Ever wondered how a home baker's passion for creating lactation cookies blossomed into a booming e-commerce business?
Join Ryan Martin, founder of Remarkable Digital (eCommerce SEO agency) as he interviews Rebecca Tischler, the founder and CEO of Milky Goodness, shares her extraordinary ascent from whipping up treats in her kitchen to empowering breastfeeding mothers nationwide.
Our heartfelt conversation with Rebecca is a blend of candid anecdotes and strategic insights, illustrating how an unyielding entrepreneurial spirit can turn a personal mission into a widespread success.
As we sit down with Rebecca, her stories transport us through the milestones and stumbling blocks of building Milky Goodness.
She openly discusses the initial lack of business acumen, her reliance on her husband Jeff's support, and the pivotal shift to online sales that catapulted her brand into over 150 stores. But it's not just about scaling up—it's about the community of mothers nurtured along the way and the genuine connections forged through every batch of cookies.
Rebecca's dedication shines as she highlights the growth strategies and consumer-centric approaches that have shaped Milky Goodness into a brand synonymous with trust and quality.
Wrapping up our illuminating exchange, Rebecca emphasizes the transformative power of customer feedback, harnessed through social media and surveys, in steering her brand towards the future.
She emphasises the role of customer reviews in shaping product offerings and company direction, a testament to the importance of two-way communication in business evolution.
Join 'A Remarkable Newsletter' for weekly high performance marketing and content actionable tips.
Ever wondered how a home baker's passion for creating lactation cookies blossomed into a booming e-commerce business?
Join Ryan Martin, founder of Remarkable Digital (eCommerce SEO agency) as he interviews Rebecca Tischler, the founder and CEO of Milky Goodness, shares her extraordinary ascent from whipping up treats in her kitchen to empowering breastfeeding mothers nationwide.
Our heartfelt conversation with Rebecca is a blend of candid anecdotes and strategic insights, illustrating how an unyielding entrepreneurial spirit can turn a personal mission into a widespread success.
As we sit down with Rebecca, her stories transport us through the milestones and stumbling blocks of building Milky Goodness.
She openly discusses the initial lack of business acumen, her reliance on her husband Jeff's support, and the pivotal shift to online sales that catapulted her brand into over 150 stores. But it's not just about scaling up—it's about the community of mothers nurtured along the way and the genuine connections forged through every batch of cookies.
Rebecca's dedication shines as she highlights the growth strategies and consumer-centric approaches that have shaped Milky Goodness into a brand synonymous with trust and quality.
Wrapping up our illuminating exchange, Rebecca emphasizes the transformative power of customer feedback, harnessed through social media and surveys, in steering her brand towards the future.
She emphasises the role of customer reviews in shaping product offerings and company direction, a testament to the importance of two-way communication in business evolution.
Join 'A Remarkable Newsletter' for weekly high performance marketing and content actionable tips.
Welcome to the Ecommerce Australia Podcast. Welcome to Ecommerce Australia. I'm your host, ryan Martin, founder of Remarkable Digital. This podcast is aimed at those who have their own online business, e-commerce professionals looking to keep current on the trends, and for anyone interested in learning more about the world of Ecom. For those of you seeking direct assistance, remarkable Digital is just a call away. Our mission is to be remarkable, doing great things for great people and great businesses.
Speaker 1:I understand how much choice you have and how many podcasts are out there, so I'm truly grateful you've tuned in. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments or topics you'd like covered. Let's get started, alright. Well, great to have you on board and listening to another episode of Ecommerce Australia. You'll love the story behind this next guest. Rebecca started her business, like many of our guests, from her home in Sydney, new South Wales, around seven years ago. Being a founder with a busy young family three daughters and running her own Ecom store has been a journey which we can touch on. But, most importantly, her products sell out a lot. Maybe it's something to do with the 1,200 five-star review she has and the fact the products are the best around. They can be found in over 150 retail and online stores as well, so she's grown a really impressive business. Welcome to the founder and CEO of Milky Goodness, rebecca Tishla.
Speaker 2:Hey, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:I'm really excited to learn more because we've sort of had a few conversations over the years, but I think what your story is very typical of a lot of people that listen to this show, so I'm sure they'll align with a lot of your thoughts and sentiments and be interested to see how you've grown this, as I said, to over 150 different retail and online stores from what started as a small business seven years ago.
Speaker 2:It's incredible to think of where it started versus where it is now and, to be honest, back then in the beginning, I didn't think that it would end up where it is today. Like you said, a young family this kind of started because of my own experience and my own lack of milk supply, I guess, but started as baking lactation cookies for myself turned into, seven years later, an incredible community and incredible clientele database and it's been a fantastic journey yeah nice, and I'm sure it's been stressful at times as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to say the least, I actually didn't have any kind of business econ background at all, so I have been learning on the go and that has been incredibly stressful for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I could imagine. And your husband, Jeff, so he helps out a fair bit, but he's a chef by trade as well, so is that where this sort of started the idea?
Speaker 2:It actually had elements of help from him. Most certainly he is a. He owns a pizza shop, so he's actually not a chef by trade either.
Speaker 2:So both of us have just kind of learned on the go, but he has been in business a lot longer than I have, so his experience and his learnings along the way have been absolutely beneficial to milky goodness and the development that we've had, and his input is something that I call on on a very regular basis. I tend to be the more forefront and the face of the brand and of the business, but he is definitely part of the turning clothes within milky goodness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice. So I'm sure he'll be happy that I've given him the mantle of being a chef. I knew he was in restaurants, but maybe just the business side of things. So, yeah, awesome. Now, before we get into the background and how things started, and you know talking all Ecom, what are lactation cookies? Who are they for? Who's the target market?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely so. Lactation cookies are designed to boost and increase milk supply for breastfeeding women. That obviously target market is anybody who is pregnant and planning on breastfeeding. It can kind of be introduced anywhere during the third trimester of pregnancy as well and then continue on through a breastfeeding journey. Lactation cookies contain an ingredient or primary ingredients known as galactagogs. So all of our product range contains these particular high quality galactagogs that, as I said, aid in increasing and boosting their milk supply.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fantastic. And so getting on to. I guess the start of that business was there just none around, or there was some products there, but you thought you could improve them. How did the idea come about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely so. My sister-in-law is actually a midwife and when I had my first daughter, I had a seamless breastfeeding journey and I honestly thought like it was beautiful. I was very, very lucky to experience that Came my second daughter, and I guess I was naive in thinking that what worked for one was going to work for the other, and I very quickly learned that that was not the case. I faced different struggles breastfeeding challenges with my second daughter. I learned on my sister-in-law for some help and advice and then was also researching into non-medicated ways that I could increase my milk supply. I did come across like these galactogog ingredients and different lactation products. At the time, I knew two brands that were available and the range that they had was really basic and simple and I thought you know what? I have had this passion for baking my entire life. Any job that I worked in, I was known as the one who bought the delicious treats into the workplace.
Speaker 2:So I thought you know what I can do this myself Kind of started to investigate research into what I would want to put into it, made them and you know we made tweaks and changes along the way but kind of found that I had made a product that was tasted incredible, which was a key point, but also really benefited and did what it was designed to do. And then I kind of it was a little bit random how it then eventuated and continued on from there, but this one time I had just made one too many cookies for myself to consume. I snapped a quick photo and chopped it on a local Facebook group for our area and said you know, made too many lactation cookies, does anybody want some? And within minutes I had people buy what I had made. But then messages saying hey, can you make me some more?
Speaker 2:So, it kind of kicked off from there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. It's amazing how some of those stories start. But you know, and to grow it into, what was that? Was that seven years later? Is that right or a little bit longer?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was end of 2016. So, this is coming into year eight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fantastic, and so what a journey that's been like. So you then you've seen the opportunity there. You think, okay, this may be a small business or something I can do to you know to pay a few bills and to you know to do something with that. I guess, what was that first 12 months look like? Did you go into that thinking, yeah, I'm going to build a Shopify store and we're going to sell these nationally? Or what was the first 12 months in an Econ business life?
Speaker 2:Well, to start off with, we kind of the first way to communicate with anyone was just along our Facebook page. I had never been too big on social media or anything like that, but I realized if I wanted to have some line of open communication with people and for people to see what I had, I opened up a Facebook page and then allowed people to shoot me a message and say if they wanted anything. At the time it was local, so I had any of our local moms just coming to my house to pick them up. Shortly after that we kind of thought okay, we have the potential to reach more people. It's a product that's getting amazing feedback. Let's see what's available and what we can do.
Speaker 2:I actually started off with a Wix platform in order to list them and sell them. And one thing to this day and this is a testament to Jeff I've always been the type of person who was like I procrastinated. I had this Wix site set up and I was like no, it's not live, it can't go live, it's not 100%, it's not perfect. And he's like pull the trigger. You're not going to know what to fix, what to make better, until you pull the trigger. And I remember that day clearly saying, okay, let's set it live. And then you sit there eagerly and you wait, and you wait. And then when you get an order, you're like, oh my gosh, it was an incredible feeling, so good on you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what the beginning kind of looked like for us. I was still baking out of my home kitchen at the time. That was only a short four months before I had done significant damage to my own oven by baking so any cookies in there that we realized we needed to change in terms of manufacturing as well. So then came the next big hurdle that we had to fix and remedy and allow us to continue.
Speaker 1:So you had to then go and get more of a commercial arrangement. So is that still to this day, or have you outgrown a few of those since?
Speaker 2:I have outgrown since. So once we moved from our home kitchen, we actually converted our double garage into half an industrial kitchen, half my stock pick pack area and, mind you, at this stage I've got two kids under what were they two and a half. I am now wearing all of the hats for an Ecom business that I was kind of learning on the go, so it was a stressful time. The hours that I did all of this was in between my kids sleeping and once I put them down for the night, in between breast feeds and everything like that. I can recall baking one, two, three o'clock in the morning. I'd have to wait till my products cooled, package them up, create shipping labels and everything like that.
Speaker 2:And but you know what I loved it? I absolutely loved every moment of it. I had the opportunity to be home with my kids, spend that precious time with them and then still have something that I felt was my contribute financially to the household. Mind you, at that stage you're, you know, really contributing financially. If anything, the family was supporting my business as the get go. But yeah, just to make those changes along the way. After that, what are we coming into now, three years since we actually moved into a purpose built factory that has a full blown bakery for filming center, dispatch components, everything like that, and I no longer wear all the hats.
Speaker 1:Oh, good on you. And so how many cookies are you doing a day or a week or a month, like what's the number? How many of these things are you sort of putting out?
Speaker 2:Yes, so we in a day we bake about 8000 and produce three days a week for lactation cookies and that's like all of the different flavors are like in one day would be one particular flavor. So you know, forecasting and everything like that is pretty key and vital. And then we also have like our other lactation products like granolas and packet mixes, packet mix cookies and packet mix brownies that you know we're manufacturing there as well. So massive product range at the moment, which is awesome.
Speaker 1:That's so good to hear. So you said, early days you had a week store, you pushed it live, you got your first order. What was the first channel that you invested in from a marketing point of view, like, was the first 12 months just purely organic in terms of word of mouth and referrals and repeat customers and family, or did you start to sort of invest into you know Facebook ads or you know community groups or what was the early marketing strategy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so first up was definitely word of mouth. That was something that helped us massively in the beginning. Shortly after that I did double in Facebook ads. That would have been the very first avenue that we went down. Very again naive and you know, just sort of came in and typed these few things in, put this money towards an ad and we'll see a return, and it definitely did not work like that.
Speaker 2:Like I wouldn't say unfortunately. It's a learning curve and it's gotten me to where I am today. But I made those choices and I made those learning curves and things. And, yeah, it obviously didn't work for me at the beginning because I didn't know what I was doing and I kind of guess that it was around that one year stage where I realized, if I want to have this continue and I want this to be able to grow, I need to identify the areas where these are not my strengths. I know my strengths I can bake, I can be on social media and I can put my face out there. I can talk about my products because I know them inside out. I know my brand, that if I wanted to reach other people, I knew I needed to get help in order to do that. Someone was going to do that better than me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's always a smart way to look at it. But also, you know, even to not be so hard on yourself. Like matters change so much over the last seven, eight years. And you know you're up at 1am, 2am, baking, packing, doing all that stuff, like no wonder, you know something I couldn't get my head around it, no wonder something had to kind of not be as fantastic as that.
Speaker 1:But, as you say, you do things yourself, you start to learn what you're good at, what you're not good at you know and then start to hire. But also, I think having a go yourself gives you a bit more appreciation about what people who do it well, you know what they go through, what that looks like, and I guess it gives you a lot more of a context around. You know what they're doing for their spend, whether it's a freelance or an agency or whatever it is. So that experience is invaluable, no doubt.
Speaker 2:Yes, most definitely, and it's kind of. I think that that experience is what also led me to make that decision to branch out to an agency and allow them. Another like hard thing for me was handing over elements of my business to somebody else. Not that I thought that I could do it better than anybody else, but it was my baby and I was the first time handing different elements over, but since then it has been the best impact on our business having other agencies or having other people wear the hats for different elements within the business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brilliant. Let's talk about from a marketing and an e-com point of view, like what channels are you investing in at the moment and what seems to be working best for you? We mentioned you know Meta ads, but you know SEO, google ads, email. You know what sort of channels are. I assume that you're investing in some level across all of those, but what seems to be working for you at the moment?
Speaker 2:Yeah, most definitely so. Meta and Google is where we have a majority of our paid advertising going and, again, that's not something that I particularly look after. I do have third parties that look after that on my behalf. In terms of internally, edm's Clavio is phenomenal for us, so that is a really high mover than otherwise social media as well.
Speaker 2:So we're across Facebook and Instagram, which is really more of like a one-on-one level and a more community orientated platforms. But yeah, facebook, meta Clavio and then social media all of these different elements together are really what is driving us in that right direction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice, so a really holistic sort of whole approach to it. Do you get I'm not sure the right word is tangled up, but do you look at the attribution and kind of go, okay, this is working, this is not. Or do you look at it from an MER point of view, which is kind of you know your whole ad spend versus your revenue, Like do you have trouble attributing what's working or what's not, or is that kind of more so in conjunction with an agency? That kind of helps you understand that.
Speaker 2:Again, as I said earlier, I didn't have a full grasp and understanding of particular elements. So that's where I've put my faith and my trust into an agency that I've built, you know, rapport with and trust with. They are the ones who kind of although I have the ultimate decisions about this they liaise with me and give me really good updates and insight as to how all of those paid elements are working in terms of all of the other channels. You know we look at our EDMs, we run them ourselves, we check in week to week, see what is performing, what isn't performing, what we need to make adjustments for and things. So there's quite a few elements that I still have 100% complete control over the paid advertising I certainly still do, but I do definitely take their lead and get their understanding and direction as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no problems. And what about TikTok? Have you ventured onto TikTok yet, or is that just another thing for another day?
Speaker 2:No, we're there, we're on TikTok. We're not as big on TikTok. We're still kind of, I guess, trying to find our footing there We've really nailed our Instagram platform and the community that we're building there. I think we're almost at like 90,000 followers on Instagram, which is fantastic TikTok.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I said, we're still trying to find our footing. We've got a few different ranges of content that's up there and still trying to work out what people want to see on there. It's a little bit more of me talking about the products and the brand, some behind the scenes. People love behind the scenes and I think that's something that I am very fortunate to have, because I own my own bakery. My staff are in there every day. We have the opportunity to film those different elements and see virtually live what they're doing. So, yeah, still trying to find our way with TikTok, but we're there, we're on there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good on you. No, I couldn't agree more with the behind the scenes footage too. I know personally my own Instagram. If you can show that behind the scenes, it just it gets so much more views and likes and builds trust. Which is why you're doing social media for is to obviously grow the brand. But we want to build brand and build loyalty and the great way to do that is behind the scenes. People can see that you know you're reticule, you are who you say, you are where they're made, the products are made, and it just helps build that brand story and and builds a loyal following in community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most definitely, that's what we found. The feedback has been fantastic about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great, and so it has a real community feel. So you built that community on Facebook. Do you have like a closed group or like a Mums group or anything like that, or is it just your Facebook page and you just post regular content and updates and educational pieces around that?
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly right, we don't have a closed group at the moment, we do offer a whole range of free educational content that's been produced by our IBCLCs and our medical professionals, and that's something that we are constantly updating and providing to our followers. You know, a closed Facebook group would probably or something along those lines would be a really good avenue, especially because you find this community that we are targeting it can quite often be a very isolating time for people. It's not a taboo topic, but there is a lot of stigma around breastfeeding and I've always made it very clear to anyone who is joining our community that whether you breastfeed for a day, you breastfeed for a year, you're welcome, you are inclusive, no one. There's no judgment or anything like that. At the end of the day, we need a village to support us, to raise our families, to raise our children, and that's exactly what we have a very open and welcoming community.
Speaker 1:Oh, fantastic, Love to hear it. Let's unpack some of the business lessons that you give to others who are starting their e-com business from their kitchen or from their house or wherever that may be. And you've grown to such a great business now Are there some lessons that you kind of reflect on and go Jesus, I wish I had known that or advice to someone going through who's earlier in their journey is to how to grow business, how to grow their e-com business to a success that you've grown yours to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most definitely. So. One of the very first things that I'd learned along the way was having a point of difference. What is my pod? What is going to make me stand out from anybody else out there? So having a pod or a point of difference, is key to having your brand and your product want to be consumed or purchased by customers, if you happen to like. There's so many markets that are really saturated. Right, you're competing against so many other people. For me, I mean quite a niche market, but for any markets that are really saturated, you don't want to go out and you want to draw inspiration from other people. You don't necessarily want to go out. Find something that somebody else is doing because they're successful and then directly copy it.
Speaker 2:Because those people with those authentic communities will be able to see, through what you are producing, that you have taken, virtually copied something from somebody else. So once you have your point of difference, focus on that. Let that be your reason why people should come to you, and then also community as well. That's absolutely massive. You want to nurture your community. You want to show them that they're important to you, and showing up being real and authentic is the way that you're going to grow that community as well and then nurture them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, perfect. So let's touch on the last two points, as we did previously. But community and nurture how do you do that? Is that through organic social? Is that through emails? Is that through you know? Do you turn up to events? How do you? Because I can imagine you'd have a great returning customer rate, given the products are consumable. How do you sort of nurture that? How do you continue to engage with people long after the sale has been made?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely so, across our social media channels. If anyone is communicating with us via any DMs or anything like that, it's not like automated responses, it's me, I'm the one showing up, having the conversation with people, building that trust and that rapport. And another thing that I've actually found really beneficial for that recently, I guess for an ease of convenience to is actually like voice audio messages, because then people can actually hear that it's me, I can sign off with like Beck. I do sign off as Beck, but some people might not necessarily know who Beck is, but they hear a voice. They're like okay, that's an actual person that's taking the time to talk to me. So that is something huge.
Speaker 2:My inbox is always open to people. I have so many conversations with people every single day and it can be from the most simplest thing it can be to a more complex issue. And then the absolute highlight is when I've got people coming back to me and they're like, hey, I'm pregnant again. Or the amount of people that have shared their pregnancy announcements with me. Because I've built and developed that closeness and that rapport and that trust Across all of our social media channels. We offer free information, free things that can be quite hard to either get a grasp on, get a handle on or even locate to start with. So having all of these free resources really allows again for that element of trust that's coming from our brand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fantastic. It comes across in having a few conversations with you over the years. But that authenticity comes through the podcast that you do. I had to listen to that, even though I'm probably not the target audience.
Speaker 2:You're quite the target audience, but that's okay. I'm glad you gave it a listen.
Speaker 1:I gave it a listen and, yeah, I mean that sounds great. But just, I think sometimes people I'll say people, I don't know I think sometimes there's a general conception that we're trying to scale things so quickly but actually to grow your business, doing the unscalable things like the voice memos and like it actually has a. Really it seems to work well. I think, especially in Australia too, like we like to hear that, we like to trust our own a little bit, that it's an Australian company and back that in. So I feel like that can only help. That's only helped your brand grow as well.
Speaker 2:Most certainly and especially because these type of topics they're not something that you just want to go and disclose to people Like. Sometimes they can be quite personal things that people are facing.
Speaker 1:And I myself.
Speaker 2:I've been there and I've found that sometimes relaying my personal experience with people as well just allows them to open up and have that that feel of trust and community and, you know, that personal element as well, and I think that that has been fantastic.
Speaker 2:in the development of my business, I really want to strive towards people feeling as though they were appreciated and that they, you know, ultimately like they are the bread and butter of my business our returning customers or any of our new customers but I didn't want them to feel as though, okay, they chose to spend their money here at Milk Goodness and then that's it, like there was no more for them. I wanted them to know that, even if they were here for one purchase, that they're still a valued customer. They're still valued in our community, and I wanted to ensure that they felt that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, fantastic Question without notice. Have you thought about subscriptions or do you do subscriptions currently, like, obviously because it's recurring? Well, obviously, because the products are consumable, they've got to continue to buy them. Have you thought about a subscription model for that?
Speaker 2:We do offer a subscription model.
Speaker 2:That again came off the back of so many mums saying how much they loved our product I've actually forgotten to order and I've just run out. And how quickly can you get something to me? And I was like, okay, I see a problem here. We are time poor. We are so busy making sure that everybody else has looked after that. We put ourselves at the bottom of that and then comes a time I forgot to place an order and you know as unfortunate as it is. You have to wait for those shipping time frames and things like that.
Speaker 2:So why not offer a subscription? That's going to allow a set and forget style of method, and that's exactly what it is. We offer it for all of our food based products, because they're the items that you would like to purchase more frequently. We offer some really good features and benefits to it. So you've got weekly, fortnightly, monthly options, then discounted rates for purchasing on a subscription. There's no lock-in time frames, there's no other hidden fees or anything like that. The customer has complete access to their account, and we have found that having a subscription based model incorporated into our website has been fantastic as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brilliant. I love to hear that. What's the biggest challenge facing your e-commerce business right now? I'll say what keeps you up at night, but I imagine there's a few things to choose from.
Speaker 2:There's never a new list of things that keep me up at night. But the biggest thing that we are facing and you know, it's not just us, it is every retail business out there, every household out there, dealing with the increased costs associated with living. Now, obviously, for us, we have a range of raw products and we then manufacture our own cookies and other products. Those raw ingredients are increasing every single day. So I personally don't think it's fair to then have to continuously on-forward these costs to our customers. But if the cost to manufacture is increasing and we are keeping our sales at the cost for our products here, it's going to continue to go like this and then something's got to give. So you know we are constantly looking at ways that we can refine internally so that then our customers are not being affected. They are still getting 100% quality product without increased overheads. So that is something that is constantly being worked on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's right, and unfortunately it's not an easy fix. It's not a new plugin or a new app that you can add to your Shopify store to fix that. Unfortunately it's a bit. We sort of have to play the hand that we're dealt a little bit with around that, don't we?
Speaker 2:Yeah, most certainly, and I think that's where the biggest changes come from, where I now sit within my business. Once upon a time I was very hands-on I baked, I packaged, I did all social media. Now I am very much still present within the social media, but I find myself sitting at my desk majority of my days and doing all of the behind the scenes, all of the boring stuff, but the things that make the business the business and allow it to continue. So they're definitely key elements not the fun stuff.
Speaker 2:People don't want to see all of that clicking away at a keyboard, crunching numbers and stuff, but that's the reality of it. That's where I am in my business now and I'm happy, I'm glad, I'm so incredibly grateful to have this opportunity and be in this position now, but it's forever a challenge and something that plays on my mind and so many of those different elements that I face on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fantastic. I think you're doing great things. One of the things I wanted to touch on was the 1,200 five-star reviews, which is fantastic. I think I've used the word fantastic too many times, but that's okay, keep it coming.
Speaker 2:Keep it coming.
Speaker 1:How do you collect your reviews to use? You know, judge me, Do you have a platform that you use or do you just sort of collect them from all different areas?
Speaker 2:So we did, actually because we are on the Shopify platform now. We did have a built Shopify app that pretty much allowed EDMs to go out to customers to, you know, appreciate their feedback, leave us a review because what you feel, what you say, matters to me and my business and, plus, helps other people make a decision and educated decision about the brand and whether they want to invest in the brand too. So we did use that for many, many years. But Shopify is constantly updating and making changes so that app actually in the coming months is being terminated, so I didn't want to get caught out last minute, lose my reviews and everything like that that I've worked so hard to build. So we did actually move over to a new platform which we now use this brand for a few different elements within our business, and that's Yacht Po.
Speaker 1:Okay, yep.
Speaker 2:And that, again, is a really simple, easy system to use. It has all of the reviews integrated into the website, and that's what's allowing us to continue to build that. And then also Google and Facebook reviews as well. They're fantastic. I mean, how many people go to Google to find out whether you know, investigate into a brand and then make that decision as to whether they want to purchase from them? So we found that the reviews have been fantastic for the growth and development of our business too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and what happens if you get a negative review? Have you had many of those and how do you handle those?
Speaker 2:Definitely having a review where somebody is not happy. It's not something that you want to brush under the carpet, because there must be a valid reason that they've come forward and said something. So we always address it as okay. I appreciate you, thank you. First of all, thank you for taking the time to leave this review. It is important to me to know how I can ensure that my customers are happy. I try and get a bit more holistic understanding of what the dissatisfaction may have been and then, although sometimes you can immediately make a change on make something as per what that person would like, it's something that we definitely take on board and look internally how we can ensure that this doesn't happen or that we're meeting these customers needs and things like that. So, most definitely, every style of feedback we receive is so beneficial to us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I'll to be honest. I was having this conversation earlier with another guest, but I think if you see a 4.8 or 4.9 review versus a five star, you know that there's a little bit more trust for the 4.8, because everyone has unhappy customers at times or things go wrong, and I think it's the way that you handle it and that builds even more trust.
Speaker 2:And funny. You say that actually because I have just recently noticed, since getting this, your review system on its only been relatively new that I changed over. It's only been maybe one or two months now, but they actually offer this feature where I've seen it before another platform to where you can do like a thumbs up or thumbs down for the review. So we allow our customers like filter the star review and then read what, what really they want to read, and anything that is under a five star review has had the thumbs ticked like they appreciate that review. That wasn't necessarily a five star review, but I feel that, like you said, that brings so much more trust to the brand as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and even from, like you know, not even e-commerce, but just business in general, the search terms for the negatives or why say, for an example, seo, who shouldn't use seo? Or? Or this agency versus that agency? Or people are looking for, like the negatives, to try and find what they need to know before they go and approach agency, something like that. So I think, not hiding from that fact and any bracing, that an educating is some, yeah, I can only build trust.
Speaker 2:Definitely and, at the end of the day, I don't know any brand out there who is going to have a hundred percent of happy customers. There are always going to be people who have had, for whatever reason, and negative experience or something like that, and it is most definitely how you respond, how you react and how you improve from that, because no businesses is perfect either. There are so many elements to improve. If our customers are there needs being met and where you know we're adhering to that as much as we can, then I think I'm good on that brand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hundred percent. One more question for you before we wrap things up. So just came to say what's next for milky goodness from a growth perspective?
Speaker 2:Definitely so. I'm called products are lactation products, and we always want to continue to diversify in those products, expand our range. Not too long ago, we introduced gluten free products to arrange, which is something we hadn't had for quite a while, but there was a demand for Constantly hearing the feedback from our customers. What is it that they want to see? I to often go into social media and ask you know, tell me, what flavors do you want to try? That's probably one of our biggest point of difference as well, that we have such an extensive range Compared to anybody else in the market, and I want to continue to offer that range to people as well, and hearing from them firsthand what they want and then allowing the time to go and develop. That Is something that is really high on my priority list.
Speaker 2:Another element is something that is a bit more new to our business structure now is educational component. We are moving into a digital aspect Because I found that there was not the really holistic approach to education from other brands out there. One brand is pushing their product, and that's what they do, whereas I want to be able to diversify, and so now we are starting to release a whole range of different books that have had fantastic response from our customers, which is amazing. But, yeah, that's the direction that we're going to continue to take. Education, which I think is so incredibly important to mothers and expecting mothers and First and second and third time mothers everything like that you can never have. You don't have all of the knowledge, so we want to continue to bring that to people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds awesome and to your point of the start as well. Like your first child to your second and your third work completely different experiences. So Even if you know someone has gone to that similar journey, they think I know the answer and they they soon realize that it's it's not all the same. So Education seems really important for your brand. More holistically, got one more question off the back of that answer how do you talk to your customers? So is it predominantly social media? Do you send out any Surveys, or do you get customer feedback from your edm's or what's the? How does that two way conversation with your customers look?
Speaker 2:So, at the base of all of the edm's, we do always prompt if you have any feedback about depending on what the topic is on the website.
Speaker 2:If you have any feedback about these particular topics, please drop in the inbox, more than happy to have that conversation with you. Social media would probably be the biggest place where we have those conversations because I'm quite frequently on there showing my face, the owner of the brand and I guess people hold me accountable for a lot of things, so that's where a lot of those conversations happen. We are, you know, in terms of growing and developing the business. We are now looking at different survey structures, because what happens if someone doesn't quite know that they can reach out by a dm, or they don't quite feel comfortable because their name is attributed to their inquiry or something like that? So we are now going to move along the lines of doing a little bit more like surveys to find out what things can we do better, what things do the customers want to see from us, what are some pain points from us as a brand? And, just you know, how can we grow, how can we do better for them?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, it's so important and taking that information is just going to again, you know, grow your business exponentially. So you know, listening to a little customer basis is always the best place to start, I think.
Speaker 2:Most definitely.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, look, it's been awesome to chat and learn. You know how you've grown this from you know the seven or eight years ago in the kitchen to what was it? Eight thousand a day yeah, that's incredible. I was surprised by that, by how much volume, but it goes to show you've done an incredible job. Should be really proud of all that you've achieved, not only with you know, the family, but also growing the business and starting off with no experience and, yeah, looking forward to watching the milky goodness journey continue to grow into that educational platform and, you know, driving businesses and who knows where we'll end up in another seven years yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, right, it's been absolute pleasure no problems.