What's Keeping Your Product Sales Stuck? (For Etsy, Shopify, Wholesale, Amazon, and Market Sellers)

Today, I'm going to show you why plateaus happen and how to break through those plateaus without feeling like you're going to burn out by doing it. Without feeling like you have to add all, like so many more products without feeling like you have to chase the algorithm thinking like, oh, if I get more followers, maybe I'll break through it. Nope, that's not it. Okay, so let's get into it. Hey, product bosses. Welcome back to another episode of the Product Boss podcast. I am your host, your mentor and your guide in all things product based businesses. I'm Jacqueline Snyder and I help all sorts of product based businesses grow their businesses through sales engines and channels like Etsy, Amazon Wholesale in person markets, online through E Comm, and even through social media. But the difference here is that you don't have to have a following. You don't need to run ads and you could really take what I teach and apply it across sales channels. So welcome back to the show. Today I want to take you behind the scenes to a pattern that I'm really noticing. I'm coaching a lot of students inside of my programs and that's really something. And if you're a student, you've seen this or you've been around for the last several years, there was this time where we were like, here's a course, take the course, you can do it. But what I've really seen in the evolution of education and the evolution of what support could look like, especially this year in 2025 and moving to 2026, is that people are wanting more handholding, more coaching, more weekly check ins. So I've really leaned in this week to coaching live. I coach live multiple times a week inside of my programs like the sales accelerator or my brand new coaching program called the Collective. And so what's showing up in these calls and even in Instagram comments, to be a hundred percent honest, is people who are stuck in this realm of they're not able to break past that $5,000 a month. They're kind of stuck at that. They can't see past it. Even some of their best months are $5,000. If this sounds like you, if you're feeling like, gosh, I just, I want to break through this plateau and honestly, $5,000 or really any plateau that you're at, you're like, you haven't found that breakthrough yet. This episode is for you. Here's the truth. We all have a number in our head. We all have a number in our head. That's a good number that we're like, when we get there, it'll feel like we've made it. But truthfully, that number grows the bigger your business gets. So I remember back in the day when I knew that what I wanted to take home was $100,000, I thought, gosh, if I could pay myself $100,000 through my business, I would be so successful. Then I remember when we were starting business, it was like, Can I make $10,000 a month? Can I make $5,000 a month? I mean, I even know for some of you, $1,000 a month would be a game changer. So let's say you hit that first thousand, you hit that next 2,000, you get up to five, you're at 5,000, you're like, I want to hit 8,000, 10,000. The number keeps growing. I have students right now that are reaching for 200,000, 300,000, $500,000 a month. I'm talking months here. So it's going to keep moving. But the whole goal here is that where you want to get to is just a mile marker. Let's pretend we're running a marathon. It's just a mile marker. It's okay. That's the next point I want to get to. And then I also want you to know, though, it's not the finish line. This is entrepreneurship. We get to grow these businesses as big as we want. I also don't want you to think, because if you've been stuck at a number or you're trying to get to $5,000, or you're kind of stuck there, it's a wall you're coming up against. This is a wall that is gonna stall you out no matter what that number is. And so what the data is telling you, what the wall is telling you, why that feeling of feeling stuck is coming up for you is it's actually a growth point choice. It's actually telling you what you've been doing got you this far. But it's not gonna break through. It's not gonna get you to that next level. And so that's the point now that you're at, and as you're listening to this episode, is where you get to choose how am I going to grow differently? So today, I'm going to show you why plateaus happen and how to break through those plateaus without feeling like you're going to burn out by doing it. Without feeling like you have to add all, like, so many more products. Without feeling like you have to chase the algorithm thinking, like, oh, if I get more followers, maybe I'll break through it. Nope, that's not it. Okay, so. So let's get into it. First, I want to be clear. If you're stuck, whatever your revenue amount is, 3,000, 5,000, 8,000, 10,000, 20,0001-000002-00000, whatever the revenue amount is that you're stuck at, you're not broken. This is not your limit. This is. This is not. You've reached the ceiling and you're never going to get break through it. That's not it. The fact is, is that you're doing a lot right. Let me say that again, if you're not used to hearing this, my friends. You are doing a lot right. You launched it, you started the business, you started making sales. Perhaps you're on Etsy. Maybe you're selling in person. Maybe you're selling on E comm, online. You've started selling in a way and you're getting orders because the proof is, is that you're making money. But here's what I know from coaching thousands of students, in fact, the students that I've been coaching every single week inside of my programs, is that what got you to where you are right now is not going to get you past it. The strategy that you created originally, you've probably outgrown it. And that's all. That's really all it's about. So today I want to show you the four most common reasons why product bosses hit this wall and what it will actually take to grow past it. Reason number one, you're probably known for too many things. Okay, so let's break that down. You've been listening for a while or maybe you're new here. I always talk about throwing spaghetti at the wall, right? We spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Now, I know that this is a tough one because you're creative, you're multi passionate, and you like to make a ton of cool stuff. But if you're trying to sell everything to everyone, you're in fact selling nothing to no one, right? You're not building brand clarity. So what do I mean by that? Well, you've been able to sell just enough to make it. You've been able to sell just enough to make some good money. But what you know to be true is maybe you're not as profitable as you want to be. Maybe it's harder to market. Maybe you're selling here and there. I've asked this. You know, I was just live today coaching some students and I asked this one woman, she's talking about all her products and how she sells. And she's very, very, very confident in the way that she's talking to me. And I said, okay, well it sounds like you've got a pretty good business. What's your revenue? And she said 12 to $13,000 a year. Now, a thousand dollars a month is nothing to laugh at, right? Like a thousand dollars a month is something to be so proud of. But a thousand dollars a month is just a little bit of money based on probably the effort you're putting into it. So I believe that you all could be, should be, can be making $2,000 a month minimum. If you're making a thousand, $2,000 a month, that's great. It's wonderful. You've done such a good job to make something and sell it and get people to buy it. So you've got lots of information about what works and what doesn't. But how much easier would it be to sell less stuff, less things, really get known for something. I had another student hit a quarter of a million dollars in a year in sales by selling three products. She knew the product to sell. She knew the thing too that she could scale. They were still handmade. There were variations to them, but she was able to get to a quarter of a million dollars selling less things. What you get to do the fix here is to focus on your bestsellers. It's to focus on what you're known for. You get to curate a core collection. You get to be known for one thing or something you can add back in later. But right now, simplicity is going to scale. So I'll give you another example. I talk about this a lot. Rothy's shoes, they were a big Instagram brand. They've grown past that. They've got retail shops now. But Rothy's shoes are pointy toed shoes made out of recycled water bottles. When they first started, they only had the one pointy toed shoe. They had it in variations like solids and prints, but it was just that shoe for quite a while. In fact, it was years later when they finally were known for their shoes and people were buying multiples of them. Did they then develop a second and third and fourth style shoe? So the shoe shape changed, they were still slip ons but the shoe shape changed and then in more colors they didn't jump from, okay, we're doing shoes and we started selling shoes this year and then we're going to add bags on later. They were like, nope, we're going to do these shoes and just keep offering new colors. And people kept buying Them and buying them and buying them. If we think about our X brand, our X brand, which is a protein bar company, they only have four to five flavors of their protein bars, but they still have flavors and they still sell it in different ways. Or let's think you're a cosmetic brand or a beauty brand. One student that I coached came out with one thing, one skin oil. Maybe a couple of different scents, but one skin oil, one product. I have other students that have created stuff that is a regimen, right? Like five different products that work really well together that they can. Customers can buy individualized, or they can buy the entire regimen together. If you're like me, where I started in the fashion industry, we created collections. So let's just take you all the way back. When I worked for this massive Italian brand and I designed their swimwear lines, I was there, a swimwear designer. We knew we wanted about 15 different styles of the bathing suits, like 15 bathing suit styles. And I knew what sold best. So I knew tie, like the triangle top bikini tops, tie side bikini bottoms sold all the time to our customers. So I had like three to four different design styles that were tie side and triangle tops. Then we also knew a halter top sold really well, but we wanted a bigger, fuller brief. So I created a couple of variations of that. Maybe we had one to two one pieces, right? Like a full piece, but still kind of sexy because of the brand I worked for. So you see. And then they were available in different prints and different colors, like solids and prints. So you can see that even that we were known for bikinis. We didn't come out with sandals and hats and all these other products. And we actually did add a couple cover ups because the COVID ups come complemented our main product category, which were bathing suits. So we created a couple coverups, and maybe it was just one wrap skirt that was available in. In the prints and the solid, so it could match any of our bathing suits. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? You get to be known for something. If we had launched that swimmer line and we were making all sorts of things, like anything you want to bring to the beach, you bring, we would not be doing the favor to our customers. We'd be stepping outside of our production capabilities. We'd be creating so many different complications. So what I really want you to really think of is now that you're growing or if you want to break through, what would be possible if you stayed focused, if you leaned into what you were known for and you stopped making all the other things, I'm going to call out the Etsy coaches out there. There are Etsy coaches out there that tell you you need to, you need to create two new products a day, right? New product, new product, new product to keep the listings going. The reason that this works is that you're playing in someone else's playground. You're playing in an algorithmic playground that Etsy has created that wants you to create more content, more product listings, which is like content on Instagram, because they want to keep people on the platform, they want you to drive it forward. I teach you in my programs not to be completely reliant on any single platform and to play the game that you get to play what works for you. I've helped students that have done this exact thing and they've grown on Etsy by being known for something. I know there's coaches out there that have taken what I teach about being known for something in bestseller, and they've started teaching it for these platforms. Because the thing is, then everything gets easier. Your production, your making, your marketing, and people get to say, go to that person for that. And that's what I want for you. So the second reason you might be feeling stuck is that your pricing and your offer strategies aren't built to grow. So you might be profitable per product, but are you profitable when you grow? Are you creating offers and pricing strategies that are helping you grow? Many product bosses are still stuck at this because of the way that they're actually selling, what their offers are. So first off, we gotta make sure you're priced correctly. We have to make sure that you're priced at the correct margins. If you're listening and you're a student in the sales accelerator, you're a student in the collective, you have a pricing calculator inside of the program so you can go in and put that in. And it helps you calculate your cost of goods, your labor, your wholesale price, your retail price. So make sure if you're a student, you've got that inside. All right? So just wanted to throw that out there for you. Now what might be happening is that you just keep selling a bunch of little stuff, low price products, low margin, where you really have to sell a lot more units. Maybe you're not pricing correctly, so everything you're putting in, you're not taking anything home, you're not keeping good money in your pocket. Another thing I see a lot of people doing is they're just selling one offs here and there, one offs here and there. They're not Raising their average order value. They're not bundling, they're not taking their best sellers and putting them together so that people, when they buy, are spending more with you. And they're also not offering upsells or incentives to raise that average order value to increase that cart size. The fix here is that you grow your business by raising your aov, which is your average order value. Right? We want to make more profit in every transaction. So you want to make sure that you're no longer leaving money on the table and you're not thinking, well, how do I hit the lowest price? How do I just sell them? The one thing you get to think, am I profitable? Do I have the margins there? Am I including labor? And is it priced even in a pricing psychology realm that people think, oh, this is legit, this is good, this is going to help me. This isn't going to fall apart. This is going to stop wrinkles. This is going to taste delicious because it's priced correctly. You're a small business. We are not competing with Walmart. We are not competing with the dollar store. We're not competing with cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap products. You are a small business and a brand. You get to call in the right people for your business. And this really is a mindset thing. And so what happens? Why are you stuck? Because you don't have enough money to invest in the next level of your business. You might still be working to support your business because you have a full time job. You might still be pulling from your household money. The place here is when your offers start to work and you're priced correctly, you're gonna make enough money to save enough money to invest back into the business. Enough money to pay you enough money to pay for help. Enough money to save for taxes. Because if we're paying taxes, it means we've made money. So it's actually a blessing. So that's what you really get to think about is am I keeping myself stuck because I'm grossly underpricing? Am I keeping myself stuck because I'm not raising my average order value? Am I keeping myself stuck because I'm afraid to grow? All right, let's talk about the third reason people tend to stay stuck. You're marketing in circles and you're not creating systems. So what does that mean? Posting's not promoting. Scrolling social media is not promoting. It's not marketing. It's none of that, okay? It's just posting. It's just trying and trying and trying. If your entire visibility strategy, if your entire marketing Strategy is post and prayer. It's going to make your sales feel stuck and your growth feel stuck. My friends, you need a rhythm. You need a marketing plan, a marketing rhythm. You need to think, what kind of emails am I sending? Am I constantly growing my email list and am I creating weekly email marketing promotions? And I'm going to say this, E commerce emails, not newsletters. If you're signed up to a bunch of coaches and education companies and you're getting newsletters and you're sending newsletters to your customers, those are not the emails to be sending to sell stuff online. The next thing is, are you consistently telling the right story about your product? Are you consistently marketing your product to how it will meet the needs, wants and desires of your customer? Are you selling the vision? How will they feel? What will it be like when they finally have your amazing things in their hands, in their homes, wearing them, tasting them, smelling them. The other big, big, big thing, the thing that differentiates the product boss from so many places, your visibility strategy, your marketing strategy does not solely rely on you building your own audience. I know there's people out there and coaches out there that are like, you just have to grow your social media. You just have to work with influencers. I've been in business for two decades. Two decades, which is kind of nuts to say it. I've been in this business, but for a good portion of my, of my career, I, I was hired by other people. I was working as a fashion designer at brands for celebrities, working with celebrities, global brands. I was hired by them. So I got to see behind the scenes. Then I started my own brand. And I sold in all the ways. I sold cuffs, Couture wholesale. I sold it in person. I sold it on E commerce, on through emails and through my website. We even sold on Amazon. I worked with influencers. My products have been featured on morning shows. Right? Kim Kardashian and Carrie Underwood bought my stuff. I didn't even gift it to them. They bought it. So how did that happen? It's because I understand what it takes to grow a brand in a holistic way. Not in a single channel way, not in a single platform way. What I know to be true is that, and when I was doing this, I didn't even have the ability to build my own audience. So what a blessing. What a blessing that you get to have social media that gets to reach people everywhere. But again, it is not your only plan. It gets to be just part of the plan. It gets to be a strategy. If you choose to use It. So what do you get to do? What's the fix here? Well, you get to really step into being a marketer. You get to really think, what's my weekly sales rhythm? What are the offers I'm going to create and how many get in front of customers. You get to use the OPA method, which I teach my students, which is using other people's audiences so you don't have to grow your own. And I want you to stop depending on the algorithm to carry your goals. Stop depending on the algorithm to be the thing that sells what you have to sell. It's a tool, and that's all that it is. It's a strategy, but it's not the entire strategy. So now let's get into reason number four, why you might still feel stuck, my friends, you are trying to grow your business like a solopreneur, maybe even a hobbyist, and not a CEO. Okay, so you might be thinking, okay, I'm sitting here in my workroom, in my office, in my basement, in my attic, in my living room, at my kitchen table. Or maybe you're in your workspace thinking, what are you saying about CEO, Jacqueline? Like, I'm literally just a maker. I like to make and sell things. Or I'm an artist, I'm a creator. Or I see myself as a business owner. Maybe I see myself as an entrepreneur. But CEO? What are you even talking about? Here's what it's going to take for you to grow past the ceiling. Here's what it's going to take for you to grow past this. This plateau. It's your mindset. Your mindset gets to evolve. I've told the story and I'll tell it again. The first time that we hit a million dollars in our business, I literally had a panic attack. Found myself walking out of my in laws house into the woods, ducking down behind a rock and hiding, and then immediately texting my life coach so said, I don't know what's wrong with me. My whole life I was so afraid of not having money. My whole life I was afraid of not being able to pay my bills. All of a sudden, we've made the money, we've hit this crazy revenue goal that in my life, as a first generation American, I never thought in my life I could ever, ever, ever hit. And I did. And I'm having a panic attack. What is even wrong with me? And she said, nothing's wrong with you. Your mind just can't hold what's happening. And that's when I was like, okay, so sign me up. Weekly calls, weekly mindset calls, weekly coaching calls. Because what works when you're getting started, that hustling, the do it yourself, the staying up late and doing it all yourself, that works to a point. And then at some point, you're gonna hit a breaking point. And so when you're about to level up, okay, we hit these plateaus, we might have these breakdowns, because those breakdowns are the moment of breakthrough. Those breakdowns are the things that's just about to push us to that next level. So to grow past this plateau, this is where you really get to lean into support, into building systems, into having structure. I mean, listen, entrepreneurship is always feeling like you're flying by the seat of your pants. And then eventually it gets to hiring the right people. But before that, what would it be like if you just said, okay, I'm the boss of my business, I'm the CEO. This is where I really get to develop systems and plans. I get to set goals, I get to build the development of my business around this. And with that, with building your business is also the identity development. Okay? These things go hand in hand. That's why in the collective, I've really talked about the be, do have framework, where it's like, okay, so many years I've even done this for myself and taught you do, do, do, do so that you have the results you want. Then I realized, and this is like when I had my million dollar breakdown was, hold on. Like, yeah, I can do it, but I can't get it past this if I don't keep working on myself, on my own mindset, on who's doing the, doing the version of me, the being. So the fix for you, my friends, is that you really get to step into that CEO version of yourself. The boss of your business, the person who builds the rhythm, the person who makes decisions based on a vision that you hold, not on panic. The person who says, you know what? I've been duct taping, chewing gumming this thing. Chewing gumming. I've made up a whole, whole word. But like MacGyvering this entire thing up until this point, now is the time. It's going to take a level up. That could be when you start making a few thousand dollars a month. I have a student right now. She's, as of the month of September, she made about $25,000 so far this year, which was already the most she's ever made in her business. Full time mom with this, this great side hustle that she really wants to grow into. Like A big business we're really planning now in the last quarter of the year, how does she make an additional $25,000? Right. That's doubling her revenue in less months. But it's all possible. But here's what it took from her. It took from her investing in herself, doing things that were really, really, really stretchy, things that didn't even make sense, showing up for herself every single day and even showing up for herself in a personal way. And, and, and she set this vision, she set the goal. And she's like, all right, I'm gonna step into this next level. Sometimes you get to believe in yourself before you've actually got proof that it's happened. And you get to get support and you get to have the plan, you get to have that, that that system developed. So really, a lot of what's keeping you plateaued is mindset. A lot of thing. The things that are keeping you stuck. Oh, and this is what I wanted to tell you about her. So in thinking about where she's been, so she knows she sells really well at in person markets. She started selling online. She's doing that. She's selling wholesale. But in person markets have been her bread and butter. Now she's like, I have all of these markets coming up and I actually think I could do more markets, except I can't clone myself. I can't be at all the different markets. So her up level, her CEO mindset went to, what would it be like if you hired someone to do a market for you? What would it be like if you didn't have to do every single market? Is there someone you can hire? She's like, actually, yeah, I have this friend who's always said, I can help you. So I was like, what would it be like if you took her with you, you trained her at one of your markets, and then she went and learned how to set up and do a whole market without you while you were at this other one. Now you double your sales in a weekend. The investment into hiring someone for help will have a return. It absolutely will have a return. So that's CEO mindset. That is CEO development. That is being the boss of your business and problem solving and really holding the vision for what you want. So now let's shift into action. What's going to get you past this plateau? That $2,000 a month, $5,000 a month, $10,000 a month, $100,000 a month. What's going to get you past this plateau? It's not going to be another sale. It's not going to be another viral reel. It's going to be these four shifts. First, it's to be known for something. You get to simplify, to amplify, Focus your brand around what sells, what people know you for. Are you the cake pop lady? Are you the pet portrait person? Are you the, like, the jewelry I'm wearing right now, like the Goddess Queen Energy necklace company? How could people define what they know you for? What they could tell people they could buy from you? The second thing you get to do is you get to fix what's not working. So you get to audit your pricing, your offers, your website, stop patching things up and just trying to do it for later. And you get to start repairing. You get to start fixing it now. The third thing that you get to do is build your sales engines. So we talk about this all the different ways you can sell, whether it's getting in front of other people's audiences, whether it's using email, gift bundles, markets, box. You want more engines, more ways to sell more. The more ways we have to sell more of what already sells, the more stability you're going to have. And then finally, you get to grow through discipline, not through hustle. This is the mindset shift we work on inside of my programs, Just mindset shifts in general. Sometimes it's discipline, sometimes it's focus, sometimes it's courageous. What do you need in this moment? What do you need this week? What do you need while you're listening to this episode? You don't need to hustle all the time and patch this together and operate like a hobbyist. Even when you're making a lot of money, a lot of us kind of still operate in that way or that solopreneur mindset. You get to really create structure and ownership in what you want to create and holding the vision that you have for yourself. And if this is resonating with you, it's because you're ready, right? You're ready to break through. So I want you to think about this and maybe you want to say it with me. I've outgrown my old strategy, and I'm ready to lead the next version of me. I've outgrown my old strategy, and I'm ready to lead the next version of me. This is the identity shift. This is the moment you stop running your business from adrenaline and guessing and you start leading with clothes, clarity, and a plan. So if this episode hit home for you, here's what I'd love for you to do. Follow the show wherever you listen. And if you get a chance, please leave me a quick review. It is so helpful to the show. It's so helpful in people being able to say, yes, I should listen to that. And the reason that this would be so important for me and for you is because we drop a new show every single week. I'm bringing you strategic teaching belief shifts, special guests, real two tools to grow your product based business, even behind the scenes coaching sessions. And so when you follow the show, you will never miss an episode. Thank goodness for those alerts. So your next breakthrough might just be one podcast away. So my friends, so product boss, if you're sitting at this plateau in revenue and you're wondering why it's not working, I want you to know you're not alone and you're not wrong. You've just reached a new level. You've reached a place that you get to break through. And these new levels require support, new rhythms, new plans, and a new way of being. This is your moment. So let's go. So until next time, keep going. You are building something incredible and I'm cheering you on and coaching you and supporting you every step of the way. See you in the next one.