917. Expanding Your Network In a New Industry, Top Trends in Buyer Habits, And Speaking Industry Jargon With Cayla Gray Founder, Kelly Kussman

Thanks to Indeed for supporting Earn youn Happy Indeed makes it easy to connect with your applicants. Indeed is the hiring platform where you can attract, interview and hire all in one place and Indeed's doing something no other job site has done. Now with Indeed, businesses only pay for quality applications matching the sponsored job description. Visit indeed.com happy to start hiring now and thanks to Gusto for supporting Hernia Happy. Gusto offers all in one payroll and HR for growing businesses. Whether your team is in person, remote or a combination with Gusto, keeping your team on track is easy. Go to gusto.comlori for your first three months free.

I think collaborations are so beautiful, especially if you find someone that a you enjoy talking to and being around. I mean that's a big deal, right? You want someone that has similar values. You want someone who has similar brand avatars so like similar customer bases to each other or that doesn't even matter, right? Because there could be people, people that create product that you know your customers are going to want. But maybe those manufacturers aren't even selling their product, they're only doing what we call private label.

Welcome back to the show. I'm so excited for this episode because.

You guys, there are opportunities out there for business in business that you may.

Not even know about. Some of these opportunities I wish I knew about even a few years ago. But I'm so excited to have my guest Kelly Kusman on who is really opening our eyes to so many different.

Ideas and collaborations that you can do.

In business that I hope that this expands your ideas and opportunities and capabilities of knowing what potentially could be out.

There for you in different projects that you might love doing.

So.

Kelly Kusman is the founder of Kayla Gray. It's a luxury collection of clean fragrances that capture fleeting moments in timeless sense.

You guys, I am so excited because.

You'Re going to learn this podcast that.

We are releasing a very, very special.

Limited edition collaboration between Light Pink and her company Kayla Gray and it is called Rose Summer.

It is an incredible rollerball scent that you are absolutely going to love.

You can throw it in your purse.

It's my favorite smell I have ever smelled my entire life. I'm not even kidding. I am obsessed with it.

I wear it every single day.

The run that we're doing is super, super limited. So if you listen to this podcast and you want to get it, I hope that there are still some left.

For you by the time that you hear this. You can go to kaylagray.com C-A-Y-L-A g r-a y.com to go and grab your Light Pink and Kayla Gray collab called Rose Summer.

So even though Light Pink is not out yet, you can still have a summer. It is capturing all of the feelings and emotions that we want you to have this summer. And not only that, I have been stopped so many times while wearing it with people who ask me what it is. So go check it out. I'm telling you, it's going to be an attention grabber. It smells so amazing. I'm obsessed. My husband is obsessed.

He's gaga for it.

You guys go check it out and let's get into the podcast.

Foreign.

Kelly, I'm so excited to have you on the show. Thank you so much for coming on.

I'm so excited to be here and chat today.

Okay, you guys, so Kelly is an investor in Light Pink, but I knew of her before that because she has this incredible company called Kayla Gray. And. And I'm going to let her tell you a little bit more about it, but especially because I was starting Light Pink and fundraising and just meeting another woman in the product space was really, really exciting for me. And I think. I don't really remember how our first conversation went, but I think it went something like, oh, my God, we need to talk about just all the things so that we can share about how hard this is and how amazing it is and maybe we can help each other on the journey because this is crazy.

So our conversation started around, like, supply chain issues and shortages, all of the things.

I was like, oh, my gosh, she.

Totally gets what I'm talking about right now. And she's in it. Like, I'm not. Wasn't even, like, fully in it, and you were in it. So I was like, number one, what I really, really loved and appreciated about you is just how open you were to help and share and be vulnerable. And so for me, that was like. I was like, oh, she doesn't know this yet, but she can't get rid of me now. So I don't know. It was just so real that you're immediately. It was like an instant connection for me with you. I want to know, Kelly, about. Tell me about your company and how you started it.

Okay. So the company is called Kayla Gray, and we are a luxury line of clean fragrances. So we have cleanly formulated perfumes and candles. We started with four core scents, and then I started to do quarterly limited edition scent releases because I really, to me, the draw with fragrance is really connected to nostalgia and how fragrance, like, helps to Bring back memories and helps you create new memories through. Through scent. I just think that's something so special. And yeah, kind of, you know, the background of why I started the company is I've been in retail for over 20 years, working my way up the corporate ladder, you know, working for other companies. And I've always wanted to start my own business. It was my dream of mine to start my own business. But it's really hard to walk away from a steady paycheck, bonuses, all the things that you think are it for you as you're kind of, you know, growing in your career. But it was really kind of a life event that shook me a little bit, that kind of changed my perspective. In 2017, my husband and I started to try to expand our family and I found out I was pregnant. Super excited about it. And I ended up suffering from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy and almost losing my life. And then it happened again in 2018, another ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Again lost the baby and had a little scare of my own. So it was really after those two moments that I realized life is so short, it's not guaranteed. I need to go after my dreams and build the business that I've always dreamt of doing. And, yes, started digging in and working on it in 2019 and named the company Kayla Gray, because that was actually going to be the name of our first baby, just as a way to honor the heartbreak. And I needed something therapeutic to put my energy into. And so I just wanted to put beautiful things out into the world to kind of honor that time and space in my life.

I mean, it's such a beautiful story and it speaks so much about learning how to transform pain. And I love that you've taken something and instead of, you know, maybe there's that beautiful quote, it's if you don't learn how to transform your pain, you'll transfer it. And I think that we are all just walking around trying to figure that out, take these lessons in our life and maybe this pain and see how we can put it out into the world in a more beautiful way or help somebody, you know, who's maybe on a similar path that we've been on. So I love that you've done this. And it. It's so cool because you've also done it with a product, which I think is so neat. So it's like this very tangible, well, product that's also related to, you know, memories. And I know for me it's the most. And I think it's probably for everyone, but it's the number one thing that, like, ties me back to a moment and also, like, trying to remember moments. So if I am up at our family cabin, it's like, I want to burn a certain candle because I want to remember it when I'm not there, you know? So I love this so much. So you and I have had a really fun collaborations together, and right now, what we're doing is because Light Pink has been on a delay, and I told you guys, Kelly is an investor in Light Pink. So we also. I love candles and her sense, and she loves, you know, rose, because who doesn't get along really well with people who do? We were talking a little while ago, and we were like, you know, it'd be so fun is if we collabed on something, like, because Light Pink is on delay right now, which is coming in the fall. What if we did something so you could still have a rose summer? Like, maybe it's not, like, pink, but maybe we could bring you something that's super fun. Still feels really creative. Falls under that Caleb Gray and that light pink umbrella. So, you guys, we have created the most amazing scent I think, that I have ever smelled. I'm not even kidding you. I put it on this morning. I've been wearing it like a maniac. And I have to tell you how much fun it was to create this scent with you. So, Kelly, let's talk about our process. But I know that you had already had this initial scent that we kind of added to when we were collabing.

It's a scent, literally, everybody asks me for, this old scent that I launched, like, the year that I launched the business. It's called Velvet. And I know that you had mentioned that you really loved that scent. And I'm like, okay, we could do something with this. And I think the cool part about collaborating with a brand like Light Pink is Light Pink is such another sensory product, right? It's all about taste and smell and the feel that you get when you are drinking an icy glass of rose wine, like, in the middle of the sun on the beach or on a boat, you know, and, like, to be able to combine that experience, that visceral experience with ascent. Like, what a beautiful way to create memories with the two different products. And so a collaboration between the two of us just totally made sense to do. And it was so easy because it's so interesting when I do collaborations with people. A lot of times, people don't quite know exactly what they're looking for. You were so clear on exactly what you were looking for. And like the way that you envisioned like a day on the yacht in the middle of the Mediterranean, like smelling salt from the sea and feeling that breeze in your hair. Like you were very, very clear on exactly. I loved that because it just made the process just flow so easy. And so I'm so excited about this set. It's fresh, it's floral, it's super summery. We ended up doing a lot of a ton of rose in there, some peony. We've got jasmine, amber, some oak moss in it for a little bit of light greenery. It's so beautiful. I'm just so excited. So I loved doing this collaboration with you. It's. It's so special too because just being an investor and being part of building a company with all women investors is just, it's really special. And so to be able to collab with that and like I said, also creating a visceral experience for people is pretty special.

2026 is the year that you launch your business. It's the year that you've become the boss, you become the leader. That idea that you have that has been eating at you forever that just will not leave you alone is going to come to life. Maybe it's something that someone tells you you should always sell or a store you've already designed in your head. And with Shopify, 26 is when you finally make it happen. Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in person. Millions of entrepreneurs have already made the sleep from household name to first time business owners. Just getting started, you guys. I use Shopify for glossy and I remember when they sent me my little shopping bag celebrating my 10,000 sales and I literally cried because I was so scared to take the leap. And I'm so glad that I did.

And that I use Shopify.

It gives you all the tools to easily build your dream store. You can choose from hundreds of beautiful templates that you can customize to match. Your brand setup is fast with Shopify's built in AI tools that write product descriptions and headlines and help you edit photos. So marketing is built in too. You can create email and social campaigns that reach customers wherever they scroll. So as you grow, Shopify grows with you. You can handle more orders, expand to new markets and do it all from the same dashboard. In 2026, stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com happy. Go to shopify.com happy. That's shopify.com happy hear your first cha ching this new year with Shopify by.

Your side.

Too many people finish their workday feeling frustrated, drained, and unfulfilled. I know that. I have experienced that myself. And the good news is it doesn't have to to be this way. And you don't need a new job to fix it. Patrick Lencioni, author of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team and more than a dozen other bestsellers, created the working genius assessment to help you pinpoint the kind of work that gives you energy, the kind that lights you up, and it also shares the kind that drains it.

So over a million people, including me.

Have taken it and completely changed how I lead and show up every day. If you're a CEO, an entrepreneur, or someone who just wants to level up in business and in life, working genius is going to give you the clarity and confidence to operate in your strengths and find greater joy in what you do. Because confidence isn't pretending to be good at everything. It's knowing where you're truly gifted. Take the working genius assessment today and get 20% off with code earn@working genius.com. that's working genius dot com. You'll be glad you did it.

Oh, my God, I'm so excited. And the notes of Rose for me are just, if you guys love anything Rose, this is like, it's. For me, it comes through quite a bit, but it's not like that overwhelming Rose. It's like a very warm, almost a bit sugary, like, very summer. Like, I can close my eyes and just, like, be outside on the water with my glass of. So I'm so excited. And it's called Rose Summer, and they're in these perfect little roller balls. So I've had it in my purse everywhere I go. Like, it just fits in perfectly. Because I don't know about you, it's like, I love having perfume, but I. I don't like even the smaller ones. I don't typically pack them. This is like the perfect. Explain your choice on the size of these.

Yeah, so I wanted a rollerball. So it's 8ml. So it's easy enough to, like, pack in your purse, you know, carry it around in your handbag. If you're traveling, it's easy to pop in and out of whatever travel accessories that you have. And for me, I like. I like to wear a lot of different types of scents. And so I always carry like three or four different scents in my. In my handbag. And I kind of mix them. I make New scents out of all the other scents that I've got. So I wanted to make sure it was, like, a smaller bottle so that you were to kind of play with it, you know, and just do things differently throughout the year than just having one sense throughout the entire year. I just. I just like. And I mean, it's fun to, like, carry, like, a pretty bottle in your handbag. I mean, I love that.

So, yes, my hopes with it is that people get it. It truly, like, defines this amazing summer for them. Like, it's just the memory and the anchor that ties them to the memories that they're going to create this summer. And they'll be like, oh, my God. I remember that because every summer, that was what I wore. That's what I, you know, when I was out with friends or when I, you know, had that amazing trip. And I'm already doing that with my summer. So I'm already having a summer because I'm wearing it every single day. So I hope that you guys love it as much as we do, because, truly, this is one of my favorite scents I've ever smelled. So that excites me. And I think that that's what you should aim for when you're putting a product out. That's what I aimed for when I was creating light pink, because I was like, I'm not stopping until this is something I can't stop thinking about. Like, I want to create this every week. I want to crave it every day. Like, that's how you know that you have a product that you love is if you yourself, who have formulated it, love it so much. And honestly, Kelly, I didn't know that people don't formulate that way. They're like, I just wanted something good enough. And I knew that if my marketing was really good, and it's not that they're aiming for good enough, but they're like, they kind of hit this place where maybe if they can't get it, they kind of just take what is there. And I went with the theory. And I know that you did, too, because your scents are that amazing. I was like, I'm just not. Like, nothing is getting released, and I'm not settling until it's something that I'm absolutely obsessed with. But you guys can actually get this right now. You can get it right now@kayla gray.com. that's C A Y L A G R- A Y dot com. Don't worry. We'll tell you a ton more times throughout the podcast that you can go grab it Right now. But I want to talk about that process for you of creating Kayla Gray. So you had a bit of experience, but you had never like done this out on your own creating a product. And you weren't like in the candle industry. You weren't like working at Yankee Candle or anything. So what, you know, when you were leaving, did you jump into this? When you were leaving your, your former career, did you jump in? Were you all in? Did you have some money that you could kind of rely on or, you know, to like keep going or what? What did that all look like? Like explain the whole thing. And then what were the first steps of starting Kayla Gray?

So I started my retail career. I was actually an assistant buyer of fragrances for a subsidiary of Saks Fifth Avenue. And I will never forget the day, like the first day I started that job. I was man, early 20s, which I really just dated myself there, but I was early 20s in Wisconsin. I walked into like they had this fragrance closet. Like you walk into this room and it's like a 10 by 10 room and the walls were filled with fragrances. And I was like, okay, like died and gone to heaven, right? Yeah. As a girl that loves all things perfumey, it was just amazing. And I remember smelling this one scent in particular. I don't know if you remember, but there was a line called Demeter back in the day and they had like single note fragrances. So at the time they just released like a tomato scent. And I remember smelling it and it literally brought me back to like biting into like the juiciest tomato ever. And I was like, it blew my mind. And so like I always knew in the back of my head I was just obsessed with fragrances. Like my first job, I loved it. But then, yeah, I mean, I worked my way up the corporate ladder. My last job was actually in here in Arizona. I live in Arizona now. I was the senior director of sourcing and procurement for petsmart. So I built their domestic sourcing and production team for the company the last two years that I was with the company. And so I had some like, I've had a lot of different background within retail. Right. Like I've done logistics, I've done fulfillment, I've done sourcing, I've done procurement, I've done financial planning, like pretty much a little bit of everything within retail. So I had a really good base to kind of start this company. It didn't just like, I wasn't just like throwing myself into something that I didn't know, which is okay to do that Too. It just takes a little bit more research to kind of get an understanding. And it's going to take a lot more testing and learning before you might be able to launch something that's successful if you don't have backup background, like I did. And like I said, after, like, the. The losses of the two babies that I had, I. I spent a lot of time in therapy trying to, like, make sure I was very clear on, like, next steps for me. Like, did we want to continue to try to have babies? Like, were we okay with, like, where we were at? And I wanted to pour my heart and soul into something else. I spent a lot of time doing that. While I did that, I kind of started playing around with the idea of launching a company. And so I started doing research. I spent a ton of time on Google researching, like, the world of perfumery. I knew it was going to be fragrance. I always knew it was going to be in fragrance. Just diving into, like, perfumery, like, how literally googling how do you make a perfume, right? And then like, literally buying all the different products that you need to create a perfume. And like, I created like this little lab in my house and started testing the different fragrance notes together and learning about the fragrance wheel and, you know, what different types of scent combinations work well. And then I started socking away money, like bonuses I would get at work. I would kind of pretend because I was lucky enough to be married and have somebody else, that I had an income that I could rely upon. We kind of pretended that my income didn't exist and we would kind of suck that money away. So that when the day came that I did leave my corporate job, we had a little bit of a nest egg to be able to start and launch and build this business. So for me, it was a lot of that research. And then I kind of, just because it's the way that my mind works, I think it's probably a corporate mindset is I wanted to fast track my learning. And so for me, I invested in. I reached out to some pretty great perfumers who have developed some pretty iconic brands, reached out and asked them if they would ever be interested in being a consultant and could I pay them for their expertise and their knowledge. And so I ended up working with a consultant who really kind of taught me. I call it the sku, like, life cycle. Like, the a SKU is like a number that you scan on any retail item product that you purchase. And I always say the SKU life cycle is like, literally from the second you come up with the idea all the way to the day that you have a product that you can sell to the customer. I call that the SKU Life Cycle. And I hired a consultant within my industry to kind of teach me what that SKU Life Cycle looked like in order for me to kind of build a plan around building this business.

Want to know one of the greatest feelings as an entrepreneur? It's when you start building a team with people who care just as much about your dream as you do, and they have the skills to make it happen. If you want to find those people faster, you need Indeed. Indeed is an unbelievably powerful hiring partner where you can attract, interview and hire all in one place. And Indeed is the only job site where you're guaranteed to find quality applications that meet your must have requirements. And on the off chance you don't, then you don't pay. Find great talent through time saving tools like Indeed instant match assessments and virtual interviews. If you if you're really needing to stand out among other employees for a certain position you're hiring for, then consider sponsoring jobs. When you sponsor an Indeed post, you're four and a half times more likely to get a hire, according to Indeed Data Worldwide. Indeed puts you in control of what you pay for a sponsored job. You set your must have job requirements and only pay for the applications that meet them. There's a transparent flat fee per application and you can pause your job posting whenever you want. And Indeed's doing something no other job site has done. Now with Indeed, businesses only pay for quality applications matching the sponsored job description. Visit Indeed.com Happy to start hiring now? Just go to Indeed.com Happy Indeed.com Happy terms and conditions apply. Need to hire?

You need Indeed. I love this because it is the way that every time I ask somebody a question of how they started this thing that they weren't totally sure on, it all starts with well, I had to Google, I had to do all this research. I you know, you probably bought a lot of things for making sense that you didn't use or you bought a lot of things that didn't work. And that's all a part of it is wasting money on things that you realize don't work or the things that you do find. You're like, oh finally this is it. And really dialing in and learning about the things that it's kind of like you take in everything all at once and all of a sudden these like core things or these steps start to reveal themselves. And I think that that's a great way to Put it as you kind of like cast that like giant net on learning and trying to get answers and you realize there's really just like three basic things in there that you couldn't have known without doing doing all of this research.

There are so many challenges to business that I don't want starting to be.

One of them for you.

And when you want more, when you're starting a business, you need Northwest Registered Agent because you get access to thousands of free guides, tools and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business. And it's all in one place. You can build your complete business identity with Northwest today. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow business for nearly 30 years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in the US with over 1500 corporate guides. Real people who know your local laws and can help you and your business every step of the way. You can sign up for free account to begin managing your business hub with lawyer, drafted operating agreements, bylaws, resolutions, membership certificates, bills of sale and more at no cost. Northwest makes life easy for business owners. They don't just help you form your business, they give you the free tools you need after you form it, like operating agreements, meeting minutes and thousands of how to guides that explain the complicated ins and outs of running a business. And let me tell you, this is life changing because I have had no idea how much went into this. So don't wait. Protect your privacy, build your brand and get your complete business Identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Visit www.northwestregisteredagent.com Earn free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest registered agent at www.northregisteredagent.com forward/, earn free.

So for you, was the path clear? Like my vision is to be in boutiques or I want to sell online or was it always both?

And how did you start again? Because I had so much history in retail, I knew because I used to manage brands in my job, I would have a team of buyers that would manage brands, figure out what brands we wanted to bring into our stores. We did all the negotiation with those brands. We kind of told them what the requirements were to get into our stores. So I had a very clear understanding of like what it meant to work with major retailers, good and bad. Right. And so for me, I kind of knew what I wanted to do going into my brand. I wanted the majority to be direct to consumer to be mostly come through me. Which is why we launch our limited edition sense exclusively on my website and Then my retail shops, my wholesale shops get them a little bit later on. I'm hesitant to get into a large retailer personally because I have seen the other side of it. Right. I know exactly like going into those negotiations with those big retailers, like what that will look like, the different types of tactics and things that, that they're going to want, expect from me as a brand and the way that they can kind of sometimes take control over brands if you're not very careful about who you're deciding to partner with. So I'm a little bit slower on doing anything with major retailers because of my history, I would say. But what is very exciting that I just started to do, my goal this year was to kind of expand my wholesale partnering with really like smaller boutiques around the country. That really explain my product and really explained that it's a clean beauty product is something that was really important to me because if you think about the way that you sell a direct to consumer product, like you have your website and it takes so much effort to just get in front of new customers directly on your website versus if you're able to get it into the hands of other retailers and boutiques who are essentially salesmen for you. Right?

Yeah.

The only downside there is that your margins are essentially cut in half when you do wholesale. So I had an idea for like a three year plan of things that I kind of wanted to go after, you know, but things are crazy. Like economy's changing right now. Consumer shopping habits are completely changing and shifting and evolving. And so you have as a brand founder, especially right now, you have to be able to pivot quickly and test and learn something. And if you see it not working, you have to be able to. Well, it's really both sides. Like you have to give it enough time to get some good analysis and good numbers out of it. But once you get those numbers, like you gotta be able to pivot quickly if it's not working.

So what are you noticing as you're mentioning things are changing so quickly and buyers habits are changing. What are you kind of noticing right now and in what way are you kind of planning to pivot?

One thing that I'm noticing and that I'm sure that you guys at Light Pink are probably figuring out too is like for a product that is so visceral. So like for you, Light Pink, Right. Like people have to be able to taste it, to like really fall in love with it, to like to be a repeat consumer and to come back to your brand. Yeah, Fragrance, Right. Like who Just buys a fragrance sight unseen, sight unsmelled, like, whatever, however you want to say that and just like try trusts that it's going to smell good. And so I knew when I first started the business it was going to be a much harder sell than it is today. Quite honestly. Today people are way more willing to take a risk on a brand that they know and trust because they've had some history with it. So I think something that we're quickly building into our practices is that as we launch these limited edition scents, because they're not available in any retailer or boutique, I'm offering 100% money back guarantee. If you don't like. But you know we're going to give you your money back, but we want you to use that money towards something else within our shop so that you know you're able to try something different and that you have trust and you know our brand and that we were willing to stand behind the product that we sell and we want you to try something, something, just do something a little bit different than you normally would. Customers aren't going into brick and mortar as much as they are, so they're shopping differently and we're trying to pivot as quickly as we can.

Oh my goodness. I even noticed my buying habits are so different. I mean, sometimes I like really want to go in that store and have the experience. But major majority of the time now I'm like, okay, what can I order online? I am way more willing to try new things online where I was not before. So I think once that customer kind of converts into the online and sees the ease over, you know, like values ease as their number one, we tend to be like, okay, I guess I'm more willing to order online even though it can be a pain in the, you know, the ass to like return things. But at the same time I'm like, eh, it's kind of like going to the store too though. Like you still have to return it if you don't love it, you know. And Ascent is one of those, I guess you can sample scent, but even. Yeah, I was gonna say even candles, but you can sample those too, Kelly. So I'm just gonna take that all back right there. But yeah, here's what you need to do. You need to take our word for the scent because it's insane. And if you like rose, if you like rose or rose, and even just kind of that warmer, how do you classify that? You're so good with the scents. I'm just the person who had the ideas part of the idea. So how would you classify, like, you know how I like the kind of sugary notes. What did we all put in here so people can kind of understand what it's going to smell like?

So rose can kind of go one of two ways, right? Rose can go, like. Yeah, a little, like, cheesy, you know, grandma, old school, like, 50 years ago. Like, what rose smells like back then, it's, like, super overpowering. And, yeah. You know, it can be a little bit powdery. It's just not. That's not what an actual flower, fresh rose smells like. If you can find, like, you're walking down the street and you see, like, a beautiful rose patch. You smell that rose, like, it is the most exquisitely beautiful, like, sweet yet fresh scent that, like. It's one of my absolute favorite.

Me, too.

And so we did. We, like. There's a ton. A ton. A ton of, like, fresh. That fresh, clean rose scent. There's some in there. We've got jasmine, which is another, like, sweet, beautiful flower. Amber, which is kind of like, warms it up a little bit. And oak moss, which brings a little bit of that. The green earthiness to it to kind of, like, you know, blend it all together to make it a little bit more complex than just if we were doing just a floral. Oh, it's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. I love it.

Oh, my God. I love it.

Wearing it.

It's one of those scents that when. If a woman walked by and had it on and I could smell it, I literally would track her down and be like, you have to tell me what that is. That's.

People ask me what I'm wearing. Yeah.

Just because it is that, like, oh, my God. It just makes you stop. And it's visceral. It's a visceral scent. I love it so much. Okay, so let's talk about collabing, because this is what you and I did. I love scents. I absolutely was, like, in search of a perfume already that smelled like this because I wanted my own rose Summer, for real. I literally wanted to, like, think of rose because it's so number one. It's like, I'm living and breathing light pink right now. It's so on brand. I, like, I'm buying rose everything just because I want to completely surround myself. Myself in it for so many reasons, but also just, like, building my, you know, belief and just the whole experience that I'm having as a founder with this company, I'm just, like, really wanting to dial it in and, like, be so Present for it in every way and, like, drench my senses with this as well. So I've been on my own search for like an amazing rose scent, like a rose perfume. Cannot really find it. Like, some are really. I find they do it really good in candles, but I feel like they don't do it well in perfumes at all. And so it was super exciting to be able to have you who already had this incredible scent that I loved. And I thought, this feels like it would pair with rose. Like, what could we do with this? Let's see what we could create. So in that sense, I did not have to go create my own product. I got to just use your foundation. You had the packaging, you already have the system in place. You even have a clientele base who you know is already going to love this. So for me, it was a really easy yes to be like, yes, let's collab and let's bring it to all of my women too. And they're already in this light pink frame of mind. I know that my consumer loves to consume because I've definitely done a lot of R and D around all the different things that they would like as well, since we're one of them. So we thought, okay, this makes it so easy to collab. So what explain what we did in terms of if I was going to go out and ask again to do this with somebody else. I know that you had mentioned white labeling, private labeling, kitchen. Can you just break that down and let people know the opportunities that are out there to collab?

Absolutely. Yeah. So collaborations, I think collaborations are so beautiful. Especially if you find someone that, hey, you enjoy talking to and being around. I mean, that's a big deal, right? You want someone that has similar values. You want someone who has similar brand avatars. So, like, similar customer bases to each other or that doesn't even matter. Right? Because there could be be people that create products that you know your customers are going to want, but maybe those, those manufacturers aren't even selling their product. They're only doing what we call private label. So there's kind of. There's two paths that you can. Well, there's really three paths that you can do. One is creating your own product from scratch. So creating your own custom formulations. And a lot of manufacturers will help you create that custom formulation. And then there's private label slash white labeling. So that's basically when you take a product that is already formulated and you're just putting your branding on, on it. A lot of retailers will do private Label items. So they'll have a manufacturer create, like a lot of stuff that I used to do is create dog food, right? They created like a proprietary blend of, you know, different ingredients. And then petsmart would come along and put their branding on it. But that's essentially like private labeling or like a dog leash. Like, we had a ton of beautiful manufacturers who created these incredible dog leashes, and then we would put our branding on them. It's just like, it's like a manufacturing partner for you. So that is called private labeling. And then kind of what you and I did is kind of a bit of a blend of both. So you took like all of my expertise in terms of Kayla Gray and like creating a perfume. So we kind of private label white labeled an item a perfume, but we also created customization around it, Right? So this scent is only going to be sold exclusively with both of our brands on it. So it's going to be a light pink Kayla Gray collaboration, because you and I created this scent together. So it will always be whole branded in that way. There could be a time in which, like you stated that you love velvet. So maybe at some point in time later down the line, you decide that you want that scent for light pink and light pink only, then you would put your light pink label on it and we would not be co branding together. That's called private labeling. So there's a couple different routes that you can take when you're starting to figure out, like, what types of product businesses that you want to create. Sometimes times you can start private label just to kind of learn and understand the market, to figure out, like, what you love and what you don't love. Like, what are you loving about this, this formulation that they created. But what are a few things that you want to tweak and change? And then it kind of becomes you're creating a custom product because you spent the time and the money to start with private label to just kind of learn your way through the business. A lot of people start that way too. It's much. It's less expensive to do it that way than just starting out with something custom.

A lot of people dream of having their own business, but by having your own business, that also means you have to run it. So if you're living your entrepreneurial dream.

But you're struggling with some of the.

Tedious administrative tasks, whether it be hr, payroll or employee benefits, let Gusto help. Gusto offers all in one payroll and HR for growing businesses, from full service payroll and benefits to team management tools and More Gusto makes it easy to support your hard working team in one intuitive platform. I've teamed up with Gusto and they're offering you your first three months free@gusto.com Lori the HR and benefit things is not really most entrepreneurs zone of genius. So I love that Gusto can help you with all of it. All documents and information are all in one place for both employers and employees to access. No more jumping from application to application. Gusto also helps with the hard stuff too, like filing, payroll taxes, compliance, new state tax registration, international contractor payments in 90 countries and counting. Whether your team is in person, remote or combination with Gusto, keeping your team on track is easy. Need a payroll service? Gusto has you covered and it takes businesses 10 minutes or less to run it. Join the more than 200,000 new and growing businesses that are using Gusto to build a great workplace for their employees. Right now Gusto is offering our listeners three months free@gusto.com Lori get easy payroll benefits, HR and a happier team. Go to gusto.com Lori for your first three months free.

I think it's so smart because it's a lower barrier of entry. You can see what actually hits with your audience. What would you say? Because right away I think, okay, back in the day this would have been so exciting for me to learn about too because I think that I probably would have like tried so many different things because I just, this opportunity was not in my realm. Like I didn't know that this existed where you could kind of, you know, kind of test different ideas and different things or collab with different people. White label, private label, everything that you just talked to about what are some low barrier of entry things that if people are thinking of creating a product that they could look at and then I'll ask my follow up question after that.

I think there's so much opportunity out there. It's kind of hard to give like a specific example of an item that is easy for people to private label. But if there's an area that you're interested in, like maybe it's creating a book. Like even Amazon out there has like Amazon Print on demand where you like literally create one book, they print it for you and they throw it on Amazon. I mean that's a super easy, low barrier to entry or even have a platform to put it on. There's also like beauty products or like clothing, skin care. There's a ton of different private label manufacturers. Literally it is, it's Google. It's the school of Google, right? Like Everybody loves university. It's like literally Googling. If you have an idea, maybe it's jewelry, you have an idea for creating your own jewelry line. It's Googling jewelry private label manufacturers and just kind of seeing what's out there and then getting on the phone with all of them to really understand what their minimum requirements are to start to create your product line. And what I mean by minimum requirements is that there's so many manufacturers out there that require you to start with an moq. So that's called a minimum order quantity. It could be a minimum order quantity of 100 units. It could be a minimum order quantity of 100,000 units. And so it's really important when you start to send those email inquiries or you pick up the phone to call these manufacturers, that is always the first place that I start is to understand what their MOQs are. Because you don't want to start the conversation or a negotiation with a company that is just not even in your wheelhouse. So it may take a little bit of time to kind of even just narrow it down to the manufacturers that start with really small quantities that you're able to kind of learn from.

I love that. And there's going to be so many things like MOQs that you may not understand that they're going to throw out over and over. And I will tell you that once you start your email process of just asking questions, a lot of times they're is a representative that you get on the phone with there because they're used to like, they are literally trained and ready for newbies, essentially, because they know they're going to get all of these different inquiries where you can get on the phone and just be like, okay, I am brand new at this. Here's my budget, here's what I'm thinking, what does your company have to offer? And then essentially you just gather a lot of information back from all of these different companies and you can go from there and from there you have so much more data to make the next step or the next decision. So it's pretty amazing. It's pretty, pretty welcoming, honestly. I know it's a very challenging thing, but it's also very welcoming. Like, I was surprised at how many people were willing to kind of get on the phone and explain to me. And don't get me wrong, there were lots of no's and there were a lot of people who were like not willing to as well. But. But there's a pretty good percentage out there who are. Okay, I would love to know, because now we've talked about white labeling, we've talked about private labeling, we've talked about barrier of entry for these different products and these different ideas. So, so somebody, let's just say they're like, okay, hell yes, this sounds great. Like this sounds like so much fun. Something I can do on the side to start, kind of put away my little nest egg for this project. But when we go to think about launching, let's talk about that side. What are the things that they need if they don't necessarily have an audience? Where can you borrow one? Where can you create one? How do we start building an email list? Like what are the important factors around audience, audience?

So for me I did it a couple different ways. One for me I really wanted a direct to consumer, a way to like get my DTC customers to me and me only. And so I created a website on Shopify. I think I paid 100 bucks maybe just to get like the templates. And then again YouTube and Google figured out how to kind of like upload and get everything else ready. So I, I just wanted a place for like people to go to quickly learn about the process products and be able to make a sale if I, if I wasn't able to be there in person to kind of explain something to them. If you don't want to start with the website, if that feels overwhelming to you. Another avenue that I did a ton of the first year in business was doing like markets, like literally finding a farmer's market, finding. There's so many different types of even product markets out there that you can set up a six foot table and sell your product. I did a ton of that within my first year because I wanted a very easy way to get immediate customer feedback. It's like 50 bucks for a day to like set up this table, have everybody smell all of my different scents, ask me all of the questions so that I would again, it's a learning opportunity so that I was able to like write all of those questions down, write any concerns that they have and be able to easily address that either. The next time that I was able to get in person in front of another audience to sell to or put all of those questions and address all of that on my website site. When I was in person at those events, I made sure I got their email address so that you're able to kind of build that email base. Because email, email is so key and so important in product based businesses. I make at least 40 to 50% of my sales through my email list and Then the other thing we talked about, you and I, we talked about collaboration. So like figuring out a way to do collaborations, even if it's just a simple giveaway on Instagram, to get your brand in front of other people's audiences, businesses, it's easy, it's simple. I had a woman who literally started a business like 3 days ago reach out to me to ask if I'd be willing to do a collaboration with her. And it was interesting because I, I remember being that person three days old wanting to figure out and find like another women owned business that would be, that would be willing to do a giveaway with me. And I just thought that is so cool that she, she actually reached out to me and like 20 other business owners to create this huge giveaway. And I was like, that takes some, you know, it takes some guts. And so absolutely I signed up to do it and it was great. I mean, I think she gave like a thousand followers. It was wild. But and again, another way to get her product in front of other people's audiences. Now, now, like you said earlier, a lot of people are going to say nos and that's okay. I mean, when you start a product based businesses, you have to be okay that you're going to get a lot of nos. Probably the majority of people are going to say no. Whether it's retailers, whether it's, you know, just anybody. You just have to kind of get comfortable with the rejection and know that your people are out there and that the yeses will come. So that's kind of just three easy ways that I started to get in front of customers right away.

And so how frequent were you with that? Because I think there's going to be some people who are not used to the frequency in which you have to like really work hard to build your audience. So was this like a once a month thing or were you really like tracking daily or weekly to like grow your audience?

Yeah, I mean, it was a weekly thing for me. I was either. There was one tactical week that I was doing. Now granted, I was working full time at the time. Also have, you know, husband and stepsons that we were, we have families and we have obligations and all those other things. But every single week I had at least one, you know, customer acquisition strategy that I was trying to achieve. Whether it's going to a one day market or it was, you know, figuring out, even if it's an email, you're sending it to 10 people. Like sending out that email to 10 people or figuring out like, is there a New image that I want to throw up on my website or, you know, spending a day to work on that website every single week. There was at least one thing that I was doing to get in front of new customers. So, yeah, I was. It was a lot, A lot. At least weekly to make sure that I was building my audience. Because I feel like if you're not consistent with it, people will forget and move on to somebody else. There's so much saturation in a lot of these markets. But I say that knowing that the market market share is huge. You only need a tiny little piece of market share in order to be successful. So don't let the size of the market discourage you, but know that you do need to be consistent to make sure that your brand awareness starts to grow.

So good. Anything that we have left out that you feel like if we're talking to somebody who's kind of stumbling upon this opportunity or we're expanding the idea of this opportunity that they would need to.

Know, I think really, like I mentioned it earlier, being willing to test and learn things, me going to networking groups and just talking about my product and seeing what the feedback is, trying different markets, knowing that some are not going to be that great, you may end up losing that $50 and nobody buys your product. But learning and understanding why is better to do at a $50 market than it is to launch this huge website with, like, thousands of dollars of product that are just not going to perform. It's something that customers don't end up wanting. So to me, I think the biggest thing when it comes to launching a new product is being flexible and being able to pivot quickly and really ask your customers for feedback. Go into shops, ask the shop owners, like, what they're looking for, like what types of products perform well in their shops. I literally took my entire brand to Sephora and asked the store manager if I could put my product on their shelves. I took a bunch of pictures and I was like, okay, I need to make some adjustments. And I'm literally right now working on some adjustments that I'm making for future. So if I ever decide I wanted to get into a larger retailer, I can kind of make that. Make that adjustment and make sure that it's yes, for those retailers, you have to ask for feedback. It's scary. It's so scary to ask for feedback because you may not like what you hear all the time, but if you don't, you're never going to know whether or not it's something that your customer wants.

Right? Oh, I love that so much. Okay, you guys, Kelly, I'm so grateful for you. This is so much fun. I know that we also collaborated on a candle, but that is not for sale. That's actually. We're going to be giving gifts, but the candle is freaking amazing as well. But Rose Summer is my absolute favorite. You guys can go to Kayla Gray C A Y L A g r a y.com to get Rose Summer. And truly, even though, like, pink is not here, you can still have a very rosy summer. And trust me, like, this is one thing I can sit here and feel really, really great and excited knowing that you haven't even smelled it and you can order it. And I think that you're going to love it because everybody that I have talked to absolutely loves it. So, Kelly, thank you, thank you, thank you for coming on and sharing your story. And not just that, but really being an expander in this arena of opportunity for people to just even plant the seed. If it's not now, maybe it's later that it's fun to dabble in products because it's such a, especially with Amazon, it's such a fun and easy thing you can do now. And it's not that it won't be challenging. It's that it's another great opportunity where you just might find what you love doing within this. So, Kelly, thank you again for being on. And you guys, the biggest thing that you can do for Kelly as a guest number one is go by Rose Summer. Check out our website, but let us.

Know if you guys purchased it. We would love, love, love to shout you out.

We would love to say a huge thank you and also what your biggest takeaway was from the podcast. So until next time, earn your happy.

Bye, everyone.