If the word sales makes you cringe a little… this episode is for you.

In this conversation, Vicki is joined by Andee Hart, founder of Hart Design Co and host of the She Sells Differently podcast. Andee started out making candles in her kitchen during the pandemic – and went on to wholesale them into over 100 shops in a matter of months, all while still working a full-time corporate job.

But this isn’t just a story about candles. It’s a really honest, practical chat about selling products in a way that feels good, works long-term, and actually supports your life as a business owner.

If you sell physical products (or want to), this episode will help you:

1. Stop feeling awkward or “salesy” about selling
2. Understand what actually helps products sell in wholesale and retail
3. Feel more confident about pricing your products properly
4. Realise you don’t have to do everything (or sell to everyone) to succeed

Andee brings a refreshing, human approach to sales – one that’s rooted in integrity, consistency and common sense, rather than pressure tactics or gimmicks.

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She Sells Differently Website https://andeehart.com/

Andee Hart Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andeehart/

Andee Hart LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andeehart/

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Welcome to the Bring youg Product Idea to Life podcast. This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products or if you'd like to create your own product to sell.

I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses. Let's get started. Hi.

So today on the podcast I'm speaking to Andee Hart.

Andee is the founder of Hart Design Co and host of the she Sells Differently podcast where she empowers women to embrace authentic countercultural sales strategies.

After turning her candle making side hustle into full time business, she now teaches others how to grow their product based brands with grace and integrity. I had an absolutely fantastic conversation with Andee.

We spoke a little bit about her candle brand which is how she got started after a long career in corporate sales. But then we went on to talk more about sales in general. So Andee really grew her business via wholesale.

As she will share with you in this interview, it was really fascinating to hear about how she did that and her best advice on how you can do that too. And we also spoke a lot about sales in general as well as how you position your products, how you price your product.

There's just such a lot of good stuff in this episode. Honestly, I really enjoyed it. I'm really excited to share it with you. I think it's a great one for this time of year.

Thanks for having me, Vicki. I am excited to be here.

Me too. Can we start with you? Please give an introduction to yourself, your business and what you do.

Yes, absolutely. So my name is Andee Hart. I have been a full time entrepreneur for two years now.

I wholesale my candles all over North America to boutiques.

And I also coach women product entrepreneurs on how to sell and market their products in a way that doesn't feel icky, because selling is hard sometimes. And so I took that corporate experience and now use that in my coaching business too.

Amazing. And I'm so excited to talk to you about all of this.

And a bit later, I definitely want to come on to selling and your approach to selling and get your advice there because as you say, it can feel a bit icky. It can feel a bit like a lot of people, despite having something to sell kind of go, oh, but I don't want to be salesy.

So we'll definitely come onto that. What I'd like to start with first, if it's okay, though, Andee, is.

So after 17 years in a corporate role, what made you decide to launch your product business and transition out of that?

Yeah, so probably like a lot of us, you know, we're during the pandemic, we're quarantining at home. And I was, I've always loved creating things. And so I remember one evening thinking, I want something to do after I'm done with my work.

And so I kind of joke that it was my after work therapy. And I started making candles in my kitchen. And of course my sales mind started, you know, running.

And I thought, you know, I was giving them away to friends and family and received really good feedback. So that was without really thinking about it. That was my market validation right there, you know, when I first started my business.

But I put them at a local shop, a local general store, and it was really a consignment deal, which is. Was great to start off with, but they started selling really well.

But what I learned from that opportunity right there at the very beginning, they were not selling. But what I did is I same candles, I just changed the branding, I changed the name of the candles.

At the time I lived in North Carolina, and so I just changed them to North Carolina names. And all of a sudden they just sold like crazy. Sold like wildfire. Well then, of course, I started wholesaling my candles.

And so that really just took off from there.

And so really it just started from wanting to create and have something to do during the pandemic, which is kind of crazy that this all blossomed from there, but, you know, really just always had a desire for entrepreneurship. And so that just seemed like the perfect time to. To cultivate that dream.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

And I think a lot of businesses did start around this time because a lot of us, we might not have had more time, but we also, we for Some of us, maybe we had less time, but it was just. I completely relate to what you're saying about needing to do something else outside of work and being at home and just something for yourself.

Right? I think it could have been for me.

I know, you know, I live by myself and it could have been a very, you know, mentally taxing time if I did not have something productive to do. And so that was really was my after work therapy just to put my mind to something and also to give other people joy during that time.

You know, the tagline for my candle company, Heart Design Company is heart for your home. And so that's truly what I was desiring to do is just to give people some heart for their home in a time when everyone was quarantining at home.

And so it really is a fun start to that company. And so it just, it all blossomed from there.

Thank you. And so were you still working in your corporate role when you got started with Heart Design? Kay?

Yes, I was.

And that's an interesting part of the story because I was still working in my corporate job and I actually got a promotion pretty soon after that into a sales director role. So I was overseeing a pretty, pretty big organization within my company after that. And this was after, you know, we're all back to work.

But I started just doing wholesale outreach and, you know, still have my corporate job, but I'm doing that, you know, after work. And I heard crickets at first, and so I'm not really thinking anything about it, but I'm just consistently. And that's what salespeople do, right?

By month three, I was in 120 shops. And I think people are going, that's amazing. And I was going, oh, crap. You know, because I still had my corporate job.

And so I quickly pivoted and hired a suite high school girl next to door to help me found an operations manager. But it was definitely a time when I had to stop taking orders.

So I probably missed out on a lot of revenue because I did scale too fast and learned a lot of lessons, you know, in the process. But yes, so that was still working full time and had to quickly hire some help to, or else I was not going to sleep at the time. So.

Yeah, well, thank you for sharing all of that. And so what do you think? So it sounds like you grew really, really quickly. What was it you think that made you grow quite so fast?

Was it something you were doing or was it circumstance or a bit of everything? Yeah.

So I can without a doubt say it was the tenacity and the compound efforts of sending out those sales pitches because I love selling in person. That is something that I've always been taught a lot of people don't.

And so I think that this is a proof point that you don't have to sell in person to scale your business. This was the compound efforts of sending out pitch after pitch after pitch, multiple pitches a day.

Because at the end of the day it really is a math problem.

You know, the more sales pitches, you know, retailer pitches that you're sending out, even if they're not perfect and the more follow ups that you stay on top of because 90% of people will never follow up after the first email. And so even though I didn't hear back for maybe one or two months, it wasn't the right timing.

But eventually, by the third month, it was all of that compound effort and the follow ups that retailers were like, okay, I'm ready. You know, the candles that I've been purchasing have sold through and I'm ready to make a purchase.

And this company has been following up with me and I'm going to give them a try.

I truly believe that that was the compound efforts of me just putting my product out in front of people time and time again and me staying in front of these retailers because they had started to sell through their current stock and inventory of candles. And so they were ready to give me a chance.

And so even though maybe my first pitch, they weren't ready to purchase from me right then, but the fact that I had been the brand, the brand that stayed in front of them and I mentioned that 90% of retailers will never follow up after their first pitch. And so you can just stand out by being in the top 10% by following up. And so that is what I did. I was not annoying.

I just consistently stayed top of mind with these retailers. And that was the compound efforts of my hard work.

And so now I don't have to send that many pitch emails to retailers anymore, which, thank goodness, that's a lot of hard work.

But I think that that's a lot of something that a lot of brands don't think about when they get into wholesale because they think that the retailers are Just going to come to them. But it is a lot of hard work at the, at the beginning. But I definitely attribute the success to that.

I think so. I definitely can see that because it sounds like you were really tenacious, especially if you're not getting anything back.

And I've had the same when I'm trying to, you know, trying to do sell my services is that you can send emails and just hear nothing, nothing, nothing. And then six months later suddenly someone pops up and because they need you now and you just hadn't been relevant at the time. But it's.

When you're getting nothing back, it's really hard, isn't it, to keep going and just to keep the faith. The work you're putting in will pay off.

Yeah. And it's important to remember, especially when you're selling, that when you hear no, it's not personal, it often just means not yet.

And I have to, you know, coming from 17 years in corporate sales, I knew that. But then when you start your own company and it's your own creations, it becomes a lot more personal. Yeah.

And I had to relearn that, especially when I started my coaching business because it's, you're selling something totally different. You know, it's not necessarily a product, but it's a service. And I think you have to even rewire your brain again to really rethink.

But it's the same concept.

And so it's even good for me just repeating that now because there are different types of buyers and some buyers will be ready right when you, when they first hear about your product offering, whatever that may be. And some buyers need time and some buyers will buy a year later.

And so it's, it's really good to have that mindset to be consistent and to stay the course.

That's really useful. Thank you. I think, I think everyone does need to hear that because no's can feel really, really hard.

Absolutely.

I'd also really like to ask Andee if you don't mind getting into the numbers just to give an idea because I think it's useful when you're talking about, you know, these early days, you're sending out emails every day. What kind of volume are you sending?

And I only ask that because I think it really helps make it clear to people what it is we need to be doing and the kind of effort we need to be making to start to see traction.

Yeah, that's a great question. So I would send out anywhere from 10 to 20 a day.

And so, and it's important to remember that 10 to 20 new retailers a day and there are great ways to find retailers and I have a great course that teaches just an introductory challenge, a five day challenge that teaches you how to find and win retailers. But it's important to remember that once you start sending those pitches out that you are also then spending time following up with those retailers.

So maybe at first you start off by sending 20 pitches a day, but then the next week you're sending, you start sending 10 pitches and you're sending follow up emails. So I would say at minimum 10 a day when you're starting out.

That's so useful. Thank you. And so for anyone listening who wants to start getting into retailers, where, where do they start?

Is this it, is it identifying retailers and sending emails or is there something a step before that?

So before you start reaching out to retailers, it's important to have make sure that you have a cohesive product line and you understand who your ideal audience is and that you also have great product images.

And I say this because you need to think about the fact that your retailers, they are not experiencing your product firsthand, they're experiencing it visually through your product images and then also through your product descriptions.

And so I don't necessarily think that you have to have a full on catalog or anything like that, but they're going to look at your website and so they need to see beautiful cohesive product images.

And one of the things that I often see brands and they might have candles and then they have clothing and then they have jewelry, I mean just things that are all over the place. And so really decide who you're going to serve and what products you are wholesaling and stick in your lane.

It doesn't mean that you cannot expand later or if you're in the home fragrance category, that you can't have multiple different products.

But if you're all over the place and you don't have a cohesive brand and cohesive brand images, then what that tells the retailer is they don't really understand how to stage your products in their shop. They don't understand how to put your product collection together. And so they're just going to pass that right on by.

And so that is something that I love to teach how to create a cohesive product collection. And so that's something that you need to have before you start pitching your retailers.

Because once you, one of the great things that you can do when you pitch retailers is pitch a collection and retailers love to have a ready collection. So I have a fresh Home collection.

I have a Parisian home collection, and that my Parisian home collection has different, like a French market, you know, different candle scents that are all inspired by a trip that I took to Paris. And so I'll talk about that when I pitch that collection.

And it just makes sense for a retailer to purchase all of those candles together and so make it easy for retailers to do business for you and paint the picture for them.

That's really useful. Thank you. And are there any other mistakes you see founders making when they approach retailers?

Anything that comes up with the brands that you work with regularly that my listeners would appreciate knowing about?

Yeah. So I mentioned not having the cohesive brand and, you know, trying to do. Trying to appeal to too many people. And I will.

I will reiterate that one because that's the biggest mistake that I see. And I had a business coach early on that told me their riches are in the niches. And I don't know if anyone else has heard that before.

It's kind of a common phrase. But I think that's so important to remember because if you try to appeal to everyone, then you're going to appeal to no one.

And so that is really, number one. Number two is, and I mentioned this, but it's worth repeating, not having quality product images.

And number three would be not selling where your retailers are. And by that I mean when you're wholesaling. One of the quickest things that I learned was I need to be where my wholesalers are.

And that's unfair and so fair for your listeners. I'm sure a lot of your listeners know, but that's like the Etsy for wholesalers.

And so I quickly got on there and learned how to optimize my visibility. And that's an ongoing process.

But, you know, since the pandemic, fair has just grown and grown and a lot of retailers are not going to the trade shows anymore. They're just doing all of their buying online. And so that is not a place that I put all of my eggs in, in the fair basket. I don't recommend that.

But, you know, I have a way for them to purchase wholesale directly on my website, too. But if I'm not on fair, then a lot of new retailers don't have a way to find me. And a lot of them prefer to shop on fair. So.

So I need to make it easy for my retailers to do business with me. And a lot of times that is unfair.

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you. And I've heard about fair.

In fact, I've had an episode on here specifically about Fair, because it is such a growing platform and as you say, if that's where people want to buy, and I think there's possibly for retailers, particularly smaller ones, a bit of peace in mind of buying via a platform like Fair, where they perhaps feel it's less of a risk than buying from someone's website, say, that they've never heard of, they haven't seen the products. I think so. And I can understand, you know, with the fees, the reasons why people might not want to be on a platform like Fair.

But as you say, if that's where the buyers are, you kind of have to go to them or you're going to miss out on a percentage of buyers.

Yeah, absolutely. So it's been, it's been a great resource for me.

But there, there are some things that you need to do to gain visibility on Fair and so you kind of have to play, play their roles. But, you know, even if you hired a sales rep, you know, a road rep, you're going to pay them 20%.

And so coming from a sales background, I get that, it's just, you know, but a lot of brands don't, they're like, I don't want that 15% taken out. Hire a sales rep, you're going to have that. And so I just consider it as fair as it's kind of like a sales rep for my company.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you.

That's a nice way of framing it actually, because, yeah, I've heard the same, that, you know, there are obviously fees involved, whereas if you went directly to retailers that aren't, however, as you say, I'm sure it gives you a bigger pool of retailers because there will be those that are just looking on there.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I've heard you talk before, Andee, about building genuine, genuine relationships with your buyers. So what does that look like in practice? And how do you, how do you build and then maintain these relationships?

Yes, I love this question and it's, you know, obviously not every one of your retailers are you going to, to be able to build a personal, you know, connection with. But you're going to have those retailers that reach out and have questions or have specific needs.

But I'll tell you, I'll speak to it first from a general perspective. So I have a. You can either do this on Google Drive or on Dropbox, but just a link to product images that my retailers can use on their social media.

And I provide, you know, just social media hooks or captions about My products that they don't have to write and they're free to use them on any of their social platforms or any of their emails or on their website. I provide my logo, I'll provide shelf talkers for them to educate their customers on my products.

So simple things like that to help them sell more of my products. And so I also provide testers for my products because they're candles. You know, some, some of my candles you can't smell through the packaging.

And so anything I can do to help my retailers sell because their success is my success.

So that's a general sense where I'm maybe not connecting with them at a personal level, but I'm still helping them sell and they have access to that on a more personal level. I'll give you a specific example of one of my retailers and this naturally has become a larger retailer of mine.

She had reached out and she wanted a white label candle. White label, obviously meaning her branding on it. She wanted a custom scent for her shop.

And so we developed that and she loved it, ended up coming back and she had bought these beautiful teacups for her shop and she could not sell them because she also had custom coffee. And so she wasn't, she was just talking to me about it and I said, what if we made those into candles? She can't keep them on the shelf now.

So just simple stuff like that, collaborating with your retailers and bringing fun ideas to life for them, you know, and, and just talking about what struggles they're having when you are talking with them on the phone or in person or whatever that looks like and you have a solution that can help them. That is, obviously you're not going to have that with every retailer, but that is what a true partnership can look like.

And it, that's where your creative side can come out and you can really have fun.

And so that's been one of my really fun partnerships and I' done been able to do white label and private label designs for a lot of my retailers and I get fun. I have fun just getting the creative side and putting their logo on my candles.

It's really fun to see that out there and to see some of my handles in some bigger shops with their logo on it and, and just work with them. And so I get a lot of satisfaction out of that.

I really like that. Thank you for sharing that example. That's a really nice one.

And I think it shows that you can be quite creative with how you work with your stockists as well. So it's. Yeah, it's I think that's really nice.

Yeah. Yeah. And it, you know, still gets me in on the creative side and, you know, problem solving. So it's fun.

And actually, I hadn't planned to ask this before we come back to the sales.

As you were talking, I was thinking, how are you managing sort of the creation of your candles and the actual production of your candles versus all of the selling and maintaining relationships of your existing stockists and looking for more? Because that's a lot.

Yeah. So I just recently moved to Arkansas to be closer to family.

So before I did that, I had an operations manager that did all of the production and creation. And that was such a blessing. Since I moved, I. I do have a couple of people that, that work for me.

And so they do really, I would say 90% of the production kind of brought them up to speed and fulfillment. And so I really am working a lot more hands off on that. I still do a lot of the creation, but I. If I retire Ascent, then I.

Excuse me, I should say reverse that. If I introduce a new fragrance, then I will always retire a scent. So I keep my product portfolio pretty tight.

And you know, I'm constantly evaluating my sales data and profit margins. So if there's a bottom performer, you know, I'm going to retire that fragrance.

So what that does for myself and the people that work with me, it means that, you know, we're not having to produce 50 different fragrances. You know, we have our core fragrances that are our constant bestsellers.

And then after the holidays, you know, our holiday fragrances will drop off naturally and we have some limited editions that will bring out for Valentine' Day and then those will go away. And so we do our products and our fragrances very strategically in that way so that we are not constantly producing a lot of fragrances at once.

And that really helps with production and fulfillment. And so I think that is something that we've done really smart from the beginning. And we also only do two vessels.

We have a wooden dough bowl and we have a four ounce travel tin. So this is one of my holiday tens. It actually, it's a limited edition. It says resting. I don't know if you can see it. Resting. Grape.

Yeah, we have just some labels that we switched out Wreck. This is actually one of my best sellers. This holiday. It says Wreck the Halls. So I just designed these labels and switch them out.

So these are new this year, but same fragrance that I've always had. And so. But we've always just had these four ounce travel Tins that are great for point of purchase and then our signature reusable dough bowls.

And so that's been another thing that's been really helpful in just managing the whole production process. We don't get crazy with how many products that we have.

Thank you for explaining that. And I really like how simple you've kept things. I think that makes a lot of sense.

And I love your advice as well about retiring a fragrance when you bring in the new one, because I think it can be really, really hard. And I speak from experience. I used to have my own brand years ago.

It can be really hard to retire something even if it's not doing as well as the others. Even though the numbers might say it makes sense, it can still be hard because it's kind of your thing, you've created it.

So I think that having that policy you explained, like a one in, one out policy, makes a lot of sense because I guess the decisions be made for you, that's how you operate. And you know, when you introduce something new, something has to go. So I really like that.

And then inevitably when you announce that it's retiring and last call for that product, people come out of the woodwork and they're like, don't retire this. And you start second guessing it. But I tell my clients all the time, don't second guess it. The data doesn't lie.

And just because people are coming out of the woodwork because you announced it's retiring, don't second guess it. That's the point of announcing it's retiring. So it happens every single time I see it. So. And it's, it happens in my own product line.

But yeah, it always makes me laugh.

It's that scarcity thing, isn't it? As soon as, and I've done it myself, I've, I've shopped at brands before and they say something's going away.

And I'm like, oh, I must stock up on that because.

Right, because it's going away and you know, it might be something you've only, you've never bought before, but you're like, oh, I can't buy it ever again, so I better buy it now.

Right? Yeah, but that's the whole point of retiring it because you're not going to bring it back.

So yeah, that's also interesting. So Andee, I've seen that you describe your, your approach as countercultural sales. What does that mean to you?

And how's that different from traditional selling?

Yes.

So, you know, being in corporate America and technology sales, I have Been through probably every sales methodology, methodology training that there is on the market. And, you know, often we see out there. And I don't know about you, but I get Facebook and social ads all the time for different sales trainings.

And they're usually some guy that's getting in there like Ferrari or something and telling me about how you overcome every objection. And this sales training and, and listen, there's nothing wrong with that, but that's, to me, my target audience and the type of.

That's not what made me successful in corporate America. And I also truly believe that everyone, no matter who you are, God gave you a personality for a reason.

And some of the best salespeople that I have ever met have been introverts, believe it or not. And it's because they were able to truly connect with people.

They were able to stop and listen long enough to really hear what the customer wanted and needed. And so I have always said that, you know, often my clients have a.

And I'm sure your listeners, they have an aversion to selling because their experience with sales, they've had probably a negative experience because, you know, what, they were sold at some point and after they were sold, didn't live up to what they were told. Right? There was a delta between what the salesperson said was going to happen or what they were told about the product and what actually happened.

And so that's what creates this, you know, bad experience and bad mindset that sales has for us. And we've all had those experiences.

And so culturally, we're all told in sales trainings, overcome every objection, you know, and don't take no and, you know, fill in the blank.

But what would happen if you took on the mindset that not every person you talk to is your customer and you actually valued the customer over making the sale. And so by that I, and I'll give you a specific example.

When you, when you think about the fact that not every person is your customer, but you're trying to overcome every objection, when you do that, you actually end up spending more time and headache and effort on the back end because you're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and you have customer satisfaction issues, they're frustrated, right? And so on the back end, you're just spending more time with them.

So I had a customer and they were actually really wanting to buy my wholesale course. This was a little over a year ago, and we were on a call. Usually they'll do a discovery call with me, and she said, I'm ready to buy.

And as we were talking about her goals for her product business, it became clear that wholesale wasn't actually what she wanted to achieve. And I told her, I'm happy and to help serve you in this way, but I don't think my wholesale force is going to accomplish what you want to do.

And I have someone else that could help serve you. And so I pointed her to another coach, and she. At the end of the call, she was like, wow, okay. She went on to do.

To work with that other coach, and a year later, she came back and she ended up buying my wholesale course. She said, I'm ready to step into wholesale now. Not only did she buy my wholesale course, but she had recommended two other people.

And so what that did is it served her best in what her goals were, because I listened to her and it created a trust with her. And so had I tried to force that at the time, then I would have been doing a lot more work on the back end.

It would have been frustrating for me, too. And so that's just a prime example. I think, you know, culturally, we would have just sold it to her and moved on. Right.

But countercultural, we sell things in a way that align with our values. And even when it means saying no to the customer, which is hard to do. It's hard, but it's also the right thing to do.

Absolutely. I'm so with you about.

So my sort of day business is I work with brands to sell their products on Amazon, and I will quite regularly speak to people and either tell them that they're not ready or their product isn't a good fit, or maybe the market's way too saturated at that time or whatever it might be.

But I will sometimes, like you say, turn people away in the nicest possible way because I don't think that working with me is in their best interest or isn't right for them at that time. And I agree with you that I feel like by doing that, first of all, you keep your integrity, because you're not just about taking someone's money.

Because I think if you really want to see the person you're working with succeed, then you put their interests first.

And I think that really helps for people to trust you because they know you're not just trying to convince them of, you know, you could very easily said, no, no, no, you need to be in all these stores, and wholesale is the way to go. But if that wasn't right for her at that time, then, you know, if it's not right, it's not right.

And I really like that example because I think it doesn't feel good for anybody if someone's pushed into making a sale that isn't right for them because you wouldn't feel good about it and they wouldn't feel good about it. So no one wins. Well.

And then you just perpetuate this icky sales culture, you know, and that is not what I want to be about. It's not what I want my brand to be about. And so, yeah, that's why I talk about, you know, she sells differently. That's what my.

My coaching brand is, because I want to do things differently.

I really like that. Let's talk a little bit about pricing, if that's okay, because I know something I've seen you say.

I've obviously I've done my research, Andee, and something I've seen that you said is that lowering your price doesn't always mean you'll make more sales. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think that's a really interesting thing to discuss.

Yes. So I think often we race to the bottom trying to compete with other people.

And so what that does, you know, it trains your customers to expect a sale from you. And I have been guilty of this before. I have absolutely been guilty of this before. But I want you to think about your favorite clothing brand.

I know there's some here in the States, like Ann Taylor or, you know, fill in the blank. I never buy from them when they are not on sale because they've trained me that they're always going to have a sale. And so I'll wait it out.

And so that's exactly what you want to avoid as a brand, unless you want to be known for that. You know, you can do that. That can be your strategy. But buyer psychology, and this is something that a lot of people don't realize.

It's something interesting with the human mind. But I'll give you a specific example. This is a true story, a true case study that we studied in one of my MBA classes.

And it was about some boutiques in a small town out west. They all of these boutiques sold this beautiful turquoise jewelry.

So if you've ever visited any, you know, western towns, like out in Wyoming, things like that, they sell beautiful turquoise jewelry. This one boutique, though, they kept on lowering their price to try to beat the next retailer over, and they could not sell.

They could not sell any of their jewelry. Well, they had a lot of inventory, so they ended up up talking to a consultant about it. How do we get our inventory moving. And he said one thing.

Raise your prices 10x what they currently are and remove that sale sign. They sold out in one weekend. One weekend. It's buyer psychology that when we see a higher price, we associate higher quality.

And so when you are constantly lowering your price, your buyer is thinking that's lower quality than your competitor. And so it's important to remember that.

And there are things that you can do to simple things that you can do to elevate your brand and your personal product. And a lot of that is it's not about your product, it's about your branding, it's about your packaging.

And you know, and here's a perfect example, my dough ball candles, when I first started out, you know, I didn't have any cellophane wrap on them to protect them for shelf life. I just had twine on them and a simple label. And I noticed all of my competitors were kind of doing the same thing and selling them for US$36.

And I thought, how can I stand out and what's valuable to my retailers? Shelf life and giftability. That's what my retailers were telling me. So I started wrapping them in cellophane to keep shelf life.

And then I put a big, bright decorative ribbon and a gift label on them. I moved them from $36 to MSRP to 48. And they are selling like hotcakes.

So just taking them and investing, you know, an extra 75 cents in cost, move them up $12 in retail price, and they're selling considerably more than competitors. So that's just a simple thing with packaging that made it a lot more valuable to retailers that they're willing to pay that much more for products.

So things like that, that you really need to be aware of, of what is valuable to your retailers that you can charge more and make, make more profit for, for your business.

That's a brilliant example. Thank you for that. And I'm with you because competing on price, I don't think anyone wins.

It's something I see often with, with, you know, as I say, I work predominantly on Amazon, is that someone will, in a certain category, someone price or they were, they'll either have a sale or they'll put their price down. And then everyone else thinks, oh, now that product's suddenly $10 cheaper than mine, so I better put my price down, right?

And then the next person does that. And so something I'm always saying to my clients is, no, the price is the price.

Yes, you can have sales at certain, there might be times of Year where you want. Like, we've got Black Friday coming up as we record. Sometimes people want to leave a discount.

I don't know there's anything wrong with discounting, but.

But like you say, it's like when it becomes just who can be the cheapest, it's just a race to the bottom because I don't think anyone, I don't think anyone wins.

Yeah, no one does. And it really not. Not many people study the buyer psychology, the consumer mindset piece of it.

But when you really stop and think about why you buy something when you're making a purchase, even if it's just simple, you know, something simple, it really opens your eyes. And so, yeah, it's, it's very, very interesting.

I think so. And I've definitely. And I'm sure you're the same. I've definitely paid. When I'm looking at comparable products, I've definitely played.

Paid slightly more for something that's got a feature or a benefit that I want or it's got like loads of amazing reviews or certain ingredients. There's definitely.

If I can see a reason, if I, if I can look at a two products side by side and say, I can see why this one's slightly more, More expensive, I'm more than happy to pay the difference. If they're like identical, then it's different because then you're going, okay, why?

But I think if your product's got a us, like you were saying with yours, with the gift tag and having a lovely bow, I can definitely see that a customer would go, okay, I can see why this is of higher value and they'd be happy to pay it. I think as long as the value is obvious, customers are generally happy to pay more.

Yeah. And I think that's.

That is part of what is interesting is sometimes it is not just your product, it is the, the packaging piece of it and your, your branding and then even sometimes your product images, if you're, you know, e commerce. So there's so much more that goes into elevating your product and your product price than just your product itself.

Thank you. So let's say someone's listening and they're going through maybe a slow sales time, maybe customers aren't buying.

How do you figure out whether the issue is with your pricing, with your positioning, with something else entirely? How do you kind of get to the root cause of what's going on?

Yeah, so that's a great question. Well, first I would take a look at your data. You know, usually data doesn't Lie.

And so if you are looking at, and a lot of times customers don't want to show you their financials because financials can bring shame sometimes. But the more that you address them, the more that you can stop running an expensive hobby and start building a business that actually pays you.

And so a lot of times it is just taking a look at the data and realizing that, you know, your, your pricing is, is just off and you're pricing wrong for your market or you're marketing to the wrong audience. Right? You're marketing, you're not where your, your audience is.

And so I see a lot of people, a lot of clients that are doing a lot on social media, but they're not doing anything to grow their email list or market to the clients that have already bought from them. And so that's a huge one because I think social media is just easy.

But a lot of times when I first dive in, that's the first thing that that's missing is a solid marketing plan that's actually sustainable outside of social media.

You know, not that there's anything wrong with social media, but really building an email list and you know, nurturing your buyers that are already there.

And so when you look at the data, your, I always look at how many of your of people that have bought from you are returning and buying again and what is the customer lifetime value. Those are two metrics that actually provide substance to me. And then obviously your profit margin.

So, you know, I can hear a business say all the time, I'm a six figure business. Well, that's great. But, but are you, is your operating expenses 95% of that? Because that means nothing.

You know, I'd rather be a $50,000 business and have 50% operating margin than the reverse. And so I really take a look at the data and then that's where I start diving in with a strategy. You know, do we need to work on pricing?

Is it the profit margins that are struggling or is it maybe your marketing where you're not bringing in, bringing back customers that have already purchased from you and your customer retention rate is not there. And so those are, that's where you really want to take a look at those substance metrics and see where you're missing in your business.

Your, your product funnel, I should say your, your sales funnel. So there's a lot of champagne metrics out there, you know, like revenue and things like that.

But you really want to look at the substance of it instead of just the things that people tout like how many social media followers they have and how much revenue they brought in last year. So that's where I always, always start.

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you.

Yeah.

And, and thank you so much for everything you've shared and the time you've given us. Have you got time for two more questions, Andee?

Absolutely, absolutely.

Oh, brilliant. Brilliant. Because I know we've been recording, recording a while, but there's two more things I'd really love to ask you.

The first is, so for anyone who's listening, who thinks, okay, I'm going to start, you know, approaching stockist, I'm going to start selling, but maybe feeling a bit nervous, what's one small thing they could do right now as they listen to this podcast to help get going and maybe build a bit of confidence?

I. Yes, I love this one because selling. The reality is we're selling every day. But I always say this.

Selling is not something that you just master overnight. And you are, you. You're a lifetime learner of the art of selling.

And so think of it like going into a gym and you are hopping on a treadmill and you're exercising those muscles. It takes 10 seconds of courage to put yourself out there. And so I want you to think about the fact that you can do anything for 10 seconds.

You can type that email and hit send. You can walk into a store and talk to the owner about your products. You can do anything for 10 seconds.

So I always just reiterate, it takes 10 seconds of courage to put your product out there or to sell your product. And even if you feel like you flopped, you probably didn't. Even if you feel like you flopped, you did it, and that's a win.

You talked about your product, and that's a win.

And when you have a product or a service or whatever it is, if you have something that brings value to the world, brings value to other people, then you actually owe it to them to share about it. You owe it to them to share about it. You don't keep those things to yourself. And so when you truly believe in your product offering, share it.

Ten seconds of courage.

I love that. Thank you, Andee. And now my very final question, I promise. What is your number one piece of advice for other product brands?

Number one piece of advice, don't give up. This came from my brother, who is one of the most amazing entrepreneurs I know, started a construction company right out of college and has grown it.

Amazing. And I remember when I became an entrepreneur two years ago, he sat across the lunch table for me, my older brother, and he Said Andee, don't give up.

Don't give up.

And the thing about being an entrepreneur, as you know, is there are days where you feel like you're on an island and you are just questioning what you're doing and you're thinking, is my product good enough? Am I good enough? Don't give up. And especially when it comes to sales, when you put your product out there, your messaging is not always going to hit.

It's just a matter of time until it does. And so just continue to refine your approach and continue to put your product out there.

Because there is one thing that sets apart the successful entrepreneurs and it's the fact that they were tenacious. They did not give up. And so that would be my piece of advice that I need to be reminded of too.

I think we all need to be reminded of that. Oh, thank you so much, Andee. I absolutely love this. Thank you so, so much for all you've shared.

I'm gonna have all the links in the show notes so people can come and find both your candle brand and your consultancy as well. And thank you again so much.

Thanks for having me, Vicki. It was a pleasure.

You're welcome. Thank you so much for listening. Right to the end of this episode.

Do remember that you can get the full back catalogue and lots of of free resources on my website, vickyweinberg.com Please do remember to rate and review this episode if you've enjoyed it and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful. Thank you again and see you next week.