666. Why Growing a Product Business in 2025 Is Harder—And How to Make It Easier

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 mistakes they could have avoided, how did they turn their ideas into a successful business, and what are the strategies that they have used to make more sales and be discovered by more customers. And 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. And you too can be the next million dollar product boss. Let's do this. Hey, hey, product bosses. And welcome back to another episode of the Product Boss podcast. So I've got a real serious question for you. Have you felt like growing your business has gotten a lot harder lately. Like maybe what used to work isn't working anymore or things feel like they've changed. So here's the deal, okay? If you're listening in real time, 2025 has really turned out to be a year, okay? Now what's happening? The economy has shifted. There's AI, there's social media, algorithm changes, consumer behavior is changing, how people shop. There's all this stuff happening politically. There's talks about tariffs. There's just a lot happening now. Business owners who have relied on, you know, just social media or in person events or Etsy or maybe a way that you've been selling, maybe either one isn't working anymore or two, you're just frustrated with all the inconsistent sales, right? You're just like, can somebody please somewhere tell me how I can have more consistent sales, predictable income? Because in 2025, the game has changed, okay? With everything that's happening in the world and all the distractions and all the terrible things and all the wonderful things that are happening, what was working, the strategies that you may have may not work anymore. Or you may have been like, Jacqueline, I don't even have a strategy in the first place, so nothing's been working. And I don't even know what's happening this year, right? Like, who knows? We're all in the different places. But listen, that hope marketing, like the hoping that whatever the random things that you're doing is gonna be the thing that gets you the results that you want. That if it's at random, if it's without strategy, it's not without systems, it's just, it's not gonna work. It can't work. It's competitive out there. There's lots going on. And so you know this. I show up twice a week on this podcast. I have free challenges, I've got programs, courses, masterminds, all the things. We've been doing this for years now. And you know this. How important it is to me to teach you how to be the owners of your own destiny, to have security and safety, which right now feels like security in terms of like jobs and income. And all this stuff feels a little bit shaky. So how do we do this? And I gotta tell you, it's a different year, but we are always gonna go through this cyclically. Cyclically, right. The economy is always going to change and news is always gonna focus on certain situations. I've had my business since 2007. I went through the recession of 2008. Do you know what I saw happen in that time? Do you know? Because I was coaching one on one fashion industry people, right? People would come to me, they'd. They'd hire me, they'd pay a ton of money to work with me and like 120,000 a year, right? And they would come to me to be their designer, to come up with their clothing line or their accessory line, to actually design it, develop it, make it. That was my business for 15 years until I bought the product boss from my co founder. And how we were growing this, this business. But I say this because what I saw happen in 2008, when things were uncertain, people were like, I had one. I remember her so specifically. She's one of my first clients. She was an accountant and she was working as an accountant. And she's like, things are a little crazy right now. It's a recession. Like, all these things are happening. And she's like, I just, I can't rely on my job. I can't rely on what I is here because I don't know that it's always going to be here. So she's like, I have this really good idea. I want to start this clothing line. Can you help me do it? And so we did, to the point that she started selling to Bloomingdale's and all these like amazing places. She's like, I just don't want to be completely reliant on this thing in case it goes, I have an idea and I Want to take control of my own destiny. So I got to tell you, yes, every year is going to feel different. We came out of an election year in the States and now we're moving into what's, you know, whatever is shaken out for this year. But do you know what's certain? You knowing how to make your own money, you knowing how to drive revenue, you being an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur and being able to do that. And there's two things that people usually tell me they want. They want more money and more time. Time is not a renewable resource. But you know what is? Money. Money flows. There's energy out there. Money is just waiting and it's circulating and it's waiting to make its way to you. We just got to get rid of what the block is. But it's a renewable resource. I talk about this like the ocean that the ocean waves, right? Like the tide, the tide will always come in and the tide will always go out. When humans are gone from this world, the tide will exist. Ocean will come in and go out no matter what. So does money comes in and goes out. Sometimes it's low tide might feel a little bit tighter. Sometimes it's high tide. But none of this is permanent. None of it is permanent. So what are you going to do in the beginning of 2025 knowing that the game has changed? What are you going to do to make sure that you have ownership over what's going to happen in your world, in your life? Right? And this is what I've been teaching. So I've just come out of Bestseller Secrets Challenge, totally brand new way that I taught it and I've just announced to everyone that Multi Stream Machine, which is our signature program that we've had since the beginning has gotten a completely new way of being. It's MSM 2.0. And when we're really shifting it is, we're talking about. What you really need in your business is a sales engine. You need a system and you need a sales engine. And this engine needs to run consistently and generate revenue predictably because done are the times of being inconsistent and not predictable. I know that you're looking for consistency and predictability and that your business is not completely a hundred percent reliant on you, that you have to go show up at a market every weekend and try and sell and hustle. That can be one of your sales engines. But I really want you to have that like self driving car, right? You've got one engine that you work on, you love, it's your, you know, your family car. And then you've got the self driving car, you've got the one that's actually operating without you, doesn't rely on you to make sales. So that's exactly what I'm going to dive into today. How to fix what's broken in your business, how to optimize where you're currently selling and what you're selling and then how to multiply your revenue so you're not stuck in the hustle for every sale. Okay, sound good? Okay, so let's talk about the old way versus the new way. So sure. How things could work when Mark Zuckerberg was cool with you know, Instagram working for all of us and all the things. So before when people started. Yeah. You could post on Instagram, you can get engagement and you could potentially get people to buy. And Etsy sellers could rely on more organic traffic even. Fair. Right. Like there weren't as many people on there markets pop ups in persons. Maybe you knew what you were going to make those weekends. Right. And you're thinking I have a great product, people are going to find me. Well the deal is what's the truth? Where we are today is that social media is unpredictable. Especially Reach just keeps changing. Below us, Etsy and online marketplaces, they're more competitive than ever. Yeah. People found out about it and customers buying behavior has shifted. People are more selective and they really want a seamless shopping experience. Meaning your website or the way that they shuffle you better be built for conversion. Right. That user experience, if it's not, if it's slightly janky, people are not going to buy from you. It doesn't matter if you're online or not. So if you don't have a repeatable system, if you don't have a plan, your business is at risk. I mean it's just straight up like, and I'm sure you feel this where you're like I don't know, I feel like I'm hitting my head against the wall like I can't make this thing work. So what do you do then? Do you keep grinding and hoping it gets better? Do you keep doing things the way you've always done and thinking like it's gonna work or do we up level and start to shift our strategy for 2025? Yes, it sucks and, and it's part of growth. Right. I was just coaching someone this morning inside of my challenge and she was saying look, I used to sell all the time on what was the platform? I don't remember what it was. I'll just say like I Don't know, maybe it was Etsy. Maybe Etsy was like more predictable for her. She, she knew she used to sell all the time. And then things changed with Etsy and like she stopped selling and she's like, I don't know what to do next. So when things shift and change, do you know what to do next? So I was like, okay, well let's one, let's go figure that out and then let's figure out where else we can drive revenue. So I'm gonna talk to you about this brand new concept that I've introduced. I'm gonna bring it here to the podcast and I've talked about the three step sales engine. So this is where a sales engine comes in, right? It's a strategy that turns your best products into a consistent revenue stream. So let's talk about step by step. So step one, we need to fix what's broken so we stop losing sales. So most businesses are leaking sales and they don't even realize it. So listen, you know that if your pricing's wrong, if your listings aren't made to convert, or if you're not clear about who you're selling to, you're making it 10 times harder to grow. So I had one student and multi machine that realized that she was targeting the wrong customer. She's like, oh, oops. Trying to sell to somebody who's actually not the right person for me. She didn't niche down enough. So when she fixed it, she fixed her messaging, she was able to 3x her revenue without spending any more money or time. Right. She was just fixing what was already there and working. We just had to make it better. Like a broke down car. Right. We gotta just fix the engine. So do you know if your business is leaving money on the table? Do you know what needs to get fixed, what might be broken and what we need to tweak and fix there? Okay, so step two in your sales engine is you gotta optimize, we gotta make something better. So this is where we build a consistent sales system. So once you sort of fix your foundation. Right, we fix what's broken. Great. That thing is fixed. It can work now. Now I have to figure out how to make it go. So you need a system for consistent sales. Cuz sales should not feel like a roller coaster. I was just at an amusement park for my son's birthday and holy moly. I don't think I'm cut out for roller coasters anymore. But I don't want you to feel like one month is great. Next month is crickets. Or one weekend is great, next weekend is cricket. So days and days and days or weeks and weeks and weeks go by where nothing happens. There are no sales. Then randomly you're surprised. We have to figure out what product that you're going to use or products that we're going to work with and create repeatable processes. So sales happen without you constantly pushing. That's super, super important. Okay, so I had a student, Lindsay, and she's an MSM student, and she was having sporadic sales, like at random. And she got to $15,000 a month just by working on knowing what she was selling and fixing her current main sales channel, the current place that she's currently selling. So I want you to think about that to yourself. Where am I currently selling? That if that went away, my sales would take a hit. Even if it's. You've made one sale there. But like if I didn't have in person or if it wasn't on Etsy or social media or my website or wholesale, if that went away. But what would happen if I focused on it and I fixed it and I optimize it so that it could work better and you just fixed that one sales channel. What would it feel like to know if you knew exactly what to do so that you could start to make that predictable and then the third step is multiplying. Right? And you've heard me talk about this for years, I'm going to talk about it in a different way. This is how you start to make more revenue, more sales without having to do more, more, more, more and make more. So if you're selling in one place only or a majority of your revenue is coming from one place, your business is really, really fragile. If something were to happen, and I know you out there, my Etsy people who've been on there and a main listing got taken down or they've shut down your store. We went through the pandemic where in person got shut down. We've been around when Facebook has shut down. TikTok was gone for a weekend. Maybe you used to. That's right. This person was saying that she used to apply to in person markets and was getting in and now she's not getting into the markets anymore. What does she do? So if we're reliant on this one place and something happens, we are doa. So this is why it is so important and crucial to have another revenue stream like wholesale, which I love. You get in front of other people's customers. Amazon, you get in front of other people's customers, email marketing. You get people to come back in and buy again and again. You own your customers. Even if you're on Etsy now, you actually have a way to contact them. Social media goes down, you have a way to contact them. This helps you start to scale and sell more without being completely relying on you. Okay, so as we've kind of going over this, I want you to think to yourself, what would change if you, you didn't have to rely on just one sales channel, right? One platform where you weren't like, this thing takes so much for me, there's so much effort I have to do, right? What would happen there? So here's what the problem is. Most product based business owners try to figure all this out on their own and it takes years. Maybe you're listening to the podcast, you're hoping that one gem that I dropped somewhere or coaching someone else. And I know I get a lot of messages from you all or when I look at the reviews of the podcast, a lot of you are like, it sounded like you were talking to me. Like these things sound like. So it's still not strategy enough to really figure this out. So we have two things, right? There's two things that people mostly want. They want time and they want money, right? Here's the deal. Time is not a renewable resource. It is not a renewable resource. Money is. There's enough money out there for all of us, right? So my question to you is, is how much time do you want to take to start to earn them? Earn what you want to earn in your business. So wasting time, guessing on what's going to work, changing strategies every month, that's what leads to burnout, that leads to overwhelm, that. That's what leads to stopping what we're doing. And I've heard from so many people, especially this week, I only have a couple hours a week to. Right, maybe you have a full time job, you've taken care of people, your family, you just don't have a lot of time in that time. What are you doing in that time? Do you know exactly what you're doing? Do you have the strategies? The game has changed. 2025 is different. We got to figure out what's next. So instead of trial and error, would it be better that you had a proven step by step system? So my, my son is really into Lego, like the big Lego, the expensive Lego, the like. I'm saving up all year to buy him this Lego, kind of Lego. And a couple of years back we bought him the Lego Titanic, which is huge. It's like as tall as me. It's five feet. Yes. I'm not that tall. I know I sound tall, but I'm not that tall. I'm five three. Like not five feet. But anyways, digress. So bottom this thing, thousands of pieces of Lego. Do you think that he would have built the Titanic without the Lego manuals that come with it? Like two thick manuals, step by step, by step? No, he would have ended up making. I don't even know what. He would have gotten frustrated. He would have probably thrown it on the ground, knowing my son, and he would have walked away. That's probably how you're feeling, frustrated because you're like, I don't know how to do this. I know something's broken. I know something's not working. I only have a limited amount of time to make this thing happen. Why is it not work? So instead of that trial and error, what I really want you to focus on is to fix your broken sales strategy and what you're selling. Think about creating a predictable revenue stream, a predictable revenue plan, and then thinking about how to multiply your sales channels, multiply the revenue that's coming in. How do you expand your business without constantly working harder? And I want you to imagine if you had the step by step manual for the LEGO Titanic, right? The step by step manual for your business. What would your business look like 12 weeks from now? What would your business look like if you had the system in place, if you had the thing to follow? So one thing I wanted to bring up here, and I'm recording this in real time because we were like, we have something brand new. We're getting a lot of questions about it online because I think a lot of you are hearing about it, like whether you're following me on Instagram or you're one of my free challenges. And I wanted to come here because I did want to let you know that we've just opened up. Actually, no, in real time. If you're listening to this, you actually probably have about one day left to join. But I wanted to bring it here to explain it to you. We have just launched multi stream machine 2.0. Okay. So a lot of you know that this is my program. So many of you of our students are in that program, or maybe you're in one of my other programs. And so many of you year over year have heard me talk about it, talk about Multi Stream Machine. But there's a reason that you haven't joined yet, right? You're waiting For a better time. So if that was you, if you've been at any of my challenges or anything in the past, you're like, every time you're like, I can't because of X, how much time have you let go by? Right. And if you're a new listener and you're just coming in and listening to this, this is not a typical episode. So I just need to put that out there too. Like this is. I don' typically talk specifically to a program but. And this is not a typical episode but because multi machine is, is a new way of doing it, I did want to drop in, in real time and really kind of update you all on this. Okay. So all these times that you're like I not ready, I'm gonna wait, it's not the time. I need to make more money. My business has to be somewhere else. How many years, months, weeks have gone by and you still feel the same way. So it is February of 2025. The game has changed, strategies look different, the world feels different. Right now there is a lot happening globally and our students are a global audience. And so I want to tell you really quick about the new multi stream machine. So if you've been on the fence for a while or maybe you're just hearing about it, you better go and check it out real fast because the doors are going to close Tuesday at 7pm Eastern. Okay. And this is dropping on Monday, whatever time you're listening to it. Okay. So here's, here's what's new. Multi stream machine talks teaches you how to focus, fix, improve your sales engine. And what is a sales engine? A sales engine is how you're currently selling your business or your products. Okay. So I in MSM we're going to give you step by step guidance to grow your sales so that you become the boss of your business and you're going to get the things that you're looking for so that your business can run without you. I'm going to give you the step by step. I want to give you a repeatable system that it will attract customers and generate sales without you having to rely on that daily hustle. We're going to give you templates and tools and resources and here's the biggest change. It's going to be a live program over 12 weeks. I'm going to be coaching you in the first six weeks of the program and then the second six weeks of the program they're going to be coaches from that I've trained that are experts at the different sales channels. So here's what's new. There's going to be new and game changing. Six weeks of life coaching with me with guidance, strategy and accountability for your business. And we're going to work the very first few weeks on who you're selling to, what you're selling. We're going to talk about fixing how, what your career you're currently selling, no matter where you're fixing it, and then getting you prepped to add on a new sales channel which we're calling sales engines. Then in the second six weeks of this, this is where there's going to be expert coaches live. They're going to come in and help you implement and grow that second engine. So imagine 12 weeks from now where you're currently selling sells better. You're hitting your goals and you've added on new sales channel to double, triple 10 extra sales which has happened for so many of my students and are walking step by step. There's going to be a vault of done for your resources. There's going to be a private members only community and there's a live part and the curriculum and you get access to the curriculum for the life of the program. So here is the translation. We're here to help you make more money in months and not years. So this is what we're going to do. Weeks one and two, we're going to learn on what, we're going to talk about what to focus on, what to sell, who we're selling to, why they're going to buy from you, and we're going to work on pricing and pricing psychology. In weeks three, we're going to actually create a sales plan that's going to make your revenue more predictable. We're going to look at what you're selling, when you're selling it and what it makes sense for your customers. Week four, we're going to talk about to optimize where you're currently selling so we can convert better. Because if people are landing on your websites, on your Etsy store, wherever they're landing and they're not converting, we have to look at probably your product pages and how they're making sense. Week five, we're going to talk about how to increase your earnings per sale without extra effort. Meaning I'm going to teach you ways to make more money without needing more customers, without needing more product, without doing anything different than what you're currently doing. So that's what we're going to talk about. Week five and week six and seven, we're going to prep you to expand into A second sales channel. So do you all remember those choose your own adventure books where like you buy a book, they're like for kids and you go into the first chapter and you read the whole first chapter. Everyone starts at chapter one. At the end of first chapter they tell you choose your own adventure. Would you like to go through the cave or through the woods? And you choose. So let's say you want to go through the cave, then you jump over to chapter 13 and you want to go through the woods. Maybe you'll go read chapter three and you keep choosing your own adventure. That is how I'm repositioning multi stream machine. So by the eighth week you will then choose the next sales engine or next part that you want to walk on work on. So weeks eight through 12, that's where the sales engine modules are unlocked and those expert coaching calls so that's you're going to unlock it all and that's what's available at that point. Selling on social media, email marketing and list building. Getting more into your SEO, expanding your sales channels. So Amazon Wholesale in person, your e commerce store, a little bit of influencer marketing in there as well. And the coaching calls with the coaches that have sold their handmade companies, they manufacture, they've sold on these platforms. They're there to help you. And here are some awesome bonuses that you get. You're going to get when you sign up by Tuesday at 7pm Eastern. You're going at the ultimate sales generating marketing templates bundle where I'm giving you again let's go to kids games. Remember Mad Libs where you like you drop in the noun and the pronoun and like. It basically gives you a whole like story but you fill in the blanks. That's what we're going to give you. We're going to give you the emails that are helping you with what to send to your customers. Manufacturing and sourcing emails, you know how to manufacture and source, how to reach out to influencers, how to reach out to wholesale buyers. All these things, right? These done for you. Plug and play. That's a bonus. You're also going to get how to build your email list, right? We're going to give you easy ways to do that. So you can use this on Etsy, in person, online or just social media. Because your email list is what you own. Everything else you don't own. Your email list and your website are the two things that you own. They're an asset. And we're also going to teach you how to sell more on Social media, because it's not only about growing a following, it's about actually converting them and selling. That's what we're all here for, right? We're in these businesses to make money. So you get all of this and it's going to be 12 weeks. I want you to imagine 12 weeks from now how it's changed how it feels to be supported, to be in a community, to have me as your coach plus all these other coaches and to have this curriculum. So if you've been waiting to join or maybe this is the first time you're thinking about it, I'm going to drop a link so go to multistreammachine.com okay? I'm going to drop a link in their show notes so that you can go figure this out, see if it's right for you. But my friends, the doors are closing. The doors are closing because it's a live program. There's not another opportunity to get in to build your business for 20, 25. Okay? So right now, if you want in, right, you want in and you want the life coaching and this new way of msm, I would tell you that this is the time because otherwise it's going to be a year from now until you're ready to do this again, right? Not even you're ready until it's available to you in this way again. All right? So msm, it's action oriented. It's designed to give you step by step playbook, tools, systems, support because it's coach led, live coach led. And if you're thinking, wait, I don't know if I can make the lives, you know, but before you were like, oh, I don't want to do it yourself program, please don't let things stand in your way, okay? We're always going to come up with a reason why something's not going to work for us versus getting curious about why would this work for you? Like, oh, I wonder if this does work. If you can't make the lives which we're going to have at different times throughout business hours so that there's more support available, you still get the replays, you still get to listen to the questions. And usually questions are not. Your question is very similar to someone else's question. So your question will get answered. And I just want you to imagine the look on Auntie Barb's face when you tell her that your little hobby business in quotes is actually paying off your mortgage. That is my goal inside of Multi Stream Machine. So head to multistreammachine.com and also when you sign up in the last couple days of this, there's also another bonus. It's 2k in 30 days. So what I'm going to do there is I'm going to help you make $2,000 in the next 30 days so that this all feels just amazing. You'll know what to do and how to make money. Okay, so multistreammachine.com but I hope that this new way of talking about your business and sales engine and what to focus on, that was my intention in this pop up podcast episode. And I just want to kind of leave it at this. If you're serious about finally creating consistent scalable revenue, a business that does not rely a hundred percent on you, then Multi Stream Machine, this new version of it, multi stream machine 2.0 is exactly what you need and what you've been looking for. And the doors are closing, meaning you cannot get back in. You cannot get the life coaching. It is going to close Tuesday at 7pm Eastern. So you can keep doing what you're doing and hope for the best and hope that next year things will be different or you can say, you know what, I'm done. I need to do it different. The game has changed. 2025 is looking real different. How do I do this? And now you can take action and start seeing results in the just the next 12 weeks. Okay, the choice is yours. Okay. I hope to see you in there. I hope to coach you this week inside a multi stream machine and if not, I will see you in the next podcast episode and any questions you might have, you can email us, you can send me a DM on Instagram. Heproduct Product Boss, we're here to answer all questions. All right, my friends, thank you so much.