$121k/mo With Facebook Live : How Roxelle Built Raving Fans & Launched A 7-Figure Brand #BrandBuilderPodcast

I feel like growing the brand, the audience. I'm able to just experience these really cool moments with everybody as they grow because I think when something great happens to us, the first thing we do is share it with somebody. That's all it's about, is connecting and growing alongside people and watching their growth happen as well.

Hey, one percenters and greedy capitalists. Ryan here. And I'm really excited to bring to you this episode from a new podcast that we have launched@capitalism.com called the Brand Builder Podcast. I host it with my buddy and my partner Max Kerwick. And it's all about physical products brands. It's about Amazon, it's about branding, it's about funnels, it's about case studies of businesses that are doing this well. So this is one of the episodes from, from the Brand Builder podcast and we have some really cool stuff coming in 2019 here on the podcast and@Capitalism.com this is a taste of what is to come. You'll hear us talk about what is working in our businesses. You'll hear us interview students and other people that we admire who are doing some cool things. And you'll hear us feature some of the keynotes that we've had at past brand building events. You're really going to enjoy this if you sell on Amazon, if you sell physical products, if you have an audience that you want to monetize, or if you want to do any of those things. So you can subscribe by searching Brand Builder Podcast or you can just listen to this episode here on the show. Thanks for listening.

Welcome to the Brand Builder podcast presented by capitalism.com I'm Max Kerwick and I advise physical product brands to find their story.

I'm Ryan Daniel Moran and I invest in physical products brands.

A physical products brand is arguably the most predictable path to a seven figure business.

And we advise them, build them, buy.

Them and sell them.

The show goes behind them, tracks their success and hands you the keys to what's working.

Let's dive in.

Hey team, welcome to the Brand Builder Podcast. This is Ryan Daniel moran, founder of capitalism.com and this is the show that goes behind physical products brands and identifies the things that they did better than their competitors and what helped them stand out in a noisy marketplace. And today is a really special case study with Roxelle Cho. Roxel is one of our backroom members. Backroom is my private network for physical product sellers, for entrepreneurs and for investors. And Roxelle came to us because she had gotten a lot of things accidentally right And I would say that she has done the opposite of what most brand builders have done, where she has dialed in the audience more than she has dialed in the product or the distribution or the supply chain. She got into this game wanting to make an impact on women, and she tells her story in this episode, so I won't spoil it, but she was hand making the products in her garage and. And could not and still can't keep up with the demand of her product. Not because her product is all that special. Although it is different than the competition. It's really about the message behind the business. It's really about having the support and the loyalty of customers. That's the game, guys. That's everything. It's breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Most people are living off snacks, and those snacks are sales. It's the next snack to the next snack. And Roxelle has built the kitchen. This is a terrible analogy, but Roxelle has built the loyal fan base that wants to buy from her over and over and over again. So they're forgiving and they're willing to pay more, and they're loyal and they spread the message and they bring other people with them. And as a result, she can't keep up with stock. And she and I have had conversations about bringing on some investors that help her scale. But what she's really focused on is spreading a message to a rabid, hungry customer base, and she really cares. And if you care about your people 10% as much as Roxelle cares about hers, you will go far farther than your competitors. You'll charge higher prices, you'll have more loyalty, you'll build a better company, you'll be more successful. I don't know that you need to go as extreme as Roxella is doing Facebook lives all the time, but if you have an audience that you care about and that comes out even a little bit, it will change your life and your business. You'll see exactly how in this case study with Roxelle Cho.

Welcome to the Brand Builder podcast. I'm Ryan Daniel Moran.

And I'm Max Kerwick.

And today we're with Roxelle Cho. Roxel, you are a legend to me because I think just the minute we met, I just, I felt like I was really connected to where you were going as a businesswoman and as an entrepreneur. And I just, I feel personally jazzed to be a part of the evolution.

That you have had as an entrepreneur and that you are having.

And you're at this really cool tipping point that you didn't plan for that has created its own set of bottlenecks and its own set of opportunities. And it's scary and exciting and challenging and I just want to hear about all of it. But tell me a little bit about the brand. Let's start there.

Okay. Fun fact. Before we start, when I first listened to your podcast, I think was it last year, the first time I listened to it, my egotistical side told my husband, I'm going to be his case study and I'm going to be on his.

And here we are.

Here we are. Congratulations.

I didn't actually think too much into it. It was just words that came out of my mouth.

What was the brand at that point? Did it even exist?

Yeah, it did. I just had listened to actually the Neatpack example and I heard her numbers and her story and I'm like, wow, okay, I'm doing that. And she has a story and I have a story. So I'm like, I don't understand why I'm not there.

And here we are. Hopefully you'll let me invest in your business when it gets to that point and we'll have that conversation when it's appropriate. Tell me about where the brand is now. Tell me how it's marketed, where the sales are coming from. I know your biggest problem right now.

Is you can't keep up because it's scaling completely. So in July, we sold out. We oversold completely. 30 days out for shipping of our handmade swimwear. So found a production team. We built it out in la and that's helping. But as you know, it takes about eight weeks to get patterns and production in place. So during all of August, we don't have any way to fund the business. I have no product. We are back ordered, so I can't refund all that. We need to work on hand making these suits. So I'm like, what do we do? What do we sell? We have nothing to sell. So I told my team, I'm like, I'm just going to show up for my customers. I'm going to continue building the audience. I'll do whatever I need to do to provide them value during the whole month of August. And. And even if it's not profitable during that month, we know that just doing good, reaps good. That's all I've seen. And so we're like, right, so my girl that helps in our team and she's just like, we can pre sell. She has a little more business and her brains. She's not trying to always wing things so she's like, we need to fund all of us being here. So let's pre sell the bikinis that are landing in September. So I'm like, all right, cool, we'll do pre sale. We did that. So until now, right? Basically, we've sold out of majority of the September shipment. So now we've moved the pre sale to ship out in October.

So you're like 45 days pre sold.

Wow. It's shipping September 1st is September 15th. We're sold out of a lot of those colors and products and sizes, so.

And we're not talking about 20 units.

We'Re talking about 12,000. 12,000.

Wow.

Now here's the fascinating thing. You sell swimwear, but you don't really consider yourself a swimwear company. Right. That's where this is interesting to me. So what do you consider the brand to be?

Well, when I named Fuse Hawaii, at the time, I was making handbags out of melted trash bags. I was making screen printed shirts that I did in my garage, hats, anything. So I named it Fused because I wanted to fuse all of my artistic concepts together into one brand because I didn't know where it was going to land. And that was 10 years ago. So the name Fuse came from that. I didn't know what I was doing in the process, but I knew it was something that was going to continue to shift and I needed a name that could encompass whatever it is I'd be doing to 10 years later.

What would you say is like kind of the common thread that ties all the things that you've done over the past 10 years together?

I'm always selling something, I guess from.

The audience perspective though.

So that's what I've been trying to get clearer on currently, swimwear. It was definitely to build, empower women to live confidently in the skin that they're in. But what I'm realizing now is that a lot of people sell confidence. And as a brand, I feel like I'm trying to differentiate even more. Because as women, even though we feel confident at times, there's always going to be a time where you have a lack of confidence. So for the ideal fused Hawaii woman, it's not just feeling confident or saying you're confident, because we're always going to lack that at some point. So I believe that the one thing is always just taking that leap.

What do you mean by that?

When you don't believe or you don't know the results, the outcome, but you believe that what you're feeling, your intentions are good and going in that Direction is going to serve the better outcome once you make that leap, no matter what way you land. That I feel is kind of as I try to get clearer on my messaging. Confidence is one thing, but taking a leap, taking that risk, taking the jump, the girl who is going to decide to take a risk, not knowing where she's going to land or how, knowing that confidence in herself and landing however it is, she's going to be strong enough to stand again.

And how long have you been sharing that message on social or publicly?

Like just that message? I've actually I'm learning that in the past few couple of months getting very clear because I'm trying to sit daily with what is my messaging and just trying to niche down on my ideal customer. So yes, we have women, yes, we want them to be confident, but it takes more than that. It takes that belief in yourself. It takes realizing that along the way of gaining confidence and empowering others and yourself, you're going to fall.

So there's a nut I'm trying to crack and I don't know this piece of the story. Where did the. I know it took a long time to get to the point where you can pre sell 12,000 units of a product. Your audience is mostly social. I think Facebook.

Facebook.

So where did the swimwear has only existed for a year on this scale.

Everything like the last year.

Okay, so where was this inflection point? Did you have a video go viral? Okay, tell me, tell me.

I failed miserably in life. And so that's where it all started.

We're not gonna let you be self deprecating. We came into this podcast.

So yeah, I think I would say I would go back about two years. My mother lost her husband so I was pregnant at the time, sitting there as he took his last breath. So naming my child who was unborn at the time, a super close with him as the only man that ever took care of her in her life and she was only married to him for two years and he dies within a week from just a random cirrhosis of the liver. Like no. It was just no cause, no preparation. So in that moment he's dying father figure in my life. Seeing my mom in that pain, pregnant with my second at the time in business running my retail shop. My retail shop at the time I hired one of my best friends. I didn't realize at the time I was transitioning and all these. I was 28. I feel like every woman I've known at 28. I don't know if it happens to men too, because I don't pay attention to them.

So 28 seems to be a rumbling point for all of women. I didn't know that at the time. I think a lot of things were happening. I was hormonal, I was pregnant. I started self sabotaging in my friendships, in all of my relationships. So my best friend and I in business, that had to end. And I didn't realize like losing a friend was actually like a divorce because you have like women have an emotional connection, men, we connect differently, but women have a really deep emotional bond. So that friendship broke me in a lot of ways. But it opened me up to have to realize and be aware that alright, you have things because you really care for this person, but it's not going to work in the state you're in. So in order for me to not have this happen again because you care for these people that you're hurting and just to be a better person for my unborn child, for my mom who's really weak at the time and you know, sad and watching that. So literally when I was owning my retail shop and it was failing and losing money and losing my friends, losing people, I just decided I'm gonna go for a walk every day. One mile. And I went for a walk just to clear my mind. Started healing a lot in that process. I found myself walking eight miles after work every day. And it was just healing me. So I walked for like a straight year, just every day. Just made it a daily practice. Started reading books, started listening to podcasts, a lot of self development books. Started reading about friendships, relationships, communication. I hadn't read a book in years. I loved to read in the past. I stopped reading for years. So that year I started walking, I started reading, I started consuming content, I started applying it to my life. On my 30th birthday, I trained for a marathon. I hate running. I crossed the finish line on the day I turned 30.

Wow.

So that I just. During the training of the marathon, I made a lot of breakthroughs. Pushing yourself physically allowed me to realize I was in control of my body, my mind. So if I could do that, if I could run that many miles and push my body, I could push myself in all of these other areas. And so I ran another marathon three months later. Yeah, just. I think that would be the start. Failing and then rising from the ashes.

That was your, that was your personal transformation. That was like your personal inflection point, right?

Yeah. And everything goes hand in hand. Whether it's like the growing myself, grew my business and that's what's working now.

And what about the actual audience development? Because, I mean, you do Facebook lives and sometimes have a million viewers, right?

Yeah, I just.

Where did that.

Starting to share my story in the process on.

On your brand Facebook page, on Instagram.

Email, but mainly Facebook. I learned Facebook advertising, you know, like, we'll talk about later. But during that time, just being very real, the things I don't want to share. Sharing them.

And where were you posting all that?

Just Facebook. My Facebook. And promoting it to. I don't actually know where it goes.

Well, there had to be some sort.

Of Instagram, Facebook and email. I would type little stories out, and that's about it.

And so a little audience started to bubble, but then you started getting, like, million view videos and like a raving following. You're shrugging like, just Facebook.

It's just magic.

I just talk to them. And so every moment in life, even now, like here at this interview, my old self would have came here completely prepared of what to say. And I realized, throwing that whole itinerary away and just being present and showing whatever it is that comes out of your mouth at the time, that's all I did. That's all I'm doing now is what do you. What do they want to know? I ask them, and I speak exactly of what I'm going through.

So I think you've actually kind of answered a question that was rumbling around in my head when you first started talking. But, you know, this. This idea, this message that you're trying to spread of. Of going really further past getting women confidence and empowering women. Right. It's like allowing them to kind of like to take that step, to take that risk and everything, like, that's a big idea for a swimwear company. But coming from you, with your story and with that kind of. Do women typically find you kind of like through this very personal content that you have and then buy the swimsuit, or do you lead with the swimsuit and they just like the cut and all that kind of stuff? I guess.

Okay. Initially, I was leading with the swimsuit, but I led with the swimsuit, telling my personal story.

Interesting.

So the two patterns that I narrowed it down to were the patterns I created for myself, for my body after becoming a mom. When I started selling that, I told them that story. As a mom, I felt this way. My body was this way. I had these marks I want to cover. I feel uncomfortable in my skin. I felt uncomfortable. Growing up in Hawaii, land of swimwear. You have to be in this outfit all the time. So swimwear is the most vulnerable piece of clothing because lingerie is one thing, but nobody sees that. It's one person swimwear. You're out in public in lingerie, basically. And so for me, it was the most vulnerable place to be as a woman. So to feel confident in your skin, in that state, if I was able to make a woman feel that way, that would be a win for me.

Do you feel like you've accomplished it?

I'm getting there. I'm in the process.

I feel like on a small scale, there's just a lot more impact that can be made.

The physical products, brand, the swimwear came after the audience was already growing. Is that correct?

The brand itself, like I said, it evolved from. From when I was making handbags and I was making apparel. The swimwear came first. The story came with. It's all just been intertwined. So I made swimwear for me. I slapped my logo on it. We sold that instead of T shirts that day. And then I'm like, wow, people like this. The stories they're telling me is, I bought this suit because it made me feel comfortable going out to the beach with my kids. It covered this part of my stomach or my sides, or I love the wider sides because it did this. And I'm like, that's exactly why I made it. That is really cool. They're wearing it for the exact reason I created that design. And in my head I'm thinking, I'm not a designer. Why did no one do this yet?

Seems too easy.

Yeah.

The best ideas do.

So I'm like, this is just a bikini. I mean, the pattern. You can be a seamstress and you can go and copy this pattern. So it's. I knew it was the product along with the story that created the audience. Because at this point, we can sell any product, but it's a story. But I have to fully believe in the product as well.

How do people find the products at this point? Are you just talking about them in your social media posts?

I don't talk about it. I tell them not to buy it. Actually, you know, I tell them in my lives, it's not the bikini on our hang tags. It says, you do not need the perfect body. You need the perfect, perfect bikini. When in my lives I tell them, look, you can order a bikini on Amazon for a fifth of the price. It's not the swimwear. Like, feel good about yourself first. Buy any bikini you want. I don't care.

Because at the end of the day, we just Want the confident women. And we want to talk to you. If I can just fund this process to continue talking to them.

I got you.

We'll talk later.

This guy's ready to give you some money.

I am. Where?

I just want to give you money.

So I want to go back to, you know, the story that you told with your mom's husband dying and, you know, being pregnant and kind of going through this. This change with your friend and kind of leading you to this point. Right. I want to go to this inflection point that in the middle, Right. When you went from this retail environment to selling online. Can you tell that part of the story?

Yeah. So it was December. I forgot. Is it 2016? We were on the last. We had one year left of our lease. And with that lease in Hawaii, I just had a small shop. We were paying $3,000 a month to be there. With all the overhead and everything, plus the employees, basically, I was losing $10,000, sometimes more a month to hold everything together. I had always loved the Internet. I built a couple of websites before. Those are the ones my husband actually runs now. But I just love to tinker around in my garage and create little websites and just do what was fun. It stopped being fun. I went into retail. I went into retail because every girl at some point wants to own a boutique. And I said, At 80 years old, I want to look back and say, I did that. I don't care what happens. You know, I just want to be this old lady telling these cool stories. And so I did that. So it failed. Did you have the stories? Yes. And so we had a year left in our lease, and I just knew we had to survive the year and pay the overhead. I'm like, how are we gonna do this? We are maxed out. We use our savings. I just maximize my credit cards. I paid down one enough where we had that we had 20,000 on it to use, but I had to pay it. As we were building Facebook ads, my husband was like, he does Amazon. He was toying around with some Facebook ads. He's like, it works. You should try it. I'm like, all right, what's it about? Okay, cool. How do I do it? All right, I should ask more questions. I don't recommend this to anybody because it is, like, such a bad idea to just throw $20,000 on an offer. So we were going to visit some family in Hong Kong that. That week, and I'm like, we are dying. And, like, if we come back from this trip, I'm going to be Broke. I have to like let go of everyone. And so did an offer. It was an offer for, I believe at the time, a 15 or $20 bikini. And I left it at that. I built out on Canva, just flat lays of the product on a white backdrop with like some horrible font that said 50 or whatever number it was. $20 bikini offer, threw it out. We built a little look alike audience of purchasers that had come to my shop and we had gotten their emails. And then I left to Hong Kong. I didn't even think about it. I just threw everything like, here's that bye, because this doesn't work. Well, then I guess we've really failed. And so went to Hong Kong, landed. And I'm like, we got some orders. Oh cool. And then it was like 100 orders, 200 orders. We're like, oh, we should probably take care of that. I should call some people at the shop and tell them to ship out these things. And so we get back to the office after this week. I had hundreds of orders to ship out. Never experienced that before. We're just grabbing some manila envelopes, shipping things out, and the girls are sewing in the back of the shop. We're like, oh my gosh, what's happening? So that's what happened. And as the sales were coming in, we're like, all right, we have to pay the credit card down on the daily to pay for the ads. And so that's what was happening. And yeah, that was the.

Was it the ad or was it the audience?

What was the reason why that took off?

I don't know. It was a good offer. It was a really good offer. I believe we had an audience already, but I never tried to monetize my audience. So I had a following on Instagram at the time of about 13,000.

Never utilized our email addresses. So when we created the lookalike audience, this was the first ad they'd ever seen of me trying to sell them something. So I believe I served them for 12 years. I mean, 10 years straight as a brand. You know, I would do local events a lot.

But I never tried to sell them.

So there was some familiarity there and a relationship kind of already established over a 10 year period.

Yeah, and what was happening was I only spoke to Hawaii and I only sold in Hawaii. So when I released the ad, everybody in California, Washington who had followed us but weren't able to purchase product.

So there's some pent up demand there too.

Hey, podcast listeners. So as you may or may not know, January 20th through the 23rd is the Capitalism Conference in Dallas, Texas. It is going to be a really, really cool event and it always sells out. So have you been before? So great. If you have, then you already know how good of an event it is and you should have already bought your ticket. And if you haven't been, well, let me tell you, I've been to a lot of conferences and this is hands down one of the best. It has a really killer lineup of speakers. Ryan always does a good job of bringing in people who have built, you know, nine figure brands and, you know, the wealth strategists to the world's richest people and all that kind of stuff. But if possible, the networking is honestly even better than the content. Right? The content is going to help you move forward, but those connections can really, really be transformative to your business and you will not find a better group of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, investors and specialists congregating anywhere else. So I'm being 100% honest from my own experience. It's really likely that your biggest business changing connections are going to come out of this conference. So if you haven't bought your ticket yet, it's not too late. But just make sure to pick it up as soon as possible because like I said, this event does sell out and it's coming up soon, January 20th to 23rd in Dallas, Texas. So hopefully I will see you there.

Do you know where the audience really took off in terms of size and response rate?

Just since I've been telling them the truth, being really vulnerable. Stop selling them, telling them what my mission is and my story, really doing the easiest job ever. I decided to stop complicating my life. Just stop creating what I think they want to hear or what they should or what I want to be and just be whoever the heck I am in that moment. You know, it takes a lot less energy and it's a lot more truth and authenticity and people realize that it's not bullshit. At the end of the day, it's really easy.

And what is the audience size at this point?

So our Facebook audience is just under thirty thousand. Our Instagram around the same thirty thousand. Our email lists around the same thirty thousand straight across the board.

And between the three of those, or among three of those, you're doing like one hundred fifty thousand in sales.

Yeah, last month it was like one hundred and sixty four. One hundred and sixty four. But we had to return about eleven thousand dollars because we had to cancel some orders because they didn't get it shipped in time. So, yeah, that's been the hardest the main thing is just making it very clear now, like, we are back ordered. You know, you will not get your suit for a long time.

Setting expectations.

Yeah, until we figure this out, you're not getting a suit, but you can order if you want. So just telling them that.

Do you know where you want to take the brand in the business at this point?

So, of course, to grow the business financially and the sales is my goal, because I'm able to use that to fund this process to provide jobs to these women now that are on my team that are just growing alongside me. I feel like growing the brand, the audience. I'm able to just experience these really cool moments with everybody as they grow, because I think when something great happens to us, the first thing we do is share it with somebody. That's all it's about, is connecting and growing alongside people and watching their growth happen as well. So that's for me to just take that as far as I can and to be completely true to myself and authentic along the way, because I think we lose that intention when we start making a certain amount of money. Not making, but focusing on the profits. So every day, as I continue towards that goal of impacting women on a larger scale within myself, continuously growing myself to be better for that, because in order to lead that, I need to be that.

Do you have a product lineup that you have planned or.

That was my next question as well.

So my limited business knowledge of what my lineup.

So what I've seen is our audience is moms. I'm a mom, so I speak to moms really well. So. So currently, I would love to grow my loyal audience of moms alongside. We have a lot of fitness water lovers who are very active in the water. And our suits are made for functioning. Because I was surfing at the time, I was making the suit to be functional in active sports without shifting. And so that's another audience, but the mom group, I definitely. I know how to speak to them. And what I have in mind is they're asking for suits for their daughters. I have three daughters. We love to just match them up, make them look cute. Every time we go to the beach, I'll sew us a set of suits so that we can wear.

What a luxury for kids.

So I literally cut the patterns, and they're growing so fast that I have to make these constantly. It's tiring.

And so I would love to release a children's swimwear line. Of course, variations of prints and colors, we can only expand so much. But the suit that works Right now, I notice if I just launch a different print, they're waiting for fun prints. I've asked them what prints they wanted. I have a whole list of all their suggestions. So we just go down that list as we print new prints. And, I mean, they just tell me what they want. And so children's swimwear that match the Mommy and Me collection. What I am passionate about as well is anything that has helped me through this transitional period. Because, like, journaling, they have planners and confidence journals or happiness planners. It's like that has been a big part of my transition as well. And that's something that I can speak on, that actually show results. So things like that, productivity, all of those things that basically I lived experience. Experience and have seen good results from.

That's what I was gonna say is, I mean, the great thing about what you're doing is having that broad promise, being about empowerment and about being able to feel comfortable taking that risk. It really opens you up to. You can sell whatever you want under.

That as long as it took action. You know, it's not just, I want to be confident. I want to sit in this suit and look pretty. No, I took action. Like, I read a ton of books. I listened to a ton of podcasts. Like, it could have been at the beach with my friends. Yeah. I didn't have friends for two years. And so. And with beach wear, you know, we always want the matching towel. We want sunglasses with the print on the side. Like, we want the bikini printed on our cars. Like, that's how crazy women are. It's endless.

Glad I didn't say the woman.

We buy things that don't, you know, and if we love a bikini because it fits our body so well, we buy it in 10 colors. And so. Yeah.

Yeah. I was showing my girlfriend your site this morning, and she's like, yeah, it's all about the fit. I would easily pay these prices if it fit right.

It doesn't matter.

So one of the things that we've often come back to as a theme, and, Max, we've had countless discussions about this personally, is that when you dial in the audience and the message, your price point can go way up, whatever.

You want it to be.

And so many physical product sellers are stuck in just selling the product. And so it becomes about reviews and price wars.

Commodity.

Yeah, it becomes a commodity. And, Roxelle, I don't even think you have an Amazon presence. Is that correct?

No.

So you don't have reviews?

No, I have over 2000 on my site.

2000 reviews.

About 2000. Just under on.

Just on your website?

On my Shopify site.

And did you have to do much to get those?

Oh, I didn't even know they were there until recently.

Oh, my goodness.

I love it. It's like, this stuff works.

You know, they're like, oh, you can use these testimonials and these customer photos that are there in these Facebook ads. And so I'm like, so just two weeks ago, I'm like, oh, cool. They told me to do this. So I went through, like, these customer photos are great ads. They're the best performing. Who would have thought?

Yeah.

And so now my job's really easy. I just grab that and I'll email them. I'm like, you know, do you mind if we use this? They're like, do you need more photos?

Yes.

She's like, I have three kids. We can put them all in a photo. I'm like, this is great. And here's something for you. Here's a gift card. Here's a discount, because that's what we have to give. And this is super valuable to us.

That's just so powerful because it really is an authentic relationship. Right? There's give and take there. It's not like deposit, deposit, deposit withdrawal. It's kind of like more organic on.

The price point, too. Going off of raising our prices. So we have done that. So with a $20 bikini, you know, now a suit, one piece is $120, which we don't have a problem selling. But our offer is still. We lead with the offer. Hey, try this first bikini out for $20. So I've been told to not do that because as a fashion brand, you discount yourself and you will always be a discounted brand. I bought into that for a little while. I keep wavering on this because what I'm leading with is I really love my customers. I realize they come from all different backgrounds. And yes, as much as I can sell $120 bikini, which I still have on my site, I still want to be allowed to sell to somebody who can afford it. And so I still have this offer, and it's. It does extremely well. But I literally, like, I hold on to that. Not because it. It just converts, but it brings people. So with that $20 offer, what I'm getting is women who say, I will never be able to afford $120 bikini. I know that's not true. But bringing it them into my community, those women I now get to spend, speak to those women and allow them to believe, like, you can actually one day afford this $120 bikini. I don't care if you buy this $20 one, but stop telling yourself that. Self deprecating. Yeah, I'm speaking to myself, basically. And so me leading with that offer just allows me to have a bigger audience of my ideal customer who needs to hear my message.

So did I hear you write that the price is $120? It went from 20 to 120, but you still lead with the first purchase.

Is $20.

Yes. On select fabrics.

Got it.

So our custom prints will always be the higher price points, but they will be allowed to try the suit on in a solid color. And from that we see. All right, we get a $450 order in. Where was their first purchase? The $20 offer?

Yeah. So I mean, this is a very tactical question, and I've been avoiding these because you have such a great story and kind of such an organic way of going about your business. But let's say someone comes in with a $20 offer and they get introduced to your community, into your message and all that kind of stuff. How long do you typically have to nurture them along before they make that first full price?

Some of them are purchasing three orders in a month.

Wow.

I mean, my. So when I just. I just checked, just my Shopify analytics, it says our return customer rate this month was 35%.

That's great.

I don't know what that means, but I heard that's great.

Yeah.

I told Molly at Pittman, I was like, my conversion rate right now, it's really horrible. I'm ashamed to show you it's almost 4%. And she's like, for your industry, that's really good, but I know I can do better. And she's like, just be happy. That is a really good. But yes, we can do better. But. So the numbers are cool. I don't. I've never looked. You know, that's why my audience that I've been sitting on forever, I didn't realize those numbers were there.

Yeah.

My email list didn't realize that was there. My testimonials, my reviews. Cool. I opened it up like, that is awesome. I love reading that. It's super positive. It's good inspiration for me to keep going.

So, yeah, I think about in clothing specifically, when I buy a brand, I buy everything in the brand. If I like it, if it's right.

Exactly.

And so it would totally make sense to, in my mind, do.

You're basically doing a tripwire offer.

Yeah, exactly.

A chance to Try it out right on your basic patterns. And when they see the fit, then they're gonna. 35% of them are gonna upgrade to the more expensive.

And we're still profitable on that tripwire. I make sure our margins are still, we're making money still on that offer. So I can. Yeah.

With the audience responding well and you out of inventory and basically pre selling your way forward, are you advertising anywhere? Is there anything that you're scaling or are you holding on for dear life right now?

Oh, I just do my normal on Facebook. I do my weekly lives, I'll do pop up lives and I also do our weekly emails. So always we're very really consistent with our emails.

Do you know on average how many people watch your, your lives?

Well, it depends. Like when I'm like, I just did one in my room.

I don't know, I mean like we'll have. It varies what time frame. You know, sometimes I can have 30 people at a time, like live with me. And then I don't know, whatever. It's. If it's. I can turn that into an ad also. So if I push it out. So just the other day we looked how many people actually watched our videos on the ad sets? I think I had like over 3,000 that watch. 95%, you know, so how long are they? Oh, they're so long. And like, I'm like, who watches this? It's like a half an hour. A lot of them because I'm just chatting. There's nothing.

So here's what I'm wondering. You do regular lives. Some of them become ads.

How do you know that something is.

Hitting enough for you to be able to run traffic to that and so much so that it's getting 12,000 pre orders. There's gotta be. There had to be one that went viral or one that, that really hit a vein.

I don't know, I don't, I don't think about it because when I do, it messes everything up.

You just keep giving.

Yeah. The moment I think about profit or my overhead, I mean, I realize like I have to be profitable, but I also realize that once I think about that, I'm leading with that and it messes everything up. So my only job is to be present, to use my Entire mornings till 10 o' clock to clear my head so that. So on Mondays when I go live, I don't work at all. I take completely off. I'm like, I'll go shopping, I'll go to the beach. Just because when I show up at 3 o', clock. I have to give them my energy. So in order for me to protect that space for them and to give them of myself, I have to create the time for me to be present. Because if I start my Mondays like I used to to do in work mode, I'm not giving them my full self. And I'm tired and I'm stressed and I'm thinking about all the things that Monday brought. So I take it off completely and I just swim in the water, look at the sky, look at the fish, play with my kids, and then I turn the camera on.

So check this out. Just this morning, as I was doing my morning ritual and then my morning meditation and I had this conversation with myself is like, how would I show up if I just thought about giving and I let the profit take care of itself? My natural reaction is to worry about profit loss margin. That's my natural reaction, is to think about it. And I'm 30, almost 31, and I've realized, like, that got me here. And I'm wondering which is what would happen as a split test if I let go of the need to worry about profit and loss and I just worried about giving. And I've decided to split test it. And so you are edifying that split test right now. And then I decided that every day until 10am I was gonna take to myself to just be present enough so that I could give to other people. You are.

Well, unfortunately, I never knew about profit and loss and I, like, am horrible.

At all of that.

So I just realized, wow, I really suck at that. So even when I try, I'm gonna screw it up. And so fortunately, I didn't know any of that or business at all. So all the business that has come. Cool.

Yeah, I just want to have fun.

Well, it seems like you're doing a.

Great job on that.

Max.

Anything else?

No, I'm good. This is great. Thank you for sharing your story. It's really incredible.

Roxal, you're my avatar, if you will, my ideal person. I love to work with the person that I just get so much enjoyment out of speaking to and working with. So thank you for representing what I think every brand builder should be thinking about, caring about people, giving first. And as a result, you're killing it.

And now I can go to the pool.

That's right.

I told my husband, I'm like, I'm gonna go down the slide today. So there's a slide, right?

Yeah, there's outside.

Yeah.

And a lazy river, I think.

Oh, that's where I'LL be.

Yeah.

Because I have to prepare for tomorrow.

Yeah. That energy.

Yeah.

Roxelle, you'll be on stage tomorrow, sharing, sharing the story at Brand Builder Summit. So glad to have you.

Cool.

Thanks for being with us.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

Hey Brand Builders, we hope you enjoyed this podcast by capitalism.com check out our website for upcoming events and additional content about building businesses, building brands, and investing. My name is Max Kerwick and my mission in life is to transform businesses into brands. If you have any feedback about the show, any guests you want to see, case studies covered, topics explored, or frankly, just any questions about branding in general, just shoot me an email@maxmaxrandbuilderstrategy.com again, that's maxrandbuilderstrategy.com and I'd love to hear from you. One quick note, if you could subscribe to the podcast or even leave us a review on itunes, these things really do make a big difference in helping us book amazing guests and then also helping people just like you find the podcast. So thanks and we'll see you next time.