Polly Benson
Appearances
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
Yeah. So I'm an occupational therapist and I work in the schools with children. I've always had an entrepreneur spirit back in the day when I was younger, babysitting and doing different activities, crafts and things that I would sell. I did a couple of other small businesses like home party companies and things like that. And always tried to be generous with what I did and give back to whatever.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
I did one business that was really interesting. It was where I did a home party and 100% of anything I made, I gave to a charity. And it just was such a feel good because I didn't need the money, but I wanted to have a purpose. And so- kind of always led my business with a purpose and what exactly is my purpose.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
And so for this particular business, it's been super fun to see that I can impact so many lives.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
Yeah, sure. So I think initially when I first started and I came up with this idea, I was, you know, pushing into a classroom and I was drawing lines by hand. So I knew there was a problem that needed a solution. And so when I was at a scrapbooking retreat, I thought of, you know, I was practicing stamping with these rolling stamps and I said, I just need one with my pattern.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
And so I went to look to buy one and there wasn't one existed. So contacted the manufacturer and had one made while I started carrying that around everywhere. And the teachers were like, that's incredible. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. You need to patent that. And so then it was like, okay, wait, maybe there's something to this and I want to have this product out there.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
And so as I've been developing more and more products, then I've been able to impact more and more people. But with that comes more and more challenges, right? So how do I come up with packaging? How do I distribute it? How do I market it? who is the best person and I didn't have those skills. So first started out like reaching out to people that had that experience and how do I do packaging?
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
How do I do marketing? But then realized as I started becoming more of the best proponent of my product, I'm the best promoter, then I had to hire somebody to do the other work for me.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
So as much as I love to be on my design or in my Canva or on my YouTube, it's much better for somebody else that can do that for me because my time is worth what I want to do is promote my product and reach out to make those connections and those business networking.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
Oh, I would say definitely don't penny pinch it. I am so good at problem solving and I am so good at the details with every little step that was along the way that I wasted time and money. And as much as it was cheaper for me to do it, it probably would have been cheaper for somebody else to do it. So I have a habit of trying to do things at a low cost or a low budget.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
And yet sometimes you just gotta take that step and that step in faith and say, I'm gonna invest in this because it's investing in my company versus actually spending the money. Like don't think of it as spending the money on advertising or social media, but you're investing in your future and someone else is probably a hundred times better at it than you are.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
So my first hire was my husband, to be honest. Yeah. Employing your family and having them help you out. But honestly, the first hire I went with was a virtual assistant. And so I had somebody else doing my YouTube channel and trying to build my YouTube channel.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
actually my first was a social media person yeah yeah because there's just so many different platforms i knew facebook i knew nothing about instagram and so now i'm big on both and i'm a little bit on tick tock and i'm starting to build my youtube so yeah it's like it's it's common stages
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
Yeah, so I have found that one of the best ways to promote my product is in person, a vendor event or a conference and sponsoring a conference or buying a vendor booth. And so what I've seen with that is other solo entrepreneurs, people that have started their business and they have a product, but they don't have a business. And one of the lessons I learned along the way was
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
I was listening to Shark Tank and they had one of their product pitches on there. And the shark said, you don't have a business, you have a product. And that really stuck with me because I know I have a product, but I really wanted a business. I wanted something that was tangible. There was more to it. And so I started looking into what that meant and looking at...
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
bringing value to not just selling a stamp, but that I have lesson plans, I have worksheets, I have training videos, I have more to go with the business that has been adding value. So because of that, I have grown to a certain level and certainly investing in myself to try to take that next step. But I run into a lot of entrepreneurs that are in my same boat that just have a product.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
And so I'm trying to teach them as well. Hey, this is what I learned on the way. Let me help you shortcut that. Let's skip this and let me tell you my experience. And so through doing that, I found more networking opportunities and that there is a desire out there for like a mastermind group.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
So we've decided to maybe look into doing this mastermind group where I have a Facebook group of my customers that follow me and my community, but I now have an entrepreneur's Facebook group that have just that product. And it has something to do with OT or education and being able to bring them together and just provide them with a little bit of tidbits of strategies and tips and tricks and
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
So I invented a product called the Legi Liner, and it's a rolling ink stamp that prints handwriting lines. So it's just a little simple stamp that you put on paper and it rolls out handwriting lines so kids can practice more consistently.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
They are just so thankful. And it really fills me to help other people and to help fill their knowledge.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
yeah so um one of the things is um your email list so you know that one day when tick tock went away right and all those people that had influence on there it was gone right but your email list still exists yeah and as much as i hate email and it's annoying and i get thousands a day it's really your asset it's a business asset and so how else can you build a business asset so you can build business through your influencers to build your product brand but
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
what can i do on their platform so i have found my audience sits on other people's platform and then i will go and do a free training and so being able to expand my audience because i'm adding value i add training videos and i tape record everything that i do and so that lives on my youtube channel or it lives in my membership area i've learned that recurring revenue helps to um
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
increase the value of your business. So I have a membership program. And so I have that monthly recurring revenue that then goes to add value to my business.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
So the way that we think we've helped over a million children is because we've sold thousands of products to teachers, homeschool moms, other school-based occupational therapists, and they're now using those in their classrooms. And in every classroom, there's 20 or 30 children. Yeah. And so they've been able to utilize the stamps to help improve their handwriting.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
So I think the biggest problem has been competitors and people that have copied me. So I have a product that I was patent pending on and it went viral on Amazon. I had a kindergarten teacher post about it. It went crazy. It oversold. And I didn't know that I had keep selling until when you're out of stock. I didn't know that button was on. And so it kept selling when it was out of stock.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
And so I'm calling Amazon like, how do I turn this off? And so they turned it off for me. But then it was, I had all this damage that was done and orders that didn't get filled and orders that got canceled. Some of the customers canceled, some I canceled, some Amazon canceled. And then I had people trashing my business and they were like, this is a fraud. This isn't real. This is all fake.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
And it's like, no, I'm a real person. I have a real product. You know, I'm sorry that, you know, I didn't understand Amazon when I started out. And so that little tip right there, I hope can help some other product entrepreneur, but it really was catapulted me to this point where I'm looking on Amazon and someone else had my product. And I was like,
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
that's my product and so i i messaged amazon and i said they are copying my product well unbeknownst to me they weren't copying my name so therefore i couldn't take down their listing so they were they had copied my idea but it was nothing i could fight and so you know i have learned now to fight back with other strategies so some of those strategies might be where they're particular they have one
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
item that they've copied out of my 19 different products. So where their one item shows up, my whole brand of products show up. And I advertise on bundles because in handwriting, it's more than just a stamp that helps them handwrite. It's a progression. It's a therapeutic approach to taking handwriting from this stage to this stage to the smallest to your neater handwriting.
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
And so because my stamps allow them to progress through their status and how they're
Living The Red Life
How Polly Benson Beat Copycats and Built a Purpose-Driven Brand
Yeah, so the best way to follow me on social media, I'm at Legi Liner on Instagram and at Legi-Liner. That's L-E-G-I-L-I-N-E-R. And as far as following me on my website, it's LegiLiner.com. I have a YouTube channel and I also have a membership site, which is LegiLiner.net.