Learning how to sell online is very, very different. If you don't start with a beginner's mind, and be open to being coached and learning something new. Well, you're going to be stuck in the same place. And I will tell you that your online sales strategy will fail. Welcome to thrive by design, the podcast for ambitious independent jewelry brands, looking to profit from their products, get ready to make more and sell more doing what you love, without spending every single waking minute doing it. Hey, and if you're a creative fashion or product based business, I want to welcome you to the show. I'll be dropping big tips on launching growing and scaling your business. So you could spend more of your precious time using your creativity to make money. You ready? All right, let's do this. Welcome to the thrive by design podcast in this short episode 397. I'm going to be talking about why many online sales strategies fail. Hey there, I'm Tracy Matthews. I'm the host of thrive by design. And I'm excited to be here today because we are full into our supercharge your online sales challenge. And we are having a blast, just playing Fallout, we are super excited about it. And we could not be more stoked about everything that's happening this week. So today, I wanted to talk a little bit more about why many online sales strategies fail. Over the years I you know, over these last like three to four years, especially the beginning of COVID, when everything in person kind of shut down stores were shut down, it kind of forced people to take a look at doing business a little bit differently. There were some people who completely crushed it and ended up like totally scaling their business and doubling tripling their sales. And then there were others who actually did not do well, which was surprising because everyone was shopping online. And I have a theory about why people didn't do well. And I want to talk about why many online strategies fail. It's really about what's going on inside of you, and how you're approaching your business and how you're making decisions, how you are evaluating a marketing campaign, how you're measuring success for that marketing campaign, and what you're actually doing. And so I'm going to talk about that in just a minute. But before I do, I want to invite you this is like on the other end of the spectrum, because both of these conversations are tied in to a brand new masterclass that I'm hosting next week, it's called the five mistakes, even smart jewelry business owners make that are killing their sales. And I'm going to show you how the students that we work with ADD sometimes upwards of 15k a month to their online sales by basically solving these problems that they're having or avoiding these mistakes. So if you want to learn more about that you can head on over to flourish & thrive academy.com forward slash five mistakes. That's the number five, and mistakes. I'll also have it in the show notes. So you can click the little description of the show. And there'll be a link there, wherever you're watching or listening to this. And I wanted to mention this also, because giving away an epic resource on that which is the ultimate traffic guy, we're going to be sharing just some really solid strategies to get more traffic, or high quality traffic is a better way to put it to your website, I will only be giving that resource out live. It is not something that will be given out elsewhere. So let's dive in to today's episode and talk about why many online strategies, online sales strategies fail. So the first reason is that a lot of people are just making some really big mistakes. I'm going to dive into some of the biggest mistakes in the masterclass next week. But the the main reason that I wanted to do this or talk a little bit more about this is that a lot of people say like, oh, I need to do social media, I need to be on Instagram, I need to be, you know, building my email list. And then you know, they're surprised that their business isn't growing. Because you know, when someone asked them like, well, how often are you marketing and sending out emails? And they're like, Oh, well, I send something out at Christmas. And you can't just expect your business to grow if you're sending out one email a month or a year, right? Or you ask them about their social media strategy. This happened recently with someone that I'm working with who has a very successful in person show business. Like she's really built it up these craft shows and festivals. And she tried a couple things that we gave her and like within three days, she's like, online selling doesn't work for me. I'm like, well, where's the testing? Like, wherever you tried, wherever you like really leaned into this strategy to try it over a period of time to see if it's actually going to work. Then the other issue is that a lot of times people like they'll make some sales, but there's no follow up involved. Like one of the best ways to grow a business is to increase the customer lifetime value of the people that already have purchased from you. So if you're getting a lot of first time customers and those people don't shop from you again All of you guys selling at shows, please listen up. Because the thing that's cool about shows is you have people in front of you who are ready to buy. And if you have a good product and you're good at sales, it's easy to sell. But that might be the only time they ever experience your brand. Like, they show up. And they happen to be at South by Southwest where they show up and they haven't happened to be at the festival on your town, or they show up. And they happen to be, you know, at the New Orleans Jazz Fest, you know, we have a lot of people who do Jazz Fest, and South by Southwest and stuff like that, who are in our community, some of these bigger shows, and then the smaller shows, they might crush it out those shows because they are well attended. But most people going to shows like that. They go like once, they're not going every single year necessarily. So how do you ever get back in the good graces of that customer or get them to buy from you again, it makes growing a business so much harder, it makes your margins thinner, it makes things more complicated if you aren't following up. Now, another reason that online strategies fail is that a lot of the business owners or the marketers behind the brand, don't have discernment. So if you're doing everything yourself, and you are just like, I'm gonna try it all, and you're not like really cherry picking and discerning, like what is right for my brand? Where's my customer hanging out? Where am I going to find them? And you're just like doing everything instead of discerning what is going to work for you? Well, at that point, you're just wasting a bunch of time, I was on a sales call recently with someone. And it was interesting because they wanted support from us. But they already had a very successful business and selling wholesale or something in a different way. And they didn't know they didn't understand tech, they sold their business. So they're out of it, they've been out of it for a couple years. And the landscape has changed since they left and they want to they want to launch into this new idea, or this new strategy, or this new brand angle, which is very different than their previous business like extremely different. And they come to the table thinking that they know everything. And there's this like air of arrogance about it like, oh, well, I'm a successful business owner. So I don't have to, like, lean in and do the work kind of attitude. And that arrogance, or that that approach can be one of the most damaging things, especially if you've had success in your business for a while because learning how to sell online is very, very different. It's similar in certain ways, like relationships, or relationships, people are people buying patterns or buying patterns are the same. But if you don't start with a beginner's mind, and be open to being coached and learning something new, well, you're going to be stuck in the same place. And I will tell you that your online sales strategy will fail. Without fail, it will fail without fail. And then this, this is the big one. People put up a website. And then they're just hoping that their business, that their website is going to be magically found by people who want them or they or who want to buy from them. And so they put up the website, they maybe do a little SEO. And for those of you who are spending a lot of time on SEO, yes, they can be a great tool. But at the end of the day, it takes a long time. And you're ranking you're trying to compete with a lot of other people doing the same thing as you. So I'm not saying that SEO is not a good thing. And there's specific things that you can do to optimize your business for your local area, which is much better than or for specific keyword terms that stand out that are different, not handmade jewelry are not find jewelry or not custom jewelry, it's more specific terms that will help you get found your website get found. But if you just put up a website, and you're expecting people to find you, and you don't market that website, you are not going to get online sales. This is one of my favorite stories of all time. This is something that happened about five years ago, and a designer took one of our programs and she's like, Oh my gosh, I don't know what's going on. And she was very, very beginner. As a business owner, she was working a job for someone else. Like I don't know what's going on, I put my website up and I have a ton of traffic and no one's buying. And I was like, Well, what's a ton of traffic? Oh my gosh, like let's fix the problem if you're having a ton of traffic. And she says to me, I have 68 people landing on my website last month. I'm like 68 people do you understand like what online conversion rates are?
And she's like, I'm like, What do you think is like a good number and she's like, a lot of no 60 It's a lot like shouldn't like most of those people buy? Well, here's the thing. If you're a seasoned online sell online veteran and you understand how digital marketing works, you know that 68 visitors is not even enough if they were qualified buyers to even get one sale a day, no less daily sales or be able to grow your sales. It is really about the numbers here and getting enough traffic as a numbers game and a lot A lot of that has to come from people already following you. So, yes, it can work. But what you need to do is to build an audience and keep growing for the long haul. So those are some of the reasons that I've come up with that, in my experience, helping 1000s and 1000s of makers over the years, grow their online sales, about why so many online strategies fail and why people throw in the towel. But what I will tell you is that if you lean in, that you start testing and understanding that not everything is going to work, if you follow up with customers from, you know, from your in person shows or from the people who buy from you online, and you try to get more sales out of them by following really strategic techniques to increase your average order value, and deliver a great experience for those people. And you have discernment in your marketing and you understand where your people are hanging out and you start with a beginner's mind. And you're always learning and updating your strategy for the next thing. And you don't just expect people to find you, you have the humility to know that this is a long game. And it's something that can ramp very quickly, if you're strategic about it. But at the end of the day, you'll be very disappointed if you just expect online sales to happen without doing the actual work. So that's my little shorty episode today. I hope that added some value to you. And if you want more value and more specifics about the five mistakes that people are making, then head on over to my masterclass over at flourish & thrive academy.com forward slash five mistakes, the number five and mistakes sign up. We're doing it next week live. We're gonna be giving a great free resource out for you on March 28 and we are going to help you crush it. Thanks so much for listening to the show today. This is Tracy Matthews, signing off
