262 – Everything You Want to Know about Faire with Eric Rion of Willa’s Shortbread

You're listening to gift biz unwrapped,

episode 262 this is the redneck side of your world speaking

to you.

Let her rip 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 Derek,

it's Sue and thanks For joining me here today.

I'm so happy to be bringing you this particular guest because

in light of all the serious virus talk we're surrounded with

these days,

Eric's communication style alone will put a smile on your face.

You probably got that idea already from the little intro teaser

clip, but right now I don't think we can get enough

smiles. Eric's been on the show before and is just a

hoot to talk with.

He knows his stuff and is as honest and genuine in

his comments as they come better yet,

Eric is addressing a question I've been getting from a lot

of you over the past few months.

What about fair?

Would it be a good place for my product?

Three things you're going to learn through our discussion here are

the role that fare can serve in your overall business strategy,

what it's like to get started on the platform,

and then the specific details and benefits of being unfair with

what we've all lived through these last weeks.

Now more than ever,

I think you see why it's so important to strengthen your

online presence.

This may be one of the ways to do just that.

Let's roll the interview now.

Be prepared to learn and laugh along the way.

It's going to be really refreshing.

Yes. Give biz listeners,

I want to introduce you or I should say reintroduce you

to Eric Ryan of Willis shortbread.

We spoke with him way back,

boy, almost in the beginning of my podcast journey,

are on.

Wow, that is crazy,

but let me share with everybody who you are.

Eric is an expatriate from corporate America and he's been at

hung up her apron inheriting a small family business with a

great core product,

a small but loyal regional customer base and a gourmet and

specialty market that was pretty much nonexistent.

The challenges to profitable growth were many.

The decision was made early on to go with all natural

ingredients and to add flavors just a few at a time

after some not so delightful forays into the larger retail market,

Eric decided to focus on the gourmet and specialty market,

which fortunately began a growth surge that continues to this day.

from Southern living magazine and that led to appearances on unwrapped

2.0 and Tennessee crossroads as well as articles in numerous nationally

known magazines.

Goodlettsville, Tennessee.

In addition to the Willis line,

the mercantile offers locally made and unique gifts that become well

known to locals and travelers alike.

This sounds like somewhere I need to visit Eric.

Yes, you do.

Of course.

Well you never come down below the Mason Dixon line.

Let's just get that for some reason you've got a problem

with that.

I have no problem with that at all.

Not at all.

Okay. I already know that it's going to be really hard

to keep you in line today.

Yeah, I think I've decided that already,

but it's gonna make for a great conversation.

Well, is that a surprise?

No, it's not a surprise,

but you and I haven't seen each other for a while

and I guess I kind of forgot all the craziness that

goes on with you.

Oh boy.

Well, let me share with everybody why we're talking again.

Okay, so give his listeners,

as you know,

I like to do past guest spotlights and I reached out

to Eric late last year and he said to me that

he was working with fare and I'm like,

Oh my gosh,

I've had a lot of requests for kind of a background

and understanding of fare from a user perspective and he's like,

hold tight,

let me get some experience behind me first before we do

this. So we've put it off and today is our lucky

day. We get to talk all about fair.

Before that,

as I was saying,

bring us up to speed.

What's happened within the last four years over at Willis?

Well, we're just continuing on over four years.

What's happened is that the market has just exploded the potential

market for us to take our product to.

Four years ago,

I was still having to do to marketing and whatnot to

get out into the world.

And that's still always a good thing to do,

but there's not a week goes by where I don't get

wholesale request three,

four, five a week from people who have either gone through

our website,

have seen our product somewhere.

They're going,

Hey, how do I get this?

How can I get it into my location?

So the market has evolved and one thing we're sitting here

in Nashville,

Tennessee, it's booming.

Well, there's cranes everywhere.

They're building like crazy.

It's a hot place to be right now.

And anything Nashville related is just like gold right now.

It's definitely true.

Do you attribute it to that or do you also attribute

it to all of the marketing that you were doing earlier

on and at some point that work and all That groundwork

and the road that you were paving starts to kick in?

It's a combination of all of it.

It's making the determination not to go out and chase these

big retailers and dumb our product down stupid down go with

lesser quality ingredients or saying,

yeah, I'll cut my price way down in here to try

to get into a Walmart or any big grocery chain,

something like that.

It kind of staying true to our core value and our

core customer base and keeping our product at the highest quality

we can.

And then developing a packaging that had pretty much global acceptance.

Right? And it's just like the moon and stars fall in

line. So we're sitting here with the right product in the

right packaging at the right time for the market.

And the consumer market has changed.

People have gone from wanting to gaudy the pinks,

uh, bright colors,

whatnot. Everybody's now is wanting more into the traditional,

the more of a classic look and it's just kind of

all come together.

Well, two things I want to ask you about as I'm

remembering our conversation back four years ago,

and I don't even know if this was on the podcast

or you and I were just talking about it offline,

but you were struggling keeping up with orders and physically it

was getting to be too much.

I think you were having trouble with your shoulder or your

arm just because you were making everything yourself.

Yeah, well we've upgraded some equipment since then so I don't

have to hand crank the deposit or like we used to

except I've got like two flavors that I still have to

do that on.

Like the ginger snap dough is just so thick.

My more automated machine can't handle it and we're doing more

work in here and last year I purchased a new bag

or anything we can do to help automate the process.

Do you have more people with you now?

Working Really not full time still.

It's just my wife and I.

Well Theresa and I do,

uh, we're the full time.

We do have several retired teachers.

My wife is a retired teacher too,

but that we stay close with and they'll come in two,

three, four days a week.

We need them,

they're in here and they can run the store if they

need to or whatever,

but we have certain days that they're in large order,

So you can ramp them up too if you need it.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. I can ramp up.

I can go from just the two of us in here

to six or seven people.

A couple of phone calls right there in the holidays.

We'll have four people,

four to five people in here daily.

Plus we have a second shift we'd call it,

which is everybody's working during the day who comes in?

That's when they pop a cork on a bottle of wine

and off they go.

Yeah, there you go.

Now I'm definitely coming down.

You said the magic words era.

Okay. And the other thing that I just want to get

an update on is we talked a lot about private packaging

back then and how you were doing some specialty things for

some of the well known historic sites or touristy areas.

In your area are still doing all of that?

We're still doing all of that.

We have picked up,

gosh, three or four other,

I'll call them,

very well known boutique hotels in certain areas.

We've got one in Cincinnati that we've picked up that's been

a wonderful hotel for us.

We're doing a lot more,

I'll call co-branding,

where our packaging has a lot of flexibility where I have

a flavor label.

We're doing more and more with hotels for instance,

that may have beehives on their property,

so they are harvesting their honey and one of our specialties

is our wildflower honey shortbread.

Guess what?

We can do that using their honey.

They pay for a custom label and now they have something

that is unique to them.

Sales, very good for them and as a manufacturer,

I'm locked that customer up because nobody else can do that.

Sure. You can lock that customer in.

It's the best of both worlds.

Absolutely. When you say co-branding,

is the Willis name also still on the packaging or is

it just your client's label?

For those who don't know about our packaging,

go take a while.

You're listening to this pop on our website,

it's willows-shortbread.com.

You'll see our box is generic,

so it's a generic box.

It's got all our branding,

all our logo,

all our fluff is on that box.

And then we replace,

you'll see where the flavor,

there's a disc there to flavor.

That's a two inch round label.

Well, what we'll do,

for instance,

one of the hotels is to Gaylord Opryland hotel here in

Nashville. Big huge property.

So they had a custom label made that ad made with

Gaylord Opryland honey,

I forget exactly what it's got on that label,

but they provide me with that and they provide me with

the honey.

Got it.

And now it is co-branded because they're seeing,

Oh, Willow shortbread.

Oh and this has made using their honey.

So we both benefit off of it for sure.

And it's only available there,

right? Yes.

I've only available there.

So we have multiple properties that we're doing that with and

that continues to expand as an industry to talk.

They talk a lot in amongst themselves.

And, uh,

just this past week I spoke to a company that is

doing a lot of minibar work and custom work in hotels

across the country,

high end property.

So now if I can get them on board now I

don't have to go out and visit all these properties.

I can work with them.

And it's also a product.

I don't have to cut my price.

If you go to some of these brokers or these reps

or distributors,

distributors of the worst,

I will say the worst.

We just haven't had good experiences,

but they're going to want to cut and or however they're

going to go.

But they always try to beat me down on price where

they can make more.

And then that's an item I go,

there's no cuts.

You're going to lock them up with this.

You can make what you want to make,

what you need to make.

But I'm not cutting approach.

No. Good.

I love hearing you standing firm on the price.

That's a good for everybody To be listening to.

Yeah. And it's a business strategy of yours,

right? Like if you cut your price,

you could run a whole lot more volume,

then you definitely have shoulder issues,

number one.

But that's not what you stand for as a brand.

And you decided that way early on too,

and now you're holding firm to it.

Yeah, you can chase that unicorn,

which is the magic world.

Oh yeah,

I can do 20,000

pieces a week.

Yeah. Okay.

How are you going to ramp up to do 20,000

pieces and what's the exposure on that and who's going to

do it?

Who's going to bake it?

Who's going to make it?

And you're going to have to cut your price to get

that. Is that worth it?

And for us it was like,

no, let's live within our means and go after profitable business.

So you were saying that some of the difference from four

years ago was all the selling that you were doing.

How are you recognizing these new opportunities?

Are people coming to you?

Are you still doing outreach?

They're coming to us.

The bulk of the new business we're getting is coming to

us. We have on our retail website,

there's a contact us,

it's a wholesale page,

and it basically says,

Hey, send us your information.

We'll be right back in touch with you.

So that's one thing.

Every day when I come in,

it's one of the things I'm looking for.

And in a lot of cases you can look and say,

Oh, Hey,

this is a good opportunity here.

So that's how you kind of,

you prep your call before you call back,

right? Some of them,

you know,

Hey, I can drop a price sheet in,

boom, and it's gone.

But others,

you look at it and go,

Whoa, I need to talk to them.

So that's when you get personal,

you call them up,

say, Hey,

what are you looking to do?

And you go into sales mode.

Okay. Along in this process,

did it take for those gears to really engage?

It kind of goes back to the original.

It's having the exposure.

It's years.

It doesn't happen overnight,

right? Unless you're the latest,

greatest. Everybody's got to see it and have it.

No, it's what is luck labor under correct knowledge.

You say,

Oh, you're lucky you're getting out of this.

No, it took a long time,

years in the making,

but now it's become kind of something that is feeding itself

and we're seeing that.

And then the traditional ways where we went to get business,

which actually leads directly into the fair conversation.

We're seeing those go away.

You're seeing those go away in terms of you doing those

behaviors to get the sale or just shows overall.

Yeah. Our traditional method for,

let's see,

So for the first nine or 10 years,

our primary way to get new business was to participate in

the wholesale markets.

Atlanta merchandise Mark.

Uh, we did Dallas for a year and a half.

I did one in Columbus,

Ohio. Those were,

people know that's where customers went to find new products.

Okay. So that's what I wanted.

I want that new buyer coming in and that's where they

came to.

We spent a lot of money doing that.

We had to go twice a year.

That's our mandatory,

yeah. Those shows aren't cheap for sure.

No. Oh no.

I mean for me and I had a small booth,

I'm driving there.

Okay. That's why I'm not paying airfare.

I don't stay at luxurious hotels.

Okay. I ride Marta in,

I'll stay at 10 miles out of Atlanta and ride in

on the,

the subway,

Marta, whatever they call it.

A lot of in room dining,

not room service.

I'm talking about the heat them up dinners and that week

would cost me between five and $6,000

out of pocket.

Okay. So that's not cheap.

In order to recoup that,

you're going to have to see some sales up into five

digits at least I'll say the first six,

seven years.

Yeah. You got them.

I mean,

we would go,

we would basically load the wagon up,

especially the summer show.

You've got people who are coming in and buying for Christmas,

so you were loading the pipeline pretty heavy for that.

You had some initial orders,

maybe a chip,

then they would just stagger in.

But what we saw over probably a four year period,

you would have an occasional bad market,

but usually you always did good.

You would have occasionally you'd have market that was just off

and you go,

well it the weather or was some event and that's typically

the next market would bounce back and everybody's happy and we're

all singing hallelujah.

Having a good time.

But then you started noticing something or I started paying attention.

Number one,

the volume of people at the market was down in the

market. Paper accounts.

Oh no,

no, no.

We have the same numbers of symbol.

They are not on this floor because I know what a

full floor,

right. You can pull that over somebody else.

But I can look and if I look down the hall

or if I look down this aisle and there's no customers,

that's not good.

Right? Well,

they're coming in at different times.

They're doing this and said,

Oh, okay,

so you continue on.

And I will say that it's the fear of not knowing

or whatever,

however that is.

But the vendors that are there are very reluctant.

Not because you're watching it,

it's declining and these people are still paying for that booth

over and over and over.

It's going to get better.

It's get better,

like it's not really looking like it.

I'm as guilty of that as anybody or somebody else.

Oh man,

I had a great show or Dallas was really booming this

time, so Atlanta is going to have to be big and

then it's not.

And then one thing is if you're still doing these shows,

look at the audience,

look at the customer base,

look at who's attending and what I noticed,

and this is from literally not being an idiot and carrying

on, but watching the crowds,

the young buyers were not there.

There's your key there was to me anyway,

I'm saying,

okay, if I don't have the younger buyers,

which are the newer buyers,

then I've got a dying market.

So you were really observing first off the trending of the

shows, which was fewer and fewer.

It's still declines today,

but I don't want to discourage everybody because some of these

shows can work out for you if you get the right

audience. Depends on how much you need to sell,

all those types of things.

But you really were watching the trends,

the audience,

everything overall to determine your next moves.

But before you go further,

Eric, a couple of points that I think were really important

that I want to point out to our listeners and that

is you did these shows,

and I'm not talking about just shows,

but as you're starting to build your business anywhere,

you can go on the cheap,

like you heard Eric talking about,

we weren't in the luxury hotels.

We're going out to dinner every night.

They were cutting corners where they needed to so they could

afford to do this.

And that's kind of like your time in when you're growing

your business.

So that's the first thing.

The other thing,

Eric, that you talk about is some of these activities were

for a long term result.

It wasn't just what were you going to get at one

show. People are going to see you,

maybe they're going to order a little bit later,

and you understood that,

which I think is super important and you're a great example

because if we could only know that all these activities and

hard work we're putting in today will eventually pay off,

that would be one thing.

But you never totally know unless you're listening to stories like

yours, Eric,

right? Like all of that time you're putting in the effort

in good faith that is going to work out in your

favor in the end,

but you don't necessarily know for yourself.

But when you hear of examples of other people where it's

working, that helps.

So I wanted to make those points and underline those for

our listeners.

Eric. Yeah.

So back to what you're talking about is you are seeing

trends where you were going to need to change and take

it from there,

Right? I'm a backup proponents you just made number one,

if you're a new maker,

you've got a new product than these shows may still be

fantastic for you.

Remember we had been at these shows for 10 12 years.

I only want to do new business for me were people

who had not been there before.

When I'm seeing the same people over and over and over,

then it becomes not good.

But if it's my first or second time there,

guess what?

They're all new,

Right? So you're getting a lot of visibility.

You might not be getting the sales,

but you're getting your product out there.

Well and you still,

which new excitement.

You'll see somebody who brings a product in for the first

time and all of a sudden there's a feeding frenzy over

on aisle three and it's,

what the heck is that?

Oh well this lady's doing fried green tomatoes.

Really? Yeah.

And people can't get enough of it.

Don't hesitate if you're not there,

do it.

And when,

don't just go online and sign up for that though.

Call, find out who the person is that's running that floor

and negotiate.

Say, Hey,

I want to come in.

Have you got a deal?

You got any spaces that are open and I might be

able to get for less or a smaller booth Specially for

new people cause they always want new.

I think Eric also you're talking about the super big show

like Atlanta and Dallas,

but there are some intermediate shows and you know I'm still

out at shows for the ribbon print company all the time.

Not as many as I used to do because I saw

the trending too.

But I'm actually going after and seen results of some of

the smaller shows where you're having maybe 8,000

people coming through or less.

And the reason for that is what I'm seeing is people

aren't so stressed out,

like they've got to hit every single booth,

see everything,

and they're not just coming grabbing literature.

They actually have time to sit and talk with you because

they know they can get through the whole show.

So I'm seeing some of the reduction in size as a

benefit now for me and my product.

Right. So it's different for everybody as well.

Well, if,

and if it's more regional,

by all means.

Yeah. If you can drive there,

if you go,

but if you've got an 8,000

person show and it's in California and you're in Florida,

that's a lot of money to span.

So do your due diligence and say,

okay, what's the best I could probably look to make right

out of it?

Does this make sense?

Or would I be better off doing something different?

Good advice.

Okay. Yeah.

If there's regional shows that you can do economically,

by all means.

Now we did retail shows too.

This is a good book.

You'll love this.

There's a thing called the bloody Mary festival again.

I've got a calm national,

national, this is a national thing.

Alright, so the first one of the years is in Nashville.

We've done,

this will be our third year.

They called me up and they said,

Hey, would you like to participate in a bloody Mary festival?

And I'm going us shortly short bread cookies for God's sake.

Why would I do?

And then I said,

well, what's it cost?

And I said,

Oh no cost to you.

You just come down and set up.

We'll give you signage and a booth and everything else.

Well free.

And then we'll check.

I might get a bloody Mary out of the deal.

Yeah, I'm in how to do for you.

Well we went down with nuts,

super expectations and actually my wife couldn't go.

So a friend of mine,

I said,

Hey, you want to go through this show?

Yeah, fine.

So we went down and the first hour is people who

pay a premium to come in for that first hour.

And there's probably 30 vendors.

30 I'll say bloody Mary.

People that are making bloody Marys and you can sample all

of them.

Yeah, I know.

It's too good to be true.

We take down enough stuff for,

I figure in a wine festival we'll do about access.

Yeah. I'll do about half of that.

Just take a few flavors.

It's worth going.

Yeah. We nearly sold out the first hour.

Wow. Yeah.

For retail we sell out almost.

I had to call and say,

Hey, bring me whatever's at the shop.

Just bring it down.

So don't think that just because it's not your core that

it might not be worth it.

And if the price is right,

go do it.

What are you losing a day?

You know,

in this business you might find that little acorn.

Right. And I'd also say people who are at consumer shows

also have jobs,

like they own their own businesses.

And so they're going there.

Yes. For leisure and personal fund.

But you can never discount who's coming up to your booth

or who's walking through some of these shows.

Yeah. And another one,

especially for the food brokers out there,

whatnot. The state of Tennessee department agriculture down here,

there's a Tennessee state grocers and convenience store.

Ssociation has an annual soiree and they have a trade show.

Well the state gets a group of booths that for us

people that are on their list and they helped defray some

of the costs,

but if I were in the grocery fat,

that was my main market,

it'd be fantastic.

I'm not,

but there again,

just what you just said,

there are those other people coming through that may have something

or maybe they've got a little small store or maybe their

uncle does or something.

Right, the extended connections.

Yeah, and plus the state invites all the people that we

tell them,

we say,

Hey, here's some customers and fight these people down to look

around so you'll get that group there.

Again, that's how we developed our Opryland hotel business.

They hold it in the Opry land hotel.

So there are people were coming through and the ones that

we've been dealing with said,

Hey, my boss is in,

he'll be by,

and this guy comes in and looks and says,

Whoa, let's work.

Let's run with this.

You can do this with the honey.

Yeah. All right.

Boom. All of a sudden something that is a,

it cost me a hundred bucks to do the show.

All of a sudden it's paying off constantly.

Okay, so Eric,

should we dive into the topic of the show?

You think?

Let's do it.

Eric is such a fun guy.

He's just in person like you're hearing him here right now

and after the break we're going to talk all about his

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so Where does fear enter in?

Share with us how you got to the point where you

were deciding fair might be an option for you and I'm

going to just let you take it away.

Okay. With the observation that the younger buyers aren't here,

where are they going?

Well, it's quite obvious.

I mean I got kids and of course my kids are

in their thirties now,

but where do they go?

Where do they go buy stuff?

My daughter-in-law buy stuff for the store that we have here

for the Willens mercantile and I watched,

she goes and finds these sites and she's looking at all,

look at this,

look this,

we can do this.

And I'm like,

okay, so they're buying online,

how are they buying?

Are there groups?

Are there sites you just take a wild stab at,

type something in and see what comes up.

We were actually approached by fare say last June or July

about coming on board with them and we did a little

exploring on it and said,

Hey, wait a minute,

look at this site.

A little bit about fair for those who are not familiar,

they are,

if you were placed in Atlanta market,

now remember in Atlanta you typically don't have or it's primarily,

especially in our area of the gourmet,

it's not the people you're going to find on Amazon.

You're talking about at the trade shows?

Yes, at the trade show.

Yeah. It's more geared towards the new,

the up and coming.

Usually a higher quality,

more artisan type of maker because that's where we went to

market. So is taking that same market.

And combining them on one site,

so now if I own a mercantile store,

I can go on to this one site and let's say

I want to find some gourmet foods.

Well, you'd go to the fair gourmet foods.

They have a section for that and say,

well, yeah,

Oh, Hey,

here's some neat stuff.

This is new and it's all makers like us.

It's, it's like Willow shortbread or whoever.

Some of these smaller vendors,

that's where we go to.

These are people who are not on Amazon.

I mean that's one of the things.

You can't be on Amazon and being unfair.

Oh, is that a rule?

Yes. Yeah,

I saw that.

That was one of the tags on your company?

Yeah. Not on Amazon.

Not on Amazon.

I mean it's one of the things,

and I'm thinking that's a pretty hard fast rule with fair

and I know they prefer brick and mortar.

I know that they have relaxed,

said some.

Now we're seeing some resellers.

I'm not really happy about that,

but they're getting it's volume.

But you can go in and search for,

like I said,

for food or maybe you want knit goods or soaps,

custom soaps,

and then he can go in and say,

well show me custom soaps that are made in my state.

You can narrow that down.

So now you can say,

Oh Hey,

I didn't even know this place existed.

Right? And you look at what sort of deals they have

and then you can purchase them through fare.

Just pictures of conglomeration.

It's like going to Amazon and you're filling your cart up

so you can go get an order from this manufacturer and

from this guy over here and then you're paying,

the buyer is paying fair and they offer some very nice

incentives to new buyers.

I think on your first order you can get a hundred

dollars free merchandise.

You can just apply that a hundred dollars towards the sale.

That's free money.

I like that.

Also think you get free shipping on your initial order.

So there's some definite perch.

And I also think from a retailer standpoint,

that whole thing of not overlapping with Amazon is huge because

especially for your,

you're saying they kind of favor brick and mortar as well,

but you want things in your shop that people aren't going

to be able to look at in person with you and

then go home and buy somewhere else.

Like for a retail shop,

you want things that are unique,

are different,

are specialty sourced if you will,

the so that you are different from everybody else.

So I can see that and I see where buyers would

be more attracted to something like fair for that reason in

particular. Yeah,

and fair.

Also give them area protection.

So let's just say you decide you're going to take all

this soap and you've got two stores around you that you

know as soon as you buy them they're going to come

over, see what you got and they're going to steal it.

It goes on all the time.

Lynchburg, Tennessee is a perfect example of that.

They fight each other to see who's going to get what's

next. And then they all go steal it from each other.

But farewell give you zip code protection.

So if you go in,

you buy,

then you are protected in that zip code for 90 days.

Now at the end of the 90 days,

or if you buy again,

it starts that clock over and over again.

So she can,

if, if you're buying,

you're protected.

Now if you don't buy,

then after 90 days it opens it back up so other

people can come in.

So as a seller,

it's good if you've got somebody as mine,

you're going to keep them going.

Do you have to buy the same product?

No. No.

As long as you place an order with us again by

me as manufacturer.

Right. So there's zip code protection by company.

By company,

yes. But Oh my gosh,

that is such a great built in repeat customer incentive.

They offer the customer 60 day terms and it's huge.

The end user has 60 days as a manufacturer,

as a seller,

I'm paid in 30 days.

Now, you know,

some people say,

well, you know I like to get my credit card right

off. Yeah,

credit cards taking money so I'm not paying that credit card

fee and they paid like clockwork.

I mean day 30 boom.

It's in your bank.

You don't have to touch it and they're reliable.

Yes. That's one thing.

They are Johnny on the spot.

If it's a customer that you are already selling to who

goes on to fair,

let's go back.

This is all sounding like they're again,

unicorns and roses.

Interesting. It's perfect.

How does this work?

Well, they make money,

so if you own your first order,

let's just say somebody buys a,

you have a customer that buys from you through fare for

the first time.

You have no previous contact with them.

There's going to charge you 25% that's pretty healthy,

but there again,

you've put no money into marketing or to growing that business.

Subsequent orders,

15% basically what you're going to pay a good rep or

a rep that's worth their money is probably going to earn

a 15% commission,

right? If it's a customer that you are already selling to

and they decide to buy it through fair,

it's a 0% commission for the seller.

So they're doing all this stuff,

you're still getting your money and you're getting your money in

30 days.

They're handling everything else and you're not paying any commission.

They will give you the opportunity to say,

upload a customer list to them where they can contact them,

says, Hey,

they're, you know,

you can now buy Willow shortbread.

True. Fair.

Oh, okay.

Well that's a good deal.

Well, and I'm thinking this through,

I'm guessing the motivation is the product then is unfair for

other people to see to purchase,

which then would benefit fair.

And then also that client is on there to buy something

they already buy and then they'll also see other products.

So I'm thinking those are the two.

Yeah, it's a longterm deal for them.

If you look at it from the short term,

it's like,

good God,

you're spending a ton of money,

but are you getting by?

And that's the question.

How are they making money?

We don't know.

It's a longterm thing.

And I've talked to several people there and with some other

companies that have said,

well yeah here's how they're doing it and it makes sense.

Well cause they are taking fees.

Like some fees are waived like you were talking about if

it's an existing customer but they are making money off of

the purchases where if you were just going direct you wouldn't

be paying that but you also probably wouldn't get that customer

or that volume.

Right. And here's where,

let's tie this all back into the Atlanta market or the

markets that we did.

What if it costs you $6,000

to get the business or to just to be there and

you're gambling that you're going to get X amount of business,

you're going to get more than enough to pay for that

and to put money in the bank afterwards.

More sales,

more business.

You're investing that money right up front.

What we found.

Okay. Cause we went live,

I believe it was,

I don't have to go back and look July of last

year and it was right for right after market and no,

it was right before market last year in July in Atlanta

is when we went live with fare.

And the volume that we got in the first two months

was it equaled or exceeded what we would expect to get

at Atlanta.

Wow. Yeah.

So the orders are coming in,

but you look at,

well some of them are new,

some of them are,

you know,

whatever. Then you'd look at what did it cost us to

get that as far as commissions,

whenever that went into it.

Far, far,

far, far,

far less than what it would have cost us to go

to the market.

Yeah. Well the other thing is when you do a show,

a market,

you're putting up that upfront cost.

Whether you get sales or not.

Here you're getting less margin,

but the sale has already been made.

So you're gaining a customer and you've sold the product,

Right? Yeah.

And now you've got it.

Now, the other thing we did,

we were going,

well, are people going to miss us?

What can we do?

Whatever. Fortunately in my database,

when I got a new order or when I booked orders

at the Atlanta market,

I would code them a certain way in our system and

we were on QuickBooks so I could put it as a

show info or whatever in there so that I could track

those customers and those orders.

Well, what we did is said,

okay, well who have we gotten business from in Atlanta for

the last say five years?

Narrow that base down and then you take it and say,

okay, how many of these were like one timers or people

we don't see very often?

They're one shot wonders as we call them.

It shows where people come in and say,

yeah, that's great.

Didn't work for me or whatever,

or I forgot to reorder.

Well, that gave us a huge list of people that we

know had been there we know had bought from us,

or at least we had first couple people that actually bought

from us and then we took that list uploaded.

At the fair and put our own message,

which was basically,

Hey, you know you bought from us at the Atlanta market

before. We're not going to be attending this year in July.

We're going through fare.

Please visit us there.

Our complete product list is there,

blah, blah,

blah. Quick message and that generates a lot of new business.

These are people say,

Oh yeah,

I remember them.

Look at it.

Say, Oh,

it's new stuff.

Here's some new flavors.

Yeah, I place an order on to fair.

So many people won't take that extra step like you did

either. Well,

I mean do you want to grow your business?

You got to,

that's low hanging fruit as we always referred to it.

You know what's the easiest sale existing products to existing customers

you have bought from.

You just haven't talked to him in a while,

so boom,

that's an easy sale.

The next one is existing product to new customers.

Then you go back and we found where we've been also

keep track of people we talked to,

we got their business card,

we did everything,

but I come back and put all that in the database.

Well that was our second round.

Boom. You shoot that in and they got people said,

Hey, no,

no, we've talked to you before,

but take a look at us now and visit us through

there. And so you're doing this all through fares platform,

you're uploading the list,

you're creating an email and sending it off and directing them

to fair.

Yeah. Now they are very,

very good about proactive stuff.

And in other words you can tell them say,

Hey, I want to do this.

They're giving you all sorts of opportunities.

You can put a link direct.

We have a fair link on our website.

Okay. So somebody can come in if they link in brand

new customer,

never talked to them before,

but they come through our website,

get in fair.

That's a zero.

That's no commission.

It's like new business.

It's just rolling through them.

And the customers like it because they're getting the 60 day

terms. So they can go on and find multiple products.

They don't have to go.

Actually, you know,

I'll follow up.

Some people that I may have had questions with unfair and

they have the opportunity.

When the orders come into your system,

you've got a contact and if you need to get ahold

of them or ask them questions,

you can converse through fare or you get phone number and

go that way.

So you start calling these people up and just talking to

them, Hey,

just noticed you bought from Fairwinds.

You're seeing a benefit to take a little time.

It's really paid off.

You get the mindset of the customer,

not our mindset.

How difficult is the setup for someone who would just be

starting out unfair.

We uploaded our entire catalog.

Fortunately we had that in a spreadsheet format.

We were able to just upload that to them.

We went through and we said,

okay, I was due for pricing increase anyway,

and it was another thing we did.

We said,

okay, if I'm going to put my whole list up,

what do I need to look at?

Things like,

well, what's my sample price?

Is that too low?

Yeah, let's bump that up.

Let's get everything up.

Took another price increase before we threw the whole thing out

there because it should be what your normal wholesale price is,

whether you're selling to them on fair or not,

and then we just upload that file to them.

They populated the whole thing.

So before that though,

do you have to go through some type of acceptance terms

or like what?

Okay, so I'm brand new,

I want to go on unfair.

Do you have to apply to be able to be unfair?

There again,

I don't remember the whole process exactly,

but yes,

they're very helpful.

I mean,

you can just go to FAA,

Ari and say,

Hey, I'm a new vendor or I want to participate or

whatever. It's been so long since I've done it.

I forget,

but we just started it that way.

And they contact you,

they walk you through everything.

As far as the images,

I think they came and got most of the images off

of our site or we had good images that we could

provide them.

But you saw it to be a smooth process.

Very smooth.

Perfect. I was very impressed.

Now here again,

I will give credit to my son Austin because he smart

limited stuff.

I'm not,

if I was doing it,

I'd still be drawn at pictures with the crayon and mailing

it to him,

but that's his life is all that stuff so he was

able to quickly,

but it seems to be a very straightforward,

very simple process and it's a day walked us right through

everything and we were up and running.

God, they had us ready to go.

We thought it was going to be a couple of weeks

and it was like less than a week maybe.

They said,

okay, we're ready to go.

I said,

Oh, we're not,

no, no,

no, no.

We're going on vacation for a week.

I don't want this all coming in.

Fix this up to come back right when we get back.

So I want orders to turn on.

I think we were headed to the beach and I said,

okay, start,

the order's coming back Sunday when we're coming back.

And I mean this like Sunday morning thing,

thing, thing,

thing, thing,

did anything,

Do they promote new products that are coming in?

I think there are ways,

and I probably don't take advantage of all the things they

got going,

but once you get on,

you will have a fair person who handles your stuff.

I got a nice guy named Collin handles everything and they're

constantly saying,

Hey, you can do this or do that.

Here's an idea.

They're constantly getting new ideas and things.

So they're very proactive as far as bringing in new opportunities.

That's beautiful.

That's like almost bringing someone onto your marketing team without having

to pay them.

It's a taint.

Yeah. And it's good approach.

Yeah. And now fulfillment is obviously done by you.

Yeah. Fair's going to send you an order and it comes

from fare.

You go in,

you can accept it.

So when the order comes in,

you're saying,

okay, I'll look at the order and say,

okay, I can ship this out by certain things.

When you set up your account or is that something that

you can change on yourself?

Is your lead time?

So you may say,

Hey, I'm shipping in five days or seven days.

I think we have ours at 10 because you're,

again, we're small.

If I have to bake something,

it's going to be an extra week.

So when an order comes in,

you go and say,

yep, looks good.

Okay, I'm going to ship this by,

let's pick a day next Wednesday.

Okay, so now that starts the clock and it's all listed

on there.

Do you do that by order,

Eric, By order?

Yeah, please go ahead,

review the order it,

then I print it off,

print off two copies.

One copy is for me to work with where we entered

into our system and then the other is the packing slip

that actually goes to the customer.

Okay, so you determine the ship date by order?

Yes. Okay.

And then on those orders,

do you get all the customer information including their email so

that you can add them to your customer list?

It's not on that order there,

but it is in,

I believe if you go deeper into it,

you can send them messages back and forth,

whether or not you can put them directly on yours,

but I set them up anyway,

so when I get a new customer from fare,

I have to put them into our database.

So I create an order.

I wish there was a way that I could take that

fair order and magically convert it into my system.

Unfortunately, there's not at this time.

Okay. But I'm just curious because I know one of the

things that isn't so great about Amazon is when someone is

filling an order,

they have the customer name and address,

obviously to be able to execute the order,

but they don't get the email.

It's kind of like it's held hostage.

Yeah, and that may be,

I mean,

you can contact them and say,

Hey, send me your email if you want to do that.

Right. But there again,

I create the account if I want to do it.

If it's an existing customer,

it's real easy.

It's just like entering an order.

If they brought it in another way and if not,

I have a very simple process that I can go to.

This is the basic information to put it in there to

get it into our system so I can track the sale

if you don't need it.

And I mean if you've got a way to just take

their order and run with it,

boom, you don't have to do anything.

Once you fulfill the order and you're ready to ship,

you have two options.

You can choose how to ship it.

And for us,

we ship,

most of our stuff goes by FedEx ground.

We've negotiated good pricing,

I want to make sure I'm getting credit for that volume.

So I entered the tracking number,

the price of that package,

what the shipping cost is.

That's it.

And if for multiple practice I do that,

once that's done,

I click a a finished button or whatever it is,

it's automatically,

as soon as I do that tells me exactly what my

payout is going to be.

I mean that includes the shipping and everything And you're doing

all of this then in fair.

Fair. Okay,

got it.

So now I've got all that,

then I can go close out my order and create an

invoice that I can use.

So when I get the payment in,

I can clear it out a little belt suspenders.

But there again is some of the stuff that's gotta be

worked out,

but it's not that difficult of a deal.

Okay. All right.

But now you have the option,

like I said,

I can do it or if you don't,

not familiar,

if you don't want to do the shipping,

there is a thing you can select ship with fair.

You'd give them the package information and they take care of

the shipping and I guess they'll send you some,

a shipping label that you can apply.

I don't do that.

But you have that option of letting fare select the most

economical way to ship it.

I see.

But the product always still comes from you.

In other words,

you don't ship product to fair to for them to fulfill.

Okay. Is there the option to do that?

Do you know?

No, I mean they're not going to warehouse anything.

That's not their deal.

Now, one thing they do offer,

and I don't know the exact particulars on this at this

time, so this is something that you need to talk,

especially important on returns.

So the customer has 60 days to pay for something.

If during that time say maybe they bought four flavors and

one of the flavors is not moving.

Right. Okay,

all right.

You know with this one doesn't sell right.

They can return that not to me it goes somewhere in

fair system.

I don't know.

I think we've had a total of two returns total in

a year.

So minor,

I don't even consider it.

So that's last product for you then?

No, it's not for me.

I got paid.

Oh, Okay.

You've got paid.

So it goes back to fair somewhere.

So either it goes back to them or I don't know

exactly what they do.

They say,

Hey, scrap it and seal.

They opened your boxes and he ate the shorter,

I don't care.

I don't care.

It doesn't matter.

I mean I've been paid so,

but this is a benefit to the end user.

So if they say,

well we have made it,

they go,

well I've got an order.

Oh the other thing is you get to set as the

maker, you set the minimum quantities.

So in our instance we had a dollar value which equates

to basically two cases of product.

I think I saw you were at 150 I think I

saw. Yeah,

which is going to be at,

that's going to make sure that they have to buy it

at least two cases of product and we gave them the

option. One of the things I say the smaller the quantity

per item is the better it'll work.

So we did where they could basically it's a half a

case per flavor.

Worked out pretty good.

But there again,

if somebody is a little anxious,

well I don't know if you want to buy well you

know you've got free returns and that's something if that's an

important item with you,

with something you talk about with fair and when you would

have on your list of things you want to discuss with

them. This is all sounding really great.

What types of cons are there to using fair?

At first it sounded like,

Hey, if you're shipping international,

use us well you can ship with us or with them.

We did one international order,

never doing another one.

You say you can block international.

Never been able to do good.

You won't accept international orders.

Boom, they'll handle it.

And I don't know if it's international,

international or maybe just Canada.

I forget what it is,

but I know they've made some improvements on it.

We've just made a decision now we're staying domestic.

I don't have to worry about it.

The ability to,

since we have a standard case for us is 24 they

have the option of buying in multiples of 12 sometimes you'll

get a half a case of this or they've got a

half the case on this one half case and this one,

it matches the minimums for them.

They're happy.

We have to do custom packaging kind of a time thing

on our side.

But the result is that,

uh, you still got the sale,

You still got the sale and in the end the whole

system is working good for you.

Yeah, we got the sale.

If it cost them 10 bucks to ship that second carton,

no wait,

sorry. No,

there it is.

Whereas if we were doing it,

I would probably say,

Hey look,

if you get 12 more of this,

it's going to be less than if you do the second

cart or whatever.

Right. But it's part of the deal there.

Again, I'm not involved in the whole thing.

I have had some customers,

I guess fair has a due diligence on their side where

they're checking the customers out.

Some people will say,

well Hey,

they won't let me buy from them.

I don't know why that's between you and fair.

I have nothing to do with it.

Buy direct from me.

I'm sure there,

there are some requirements and some filters that go through so

that the product quality that's being represented there is at a

certain level.

Sure. So that would make sense to me.

So what's your single statement about fair?

Like if you're just talking directly to all of our listeners,

what's your overall statement about your experience thus far with fair?

I will say that on the whole it's been a very

positive experience for us.

I would encourage you to contact fair talk about your situation.

Here's what we do.

I don't know if fair is limiting the number of people

per categories there again,

I do not know,

but the net result for us has been very positive and

since we started with fair,

I'll be quite honest,

we've had multiple other platforms that are doing kind of the

same thing have contacted say come on over here too.

And we've talked to some of them and we decided to

go with multiple ones.

That's our,

I don't think they can cut us off for it.

Well you'd have to check that for sure.

Cause there could be exclusivity like that,

just like the situation with Amazon.

But that's interesting to know.

So if you go on to fair get ready that there'll

be other people reaching out.

They will.

They do,

they see success.

And when does that,

uh, it's the sincerest form of flattery.

That's right.

Well, you are such a professional business owner.

Such great topics and advice.

Do you have anything else that you want to share either

on the fair end or the business end?

Just some final words of advice for us.

One thing,

this came up last week,

I'm a salesman by trade.

I mean that's what I did for years.

I was in sales sales management.

I just happened to have to make my own product.

Right now it's what it boils down to.

I remember years ago,

people, especially in the electrical distribution business and people going,

I don't talk to him,

he's just a salesman to gain.

Remember that your salesman sales person.

I will use salesman as a generic term,

not taking anything against women to,

it's just easier for me to say in sales people.

So if I say salesman it means everybody there.

That's my official gender statements.

It's so funny.

No, I don't want to say,

Oh you've said no,

I don't want to do that.

Alright, my items won't do that.

Uh, anyway.

I've been buying the boxes that we talked about earlier on

the conversation.

No salesman for the company that doesn't force actually what's a

new company now,

but he was in last week and we went out to

dinner and had a few pops and we're sitting there and

just talking about stuff.

I mean this is like an hour into the conversation.

We started talking about new ideas,

new packaging and I've been mentioning doing this particular type of

package and I just hadn't found what I wanted yet and

every time it was too costly.

I just really think it's good market.

And he goes,

well, Hey,

what about this?

Threw me at a quick picture and said,

that's exactly what I want.

He says,

yeah, but it was completely 180 degrees from what I was

thinking. But I said,

Hey, it accomplishes the exact same thing with a lot less

material and it's a lot faster.

Like that's what I want for your providers,

your providers,

you are information because you see as a salesman,

as a sales person,

you see lots of different stuff.

Here's an idea,

you know,

maybe I'm doing something similar to this.

Granted if it's exclusive,

I'm not going to give it away.

But if it's a generic type thing,

you say you can try this.

And it's like,

that's what I've been looking for.

So use them as a resource.

Don't just blow the sales person off and say,

I don't have time.

If you're looking for something new or a new packaging or

a new way to market,

talk to them.

They're a reference.

It's three.

I mean for God's sake.

And if they're right,

held up by your dinner.

Okay. Right.

Well, but it's also true.

I mean they have just by nature of their job,

they are touching so many other businesses and could be a

resource. So I've never really thought of it that way before.

But you're so right.

Look, in your world,

I mean,

you're doing the,

and all this stuff.

If you've got somebody said,

Hey, I'm trying to,

Oh, you know,

someone's show was doing this.

It may not be related to ribbons at all,

but it's like,

Hey, here's a little Pearl of wisdom and we'll pass on

to you.

And you go,

Ooh. And the first one's free.

Well, maybe even the second or the third day you get

to go to a bloody Mary festival,

you know,

things like that.

Oh my gosh.

Alright. Gift biz listeners.

If you want to hear the whole Willis shortbread story,

I will have the link to the prior podcast in the

show notes so you can go there and check it out.

Of course all of Eric's links are going to be in

there. The website,

should we add in the fare link there too,

Eric? I don't know if it's on there or not.

That's the smart side of the business.

I'm the dumb side.

My official title now is COO.

Chief oven operator.

All right,

well I don't have it there but I'm going to add

that into my notes to put that on there as well.

But I mean I found you super easy this morning.

I just went on the platform and searched for Willis shortbread

and there you popped up in half a second.

So yep,

there you go.

So Eric,

I'm so thrilled that you were willing to come on again

and specifically talk about fair,

such good insight and I'm glad we caught you really early

cause you're still learning the platform,

but you've really within,

it's less than a year that you've even been on,

but you're already seeing such benefit with the platform.

So I really,

really appreciate you being here today and sharing with us.

And here comes to the disclaimer.

Everything I said about fair is my opinion or it's one

I think it is.

So before you take it as gospel,

call them up and talk to them.

Like I said,

they're very helpful.

Say, Hey listen,

I was listening to this redneck talk about bear.

I couldn't understand half of what he was saying was talking

so slow.

I didn't know what was going on.

It's about drop over.

You don't talk slow.

I'm on my third cup of coffee.

That's why we're running fast.

But seriously,

this is my take on it.

Call them up,

talk to them.

They're great.

They've done this accent.

It's been very good so far.

Perfect. Oh my gosh,

you are so much fun.

Thank you once again for being on the show.

My pleasure after talking with Eric,

I'm thinking fair is something you're going to be checking out.

I'm particularly impressed with how they give zip code exclusivity and

incentivize repetitive sales naturally within their business model.

Now next week we're going to dive into a topic we've

all experienced too much of recently fear.

Interestingly enough,

this episode didn't come up due to the pandemic.

It was already in the lineup,

but I think you'll agree it couldn't be more timely and

let's face it,

as business owners,

we experience fear all the time over and above a virus

that we're working to recover from.

We'll get more into this next week,

but for now stay safe and be well.

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

group called gift is breeze.

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

support each other.

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,

to show 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.