#290: Toy Creators Academy Coaching Call with Melissa Brody
Big feelings deserve a safe space and sometimes, that space looks like a soft, huggable friend with swappable expressions and a whole lot of heart… eyes!
In this episode of Making It In The Toy Industry, we’re opening up another coaching call episode featuring Toy Creators Academy alum Melissa Brody, a licensed therapist, entrepreneur, and new mom who turned her passion for emotional wellness into Emotipals, a plush toy line designed to help kids understand and express their feelings through play.
Inspired by her late father, a pediatric neurologist, and grounded in her own clinical experience, Melissa created Emotipals to give children a tangible way to explore emotions. With 21 mix-and-match Velcro pieces, each Emotipals helps kids learn emotional vocabulary, empathy, and regulation, while bringing laughter and connection to the playroom or the therapy office.
You’ll hear Melissa share:
Her journey from private practice to product creation
How motherhood reshaped her business mindset
The honest challenges of balancing life and entrepreneurship
Why narrowing your niche can open even bigger doors
How listening to your most passionate customers can shape your next big win
Whether you’re in the thick of toy development or dreaming up your very first idea, this episode will remind you that clarity, connection, and community are key ingredients to growing a purpose-driven brand.
Feeling inspired to bring your own toy idea to life? Learn more about Toy Creators Academy at www.toycreatorsacademy.com.
Listen For These Important Moments
[00:05:20] – Hear how Melissa turned her background as a licensed therapist into the foundation for her first toy brand, Emotipals.
[00:11:00] – Melissa opens up about balancing new motherhood with entrepreneurship and the realities of keeping sales steady.
[00:14:25] – Hear me coach Melissa on focusing her marketing toward clinicians before expanding to parents.
[00:34:10] – We dive into actionable strategies for website messaging, influencer partnerships, and email funnels.
[00:53:30] – Melissa shares the personal story of how her late father’s legacy inspired the heart behind Emotipals.
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This episode is brought to you by www.thetoycoach.com
Help kids learn empathy and self-expression through play at Emotipals.com.
Got a toy idea you can’t stop thinking about? Toy Creators Academy gives you the tools, support, and step-by-step plan to make it real, just like it did for Gerardo. Start your journey at toycreatorsacademy.com
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[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to Making It in The Toy Industry, episode number 290.
[00:00:09] Voiceover: Welcome to Making It in The Toy Industry, a podcast for inventors, entrepreneurs, and makers like you. And now your host, Azhelle Wade.
[00:00:22] Azhelle Wade: Hey there, toy people. Azhelle Wade here. And welcome back to another episode of Making It In The Toy Industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by the toy coach.com. For today's episode, we are gonna do what you all have been telling me you love another coaching episode with one of my TCA alumni.
[00:00:39] Azhelle Wade: This conversation is for you if you're just wondering what it's like to work with me, or if you're just nosy and you wanna listen in on someone else's coaching call Today we've got our special guest, Melissa Brody. Who is a licensed therapist, entrepreneur, and a mama on a mission I should highlight? New Mama on a Mission.
[00:00:56] Azhelle Wade: She's the founder of Emo Pal's, an award-winning social emotional learning toy brand that helps kids understand and express big feelings through play. Inspired by her late father. A pediatric neurologist and empowered by her clinical expertise, Melissa turned her passion for mental health into a playful plush line that teaches emotional vocabulary and empathy with mix and match faces.
[00:01:19] Azhelle Wade: We're gonna dive into our brand today, talk about our goals and what it will take to scale her impact driven business. Just before I hit record on the podcast, Melissa and I were talking about how she tends to get sales and she puts the work in, but having to take some time off as a new mom. She saw.
[00:01:35] Azhelle Wade: Sales slow. So we're gonna try to get into how we can make those sales kind of recurring without too much effort. Melissa, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I am excited and I uh, I can't believe that we're both new moms. It's so crazy. Yeah. Crazy. Well, let's get into this coaching call.
[00:01:53] Azhelle Wade: So today we're gonna do three parts. We'll start out with part one, the coaching session. We'll work through challenges together. Then we will dive into celebrating your wins and progress. Wanna hear about all that, and then of course, a product spotlight at the very end to make sure anyone listening knows where to go to get emo pals.
[00:02:10] Azhelle Wade: So first up, what was going on in your life or your career before you decided to join Toy Creators Academy? And why did you feel like that was the right move at the time?
[00:02:19] Melissa Brody: So in 2022, um, I was working in a private practice, mostly working with kids, teens and adults. And before I went into private practice, I was working in elementary school and I was doing social emotional skill groups for kids.
[00:02:34] Melissa Brody: And so at the private practice, I developed my own social emotional skills group. Okay. And so, and we used puppets and games and toys and art and all of that. And so in the beginning of 2022, I thought of this product that I wanted to make and I, I started to kind of research. I found somebody on Etsy to kinda help me design, and then as the months kept going, I was like, I don't know what I'm doing.
[00:03:00] Melissa Brody: And I kept seeing you on Instagram, the toy coaching. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, when you try to Google how do I make a prototype and where's a factor? Or like, what do I do? And so I think it was by the time, so I think it was beginning of the year, maybe like March, November, I was like, I am starting this process of manufacturing, but like, I don't know what I'm doing.
[00:03:22] Melissa Brody: Mm-hmm. And then your course really felt like. Okay, here's a roadmap. Lots of people have ideas, but I think executing it, that's the challenge. Yeah. And the, your program was so attractive because it was like, I will guide you how to do this if you have no idea what you're doing. Yeah. So that's, that's what made me join.
[00:03:41] Azhelle Wade: Oh, I love that. Yeah. You got stuck in the Google vortex. Now it's like the chat GBT vortex, which is really interesting. 'cause now, oh, interesting. People will chat GBT how to make a toy and then they'll say that it'll tell them to talk to me.
[00:03:52] Melissa Brody: Oh yeah. That's amazing. It's really marketing. It's,
[00:03:55] Azhelle Wade: I didn't, I don't know.
[00:03:56] Azhelle Wade: It's really, it's really funny. It's even better than Google. 'cause now it's like Yeah. The bot's like, you know who you need the toy coach? Yeah. Like, so Awesome.
[00:04:04] Melissa Brody: Well it was, it was really exciting. 'cause you kind of want like a go-to person. Yes. And then you come up and it's like literally a toy coach.
[00:04:13] Melissa Brody: Right. You're like, it's so specific. You're like so niche. Yes, yes, yes. So that I was like, done. This is, love it. No brainer.
[00:04:22] Azhelle Wade: So did you ever doubt whether you could actually make this toy, if you could be a toy person or if your idea was good enough?
[00:04:28] Melissa Brody: Oh my gosh, of course. I mean, my personality is, I'm kind of a perfectionist.
[00:04:32] Melissa Brody: I am a perfectionist. Um, and so before I really dove into this, I was like, let me research what is out there. There's similar things out there, right? Similar like kind of social emotional toys. And so of course the doubt, imposter syndrome crept in like, well, why would people buy mine versus what already exists?
[00:04:50] Melissa Brody: And there's companies out there that have more funding and more money than I do. And who am I? You know, I'm a therapist. I don't have, I'm not, I never went into the corporate business world, you know, who am I to try and do something like this?
[00:05:02] Azhelle Wade: You know, whenever we would meet, there is another TCA with a emotional, social, emotional, plush toy.
[00:05:08] Azhelle Wade: And so whenever we would meet, I would always think about them and think about you. Yeah. But I never would say like, I don't think you should make this, because for me I just saw, you know, there are thousands of doll brands in the world. Right. More can exist than one. But I am curious what shifted your mindset to not feeling like, oh, why do I even exist?
[00:05:25] Azhelle Wade: Like what shifted you to feeling like, no, I have a place here. Even if there are other products that are teaching social emotional health.
[00:05:32] Melissa Brody: Yeah, so I remember in the course we talked about finding the white space. Mm-hmm. And I think that was really like inspirational to me that like, I've also heard this once before where if you go into a grocery store and you go into the bread aisle, like there's so many different types of bread.
[00:05:49] Melissa Brody: Oh, that's right. Like there's something. Yeah. Like there's something for everybody, right? Yeah. Like not people that like wheat bread aren't gonna want white bread or I, I think there's something for everybody. Mm-hmm. And so I think my, yeah, that kind of shifted my mindset is like there's a space for me.
[00:06:05] Melissa Brody: Like there's my backstory with my dad and his experience working with children and my clinical experience. And so I think that helped give me confidence. Like, no, I can find a space even if there's things that already exist.
[00:06:18] Azhelle Wade: I love that. That's so great. And are you currently on the inventor path or the entrepreneur path?
[00:06:24] Azhelle Wade: Entrepreneur, yeah. Okay. And can you give us the elevator pitch for your toy brand and Moto pals?
[00:06:30] Melissa Brody: Yeah, so Emotive Pals is a therapist designed plush toy designed to teach children social emotional skills. It has 21 interchangeable Velcro pieces, and the idea is to help children have a tangible way to create different emotional expressions, so there's happy, sad.
[00:06:51] Melissa Brody: Scared. And the idea is that you start from a young age, ideally this is for ages three and up. Mm-hmm. And parents can start to teach emotional parents, therapists, clinicians can start to teach emotional VA vocabulary. And then in turn, that teaches empathy, emotion regulation, and. My hope is that it can help solve some of those issues that parents deal with, with children, right?
[00:07:19] Melissa Brody: Mm-hmm. Being able to regulate their emotions, being able to, I even identify what a feeling is.
[00:07:25] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's great. As you were describing your brand, I was picturing it and I was also identifying the differentiator from. Your product and another TCA product, Moodles, because Moodles has different faces and you kind of flip through the faces with a mm-hmm.
[00:07:40] Azhelle Wade: Twisting piece on the head. But what I, I'm realizing is with yours, there is a flexibility to get into more complex emotions.
[00:07:47] Melissa Brody: Exactly. Yeah. Yes. Thank you for saying that. Yeah. Yeah. So some of the feedback I've gotten, a lot of people that buy my product, they tend to be school counselors, therapists. Mm-hmm.
[00:07:57] Melissa Brody: Clinicians, all of that. And one of the, the feedback I've gotten is that they like kids, like being really creative with the different faces. Mm. So like, you know, here I have the, the heart. Yeah. And then they'll do like, you know, heart and, you know, an angry eye. And then it's just like fun being silly. Yeah.
[00:08:15] Melissa Brody: Um, but you can also mix and match, right? Like you can have a heart. Heart eyes and an evil face. And that could be, you know, somebody who's like, you know, revengeful or Yeah. Or madly in love. Madly in love. Exactly right. Oh,
[00:08:29] Azhelle Wade: it's brilliant. 'cause it can, you can actually market this as a grow with you, like an emotional grow with you toy, because you can have.
[00:08:37] Azhelle Wade: Basic, happy, sad feelings. But then as kids get older, it's like, well, I'm happy, but I'm jealous that my friends get to go out without me. You know? Yes. Yeah. So it's, it's nice that they can express all of that. They can be like, my eyes are like half jealous, but half happy. 'cause that's how I feel. Right.
[00:08:52] Azhelle Wade: It's beautiful. Right.
[00:08:54] Melissa Brody: That's great. Thank you. Yeah, and I think the hope too is to eventually kind of expand like different expressions and different muzzles and different eyes and things like that. Yes.
[00:09:04] Azhelle Wade: What's been the hardest part of launching your product to Mo Pals? I think the
[00:09:08] Melissa Brody: consistent sales. When I first launched, people were so excited for me and I got such positive feedback at first, and obviously it was new to me, so I was like really into it.
[00:09:20] Melissa Brody: Yeah. And sales were, you know, we were doing sales every day and then I got pregnant. I didn't feel well. It slowed down and then the sales slowed down and then I would. Have a moment where I'm like, okay, I feel better again. I would contact maybe like an influencer or somebody on TikTok. They would promote it for me.
[00:09:39] Melissa Brody: I'd get a rush of sales. Wow. So I need to kind of find a way what kind of marketing services or kind of the technology of things to kind of automate it so that mm-hmm. It's not just when I'm, when I am. Put the effort in. I get the sales can kind of do it even when I'm not putting a ton of effort every day.
[00:09:56] Azhelle Wade: And your magic wand moment then, is that what you just said? Like how automating sales, that's what you wanna do? Yeah. Okay. And what do you think is holding you back from making your next move? Making that automation?
[00:10:07] Melissa Brody: Yeah. I think clearing out the inventory I have and my next move. I mean, I have prototypes for other characters.
[00:10:14] Melissa Brody: Oh, okay. Other animals. And I love to be able to make those. I think something I'm realizing is I have four French bulldogs, so I love the Frenchy. You know the Frenchy is like the first one. Wait, you have four? I know we're crazy. Wow. We're we're obnoxious. Oh my gosh.
[00:10:34] Azhelle Wade: Wow. Yeah. So you have five children?
[00:10:36] Azhelle Wade: Yeah.
[00:10:36] Melissa Brody: Yeah. Five children. Right. So some of the feedback too I got was like, oh, well when you make a bear, I definitely buy it. Or when you make a cat, I definitely buy it. So I feel like I'm a little like pigeonholed right now 'cause I just have the dog. Yes. So I think when I have more funding to. To buy more.
[00:10:56] Melissa Brody: That would help.
[00:10:56] Azhelle Wade: How much inventory do you have? I, I started with a thousand. And what's left? Couple hundred. Oh, okay. That's great. Yeah. Um, and have you had a moment lately where you just felt stuck and unsure of what to do next? Can you tell me that story a little bit?
[00:11:09] Melissa Brody: Yeah. So ways I've tried to make this more interesting is I developed activity cards, uh, to use with it.
[00:11:17] Melissa Brody: Mm-hmm. So they look like this. And they have like the different facial expressions Oh, cute. That you can make. Mm-hmm. And then on the back there's the, the feeling and then prompts for whoever's using the toy with the child. Oh, great. To like kind of guide the play. Yeah. And so these are digital downloads.
[00:11:37] Melissa Brody: And I mean, and they're so cute. I have this artist that I work with and they're, they're adorable, but I think like pairing that together or how do I convince people or how do I show the benefit of using the, these extra tools with the toy? Mm-hmm. I, I don't know if that makes sense.
[00:11:54] Azhelle Wade: No, it does. I feel like that's something I would, you should play test.
[00:11:58] Azhelle Wade: Like I wonder if you could put those cards on an iPad, but also print them out and have people play test using it both ways. Just to see how it works. 'cause maybe you'll have, I think you'll get some other ideas in that process. Okay. Um, but then, okay. And then let's talk about like, what's the challenge you want us to work through today?
[00:12:16] Azhelle Wade: I know we've touched on a couple of things.
[00:12:18] Melissa Brody: Yeah, so I think like a more defined marketing strategy. I am appealing to the clinicians and the professionals, but how do I appeal? I, I really want this to be something that like, kind of is a tool that every family has. Like it's just one of those toys that everybody has and parents are able to, to use it from a young age.
[00:12:42] Melissa Brody: So I think professionals get it right away. Mm-hmm. But I think parents maybe see this as like. Oh, this is like a toy. It's unnecessary. So how do I convince parents mm-hmm. That this is also therapeutic or beneficial as a tool?
[00:12:54] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. I actually, I'm gonna give you the same advice I gave Manish when he came on.
[00:12:59] Azhelle Wade: I actually feel you should hyper focus on your first niche, which is the clinicians like. I know the, the long-term plan is for parents to use it. And this is something I even struggle with my own business. Like yeah, I'm the toy coach for a inventors and entrepreneurs, but I also wanna work with toy companies and I also wanna work with, you know, everyone.
[00:13:17] Azhelle Wade: And I struggled for a long time with, on my homepage, like, who do I talk to? 'cause I have so many people, and I even thought about splitting it into three. But what I found is. There's a lot of power in really owning one niche and a tight niche as well. So if you become the toy that clinicians rave about, it will spill into parents, and that's what I found when I became the coach that inventors and entrepreneurs rave about.
[00:13:44] Azhelle Wade: It spills into conversations at trade shows. It just kind of happens. So. Instead of trying to figure out like, how do I get parents to understand this? You get the clinicians to, they already understand it. They will love it so hard that eventually they'll probably start introducing it to their patients.
[00:14:01] Azhelle Wade: They'll, they'll probably tell their parents, um, the parents of their patients. You should probably use this when you get home. I have an extra one at my office, but I can also show you where to get one. Let them market for you, but market to them. That way you can focus your ad, spend your marketing efforts, you can focus your website copy, and what's gonna happen is you'll make faster and easier sales when you're talking to one person.
[00:14:25] Azhelle Wade: So if the clinician comes to your website and there's a clear path for them to follow, like. Clinicians click here. There's reviews from other clinicians. There's stories about how it helped their patients. They're gonna convert faster and easier. Okay. Plus they'll probably spend more, I'm assuming.
[00:14:41] Melissa Brody: Yeah. I mean, I know as a therapist, like whenever there's a new tool or a book or a workbook.
[00:14:46] Melissa Brody: Yeah. Like. If something can make my life easier Yeah. And make it more appealing to get patients and clients and, and business like, I'll invest in that a hundred percent.
[00:14:56] Azhelle Wade: And when you say, wait, go back to that, when you say make it more appealing to get patients and clients, how, how could a tool help do that?
[00:15:02] Melissa Brody: Well, I, I think in, in session, like part of I think why people come to see me is because I, I bring a lot of creativity to my, to my sessions. And so for example, like if I was working with a kid and. We, I come up with like a creative way to play a game. So maybe we, can I give a therapy example? Yeah,
[00:15:20] Azhelle Wade: please.
[00:15:21] Melissa Brody: Okay. So I specialize in anxiety disorders. Mm-hmm. And treating like OCD. Mm-hmm. A really common fear kids have is throwing up. Oh,
[00:15:31] Azhelle Wade: so, oh my gosh. I
[00:15:32] Melissa Brody: had that. I would hate throwing
[00:15:34] Azhelle Wade: up. Oh my God. I refused after a while. I was like, oh
[00:15:38] Melissa Brody: no. Yeah, it's, it's, it can be a phobia. It's called a meta phobia. A meta
[00:15:41] Azhelle Wade: phobia.
[00:15:42] Melissa Brody: A meta phobia. I was,
[00:15:43] Azhelle Wade: so, wow. Okay. Uhhuh. I still have it as I still have it as an adult. Like I did not throw up in my pregnancy. 'cause I, I was like, no,
[00:15:52] Melissa Brody: it's a very, very common fear. Right.
[00:15:54] Azhelle Wade: Interesting.
[00:15:55] Melissa Brody: Yeah. So how we treat that is with exposure therapy. And so with kids exposure
[00:16:01] Azhelle Wade: to what?
[00:16:03] Melissa Brody: Yeah, so, exactly. So one of the ways we can do it, either there's, there's, you know, we call it like a hierarchy of exposures.
[00:16:12] Melissa Brody: There's like really scary ones and the ones that are like not as scary. Okay. But one of the ones I'll do is. Let's just like make throw up sounds.
[00:16:20] Azhelle Wade: Oh my gosh. Stop. Yes,
[00:16:23] Melissa Brody: yes. So what we would do is I would play Jenga. We would build Jenga, and then we would take turns. Every time you pull a a block, you have to come up with a new throw up sound.
[00:16:34] Melissa Brody: What? And so,
[00:16:36] Azhelle Wade: oh my God. Okay.
[00:16:36] Melissa Brody: Yeah. So it's just exposure, right? Wow. And then it's, they're, they're playing and they're having fun. And they're kind of rewiring their brain for these things that they think are really scary is now like I can have a sense of humor about it. So my style is play humor, and then I think that's how I I get referrals is because I'm known as somebody who makes therapy creative and fun.
[00:16:59] Azhelle Wade: I love that this is inspiring a whole new podcast. Oh yeah, but, okay. One of my thoughts is a great free, I don't know if this is a free download, if there's something that comes with your toy, I mean, I'm thinking of free download for clinicians might be something that helps them express that they integrate creativity in their practice to their patients or to their, or to their, like something that they could email out to prospective clients or maybe something they could put on their website or maybe something, I don't know, they could communicate in.
[00:17:30] Azhelle Wade: At an event or a flyer they can give. I don't know how you guys get business. I'm not a clinician because like imagine if your, if you had like a PDF with your toy that you would make it like, you would have like a placeholder that says, put an image of you holding the emotive pals here. And it is like pre-filled with like, our practice utilizes amo pals and this fun, creative way to x, y, Z because we find whatever, it's almost like a flyer they can send out like, Hey, our practice just got a new tool.
[00:17:56] Azhelle Wade: Or like, you know, I wonder if that's also just like a benefit you can provide. Yeah.
[00:18:01] Melissa Brody: Right. I think that's a good idea. I don't know if you're aware, I mean, there are, uh, like registered play therapists. Oh, okay. And so, yeah. So that, I mean, that's a whole other industry. Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's something I think would be really interesting for you to look into.
[00:18:15] Melissa Brody: Mm-hmm. Yeah, there's therapists that they are, they're play therapists, like they work with kids and there's ways to use play. Yeah. Therapeutically. I'm not a registered play therapist. Right. But I have used play and toys. But I think maybe with emo pals, because it's not sold in stores, like this is a unique experience you get if you work with that therapist.
[00:18:35] Melissa Brody: Yes. I don't know.
[00:18:36] Azhelle Wade: I think it'd be a great flyer for clients to see. And then, so let's talk about a little bit about how you get sales. So you said you've told me. When you send to influencers, they'll post, you'll get sales. What other ways generate sales?
[00:18:49] Melissa Brody: Yeah. I've mostly been on TikTok, Instagram. I am such a millennial that I'm still on Facebook.
[00:18:56] Melissa Brody: Um, and shame. I, yeah, I, I mean, I, I use it a lot for. I love a Facebook group. Facebook groups are amazing. So, um, I'm literally just
[00:19:08] Azhelle Wade: walking away from the TCA Facebook group for the next launch. I'm having a Slack channel.
[00:19:14] Melissa Brody: I
[00:19:14] Azhelle Wade: didn't go as, I didn't go as hardcore as Discord, but I was like, I'll go to Slack.
[00:19:19] Melissa Brody: Yeah. Yeah. That, that could work. Yeah. Yeah. The ones that I'm in, I'm in. So, like I said, when I, I developed that social emotional skills group right when I was at the private practice. Yeah. I was like, I'm gonna join all of the mom groups in San Diego. Okay. And, and that's how I, that's also how I got a lot of business too.
[00:19:37] Melissa Brody: So I'm in therapists and private practice groups in San Diego. Mom groups in San Diego. Play therapists groups, and so Facebook groups, TikTok, Instagram.
[00:19:48] Azhelle Wade: Okay. And in Facebook groups, what happens to generate the sales? Like you make a post. Do you have to pay for it? Yeah. Do you have to ask to do it?
[00:19:55] Melissa Brody: No. So it was in those like play therapist groups or anxiety therapist groups.
[00:20:01] Melissa Brody: I would say, Hey, I'm a therapist. I invented this toy. And then I had a bunch of therapists that were like, oh my gosh, I work with kids, like I need this. Mm. So, okay. Um, I didn't pay. Yeah. As the year's gone on, I've like paid a little for an Instagram ad or TikTok ad. Yeah. And that's. Hasn't helped worked the way I wanted it to, but when I've just kind of organically posted in a group, people will DM me and yeah.
[00:20:28] Melissa Brody: And how do you get sales on TikTok? Same thing. So there's like occupational therapists or other therapists with a larger following. I'll DM them and say, Hey, here's my product in exchange for, I'll give you my product for free, if you would share it to your audience. So they have a larger following or, um, you a lot of these
[00:20:50] Azhelle Wade: and you see direct result, like you see, I guess post and you get sent.
[00:20:53] Azhelle Wade: Oh yeah. Okay.
[00:20:54] Melissa Brody: Yeah. Especially with, yeah, it's like with the, the school counselors or the occupational therapists that have a, not even a huge following, but just they have a following and they'll say like, use this toy in your practice. And then I'll have, I get sales from the, the counselors and the, the clinicians.
[00:21:11] Azhelle Wade: And what generates more sales, TikTok or Instagram? I would say I had better luck with TikTok. Wow. Interesting.
[00:21:18] Melissa Brody: That video format. Yeah. Um, and I think the quick, you know, people's attention spans are so, you know, they're shorter, um, now I think. And so TikTok is quick. Mm-hmm. And some of these people that got really TikTok shop mm-hmm.
[00:21:33] Melissa Brody: People. I think I've gotten really good at figuring out how to sell these products. Do you have TikTok shop? So I'm in the process of setting it up. Mm-hmm. One of the things I'm learning, and I didn't realize was that for a plush toy, you have to have the lab safety test every year. Mm. That's what I, I, I didn't realize that.
[00:21:59] Melissa Brody: Are they talking about the test
[00:22:00] Azhelle Wade: for the three states? Interesting. So, so here's what
[00:22:02] Melissa Brody: happened. So I went to go on TikTok. I was already to, I was already to upload it. They wanted a document of my, like lab safety certificate.
[00:22:13] Azhelle Wade: Mm.
[00:22:14] Melissa Brody: And they, it had to be within the past 12 months and minus from 2023.
[00:22:19] Azhelle Wade: Interesting. I wonder if they would actually ask, have you updated every 12 months? And I wonder if that's a requirement from TikTok. Supposedly
[00:22:27] Melissa Brody: it's Amazon too.
[00:22:28] Azhelle Wade: Oh yeah. It might be like, it might be a marketplace requirement, because I remember there were a lot of people like putting on fake products and not tested products, unsafe products on Amazon.
[00:22:39] Azhelle Wade: So then they got one year they got suddenly really strict. So I wonder if it's just there. Standards. Okay to not that, not that that really makes a difference, but I mean, you still have to do it.
[00:22:50] Melissa Brody: I'm like, Ugh, gosh. It, so there's, there's constantly, not constantly, but there's always these like, oh, another road.
[00:22:56] Melissa Brody: But like,
[00:22:57] Azhelle Wade: so, okay. What's interesting about that, I made like a toy safety bundle couple, like half a year ago, and in it I like did a deep dive in toy safety and I got real curious about some of the just details I didn't have to know when I worked corporate. One of the interesting things. When you are under a certain amount of revenue, it's like a million dollars, 1,000,100 thousand something dollars, and it's also a certain number of units sold.
[00:23:20] Azhelle Wade: Your children's product certificate can actually be made by your company. Well, actually, okay. All children's product certificates are actually made by your company. There is no children's product certificate. Supplied by like, um, let's say Intertech, the testing agency. What Intertech supplies is the safety test.
[00:23:42] Azhelle Wade: So they'll set, they'll give you that whole like safety test that says, you passed this, you failed this. Here's what's wrong. Right, right. But the certificate of compliance is actually something that is. Created by the company itself that has, and then the, that certificate is supposed to reference the numbers and the test and the date done that Intertech did those, uh, lab tests.
[00:24:03] Azhelle Wade: But what's also interesting, and I don't look, I wouldn't follow this 'cause I would want my products to be super safe, but if you are under like the million dollar threshold, you technically don't have to use a third party lab to test your toy. Yeah, you actually can test it yourself. It's crazy. I know I read it like 15 times 'cause I was like, this can't be right.
[00:24:23] Azhelle Wade: And it is like you, it's you. But here's the thing you take the responsibility for if like something happens, you have to say, yeah, we did the drop test, we did the small parts test with the tube. You have to prove that you actually did the test. Okay. But if you're under a certain number, it's called like small batch manufacturing or something.
[00:24:40] Azhelle Wade: That you can actually get. Yeah, it's really strange. It's crazy. It's kind of scary, actually, but
[00:24:46] Melissa Brody: No, I mean, that's good to know. Yeah, because I setting all of this stuff up, it's like you can't set this up until this is done. You can't get this document until that, so I, I felt. A little discouraged. I'm like, okay, I'm finally gonna get back into social media and TikTok.
[00:25:00] Melissa Brody: Yeah, I'm gonna try and do TikTok shop. And then I couldn't get approved for it 'cause I didn't have this updated certificate.
[00:25:07] Azhelle Wade: But Where'd you get your certificate last time? Did you make it or
[00:25:10] Melissa Brody: No. So the factory I worked with had a lab and they helped. Yeah.
[00:25:16] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. But the lab does the safety compliance tests, but then the safety compliance test is not a certificate.
[00:25:21] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. So. Well, what I'm curious is like, did you use that safety test as the certificate or did the factory create a certificate for you based offered, I guess they created
[00:25:31] Melissa Brody: the certificate. Yeah. Yeah. I'm
[00:25:32] Azhelle Wade: curious. Like I would look at it and or send it to me. I wanna see if it says like, child's product certificate or not.
[00:25:38] Melissa Brody: Okay. I'll send it to you. Yeah, so interesting. The document, I mean the, the testing is like pages long. Yeah. And then they gave me the certificate, but yeah, the date is like 2023.
[00:25:48] Azhelle Wade: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That makes sense. Interesting. Okay. I will actually give you a link too. 'cause they're a link to like what I was describing and the CPC and all that stuff.
[00:25:56] Azhelle Wade: It's, it's pretty interesting. Okay. Anyway, let's keep going. So I have only run TikTok ads once, and I was really just trying to see how the platform worked. I got tons of views, but no conversions. But honestly, I wasn't selling anything. I was just running it to try to build my account, which it didn't. So I guess I'll have to frame this through what I do, do what, what I do run and that.
[00:26:16] Azhelle Wade: Facebook and Instagram ads. If TikTok has the ability for you to retarget people, I don't know if it does. I would be doing retargeting ads to the people that have engaged with, have engaged with my account. After purchasing, when you did all those other posts. I also am, I don't know, I'm kind of thinking there's a couple of ways.
[00:26:34] Azhelle Wade: Like it's really hard to retarget people when they go to your website these days because of privacy policies that were enacted a few years back with the iOS 14 update. So if you wanna be able to retarget people, you need them to engage with you. Like social media accounts. So you need them to engage with your Instagram or your Facebook if you're promoting there, or TikTok.
[00:26:54] Azhelle Wade: If they have that kind of retargeting, then you'd want them to interact with your account. So the best way to do that is when you're posting these videos or when influencers are posting videos of your product. Don't just have them post it on their page. Have them tag you as collaborator so they're posting it on your page.
[00:27:09] Azhelle Wade: 'cause you wanna get people to touch over to your Instagram for some reason, so that then they're like pixeled essentially. They're tracked and you can retarget them. Now it does like, it's always this like, is it worth giving them an extra click, which might mean they don't buy the thing. Yeah, that's kind of up to you, but I really find it's important to be able to contact my list again.
[00:27:31] Azhelle Wade: Um, the other thing that I feel like you should do is, I dunno if you're building an email list of any kind. So
[00:27:37] Melissa Brody: I am Okay. Like, and I have all of these emails. I don't know if you're familiar with like Shopify and Klaviyo. Yeah. Like the whole marketing campaigns and the email campaigns Yeah. And all of that.
[00:27:47] Melissa Brody: I. I think that's just on my list to figure that out. Mm. But you know, I'm only one person to figure all this out, so one new mom.
[00:27:54] Azhelle Wade: I get it. Yeah. One new mom to figure it all out. Yeah. Okay. I was ho like in my heart I'm like, can we do automations here? But like, some of this is feeling like you're gonna have to hire, hire help.
[00:28:04] Azhelle Wade: Honestly, I'm feeling like. We're in a higher help era.
[00:28:09] Melissa Brody: Yeah, I think so too. But we can build and the designer and the social media and like the, you know, package packing it all myself.
[00:28:18] Azhelle Wade: Yeah, that's a lot. So one, you need a funnel. 'cause a funnel is like how we get people to buy. And once that funnel's built, it can be repeatable.
[00:28:25] Azhelle Wade: I actually have a friend who's helping me with my launch right now and she gives incredible rates and maybe you can work with her. She also helped build this site called Math Stackers in their funnel. So let me talk through like kind of what their funnel is. So when you go to their site, math Stackers is like a math toy that is for teachers.
[00:28:43] Azhelle Wade: And you go to the site and it essentially says like teachers. Learn about math stackers and the free download is like a paper version of math stackers. So you can like play with it. I know you have that 'cause we talked about that for your plus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then the email sequence that people get after that is actually about how to get your school to fund you getting math stackers.
[00:29:06] Azhelle Wade: So it like, okay. Mm-hmm. What?
[00:29:08] Melissa Brody: Thank you. Yeah. What? Yes. No. Okay. So I wanted to talk to you about that. Yeah. One of the feedback or, well, I know we, we talked about the aha moment. Yeah. I got feedback from people wanting it to be HSA eligible.
[00:29:20] Azhelle Wade: What? Oh, really? Oh. How do you do that?
[00:29:23] Melissa Brody: Yeah. Well, um, it's a lot of Googling.
[00:29:25] Melissa Brody: Okay. And check GPT. Yeah. But if you can prove that this is a, like a medically necessary or therapeutic, you know, a therapeutic tool. Yeah. Then people can use their HSA cards. Ooh.
[00:29:40] Azhelle Wade: And
[00:29:40] Melissa Brody: so I was like, oh, that would be amazing. That would be amazing. I gotta walk. I got a lot of feedback like, oh, this would be great for my son with autism, who's nonverbal.
[00:29:49] Melissa Brody: Oh. Or, um, this would be, yeah, great for my, my classroom or my, you know, my special needs students. Yeah. And so some of what I researched was, how can I get it? HSA eligible. And how could I get insurance to like reimburse people if they buy this?
[00:30:09] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. That would be a dream. I think that's a great idea. And I think then you wouldn't even have to have an email sequence that says how to get someone to.
[00:30:18] Azhelle Wade: Fund this. You could just say, did you know that Emoto PAL is HSA eligible? So HSA eligible? Yeah. I guess before that though, 'cause that's not happened yet. The question could, I mean, your product is only like, isn't it $30 or under 30? It's 45. Oh, it's 45. Oh, I thought it was, why did I think it was under 30?
[00:30:36] Azhelle Wade: Did you launch with like a lower price point? Mm-hmm. Interesting. 45. Okay. Yeah. I could see why people need funding. So what maths does, basically they have people come in and then they say how to get your school to fund this product. And it just, and basically all the stuff that you would fill out for a grant application, they provide.
[00:30:53] Azhelle Wade: So that you can just kind of copy paste that information and then it just kind of goes into like a couple of sales emails, how to help, why Math stackers is great, and then just pushes people to buy. And it also comes with curriculum. So I don't know if like you have like written like how to use this and how to, whatever.
[00:31:10] Melissa Brody: That's kind of what I have on the back of the activity cards. Yeah. And what I've. I, I think that's what I need help in. Like promoting or marketing that like it's not just the toy, here's the guided play for how to use it.
[00:31:24] Azhelle Wade: Well the other thing is I think you could benefit from video. 'cause as you were describing how people were using it, to me I was like, oh, that sounds really great.
[00:31:33] Azhelle Wade: I think. People would benefit from seeing a video of, hi, I'm Melissa and this is what I've created and here's how we use it in therapy. And it's like either you pretending or you and somebody else role playing, like therapist and and patient to like show how this thing works.
[00:31:49] Melissa Brody: I think you're exactly right.
[00:31:50] Melissa Brody: Yeah. And that's something that's my goal for this. These next few months because what I was trying to do was, especially with TikTok, was do a video that was a trending sound or you know, all these trend.
[00:32:04] Azhelle Wade: Yeah.
[00:32:05] Melissa Brody: And I would get views, but I don't think it was
[00:32:09] Azhelle Wade: converting.
[00:32:10] Melissa Brody: Yeah. And it wasn't exactly showing like this is how you exactly use the product.
[00:32:16] Azhelle Wade: Well, I'm curious, the clinicians that are getting you sales when they post on TikTok, what are those videos like?
[00:32:22] Melissa Brody: Yeah, they are more like, so there's, there was somebody, she was a play therapist. She did exactly that. She did like a role play situation and that really helped. And I was like, oh, like duh.
[00:32:34] Melissa Brody: That. Like so hold on. Watching the video as if they were the client
[00:32:38] Azhelle Wade: thinking like a mom who's busy doesn't have time, can you reach out to those creators and say, Hey, can I feature your video on my site? And maybe with a link and a credit, like you can have their URL right underneath it. But maybe that's where we can just start to get an easy win.
[00:32:55] Azhelle Wade: Like on my website. Like on your website. And I feel like your homepage needs to be designed such as like, it's like the headline is clear, it's for clinicians or, or at least a landing page that's this way. Headline clear for clinicians, a video of one of your best performing videos that got you the most sales, and then like a clear buy button and maybe some testimonials.
[00:33:15] Azhelle Wade: And so this page that I'm imagining, I would then send paid traffic to that page. I'm very comfortable with Facebook and Instagram ads, and you can narrow it down to industry and profession. So I would be targeting against a certain profession, and I would also create a lookalike audience off of my email list.
[00:33:34] Azhelle Wade: And I would have these two separate ad campaigns running, and I would funnel people. To that page from those two ad campaigns. So you would, so like basically create on a motor pals.com, a separate landing page. This would be designed to look like a homepage, but talk only to clinicians, like every buy button, every headline, every everything.
[00:33:52] Azhelle Wade: So when they land there, they know this is for them. And then have the videos that the other creators have made for you if they're okay with it. And drive traffic to that. I think that's the way you're going to get that. Not have to think about it. Sales, you're gonna have to invest money, but you wanna send them somewhere that's designed for them, not like your regular homepage.
[00:34:11] Melissa Brody: Okay.
[00:34:11] Azhelle Wade: Right. Yeah. And how do you collect emails right now? Like where? On your website.
[00:34:15] Melissa Brody: So, so when you go to the website, there's the popup for mm-hmm. The like freebie Yeah. Paper version. So it's either through that or once somebody buys the product. Right. Obviously I have the email mm-hmm. From,
[00:34:26] Azhelle Wade: wait, I like this popup
[00:34:27] Melissa Brody: when they get their, their receipt.
[00:34:29] Azhelle Wade: Mm-hmm. So in your popup, I would change ready to explore, but to like something like see how it works. Like I wanna be more obvious. More obvious. Okay. More specific. Yeah. Like, see how it works. Get this paper version of our feature product by entering your email below, like something like that. Or I do like this.
[00:34:46] Azhelle Wade: You try before you buy. The, you have two headlines here. So where it says free download and 10% off, I feel like here it could just say 10% off, or it could say, try before you buy. Like pick one. I like, I'm like 10 percent's never really a compelling percentage. Right. So I feel like maybe I know. Yeah. And like
[00:35:04] Melissa Brody: when I see 10% off a website and like, eh.
[00:35:06] Azhelle Wade: Yes, same. I'm like, uh. So I feel like maybe just. Try before you buy.
[00:35:11] Melissa Brody: Okay.
[00:35:11] Azhelle Wade: Yeah.
[00:35:12] Melissa Brody: And then, let's see, I forgot. I've also given discount codes on TikTok and that helped and it worked. Yeah, just for
[00:35:19] Azhelle Wade: 10%.
[00:35:20] Melissa Brody: I think I toyed with like 10, 15. I mean, this is more in the beginning of the year.
[00:35:23] Azhelle Wade: Yeah, yeah. Valentine's Day card.
[00:35:25] Azhelle Wade: 'cause you're about to come into like the biggest season for this.
[00:35:28] Melissa Brody: Yeah.
[00:35:28] Azhelle Wade: So I mean also Facebook ads and probably TikTok ads are more expensive, most expensive this season. So that's the only downside. You have other people posting your product, how are they getting people to buy? Like are they giving them a link?
[00:35:41] Azhelle Wade: Are they telling them to comment something like, what's happening there?
[00:35:44] Melissa Brody: So this was before I got my TikTok business approved. So when you're a business approved TikTok account, you have to submit all of I tax stuff. And so only then can you have the link in your bio? Yeah. Oh, that's why I have that.
[00:35:59] Azhelle Wade: Okay.
[00:36:00] Melissa Brody: Yeah. So only recently I had that. Um, but before, yeah, they would just tag me. And then, I mean, it was, yeah, just go to my website. So the, I think there was more friction, right? Yeah. There wasn't links to click, but people are still
[00:36:12] Azhelle Wade: converting that way. Yeah. I would really want you to post things in collaboration and see if you can use like something like ManyChat, so if people comment a word, they get the link message to them immediately.
[00:36:24] Azhelle Wade: On
[00:36:24] Melissa Brody: Instagram?
[00:36:25] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. On, oh, I guess, yeah, that's Instagram, not TikTok. I'm sorry. I'm not well versed enough in TikTok yet.
[00:36:30] Melissa Brody: Well, I think. Instagram, I think I just haven't figured it out. I think there's a lot of opportunity for, for all of that.
[00:36:37] Azhelle Wade: And with your copy. All right. I'm just gonna share, I know we have to keep moving on, but I just wanna give like quick feedback on your site.
[00:36:44] Azhelle Wade: So I would take all of this, this whole site copy and run it through chat g pt, and tell it who your ideal customer is in like ex extensive detail and say, rewrite this. So that it speaks directly to that ideal customer and so that it is like SEO friendly. Okay. Because right now, like when I go to your head, your website, it just says cuddly, plush pals.
[00:37:11] Azhelle Wade: That applies to any plush, you know, emotions made For little ones, it's like blah. It's like kind of vague, like I want it to be like if I'm a clinician or if I'm a parent, look specific. Oh yeah. If I'm a parent looking like, I don't know what this helps with. I mean like I'm a parent, I don't know what this will help with, but maybe if I land on this website, it'll say.
[00:37:28] Azhelle Wade: Your child's struggling with their big emotions or struggling to explain tantrums, emotion, regulations, routines, transitions. Yes. Like this is what you need. Like I want it to be that obvious. 'cause otherwise I'll click away. So when you make your new clinician focused one, just think about the headlines that it's like, okay.
[00:37:46] Azhelle Wade: I don't know what you would say. Like a new way to explore emotions in your practice might be the headline or a creative way to explore emotions in your practice, or a softer way. I don't know. Something. More direct. Okay. Yeah, I think focus on the funnel, focus on your clinicians and focus on one funnel for them.
[00:38:03] Azhelle Wade: So first it's figuring out the funnel, like where your website, like, okay, I have one page of my website that's dedicated to clinicians and it is intended to, designed to sell to them on one page. And then we're getting people to that buy. TikTok ads by, uh, Instagram ads. We're sending them there and they have a path where if they don't buy, by the time they reach the bottom of the page, they're gonna get a popup that's gonna get their email so I can sell it to them later.
[00:38:26] Azhelle Wade: That's like one path to focus on, and you build that. It'll take a while to build, but then once it's built, you can just pay, put more money into it. Okay. The second thing is how do I automate those influencer collaborations? And I feel like, I mean, it's. You can't, I mean, you have to reach out to them. You have to talk to 'em.
[00:38:44] Azhelle Wade: You have to send 'em up a product. I think it's more about optimizing it than it is automating it. So every time you get an influencer, can you have it in your agreement that you can put that video some way, as long as it links back to them to post that video on your site. Or maybe it doesn't have to link back to them.
[00:38:59] Azhelle Wade: Maybe it'll just let, they'll just let you use the video if you put a watermark of their username on the video.
[00:39:05] Melissa Brody: In my experience, a lot of therapists. Yeah. And clinician, like they're very generous and like willing to help, you know? Yeah. So I haven't paid anybody. It's just free. Free product.
[00:39:16] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. Free product.
[00:39:17] Azhelle Wade: I mean, that's paying, that's a pay, that's a payment. Yeah. Yeah. Right, right. So yeah, I would try to get those videos that 'cause then why do you have to make them, they've already made them. You know? Right. Yeah. That's what I feel. Yeah. That's alright. Let's keep going. I'm sorry if if, okay. I wanna give more into this, but I'll give you my contact.
[00:39:31] Azhelle Wade: No, no, it's so helpful. Okay, good.
[00:39:33] Melissa Brody: And I, I mean now that the baby's a little bit older, I can, I really wanna like get back into
[00:39:39] Azhelle Wade: growing it. I feel like they're just going through different phases now. Mine's not sleeping, so. Okay. Let's go on to celebrating your wins. I mean, the first one I wanna celebrate is you ordered a thousand, you have a couple hundred left.
[00:39:53] Azhelle Wade: That's awesome. I mean, the fact that you had a baby and you still, you still launched a business and sold, I know Insanity Inventory, girl, you did it. So what's one win that you recently had that made you actually stop and think, wow, I did that.
[00:40:09] Melissa Brody: Well, so I'm, I'm always thinking about like, how do I, maybe I'm premature with it, but like, how do I scale this?
[00:40:15] Melissa Brody: Oh, yeah. And like I, you know, I have these dreams of like, you know, I wanna have different characters and coloring books Yeah. And all that. So I would say recent win is I, I published a coloring book. Oh, cool. That has the frenchie on it. Yeah. And different pages. Yeah. So that's another way I'm trying to cross promote.
[00:40:32] Melissa Brody: Mm-hmm. Um, I don't know if you know, like coloring and coloring books are like super popular right now. Yeah. Again, I'm in the coloring Facebook groups. Oh my gosh. And yeah, I'm proud that I have that idea. And it's, it's on Amazon now and I think for the holidays. I'm ex I'm excited.
[00:40:48] Azhelle Wade: Love it. Love it. What is something you did in TCA that you never thought you'd do before you joined?
[00:40:54] Melissa Brody: I think having the courage to reach out and ask questions. I think there's struggling with imposter syndrome. Oh, and like, I don't know what I'm doing. Or like, kinda like how I said before, like, who am I to like try and build a business, right? Like I don't, I, I don't have business background, right? Um, but I think like the confidence to ask questions, make mistakes here and like you've like provided contacts, reach out to this person, here's what you should say.
[00:41:22] Melissa Brody: I think that was something that really helped me.
[00:41:24] Azhelle Wade: Has your toy or game idea evolved since you first joined?
[00:41:27] Melissa Brody: Yeah, I mean, I, I think the feedback with the activity cards and the paper version, it's evolved like that, and I think the idea of making HSA of ELIG eligible, making it a medical device. I also got feedback marketing it to like the county, like the count, uh, and getting it into like schools.
[00:41:50] Melissa Brody: Mm-hmm. And kind of doing like bulk orders like that. Yeah. Kinda like you were saying with like a grant. Yeah. Like how can, that was something else I wanted to ask you. Like, getting those like bulk orders versus. One sale. One sale. One sale.
[00:42:02] Azhelle Wade: Well, I mean, yes, you could go into retailers. That's where I would direct someone to get bulk orders.
[00:42:07] Azhelle Wade: Like look at retailers, sell to them. They'll order more than one. But you've already launched, and what we've already seen is you've gotten some progress in one direction. The individual clinicians ordering one at a time. I would not direct you to go down the retail path, considering you have a lot going on right now and you're wearing all the hats just to sell to clinicians.
[00:42:28] Azhelle Wade: So like, I wouldn't say like, let's open up another channel right now, but I would say go deeper. And I've said this already, go deeper on the clinicians. Actually, what I didn't say is you should schedule a call, like five calls with five different clinicians and have a list of questions to ask them so that you can figure out is there a way you could sell bulk to clinicians?
[00:42:47] Azhelle Wade: Like what, what ideas do they have? What would be the best way for you to reach them? What other Facebook groups are they a part of? Where do they buy their creative tools? Like is there like a. Online wholesaler other than Amazon that you should be putting your product on for them to find?
[00:43:04] Melissa Brody: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:43:05] Melissa Brody: I mean there's play therapy.
[00:43:06] Azhelle Wade: Okay. Websites.
[00:43:08] Melissa Brody: Yeah. And
[00:43:08] Azhelle Wade: yeah, specific. Yeah. And like the word play therapy isn't even on your website. So like this clinician specific. Page that we're talking about should have that word in it, right? So that they, so I just really want, I didn't even, I actually skipped a question 'cause it was like, do you have any aha moments that change how you think about your product or audience?
[00:43:26] Azhelle Wade: 'cause I don't think you've had it yet, but I want you to have it. But I think you need to talk to them more. And I also just think focus on them all the other steps. I know you wanna get to and it will come. Yeah. But like. Uh, just focus on the main people. Okay? Because something someone told me once, 'cause I was afraid to focus on just inventors and entrepreneurs, they told me like, just because you're focused on inventors and entrepreneurs does not mean that a toy company isn't gonna wanna work with you.
[00:43:51] Azhelle Wade: And it's very true. Because I've gotten like so much visibility in this very, very tiny niche. I still have toy company saying, Hey, can you help us with this? And it's random. It's like, I'm not marketing to you, but it just, it's like it will spill over. So just trust that like if you just do this tiny little niche and you can make your money here.
[00:44:09] Azhelle Wade: It'll grow and it'll bubble over until you get to the other side.
[00:44:13] Melissa Brody: Okay. Okay. No, that's good. I launched my website last December. Yeah. And I was like two months pregnant, so there may have been some things I did not think of, like why did I not put play therapy
[00:44:25] Azhelle Wade: on my website? Oh my gosh. Chat. Do you have a lot of writing that you've done before, like just your own writing style?
[00:44:31] Azhelle Wade: I don't know. Maybe not are,
[00:44:33] Melissa Brody: are you
[00:44:33] Azhelle Wade: saying
[00:44:34] Melissa Brody: like to give chat GPT and say like,
[00:44:35] Azhelle Wade: write
[00:44:35] Melissa Brody: this in my style?
[00:44:36] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. Well, I created like a little bot of like my writing style to help me. So like if, so like sometimes I'll write down like an idea, like I wanna do an email kind of like this, and then I'd be like, apply my writing style and give me like a framework.
[00:44:49] Azhelle Wade: And then it just helps so much to not start from a blank piece of paper. So you're just like, okay. Got it. Yeah. It gets you in the mindset, you see the flow. You're like, oh, and sometimes you change it 150%, but just starting without a blank sheet, it just feels so much better. So, no, I, I love chat pt. Yeah. I think it's such,
[00:45:07] Melissa Brody: it can be such an incredible
[00:45:08] Azhelle Wade: tool.
[00:45:09] Azhelle Wade: I know. Yeah. No, that's a good idea. So, yeah, I feel like that with your website, like the webpage. Like, you just need to give it some free reign and let it be as direct as possible. Like you're, you're only talking to these play therapists when they come to this one, this one page in your site. It doesn't have to be your site homepage, like I said, but it's a separate landing page.
[00:45:26] Azhelle Wade: Okay. Okay. So let's give your product some time to shine. Tell us all you wanna tell us about Emoto Pals, who it's for and what makes it so special.
[00:45:35] Melissa Brody: Yeah. Emotive Pals is a really unique, fun, interactive toy. To help teach little ones about feelings. And the benefits are that kids learn emotional vocabulary from a really young age.
[00:45:50] Melissa Brody: Yeah. And it also helps parents. So if parents are struggling with transitions or routines, rather than just lecturing or explaining, you know, kids' language is play. And so anytime you can make something fun or playful, it's more memorable. Mm-hmm. And so that's why it's so special is that it's tactile, it's tangible and, and interactive versus if I'm gonna ask a kid how they're feeling, like that's so abstract and con, you know, it, it's, it's more abstract.
[00:46:21] Melissa Brody: Or, you know, they have these feeling charts right. With like faces on it, but Right. Why point to something when like, you can make it.
[00:46:30] Azhelle Wade: Love it. You're more connected. That's actually a, a buyer psychology trait. You're more connected to the things that you build, like IKEA products. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Interesting.
[00:46:40] Azhelle Wade: You said your dad was part of the inspiration behind your toy. Can you give more detail on that? Oh, thanks. I try
[00:46:46] Melissa Brody: not to get too emotional. Oh, sorry. Yeah, so my dad, his sister growing up, she had an. Intellectual disability. So that fueled his desire to become a physician. Oh. Um, and so he worked as a pediatric neurologist.
[00:47:04] Melissa Brody: Wow. So he worked with kids, helping kids. My mom's a nurse, so everybody in my, I mean, that's just kind of the industry I grew up in. It was just like. Being a helper. Wow. And so he passed in 2020 from Parkinson's. Oh, oh my God. Yeah, so I, I've always kind of had an entrepreneurial spirit and I wanted to find something that really, ultimately I really just wanna help people and I love cute things.
[00:47:29] Melissa Brody: So I think, I think, you know, if I could profit and make a business and that would be really cool. But I think more than anything, I just want to like. I just wanna help people and I want people to find, have something that is helpful and memorable, and also kind of keeps the legacy of my dad alive.
[00:47:46] Azhelle Wade: Hmm. Oh, that's so sweet.
[00:47:49] Azhelle Wade: Oh, thanks. What do you want kids or families to feel when they experience your toy
[00:47:54] Melissa Brody: connection? Hmm. Connection attachment. I think it doesn't take a lot to build a, a positive relationship with your, with your kid, and I think it can take a few minutes playing with this toy. And simple question, like, what makes you feel, you know, tell me about a time when you felt sad or what makes you feel sad?
[00:48:14] Melissa Brody: I. To a kid that feels really sad or has a hard time expressing their feelings, like that one question can make somebody feel so seen and validated. So that's my hope. I would love to make sale, you know, love to have lots of sales. But I think if, if it helps people feel a little bit more connected to their their families, I think that's a win.
[00:48:34] Azhelle Wade: And where can people go to buy your product or connect with you?
[00:48:37] Melissa Brody: Emo house.com. You can follow me on Instagram TikTok at emo house,
[00:48:43] Azhelle Wade: and if someone's out there listening and they're sitting on an idea like you once were, what would you say to them about joining TCA and doing something about it?
[00:48:50] Melissa Brody: I would say if you have the desire and you're doubting yourself.
[00:48:54] Melissa Brody: It's hard work. I would say it's worth it. There's a lot of hurdles I went through. I mean, I started this like three, four years ago, but it's worth it. You learn a lot about yourself and people are rarely successful on their own. I believe that. I think we're successful because we ask for help and something I really believe in, I talk about with my clients all the time is like.
[00:49:18] Melissa Brody: How, how important social support is and having a community and like literally that's what your program is. Yeah. Social support in a community. And so if you wanna be successful, doing it on your own is really hard. And I think you need, you need community.
[00:49:33] Azhelle Wade: I'm also in my own mastermind, like I'm in another mastermind.
[00:49:37] Azhelle Wade: Yeah. Because I need community to build my business. Yeah, I agree. I believe in that a hundred percent. I don't just say it, I pr I practice. I practice what I preach. Right,
[00:49:44] Melissa Brody: right. And it's, it's kind of like for therapists too, right? Yeah. In order to be a good therapist, I'm in therapy. Right? Like the, a good therapist have therapist.
[00:49:53] Melissa Brody: Yes. So
[00:49:54] Azhelle Wade: I'm gonna ask my therapist if she's a therapist, be like, just checking. Yeah. Most I do. Yeah. Do you know that you have things to work on or, right. Um, and my closing question for you is, what toy or game blew your mind as a kid?
[00:50:09] Melissa Brody: Well, I'm a nineties kid, and when I saw that question, I just immediately flashback to being in third grade with my tamagotchi.
[00:50:16] Melissa Brody: Oh my God. And, and being like, oh my gosh. Like did I, I forgot to feed it. Oh no. It's like, it's a recess. I gotta take it outta my backpack. I can't let the teacher see.
[00:50:27] Azhelle Wade: I was gonna say, like for some of the anxiety, that could not have been a good toy for you to have.
[00:50:32] Melissa Brody: Yeah, I think. Yeah. And then it's. Right. I think that the lifes went down.
[00:50:37] Melissa Brody: It's like, oh, it's dying. And then I'm like, okay, we're done. I
[00:50:39] Azhelle Wade: like, I had a tamagotchi too. I wonder if this has something to do with why we had kids so late. We're like, you know what? That was a lot. We, I don't need a minute. Yeah. It's a
[00:50:48] Melissa Brody: lot of responsibility. I know. Responsibility and the perfectionism too.
[00:50:53] Melissa Brody: Oh my God, yes.
[00:50:54] Azhelle Wade: If I don't
[00:50:54] Melissa Brody: do
[00:50:54] Azhelle Wade: it right, like I don't wanna do it at all, so. Oh man. That's hilarious. Thank you so much, Melissa. Thank you. This has been a great talk. I hope you found it helpful.
[00:51:02] Melissa Brody: I did. I really did. Okay. Yeah, it gave me a lot to think about and Awesome. Um, but not a,
[00:51:07] Azhelle Wade: not a lot to do 'cause we have focused action.
[00:51:09] Azhelle Wade: I want you to focus on just the clinicians.
[00:51:11] Melissa Brody: No. And I noticed myself feeling a little bit of like, friction, like Yeah. You just focus on therapists. Yeah. And I'm like. I know, but there's so many like, but what about all the moms?
[00:51:22] Azhelle Wade: Yes.
[00:51:22] Melissa Brody: And if you had
[00:51:23] Azhelle Wade: an investor, I'd be like, go for it. But
[00:51:26] Melissa Brody: like,
[00:51:26] Azhelle Wade: you don't. Yeah, right.
[00:51:28] Melissa Brody: Well, and I, I don't know why I am not resistant to it, but like those are the people that buy my products. Exactly.
[00:51:33] Azhelle Wade: I did the same thing when I had my costume company. I was so resistant to the people that bought. I was like, no, no, no. But I have a vision. Like, screw your vision. You don't know. The customer knows.
[00:51:41] Azhelle Wade: Okay.
[00:51:42] Melissa Brody: Like the customer knows, right? No, you're so right. Yeah. You're so right. Yeah. And those are the people and the clinicians. Like I could hand this to a therapist. Yeah. And I could say, give me 50 interventions of how you would use this with a kid. Look at that. And they could do it. And they would make stuff up, and it would be things I didn't even think of, of how to use it.
[00:52:01] Melissa Brody: Um, and I, you give it to a parent and they just see pieces.
[00:52:05] Azhelle Wade: Right? Oh, that's such a good, yes. And I bet your process of selling to them, say you do just them for the next year or two, you'll probably unlock the vocabulary you need to sell to parents. You'll figure it out. They'll probably help you figure it out.
[00:52:18] Azhelle Wade: They'll tell you stories and then you'll have the testimonials. 'cause also from my perspective, what helps me in my business is I have testimonials from TCAs. But what that shows to like, um, toy companies that wanna like work with me, like as a game consultant mm-hmm. It just shows consistency, it shows integrity.
[00:52:36] Azhelle Wade: So like, those reviews can't say Elle developed the best game for us, but it does say that Elle is someone who's gonna show up every day and do the work she says she's gonna do for you. So it's like,
[00:52:44] Melissa Brody: well, and it shows that you're trusted, right? Like people, yes. They wanna work with somebody. That's the whole thing.
[00:52:52] Melissa Brody: People wanna work with somebody they Right. Like know and trust.
[00:52:55] Azhelle Wade: And let's fast forward two years from now when Emo Pals is the trusted emotion toy with all clinicians, and then parents are like, well obviously that has to be the one that I buy because
[00:53:04] Melissa Brody: Right. You know what I mean? Like, that's it. Yeah.
[00:53:05] Melissa Brody: Thanks for saying No, you're totally right. Yeah. Thanks for saying that. Yeah. That makes so much sense.
[00:53:10] Azhelle Wade: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Okay. This was an incredible talk. Thanks Melissa so much. If you want to buy Emo pals, please head over to emo pals.com, or you can find emo pals on Instagram at emo pals. You can also head over to the toy coach.com/podcast and where you see this episode, check for the links mentioned in this episode to get the links to get your own Emoto pal.
[00:53:31] Azhelle Wade: Listener, if you love this podcast and you haven't already left a review, what are you waiting for? Your reviews keep me an amazing guest like Melissa, coming back week after week, and every time a new review comes in, I get notified. I get a huge smile on my face. I show my mom and my boyfriend and my sister, and it just makes my day.
[00:53:47] Azhelle Wade: So please, wherever you're listening. Stop, leave us a high rating and a review. As always, thank you so much for spending this time with us today. I know your time is valuable and that there are a ton of podcasts out there, so it truly means the world to me that you tune into this one. Until next week, I'll see you later toy people.
[00:54:04] Voiceover: Thanks for listening to the Making It In The Toy Industry Podcast with Wade. Head over to the to coach com for more information, tips, and advice.
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