417: How To Make A Million Dollars Selling Bling With Natalie Mounter

00:00
You’re listening to the My Wife Could Her Job podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrap business owners and dig deep into what strategies they use to grow their businesses. Today, I my friend Natalie Mount on the show. And I initially met Natalie when she joined both of my classes, but since then, we’ve become good friends. She runs Totally Dazzled, which is a seven figure business selling accessories for weddings while focusing her time on her family, which is something that I admire and love. And in this episode, we’re gonna hear about her story. But before I begin, I wanna thank Clevia for sponsoring this episode.

00:29
Always excited to talk about Klaviyo because they’re the email marketing platform that I use for my e-commerce store and it depends on them for over 30 % of my revenue. Now you’re probably wondering why Klaviyo and not another provider. Well Klaviyo is the only email platform out there that is specifically built for e-commerce stores and here’s why it’s so powerful. Klaviyo can track every single customer who has shopped in your store and exactly what they bought. So let’s say I want to send out an email to everyone who purchased a red handkerchief in the last week. Easy. Let’s say I want to set up a special autoresponder sequence to my customers to pay on what they bought, pizza cake,

00:59
and there’s full revenue tracking on every email sent. Klaviyo is the most powerful email platform that I’ve ever used. You can try them for free over at klaviyo.com slash my wife. That’s K-L-A-V-I-Y-O dot com slash my wife. I also want to thank Postscope for sponsoring this episode. Now, if you run an e-commerce business of any kind, you know how important it is to own your own customer contact list. And this is why I focus a significant amount of my efforts on SMS marketing. SMS or text message marketing is already a top five revenue source for my e-commerce store.

01:28
and I couldn’t have done it without Postscript, which is my text message provider. Now, why did I choose Postscript? It’s because they specialize in e-commerce stores and e-commerce is their primary focus. Not only is it easy to use, but you can quickly segment your audience based on your exact sales data and implement automated flows like an abandoned cart at the push of a button. Not only that, but it’s price well too and SMS is the perfect way to engage with your customers. So head on over to postscript.io slash Steve and try it for free. That’s P-O-S-T-S-E-I-P-T dot I-O slash Steve.

01:58
And then finally, I wanted to mention my other podcast that I released with my partner, Tony. And unlike this podcast where I interviewed successful entrepreneurs in commerce, the profitable audience podcast covers all things related to content creation and building an audience. No topic is off the table and we tell it like how it is in a raw and entertaining way. So be sure to check out the profitable audience podcast on your favorite podcast app. Now onto the show.

02:27
Welcome to the My Wife, Quit Her Job podcast. Today I’m really happy to have Natalie Mount on the show. Now, Natalie is a member of both of my classes and she runs TotallyDazzle.com, which is a seven figure business selling rhinestone accessories for weddings. And whenever anyone asks about Natalie, I just tell them that she sells bling. Now she’s a regular at the Seller Summit. I’ve had the pleasure of hanging out with her in person on a number of occasions and I’m happy to call her my friend.

02:53
And as you’ll be able to tell from this interview, she is a ball of positive energy. So today we’re going to talk about how Natalie grew her bling business. And with that, welcome to the show Natalie. are you doing? Thank you so much for having me, Steve. This is like totally a milestone to be on your podcast. I’m so happy to be here and excited to talk e-commerce with my friend. Yay. Well, let me tell you this. I’m so excited to see you next week at Seller Summit because it’s been what, like three years now?

03:23
Yes, feels like an eternity. I am just dying to get out there. I’m counting down the days. You know, I did mean everything that I said, like there’s certain people that you hang out with and, you know, they’re just kind of there. But there’s other people who really make you feel happy and excited and full of energy. And I’m happy to say that you’re one of those people. So I’m really looking to hang looking forward to hanging out.

03:45
Oh, likewise, Steve, your conference is so much fun. I meet so many amazing people there. I’ve made so many incredible connections and friends. And of course, I always have tons of fun. So Natalie, please tell everyone about your store. I mean, I told them that you sell bling, but that’s a little ambiguous. So what do you sell? How did you get started?

04:08
I got started when I was pregnant with my first son, my first child, and I was just looking for a way to be at home with him and make a little bit of side money. So I started importing some stuff from AliExpress, Alibaba, and selling on Etsy. That’s where I started. And it just kept growing from there. It was, it’s always been kind of like a lifestyle business.

04:37
a way for me to be home with my two children now and just have that flexible lifestyle where I can pick them up from school and be at all of their events. it’s been just, I just keep chugging away at it. And you know, now I haven’t give up, I’ve kept going. And now I’m, like you said, I’ve finally gotten to that seven figure mark. So it’s been a really fun and exciting journey. So how did you come up with Bling? Can you define Bling by the way?

05:08
Vling, it’s anything sparkly with rhinestones. We serve the wedding industry a lot and we also serve the crafting market. The crafting market actually really helped us get through the pandemic years and actually thrive during the pandemic, which was really exciting because it was a little bit scary at first with weddings being canceled and it was a little bit nerve wracking, but.

05:35
We pivoted and we started focusing a lot on the crafting community and we were actually able to grow. So that was really exciting. Yeah, actually we’re in the wedding industry and we lost two thirds of our business during the pandemic and I was scared. I’m probably, this is part of the keynote actually at Seller Summit. We kind of pivoted and we did some other things, but so you decided to target crafters? Yes. Okay. That’s amazing.

06:02
Yeah, we really underestimated them over the years. We always serve them, but I never really, I don’t know, I never really prioritized them. And I think that was a big mistake. So the pandemic ended up being a little bit of a blessing in disguise in that front and that it opened my eyes to the potential of a totally different segment of customers than that we had never really looked that seriously at before. Yeah, so we’ve actually purchased from you in the past.

06:31
And whenever we have like a dinner party where we’re trying to impress some people, we order from you. We bought the sheets of bling, actually, that you can use to just like wrap around anything. So anytime you want to make something fancy. Yeah. I love it. OK, so how did you go about validating this? So you mentioned that you bought from AliExpress in the beginning and then you sold on Etsy. Could you just give us an idea of what those first products were?

06:58
Yeah, so mostly like I had been making wedding invitations for a little while after my husband and I got married. So it was just kind of, again, like a small little business, but it was a business that I knew that I couldn’t carry on after we had kids because the brides, want to meet evenings and weekends. And I was working really hard and not making very much money. And I just knew I had to pivot. So I had been actually importing the stuff.

07:26
to make my invitations from overseas for a while. And then I, so I had some inventory and I thought, well, let me just try selling it online. My husband, we were on a road trip one day and he was like, hey, have you heard about this book, The Four Hour Workweek? Like maybe you could do something like this while you’re home with the kids. So we listened to it and yeah, so I was like, yeah, this sounds, who wouldn’t want to work four days a week, for four hours a week. This sounds perfect.

07:54
So yeah, so then I started just putting up listings on Etsy for some of the supplies that I had had. And it was actually interesting because I had about three different product lines of stuff that I had listed. And I didn’t think, I thought the bling would be the least successful because it had the most competition, but it actually ended up being the most successful. sometimes, you know, test taking a little bit of time to test some things is good. But I knew very quickly that was going to be the winner.

08:24
And the sales on Etsy just started growing. And then I knew right away, like, okay, I think, you know, I need to have my own store because that seemed like the logical next step. And then quickly the sales from the store kind of overtook Etsy. And then we just decided to close the Etsy shop altogether because selling on my own site is, is what I really love to do. Interesting. So what did you do on it? This is for the people.

08:49
listening to our Etsy. What did you do to actually get those sales in Etsy if you said it was actually a more competitive product? Well, I think, you know, writing good descriptions, all of the usual basic stuff, right? Writing SEO friendly titles, making sure you write good descriptions and have good photos and Etsy at the time, it wasn’t nearly as competitive as it is now either. And I think there were few people

09:17
selling craft supplies, whereas most people were selling their finished crafts. The craft supply side was still kind of new and upcoming. But yeah, there was definitely competition there. Why did you decide to stop selling it? Let’s see if it’s just kind of like another marketplace and traffic source. It just became such a small percentage of our revenue that the increase in the workload and the headaches of having to deal with multiple marketplaces

09:47
and just the customer service element, the shipping element, you know, it just became not worth it. Okay. I just feel like, you know, the more I can stay focused, the better. It’s so easy to have that like bright, shiny object. The bling is everywhere. So I feel like the more I can just remain really focused on something that’s working, but also that I enjoy and kind of lights me up better. All right. So

10:16
Actually, that makes me think about it. What are you doing about your inventory? Is it at a 3PL? Do you have a warehouse? Are you on Amazon? How are you handling it? I have a team member who… So I have discovered over the years that I work really, really well with other stay-at-home moms. So I actually have built my team with the focus of trying to support other women who want to be working from home.

10:45
and being with their children. almost everybody on our team now is actually a stay at home, work from home mom. So my warehouse, if you want to call it that, is a team member who stores everything in her home. Luckily our products are really small. between her garage, a guest room and a couple of storage units, we have it covered. That’s cool. Yeah. It’s very cool. And it’s amazing because it gives me a lot of personal…

11:13
satisfaction and a lot of you know, makes me really proud that I’m able to help other people achieve what I really wanted to achieve was, you know, to just be home with my kids, make some money have this business but also have the flexibility to be with my family. So she handles all of our customer service and all of our shipping and fulfillment. is cool. So essentially, you have a 3PL. I mean, you have your own warehouse, except it’s just at someone’s home and and the

11:43
the person that works for you is the shipping manager. Exactly. genius actually. Does she have a very large house? Pretty good size. Pretty good size. Luckily, well, I lucked out on that front too, right? With the product being so small, it really doesn’t take up a lot of space. So we’re able to store thousands of units just in a guest room. So by the way, for anyone listening out there, the stay at home mom is like a huge untapped network.

12:11
because these are really smart, educated women who’ve made a choice. And the only problem I guess is the hours might be a little bit odd, but as long as they do what they’re doing, it’s been working out for you, right? Exactly. And I think one of the reasons I work so well with other stay-at-home moms is because I understand their needs and I can really tap into providing them with what they actually care about, which is that flexibility, being able to work from home.

12:41
And like you said, like, I really don’t care when, what time of day or night the orders are getting packed, as long as they’re going out in the timeframe that we promise our customers, it doesn’t make a difference to me. So I don’t sweat those kinds of details. And I really try to just let them do their own thing. Like let them have full control over their time and schedule, because that’s what they actually care about. And actually the untapped market, like you mentioned, somebody that I met at

13:10
Seller Summit, who was in my mastermind group mentioned like a couple of years ago about this website, I think it’s called hire my mom.com. Yes. And so I had no idea about this site. But that is like my go to resource now when I need to bring somebody on because these women are smart and talented and hard working, but it is really hard to find legit stay at home mom.

13:37
positions. It’s really, you know, everybody’s out there promoting like MLMs and all these crazy things. But there are real ways to make money working from home with your family. So yeah, going back to so you validated on Etsy. And then once your Etsy sales started taking off, you decided to launch your store. So can we just talk about some of the parameters? Or did you are you on Shopify? Yes, you’re on Shopify. Okay. Are you a technical person at all?

14:08
No. Did you do your website or did you hire someone to do it? I did most of it. had a, brought on a designer to just kind of help me make it look good. And she also knew a little bit of basic HTML so she could do some minor tweaking here and there, but Shopify makes it very easy even for a non-techie person like myself to set up a store pretty quickly and easily. So I didn’t. How much did you invest in starting it?

14:37
Almost nothing really. I mean, I already had a bunch of the inventory when I started it, maybe a few hundred dollars, like, nice, maybe like 1000. I don’t know, not much. And then presumably, when you first started, you were holding the inventory at your house, right? It wasn’t until much later that that you started hiring people. So when did you know that you needed to get it out of the house?

15:06
Well, I had been so when I first started on Etsy, I was shipping everything from my home here. I’m in Canada. And I discovered very quickly selling on Etsy that most of my customers were in the US. Right. So

15:22
I knew right away, doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out like, hey, if I can make this many sales and they’re willing to buy from me in Canada where, you know, they have more unpredictable shipping times and customs issues and whatever, I knew right away like, okay, I need to get some fulfillment in the States because I knew I could grow just from making that change. So I did that and I maintained two sets of inventory for a while. But again, it became,

15:52
It became clear pretty quickly that it just wasn’t worth maintaining two sets of inventory for Canada. I love you Canada, but we’re just so small. We just don’t have enough people. So I decided, I’m just going to move everything to the US-based fulfillment. That’s a tremendous amount of trust. How did you find this person in the US? This person, the first person is actually a family member.

16:20
We had some children and was looking to stay at home as well to work. And so I thought, hey, this could be a really great win win where she gets what she wants. She gets to stay at home with her kids and I get the U.S. fulfillment that I want. Perfect. That’s amazing. OK. All right. So you go from Etsy to your own site, but on your own site, you have to actually drive your own traffic. So how did you

16:48
drive, how’d you make your first sale actually?

16:52
I don’t even know where the first sale came from, but we started making content. We have a YouTube channel. I enjoy social media. So we’ve always focused a lot on social media. I think some people, because we had a presence on Etsy, found us that way. We have a great repeat customer rate because we always try to do our best for our customers.

17:19
So I think people started hopping over that way as well. So you don’t remember your first sale. I remember my first sale. It was a guy named Troy Lilly. And I was, he bought like a set of handkerchiefs I was just thrilled. And I will never forget that first sale. It’s funny. So when you launched, just, where sales already just came, did they just come in on day one? Pretty much. It felt that way. I mean, I wasn’t making tons of.

17:44
tons of sales or you know on day one but they started they did start to come in pretty quickly. I don’t even remember it. I’m a huge optimist so I just think okay like about you. Yeah. Okay, let’s back up then. So you launched this site though. Did you already have social media and YouTube and all that stuff? What did you have at the time when you first launched? I don’t think I had the social media going quite yet. No, but it would have been right around the same time like right after.

18:13
I would have started working on that. Were you able to get like your Etsy customers to buy from you? Since you had their address, right? Yes, some of them we were able to for sure. Like some of our repeat buyers, like sorry, Etsy, but we would just tell them, hey, we have like better pricing or whatever on our website. have bulk pricing. have, if you want to do that, because did you write that in a note? Because or because technically you’re not supposed to do that, right?

18:42
Yeah, well, again, Etsy is way more loose, at least back in the day when I was selling on there than Amazon probably ever was. Mostly, like we would get a lot of customer service questions and we really pride ourselves on doing a great job with customer service. just in those direct email messages is where we would tell people like, hey, by the way, we have our own site now. If you’re interested, you can go check that out. Okay, nice. Yeah. That’s a good way to do it.

19:11
especially on Etsy. Etsy is probably the most lax out of all the platforms. Yes, I think that’s why I started there because it was just, it felt so easy. It wasn’t intimidating. Like it just felt like to me the easiest place to start and I’m always looking for kind of the path of least resistance. So like, you know, just to get started whenever I’m getting started on something, I’m always looking for like, okay, what’s the quickest, easiest way.

19:40
to tackle something. Etsy, for me, it was Etsy. Okay, so Etsy, maybe you got some of your first sales through customer service on Etsy. What actually drove sales for you in the beginning? Like which platform was working for you? Well, I would say for the first like year of our Shopify store, Etsy was still the dominant place where we were making sales, but within, I wanna say maybe one,

20:09
to two years it had caught up. And then after that, like maybe year three or four, like it just surpassed it dramatically. Etsy started getting a lot more competitive and like, I don’t know, it just became more of a nuisance. Right. I am curious back to that original question. So you have a film in the US that’s handled by a family member. You stopped selling an Etsy. Is it because the customer services

20:37
is more of a pain than on your own store? Partially, because yeah, we were answering emails on Etsy, we were answering emails from our own store. And it’s and also to like shipping, then we would have to use like a shipping software, like a ship station to bring everything in. And, you know, when it becomes a small percentage of your overall sales, like I just to me, it wasn’t worth the the added

21:07
If you sell on Amazon or run any online business for that matter, the most important aspect of your long-term success will be your brand. And this is why I work with Steven Weigler and his team from Emerge Council to protect my brand over at Bumblebee Linens. Now, what’s unique about Emerge Council is that Steve focuses his legal practice on e-commerce and provides strategic and legal representation to entrepreneurs to protect their IP. So for example, if you’ve ever been ripped off or knocked off on Amazon, then Steve can help you fight back and protect yourself.

21:35
Now, first and foremost, protecting our IP starts with a solid trademark and Emerge Council provides attorney-advised strategic trademark prosecution, both in the United States and abroad for a very low price. And furthermore, the students in my course have used Steve for copyrighting their designs, policing against counterfeits and knockoffs, agreements with co-founders and employees, website and social media policies, privacy policies, vendor agreements, brand registry, you name it. So if you need IP protection services, go to EmergeCouncil.com and get a free consult.

22:05
And if you tell Steve that I sent you, you’ll get a $100 discount. That’s E-M-E-R-G-E-C-O-U-N-S-E-L.com. Now back to the show. I mean, we started the same way. We were on eBay actually in the beginning, and then we moved over. But at least for us, eBay customers are notoriously bargain hunters, let’s just say, which wasn’t the type of customer that we wanted to attract. But okay, so with your store then, so what worked? So you launched…

22:34
And what were your initiatives? You mentioned social, you’re on YouTube, you have a pretty good Facebook page. What did you start out doing? Mostly video content. I always loved the idea of like selling through teaching and teaching people how to DIY things for their weddings. so that to me felt a lot more intuitive than like trying to master Facebook ads again, because I’m not super technical or analytical.

23:02
So that just felt way more natural for me. I’m comfortable on video. So it was just something that seemed like a, again, path of least resistance, like the easiest way. So we started doing that. But again, I realized after a while that I was struggling to be as consistent as I wanted and needed to be with my video. And again, I think with time,

23:28
And I think this is so important in terms of having success in your entrepreneurial journey is a certain level of self-awareness and maintaining and keeping a very close eye on your why, like, am I doing this? And the more I thought about it, like, why am I not doing enough as many videos as I want to be doing or I should be doing? And it really came down to, it was interfering with my flexibility, being able to, you know, I felt more tied down to by it.

23:57
And so then I said, okay, well, I’m not going to be doing all of the videos. Maybe I’m only doing a handful of the videos that I need to start working with some other influencers to help me to get the, the quantity of content out there that I knew I needed to make this strategy work. So that’s when we started working with affiliates and that’s also been really successful for us. Walk me through that. How did you start an affiliate program?

24:24
Well, I enjoyed making YouTube videos. So when I was, you know, trying to come up with YouTube video ideas, I was doing a lot of searching on YouTube for like, you know, what kind of content are people making, what’s getting attention and whatever. So in that research process, I came across a lot of other channels that were making content that was very similar to the content that I was making or wanted to make. And so I started out by just emailing.

24:52
making a spreadsheet and just emailing these people. or? YouTubers is where I started. Yeah. Okay. Got it. We worked with a lot of Facebook influencers as well, but at the beginning it was just YouTube. And I didn’t even have a formal affiliate program even set up at the time. I was just offering them free product and said, Hey, like you want to, you decorate for weddings. You hear some free napkin rings for your next wedding on the house, you know? And so they were,

25:21
very receptive and they started promoting us and it was just very, to me it was very, it was awesome because I was super hands off. Like I just had to research, email them and then we had like an ongoing open dialogue and relationship where, hey, you know, I just made it very easy for them to reach out to us anytime for free stuff and they would continue putting out the content that we wanted and needed and linking to us. So that was really good. And then,

25:50
Once that started getting some traction, we kind of formalized the program a little bit more. So I don’t know if you want to talk about that. I do. What is your affiliate program run on and what are your typical terms? So now that we have it more formally set up, we use Refersion. Pretty easy to use, at least on our end. And we use the same process for reaching out to them. I prefer more

26:19
micro type influencers, a lot of the bigger ones, you know, they want like flat rates and all this stuff, which we don’t really do. We do free product and commission. Because I feel like it’s really hard to lose that way. Like free product is not a big deal. And the commission, you’re only paying them when they actually perform. So I see it as like a commission only sales force. That’s how I see it. I see my affiliates as like a sales team and they’re all commission based.

26:49
Um, so physical products land, the commission is generally much lower than like a software product. Can I ask like what your base commission is? Yeah. So I try to be as generous and as cool with our affiliate team as I possibly can for a couple of reasons. So I think like, you know, if you’re just easygoing and generous with them, they’re going to have more of a genuine. Good.

27:14
dealing with you and then they’re going to be able to more genuinely recommend you your company, you know, on all of their in all of their content. So we give them basically anything that they want for free. And we give them a 20 % commission, is on the very generous actually. Yeah, we we also felt that we had to compete with like Amazon affiliates, right? So

27:38
our site maybe might not have the same conversion rate as Amazon. So in order to be more competitive, we increased our commission percentage. And we also give them a 30 day cookie window. as long as they, someone clicks and they purchase within 30 days, they get their 20 % commission. And then we just pay that out monthly and it’s, you can do it in one click with Refersion, which is pretty nice. Yeah.

28:04
All right. Okay. So pretend I’m like a micro influencer. First of all, what is your definition of micro influencer? Somebody who’s willing to work like somebody who doesn’t have like an agent or any kind of management company that they’re working with. So it depends on the person we’ve worked with one Facebook influencer who has like, I think a million followers. So that’s pretty big, but that would be kind of our top line, but she was still willing to work for commission only. And it was

28:33
great, it was a win-win, I would say, but all the way down to, I don’t know, maybe tens of thousands. Okay. So if I was an influencer in the wedding space, like, and if you were to pitch me, what would you tell me right now? Well, my subject line is usually, can we pay you? Because at that level, like, they’re not really getting those, they’re not making a lot of money necessarily, right, off the top.

29:01
So and they need to make it’s a business for them to they need to make money. So if they can find a product that they can stand behind and that they can make some income off of, then it’s just a huge win win for everybody. What’s your hit rate? Like, presumably you give away lots of product where they don’t actually promote it, right?

29:24
Again, like I do not babysit them at all. And I, I feel like that’s part of the key to being successful with an affiliate program. Every time I’ve heard anyone discuss a successful affiliate program, they are not saying, Hey, we have to have this kind of a video and this amount of time. And we need X number of pictures because like, who wants, I wouldn’t want to deal with that person. That’s annoying. So I just try to be like, Hey, here’s the stuff I’ve already seen your content. I already know I like.

29:53
what you do, I don’t need to micromanage you. So here’s the stuff and you just do your thing. And then, you know, the one thing that we have started doing is we try to educate them a little bit because especially with some of the more micro influencers, they might not even be aware of like where to find their affiliate link or how it even works or anything like that. So I feel like when, where we have struggled in the past with influencers is like, I put it on myself for not

30:22
showing them, hey, like you need to include this link if you actually do want to get the money I’m saying I’m going to pay you, right? So we have spent some time, like I made just like a basic Google slide presentation that I emailed them automatically. It’s like an automated flow in Klaviyo when someone gets added to our affiliate segment, they get this flow that basically just educates them on, hey, like here’s who you reach out to for free product. You can reach out to us anytime. we’re

30:51
here to support you. If you have any questions, here’s where to find your affiliate link with screen shares and stuff like that. So I think that helps a lot. And even just simple things like them knowing that, hey, it’s not just a one-time thing. Some of them might assume like, oh, well, it’s just this one batch of free product and then we’re done. We’re like, no, any time we want this to be an ongoing thing because the most of the work in setting up an affiliate program is actually the outreach.

31:18
and getting people on board and educated. So once they’re in, maintaining that relationship and keeping them engaged is actually the most important thing after that. So is that done on an autoresponder sequence or do you just have a list of people that you just kind of go down and reach out to from time to time? So anytime we try to have like a game plan every month of

31:45
what we want the affiliates to do. So some months it might be like, hey, we have a free download, you know, maybe promote it. And by the way, if you need anything, we’re happy to send it to you. Some months it might be, hey, we’re launching a new product. We want to send it to you. You’re going to be the first ones to get it, you know, so, and help us promote it and make your money too. So it depends on what we have going on. also,

32:14
share with them all of our sales and promotions that we have going on so that they can help promote those as well. So we just try to be in constant communication with them, mostly through our email. We just have a segment in Klaviyo and we send them campaigns and follow-ups. So we have a flow that checks in with them and just says, any questions or whatever, but just maintaining that contact.

32:41
I think is really important to having long-term success with your affiliate program. I’m listening to everything that you’re saying and I’m an affiliate for a lot of companies and there was this actually one company they offered to pay me something like $500 for a TikTok video and I said, no, I’ll just do it for free because I didn’t want them like hounding me to do the video, right? Like I don’t need the 500 bucks, but I like their company. But what ended up happening is they kept hounding me anyway. So when are you going to post your free video? When are you going to post your video?

33:11
I’m like, dude, I’m doing this for free. Just let me post it when I post it. And now how do you feel about them? Probably not going to do it anymore. Yeah. Not as warm and fuzzy as you once were. That’s why I don’t know. think just being just chill, just being cool with the people and not being so uptight. think a lot of people struggle with affiliate marketing because at first it’s like, Oh, I can’t track, you know, like Facebook ads. have to have a certain amount of.

33:41
of faith, maybe, like, is the right word? I don’t know. But like, you have to kind of have a certain amount of faith that, hey, all of these touch points, they do add up. Like these crafters now that we’re working with on Facebook, influencers, a lot of people will watch multiple crafters. So when they hear one of them saying, hey, totally dazzled, like, look at this amazing thing. And then they hear another one, hey, totally dazzled over here. It all adds up.

34:08
You know, and I think the other amazing thing with affiliate marketing is that, you know, our affiliate marketing program brings in six figures of sales a year that are directly attributable. But I really believe in my heart of hearts that it’s so much more than that because not everybody is going to click on that link and buy within 30 days. Like some people are going to hear about it multiple times and then just Google us because we get a lot of organic.

34:37
traffic as well. And I am no SEO expert. I got the basics and that is it. But I think a lot of it is like, people are just coming to us searching for us and coming to us directly because they’re hearing about us from all these multiple places.

34:56
I just wanted to take a moment to tell you about a free resource that I offer on my website that you may not be aware of. If you are interested in starting your own online store, I put together a comprehensive six day mini course on how to get started in eCommerce that you should all check out. It contains both video and text based tutorials that go over the entire process of finding products to sell all the way to getting your first sales online. Now this course is free and can be attained at mywifequitterjob.com slash free.

35:26
just sign up right there on the front page via email and I’ll send you the course right away. Once again, that’s mywifequitterjob.com slash free. Now back to the show.

35:37
I completely agree with you there. You know what’s funny is one time we did this experiment where we put the coupon code during checkout, like right there front and center, we found that only like 30 % of the people use the coupon code that was right there during checkout. People don’t always click on the link, they just think of your company and they just go buy it. And yeah, absolutely, there’s this halo effect from all of your efforts. And I just want to add that given your personality, since I know you, like I think the affiliate is like you. The affiliate company is that I like the best.

36:05
are the ones who I’ve actually become friends with over time. And I promote them regardless of whether I’m getting compensated for anything because the relationship is so strong. It takes time, but it really helps to have a manager that’s really personable as well. Absolutely, for sure. Because I mean…

36:23
they have to put their neck out there too, right? Recommending these products and if they’re not comfortable, then it’s gonna show through and they’re not gonna do it as much. Whereas if you treat them well and you have that rapport and you’re generous, like I genuinely care about their success. Like I want them to be really successful with our program. I’m not just thinking about, hey, what’s my return? What’s in it for me constantly? I actually really…

36:50
genuinely care about their success. And I think that just goes a really long way and how they feel about not only me, about our company. You know, it’s funny, I was looking at your YouTube channel, and I noticed that you’re only actually you haven’t been in a lot of the recent videos. So are you using those influencers content on your own channel as well?

37:11
Yeah, so that’s the newest thing that we’ve started doing with our affiliate program is we have what we call our top tier program now of our affiliate team. And these are just a handful of creators that were just, I just loved what they did with our stuff and they were just, they were really reliable for showing up consistently, promoting our stuff. So I invited them to be part of what I call our top tier program.

37:39
which is a new program where they come onto our Facebook page instead of doing it on their own page and they will do a craft project or a DIY of some kind. And so what we’re doing with that content since it’s our content now with that program is we’re trying to repurpose it and use it on our other social channels. So we’ll see, it’s fairly new.

38:06
thing that we’re doing. So it remains to be seen how successful it will be. They’re all Facebook creators right now and we’re repurposing for YouTube. So it’s not like 100 % perfect for YouTube. But I think the fact that we’re consistently going to be posting like between five and seven days a week on YouTube, I’m hoping it will. I was just gonna say you should post on a TikTok and reels also. I don’t know if you’ve tried that. That’s the next step. That’s the next

38:35
Yeah, so we have an editor on the team now, another amazing stay-at-home mom who’s just been nice. Okay, I’m going to go on. Did you find that person on hire my mom? I did. I have an interview with another person after our call today, actually. So it’s my new favorite resource. And thanks again to Seller Summit because I never would about it. Never would have known about it if it wasn’t for Kelly. out Kelly and my mastermind group. yeah, that’s been going. That’s the next phase.

39:04
What do those creators that are posting on your Facebook page, what do they get out of it? I pay them, I actually pay them a flat rate for the video. Okay. And so our agreement is that any of the content, so they’re still part of our regular affiliate program, but then I’ve invited them to be part of this top tier where I actually paid them. And they show up every week. I usually give them a theme.

39:28
something just to keep the content a little bit consistent and in the direction that I want it to be in. And then, but within that theme, I let them do, I let them just do their thing. Cool. You don’t have to tell me exactly how much you pay them, but can you just provide a very brief range? Is it like hundreds? Is it thousands or? It’s very low. think it’s reasonable. I pay again, like going back to what I said earlier, like

39:55
What would I do it? What’s the lowest I would do it for? Like I just try to treat other people the way I would want to be treated. So I picked the number that I would do it for and I offered them that. But it’s, it’s reasonable. Here’s how I think about it. Your Facebook page actually has a decent amount of fans on it. So you’re actually promoting them. Right? I was thinking they’d do it for free to be honest with you. Or if you had to, you could post their affiliate link in the video.

40:23
Yes. And that is another great way of doing it. I don’t know if I made the right choice or not. Time will tell. This is a little bit new as well, this whole system. But I really wanted full ownership rights to the videos. I felt that that makes them outright was the best way to do that because I knew my long-term plan was to repurpose the content and I didn’t want any disputes about who owned the content. That makes sense. That totally makes sense. Yeah.

40:53
Okay, so what is your best social channel or is it YouTube, would you say or? I would say in the early days it was YouTube. But because I let the channel kind of dry out after a while when I realized, okay, I don’t necessarily want to be creating five videos a week or whatever. Now I would say it’s actually Facebook. Okay, nice. Yeah, because you got a pretty strong age I noticed and you’re posting on there pretty regularly. Video content, actually.

41:23
Are you running any ads or paid advertising? We do some Facebook ads, but with all of the changes and stuff, it’s sort of becoming less and less prominent in our strategy. But that’s never really been one of my strengths. I think I finally found somebody again, another stay at home mom with a small agency who is doing a great job for us. So nice. Yeah. You mentioned you get a

41:51
It’s part of our strategy, it’s actually less than less brings in less traffic than like our affiliate or sure. Again, mentioned getting a lot of repeat business. How are you getting that repeat business? I think a couple of things that again are pretty basic in a way, but just caring, genuinely caring about our customers and like trying to do a good job. And, know, that is a really big one. And then I think

42:22
staying in contact. think when I first started my email list and I was growing that, I did not have a lot of regular promotions or newsletters or anything. And now I’ve really taken the opposite approach. It’s like, I’m always looking for an excuse or a reason to be reaching out to our customers. like email and SMS have been huge for us. I love any owned marketing channel. I’ve even seen a dabbling in Drew Sinaki’s

42:51
postcards with post pilot. yes. Nice. Yeah. I any owned, I just love any own channel really excites me. So we’ve been doing that. I’m forgetting I’m losing my train of thought. Oh, okay. Let’s let me just ask you some questions. How often do you email your customers typically in a week? A couple at least once probably more like two or three times. Okay. You like to have so I like to do like a regular

43:17
sale or promotion of some kind, new product launches. Now that we’re doing this affiliate program where they’re creating our content for us specifically, we do a weekly newsletter that recaps all the projects that they made and shares the schedule for the following week if they want to watch a live crafting video. So there’s quite a bit we do a lot of giveaways. So you know, that was one of the big ways we grew our SMS in the beginning is just doing a ton of giveaways and

43:47
So anytime you do a giveaway, it’s another reason to contact people and to grow all of your email, your SMS, your socials. it’s… How often are you sending SMS messages and are you a little bit more deliberate with your SMS? A little bit more, but we send a lot of SMS. SMS is bringing in, I think even a little bit more than our email list at this point. So we send…

44:15
quite a bit of SMS. I just don’t do as many follow ups. So if we’re doing a sale, you know, on email, they might get like four emails about the sale, whereas on SMS, they’ll get two texts. Okay. And you’re just making sure you text regularly, like once or twice a week also in addition? Yes, yes, we text about well, you they have to opt in explicitly for this, but they can also text, they can opt in to be notified anytime we have a new

44:44
live video going on. that that those people will get a text like five days a week. But yeah, anytime we have, we have all of the flows and stuff set up to with SMS. So they’re getting a lot of those messages as well, like abandoned cards or out of and forth notifications, all that kind of stuff. What do you go for first when someone lands on your site? Do you you mentioned SMS seems to more valuable than email? So do you go for an SMS number first? Or are you going for an email first?

45:12
We do email first with a bigger discount for SMS. don’t know. I have mixed emotions on that. But yeah, we do 10 % for email and hey, by the way, if you want to save 20, then why not give us your phone number too? Nice. Okay. Actually, that’s the first time I’ve heard someone do it that way actually. Yeah, cool. So what you probably don’t know this off the top of your head, but do you find that most people want the higher discount and give you their SMS number? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Nice.

45:42
Okay, I want to just for the people listening out there who are just kind of on the sidelines, like what is what has been the hardest part about starting your business? And what advice would you give them? The hardest part, I think is remembering your why every time I get off course, it’s because I’m chasing something that I don’t actually care about or that conflicts with why I started this in the first place. So just really staying

46:11
you know, focused, I guess is is a struggle for me. And so I would just recommend like, you know, if you started it to be at home with your kids, then just don’t sign up for anything that’s going to conflict with that. And remember that that’s what’s most important, not necessarily your sales numbers or whatever. It’s the fact that, you know, you get to be free and be at home. And if you’re starting it for another reason, whatever your reason is, just always try to keep that at the forefront of your mind.

46:42
Last question, and this probably just has to do with the answer you just gave. Amazon, they own 50 % of e-commerce. You’ve chosen not to sell on Amazon. Is it because of peace of mind and like the mental headaches that it will cause you potentially? Absolutely, that’s why. Yeah. I just think I will be a stress case. I won’t be happy. I’ve never seen you not happy, but okay. Yeah. Yeah, because everything that I do in life, Steve.

47:10
I’m always optimizing for happiness. If it is not bringing me the joy, I am not going to do it because life is just too short. I just want to enjoy and have fun and it can be done. It can be done. You can have a business and be joyful and have a fabulous happy life. So go and do it. Don’t settle.

47:33
I completely agree. The reason why I brought that Amazon thing up is whenever something bad goes on on Amazon, which usually happens on a bi-weekly basis, it ruins the day for everyone because you have no control. Yeah, absolutely. Natalie, this has been an amazing interview. I’m very much looking forward to hanging out with you next week after a three-year break. I’m so excited.

48:01
I’m looking forward to your energy. I’m looking forward to your positivity and yeah, anxious to hang out. Oh, me too, Steve. Can’t wait. Thank you for coming on. My pleasure.

48:14
Hope you enjoyed that episode. Natalie is an amazing person and not only is she business savvy, but she is super fun as well. For more information about this episode, go to mywifequitterjob.com slash episode 417. And once again, I want to thank Postscript, which is my SMS marketing platform of choice for e-commerce. With a few clicks of button, you can easily segment and send targeted text messages to your client base. SMS is next big own marketing platform and you can sign up for free over at postscript.io slash d.

48:42
That’s P-O-S-T-S-U-R-I-P-T dot I-O slash D. I also want to thank Clavio, which is my email marketing platform of choice for ecommerce merchants. You can easily put together automated flows like an abandoned card sequence, a post purchase flow, a win back campaign, basically all these sequences that will make you money on autopilot. So head on over to mywifequitterjob.com slash K-L-A-V-I-Y-O. Once again, that’s mywifequitterjob.com slash K-L-A-V-I-Y-O. Now I talk about how I use these tools in my blog. And if you are interested in starting your own ecommerce store,

49:11
Head on over to mywifequitterjob.com and sign up for my free 6-day mini course. Just type in your email and I’ll send you the course right away. Thanks for listening.