Episode Transcript
Nina Huchthausen (00:02.488)
Hello and welcome everyone to this week's episode of the Makers Business Tribe podcast. Now, my name is Nina. I am the founder of the Makers Business Tribe. I'm a mum of now three year old crazy town toddler at the multiple product businesses and also help a few companies go public. And now I'm dedicating my time in helping impact driven, health conscious, product based businesses.
meaning companies that do good for the planet, that have a good heart, that come from a good place and want to leave the planet ultimately better than they found it, to help get their products to the masses and their business off the ground and to a stage where we can actually really enjoy life. And we are not just tied to our creation. We're not just tied to time. We're not just tied to having to show up and do the work and
push and pull and hustle, but to ultimately create a business as a living and breathing thing that is not a newborn stage, meaning need constant time and attention and all of our energy and all of our capacity in order to stay alive, but ultimately maybe more like an adult, you know?
someone that you like a baby that has grown up that can stand on their own two feet and that might need direction and advice here and there but it can live on its own. It's an ultimate independent entity. So because
Why did we ultimately decide we don't want to work for anyone anymore? Probably big one is I want to be my own boss. I want to determine when I work, when I don't work. And I also want to make more of an impact. I want to make more of a difference and not just pushing a pen from left to right and doing things that I don't see value. And I ultimately want to create value. And I want to create something. I want to give something to people.
Nina Huchthausen (02:16.638)
And I also want to live a lifestyle that reflects that, that reflects my success, that reflects what I'm doing. And it shouldn't just be through working more and harder, but it should be working through, it should be through working on the right things at the right time that give us the ultimate result. Now, what is the topic of today, Nina? Am I getting to the point? Yes, because the point really is
dissecting and understanding, really honing in on no more just working harder and more. But how do we get to that stage of the business being able to run by itself? I think this is a core question. This is a core thing that we constantly talk about in the tribe. I want in today's topic that is all around why
chasing once off sales won't get you anywhere, and why once off sales are never the solution to growth in your business and what you can do instead, meaning building leverage, which is the core thing of what we're teaching all of our Tile members, building leverage in your business. So let's break that apart, OK? Because I want to talk through what it actually is, why it matters, and how you can get started.
is ultimately whether you are at day one of your business journey or you're already a few years in, you will hit a freaking roadblock if you do not understand the concept of leverage. And if you do not apply it in your business at some point, you will feel stretched so thin, you will realize you've got no time.
and at the same time hitting a frickin' glass ceiling that is very, very hard to get through. All right? So let's delve in, have some fun and make sure that you guys are coming out the other end feeling, my gosh, I can build a business and that business is actually paying me and I can be the boss of my business versus the business just pulling me along and doing all sorts with me. Okay? So first thing, let's have a look at
Nina Huchthausen (04:42.178)
ones of sales. What do we classify as ones off? Now, when we go to a market or to an event, which by the way, a very, very addictive thing to do because when you go there for like an afternoon and evening or a couple days, you can make a lot of money really fast. And that gets a lot of people hooked and be like, I'm just going to do these big events. Yes. But number one, we
markets or events. It needs you to show up to run that thing. You will never be able to show up and make money unless, of course, you're hiring some really skilled people that can go there and sell for you. Yeah. But that means a fairly big clip of the ticket. But you still have to book the markets. You have to prepare for it. You to show up. You take the risk that you've hired someone and then it rains or like your customers don't show up.
You still have to pay them. And then there's the pack down, the reordering. That whole process, most of the time, takes a fair bit more time than just being at that market. It often means evenings, evenings, weekends, which if you've got family, I do not want to pull myself away from my precious family time every weekend to shop.
Yeah, it might also mean travel, and then it might mean five, seven days on the road or something like this. But ultimately, it is much more in the once-off category because the customers that come, they buy from you, and they buy from you once. But very low chance that they keep coming back and keep buying, keep buying, keep buying, maybe a few. Yeah. But you have to keep showing up. And if you are not there,
If you're not showing up, there is no money coming on. The second thing is ads. You actually spend a fair bit of your time on creating ads, building ads, running them, analyzing them. It's no joke. Like anyone, like me included, I use ads at times. And if I'm not.
Nina Huchthausen (07:05.27)
behind that. If I'm not checking this 24 seven, if I'm not being creative, I'm not doing all the things, these ads are not going to run and they just drain your bank account like crazy. Plus also, they only work, they only drive sales. Again, same with markets when you run them. They do not drive sales when you don't run them. So once off, okay. And you constantly have to put money in, in the hopes of money coming out.
there's not much certainty. Probably with market and events a little bit more certainty. whether it's crap, the organizers are unorganized, they put you in a shitty spot. Not much certainty.
Once off, OK? So if you were to build your business on doing events once or twice a week and running ads to drive traffic to your website, if you want to go on holidays and you can't watch the ads and you switch them off unless you just want to fly blind and not know what's happening, if you can't go to markets and events, there's $0 coming into your business, OK?
The same applies if your kids get sick, if you need to look after your loved ones, or you just feel burned out and you can't work. There is no, there's no, there's nothing, there's no after flow coming in. Okay. You haven't charged any type of battery magically in your business.
The last thing is social media and newsletters. Same, same. Unless you keep putting, unless you keep growing your audience like crazy, growing like crazy, growing like crazy, posting 100 times on social media each day, the posts are there for a few moments. Then they're gone. So again, unless you have done a whole heap up front.
Nina Huchthausen (09:07.822)
and then it keeps posting, or you have someone who's really good at building out your socials and help yourself through that, it stops when you don't put anything in. That's the fact of the matter. You have to keep feeding that machine for it to spit something out. So very, very difficult. And it doesn't really foster or nurture for people to keep coming back.
Nina Huchthausen (09:39.564)
So key question, I just invite you to think about that. Is this how you've built your business? Because certainly you're creating sales, right? And some people are crushing it at markets. We had a client last year who went to a three-day event in Tasmania, and they made like 16 grand in three days. That sounds insane, right, for like a product that sits between $60 and $100.
But can they build their business on that? Certainly not, because that event only happens once a year. It also meant they were on the road for three weeks to travel all the way down. Then they combined it with a whole bunch of other markets and events. They were there. It took a lot of energy, a lot of capacity, and they could only do that because their kids were grown up. Yeah. So it's really not making 16 grand in three days, but 16 grand in three weeks.
puts things into perspective. And they were also very lucky with the weather and very lucky with economic conditions down there. The people had money to spend. So and it required them to be there.
Now, if you are only building your business like that, then that is super cool. However, you need to understand if you are not there or if your people are not there, your business stops. If you don't have the capital or if something goes wrong with your ads, money goes out the door and the business stops. And if you want to scale
your business, meaning taking it from 10K revenue each month to 20K. Guess what you need to do? You have to do more. More markets, more events, meaning more travel, more time away from family, more money that you somehow need to carve out to pump into ads, more creatives, more testing, more risk, because it could also go wrong.
Nina Huchthausen (11:56.3)
More social media, more newsletters. It's all about if you want more, you need to input more. That is the key challenge with those distribution channels, if those are the only ones that you have at your disposal. Are they all bad? No, absolutely not. They all have their merits. But these ones have pretty big limitations and risks based on how you want to look like.
Now for me, I'm a mom, I'm a partner. I love my hobbies. I also want to see my friends. I need my sleep on to do my exercise. And I also want to make money and I want to live a certain lifestyle. I want to be rewarded for my efforts and I want to make a big impact. Yeah. So if I was to build my business on the, on my, on a one-stop strategy and on
Literally me having to do more and more and more and more. If I want to do more and more and more dollars, that's not going to work out for me. Yeah. I'm not going to have a child. I'm not going to have a partner anymore. If I was to do that, even though I'm very much type A, I can do many things and I can work crazy long hours. I could make it happen, but at what cost? And for certain, and I've seen it with myself when I choose to do that.
course I have to, something has to give. Friendships, exercise, me time, couple time, time with my kids, all of that has to give. Because all I'm doing is putting more time, more energy, more investment into my business. I want that. OK, I don't want that. I'm not here to just look outside my office window and see the ocean in the distance. I actually want to jump in it. I want to have fun.
What is the other side of the coin to implement in our business as well? Yeah. So don't stop everything that you do and do the other thing. Implement this too. And that is called leverage, a leveraged growth strategy. And what you want to really think about is the idea of leveraging something, meaning increasing the return on investment of that thing.
Nina Huchthausen (14:22.826)
and ultimately also leveraging in its way so that like a battery, once it's charged, it can keep running by itself without you having to input something. So building leverage in your business allows you to source from and it means it will keep going without you having to keep feeding it, to keep pushing it.
to keep hustling for it, to keep doing more. You could be doing the same thing on even nothing for a while, and your business keeps running, and your sales will keep coming in. That's true leverage. Now, what does that mean? So there are three things that you want to be thinking about when it comes to building leverage in your business. First question is, how can I reach
way more customers or with what method can I reach way more customers than I'm currently reaching? Because the more customers we reach, the more we can sell. because the more demand there is. Second question, how can I sell much larger quantities than what I'm currently doing? Because if I'm selling direct to a customer, they can only buy so much from me, you know.
Like how much shampoo, how many necklaces, how many supplements, how many protein bars, how many can I possibly need one single person? And also, of course, it depends on how long does it take me to actually use it. So we want to think about, we want to find and look at ways to sell much larger quantities.
And this is the most important thing, the most important layer, yeah, is how can I get recurrence in my business so that I'm not selling once all, one time, because it doesn't help me if I reach a million customers on one day and sell a million product once, because there's still no recurrence. There's still no
Nina Huchthausen (16:48.372)
No battery that's being charged. We need recurrence and consistency because we know that every 30 days or every 60 days, there's recurring sales coming in from someone that reaches large audiences and buys in volume from me. I can totally start stepping away because the orders will keep coming in.
And what does it do for me? Well, first of all, apart from me being able to step out and things will keep going, for me personally, I like the security. I like the safety of knowing, OK, these things will keep coming in, which is fantastic. But so and the peace of mind. Ultimately, it allows me, rather than doing more, is also taking a break.
once I've established leverage.
So how can you build leverage in your business? What are your options to reach more customers, larger quantities, and create recurrence and consistency in your business? So you can step out when you want to. You can go on holidays when you want to. And you have out of complete peace of mind that your business keeps running, and it's not going to fall apart. No stopping.
Right this way.
Nina Huchthausen (18:25.954)
The first distribution channel that you could tap into to do that is partnerships. So finding brands that sell to your audience but in a different category that have a large following, that ticks the first box. How can I reach more customers?
to partner with them. Now, if they have really large audiences as a partner, they will also order larger quantities because they have demand for your product if it's your audience and if your product and their product are comparable or building upon each other or products that are most likely being used together.
and if that partner has the ability to sell your product. And if the product sells, you will get recurrency and consistency.
Nina Huchthausen (19:40.11)
Yeah. So let's play that through. And here's an example. If you're an unknown brand right now, or you are like a 7K, 10K, 15, 20K, but you're like, fuck, I got no leverage here. Let's say you sell sunscreen. OK? Here's what I would do. I would probably very simply spend an hour on the internet and literally ask.
chat GPT, and I jump on Amazon, and any other marketplaces, any other smart AI tool that you can find and say, which products are frequently used with my product? Which brands can you recommend that sell at a similar price point to X audience? Now, really define your audience to make that super clear. Let's see what everyone comes back with. That will give you a really nice list of companies that you could approach.
and be like, hey, I got sunscreen. You might call up Coco Cabana. Yeah, the cool cabanas, not Coco Cabana, the cool cabanas on the beach. Be like, hey, guys, you guys are selling cabanas. I got the most amazing sunscreen. It has this, it's this. You can eat it. It's toxin free. All of the good stuff. We are on the same mission.
Like your quality and value standards are through the roof, same on mine. Do we want to see if we can create a win-win partnership? Because your key challenge is, cool Kaban people, that number one, how many Kabanas can Nina buy? Probably maybe one or two in what, 10 years, five years? Yeah. So you need to keep acquiring new customers if you only sell Kabanas.
Yeah. And number two, you can't.
Nina Huchthausen (21:47.831)
So if I was to reach out to a cool cabana, the cabana's on the beach.
because I have, so I got a sunscreen, they sell Cabanas, right? Nice opportunity for me to see, can I piggyback on Cor Cabanas following, on Cor Cabanas audience for them to stock my sunscreen? Now, of course, we're gonna need to pitch the product. We need to show them how we can create a win-win partnership. We need to show them the margin opportunity and we need to very much show them.
What opportunity can that create or what leverage opportunity in their business? As an example, and I'm not going to go through so much into how to pitch a product here, but
The challenge that KUKA.BANA has is their products, they are not recurring revenue products. Because how many KUKA.BANA can I really buy? Yes, maybe now they also have mats and they have other accessories, but I buy that once. So they can't be like, yes, me Nina, I'm a KUKA.BANA customer, but I really only made two purchases and that's it. Now KUKA.BANA, all of a sudden we're starting to sell your sunscreen.
and highly recommending it that this is the perfect sunscreen, maybe they're a little pockily, it's also perfect to put your product in. Well, I might add that at checkout. And if they then keep sending me some type of code or some type of incentive, maybe I'm also going to do a subscription with Kokubana. my gosh, all of a sudden they have recurring customers, me and Ina, that will keep coming back and visiting their website. Maybe that increases the likelihood to buy another Kokubana or whatever else they sell.
Nina Huchthausen (23:36.021)
But they also will get a clip of the ticket selling your sunscreen and you get a clip of the ticket. Yeah. Of course you would sell your product at wholesale and they would sell at retail. Another thing that happens, all these people that Kukabana sells the product to, they will jump onto your website to probably to check you out because it's still your product. That way you would immediately get
more reach to customers, can sell larger quantities. And if you set up this deal correctly and nurture the relationship with the Cool Kibana team, they will keep reordering, they will create recurrence and you can create a really strong partnership there and grow your brand through them.
Nina Huchthausen (24:24.703)
That is number one. Finding these types of brands that you can create synergistic partnerships with to grow your, and ultimately it will also grow your email list. It will grow your social media following because people check you out. Okay. Let's face it. Now what you are, what you have to understand though, is that you will probably have to really take a step back when it comes to promoting your product direct on your website. If you want to have that.
take a really good shot. So there are a few limitations when comes to partnerships. The other thing is that these types of guys might not be the very best to sell your product because they're in the business of selling their own. Yeah. But ultimately, creating these types of strategic partnerships create a huge layer of leverage. And also, if you dial up your volume game,
you might be able to reduce your costs and your product because the more volume you sell, but also the exposure in itself will increase the demand because the more your product starts popping up, the more people will look you up and want to buy from you. Okay. And that will really help feed your sales much more consistently and at larger volumes. The other thing, the other way,
to create real leverage in your business is strategic brand aligned retail partners. Yeah. This is one of the key things that we teach in the tribe partnerships and retail partners, by the way, because the leverage is absolutely everything for you to stay safe. Now, how does it work with retailers? Right. So with retailers, you can't just onboard one. You need to onboard.
me. Yeah.
Nina Huchthausen (26:23.841)
But it's powerful, because with every single retailer that takes your product on and stocks it, here's what happens. Here's what happens. So number one, if you put your product into their shelves, hundreds of people will see it every day. So you will reach a lot of people. If they are selling, if they are core customer base, and you're core customers, if that's the same.
and they have 100, 200 customers that are ideal customer clients for you walking into their shop, they will sell a whole bunch of your products. So meaning you sell to one person, you nurture one relationship, you spend maybe 30 minutes to an hour each month checking in, and they might be placing easily 1,000 plus dollar orders with you. That's leverage.
because you can never achieve those types of numbers if you are selling at markets or events, no matter how hard you hustle. Yeah. And the recurring part comes in by your customers buying from that stockist, their shelves get low, and the retailer places another order, another order, another order. And that ultimately means, let's imagine they place
an $800 order each month, 800 times 12.
That's big, right? That's big order volume. And you might spend maybe two hours to bring them on board, and then a few more hours, and then an hour maybe each month to nurture that relationship. That type of money is not even a lawyer's making that, just putting that out there. The other thing that happens
Nina Huchthausen (28:24.309)
The more me as a customer see your product popping up in different shelves, the more I will start thinking about that product and start taking note. It's kind of similar if you really pump money into ads, but you pay for those ads big time. And you're still competing with thousands of other brands online. If you get your product into shelves, you're not paying for that. Retailers are paying you to put those products in there.
And retailers are then on selling your product for you. But they give you the free shelf space, which means I will take note. It's much more likely for me, once I have a need, say, for your insomnia tablets, what else won't you kind of come up with? Or your ice cream, yeah? That I will buy that, that I will go in store, or that I look it up online.
which for me personally, I do this all the time. I see a new product. I'm like, I'm to take a photo. Then I go home. Then I get in the evening, going to Google it. I'm going to have a look it up. And I start following on social media. They got my following because I saw the product in store, not because I got served an ad, because I saw it. And under my own decision making, I decided I will look that one up. Third thing that happens, well, if I go to
a premium store where I trust the store owner, spoken to the staff, and I feel like they clout. Immediately, I will see your product as a good product because I would highly assume that stock was not drunk when they had the sales conversation with you and they vetted the product.
On the internet, I will never assume that no matter how good your website looks, because anyone can build a good looking website has nothing to do with how good the product is.
Nina Huchthausen (30:27.519)
And then, of course, when a sales staff member approaches me and I have trouble sleeping and they pull out this product and recommend it to me, what are the chances I'm saying no? What are the chances I'm saying no? Super likely. So that ultimately means that conversion rate in a retail store, you're probably talking if someone recommends a product,
I think the latest stats I've read said about 70%. That's huge. Online sales conversion, think Shopify says if your conversion rate is 3%, you're killing it. You're within the top 20%. Also, when you approach a retailer, everyone our tribe did set about 30 % conversion rate, selling one to many.
Nina Huchthausen (31:23.679)
The more you keep onboarding stockists, the more advertising you do for free. And the more you get exposure, the more you reach customers, but through them, through them showing up, through them selling, not through you. You might place the product in their shelves, but then you go home. Then you can spend time with your babies. The product is out there.
and you will leverage the staff to sell for you. Once the stock goes down, you're literally leveraging the retailer's stock management systems to alert the retailer to say, you need to place another order, or manually, staff will see it and place another order because they want consistency of stock in their store. Have you ever seen a retailer that constantly changes stock? Does not work for any retailer.
So they want to always have a core range that sells because customers are coming back for that, meaning you get re-ordering. And if you're then making sure that you're nurturing those relationships, they will be very, very consistent. And through that, my friends, literally, you could just have 10 stockers that keep ordering from you. Those 10 stockers place $1,000 orders to 10 relationships.
and you might be making 10 grand every single month. Where else would you be able to do that? Whilst at the same time, because they sell retail, you sell online. There's little jeopardizing. And over time, will keep growing your email list. You will keep growing your social media. You will keep growing people buying from you online, because customers organically check you out once they do.
And that, my friends, that is real leverage. Now, of course, we can go further in terms of leverage by, instead of you doing everything manual, but you also want to include the right systems and tools in your business, right? Where you spend two minutes of your time and it does 30 minutes of your work.
Nina Huchthausen (33:47.701)
We have lots of different ways and of course, through the means of AI to leverage more things. But the powerful thing and the unique thing is with partnerships and especially retail is that those sales keep coming in recurrently and consistently.
Nobody else can give you.
sales and recurring sales?
when you stop working, when you decide to go on holidays.
So in conclusion, guys, ladies, gentlemen, what I invite you to do is see how much leverage have you built in your business? How much time can you spend away from it without it stopping? And with it actually keep going, keep paying you. And if that's low, if that feels dangerous, if you can't even think about not going to that market or
Nina Huchthausen (34:58.591)
you're already dreading what's going to happen when you go on holidays because you said yes to your partner, but really you should just be working, then maybe it's time to see, how can you build strategic partnerships either with retailers or align brands to create revenue consistency and recurrence to tap into way more customers than you can and to sell larger quantities.
but recurrent and consistent. Because through that level of leverage, that's when you can start stepping out. Now, I think it was just last, yeah, now it's 4th of March. Four days ago, one of my clients, Julie and Chris from Kano Oil, they went on holidays, I think, for two and a half weeks in February. Their sales, by then, I think they spent a week and a half, they were saying to me.
They made about 25 grand for a week and a half of work.
How did they do that? Because last year, for the last 12 months, they've been very consistent to build leverage in their business through approaching retailers, getting their product stock. Because those sites, they didn't go on holidays. They kept working. They kept doing their thing. And that didn't just feed retail orders, but also online orders massively, because it's just a byproduct.
So yeah, my friends, if you don't want to spend every weekend for all your money, if you don't want to hustle harder, and if that sounds really draining, and if you're like, dude, I need to build some leverage, then I would highly recommend getting onto that. OK? Now, if you want to take it further and you're like, how the do I do this? Nina, you've talked me into it. I am running a workshop.
Nina Huchthausen (37:02.479)
On the next one is 10th of March, and then there's probably coming up in April to show you this, to talk you through exactly step by step how you can build leverage in your business and what your exact strategy could be so that you can start implementing it. And we also got a book. Check it out. I put the links in the show notes. Or if you're already ready to pitch your product, get out there.
Identify the top 30 retailers you want to get into, have conversations with them. Don't hide behind emails. You want to call them, you want to talk to them, you want to explain to them, how can I create a win-win partnership with you so they can see, my gosh, I need your product in your business, in my business. Because stock is always in the business of buying and selling products. So they are open to these types of conversations. But you got to get to your toolkit right. You can only pitch to them once.
make sure you're prepped. If you want to know how to get prepped, reach out to me. If you're golden, start reaching out. You are putting money into your leverage bank and ultimately for you to be able to go on holidays and chill out and enjoy life. Do your thing. Spend time, present time with your babies. Okay? Have an awesome day, guys. See you next week.
