Episode #91: The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures Meet The Experts with The Toy Coach Azhelle Wade
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Have you been looking for an overview on all the possible career paths in the toy industry? Wondering what it takes to make it as an inventor or corporate toy person? Well during my chat with the National Museum of Toys and Miniatures I covered just that. And lucky for you, that incredibly valuable talk is now available right here on your favorite podcast.
The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures, located in Kansas City, Missouri, is home to the world’s largest collection of fine-scale miniatures and one of the largest collections of historic toys currently on public display.
This conversation, called Meet the experts, was the result of an invitation extended to The Toy Coach to teach what it’s like to have a career in the wonderful world of the toy industry. If you’re curious what it takes to Make It In the Toy Industry, then pop your earbuds in and listen.
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Visit The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures’ Website: www.toyandminiaturemuseum.org
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Azhelle Wade: You were listening to making it in the toy industry episode number 91.
[00:00:04] 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 thetoycoach.com. For today's episode, I'm going to share with you a talk that I recently did for the national museum of toys and miniatures. At the end of my talk the host Laura said, and I quote, I cannot even imagine what The Toy Creators Academy is like Azhelle. If you've given us this much information in 45 minutes.
[00:00:54] Today's episode is a great one toy people. I just knew when I got that review after my talk that I had to bring it on this show. Now the national museum of toys and miniatures located in Kansas city, Missouri, is home to the world's largest collection of fine scale miniatures, and one of the largest collections of historic toys currently on public display. If you are a toy coach podcast insiders club member, well, I want you to head over to your members area and listen to the extended version of today's episode.
[00:01:32] Why? Because it includes a 10 minute long Q&A portion at the end where I answer questions like, what's the best and worst parts about working at a toy company? And what advice would I give my past self and so much more now? That Q&A portion starts at about 38 minutes in. And if you aren't a toy coach podcast insiders club member. Well, you can head over to club.thetoycoach.com and join today. Okay, well that is all for my intro. Let's dive in to today's episode.
[00:02:07] Laura Taylor: Hello, everyone. I'm so glad you joined us today. My name is Laura Taylor, and I'm the curator of interpretation here at the national museum of toys and miniatures. I just wanted to remind you that if you would like to ask a question, there's a Q&A function down below, and you can type your question into that and we will try to get to it during the program.
[00:02:31] I'm very excited today because we had people from 15. One from Canada and one from the UK that sign up today. So we have a national and international group today. And it's my pleasure to introduce Azhelle Wade who is the toy coach. And Azhelle has been a designer for over a decade. She has worked for major companies.
[00:02:55] She had hold several patents and I came to know her through her podcast, the toy coach, which is just amazing. And as you know, we study the history of toys, how they're manufactured. The economics of them, how they're designed as well as their cultural and social impact. So it's really exciting today to hear from Azhelle and hear about her experience in the contemporary world of toys. So I'll hand it over to you Azhelle.
[00:03:24] Azhelle Wade: Thanks so much Laura. Hello everybody, thank you so much for being here. This is so strange because I feel a little bit alone, but I know there are lots of people here supporting me. So thank you. Thank you for being here. Let me just make sure I am pinned so that I can share my screen and you guys will see it.
[00:03:41] Okay. So let's dive right in. So my name is Azhelle Wade, AKA the toy coach. I started in the toy industry as everyone. We've all been saying over a decade ago. I love this industry, but now I'm known as the toy coach in this industry. So I'm New York based. I'm a salsa and bachata dancer. I lived in New York city. I've worked for toy companies over my career, like Toys R Us, Party City, Mme. Alexander. These are some fun images of kind of my toy career, my life a little bit at the top left over here. You'll see, this is a picture of me actually setting up for a buyer presentation while working at a toy company.
[00:04:22] This is how simple it can be, where you're just in a conference room with like mock-ups of your products. And you're meeting with buyers at retailers to show them your product, tell them how much it costs and what it will look like. This is a photo of me and my boyfriend who also works in the toy industry.
[00:04:37] We're a toy couple. Where does that a toy industry event? And these are some of the very important photo ops and work we get to do while we're at these events. This is a photo of me traveling to Kenya. I actually visited my best friend. But can't see my best friend in this photo, but she lived in Kenya for a little bit. So I went in Nairobi. I went to visit her for a bit and as I said, I'm a salsa and bachata dancer. This is the proof for real I perform and do that stuff for fun.
[00:05:00] Now I am a three times patented inventor, my very first patented invention. This was done while I was working at a toy company. It's called zip screens. So when I, I remember when we first was coming up with this idea and I say, we, because I worked on this project with my boss at the time and we actually spent weeks coming up with something completely different. So we were charged with going after the screen printing market back in like 2011, I believe.
[00:05:28] And we were supposed to go up against like the top competitors, like tulip, like what can we make that would be better than them? And we spent weeks developing what was essentially a branding campaign and a marketing campaign. And our leadership said, no, this is not good enough. We need something that's like stronger than just a marketing campaign.
[00:05:48] So after spending weeks developing and illustrating and making a whole presentation boards and having it all fall flat, we sat down for literally 10 minutes and came up with this. And this was this like blew everybody's mind. What we created was a tearaway screen printing packet that you would use one time and then, and then get rid of it.
[00:06:08] And it simplified the screen printing process because, it's like, it's not real screen printing, right? It's craft screen printing, but it would simplify the process. So instead of needing a bottle of paint and a giant squeegee and a frame to hold your screen in place, we use the sticky back frame. We put the paint inside of a packet that you see illustrated here and then made that packet tear away so that you could squeeze the paint out of the packet and use the squeegee that was on the back of the packet to spread it.
[00:06:34] And it was just a simple piece of styrene, super simple item. That was patented and it was huge and it actually turned into zip screens. So at my first position, in the toy industry, my job was to come up with innovation, but I didn't do branding. I didn't do logo design. I didn't do this logo design. I just came up with innovations and then the, the branding and packaging team would take that over and they would come up with what it would end up being in stores and this product was in Walmart.
[00:07:00] So here's my history in the corporate toy world. We got pictures laid out like timelines here. I moved up from toy intern to vice-president in less than 10 years. Crazy. I know I worked at, you'll see here left picture. This is me working at Toys R Us at a photo shoot. One of my favorite things to do in the toy industry. This is me finally going to a toy store and seeing one of my products there. That was a cool moment. This is me at a factory in China, and this is me meeting Blippy and I just included that one cause it's flippy. And that gives me street cred. I successfully moved through the toy industry in four different specialties.
[00:07:33] So I was like a toy designer. I was a brand manager, which is a different specialty in the industry. I did product and now I'm an, a consultant. Here's like a little insight of toy trade shows is a little background photo. It was extensive work working on toy trade shows. They look like a lot of fun because they're so well-designed, but you never think about like what it takes to get there.
[00:07:54] I remember you see my team here. From the last company I worked with, they're setting up a display. And I remember arriving when we arrived at the display and seeing how empty everything was and then having the picture of what I had rendered and what I was going to display was kind of just really It was a little debilitating because you're like, okay, so my team of three people needs to make this giant facade happen.
[00:08:20] And actually in the picture of me with Blippy, that's what we were actually building this facade back here. So yeah, this is just a little peak. I developed hundreds of products in my toy career and at two-way trade shows, you get a chance to display them all. So becoming the toy coach, people always wonder, like, how did you become the toy coach?
[00:08:38] How did you do this whole thing? Has you get into this? First what happened is I just had a podcast. I had this podcast where I explained the way that I think about the toy industry. I explained how I look at toys and products and it resonated with people. It led me to getting some pretty cool media coverage.
[00:08:54] First thing I got huge was M and BC's access daily. I got to be a toy expert a couple of times and go on there and talk about toys. I actually was visiting my boyfriend's family yesterday and his dad was like, why aren't you on TV anymore? And I'm like, I don't know, man. I'm trying to get back on.
[00:09:11] Honestly, I'm going to be real with you. It is so much stress and pressure that if there's not a slot for me for a while it's okay. I can wait my turn cause the stress and pressure of it all is crazy. And, and then here you'll see me chatting with Marie Forleo. I got an incredible opportunity to get interviewed by her.
[00:09:29] And the coolest thing that I'm most proud of is my course, I have a course called toy creators academy. I've had over 50 students take this course and I arranged a virtual speed pitch event for my students. And the last event that we had in May. We had Hasbro attended. We had What Do You Meme attended, we had Zuru PSI.
[00:09:48] We had a head metallic tend to teach a lesson, not to review pitches, but still they attended. It was fantastic. So yeah, so the toy creditors academy course itself, and then the virtual pitch event, it's something that I'm really proud of because it's helping newbie toy creators break into the industry and make connections that they couldn't have made on their own, or it would have taken them years to make on their own.
[00:10:07] So now you might be thinking like, wow, this is cool. How do I get in the toy industry? Is there even any opportunity in the toy industry? Well, yes, I will say yes, there is my friend. There is a ton. Look at it. It's just growing opportunity. This little girl is illustrating that for you. There the U S toy industry is, is really not showing signs of slowing down.
[00:10:31] It used to be an industry that grew. It grew just like 1% year over year, then COVID hit and nobody could go outside and they all stayed at home and they were all bored out of their minds. And we started having double digit. It's crazy. So sales increased in the first four months of 2021. And I want to quote I want to source that from NPD data. And NPD data is a website that the toy industry uses often to just get a hold on bed at data and analytics in the retail space and the sales space.
[00:11:05] So that's where this data is from. If you want to check out NPD data and there was a 1.5 billion increase over January and April period last year in the toy industry alone. So yes, there is opportunity. There's more opportunity than ever. I was actually working with some students to help them get jobs in the toy industry.
[00:11:23] And while I was doing that, it was Reese. I now have a lot of alerts on my phone for toy jobs, and there are so many more opportunities for toy jobs right now than there were when I started. I mean, just big companies, small companies like there's a wealth of opportunity right now. It's an incredible time to start professionally or as an inventor in this industry.
[00:11:47] Okay. So now there are three paths. If you're thinking I want to break into the world of toys, the first thing you've got to know, is that there are three paths that you can take in the toy industry. You could either, one, work full time at a toy company. Two, you could create and sell your toy product or three, you can pitch and sell your own toy ideas. And let's dive into what the differences between all of those three things. All right. So first let's focus on what would happen if you worked full time at a toy company.
[00:12:17] So, if you want to work, full-time at a toy company, this is going to be what you need to do to make that happen. First you're going to have to start with some research. You're going to have to get to know the toy industry and know that there's more than just the big four toy companies out there that you can work for.
[00:12:34] Once you get to know the toy industry and you get to know what opportunities are out there. You also want to get to know the organizations and the companies and the consultants that are all available to help you build a toy career. I mean, there's programs that I have, but there's also recruiters out there that are specific for the toy industry.
[00:12:55] They're specifically recruiting for this industry. And those are the people that you would look to to help you get a toy job. You then after you've done all your research and you've gathered all your information and hopefully you prepared all of your resume and your portfolio, then you're going to network.
[00:13:11] The toy industry is notoriously closed off. That's why I do the work that I do. But the way to get through that is to get to know the people in the industry. This is not really the best industry to just kind of like trying to just cold get in with by applying. I mean the job market is very hot right now, so it's like probably the best time, if any, to just cold apply.
[00:13:32] But if you really want to increase your chances of getting a job, You want to start building a name for yourself in the industry. And it's not as hard as you might think because the industry is so small. While the industry is growing a lot and yes, in a sense, like there's thousands of toy companies.
[00:13:47] So there's hundreds of thousands of people working at these companies or influenced by these companies. There are pockets in the industry. Like there are pockets that you can get known in. So there are certain organizations I'm going to name some organizations now. There's like the women and toys organization, even the toy coach and toy creators academy is starting to become its own organization.
[00:14:07] There's the toy industry association and you can network and become a part of all of these individual groups and start to be known within those groups. Now, within all of those little organizations within women and toys, especially within the toy industry association, there are like committees and in these committees, there are people who work for all different kinds of toy companies from Viacom, which owns Nickelodeon to people that work for Mattel.
[00:14:35] Two people that work for toy companies that you might not know the name of like creative kids when I used to work for. And all of those people are coming together to do something like it depends on the committee. They might be coming together to grow membership for a certain organization, or they might be coming together to put on a special event for a certain organization.
[00:14:55] If you want to get a job in the toy industry, your first focus should be getting involved with those committees. You get involved with those committees and you get to know those people. I started actually getting more involved in committees since the pandemic, because it's so much easier.
[00:15:09] Like I don't have to block two hours in my time to be involved in a committee. Cause there's no more travel time involved anymore. Now we can log in. I always look great. Cause I got my filters on and my background. So like, it's really easy to connect with people right now. So you want me to take advantage of this time where people are still mostly like they're spending more time than usual at home and we're meeting virtually more often than usual.
[00:15:34] So you want to take that time and get on committees. You want to get to know people in the industry, they will get to know your name, but the thing is, once you start to do that, you've got to make sure that you show up consistently. If you say you're going to do something, do it, you know, and if you can't do it own up to it. Because the industry is so small and people will remember your name and they will tell other people about you.
[00:15:56] So you just want to make sure you're showing up as your best self all the time. And the best way to do that is just to be honest, like if something happens and you can't do something, you said you would, don't like hide, just talk about it. Like, say like, listen, I've had, maybe it's a COVID issue. Maybe it's, you're moving, maybe whatever.
[00:16:12] Like these are people, everyone's people and you just have to come to them at a human level. Okay. Now, after you've done your networking and you built up your network a little bit, then you're going to go ahead and you're going to apply for those toy jobs. You're going to look at toy job postings that are already out there to see what should be in your resume, obviously.
[00:16:31] And you're going to pull information from those postings and you're going to rework them. So they fit things you've actually done. And that's, what's going to be in your resume and because you've been networking. Likely what is going to happen and, and networking is, is essentially giving when you don't need anything.
[00:16:47] So, because you've been giving and you didn't need anything for a long time, people might start offering you things. One of the committees I was at I logged on one day and as soon as I logged on the person on the other end said, oh my gosh, Azhelle, do you know anybody? That wants to work at Viacom, Nickelodeon doing, I think it was like a licensing role.
[00:17:07] And I was like, yeah, actually I do. I do know somebody, I know a couple of people and I had to do nothing for that opportunity and it wasn't an opportunity that I wanted, but because of our communications, this other person on the committee knew that I might have the contacts that would be interested in something like that.
[00:17:24] So that's that networking is really just forming friendships. You've got a form these professional friendships that will serve you when you least expect it. The best time to network is when you don't need anything. Okay. Let's move on. I feel like I'm preaching too much. So I'm going to give you guys three secrets to landing a toy job. There are many secrets, obviously, but these are three that I like to teach the most and I pulled them out because I think that people overlook them.
[00:17:50] Secret number one, you don't need a toy design degree. There are actually only two programs, two college programs in the us that are focused on the toy industry, but there are over 500,000 jobs supported by the toy industry.
[00:18:05] So where all those other people coming from, where are people getting trained? Those two toy focused programs aren't turning out that many people. So where all those other people getting their toy experience while they're getting their toy experience from retail. Why they're getting their toy experience from retail is because retail is where you sell the toys.
[00:18:24] So people always think about the toy industry is like, oh, if I want to work in the toy industry, I just have to be a toy designer. Like that's the job. No, no, no, no, no. My friend, there are so many different roles to have in the toy industry. You could just do, be a packaging designer. You could just be a copywriter who writes instructions.
[00:18:42] You could be a social media manager these days. I mean, there, there are so many different options, so you don't have to just be a toy designer. So the reason that people are coming from retail is because one of the other major sides and roles of the toy industry are buyers. Buyers are the people who work at retail stores who decide what is going to go on the shelf.
[00:19:03] They look at products that companies small and large make, and they say they decide based on the price of that product based on the style of the product, if it fits their store. Based on the features of the product and the popularity of the brand. They say whether or not that product would be a good fit for their store.
[00:19:21] And they say, they'll let them know if they want to order a few, or if they want to order none So what happens is people from a toy companies actually love hiring people that have retail experience, especially if they have retail buyer experience or associate buyer experience, because those people can come in and tell the toy companies, the secrets of what makes the retailer want to buy products.
[00:19:45] So if you're thinking I don't have a toy design degree, I really keep trying to apply to a toy jobs I am getting stuck. I'm going to recommend that maybe you look at retail, how can you go the retail route, start at a retail store that you love that sells toys obviously and start, and growth and move up the ranks.
[00:20:03] So you get to at least like associate buyer level. So you're going to want to go on like the sales buyer side of the business, or I guess that wouldn't be sales, more acquisition side of the business. And see if you can get that role. And once you get that role, you can transition into the toy industry. So there are some job overlaps, and I just want you to look and pay attention to the roles and responsibilities of those jobs. Oh, one more thing I want to point out is when I worked at toys, R us toys R us was both a retailer and a toy manufacturer. So that is a great example of a toy store that you could transition to from being a retailer somewhere else.
[00:20:40] You could be a retailer at Sam's club, and then you could transition to being a retailer at a toy store that also is a retailer that brings in other toy products, right. Or somewhere like target somewhere like target, they make their own custom branded target toys, but they also are retailers that bring in other toy products. So you can start somewhere like Sam's club somewhere like CVS. And where did they sell toys?
[00:21:05] Yes. CVS has huge business for toys. Yes. And you can get a role that's similar enough to help you shift into the toy. Okay. I've spent way too long on this slide. Let's keep going. So I want to introduce you to Liliana. Liliana is a listener of my podcast who learned a lot of tips and tricks from me and now is a senior product development engineer at Spin Master. Before this Liliana had never worked in the toy industry, but she pushed forward and kept looking for jobs for two years. I know it's a long time, but now she has her dream job at Spin Master. She told me she just absolutely loves coming to work.
[00:21:39] She never imagined that she could be doing something like this. And she actually went to senior level where she just, she went to a huge toy company, spin master. They do Paw Patrol, if you don't know. And she didn't just come in at entry-level because of her experience, she got to be senior level and actually manage others and manage projects.
[00:21:57] Now the second secret is you don't actually need to start at the biggest toy companies. If you learn one thing today, I want you to walk away with this knowledge. You do not need to start at the biggest toy companies. I know when I first went to school, this thought came to me and I don't remember where it came from, but I remember everybody was gunning for these major toy companies.
[00:22:16] Everybody wanted to work for Disney and Nickelodeon, and that's what they were. They wanted to go right out of school. And what I saw was if I went to those major toy companies too soon, I would be capping my salary. And it's kinda true. It's a lot harder to move up at a company than it is to go to another company and then move over to a higher position at your dream company. So I say this to say, I don't want you, I'm not saying like, if you have the skills to go to Disney right out of school, don't go to Disney. No, like if you have the skills to go to Disney, go to Disney, you might, at some point decide, let me leave for a year. Let me come back and get higher and get more salary.
[00:22:54] Maybe you decide to do that. But what I'm, this is really a message for me. Well that don't get that opportunity from Disney or from Nickelodeon or from Mattel or from Hasbro when they apply to their dream to a job and they don't get it, I just don't want you to give up. There is another path. There is a path of going to small toy companies, startup toy companies, starting, even with retailers, building a path like success is not a straight line.
[00:23:20] You can build as a path that zigzags. I still get to the top of the pyramid. Like you can still get there. I dunno. I have to say like my entire career, I focused on small toy companies and what I loved about them is they allowed me to wear so many different hats. And when I got to Toys R Us, I loved how, I mean, like the systems and the processes that they had was just, Oh amazing! And how impressive, just having that name on your resume is, is fantastic. But I was used to doing so, so many other things and not a larger company. Your focus is a lot more narrow and they expect higher results for your specific focus, but you're not supposed to do all the extra hat wearing that you do at smaller companies, but that makes you an even better candidate for these larger companies when you get there. And additionally now in my career, now I'm getting to work with companies like Hasbro, even though I didn't work for those companies. Now I'm getting to work with them to bring them connections to my students. So I just wanted to be clear that there are multiple paths here, you know, there's no one way to succeed.
[00:24:25] Now, number three, secret number three for toy jobs. Your toy vibe speaks volumes. This hiring managers are looking for your toy vibe. When you apply, they're looking at your resume to see like, you know, we're a girly brand. Let's say we want to know if this application has the girly aesthetic that we have, or maybe you're like we were in a gender neutral brand.
[00:24:46] We want to make sure that this application, this applicant can fit in with our vibe here. Now, this is mostly for obviously people submitting portfolios, but you want to make sure your portfolio matches the aesthetic of the company or applying to. And if it doesn't, I know you don't want to hear this, but you're going to have to work on making some extra projects to make your portfolio fit to their aesthetic. And I mean, believe me, I know like sometimes you just don't want to do this extra work, but if you don't have a direct contact at a company, you have to show up as the best possible candidate. And the only way to make sure that you're doing that is to make sure you match them at every level.
[00:25:24] Now I'm not saying a hundred percent of your portfolio. Let's say if you're applying to like Barbie, that a hundred percent of your portfolio has to be pink and fashion, but. I would say like 70% and then the percentage that isn't, needs to compliment. It needs to feed the idea that you're going to bring some, you're going to bring like maybe an edgy side to Barbie.
[00:25:45] It can't be completely out of left field. It can't be like star wars action figures, but it could be like an edgy fashion line that you did on your, on your free time. Or maybe you did in an earlier career path. So toy vibes speaks volumes. Okay. So that was path number one. Now let's take a look at path number two.
[00:26:04] Path number two, you could take is to create and sell your toy product. Now, if you wanna create and sell your toy product, essentially you're starting a toy company and that is going to include having you research the market to find white space and opportunity for new toy company or new toy product, it's going to involve production of your toy product, you know, safety testing and all of those things.
[00:26:27] And then it's going to involve you becoming a marketer and selling that product. So I want to dive a little bit into how to develop a toy. So how do you develop a toy? The very first thing I mentioned in the last slide was research. So strategic market research is paramount to developing a toy.
[00:26:43] You want to get out there and see what the industry is already doing so that you can make sure you're not making something that already exists or something that nobody needs or something that may be did exist, but like they got rid of it because it wasn't selling. So you want to make sure you're doing strategic market research and there are tools that will even allow you to see a sales history online of products on Amazon.
[00:27:04] So you can not only see what is selling now, but you can see what was selling in the past and how it was selling. Now in this picture, what I'm kind of showing here are images from a trend research trips. So a big part of strategic market research. When I perform it is that I liked to perform trend research trips, where I go to toy stores and non toy stores and take images to inspire, whatever project it is that I'm working on. So in these images, you can see pictures from La Borinqueña, when I went to a museum exhibition that inspired a project for me. Earlier I was telling you guys about rapid, where that picture of me with Blippy. Well, this package that I saw right here from Macy's actually was a package that inspired the packaging for, and the entire display for that line.
[00:27:50] So you can find inspiration for the toy industry from anywhere I love, love, love, and is a huge tip. Write this down. Love looking at the cosmetics industry for inspiration in the toy industry for packaging. Packaging inspiration from the cosmetics industry is where it's at. Now, after you've done your research, you've got to do concept development.
[00:28:10] So how do you do concept development? I like to teach my students toy math. This is a simple example of toy math. You can brainstorm easily with toy math by taking an existing play pattern or an existing toy, combining it with a trend or some good content or a sense you have and then see what toys ideas comes out of it.
[00:28:29] So a couple of examples and existing play pattern or toy could be monopoly. You could combine that with the nailed it TV show, which was popular and you might get a great toy idea, a board game where the goal is to complete a cake empire. Now you can actually find toy math in the toy industry when you kind of look at it.
[00:28:49] What Do You Meme is a card game that seems to be inspired by cards against humanity. And memes, they kind of combine those two play patterns and came out with, What Do You Meme? It was the top toy of what was it? 2018 and 19. They rocked the price of the retail price point of this category and size of game product. Like they charge more than anyone ever thought that you could charge for this kind of product and it's sold, it's sold like crazy. So yeah, I would say toy math is a great way. If you're stuck to come up with new ideas.
[00:29:23] Step three, if you're developing your own toy product would be designed development. I brought some fun images, cause I thought it would be a lot of fun for you guys to see. Whenever I come up with a product idea, first thing I do is sketch it, but after I sketch it, I like to create what's called the breadboard mock-up so these are pictures of breadboard mock-ups.
[00:29:41] Breadboard mock-ups can be native, like foam, cork, cardboard, whatever you have. At home on hand with you, that is a breadboard mock-up. The purpose of the breadboard mock-up is really just sizing. But if you can also get it to function while it's a breadboard, mock-up even better, you're going to save yourself time and money, and it's going to be a lot easier for your factory to understand, or your designer to understand what your product is.
[00:30:04] If you already have a crude mock up of it, even if it's at a paper or cardboard or foam or cork. After you have that breadboard mock-up or that prototype or the word prototype here, but similar, similar term, you will go onto renderings. That's where you get your 3d renderings. If you can do a rendering, you don't have to do everything.
[00:30:23] There are tons of people you can hire to do a 3d rendering for you. And once you have your 3d renders That plus your breadboard mock-up or your prototype is what you're going to send to your factory to help you build out your first samples. And this is a fun picture. I'm giving you a whole process here of actually how this product came to be and evolve to be what you see in this box here.
[00:30:45] Now let's move on. Step four to developing your own product is actually finding a factory and manufacturing your product in China. Right? So you could do some manufacturing in the U S especially if you have like paper-based products, like card games, us or Canada. It's great for quick turnaround and validation of your ideas.
[00:31:06] You could do it with prototyping or some times you can do some manufacturing again, if it's paper based and like Canada. But China is really where it's at for the toy industry for mass manufacturing, the cost of labor is going up, but it is still cheap enough that we can add a margin to our products so that we can make a profit off of our products when selling them at retail.
[00:31:26] So that was how you create and sell your toy product. Now we're going to move on to pitch and sell your own two ideas. I didn't cover everything and create and sell your own toy product because pitching and selling your own toy ideas. Pitching and selling your product have a lot of overlap. So we're going to go over the rest was left over from that overlap in this section next.
[00:31:48] So now let's talk about, if you want to take the path where you're going to pitch and you're going to sell your own ideas. So that would mean you're going to be a toy inventor. So toy inventors, they do their research, just like everybody else. They do their prototype. I told you there was a lot of overlap which we just went over, all that prototyping and manufacturing.
[00:32:06] Then they do their pitch. And that pitch is what we're going to dive into a little bit more. How do you sell a toy product idea? You sell it with a pitch. So a toy inventor is somebody who sells an idea. Whereas the toy entrepreneur, which we were looking at earlier is someone who sells a product, right?
[00:32:24] So this is an example. One of the ways you can sell your toy product or idea is you can attend pitch events. There are many pitch events in the industry. There's mojo nation page event. There is the shy tag event there, which is now people play women and toys has an empowerment day event.
[00:32:43] I have a virtual toy pitch event. There are many different events you can pitch and sell your toy ideas at. So what you've got to prepare to pitch your product is you need to have a sizzle video. You need a PowerPoint of your idea. Ideally you, you need in order to have a sizzle video, you're going to need a working sample of your idea and you need a toy company contact list. So let's talk about what all those things are. So your sizzle video is essentially like a 30 second commercial that tells what your toy invention is.
[00:33:14] Right. And in order to create that sizzle video, you need a prototype that works of your toy invention which you'll hear a buzzword in the industry where it's called proof of concept. I love to have a PowerPoint as a backup. Sometimes when you show us a video, sometimes people don't like, it's either not enough or people don't say enough or it gets quiet.
[00:33:34] So that's where I like to throw in the PowerPoint. That's where I like to be ready with the PowerPoints. We can have something on screen. It just kind of stays there and that I have control over on like a video. So that's why I teach my students to develop a PowerPoint as well. And then the most important thing you're going to need it's toy company contact list. So. Learn to build your own toy company contact list. Some pitch events just provide you with toy company context lists. Some of them don't give you contact list, but they'll give you meetings with toy companies so that you just meet with them and I would assume you exchange information when you meet. Now down here, you'll see, it says marketing.
[00:34:08] This piece comes from that other path we were looking at. Path number two, where you're selling your product, where you're being an entrepreneur, right? So if you're an entrepreneur, you're not going to be pitching to toy companies. Instead, you're going to be pitching to retailers and to consumers. So in that case, if you're pitching to retailers, that means you're trying to get your product into a store like target.
[00:34:29] You're still going to need your PowerPoint. But if you're pitching to consumers, then you're going to be building your brand. You're going to be doing paid ads on like Google and Facebook, or if you're pitching to retailers, you'll be going to trade shows so that they can see your product because retailers like buyers at target walk, trade shows.
[00:34:46] And so then you're either selling your product at these trade shows or selling it online wholesale or selling an online to consumers. And that is step five up here selling your ideas, your products and services. So you see there was a lot of overlap there. So let's overview, all the things we just covered.
[00:35:04] So there are three, three different paths into the toy industry and you might've noticed them overlap. Full-time toy jobs has you going through researching networking and applying to toy jobs. That one is probably the most different from the other two. And then we have selling a product when you're selling a product, you're doing your research, but then you're focusing on production and then you're focusing on selling.
[00:35:27] And when you're selling an idea, you're doing your research and you're focusing on prototyping, and then you're focusing on pitching. And pitching is essentially selling too. But just, it's a little, there's less marketing involved in pitching When you're selling your idea to a toy company, instead of selling your product to a consumer.
[00:35:47] So I would love to take a quick poll and we're going to do this by just type it in the chat. And I'm going to shout you out, which of those paths that I went over are you most drawn to? Vote now! Are you most drawn to creating and selling your own product to consumers or to retailers to put in their store?
[00:36:04] Are you most drawn to having a full-time job in the toy industry? Or are you most drawn to selling a toy idea? Throw it in the chat. Let me know. Ryan says selling a toy idea. Emma says full-time toy job. Okay, I love that we have differences already.
[00:36:21] Laura says entrepreneur or inventor, Solar wants to either sell an idea or sell a product. That's most people get. If they want to do one, usually one of 'em selling an idea, usually they're like, I also would just sell the product. Heather says full-time toy job or entrepreneur. So what should you do next to jumpstart your toy career? Well you were in luck my friend. It all depends on the path you choose, but I've got plenty of resources to help you along the way.
[00:36:49] So if you want a full-time toy job, I want you to head over and listen to my podcast. So I have a podcast called making it in the toy industry. There are two episodes I pulled out specifically for you to listen to, if you're interested in a full-time toy job. So that's going to be episode number 62, which is going to teach you all about what buyers want. And it's important to know what buyers want. So you can develop products that they'll like when you pitch them to them. When you're working for a toy company and then episode number 78 is all about being a toy designer. I tell you exactly what it was like for me coming up and how I became a toy designer.
[00:37:25] If you want to listen to those episodes, all you have to do is go to thetoycoach.com/62 or thetoycoach.com/78. To see any of my podcasts episodes, it's always thetoycoach.com/ and the number of the episode. So as we go through the rest, just know that it's thetoycoach.com/ number of the episode. Super simple.
[00:37:46] Now, if you wanted to sell a product. Episode number one is going to be the absolute greatest episode for you to come up with new ideas. And along with that episode, number one, I want you to download this free toy idea starter guide it's free.thetoycoach.com/toyideastarter guide. That starter guide is going to teach you how to look at the toy aisle. Like a professional toy person had to come up with ideas.
[00:38:11] You can also listen to episode number four. This is one of people's favorites. This is all about manufacturing, your toy ideas and how to start doing manufacturer research with a site called Alibaba. So to listen to all of those episodes go to thetoycoach.com/1 or thetoycoach.com/4. If you want to sell an idea then you can listen to episode number 88. Fantastic episode about what it's like to pitch and sell your toy ideas, thetoycoach.com/88. And that's all I got for you. We can give you all the links depending on what you want to do. And that's it. Thank you.
[00:38:48] Laura Taylor: All right. Thank you so much. I cannot even imagine what the toy creator's academy is like, if you've given us this much information in 45 minutes, I mean, I feel like I have learned so much from you. I'm ready to leave the museum and plunge into that street.
[00:39:10] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. Toy Creators Academy is a lot.
[00:39:12] Laura Taylor: All right. Well, we are almost at our time and I want to thank Azhelle so much for sharing her knowledge with us today. I hope once things sort of settled down with the pandemic, she'll be able to come visit us in Kansas city.
[00:39:26] Azhelle Wade: Yes!
[00:39:26] Laura Taylor: To see the collection. We'd love for you to come.
[00:39:30] Azhelle Wade: Yeah, me too.
[00:39:31] Laura Taylor: All right. Well, thank you so much. And thanks to Kelly and Jason on the backend for keeping us going. And this recording will be up on YouTube. So if you know somebody that you want to share this with, and you think that they would be a good candidate for the toy industry this would be a great entry point. Thank you again Azhelle. This has been wonderful.
[00:39:52] Azhelle Wade: Thank you so much. This has been a lot of fun.
[00:39:54] Well toy people. I hope you love today's episode. I would like to encourage you to check out the national museum of toys and miniatures. That's your homework for this week. Head over to toyandminiaturemuseum.org, or if you can't get it all right, when you type it in, just head over to thetoycoach.com/91 and I will give you a direct link in the show notes.
[00:40:20] As always, thank you so much for being here today. I know 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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🎓Learn more about how you can develop and pitch your toy idea with Toy Creators Academy® by clicking here to visit toycreatorsacademy.com and join the waitlist.