I'm Stuck At 10 Sales Per Day: Should I Double Down Or Move On? #FreedomFastLane

I'd love to be able to solve a problem for a customer base.

Same thing with me, Nick. We've been chatting for under six minutes and we have already picked the exact thing that you need to do next.

Build a business, invest the profits. I'm Ryan Daniel Moran and this is Freedom Fastlane.

Hey fastlaners. Today we're going to be talking with longtime listener first time caller Nick, who has been building a physical products brand to a specific audience. But he's had trouble breaking out past between five and $10,000 a month in sales. And what he's been struggling with is the product first approach. And he listens to the Amazing.com crowd and the Amazon sellers crowd about what should be done in order to take sales on Amazon. And a lot of, in a lot of cases, that's really good advice. I'm a big fan of a lot of those guys. But what I have found the challenge to be in that type of an approach is that you prioritize algorithms and products rather than selling to people. And that was Nick's challenge too. Now you can hear the conflict in his voice where he's like, I know how to serve this person, but I'm not sure how to make it sustainable and have a long term sales channel that allows me to do this at scale. So we go in and we fix this for him and we come up with some strategies and some daily things that he can do in order to set himself on the path to building rating customers and having predictable sales and being able to identify if the products that he's selling are the right ones for this audience. I know a lot of you might have product ideas or you've got products in the marketplace but you're not sure if they're the right ones for the business that you want to build. That's where Nick was too. So we go in with our samurai sword and we fix that so that he's got a clear path to building those three to five products that each sell 25 sales a day and take you to that million dollar brand. By the way, if you want to carve out your plan to your first hundred sales, go to capitalism.com brands. Take the challenge of defining those first four products and the audience that you will serve and how you will bring the product to them in the marketplace. That's your pivot point to building a scalable sellable business. That's capitalism.com brands. And in the meantime, enjoy this discussion with longtime listener first time caller Nick and listen how we pivot him from a A struggling brand trying to break through that first $10,000 a month to something with a lot more upside. Enjoy.

Hey Nick, welcome to Freedom Fastlane, man. What's going on?

Hey Ryan, how are you?

I'm doing very well, thanks. Nick, why don't you tell me a little bit about your business and what you're trying to do and I'll see how I can help.

Sure thing, man. So my business name is Penguini and it's pretty much it's a company to help parents go plastic free in terms of helping their kids eat and drink. And so ideally it like my go to market strategy was with Amazon and you know, listening to you and listening to kind of the ASM people and all that, I learned a lot. But in terms of how I can kind of build a business on Amazon. So that's kind of where I'm at now and I'm thinking about building other distribution channels like Shopify and whatnot, but I'm trying to really kind of get my Amazon store kind of topped out before I make any sudden movements anywhere else.

Okay, great. So how is it going so far?

So I launched in November and it did really well. Initially did a big pre launch. I built a Facebook group, kind of learnt from you as well, where I built kind of like a community of people and then I gave them content. And then pretty much one month after I gave them content over and over again I told them I'm introducing a product and so that helped me kind of build a community of people. And so I did like around 15,000 Instagram in my first month, which was great. But then I started to think like, okay, like I need to, you know, kind of get in touch with my inner genius, whatever, you know, the things that you say. And I realized that for me is the branding, the new products, the staying in touch with customers, but not so much the detail work of PPC or optimization and stuff like that. So I started to kind of outsource some of the listing optimization in PPC and that kind of went downhill. I started to lose money and I was okay, like this clearly isn't the role. No one's gonna care as much as me. So after that I hired a va which could help me also. So not so good. So I'm kind of back to me doing the PPC and optimization and trying to create a system or something. So from around 10 to $15,000 a month in sales, I'm down to around 4,000.

Okay.

Yeah. And actually this is great timing because I launched my second product Today.

Okay, good for you. Congratulations. Thank you.

Yeah.

So here's my quick analysis.

That's where I am.

Yeah. So here's my very quick analysis. It sounds to me as though you are prioritizing a few things that you think that you should do, like optimizing and running pay per click, and those are things that you don't necessarily enjoy. Am I close so far?

Mm, totally.

All right, so here's the good news. Bad news to that, Nick, is that you're prioritizing those things and they aren't working.

So that actually means you don't have to do them.

Okay.

So I want you to just play with me for a second and ask yourself the question. If you didn't have to do pay per click or the optimization that you don't like, where would you put that energy?

Like I said, I personally love the portion of staying in touch with my customers.

Kind of drawing that customer. Customer profile to then understand how I can continue delivering value. Yeah, right.

How do you go about doing that? How do you serve the customer and continually provide value for them?

By staying in touch, by, you know, trying to get reviews and, you know, literally calling my customers. Also a technique from you.

You know, just things like that. And as well as.

I guess, making sure that kind of I choose the right products and I do the right customer discovery with that before I even launch anything.

So it's what I'm hearing you say is where you really get energy out of this business is in understanding the customer, communicating with the customer, and developing products that serve that person. Is that right?

Yeah, totally.

Okay, so if you prioritized only that it was the thing that you did from 9am to 3pm Every day was you connected with your customers, listened to them, and modified or explored new product offerings, what do you think would happen?

I think I'd be able to build a business or at least have a vision for a business that could be successful. Because, like I said, like, I want to be able to solve the problems that my customers have rather than assume that these products could work. Right. Even. Even with, like, a criteria on to find a profitable product on Amazon. Like, I'm not really geared towards that approach. Whereas I'd love to be able to solve a problem for a customer base.

The same thing. Same thing with me. So here's Nick. We've been chatting for under six minutes, and we have already.

Picked the exact thing that you need to do next. So the next step for you is to go all in on your customer. What you have been doing up until this point has been going all in on the algorithm. Do you know what I mean when I say that?

I think so. Algorithm, as in like me trying to optimize it for Amazon rather than. Right.

You've been optimizing for the platform and for sales and for numbers rather than for optimizing for a person. What you don't know, actually, I think you do know this, you've just been not executing on this, is that if you go all in on the person, the algorithms and the numbers will support it.

Really geared towards that approach. Whereas I'd love to be able to solve a problem for a customer base.

The same thing with me. So here's Nick. We've been chatting for under six minutes and we have already.

Picked the exact thing that you need to do next. Best to deliver value to the customer. In some businesses, the value that they give to their customer is the most adequate product at the cheapest price and it ranks the highest. That's the value that they provide. You need pens. We sell pens. They're cheap and they work. You get them on Amazon. Some people serve their customer by. By providing a lot of content and building connection with the audience and then selling them what they need. Some people provide value by listening to the challenges of their target market and developing solutions for those challenges. The way that you serve your person makes up the value of the business and that's a little bit different in all cases and it's different than what you sell. So your pivot point at this point in your growth is relaxing the things you think you have to do and prioritizing the things that are of value to the customer. And then you can work in the optimization pieces later once you've got the buy in of the people who voluntarily want to give you money.

Right, right. Okay.

Do you understand what I'm telling you?

Yeah. I mean, that makes. That makes sense. Yeah, I think I do. I mean it totally. It makes sense, but it seems like it seems like the holistic thing to do. It doesn't like, you know, listening to that. Just. I don't know where to start with, like, with what you mean. Like when you say deliver value, isn't kind of me building the right product for them some sort of value?

Yes, but what did you say at the top of this call you would do if you did not have to do optimization and pay per click? What did you say that you would do?

I would stay in touch with my customers and try to.

So stay there for a second. How do you stay in touch with your Customers.

Three, through phone calls, through emails, through social media.

Great. So that's where we start because that is your data gathering for developing the products that they need the most. Now, where you're going to run into challenges is calling your customers is a good idea. It's not scalable. We don't need to be scalable right now. But you're gathering intel like.

You are gathering information about what the customer needs so that you can serve them. One of the things that that might influence is the content you create on social media is the messaging of your brand, is the product that you end up releasing. What I would recommend you start to think about is how you can crowdsource some of that feedback from your customers. Can you get them into a Facebook group, a Slack channel, a text message thread, a WhatsApp group, some way that you can get feedback as a crowd rather than individual to individual, and that you use that as your resource, your data resource, so that an hour a day you can get feedback and a pulse of your customers and seven hours a day you can be developing messaging content and product that help that crowd. And then watch how fast those hundred or those 500 people rally around your message and your product and voluntarily give you reviews so that you don't have to ask for them. Watch how fast they respond to that because for the first time they feel really heard by a business that serves them.

Okay. And so you're saying the first step to building that is some sort of a community, either via Facebook group or text message or Slack channel?

Yeah, the first step is honestly listening to what they're saying and then the mechanism of how you do that is up to you. However, you are comfortable communicating with the customer and that would probably look like an online community. But it is the humble, honest listening that both excites you and is the thing that will take you out of this rut that you find yourself in right now.

Totally. Totally. Yeah. I mean, that's. I think you're right. And I think that goes back to kind of me focusing on the things I am good at and that I enjoy.

Yes.

But with that being said, then if I do focus on delivering value and understanding what my customers need, should I possibly step away from Amazon and just go Shopify?

Why do you ask me that question?

Because I feel like Amazon is so technical, so like keyword optimize and then so like ppc, whereas like Shopify is like, if I know these products are what my community wants, then instead of focusing so much on the technical aspects of making sure my Listing is optimized and ready for Amazon's algorithm. Maybe I should just focus on my own store and targeting people with Facebook ads delivering them the value.

So how does your customer like to purchase or like to be served?

Well, I mean that's a good question based off of my assumptions and kind of understanding my customer base. And what I've heard a bit is that parents or you know, they like the most cliche way busy moms love to shop on Amazon. But.

Essentially then do not be in a hurry to move away from Amazon.

Right.

You're feeling conflicted about the mechanisms of algorithm mechanisms of Amazon because the people you hang out with is like in the ASM crowd and the Amazon crowd crowds. I love prioritize.

The manipulation of algorithms as a rule as like a stereotype more than they prioritize customers. You aren't wired like that.

So the challenge is not Amazon. The challenge is that you are listening to noise that conflicts with the type of business that you want.

You don't have to build your business like them. That doesn't make Amazon the problem. It makes the strategies that your competitors are using not right for you. And that's all.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah. I mean, tell me what you're feeling right now. I can't tell if you are relieved, frustrated.

No, I'm definitely not frustrated. But.

I'm just like, I like the fact that yes, I can focus on my customer base and yes, I can focus on delivering them the right product. But to me there's still a hurdle between.

Launching a product that they potentially want and making it sustainable on Amazon.

Got it. So in your mind you're not yet connecting the dots between developing something that is really a value and partnering it with the sales mechanism that is going to bring you long term sustainability. Is that right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, with that being said, the, the sippy cups are. The product that I, that I chose is my first product, was a decent product and you know, I have one main competitor but you know, the sales are so up and down and, and I have a good customer base that love it and that give me great feedback. And so it might be a review thing or. That's the thing. There's, there's a misconnect between. Yes, okay. I think I'm delivering value to like. Okay. But it's not actually performing that well.

Yes, yes. So there's, there's a couple things here. Number one, you are falling in love with the product rather than falling in love with the person. So you've got them a Little bit backwards. So you've got your sippy cup. And I don't know if your person wants sippy cups. They might, but the market is the market.

Yes.

So the volume or the scale of that on Amazon may or may not be there, but that doesn't affect.

It's not like switching platforms is going to increase the size of the market or the demand for that product. So I wouldn't be so romantic about how you serve your customer as much as being romantic about relentlessly serving your customer. So here is the fix. The fix. And this takes work, but the fix is getting more of those people that you are listening to to resonate with you and your brand. The good news for you is that you have. You're in the middle of a very hot niche and that is moms who are looking for sustainable solutions to raise their kids in an environment that has less waste and is eco conscious. That's a growing crowd. It's an emerging trend. It's a growing, passionate group of people. What that gives you the opportunity to do is after listening to them, communicate with them at scale, that means right now it means probably social content and that will bring in more moms with that goal. That does not necessarily mean you sell more sippy cups, because I don't know if that crowd wants sippy cups, but what it does is it gives you a bigger platform to sell whatever product you decide is most in demand to that target audience.

Okay, yeah, I mean, that makes sense. And I think the question was then, if I know that that audience wants something else, which I can learn from, if it's not sippy cups, then wouldn't it just be better if I then target them directly via Facebook ads to a Shopify page rather than trying to also do like the Amazon algorithm of keywords and whatnot?

So you just went from, great, I know how to serve this person, how do I convert them? So you just, you switched modes in your brain because you were thinking about sales there, which makes sense. A lot of people do. But the I would be, I would caution you against trying to scale before you've got things popping. So before you spend money on media, you're not sure yet, like, you haven't hit the million yet. So you don't really know if this product line is exactly what your customers want. So I would not encourage you to be in a hurry to scale this with paid traffic before you release it to a small group of people who are giving you feedback because they will tell you what they want, they will tell you what they like, they will tell you in their reviews, they will tell other people if they feel heard by you, they will bring other people to your social media following if you are serving them.

That is your pivot point right now. Not can I go scale the sale of sippy cups? Because you don't even know if that's the business right now.

Got it, got it.

The reason you're thinking that is because you hang out with a bunch of asmers who are product obsessed rather than people obsessed. And look, I've put a lot of people into ASM. Like they're one of my favorite companies. Amazing.com is a wonderful company, but the group there stereotypically is Amazon sellers who are selling product for profit, not building businesses. They think they're entrepreneurs. They're really hustlers. You are trying to build a business, but you're listening to a lot of hustlers who will tell you how to make more sales. That's great in the short term. It is not great in the long term.

Totally. Yeah. No, I think you hit the nail on the head there.

Cool. Well, what else? How else can I help.

Man? I think that was, that was a good kind of chunk of what I'm the rut that I'm in. The fact that, you know, I'm stuck with a product, you know, I launched the second product today thinking that this could be maybe the home run product, even though the first wasn't, you know, and then yeah, I'm thinking about scaling. But then you're right, I shouldn't scale if I don't have something solidified. But with that being said, like I remember a lot of the principles around not loving the product but like loving kind of the customer or even the game of seeing what product could have product market fit. With that being said, how do people build brands around a product and then realize that it doesn't work and then just throw it away and then build something else? How do people do that?

Would you ask me a question again? Because it felt like there were three questions in there. Sure.

The question is.

How do people kind of test a product out with a brand.

With a mission? My brand right now has its mission. It's solidified, it has its pillars around a product. So if I'm saying, okay, you know what, nevermind, this product wasn't the one for my audience.

Are you saying like, could I keep the same kind of values and then look for another product within it or. That's the question. The question is like, how do people move on?

Next thing there is Nothing wrong with your product as far as I can tell. You're just operating as though you are product obsessed rather than people obsessed. And that is what prevents brands from being built.

So if you think about one of my favorite examples is Quest Nutrition. I'm bringing that up because I have a Quest wrapper right next to me. So Quest is. I know what I'm getting when I buy from Quest. There's going to be high protein, low metabolically balanced, delicious foods that taste like desserts. Right. That's what I'm buying when I buy Quest. Quest has had lots of products that they've discontinued. They discontinued my beloved banana cream protein, my favorite flavor. They discontinued the delicious.

Craving cups that were Reese's peanut butter cup replacements.

They've discontinued an entire line of products that was called, like Keto something before keto was cool. They discontinue products all the time.

I'm a super fan of mizzen and main misen and main discontinues patterns all the time. But they're still a brand. You have one product, so your likelihood of success.

Is dependent on the market's demand for that product. Whereas a real brand is serving a person and communicates with that person publicly and privately and has a bunch of different options to be able to serve that person. So if you have that, then it's not a challenge for you to plug in a different product, try some new things that don't work out. And it also might be the saving grace of selling a lot of sippy cups. You're prioritizing the sippy cup because it took a lot of work and you had a story that it would make you money and that there would be a momentum around it. And it hasn't cut steam yet. That's okay. You still have picked a raving customer base that buys a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff. It's a great market, but you haven't really listened to what they want. And if you prioritize that, the product development part will be easy and you might sell more sippy cups, too.

Got it. Got it. So look away from just the sippy cups and.

Right. Mm. Got it. Got it. Okay. So.

Yeah.

And I guess don't be afraid of possibly discontinuing it or.

Yeah, totally.

You don't need to make that decision just yet.

Yeah, you don't need to make the decision if your sippy cups are the right product yet or not. It's. That is.

That'S what product first people think about.

You need to go communicate with your people you need to go do the thing that you want to do anyway and be relentlessly focused on how do I serve this person, what do they buy? How do they express themselves? How do I be a champion for this person, what do I, what do I give? What could I create for this person that makes them feel like they're expressing themselves in their journey? How do I edify this person publicly? What makes this person proud to show something off in their home?

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean that was huge. So if you had to sum up everything into a few action steps right now, what would you say?

I think you should spend like Monday when you wake up, Monday morning when you wake up, your temptation is to probably going to be to check sales, check your PPC stats, see what your conversion numbers are and. And instead of that, I would either email your list or reach out on social media, however you communicate with your people and ask for feedback. An open ended email that's like, hey, I'm looking to develop some new products for moms who are looking to raise sustainably minded children, or however you phrase it.

Would you be willing to answer a few questions for me or simply ask what's been your biggest challenge on your route to be that? Or you ask them, what products would you like to see developed next? Or are there any brands or products that you're really excited about right now? And then see what people say, respond to the people who give you feedback, talk to some of them. Spend Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday interacting with those people on Thursday, Friday, start creating a mechanism to communicate with those people at scale, whether that's a Facebook group or it's an Instagram page, or however you like to create content and communicate with your people. That's step two. Step three is going to be sharing those moms stories, edifying stories in the news of moms doing this in a cool way.

Sharing product ideas. That's your content on social media representing that message and mission and being a hero to those moms as a brand. That's step three. That's your pivot point to building an audience and that is also how you're going to get a lot of feedback on the products that you should release next.

Got it? Yeah. Those are great actionable steps. Great for sure. Thanks so much.

You bet. I will be watching and so will the tens of thousands of people listening to you and we're all supporting you. So keep me posted on your progress via social media and let me know how things progress over the next few months.

Sure thing, man. Thanks so much for the call.

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