Most founders think their product is the thing that sets them apart. Jess Hatzis spends a lot of her time gently telling them it isn't.

The hard truth she keeps running into with Willow & Blake and For Scale clients is that a lot of products aren't actually ownable. There are three or four others that do more or less the same thing. That's not a reason to love your product any less, but it does change the job. If the product can't be the differentiator, the brand has to be, and finding that white space takes a level of self awareness, and ego removal, that not every founder is ready for.

We sat down with Jess to get into what actually unlocks growth once you're honest about that. Why most customer personas are useless (targeting "she's 24 to 34" and ignoring the 40-year-old with more disposable income than she's ever had), why founders are the biggest bottleneck in their own business, and how letting go of the reins took Betts from irrelevant to going viral on TikTok in six months.

Brands and tools mentioned: Willow & Blake, For Scale, Betts, Frank Body, TikTok

This episode is brought to you with thanks to our partners:
🛍️ Shopify → https://www.shopify.com/au
📧 Klaviyo → https://www.klaviyo.com/au/

Connect with us on LinkedIn:
👤 Jess Hatzis → https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-hatzis-strategicadvisor/
👤 Nathan Bush → https://au.linkedin.com/in/nathbush
👤 Rosa Willis → https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosa-clara-willis-23761066/

🎙️ Want to be a guest or sponsor on Add To Cart? → https://www.addtocart.com.au/contact
📩 Sign up for the free Add To Cart newsletter → https://newsletter.addtocart.com.au/subscribe
💬 Join the Add To Cart Community → https://community.addtocart.com.au/feed

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A customer spots a bad influencer match in half a second.
That mismatch is where your influencer spend disappears.
Two fixes. Pick people who already love your product. Then treat them like partners, not transactions.
Joel Azzopardi did exactly that. Now creators come to him.
Run it like a relationship, not a media buy.

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Influencer marketing is one of those line items that can feel a bit hit and miss. It's still a young industry, the pricing is all over the shop, and you can spend real money on a creator without ever being sure what you got back for it.

But the problem isn't influencers. It's how we've framed the whole thing. We keep treating influence as one big post from one big name, a single moment we hope lands. Set it up like that and of course it feels like a gamble.

The brands getting real value have a different idea of what influence even is. It's not a post, it's a relationship. The same credible people, showing up more than once, who actually believe in the product, brought together often enough to build a real bond.

In this Playbook, we break down why influence is a frequency effect and not a one-off, how to pick people who already love your product and treat them like partners, and why bringing creators together in person on repeat is the cheapest way to buy all of it at once.

Featuring lessons from Jess Hatzis at Frank Body and Willow & Blake, Stacey Hollands at Lust Minerals, Joel Azzopardi at Freddy, and Rosie Collins at Deja Marc.
Brands and tools mentioned: Frank Body, Willow & Blake, Betts, Lust Minerals, Freddy, Deja Marc, Vogue, Afterpay

This episode is brought to you with thanks to our partners:
🛍️ Shopify → https://www.shopify.com/au
📧 Klaviyo → https://www.klaviyo.com/au/
Connect with us on LinkedIn:
👤 Jess Hatzis → [NEED URL]
👤 Nathan Bush → https://au.linkedin.com/in/nathbush
👤 Rosa Willis → https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosa-clara-willis-23761066/
🎙️ Want to be a guest or sponsor on Add To Cart? → https://www.addtocart.com.au/contact
📩 Sign up for the free Add To Cart newsletter → https://newsletter.addtocart.com.au/subscribe
💬 Join the Add To Cart Community → https://community.addtocart.com.au/feed

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They asked their staff what women's boots to stock. We were top of the list."
Stacey Head on landing in Bunnings.
She'd pulled the business back to DTC. Now wholesale's back, and Bunnings is the opening move.
The best part? Their own floor staff named her brand.
Next stop: Germany, then the UK and Europe.

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