6 Telling a Story
On the first day that SuperJam launched on the shelves, the first few articles about SuperJam appeared in the Scottish papers. By the afternoon, I was inundated with phone calls from newspapers, radio stations and television producers all wanting to interview me.
Waitrose helped to fuel this media attention by sending out a press release and, over the coming three days, about 30 newspapers and magazines, 16 radio stations and 7 television programmes interviewed me.
This was a completely surreal experience and I couldn't believe how interested people were in the story. Apparently, I was the first teenager ever to supply one of the big supermarkets. This felt like a great achievement. The highlight of all of the media coverage was going on BBC Breakfast News. I sat on the couch with the two presenters and chatted about SuperJam, in front of millions of viewers, eating jam on toast for breakfast with them. Amazingly, I didn't feel nervous about all of this; it simply didn't feel real.
The number of newspapers and radio stations abroad that had heard about the story also amazed me. CBC Radio, the biggest radio station in Canada, called up and interviewed me. I also had to do my best at giving an interview to a newspaper in South Korea—who would have thought that people in South Korea would be reading about the wee guy from Edinburgh who turned his gran's jam recipe into a business?
As you can no doubt imagine, all of the media coverage made the launch a major success. Within the first eight months, we had sold more than 150,000 jars—a lot more than I ever imagined!
As a result of the huge success of the products, Tesco, one of the biggest retailers in the world, asked if it too could stock the range. Three phone calls later and without me even needing to meet with the buyer, Tesco agreed to launch SuperJam in more than 300 of its stores across the UK. SuperJam went on sale in Tesco eight months after the launch in Waitrose, and this was again covered extensively in the media. I found myself being interviewed by GMTV, the Financial Times and loads of radio stations all around the world. The biggest news show in China even covered the story.
I'm often asked how much I think the success of SuperJam has been down to my story—the story of the kid from Scotland who was taught to make jam by his gran and made a business out of it.
I always say that the success of SuperJam is almost entirely down to that story; all I own is a brand and a brand is just a story. I don't own a factory or a patent or anything else, merely a great story that fascinates people.
But the truth is that my story would have been just as compelling had I been a middle-aged man and left a job to start selling jam. It would have been just as compelling if I had been my gran and had started selling jam; in fact, it would have been an even better story!
There is always a story to tell. Whatever age you are, whatever your business is and however you came up with your idea, there is something exciting about it, something that people want to read about. It is a story that people will connect with, a story that will help them to relate to and trust your brand. It helps them to understand where you've come from and where you're trying to go. When people understand the story behind a brand and know about the people who created it, it has so much more meaning for them and becomes a lot more authentic.
You just have to figure out how to tell it.
Knowing What Your Message Is
I suppose the hard thing is knowing what you're trying to say, what your story is. Like all things, the best stories are usually very simple. Of course, it has to be the truth about how you came up with your idea or what motivated you to change the status quo. There is always a ‘hook’ for journalists to hang an article onto, a reason why your business is interesting enough to write about.
In my case, I have never been very scientific about any of this stuff; I just learned pretty early on that I had a story to tell. Teachers at school would push me up in front of the class and say: ‘Fraser, tell everyone about your jam idea.’
I was never afraid of telling people my story; for me it was something that I loved and I wanted people to hear about it. I was having so much fun setting up my company that I wanted all my friends to understand it.
I've never been a particularly confident person, the kind of guy who can walk into a room full of strangers and go around introducing myself. I was never embarrassed about making jam, though, and never scared of telling people about it.
Talking to the Press
There are all sorts of ways in which you can get the press interested in your story. Journalists are always on the lookout for new things to write about and, if you give them a good enough story, you could well become their next article. A great hook for an article could be that you have won an award, like ‘the best-tasting chilli sauce in England’, or maybe you've won an award for being so innovative. There are hundreds of different competitions for every kind of business, so search them out online and enter as many as you can.
Of course, your product could well be a hook in its own right and the story of how you came to develop the idea might well be fascinating to the press. Although you don't need to tell them all about your personal life, your age or your background could be a hook.
Another great hook for a story could be that you have won a big contract with a retailer or someone else. Often, you can get the retailer's PR department to help you out getting coverage of the story since it will benefit them too, by showing that they are taking on innovative new products and supporting small suppliers.
The key for you is to decide which magazines, newspapers, television shows or blogs would be best for your story and getting in touch to ask for the name of the right journalist to tell your story to. Don't be afraid of picking up the phone to the press; they're always looking for new stories to tell. Send them some samples of your product and let them see for themselves how wonderful it is.
Writing Articles
The media are always looking for entrepreneurs to comment on what's going on in their community, the economy and their industry. I think that so long as you have something worthwhile to add to the topic and are always positive in what you say, this type of media coverage can only be a good thing.
A fantastic idea is to react to news in the media; if there's a big story about a topic related to what you're doing, then write to the local paper with your opinion. Get your name out there and become a spokesperson for your industry. Whenever I am asked to comment on, say, entrepreneurship in Scotland or the future of the jam industry, I only ever speak about my personal experience and don't offer opinions, especially not ones that are critical and could be taken out of context.
I'm quite often asked to write articles about trends or things that are going on in the world of food. For example, in the past couple of years jam has seen something of a renaissance (hurrah!) and I've written a few articles about why I think that might be. I guess the reason is that people are ‘going back to basics’, taking up homely hobbies like knitting and baking, and making jam somehow fits into that trend.
You could also conduct surveys about issues that are in some way related to your product and send the results to the press. If it makes for an interesting story, they will credit you in the article, and of course the findings of your research will be beneficial to your business.
For example, if you own a fish and chip shop by the seaside, your survey might discover that ‘80% of people like taking day trips to the seaside’. In the same kind of way, you can write articles and comment on trends. Maybe there's been a rise in people going to the seaside for weekends and you're the very person to explain why.
A classic way to get publicity for your business is to try to set a world record or by doing some kind of publicity stunt. It can be a bit of a cliché, but that's only because papers write stories like that all the time; and with good reason, it makes for interesting reading. You might hold an event around your stunt and invite lots of press and celebrities along. If it's wacky and an amazing enough feat, you could well find yourself on television or being sent all around the world on YouTube.
Giving Good Interviews
When you're being interviewed, especially if it's on television or radio, you really are going to have to know your stuff. Be well prepared for whatever question the journalists might ask you and be able to explain your story, your idea and how people can find out about your business in a matter of a few sentences. Radio is very fast paced and television even more so; you'll probably have only a minute or two to share your story with the world. Speak clearly and don't try to say too much.
You should avoid coming across as merely an advert for your product or service, otherwise the station will never invite you back. Be as polite as you can and respect the fact that you are a guest on someone else's show.
Having said that, the whole point of doing an interview is that you want to tell people your story, with the hope that they will check out your website or come to your shop or buy your product. The key to getting people to want to buy your product is to describe it to them in a way that connects with their emotions. You want them to imagine themselves using it.
Think of some of the most recent things you have bought for yourself. Did you spend hours looking at all of the different options available, making the best and most rational decision possible? Of course you didn't. Almost every decision we make to buy something is an emotional one; we buy things in an impulsive moment when we think ‘I've got to have that!’
So, whenever you're telling people about your product, don't list all of its features and benefits. Nobody cares. Talk about how it fits into their lives, how much fun it'll give them, how much easier their housework will be with it, or whatever. You want to ‘lifestyle' the story as you tell it, embellishing it with descriptions and images of what the product is like to use.
Global Student Entrepreneur of the Year
Because of the runaway success of SuperJam and since supplying supermarkets was something that no teenager had ever done before, I was given a few prestigious awards. The one that I am most proud of is Global Student Entrepreneur of the Year.
I had been chosen to represent Britain at the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards, along with 23 other finalists. They had chosen these successful student entrepreneurs from 750 entrants from all around the world.
This was the first time I had met so many other young people with successful businesses and a real passion for starting companies. I was completely blown away by the companies that some of the other students had set up. For example, one guy called Erik from Sweden ran a software company and sold his applications to companies such as McDonald's. Another guy called Brendan ran a company called Ten Minute Media, and made websites for people like Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones. Another was running the seventh fastest-growing company in Canada! These were all students and we were all about the same age.
The judges asked us each to give a 20-minute presentation about our companies, sharing stories about what we had learned from our experiences and what we wanted to achieve in the future. They asked us questions about our ethics, who had helped us to get started and how we came up with our ideas in the first place.
Given that my company was probably the least high-tech out of all of the contestants, I wasn't very confident that I would be chosen as the winner. However, the judges said that they loved the story of my business and felt that I had the potential to go very far in the future. I was obviously delighted to win and to be named the Global Student Entrepreneur of the Year. Aside from the actual prize, a massive bonus of the event was meeting other young entrepreneurs from around the world, some of whom have since become very good friends of mine.
Speaking at Events
Meeting other entrepreneurs at events like the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards has been one of the big highlights of the journey for me. Speaking at events and sharing the story of your business is a wonderful way of getting your name out there. You are able to have a meaningful dialogue with people who are interested in what you have to say and tell them all about the adventure you're on and where you're trying to go.
Of course, a lot will depend on the kind of business you are starting, but there are bound to be industry conferences you can speak at and colleges and universities are always looking for local businesspeople to share their experiences with students.
I'm invited to speak at universities, conferences, graduation ceremonies and entrepreneur events all over the world. God knows how everyone hears about my story in the first place, but I have been lucky enough to have shared it with audiences in beautiful places like Puerto Rico in the Caribbean, Beijing in China and prestigious universities such as Columbia in New York.
I love the thought that when I go and speak in some tiny little village school in Scotland in the middle of nowhere, there are kids there who have never even been to a city. They haven't seen anybody set up a business and probably have quite narrow aspirations for what they want to do in life. When I share my story with them, I often see a little spark going off in their heads and they think: ‘Hey, if he can do that, then so could I!’. I get emails all the time from young people who have seem me speak or read about my story and they have started selling cakes or some other thing. That feels pretty amazing.
People often ask if I was picked on at school for being different. Thankfully, nobody ever did laugh at me. I guess I wouldn't have cared if they had, but probably it was because of how comfortable I was about myself that nobody thought to pick on me for it.
In fact, other kids at school were fascinated by my tiny business. A lot of them had never seen anyone set up a company, so they had all kinds of questions and thought the whole thing was fun; some of them have even gone on to set up their own companies since.
I can definitely recommend speaking at events as a way of meeting people who can help grow your business and of practising speaking in front of groups of people, a skill that can be really valuable in life.
Telling my story is something that I love and you will no doubt find some really fun ways to tell yours. Whatever way you get your name out there, all of this publicity will really help when you try to get into more stores or find more customers for your product. If people have heard you speak at an event or read about you in the paper, they're much more likely to buy your product. Having a good story to tell is what will help you sell your brand to a wider and bigger audience.