Episode #138: Why You Need A Clear Brand Mission For Your Kids’ Brand
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Which comes first? Your product or your mission? In today’s episode you will learn the benefits of creating your business’s mission before your toy or toy brand. Now, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t develop your toy or game if you haven’t defined your mission. However, defining the purpose of your business will guide you on the creative journey, and doing so can give you a powerful reason to invest so much time and money into your toy ideas.
Today we have two podcast guests—Janene Russell and Ms. Monica Sutton, also known as Miss Monica. Janene is the key lead in preschool brands and preschool brand manager at Educational Insights. Monica is an early childhood educator and child behavior specialist with a hit YouTube channel with over 500,000 subscribers focused on early childhood education. Miss Monica and Educational Insights have partnered up to deliver educational content to preschoolers using Educational Insights products online.
In today’s episode you will learn some valuable lessons about how to develop your mission and how to stay aligned with it over time. You’ll learn the power of saying no, how sticking to your mission can lead to more opportunities, and how things that didn’t go so well can actually help to define and guide your mission. You’ll also learn why it is so important for kids to have tactile learning tools, and why screens will never fully take over in education.
EPISODE CLIFF NOTES
Learn tips to track conversions from viral social media posts. [00:05:05]
Find out how Ms. Monica and Educational Insights discovered their missions were aligned and started working together. [00:05:40]
Learn what ages early childhood refers to. [00:09:05]
Find out why tactile toys are so important for kids. [00:09:31]
Learn how both Ms. Monica’s and Educational Insights' missions evolved over time. [00:11:15]
Find out why having a mission is useful when you’re feeling creative block. [00:13:03]
Learn how saying no to things that don’t align with your mission can help your business. [00:17:26]
Find out a Thomas Edison quote that offers a helpful and positive reframe for failure. [00:19:58]
Learn how both Ms. Monica and Educational Insights had to shift their businesses during the pandemic. [00:22:18]
Learn the value of slowing down to speed up. [00:28:34]
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This episode is brought to you by www.thetoycoach.com
Visit Ms Monica’s website by clicking here.
Follow Ms Monica on Instagram here.
Follow Ms Monica on TikTok here.
Follow Ms Monica on YouTube here.
Visit Educational Insights’ website by clicking here.
Follow Educational Insights on Instagram here.
Follow Educational Insights on TikTok here.
Listen to the Episode #11 by clicking here.
Listen to the Episode #53 by clicking here.
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[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to making it in the toy industry episode number 138.
[00:00:06] Janene Russell: My favorite quote is from Thomas Edison, he says, I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. We celebrate the things that have been discontinued, but we also dig deep. Why were they discontinued? Was it because like it was too confusing? Did we overcomplicate something that parents and kids just don't understand? And from there we've developed every single year, new river banks of how our new product ideation lineup is going to look like because of those failures.
[00:00:46] Azhelle Wade: Hey, there toy people, Azhelle Wade here. 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. Today, we've got a fun topic, we are gonna talk about why establishing your mission should come before developing your product or brand to help us do that. We have two guests with us today, Monica J Sutton and Janene Russell.
[00:01:14] Monica J Sutton is an early childhood educator and a child behavior specialist. She's created an online community of over 500,000 people centered around early childhood education. She's also the CEO and founder of preschool explorers, which is a virtual preschool. And with it, she teaches young children, both in her virtual classroom at preschool explorers and worldwide through her online YouTube circle time videos. Monica has spent over 20 years working directly with children. All abilities and backgrounds in both virtual and physical classrooms.
[00:01:49] And then up next, we'll have Janene Russell who is a senior product development manager at Educational Insights. She's a former elementary school teacher turned toy, inventing super mom, dedicated to early childhood development and the positive power of play. Right now she's the key lead and preschool brands manager at educational insights, bringing over 15 years of experience in early childhood learning and a unique educator's perspective to the brand. Now, the reason we have these two people together, we will unveil in the podcast episode.
[00:02:22] But they do have some sort of working relationship and we'll get into that Janine and Monica. Welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to have you guys here to start off. I'm gonna start with you Janene. I wanna talk about Educational Insights. So many of my listeners and students know about this brand have wanted to work with this brand, get their products featured or licensed by this brand. So tell us about Educational Insights. When did the company begin? What kind of products do you make? .
[00:02:48] Janene Russell: Yes. Thank you so much. This year Educational Insights is celebrating this our 60 year anniversary. So that's a huge milestone for us. Educational Insights is rooted in hands on play that sparks confidence, creativity, and curiosity, and our product line. Ranges from preschool science to preschool games and family games to sensory play, to even coding a coding robot that's out there. So after all these years, 60 years, of course, like we're still finding new and creative ways to help kids find their spark, which is a huge milestone for us. And we love hearing that our brands are in the homes in the classrooms and we continue to, again, ignite that spark in, in households.
[00:03:33] Azhelle Wade: So what would you say are like your key age demographics that you create products for?
[00:03:38] Janene Russell: Yes, definitely our sweet spot is three to eight years old. Preschool science and our preschool games are definitely our sweet spot.
[00:03:46] Azhelle Wade: Do you guys ever work with outside inventors?
[00:03:49] Janene Russell: We do. So we have a great community inventors that we consistently work with the pitch products throughout the year, especially at toy fair and shy tag and women in toys conferences as well. So we're thrilled that our products and our games often feature these inventors that we partner with.
[00:04:10] Azhelle Wade: That's great. And I love that you work there, having the experience as an educator and you guys are now working with Monica and everything she's bringing to the brand. There's so much integrity in that, like hiring people that really have the childhood educational experience for a kid's education brand. It sounds like a no brainer, but I think a lot of brands don't do it. So it's certainly impressive that Educational Insights does.
[00:04:32] Janene Russell: Thank you. Absolutely. I think that's the biggest thing that we love to, you know, thing about is that we are meaningful in, in our mission and bringing learning to life. And we want to make sure the people we work with and the people that are on our team understand the power of play, how children work and everything from design to the features to marketing is, is rooted in that.
[00:04:57] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. So can you share with us just like one of the biggest wins for your company right now?
[00:05:04] Janene Russell: Yeah. So Kanoodle is our line of brain teasing puzzles with 10 different versions and has been in our line for 15 years. But this past year we saw this incredible popularity on, on TikTok. So this year TikTok has, has gone viral. 83 million views on TikTok and building this in this community of challenging each other.
[00:05:28] Azhelle Wade: Now I wanna ask, how did you connect with Monica? Monica's got this huge viral online presence on her own. How did you guys connect? What did that relationship start out as and what is it today?
[00:05:39] Janene Russell: Yes. So miss Monica we're just thrilled that she's again, a very organic and meaningful partnership. During the pandemic a mom on our marketing team has a child who was in preschool at the time. And I did too. And she had recommended watching miss Monica's circle time because she was so engaging in providing that remote learning engagement that so many kids were missing. In March of 2020 and onward. So we were able to connect with Monica after that. Again, it was a very organic partnership that aligned so well with our mission. If you've seen miss Monica's circle time, she brings learning to life. And it just made, you know, the stars aligned and she is also a, a fan of learning resources and educational insights. So we were thrilled that this was a very organic partnership.
[00:06:33] Azhelle Wade: So miss Monica, I've gotta go to you now. What came first? Was it online education or was it in person education?
[00:06:41] Ms. Monica: So I definitely started out in the classroom and followed the traditional teacher route and evolved from there.
[00:06:49] Azhelle Wade: What do you love about working in education?
[00:06:51] Ms. Monica: I've always loved still due to this day. I love connecting with children. And honestly, connecting with children teaching it really allows me to be a witness to when that spark actually ignites, like, just like going back to the educational insights mission, but it really is true when that that spark is ignited. There's nothing like it.
[00:07:11] Azhelle Wade: Define the spark.
[00:07:12] Ms. Monica: It's really when the lesson comes to life, whatever that lesson is, it can be a simple lesson, complex lesson, but really when it comes to life for a child and they're excited about whatever it is they're doing in that moment, that's the spark. Mm-hmm that it, that spark, when you see it's like that, I got it.
[00:07:29] Azhelle Wade: What, what is like the hardest part of educating somebody online versus in person?
[00:07:36] Ms. Monica: The hardest part is actually actually convincing adults, mostly parents, that it actually works. That children can learn and connections can be made virtually. They really can.
[00:07:47] Azhelle Wade: So are there products that you use maybe Educational Insights, products that use that makes it easier for you to teach online or things you've made on your own?
[00:07:55] Ms. Monica: Well, absolutely. As a teacher, we're always creating things on our own.
[00:07:59] Azhelle Wade: Yeah, I know. Teachers are like crafters, product inventors. I don't know, they're entrepreneurs. I mean, they do.
[00:08:05] Ms. Monica: It's amazing. But yeah, one of my favorite products is play foam. I remember when play foam like really like hit the market and took off, but play foam is one of my favorite products because as a virtual teacher, I want to be able to have the children get hands on and really bring whatever lesson it is they're doing that we're doing together. Bring it to life. So play foam allows us to do that in so many different forms. So just for example, if we're learning numbers and we're counting, we can use the play foam to not only create the numbers.
[00:08:31] Create the numbers and then use their finger to trace the play foam, tracing the number. Yeah. We can also use it to, you know, make different things so they can count objects. Maybe they're counting cherries or they're counting strawberries that they made out of the play foam. We use it to count and we also use it for addition and subtraction as well. So it's really, really a great product that I've been able to use in my classroom, my virtual classroom. And I used to use it in my physical in person classrooms as well.
[00:08:57] Azhelle Wade: But for those of us who aren't teachers and the phrase early childhood education might not be clear enough, what age range is that?
[00:09:05] Ms. Monica: It typically it would be between three and five years of age. It's that preschool age, but I personally believe it starts at two, the toddler age. So I would say between two and five is really truly early childhood education for me.
[00:09:18] Azhelle Wade: It sounds like to me, like you're taking this practice of, okay, I'm gonna teach them something. I'm gonna tell it to 'em. It's gonna go in their head, but I really needed to get into their physical world for them to learn it. Is that what you're trying to do with the play foam?
[00:09:29] Ms. Monica: Absolutely. Absolutely because children naturally, they are, they are hands on. They use all of their senses to learn, right. We all do actually. They use their senses to learn and touch is one of the main senses that you're going to see them using often when children are, when they're babies, they're touching everything, they're feeling everything. They're putting it in their mouth. It's because they're learning, they're learning about their world, the objects around them in their world, in the room, right in front of them. And that's how they learn. And it's the same for 2, 3, 4, and five year olds. They're still learning and they want to touch and feel, and it just kind of really makes it real whatever that lesson is or whatever it is, the skill you're trying to teach.
[00:10:07] Azhelle Wade: Do you ever worry that this whole digital age is going to take over children's education? Or are you not worried about that because you know how important the physical touch of physical product is for their education?
[00:10:20] Ms. Monica: For me, I'm not worried because again, just like you said, I know the importance of that tactile experience and I'm always going to incorporate it somehow some way in the content that I create in the lessons that I create. Technology can be a little, scary as far as well. Where is education going to go if in another world if they are always learning through a screen? But I think if we keep on showing and sharing the importance of that interactive, tactile experience and keep giving ideas and samples of what can be done, how you can use this everyday products to accomplish different lessons.
[00:10:57] Azhelle Wade: Even with play products, like everyone's so afraid of it going too digital and, and people are saying our physical to is that important, but they are maybe in the same way, kids are learning through physical touch. They're playing through physical touch, you know, there's a level of play you can't get through a virtual world. Okay. So we're gonna talk about why your mission should come first. So I should ask miss Monica and Janene. Actually for miss Monica, it'd be, what is your personal mission? And for Janene it'd be, what is the mission of educational insight? So miss Monica, you wanna go first, what is your mission as a creator?
[00:11:32] Ms. Monica: So as a creator, as a children's content creator, my mission is to create learning experiences that a fun engaging and interactive. So that's, that's my mission as a content creator.
[00:11:45] Azhelle Wade: And Janene, what would you say for educational insight?
[00:11:48] Janene Russell: Our company mission is igniting the spark in every child. So whether that spark is building confidence and, and curiosity, all of that is rooted in making sure the child is feeling their youest, you in every step of their learning process and that they are actively engaged in that journey. And so we want our products to. Lends its way to those hands on experiences so that they can keep coming back and moms and dads can trust our brand for bringing that spark in their child.
[00:12:22] Azhelle Wade: Do either of you remember the time before your mission was that clear?
[00:12:28] Ms. Monica: For me. Absolutely. It continues to evolve. It always evolved. Yeah. I think there was a period of time when I was full-time teacher in the classroom trying to figure out what I was doing on the side. What was that more for me? What was I going to do? What is my purpose then? What is my why? And and I started on YouTube back in 2009 and just doing product reviews and testing products with children and just sharing. It was really for parents and families. But at that time I didn't have an exact mission. It was kind of just finding myself, but testing the water a little bit, but just finding what it is I was trying to connect to.
[00:13:03] Janene Russell: For educational insights our mission has definitely involved around, you know, throughout the years. It's always been rooted in hands on play, but in the last couple years, we really wanna bring out that emotional benefit for both, you know, parents, teachers, and kids. We wanna be the one to ignite that spark.
[00:13:19] Azhelle Wade: And I don't wanna scare people that are listening. Like, oh my gosh, I don't know my clear mission. So maybe I just shouldn't develop my product or brand, cuz it's not that you, shouldn't start your product or brand, but I see a lot that people might have an idea for a business or have an idea for a toy and they spend so much time, money and stress on the perfect logo. Or the perfect initial packaging or the, you know, the perfect website. If you don't know the purpose of your brand, why invest so much time and money trying to define it in the beginning, allow it to evolve, allow yourself to figure it out and then later on get really specific, right?
[00:13:59] Ms. Monica: Yeah. I absolutely agree. I think just having that initial, even if it's just a one sentence or something that you know is, feels good to you. Yeah, I think it just. Because when there are challenges, when you're creating your product, you're inventing something, whatever it is you're working on. When there are challenges, you can go back to that mission, which I feel is like your why your purpose, right? You go back to that and that helps you to push through whatever it is you're going through.
[00:14:27] Azhelle Wade: I know that there was a point in my business where, you know, just opportunities were coming and people are like, do this for me. Do that for me. We want you to talk here. We want you to do that. And I'm just saying yes, yes, yes. To a bunch of things and eventually, you know, realizing, I'm not really spending my time developing the things I really care about in my business and helping the type of people that I really wanted to help from my business. And that's when I realized, oof, I gotta define a mission for my business.
[00:14:53] Because that mission helps you make these choices of what you're gonna do and what you're not gonna do. So was there a product that you created, maybe Educational Insights, or was there a job you took on miss Monica that made you stop and say, oof, this is not what we wanna be known for. This is not really who I am. I'm wasting too much time and energy on this. I need to figure out my mission statement.
[00:15:16] Ms. Monica: That is a great question. My mission has evolved over time when I decided to create the circle time for miss Monica on YouTube and March of 2020, it just kind of took a life, you know, took on a life of its own. I knew I wanted to connect with my students first that that's why I even started it. It was just to connect with my students and make sure that I gave them something that was consistent that was important. But as it started taking on a life of its own, I started getting a lot of comments, feedback messages from everyone.
[00:15:44] Lot of educators. Yeah. But from everyone and people would say, well, why are you teaching this? Why are you teaching the alphabet like that? Why don't you teach it like this? Why don't you teach it in this order? There was a lot. And it was overwhelming. At one point I found myself so overwhelmed and almost like I just thought I wouldn't do it anymore. Like everyone is just like criticizing everything. And that is when I had to get clear on what my mission was.
[00:16:06] Again, because again, I was doing other things before I started doing that. So the mission changed. So what was my mission? Okay, my mission is to create these learning experiences that are interactive, that are fun, and that really allow children to, to get hands on. That was important to me. And I had to push everything else aside and just focus on that. And so if I just focused on that, that really helped me to get through and just continue and to keep on creating.
[00:16:31] Azhelle Wade: And now, what do you have 500 million, no 580,000 subscribers that's me projecting in the future for you. 60 million views. 500,000 subscribers. That probably happened because of that focus on what you loved number one. So you're not focusing on the thing that stressed you out where you're trying to please all the educators in the world, cuz it's not for them. And, and just following your mission, doing what you really wanted to do for the people you wanted to do for it, probably. Do you believe helped her propel you even further?
[00:16:59] Ms. Monica: Yes, I absolutely believe that. Because I would've definitely been stuck back, you know, several months, really four years ago, just, I would've been stuck because trying to please, please, please. And everyone, and again, like you just mentioned, it really wasn't for the educator or the parent, even it really is for the children. Now it helps it can help the educator. It can help the parent, but it really is created for children. And I needed to get clear with that.
[00:17:25] Azhelle Wade: Can you share a time, when you first started saying no to doing things. The reason I want you to share that is cuz I'm imagining a toy creator listening, who let's say started an entire line around their, puzzles, let's say, and somebody is coming to them and saying like, you know what? This is really cool, but you should make an animation about the characters in these puzzles. I want that creator listening to know it's okay to say no, if that doesn't align with your mission. So did you have a time when you said no and it was hard and you were nervous, but then eventually because of that, no. It opened up opportunities that aligned with your mission?
[00:18:01] Ms. Monica: Yes. It took me a while to get to, to that place. Being comfortable with saying no, because you know, you start thinking, I need to take every opportunity it's coming. There was a particular company and it was a book publishing company. And they wanted me to create a book. And this is of course during the, when, when circle time was really at its peak, really during the pandemic. And they said, well, we want you to create a book, but the way we do it is we give you the topic and, you know, you can create the content. And then we kind of tweak it and we work together, but it has to be this topic, this theme. And having a book is a dream of course, one day. Yeah.
[00:18:35] But we have several meetings and we got to a point where I was just like, this is just, it's just not right. I'm forcing it. I don't feel right about. This is not even a topic I'm even interested in. I'm just doing it to do it. And it was, it was so much back and forth. I said, no, but it did allow other things to come my way and open up. And educational insights came after that. It wasn the next day they called, but yeah, over time, then that grew organically. And I created this relationship with educational insights. And I have to tell you, I am definitely now because I'm very comfortable with my mission, comfortable with what I create. I am a stickler for only working with brands that I use. Products that I use that I believe in and that I want to share with the families that I serve.
[00:19:23] Azhelle Wade: I want people to hear that re-listen to saying no to something that was a huge opportunity. And just be able to have the strength to say no to that. Cause it doesn't align with your missions and goals allowed for this opportunity. You wouldn't even be here today if that didn't happen. So, not that this is like the biggest stage in the world, but thank you. Janene, do you know in your time at Educational Insights, when maybe they created a product that didn't quite align with their mission statement, or maybe before you even had that mission statement and you guys realized like, oof, this isn't really who we wanna be or where we wanna go. We need to figure some things out. Is there a story you can share?
[00:19:58] Janene Russell: Absolutely. Most of the products that we do create and invent really do align with our admission, but, you know, fell short in some way. We take those learnings and, and this past year, our product development team is really truly starting to celebrate our failures. My favorite quote is from Thomas Edison, he says, I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. We call it, you know, our disco list and we celebrate the things that have been discontinued, but we also like dig deep, like, why were they discontinued? Was it because like it was too confusing? Did we overcomplicate something that parents and kids just don't understand? And from there we've developed every single year, new river banks of how our new product ideation lineup is going to look like because of those failures.
[00:20:45] Azhelle Wade: I wanna share at this time, something that I've learned a while back in your business, a friend of mine taught me this in your business, you kind of list out all of the, for educational insights, it would be like all the products that you have. Maybe the categories would probably be better for this practice for miss Monica. It might be all the ways that your business makes money. Like maybe it's your show, maybe it's services you provide. And you list all those things and then you say how much money did that make you for the year? And then there's this rating system one through five of how much did you like enjoy doing this project?
[00:21:17] Five being like the highest, then there's a few other questions. How much does this align with like your core values? And how much time does this take you? There are a few other questions like that. And at the end you add everything up, like you've sorted things now, by how much money they make you one through five? How much time they take you? How many people you've impacted? There's several questions. And at the end you kind of get the summary of what product or category is doing the most for you. And I did that in my own business and it changed everything. I think I'd been trying to do what miss Monica did, where everyone's like, oh, we want this from you.
[00:21:51] And we want this from you. And I'm making all those different things. And then I did this. And looked at my mission and said, you know what, actually, we could focus on this. Like one or two things impact a lot more people. I'll be happier. They'll do better. Cuz I'm focused. And I just want to call back to that exercise because it helped me immensely. Okay. So we already talked about how our missions can evolve. It's okay to evolve your mission over time. But now I would love to talk about circle time, cuz it seems like this like birthed your mission. So how did you have the idea to start it? Were you scared or nervous about starting this cirlce time? How did it a mass, such popularity? I gotta know more. Miss Monica I gotta know more.
[00:22:34] Ms. Monica: Thank you for asking. It really started once when mayor Dio said yep, schools are closure. You're not going back. That's really when we were, oh, the teachers in my school, we were scrambling. Yeah. The director didn't know what we were going, going to do. And I just said, YouTube I'm gonna do YouTube, right? cause they were like how we gotta get back through the kids. OK. Get worksheets, get this give them. FInd all the children's game apps. And we were just looking for everything and anything to keep these children engaged every day. During that first week, I said, you know what? I'm going to go on YouTube because here's the issue. Everyone either doesn't have wifi or their wifi, wifi is spotty, or they don't have a laptop or a tablet or, you know, right. But you know what? Most people have phones, not everyone.
[00:23:19] But the majority of the students have a phone or someone in their family has a phone, a mobile device. So, okay. Just providing something on YouTube, everyone can have access to it. And I said, I'll just create something simple where they can connect with me every day, engage with me and it's consistent. So let's just do circle time. What do we do? I had to think about what do we do every single day in the class? Oh, we do circle time or meeting time. Circle time, it's a, a morning meeting, usually preschool, kindergarten teachers do it in the morning and it's like a welcome. Hello, we're all here. What are we gonna learn about today? How was your day? What's the weather? What day is it today? So it's like a, let's get started with our day.
[00:23:58] Azhelle Wade: It's your morning show for the children?
[00:23:59] Ms. Monica: It really is. It really is because they all go around and they're just like, hi, good morning. Today or whatever it is, right. Everyone sets it up differently. But circle time is it's one of those phrases where if you're in early childhood, you may have heard of it once or twice, or if not a thousand times. So I thought that would be helpful for my students. And then once I started it, I just said, you know, I'm just gonna go ahead and open it to the public. It, cause first I was like, unlisted. Now let's open it to the public. I told a couple blogger friends and they shared. But I really thought it was going to stay kind of New York or tri-state area based. Mm-hmm so after like a couple weeks when it just started, I guess everyone was just sharing it and apparently parent groups were really sharing it. It was just like, whoa. Okay. So that's really how it started, honestly.
[00:24:49] Azhelle Wade: So when you were keeping it internal, how many views were you getting?
[00:24:51] Ms. Monica: Oh internal. It wasn't when I was internal, it wasn't circle time yet. We were just meeting. I was doing like reading books to them and it was unlisted. So I was what, 20 views a day. Once it became public, what I hit one day, like a thousand views, probably within an hour, I was just like, now this something is going on. This is, this is banana. Wow. But I really had other people, mainly my family calling and telling me this because I wasn't, I wasn't watching the numbers. I was just teaching and stressed out about how are we gonna connect still like stressed out about the school and what we were doing.
[00:25:24] Azhelle Wade: To wrap this up. I wanna connect this back to educational insights. Janene, when Educational Insights had, let's say one of your biggest years in the past 10 years, what was that product? Was that product like really specific as to who it served?
[00:25:41] Janene Russell: Yes. Yes, absolutely. We have several products that really, and, and quite honestly, I think the pandemic the last couple years really changed our business. Our mission stayed true on supporting families at home. So we paused on all production and we made sure to create content and make it available. We had so many experts on our team to families at home. And those at home resources solidified our brand as this trusted, company that you come to to support kids at home.
[00:26:10] The preschool age is definitely where a lot of parents felt at a lot. 90% of brain development happens before the age of five and having learning tools and products to support that, especially when parents are at the same time feeling lost really. Parents turn to our brand to support their needs and their children at home. And I think that's where miss Monica's, you know, mission with circle time really aligned with like, again, our core mission at heart is being able to be that trusted brand to provide those resources at home and in the classroom.
[00:26:46] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. I'm so I'm really seeing a lesson here as this is where we're recapping our lesson for today. Of really paying attention to what's going on, in our world socially right now and serving that because I think a lot of people want to go viral on TikTok. They wanna be big on YouTube, but what people don't realize is it's not just about, you know, you know, teaching three tips or it's not just about doing a funny thing to a trending audio. It's about creating content that's really specific to the needs specific people. I've heard a lot of stories of people that went blew up on YouTube when they weren't really intending to do that. And it tends to be people that say I was making this for my clients. I was making this for my students. I was making this for my family. So I think that that's just a really great lesson to take away, pay attention to what your consumers need right now. And not so much the social media trend of the week. And you'll be successful.
[00:27:42] Janene Russell: if you're specific and who you're targeted audience, and also just like what kind of emotional benefit you wanna get out that yes. And get those key terms almost like on a Mind map. Right? You circle out these key terms. I love you filter out. It goes back to, able to say no, cuz you know, what are your parameters? And that seems to, you know, same thing with when we're developing new products like that does not fall within our mission. That's not our core values. And also the people who we want to partner with, like is this, did this person align with our key? You know, magic words in our, in our mission. So that's, that's really important.
[00:28:20] Azhelle Wade: Yes. I have some closing questions for you. The best piece of advice you've received in your career. Janene, I wanna ask this question of you because a lot of listeners also wanna work in the toy industry. So best piece of advice you've received in your career?
[00:28:37] Janene Russell: Oh, so in my career is definitely okay. So when I was in the classroom, I had a curriculum coach and I've stuck like. Has followed me through daily life and in, in everything that I do in my job, but it's slowed down to speed up. So, you know, oftentimes we like to speed up cuz we think we'll get to the end result faster. But what ends up happening is you miss a lot of, you know, major strategic touch points and you have to end, you have to do the process all over. So when you slow down, you are able to really think about, you know intentional purposes and goals in mind. And from there things start falling into place and you are able to speed up to where your end goal is. So slow down to speed up.
[00:29:22] Azhelle Wade: Miss Monica, what is the best piece of advice you received on your entrepreneurial journey?
[00:29:27] Ms. Monica: I'm gonna talk about my, the advice I received as a teacher, but it kinda overlaps into being an entrepreneur for me. It was allow your teaching style to naturally develop just naturally. That was probably the best advice I received. But it also, it kind of overlaps a little bit into entrepreneurship and into the story of circle time because doing YouTube and, and teaching really teaching online was something I was really afraid to do. And I never, ever wanted to do it before.
[00:29:56] I stayed away from it purposely because I did not think that my teaching style was going to be something people were attracted to. And that's why I stayed away from it. I just was just like, ah, I don't want people to see me teach I'm just too much or it's too much. Right. So just being naturally myself and allowing that my teaching style just develop over the years and then trusting it and putting it out there really has carried me. So I think that that piece of advice really still helps me to this day, letting things naturally develop.
[00:30:25] Azhelle Wade: I agree. I agree. So many people want you to just say, how do I start my business? Just do these three steps, but like, no, like you need to let it naturally develop. Thank you. Okay. So I wanna give a quick plug to both of you. You can connect with miss Monica on @monicajsutton or on YouTube, she's Monica J Sutton on YouTube, Instagram, everywhere, and then Educational Insights on TikTok educational Insights. Also on Instagram, they're at Educational Insights. So wherever you guys wanna connect with them, please do. But before we go, I've gotta give a summary of today's episode because it was so good. So the key takeaways that I want you to do from today is just vision, statement.
[00:31:05] We need to define a vision statement before our businesses, before we dive too deep in investing in product and things that people don't want. And I want you to go to, I actually have an episode on how to make your vision statement, it's thetoycoach.com/ 53. And then also Janene mentioned making a mind map, and I love mind maps. I talked about a mind map for the COVID pandemic back in episode number 11. So if you wanna learn more about that, check that out. Also miss Monica says it's okay to say no, it will probably lead to better things in your business. If you say no to things that don't align with your mission. Monica and Janene, thank you so much for joining me here today. It was a pleasure having both of you.
[00:31:48] Ms. Monica: Thank you for having me appreciate it.
[00:31:51] Azhelle Wade: Any last things you wanna share with the audience before you go?
[00:31:54] Ms. Monica: Well, oh, business. I thought to them I was gonna tell them, keep creating don't stop.
[00:31:58] Azhelle Wade: Oh yeah. Whatever you wanna share you go.
[00:32:00] Ms. Monica: Yes. I just, I do wanna tell your audience to keep creating don't stop because there's someone out there waiting for whatever it is you have to share. So keep, keep doing that. Absolutely.
[00:32:10] Azhelle Wade: And Janene?
[00:32:11] Janene Russell: Yeah, absolutely. I think follow your instincts and trust them. Not everything that you know is out there. Don't get, don't shy away just because for instance, like a job opportunity, doesn't seem to, you know, align with your actual, experience. But if you believe in it, like, I think that your confidence, is what people really are inspired by.
[00:32:34] Azhelle Wade: Thank you. It was a pleasure having you and I'll talk to you guys soon.
[00:32:38] Ms. Monica: Thank you.
[00:32:39] Janene Russell: Thank you.
[00:32:40] Azhelle Wade: Well there, you have it toy people at my interview with Ms. Monica and Janene Russell of Educational insights. I hope you learned a lot from this episode about the importance of defining your mission and let it guide you as you develop products in your toy business, or you develop your toy consultation services or even professional career. If you love this podcast and you haven't already done so, why not leave a review? Your reviews put a huge smile on my face. I get a ping on my phone every time a new One comes in and it helps more people know about this podcast. As always, thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I know there are a ton of podcasts out there, so it truly 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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