596. "My sales are down! Is it the algorithm, the economy—or is it me?" | Coaching Session

I don't want you to get overwhelmed by all the things I want you to think. What is the biggest needle mover that I feel most called to, that I want to approach first? Because, yes, you're down in revenue, but it doesn't have to be. 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, Product Boss. All right, I'm back with another coaching session. I love that you are loving these sessions. I'm reading the reviews of the podcast and it is awesome to see your feedback. So if you haven't had a chance yet to leave a review for the podcast, would you mind just pausing for one sec and leaving a review? It would be so helpful in reaching more people. And I love seeing your feedback because the more and more that you all said that you love these coaching episodes, the more and more I did and now they're part of the show. All right, so let's get back to today. I am back with another coaching session and this time it's with Heather of Lady Lovingdale. She's been in business for around 20 years now and is making multiple six figures. Her goal is to get to a million, but right now she's on course to make less than she did last year. It has left her wondering what's wrong. Right is a bad economy to blame. Are platforms like FAIR and Amazon pushing her out to fewer people or is it something else? Let's hear from her and figure this out together. Hey. Hey, Prague Boss. Okay, so are you struggling with elevating your branding and taking your video content to that next level? If so, I have just the software for you and it's called Riverside fm. Wouldn't it be a game Changer if you could have crystal clear audio and video for your product launches, interviews and even virtual events. With Riverside fm, it's not just a recording platform, but your backstage pass to professional quality content creation. No more worrying about tech issues because we all know sometimes the tech gods just aren't on our side. Riverside FM allows you to connect with influencers, collaborate with partners, and engage your audience like never before. Plus, you can easily turn your recordings into shareable content for various platforms. It's exactly what we do here at the product class. I'm actually recording on Riverside FM real right now, and when you see the clips of me that look amazing and crystal clear on social media, it has been all recorded and created on Riverside fm. So it's time to grow your brand with beautiful visuals and captivating storytelling all in one place. So, product boss, if you're ready to stand out in a crowded market and elevate your brand, head to Riverside FM and enter the code the product boss. All one word to receive a 15% discount. Heather. Hey, welcome. So I'm so excited to get in this coaching call with you. We're working together inside of the Mastermind and I'm just ecstatic to see, like, what we do over the six months together. But digging in, I'd love for you to tell me a little bit more about your business. So what you sell, where you sell it, just let's get into the details.

Yeah. So Lady Lavendale is a jewelry brand. And I like to say we're a jewelry brand born of leftovers. Our first warehouse we cleaned out was back in 2004. So I've been at this for a little while and we cleaned out about 40,000 pounds of jewelry components that were going to be otherwise headed for a landfill. And so that's sort of become a big part of our brand story. But I am a creative first and foremost. I love to just make stuff. I had a bead store for 20 years before or actually the two businesses crossed over a little bit. I've been in the jewelry space pretty much my whole life. So we sell statement jewelry. We're definitely known as a pop of color, fun, happy brand. We're sustainable. So even though we work with a lot of plastics, we like people to know that we're not putting new plastics out into the world. We're kind of using post waste, if you will. One of our big propositions is that we work with surgical steel. So we're good for people who have allergies and sensitivities to metals. And that kind of thing and that probably covers that. I don't know.

I love it. It's funny cause I was wearing earrings today and they were sitting on my desk because my ears are so irritated.

Oh, I'm gonna have to send you some.

Yes siree. I'm definitely your customer right now. So I love that. I love how you sort of told the story and married the two of. You know, this is where you started and then the idea of the leftover jewelry parts and I think you said you've saved over £100,000 of vintage plastic leftover. So so cool in everything. You've created the evolution. Right. Because you said you've been doing this a while and I think a lot of times we think, you know, overnight success or they had that idea in the very beginning but we've gone through so many iterations of our businesses that this is where we are today and who knows where we'll be a couple years from now.

Exactly. I feel like a business is such a living, breathing being entity that it's like it can look so different year over year. And that doesn't necessarily mean an upward trajectory either, unfortunately. Although we have, we've grown year over year. When I first started this business it was definitely a side hustle and it was something that you know, I did while my kids were little. And so the reason I joined the Mastermind is I really want to be among other people who have experience who aren't necessarily newbie e commerce brands. And it's so funny, the term E commerce to me is so like no, I had a store and I had to have a website. Like I feel like it's almost the cart before the horse. Now with the newer e commerce brands they're like they didn't have the product, they just want an E commerce business and it's like ours was definitely the product first. So anyway, like I just, I'm super happy to be in the Mastermind with other people who have experience because their so many peaks and valleys in the business. I feel like we're sort of at a turning point.

I 100% agree with you. So at the product boss, the differentiator is that there are companies out there that are E commerce focused and they are the kind of company that they say find a product that you can source that you can sell and build a website around it and sell it online. You 100% can do that. But what our community tends to be are creatives makers, people who are product first. Right. They have a passion or an idea or an Inspiration, and it's based off of something else, I think, internally. And then we build the business around that. And we build the business around, like the lifestyle we want and the goals we have for our life versus just that. Sort of like, I want to start my own business. What's the best version of that? And let's just get up and going. There's plenty of coaches and podcasts and education people for that. And then that's why I think we are in a different world over here at the Product boss. Yeah, I agree.

And I think that's one of the things that really drew me to jumping right into the mastermind is I was like, oh, she's talking to me, she's talking to my people.

All right, let's dig in. So you are a multi six figure business and do you want to get to a million dollars? Is that a goal for you?

Yes. And actually that was my goal this year for sure. I was just looking at Q1 numbers and I'm not on track. I'm not on track. I'm not even on track to meet what I did last year, which was half that. And it's just, you know, the different arms of the octopus, if you will. Amazon is down 40% for me this year. Fair is one of our huge wholesale outreach methods and it's down 50% this year. I mean, those are huge, huge freaking numbers for a small business like us. So Overall, we're down 20% in Q1. Luckily, what we're really good at is our top of funnel. When we have a new fan, they become a mad, rabid funnel fan. Almost like a jewelry collector for Lady Lavendale and an addict. And so I go live for them all the time. We have a VIP group, we have a mobile app that most of them kind of live on. They check it daily for the newest drops. We're really good at the top of funnel. I've always used marketplaces as like an ad expense. Like, I've always sort of tried to make them our lead magnets in a way. So when those are down, we're getting less leads. And so that's really what I want to dig into is, like, where to get more of our rabid fans. Because I feel like once we get them, we're good at keeping them.

So this is kind of like a doctor's appointment when they said, you know, like, we need to, like, figure out what the prescription is and, like, what the problem is. So let's like, first start to pull this apart and, like, diagnose what we think the problem is. So what do you think shifted or changed on Amazon that has made it be down? Is there anything different that you've done internally? Are photos different listings? You know, are you no longer running ads like what are the things that you've shifted that maybe would have affected sales?

A couple of things and I kind of am my own worst enemy at some of this, but some of it is probably, I mean, let's just get the big elephant out of the room. I think the economy plays in a little bit. The big elephant, the white elephant, just.

The elephant this year.

Just trying to give it a little flair. So yeah, I mean maybe the economy is a little portion of that, but I don't think that's it. I have not been putting new products on. Last year we hired a quote, Amazon expert group. They overtook all of our listings. They did not want me working in Amazon at all. They recalibrated our listings and I do think optimized them. Like they look prettier. They were not very expensive, but they wanted a portion of sales for their work. It was reasonable to me and it seemed like it would be a good fit. By six months in, I knew that we were not. I'm not gonna knock the brand, them, the agency themselves, however, I just don't think we were a good fit for each other. I don't think they got my brand, I don't think they got my product. Anyway, so the listings did have some shifting and I have not been involved in Amazon because I sort of trusted this other outfit. Remember I mentioned the control freak thing? So I'm trying like, I'm like, oh my God, this is going to be so great. They're going to optimize these messy old listings and, and they did a good job getting all the. Because you know, it's important to have the five star ratings all put in one place. So for example, we sell a lot of hoop earrings in different colors. So we had had those all listed as individual products, both on Shopify, Amazon, Etsy, Fair. One of our big projects last year was to condense all of those products into products with variants. So if you're looking at the Chandler hoop earring, for example, you're not getting 20 different Chandler hoops as your product search results. You're getting the Chandler Hoop and then all the dropdowns for all the different colors you can choose. And that sounds like such a simple thing to do. It's been such a huge undertaking. So they helped us do that over on the Amazon product portion. So our Listings. They didn't tell me how they even did it. I'm in there now, basically six months in. I decided when our contract's up, we weren't going to work together anymore. And by the end of it, they actually fired me. So. And it wasn't because I was in there. I. I wasn't in their face enough. I should have actually been like, look, if we did it this way, I don't know, it just again, was not a good fit.

So do you think that the problem is, is that they shifted the way the listings were? So that shifted something on the back end of Amazon because it didn't do well. Right.

Something's shifted. I don't know if it's an algorithm thing because maybe the products aren't as aged as they were. I don't know enough about the back end of how all that works. So I think that's part of the problem. But also, we didn't push one new product to Amazon last year because they were still working on optimizing everything. We did send a few things to FBA here and there.

But yeah, because I'm on your Amazon right now and not all of the products have all of the different colorways underneath it.

They only did a couple of them and then they would. I wouldn't hear from them for like two months.

So it looks like your phoenix who bearing has all the colors, for example, but the bright orange small simple is just the bright orange small simple. Are you seeing any sales happen on ones that like. It's just the one listing the one color. Do you see a difference?

Yes, I don't feel like one is performing better than the other at this point.

Oh, okay.

We do both. Fbm fulfilled by merchant and fulfilled by Amazon. And what we see come through on our end anyway is a mix of both the optimized combined products and the singles.

So looking at fulfilled by Amazon or fulfilled by you is one outperforming the other?

We fulfill more than Amazon is fulfilling now simply because we just haven't been sending enough stuff out to them.

Okay.

Honestly, it's neglect.

We'll soften that word a little.

Okay, yeah.

So this is what I love to do. And like pull it apart. Because your first answer, the easiest answer was it's the economy. Right. But if we look at one of your main revenue streams, like if we think about this multi stream machine and this is one of your big revenue streams and it used to do well, you said like in 2018. And then we look at the changes that happened, whatever happened Back in the day. And then you're like, yes, I'm gonna hire experts to do this thing to get it off my plate, which is a very good move to make. I have done the same thing and I have quickly fired people that I'm like, mm, this is not working right. And it sucks when it does have this effect, but it's something that you're gonna learn from and move over from. So knowing that this is down so significantly is sort of like, where do you wanna start? Right? Because you've done Amazon and you do well on Amazon. So if we were to look at Amazon and say, all right, if you went back in and you're like, this is what I'm going to do, I'm going to dig back into Amazon, I'm going to create like a 30 day project around it, what does Amazon need? Because if you feel like you're neglecting it, what product needs to go in, what do I need to do? Full fulfilled by Amazon? Because people tend to like prime more than not. You know, if the listings don't matter between the lots of images or not, you know, you could try a new listing or you could bring up your old listings. I'm not really sure the whole back end. But you know, just think through, same thing, pull this apart and diagnose it and say, well, what do I want to do? If Amazon is a thing for you and it is a place that you want to move the needle on, I would make this one project and I would focus on this one project because you've just listed past the economy. Now you've actually given me all the other reasons why it didn't work. So forget the economy. If we could get this thing working again, because you've done it, you've proven yourself that you've done it and you know what you're doing and this is worth your time and effort and the return, then that's a focus point that I would say. When you're seeing your sales go down on different revenue streams, it's tempting to find something to point at. It's the economy, it's the algorithm. I'm not saying that those don't play a role. Of course the economy is going to impact your business. But let's shift to what you can do about it. Take a look at each sales channel. Give yourself a 30 day project to look at the numbers and start dialing things in. Heather realizes she's been neglecting Amazon and that could be why her numbers are down. That's a little harsh. It's easy. It's easy, right? It's easy to get distracted with all the things that product based business owners have to tackle. But honing in on one aspect for a set period of time can help you get back on track and also can help reduce the overwhelm. I love to do this right. I love to get really singularly focused because one, I'm less overwhelmed and two, I get a lot more clarity. But it happens to all of us. So once you have momentum, once you figure this out, it's easier to keep things moving in the right direction. That's the first part when we're talking about revenue being down. No new products, some listings got changed, but maybe it's a new product situation and like what's featured through prime versus not prime and that's a project to do. And then what was the other thing that you said is down Fair only fair or wholesale in general?

My two main streams of wholesale income are kind of interesting because fair is one of them. And the other one is I actually go live for online boutiques and do what's called like a, like a live takeover and I sell directly to their customer and then I invoice them for the wholesale pricing and that is down a little bit as well. I just think there's other people who are killing it. There's always people, but a lot of people are saying it's the economy, it's the economy, everything's down, everything's down. I mean, I don't know if that's why that piece of the wholesale is down, but I'm still doing it. And some of the people I've worked with are still killing it. So I just think that the marketplace is kind of weeding itself out a little bit. But yes, faire itself. We are tanking on faire. I know they've just introduced the paid to play model. We have not experimented with that yet. I'm not really interested in experimenting with.

It, to be honest.

It's funny that you mentioned like back to old school ways because honestly, I'm getting ready to just start cold emailing people I haven't heard from in a while as well as look alike people. Because I feel like this brand shines when people get to know us, when they see not just me, but the background with the rainbow of hoop earrings. Like, I feel like I just need to get back to roots a little bit.

Yes. Sounds to me like a couple things. The thing you're doing online, you're almost doing like these online trunk shows, which is very cool when you do eventually contact retailers, and you're trying to take over your own wholesale accounts and link your own wholesale part of your business. That is something that you can pitch them. I've done this. These are the results that they get. It'd be a really great way to kick it off. Remember that we're all in partnership together. So when you're selling wholesale, while the first part is when you go on a date and you're trying to get the person to say yes to a second date, or even taking up on the first date, it's this thing of want them to like you. But once you decide that you're gonna get into business together and you're gonna sell together, and. And a secondary part to that is, hey, these are the things I can do for you. I've done this for other stores, and we've had great success. This is what's happened. And then you come to them. So back in the day, when we started the Product Boss, if you go all the way back to, like, episode 10, we have a series called the Subscription Boss. And Cratejoy had approached us. They're like an online platform for subscription boxes. And they had approached us. We're brand new. We had 10 episodes. We had, like, no downloads. We didn't tell them because at the time, they were like, you get paid $25 per thousand listeners or something, and, you know, we're like, we're not doing this for 25 bucks. I don't know how many people we had. So instead, what we did is we went to them and we pitched them an alternative idea. So instead of us even getting into the weeds of how many downloads do you have for us to do some sort of advertising partnership, whatever, we went to them and we're like, what if we created a series for you? You told us what to teach people to get them through a subscription box selling on cratejoy, and we'll do that. And we ended up getting paid so much money to do this with a very small audience and that content, for years and years and years, people would contact us about it. So when I say that as a story, it's more of, like, when you position yourself, get creative, and you go to a retailer, like, hey, retailer, this is our business. You know, this is Lady Levandale. This is what we do. People love these and all the things that you would do to pitch it. And what we could do, if this is of interest to you, is we could do like a whole launch, like, hey, we're in the store. We can do a collaboration we can do a takeover. And they may have never even thought of that and said, that's genius, Heather. Wow. Now you're helping them. Because I say this in partnership is the whole goal is that you sell to them and they sell your stuff so that they come back and reorder. So it's all in collaboration. Once they say yes, now you both are like a partnership and a team of how do we just keep selling more and more product? You help them sell, they will keep buying from you. And it's the cyclical thing. And like you said, when we say top of funnel for people who have no idea what that means, it just means where do people discover your stuff? Like the broader audience of how people discover. And so you're like on the shelves or on Amazon. It's the same concept of multi stream machine because I teach how to get more eyes on your businesses being on more sales channels that have their own audiences. So you're doing that and then once, like you said, they become these fans, they then come to your website, they follow you on social media, and then they buy directly from you. So you're nailing all of that. And I think you have the superpower that you're willing to do stuff live. I would position that to partners.

I like the way you framed that because I feel like I've only worked with people who are already doing lives, they've already established a live audience, and so I'm just showing up as like yet another guest host. But I like what you just framed as far as like packaging it, offering it to someone who may have not even like, do you have an Instagram? Guess what, you have a live audience if you want to use it. Like, you just need to show up and show them some products. Right? So I, I feel like you're right. If I frame it that way, I might get some new interest in that kind of thing. Yeah, that's really smart.

This is such a cool idea. We talked about how fair is kind of leveling the wholesale market, but that leaves a lot of room for out of the box or even, dare I say, even old school thinking. And I'm all about the old school. Heather's already seeing success with these live boutiques, so why not leverage that for her wholesale partners? You don't just have to compete on price, product or audience size. There are tons of ways you can leverage your personal superpowers to help others, which in turn makes you and your business more valuable to them. It's a win win. Multi stream machine is going to be upgraded over the next several months. So everyone that's in there is going to get the upgrade and everyone that's new will get the upgrade or get the brand new version of it. But what I love about it is that when we recorded it and I taught about wholesale and how to sell wholesale, fair was really a smaller portion of it. It was still coming up. Not everyone knew about it to the point that like I remember on the podcast we were like, there's wholesale platforms and people didn't know it existed. Now people don't know that there's another way to sell wholesale outside of fair. Like they literally. It's unbelievable how many people are like, well how do I do it if it's not through fair? And I'm like, wow, we've really kind of handicapped ourselves being reliant on another platform, right? That we don't control. You just said they're doing a pay to play. So now again you're playing in their playground. So I love it because you know, over the years I've been like, oh, maybe we should like update fair. And I'm like, no, no, I'm sticking with what I believe in, which is go out and get em. Like that's just the way I operate. So that's the way I'll coach on. Like what can we do ourselves? I'm not cool with sitting passively by. I like having things in different places that if I'm discovered just by chance. But I am never gonna just sit on a platform and wait for people to come find me.

I totally agree. When they first wanted us to upload all of our customers, all of it, I actually never did that. I was like, I would rather pay commission when I don't need to than share all that.

So.

So because we use Shopify as kind of what you know, Shopify I consider kind of a hub because then you can push your stuff to fair and it's really not a lot of work. Like you're literally putting on it, you're launching new products. They're just unfair if they're on Shopify, if you have the toggle set to push it to Shopify or whatever. So it's really. I think you might have to tweak a few like keyword things over there and stuff like that. But it's really pretty easy. So it's like I'm still doing the same thing I was doing last year when we were up 50%. So in that case I feel like it's not me that's changed, it's fair. That's changed. So, but again, you can't control what you can't control.

So yeah, from your store lists, from your stockists and the people you've sold to before fair, how did you sell to them if you don't know? Like in multi shoe machine, I kind of teach you how to find the stores, how to reach out to them, what to say to them, how to make the sales. And so I do think allow FAIR to just exist. And if again, if you go reach out to people and you want them to check out on fair, absolutely. Like you can push them over there to place their order. But that's another thing of kind of to take back control of that. If you want to start selling wholesale more and you believe in it and you know that you're already selling wholesale and people are crushing it. Because the thing is, is that yes, there are recessions. We're actually not in a recession. We never made the recession. So just everybody knows job numbers are strong, people have money. What's happening is that there's wars in the world, there's an election year in the States, like there's just other crap. Like things just have not gotten easier over the last four years. Just a new inflation. Yeah, yeah. And yes, there is inflation. And just people are more aware of numbers and they're more aware of things. And yeah, my bananas cost way more than they used to cost. Right.

It's one of the things that age does give you. This is typical of an election year. I hate to say that, but it's just the uncertainty. It's just uncertainty, right? I mean, I would just call it uncertainty. You can lump recession, inflation, whatever you want to name it, but it's uncertainty, I think, and it'll come back.

And the good thing, the cool thing about your stuff is that it's actually not that expensive. But let's just talk about something expensive. Chanel bags have gone up 30% and a bag you could buy pre pandemic for $3,000 is now $10,000. And people are buying that. And people are buying $5 million homes as like starter homes in LA, right? So people who have money have money do not get caught. I want everyone not to get caught in the news stories because news stories are meant to cause an emotional reaction. And I want you to just, if you are so connected with your customers, like you said, like, they're die hards, they're raving fans, they consume it all. And your products are not that expensive. I mean, to get this kind of earring for $24 or 16 bucks, it's cheap and they don't make my ears turn green and, like, get infected. It's even better. Right. So there's no reason why you can't keep growing. It's just looking at the things that are broken. But again, it's not even you that's broken. It's just that we need to dig back in and be like, what feels off? What happened? What changed? Okay, so the fair algorithm changed and the platform's changing. Great. Does it mean that I am dead in the water and my business isn't going to work and I can't sell holes anymore? It just means I have to approach it differently. And you've been in business long enough that, you know, there are the ups and downs, there's versions of this and yeah, it's more effort. And that's why, like, for you at the size business you have, I don't want you to get overwhelmed by all the things. So that's why I think, thinking about this, I want you to think, what is the biggest needle mover that I feel most called to, that I want to approach first? Because, yes, you're down in revenue, but it doesn't have to be. So what's the thing that you think, okay, I'm going to go in, I'm going to tinker with that for a certain amount of time. I'm going to get that machine going again, that revenue will start to come up and then I can tackle the next one.

Maybe it's me, because I don't know where to look. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do next. There's so many options that I freeze. Maybe I just need to up some medication. I don't know.

If I were.

No.

If I were to ask you what feels like the easiest thing that you like. Okay. Right now the faucets are kind of like, it's dripping, it's not flowing. It feels like a little drippy.

And I'm totally hitting my VIP group harder. Like, they're spending. They've doubled my revenue. There is 50, 50% year over year. Yeah, almost doubled. We've almost doubled our revenue with our mobile app. So it's sort of started to help make up for the places that have died down.

So what is the thing you want to either unkink? So, like Amazon and wholesaler, like an unkink sort of thing, like the hose is kinked and we want it to flow again, or do you want to say, like, you know what, let's Just let that stuff be, and I'm going to work more on, let's say, that group and, like, growing that group.

I guess that's why I'm here, because I feel like I need to unkink the things that are a little more automated because I'm getting tired. Like, I keep having to show up live every day now where I used to be, live once a week, and it's working. Like, I'm making payroll. You know, I've got a team. Like, I've got pressures and money. Like, it's helping all that, but I'm gonna burn out. So it's like I need to unkink some of the more automated.

Like, more passive.

Yes, yes. Some of the. Like, Amazon used to be a certain amount of income, and it was pretty much automated. Now, obviously it wasn't totally automated because it's going down because I haven't been giving at any TLC or any new products. So, like, nothing is totally automated. But, you know, there's some parts of it that can be more passive than others. So I feel like some of my streams that used to be passively just bringing in the orders are the ones that are shutting down. So, like, I'm leaning harder into the places that are working, but it's me having to show up with the energy and the selling and my face and I have to wear makeup. You know, it's that kind of thing versus, like, oh, we got 70Amazon orders this morning. Like, that's not happening anymore.

So I love that you said on the makeup, I. Sometimes I'm so resentful in the mornings. I look at my head, I'm like, how come all these, like, dude, coaches don't have to put their makeup on and blow dry their hair? They just gonna go live, right?

They go silver fox and everybody loves them.

And.

Yeah. Mm.

I'm just like, I have to. I have to do my hair. Okay. So to me, and what you're saying is exactly, kind of what I'm feeling for you is I think Amazon is the more passive machine to turn back on, to fix, to tinker with, because wholesale is still going to take effort. You're going to have to find the stores, contact the stores, create the relationships, and sell to them. So fair right now works for you in a passive way because people are discovering you on that platform. So you don't have to actually do the outreach versus the way I teach it is the outreach part of it all. And so it is a bit of a bigger lift. So I think the first Thing I'd like you to do then is to focus in on Amazon and say, what can I do? Knowing. Because you know, Heather, like, you've got it in your gut and you've already done this. You don't need someone to tell you what to do here. I think you know innately some of the things that you can play with and do. Maybe you don't change everything. Maybe you try a few of the listings and you try and see if you can get those working, you know, because if we overhaul everything, then we still don't know, like, did we mess it up again? So I would test a few things on here. You can kickstart it back up by sending your VIPs to Amazon, right? You do a whole VIP push.

I always keep that very, very separate because they buy the newest stuff, like they're collectors and the stuff on Amazon is sort of like a. Like, let's get rid of this stuff.

What if, though you said something along the lines of, because they're your raving fans, hey, all this is what we sell over here. It's really great. If you wanted to send a quick gift to mom, like, let's just say, because it's a two day thing, right? So people will also use this as a way to send something really quick to people as a gift.

Right? That's true. Gifts, yeah.

Mother's Day is coming up really quick, so maybe not that, but you may just say if you're all looking for, you know, the blah, blah, blah in multiple colors, stay here for all the new stuff. But I just want to let you know, like, or we're really leaning back into Amazon. It's not. You all have the best stuff here. You'll get the first things you can just choose. Or you have an email list. You just want to think, like, to kickstart up Amazon again. You also haven't been telling people about it because like you said, you have been keeping them apart. But Amazon is a place of convenience. So no, maybe it's not the coveted. The people are like, ooh, like, I want to be in on the inn, but let's let people know that Amazon exists, that they can buy it there and they'll buy the basics and then they'll come for the vip, they'll come for the exclusive. So maybe there's a little bit of pushing your own traffic to Amazon to kickstart that back up. So for me, your easiest lift with the least effort would be kickstarting the Amazon machine again.

Okay.

And setting a goal for yourself. I'D like to get it from this amount to that amount. That would be a project that I would work on and that would be less, more passive. And then you won't, it won't need you as much as like wholesale would need you.

Right, okay, that makes sense as a first stop.

For sure, nothing is truly passive. But there's a big difference between showing up live online or manning a trade show booth all weekend and waking up to a bunch of sales on Amazon. So if you're starting to feel constrained on time, putting a little upfront effort into listing some products on a more passive sales platform can really help you out. But here's the thing. Keep in mind that it's not just a set and forget sort of thing. It's going to take some time. Tweaking listings, understanding the sales channel that you're on, and really pushing people to your products. So for example, really pushing people to your products on Amazon before you start seeing momentum. But when it does get going, it can be huge. All right, product boss, I have a serious question. Does it ever feel like you've tried everything and you still aren't making the sales you want to be? Or maybe you've poured countless hours, days and nights, there's been tears into your product biz and you're starting to think that maybe you're just bad at business. I mean, trust me, I have literally been there. So I'm here to tell you that you aren't bad at business and that selling your products doesn't have to feel this hard. So what I've seen from coaching thousands and thousands of product based business owners like you is that they just don't know how to get their products in front of more customers to make more sales. And listen, I get it because I used to have that exact same issue with my product biz until I figured out the one thing that took my business from one or two sales every two weeks to people I knew to making six figures in my first year of business. That's right. I was able to take a piece of fabric that I folded over three times and turn it into a six figure international success which was worn by countless celebrities all in just one year. And the best part is that I did it without spending a single cent on ads or having an audience or a following or an email list to sell to. Now listen, I want this for you too. Which is why I'm sharing my secrets so you can learn how to turn your product based business into into a money making machine that provides the stability and financial security that you're looking for. And it's all happening inside of my free masterclass, the three part framework to building a consistent, profitable, revenue generating, product based business in 2024. So if you're ready to get clarity, get profitable and take that next step, all you need to do is head over to the product boss to save your spot. Again, that's theproductboss.com framework. Or you can just click the link in the show notes and I'll see you inside. All right, now back to the show. Okay, so in talking about that part and talking about sort of the idea of focus, because you said you want help in focusing, that's what I would do as an easier lift. And then the secondary part is what sounds like it's working for you because you said it's like doubling year over year as the VIP group. Now, while you're going live every day, you may not have to. If you have like set days and times that they come and you make it like a bigger event, you could do ways of drops without you doing it live. So you could post stuff in the group that's just like a picture.

Yeah, I do that on the weekends. It's an amazing little group.

Okay.

I just need to figure out how to get more people in that bottom. I was calling it top of funnel earlier, but I guess it's the bottom of the funnel. Right.

So how did you get them in there? What did. What are the things that cause success leaves clues. So what did you do that we can do more of?

I don't know, honestly. I mean, we do post like Instagram is not where our people are. For some reason. I have, I struggle with Instagram, but we do post on Instagram. Hey, we have a Live tonight. Come over here. And I. I'm not live every day. I'm live every day this week, but I'm not live every day in our VIP group. Thursdays are our new product launch. I usually do one other day where it's a themed drop.

So if you're not big on Instagram, where are you?

Big Facebook.

Okay, that's fine. So your Facebook page draws in the customers and then they get into a Facebook group.

Correct, Correct. Or we even put. We've gotten away from it. But we used to put stuffers in every package that would say, hey, do you want to shop with friends, join our VIP group, or download our app? Live launches every Thursday night. And I've gotten away from that. Actually, I'm glad that you're bringing that up because I Should put those stuffers in the box again.

And do you send emails?

We do, yes. It's been very inconsistent in the last six months and I actually hired a company to help me with my flows. So those actually just went live about a week ago and already I can see them working over in Klaviyo, the company that I hired. They're great. They actually were like, okay, we also need you to nurture your email list. So you need to send out two campaigns a week. So. So I'm committing to doing that again.

So same way that we started. I love it. This whole thing has a theme. So one, it's like what used to work, right? Like, I'm glad you found one.

Cause I. I'm like, have I derailed this podcast? I'm. So now you see how my brain works.

I love your intake form. Cause you were like, on your intake form. You were like, my. You said, my self diagnosed ADHD is on fire today.

It's true.

Because you're just like this. And this is. Look, there's a part of us that needs to have that kind of energy as entrepreneurs to kind of just. Again, it's visionary. It's like trying to go. So the two themes that I've pulled from this are, and they're very strong, are that one, what used to work is coming back, right? And two, it's diagnosing what has changed and going back to what used to work, right? So it's like whether it's outside of us or internally, it's that. So you said, I don't know how they find us. So in the group, I would ask, how did you find out about the VIP group? Ask them.

Yeah, okay.

Just put a post, have a poll, whatever it is. Second is if you know that you're doubling. These people are raving fans. They get in, they love it. You're putting in this effort. Then let's on some sort of automation get. Part of your welcome emails should be immediately inviting them into this group.

Okay.

And then reminding them about the group so we don't just tell them on the ones. Like they opt into your email list and you're like, blah, blah, blah. Then it's like, did you know we have this group, we go live. Like, it's like you get stuff that people will never see, you know, whatever you want to say in it, and you invite them in with a clickable link that they get to just go join the group.

Okay.

Then throughout your emails, or maybe always on the bottom, join the VIPs, right? Like, or Whatever you call them, join this. Like live shows, exclusive designs, like, however, again. And maybe it's always at the bottom of an email. And then some emails might be like, tonight, going live. Like, you email the people. Cause we've got groups of people following on email. Same thing. Then you need a rhythm on Facebook that you're constantly letting people know, like, if you're not in the group, join the group. We're going live tonight. Join the group. We're always calling the call to action is that. And then social media, same thing. Let's every six, nine posts talk about the group. Like, show something that they can't get. Treat your Instagram the same idea of like, oh my gosh, look at this cool. Exclusive. You want access to it. You'll never find it on the website. You have to be in the group.

Oh, that's a good idea.

And then have a link in your link tree. Join the exclusive group. Right. I'm giving you a lot of ideas, but it can be simplified. I think for you, it's really creating flows and rhythms to your business of one, what's the greater goal? What are you gonna focus on? How do you fix that? I think Amazon's an easier lever to pull for that passive revenue. And then the second part is, is if you're going to put in all this effort into this Facebook group, we just need to be better marketers of it. Nobody knows it exists. They're not. They're not going to come in. So we want to find out how they found out about it. And then we just want to incorporate it more into our marketing. This might sound obvious, but so many product bosses don't do it enough. If you want customers to do something, whether it's buy a product, join a group, sign up for your email list, whatever it is, then you have to tell them that it exists and ask them to take action. We sometimes get stuck thinking, oh, I've mentioned it before, I don't have to do it again. Right? Because we think everybody's listening to us at all times. But you're always reaching new people or finding them at a different time. Or maybe they just didn't notice the first six times. Nobody is paying as close attention to your business as you are, so don't be afraid to tell them over and over again what you want them to do. And then there's a few people that do do drops, like product drops. And people are just waiting for the product drops. And so whether that's in your group or through email. Right. It's why Lularoe did so well. Their whole mythology was, you don't know what you're going to get, like, as a seller. You're going to open up the box and you're going to have all these prints and then the customers are actually going to be looking for the print. So they're going to be like paying attention to you. Go live. And then like, do you have the lip print or like, do you have the stripe? You know, in my size? And they're waiting for that. It's the same concept of TJ Maxx. Why people like TJ Maxx? Because they feel like they're discovering stuff on the shelves. It's messy for a reason. It's got only one of something for a reason. Because people feel like they're finding and discovering. So it's kind of the same concept with your stuff like they're finding, they're discovering. It's not a gazillion things that look the same and that drives consumption. And that's thinking about how you can do that multi channel.

I love it. And actually, I can't even believe I'm confessing this. My mom sold Lularoe and I decided to help and yes, she did. And I decided. I'm like, you have to start a VIP group. Because I see all these other Lularoe sellers doing a VIP group and that's literally where it hit me. I'm like, they're creating FOMO with these unicorn leggings or whatever it is, and I literally work with vintage products that will run out. And I used to let that hold me back. I used to actually not approach key accounts because I was like, oh, my gosh, I don't have deep inventory and what they're going to want, which is actually not true. And in a lot of cases, we've cleaned out warehouses. I'm a hoarder. We have way too deep inventory in some SKUs. But yes, that's exactly when I started the VIP group. I was like, oh, my gosh. Okay, I'm going to create a group where they're going to realize, like, you have to get it here because it's not going to be on Etsy, it's not going to go to our Shopify. We're not going to put the work into photographing it if there's only six of them. So I would hold it up. So, yeah, I'm glad that you're reminding me to do that, to like get people in that bottom of funnel because there is something exclusive there that they won't Find anywhere else. Yeah.

And that time and scarcity drive that now, does it work for everything? No. And I mean, you have products that I can get in every color, so that's okay. And then there's also the discovery of new product, product drops, that kind of thing. I used to work with the people who basically created the live sales. Like they had hired me as their consultant and when they were leaving, they're in the Lular documentary movie. And when they were leaving, so scandalous. And so when they were leaving it, they had come to me to create product for them so that they could, because they had the audience, but they needed to make their own product. So we were designing and developing all the stuff. So I remember going. But the live selling was new to me. I wasn't part of LuLaRoe. I wasn't part of that world. I didn't buy from it, none of it. But when they hired me and they would fly me out to their house and they had this huge like barn where they had all the product and they had all the camera set up and how they would do the live selling. And I watched and I was like, they were making well over a million dollars a month, I think. And I was like, you know, who doesn't know that this is happening? Are big brand stores, like department stores had no idea how much money was being spent on apparel through live selling. And if you think about the evolution of stuff, because yeah, there was always like HSN and qvc, but then now there's live selling on Amazon, which is something you could consider because you're good at it. Just side note. Okay, yeah. Your light bulb moment, right. Because you're very good at this stuff. So then we started seeing live. That's why TikTok does so well, because people have their own selling shows. But that same idea, you're very good at selling. So then thinking, okay, if I'm gonna do these live shows, can I air them all in one place at the same time? Can I broadcast out just one in different places? Or do you start to be the face of your. You are, but your position in your business is the face, the selling person. And then you start to hire people to do the other stuff so that you can just be in your zone of genius, which is probably front facing.

Yeah. I have this adorable operations manager and she's 25 and she's gorgeous. And I'm like, you should like social media. You like TikTok. And she's like, I'm a 40 year old in this body. I do not want to be on TikTok. And so. But she does. She'll go live for me, and she does a great job. But it's really hard to get the same sales when somebody else goes live. And I really. I feel like I need to train somebody who really wants to be live, which probably isn't her. She's great at so many things. So it's okay because I. I want to be on TikTok. I want to be on Amazon, and. But I'm also like, oh, my gosh, how many times can I go live a day? People are going to get sick of me, and I'm sick of myself.

No, they're not. They're not. Because there's people who watch the View every day or the morning shows every day. Like, people like regularity. They like shows. That's why we binge watch shows. So let's remove that thought. You are the face of your brand. And when you show up and people see your face, they're like, oh, what has she got right? Like, if they are attached and they're connected to you. And also, she may be too young. She might be too young for your ideal customer. So they also won't see themselves, but they see themselves in you. Because maybe your ideal customer isn't someone in their 20s and early 30s. It's someone who's in their mid-30s and above. So I think that. And we'll do this together within the mastermind, but let's just plan for projects. Like, let's just work on project goals. So whether you want to do it in the next 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. Make your decision. Knowing what your life looks like, what is the first project you want to tackle? And stay focused on that project. Do your normal other stuff, but, you know, focus on that one project and you can make some tweaks on other things. Like, I have to send two emails a week. Fine, we can do both. And. But don't overhaul all the things at once. That's where you're going to get overwhelmed. And then the goal will be, is that, all right, you either have automatic stuff or you're like, I'm going to hire someone to take over operations. I'm going to hire someone. Things that you can get off your plate, because maybe you wouldn't be as exhausted if you truly were sitting in your zone of genius, which would be the face of the brand and doing the selling. Imagine what it would look like. Let me just give you a future version of yourself. You have a studio set up and someone's working for you that knows exactly what product you have to sell that week. They set it up at a table for you, they turn on the lights, you get to kind of walk onto set and then you just get to sell knowing the products that are there. You didn't have to do any of the before and you don't have to do any of the after. You just get to watch the sales come in.

Yeah, I love that, right?

Yeah, it's possible.

Yeah, I love that.

It's 100% possible. You just have to imagine your most perfect scenario and then your brain will start to find the ways to it. And it's the same with me where I used to have to write all the scripts for what I was going to say. Now my team writes the scripts and I just have to flip this thing on, record them, pass it back, and then that ends up on the podcast or an ad or whatever I'm doing, even to the point like I have to do certain ads, like face to camera ads. And I used to again, it took me so long to put it all together. And now the team that I have is able to, we brainstorm on it, they create it, I look at it, maybe I'll edit something, but I really just go live and go. Because the longest thing it's going to take me is all to set up. But I'm the face of this brand. So I think just imagine the future version of how you want it to be. Imagine what your life would look like in that way because this is not a forever. And then you will start to find your way there. You don't have to know exactly how to get there yet, but if you can imagine that future perfect version of how you would do this, your brain will start to figure it out.

Okay.

It'll start to come to you. You'll get these hits. You'll be like, oh, I'll do that. Oh, okay. I'll get clarity on that. Oh, okay. You might even stop doing certain things that you've been doing because you don't need to do them. You might be like, why am I the one letting people into the Facebook group? I need like hire my 21 year old son to do that, you know, every other day.

I like that.

Super exciting. I'm really excited about all the things to do. Any final questions?

No, I don't think so. We cut you. I thank you because you covered a lot and I feel like I came with a lot. So I appreciate that you were able to needle down and get into it.

All in an hour.

I know, right?

You've got so much to work with. And so it really is for me, I just think it's like slowing down, asking the questions that I asked you. What's changed? What's different? Because when I hear people, it used to do well and then this happened. There is a solution to it because, like, we've already figured it out. It's actually sometimes an easier solution. We already figured it out and then you gave me so many of the reasons. You told me you maybe didn't identify originally. Well, you know, when we first started, you're like, we're down.

No, I really didn't. I show up like a know it all and I think I know all. And what am I gonna. Like when I say I already played the podcast in my head, I'm like, she's gonna ask me this and I already know this and which sounds so. I'm just such a Gen X Aries. It's ridiculous. But, yeah, that sounded so like, like, oh, yeah, I know all the answers, but I feel like I have been in this business for so long that this is why I join these things and. And just have always been so impressed with your ability to take somebody like me who's feeling a little scattered right now and a little like, oh, my gosh, there's so much going on and I know it all anyway. And like, no, I have so much to learn still. And you were just really able to help me focus and needle down. So I guess that's why you hire a coach, though, right?

You're not lying about this whole thing. No, no.

So I really appreciate you.

Yeah, of course. I mean, that was the biggest thing that I changed. I was a decade into business, helping other people start businesses, and I didn't know why. I was 50k in debt and I didn't know. You just don't know what you don't know because you are. You're so in it and you're so up close to it, and everything feels personal and overwhelming. And so I'm telling you, like, the biggest move I ever made in my life was paying for mentors or experts, was being in masterminds. I've spent, like, hundreds of thousands of dollars at this point for me, investing into masterminds because of who was facilitating it, the coach, the group I was going to be a part of, and everything, all of my success. Because otherwise I'd be doing the same thing I've always been doing, you know, and every time you learn or someone shines a light on something or you you get like this ping or you pick up a jewel from someone else. You're just like, oh, there's another way of doing it.

You know, it's just the little nuggets. It's just some like one line that somebody says. Like I said when you reframed how I could pitch the lives to somebody who doesn't even have a live audience yet. Just the way you reframed that, I'm like, it just like a light bulb went out. So I appreciate everything you've said today.

Amazing. It was a lot. So if we want to shop from you, buy from you, follow you, all the things, how can we do that?

Ladylevendale.com and right at the top of the website there's a download our app, which is basically our VIP group.

So that's so cool.

You can come and see the exclusives in the secret gang.

I love that you have an app and like we said, you can find it on Amazon. So if you need a two day gift for somebody, we want to drive a little traffic there. But if you want the real fun, exclusive stuff, get the app. Is that a good pitch?

Yes.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Perfect. All right. Thank you so much, Heather.

Thank you, Jacqueline.

Wow, what a great coaching session. You know, I love talking about multiple streams of revenue. It's why the product boss has our signature program, which is multi stream machine. And we talked about a ton of different sales channels in this call. What I want you to take from this is that starting up any new sales channel, any new sales platform is going to take time. So give each one a period of time to focus on before moving to the next. While you're doing that, be sure to look at what's already working in your business and find ways to double down on it to get more with less effort. There's so many ways to approach building a product based business. That's why each of you has your own path to profit. Figure out the path that works best for you and build the business and life of your dreams. All right, my friends, this was such a good one. Now again I'm going to ask this big, big, big favor of you. Would you mind leaving a review for the product boss? Wherever you listen to podcasts, it would be so incredible, so amazing if this episode really stood out for you. Leave in the review, let me know one of your biggest takeaways. I'd love to hear from you. I read every single, single one of them. All right, my friends, until the next one, 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.

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