758. The Products You Need to Kill Before You Can Grow Your Business

Let's talk about something that can feel wildly uncomfortable for product-based business owners. Some of the very products you are still selling are the reason your business is harder to grow. And it's not because they're bad, and it's not because you failed, and it's not because you've made the wrong thing, but because every product deserves to come with you into the next version of your business. And I know that can sting a little, right? Because you made it and you sourced it and you named it, you photographed it, you frickin' love it. You launched it and maybe it used to sell. Maybe customers still kind of like it. Maybe they're asking you for it all the time. Maybe it's a thing that you are emotionally attached to because it reminds you of a season where your business was scrappy and exciting and new. But if your product line is too full, too scattered, or too expensive to maintain, and it's too confusing for your customers or too heavy operationally, then the truth is You may not have a sales problem. You may have a product pruning problem. And if you're trying to grow with a product line that's full of deadweight, low performers, confusing add-ons, or things that no longer align with what your business wants to become, then growth is going to feel way harder than it needs to. So in this episode, we're going to talk about the products you need to kill before you grow. We're going to dig into what types of products tend to keep product businesses stuck and how to recognize them and what to look for in your data, and then how to make decisions without spiraling or panicking or feeling like you're throwing away your hard work and honestly afraid that you're not gonna sell. Because you're not throwing away your hard work, my friends. You are making room for stronger growth. 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 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. Hi, I'm Jacqueline Snyder, and this is the Product Boss Podcast. I've helped thousands of product-based business owners grow their sales, clean up their product lines, and get known for something, and build businesses that are more profitable, more focused, and so much easier to run. And this conversation today, well, this is one of those conversations that can change everything for you because sometimes the next level is not about adding, it's about removing. So let's get into it. If you make and sell physical products, one of the easiest traps to fall into is believing that growth comes from more, more products, more collections, more options and launches, seasonal drops, and more. Variations, right? Maybe you're thinking, I gotta just make one more thing. And I get it because when you're creative, making is exciting, launching is exciting, newness feels productive. And in a product business, there is always temptation to think maybe the next product is the one that's going to change everything. But what I want you to hear is that the more products that you have, it does not automatically create more sales. I mean, if you've been around a while, you've heard me say this in so many different ways. Because sometimes more products creates more confusion, inventory, marketing work, fulfillment complexity. I mean scattered demand and waste, decision fatigue, and less profit. So if your business feels messy, if sales feel inconsistent, and if your product line feels too big to manage, and you're looking at your shelves or you're looking around your warehouse and your Shopify backend and you're thinking, why do I still carry all of this? Then this episode is for you. I mean, this is literally probably the biggest game changer that my clients make, and this is the unlock to create stronger brands, right? This is how stronger brands are built, and that's why you'll hear me talk about it over and over, because stronger brands are not built by carrying everything forever. They're built by deciding what earns its place in this moment, in this time. And that's what we're really going to talk about today. What earns its place in your business and what deserves your attention and your dollars, your marketing energy, your production time, your website real estate, your shelf space, your team training, and your fulfillment process? What earns its place? Some of you might be thinking right now, okay, I know what it is. But if you don't, here's the thing. If it does not earn its place, it's probably costing you more than you realize. So today I wanna walk you through the 3 types of products you may need to kill before you grow. So the first thing is that products you may need to kill before you grow are the ones that dilute your brand. And this is huge. And yes, you have a brand. Because if you've been around me for any length of time, you know I talk about time and time again being known for something. Not because I want you boxed in, okay? And not because I think you can only ever sell one thing, Not because I do not understand how creative you are. Trust me, I'm a fashion designer. I dream, I dream in product. I'm always coming up with ideas. But here's the deal, when it comes to what we're making, we want it to sell. And clarity sells. A clear brand is easier to market. It's easier to shop for your customers. It's easier to remember. It's easier to recommend. Listen, it's easier to grow. And one of the fastest ways to lose clarity is by carrying products that do not reinforce what you want to be known for. So these are products that make your customers pause and go, wait, what? So maybe you're really known for beautiful hand-poured candles, but then you have random mugs or stickers or journals and bath salts and tote bags and keychains on the website too, because somewhere along the line you got lost and thought, oh, I'm going to make everything and have a gift boutique online, right? No, that's not a brand. That's just making a bunch of stuff, especially— listen, if your business is I'm gonna say like $20 million or less, you can still stay really, really tight. I mean, even beyond that, or maybe you're known for elevated children's clothing, but then you have party decor and printable downloads and bibs and hair clips and toys and all these different things that you're making that really don't support the core thing. Again, if you're a retailer and you're buying other people's products, then you're creating a retail brand. But you shouldn't be making all of this. Let's say you're skincare and your core products are strong, but then half of the site feels like a gift shop or unrelated add-ons. I just wanna be really clear, I'm not saying complementary products are bad. No way, Jose. Because a coverup makes sense with swimwear and a room spray can make sense with candles. Serum makes sense in a skin, skincare system. A greeting card might make sense in a gift-driven brand. But what I am saying is not everything belongs just because you can technically sell it and doesn't belong just because you can technically make it. The question is not, can I add this? The question is, does this strengthen what I'm known for or what I wanna be known for? Because when someone lands on your website, walks up to your booth, sees your line sheet, visits your fair shop, or hears about your business from a friend, You want their brain to go, oh, she's the one for this. That's the power. That's what drives buying. That's what drives repeat buying. That's what drives referrals and makes the brand stick. For a hot sec, just think about a brand that you follow. Think about a brand that you shop from. You know what's there. Okay. And I'm just gonna say a few. Nike, Lululemon, um, Homesick Candles. Kendra Scott. I'm just trying to think of massive brands that exist out there, not retail environments, but brands. Okay? Every product that sits outside your lane of what you're known for makes your business harder. It's going to pull attention away and it weakens your positioning. It creates mental clutter for you, for your team, and for your customer. And if you haven't heard me say this already, a confused customer does not buy. So if you're looking at the product line and there are things in there that are muddying your message and making your assortment feel random or keeping people from understanding what your best thing actually is, then those are the products to seriously question. And truthfully, it's not because they've never sold and because they're terrible, but it's because they're costing you clarity. And clarity is money. Let me say that again. Clarity is money. So I want you to ask yourself, if a customer landed on my website for the first time, what would they think I'm known for? Which products reinforce that? Which products blur that? And which products feel like they belong in a totally different business? And the last one is so important. Which products feel like they belong in a different business? Because sometimes what happened is we got really excited. We tried stuff, we expanded, we followed curiosity, and now the business has this trail of product decisions that no longer match the stronger, clearer brand that we are trying to build. And if that is what is happening, it might be time to bless and release those products. Bless and release. Okay? They served a purpose. They gave you data, they taught you something, and now they get to just go. I know some of you are like clenching. You're like, what? Okay, well let's just keep going. Now we're going to go deeper into killing the products that are expensive to carry, but weak in return. So products you may need to kill before you grow are the ones that take too much and return too little. These are the products that are quietly draining your business. I'm gonna give you two examples. One, and we talked about this before, Nancy of Nico Bags, love her, okay? She creates reusable replacements for plastic bags. When we first started working together, she's a student in my program, she was a one-on-one client. Now she's in the Collective and crushing it in there. And she started out and she had these, these, these side satchel slings that were made out of cork. And while it was a sustainable product and sustainable material, it wasn't a replacement to the bag. It wasn't sandwich bags and snack bags and makeup bags. And so people kept wanting them. She said people kept wanting them. People bought them, but not in massive quantity. But the dollar amount seemed great because they were, you know, $150, $200 each versus $8, $9, $15 bags. And the thing is, is that they were complicated to make. The fabric was hard to get, the cork was hard, and there were some returns because the cork just wasn't durable. And so while she loved it, and on paper people said they liked it and it made more money, it wasn't actually profitable. The return was not there. Another one of my clients, and I talk about this example all the time, was a top 1% Etsy shop. Pottery company. And when we looked at this and what she was known for, even though she had bowls and platters and all, and even jewelry, her bestseller were mugs and long spoons. So your product bosses, you're listening, you know what happens, or just imagine what happens in shipment when you're shipping pottery, long spoons, and handles on mugs. Breakage. Right? So much breakage. So clients would get it, customers would get it, and there would be breakage, or they would try and dish— put the product in the dishwasher and gold enamel would come off. Like things were just happening. And so while they sold the most and people liked them, they were the, the biggest headache. Customers were returning them. They were making and refiring and shipping out more product. It was legit not worth it. So they were the bestseller. On paper and units, those were the best seller, but they were not carrying the business forward, and it was something that the business just could not afford to keep carrying. So we cut it, we killed it. We killed our darlings. That's what authors say, right? 'Cause some products are expensive in obvious ways. They have high material costs and labor intensive, and they're fragile to ship, and they require special packaging. And, but they might also have high return rates, and take forever to make, or they break or spoil. They require a lot of back and forth with customers, and they have too many options or variations. Maybe they're custom, and do your customers really need custom? This is what happened with Sarah Cornwell Jewelry. When she was on Etsy, everything was custom, but when we built her business online in the retail environment, people wanted off the shelf. She got to a million dollars without being totally custom. So the thing here is that what we wanna do is we wanna create products that have high margin, right? They're not low margin and they are not inconsistent to produce. And some products are expensive in less obvious ways. They are low margin, they're inconsistent to produce, and some products are expensive in less obvious ways. They do not sell enough to justify the inventory. Maybe they're taking up mental space or they require extra photography. Or they need their own ingredients or materials. Like you might be a food company, but like your food requires, like this one product requires different ingredients, and so you're only buying it for that one thing. Maybe they complicate fulfillment or they slow down your team. They might be clogging up your website and forcing you to manage more SKUs than you actually need. My friends, they're pulling your attention from the things that actually drive the revenue. So this is what I meant when I say some products are quietly draining your business. Because not every product that sells is a strong product, and not every product that sells belongs in the next version of your business. Not every product that people like is worth carrying. You gotta take care of your business. And so this is especially important if you are in a season where you want stronger profit, more consistent sales, and more ease operationally, or clearer path to growth. Because if you're still carrying products that are operationally expensive and strategically weak, they're stealing from your future. And that is the real cost. They're stealing inventory dollars that you could put into stronger sellers and production time from things that move faster. They're stealing marketing energy from things that you actually want to scale. So I want you to ask a better question than, does this sell? Ask, Does it sell enough, profitably enough, easily enough, and consistently enough to earn its place? That is the better question. And you may have products right now that technically make money, but if they're a nightmare to produce or hard to fulfill, hard to explain, and always need discounting, or they just don't sell enough in volume to justify the complexity then they may not be strong enough to keep. And this is where data matters. So I want you to look at your unit sales, your revenue by product, your margin by product, your inventory turn, your return rates, discount dependence, time to produce, time to fulfill, and whether the product pulls its weight. So I had a student once who was carrying a whole category because she felt like she should have it. It was not her bestseller category. It was not the thing customers really came to her for. It was not high margin, and it required extra materials and more time. So when she finally looked at the actual numbers, she realized the whole category was creating work and not wealth. And when she let it go, the business got lighter and marketing got clearer and inventory got cleaner and sales actually improved because now the brand had more focus. This all happens all the time because killing weak return products does not mean you have to shrink your business. Often it's the thing that makes it stronger. I've literally seen it over and over and over. So it is what helps your best sellers breathe, and it helps your customers choose faster. My friends, it's going to protect your energy and your money, and it helps you stop operating like a store that carries everything and starts operating like a brand with standards. So if a product is expensive to carry and weak in return, question it, my friends, not emotionally, but strategically. So next, what we're gonna do is kill the products you keep out of guilt, fear, or attachment. So the products you may need to kill before you grow are the ones that you're only keeping because of emotion. And listen, I say this with so much love because this is the hardest category. There are products that you're carrying right now that do not stay because of the strategy, they stay because of sentiment. And maybe it was your first product, maybe it used to sell really well, or loyal customers still ask for it, maybe you spent a lot of money developing it, or you brought in too much inventory, and now you feel like you have to make it work. Maybe you're just keeping it because you don't wanna admit that it's not the thing anymore. And you just keep telling yourself, "I just need to market it better." And maybe you're even scared that if you cut it, sales are gonna drop, or you're scared that your business is going to feel too simple. And maybe you're scared cuz it might just make you feel like a failure. This is where I want to slow you down and really talk to you. Retiring a product is not failure. Letting go of something that no longer fits is not failure. It's you leading your company because it's discernment. Maturity, and leadership. And I know that can be hard because you've poured so much into something, but sunk cost is not a strategy. And I just wanna say that one more time. Sunk cost is not a strategy. Just because you invested in it does not mean you have to keep investing in it forever. And because you made it does not mean it stays forever. And because it mattered one season, maybe it was trending in that season, doesn't mean it belongs in the next one. So if you're trying to grow real product-based business, right, you're really trying to grow this thing. This is one of the most important muscles you can build. The ability to make really clear decisions without your emotions for what you get to make and what you get to carry forward. Because businesses that grow well are not built on attachment, they're built on discernment. I remember when I used to work for Cosabella and we would design entire collections and we used to joke and say we were Cosabella for Neiman Marcus, or Neiman Marcus is Cosabella. I don't know what we said, but the thing is, is that we would sit there, we'd have our creative direction, we would create all of the designs. Uh, it was an Italian lingerie company, or it is an Italian lingerie company, and I was a designer of their swimwear and outerwear. I'd work on it for months, I'd present it, the buyer of Neiman's would come in and tell us what they wanted and what they didn't want. And then the aftermath, basically, Things were stripped away. We did not make the things that Neiman's did not want because that was like the pinnacle of what created the rest of what all of the retailers across the globe would have. If we just made everything and didn't base it on a buyer's behavior who is acting like global customers, then we would be wasting money. So we got to be unattached, unattached, because ultimately the whole goal in what we do here is making products that sell. Now, that does not mean that you become cold to this or that you're ignoring your intuition. And my friends, that does not mean everything becomes numbers only. I know, I know, I'm a creative just like you. But it does mean that you stop letting guilt be the reason a product stays. So if the only argument for keeping it is that it wor— you worked really hard on it, or you spent money on it, and you love it, and it used to work, Or this one customer likes it, they all keep asking about it, and I go, well, how many? And you're like, two people. Okay, or maybe one day this thing will sell. That's not enough. Not if it's costing you space and costing you clarity and your money and your growth. And by the way, killing a product does not always mean throwing it in the trash. It can mean selling through what you already have, or retiring it after a season. Maybe you're bundling it to move it out or removing it from the website. You might just be stopping paid traffic on it or promoting it, or not reordering the materials or restocking it. Or maybe you've just decided that it truly needs a final transition. Now, there are graceful ways to do this, but what I don't want you to do is keep dragging dead weight into the next season because you feel bad. You do not need to feel bad. You just need to get clear. So I want you to ask, if I were building this product line from scratch today, would I choose this product again? And that question right there, gold. So if I were building this product line from scratch today, would I choose this product again? And if the answer is no, or not like this, or maybe, or because I already have it, right? I just want you to pay attention. The product may be living in your business because of your past, not because of your future. And your future deserves cleaner choices, right? You're the boss of your business. Let's lead it. So let's bring this home. The products you need to kill before you grow are usually the one of three things. They confuse what you're known for, they cost too much and return too little, or you are the only thing keeping them because of guilt, fear, or attachment. And if this episode is stirring something up in you, good. Because your product pruning is one of those things that can feel emotional, but on the other side of it feels like such a relief. You get to have more clarity and focus. You get stronger bestsellers and marketing is easier, better margins and less chaos and a brand that makes so much sense. It's just easier to run. And that's what we want, right? So here's what I want you to do next. I want you to pull your product line and look at it with fresh eyes. Not as a maker and not as an emotional historian of every launch and not as a person who remembers how much work it took. You get to look at it as the boss and ask, what are we known for and what are our strongest sellers? What products actually pull their weight and what products create complexity without enough return? And what are we keeping out of habit? What are we keeping outta guilt and what needs to be blessed and released? Because growth is not always about adding more. Sometimes growth looks like editing. Sometimes growth looks like simplifying. Sometimes growth looks like making the business easier to understand, easier to buy from, easier to fulfill, and ultimately easier to scale. My friends, this is not about playing smaller. This is about building smarter. And if you know your business is at that stage where you need stronger focus and better decisions and better profitability, and a business that does not keep getting heavier as you grow. That's the work we do here. That's why you're listening to the show. So make sure that you follow the show, subscribe on YouTube, and send this to a friend of yours, a biz bestie, someone else running their companies. Now listen, I'm helping establish product-based business owners who are ready to scale towards $1 million and beyond without staying the bottleneck. I mean, I'm working with $2 million companies, $5 million companies, people who are just getting to their first $100,000, but they're ready to scale because they are no longer going to be the bottleneck in every part of their business. And that's what we do here. We help you make smarter decisions about what to focus on, what to fix, and what to multiply, and what to stop carrying. So if you're at that place right now that you're like, I don't know where to go. I know my vision, I know what I want, but I'm kind of stuck. I just wanna invite you to book a call with us, and that's theproductboss.com/bookacall. And I want to leave you with this: not every product deserves to come with you. Your next level will be built just as much by what you stop carrying as by what you decide to grow. All right, my friends, keep growing your businesses, and I will see you in 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 5-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. 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