574. "I have so many ideas--what do I focus on first?" | Coaching Session

Okay, so two kids, a farm, a bunch of goats, a business where you have to cut and sew harnesses and leashes, and you've decided to add on a goat milk soap company.

I'm a little unhinged. Yeah, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Hi, I'm Jacqueline Snyder and this is the Product Boss podcast. I've helped launch and grow thousands of product based businesses, even one of my own. And over the last 20 years, I've seen behind the scenes of businesses just like yours. Whether they are makers, manufacturers, artists, or food and beverage businesses. I have spent so many hours studying it all. I've discovered what makes them successful, what are mistakes they could avoid, how did they turn an idea into successful business? And what are strategies they have used to make more sales and be discovered by more customers. This is what this show is all about. Whether you're just starting out or you're looking to become a million dollar product boss, I'm here to give you the permission to chase your dreams, no matter how big or small. All you need is the right mindset, a little courage, strategy, and support, and you too can be the next million dollar product boss. Let's do this. Hey, hey, product bosses. Okay, so this is going to be a unique coach coaching session because we're talking to someone who's in the very early stages of launching a business now. Rachel sells goat's milk soap with a snarky twist. Her business, Falcone Farms, is just starting out. She did a soft launch in November and by the time this episode airs, will have just launched in full. But Falcone Farms isn't her first business. She has another business, plus managing a farm and raising two children. Obviously she's got, you know, nothing on her plate. In fact, she wants to do all the things and maybe she can. But we need to focus in on one thing at a time. We're going to see if we can come up with a plan to generate enough revenue through one of her businesses so she can outsource and pursue more of her ideas while avoiding that shiny object syndrome of getting distracted by every new idea that pops into her head. Sound familiar? Okay, let's get started. All right, Rachel, so tell me a little bit about Falcone Farm and what you sell.

Falcone Farm is a goat's milk soap company and has a bit of a snarky twist. I want to say it's targeted more towards parents, maybe a little bit towards moms. In particular, I go towards using 100% goat's milk because other companies, it Seems like use, you know, 10%. And they're like, it's goat's milk soap.

I'm like, is it?

Is it at that point? So we have kind of silly, snarky, a little bit sassy labels, and we make soap.

Amazing. Okay. And then do you make it all yourself?

At the moment I do, yeah. I. Everything from milking the goats all the way to processing the milk to making the actual soap.

Okay. Wow. Amazing. Just running a farm is hard enough. And you're like, let me start a business off of this. But you said that you have another business as well. What's that?

I do. I have a business called Love Violet Creations, and that is sustainable dog apparel company. We make harnesses, collars, leashes out of natural fibers, which is really great for dogs with sensitive skin. And I've been doing that for six years now.

Okay, and how's that company doing?

It's doing good, to be honest. It was doing really well. And then I moved and I had two children and I didn't really do anything for a while. And this past last year, in about May, I decided that's really where my heart was and I wanted to revive it. And I was still making sales along the way, but I wasn't putting a lot of effort in, and that's actually doing great. Actually, just before I got on this call, I got my first wholesale order.

Ooh, okay. So you know how to run a product based business. You've been running this other business, which is very cute. Like, very cute. Leashes and harnesses and all the things. And you're also making all of these.

Yes.

Okay, so two kids, a farm, a bunch of goats, a business where you have to cut and sew harnesses and leashes, and you've decided to add on a goat milk soap company. I've been you.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I mean, this is so similar to my story of, you know, I had my first kid, I had my designer consulting co op, which is my consulting business for fashion apparel companies. I had my idea for Lily Mark, which is just the sustainable dress line. I had come out with Cuffs Couture, which is the product business I sold wholesale and globally. And, you know, Kim Kardashian and Carrie Underwood wore it. I swear, I probably had other ideas. And I remember my brother was working for me in between, like him graduating from college. And he looked at me, he's like, you know, if you try and build everything, none of it's going to grow. And I was like, oh, okay. And Then I started looking at my bank account and I'm like, oh, I could go get a job at like a retail shop and I'd make so much more money and have so much less stress then trying to get all these things off the ground. And then I had my second kid and Cuffs Couture was sort of. It had done really well. And then it started like petering off because our phones were getting bigger and people were like, well, where do we put our phones? And I was like, I don't know, you know, like, shove them on the wall between your wrist and your, you know, the cuff. But it didn't fully make sense. And I had the second kid and I was like, okay, I really need to focus. And that's sort of what led me to shutting down that business. I'm not going to tell you at the beginning of this call to shut any businesses down, but I do think this idea of like, focus and is there a potential to marry the two in ways too? How does that feel to yours that you're like, no, I want to do all the things.

I mean, you definitely sound a little bit like my husband and all my friends who have been like, what are you doing? What are you doing? I really like, I will say the goat's milk soap feels easier, oddly, even though it's newer and doesn't have any, like real line of income right now because it's a lot simpler process, start to finish to make it. And while I like the dog apparel business, I like if it could a little bit towards wholesale. And my goal this year is to hire someone to help with production because I don't think I know I can't do it all. And I'm starting to kind of open up that wholesale pipeline and maybe focus less on going to in person events, et cetera. As for marrying, the two, people who.

Are listening are like, how do you do it all?

You know what, it's not a lot of sleep. And I tell you what, anxiety just fuels everything, which sounds terrible, but it's actually. I mean, I'm really passionate about both. And I often have my daughter in here next to me doing work making collars. She's four, so she's not really making collars, but doing all the good work with me. I would like to marry the two, but I don't know. Totally a way to do that. I thought about making paw bombs or something else along the lines, and I'm not quite sure how the two would collide. If you have ideas, I'm open to it.

So I just use this machine called Google. I typed in goat's milk soap benefits for dogs. And actually Google now has like an AI experimental generative thing where it like we'll take a bunch of information and put it together. So this is what it spits out. Goat milk soap can be good for dogs because it has a high amount of fatty acids that lock moisture into the skin, which can help naturally hydrate your dog's skin. It also has a pH of 6.4 to 6.7, which is similar to a dog's skin pH of 6.8. Goat's milk Soap can also help to repel pests and rinse off easier than most dog shampoos.

I did not know that. I do feed my dogs goat's milk whenever I have any to spare or any that I didn't process quite as quickly as I wanted to because kids and things happen. It's not bad. It just gets a little bit of a funky tang. Only if you're drinking it. But then I'll pass it off to my dogs and they love it.

So there's something to just. There's twofold here. We can definitely go into talking about how you grow your business for goat's milk soap and all the reasons you started it and all the funny things that you say about it and why people need to buy more soap. And I have several students, especially multi stream machine students, that will tell me some of their best sellers are soap and bars of soap. So I absolutely think that there is a path for you there. What I think is going to be really hard is for you to grow businesses that are able to generate enough revenue to have you be able to afford help to get that off of your plate so you can be more visionary. And like, when I say visionary means you're more of the idea person that gets to say, like, this is what I want to do versus you having to do everything because it's that same idea of, like, you have to do it all. It's going to be very hard to grow two smaller businesses that don't have a massive amount of momentum behind them at the same time. Does that resonate with you at all?

Yeah.

Okay, so hearing me say all of this to you, where can we guide this conversation? Like, where would you like me to.

Go with it if I had to pick and choose between my business babies, shall we say? I'd like to put my energy into the Falcone farm and the soap because I feel like I struggle a little bit with Love Violet, with a lot of different aspects of it. I'm profitable, but it's not amazing. It takes a long time to make the items. It's just a harder thing. And I would be okay with putting it on the back burner so I can focus on the soaps. Also, because I feel like on social media I've gained a little bit of momentum when it comes to the Falcone Farm Instagram and I was kind of just on accident, but right now the farm versus the dogs, which is funny because like my dogs absolutely go on our property and are out with me. But the Falcone Farm Instagram and the Falcone Farm branding, it all feels like it really resonates with me right now because I'm a mom and I'm like deeply in the thick of it with almost 2 year old and a 4 year old and making those snarky sayings and talking about the benefits of goat's milk soap just really resonates with me right now.

So then we'll go that route and then you've more or less answered what you should be doing with the other company. Do you know what you said? Put it on the back burner back to you? Yes. And by putting it on the back burner, you said that you brought it back and you're trying it again and you just got a wholesale order and things like that, which is wonderful. There is. There are ways for you to create that product and not be sewing yourself. Like, if anyone watches this video, they're sewing machines behind you and it's the things you're doing. Does that company make a lot of money for you or not really?

Nah, not really. There was a time where it did, but not a lot I would be okay with. I think my plan going forward for the next six months was to continue to be semi active on social media as it felt natural and good and not energy draining and continue with wholesale. For the one account that I have now, and there's a couple more I'm interested in pursuing and not stressing myself out with restocking and fulfilling things beyond that.

Okay. You know, my businesses were very similar. So Lily Mark was. I don't actually talk about it very often, but it was an idea that I had that was 50% reclaimed product and 50% new. So I was making dresses and so I was like shopping vintage places and finding, I swear they were from the 80s, but like spring sparkly sequin outfits. And then I would cut them and put them with like new fabric. And so there was a lot of sewing and design and managing that but that company, I actually did exactly what you're doing. I sold two boutiques and it was more of like individual boutiques. And I kind of put it there and I would do some photo shoots for it and it was never really going to grow much more, but it like satisfied a creative side to me as a fashion designer. And then cuffs was the thing that I had to like deal with all the marketing and sales reps and wholesale and direct to consumer orders and shipping and production and we sold to flash deal sites. So there were like 2,000 pieces going out in like 48 hours. So that was the act of business. If you feel like you can dedicate enough time to Falcone Farms to get it to where you want it to be, which is $1,000 months to start and then we want to get it to $5,000 months and not to sacrifice anything that it needs based on you doing the stuff for Love Violet Creations, then I would say do it. If you start to feel like, ah, I'm feeling very pulled between these, plus my kids, plus the farm, plus all the things I want you to stay focused on the thing you want to grow because it needs you to grow. It's not going to happen without it. It's going to just take you a lot longer. So you're going to be putting in this effort for way longer to get it to grow. And if you give it the time and dedication that you need and it doesn't work, you know that Love Violet Creations is something else and we can problem solve for that. But if you really want Falcone Farms to grow, then I think we need to give it that time to grow it. Okay.

Do you think choosing Falcone Farm over Love Violet is a smart decision to make given what you've heard so far?

I think that you have a good hook. The soaps are interesting, the naming is interesting. You know the irony of all the things you've said to me are that on your website you have a whole section that says everybody loves sleep deprivation because you a so called sleep deprivation. But you were also just talking about like how tired you are and I was like, yeah, you must love it.

I'm a glutton for punishment.

So you are. So I think if you're if your passion, if the thing that's getting you up in the morning that's exciting you is the soap, then we have to go with that. We're not going to. Drudgery is not going to be the thing that's going to make something grow, like strong arming it In. Right. If you're not that into it, you could actually. This is like a whole other thing. You could contact the wholesale person and actually turn the order down. You could do that, too. I know that's like a big thing of being like, I'm going to say no to money, but instead of you trying to pursue wholesale and sewing all those pieces, because I know how long it takes to cut and sew, and you're sewing straight lines here. Thank God. And you're gonna have to come to that decision on your own. But it could go as far as you saying, thank you for your order. At this time, we're actually not taking any orders. And you could shut it down or you could fulfill it. And while you're sewing it, ask yourself, do I like what I'm doing right now? Because as you're doing it, it might prove to you, like, okay, I'm not gonna sell wholesale to anybody else right now. Okay.

It's definitely a lot to think about.

I know that a lot of business owners have a creative streak. Trust me, I'm a creative as well. And that means having lots of ideas, whether that's for marketing or your products or even other businesses. I mean, I had three businesses at one point. And it can be hard to know what to pursue next and what's just a distraction, or you may just want to do it. All right, that's great. And you can do it all, just not all at once. So if you love coming up with ideas and starting new businesses, then what you need to do is focus on one at a time until it's making enough money to afford to hire and offload some of that work, freeing you up to pursue that next shiny idea. All right, so let's jump into soap. So right now, your business is just kind of making, you know, just under $200 a month. You really just started it in. You said November.

November, yeah. And I didn't even launch the website. That was just a soft launch to, like, my neighborhood. And the one salon that I'm close with is carrying it.

Okay, amazing. So I do know SOAP takes a long time to cure. Do you have the ability to build this at scale, knowing the timeline of production on what SOAP takes?

Yes, I think I do. I guess it really depends on how quickly it grows, because right now, I mean, on another production side, like cost of goods and all the things, add in milk. I have one goat that's in milk, and I am planning on adding another at some point this year. And when I add her, that is going to vary depending on how much milk my other goat is giving and how quickly I'm growing.

So let's actually do a math problem instead of us. This is like 5th grade math. Reminds me of doing my kids math, but I can't even do it anymore. So knowing the units that you would have to sell to make $1,000 a month of soap, how many soap bars would that be?

I'm doing quick math here. That would be 77 bars of soap.

Okay.

That is if they are purchased individually. And I have been bundling them together. I did for the holidays, and it actually did really well. But the cost, then the cost would be a little bit lower.

Doesn't have to be, but we'll get to that. But either way though, what we need to know is that we have to produce 77 ish. We'll just go to 80 bars of soap to get you to a thousand dollars. So by you wanting to make $5,000 a month, how much is it divided.

By 13 for one bar of soap, it's $13. 5,000 divided, that would be 385.

Right. Okay. So let's start with the 80 bars of soap. With your one goat, can you yield that?

Yes, I should be able.

And then with your current one goat, could you yield 385 bar?

I don't think I could get up to three. I don't think so.

Okay. And then with two goats.

With two goats, yes. It also kind of depends on where they are in their milking cycle. But I think for. I think I'd be able to sustain that with two goats for. For at least a year. That would be doable.

So starting with this math problem in the very beginning is a really good way to look at this and say, like, all right, yes, we want a thousand dollars or yes, we want $500. We would need this many bars to sell physical product skus to sell. And because you're dealing with milk from a goat that has milking cycles, that's where like the bottleneck in production would kick in versus, like with you with fabric. You can buy the fabric or you can order fabric. Obviously there's lead times and stuff, but you can get as much as you need or as little as you need. So knowing these numbers, does this change anything in the strategy we're going to approach for you? Like, because we want to get to a thousand. And you think that this goat could do the 80 bars?

Definitely. 80 bars, I'd say probably could be easily double that, But I think going beyond 200 bars would be a little bit questionable. That being said, I have been storing up milk knowing her production was dropping for the last few months. So I have a large amount in my freezer, probably enough that I could make. I'm comfortable saying 300, but I think it could be more bars of soap.

Ongoing month over month. No, because you're gonna have to. Yeah. This is like my sister who's nursing.

If I ran into a bottleneck when it comes to the milk, I have some contacts who have goats who have asked me to come milk for them.

Perfect.

So I could take advantage of that even though I don't really want to do that, drive and do that. But.

But that's an option. So that is definitely something that I was going to bring up too that like you can actually get milk from other farms.

Yes.

I have a student of ours that she does yarn from her sheep and she actually sources from other farms and brings the yarn in.

That's really cool.

Yeah. So this concept of like not everyone is using the milk from their goats at capacity so you could do it, but then again that is you having to go do it or needing someone else to milk the goats and all the things. So knowing that, I think I'm going to put us at this like what I love with our like multi stream machine students and even anyone starting a business. My goal is actually can we get you to $2,000 months? Like, can that be our goal? And so for you, I believe we could. Because doubling your production, so doing like 150, 160 units will get you to $2,000 a month. So what we probably need to do at this point is aim for that. I'm just going to go with 150 units a month, should yield you almost about $2,000 in revenue. And I think that's a really good place to be as a newer business because right now what you're going to test is minimal viable product. You're going to test. Do people want this? You're going to work out like how your sales channel is happening, how you're going to acquire customers and there's going to be some like things that you're going to need to figure out as you're getting to that 2000. Sometimes business isn't exact. It's an art. It's about hunches and ideas and testing and trying and finding out what works. And sometimes it's a science. It's about doing the math, crunching the numbers, comparing costs and price and quantity and getting the answer you want. You need to do Both to successfully run a business and what's nice about the math side of things is you can keep tweaking those numbers until you get the solution you want.

Can you explain minimal viable quantity?

You say minimal viable product. So that's kind of the same idea that we teach about like test and try. So when we talk about finding your bestseller for you, for example, because you've just soft launched, you don't necessarily have a bestseller because you've just started. You may know data from people you know, like you said, he sold the family and friends. And so you might know like, oh, a lot of them love the sleep deprivation bar. But otherwise it's like, what can you be known for? So we can flip it from bestseller and what can you be known for? And then you test that to your audience. So minimal viable product is the thing that you can put out in front of people that you see do they want it or do they not want it? So the first part of you is like there's goat's milk soap. That's the like actual product. And then the second part is the way you're naming them. Like your naming conventions is going to attract them. But they're. Do they smell? Yeah, they smell good.

In addition to just, just another, I want to say selling point that I'm not sure exactly how to emphasize or how to share. But they're kind of, I say gently scented. I kind of, my husband and I both don't like stuff that is like so perfumey. It's like, wow, I can smell that throughout the whole house for 10 days.

That's great.

So I kind of am doing the bars, leaning towards, it's a nice smell, you enjoy it, you can smell it on your hands afterwards. But it doesn't last forever. And I think for me at least that's kind of a selling point. In addition to the nourishing and good quality of goat's milk soap.

And I don't think that even is reflected on your package.

I have one thing on the berry front page, my website, it says gently scented.

Okay. On your packaging. I'm looking on your website, I see the front where it's like, yeah, the logo, goat's milk soap, sleep deprivation. Remember when you used to say I'm so tired but you wish you were that tired again. Which I 100% agree with. Is there a label on the back?

There is a label on the back and it's a white, very plain label, black and white label. And it has ingredients, use and website.

Because when you think about when People are reaching for something, they may want to know the scent. The description of the scent.

Yeah.

And also, you know, saying something on the front even that says gently scented. Like gently scented with. You say sleep deprivation is a soft scent with cocoa butter, jasmine, vanilla and sandalwood. I do like the idea of gently scented with cocoa butter, jasmine, vanilla and sandalwood. And someone could smell it. And then I agree, there's some smells that like, I can't, it's too strong. I'm like, I'm not even pregnant and I can't do this scent. And then I'll just get personal. Even deodorant. I don't like scented deodorant. So it's okay to attract us to you. Okay.

So maybe adding that gently scented on the front label. So when they first pick it up and see it, adding that scent. I was unsure with my labels, having designed them myself and trying to stick by the regulations for, well, cosmetics really and soaps, was trying to figure out how to add so much information on such a small little package.

It's so. I know. I think it's because you have like the shtick and the hook of the funny part. It might have to be. You may need to look at the way that some people do like candle packaging. There are people like homesick candles, things like that that have explanations or like funny haha stuff. But that might also say the scent or the scent is set it on the back.

I do have the scent information on the back, but yeah, I wasn't sure.

Does the net weight have to be on the front? Is that required?

It does, yeah. And it has to be a certain size and a certain distance from the bottom and.

Okay, well, you haven't been on shelves yet, but I think it's just even on your website when I'm looking at the soap as an individual product that it does right now, it just says sleep deprivation. So if I look at homestick candles, for example, they have a cheers to you candle. If I look at the actual image, the actual product with the label just says cheers to you homesick. And then it says citrus and peony scented candle and wax. But it's. I think it's because the external packaging has the information on it and the actual candle says the scent. I need a box. Let me find another box on it. Okay. There's a Jerry's Apartment one. So it's like a Seinfeld collaboration that they did. So the outside is Jerry's Apartment Homesick natural soy wax blend poured in small batches box and then, I don't know, the sticker actually doesn't say what's on it, but because they're selling it for that. But if I look at the product listing, the product has the image and then underneath says Jerry's apartment Candle. And then it says right below it, suede, leather, vanilla, marble, dry. So. Or like the reading candle says reading a candle, Sandalwood, musk. So if you're going to sell something on scent, you probably want to include the scent in the product listing before they ever have to click in. They're not going to read the paragraph to the right. And if they can't see it on the physical packaging, then you want to create the. Either you should take the soap out. I think you're doing. If the rain stops or the snow, you're going to be doing product photography later. Yeah. So if you take a picture of the soap by itself and it has sandalwood and vanilla, do you have like a vanilla stick next to it?

I do have a vanilla stick.

Right. So if you. I want you to go look at scent companies before your photoshoot and look at how there's the packaging and then what they show in the image with it that has the scent like other images that have the scent part of it. So we expect people to read everything, but they don't. And we need to visually give them cues quickly so they can make a decision of a yes or a no.

That makes sense.

Nobody's paying as close attention to your business as you are. You do want to create depth for people who want it, like sharing your history, explaining the benefits of your product, and all of that. But you need to think about the core things that you want a customer to take away from your product. And you want to make it easy enough that they get it in just a few seconds. Don't make the customer do research to find out what your soap is going to smell like. Okay, so let's jump into pricing with your product. Is your cost of goods basically what you're selling it at? You're not profitable on it?

No, my cost of goods is definitely not. I did my good MSM worksheet and my retail is my cost per bar times 2.2 times 2.

Okay. So you feel like you're good with pricing?

I wish I could get my cost per bar lower, and I'm just not totally sure how to do that. And I think bringing packaging into it probably might make a big difference because my packaging right now is 90 cents per bar.

Okay. So that's like getting close to $4 to the pot. I'm just gonna generalize the number.

$4 to your cost seems really high to me.

They're throwing $4 away.

Yeah. So I'm not sure how to lower that, but I would love to find a way because if I could get my packaging down even to like, half, that would make a huge jump. But maybe learning to package in a different way or. Yeah, Just doing the cardboard kind of sleeve around it. I did think about totally wrapping it in like a craft paper similar and putting a sticker label on it. And my only objection to that was then you don't get to see the soap.

You do if it's a small wrap and the soap's external on either side. Yeah. I'm just trying to log into my friend, which is Pinterest. Have you been on Pinterest?

Have I been on Pinterest? I saw a lot of different options for soaps and packaging. And going with the cardboard just felt with a cutout so they could see. It felt like a good solution at the time because I was a little bit worried about, like, transporting soaps or shipping soaps and, like, would they get dented in the process? They're pretty hard by the time they're finished curing.

Where are you getting the boxes? Like, where are you source. You don't have to be exactly where you're getting them from, but where are you getting them from?

A company in California.

Okay. So long term, as your business grows, you can absolutely get your boxes from other countries. Old school way of packaging soaps is wrapping them in paper. There are just the wraps on the side and then there are the boxes. So you could work on sourcing other vendors, probably overseas. Okay. To get a cheaper box. Okay. That would already come with labels or.

They did talk about including the label and it was just expensive.

Yeah. You're getting it from California. Yeah. Like, California has the highest minimum wage. We think our minimum wage is like $17 an hour now.

Man. I talked. Oh, I had a few different companies on the line and I drove this guy down. I really sent him over the edge. I think he was finally like, whatever, just to get a deal. Now I'm thinking I could have gone more. Okay.

No, it's California. It's. It's expensive here. Like, I manufacture apparel out of downtown la. Like, eventually a sewer can only sew so many garments in an hour. So it's still going to cost me more per unit. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. So if you want to keep the boxes and that's the cost it is. Right now. What I'd love for you to do is counter source the boxes. You can go on a website like Alibaba.com I wrote in soapboxes. The very first one that popped up for me was eco friendly, biodegradable, gradable, colorful, unique, custom logo craft box that costs 8 cents to 50 cents with a minimum order of 500 pieces. So we're already beating our price. Now you're going to have to include shipping. So when they give you these prices, they are not landed. Landed means to your door. Got it. So you'll probably want to add 20% to whatever the final cost is to include product, perhaps what it would cost to get it shipped to you. But there are so many options on this site for you to pick. You could test. This one has like a little window like you said. You could get just the cardboard and then you can keep doing your labels the way you're doing them. Or there are other places you can get, you know, labels. I know you want to do sustainability, but we're going to have to meet in the middle until you have enough money and you have proven track record to then like keep improving your business. Okay. To hit all the goals you want of like being sustainable, being eco friendly, all this stuff.

Do you think it would. It is a detriment at all to package the soaps totally in a box where they can't. I mean a cardboard box you can smell through no problem.

But this one has a.

Where they can't see them or do you think customers need to see it, like if it's in a store?

Well, this one that I'm showing you on the screen. Can you see the screen? Yeah. This one I'm showing you on the screen has like a little corner cut out so you can smell it. Your soap is not the kind of soap that I've seen other people do where they are doing designed soap and those ones are exposed. So ones that look like. I've seen ones that have like a moon. Yeah. Or there's people that actually make images in the soap. Yeah. Yours is not like that. So they really just need to see the color and smell it. There's this company, Soapish. I've followed their social media. I think they do such a good job. They constantly run out of product. They do like special stuff with color and toppings and they have like a gingerbread one that looks like gingerbread so they have the top of it exposed. And you can see in the photos like how they show the product.

Yeah, mine, definitely.

Right.

I mean, maybe one, one day I might do some swirls, but right now the top is a little decorative, and that's as decorative as I'm going to. I feel like, at least when I think of my customer, who I call Sally, I don't think Sally would really care that much about having the most beautiful and decorative. Sally is like a little more functional. She appreciates the smell and she enjoys it, but she doesn't need that beautifully decorated soap for each season.

So when you ask me if they need to see it, then you've answered it. They don't need to see it because Sally doesn't care. So Sally just wants to know that it's good for her body and she likes the scent. So as you can see on the Soapish Instagram, which has more than whatever I just found on the Internet, they have it wrapped and then they're showing you a lot of the product. Some of it's exposed, but some of it wrapped and then you can kind of see the packaging. So I really like this brand and how they've grown and how they sell soap and their different kinds of packaging. Okay. But you can easily get your cost down. I don't want you to say, well, they want to see it. Yeah, you can wrap it in plastic. There's so many things you can do with it. But you have options when it comes to sourcing the product, the packaging. So I want you to go find your options. That way, you know, when I scale, I can order from China and I can be paying 18 cents a box instead of 90 cents. So I will have a better margin. Long run. Right now, I'm going to do it this way. But as I grow my business, I will. I do have options to do it a different way. Okay. I like that plan. Yeah. Look at this business, though, this company, because they've always. They have almost 70,000 followers. It's s o a p dot ish on Instagram, Soapish. And I just think they do such a good job. I will. Did you catch that? Okay. Rachel snuck it in there. But she's already identified her ideal client, who she calls Sally. She's done her homework. While asking what she should do about her packaging, she ended up answering her own question. What does Sally think? Whenever you're up against a tough question in your business, that's what you need to ask yourself. How would my ideal customer feel about this? Oh, my goodness. Friends, have you heard that we just launched a brand new program called Standouts as Society. Your Eight week product biz breakthrough to getting more customers and standing out in a crowded market. Listen, I know that product business owners, they need to learn how to get paying customers and stand out in a crowded market without all the things right, without lowering your prices, without paying for ads, without thinking you need to do all these other things. And you know, Tim Ferriss had this quote and he said, even if you have the best possible version of what it is you're selling, if no one knows about it in the first place, then you don't have a market. So this brand new program is for literally anyone who sells products, whether you're just starting out or you've been in business for years. If you're a business that needs customers and you're struggling to reach your ideal audience and get them to convert to sales, then this is for you. Now, I am so excited because I'm teaching this totally live. It's the very, very, very first time that we're launching it. I'm teaching it live over eight weeks and it will actually be the only time I teach this live. So if you decide to join in the future, which you totally can, I can't promise that the price will ever be this low. And I know that I will not be teaching it live again. So if you're like, I want this, let's do this over the next eight weeks. Let's do it together, my friends. All you have to do is head to theproductboss.comsos theproductboss.comsos because here's the deal. We're going to dig into the four foundational bits of your business that I think so many people have missed. They've gone from coming up with the idea, making the product, and jump straight to selling it. But here's the deal. No amount of trainings or courses or tactics or anything that I teach you in any of my other programs are going to work if you don't have clear foundations in your business. And I know that that's not like the sexiest thing to hear, but. But guess what is getting more customers. So if you're feeling fuzzy and unfocused and frustrated and you're like, I'm trying to do this, but I don't know what to do. This is the time that we have to go back in and think, this is what you have to do. So the standout society, the whole goal to this is to have you have a breakthrough in your business over the next eight weeks. Because I want to help you get More customers and stand out in a crowded market. So head to the productlass.com/sos, the productboss.comsos and I cannot wait to see you inside. So now we want to talk about you. Kind of wanted to you your question was like social media Amazon, like all the places you want to sell, how are you, how did you do it with your leashed company? Like how did you start to grow that business? Because that means you're used to some way of doing business and if you know how you're doing it there, we could transfer it to another product.

Lots of in person events.

Okay.

A ton of in person events. And not lately. But back when I lived in California when I first started a fair social media following, not a huge social media following, but I was pretty active and Etsy. So if I had to narrow down to 2, it'd be Etsy and in person. That being said, I really don't want to do a ton of in person. Some in person I'm okay with but having little kids and doing in person stuff is exhausting and it's. I will do it and I will give it enthusiasm but I don't want that to be my main thing.

Okay, so where do you feel like you're leaning more naturally into right now? Because if we're going to follow your body and like your what works for you, your business, the season of life you're in right now. Right? Because what we teach at the product boss and you know you're a student in multi stream machine but what we teach is like your path to profit. So whatever your Rachel's dream life is and you want your product business to, you want it to create money, profitability, that you can live this life with your kiddos on your farm and do what you want, we also need to make sure it's in alignment with what we want to do. So we in the very beginning we decided, okay, we're more in alignment with the soap than we are with the dog company. Now next stages is like what are you more in layman of a sales channel that you want to start on to test try and grow your business.

On what, what stuck out to me first off when I started using the soap, started making soap and started coming up with the snarky little sayings was would love to lean in towards wholesale specifically. And I haven't even asked them if they'd be interested in wholesale. There's a company in downtown where I live and I just, I feel like it's just my brand all smooshed into one. It's called the Malicious Women Company. And they don't do any bath and body right now, but they do candles in house. Small business, really focused. They have keychains and home goods. And I feel like soap and little tea towels and I feel like soap would go so well with that. And I would really like to be able to get do wholesale with them. And I want to say other similarly aligned companies. And I also like the idea of wholesale because I can ship out products. I have all my shipping stuff here. I am good. I am practiced. I got my label printer and all that. But if I could do that some and ship out just larger orders, that feels easier to me.

So building a wholesale business, that's kind.

Of what I was leaning towards. The only thing that makes me think slightly otherwise is I've started to gain a little bit of traction with some reels on Instagram and not even necessarily related to my goats, but just to my farm. I have a falcone farm Instagram and like one I did a couple weeks ago is almost at a million views. And some other ones are like 200,000 and then a 20,000. Part of me is like, huh, that was weird. Like I just really posted those for friends, for whatever. It was kind of an inside joke with friends for the one ways that I pissed off my neighbors inadvertently not trying to.

Well, what's interesting is like the. The stuff that you've gone viral on on your social is kind of farm life. So you have the one also that's at like almost a quarter of a million and it's on like horse math. And you're calculating how many horses like your pony is equal to.

It's none by the way. She's pregnant so I don't have to paid it. So it's none.

So it's doesn't count. Everything's zero. And then the other one you have also that's almost a 2,200 thousand is how you care for your horses. There's something in me that wants you to think about or consider goat's milk for pets. I'm just gonna throw that out there. It's a different market, but I'm curious how it lathers like a soap bar for a dog to me. Feels easier than like pouring shampoo. I'm just gonna say it because right now you have a lot of people following you that maybe have farms that get farm jokes. That's just a side. And you could always just try one product. Okay, that's just one thing. What's Happening right now on your social is that you are getting attention for having a farm, which is great, right? That's viral content. And people who come in and they like farm life. Can we then get them to, like, the day in the farm of how I milk my goats, how this gets turned into soap, which is my side hustle on this farm. And, like, even leaning into the hilariousness of all the things that you do and that you decided, hey, I'm also creative and I came up with this idea for a soap company and look at me try, like, who needs sleep? You know? So I think if you can start to figure out how you can marry your humor, how you already are naturally the part you're weaving into the story of your soaps and then how you're actually living it. So when you have. Because you have a soap called Wine o' Clock Spa Bliss, you need a vacation. What if you created content around how you need a vacation from farm life and it's like, you know, and then it wrapped the day with you using it. Or sleep deprivation is like all sleep deprivation.

Ha.

You know, and like, spa bliss. And then wine o' clock. Like, you. There's so many wine memes for, like, moms. And it. You know how you did girl math, you could be like, wine o' clock for people who own farms. But somehow you're incorporating in some of the humor and the product to the content. Because, yes, you're going viral, but it's not for the business. So while the Falcone Farm Instagram is going viral, it's for the farm, not the soap.

Yeah. I was trying to figure out a way to marry those, and I think you kind of hit the nail on the head. One thing I was thinking about was, man, goat's milk soap is so good for my hands, so good for my skin. Would it be good as a saddle cleaner? When it comes to, like, saddle soap primarily, I will say I have a background riding horses. I competed really heavily before I had children, and I still have lots of horses and I still do stuff with them every day. And when it comes to saddle soap, the options are kind of boring, and they always have been. And I checked. There is one company doing goat's milk saddle soap. But it kind of made me think, like, is there kind of a spot in the market for this for, like, a funny saddle soap that was nourishing and good and because there are saddle soaps that are scented and I discovered those in the last, like, four or five years or so, and they smell amazing and it kind of made me think, like, if you add goat's milk into that, is it just, like, something that has not yet been tapped into? And, man, somebody needs to. Could that be a way to marry it together? Or is that my brain saying, it's.

Your brain distracting you? So I say that because now we're entering into the equestrian market, and now we're actually talking about a product cleaner versus a body cleaner. So I. So there are a lot of uses for goat's milk, and you absolutely can probably find a lot of uses for goat's milk. You're going to need to figure out who your customer is that you're targeting. Okay. And if you're speaking to everyone, you're speaking to no one.

Sally definitely doesn't have horses. Sally has kids and pets maybe, and maybe other things, but not specifically horses.

So the hard part is that you're attracting customers that have. That do have horses with your farm jokes, and Sally doesn't relate to that life. If I'm Sally and I'm living in a city, I don't get the. The horse joke is like, okay, but it's not going to show up on my algorithm.

I might not get it. You're not my people.

I'm not the one giving you the views. So you may want to change Sally. Sally might have horses. Sally might have a farm. Sally might have rough skin because she actually uses her hands more than typing and swiping her phone. So I think this is. I think what is amazing about you is you're so creative, and you obviously have, like, such endurance and stamina and excitement for life, and so many things are possible for you. And that's the harder thing of, like, putting you in a box and saying, like, hey, Rachel, stay focused. Okay, So I gave Rachel credit for knowing her ideal customer. But now we're coming to an interesting topic. Is your ideal customer the right customer? When we're talking about what's already taking off for Rachel, which is her farm life content and the fact that she has a farm in the name, maybe that ideal customer needs to shift to someone who is more aligned with that farm life. It's okay to make changes as you're going. We all want to test and try. In fact, we all should test and try. But as you start to get that data, remember those math problems. As you start to get that data, try not to get too distracted and start an entirely new business. All right, Deal. Okay.

I didn't start the saddle soap, just to be perfectly clear. It was just an idea I had in My head one night and I swear I have stayed focused on the hand soap tandem body really.

But like we did this with tubes and company. So she's a multi stream machine student. She has been in my master enemy for a couple years. Like she's not in it right now. She like really grew, but she made tallow bombs. She has a farm. She's got lots of little kiddos. Her name is Emily and she was known for this bomb, this tallow bomb that was made from the rendered fat of cows or rendered beef fat. And that's because she had access to it and she was like rendered animal fat is similar to our own chemistry. It helps you with dryness and acne eczema. And she was trying to find these reasons for it. So that's what she started with her tallow bomb. If you go look at Tupes and Co Organics, now she has face, body and makeup and she's a multimillion dollar company and she homeschools. Like I think she's got four kids and she has a farm and a multimillion dollar business. She's got baby hair, skin, makeup, body, face. But she did not. So when we look at a company like this, she did not start here. She started with the tallow bomb. I believe it was maybe a couple cents. And people loved it so much and they kept growing and growing. And then she came out with another product within tallow, within the. I don't know if it's face or body, but within that makeup came years down the line and face masks and tools and men's and body oils and all the other stuff that you'll see when you find her brand did not come when she started. In fact, it was a couple years later. She was probably making close to a million dollars in the tallow aspect of it before she added any other stuff. So that's what I think the deep work for you is going to be, is like, who do you want to serve? I think we should not be married to Sally and say Sally is, does not have animals. Maybe Sally does have animals, maybe Sally isn't.

I always thought Sally had animals, but. And it was like she had animals and children, but not necessarily specifically horses. Like maybe she has a bunch of chickens, maybe she has some cats, maybe she has a little mix.

So she's. She doesn't need to have horses, but she has to be familiar with farm life. Okay. Or let's go rural life. We all have different things, different priorities, different cultures and the environment we're exposed to. So for you Sally may not be city Sally. Right. Sally might be rural Sally that does go to local farms to pick up her eggs. She doesn't buy her eggs at the grocery store. Like, I didn't know eggs were another color other than white.

What? Oh, you're missing out.

Well, when you live in a city. Oh, you have no idea. I buy my eggs at the grocery store.

Well, you should get a rainbow of eggs, because it is.

I did when I went up to Northern California and she took me to buy fresh eggs from a farm. And I was like, is this where eggs come from?

I actually had my aunt ask how I actually sell duck eggs and chicken eggs. And she's like, how do you have duck eggs? You don't have any boy ducks. I was like, what? And she's like, you have to have boy ducks to get eggs. And I was like, nope.

You're like, you need the boy ducks for the baby ducks. Yeah.

I was like, nope. But same thing as you and me. Just ovulate and just keep going.

Look at me. I knew that part. No, but that's what I'm saying. Like, so many of us, we try and reach for a customer that we don't actually know or associate with. And it doesn't have to be us, but we have to really understand our customer. So the fact that you're like, I can't believe you didn't know that eggs weren't only white or brown, but they could be blue and all these other beautiful colors. It's because of our exposure. So I do want you to speak to people that you know. And if you are going viral for, like, rural farm type content, you can continue to do that and sell hand soap or body soap or whatever, however you want to phrase it, made out of goat's mouth to those people as well, because they're going to resonate with the words and the scent and like your humor. So we might have to change Sally a little bit. And then also your content. You're going to test it and say, all right. Like, I might be going viral for my horse thing. And you might be like, oh, it's wine o'. Clock. I need a wine. P.S. like, check out our wine soaps or something. So. So you're going to. I think what we have to do is take your inspiration and your ideas and marry them with what feels natural to you. There is another student in Multi stream machine called Bad Tags. I want you to look her up. She's a genius. She's blown up and she makes. This is why I think it works for you. She makes funny dog tags with swear words. And if you watch her and you see the kind of content she's creating, you can see, like, how the customer is going to find it and they're going to resonate. So she goes viral a lot with reels that she creates of, like, custom tags that she has to do so she'll actually show the funny dog tags that people are ordering, and they are hilarious. And so that's what's going viral. So people who have dogs, like, dogs also like her humor, are going to follow her and then remember her when they're buying a tag because they're like, oh, this girl gets me.

Yeah. I will say my more divisive ideas that I was hesitant to do anything divisive with Love Violet, which I realize now was maybe like a misstep. But. But for social media, especially for Falcone Farm, like, the ways I pissed off my neighbor's video, I thought about for a long time, and then I was like, you know what?

Let's just.

Let's just post it. I don't care. Like, so what if they see it? So what if somebody else? And yeah, it blew up because everybody loves to complain about their neighbors.

Well, you were like, your first one was like taking your kids to a pride festival. So, like, or pride parade.

She was real upset about that.

You're like, that has nothing to do with being neighbor's friend. This is really strange, not making your. My horse poop in your yard. So. And then by doing that, you're also taking a stand against one way to another, which is beautiful. And again, puts you kind of like you're in this neighborhood, but maybe you don't fully fit in this neighborhood. And there are other people like you, and they like that kind of content. So your job is, I think, yes, you can sell goat's milk. Yes, you can get your packaging pricing down. Yes, we can get you to $2,000. But I think for you, it's marrying these ideas. So the two places when your question is like, where do I sell? How do I sell? I think twofold. First is, I believe that you cannot build on borrowed land. So I do think it's very important that you do have a website that's built and converts. It has, like, the right images. Yes. And that you. Especially for you, because it sounds like you do have a little bit of a hook for social. Like, you actually do understand it. We just have to find the right content. I think social as an organic reach, and your website to convert is one Sales channel you're going to work on. Okay. You're going to do the photos, the couple examples that I gave you in this. And then when you go on a multi stream machine, we have the website module that teaches you how to have a converting website. You have the photo module on how to have good photos. The few things that I gave you here as examples. And then the advice I'm giving you around social media will be excellent for a strong website that converts. Okay. You are good with social though. So if we can figure out how to take your talent and marry it with the product you're selling. And then you do need a good website because the thing is, either they're going to buy from you on Instagram, like shop within the platform, which they can do. You might also think about TikTok shops. We have some students crushing it.

TikTok really doesn't like me, but I'm open to it.

But okay, okay. It might not. That's okay. Then we can. We don't have to do TikTok, but you either can convert people on the platforms, which is why these social platforms came up with the ability to shop, because they know that if they send people to your website and your user experience is not a converting experience. It doesn't matter how many people we send to your website, if your website sucks, it's not going to convert people. Yeah. So that's why the user experience has to be like a good one so that when someone lands there, they keep going down the journey of buying. So I tell you to fix up your website. I think your product's fine. I think your packaging is fine for right now. Fix up your website, get the photos, use some of these tips, start to think about your social, how you can marry them and see can I get people to follow me and then take action. Okay. I think you have so much talent from a marketing and design perspective. I think you've got the marketing brain and I think you can sell it. It's just the. Your hardest challenge is going to be keeping you focused. Yeah.

I'm like a little squirrel over here.

Yeah.

Okay. So maybe changing my Sally as opposed to changing any products or bringing on horsey, Soapy, whatever, more gearing Sally towards horses. Maybe she does have horses. Maybe she rode. Maybe she used to ride.

Don't get hooked on horses. Rural life, real life.

Got it.

Somebody who gets the idea of being able to get eggs directly from a farm that understands, like goats and horses. Just because you've hit big on horses doesn't mean it's Only horses. It's just. And I don't. Would you call it farm life?

Yeah.

I mean, you're called farm. Yes, absolutely. So just farm life in general. And you might even get, like, silly questions city folks ask, you know, and it's like, oh, like that one my aunt asked me, how do you have eggs without whatever. Right? And then be like, I'm. I'm gonna need a wine for this. And then, like, if you're gonna do wine o', clock, you may have to incorporate wine mom memes. I think the. The other side to you is that there's not enough mom jokes happening. Okay. To then sell a product that's kind of mom jokes.

Got it. So should I. Should my labels be a little less geared towards mom, A little more geared towards farm Ish. Or should I just maybe start pulling in more of mom life on my social media?

Don't make any massive changes. I think it's you testing and trying. So when anybody starts a new business. That's why I said minimal viable product and test and try. That's why you may not know. You may not have all the information you have yet, but it's focusing. It's like getting you a little bit more flow. Focus and testing stuff. Okay. And seeing does this resonate? Who can I build an audience around? Okay. And so I can't give you the exact answer because we don't have enough.

No, but that's enough of an answer for me that.

Yeah, yeah, it's. I don't have.

One of my questions coming in was the branding of, like, where do I lean into? Because it's goat's milk. But it's also funny. But it's also this. And I think the answer is that you won't know until you try, and then you'll know.

And, I mean, what if you change your logo from, like, a mom holding two kids to, like, a crazy goat face being, like, wacky, like, because right now you've got you holding a baby with a child on your hand, but it's called Falcone Farm. So it's like, you can lean into farm. You can leave lead into mom life. You can marry the two. So I think give yourself this time to keep working through your ideal customer. Keep testing and trying content. Content can go viral, but we also need to see if it converts into what you're selling. So we want to marry those two, and then you're not married to anything right now. So you're not shipping in labels from China and getting 2,000 units delivered tomorrow. So we don't have to. You can easily print and try things out if you want. So. Yeah. And it's not the horse. It's the farm life. It's called a farm. It's farm life. And then people who like me, maybe someone gifts me something because they're like, oh, someone from Northern California finds it in a shop. They're like, they gave it to me at Christmas and, like, goat's milk. That's amazing. And I try it and I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm going to buy more of this. I've just discovered a new product, and I like the humor. Do you know Whiskey Whiskey River Soap?

I don't. Is it goat's milk or is it just funny soap?

Just soap. So soap for effing meeting smells like this could have been an email. And this is why I drank.

Oh, I totally love that. That's right up my alley.

Exactly. So while you're. While you are leaning into goat's milk, know that people might actually buy it for the, like, what it says.

Yeah.

More than what it's made out of. And the what it's made out of is, like, a secondary, I mean, part.

To be honest, that's kind of a little bit how I feel. Not 100%. Like, I like the goat's milk soap. That's what drew me to goat's milk soap. But making these labels and, like, coming up with these little sayings and, like, hearing my friends laugh at them and then sharing them with other people and, like, hearing them chuckle is kind of where it's at for me.

Yeah. So this company has been around for a long time. And this is the wrap I'm showing you, like, how they did it. So soap for hot moms smells like fit mommies and cold juice boxes.

Love it. I like photography, too.

Yeah. And they're showing it, like, with product. And this is next level. Like, they weren't always like this. Now this company exists already, so it's going to be hard for you to compete with someone who's already, like, in it in that market. Yeah. But if you could have. They're, you know, they're probably more millennial. They've got astrology. They have, like, all this other stuff. So if you found a differentiator of the market, like, leaning into farm, maybe, or mom, you know, they're going for their dog, people. Smells like unconditional love and drool and lots and lots of drool. Right. So you can just think about ways that you could be different than this brand. Okay. And you can attract a customer base that would resonate with you. It's knowing who your customer is. Okay. All right.

I'm excited.

So this is so great. I'm so excited for you and your business and like, you've got so many ideas. I know you're not going to stop with them. So I know you're going to be successful if we keep you focused. But right now, if people want to connect with you or buy from you, how can they do that?

They can go to falconefarm.com and they can also find us at Falcone Farm on Instagram and TikTok.

Amazing. We will drop those links in the show notes. All right, Rachel, thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Jacqueline.

Rachel is so much fun. I can just see her brain pumping out idea after idea, even in just this short call. She has so many things she wants to do, directions she could go. It's all just going to take a bit of focus to keep her on track. The thing about testing and trying is you have to wait to see the results of your test before you know what works, what doesn't, and what changes you need to make. Rachel's in a good spot for where she's at in her business and if she can stay focused, I know she'll reach her goals. All right, my friends, if you love this one, would you mind leaving a review wherever you listen to this podcast? It would be so incredibly helpful to reach more product based business owners. I know you're absolutely loving these coaching calls, so I love to see that and come visit me on Instagram. Say hello at the Product Boss. Let me know what your biggest takeaway was. All right, my friends, until next time, I'll see you in the next show. Thank you for being here and listening all the way through the Product Boss podcast. If you love our show and it has helped you in any way in your business, would you mind doing two things for us? Subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode and leave us a review. Reviews help other product entrepreneurs know that this is the place to be to grow their businesses and realize that they're not alone. And we know that you all know that a five star and honest review helps you sell more products to more people. So you know that your reviews help us reach more listeners around the world. Remember, what we give is what we receive and we are all about helping each other in the product boss community. We are all in this together. We would be so appreciative of you if you could take the time right now to subscribe leave a review and even share this episode on social or someone you know so we can impact more lives. And remember, subscribing means that you will get notified each time we release a new episode so you never miss a thing. You have helped us grow and climb into the top 10 of all marketing podcasts and together we can keep climbing. Thank you friends and remember, there is room at the top for all of us.