Loyal customers are the lifeblood of every successful business. However, most startups wait too long to prioritize customer needs. Leveraging research insights during product development and building for customer satisfaction and retention can bring thriving long-term success to your business, and in this episode, we speak with a Founder who did just that.
Tony Petkovich is the Founder of Board Room Organics, which manufactures effective, fast-acting vitamin supplements and has retained a lot of customers over many years - a rarity in the vitamin and supplements industry. How did they do this? Petkovich tells us how in this episode.
You will discover the special formulation used in his products, the secret behind each successful sales presentation, and their best marketing techniques. Tune in now for some evergreen tips on how to find and keep customers for a lifetime.
In today’s episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, we’ll cover:
Why customer satisfaction and retention goals must influence product development.
Discovering untapped sales opportunities by constantly interacting with customers and prospects.
How long-term customers enable businesses to survive difficult periods.
And so much more!
You can listen to the full interview on your desktop or wherever you choose to listen to your podcasts.
Or, click to watch the full video interview here!
Visit BoardRoomOrganics.com to learn more about their fast-acting supplements, which health issues they help with, and why customers love them.
Do you have a brand that you’d like to launch or grow? Do you want help from a partner that has successfully launched hundreds of brands that now total over $2 billion in revenues? Set up a free consultation with us today!
Prefer reading instead of listening? Read the full transcript here!
Jon LaClare [00:00:00]:
Marketing supplements can be very profitable if your customers stay with you for a long time, making the lifetime value of each customer very high. Today's guest has built a very successful business that keeps customers coming back for years. Watch or listen to this interview to get some advice on how you can get customers and keep them for a lifetime.
Announcer [00:00:22]:
Are you looking for new ways to make your sales grow? You've tried other podcasts, but they don't seem to know harvest the growth potential of your product or service as we share stories and strategies that'll make your competitors nervous. Now here's the host of the Harvest Growth podcast, Jon Laclare.
Jon LaClare [00:00:43]:
Welcome back to the show. Today I'm really excited to have a conversation with Tony Petkovich. He's the founder of Boardroom Organics, a line of very successful supplement products. I know a lot of our listeners have lines of supplements or maybe be considering launching some, and I think you're going to get some great advice on how to do that very successfully. This business has been around for a while and has been growing very successfully and consistently. And we'll talk a bit about the story of why that is and some learnings you can have into your own business. But first, want to first welcome you to the show. Tony, thank you.
Tony Petkovich [00:01:15]:
I appreciate you having me and nice to be here.
Jon LaClare [00:01:19]:
So let's talk a little about the products. So one, we'll get into a few of them, but I know one of your hero products that I like a lot at least, is your liposomal vitamin C product, which is extremely effective. From there, I'll let you take over and explain why it's effective, why it's different. So what's so different about this liposomal vitamin C?
Tony Petkovich [00:01:41]:
So I would say the first thing that makes this type of liposomal vitamin C very powerful and potent is the fact that it is encapsulated in liposomal technology. And it's the liposomes that make it extremely powerful, which gives it an equivalent strength as if you were to go into a hospital or under a doctor's care and get iv of vitamin C directly into your blood or vein.
Jon LaClare [00:02:14]:
So talk, for those of our audience that may not know, can you describe a little bit what liposomes are, what that means?
Tony Petkovich [00:02:20]:
So in a nutshell, without getting too complicated, liposomes basically encapsulate the vitamin C completely. And because it's completely encapsulated, it bypasses the stomach. And the stomach is what degradates vitamin C and several other nutrients. But specifically, we're talking about the vitamin C here so it degradates it. So what ends up happening when you go buy, say, a capsule, capsules of vitamin C at your local store of say, 1000 milligrams as an example, your stomach degradates it to the point to where your body is only absorbing 190 milligrams. So you're wasting the majority of it because of our encapsulation process. For every 1000 milligrams that you take, you're going to take, you're going to absorb 900 milligrams. With that said, that's only a part of the puzzle.
Tony Petkovich [00:03:21]:
The other piece to the puzzle is the fact with a regular capsule that you take, you can only take about three of them before you get loose stool. So we also solved that problem as well. Because, number one, I've taken 72,000 milligrams in one day and have not got loose stool. And because it's able to bypass the stomach, the stomach does not retain water to the point to where it's going to keep you in the house all day with loose stool. So those are two major problems that we solve. We solve several other problems. One other one that I'll throw in there is that for you to maintain optimal health, even if you tell me you're healthy but are not taking vitamin C, your body actually needs 6000 milligrams per day to maintain health. If your body is dealing with something aside from just maintaining health, your body could need significantly more.
Tony Petkovich [00:04:22]:
So if we look at 50 years of Dr. Klenner's work, he used to give super high dosages in the 50 to 150,000 milligrams per day to pregnant mothers. And they used to call them the vitamin C babies because vitamin C is extremely healthy for you. There are people that tell you you don't need that much vitamin C, 1000 milligrams is enough, which means you're only absorbing 190. That's complete hogwash. I'm not the most politically correct guy, but the powers that be don't want you to be healthy. So the matrix wants you to depend on them. And it's a problem for a lot of people because they don't know the truth.
Tony Petkovich [00:05:21]:
And the truth is that vitamin C makes a world of difference on so many different areas. So it helps with your thyroid, it helps with your adrenals, it helps with your stress levels. In high enough dosages, it will kill viral and bacterial infections. And it's extremely powerful. So it's a product that I really stand behind.
Jon LaClare [00:05:47]:
And I have heard that for many years that whatever the number is, there's a certain recommendation that it's pretty low in terms of how much you should take on a daily basis and that if you take more than that you end up peeing it out, right. It leaves your body, you can't absorb it. Does that come down to that capsulation? Is that maybe part of that difference too? That if you end up taking more, most of it, as you mentioned, 80% of it or more doesn't get absorbed by your body anyways, so you're just not getting the benefit? Is that maybe one of the rationales that they use is because traditional vitamin C can't be absorbed. It's really not effective compared to a liposomal form where your body can generate or benefit from so much more.
Tony Petkovich [00:06:26]:
So you're in the right direction partially regardless of the encapsulation process or not. Whatever your body doesn't absorb for whatever reason, it will come out of your urine. However, your body has a regulator function and it regulates and for each individual is a different amount. Every single day is different depending on what your body needs on that particular day. For example, a healthy person might only utilize let's say 6000 milligrams per day and that's all he needs. But he has some sort of immune response as an example, which could be something like he feels like he's about to catch a cold of some sort, maybe a flu, maybe he has a scratchy throat. Your body is going to require more than 6000 and it's going to absorb more. So it will not come out of your urine as much because your body is going to start just absorbing more and more and more and more and the body automatically shuts it off and it says, okay, the rest of it, I don't need it.
Tony Petkovich [00:07:44]:
So we'll just have it come out of your urine. So it's a pretty powerful the way the body is smart enough to know how much your body actually needs. So there are different protocols and different methods of taking it that are not on the label that you can utilize for different health benefits depending on each individual situation.
Jon LaClare [00:08:14]:
And I know you mentioned a few of the benefits of taking this quantity of vitamin C. As you talk to customers, what are some of the most common reasons or common benefits for this product? For them?
Tony Petkovich [00:08:28]:
Um, there's one in particular that I'd rather not talk about, but let's just say that it was because of some major current events that happened a few years ago. As I said, it does kill viral and bacterial infections. For people that know what happened a few years ago, I think they could figure it out. Aside from that, we have people that, for example, we have an epidemic of adrenal fatigue in America due to stress. And if you don't have Addison's or Cushing's disease, you're going to go untreated for years, and you're going to feel lethargic, you're going to feel tired, you're going to feel very stressed out because your adrenals are not firing all cylinders. This is a product that heals that and will help with that situation. There's protocols specifically for that. Another thing is, we have children.
Tony Petkovich [00:09:33]:
Some of them are one years old and under. They have to take it a little bit differently than if you're one year old and over. But I've had parents tell me, well, I've never taken my kids to the doctor, because anytime they've gotten sick, they take the lectosomal vitamin C and they're fine. So I have family members that have given them to their kids. It's a game changer. It truly is a game changer. And I have dealt with about 25 years of low immune system. And I believe the reason I dealt with low immune system is because my father smoked for many years when I was a child.
Tony Petkovich [00:10:18]:
And I remember that when I was a kid, I would basically cry and tell my father, please don't smoke anymore. And he did one day stop smoking when I was a young child, cold turkey, because he didn't want to see me upset anymore. But I believe that was the reason why I dealt with low immune system. But when I started taking the liposomal vitamin C, it went away. It's really amazing what it really does. So I'm a big believer. It was actually just a few months ago, I was doing a heavy amount of traveling. I was going to conferences, and it was like two or three days without the life of somal sea.
Tony Petkovich [00:11:03]:
And I'll tell you what, I felt the difference. And as soon as I got back in town, I took it. And, wow, I was like, I can't go without it for a few days. It just doesn't make sense to me. So typically when I travel, I take it with me. I typically put it in a two ounce or four ounce jar and just put it in my luggage. If I'm traveling by car, which is, I usually don't travel by car too often anymore, unless it's, like under 2 hours, and I'll take it in a tiny little cooler and put it in my car. Or the other thing that I do is I have my warehouse ship.
Tony Petkovich [00:11:44]:
It to where I'm going to be like a day before. And so it's there when I get there, but I try never to leave home without it is the bottom line. And people that are our loyal, raving fans, they understand what I'm saying. If they listen to this, they'll get it.
Jon LaClare [00:12:01]:
You talked about how you can feel a difference when you're using the product, and I imagine that's one of the reasons for success. A lot of supplements promise long term benefits, and they may be true, but it's hard to feel, hard to see or notice a difference. But it's a nice thing with a product like yours, is when it works so well. People stay with you for a long time. What is the average length? Would you say that once people start buying this product, or maybe one of your others, that they stay with you?
Tony Petkovich [00:12:29]:
So what we have found, specifically with the liposomal vitamin C, specifically, once they start on it, we pretty much retain those customers for life. We've been going strong year over year growth for twelve years now, and it's just one of those things where you can feel it if you don't take it for a few days and you don't want that feeling. So people really stick with us. We've had growing pains in terms of a company several times over the years, and our customers stuck with us. It was a few years ago when it was that polar vortex freeze that came. And I mean, there was parts of the country that was 30 below zero, and we had a couple of issues around that time. And our customers are like, they were very understanding and they really just want to stick with us. We're very lucky to have extremely strong loyalty amongst our customer base.
Jon LaClare [00:13:44]:
It's interesting, you think with most supplement businesses talk in months, not years, in terms of their average lifespan with their customers, they may be happy with six or twelve months of continuity or autoship or whatever it might be. So to be in years where people stay with you ultimately for life is certainly one of the reasons for success. I'd love to ask, though, how do most of your customers over the years, how have they found you in the first place? So once they're there, they try it, they feel the difference, and they stay with you for the long term, how do they find you in the first place?
Tony Petkovich [00:14:15]:
So our initial growth, the first, I would say, four or five years, was a couple of different ways. It was partnerships with people doing similar things, and we were just cross promoting each other's products. That was number one. Number two, it was a lot of events that we did, we did a lot of health events, large scale at the convention centers. We've done seminars. And what we found by basically complete accident was that when we started giving samples at conventions and big events, what we ended up finding out is if you give 6000 milligrams to a customer we can convert them for customer for years after 20 minutes. And what happened was, so I was at a big convention at one of the big expos and it was industry professionals and future potential customers that wanted to experience all the different booths. So they came to our booth and we had a crowd and this was many years ago and they were skeptical.
Tony Petkovich [00:15:39]:
They said, well, they never heard of the liposomal seed. So I ended up being called. I got waived to go and answer some questions that our demo people were unaware of. So when I went over there by complete accident a person walked up that apparently was there 20 minutes prior and said, I've just come back to tell you I don't know what this product is but I want to buy it right now. And I said, oh yeah. And then I was like, well, tell me what are you feeling? And they said, this is the best I felt in years. And they were dealing with. What was it that they were dealing with? I forgot what it's called exactly.
Tony Petkovich [00:16:30]:
They had some sort of breathing issues. And I asked the person that doing the demo, I said, do you remember this person? And they said yes. This was a few minutes later. I asked this person and they said yes. They asked for an extra dose. So we gave them 6000 milligrams. And I was like, oh, that's interesting because we were doing like 1000 milligrams. So then this group of like, it was like five, six people were overhearing this and they start talking to this person and said, you really feel the difference? I said, 100%.
Tony Petkovich [00:17:04]:
We feel the difference. I feel the difference. I'm taking this product. I want to buy it right now and I'm going to continue to take it. So basically all these customers said, we'll take one. Apparently some of those people had like a big following and it ended up being like a huge word of mouth that whole week. And I think they had, one of them in particular had like a huge following of just health of about 30,000 people. And I remember we broke some record.
Tony Petkovich [00:17:45]:
This was like four years in, we broke some records. That night. I actually was on top of a mountain skiing and I got a call from my warehouse saying, we're getting inundated with orders and I'll tell you what ever since then it's mean year after year growth ever since. So it's just a really strong product.
Jon LaClare [00:18:11]:
What's next for your business, Tony?
Tony Petkovich [00:18:13]:
We have two products that we're going to roll out pretty soon that are still in research and development. I'm really excited about it. I'm not really at liberty to discuss it right now. I could tell you that we are the only ones in the market that are going to have this product. So that's another thing that really stands us out. We really don't do products that other people have. We're not a GNC where GNC is a marketing company. They market boilerplate products that everyone else has and they put a marketing label to it.
Tony Petkovich [00:18:50]:
We don't do that at all. We're not a marketing company. We're a health conscious company that tries to help the consumer and be different by having unique products. So all our products are extremely unique. So we have two coming out that we'll roll out that we're extremely excited about. And it's going to be a huge game changer and I'm really excited about it. It's two products in particular and really looking forward for those coming out well to our audience.
Jon LaClare [00:19:19]:
Check out boardroomorganics.com. It's in the show notes if you're driving. And keep an eye out for these new products, they'll show up on the website, I'm sure, once they're ready in a couple of months. But in the meantime, you can learn more about the liposomal vitamin C and many other products that Tony has developed. Tony, is there any question I didn't ask that you think could be helpful for our audience?
Tony Petkovich [00:19:41]:
You know, I think, I think our customers should know that there's multiple ways of taking it. I'll give you one quick example, adrenal fatigue. You can take some in the morning, anywhere from two to 6000 milligrams in the morning. And then typically with people with adrenal fatigue, there is one time during the day if they really pay really close attention. For some people, it'll be right around lunchtime that they will experience anywhere from a five to a 30 minutes period where they want to just go to sleep. And that's your adrenals given out on you as soon as you experience that. Or if you have a specific time, like let's say 12:00 that's when you experience it on a daily basis. What you could do is take it a couple of minutes before, like say anywhere from 1150 to noon, and you would take 3000 milligrams, you will not feel that tiredness, and you're going to feel a boost as if you drank a cup of coffee.
Tony Petkovich [00:20:51]:
Very similar. It's not exact because it's not an adrenal dump. So there's a big misconception about coffee, and I'm not a coffee drinker. I drink coffee a few times a year, and that's it. But the big misconception is that coffee is not really true energy. The only thing you're doing is dumping adrenaline into the bloodstream, and eventually there's only so many years your body can dump adrenaline before your adrenals give out. Typically, we're talking 1020 years. So it does take some time, but time will catch up with you.
Tony Petkovich [00:21:29]:
And there's a couple of ways that you can go about preventing that. And one of them is to take more of the liposomal c in general on a daily basis, because it actually replenishes and strengthens your adrenals. Think of it as food for your adrenals. So that's one of the ways. There's other methods. There's other protocols. There's other protocols, especially with some of the neuropathic doctors. We have a lot of doctors that order our stuff for their practices, especially out in California, Florida and New York.
Tony Petkovich [00:22:08]:
Those are probably our three biggest markets where we have neuropaths, and they have certain protocols that they recommend. So for those people, I would say consult your doctor, because I don't want to give any medical advice, even though I would consider myself an expert, because there's kind of a rule in life, if you hurt someone medically, you're going to get thrown in jail. But when other people kill other people because their vaccines didn't work, they get a slap in the wrist, to make a long story short. So I'll leave it at that.
Jon LaClare [00:23:02]:
Well, Tony, really appreciate the time. I know how busy you are running this and several other businesses, so I know our audience is going to love this interview. Thanks again for joining the show today.
Tony Petkovich [00:23:12]:
Thank you. I appreciate it. And you guys take care, and let's keep keeping on.
Jon LaClare [00:23:17]:
Did you know you can meet with a member of my team absolutely free for a 30 minutes strategy consultation? We've launched and grown hundreds of products since 2007 and learned some of our strategies while growing Oxiclean back in the Billy Mays days. We're here to help, so please go to harvestgrowth.com and set up a call if you'd like to discuss further.
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