357 – Why NOW is the Time to Get Your Pricing in Line with Racheal Cook

Gift biz unwrapped episode 357.

It's really hard To see the big picture.

When you are consistently pulled into the day to day Attentive.

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 on rapt,

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.

Thanks for choosing to be here with me today.

If you're not sure if you're pricing your product properly or

already know that you aren't,

but haven't reset your prices,

which of course means higher than you definitely want to stick

around and listen closely to the show today.

But before we go there,

I have the announcement.

Many of you have been asking for makers.

Yay, but I'm doing it in an entirely different way.

This year,

the rollout is different.

The pricing is different,

and honestly,

I've never seen anyone launch a program this way,

and I'm pretty excited to test it out.

There are lots of benefits for you with this new structure

too, but here's the key to get the info and have

the opportunity to enroll.

You have to either be on my email list or in

my Facebook group gift biz breeze.

The best way to make sure that you don't miss out

on this is to go to gift biz,

unwrapped.com forward slash M MBA waitlist and sign up.

Then watch your email for all the info.

If the idea of starting a business by selling your handmade

products has been swirling around in your mind.

It's time to take action.

And there has never been a better time to get started.

The attraction for handmade products,

along with the focus of supporting handmade businesses is at an

all time high.

And if you've already started your business,

but aren't seeing the growth you want,

no, you should have other things in place or just overall.

Aren't certain if you're doing this right,

maker's MBA is perfect for you.

Maker's MBA gives you step-by-step guidance and support as you start

and grow a business of your very own.

Think of it as a lifetime resource on how to,

and what's next for every stage of your business.

Once you're in,

you have access forever,

including all updates and enhancements to the trainings,

again, to get your name on the list.

So you don't miss the opportunity to join this year,

go to gift biz,

unwrapped.com forward slash M MBA wait-list.

As I was mentioned in about the show today,

one of the big points we cover is why now is

the perfect time to get your pricing in line.

You'll hear why and how to get this done and off

your, I know I need to do this list once and

for all.

And we're talking about some other business growth points to think

back, you started your business for freedom and flexibility,

right? Can you say you have that now?

My guess is not.

I think this is the biggest myth about running your own

business. The reality for most is that the opposite happens and

we have less freedom and are tied down by our business.

If we're not careful,

but guess what?

It doesn't have to be this way Today.

It is my pleasure to introduce you to award-winning business strategist.

Rachel Cook,

Rachel is on a mission to end entrepreneurial poverty for women.

Over the last 10 years,

she's helped thousands of female entrepreneurs designed predictably profitable businesses without

the hustle and the burnout that doing all the things inevitably

provokes her passion is supporting savvy soulful woman.

As they implement the strategies systems and support structure that will

Uncomplicate their business so they can work less and live more.

Oh my gosh.

That sounds incredibly amazing.

Rachel, welcome to the gift biz unwrapped podcasts.

Thank you for having me today.

Sue. I'm so excited to be here.

I'm really looking forward to how the conversation flows,

but before we do that,

I have a traditional question to ask you because it's on

the creative side.

So it gives us a different look at who you are.

And that is,

I'd love you to describe for us a motivational candle that

would really speak to you.

What would your candle look like?

I love this because even though I do not have a

product based business,

I actually have a candle that I created to send out

to all of my clients.

And I can tell you exactly what it looks like.

It is a soy candles.

So it's like one that is a good one to burn.

And it is scented with bamboo and Virta VAR,

which might sound kind of strange combination.

But when I was creating this candle with the small local

candle creator,

when she shared the set with me,

I just loved how fresh and clean it was.

And that's me.

I am very practical.

I am very straightforward and I like having just a very

clean, minimal,

almost type of scent because that's the way I approach everything

in my life,

in my business.

It's all about being clean and practical and creating things with

intention. And the name that I gave this candle that I

send out to all my clients is I'm not bossy.

I'm the boss.

Ooh, I like that.

Just because you're in charge,

doesn't mean you need to be controlling everybody.

In fact,

that's the opposite of what you should be doing.

Yes. And I find that it's one of those things that

everybody who gets one,

they always tell me they smile when they see it,

because I think you have to be a little bossy in

order to run a business.

But I think it's a big mindset shift for a lot

of the women that I work with to really step into

that CEO role and to really honor it in themselves that

maybe we're a little bit bossy.

Maybe we like to have things the way we like it,

but that is part of why we are so great at

entrepreneurship. That makes sense.

I like that.

And I also like what you talk about in terms of

the underlying meaning of the scent of the candle being fresh,

but clean and simple and easy because if we can make

our businesses more,

that that's where we can work less and live more.

Absolutely. Share with Me a little bit about your journey to

getting to this point today.

Yes. This is a long and winding road.

As many entrepreneurial journeys are,

but I'll give the condensed version,

which is,

I graduated with my MBA and like a lot of MBAs,

I was recruited into the world of consulting.

If you don't know what a consultant is,

it's basically somebody who goes into businesses to problem solve and

to come up with new strategies and new ideas.

So honestly the consulting path is one that a lot of

entrepreneurs find themselves in pretty early.

It gives you a view of a lot of different parts

of businesses,

which I absolutely loved.

It was so fun for me to go into all these

different businesses.

And while they were considered small,

these were multi-million dollar businesses that had anywhere from 50 to

500 employees.

So they weren't small.

And the way that a lot of our businesses are small,

but I found that consulting was not a great environment for

me while I loved the work.

I did not love the 80,

90, a hundred hour work weeks.

I did not love the living out of a suitcase and

traveling nonstop.

And I actually found myself at a point where I was

hitting clinical burnout.

I started having panic attacks for the first time in my

whole life.

And I realized I needed to press pause on my career

and get my health back on track.

So I took a medical leave of absence from my job

for three months.

And I found myself on a yoga mat.

And while I was literally doing every self-help related thing,

you could think of,

I was going to yoga.

I was seeing an acupuncturist.

I was talking to a therapist and a life coach trying

to figure out like,

how do I create a life where I am not just

burning myself out,

running so hard.

My yoga teacher turned to me and she said,

well, Rachel,

I know you're thinking,

not going back to the consulting company you worked with.

Do you think you could help me with my yoga studio?

And that was a light bulb moment for me,

2008, there were not consultants or coaches who worked with that

particular type of business.

The small owner operated business owners couldn't really get much support.

They didn't have access to someone like me who had a

lot of business experience to bring to them.

So I turned to her and I said,

yeah, I think so.

And one thing led to another and like many of us

who start in a small niche,

you start to get a ton of referrals in that niche.

And then I had more and more yoga teachers coming to

me saying,

well, I want to really start a coaching business where I

really want to start this other type of business.

And it just has gone from there.

So the past almost 15 years now,

I've been working with owner operated women,

owned businesses who are ready to take what they love and

really turn it into a more of a sustainable lifestyle business.

Yes. So not putting all the hours in just like you

had been doing when you were consulting.

Exactly. But I mean,

I think that is something that is prevalent in all our

businesses. You keep working and you keep working because I think

we decide we can do it all ourself.

Right. And you get to that point where maybe not to

the level that you were with real clinical burnout,

but we get to that point where we just get so

exhausted that things start falling through the cracks,

or we are definitely our heart isn't in it anymore,

but we're kind of tied to the businesses.

I see that a lot still,

right? No.

Yeah, absolutely.

And we put our heart and soul into getting this business

off the ground and you start to feel like you started

this business for all the things we all start a business

for. Right.

We think we're gonna have more freedom.

We think we're gonna have more flexibility.

We think,

oh my gosh,

the financial opportunity here is way more than I could have

in a traditional job.

And then we find that,

oh my gosh,

that's a lot of work that I didn't anticipate.

And there's so much,

we don't know that we don't know when we get started.

There's so many blind spots and that's what I help all

my clients with is find out what those blind spots are.

So they can be more intentional as they're designing their business

to work for them.

That makes sense.

If you were based on all of your experience to this

point, give people who are on this path,

kind of a cautionary point in time to really analyze where

would that be?

Like, what are the initial signs that you're starting to head

in that direction?

I would say my first sign is if your calendar is

slam packed and you have no space in the calendar for

you, this is usually what happens.

Especially when you start to get real traction in your business.

Suddenly your time starts to be not your own.

Everybody is trying to get your attention,

whether it is your clients or the people who you're trying

to hire to help you in your business,

whether it's managing all the emails in the inbox or trying

to return calls to people.

This is the one area where you cannot get more time.

And if your time is being stretched so thin that you

feel like you're working nonstop,

that is a major red flag.

And usually it tells me that we haven't intentionally designed our

calendar and we haven't put the right systems in place to

make sure that you actually have some space in there to

be the CEO,

to be the boss of the business.

Right. And then all you're doing is working in the business

and not really being the visionary and strategizing where you'd like

to take the business and how to grow the business.

Exactly. I have a client right now who is absolutely amazing.

She sells hair bows,

so little hair bows for children.

And when she came to me a couple of years ago,

she was so in the weeds of her business,

just constantly trying to keep her head above water because so

many people needed her attention.

She couldn't think big picture of what would help her to

get out of the weeds.

And for her,

the first thing we had to do was get a hold

of that calendar.

We had to get a hold of where she was putting

our time and energy and look for the opportunities to claim

back her time.

And the easiest way for her to do that was to

pull herself out of the customer service role.

She had still been doing all of the customer service,

and I hear this over and over.

It doesn't matter what type of business any of us have

most often,

it's the inbox,

it's those incoming requests for our time and attention that really

start to add up.

And even if it only takes you a few minutes to

respond to an email,

it can easily take hours out of your day just to

keep ahead of it.

And once we were able to pull her out of that

and get a person in place,

honestly, she hired her child,

her like teenage kid to come in and become the customer

service manager.

And most of it could be like copy and paste emails,

templates that were already pre-written it freed up so much bandwidth

for her where then she could go,

oh, here's what will help me actually move this business forward.

But we had to pull her out of the weeds a

little bit.

Yeah. And I kind of feel like a business owner can

get stuck in that for years.

They don't know how to get out.

So year after year after year goes by,

and they're not making progress,

but it's because they're not opening up the space to actually

advance. And it's really hard to see the big picture when

you are consistently pulled into the day to day for this

particular client,

I'm talking about her name is Nicole.

She actually got to the point where now once a quarter,

she will go take herself to a hotel for two or

three days just to make the actual physical space.

She needs to get into that big picture thinking.

And that was not possible.

A couple of years ago,

it took her pulling away from some of these smaller tasks

and then actually physically getting out of her way,

getting into a new environment where she could start to think

differently. And that made a massive difference for her.

I think that makes so much sense.

And to your point,

Nicole hired her son to do this and it doesn't matter

who it's going to be.

Right. Like for her son,

that's perfect.

But it's just the act of deciding you're going to do

it and then figuring out logistically how you're going to do

that. Because I think a lot of people who are listening

here would say,

yeah, like I'd love not to be having to deal with

all these emails,

but I wouldn't know the first step of how to start

cleaning that up.

Even if I had somebody like,

they're not going to know the answers or they're not going

to know what to say,

or they're not going to treat a customer the way I

do. How do you work with those types of responses?

Yeah. I think the first thing is to start pay attention

to when you're answering things over and over again,

because chances are most of the emails that are hitting your

inbox, especially customer service related things are probably the same 10

or 15 or 20 responses.

So a really easy way to pull yourself out of the

weeds. I think almost every email system has some version of

canned response or pre-written response where you can save these,

start saving them.

As you're writing these things back to your clients,

start saving them into templates somewhere,

whether it's in a Google doc or in whatever your email

software has for you,

because you'll find most of the same things are happening again.

And again and again.

And if you start building those templates,

it becomes much easier to bring somebody on for your team.

And this is true for any area of your business.

If there's anything that you're doing over and over again,

anything that is repetitive,

that is an opportunity to start documenting it,

whether you're creating a template or something I like to do

is I will actually record my screen.

So a really cool little tool that I use a lot

is called loom L O M.

And it's a little extension for my Chrome browser where I

can record walking somebody on my team through something like,

here's how I do this thing.

And now I've got a resource that if I'm bringing someone

on to take that particular task off my plate,

I can say,

Hey, here's the templates for you to use?

Here's the recordings for you to use,

start there.

And we can probably get them to do at least 75,

80% of what you were doing without them having to really

need your help a whole lot.

I agree with you.

I mean,

I heard about doing this and using loom to do this

when I was training my podcast editor.

But one of the tricks that I learned with this is

if you're making a training video,

don't say the person's name,

that you're training.

Because if you keep it more generic,

if that person leaves you don't have to retrain,

you have that set of videos that then you can just

continue passing forward.

So just an added tip to that.

But I love that idea of training.

And I often forget that Rachel,

to do it that way,

that's even good for customer service.

If it's anything on a screen that you want to show

somebody it's so easy.

Absolutely. And I think these are the small things that help

us to start to get our time back.

Because as the owner of our business,

our highest value activities we're doing in our business are usually

going to be related to marketing sales,

new business development,

big picture strategy.

It's not going to be the smaller day to day activities

that kind of maintain what we've currently built.

If we're going after growth,

then we really have to be shifting where our time and

energy is focused.

Okay. So given that our listeners are mostly handmade creators,

and now I'm talking about people now who don't have teams

who are helping them at this point,

but they're a one woman show.

How would you adjust suggestions for someone who makes their product?

So the more they sell,

the more product they have to make.

So a lot of time is taken up in production and

they kind of feel like,

you know,

that is my baby.

My whole thing is that I am making it.

And you and I both know that that's not a ticket

to be able to grow and scale,

but how do you convince someone that I've just described to

make some changes?

Yeah, I think this is where you've got to decide where

you cannot fire yourself.

What are those specific things that only you can do?

And don't be super precious about it.

And here's what I mean by that.

I know that a lot of people who have handmade items

or things that they've created,

they're really hesitant to kind of share the secret recipe,

right? They're really hesitant to train someone else on how to

do something,

but honestly,

there will come a point where you hit a ceiling for

how much your business can grow.

If you are the only person who can deliver that particular

thing, who can produce and deliver that particular product.

But if you can have someone else come in and help

you with the delivery,

then that starts to free up a lot of bandwidth for

you. And how could that show up for you?

Well, maybe it means you're creating the product,

but someone else is managing all of the inventory and shipping.

It could mean you create a specific part of the product

and somebody else takes over the other part.

There's a lot of different ways you can divide and conquer

and producing the particular product that you are creating.

But I think one of the biggest things is you have

to really ask yourself how much of the production do I

want to continue to be doing myself?

Or is there a point here where I can get some

support in that?

Yeah, because let's just be honest here.

If you're going to retain most or all of the production,

you've really limited yourself in the size of growth that your

company can have,

at least in the portion where you're selling your physical product,

because you only have so much time.

Absolutely. And chances are like,

there are a lot of things you can put in place

to maintain the quality of what you are offering.

And I think that's what really,

it comes down to for a lot of people.

They're worried if they try to bring people in that the

quality will not be as good.

Maybe that person they're trying to hire to help them with

producing the product.

Maybe they're worried they're not as experienced,

or they're not as high of a talent level in creating

that product.

But if you really think about it,

as I can expand my capacity to sell more of this

particular product,

by being a great teacher,

to the people on my team and putting different things in

place, different systems in place to maintain the quality of the

product, that's where you can really start to grow.

And that's where you can start to see more people having

access to your product.

That's a really good point.

It's all product dependent too,

because if you are creating something that has a particular design

to it,

let's say,

and you are the originator of the design.

It's still your handmade products because it's still your original art,

even if someone else is actually creating it at that point.

Absolutely. And I think something else we can really consider when

we are thinking of one of a kind handmade items,

is it doesn't mean that everything has to be someone else

doing it.

It could mean that there's specific things that you offer that,

yes, these are your custom one of a kind pieces,

but maybe there's some things that are kind of the bread

and butter of your business,

kind of your core product line.

Those are the things that you focus on getting some support

within production so that you can scale it up a bit

more. Oh,

I like that a lot.

Yeah. You have some core products that are good sellers.

It might even be an introduction into your full line.

And then maybe you have a specialty section.

That is what you make specifically.

They're more intricate.

They're taken up a notch.

Of course they're priced higher too,

because of your scale.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah. I like that.

I like that idea a lot.

Okay. So that moves us into another topic that I know

you like to talk about,

and that is pricing our products.

Where do you see us falling short here specifically as handmade

creators or product product-based businesses?

Yeah, I think the number one pricing mistake I see with

product based businesses is they don't build their own labor into

the price.

And here's what I mean by that.

This goes right back to what we were talking about.

If your pricing is based on your cost of goods,

so whatever raw materials you need in order to create the

product. Okay.

So you're thinking about that.

And then you're thinking about other elements of it like shipping

and maybe whatever basic overhead you have.

So maybe there are some marketing expenses that go into it.

If you're doing ads or you have a Shopify store,

any of those types of things,

you're considering all of those,

right? Like all of the expenses that go out in order

for you to actually create this product.

But often we don't really account for our own time.

Why is that such a problem?

Well, if you're trying to go out there and hire somebody

to now help you deliver this product,

create this product and deliver it.

Then now you haven't built in enough margin to do that,

which means you're kind of trapped.

So we want to build in for our time from the

get go,

how can you do that?

Well, one be very aware of how long it takes for

each thing to be produced for each individual product to be

produced. You should have an idea about the time requirement there

and then give a dollar amount to that.

Like if you were to hire someone else to do this,

how much would you have to pay that person that has

to be in part of the equation from the get go

so that when you are ready to get somebody on your

team to help you with production,

that's already built into the price,

Right? And I like what you're saying here,

in terms of your cost per hour of production time,

let's say equals how much it would cost you to hire

out somebody to do that.

And although your time,

because you're the most skilled and you have your creative,

you know,

the reason you went into the business in the first place,

your skill and all of that,

that you're going to teach forward.

Of course you would demand a higher price for your production

time. But if you're trying to replace yourself in that equation,

you need to go at whatever that market rate is,

which also then will make your product probably more in line

with the going price,

if you will.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think this is where a lot of us tend

to under price a lot.

And when we go to grow,

we realize,

okay, are very much under priced.

I don't have enough profit margin here for me to hire

somebody. I also don't have enough profit margin for me to

hire somebody plus pay myself.

So it's not only hire somebody,

it's adding a percentage on top of that for your profit

margin to go back into your pocket.

Right? So we have to consider all of those things when

we are coming up with our price,

Right? And it's much harder once you've conditioned customers,

that your product is at a certain price to then go

in, recognize all of this and then try to raise the

price. That's hard.

Yeah. I will say though,

I think it is very important when you're considering pricing to

really put yourself in the shoes of your ideal customer,

because ideally the person who is coming to buy a handmade

item is not somebody who is a bargain shopper.

If you are trying to appeal to bargain shoppers,

then it's always going to feel difficult to increase prices.

It's going to be difficult to move away from having a

lot of flash sales or discounts.

You really want to be appealing to people who value,

quality, who value uniqueness.

Those people are less price sensitive when they know the quality

that is coming out of it.

So that's something else to think about is put yourself in

your customer's shoes and really think about what is it that

they value the most and focus on that Great,

a hundred percent.

So what would your direction be our conversation up to this

point? People who are listening,

who are like,

okay, yes.

My email is crazy.

I get the idea in exactly what you were just talking

about. Rachel has recognized these repetitive tasks,

whether it's email or whatever it is,

start documenting,

create systems that make it easy for someone to be able

to come in and do that portion for you.

So that may be one person who's recognizing that.

Or there's a second person.

Who's like,

dang, I have not been including this in my pricing.

I guess the first one we've pretty much covered.

You know,

you identify,

you bring in,

but like,

let's talk about the pricing one,

any advice on how to take somebody who's now realizing I'm

probably not pricing my product,

right? I need to readjust all of this.

How embed they make that transition to the correct prices.

Do you think is one of your goals for this year,

a new approach to social?

Are you finally admitting that you're spending far too much time

there without seeing anything in the way of results?

Or do you jump onto Instagram planning to post,

but get caught up in all the fabulously produced reels,

then you get intimidated and step back.

Yeah, me too.

We know at this point we should post consistently with quality

content, but when it comes time to actually do it,

figuring out what to post is overwhelming and time consuming.

That's why I created content for makers.

Last year.

Many of you have purchased this high value,

low cost program and have new found ease in your posting.

And guess what?

If you already have content for makers,

there's no need to purchase it ever again.

One in done because it teaches you a posting strategy and

prompts that are timeless and can be used over and over

again. Now,

based on your feedback,

I've enhanced content for makers to include a hard copy,

social media scheduler,

because makers like tangible planners where we can add our own

creative punch to the mix,

right? Drum roll,

out your topics,

whether they're for social media,

blog articles or videos,

all in one place.

Now to clarify,

this is not your daily planner,

this is focused on content planning.

It includes direction on how to nail down a strategy,

monthly cues for new content and your own images.

And it can be used in conjunction with content for makers

or as a standalone resource.

Finally feel in control of your content with a strategy and

purpose, not just something random that you think of on the

fly to publish that day.

Intentional content saves time.

So you can focus on other business tasks and attracts customers,

which brings eyes to your brand and orders to your cart.

go to gift biz on wrapped.com

And now let's get back to the Yeah.

Well, once you have established what your correct price needs to

be, it might take a little bit for you to shift

to that.

And there's a couple ways that you can do it.

Personally. I tend to find that most of us make this

a much bigger deal than it is for the vast majority

of us.

We tend to put a ton of emotional labor into,

well, what if people get upset?

What if people get mad at me?

What if all of my customers like runaway screaming that I

increased the price that you Are so right.

I mean,

and chances are the reality is for most people,

you're going to go into your website or whatever you're using

to sell your products.

You're going to change the price.

And 98% of them,

99% of them are not going to say a word.

They probably won't even realize it because most people who are

buying handmade items are not super price sensitive.

The people who are going to make a comment are no

longer your ideal client.

And you just have to keep that in mind,

you shouldn't be focused on appealing to bargain hunters or people

who only buy when it's a discount that doesn't apply for

businesses like this.

We need to focus on people who actually value the time

and the energy and the craftsmanship that goes into creating handmade

products. So those people are honestly not generally super price sensitive.

Now, if you're wanting to reward loyal people in your audience

or in your community,

who've already purchased from you or who are repeat buyers of

a particular product,

one thing you can do is make a opportunity for them

to buy at the existing pricing before you increase the price.

And these sales often go really,

really well.

Whenever you announced,

Hey, we're about to increase the price point on I'm thinking

of a particular small batch item I love,

which is this handmade facial oil that I'm obsessed with by

this company here in Richmond,

Virginia, when they needed to raise the price.

They'll send out a quick email,

Hey, based on this,

that, and the other,

we're raising our price for next year.

If you want to go ahead and stock up on some

of your favorite facial oil,

go ahead and do it now,

before we increase the price on this date.

And they will often find a nice bump in sales because

people are like,

yes, I want to go ahead and get that.

It's almost like a reverse sale,

if that makes sense.

Yeah. So you can always do that to incentivize people and

give them kind of a different way of looking at it.

So that's one thing you can always do when you're looking

at increasing the prices.

The other thing you can do is when you adjust your

price, depending on how much of an adjustment you need to

make, you can slowly stair it up,

right? If you decide,

oh, I actually need to increase my price by 30 to

50%, that might feel like a big jump and that's okay.

You can make a small little increase and then maybe three,

six months later make another small increase.

But really,

I just want to encourage everyone that most of the people

who are buying from handmade creators are not as price sensitive,

as you might think.

And the people who do fuss about it,

aren't your ideal clients.

Anyway, I agree.

The other thing I was thinking as you were talking is

if you offer free shipping,

that of course comes off of the profit of your product.

So maybe that's something that you don't do anymore.

There's other ways without changing the base cost of the price.

It depends on what you're starting with,

I guess.

And the other thing I'm thinking right now,

Rachel, tell me what your comments would be on.

This is the time we're interviewing right now,

right? So early 20,

22, we have the supply issues that we're going through.

And we also have the increased costs of delivery,

all of that.

So for sure,

it makes sense from time to time to relook at your

costs and make sure that they're still in line with what

you're currently getting everything for or charging for.

But I'm thinking,

and this is where I want your opinion.

Unfortunately, we're all in a position where we're recognizing that everybody's

raising their prices.

This may be the right time.

If you see you're in a position where you've priced yourself

too low,

this may be the right time to self-correct because all of

our seeing prices going up every year.

Yeah. And chances are inflation right now.

They're saying it's about 10%.

So I've told all my clients,

if you haven't made at least a 10% adjustment in your

rates, you're losing money.

You're making less than you were last year.

So now's a good time to go in and do that

price adjustment.

Because like Sue said,

everybody is increasing their prices to reflect just the cost of

inflation. It's also a good time just to go through and

review your expenses,

your cost of goods to make each thing that you're making

because in different industries,

it really depends on what you are creating and what it's

costing your suppliers now to get all those things,

you might need to make some adjustments.

There, there might be opportunities.

If you can make larger purchases of supplies,

you can often get a discount.

And that's something to think about.

You might have an opportunity to actually reduce your cost of

goods sold per item by adjusting how you're purchasing from your

suppliers. So those are the types of things I would definitely

be thinking about because in a product world,

that margin is really important.

Yes. Wonderful advice.

Okay. So let's say we've taken some of the back-office tasks

off our plate because we listened to what you said and

took your advice,

Rachel. And we've also adjusted our pricing.

So we've got all of that set.

Now, moving forward.

One of the things you talk about then is,

you know,

you, haven't freed up time in your life so that you

can go out and yes,

a little bit of self love.

If you will,

things that you want to do for yourself,

getting some time back for yourself,

but you also want to be freeing this time up for

growth implementation.

What are you seeing with your clients in terms of how

are they replacing the refound time that they now have with

tasks that help their businesses grow?

Yes, this is all going to come down to marketing sales

and strategy,

marketing sales,

and strategy.

I think for a lot of makers,

they tend to be in love with the process of making

what they're doing and sometimes shy away from marketing and sales.

But I would encourage you to find a way to fall

in love with marketing and sales,

because that is where the growth is going to come from

at the end of the day.

And there are so many ways to market and sell your

products. I mean,

it changes all the time,

but I find that those people who devote at least one

to two days a week on marketing and sales activities,

so that could be getting on social media,

getting your product out there into the hands of the media.

All of those different marketing activities are really going to pay

off. If you put more of your time and energy there

attended Trade shows,

well trade shows.

If you want to do wholesale craft shows,

if you want to sell direct to the consumer,

all that type of thing.

Yeah. I mean,

it could be as simple as learning how to optimize for,

if you're trying to boost your local sales,

how do I get into more local shops if you're trying

to leverage online marketing?

Well, where are my people thinking about those types of things

will go a long way.

Okay. Do you see people stick into the other mode because

they're afraid to advance into some of the marketing and sales

and strategy?

Yeah. I find often that people who started a passionate business,

something that they just love doing often,

don't love the idea of marketing,

but I find that you just need to remove yourself from

the equation and just think about your product and think about

your clients or your customers who really needs to know about

this, who would love to know more about what it is

that you do and how they can use it and how

it can make their life better.

There are so many creative ways that you can market a

lot of different products.

And if you can get creative with it and just stay

focused on the product and not necessarily on you,

that's where it can get really fun.

What do you think of About people who say,

well, I'm going to hire sales reps to sell my product

One. I hope you have the margins to make that happen.

Sales reps can get very expensive because sales is the most

valuable role in any business.

If you have to outsource that it can get quite pricey.

So one,

you better have your pricing really tightened up,

but two,

if you're really adverse to learning sales or putting any time

into that,

I mean,

it could be a good way to go,

but I find for most people that you,

as the owner of this business are going to be more

passionate about your product than anyone else out there just you

are. No one is going to care as much about your

business as you do.

So it's really challenging to find people who can bring that

passion out if it's just a,

another sales job for them.

Yeah. Yeah.

I've experienced the same thing.

The reason I asked you the question is I've been hearing

people talking about this more and more and not completely within

my handmade community,

but just,

it seems like there's this lull going on about hiring out

for sales.

I don't know,

but I'm feeling like particularly as a handmade creator,

you are the personality behind the brand.

I mean,

the business is you,

even though you sell a physical product,

the business is you.

So your personality,

things that you love,

all of these things that we find.

So endearing and reasons why we follow certain makers on social

is because of who they are.

Absolutely. And you are actually an asset to your brand.

And you have to remember that,

like your story behind why you started this business or why

you created this thing or how you got so good at

it, that story is a huge brand asset.

I mean,

think about no one is more tied to their product.

Then Sara Blakely of Spanx,

you can't think of one without the other.

And her personality is totally infused inside of the business that

she created,

but she had to get out of her own way and

let other people support her so that she could be the

driving force behind the brand.

That's a perfect example.

Yeah. Because she's obviously not involved in production,

you know,

she's got the whole team behind her,

right. I mean,

you can think of a number of different people who have

been like that.

They started smaller,

but where did they gravitate to exactly what you're saying,

Rachel, you know,

they're the face of the company,

the brand of the company and the voice.

Yeah, Exactly.

And it's totally connected.

That's a great example.

Do you see anything changing in terms of the obstacles that

are going to get in our way within the next coming

year? See,

I don't look at the next coming year as an obstacle.

I look at it as an opportunity.

And the reason I do is because more businesses are launched

during economic uncertain times than any other time,

more millionaires are made during economic uncertainty than any other time.

And the reason is most people tend to go into safety

mode and they start shutting things down because they're scared of

the uncertainty.

But if you can stay focused on the opportunities out there,

there are so many opportunities that are showing up right now.

If only you are looking out for them,

that's what I would say.

Okay, perfect.

I love that optimism for sure.

Yeah, no,

I was just thinking when I was thinking obstacles,

like it's getting a little bit harder to work on social

and those types of challenges,

but I like your answer much better.

So we're staying with it because I agree.

We've seen more people look at their hobby and think of

ways that they can monetize the number before.

Absolutely. And I think the big thing is when things are

changing, I want to look ahead.

I want to be of ahead of the curve on things.

And that is one thing I will say for anybody who

has been struggling to feel like they're making their marketing or

sales work,

sometimes it's because just the whole economy,

marketing of sales have changed a little bit.

And so maybe there's something different that you could do that

will work better.

So how I'm seeing the show up a lot,

for example is again,

coming back to your ideal client,

I have one client who jumped on Tik TOK last year

when a lot of people were getting onto it right at

the kind of beginning of this whole pandemic.

And she started seeing amazing success because who's on Tik TOK,

parents, who does she sell to parents?

She saw such a huge rise in that just by her

getting on there,

right? When a lot of people were joining the platform.

But I have other people who Tik TOK is not where

their ideal clients are.

They're just not paying attention to that.

So she focused to LinkedIn.

That's where her people are.

I think as long as you're focused,

not necessarily on what seems trendy or popular,

but where your people are spending time.

That's where I would stay focused when it comes to looking

for those opportunities.

That's such an important point.

I mean,

we hear all the time about the most popular platform and

you have to be on this one or that one,

but you've got to start first with who are your customers

and where are they really important?

And it doesn't all have to be traditional like social media

platforms. No,

not at all.

I know plenty of product based businesses who skipped social media

other than to just kind of have some stuff on there,

but they're driving sales through other channels.

Maybe they're driving through advertising is still working.

It's still working out there.

And there's so many opportunities to advertise whether it's on Google

or Pinterest or YouTube or Facebook or Instagram,

like all of those are opportunities.

If you have something that is searched specific,

I think there's so many opportunities to get out in front

of your ideal customer.

You just have to put yourself in their shoes and figure

out how are they searching for a product like mine.

Exactly. And try things out.

I'm not saying like,

if tic-tac looks like it would work,

it seems like your customer try it and then see the

result and determine whether it really is If you are selling

makeup or skincare,

I'm just going to say tick-tock has made me buy so

many makeup and skincare things.

But on the other hand,

like I was looking for a planner recently,

I take care of my disabled mother and she has 24

hour nursing care.

So I was looking for a planner for her nurses to

track every day what's going on for her.

And I couldn't find anything until I went on Etsy and

I found a printable planner from Etsy.

And I was like,

you know,

if I was this person,

I would be optimizing for search so much because caregivers are

looking for a planner someplace to put all this information.

But I don't think a lot of people think like that

they just throw their product on their site or on Etsy

or on whatever.

And then just kind of cross their fingers and hope people

will find it.

You have to think about what is your ideal client going

through when they're trying to get this type of product.

Well, and that goes back to what we started talking about

in the beginning.

They probably don't have time to think because they're dealing with

their emails.

That's a great example of why this whole conversation is so

valuable because unless you free up your mind from all the

goose tasks that you have going on,

that you have to do one after the other or the

other, you don't even get a chance to consider what you

just said,

Rachel. Yeah,

exactly. And this is why getting yourself out of the weeds

out of the customer service out of the bookkeeping,

out of the admin,

out of the inventory,

out of the ordering,

like get some help you would be amazed at,

you could find a great assistant who could start pulling you

out of some of the weeds.

You might pay them.

I mean,

if they're local,

maybe 15,

20, 20 $5 an hour,

depending on where you are,

but if they can pull you out five hours a week

and you could put that five hours a week towards thinking

about marketing and sales,

you would see such a massive shift in your business.

And it's not just the money going out.

The theory is that that money is going out so that

you can bring in three times that amount of money back

in or more.

Absolutely. So that's the way to think of it.

It's a mental switch.

So Rachel,

tell us a little bit more about your business and the

service that you provide.

Yes. I have a business called the CEO collective where I

help women entrepreneurs to scale mostly service-based and a few product-based

businesses, but we're focused on helping women entrepreneurs to really create

the structure,

the systems,

the support team,

the infrastructure in their business,

so that they can do more of what they love while

working less hours Beautiful.

And where could someone find you online?

Yeah, the best place to come find me is@theceocollective.com.

And in fact,

if you go,

we have a whole series of content that features Nicole,

who is the owner of the product vapes business,

the solid Bo,

who I mentioned earlier,

she has a whole case study about how she used some

of the lessons that we talked about to free up a

ton of time for her and grow her business to almost

half a million dollars a year right now.

Wow, that's perfect because we can use that as a support

document, if you will,

to everything that we were talking about here.

So the learning gets extended,

just go over to CEO,

collective.com and look for that all about Nicole.

And there you go.

Perfect. I love that.

Rachel. Wonderful.

Well, thank you so much for being on the show today.

You've really shared some valuable information and looking forward to hearing

from any of you listeners who implemented and what the results

are. So you have to let us know on that.

Rachel, thanks again so much for being on the show today.

Thank you for having me Sue.

It was such a pleasure.

A lifestyle business is the ideal one that fits in and

compliments your life.

Not overpowers it that can happen when you get out of

the weeds and start seeing the brightness of the sun.

Again, it's never too late for a reset and it'll do

wonders for your business and the love you have of what

you created.

I will be back next Saturday,

addressing a topic that can be a sensitive one for som,

but not all because some of us just decide to ignore

it. How's that for a teaser.

Thanks so much for spending time with me today.

If you'd like to show support for the podcast,

let me know how it's helped you.

Something new you've learned or suggest a topic you'd like to

learn more about.

Just add it in as a review.

I read everyone personally and absolutely use your suggestions as guidance

for new guests and topics.

And once more,

a reminder.

So you know all the details about the rollout of maker's

MBA this year,

go-to gift biz,

unwrapped.com forward slash M MBA waitlist.

Make sure you've got your name on there.

You definitely don't want to miss it and now be safe

and well,

and I'll see you again.

Next time on the gift biz unwrapped podcast.

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 posts 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.