Now I’m always super excited to talk about Klaviyo because they are the email marketing platform that I personally use for my ecommerce store, and I actually depend on Klaviyo for over 20% of my revenues. Now you’re probably wondering why Klaviyo and not another email provider. Well Klaviyo is the only email platform out there that is specifically built for ecommerce stores, and here’s why it is so powerful.

Klaviyo can track every single customer who has shopped in your store and exactly what they bought which makes it extremely powerful. So let’s say I want to send an email to everyone who purchased a red handkerchief in the store in the last week, easy. Let’s say I want to set up a special autoresponder sequence to my customers depending on what they purchased, piece of cake, and there’s actually full revenue tracking on every single email.

Klaviyo is the most powerful email platform that I have ever used and you can actually try them for free at mywifequitherjob.com/Klaviyo, and that’s spelled K-L-A-V-I-Y-O, so once again that’s mywifequitherjob.com/Klaviyo.

I also want to give a shout out to Privy who is also a sponsor of the show. Now what’s cool is I also use and rely on Privy for both my blog and my online store. So what does Privy do? Privy is an email list growth platform, and they actually manage all of my email capture forms, and in fact I use Privy hand in hand with Klaviyo.

Now there is a bunch of companies out there that will manage your email capture forms, but here is why I like and chose Privy. So Privy is easily the most powerful platform that I’ve ever used, and you can trigger sign up forms based on any primer that you desire. So let’s say you offer free shipping for orders over $100, well you can tell Privy to flash a popup when a customer has 90 bucks in their shopping cart to urge them to insert one more item.

Here’s another cool use case, if someone has item A in their shopping cart, I can easily tell Privy to display a special coupon code for that item or to display a related item or offer. In terms of email capture, I’m showing a different email lead magnet depending on what product a customer is browsing in our shop.

So bottom line Privy allows me to turn visitors into email subscribers, which I then feed to Klaviyo to close the sale. So head on over to Privy.com/steve and try it for free, and if you decide you need the more advanced features, use coupon code MWQHJ for 15% off. So once again that’s privy.com/steve, now on to the show.

Intro: Welcome to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast. We will teach you how to create a business that suits your lifestyle, so you can spend more time with your family and focus on doing the things that you love. Here is your host, Steve Chou.

Steve: Welcome to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast, today I’m thrilled to have Tracy Matthews on the show. Now Tracy is someone who I was introduced to by Andrea Ares and she runs the popular site flourishthriveacademy.com, where she teaches others how to sell jewelry online. Now Tracy has a ton of experience in this area and her jewelry line was sold in over 350 retail outlets all over the globe including ABC Home, Sundance Catalog, Bloomingdales, and she’s been featured in many magazines like Real Simple, InStyle and Lucky magazine.

Now in my create a profitable online store course, there are several students selling jewelry to varying degrees of success, and to be honest I think that selling jewelry is not one of my most recommended niches, because it is so competitive and you really have to market yourself well to stand out. But since Tracy specialized in jewellery sales and she is very successful at it, I’m very eager to pick her brain on tactics specifically for the jewelry niche. And with that welcome to the show Tracy, how are you doing today?

Tracy: I’m doing great, thanks for having me Steve.

Steve: So give us the quick background at how you got into ecommerce and specifically jewelry?

Tracy: Okay so back in the olden days when I was in college, I took a jewelry making class as an elective, and I knew that – probably a couple of months into
that class that this is what I was going to do for a career. The independent jewelry seen in the early 90s were just sort of emerging, and I was working in a lot of boutiques and specialty stores at the time, working in retail and I just loved the idea of selling my jewelry in the store.

So fast forward a couple of years later I launched my business full time, I worked from a part time business to full time business and started selling to stores. So back in those days, selling to retail stores was pretty much the only way you could have a jewelry business, the internet wasn’t really around. I remember when I started my company, this is so embarrassing back in 1998, I don’t think I even had an email address; we used to fax in phone in order to communicate.

Steve: Wow, okay.

Tracy: Which I felt was pretty crazy. So fast forward a couple of years later ecommerce started coming around, and I started my first ecommerce website for my company at that time Tracy Matthews Designs. Ecommerce at that was really just like a secondary part of our business because still 95% of the business came from wholesale. So I closed that business down in 2010 to start anew direction doing custom work and selling jewelry to private clients, and I knew when I started this new business model because it was so different and working directly with clients that I was going to be meeting a lot of people online.

In fact 50% of my leads come from people just finding me through organic search on Google. So I knew that a lot had to change, I had to change the way that I was showing up in my business, I had to change the way that I was branding myself and I also had to change the way that I was communicating on my website if I wanted people who were just finding me randomly who didn’t know who the heck I was to actually fill out that form and move to the next set.

So that’s sort of my journey into the jewelry industry and I had an ecommerce site for many years, I’m going to be probably eventually launching a ready to wear bridal line which will have an ecommerce aspect in it, but I also teach thousands of jewelry designers how to create rounds online and also have successful ecommerce stores.

Steve: Yeah absolutely and we’re definitely going to talk about that. I‘m just curious just hearing your story why did you start the wholesale business in favor of more I guess you wanted interaction with your clients?

Tracy: That is a great question. I’ll try to make the story short; it’s kind of a long story. I had been in wholesale for about 11 years at that time, something like that before I closed the business. I don’t know if you remember 2008, but it was a very tumultuous time in the economy.

Steve: Yes it was, yeah.

Tracy: And quite honestly it was a combination of factors. I’d been in the industry for a long time, the face of wholesale was changing at that particular time, and the type of jewelry that I design was very personal, kind of [inaudible 00:07:31] and the trend in the market was kind of going more towards big and bold and cheap and chick at that time because people didn’t have as much expendable income to spend.

So the middle market was starting to close and I did have a fine jewelry line that time that was starting to become successful, I started shipping to a bunch of stores. Some of my best accounts were picking it up which is great kind of moving it to that new direction that my business was evolving into.

Then 2008 I started getting bankruptcy notices from some of these companies in the mail which for anyone who has a forward based business who is shipping lots of volume like a thousand units at a time or sometimes $100,000 orders it can be quite detrimental if you don’t get paid on time for your cash flow, or when people tell you that they are pretty much not going to pay you.

So I was faced with a choice, do I stay open or do I change directions? I lost my passion for wholesale at that time, and I was working with business consulting, I highly recommend getting consultants serve you in your business, I think that was the best decision I’d ever made, I actually made it too late. But working with this business consultant slowly helped me pull out what it is that I love to do and he kept asking me these questions to do with me, like what is it that you love, what do you love about this business, what do you hate about this business, where do you see yourself?

And I’m like I really miss the interaction with the clients and I missed that, I missed the designing part, I missed this creative process piece and I missed having a personal connection. And so we kind of worked shop together and I’ve been doing fine jewelry for a while, and I had designed my first engagement ring a couple of years into my fine jewelry line, and I realized that that’s sort of the direction I wanted to go in, and it was like feeding my soul. So I think that it was just an opportunity for me to kind of reinvent and have my small successful business.

Steve: Would you just say that if you wanted to go into jewelry today, you should just go to the extreme either like really fine jewelry or less expensive jewelry as opposed to that middle ground?

Tracy: That’s a great question; it depends on what you’re trying to do. I’m not really a huge fun of people like under pricing jewelry or importing jewelry from China and trying to have a jewelry brand, I mean like everyone is doing that. What we really do is we try to get people to position themselves from their brand.
It’s interesting; I was talking with a former client of mine who owns this great store the [inaudible 00:10:17].

She came and talked to our community and she was saying one of the things that drives her crazy about designers coming in is that they really don’t know who their customer is, and they end up designing for millenials but then over price their work and millenials can’t afford it, they are making things basically in a baby boomer price point. So I think when it comes to really expensive or really cheap, I think it really starts with knowing who your customer is.

If you are designing for millenials, then design in the millennial price point and work backwards so that you can do that. If you are designing for people in their 40s and 50s who have a lot of expendable income like I do, then design fine jewelry or things in a higher price point that they can actually afford. So I think that you can have a successful business in any price point, you just need to be really clear on who it is that you are targeting and what your positioning is on your brand.

Steve: Okay, I guess one of my main questions is what makes selling jewelry different than for example selling other regular retail products online?

Tracy: Well I think jewelry is a really personal purchase. There’s been a huge rise of people self purchasers these days, where they are buying jewelry for themselves to commemorate special occasions, it’s no longer just like a gift giving thing anymore even though that’s still a huge part of the market.
One of the things that I always try to do when creating different jewelry collections over the course of my career is to create things that people want to collect, and I think that’s something that’s so different about jewelry is that it’s really a collectible item, it’s something that is often passed down through the generations. Depending on the type of jewelry it is, junk costume jewelry is probably not, but my grandmother gave me some really cool costume jewelry and I love it, so maybe, you never know.

But thinking about it in terms of what is the meaning behind it, and I think jewelry is very different than other products because for instance like a sweater that you might buy on [inaudible 00:12:23] you might have like a very classic cardigan that you wear for years but like a Chinese sweater or something like that might be out of style in two years where a very personal piece of necklace you might wear for 20, 30 – it might be around for a hundred years because it’s being passed down.

Steve: Right, so how do you frame your jewelry in such a way that it makes it like a collectible, and how do you make the customer feel the meaning of your jewelry?

Tracy: I think a lot of it comes to your brand positioning; there is no doubt about it, you can literally throw a rock and hit a jewelry designer, there are so many others these days. It’s how you can position yourself and stand out and how you can share your story. So I’ll just share an experience for my personal life, my mother passed away when I was in my early 20s and if she hadn’t passed away, I probably would have never fallen into the jewelry industry, that’s a story for another day.

Because of that I had inherited some diamonds from her and other pieces of jewelry that were basically family items and these diamonds were not set. So I wanted to create something for myself that I would wear every day, so that was my first piece of earring redesign. And the way I position myself is based on my story about my mother, and I redesign a lot of family items into pieces of jewelry that people want to wear every day.

So a lot of the customers that come to me, they find me because they are maybe searching for a redesigned family earrings or something like that, they land on my website, they see my story, they go to my about page, read what I’m all about and my history and then we have strong calls to action that gets them buying to the next step.

So I think that for every designer it’s a little bit different, we work with people who do personalized jewelry, they have a different kind of story, or people who have a very formal training at GIA and they came about designing jewelry in a different way.

So I think there are so many different ways to position your jewelry business, but I think a lot of personal branding and the success of a jewelry business comes down to what it is that you stand for, the values, the prop that we call this the [inaudible 00:14:43] proposition, other people call it a unique selling proposition or an emotional selling proposition, it’s like how you are connecting with your audience to position your brand and then turning that into something maybe that is going to be something that they want to collect down the road.

Steve: Does that apply then that you have to use your own face and your own personality when selling your jewelry, or can you still create like a non personal brand?

Tracy: You definitely can create a non personal brand; I think that there are many successful brands out there who have. Some use like different types of names like a pseudo name or something like that. Most of the brands I’m going to use, they do show their face at some point, but remember this like [inaudible 00:15:30] back in the days with those really successful called King Baby, and I can’t remember the guy who owns it, but he really position himself like all the imagery on the site wasn’t really about him, it was more about the jewelry but then you find out about him when you go to the bio page. Or there is – I’m trying to think of another good example.

Steve: It sounds like story is a very strong aspect of being successful in the jewelry business?

Tracy: I think so. We have a lot of introverts or shy people, there is a lot of introverts that are very social, but there is a lot of shy introverts who are afraid to put themselves out there, and that’s fine. But I think the more that you’re able to put yourself out there, the more people want to buy from you, because that’s my personal experience at least the types of clients that I work for. There are many successful beginning and small name jewelry brands that never show their face, but they are really positioning or branding, it’s just a little bit different. But I think from a niche designer, positioning on your story and your values can be really valuable in helping you grow your business.

Steve: Okay so I know you teach a very successful class on how to start a jewelry business, so I was hoping that maybe you could just walk me through the process, like let’s say someone out there listening wants to start a jewelry business, what’s the first step? Assuming I’ve already created some jewelry, do you advice like I go on Etsy, do is start my own site, what’s the first step?

Tracy: Well it really depends on the amount of money you have to invest in it, how much time you’re willing to put in it, because there’s a lot of different ways that you can successfully run a business. You could do in person events like craft shares and craft fairs, you can set up a website which as you know and your audience should know that takes a little bit of time to get traffic to the website and to be able to build the website up.

If you want it fast you can get on Etsy as you mentioned. There were some pitfalls that come with that or you can go back and try to wholesale right away. There is a lot of different ways that you can start a business, I think the things to consider in the beginning are – we try to walk people through understanding like when they’re designing collections who their audience is which I mentioned earlier, how they’re going to be positioning their brand, so these are sort of the steps if we’re not talking about the legal steps to start a business.

Steve: Yeah not the legal steps yeah.

Tracy: And then we will talk about collection development because I think that’s a really important piece. A lot of people who fall into jewelry making or jewelry design don’t really think like a designer, they think like a maker and they just make a bunch of stuff because they like it and not think about how that ties into a merchandising perspective, which from a retail standpoint that’s like one of the number one things that buyer s are looking at.
It doesn’t matter what kind of buyer it is, whether it’s someone landing on your website for the first time, someone buying from you in personal, or someone buying from a boutique or a specialty store, how your collection merchandises together is what makes it sell.

Steve: Can we talk about that a little bit?

Tracy: Yeah, sure.

Steve: What goes into creating a collection so to speak?

Tracy: What goes in to creating, we call it collections that sell.

Steve: Yeah I don’t know anything about this so…

Tracy: There are three main aspects. If you think about a lot of successful businesses it’s like it’s pretty prevalent these days across all industries, but if you go into a fast food restaurant and you order a burger, they are always going to be trying to sell you fries with that or a full meal. So you have to be thinking like how you are building your collection around it, so you start with your signature pieces which we call the gateway pieces. They are the pieces that people – they’re probably going to be your best sellers and the things like people are always going to buy.

Then you want to build that also around your statement pieces. The statement pieces are the pieces that are bigger and bolder and it doesn’t matter if you design [inaudible 00:19:34] jewelry or supper substantial cost to your jewelry. They are the ones that really like catch the eye, so those are the pieces like if you’re displaying at show or they are in a retail case or on your website, people might go to first, but they might not always be the ones that they buy, they sort of like draw the attention in.

Then sort of round if out by the up sell or the add on item which is like a lower price point item that can be literally up sold at the end, so like maybe someone comes in and buys your middle price point necklace and then they want a pair of earrings to go with that. That’s the development around it and then as far as a price point structure level and then on top of that you have to be thinking about design, like what do you stand for as an artist, what’s your signature style, what are the key elements that are tying all the pieces in the collection together? Is it a design esthetic, is it a color story, is it how the pieces are made, or is it something else.

So it’s a combination of esthetics, I would say size, scale, structure, price point, all those things and how all that works together as a unit as a whole.

Steve: Can we use an example of one of your collections for example just to kind of fill in some of these blanks because I don’t understand all the terminology and everything.

Tracy: Absolutely, so when I was designing like foreign collections when I wholesaled, I would have like a necklace that sold really well, and it was like the best seller, I’m trying to think of the name of it, I was going to use the name, I will call the Shonti [ph] necklace. I used to teach yoga, so a lot of my pieces were named after…

Steve: Okay so you were targeting yoga people specifically?

Tracy: Not necessarily, it was more of a fashion jewelry line, but a lot of the influences of my design were based on Indian architecture or Moroccan shapes. So it made sense that I would use those fancy names. So then I would have a similar shape to earring but maybe that was like smaller that went with that. So maybe the necklace retailed for $125 and then the earrings retailed for $50, and then when I would be merchandising I would have another necklace like let’s say on the pendant, the chain for the Shonti necklace that I’m making up right now.

It had like an element and some stones or whatever. I would have something similar to that, but let’s say instead of one element in the center of the necklace, they would be like three or four or five elements of a similar shape on like one piece, so it was like a statement piece that really stood out. Without having visuals in front of you that’s the best way I can explain it over just with my voice.

Steve: I think I can understand, so you have something that basically draws everyone’s attention and it might be more expensive or too bold for people who actually buy it, but then they buy the toned down version, is that…

Tracy: Yeah they buy the toned down version because maybe – a lot of people do buy statement jewelry obviously, there is tons of statement jewelry brands, but you want to be building collections around these three aspects. So even if you’re only selling items like let’s say you only sell bracelets and you don’t do all categories of jewelry, you would want to have a low, medium, and higher price point piece and with those scaled price points, they will be like more embellishments based on the design and price.

Steve: Can we talk about pricing a little bit, like how do you come up with your prices?

Tracy: Jewelry is very specific pricing formula I guess is the best way to put it, and there is no really one way to price, so it’s confusing. I think the one thing that people need to remember is that you need to make sure that you have your archer crossing down and that you’re changing fair market labor for the labor of the piece.

Probably the people in your audience, probably a lot of them aren’t necessarily makers, they might be people who are outsourcing jewelry design, or outsourcing the making of the jewelry, that’s great because I’m a huge believer in that because I feel like you get fair market rates. I think when people get into trouble is if they are actually making now the jewelry themselves, and they think, oh I want to make $50 or $100 an hour and they are wrapping a necklace, that’s not a fair market wage rate for that labor.

So you need to get the actual costing down of the materials and the fees and a fair market rate for the labor that’s included, and the first thing that you need to do is to be taking those same things and then marking them up to a wholesale price point. So just a basic formula because there is so much more involved in this like with over heads and how much you market at, but let’s just say you’re using a basic pretty simple formula.

You take the labor and the materials, charge that by two, that gets you to a wholesale price point, and then to get your retail you’d want to charge that number by 2.2. So let’s say we have $10 cost of material and labor, that gets you to $20, and then that will get you to I think about $50, $20 wholesale and then like $50 retail if that make sense.

Steve: So that’s interesting, so that’s like a very scientific way of pricing, and I know I just bought something for my wife from Cartier [ph], and I guarantee you that it was marked up.

Tracy: Oh my god, Cartier market are pretty more than that.

Steve: Yeah exactly, so I’m just curious like you mention like story and all that stuff that will entice people to pay more. So you had that formula that you just gave me but for the students in your class for example that have managed to gain the mind share of their follower, how does the pricing work, and can you price a lot higher?

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Tracy: You absolutely can. When I’m pricing my custom jewelry a lot of it really depends on the variables of the project, it depends on who I’m working with, return of the budget of the client and it also depends on what I like to call the pain in the ass factor, like how hard are they to work with. So I’m obviously designing something different, it’s not ready to wear and it’s custom, so there was like a lot more expensive. I try to educate my clients on the front end that you can’t compare a custom piece of jewelry to a commission piece of jewelry basically.

So something that you find in the market, there are like apples and oranges, but for people who are designing ready to wear product or ready to wear jewelry in particular, a lot of it really comes down to what I spoke about earlier on understanding who your audience is, understanding who you are designing for and then understanding what the perceived value really is on your work because a lot of things you can charge, have a lot bigger margins because people see that there is much more value there.

A lot of things can’t be marked up that much. I think Etsy has created this phenomenon of people totally under pricing their work, and it’s devastating for the jewelry industry. I think that what I really encourage designers to do and makers to do is to come up with something different, like come up with a new idea. It’s cool that you started this hobby making things and you’re turning into a business like I’m all for it, but now it’s time to appreciate even further, like what makes your designs different than everyone else’s.

So like really be pushing that design piece and then I think like communicating the value of the process and what goes into the work to your clients, I think that’s really the most important piece with pricing and being able to charge a little bit more. If you can’t successfully do that, people aren’t going to buy it.

Steve: So in your case, what would be something noble in the world of jewelry, like I obviously don’t know anything about jewelry, so like what is an example of something noble that you have done and can you kind of go through the process that you’ve conveyed to the customer?

Tracy: What do you mean by noble?

Steve: You mentioned that when you’re designing jewelry, it helps to have something that is totally unique, doing something that other people…

Tracy: Okay so like something that I’ve done?

Steve: Or anything or any of your students that have been successful.

Tracy: Well this is a good example because I think it’s really unique and very different. We had a student come through our program a couple of years ago, and she designed like centic [ph] food jewelry which was really kind of random, I’m like I don’t know who would really like to wear like centic [inaudible 00:29:20] of jewelry but she had a huge market for it.

It was a very low price point, it’s very different, I’ve never seen anything like it. I still haven’t seen anything else like it, and it was something, she sold it like more on mass, but it was something that was very different and very unique to her. So we have – I’m trying to think of someone really specific.

Steve: That’s pretty unique.

Tracy: It’s pretty unique. We have another design on our mastermind program right now J. Kerry of the [inaudible 00:29:51] and she — a lot of people do personalization, but I found this really unique, they customized latitude and longitude points for their particular stores and clients. So they’ll do like a whole range of products that are personalized just for that store based on their latitude and longitude location. So it’s great for like destination spots, vacation spots where people are buying, so I think people will be willing to reimburse a little more or something like that, you know what I’m saying?

Steve: Yeah totally, so once you have your unique aspect with your jewelry and let’s say you’ve done a really good job with your story telling and the process by which you make the jewelry, how do you actually get the buyers to come to you?

Tracy: Well yeah, that’s a great question. I think in any business especially products type businesses, unless you’re going like [inaudible 00:30:50] to like really like ninja ecommerce strategies like you do, I think it takes like really a variety of methods. For instance like my business from the beginning, I did have a huge wholesale business, I did trade shows, I met buyers; I got class and had my work on a lot of celebrities.

But it wasn’t like I started my business and that happened, that was like over the course of 11 years. It started step by step and when I was just starting out, I would do anything to get an introduction to a store owner. Like basically I really have always said that my business has grown based on my frontal, whether it be referrals, people sending their friends to your website or people providing introductions to maybe a store owner because they are friends with them.

My first store opened when a friend of mine who was from Portland, Oregon introduced me to the store owners of the amazing store called Twist [ph], and that introduction then saw another introduction that I had to this store in Francisco where I was living at the time called [inaudible 00:31:53]. Those two doors opened like a whole variety of doors for me in the wholesale world because if you were selling at those stores people found you valid.

So that becomes like sort of their system overflow and building trust, it’s like recommendation. So testimonials on your website, how other types of social proof that you’re getting, referrals from other customers and I think something that you asked like how, I think there are so many ways, that’s one way, referrals.

Steve: Let’s say I want to get into wholesale for example, what would be like the first step that you would recommend?

Tracy: Well you need to get a line sheet together and a line sheet is basically a wholesale catalog of your work. You need to have all these branding assets that we spoke about earlier together; you need to have a really tight collection that has something unique and different. You need to have clearly maybe a store list of stores that you want to sell to that are not necessarily selling products like yours, but that your jewelry actually hangs with the designers that they are working with.

You need to understand who their customer is so that you’re making sure that you’re approaching the right kinds of stores. Basically you would just start with like sending them post cards or shooting them emails; I think that’s the best way or getting introductions from other people.

Steve: So when you mention a collection I just want to touch back on this, does that imply that you need pieces for like a necklace, a bracelet, earrings, and that sort of thing?

Tracy: It can but there is different ways to develop collections, because you can have an item driven business where like let’s say your entire collection is only hoop earrings. You could do an entire collection only of hoop earrings in different varieties of styles and that would be what I consider an item based collection.

Steve: Okay.

Tracy: Or you can do something where it’s like all sorts of products that like coordinate together.

Steve: So how many pieces constitute a collection?

Tracy: Twelve to 24 I would say minimum, but when I was wholesaling I had up to 150, it depends.

Steve: Oh my goodness, okay. So basically you can’t just walk into one of these stores with like five pieces and hope to get in?

Tracy: Do you probably won’t get in? It’s hard, those like the businesses I think are better for like selling an entire — like if you only want to go deep in
like five designs, selling it on a platform like Etsy or Amazon handmade, or you could try it on your own website, but if you’re really serious about building a brand, you need to develop a cohesive collection.

Steve: Okay that’s good to know. So assuming I have all these pieces, is there any kind of strategies involved, like I’m emailing a store, what do I say?

Tracy: Hi there, my name is Tracy Matthews. My friend so and so told me about your store and I just love what you are doing. I wanted to introduce my line to you, here is a little bit about my line, I would probably tell them a little bit about my line. I’ve been featured in these places, and some of my key accounts are these stores. It depends on the account, but you might want to reference stories, you might not, because some stores like it, some stores don’t.
I think smaller stores would like to know that you are like in a really awesome door. Here’s a link to my line.

Steve: This is my first store though.

Tracy: Your first store. I would try actually; here is what I would do if it’s your first store. I would try to look in your local market; it’s always easier to start locally than anywhere else. I would find a couple of stores in your local market, I would walk in, get a sense of what the vibe is there, try to talk to someone.

I won’t try to show them your jewelry right there, I would try to talk to someone and have a conversation with them about who does the buying, complement them on their store, get more information, and then put yourself out there to say – hopefully they comment on the jewelry that you are wearing because you’re wearing your jewelry in the store, right?

Steve: Yeah.

Tracy: And then start a conversation and try to get an appointment with the buyer that way. I think locally that’s the best way is to develop a relationship and just say I’d love to make an appointment with the buyer. You can’t take it personally if they say no or they are not interested at the time. These people are really busy and it might take a couple of tries before you get in the door. I know that there are statistics out there that says 7 to 10 touches before I know turns into a yes.

So it takes some time and you have to give yourself in, but I would do that and try to get in to a couple of stores in your local market and then I would leverage those local stores into like maybe surrounding areas. For instance like when I lived in Francisco, there was like 15 neighborhoods in Francisco that I could potentially sell into. So I was like stock all those neighborhoods, try to get into one store each in those neighborhoods, and then I would go to the south bay, and then I would go to the east bay and then I would go to [inaudible 00:36:49].

So you are like expanding your circle. Same thing with New York, it’s like you might want to sell this to so and so, then you might sell to a store in the west village, you might sell to your store in Brookland. So just expanding in different neighborhoods, and then so as to give you exposure and leverage to get introductions…

Steve: To get into the bigger ones.

Tracy: Yeah.

Steve: Okay, it works just like wholesaling for other products that way too, you start out with small stores. Okay and in terms of what makes a jewelry line a success at one of these smaller boutiques in terms of sales?

Tracy: I mean related price on the store, I think that educating the sales people about your product I think this is really important so that they know what to talk about. I think being in a store that actually is committed to selling your work; I think it’s a struggle these days. A lot of stores call themselves like a wholesale store or whatever but they are just taking stuff on consignment and that’s tough, like I don’t recommend that at all.

I recommend trying to go for stores who are actually going to buy your product, because they invested in the inventory and they want to sell it. So really like developing partnerships with the stores that you’re working with and teaching them how to sell your work I think is like the number one key to success.

Steve: Is there like a minimum order?

Tracy: I think that people should have minimum orders for sure. I don’t like dollar amount minimums because I think that money gets in the way of strategic buying. Instead I would recommend people having a per piece minimum depending on the type of collection that they have. So for some collection that might be six pieces because it’s a bolder collection.

My collection was always kind of [inaudible 00:38:34] so 12 pieces made sense from a merchandising stand point, and for other collections it might be a little bit more, but I would have a like per piece minimum, I think that’s really the best way to go.

Steve: It also sounds like of you have a really good online presence or just a presence in general, the chances of getting in the store are much easier, and so what are some of the things that you recommend to really get the brand out there?

Tracy: I can tell you honestly most stores will not take you seriously unless you have a beautifully branded website, an Etsy shop is not enough, Amazon store is probably a ton of moth only. You could do those things on the side but I wouldn’t advertize it. A website is basically like your digital business card, and it shows people that you are a serious business owner and that you are legitimate.

There is something about it. I talk to so many business owners and like I said there are so many ways to sell jewelry, like you don’t even have to wholesale your jewelry in order to have a successful business, I don’t anymore and I’m doing multiple six figures these days. So it’s not that hard, it’s just about being strategic and understanding who your audience is.

So I think a website really creates – a good website creates really a lot of brand validity and I think what you need to do on that website is to be able to build trust when people land there, to make it look like you know what you are doing and to make it look like you are not a [inaudible 00:39:59]. You can do through your imagery, having really good professional photographs through a lifestyle look book sort of images that create the feeling of your brand and what you stand for.

I’ve heard so many times the about page is the number one visited page on a website because people want to know what the company is all about, whether or not you are a personal brand or you’re just a brand name. A well written about page that draws the reader in is very important, it’s about them not just you which I think is a huge mistake I see designers doing all the time.

And then a website that takes people to the next step is important, so if you want to wholesale, so if I’m a wholesale buyer and I’m checking you out, I want to know like how do I order wholesale from you if I want to? So you need to make that crystal clear on your website if that’s an offer that you have.

Steve: Does that imply that you need a shopping cart on your website or?

Tracy: No you don’t have to; I mean for ecommerce obviously you do. I think over time it can be expensive to build out, that’s a nice park and I know some website platforms you can basically like replicate your ecommerce store and turn it into a wholesale store by just creating like a discount for that particular store, but there is a place you can do it.

But what I would do is have some sort of password protected area on your site where buyers can go and apply and then log in and then they can go into the secret area of your website and check out your line sheets or ordering your shopping cart, but it’s not necessary but it’s a good idea to have. It’s not necessary to have a shopping cart.

Steve: People can check out Tracymatthews.com, is that the site?

Tracy: Yeah Tracymatthews.com is my jewelry site, full disclosure I don’t wholesale anymore so you won’t have that, I don’t have that but you can see how I walk people through the custom jewelry process and get them to fill out my form on there.

Steve: Okay and it is still that site where you’re getting your custom customers, is that correct?

Tracy: Yes, absolutely.

Steve: Okay we’ve walked through going in stores, what are some of the other ways to market your jewelry as a small business owner?

Tracy: Online is a great way, it’s a great way to get the word out there about what you do, but like I said jewelry is really a very referral business and people – I don’t know if this is your answer Steve but a lot of people just put up a website and expect people to show up.

Steve: Exactly yes, it never happens.

Tracy: It requires strategies, so it’s like what is your marketing strategy, how are you getting the word out there? I think a huge missed opportunity that people don’t leverage enough is their friends and family network, and people think that that’s not a super professional way to build a business, but it really is like even to this day a lot of my best sales have come from a family or a good friend referring another person to me and then they refer someone and they refer someone. So it starts there and then expands beyond that.

So that’s the place to start. Obviously as you start to grow you want to be building your brand, and so you do that I think what we teach is really to get exposure through influencers, through traditional PR methods like getting placements in magazines or influential blogs. Influential Instagramers are huge in the jewelry industry; I know a lot of the designers we work with have brand ambassadors who basically either get free jewelry in exchange for sharing products on Instagram.

That landscape is starting to change a little bit, I think that there is a huge opportunity in brand building through affiliate marketing which is I think underutilized in a lot of markets. People don’t think outside of the box of how you can use affiliate marketing to spread the word about what you’re doing from a jewelry perspective, and I’ll give you an example of how I’ve done that with my custom jewelry business.

There are a lot of parallel markets that aren’t necessarily product based businesses that can refer products. So the wedding industry is a really good example, there are coaches who coach bride to like lose weight on their wedding day, or they coach them how to like decor. There’s wedding planners who can refer our business, or there’s like wedding photographers who are always in front of clients who are looking for other services.

So a couple of years back I partnered with a coach who was actually working with brides who were trying to lose weight for their wedding. It was an offer to her community, she went and blog posted about me and sent an email out to the people in her program saying, here’s my friend Tracy, she’s an amazing jewel custom designer, she’s offering this to my community, check out, this might be a great opportunity for you to have a custom wedding band made.

I was able to build a ton of leads for my list and then also I got probably about $5,000 in orders just from one email from her, and I gave her a small commission of like $100 for her campaign. So those ways it’s still like it is like a pain or play or like a leverage [inaudible 00:45:17] sort of thing but I feel like those are great opportunities, and this is huge in the blogger community these days. A lot of times bloggers you might be able to work out something with them instead of paying them upfront to work out some sort of affiliate commission opportunity.

If they are really getting traffic to those sites, you can offer some sort of discount to their readers. I’m not a huge fan of discounts, or you can offer something special to their readers if you don’t want to discount and you can track all that traffic with an affiliate link and pay the blogger based on the number of sales that they got. And you can stay connected with them so that you’re honest so that they know how much if they are really serious about selling more of your work that they can promote it and push it more.

Steve: You mentioned the email list, what do you do to get people to sign up for your email list, like what do you say?

Tracy: One of the best opt-ins that I had, I don’t have it any more because I felt like it was a little off ground for me, but when I started over back in 2010, my first opt-in was a jewelry cleaning guide. It was basically like learn how to clean your fine jewelry in non toxic ways. They’d opt-in; they get an email with this jewelry cleaning guide that taught them how to clean their jewelry that was really cool.

That was a really good opt-in that I had personally. What I really like that I think is working right now and a lot of people are starting to do it, so who knows if this will continue to working or not, but we have a designer in our community named Carina Harris [inaudible 00:46:50] and she started this VIP program for members. So she opens up a membership like if they opt-in to her mailing list for VIP sales that are only open to them, you can only get in on the sale if you are on the list, special like pre packaged items that are only available to those people and then some sort of style guide or something like that, there are a couple of other things.

Carina is like super stylish and really, really good at branding and marketing and packaging things together, so she will create these like Mother’s Day boxes that had like, here is the joy, then like it had a candle and some candy in it and it was wrapped up beautifully, she’s a great marketer. There is a lot of things that you can do like that, you can show people how to wear the jewelry, you can do some sort of like quiz on the front end where they are doing self assessment test like what’s your jewelry style, and then they take the quiz and then it points them to what they should buy on your website. So there is a lot of different ways that you can get people to opt-in and get them engaged.

Steve: How is she driving traffic to her site, is she running ads, is it blogging?

Tracy: She has a really great social media, she’s blogging as well, probably not as much as she should be, and then she does a lot of in person shows in her local market and she builds her email list in person. With a lot of jewelry I think that it’s a multi pronged approach not to be choosing any of the jewelry tab, but it really is.

I look at times you can’t just like I rely on one way, because you have to test what works for you. If you’re someone who sells a lot of jewelry in person, that’s like a great lead generation tool that’s on this opportunity if you’re not taking it, if you don’t have a lot of money to invest in paying for Facebook ads or Google retargeting and stuff like that. Hopefully you’re not getting the traffic to your site in the first place.

So but Carina I think she might be doing some retargeting, I don’t think she’s doing a lot of paid ads, but she’s blogging, she does has a great social media, she does a lot of in person to build her list and then just – yeah I think and then getting – what am I trying to say? Getting featured in the press, so getting bloggers to feature her, partnering with bloggers and influencers, and getting her stuff on TV shows, and magazines.

Steve: Can you give me an example of a good outreach email when you’re reaching out to some of these influencers for your jewelry?

Tracy: Sure, yeah, I mean it’s similar to like reaching out to wholesale buyers. You’d probably do something – I think the most important thing especially for influencers plus PR, anything like that is to have a good headline. You want to make sure that someone wants to open your email, so study headline writing formulas, so when I was talking to [inaudible 00:49:48] last night, she said something really good, it was really cute. It was something like don’t open this email; because if you do you’re going to die, the jewelry is so beautiful.

So thinking about something that’s going to get them interested to actually open it instead of like pro stud earrings, no one is going to open that stupid email. So think of like a catchy headline that’s going to capture their attention, and think of who their audience is in the first place and do some sort of play on that, that’s like another whole another podcast if you like.

You want to do an introduction, you want to tell them who you are and why your jewelry is relevant to their audience, that’s the first step. Then you want to tell them a little bit about your jewelry line and get into your pitch. Our PR expert for Flourish and Thrive [inaudible 00:50:33] recommends bullet pointing things so that it’s easy to read, so you can bullet point like five things that the editor or influencer, whoever needs to know about your brand in the center of it.

Then you tell them how to follow up for samples on the next step, and include in the body of the email – I prefer a collage picture that is like small in a file so it’s not like 20 megabytes, you want like 4 megabytes or smaller that is a great visual or example of what it is that you’re pitching. So it could be a couple of pieces of jewelry or maybe you want two pieces depending on what the angle is. So that’s like the formula, now what’s written in there will be a little bit different.

Steve: Sure, I hear there is a course on that.

Tracy: Yeah there is like courses on that, we also have blog posts about it over Flourish and Thrive Academy, so lots and lots of information.

Steve: Yeah, I was [inaudible 00:51:29], don’t go there. So I’m just curious, it sounds like when we were talking about this, it sounds like you have a negative feeling towards market places, is that accurate, like Amazon, Etsy and that sort of thing and so…

Tracy: I was not negative, but I will clarify, finish asking your question and I’ll clarify.

Steve: Oh no I was just saying does that mean like it’s kind of mutually exclusive, like if you want to have a serious jewelry line that is going in retail shops and stuff, does that imply that you shouldn’t be going into like Amazon?

Tracy: Okay, that’s a great question. I know a lot of retail stores actually selling on Amazon like designer rings and designer stuff, and a lot of designers – I don’t want to [inaudible 00:52:12] for I’m not 100% sure, but a lot of like high name designers are actually all selling stuff on Amazon in the designer section. So I don’t necessarily think it’s bad, but it shouldn’t be the primary. Same thing with Etsy, I don’t think it’s bad, but it should be a secondary source. I think that the problem comes in when someone relies solely on these markets.

If you’re trying to build a brand, if you’re just trying to make money selling products, that’s different, a totally different mindset, you’re just trying to make money selling some products, putting it online and getting on to Amazon, that’s like…

Steve: I feel it’s not sustainable though unless you build your brand though right?

Tracy: Yeah, so like with jewelry like I said if you really want to have a successful and sustainable jewelry business that’s growing and you want to keep developing collections and evolving as a designer, the branding piece is like the most important part. It starts with the website and then these other things are great alternative tools and we have a lot of designers in our community who are doing Etsy and Amazon handmade and selling on their own website.
In fact one of the designers in our community is Stephanie [inaudible 00:53:14] has a really successful business doing multiple six figures, and she has a beautiful website, and the majority of her sales actually come from Etsy, I think like she told me 70%.

Steve: Interesting.

Tracy: But she realized the importance of having a branded website because that gives her validity in the eyes of her clients, so she sells at Etsy business but the website helps improve the brand. So I think it just really depends on your branding, I think for a lot of people Etsy can be a good way to get rid of excess inventory, you can include the Etsy shop in a different name that’s related to your brand so it doesn’t conflict when people find things on Google search. There’s a lot of different ways you can use that tool, so I don’t think it’s bad, I think it’s like a good secondary.

Steve: Okay so the reason why I asked that question is people who shop on market places like Amazon or what, not Etsy but Amazon, they are more focused on price. It just seems to me that you can command much better prices if you’re just selling on your own site.

Tracy: Well that’s the whole thing, I mean Etsy and Amazon – Amazon campaign now, it’s real like people are competing on price and none of us are going to be – well maybe even you maybe importing from China one day I don’t know and doing mass volume, but the only way you can really compete on a stage like that is volume, and if your business is not set up for volume, then it’s going to be really hard to make money.

I think that it’s cool if you want to play on that stage and you want to do a volume business and many people can have very successful jewelry businesses doing that, but that’s a totally different game and it requires prior infrastructure, it requires a lot of strategy, it requires a lot more work I think in my mind.

I used to sell like ship orders worth 1000 units that we would produce in China and India, and the management of those processes, we would negotiate discount, the stores would negotiate discounts and I’m thinking like I think that in order to have a successful business in a discount market place like it would be the same thing is that like you have to do volume, so I don’t know.

Steve: Is it generally harder to brand those items too, and did you ever have any copy cats?

Tracy: Oh gosh, everyone has copy cats, it happens, but that seemed for reason being a designer that is continually evolving in their design, because that’s what makes you stand out and people to keep coming back. People can tell someone who just copies.

Steve: Right and I think just your personality and your branding is what prevents you from falling victim to that.

Tracy: Yeah, exactly.

Steve: Okay cool Tracy, you know we’ve been chatting for a while; I want to be respectful of your time.

Tracy: I know.

Steve: Where can people find you if they want to learn how to start their own jewelry business?

Tracy: Absolutely, you go on over to flourishthriveacademy.com, you can also find us at fnta.com if you like, flourishthriveacademy.com and you can check out some of our courses. We have so many courses that walk you all different aspects of the jewelry industry or the business of jewelry I should say. Then we also have a membership community, we have a free online community, lots of different ways to participate, so I hope to see you over there.

Steve: Cool and your site was tracymatthews.com also.

Tracy: Yeah my jewelry website is tracymatthews.com.

Steve: Okay, awesome. Well hey Tracy thanks a lot for coming on the show, I learned a lot because I know nothing about jewelry.

Tracy: Thanks for having me; it was so fun to be here.

Steve: All right take care.

Hope you enjoyed that episode. Now selling jewelry online is really challenging, you have to stand out in order to succeed and Tracy is an expert at making that happen. For more information about this episode, go to mywifequitherjob.com/episode149.

Once again I want to thank privy.com for sponsoring this episode. Now Privy is the email capture provider that I personally use to turn visitors into email subscribers, therefore email capture, exit intent, and site targeting tools to make it supper simple as well. Now I like Privy because it is so powerful and you can basically trigger custom pop ups for any primer that is closely tied to your ecommerce store. So if you want to give it a try it’s free, so head on over to privy.com/steve. Once again that’s privy.com/steve.

I also want to thank Klaviyo which is my email marketing platform of choice for ecommerce merchants. You can easily put together automated flows like an abandoned cart sequence, a post purchase flow, a win back campaign, basically all of these sequences that will make you money on auto pilot. So head on over to mywifequitherjob.com/Klaviyo, once again that’s mywifequitherjob.com/Klaviyo.

Now I talk about how I use these tools on my blog, and if you’re interested in starting your own ecommerce store, head on over to mywifequitherjob.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 via email, thanks for listening.

Outro: Thanks for listening to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast, where we are giving the courage people need to start their own online business. For more information visit Steve’s blog at www.mywifequitherjob.com.

In other news I wonder that you know that tickets for the 2017 Sellers Summit are now on sale at sellerssummit.com. Now what is the Sellers Summit? It is the conference that I hold every single year that specifically targets ecommerce entrepreneurs selling physical products online. Unlike other events that focus on inspirational stories and high level BS, mine is a curriculum based conference, where you will leave with practical and actionable strategies specifically for an ecommerce business.

In fact every speaker I invite is deep in the trenches of their ecommerce 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. The other thing I can assure you is that the Sellers Summit will be small and intimate. Last year we cut off ticket sales at around 100 people, so this event will sell out quickly, once again that’s sellerssummit.com, so go check it out.

And if you want to learn how to start your own online business, be sure to sign up for my free 6 day mini course where I show you how my wife and I managed to make over 100K in profit in our first year of business, so go to my wifequitherjob.com, sign up right there on the front page, and I’ll send you the mini course right away via email. Now onto the show.

Intro: Welcome to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast. We will teach you how to create a business that suits your lifestyle, so you can spend more time with your family and focus on doing the things that you love. Here is your host, Steve Chou.

Steve: Welcome to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast. Today I’m really happy to have Rachel Holland on the show. Now Rachel was someone who I was introduced to by Tony Anderson, and she is killing it in the network marketing space. Now Rachel runs the popular site survivingthestores.com, where she teaches others how to save money and live healthy on a budget.

She and her husband Ryan run the site together and have turned it into a huge resource. Anyway up until this point I have not heard anyone doing network marketing before on the podcast, and I’m just really curious how it works. With that welcome to the show Rachel, how are you doing today?

Rachel: Thank you so much Steve, I’m glad to be on the show with you, I am doing great today.

Steve: That’s good to know, there are just so many questions that I have for you about this space, but let’s just start from the very beginning, how did you come up with the idea for Surviving the Stores, and how did it move into the network marketing space?

Rachel: That’s a great question, so back in 2008 I was a stay at home mom and my husband was working outside the home, and as everyone knows the economy tanked and we were just really, really struggling to meet our budget every month. Gas prices started to rise and it just killed us. So we looked at our budget and we said, okay where can we cut back, what can we do, and we didn’t have people, we didn’t drive a lot and there weren’t a lot of places that we could cut back.

Where we saw that we could cut back was in our grocery budgeting because we were just spending crazy amounts. So I actually started Surviving the Stores as a way to keep myself accountable in grocery budgeting. It has moved from that through the years to end up being a full time income for our family starting in 2010, 2011 and I was able to use that blog as well to launch a network marketing business even though I had no intention of doing that at all. I was actually pretty against network marketing in general.

Steve: Okay, I’m just curious, are you friends with Ellen Chase because that grocery budgeting stuff is like [inaudible 00:04:17] early too?

Rachel: Yes, Ellen and I are very good friends, I love Ellen.

Steve: Okay and so did you start Surviving the Stores to make money in the beginning or was it just a way to document everything?

Rachel: Not at all, it was very much just a way to document everything.

Steve: Interesting, so how did it gain traction?

Rachel: You know the news media printed up in our local Dallas Fort worth area, and then it ended up being on a segment with Good morning America…

Steve: Oh my goodness, okay.

Rachel: It took off from there, and people found out about the site and grew that way.

Steve: Did you do anything to get those media mentions?

Rachel: I did not, I mean I know there are classes now at blogging conferences about how to get in the media, but no, but he ended up just finding me.

Steve: Okay wow, that’s incredible, okay. So how did Surviving the Stores and not talking about the network marketing stuff just yet, how does Surviving the Stores make money?

Rachel: We make money through several ways, the first one being through just general CPM ads, and so and all possible clicks, so Google Adsense or just in ads that when you make money off of impressions to your site, so take photos to really generate a good income. You have to have a lot of traffic to your site. That’s always been a very significant way that we have made money, but also through affiliate links.

Since we were a deal site for so long, we would find good deals, and then we would have affiliate links that we would – let’s say Kohl’s [ph] had a good deal online, then we would have an affiliate link over to Kohl’s and say here is how you get this at the best price, so we would make money that way as well. As you can imagine, the fourth quarter was always our best quarter for that for sure.

Steve: So this is all physical product affiliate links?

Rachel: For the most part, yes.

Steve: Okay, because I know you told me earlier prior to this interview that you had grown this blog to six figures without the network marketing stuff, and so this is mostly affiliate and ad revenue?

Rachel: Yes. I never did a lot of sponsored posts, that wasn’t something that I – I wanted to blog because once I did start making money blogging, I wanted to be on my own schedule, on my own timetable and so I know a lot of bloggers also make money through sponsored posts and that was not something that we really did often.

Steve: Okay, and in terms of finding these deals, like how would you find them?

Rachel: Research, lots of research. There are deal forums out there where people get on and search for deals and post deals that they have found, and then others get on and search for it. So basically as the deal blogger, I would get on and look through to see which ones were the best ones, because it’s just a mess I these forums, it’s an absolute mess. So you get on and you search for what the best deals are, and then you can post them as a blog post in your blog.

Steve: Interesting, so it’s a manual process, it’s not automated?

Rachel: Absolutely, it was completely manual.

Steve: Oh wow, so what is the typical affiliate cut then for like Kohl’s you mentioned for example?

Rachel: It depends, it depends, anywhere from – there are some affiliates where I’m not going to name any names, but some of them are at 1%.

Steve: Wow okay.

Rachel: You know what, surprisingly those don’t get posted that often on blogs, but then anywhere up to 4, 8, 10%, and then if you work with other bloggers as an affiliate for example you mentioned Ellen Chase. She has several different programs that you can be an affiliate for, and so she pays a much larger percentage than say Kohl’s or Best Buy or any of those.

Steve: So would you say that your audience were people that did not have a lot of money?

Rachel: You know it’s really surprising because there were some who were in that same place that I was where they just were struggling to make ends meet, but then it’s very interesting because a lot of the people who are looking for deals and who are looking for coupons, they have very good, very established salaries. They are just not trying to make ends meet, but they know how to be smart with their money and save.

Steve: Okay and in terms of – outside those major media mentions that you got, what were some other ways that you got traffic to your site?

Rachel: Networking, absolutely networking with other bloggers.

Steve: Like face to face?

Rachel: Yes, blogging conferences, lots of blogging conferences, just networking with people, doing projects with other bloggers where you post about them and they post about you, or you do a series together. I did a series with Tony, actually a few series with Tony over the years, then just think of like that where you are – it’s a reciprocal thing you just, you help them by sending your traffic to them and they help you by sending their traffic to you, and it’s just a great relationship.

Steve: Interesting, so when you start out though and you have nothing, like how would you approach someone with a lot more traffic than yourself?

Rachel: That’s a great question.

Steve: Just curious.

Rachel: Just build a relationship with them, for me it was meeting people in person and talking to them, getting to know them, learning about their site. In a lot of ways very similar to what you do with network marketing asking them a lot of questions, learning about what they’re doing, their passion behind blogging, why they’re doing what they’re doing, what their blog is about, what they want their readers to come away from their blog feeling, or just getting to know them, really developing those relationships.

Steve: So you could not have gotten your blog to where it is without these face to face in person relationships that you built over time?

Rachel: No way, there is absolutely no way.

Steve: Okay and so I know prior to this interview we chatted about how you’ve gone away from being a deal site and you’ve moved over to network
marketing. Can you describe that transition?

Rachel: Yes, so I was actually pretty against network marketing for a long time, all of the stereotypes that you hear about network marketing, those were things that I believed because I had experienced it back in college. When I was in college I was a freshman in college and I was looking for a job to make just some extra income and I looked in the paper, the classified ads, that’s before you would just look online or on Monster. I looked at the classified ads and there was an ad that said make your own hours, unlimited income potential, call for an interview, must be a self starter.

I said, yes absolutely, that sounds like me, I can do that. So I called and they said, oh we have an interview spot open and they brought me in, I even took a little test on the computer and they brought me back into the back room and said, you seem like you would be a great fit for our company, all you have to do is buy this starter kit, it’s commission only. And so I was then ready to start selling the best knives ever.

Steve: Was it Cutco?

Rachel: Yeah, it was Cutco, I wasn’t willing to mention the brand, but yes it was Cutco.

Steve: The reason why I ask is my friend used to sell those knives when I was younger, yeah.

Rachel: They are great knives, I mean their scissors really do cut through a pinning and I don’t know of any other scissors that will cut, they are great scissors. But I lasted about two weeks in the company and it was when they told me to talk to my family and friends while I was brand new in a college town, I didn’t know anyone. And they said, well here you can have the records of anyone who had bought previously and I could go to their house, or I ask them if I could come to their house and clean their knives, and then while I was there I could show them the new product catalog.

I did that and then I thought, you know this probably isn’t the best idea for me as an 18 year old college freshman going to people’s house asking them if I can clean their knives. I ended up saying this is a bad gig, this is not something that I want to do, I never want to sell anything ever again, I am done. That’s where I ended off and so for me it wasn’t just a seamless transition into network marketing.

Steve: Can we define what network marketing is, I’m pretty sure a lot of people out there listening don’t even know what it is?

Rachel: Yeah so network marketing and there are all kinds of wrong definitions out there, but really network marketing is a way to create a residue income that not only can last through your lifetime, but I know with the company that I’m a part of we can actually will our business to our children and they can continue to receive that residue income, but a way to receive a residue income through sharing about a product that you love, and then you believe other people will love. So I would say in a nutshell that’s a good definition of how it works.

Steve: So to summarize what you just said, you sell something or you have people that are selling on your behalf and you take a cut of what they sell, and they can recruit their own sellers as well, is that how it works?

Rachel: That’s correct and the way that I like to share with people is I talk a lot about sharing because really that’s what it is. Whenever I’ve tried to sell it doesn’t work out so well, just sharing about what I’m doing and if you’re passionate about it, people will be asking you how do I get this, what do I do?

Steve: Interesting, okay. And so you mentioned synergy before, you were talking about how transitioned from Cutco and then you had a bad experience there, but then what changed your mind about – you’re doing essential oils now, is that correct?

Rachel: Yes, that’s correct.

Steve: Okay, so how did that transition take place?

Rachel: Well I ended up getting – I was researching essential oils and I had settled on where I wanted to get essential oils from. I had always – you’ll see lots of posts dating back to almost the beginning of Surviving the Stores on natural remedies. That was something I was already interested in; I wanted to get started with essential oils. So I researched several different companies then ended up deciding on one specific company.
I knew that I wanted to get started with them but just for the essential oils. I had no interest at all in doing the business in any way and I even told the person that I signed up through. I said my plate is already full, I’m blogging full time, I do not want to end up with marketing again, so I just want to get these products.

So for a year I stuck to that and for a year I just got the products, but because they have been so beneficial for our family and because it fits so well with the blog, I started blogging about them, I started sharing on Facebook my experiences and how they were benefiting our family. So people either from the blog or from friends on Facebook would message me saying, okay tell me more, I want to sign up.

Steve: Interesting, so actually can you just describe what essential oils are for just the people who are listening who might not know what that is?

Rachel: Absolutely, so essential oils are plant extracts and they are essentially the life blood of plant, they are what go through the plant, they give the plant its smell, they do amazing things for the plant, and I believe that they are what God created to work with our bodies, to help our bodies do what they’re supposed to do.

Steve: Okay, and so it’s mainly for medicinal purposes?

Rachel: Health and wellness.

Steve: Health and wellness, okay and so you started writing about the essential oils on your blog and then people started becoming interested in what you were talking about, and they wanted to buy their own, is that how this all started?

Rachel: Yes, exactly.

Steve: And then you hadn’t signed up or anything to sell these things, did it just fall into your lap then?

Rachel: Well so one of the things that’s great about certain companies and this is true for the company that I’m with, whenever you get a starter kit with this company, you are not required ever to sell anything, but you do have the ability to share and get a referral check from the company essentially.

So we call them a thank you check, so you get a certain amount whenever somebody else purchases a starter kit through your link, it’s like an affiliate link. You can earn through that, through sharing with other people and they purchase, and then you get a bonus or a commission off of that.

Steve: This is different than the cut of the sale; this is just a flat commission?

Rachel: For their initial kit yes, it’s a flat commission.

Steve: Can we talk a little bit about what this starter kit is, like you’ve mentioned it a couple of times but I’m not sure what goes inside of that?

Rachel: Inside this starter kit for essential oils there are 11 of the most popular, most used essential oils, because really the world of essential oils can be very overwhelming and anyone who has dabbled in it can say, oh my goodness there are so many things out there. So what the company that I work with which is called Young Living Essential Oils has done is they have put together a kit that has the most popular essential oils, the ones that people would be using every single day.

Steve: Okay but if you want to buy a certain set, like do you have to buy the starter kit or can you buy the individual oils that you want?

Rachel: You can buy the individual oils as a retail customer, so there are two different things that people can do when they sign up, they can either be a retail customer and they pay a 24% mark up, or they can become a wholesale member by buying a starter kit and then they get a 24% discount forever, and they also get that ability to share with others and earn that commission if they choose to do that.

Steve: I see, so how much does this starter kit cost?

Rachel: It costs $160 which is absolutely incredible for starting a business. If somebody does go into that saying yes I want to start an essential oils business, for $160 they can, which is an incredible price.

Steve: And if I were to just buy like a few bottles of the oils that I wanted to, like how much is each individually, you said that starter kit has 11 you said?

Rachel: Yes, it really depends. So you can get certain oils for $5 and then there are oils that are almost $200, so for example rose oil. Rose is just extremely delicate and expensive to distil the oils out of the rose plant, so it really depends on the oil itself.

Steve: Does that rose oil come with the starter kit though?

Rachel: It does not, but there are some frankincense stuff and frankincense is an extremely amazing and much more expensive oil. So everything in the starter kit, if you were to buy it all separately, it would be over $350, so the starter kit is actually just a really good deal in and of itself for getting started for the essential oils.

Steve: I see and it sounds like it gives you like – it’s like a variety pack for example if you’re just starting out it makes sense to get that regardless?

Rachel: Exactly.

Steve: Okay and so now you have the starter kit and you’re using these oils yourself, so how did you transition and how did it work in terms of selling these oils?

Rachel: What I did was I created a few Facebook groups and really Facebook groups have changed the game for network marketing. I mean it just really has because even 10, 15 years ago, or five years ago network marketing was done over the phone and that was it, and through emails, emails, snail mail, over the phone.

Facebook groups have changed the game because I created, one of the first things I did when I started the business was create a few Facebook groups, and I have for example a Facebook group that’s specifically just for education where people can ask questions about essential oils and how to use them on their family, on their kids, on their pets, all of that, and then another group specifically for those who are interested in learning more about the business.

And so in a sense I created like a little bit of a funnel system through Facebook groups which has been really neat and fun to do, and that’s one of the things that I learned through blogging was how to do that. So not only do I have that through email but also in a sense through these Facebook groups.

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How did you build the Facebook group?

Rachel: Just on Facebook there is a little thing that says group…

Steve: Oh sorry, I meant how do you build members, like how do you add a whole bunch of members?

Rachel: Once somebody signs up, I email them and get their email address that they have, and most people, the majority of people have a Facebook account. So I email them and I get their email address that they use for Facebook, and you can add people to the group with their email address.

Steve: So this starts from your blog it sounds like then, right?

Rachel: Either from my blog or people that I know personally, either way. I’ve built both ways; I have several people that I know personally and then blog readers as well.

Steve: So would you say you got most of your downstream people through personal relationships or through your blog?

Rachel: Personal relationships for me.

Steve: Interesting, so can you describe how that works, how can you get critical mass doing things that way?

Rachel: Because everybody knows people, so I have a certain number of people that I know, but then each of those people has a different sphere of people that they know, and then each of those people has a different sphere of people that they know. So everybody has their group and so let’s say I end up signing someone up and they get their starter kit, they love the oils; they are interested in the business. And I say it in that order, because whenever somebody tells me okay I want to get a starter kit because I’m interested in the business, I kind of back up a little bit, because I want them to truly love the products first before they jump into the business side.

So once somebody does that, let’s say I enroll somebody who decide that they love the oils and they do want to get started in the business, and if their network is also a large network, then that means that my team and their team grows more quickly, they want to sign someone up who has a smaller network. Really that’s a big part of why it’s called network marketing or relationship marketing.

Steve: Okay and how do the economics work, like let’s say you sign someone up, like what is your cut and what is their cut?

Rachel: So if I sign someone up, and it really varies from company to company. Every company is going to have a different compensation plan, and that’s one of the things that I tell people whenever they say they are interested in a network marketing business. I tell them to look at the compensation plan, look at the income disclosure, every network marketing company is required to have an income disclosure up there at least I think every couple of years.

So take a look at that and see if these are the incomes that you are comfortable with, so every company does it differently. The way that Young Living works which is the company that I’m with is that I earn a commission when somebody buys the starter kit and that commission is $50, and then there is a bonus during their first three months for what they buy during their first three months, and then you get just general commissions depending on the level that they are on after that.

So starting in month four you get just regular commissions. The thing about essential oils and really any consumable product, because I would highly recommend for those who are considering network marketing to make sure that it’s a consumable product that you love, that you use daily, that you would use whether or not you are making money, because other people will do the same. So there are – I mean over 90% of the people on my team are not building a business, they are buying these products because they need them every single day.

So I just want to commit to anyone who is considering this that that I think would be a very crucial thing in deciding which company that you go with.

Steve: Interesting, so for the first three months you get a commission of what your person consumes and then afterwards like if they…

Rachel: You still get a percentage.

Steve: You still get a percentage, but then if they go on and sell starter kits, you also get a cut of that as well, is that correct?

Rachel: Correct.

Steve: And how does that work, like what are the economics like there?

Rachel: Again it varies from company to company. If I enroll someone and then they enroll someone else, I also get a percentage from that enrollment, and then up to a certain level. So all network marketing companies will have let’s say either five levels or six levels that you get paid on. Really there is so much in here, different network marketing companies even have completely different commission chapters like some will do uni level commissions, others will do a binary system which is just kind of I don’t understand that level.

Steve: How do your levels work, like I guess I don’t understand how that works, what does it mean to be in a level?

Rachel: So let’s say I sign up four people and they are on my level one, and then let’s say each of those people sign up four people, then each of those people will be on my level 2.

Steve: I see, okay.

Rachel: And then if those people sign up people, they would be on my level 3.

Steve: Got it, got it, okay so your level one people then I guess what commission do you get off of them with your current company?

Rachel: With my current company after those initial three months it is 8%.

Steve: 8% okay and then the level 2 guys what is the cut, it’s a smaller cut I would imagine, right?

Rachel: Yes 5%.

Steve: Okay and then it just trickles down?

Rachel: And then four, four, four, correct.

Steve: Okay and then how many levels can you have, infinite levels?

Rachel: Well so this is where you get into the tricky parts ins and outs of the compensation plans, so there is uni level commissions, and then with our company we also do generation commissions which is when you get to a certain rank, you get an extra percentage off of your team, the what is going on within your team.

Steve: Okay this is fascinating, so what is that, like I didn’t quite understand what you just said actually. So after a certain point you get extra commissions?

Rachel: Correct, so in my company for example whenever you reach the rank of silver, you get an extra, well that’s called a generation commission off of everyone, off of the entire volume of your down line.

Steve: Oh my goodness okay.

Rachel: And then whenever people under you get to higher ranks like so let’s say somebody under you gets to silver, then you get an even larger amount of commission, so what’s really, really fun about it is that it benefits me for other people to grow…

Steve: To do better.

Rachel: Or to even just to pass me, like it’s wonderful to watch, and I get to be a part of other people having these financial successes and residual income for the rest of their lives.

Steve: What does it take to achieve silver like you mention like these different levels, how do you achieve that?

Rachel: With our company to achieve silver you have to have to have a certain group volume which is just overall sales essentially in the group. And then you have to have two people on your level one, on your first level who also have a certain amount of group volume. It will vary from company to company and I see people all the time getting to that silver rank within a year. At silver rank the average income is $1,700 a month.

Steve: Wow, okay and can you give me an idea of what volume is required to hit silver?

Rachel: 10,000.

Steve: 10,000 okay a month or?

Rachel: A month yes

Steve: A month, okay, and just for clarification what level are you at right now I’m just curious?

Rachel: I’m at the diamond level.

Steve: And then what are the advertised incomes for that level?

Rachel: That income disclosure says that the income for diamonds would be 20,000 to 50,000 per month.

Steve: That’s amazing, okay, and so even though – like even if you just stop doing this altogether, you would still get that income from month to month?

Rachel: So we essentially did that.

Steve: Okay.

Rachel: Last fall we had this crazy idea to pack all of our things in storage and buy an RV and travel the East Coast in RV. It was an amazing experience, I mean just incredible, we got to go to DC and Williamsburg and [inaudible 00:32:25]. It was so much fun, and I thought that I would be able to work more on the road, but I was not, we were just busy the entire time.

I was still diamond during those months, I still made those pay checks during those three months, and three months was as long as we lasted and we said get us out of this thing and into an apartment. We wanted to do a year but no, that was not going to happen with four kids.

Steve: So is there any maintenance that you have to do then?

Rachel: There is, it really just depends on what you want to do, so I still teach classes because I love to, I love helping people get started, so I still teach classes, I have weekly calls for my business builders. Any of the people on my team who are interested in building a business, I have a weekly call with them where I share with them just something encouraging to help them, and then we do a question and answer time every week so they can bring me their questions and we just talk through those things and brainstorm together.

And then in the Facebook groups I post often, different whatever the specials are that month or different things for business, but then I also for people who are interested in the business, I’ve put together a two week boot camp to help them get jump started. It’s actually called the jump start boot camp to help them just start their business, to know here are the things exactly what you need to do to get started on the right foot in a network marketing business, and specifically in this network marketing business.

Steve: I was just going to ask because if your downstream people don’t make any money, you don’t make any money either, right?

Rachel: Exactly, and that’s the beauty of it, me being successful means that so many people on my team are successful, and there are multiple people on my team who are making six figures as well.

Steve: Okay wow, so in terms of your Facebook groups, it sounds like that’s where you do the majority of your marketing, why not just your blog and email, why is Facebook groups better than just like an email marketing list?

Rachel: Because I love getting to know the people, I mean I’ve built friends through this, through Facebook groups. Everyone is on Facebook constantly, I mean we’re always on our phone; I mean people even eat dinner on their phone scrolling through Facebook. It gives them a notification when someone posts in the group, they see it through their feed, it’s an easy way for people to ask questions, and also it’s way that I don’t have to personally answer everyone’s questions.

So I’m not getting all of the emails, somebody can ask in this Facebook group and then there are other people who can get on and answer those questions instead of me being the one that has to answer all of those questions.

Steve: Interesting, okay, and so I think I’m starting to understand how this works now. So getting them to just buy the starter pack is just like the beginning of the journey, right?

Rachel: Exactly.

Steve: And so the way to thrive in this business is you really have to put in the work to get to know everyone and teach them how to sell the stuff
themselves, is that accurate?

Rachel: Yes and there are systems like for example the boot camp. I run it through a system where it automatically posts on Facebook, and I run the boot camp also through a Facebook group, that jump start boot camp. So there are definitely systems in place that can help you, a lot of people use a scheduling software like HootSuite or something to schedule posts in their Facebook group.

There are so many different systems that I learned as a blogger that have come in handy during building a network marketing company, but yes getting to know the people is such a huge part of that and it’s one of my favorite parts, I love that.

Steve: Are these boot camps that you run, are they free or do you charge for them?

Rachel: I do not charge, no not at all. I can’t imagine myself ever charging for my team members to go through a boot camp to do something that yes benefits them but also benefits me. And I know that there are some network marketers out there who do that, who will have people sign up and say, now for only 3.99 you can buy my system to show you how to be successful in this. That’s just not me; I don’t want to do that.

Steve: So whenever you refer to your team members, are these like your level ones and your level twos?

Rachel: And level 20s and level 50s and anyone who is on my team anywhere, it does not matter where. I am a part of helping them get their answers.

Steve: Here is a question I had, so let’s say you get to like level – like your 20s for example, is it much harder for your level 20s to make money?

Rachel: No, not at all, I’m someone’s level 20. There is a good friend of mine who is actually at the highest level of the company, she’s also a former blogger, her name is Alyssa Francis. She’s at the highest level of the company which is loyal crown diamond, and the loyal crown diamond income is 100,000 plus per month so she is there. She is there, she signed up a year before me, and the person right above her is actually still just a silver, so those who are on your team can rank up faster than you, it really just depends on what you do.

Steve: The reason why I asked that question is because there is a cut that happens at each level, but pretty soon doesn’t that exceed 100%?

Rachel: It does not because there are some cut offs down there.

Steve: Oh okay where people don’t make any money if there is a sale or?

Rachel: This is where you get in to the really complicated ins and outs of the compensation plan, but yes eventually there is a time where there are some people may be on your level 13 or level 30 or something like that where you would not make anything off of what they bought, but if you are at a certain rank no matter what if I am a diamond I’m going to be making on average 20,000 to 50,000 per month.

Steve: And that’s from – so that number, like what determines where that range you lie on the diamond plan for example?

Rachel: A lot of it is determined on how many leaders you have on your team, so for example a leader would be considered silver and up with Young Living, so a lot of that is determined by how many silvers you have. Some of that is determined by how many people are in your levels one through five, but I would say the biggest portion of that is going to be determined by how many leaders you have under you, those other people who have reached silver.

Steve: Interesting because you mentioned that other example with your friend who was the ultra diamond or whatever rank that was, the person above her was just silver, like how is that possible?

Rachel: Because she didn’t do what needed to be done to get to the higher rank, so it’s not like everybody above me is a higher rank than me at all.

Steve: Interesting okay, so what does it take — so you mentioned with silver you needed to have multiple silvers under you, right?

Rachel: To get a silver you have to have two groups, essentially groups we call them legs, two groups under us that have an overall volume of 4,000 per month.

Steve: 4,000 okay and then what’s the rank right after silver?

Rachel: Right after silver is gold.

Steve: And then what does it take to become gold?

Rachel: To become gold you have to have an overall volume of 35,000 per month and then you have to have three legs under you, three groups under you that each has 6,000 of volume.

Steve: I see okay, so that one silver person probably just had that major leg which was your friend?

Rachel: Right and then another smaller leg and that was it, she never worked on creating those other legs.

Steve: I see okay, so going forward with your business right now, you mentioned that you had the opportunity to go on this really cool RV trip. So going forward like what – do you have incentive to continue to sign on new people?

Rachel: Absolutely and I would say even more than money. It is because I have seen these oils change people’s lives, and that truly is my incentive is that I want to get these oils into more people’s hands, because they are what were created to work with our bodies.

Steve: Okay interesting and so even today you continue to blog about these oils, you continue to run your groups and your boot camps, and at this point what would it take for you to reach that next level past diamond?

Rachel: At this point what it will take, so I have all of my legs in place for the next level, it is just a volume thing right now, so it is just gaining more volume, helping more people learn how to share and sharing with their friends in their network.

Steve: Interesting, so is it in your best interest then to give special treatment to your legs?

Rachel: As opposed to?

Steve: As opposed to just random people like focusing more on the people who are actually on your team, does that make sense?

Rachel: Sure yes, so one of the things about network marketing is that whenever somebody buys a starter kit, let’s say within Young Living, they are automatically a part of a team somewhere. So that way everybody is able to be helped by someone, so my responsibility within the company is to help those who are a part of my team.

Steve: Okay.

Rachel: And not that I don’t help overall, I mean I love talking to others and brainstorming with other leaders who are not a part of my team or even not a part of my up line, that is so much fun, I love doing that. I love having what’s called those cross line relationships; they are not your up line or your down line.

Steve: Okay I think I’m kind of understanding how this all works now, so the way you build your business is you ensure that the people under you are successful, and then you get these bonuses which push you up to the high bend as opposed to signing up as many level ones as you possibly can.

Rachel: Exactly, yes.

Steve: Okay that’s an interesting business model oaky. You mentioned earlier that it’s in your best interest to sell some sort of consumable and I don’t know, you probably don’t even remember this, but how does Cutco work, like most of the times when you buy certain knives you’re done, right?

Rachel: Right oh yes. I could use some more knives, actually I still have my set, but it’s been goodness almost 20 years since I bought my first set. So you’ll see those big ticket items where they are pretty expensive like the vacuum cleaners, I mean how often do you need a Cabby vacuum cleaner, or do you even need one, do you even need a $2,000 vacuum, I don’t know.
So a lot of people have that in their head, you know the people that come around to their door and say, hey I just want – I’ll shampoo one room of your carpet for free. A lot of people have that in their head, but yeah it’s just such a different experience now.

Steve: Okay and then I had a couple of more questions relating to oils, and so going forward, like your friend who is at the highest level, is she doing the same things you are?

Rachel: She is absolutely; she is still very involved with supporting people, because she wants to see as many people succeed in this as well.

Steve: Okay, and is she at the highest level?

Rachel: She is yes.

Steve: She is okay, and so really it sounds to me at least that you don’t go into something like network marketing unless you’re a true believer of the product?

Rachel: Yes, and I have had people join my team before who were just interested in the money and I tell you what that it faded very quickly, because they were not passionate about the product. So now that is just something that I tell people upfront that the business will not work unless you are truly passionate about the product.

Steve: How often do you actually go in person and have like parties so to speak, or is it all done online at this point?

Rachel: It depends, there were different seasons for me, there were times where I was doing in person things a lot. We are in an apartment right now and while we’re building a house, and so right now it doesn’t work out super well for me to have in person classes at my house, but I’ll do webinars and then when we move I will certainly have events at my house, but just because I love it.
I was at a retreat this past weekend, it was actually the silver retreat for everyone who had reached silver in the company, they invite them to Salt Lake City and you go see the lavender farm and everything, and there was a loyal crown diamond, again that’s the top level on the company. We spoke from the stage and she never taught one single class, she completely built online and got from – bought her starter kit to get to the highest level of the company in 18 months.

Steve: Wow.

Rachel: And that’s without teaching a single class and building all online, so it really can be whatever fits with you and with your personality and what you have time for, what you want to do.

Steve: Have you ever bought ads for any of the stuff or through your blog, like how did you get people to read the essential oils articles on your blog?

Rachel: I had a pretty good email list for my blog, and so that was definitely a part of it. We did run some Facebook ads, that helped back when Facebook would actually show your posts to people. That was good because we had a pretty, we had over 50,000 fans on Facebook and so that was great.
Then Pinterest, I would say by far Pinterest was the main traffic generator and sign up generator to our posts, so people would see a post on how do I use essential oils, or essential oils for a healthy immune system, or essential oils for a healthy respiratory system. So they would click on that post, come and read about it, and then decide to sign up to get a starter kit from there.

Steve: And to sign up is just a link that leads to some landing page where you can put in a credit card, right?

Rachel: Exactly.

Steve: And so for all these people who are listening who are interested in getting into this, what are some of your recommendations?

Rachel: To get into Young Living specifically, of course my recommendation would be to come to survingthestores.com…

Steve: Yes sure, of course.

Rachel: And click on the essential oils tab, and I would love to help you get started, but really I recommend whatever company you end up choosing
because I really do think that everyone should have some kind of residual income, and whatever that is, whether that would be investment properties or whether that’s network marketing, but to really develop some kind of residual income, to do your research before jumping into a company. Can I just say one little quick thing about residual income?

Steve: Yes, absolutely.

Rachel: With our blog, with Surviving the Stores, I thought that we had found residual income. There was one post that we had that we ranked really high in Google for, and we were making $1,000 per day off of that post, and I thought oh my goodness this is it, is this really going to happen? Well Google changed their algorithm, and we ended up on page two, and now we’re making about $5 a day on that same post.

And so the things that I thought were residual income ended up not being residual income, and so I love that this, that network marketing really can be true residual income for people and that’s what it has been for us. It allowed us to take those three months off last fall and so on, and I would say ask if you’re interested in a network marketing company, ask if it is something that if your income can be given to your children, if it can be willed because with Young Living the income is willable. That was huge for us; I love that part about our company.

Steve: Would you say that a blog is necessary or helpful?

Rachel: No not at all. It can be helpful for growing more quickly, but I have plenty of people who are making solid incomes and on their way to making a solid income just from teaching classes and sharing in person with their network. But I would say that whatever avenue somebody uses to grow their networking marketing business, they have to have a network.

And so whether that network is online, whether that network is at work and mums at the soccer field or wherever that network is, there has to be a network, there is a reason that it’s called network marketing. And so if somebody just wants to stay inside and not build any kind of network at all, then they are not going to be successful in network marketing, but there are many different ways to expand that network of people.

Steve: Okay, hey Rachel I learnt a lot today. If anyone out there has any questions for you where can they find you online?

Rachel: They can find me through survivingthestores.com. My Instagram is @Racheleholland, on Facebook I am Rachel Holland and again you’ll see Surviving the Stores, you’ll see Young Living. I also have another website called howtohomeschoolforfree.com, just because we’re also a home schooling family, and I put free resources that we find for home schooling. So any of those places you can find me there.

Steve: Is there a contact form on those sites where they can actually reach you directly?

Rachel: Yes there is on both of the websites, yes.

Steve: Awesome and are you on Twitter as well.

Rachel: I am on Twitter, it is survivingstores.

Steve: Survivingstores, awesome. Hey Rachel, really appreciate your time; all of this stuff is fascinating to me, because I haven’t had anyone on the show doing network marketing before, so I appreciate it.

Rachel: Thank you so much for having me; this has been so much fun.

Steve: Thanks a lot for coming on, take care.

Rachel: Thanks Steve, you too, bye.

Steve: Hope you enjoyed that episode. I’ve always been skeptical of network marketing and MOM, and it was actually good to hear from someone who is actually making significant money from that business model. For more information about this episode, go to mywifequitherjob.com/episode145.
And just a reminder that tickets for the 2017 Sellers Summit are now on sale at sellersummit.com, the conference that I hold every year that specifically targets ecommerce entrepreneurs selling physical products online. The event will be small and intimate, and I promise you that the speakers will focus on actionable strategies to improve your ecommerce business and not any high level BS. So head on over to sellersummit.com, and check it out.

And once again if you are interested in starting your own online business, head on over to mywifequitherjob.com, and sign up for my free six day mini course on how to start a profitable online store. Sign up right there on the front page, and I’ll send you the course via email immediately. Thanks for listening.

Outro: Thanks for listening to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast, where we are giving the courage people need to start their own online business. For more information visit Steve’s blog at www.mywifequitherjob.com.

I’m Steve Chou, and today we are talking with my buddy Kevin Stecko, the founder of 80stees.com. Now in this episode you’ll learn the keys to running a successful e-commerce store selling t-shirts online.

Now before we begin I want to give a shout out to sitelock.com for being a sponsor of the show. Now if you owned a brick and mortar business, you’d secure it, right? Alarms, cameras, the whole deal, and as an online business you may not think about security as much, but you should, because your customers are. And did you know that one third of consumers hesitate to purchase online due to security concerns. Protect your business and your customers with SiteLock website security.

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If you want to learn how to start your own online business, be sure to sign up for my free six day mini course where I show you how my wife and I managed to make over 100K in profit in our first year of business. So go to Mywifequitherjob.com, sign up right there on the front page, and I’ll send you the mini course right away via email. Now onto the show.

Intro: Welcome to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast. We will teach you how to create a business that suits your lifestyle, so you can spend more time with your family and focus on doing the things that you love. Here is your host, Steve Chou.

Steve: Welcome to the My Wife Quit Her Job podcast, today I’m thrilled to have Kevin Stecko on the show. Now Kevin is someone who I met at e-commerce mastermind retreat early in the year, and as luck would have it I got stuck on a skid lift with the guy and we were forced to chat.

Anyways Kevin runs an awesome site called 80stees.com, where he sells t-shirts from the 80s. And I was actually on the site the other day, and it brought back memories of when I was younger. I used to watch Robotech when I was a kid, and just out of whim I decided to search for Robotech t-shirts, and I was pleasantly surprised to find them there, so how cool is that?

However when I pointed out to my wife that I was going to pick these t-shirts, I’m going to wear them, she started shaking her head. Anyways Kevin is one of these very few t-shirt vendors or store owners that I know who have doing this for a very long time.

And if you remember back in episode 122 when I had Derek Pankaew talk about his t-shirt business on Teespring, well Kevin’s business model is entirely different, and in my opinion is a lot more sustainable. And with that welcome to the show Kevin, how are you doing today man?

Kevin: I’m doing great, thanks for having me Steve, and I think we have to change the name to my wife is now allowed to give me clothing advice instead of my wife quit her job.

Steve: Actually I was also looking for this t-shirt, there is like this like obscure cartoon I used to watch when I was a kid, it was called Pandemonium. It only had like 10 episodes total. If I had a t-shirt like that I would totally wear that.

Kevin: Pandemonium, I’ll have to check it out, but it doesn’t even ring a bell for me.

Steve: You probably don’t even remember that cartoon; it only lasted one season, a bunch of [inaudible 00:03:30].

Kevin: I think you might have mentioned that on the skid lift.

Steve: Oh still talking about that ha, yeah. So Kev, I’m curious how did you come up with selling t-shirts, it’s like a really hard saturated business model?

Kevin: Right, well actually when I started it was not at all, so it kind of goes back to my college days. There was this little, I guess you might call it a hedge shop in a back alley that I used to walk by to go to class, and they would always have these boot leg t-shirts in the window.

I actually didn’t even know what boot leg meant at the time, but he had a hellion t-shirt and I was like that’s me, I’m getting it. So I wore it around campus and because everyone else at school also sees the same store all the time, no one ever asked me about it or thought it was special in any way.

But when I went home for the summer, I went to the amusement park and like 6 different people came up to me and asked me where I got it, and this was in 1999, summer of 1999. At that point I just had this kind of an idea, and I graduated in December of 99, and basically took a deal with this guy to buy in bulk from him.

I wasn’t even really getting a good deal, but I know I used to make a [inaudible 00:04:50], then I went to Penn State and tried to indoctrinate all of the students in to their software, he gave us free copies of like office to full suite, and so I was able to use Frontpage to create a website.

Steve: And did you sell that initial lot right away?

Kevin: Yeah, and it really wasn’t that many, I mean I had really no money except for just whatever I was able to make part time, so I might have had like 20 shirts that I bought, I think I was paying 13 each. So it wasn’t even cheap, and basically those sold out really quick, yeah.

Steve: So Frontpage didn’t have e-commerce features back then, right? How were you collecting money, just curious?

Kevin: The very first version of the site, it was like eBay in its infancy but less convenient. Basically people would fill out a form that I would get emailed to me, then I would send them instructions on how to mail me a check.

Steve: Oh wow okay, amazing and you sold 20 t-shirts. Were those t-shirts boot legged?

Kevin: They were, and like I said at the time I didn’t know, and they even had low trade mark thing that would indicate that they weren’t, but as I got into the business further I found out there are companies – those were pretty well known Bootlegger.

Steve: Okay, so how did that evolve into 80stees?

Kevin: So my email – I’m sorry my eBay username was 80stees, because it was him and he showed and then I bought like transformers and thunder cuts. I was just basically like well I want to have sort of a theme here, and I was totally an 80s kid, and that basically was like well I’ll do what I loved as a kid as a theme for the tees.

So I launched on eBay, and then had like a not even a real domain name, it was 80stees.hypermark.com, there was a free Frontpage host, and then March of 2000 I registered the domain 80stees.

Steve: Okay, and then what was your first platform then?

Kevin: So it was literally Frontpage, and then it kind of evolved. There was a gold rush in late 1990s for all these free software services, and one of them was an ecommerce platform called bigstep.com.
And so I had the most hacked together thing you could imagine which was using my Frontpage site which ranked well for search terms, and then I would link to this BigStep cart, then I would link back to the Frontpage site. So it was literally like going cross domain from one site to another, but it ended up working, we sold pretty well on there.

Steve: Interesting, so what are you on today?

Kevin: Today we’re on Shopify.

Steve: Okay, and so was it from BigStep to Shopify or there was a bunch of carts in between there?

Kevin: Yeah there was some carts in between. There was something called Storefront 5.0.

Steve: Oh my goodness, okay.

Kevin: And that was dot SP platform, and we ended up actually using that for a long time and modifying it extremely to the point where you wouldn’t recognize it, and then we actually got hacked when we were on that platform. I then switched to a company which due to a legal agreement I’m not allowed to mention, because they completely underperformed, under delivered, and then from there we were on Shopify.

Steve: Okay, just so you guys know who listening out there, Kevin has been doing this for a long time. I would say almost 20 years.

Kevin: Yeah, I’m getting close.

Steve: Something like that.

Kevin: I mean 1999.

Steve: 16years, 17 years yeah. So I’m just a little curious about your t-shirt business, so do you stock your t-shirts, or do you print them on demand.

Kevin: We stock.

Steve: You stock, okay. So that actually opens up a can of worms, so first of all why did you decide to stock that versus just printing on demand with I guess this – I don’t know [inaudible 00:08:53]?

Kevin: Okay yeah so at the time really I was selling licensed t-shirts and I wanted to do it the legit way. So there were a few companies, I think there was only a company like Slapon or something like that that were doing heat [ph] transfers, but for the most part you had to go the sole screening out.

There was no such thing as like a direct government print, so it was pretty much based on — the business model was based on what I had to do in order to offer licensed products.

Steve: I see, so you can’t — I know there is places at the mall where you pick what you want on the show, and then they just press it on right in front of you.

Kevin: Yeah, those are almost guaranteed boot legs.

Steve: Oh really?

Kevin: Yeah, if it was a license product…

Steve: Like if it’s like a sports team?

Kevin: Oh yeah 100%. And the reason that is, is because these are [inaudible 00:09:48] wants complete control of the final product, and if they sell an officially licensed heat transfer, you could put it on whenever, and they lose complete control at that point.

Steve: Interesting wow, so in the mall, so they can get away with it, so does that imply that it’s not really policed that heavily or?

Kevin: Yeah, I think that if they’re getting real with it either it’s generic enough that’s it’s actually not infringing or yeah they’re just not – they haven’t been caught.

Steve: Okay, so does that imply – so everything that you sell today is all licensed, right?

Kevin: Yeah, I mean it’s like 99.9%, there’s a few things that just didn’t need a license.

Steve: Okay, and so by having this license it implies that you can’t print your own t-shirts, like you have to actually just buy them the
way they are?

Kevin: It’s we either buy from companies that have the license or we obtain our own license. So if we had our own license, then yeah we could do print on demand, that’s a model that could work, but to obtain all the…

Steve: Okay can we talk about all…

Kevin: Oh sorry, go.

Steve: No, no finish your sentence.

Kevin: I was going to say to obtain all those licenses though for one company would be extremely expensive.

Steve: Yeah, I was just going to ask that, so what’s the process for obtaining a license, how much does it cost and what are the terms of a deal?

Kevin: It all depends in terms of the costs, so like if you’re talking Star Wars, like which would be the big banner industry, you’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars that you would have to guarantee and potentially even hundreds of thousands that you would have to pay upfront towards the guarantee.

Steve: No way, because you guys sell a bunch of Star Wars shirts and they are all licensed, so does that imply that you’re paying six figures?

Kevin: No, that implies we buy from companies that have done that.

Steve: Okay, all right got, got it, okay.

Kevin: So we use some control on that aspect, but the good news is we do move a significant volume, so we have vendors that work with us to get us exclusive designs, and so really it’s actually beneficial for us now to have a license in a lot of ways, we don’t have any of that in this sort of overhead.

Steve: Do you have any licenses where you have like full rights to print stuff?

Kevin: Yeah, we do, and there is really no such thing as full rights, so every design has to be concept approved by the brand, and then they have to sample approvals and production approvals. You’re still limited to what they’re going to say is okay, it’s like you wouldn’t be able to put on like a swear word on a transformer shirt or something like that.

Steve: Right, okay that makes sense.

Kevin: In terms of what the shirt shows a typical license deal is you have a time which will just be the length of time that you’re allowed to sell a product. You have the properties, which just clearly defines what properties are on the case like we have Hasbro license, so it defines like transformers 1980 style guide type thing.

So like I couldn’t make the new movies that come out t-shirts, I can only do the 1980 stuff. It also defines the loyalty percentage, the payment terms on that and the territory, so like United States, UK, online, that type of thing.

Steve: What does the loyalty look like?

Kevin: Typically it’s 10%, but it can be higher. I know like NFL was notorious for having a pretty high loyalty. It all depends on…

Steve: Sure, I was just trying to get a range, so 10 to something percent. Is there an upfront fee also?

Kevin: Yeah, it’s not a separate fee from the loyalty, but what it is, is it’s a guarantee towards the loyalty, so like if it’s say that I said I was going to pay – I was guaranteeing at a cost to you or said I’ll pay $10,000 in loyalty. Some companies in order to take you seriously might want to all that 10,000 upfront.

Steve: I see.

Kevin: But then after you pay that off, so let’s say you had a really good first year and you sold $100,000 worth of stuff at a 10% loyalty, so that whole first year you’re not actually sending them a check. You’re just banking that money you’ve already paid them, and doing the accounting later, okay well we owe you $3000 loyalties this quarter, but we already paid you 10, so now we owe you 7.

Steve: I see, so everything is negotiable it sounds like?

Kevin: Yeah, it all depends too on the property. The bigger the property the less negotiating room and the knowledge of the structure is going to be. Throughout we do have a Robotech license actually.

Steve: Sweet.

Kevin: Those guys are – it’s a fairly less structured deal compared to others, and I think that’s primarily because that’s their only property, and they don’t have like a huge team, whereas Hasbro is a public company, and they’ve got a huge licensing team and so everything works a certain way.

Steve: So over there contracts are too expensive like Star Wars you mentioned you buy the t-shirts from a vendor who has a license, and what are the margins on something like that like when you buy shirts from someone else?

Kevin: Well it depends, so if we’re buying like small runs where maybe they’re using the DTG method, the margins, well I mean I guess…

Steve: So what does DTG stand for?

Kevin: DTG is direct to garment, so it’s like literally like an Intel printer for t-shirts, and a new mess in Teesprings for like – Teespring originally was also screened and there always like a fairly high minimum, and now they actually spot the DTG model, so you can really sell one t-shirt via Teespring with that DTG method.

But yeah, so I mean we try to maintain margins of about 60%, but that can get better for instance let’s say we’re able to buy 600 pieces or 1200 pieces, then we start getting a little bit of discount on our products.

Steve: Okay and then you have to stock all these?

Kevin: Yeah we try to avoid the pain of stocking to an extent with the crowd fund model that is very similar to what Teespring does which is basically it’s a fancy pre-order.

Steve: So how do you make the decision on whether to stock something, whether to license something or whether to crowd fund something?

Kevin: Okay, so these are a little different things, so we pretty much bring everything in the stock to ship eventually. So I guess if we take it one piece at a time – if I were to say how do I start the licensing? It would really be a situation where it’s either a huge strategic advantage for us to license it, because no one else is going to do what we’re going to do with it, or going to be able to do it.
So like for instance Robotech, no one else had a Robotech license at the time, and it just made a whole lot of sense for us to be deep placed to go for Robotech t-shirts even though it’s a fairly small fun base.

Steve: Got it.

Kevin: Now Hasbro, I got the license in 2007 and now it’s because at the time our vendor for transformers t-shirts was letting the license expire, and there wasn’t anyone else who was going to pick it up immediately, and as you might imagine for a company called 80stees that’s also had a cartoon t-shirts we needed transformers t-shirts.

Steve: Yeah for sure.

Kevin: So that was a situation where I was I’ll find – I’m really looking at potentially not having a huge important part of my catalogue.

Steve: Okay, and when you have the license, you’re printing these shirts on demand. Do you do those in Asia or do you those in-house?

Kevin: We don’t do a whole lot of on demand; we’re just actually just starting to work with a partner company now. We do domestic printing for all of our stuff though.

Steve: And the reason for that is just control?

Kevin: Yeah, by the time you’d get something printed in China and bring it over, I don’t think it’s that – it’s going to be that big of a cost savings based on freight and everything. It’s just so relatively inexpensive.

Steve: Okay, so I think can we talk a little bit about this crowd funding that you do?

Kevin: Sure, of course.

Steve: How does it work?

Kevin: Okay so yeah we were inspired by all these guys that were showing up on Facebook, and saying, “Hey there is three days left and we have to hit a minimum of 60 shirts or this design won’t get printed,” and that was literally pioneered by Teespring. The reason that they did it that way is because of the print minimums, so they wre only doing self screening and literally it wasn’t worth any one’s time or money to take an order for five t-shirts.

So these sellers had to get a minimum quantity, and so they built their page to basically become a campaign for a certain amount of shirts or a minimum amount of shirts for a limited time. It just had all these nice social signals to it where people kind of feel part of something; it’s similar to kick starter in a way, right?

Steve: Sure, yeah, yeah.

Kevin: You’re part of something bigger than just buying a product, and having the time limited is always nice because that gives the urgency. I love the book the Psychology of Persuasion.

Steve: Yeah, Cialdini.

Kevin: Yeah exactly, it basically in one ecommerce page you hit quite a few where he talks about are the most persuasive things to do for selling. So we’ve said well we can do this type of thing, and what we do is we put the design up, we set a minimum, we set a time limit, and then as we watch for people to take a chance, because literally we might not make it if we don’t hit a minimum, we give them a discount for placing the order during that time period.

Steve: Okay, so literally is a kick starter pretty much?

Kevin: Yeah.

Steve: And this is all hosted on your site?

Kevin: Yes.

Steve: Okay is that a large percentage of your business?

Kevin: No, I mean, I guess it is in terms of the number of products like we have thousands of products but only 20 to 40 on crowd for any given time. So I guess like those 20 to 40 do make up a decent number of sales relative to the size of the catalog entirely.

Steve: How do you decide what to crowd fund?

Kevin: You know it’s really just most new products nowadays. I have learnt that products that I think are awesome aren’t always awesome, and sometimes products that I don’t think are awesome, people think are awesome. So it’s just been a situation where well we put it put there and see how it works, and we really minimize our inventory risk that way.

Steve: Let’s talk about that a little bit, because there is obviously even if you’re just selling transformers, there is a like a bajillion varieties of transformer t-shirts, right? So how do you test to see which ones are going to sell, do you just buy a bunch and then just sell them out there?

Kevin: Yeah, I mean we always have like a hypothesis of we need new transformer shirts, so what character haven’t we not done in a while or what are we missing? And then we make the design, we get it approved and then we put it out there, and then literally the crowd tells us whether it’s good or not.

Steve: How much is like your first run during a test?

Kevin: You mean how many do we have to order or how many do I have to print?

Steve: Yeah how many do you order, so not talking about crowd funding for a second, like let’s say you just put up a shirt on your site, how many do you order for that initial run just for testing purposes?

Kevin: Well just in a more [inaudible 00:21:49] process we do in this crowd funding model, but…

Steve: Oh I see, okay.

Kevin: So if we just list the product without a crowd fund, chances are we can buy it direct to garment and we literally might only buy like 1 or two pieces of each size, and chances are we’ve pre-sold it before we even got it.

Steve: I see okay, so you do it in a way that it’s very little upfront monetary risk?

Kevin: Yeah and we might say, like let’s say we have a design that we sold, I don’t know we might have set a minimum of 30 pieces because we want to at least know that it works and maybe our pre minimum was 144 pieces, but let’s say like it was a home run and we sold 300 of them or 600 of them or something like that.

At that point then now we start thinking, well do we want to get a little more aggressive with how many we order to hit a price discount from our vendor. So it’s literally every single product is a decision unto itself as to how many we’re going to buy.

Steve: What is considered a dud versus a home run?

Kevin: It kind of depends on the property, I guess a dud transformer shirt might be like 20 sales and then a…

Steve: Within like a month you mean or?

Kevin: Yeah, and then a dud of like chips which is a new license one of our vendors just got and we have no idea if we will sell any, like so literally we probably have to sell zero to give up on that entirely. Part of the reason for that too is because we don’t have that fan base to email out and say, “Hey you bought this other chip shirt,” so you have to start from somewhere, so like that’s which we had a bit of the audience over time.

Steve: So yeah, let’s talk about advertising next, because in your case it doesn’t sound too bad to advertise, but in general marketing t-shirts can be really difficult because competition is so tough. So what are the channels that work the best for you?

Kevin: Yeah I mean it can be brutal. Pretty much we spend our money on email marketing, on Google AdWords and Bing to arrest matters as you said and on Facebook.

Steve: Okay, and so can we talk a little about each. So if you are on AdWords, are you doing Google shopping, are you doing just regular AdWords?

Kevin: Yeah so our AdWords are in a bit in a state of flax right now, but I mean shopping is one of the budget.

Steve: Okay and do you – how do you run your shopping campaign? Do you just list all of your products on shopping and then…

Kevin: Yeah, that’s historically – I think we may be pull some stuff based on inventory availability, so that’s one of the problems of stocking products is you might end up with like your most popular sizes out of stock at a point in time. So I think we might pull some stuff out like that, but we’re actually working with a new vendor, and we’re going to try and really tweak the shopping out. I’ll be honest with you we haven’t been doing it very well, and just from looking at the competition they aren’t doing it well either.

Steve: Okay, but it’s mainly been shopping, do you guys do any display ads for Google or?

Kevin: We tried in the past with very limited success.

Steve: Okay, yeah that one tends to be a lot harder. I would think that Facebook would work really well for you, like I would be like your prime customer if I wasn’t married.

Kevin: Oh man the namesake of the blog stop sale, oh my goodness. Yeah Facebook is pretty good for us; we spend quite a bit of effort trying to stay up to date. It literally changes weekly as to what the strategies and tactics are, and I think…

Steve: Can we talk about one that has worked for you?

Kevin: I’m sorry what’s that?

Steve: Can we just talk about a Facebook campaign that has worked for you in the past?

Kevin: Yeah, let me think of one specifically, yeah a specific campaign that has worked for us. Well I guess I can talk about maybe a more general, because that’s kind of our secret sauce is we’re not putting all of our eggs in one basket, where a lot of times it’s spending a few dollars a day advertising like the crowd funds, and just really being – how do I say this, like not passive but the opposite of aggressive with our bidding.

So like we’re going to – and budgeting, so we’re going to say, okay maybe we’re only going to spend 10, 20 bucks a day advertising as our daily budget for a particular product. That way we can – I guess the way we’re doing is we’re not – how am I going to say this, it’s kind of hard to describe I guess.

But by being more conservative with our bids, we’re getting hopefully the crème of the cup, and the most targeted people, because we’re not saying Facebook we want you to spend a whole lot of money. We’re saying, hey we want you spend just a little bit of money, and here is our awesome prospect that we describe for your targeting and everything, and then hopefully they give us the crème of the cup that way.

Steve: So that implies that you are bidding by click then?

Kevin: I usually do CPM a little bit

Steve: Interesting, okay because then you can’t really control your bid, right?

Kevin: Yeah, we control it via the budget more so.

Steve: The budget, okay. And do you typically only run ads for crowd funding campaigns?

Kevin: Yeah, that’s the majority of it just because we do have those social signals on the pages there, but we haven’t tried to do some more collection based ads just because we really want to spread ourselves around the entire catalog as opposed to just in the new products.

Steve: Because I would imagine that’s like a lot of ads that you would have to manage, right?

Kevin: It is yeah, so that’s definitely one of the things that we spend some time on like we think a lot about creating imagery and everything in terms of when we create a product. We’re always creating like a Facebook image at the same time.

Steve: Okay, and then the landing page is just a page to join the crowd funding campaign?

Kevin: Yeah exactly, it’s just a product page, sorry about that phone Steve, that won’t happen again.

Steve: No it’s okay, it’ll get edited out. Interesting, okay so you have a bunch of these campaigns that just lead to a product page. Traditionally the way we have gone on Facebook as well because we take them to like a content landing page, where we either thoroughly describe our value proposition or do a freebie of some sort, but it sounds like you’ve had really good luck sending people directly to a product?

Kevin: Yeah, and sometimes we don’t though, that’s – we kill our crowd funding products pretty frequently, so this is like the – our model is get it out there and see if it works, and then if it doesn’t let’s move on right away to something else. So it allows us to experiment, so yeah I mean there’s times when something just absolutely doesn’t work.

And even though we might say we’re going to crowd fund it for 30 days, like if a couple of days have gone by, we spend a little bit of money on Facebook or we emailed it out to the customer base and they haven’t responded, we’ll just tell the few people that have ordered or maybe even no one has ordered, we’ll just say like, sorry this one had no traction, it was not going to hit the minimum, so we killed it now rather than have this like walking dead products on the site for 30 days.

Steve: Okay, so let’s switch gears, you just mentioned email, do you have like your email list like segmented out by TV shows, and cartoons and what not?

Kevin: Yeah we use Klaviyo. So there is all of our purchase history there, and we actually recently completed uploading old transactions in the Klaviyo. So now we actually can — if you ordered from us three years ago, and you ordered us a Spiderman shirt, then we can specifically target you based on that.

Steve: Okay, and so whenever you release a new shirt let’s say it’s like a Spiderman shirt, you’ll just email everyone who has purchased a Spiderman shirt in the past?

Kevin: Yeah, we try to keep it pretty relevant. We do send out blasts just probably like every other ecommerce company. But those would be less targeted more broad as opposed to like yeah the Spiderman example would be, hey — the subject line would probably say something about Spiderman, and they would specifically be for that product.

Steve: So how much of your email marketing is automated versus broadcast?

Kevin: Well it’s kind of like there is a mix between — so it’s not really broadcast whenever we do the Spiderman one, but it’s not automated either. So it’s like a segmented broadcast I guess you might want to describe it.

Steve: Sure yeah that’s what I meant. So do you send those out — so outside of sending those out when you have a new product, do you have like a monthly broadcast that you do?

Kevin: It’s weekly, we try to do at least one yeah.

Steve: Okay what does one of those email sound like?

Kevin: A lot of times they are based on a forum and it just looks the same. And it’s just an overview of all of the crowd funds that we’ve released. But then every once in a while if we have a special offer or a discount that’s what we’ll post, but basically we don’t email out like, hey don’t forget about us random generic emails. There is always some kind of offer in the email.

Steve: Okay interesting, so most of your campaigns are not automated then? Like when someone purchases like a he-men t-shirt, they don’t have like a he-men specific sequence?

Kevin: No, that’s really good idea though.

Steve: Oh gosh that’s interesting, yeah true it is.

Kevin: It’s awesome, it would take us forever to build, but I can see some value there.

Steve: Or like your best ones like your Star Wars shirts or something like that. Yeah people would eat that stuff up I would think. So do you do any Pinterest work?

Kevin: We do, and I have never been able to get Pinterest to work consistently. I have had occasional blips of success where I get excited.

Steve: Okay.

Kevin: I have never been able to keep it running.

Steve: Okay. So I was just — part of what I do whenever I interview someone is I do the ACM [ph] rush, and I go through their site and see what’s going on. And you guys rank really well in Google for a lot of really hard keyword terms which is pretty amazing. And I know you guys have been around for a long time, but is there anything specific that you do to rank for these keywords?

Kevin: Yeah, I think it all started out way back when I lost with Frontpage. And…

Steve: So is that the tip for everyone use Frontpage?

Kevin: Well maybe the tip is I have no idea what you are doing with the database, because I didn’t. So my page is entirely folder based, and it was entirely hand generated html. And well with data Frontpage of course. But so what I had to do was I had to categorize these pages, so I knew how to find them easily. So I ended up creating like a folder in Frontpage that was 80s cartoons.

And then where do I put the transformer shirts, so I put the transformers page and I used cartoon folder. And then on the transformers page is where all these specific transformer shirts end up, but what it ended up was human readable file structure. And I think that was probably one of the biggest things is that the file structure look great, whereas everyone else that was trying to have like a database driven site, their URLs just look like the gobbledygook.

And obviously nowadays no one looks like that anymore right, like that’s in the past. But I just feel like by having such a strong start at it, we’ve just managed to continue on the same pace. And I’ll be honest with you I don’t do a leak of what most people might call SEO work. Like I don’t pay anyone to build links, I don’t do outreach for links.

And in fact I get really confused when I even think about doing that kind of stuff, because when I think of where can I get a link I can’t even think about of a place worthwhile because most of the blogs like their links disappear over time. And like everything is on social media nowadays.

Steve: I’m going to have to disagree with you there Kevin, because I was looking at your link profile. It seems like you guys have done some contests that have gotten some pretty good links, do you guys still do those?

Kevin: No, when was that?

Steve: I don’t know, I was just looking at it. There were some really high domain strength sites that were linking to your site, because you had done some sort of giveaway or something like that.

Kevin: It’s possible that I mean that might have been something way back when – but I’ll be honest I don’t think it moved the needle.

Steve: Okay and you haven’t done any of that stuff since?

Kevin: No, contests just get your people who want to join contests.

Steve: No but there was the link from that site that was pretty…

Kevin: Yeah I get what you’re saying; yeah there is some value there.

Steve: So if you were to — so of all those traffic sources that we just talked about, what would you say would be your top source, would it be SEO?

Kevin: Yeah, I mean that’s definitely the majority of it. And that’s a little confusing now since Google hasn’t shared as many other keywords. And since we do have quite a bit of brand build up over time, so there are a lot people that literally just use the URL part of typing the 80stees, and is that technically a search? I guess so, but it’s really then just trying to get to us.

Steve: Yeah I mean you guys have really established your brand at this point. From what it looks like you do get a lot of typing traffic for 80stees which is pretty awesome?

Kevin: Yes.

Steve: How do you deal with like inventory and all the sizes? Like you have like eight sizes, the same type for every shirt, it sounds like a nightmare.

Kevin: It is a nightmare. Yes straight up it is a nightmare, and that’s something that we are always working on trying to figure out how to do it better. The crowd funds are something that we try and kind of project like if during the crowd fund we sold a certain ratio of smalls, mediums, large, extra large, we are probably just try and project that same ratio into the future when we do place a print around the order. But you always end up having some kind of other stocks, so it’s just impossible to avoid if you keep stock.

Steve: So how do you manage that? Do you have any special strategies for getting rid of the sizes that are unwanted and that sort of thing or?

Kevin: We’re not too great at that, no actually. What we’ve been doing lately is if the product is something we like we will actually launch a re-crowd fund of it. So we might have say smalls and five XL on stock or whatever. And but we’ll still launch a crowd fund to hit a goal number which will allow us to sell all the sizes as well as give us a nice head start on our primal run.

Steve: Interesting okay. Yeah that just sounds like it can get out of hand real quick unless you have like a really good backend to maintain inventory and projections and that sort of thing. Do you guys use any software, or is it all homegrown?

Kevin: We are using an auto management system that I would not recommend to anyone I suppose, so I won’t mention it. But I think I would probably say the same thing about most auto management systems from what I have heard in different forums and stuff. But yeah we do have a lot of homegrown software that we’ve built, and it’s constantly in development and trying to make our job easier.

Steve: Okay and in terms of vendors like let’s say someone else wants to sell t-shirts and not necessarily 80stees. Like where do you start when you want to find someone to sell your t-shirts?

Kevin: Yeah I mean if you are talking like something that basically you are saying like you want to be a buyer of other people’s products and not do your own development at all, probably go to like Magic Apparel Trade Show in Las Vegas.

Steve: Interesting okay. Like if I wanted to sell like NCWA T-shirts, is that like a huge can of worms?

Kevin: You just have to find the right vendor that will work with you. The hard thing is going to be that like with sports stuff especially it’s all channel separated, so like you probably can’t just go buy NFL shirts if you want to sell them. You might have to have like a shoes store or some — there is going to be some level of authentic business that you already have in order for someone to even sell to you.

Steve: Okay I see, and so like the larger the organization the more red tape you have to go through?

Kevin: Yeah and really what it comes down to is the more the higher percentage of revenue that a business makes from apparel or licensed products in general the tougher it’s going to be.

Steve: Okay, do you find yourself moving more towards like the print on demand model where you don’t have to carry the inventory, you just go to the vendor and say, I want a print like five shirts, so whenever you make a sale?

Kevin: Yeah that’s — a lot of our vendors are going that route. So we are trying to work with them and do that more and more. The great thing about that model is there are no inventory. The terrible thing about that model it’s really not scalable, and it stinks at Christmas time, right? Because it’s great to say well I don’t have any inventory, but then on December 15th you have to stop taking orders, because you’ve literally exhausted your capability just shipping time.

Whereas on December I’m not sure what day Christmas is this year, but like the last shipping day possible to go next day before Christmas most of my inventory would be available for sale, and could get there.

Steve: Is there any quality difference between silk screen versus the printing — the different printing methods?

Kevin: Yeah for sure. Silk screen is definitely the best. But the other print methods do have some advantages in terms of like the color blending and everything you can do is a lot easier with that model, but those prints tend not to last as well. One thing you can — if you hit the right design though you could purposefully just dress it. So if it washes out a little bit then it might actually even be okay.

Steve: So do people copy your stuff?

Kevin: Yeah, I mean it definitely happens on – so Bootleggers do it. They’ll sell on Teespring, it happens on Amazon, there is I’m sure you’ve heard of all the Chinese counterfeiters on Amazon, and we are definitely starting…

Steve: Start with Chinese people, yeah. So but well can you do anything about it?

Kevin: On Amazon I suppose you could, but it’s like Wykamol, it would be a pointless game to play. And if it’s something that we’ve made for one of our licenses we will ask them to send us cease and desist, but it’s even a little bit tricky for us, because we can come up with our own unique transformers design, but we don’t actually own the rights, so it’s not like I can really police that I have to get Hasbro to do that for us.

Steve: Okay, I’m just curious because it seems like I can go on your site and I’ll see a shirt for like 18 bucks, but then hey I’m walking through the mall and I’ll see something for like 10 bucks right. And so do you even bother trying to fight those things, or you just run your business?

Kevin: Yeah, I just pretty much run the business. We are such a small cog in this machine that we don’t have the resources to do that.

Steve: Okay, and then this brand that you’ve built up, is there anything special that you’ve done over the years to instill the fact that 80stees is the place that you need to go for t-shirts?

Kevin: I mean I think it’s really just the concentrated collection of it. I mean you can find a lot of products that we sell other places like Amazon or Target or whatever, but you are not going to find as many at a physical store for sure. Like as many wrestler wrestling shirts or transformer shirts. And if you go on Amazon you might find that, but they are just not concentrating at that niche level like we are. So it would be a little bit harder to navigate at the very least.

Steve: Actually that was my next question; do you guys sell on Amazon at all?

Kevin: We do sell a little bit on Amazon; it’s not a focal point for us due to all the counterfeiters who will come from an unnamed country.

Steve: Plus they charge a lot of fees, right? Is it generally pretty profitable to be selling on Amazon, like if you could, let’s say there were no copy cats?

Kevin: Yes, so we do merchant fulfilled to avoid the FBA fee as well as tax implications, but that 15% definitely takes a huge cut.

Steve: Oh yeah for sure okay. So yeah, so it doesn’t sound like Amazon would be that great of a channel regardless, because of just the nature of how many fees that they take.

Kevin: Yeah, I have competitors though that I mean they do all the Amazon things that you need to do to be successful. They are investigating which products have the best seller ranks and they are doing the FBA. And I feel like they are spending $10 in inventory to make a dollar after the end of the transaction. But I guess they are doing enough transactions that they think it’s worthwhile and since the FBA model have low overhead they can justify that. So I wouldn’t say it’s impossible to make it work, because these companies probably would have gone out of business by now.

Steve: Sure, sure.

Kevin: But it’s just not for us.

Steve: Is there room for creativity in the t-shirts that you have? Like are you allowed to modify designs for your t-shirts? Like can I stick like [inaudible 00:44:49] on a t-shirt and make him say something funny?

Kevin: Yeah to an extent. So we can be creative, and then we have to get it approved. So it’s — we do run in some of that where we think we have an awesome idea, and it just doesn’t fit like the brand. They are like well this is — they are literally called like off brand, this is off the brand message, so we can’t do this.

Steve: Okay, what’s funny about this is I get a lot of emails from people who actually want to sell t-shirts or some sort of printed shirt. Do you have any just advice for those people on just getting started in the t-shirt business?

Kevin: Just getting started. I mean honestly if I wasn’t — if I didn’t already have the resources and stuff that I have, I would pick a different industry, and apply my knowledge there. It just so happens that we are making it work because of the head start. But yeah I would say the thing to do would be to have a [inaudible 00:45:48] of your brand as opposed to like be the prevue of funny graphics shirts right? Because that’s just — there is a million of them.

Steve: That sounds like a nightmare.

Kevin: Yeah exactly.

Steve: I mean I like your niche because 80stees, I actually did some searches for 80stees on Google just to see what the other — what your competition was like. And it seems like you have the largest collection, from what I could tell at least.

Kevin: Yeah I mean we definitely try to be that way too, and we literally look at it like we have to have coverage of a specific category. So like with super Mario we’ve got to have the super Mario two and the super Mario three shirts, because those were also released in the 80s that type of thing.

Steve: Yeah for sure. Cool man, well that’s really interesting. I always wonder how business owners in pretty competitive industries manage to make it work. And it sounds like you found like a really good niche that’s really profitable that you’ve made it work. So thanks for your insights Kev. If anyone can find you who wants to ask you any more questions about the t-shirt business, or if they want to buy some 80stees, where can they find you?

Kevin: Well the domain starts at 80stees for the actual site. And then I’m going to have a site up at Kevinstecko.com if anyone wants to just personally get in touch with me.

Steve: Cool, I actually did not know about that site, I’ll have to check it out.

Kevin: It doesn’t exist as of the time we are talking, but it will.

Steve: Okay all right, it will be up by the time I publish this?

Kevin: Yes.

Steve: Cool well thanks Kev, thanks for coming to the show man, I really appreciate it.

Kevin: All right man, thanks Steve, take care, bye, bye.

Steve: All right, take care.

Hope you enjoyed that episode. If you remember I had another guest on the show Derek Pankaew to talk about his t-shirt business, and it’s just interesting to compare Kevin stories with his, because they operate completely differently.

For more information about this episode, go to mywifequitherjob.com/episode139. Once again I want to thank sitelock.com for sponsoring this episode. If you have an e-commerce store, go there right now, and find out how long it takes to load. Does it take more than five seconds? If so did you know that 60% of consumers only wait up to five seconds before bouncing from a site, never making a purchase?

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Outro: Thanks for listening to the My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast, where we are giving the courage people need to start their own online business. For more information visit Steve’s blog at www.mywifequiteherjob.com