea blends.

Now, I chose to go off a slightly different angle and focus more on medicinal and herbal ingredients.

And what I learned through that is the history of certain teas, what they've been used for in terms of medicinal purposes over the years.

And then my specialist in blending is then how to take some of those ingredients and try and make them taste really good so that you'd actually want to consume a tea like that.

So, yeah, that's a little bit about it.

That's really interesting.

Thank you.

And so did you do that as part of sort of your own journey of, you know, you mentioned you go to health food shops and finding ingredients to see what would work for you.

Was.

Was that all part of that?

Was that what inspired you?

Yeah, I think when you're naturally interested in something, you know, you see these sort of little short courses and then you see the more professional ones, and you start thinking, oh, that'd be really interesting to get myself involved in that.

And, you know, there's a lot that goes on within the tea industry, so you can get involved in sort of awards events and, you know, short tea tasting courses and blending courses and bits and pieces so, yeah, so over the years I've done various, you know, like I say, just out of interest and a hobby because I was really curious about it as a subject.

And I think for me, I think now I can kind of look back on things and reflect.

I think there's been an element of feeling comforted by the fact that I had some sense of control over what was going in my body and what that was doing to my body, whereas there was a point in my life where I didn't feel that.

And so I've taken real comfort in feeling that I had some control is the right word, but some ownership over what I was doing with my body and that there really were things out there that could really help me and I didn't need to just first be the first reaction to pick up something off of the shelf or get.

Go to the GP and get medication.

Like there were other things for me that I wanted to do to try and help my body.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

And I also sounds like if I need to know anything about tea, you are going to be the person I have come.

Tea.

You know a lot about tea.

But that.

And that.

But that makes sense because I think I conflate what you say about having control because obviously a lot of what was happening to you wasn't in your control, but you could be in control of, you know, the things you were taking to ease your symptoms or just generally feel better.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, it's no different to somebody who maybe wants to go down the kind of nutrition coaching type of path.

Usually nutritionists have a story in their background that's led them to look to foods in its most natural and sort of wholesome way to care for their health and wellbeing.

So I guess this is a similar journey, really?

Definitely.

So I would love to talk a little bit about the process of creating your blends.

We know that you've got now all this experience and knowledge about.

About tea and different ingredients.

So how did you go about formulating the blends that you're selling today?

Okay, so I always blend with a purpose.

So a blend that I'm creating will always be around trying to support my body in some way or another.

So I always start with some main ingredients.

I'll do the research on those ingredients and find the background in how they might help me as a female.

I will then take those ingredients and I have a journal that I've had for donkey's years that I write down any changes in any symptoms or note any improvements That I might feel, and I might play around with those ingredients a little bit, I might take one out and add another one.

And then the final part would be to build the flavor of the blend.

Now, since I launched the business, the plan and what I've launched with is a tea for each step of the day.

Because I felt like, for women, maybe making a transition into herbal medicinal teas would be quite a big change.

And I wanted to make that really easy for them.

And I wanted to make sure that the first blends that I launched would really pack a punch and really make them feel like that was making some improvements.

So I've chosen firstly to go completely caffeine free with all of my blends.

And like I say, we have a tea for each step of the day, so morning, afternoon, evening, just to support you with your health.

And I think having a cup of tea in your day is such an easy change to make.

It's not like thinking about going vegan or giving up alcohol completely or giving up caffeine altogether.

It's not these big, drastic changes.

It's very small, subtle changes that would really, over a long period of time, support your health and wellbeing.

So I've stopped making the recipes on my kitchen table because that wasn't going to be feasible for growing the business.

So I'm really pleased.

I work with a blender in the uk, a colleague of mine, and what they do is they take my recipes and help me mass produce them, and we've put them into tea bags, again, purely from convenience perspective, to support a nice, easy way to add to your health.

But the great thing about the blenders and the bit that I wasn't able to do on my own, was that they go out and vet all of the farms.

So we have to purchase the ingredients very seasonally, depending on the time of year, and we get them from different farms.

And so the fact that they go out and vet them and they have their own auditing requirements means that we can literally trace every single ingredient back to its farm and where it comes from.

And that was really important to me because when we're thinking about medicinal plants from a health perspective, we want to have the really best quality and make sure we know where it's grown, what's in it and where it's coming from.

And the other thing is that the tea industry doesn't necessarily have the best reputation for ethical considerations.

Often in fairly deprived countries, there's not always the same care given to the people that are working for them.

So by working with the blenders, I have a great understanding that they really care about those things that would be important to us as a brand.

That's where we're currently at.

We're working with that blender at the moment.

Oh, that's amazing.

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing all of that.

So I was, that was one of my follow up questions was how you were actually physically making so much tea.

But I guess when it transitioned from being something for yourself to being something that was you were selling, I guess it's just not feasible to just keep making them.

No.

And also there are certain ingredients, so there's different grades of ingredients.

So I have chosen for the business's point of view at this stage to start with medicinal grade ingredients, which means that they don't interact with other people's medications.

You can take them, you know, when you're under any treatments or if you were pregnant or, you know, they are free for everybody to take when you start working with supplement grade ingredients.

And there really are some amazing ingredients that I would love to work with in the future for my ladies.

But that starts to dip into quite a different realm.

And from a business perspective, there was a lot more legislation and challenges to get through.

So as a brand, it made complete sense.

The purpose is to start with trying to get people to drink more herbal teas and medicinal plants and have a better understanding over natural health.

And potentially further down the line, we might be able to add some of those more sort of specific supplement grade ingredients.

That makes sense.

And I guess working with a blender will allow you hopefully to do that in the future as well.

Exactly, yeah.

Yeah.

So we've touched on this a little bit, Sarah, but I would love to know more about how your teas are different to other tea brands.

Yeah, that's a really great question and I get asked that quite a lot.

So do come and check out.

I've got a really great video on Instagram on my page which cuts open the tea bags and shows you what's inside them.

And I think that's a really good starting point when you're thinking about herbal teas from a health perspective.

So what we want to have is the big chunks of ingredient, lots of big chunks.

What you find in your supermarkets is very cleverly marketed blends, but actually when you cut open the tea bag, it's very dusty ingredients and not necessarily the best high quality.

So from a health perspective, you want as much of the whole chunk of ingredient.

I focus on ingredients that specifically would help women's health and hormones so for each blend there's slightly different ingredients for that.

And I've really focused on talking about those and the benefits of those.

And we use completely sustainable packaging.

So the tea bag, the string and the tag is 100% compostable and biodegradable.

The wrapper that it comes in is also compostable and biodegradable.

And we use water based inks on the packaging so that again, you will still find on your high street shelves lots of brands using plastic in their tea bags.

Sometimes they're sealed with plastic, sometimes the string is attached with a plastic glue.

And what happens with that is you end up with lots of micro and nano plastics in your system.

So when we're thinking about hormone health, that is not really a great thing to have in your system.

So I would say those are the reasons that I'm different as a brand.

Oh, thank you for those.

And I've seen the video on your Instagram of you cutting open the tea bags.

And we'll make sure we link to your Instagram in the show notes this episode so people can see it.

That really did strike me that when you were cutting open a different tea bag and there was lots of powder falling out because I guess there's no real way of knowing what that is.

And I did see with yours there were great big chunks so you could actually probably.

Yeah, it's a really powerful video, isn't it?

Just to really show really clearly.

Yeah.

Now I still don't know what any of those things are, but someone who knew a bit more than me would probably be able to identify different ingredients by looking at the leaves or whatever.

So I think.

Yeah, that did make a big impact on me and it's great as well.

I have to say.

I think that they come in bags because I've taken herbal teas before where you have to put them in the little.

I forget what you call it.

The little thing that looks like.

Oh, the influenza.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's just another step that.

I don't know if this is just me, but I found that another step that would mean that I wouldn't actually do it 100%.

Like I really thought about that when we were launching the brand because I'm traditionally at home, I would drink pretty much loose leaf tea.

But the reality is I'm the same as as you.

You know, I'm a woman, working, kids, dog, whatever else going on in my life.

The last thing I want to be doing is like preparing a fresh blend on a Monday morning at 7 o'clock so I can get my little energy fixed before I start the day.

So I really thought about, because I was in that space, you know, a busy mom who just wants to try and make small changes to my health to kind of improve it.

And I haven't got the headspace or the capacity or the time to be adding lots of elaborate changes.

So yeah, the tea bags was a very deliberate move to make it super easy for women.

Oh, it definitely does.

And I.

So that's another question actually, if you don't mind me ask this one because I haven't prepared you for this question.

It seems like you've got a really good idea of who your customer is.

So who your teas are for.

Yeah.

Has that helped you or how has that helped you as you've been looking to transition to selling your products as a business?

Yeah.

Do you know social media makes you want to or is you basically to make social media work you have to have a very clear niche.

You can expand on it as your business grows and evolves.

But to begin with, you absolutely know who, you have to know who you're talking to.

And so I felt very clear from the beginning I was talking to women just like me.

So either they're being told they're in perimenopause, they're thinking that that's where they are, or they've got hormone conditions.

Those were my people.

So when I very first launched, that is the only people I talked to.

And I think there is a fear that if you don't try and talk to everybody, you're going to miss out on some people.

But that isn't actually the case.

What happens is very naturally people start to ask you more questions.

So they don't necessarily.

Some people will just write it off and think, oh, they're talking about menopause, I'm nowhere near that, I'm out.

But actually what I've noticed is I started to get a lot of younger people coming forward and saying, well Candice, I haven't had endometriosis but I've got polycystic ovaries.

Which is really a similar journey to what sounds like what you've been on.

So have you got something that would help me?

And I also had, I remember being at an event and a gorgeous little 16 year old young lady was reading my story and she said, oh, I don't know if this is me but my periods are awful and this is what's happening to me and I'm having to take time off of school and it just, I was able to offer her advice based just on my experience and say, well, why don't you know, this might help you give it a go.

And even today I've had a lady message me saying I'm sort of approaching that age but actually currently pregnant.

So is it something that I can still consume?

So I think whilst I in the beginning really had a very clear audience that I was talking to, it's slightly evolved by itself where women are more interested in and starting to question that.

But what that means now is that I have several different Personas of people I know I'm talking to.

I have a very, very large number of people who are exploring becoming caffeine free or reducing caffeine for varying reasons.

I have a small cohort of ladies who are undergoing breast cancer treatment who aren't able to take caffeine.

So the Personas have slightly grown a little wider.

But I'm still predominantly talking to women like me.

But that is so interesting that the people, the people you're reaching has grown by you focusing on a targeted niche of women like you.

So obviously you're still attracting people who are interested in what you're selling and want to know more by being really targeted.

And I think that's just a really useful thing for people to hear because there is that famous quote, what is it something about?

If you're talking to everyone, you're talking to no one.

Yeah.

Because it can be really tempting.

So at the beginning I'm thinking that if you had started trying to reach ladies who are approaching menopause and teenage girls with difficult periods and people undergoing cancer treatment and people who wanted to stop consuming caffeine.

If you were targeting all of those people, you probably would have reached very few of them.

Yeah.

Because I think the algorithms like to know who it is that you're.

That your content is for 100.

I did in my first six months after launching, I did my first ever face to face event and they've proved to be really beneficial to the business because it means people can try the product.

You get that time to talk about the product.

And there was a couple of things that I took from that that's really helped me in my communications online and in email is all of the conversations we were having.

I tried afterwards to make notes and bullet point like what did I tell them about that ingredient and what were the questions they were asking me?

And I turn all of those questions into like a frequently asked questions document on my computer.

And so that really started to form some of the first parts of my content and it really, I.

It's no different to me sitting down with a group of my girlfriends having a cup of tea, going out and we're chatting about all the things we're chatting about at this stage of life.

Or you know, we might say, oh gosh, you know, our periods are really starting to change and they're starting to become too heavy or have you ever noticed this?

Or what's the development of your relationship with your children as you're growing up in this phase of life?

And you know, my daughter's just gone off to uni so you know, you starting to talk about those things.

So really I've tried to think about my social media and my messaging around those conversations as if I was with my girlfriend having a.

Having a cup of tea on a Saturday morning.

So it's proved to be a good way.

And I think what that has meant is two things.

I think people have really felt connected to the brand and me as a person, but that it's been really relatable for people.

Like they could totally relate to those conversations.

Yeah.

And it also sounds like because you're going out and meeting your customers, do you've got an idea?

What?

You probably have an idea for yourself as you say, from just your own life and relationships, the things people are talking about.

But I guess it's also really good because you're meeting your customers and you can see, you can just get that confirmation of yes, this is something they're interested in and I'm sure they also ask you questions and it just.

You're just finding out more and more about the people that are buying your products.

Yeah, it's really made a huge difference and it's something that is so difficult to do online is to really connect with your audience.

I once listened to some marketing guru years and years ago and he had, I can't remember what he called it but it was basically time on a Tuesday or something ridiculous.

And he would spend an hour on a Tuesday ringing up clients.

And so I think if I didn't do the face to face events, I would absolutely do that.

I would pick up the phone and there have been a few people that have come through and purchased on the E on online that I cannot work out how they found me.

So I've just dropped them an email and said and it's a really personal email from me.

It's not one that goes out to my audience but it's just, I'm just letting you know my name is Candice.

It's Wonderful to have you here.

You know, I really pleased you're part of the community.

If you've got any questions about the tea, just.

And it literally only takes a few minutes, but it makes a really good connection with certain clients.

And also every order that goes out has a note that goes with it that is printed and typed.

But I just.

I might add a more personal note onto somebody's order, especially if, for example, I had a lady the other day.

It's her.

It was her 30th time, that she'd ordered from me, which I've only been going two years.

So she's been with me since pretty much the beginning.

And I celebrated that with her and just said, you know, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for people purchasing like you.

So.

Thank you.

I just think to be a bit creative about adding elements of personalization into E Commerce.

That's really nice.

And I like what you said about.

I've heard that advice before about.

I can't remember who it was.

It might have been what's his name, Gary Vaynerchuk, or someone who was talking about phoning up customers.

It was someone of that.

Someone in that space anyway, because I heard that as well.

And I think nowadays it's harder, isn't it?

Because most of us don't want to get a random phone call from someone we don't know.

But anything you can do to talk to people, those little touches like leaving a note or sending an email is really nice.

Yeah.

I listened to a lady the other day and she.

Her motto was, what would John Lewis do?

And it reminded me of an experience that I'd had where one of the John Lewis vans had caught my car in just a genuine accident, what have you.

And the driver's like, I'll fill in this paperwork and they'll be in touch.

And they called me and talked me through every step of the process.

They were really apologetic.

You know, they went above and beyond.

They could have argued that.

They could have ignored it.

They could have pretended it didn't happen.

I could have had to fought to get a car repaired.

But they led that whole thing.

And when this lady was saying last week, you know, what would John Lewis do?

I thought, I know exactly what they'd do.

And I think we can take a lot from those bigger brands that are doing it really well and also the brands that are doing it really badly and think about how we could be better in our.

In our businesses for our customers.

Absolutely.

That's a really good.

That's a really good reminder actually that when you have a really positive customer experience because let's be honest, it doesn't happen every day or even every week, but when it happens, it's just really nice to remember.

When I used to sell products, something that I used to do was give refunds if someone requested it without any sort of hassle because I had an experience as a consumer where I'd bought something and I wasn't happy with it and I contacted them and I thought they were going to say, I don't.

I expected it to be tricky.

And actually what they did was said, we're very sorry, we're going to send you a replacement completely free of charge.

And then it turns up the next day.

Yeah, and that stuck with me.

And so that was something.

I don't sell products now, but when I was at something, I always did, if someone contacted me and said, I'm not happy, I never ever argued.

I just said, I'm really sorry you're not happy and I'm going to send you.

And you're such a thing to do in the grand scheme of things, but makes that person's experience so much better and keeps the brand in such a positive light.

So, yeah, I don't think enough emphasis is given on that customer experience, particularly in E commerce because it's.

So you don't necessarily know the people who are purchasing from you.

But yeah, that's just my opinion.

That's interesting and I think you're right.

And it's part of it, I think, is it can be hard to know who's purchasing from you, can't it?

It's not always, it's not always obvious.

But I think there are definitely ways now that you can find out, you can find out more about your customers.

Yeah, definitely.

I mean, even every time I get a new follower on my Instagram page, I have.

It's a pre typed out message and.

But I, I don't have it automated.

I go in and personally adapt the message if I need to.

But it is a welcome message and it's a bit more about, you know, tell me how you found me.

What's going on in your life that interests you in looking at natural health?

And by the way, these are my hobbies and the things that I love.

Tell me a bit more about yourself.

And not everybody replies, but loads of people do.

And so you're already building up a connection before they've even made a purchase.

They're just sort of starting to build that relationship with you.

But I think that's what you would do if you walked.

You know, if you're face to face in an event or if you were a networking event, you wouldn't, somebody wouldn't come and say hello and you just ignore them.

You know, you would try and build some sort of connection with them.

So I think it's about how can you do that in a digital space?

And you've mentioned events a few times and I'd love to talk to you this about this a bit more if that's okay.

Because I have seen, because I've been following you and I've seen where you've been this year.

That sounds a bit creepy, but you know what I mean, I've seen that this year.

So for example, you've been Car Fest.

I've seen you been at Happy Place.

These are like really big events.

I'd love to know how, why, when.

Yeah, yeah, Big, big decision for the business.

Because naturally when you're a startup brand, money is always the biggest challenge and cash flow is the biggest challenge.

But I could have started on my local market.

I mean, ultimately I've got a product that I need to get people to taste and try because it doesn't taste like what you're used to in terms of herbal tea.

And I get told that all the time.

So as soon as I was hearing that, I was like, okay, we need to get this out to more people.

It's a big risk paying out for some of those bigger events and I'm really lucky that nearly, nearly all of them have paid off.

I've had a couple that haven't.

But what I've really thought about in order to make those work is my attitude to it.

So the first thing is those are marketing opportunities for me and so ideally I need to break even.

So any profit made at those sorts of events is a really good bonus.

And there's been particularly the Happy Place Festival.

It just exploded my brand.

But the bit that I then really thought about is what can come after the event.

So I set up an email flow that was linked specifically to people that I met at the event.

So if they made a purchase, I was capturing their email address and I was explaining to them, you know, this is, I'm going to add you to my mailing list and I'll tell you a little bit more about business.

People loved hearing that it was a startup brand and wanted to follow along with that journey.

So the email flow for them was, was very nurturing following the event.

So it would follow up, you know, great to Meet you at Happy Place.

What an amazing event.

My favorite speaker was such and such, you know, personalized.

But within that, there are opportunities for me to try and retain them as a client or I keep calling them clients.

Really, they're customers.

Yeah.

But would you like to leave a review?

If you really love the blend and explaining to people this really helps the business because other people can see that it's, you know, you're enjoying it and I'll give you a little thank you discount code.

I also included in there.

You know, if you're loving the blends and you'd like to share it with your friends, this would be an amazing way to grow the business and spread the love for Mother Kappa.

And my final bit was to try and encourage them to become subscribers to the business, which has been the goal because when we've got subscribers and we have a regular subscription based model, we have a base of income and so then we can grow.

So, yeah, I decided not to start with, you know, 50 pound markets and to go all in on the business.

Like, I really wanted this to become a, an established brand and it meant I needed to find myself at places that had the same brand ethics considerations as I do.

It is really bold and that's why I wanted to ask you about it.

Because a lot of people, and there's no right or wrong here, by the way, but a lot of people do start off at smaller local events.

And when I realized you'd been in business for a few years and you were at Carfest and Happy Place, I was like, wow, that's.

That is a really bold move.

But I guess that comes back to you knowing who your customers are.

Because I guess by knowing who your customers are, you knew that they would be at these events.

Yeah, 100%.

I mean, I actually remember sitting before I'd even launched the business and was like, where do you find women 35 to 50?

Where are they hanging out?

Where are they hanging out?

Are they in the coffee shops?

Are they at the gym?

Are they in the wellness space?

You know, a load of my customers are into yoga and reiki and sort of those more holistic things.

So that's, that's really thinking about where are my people hanging out and how can I get in front of them?

I mean, I did an event with a smaller company which was a fitness event that was 400 people, but it was 400 women only.

And it just was the best place for me to be.

I also got invited to do Tropic Fest, which is the skincare Brand Tropic, they do an event for their ambassadors and it was a field full of women in that age who love natural skincare.

So they were again very aligned with the type of ladies that I was talking to.

So yeah, I've really thought about that.

Yeah, you can tell.

And that's because that's really smart because it does feel like a big risk and as you say as a startup, I don't know how much it costs to be at these events.

It's going to be more than a small event but I guess it's a more of a calculated risk if you know there'll be X amount of people there and a certain percentage of them will be your ideal customer.

I mean, I did one event, I won't name it publicly because it's not fair.

There were some problems in the booking process and whilst I was at the event and it wasn't a hugely great experience and I thought I knew who that audience was and then when I arrived it was a little bit different to what was originally advertised in their brochure and I lost quite a bit of money on doing that.

I did gain some really good customers out of it.

That continued to come back to me so it wasn't completely wasted.

But I went back to the event organizers with a very structured email and just said, look, this is what I've committed, this is how much it's cost me.

I'm telling you, this is how much products I sold.

There's this massive great big gap and this was my experience and it wasn't quite what I was expecting.

And is there anything that you can do?

There was a little bit of toing and froing on emails and then they finally picked up the phone to me and I was like, look, I'm a startup brand, I'm not.

If you want brands like me to come to your event, I can't advocate it right now out there to my other startup colleagues and friends.

So they gave me then a heavily discounted space on their follow up event.

So it worked out well and I will end up breaking even as a result of both of those.

So I think make some risks but also know that those places need you as much as you need them and it's just about again building a relationship with them.

So they want you to come back every year on year really.

And it's really great that you said that as well.

First of all, that you went back to them and said, well actually this was my experience and it wasn't what you set out because I Think a lot of us are dissatisfied with service we receive in all kinds of places and just go, oh, okay, that happened.

As you say, it's really.

I like the fact that you thought about the fact that it's useful for them as well, because you're right, they do need you as much as you need them, because presumably they can only put on their events if they're having people paying to be there.

And one of the events, they're in their second year as well.

So, you know, some of these events are brand new.

In fact, they'll ring me up and say, oh, Candice, you know, what do you think?

Do you think this would work for a brand of your size?

And so when you've built that relationship, then you become part of the event.

So, of course, now I'm definitely going to support that year on year because we've got this good connection and we're trying to make it work for both of our businesses.

They're not all like that, I have to say, but, I mean, even Carfest and Happy Place, I've been really impressed with how they've tried to help brands and support them and kind of market them before they go.

I mean, Happy Place Fest to allow a backlink into your website.

So of course, all the traffic that's going on to their website comes, can come onto yours if people are clicking the link, which, as a startup brand is such an amazing thing to give your website that authority.

So, yeah, some good things going on out there.

And I think don't be put off.

Just plan that your audience is there, that you know what sort of money you want to make, that you've got enough stock for that.

How are you going to retain those clients after you've met them at the event?

How are you going to kind of move that forward?

That's brilliant advice.

Thank you.

I think.

So it sounds like these events can definitely be worth it, but you need to put a plan in place.

Definitely.

Thank you.

And one final question, Candice, before we finish, and this is one I ask everyone who comes on the podcast, what would your number one piece of advice be for other product creators?

I think I'm probably going to give this advice to myself, which is to just come out of your comfort zone.

My life sort of motto has been, if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.

So come a little bit out of your comfort zone and try some different things, because that's what I would tell myself.

That's brilliant advice.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for everything you shared.

We're going to link to your website, your socials and everything else in the notes for the episode.

And yeah, thank you again.

Yeah, wonderful.

Lovely to chat to you, Vicki.

Thank you for having me.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you so much for listening.

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, vickyweinberg.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.