706. The 4-Step Path to a Profitable Product-Based Business

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 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 you too can be the next million dollar product boss. Let's do this. Oh my goodness. Friends, if you are anything like me, you probably spend more time running errands than running your business. Am I right? Like, everything needs something, we gotta run around. And I knew that this was like a major issue for me back in the day, which is why I decided to get help where I could. And I decided to let Instacart handle all of my grocery shopping. So I no longer had to worry about running all the errands and having to run out and get more almond mil milk for my lattes. Rather, I was like, you know what, we're just gonna let Instacart handle that. So I want you to imagine skipping the store and getting back to designing packaging, orders, making, or maybe actually taking a break, even a nap. Remember those? Okay, so with Instacart, you can get groceries and essentials delivered in as fast as an hour so you can focus on growing your business without sacrificing a meal. Plus, less stress and more focus. And here's a tip. I've actually used Instacart before to order gifts from my daughter's friend's birthday parties because I haven't had time to run out and get presents. And I've been able to get the packaging, like the gift bag and the g, like hello, Sephora, delivered to my house while I was in the middle of coaching sessions so that I could have the present right. It's like having a personal assistant without having a personal assistant. So if you want to do what I do and get the help where you can, you can try it. Now if you head to the Product Boss.com Instacart hey, product bosses, quick check in. Is your sales growth feeling stuck, like totally flatlined despite all of your hustle? Or maybe you're like, okay, this should actually just be harder. Maybe you're feeling like you're walking in mud and it's like, why does this feel so hard? You know, either way, if you're nodding your head thinking, someone please, please, please just tell me exactly what works so I can finally grow without grinding myself in the ground. Well, I've got something so good for you. Say hello to the accelerate your sales podcast bundle. Okay? It's my absolute best, totally free playlist of episodes that'll show you exactly how to stop being the best kept secret. Right? Let's get those products seen. Or how about expand your sales across multiple channels without overwhelm, hello abundance. Or create products your customers can't wait to buy over and over and over again. And it's going to really help you start to build your business with that clarity, ease and joy. Because growing your business should feel amazing, not exhausting, my friend. This is your shortcut to more sales, less chaos, and way more fun along the way. Grab it now. It's 100% free. I just wanted to make it super easy for you to find those episodes. You're like, which episodes should I listen to, Jacqueline? Here it is. And it's packed with pure gold. All you have to do is head to the productboss.com growth or click that link in the show notes and then pop into your email and let's do this. It's your time to feel the freedom to find that abundance and to get passionate about your business again. All right, I'll see you in there. Hey, hey product boss. So if your business has ever felt scattered or inconsistent or like you're missing some magic formula, then today's episode is going to connect the dots for you. Because whether you're just getting started or you're trying to scale and grow your business, every successful product based business I have coached shares one thing in common. They've built their businesses around what I call the 4P success pathway. And I'm going to walk you through that today. So what I want to first start with is let's start with the big picture. So there are four essential pieces that every product based business owner needs to do with when they're going from their idea, the idea that you came up with for your product, or even if you're ideating a new product within the company you've already started and how you take that idea and how you can turn it into income and ultimately freedom. So as we're walking this path and we're thinking about what that is, there are four ways to follow. That is a pathway to success for your physical product based business. Now the thing that I was, you know, realizing recently, and I absolutely love this, is that some of the richest self made women in the US are all product bosses, okay? They have built their wealth through product based businesses starting from scratch. You can go and look up the richest self made women in the U.S. but let's just talk about it like Sarah Blakely or Jamie Kern Lima or Kendra Scott, right? We've got these women that have done incredible, amazing things and that's with product. And you've probably followed Sarah Blakely's story. You know, where she started with $5,000 and a full time job and then she sold her business for $1.2 billion. I mean all of this is absolutely incredible, Incredible right now. She started the way that most of us listening to the show have started. She started with just figuring it out. She came up with the product, she came up with the idea and she had to think, how do I get people to buy the thing, right? How do I come up with this? So here is the truth. I know that her product seems Shark Tank worthy and it was a new iteration on women's control, you know, underwear for example, at that point. But I want to tell you that the truth is, is that your products don't need to be Shark Tank worthy to succeed. And so if you're just starting out and you're thinking about starting a business, I don't want you to think that you have to come up with a Shark Tank worthy idea. Now if you've had a business and you've been doing it, the other idea is like some of you might, and some of you might be like, I just have like really great smelling candles or people absolutely love my shirts with the sayings on them or my art is beautiful and amazing. They don't have to be something so incredibly different to sell, but what needs to happen. And this is what happened for me when I started Cuffs Couture, right? Cuffs Couture was, it wasn't an invention because there were other wrist wallets out there, but I did a variation on them. I took what was something that was, you know, a sports wallet. Like you saw those like old, kind of not old fashioned, but like for runners. They would have like something on their wrist and I took something that already existed and I knew that I could just make it different, better, and more stylish to fit my ideal customer. But I had to figure out who my ideal customer was, right? So that when I was designing and creating this product, I knew who it was for. I also needed to understand what made my product different. And I didn't fully know that when I started, because I really started with an idea and I was like, I need this, so other people must want it too. So if you're a startup and you're just getting started and you're listening to the show, then you have to think about this idea of like, who am I making this for, what makes it different, and why am I doing it? And if you have been in business for a while, you still gotta do the same work. Some of this is foundational, but skipped. So some of us are like, well, I make candles for people who like candles. I make T shirts with motivational sayings on them because people are motivated. I make pretty jewelry with gemstones, right? I paint watercolor pictures and I have a lot of like, natural pictures from California or something. But the deal is, is. And I know they did this for me, and I don't want you to do this, is that I wasted so much, much time trying to figure out all of these pieces and trying to piece it together until I really thought, okay, like. And people were like, you should make headbands, you should make necklaces. I did the things that people that I respected told me to do. But what I really needed to do is focus. I needed to focus on the product, the thing I was doing, which is cuffs. I had to focus on the customer. I had to focus on the branding, because the branding is what they perceived outside of just the product and the messaging to make it irresistible. So when I launched my business and I launched it to crickets and nobody bought, and I had to go back in and really figure out sales, and I had to figure out all the other stuff. I also realized I was missing four super critical pieces. And these are the same four that I know that everybody needs as they're starting, whether they're growing, whether they're scaling. You need these to thrive. And this is what helped me go from negative $20,000 in debt to a hundred thousand dollars in my first year of business selling a product that was 11 doll wholesale. I mean, listen, I made. So I, I floored myself. I was actually just driving my car at the same car today because we haven't gotten a new car since I got it. My kid's 12. But at that time, I bought a brand new Car in cash while I was pregnant with the money I made from selling my products. And it was awesome and I was so proud of myself. So let's dig into what the 4p success pathway is. And this is, this is like the pathway that I followed as I was creating it as I was going, right? I was like, I was, I was creating it as I was going. So this pathway, the things that you have to consider here are your product, right? The product is number one. Why is the product number one? Well, it's what you're going to make. And the idea here is, and I've said this to my, I've had clients for years and years and years because since 2007, I had my other business, which is designer consulting Co op and I started like 2000 brands in there. Okay. So I've done this over and over and over. So the first p in the 4p success pathway is what are you going to make? What are you making, what are you selling? What is the product? And the concept here is that you can make your idea better. It does not need to be new. A lot of times when we're inventing something new, there is a lot. Some of you have those ideas. Okay, Dome Doc, they were actually on Shark Tank after they made $7 million. And I worked with them in their first year, well, more than their first year of business. But I remember when they were coming from Etsy and making them out of wood and then doing injection molds and they've been on Shark Tank and they got two sharks battling for them. I mean, it was amazing. So they took a concept of a hat rack and they reinvented it. So they had something that was a new invention. And some of you might have that, but most of you just need to make your idea better. Form versus function. Okay? So the thing that I've always said for all these years is you can't reinvent the wheel, but you can redesign it. Hey, friends. Okay, so I don't know if you're anything like me, but sometimes it feels like my self care routine is slipping through the cracks. Because when I'm juggling and wearing all the hats in my business and doing all the things, I mean, the last thing I have to do is like really fulfill that self care routine that my daughter's talking about. She's like, mom, so listen. So when it comes to running a successful business, you can't really pour from an empty cup. And a lot of times that self care is like one of the first things to get yourself recalibrated so that's why I want you to meet Glossy. Now Glossy is my favorite daily beauty supplement designed to transform your skin and gut health from the inside out. And I'm actually an investor in this business because I so believe in this idea of science backed ingredients for digestion and skin hydration. And Glossy makes it really easy to look and feel your best without that whole 10 step routine in the mirror. The thing I don't actually have time for, all I have to do is simply mix the stick into my water better and I'm good to go. So if you want to try this because I so believe in this business, I think it's amazing. It's done so many wonders for my skin and my gut, which are two things that I need help with. And you want to simplify your wellness and your beauty. All you have to do is click in the show notes and you can use the code Jacqueline Snyder. So it's my full name, use the code Jacqueline Snyder. And I'm hooking you up with 15 off your order. So cheers to glowing skin and a thriving business. So when I talk about form versus function, what's form? Well, form is the appearance, the packaging, the style, the branding, right? Think about any sort of like product that you've interacted with that you, you look at it and you're like, oh, I love that packaging. And like the way it's displayed or the thing it comes in is a part of why you buy it. Like shout out to Rachel of Falcone Farms, right? She has snarky soap, like snarky packaging on top of goat's milk soap. If we're just lying goat's milk to goat's milk soap, that's what it is and they're buying sense. But when they buy it and the packaging is like the relatives are coming or like overpriced coffee, right? It's kind of like a haha joke type gift or product that's making them buy her soap. It has to do with the packaging. So I said form versus function. So let's talk about what function is. So function are like those new use cases, improved materials or solving specific pain points. So a shout out to Shanti of a brighter year. She has coloring books but she decided to make simple coloring books, even small mini ones for adults. So not those over complicated mandala type coloring books, but rather simple ones. So she took something that existed, which is what I did, right? I took. Well no, I think I was form because I changed the way of the design and I also, yeah, I Think I was more form. Function is like you take something and you improve it. You have a new way of doing it and you solve a specific pain point. And so, for example, a hat rack, like domedoc, they change the functionality of it. It's a hat rack. You can still stack your hats in it, but it looks different. And listen, Shanti, she's in all of my program. She's in the sales accelerator. She's in standout society. She's been in my mastermind for the last few years. I remember, like, right after she joined sales accelerator, she sent me this message. Like, it was like a few. I must have been a few months later. And she's like, I made $91,500 in the last 17 days, and I needed to tell someone other than my husband. And she emailed me that, and I was like, holy moly. Right? That's amazing. So I want you to think, what is your idea? Or what is your current product? And then I want you to ask yourself, how can you make it better so that it can actually stand out in a crowd market? What makes you different? And it cannot just be. It's made out of organic ingredients. It can't just be that anymore. It can't be that it's handmade. It's not differentiated enough. Okay, so let's go to the second P, which is position. So position is interesting. It's. You might be like, what are we actually thinking about here? But the position is, why do they need it? Why does your customer actually need what you have to sell? So the deal here is that people don't just buy products because product to product to product, it's not about the product. It's actually about the solutions to a problem or it's about the way that it makes them feel. Or as coach Suzanne on my program says, it's the MM because she used to sell cookies. It's the thing that makes them feel something, feel joy, feel an emotion, feel confident. Or it's a vacuum that cleans up your dog hair really well and it actually solves a problem. So your customers are going to buy things that make their lives easier, that makes them live more in pleasure than in pain. Right? Your customers are always going to move towards pleasure versus pain. So when you're thinking about that part of it of like, why do they need it? Well, for example, Cuffs Couture, which was my product, it was a wearable wrist wallet that was fashionable, right? So it was something where I didn't need to wear a pocket. I could wear mini Skirts and dresses, didn't need to bring a purse, and I could hold exactly what I needed inside of it. Right. Does that make sense? So that is one of the things. Or let's say you have a jewelry company and it's a crystal jewelry company. Well, the solution that your customer's looking for, it might be wearable crystal jewelry made of materials that promote and enhance well being. It's not just about the crystals. It's not just about the moonstone. It's what does the moonstone do for them metaphysically? Some of you are like, nothing. They're just wearing a moonstone. And other people are like, these are all the things it does well. The people who are like, these are all the things that it does are your customers. The people who are like, it does nothing. Maybe they buy it because it's pretty. But what you're really selling here is crystal jewelry that enhances well being. And then, you know, another example to give you is skincare. A lot of times you're going to tell me that you're going to sell it because it's natural, it's gentle, it's chemical free. Okay, cool. But really, the solution of your skin care could be that it's free of these fragrances and sulfates and all the things, but it is ideal for sensitive skin. So it's good for, like, kids in skin care. Right now, young kids, they shouldn't be using the skincare that they want to use. So that would be like, oh, all these kids are using skin care. Can I make a line of skincare that makes sense for young people? So that's really what you're thinking about when you're thinking about this next part on this pathway, which is the position, the positioning of your product, the positioning of your business. And when people are thinking like, okay, well, why? Why should I buy it? So the next p and the 4p success pathway is promote. So how will your people find and buy your products? How are they gonna find you? That's a great question. You're like, I don't know. That's why I'm here, Jacqueline. It's like, cool, let's go. So when we get into the promoting, it's like, right when you have the. Actually, I'm gonna back this up really fast. I'm gonna go back to positioning. So I think positioning is where a lot of people get tripped up because you have the product. It's not positioned clearly. So nobody knows why they need it or want it or desire it, and they're not buying it. So the question I want you to ask yourself in that section is who is this for and why do they want it? And if you cannot be crystal clear on that, then your messaging, your photos, your sales, it's all going to feel fuzzy and so will your customers. They're just not going to buy. So then let's get to the promote part. So once you have the right product and the right message, you got to think, well, how are people going to find me? So this is where visibility lives. This is what I talk to you about all the time. You don't need to be everywhere, but you do need a strategy from being seen consistently. One of the easiest ways to do this is what I teach inside of the sales accelerator, which is adding on an additional sales channel that has an audience built in. So that's one of the easiest ways. The harder way, unless you absolutely love it, is to build social media and to tackle social media and play with the algorithm. It's just longer. It doesn't mean you can't do it. It's just longer. Or ads. And I tell you all the time, I've got other ways of doing this, right? There's other ways of being. So that's the promote section of it. And then the last P is profit. Because profit is how you create that success, right? Profit is the thing that's actually going to help you make money. Profit is the thing that ends up in your pocket. I feel like there's no other explanation for profit, but. But your profit builds the business, not you selling the product and not making money on it. So you gotta think, am I pricing for margin? Are you running your operations in the right way? Are you buying your raw goods and materials from wholesale places versus buying retail? When Joanne shut down, and I know everyone was so upset cause they're like, that's where I got my fabric. Well, Joanne's was a retailer. You were paying a premium. So without. And also rest in peace. Joann's right. Cause I know that was a very fun store for a lot of us. But without profit, even having all the sales, you're going to burn out. There's not going to be money to run the business. So the four P's and recap the things that you have to make sure that you're absolutely nailing are the product, what are you making and why the position, who is it for and why do they want it, the promotion of it. How are people going to find you? Are you going to do it through social media? Are you going to do it through market Email, wholesale SEO, pop ups, influencers. What are you going to do? We have to figure out how to promote it. And then finally, no matter what you've done, when you finally sell the product, you need to make sure you're pricing for margins. So here's the truth, right? Most product based business owners just jump around or they come up with the idea and they're like, I got it, I made it, I'm going to sell it. And they skip straight to the selling and perhaps some of the promotion or the other trip up is that they make new products instead of working on the things that are already working. We would much rather be doing all the fun stuff than like sticking to the same thing over and over and over, right? Or you might be selling like crazy right now and you have no idea what your numbers are and there's nowhere to measure. You don't know what you're measuring. But when you follow the order of product, position, promote and profit, you're going to build something that lasts. You're going to understand your business in a deeper way and you're going to stop guessing and you're going to start growing. So if this show and episode resonated with you, I want you to take five minutes today and ask yourself these questions. Come back to the show, come back to this point. But ask yourself this, do I know what I'm selling and why? You're like, yeah, I sell candles and I sell them because you will love candles. But really, okay then am I clear on who it's for? Do I really know who my ideal customer avatar is? And then how are people finding it? And you might be like, they're not finding it. Well, okay, we gotta work on that. Or they are finding it and they're finding it through a friend or they're walking to a market and there might be all the reasons why, right? But they're finding it and then is it actually profitable? Is it making you money when you sell it? So if any one of these pieces feel off, my friend, I need to remind you, you're not broken. There's just some work we gotta do. There's some work to fix. You're just missing part of the pathway. And the good news is that, you know, this is where we're at, this is what we do. And this is something that we work on inside of standout society, right inside of the product boss academy. We touch on this. This is actually touched on in so many different versions of this inside of my program. It's just one of the things that you need. So I want you to take the time to ask yourself, because this is exactly an exercise that I execute inside of my programs that I wanted to bring here to the show because I want you to work on this. This is your work to do as an entrepreneur. I can't tell you the answers of who, why, what. But you can, because you started this business. So the good news is you're not alone. The good news is we're doing this together. And thank you so much for listening to the show today, and I will see you in the next one.