Episode #123: Turning Your Professional Expertise Into An Educational Toy with Julie Dini
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Mission driven toy creators like Julie Dini have one major goal in common. It’s to improve the lives of the kids and families that interact with their products. Today on The Toy Coach Podcast, our guest Julie Dini shares her toy journey from handmade prototype to recurring sales online. Julie’s product, Dealing In Feelings, helps kids understand simple to complex emotions through identification and gameplay!
Learn what it takes to launch a product from concept to manufacturing and find out why this Developmental Psychologist opted not to produce her product in China OR India. Julie shares how she tested her idea before investing in licensed images, and how she found a skilled graphic designer to help her execute a high quality product.
An idea doesn’t have to be a traditional toy to have a place in the toy industry, and this episode highlights a product on the educational side of the toy market. Whether you are a buyer or an aspiring toy entrepreneur, you’ll enjoy this inspirational and informative chat with toy entrepreneur and Developmental Psychologist, Julie Dini.
EPISODE CLIFF NOTES
Find out why you don’t need any experience in e-commerce or graphic design of toys and games to be a toy entrepreneur [10:50]
Where you live might change your best options for manufacturing. [15:30]
What are the most common mistakes that new people often make when they get into the toy and game space? [20:17]
You don’t have to DIY everything. What you should do instead. [25:56]
The benefits of creating a searchable name for your product or an umbrella brand with a searchable name. [27:53]
If you’re a new inventor/entrepreneur making waves in the toy industry, apply to be on the show! [29:30]
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This episode is brought to you by www.thetoycoach.com
Are you a new-ish toy entrepreneur or inventor who is making waves in the toy industry. Apply to be a guest on the podcast!
Ready to shop Dealing in Feelings?
Shop Dealing in Feelings on their website by clicking here.
Shop Dealing in Feelings on Amazon by clicking here.
Check out these articles and features about Julie Dini!
www.kochiesbusinessbuilders.com.au/12-days-of-business-helping-kids-deal-with-their-feelings/
www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55855459-feelings-and-me
www.startupdaily.net/2020/12/the-12-days-of-startups-helping-kids-deal-with-feelings/
About Julie
Julie grew up in Broken Hill, an outback mining town in Australia. When she was young she spent many weekends fossicking for minerals and gems with her dad. Whilst studying to become an Educational and Developmental Psychologist she worked in a children's library. Her favorite activity there was providing storytime sessions for young readers because she could see how much children loved being read to.
As a Psychologist Julie has been providing therapy to children and their families for over 25 years. She has a particular interest in children with special needs. She developed the Dealing In Feelings range of emotions cards and books to help children recognise and understand feelings in themselves and others.
Julie is passionate about the importance of play and reading to children. She loves creating books and games that will help children grow up to be happy and contented adults.
Her favorite things are blossoming trees, good books, anything that glitters and her family.
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[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to making it in the toy industry episode number 123. Hey there toy people Azhelle Wade here. And welcome back to another episode of the toy coach podcast, making it in the toy industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by the toy coach.com. I mentioned a few episodes ago that we would be changing up the format of this podcast and that the last week of every month we would be focusing on an aspiring.
[00:00:43] Toy inventor or entrepreneur. Who's kind of a newbie to the space, but making big waves. And we're going to start with that today. So for today's episode, I'm going to introduce you to Julie Deni, an educational and developmental psychologist who was inspired to create her own educational toy product. When she couldn't find the tool that she needed to work with. The kids that came to her practice,
[00:01:11] julie is from Adelaide in south Australia. And she comes on the show today to share how she turned a first mock-up into a useful tool that is making a serious lasting impact on kids and families that are dealing with autism by helping these kids better identify emotions. In this conversation, Julie shares how she made her first prototype herself, how she found a printer really close to home, and the benefits of shipping her product in to the U S from Australia.
[00:01:47] We're also going to get into how she found her graphic designer and talk about the growth of her products, Amazon sales. I want this episode to do two things for you. The goal of this episode is a two-parter one. If you are working in an industry outside of the toy industry, and there is a tool or a resource or a product that you believe your industry needs, and maybe it's on the border of a toy product or a game or a toy itself, you're not sure it's any of those things, but it might be a little bit of each.
[00:02:19] I want you to really consider developing that idea. Julie, did. We talk in this episode about how her product isn't technically a toy, but it still does fall in the kids' product category. And because of that, there are marketing techniques that still apply to her product.
[00:02:39] And the second thing I want to accomplish with today's episode is to give some visibility to Julie. So if you are a toy buyer listening in on this episode, and you're looking for some educational products that might support the growing anxiety that a lot of kids are dealing with coming out of our pandemic.
[00:03:00] You should really check out Julie's product and I'm sure you'll enjoy getting to know the creator behind the brand and the company, a little seats therapy and behind the brand dealing in feelings. So without further ado, let's dive into this episode and meet Julie.
[00:03:19] Hi, Julie. Welcome. Thank you so much for coming here today. So Julie's calling all the way in from Australia, so first, why don't you just introduce yourself to everybody? Who are you?
[00:03:31] Julie Dini: Okay. So yeah, I'm Julie and I live in Adelaide, in south Australia right down the bottom of the world there. And yeah, I'm a what we call educational developmental psychologist. So I work with children who have usually have special needs. So kids with autism or intellectual disability ADHD, but I'd also worked with just lots of other kids with anxiety and other, you know, other sort of presentations.
[00:03:52] So early childhood particularly has always been my passion. And I've I guess I've always used a lot of games and toys and books in therapy and cause cause you just have to, otherwise kids, aren't going to engage very much. They're not going to sit there and tell you all of their troubles.
[00:04:09] So you really have to engage them and build in your Concepts that you're trying to teach them into your sessions whilst you're having fun. So it's always been a passion of mine to sort of use those sorts of, you know, ways to work with kids. And I was almost working on emotions, obviously with kids too.
[00:04:27] Cause the first thing they've got to do is understand emotions in themselves and others and then not, it helps obviously improve behavior and social skills and so on.
[00:04:35] Azhelle Wade: You said you pushed your work, working with kids, using tools to get them to engage that inspired you to create your own products to sell.
[00:04:43] Julie Dini: Yeah,
[00:04:43] Azhelle Wade: what was the first product you made? Is it the product that we're going to talk about today?
[00:04:48] Julie Dini: Yeah,
[00:04:50] Azhelle Wade: let's talk a little bit about these cards. So this is dealing in feelings. Can you guys see it here? So tell us a little bit about the first time that you made it to use it. One of your sessions, what, who did you make it for? What was it used for?
[00:05:03] Julie Dini: It was used really to help kids identify emotions in. Themselves and others. And I was looking for some cards that would have pictures of kids on them. And I couldn't really find anything. I could find lots of drawings, cartoons emoji's and motor cons, but you don't learn emotions from identifying emojis.
[00:05:25] That's just simple recognition. And I thought there was a set of cards with adult faces on it, but I wanted children's faces. And I couldn't find it. So I thought, you know what, I think I'm going to try and get my own here. And so I looked into getting the licensing for the images and making sure that the cards were really representative of, you know, gender and diversity and different, different kids.
[00:05:50] The other kids would relate to and my kids that I showed them to really yeah. Really related to them. And yeah, so that's how. So let's go back I'm assuming you must've had a patient that was struggling with like autism or something like that. Okay. Well, so those lots of kids with not recognizing emotions in others very well.
[00:06:08] And so that makes it really hard to relate to and have social skills to also recognize emotions in yourself, to. Having a look at facial expressions and talking about, well, why would that, why do you think, what do you think is happening for this person here? What would you call that feeling? Do you ever have that feeling?
[00:06:27] And then you can build on strategies to manage emotions, but you've really got to start with identifying before you build on strategies. So right now you sell these dealing with feelings, parts on animals.
[00:06:39] Azhelle Wade: Does this fall into the category of toy? I'm sure that when you look to sign up for toy craters academy, you probably weren't sure if it was right for you. But I use the word toy because that's, that's easily recognizable, but kids, product and toy usually fall very closely together. So I wouldn't say this still falls under kids, product families. So let's talk about it from the perspective of, okay. You had an idea as a therapist to create a car that would better help your patients. So what did you actually have when you first went to your first meetings with your patients where you use some sort of card, like this, was it a printout from.
[00:07:17] Printer. Was it a tear out from a, when did you start with?
[00:07:20] Julie Dini: Yeah, yeah, I started really with Jeff. I found the images and then I just printed them out initially to see if the kids would relate to them. And then what I got that sort of response, I thought, well, yeah, I'll invest in getting a lot of syncing to, to, you know, download the image full set. Just they we're a bit smaller. Yeah, just a little bit more like a card size, but then I wanted to make them a bit bigger.
[00:07:45] Azhelle Wade: When you tested it with the kids and you're, you know, you're trying to help them learn emotions through these cards. What was it that made you make that change to, oh, these cards need to be a little bigger.
[00:07:55] Julie Dini: well, I also, right from the beginning, I didn't want them to just be flashcards. I wanted to play games with them and I thought if I get double set, I could play things like match the emotion. You know, go fish for feeling or play, go fish with them.
[00:08:10] So I had really basic card game. And I thought just having two in there will mean that it took a lot more playability instead of just being flashcards at the end of the session, we can do match, match the faces, or we can do go fish for feeling. So it makes it more versatile. So I always had this idea that it could be like, you know, use it as a game as well. So that's why I was thinking about it being all along some sort of playability and making it a little bit more fun than just sitting there with flashcards. And that's a bit, the kids, like they're happy to do the matching.
[00:08:43] They like, I mean, they will obviously go through, you know, talking about the emotions, but when you end the session and you say, well, let's play go fish. Or another game I use as we take the silly card. And then we play it like old mate. And then the person left was silly is the winner, you know? And so we can use it that way to make it a bit more versatile.
[00:09:01] Azhelle Wade: this is also why I say I like to help mission driven toy creators, build their ideas because you are your primary, you know, you're a psychiatrist, you have a whole other area of expertise, full other purpose to your business and your life and what you do. But that inspired something that is actually gonna. Therapy easier for children. And I love that you took that initial idea of, I just want to be able to communicate emotions to these kids, to see if they can understand these emotions. And then you took it to another level and kind of made it toyetic and said, oh, now like how do we add a game to make it? Did you do that before the program?.
[00:09:40] Julie Dini: Before the program, but of course, once I did your program, I thought, oh, my Toyota is pretty pathetic, but anyway, it's but yeah, so yeah, initially it was just the idea of always wanting to have some sort of gameplay ability in the resource, not such as a boring, you know, educational flash card, but to actually be able to have a bit more versatility to work. So that's been really, yeah, I think a bit of the appeal of it that people can get more use out of it.
[00:10:06] Yeah.
[00:10:06] Azhelle Wade: We talk a little bit about your success, what kind of success are you seeing on.
[00:10:11] Julie Dini: Well, when I started out, it was, you know, just Y maybe one or two a day, but now I pretty much sell close to about a hundred units a month.
[00:10:20] And it's actually increased this last year. My sales are per hundred percent. So, and I think, yeah, people are getting to, I mean, people buy often. I see five, 10 bit bought in one go. So it possibly is schools or I, you know, I don't know. Other people are sort of realizing there's a useful resource for the classroom or yeah, so, and I get lots of good reviews and I sell quite a lot of them in Australia in some specialty retail, educational stores here, online stores as well, but they've been really big support.
[00:10:48] Yeah. So let's, I want to ask a question that I'm sure. Any entrepreneurs listening that might have an idea for a paper-based product who did your design? Who laid out these cards and this beautiful background design your packaging. How did you find the person to do that?
[00:11:06] Well, I I didn't, I had no background whatsoever in e-commerce graphic design toys, nothing, none. You wouldn't have found anyone who knew less than me
[00:11:18] And I just thought, where do I find a graphic designer? And I asked a friend and you know, they weren't interested. So then I just went online in Australia and just typed in graphic designers and then just found this website. That was an, I wanted an Australian vice post and I didn't want to just, I didn't know about fiber cause I got a logo off them once I thought I'll just see if I can find someone in Australia.
[00:11:38] And I just found this fabulous skill called at least my oldest. She was in Sydney. She was just a freelancer. And I told her what I wanted. So she, she did all of that. Laid out the cons. And I, I had a bit of an idea of the, of the, what I wanted because there's some symbolism in the, in the design with the.
[00:11:55] We say. Yeah, because if you have a little bit it's basically talking thinking. Feeling and playing that's the four symbols on the cards. So they're the sort of concepts that you're working with with kids all of the time.
[00:12:10] So and then she did the design and I just loved the way she put it together. And, and if she was really reasonable, I just did it all online with her. Never even met her. I designed them the actual Cod box because I didn't want to a tuck box because they always tear. So I just had the idea of open at the side.
[00:12:29] It would last a bit longer and it looked a little bit more polished. She, she just designed that. I said, this is what I want. I made a mock up out of cardboard. That's great. And then it worked quite well
[00:12:42] . So you have just kept the same, the same design ever since. I just want to recap. So dealing with. Julie DME is a child psychologist who came up with this concept of dealing with feelings, which is a card game slash emotional therapy tool that psychiatrists, educators can use to help children identify and understand different emotions. But then also her card deck has the ability to play other types of games, like matching games because they're actually too, oh, here we go.
[00:13:10] I got a match to. You have every card in the deck so they can not only learn about emotions, but after maybe a therapy session or after a school session where they're just learning and identifying emotions, they can play matching game or Julie said you can play like an old maid type version.
[00:13:30] I've also got some suggested games and some suggested ways you can use it in therapy, just some little fun activities that you can use the cards, like hide them around the room and get the kids to find them. And then talk about the emotion. Yeah, so just other little suggestions in there as well.
[00:13:46] And now I want to go to your Amazon and I'm on your Amazon page right now. You've got 78 reviews. It looks like you have four and a half stars.
[00:13:56] And let's talk about some of these reviews. Like people are taking really beautiful images with really beautiful images. Amanda says brilliant and perfect for my step son. The pictures are perfect for my stepson to interpret the kids' emotions into his own. As a child on the spectrum, communication can be limited and frustrating for more tangible subjects, but having these cards had made the discussion and understanding of emotions.
[00:14:21] Azhelle Wade: Much much easier. We've been using them, especially for more complicated and difficult emotions. We also try to use them for easier emotions to continue positive reinforcement. I would highly recommend them.
[00:14:33] Julie Dini: It really touches me when I read that stuff.
[00:14:35] Like it's just, wow. You know.
[00:14:37] Azhelle Wade: I think you're just scratching the surface here. It seems to be an underserved market if people are responding so strongly and so positively to this. And unsolicited advice that you did not ask for. What if you lean into this autism support angle, even more.
[00:14:58] So say I have an autistic child. I'm looking for specific support the tools to support me while, while managing their emotions. I think I'm searching for certain words, right? I'm searching for probably autism. So I feel like you need a name. Yeah. Instagram name, a website name that includes that wording people find this. And I think your, your product name is great. Like dealing in feelings is great, but there might be. Umbrella term that you come up with that will make it easier for people to understand who this is for before they even read the back of the box or read the description.
[00:15:35] so, congratulations. They're so well, How did you find your factory is the next question people might wonder? Oh boy. I was so lucky. I, I thought about doing it here in Australia and I got a few quotes initially and thought, oh, that's a bit expensive, but then unbelievably the printer.
[00:15:53] Who's literally 10 minutes drive down from my house. Came in with a very reasonable quote and I've continued to use them. They've been fantastic. I just drive down, pick up the product and then stored in my garage and then, and then ship it out. So it's been really easy and I haven't had to pay any duties to go to America because we got, you know, tried free agreement with you guys.
[00:16:17] So if I pass those from China, I would have had to pay customs and all that stuff. they really worked well, having it made here in. The quality is really nice. They're really thick. They feel really durable. Before you move on to your book, I want to ask how do you deal with feeling like people are stealing your idea?
[00:16:35] Cause when I did search, I did see other things that look similar. So how do you deal with that? We manage that.
[00:16:40] Julie Dini: Well, I haven't actually, yeah, I haven't actually sort of thought about that too much. I guess people will probably come up with, you know, maybe start to copy it or copy the idea. I have got a trademark here in Australia and I'm reaching out to one of your contacts trademarking in the us. But I guess, yeah, I mean, it's like anything, I, you know, you, you can't really protect yourself totally from people coming up and, you know, tweaking it. I guess if, if they, if they go ahead and copy it, well, I'll have to work on some other things, I suppose.
[00:17:11] Azhelle Wade: You know, people buying BMW for the brand BMW, not just because of the car. Right? So your focus is on building that brand, whether it's little seats therapy, or it might be more powerful to build it off of Julie D the
[00:17:24] Julie Dini: psychologists. Because there's a level of authority and trust there. So that once you build that brand authority for yourself, you should be taking this and you should be pitching yourself.
[00:17:33] And I know I have this in the course, so maybe you haven't gotten there yet, but you should be pitching yourself to other podcasts, TV shows. you already know from toy Curtis academy, that one of the trends right now, they see kids are going to be very anxious right after the pandemic.
[00:17:51] And this is a, it's an amazing tool. So you know, the toy book is now accepting submissions for their holiday issue, which I posted in the toy creators. I would do a pitch write a really compelling pitch that talks about the that's opens with the high stress that kids are dealing with.
[00:18:08] Right. Maybe even to take clips from your Amazon, reviews and work it into you this pitch and say, these dealing with feelings cards are helping them cope with those emotions. And here's how love to be featured. Please let me know if you'd like a sample and I would work in a couple of images or maybe just a direct link to your Amazon page, showing some of your reviews.
[00:18:32] Let's get to the book by lighting is really destroying the look here. All right. Feeling. And to me, yeah. Talk about the book. What is this about? Oh, the book was really designed for younger kids to introduce yeah. Preschool is to the very early sort of their first emotions, but using the idea of having animals expressions.
[00:18:53] So I had you know, I know kids love animals. And then I found these wonderful images that really conveyed some of the very simple emotions. So we've got, you know, happy, sad, angry, grumpy you know, scared. And just to make it a very simple book that parents can read to kids to start to have those conversations that we all have feelings.
[00:19:16] Feelings are OK that come and go. It's really important that everyone understands. We're never going to have that one feeling forever. Even the worst in the world will leave us. So that was the concept behind this book. And at the back of the book, there's some simple parent tips about how to talk about emotions with your kids.
[00:19:33] Just some how to build that into your day to day. And then, yeah, just hopefully give her parents a bit of a hand. And I know so many families, young families are these days really aware of, you know, good mental health and starting early with their kids. And so I just wanted to yeah. Have a book that would make that easy for, for families or teachers to use.
[00:19:56] It's great. I love it. You might have cards of these animals next.
[00:20:02] Yeah. I actually, what I have developed next is a chart. So I've got a feelings chart, a first feelings challenge. I'm just about to release, which has taken the animals. And it's like a wall chart that could be used at home on the, put on the fridge or in a classroom.
[00:20:16] Preschool. Yeah. So I've just released my first feelings chat .
[00:20:20] Let's quickly dive in to the question that you asked me, why don't you reiterate the question .
[00:20:26] I just, I learned a lot from other people's mistakes. So I thought it'd be good to hear from you. What do you see as the most common mistakes that you know, new people often do when they're trying to get into the toilet games sort of space?
[00:20:37] There are two different mistakes that I see the most. One happens if someone's coming in as an entrepreneur and what happens if they're coming in as an inventor. So when they're coming in as an entrepreneur, the biggest mistake that I see, they don't bet or test their idea before they develop it. And before they spend money on making a sample of it, which you literally worked in the field, you cut out samples, you print, you printed your own at home, you tested it, you saw kids liked it.
[00:21:05] You did that job and I don't know how much you invested when you first did your first run, but I do see people investing to. In the beginning and not being able to switch and pivot and make changes when people give reviews or they just see it's not working or the price is too expensive.
[00:21:21] Now when people come into the industry as an inventor, the biggest mistake that they make is they go all in on one idea. They, they have this one idea. They think they want to be an inventor, which means they want to license that idea to a toy company. But then they develop that idea as though it is the only idea on the face of the earth. They spend tens of thousands of dollars, patenting it and developing it. And then they get to all of between companies eventually, and they get a bunch of.
[00:21:44] Now they can keep re-pitching and repitching, and maybe one day it will get picked up, but it's discouraging. And when you're an inventor, you should really go for quantity, especially when you're just starting out. Like you really want to just go for how many ideas can I get out there that actually fit the toy company I'm pitching to?
[00:22:00] And what is the most cost-effective way? Show proof of concept for that idea. So if you were trying to license this, when you made that sample to show the kids at your office and you, you made that sample, you brought it to them. That would have been enough to try to show to a toy company to license So that's. I hope I answered your question. Did you did? And I think that that's a point that you made earlier, I think recently about you can't just fall in love with your own stuff.
[00:22:28] You've really got to be broad. You've got to think more broadly. You've got to have lots of ideas coming and going. So you can expand and develop and build on things. Yeah. Not sink too much in too quickly.
[00:22:38] Yeah. Yeah. And you, and so anyone doesn't know, Julia's also a member of Toy Creators Academy . She joined when I first launched and then rejoin for the alumni experience. it was amazing.
[00:22:49] And she pitched at the reason pitch event. So thank you so much for joining me today. Yeah, that's really good. Thank you for everything.
[00:22:56] Azhelle Wade: Before I jump into my summary of today's episode. I'd like to take a quick break and give a shout out to Julie Dini. Of course, so I wanted to make sure I give a proper spotlight to all of the hard work that Julie has put into this brand since joining toy creator's academy. Julie's website for dealing in feelings is dealing in feelings.com. There you can find her card game. On her site, you can find the dealing in feelings, emotion cards, the feelings and me picture book, the, my first feelings chart. And she even has some great therapy bundles where you can get more than one product. You can also find Julie's product on Amazon.
[00:23:39] And since our conversation, she has really updated her Amazon listing, done some beautiful work on the imagery and the description of her dealing in feelings cards. So I'm really excited to see how her Amazon sales grow ever since she relaunched this incredible listing. Now, additionally, Julie, if you're listening to this episode, I've got to give you a shout out because in researching to see where your brand is at today, I have seen that Julie's also been featured on several sites.
[00:24:14] Entrepreneurs who are building their own businesses, different psychology sites, resources for those dealing with autism, her product and her story is being featured. And as a mission driven toy creator, it is so important that you get out there on podcasts and shows and in holiday gift guides, not just with your product, but with your story. And I see you're doing that Julie and great job. I'm going to be leaving links to Julie's website, her shop page, and to all of the articles she's been featured on that I found. In the show notes. So to grab any links for Julie's product or to see some of her features online, head over to the toy coach.com forward slash 1, 2, 3, and you'll find those in the show notes.
[00:25:07] Let's dive into our conclusion of what we learned today. Well, I hope you enjoyed this interview today with Julie Deni, and I want you to take away a few key lessons. I've got a few.
[00:25:21] So I want to recap a few things today. Number one, if you have a simple product that is maybe mostly, paper-based a simple, handmade, a simple handmade prototype. Can be all. You need to prove your concept. When talking with Julie today, we found that she initially started making a handmade prototype of her dealing in feelings, cards, using images that she just found online.
[00:25:48] It wasn't until after she proved the concept that her product is something that kids could benefit from that families might like to use, that she invested in getting images that she could use print high Rez and sell as a part of her.
[00:26:04] The second lesson I want you to take away is to know you don't have to DIY everything. Now look, we did say Julie DIY had her prototype and you should DIY as much as you can, but once you get closer to. Production files of your product.
[00:26:21] I don't want you to be afraid to research and hire an experienced graphic designer or a product designer to help you finish off your product at a high level. I don't want you going out there thinking you can do everything and, and not being able to stand up to the competition already on the market. So know your own limitations, know that you should DIY some things, but you don't and should not DIY everything. Lesson number three, don't assume China is your only option for manufacturing. Julie found a printer 10 minutes from her home, which made her product possible. So I want you to open your eyes to options outside of China. I know we talked about some things recently on this podcast to look back at some of our recent episodes for that. But do not think China is your only option and don't assume it's going to be your best option for manufacturing out of the gate. It really depends on where you live as well.
[00:27:20] Lesson number four, trademarking your name and building authority behind your brand can protect things that a patent can't. So we talked a little bit about how people buy things like BMW cars, not just because they need a car, but because they love and have an affinity for the BMW brand. So think about your brand. As such. If you're worrying about somebody else ripping off your idea, you really should be asking yourself what differentiates your brand from another, if somebody does rip off your idea, why would somebody want to come to your brand over the knockoff brand versus.
[00:28:00] and lesson number five, focus on marketing your product. Create an umbrella brand name that's easy to find and includes wording that your ideal target market will search for. They are looking for a solution that might be brought about from your product. Umbrella names for your company or the name of your product itself, that include search terms, key words that your ideal target market, your ITM is already searching is helpful to gain visibility for your product.
[00:28:33] Lesson number six. Don't over-order your product out the gate. Make sure you're testing your idea. You're giving that validation and proof of concept before you develop it and invest in inventory. And our last recap lesson for today. Lesson number seven.
[00:28:50] Don't go. Don't go all in on one idea. Make sure diversify your product assortment while it is great. To start out with one idea, get your marketing, right. Get your sales, right. Get the product development. Perfect. Once you have that idea solid. You've got to expand to other areas. And Julie is doing that with her feelings and me picture book and her, my first feelings chart.
[00:29:18] So make sure that you are expanding what you've created in other areas so that you are not totally reliant on one idea.
[00:29:26] So what's your action item for today? Well, if you are a toy, inventor or entrepreneur with an inspiring story of how you've developed your product, I want to invite you be a guest on this podcast. I want you to send me a message and tell me why you would be an awesome guest to be featured on this podcast. Yup. You are invited to come chat with me on this podcast because not only would I love to hear your story, but I bet there are aspiring toy inventors and entrepreneurs listening in that would be inspired by your story as well.
[00:30:05] Additionally, there might be some buyers listening in who needs to know that your product exists. Let's make that happen. Head over to the toy coach.com forward slash guest. That's the toy coach.com forward slash G U E S T. And fill out the form that's on that page.
[00:30:24] And a member of my team will be in touch with you very soon. As always, thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I know your time is valuable and that there are a ton of podcasts out there. So it means the world to me that you tune into this one until next week, I'll see you later. Toy people.
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