Business Talk Sister Gawk

#102: Understanding the Business of Consumer Packaged Goods

This week, entrepreneur and business consultant, Dr. James Richardson, talks with Bekkah about the social buying habits of consumers, what exactly all those items in Target are considered in the retail world, and how organic food brands silently take off to become a household name, while taking big box brands by surprise! Take a listen. If you love it, we'll be back next week to talk more about how to launch a CPG brand that competes with big box brands in this two part interview. 

#101: What You Need to Know About Having a Business Partner

This week, Bekkah talks about the experiences she has had with business partners. For any entrepreneur that is looking into having a business partner, there are so many things to consider. She tries to help you consider what variables you should be thinking through before deciding to get into a business partnership. Spoiler! It's pretty honest and authentic with a lot of business lessons she has learned over the years. 

#100: Navigating Business Partnerships When to Team Up

This week, Lisa Staff and Deevo, co-owners of the business Sprout Connectors, talk about partnerships! Bekkah asks them about the successful business brands they started as independent photographers and why they decided to start a new business partnership outside of the other two. Take a listen to hear their advice on how to partner with clients and when it makes sense to have a business partner. 

#99: Partnerships and Career Changes

It's a new year!! This week, we discuss some upcoming changes for what our podcast will look like in 2022. We love having candid conversations with our listeners and over the past couple years, we've had so much fun digging into low risk ways to make business decisions. What's so fun about our journey in that is we don't just tell you about business, we're actually making those business decisions for ourselves! That's why this week, we've got some big news and we're excited for what that means in the future. This is a great listen for any of our long term listeners who like to be in the know for Business Talk Sister Gawk!

#98: Strategizing Career Moves to Become an Entrepreneur

This week, we navigate how to prepare yourself to become an entrepreneur. Sadly, most people don't, and that's why there's such a high business failure rate! We want to help you avoid this problem in a low risk way by getting training through the career choices you pick. We discuss different skills you should be looking to develop that are vital for any type of entrepreneurship, and how to use your current job as a learning opportunity for the future. 

#97: Selling a Product at Festivals and Shows

This week, we're wrapping up our "How We Built This" Series showing you how we invented a product, launched it, and investigated different channels of selling. In this episode, we discuss all the things we learned for going to vendor shows and festivals with our products. You're definitely going to want to listen to the previous episodes in this series if you missed them because we learned a lot! This is a great listen if you're hoping to attend any festivals yourself in the near future!

#96: Selling a Handmade Product

This week, we're continuing our "How We Built This" series where we invented a product, launched it, and started selling all over the United States. We did this to document all the steps so that you can learn how exactly to go about inventing something yourself! This episode discusses the specifics of handmade products and higher priced goods. If you missed the previous episodes in this series, you may to want to go back and take a listen before digging in with us. Let's get going!

#95: Testing and Troubling Shooting a Product Launch

This week, we're talking all about how we prepared to launch our product and start making sales. This entire series is focused on how we built it so you can learn ways you can prepare before taking your new product to launch. Some key tips we learned: 

1. Always have your test your packaging ready to roll before making your product introduction or you will lose sales momentum.

2. Initial buyers who want to support your mission love to give rave reviews so utilize this to your advantage when promoting your product. 

3. Always have lifestyle photos that are professional quality ready to roll when introducing your product so people can visualize what it is and how it works or they will get hung up on the application to their own lives. 

4. Expect low conversions rates for actual purchase on your interactions, and know that this is normal! Tons of people love a product on social media, but few people take the final action to convert to a sale. Know that you are not a failure! You're just getting started!!

5. Have wholesale pricing already figured out with shipping costs calculated into them because as soon as your product releases and gets a lot of social media buzz, wholesalers will start asking for pricing information. Don't go too low, but make sure it's still attainable for them!

#94: Inventing a Product and Preparing for Launch

This week, we start our "How we built this," series that we've been researching and gathering data on for the last YEAR! That's right! This episode series we've been putting a ton of hours into because we truly believe anyone can take an idea and make it become a reality. We wanted to show you that it's possible, and with a lot of planning, you can do it too. We had to choose an invention and really dig into making it work for running a business. If you've had an idea that you've wanted to create, hopefully you feel inspired in this series to get it up and out there! (And also definitely tell us if you did because we would LOVE to see what you created!)

#93: Is Entrepreneurship Right For You?

This week, we talk about what you should consider when thinking about becoming an entrepreneur. There are many of our listeners who have been pondering this question for some time, and we wanted to address some of the common questions and thoughts we get on a regular basis. If you've been considering entrepreneurship for a long time, this may be the perfect place to start your pro's and con's list. Take a listen!