After a soul searching sabbatical and a very smelly #2 experience, Suzie knew that she finally had the right idea at the right scale to be sustainable. Welcome Poo Pourri.

Dave Young:

Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop, to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today’s episode, a word from our sponsor, which is… Well, it’s us. But we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients. So, here’s one of those.

[BWS Ad]

Dave Young:

All right. Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast. That’s Steve Semple. I’m Dave Young, and Stephen, I thought we were going to keep this podcast on the up and up, above board, like child-friendly and…

Stephen Semple:

Except for the cursing and swearing every-

Dave Young:

Except for the cursing and… Yeah. Okay. Okay. I’ll give you that. But when you told me that in today’s episode we’re going to talk about a product, and I’m guessing more specifically, we’re going to talk about the lovely British woman that became the spokesperson for this product by… Gosh. I don’t even know how to describe it. Just being a lovely woman with a British accent, and talking about pooping all at the same time, all over YouTube, all over… Pooping, all over Facebook. We’re talking about the product called Poo-Pourri.

Stephen Semple:

If someone’s not familiar with the product, Poo-Pourri is basically this spray that you spray on the toilet, in the toilet bowl-

Dave Young:

On the water. Yeah.

Stephen Semple:

On the water, that basically prevents the odor from basically overpowering the bathroom. It’s this little bottle, and they’re 20, 30 bucks, and you spray it, and the product is called Poo-Pourri. So, if you haven’t seen the video, you really need to go watch the video, either before listening to this or at the end, because it really is quite remarkable. We’re going to talk a little bit about the video, because the company, Poo-Pourri, was founded in 2007 by Suzy Batiz, and it’s best known for the viral videos.

Dave Young:

I don’t think we’d know it at all if it wasn’t for the viral video.

Stephen Semple:

Collectively, they’ve had over 350 million views. The company’s on track to do, again, it’s a private company so it’s hard to know, but the best data I’ve been able to find is they’re on track to do a hundred million in sales. At 20 bucks a pop. So, the business is estimated to be worth a quarter of a billion dollars. The product is sold in 40,000 retail locations. Costco, Target, CVS, Walgreens, you name it. On Amazon, they have over 100,000 five star reviews.

Dave Young:

Dang, that’s a lot of five star poops.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah. The company was ranked on Inc’s 5,000 fastest growing companies every year since 2015. It’s a big deal. But here’s the interesting thing. It’s not as much of an overnight success as people believe. When you read about Poo-Pourri, the press is all about this $25,000 video that they posted to social media that blew them up. The video was produced by the Harmon Brothers. It was literally the second or third campaign that the Harmon Brothers did. The Harmon Brothers have done Purple, and all sorts of different products. You could actually go on Harmon Brothers YouTube videos and find a whole bunch of them. The video is awesome. The thing that’s really interesting about the video is, we often talk about this whole idea of fit but doesn’t fit. So, they have this very classic dressed British woman. She’s in a classic gown, with the classic makeup and whatnot, in this very proper English accent, talking about poo. That’s what makes it funny. Matthew Burns and I have actually started a YouTube channel, stickysalesstories.com.

One of the ones that we’re going in a deep dive on is Poo-Pourri. So, if you really want a deep dive on the video, go over and check it out over there. But as I was saying, there’s much more to this success than this $25,000 video. So, Suzy was not successful out of the gate. She had actually quite a few failures along the way. She grew up in a poor, chaotic household in rural Arkansas. Her father was bipolar and an alcoholic. Her mother suffered from depression. She was first married at 19 years old, and she borrowed 40 grand from her parents and her then husband, and the bank, to buy a bridal shop in Jonesboro, Arkansas. So, to save money, she bought out the old inventory from the previous owner. Well, there’s a reason why the old owner was getting rid of the inventory cheap. It did not sell. She couldn’t pay back the loan. By age 21, she went bankrupt. She divorced, was later remarried, had kids, divorced, remarried, another child. So, to help support the family, she entered bikini contests and also ran a business selling lingerie to strippers.

Dave Young:

Wow.

Stephen Semple:

Yes.

Dave Young:

All right.

Stephen Semple:

That’s what really interesting.

Dave Young:

You do what you’ve got to do.

Stephen Semple:

Do what you’ve got to do. They then later relocated to Texas in 1997, and she got a job at a recruiting firm. That’s when she started her next business. She had this idea for a recruiting website that would match employees to companies, based upon the company culture. Not a bad idea.

Dave Young:

Not a bad idea, no.

Stephen Semple:

So, she got a venture capitalist who promised to put $5 million in, but backed out, because in 2000, Dot-com bubble burst. Again, she’s unable to pay off business debts, she lost her home, filed for bankruptcy, and she vowed never to take on debt or an investor again in the future. Plus, she took a business break. She said she was going to take a break from business ideas. She called it a spiritual sabbatical for four years.

Dave Young:

But man, this is in her blood.

Stephen Semple:

This is in her blood. Especially when you sit there and you say, “I have to take a sabbatical. I have to force myself to not do this for a few years.” So, that all changed in 2006, when someone stunk up the bathroom.

Dave Young:

Oh, gosh. We’ve all been there.

Stephen Semple:

We’ve all been there. Well, and her brother-in-law wondered, could bathroom odor be trapped? She had an aha moment, because she thought about the pungent essential oils that she used to relax. So, she spent nine months researching and testing oils, and trying to find a natural way to fight the smell. So, she started whipping up things in the kitchen. One day, she got it right, because again, it wasn’t about overcoming the odor, it was about containing the odor. That’s what’s different about her approach. One day she got it right, her husband said, “We’re going to be millionaires.” So, she decided to place the product at a trade show. Now, here’s another reason why this video worked for her. When you watch the Poo-Pourri video, it is funny. It is entertaining. It is very tongue-in-cheek.

But this also was natural to her. You cannot, and we’ve seen businesses try to do this, where they have an owner in a culture that is not that way, and they try to go, “Well, let’s do this funny video thing,” and it never works. She already had this sense of humor, and this ability to go, “How do I do something different and stand out?” Because when she went to a product trade show, she went, “Boy, how am I going to stand out with this?” So, what she hauled in was a toilet, and filled it with lemons.

Dave Young:

Nice. At the trade show.

Stephen Semple:

That was her setup. At the trade show. It stood out and worked well, but it was already in her DNA that, okay. You’ve got to stand out. You’ve got to do something interesting and whatnot. The company was profitable right out of the gate. Right out of the gate. She then went to boutiques to sell the product, and over the next seven years, she had sales at 8,000 boutiques, and sales had hit $7 million.

Dave Young:

These boutiques are selling the product for her?

Stephen Semple:

Yeah.

Dave Young:

Just like these private little businesses?

Stephen Semple:

Yep. 8,000 of them. She’s selling seven million bucks. The product retails for $20. Making money, not bad after seven years, right?

Dave Young:

Yeah.

Stephen Semple:

Suzy’s sitting on a beach in Hawaii reading Harvard Business Review that talks about the seven year business itch. It’s a thing. There is a seven year business itch. It’s a real thing. She was feeling a bit bored. That’s when she decided, “You know what? I’ve got to shake things up.” That’s what led to the, Girls Don’t Poop video. This video amassed 10 million views in two weeks, created $4 million in back orders. Usually that’s where the story ends. Most of the time, when you read about it, that’s where the story ends. But there’s more to this story.

Dave Young:

I want to pause just for a second here and say, one thing that I instantly love about this is that you’re right, it’s in her DNA to shake it up. Most of the time, you would have a business owner that… That would have to be a hard sell to get somebody to run that video. But you’re saying it was her idea, at least her idea to do something bold.

Stephen Semple:

She had come across a couple of the early videos that the Harmon Brothers had done, even before they were an agency, and she chased them down.

Dave Young:

Are these the guys that did the, How to Sell It, like the trailer park?

Stephen Semple:

They also did the other Poop one.

Dave Young:

Yeah. The Squatty Potty.

Stephen Semple:

Squatty Potty. Yep.

Dave Young:

Yep. I’m thinking of a different duo.

Stephen Semple:

Yes.

Dave Young:

But, yeah.

Stephen Semple:

She chased them down. They weren’t an advertising agency yet, they were a bunch of guys in school doing stuff, and she chased them down, and said, “I want you to do this.” So, she hired Harmon Brothers to do this, which are now one of the top agencies out there, and spent two days with them. Again, we hear about these videos and we don’t realize that… It’s funny because we often get pushback on our own customers going, “Wow, do I have to spend that much time?” Yes, you do. All of these great campaigns start with agencies spending a significant amount of time with you, to get it figured out. It doesn’t just come out of the blue.

Anyway, she spent two days with them before creating the campaign, and that’s an investment. Great campaigns take time. The fun with this campaign was, it was also authentic. Because the toilet with lemons, and things along that line. But here’s part of what everybody wants to talk about, she invested 25 grand in this video. But here’s the thing that people don’t talk about. Guess how much she invested to promote the video on YouTube and Facebook? Because initially it was promoted before it went viral.

Dave Young:

Oh, man. I’m guessing it’s a pretty low number, but I don’t know.

Stephen Semple:

$650,000.

Dave Young:

Ho. That’s not a pretty small number. Stay tuned. We’re going to wrap up this story, and tell you how to apply this lesson to your business, right after this.

[Empire Builders Ad]

Dave Young:

Let’s pick up our story where we left off, and trust me, you haven’t missed a thing.

Stephen Semple:

This is the part that everybody ignores, when it comes to a lot of these campaigns where there’s a viral video.

Dave Young:

Viral. Yeah.

Stephen Semple:

It’s amazing how often there is a significant advertising campaign to get it pushed out there, to help it take root. Then it goes crazy and viral.

Dave Young:

Yeah. You’ve got to hit that critical mass.

Stephen Semple:

You’ve got to hit that critical mass. So, there’s a lot more to this story than is normally told. It’s amazing just how many of these viral videos have had to have a kickstart to get them out the door. Then there is a point where it catches on fire and you don’t have to do it any longer, and it takes on a life of its own. It’s great because it just goes and goes and goes and goes and goes. But to make these things happen, they have to be authentic. They’ve got to be interesting. They have to be entertaining. Even if you’re not spending a whole pile of money promoting it, you still have to have a plan for how are you going to push this out to the world? Can’t just be, “Oh, I’ll publish it.” There has to be a plan for the promotion of it, even if it’s just getting it into certain communities and things along that lines. But what I love is, also her, “Things are going well, but I want to kick this to the next level.” How often do we also see that with our business owner client?

Dave Young:

I’ve got to admit that I was so wrong, thinking that, oh. It was just so good that everybody loved it and everybody shared it. Voila. That 650 grand priming the pump set me back, did not understand that about that video.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it’s like when you go back to the Old Spice one. The Old Spice, I’m on a horse. They had a significant campaign behind that to get it going. It was playing in Walmarts, and all sorts of things.

Dave Young:

Well, that’s so true. In that case, as far as the creative goes, that was a Whieden + Kennedy thing, that they told Proctor & Gamble, “We’ll take this old dead brand of yours, and we’ll take a shot at it. But you have to give us 100% control.” Right. I’m guessing she did that pretty well with those guys. But, yeah. You’ve got to get it out in front of people in a significant way, or you’re just hoping. Here where I should’ve figured out that it wasn’t just a viral play, is that it’s a product. It’s still a commercial, right?

Stephen Semple:

Yeah.

Dave Young:

It’s still trying to sell you something. There’s a lot of copycat videos out there now. Not copycat products, but it turns out to be a really good way of promoting products that have a little bit of fun element to them.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah. The other interesting thing is, the Harmon Brothers have a podcast, and if you go to the podcast and you listen to the podcast actually on Poo-Pourri, one of the things that they also did before launching the video, is they did a lot of testing. The Girls Don’t Poop headline for the video, was discovered because they were putting little clips of video out there and testing different things. It actually came back, in some of the comments, there was a bunch of comments where then somebody made that comment, and it created all sorts of conversation. They went, “That should be the name for the video.” What I find is, when we go back 15 years ago, online marketing people were much better at testing things. It’s amazing how many online campaigns I take over, PPC campaigns I take over, and I look at it and go, “There’s been zero testing.” How do I know there’s been zero testing is, they change everything. There’s a methodology to testing, and what they do is they’re just throwing poop against the wall and hoping some will stick.

Dave Young:

Hoping some of it becomes lemon scented.

Stephen Semple:

So, the Harmon Brothers also had a real methodology around how they tested a lot of things before pushing this out there. There was the promotion, there was the testing, there was a lot went on behind this video that created this massive, massive success. Look, good for her. She doesn’t have debt, she doesn’t have investors, and she’s got 100,000 five star reviews. This is selling at 40,000 retail locations, and it’s a business that’s estimated to be worth a quarter of a billion dollars.

Dave Young:

I love that when she decided to blow it all up, she was sitting on a beach in Hawaii already.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah. Bored.

Dave Young:

Yeah, bored.

Stephen Semple:

It’s amazing. I was having a meeting with a long-standing customer a little while ago, and he was talking about how one of the things that has changed since the marketing campaign we put in place, is that he’s having more fun with his business now than he was having before. I just wanted people to know the behind the scenes, amazing female entrepreneur, overcome a lot of challenges, in her blood, creative, good for her, and people should go check out the video. It’s a phenomenal piece of marketing.

Dave Young:

If you’re one of the few people on the planet that hasn’t seen it, go watch it.

Stephen Semple:

Go watch it. Yeah. That’s right. Exactly. Exactly.

Dave Young:

Thanks for sharing that story.

Stephen Semple:

Thanks, David.

Dave Young:

Thanks for listening to the podcast. Please share us, subscribe on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a big fat juicy five star rating and review. If you have any questions about this or any other podcast episode, email to questions@theempirebuilderspodcast.com.