Quit Stalling and Build Your eCommerce Brand with Ben Leonard | Ben Leonard

Matt Edmundson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the eCommerce Podcast with me, your host, Matt Edmundson. This is a show all about helping you deliver eCommerce wow. And to help us do just that, today we're chatting with the legendary Ben Leonard, a regular on the show, about his brand new book. This book here, if you're watching the video "Quit Stalling and Build Your Brand."

You don't need an MBA to crush it in eCommerce is the title of the book. Got some amazing reviews on Amazon already, even in its launch phase. So we're going to be getting into it. All of that. Grab your notebooks. Now, before we do, let me just remind you to sign up to the email newsletter if you haven't done so already, and we will email you the show notes, the links, all the guest links, all the stuff that they mention.

Like today, we'll send you a link to Ben, his book, and all that sort of good stuff straight to your inbox, totally for free. All you've got to do is head over to ecommercepodcast. [00:01:00] net. Fill out the little form. And we'll send that to you every week. And of course, if this is your first week with us, a very warm welcome to you.

I've been saying this the last few weeks, actually on, on the podcast. I am really stoked about all the new people joining the show subscribing and downloading. There's a slight ego boost because we like bigger numbers, but it's just good. It's just good that so many more people are connecting with us and getting more stuff out of this.

So if you are new to the show, a very warm welcome to you. It's great that you're here. Do connect with me on LinkedIn or social media. You'll find me through the website. And just let me know what you think, because we're just generally interested. Now today we're diving into the riveting world of online entrepreneurship with a guest who doesn't just talk the talk, no, but he walks the walk and occasionally has stumbled a few times a bit like myself.

Now joining us. eCommerce is the illustrious, the legendary, the one, the only Ben Leonard the mastermind behind the insightful [00:02:00] book"Quit Stalling and Build Your Brand." With a journey that includes navigating the treacherous waters of eCommerce and has achieved a staggering six million in annual revenue himself and a mid sev mid seven figure exit.

The dream. Now Ben is here to share. Here's pearls of wisdom, sprinkled with a dash of humor and a truckload of practical advice. I love this bio, Ben. So grab your favorite brew, lean in, grab a notebook, grab a pen and let's chat to the man himself. Ben, welcome to the show, man. How are you doing?

Ben Leonard: It's good to be here. I didn't write that, but I'll take it. Yeah, good to be here. Thanks, Matt.

Matt Edmundson: No problem at all. No, it's it's great because the bio is one of those things that sort of gets put onto my system. And I sit usually when I'm, when I do the intro on the podcast like I just have with you, it's the first time I see it. Which is why I giggled to myself. 'cause I just think this, these things are so well written by the production team.

It's really cool. Anyway, we're here. [00:03:00] Whereabouts in the world are you? For those that dunno.

Ben Leonard: I am in Aberdeen, in North East Scotland, and today I really am in Aberdeen, because as we were just saying off air I've had to come somewhere different today, because they're digging up the road outside my house, but usually I live in a nice little town about twenty miles south of Aberdeen.

Matt Edmundson: And is it, at the time of recording, it's what, it's the, it's February 12th. And we've got little breaks in the crowd clouds here, crowds, little breaks in the crowds. So the sunshine's breaking through, the skies are blue. What's it like up, very up north?

Ben Leonard: Similar, but today is one of the first days I can actually see blue sky. It's been miserable up here. It's normally, if there's any Americans listening to this, we are like fulfilling, like the absolute British stereotype, aren't we? Because we're chatting about the weather,

Matt Edmundson: Yeah,

Ben Leonard: but but it, yeah it's been pretty, pretty rubbish this winter.

So I'm looking forward to to spring and summer for sure.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. You can't actually get much further north, can you? There are still places you can go further up from Aberdeen, but not many when you think about the British Isles and how far up [00:04:00] you can go. So I, my son's he's at uni at St Andrews. And ah, a stunning, beautiful place, on the coast there, just amazing.

But I'm never envious of the weather he has to deal with being in that place. When it's beautiful and sunny, it is stunning, but when it's grey and cold, man, is it grey and cold, right?

Ben Leonard: Yeah. Correct. Yeah. It could be worse. It could be on the west coast where it just rains all the time.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, that's true. That's very true. Anyway, weather over. We're just bringing you the weather update, courtesy of your local weather service. Let's talk about the, we've had you on the show a couple of times. We've talked about buying and selling businesses, eCom businesses, we know you involved in brokerage and stuff like that, but for some reason one day you obviously woke up and thought, my life's not complicated enough I need to deepen the complexity and the emotional heartbreak of my life and decide to write a book.

What was that all about?

Ben Leonard: Yeah. The book came out October 2023, and it took me about [00:05:00] 18 months to write, so in Spring of 22, I finally pulled the trigger on writing it, and I'd had the idea brewing away for probably 18 months, 2 years before that, but the thing that made me pull the trigger was this, it was Spring 2022, I was sitting at an eCommerce conference. It was a packed room, and this bloke on stage was mesmerizing the audience. And I took a step back, metaphorically speaking, and took my attention away from him and looked around the room at everybody else. And they were fixated on him, reading, reading his lips, listening to everything he had to say, eating out the palm of his hand. And here's the thing that kind of got to me, was this guy, everything he was saying was okay, most, basically correct.

It wasn't all that special, and there was no evidence of anything he had actually done. It was all theory, and smoke and mirrors, you could do this, you could do that. And I've actually done a bit more digging [00:06:00] on this guy, and I think he's a fake guru, to be honest. And I thought, it's time to come out of stealth mode.

And write a valuable book for eCommerce business owners or indeed would be eCommerce business owners that actually shows people, yes, here's everything you can do, and here's what I did.

I think that there was space for that.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

Ben Leonard: And I just felt like I had a book in me. I wrote it.

Matt Edmundson: on you. Good on you. I love this. I've come across this so many times, Ben, where people will go to people for, eCommerce entrepreneurs. So you're running an eCommerce business, or you're thinking about setting one up and you're going to go and get some advice from somebody.

And the people you get advice from have rarely run. Their own eCommerce business themselves. And it used to be years ago the trend is slightly different now, I think with social media, but it used to be that if you wanted to know something about eCommerce, you would go and talk to your web designer, you'd go and talk to your web development company and it's be like hang on a minute. Have they ever actually ran an eCommerce business? [00:07:00] Have they ever gone and picked and packed boxes? Have they ever had to deal with stock shortages? Do they know how to do customer service? And it always used to intrigue me that we would, as eCommerce as we would go and seek advice from people that hadn't actually walked the walk or talk the talk, mainly because I think there was a lack of people that had at that point.

There are a few people that are emerging now. Yourself being one of them. And. So I'm really stoked you've written a book from a point of view of this is what I did, this is what I would do again kind of thing because it's not just all theory, is it? This is actual practical in the trenches kind of stuff, as I like to call it.

Ben Leonard: Yeah, it, what I've tried to create is a roadmap from idea all the way through to exit. With strategies that are timeless. So it's not, the minutiae and the nitty gritty technical of build a landing page using this tool, right? Because that's gonna go outta date in five months.

I want it to be useful in five, 10 years. [00:08:00] And what I've tried to create. Are these timeless business principles but applied to our world of eCommerce? Whether you are somebody who has an idea and hasn't started yet, or you're already turning over, 7, 8, 9, 15 million, whatever it is, I believe that there's nuggets in there for everybody.

So that's what I've set out to create.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, and a cracking job you've done too. I remember when you sent me the first chapter of the book, you said, I'm going to write a book, here's the first chapter, what do you think? I think I sent my, I can't remember what I said exactly, but something along the lines of, I thought actually you were writing really well.

Because the thing that I've noticed is a lot of people who write books don't always have the skill to write, if that makes sense. And I think the way you do write and the way you tell your stories and the way you get the points across in the book is actually quite captivating. And so you've in effect become the proverbial guy on the stage, haven't you?

Which is which is memorize you're, and you're mesmerizing, I think was the word you used. But obviously you're not the fake guru. At least I hope you're not. I don't think

Ben Leonard: I'm trying I'm definitely not a guru. But [00:09:00] thanks. I have an unfair advantage because I have a background in academia, very different science, right? I studied zoology and then ecology. So I was always good at writing scientific reports and that, that type of writing, which obviously is not what's in the book, but.

Once you're half decent at any kind of writing, you can tweak. And of course, I had, I then had the book edited, right? We would take my pretty good writing and basically make it better so that it's in a state that people people can digest.

So the editing process basically took my half decent writing and made sure that we translated it from British English into American English.

Matt Edmundson: Especially if you want to sell to an international market, right?

Ben Leonard: oh, yeah and we would take, it's hilarious because my editor would be like and what does this phrase mean and I'd have some ridiculously quaint British phrase in there and she'd be like yeah, no one knows what that means so we'd translate it so That was

Matt Edmundson: We should maybe do that on this show. We should maybe have an AI filter that does it in real time. This is what Matt said. This is what Matt means a thing.

Ben Leonard: Yeah. Yeah. [00:10:00] Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: Oh, that's brilliant. He had to get it edited to the American English. We totally off track, totally off piste Ben, but one of the things that I've been married 26 years this year, right? And people often ask me, what, why have you been so happily married for so long? It's one of the, the big questions I get asked quite regular.

And I remember very early on in our relationship, Sharon and I read the book, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, okay? Which is, if you've never read it, it's a fascinating book, I can summarize it for you. Because there's a fair bit of waffling, but it's a good book. But in essence, the best bit of the book was, the concept was men are from Mars, women are from Venus, therefore we talk very different languages, right?

And so what the man says was in, he had this page, what the man said, what the man means and what the woman hears. All three things were different, right? And then they did the same for the women. What the woman says, what the woman means, what the man hears. And so this was very good for me because [00:11:00] it was like data that I could feel into my brain.

So when Sharon said something, I would run it through this algorithm in my head and she would just look at me and go, Oh, you're translating right now, aren't you? And I go, yes, I am. So then we'd have conversations about it, which was just great. But I love the fact that you're actually doing this. Americans are from America, British people are from England, and we need to translate.

Ben Leonard: Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. But it's important when you think about it, just from, most of the quote unquote target audience are probably either in the U S or Canada or are from elsewhere in the world, but have learned American English.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah.

Ben Leonard: The only thing that will be interesting is when I record the audiobook, which I haven't done yet, and I'm reading things back, and I'm saying cell phone, and hating myself for not saying mobile phone.

Matt Edmundson: ha. Maybe you just have to do an anglicized version, I don't know.

Ben Leonard: I might have to do it, yeah. Translate it back.

Matt Edmundson: So one of the good things I like about your American English [00:12:00] book here and this is one of those things that people would never know. But for someone like me, it's brilliant because as you can see on the screen if you're watching the video, the book has really quite nice margins and it's got a little bit of space between the stack.

I don't know if this was deliberate, but it means that I can underline and which is I'd like to do in books. I like to draw around things. I like to make notes in the margin. So just thank you for that because that's actually quite helpful. The wide margins, the one thing that people never think about, but it's actually really important.

Ben Leonard: And you know what's quite interesting is when I look at the sales I thought that most sales would come through Kindle

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah.

Ben Leonard: it's 2024, right? But still, paperback is still winning. So it goes paperback, then Kindle, then hardback. So hopefully plenty of people have got lots of notes in the margins.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So let me let's dig into the book a little bit and let me just start by saying there was this bit right at the start, which I thought was [00:13:00] great. In the sense that you said, That you were telling the story about when because you used to own run a company called Beast Gear right and you're telling the story about how You're watching the TV. What was it you get a text message don't you that's it your cell phone It's a very first sentence in the book my cell phone pinged

It was an

Ben Leonard: Before they translated that, I'd probably written, somebody texted me.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, somebody texted me, it was an acquaintance texting. Isn't this your mouthguard? Curious, I opened the text and saw what appeared to be a photo of his TV screen. I looked more closely, it was a freeze frame from that night's fight. The MMA fighter was grinning widely and he was obviously wearing your mouthguard and there is, beast gear on there.

And so you talk about that and you say that this was the moment I knew I had arrived as an [00:14:00] entrepreneur. And here's the best line in the whole book. I already knew that Liverpool Football Club used my products. Now I'm saying that just because I'm a big Liverpool football club fan and I thought that's brilliant.

Ben Leonard: Thanks. I didn't, and again, that, the funny thing about that is, so the MMA fighter there, he used a mouth guard. His name was Michael "Venom" Page. I had no commercial relationship with him. He chose my product. And the same with Liverpool. So I found out that they were using my products in their gym.

And then I saw, they'd had some photo shoot done, I think I don't know. It was Virgil van Dijk was coming back from injury and so somebody went into their gym with a camera and was in the press and there were B-Skill's products in there and I could see them and Joe Hart was at Man City at the time and he'd been posting pictures on Instagram of my stuff as well so I had all these athletes using my stuff and most of these were not actually commercial relationships and that was yeah, that was a weird but phenomenal feeling.

Matt Edmundson: It's a bit, weird but phenomenal, but it's, I mean it's almost [00:15:00] like, how can I, it's almost like the holy grail, isn't it, that we try and attain, we spend hours plotting and planning how can we get celebrities to use our products, now we've got endorsements, we've got influencer marketing, we've got all that sort of stuff, and yet somehow.

You've got all these people using your products. There's no commercial arrangement, but there's photographs of it all over social media. That to me seems like an absolute gold mine in a lot of ways. We, like I say, we try and achieve that kind of thing, but was that luck? Was that happenstance?

Was that planned? Was that something that you deliberately set out to do?

Ben Leonard: I think that it definitely, it was probably none of those, so In the sense that it wasn't really luck because you make your own luck, like you had to, for those people to use those products, you had to have a quality product in the first place, and they had to have heard about it, and they've heard about it because it's a quality product, and you've marketed it well, and it markets itself [00:16:00] well because it's a quality product,

Matt Edmundson: yeah,

Ben Leonard: and then it shows up on their radar and they start using your products I certainly didn't set out I always wanted to create a brand that people would use and that hopefully athletes would use and from the start, I did work with, I did have commercial relationships with, influencers and athletes, but at a much lower level, I wasn't getting on the Bellator MMA, primetime TV or anything like that.

But I think once you If you're setting out to build a legit consumer products brand rather than just sell stuff on the internet, You've got to almost have an unrealistic goal, if you like, that's always going to keep pulling you in the right direction

For instance in, there's a part in the book where I'm talking about something called brand DNA I talk about the vision for your brand, which is a statement of Where you're going as a result of your brand's purpose and for B Skier, the vision was to become the go to brand A fitness slash strength training equipment.

And if you read that and [00:17:00] you think about that and that's completely unrealistic. Some bloke running a relatively small eCommerce business become the go to fitness training brand. No, it's never going to happen. It doesn't matter. It's not the point. It's a, an aim for the moon and you'll land in the stars kind of scenario.

It's gotta be something that's just going to pull you constantly in the right direction.

Matt Edmundson: yeah, nah, super, and actually let's dig in this a little bit more because one, there's a sort of theme in the book, this sort of golden thread, one of the golden threads that comes through is This differential you have between building a brand versus just selling stuff online and selling more stuff.

And it's even in the title, quick stall and build your brand. It's not quit stalling and sell loads of stuff online, right? There's a real intentionality here in the title, I'm assuming. What? Let's talk about that a little bit. Why? Why do you make that distinction? I agree with it, by the way, I just want to point that I'm not being awkward from the start.

But I'm just [00:18:00] curious, why did you? Why is that such a key distinction for you?

Ben Leonard: I think that unfortunately in the eCommerce space, there Is this toxic side hustle culture that is being promoted through social media, YouTube, et cetera, of Hey, you can make money online all you have to do is drop ship and set up a Shopify website to do it, or sell on Amazon, or sell on Walmart, or, now it's sell on TikTok shop. All of those channels are absolutely fine, but if you want to actually build a real sustainable business that's going to last into the future, that you can be proud of, that's really going to generate a decent amount of money that can replace your income, and eventually you can sell for potentially life changing money.

You've got to treat it like a big boy grown up a business and treat it like a real brand. And the way I encourage people to think about it is, ask yourselves how your favorite brands look and feel and behave. So that could be like a brand related to one of your favorite hobbies, or your [00:19:00] day job, or even the food products in your cupboard. What do those brands do? First of all, they make you feel a certain way. And that could be, they make you feel, it could be a brand that makes you feel very calm, or a brand that makes you feel very excited. It could be that you're fiercely loyal about that brand, to the point that you'll have that brand's logo tattooed on your leg.

For instance, if you're a Harley Davidson fan, or a Nintendo fan, or whatever it might be. And then ask yourself, what is it that those brands do to make me feel that way. And that is all to do with how they position their products, how they position their brand and how they speak to you through their branding and their marketing.

And then say to yourself, there's absolutely no reason I can't do all of that for my business. People, I've had conversations with people before and they've said, Oh yeah, I I sell these things, I'm not really a brand, right? I'm not like Nike. And I say no.

It's all just a matter of scale, brand is for anyone. Once upon a time, Nike [00:20:00] was just an idea in somebody's head. And even when it was more than an idea and it was a business, there was a day when they hadn't sold anything yet and it was still a brand. So yeah, that's my take on it.

Matt Edmundson: it's super powerful too because one of the things that I've noticed going back to the YouTube videos and the social media videos you mentioned, about go buy this product, sell it on Amazon, make a small fortune kind of a thing.

My experience is that works for maybe one in, I'm going to guess maybe five, 10, 000 people.

It doesn't work. It's not like a foolproof system. I But somebody somewhere has gone and probably made a lot of money just going and buying a widget off Alibaba and then selling it on Amazon without any real care. And it, and we like it because it feels easy, right? We like things that make that feel easy to do.

Oh, I can just go find this product put it on [00:21:00] Amazon. I don't have to think about anything else and the money is just gonna roll in. Yeah, the reality of life, I think is often quite different and building a brand feels to me, Ben, like it's a bit more effort. It's a bit more intentional. I've gotta, I've gotta do something a little different.

Would that be fair?

Ben Leonard: It would be fair, but here's a really important distinction I would make. It's a few years ago, going back to probably between about 2015 and 2018, we'll say, if we take, you mentioned Amazon there, if we take that as an example, and even like running Instagram ads to dropshipping sites as well, actually.

It really was as easy as you described

It. Grab a product, slap a logo on it, stick on the internet, sales will roll in, literally do nothing else. And so trying to sell people the idea that they should go to the effort of building a real brand was the argument that was [00:22:00] just more effort and they didn't need to do that, yeah, that kind of stood up.

But now I would say that doesn't apply, build, going to the effort of building the brand actually makes the business easier because that is how you stand out. If you are just selling stuff, you are stuck on a hamster wheel of chuck it on Amazon, have a half decent listing, run pay per click ads, rinse and repeat. Whereas, if you do that, but also sell a quality product that genuinely solves a problem, build a relationship with that customer outside of the Amazon ecosystem. Provide them with helpful, compelling, useful, engaging, free content in whatever form they want, whether that's Blog articles or podcast episodes or videos show up regularly wherever they are on social, providing all of that value and make them know and trust you and actually potentially love your brand and make them view you and your brand as an authority in your niche.

Then, next time they need [00:23:00] to buy another widget related to your niche, they won't just go buy something random on Amazon, they'll come back to you and that might be on Amazon or it might be on your own website. And that makes the whole thing easier and it makes your customer acquisition cost cheaper.

And it means you're going to grow your brand bigger and faster. And it also means that ultimately one day when you want to sell it, somebody is going to want to pay more for it because they can see you've got a tribe of raving fans who'll buy any product you launch. Whereas somebody that's just stuck on that hamster wheel is just selling stuff and nobody wants to, that's a very risky business.

Who would want to buy that? Let alone pay you a lot of money for it.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. No it's very true. Very true. In fact, if I fast forward to the end of the book almost at the end of the book you have something called the value pyramid, right? So this page here and you've got this diagram. And this is in the chapter you call Plan Your 8 Tip.

So you're building this business and you're thinking about selling it and a lot of people want to build businesses to sell them, which is fair enough. At the bottom of that value pyramid is [00:24:00] brand. And you say to drive home the point you've seen throughout the book, the bottom layer of the pyramid brand is your most important lever.

With no brand identity, there's no hook, there's no excitement, there's no legion of fans waiting for your launch. Etc, etc, so what, why is, I know you've got to read the whole book in some essence to find out, but let's talk about this a little bit. Why have you got brand as this very first layer of your pyramid?

Why is that the critical one at the bottom?

Ben Leonard: Yeah. So just to describe the value pyramid a bit for people listening. It looks like a Mayan pyramid rather than an Egyptian pyramid, so it seems like five layers, right? So you've got brand at the bottom, then growth and profitability, then risk, then transferability, and then documentation. And the argument that I make, and this is a model that we use at Ecom Brokers, is that to sell your business you need at least three of those layers to be in good standing. The reason [00:25:00] brand is at the bottom is if you pull it out, then the whole thing more or less comes tumbling down because it's as you just described there. If you don't have a brand, you don't have longevity or sustainability. Because you're just selling stuff and you're on the hamster wheel.

You don't have that army of fans who'll buy your stuff. You don't have repeat custom. You don't have anyone on any sort of subscribe option, whether that's on Amazon or it's on your own website. You can't just post a new video showing a new product on YouTube and suddenly have people coming and buying it.

You haven't got waiting lists. You haven't got people devouring your newsletter or listening to your podcast or consuming the content that the influencer you've got a partnership with is putting out every week. It's just a business that sells products, and if I'm an investor, and I'm Dave from M& A, at a private equity backed firm who's buying eCommerce businesses, or even a strategic organization who wants to buy an eCommerce business in your [00:26:00] niche to bolt on, And I've got a pot of money, and I've got two businesses that are virtually the same size, selling virtually the same stuff, and everything else is basically equal.

Profit's the same, year over year growth is the same. Which one would I rather spend that money on? The one with a legit brand identity with raving fans who I know will help grow the business bigger and faster in the future with the product pipeline that's planned? Or the business that is basically just a bunch of products on a hamster wheel relying on paid traffic over and over again to rinse and repeat that cycle?

I'm gonna buy the one that's way more sustainable and less risky, right? Actually, the risk layer of the pyramid, which is further up, is actually intricately tied to brand. Because when you have a brand, immediately you have lower risk. So brand ties the whole thing together. You have a brand, you have more growth and profitability.

You have a brand, you have less risk. And this was, for me, was one of the things that everyone else in the mergers and acquisition space as it relates to eCommerce was missing. They were talking about profit and growth, but they forgot all [00:27:00] about brand.

Matt Edmundson: yeah. That's a really powerful point and I'm curious then Ben, let's talk about this a little bit. Let's say I'm launching a new skincare brand and I'm reading your book. What are some of the key things that I'm going to learn about building? What are some of the lessons in there that are going to be super helpful for me?

Because it building brand is just one of those phrases that kind of rolls off the tongue for many people, but in real practical terms, what does it actually mean?

Ben Leonard: I think there's a lot of different ways we can look at this. So we can, because the way I define a brand and I got uninvited on a podcast a few weeks ago because of this.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Sorry about that. It

Ben Leonard: I promise I'll come back, but I'll just go off on a slight tangent for a second because I promise it's relevant.

A lady on LinkedIn looked up what I was doing and sent me an invite to come on her podcast. She had a PhD in stuff to do with branding. And I sent her a couple of chapters from the book. This was before the book had come out. [00:28:00] And she read them and came back and said sorry, I can't have you on.

And so basically her point was she was an academic. She had a PhD in this stuff and she knew better than me. And my definition of brand and branding was all wrong. And I said wouldn't that be a really interesting episode for your guests? No, was the answer. I'll come back now to what you were saying.

Look, my definition of a brand is this. It's a group of products or services, it solves products for a particular group of people.

Matt Edmundson: tells

Ben Leonard: So solves problems, sorry. Yeah. Solves problems for a particular group of people through the products that they sell. So that could be a boxing brand or a brand of high-end tools for dentists, right?

Doesn't matter. And branding is how you make those people feel. And marketing is how you tell 'em about it. So if people want to talk about brand, there's several lines you can go down. You can go down the business side. So we can talk about when they're building the brand, they're going to need to think about, and this is one of the key things I see people messing up.

They don't properly calculate their unit economics on their actual products. [00:29:00] And then they wonder why they're a few months in and they run into cashflow problems. So you're going to learn about that in the book. You're going to learn about the business side of understanding how this whole thing's going to actually work from All the way from sourcing your products and understanding if this stacks up and you can make money out of this, right the way into the whole, the overarching value of the business and understanding what it is that's going to make your business valuable.

And understanding your growth and your profitability and all that good stuff. And then we've got the more branding side of it. The emotional part. How we're going to make our brand appeal to people and make it connect to people and make them want to love our brand and keep coming back to us. And then we've got the marketing side, how we're going to tell people about it. So the book kind of ties together all those three threads, if you like, at every stage from ideation through to developing your first product, launching your product, launching more products, scaling your business. And then getting it ready to sell.

Matt Edmundson: [00:30:00] Love it. And I love the simplicity of it in terms of branding is how people are gonna feel. Marketing is telling them about it. And I love the simple definition. I'm curious, I dunno if you remember the lady that declined you to come on her podcast, what was her definition and how is it different to yours?

Ben Leonard: We didn't really get into much of a back and forth about it, but she basically made the point that my definition of a brand being a group of products that solves problems for a particular group of people was wrong because it didn't have to be a physical product or a service. It could be related to, for instance, a charity for argument's sake.

And to which I would say I don't particularly disagree with you, but I'm framing this in the context of consumer products brands.

Matt Edmundson: Yes.

Ben Leonard: The it was a bit bizarre, I think that she, the way she ran her podcast was she wanted people to come on and agree with her. And that was that.

So there we are.

Matt Edmundson: and you love those kind of podcasts where all the guests are the same and every bit of information is the same, but listening to it, in some respects [00:31:00] charities exist to solve problems for a specific group of

Ben Leonard: Yeah, precisely. Yeah, they do. Exactly. The World Wildlife Fund exists to solve problems related to environmental conservation for A, humanity, but B, people who care about that type of thing.

Yeah. So it does fit.

Matt Edmundson: interesting. What has been some of the most surprising feedback you've had since the book has launched a few months ago?

Ben Leonard: Other than Ben, there's a typo on page 234.

Matt Edmundson: Let's blame the editor.

Ben Leonard: yeah, absolutely. That's what I'll do. Mostly just people have liked it, which is great. I just would love more people to read it. So just trying to spread the word really because I think that it's proud of it.

It's a valuable book. I think that people, whether they're just starting or they're quite experienced we'll take something away from it. And my intention is that. Yeah, you might read it cover to cover the first time, but then I want it to be a book that will get really worn out and battered, because it's going to be on your shelf, or on your desk, and you're going to refer back to it quite frequently.

Just specific little bits. I think the most [00:32:00] surprising feedback has been when There's been a couple of people in my network who are actually very experienced at doing pretty astronomical numbers and they've come back and said, actually, I really like what you said here. We've just passed that on to my CMO and we're actually going to be doing that.

Wow, holy cow. That's pretty cool.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah,

Ben Leonard: Yeah something funny did happen actually this was pretty hilarious. So the book came out at the start of October, at the end of October Stephen Bartlett was speaking in Aberdeen at the music hall. 1500 people paid well over 100 quid to go and see him,

Matt Edmundson: yeah,

Ben Leonard: and I had managed to blag my way through the organisers into being the support act, so I got 15 minutes before he came on.

Matt Edmundson: oh well done,

Ben Leonard: Thanks,

Matt Edmundson: a pretty impressive thing to do, I'm not gonna

Ben Leonard: It was pretty mental and so afterwards, went off stage, and I managed to get 10 minutes with him. One of the brands that I co own is a boxing brand, so I'd made some custom boxing gloves for him, and I gave him a copy of my book, and this was hilarious.

He [00:33:00] goes, would you sign it for me? Bearing in mind, this is Stephen Barclay, who is now an A list celebrity, and there's me, and I'm like don't have a pen. And he goes don't worry, I've got one. He pulls out a sharpie and gets me to sign it. That was pretty funny.

Matt Edmundson: that's quite incredible. Yeah, I like that. Steve Bob, there's a friend of mine actually called Andy Kent, and his, he did this thing, he's been doing it for years. Whenever he sees someone famous, he just goes up to them and gives them his autograph, and he gets someone to take a picture of it whilst it happens, and just the look on the celebrity's faces, it's just What's going on here?

It's

Ben Leonard: is very funny.

Matt Edmundson: He's just done it with some crazy

Ben Leonard: start doing that.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, here's my autograph. I love that though, you had custom boxing gloves made and gave them a copy of your book. There's a guy, a friend of mine actually, called Ram Gidoomal. He's CBE. He ran several years ago to be the mayor of London and he's written a book called, I think it's called The Silk Road, about his sort of journey from [00:34:00] from India through to Kenya to being an Indian immigrant in the UK and what that was like and then how they built this 500, I think it was like half a billion dollar empire, I don't know, it was massive, it was worth a lot of money.

How the family went from this corner shop to this massive thing and he sent me a Photo a couple of months ago. He just sent it to me on whatsapp and it basically he was in New York and The mayor of New York his name has totally slipped my mind the mayor of New York was at the same event and so Rams like Quick, give me a copy of the book and he goes over to the mayor of New York.

He gives the mayor his book. Do you mind if we take a photo, because Ram's just like this, and he had somebody take a photo and of course then it's all over the everything, now the Mayor of New York has read Ram's book, so I thought, so you've reminded me of that story. Here Stephen, have a copy of this book which is great oh well done, that's no mean feat getting on the stage I don't think, with someone like Steve Bartlett, that's quite impressive.

Ben Leonard: Yeah,

Matt Edmundson: write a book on how you did that, ha,

Ben Leonard: I just [00:35:00] asked,

Matt Edmundson: oh it's a short book,

Ben Leonard: what, actually, it's funny, if you watch, I don't, I stopped watching Dragons Den for a while, but I've started watching it again because it's quite good entertainment. And there was an episode a few weeks ago, these ladies, they have a business, they produce artificial diamonds, and they managed to get Steve Bartlett to invest quarter of a million for 3%.

And during their pitch, they were 3%, yeah, bananas, right?

Matt Edmundson: Wowsers.

Ben Leonard: But I guess that's the diamond industry although the economics of the diamond industry are up for debate. But anyway, during their pitch, they said that Meghan Markle wore their diamonds. And and he said Stephen Barlow said, how did you manage to get her to wear your diamonds?

And they said, oh, we just asked. Cold email. And he loved it. And that's a really important thing, lesson, I think, that if you don't ask, you don't get. So just ask. Worst that happens is somebody says no.

Matt Edmundson: It's very true. The power of asking. You have not because you ask not is that old famous wisdom, isn't it? And it's so so true. So so true. Listen, I've got one more question for you Ben, as I'm aware of time and I'm gonna go straight to the back of the book. And [00:36:00] the very last words you wrote were on the Acknowledgements page, Thanks To, and there's a whole bunch of people on that list, Stephen Butler being one of them.

And then you said, No thanks to Fake Guru's Porsche Guy. Tell me about Porsche guy.

Ben Leonard: You're the first person that's asked me this. I would love to tell you about Porsche guys, so I will. It was twenty I think it was about 2018. So I still own my first brand and I went on my mate's stag do. And my mate, he lives in Edinburgh. And there's a lot of kind of bankery types that he's become friends with.

And so one of these bankery types turns up at the stag do. It is Porsche. And I turned up in my VW Polo. And over the course of the weekend, he, He asked me what I do, and I said, I think I still work at my day job at the time, so I mentioned what my day job was, and I said, I'm doing this fitness brand thing, and he looks down his nose at me, and he says, so basically, [00:37:00] you flock skipping ropes on the internet, and

Matt Edmundson: Wow

Ben Leonard: I sold the business I think I texted my mate, I didn't have Porsche guy's details, but I texted my mate and said tell your mate with the Porsche that I just sold my business for and then I put in quite a lot of money and yeah. So I put Porsche guy on the no thanks page.

Matt Edmundson: Very good. Very good. What a great story and I would love to have seen his face when he got that text message. That would have been, that would have been brilliant. Ben, listen, thanks for coming on man and love chatting to you about the book and obviously all the best with it and what's going on with it.

If people want to buy the book, if they want to find out more about you, what's the best way to do that?

Ben Leonard: Best thing to do is search on Amazon for quit stalling and build your brand or just my name, Ben Leonard. You'll find the book on there. And then in terms of, getting in touch and if you want any help with anything I'm all over social, my handle's benleonardpro, I'm on LinkedIn.

If you want to sell your business, ecombrokers. co. [00:38:00] uk and yeah I'm here to help them. Very much keen to hear from other eCommerce entrepreneurs.

Matt Edmundson: Absolutely, brilliant. We will of course put all of those links in the show notes which you can get along with the transcript for free on the website ecommercepodcast. net or of course it'll be coming to your inbox if you sign up to the newsletter which I mentioned earlier. Listen Ben, loved it man, it's been great having you back on the show.

Love the stories, love the book, think it's such a great thing you've done and I, all the best man with that and I wish you all the success and seriously if you listen to the podcast, go out and buy Ben's book, you definitely won't regret it if you're involved in eCommerce. It's a great book.

Ben Leonard: Thanks, Matt.

Matt Edmundson: Huge thanks to Ben again for joining me today. And also a big shout out to the sponsor of this show, eCommerce Cohort. If you're not yet a member or if you want to find out more about what this is all about, just go to eCommerceCohort. com, enough said, as they say. Now be sure to follow the eCommerce Podcast wherever you get your podcasts from because we've got yet more great conversations lined up and I [00:39:00] don't want you to miss any of them.

And in case no one has told you yet today, let me be the first, you are awesome. Yes, you are created awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear. Ben's got to bear it. I've got to bear it. You've got to bear it as well. Now, the eCommerce podcast is produced by Aurion Media. You can find our entire archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app.

The team that makes this show possible is Sadaf Beynon and Tanya Hutsuliak. Our theme music was written by Josh Edmundson. And as I mentioned, the transcript, the show notes, they're all available on the website. ecommercepodcast. net. That's it from me. That's it from Ben. Thank you so much for joining us.

Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world. I'll see you next [00:40:00] time.