How To Turnaround A Struggling Business... PLUS - Is Monsanto Evil? | #FFLTV Ep 19

All right, ready to go. What's up fastlaners? Welcome to Freedom Fastlane tv. Today we're talking about Monsanto. Uh oh, somebody's gonna get upset. We'll look at selling low margin products in order to build brand equity and we'll look at a anti dog cancer brand. Okay, show some clip.

Oh boy. So news came out this past month that the food giant Monsanto might have known that spraying chemicals on food was bad for you. What they knew, who would have thought some leaked documents between the EPA and some executives on Monsanto suggested that they might have had knowledge that they tried to cover up. So the news says now. Oh, controversial statement coming. I have never been on the anti Monsanto train because they've just done what has been allowed by both customers and the government. So as we look at this at point, this what has gone on, I think there is someone even more guilty than Monsanto and I think the blame lies squarely on government. When we have something like this come out, when we see that a company has done something dirty, especially when it comes from leaked documents that are communicated between a company and government, blame automatically goes to the company. But I say why are we not more upset at the real culprit which is government which stamps approval onto companies through crony capitalism and says keep doing what you're doing. This is what happens when government gets in bed with business. This is the danger of creating agencies that are supposed to take care of us or be watchdogs or have oversight over other companies or make sure that individuals are protected. This is the danger because when you trust that to government, the government is now the stamp of approval of a lot of stuff that you don't know that goes on rather than allowing the market to allow information to flow and for customers to get what they demand. If the EPA and the government regulation was out of the way, the customer demand would be king rather than government approval or government's big stamp and they're okay of things going into the marketplace. If you want real change, if you want the causes that you believe in to exist in the world and to be available in the marketplace, the worst thing we can possibly do is give control over to a government organization that will only slow down progress. Because we don't rise to the standard that government sets, we fall to the lowest common denominator that government allows. It's just like no Child Left Behind. We think that is going to drive up the quality of education. Well, that's what it was intended to do. But what happens instead is we fall to a minimum standard that the government sets. And then we all complain, why is education so out of whack in this country? So yes, we should all be upset about the fact that there are chemicals sprayed on our food and that it's allowed. But we don't blame only the organization that's doing it. We blame the organization that we have indirectly elected and said it's okay to do this. The solution, by the way, is not to change the guard at the epa. The solution is not to have more regulation or more government oversight. It is to eliminate it altogether and put individuals, through private exchange, through capitalism, in charge, through what they demand in the marketplace. That is how you will get the change that you want to see in the world.

Alan Perlmuter asks is it okay to sell products with no profit margin along with highly profitable products in order to boost recognition?

How you doing Whoever's editing this video?

Okay to go in a completely different direction? Is it okay to sell low margin products alongside high margin products to boost brand recognition? Absolutely. In fact, there's this quote that I like that I might have made up. So we'll give credit to Ryan Daniel Moran for saying he who is willing to lose money the longest usually wins in the marketplace. What I mean by that is the longer you can delay the profit or make it deeper in your customer funnel, the more money you will ultimately make. Because there's this term that digital marketer kind of coined of the tripwire of what is the product that everybody wants and they're usually buying on price that if you were able to eliminate all profit margin and just sell on the marketplace to get customers now flowing to your other higher margin products, what would be that in your customer experience? I think that is a great thing for most business owners to consider. The thing that I find dangerous or really short sighted in most people's businesses is they just look at a marketplace and say what are people buying? Let's sell that and let's just do it cheaper. Because then we just have price wars and things falling. But if you want to have a piece of your overall product portfolio dedicated to just getting as many customers as possible, go for it and then lead them into your higher profit products. I think that is the fastest way to grow a company because you get the most customers and now most people who are out there selling physical products are just selling products rather than serving people. The difference here is if you're just selling spatulas as my classic example, then you've gotta sell low margin products and make $2 a spatula over and over and over and over again. And the minute somebody moves in and sells a spatula for less than you, you're screwed and you're out of business. Whereas if you serve moms, you have 1,000 products that you can sell that demographic. So spatulas could be a no margin product that you sell just to get in front of more moms so they come in and they buy more stuff and by doing so you get more moms, which ultimately build your business. Cause they're gonna buy spatulas and they're gonna buy food and they're gonna buy all kinds of things. So if you have higher margin products, and you should, then I think it's a totally good strategy to sell low margin products to get more customers in. The danger is in if you are just selling commodities, if you're just selling low margin products, that is a really hard way to build a business.

Ryan Nemechek asks, what advertising method did you have the best return on when you first started selling physical products?

What advertising method did have the best offer? Roi? Well, when we first had just one product and I was still figuring this game out, we threw everything at the wall. But I know for a fact that doing Amazon pay per click and doing giveaways had an immediate roi, because at least at that time it was fairly easy to rank for keywords on Amazon. And that was what drove the majority of our revenue for those first two years or so. When we really figured out what we were doing and when we had more than one product, then it all came from our customer list and from our mailing list. So if you have one product in the marketplace and you're trying to sell product, then I would say the old school. And by old school, I mean the stuff I've been teaching for 3, 4 years about ranking for keywords on Amazon and taking sales probably will have the best roi. I don't recommend that most business owners go out there with one product. I recommend that they build brands that they collect three to five products or product ideas that they're going to build their business around. And if that's the case, then you need to go out and get audience members on an email list or a Facebook page or an Instagram following and you need to be promoting your brand to those people and that is going to be the best roi. I hate to dodge the question, but there are many ways to skin this cat. If you ask Dollar Shave Club what their best ROI was, it's a that one video that we spent $5,000 on that was seen by millions of people and put us on the map. That's the reason why we sold for a billion dollars. So the important thing is that you have some way to drive up enough attention to take sales from day one. Whether that is using an outside blast service to give away as much of your product as possible so that you rank for keywords, or you have a mailing list, or you have the ability to create a viral video and get it in front of a lot of people. Any of these will accomplish that goal. The important thing is that you make a splash in front of as many people as possible for as long as possible. Even if that means going in the red to do so. So that you get the collective awareness for the brand that you're building. And the collective awareness might mean ranking for keywords, it might mean having 1,000 people on an email list. It means that in the follow up promotions you can crank a lever and, and take sales and be profitable. But that initial stage is all about drumming up enough awareness so that when you have a follow up, that one is profitable. So whatever method you're comfortable with, you're good at executing and you're willing to go into the red or at least break even to do that. That is the process for setting yourself up for success. When we did that, it was through running as much Amazon pay per click as possible and also doing as many giveaways as we were comfortable with. So that we had customers, we had reviewers, and we had the keyword rankings that would make.

Subsequent, you know what I'm saying, the next sales and the next products profitable. And that's how we dominated. But there are multiple ways to skin that gap.

This is the part of the show where we look at one of our students businesses, analyze what they could be doing better and, and where they're sitting on opportunities. Today's submission comes from Brandon Floyd. His product business is Otis Dog Factors. Otis Dog Factors is only selling a handful of products per day. And I wanted to highlight this brand because I think they're sitting on a really cool opportunity that with one little tweak they could go from what is right now just an idea taking a few customers a day to, to something that is truly a brand and a big business. So what I'm gonna do is I wanna read Brandon's question word for word. Cause it sets the tone for how I want to answer this question. First of all, this is a pet supplement brand and they exist to address certain diseases.

In the dog world. So that would be cancer, diabetes, under Eating, lack of energy, and he goes on with a list of other symptoms. His exact question looks like this. I have developed a respectable audience size on social media and I have a decent sized email list, but I'm not seeing conversions from any of these sources. What are some other strategies I can implement to attract customers to my product? This is a very new and very unique product and most customers, if any at all, are not familiar with it. We can fix that. It is hard to gain the attention of the masses if there are no other products like this one to compare to. I disagree. Now what this shows is you are looking at what's currently in the marketplace and saying, how do I do exactly what they're doing but with a completely different product. I say that is the wrong question to ask. You're addressing a problem that pretty much every dog owner has or will have or is afraid. So you don't highlight your product, you don't highlight your differentiating factor. You highlight the pain point. If you hit the pain point hard enough, or really more accurately enough, if you can describe the pain as well as the customer can, then it almost doesn't matter what your product is. If you can describe the pain, then almost any solution will resonate with the people listening. The way you can do this, I'd recommend doing videos on Facebook and or YouTube talking about the problem and then highlighting your product. So obviously Brandon, you care about your customers, you care about what is in your product. So I know you're not the type of person who would just sell rice flour as a pet supplement. So if it's actually a good product that you think the world needs to have, then it's your duty to highlight the pain and connect them to your product. You'll do that by talking about the causes of the problem, talking about case studies of people who have experienced the problem, and then showing how your product is different enough to where they should choose you to solve the problem. I would not recommend comparing your product to someone else's product. I would compare your product to the pain that the customer is experiencing. I would also recommend that you listen to the podcast that we did with Lori Taylor. Lori has a brand very similar to this. It's called True Dog. She's not solving the same problems that you have. She's selling dog food. But she talks about how she developed her brand story. She talks about how she connected with customers and, and how she used Facebook to build a eight figure company in about 18 months. So I'd recommend you go over to freedomfastlane.com or you subscribe on itunes and listen to the podcast episode with Lori Taylor. There is a tremendous amount of money in the pets world. The reason why your product is not resonating right now is because you are not truly communicating the pain that your product solves. If you focus on that and you go off of Amazon and you drum up support from other places where people are already having this conversation, you'll have no problem turning this brand into a multi million dollar business. I would recommend going out and putting your message in front of where your audience already hangs out. So that could be pet photo forums, it could be Facebook groups, it could be other blogs that have email lists. If your product does what you say it does, then it's an easy sell because everybody knows this pain is already out there. So communicate the pain in your product marketing, connect with the people who control the eyeballs in this market and Otis Dog Factors will have no problem hitting seven figures in the next 12 months. That case study was such a perfect example of the fact that I think private business and capitalism is the best shot that we have at solving really, really big problems. We have a lot of those in the world and the temptation today is to wait for the right guy or the right girl to come in and solve all of them and the right government agency to reflect what you believe. But I think it comes down to personal responsibility that solves all the world's problems. Whether that is personal responsibility of you demanding certain things in the marketplace or you holding both politicians and businesses accountable for their actions and the effects that they have on the environment and in people's bodies. That's your responsibility. And it is also entrepreneurs responsibility to solve big problems through the products that they put into the marketplace. So kudos to Brandon for solving such a big problem with the products that he wants to release in the world. I think that's why entrepreneurs are our best shot. We need as many of them as possible and we need less government and more personal responsibility if we want the world that we all desire and envision. Thanks for watching the show. I appreciate you sharing this message with any entrepreneur or future entrepreneur that would find value in it. We'll see you guys in the next episode of Freedom Fastlane tv.