Episode #128: 9 Tips and Tricks For Toy Creators Attending The Licensing Expo
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If you have a brand or product you should consider adding licensing to your business model. Licensing is a great way for toy manufacturers to borrow the authority of powerful brands and grow their own revenue. A great licensing deal can help growing brands expand to various consumer goods categories while avoiding the added cost of manufacturing. If you’re ready to learn more about how licensing can benefit your toy business, you should consider attending the Las Vegas Licensing Expo next year. But before you sign up, listen to this podcast for 9 tricks and tips for first time visitors to the Licensing Expo.
The Licensing Expo has over 200 exhibitors each year, including notable brands like Netflix, Lego, Paramount, Mattel, and more. In past years, over 16,000 people have attended, coming from more than 60 countries. Attendees include licensees, manufacturers, retailers, distributors, licensing agents, and more. Each show has more than 5,000 products or brands on display, allowing you to catch trends and get innovative ideas. Of course, there are many representatives from the toy industry, but there are also people in attendance from the fashion world, gaming, animation, and more.
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This episode is brought to you by www.thetoycoach.com
Click here to visit Licensing Expo website.
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[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to Making It in The Toy Industry episode number 128.
[00:00:05] Hey, they're toy people, Azhelle Wade here and welcome back to another episode of the toy coach podcast, making it in the toy industry. I have recently returned from the Las Vegas Licensing Expo. If you don't know what that is listening, this episode is for you. The Las Vegas Licensing Expo has over 200 exhibitors each year. Notable brands like Netflix, Lego, Paramount Mattel, Hasbro, many more all attend this event in past years. About 16,000 people have attended coming from more than 60 countries.
[00:00:57] The people that are at this show include licensees manufacturers, retailers, distributors, licensing agents, licensors, and more. If you don't know what some of those things are, don't worry. We're going to get into a little bit of a description of licensee versus licensor. Now this expo happens every year and each show has more than 5,000 products or brands on display, allowing you to catch trends and get innovative ideas. Of course, there are many representatives from the toy industry, but there's also people there from the fashion world gaming animation and so many more. This is the first time that there's been a Licensing Expo in about two, maybe three years after everything was canceled because of the pandemic.
[00:01:47] This festival has been run online since then this year, they had an in-person event that ran from May 24th to may 26. And after that in-person event, they're holding a online event from May 27th through June 3rd. Then they've got a post event window where you can watch some of the seminars from the show after the show is concluded. In the past, I've done episodes about this expo. And if you want to hear the detail of what this expo is, who this expo is for, how you can make the most of it, then I'm going to encourage you to listen to episodes number 23 and episode 39 to get to either of those episodes.
[00:02:31] You just have to go to thetoycoach.com/23 or thetoycoach.com/39. But today's episode is going to be a little bit different since this year was my first time attending the Las Vegas licensing Expo. I'm coming at you with some toy coach tips on what you should, and maybe shouldn't do your first time attending the Los Vegas Licensing Expo. This episode is going to give you nine tips to hopefully make the show more valuable for you comfortable, and hopefully more affordable. Let's not waste any more time and dive right in. If you are considering going to that Las Vegas Licensing Expo, you have a brand and you're looking for some licensees or manufacturers to produce product with your brand that you've been growing.
[00:03:23] Maybe you are somebody who actually has a toy company and your toy company might be built around other licenses. If you're not sure the difference between licensee and license or don't worry, we're going to talk about it real quick. It's easy to get them mixed up. So a licensee is the person who is getting the license, who is getting the right to use a license or a specific brand on their product. So quick example, okay. So let's say you are a toy creator who currently sells your own line of puzzles and you are really into the show bluey. You might go to the licensing expo and look to meet with BBC studios, who is the licensing agent for bluey. And you might look to obtain the license. You might look to receive the license of bluey to be able to put it on your puzzle.
[00:04:15] Right? So then you would be the licensee. Now the licensor would be BBC studios in this case, that would be the company that would grant the light. When the license itself is bluey. So that's the main goal of most people coming to the show to either obtain licenses or to find manufacturers, to produce products for licenses. And if you're curious about that entire process, reach out to me about toy critters academy, because we go into detail in there. But there are also some really good educational lessons inside of the licensing expo. So we'll talk a little bit about that as well as we keep going in this episode.
[00:04:55] So let's say you decided I'm going to the licensing expo Azhelle. What do I need to know? Well, you need to know these nine tips before you go. Tip number one is to plan meetings before you go New York toy fair, many toy fairs, honestly. Astro's pretty much like this, I would say maybe 70% meetings and 30% walk up where companies expect companies exhibiting, expect people to walk up and to have meetings on the fly. The Las Vegas licensing expo is a little bit different. It's really a meetings focused show and it's, it's meeting focused in one way where guests, a lot of the booths are closed off where you can see inside of them, but you might not necessarily be able to get inside of them. Or some of them are just fully closed off.
[00:05:44] So it's not as easy to walk up and meet somebody. Or if you don't know who to ask for at the front, then it might not be as easy to, to grab a meeting with. But aside from that people's schedules get packed at this expo. So this is a show where you definitely, definitely want to plan some meetings before you go do not leave your calendar completely empty. You definitely want to have some time because there are, especially if it's your first time going, there are educational sessions happening at this show that you will want to take advantage of. But at the same time, you don't want to leave too much white space in your calendar because trying to scramble for meetings during the show is going to distract you from paying attention to the show.
[00:06:28] Learning at the show , making natural connections that, aren't primarily business focused right away. And that's really what you want to feel free to do at the show. So I highly recommend that you plan meetings before you go, you might be saying, oh, how do I plan meetings? How do I get started? Well, once you sign up, you are onboarded onto their platform. They have a platform that is reminiscent of like LinkedIn, Facebook, kind of like that, where you put in your profile, like information about your company, your logo, what you do, who you're working with. And other people do this as well. You can reach out to people through. This platform and request meetings.
[00:07:10] A lot of people don't use this platform. If they've already have strong relationships with licensed or with licensees, and they just know their personal email, they'll reach out to them and say, Hey, I'm going to be at this expo. Let's meet up. But if you don't have any relationships into your first time, this is a really beneficial tool for you. Because you will see a list of everybody attending the show and you can literally send them a message through this platform and they will get an email notification because of your message sent through this platform. So it's not that they have to check the platform to see that they have a message from you or that they have a message at all. But this platform will definitely allow you to get. Make new connections.
[00:07:52] And again, I would say it's best to make those connections and meetings early on before their inboxes start getting flooded with meeting requests. So tip number one, plan meetings before you go, if you're wondering how many meetings, if it's your first time, I would say three to four meetings a day would be excellent. You will be tired, but you will feel accomplished. And you will be able to have some time to explore the show and you'll have some time to take in some of the educational opportunities at the show as well. Additionally, when planning your meetings. Try to be strategic about it. Try not to plan your big fish at the start of your show experience or at the end, I would recommend planning your big fish somewhere around the middle.
[00:08:40] So say you have a big meeting with a major licensed soar. You've been trying to get this license for bluey, let's say. And you know, you're really excited about that meeting and they give you a couple of time options either early in the show or, or in the middle of the show. I would opt for middle of the show. I would not up for later in the show because everyone gets kind of tired and worn out. But if it's your first time attending, I would not put your big fish or your big opportunity at the beginning, because you might need some time to get acclimated to the process of networking of pitching and. Biggest opportunity to be your first pitch. So try to work yourself in some smaller opportunities before that big opportunity.
[00:09:25] And if you're in a situation where the big opportunity just happens to have the very first time slot available and you don't have any other, other opportunities that could go before it, something you can do is walk the show and try to pitch yourself to people that do have open booths. The practice is super important. And once you do it, once I'm telling you, you get so comfortable and, and that comfort will will be able to read as confidence and that confidence will serve you well, when you are attacking your big fish at the show, okay, let's move on to tip number two. Tip number two is to enter the license, this competition.
[00:10:07] Now, during this Las Vegas licensing expo, there's a competition called licensed this where animators, illustrators, and designers get to pitch their ideas to a panel of licensing experts. This competition is open only to artwork, brand ideas and characters that do not have any current or pending merchandise or licensing deals. This is a competition for newbies. Now the judges of this competition come from many different backgrounds, but they're all related to licensing. So they may be manufacturers who remember our licensees, the people receiving the license to put on their goods, or it might be retailers like Walmart target, or it might be brands. And the brands are our licensed source, the people that hold the license.
[00:10:58] So you're getting, when you apply to pitch in this competition, and if you get accepted, you will getting beginning your brand concept or your show concept reviewed by people from all different angles of this industry. And they give really great feedback. Now, the competition has two categories, character in animation and brand design. Now the goal of the competition is to help brands to secure licensing deals or to get an agent. Now, the winner of each category gets a hundred square foot booth at the licensing expo in the following year, they also get a licensing international membership. They get a one-year membership to products of change and a one-on-one consultation with the judges of the competition.
[00:11:46] And I'm so thrilled to announce that while I was at the show, Toy Creators Academy alumni Kieche Mellison O'Connell won the license, this competition in the character and animation category. Now, this is incredible winning a competition like this at one of the world's largest licensing trade shows. Kesha was being interviewed after her when I'm sure she's going to have a ton of people scrambling to get a hold of her license, to work with her, to make this license real. Kieche thanked Toy Creators Academy at the end of her. Kind of teared up. I took a ton of videos and photos, which I'll definitely share it within this week.
[00:12:28] But her idea is called Catoms Atoms with Attitude and it just won the judges over her concept is so innovative and she is utilizing her pieces of you, her zone of toy. So perfectly to conceptualize this concept. Kesha is a PhD in chemistry, and she's worked for the Navy for the past 13 years. She is a great example of someone using what they know to create incredible toys and games. She's using all these pieces of her in a previous review of Toy Creators Academy. Kieche mentioned that TCA helped her grow. Her toy industry contacts pitched a toy companies, gain interest from a studio in her idea. And when comparing TCA to her $100,000 spend on her MBA program, she said a lot of the things she learned in her MBA.
[00:13:25] She learned in TCA now. Back to talking about Kadimah her innovative idea, the concept of Kadimah Adams with attitude, combines chemistry and cats. Two things that Kieche loves. She took each element from the periodic table and turn them into cats. And each cat has a different coat, special powers, a unique personality, and it's all based on the element that they represent. So it's a learning opportunity for kids to know what these elements do and how they work and how they interact with each other. The Catoms have fun and engaging stories that teach real facts about the elements.
[00:14:07] Kieche has started to build stories around the academy. She is ready to go with an animation pitch. The first time I saw her concept, I thought, wow, this is amazing. It is so smart. Cats, science got stem, cuddly, and cute everything that you need for, for pure success. I remember sitting at this competition, just waiting to hear who was going to win, who was the winner. And when they called out , you know, Kieche was excited, but also surprised because Catoms hadn't really been out there. She hadn't done too much with Catoms yet. She'd come up with a concept, she's built stories, but she hasn't sold it.
[00:14:50] And when she said, you know, I'm surprised how did this happen? Really her concept just hits all of the Toyota principles. Toyota principles. If you don't know, you can go back to episode two to learn about the Toyota principles. But the first Toyota principle is all about personality, having unique personalities for your characters. And she has nailed that with cat comes. I just want to say huge congratulations to Kieche for winning this competition. And I want to talk a little bit about how this all came to be. The license, this competition applications open whenever I see opportunities like that, I love to share it with my people in my Facebook group, but also students of Toy Creators Academy, former and present.
[00:15:33] And that's what I did. I shared that licensed this competition. link and said, you guys should all apply for this Kesha applied and made it to the finals. And then she pitched at this event and won. So I want you to do something that I do every time I hear about a competition or a grant or something that I want to apply for. I want you to take out your phone right now, and I want you to set an alarm. Set that alarm right now. Your alarm should pop up 9:00 AM on let's say April 10th, 2023. And it should say check to see if applications are open for the license, this competition. And if they aren't open, when you check, make that alarm pop up again in a week. Okay. That is something I always do.
[00:16:17] Whenever I see a competition or grant that I want to apply for, put it in my calendar. I put it in my calendar immediately, so I don't have to think about it. And the next year, when it comes around, again, it pops up and I know, got to apply. We took a long time on tip number two, let's move on to tip number three, we're going to talk fashion. I want you to wear comfortable shoes at this Las Vegas licensing expo. Now I have to say, as someone who always attended the New York toy fair, I thought I knew I, that I knew the importance of comfortable shoes. I thought I knew I thought I knew the importance of comfortable shoes that no one could tell me anything.
[00:16:56] And I knew what I was doing, but let me tell you something. The Las Vegas licensing. Has much more walking than the New York toy fair. Now it's not so much due to the expo itself and the size of the floor itself, as it has to do with Vegas, walking through hotels and through casinos to get to the expo or just walking to restaurants and bars, to meet up with colleagues or meetings you might have outside of the expo. Your feet will thank you. If you invest in some comfortable shoes. I would say sneakers are always the best bet, but I know for women, even when I went this year, I did not wear sneakers that were kind of like comfortable flats.
[00:17:43] But really I want you to take this comfortable shoes, warning very, very seriously comfortable shoes. You'll be well. All day and so far and back and forth and rushing from meeting to meeting, you've gotta be wearing some comfortable shoes. If you are a person who's like, you know what I wear heels. I'm just a heels person. I'm a heels gal. I hear you. I too, once upon a time was a heels gal. And I did bring one inch heels just in case, you know, and after day one in my flat shoes, I said, oh no, we will not be wearing one inch heels at all. However when I did go out, like there might be an opportunity where after the show you might catch a drink with colleagues or maybe a client you're working with, we'll say, let's go out for a meal.
[00:18:29] Then you might want to change in to your one inch heels.. Want to have an extra outfit for going out because after walking the show all day, you just kind of might feel gross and you might want to refer. But I have to say the way that things are laid out in Vegas and how spaced out it is. I found, I didn't have the time to go back to my room and change even if I wanted to. So you're really bringing everything you can in either a large backpack or tote bag with you so that you can stay on the floor. Now I do have to say, I am speaking at this from the perspective of an attendee who is taking a lot of photos as I was looking to do press articles on the show.
[00:19:09] But if you are an exhibitor, you are really going to be in kind of one spot exhibiting all day, showing your product all day, having meetings all day. And in that case, a thousand percent bring comfortable shoes. And you might just want to bring your change of shoes with you. If you plan to change into something for going out later in that evening tip number four is a tip to save you a little bit of money. So the Las Vegas Licensing Expo is held in the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Vegas. And most people do stay at the Mandalay bay. Now the rates for the Mandalay bay are about 180 5 a night plus a $40 daily resort fee. So my tip for you is maybe consider not staying at the Mandalay.
[00:19:58] A colleague of mine recommended that I stay at the Luxe. Not as fancy as a hotel as the Mandalay, but it is like a quarter of the price. So if you were starting your own company, you're working on your own business, you love traveling for work, but every bit of travel you do for work, you, my friend are paying for. You might very well want to look at budget options, like staying in the Luxor versus the Mandalay. So let me explain the difference to you. So the cost difference of staying in the Luxor versus the Mandalay. If you book early, you can get rooms in the Luxor from like 50 to $60 a night. And I would recommend not staying in the pyramid rooms because the pyramid rooms are older.
[00:20:42] They've built like this new tower and those rooms are a little bit newer. But overall, obviously the Luxor at 50 to $60 a night, isn't going to be as fancy as the Mandalay at 180, plus a resort fee. But if you are exhibiting at the show and you're already paying a lot of money to do that, or if you're just attending the show, but the travel is really expensive for you and you can't do the man delay, I would really recommend. That you look into staying at the Luxor. So the Luxor is connected to the Mandalay from the inside. So you don't have to go outside to get to the Mandalay. There's like a long pathway you can walk to get there.
[00:21:24] I actually had some friends who were staying in the Mandalay and said, oh, actually I think the walk to the convention center from the Luxor is actually shorter than the walk from the convention center to the to the Mandalay bay. And you might think that sounds crazy, but then you've never been to Vegas. And the way that the casinos are laid out and how you get from room to room, you know, you really have to kind of walk in a circle. So that might be why. So yeah, if you're looking to save money where you stay is might be a great place or a great way to save that.
[00:21:56] One more tip I want to give you about where you stay is staying in Vegas from Monday to Friday is so much cheaper than staying Friday night onward to Saturday and Sunday, obviously, because there are a lot of shows happening in Vegas. Most people want to stay during the weekend, but specifically when I went to visit this round and I stayed at the Lux or the difference of a Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night room. Was $50 for those nights versus a Friday night, Saturday night room that was at, I believe it was like $500 for the same room. So if you coming to this convention, you know, definitely try to stay within that Monday to Thursday night range and don't stay on the weekends.
[00:22:46] If you're looking to save money on the room. All right. Tip number five, check the calendar daily and set alarms on your phone to make sure you hit every event or speech that you want to go to. So there is a full calendar available on the website for Las Vegas licensing expo before you attend. And while you're there, it will be up. And one thing that I wish I did more of was set alarms for the events that I wanted to see. They had parades of characters. They had dance performances. Things that you can easily miss because you're running from meeting to meeting or you're grabbing a bite to eat.
[00:23:26] So the biggest advice I would give you is to use your phone calendar, use the power of that alarm, to set alarm an alarm on your phone for all of the events you want to see for the day. When you walk in to the event space for the day there will be people there handing out. Publications, which are summaries of the day before and previews of things to come. On the front page of this publication, you'll see an events box. It says all of the events that are going on for that day at the licensing show. So there were a couple of times when, I didn't know an event was happening, but I saw it because I went early enough to get that publication and see the event.
[00:24:06] And then I put it down in my phone to make sure I wouldn't miss it. Set alarms on your phone to make sure you hit every event that is valuable to you. It could be anything like this past licensing expo, there was a keynote from dream to reality, all about the power of licensing for location-based experiences. There was the license, this finale, the competition that Kesha Mellison O'Connell won. There was an exhibitor executive drinks, reception. There was a panel on sustainability and licensing. All of these events are listed on the site, but you're also able to grab these publications and see exactly what events are happening that day, just on the front page of the publication.
[00:24:45] And again, that publication is ready for you. When you first enter the event space at the start of every day, let's move on to tip number six business cards. Although they seem antiquated, business cards are still a thing. They are still something that people expect you to have expect you to give them when you meet with them and you share what you do. I do have a preference against physical business cards. I've gone to so many shows where I have so many stacks of business cards. And on one hand, sometimes it's hard to remember, you know, who all these different people were, why you wanted to stay in contact with them, why you wanted to grab their business card.
[00:25:28] Sometimes it's hard to remember all those details after a long show. At first, I want to give some tips on what I think best practices are with physical business cards. Then I want to talk about digital business cards and what I think best practices are for those. So let's talk about that. So first printed business cards if you have a printed business card, I highly, highly, highly recommend that you have some space on the back or the front of that business card for the person to write notes on it. Doesn't have to be specifically designed with lines. It should allow for a person to write notes, meaning you don't want a glossy material on the back of your business card.
[00:26:12] And also the back of your business cards, shouldn't be black or a dark color so that the person can write notes. The whole point is your business card, you know, should have all the information about your business and your, your product and why someone might want to work with you. But there might be something that someone remembers about you when they meet you, that they want to jot down on your business card. So when they go home and they're going through the dozens and dozens of business cards, they picked up, they remember why they grabbed yours. So always, always make it easy for your card to be written on. I find that really beneficial. Another tip for physical business cards, try not to get too creative in the sizing.
[00:26:54] The benefit of business cards is that they can slip right into your wallet. If a card I've noticed, if someone gives me a card that is too big for my wallet and ends up in my bag or in my pocket. And oftentimes it takes me a lot longer to find that card again, because it's not where I expect all the business cards to be in my wallet or pocket. So if I were to give any advice, I'm just saying, if you want to play around with the sizing of the business card, try to play around within the 2.5, 3.5 inch general size of the business card, making it smaller or just a different shape than is normal is fine, but you really want it to be able to fit into a standard wallet because that's what most people are going to do with that business.
[00:27:41] Now let's talk about my favorite and that is scannable business cards. Now first you might be wondering what is the scannable business card? A scannable or digital business card is a business card that has a QR code on it so that someone can scan that business card with their phone and pull up a website that showcases your contact information and preferably download your contact information from that website to go directly into their. Now I have a few hacks that I want to share with you today about the ways to make work arounds for scannable business cards. If you can't do it the professional way.
[00:28:19] So the professional scannable business card that I'm going to recommend to you is one called dot cards. So if you go to dot.cards, that's the URL. You can learn more about.cards essentially when you sign up for a.cards account and you purchase a dot card, what you get is a website and a QR code and a physical card. It is a black almost feels like a metal American express card, a black card with a QR code printed on it. And then the front of it says dot. And this card links to a website address that holds your contact information. You can update that website address to say whatever you want it to say.
[00:29:03] The beauty of this contact information website is that it has the ability for someone who scans it on their phone to hit the download button and download your contact information right into their. Beautiful love it. So what happens if you get a dot card and then you lose the card itself? That happened to me. So you get a dot card, you lose the card itself. One of the workarounds you can do is download your QR code. Cause you still have that QR code that goes with your dot card. You can download that QR code and create a regular business card print, as many as you'd like so that you can hand out these QR code business cards.
[00:29:42] I went to a show at the fashion Institute of technology and one student's business card was just her name. I think she was an ex experiential designer. And then the back of it was just her QR code. It was a beautiful design. Her QR code was actually a lime green color and it almost had a water color effect. So it didn't look like that traditional QR code and she made her entire business card, a square shape. So that is an incredible option. You can take that QR code, you can edit it and tweak it and design it a little bit and then print yourself out business cards that can be scanned and can be given away to help people remember you.
[00:30:22] But also have them scan it to find your website. I think that's the best of both worlds, where you have a physical card that might have your name, what you do, and even your email contact, but on the other side, having a QR code so they can scan get right to your website, see more of your work and then call or email you right from the site. In my opinion, that is the best. But what do you do if you are about to go to this licensing show, maybe you decided to go last minute or you're going to any trade show and you realize, oh my gosh, I do not have any business cards. If you don't know. Any physical business cards and you were about to attend a show or you're on an airplane to a show.
[00:31:06] Here's what you're going to do. You were going to get your hands on a QR code. Now, if you have purchased a dot card, then you actually can go on your own website and pull the QR code. that.cards provided for you. So you can use that QR code. If you don't have a doc. You can use a QR code generator, just Google them. There are a ton out there and you can create a QR code that goes directly to your website. Let's say if you have a product or a QR code that goes to a webpage that features your email information or your contact information, and maybe your website link, if you've ever heard of something called link tree.
[00:31:49] Or you've seen it on Instagram where you click on somebody's links and they have like five or six buttons that take you from their Instagram to a page that. And you click on the link on their Instagram, and then you're taken to a page with five or six different buttons that lead you to their contact information, their latest YouTube video. I have one, if you want to check out what I mean, I have something like that on my Instagram page, go to instagram.com/the toy coach, click on my link and you'll see what I mean.
[00:32:17] You can design any website to look like that, where it has a big buttons to showcase either your product, your work, your email, whatever, create one of those websites, and then use a QR code generator to generate a QR code, to take someone to that website. So now that you've got your QR code, what are you going to do with it? You're like Azhelle. Okay. I listened to you. I made a website. I have a QR code. I still don't have business cards and I don't see how this is helping me. Well, let's keep. Now that you have your QR code. I want you to use another program that I teach my students inside of Toy Creators Academy. And that program is Canva.
[00:32:56] Canvas is a really simple internet based graphic design software. So what you're going to do is create an Instagram story sized image on Canva, and you are going to take that QR code, plop it right in the middle, throw a background color on it, export that as a JPEG and send it to yourself. So you can open it up on your cell phone. Okay. Why are we doing this? You're going to take that JPEG and you're going to turn it into the wallpaper of your phone. Yes, I did this for the most recent licensing expo and it worked amazingly. These days, we all have our cell phones in our hands at all times.
[00:33:38] So what would happen is I would start talking to somebody they'd be interested in my product or my brand, and I'd say, oh, well, you know what, why don't I give you my contact information? I'd hold up my phone unlock my phone. And the wallpaper would be the first thing that would show up a big QR code that they would scan and then instantly be able to download my contact information. It was really efficient, really quick way to make sure that my information was getting into other people's phones. But I have a bonus tip for you. After the first couple of people I saw downloading my contact information and I noticed it was going into their phone.
[00:34:14] I thought, Hmm. I'm noticing that when my information goes into their phone. Yeah. My name starts with an a, but the second letters, the Z, I'm not the first person showing up in their contacts. How can I remedy this? So one of the things that I realized I could do is I could edit my contact information so that I put a star in front of my name. So whenever they would scan my name, download my contact information, that star emoji would make sure I showed up first. And if not first, for any reason, definitely my contact would stand out because there was a giant yellow star next to it in their phone.
[00:34:53] Now you can only do that kind of. Download option. If you use.cards, now there are other services like.cards, but.cards is the one that I use. So it's the one I'm going to recommend to you. And that's the only way that you're going to be able to allow somebody to download your contact information really easily. However, if you opted to create your own website where you're just going to have some, you know, buttons to go to your contact information or to your portfolio, you're not going to be able to have people download your information, but you can have them scan it to go right to your portfolio page. And that might work well for you too.
[00:35:31] But I highly, highly recommend a service like.cards, which is going to create a custom webpage for you that has a download button. So people on Android or apple devices can instantly download your contact. I think it is so much more value. Then just having a business card. If someone scans your information and they download your contact into their phone, they also give you their business card, which is likely a physical business card, because most people are still using those.
[00:36:03] When you contact that person, when you reach out to them, your name is going to come up as star, you know, Azhelle, the toy coach or whatever name you put into that contact file and how much more attractive is that for somebody that you're reaching out to, to do business dealing with that you're not coming through as a nameless number, but they already have you in their phone. So they're going to feel like, oh, this is somebody I already know. And thus much more comfortable answering or communicating back once you call or text. Okay, I'm going to get off my pedestal about business cards and move to tip number seven, which is have multiple elevator pitches.
[00:36:43] Okay. So you have got to have multiple elevator pitches ready for different people at these events, this licensing expo is probably one where this has become the most pertinent because there are press attending the show there's also licensed sores attending the show, and there's also licensees. So PR people want a really great story angle. Licensors want to hear impressive information about the demographics you're reaching, maybe other licenses that you have in what you've done for them. Licensees might want to hear about this poppin brand. You've gotten how many followers it has.
[00:37:24] Your pitch may be similar for all of these people where you will say I create these diverse puzzle sets that teach stem. But for PR people you might add in I'm a single mom who now created a multi-six figure company based off of these puzzles, because I wanted to create a diverse puzzle for my little girl, because she didn't have any puzzles that represented her. That might be your angle for PR people. Licensors source might want to hear you say, I am a single mom creating a diverse puzzles, and I have a licensed other properties to create my puzzle brands, such as Blue's clues doc McStuffins Karma's world.
[00:38:10] So they might want to hear that there are other brands that you are working with and showing them that product so they can get an idea of what you would do with their brand. Licensees might want to hear about how popular your brand is, what are the followers and likes, and they want to see what other people have been able to do, having your brand on their products, where they are able to get into bigger stores, target. Were they able to get in Barnes and noble? Nordstrom's, that's the kind of stuff you might want to add to your pitch. So when you're going to these events, I would like you to take your elevator pitch and really look at it and ask yourself if I say this pitch exactly as it is to a member of.
[00:38:49] When I am done, will they say, oh, that's interesting. Maybe we should write a story about that because if they won't, you've got to tweak some elements of it so that they will. And if you think about those licensed sores, are they going to say, huh, that's very interesting product line. Maybe we should also license our brand out to them. Will they say that? So there are really some small changes you want to make to your elevator pitch to make sure that you are highlighting the right achievements of your brand, depending on who you're talking to, the longer you do this, the more achievements you're going to have.
[00:39:24] So you're going to have to do the work of like digging through and planning, which achievements you want to talk about in your pitch, depending on who you're talking to. So get those multiple elevator pitches, ready, practice them, have them all on the tip of your tongue. So you can communicate effectively depending on who you're communicating. Tip number eight is another budget friendly tip, and it's all about saving on food and drink. How are you going to do that with lounges? Okay. So this is going to be partially a little departure from things I normally talk about on this podcast. But I'm going to touch on travel cards. There are so many benefits to certain travel credit cards.
[00:40:07] So if you are a business owner and you know, you're going to be traveling a lot to promote your product, your brand, or your services, you might consider investing in getting a travel card with benefits of lounges. And here's why the American express card and I believe there's another card that chase diamond preferred that has similar benefits, where you can go into lounges at the airport. You will save yourself so much money on food and drink, not just while you're at the airport, but throughout the day, because you won't be starving through your flight. And once you get to your destination, because you can eat at all of these lounges, it also makes multi trips where you have to have like stops in one city to get to another.
[00:41:01] It makes them a little less awful because you can pop into a lounge, grab yourself a bite, relax, and then hop back on the plane, and keep on going to your destination. Aside from travel lounges at the Las Vegas licensing expo. This year, women in toys had an incredible lounge available to their members. And if you don't know what that is, I want you to check out episode number 16, the toy coach.com forward slash 16, where I talk and teach all about the benefits of joining women in toys. But one major benefit for this show, especially if you're running your own small business is you can save on food and drink at this lounge.
[00:41:41] So women in toys had an incredible lounge where you could come in and not only get free giveaways, but also get food. They had breakfast, they had coffee and tea and they had lunch and they had desserts. So a great way to kind of mitigate the cost of travel and lunch and dinner to be a part of and take advantage of some of the benefits offered by different toy industry organizations. Now, women in toys is the organization that I was a part of during this event. There might be other organizations that offered similar food and drink opportunities that maybe I don't know about. But definitely check out women in toys. If you are going to be planning on going to the licensing expo next.
[00:42:25] The final tip I want to give you today is all about prep preparation. So I want you to give yourself a day to adjust to the time change and plan for your week when you get there. So I say this to say arrive as early as possible on the first day of the fair. And ideally you should not be. Anything that first day that you arrive, meaning you shouldn't have to be setting up. You shouldn't have to be doing any meetings. You really want that first day, or at very least the first six hours to settle in, figure out your game plan. Get used to the time change. If you can, if you can't afford. Give yourself that extra time, because if you're anything like me, you need time to rest and recharge before you can go out there and give it your all and give it all your energy.
[00:43:22] And you're going to need some time for yourself to get used to the new hours, to get a good night's rest before you dive into the show, because it's a lot of energy, it's a lot of learning and interacting and networking, and you want to make sure that you are at your freshest to get that all done because throughout the week you might think, oh, I didn't have time to rest Monday. I'll rest Tuesday, but no, no, no. My friend, it gets busier and busier. The longer you are there. So you want to get your arrest and you want to get in the right mindset at the beginning of the event. So that you'll be okay toward the end of the event.
[00:44:00] Well, there you have it toy people. Those are my nine tips for how to make the most out of your very first time going to the licensing show. Now, before I jump into my summary of today's episode, I've got to take a quick break and give a shout out to Keisha Mellison O'Connell. I know I've given you a shout out before on this podcast, but you just won the license you competition, and I am so proud. So I'm giving you a second shout out. I'm sure you've got agents knocking down your door now, and I can't wait to see the future of Catoms. Congratulations, Kesha. And it was a pleasure meeting you in person at the.
[00:44:38] Let's do a quick recap. Number one first tip was to plan meetings. Before you go. Second tip was to enter the licensing competition. The third tip was to wear comfortable shoes. Fourth tip state in the Luxor tower rooms. fifth tip, use your alarm on your calendar so you don't miss any events. Tip number six, business cards, go digital with them. Tip number seven. Think about multiple elevator pitches. Tip number eight. Save on food with lounges. Tip number nine, give yourself a day to adjust a time change and plan your week. So, what is your action item to do for next week? You might be wondering, I want you to set that alarm.
[00:45:24] I want you to set an alarm to apply for the license you competition next year. If you have a brand or a product that has not yet landed a licensing deal. So set that alarm in your phone right now, I'm going to guess around April 10th would be a great time to set that alarm for reminding yourself, to check out the licensing, your website, and apply. I wish you all of the best, and I wish you the best of luck. 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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