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[Voiceover]: Welcome to the checkout. We catch up with previous add to CART guests and ask them five quick questions to get to know them better and leave you with a little extra inspiration to get through your Friday. Here's your host, Bushy.
[Ad]: Today's checkout features Laura Klein, founder and director at Snotty Noses. Snotty Noses is a brand that pretty much does what it says on the tin. Provides a practical solution for dealing with the bucket loads of snot that the babies and toddlers in our lives seem to generate from the moment they come into our lives. The Snotty Boss, Laura's hero product, is a motorized nasal aspirator that niftily sucks the snot from your child's nose at the touch of a button. I hope you're not listening over breakfast. Laura's journey has taken her from fulfilling orders at her kitchen bench to to being stocked in retailers such as Terry White and Baby Bunting. Laura, thank you so much for joining us on the checkout. We had a great chat around Snotty Noses and what you've built over the last 10 years. Taking it from retailing other people's products to creating the Snotty Boss and getting it retailed in leading retailers such as Baby Bunting. Terry White Chemist and internationally through Amazon. It's been brilliant to hear that growth story. We're here to learn a little bit more about you. Got five quick questions. Number one, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online?
[Voiceover]: A grounding mat or an earthing mat? It goes on my bed at night. I sleep on it. You know what is grounding it's the idea of absorbing the earth's natural negative charge through your body. You're meant to do it barefoot on the grass, which I do every day, but I also put one on my bed as well. I have no idea if it's giving me more oxygen in my blood or if it makes me sleep better, but I'm a fan.
[Ad]: Okay, good. O How do you assess which grounding mat is good? Like when you are comparing grounding mats?
[Voiceover]: I have no idea. Do you trust the reviews? I bought it from an Australian company as opposed to an international one. So, yeah.
[Ad]: Number two, which retailer has most inspired you recently?
[Voiceover]: Look, I love Brittany Saunders from Fate, the label, the clothing store. She. I love everything about her. I have bought clothes from there. It's great. Their unboxing experience is lovely as well. And I also love adore beauty. You know, Kate Morris's story is a great one. People buy from people. That's why we're attracted to those sort of websites and they deliver in delight. So, yeah, they're two stellar examples.
[Ad]: Well, it's interesting that you said both of those about the unboxing experience and then the adore because you were telling me off camera around a little trick that you have around a 25 cent fridge magnet and a tea bag.
[Voiceover]: Oh, absolutely. It's just the little things extra that you put into your parcel to deliver. And delight I get, I do a lot of online shopping. I open the box and all that's in there is the widget that I've bought. Not even a thank you card. And I know you have to be conscious of the environment and extra packaging, but for goodness sake, just put a chocolate chai tea bag in the parcel. A fridge magnet that has a quirky little saying with your branding on it that you want parents to put on their fridge because guess what, when their friends come over and they're making a cup of tea and they go to the fridge to get the milk, they'll see a magnet that makes them smile and also says snottynoses.com winning. Just put something extra in the parcel.
[Ad]: That's a great tip. All right, number three, name a piece of tech that you or your e commerce business couldn't live without.
[Voiceover]: In Shot Video, the app on our phone. Oh, my goodness. It makes, you know, just putting a TikTok together. So great transitions, music, you can shorten it, make it longer. Like there's just so many things that you can do and it makes the video almost look like it was filmed in a film studio. So that's fabulous. And Photo Room is the other app. It uses AI to create the most incredible product shots. Honestly, it looks like professional photography. It's incredible.
[Ad]: And so do you do all your content creation in house?
[Voiceover]: No, it's a mix of both. So some in house and some outsourced.
[Ad]: Yeah. Beautiful. Great tips. Thank you. Number four, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into?
[Voiceover]: Oh, other than add to cart, of course. I am a podcast junkie. It's my favorite thing at the end of the day. Walking with the dog on the track, you know, earpods in listening to a potty. I love the chicom podcast with Lisa Jones. You know, real Australian female founders, the story of growth, the good, the bad, and everything in between. And I'll also give a shout out to Tim Reed and the small business big marketing podcast that's been around for eons. I started listening within, like, two months of running my business. I have learned so much from that podcast. You know, I remember one, it was a hairdresser, and I thought, what on earth am I going to learn by listening to a hairdresser on this podcast? Well, mind blown. So, yeah, you just never know the gold that you're going to get from. From that podcast.
[Ad]: Oh, Timbo, I'd love that. Bit of gold dripping from the ceiling, right? Yes.
[Voiceover]: Yes. I've even got the lingo down pat. Yes.
[Ad]: All right, number five, what's your biggest challenge today?
[Voiceover]: Okay, probably managing the balance of D2C versus wholesale, because that is changing and that's fine. It's a nice problem to have. We need to monitor our ad spend across all the channels because it's omnichannel. So a dollar that we spend on Facebook here may actually result in a purchase in store at Baby Bunting, and that's almost impossible to measure. So just knowing we've got all bases covered is about the best you can do. I don't think you can overanalyze it. I don't think you can deep dive into data too much. You've just got to have faith that all of your. All of the cogs are turning to make the whole thing work.
[Ad]: It's a big shift, isn't it? Because you talked about on the main episode, you know, you started out reselling other people's products to then creating your own D2C and then moving into this wholesale model. So it doesn't just impact the sales channels, it impacts everything around it. So I love that you've called that out. That's fantastic. And we talk about that a lot in the main chat. So, Laura, thank you so much for joining us on the checkout.
[Voiceover]: Thanks guys.
[Ad]: To hear more from Laura, jump back into episode four, 415, where Laura shares how she made the tricky move from selling someone else's product to manufacturing her own. She also gives us her tips for successful affiliate marketing and tells us what she learned from a recent warehouse upgrade. Thanks for listening. And until next time, keep adding to cartoon.
