Gift biz unwrapped episode 243 the first mistake that I definitely

see is this fear of inventory and understanding it.

Attention gifters,

bakers, crafters,

and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one

now you are in the right place.

This is gift to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources, and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal,

Sue moon Heights.

Hi there,

it's Sue and thanks for Joining me here today.

Before we get into the show,

I have a question for you.

How'd your day go yesterday?

Maybe a crazy question.

I know and yes,

you heard me right?

If you were to rate yesterday,

how much did you get done?

How far did you advance toward your goal or maybe in

your mind you're saying what goal?

Many of you have told me you aren't sure whether what

you're doing is the right thing for your business.

You're confused that you may be focusing on the wrong things

and wasting time and money and you compare yourself to others

and feel like you're just not keeping up.

Sound familiar?

Maybe you find that you're busy all day long,

but when you finish up,

you haven't accomplished much of anything at all.

I've been there too until I started working with what I

now call the power of purpose.

I made a free video for you that explains how to

boost your productivity and get results using the power of your

purpose. Isn't it time to make all the effort that you

put into your business and your life do for you what

you've intended.

Now full disclosure,

this video does lead into showing you my brand new inspired

daily planner.

But listen,

you don't need the inspired planner to get all the advantages

out of the power of purpose that I show you in

this video.

So if you're interested in discovering a new way to work

through your days,

so your time is intentional and your results are real,

I encourage you to go over and watch this video and

you can find it.

It, gift biz,

unwrapped.com forward slash planner.

That's gift biz,

unwrapped.com forward slash planner and as a little bit of an

extra special announcement.

My favorite thing about the inspired planner are the daily bite-sized

bits of information that either remind you of a best business

practice or share a motivational quote.

They sit right in each daily section,

so seven days a week,

our new tip on how you can grow your business.

This is the very planner that I use every day.

People ask me all the time,

how do I get so much done from a weekly podcast

to weekly mastermind calls,

writing a book,

traveling, exhibiting,

and speaking at shows.

It gets done because of this planner and the system that

I've created.

There is nothing else out there like it.

So if you haven't,

I really do encourage you to check it out.

Plus, and this is the special announcement part of this is

it makes a great Christmas gift too,

and speaking of Christmas with Thanksgiving now behind us,

we are in full swing for holiday sales and this is

one of those years where we lose a week.

Christmas is only four weeks away.

You guys,

one week less than you'd normally have to bring in sales

and go through your holiday themed inventory.

Our show today gives you ideas on how to manage through

getting the most out of your holiday items as possible.

That includes what to do with inventory in January that didn't

sell. Some of the ideas really surprised me and I like

them. I think you will too.

Let's get right to it Today.

It is my pleasure to introduce you to Alicia Galodie.

Alicia is an eCommerce business strategist.

She helps physical product sellers increase their revenue,

improve profit margins,

and bring home more cash while creating a sustainable business.

After six years in the manufacturing and packaging industry,

Alicia has learned a thing or two about how to work

with international and domestic vendors,

make strategic production plans,

analyze trends,

and utilize marketing strategies.

This is what she brings to assist product based businesses.

Alicia lives in North Carolina with her fellow nerd husband.

Her words,

not mine,

two wild boys and a rescue dog.

She also loves all things savory,

so Q,

the lasagna and the glass of cab.

Alicia, you're right up my alley.

I love that.

Welcome to the gift biz on rep podcast.

Yes. Thank you so much for having me,

so I really appreciate it.

I am really excited to get into the conversation.

I'm not going to share with the listeners yet what we're

going to be talking about,

but it is so timely and relevant.

Before we dig in though,

I would like for you to share with us a little

bit something creative,

which would be what a motivational candle would look like that

resonates with you.

So if you were to tell us a color and a

quote on a candle that speaks all you,

Alicia, what would the candle look like?

So for color,

I was thinking like an ivory or a cream because I

am all about being able to be multifaceted and fit anywhere

in the house.

Just make things work as long as it can be like

functional, but it can be in the bathroom or it can

move to the kitchen wherever you need it to be.

That's where it can be.

So I was thinking like an ivory cream cause it goes

with anything.

There you go.

Okay. And what about a quote or a saying or mantra,

something like that?

Yeah, so I would say something like,

so Mark is a really,

is one of my favorite kind of like inspirational,

motivational quote or people.

And he says this thing that I have everywhere,

I have it on my desktop,

I have it on little sticky notes everywhere.

And this is very little is needed to make a happy

life. It is all within yourself in your way of thinking.

And that resonates so much with me because I didn't really

grow up in the best home situation and the cards were

always against me.

But yet by perseverance and choosing to make my life what

I want it to be,

I have been able to graduate while working a full time

job, be a mom and graduate and have a full time

job. Like all those different things.

Just perseverance and make the life that you want.

That's up to you.

Love it.

I think that that will resonate with a lot of people

who are listening to and you know,

I don't know where we got to on the material side

of that type of thing.

In terms of very little as needed material wise,

I think we're gravitating back to that now.

But that whole pressure of keeping up with the Joneses,

with material,

things like the car you drive,

the products you have that house size or whatever I think

is finally starting to go away because people are understanding what

you're saying in the quote that very little is needed.

No for happiness.

Absolutely. So I love that.

You know,

the other thing that I think comes to mind when I

was hearing you talk about this is I think also when

you start talking about education,

it's a great way to continue doing something that's,

I'm not going to say education and getting degrees is easy,

but it's kind of safe because you know you're in school,

you know you're educating,

you're not actually out there doing and proving yourself.

So in a way it can be something that you can

hide behind.

What do you think of that?

Absolutely. So little background about me,

I used,

lived in New Jersey a couple of years ago and I

was pumping gas at a Wawa and trying to finish my

associate's degree and had just moved in with my now husband

and he was then my boyfriend and networking talking ended up

getting a manufacturing job cause obviously boots to the ground.

That's just my attitude.

So they were like,

Hey, it's manual labor.

I think you'll be good at it.

And so I did.

I went into it and I still,

I took night classes.

I was doing that and then I got pregnant and I

could have easily just said,

Oh, you know what,

the pregnancy and the school like,

let's hide behind that.

But being the ambitious person that I am and the high

achiever, I was like,

no, I am going to go all the way with this,

make this my career.

Didn't really know about the online space at the time,

but knew,

Hey, I want to get this degree.

I want to finish my education,

but I also want to be able to have that work

experience that's going to help me longterm because if you hide

behind just the degree,

and I believe a lot of people and young people are

realizing this now that that work experience is going to take

you way further financially because of all the school debt,

but also like in your mind and having that experience.

It's going to take you so much further than if you

just sit in a classroom.

Absolutely agree with you.

So you sound very confident.

You and I don't know each other.

We're just getting to know each other on this interview.

Right. But you sound very confident.

Were you at all hesitant to make that move?

Jumping in,

you know,

I know you were doing education on the side too,

but getting that experience right at that time,

or did it feel totally natural and you were,

you're the type of person that could just go do it.

It felt like the right thing to do to me just

because I did grow up in a single parent home,

so working was always something that you kind of have to

do and I didn't have the luxury of,

Oh well,

you know,

I can just live at my mom's house or do that

and be pregnant and go to school.

Then going to a community college,

like you don't have housing to just live in,

you have to get your own house,

you have to do your own thing.

And I was on my own besides my now husband,

but he wasn't working at the time,

so it was really just like up to me.

All right,

you're, we're going to do that.

Which is funny because fast forward five,

six years now,

I still work a full time job.

I have finished my degrees,

but now my husband is a stay at home dad.

Oh that's cool.

I love that.

So initially it was necessity.

I mean you really didn't have a choice whether you were

anxious about it or not.

This was what you two saw was the best next step

for you both really.

And so you just jumped in.

Absolutely. Okay.

Well so tell us now,

I'm really curious.

What are you doing for your full time job?

Yeah, so I recently changed in the last year I was

a production planner for an international gas company and I was

doing production planning on the shop floor,

taking care of customer orders,

that kind of thing.

So I learned a lot about the production side and I

would also work with international vendors to get our steel and

our aluminum and all those things so that we could produce

the products.

Then I recently moved to a more corporate side of the

packaging industry.

So now I work for a motor oil company,

very small kind of almost family run style,

so it's completely different than the international multi trillion dollar company

and now I'm working for someone who is more small town.

They cook breakfast for you most mornings.

That kind of like attitude but doing inventory analysis for their

multiple facilities,

being able to give upper management and the leadership team,

those statistics and that data so that they can make the

right decisions for the company.

Got you.

And Although both of these products,

gas and motor oil,

so very industrial don't relate as much to our audience.

I think the skills that you learned really early on and

at a massive level running huge volumes and production and also

inventory apply.

Then even to makers here whose inventory is a little bit

smaller, little bit more manageable,

but you're bringing in the big power to the topic I

guess is the way I'll say it.

Yes. And I was in the online space for a few

years and I saw,

you know,

serving service based businesses and doing some marketing,

doing some social media management and not really being able to

feel like I was using my day job in this side

business. And then I realized like there aren't as many resources

or visible resources in the online space for product businesses and

with massive platforms like Shopify or Etsy or things like that.

I was like why aren't there more resources?

And that's when I discovered podcasts like yours and businesses like

yours that are helping these product businesses.

And I was like,

I want to do that.

I want to be able to use the expertise that I've

developed over the last six years to be able to scale

it down and help these businesses who otherwise might not have

those resources because they are so creatively minded.

Right. And that's a big point too is the skills and

the talent are more on the creative side versus the analytical

number side,

which is also why we shy away from all the financial

stuff too.

Yes. So on the side you're working with eCommerce businesses and

helping them do what.

So helping them really be able to feel empowered to look

at their numbers and understand maybe where their profit margins can

be changed or adjusted,

how they're pricing their products,

where they're resourcing their products from making sure that they are

getting the best buy they are utilizing their min and max

levels, making sure they have that safety stock for holidays and

for those busier seasons without getting overwhelmed with having too much

where it carries over to the new year,

all that stuff.

So just really being able to hand them that information in

a very digestible way,

but also empowering them that if you want to,

this is how you can look at your numbers too,

because I feel so strongly about empowering the women that I

work with to really be able to take it and run

with it and create that business that they dream about building.

Wonderful. Yeah.

And to manage it on their own and work with the

numbers that then obviously affect the profits that are going to

come into the company.

Yes. So.

All right,

so here we are.

We're sitting in December and if you're listening to this live

gift biz listeners,

maybe you are,

maybe you aren't because you're so busy right now with orders

coming in,

promotions. I mean holiday sales are definitely in full swing right

now. And I think that something that happens to us a

lot Aleesha as makers is we have that challenge with,

I know what my sales were last year,

my business has advanced since last year.

How in the world do I predict how much product I

need because I don't want to lose sales if I don't

have product yet.

Again, I don't want to buy too much because that inventory

might sit.

And so it's a challenging balance that I think we all

face every year.

So I don't know if you have any comments about that,

but it's going to lead to what do we do then

at the end when holidays are over and we're left with

inventory, that if it just sits there,

it's dollars on the shelf.

Right? So what direction can you give me with both of

those types of things?

Yes. So to answer your first question,

when you're looking at your business overall and you're seeing,

okay, I have increased my sales 10% let's make it a

nice pretty number,

10% my sales have increased from last year,

then I would feel confident in saying that your sales are

going to increase,

your holiday sales specifically will increase 10% now you might want

to throw in a little bit of extra safety stock to

make sure that,

say they ended up being 20% more than last year.

You still already have that safety stock on hand and you

have all of those lead times nailed down where you are

ready to go,

you know?

Exactly. So if you're hand making your product,

you know exactly how long it's going to take you to

quickly make up those products that you need to,

you have enough on hand to cover you for those specific

days that you will be making more product.

That's what I mean when I'm saying those lead times,

and I know some of you might not understand those kinds

of verbiage,

so please stop me if you're like,

Hey wait.

They might not know what that means.

Okay. You know I will.

I will definitely do that.

Yes. I definitely want to be able to explain it.

Yeah, So looking at it in that sense,

you want to make sure that you are focusing on those

numbers and I know it gets really hard because your business

is your baby.

You're creating this product and you're like,

everybody's going to love it and your sales might've even dipped

this year and you might feel like,

okay, well if sales dip this year,

then my holiday sales might dip.

That's true.

So plan for that,

but also have that little bit extra on the side.

Let me just jump in here with one thing that I'm

thinking. I think it also does vary by industry a little

bit. And let me explain what I mean when you say

if you've had 10% up through the year,

you're riding at a solid clip,

10% increase,

then holidays you can definitely do 10% or maybe more if

traditionally you found that all your business falls in the holidays.

But I also think it can be industry dependent a little

bit too,

how much of a risk you take.

Because if you have a themed product where you're buying lots

of things that are Santa Claus or dreidels or things like

that, that's inventory that you can't use any other time of

the, so you might want to be a little more conservative

because it's not as easy to do flash sales afterwards or

whatever you're going to recommend for the second question.

Okay. But also if you have a consumable product where your

product expires,

then that's just wasted product if you don't sell it.

So I think in those two cases you have to be

a little bit more careful in which point you want to

have a good backup system.

Maybe multiple vendors.

If you run out of a product you want to be

able to refill it,

but other products where you're getting the components and they aren't

just holiday specific and they don't expire,

I think you can take more of a chance.

Do you agree with the thinking here?

Yeah, absolutely.

So on the part of the Santa Claus and holiday specific

products, so for things like Hanukkah products,

you definitely can only sell those in that December timeframe,

but some Santa Claus things you might be able to sell

for Christmas in July next year.

So if you do have a tiny bit more extra than

maybe you had planned for,

then you always have that option.

For people who like to start shopping a little ahead of

time for those Christmas in July sales and for my thoughts

on the consumable products and the ones that have that timeframe

where you kind of have to get rid of them.

That's going to tie into the second half of your question

because a main part of how I work with my clients,

especially after the holidays,

is all about bundling your products in a way that makes

sense for the consumer to say,

Hey, yeah,

absolutely. I definitely want that product.

That makes sense.

I want to buy the two and then get a free

coffee mug or whatever it is,

however you want to bundle it,

and that way you can get rid of those consumable items

a little quicker.

All right,

so let's get into the details of some of these strategies

because although we don't necessarily need them right now,

the time that the podcast is going live in about three

or four weeks from now,

I think I'm going to be resourcing people back to listen

to this,

to figure out what to do with some leftover inventory.

So you started with bundling and for those listeners who might

not understand what that is,

let's start from the top with bundling idea.

Yes. So if you are manufacturing coffee beans,

that's one that I always love to use.

And then you also say you're like coffee and there's a

local weather cream,

beans and cream.

That's their business and they have coffee and they have ice

cream. But see,

I also have a line of coffee mugs that are specific

to their business.

They say beans and cream on them and they want to

sell more coffee beans.

So they are giving you a buy two coffee bean packets

and you get a free mug.

Say the mug is holiday specific.

People still like holiday mugs.

It doesn't matter what time of the year it is.

People still love those kinds of things.

I'm a big mug person and I get tied into target

mug aisle.

Every single time I would,

my husband asked to say,

Alicia, you have enough mugs.

So I am all about if they're cute and fun,

it does not matter what time of the year it is.

I will buy it.

So if it's seasonal,

it's okay to sell that in January as a bundle.

Don't feel like you have to be specific with that.

If you can throw some snowflakes on it instead of Santa,

you're going to have a longer lifespan for that product.

Yeah. Are you saying that even if the mug has Santa

on it,

you can still sell it in January?

Yes. I would definitely buy a Santa mug in January if

it is cute enough and it's a buy to get the

free mug.

Absolutely. So you're kind of,

you're in a way discounting the mug,

but you're not leaving it as a standalone item.

You're merging it with other product,

which then could be incremental sales if someone's never tried the

coffee beans before,

they've got the mug ready for next holiday season,

but they're also then getting the coffee beans and it looks

like a deal.

It looks like a deal to the consumer.

Absolutely. And if you think,

okay, my mugs are going to be a lot lower priced

than say my coffee beans,

that's my high ticket item.

That is the thing that is my sales maker.

That's what I'm pushing.

Then that complimentary product,

it's just icing on the cake for the customer.

Right. And so the numbers still work out.

If you were to play the numbers together for that new

product that you've created,

right? That has the mug,

the two coffee packets.

And what was the cream part?

Oh no,

I was just saying it's like icing on a cake.

Okay. Alright.

But the numbers still work out where you're making a margin

on the product,

right? Yes.

All right.

So bundling is one option in terms of what you can

do to get rid of holiday stock.

What else would you suggest?

Yeah, so if your product is not seasonal specific,

then I know that January is typically a time where people

start winding down.

Product makers aren't really making anymore during that time unless that

is their peak season and but all is industry specific.

But after the holidays you kind of want to wind down,

take a little bit of rest time.

But people are still buying.

And I remember growing up it was always you don't buy

certain items,

clothing specifically during the holidays because it always gets up priced

during that time.

And then in January the market,

the price tag goes down.

So if you are making some type of embroidery shirts or

things like that,

then that's going to be a time where you might want

to push your product a little more because people are going

to be buying more electronics,

things like that,

the gift kind of giving for that season.

Whereas if you maybe went a little too high on your

inventory in the clothing department,

then you can use January and early February to push your

product. People aren't really as adverse to buying those kinds of

things as they would during the holidays.

How would you think about marketing some of this?

Would there be specific different messages or what are you thinking

there? So for that you're going want to use AB testing,

see what kind of works,

but you could use some type of post-holiday copy so you

could say something in your messaging like now that you have

that cash from grandma,

then this is a great way to spend it.

You might've wanted this.

If you're in the Northern States,

then January is definitely going to be a time where people

are going to want to buy sweaters and those cowls and

scarves, things like that,

so you can definitely market to the upper half of the

country. Whereas my husband was mowing the lawn in North Carolina

January 1st last year.

That is not fair to talk about.

I'm in Chicago,

I'm sorry,

but you can target your ads specifically to those Northern States.

If you are United States based and say,

Hey look,

I get it.

It's cold.

Here you go.

Here's 10% off for new customers or 10% off for returning

customers. Utilize your email list during this time to really push

those sales because conversions on your website are usually what,

2%. It's very low statistically speaking,

but conversions on your email list are going to be a

lot higher,

so those emails that you've collected for the holiday,

Hey, 10% off or giveaways you've done,

whatever you've done to grow your email list up until this

point is going to be key in helping you make those

bundle sales because they're going to feel like it's an exclusive

deal for them,

which it can and will be exclusive for them.

Only offering it to my email list first.

You guys get first dibs on this inventory blow out or

whatever you want to call it to create that excitement.

Yeah, I think that point in terms of making that group

of people feel really special or that there's a limited amount

left, which to holiday product,

there really is,

you might have 200 left versus only two,

but feeling that level of exclusivity and being special,

getting the offer special,

I think really holds a lot of weight.

Absolutely. Okay.

Can you share with us a client that you've worked with

who did have leftover holiday inventory and how you helped manage

them through the situation?

We're going to get into the story with Alicia's client right

after a quick word from our sponsor.

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Yeah, so one client,

she makes baby blankets.

Well, she produces them through a manufacturing company and she was

struggling because several of her wholesalers had not sold through their

inventory during the holiday season as she had anticipated.

We looked at our numbers,

said, okay,

this is what we can expect in sales.

They'll reorder,

but it didn't pan out how we had anticipated.

So she's applying the product to stores that are then selling

the product?

Yes. And so they're not holiday themed necessarily,

but because that line didn't sell,

she's not getting the reorder.

So it's affecting her numbers.

Correct. Right.

Okay. So we were able to figure out,

okay, if we can maybe add in a new product for

next year,

we knew that this product would eventually sell out as most

seasonal products do.

Eventually you will sell them.

But we figured that okay to plan ahead for this next

year we are going to want to do a few tweaks

to both her website copy cause she does sell direct to

customer as well.

But also with the information that she's giving these wholesalers and

these boutiques,

how many she shipping to them,

streamlining that reorder process for them so that if they do

run out,

she can quickly send it up there to them.

But without really having that extra lagging inventory on their shelves.

Oh so ordering less so that it's not sitting there but

being able to refill it if itself.

Correct. So streamlining that process was what definitely we hope to

anticipate will help us this year better anticipate that.

Okay. If they do sell a lot quicker this year,

they'll have less product on their shelves,

but we will be able to get it to them very

quickly. Okay.

So I'm just kind of curious in,

this leads to the question that I was waiting on a

second ago.

It's kind of an equal play in terms of the responsibility

of product selling through,

right? Because your wholesale client,

the one who makes the baby blankets wants to provide as

much information.

Maybe, I don't know that you would call them shelf talkers

in gift shops,

but some type of promotional material or make sure that that

retailer understand why these baby blankets are so special and why

they're different.

Maybe from someone else's baby blankets.

That would be probably part of the sale of getting the

product placed in that gift shop in the first place.

But then it's also the retailer's responsibility to sell through to,

right. I mean where does that all fall in terms of

visit 50 50 did you guys feel in this situation that

it was more an issue on the retailer's end or your

end or when you were thinking afterwards about how all this

happened? Where did you feel besides what you're going to do

next year in terms of the replenishment,

but where did you feel it could have been better?

Yeah, so I think it was a combination of both our

part and the boutiques.

They could have done a better job of,

all right,

this product is in my shop and I need to sell

it. And that way I can make more money out for

my business.

But then also on our end,

the promotional material could have been better.

These baby blankets are not like the ones that you would

get at Walmart or target or even Amazon.

This is a specially made organic of material where we could

have packaged it better in a way for our boutiques to

better understand why this is such a high quality product for

their customers and why their customers are gonna want to buy

this product over something else.

So really educating those boutiques to understand this is why you

want our product,

but also this is why you want to sell our product.

Got it.

Okay. And I'm also thinking from a gift shop owner perspective,

that's something for those of you who are listening,

who owned shops and you stock other people's products.

So you're the recipient.

So either retailer,

obviously in this case,

understanding what is provided by someone whose product you are now

going to dedicate very valuable shelf space for because you're a

shop. If you're physical,

brick and mortar,

you only have so much space.

So each of those products has to be really valuable and

important for your customer.

But then you as the shop owner also have to understand

and be able to explain why this is so special and

why you're carrying it in the first place.

So I think that always helps.

Yes. As a shop owner and retail or don't feel like

you can't go back to,

especially if it's a small business,

like they want the product to sell because they want to

be able to that you buy more from them.

So don't feel like you can't go back to them and

say, Hey look,

I'd really like a little more information on the product so

I can sell more.

Like this is a collaboration between both of you and asking

those questions is going to make that deeper connection.

It's all about the vendor management side when working with vendors

and in the retail space,

working with these smaller handmade businesses,

if that's kind of where you're getting your products from,

having those connections is going to grow your business because then

they are making sure that you are getting the best product

for your shop and that way you are able to sell

the best product in your shop.

So make sure that you feel okay and having those conversations

up front or having your sales team do it however your

business is set up.

But making sure that those connections and those collaborations truly are

there is going to take you further.

Perfect. Okay.

And we kind of got off on a little side road

here. Let's go back again to talking about what you do

about leftover holiday products.

So you talked about the bundling,

great idea and then seasonal specific strategies.

Is there anything else you would suggest?

I would suggest no other real promotional ways other than like

your email list.

If you need to run ad run ads,

the marketing side,

but take it as a lesson for next year.

It's easy to say,

Oh yeah,

it was great last year.

It was great,

we sold and let's buy the same amount.

But really next year is the time to be focusing on,

okay, what did my numbers actually tell me and what did

my sales actually tell me that I can use to prepare

for this season?

And I know typically you guys are preparing in like June

and July.

So taking that time as summertime to really focus on,

okay, how can I better use this information to my advantage

for next year so that I'm not stuck in the mud?

Right. And I think that leads also to a point that

after the holiday season is over and the Russia's done and

some people's business honestly never takes a dip,

it just starts going into January again.

So whether you're that type of a retailer where it just

keeps going or whether you get to sit back for a

minute and breathe,

catch your breath.

I think that's still the point where you should jot down

what did happen,

what worked,

what didn't work.

Just even if it's on an eight and a half by

11 sheet of paper that you're going to file somewhere.

So Alicia,

to your point to compare against what happened the prior year,

if you don't do that,

you're going to forget.

So that's my 2 cents added in there because I know,

I think I'll remember because it's just so dramatic and so

much is happening at the time,

but 12 months pass and you might not remember everything that

you wanted to adjust for the next holiday season.

Absolutely. So I always like to tell my customers that no

mistake is a mistake if you learn from it.

So if you are able to take that information,

it's a learning lesson.

It is a way that you can grow your business the

next time around or the next season or the next year.

However it is that you want to take that information.

You are not failing as a business owner because you made

a quote unquote mistake.

It is simply something to learn from and we move on

from here.

Oh great.

I'm glad you said that.

Glad you brought that to the table.

We always have to remind ourselves that I think though.

All right,

so you're an expert in inventory for sure.

What mistakes have you seen with your clients?

Maybe two or three things that you've been seeing that repeatedly

happened that seemed to be the common mistakes for small business

owners with their inventory?

Yeah. Oh man.

Okay. Like do you need me to extend that to a

hundred different misdiagnosed?

Just the top ones.

Let's do top three.

So the first mistake that I definitely see is this fear

of inventory and understanding it,

not counting it.

Just kind of putting things on your shelf and then hoping

it sells and then scrambling when you have sold out and

then you've got quote unquote angry customers or maybe you do

have literal angry customers.

That is not what we want in your business.

You have to be looking at those numbers.

You have to be looking at your sales history to be

able to make better decisions because even though you are a

creative, if you want to take this business to the next

level, increase your profit margins and be able to take more

money home.

You have to be making decisions based on numbers and not

on the fear of looking at those numbers.

So that's the first one that I definitely see.

The second mistake that I see is you do get a

system in place and you think,

okay, well Shopify handles the inventory and the numbers and all

that stuff and then you just assume that it's going to

pop up something to tell you,

Hey, you need to order more.

Don't just simply rely on the system,

understand maybe what it's trying to tell you and why it's

telling you that.

So that,

and I guess this ties into the first one so that

you can be able to make those better strategic decisions for

your business.

You can plan ahead for those sales increases during certain seasons

and it tracks that for you.

But understanding why and how.

So going beneath just a raw number,

but why is the number looking like it does?

What does it mean and what does it suggest that you

should be doing for the future?

Exactly. Okay.

And then another mistake that I see on the inventory side

is this idea that if you just buy a bunch of

inventory, then you'll be good.

But you got to understand that that is money that is

tied up on your floor,

on your shop floor,

that you are not able to use to invest back into

your business,

back into maybe different products back into yourself,

your own self development as a business owner,

that's money that's in your business,

that's sitting there and waiting and not being able to be

utilized for the business.

So things like dead stock and that's something that I deal

with very heavily in my day job is analyzing that dead

stock. What are those products that have not moved in over

a year,

which you should be looking more on if you are a

smaller business than the one that I'm dealing with on a

more quarterly,

a monthly basis.

What is not move,

why hasn't this product moved?

Okay, what can we do?

Maybe we need to throw something extra on it,

design it a little different.

If you are able to do that,

then that's great because then you can utilize the same product,

but sometimes you have to cut your losses and be able

to have that as a write off.

So that's going to be the finance side.

You want to talk to your accountants and things like that

for that side,

but don't just keep it,

like you said,

taking up valuable shelf space that you need for more products.

Right. And you know what?

This mistake just triggered what I couldn't remember a little bit

earlier and that is you're right,

exactly with the product that you're talking about.

If it's just sitting there not selling,

it's like a little piggy bank of money that you can't

break into.

You know?

And if it's going to sit and stay and stay and

stay for so long,

it doesn't fit in a bundle like we were talking about

before, you can't find a solution to get rid of the

product. I would suggest,

and I'll be interested in your comments to Alicia,

but I would suggest even taking that and getting it out

of there at a loss,

selling less than cost Steven,

because you're not tying up your money.

Yeah, you didn't make any money on it.

You might've paid the customer for the sale to take it

off your hands,

but at least it's adding back into your cash flow and

you've learned that that's not the right product for your customer.

The sizing's wrong,

you know,

whatever the reason why it wasn't selling,

but getting it out of there,

I think there is a time and a place to do

that. Consciously knowing that that's what you're doing,

knowing that you are taking a loss on it but clearing

it out.

Yes, that's an absolute great suggestion and I highly recommend it.

After you have looked at those numbers,

like you said,

you want to make sure that you are being conscious about

it and you're not just like,

well, this didn't sell and I just bought it so too

bad we're just going to cut our losses.

You want to be strategic about it.

You want to make sure that you're looking at those numbers

and learning from them.

But another thing that you can do too is sell it

back to the vendor.

And a lot of people forget about this part is that

you can go back to you or if it's a raw

material, say and maybe you have extra leftover that you didn't

use for your product.

You can say,

Hey look,

I have this extra and start the conversation.

Sometimes they might say no and that's okay,

but at least you tried the answers already.

No, if you don't try,

Right, you might as well ask.

Yes. So ask the question and say,

Hey look,

I have this.

Are you willing to buy it back at price?

Or maybe you have to sell it back at a discount.

Obviously you don't want to,

but they might just buy it back at cost Or in

exchange for a different color.

If it's an ingredient as part of,

or an element of a design,

maybe the red beads aren't selling,

but by golly,

you need the pink ones or whatever.

So you can,

if you're a good enough customer,

and I think that gets into vendor relations,

right? But if you're a good enough customer and you're sitting

on product,

my never thought of doing that.

I think that's an excellent suggestion.

Talking about inventory,

and this is gonna be my last question for you cause

we're winding down here.

What types of tools would you suggest for a small business

owner to really get a handle on their inventory?

Because you're saying don't just rely on Shopify.

What would be a good suggestion of what we should be

using? So there are a few inventory management systems out there

and for Shopify does have very good tools but you don't

just want to use just their inventory management one.

You want to be able to kind of dive a little

deeper. So you might want to add on a few extra

plugins to your shop to kind of better understand where those

numbers are coming from and why it's doing what it's doing.

But on that side it's really not that difficult to run

the numbers.

And I mean I do it daily.

What type of plugins are you thinking people should use?

I don't know specifically off the top of my head and

write those down.

Usually I just analyze it with my customers to see what

they're using and then see how we can tweak it to

better make sense for their business so that it is tying

in all those things.

The raw materials,

they do have that vendor management that it's an all in

one encompassing kind of thing for them like dashboard style.

Let's move on and I'm just curious what you're looking at

for your future.

So you've got your full time job that you're already doing,

you're working with people to help them here with their inventory,

profit margins,

all the numbers,

scary things.

Right. Where do you see this going?

The future Eventually I'd like to make this my full time

gig. I really enjoy working my day job.

I don't mind it.

I never really have minded my day job.

I just always felt like I was called to do and

be more than clock in and out nine to fiver.

I would like to,

and this is just because I believe so strongly in self

care and mindset host something of a self care summit for

product businesses maybe in that early February season after they are

done with all of that back and forth and holiday and

craziness where they can,

okay, let's crunch a few numbers,

let's get you kind of situated,

but let's just take a breath to instead of rushing into

the next season.

So really being able to just create that space for these

product businesses where not only do you feel like,

okay, I can kind of understand my business and that side

of my business,

even though it's difficult,

but I can also feel empowered to just breathe in that

business doesn't always have to be a hustle and a grind

and a go,

go, go.

It is important to still take that time to Woosah.

And did you get this idea just from the fact that

in working with business owners,

you're just seeing their levels of stress?

Yes. And I mean,

okay, so I'm in my late twenties and I gone through

burnout. So I can only imagine the people who are putting

their heart and soul into a product and maybe being a

parent as well and just the stress and all of that

that goes into running a business.

It is hard and I get that and I've seen other

businesses I've worked with go from season to season to season

without breathing or taking a vacation or stopping.

So take some time to pamper yourself,

to treat yourself to something nice,

even if it's like,

okay. The other day I was feeling extremely stressed out,

been dealing with some stuff with my mom's passing.

I'm sorry about that.

Thank you.

And I was like,

I can't do this.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I'm feeling overwhelmed.

They make this so difficult.

And then I just went to a local Mexican restaurant,

ate some enchiladas for lunch and read a true crime book

for an hour.

There you go.

Getting away.

It does a world of good for your mindset,

that's for sure.

Absolutely. And it made all the difference.

I got back to my phone afterwards and everything had figured

out itself out.

I was like,

okay, it's okay.

There you go.

It's okay.

Big deep breath.

What I find sometimes is people so easily can call you

wanting answers to their questions and sometimes if you just wait

for a little bit,

they figure it out themselves and then they're empowered to figure

it out later too.

So we don't always have to take on all the problems

of the world,

but sometimes we want to.

Right. Okay.

So Alicia,

where can our listeners go to find out more about you?

Yeah, so I have a podcast called the product bench and

it's all about this kind of stuff that we talked about

today. Those promotional strategies,

going to have a lot of solo episodes uploaded by this

time, so you'll have lots to binge if you need to.

And then Instagram is really my favorite place to hang out,

mostly Instagram stories,

a lot of just real life craziness with my two boys

and my husband.

So Alicia DACA lady over there.

Wonderful. Thank you.

Well, I appreciate so much all of your direction.

This will really be helpful for all of our listeners as

we are past the holidays and then trying to figure out

what to do with all of our inventory.

So thank you so much for all your knowledge and expertise.

I really appreciate having you here today And thank you so

much for having me on today.

I really appreciated it and I really hope everyone was able

to find some type of nugget or truth that they can

take into their day and run with it.

Definitely. Thank you again.

Bye. Bye.

Bye. There you go.

Whether you just listened to this show in real time or

you're catching up and it's already January,

Alicia has given us actionable ideas to clear out product and

That's so exciting and filled with possibility,

but before we get to next year,

I want to tell you about next week.

I met our guest a few months ago and she has

become one of my favorites.

You know how you meet someone and they just light up

the room.

It's almost like there's like sparkles and glitter all around.

That's Sam.

She's as sweet and bubbly as she can be and so

is her product.

Hear all about it on next week's show,

and until then,

happy holiday selling.

I want to make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook

group called gift is free.

It's a place where we all gather and our community to

support each other.

We've got a really fun post in there.

That's my favorite of the week,

I have to say where I invite all of you to

share what you're doing,

to show pictures of your product and to show them what

you're working on for the week,

to get reaction from other people and just for fun because

we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody in

the community is making.

My favorite post every single week without doubt,

wait, what aren't you part of the group already?

If not,

make sure to jump over to Facebook and search for the

group gift biz breeze.

Don't delay.