Start A Business With Your Creative Expertise
Azhelle Wade Shares How She Became The Toy Coach on Amy Porterfield’s Podcast Online Marketing Made Easy
Azhelle Wade, AKA The Toy Coach, has hosted more than 100 episodes of her podcast, Making It In the Toy Industry. The podcast features informative interviews with anyone related to the toy industry, from lawyers to creators and toy inventors of popular products to marketing experts. Other episodes focus on important topics for both experienced and expert level toy entrepreneurs like legal issues affecting the toy industry, the toy industry events you must attend, and tips for achieving success as a toy inventor.
Azhelle gained over a decade of experience working in the toy industry for companies including Toys ‘R’ Us, Madame Alexander, and Party City before becoming The Toy Coach and starting the podcast. As The Toy Coach, she uses her knowledge as a 3x patented and award-winning inventor to help people bring their invention ideas from concept to reality through the podcast and the Toy Creators Academy, a valuable educational program she created in September 2020. Through the academy, she helps toy inventors with pitching, often with the goal of getting a deal to sell, distribute, or license their product or IP with a professional partner in the toy industry.
The Toy Coach has also been a featured guest on many other podcasts. Some of her other podcast appearances are focused on the toy industry, but many are focused on marketing, entrepreneurship, or being a podcaster.
Amy Porterfield, an online marketing expert and digital entrepreneur interviewed Azhelle for her podcast, Online Marketing Made Easy. The podcast supports people who want to leave their corporate 9-5 jobs and jump into the world of entrepreneurship. This is something Azhelle definitely knows about!
After making it to a VP position in the toy industry by the age of 30, Azhelle was at a toy event where a new inventor was trying to tell her about a game idea. Even though the toy inventor was passionate about the product, she just couldn’t get it across in a way that would allow Azhelle to bring the product to her boss for a legitimate pitch. So, Azhelle came up with the idea of a podcast to give people information about how to invent toys and how to pitch their toy ideas.
Once she started her podcast, people kept asking her for help with their toy inventions and ideas. Azhelle’s sister encouraged her to quit her full-time job and pursue The Toy Coach full time. However, she hesitated to leave her position - and reliable salary. When she got an amazing offer from a potential client for The Toy Coach, she seriously reconsidered her fears and it all blossomed from there.
7 Tips Start A Business With Your Creative Expertise
Figure Out How You Can Save Up
"Savings will set you free.” Azhelle said. “We don't need as nearly as much as we think we do to live." The pandemic helped Azhelle to realize that yes, her toy industry job offered her stability but, she was also spending a significant portion of her income on tolls, gas, and car maintenance just to get to work.
She also realized there were other ways she could cut back. She set a predetermined period during which she sacrificed expenses like going out to eat, to save money. This helped to create a nest egg to transition from her corporate job to becoming The Toy Coach full time. “Think about what you could sacrifice for just six months,” Azhelle recommends.
2. Don’t Forget Health Insurance
For many in the US, health insurance is tied to your job. Navigating the health insurance market as a first-time entrepreneur can be confusing and expensive. As a cancer survivor, having the right health insurance was incredibly important to Azhelle. With help from her mom and the hospital that saved her life, Azhelle figured out a health insurance plan that would allow her to take the step of working independently with confidence.
3. Learn to Love the Roller Coaster
Working for yourself sometimes has high highs and low lows. It’s just like a roller coaster, and you really have to learn to love it! When your business is quiet, that’s the time to dig in, pivot, and react to get to that next climb in the roller coaster. Azhelle mentions that after the roller coaster of having cancer, she can handle anything that comes her way. But, you don’t need a cancer diagnosis to create your own business and go for your own roller coaster ride! "Tomorrow is not promised. You never know what's going to happen so you've got to try whatever you can today," she told Amy.
4. Know Your Mission
"When I look back on what I actually created with my course, I realize that I really created what I wished existed when I was first starting my toy career," Azhelle said. Before achieving success in the toy industry, Azhelle studied toy design at FIT, making prototypes on wooden lathes and in silicone molds. But, she didn’t actually learn about the toy industry until she got her first job. So, her mission as The Toy Coach is to fill in that gap of toy industry knowledge that new toy inventors need to find success.
In addition to knowing your mission, you need to target your intended client. For Azhelle, that was analytical creative people who need clear direction, including rules and systems, to take their toy inventions to the next level. The Toy Creators Academy course puts together everything Azhelle learned in school plus what she learned on the job in a clear and concise way to achieve the mission for the intended clients.
5. Create Systems
Amy Porterfield’s Digital Course Academy teaches that your online course needs to have a formula, road map, or system as a guide. The system should encompass the most essential information of the course. When Azhelle created The Toy Creators Academy, she created the 4 Toyetic Principles as the “guiding light” of the course.
Azhelle does share these principles on her podcast, but goes much more in depth in the course. How can you create your own system? She chose the 4 toyetic principles because they are exactly what goes through her mind when she is creating a product. "What are the questions I would ask myself? What are my checks & balances? And that will turn into your system," She advises.
6. Get Creative With Your Launch
Your launch is the first chance you get to make an impression (and your first chance to make sales!) For TCA, a webinar felt too formal, and a masterclass wasn’t exactly what she wanted to do either. So, she decided to throw an online launch party for the Toy Creators Academy. She e-mailed her list, created a Facebook event, got some balloons and champagne, and hoped for the best! About 45 people showed up.
During the event, she did a presell of the course, going through each of 6 modules with everyone. After that event, she had 3 sales. She was so excited to find this success, because she knew if she could get 3 sales online, she could get more. After offering a 50% off sign-up incentive for 48 hours after the launch party, Azhelle ended up with 25 students for the first cohort of the TCA.
Another great way to promote a launch of a new course is to become a guest on podcasts and webinars. Even before she launched her course, Azhelle used this as a tactic to help people recognize The Toy Coach brand and get her name out there.
When launching a new course or business, get creative to find a way to show people that you are established. You may not have testimonials to show how pleased people have been with the course or product in the past. However, Azhelle had podcast reviews and testimonials from people who had worked with her on a one on one basis that showed her experience and expertise in the toy industry.
7. Speak Your Mind and Tell Your Story
During the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, Azhelle created a podcast episode about racial bias in the toy industry. The episode received a ton of engagement, and as a result, people asked her to speak to their companies and at their toy industry events about this topic. She met her audience where they were, and gave them specific, actionable advice, while keeping in mind who she wanted to help and why.
When you have your own business, you are the business. Some people fear that telling their story or speaking their mind can hurt their business. However, Azhelle has found just the opposite to be true. Whenever she has spoken her mind about topics some might consider difficult, and how they relate to the toy industry, she has seen benefits. Episode 106 of Making it In The Toy Industry, featuring an interview with Cher Hale of Gingko PR, goes even further into how weaving your personal story into your product and brand can lead to greater success and affect social change.