Episode 3: Are you making it too difficult to shop with you?

transcript

Intro

You are listening to the Brown Girl Business School podcast. I'm your Jenavi Kasper, and I am the founder of La Jefa Status, an online coaching and consulting business dedicated to decolonizing entrepreneurship. I take my years of experience as an award-winning marketing executive, working with businesses of all sizes and industries, plus my experience as a two-time entrepreneur, to bring you actionable insights that you can use right now to make more money without sacrificing more time or your mental and emotional health. Join me and the baddest group of women on the planet as we move forward to claim what is ours. This is the Brown Girl Business School podcast and class is in session.

Hey, Jefa, I am so glad you're here for the next episode in our series, where we dive into the four surprising ways to supercharge your sales at any stage of your business. Last episode, we talked about tip number one, which was making it easy for people to pay you. So if you're just joining us now, go back and listen to our first episode in this series and start there. Today, we're going to talk about tip number two, the second most surprising way to supercharge your sales at any stage of business, which is making it easy to shop with you online, and I'm going to break it down for you. Okay, this is what I would recommend. Even at the earliest stages of your business, like as soon as you have an idea for a business, you should do a handful of things, and tip number two is one of them. So before we dive into the ins and outs of being able to sell online, let's first talk more about what it means to make it easy for people to shop with you.

What happens when you are not selling your products on a website

If you listened to the last episode, you know how much I love a farmer's market and a mercado and a pop-up, and if there are Latina business owners there, you know it's a vibe. There's music and tacos and cute jewelry and clothes and usually some dope tumblers and tote bags and holiday themed stuff. I love it all. Like anyone else, I'm looking for the easiest shopping experience so that I can purchase my items and be on my way. Let me tell you what I'm talking about and then I bet you can relate. So I go to your booth. I see a t-shirt that I love. Yes, I want the shirt that says call me La Jefa, totally on brand. You don't have my size, but you say I can DM you what my size and what color t-shirt I want, and you even have a little QR code printed on your booth so that I can scan it to follow you on Instagram. So I do that and I continue on my way. And after walking around and collecting several QR codes and following many businesses, it's hard to remember all of the Instagram handles that I just followed. So do you think I was ever able to go order that t-shirt on Instagram through the DMs that I remembered which one of the business owners it was and how to find them? You can guess what the answer is.

At that same pop-up I made my way over to a Latina-owned coffee brand. So cool Mexican beans roasted locally. Really cool concept what they had going on. I had my mom with me and she was just over the moon because the samples that she tried she loved. She loved the idea of buying her coffee from a Latina business owner. So she bought a bunch of beans to grind at home to have her coffee. She's total coffee person I'm not really, but once she ran out she had to text me to ask me to reach out to the business on Instagram to reorder for her Eventually became too much for her to keep reminding me over and over again, for her to keep hassling me for me to finally go on Instagram, find the business, dm them, make the order, make the arrangement to either have it shipped or to go pick it up somewhere. My mom would still be ordering that coffee if she could have just went to a website to order it, instead of texting me three or four times to remind me to order it for her. It would have been so much easier if either one of these businesses had a website where they sold their products.

People don't have time to be wasting, or money to waste for that matter. When people have their mind made up that they want to purchase something, they want to buy it right then and there, in the easiest, fastest way possible. They don't want to have to chase you around to pay you for something they want to buy from you. That's why the second most surprising tip to supercharge your sales at any stage of business is to have a website. Now I know I know you have reasons for why you don't yet have a website, so let's talk about them. Here are a few that I hear most often. Let me know in the DMs at La Jefa Status on Instagram which of these resonates with you.

Reasons for not having a website (and why you should reconsider)

You don't need a website.

You have social media. Well, I hope the stories I just shared with you illustrate the pitfalls and shortcomings of only using social media to promote and sell your products and services. But maybe you have a different kind of business. Maybe you are an influencer. Let me share one more example with you

I got an email one day from an owner of a professional hockey team. The CEO of the team read an article in which I was featured in an executive profile in the Phoenix Business Journal. He passed it on to one of the owners, figuring as a fellow Latina. She would be interested to partner in some capacity because she also runs the nonprofit of this professional hockey team and one of their pillars is supporting female entrepreneurship. She did not slide into my DMs. She emailed me through the form on my website and I had no idea to even expect it.

You really want to make sure that you are presenting yourself as professional, no matter what size or stage your business is in. The size of your business has nothing to do with your professionalism. You can be professional no matter what. Or maybe you know you need a website. You have known before you've been listening to this episode but a website is too expensive and you're not tech savvy enough to do it on your own. I want to challenge that, because you're already having to do things that are growing your skill set as a business owner and these companies like Squarespace and Shopify. They have every incentive to make it as easy as possible for anyone to set up a site and to make it affordable. As of this recording, I'm seeing monthly fees for an e-commerce website, meaning a website where you can sell products and services for as low as $20 a month.

What do you need for your website?

I know, if you don't have a ton of experience with this, you might be intimidated by it, but you're also smart and ambitious and you have to remember that it doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to exist. You don't need all the bills and whistles. The website can grow with the business and eventually you can pay someone else to do this for you, but until that day comes, you'll need to have, and you'll want to have, just a simple website, even if it's not an e-commerce website. You need a way for people to contact you that is not only on social media. Your social media account could get shut down tomorrow. Then what? You don't have control over it. You don't own it, even if it's just one page and has a link to an email address or a link to your social media. That could be enough, but you do need a website.

Now, going back to the examples I shared earlier, I know what those business owners might say about why they don't have a website. And not only that of course, your social media could get shut down. But what about all of the people who would be purchasing from you who are not on social media but are active online shoppers? You don't want to miss out on those sales, because that is part of what's going to help you grow a healthy and sturdy, sustainable business.

Strategy for how to sell products online when you have a lot of inventory

Now, going back to the examples I shared earlier, I already know what those business owners might say about why they don't have a website. They sell so many different products and their offerings are changing so frequently that they can't keep up with adding all that inventory to the website, and I want to offer you a strategy to manage this objection.

Sell your products grouped in seasonal collections and limited time drops, hype B style. What does that mean? It means give yourself a start date and an end date to sell a specific selection of products. Organize what you sell and when you sell it. If you sell items and collections. It builds anticipation and excitement and creates a sense of urgency, because your audience will know that there's a limited time to buy and a limited supply of what you're offering. You probably already do this, but if you formalize the process and communicate it to your audience, it's going to make your life a lot easier and your customers will have a much better shopping experience with you.
Why it’s important for service-based businesses to have a website

So I know this was a lot of talk about product-based businesses, but what about service-based businesses? If I do hair, nails, lashes, coaching, tarot card readings, why do I need a website? Well, if you have a booking site, something like Gloss Genius you might not need a separate website. Booking sites should have the capability to add contact information, the ability for your clients to book with you, another option to maybe add an about us page. There are many booking platforms and booking apps for service-based businesses and the options are really different depending on your industry. Again, these typically will be enough, but as your business grows, you may still want a website, especially if part of your growth strategy is to be easily found online. I'll use myself as an example. If I want to attract business owners as clients, I might have a strategy to post blog articles on my website so that if you go to search something like how to find funding for my small business, my blog article would come up and hopefully I can keep you in my audience until you become a customer.

Why all businesses should have a website and not rely only on social media

And there's one more huge reason that you need a website and not just social media. I mentioned it earlier, but it's worth saying again. Your social media account could be locked, could be hacked, could be shut down at any moment. And if you don't have a good amount of followers on an email list, if you don't have your clients' information, your customers' information or they don't have your information, you're sunk. You have no way to find anyone and, more importantly, they have no way to find you. Is that really a risk worth taking when you can put up a website in an hour?

The bottom line is a website instantly adds to the credibility and professionalism of your business and if your goal is to grow, you need to have a presence online outside of social media.

If you want to know more about this, you'll definitely want to get on the waitlist for the Brown Girl Business School membership opening this fall. The link is in the show notes and if you would like the transcript of this episode because you were listening while you were taking a shower, washing dishes, taking the kids to school, folding laundry, eating dinner, watching your kid at soccer practice, painting your nails, whatever it may have been and you were not able to take notes, but you wanted to. You don't have to sweat it. There's a link for you to be able to access the transcripts to this episode and all the episodes from here on out. So follow me on my socials at La Jefa Status. I'm only social in one place, that's Instagram, at La Jefa Status, and don't forget to subscribe to and follow and review this podcast so that other hafiz like you can be on this journey with us. Thank you for listening and I will see you in class.