529: How My Student Sally Wilson 10x’ed Her Ecommerce Business Selling Cross Stitch Supplies Online

00:00
You’re listening to the My Wife, Her Job podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrap business owners and delve deeply into what strategies are working and what strategies are not with their businesses. Now, today I have a student from my Create a Profitable Online Store course back on the show. And the last time I had Sally Wilson on several years ago, she had just hit six figures in revenue. But today she now runs a seven figure e-commerce store over at caterpillacrossstitch.com, which is a store that sells cross-stitch supplies online.

00:28
So in this episode, we’re going to talk about the steps she took to grow her business 10X since the last time she was on. But before we begin, I want to let you know that tickets for the 2024 Seller Summit are almost sold out over at sellersummit.com. The Seller Summit is the conference that I hold every year that specifically targets e-commerce entrepreneurs selling physical products online. And unlike other events that focus on inspirational stories and high level BS, is a curriculum based event where you will leave with practical and actionable strategies specifically for an e-commerce business.

00:58
Every speaker I invite is deep in the trenches of their business. Entrepreneurs who are importing large quantities of physical goods and not some high-level guys who are overseeing their companies at 50,000 feet. Now I personally hate large events, so the Seller Summit is always small and intimate. Every year we cut off ticket sales in around 200 people, so tickets sell out fast and we’ve sold out every single year for the past eight years. Now if you’re an e-commerce entrepreneur making over 250k or $1 million per year, we also offer an exclusive mastermind experience with other top sellers.

01:28
The Seller Summit is going to be held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from May 14th to May 16th. And right now there are only a handful of tickets left. Also, if you haven’t picked up my Wall Street Journal bestselling book, The Family First Entrepreneur yet, it’s actually available on Amazon right now for 50 % off. My book will teach you how to achieve financial freedom by starting a business that doesn’t require you to work yourself to death. Plus you can still grab my free bonus workshop on how to sell print on demand and how to make passive income with blogging, YouTube and podcasting.

01:56
When you grab the book, over at mywifequitterjob.com slash book. So go over to mywifequitterjob.com slash book, fill out the form, and I’ll send you the bonuses right away. Now onto the show.

02:13
Welcome to the My Wife, Could Her Job podcast. Today, I’m thrilled to have Sally Wilson back on the show after four years. If you don’t remember Sally, she’s a student in my Create a Profitable Online Store course. She resides in the UK and she runs a very successful online business over at caterpillarcrossditch.com. last time I had Sally on, she was making a healthy six figure income. I don’t remember her exact numbers back in 2020, but I’ll link up her previous episode in the show notes.

02:41
But today her business has grown dramatically to seven figures in British pounds. I thought I’d might add also she’s been featured in the Daily Mail and she has all sorts of new projects going on. So what we’re going to talk about today is how she made the leap to seven figures and how her business has evolved from the last time we spoke four years ago. And with that, welcome back to the show, Sally. How are doing today? Thank you very much. Good. Thank you. I hadn’t quite realized that it was so long since we last spoke.

03:09
I didn’t realize it was that long either. And so you’ve been doing this for a long time now. Yeah, we’ve just turned eight years old at the end of November as a business. Um, but it feels like about two years. Um, have we known each other that long? That’s ridiculous. I, well, it’s easy to remember because it I was on maternity leave and I remember I purchased your course in June of 2013.

03:38
when my daughter was six months old and I did it between when she was six months old and 12 months old. And then it was that 12 month gap that I knew I had to make a decision of what to do next. So I remember very vividly having a specific notepad and I used to watch all your videos on the iPad in the garden while she was napping. So yeah, 2013 I did the course. Crazy, crazy. Well, Sally, just in case the audience didn’t listen to our very first episode.

04:06
Just tell the audience about your store and what you sell real quick. Sure. So caterpillacrossstitch.com. We, well, I design and we manufacture and ship all over the world, modern cross stitch kits and other accessories and supplies like scissors, hoops, needle minders, and project bags. And is, are most of your customers in the UK or are you really international now where you’re getting a lot of business from other countries?

04:34
So we shipped over 30 countries, but the vast majority of customers are UK and USA, split pretty evenly actually. Oh, okay. Yeah, and that forms for about 9 % of our customers. And then the remaining 10%, I would say is Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and then a few in Europe. You know, what’s funny is a lot of people always come up to me and say, hey, I’m in the UK or I’m in the EU, is the market big enough?

05:02
And are there any hurdles with you shipping to the US because the shipping costs are high or how have you managed to resolve that issue? I mean, to be honest, the shipping costs aren’t too bad. We use Royal Mail to ship everything. And I think as well, if you’re ordering something from UK, USA or vice versa, you expect to pay a little bit more than you would domestically.

05:26
It’s more the, I suppose one issue we have is things sometimes get damaged. And we have certain packaging that we know in the UK it’s going to arrive absolutely perfectly. I mean, it is quite rare to be fair, but sometimes some of the packages might be ripped or torn or something. And that will always be international. And then also just delays. I mean, we’re pretty good at the moment. Obviously 2020 and 21 was a different story. But in the UK, something could get there the next day.

05:56
in the States, it could be anything from seven days to four weeks. It depends which state. It’s not always just on the distance of how long it takes. think Vancouver takes quite a while in Canada. And yeah, it’s not too bad. I’m just curious, are there any plans to like have like a distribution center in the US or has everything just been okay in general with shipping? Well,

06:24
It’s funny you asked that actually, because that was on my notes to talk to you about. Everything has been pretty much okay. But we are selling on various Amazon platforms as well. And I was going to say recently, but it was actually a while ago now, we started selling on amazon.com. And Amanda has kindly offered their sort of warehouse and staffing. So we now get all of the needle minders and the supplies.

06:53
for the Amazon US shipped directly to her and then her team prep everything and ship it to the local Amazon fulfillment center. Oh, wow. So it cuts us out completely of that. And actually that’s doing really well in America. We’ve been selling amazon.co.uk for longer. But the needle minders sort of the price point between sort of 10, 15 pounds.

07:19
is just a really good price point for FBA and sort of gifting and stuff like that. So it’s a really easy sort of transactional thing to just keep it flowing through and make sure the stock’s there. So yeah, Amanda’s been a great help. That’s amazing. So Amanda is another student in the class. She’s been on the show, I don’t know, two or three times, I think. Is most of your business non Amazon? It was the case last time we spoke. Is it still the case? Yes. Okay.

07:49
Yeah, so Amazon’s doing really well, but it’s probably 5%. Okay, yeah. So I’ve turned over so vast majority is on our website via Shopify. So I was actually just on your website. And I noticed that you’re running events now as well. In fact, it’s right front and center like the main call to action on your website right now. did. Yeah, it’s right. It’s the first one you can see. Oh, it’s the first one. Okay, I was just gonna ask has have events become a meaningful contributor to your revenue?

08:19
but it sounds like this is very first one. Yes. So we’ve been doing stitching social events, we call them, since 2019 when I started doing them in person. And we started having groups of 12 people, sort of a cross stitch class, a social event, lots of fun games, quizzes. I’m there and other staff to kind of teach people techniques. And it’s just loads of fun.

08:44
So we did a few of those in 2019 and then 2020 everything went online and we’ve stuck online with those ever since. So we have, we’re actually starting in February as well with this next batch. So we have 18 events with 15 people at each event three times a year, but it’s all online and we’ve got hosts all over the world as well so that they can do the events in their time zone. because when I, I do four and then we’ve got different hosts.

09:14
Mine are always at 7pm, but obviously if you’re in Australia or America that’s not going to be suitable. So yeah, they’re always themed as well. So we’ve had a run recently of sort of cottages and little shops. So if you do all the events, you can collect them basically. But yes, this year is our first retreat. So it’s called the Caterpillar Stitch Retreat and it’s a weekend event.

09:40
It’s in Birmingham, which is not too far from us here. It’s pretty central in England in June at the hotel. So very new for us, but I’ve been to events before in London and all over the place. And I know they’re pretty big in America as well. So we’ve got 300 tickets. We haven’t sold them all yet, but it’s really good fun actually because we’re planning all the benefits as well.

10:06
of what the attendees will get. We’ve got like standard tickets, VIP tickets. We’ve got finishing workshops and t-shirts and all the merch. So yeah, I’m really excited. That sounds really exciting. I still remember the first year I had my event and I had the best time. You’re going to have an amazing time. It’ll be amazing to just see everybody there face to face. Yeah, it’ll be so different. think with e-commerce, you’re just so used to email and social media and YouTube.

10:35
And then to just be in a room with that many people as well. Yeah. And names that I will have seen so many times, you know, on social media and stuff and chatted with, it’s just going to be amazing. I know that just building a community for your business has been so huge for you guys. Yeah. And I don’t know if you can remember four years ago when we talked, but how things evolved from what it was four years ago to seven figures, like what things have changed for you to grow your business so dramatically?

11:07
So wasn’t the start of 2020 we spoke? Yes, it was January of 2020. pandemic. So yeah, I think I just hit, yeah it was because the previous year I just hit six figures. Well, lockdown helped a lot. And I think we quadrupled turnover in 2020. Oh wow. So that was a big boost. There was an awful lot of people taking up all sorts of crafts for the first time anyway.

11:36
And I think the issue after that in 21 was so many people said to me, oh, have you noticed a big drop off or everyone’s given up now that, you know, they can go on holidays again and they can go back to work. But actually I think because we had the communities and the content around it, we actually managed to keep about 76 % return rate and we just kept those people. made sure we had the email addresses. We made sure that they subscribed and followed and joined the Facebook group.

12:05
and made sure that just because the pandemic was over as such or, you know, lockdown is eased, they still continued being a customer. So in the Facebook group for us as a start has always been in the foundation. I think we have six moderators now. Wow. And that’s really active. We’re nearly at 20,000 people in the group. And just lots of engagement, lots of questions. We involve the community in everything. So

12:34
I’m writing a book at the moment about Taylor Swift lyrics. Being very careful not to infringe on any trademark because she’s got hundreds of trademarks. But I’m always in the group saying, you what’s your favorite lyric? What’s your favorite album? What would you like to see next? We do a lot of surveys to make sure that people feel part of it, but also for me to create things that people are going to want.

13:02
It’s got to be a balance, I think, of stuff I’m passionate about and inspired by, but also things actually everyone else wants as well. So luckily there’s lots of Swifties as well. So one of my weaknesses has always been, you know, starting up a group and building up a community. It’s it’s harder for me. You seem to do it very easily. What does it take to start a Facebook group from scratch that supports your brand? And what are the steps that you take to do it?

13:27
Well, I remember, I mean, full cross stitch as a niche specifically, and I think anything like that, that’s a hobby. Facebook groups, again, you know, this is eight years ago, and they’re still big now, but it might be a generational thing. And I think some younger people aren’t quite as into Facebook groups anymore. But it really was the place to hang out and go to be friends with people who have the shared common passion.

13:56
But if it’s a bit of an unusual passion as well, you’re unlikely to have someone in real life who’s your friend from work or neighbor who’s going to like the same thing as you. I think I only know about three people who actually cross-stitch in my real world. So if I was a customer, I wouldn’t have anyone really to share it with. But right at the start, I was in, when I think I was researching stuff, I was in about 10 other cross-stitch groups on Facebook.

14:23
And I couldn’t believe how engaged they were and how many hundreds of posts a day. Because with cross-stitch it takes such a long time, you would post photos and the progress and tips as you went along on the project. So if you’re stitching over the course of two months, you might be posting 20 or 30 different photos and your accessories. So it’s quite a long process and there’s lots of content.

14:52
But one thing that really helped, sorry. No, no, go on, go on. I was just going to say one thing really helped at the start was that there was another Facebook group that I then collaborated with as a designer to create a Stitch Along project. So it was Happiness is Homemade, which was a cakes afternoon tea theme. And they asked me to design something that then their group members could stitch also. So we had a bit of an overlap of my Facebook group.

15:21
and their members and they were very kindly, you know, encouraging them to come over to me as well. So that really helped get sort of the initial, let’s say thousand members of the group. So in terms of the group in the beginning, were you posting like all the time? Like jumpstarting the group is actually the hardest part and encouraging people to actually post, right? Yeah, definitely. It’s, it’s really, really hard at beginning. I mean, everything is and it’s one of those things that where it’s like,

15:51
you know, it’s not always the person who’s the best. It’s just the person who doesn’t quit. And it’s just staying laser focused. And even if it is true, even if you have two people that like a post, or you get one comment on something you’ve worked really hard on, it doesn’t matter as long as you know, someone is responding and you’re pointing it out there. And before you know, you’ll get like thousand responses. But yeah, it is a bit soul destroying at the start when you are

16:19
creating videos and going live. And I did a lot of freebies as well. So I designed free cross stitch patterns and put those on there or say, you know, sign up for the email newsletter list. And there was an ebook of patterns. But yeah, funny memes. There’s lots of in jokes, I think that can be adapted for hobbies. So I’m trying to think. So I don’t know with cross stitch, for example, you’re supposed to have a piece of thread that’s no longer than from your hand to your elbow.

16:49
But that would then mean that you’ve got to replace it more often. So people that like to push it a little bit have like a piece that’s a meter long and then you’ll use it upright to the last millimeter and play thread chicken, it’s called. And then yeah, the old joke of where, you you’re supposed to just have one thing at a time, but actually most cross stitches have about 27 projects and flip around and do a little bit of each one. So yeah, lots of

17:19
funny memes and I think things that people can share and posts that people can tag their friends in. Giveaways, collaborations and going live really. People do love a live video.

17:33
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 obtained at mywifequitterjob.com slash free.

18:02
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.

18:14
Would you say that the community that you’ve developed is still your number one vehicle for customer acquisition or have things evolved? Yes, I would say so. I’d say Facebook, Facebook ads, the main page, the group. Facebook completely outdoes any other, for us, any other social media platform. YouTube is a pretty close second, great as well, and that’s been growing a lot recently.

18:43
And I think, just posting consistently sort of once a week and just really looking at the analytics and seeing what people are enjoying and also looking at when they’re dropping off so that, you you don’t want them a bit bored and see like that five minute mark, okay, everyone’s going now, making sure it’s really valuable. I’m pretty sure you didn’t have your YouTube channel four years ago. I did. You did. Okay. But it nearly as large. No, it wasn’t. It was probably, probably not even getting ad revenue or something.

19:13
I did start doing YouTube videos probably about seven years ago. I had another channel and I was doing cake decoration and all sorts of videos like that. But I’ve always loved photography, videography, just making any videos really. So it came quite naturally. you spend a lot of money on ads or is it mainly organic that drives most of your revenue?

19:39
Um, we spend a decent amount on ads. Um, would say mainly Facebook and Google ads. not a huge amount. Um, I think if we’ve got a specific project or a launch, we’ll plow a bit of money into it. Um, so for example, at the moment we are. In fact, we’re not doing any ads on our advent calendar because it’s actually going really well. But if we’ve got a few left and we really need to push them out and we’re getting towards September, October, we’ll do a specific advent calendar.

20:09
or a specific stocking filler ad or something like that. Okay. But for the most part, it’s organic, which is great because that means your profit margins are really good. Can we talk about your YouTube channel? Like when you started it and we know it’s, I mean, I started a YouTube channel about four years ago and starting it is, it’s, it’s a bit depressing, right? You spend all this time putting out a video and no one watches it and then you just have to continue on.

20:38
So what’s going be here? Yours has been absolutely incredible. I’ve been following it and I’m always shouting to my husband, tell him like, you’ll never guess. Look at Steve’s now. Well, I want to ask you about yours because, you know, when it comes to e-commerce, there’s, there’s people who just want to focus on the selling and they’re not willing to put the time in and go through the slog of a YouTube channel. So when you first set out,

21:06
Like what was the overall strategy and has it worked out the way you would have liked with your channel? So specifically with YouTube? Yes, that’s correct. So yes, it has worked out. Luckily how I hoped the strategy was, I suppose really in the basic sense to be on YouTube at all because one of the reasons why I chose the niche, one of the reasons why I chose the niche was because

21:33
I thought, well, actually looking at the other players in the category and looking at the competition, there wasn’t anyone really doing video and there wasn’t anyone doing lives and sort of putting their face out there really and being quite personal and doing so many tutorials and just bringing people behind the scenes. There were lots of websites, there’s lots of designers and manufacturers, but the

22:02
strategy really was just to produce really great quality videos. And I’ve always just stuck to one a week. I thought that’s manageable. I didn’t want to start doing too many and not be able to keep it up. So yeah, one video every week, we do Monday, 7pm. I do have other hosts as well, because it got a bit much for me to record and edit. I’ve now got a lovely editor over in the Philippines, which I think you might have helped with or pointing me in the right direction.

22:32
And it’s really helped because I can just send him like four videos at a time. And I think after a while you do sort of sync up how you work. And I think he understands now sort of which bits to cut out and which ones to keep in. I sometimes talk to him while I’m recording as well. I’ll be like, cut that bit out. And then, yeah, so I’ve currently got two other hosts. One main host, Ford, who’s amazing.

23:01
and he produces most of the content weekly. And then mine are probably like every fourth video will be me and then Jackie as well who will do the odd video or sort of stitch with me videos. those people who are on your staff for that, are they doing it like for fun because they just love it or are these people on your paid staff? Yeah, so essentially they’re freelancers. So yeah, they’re paid. mean, as you know, there’s so much goes into it.

23:30
And we plan out a lot ahead as well and sort of come up with a strategy of what’s going to come next. And then we work with our launch plan for the year as well to see if they can start promoting products earlier. So yeah, so they’re all paid. So how long did it take before the YouTube channel started bearing fruit for you? Oh, probably years.

23:57
exactly when it started. But it probably took a good two or three years. Two or three years. It’s so hard at the start. I think commenting on other people’s videos, being part of their communities as well, and just doing posting really helpful comments, or funny or just something, there’s no point I think commenting on stuff just like, oh, that’s amazing, or well done or great video. No one’s interested in that. And also, it’s really transparent because you can just see you can tell what people are doing.

24:28
But yeah, just really engaging with other accounts or doing collaborations or seeing if you can appear on their channels as well. Sort of like what we’re doing with a side-by-side camera. Even if it’s for five minutes, I would send products to bigger YouTube channels as well and get them, even if it was a second, to just like hold up the product and just say, oh, this is brand new, who is this? Yeah, I mean, everything sort of feeds into each other.

24:56
with YouTube. And the main things that it does for us is drives traffic to the website. But also actually above that, we’ve got the link to sign up for the email to newsletter list. Right. Because I know once I’ve got that, they’re in the funnel. So is it deliberate how you guide people over or is it they just kind of look in the description, they see the link to the newsletter? It’s pretty deliberate. We have a set format as well for each video.

25:24
So with the hosts, I like to not be too prescriptive and sort of controlling, I do my best. But there are certain things that we try to say at certain times or things that will flash up on the screen. Because a lot of the videos are quite long as well. So, you know, if it’s a 15 minute video, there’s certain points where they’ll mention either subscribing or the Facebook group or the email newsletter and the benefits of that as well.

25:52
Okay, yeah, I know for me, YouTube is actually now my number two email sub source outside of the blog. And I’m just very deliberate about just casually mentioning it. know, the video, don’t want be too obvious, but um, but you but equally, you have to sell it, you have to, there’s no point being too coy or shy about it. And there’s loads of benefits to it as well, because we do 10 % off and then we have an ebook of eight patterns.

26:22
to see you through the air. So I think that’s a pretty good And I was just, I’ve just been very shocked by how many people actually click into the description and click on a link in the description. I used to think that was just very low, but it’s actually pretty reasonable. I was just very shocked. Yeah, there’s a lot to be said, think, watching someone’s face on screen, hearing them talk, you feel like they’re a friend.

26:49
your I mean, there’s so much rubbish on YouTube as well of going, okay, this is a genuine person, they know what they’re talking about. And having that window of, okay, yeah, I’ll click this or I’ll give you my email address. It’s something that you can’t necessarily do as well if they can’t see you or you know, they’re just reading some reading words on the internet. Yeah, I was reading some of your reviews, actually, if your podcast and videos and things. And everyone’s saying that

27:16
what comes across is that trustworthiness and so genuine and so knowledgeable. And I think that’s what sets people apart from the people that are just trying it, you know, for the short term or they’re just giving it a go. You’ve got to be consistent and you’ve got to, like you’ve always sort of drilled into us, you know, be an expert in your fields so that people listen to you and respect you and then take that next step. You know, one thing I was actually on your site again, and it had been a while since I’d been on your website,

27:44
You have subscription boxes. Is that relatively new? We started those at the start of 2021. Ah, OK. So not since I last… We’re box 18 now. Wow. So walk me through that. Was that because you wanted a source of recurring revenue and you thought the box would be a great idea for that? Yes, that’s one of the reasons. Also, I just thought it’d be really fun to work with other designers.

28:11
So I don’t design every cross-stitch kit for the boxes. So there’s a new, each box is themed and those themes are chosen by the community. So for example, we’ve just had Easter eggs, which people are stitching now ready for Easter. And then the next one is Woodland Animals, which will be coming out in April. And then we have Halloween, we have a mythical theme, Christmas, we’ve had pets.

28:40
sewing, all kinds of things, lighthouses, seaside. So people will vote on the themes and then we will sort of in our team meetings at work brainstorm all the other things to go in and which designers we’d like to get to create the pattern. And then we produce the kit. They get a license fee for a year or two years for us to use it for the box. And then we work with other small businesses to find three unique items that we might design them ourselves, but

29:08
For example, if it’s hot chocolate or I don’t know, washi tape or ribbons and stuff like that. So when someone receives the box, obviously it’s branded Casper Cross Stitch and we’ve produced it all, but they’ve got a brand new designer that they might never have heard of. And then they’ve got three small businesses. So it could be sweet treats, could be gadgets, anything to do with sort of Cross Stitch. And then often people will then go and buy more from those other businesses as well.

29:38
Yes, the recurring revenue is also nice. That’s amazing. You know, I once interviewed someone on the show who ran a very successful subscription box. And I think one of the pain points that she mentioned was that every single month, you have to find new stuff to include. It’s not like a single product that you just sell the same thing. Yeah. Can we just talk about some of like the trade offs of your subscription box versus just your regular store where you’re selling similar things over and over and over again? Yeah. So

30:07
The box is really good value as well because it’s 25 pounds a box. actually I try to make it worth be worth about 35 pounds if you were to buy everything individually. We started off doing a box every three months. But actually that’s quite a long time because the the projects inside are about six inches so they’re much smaller and people were finishing them in a few weeks. So the

30:35
the majority wanted a bi-monthly box. So we moved to bi-monthly, but yeah, doing six boxes a year, six new designs, complete new themes, and then all the goodies as well to theme them, stick to the theme is a lot of work. We try not to duplicate anything as well. So, I mean, I’m sure we could, and I’m sure the production and fulfillment team would say, you know, let’s streamline this. But with my sort of,

31:05
creative hat on, like, we could do this, and let’s find these. And they’re like, that’s a brand new supplier, this is going to take a while. But yeah, it’s a lot of fun picking out the new things. We try to keep it relatively consistent. So there’s definitely a theme of, it’s going to be a handy craft related item, it can’t just be some random thing. But yeah, it’s a lot of work even on top of it, but we work really far in advance. So I’m working on Christmas right now. Wow.

31:32
Are the prior boxes available for sale in case someone wants to buy an older box? No, we try to not do that. I know that some people do or they’ll put the price up, but to encourage the subscriptions, we say it’s only available with a subscription. And when we have the cutoff dates as well, I will go live on that day and say, listen, if you want this or you’re interested, you have to subscribe now. Because I think otherwise, if they’re all available,

32:02
people might not subscribe. Depending on licenses and sometimes I’ll design them. So the Easter Eggs one that just shipped on the 1st of February, I designed that. So those ones will be available as kits separately, maybe six, nine months later, and they’ll just form part of our normal collection. But it very much depends on the designer.

32:29
and what they want to do because often they’ll do a design for the box and then a year later they’ll say well actually this is really popular I want to sell the PDF myself. Do you foresee the subscription box becoming a more significant portion of your revenue going forward or is it just kind of something fun that you like to do? Just kind of something fun I would say. mean it is profitable and it is growing.

32:56
It is a lot of work. You’re just packaging up so many things. Whereas one of our main kits could be 35 pounds just for the kit. Right. It’s definitely not, you know, one of the biggest contributors, but it’s a nice, a nice add on, shall we say? Sally, it seems like you’ve got so many things on your plate. I am just very curious. How do you allocate your own personal time?

33:24
that gives you kind of like the biggest bang for the buck or are you just kind of doing everything based on what you find fun at this point in the business? Probably bit of a mix. Okay. So I could probably be a bit more organized with how I structure the days and the weeks and the priorities. I think it’s a balance isn’t it between what’s the most profitable but then also what you enjoy.

33:49
We do have strategy days for directors sort of every six months or so where we look at the revenue streams and then how much time and effort goes into them. And also just do I actually enjoy it? And there’s some things that might not be as profitable, but I just love doing them. So like the stitching socials, the events are an awful lot of work, but you’ve only got a few people on each one. So actually it’s not the most profitable.

34:17
But I think then that connection with the audience means a lot and has a knock on effect because those people then go and tell their friends and they talk about it in other groups. A lot of the time I am just winging it and I’m just going with what’s most urgent that month. Yeah, there’s always so many things on the go and I think in some ways,

34:42
that’s just how I like to work. I think I thrive under pressure. I think I’ve always got a million ideas. And actually, I get bored very, very easily. So I think what would probably overwhelm some people, I don’t really think I get stressed by it almost energizes me. Right. And actually, I think I panic if I don’t have enough going on. there’s, think my brain just goes, you only have 57 things. Here’s another six. I’m like, okay, add it to the list.

35:11
Um, but I am trying to do sort of more outside of work as well. We was talking earlier about my piano lessons and, um, I’ve got a personal trainer now and I’m doing a marathon, as a relay, so I’m training for that. It’s not really a marathon. We’re only doing, I think 12 K each. That’s four of us. Um, and yeah, just trying to get involved in other stuff, painting and trying to take time out from the busy work schedule. Yeah.

35:41
I mean, now that you’ve taken a store to six figures, which was a big milestone, and now you’re at seven figures, what would you say were some of the bigger challenges taking it from six to seven figures specifically? Probably for me, touching on the last point as well, one of the hardest things has been when you start by yourself, you don’t have anyone to answer to. And to be honest, maybe it was a worry in the early days when I’d have three orders and I’d think, oh.

36:10
you know, this is not very many, this isn’t going very well. But equally, I had young children at home and I think, well, okay, you know, it’s growing and it was all very relaxed. And I was, I felt like I was my own boss. And even in 2020, when I hired my first employee, which I think by the end of the year, there was four or five of us, even that wasn’t that bad. It was quite manageable. Everyone knew what they were doing. It was all very defined roles.

36:38
And I still felt like I had control, I think, over what we did and when. And we didn’t really have to be that organized or planned so far ahead because if I want to do something two months later, we’d order the stock, we’d make it the numbers and the quantity just wasn’t there. So it was all relatively calm. So I would say definitely the hardest thing has been from that jump has been just the leveling up in terms of mindset.

37:07
I think there’s a lot of like imposter syndrome and sort of thinking hang on a minute, is this actually happening? But also the processes and the systems and the staff. There’s 14 of us now. Wow. And it’s a lot. I do often feel like I’m not actually in charge or I’m not actually.

37:32
the CEO all the time because there’s so much going on and you’ve got all these departments and there’s so much more work that has to go into the planning. So like we’ve, the whole of 2024 is completely planned out now, which is something I would, I would never normally do that. I would leave room for, you know, ideas and creativity. And if, you know, something just popped up in my inbox, but obviously you can’t do that at scale.

38:02
There’s bigger rewards, but there’s also bigger problems. It’s a lot of fun. It’s never a boring day, but I think mindset, also just the practicalities of the amount of people, the staff of absences, sickness, holidays, recruitment, managing staff, training them, and just making sure you’ve got enough stock as well. It’s, yeah, when you’ve got sort of thousands of units to ship out.

38:31
Yeah, it’s not the sort of thing that you can just do the week ahead and go, Oh, yeah, I’ll just pull on all night. So it’s a lot of planning that goes into it. Are you still doing a lot of your own fulfillment? Yes, we do all of it. Oh, you do all of it. Okay, wow. So that is that where a lot of your staff is is in the fulfillment area also or fulfillment and production, I say most of it’s in production.

38:55
gluing the needle minders, cutting the fabrics. We’ve got three machines for our threads that wind them onto the thread holders now. So you can choose the color and the length and it will rotate to give you seven meters, for example. And then packaging stuff up and sticking the labels on. So we’ve got three people in fulfillment, but then the vast majority is in production. And then we’ve got customer service, marketing, social media, stuff like that.

39:22
So I haven’t been able to take a step back though. not, I now do get to stick to sort of marketing, creative photography, video, design, all the stuff that I love. I was just gonna ask you that question. let’s say you didn’t have to run things. Where would you wanna be spending your time? Designing the kits or just come up with the ideas? I think the design does take

39:52
a really long time. So it would be nice to have a graphic designer to work alongside and someone to create the patterns as well. I do like coming up with the concepts for it. So I think I’m pretty good at color and just sort of balancing out a design. The detail of on the grid actually doing the pixels for the stitches and the patterns. My creative assistant does do an awful lot with the patterns and using.

40:21
Adobe Creative Cloud and everything. Yeah, think just planning out exciting new designs. love creating things, but then I love the events. I love video. I love making reels. I mean, I would spend a lot more time on TikTok if I could. I have to delete it at the moment because it’s too addictive. I think I wasted four hours last week in one go and I was like, what’s happened? But yeah, stuff. I love video.

40:51
So Sally, for the people listening here that want to start their business or maybe they’re at six figures or less and they want to get to the point where you’ve gotten to, if you were to advise them to just focus on like just one or two things, what would they be? Just giving your experience. I would probably say email marketing and content marketing. So we do a lot of blogs, you know,

41:19
the reels and YouTube and I think all of those things getting someone’s email, but then again, you used to drill into us, making sure that then you’ve got your email flow set up. So the welcome series, I think we’ve probably got eight emails in that and they’re very, very structured. We’ve analyzed the results in terms of how often to send them, how many days, the click through rates.

41:47
I’m obsessed with things like subject lines and colors. The colors of a button to click and the psychology behind that, making things stand out. And then post purchase and abandoned cart and segmenting people as well. And luckily people don’t really seem to unsubscribe from emails very much. And the open rate.

42:15
they tell me is above the average. So we sometimes get to 40 % open, which is amazing. So I would just say email marketing, like whatever you can do, just collect those emails. So if you’re on social media, think doing lives as well is great. Facebook lives, YouTube lives, and then just always make sure you get someone to sign up for the email newsletter list. We also do Facebook ads for the email list. Oh, you do. Okay.

42:45
Yeah. So you mentioned a couple things there. You mentioned blog, YouTube channel, shorts. Let’s say you had to pick one. Okay, I know I’ve still that was the question wasn’t it? And I’ve now given you too many answers.

43:00
Facebook and Facebook groups Facebook groups for your demographic. Yes. Because you’re talking sort of 40 5060 year olds, right? So it would be very different if you had a product and you were targeting obviously like 24 year olds. Yeah, but for for the stitches and for sharing photos of the progress to be able to upload it in the group and then get comments and tips. It’s the perfect format for that. A lot of people are thinking

43:28
complain that Facebook can be, you know, they’re a bit snarky or mean or, you know, funny comments, but we’ve got really strict rules in the Facebook group and everyone has to be sort of positive and kind and friendly. And we don’t stand for any drama. So anything happens and we’re done. So we’re really careful that everyone’s very supported and protected in there as well because, you know, you might have mental health issues, there might be sickness.

43:55
People might be stitching for all sorts of reasons and they come on there for an escape. So it is like a bit of a sanctuary. about blogging versus YouTube versus short form? I would say I probably put blogging for us at the bottom because it’s so visual that they need to be able to see the techniques. Right. So I’d probably put YouTube at the top, short form video, then blogs. Okay.

44:23
But blogs have definitely still got a place. Yeah, things are just changing so quickly. This is why I asked, you know, with AI and I don’t know if this has affected you as much, but I know for for my wife, quitterjob.com, tons of spam content just auto generated from AI now that are just kind of flooding Google. There’s even like faceless YouTube videos now that are flooding YouTube. Wow, I haven’t actually seen any yet.

44:54
I don’t think we have too much of problem with it. Probably not in cross stitch, I would guess. But just in the business space, at least. It’s probably like 25 % of my feed now is actually AI voices or whatever. And they have a lot of views. So, you know, it might be working. I don’t know. I a little wary about a future where everything is just you’re just watching robots, you know, creating content.

45:22
Yeah, mean, I saw an Instagram account the other day that’s got millions of followers and it’s basically a robot and it’s this woman and they’ve sort of made her into this perfect woman and it’s completely fake but people are following and commenting as if she’s real, it’s so bizarre. I mean, I think there will be some restrictions on it. I mean, surely at some point or I don’t know, legislation or something. I think maybe the cross-stitch is a bit too small to be on the radar perhaps.

45:53
I mean, I sometimes use it to sort of help with, you know, if you’ve run out of inspiration or you’re trying to be a bit more concise or get to the point a bit more, it is really handy for some things if I’m preparing something. But, but as far as you can see, AI is probably not, not going to affect your industry as much. I don’t think so. No, hopefully no.

46:22
Well, Sally, it’s been great catching up. We should probably do this sooner than once every four years. We should have a regular annual podcast. Well, maybe next time we’ll have Jan, you’ll hit 10 million. That might be a while, but we’ll see. Maybe in four years. And I hope we get a chance to meet up one of these days. But for the people listening, where can people check out your awesome cross-stitch kits and your cool events, subscription boxes and everything like that?

46:51
So if you already are a Cross Stitcher or you want to get involved, you can go to caterpillacrossstitch.com. Our Instagram and Facebook YouTube is all at caterpillacrossstitch. And we’re on TikTok. And also if you are interested in purchasing things as of today, this is an exclusive, our products are now available for sale in John Lewis, which if you’re in America, you might not have heard of it, but in England, it’s a big deal.

47:18
And it’s one of my favorite stores. So it’s my first job was there. So it’s a big department store basically. And we had meetings from September last year. And as of today, the products are in the shops and on their website. you can also go and check my job. Congratulations. We didn’t even talk about that. We’ll save it for next time. That’s very exciting. for sure. We can talk about the pitch and the meetings because it was a bit apprentice like with a

47:47
Well, Sally, thanks so much for coming back on the show. I appreciate you. No worries at all. Thanks, Steve.

47:59
Hope you enjoyed this episode. Now, Sally is an amazing person and I have no doubt that she’ll hit the 10 million mark by the next time she’s on the show. For more information about this episode, go to mywebcoderjob.com slash episode 529. And once again, tickets to Seller Summit 2024 are now on sale over at sellersummit.com. If you want to hang out in person in a small intimate setting, develop real relationships with like-minded entrepreneurs and learn a ton, then come to my event. Go to sellersummit.com. And if you are interested in starting your own e-commerce store,

48:29
Head on over to mywifecoderjob.com and sign up for my free six day mini course. Just type in your email and I’ll send you the course right away. Thanks for listening.