Why Scattered Products Kill Repeat Sales (and What to Do Instead)

Have you ever walked into a store or maybe you've landed on a website and you have no idea what they sell? Imagine walking into a store like, you know those big box stores like Ross or Home Goods, and you walk in and you're like, there are so many things in the store, I don't even know where to go or what to choose. Or maybe, just maybe you've landed on a website and the website just kind of has a whole bunch of stuff. That's how customers feel when your categories are scattered, when what you sell is scattered and they don't know what to buy from you. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Snider. I am the host of the Product Boss podcast. We help people who make and sell things sell more, get easier marketing and really grow their businesses. I've been coaching for 20 years in this industry and I've coached all sorts of product based businesses, right. So they could be across lots of categories. And I remember a couple of years ago I started coaching one of my students and she was making incredible, amazing products. They were products for like a modern religious family, okay? So like, you know, think Christianity, Catholicism, Judaism. It was, it was around those, I'm not going to name it specifically because I don't want to call this person for forward in this, but they were making all sorts of products. Now in this product category or in, on their website, they were selling hats and keychains and prints and mugs and Christmas ornaments and candles and stickers and tattoos and all sorts of products. And so while the concept of the brand was really good, right? While the idea, okay, great, like these kinds of families want these types of products or really great idea, she was selling everything, like everything. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. And so for her it was just because she could, didn't mean she should. So she was wasting a lot of money in product development, in design, in buying multiple types of products. And not everything was selling. And so when we look at companies like that, when I have coach students and I'll do an audit of their company and I take a look at it, it's like, huh, we first go into what do you want to be known for, right? That's a very first question. What do you want to be known for? And a lot of times people have the feeling and the essence of what they want to be known for, but not necessarily what they can actually stand out in the market for, what they can actually stand out in the crowded market for. Then what we do is we look at data, okay? So if you have any sort of data as you've been growing your businesses and you look at it, you look and you say, well, what sells best? So the irony of this brand is the stuff that sold best was the cheaper products. It was the cheaper products. So you might be thinking, okay, hold on, if it's cheaper, does it have to sell more and more and more? Yes and yes. And because just because you sell a higher ticket product, maybe you're selling 10 of something that costs more, but 100 or something that costs less. Now this is not about price point. It just has to do with like she's not selling more because it's cheaper. It's just the product is a better seller. It's more aligned with what the customer wants. So when we narrow down what she sold, we narrowed it down to prints, stickers and tattoos. These were like 5 to $15 products. She skyrocketed her sales. She went from just scraping by and hustling to $15,000 months, all the way up to $35,000 months selling stickers, tattoos and prints. I know your job is probably on the ground, but that's what happens when, when you start to really hone in. When you go from scattered and I can make everything and anything and my customers want everything and they tell me I should make this, that and the other to actually looking at the data, what can be created for your business? Why is it easier? Because now you get to really hone into what the products are, lower the cost of goods for those products, market better, have a better product, market fit. So if this sounds like something you're really interested in, stick with me in this episode because we're going to break it all down today. I want to walk you through why scattered businesses are quickly killing your sales and what you can do about it. The other thing is when you're super scattered, it makes it harder for customers to create repeat sales and repeat buyers. So we're going to clean that all up in this episode. So most product based business owners are not struggling because they're not working hard enough. In fact, if we were going to measure how hard you work to dollars, we'd be gajillionaires. Am I right? Really what it is is that I see a lot of my students, a lot of product based business owners, not focused, not paying attention to the data and they're struggling because the customer is confused. Like I said when we started this off, you walk into a shop, you walk into a store, you land on a website and you don't know what to buy, the brand isn't telling you, hey, these are our best sellers or buy this now or here's the offer. So it gets really confusing. And if you're able to write something down, write this down. The customer wants you to tell them what to buy. Yes, you heard that right. The customer doesn't want to make these decisions on their own. It's super, super confusing. So let's just imagine this for a hot second. You know, we're in the holiday season, I used to live in New York City and you're walking down fifth Avenue where all the beautiful store windows are happening. Or maybe you're at the mall and you look at, you look at store windows or on Main street, you're looking in the store windows. What are these companies putting in their stores in their windows? They're putting in things that are going to entice you to come in and buy. They're telling you what to buy. Now I want you to imagine you walk into the store and you see a beautiful mannequin wearing a beautiful outfit and you look at that outfit and you're like, I want to find that, I want to wear that. You look on the floor and usually it's sold out or pieces are gone or sizes are gone. That's because again, a customer wants you to tell them what to buy. That's what a mannequin does. That's what a store window does. That's, that's what it displayed us. So if we think in real term, real context, and this is what I coach my students on, cuz a lot of times I think getting online selling on your website, selling on social media, on platforms like Etsy, it gets confusing. So I want to bring us all the way back to OG times of just walking around and shopping in retail shops. When there is a display, when there is a mannequin, when there is something positioned in front of you, the customer is relating, oh, I see how that works. I see how it works together. I want to buy what they're selling. Okay, so a whole alpha put together. More people are going to buy that than trying to piece it together themselves. So how can you apply that concept to your website? How can you apply that concept to the emails that you send? How can you apply that concept to bundles and offers you're creating? The customer wants you to tell them what to buy. So if you're like best sellers and there's a section on your website that says bestsellers, a lot of customers go there. The next time you're shopping on a site Especially in the season, because we're buying a lot right now. Take a look. See what you see on a homepage of a website. Do you see a best seller section in the navigation? Do you see a bestseller section on the homepage? Do you see little notes next to the images that say bestseller or customer favorites? Because customer favorites are the same as best sellers. So I want you to take a look and see if you see on these sites a way that it says, this is what it is. The other thing I want you to look at is let's say you're shopping on a website, the homepage, the hero image. Okay? So you know how when you land on a website, there's an image right away with a call to action or a button. So it might be, you know, during Black Friday, it might be 30% off site wide or new drop. The winter collection is here. Shop now, if you follow that brand, which I share this with my students inside of the coaching collective, where I'll, I'll take them through and we'll audit different emails, we'll audit, we'll audit kind of like the marketing cycle. So what I'll do is I'll show them emails that I've received from a brand. We'll click on them, we'll take a look at the website. Then we'll look at the website and say, are we seeing what they've emailed us about on the site? And then we'll go and look at their social channels and say, are we seeing what they've emailed us about that's on their website? On their social channels, they're telling the customer what to buy. So when you feel scattered, when you have all the things and you want to sell all the things to your customers, your customers don't know what to get, they're not going to buy from you. And that inevitably is going to kill your sales. Let's talk about some of the things that you can look at right now to see if you're confusing your customer, if you're appearing to be scattered and some things that might be killing your sales. I want you to look at your homepage of your website or wherever you're selling and think, does this look like a gift shop or does this look like a brand that is known for something and selling it? Also when you're looking at your social posts, your emails, are you driving weekly actions, weekly sales to your customers and saying, hey, this is available, Buy this. Then are you creating offers? So let's say bundles, kits, promotions around what people want to Buy, not the stuff you want to get rid of. Okay, so what people want to buy. This is a great time for you to look at all of your emails to not unsubscribe, but actually open up the emails and see what can I learn from these bigger brands that I've subscribed to. And if you're getting one off buyers, let's say you're at market, you're at an in person market and you're selling and you're not collecting email addresses, they're never coming back to buy again. Then they don't know or remember what you stand for to come back. So let's just talk about. I talk about Nike a lot because it's a massive brand. So think about Nike. We know Nike. Nike is in our psyche, right? We know. Just do it. We know the brand. We know that if we're looking for something like let's say you're looking for workout shoes or hiking shoes or just sneakers, you know, you think of the brand and you go explore the brand. You think, what can I buy from them? And if you've opted into emails, you follow them on social, you shop from them in department stores, you go to their brick and mortars, you're thinking and knowing, okay, this is what they stand for, this is what I'm going to get. If Nike all of a sudden had chocolate bars in the store and I don't know, just random stuff like they started to sell balloons, it said Nike on them. And posters, like they don't do posters, they don't do workout journals. They do products for the athlete or the person who wants to be like the athlete. And then imagine like a Nike store. They're going to have shoe section, which is huge. Then they're going to have apparel, which is their second biggest category. Then you might see some bags, you might see some water bottles, but not a ton because their main best selling categories are apparel and shoes. I can just say that off the bat. And then they have a few things scattered in. But they all make sense, they're all cohesive. Okay? They're not scattered. And that's what a brand is and that's what you're building. So here's the tip that I want to walk you through. I walk my students through this. Maybe you've done this before because you're a student of mine, you've been in one of, one of my programs. But what I want you to start to kind of wrap your head around is how could you self identify as the brand? Now let's Just clear this up really fast. You are not your brand. So if the company doesn't do well, if your brand doesn't do well, it is not a reflection on you, my friend. You. You were perfect. Amazing and whole and incredible just the way you are. Take it from someone who's had businesses shut down, businesses have failed at things, have been an investor, have had, you know, made millions of dollars. All the things that I've created, it's all been a part of my lesson in entrepreneurial journey. But I know that myself, Jacqueline, is separate than the product boss, right? The product boss is its own entity. I get to be the steward of it, but it's not me. So I want you to first think about that when we're talking about your business. But for the sake of this exercise, I want you to think about, okay, if someone was walking around and they saw somebody with your product, okay, Maybe they're wearing your necklace. Maybe they're walking to your house and they're burning a candle, or they're walking around, they're eating something you've made that's delicious, or they've. They've got art on their wall. If that customer, the person who's already gotten your product and someone came up to them and said, hey, what's that? Where'd you get that? Would they be able to remember your brand? Now, going back into the self identity, I just want you to do this because this is a kind of a quick practice. So we've done this before. So let's say you are a bakery and you're selling lots of different products, but you sell cake pops. And cake pops are your number one bestseller. Could you identify as the cake pop lady? Would that be possible? Or let's say you create. I'm gonna shout out to Brian over here, right? Let's say you make freshwater pearls at the Freshwater Pearl Company, and I make fresh freshwater pearl jewelry. And so you're like, oh, go to the freshwater pearl jewelry guy, right? Or it might be, oh, yeah, that's the San Diego Prince person, right? So I want you to kind of start to think about what you sell and identify it as if people could be like, oh, yeah, go to her. Go to him. Go to them, right? I was the wearable risk wallets lady that go clubbing in those wallets. We're no. People didn't refer like that, but do you know what I'm saying? So they didn't come to me and be like, I don't know what she sells. They came and they said, we know exactly what she sells. So that's just a little tip that you get to try on and play with. And if you figure it out, you want to send me a DM over on Instagram at the product boss and tell me like, hey, I am the. And share what it is, because I'd love to see how you self identify. So let's break this down so you could really kind of fundamentally think, like, how do I figure this out, Jacqueline? Like, how do I implement it? So what you can do is you can look at your data from the last six months, the last year, and really look at it and say, what have I sold the most of? So let's say you're a candle company, but you do candles and room scents, body sprays. You might look at that and say, what have I sold the most of? And maybe you decide that you sell the 8 ounce soy wax candle jar the most. And you've got some scents that do well. Like my vanilla sells year round, but my holiday scented candles sell really well during the fall and the winter. Right. You're starting to identify, let's say you're a jewelry company and you make all sorts of one of a kind jewelry, but you've identified that out of the last six months. Customers are buying the chunkier necklaces. They love the chunky jewel gemstone necklaces, right? Yeah. You sell bracelets and rings and all the things and even dainty necklaces, but you're seeing that they like the chunky necklaces. Or let's say you make graphic tees and graphic T shirts. You might say, well, this color does really well. This saying does really well. If you know the color, great, make more of those colors. Like if you sell black and white all the time and barely any hot pink, then stop selling hot pink. I coached a student recently in the Collective who has like wine sayings for women that are 45 to 65, let's say, and it's all kind of about wine humor. And so we looked at that, we said, well, what is the best print? What is the best graphic? And then she's like, well, this shirt can sell all the time. Great. Let's think about that as a sweatshirt in the season. Right? So what I want you to do though is I want you to start to look at your company and say, what sells best? If you're one of a kind, you might be like, well, my nine inch table settings do really well. Or my wreaths for the holidays really do really well. Or my watercolors of locations in Southern California do really well. I want you to start to just identify what sells the most, what gets the most attention and how many units have been sold. Units is going to tell you something. Now people usually come up to me and they say like, okay, units. Am I looking at revenue sold? Well, let's talk about that. I had a student that sold precious jewelry, like fine jewelry. And if we looked at her product line, her bracelets sold the most. So let's say her bracelets were like $300 to $500. So it sold the most. The most, the most. Now she created a $6,000 product and the $6,000 product, she sold seven of them. But maybe she sold hundreds of the three to $400 price point. I'm going to go off the units because that's telling us what customers want more of, not the revenue. Because there was such a difference in revenue level. Does that make sense? So that's how you really get to start to think through what are your best sellers, what are you known for, what data are you already getting? Okay, so when you find that out, can you pick the top three to five? Right? Pick the top three to five just to start for this exercise, to practice this. Now some of you are like, I want to know more. I'm not sure how to do this. Well, we've got ways to support you in that. I've just, we're like in the third month of the Product Boss Coaching collective, which is like the most exciting thing I've ever done. It is a brand new program at the Product Boss where I am taking everything, all of my curriculum and putting it into this coaching program that also includes Live Weekly coaching. Okay? And I'm coaching weekly. So Live Weekly Coaching feedback, right? Where you get to submit for feedback and me or my coaches are giving you feedback on your website, on your line sheets, on your pricing. Right? You get to submit for that. There's daily questions being asked in the community and coaches answering them. We're working in 10 week sprints to really create game changing goals. So it's, it's like so supportive. It's more than just, it's more than a course. Like follow this course step by step. It is customized. Click coaching that's specific to your business. Okay? So if you're like, ah, I've got these questions, I don't know what my bestsellers are and you're already making $2,000 or more in your business and you're like, I really want more, I want more customized guidance. Go to the ProductBoss.com BookACall, the ProductBoss.com BookACALL. Sign up for it. Talk to me or someone on my team, depending on who takes the call, we can offer you a free one hour strategy call to really see what, what you want, where you're going, what's getting in your way, and to see if the collective would be helpful to you. And I say that because as you're looking at your numbers, you might have questions. Okay, I've figured this out. I've identified what my best sellers are, but what do I do with them? How do I grow my business? And that's 100% what we can do in that. All right, so now that you know your best selling products or maybe even category like my, my sweatshirts with sayings on them do really well in the season, or um, my chunky necklaces do really well. Now that we've identified that, let's also look at where you're selling. Where are you selling best? What's your best place to sell? It could be an in person market, it could be on your website, on some sort of social shop, it could be on Etsy. So where are you selling best and how can you improve where you're selling? How can you improve the customer experience? So now that we know what you're known for, how do we really guide the customer in that experience? Kind of like the store window or, or the catalog to guide them into what to buy. Right. Remember, we want to tell them what to buy, so you get to do that on the sales channel that you're on. So if it's in person and I walk into your booth, I know right away these are the best sellers. This is what you want me to buy. If it's online and then coming to your website, maybe it's your hero image, maybe it's part of the navigation or a visual navigation. If you're selling on Etsy or a marketplace like that, does your banner show your best sellers or is it just random stuff? So really what we get to do then is we get to look at where we're currently selling and see how we can fix it and improve it. There's two tracks that we take inside of the Product Boss collective. We talk about what to fix, like how to fix your business and then how to grow your business. And we get to do both, but just not at the same time. Sometimes it's like we want to do some sort of overhaul or a fix, and other times we're like, ooh, we, we get to expand and grow. So in this case you might be like, ooh, I'm not doing the right things on the sales channel that I'm selling at and I need to fix it. Or you might be like, I am doing it. How do I scale that, how do I grow that, how do I drive more traffic to it and make more sales? Right? So that's really the two paths that you get to take. Once you've identified the best sellers, what you want to be known for and really position them on your best sales channel. Does that make sense? Now let's talk about my grandma for a second. My 90 year old grandma. Shout out to grandma Lillian. Okay, so, so if my grandma, my 90 year old grandma were to walk into your booth, if she were to land on your website, if she were to follow you on social media, if she were to land on your, let's say your Etsy shop, would she know what you sell? This is called the grandma test. This is something that we do all the time. In three seconds, would she be able to know what to sell and what she should buy from you? Would she know what you're known for? So that's kind of the next level. So not only have we identified, not only are we cleaning up where we sell it, but then we need to know, could my 90 year old grandma figure this out now? If she can, so can everyone else. If you've ever been a writer or you learn to write, sometimes they tell you to speak or write in fifth grade language, right? Just talk in fifth grade language because it's the easiest to understand. I'm going to say the same thing about your websites, your shops, your stores, your displays, your in person markets, wherever you're selling. We want to simplify it like whether a fifth grader can figure it out, which my fifth grader is pretty savvy or my 90 year old grandma. So let's go with the grandma test. You want to remove clutter, you want to be very simplified in what your offer is. You want your navigation to guide her so easily she doesn't need to call me three times, tell her how to navigate it. Okay, so that's the grandma test. That's what you get to do. You get to identify that. I've coached on this so often I know what you might be thinking. Okay, so some of you have heard this before and some of you are like, I have no idea, this is freaking me out. Like she's telling me to focus, she's telling me to narrow down. Is she telling me just to sell one thing? No, I'm not Telling you just to sell one thing you can. So if you have a single product, you can. You know, I talk about Rothy's shoes a lot as an example. Rothy's shoes are those pointy toed shoes that were made out of recycled water bottles when they first started. For the first few years they only had the one style, the one style which was the pointy toed shoe. But they had variations. They had prints, they had different colors, they had black. Right. They had all of these different variations. That's what grew the brand. Okay. So if you have one product and you have variations of it, perfect. They didn't come out with another style of a shoe until they were way more established. And now you can look at them and they've got multiple types of shoes. They've even offered handbags, which I'll probably get. Bet that the handbags don't sell as well as the shoes. Make sense. So one product variations. I'm wearing an aura ring. Okay. So Oura rings. One product, different colors. They originally had like gold and silver, I think then they came out with rose gold because rose gold was trending. Right. So they came out with different colors. They came out with other generations of them. Recently I looked and they have like enamel one. So they've, they've upgraded that. So even if you have one product, sometimes when you upgrade a color or style, like hence our iPhones where they constantly are updating it, how do they sell us the next iPhone? Well one, they change the colors, right. Or they, they upgrade a feature in it. So the same thing for you. Now I also have students like shout out to static block. She has one product. One. It's anti static hairspray. Okay. And in the first 90 days implementing what I teach her, she made 31,500. $500 selling one product on Amazon. One. No social media following, not selling anywhere else. So even if you're selling one product, you too. She's made. I think she's up to like $400,000 a year selling one product still. So that I wanted to settle everyone's brains that are like, well, how do I do this? Okay, so that's part one. Second part is, is. Or you could be like me, right? Coming out of the fashion industry. And I don't know if I've fully gone into what I've done here recently, but one of my first major jobs was at Cosabella. And they're an Italian lingerie company. And when they hired me, they were launching their swim collection. It was Cosabella Mare and they hired me and when I designed the collection. So they had different categories. They were a multi, multi, multi million dollar brand. Okay, well established, they could expand. So they went from lingerie to ready to wear pajamas, like not evening wear, but like pajamas and loungewear. And, and then they added in a swimwear line. The swimwear category was still very small compared to everything else. But when I designed it, I looked at the body styles and I said for this customer, what sells best? So we knew triangle top bikinis, tie side bottom bikini bottoms, halter tops. We knew that separates as bikinis for this specific customer was always going to sell. Then I made one one piece because, and it was a sexy one piece. But I made one one piece, not lots of one pieces because based on the size of the collection, I had triangle tops and different prints and solids. I had tie side bottoms, I had, you know, regular bottoms, full, full booty bottoms. And then like one one piece, then a couple coverups. But cover ups that could be used amongst all of the pieces. Okay, so not, not an entire cover up collection because you could also have a totally separate business. It's just coverups. So I say that because in fashion we're constantly coming out with a new collection, we're constantly keeping up with trends. But, but they were always going to have the tie side bikini bottoms. They were always going to have the triangle tops, they were always going to have the halter tops. They're styles that do well and we make variations to them. Shout out to me, and I'm looking at it right now. I have the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. Like I think it's like 50 years or a hundred year book. And my swimsuits are in there because my bathing suits that I designed ended up in a swimsuit Illustrated magazine. Um, I've had swimsuits end up on Britney Spears on the COVID of Self magazine. I mean Jessica Simpson was a huge fan of my swimwear. So I share that because if you're in fashion or home fashion, you're gonna follow trends. But it doesn't mean, it doesn't mean that this season I make bikinis and next season I make athletic wear. Does that make sense? And the best selling styles get to stay. And then I evolve them. Whether there's a trend, whether I did a regular tie side bikini bottom and then I did, the next season I did a tie side bikini bottom with like three strings. It's still the same concept. So when you're designing collections, you're going to design collections based on bestselling Styles and variations on them. Okay. Then we have everything in between. Maybe your candle company with multiple scents or a home fragrance company with multiple scents. Maybe I have students that make pillows, like interior design pillows and blankets. Once you start to know the style that does well, you start to know the prints that do well. And every season, your blankets might change, your pillows might change. But you know the version of the customer, you know the aesthetic that they want. They love stripes, they love neutrals, they love really big bright things. And so when we're creating our collections, we're really honing in on who the customer is and connecting to that. So what does that mean? That means that you yourself, as the creative director of your company, as the designer of your company, you really get to hone in on what these styles are or what the, the products are. Sometimes it's repeated. My pine scented candle sells all the time. Great. Or my separates bikini. My triangle top and tie side bottom sells really well. Every season I'm going to. I would always have black, I'd always have white. Maybe I'd always have brown. And then I add in colors or prints, depending on the trend. Okay, does that make sense? It could be single style. It could be collections like the way I taught or. Or if you're one of a kind, you start to generate what is the one of a kind that they like? The chunky beaded gemstone necklaces. They love necklaces. So you keep making chunky beaded necklaces, but you pay attention. Are they buying amethyst? Are they buying rose quartz? Are they buying moonstone? Make more of the things that they're buying, even if they're one of a kind. Okay. So we really need to pay attention to the data and what our customers are telling us. When you make what you want to make or your creator, creative inspiration comes in. You're no longer acting like a product boss. You're no longer acting like a business owner. You're acting like someone with a hobby who just gets willy nilly whims and makes things. I know that sounds a little harsh, but we are in the business of making money selling products. And the only way we make money selling products is if we match the product to the customer and what they want. Okay, so what do they want? And make more of that. So let's bring it all together. What we've talked about today is how you go from scattered, which are killing your sales, to really being focused. Because what I know about you, what I know to be true, is that you started this business so that you could earn right, so you could earn money, have opportunities so you could have more time, freedom. Maybe you want to leave your full time job or you want to be able to travel with your kids. Most of us are looking for more time. And when we have financial freedom, we get to buy back our time. We, we get to have the lives that we want. And the way that you do this is you go from scattered to really focused. You figure out your bestsellers, you figure out where they're sold, you clean it up, and you make sure my grandma can buy from you. No matter where you're selling. And as you're creating and you're ideating, you're thinking like a business owner, you're thinking like a creative director, you're matching the product with the customer. And this is what we teach fundamentally here at the Product boss, right? Whether you're listening here on the podcast, you're watching me on YouTube right now, um, you're in one of my programs, or, or you're curious about the collective because you're thinking, how can I bring this all together? How can I get feedback? How can I get coaching? So that's really what we're creating here in this container and what I'm so excited to create moving forward. What are you going to do? What are you going to do now that you know the things that might be missing, the things that need to be fixed, or the things that you're already nailing, and you get to grow with it? Remember, in this season, right now, we're in a moment of sales. People are buying. They have their wallets out, they have gifts to buy, they have homes to decorate. There's so much happening. So I really want you to take the concept that you learned today, dig in and think, okay, well, what if I made an offer around my bestseller? What if I tried to sell more of what's already selling? I'm telling you, the proof will be in your bank account when you see how much easier it is to sell what they already want versus confusing them, trying to sell them everything and they don't know what to buy. I hope this episode was really helpful to you. If you loved it, leave me a review of the podcast. Or how about follow the show on YouTube? I know that's a lot of things to tell you to do, but make sure you're subscribed in both places. You can watch or you can listen. So if you're stuck between choosing your hero product, cleaning up where you currently sell, thinking, oh, God, I need to fix this or I need I get to scale this? Because I can see where my business is going. And you really want support right now in the season and prepping you for the new year. Then if you qualify right, if you making $2,000 or more, book a free strategy session with us. A free call? A free strategy session to see if the collective is the right fit for your business. Just head to theproductboss. Com bookacall. All right, my friends, I'll see you in the next one.