576. “I’m starting a product business from scratch. What foundational steps do I need to know to avoid mistakes?” | Coaching Session

I don't want to make costly mistakes. It's already become very expensive as it is and it's very time consuming. So I feel like it's taking time away from my service practice that I've been trying to build. And I know for myself I tried to like reinvent the wheel, figure things out for my service side, figuring out the business side of things I avoid. I put kind of business blinders on for many years and spent the last two years just trying to wrap my head around it and trying to like, okay, really need to make this work kind of a thing. I don't. I feel like I made a lot of mistakes trying to figure it out by myself. And so at this point, I just don't want to do that with the tea thing, especially since the product side of things, I just have no clue.

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, 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 everybody. And welcome back to an exciting new behind the scenes coaching call. Today I'm speaking with Mistral, a massage therapist and energy worker out of New York City. Her service based business is growing well, but an idea for a product based business naturally spun off from it and she wants to explore it a little bit more. So in this episode, we're going to see if we can find a way to position her products and manage this new company without detracting from existing business. All while making enough to live comfortably in the very expensive New York City. Trust me, I know. We live there. And then I had to move to New Jersey. All right, my friends, let's get into it. I wanted to start with getting a little bit more of a background from your words and then an understanding as to why you want to start a tea company like versus the service side that you had? Just to get a good background on you.

Yeah, service background. I started off with like massage therapy back thinking I was going to go to chiropractic school kind of a thing and took a year off to go study massage in Costa Rica and. And then played around, ended up graduating in marine science of all things, and then came back to massage. I just keep learning new things about managing the body and the heart and the soul and everything. So yeah, I just was really honing in on moving my whole practice as online as possible this year to try to just give myself a little more freedom, get myself easier to scale kind of a thing. And when I went to this retreat in August, it was with Radha Aggarwal who's like the head of Daybreaker. And so she had this retreat about belonging and community building. And it was really awesome. But it was also very overwhelming. I felt very like small fish, a big surrounded by big fish kind of thing. But it was, it blasted me open a bit and I had some. I had to throw myself into my own program in a way, which was great. It proved to myself, okay, this shit works. It really does shift things. And that's when all of a sudden, it was at the end of that retreat that one of Radha's friends who does all the yoga teachings at Daybreaker is the one who wanted the initial six goddess teas for her retreat. And that sounded too cool to not do. At that retreat. Everyone was raving about my teas. I just brought them as gifts to share with people. I'd never thought of monetizing them. But by the end of the treat, everyone was talking about like my tea business. And I was like, wait, I don't have a tea business. I don't understand. I was like, definitely need to monetize this. Something to put a pin in.

I'm probably. Did you just mix the tea? Like, how did you end up with tea? For people to associate you with tea?

I've always made tea as a hobby. I do it. I make it for my clients before and after while we talk before and after their sessions. If they're in person, I've made them based off of astrology charts for people's birthdays or Christmas gifts. A thing. I just never thought of monetizing them. And so all of a sudden they said to bring a little gift to give to everyone. We were into a gift exchange and so I was like, oh, I'll make a little pack of my favorite tea. That I like to make. And so when it was my turn to hand out the gift, I did. And then I guess the way that I described it was like the most, like, focused and in control than I had been all weekend. And they were like, oh, there she is. Wow, this is so cool. And they smelled it and they tasted it and they were like raving about it. And I was taken off guard. And then that woman wanted me to make these custom teas for her. And so I was like, I've never done that before, but that sounds too cool not to do, so I'm going to do it. And I went like, way down the rabbit hole that took over my whole apartment. Looked like an apothecary. Like, my dog didn't even know where to sit for two months. And then they came out, like, magical. Like, they came out like beyond what I would have even ever imagined. When I was working on them, doing like the. They were crystal infused, Reiki infused. When I was doing the Reiki on them, I was experiencing, like the energy of each goddess. And then when I gave them to her, she said that she and her partner before the retreat experienced such a profound connection together. And then she gave me this great review afterwards saying that, like, all her participants were like, mind blown, that it was just this amazing experience. And so I was like, wow, thanks. You have to keep doing this. This is like what you're meant to do thing. And so like I said, it's just been landed in my lap. After the goddess tea, I had thought, okay, this was really cool, I need to do this. And people are just so, like, excited about it and I'm excited. Like, when I do it, I feel so in touch and so creative and so, like, in tune with it. So I'm just trying to follow it because I just feel like it's pulling me. I just don't want to, like, waste time doing it in a way that's going backwards or something like that, because it is time consuming and it is.

What do you mean by waste going backwards? Like, just. You don't want to make costly mistakes as you're starting it.

I don't want to make costly. It's already become very expensive as it is and it's very time consuming. So I feel like it's taking time away from my service practice that I've been trying to build. And I know for myself I tried to, like, reinvent the wheel, figure things out for my service side, figuring out the business side of things I avoid. I put kind of business blinders on for Many years and spent the last two years just trying to wrap my head around it and trying to like, okay, really need to make this work kind of a thing. I don't. I feel like I made a lot of mistakes trying to figure it out by myself. And so trust me, at this point I just don't want to do that with the tea thing. Especially since the product side of things, I just have no clue.

Yeah, service you can get up without a large overhead. The cost is less to get a service based business up and going already.

The expense has been so big.

I remember I had a, with my consulting business. I remember a guy came in and he wanted to create some sort of line and I gave him a whole proposal and it was like a $300,000 proposal to start this thing that he wanted to do. And he's wait, you're telling me I have to spend $300,000 before I could ever know if this business is going to work? And I was like, kind of this is a product business, right? I spent a lot of money on Cuffs Couture because there weren't templates, right? There weren't like website templates. So I had to pay somebody $5,000 to go design an e commerce store for me. So there's a lot of things now that you can skip over and do easier solo. So talking to you as we, we're going to go into talking about the product. But my question to you is you have this great service business. You want to add on a product, what can you handle? What, how big do you want to grow the product line? Like where do we want to grow it to or talk about.

I've had so many ideas since it's been starting and one of the ways obviously is to have actual tea line that I'm not always custom making things for people because that's the biggest time consuming part. I made those six goddess teas for example. And I realized that the way that I and wanting to work to create the teas is creating an archetype of personality that I can make the tea into sort of a thing that you're embodying and feeling energetically. So I had thought of creating an archetypal tea line that like as I make them I can add to this archetypal line depending on what kind of archetype you're trying to experience.

But what can you handle is my question. Like in growing the business because products and growing a product based business and making of the product, right? So, so what percentage if, if you're gonna Build out the product side. Let's think about your week in terms of five days because obviously you as a service practitioner, they're hiring you as the talent. I don't think right now you're expanding into hiring people to replace you in service. Would that be right?

Potentially. I understand that it would be helpful to have someone who could maybe once the recipes are designed, have someone pull things together or something like that.

That's what I'm saying. You have to stay fully in the service side of the business, right? So the product side is the side that can we. If you want to grow it and grow like a beautiful business with it, which I think you're, you've got such good ideas and it sounds like a great product, then that's the side we might have to outsource a bit more so that you can stay in your lane of the service person. That's almost driving the leads, right? Like you're the, you are the influencer, you're the person that they trust with their wellness and their well being and then you have a product. But it will be hard for you to do both. Both. And so we can grow it big. You're just going to probably have to hire out on that side a little bit more.

Right. And that's part of where I was like, I don't even know what I need to h. If that makes sense. Like what, how do I make it efficient? Because like there was one person I had hurt my wrist. So actually doing this to tie the little tea bags together was actually really painful for a while there. So I did hire someone who had been like, oh, I'm here to help mother's helper kind of thing around the house. And I was like online. I was like, oh, I just need her to literally just follow the instructions and put a teaspoon of this, a teaspoon of that and then tie the knot. Really clear instructions. I tasted some of them and they were totally off. So I think she got distracted and didn't do it.

Like I thought I could hire pretty.

Straightforward, but I guess not. So I then I was ah, I don't even know. Obviously my wrist is feeling better so I can do that now. But it is time consuming on top of. I do think I'll have more time next month because I've been working so much on the back end trying to get all the like website and copywriting and everything for my service business the last few months and that's taken up all my time. That's pretty much wrapping up. I'm getting everything put together by the end of the month basically, which then I'll be able to just focus on service. And I was thinking I could potentially dedicate like a day or two to tea stuff and creating potentially when I'm not running around trying to figure out.

All the back end stuff and so you said that your goal with the company is getting it to 25,000 or would you like to get it to per month?

Yeah, for my full company, 25,000 would allow me to breathe and live in New York City and pay myself back for all my savings that have disappeared now.

Oh, I just moved from New York so I get it to LA where it's expensive.

I would love to get higher, 40k, 100k down the road, but like 25k, I would be able to be like, okay, I can be a human again for a little bit.

So that is across service and product. Or just I would want to be.

Able to take home basically from your take home. That would be my take home basically.

Okay, so.

And I guess I'm. I've also been trying to figure out, I don't really know how to gauge how much I could make off of the teas.

For example, you could make $10 million off the tees. Right? Like we could grow. You can grow up, you can grow either business. But the thing about your service business is as it stands right now, it's hour for hour. So whatever hour you have and whatever you charge per hour, that kind of caps you at the growth of your service business. Which is why people do group coaching or they figure out how to scale it. One of the benefits of a service business is they're generally easier to start. There is not a lot of upfront costs typically and you start to make money quickly. The downside is that you are being paid for your time and you can't keep scaling that up. I love that Mistral is recognizing that here she needs to start building sources of revenue that can scale without costing her more time. The trick is figuring out how much time to invest in it upfront without taking away from her service business and how she can find a path to profit corporate quickly. Let's see if we can make a plan to get her there. So then the product side, what's going to be is going to be about marketing. So like an audience, people knowing that this product exists. It's going to be about sales channels and it's going to be about your capacity. So at some point like one to two days of you making, but then there's More to the product line. Right. So there's marketing, sales, there's obviously the manufacturing, there's shipping and fulfillment. The thing about what you're doing is we can get a co packer so you do not have to make it all yourself. You can formulate and then you could work with a company that then is a food processing site. So you have this ability to grow. But you're in a New York City apartment. I'm sure like it's not. People don't know unless they know what New York apartments are like and how much you pay for them. I think there's ways to expand it. So let's work backwards from the $25,000. So I believe that your take home profit and this would service tends to be higher profitability. Like some people say 40 to 60% for service or at least when you are an online business because you don't have, you don't necessarily. You could do it from home. You don't have all the costs associated that kind of thing with, with product we like to see you somewhere between 25 and 40%. So I'm just going to go with a 30% profit margin across a whole. So it's. So it's about. And this is going to sound a lot to you but to take home $25,000 in profit it's closer to an $88,000 $90,000 a month business. Okay. So I know that sounds really big. It's completely doable. It's a million dollar company. You're selling a product that's not a cheaper product. So you do have room for markup and margin. Especially when they're like specialty teas. We have a lot of students like in Multi Stream Machine. A lot of students I've worked with in our Mastermind that do have tea companies. So tea and coffee. But tea is the thing that a lot of our students have actually formulated and made. So a $25,000 take home. And I get it. Like I said I lived in the city. It's $5,000 for a two bedroom apartment, right. Like it was crazy bill. So I totally understand the need to make more. I do think that between your service business and sounds like you're going to scale that business which you could very quickly and easily make a big chunk of that money through service. And then your product can be treated as like an upsell or a cross sell to your service business too. And then your product can, can also be its own independent product. So with an influencer like Jill Stanton, right. Who when I say influencer she's amazing. She's a friend of mine. She. But she's been in this space for a long time. She knows a lot of people. She's into like wellness and healing. Million Dollar Girls Club, which I was a part of, like all this stuff, I get it. And the people that she invites to that are also people with influence. And when I say influencer, it just means that they have some sort of audience or following that then they can share the reason I think you're going to be successful and the reason I think you have been like, you're like, why are all these people coming to me and telling me they want what I have? It doesn't make any sense, right? They're just like, oh my God, I need to do this is because you actually have a story. You have a why and a story. And I think a lot of times people product based businesses and they're just thinking about the product but truthfully, it's usually not about the product because we're all used to, it's the same thing. We all have like I always bring up candles because I'm like, what's the difference between this candle and that candle? What's the difference between that necklace and this necklace? Like why is someone gonna buy a real Cartier love bracelet or a knockoff? There's like this, there's what comes with it, there's more to the product. So with you, your product has such a story and helps identify. People want to be seen and heard. They also want solutions to their problems. So it's the same way that like I bought some candles some years back from a crystal store and they were like, they had an affirmation on them or a little prayer and one was for money and one was like, it was like a money prayer candle and one was for health and one was for love. So people sell rose quartz day in and day out because it's supposed to help with love, right? And ultimately human beings want to be loved, they want to be seen, they want to be healthy. So if a product can meet that need, and I know you might be thinking like your tea is like very result oriented, but literally any product can meet someone's basic needs, wants and, and then going into their desires, who they want to be, what's aspirational, right? So you're doing that already. And I think that's the magic to what's happening with your tea. And because looking at your types of teas, like your tea list, are they all chakra based?

The goddess teas that I'VE made so far. They're all based off of goddesses. And then she had given me a little chart that she had assigned certain chakras to each goddess. I don't know where she got those assignments from. I just used what she gave me and gave me little descriptions of each goddess. And then based off of those descriptions, I went to different, like herb shops here in the city and kind of talked to people who knew about the herbs, did my own research to try to figure out which herbs would correlate with those energies. And then I made 50 different teas, single teas of each of the herbs, and literally taste tested each of them and like intuitively started combining them without really knowing what each one meant. I just intuitively did it.

Which is your secret sauce as a healer.

And even with my energy work that's been part of my process is because I do love the brain. I love to dive in and learn everything all the time. But I have found that the. My magic sauce, as you put it, is even with my energy work, when I was trying to do it the way I was taught it, it like I wasn't connecting. And when I just let go and just intuitively stop trying to learn what all the crystals meant and just intuitively pull crystals and start intuitively putting my hands on people, that's when the magic sort of happened.

Amazing magic. Let me ask you, you fell into making the tea. What do you want to do? We're starting your business today.

Yeah.

What do you. Have you figured out what the brand is like, the what kind of teas you want to make?

The archetypal kind of energies. I like being able to bring people into different energies and states of being. And that actually does correlate well, crossover with the NLP coaching and hypnotherapy type stuff with the idea that you can choose to create your own state of mind thing.

So, but say this to me in a layman's way, because a lot of times when we're in our language, like our. The speak that we speak in our own services, I would say it's above the head of the normal person. So if I was walking into a Whole Foods and your tea was on the shelf, what would be the thing that I saw on the tea that pulled me to it? Sure, it's a green tea, sure it's a black tea, whatever it is. But let's say it in layman's terms of like how general person would connect to it.

So what I was calling them is an experiential Tea blend, you get an experience out of it in smell, in taste, but also energetically, like you really feel it take you somewhere. You almost embody an experience. And so there's one goddess that is like this very nurturing, motherly love kind of goddess, and it's very healing. And like that one I gave to someone whose daughter had just had a baby. And I was like, oh, these are actually the herbs, are ideal herbs that you get, you would use for pre or postpartum type work. And so she was excited about it and started telling her friends about it.

Let me stop you really fast. So are you going to continue them with goddess teas? Is that where you're going?

I thought of keeping them because they were such powerful ones to begin with. And they are archetypes. Goddesses are types of archetypes in a way. I don't know if it should be a goddess line. I had also thought of that, the astrology line, which does include gods and goddesses to a certain start.

Okay, so that's where I want to go. So right now. So I'm going to walk you through a framework. There's five stages. So it's ideate it, make it, brand it, sell it, and delegate it. So that's the framework that I'm going to walk us through here. Since we have so many ways we could go. So we're in the ideation phase. Right. So within the ideation phase, there's a few things that you need to do. We need to identify the product. So the product is tea. And then we need to link it to the ideal customer, your ideal customer avatar. So, like, who is she? Especially if we're talking about goddess, we're most likely gonna have women drinking this tea. But women also make buying decisions. Right? But it might be something for her that she's keeping or gifting versus making tea for your kids. Maybe you would if it has another associated part to it that's part of.

The uniqueness of the tea. It's not a kind of. These aren't teas that if you really like them, I guess you could. But they're not intended to be these teas that you drink all day, every day, while you're working kind of thing. They are meant to create a mindful moment and a specific experience. So I was going to, potentially, even if I had a line of different teas, the idea was to pair them with a guided hypnosis or meditation to guide you through the experience in a way. Okay, and. And that's what. And when I've shared them with people. That's the thing that people are like, wow, I've never had a tea like this before.

So it's a little bit like it's ceremonial in a way. Or if you were to go to a spa, I've been to certain spas where it's sip this tea, let's go through it and then.

Right.

So it's like it is a very much an experience and that's why it.

Ends up being an ideal ica because they are often trying to create an experience for their people.

Tell me I missed that part. Who's the ideal ica?

Oh, like retreat or group leaders who are like leading participants through a certain experience, then the tea can help facilitate that.

But it's not a million dollar scalable product.

So while could have it for themselves, but it's also expensive. So you could have your own personal meditation tea or a tea like my VIP day for my services is oriented towards helping people level up so they can step into their next chapter. And, and that could be potentially, if you're trying to get ready for a big presentation or speaking event or I don't know, a lot of different things or going into motherhood or whatever your next big chapter is, but potentially, say you have a speaking event, we could do it all towards getting ready to feel good speaking. But you could also create a tea that you drink right before that or something like that.

Potentially. Yeah. So while you're starting in this realm of what you were saying, like retreat group leaders, like customization, you can do that and we could charge a lot of money for that. So I want you to think of that as like a second tier specialized product.

Okay.

If you're. And you can tell me if I'm on or off here. But what I think we should figure out is how to create a scalable T company. Is that.

Yeah, that's what I would love to figure out. That's what felt very overwhelming to me, that I was just like, I know that's probably what I should be doing. Cause I don't have the time to make the custom thing scalable.

When you're in this ideation phase, you're going to have a lot of ideas of potential business models and products. It can be fun, but it can also be a little overwhelming deciding what to go with. In Mistral's case here, I'm urging her to go with what's easiest first. She already has another business, so there's going to be a limited amount of time she can pour into her tea business. So, so instead of focusing on these highly specialized custom teas, we'll work on making a product that's scalable and compliments what she's already doing. From there we start to look at who this product is for. So let's shelf the custom. It's there, it's 100% doable. And I think once we work out this front end part of the scale tea company, the typical tea company but with a very different messaging, then obviously the other stuff comes easier. So in this phase it's not the retreat or group leader, it is the people they're calling to their retreats. So it's their podcast listeners, it's their followers on social media, it's their blog readers. And we're going to have to do more research on this. I don't want to, I'm not going to tell you exactly who she is today. So what we need to do is we need to find the pool of people. So I don't know if you've heard the story of Zappos. So when he is Tony, he ended up passing away unfortunately. But like when he started it, he looked at people were like selling shoes online. Are you out of your mind? People have to go to a shoe store and try on shoes. And what he did is he looked at the business at that point. He looked at the percentage of the market that bought shoes through catalogs and 5% of the market of the shoe market bought their shoes on catalogs. And when he calculated what 5% of the market share would be, it was like, I don't know, I'm just gonna say a billion dollars. It was something crazy at the time. So he didn't think I need to take up 99% of the market. He only went for the 5% and then he actually changed the shoe industry. So for you we, if we get clear on the ideal customer avatar, that's millions and millions of people, even if it's niche. So I want you to, when you're gonna do this work, we're gonna think about what you could do. Maybe one of the easiest ways to do this is you look at all of the retreat group leaders, the that are aligned with this goddess energy into human design, like Jill, are they into astrology who's constantly talking about Mercury in retrograde and not doing launches during that time. Right. Anyone that's on that vibe of understanding astrology, the moon, potentially human design, maybe they're pulling tarot, they meditate, they light crystals. There's a variation of this woman, there's the Extreme. And then there's the, oh, I bought some crystals because I was going through something or something. Right. She's a variation. And you're going to have your ideal. So if you think about color and you think about red. So I want you to imagine your ideal person is like a bright color red. And then you know how if you mix white with red and then it turns pink, the more white you have added, it's like a lighter pink. So imagine a bunch of little people cutouts, dark red all the way to super light pink and all the variations of pink that you can have. So even if she's super light pink, she might still buy your product. Maybe it's not. She's not your ideal. She's not ordering it every month. She's tasted it, she's tried it, she's gifted it. And then you have the person in red. So we're going to do the ideal customer avatar for the person, the true person. And then know that there's going to be your variation. So if you're very true with your messaging, you're going to hit your customer at different times in their life or their journey or their experience, that your thing is going to either ring like they need it because they're going through something or it's just their day to day life. But you're not going to change your messaging for the customer. Okay, does that make sense?

So the messaging would be focused on the ICA and then sometimes the pink people will connect with that messaging.

Yeah.

Okay.

And what it's going to be is it's the same idea. If I think about my spiritual journey and I'm still not like uber spiritual, but I do have crystals now. Little meditation corner I'm setting up in my office. Right. I'm like a wannabe. I'm a little bit woo. So there's. I remember like back in the day, like I said, I bought those candles cause there was something going on. Who knows if I was going through a breakup or whatever it was. And I was like, I need something. So there's a lot of people that enter woo, let's call it for specific things. There's some people that will never do it. Like I have a best friend who's so practical. She's a. It's not her world. She's most likely never going to come to it unless I, the woo person buy her it as a gift. Because I'm like, you need this energy buys her in. So you're going to have the people who discover your stuff and there's a need that your product is going to meet immediately and then you're going to have the people who are just like yes, I wake up every day and I say a mantra and I pull a card and I follow my stars and I do everything and they're the true person. The messaging will be like I said a little bit earlier, it can't be so industry language. You are going to have to dumb it down where the words make sense for both. So when you said to me mindful moments in experiential tea. But if you use the word archetype, if people go what's. What do you mean by archetype? But if it's like goddess tea and it's but the goddess but then the words underneath say like peace or health or, or if you're going by chakras and it's like throat even chakras gets a little bit too, too out there.

The focus of each chakra.

Yeah. So I've seen students do really well if they just use the word for a piece of jewelry and it's like anti stress. They're like oh yeah, that makes sense. So people who know what the stone does, they're. They don't necessarily need it. They already know all the components of the stone. But then general person also needs to see the word stress or health or love. That's the thing that's going to link the two. The person who is your ideal customer and then the person who's more of that light pink.

Yeah.

And how both can buy from you.

That makes sense.

I know so many product bosses who are terrified of the idea of niching down. They think if they pick an ideal customer they're limiting who is going to buy from them. But just because it's your ideal customer doesn't mean it's your only customer. As I explained to Mistral, there are shades. Even if a customer only matches up to a small percentage of your ideal customer avatar, they're going to feel more strongly about your brand because you have a clear direction and vision. Now what I've seen so many times is people have gone into ideating their product, they've made their product and they've jumped straight to selling their product. But they miss the first four steps and this is one of them. Niching down on your niche. Really, really understanding who your ideal customer is and why they want your product. That product market fit. Oh my goodness. Friends, have you heard that we just launched a brand new program called Standout 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, 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 gonna 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 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 productboss.comsos the productboss.comsos and I cannot wait to see you inside.

This has definitely been a problem for me, even just with my service and just trying to bring my words down into a place that people can understand. Even when I think I'm doing it, I think people still think it's a little over there.

Okay, so where the steps that I think you're missing is, okay, we've come up with this concept of that there's a T. And you have this intuitive sense to you about you understand energy work. You've got this intuition and you create magic. How do you sell magic? Magic is going to be the result. So customers, and this is with your service or with your product, what is the result your customer is looking for? That's what we're selling. We're not selling the product, we're not selling the course, we're not selling the container. Like a lot of times, like for you, as a service based business, you might say, oh, I do this and this. And they're like, I just want to know how you're going to get me to what I want, which is feeling better or piece or whatever. So we get. Sometimes you get so into the actual details versus what they want, what they desire. So the who, I think the research that you do on the who is looking at leaders or influencers and then their community. And then I want you to get into their communities. This is the market research part. So market research also gets skipped. There's two parts of market research. One, market research of your ideal customer. So what are the conversations they're having? And even for you with your clients, what are they saying they need? What are they writing down? What are you repeat, like repetitively making for them? Cause you see there's a very similar quote unquote problem, right? And then same in these groups, what are they speaking about? What are the words that resonate with them? So you're gonna wanna do the ideal customer avatar research. I have a friend, she created a company that she sold for, I think well into the eight figures. It was a product based business. And I asked her originally because it was a product for kids. And I asked her like, how did you figure this out?

Right.

She's actually a speaker at one of our Mastermind events. And she said what she did is she got into the Facebook groups of moms in New York City, like Upper east side. Those people, when I was friends with them, their kids were taking Mandarin and Russian and English and These kids were 18 months old. They had drivers and nannies and chefs and they had the best of the best and all the things. And so these moms were taste makers and they wanted the best. And the New York shops that had the kids stuff was the best according to them. Right. From money, like all that. So she started paying attention to things they were talking about and what they were, what their pain points were and what they were complaining about. And then she was able to say, okay, my ideal customer avatar is actually missing this. And they're complaining about really what she did. She took a kid's product that looks, that would always come in like bright, think preschool colors. And she ended up making it for a house. It looked like a beautiful home accessory that would blend in with the kind of customer's house that she wanted to sell to.

Gotcha.

So from a market research standpoint, I want you to get into that and pay attention to what the customers are saying, what your potential customers are saying. The other side is the market research of who in the market is doing what you are doing. You should know, does anyone else have a goddess tea or a chakra tea or a experiential tea or whatever the words are. So that's that awareness. The other thing is you could look at side markets, so not selling tea, but are selling another type of product that meets a similar problem, need, want or desire that your ideal customer would have and how that's being sold. So it could be crystals, it could be candles, it could be tarot decks, astrology books. What else is your ideal customer buying and how is it being presented to them? And truthfully understanding the market of who's out there. I talk to a lot of people when I do these coaching calls or masterminders and things like that, and they've never done market research. So they actually don't know who they're competing against. And that's really important. It doesn't mean you can't enter the market. But then what it allows for you to do is it lets you say, okay, this looks good, or oh, yeah, they're janky. I could do better. Or it's actually flooded. How can I find my differentiator? How can I stand out with the competition? And that part is usually skipped.

Gotcha. Yeah, that definitely sounds super important.

Yeah. So when I'm thinking about you and starting your company, you might just have. You might have categories. So there's going to be the teas. And again, I've worked with tea companies where they have thousands of teas. I've been into one of, she's in our mastermind and a multi stream machine student and I've actually been to her tea shop in Sacramento and it's, there's so many teas that I'm just like, I like green tea. What do you recommend?

Right.

And then they'll ask me a question and they'll be like, are you looking for something fruity or do you like like true green tea? And that's where the conversation happens. But the general human person that drinks tea is probably going through what they know. Black tea, green tea, white tea, herbal, like no caffeine, oolong Matcha's made a big comeback. White tea. And then she's like these pure teas and caffeine free. Right. So as you start to think about your product offerings, I want you to think and I don't want you to go so far out of the realm of what a person shops for tea. So that should be part of your consideration of making the product. So when we're looking at this market research, I want you to look at it also from the idea of the themes within tea. So we've got our normal what people are looking for like the kind of tea, black tea, green tea, matcha herbal and then the result they want. So let's keep digging in because you said calm and joy. But now let's take it into I would say your world. So now in your language, how would you then if you wanted to create this experience of me wanting calm or me wanting joy, how would you say that to me?

I would say radiant joy. Is that the kind of thing?

Yeah. Or like I'm okay with you speaking in your language now. So when you're working with as a practitioner and you're working with somebody coming in and laying down on your table for you to do your healing work, what is something that they're going to say to you or you say back to them that's going to through your healing work? The experience they're going to have and at the end the result they're going to have. Let's talk about that.

Okay. So for when they're coming to me, they are tending to be like feeling stuck and overwhelmed and stressed and then they're coming to receive some sort of clarity. So for me a lot of my work is balancing like the practicality, like I call it practical woo. And so when I get like really cool energetic practices and then I feel like leave and I'm like that was cool. But I don't know what to do with It, I think. And so I guess they get clarity and focus and peace. And then a lot of my huge thing about embodied magnetism is about increasing confidence and empowerment so that you can have more freedom to access. A lot of my work is helping you not feel reactive and so that you can just live and use your emotions as tools to help you make decisions and have more options than you think you do when you're just reactive, if that makes sense. And so part of that, what I liked about the teas that I've been making is that they get you into your body. It's a mindful body scan, almost practice. Because you have to like, really listen, oh, why do I feel. As it goes down my throat, as I smell it. And then all of a sudden I'm feeling these energetic experiences. It feels, it's feeling grounded, it's feeling light. I'm feeling it up in my third eye kind of a thing. And I'm having to explore what this feeling feels like so that I can recognize it in the future and make it happen for myself in the future things.

Okay, so jumping a little bit ahead, you could do QR codes that they could scan. Can.

Yeah.

And you could have little videos that go with it. And there could be like a small direction on just like really easy. So when they read it and whatever the word is wording that you use, it's like whether you want to use the word ceremonial or mindful moments. Like something where if I read it, it's okay for a mindful moment. Like it might say, like, how to brew the tea. And then it's find a place, sit down, take a deep breath, take. Take a sip. And then you give like in a. Not a super long paragraph. Cause they have to be able to read it pretty quickly. And then it might be like, scan the QR code for a full practice.

Right.

So I think as you're talking about it, as we've identified the actual product, we've. We're talking about the actual tea and helping you define how to define what kind of teas you should make. Then we get into an understanding who your customer is. Then we get into the. It's a cross between making it and the brand of it.

Yeah.

There's also the. I know you said you had questions about costing and pricing. So when we looked at your competitors and we look across the board. So the Calm tea, the Republic of tea, 36 bags is $13.50.

Right.

Are you doing loose leaf or.

Part of my difficulty is that, yeah, it's been loose Leaf for the retreats because they're making it in bulk for their participants. But then Jill does want little individual bags to put in gift bags for each person's room kind of thing. And but so many of my recipes are so complex and they all have different densities. So it's not like a kind of loose leaf. You could put a spoonful and get the full blend out because you have powders that have sunk to the bottom. You have roots, you have leaves, you have flowers.

They probably need to be individually packed.

So they need to be individually wrapped to do it individually. Yeah.

Okay, so this is all part of the ideation and make it phase because the ideation is you've ideated and we're going to get that. But the make it, this is the part that you're not there yet is going to be okay. So from your experience, they need to be pre portioned and they can't be loose leaf based on what you're putting in it. So that's one thing when you're making it and you're looking for like when we're talking about production, that's something you need to add in because then when we're going into pricing, we have to account for all of that. So in the market research realm and we. That's what I was saying in the very beginning. When you think about who your ideal customer is, who they shop from, what are sub brands that are there? This is, I think again, I'm going to say the word magic. But this is when you start to say, how do I stand out in a market like T. She did it by having a really defined perspective, right? She's, she's creating a market in a way, really specific, defined market. Like I know who my customer is. Then if you think about it, okay, she's yes, we used to have better packaging a long time ago because we didn't have this mass production of what we have now. But then you also think about it like, okay, what's doing really well in candles? Like why are people spending a hundred dollars on a candle or $250 on a candle? It's the jar. And so then she's taking the jar, the design of a jar, the visual branding, the presence of it, marrying it with, probably truthfully, just a normal tea blend and putting them together. And then the front part of the product, the naming convention, the why does a customer want it? What is the result that the customer wants that's on the front of the packaging. And that's when you marry together a product that can take off like you've created your own product market fit. And it's something that's, oh, this is different. I'm intrigued. I'll pay $49 for it for 4 ounces. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does make sense. When I was doing the product cost sheet that I got from you guys, I had, I think I had originally thought that the herbs were my well was so expensive just because I had spent so much money on it in bulk to not be paying ridiculous prices. But I realized it was the packaging, honest, Obviously, I threw together some packaging for the goddesses. Just, I was just going to put them in bags and then I had some friends who are in branding and they were like, no, you got to brand it. So he helped me make a little label and make it look nice, which I appreciated. But those like mylar bags and stuff ended up being. If I were to add that up into the cost sheet that I did, that ended up being the most expensive part. And then also realizing that for the crystals I was using to infuse it with, I was buying them retail, obviously, just because I don't know where to get crystals also.

Okay, you've got 25 cents in the tea components. Then we have, like you said, the materials of the teabags, the mylar bags, the printed labels, all of that. So when you start to see that your packaging is costing more than your product, that's okay because the packaging might be the thing that's selling. But you can always then say, okay, I'm doing this myself. I'm printing it at Staples. If I were to print it more at scale, how low could I get this? Because what you can start to do with this cost sheet, you can start to play with it and play with this number and be like, what if I was able to get my labels down to 5 cents? What would this work out to? So this is where you'll start to play with the numbers as we start to match it to the cost and then the price. Now when you find a co packer and you find someone else and you're starting to source this product more wholesale, I think you'll also bring your cost down. You're just shopping everything right now, like you said from just shopping. But this goes back again to that ID 8 market research stage of it all, where it's like, where can I land? And then you start to hone in on that customer, who your target customer is and what she's willing to spend on the result she's going to get from this Tea, which might be a mindful moment and something healing. It looks like she's into mindfulness and she needs to heal from something. So she, you said to me she comes in feeling stuck, overwhelmed and stressed.

Right.

And she walks away with clarity, focus and peace. So whether she's coming in and she's feeling overwhelmed, which is also stress, but it can be. And then she's leaving and she's feeling more peaceful or she's feeling more clarity, and you've got her to the other side, whether it was through the tea or through the experience with you. So as you're defining again, your customer, the product you're creating and even the price point, it's looking at all these places. And so where you're at right now is that we're going to have to source and see where we can bring the pricing down to. Because no matter what, even if you sold it for $77 and people could buy it all day, every day, I still want you to have the best margins. So they may still. That's the same thing with like, I started with a Cartier love bracelet or a knockoff. You might pay a $300 for a knockoff or like a couple thousand for a real one. So it's the same look, it's the same product. One person wants, like, they want it, but they can't afford it, so they aspire for it. And then the other person's gal, I'll buy that. So you, when you identify your customer and you create a really strong brand around it and a really strong why they should buy it, you can charge anything. There's a customer for everybody. I'd rather you be on the higher market side for what you have here. Because like I said, it's like to be able to do healing work is a privilege. You have to have extra money and extra time to be able to pay for someone to do aura healing and crystal work. And it's already a very specific kind of customer. Right now. Your cost sheet is basically, you know, you're buying locally, you're trying to do it yourself. It's not necessarily like a scalable way that you're pricing, but if we can start to think about this from a scaling perspective and find the right partners for you, then you're going to start to get more realistic pricing for turning this into a big business or like a T business.

Got it. That's awesome. Cool.

Going back to the framework I mentioned before, there's a reason we start with ideation, then making the product and then moving on to branding. Each step builds on the next. And I have seen so many product bosses through these coaching calls, through students, through our community that have skipped these four foundational steps. And Mistral's about to do the same. So with Mistral's tea business, we started by honing in on what she's actually going to sell. And then we went over what it costs to make that product. Now we're taking a look at how to price and position her teaspoon to make sure she's selling for profit to the right people. And here's another gap that I see, that pricing psychology. We have to nail your pricing. Now, while you're going to hear me talk about margins here, the other part is the psychology behind pricing. So let's get into it. When you do this other work of ideal customer avatar market research, and you start to figure out then what is the product? You've ideated the idea, but then we're going to ideate the product, product line, we're going to figure out your problem. So the problem you're solving for people, yeah, we know the product is t, but we need to figure out like, what do they need? What where are they now and where do they want to get to? Your ideal customer avatar, you're going to define who that person is. Again, going really deep into who she is, where she lives, what I would tell you to look at, what retreats she takes, who does she follow? And then you're going to do your market research. So the market research is going to be understanding the competition within the T realm and then also within side categories that the same customer would buy from. So it could be candles, crystals, tarot decks, it could be apparel, probably jewelry is a big one, actually that she probably buys and wears. So you're gonna do your competitive analysis amongst teas. You're like, okay, tea costs this much to this much for how many servings or ounces? Who can you find? Like I found that one that helps with fibroids and fertility and they're really expensive versus the magic hour one that you shared and then the cheaper grocery store ones. Because you also then want to say, where does magic hour sell? What are they selling at boutiques? Are they selling direct to consumer? Like, you're going to want to understand your competition. And when I say competition, it doesn't mean that you're actually directly in competition, but you want to understand their path. That's the market research part. And like this competitive analysis. And then you're going to get into your minimal viable product and that's what you're asking me, do I do 10, do I do one? I think with T, a variation. So once you figure out again, like why your differentiator, what you're gonna, what you're gonna be like, known for, let's say, do you do the goddess collection? It's like fertility, divine love, find the ones that are the most popular. And like I said, when we went and looked at that other company that was more for the sports people, it still gave us like sleep energy. So when you start to look at other categories of categories or meeting wellness is a huge trend. Mental wellness, sleep wellness is a huge trend. There's so much product being built around sleep. So however you define it, I still want you to look to the trends that are happening so you're not super off course. Does that make sense? Okay, so for minimal viable product, then you're gonna decide, then when you brainstorm and ideate and think through what problems can I solve with this tea? So say you're going to have a love tea, you're going to have a joy tea, a calm tea, but again, you're going to make your best words for it or whatever you think people need. And then you'll say, okay, what is this going to look like? 5, 10 of them. And then when you're talking in the make it phase, when you're talking to the manufacturers, they're going to tell you what your minimums are, what the setup fees are. So then you might start to whittle it down and say, okay, I'm going to launch with five core T's. So you're gonna, it's just, you gotta find out the information before you can make the decision. But you gotta, you have to come to decisions, source it, find out what you need to know. Okay, all right, I can only afford this. And you keep whittling away till you come out with what your minimal viable product is, which is how you're gonna validate your idea by then getting that minimal viable product in front of your ideal customer. And does it mean that it has to be in the packaging yet? Not necessarily. You're already doing it, right? You're already creating these minimal viable products. So can you, in the same time as you're starting to come up with these ideas, can you share it with your one on one customers? Can you take them through experiences? Can you record the steps that you're doing with it and think again? How can I have to dumb it down at mass production, but how can I create this like luxurious experience? They're paying me a lot of money for and turning it into something they could buy off the shelf. And then what I'd love for you to do is start to get in this minimal viable product, like validation of your ideas. I want you to start to ask them questions like tell me about your experience. And then you could give them a little checklist at the end like flavor, flavor, strength of the flavor, things like that. You want to know from whether it's like the food part or the experience part. And then you can start to gather testimonials because you can actually write those up and have Jacqueline from LA like, I loved it. My experience was so deep and I feel so much more clear and confident at the end. So that's in this minimal viable product between right now and the ideation, making it probably out of your house while you're also trying to see can I use a co packer and scale this thing and at least find the information that I need so that maybe you're still making it out of your house to start but as you grow or there is more demand then you, you have a place that you can go to to scale with it.

That makes sense. Okay, cool.

Any questions around that?

No. Thank you for laying that out. That's helpful.

You're welcome. You're doing amazing.

Thank you. Have a great rest of your day.

What a great coaching session. I am so honored when I get to work closely with product bosses, whether it's in my programs, courses or masterminds, and especially when we get to share them with all of you here on the podcast. Now, running one business is hard, but most entrepreneurs know that when you get that idea that just lights you up with excitement. It's hard to ignore. Mistral recognized that she took the slow path with her service business and that she'd have to learn a lot from scratch when it comes to product based business. I applaud her for seeking out the support in these early stages to give her that fast track to success. That's what we're all about here at the Product Boss to give you the tools and the foundations you need to avoid the mistakes most product business owners make so that you can build the life and business of your dreams. So my friend, keep dreaming. I'm rooting for you. 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 to 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.

SA.