The Catman of Minnesota: Meowvalous Storytelling
Darryl Michaelson believes cat furniture is not made properly. That's why he set out to make the finest quality cat furniture in the United States. From humble beginnings in his garage to selling thousands of pieces every year in his boutique cat furniture store, find out how the "Catman of Minnesota" uses public relations to boost sales to a loyal following of "catstomers."
Listen to Episode #2 Now:
BIO:
Purrniture was never conceived as a small business opportunity. I, like many I have met, have never been inspired by cat furniture available in stores.
Purrniture was never conceived as a small business opportunity. I, like many I have met, have never been inspired by cat furniture available in stores. Most cat furniture is poorly designed and poorly built, being too lightweight or too small for a cat to fully utilize. The product then sits dormant in a person’s house. Some cat trees have already become loosened before being sold in a store. This is caused by many people each day giving the unit a “sturdy test”. Cat furniture that is impressive usually is more expensive than what can be justified to spend on it.
Those reasons motivated me to spend a weekend trying to build a cat tree big enough and interesting so my cats would actually enjoy it. My approach was simple : utilize existing wood products to keep the cost low, and think like a cat. Looking back, that scratching post was quite primitive but my cats loved it and the price was right. Having enjoyed the process and being rewarded by happy and grateful cats. I set out to build others. For two years I had a hobby building sustainable cat furniture for myself and my cat friends.
The sole motivation in these designs is to accommodate the cat. Cat furniture must be given proper space and placed in the right spot to be used effectively. Most important is that it is placed in the room most frequented by you. It is also ideal to place it in front of a window. Following these guidelines will ensure that our cat furniture will be loved by your cat and appreciated by you.
Transcript:
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Announcer: This is Pet Life Radio.
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Announcer: Let's talk pets.
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Mary Tan: Hello, welcome to The Whisker Report, the only pet podcast that exclusively focuses on PR and marketing.
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Mary Tan: If you're a pet business or an animal welfare nonprofit, we are here to help you.
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Mary Tan: Hello everyone, again, I am Mary Tan, and I am joined across the pond with my colleague, Alexane Ricard, who is also part of the Whisker Media Pet Public Relations Team.
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Mary Tan: Bonjour, Alexane.
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Alexane Ricard: Bonjour, tout le monde.
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Alexane Ricard: We're so excited about the show today.
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Alexane Ricard: So we're having a special person with us.
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Alexane Ricard: It's an amazing cat furniture company that I think have been around longer than I have actually been alive.
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Alexane Ricard: So that's going to be fun.
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Alexane Ricard: But first of all, I'd like to introduce you to Mark Winter of Pet Life Radio.
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Alexane Ricard: Our producer is going to get us to you each and every week.
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Alexane Ricard: How are you, Mark, today?
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Mark Winter: I'm good this week.
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Mark Winter: And being a PR podcast, you'll appreciate this.
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Mark Winter: One of our shows, Covered in Pet Hair, had a big feature article in Mount Pleasant Magazine.
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Mark Winter: So a lot of publicity.
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Mark Winter: We're really excited about that.
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Mark Winter: And I spent the rest of the week, as you can see from my background, I'm a music producer too.
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Mark Winter: So I've been working on your show theme all week.
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Mark Winter: So that'll be happening soon.
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Mark Winter: Well, that's exciting.
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Mary Tan: Oh my God, can you give us like a little tidbit about like what kind of feel it's gonna have?
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Mark Winter: It'll be something contemporary.
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Mary Tan: Oh, okay.
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Mary Tan: Because we are so contemporary.
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Mark Winter: We are.
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Mark Winter: Onward and upward.
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Mary Tan: Well, we are so honored to be part of the Pet Life Radio Network.
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Mary Tan: I encourage you to check out their other shows.
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Mary Tan: And again, I wanna reiterate this show is about you.
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Mary Tan: It is here to help you learn more about PR and marketing so you can do it yourself, because we know not everyone has the resources to hire a big PR agency.
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Mary Tan: And we really care about animals at Whisker Media, and we really wanna help you out.
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Alexane Ricard: Yeah, and so today we're having Darryl Michaelson, the owner and founder of Purniture Cat Furniture, a small business based in St.
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Alexane Ricard: Paul, Minnesota.
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Alexane Ricard: And I think Darryl, you started your business in your garage, but you can tell us all about it.
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Alexane Ricard: Welcome to the show.
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Alexane Ricard: Please tell us how it all started.
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Darryl Michaelson: Well, thanks for having me on.
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Darryl Michaelson: I really appreciate it.
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Darryl Michaelson: It actually started in my basement of a house that I was renting when I was 23 years old.
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Darryl Michaelson: And it began when I had adopted a couple of kittens and I was in the market for some cat furniture.
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Darryl Michaelson: And I realized that there's really not a whole lot of well-made reasonably priced cat furniture.
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Darryl Michaelson: And being handy, I figured I'd make my own.
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Darryl Michaelson: But my approach was to go out on a Saturday morning and scrounge up the wood, as opposed to drawing out some kind of blueprint and buying the lumber.
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Darryl Michaelson: So I drove around behind warehouse buildings and collected a pile of lumber, spent all day Saturday creating the framework and the framework I thought in my mind should just have steps, so levels where they could lay down and get up and down easier, and then tall scratching areas so that they could stretch when they want to do their scratching.
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Darryl Michaelson: So it was a whole weekend project of building it all day Saturday and then upholstering it on Sunday.
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Darryl Michaelson: And on Sunday, I actually upholstered it in my living room.
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Darryl Michaelson: And that's when I realized that the skill set needed for cat furniture is really in the upholstering.
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Darryl Michaelson: It has to have a seamless appearance in the end.
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Darryl Michaelson: And I stood there scratching my head with this big single piece of carpet, wondering how am I going to get it to configure around all of these posts and all these platforms and whatnot.
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Darryl Michaelson: So it was a learning experience from minute one, really.
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Alexane Ricard: That's incredible.
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Alexane Ricard: And you're going to tell us way more, but we're just going to take a quick break and then we can hear more about your whole story after this quick message.
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Announcer: Take a bite out of your competition.
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Announcer: Advertise your business with an ad in Pet Life Radio podcasts and radio shows.
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Announcer: There is no other pet-related media that is as large, and reaches more pet parents and pet lovers than Pet Life Radio.
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Announcer: With over 7 million monthly listeners, Pet Life Radio podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms.
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Announcer: And our live radio stream goes out to over 250 million subscribers on iHeartRadio, Audacy, TuneIn, and other streaming apps.
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Announcer: For more information on how you can advertise on the number one pet podcast and radio network, visit petliferadio.com/advertise today.
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Announcer: Let's Talk Pets on petliferadio.com.
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Mary Tan: And we're back with Darryl Michaelson of Furniture Cat Furniture.
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Mary Tan: Darryl, you hired Whisker Media, I believe, back in 2018.
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Mary Tan: Can you tell us a little bit about what you were going through and what some of your marketing and PR challenges were?
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Darryl Michaelson: Sure.
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Darryl Michaelson: Well, I actually built my very first one in 1990, doing it for a year as a hobby.
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Darryl Michaelson: I launched the business in 1991, and it took a few years for it to get a life of its own.
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Darryl Michaelson: But in the mid teens of 2010 through basically 2018, I realized that I had hit a plateau that I just couldn't get over.
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Darryl Michaelson: And I thought to myself, I've tried things like having brochures in vet clinics, working with apartment buildings to see if I could put brochures in their lobby.
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Darryl Michaelson: But I thought I need a professional, and it's now time to invest in people who know more about that area.
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Darryl Michaelson: So that's when Mary came along.
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Mary Tan: So basically I just went to his store because I loved it.
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Mary Tan: And I said, hey, I'm a PR person.
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Mary Tan: This was Boots on the Ground.
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Mary Tan: This was like back in 2018, 2019.
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Mary Tan: And I said, you know what?
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Mary Tan: I think I can really, really help you.
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Mary Tan: And at the time, Darryl, you were actually kind of cynical of agencies and that sort of thing.
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Mary Tan: Can you tell us what happened with the original marketing agency that you hired?
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Darryl Michaelson: Well, first of all, one of the things I knew I needed was a good website, but I didn't really appreciate how much a website that's good costs.
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Darryl Michaelson: So I would like ask my son, who was pretty good on the computer to build it.
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Darryl Michaelson: And of course, children of a shoemaker go shoeless.
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Darryl Michaelson: So it really wasn't coming along.
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Darryl Michaelson: And, you know, I was basically just spinning my wheels.
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Darryl Michaelson: And again, thinking I need to get into, basically invest in the marketing and PR.
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Darryl Michaelson: I contracted, well, they weren't a couple, but they were a team, partners to a man and a woman.
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Darryl Michaelson: And they were gonna build the website, and they were gonna do the marketing, and they're gonna charge me $1,000 a month.
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Darryl Michaelson: And it just was a disaster because the one website I was working with was, it was entertaining, but it was not commerce friendly.
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Darryl Michaelson: And they destroyed that website in the attempt to make a better website, and it just dragged on for months.
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Darryl Michaelson: And then I got to a point where I realized these guys really aren't going to deliver.
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Darryl Michaelson: And honoring my word, I signed a year contract with them, but after about the eighth month, I knew that this wasn't gonna go anywhere.
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Darryl Michaelson: And that's when Mary had contacted me, and I had let her know that I'm still stuck in a contract situation, but as soon as this is over, we'll talk.
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Darryl Michaelson: And everything changed as soon as we started talking with her.
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Mary Tan: Yeah, and this was a good example of where, at the end of it, Darryl spent $12,000, is that correct?
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Mary Tan: And you got nothing for your business.
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Mary Tan: So this talks about when you do hire contractors, the importance of vetting them.
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Darryl Michaelson: Yes.
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Mary Tan: Because you hadn't checked out with any, how did you find them?
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Darryl Michaelson: Well, I was doing some advertising on local cable, and the salesman, the representative from them, was in networking meetings.
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Darryl Michaelson: And he actually was urging me to attend the meetings too.
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Darryl Michaelson: But I had never attended the meeting, but he said he knows this great team and they'll be great for you.
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Darryl Michaelson: So I basically trusted his word, and I just rolled with it.
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Darryl Michaelson: I didn't really even meet with them more than once before we were signing a contract and talking about how great the future is gonna be.
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Darryl Michaelson: And it actually went backwards because the site I did have was at least informational.
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Darryl Michaelson: And then they tore that down to where I had no site for months.
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Mary Tan: And can you talk about that?
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Mary Tan: That was devastating, right?
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Mary Tan: I mean, you're a small business, money's tight.
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Mary Tan: And did you do any kind of ramifications to try to get some of your money back or anything?
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Darryl Michaelson: No, I just honored my contract.
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Darryl Michaelson: I figured there's no use in wasting energy trying to get money back from a couple who clearly probably aren't gonna be in business very long if they were even in business for very long to begin with.
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Darryl Michaelson: But it did set me back about a year and a half without any way of looking at my products without an actual paper brochure.
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Mary Tan: Right, so yeah, that's just kind of, Alex, don't you agree like the importance of vetting?
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Mary Tan: And actually, I feel like 99% of the time when you hire contractors, it's because it's somebody you know.
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Mary Tan: Wouldn't you agree, Alex?
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Alexane Ricard: Yeah, definitely.
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Alexane Ricard: I actually had a question for Darryl.
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Alexane Ricard: What made you trust Mary?
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Alexane Ricard: What in her approach made you believe that she might do a better job than that team?
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Alexane Ricard: Because you must have been very scared of starting with someone else after that experience.
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Darryl Michaelson: Oh, that's a great question.
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Darryl Michaelson: Because of that experience, I love that experience.
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Darryl Michaelson: When Mary came to my store, she came with a friend of hers, and I immediately saw them as another team.
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Darryl Michaelson: And I was more skeptical.
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Darryl Michaelson: I asked tougher questions.
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Darryl Michaelson: And even Mary got the impression that I was resistant to moving forward with her.
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Darryl Michaelson: But it wasn't that at all.
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Darryl Michaelson: It was, okay, Mary, after I invest thousands of dollars to do my website, what are you gonna do?
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Darryl Michaelson: And then she laid out, well, once the website's done, we'll get you going on Google, we'll get you going on some podcasts, we'll do the stuff that should have been going on for years now.
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Darryl Michaelson: Because at that point in the game, I'd been in business over 25 years, and I was doing okay, but I knew that there was a new level that I could achieve.
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Darryl Michaelson: It's just, how do I get there from here?
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Darryl Michaelson: So, I was much more tough on Mary with the questions.
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Alexane Ricard: Yeah, well, that's good.
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Alexane Ricard: I think that's what you needed to do after that experience.
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Alexane Ricard: But do you feel like Whisker Media and Mary in general helped you reach the target audience you really wanted to reach?
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Darryl Michaelson: Absolutely, yes.
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Darryl Michaelson: It took about three months to rebuild the website.
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Darryl Michaelson: And as soon as it was up and running, I was getting orders from the first hour.
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Darryl Michaelson: And she had put me on a couple of podcasts from there.
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Darryl Michaelson: And then we worked on a good Google ad campaign.
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Darryl Michaelson: She got me some television.
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Darryl Michaelson: I've been on television a bunch of times, but this was more of a constructed interview as opposed to just out of the blue.
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Darryl Michaelson: So yeah, it's really my sales increased by about 40% once everything was in place.
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Darryl Michaelson: And I'm now at the point of where I want it to be from the days I was dreaming of what the potential for this could be.
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Darryl Michaelson: And it's just been riding really nice for about four years, five years now.
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Alexane Ricard: That's so nice to hear.
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Alexane Ricard: That's so nice.
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Mary Tan: Well, I think it's time for a quick break.
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Mary Tan: And when we come back, we're gonna talk a little bit more about the strategy that Whisker Media uses to promote furniture.
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Darryl Michaelson: Cat furniture is supposed to be a jungle gym.
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Darryl Michaelson: Most cat furniture hardly passes as a plant stand.
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Darryl Michaelson: So I set out to build my own.
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Announcer: Darryl Michaelson, owner of Purniture Cat Furniture.
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Darryl Michaelson: My cats absolutely loved it, and then that changed everything.
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Darryl Michaelson: We are using four by four posts, and we are also using what are called cores, which are half inch thick tubes.
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Announcer: You can see the Purniture difference online at purniture.com.
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Announcer: That's P-U-R-R-N-I-T-U-R-E.
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Alexane Ricard: And we are back and now I think it's a great question so Mary always tells me Alex you've got to turn lemons into lemonade.
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Alexane Ricard: That's her saying, she always tells me that.
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Alexane Ricard: And I know that that's what she does a lot with furniture.
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Alexane Ricard: So my question is, I think something quite bad happened to furniture a couple of months ago, but I think Mary and Whisker Media in general, we managed to turn into something a little bit better.
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Alexane Ricard: So if you could just tell me about that story.
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Darryl Michaelson: Yes, actually, there's two situations.
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Darryl Michaelson: A couple years back, I think it was 2022, I had a trailer parked behind my building.
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Darryl Michaelson: It was completely full of logos, all four sides, and it ended up getting stolen.
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Darryl Michaelson: And I thought to myself, well, you know, what can you do?
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Darryl Michaelson: Hopefully they'll spot it, but it's just, I lost it.
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Darryl Michaelson: And I was talking to Mary about it, and she said that would be a news story.
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Darryl Michaelson: And I thought, why would the news care about a company losing its trailer?
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Darryl Michaelson: But she reached out to all the local stations, and there's four stations in our area here, and three of them did stories on the trailer.
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Darryl Michaelson: And one of the three actually did a 10 minute feature story on the business.
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Darryl Michaelson: And in that story, somebody suggested that I start a GoFundMe page for the trailer, which ended up bringing in all the money that I had spent to buy the trailer in the first place.
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Darryl Michaelson: So talk about making lemonade out of lemon.
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Darryl Michaelson: Even today, I will have customers ask me if I have ever gotten my trailer back.
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Darryl Michaelson: And it was stolen going on three years, it will be three years in September when I lost it.
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Darryl Michaelson: That was the first one.
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Darryl Michaelson: The second one was just a couple months back, overnight, somebody had thrown a pretty good size rock, about a three inch diameter rock through one of the store windows.
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Darryl Michaelson: And again, I was just telling Mary that I have a broken window.
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Darryl Michaelson: And again, she says, well, that's a news story.
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Darryl Michaelson: And I thought a news story about a rock being thrown through a window is just baffling to me.
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Darryl Michaelson: But sure enough, she sent out the emails and two of the stations came by and did a story on it.
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Darryl Michaelson: And on that note, I've been around so long.
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Darryl Michaelson: I have a lot of loyal customers.
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Darryl Michaelson: I have kind of a fan base.
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Darryl Michaelson: I could even say kind of a cult following.
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Darryl Michaelson: And I got a check in the mail about a week later from a customer for $50 that he said, I don't need any furniture, but here's some money to help you move forward with the setback of having a broken window.
00:16:23.693 --> 00:16:25.373
Mary Tan: Yeah, I want to jump in here.
00:16:25.393 --> 00:16:31.873
Mary Tan: This is a technique called news jacking and any business or nonprofit can use it.
00:16:32.273 --> 00:16:33.293
Mary Tan: I used it all the time.
00:16:33.313 --> 00:16:34.733
Mary Tan: I used it on Darryl.
00:16:35.233 --> 00:16:39.053
Mary Tan: And what you can do is, I'm going to give you an example of news jacking.
00:16:39.073 --> 00:16:41.673
Mary Tan: So that's inserting yourself in the story.
00:16:41.833 --> 00:16:45.873
Mary Tan: In Darryl's case, Darryl was the news, Darryl had news.
00:16:45.973 --> 00:16:49.333
Mary Tan: And when the media is covering stories, they love crime.
00:16:49.793 --> 00:16:53.373
Mary Tan: Anything bad, anything terrible gets eyeballs.
00:16:53.433 --> 00:16:58.433
Mary Tan: And so they, you know, just the fact that he has a cat furniture store is not a news story.
00:16:59.133 --> 00:17:02.613
Mary Tan: So news jacking is inserting yourself into the story.
00:17:02.693 --> 00:17:18.733
Mary Tan: And another example would be when all the hurricanes are happening down south, an animal rescue or animal welfare group could insert themselves, especially if they are taking animals in from the south, because that's a connection to the national story.
00:17:19.033 --> 00:17:28.373
Mary Tan: Another thing, this may not be animal related, but to give you an example is when there is, you know, the Ukraine wars going on with Russia.
00:17:28.793 --> 00:17:37.933
Mary Tan: Here in Minnesota, there's volunteers going through the Red Cross or wherever, wanting to help the people displaced by the war.
00:17:38.173 --> 00:17:39.573
Mary Tan: That's a news story.
00:17:39.573 --> 00:17:41.693
Mary Tan: That's called news jacking.
00:17:41.693 --> 00:17:43.913
Mary Tan: And I encourage everyone to use it.
00:17:44.113 --> 00:17:45.213
Mary Tan: Anyone can use it.
00:17:45.473 --> 00:17:47.933
Mary Tan: Even, you know, pet product companies.
00:17:48.233 --> 00:17:51.153
Mary Tan: I'm gonna say, of course, the 4th of July.
00:17:51.393 --> 00:18:00.433
Mary Tan: If you have a CBD product, if you have a thunder shirt or anything calming, that's another way to insert yourself into the story.
00:18:00.433 --> 00:18:07.433
Mary Tan: Call up your local media and say, I can give you tips on animal anxiety and that sort of thing.
00:18:07.833 --> 00:18:12.193
Mary Tan: And combine that with like a digital presence and you're gold.
00:18:12.453 --> 00:18:18.353
Mary Tan: And a media hit is thousands and thousands of viewers and listeners.
00:18:18.373 --> 00:18:24.713
Mary Tan: Wouldn't you agree, Alexane, can you talk a little bit more about the social and the digital impact?
00:18:25.133 --> 00:18:32.173
Alexane Ricard: Yeah, no, I mean, definitely, I remember Darryl, we saw they came to your store, the news, they came to your store and they interviewed.
00:18:32.213 --> 00:18:36.753
Alexane Ricard: I think you were not there when the rock was thrown, but one of your employee was there.
00:18:36.773 --> 00:18:38.613
Alexane Ricard: So she gave an interview, if I'm right.
00:18:39.373 --> 00:18:41.973
Alexane Ricard: And I think that was shared on social media a lot.
00:18:42.053 --> 00:18:52.113
Alexane Ricard: And that brought a lot of new customers, like local customers, local people were quite shocked about what happened and they wanted to support you because you're a small local business.
00:18:52.493 --> 00:18:57.993
Alexane Ricard: So that being shared on the news, but also on social media, it's reaching more and more people.
00:18:58.493 --> 00:18:59.513
Mary Tan: Absolutely.
00:18:59.533 --> 00:19:07.513
Mary Tan: Darryl, what would be like your number one complaint about working with people like Alex and I, who are the creative types?
00:19:07.513 --> 00:19:12.833
Mary Tan: Do you think that they understand in the end, you've got to make a profit?
00:19:12.853 --> 00:19:13.633
Darryl Michaelson: I don't know.
00:19:13.653 --> 00:19:16.333
Darryl Michaelson: That's kind of a hard question to answer.
00:19:16.473 --> 00:19:19.233
Darryl Michaelson: So many benefits have come from working with you.
00:19:19.253 --> 00:19:21.833
Darryl Michaelson: I find it hard to have any criticism.
00:19:22.193 --> 00:19:34.873
Darryl Michaelson: If there was anything I could say, is there are times when you tell me I need to innovate or I need to change things faster than what's possible.
00:19:34.953 --> 00:19:49.513
Darryl Michaelson: So for instance, I have been waiting on new space in my building to open up so that I can move my production area into a more comfortable spot, but that will also allow me to expand my store.
00:19:49.693 --> 00:19:51.613
Darryl Michaelson: My store will triple in size.
00:19:52.393 --> 00:19:59.953
Darryl Michaelson: And what I see right now is the congestion of too much product and not enough room for customers.
00:20:00.413 --> 00:20:12.193
Darryl Michaelson: So on a busy day, there will be three, four sets of customers in there and they're all doing a little bit of a dance to avoid each other, but still see the product.
00:20:12.733 --> 00:20:16.933
Darryl Michaelson: And sometimes I'll lose the customer because it's just not comfortable to them.
00:20:16.933 --> 00:20:21.533
Darryl Michaelson: There's an anxiety of sharing the space with complete strangers.
00:20:21.993 --> 00:20:25.393
Darryl Michaelson: So I have been waiting on this new space for months.
00:20:25.573 --> 00:20:29.153
Darryl Michaelson: There's a lot of red tape with the tenant who's in there.
00:20:29.633 --> 00:20:40.533
Darryl Michaelson: And the way I see it is you gotta have patience, you gotta have the delayed gratification because once this space opens up, it's gonna make a world of difference.
00:20:40.793 --> 00:20:56.153
Darryl Michaelson: But it is frustrating too because I've been waiting for over a year and I'm not in a position to just pull out and go find new space because in a whole new building, because there's a lot of little details there that would be extremely expensive.
00:20:56.433 --> 00:21:03.293
Darryl Michaelson: And I know for instance, that I have a sweetheart of a deal on the rent where I'm at and that would go away.
00:21:03.733 --> 00:21:05.553
Darryl Michaelson: So haste would make waste.
00:21:05.793 --> 00:21:11.073
Darryl Michaelson: So sometimes we're having a conversation and she's telling me to like call the landlord and tell them to hurry up.
00:21:11.093 --> 00:21:13.093
Darryl Michaelson: And it's like, it's not the landlord's fault.
00:21:13.133 --> 00:21:15.213
Darryl Michaelson: It's just not meant to be at the moment.
00:21:15.513 --> 00:21:20.113
Mary Tan: Yeah, that's one thing I have to talk about is like, and Alex, you can address this too.
00:21:20.133 --> 00:21:21.733
Mary Tan: A lot of times we want to move fast.
00:21:21.873 --> 00:21:27.653
Mary Tan: We, and most agencies, marketing, PR, whatever, like you've hired us, so we want to give you results.
00:21:27.673 --> 00:21:29.233
Mary Tan: So we want you to move faster.
00:21:29.253 --> 00:21:41.933
Mary Tan: And I'll say it's been kind of an education because ultimately the sales and profit and all that does have an impact on how we do our jobs.
00:21:41.953 --> 00:21:43.313
Mary Tan: Would you agree with that, Alex?
00:21:43.673 --> 00:21:45.013
Alexane Ricard: Yeah, I mean, definitely.
00:21:45.513 --> 00:21:56.233
Alexane Ricard: And working so closely with Darryl is really nice because as a really small business, we can see which strategy works and which one doesn't work as well because we see a direct result.
00:21:56.533 --> 00:21:59.933
Alexane Ricard: Darryl sees his sales going up or not moving.
00:21:59.953 --> 00:22:04.333
Alexane Ricard: So we really know with him, okay, this is working, this is not working as well.
00:22:04.353 --> 00:22:08.753
Alexane Ricard: So that is the really big benefit of working so closely with Darryl, I'd say.
00:22:08.993 --> 00:22:19.533
Mary Tan: Yeah, I'm just gonna point this out that Darryl is always sending us emails if he gets the Google Analytics reports and not enough eyeballs have clicked or seen.
00:22:19.813 --> 00:22:21.653
Mary Tan: Like we hear about it, right, Alex?
00:22:21.953 --> 00:22:26.513
Alexane Ricard: Yeah, but that's very helpful because then we know, okay, we need to change that.
00:22:27.033 --> 00:22:31.213
Alexane Ricard: I think to have like a partnership because when we work with our client, it's more of a partnership.
00:22:31.233 --> 00:22:33.193
Alexane Ricard: We all want to be successful together.
00:22:33.593 --> 00:22:38.733
Alexane Ricard: So if there's like really open communication and they really tell us, well, oh, look at that, that got resolved.
00:22:38.753 --> 00:22:39.513
Alexane Ricard: Oh, that didn't.
00:22:39.533 --> 00:22:49.893
Alexane Ricard: Then we can improve as well and we can work closer together to make this campaign or this a couple of months of working together a big success because at the end of it, that's what we want.
00:22:50.233 --> 00:22:57.353
Mary Tan: And so the key takeaways for this episode for the people listening at home, what would you say one is, Darryl?
00:22:58.553 --> 00:23:06.833
Darryl Michaelson: Well, vet your marketing and PR people, ask the tough questions, ask for specific goals to work towards.
00:23:07.193 --> 00:23:17.313
Darryl Michaelson: And yeah, I will send an email of a report that's possibly disappointing, but I also send emails that are extremely successful.
00:23:17.553 --> 00:23:27.513
Darryl Michaelson: We did have a Google problem where I was getting a lot of eyeballs, like 30,000 eyeballs in a month, but the clicks were like less than a dozen.
00:23:27.533 --> 00:23:29.293
Darryl Michaelson: So something went wrong there.
00:23:29.753 --> 00:23:37.953
Darryl Michaelson: And I talked to Alex and Mary about it, and it turned out that Alex was able to figure out that there was some demographic problems going on.
00:23:38.153 --> 00:23:48.833
Darryl Michaelson: And her adjustment on that lowered the eyeballs by about half, but the clicks went up immensely, back to the hundreds, like 1500.
00:23:48.853 --> 00:23:59.213
Darryl Michaelson: So I might have 15,000 eyeballs and then 1500 clicks into the website, which, you know, what's 30,000 eyeballs matter if nobody's doing anything?
00:24:00.653 --> 00:24:00.993
Alexane Ricard: Yeah.
00:24:01.313 --> 00:24:14.353
Alexane Ricard: And I have one last question for you, Darryl, for all of the people listening to us, you know, there might be a couple that have like a really good idea of a business, especially pet businesses, but they just don't know how to start, where to start.
00:24:14.373 --> 00:24:17.953
Alexane Ricard: So what would be your tip for those like entrepreneurs?
00:24:17.973 --> 00:24:26.953
Alexane Ricard: Like what would be something you would tell them just as a little advice on when you started in your basement and you did it, like just something for them?
00:24:27.433 --> 00:24:32.813
Darryl Michaelson: Well, I think the main thing is to not overspend thinking that you're gonna get results.
00:24:33.273 --> 00:24:44.353
Darryl Michaelson: So when I first started this, I was doing every little street fair, pet fair, cat show, anything that got, we have a farmer's market in Minneapolis.
00:24:44.373 --> 00:24:46.273
Darryl Michaelson: I got a booth at the farmer's market.
00:24:46.293 --> 00:24:48.593
Darryl Michaelson: So I'm down there at 6 a.m.
00:24:48.593 --> 00:24:55.713
Darryl Michaelson: on Saturday and Sunday mornings with the spread of cat furniture surrounded by vegetables and flowers and plants.
00:24:56.293 --> 00:25:03.253
Darryl Michaelson: But it was only like $200 a month to have a spot there, and it totally paid for itself.
00:25:03.633 --> 00:25:10.533
Darryl Michaelson: And then it took me about five years of being in business before I could afford to have a brochure and I bought a big truck.
00:25:10.553 --> 00:25:23.973
Darryl Michaelson: So it's really about delayed gratification and setting small goals and really the grassroots of how do you get people to see your product without you having to overspend on it?
00:25:23.993 --> 00:25:26.733
Darryl Michaelson: Because frankly, money isn't the answer.
00:25:26.753 --> 00:25:28.213
Darryl Michaelson: It's really about time.
00:25:28.293 --> 00:25:30.093
Darryl Michaelson: You have to allow it time.
00:25:30.853 --> 00:25:35.153
Mary Tan: All right, any last thoughts, Alex?
00:25:35.793 --> 00:25:37.433
Alexane Ricard: No, I think that was amazing.
00:25:37.453 --> 00:25:40.513
Alexane Ricard: Thank you so much for all of your answers and advice.
00:25:40.853 --> 00:25:43.773
Mary Tan: All right, well, that's a wrap for this show.
00:25:43.793 --> 00:25:45.713
Mary Tan: Remember, we are here to help you.
00:25:45.733 --> 00:25:53.353
Mary Tan: If you have a question or a concern and wanna reach out and ask us, we would love to help you.
00:25:53.393 --> 00:26:00.093
Mary Tan: Or if you wanna be a guest, reach out to us on Facebook or Instagram or under the Whisker Report.
00:26:00.533 --> 00:26:05.413
Mary Tan: And as we always end the show, bark loud and purr smart.
00:26:05.593 --> 00:26:06.713
Mary Tan: Bye everyone.
00:26:07.453 --> 00:26:12.853
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