Building A Brand

Last week, I sent a lot of cold messages to a bunch of people on LinkedIn and interestingly one wrote back.
On his LinkedIn page, he deemed himself as the Head of Category, Brand Experience & Business Development at Sephora Australia.
In all honesty, I was so excited to receive a reply but when he wrote back, he told me that he had left the company and was now on his own – working with emerging brands such as myself.
I asked if he would be able to meet me virtually and he said yes.
Despite not being my target point of contact, I figured any advice for me at this point was valuable as a novice brand maker.
So, we met up the following day virtually.
I later found out that he was an American who had been living in Australia for the last four years but decided to leave his cushy job at Sephora in December and transition into his own consultancy business.
Nevertheless, I showed him my products and he confirmed what I was hoping to hear, that my product looked like it was one made for the mass market for stores such as Coles, Woolies, something that I have been aiming to get into from the get-go.
He also said that my idea of infusing a picture book of LazyBum Skincare and the products was a great idea that he had not seen before. Psst, other people have told me this too.
The next milestone I achieved last week was to have my products advertised on the Australian Made Campaign website. Here is the screenshot of it. Yay! Thank you, Jackie for making this possible.

Next, I attended a BNI meeting virtually last Friday. If you are scratching your head and wondering what BNI is, well, it is an organisation where business owners network with one another in the wee hours of the morning. It is not a sham nor is it a pyramid scheme but it is a sort of a networking organisation that gets like-minded business individuals on the same platform to talk about all things business and get referrals of sorts. I joined the Ampang chapter in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia after receiving an invitation from my friend and fellow business owner Hani Zul Fossum.
They started the meeting off by quickly introducing each other’s business to one another through a three-minute elevator pitch. I passed at the invitation of being a paid member because of geographical reasons. It would not be wise for me to be a part of a business networking group in another country, especially with COVID still high on the agenda. I didn’t see the benefit in it but it was fun while it lasted. But some members did laugh at the name of my brand LazyBum Skincare but some said it was a good name.
Last but not least, it has been a month since I received the goods of my products and to tell you the truth I am still clueless as to where or how to start selling it.
The good news is that I have decided on two markets for now, which is Australia and the US. I have also managed to price it and I plan to sell my goods with free shipping for now.
And the best part is I have approached several merchants via LinkedIn to talk about partnerships and other business matters.
I expect the replies to trickle down slowly by the end of this week – at the very least once most of them come back from their year-end breaks.
For more information on the products, check out LazyBumSkincare.com.au or tapiroo.com.