Episode Transcript
Nina Huchthausen (00:05.486)
All right, welcome everyone to the Makers Business Tribe podcast. My name is Nina. I'm the founder of the Makers Business Tribe. And normally I'm the host of this podcast for you. But today we're gonna flip the pancake. We're gonna change the rules because for those who may not have seen it, so I have written a book and in that book I am...
really very much encapsulating all of the pitfalls that myself and our tribe surges went through, as well as all of the tools that we are now using with our tribe members and for ourselves in order to get product businesses off the ground and into a healthy, profitable state in which you can scale and grow to six, seven, eight figures, whatever you would like.
And I want to talk about this book. I want to explain why I want to talk about the how, how it all went and the process that I went through and how many times I wanted to give up because finding a book is really hard. Can you believe it? So that's why I brought Georgie, our type strategist and founder of Mindful Foods onto the podcast today. So she can be the host and I can be the talker. I can be the storyteller.
and to be able to share with you what all of this was like. So without further ado, I'm going to hand over to Georgie because otherwise I'm hosting and that's not the plan. So Georgie, welcome. Thank you so much. Leena. And over to you. I am going back, okay? An honor to be the interviewer. Amazing.
I mean, your book is such an incredible resource for product-based business owners. So, but what inspired you to write the Wholesale Success Blueprint and who do you hope will benefit from it most? Well, okay. So first of all,
Nina Huchthausen (02:19.214)
151 pages, right? It's pretty crazy because I didn't think that we had so much to say and so many toolkits. really the reason why I was kind of thinking, hey, I want to encapsulate everything that we are doing in the tribe in a book is because I wanted to make our formula more accessible, right? Because
I mean, there are so many incredible humans out there that keep dreaming about getting a product to life, getting it into market, that have some brilliant ideas and are maybe stuck at selling it at market. And they're kind of thinking about, how could I make this bigger? How can I turn my side hustle into a full-time income? How can I?
how can I get this product to more people than just doing what I'm doing? And they don't have a formula. They don't have a plan. They don't have a path. And yes, of course, you could just be sitting there Googling it all day and then just like trying to figure it out and tip your toes into building a website and trying to grow your social media presence and, you know, doing all sorts of things. And at some point,
I'm sure you will find your path. But how about if we fast track that? And I mean, ultimately, we're doing that on a one-on-one basis inside the tribe. But not everybody has the funds to do that, to work with someone one-on-one and get them guided through, number one. That's just the reality. And number two, why not when you are at the stage of creation or you are ideating or you
You know, you might not even be ready to read about it and learn about it and get a better understanding. And most of all, get an understanding, man, this isn't that scary and complicated as it might seem when you just think about, okay, I'm selling, say, 50 products a week to selling thousands of products a week. You know, so it's like, well, let's write this down.
Nina Huchthausen (04:48.12)
Because we have mastered this process and why not give it to everyone who wants to learn it so they can actually follow it and you can do it yourself. And how I've written the book is that it's how we like to operate in the tribe, like step by step, hand holding. So that you can literally use it as your Bible. OK.
What is my next step? What is my next step? Okay, I follow that next step because when we break down a big Everest into just really small chunks so that like a little mouse can eat it, can eat that little tiny bit of cheese chunk and doesn't have to bite through and mount every size cheese, then life gets easy. that's also kind of like my ideas behind it. And I had this,
this dreamy idea that I was like, man, we have all the content. So I'm sure I can just like easily pull it together and then it turns into a book. Yeah. Bigger project than you imagined. Yeah. Always is. is. Yeah, I noticed even
when I joined the tribe with you, Nina, one of the first things I noticed was how structured and organized you were. And coming from running Mindful Foods for eight years, I was like, wow, this is even more structured than we had it. And it was a challenge at first, but my goodness, I wish I had that structure when I ran my business, because in many ways, we winged it. And structure develops, but not in the way
not really in a tangible way. We developed our own processes, but I feel that where our business lacks was to have everything documented. There's a format, there's a process. And so anyone who comes on board could then just follow that. And now that I'm part of the tribe and delivering this content to our clients, it's like, wow, how did I get by without this? So I really, yeah. Hats off. Hats off to...
Nina Huchthausen (07:08.76)
to creating this. I'm impressed. Yeah, but it was honestly, I would say the last few months pulling this together, I was like, I was sometimes checking myself in the mirror to be like, I hope I'm not getting gray hair because, because creating content that we guide someone through life.
or one-on-one is very different to kind of like see how can this all tie together in a book, right? And what is even like the chapter structure? What is the storytelling part? What are the stories that we are pulling in? And how do we make it interesting and fun? Because really, you know, I think if you are not careful, it can feel quite cut and dry.
talking about, how do you launch and grow a product? And specifically, we are all about using retail first, because I believe it's just a much easier and faster way to generate cash flow. yeah, completely underestimated it. And maybe I can write a book at some point as to how to not write your first book. But there are the experts out there that are probably much better at this.
Yeah, yeah, I feel like this is a very awesome first pass and I really hope a lot of people get to read it and get their hands on to it. To actually experience, my gosh, I think 11 chapters and you can take your business pretty far. Yeah, well done. Well, I noticed in the
prologue that you mentioned, building a reliable retail channel transformed your career. Can you share a little bit about that journey and how it shaped the advice in this book?
Nina Huchthausen (09:17.422)
Can you just say this again in your words? this, sorry, really weird. It sounded really weird. Yeah, maybe not even say in the prologue. just like. OK, sure, sure, So you mentioned that building a reliable retail channel transformed your career. Can you share a little bit about that journey, and how it shaped the advice that you've given in this book?
OK, yes, so really, why retail, right? Why retail first?
Like if you look at how many, if you just look at like Shopify stats, right? Like how many websites got built on Shopify? I think it's like 30,000 active ones. Yeah, probably a whole bunch of like inactive ones alone. And there's WooCommerce and there's Wix. They're all sorts of different sites that house products.
big competition of products on the internet. If you type into Google, insert name of your category, say chocolate, yeah, there'll be hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of chocolate products. So how do you get your products into the hands of your customers? How do you be like the number one product? Yeah. For people to not just look at and then buy something different.
but look at and being like, I'm going to buy this one. I'm going to take this one home. I'm going to drink or eat this chocolate, this one, and not the hundreds of other ones that I can see. That's pretty bloody hard to achieve on the internet. Of course it can be done. And there are thousands of e-comm only brands that are testament to it. But they didn't do that overnight.
Nina Huchthausen (11:29.474)
They, number one, had a pretty long runway. They had a solid marketing budget. They had the skills and expertise in the e-comm space already to know exactly what they needed to build, how they needed to build their website, which is the online shop, how to set up the email marketing, how to build the email list.
how to capture customers, how to then communicate and engage with them, how to build all of their organic channels and engage with them and build out their audience for organic marketing, and also how to run ads. None of this is just something that some skill that you can pick up overnight. And none of this is cheap or for free. It takes a lot of time, effort, skill, and
money. If you do have that, that's perfect. That's the perfect start of any business venture. But most of us, and I know you didn't have it, Georgie, and I didn't have it either. And probably 90 % of people out there don't have that either. They don't have all of those skills, and they don't have amount of incredible amounts of funds to spend on all of this.
So how do you do it then? Maybe then you spend a few years of building up your presence to break through. That's awesome. But who has that time? And want to run marathon after marathon in order for you to kind of like get across the.
you know, a few hundreds of dollars a month into the thousands into the 10,000. So you can actually turn this into something that pays you an income. And that for me, when you look at retail channel is ticks all those boxes. Yeah. So it's in such a great way to start your business journey.
Nina Huchthausen (13:51.414)
not to end the business journey, but it's an absolute incredible channel to start it, to get your product from market stall size, yeah, or tinkering, creating it to turning this business into a full-time income and breakthrough and getting your product into the hands of customers and for customers to take it home. Yeah. Because what do you really need? Yeah.
Well, number one, of course, you need to have an amazing product, but across all channels, if your product is not good, that's really hard to break through. But then number two, you need to get your branding done in a way that it really deeply resonates with your audience. And you need to get super clear on who your audience is. But that's by default.
wherever you want to sell your product, you need to figure that out. That is the absolute baseline that no matter what, whether you're selling online or retail, that's what you need. But let's say you have that. The product looks shit hot. Yeah. And you know who you are selling to. Then the next thing that you need is just an ability to be able to pitch this product to a retailer.
Right. So that is a couple scripts, right, for you to be able to make that the initial introduction and then the full conversation to lead a retailer from not knowing about your product to saying yes. probably might want to put together a nice looking wholesale catalog that you can get set up on Canva and print it, you know, for a couple hundred dollars. If that
And you need a telephone and maybe a car to drive and visit a few stockists. Right. That's all really. So the funds that you need in order to have conversations with retailers, to get them to say yes is very small. And the key tools that you need in order to get started, in order to pitch, we've just seen it with
Nina Huchthausen (16:18.965)
One of our clients, Sarah, she smashed through this in two weeks. She's picking, she's selling. She gets like $500 to $700 orders in for chocolate. Amazing. You have to do a lot of ground work to do that on the internet and spend a lot of time on it. But for retail, you don't.
You know, and then you can keep building out, then you can build out your sales training, your point of sale material, your different key elements for your stock is to help them sell. But the biggest thing to actually get in and start to making some some really nice bulk order sales, you can get done in a couple weeks. And then you don't even have to do this full time, you can, you know, start with two days a week. Yeah. And see how that goes.
And in terms of technology, what do you need in terms of technology? Well, you need a phone, need internet, need a Canva account. But do you need a website really? No, you don't. Do you need a big social media following? No, you don't. Do you need to know how to do email marketing? No, you don't. Yeah, can come with time. Exactly. can come with time. Everything can come with time. And that means
Okay, if I only have like a couple grand to invest into my business, I could actually get this off the ground with that, get some retail orders in, orders from retailers, what normally we call wholesale orders, orders from retailers, get that product into shelves, and then the retailer can help you sell that product and can get it to the masses so you don't have to do it, keep doing it at markets.
Yeah, I'm feeling you know, because that's, that's what kills you. And then you can use that profit and invest it into either your own studies for to do online marketing, or you can hire someone to do this for you. And then the other thing that is just so incredible to watch with with with our clients,
Nina Huchthausen (18:43.573)
is when people buy your product in store, they will start looking you up online. Exactly. You know? So you are actually, you can actually also see your, your, your, your re your like positioning your product in retail as I, as, marketing, because you're positioning your product somewhere where people cannot escape from your product.
Yeah, they can see it. They can smell it. They can touch it. They can taste it. You can't do that on the internet. but then, you know, this is what I do all the time when I see a new product and I'm like, you know, I don't need any new toothpaste. Let me take a photo. Let's see what they do online. Let's see what the ingredients are. Maybe a bite later. Yeah. but then I'm number one and in the scroll of my, my, my camera feed. Yeah.
And then I might check you out online. And if you've then over time have email marketing going captures people's email addresses, then you can start talking to them online, but you don't have to do the hard yards off the bat online. And I feel like that's.
That's just something that a lot of people overlook and that doesn't get talked about enough. When people talk about you want to sell your product, go e-comm. For me, absolutely. That should be the end goal because that's where you can sell your product globally. And you don't have the...
the border restrictions so much and it's a lot easier to send small parcels to the UK than a whole pallet. But to get to that stage,
Nina Huchthausen (20:39.565)
I'd rather do it in small steps in the easy route than trying to compete with thousands of brands off the bat online and mastering a million things. Yeah. Yeah. It's also great feedback, isn't it, when you're having that interaction with the retailers? You you're still developing your pitch, you're still developing who your customers, finding out who they are. you know,
like you said, that that face to face interaction with the retailer at the beginning is so it's so valuable for your business, for the growth. Because if you if you think you know your customer and then you're going to speak to retailers and you've actually you've you've got it a bit off your product, they go, actually, this would really suit X, Y and Z customer, you're still able to change and you're agile at that smaller stage of your business to maneuver.
You know, so it's a real testing ground. The retail space and. you can actually talk to the retailer, right? Because what happens online? Nobody buys your product. You've got no one to talk to. You don't know what's going on. Exactly. And it can create a lot of doubt. Yes, a lot of doubt really quickly, because yes, of course.
you can stay level-headed and say, let me analyze the data. Let me see where the drop-offs are on my social media, on my website, on this and on that. But number one, you need to know how to do that. And number two, you need to keep telling yourself, I can figure this out. But there's a lot more tinkering and tapping in the dark than if you just talk to stockists and say, why do you think people are not buying my product? Yeah. You know?
And if they can, like, because they deal with customers all day long and they can tell you straight up, well, because you have $15 more expensive than anything else that we sell. You're like, okay. Or you look exactly the same, like this popular brand. And when people see you, they don't even know the difference. But they're like, but I go with the one that I already know. shit, yeah.
Nina Huchthausen (22:58.477)
I probably took too much inspiration of that brand that I love so much as well. That inspired me to do my soaps. But now my soaps look like their soaps, so maybe I need to differentiate. But how would you know that on the internet? Because nobody tells you, you you can't, you always have to make a lot of assumptions. I would say that's probably why.
show many brands either never take that step or fail because you just don't have that level of feedback that you can get in retail first as your testing ground and as your way of making a decent amount of money to then have a much more organic way and response of like how we now all work is
starting to sell your product online because I've bought it offline and I want to see do I get a better deal? Maybe they have more in their range than they're selling in the store. Maybe I'm just lazy and I now just want my hot chocolate at my doorstep when I wake up on a Saturday morning and I don't want to leave the house anymore. No? Yeah. OK, so getting into retail, mean, in your book, you have a lot of advice.
One of them is about building a heartfelt pitch, right? So what's this about? Because if you want to get into that retail space, you need to win the hearts of the retailers. What would you say is your number one tip for creating and crafting a pitch that really stands out to set you apart from the rest? I think it's all about the story behind the brand. Yeah.
With, I don't know, I would really have to think hard of like what crazy product you could bring out that nobody else has brought out and a stockist would just get and said yes to, you know, most products already been done. So what can you come up with that will help a stockist
Nina Huchthausen (25:23.446)
or a retailer connect with your brand, with your story, with your ethos, with your identity in an emotional way for people to be like, wow, like this really feels unique and different. Yeah. And that isn't just done by saying, hey, I got a hot chocolate. Look, my hot chocolate packet is red. You got green. I'm sure you want a red one.
next to your green one. mean, Christmas is coming. Christmas is coming. It's like, my gosh, my gosh, I'm sorted. That's a hell of a pitch. And yes, you convinced me that me as a retailer need to have it in my shelves and my customers need to have it in their lives, you know? Because if you step back and really think about why do people buy anything?
Yeah. We're not just buying it for superficial reasons. There's always a deeper connection within us. And that connection could either be because we have a big challenge right now, health-wise, time-wise, convenience-wise, something or a lack or a pain that somehow we need to address. So we are out there because there's some fires burning, right?
Or we have a want. We want something. We're like, man, I wished I had more of this. I wished I had that. It's something, something, No? So that is a very important part to get clear of, to not just say, cool, I got another hot chocolate. And of course, it's hot and it's chocolate. And that's it. But actually really being able to identify, what?
What is the deeper thing behind the hot chocolate? What problem is it solving for me? What is it creating for me? How is it helping me? What is it? What is the pure magic behind the product behind it just being hot and chocolate? And I think the more you can identify that and articulate it as to how your product is, is, is has a story.
Nina Huchthausen (27:51.362)
and has something much deeper to give to the customer, the more a retailer will resonate with it because
Nina Huchthausen (28:04.097)
A customer comes into a store and very rarely says, I need something hot and chocolatey in my life. But, you know, they're probably much more coming in and say, man, I like I need to get off caffeine. Yeah. My doctor told me this, you know, I got heart populations at 11am or like, you know, my teeth just keep getting stained or
I can't focus or something. I got a problem. I got a problem. maybe for health reasons, I am looking for something. I need something. I want something. That's how customers come into store. Well, if you pitch your product as to being that and telling the story, the unique way as to how this product solves this.
And not just saying, I'm an alternative to caffeine, but actually saying, well, look, this product, number one, feels and tastes and gives me the same type of brain chemicals, the feel-good feeling, yeah, that caffeine does. But also provides me with the nourishment for my nervous system to settle down.
and support me to actually be a calm and collected Buddha versus the chicken without a head that just keeps bouncing about and can't focus. Then that becomes a lot more attractive to a stockist because they're like, man, OK, I can see how this can actually solve someone's pain. Yeah. Yeah. And help them become a better human. Help them get off that medication. Help them.
Stop some craving, help them something.
Nina Huchthausen (30:10.511)
Yeah, I mean, you've used quite a few examples of the entrepreneurs who are part of the tribe in your book, for example, like Sonia from Brava Gazpacho. But which story would you say in your book resonates with you the most and why would that be?
Nina Huchthausen (30:31.759)
I think one of my favorite stories that I love telling is actually, well, I love Sonia's story too, but the one that connects with me the most is because it's closest to my heart and that's from Paige from Silk Nest. So Paige makes beautiful organic mulberry silk scrunchies. scrunchies. Okay, cool.
You could just see that as a simple accessory. I don't have it in my hair right now, but I have a scrunchie in there that you can compost. And I like that too. But really,
Nina Huchthausen (31:16.016)
When we first started working together, of course she had, she had a bit of a hard time to clearly articulate to a stockist why they short stock her scrunchies because she just saw them. Or in her words, she would just talk about, well, they're beautiful. They're beautiful and soft. Yeah. But when we started digging deeper as to, how did it start? Like, why did you at some point decide you're going to do Mulberry silk scrunchies?
And when we did a little bit of soul searching, she shared with me, well, that it all started for her because she went through a lot of pain. She had two sons quite close to each other, and it took an incredible toll on her body. And at that time, she didn't know how to really support her body to heal and to replenish.
So her hair started falling out, yeah, in big chunks. And she got like all these little frizzles. like, you know, it's probably any mom knows like how sleep deprived you are. And like your skin doesn't really look that great either when you're operating a couple hours sleep. Yeah. There was a lot of hair loss for her. It really meant that she like, she really felt like.
a person that looks very ugly and that shouldn't leave the house. know, so emotionally that took a very big toll on her and she was like, I don't, I don't know what, like how to support myself here. Yeah. And so in her own home, she, you know, she was just looking for something to just look and feel a little bit better. And then she came across,
scrunchies and silk scrunchies. And at some point you found that the organic mulberry silk scrunchies is not just incredibly gentle for your hair so that when you put a scrunchie in or anything that the hair gets more strain, but it's also incredibly gentle on the hair and incredibly lightweight. So it sits there lightly. So you don't get the pressure on your hair, but with the right amount of silk, can actually, it can make
Nina Huchthausen (33:43.277)
Your eyes pop, your skin looks a lot brighter and fuller, and it does all these incredible things. You put it in that you just feel more like a woman again. Yeah. Because the beautiful vibrant color she's used and the big scrunchies. It's it's accessory. Exactly. It's something that makes you more woman. We have such close identity to our hair.
Right. And so when she then figured out, this is the product that I want to go with and figured out the right sizes and things. And we start working together. We were like, well, this is a story that probably a lot of hairdressers, wig makers, anyone who works in that space deeply resonates with because they see hundreds of people walking through the door.
who don't want to look at themselves because of unexpected hair loss, because of some type of pain that they're experiencing right now, maybe also because of some type of disease, right? And for them, they are looking to support their identity of feeling a little bit more me again, a little bit more like getting my spark back, getting that beauty.
out of my eyes and into me again and not just feeling like an empty shell. Yeah. Yeah. That has to hide the hair, the decreasing hairline, but actually can make this beautiful. And at the same time set up the hair for healing. Yeah. And that was the story that she is leading with, that silkness is there to give you your glow back, your magic back.
Beautiful. Yeah. And it is for women that need that need that support. That rate that that radiance at any stage of life. And she's had incredible success leading with that story to get her scrunchies into hair salons, into specialty stores that do weeks, half weeks, part of your hair, because you can, you know,
Nina Huchthausen (36:07.844)
for anyone who needs, who has cancer treatments, who for any type of reason where you, where your hair is thinning or decreasing, this is the tool. Yeah. So it's not just the scrunchie. And that story, because we're ultimately, building partnerships, right? We're building partnerships with stockists that become your biggest champions, your biggest fans.
Absolutely. They don't just become a fan because you're like, Hey, another scrunchie and you get a little bit more margin than this other scrunchie No, I connect with you because you got a story and you actually care about my customers. You care about the paints that they come in for. You care about hair as much as I do. You care about beauty. You care about bringing out their soul. Yeah.
and supporting them that little bit along the way. Wow.
Wow, thanks for sharing that. You turned a scrunchie into something that I actually connect with my heart. I feel empathy for her, feel empathy for others who have that experience and recall upon my own experience of getting my hair pulled out, my dark circles under my eyes, and what did I do? So yeah, that's a great way to develop connection and
core and a sense of like, hey, I'm not just here for business. I'm a person with a story, create a relationship. So I mean, what would you say, like that's a great way to connect with retailers, but what would you say is one of the biggest hurdles or the biggest no-nos that people do when trying to get into the retail market?
Nina Huchthausen (38:00.032)
on the other end of the scale. What causes disconnection? Well, think the story is really important to get right and to get tight. Because I just shared a little bit of a lengthy story. But you want to get that down into like a couple minutes pitch. Right? Because we don't want to talk to someone nonstop for 20 minutes and just talk about the story.
retailers are busy people, right? They're there to sell and serve their customers. So you want to get that story right and tight. So there's a little bit of an art to it. But it's also really important that you have an offer that works for the retailer. Right? So
when you reach out to any retailer or see them as your brand's champion, right? You want to understand who shops there and is that your people, right? Because if you can say with certainty, there are all these postpartum women that go to this particular hair salon owner or women with like...
long hair or like maybe an older crowd or whoever like where I can see these are my people. Yeah. You're already winning because you don't want to waste a retailer's time trying to get your product into their store if your people don't shop there. Yeah, they might super resonate with your story but if you're like but have you not seen I'm serving men.
No, I love your story. my gosh. Thank you so much for sharing your story. But I'm serving men. I cut short hair. Yeah, I grew a lot of beard here going on. You don't want to waste your time or their time. think that's in but not everyone considers this doing their research and seeing do my people shop there. Right. So that you want because you don't want to waste your time or their time.
Nina Huchthausen (40:24.62)
Number two, well, make it easy for a stockist to say yes to your product. And what I've also seen heaps is that people come and just show all of their products and maybe they have a big range. And I just want you to imagine, let's say, Paige had like 40 colors and five sizes. Yeah. Crazy amount of scrunchies. She just shared a story.
right? And maybe talked about the margin, look you get 40 % margin. my gosh, that sounds amazing. And then she was like, cool, which ones do you want? And I'm sorry, what you want me to choose from 40 colors and five sizes that each of these 40 colors come from? Let me have a think about it is probably 95 % of people's answer.
Because how the heck in your right mind do you think I'm going to choose right now? And that's where you most likely then either drag on the sale because you asked me something very impossible to do. And for yourself, I think you're doing yourself a big disservice because you've done such a great job. Maybe you found the right store and they are like super interested and excited. But then
you've handed them over a task that should be your job to make very simple and easy. Yeah, because an offer should be something that size wise fits into their store. So you don't want to offer them something if they have just a, you know, 30 centimeter space. You don't want to offer them 500 scrunchies. How the heck is that going to fit? Yeah. But also you want to make it very simple and easy when it comes to choice.
because we got too much choice in our lives. Everybody has too much choice. Yeah. Don't know anyone who's like, man, I'm got no choice. Like, no, no, have too much. We need to simplify. We need to really simplify and make like, okay, cool. So you're a small salon. You've only got 30 centimeters of space. Here's the perfect starter kit for you. Here's how it's going to work. Here the
Nina Huchthausen (42:52.72)
These are my bestseller colors. These are my bestseller sizes. Here's the stand. If you buy this whole shebang, you get a free stand or you get 50 % off with something. Yeah, if you sign right now, I can set it up for you. Nothing for you to do. Simple and easy. One choice. And then we can test and learn and then we can improve the setup together versus here's everything.
You tell me what you want. Yeah. That I think is a big no-no. But that comes from when you haven't thought through your whole sales conversation from beginning to end. Yeah. Yeah. I think if you only have one part worked out, and then when it comes to the sale, you are almost backing off, and you're like, the buying, that's your job. You let me know.
If you have any questions, you reach out to me. That's then you are getting off that horse, but you need to ride that horse to the finish line. Yeah. Yeah. You got to lead this. And so it's important to have it all work through to the end. And it's actually easier than you think you might think to do that, because if you
You don't have to get the colors of the scrunchies or the size of the scrunchies right. You just have to make a choice that fits for them and see and test and learn with the stockist to see if it works for them. Yeah. Yep. And personalize that. Yeah. Help them feel that, this is a good choice for me based on what we've spoken about.
You can have generic offers, but if you can really tailor that as well, it's like, can see that you've got this much space, or I can see that you've got these clients, then this is what I'm going to offer you. So having that preparedness by having an offer means that you know there's a structure where you can still move within that. It doesn't have to be black and white. This is the intro offer. But you've got something to work with instead of like, hey, here you go. Here's all the things. What do you want?
Nina Huchthausen (45:19.045)
Definitely that's a massive hurdle in getting across the line on the day. If we as a customer walk into a health food shop and you're like, hey, I'm having really trouble sleeping. What can you recommend? And they're like, just look at our number five. There's some products. So you now want me to look at like
20 products and read the labels and find what I want. That's not helpful. It's great. You got something. Yeah. But if you're like, okay, let me listen to you. Number one, where you are, what are you looking for? And then let me recommend something that I feel like solves this or meets your need. Much easier to make that sale. Right. And that's what it comes back to.
understanding and leaning into the stockist, seeing what they need, who shops there, how much space they have, what can really help them to dial up their sales and then respond to that and make the selection easy. And we've set that out in the book, which is actually really cool because there isn't, there aren't too many crazy things to it. You just need to do that initial setup really. Yeah.
Yeah, I recall being on the road and going to store by store, one by one. And I had this overwhelming feeling like, my gosh, I'm putting so much time into this connection and it's just one. And I had to take a deep breath and say, it's one by one. This is how I grow my business. And I felt a bit overwhelmed at the time. And I'm sure that other people feel overwhelmed by wanting to scale their business.
So in the book, what's the one chapter or piece of advice that you would recommend starting with for people who feel this sense of overwhelm? my goodness, how do I actually scale my business? Yeah. So yes, can. And I've just had another text from a client saying, how do I do this faster? Well, first of all, if you
Nina Huchthausen (47:48.049)
If you are deciding, OK, for six months, I'm going to put my focus into retail and build that out. The first thing I would say is like, yes, you will have one sale after one. It's not like Shopify, who's like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, all these small scale sales. But first question to ask, how many Shopify ding, ding, dings of individual sales do you need?
in comparison to one bulk sale from a retailer. Yeah. In Paige's example, if she sells one scrunchie at a time for $25 a pop, yeah, or she sells 30 scrunchies at a time to a stockist, there is a lot more work that she needs to do on those individual sales versus
making that one sale with the retailer and having that bulk order. So that's first of all say yes, because it can feel slow because it's like, my gosh, this week I only made five sales. Yeah, but they are big ones. Number one to consider. And the other thing is with a stockist, provided they have the customers that you are serving coming to them.
that one, that hour that you might have spent to make that one sale, that will pay off.
every month and every month because they will keep placing that order. Yeah. And you don't have to visit them every single time. You don't have to put in that much work. But if you're thinking about, cool. If I spent, let's make it pessimistic, two hours to convert to one sale, but that one sale is to make the math simple, five worth $500.
Nina Huchthausen (49:53.04)
four months, But then every four to six weeks, the same person that you just checking in with like a five minute call places a $500 order and $500 order. Right. That is, that means that two hours invested gives you six grand at the end of the year with just one stockist. Yeah. Two hours, six grand for a year. Right. So
If you scale that and you're like, okay, cool. I don't because yes, I get less dopamine hits because that's what it comes back to. Yeah. I'm chasing the quick, like small sale on Shopify and I want to keep heading those hits. Then it can feel slow in retail. But if you bring on five stock is just five each month, new ones each month. That means new stock is orders.
$2,500 each month. Yeah. But if all of these we order month by month, then in month three, you have 15 orders. In month four, you got 20 orders of $500. And that's how you scale. You scale with being really strategic and who you bring on and then taking the time
Not rushing like a crazy person to check in and nurture those stockists so they place reorders. Wow, that is so black and white. I wish I had heard that early on in my career with mindful foods. That really makes a lot of sense, you know, when you're going, this log, my gosh, another call out, like maybe you're doing 10 in a day. But if you can take that, what you've just said, wow.
actually what I'm doing is that I'm investing in my future. And this is the hardest part. Right? Because at the start, it's like visually, if you want to think about it, is you're creating a bit of a hockey stick effect. Yeah. At the start, yes, it feels like, my gosh, I'm reaching out a lot, reaching out a lot. And there's like small amounts of stockists that are coming on, but large orders. Yeah.
Nina Huchthausen (52:17.786)
B2C would have to do a lot more time investment, yeah, or online in order to achieve the same thing. But the ultimate time investment that you do at the start will just like continuously pay off into the future. And it'll mean it'll become easier and easier and easier because also the more you have your product stocked in different stores, the more people will start reaching out to you and say, me too. Yeah. Yeah. Because I've seen you.
because customers have come in and started asking for it. And then that time investment, because people see your product in retail shelves, people will start looking you up online and they will become B2C customers online, organically. So it's not just time that you're investing into retail, you're also...
You're putting your product into shelves to sell it on shelves, but also to put it there as free advertising because it doesn't cost you anything. You're making money by putting it there for people to see and to come on board online. So it's like two things that it does for you. And then to scale that further,
Because retail, you get a really good amount of cash flow in, you can then use that money and invest into a team or into someone who can help scale your business online. Yeah. Yeah. And also, the more your product gets known, the easier it will be to engage with distributors who can distribute your product for you to help you manage the amount of stockists.
or to get someone in who can then also take over the nurture of those stockists. But the loyalty of retailers is probably 100-fold higher than the loyalty of customers online. Because customers online get bombarded with hundreds of products. If you start looking for chocolate, yeah?
Nina Huchthausen (54:33.754)
how many Instagram ads will pop up for freaking chocolate? Yeah. I feel like when I was pregnant and first time I told someone, I'm pregnant. I just, I would just got bombarded with everything. Pregnancy, baby clothing. my gosh. I had so much choice. was incredible. Right. And even if I had bought from this one brand, then something, something else came up and something else and a better discount. And I would hop, hop, hop, hop. Yeah.
Because it's just like all on my fingertips. Yeah. So it's way, way harder to keep holding on to that one customer than with the retail store owner. Because once they've started building a relationship with you, and you keep delivering great service, great product, and everything set up to run, they want to stay with you. They don't want to keep holding the risk of flip flopping. Exactly. Absolutely.
So I don't know, I hope I answered your question. Yeah. Yeah. I think like retail and online, they work hand in glove and retail feeds your online. It's like, it's like if you really want to prepare yourself for solid business growth, that's how you like prepare the soil. Yeah. For a really big tree to grow and you, put,
that retail channel down first to then really support your online journey and have that baseline of consistent cash flow.
that you can keep scaling up the more you grow your channel. Awesome. Thanks, Nina. Wow. What a great resource. There was another question, though, again, that I also got today. And that was, like, feels like a really hard slog. Who can I just outsource this to? Yeah.
Nina Huchthausen (56:45.327)
Honestly, when it comes to scaling your business, that's when you want to look at everything else that you are doing and see which of these tasks are very repetitive, you haven't automated or optimized, or you can easily hand over to someone who doesn't need to know how to sell your product and hand it over to them. Because to me, you want to keep sales with the people
that are real champions of your product and of your business, and have all the skills and the authority to make, to set up big retail deals, and not hand that over to some VA. Because what in your right mind are you doing? You want to turn on and keep turning on that tap, and not just handing it over to someone who
Nina Huchthausen (57:40.452)
probably don't have the skills and you keep yourself busy with packing orders. Yeah.
Yeah, and the heartfelt story as well that you mentioned is so important comes directly from you or your experience and why you created the brand. So naturally, you've just got that passion behind it. You've got the knowledge of the ins and outs of the business. And again, you've got the authority to make decisions around the sales. Can I give this much? Am I willing to do this? Am I willing to invest more resources and time into giving this retailer what they're asking for? Yes or no?
direct at the time, you can give an answer. And I also feel like we've got confidence. The more you are able to, you're able to master that selling the more than over time you can teach and train people in selling in like two retailers, but then also using the same and similar messaging that you've been perfecting that you've gotten so much feedback on and take that online. Yeah.
But if you remove yourself from the start because like, my gosh, I'm getting busy. Let me about to step back, tries to get somebody else to sell and I keep packing orders or something else. They might not be able to achieve that. And then you are stuck because you are not driving the bus. Yeah. But you're doing something else that anyone could do. And I think that's really important when you start scaling, thinking about you need to stay in the driver's seat.
and make your sales engine amazing because that's what fuels everything else and get other people on secondary and tertiary positions to support you in growing this business.
Nina Huchthausen (59:32.945)
OK, so you've created quite a blueprint here, a step by step on how to get into retail and the importance of that. And what's the ultimate transformation that you hope that your readers will achieve from reading this book? Cool. So I think it's important to note this isn't just a guide on how to get into retail on that set, because maybe most people don't just want to get into retail on that set, right? But we're really here to like, how do we build and grow our business?
But this is the first stepping stone. Or if you are stuck in e-comm and it's not growing and you don't know why you can't break through, to use this as a channel to drive your e-comm growth. Because really, to have a wholesome, holistic way of growing your brand, want for
your product to be experienced online and offline and everywhere where your people shop and also being able to
to fuel different parts of your business. And with retail, you can achieve that fairly easily and simply without much tech, without much skill, without much knowledge, right? And you can train and practice this really fast. And that can then really enable you to build out the team around you that you need in order to take your business to real big levels.
And that for most people will be online, but how do you get there? So my big vision for this book is that as many people were trying to get their business off the ground, get their hands on it and read it and see this is this is my first step.
Nina Huchthausen (01:01:26.545)
First step to take it a whole lot bigger so that I can then use the funds and the knowledge and the expertise and the wisdom that I've gained from dealing with retailers to take that next level online and keep fueling this soil. Because I truly believe if you are nourishing your soil the right way with retail and building an awesome sales army, the more you can then make that bigger.
online because it's a dance. will go hand in glove. You know, and with every time when you launch a new product, you might want to launch it in retail first, get that feedback, refine it before you invest 10,000s of dollars into packaging into thing and then it might flop online. But get that feedback first, like test it, fail, refine with people fast feedback.
and you get it online. Awesome. Wow, Nina, thank you so much. I really look forward to reading it. I didn't actually realize it was as comprehensive as it is. I really look forward to reading more and learning more with you and the team. I'm learning so much from working with the tribe and I'm really grateful.
Well, mean, all do, right? Because it's always just to test and learn.
Look, you, me, Joel, Haley, and all of our TRIPers, we just want to leave the planet better than we found it with amazing products. And hopefully, even if it's just a handful of people who can really help achieve that through their products by following this guide and having it easier, don't give up. Freaking just don't give up.
Nina Huchthausen (01:03:31.173)
Hopefully this guide helps you to not give up and keep going and get to a place. Then I think, know, time where I have my time invested well. And I'm sure we want, you know, the we will create iterations together of this and more stuff. And, know, also the book comes with a bunch of templates to fast track you building your page, building your catalog and and
figuring out your margins and your costing and your pricing and all of the nitty-gritty that I haven't even mentioned, that will keep improving. like, yeah, let's hope we can fast track a lot of people's journeys and be able to be part of it, you know, just for a couple of dollars versus working one-on-one with us, which is a bigger price ticket. So yeah. Awesome. Let's see.
So where can listeners find this book? Where can we purchase this? And is there anything else that you'd recommend? Is there any other resources that you'd recommend that we explore or listeners explore? Well, I will put the link into the show notes. It's makersbusinesstribe.com.au slash wholesale success blueprint. So that's a handful. So it'll be in the show notes. Just click on that link.
see what the book is all about. We have an intro offer going for, I think it's 595 for the whole book, 150 pages. Plus it comes with bunch of templates. can get the audio book. Just want to audio people as well. You can buy more templates. But whatever you purchase, you have access to a free exclusive Facebook group in which you can ask all the questions that you have. So what I want.
is for people to squeeze the lemon is when you just pay six bucks, right? And then you start reading it and you ask all your questions, you share with us your progress, you just keep hammering us with how can we support you to get your product out and your business off the ground. You could like literally achieve that with six bucks if you're a good reader. If you're an audio person, I think it's 14.95.
Nina Huchthausen (01:05:52.649)
Amazing. If you want all the templates done for you, it's a little bit more than you can download all of that as well. They have like, I think, five Canva templates for the catalog to make it look super schmick and pretty much everything taken care of for you. And it's very affordable. Yeah. Yeah. It's very affordable. And also, I think getting access to us is important because you will have plenty questions.
And I don't know what questions those are unless you ask them. So keep asking them in the group. I think, get your business roaring in 2025. Yeah. How about that? How about that? Yeah. How about it? And also, I think if anyone is a numbers person, I have the, like the, I build a calculator in which you can see what your revenue growth potential is.
in retail and based on how many stock is you're looking to onboard each month. So you can see yourself what it can do for you so you don't feel like, my gosh, but I just want fast sales, fast, fast, You know? That'd be a great resource for when you're going one by one and you're like, that's it. One by one is how it goes. That's how I build my business. And it's going to pay off for years to come. Exactly.
Put the time in. That's how you climb Mount Everest, one step at a time, you know? Yeah. That's what you're also creating and building for yourself. Amazing, Nina. Amazing advice. Thank you so much for your time and for sharing that with us today. Yeah. And thank you. Thank you for you to interview me. I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah, you're welcome. Maybe you. You did a really great job. I will see you on the other side. And hopefully, guys,
Get the book, enjoy it, love it, ask all the questions. Because I honestly, if we can help more of you guys to get your product into retail shelves and create some amazing choices for us humans, time will spent.
Nina Huchthausen (01:08:06.865)
Thank you, Nina.
