How Successful Product Businesses Work Smarter, Not Longer

Can I tell you a secret? Most of the most successful product businesses that I've worked with do not work more hours than you to earn more. They just work smarter with a system. In fact, recently I was just coaching a student and she said, I feel like I'm failing because I'm not doing, doing, doing, like doing 10 things at once. And right before that, she had worked for 2 weeks straight to get her manufacturing and her products in line for the holiday season. And she was just go, go, go, go, go. And then she had the markets and maybe, you know, the results weren't there exactly with what she wanted, but she felt, I got to keep going. I got to keep going. I got to keep going. And sometimes we're working more because we're actually just working because we don't know what else to do. And so if that feels like you, if you're like, gosh, I keep working, but I'm not seeing the results in my bank account. I'm not seeing my business grow. You might just be working to keep yourself busy thinking that's what you actually need to be creating versus Working smarter, working with a system, working with a plan, and working with a goal. So if that sounds like you, that's exactly what we're diving into in this episode. Hey, hey, and welcome back to the Product Boss Podcast. I'm your host, I'm Jacqueline Snyder, and I am your coach and mentor on this side of the internet or in your earbuds. I am a product-based business strategist, mentor, fashion designer, and I've been in this industry for over 20 years. And in this show, I'm revealing the secrets, the tips, the tricks, the strategies that will help you grow your small business into the business of your dreams, creating unbelievable revenue and growth so that you can live the life that you've always imagined. If you're new here, we help all sorts of product-based businesses across categories. Maybe you are a maker or a manufacturer, maybe you're a retail shop, maybe you do print on demand. We have strategies that work across the board. You could be making candles, food, apparel, accessories, pet products, toys, kid stuff, all the things, and selling them in all the places like Amazon, wholesale, in-person markets, marketplaces, Etsy, wherever you are, we give you real strategies to grow that are not dependent on a single sales channel or a single product category. So I'm so excited, and if you are too, let's dive in. So going back to my student that felt exhausted, spinning, like she had to do all of the things, what we did is we sat down together and I coached her through this. We really coached and talked about what are your goals? What are your goals for the season? Whether it was revenue goals for the business, whether it was the goals of her life, right? Personal, being with her family, maybe there were commitments that she already made. We really looked at her vision for the quarter, And we said, what do you want? Right? Like, what do you want? What's your vision? And let's set some goals around it. And then what we did is we backed into those goals. If it was revenue, we backed into it. If it was lifestyle, we backed into it. If it was time with her kids, we backed into it. Because what she really needed was a rhythm, a plan, a quarterly goal setting, right? Imagine you're planning your quarter. Now we're getting towards the end of the year, so imagine we're rolling into 2026 and you create a quarterly plan, you create a sprint. You look at it and you're like, what kind of revenue do I want to make in this season? How do I want to feel in this season? What commitments do I have? Then we look at what do we have to sell? What's the average order value? Do we want to raise it? How many orders do we have to make to hit that? Then what we do is we break it down week by week by week. What's happening each week? What are we promoting? What are we selling? What opportunities are coming up? Are there markets? Is it a wholesale buying season? Is there a holiday coming up that your product matches with really well? So we start to break up the months. I look at the months at a whole, and we look at the weeks and think, what can we sell each week? What's our revenue goal each week? And what actions do we have to take? So her feedback to me was, one, thank you for telling me I could rest. Because I'll tell you, especially in this go, go, go season, we feel like we got to keep going. Some days after massive efforts like the one that she had, I said, what would it be like if you actually just enjoyed the fruits of your labor? You have several thousand more dollars in your bank account from this last weekend that you did not have before. You've been working really hard to create the inventory that you wanna create. So what would be possible if you, I don't know, vegged out, watched a little Housewives, right? With a chocolate bar. I don't know. I'm just telling you what I do on the side. But what would it be like if you just rested or you were with the people that you love that maybe you weren't with because you were in go mode? What would it be like to nourish yourself? So she did that and she did that for a couple days. Then we said, okay, now let's get back on the horse and figure out what the goals are. Let's set the plan and follow the plan, follow the system. And that's exactly what she did. And she's like, I've never felt more focused. I've never hit more goals in my life because I know it's not just willy-nilly, just feeling like I have things to do, but rather I'm doing things based on a plan that I've created and I've built a system around it. So as you're building these systems, the thing that I find to be so, so, so important is that we build these around the lives we're creating. So I've hopped on a lot of calls lately. You've heard me talking about this every single episode because we're really—it feels like 2020 again to me this year. 2020 was a year that people were like, "I'm gonna start baking bread and make sourdough." 2020 was a year for me and my ex-business partner where we were like, "Oh, we gotta jump online. We gotta coach people." I remember going down to the basement and not coming up for the next two years because we were creating programs and courses and coaching and support. So this year I've really dug into coaching more, being more in a support role for my students. And so I've coached more students this year than I've coached in forever. It feels like it's been a lot, but a lot, like a good a lot, whether it's been my weekly coaching in my Sales Accelerator program. Um, I've taken on some one-on-one students that have been doing amazing. I've created a group coaching program where we're coaching weekly. There's so many different levels of support that I've been able to be personally and as my team has. And so we've gotten a lot of the same feedback. And what I've seen is that people want their businesses to work for them, but in support of the vision that they had for their life when they started it. So what does that mean? Yeah, you had an idea, you had a beautiful idea, and you're like, ah, let me see if I can make this. But behind the, can I make this, was the what's possible. The what's possible for my life, like what's possible if I actually get this thing to grow and I can leave my full-time job? Or what's possible if my husband can quit his full-time job and come home and work in the business? What's possible if all of a sudden I show up to department stores and my products are on all the shelves, or I walk around and customers are wearing what I have? We have ideas and visions for our lives of what's possible through the businesses that we're creating. And so that's the thing that I've really honed back into this year and through my coaching is coming back to, What's the vision you want for your life? Not just your vision for your business. That's a lot of the doing, doing, doing, doing, which is fine. But what's the vision for you? Who do you want to be in this? Do you want to feel more courageous? Do you want to feel brave? Do you want to move out of your scarcity into abundance? Like, who do you want to be and how do you want it to align with the life that you want? So for this student specifically, she wants to earn good money so that she can travel. With her family. It's not the money that she's dependent on for paying the bills. Of course, it'd be amazing, but it's actually the play money. It's the money that like gets to level up their lives according to what she wants to happen. So when I'm coaching my students and what I've seen is they want to know what to do, what to do, what to do, but can it also align with the vision that you have? And so the way that we get there is we create plans, we create goals, and we set rhythms. We set systems so that we can follow a plan. It's kind of like the Lego manual, right? Like, my son builds a lot of Lego. You follow the plan. You're like, this is the end result that I want. Let me flip page by page by page to know what the next step to take is. Maybe it's just a couple bricks, or maybe it puts the whole thing together. And that's really what we get to create. So here are some of the things that you get to set up in your business so that you you have this lifestyle that yields more freedom, brings in more focus, and really helps you build this repeatable rhythm and system in your business. You want to set up rhythms of what your week looks like, what the repeatable system is. So a lot of my students dive straight to making, right? They're like, I'm just gonna go and make more. 'Cause making more means you're not having to sell it, you're not having to market it, but the making might be a buffer. Or some of you are just scrolling social media and thinking, okay, if I scroll, if I post, that's gonna be the, the thing that gets me there. You might wanna do a time audit or look at your week and say, what am I actually spending my time on? And is it yielding the results that I want? Is it set up and aligned with the goals that I want? Because a lot of times you can look at it and be like, oh, I could buy back all of this time that I just wasted scrolling social and going on some like major dive on there for the last hour and a half when I could have been doing X. So I want you to think, what do I wanna create in a week? Another thing that we coach on is You don't have to ship every day. You don't have to be available to ship every day. You could pick 2 to 3 days a week that from 3 to 5 you're doing shipping and fulfillment or making. Maybe you're making and you're manufacturing on certain days. When I used to work with my factories, I wasn't going to the factory every single day unless I really needed to. So the way that I broke up my days was, one, am I checking emails and doing admin? Once a month I would do my, my bookkeeping and my accounting on the 15th, for example, just cuz the 15th is a day that stuck. I would do design and development at certain times. I would take certain me— meetings at certain times, right? Maybe there were Monday meetings, not other day meetings. Maybe in the morning I was like fresh-eyed and bushy-tailed, and that was better for like deep work that I got to do versus later in the day, which was like busy work. So you really get to look at your week and say, what am I doing? Does it make sense for what I'm doing? And does it align with the goals that I want? So I was reading the book The One Thing. And it's all about productivity. But one of the things that he said in it was that willpower is not a renewable resource. And I thought, oh my gosh, like that makes so much sense. So just because you will it and you do more and more and more doesn't mean you're going to get the outcome of the effort that you're putting in. So willpower is not a renewable resource. What it means is that you only have a limited amount of willpower in your day. To accomplish tasks. And he talks about the one thing because the one thing is like, what's the one thing that's gonna move my business forward in this day, in this week, in this month? And so if you could really put your focused action to there and you're, when you have your willpower turned on, for me, I'm not really a morning person. So for me, I'd say midday to early evening is when I'm the most productive. Some of you might be like up at 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning and you're the most productive. That might be the time where you use your willpower to push through on the thing that you need to push through on that needs your most attention. Because everything else, you're— it's like a battery and it's going to start to drain. But even though you have willpower, the part that makes all of this easier is consistency. Consistency, a repeatable, consistent rhythm. So willpower is going to move you through, right? You're going to will yourself through something and accomplish something big. But when I talked about what your weekly rhythm looks like, it's like if I have consistency, then I know each day where my willpower needs to go, what is going to be needed of me in that time, and I can repeat it. I can compound it. So imagine if every other week on a Tuesday you created content. So you had 2 weeks of content every other week and you knew like a rhythm, I show up and I do that. It's like me right now podcasting. I get to create a rhythm and say, all right, when I go and I sit down and I create my Podcasts, how many am I gonna create in that time? And I know I meet at that time, I do it, I get the work done, and then it's done for a few weeks and then I come back to it again. So my willpower today is how do I get these podcast episodes done the way that I wanna get them done? And I don't have to come out with this again, but I know every 4 weeks, let's say I'm gonna record. So that consistency is going to compound. If it's like I'm gonna do one on Tuesday and then maybe I'll do one next Thursday at 5:00 PM, and then, okay, I'm gonna try and squish one in on Sunday. The irregularity and without the consistency to it, it might fall off. But when you start to get into that rhythm, you start to create that consistency that's going to make it like it's all going to compound and your efforts are going to compound and you will see the results that you want. Now, the other thing that I see people thinking about, it's like that before then after, like if I get my life together, then I'll be more consistent, right? It's like if I do the thing that is the outcome I want, First, then I'll have what I want. And it's simply not true. For all of you that are thinking, okay, if I got my life together, I'd post more. If I stopped doing X, I could do more of that. What would it be like if you just took action? What would it be like if you took ownership of your business, you took ownership of your schedule, and you said, all right, I get to email 15 stores that are wholesale so that I can close the deal. I'm going to do this on a Wednesday or once a month on the second Tuesday of the month. I'm going to find 15 stores and email them my land sheets and work with them to see if they want to work with me, right? And then it compounds every single month. It's not when I finally get it together, because if you're waiting for that, it's never going to happen. The other thing that I hear people say a lot is, if I had more time, I would X. If I had more time, I would X. We all want more time, and obviously more time is not a renewable resource. So what would it be like if you used your time better? What would it be like if you reduced the amount of things that you had to do because you knew exactly what you were doing to move the needle? So that's really something that like I focused on this summer, and thank God I did because that's when my mom passed. She ended up in the hospital. It was emergency. She ended up in the hospital and then she passed within 2 weeks. Now my game changer for me, my rhythm and my system that I wanted created The outcome I wanted to generate was less work. I actually gave it numbers. I said 30% less work, 30% more profit, nothing new. I gave myself these boundaries because I, on the other hand, am kind of like this. I can keep adding and doing and adding and doing and doing more and more and more. And I was so lucky that I came up with this idea before everything happened because I could not work more. I could not do more. I was one in support role and then in deep grief. And so by really setting up a rhythm and a system with a goal behind it, okay, I want to make X amount more, I want to do X amount less. That meant I got to create a rhythm and a system that said, all right, on these days I write the emails, on these days I do the podcast. I stopped doing certain things that don't make sense and I lean in and focus. So then if I was like, I'm only selling this one thing, or I'm only focused on marketing and being known for X, Then everything got easier. I didn't have to spend so much time trying to market and make and sell and do all the different things. I got to really just focus. And so it's not always about having more time to get the result that you want. It's about setting a goal and creating the time to work around it. So I've written out the plan for you. Let's talk about the framework, the 15-minute CEO review. Okay? Because I want to give you some action steps that you can take from this once you kind of understand what we're talking about. on how you can really integrate this into your business. So the 15-minute CEO review, okay? Every Sunday night or Monday morning, I want you to ask yourself these questions. What worked last week? What didn't work last week? Where do I want to focus this week? Like, what will have the biggest needle mover result towards my goals this week? And what's the one thing that will move sales forward this week? Okay, so if you take— that's 4 questions, about 15 minutes. If you do this self-reflection, this audit of the week before, you line back to your goals, and then you think about what do I wanna focus on this week? And what's the one thing that will move sales this week? Then all of a sudden your plan is created. You know what you're focusing on and you know what you need to do to make it happen. Without this sort of CEO review and audit, then you're just kind of making it up and flying by the seat of your pants, and that's absolutely not the way. that you're gonna get more time back. Next, something that I wanna talk about a little bit more in depth, which I was talking about, is what is a weekly rhythm that will actually save you time and keep you focused? Okay? And this is something that my students learn about, but I'm gonna coach you through it right now. So let's say you're like, Mondays is when I wanna set my goal. So Mondays you say, I'm going to build in a time slot every single Monday that I do my CEO review. I just need 15 minutes for it. Then you might say, every Tuesday is when I'm going to email my list. I'm gonna email them the offer of the week. I'm gonna email them the promotion. And so you might say, all right, every Tuesday this thing happens. Maybe you're writing it and creating it on a Tuesday and sending it. Then perhaps you say on Wednesday is when I'm gonna create content. I'm gonna create the whole next week's worth of content. So you batch out a time that you're gonna say, that's when I'm gonna create the content. Then maybe Thursday is when, if you're a maker and you're still making and manufacturing, use Thursday, maybe Thursday, Friday to make. If you're like, it needs a whole day or just one day, depending if you're manufacturing, maybe that's the day that you check in. You look at your numbers, you look at your order quantities, you look at like, what do I have to do or do for production? Then on these days, you get to decide: Do I want to ship every day? Do I want to ship twice a week? Do I want to ship Monday, Wednesday, Friday? When do you want to ship? You're not Amazon. You don't have to compete with Amazon. You got to choose and then block hours in your day. You also get to say every day: When are you going to respond to emails? Maybe you're blocking it out. I think it was in the four-hour work week where he's like, "I check my emails at ten and three every single day." You set that into a rhythm, so you get to choose: When am I going to check my emails? When am I going to get back to customer service inquiries? It does not have to be all day, anytime your phone pings. And finally, on a Friday, some of my students like to take Fridays off. Some of them are like, okay, Friday is when I'm going to do my creative work. Maybe Friday is the day that you reflect on that week, or you start to plan for the next week. You do some goal setting. So do you see how every single day has an intention? That's what you get to figure out for your business. What is the intention you want to create? So let me ask you this. What would change if you trusted your weekly system more than your mood? What would change? That shift, that difference of like, you're going to do it anyways, you're going to trust the system that you built, that is what's going to take you into repeatable sales, into a business that's growing. It's going to take you out of that feast or famine cycle. Now, of course, nourish yourself, take care of yourself, but it's kind of the same thing of all the excuses. Like, I've been on a mission to walk 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day. So I get to say, well, it doesn't matter how I feel. I've set the goal with a number attached to it that I'm going to walk 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day. So my mood might tell me other ways and I get to override it so that I create a system. I create a rhythm to get to my goals. Having a structure in your business is actually what makes creativity more sustainable. I am creative as heck. Okay. I've always got ideas. I always want to make and try new things. But when you create this with this structure, that's what's going to allow your creativity to be sustainable. You don't need to hustle harder. You don't need to make more. You get to create a rhythm and a system that you follow and that's aligned with you and what you want. So like I shared with you, I work better in the late afternoons into the evening. Some of you might work really well in the morning. You get to choose what's aligned with you and your life. Create the system, stick to it, get disciplined, and watch your business grow. So I hope this episode gave you a moment of clarity or permission, permission to work within what's aligned for you and clarity on what might be keeping you stuck. If you want more support in this and you're thinking, gosh, I really think that having customized support, having a coach guide me, and even hearing me talk about the Collective, Which is our group coaching program for product-based business owners. My dream for it is it's the ultimate group coaching program in the entire world for product-based business owners. It houses all of my curriculum, so Standout Society, the Product Boss Academy, Sales Accelerator, and more advanced trainings that you don't yet know about. It also has live weekly coaching, community feedback arcs, coaches answering questions, a space that really gets to help you develop your business in a more customized approach and you're like, gosh, I really wanna see if this is a fit for me. All you have to do is head to theproductboss.com/bookacall and answer a couple questions and get signed up for a call with one of my scaling specialists so we can see how we can support you and we can work through this and say, okay, maybe it's a better rhythm that you need. What would it be like and what would be possible for you if you worked in this way and you had accountability and friends and coaches and me as your mentor to help guide you through every step of the way? All right, my friends, I hope you love this episode. Make sure to leave a review, share it with someone that you know, and I'll see you in the next one.