How to Build Brand Awareness Without Paying for Ads

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0:36I ask them what excites them the most in their business right now, but never, ever have I heard an answer like this. At the Charlotte store, we have an eight-year-old two-headed snake. Their names are rock and roll. Yep. That is a totally casual thing. Not weird at all. When you own a reptile store called Cold-Blooded and Bazaar. That is one of the co-founders you just heard, Mike. And I know now you need to know more about the two-headed snake. I need to know more about the two-headed snake. So before we get into this episode, which I promise will be about actual business advice and not just two-headed snakes, let us just indulge our curiosity here because, yeah, tell me more about the two-headed snake.

1:22They're essentially a conjoined twin in the embryo when they were splitting off to become twins. That separation never completed. and they were born as a conjoined twin. Oh my God. Do this seem like two different snakes that are attached? Do they move in coordination? Do they both eat? Like what's... They definitely both eat. We feed them both each head its own meal that is about half the size of what we would feed a single-headed snake of the same size. That, by the way, is Patrick, another co-founder of Cold-Blooded and Bizarre. That way they both get the enrichment of feeling like they got to eat, but they don't get overfed.

2:01It also prevents them from fighting over food. But two fully functional heads, two brains, two individuals, and to answer your question, sometimes they don't agree on which way to go. And it's actually very easy to recognize when that's happening because one head's trying to go to the right, one head's trying to go to the left, and I imagine the body doesn't really know what to do. When one brain's saying go right, the other one goes left, So they'll kind of shake and it almost looks like it's seizing a little bit for a second. And then whoever wins that internal argument that they're having, eventually one will, you know, just kind of go with the flow.

2:40Could we do an entire episode just on the two-headed snake? Yes, we could. Hell, we could do two episodes on it, one for each snake head. But all right, I guess we shouldn't because we have actual business to attend to here. So first of all, a more proper introduction to the two guys with this two-headed snake. My name is Patrick Ambaros. And my name is Michael Edelen. And they own Cold-Blooded and Bazaar in Charlotte, North Carolina. Cold-Blooded and Bazaar is an ethical, exotic pet store, as well as a nonprofit reptile rescue. Which means, for example, that they only work with captive bred animals, they require proper knowledge and containment of pets before anyone takes them home, and they'll refuse a sale to anyone who seems unfit to truly care for the animal.

3:26I'm talking to them because Cold-Blooded and Bizarre was on a list that Entrepreneur produced this year called America's Favorite Mom and Pop Shops. It's something we do annually to celebrate the most popular, beloved small businesses across America. And then we ask, now that we know who they are, what makes them so successful? And what can other companies learn from these truly beloved hyperlocal businesses? So that's why I called up Patrick and Michael, and they said that a major key to their business's success was two-headed snakes. No, I'm kidding. Well, actually, that is probably part of it.

4:03But also community activation, finding creative ways to engage the local community, to bring people into the store, to feel like an asset that everyone wants to support. They have been exceptionally good at this, and today we're going to walk through their strategy and some of the specific engagements that they've done to give you ideas for how you could better show up for and draw in the people that you serve. But first, let me tell you about where this company even came from. For both of them, it traces back to their childhood passions. Here's Michael. I was the type of kid that was outside, looking under rocks, seeing what I could find.

4:43best day ever when you find a snake. Patrick was the same way. They met in college, became best friends immediately, hung out all the time after college, both collected reptiles. And then Michael got a job that required him to move to Charlotte, and he moved there with his wife, Shay. Then Michael realized, hey, wait a second, Charlotte doesn't have a reptile store, but it does have a reptile expo that comes by four times a year. And that seems to mean that people need to wait months to get their reptile fix on, to get all their reptile stuff. which would indicate a pretty healthy interest in something like this and pent-up demand.

5:17Michael started to explore the potential of opening a reptile store. Eventually, he lured Patrick down to Charlotte to do it with him and Shay. And of course, where did they go to first pump people up for this new reptile store? To the Quarterly Reptile Expo. Immediately, we started telling people, hey, we're going to be here. And that was before we even opened it. So, okay, now let's pick up on how they got to market. and put community at the center. So, well, Patrick and I, in college, we both worked as brand ambassadors, where we would go out and talk to people about different marketing efforts from various companies.

5:58Which is to say, just in case people don't know, these companies could be anything, could be some new energy drink, will, usually through some intermediary, start to engage with college students who they then call brand ambassadors who become kind of local marketing arms of the brand, right? So that's what you guys were doing. What kind of brands were you working with? Cricket Wireless was one of them. Okay, kind of appropriate in the reptile space, though, different. Yep. RJ Reynolds, BFG, Media Star, Chester Cheetah. I was a mascot for a few of these brand ambassadors, so Chester the Cheetos Cheetah.

6:41Yeah, nice, fun. I was actually the school mascot at DePaul for a blue demon for a year or two. Nice. Do you know how to do like a flip in a large costume? Not really. Okay. So you're hearkening back to your brand ambassador days. And so what lessons are you drawing from that that you're then applying to the store? well getting in front of people and letting them know that you're there that is one of the most effective forms of marketing even and some of those companies just we just mentioned their fortune 500 multi-billion dollar companies and they have people going to street festivals handing out key rings and stickers or whatever it might be and the effectiveness of that even if it is not necessarily your your market you're getting in front of people and you're getting your brand recognized by large quantities of people at once yeah versus sometimes like just putting an article in newspaper someone may read it someone may not and it really kind of just depends so right yeah even a large brand can't rely upon some third party to distribute their message for them you've got to have boots on the ground everywhere exactly absolutely so you started to think all right well we've got to do that here we've got to do that for our our business and our community uh how did you guys start to think through what good community engagement for a reptile store looks like it's a great question do you want to answer the record i say there's a whole variety of ways that we came up with to engage the community one that is one of my personal favorites is to reach out to people that are not reptile people and will probably never be reptile people is that we offer free relocation service when nuisance reptiles or something show up in your house, in your garage, in your yard.

8:56You go out and all of a sudden the dog's barking at something and there's a venomous snake there. You can call us. We'll come out free of charge, safely move it, relocate it without killing it. And people seem to enjoy that service a good bit. that's a great service that's not a service you're charging for it's no so no so it's just a service that you offer take me into that because what i'm thinking from a business lens here is that's a really smart way to get people who don't own and don't care to own reptiles to feel good about your store and tell people who do care about reptiles absolutely it keeps us memorable anytime somebody sees a snake it's a story to unusual situation to tell your friends about and if your friends had a kid that's into lizards or something then the ball gets rolling there they want to come see the shop we obviously talk up the shop tell people even if they're not into it the shop is like a free zoo come just look at everything it's animals you'd always see otherwise on national geographic so from day one we also created a bunch of stickers that act as business cards okay so every single person that comes in they get a sticker whether they're a child an adult but i could say for sure the first year that we were open if someone walked in and walked out without getting a sticker there were several times where patrick and i were like running out into the parking lot like you forgot your sticker and that was also something else just to make us a little bit more memorable um what's on the sticker people put those stickers sorry logo in their address okay but people put that on their beer cooler on their water bottle you know wherever and then every day they're seeing it and it stays in the back of their mind yeah we've probably given out close to a hundred thousand oh my gosh at this point that's crazy wait does the sticker look cool does it have like a like a cool lizard on it or is it just oh there it is okay so what you're showing me is it's a it's a black it's like a black square and it's got a what it's the skeleton of what is that at the top a jackson's chameleon okay a skeleton people also uh a lot of times things think it's a triceratops it does when they were a kid loved dinosaurs you can't be a kid and i love dinosaurs at some point in your life it does kind of look like a triceratops, but with a chameleon tail.

11:31It's like a cool hybrid thing. Okay, so that's pretty clever. So you're finding ways to engage people who aren't your natural customer, but know your natural customer, and also to just turn everybody into some kind of visual ambassador for the company. And yeah. I will also swear that Google reviews will help your business and help community awareness whenever. So that first year, our main focus is we wanted to get to a thousand Google reviews. That was the goal. If people search where to buy a rat for my snake, it helps you show up. If you have a bunch of people who comment, I came here to get a rat for my snake and I love the store.

12:17But that was also one of our main focuses, just to help create brand awareness and help people find us without ever paying for any advertising. So we've been in paper and Google ads, nothing to that effect for actually the first six years of business. Wow. And you also started going to schools and birthday parties and stuff. Tell me about that. Yep. So for school presentations and birthday parties, immediately after we opened, we ended up meeting some customers who were teachers and various people who were looking for classroom pets and students. So naturally, we eventually got reached out to about coming to the school and showing the kids some reptiles.

13:06And we discussed it. We obviously made sure that insurance would cover this and all of that. But we created a little presentation, an educational presentation, and we did some market research for, I don't know about you, but most of the people I know at some points, they remember, oh, in second grade, these guys came to our school with a big snake. Sure. The snake guy came. It's the only day in school that you remember specifically. Yeah. You know, a bunch of times, but I don't remember a specific algebra class. Sure. the day that the dude with the snake showed up so you get to now yeah and now you get to be the dude with the snake you are the memory exactly so um that has gradually grown over time obviously there's so many benefits to doing the educational programs and working with the kids one of which is a real focus of our company is reptiles are really misunderstood creatures they're just as much a part of the ecosystem as the birds and the bees and i can confidently say there's not really any aggressive reptiles there's a defensive reptile who is concerned about their own well-being but there's not a reptile who you go outside they're looking at you uh as something that they want to attack want to they don't want anything to do with us they just want to they just want to be left alone and there's a statistic it's something like 95 percent of snake bites happen when somebody is trying to either pick it up or kill it or poke it with a stick they're antagonizing the animal well that animal he would much rather just remain hidden and hope that you don't even see him so he can go about his day during snake stuff right and unfortunately like a lot of these things are generational if your parents tell you snakes are evil when they tell you then a snake is as good as a dead snake unfortunately that carries on and it just continues so educating the children and teach him that these are not animals to be afraid of is also making a difference in many reptile lives.

15:25I can tell you that the kids are the future. We all know that. And kids are also a great target market because when I was five years old, I wanted a lizard. And older kids are the same way. So we get in front of groups of children and we hear it constantly that you guys are their favorite people in the world. You guys are their favorite store in the world. I never understood reptiles and I don't think that we would have ever had a pet snake, but now we got two of them. And it goes from the children to the teachers to the parents. The kids come home excited about it and we get in front of large.

16:13And they come home from school with a sticker and then the parents take them to the shop and one thing leads to another next thing you know they have a very dragon so you do you charge for the school and birthday party stuff or you just see it as such a great funnel for new customers that it's just worth doing for free we do charge for the birthday parties and the school presentations and we have we have various factors that determine kind of that rate but we have base rates and then it's really pretty customizable because one person or one group may have a different vision for what they are trying to teach the children versus versus a traditional presentation most do not but we do we have offered very specific we do our best to accommodate very specific requests like they might be studying frogs this semester and they want to focus on defense mechanisms and amphibians.

17:18And then you said that the store is kind of like a zoo. You actively present it like that, right? You could want people to just come bring the kids, you give them coloring sheets. So the idea is to just make it as easy for parents to walk in with their kids as possible. Absolutely. We're also fortunate that we are in a shopping center that has a number of restaurants that have been around the city of Charlotte for a while. So the food traffic, when people are waiting for their takeout, they'll come in and just poke around. And it's a very memorable shop. There's nothing like it really anywhere else.

17:57Sticks in their minds. They talk about it. Their friends want to go see the two-headed snake. And it kind of snowballs from there. Right. Well, we also understand that not everybody is a reptile person. My parents aren't going to go get a bearded dragon today. Not going to happen. But coming by the store and checking everything out and looking around, especially if you're in the area, you're always more than welcome to come by and hang out, see things. It's a place where people with similar interest and passion can express themselves. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Also, you offer snake identification services?

18:37Absolutely. So a lot had said in this part of the country, and in most of the country, there are obviously non-venomous and venomous animals. So if somebody's worried about something that they see in their yard or out on a hike, they're not sure what it is, they can send us a message through our social media. and we can look at it and tell them, that's a corn snake or that's a venomous copperhead. Stay away from him. Give him some distance. He doesn't want to hurt you, but, you know, don't pick a loop. Yeah. Again, a really smart way to just always be top of mind for people to turn yourself into more than just a place that sells something, but a resource for the community.

19:18Where do ideas like this come from for you? Was this stuff that you just discovered along the way, the way that, for example, with the schools, you said some teachers came in and then they started to invite you to the schools and then you realized there was an opportunity there. Are you just kind of watching for how people are trying to engage with you or are you proactively testing what would engage people? So a little bit of both. Yeah. And it's really situational. We had discovered lots of different needs and things that we didn't really think about when starting the business. And that just the opportunities and ideas kind of presented themselves over time.

20:02And then there were other various methods and techniques that we pursued to ensure that we were getting our message across. So going out and talking to the neighboring businesses, lots of legwork. If there were little events going on in the neighborhood we're in or on the street that we're in or even the shopping center that we're in, we're in a primarily Vietnamese shopping center. And every Asian New Year, they have a big shopping center party. And we participate in that as well. uh works and dragon dancers it's a lot of fun yeah a little bit of both we've gone to we've gone to bars and music uh concerts and little venues nothing too big but we'll put up a little table hand out stickers tell people about what we do and that was something that we were actively just trying to get our name out there and and then other little things presented themselves as mentioned photo shoots uh youtube videos music videos people want a snake or want a tarantula they tell us fashion shows runway models uh we went runway models yeah oh for like Like a snake, like a snake draped around a runway model?

21:34Yeah, like a jungle theme runway. They wanted the models carrying a big snake on the runway and showing off their outfit or product line that they're marketing for. Funny, a lot of different unexpected opportunities for opening a reptile shop. But how does this business compare to what you guys imagined at the very beginning? Like, for example, you know, I mean, I was just just I yeah, I just I'm sorry. I just thought of that because of the runway models. I was like, I bet that at the very beginning, you didn't think one of our markets is going to be novelty. Not at all. One thing that we'll kind of joke about is, what do you think the next weird event is going to be?

22:25because you never know what somebody's going to email and want. Yeah. We've done some really unique events, and we've had some really strange requests, and sometimes it's the customers. If we hear the same question three, four, five times, obviously there's somebody thinking about this. So then we will naturally see, like, how do we accommodate that? you know how to how do we what's an example of that like what's a thing that you didn't see coming but then you started to hear people ask for the animal actors is one of them yeah so for me it's production like we we were really thinking about like somebody might want a tarantula for a music video or a snake for a runway but that's probably some of the the better examples that yeah were not intentional but people kept asking like is it possible to get a snake for a photo shoot is it possible so that was one that we weren't really planning on and it wasn't part of our game plan but it just made sense if we're already doing school presentations and we have ambassador animals and we're already working in the community if it's something that is obviously safe for the animal and the people, the customer.

23:49If it's safe for everybody to happen, we will do our best to make it happen. There have been situations where we've told people like, there's no chance that we're going to allow that. Yeah. Remember when somebody wanted to rent a spider to play a prank and scare one of their friends, like, you know, you're going to end up killing a spider. Yeah. That's a very dead spider at the end of that. no yeah guys this is this is so fun let me end with this number one if someone's listening to this like for example me who has a 10 year old and a six year old what is your recommendation for a great starter reptile that is question number one and then i'll ask you a more businessy question for question number two what's the starter reptile i'll take that one so there's kind of three to four really good beginner reptiles depending on what your kid is into Beauty dragons are great.

24:41They're one of the most sociable reptiles out there. They're kind of like having a puppy they actually want to be interacted with. They are always up at the glass looking to come out and see what you're doing. They're very engaged with you. While many other reptiles kind of could care less whether you play with them or not. Some of them just are an animal like a fish that you rather just look at and don't touch. There's leopard and crested geckos are a little smaller. They're good beginner animals. And then certain species of snakes, like corn snakes and ball pythons, don't get unreasonably big, are generally very mild-mannered, tolerant of handling, and make great beginner animals.

25:22That's great. And I like to really focus on what's the right animal for you and your family. Right. I could love snakes, but if I'm afraid to pick it up and I don't have that, you know, that drive to work with it and get over that fear, a snake's probably not going to be a good pet for me. So when somebody like you were to reach out, like I have a 10-year-old and a 6-year-old, he's really interested in lizards, we would suggest coming by. The stamp will go over what are some good beginner-level options because there's beginner-level amphibians. There's beginner level invertebrates, there's beginner level lizards, and there's beginner level snakes.

26:06So they'll go through, maybe introduce you guys to a few. I personally always recommend when you meet the right one, you will know. When you, this, you know, Kiwi is the gecko for me. And you, most of the time, you know, you can tell sometimes the kid just wants anything. and it's also important to see what the parents are comfortable with because at no point can you 100 % rely on a six-year-old and a 10-year-old oh yeah all the work of caring for a living creature so you definitely cannot then you love snakes but the parents are don't love snakes and we can't get them over that fear then perhaps a lizard is the better option in the long run right yeah all right and then the second question if someone runs a local business and is listening to this and is thinking to themselves you know i really like these ideas because what i really need more of is to get out is to like make people aware that i'm here and drive more business into the store what is your advice for them about something they might not be thinking of doing i'll start by giving out hundreds of thousands of stickers

27:21first identify where in your community you're going to have the most reach if you let's just say owned and a musical instrument story so like guitars and all the supplies to play music i would start looking into various events that have like-minded individuals that may be potential customers so if there were if there was um local bands street festivals yeah things of that nature yeah ideally an expo if there was some sort of expo coming into town It wouldn't surprise me if there is a traveling expo that has every instrument under the sun there. I would do my best to go talk to people there, get your name out, share your information.

28:16It's kind of business dependent. If there's a need to talk to your local schools or your local grocery store, potentially partnering with local businesses and neighbors. We have found a lot of support from neighboring businesses. and helping get our name out by utilizing our community is extremely beneficial. So being part of the community and supporting other businesses in the community is really important for staying part of the community and having the rest of the community talk about you. Yeah, that's awesome. Guys, this is so fun. If people want to come see a two-headed snake, where can they find you?

29:03we're located at 3000 central avenue in charlotte north carolina awesome sweet eight guys so fun thanks for your time thanks thank you for having us and that's our episode now let's keep the conversation going i write a newsletter called one thing better where each week i offer one new way to be successful and satisfied and build a career or company you love. You can find it at one thing better dot email. That's a web address. Just plug it into a browser. One thing better dot email. And if you get one of those emails and reply, it goes straight to my inbox and I will get back to you. Problem Solvers comes out every Monday morning.

29:49So make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss an episode. The show is produced by Emily Holmes and Money News Network. My name is Jason Pfeiffer. See you next week. you