SPEAKER_01
Welcome to the Jewelry Business Academy podcast. I'm your host, Robin Clark. And if you're a jewelry business owner looking to break through to the next level, then my courses, coaching programs and podcast are for you.

You'll learn how to overcome the biggest challenges in your business and build and scale your business with as much ease and simplicity as possible. I'm here to inspire and guide you with weekly episodes with ambitious entrepreneurs, where we chat about everything from marketing, mindset and sales to life as an entrepreneur and more. There will be lots of actionable tips for you to level up your business, your mindset and your life.

And let's face it, you can apply all of these strategies to any product-based business. I'm so glad you're here. Let's dive in.

Hello and welcome back. I'm so happy to have you here again. I know it's been a little while since the last episode and that has been because I've gone through a couple of changes.

I have moved into a dreamy new space. It all happened really, really quickly, but I knew what I was looking for. I was looking for a space that felt expansive and safe and cozy, a place where I'm going to thrive with the winter that's coming its way.

If you're in Canada, you know what I'm talking about? The winters here can feel really challenging at times with the dark weather, the shorter days, the very cold temperatures some days. And I really struggle with those. And so finding a space where I can really thrive and enjoy winter and still do really well as just personally and with my business was really important to me.

And I cannot believe the space that I found. I'm absolutely in love with it. I am all moved in and I'm busy recording this from my new office space.

So if you're on Instagram, you'll have seen little snippets from my new place. And if you're not already, you can go and follow me. It's Robin Clark Coaching.

And I'd love to hear from you and connect with you on your entrepreneurial journey. I have a really, really incredible guest with us this week. I was so excited to share this episode with you guys.

If you are jewelry business owners who are ready to introduce a new revenue stream into your business, then you're really, really going to love this. But before I dive in, I wanted to remind you that we still have two and a bit months left of 2022. And you still have time to hit some big goals this year.

You know, often at the stage of the game, people are in survival mode and they're thinking, you know what, November, December is going to be busy, which it should be busy if you're a jewelry business owner. It is our busy season. But you kind of go into survival mode.

And I want to remind you that you can hit big goals, but you have to take care of yourself first. You have to during this busy season, nurture yourself, look after your health and prioritize self care before your business. And I know how challenging that can be for a lot of business owners, because we just want to push through and make the most of these last two and a bit months.

But it is so important to prioritize self care and looking after your health, because if you get sick during these last two and a bit months of the year during busy season, it can really negatively impact your business. And so you do want to make sure that you are prioritizing yourself above all. And if you are struggling to hit your goals and you feel like you've hit a bit of a plateau, there is still time for you to join the jewelry business academy and really deep dive into your business.

We'll deep dive into the foundation and make sure you have a really solid foundation from which to scale your business. And we'll help make sure that you have really clear strategies in place to drive sales this holiday season. So if that sounds like something that you would be interested in, I would love to invite you to join me in the jewelry business academy.

It is the most expansive container for jewelry business owners who want to accelerate their growth and are ready to take that business to the next level. There is a lot of high level individualized support with me with an emphasis on building solid foundations in your business and scaling with a simplified strategy and streamlined systems. So it is a 12 week container and you get a lot of one-on-one support with me.

There are also group support and WhatsApp support and strategy sessions and coaching calls. And so much more. So if that sounds like something that would feel supportive to you and you are ready to enter a season of growth, head to jewelrybusinessacademy.

ca and you can learn more about me and more about the program there. Okay, so let's dive into today's episode. Today I chatted to Katie Hunt who is the founder and CEO of Proof2Product, an educational company that helps product based business owners get their products into stores.

Katie is also the host of the Proof2Product podcast. We talked about so much during this episode so you definitely want to have your notebooks ready. Katie shared her story and how she got to where she is today.

And we talked about how Katie helps product based business owners get their products into stores. We looked at the key foundational pieces your business needs before going into wholesale. The systems, processes, data and vendors that you need for wholesale.

We looked at building a business that fuels the life that you want to lead and understanding your goals and what success looks like to you. We talked about changing your mind in business and embracing slow seasons as well as having a multi-tiered approach to getting wholesale accounts. Katie rarely shared a lot of her insight and wisdom when it comes to wholesaling from optimizing your product line for wholesale, the sales terms and conditions, the marketing and outreach for wholesale, as well as frequency in content for marketing to wholesale accounts.

We talked about this and so much more. So I hope you enjoy this episode. If you do let me know on Instagram it is Robin Clark coaching.

I love hearing from you and if you did enjoy this episode please leave us a five star review on Apple podcasts. So let's dive right in. Katie it's so good to have you on the jewelry business academy podcast today.

Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me Robin. Happy to be here.

Yeah I've been ready looking forward to this conversation today and to meeting you. I know we're meeting virtually but still and I'm ready looking forward to chatting all things business and wholesaling. But before we dive in do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself to our listeners and just share a little bit of your background and how you got to where you are today? Sure.

So my name is Katie Hunt and

SPEAKER_00
I am the founder and CEO of Proof to Product. We're an educational company that helps product-based business owners that sell a wide range of products, sell their products to stores big and small. So the backstory is that I had my own brand for over eight years.

I had a stationary and gift brand and I was self-taught in the arts and I was really strong on the business side. I have two MBAs, one in marketing, one in finance. I had over a decade in corporate experience like business was my heart and soul and I struggled with the artistic creative side and I looked around my industry as I was growing my business and it was successfully growing but I definitely had struggles along the way and I looked around and I thought gosh my colleagues in this industry are so talented but they struggle with the things that I excel at and they excel in the areas that I struggle and if we can just put everybody together in a room and have some very candid conversations about what's working what's not working not so that we all replicate each other's efforts but just more to understand how the industry is functioning and how we might be able to improve our own businesses we can all thrive and the industry will thrive and so that product-based business I started was in 2008.

I kept that going until 2016. We scaled up and we're selling in stores all around the world at that point but I started this business now proof-to-product in 2011 so there was a time where I was overlapping two businesses, an intensive day job and two babies under two years old. Something I had to give at that point but yeah so basically I started this brand in 2011 and we've coached thousands of people how to get their products on the shelves of stores big and small.

People are selling to a container store, Starbucks, J Crew, Anthropology and of course the independent shops are really the bread and butter of their consistent reorders but I love the work I do. I get to do a lot of fun coaching and through our programs and our podcast and I just I really feel grateful every day to be able to work with the people I work with and make the impact that

SPEAKER_01
we're making. That's such an inspiring story Katie and you know it's so interesting listening to you because I feel like we are on very similar type of paths. I also had my own product-based business for years and then saw the same thing you know a lot of incredibly talented jewelry designers in my case who are way more talented than I will ever be when it comes to creation and design and that but struggling with the business side and I think it's so admirable that you didn't see that as competition and you actually went and you built this incredible impact-driven business to help and support all these business owners and help everyone thrive so I think that's really inspiring and really incredible and that you've helped so many business owners over the years and you continue to help them now and I'd love to dive a little bit more into that down the line but I know you focus a lot on wholesale and I'd love to chat a little bit about that because I know a lot of jewelry business owners and product-based business owners want to introduce this revenue stream into their businesses but they often just not sure where to begin so when do business owners know that it's the right time to go into wholesale and what are the key foundational pieces their business needs to have in place before they do go down into getting wholesale accounts? What elements of their business should they be looking at before they dive into that?

SPEAKER_00
Yeah so that's a big question and let's tackle it piece by piece. Most brands start selling direct to consumer. It's something that oftentimes is a hobby and they say let me see if I can monetize this or friends say hey I love that jewelry you know you should sell it and so they hop on maybe a third-party platform like Etsy or something else and they start seeing some traction but at that point it's still a hobby where they're creating pieces they're selling pieces maybe it's the kind of thing where they're advertising pieces and once they sell they make them and ship them so it's kind of an ad hoc process and system at that point right they're testing the market they're seeing what's going to work they're also probably playing with their pricing a bit and seeing you know how can I get my materials at lower cost so that that startup phase is definitely a lot of experimentation I mean frankly running a business is always experimentation but I agree but those early days in particular because if we're not you know a lot of people fell into business they didn't intentionally go out saying I want to create a jewelry business they said oh I really enjoy doing this and my work is resonating with people and people are asking to buy it so now let me figure out the business side of it and so you know that is a very different phase than the people that are ready to start considering wholesale when you're ready to start thinking about wholesale you have established sales data you have established systems that you use to create your work and sell your work and fulfill the orders that are coming in you have vendors that you rely on and regularly use for all of your materials and your supplies perhaps you already have a team in place that can help you create the work that you're creating you know businesses all look different so yours may look different than what I just described but having some of those foundational pieces will make it easier for you to then start wholesaling because it's Robin wholesale is a volume game and that I mean that it's not creating one-off pieces it's it's creating many of that same piece and selling many of that same piece to a store so there has to be some systems and processes in place we need to have the scalability or the the ability to do that scaling in order to really

SPEAKER_01
truly be ready for wholesale does that answer your question that's that answers it really well and I I love that you share the different stages of business because I think some people well a lot of people as you say get into their jewelry businesses especially it starts as a hobby it starts as a passion project on the side or just a creative outlet and they never intend necessarily on building this business but as you start gaining traction and start seeing results and start thinking you know I want to leave my corporate job I want to follow my passion I want to work in this industry then it starts becoming more of a business and having those systems in place is so crucial when it comes to wholesaling and I think you break it down ready ready well for our listeners so thank you so much for sharing that I also want to add real quickly yeah it's okay to stay a hobby

SPEAKER_00
business if somebody prefers to do that you know it's okay to keep things small and manageable and at a sustainable level where you can still explore with other creative outlets that you have or you can work a day job or you can spend more time with your family I'm a huge advocate for building businesses that fuel the lives we want to lead and so I don't believe in the hustle culture I don't believe that we need to be constantly striving for more I think it's very very important for us to understand what our goals are and what success looks like for our business and for us personally so that we can work to that but then when we hit that let's let's sustain for a little bit and live in that moment and see what happens and then maybe we may change our our definition of success or the goals we're trying to hit but I think there is in the product world especially there's a I don't know if it's self-imposed or there's there's a pressure to continue creating to continue creating content now videos social media content all of that there's a more more more vibe to it and I think it's really important that we help remind people that they have the ability to do enough and call that enough you know what I hope that makes it 100% I completely

SPEAKER_01
agree with you there there's definitely that hustle culture especially in business because you are trying to make it and then you're competing with competitors and you're sort of also looking at what your friends and family think who are seeing you start this business and you're kind of trying to prove yourself and what I always ask my clients when we when we first start working together is I'm I ask them what is their why for starting their business because I see and I talk to business owners who are 12 years in who forgot about their why and have built a successful business but it's not fulfilling to them and it's really difficult to see that and then we have to undo and basically build a whole new business and so remembering your why and recognizing that your why it's going to be so different from everyone else's some people are in it for the money some people are in it for the creative outlets some people are in it for mental health reasons everyone has a very different driving force and so if you are trying to compete with someone else who's doing really well in their business you're ultimately not going to be fulfilled in the same way that they are because their their why is just not in alignment with yours so no I absolutely love that you shared that so anyone who's listening to this who's interested in maybe wholesale but is not interested in scaling their business up you don't have to feel guilty for that you know it's so important to recognize that maybe just this chapter of your life you're going to go at a slower pace and that's okay maybe down the line you want to scale like that's also okay if you change your mind so thank you for sharing that

SPEAKER_00
of course I was just going to say the same thing you did it's okay to change your mind too yeah it's okay to want one thing today and something else tomorrow it's okay to you know go all in on a certain product category and then say later nope this isn't working for me I can't get the margins where I want them I don't enjoy making this anymore whatever we we have the power we get to set the

SPEAKER_01
rules and it's okay to change your mind and I think that's such a good reminder I think everyone needs that I need that sometimes that reminder that you can change your mind in business just because you set out in one direction you can pivot you can change things because ultimately that's why you're you have your business so you can have control over those things okay so for a business owner who is ready for wholesale they've got those foundational pieces in place they have the systems and automations they're able to scale how do they make it as easy as possible for wholesale accounts to purchase from them what's the best way for like brands to reach out to these stores and these wholesale accounts what approach would you recommend so I recommend a multi-tiered approach

SPEAKER_00
when you're reaching out to shop owners and trying to sell your products to them but if I can robin I'd like to back the train up a little bit yeah we have a four-step process that we teach in our program it's called paper camp but we have it's because our roots are in the stationary world but really what we're teaching is wholesale foundational elements and so we work with all sorts of product makers and week one we start with your product line we should always be looking at our product line before we look at any other pieces of this we want to make sure that our pricing is right our I'm sorry we want to make sure that our pricing is right that our packaging is solid that we have enough product in our line to actually go out and wholesale there's a number of factors that we need to kind of double check that our product line meets before we jump into wholesale the second thing I tell everyone to look at is their sales terms and conditions so this includes um and their sales pieces their sale tools so they need a wholesale catalog it's mandatory I know a lot of people don't want to have a sales catalog but you need to and so a wholesale catalog your terms and conditions and with that we go through all the nitty gritty detail you should be having um a minimum opening order amount which is the dollar amount that they're spending with you you should have an moq which is minimum order quantity of each skew that you're selling there's a whole lot of nitty gritty details that a lot of product-based business owners are missing particularly if they jumped into a platform like fair or a bound or tundra to wholesale if they don't have these pieces in place it's red flags to the buyers that they're not sure what they're doing or they're new to wholesale and so we want to make sure all these fundamental pieces are ready before we even start outreach so our third piece of this process is the marketing and the outreach and we provide sample templates we talk about email strategies we talk about direct mail strategies we talk about using those third-party platforms and how to leverage those as best as we can doing things like automated error I'm sorry abandon cart emails you know there's a lot that we can do to not only reach out to new stores that we want to work with but really the key is nurturing the relationships so it's that initial contact we have to make that and there's lots of different ways we could do that but then it's about staying top of mind because most stores are not going to purchase from us the first time they hear from us they need to see us showing up again and again talking about new products that we have and other information and so it's that follow-up process that's very important and the multiple touch points in different ways and even more so than the frequency in which we're doing outreach it's the content that we're sending your your wholesale audience is a completely different audience than your direct to consumer customer so your direct to consumer customer is purchasing from an emotional standpoint they like they love the look of your jewelry they want to gift it to a family member there's a reason like they're drawn to your product from an emotional standpoint right your wholesale customers are thinking with their business hats on they're thinking how am I going to merchandise this in the store how does it fit with the other products that I carry how much space will it take up on the shelves how what will my profit margins be as I sell through this so it's a very logistical tactile business decision that they're making and so when we communicate with them and when we add value in our touch points and outreach we have to make sure we're speaking to the things that influence their buying decision so it's not necessarily talking about you know the benefits and features of the jewelry that we're making it's talking about the business benefits to that shop to carry our products we have quick turnaround times we have product in stock ready to ship like those are things that stores are looking for so I went off on a little bit of a tangent there but really we want to start with everybody's product line make sure that is solid we want all their sales tools strong and making them look very polished and professional and then we do the marketing and the outreach and that's where we have a whole system for that cold outreach as well as warm outreach as well as follow up tactics for existing clients that we want to see continuing

SPEAKER_01
to order from us incredible okay so I'm going to backtrack onto all of those because I think I think you laid it out really well for our listeners and I just want to dive into some of those topics a little bit deeper so let's start with pricing because I know I chat to so many jewelry business owners on a weekly basis and many of them underpriced their jewelry there's no way around it they're just underpricing and so they're actually unable to enter wholesale at their current price points and current margins I'd love to hear what advice you have for these types of business owners what elements of that their business do they need to reconsider when they're pricing their jewelry for wholesale and retail and what is the sweet spot for pricing?

SPEAKER_00
Yeah so this is a common problem across the board I think a lot of people undervalue the labor and the time and you know their skill set that go into creating these types of products but if we're looking to increase our profit margins on the direct-to-consumer side or increase our profit margins so that we can sell these products to the wholesale market I do have you know a couple of things I'd recommend one look at your materials and do an audit can we alter any of these materials without sacrificing the quality of the work that we're performing is there a way to lower those expenses tied to each unit that we're creating the other thing is in some areas and maybe not as it may not work as well in the jewelry industry but oftentimes if we are outsourcing production or hiring help with production sometimes especially with outsourcing if we increase the quantities in which we're having someone else manufacture things that will oftentimes get our price per piece down now in a handmade business where we're bringing in stuff and stuff that those economies of scale may not apply as much here but we can find ways to maybe systematize the production process so that we're shaving off a few seconds or a few minutes here and there as we're creating things maybe it's a batching in the way that we're creating the product so looking at those the workflow and seeing how we can maximize that another area where people tend to overspend and it eats into their profit margin is their packaging we can simplify the packaging there's certainly information on there that we absolutely want a need to have on our packaging but we can remove extra embellishments or things that might add to our costs of that packaging or even the time that it's taking to you know affix our jewelry to the packaging so looking at the packaging because I find that that's an area where some people are overspending and if we can lower our expenses there it'll increase profit margin and then the other thing goes back to what you said at the beginning increasing our pricing and I know that you know that sounds so flippant well increase your price you know but realistically most product-based businesses are underselling their products they are not taking into account the labor the skill the experience the longevity in which they've been creating these products that holds a lot of value and I also think that a lot of especially the handmade industry they think about what they might spend on a product and they let that influence their pricing strategy when their product might not be like they might not be their ideal customer they're selling so they may be actually targeting a totally different market than who they are as a person who may feel comfortable spending a higher amount so I think too there's there's some nuance there that we need to consider I think oftentimes we put ourselves in the position as the customer when we might not be our ideal customer too so yeah pricing is tricky I don't like to use pricing formulas when I work with my clients where you know here's your cost and 2x that and or whatever just because it is so nuanced and I really think we need to I kind of run an approach with my clients where we run numbers from the bottom up which means that we look at our production costs and we look at the time and the labor and all of the pieces that go into creating that one unit and look at what that cost is and then do a top-down analysis where we look at the rest of the industry and look at what similar types of products are selling for and who their audience is and we kind of do a market analysis of like okay well is this you know are we more similar to this and then I find that the pricing is is there a sweet spot in the middle of

SPEAKER_01
those two but closer to the top-down version amazing I think you broke that down so well Katie and so for anyone listening I hope you have your notebook ready and you're taking lots of notes because that's such good advice and I love how you talked about getting your clients to do in order to have like the materials that they're using and the components and the packaging and all of that because that adds up and sometimes like I see this with jewelry especially just changing the chain and the size of the chain links can have a significant impact on your pricing so if you have a design that you absolutely love and you just cannot get the price down really look at the chain that you're using because just changing going for one size smaller chain links or just changing the chain and changing all your chains to one or two styles is going to have a huge impact on pricing and that's where sometimes design you have to take into consideration the cost and not just the design and it does vary of course for different brands but if your your products are under a hundred dollars you do have to look at at the cost of those sort of things and take that into consideration when you're making designs so I think you broke that down so so well and I love that you shared about a pricing not not competing on price because this is something I talk about a lot and people do compete on price because they're like well my competitors are doing this and they are doing a 50 discount and they're doing all this so I have to do that too and the reality is like competing with price is the best way to make sure your business is not going to get anywhere in my opinion so do you have advice for somebody listening to this who may be competing a little bit on price at least with some of their pieces and they they know that they shouldn't be but they're not sure how to like share that value of their pieces through like there's a lot of other ways what would

SPEAKER_00
be one piece of advice you'd give them sure so I feel the same as you that we should not be discounting all of our products in order to get a sale I feel that if we're consistently offering you know a percentage discount or you know if people are constantly seeing us running sales that trains our customers to wait and buy when there's a sale it doesn't tell them our products are amazing our value it doesn't like our messaging needs to be tweaked in order to really articulate the value of the purchase and so I think it's easy for people to fall back on to okay sign up for my email list and get a 10 discount code oh you know buy two pieces get a third one and a half off like but ultimately those things are a race to the bottom it is not going to help you scale your business it's not going to enable you to get full value for the work that you're completing and it's going to train your worst the worst part about this is it trains your customers to only purchase from you when you have a discount yeah and that's not what we want we want our customers to be thinking I have this jewelry piece that I received and it is gorgeous and it is you know I get compliments on it all the time and I would buy anything new that they create when they create it like we really want to think about how we're communicating the value the artisanship of what we're creating yes and again this kind of ties back to what I talked about earlier the messaging is going to vary for wholesale versus direct to consumer but on the direct to consumer side I think this is even more influential where they get conditioned to only purchase when we have a sale so in general I recommend my clients only do about one sale a year and you know they can they can talk about other things in their marketing they can talk about new products they can talk about what their best sellers of the quarter are they can talk about the stories behind the pieces that they're making and what what prompted them to want to create that piece they can highlight their customer stories and people that are purchasing their you know share their images and things like that there's a lot that we can do to kind of low-key like under the radar articulate the value we can be direct about it too but there's also just a lot of brand management that comes up in terms of talking about the value and showcasing other people using it so I think I think it's a mix of messaging and also planning ahead I have found that this is going to go off on a tangent a little bit but I have found that most of my clients will default to some sort of sale when they're feeling a cash crunch in their business when they don't feel like they're very organized or that they have their they don't feel like they have their marketing planned out and so they need something to say and so they'll say okay well let's just run that let's run a sale or something and so I think the more prepared we can be the more we can focus on our messaging and the more we can plan in advance we won't be leaning on those types of you know motivators and

SPEAKER_01
incentives for our customers. Yeah you know what I love that you share that because I've seen jewelry business owners who have trained their clients to only shop on sale and they will literally wait and they'll even message and be like hey I'm ready to buy that piece but when is it going on sale? When's the next sale because I'm just waiting for that and it's one of the biggest mistakes and I think what happens is people can see they can get quick wins and quick wins don't actually build a sustainable business you know not when you train your customers in that way and I love that you shared all the different ways they can add that they can share the value of their products and without doing those sales I mean there's so much content you can share which is going to connect your customers to your brand and to your jewelry and to you as a person as the business owner and it's going to differentiate you from all those other brands as well and so I know we've chatted a little bit about this earlier but I want to deep dive into it a little bit more because now we sort of chatted about marketing direct to consumer how we're sharing the feeling and the story behind our brand we're doing a lot of connection content when we're selling to the consumer but how about when it comes to marketing to wholesale accounts I know you did touch on this but I'd like if you could just share a little bit more when it comes to like the logistics and the shelf space and the turnaround time how is the messaging different what would you give as one piece of advice to listeners who are marketing to wholesale accounts and they're not sure if they're

SPEAKER_00
doing it right yeah so the biggest mistake I see with brands that are just getting into wholesale is that their outreach their pitch to stores is too focused on them it's too focused on the brand what I really want to encourage people to do is put on your buyer hat and think about from their perspective from that shop owner's perspective what information do they need to place an order with me and let's give them that yes we do want to include some details about what we sell and what our brand stands for and the values but I have seen some pitch emails that are like three paragraphs about the brand and you know they were very well written and very detailed but that's not like a buyer's going to see those three paragraphs and skip on to the next like that's not going to help inform their buying decision so what I encourage people we've got some templates that we share in our paper camp program I encourage people to do one paragraph at the beginning that very quickly highlights what types of products they sell how long they've been wholesaling just give some details to let people know their established brand and then bullet points bullet points bullet point bullet points and here's what you say you say here are wholesale terms and you say first bullet point our opening order amount is this the second bullet point that is roughly three to five skews whatever it might be for your brand I'm just inserting those numbers there our turnaround times are typically seven to ten days or whatever your turnaround times are and then you know maybe there's a couple other bullet points in there but then at below that you say here are three easy ways to order and you know you send them to your website you send them to your fair site you tell them to reply to the email you send them to your sales rep whatever it might be but choose a couple of different ways that they can place their order and put that in the email and the reason for that is you've got some buyers that love ordering online you've got some buyers that don't want to use fair and other platforms they prefer to just email you your order so we want to try to cast the net wide and meet buyers where they are and so if we can offer them multiple ways to order they're going to find one option that's conducive to the way they like to order so what we're doing it that with that structure of an email is we're giving them some info about us but we're not overly doing it we're giving them in the exact bullet points they need to know to place an order and we're telling them how to order and I want you to think about this from your perspective as a consumer now we're not wholesale buyers none of us listening are probably wholesale buyers but when we go into a store and I see a t-shirt on a rack that I want I will pick up the shirt think about what you do in that process right like you'll pick up the shirt you'll probably look at the price tag you might look at the tag to see what kind of fabric is used or whatever it might be but we're going to inspect that item and think about what qualifications we want it to meet in order for us to say yes to buying it and the price tax probably the biggest one as a consumer but for a shop owner it's how fast can you get things to them if they're in a bind and need more inventory for q4 can you get it to them in time if they if you have a low opening order amount and they can test a few products that's enticing to them because they can you know again buy smaller test it out and then hopefully if things sell well they'll come back and buy in a larger quantity from you you know in the jewelry world it's not taking up a ton of space but how are they going to merchandise it do they already have displays do they need displays do you offer displays these are very nuanced questions of course but these are things that if we put our buyer's hat on as a store owner what information do they need to place that order and what goes into their buying decisions what are they thinking about as they're saying yes and no to these pitches they're receiving I think that the more we can put ourselves in their shoes and provide them with information that really makes it an easy yes or no for them that's going to build the relationship that's going to build the loyalty and I'll say to you that if you do have quick turnaround times and I know that's easier in certain markets and others certain types of products and others it's really helpful for people when their shelves are running low on product and they need it they're going to call the people that they trust and say hey we need some more product can you send this so there's different ways to add value there's different ways to really connect with our wholesale customers but ultimately we want to make it as easy as possible for them to purchase and we want to give them all the details they need to know to

SPEAKER_01
place that order. That's such good advice and that kind of brings me to my next question because you know once they've sent that email they may not necessarily get a response the first time and I think I well I see this especially with jewelry business owners who are kind of small maybe getting their first five ten stores and they don't get a response or they get a no and they feel disheartened and they kind of want to give up and what I say is collect the nodes and just keep going and keep building those relationships but I'd love to talk about relationship building when it comes to your wholesale accounts. How important is that relationship building and do you have advice for somebody listening who is sort of new to this and is still building those relationships with wholesale accounts maybe has a few going what would your advice be?

SPEAKER_00
Relationships are huge in business they are particularly important in the wholesale world and my goal as someone that wholesaled was always to be helpful whether or not they were an existing customer of mine so I'll give you an example I was exhibiting at a New York trade show it was a large international trade show at the time and a buyer that I had worked with in the past came into my booth and we were chit chatting about stuff and they hadn't even taken time to really look around my booth yet and they said to me oh well I actually I asked them I said are you looking for anything particular at this show and they said yeah we really need some good gift wrap we don't have any gift wrap and I said oh you need to meet Claudia from Fig2 Design she no longer sells her gift wrap but I said you need to meet my friend Claudia and I walked that buyer out of my booth to someone else's booth introduced that person to my friend who had gorgeous gift wrap at the time and they ended up placing a very large order with Claudia and that buyer came back to me later and said thank you so much for that introduction I appreciate it and they did end up placing an order with me too but that act of helping them solve their problem really solidified our relationship and they they we worked together for years after that and they were one of my best customers and I'm not saying you need to drive people to other businesses and all of that but my point is when we can solve problems or help make things easier on our shop owners that we're working with that is beneficial to the relationship that is beneficial to their business that is beneficial to our business so even some of our emails that we may be sending you know they may not be responding but they're certainly looking at them they're very busy like imagine getting 30 to 50 pitches or more in a single day it's probably impossible for them to answer all of those in addition to running the shop and their team and all of those things so um don't to your audience don't be disheartened if you don't hear back it doesn't mean that they're not interested and what I like to tell we had um a gal on my podcast her name was Tiffany and she was one of my clients and she said she talked about reframing her nose in wholesale to a not right now yeah so instead of thinking no it's a no it's a hard no they're not ever going to want to work with me no it's a not right now and sure enough many of the people that were initially either non responsive or you know not right now did come back in order from her so um I think it's about shifting our mindset a little bit and it's also about remembering that people do need to hear from us and see us showing up consistently for quite a while before they're willing to take a chance on us I had somebody that uh came by my booth for four straight years at that New York trade show before they placed their first order and he literally said to me I wanted to see if you were going to stick around I wanted to see if you were in this for the long haul and I said I'm here still doing it you know but there are a lot of stories like that where um you know it just takes shop owners a while so don't give up just continue to push forward continue to reach out you're not a bother you're not annoying them but do make sure that any touch points are adding value for them you know what are you offering them with each touch point are you reminding them that you have product in hand ready to ship if they need something to fill in are you letting them know about new product that you just released you know what what kind of things can you tell them that would enhance what they're doing in their world that's such good

SPEAKER_01
advice and I really love the reframe of reframing nose from nose to not not right now not right now not in this moment but you know down the line I think that will really help a lot of business owners listening and in business you are going to hear and know a lot and it can really get you down because you don't have somebody above you like a manager who's like no it's okay it's it's a no to me it's not a no to you like we take it very personally as business owners especially as jewelry business owners because they I feel like they put a lot of hearts and soul into their designs you know it's a kind of a part of them their businesses often and so having that reframe makes a true difference and I love the just how you shared that just being helpful being helpful to your wholesale accounts and going out of your way to help them when you can it's actually such a simple way to build relationships because I think we sometimes think of relationship building as some complex thing but actually it's when you break it down it's really simple it's being helpful it's being efficient it's being on the ball and and being able to get them products when they need

SPEAKER_00
it yeah it's delivering on our promises it's being kind it's being responsive it's a lot of it's just common sense but yet you know when we can go a little bit above and beyond it makes a huge impact in those relationships and then it makes a huge impact in our sales too yeah so I know a lot

SPEAKER_01
of business owners especially jewelry brands like to pop into stores and I'd love to know your opinion on this what would you recommend to a jewelry business owner who thinks they can just walk into a store and try sell to the owner because especially after covid I don't really think this is the way to go there's definitely a way of doing it if you want to pop in and say hi versus go in and hard sell but I'd love to hear your recommendation and your dos and don'ts when it

SPEAKER_00
comes to popping into stores so I'm chuckling because this has come up quite a bit lately in my membership program and our paper camp program and okay so here here's my thing about showing up unannounced I do not recommend it I do not think it's the best first impression that you want to make with that shop owner and I want you to put yourself in their shoes think about when you're at home maybe it's an evening you're making dinner you're relaxing on the couch reading a book whatever it might be and your doorbell rings and somebody shows up wanting to sell you something they want you to upgrade your wi-fi they want you to buy these magazines whatever it might be what do you feel in that moment you feel a little bit like probably bummed out that your night was interrupted you feel a little bit like I don't want to deal with this I don't want to have to turn somebody down I don't want to make them feel bad right like you're put on the spot a bit in that scenario right now let's think about the shop owner they are at work and someone is showing up in their shop wanting to share all of the amazing products that they sell that shop owner might be the only one in the store working they may be helping a customer they may have a phone call that rings that they need to answer and yet here we are standing in front of them that is not a good first impression to make we in that scenario are somewhat of a nuisance you know like we're interrupting their day unannounced just like the person coming to our door when we're sitting on the couch or making dinner or whatever it might be so I don't say that to be unkind but what I would encourage you to do instead is if you are on a vacation and you see shops or whatever that might be of interest to you maybe have a postcard or some sort of direct mail piece that you can drop off and leave behind and you can simply say to the person at the cash register I'd like to leave this for your buyer if possible take 30 seconds of their time and then scoop the mistakes people make are they overstay their welcome and they interrupt the person's flow of their work you know we certainly don't want to interfere if they're working with a customer and selling something we don't want to be like hey hey I need to talk to you so if you are out and about and want to stop by a store I would not necessarily stop by and assume that you'll get to talk to the buyer I would not assume that they will have time to really meet with you and look at your catalog or your products if anything the only thing I would recommend is you stop by you leave something it could even be a handwritten note with your catalog or a postcard like I said that has a QR code to your wholesale catalog I would leave something and just say I'd like to leave this for the buyer of the store and you know they'll say yes or no another tactic too that you could do is say would it be possible to get the name of the person so I can follow up later but the key here is do not show up and announced and expect them to give you a whole lot of time and attention it just isn't it's not it's

SPEAKER_01
just not the right method to use. Thank you for sharing that yeah anyone listening to this I hope you didn't miss that point no popping into stores unannounced and it's funny that you bought up that example because just before this our recording I had a phone call and it was somebody trying to sell me internet or whatever and it's so annoying like and you don't want to be rude and you just like right and waiting for a gap and I'm like I have to go like I have meetings I have things happening and so yeah I think I think it's so important that people don't do that and thank you for sharing that and if they are gonna pop in pop in make it short and sweet and drop something

SPEAKER_00
off and go yeah I will say too like putting ourselves in their position too like what if your product line is not a good match at all they don't want to have to on the spot tell somebody they've never met before like no we're not interested you know like that's that's hard to do that puts them in a tricky position so again we want to build strong relationships we want to make good first impressions and we also want to give buyers the space they need to kind of figure out what their needs are and hopefully it's what we're selling but we don't ever want to like apply that pressure

SPEAKER_01
in a in a situation like that no definitely not so I want to change topics a little bit because I talk to jewelry business owners every single week and what I've noticed is that many of them are so focused on the challenges that they're currently facing in their business that they sometimes forget to stop and take a step back and look at the direction that their business is going in are they on track to hit their goals are they going in the right direction do they need to change their strategy if they want to hit those goals and I know you encourage your clients to take a business temperature check and I'd love you to share what that means and what are the four key factors that business owners need to consider when making decisions in their business

SPEAKER_00
for sure so taking your business temperature is a training that I gave inside of our labs program which is a membership for product-based business owners and I encourage people to take their business temperature at least once a year if it's a more seasoned established business where things are happening very quickly and there's lots of decisions that need to be made in a shorter amount of time then they may need to take it every six months but really you know the smaller businesses can do it once a year and it's usually a great time to do it when you're doing your annual planning too so it's a mix of reflecting back on what's been working well it's it's collecting data points it's reflecting back on what's worked well it's reflecting back on what did not work very well and then future casting and what we want to be doing more of as we move forward and I do have four things that I weigh into my decision-making and I encourage my clients to weigh into their decision-making as they're thinking about what are we going to do more of or what are we going to do less of and those four things are your time how much time will this product project task whatever it might be this new initiative we want to do a partnership whatever it might be how much time is this going to take and what if we say yes to this what will that be taking time away from what are we not going to have the capacity to do elsewhere because of the time so we look at the time constraints what's involved we look at the money potential like how much money will this initiative opportunity bring to the business and you know we look at that in correlation to the time and then the next two pieces I'm going to describe but like what's the potential what's the earning potential here and that doesn't necessarily mean if it's low that we're going to say no to this opportunity it just means we need to acknowledge what is what's kind of the earning level here the third thing I always look at is heart and but what I mean by that is energy or excitement or effort that you want to put towards this initiative if you're not very excited about it that's a that's a signal right that's a flag for us if you're super excited about it then that's that's like a different indicator to us and then the fourth thing I always consider is our impact how is this going to not only impact me personally how is it going to impact the business itself as an entity and how is it going to impact our community and our prospective customers and students what is kind of the ripple effect this impact will have is it going to be a great impact is it going to be a small and then we look at all four of those things lined up together and it and we make our decisions you know if I'm super excited about it but it's going to take a lot of time and make us no money and the impact is pretty low well then I'm probably not going to move forward with that project if you know the time is high and the heart is high and the impact is high you know and the money is like in the middle then I'd probably move forward with it you know but it's everyone's decision making tree so to speak with those four characteristics is going to be different you know to someone impact may be a bigger piece of the decision-making process for others it might be time or money or you know heart so those are the four things I weigh every decision by and that's what I encourage my customers to weigh things when they're doing their business temperature check too

SPEAKER_01
I love that so so much Katie so you know what I think this ties back into your why for starting your business because having those four pillars having that heart pillar I just love that approach because I think we're taught that success is often money or time and we forget about like am I actually excited about it and weighing your decisions and the direction you're going on in in terms of okay am I going to make money how much time is it going to take but also am I excited about it is such a big one obviously also not just doing tasks that you're super excited about that are going to not get you anywhere but I really love that approach I will also tell you that this matrix

SPEAKER_00
of decision-making has really helped like for example I pushed pause on my mastermind program which was my high-level coaching program last year it was it was taking a significant amount of time it was making a good amount of money my energy level given the timing of when all this was happening because it was middle of COVID I had four kids doing homeschool like all of these things right um like my energy level was really low I didn't have the energy to dedicate to it I knew the impact was high I knew the money was high I knew the time was high but that heart piece was I didn't have the energy for it and I said no to that I pushed pause on that because I knew I needed to take care of myself in that moment and we're going to bring it back and we're going to do some more things there but I needed in that moment to say no to something that probably looked like an amazing opportunity to other people but it didn't fit what I needed in the moment so I want to share that too because sometimes it's hard to say no to opportunities that seem too good to be true or why would I turn off this revenue stream or you know all these things um but really it's about balancing your personal needs the business needs and then the needs of customers and clients

SPEAKER_01
too. That's such such a good and such an important reminder and you know I think realizing that sometimes you're not always saying no again you're saying not right now down the line this is still a great opportunity let me do it when I have that energy when I feel that excitement and let's do it well and let's not put the pressure on ourselves to do it right now so I think that's such a beautiful reminder for business owners and I know we're running low on time so I'm going to ask you one more question I love to ask all my podcast guests this is there one book that you recommend all

SPEAKER_00
entrepreneurs read if they could only read one? Yes it's called company of one by Paul Jarvis and it it is the permission slip that none of us realized we needed when it comes to creating and growing a business and it's not it's not about the culture the hustle culture or anything like that it's about how do we how do we build this in a way that really fits what we want to accomplish in our lives and and also for many of the people I work with they are running their businesses solo so the company of one many of us are running a company of one and so it's just a really relatable book

SPEAKER_01
and I highly recommend it. Amazing I'm adding that to my book list and I'm going to add it to the show notes for anyone listening you can click and listen and find that book but Katie you've shared so much with us today and to wrap up our chat I'd love to ask you one quick question what is the biggest lesson you've learned in your years of entrepreneurship? Oh goodness um

SPEAKER_00
gosh so many lessons but ultimately prioritize yourself first your health your happiness your mental health um as your business grows there continue to be more demands on you as an individual there will be a lot more people asking you to do things that you may or may not feel comfortable doing and staying true to who you are the why behind your brand and taking care of you is incredibly important because if you are a company of one or if you are running a small team that you you're one of the main assets in that business and if you're not healthy if you're not happy if you're not well taken care of then it doesn't matter what you say yes or no to because you're not going to be in a space that you can really take advantage of those opportunities so I guess my biggest piece of advice is um you know really focus on you as an individual and recognize that you are the main asset in your business so take care of you. I love that so much

SPEAKER_01
and yeah that's such a good reminder I think all business owners need that reminder at multiple times throughout the year because it's so easy to forget and prioritize other people and your business over everything so I think that's beautiful and so so important um but Katie thank you so much for being here today and sharing so much of your insights and knowledge with our listeners and I know everyone listening to this is going to feel super excited and going to want to connect with you um so where can they find you and how can our listeners support you? Absolutely

SPEAKER_00
so we are at proof2product.com is our website we have a free resource library that people can tap into at proof2product.com slash resources and that's where I have several free classes that they can download and other resources that'll get them started on the wholesale side and then I also have a podcast it's called proof2product and we're at about 265 episodes I think at this point I joke that it's free business school for anyone that wants to wholesale so definitely subscribe to that on your favorite podcast player you can find it by just searching up proof2product.

SPEAKER_01
Amazing thank you so much Katie so I'm going to link all of those links in the show notes for anyone listening you can go ahead and click there and go catch up with Katie and and um listen to her podcast as well um but yeah thank you so much again for being here Katie it's been so much fun chatting to you and hearing all about your wholesale experiences. Robin I really appreciate

SPEAKER_00
your time today thank you for inviting me on your show and um thank you just again for having me.

SPEAKER_01
Thank you so much for listening and being with me today I really hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did and that it shifted your mindset and inspired you to take action to get your business to the next level and start introducing some wholesale accounts. If you enjoyed this screenshot the episode you're listening to and tag me on Instagram it is Robin Clark Coaching so that I can connect with you on your entrepreneurial journey. I have some incredible episodes coming out over the next few weeks so stay tuned for those.