The Next Big Breakthrough?

That sounds like a very interesting book, Marko

Stirling is one of my favourite soaps, I really appreciate what they do for us. It’s one of the best soaps and aftershave balms on the market yet it’s one of the best priced soaps.

Shawn, a huge part of what makes products like yours (Chatillon Lux), Rod’s and Mandy’s Stirling Soap Co., and Peter’s Desmond’s Barrow so good for me is the personal contact, either through actually meeting and talking with you in person or through PM’s and e-mails, or just your posting here on DFS.  (I would include others in that last category, as well, such as GroomingDept and Barrister_N_Mann, among others.). Not only are your products superb but understanding the underlying “why” a product is what it is adds to its allure for me.  I wish there was a way for you folks to do that on a larger scale.

Freddy  I totally agree with you. I too really value the contact they I'm able to have with the artisans to just discuss their products and their inspirations and their plans.  I know its hard for the artisans to manage that kind of access and it also comes with a degree of risk - some folks are just so easily offended these days but it really adds something.  I really enjoy all of the artisans you mentioned but I have to say that since Will of Barrister_N_Mann stepped back from social media. I've felt as if the brand has become more distant - don't get me wrong, I still love the products but I just miss the interaction with Will and it translates into how I perceive the brand.  I certainly get Will's rationale for doing what he did but I hope that once things calm down he will be back - I have seen him becoming more active recently which I see as a good sign.  Like I said, I think at least in theory I can understand the situation, for example I've seen posts saying that James Dufour, aka Wolfman doesn't respond to emails.  Well, imagine the whole world wants your product and they want it faster and cheaper but just as high quality as before.  I have no idea how many emails he must get but I'm getting a headache just thinking about it.  Do you answer them in order?  Just some of them?  How about none of them?  Thats what I'd do because it would be most fair.  

The old ways won't work anymore and I pray we never see Stirling Soap, Barrister and Mann or Chatillon Lux in Wal Mart.  Even the big guys guys are having trouble with the new realities of retail.  In Canada Sears recently went bankrupt - they've been around my entire life and I'm almost 60!  The bankruptcy was orchestrated and they made sure to clean out the pensions for 20,000 employees first but the bottom line was they couldn't keep doing what they had been doing.  It wasn't working anymore.  I think the model being followed by the wet shaving artisans and vendors is the future and its simply a matter of scaling up when required.  Why have brick and mortar?

Sorry for the rant and I hope I'm not coming across as negative because on the contrary, I'm excited thinking about the fact that the wet shaving retail/sales world is actually the cutting edge of where retail is going and that we are all part of a grand experiment that I'm betting is going to work out and grow and become the new normal.  What a blast right?
Marko

Sorry to hear that that's been the effect, Marko. I'm slowly working up to coming back to DFS. I think that my departure from Facebook will probably be permanent, at least as far as the wet shaving world goes (it simply requires too much time and energy to keep track of it all), but I do miss having discussions with the fine folks here from time to time.

we do miss you here, buddy!

Then there are the dinosaurs like me. Technology is not the issue there but rather discrimination. Many of us are very comfortable with technology; in fact about 80% of my working career was in technology first designing cable systems all over the US and later in selling computers, networking and programming.

But as mentioned we are also experienced in constructive discrimination and so ignore many of the currently faddish mediums like Facebook, Twitter, videos, "Friends", "Reviews solicited within the honeymoon period of a new product" and many other modern trends.

We reject immediately any "sell the sizzle" advertising. Ads that show phones as cameras simply take that product off the "consider" list.

We are still a market and in many ways a more reliable market then some; we are slow to abandon what we have adopted but also hard to reach. I have not seen a TV ad in decades that encouraged me to buy a product. I don't watch videos. If a seller can't present the reasons to buy the product in 100 words or less I simply pass it by.

To sell to folk like me start with the Boring Details; purpose, dimensions, uses, costs.

Probably, yes. I imagine that I would have applied to perfume school instead.

Its never too late.  I know I have no idea of the extent of time and effort spent on the business and how much you could delegate to trusted family members or "soap elves" but if its your passion you can find a way to make it work.  Now of course I'm being totally selfish here because I'm thinking about the impact of you going to perfume school on Barrister and Mann and the growth and directions that might take you.  I can't imagine it being bad.

Never too late, but, no, Barrister and Mann would collapse without my constant presence. We work somewhere between 80 and 100 hours per week, pretty much every week, and the business requires nearly constant oversight. If I were to study perfume at the knee of trained professionals, then the company would have to either be sold or shut down. Not out of the question, but not a particularly optimal solution for the time being.

Then there are the dinosaurs like me.  Technology is not the issue there but rather discrimination. Many of us are very comfortable with technology; in fact about 80% of my working career was in technology first designing cable systems all over the US and later in selling computers, networking and programming.

But as mentioned we are also experienced in constructive discrimination and so ignore many of the currently faddish mediums like Facebook, Twitter, videos, "Friends", "Reviews solicited within the honeymoon period of a new product" and many other modern trends.

We reject immediately any "sell the sizzle" advertising.  Ads that show phones as cameras simply take that product off the "consider" list.

We are still a market and in many ways a more reliable market then some; we are slow to abandon what we have adopted but also hard to reach. I have not seen a TV ad in decades that encouraged me to buy a product. I don't watch videos.  If a seller can't present the reasons to buy the product in 100 words or less I simply pass it by.

To sell to folk like me start with the Boring Details; purpose, dimensions, uses, costs.

I completely agree with you, however, I find that people like us are more likely to buy a product after a recommendation from a trusted source or a friend. I don't mean a celebrity endorsement but rather a friend who tells you about it and shows you and you try it. For me I've found this forum DFS, to sort of fill that space. Over time I've gotten to know some members and some artisans and through paying attention and a little trial and error (ok a lot of trial and error) I've come to know members who's tastes and preferences more or less match my own so that I can be reasonably confident that if they like a product I likely will too. Its challenging at first to sort through the different review styles. Some rave bout everything and some will be more balanced. I prefer a fair and balanced review particularly when it comes to newer artisans entering the market. Its not fair to them if nobody tells them what their weaknesses are, they have to know that to get better but there is certainly a way to say that without flaming them. Its also not fair to the membership if you review a product without being honest about its shortcomings and if you do that regularly your opinion becomes devalued. So if we keep in mind that whenever we are talking about a product on DFS or in any other social media space, we are or at least can be like the trusted friend or older brother sharing our experiences so that they may have some of the same enjoyment and utility that we have. We have become the advertising.

ezlovan, I sincerely hope Mandy and you do hang in there and over time your venture is an even bigger success than it is now.  Sometimes that nimrod may just be having an off day  and we may never know that.  However, unfortunately, there are people, as you describe, who almost seem to take pleasure in just being flat out rude and nasty.  Sadly, those folks, as you have discovered, seem to be found in every walk of life.  Fortunately they are, by far, in the minority.

Thank you, Freddy, I really appreciate that. I completely agree about off days. We all have them. I'm not talking about them, though. I'm talking about people who are just miserable sons of biscuits and go out of their way to be rude. I bring this up because today (actually, less than 30 minutes ago was the final exchange) I finally had enough abuse over the past two and a half years from a regular customer that I marked his account to immediately refund any order he places. I don't make enough money doing this to be verbally accosted via phone and email for no reason at all.

Hi ezlovan , I too hope you continue in this business and I think you just found a way to a least a little peace of mind. You fired a bad customer. Thats great. I spent my latest career as a lawyer and I can recall years ago when I was just starting out the practice advisor of our bar association was speaking to a bunch of us newbs, among the many things he told us was that we should try (its always hard to do) to do an annual review of our clients and rank them from best to worst and fire the bottom three clients on the list. Every year. Eventually you might have a decent client list. Now as I said this is easier said than done because we always are nervous that maybe all our clients will leave and we'll starve so we put up with abusive behaviour, slow payment, having our bills ground down, ridiculous expectations especially on timing - I need this on monday and I don't care if its your daughter's baptism if you want the work/get paid I'll see that on monday (and its 10pm saturday) In any case as you get older and more experienced and confident you come to realize what good advice that was and guess what? There'll be another client coming down the road and maybe he won't be such a jerk. One other thing, I've worked hard my whole life, whether in law school or in my job or volunteering at church, I've paid my taxes and been polite and respectful and I've brought up my kids to do the same, I've tried not to complain too much and to be grateful for the blessings I have in my life, I've even allowed other drivers to merge in front of me on the freeway the way you're supposed to but I can't tell you the number of times I've come across perfect strangers who, upon learning that I'm a lawyer have made rude and insulting comments, even in front of the kids. People, what are you going to do? Thankfully they are in the minority.
Mark

Marko, thank you. That is sage advice. I've not been rude to any customers, even the fellow yesterday. But I am going to politely start letting folks like him know that while I appreciate their business, they are certainly not required to buy anything from me. It's not a major problem. Of the thousands of orders we do each year, I can think of less half a dozen names off hand that have made life exceedingly difficult. I certainly don't want to give the impression that I feel this way about customers with legitimate concerns. Neither I nor Stirling Soap is perfect, and when something I've done is substandard, I expect to hear about it and fix it. I do mean those with complaints that no rational human being would make, or those who are just downright rude every time they contact me, no matter what it is about.

Anyway, sorry to have derailed this thread. I know it was intended to be about breakthrough products, and not mental breakthroughs for me.

...Anyway, sorry to have derailed this thread. I know it was intended to be about breakthrough products, and not mental breakthroughs for me.

Relax, you didn't "derail" anything. The thread has if anything "evolved" for the better and is most educational in that we are seeing how "sausage" is made, to borrow the old maxim about governmental legislation.

Thank you, Freddy, I really appreciate that. I completely agree about off days. We all have them. I'm not talking about them, though. I'm talking about people who are just miserable sons of biscuits and go out of their way to be rude. I bring this up because today (actually, less than 30 minutes ago was the final exchange) I finally had enough abuse over the past two and a half years from a regular customer that I marked his account to immediately refund any order he places. I don't make enough money doing this to be verbally accosted via phone and email for no reason at all.

Hi ezlovan , I too hope you continue in this business and I think you just found a way to a least a little peace of mind.  You fired a bad customer.  Thats great.  I spent my latest career as a lawyer and I can recall years ago when I was just starting out the practice advisor of our bar association was speaking to a bunch of us newbs, among the many things he told us was that we should try (its always hard to do) to do an annual review of our clients and rank them from best to worst and fire the bottom three clients on the list.  Every year.  Eventually you might have a decent client list.  Now as I said this is easier said than done because we always are nervous that maybe all our clients will leave and we'll starve so we put up with abusive behaviour, slow payment, having our bills ground down, ridiculous expectations especially on timing - I need this on monday and I don't care if its your daughter's baptism if you want the work/get paid I'll see that on monday (and its 10pm saturday)  In any case as you get older and more experienced and confident you come to realize what good advice that was and guess what?  There'll be another client coming down the road and maybe he won't be such a jerk.  One other thing, I've worked hard my whole life, whether in law school or in my job or volunteering at church, I've paid my taxes and been polite and respectful and I've brought up my kids to do the same, I've tried not to complain too much and to be grateful for the blessings I have in my life, I've even allowed other drivers to merge in front of me on the freeway the way you're supposed to but I can't tell you the number of times I've come across perfect strangers who, upon learning that I'm a lawyer have made rude and insulting comments, even in front of the kids.  People, what are you going to do?  Thankfully they are in the minority.
Mark

Marko, thank you. That is sage advice. I've not been rude to any customers, even the fellow yesterday. But I am going to politely start letting folks like him know that while I appreciate their business, they are certainly not required to buy anything from me. It's not a major problem. Of the thousands of orders we do each year, I can think of less half a dozen names off hand that have made life exceedingly difficult. I certainly don't want to give the impression that I feel this way about customers with legitimate concerns. Neither I nor Stirling Soap is perfect, and when something I've done is substandard, I expect to hear about it and fix it. I do mean those with complaints that no rational human being would make, or those who are just downright rude every time they contact me, no matter what it is about.

Anyway, sorry to have derailed this thread. I know it was intended to be about breakthrough products, and not mental breakthroughs for me.

The fact is that there are people who will never be happy no matter what so politely declining their business is always an option. There are also people for whom abusive behaviour is a strategy to obtain discounts or free product. For example, my daughter who is a 21 year old nursing student and is truly a delightful person (I am so very proud of her) has a part time job at a shop that sells yoga wear (lulu lemon) and she generally enjoys the job. Recently she had an experience where a woman with her young daughter came in and looked at items that were on the sale rack. She wanted the sale price for an item that was not on the sale rack. My daughter politely told her that that item was not on sale so the woman proceeded to yell abuse at my daughter until an assistant manager came over and , guess what? Gave her the sale price on the non sale item. The woman gave my daughter a smug self-satisfied look as she left the store having schooled her daughter on how to get bargains while shopping. Its a good thing I wasn't there because I likely would have smacked her. I have self control but there are limits OK I wouldn't have smacked her but if I were the manager I would have told her that abuse of staff is not tolerated and politely asked her to leave and then if necessary had security escort her out. No yoga wear for you!

In any case I have a ton of respect for the artisans in the wet shaving world because not only do you have to make great products at a reasonable price but you have to interact with your customers on social media which even if a positive experience will still be time consuming - there is one of you and numerous of us. I am really impressed how responsive and engaging you all are. Then you have to deal with shipping issues that arise that aren't even your fault or system crashes and on and on.... and do it all with good humour. My wet shaving shopping experiences over the last several years have been some of the very best shopping experiences I've ever had and I say that as a guy who doesn't generally enjoy shopping.

Hi ezlovan , I too hope you continue in this business and I think you just found a way to a least a little peace of mind.  You fired a bad customer.  Thats great.  I spent my latest career as a lawyer and I can recall years ago when I was just starting out the practice advisor of our bar association was speaking to a bunch of us newbs, among the many things he told us was that we should try (its always hard to do) to do an annual review of our clients and rank them from best to worst and fire the bottom three clients on the list.  Every year.  Eventually you might have a decent client list.  Now as I said this is easier said than done because we always are nervous that maybe all our clients will leave and we'll starve so we put up with abusive behaviour, slow payment, having our bills ground down, ridiculous expectations especially on timing - I need this on monday and I don't care if its your daughter's baptism if you want the work/get paid I'll see that on monday (and its 10pm saturday)  In any case as you get older and more experienced and confident you come to realize what good advice that was and guess what?  There'll be another client coming down the road and maybe he won't be such a jerk.  One other thing, I've worked hard my whole life, whether in law school or in my job or volunteering at church, I've paid my taxes and been polite and respectful and I've brought up my kids to do the same, I've tried not to complain too much and to be grateful for the blessings I have in my life, I've even allowed other drivers to merge in front of me on the freeway the way you're supposed to but I can't tell you the number of times I've come across perfect strangers who, upon learning that I'm a lawyer have made rude and insulting comments, even in front of the kids.  People, what are you going to do?  Thankfully they are in the minority.
Mark

Marko, thank you. That is sage advice. I've not been rude to any customers, even the fellow yesterday. But I am going to politely start letting folks like him know that while I appreciate their business, they are certainly not required to buy anything from me. It's not a major problem. Of the thousands of orders we do each year, I can think of less half a dozen names off hand that have made life exceedingly difficult. I certainly don't want to give the impression that I feel this way about customers with legitimate concerns. Neither I nor Stirling Soap is perfect, and when something I've done is substandard, I expect to hear about it and fix it. I do mean those with complaints that no rational human being would make, or those who are just downright rude every time they contact me, no matter what it is about.

Anyway, sorry to have derailed this thread. I know it was intended to be about breakthrough products, and not mental breakthroughs for me.

The fact is that there are people who will never be happy no matter what so politely declining their business is always an option.  There are also people for whom abusive behaviour is a strategy to obtain discounts or free product.  For example, my daughter who is a 21 year old nursing student and is truly a delightful person (I am so very proud of her) has a part time job at a shop that sells yoga wear (lulu lemon) and she generally enjoys the job.  Recently she had an experience where a woman with her young daughter came in and looked at items that were on the sale rack.  She wanted the sale price for an item that was not on the sale rack.  My daughter politely told her that that item was not on sale so the woman proceeded to yell abuse at my daughter until an assistant manager came over and , guess what?  Gave her the sale price on the non sale item.  The woman gave my daughter a smug self-satisfied look as she left the store having schooled her daughter on how to get bargains while shopping.  Its a good thing I wasn't there because I likely would have smacked her.  I have self control but there are limits  OK I wouldn't have smacked her but if I were the manager I would have told her that abuse of staff is not tolerated and politely asked her to leave and then if necessary had security escort her out.  No yoga wear for you!

In any case I have a ton of respect for the artisans in the wet shaving world because not only do you have to make great products at a reasonable price but you have to interact with your customers on social media which even if a positive experience will still be time consuming - there is one of you and numerous of us.  I am really impressed how responsive and engaging you all are.  Then you have to deal with shipping issues that arise that aren't even your fault or system crashes and on and on.... and do it all with good humour.  My wet shaving shopping experiences over the last several years have been some of the very best shopping experiences I've ever had and I say that as a guy who doesn't generally enjoy shopping.

And isn't this the "Next Big Breakthrough?"  Thank you to all merchants who make our shopping experience so pleasant.  Also, a special thank you to those merchants here who keep coming back, even with the occasional awful experience.  You truly are special.  I don't need more shaving accoutrements but it's folk like you that keep me coming back.  

We already have lots of great wetshaving options at every price point.  I think that the next big thing will be marketing those products to people outside of the current traditional wetshaving clientele.

That is going to be tough as no artisan has the kind of capital needed to advertise say on TV. A national 30 sec. TV ad starts at appox. $350K.

Articles in lifestyle magazines, especially ones with localized distribution, are a more affordable option. Radio ads would work, too, as would newspaper ads. There are also a ton of online options. After all, most of the people here did not start out as traditional wetshavers. Nevertheless, we discovered traditional shaving.