In today’s episode you’ll learn:
- The marketing strategies that helped Zea to scale to $4million a year
- A non-digital marketing strategy Jade swears by
- How to make running a family business a smooth process
- Behind the scenes of running a crowd sourcing campaign with Birchal
- Jade’s prediction for the future of marketing
Links from the show:
- www.brightredmarketing.com.au/free-strategy-session
- https://www.zea.com.au/ make sure you have a listen for a cheeky discount code
- www.brightredmarketing.com.au/episode31
Transcript
Jade McKenzie: I do love birchal, but I do love equity crowd fundraising on its own. I think it’s such an incredible way for people to put their money in the things that they believe in. I’ve actually really personally loved being able to show a business how much I love, appreciate and support them with my dollars in a way that contributes meaningfully. And so I do keep buying their products. I do keep referring them to friends, but having equity in a business as well is just such an incredible thing.
Dahna Borg: Hi, and welcome to the bright minds of eCommerce podcast. I’m Dahna founder of bright red marketing, and after helping so many businesses in the eCommerce space over the years, including helping two clients hit huge milestones this year, one having their first million dollar year and a second, their first $2 million year.
Dahna Borg: I wanted to bring you the best experts and eCommerce stories from Australia straight to you. If you’re wanting relatable stories and actionable advice. You are in the right place.
Dahna Borg: Want help with your Facebook and Instagram ads. Remember you can always book in a free strategy session at brightredmarketing.com.au
Dahna: slash free dash strategy dash
Dahna: session .
Dahna Borg: We’ll run through your ads. See what’s working and what’s not. And no sales pitch. I promise. Unless of course you ask what it’s like to work with us.
Dahna Borg: Today. We’re here with Jade McKenzie from Zea.
Dahna Borg: In today’s episode, she talks about growing to a $4 million business in the last 12 months, crowdsourcing investors, the systems to keep the peace in running a family business, her favorite marketing tactics, and so much more, so, let’s get into it. Welcome to episode 31
Dahna Borg: Today. We’re here with Jade from Zea.
Jade McKenzie: Hi.
Dahna Borg: It is so good to have you on thank you for joining us. So you’ve got such a varied background. Can you give us, like, I don’t know, think this is even possible, but a short and sweet rundown.
Jade McKenzie: Well, I started my career in aged care and then I went into a finance for seven years, and then I decided that that didn’t quite suit my personality and I wanted to work with entrepreneurs. So I did that, but fell into venture capital and that destroyed my soul a little bit. So I managed a cancer charity for three years before I got pregnant and decided that I wanted to stop building other people’s businesses and build my own.
Jade McKenzie: So I created my own service based business called event head, where I did event management planning, and I also did business coaching. And currently after another baby, I am with my partner in our business Zea and we also own a, another ecom called native man’s skincare. And we’re just about to take over another women’s skincare range.
Dahna Borg: Amazing. I mean, we could sit here and talk about that history for a very long time, but we are here to talk about Zea . Can you tell us a little bit about your journey with Zea? How that sort of came to be and any cool lessons you’ve learned along the way.
Jade McKenzie: Yeah, absolutely. Well, it’s interesting because I had always had aspirations to be part of an eCommerce, but I just never knew how that was ever going to eventuate. So I was actually Separated and then divorced from my ex-husband and hanging around entrepreneurial circles. Like I love to do. And Hayden was somebody who caught my eye as somebody who was doing really incredible things and unique things in the eCommerce world.
Jade McKenzie: So he founded. Zea. And that is an eCommerce business that is based all around one ingredient called kunzea ambigua. So it’s almost like Thursday plantation in that they use tea tree oil as their signature ingredient and we use kunzea. And so we got to know each other, became friends and then actually went, oh, there’s a bit of a spark there and became partners in real.
Jade McKenzie: And through all of this, I was working in my own business and I was actually doing a contract CEO role for a social enterprise. And it just got to the point where we were like, actually, we should help each other out. I had these dreams of working with an e-com and I actually had all the skills that he needed as somebody who was still doing the majority of all the work.
Jade McKenzie: By himself. So we were very nervous as a new relationship to dive into the world of, being coworkers and partners, but it’s all turned out so amazingly well, and it has. Helped us grow. And I think that’s the cool thing that I learned is that, where there is flow, there is growth. And I remember when we were so nervous and having this conversation around whether or not I should come on board and.
Jade McKenzie: We started, at, at that point we were doing about 275,000 a year, and we’ve literally just turned over 4.3 million in the last 12 months. And to be able to do that in such a short amount of time to maintain our integrity in our genuine love for Australian manufacturing. Having a really beautiful product that works.
Jade McKenzie: It’s been such a blessing, but it’s just shown that, sometimes listening to your heart is probably the best thing you could do.
Dahna Borg: Yeah, I love that. So what do you think have been some of the, the keys to helping you hit that? Just over 4 million in, I think you said those last 12 months,
Jade McKenzie: Mm.
Dahna Borg: like that’s a huge growth.
Jade McKenzie: It is. And I think what worked really well for us is being super defined in who we are and what we offer. So we are always, everybody talks about having a niche and you have to specialize in something. I do think that sometimes you can get caught in the oh, but I need to make a sale. And, and I know that if people hear.
Jade McKenzie: It will turn in $2. And sometimes that can almost take you away from what your uniqueness is, your blue ocean strategy. But what we really do well is get really finite and fierce on who we are for who our target market is. And all of our branding and our digital marketing efforts are. Around that.
Jade McKenzie: And so by being able to be super defined in this area, it means that when we scale, we’re able to do that without increasing our, lead costs, our clicks are anything. being able to have this tapped in audience, it just means that scaling and growth is actually quite natural rather than feeling like, oh, I have to explore multiple areas to get the traction that I need to get to X amount.
Jade McKenzie: So. Working with a specialist as well. In marketing and Facebook ads means that you can have somebody there taking care of that for you. I’m a very big believer in outsourcing. And so if Hayden and they can focus on those numbers while you focus on the brand integrity.
Dahna Borg: Yeah, amazing. When you say that, you’re working with agencies and digital and stuff, what would you say are your favorite marketing activities?
Jade McKenzie: Oh, my favorite marketing activities. Oh no. I love them all, but only certain parts of them.
Dahna Borg: Please clarify,
Jade McKenzie: so I love how detail oriented you are.
Jade McKenzie: Yeah. so of course socials is everything to us. I think it’s just the most
Dahna Borg: As a Facebook ads specialist. I’m glad that came first.
Jade McKenzie: Yeah. just because you’re able to be in a platform where people already are like, my gosh, it just takes so much of the weight off of your marketing because people are already there.
Jade McKenzie: So. Facebook and Instagram marketing is our favorite. I love doing the creatives and getting involved in that process, the numbers. I’m not so great at, all the targeting and all of that stuff. And Nope, just please report to me the numbers that it’s working. Great. Let’s get more creative if that’s not working.
Jade McKenzie: Okay. Let’s let’s cut that
Dahna Borg: Amazing. And that’s why outsourcing is so good.
Jade McKenzie: It’s incredible. And yeah, so we outsource Facebook marketing, Instagram marketing, Google ads. That’s another great one. And I would really love to tap into that more because it works so well for us. We actually do Bing ads as well because that’s where a lot of our target demographic is because they are older.
Jade McKenzie: So gotta love a bit of Bing
Dahna Borg: got another client in the same boat. Works very nicely for that older demographic.
Jade McKenzie: And oh, what other digital marketing things do we
Dahna Borg: Even not digital everything’s so digital these days, if you’re doing other
Dahna Borg: non-digital things that work well, I’d love to hear about them.
Jade McKenzie: Well, we’re doing sampling. So sampling is great because our product, it’s not something that is in grocery stores yet. And we do have over 500 stockists, but think of how many pharmacies there are in Australia, 500, isn’t really touching the sides yet. So by having a strategy around. Sampling after working in events and PR and all of that, I know that you are more likely to convert somebody if they’ve got your product in their hands.
Jade McKenzie: And so that is something that we are doing this year, which I’m really loving. We’ve actually done. PR, and that’s worked really well for us. We are going to be doing some TV commercials in the second half of the year, because we’re at a stage now where we can hit our target demographic and we’ve got the funding for it.
Jade McKenzie: And it’s actually going to give us that brand awareness that we need to keep scaling and growing, which is exciting. And Oh, God, there’s just so much. We, we do everything.
Dahna Borg: I love that, given that, Facebook, Instagram, those sorts of things are so trackable.
Dahna Borg: Is there a process in place of tracking your things like your sampling, your PR plan for the TV? Because those things are historically a little harder to track the success of.
Jade McKenzie: We do discuss this in detail. So, as a team, we’re always obviously looking at our ROI and seeing how much we get for the investment that we put in. But we also understand that brand awareness for us right now, where we are, is a huge piece that we need to look at as well.
Jade McKenzie: That’s really hard to track. But things that we do put into place that we can at the moment regarding our samples and, even print media ads that we’ve done in magazines things like QR codes and discount incentives. So we always play around with those. We have been recently, we’ve just done a campaign across women’s weekly magazines.
Jade McKenzie: So. That’s life, Australian women’s weekly women’s day who magazine. So we have a double spread in all of these. And the QR code is completely different depending on the publication and the discount or the incentive is different as well. So we’re, we’ve still got an element of play in our work. It’s not so serious.
Jade McKenzie: It’s like, oh, what do we think will work? And then through the QR code and the tracking through the discounts, we’re able to see what kind of return we are getting there. So that’s something that we always Are a big advocate for, it’s like, what’s the call to action. And then how can you do this to understand your audience more?
Jade McKenzie: How can you put in some metrics? So, what’s working and what’s not working.
Dahna Borg: I love that. I mean, to be fair, the one good thing that came outta COVID, everyone knows how to use QR codes now.
Jade McKenzie: Oh my God. I know. Right. They were like dying before. COVID
Dahna Borg: that’s amazing cuz often with like your print and stuff, it’s quite difficult to track. So I love that. You’ve got a, a nice way of tracking that On your website, you’ve obviously got kind of sub-brands within Zea,
Dahna Borg: did it always have the sort of four sub-brands with your relief essentials, gourmet active, or did they sort of slowly come to be as the business group?
Jade McKenzie: No, they came about about two years ago. So what we had started doing was creating and developing more products. Our signature product is the Kunzea of pain relief cream. That’s actually what makes up about 70 to 80% of our sales. So it really is the hero product, but we have a suite of complimentary products around that.
Jade McKenzie: And then one day. Hayden literally came to me and said, okay. So I bought a couple of tons of honey. I was like, what the F are you kidding me? How are we gonna make this fit? But it was a passion for him. And we actually were able to find, well, he found a beekeeper that does this. Oh my God. This most incredible kunzea honey.
Jade McKenzie: And just for a bit of background kunzea ambigua, only flowers for about eight to 10 weeks of a. And that’s in spring and they are the most beautiful looking and smelling flowers. It’s actually one of my most favorite scents in the whole wide world. We’re trying to replicate it and we cannot, but we can get honey from it.
Jade McKenzie: we’re still working on the scent, but , we’ve got the honey and he is like, I found a beekeeper. He’s agreed that he’ll do this. And so it’s some of the most pure organic, pristine. Gorgeous honey you’ll ever get in the world. It comes from Flinder’s island. We sell out of it every single year, but I’m looking at this going all right, this really doesn’t fit into the brand story.
Jade McKenzie: And we also sell a lot of essential oils because Hayden’s mum is an aroma therapist, a natural path. So she created all these blends. So we started having conversations around how we can keep the integrity of the business, but make it so made sense to people. Like they’re not just coming onto this website and going, woo.
Jade McKenzie: What’s this mess. I came for pain relief
Dahna Borg: Why are you selling honey?
Jade McKenzie: honey?
Jade McKenzie: Yeah. And essential oils. So, Zea. And essentials were the first to split. And then we created Zea gourmet, and that has now three types of honey and salt and pepper blend and some dried kunzea leaves. And then recently we introduced Zea active, which is for pre and post muscle recovery and for a younger demographic.
Jade McKenzie: And it’s the first product in the world to contain magnesium and kunzea and peppermint together. So now that. Started on this journey of subbrands under the umbrella of Zea. It actually feels so much cleaner and easier for all of our marketing activities and the way that we work with our agencies and also all of our suppliers.
Jade McKenzie: So it was a really great step for us. And. It’s funny , but every subbrand is led by a family member.
Dahna Borg: Very nice. I love the, the family element in these sorts of businesses. Like, it’s just so nice to kind of have that connection.
Jade McKenzie: Mm, for sure. And sometimes it doesn’t always work for people. You hear good stories and bad stories. I think it’s always going to be. Challenging, no matter what kind of business you are in, but some families really love working together and we’re so lucky to be in each other’s pockets every day.
Jade McKenzie: Like we wouldn’t change it.
Dahna Borg: Is there anything that you think you guys do differently to make running a family business easier? Cause I know that, I mean, people have problems when they work with people that are employed or business partners.
Dahna Borg: Families always tend to be that one. That’s a little bit trickier. Sometimes not always.
Dahna Borg: But is there anything that you
Dahna Borg: guys think you do in terms of habit systems, structures that makes that a little bit more seamless?
Jade McKenzie: it’s definitely around boundaries and understanding everyone’s place. And so there’s a couple of rules that we. Live by just to make sure that everyone is happy and that’s not just us. It’s our, also our internal team as well. We always make sure that everyone is treated equally. So, everybody gets a job description.
Jade McKenzie: Everybody knows their place. Nobody is better than anyone else, but we all have different roles and sometimes somebody’s role. The one that’s managing you. So , you have to understand that and be okay with that and be happy with that. So for instance, Jacinda, she helps with the active, but she’s also our social media manager and she knows that I’m her manager and Haley are marketing and coms manager will also manage Cinder’s workload.
Jade McKenzie: So. Jacinda can’t come in, stomp her feet and say, well, I’m a family member. that wouldn’t fly with us. So I think that’s the first thing. It’s, everybody’s really clear on what they do, how they do it and how they work with others. Our forms of communication are all the same as the rest of the team.
Jade McKenzie: So we use Asana for project management. We use slack for our everyday combos. We’re very light on email. We use zoom for team meetings and Google drive for everything ever. And like I said, we all have this sense of. No one is better than anyone else. And that means that all of our team members feel like family.
Jade McKenzie: When they come in, we make a really pointed effort to make sure that they don’t feel like they’re on the outside looking in at us, but we all feel like we’re all collaborating. Equally
Dahna Borg: Yeah,
Dahna Borg: I love that. And I think it’s such great advice, even for businesses that aren’t run by families. Like I think the, the
Dahna Borg: boundaries and the, the set roles and things, I think that’s just good business practice at the best of times.
Jade McKenzie: Yeah. And you have to be really conscious about it and make a really. Big effort to get everybody on that same page, but it’s absolutely worth it.
Dahna Borg: No, I love that. So I know that Zeais in the middle of a crowd funding campaign for investors with birchal at the moment. Can you walk
Dahna Borg: us through that process? The plans around it, just give people a little bit of a, a background.
Jade McKenzie: Yes. So everybody who works in econ with wonderful physical products knows that cash flow sucks. honestly, it’s like the hardest thing in a business. One of the hardest things to keep up with, especially in high. Pockets of growth because you have to invest in the stock before you can sell it and finding that cash as a business that has traditionally bootstrapped.
Jade McKenzie: We’ve never had external investors before. We’ve always reinvested in the business. We’ve gotten to a point where it’s like, okay, we need to make global moves. So let. Try and find some capital Hayden and myself, we have discussed it. There’s all the regular options of. Venture capital angel investors, big bank loans and things like that.
Jade McKenzie: But we have always fostered community in Zea. Like we talk to customers all day, every day, we hear their stories in and out and. It’s always felt like a natural part of us in the way that we are doing business. And so Hayden and I have actually been investors in other people’s businesses through birchal, and it’s been such a great way to.
Jade McKenzie: Support businesses that we love, that we see doing good things without them having to go down traditional roots. And, I say this in quote unquote, marks selling out cuz we know what it feels like to just want to be able to do good things. Without that pressure of. Having a big monopoly come and, and buy you out if that’s not what you wanna do.
Jade McKenzie: So we decided to go down this path and create an, a shareholding offering ourselves. So right now, as I’m talking to you, we’re in the middle of expressions of interest, which means that people are coming onto our virtual learning page and they’re putting down their details and how much they think they would like to.
Jade McKenzie: With us. And so the next couple of weeks for us is all about looking at how much we think we can raise. What’s the minimum we’d like to raise. And what’s the maximum we think we can raise and getting everything ready for this offer to be open. So we’ve had to change the constitution for the company.
Jade McKenzie: We’ve had to look at the way that we run the business, our plan. And look at how we would use this buddy. And we are working really, really hard to make sure that we’re presenting an investment offer, which is exciting rewarding and also really helpful for the business growth at this stage. So. We have about 850 people expressing interest with us at the moment.
Jade McKenzie: And we’re looking at raising about a minimum of 400,000. And I think we would like to raise 2 million as a maximum, so that. It’s been a really big project. There’s so much that you have to do behind the scenes, as well as the marketing and getting the word out there for the campaign alongside the ads, you are also doing the emails to your list, keeping everyone up to date, doing the PR as well.
Dahna Borg: That’s amazing. So the, the plan with birchal by the sound of it is to get this influx of cash to go international. Is that the, the plan.
Jade McKenzie: Yeah. So there’s three ways that we would envision using the money. So the first is to start distributing globally. So anyone with a TGA listed product knows that, get doing that in other countries. Oh my gosh. There’s so many hoops so we need to work with specialists and get really good distributors and three PLS over there.
Jade McKenzie: So that is definitely the first priority. We also have products in the pipeline that we’d like to see come to life. So we would be working on developing and producing those new products. And I say confidentially, even though I’m saying this publicly on your podcast, but we’re looking at some really exciting products.
Jade McKenzie: So ones an eczema cream, and another one is a women’s blend that can help with inflammation based issues regarding women’s. Which for me is incredible. So, it’s it’s really exciting to see those come to life. And then the third is to put money into more research around the therapeutic and medicinal uses of kunzea because, we’re just at the tip of the iceberg.
Jade McKenzie: It’s actually. Really unique Australian native that has these incredible anti-inflammatory properties. And we just want to get researchers on there even more than they are now. So we can really understand and unlock what this ingredient can do. So the money that we raise will be split in those three different ways and Yeah, take us to the next level of growth, which we envi and what we’re working towards is that , 10 million range.
Dahna Borg: Amazing.
Dahna Borg: So it’s obviously early days, but given the. you’ve had with birchal so far. Is it something that you would recommend for businesses that are sort of at that phase where they, they just need a little bit of extra cash flow to be able to make those next steps?
Jade McKenzie: I do love birchal, but I do love equity crowd fundraising on its own. I think it’s such an incredible way for people to put their money in the things that they believe in. So before we could only. Purchase stocks on the stock exchange, which I have done. I’ve got ETFs, I’ve got stocks, I’ve got whatever, superannuation, cash, all these things.
Jade McKenzie: I’m not saying I have a lot of money. I do not , but it is in different places. But I’ve actually really personally loved being able to show a. business How much I love, appreciate and support them with my dollars in a way that contributes meaningfully. And so I do keep buying their products. I do keep referring them to friends, but having equity in a business as well is just such an incredible thing.
Jade McKenzie: Not just for the business, but for yourself, like thinking, yeah, this is where I want my money to go. These are the kinds of businesses I want to see succeed. and in terms of the journey that we’ve been on, but Hayden and I we’ve found that it just sits so well in our ethos. And like I said before, we don’t take this lightly.
Jade McKenzie: We take this so seriously and understand that in two weeks time, we could potentially have 1500 new co-owners who we will be accountable. And we will need to keep updated regularly include in our product development, help steer the company and really bring on even closer to what we do now. And for us, like we cannot think of anything.
Jade McKenzie: Better for a business like ours. And I think that it’s actually going to be quite a pivotal moment in our careers to be able to have, gotten the company ready for this and to make it live. I will say though, when you want to do it well, and when you’re used to doing things at such high quality.
Jade McKenzie: You will spend a lot of time on this. So the more you can start having those conversations with your business partners, your team, or looking at your cash flow and trajectory and, and how you think you’re going to attain your growth and all of these things, even around your constitution or. How you would like to use the money.
Jade McKenzie: The earlier you can start looking into these things, the better prepared you will be because there is quite a lot to do in the background. And you want to do the best job possible, especially for your first raise. I think that just sets the tone. So whether you do a second raise, which some of our favorite businesses have already done, or whether you just want to open up to.
Jade McKenzie: Venture capital or stock exchange later on, this is what’s going to give you the learning chops that you need to take those even bigger steps. So don’t try and shortcut anything and try and be as prepared as possible.
Dahna Borg: I love that given your very diverse history in all manner of marketing are there any sort of trends or things that you’re looking at now that you think are gonna be successful in the next couple years?
Jade McKenzie: I. Wholeheartedly believe that the eCommerce space is going to take many of its lessons from service based business spaces. I’ve had the luxury of being in both worlds. And what I can see now with eCommerce is that with the changes to Facebook marketing, with iOS and all of the joy that that brought, oh my God, that was.
Jade McKenzie: A bit of a disaster for a while. Let’s not talk about that, but now E Coms are looking at ways to get more lead generation rather than straight to a cart. So what I’m seeing a lot of is more, optins more incentives, more information, and E ECOS used to be, I feel like even three years ago, you could find.
Jade McKenzie: One good product, scale it in China and literally become a multimillionaire overnight. I think those days are sadly coming to an end as the, as the landscape changes and inevitably in with digital technology, it’s always going to change. So, what I am really seeing is this synergy between how service based businesses market and how E Eco’s market service based businesses are all about like know and trust.
Jade McKenzie: We build our businesses through a face, through a brand, through personalized marketing Through really customer focused communications and you’re making everything so personal and giving them value that they can’t get anywhere else. And so by looking at the way that E service based businesses do their marketing, It can actually be really successfully replicated in e-com.
Jade McKenzie: So launchers that I used to do as a service based business, I would always build a huge list. And then I would have a big opt in, I would have webinars and then I would open doors to early bird incentives for my digital course or for my coaching. And that’s how I would fill my spots, make my money. And then you would have this ongoing relationship with them over the years.
Jade McKenzie: And I think now in econ, we’re starting to learn that we can use the same things here too. It doesn’t have to be just like come to my site, buy my product immediately. It can be, Hey, we are the experts in this area. More than products. We can give you information education. Take a look at
Jade McKenzie: brands like rose, Inc for instance in terms of their skincare and what they do, their videos, their information, they’re trying to make it more personal. I’ve noticed this a lot, especially in skincare and beauty, how they’re trying to be more reflective of real people and people of all different nationalities and genders, which is actually something that’s big for me as A person who has multi flavors.
Jade McKenzie: my mom’s Filipino. My dad’s Scottish. I don’t feel like I fit in anywhere. I’m a first generation Aussie. So it’s actually really nice to see eCommerce branch out in that way and being more information focused and really try and build their brands around people and their needs rather than just selling a fix.
Jade McKenzie: I do believe that there are things that people in e-com can learn about taking care of their communities and the people who are interested in their own industry. And even if somebody doesn’t buy right now, the cost to get a lead is cheaper than instantly converting on an ad. That’s what we find.
Dahna Borg: I mean, it’s so true. I mean, we do a similar version of that without some of our clients where we do like email campaigns and things, because obviously with Facebook doing it. Thing. It’s not always super amazing every day of the week. And I mean, we had one client who spent, I think 50 cents per email sign up and she got like a 13 time return on ad spend on that campaign.
Dahna Borg: She made like $40,000. so it’s, it’s so good. Like Facebook ads are amazing. It does an incredible job of introducing your brand to new people. It does all those wonderful things. You kind of have to get them off Facebook at some point. and if they don’t buy immediately, you have to have systems in place to track them, to build the relationship with them, to nurture and educate because you can’t rely on Facebook to reach them every single day of the week.
Dahna Borg: These days
Jade McKenzie: Exactly. So I love that. You’ve said all of that because that’s so in alignment with what we believe to
Dahna Borg: I think you’re spot on. I think that’s the, the way it’s gonna go. Before we wrap up to the final questions that we ask and everyone, is there
Dahna Borg: anything that you think we haven’t touched on that you think would be worth sharing quickly?
Jade McKenzie: Oh, gosh, what haven’t we touched on
Jade McKenzie: like
Dahna Borg: much, but , is there anything you’re like, this is super good stuff.
Jade McKenzie: I do think, oh gosh, the pressure’s on.
Jade McKenzie: No,
Dahna Borg: share your genius now. Go
Jade McKenzie: I do think that so much of marketing, and this is something that I’ve learned working in female dominated industries on both sides of the coin is really about finding the heart of what you are offering and showing that to people, everybody needs a light. And okay. Your product might be. A candle or a pot plant, or it could be something life changing, but everybody is looking for something.
Jade McKenzie: And I feel like the more heart we can put into our brands, the more that we can make it a mirror for the world that we want to see that we want to be in. The more that people will be attracted. To that. And in marketing, we always make sure that we’re talking to a person it’s never about saying we’re the best by this XXX, like in terms of dollar value, it’s about, okay, this is what we believe in, and this is what we have.
Jade McKenzie: And if you need help with this, then. Come and join us. And for somebody who is so heart led and who has such a people focus, it’s been so nice to see how that has actually created a successful brand because we are getting hit in the face with so many marketing messages every single day on every single screen.
Jade McKenzie: And we all just wanna touch of human. And I think when you can cut through the noise and you can be that lighthouse for someone, or you can have be that heart for someone, that’s what they’re going to connect to. And everybody makes judgments purchases, it’s all through emotion. And so how do we want people to feel and how can we give that to them?
Dahna Borg: I love that. And you’re right. Like there’s so much messaging out there that realistically, the only way to succeed these days is to have actual human connections. And it’s just trying to find marketing ways to actually do that.
Jade McKenzie: Mm,
Dahna Borg: I love that. So we’re just getting to the last couple of questions we ask everybody.
Dahna Borg: Do you have a favorite business book?
Jade McKenzie: My favorite business book. Do you know what I don’t because I love, oh, no, I should say that, but I love autobiographies and biographies of anyone and everyone from comedians to celebrities, to business people, to just whatever, honestly. I just love any type of memoir or bio. But the latest one that I’ve read that actually.
Jade McKenzie: I I really loved was Samantha wills of golden dust. I’ve just followed her for years. And I think that she is absolutely somebody who leads with her own heart and intuition, and she created such a successful brand and she definitely had her highs and low. But never stop striving to help other women in business.
Jade McKenzie: And I think she’s so admirable. So that’s definitely a book that I’ve loved and read recently,
Dahna Borg: Amazing. Do you have a favorite podcast business or personal.
Jade McKenzie: all the ones I’m on, including this one.
Dahna Borg: Yes, my favorite answer. And we’re done. Thank you.
Jade McKenzie: But really they’re the only real podcasts I’ll listen to because they’re the people I love and admire and connect with and, and have a message that’s so aligned with how I love to do business. So
Jade McKenzie: yeah, it’s always a nice variety.
Dahna Borg: So tell us about how people can visit you if they wanna learn more about Zea.
Jade McKenzie: Sure. So you can find Zeaa at, on our website. So Zeaa z.com AU. And if you ever have questions or. Whatever about anything marketing, e-com all those things you can find me on my personal Instagram. I think that’s the one solid space that I’ll be splitting in and out from. And that’s Jade dot I dot McKenzie.
Dahna Borg: And I believe you have a special offer for our listeners. It’s.
Jade McKenzie: I do. So if you would like to try any of our products from any of our ranges on Zea, just use the code J M 20 in the checkout, and that’s gonna give you a cheeky 20% off my treat.
Dahna Borg: We love that. Thank you so much. Well, thank you so much for joining us. It’s been absolute pleasure having on this show.
Jade McKenzie: Oh, I’ve loved it. Thank you.
Dahna: Thanks for listening to the bright minds of eCommerce podcast. As always as you’ll find the show notes at brightredmarketing.com.au slash
Dahna Borg: episode
Dahna: 31 . Thanks for listening.
