The UnNoticed Entrepreneur

Boosting your business and brand visibility by adopting sustainable practices; with Brian Wong of Normans

March 28, 2023 Jim James
The UnNoticed Entrepreneur
Boosting your business and brand visibility by adopting sustainable practices; with Brian Wong of Normans
Support The UnNoticed Entrepreneur
Become a supporter of the show!
Starting at $3/month
Support
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, Jim James interviews Brian Wong, co-founder of Normans, a sustainable online clothing brand that offers comfortable clothing for those who work from home. The brand aims to promote eco-friendliness by making small changes, such as using end-of-line materials to reduce waste. Normans' ambassadors are non-influencers who have inspiring stories to tell, promoting the brand while inspiring others.

Brian shares the story behind the name Normans and how it represents the company's focus on sustainability, comfortable clothing, and inspiring ambassadors. He also emphasises how sustainability is increasingly important to customers, and how Normans' eco-friendly pledge is critical to their brand image. Brian also highlights Normans' efforts to promote sustainability through small changes and the importance of non-influencer brand advocates to promote the brand's ethos.

Brian discusses how Normans is making a positive impact on the fashion industry by prioritising sustainability and promoting eco-friendliness through small changes. Additionally, he also emphasises the importance of brand advocates who share inspiring stories and promote the brand's values and how sustainability is becoming increasingly essential to customers.


The UnNoticed Entrepreneur podcast is sponsored by Prowly, the all-in-one software for leveraging PR activities. Boost the media relations game for your business - get more coverage while saving time and money on everyday tasks


Post-production, transcript and show notes by XCD Virtual Assistants

Support the show

Am I adding value to you?

If so - I'd like to ask you to support the show.

In return, I will continue to bring massive value with two weekly shows, up to 3 hours per month of brilliant conversations and insights.

Monthly subscriptions start at $3 per month. At $1 per hour, that's much less than the minimum wage, but we'll take what we can at this stage of the business.

Of course, this is still free, but as an entrepreneur, the actual test of anything is if people are willing to pay for it.

If I'm adding value to you, please support me by clicking the link now.

Go ahead, make my day :)

Support the show here.

Prowly:

The Unnoticed Entrepreneur Podcast is sponsored by Prowly. The All in one tool for PR experts.

Jim James:

Thank you for joining me today on The UnNoticed Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm going to introduce you to Brian Wong, who's a young entrepreneur based in Toronto, Canada. Brian Wong, welcome to the show.

Brian Wong:

Thank you for having me.

Jim James:

Brian look, thank you because we're gonna talk about "Normans". A brand that you and a partner have been building, have not met, but you're building an online clothing brand in the sort of hybrid space for people that want them to wear from home when they're working. Not pajamas and not suits. Something in between, which is going really well. But also you're focusing on sustainability. We're gonna talk about that and we're gonna talk about how you're using brand ambassadors that are not influencers to build the brand and a few other things. So I'm really excited to hear about the story. Brian, explain about"Normans" and what you're doing with this company.

Brian Wong:

Yeah. So, once again, very happy to be here."Normans", it's a an online fashion brand. We also brand out as a sustainable fashion brand. And we really stand for three main things. One, we try to practice sustainability, in a practical way, for our business. So we are not a big company at this point that we can afford to have everything, "green", right? We don't have, we don't own any green technology. We don't have that. But there's still things that we can do in terms of manufacturing, in terms of packaging that we can try to contribute into the sustainability movement. So that's number one. Number two, as you mentioned, we produce products that are tailor or I guess, the purpose is for people who work from home or right now these days is more hybrid model that they can wear working from home or going to the office looking presentable, right for business, but also feel comfortable. And that's kind of the in between that we're trying to strike between wearing a suit or wearing pajamas, right? And the third thing that the brand stand for is that, we do use influencer for marketing purpose, but our main promotion or our demonstration is coming from our ambassadors. So, the longer-term vision is to become a source of inspiration for others. And then how we thought of that is we thought, "Yes, we can certainly draw inspirations from celebrities or well known, successful business people or athletes and all of that." But if I think back to my personal life, most of the inspirations that I've gotten is actually people that I come across on a day-to-day basis. So that makes me understand that, "Okay, everyone has a great story to tell. Everyone has some inspirational portion of their life, if not more of that." And so we identify ambassadors. Yes, they will promote our clothing, they'll promote our products, but more importantly, it's also a platform for them to tell their story, whether it's about maybe something that they do as a hobby, or maybe it's about their career, or maybe just their life in general. So these are the three things that our brand is trying to represent.

Jim James:

Yeah, that's wonderful. It's at "normansapparel.com", and we're gonna talk later on about the ambassadors and who you've got on there, because I think it's a really interesting approach that you're taking there. But let's start with the simple things. The name "Normans". Your name is not Norman. Your partner's name is not Norman. So let's start with the name. How did you get that?

Brian Wong:

Yeah. So as you mentioned, we are a brand based out of Toronto, Canada. And I think Canada in general is being known as the northern side of the world, so that we have the word "north". And then we do men's apparel, for the most part. So we just combine a two word and become "Normans"

Jim James:

Yeah, it's really cute. I actually thought maybe it had something to do with "Harvey Normans". But it's, complete distinct. So that's so an intelligent and a smart way to give a brand. I really like that. Now, you have talked about on your website sustainability. And you have a cross with"Practicality", Brian, how important is sustainability in terms of the brand promise for "Normans"? Because many people have sustainability as a sort of part of their CSR on their website, you know, below product quality, price, fashionability, and so on. But you are leading with sustainability. Why is that?

Brian Wong:

Yeah. I mean, this is really in a bigger picture. This is really what the world needs right now. I mean, there's more and more on a daily basis that more and more news about global warming, more about like, how do we kind of save the world in a way. We, I think more importantly is that we emphasize and try to illustrate how we can do it without making wholesale changes to our life. So what I want to say is that our brand right now, we are trying to practice sustainability in the area that we can afford and it's our entire supply chain or value chain, you know, practicing sustainability, not yet. Okay. We may be getting there. Maybe at some point we will have our own technology in terms of how do we do things in a more sustainable manner? How do we generate less waste throughout the process? We may eventually own that. But as a startup, we cannot do that. However, and that's why we put across with practicality, is that even as a startup, even as a company that is brand new, we can still do things that contribute to this movement. It's kind of like our personal life, right? If I go from a person that, you know, just like everyone have it, which is, you know, we use plastic bags, we drive a regular car, and all of a sudden you say, "Tomorrow I need to now drive an electric car. I need to take away all my plastic bags. And I need to basically, not throw any kind of waste." That is overwhelming and it's likely not practical for somebody. But, just, you know, mathematically, even one, or two, or five. It's infinitely higher than zero. It's not a hundred, but it's infinitely higher.

Jim James:

Yeah. Incremental change, isn't it?

Brian Wong:

Exactly right. So you kind of slowly do these smaller things that is still better than not doing anything at all. Because you feel like you are not fully sustainable by going all the way to a hundred. So I think that's kind of the mentality that we have. We'll slowly implement more and more of this component as we can, as we go. But this is, like I said, I think the bigger point is that illustration of smaller things, maybe not crazily significant, but it's still contributing to the movement and it's still meaningful.

Jim James:

And I think, Brian, what you haven't mentioned there, but I think we should, is that your garments are made out of the end product. If like, the overruns that the big garment manufacturers have on site when they order stop from the mills, isn't it? Isn't that correct?

Brian Wong:

Yeah. Correct. So we use "end of line material" is what we call them. Basically, I don't think it's just China. I think manufacturing practices around the world, when they need to fulfill any, you know, garment product orders. They don't just order enough to make just enough for that amount. They always order, you know, some buffers. They'll always budget for that. And so by definition there will be something like, assuming production goes fine, there will be something that is left over. And, usually those leftovers would not get used because they are very specific for particular product to be made. And so then that contribute to waste. What we are saying is that,"Hey, we have those as well, and why don't we take those and make our product?" So yes, there will be challenges, in terms of how many we can make because obviously it's limited, right? Like, for example, for a particular color, we only have enough to make 75 units or 74 units. We cannot make a hundred or 500. So we have some challenges there, but at the minimum, this is the way we saw ourselves. We see ourselves contributing to avoiding these being sent into the waste field, but instead being circular back to the economy and generating value.

Jim James:

Yeah, I think as you say, you refer to the what, the "circular economy", right? Where things are being used. And in this case you are, helping with products has been manufactured and therefore it's got a carbon footprint, but otherwise live waste. Now it's actually gonna have utility, which is wonderful. Brian, you put sustainability on your website versus practicality. How important do you think that is to your consumers, to your customers?

Brian Wong:

Yeah. Like, at first I didn't notice much, but as we were kind of, you know, promoting our brand, going through the process of setting up the company, and it's here in Toronto, or Canada. People actually buy things. They will be like, "Hey, I will only buy what they call ethical brands", right? Or like, brands that are contributing or like fully sustainable. That's important to them because they want to do those things themselves. But what they cannot control sometimes is that the companies or the brands that they consume from, right? What they eat. What they wear. What they, you know, entertainment and all that. And so, that is actually a lot more important to our consumers than we thought. And so, we are not by no means we are trying to use this as a thing just to draw attention. We actually try to walk the walk as well, right? And that's what we emphasize. We, not everything is green at this point, okay? We will be a hundred percent honest. But we are trying to practice it as much as we can. And so far, I think it's pretty well received by our consumer, because it's not just because it's sustainability, but more important is that we are very transparent in terms of which part of it, it is. And I think, you know, people who learn about brand appreciate that because it's always not realistic. You know what I mean? If I go around and tell people,"Hey, you know what, I have this very green, new technology that we have and I'm a startup." And you know, like that just doesn't add up, right? I think now it's a sound a lot more authentic and realistic in terms of what we do. And I think people resonate with that. resonate with that

Jim James:

Brian, I think that's fantastic. And now you've mentioned about people learning about the brand. So let's just think about distribution because you've got these designs. I could see them on the website. Very nice indeed. Sort of thing that my daughters would love your hoodies. Tell us about how you're getting the brand noticed.

Brian Wong:

Yeah. So we are in a phase of kind of trying to be, in terms of getting the visual notice, the digital presence established. I think that part, I won't say successful, but at least we kind of have gone through the steps to say, "Okay, we have to have an Instagram account, right? We have to obviously have our website and we have to have put on ads, digital ads, whether it's Google, whether it's in IG or Facebook." We do all of that. But what we are starting to notice is that, you know, with the online direct-to-consumer approach, what our consumer, especially like, more organic, say walking."Walking customers" then when they first interact with our brand, what they do not get to know is the quality and the texture of our products, right? We are not selling software, right? We are selling actually a physical product. And the gap that we are trying to close right now is whoever have tried on our products, have very good things to say about our quality, have very good things to say about, "Oh my God, like, these are so soft." or "These are so comfortable, I love it." Like these are like real comments that we got back from our consumers. The challenges, the people who haven't tried our product don't know that, right? And so, we are finding different ways to your point, to get noticed, is that to make our products more out there to a per se. More opportunities for people to access to try our products. So we are looking into, "Hey, are there any physical pop-up store that we can participate in those opportunities so that we can at least physically let, you know, other more people to see our brand and try our brand?" We also reach out to people that align well with our brand value and just say, "Hey, here are couple products. We wanna get some feedback. We are not looking for you to promote it, but we just want to get your feedback, and also give you a chance to try our product and see whether you like it or not." So we are trying different things. Again, I won't say we have figured it out yet at this point, but that's a journey that we are going through at this moment.

Jim James:

I can see that. And I'm just going to, as well share the screen so that anyone that's here now can start to see some of the products that we've got here. So, I'd love to just talk with you about this area that you've got, which is your "ambassadors". I'm just bringing these up for people that may be interested, that can see it. But we've got, for example, Ziv Deutsch, who's a Senior Director in FinTech. we've got Scott Mitchell, who's a Management Consultant. We've got Maokai Shen, who's a Financial Analyst and so on. So just take us through that strategy, Brian, of using real people to talk about their real stories, because that's really interesting and also very affordable. Because as a startup, you know, in a way you don't want overnight success because that can stress the supply chain. Especially when you said you've got limited stock of anyone kind of fabric, right? So then you could just lead to disappointment. So tell us about your ambassador program.

Brian Wong:

Yeah. So, we strive to become a source of inspiration for others. And yes, we can draw inspiration from celebrities, right? I can say, "Oh, wow. What Elon Musk did back in his early days is really inspiring." And they are very inspiring. Those are inspiring stories, but when I think back to, you know, as I was growing up, you know, some of my personal major pivots or major turning points in my life is usually inspired by people that I come across. Like, maybe somebody did something that is a hundred percent not related to what I'm doing, but I just kind of get that inspiration. And so, what that taught me is that, "Hey, actually a lot of people have, if not all people have an inspirational story to tell. It's just that it doesn't get "broadcasted," right? Like, because obviously, these are more day-to-day life, incidents, right? And so we are trying to use this program, use this opportunity to use this platform to bring out these inspirational stories, number one. But also to use that to hone in on how our consumer can relate to our brand. Because, sometimes when I think about it, like for example, I play basketball, right? Or people who play soccer, watch soccer. Yes. Lionel Messi looks awesome on this pair of boots, right? Or LeBron James looks awesome on this jersey. In my case, it's not a hundred percent relatable. I'm not 6'8. I'm not built that way. And I also don't, you know. So, yes, I would still, you know, you have more than enough people who still buy as a, but the angle is as a fan, right? It's like they're like supporting who they root for or who they like. In this case, we are trying to, and again, I don't know if it's going to work long term. But what we're trying is that,"How about relatability?","How about somebody who also work in FinTech?", or"Somebody who also work as a Management Consultant?" Watch this story and, "Oh wow. Like that's what this brand stands for." And I can totally relate to what they are talking about. And from there, build our brand equity. So that's kind of what we are thinking behind it. We are still fine tuning how we are doing that. We think is a good idea. But we are still trying to perfect that execution of that.

Jim James:

Yeah, that's great. And I guess, as you do that, you're going to find more brand ambassadors, and then they market the product. In terms of distribution, Brian, I see you are selling online through the store D-to-C. What other channels have you got for the for "Normans Apparels"?

Brian Wong:

Yeah so at this point, that's our main way to distribute our product. However, we are also, you know, in talks for maybe potentially there are opportunities for us to have some physical presence as well. Whether it is maybe pop-up stores or like maybe at some physical retail location that we can see our products. Nothing is finalized yet at this point. But we are trying to, you know, kind of what I just said is to get, let more people try and see, and touch and feel our products. It seems to be one of the key things that we need to do at this point. And so, you know, if we can have the opportunity to get into any kind of physical presence in Toronto or even some other places. We are more than happy to consider that and look into that.

Jim James:

Brian, you and your partner have built this business remotely, that you haven't even met him What would be a piece of experience or learning that you'd share that so far has driven some results for you?

Brian Wong:

Yeah, I mean, I am totally like, because I don't have a sales or like a marketing background. And so I'm learning all these on the fly. I do think, on the days that I talk to, whether it is the people who bought our products already or try to talk to people that like just kind of cold call or whatnot. At a high level, if the days that I have communicate to the outside about my brand, I usually get better results than the days that I do not do that, okay? I know that sounds very simple, but I guess my point is that even I'm reminding myself every day. Yes, I have my full-time job still, and I'm keeping that and I'm doing this on a side but that doesn't stop me from using my downtime to communicate with somebody. Not the same people every day, but like, you know, checking in on my consumers or my customers or like reaching out to people that our ambassadors."Hey, how are things going?" Or like, reaching out to people that we think can be our ambassadors. Just talking about our brand during the every day. In some ways I have blind faith that it will turn out well. So just kind of doing that every day I think is important. So that, to your point, getting noticed, right? Talking to different people every day at some point is going to pay out.

Jim James:

Brian Wong, thank you for taking the time to talk to me today. Brian Wong, one of the founders of a new company called"Normans Apparel" in Toronto. Brian, thank you for sharing today with me.

Brian Wong:

Thank you for having me.

Jim James:

So you've been listening to Brian Wong in Toronto and inspirational story. I'm sure you will agree with me, and I will include a link to the website that he has and also to his various channels where you can get ahold of Brian as well. Hope you've enjoyed this. If you have, please do share it with somebody. If you've got time to review it on a player, that will be great. This conversation is one of hundreds that I've had with fellow unnoticed entrepreneurs and they're in the book. The first volume is published by Wiley 50 Entrepreneurs speak out about how they get noticed. Now available on Amazon and all other bookstores. So please encourage you to see that as a resource as well. And until we get to talk again, I just do encourage you to keep on communicating just like Brian says. Brian, thank you so much for joining me today.

Brian Wong:

Thank you.

Prowly:

Now I'd just like to mention our sponsor for this show. The Unnoticed Entrepreneur Podcast is sponsored by a company called "Prowly." Prowly is an all in one software for leveraging your public relations activities. You can boost the media relations game for your business. Find media contacts, send out press releases, and get more coverage while saving time and money on everyday tasks. Check it out prowly.com.

Podcasts we love