Shownotes
BUSINESS BUILDING INSIGHTS
- Stay true to your values. Don’t compromise product quality and don’t cut your prices.
- Live within your means. It's okay to be frugal when you exhibit at expensive shows. Stay at a cheaper hotel, eat reasonable or even in your room. You are investing in your future business.
- Watch the crowd and observe the trend as you analyze the shows you attend. Are the attendees your proven customer base? Things are changing!
- If you’re not seeing the younger buyers, you have a dying market. It's time to switch things up.
- If you’re a new maker with new products, trade shows may still be good for you.
- Take a look at your vendors in a different way. Besides providing their product or service, they can be a tremendous resource to connect you with others whose services you are seeking.
RESOURCES MENTIONED
Faire Podcast #076 - Actionable Advice with a Southern Flair with Eric RionCONTACT LINKS
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You're listening to gift biz unwrapped,
Speaker:episode 262 this is the redneck side of your world speaking
Speaker:to you.
Speaker:Let her rip Attention.
Speaker:Gifters, bakers,
Speaker:crafters and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.
Speaker:Whether you have an established business or looking to start one
Speaker:now you are in the right place.
Speaker:This is gift to biz unwrapped,
Speaker:helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.
Speaker:Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,
Speaker:resources, and the support you need to grow your gift biz.
Speaker:Here is your host gift biz gal,
Speaker:Sue moon Heights.
Speaker:Hi Derek,
Speaker:it's Sue and thanks For joining me here today.
Speaker:I'm so happy to be bringing you this particular guest because
Speaker:in light of all the serious virus talk we're surrounded with
Speaker:these days,
Speaker:Eric's communication style alone will put a smile on your face.
Speaker:You probably got that idea already from the little intro teaser
Speaker:clip, but right now I don't think we can get enough
Speaker:smiles. Eric's been on the show before and is just a
Speaker:hoot to talk with.
Speaker:He knows his stuff and is as honest and genuine in
Speaker:his comments as they come better yet,
Speaker:Eric is addressing a question I've been getting from a lot
Speaker:of you over the past few months.
Speaker:What about fair?
Speaker:Would it be a good place for my product?
Speaker:Three things you're going to learn through our discussion here are
Speaker:the role that fare can serve in your overall business strategy,
Speaker:what it's like to get started on the platform,
Speaker:and then the specific details and benefits of being unfair with
Speaker:what we've all lived through these last weeks.
Speaker:Now more than ever,
Speaker:I think you see why it's so important to strengthen your
Speaker:online presence.
Speaker:This may be one of the ways to do just that.
Speaker:Let's roll the interview now.
Speaker:Be prepared to learn and laugh along the way.
Speaker:It's going to be really refreshing.
Speaker:Yes. Give biz listeners,
Speaker:I want to introduce you or I should say reintroduce you
Speaker:to Eric Ryan of Willis shortbread.
Speaker:We spoke with him way back,
Speaker:boy, almost in the beginning of my podcast journey,
Speaker:Eric, that was in September of 2016 so episode 76 you
Speaker:are on.
Speaker:Wow, that is crazy,
Speaker:but let me share with everybody who you are.
Speaker:Eric is an expatriate from corporate America and he's been at
Speaker:the helm of Willis shortbread since 2006 when founder Willa Allen
Speaker:hung up her apron inheriting a small family business with a
Speaker:great core product,
Speaker:a small but loyal regional customer base and a gourmet and
Speaker:specialty market that was pretty much nonexistent.
Speaker:The challenges to profitable growth were many.
Speaker:The decision was made early on to go with all natural
Speaker:ingredients and to add flavors just a few at a time
Speaker:after some not so delightful forays into the larger retail market,
Speaker:Eric decided to focus on the gourmet and specialty market,
Speaker:which fortunately began a growth surge that continues to this day.
Speaker:In 2015 Willis was awarded a best of the South award
Speaker:from Southern living magazine and that led to appearances on unwrapped
Speaker:2.0 and Tennessee crossroads as well as articles in numerous nationally
Speaker:known magazines.
Speaker:In 2017 Willis's mercantile was opened in the packaging location of
Speaker:Goodlettsville, Tennessee.
Speaker:In addition to the Willis line,
Speaker:the mercantile offers locally made and unique gifts that become well
Speaker:known to locals and travelers alike.
Speaker:This sounds like somewhere I need to visit Eric.
Speaker:Yes, you do.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:Well you never come down below the Mason Dixon line.
Speaker:Let's just get that for some reason you've got a problem
Speaker:with that.
Speaker:I have no problem with that at all.
Speaker:Not at all.
Speaker:Okay. I already know that it's going to be really hard
Speaker:to keep you in line today.
Speaker:Yeah, I think I've decided that already,
Speaker:but it's gonna make for a great conversation.
Speaker:Well, is that a surprise?
Speaker:No, it's not a surprise,
Speaker:but you and I haven't seen each other for a while
Speaker:and I guess I kind of forgot all the craziness that
Speaker:goes on with you.
Speaker:Oh boy.
Speaker:Well, let me share with everybody why we're talking again.
Speaker:Okay, so give his listeners,
Speaker:as you know,
Speaker:I like to do past guest spotlights and I reached out
Speaker:to Eric late last year and he said to me that
Speaker:he was working with fare and I'm like,
Speaker:Oh my gosh,
Speaker:I've had a lot of requests for kind of a background
Speaker:and understanding of fare from a user perspective and he's like,
Speaker:hold tight,
Speaker:let me get some experience behind me first before we do
Speaker:this. So we've put it off and today is our lucky
Speaker:day. We get to talk all about fair.
Speaker:Before that,
Speaker:as I was saying,
Speaker:bring us up to speed.
Speaker:What's happened within the last four years over at Willis?
Speaker:Well, we're just continuing on over four years.
Speaker:What's happened is that the market has just exploded the potential
Speaker:market for us to take our product to.
Speaker:Four years ago,
Speaker:I was still having to do to marketing and whatnot to
Speaker:get out into the world.
Speaker:And that's still always a good thing to do,
Speaker:but there's not a week goes by where I don't get
Speaker:wholesale request three,
Speaker:four, five a week from people who have either gone through
Speaker:our website,
Speaker:have seen our product somewhere.
Speaker:They're going,
Speaker:Hey, how do I get this?
Speaker:How can I get it into my location?
Speaker:So the market has evolved and one thing we're sitting here
Speaker:in Nashville,
Speaker:Tennessee, it's booming.
Speaker:Well, there's cranes everywhere.
Speaker:They're building like crazy.
Speaker:It's a hot place to be right now.
Speaker:And anything Nashville related is just like gold right now.
Speaker:It's definitely true.
Speaker:Do you attribute it to that or do you also attribute
Speaker:it to all of the marketing that you were doing earlier
Speaker:on and at some point that work and all That groundwork
Speaker:and the road that you were paving starts to kick in?
Speaker:It's a combination of all of it.
Speaker:It's making the determination not to go out and chase these
Speaker:big retailers and dumb our product down stupid down go with
Speaker:lesser quality ingredients or saying,
Speaker:yeah, I'll cut my price way down in here to try
Speaker:to get into a Walmart or any big grocery chain,
Speaker:something like that.
Speaker:It kind of staying true to our core value and our
Speaker:core customer base and keeping our product at the highest quality
Speaker:we can.
Speaker:And then developing a packaging that had pretty much global acceptance.
Speaker:Right? And it's just like the moon and stars fall in
Speaker:line. So we're sitting here with the right product in the
Speaker:right packaging at the right time for the market.
Speaker:And the consumer market has changed.
Speaker:People have gone from wanting to gaudy the pinks,
Speaker:uh, bright colors,
Speaker:whatnot. Everybody's now is wanting more into the traditional,
Speaker:the more of a classic look and it's just kind of
Speaker:all come together.
Speaker:Well, two things I want to ask you about as I'm
Speaker:remembering our conversation back four years ago,
Speaker:and I don't even know if this was on the podcast
Speaker:or you and I were just talking about it offline,
Speaker:but you were struggling keeping up with orders and physically it
Speaker:was getting to be too much.
Speaker:I think you were having trouble with your shoulder or your
Speaker:arm just because you were making everything yourself.
Speaker:Yeah, well we've upgraded some equipment since then so I don't
Speaker:have to hand crank the deposit or like we used to
Speaker:except I've got like two flavors that I still have to
Speaker:do that on.
Speaker:Like the ginger snap dough is just so thick.
Speaker:My more automated machine can't handle it and we're doing more
Speaker:work in here and last year I purchased a new bag
Speaker:or anything we can do to help automate the process.
Speaker:Do you have more people with you now?
Speaker:Working Really not full time still.
Speaker:It's just my wife and I.
Speaker:Well Theresa and I do,
Speaker:uh, we're the full time.
Speaker:We do have several retired teachers.
Speaker:My wife is a retired teacher too,
Speaker:but that we stay close with and they'll come in two,
Speaker:three, four days a week.
Speaker:We need them,
Speaker:they're in here and they can run the store if they
Speaker:need to or whatever,
Speaker:but we have certain days that they're in large order,
Speaker:So you can ramp them up too if you need it.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. I can ramp up.
Speaker:I can go from just the two of us in here
Speaker:to six or seven people.
Speaker:A couple of phone calls right there in the holidays.
Speaker:We'll have four people,
Speaker:four to five people in here daily.
Speaker:Plus we have a second shift we'd call it,
Speaker:which is everybody's working during the day who comes in?
Speaker:That's when they pop a cork on a bottle of wine
Speaker:and off they go.
Speaker:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker:Now I'm definitely coming down.
Speaker:You said the magic words era.
Speaker:Okay. And the other thing that I just want to get
Speaker:an update on is we talked a lot about private packaging
Speaker:back then and how you were doing some specialty things for
Speaker:some of the well known historic sites or touristy areas.
Speaker:In your area are still doing all of that?
Speaker:We're still doing all of that.
Speaker:We have picked up,
Speaker:gosh, three or four other,
Speaker:I'll call them,
Speaker:very well known boutique hotels in certain areas.
Speaker:We've got one in Cincinnati that we've picked up that's been
Speaker:a wonderful hotel for us.
Speaker:We're doing a lot more,
Speaker:I'll call co-branding,
Speaker:where our packaging has a lot of flexibility where I have
Speaker:a flavor label.
Speaker:We're doing more and more with hotels for instance,
Speaker:that may have beehives on their property,
Speaker:so they are harvesting their honey and one of our specialties
Speaker:is our wildflower honey shortbread.
Speaker:Guess what?
Speaker:We can do that using their honey.
Speaker:They pay for a custom label and now they have something
Speaker:that is unique to them.
Speaker:Sales, very good for them and as a manufacturer,
Speaker:I'm locked that customer up because nobody else can do that.
Speaker:Sure. You can lock that customer in.
Speaker:It's the best of both worlds.
Speaker:Absolutely. When you say co-branding,
Speaker:is the Willis name also still on the packaging or is
Speaker:it just your client's label?
Speaker:For those who don't know about our packaging,
Speaker:go take a while.
Speaker:You're listening to this pop on our website,
Speaker:it's willows-shortbread.com.
Speaker:You'll see our box is generic,
Speaker:so it's a generic box.
Speaker:It's got all our branding,
Speaker:all our logo,
Speaker:all our fluff is on that box.
Speaker:And then we replace,
Speaker:you'll see where the flavor,
Speaker:there's a disc there to flavor.
Speaker:That's a two inch round label.
Speaker:Well, what we'll do,
Speaker:for instance,
Speaker:one of the hotels is to Gaylord Opryland hotel here in
Speaker:Nashville. Big huge property.
Speaker:So they had a custom label made that ad made with
Speaker:Gaylord Opryland honey,
Speaker:I forget exactly what it's got on that label,
Speaker:but they provide me with that and they provide me with
Speaker:the honey.
Speaker:Got it.
Speaker:And now it is co-branded because they're seeing,
Speaker:Oh, Willow shortbread.
Speaker:Oh and this has made using their honey.
Speaker:So we both benefit off of it for sure.
Speaker:And it's only available there,
Speaker:right? Yes.
Speaker:I've only available there.
Speaker:So we have multiple properties that we're doing that with and
Speaker:that continues to expand as an industry to talk.
Speaker:They talk a lot in amongst themselves.
Speaker:And, uh,
Speaker:just this past week I spoke to a company that is
Speaker:doing a lot of minibar work and custom work in hotels
Speaker:across the country,
Speaker:high end property.
Speaker:So now if I can get them on board now I
Speaker:don't have to go out and visit all these properties.
Speaker:I can work with them.
Speaker:And it's also a product.
Speaker:I don't have to cut my price.
Speaker:If you go to some of these brokers or these reps
Speaker:or distributors,
Speaker:distributors of the worst,
Speaker:I will say the worst.
Speaker:We just haven't had good experiences,
Speaker:but they're going to want to cut and or however they're
Speaker:going to go.
Speaker:But they always try to beat me down on price where
Speaker:they can make more.
Speaker:And then that's an item I go,
Speaker:there's no cuts.
Speaker:You're going to lock them up with this.
Speaker:You can make what you want to make,
Speaker:what you need to make.
Speaker:But I'm not cutting approach.
Speaker:No. Good.
Speaker:I love hearing you standing firm on the price.
Speaker:That's a good for everybody To be listening to.
Speaker:Yeah. And it's a business strategy of yours,
Speaker:right? Like if you cut your price,
Speaker:you could run a whole lot more volume,
Speaker:then you definitely have shoulder issues,
Speaker:number one.
Speaker:But that's not what you stand for as a brand.
Speaker:And you decided that way early on too,
Speaker:and now you're holding firm to it.
Speaker:Yeah, you can chase that unicorn,
Speaker:which is the magic world.
Speaker:Oh yeah,
Speaker:I can do 20,000
Speaker:pieces a week.
Speaker:Yeah. Okay.
Speaker:How are you going to ramp up to do 20,000
Speaker:pieces and what's the exposure on that and who's going to
Speaker:do it?
Speaker:Who's going to bake it?
Speaker:Who's going to make it?
Speaker:And you're going to have to cut your price to get
Speaker:that. Is that worth it?
Speaker:And for us it was like,
Speaker:no, let's live within our means and go after profitable business.
Speaker:So you were saying that some of the difference from four
Speaker:years ago was all the selling that you were doing.
Speaker:How are you recognizing these new opportunities?
Speaker:Are people coming to you?
Speaker:Are you still doing outreach?
Speaker:They're coming to us.
Speaker:The bulk of the new business we're getting is coming to
Speaker:us. We have on our retail website,
Speaker:there's a contact us,
Speaker:it's a wholesale page,
Speaker:and it basically says,
Speaker:Hey, send us your information.
Speaker:We'll be right back in touch with you.
Speaker:So that's one thing.
Speaker:Every day when I come in,
Speaker:it's one of the things I'm looking for.
Speaker:And in a lot of cases you can look and say,
Speaker:Oh, Hey,
Speaker:this is a good opportunity here.
Speaker:So that's how you kind of,
Speaker:you prep your call before you call back,
Speaker:right? Some of them,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:Hey, I can drop a price sheet in,
Speaker:boom, and it's gone.
Speaker:But others,
Speaker:you look at it and go,
Speaker:Whoa, I need to talk to them.
Speaker:So that's when you get personal,
Speaker:you call them up,
Speaker:say, Hey,
Speaker:what are you looking to do?
Speaker:And you go into sales mode.
Speaker:Okay. Along in this process,
Speaker:did it take for those gears to really engage?
Speaker:It kind of goes back to the original.
Speaker:It's having the exposure.
Speaker:It's years.
Speaker:It doesn't happen overnight,
Speaker:right? Unless you're the latest,
Speaker:greatest. Everybody's got to see it and have it.
Speaker:No, it's what is luck labor under correct knowledge.
Speaker:You say,
Speaker:Oh, you're lucky you're getting out of this.
Speaker:No, it took a long time,
Speaker:years in the making,
Speaker:but now it's become kind of something that is feeding itself
Speaker:and we're seeing that.
Speaker:And then the traditional ways where we went to get business,
Speaker:which actually leads directly into the fair conversation.
Speaker:We're seeing those go away.
Speaker:You're seeing those go away in terms of you doing those
Speaker:behaviors to get the sale or just shows overall.
Speaker:Yeah. Our traditional method for,
Speaker:let's see,
Speaker:we've had the company since 2006 so we're 14 years in.
Speaker:So for the first nine or 10 years,
Speaker:our primary way to get new business was to participate in
Speaker:the wholesale markets.
Speaker:Atlanta merchandise Mark.
Speaker:Uh, we did Dallas for a year and a half.
Speaker:I did one in Columbus,
Speaker:Ohio. Those were,
Speaker:people know that's where customers went to find new products.
Speaker:Okay. So that's what I wanted.
Speaker:I want that new buyer coming in and that's where they
Speaker:came to.
Speaker:We spent a lot of money doing that.
Speaker:We had to go twice a year.
Speaker:That's our mandatory,
Speaker:yeah. Those shows aren't cheap for sure.
Speaker:No. Oh no.
Speaker:I mean for me and I had a small booth,
Speaker:I'm driving there.
Speaker:Okay. That's why I'm not paying airfare.
Speaker:I don't stay at luxurious hotels.
Speaker:Okay. I ride Marta in,
Speaker:I'll stay at 10 miles out of Atlanta and ride in
Speaker:on the,
Speaker:the subway,
Speaker:Marta, whatever they call it.
Speaker:A lot of in room dining,
Speaker:not room service.
Speaker:I'm talking about the heat them up dinners and that week
Speaker:would cost me between five and $6,000
Speaker:out of pocket.
Speaker:Okay. So that's not cheap.
Speaker:In order to recoup that,
Speaker:you're going to have to see some sales up into five
Speaker:digits at least I'll say the first six,
Speaker:seven years.
Speaker:Yeah. You got them.
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:we would go,
Speaker:we would basically load the wagon up,
Speaker:especially the summer show.
Speaker:You've got people who are coming in and buying for Christmas,
Speaker:so you were loading the pipeline pretty heavy for that.
Speaker:You had some initial orders,
Speaker:maybe a chip,
Speaker:then they would just stagger in.
Speaker:But what we saw over probably a four year period,
Speaker:you would have an occasional bad market,
Speaker:but usually you always did good.
Speaker:You would have occasionally you'd have market that was just off
Speaker:and you go,
Speaker:well it the weather or was some event and that's typically
Speaker:the next market would bounce back and everybody's happy and we're
Speaker:all singing hallelujah.
Speaker:Having a good time.
Speaker:But then you started noticing something or I started paying attention.
Speaker:Number one,
Speaker:the volume of people at the market was down in the
Speaker:market. Paper accounts.
Speaker:Oh no,
Speaker:no, no.
Speaker:We have the same numbers of symbol.
Speaker:They are not on this floor because I know what a
Speaker:full floor,
Speaker:right. You can pull that over somebody else.
Speaker:But I can look and if I look down the hall
Speaker:or if I look down this aisle and there's no customers,
Speaker:that's not good.
Speaker:Right? Well,
Speaker:they're coming in at different times.
Speaker:They're doing this and said,
Speaker:Oh, okay,
Speaker:so you continue on.
Speaker:And I will say that it's the fear of not knowing
Speaker:or whatever,
Speaker:however that is.
Speaker:But the vendors that are there are very reluctant.
Speaker:Not because you're watching it,
Speaker:it's declining and these people are still paying for that booth
Speaker:over and over and over.
Speaker:It's going to get better.
Speaker:It's get better,
Speaker:like it's not really looking like it.
Speaker:I'm as guilty of that as anybody or somebody else.
Speaker:Oh man,
Speaker:I had a great show or Dallas was really booming this
Speaker:time, so Atlanta is going to have to be big and
Speaker:then it's not.
Speaker:And then one thing is if you're still doing these shows,
Speaker:look at the audience,
Speaker:look at the customer base,
Speaker:look at who's attending and what I noticed,
Speaker:and this is from literally not being an idiot and carrying
Speaker:on, but watching the crowds,
Speaker:the young buyers were not there.
Speaker:There's your key there was to me anyway,
Speaker:I'm saying,
Speaker:okay, if I don't have the younger buyers,
Speaker:which are the newer buyers,
Speaker:then I've got a dying market.
Speaker:So you were really observing first off the trending of the
Speaker:shows, which was fewer and fewer.
Speaker:It's still declines today,
Speaker:but I don't want to discourage everybody because some of these
Speaker:shows can work out for you if you get the right
Speaker:audience. Depends on how much you need to sell,
Speaker:all those types of things.
Speaker:But you really were watching the trends,
Speaker:the audience,
Speaker:everything overall to determine your next moves.
Speaker:But before you go further,
Speaker:Eric, a couple of points that I think were really important
Speaker:that I want to point out to our listeners and that
Speaker:is you did these shows,
Speaker:and I'm not talking about just shows,
Speaker:but as you're starting to build your business anywhere,
Speaker:you can go on the cheap,
Speaker:like you heard Eric talking about,
Speaker:we weren't in the luxury hotels.
Speaker:We're going out to dinner every night.
Speaker:They were cutting corners where they needed to so they could
Speaker:afford to do this.
Speaker:And that's kind of like your time in when you're growing
Speaker:your business.
Speaker:So that's the first thing.
Speaker:The other thing,
Speaker:Eric, that you talk about is some of these activities were
Speaker:for a long term result.
Speaker:It wasn't just what were you going to get at one
Speaker:show. People are going to see you,
Speaker:maybe they're going to order a little bit later,
Speaker:and you understood that,
Speaker:which I think is super important and you're a great example
Speaker:because if we could only know that all these activities and
Speaker:hard work we're putting in today will eventually pay off,
Speaker:that would be one thing.
Speaker:But you never totally know unless you're listening to stories like
Speaker:yours, Eric,
Speaker:right? Like all of that time you're putting in the effort
Speaker:in good faith that is going to work out in your
Speaker:favor in the end,
Speaker:but you don't necessarily know for yourself.
Speaker:But when you hear of examples of other people where it's
Speaker:working, that helps.
Speaker:So I wanted to make those points and underline those for
Speaker:our listeners.
Speaker:Eric. Yeah.
Speaker:So back to what you're talking about is you are seeing
Speaker:trends where you were going to need to change and take
Speaker:it from there,
Speaker:Right? I'm a backup proponents you just made number one,
Speaker:if you're a new maker,
Speaker:you've got a new product than these shows may still be
Speaker:fantastic for you.
Speaker:Remember we had been at these shows for 10 12 years.
Speaker:I only want to do new business for me were people
Speaker:who had not been there before.
Speaker:When I'm seeing the same people over and over and over,
Speaker:then it becomes not good.
Speaker:But if it's my first or second time there,
Speaker:guess what?
Speaker:They're all new,
Speaker:Right? So you're getting a lot of visibility.
Speaker:You might not be getting the sales,
Speaker:but you're getting your product out there.
Speaker:Well and you still,
Speaker:which new excitement.
Speaker:You'll see somebody who brings a product in for the first
Speaker:time and all of a sudden there's a feeding frenzy over
Speaker:on aisle three and it's,
Speaker:what the heck is that?
Speaker:Oh well this lady's doing fried green tomatoes.
Speaker:Really? Yeah.
Speaker:And people can't get enough of it.
Speaker:Don't hesitate if you're not there,
Speaker:do it.
Speaker:And when,
Speaker:don't just go online and sign up for that though.
Speaker:Call, find out who the person is that's running that floor
Speaker:and negotiate.
Speaker:Say, Hey,
Speaker:I want to come in.
Speaker:Have you got a deal?
Speaker:You got any spaces that are open and I might be
Speaker:able to get for less or a smaller booth Specially for
Speaker:new people cause they always want new.
Speaker:I think Eric also you're talking about the super big show
Speaker:like Atlanta and Dallas,
Speaker:but there are some intermediate shows and you know I'm still
Speaker:out at shows for the ribbon print company all the time.
Speaker:Not as many as I used to do because I saw
Speaker:the trending too.
Speaker:But I'm actually going after and seen results of some of
Speaker:the smaller shows where you're having maybe 8,000
Speaker:people coming through or less.
Speaker:And the reason for that is what I'm seeing is people
Speaker:aren't so stressed out,
Speaker:like they've got to hit every single booth,
Speaker:see everything,
Speaker:and they're not just coming grabbing literature.
Speaker:They actually have time to sit and talk with you because
Speaker:they know they can get through the whole show.
Speaker:So I'm seeing some of the reduction in size as a
Speaker:benefit now for me and my product.
Speaker:Right. So it's different for everybody as well.
Speaker:Well, if,
Speaker:and if it's more regional,
Speaker:by all means.
Speaker:Yeah. If you can drive there,
Speaker:if you go,
Speaker:but if you've got an 8,000
Speaker:person show and it's in California and you're in Florida,
Speaker:that's a lot of money to span.
Speaker:So do your due diligence and say,
Speaker:okay, what's the best I could probably look to make right
Speaker:out of it?
Speaker:Does this make sense?
Speaker:Or would I be better off doing something different?
Speaker:Good advice.
Speaker:Okay. Yeah.
Speaker:If there's regional shows that you can do economically,
Speaker:by all means.
Speaker:Now we did retail shows too.
Speaker:This is a good book.
Speaker:You'll love this.
Speaker:There's a thing called the bloody Mary festival again.
Speaker:I've got a calm national,
Speaker:national, this is a national thing.
Speaker:Alright, so the first one of the years is in Nashville.
Speaker:We've done,
Speaker:this will be our third year.
Speaker:They called me up and they said,
Speaker:Hey, would you like to participate in a bloody Mary festival?
Speaker:And I'm going us shortly short bread cookies for God's sake.
Speaker:Why would I do?
Speaker:And then I said,
Speaker:well, what's it cost?
Speaker:And I said,
Speaker:Oh no cost to you.
Speaker:You just come down and set up.
Speaker:We'll give you signage and a booth and everything else.
Speaker:Well free.
Speaker:And then we'll check.
Speaker:I might get a bloody Mary out of the deal.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm in how to do for you.
Speaker:Well we went down with nuts,
Speaker:super expectations and actually my wife couldn't go.
Speaker:So a friend of mine,
Speaker:I said,
Speaker:Hey, you want to go through this show?
Speaker:Yeah, fine.
Speaker:So we went down and the first hour is people who
Speaker:pay a premium to come in for that first hour.
Speaker:And there's probably 30 vendors.
Speaker:30 I'll say bloody Mary.
Speaker:People that are making bloody Marys and you can sample all
Speaker:of them.
Speaker:Yeah, I know.
Speaker:It's too good to be true.
Speaker:We take down enough stuff for,
Speaker:I figure in a wine festival we'll do about access.
Speaker:Yeah. I'll do about half of that.
Speaker:Just take a few flavors.
Speaker:It's worth going.
Speaker:Yeah. We nearly sold out the first hour.
Speaker:Wow. Yeah.
Speaker:For retail we sell out almost.
Speaker:I had to call and say,
Speaker:Hey, bring me whatever's at the shop.
Speaker:Just bring it down.
Speaker:So don't think that just because it's not your core that
Speaker:it might not be worth it.
Speaker:And if the price is right,
Speaker:go do it.
Speaker:What are you losing a day?
Speaker:You know,
Speaker:in this business you might find that little acorn.
Speaker:Right. And I'd also say people who are at consumer shows
Speaker:also have jobs,
Speaker:like they own their own businesses.
Speaker:And so they're going there.
Speaker:Yes. For leisure and personal fund.
Speaker:But you can never discount who's coming up to your booth
Speaker:or who's walking through some of these shows.
Speaker:Yeah. And another one,
Speaker:especially for the food brokers out there,
Speaker:whatnot. The state of Tennessee department agriculture down here,
Speaker:there's a Tennessee state grocers and convenience store.
Speaker:Ssociation has an annual soiree and they have a trade show.
Speaker:Well the state gets a group of booths that for us
Speaker:people that are on their list and they helped defray some
Speaker:of the costs,
Speaker:but if I were in the grocery fat,
Speaker:that was my main market,
Speaker:it'd be fantastic.
Speaker:I'm not,
Speaker:but there again,
Speaker:just what you just said,
Speaker:there are those other people coming through that may have something
Speaker:or maybe they've got a little small store or maybe their
Speaker:uncle does or something.
Speaker:Right, the extended connections.
Speaker:Yeah, and plus the state invites all the people that we
Speaker:tell them,
Speaker:we say,
Speaker:Hey, here's some customers and fight these people down to look
Speaker:around so you'll get that group there.
Speaker:Again, that's how we developed our Opryland hotel business.
Speaker:They hold it in the Opry land hotel.
Speaker:So there are people were coming through and the ones that
Speaker:we've been dealing with said,
Speaker:Hey, my boss is in,
Speaker:he'll be by,
Speaker:and this guy comes in and looks and says,
Speaker:Whoa, let's work.
Speaker:Let's run with this.
Speaker:You can do this with the honey.
Speaker:Yeah. All right.
Speaker:Boom. All of a sudden something that is a,
Speaker:it cost me a hundred bucks to do the show.
Speaker:All of a sudden it's paying off constantly.
Speaker:Okay, so Eric,
Speaker:should we dive into the topic of the show?
Speaker:You think?
Speaker:Let's do it.
Speaker:Eric is such a fun guy.
Speaker:He's just in person like you're hearing him here right now
Speaker:and after the break we're going to talk all about his
Speaker:experience with fare.
Speaker:Yes, it's possible.
Speaker:Increase your sales without adding a single customer.
Speaker:How you ask by offering personalization with your products.
Speaker:Wrap a cake box with a ribbon saying happy 30th birthday,
Speaker:Annie, or at a special message and date to wedding or
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Speaker:Add logos,
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Speaker:Perfect for branding or adding ingredient and flavor labels to for
Speaker:more information,
Speaker:go to the ribbon,
Speaker:print company.com
Speaker:so Where does fear enter in?
Speaker:Share with us how you got to the point where you
Speaker:were deciding fair might be an option for you and I'm
Speaker:going to just let you take it away.
Speaker:Okay. With the observation that the younger buyers aren't here,
Speaker:where are they going?
Speaker:Well, it's quite obvious.
Speaker:I mean I got kids and of course my kids are
Speaker:in their thirties now,
Speaker:but where do they go?
Speaker:Where do they go buy stuff?
Speaker:My daughter-in-law buy stuff for the store that we have here
Speaker:for the Willens mercantile and I watched,
Speaker:she goes and finds these sites and she's looking at all,
Speaker:look at this,
Speaker:look this,
Speaker:we can do this.
Speaker:And I'm like,
Speaker:okay, so they're buying online,
Speaker:how are they buying?
Speaker:Are there groups?
Speaker:Are there sites you just take a wild stab at,
Speaker:type something in and see what comes up.
Speaker:We were actually approached by fare say last June or July
Speaker:about coming on board with them and we did a little
Speaker:exploring on it and said,
Speaker:Hey, wait a minute,
Speaker:look at this site.
Speaker:A little bit about fair for those who are not familiar,
Speaker:they are,
Speaker:if you were placed in Atlanta market,
Speaker:now remember in Atlanta you typically don't have or it's primarily,
Speaker:especially in our area of the gourmet,
Speaker:it's not the people you're going to find on Amazon.
Speaker:You're talking about at the trade shows?
Speaker:Yes, at the trade show.
Speaker:Yeah. It's more geared towards the new,
Speaker:the up and coming.
Speaker:Usually a higher quality,
Speaker:more artisan type of maker because that's where we went to
Speaker:market. So is taking that same market.
Speaker:And combining them on one site,
Speaker:so now if I own a mercantile store,
Speaker:I can go on to this one site and let's say
Speaker:I want to find some gourmet foods.
Speaker:Well, you'd go to the fair gourmet foods.
Speaker:They have a section for that and say,
Speaker:well, yeah,
Speaker:Oh, Hey,
Speaker:here's some neat stuff.
Speaker:This is new and it's all makers like us.
Speaker:It's, it's like Willow shortbread or whoever.
Speaker:Some of these smaller vendors,
Speaker:that's where we go to.
Speaker:These are people who are not on Amazon.
Speaker:I mean that's one of the things.
Speaker:You can't be on Amazon and being unfair.
Speaker:Oh, is that a rule?
Speaker:Yes. Yeah,
Speaker:I saw that.
Speaker:That was one of the tags on your company?
Speaker:Yeah. Not on Amazon.
Speaker:Not on Amazon.
Speaker:I mean it's one of the things,
Speaker:and I'm thinking that's a pretty hard fast rule with fair
Speaker:and I know they prefer brick and mortar.
Speaker:I know that they have relaxed,
Speaker:said some.
Speaker:Now we're seeing some resellers.
Speaker:I'm not really happy about that,
Speaker:but they're getting it's volume.
Speaker:But you can go in and search for,
Speaker:like I said,
Speaker:for food or maybe you want knit goods or soaps,
Speaker:custom soaps,
Speaker:and then he can go in and say,
Speaker:well show me custom soaps that are made in my state.
Speaker:You can narrow that down.
Speaker:So now you can say,
Speaker:Oh Hey,
Speaker:I didn't even know this place existed.
Speaker:Right? And you look at what sort of deals they have
Speaker:and then you can purchase them through fare.
Speaker:Just pictures of conglomeration.
Speaker:It's like going to Amazon and you're filling your cart up
Speaker:so you can go get an order from this manufacturer and
Speaker:from this guy over here and then you're paying,
Speaker:the buyer is paying fair and they offer some very nice
Speaker:incentives to new buyers.
Speaker:I think on your first order you can get a hundred
Speaker:dollars free merchandise.
Speaker:You can just apply that a hundred dollars towards the sale.
Speaker:That's free money.
Speaker:I like that.
Speaker:Also think you get free shipping on your initial order.
Speaker:So there's some definite perch.
Speaker:And I also think from a retailer standpoint,
Speaker:that whole thing of not overlapping with Amazon is huge because
Speaker:especially for your,
Speaker:you're saying they kind of favor brick and mortar as well,
Speaker:but you want things in your shop that people aren't going
Speaker:to be able to look at in person with you and
Speaker:then go home and buy somewhere else.
Speaker:Like for a retail shop,
Speaker:you want things that are unique,
Speaker:are different,
Speaker:are specialty sourced if you will,
Speaker:the so that you are different from everybody else.
Speaker:So I can see that and I see where buyers would
Speaker:be more attracted to something like fair for that reason in
Speaker:particular. Yeah,
Speaker:and fair.
Speaker:Also give them area protection.
Speaker:So let's just say you decide you're going to take all
Speaker:this soap and you've got two stores around you that you
Speaker:know as soon as you buy them they're going to come
Speaker:over, see what you got and they're going to steal it.
Speaker:It goes on all the time.
Speaker:Lynchburg, Tennessee is a perfect example of that.
Speaker:They fight each other to see who's going to get what's
Speaker:next. And then they all go steal it from each other.
Speaker:But farewell give you zip code protection.
Speaker:So if you go in,
Speaker:you buy,
Speaker:then you are protected in that zip code for 90 days.
Speaker:Now at the end of the 90 days,
Speaker:or if you buy again,
Speaker:it starts that clock over and over again.
Speaker:So she can,
Speaker:if, if you're buying,
Speaker:you're protected.
Speaker:Now if you don't buy,
Speaker:then after 90 days it opens it back up so other
Speaker:people can come in.
Speaker:So as a seller,
Speaker:it's good if you've got somebody as mine,
Speaker:you're going to keep them going.
Speaker:Do you have to buy the same product?
Speaker:No. No.
Speaker:As long as you place an order with us again by
Speaker:me as manufacturer.
Speaker:Right. So there's zip code protection by company.
Speaker:By company,
Speaker:yes. But Oh my gosh,
Speaker:that is such a great built in repeat customer incentive.
Speaker:They offer the customer 60 day terms and it's huge.
Speaker:The end user has 60 days as a manufacturer,
Speaker:as a seller,
Speaker:I'm paid in 30 days.
Speaker:Now, you know,
Speaker:some people say,
Speaker:well, you know I like to get my credit card right
Speaker:off. Yeah,
Speaker:credit cards taking money so I'm not paying that credit card
Speaker:fee and they paid like clockwork.
Speaker:I mean day 30 boom.
Speaker:It's in your bank.
Speaker:You don't have to touch it and they're reliable.
Speaker:Yes. That's one thing.
Speaker:They are Johnny on the spot.
Speaker:If it's a customer that you are already selling to who
Speaker:goes on to fair,
Speaker:let's go back.
Speaker:This is all sounding like they're again,
Speaker:unicorns and roses.
Speaker:Interesting. It's perfect.
Speaker:How does this work?
Speaker:Well, they make money,
Speaker:so if you own your first order,
Speaker:let's just say somebody buys a,
Speaker:you have a customer that buys from you through fare for
Speaker:the first time.
Speaker:You have no previous contact with them.
Speaker:There's going to charge you 25% that's pretty healthy,
Speaker:but there again,
Speaker:you've put no money into marketing or to growing that business.
Speaker:Subsequent orders,
Speaker:15% basically what you're going to pay a good rep or
Speaker:a rep that's worth their money is probably going to earn
Speaker:a 15% commission,
Speaker:right? If it's a customer that you are already selling to
Speaker:and they decide to buy it through fair,
Speaker:it's a 0% commission for the seller.
Speaker:So they're doing all this stuff,
Speaker:you're still getting your money and you're getting your money in
Speaker:30 days.
Speaker:They're handling everything else and you're not paying any commission.
Speaker:They will give you the opportunity to say,
Speaker:upload a customer list to them where they can contact them,
Speaker:says, Hey,
Speaker:they're, you know,
Speaker:you can now buy Willow shortbread.
Speaker:True. Fair.
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker:Well that's a good deal.
Speaker:Well, and I'm thinking this through,
Speaker:I'm guessing the motivation is the product then is unfair for
Speaker:other people to see to purchase,
Speaker:which then would benefit fair.
Speaker:And then also that client is on there to buy something
Speaker:they already buy and then they'll also see other products.
Speaker:So I'm thinking those are the two.
Speaker:Yeah, it's a longterm deal for them.
Speaker:If you look at it from the short term,
Speaker:it's like,
Speaker:good God,
Speaker:you're spending a ton of money,
Speaker:but are you getting by?
Speaker:And that's the question.
Speaker:How are they making money?
Speaker:We don't know.
Speaker:It's a longterm thing.
Speaker:And I've talked to several people there and with some other
Speaker:companies that have said,
Speaker:well yeah here's how they're doing it and it makes sense.
Speaker:Well cause they are taking fees.
Speaker:Like some fees are waived like you were talking about if
Speaker:it's an existing customer but they are making money off of
Speaker:the purchases where if you were just going direct you wouldn't
Speaker:be paying that but you also probably wouldn't get that customer
Speaker:or that volume.
Speaker:Right. And here's where,
Speaker:let's tie this all back into the Atlanta market or the
Speaker:markets that we did.
Speaker:What if it costs you $6,000
Speaker:to get the business or to just to be there and
Speaker:you're gambling that you're going to get X amount of business,
Speaker:you're going to get more than enough to pay for that
Speaker:and to put money in the bank afterwards.
Speaker:More sales,
Speaker:more business.
Speaker:You're investing that money right up front.
Speaker:What we found.
Speaker:Okay. Cause we went live,
Speaker:I believe it was,
Speaker:I don't have to go back and look July of last
Speaker:year and it was right for right after market and no,
Speaker:it was right before market last year in July in Atlanta
Speaker:is when we went live with fare.
Speaker:And the volume that we got in the first two months
Speaker:was it equaled or exceeded what we would expect to get
Speaker:at Atlanta.
Speaker:Wow. Yeah.
Speaker:So the orders are coming in,
Speaker:but you look at,
Speaker:well some of them are new,
Speaker:some of them are,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:whatever. Then you'd look at what did it cost us to
Speaker:get that as far as commissions,
Speaker:whenever that went into it.
Speaker:Far, far,
Speaker:far, far,
Speaker:far less than what it would have cost us to go
Speaker:to the market.
Speaker:Yeah. Well the other thing is when you do a show,
Speaker:a market,
Speaker:you're putting up that upfront cost.
Speaker:Whether you get sales or not.
Speaker:Here you're getting less margin,
Speaker:but the sale has already been made.
Speaker:So you're gaining a customer and you've sold the product,
Speaker:Right? Yeah.
Speaker:And now you've got it.
Speaker:Now, the other thing we did,
Speaker:we were going,
Speaker:well, are people going to miss us?
Speaker:What can we do?
Speaker:Whatever. Fortunately in my database,
Speaker:when I got a new order or when I booked orders
Speaker:at the Atlanta market,
Speaker:I would code them a certain way in our system and
Speaker:we were on QuickBooks so I could put it as a
Speaker:show info or whatever in there so that I could track
Speaker:those customers and those orders.
Speaker:Well, what we did is said,
Speaker:okay, well who have we gotten business from in Atlanta for
Speaker:the last say five years?
Speaker:Narrow that base down and then you take it and say,
Speaker:okay, how many of these were like one timers or people
Speaker:we don't see very often?
Speaker:They're one shot wonders as we call them.
Speaker:It shows where people come in and say,
Speaker:yeah, that's great.
Speaker:Didn't work for me or whatever,
Speaker:or I forgot to reorder.
Speaker:Well, that gave us a huge list of people that we
Speaker:know had been there we know had bought from us,
Speaker:or at least we had first couple people that actually bought
Speaker:from us and then we took that list uploaded.
Speaker:At the fair and put our own message,
Speaker:which was basically,
Speaker:Hey, you know you bought from us at the Atlanta market
Speaker:before. We're not going to be attending this year in July.
Speaker:We're going through fare.
Speaker:Please visit us there.
Speaker:Our complete product list is there,
Speaker:blah, blah,
Speaker:blah. Quick message and that generates a lot of new business.
Speaker:These are people say,
Speaker:Oh yeah,
Speaker:I remember them.
Speaker:Look at it.
Speaker:Say, Oh,
Speaker:it's new stuff.
Speaker:Here's some new flavors.
Speaker:Yeah, I place an order on to fair.
Speaker:So many people won't take that extra step like you did
Speaker:either. Well,
Speaker:I mean do you want to grow your business?
Speaker:You got to,
Speaker:that's low hanging fruit as we always referred to it.
Speaker:You know what's the easiest sale existing products to existing customers
Speaker:you have bought from.
Speaker:You just haven't talked to him in a while,
Speaker:so boom,
Speaker:that's an easy sale.
Speaker:The next one is existing product to new customers.
Speaker:Then you go back and we found where we've been also
Speaker:keep track of people we talked to,
Speaker:we got their business card,
Speaker:we did everything,
Speaker:but I come back and put all that in the database.
Speaker:Well that was our second round.
Speaker:Boom. You shoot that in and they got people said,
Speaker:Hey, no,
Speaker:no, we've talked to you before,
Speaker:but take a look at us now and visit us through
Speaker:there. And so you're doing this all through fares platform,
Speaker:you're uploading the list,
Speaker:you're creating an email and sending it off and directing them
Speaker:to fair.
Speaker:Yeah. Now they are very,
Speaker:very good about proactive stuff.
Speaker:And in other words you can tell them say,
Speaker:Hey, I want to do this.
Speaker:They're giving you all sorts of opportunities.
Speaker:You can put a link direct.
Speaker:We have a fair link on our website.
Speaker:Okay. So somebody can come in if they link in brand
Speaker:new customer,
Speaker:never talked to them before,
Speaker:but they come through our website,
Speaker:get in fair.
Speaker:That's a zero.
Speaker:That's no commission.
Speaker:It's like new business.
Speaker:It's just rolling through them.
Speaker:And the customers like it because they're getting the 60 day
Speaker:terms. So they can go on and find multiple products.
Speaker:They don't have to go.
Speaker:Actually, you know,
Speaker:I'll follow up.
Speaker:Some people that I may have had questions with unfair and
Speaker:they have the opportunity.
Speaker:When the orders come into your system,
Speaker:you've got a contact and if you need to get ahold
Speaker:of them or ask them questions,
Speaker:you can converse through fare or you get phone number and
Speaker:go that way.
Speaker:So you start calling these people up and just talking to
Speaker:them, Hey,
Speaker:just noticed you bought from Fairwinds.
Speaker:You're seeing a benefit to take a little time.
Speaker:It's really paid off.
Speaker:You get the mindset of the customer,
Speaker:not our mindset.
Speaker:How difficult is the setup for someone who would just be
Speaker:starting out unfair.
Speaker:We uploaded our entire catalog.
Speaker:Fortunately we had that in a spreadsheet format.
Speaker:We were able to just upload that to them.
Speaker:We went through and we said,
Speaker:okay, I was due for pricing increase anyway,
Speaker:and it was another thing we did.
Speaker:We said,
Speaker:okay, if I'm going to put my whole list up,
Speaker:what do I need to look at?
Speaker:Things like,
Speaker:well, what's my sample price?
Speaker:Is that too low?
Speaker:Yeah, let's bump that up.
Speaker:Let's get everything up.
Speaker:Took another price increase before we threw the whole thing out
Speaker:there because it should be what your normal wholesale price is,
Speaker:whether you're selling to them on fair or not,
Speaker:and then we just upload that file to them.
Speaker:They populated the whole thing.
Speaker:So before that though,
Speaker:do you have to go through some type of acceptance terms
Speaker:or like what?
Speaker:Okay, so I'm brand new,
Speaker:I want to go on unfair.
Speaker:Do you have to apply to be able to be unfair?
Speaker:There again,
Speaker:I don't remember the whole process exactly,
Speaker:but yes,
Speaker:they're very helpful.
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:you can just go to FAA,
Speaker:Ari and say,
Speaker:Hey, I'm a new vendor or I want to participate or
Speaker:whatever. It's been so long since I've done it.
Speaker:I forget,
Speaker:but we just started it that way.
Speaker:And they contact you,
Speaker:they walk you through everything.
Speaker:As far as the images,
Speaker:I think they came and got most of the images off
Speaker:of our site or we had good images that we could
Speaker:provide them.
Speaker:But you saw it to be a smooth process.
Speaker:Very smooth.
Speaker:Perfect. I was very impressed.
Speaker:Now here again,
Speaker:I will give credit to my son Austin because he smart
Speaker:limited stuff.
Speaker:I'm not,
Speaker:if I was doing it,
Speaker:I'd still be drawn at pictures with the crayon and mailing
Speaker:it to him,
Speaker:but that's his life is all that stuff so he was
Speaker:able to quickly,
Speaker:but it seems to be a very straightforward,
Speaker:very simple process and it's a day walked us right through
Speaker:everything and we were up and running.
Speaker:God, they had us ready to go.
Speaker:We thought it was going to be a couple of weeks
Speaker:and it was like less than a week maybe.
Speaker:They said,
Speaker:okay, we're ready to go.
Speaker:I said,
Speaker:Oh, we're not,
Speaker:no, no,
Speaker:no, no.
Speaker:We're going on vacation for a week.
Speaker:I don't want this all coming in.
Speaker:Fix this up to come back right when we get back.
Speaker:So I want orders to turn on.
Speaker:I think we were headed to the beach and I said,
Speaker:okay, start,
Speaker:the order's coming back Sunday when we're coming back.
Speaker:And I mean this like Sunday morning thing,
Speaker:thing, thing,
Speaker:thing, thing,
Speaker:did anything,
Speaker:Do they promote new products that are coming in?
Speaker:I think there are ways,
Speaker:and I probably don't take advantage of all the things they
Speaker:got going,
Speaker:but once you get on,
Speaker:you will have a fair person who handles your stuff.
Speaker:I got a nice guy named Collin handles everything and they're
Speaker:constantly saying,
Speaker:Hey, you can do this or do that.
Speaker:Here's an idea.
Speaker:They're constantly getting new ideas and things.
Speaker:So they're very proactive as far as bringing in new opportunities.
Speaker:That's beautiful.
Speaker:That's like almost bringing someone onto your marketing team without having
Speaker:to pay them.
Speaker:It's a taint.
Speaker:Yeah. And it's good approach.
Speaker:Yeah. And now fulfillment is obviously done by you.
Speaker:Yeah. Fair's going to send you an order and it comes
Speaker:from fare.
Speaker:You go in,
Speaker:you can accept it.
Speaker:So when the order comes in,
Speaker:you're saying,
Speaker:okay, I'll look at the order and say,
Speaker:okay, I can ship this out by certain things.
Speaker:When you set up your account or is that something that
Speaker:you can change on yourself?
Speaker:Is your lead time?
Speaker:So you may say,
Speaker:Hey, I'm shipping in five days or seven days.
Speaker:I think we have ours at 10 because you're,
Speaker:again, we're small.
Speaker:If I have to bake something,
Speaker:it's going to be an extra week.
Speaker:So when an order comes in,
Speaker:you go and say,
Speaker:yep, looks good.
Speaker:Okay, I'm going to ship this by,
Speaker:let's pick a day next Wednesday.
Speaker:Okay, so now that starts the clock and it's all listed
Speaker:on there.
Speaker:Do you do that by order,
Speaker:Eric, By order?
Speaker:Yeah, please go ahead,
Speaker:review the order it,
Speaker:then I print it off,
Speaker:print off two copies.
Speaker:One copy is for me to work with where we entered
Speaker:into our system and then the other is the packing slip
Speaker:that actually goes to the customer.
Speaker:Okay, so you determine the ship date by order?
Speaker:Yes. Okay.
Speaker:And then on those orders,
Speaker:do you get all the customer information including their email so
Speaker:that you can add them to your customer list?
Speaker:It's not on that order there,
Speaker:but it is in,
Speaker:I believe if you go deeper into it,
Speaker:you can send them messages back and forth,
Speaker:whether or not you can put them directly on yours,
Speaker:but I set them up anyway,
Speaker:so when I get a new customer from fare,
Speaker:I have to put them into our database.
Speaker:So I create an order.
Speaker:I wish there was a way that I could take that
Speaker:fair order and magically convert it into my system.
Speaker:Unfortunately, there's not at this time.
Speaker:Okay. But I'm just curious because I know one of the
Speaker:things that isn't so great about Amazon is when someone is
Speaker:filling an order,
Speaker:they have the customer name and address,
Speaker:obviously to be able to execute the order,
Speaker:but they don't get the email.
Speaker:It's kind of like it's held hostage.
Speaker:Yeah, and that may be,
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:you can contact them and say,
Speaker:Hey, send me your email if you want to do that.
Speaker:Right. But there again,
Speaker:I create the account if I want to do it.
Speaker:If it's an existing customer,
Speaker:it's real easy.
Speaker:It's just like entering an order.
Speaker:If they brought it in another way and if not,
Speaker:I have a very simple process that I can go to.
Speaker:This is the basic information to put it in there to
Speaker:get it into our system so I can track the sale
Speaker:if you don't need it.
Speaker:And I mean if you've got a way to just take
Speaker:their order and run with it,
Speaker:boom, you don't have to do anything.
Speaker:Once you fulfill the order and you're ready to ship,
Speaker:you have two options.
Speaker:You can choose how to ship it.
Speaker:And for us,
Speaker:we ship,
Speaker:most of our stuff goes by FedEx ground.
Speaker:We've negotiated good pricing,
Speaker:I want to make sure I'm getting credit for that volume.
Speaker:So I entered the tracking number,
Speaker:the price of that package,
Speaker:what the shipping cost is.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:And if for multiple practice I do that,
Speaker:once that's done,
Speaker:I click a a finished button or whatever it is,
Speaker:it's automatically,
Speaker:as soon as I do that tells me exactly what my
Speaker:payout is going to be.
Speaker:I mean that includes the shipping and everything And you're doing
Speaker:all of this then in fair.
Speaker:Fair. Okay,
Speaker:got it.
Speaker:So now I've got all that,
Speaker:then I can go close out my order and create an
Speaker:invoice that I can use.
Speaker:So when I get the payment in,
Speaker:I can clear it out a little belt suspenders.
Speaker:But there again is some of the stuff that's gotta be
Speaker:worked out,
Speaker:but it's not that difficult of a deal.
Speaker:Okay. All right.
Speaker:But now you have the option,
Speaker:like I said,
Speaker:I can do it or if you don't,
Speaker:not familiar,
Speaker:if you don't want to do the shipping,
Speaker:there is a thing you can select ship with fair.
Speaker:You'd give them the package information and they take care of
Speaker:the shipping and I guess they'll send you some,
Speaker:a shipping label that you can apply.
Speaker:I don't do that.
Speaker:But you have that option of letting fare select the most
Speaker:economical way to ship it.
Speaker:I see.
Speaker:But the product always still comes from you.
Speaker:In other words,
Speaker:you don't ship product to fair to for them to fulfill.
Speaker:Okay. Is there the option to do that?
Speaker:Do you know?
Speaker:No, I mean they're not going to warehouse anything.
Speaker:That's not their deal.
Speaker:Now, one thing they do offer,
Speaker:and I don't know the exact particulars on this at this
Speaker:time, so this is something that you need to talk,
Speaker:especially important on returns.
Speaker:So the customer has 60 days to pay for something.
Speaker:If during that time say maybe they bought four flavors and
Speaker:one of the flavors is not moving.
Speaker:Right. Okay,
Speaker:all right.
Speaker:You know with this one doesn't sell right.
Speaker:They can return that not to me it goes somewhere in
Speaker:fair system.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I think we've had a total of two returns total in
Speaker:a year.
Speaker:So minor,
Speaker:I don't even consider it.
Speaker:So that's last product for you then?
Speaker:No, it's not for me.
Speaker:I got paid.
Speaker:Oh, Okay.
Speaker:You've got paid.
Speaker:So it goes back to fair somewhere.
Speaker:So either it goes back to them or I don't know
Speaker:exactly what they do.
Speaker:They say,
Speaker:Hey, scrap it and seal.
Speaker:They opened your boxes and he ate the shorter,
Speaker:I don't care.
Speaker:I don't care.
Speaker:It doesn't matter.
Speaker:I mean I've been paid so,
Speaker:but this is a benefit to the end user.
Speaker:So if they say,
Speaker:well we have made it,
Speaker:they go,
Speaker:well I've got an order.
Speaker:Oh the other thing is you get to set as the
Speaker:maker, you set the minimum quantities.
Speaker:So in our instance we had a dollar value which equates
Speaker:to basically two cases of product.
Speaker:I think I saw you were at 150 I think I
Speaker:saw. Yeah,
Speaker:which is going to be at,
Speaker:that's going to make sure that they have to buy it
Speaker:at least two cases of product and we gave them the
Speaker:option. One of the things I say the smaller the quantity
Speaker:per item is the better it'll work.
Speaker:So we did where they could basically it's a half a
Speaker:case per flavor.
Speaker:Worked out pretty good.
Speaker:But there again,
Speaker:if somebody is a little anxious,
Speaker:well I don't know if you want to buy well you
Speaker:know you've got free returns and that's something if that's an
Speaker:important item with you,
Speaker:with something you talk about with fair and when you would
Speaker:have on your list of things you want to discuss with
Speaker:them. This is all sounding really great.
Speaker:What types of cons are there to using fair?
Speaker:At first it sounded like,
Speaker:Hey, if you're shipping international,
Speaker:use us well you can ship with us or with them.
Speaker:We did one international order,
Speaker:never doing another one.
Speaker:You say you can block international.
Speaker:Never been able to do good.
Speaker:You won't accept international orders.
Speaker:Boom, they'll handle it.
Speaker:And I don't know if it's international,
Speaker:international or maybe just Canada.
Speaker:I forget what it is,
Speaker:but I know they've made some improvements on it.
Speaker:We've just made a decision now we're staying domestic.
Speaker:I don't have to worry about it.
Speaker:The ability to,
Speaker:since we have a standard case for us is 24 they
Speaker:have the option of buying in multiples of 12 sometimes you'll
Speaker:get a half a case of this or they've got a
Speaker:half the case on this one half case and this one,
Speaker:it matches the minimums for them.
Speaker:They're happy.
Speaker:We have to do custom packaging kind of a time thing
Speaker:on our side.
Speaker:But the result is that,
Speaker:uh, you still got the sale,
Speaker:You still got the sale and in the end the whole
Speaker:system is working good for you.
Speaker:Yeah, we got the sale.
Speaker:If it cost them 10 bucks to ship that second carton,
Speaker:no wait,
Speaker:sorry. No,
Speaker:there it is.
Speaker:Whereas if we were doing it,
Speaker:I would probably say,
Speaker:Hey look,
Speaker:if you get 12 more of this,
Speaker:it's going to be less than if you do the second
Speaker:cart or whatever.
Speaker:Right. But it's part of the deal there.
Speaker:Again, I'm not involved in the whole thing.
Speaker:I have had some customers,
Speaker:I guess fair has a due diligence on their side where
Speaker:they're checking the customers out.
Speaker:Some people will say,
Speaker:well Hey,
Speaker:they won't let me buy from them.
Speaker:I don't know why that's between you and fair.
Speaker:I have nothing to do with it.
Speaker:Buy direct from me.
Speaker:I'm sure there,
Speaker:there are some requirements and some filters that go through so
Speaker:that the product quality that's being represented there is at a
Speaker:certain level.
Speaker:Sure. So that would make sense to me.
Speaker:So what's your single statement about fair?
Speaker:Like if you're just talking directly to all of our listeners,
Speaker:what's your overall statement about your experience thus far with fair?
Speaker:I will say that on the whole it's been a very
Speaker:positive experience for us.
Speaker:I would encourage you to contact fair talk about your situation.
Speaker:Here's what we do.
Speaker:I don't know if fair is limiting the number of people
Speaker:per categories there again,
Speaker:I do not know,
Speaker:but the net result for us has been very positive and
Speaker:since we started with fair,
Speaker:I'll be quite honest,
Speaker:we've had multiple other platforms that are doing kind of the
Speaker:same thing have contacted say come on over here too.
Speaker:And we've talked to some of them and we decided to
Speaker:go with multiple ones.
Speaker:That's our,
Speaker:I don't think they can cut us off for it.
Speaker:Well you'd have to check that for sure.
Speaker:Cause there could be exclusivity like that,
Speaker:just like the situation with Amazon.
Speaker:But that's interesting to know.
Speaker:So if you go on to fair get ready that there'll
Speaker:be other people reaching out.
Speaker:They will.
Speaker:They do,
Speaker:they see success.
Speaker:And when does that,
Speaker:uh, it's the sincerest form of flattery.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:Well, you are such a professional business owner.
Speaker:Such great topics and advice.
Speaker:Do you have anything else that you want to share either
Speaker:on the fair end or the business end?
Speaker:Just some final words of advice for us.
Speaker:One thing,
Speaker:this came up last week,
Speaker:I'm a salesman by trade.
Speaker:I mean that's what I did for years.
Speaker:I was in sales sales management.
Speaker:I just happened to have to make my own product.
Speaker:Right now it's what it boils down to.
Speaker:I remember years ago,
Speaker:people, especially in the electrical distribution business and people going,
Speaker:I don't talk to him,
Speaker:he's just a salesman to gain.
Speaker:Remember that your salesman sales person.
Speaker:I will use salesman as a generic term,
Speaker:not taking anything against women to,
Speaker:it's just easier for me to say in sales people.
Speaker:So if I say salesman it means everybody there.
Speaker:That's my official gender statements.
Speaker:It's so funny.
Speaker:No, I don't want to say,
Speaker:Oh you've said no,
Speaker:I don't want to do that.
Speaker:Alright, my items won't do that.
Speaker:Uh, anyway.
Speaker:I've been buying the boxes that we talked about earlier on
Speaker:the conversation.
Speaker:No salesman for the company that doesn't force actually what's a
Speaker:new company now,
Speaker:but he was in last week and we went out to
Speaker:dinner and had a few pops and we're sitting there and
Speaker:just talking about stuff.
Speaker:I mean this is like an hour into the conversation.
Speaker:We started talking about new ideas,
Speaker:new packaging and I've been mentioning doing this particular type of
Speaker:package and I just hadn't found what I wanted yet and
Speaker:every time it was too costly.
Speaker:I just really think it's good market.
Speaker:And he goes,
Speaker:well, Hey,
Speaker:what about this?
Speaker:Threw me at a quick picture and said,
Speaker:that's exactly what I want.
Speaker:He says,
Speaker:yeah, but it was completely 180 degrees from what I was
Speaker:thinking. But I said,
Speaker:Hey, it accomplishes the exact same thing with a lot less
Speaker:material and it's a lot faster.
Speaker:Like that's what I want for your providers,
Speaker:your providers,
Speaker:you are information because you see as a salesman,
Speaker:as a sales person,
Speaker:you see lots of different stuff.
Speaker:Here's an idea,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:maybe I'm doing something similar to this.
Speaker:Granted if it's exclusive,
Speaker:I'm not going to give it away.
Speaker:But if it's a generic type thing,
Speaker:you say you can try this.
Speaker:And it's like,
Speaker:that's what I've been looking for.
Speaker:So use them as a resource.
Speaker:Don't just blow the sales person off and say,
Speaker:I don't have time.
Speaker:If you're looking for something new or a new packaging or
Speaker:a new way to market,
Speaker:talk to them.
Speaker:They're a reference.
Speaker:It's three.
Speaker:I mean for God's sake.
Speaker:And if they're right,
Speaker:held up by your dinner.
Speaker:Okay. Right.
Speaker:Well, but it's also true.
Speaker:I mean they have just by nature of their job,
Speaker:they are touching so many other businesses and could be a
Speaker:resource. So I've never really thought of it that way before.
Speaker:But you're so right.
Speaker:Look, in your world,
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:you're doing the,
Speaker:and all this stuff.
Speaker:If you've got somebody said,
Speaker:Hey, I'm trying to,
Speaker:Oh, you know,
Speaker:someone's show was doing this.
Speaker:It may not be related to ribbons at all,
Speaker:but it's like,
Speaker:Hey, here's a little Pearl of wisdom and we'll pass on
Speaker:to you.
Speaker:And you go,
Speaker:Ooh. And the first one's free.
Speaker:Well, maybe even the second or the third day you get
Speaker:to go to a bloody Mary festival,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:things like that.
Speaker:Oh my gosh.
Speaker:Alright. Gift biz listeners.
Speaker:If you want to hear the whole Willis shortbread story,
Speaker:I will have the link to the prior podcast in the
Speaker:show notes so you can go there and check it out.
Speaker:Of course all of Eric's links are going to be in
Speaker:there. The website,
Speaker:should we add in the fare link there too,
Speaker:Eric? I don't know if it's on there or not.
Speaker:That's the smart side of the business.
Speaker:I'm the dumb side.
Speaker:My official title now is COO.
Speaker:Chief oven operator.
Speaker:All right,
Speaker:well I don't have it there but I'm going to add
Speaker:that into my notes to put that on there as well.
Speaker:But I mean I found you super easy this morning.
Speaker:I just went on the platform and searched for Willis shortbread
Speaker:and there you popped up in half a second.
Speaker:So yep,
Speaker:there you go.
Speaker:So Eric,
Speaker:I'm so thrilled that you were willing to come on again
Speaker:and specifically talk about fair,
Speaker:such good insight and I'm glad we caught you really early
Speaker:cause you're still learning the platform,
Speaker:but you've really within,
Speaker:it's less than a year that you've even been on,
Speaker:but you're already seeing such benefit with the platform.
Speaker:So I really,
Speaker:really appreciate you being here today and sharing with us.
Speaker:And here comes to the disclaimer.
Speaker:Everything I said about fair is my opinion or it's one
Speaker:I think it is.
Speaker:So before you take it as gospel,
Speaker:call them up and talk to them.
Speaker:Like I said,
Speaker:they're very helpful.
Speaker:Say, Hey listen,
Speaker:I was listening to this redneck talk about bear.
Speaker:I couldn't understand half of what he was saying was talking
Speaker:so slow.
Speaker:I didn't know what was going on.
Speaker:It's about drop over.
Speaker:You don't talk slow.
Speaker:I'm on my third cup of coffee.
Speaker:That's why we're running fast.
Speaker:But seriously,
Speaker:this is my take on it.
Speaker:Call them up,
Speaker:talk to them.
Speaker:They're great.
Speaker:They've done this accent.
Speaker:It's been very good so far.
Speaker:Perfect. Oh my gosh,
Speaker:you are so much fun.
Speaker:Thank you once again for being on the show.
Speaker:My pleasure after talking with Eric,
Speaker:I'm thinking fair is something you're going to be checking out.
Speaker:I'm particularly impressed with how they give zip code exclusivity and
Speaker:incentivize repetitive sales naturally within their business model.
Speaker:Now next week we're going to dive into a topic we've
Speaker:all experienced too much of recently fear.
Speaker:Interestingly enough,
Speaker:this episode didn't come up due to the pandemic.
Speaker:It was already in the lineup,
Speaker:but I think you'll agree it couldn't be more timely and
Speaker:let's face it,
Speaker:as business owners,
Speaker:we experience fear all the time over and above a virus
Speaker:that we're working to recover from.
Speaker:We'll get more into this next week,
Speaker:but for now stay safe and be well.
Speaker:I want To make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook
Speaker:group called gift is breeze.
Speaker:It's a place where we all gather and our community to
Speaker:support each other.
Speaker:Got a really fun post in there.
Speaker:That's my favorite of the week.
Speaker:I have to say where I invite all of you to
Speaker:share what you're doing,
Speaker:to show pictures of your product,
Speaker:to show what you're working on for the week,
Speaker:to get reaction from other people and just for fun because
Speaker:we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody in
Speaker:the community is making.
Speaker:My favorite post every single week without doubt,
Speaker:wait, what aren't you part of the group already?
Speaker:If not,
Speaker:make sure to jump over to Facebook and search for the
Speaker:group gift biz breeze.
Speaker:Don't delay.
