On our hit show Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch, contestants are challenged to step into an elevator and pitch their business to a camera in 60 seconds or less. On the other side of that camera is our board of investors. If they like what they hear, the elevator doors open and contestants step inside the boardroom where they have the chance to win life-changing funding and mentorship from the smartest minds in business. If the investors don’t like what they hear? The elevator gets sent back down, along with the entrepreneur’s dreams.
For nine seasons, there have been no do-overs in the elevator — much to the dismay of entrepreneurs who ran out of time, got tongue-tied, or simply froze in the headlights. But that’s all about to change.
Introducing our new series, Fix My Pitch, where failed contestants have a chance at redemption. Led by pitch masters Anthony Sullivan and Tina Frey, former contestants will workshop their weaknesses and hone their strengths with a team of business experts. By the end of this four-week pitching boot camp, these entrepreneurs will be challenged to once again face their pitching fears. The prize? A never-before second chance on Elevator Pitch. See who is able to rise to the challenge and who gets stuck each week on Fix My Pitch!
Fix My Pitch contestants
Ashley Rosulek, founder of Osweetfitness, affordable, high-quality luxury athletic wear
Brandon Storms, founder and CEO of Retavo, a platform to launch and maintain a state-of-the-art enterprise-grade marketplace at an affordable price
William Colton, MS, CEO of Paldara, a company harnessing the power of natural bacteriophage to fight and prevent disease.
Arvin Bhangu, founder of Superintelligence, a research lab that aims to create a system that allows for the co-existence of humans and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
Fix My Pitch is sponsored by State Farm. New episodes stream Wednesdays now through October 4, 2023 on Entrepreneur.com. Season 10 of Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch premieres on October 18, 2023.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Are you seeking to foster growth and achieve better results for your business this year? In a world where customer expectations are rapidly evolving, the importance of creating a customer-centric culture cannot be overstated. One of the most effective strategies in this pursuit is the implementation of a Voice of Customer (VoC) program. However, it’s not just about launching a program; it’s about using it smartly to drive growth rather than just incurring costs.
What is a Voice of Customer program?
At its core, a Voice of Customer program is a vehicle through which customers provide their valuable feedback, insights and opinions about their experiences, needs, wants and expectations in relation to your products and services. It serves as a direct line of communication between your business and your customers, enabling you to tap into their thoughts and feelings to inform and enhance your strategies.
Despite the popularity of VoC programs, many of them fail to deliver the intended benefits. CEOs often struggle to justify the ongoing expenses associated with these programs due to a lack of discernible return on investment. What should be a robust tool for insights and growth often turns into a one-dimensional process that merely yields scores and basic insights. So, why do these programs fall short?
The number one reason for the ineffectiveness of many VoC programs is the failure to ask the right questions in the right manner. A successful VoC program — backed by our global experience over two decades — recognizes that customers are diverse and their interactions with your brand are unique. Therefore, a personalized approach to gathering feedback is essential. Rather than asking every customer the same questions, tailor the questions to each customer’s experience. Keep the feedback process concise, interactive and relevant, allowing for real-time adjustments. Aim to uncover the “why” and the behavioral aspects behind their feedback. Leveraging technology, such as text, audio and video responses, can enhance the depth of insights.
Take continuous action over passive insights
To derive value from a VoC program, it’s crucial to prioritize taking action over merely collecting insights. While measuring customer attributes and tracking loyalty drivers are important, they shouldn’t be the end goal. Instead, focus on identifying the most pressing customer-led priorities and addressing them promptly. By honing in on a single priority, it becomes easier to transition from data collection to impactful actions. Measure success based on individual and team improvements, aligning these improvements with sales growth and customer retention. By translating enhanced customer experiences into tangible business outcomes, the program’s value becomes undeniable.
The role of program leadership
A successful VoC program isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it endeavor. It necessitates robust program leadership and engagement. Collaboration with experienced partners is key to tailoring the program to your business, from setup to implementation and ongoing management. Software systems alone are insufficient to drive the program’s success; customization is essential to align the program with your specific business needs. A holistic approach, including ongoing management of the customer journey, actionable results and integration with sales KPIs, is the recipe for meaningful change.
In the quest for growth through a customer-centric culture, the “Feedback ASAP” program — getting feedback as soon as possible — stands out as a testament to the power of a well-executed VoC strategy. Rather than relying on generic solutions, this program capitalizes on personalization, actionable insights and robust program leadership to deliver tangible results. By identifying missed sales opportunities and offering real-time solutions, it empowers teams to improve their skills and capabilities through targeted eLearning.
This integrated approach aligns changes with overarching strategic goals, making the entire business ecosystem work in harmony toward growth.
The road to growth in today’s business landscape is paved with customer-centric strategies, and at the forefront of these strategies is the Voice of Customer program. While its popularity has grown, so has the realization that the key to success lies in asking the right questions, taking continuous action and having strong program leadership. The paradigm has shifted from collecting insights to driving results and the Feedback ASAP program exemplifies this shift. The time has come to embrace a customer-centric culture and unleash the true potential of your business through the power of your customer’s voice.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
One of the oldest chocolate shops in New York City, Aigner Chocolates has been serving chocolate treats and other sweets for 93 years. When Rachel Kellner and her husband Mark Libertini bought and took over the store in 2015, they had to navigate how to preserve the store’s identity while also keeping it exciting for future generations.
Mark is a pastry chef and restaurateur, but as a former social worker, Rachel had no experience in the food industry. Rather than seeing her untraditional background as a mismatch, she used it to bring a new perspective to the store.
“Business is really all about networking. It’s all about building relationships, and I love doing that,” Rachel said. “As a therapist, that’s your role. A therapist-client relationship is based on the trust and safety that you build with your client.”
While the ownership is different, much of Aigner Chocolates is the same. Mark and Rachel use all of the same recipes as the original owners so customers eat the same classic chocolates they have been for years.
In terms of evolving the store, Rachel changed the branding, updated the website, and built a stronger online presence. She’s also single-handedly grown media relationships and written press releases.
“I built those relationships, and now it’s to the point where I’ll literally text my media contacts and say, ‘Hey, this is what’s going on,’ and I’ll pitch them stories,” Rachel said. “There are so many terrible things happening in the world that the news couldn’t go on if they didn’t have some lighthearted pieces, so we’re always able to provide that.”
While Rachel continues to expand Aigner Chocolates’s presence online and capitalize on media coverage, she still thinks the store’s strength lies in the in-person experience for customers. She prioritizes training her staff and treats them like family, which comes across in their interactions with customers.
For Yelp Community Manager Samantha B., the in-person experience will always be preferable to ordering Aigner Chocolates online. She loves coming into the store due to the relationships the staff has built with her over the years.
“I’m a people person to begin with, so it’s always really nice to just walk into a brick and mortar and see a smiling face.” Samantha said. “We got so comfortable during the pandemic just sitting behind a screen, but I’m just not that person.”
In addition to treating all walk-ins as valued customers, Aigner Chocolates engages the community by frequently giving back to local charities and organizations, such as the Queens Center for Progress and a local hospital.
Rachel sees these efforts as a way to combine her social work background with her new experience in the food industry. During the pandemic, the shop donated chocolate totalling around $30,000 in value. Now, Rachel sets a donation budget and selects local organizations whose values align with her business.
“We’ve been gifted this incredible opportunity to run this business, to carry on a tradition, and it’s my husband and my social responsibility to spread joy,” Rachel said. “We’ve really taken that on in every way that we can, and we just try and find ways to do that.”
Other creative strategies to engage the community from Aigner Chocolates include:
Host community events. Aigner Chocolates frequently hosts fundraisers with local schools and organizations. Hosting these events is a great way to raise awareness for both your business and causes you care about.
Hire local community members. Rachel frequently hires students from local high schools and partners with local universities to give college students internship opportunities. By offering jobs and professional development opportunities, you can grow your small business’s ties to the community.
Treat customers like family. As a longstanding business, staff at Aigner Chocolates ensure that old and new customers alike feel welcomed. Prioritizing customer service helps every customer feel like a valued part of the community and creates loyal patrons.
Listen to the episode below to hear directly from Rachel and Samantha, and subscribe to Behind the Review for more from new business owners and reviewers every Thursday.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Recently, I sat down with a fellow entrepreneur to talk about his business. I asked what experiences I could share that would help him. He answered almost immediately: “I am struggling with getting my team to focus less on themselves and more on our customers and their needs.”
Specifically, he shared that many of his team’s meetings have nothing to do with the customer but instead are centered around the company, its people or policies. For example, deciding whether to create a nap room or provide pet maternity leave. Because he is in a creative field and we live in feel-good Portland, Oregon, my guess is that he has a bit of a headwind trying to guide his team to think less about employee perks and more about serving their customers.
I am a year and a half into building my third company. Over time, the companies my team and I build have evolved to become more and more customer-centric — and are experiencing greater and greater success largely because of that. This third company has the highest customer satisfaction ratings we have ever received.
We produced these results using three methods that promote a customer-centric mindset. The combination of the three essentially hard-codes the customer as the priority.
When I looked at my friend’s five core values, none even remotely involved the customer. They all focused on the types of people working there and their behavior mindsets mainly toward each other.
Two of our four core values are around customer service (“We Care” and “We Inspire 5-Star Reviews”). Customers see these show up in different ways, which helps us stand out compared to other companies. At team meetings, we often recognize examples of these two values, and all team members are rated on how they represent these values during their annual performance review.
It is a leader’s responsibility to ensure that the customer’s viewpoint is part of your core values discussion.
When we started the company, we held off-site meetings so the team could brainstorm our core values. While it is common practice during this exercise to identify what the best team members have in common and pick those as core values, it is also critical to consider the top three deliverables that customers value most and that make the company stand out from competitors. Then, identify specific, action-oriented core values that can deliver at the level required to achieve the vision and growth you outlined.
Though reworking core values can be very difficult, a values redux where as many as half of them focus on the customer or the types of characteristics that serve your customer best is key to enhancing company performance. Because core values function as your company’s DNA, this hardwires customer-oriented behaviors.
2. Walk in the customer’s shoes
What processes or experiences would help team members understand your customer’s unique journey and therefore improve it? New team members have a fresh perspective that can provide value to your company. It’s up to you to leverage that.
We require new team members to blind-shop competitors — just like a new customer would. They complete a questionnaire about each competitor. During their orientation, I ask them to compare what they saw and experienced at our store versus competitors’ stores.
This not only enables them to experience being a customer of our product but also empowers them to use what they learned to help sell to our customers, having literally walked in their shoes.
Another powerful way to inspire customer-centricity is to encourage it through compensation. There are many different compensation structures to achieve this.
In our company, front-line team members are compensated in a number of ways. About 20% of their ongoing monetary compensation comes from a bonus pool tied to customer satisfaction. Their bonus percentage is calculated from the number of five-star reviews received and the percentage of promoters from our customer service survey.
Additionally, these satisfaction measures, combined with their annual review core values ratings, are utilized to determine their annual company profit-sharing allocation. There is no substitute for the power of this direct connection to happy customers. The happier our customers are, the more money front-line team members make.
Balance the seesaw
When you created your company, did you do it solely to make employees happy? Probably not. More likely, you saw a need or problem and wanted to solve it to improve your customers’ lives.
That said, a great work environment and strong company culture are important, too. After all, superior customer satisfaction can’t be delivered unless your employees are happy — the two concepts are not mutually exclusive.
The connection between employee happiness and customer satisfaction is like a seesaw, requiring a delicate balance that each business leader must achieve on their own terms. As you calibrate where the weight will sit, remember that without happy customers, the company won’t survive very long.
A customer-centric perspective is key to long-term success, which enables the opportunity for ongoing employee satisfaction. When you empower employees to connect those two concepts through core values, walking in the customer’s shoes and compensation tied to customer satisfaction, you’ve implemented a trifecta of winning strategies that should hard-code your company to find its ideal equilibrium and thrive for decades.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Personal trainer Miriam Fried built her business, MF Strong, primarily by posting how-to videos on her social media channels, like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. But when it was time to expand from a virtual presence to a brick-and-mortar location, she realized there was more heavy lifting to do. She needed a way to advertise her business locally and attract in-person clients.
As a one- or two-person company working in the virtual space until this year, Miriam wasn’t sure she was a big enough business to justify creating a Yelp Page. Once she sat down with Yelp’s Small Business Expert Emily Washcovick, however, Miriam saw the benefits immediately.
“I’d love to have a Yelp Page. I just had never sat down to do it,” she said. “[Emily] gave me that accountability of yeah, this is a good thing. We should have this, especially since we opened our own brick-and-mortar studio this year. A lot of people in the neighborhood don’t know we exist. If anybody lives in the area and they’re searching for personal trainers, I always want to be the first one that shows up for people, and Yelp is a really good way to do that.”
As Miriam discovered, setting up and claiming her Yelp Business Page was easy since she already had all the information she needed on hand. In addition to adding basic business information, like contact details and location, she was able to add high-quality photos and a business description that tells potential customers who she is, what she believes in, and what she offers—something Miriam learned is more important than telling people what she doesn’t do.
“Sometimes when I talk about my business, I’ll say we don’t do diet culture. We don’t do the shame and the blame and the guilt,” she said. “So it was very important for me to edit and say what we do offer versus what we don’t offer. If someone’s searching, I want the stuff we offer to pop up.”
Within a short period of time, Miriam started to notice an uptick in search results and new clients. By changing the way she thought about her messaging, she could better convey MF Strong’s unique stance on fitness, focusing on health and happiness rather than weight loss.
Miriam also asks each new client how they heard about MF Strong when they sign up so she has an accurate picture of how, and if, her marketing efforts (and dollars) are working. Because it’s free to be on Yelp, Miriam didn’t have to spend anything to get set up and going.
Before setting up her Yelp Page, she said, “Most of our clientele come through social media. That’s our biggest funnel of clients. So I definitely take note when I see them coming from elsewhere..”
Now that the business has taken off, Miriam has handed MF Strong’s social media channels to a social media manager, an important delegation strategy that shows how robust the business has become.
“It’s so important to be able to delegate and be able to say, ‘I could do this, but it’s just a thing I don’t need to do.’” she said. “As a business owner, making those distinctions is so vital for the business but also for your own mental health to say, ‘Where am I needed and where is it non-essential for me to be controlling the situation?’”
There are more lessons from Miriam and Emily that could help your small business on this episode of Behind the Review, including:
List your business categories and specific services on your Yelp Page. There are more than 1,500 categories on Yelp to choose from, and you can choose up to three. Displaying your niche is key to helping potential customers find you, so be sure to select your specific services and describe the outstanding ones in your Specialties section.
Be yourself. On social media and your Yelp Page, showing up with an authentic voice goes a long way with potential and current customers.
Get ahead with artificial intelligence (AI). AI can help you draft content like polite and professional communications to customers or social media captions. The key is using it sparingly and always maintaining a personal touch in every correspondence.
Listen to the episode below to hear directly from Miriam and Emily, and subscribe to Behind the Review for more from new business owners and reviewers every Thursday.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Around 15 miles from Disneyland, Sunbliss Café in Anaheim, California echoes the cheery spirit of the theme park. After garnering social media buzz with its bright blue lattes and Instagrammable interior, Sunbliss has become a popular destination for coffee, tea, and healthy eats like smoothie bowls and avocado toast. Recently, Sunbliss was awarded the #6 spot on Yelp’s Top 100 Places to Eat, a list of the best restaurants across the U.S., with the help of votes from Yelp users.
Owner Tani Ahmed did not always see herself running her own restaurant, much less an award-winning one. While working on the corporate side of a large beverage company, she met various restaurateurs and franchise owners who inspired her to start her own café. Since Tani had no restaurant experience, the main way she learned to open a restaurant was doing research on YouTube.
“I had contemplated it for a few years, and I feel like I have entrepreneurial blood. It’s in me, and it’s something special that you have to have,” Tani said. “It’s like jumping off a cliff and building a parachute on the way down.”
When creating a menu for Sunbliss, Tani wanted to bring a unique spin to all of the drinks. Instead of a classic mocha or latte, customers can find untraditional flavors like the “Cloudy Coconut” cold brew topped with sweet blue foam. This variety is appreciated by customers like Yelp reviewer Alyssa Mae L.
“I’m a hundred percent into trying new things,” Alyssa Mae said. “I really love when coffee shops don’t just have the generic latte, cappuccino, macchiato, so I find myself gravitating towards places that have unique flavors.”
Sunbliss prides itself on offering the freshest products possible, such as sauces and syrups made in-house from locally sourced ingredients. However, a challenge to using these high-quality items is having to charge a heftier price to compensate for their cost.
Tani said it comes down to good marketing to sell the product to customers who are skeptical of Sunbliss’s prices, especially compared to a typical coffee shop or café. For Sunbliss, this means using social media marketing as an opportunity to educate customers on the health benefits of its menu items.
“We do educational-based marketing. What’s funny is that people don’t really see how important it is [to] spend more on your health,” Tani said. “They’ll hesitate to buy a juice for $9.50, but they won’t hesitate to buy a $20 drink like a cocktail. For $9.50, you’re adding good nutrients and good bacteria to your body.”
While Alyssa Mae loved the drink she ordered at Sunbliss, the welcoming customer service made her experience memorable and inspired her to leave a 5-star review. Initially, Alyssa Mae was overwhelmed by Sunbliss’s extensive menu, but the staff helped by giving her suggestions of what to order.
“They really gave me patience when navigating [the menu],” Alyssa Mae said. “It was early in the morning, and I know they were getting into the groove of a morning shift, so it was nice to receive that sort of patience and get some guiding points on what’s good.”
To ensure customers like Alyssa Mae have a memorable experience at the café, Tani emphasizes the importance of building a strong culture among her staff, which comes across to customers. This starts at the hiring process, where Tani ensures team members have not only the necessary skills but also the same values as Sunbliss.
To keep customers coming back, Tani established customer service guidelines all staff members need to follow, such as asking every customer what their name is. After being open for only a couple of years, she’s proud of the strong relationships her staff has built with customers.
“We see the same people every single day. Our employees are the reason we have that following,” Tani said. “We’re all human. We experience bad days. Anytime we come in with some sad news or just that bad day hovering over us, it feels like when you start your shift, everything turns around because there’s always someone that you recognize or know that comes in and has that self-lifting energy that rubs off on you.”
Other businesses can learn from Sunbliss’s journey to Yelp’s Top 100 Places to Eat, including the following tips:
Bring creativity to your products. Don’t shy from bringing a personal, unique touch to your business’s offerings, as Tani did with Sunbliss’s colorful coffee drinks.
Use social media as a powerful marketing tool. Outside of customer interactions, social media is a great way to connect with customers and educate them on your product offerings.
Foster a collaborative team. A strong team spirit will come across in customer interactions. Consider creating customer service guidelines based on your core values for staff to follow.
Make the customer experience memorable. Get to know customers on a personal level by asking them how their days are going and what their names are. Remembering your repeat customers can help turn them into regulars.
Listen to the episode below to hear directly from Tani and Alyssa Mae, and subscribe to Behind the Review for more from new business owners and reviewers every Thursday.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Behind the Review host and Yelp’s Small Business Expert, Emily Washcovick, shares a look at this week’s episode of the podcast.
Growing up, Shannon spent countless hours playing board games with his family, a core memory he wanted to help others recreate, especially during the pandemic when people were feeling largely disconnected. From that, Dogpatch Games was born—a board game store in San Francisco that, soon after opening, became more than just a place to buy games.
“One of our key tenets or touchstones that we try to focus on is inclusivity,” Shannon said. “It’s this idea that there is a seat for everybody, and there’s a game for everybody. This game may not be for you, but this game is, and you just haven’t found it yet.”
Shannon’s approach to entrepreneurship was to start slow, giving the business a chance to grow in the neighborhood. He started with a soft opening, in which the business was only open a few hours of the day. Even with limited hours, curious customers still trickled in, giving Shannon the opportunity to wow them.
One such customer was Yelp Elite reviewer Jenny X., who saw the store when she moved to the area. Before entering, she thought Dogpatch would be a one-time visit. To her surprise, it ended up being a memorable experience she couldn’t wait to tell her friends about.
“I definitely entered being really skeptical. I [thought], we’re just gonna pop in and leave. This is not going to be somewhere we’re going to spend a lot of time,” Jenny said. “Just seeing how much passion the owner had for games, I let my guard down a little and [decided] to not be skeptical for a second here and let him try to convince us.”
To make Dogpatch more than a store, Shannon goes the extra mile to make customers feel comfortable. Similar to Jenny’s experience, he frequently offers to teach customers how to play different board games and asks questions to figure out which games they’ll like best.
By easing customers into the business, Shannon was later able to introduce a membership model for return customers, which provides a stable stream of revenue for the store. In deciding prices for different membership levels, Shannon prioritized accessibility for all customers.
“We were trying to find a price that feels fair but recognizing that this is a premium game space,” Shannon said. “We want to have our community members feel like they’re getting enough value for their membership, where they’re getting the premium service, but they’re getting enough of a discount for it and getting invited to these extra things so that they don’t want to give up their membership.”
As part of the membership model, Dogpatch hosts exclusive events and game nights for members. It also hosts events open to any community members, such as Dungeon & Dragons tournaments and Ladies’ Nights, to help customers meet each other and form new connections.
Moving forward, Shannon hopes to integrate Dogpatch even more into the community by partnering with local businesses, such as his “Parents’ Night Out” initiative with local restaurant Gilberth’s Latin Fusion, where parents can drop their kids off at Dogpatch and receive a discount on their meal out.
“The kids are here for two hours playing games. We got them—you go have your date night and then come back and pick them up,” Shannon said. “We’re trying to create a little neighborhood community with other establishments in our neighborhood because we’re all in this together.”
Other small businesses can learn effective strategies from Dogpatch’s playbook, such as:
Considering a soft opening model. A soft opening can be a great way to garner excitement for your business and get the word out organically without a high resource investment.
Building a solid pricing model. Creating profiles of your ideal customers can help you decide on a pricing model that’s right for your business and accessible to customers.
Integrating your business in the community. Host community events open to all, and partner with other local businesses to help each other grow.
Giving customers an experience to talk about. Prioritize customer service and help customers feel comfortable with unfamiliar experiences to keep them (and their friends) coming back.
Listen to the episode below to hear directly from Shannon and Jenny, and subscribe to Behind the Review for more from new business owners and reviewers every Thursday.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Behind the Review host and Yelp’s Small Business Expert, Emily Washcovick, shares a look at this week’s episode of the podcast.
Boite de Fleurs
To some customers, the decision to purchase from a small business rather than a big retailer comes down to something very simple—the experience they have in the store. Due to their size, small businesses have the advantage of being able to build deeper relationships with their customers through exceptional service or a customized product.
Tina Y., owner of Phoenix floral shop Boite de Fleurs, says her dedication to adding that personalized touch to not only the product but also the shopping experience is what drives her luxury flower business.
“We make everything curated for the customer who’s ordering it. If they call in and want something specific, even if it takes us a day or two to make sure we get the exact flowers from our vendors, we make sure we do that because we want to deliver a great experience at the end of the day,” she said.
It was Tina’s genuine care that impressed Yelp reviewer, Reginald M., who went to Boite de Fleurs with his one-year-old son to pick out the perfect Mother’s Day gift for his wife. He says the memory of having the whole store to himself while Reggie Jr. chose the flowers is one he’ll cherish forever—and what cemented his status as a loyal customer.
“When my son walked in there, they catered to him. He picked out each flower that’s in that arrangement. It was memorable. It’s the kinda things that [mean] I’ll never buy flowers from anyone else.”
Many small business owners can relate to the origin story of Boite de Fleurs, which Tina started in her garage five years ago. What initially began as a side hustle blossomed into a full business when she opened up her brick-and-mortar store in February 2020, right before the pandemic presented entrepreneurs with unprecedented challenges.
“Going through the pandemic and not really knowing what to expect or even how long it was going to be and pushing through to actually having a sustainable business for the last three years has been tough,” she said. “But it’s been great at the same time because it’s something I feel like not a lot of people can say that they’ve done or they’ve gone through. That’s not what we were expecting when we first opened up.”
Despite the obstacles she’s had to overcome in the past few years, Tina’s commitment to customer service has remained constant. She puts meticulous care into everything, from the quality of the product to the delivery process, so that each order is exactly what the customer has envisioned.
“To me, that’s what it’s all about: making sure I can get whatever it is that the customer wants,” she said. “I just feel like that’s what people want nowadays. Everybody wants something specific, whether they’ve seen it online or somewhere else, or someone else has gotten something.”
When a potential customer approaches your small business, a good product might not be all they’re looking for. Providing that memorable experience through customer service that goes above and beyond or a special personalized touch is a solid way to leave a strong impression on clients and keep them coming back.
In this week’s episode, Tina discussed some other great tips that keep her business flourishing:
Responding to all reviews, whether they’re positive or critical, is one way to let your customers know they are valued. Customers will notice when you take the time and effort to respond to feedback. In Reggie’s case, he felt special and heard when Tina responded to his review.
Your store’s digital presence can often be a potential customer’s first impression of your business. Especially in this day and age, a majority of your customers will find your business through social media or an online review platform like Yelp. Uploading eye-catching photos and accurate information on your social media platforms and review sites can inspire someone’s decision to choose your small business over your competitors.
Make sure the quality of your product justifies a higher price point. Many customers won’t mind paying extra for an experience and product that reflects the care and attention that goes into each purchase, especially when it comes to special occasions.
Listen to the episode below to hear from Tina and Reginald, and subscribe to Behind the Review for more from new business owners and reviewers every Thursday.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
I suffered from acne on and off for most of my adolescent life. It was painful not only physically but also emotionally. My peers regularly hurled names like “crater face” and “pizza face” at me. “Go wash your face” was another favorite phrase one of the boys in my class would shout. I was embarrassed. I felt ugly. I stopped looking in the mirror. My self esteem was in the toilet.
Apres Pacific
“So many of us go through having acne, and the impact on your self confidence can be devastating,” says Neel Patel, founder of Après Pacific. “I started Après Pacific to provide access to Indian skincare secrets and Ayurvedic remedies so we all can feel confident in clear, comfortable skin.”
According to the American Academy of Dermatology Association, acne is the most common skin condition in the U.S. It usually starts during puberty, and it can occur at any life stage. It affects up to 50 million Americans annually. Acne can take a significant toll on our emotional health. Study after study shows the damage acne can have, including increased anxiety, depression and the feeling of being isolated and alone. And particularly for teenage girls, acne can cause severe stress, making them feel less attractive and causing low self-esteem. For me, once the acne cleared, the dark spots left behind served as a constant reminder of the pain acne continued to cause.
Enter Après Pacific. Its hero product, the Pacific Glow Clay Mask, is supercharged with turmeric, alma berry, aloe vera and lemon peel extract. It only uses 100% natural, vegan ingredients that are safe even for sensitive skin. Not only does this amazing mask fight acne, but it also tackles the stubborn dark spots and hyperpigmentation that so many Brown and Black consumers suffer from.
Image credit: Apres Pacific
Patel picked the name Après Pacific as a nod to the Pacific regions of the world where Ayurvedic remedies have existed for more than 5,000 years. He wanted to develop a modern brand with a fun, fresh and calming vibe. “And most importantly, I wanted the brand to be inspired by and incorporate all of the Indian skincare remedies my mother made from scratch in our kitchen when I suffered from acne.”
As Patel builds his skincare brand, here are three lessons he has learned along the way:
Take the risk
From as long as he can remember, Patel has always been willing to take the risk. When he was 9 years old, he and his mother left India to start a new life in Canada. Although he didn’t speak any English, he supported his mother in making the move for better opportunities. After settling down in their small Canadian town, his mom started her own Indian food catering service. “I knew my mother’s talents and what she was capable of,” he says “I pushed her to take the risk and start the service. It gave me first-hand insights into running a business.”
After starting a career in investment banking, Patel risked it all and walked away. “People thought I was crazy walking away from this lucrative career,” Patel says. “But I wasn’t willing to put in 12-15 hour days for a big paycheck in exchange for my happiness. Doing research and moving company logos from one part of the deck to the other wasn’t how I wanted to live my life. I know many who have enjoyed being in the industry, and I wanted to build something of my own.”
The idea of building Après Pacific came to him in September 2020. Inspired by his own battle with acne and what he saw adult friends experiencing with their skin, he started looking for manufacturers. He worked closely with a chemist to finalize the hero product and ultimately launched in April 2021. “Now some of my former colleagues who thought I was crazy for taking this risk see how the brand has quickly evolved and gained great traction,” Patel says. “They want to know how I did it.”
Be open about your mistakes and adapt quickly
Although Patel had a strong finance background, he had never started an e-commerce brand before. He did his best to talk to as many founders as possible to try to avoid their mistakes. “You can’t avoid mistakes, they will always happen,” says Patel. “The important thing is to be open about your mistakes, learn quickly and adapt.”
Patel shares that one of his biggest mistakes was hiring an established, well-known marketing agency to help run paid ads for the brand. He discovered that the agency wasn’t devoting as much time as it should to his brand, because it didn’t earn as much commission from smaller brands that didn’t spend as much. “I learned that lesson the hard way after spending significant money with the agency and not seeing any results,” Patel says. “We finally parted ways with the agency and hired two media buyers who fully devoted their time to Après Pacific. As soon as we changed directions, we saw incredible results.”
Remember that every dollar counts
As a self-funded, bootstrapped founder, Patel is always focused on ensuring that every dollar counts. “We are figuring out unique ways to stand out and succeed in the marketplace, and at the same we have a limited budget,” he explains. “Every single dollar should have a return on investment. It can be scary and hurts when you make mistakes, and having limited funds keeps you on your toes.”
With limited funds comes a strong sense of focus for Patel, and he is smart about where he’s investing. Although Après Pacific could be in a number of retailers and broaden distribution, he wants to focus on continuing to build brand awareness before spreading the brand too thin. As he looks to connect with investors and begin the fundraising journey, he is committed to building a skincare brand that continues to honor and embrace his South Asian roots.
Recently, Patel has started to see brands pop up similar to Après Pacific’s vision. “They may have the money. But what’s more important is to have a community that loves your product and naturally becomes advocates of the brand — that’s not something you can easily replicate,” Patel says. “This isn’t a two-year plan for us; we are in this for the long haul. Slow and steady wins the race.”
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
I remember having classmates over for a playdate once in elementary school. My friend walked by my parents’ room and peeked in. “What are those funny looking dolls? Why are there flowers in front of them? Why is there smoke burning from that stick?”
Itsy Bitsy Memories Photography
I explained that it was my mother’s prayer area. As a Hindu, my mother prayed every evening after bathing, offering flowers and lighting incense. And those were not dolls; they were our Hindu gods.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Growing up, my mother never wore makeup. I remember a jar of Olay face cream on her dresser nestled next to a bottle of Beautiful perfume. From time to time, she’d paint her toenails red or occasionally put on lipstick for very special events. My mother’s simple beauty regimen is the reason why, to this day, I’ve never embraced wearing makeup. And the truth is, even as an adult I don’t know how to wear makeup. No one ever taught me how.
Kulfi
“Growing up in South Asian culture, I wasn’t allowed to participate and use makeup,” says Priyanka Ganjoo, founder and CEO of Kulfi. “We weren’t supposed to attract attention, and we were actively discouraged from focusing on anything beauty related. My mother never showed me how to use makeup either.”
As an adult, my relationship with makeup has slowly evolved. I’ll use a little bit of blush, a touch of eyeshadow and maybe a dab of lip gloss. But never eyeliner — it requires too much precision for someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing.
Enter Kulfi. Its award-winning kajal eyeliner has made me love eyeliner. It’s easy to use, and the intense, long-lasting color doesn’t budge, sparing me of raccoon eyes. Nazar No More (black) is my absolute favorite, although I hope to try some of the bolder colors like Rain Check (blue) and Purply Pataka (berry).
Although the beauty industry was hit hard by the pandemic, marketers like Ganjoo have been resourceful, coming up with innovative ways to sell to customers. Many direct-to-consumer brands like Kulfi found success when consumers had no other choice but to shop online. In 2020, the global beauty industry spend was $483 billion, and by 2025 it’s expected to be $716 billion. And where those sales are coming from is rapidly changing: Online sales will make up 48% of spend by 2023.
“While we had to delay the launch of Kulfi due to the pandemic, it ended up working out for the best,” Ganjoo says. “It gave our team a chance to really grow our community of Kulfi fans in a digital-first environment and made the launch a huge success.”
Image Credit: Kulfi
Here are three of the biggest lessons Ganjoo has learned in building Kulfi.
Understand your why
“Growing up, I wasn’t one of the pretty girls,” Ganjoo says. “I was extremely curious, excelled in school and spent my summers in Delhi eating kulfi, a type of Indian ice cream. I named the company Kulfi as an ode to that little girl, now that I have the power to reclaim beauty for myself and so many others.”
Ganjoo remembers starting her career at Boston Consulting Group and being told by coworkers that she looked tired. She didn’t wear makeup at the time, and she felt pressured to go and purchase concealer to cover her dark circles. “I’ll never forget that visit to the cosmetic counter. They told me my nose was too big; it needed contouring,” she shares. “They told me I needed to groom my eyebrows. They sold me over 20 products I didn’t know how to use, some of which didn’t even match my skin tone. I left feeling even more insecure and didn’t feel like myself.”
With Kulfi, Ganjoo is focused on her why and her purpose for building this brand. She wants women to unlearn the toxic expectations that are set for us when it comes to beauty. “When I was younger, I wasn’t supposed to wear makeup because it might attract men, and I would be attracting the wrong attention,” she says. “Then I entered the workforce, and I was pressured to wear makeup so I didn’t look unprofessional.”
Now, with Kulfi, Ganjoo wants women to wear makeup for themselves. She wants them to play with makeup and have fun with it. She wants it to bring them joy and be a way to express themselves. And finally, for all women to feel fierce and confident using Kulfi.
Challenge the playbook
Though her first foray into makeup wasn’t a positive experience, Ganjoo later ended up in the beauty industry herself, first at Estée Lauder and then at Ipsy. After years of building beauty brands for industry titans, she left Ipsy to build Kulfi. At the time, the marketing playbook was running Facebook and Instagram ads to create awareness, and hiring a celebrity was another quick fix to building a brand.
“From the beginning, I challenged that playbook, and that made people uncomfortable,” Ganjoo says. “I knew I wanted Kulfi to be a community for all the people who looked like me, who had been excluded by beauty brands for far too long.” She drew inspiration from Glossier and Glow Recipe, both of which built strong followings. The products they continue to launch are all community driven.
Originally, Ganjoo wanted to launch with a concealer to match her undertones. But the Kulfi community she was building had other ideas. “Every woman I talked to wished she had a better kajal eyeliner in her makeup kit,” she says. “No one was excited about this product. It was our opportunity to reinvent it.”
Image Credit: Kulfi
Historically, kajal is one of the most popular beauty products in India. It was originally applied as a form of protection, used to shield the eyes from harsh rays of sun and to ward off the evil eye.
“With the launch of the Kulfi eyeliner, we wanted to celebrate South Asian beauty, accentuating beautiful dark eyes and eyebrows and giving women an easily accessible, no-hassle product,” Ganjoo says.
Embrace your role as the visionary founder
For Ganjoo, the road to fundraising hasn’t been easy. Before Kulfi launched, investors told her “the market is too small,” and “South Asian beauty is not aspirational” and “using dark skinned models won’t sell.” She didn’t listen to them. She was determined to build a brand that celebrated and centered South Asians in its narrative.
After a successful pre-seed fundraising round, with a majority of women of color investing, it has changed her perspective on who will continue to be on her cap table. “To the extent I can pay it forward, I want to do that,” she says. “I want as many women of color building Kufli with me as possible.
Ganjoo will never forget what one investor said to her. “You need a visionary co-founder, that was the feedback,” she says. “Despite all of my credentials, I still continue to face bias as a South Asian woman founder. Why do I need a white man as a co-founder sitting next to me to bring me credibility?”
Here’s what Ganjoo knows for sure. Countless customers have told her that Kufli looks and feels so fresh and so different from what’s in the beauty marketplace. “That’s because Kufli has shifted the perspective to center the people who have been left behind.”
Her advice now to all entrepreneurs listening: “Remember that you are the visionary founder. Don’t let anyone else convince you otherwise.”
