I've got a question for you and I want you to be honest with me. Does your business partnership program go beyond snacks for your posty and contour with your local pub? I hope so. Forester found out that brands with mature partnership programs grow revenue twice as fast and see 20% of their revenue come from emerging partnerships. I'd love to see your local pub do that for you. To get a kickstart and partner with some of the world's most credible content creators, influencers, mobile apps and other brands on a performance basis, check out Impact, a technology company transforming the way we do partnerships at scale. Visit impact.com/growth. Welcome to the checkout. We catch up with previous ad to cut guests and ask them five quick questions to get to know them better and leave you with a little extra inspiration to get through your Friday. Here's your host, Pushy. Today's checkout features Anita Saka, co-founder and CEO of Hero Packaging and the author of Cell Anything Online. Anita is a self-confessed marketing and e-commerce nerd with a massive TikTok following and a really refreshing way of looking at life and business. And that's the perspective that only comes when you've had the experiences that Anita has. In the main business where she is the co-founder of Hero Packaging with her husband Vic, it started as a solution for Anita's previous business where she was using enormous amounts of plastic to ship her products and thought that there must be a better way. Hero Packaging is now a global company that has sold over 35 million compostable mailers and has over 73,000 customers. Anita, welcome to the checkout. It was brilliant to finally have you on our Descartes for our main episode where we talked about everything from your brand new book, Cell Anything Online, through to your business Hero Packaging and how you're changing the packaging game and all the way through to what to look for in an e-commerce coach and agencies. So so much cover there, so much that I feel I got off my chest in that conversation. It was great. But we're here to learn more about you. I've got five quick questions. Number one, what's the weirdest thing that you've ever bought online? The weirdest thing would be a talking doll that randomly talks at 3 a.m. And it's it freaks us all out in the house, but we can't we don't know how to turn her off. So it's been programmed with my kid's name. So it says hello, Olivia, in the middle of the night. So that's probably the weirdest thing I've ever bought. I would be chucking that straight outside. That would not be in my house. It's because it's got her name in it. I just think it's so sentimental. It's so weird. So I've got a Kogan TV that's in our rumpus room that will randomly turn on in the middle of the night. But the weird thing about it is that it goes straight and plays trailers when it starts up. But the trailers are always horror movies. So we wake up in the middle of the night and there's trailers for horror movies and we're like, oh, and we just can't turn it off. I don't know how to get rid of it without throwing out the whole TV. You need to talk to Rosalind Kogan about that because that that shit is scary. That was the first time I was like, I could just hear this screaming and stabbing. And I was like, what the hell is going on? It's so funny. All right, number two, which retailer has inspired you most recently? Okay. I have three. Okay. So one is jolly skin in America. Amazing. Also, Nakey, which is my favorite Australian brand. They're doing so well and fate the label. Great. Nakey is the hammocks? Yes. And by the two brothers, and they are absolutely smashing it. Like when I say smashing it, they are doing so, so well. And they are like this successful e-commerce business that not many people have heard of, but they are killing it here internationally on different platforms. They're amazing. Awesome. We just had Hamish on from order editing and he talked about how they were his first investors in order editing. So as a client, yeah, as a client, they loved it so much that they invested in the business. So it just shows that they're thinking so differently, right? They do. And every time I see them, they're just so clever and they're just willing to like, you know, they just can, they say so much. You know, we were talking about vulnerability. They are just so good at that. I think that's a sign. I'm going to reach out to them, see if they can come on. Oh my God. Please do. I think you'll love it. All right. Number three, name a piece of tech that you or your e-commerce business couldn't live without. A piece of tech, I would say SEMrush. I think I'm on SEMrush a lot of the time. And I do that because I'm constantly monitoring how hero packaging is doing organically compared to all of our competitors. And just to add in an extra on what you're super simple, which is Apple Notes, couldn't live without Apple Notes, I use it every minute of every day. A lot. Are you paying the paid plan for SEMrush? So I, because I do a lot of content for brands, they've given it to me for free, which is so nice because it's an extremely expensive platform. Yeah, it is, it is, but so much valuable insights in there. Love it. All right. Number four, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into? Other than my own, I would say I love how brands grow. And I feel like that's been mentioned on your podcast a couple of times, perhaps by buyer and sharp, but it was, it's the one thing that has made hero packaging. I think the kind of market leader and sustainability and also how we have focused on brand over just product differentiation. Yeah. Great. First principles of brand, right? And those first principles that just don't change, no matter what tech or what social comes in, they remain, remain in place. So great recommendation. Tell us about the podcast though. What's the name of the podcast? Where can people find it? My podcast is called Marketing ATM. You can find it anywhere. It's just a really fun podcast, 30 minute episodes of what's trending in marketing business e-com right now. Beautiful. Go find a marketing ATM. And last question I have for you, Nita, what is your biggest challenge today? Okay. Biggest challenge for hero packaging is figuring out the US market and scaling up profitably over there. We tried once. It didn't work out because it cost us too much money. And so now we're just really focused on international expansion over there and just figuring out like what's the most profitable way of doing that. Amazing. Do you have a time frame on when you want to get over there? Yes, today. I think probably where I think I'm really, really sick and probably like 12 months to just make sure that we're doing it correctly. Amazing. Nita, thank you so much for joining us on The Checkout. Oh, thank you for having me. To hear more from Nita, jump back into episode 441 where Nita shares her thoughts on the importance of cash flow management with the kind of insight that only comes from being their first hand. She also talks about the pros and cons of working with agencies and why it's not the questions you ask of them, but it's the experience that you have before even considering handing over those ad accounts. And then she talks about the impact of content creation on brand visibility and why you cannot afford to be inconsistent. And Nita is also extremely candid about a particular tough time for her own business and how she coped. It's a great perspective on e-commerce and business ownership. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep adding to cart. [MUSIC] You [BLANK_AUDIO]
In this Checkout episode, we chat to Anaita Szarkar from Hero Packaging as she bears all about the realities of scaling a business as she sets her sights on cracking the US market. From her bizarre purchase of a haunted talking doll to mastering SEMrush for tracking organic growth, Anaita offers an honest and practical look into the world of business, personal branding, and customer experience. She name-drops the brands that inspire her, including Nakey, FAYT the Label and Jolie Skin, and reveals her obsession with How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp.
Check out our full-length interview here:
Real Ecommerce Talk: Success, Failure and Not Giving a F*ck with Anaita Sarkar | #441
This episode was brought to you by:
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About your guest:
Anaita is the Co-Founder and CEO of Hero Packaging, author, keynote speaker, business advisor, and guest lecturer at Macquarie University and UNSW. She is also the founder and author of Sell Anything Online, a marketing company. She has written two business books, the most recent one is titled How to Sell Anything Online which has become an Amazon bestseller in the Business category. On a daily basis, she provides free marketing and business tips on TikTok and Instagram where she has now amassed over 340,000 followers across both platforms. She also works with global tech companies like Google, TikTok, HubSpot, Linktree, Adobe for their content marketing strategy. As a speaker, she has delivered talks to thousands of business owners and marketing students, with a focus on marketing strategies, small business growth and personal branding.
About your host:
Nathan Bush is the host of the Add To Cart podcast and a leading eCommerce transformation consultant. He has led eCommerce for businesses with revenue $100m+ and has been recognised as one of Australia’s Top 50 People in eCommerce four years in a row. You can contact Nathan on LinkedIn, Twitter or via email.
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