Making An Impact With A Product-Based Business

Have you ever wondered how someone has an idea for a product that solves a real world problem and then they take all of the steps to build the product, scale the product, manufacture the product, sell the product and all of a sudden they end up in Ulta or at Macy's or any big box retailer and have a thriving boutique line. You guys, today I'm so excited to talk about product based businesses making huge impacts. And so joining me is Adi Aranzini, the the founder of Timi. You may be familiar with Timi Blends who went huge on Instagram and have built a real business that solves problems for digestion, for overall health, wellness, beauty, you name it. Today, Adi and I are walking through what it was like not only to initially build and scale the business, but the systems and processes that have helped her along the way. How she builds training manuals, how she analyzes when it's time to invest in more inventory, how how she's built a community around her brand, how she built a huge thriving influencer program that will work for boutiques as well. How she's also analyzing her time spent in business so that she can scale and be a new mom at the same time. You guys, Adee also has a great wholesale business that is new to the Boutique Hub and I can't wait to introduce you. She's got some specials just for Boutique Hub members. So please help me welcome Adhi Aranzini, the founder of of Teamy Blends.

Let's talk about your business strategy and the juicy details of what actually works from mainstream fashion to fashion on Main street and the entire ecosystem behind it. How do we scale your company and do it with the balance and the happiness that we all seek? Let's hear from those insiders, experts and strategists that actually make it happen. I'm your host Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub and I can't wait to chat.

Hey Adi, welcome back to the podcast.

Thank you for having me, Ashley.

I am so excited because I hope you guys listening know before we got started recording today, we were talking about just your story and your business and what we really wanted to make sure everybody took home today. And I love that you led the conversation with, you know, we can talk about story, we can talk about inspiration, but I really want to get into tactics. I really want to give everyone notes today. So I want to thank you for that because I think it's so appreciated. There's all kinds of inspiration in this business world and the world of female fashion, but we're Always hungry for more tangible tactical to do's in business. So I know you're going to be full of that inspiration and take home today. So thank you for that.

Absolutely.

So if anyone has not had the opportunity to meet you yet, you do have an incredible story. So just set the stage for us. Tell us a little bit about your backstory, how you came led to this idea, the problem you were facing, and how your first product line really solved that problem for you.

Yeah, I started my business, teeny Blends in 2013, which is. It feels like ages ago, it feels like forever ago. And I was just coming out of the military. I had done my service and I was actually a fitness instructor for combat soldiers in the military. So when you see movies of a girl telling boys to do push ups and climb rope and jump over walls, that was my job. And I had the best job in the military. I loved it. But what they don't tell you is that the food in the cafeteria served in the military is not very good, it's not very healthy. And I have a very sensitive stomach, very sensitive digestion. And after about two years of eating this cafeteria food, my digestive system just stopped working. Like it just completely shut down in the sense that I was not able to go to the bathroom more than once or twice a week, which is terrible for your gut health, it's terrible for how you feel, and it's just terrible for your health overall. And I was so bloated all the time that I looked like I was five months pregnant when I wasn't. And it was a constant state of bloat. Like no matter what I ate, no matter if it was healthy or not healthy, or if I drank water, if I didn't drink water, nothing was improving. My constipation, my bloating, and I was just totally distraught. I tried everything, drinking more water, fasting, like cutting out different foods. And I really was looking for something to help me get my body back to a regular function. And when I finished the military, I started researching what could I do. And I read all these books technically about poop. And I saw all these different herbs and all these different plants that were recommended to help cleanse and detox the internal organs, the kidneys, the liver, in order to help me kind of reset my system. So I went to my local Whole Foods and I bought like all these different teas that said detox or liver cleanse or kidney cleanse. And they were all about $5. And I bought them all and I drank them all and none of them did anything. And I was like, well, this really should work because all these books are pointing in this holistic plant, herbal direction and these teas have those ingredients in them. Why isn't it working? And through that kind of line of questioning or that problem that I had, I realized that the ingredients used in those teas is why they can also be $5 is very, very low quality and very small amounts of the actual ingredients that my body needs in order to detox. And that's when I went to formulate my own detox program to help my own body. And when I was able to formulate that my, the amount of waste that my body got rid of, you would be so shocked how much waste you currently have in your gut right at this moment. Even if you are, you know, even if you've been healthy or you're being healthy, the foods that you've eaten in the past, all the junk food, all the McDonald's, all the pizzas, all those late night of, you know, drinking alcohol, and you're in my early 20s, all of that is, is particles are still in your body. And then you get older and then you say, huh, why can't I lose weight as fast as I used to be able to? I used to be able to just like, you know, be healthy for a few days and then everything was fine. And you just can't do that. The older that you get, your body needs you to actually treat it right. And one of the re, one of the ways of treating your body right is getting rid of the junk that is sitting in your body right now from the past. And that's what I was able to do with our 30 day detox program. And that was the first product that launched the business. And fast forward now, nine years later, we have a lifestyle brand that creates wellness and skin care products, all inspired by the health benefits of teas, herbs and plants. So we were able to expand our product line into wellness products, into vitamins, into skin care products, and have our holistic teas as well. So that's in a nutshell.

Yeah, I know you covered a lot in a little. And I want to go and I want to break so much of that down. But out of just personal curiosity, talk to me more about detoxes for a second. I've never been great at doing a cleanse or like a great detox other than recently getting food poisoning that was like, you know, mother nature's way of giving me, which is terrible, don't recommend it. But how often should you go on A great like detox. So like what's the regimen look like?

Yeah, our detox is a 30 day detox and it is really created for beginners. It is not created for that la vegan nutritionist who already knows everything about everything about health. This was created for the regular girl next door that wants to feel better but doesn't know how. She just doesn't know what to do. And you just drink one tea in the morning and one tea at night and you don't have to change your diet because I don't want to ask too much of the customer. I want them to have something easy and simple and not have to change everything about their life in order to start to feel better. So this is a very basic cleanse and detox that helps to get rid of the backed up waste that you've been holding on to and kind of reset your system. And a lot of people see weight loss benefits, but that is not something that we claim, that is not something that we push. But the reason why they see that is because they, most people are holding on to five to ten pounds of just waste, just pure waste. Oh my God. It's not even like, it's not even anything else. And my digestion has been solved ever since. And my husband does it, my friends do it. It's, it's pretty incredible. And I wanted to make it very easy for the customer. And to answer your question, often should someone do it? Before I was pregnant, I would do the detox, you know, about three to four times a year. That's what my body needed. We have customers that do it one time a year. We have customers that do it before they go on vacation or maybe when they come back from vacation. We have customers that do it every other month because their body needs more of the flushing and the detoxing than other people's bodies. Every person's digestive system is so unique to how they're eating, how they're sleeping, their stress level, what their life has looked up, looked like up until this point. So it's really up to the person. But we usually see people that do the detox, see results from it, do it multiple times a year.

Okay, awesome. That's helpful. Making a plan, making my own plan. All right, let's, let's go back to you creating the very first initial version of the product. Because I think that's where most people get hung up. Like I have this idea, I want to create this product. Where do I start? Where did you start? To gather ingredients and find a Manufacturer to help you with your first iterations of the product.

Yeah, we have a manufacturer in Hong Kong that specialized in tea and coffee. And I was actually able to find them through a mutual friend that I had found because when I was googling things, I wasn't getting very far as far as manufacturers, because you can. There's a lot of bad actors in.

You can get really fast. Yes, yes.

Be careful, for sure. And so at least I knew from a friend that this was a reputable. This was a reputable manufacturer. And I was able to start testing with him. I told him exactly what ingredients I was looking for. He would send me samples, I would put them together and create these formulations because it's a blend of different ingredients. It's not just one ingredient. Until I was able to get the results that I was looking for for myself, because I was the guinea pig. And once we got to the final formulation, that's when we bought our first sample size, which was only 100 products. That's all I bought. It was really small. I was very nervous. I was very. I mean, I was living at home with my mom. I had just gotten out of the military. I didn't have a lot of money. And I was very, very conservative in my approach on buying inventory.

What does the testing look like for a product like that? Because it's for consumption, like when you had those samples and then to actually, like, make your next order like a full order. What is that requirement for testing for human consumption for me.

And again, you're talking about a business owner that was starting a business from the bedroom of her mom's house and not someone that had any seed capital. I started promoting it on Instagram. And this is, again, Instagram, nine years ago, way different app, way different opportunity than there is today. And for me, once I started seeing that, I was able to sell it and I sold through 30 or 40% of my inventory. I placed another order because then I was like, oh, my God. I'm like, I set up my website and then it's going to show out of stock, and I'm like, so nervous. And I actually, I set up another order. I think my next one was like 500 or 1,000 units, but I had to express ship it because I was so nervous about being out of stock, which I did go out of stock for a few days. And I paid a lot more in shipping, which increased my cost of goods, obviously. But it was very important for me to not stop the momentum of the orders that were coming in. And so I did pay more to get that product faster. And for me it was worth it to keep the momentum in. But I was like, oh my God, I need more. My manufacturer was able to do that for me which was great.

That's awesome. Some of those early hurdles when you're starting a business like that and you're a one woman show, like at what point or how quickly in that process did you say oh my gosh, I, I'm going to need more help, like I've got something here, it's going to take off, I need some help even if it's an assistant to help me like get my email marketing ready or just get to some basic social media or my website managed. When did you start to hire because you knew you were going to start to scale?

Yeah, it was way more simple than even what you're saying because I, the first person I hired was my next door neighbor's 16 year old son to help me pack orders. And it wasn't email marketing or I didn't even, I had no idea what I was doing. So it was just, I needed help packing orders and that was in, I think we were about four months when I started having him help me. Up until that point I was packing orders, I was doing the customer service, I was doing the marketing and all that goes along with it maybe. And then my next hire was someone to help me with customer service. That was after the packing orders. It was to help me because I would answer every email. But I was, I'm so glad that I did that because then I could train someone else. How do I want them exactly to respond? And I really started to understand how long shipping times take and I know a lot about warehouses and packing because I did it myself which is, you know, has led to me having my own fulfillment for the last nine years. We have our own warehouse with our own fulfillment team. So you know, just from being able to do it myself, I was able to understand it from the inside. So my first hire was a packer. Second hire was customer service and once I got that under control and I understood my marketing strategy then I was hiring people for that area.

I love that. Talk to me about even just like the financials and your scorecard that you were keeping for yourself at that point. I know sometimes that's of the business can be more intimidating for some reason especially I think because we're mainly creative right when we're entrepreneurs. And so even just understanding okay, what do I need for capital in order to continue to scale and to order more inventory Expand my product line, so on and so forth. Is that somewhere where you looked in a direction for help for somebody to help analyze any of that for you or when did you feel like you really had that under control so that you could start to financially expand?

Yeah, I do have a co founder, which I'm very lucky. He started the business with me, is still with me today. And we have, we're totally different brains on what we do and we contribute to different parts of the business and I do a lot of the financial stuff and so does he, but in different areas. So he's able to kind of take those tasks for me while I do some of the other marketing or some of the more day to day operations of the business where he can help me with a little bit with the admin and with the finances. But what I would say that I always looked at is I was always trying to get the lowest, best cost of goods for the highest MSRP that I could sell it for. And this was true then, but it's way more true now is that you need a really large profit margin because if you do scale, that's all going to get eaten up by marketing. And in the beginning, when you're so small, your orders, when they come in, they're so profitable because you're not spending a lot of money. And it's wonderful. You're like, oh my God, I bought this for $5 and I'm selling it for 30. Oh my gosh, that's $25 of profit. Yes. You want to have a very large margin there because that margin will not stay because have employees, then you have overhead, then you have marketing expenses, you have refunds. And when you're, when you're starting small, you can't imagine that it would ever, that that margin would ever get eaten up by anything. I didn't, I didn't think it would. It was like, it was like free money. I was like, oh man, I'm like printing money over here. This is incredible. Really. I was like, this is amazing. But I had no idea because I didn't have the experience yet of employees and oh, you know, maybe I should add health insurance for them. Oh, let me. What is workers comp. Like all these fees or like, you know, having to have millions of dollars of general liability insurance you just don't have. And that's okay that you don't have that understanding because I am the type of person that I will deal with it when I get there. Like, I'm not, I don't think about it. Until I meet that point, because otherwise I would have never started my business. So if you're listening and you're like, oh, my God, do I need to get insurance? Like, no, don't even look at that. The business will tell you what it needs when you get there, and that's okay.

I think that's so true and so many. I feel like that's even in our own story. Like, you really do build the plane as you fly it, and you figure those things out as you go. And I laugh because I think about when my husband came on and quit his. His. His job to come and work for our company, and today he's our cfo. But when he first came, he came from, like, corporate world, right? And he was like, ashley, how have you built a business without all of these formal things? And I'm like, it doesn't work like that when you're an entrepreneur. Like, you literally put it in one piece at a time. You get it all together, you make sure it works, and then you can scale and come in and backfill all those pieces. But I agree, you certainly don't need to stress out about them right away. From the beginning, man.

Absolutely, yes.

So when you had the tea blends going and decided, okay, I've got legs, right? And you had to run some numbers, you had to run projections of, okay, how much do I need to, like, what do I think I can sell? Right. Inventory wise, revenue wise, what do I need to do? How did you decide when it was time to expand and time to invest more capital into more inventory? Did you run all of those numbers backwards? Plus, what is my cost to acquire a customer? And you had all of that lined out. Talk to me about that process you went through.

Yeah, so I had the third day detox that I had created, and then I had added these tumbler bottles, these accessories that we could drink the loose leaf tea on the go, which were very, very popular. So I started making new colors of these. We have, like 20 or so colors. And I also had five other tea blends at the time. But what I was noticing is that, like, 90% of my sales were coming from the 30 day detox and the tumblers and not from these other tea blends that I had created that were like relaxation tea and energy teas. And I was starting to get very worried because if 90% of my business comes from one SKU, what if that product goes out of style, out of trend? Right. I've built this entire business around this one hero product. What if it's no longer popular, or what if. What if people don't want to do it anymore? And we did actually come to that years later, and that started to get me very anxious. And I talked to my co founder about that, and he was concerned about it, but I was very concerned about it, and I didn't know how I should expand. So because my audience was very much on social media and Instagram was my way of communicating with my community, I asked them, I said, what other products, natural products, do you wish that we made that would solve a problem for you? Because the other products weren't really solving a big problem like bloating and digestion. That's a big problem for people. And once they resolve that problem, they're going to be your customer for life. Once they find something that really works for them, they're going to be very loyal. So I wanted to find more products like that. And the response that I was getting was acne. That's the response that I was getting from my customers, like acne and natural skincare products that really work. What I was hearing from them is that they would buy natural products, but they weren't effective and that they were looking for products that helped their acne. So I was like, okay, here we go again. I have no idea how to make skincare, but I'm gonna do this. So I found a manufacturer local to me in Tampa, Florida, and started formulating our very first two skincare products, our Green Tea detox mask and our Green Tea facial scrub, which I was like, it looked super random on our website. It was like, here's some tea and here's two skincare products. And like, people were like, man, like, what are you doing? Everyone thought I was crazy. And. And my customers loved it. They went crazy for it. And because I had built their trust with the Detox program, they knew I created products that were effective and that worked. They would. They gave me a shot. And so I invested money into the process of building out those new two products. And again, was very conservative. I think I bought. I think I bought 1,000 of each. I think that's what I bought. And they sold really well, or 1,000 or maybe 2,000 of each, maybe. And they sold really well. And then I started expanding my skincare line. And within a year or so of having the skin care, my products got into Ulta, which was incredible. And that kind of gave me the confidence. Oh, okay, this skincare thing has. Has future.

Yeah, absolutely. Talk to me about getting into Ulta and that process and how you would Re engineer that process for somebody listening.

Absolutely. To be clear, I emailed Ulta for six months straight and that is how I got into Ulta. And that is still the same strategy that we use for our retail team today. One of the things that I not just believe in, but I've seen it work so many times over and over and over again is follow up. I am very, very dedicated to the follow up game and I emailed Ulta every two weeks. And the way that I did that, this is what I would recommend. It's the cheapest way to do it is using an app called Boomerang, which is an app that connects with your Gmail inbox and you click a t and it's $10 a month. So you click a box at the bottom of your email and it says, boomerang this back to me, back to my inbox in one week if this person does not respond. So if I'm trying to get to a buyer or I'm trying to reach someone that I'm trying to work with, I boomerang every email that I send. Even if I've emailed them 20 times, I keep boomeranging it. I might say, boomerang it back to me in two weeks, back in a month, back in, I might have gotten a response from a buyer saying, hey, we're not looking at products right now. We're looking at them in the spring of next year. So I'll set the Boomerang to come back in spring of next year. Hi, Ashley. We spoke, you know, in August, it's now spring. I would love to pitch you our products, but that consistent follow up and not taking no for an answer. And when I receive kind of like emails of either no response or an email that says that they are not interested for one reason or another, it doesn't faze me at all. Like, I don't, I don't have any feelings about it. Like, oh, they don't want my products. Oh, they're, they, they think I'm too small. I tried, but they never, they didn't want me anyway. Like, I just do it very. I would even say, like with no emotion at all. And then I'm just following up. I'm following up, I'm following up. I do it with intention but not emotion. And I'm always able to get something done out of it. And after six months, I just one day wake up and there's an email response from the Ulta buyer and I'm like. And it was like, okay, we want to schedule A call. And I was like, oh my God. We schedule a call. And after the call they. I really sold them on our story on our products. And they said, okay, we want to put you in.com in alta.com. and I was like, wonderful. I was so happy. Then I get an email from them the next week. They say, actually, we want to bring you in stores. And I was blown away. And we got put into 3,000 doors all of a sudden. And I had to learn the retail world. And that is what then drove me to find other retailers. And now we're in Target, we're in cvs, we're in Bed Bath and Beyond, we're in Whole Foods, we're in Von Moore, we're in Belk, we are in macy's.com lots of different retail stores.

Amazing. I want to go back to you being unemotional or not emotionally attached to those emails. Something that you have done really well is just really create a around your brand. And you're very centric. Your story is very centric to that community and your presence. I'm a big believer of that in retail as well and independent retail, of how important that is. Talk to me about the process of just making sure your community was solid, which I'm sure gave you that emotional base of, hey, it's okay if they don't respond. Right? Because I've got this, like, I've got my people and I know they've got my back. Talk to me about community building strategy. You used.

Absolutely. I think that that's like one of the most important things of about my business and that other people should use as well. I was very obsessive about every single person that communicates with me. I must communicate back with them. Very obsessive around it, especially on our Instagram communication. And that's how I started the community. So every DM and every comment must be answered just as if it was an inbox. You're like a Gmail inbox. And in the beginning it was me manually doing it. And then there's different social media apps, like for customer service. We currently use one called Agora. There was a lot of different ones that we had used in the past that pull in your DMs or your social platforms and then you're able to have like a customer service person or yourself go in and respond to each one of those things. But that is what blew away a lot of people, retailers, people in general, that they saw how responsive we were as a brand and people were shocked that we DM'd them back and that we DM'd them back so quickly because people don't expect a company to do that. And nowadays it's normal. But back then, it wasn't normal nine years ago that that transparency and that accessibility to brands was not there. So at the time, it was very, very unique that we were doing that. And the reason why it was so important to me was because each I thought about. A lot of the times you think about the Internet as a way to be removed from people, but I thought about my store as like a physical store. So if somebody would come into my physical store and ask me a question, would I ignore them or would I take two days to respond to them? If someone came physically face to face with me and said, hey, I have questions like, does this product help with bloating? I would want to respond to them. They have no choice. You're in person. So that's kind of the stance that I took on it. And the other thing is that I was like, I want to treat my customers like my best friends, and I don't want to treat them like customers. I want to treat them like friends. And the way that that permeated through the community was very strong. Because when someone would come and say, hey, you know, does this product help with bloating? I could as a company respond in a very professional way, like, hi, Ashley. Yes, this product would be great for bloating. Do you have any more Questions on costs $49.99. Like, I could respond in that way, but that's not going to sell Ashley on this product. So if Ashley comes and says, hey, does this product help with bloating? And I would say, hi, Ashley. Oh, my goodness, yes, it does. If you suffer from bloating, this is going to be the best product for you because it helps with X, Y, Z thing. And if you're experiencing 1, 2, 3, this will be the best product for you. And then I would end it off with like, do you have any more specific questions? A lot of times people are trying to get rid of the customer. I'm inviting them to ask more, to talk more. I would ask them a question, what else do you need help with? And they'd be like, oh, well, actually, I had another question. Like, if you actually continue the conversation with them, you'd be surprised how many more questions. And then at the end of that conversation, they would say, I'm gonna go purchase it right now. And I'm like, wonderful, great. But it was that genuine conversation. Genuine conversation. And to Me, it wasn't a waste of time. And when I was teaching my customer service reps, I would teach them this little acronym that I created called AKA always keep asking. Always keep asking. Even when they're like, okay, thanks. Then I would. I would. If I saw that the customer, like, wasn't really sold, I would ask them another question, so how long have you been experiencing this bloating? And then they would tell me, oh, my God, my whole life. And I would say, oh, my gosh, me too. You know, just build that, establish that reality and that connection by constantly asking them questions. And that one person is important to me. And that's really how I was treating them, man.

That's how. That's exactly how you create a brand with such, like, glue, right? And longevity is because when they really feel like you made them feel important, not only are they going to stick around, but they're going to tell all their friends about it. And I know something else that you've done really well with that in building a community is you have a great partner program, a great influencer program. I mean, so much of what you do is word of mouth. How did you build that partner and influencer program to support everything that you'd already done?

Yeah, the influencer program was the basis of my success, is the basis of how Timi is what it is today. Because I personally am not some celebrity and I'm not an influencer, and I don't have credibility or authority for people to buy my products. But I knew that people trust other people. People trust other people, and they need to be recommending my products. So I got on the influencer, you know, bandwagon, probably one. I believe that teami was one of the first brands that did it. You know, nine years ago, there was really not a lot of people doing it. And I did it in a very, very basic way. And this is how I suggest for boutique owners to do it as well, is I created an Excel spreadsheet and I found 10 different influencers. I call them micro influencers now in different niches. So I worked with 10 people that were food people, 10 people that were athletes or fitness people. I worked with 10 people that were weight loss people, 10 people that were into beauty and makeup, 10 mom bloggers. And I sent them all the same product and I created them discount codes for that product. And today you can add links. So I would add links. In the past, we didn't have Instagram stories, so there was no link. And I told them exactly what I wanted them to Talk about the product. And I did not pay for any additional payment. It was just free product in exchange for them posting about us and them earning commission from the products that they were promoting and the sales that they were bringing into their discount codes. And through that initial test, I was able to see which influencers moved the needle and which ones did not. So I very quickly found out that the food accounts were beautiful. They had so much engagement, such a big following, so many comments, but they weren't good salespeople. They weren't good at recommending the products. And yoga accounts were great with lots of engagement, not good for sales. And then I was able to find, oh wow, people that are doing keto are really good for my brand. I was also able to find that moms were really good for my brand. Latinas were really good for my brand. Another example was women that had curly hair. There was a lot of accounts that were like curly haired girls. Curly haired girls were very good for my audience. And I was able to learn who the teeny girl was through that process and who could talk about our products best and who was the most interested. And I really realized that the accounts that were very personal and very like real talk accounts, like, let me tell you how things really are in my life right now. I haven't slept for five days because I have a newborn and this and that. And like women that did not have some curated feedback, but women that were like the girl next door, let me tell you how it is. Those are the women that best sold my products and they had the right followers that wanted my products. And so if I'm working with food accounts, they don't have the audience that wants my products anyway. Their audience just wants to see recipes. So I was able to find that information by doing this test and then scale and find more of the influencers that did work and stop working with the influencers that didn't work and did that all through Excel spreadsheets. And that is something that I think that boutique owners could do for themselves as well.

Absolutely they could. That's so, so smart. I love how you just niched all of it down. As I listened to you talk about that, I think about man as you're growing and scaling, especially to the volume that you have and being in all these other big box stores as well. There's a lot on your plate every day. There's a lot that you've had to do to become the size that you are today. How did you get really good at building systems and processes so that you could take yourself out of so much of the operation. And now I know as a new mom as well, that's a whole nother level of chaos. I have three kids, so I get it. How have you really continued to systematize at each stage of scale?

Yeah. So I just want to make something clear. Is that the. I have an answer for this question, but I have gone through so many seasons with this business, and I can't tell you that I have taken myself out of the business. So I just want anyone listening to know that even at my size, I am constantly. I'm still overworked, and I'm still overwhelmed. And it goes in seasons where I'm like, oh, now everything's fine. And then there's a new season, and I'm like, nope, right back to square one. Like, I just want. You know, I wish that I could. I want. That's what I aspire. I aspire to be in a point where I cannot work as much as I do. But I work a lot, and I have more to go as a business owner to build the right team so that I can step away a little bit. But it's not there. I just want you to know that. And Now I have 35 employees, so it's not like I have no one. But there's still a lot on my plate as the business owner. There's certain things that only I can do. But to answer your questions, what I got very good at is writing policy. So every job that you have, like a warehouse packer, a customer service person, someone doing influencer marketing, you have to write them like a manual, which is. You have to write policy as a business owner of how you want things done, because you have to be able to train someone. So I write the systems of. These are the. These are the ways that I do this in steps or checklists or bullet points. And then at the time, I used Google Drive and I would create a folder for customer service. And when I would train someone, I would say, okay, read through these policies. And at the end of every policy, I would put a drill or an activity that would then practice what they just learned, just to see if they actually understood it. I mean, reading is one thing and doing is another. So I would do the practical or the activity with them to see that they actually understood what they just read. And that is how I would train them. And now every time that a new job or a new part of the job comes up, I do a checklist or I create some sort of system. Very simple, but it's all documented so someone can refer back to it. So that when an employee then does something different than what they're supposed to be doing, I refer them back to the document. Instead of being like, you didn't do this, right? I send them back to the document. I say, please reread it. This document, it shows you exactly the steps of how I want this done. Now, in my business today, the other things that we do is we create instructional videos a lot more than just written policy. I use an app called Loom, which I can video things on my screen. And that is another way for me to basically record the steps of doing something, especially marketing things that are on the computer. And then I'm able to either put it in the Google folder, which you can do, or we currently are using an app called wail, which is like a library knowledge base of you can create these great training instructional steps in doing something. And again, if I was just starting my business, I don't think that I would have necessarily the budget for that. But that's what we do today. If you're just starting out, I would not use Whale and I would use Google Drive and have a table of contents for your policies. So if you have customer service and you have 20 policies, have one page at the beginning that's like a table of contents so that they know how to walk through the training from first policy or first video to the end and make sure that every policy or checklist that you've written has an activity to go along with it. They should not be able to go to the next policy without practicing the policy that they just read, because that's how they're gonna get confidence in what it is that they're doing.

Yeah, that's so good. I love that. I love that we use Loom a lot here at the Boutique Hub and try to execute similar, but with Google Drive, that's very tangible. Thank you for sharing. Adid. There's been so much that we've covered today. We've even gone a little longer than I thought we would because I'm like, yes, more like, let's talk about more scale. So helpful. But at the end of the day, I want to ask you this question. So I know, and I know you believe the same, like, at the base root of everything that we're doing. We're not just here to sell a product. It's far beyond that. Right. This whole life is far beyond that. So when you're thinking about being a mom, someday, being a grandmother, and you're like 30 years down the road from where we are right. Right now. And you are on the front porch with your kids, with your grandkids, with your family. And you're reflecting on all this madness that you've lived. And you, you're talking about this business and this life. What is the thing that you want your family to remember the most about who you are, why you created this and how you lived?

Yeah, I think I would want them to know how much I invested, like my whole heart and soul into helping people because that's what I feel that I do. And when I get overwhelmed or when I want to give up, I try to think about the people that I help and the customers that I help and the success stories around my business. And that kind of revitalizes me to keep going. And I want my grandchildren and my children to talk about how hard I worked, how I didn't know what I was doing, but I did it anyway. And all the people that I was able to impact.

I love that. Adi, thanks so much. We will link up everything in the show notes today for our community, but it's been a real pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

Hey, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. We hope that you loved it. Don't forget to hit subscribe and leave a rating and review down below for a chance to be one of our featured listeners each and every week. For more information on our spirit of community over competition and how to access complete show notes and bonus downloads from our guests, head on over to the boutiquehub.com and join the community.

We'll see you next week. Sa.