264: Jen's Coaching Call: The Plan for $20K Months

Last year was a tough sales year for Jen, so she joined the Inner circle last summer and got right to work. This year, her goal is to reach $250,000 in annual sales. I want you to come and listen to this coaching call because we are making a plan for Jen to reach her sales goal. I'll see you on the inside.

Welcome to the E Commerce Roadmap, the podcast for store owners who are growing their sales without spending a fortune on ads. Each week, you'll learn actionable strategies and tips that will fast the growth and profitability of your E Commerce business. So buckle up and join your host, Susan Bradley, as we dive into the work that will grow your sales this year.

Hey. Welcome back. I am so excited to have one of our amazing inner circle members here with me. Her name is Jenna Rourke, and you've been a member, I think, for about nine months, Jen. But you came into the Inner Circle and you have done nothing but share so generously. Do the work, embrace it, report back with your results. And you are just really doing this work and reporting that you're growing your business as you do it. And I feel like that's where everyone wants to be. So I had to ask you if you could come and share on the podcast today. So welcome. Do you want to tell everybody? First of all, your name is Jenna Roark, right?

Yes.

And your website is.

My website's baronrew. Baronrew.com. and it's actually was named after my kids, so it just stuck. It was. That was where the brand started.

Yeah. But you used to sell kids clothes.

Yes.

But you actually sell adult clothing, women's clothing now?

Yes. I started with kids and it was for the need for my own girls. And then quickly as I grew that there was that trend that was happening that women wanted to match their kids, so they asked, I want a hoodie to match my kid, and I want sweatpants to watch my kid. So I dove in with doing kids and women's. And then probably within the last two years, as my own kids grew, I kind of lost the passion for my kids wear. But I had also gone through with my third child. I was finding I was giving so much attention to him that I wanted things for me. I wanted to feel put together. I wanted to leave the house and still feel that things fit me, even though I was not having great days. So quickly transitioned into a women's brand, and I resonated with a lot of women that struggled to find that custom fit that their body needed. So now I'm primarily women's most moms will still approach me to make kids clothing if they want to still match or if they've been a long time customer. But then yeah, they just not as many as the women's.

Not as many. So talk about your process at Baron Root because it is. It's completely different than most people do. Every single thing you sell is made to order, correct?

Correct, yes.

And on your Website it says 6 to 8 weeks delivery time.

Yes, it does. I am a made to order and it's been known by a lot of current customers and I really want it to be known for any future customers because women just want something customized. They want separate waistbands, they want different inseams. They might be tall. So we add length to their tops and. And I say we, but I'm the only one who sews. But I do have someone that helps me cut. So there is a process to it and that was one of the things I came in to the inner circle because I thought you it was always advertised for very small businesses, handmade product based businesses. And I needed someone to help me grow and not want to change my process of. Yeah, a lot of people they go manufacturing and I didn't. So I wanted to keep that.

I feel like you have a unique selling proposition that's very different than most people because I think did I see a pair of leggings is $50 on your site? Is that about right?

The site is slightly deceiving in that sense. It'll show $50 as the cheapest option.

Right.

So there's a pair of leggings and in once it goes into the listing, it'll have the option for shorts crops 28 inches, 30 inches or I can customize to go longer. And there's a lot of women that will say I'm a 32. And so it allows for that customizing of where they want to be and if they want to add pockets on. So the way Shopify has my listing set up, it shows the cheapest option for what's available on that listing.

So potentially a pair of leggings could be how much?

Potentially they could go up to about $120 with the pockets on. Yeah. Now I bring in the quality fabric to meet those higher end brands that people are already paying that price for. Now yes, they might get them within a week depending on shipping. But I don't target the people that can get their regular size and no modifications. I target the customers that want the customized option and are willing to wa because they can't find it in a store.

Yeah. So that's your unique selling proposition. These. This is if you went to manufacturing, you couldn't do this. And so it allows people to get exactly what they want and need and they're prepared to wait for it and pay for it.

Yes.

Really good. Yeah. So let's talk about how, how you got here, because when you joined the inner circle, you were already a multi six figure store in annual sales, which I'm sure some people are listening is they're all going like, how the heck is she doing that sewing it and all of that. But you do. I know you have a great process, but you were already a multi six figure store. There are a couple of things I want to know. The first thing is I think people would love to know your backstory because I think that you've built this amazing clientele through a Facebook group. Is that right?

Yep. Yeah.

So how long have you actually been in business?

I will hit 10 years this September. And so I really, if I. And this is probably the part when I was missing when I came into the inner circle about how to continue growing. And Melissa really helped in so many ways because she focuses all of her organic lessons on the community and the connections. And I realized that was a lot that I was missing in my content creating. I was missing the connections. And I have a VIP group that has just under 4,000 people in it and it's just on Facebook and I have a great community and they see me, they see my family, they see the ups and downs of days. I will go live on how things fit on me. And that is why I also would have such a high returning customer base. And because of that one group and I needed to bring it outside of that group to bring more people in. And by going through the lessons, I realized that community was missing. So that's where I went into trying to grow from there.

Yeah. Right off the bat, you started working on that, building your audience. And I know you came into the inner circle and reported your success with that. And so are you sending these people that are grow, growing in your community, are you sending them to your Facebook group?

I in post, I will Facebook being on the app. It's actually I can send a link to the group. Anything outside that app. It ends up sending people to the Facebook where they need to log in. So it's actually very hard to send traffic to a group if you're not on the Facebook app. But yes, I have been able to send people to my group and in my group, the three questions the security questions I have asked for, who they're shopping for, I believe. And then I ask if for their email address. Then the third question says, I don't, I won't use your email address. I just am identifying you as a person. But you can also be added to my email list if you checked. Yes. So there is a few steps, but I do know there will be a lot of bots that try to get into these groups or people from overseas. So by adding in the email part then it forced them to identify where they're coming from.

Yeah. So you joined the inner circle really to, to figure out how you could keep your business, what was great about your business. Great. But still grow your sales and make more money. And so you have, you have one person that helps you with the cutting and.

Three hours a day.

Three hours a day, yep. Yeah.

So she's only here 15 hours a week.

Yeah. And then what else, what other help do you have?

I have myself and I have my 12 year old daughter that helps me ship on Wednesday or on Thursdays. We ship on Thursdays together and that's really it. But she, I have three busy kids that are in sports and so I say I help you. I help you by driving you and going to all the sports. And she helps me ship. She'll also write notes to my customers. My kids have drawn on the backs of orders and we ship them off. So most of my VIP also knows that it's very family and kid orientated. Yeah.

And so the other thing that I, we've talked about, you and I, is I always tell everybody how bad I am at the tech and, and what I thought was really smart. There's a couple of things you've done that I thought were really smart and one of them was that you hire out a lot of your tech.

Yes, I, when I joined the Reliable Revenue, I knew, I knew about the work that would go into it, but I also knew that I wasn't going to be able to do it myself if I wanted to keep up with what I was doing. So I knew that I'm not a tech person. I. So when I saw that Becca had openings for the Done for you products, I would just email her and ask for certain segments or certain blocks for her to do and then I provide her with the email. So it still has my tone and my voice in it. But yeah, she helps a lot by doing that.

And that's worth it to you to pay for that so that you can focus on getting your orders out the door. The Other thing you did that I thought was so smart is you set up. You set up regular calls with Tina.

I do.

Tina Baron. And so tell me about that.

I felt that I was missing something, and I just wanted someone to tell me what to do. And so many people, because I knew I entered the inner circle also saying, I know it's my website, and I know there's been a lot of podcasts that says there's other things, but I knew deep down that there was something in my website. And I just. A lot of my customers, they'll say, oh, no, it looks great. I love it. I just needed a straight up, no, this is not working. This, you need to do this. And Tina went right to the point and said, you need to do this and this for your adjustments. And I think it'll work if we remove some of this. And it really helped. And I have gotten. I know that my customers are seeing less options, which is what's helped.

Okay, so really that was your problem, is you were off trying to offer everything in the kitchen sink on your website.

I removed a lot of my kids from the home. I removed a lot of sale items. They're in a separate collection. So that now I have a core collection which just has my 10 bestsellers in it. And then people can look at 10 items and then as they come back for their second or third. And I have. I just checked. I have someone that's placed 300 orders with me.

Oh, my goodness, that's great.

I have a very high. So that. And she has there. It's mostly women's clothes, and there's some kids orders, but those are the people that then find all the other little things that make my company what it is. But I want those new people only seeing the 10 items that people recommend people review. People talk about. So by working with Tina, we really worked on trying to visually make it understanding and easy for customers to just navigate.

Oh, that's really good. And you always had this sneaking suspicion.

I did.

I knew I was too much for people. Yeah. I mean, if you look at it now, I would say it does look a lot different than the first time I saw it.

Right.

When you came in the inner circle. But you're still offering a very easy way for them to get the inseam that they want and this, like, the actual body style that they want. I don't know how long it took you to come up with that, but I think it's pretty clear. Like, it. It's good.

It's taken a while. I'VE tested and tried several apps to use within Shopify. I've worked with an app developer over the summer. They had actually I wanted something and they had noticed that I was on a different app and they said let us try you try our app and we'll help you along the way. And he was very good. And then he ended up selling the app. And so the new owners are just as they kept my price, they never increased it. They developed a loyalty program that I have been running and that'll once there's all little parts that I want to work on because I have such a high return customer that I try to work with the loyalty program and I'm really excited to start doing the smaller parts for that once I have all the automation set up.

Perfect. So when I asked you to be on the podcast and you're like, oh, why? And I was like really? I wanted people to hear like about how you've approached making some changes in your business, what you wanted to do, how it's possible for someone with a handmade business to do multi six figures because I think a lot of people would think that's not possible. But also I wanted to just talk to you about what you'd really like to make this business where you'd really want it to be. And so one of the things I asked you was I would love to know what you'd like this business to look like by the end of the year, by the end of 2025. And so I said three to four bullet points would be lots. And of course just so everyone knows, it started out as three to four paragraphs but it's really good. So do you mind if I share this?

Go for it.

Okay, so I have condensed this but the first thing Jen said is I would like to have ads and emails flowing to have things more automated and in motion. And then she said I would like to have more customers taking part in the newest release. And then you said really hone in on my funnels and traffic to figure out the best way to increase sales. And then the last thing, which is the real thing. This is the real thing. It's. I know I would like to get to 20k a month with a little more and end of my year with 250,000 in sales. So that's really good for a handmade business. And do you want to you shared with me before we started recording. Tell us about we're recording on April 1st, so tell us where you're at with that goal.

I as a first quarter goal I really pushed through trying to get in front of a new audience and new customers. And so yesterday would have ended March and I hit my 20,000 for the month and it was not having sales. I didn't have any big sale throughout the month of March. It was more just gaining new people to my website. I do know that I had a lot of new people because they were using their welcome discount that they would have signed in with the opt in, but that was really the only discount that was used in March. So, yeah, it was exciting last night knowing that I reached one month already hitting there and my first quarter is already up, I want to say 12% from where it was.

Oh, that's really good. And I know you just recently joined. Once a year we do reliable revenue for those of you that don't know it. And Jen was relatively new to the inner circle and you said you've been on that waiting list since June and reliable revenue is like the most expensive thing we do other than our mastermind. And it was $1797. And you're Canadian, so it was a lot more in Canadian dollars. And. But you joined anyway. And so what a great payback for the first month you're in reliable revenue to reach all your goals and have it happen through your welcome flow. And so what I want to share with you is like 50% of this is the training and the other 50% of this is you making good decisions, showing up, not expecting perfection, hiring out what you can't do, like what would take you too long to learn. All those things are great decisions. But what I want to share with you is this goal of 20,000amonth to get to 250 this year is a really good, clear goal. It's so measurable. You don't have to. You don't. You didn't say, oh, at the end of the year, I want to do 250. Because then if whatever you've done for the first quarter might seem like you still have a long way to go, you've got it really clear. I want to do 20 grand a month. And so that's a great goal. And it's a great goal that you can track and measure. And of course you're going to do that in your playbook. So I love that you had a good goal. But what I also want to share with you is I think that the first few points that you talked about getting your ads and emails flowing, getting your customers to buy more of your new releases, and then honing in on your funnels and traffic to figure out the best way to increase sales. That is all below this $20,000 a month. That is all below. And there's one thing that I had seen in one of your posts and I went back to find it and it was when you shared with us how you were building your audience like how successful that was. And one of the things you said is oh, I have an 80% returning customer rate.

I do.

That's super dangerous, right?

Yes.

Yeah. Because eventually they go away. And so you weren't acquiring enough customers to grow your sales.

No. And that if there was there's little parts that when I joined the inner circle that just clicked and that one of them was the growing the audience. And even though going through the funnel and says what you need X amount of audience, I knew I needed a new and more audience. Even though I had a good audience. And so I still knew that there needed I needed to get in front of new people. And so it's been really nice getting in front of new people during this Canadian movement up here in Canada.

The bi Canadian movement.

Yes. And now I've just joined that movement. But I only ship within Canada. I my insurance was going to be an additional $6,000 to ship to the US and because I had kids wear attached to me at one point when that insurance company came up I we just said no. So I've only been shipping to Canada completely for sure over the last two years that there's nothing been outside of Canada. So it's just been more of me promoting myself and promoting what I offer and just find getting in front of new people and it's been a raw experience because there's been a lot of negative comments. But it's business. You will always get your negative comments as you grow because there's just customers that don't understand what you're trying to do.

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure like your pricing is high. Your you're.

Yeah, the pricing is high. We will comment about the wait time and I'm not Amazon and I won't pretend I am but I have been referred like I've been compared to a Lululemon and which has been great compliment from my customers. But Lululemon also doesn't offer the availability to have a high waisted waistband because your leggings are constantly falling down. I also know that it doesn't offer plus size in all their color range. So those are options that I can bring to a plus size.

Yeah. So yeah you're really just speaking to your customers for sure. But that is something that I want to go back to is this 80% returning customer rate and your success in March. Do you know how many new customers you acquired?

I have gained 5 or 50,000 new customers in the past since probably about middle of February. And already three customers have returned, and one has already returned twice. And she bought for her friend. She bought for her friend yesterday. Oh, it's just. And she is in vip. Even though these customers are just getting to know me, I am showing up in lives. I'm showing up with real content. Just a mom trying to.

Yeah.

Get through life. Yeah.

And fill a need.

Yes.

Yeah, totally fill a need. Okay, 55 new customers since mid February. So here's what I want you to do because you're already working on your emails. Are you running any ads right now?

Three.

Okay.

Not May I have the one brand video going. I have one and only one, like, traffic ad running.

Okay. And that is a conversion ad with a view content, right? Yes, Traffic, Bootcamp style. Okay, so brand video. And you've got a traffic ad, which is really a conversion ad for everyone who's listening. We don't do traffic ads. That's the view content goal. And what's your other ad?

I have a static post for the ads made easy with the engagement ad.

Engagement ad. And do you know what you're spending.

A day for my video content? I am doing $5 US for the traffic or, sorry, the view contents ad. It's. I put in $3 and 75 cents. I guess I could have put it up to four. I try to always do my conversions to the Canadian for me.

Okay. And then your engagement ad, and then.

That one's only running at $2.50. Okay, so I've kind of left them. I haven't touched them in a while. And I complete reliable revenue. It is on my next to go back to.

Okay, so here's what I want you to do. I want you to make acquiring new customers your one thing, and I want you to track and measure how many new customers you get every month. And I also want you to track and measure what it costs you to get a new customer. So get yourself a little spreadsheet. You're techie enough for that, right? I'll try, actually. I know your husband's a cpa, so maybe he could even do that.

He'll probably do it for me.

And so maybe start at March 1st to March 31st. Or if you want to do it like we do, the Playbook. If you want to do like the four. Four Five those same dates. You can do that and you'll just have to go into Shopify and you'll have to look at your number of new customers. You got first time customers. You can get that right on the dashboard. And then you're going to take your ad dollars that you spent and you're going to divide those dollars by the number of new customers. Okay.

This and I feel for the 55 people that I got, I'm pretty confident in saying I don't think they were. They came out of my ad budget.

They.

I was very fortunate to be referred to some very large Canadian groups on Facebook. One of them has 1.3 million people in the group for Made in Canada products. And I would just plop in my shares right to there. I would share my, not just my personal post, I would go into my business suite and I would share that. So it left a footprint. So then they were always going back to my page. So it wouldn't necessarily have been traffic from a paid ad. So I know on the go forward that'll be what I look at. But from my past history, I think it's been pretty much organic because of these groups.

I think you're probably not wrong. I'm just going to encourage you to do it so that you can get a benchmark.

Yeah.

Because you're spending how much? 250 and 375. 6. 1125. 625 and 5. So yeah, 11, 20. $11.25. And I want you to track and measure it each month because what we need to know. So for those of you who haven't done our Ads Made Easy or a traffic bootcamp before or brand video bootcamps, Jen's brand video is really just a short video that shows people like it's really meant to gather up your customers. Right. People who want what you're selling. And so that's your biggest ad spend right there is your top of funnel audience with your brand video. And then you've got some traffic coming regularly to your site. And I could see from your posting that you're well over 5,000 visitors a month too.

I last month, because of my posts into Vi, into these other private groups, I had a million views and reaches based on people. But I had the footprint, the traffic back to my business page. So that's how it was able to track it.

Go there. So you had a million in your audience and then how much traffic did you have? Was it 5500, something like that?

Yes, last month. And I had Last month, last month I had 8,000 but it would have been the in February that I had one day I had 1100 people visit.

My from one of those posts.

Yes. Yeah.

You're really good at seeing opportunity though and acting on it.

I try to always think out of the box and I try to figure out how can I get in front of something so that I can utilize it. And so this, what's happened with this Canadian movement is an unfortunate circumstances for a lot of things but I knew that I'm already a Canadian made business and why shouldn't everybody know who I am and if I don't fit for them. Great. They can.

Yeah.

Then maybe they'll give me a follow. They'll give you a reach out.

Share it.

Yes. And I've had lots of people share my posts because of it.

Perfect. So brand video is $5 a day building your audience traffic is getting traffic web visitors and that is your $3.75 a day and that is getting people to go and look at a product. And then your engagement ad for 250 a day is really just to remind people like to for recognition for more people to see you. It's an audience builder too. And so are you comfortable spending 1111 whatever we said 1125 a day. Okay.

Yeah I am. And then like it's working and I don't, I do need to go in and check to see what that return is like I don't know that number but I also know that my view content that's sales ad like even right now as I'm looking at it the cost per website is under one penny.

So that's crazy. That's they're taking credit for some of your organic for sure.

Yes.

10 cents is pretty normal. So that's crazy that's happening. But here's what I think I want you to just stay focused on because there are so many metrics and you're doing so many with reliable revenue is how many new customers did I get and take that my ad spend and divide it by that and so that I'm starting to build a benchmark of what it cost me to get a customer. And the reason you want to do that is a couple things. The first reason you want to do that is that when you then you've been through reliable revenue you will have been your funnels are going to start working. You're going to keep an eye on them, see if you can improve them. You're going to send people to those 10 products because these are all New people and you want to just acquire them as a customer. But really what you want to do is say to yourself, okay, so in 2025, maybe at the end, the fourth quarter, when we're all the busiest, maybe you want to bump that $20,000 a month up to 30,000.

Right.

And you're going to do the math and figure out what it will cost you to get how many new customers. So say if you could get your returning customer rate down to about 40% at the end of the day, that would be really good. So how many new customers? I'm sure your AOV is pretty high.

It's a, it's, it fluctuates. But I just actually did the playbook and it was at 170.

Yeah, that's great. And so if I want an extra $10,000 in sales, how many orders is that? How of them have to be new customers? And then what do I do? What is my plan to go out there and get those new customers? Am I going to advertise more? Am I going to see if I can go into more groups? Am I, what am I going to do to get those new customers? Am I going to partner with another Canadian business and do an email swap? What am I going to do to get those new customers? And so you don't even have to think about the sales, you just have to think about that number. What do I have to do to get those new customers? And then when you get to 2026 and you might actually have to h someone other than your 12 year old, what do you want your sales to be? And you will know that is your goal that as long as you are 40% or higher in returning customers, your number one thing is you have to fill your funnel with new customers. Because I could also show you how to at some point how to calculate the lifetime value of your customer. But I think your lifetime value is very high. And so you can be confident with like reliable revenue is a great extra to have and you're going to do really well with it. But you are already doing really well with maximizing the lifetime value of a customer. And so I think the sky is the limit for you. It may be that you never go to manufacturing, but it may be that you hire other jobs out until you might, I know you had people that sewed before, but you might have someone who comes in and sews a few days a week or who knows. But you get to decide, we already talked about that. You're quite profitable.

I am, yeah. And I have, I have had a $30,000 months. I have had those. I've had 34. So I know it is possible.

Yeah.

Trying to figure out a new normal for me.

The new normal. I think actually it was a super smart move to get rid of the kids stuff because I think people are far less likely to pay $170 for a customized legging for a kid. It just makes so much sense.

My problem and one of this. One of the things that I do and back to my husband being he helps me. He's always on top of me to control my inventory. I have bins of like small amounts of fabric that I'm not going to throw out, but I can't really make anything with it. So in my VIP group once a month I have a one of a kind. So I called Oak. It's all my customers know what they're going to get. They pick the fabric. They're not glamorous photos. And I make kids shorts, kids leggings, kids T shirts out of these small amounts of fabric. And they get a one of a kind item at a really discounted rate. But it gets all of that. They're just paying for the labor. They're not paying for the cost of the fabric because I've already considered it used. So I. That is also a way how I. I get rid of my fabric without throwing out and make still extra money doing it.

Yeah. And if it becomes too burdensome, you can always just donate that fabric maybe and get it.

I have. I've sent it off to prescribed bundles and stuff as well.

So. Really good. Do you have any questions for me? Any barriers to doing this that you can see?

No, I. No, I have no questions. I've been really excited, looking forward to this because I do just like I feel like there's parts missing and being in the inner circle with all the different coaches, they've helped fill the gaps about what I'm missing. So. Yeah, I've just been more grateful to be here and to have found you guys.

Thank you. How did you find us anyway?

It would have probably been through an ad and I have literally listened to every single podcast of yours, everyone. My with being my son. We've done a lot of driving, a lot of driving because we're in rural. So I. When we drive for his appointments, I would put them on. I listened. Yes. I started in the middle and worked my way forward and backwards. So I listened to all of them. From when you were growing your sec. Your. The second business.

Oh, yeah. That was not fun. But yes.

So I just, it listened to it and I knew the parts I was missing were in the podcast. So I knew that being in the inner circle would just fill those gaps for me.

Thank you for that. That's amazing. I really appreciate it. And I was telling you before we started recording that when somebody comes into the inner circle and they pay attention and they do the work and it's even better when you take advantage of the coaching that when you come up and you need help, we all know who you are, we all know what you're trying to achieve and it makes it so easy to help you.

I love the help and they all just jump in.

So I'm thinking too, you might want to book with Kate Tilbury somewhere down the road because she's the conversion coach and she is really good at the numbers. Like she could walk you through figuring out your lifetime value and and maybe fine tuning how many customers you want to acquire next year. And yeah, really good. Thank you so much. Now I know people are going to want to meet up with you. Where can they find you?

On my website is baronrew.com just like the animals. B E A R A N D R O O and I'm on Instagram as well as well as Facebook so probably those three locations are the easiest to find me.

Thanks so much. It's been so great talking to you. I'm. I feel lucky.

Thanks.

See you soon. Bye. Hey, if your sales are slower than you want the them to be and you're not sure what to do next to reach your sales goals, I want you to head on over to the Show Notes and grab a link to get your copy of my new course, Conversion School. It's absolutely free. And inside the lessons you will learn our step by step process to grow your sales without spending a fortune on risky ad strategies and without discounting your products. The strategy strategy that you will learn in Conversion School works for E commerce stores of all stages. You'll use your store's data so if you're starting out, you'll learn how to get consistent sales every day. And if you're an established store looking to really scale your sales, you'll use your data to learn how to achieve significant sales growth every month, month over month. So head on over to the Show Notes, grab the link and get your copy now.