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Blake Hutchison, Flippa CEO talks about Flippa equalizing business sale opportunities for all - extending the opportunity to sell a business to everyone, not just the stereotypical flashy Venture-backed companies.  Many people are not aware they have the opportunity to sell their business, even a small or service-based one - and Flippa gives everyone the option to realize the cash value of the business they own by listing it for sale on the Flippa.com platform. Flippa is working to give the opportunity to all people to be aware they can buy and sell businesses, which many have in a life-changing way. Flippa is hosting the upcoming Her.Future event October 18th at 11am - you can tune in to hear inspiring stories from women who have been there building and selling their own companies and walk away with tips you can use to grow and sell your own business. Video Notes: 1. Female Owned Businesses Listed  a) The Right Fit is a marketplace connecting leading brands with influencers, models and other creatives. Strong growth. Venture backed. Now for sale here.  2. Female Owned Businesses That Have Sold a) CrochetKim is a crochet blog with thousands of free patterns. The site sold for $90,000 within a week of being listed on the platform.    b) Karen Boyer was the police officer I referenced. You can hear her story here.  Check out Flippa's upcoming Her.Future event October 18th at 11am here: Flippa Her Future Event

Daisy Jing, Founder Banish Skincare Daisy Jing is the Founder of Banish. She launched her skincare company from her own kitchen and used her platform as an influencer to start making sales, which was not even her goal at first. Once she realized how interested her YouTube followers were in her new products and skincare routine, she got more serious about manufacturing and selling, and created her company Banish. Her YouTube channel now has over 70 million views, and she has a thriving company Banish that has been around for over 6 years. Daisy Jing founded Banish to solve her own skin problems, and ended up sharing her solution with many others in the company she created. In this episode Daisy shares valuable business and manufacturing tips, as well as her own business, marketing and life mindset tips that can inspire you to take action on your own ideas. Watch Daisy and Stacy talk about Daisy's business story and tips: (this is a full video episode, intro video, Zoom conversation video, so let me know in the comments or via email if I should keep doing full video formats or if audio-only is OK as well) [embed] https://youtu.be/TtHSAD8c_hA [/embed] Daisy Jing 0:00 I think the reason why actually most businesses don't remain in business is because they solve something that nobody needs solving. Stacy Caprio 0:08 Hi, and welcome to the Hurst SEO podcast with Stacy Caprio. The best advice comes not from your critics, but from those who are already where you want to be. Daisy Jing Stacy Caprio 0:21 Listen along with Stacy each week to learn from those who have already built their dreams so you can learn how to build your own. In this episode, we talk to Daisy founder of banish. Daisy was actually the number one person I wanted to have on my podcast when I was conceptualizing starting it. So I was so happy when she jumped at the chance to come on. I had seen her products online and heard her on several business podcasts. And her story is so inspiring to me. Daisy is one of those people who just gets how to start and run a business, she's able to break down complex steps into simple ones. And listening to her talk about her own business is so inspiring. Because it makes you feel like you could also easily break down the steps and start your own. She's also one of the nicest people I've ever met. So I wasn't surprised to learn that she's also from Minnesota, which is where I grew up, and where the nicest people I've ever met live. like to hand in the previous episode, Daisy started her multimillion dollar company to solve her own problem. And then once realizing how her solution could help others, she turned it into an incredibly successful business that has been thriving in its own unique niche for years. If you're looking to start or grow any type of business, you'll love this episode. Daisy has also developed her own products in house and has gone through many testing iteration. And she talks about that, including her product development tips, her sales tips, and how she views business and life and mindset in general. So it's a great episode for anyone interested in starting a business or improving their life mindset. So let's dive right in and hear what Daisy has to say. Hi, Daisy, thank you so much for coming on. I'm so excited to talk to you. And I was hoping we could start with you just going kind of through your background and why you started banished in the first place. Daisy Jing 2:27 Yeah, thank you so much, Stacy for having me on. So my background, I have had acne for forever started at a really young age when I was nine years old. And it just got progressively worse. And it got so bad that, you know, my skin would just start to bleed because the pimples would pop everywhere. And I just go to school and my face was all bloody. And it really affected my self esteem, self confidence, I joke that like people knew me more by the name, pizza face. And by my actual name being the determined person I've always been I wanted to find a solution for my skin. And I tried everything out there, a lot of acne sufferers did and nothing would seem to work in fact, it would actually dry out my skin and make it even worse. And then there was always the promise that it would get better but it just never got better. And I was just trying so many different things. And we went to so many different doctors and everything. And yeah, I just fell in this despair because i've you know had acne for 10 plus years and nothing seemed to work and I kept spending money and I kept like bleaching my skin I kept doing everything to get rid of it. So I documented my struggle on my YouTube channel, which is still there today. It's tasers 89 if you look at some of the older videos, so you can see they asked me through my YouTube channel, I was able to kind of get out of my depression because it gave me a safe space to talk about my journey of hacking and I developed a small but loyal following of people who like to see you know, the real story of someone with acne, I review products etc etc. And then started using more natural ingredients and I became a very, very big stickler for research on different ingredients. So I would go through the skincare labels and just you know pour over medical journals and just like ingredients and stuff like that and really do a lot of research in skincare products and I realized that I was allergic and I would break out towards many of the most popular skincare ingredients. So I eliminated that for my skin I would you know use my own skincare or you know, go to Whole Foods or an herbal food store and just make my own skincare. My skin actually for the first time started to get better, not worse. I was like huh, I'm onto something here. And then I did micro needling which back in 2011 2012 like nobody knew what it was it was super not popular. I was recommended it by a dermatologist, plastic surgeon friend who told me about it. And then I applied vitamin C on top of it and then people need to change I started noticing my skin and they actually asked for my acne scars, like, they're like what happened to your acne scars will happen to her acne like it's all gone. And I didn't really realize it was that like canoodling with the vitamin C. But it actually worked really well for my skin. And then people wanted to try whatever it is I was using. And so that's how banished started. So it was basically me trying to solve my own problem. And other people noticed and they wanted to buy whatever it is I was using. And that's how it started back in 2013. Stacy Caprio 5:35 I love that how organic it was and how you are literally trying to solve your own issue. I think one of the things that drew me to you and your company was actually how vulnerable you were, I'm thinking starting that company, and even in something I think most people are scared to even just talk about. But so many people need your product and have really benefited from it. I was just wondering if you think there's a difference between trying to help people and then selling your product and how you go about both of those things. Daisy Jing 6:10 I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think for any business to be successful, you have to solve a problem that people have. I think the reason why actually most businesses don't remain in business is because they solve something that nobody needs solving, right? So your focus should always be to help people to solve your customers pain point. And then the money will flow after. So I think it's really important that you're always focusing on helping people first and foremost. Because if you're not helping people, then no one's gonna buy what it is you're offering. Idea to Product Stacy Caprio 6:44 Yeah, I agree. And you had just talked about how you had pored over medical journals, and we're looking for all the ingredients. So I was wondering, how did you start formulating the products and kind of move from just finding the best ingredients to combine them to getting them professionally made and how that progressed, Daisy Jing 7:07 I would buy actually the raw component of the ingredient, you can buy them from different manufacturers of skincare labs and stuff like that, then you can also go to specialty health food stores and get just the ingredient yourself. I did that and I would put it you know, just it was by myself like I was just putting it in glycerin or water bass and then putting it on my skin but I actually saw really great results. And then the next step is to find a, you know, chemist or a formulator or contract manufacturer, and you can tell them like what you want in your products. And then they can make it for you. But because I kind of did that trial and error thing myself without you know, even thinking it was going to be a business. I think that was really important because I didn't let my perfectionism get the worst to me. It was just like, Oh, I want to solve something for myself. And then just taking it a step further and scaling that. How to Manufacture Your Own Product Stacy Caprio 7:58 Awesome. Yeah, I love that products you sent I have them kind of on display here. Oh, great. Actually, yeah, they look I love like your packaging, and they're so easy to hold the the way that the consistency and everything. It just seems like you did really put a lot of thought and effort into that thinking kind of top. has it taken a lot of iterations to get to where they are today or was it pretty quick to get to the Oh, Daisy Jing 8:24 yeah, so I think you know the answer to that it took a long time. I can't even tell you stories. We were dropping the jars for outside on the sidewalk to see like which jars which shatter because there are certain like jar manufacturers they they don't use virgin glass, they use recycled glass and that is more prone to shattering or like why no wire jar shattering you know, like when they're when they're being filled and stuff. I mean, there's all these tiny little details you have to think of right? Even like the font and making sure that the the screen printing on the jar, like doesn't smear or fade or whatnot. You know what machines to fill the products with? Yeah, there was just a lot of differ

Beaugen Tu-Hien Le is the Founder & CEO of BeauGen, a mommy lifestyle brand whose mission is to make mommying feel good. Inspired after having her first child, Tu-Hien and her husband started BeauGen to address the pain and struggle of breastfeeding. Since launching into the market in 2016, BeauGen has helped tens of thousands of women find success with their breastfeeding journey. Tu-Hien has a passion for connecting with motivated entrepreneurs and is now coaching business owners how to build, scale, and make money in their own product-based ecommerce business. Tu-Hien lives in Orlando, FL with her husband and daughter. Connect with Tu-Hien via Instagram @tuhien.le and @beaugenmom Watch this conversation on YouTube: [embed] https://youtu.be/jaEFBJOixHY [/embed] Tu-Hien Le 0:00 I've never run a company before. So it was a lot of self doubt of Who am I to think that I can do this? Or I've never done this before. Am I good enough to be able to do this? And once I realized I was thinking that way and like limiting myself before I even tried. I was like, why am I limiting myself? And that's why I really seek out the different coaches and mentors to help me kind of break that mindset and say, you know, why can't you who's to tell you that you cannot reach these big goals that you have? And like, yeah, that's right. Stacy Caprio 0:37 Hi, and welcome to the Hurst SEO podcast with Stacy Caprio. The best advice comes not from your critics, but from those who are already where you want to be. Listen along with Stacy each week to learn from those who have already built their dreams. So you can learn how to build your two hand is an incredible businesswoman and we get to talk to her in this episode of the podcast. She started her company Beaugen and has grown it to incredible heights. You'll love this episode, if you've ever been interested in starting your own original idea product based business, especially if you have no idea how you would ever get started to hand shares how she came up with the idea of Beaugen to solve her own problem. And you'll learn how she was able to go from product idea to physical production, how she tested and iterated to get to her final sellable product. Even though she was solving their own problem and was her own target market. She talks about how thorough she has been about market research and making sure she's putting out a product that exactly what her target market wants. In this episode, I was trying to get her to share the one thing she has done to have a successful business. And I'm so grateful, she was quick to call me out and explain. There are so many things that go into having a successful business. It is not just one or two golden nuggets, you'll enjoy this conversation if you want to get into the mind of someone who has built a successful business based on her own idea, not one that was built using one tip or trick, but one that has been built over consistent effort and hard work overtime. Like all successful businesses really are. Let's hear what she has to say. hi to him, thank you so much for coming on. I love your company. And your journey is so inspiring. I was hoping we could start with a quick overview of how you started and your background and why you started Beaugen. Tu-Hien Le Founder of Beaugen Tu-Hien Le 2:50 Yeah, thank you so much for having me on the podcast is super exciting. And I would love to share a little bit of my story with you. In 2015, I had my first daughter. And from that I experienced my own personal difficulty and pain from breastfeeding and pumping. And that's the sort of the genesis of Beaugen. And how, in my discovery, I found that I wasn't the only one that felt the same way. And I talked to many other moms and moms could meet in the mom community. Momtrepreneur Solution And a lot of us had shared this, this same pain and discomfort and breastfeeding and pumping. And I was like, Well, if I'm not the only one that has this problem, all these other moms have this problem, why can't we do something about it? So my husband and I actually kind of decided to develop something, a product, we didn't even exactly know what it was when we started develop a solution to solve the issues of discomfort and pumping. And we really took a grassroots approach. So instead of us taking the I have a solution, and here it is, I hope everybody loves it. We really actually, you know, spoke with hundreds of moms to really hone in and figure out what was the pain point. And then and then kind of back into salt solution from there. And that's how Beaugen started. And so it's we've always been a very customer centric company. And we always really listened to what our customers wanted and and their pain point and try to solve it from there. Stacy Caprio 4:33 That's awesome. I think many businesses fail because people don't take into consideration the customers and what they really want. So that's really cool to know that you did that. Where did you find that? customers to kind of talk to to figure out their pain points. Tu-Hien Le 4:52 Yeah, so that's a great question. I start off with just talking within my own network, talking to other mom friends and You know, my cousins and my sisters that just recently had babies. I asked them, like, how do you find solutions? Or where do you find information about mom things? And they always said, Oh, try this blog, or that or Facebook community. And it turns out for new moms, Facebook groups are huge. So within these Facebook groups, there would be like, 10 20,000 moms in these different groups, I would just pose the question like, what's the most difficult thing about pumping? Or what is your biggest challenge with breastfeeding? And then they would comment and and I would just really be methodical and documenting what people would say as far as what their pain points are, find like the common denominator, and then really hone in like, okay, it's actually this specific pain. So like, what can we do to solve this? And really just having a lot of open conversations with different moms and their experiences and seeing if we could find like, a common denominator really, and then testing it out? Stacy Caprio 6:01 That's awesome. I am curious to know, what were the first steps you took when creating your prototype? It's something that if I were manufacturing a product, I would have no idea even Where to start? Starting Her Company & Production Iteration Tu-Hien Le 6:15 Yeah, that's a really good question. So my background is in finance, so I don't have an engineering or manufacturing background at all. So again, I just googled and started talking to people in my community, in my thing, like the entrepreneurial community, and just ask them like, Okay, if I want to start to develop some sort of product, like, what should I do, I'm not a, I'm not a maker, I'm not an engineer. And so they would point me to these different resources. And one of them is a local maker shop. And that's when we, for your audience who may not know maker shops are where people go, and they'll do like wood work, or like electronics, and robotics and sewing, they do all sorts of tinkering, and invention, inventing of things. So we went to maker shop and ask them like, Okay, this is our constraint, this is a problem we're trying to solve, like, What? What can we do? This is what I think this product will look like. And then kind of brainstorm with them and developing the product. And the the, the product development phase is like really interesting, because I really took into consideration all the information that the different moms have told and shared with me about what their pain points were, and then try to distill that to the maker who was like helping us develop our prototype. So yeah, and it was like a really fun journey. I mean, in our first, the first version of our product, we probably developed over 40 prototypes. And I probably, I think I tested every single one of them. And like each one, it was all about testing and getting a little bit better each time. And then, yeah, and then, you know, we got like a very small set of like 20 or 30, moms who were really wanting to help us find the solution, we and we'd send them the prototype and ask them to try it out and give us feedback. And with each feedback, we just kind of keep refining to get better and better. Stacy Caprio 8:20 Wow, that sounds like a really intensive process. Tu-Hien Le 8:25 Yeah, it's a it is it can be it's also fun. And you like learn so much during the journey too. So you might have a preconceived notion of what you think the solution is and what people want. But then when you give it to put in the hands of the customer, they'll tell you something totally different that maybe you didn't even consider. So then you then you start to, you know, tweak and change your prototype, or maybe even the messaging of your product based on their feedback. So a big thing that I took into consideration when developing, building out our breastbone cushion for Beaugen was, we had a, we had a problem solution fit. But then it was also important to have a solution market fit to we can I mean, we solved a problem, but does the market actually want it? So we really took that into consideration by talking to as many customers as we could. Stacy Caprio 9:24 Awesome. So how did you know like when it was the prototype, like when it was finally ready. Tu-Hien Le 9:31 At that time, we were probably on version like 42. And we had a good set of data from our testers and they gave us a lot of feedback like this is, you know, it really helped with comfort, it really helped with fit. And that's when we knew like those were the two key selling points of our product and that's when we say like okay, now it's time to go to market. And what we actually did was for our first version of the breast pump cushions we did a Kickstarter campaign. And a Kickstarter campaign is a crowdfunding campaign. And so we launched the crowdfunding campaign and said, Okay, if we can raise $20,000, then the market is telling us they want this solution. And if we can't raise that much money, then the market doesn't want the solution that was kind of our test of product

How to Create a Podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWZbHx_wPgo Podcast Transcription Tool I decided to use Otter.ai to create my podcast video transcripts because it works (pretty much) flawlessly, and is only $10/month that you can use when you need on a monthly on and off basis, so I got it for this month to transcribe all 6 of my episodes. You can also use it for free for small audio files, and that's how I tried it and saw how amazing it was so I had to get premium which is something I don't usually do. You literally upload an audio file to Otter, it takes a few minutes to process it, and then gives you a perfectly transcribed text version ready to copy paste, with all punctuation, amazing spelling, and speaker names and timestamps. I couldn't believe how perfectly it worked, especially because I'd been playing around with Google's Demo transcription tools, which had so much trouble getting punctuation right, among other issues. If you use my referral link to sign up all I get is another month of Otter.ai free, no affiliate money or anything like that, and I love it so feel free to send the free months my way because I'm sure you'll love it as well. My Podcasting Story Because it was my own rule that I didn't listen to podcasts, I thought they were a waste of time. And things that could be summarized in much shorter bullet points. I just really disliked podcasts, which is so funny because now, I obviously have a podcast. Hi, and welcome to the Hearst SEO podcast with Stacy Caprio. The best advice comes not from your critics, but from those who are already where you want to be. Listen along with Stacy each week to learn from those who have already built their dreams so you can learn how to build your own. Welcome to the episode where I'm going to walk you guys through my podcast story. Starting with why I ended up starting my podcast to what tools I use for each step. And to make it easy for anyone thinking about starting a podcast to get started. Or if you're just curious about the behind the scenes of how podcasts are made and what goes into it, then this will be a fun episode to listen to. I've been thinking about starting my her SEO podcast for over six months, from six months ago from now. And I kept pushing it to the bottom of my to do list. Because it was such a daunting task with so many variables and moving parts. First, I'd have to decide exactly what guests I wanted on, then I'd have to email them and see if they were interested, then workout scheduling, and then eventually choose times to record put that in my calendar, then I'd have to have all the proper equipment. And what type of recording software would I use? Choose the type of recording software, choose the hosting for the podcast, which I didn't even know was a thing until I really started researching it, I'd have to edit every single episode, or hire someone to do it. And I have to say, editing podcast episode takes so much time. I only interviewed guests for 30 minutes apiece, but it took me hours to edit each episode. I keep getting better as I go along. But editing podcast episodes is a very very dull, dull task. And it takes a long time. It's the same with editing YouTube videos, it takes so long to really do a good job. And it's not my favorite activity, which is my least favorite part about starting this podcast is editing the episodes. And it's actually the one reason that I might not film as many episodes in the future unless at some point, if the podcast does start making money, and I can hire someone to edit. It's very, if you ever have edited a YouTube video or a podcast video, you'll understand what I'm talking about. But before you actually do it yourself. I don't think you'll ever understand what I mean when I say it's a very difficult task, it's not something you want to do and it takes a lot of time. Anyway, the editing the episodes you have to either do it or hire someone to do it. Then there's the keyword research for YouTube keyword research for blog posts, keyword research for the podcast name, the podcast description, then there's figuring out how to post it on the different podcast networks and getting to rank for organic search, you've got to transcribe the episodes, you have to record the audio, video and video intros and outros. Record the actual audio of the sessions and use a tool to do so. And then you have to figure out how to post the podcast and promote it. You also have to make sure you have a good branding, figure out what images you want to use, maybe have a mini little photo shoot or other things and make sure you're setting up a brand for long term success. So much goes into each episode. And for me, it was daunting to think about, so I just kept pushing it to the bottom of my to do list. Since I wasn't sure when starting my podcast this month, I decided to finally dive into it. I wasn't sure if it would or ever will make any money at all. Or if I even will enjoy it enough to keep doing it past a few episodes. My goal was to keep my costs as low as possible. That's also my philosophy with everything I do even when something is making money. I tend to keep my costs pretty low or at least try to because anything can happen at any time and it's always better to have higher profit margins. Maybe that's something I take away from my days running ads for companies in my nine to five. But my goal is always to keep costs pretty low, but also to use tools that are very high quality. And I will spend money on things if they do work better than the free tools. So let's dive in the goal of my podcast. However, it was never an isn't really to make money from it. It's been able to talk to people who have done things that I admire, and to use the podcast as a learning opportunity that will help me and others listening, grow their own businesses, and really get inside the heads of people who are successful and have done things that I want to do personally or I simply want to understand how their mind works, and get takeaways that I can use in my own life in business. First, I want to give a huge shout out to Nick Loper the owner of the Side Hustle Nation Podcast, which you should all go listen to that really I'm going to be talking about Nick and his podcast quite a bit in this episode, because he's had a huge influence. He's pretty much the inspiration for me starting a podcast and I'll kind of go into why that is. Before Nick a few years ago. I never listened to any podcasts ever. I would always listen to music instead, if I ever had any downtime. If I was on a bus or at the airport or just walking or getting groceries, I would either have silence or music. I had been on next email list for a few years the side hustle nation email list. And at first, I never listened to any of his podcasts. Because it was my own rule that I didn't listen to podcasts, I thought they were a waste of time, and things that could be summarized in much shorter bullet points. However, I always read all of Nick's PDF podcast summaries, because they were so interesting with great side hustle case studies and tips. I never listened to the audio, but I would read all of his summaries and I love getting his emails. One day, he asked readers to reply to an email if they had an interesting story, because he was working on a secret project. I was intrigued and replied with my her co website investing story. He replied back and said it wasn't a fit for the project, but that he'd love to talk more. And feature me on the side hustle podcast if it was a fit. At the time I wasn't looking to go on any podcasts, but I felt pulled to say yes, for some reason. Tips For Starting a Podcast And to this day, I feel incredibly lucky or blessed to have gone on his podcast before I went on any other podcasts, simply because next process is so simple and amazing. And I've modeled many of my tools and own podcasting process after his. He has a pre-podcast interview where he hops on a call with each guest to learn more for 30 minutes or so, a few weeks before the actual podcast call. I don't do this with my podcast guests. But I think it's a smart move because it allows him to dig deeper into the person's business model and their thought processes so he can craft the best possible questions before hopping on the actual podcast recording call. Then, and this is an incredible part that has really inspired my podcasting to this day. He has each previous guest mail the next guest a professional quality ATR 2100 audio recording microphone when he mentioned this to me on the pre call. I remember thinking "Do I really need this?" I think I even said something along the lines of "I do I need that I'm not sure that that is really something that will make a difference." And I was super skeptical thinking he was being too perfectionist he However, having that microphone on my first podcast allowed the audio quality to be insanely crisp and perfect. This is so much more important than you might think initially. And a side note he mentioned on the podcast intro how I have a quiet voice. But he must have adjusted the audio and I have to adjust my own audio actually I do have a quiet voice. But you can't tell when listening because the audio on first podcast. It sounds impeccable. And right after that podcast and hearing it live, I was stunned at the difference a quality microphone made. I went out to Amazon, I bought my own ATR 2100 microphone, and I have used it on every podcast I've been featured on every podcast I record for her co having the professional quality microphone elevates the audio quality and the whole podcast experience for listeners. There have been some great podcasts I've listened to, that I've had to turn off. Because even though the content is so good, the audio is so scratchy and hard to listen to. Even though the content is great. It's safe to say I no longer think that Nick's request to male microphones to each guest is unreasonable or perfectionist like instead, I recognize it as a way to make the podcast audio, incredibly high quality, elevating the production value in the experience for all listeners, making people want to come back and listen to more because they know you'll have

B2B Podcasting Logan Lyles, director at Sweet Fish Media, a podcast production company, also produces the company's top 100 Marketing Podcast the B2B Growth Show. Logan shares his unique podcasting tips that can a help a business generate new sales, customers, content and more. He also shares unique ways to organically promote your podcast through how you set it up and structure it. Watch Logan and Stacy talk about B2B podcast production tips: [embed] https://youtu.be/hnfguVcvWYo [/embed] Logan Lyles & Sweet Fish Media Logan Lyles 0:00 Other people find that getting up to the mic is way easier than staring at the blank screen with the blinking cursor and trying to create written content from scratch. So podcasting can kind of grease the wheels and help you create more content that then you can turn into written content and video content, short form LinkedIn posts, long form blog posts, those sorts of things. Stacy Caprio 0:23 Hi, and welcome to the Hurst SEO podcast with Stacy Caprio. The best advice comes not from your critics, but from those who are already where you want to be. Listen along with Stacey each week to learn from those who have already built their dreams so you can learn how to build your own. In this episode, we get to talk to Logan of sweet fish media. Logan not only directs a full service podcast production company called Sweet fish media, and is the host of the b2b growth show podcast. He's an incredible podcaster and the most strategically thoughtful podcaster I've ever met, the way he structured everything from his podcast names to the thumbnails to the marketing and promotion are so thoughtful in a way that will not only bring more podcast listeners, but also increase sales for the company running the podcast. I've never spoken to anyone so strategic and good at aligning running a podcast and actually getting business results from it. In this episode, we get to hear all his juicy podcast tips. And we get a behind the scenes peek of what has worked for his own podcasts. And his many successful suite media client podcasts. He's the most qualified podcaster I know of. And I'm very happy. I was able to have him on the show before I officially launched this podcast because I was able to structure things differently. And plan my promotion and production strategy for the best possible results after learning how the best of the best in the podcasting business, aka Logan, and sweet fish do it. Hi, Logan, thank you so much for coming on today. And I was hoping we could start going over your background how you got into podcasting, sweet fish media and how your company helps podcasts and businesses. Logan Lyles 2:27 Yeah, absolutely. Stacy, thank you so much for having me on today. It was great to meet you via LinkedIn and I love making LinkedIn friends, friends in real life as as much as we can be in real life these days. And and podcasting is a great way to do that. My name is Logan Lyles. I'm the director of partnerships at sweet fish media. We are a podcast agency for b2b brands. So we help companies that sell business to business, develop and continue production have a podcast that they use for both their content marketing efforts as well as a creative way to engage decision makers at Target accounts that their sales teams are trying to reach. I kind of had a winding road getting into my current role in b2b marketing and in podcasting in particular. So I actually graduated college in 2008. With a journalism degree which I always tell the story, you know, it was a great time to graduate college and hit the job market during the Great Recession and also a great time to hit the job market with a journalism degree when the news industry was going through all sorts of convergence and newspapers were closing their doors, left and right all over the country. I quickly sold my way into my first sales job, and did that for about 10 years, I actually sold locally and regionally b2b office equipment. And for anyone who you've ever heard say, Oh, it was in the office equipment industry or I sold office equipment. That's code for I sold copiers and printers. So anyway, I did that very fun job for about 10 years. And then I came across sweet fish media by getting to know James Carberry, our founder and CEO Now, a few years back through LinkedIn, and we became friends and I was eventually the first sales hire at sweet fish. And so for the last two years, I've been heading up sales for our podcast agency, being the serving as one of the primary co hosts of our flagship show b2b growth, where we interview b2b Marketing Leaders every single day. And I also do some other hosting and content creation on the team as well. I'm a host for some of the shows that we produce for our clients. Stacy Caprio 4:34 Awesome, thank you. Yeah, that's a really interesting background. And one question I have is, what are the benefits you've seen for businesses who you've helped have podcasts as well as your own podcast? Benefits of a Podcast Logan Lyles 4:49 Yeah, there's really three primary benefits I think about when it comes to podcasting, especially in b2b and I think the first two are fairly obvious to folks. One is It's brand awareness, I literally hopped off a sales call earlier today, probably 30 minutes ago. And that person on the other end of the line said, I feel like I already know you. And this was the literally the first time we had spoken live or been on a zoom call, because they've been listening to our podcast very regularly. And podcasting is such an intimate medium. So creating brand awareness and helping people get to know you before they actually know you would be number one. Number two is that you know, a lot of people find that getting up to the mic is way easier than staring at the blank screen with a blinking cursor and trying to create written content from scratch. So podcasting can kind of grease the wheels and help you create more content that then you can turn into written content and video content, short form, LinkedIn posts, long form, blog posts, those sorts of things. So most people I talked to, they understand the brand awareness, and the faster content creation that can come from having a podcast. The third one that I think has been the biggest benefit, and has really changed my sales career that a lot of people aren't thinking about is a strategy that we call in our CEOs book is titled, content based networking. So a lot of people understand content marketing, you create content for the people that you want to sell to. And then they will become educated and or entertained by your content. And then you will be top of mind when they're ready to buy your product or service. content based networking says don't just create content for those folks create it with them. So in our case, on b2b growth, there's a reason that I head up sales for sweet fish. And I'm also the primary host of our podcast. And that is, I interview people who fit our buyer persona. So instead of just hoping that VP of Marketing at b2b tech companies who are our typical buyer persona, find our podcast, listen, and then find out more about sweet fish, which definitely happens. But the the other side of it is, I interview people who regularly can buy from us and it opens up the door to a new relationship that wouldn't have been there otherwise. So we actually look at our podcast in it as driving revenue for our business. But not just the audience. It's the guests as well. And a lot of people skip over that. But it was from that that I kind of sold my way into my first sales job. I spent about 10 years doing office equipment sales copiers and printers in local b2b sales in different regions. And I got to know the founder of sweet fish through LinkedIn. So, link, I'm a big proponent of LinkedIn as a content channel. But also just in my own career journey. LinkedIn played a huge role in allowing me to connect with one of my best friends. And now my current boss James Carberry, who's the founder and CEO at sweet fish. And so now I head up sales for sweet fish. I've been doing that for about two years. And as I mentioned, we we are a podcast agency for b2b brands, I head up sales, and I also am the primary host of our daily show for b2b marketing and sales professionals b2b growth. And that's what I'm doing today. And I kind of love it, because it's this mixture of sales, marketing and journalism that I get to kind of wear all three hats at once in my current role, and I drawn draw from, you know, each part of those different pieces my background every day, so it's a ton of fun. Stacy Caprio 8:28 Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Interesting. You say that about LinkedIn. James had actually reached out to me on LinkedIn after hearing about the website investing, and suggested I reached out to you and I mentioned the podcast, so small world, how we all get connected through that. Yeah, Logan Lyles 8:45 exactly. And LinkedIn plays a big part of that, at least for me these days. Stacy Caprio 8:49 Me too. And I always read every connection request. So I think it's a great tool for people doing sales and outreach as well. Logan Lyles 8:57 For sure. Stacy Caprio 8:58 So that's an awesome background. What would you say, to any business who's hesitating to start a podcast? What are the benefits they can gain from having one? Long Term Benefits of a Podcast Logan Lyles 9:10 Yeah, absolutely. I would say there's really long term benefit. But then there's also short term benefit, you know, businesses that hesitate to invest in, you know, what I think of as top of the funnel marketing, brand awareness, thought leadership, things that don't necessarily lead to this conversion equals this sale. Sometimes folks hesitate to invest in that sort of marketing and and podcasting, or organic LinkedIn content, they fit into that bucket. But the way that we approach podcasting is not meant to just provide your brand with more thought leadership content. If you think about a podcast, it's usually an interview, just like this one that we're doing right now. And what does an interview need an interview needs a guest and what we found out a long time ago, five years ago, and when James Founded sweet

Michael Essek's T Shirt Side Hustle to T-Shirt Business Success Michael Essek talks about his successful online T-Shirt company, his own marketing and sales tips, and how to go about starting your own print on demand T-Shirt company. Michael Essek helps designers and illustrators come up with creative T-Shirt ideas, create better designs, and grow a long-term business from their art. Michael has been designing and selling T-Shirts online since 2013, primarily through Print on Demand sites like Redbubble, Merch by Amazon and Teepublic, and using Print on Demand companies like Printful. To start improving your ideas today - visit MichaelEssek.com [embed] https://youtu.be/FnESOm2ZokY [/embed] T Shirt Sales Marketing Tip Michael Essek 0:00 A lot of times people will buy a shirt as a kind of afterthought. They'll be like, Oh, that's funny. I'm gonna buy that and click click, click and they've bought it without really going through a process of That's amazing. Wow, I really need that you know data and then thinking about it for days or anything like that. So anyway, you can kind of make the T shirt fit that mold if you like fit that pathway, so that someone notices it thinks it's cool goes looking for it, finds it and buys it without you know, making too big a deal of it. Stacy Caprio 0:30 Hi, and welcome to the Her.CEO podcast with Stacy Caprio. The best advice comes not from your critics, but from those who are already where you want to be listed along with Stacey tweak to learn from those who have already built their dreams so you can learn how to build your own. Today we get to talk to Michael Essek who sells t shirts online. I followed Michael's t shirt selling journey for over six years. Ever since I started my own Etsy and print on demand shop and was looking for tips and help to get better designs and more sales. His 10k plus a month income reports were one of the things that inspired me to originally get into t shirt sales, currently selling on Etsy still, but it's much harder than it looks. And when I focused on T shirts solely. I've had some pretty good multi thousand income supporting months, but nothing compared to Michael. His idea structures, which he shares and almost daily emails and brainstorming idea output are incredibly prolific. I recommend hopping on his email list if you're looking to learn new structures you can use to brainstorm ideas in any niche or in any business sector. Or if you're looking to grow as a print on demand apparel seller, and stay up to date on the new trends and updates on print on demand and T shirt news. In this episode, Michael shares some great marketing and sales tips. A surprising perspective on how to do more effective influencer marketing the different ways he is now selling his shirts, including different platforms licensing and more, and his own experiences and growth in the T shirt sales arena. This is a great episode for you if you're interested in diving into any type of trendy e commerce or t shirt sales niches, or just learning how to think of new ideas and market and sell products online. I'll go into some of my favorite takeaways from this episode at the end. So hang around for that. Without further ado, let's hear Michael story and learn his t shirt selling tips. Hi, Michael, thank you so much for coming on the show. I followed your T shirt, emails and blog for a while now. And I was thinking that you could start by giving the listeners some background, how you got into the T shirt design space, and an overview of how you've progressed since starting. Michael Essek Michael Essek 3:00 Sure. Well, thanks for having me, Stacy, it's a pleasure to be to be here with you today. So I started I think around 2013 2014, I had a small website, a blog that I was running, which I sold to someone. And what I didn't realize in the selling process was that I was going to lose the income from that blog that I was getting on a monthly basis. So I quite soon set out to find another way to get some some income in. And one of the things I stumbled across was people selling illustrations and stuff on on online on T shirts or on prints and stuff. So I decided I would try and teach myself to be better. At the illustration side, I've always kind of been pretty good at art and design. But I didn't know how to use Adobe Illustrator very well. And I saw that a lot of these guys were using Adobe Illustrator and stuff. So I saw it as a kind of learning opportunity and a project for me to work on a kind of side hustle at the time while I had a full time job. So I created some designs started uploading them to or I would say offering them to, at the time what were known as sure today sites like t fury, and others and these were sites that would sell a design for 24 hours and then they would take it down. So yeah, after maybe a couple of months, I think of trial and error. I eventually got a design accepted by one of these sites, made a few hundred dollars in the 24 hours and that kind of hooked me and and I thought okay, this is possible. There's a lot of these websites, there's a lot of places to sell my work. And if I just put in the work and have enough designs, then eventually this could be you know, a full time full time gig. But it took a long time to get there. It was maybe two two or three years later, before I really grew the income to to what was matching my my job income at the time. And that was right around the time that Amazon launched a service called merged by Amazon where they would Print and ship t shirts. And you could upload designs directly to Amazon, they would do everything else. And that really was a godsend for me that was came at just the right time, I had lots of designs, I was able to get them up very quickly on Amazon. And basically why ride a wave of popularity, your early sales and momentum in that space. And that really allowed me to, to Yeah, to quit my job go full time on T shirts. And I've been doing that ever since. Stacy Caprio 5:32 Wow, that's awesome. So I have to ask, I'm curious, what was the website you sold originally? What was the niche? Michael Essek 5:42 Yeah, it was, it was actually like a hyperlocal blog to where I was living at the time. So it wasn't, it wasn't ever making lots of money or anything, but it was just a super local news site. And I was just kind of gathering, you know, interesting stories and, and sharing them online. And it got a bit of a following. And it got it was kind of just as Twitter was taken off. So I'd quite an active Twitter account as well. So yeah, I just kind of lost interest in the project and sold it. So it wasn't ever a big thing for me. But I guess it just shows up. I've always been interested in I don't know, getting things set up online and growing an audience and things like that. Stacy Caprio 6:20 Yeah, that must have kind of helped you transition more seamlessly into the T shirt, online selling space. So that's really cool. The next thing I want to ask was, which marketing channels and platforms do list on today? Do you focus mostly on March? or what have you found to be effective? Sell T Shirts Online Michael Essek 6:42 Yeah, good question. So I started off getting sales through sites like red bubble and tee public, you know, several years ago, and those are still bringing in, you know, good income for me every month, obviously, merch by Amazon was the one that came along and really took off. And that's still still going strong. And previously, I've sold and still have a Shopify site where I sell some stuff, but I don't really promote that much anymore. So those are the kind of the main channels and then Etsy has been a big one. And that's, that's picked up quite significantly in the past few months, along with almost everything else actually apart from obviously merge by Amazon, which has been down for a while, I'd say in terms of like the ones that are the biggest, in a usual month, when we aren't in the middle of a global pandemic, then it would be much by Amazon, then probably redbubble, then teepublic, and then Etsy, somewhere in the mix there as well. And then there's a whole series of other smaller websites. So I still have designs on like society, six, designed by humans and several others like that. And the other route through which I kind of make money from my art is offline licensing. So we have an agent for my business, who basically promotes my work to various manufacturers and retailers, usually in the offline arena. And, and yeah, we make royalties through that as well, the harder to track, you don't get notifications on sales, you know, in real time, like you do with lots of online sources, but we still, you know, make a significant income from that. And that tends to be growing every year very steadily, because it's not as wide open to issues and copycats and things like that. And it's more of a long term business play, if you like. So we have that going as well. Stacy Caprio 8:29 Oh, that's awesome. How did you find out about licensing or connect with your agent? T Shirt Business Success Michael Essek 8:37 I think a couple of years into maybe new t shirt business, if you like that i i set up and started once it was once I was going full time on T shirts, I kind of realized, you know, we had at least hundreds if not thousands of designs at that time. And I thought, you know, we got all these designs, and obviously we put them up online and we sell them through various places. And that's great. But there's there seems to me that there would be other other channels, and one of them was offline. So that the problem was how do we how do we find those people? You know, how does how does that side of the business work? So what I did was was put together my designs in a big, big catalog, like an a three, like ring binder catalog, we had like a few of these printed and we went down to a licensing show in London, there's a licensing Expo every year. There's also one in in Las Vegas every year which is run by the same organization. And this is really where a lot of big brands, cutting their work Warner Brothers, these kind of you know, mega brands will go and conduct their licensing business where they'll go in and talk to po