Overcoming the Poopy Times with Paul Baron – 269
In episode 269 of the AM/PM Podcast, Tim and Paul discuss:
- 03:30 – A Look Into Paul’s Brands
- 06:00 – Launching A Product On The First Prime Day
- 07:00 – Business Has Been Taking A Big Hit
- 08:30 – Don’t Wait Too Long To Get A Trademark!
- 13:00 – Challenges Involving Logistics And Capital
- 18:00 – A “Poopy Situation” Affected His Sales
- 23:00 – Lessons If You’re Selling Reusable Products
- 25:00 – You Choose If You’re Going To Be Successful
- 28:00 – Diversification And Opening To New Channels
- 32:00 – How To Get In Touch With Paul Baron
Transcript
Tim Jordan:
It’s a lot of fun hearing, the good stories about running a business, right? The successes, the little breakthroughs, the fun times. And that’s what we hear a lot because people like focus on those. They’re either feel-good stories or maybe it’s like the marketing of, you know, selling the dream, or selling the idea of getting involved in something like e-commerce. But at least half of operating businesses, stress struggles, sometimes it’s anxiety. And it’s trying to like put out all these little fires that are happening all the time. In this episode, we’ve got a guest who is going to talk about the brand that he runs on Amazon and off Amazon too. And some of the struggles that he’s had over the past year, maybe two years, some of the lessons that he’s taken away from that, and how he’s moving forward. Now it’s going to be a great episode. Listen to the end see you in just a second.
Tim Jordan:
Hi, I’m Tim Jordan and in every corner of the world, entrepreneurship is growing. So join me as I explore the stories of successes and failures. Listen in, as I chat with the risk-takers, the adventurous, and the entrepreneurial veterans, we all have a dream of living a life, fulfilling our passions, and we want a business that doesn’t make us punch a time clock, but instead runs around the clock in the AM and the PM. So get motivated, get inspired. You’re listening to the AM/PM podcast.
Tim Jordan:
Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the AM/PM podcast. I’m Tim Jordan, and we are talking about e-commerce and business. Today. We talk a lot about strategies. We talk a lot about techniques. We talk a lot about traffic. We talk a lot about optimization. But we also like to talk about just good old-fashioned business, right? And part of the business is figuring out how to overcome struggles, learning from our mistakes, figuring out what we tripped over last time. So we can step over that speed bumper, or that pothole the next time, right? We’ve got a guest today, Paul Baron, who is kind of a friend of most of this audience. I think a lot of you at least would be familiar with him. He’s been on a lot of podcasts and spaced a lot of content, and he happens to be here in the office and the AM/PM world headquarters on the 67th floor of AM/PM towers. No, I’m just kidding. We’re actually in the basement of a building downtown in Huntsville, Alabama, where the studio is, but he’s here. And I think this is the first time we’ve had a podcast guest that was physically in this office, which is great because we bought two desk chairs that matched like a year and a half ago. And this is the first time that we’ve ever used both chairs. So momentous occasion. So welcome Paul, and tell us about your brand.
Paul:
Yeah. So like a lot of you, we took a course when we got started. Selling at Amazon course, right? So freedom ticket, you know, similar to that. Basically, you know, I have a background in digital marketing. I have a background in a lot of things you’d want to talk to me about anything I can tell you, but, or I’ll make something up. Yeah, or Tim will make something up. But, so I came into this space with a background in doing some digital marketing for brands, you know, established brands. And my view of Amazon prior to getting started was basically arbitrage. And I didn’t really understand why anybody would want to be a third-party seller on Amazon. Cause in my head it was a race to the bottom. But you know, we, we signed up, we took this course and we were identifying products.
Paul:
And with my experience in digital marketing and brand building, we narrowed down our search into three niches. It was baby products, outdoor products, and pet and pet products. Cause we live in Colorado, love going outdoors, hiking, camping, you know, that sort of stuff. We had just had a baby and when we’re doing our product research earlier in the year, the year before we had an issue with swimming with our son he started going swimming and you know, new parents, you don’t think about this when you’re an adult. Like, what do you do with the baby swimming? Cause they’re, you know, they poop right. The Babies.
Tim Jordan:
Everybody pees in the pool.
Paul:
You know, actually, there’s a pool. Oh, like I think it was over 60% of adults. I have to look at it again. Everyone pees on a pool, adults peed pool.
Tim Jordan:
Everybody pees on a pool, but not everybody poops on a pool.
Paul:
No.
Tim Jordan:
But babies could.
Paul:
Babies could.
Tim Jordan:
So you have a problem, right?
Paul:
Yeah. So we had a problem and you know, the typical solution is there’s disposable, swim, diapers. That’s what, you know, like little splashes or whatever, by Huggies. And prior to having our son, I was like on the cloth diaper bandwagon, like I wanted to be that guy.
Tim Jordan:
Cloth diapers are the worst. That was the most horrible experience in my life.
Paul:
You did it?
Tim Jordan:
We did it for like six months with our first kid and it was a problem.
Paul:
Yeah. So that was basically Rochelle’s response was like, we’re not doing this. And I was like, no, but we could save so much money and it’s better for the environment. And, and I will wash them and she’s like, no, you’re not going to be washing them. You’ll wash them for two weeks and then I’m gonna be washing them. So sort of the concession was that somebody had given us a reusable swim diaper and I was like, okay, this is cool. Cause then, you know, like how often are you going to use a diaper in the, you know, disposable, you use it once kids in the water for 30 minutes and you throw it away. So I was stoked about that, but the problem was, this was at a big brand that you can buy in and target. And well-known, they’ve kind of established the niche.
Paul:
And then in the ‘90s. problem was, it was too tight and it made him cry. And at the time Bo our son was in like the 20th percentile. So he was really, really small. And you know, that was stuck in our heads when we were doing our product research. So Rochelle starts looking up, you know, the opportunity to swim diapers and felt like it was a decent opportunity. So we just went into it as almost like a stop-gap product because we were launching in we were launching in the summer and anyway, so that was how we originally started. I mean, we got into selling reusable swim diapers, like now it’s extremely competitive. There’s a lot more Black Hat stuff going on.
Tim Jordan:
But you’re really the first to take it to Amazon. Right. My understanding is you had a fair amount of success. I know that even yesterday you were at a resort somewhere and you’re selling like directly to like end consumers now, not just e-commerce. And you’ve been doing that brand since how long?
Paul:
2015,
Tim Jordan:
Since 2015. So I’ve been in it for six years now.
Paul:
Our first day was the first-ever prime day. Incidentally,
Tim Jordan:
You launched on the first-ever prime day?
Paul:
It wasn’t planned. It just so happened that our inventory was in stock and the images that we had were the stock, the garbage crap image that you and your manufacturer gives you. Yeah. Anyway, first-ever prime day. Crazy.
Tim Jordan:
It wasn’t planned. It just so happened that our inventory was in stock and the images that we had were the stock, the garbage crap image that you and your manufacturer gives you. Yeah. Anyway, first-ever prime day. Crazy.understatement, but I, I see, you know, like very specifically, remember Paul not being the before. And one of the problems that he’s got going on right now is his brand of, you know, reusable, swim, diapers is really taken a big hit over the past what? 18 months. Yeah. Like 18 months, the business has been not deteriorating, but it’s significantly slowed down.
Paul:
It’s frustrating. Cause you have like these double year growth that you project and then you stagnate.
Tim Jordan:
And there’s a lot of reasons for that. You know, like people aren’t traveling in COVID, and people aren’t going to resorts, and people aren’t going to public pools or hotels. So there’s a decline, there’s some other things we’re going to talk about in a second that maybe had a little more direct impact. But the reason I asked Paul to speak today is because I know he struggled and always, you know, been very, very frustrated. I know that he’s also public about his brand, which is great. And a lot of people are, so he can speak specifically about it and kind of share some of his wisdom and experience to us. Not only what’s going on, why he struggled, maybe at least a few components, the struggle the past 18 months or so. And then we’re gonna talk about some of the lessons learned and moving forward. So you gave me a list of three items Paul, that you kind of think were very significant in the depreciation or the slowdown of this brand trademark issues, logistics and well, and a poopy diaper. So we can talk about that. So it hit us with the trademark.
Paul:
Yeah. So, okay. So this would be like if I’m going back in time. Oh, man. Back when we, when we got started, there was another brand that was similar name in ours, but they sell christening gowns and we’re like, okay, there’s no confusion there. There was no registered trademarks, no live trademarks at the time. And so that like in a nutshell, the trademark issues that we’re having now could have been alleviated had we, once we launched and we realized that this was a good, a good brand, a good product that could go the distance. Like we don’t just have swim diapers, we have other stuff, you know? But basically, when we proved that this was solid, we should have registered a trademark right away. So if you’re watching this or listening to this and you’re at that point and you’ve gone through the product research, you’ve validated that there’s demand that you, that, you know, you believe that this can go to this, the distance, get your registered trademark now.
Tim Jordan:
And the way trademarks worked are their product, specific category-specific, right? So if you get a trademark for kitchen accessories and you start making golf cart tires, you can’t use the same trademark for it. Doesn’t protect you. Another thing about trademarks are I believe some people get them too early, right? Some people think, oh, I want to sell on Amazon. I’m going to create a cool product logo. I’m going to create a cool brand name. I’m going to get it all trademarked up and then I’m gonna figure out what I’m going to sell. So Paul just made the point about like proof of concept. But Paul, what you’re saying is some people wait too long. Right. They’ll have a proof of concept. Yeah. And you waited too long. So like, why do you think that that pause really hurts you?
Paul:
Wow. Nothing I know.
Tim Jordan:
So why did that, that maybe not prioritizing the trademark once you had a proof of concept that you wanted to start this brand, you know what happened there?
Paul:
So what happened was the year following 2016, there is a hotel chain in like north or South Carolina or something. It wasn’t a chain. It’s just like a single hotel. They have a boutique shop, at a corner of their shop. They had like Beau and Belle as a part of like, and that’s our, our brand name is Bowen belt littles. And so there was something to that effect. Meanwhile, the christening gown company realized that their trademark had lapsed and they didn’t, they didn’t mean to let it lapse. It just happened. So sequence of events, this hotel chain files for and gets approved for the usage of their trademark name then like the it’s crazy. It was like how it all happened. Like, so a trademark lapse for Baby Beau and Belle, which is the christening gown company. Meanwhile, we start in 2015, there’s nothing in existence a year later, you know, we start getting all this press.
Paul:
We are Rachel Ratio, Forbes Magazine, all this stuff. And so we’re like, oh, we should register a trademark. So we go in and start doing this in that space. In that one year time the hotel chain had gotten approved for their trademark. How trademarks work. I’m not a lawyer in my, this is my understanding this is not legal advice. This is my understanding. It’s like first right of refusal like you start using the name, that’s your trademark. So they’re using it publicly. So, so the christening and company-owned first, right? Cause they’d been in existence since like the ‘90s or the ‘80s or something with the same name. It just so happened that there, there is lapse. In the meantime, this hotel company, guests, that’s the name Baby Beau and Belle Littles is reapplying. So then they have to go through this and we’re third in line at this point.
Paul:
Okay. So what happens is the hotel and the, and the, and the christening gown company entered into a coexistence agreement, which again, not legal advice, but basically a coexistence is that you say, we believe there’s no brand confusion. We agree to co-exist using a similar thing, right? So we’re in this whole chain. And at the time we would have had to go through two other entities. And it was just basically an issue that could have been a couple of hundred dollars is now like $20,000. Cause now we have to go through, we got to get a coexistence agreement from the primary rights holder, which is Baby Beau and Belle Littles. They seem amenable. Then we got to go to the hotel chain and say, Hey, first rights, give us this. And so that perpetuates now, anyway, so that brings us to today, which goes back to the poopy thing, which is one of the reasons why we can’t the poopy swim diapers.
Paul:
So I can go into that now. But anyway, it’s a very expensive tangle and it’s a pain in the ass. It’s a giant headache. And so that’s my advice to, if your one takeaway from this, prove your concept, make sure that it works. Don’t get too early, don’t wait too long. But as soon as you have that proof of concept, you get that trademark right away because you don’t want to get into a situation where you have, you know, 3000 reviews, 3,500 reviews or something, and then you have to, you have to change the trademark because you can’t get it.
Tim Jordan:
So that’s the problem is right now. And that’s why this is affecting you is because you essentially are being told you can’t use your brand name. You’ve got to rebrand your company where you’ve got?
Paul:
We either have to rebrand or pay at least 15 to 20, $30,000 in illegal fees to get our branding that we’ve been trading under and selling under since 2015,
Tim Jordan:
That hurts you with like brand registry and things like that.
Paul:
A potential exit?
Tim Jordan:
Trying to, yeah. Trying to sell your company. Ooh, that’s a big problem. All right. So that’s, that’s been a big headache and I guess your, your biggest lesson learned from there is don’t wait on that. Don’t sit on that, like, get that done quickly because that’s actually an extremely big deal that can really screw up your business. All right. Logistics was a second thing. Another reason for the headaches and feeling like you’re kicked in your seat over the past 18 months. Now we know what’s going on with, you know, the COVID supply chain, but how has this directly impacted or what’s been your exact situation, logistics related with Beau and Belle Littles
Paul:
Yeah. So our stuff is very, we’re completely opposite. With most brands. Most brands are very like Q4 heavy and our Q4 is really Q2, Q2 and spring, like is really when it starts ramping up Q1 it starts to pick up Q2 is nuts, bonkers, and you know, it starts tapering off. So we place our orders. And the challenging thing here is that when we’re placing our orders, for summer it’s right after Chinese new year, which Chinese new year always has that lead time longer
Tim Jordan:
Because it’s like a month off for manufacturing and shipping.
Paul:
Right. So it was just a sequence of crazy events. Like we, we went through, we designed new packaging and we didn’t look at volume and like case volume and also like filling the entire container. That was one issue.
Tim Jordan:
Yes, you weren’t maximizing your we’re not
Paul:
Matching. So we went from like a shipping costs about $8,000, a container to $24,000 for this same exact units, because the packaging was changed. But then also, I don’t know, there’s just crazy delays. So the shipment that was supposed to be delivered start of June, end of May got in like second or third week of September. Yeah. And that’s one of those things it’s like, you were stocked
Tim Jordan:
So you were stocked out for like all of your busy season
Paul:
Almost not like our primary stuff was stocked out. Then we had like Black Hat attacks too. It’s been a year, man.
Tim Jordan:
A lot of your stuff was stocked out. And then, because you were running so close on inventory, you couldn’t do any sort of big sales. You couldn’t do promotions. You couldn’t really externally market this stuff because you would have just run out of stock anyway. So logistics Jack you up. Was that something that you could have done differently or is there anything you could have done differently? Because we know we couldn’t project the cost increasing, and we couldn’t project an increase in lead time, but was there anything you could have done differently, like lessons learned.
Paul:
Well, Rochelle does all the logistics stuff. So Rochelle’s my wife business partner. She’s a smart one. I just do crazy stuff and go to events. So people know me, they don’t know her, they should know her. So she handles all the logistics. And what we’ve been trying to do is get on a order system, where we’re ordering smaller quantities more frequently. But I don’t really know that we could do anything differently. I mean, really the only thing that I could say is that if we had the money if we could be able to sit on inventory in our local storage facilities, that would be what we would want to do differently. But that’s just a capital issue, you know? And we’re all, if you guys are like me, when I started, I was working two jobs.
Paul:
I was working nights as a waiter. I was trying to start a digital marketing agency during the day. You know, I’ve done that on this, I think Serious Sellers Podcast. So you can find that somewhere. But point is, it’s a capital issue undercapitalization. And so that’s why you want things like, I don’t know, it’s always funny, you know, stuff like that, but I don’t know that we could do anything differently other than maybe trying to take out some money last year and then try to order sooner rather than like, assuming that our lead times are accurate. So maybe I, the one bit of advice would be if your suppliers are quoting you a certain thing triple, that maybe quadruple it, because expect it to be at least two to three times, if not four times longer than they say it’s going to be because I would rather have a lot of inventory coming in early than being a stockout situation because then you have a cascading effect of rank issues. You’re going to have to go through and start driving more external traffic, make sure that you’re getting more sales to boost that algorithm signal again, because if you have a stockout issue, Amazon doesn’t know, to Amazon’s eyes, the algorithm, it could be that you’ve just discontinued that product, right. It could be any number of things. So it’s not generally detrimental if you’re out of stock for less than 30 days. But in situations like this, it’s a pain in the.
Tim Jordan:
So another really big problem you had was a poopy situation. So you sell reusable, swim diapers, right? So these aren’t thrown away, but kids are pooping in them. Right? So talk to me about that. This one, this is the best story, by the way.
Paul:
This dovetails into that brand registry issue because of anyway, so this is the reason why we redesigned our packaging. So one of the reasons why we redesigned our packaging is last year in July, Amazon had unintentionally shipped out, used swim diapers.
Tim Jordan:
So what was happening was a client bought or a customer was buying your products. They return it. The packaging looks on opened, and Amazon puts it back in regular inventory and ships it out.
Paul:
And like, you know, we’ve had all the settings set to send it back to us, but we all know that that doesn’t always happen. Right. And here’s the thing, it’s just a simple mistake. There’s a warehouse worker. Have you been in? You could go to an FC tour. It will blow your mind. How much like how much inventory. So I’m not mad at the warehouse worker. It’s whatever it is, what it is. The thing that annoys me is it was, I mean I’m annoyed at this customer because whoever this was, they shat the child’s shat in the diaper.
Tim Jordan:
Which is supposed to happen. I mean, you’re literally, you design a product to be pooped in.
Paul:
Bare minimum, wash it. Yeah.
Tim Jordan:
And they didn’t even wash it. This kid take a dump in the diaper. So they put it back in the packaging and repackage it in a way that looked like it wasn’t open. So they’re very intentional.
Paul:
Not once it happened twice. And the reason I know it happened because the first time it happened, we got an email from the customer and they were like, you know, mad obviously. And I was like, oh my gosh, we are so sorry.
Tim Jordan:
Oh, this customer, wasn’t the one.
Paul:
Theft a review. That was the reason why I know it’s a
Tim Jordan:
Rolling brownout.
Paul:
The reason, the reason why. Yeah. The reason why I know it was twice because the other person left a review as I would have to.
Tim Jordan:
So this happened twice. So one of them emailed and said, Hey, I ordered one of your products on Amazon and there’s skid marks in it.
Paul:
And I want my money back.
Tim Jordan:
The other one just returned it and left a review that said
Paul:
This is disgusting. Don’t buy from this company basically. And the funny thing is I’ve been public about our brand and Rochelle thinks that that’s one of the reasons why we get Black Hat attacks. So if you’re listening to this and you’re my competitor, just give me a call.
Tim Jordan:
Yeah. Don’t, don’t take a big steamy one in one of Paul’s reusable diapers
Paul:
I love competition. Here’s the competition makes everybody better. But being a Black Hat cheater does not make you better. It just makes you a loser.
Tim Jordan:
So that review probably got uploaded?
Paul:
80 upvotes, at least 80, 85. And Rochelle it’s the most helpful review.
Tim Jordan:
Oh, the most helpful review is that they sent me a hazmat package.
Paul:
And here’s the thing is that Amazon to the very, like, it’s a very good policy that they don’t remove reviews because come on
Tim Jordan:
You otherwise you’d pick and choose and you’d never get a fair review situation.
Paul:
And so the thing is, is that because they don’t remove reviews, they don’t have anyone that you can talk to. That even though, like they’ve said, yes, we acknowledge this is a fulfillment issue. They can’t remove the review. So if you work at Amazon and you have the power to help me, please call me.
Tim Jordan:
Like, He’s got a poopy situation needs fixed, continue. All right. So, so that obviously affected your sales specifically, right? Because now the most helpful review is that we’ve got poopy diapers, DML.
Paul:
So how, we’re, how we’re managing this issue. That’s one of the reasons why we did the packaging. Right? Cause the packaging that we redesigned is we haven’t designed to be specifically under 0.7 inches on the highest it’s like 0.6, five inches. Right? It’s exactly within specs was small.
Tim Jordan:
Smaller to reduce the shipping and fulfillment costs.
Paul:
Cause up until that point, it was in a polybag with an insert, right. And it’s not bulky, but the way that their Cubiscans system works like this is it. If they were scanning this, this would appear to be what, an inch and a half high, but you could smash it down. Yeah. But the Cubiscan uses infrared. And so it picks up the highest thing. So if there’s any air in a polybag and it’s like an inch high, then they’re going to put you.
Tim Jordan:
In a larger category.
Paul:
We get to think automation, right? Like, or as a magnitude, you’re not going to have every warehouse employee being like, oh yeah, I can fit this.
Tim Jordan:
You changed the packaging to make it smaller and less expensive to fulfill, but also where nobody could reseal it and look.
Paul:
Exactly. So you have to destroy the packaging. You have to open it up to get to the diaper so that now people like it’s very apparent that it has been opened.
Tim Jordan:
So that’s a good lesson to learn too is one, make sure your settings are for Amazon to send you back any returned items. Even if this one did.
Paul:
Slip through the cracks, I understand mistakes happen.
Tim Jordan:
Yeah. But then also make sure that if your product is sensitive to being reused, right. That it definitely has packaging that you cannot mistake for an open. If it’s been opened. Now, all of these things have led to a significant decrease in sales this year,
Paul:
Well not significant, it’s 12% lower, but that is, I mean, w based on our projections, our projections were that we would be by about two and a half million this year.
Tim Jordan:
Two, so 12% lower is way bigger than 12% lower. Because if you’re building a company that’s moving up and you’re expecting a certain growth rate. Not only are you staying on a plateau, but you’re decreasing and losing that growth right now, everybody right now talks about selling your businesses. Right. Everybody wants to exit, and everybody wants to exit on that period of time of the largest growth. Right. You were thinking about exiting your business.
Paul:
Yeah. We still are. And the problem is now that we’re looking at, instead of next year, we’re two to three years out now, because we need to be able to show that we’re having this upward trajectory. And, you know, it’s just, that’s the thing that like, yeah. I wasn’t like when we talked, I was like, pissy pants, Paul, like that one week. And you’re like man, you’re not doing too well, are you? I was like, he’s had to have a pissy pants moment every now and again, but you got to have good friends that be like, okay, well, stop being a whiny.
Tim Jordan:
Yeah. So it, but not only did it affect really the time-span that you were projecting out until you could sell this business. Yeah. But it also really hurt your asset value. Right? Because you can put a number. Hey, my business should be worth right. This Mount right now. And now you’re like, well, it’s worth a third of that. So even though your sales didn’t decrease substantially the value of your business substantially decreased right now, you work with your wife and this is your income, right? Like what you do in e-commerce is in your income and you guys are stuck together, working together, living together, raising kids together, changing diapers together, all this stuff. This has been a tough year. At what point do you decide, all right, we’re going to keep forcing through this and not completely pivot.
Paul:
Well, here’s the thing is that you choose to be successful. It’s a choice. You choose. You are going every day as an entrepreneur, you have to make a choice that you’re going to be successful. And when we started, You know, I alluded to the fact that I was working two jobs, we started, we put our inventory order on, on a credit card in the course, thank God for Freedom Ticket. Now you don’t have to pay, right? So we put the course five grand plus our inventory on it on a credit card. So my option was succeed. That was the option. There was no other option. And that’s still my option because the other option is we lose the house and that’s not an option. I will not lose the house. So that’s why I was going to resorts in Miami selling. We have $400,000 of inventory sitting in a container on our property. We need to move that inventory. So here’s the thing. Is that like from the get-go my goal and our goal is we are building a brand, I wanted, and I still want to build a billion dollar brand. Now that’s really very aspirational, right?
Tim Jordan:
That’s pretty optimistic,
Paul:
But this may be silly. And it’s my mom, you know, shoot for the stars. You might, if you ain’t hit, you ain’t gonna miss the moon, you know, shoot for the, whatever shoot for the moon.
Tim Jordan:
Shoot for the stars and miss you still land on the moon? Something like that.
Paul:
My thing is that I would much rather have a high goal that is, seems unattainable because it’s going to make me work harder. And if I miss that goal and I’m still going to be more successful than if I had a lower goal that I felt I was comfortable with doing, and as entrepreneurs, we have to make this choice to be successful, you have to make that choice that when you have the crap, when the poop, hits the face. So
Tim Jordan:
Many poop analogies in here, when the poo hits the fan,
Paul:
When the poo hits the diaper that hits the fan, you know, you gonna think, okay, what am I going to do? Well, we’re just going to muscle through it and so we’re working with, you know, getting our listing on Amazon so, that I didn’t even say like the Black Hat issue. We had so many categorizes as an adult product, and that goes back to the trademark issue because Amazon is saying, you’re not brand registered. So we can’t put you back, even though the fact that we’ve been in baby the entire time, it’s a brand registry issue. And so that’s going back to like, well, if we would have done this right, you know, six years ago, this would be less of an issue now. But my point is that I’ve made mistakes. I’m learning from those mistakes.
Paul:
And if you fail to learn from mistakes as an entrepreneur, you will be out of business, you will go out of business. And there’s a, there’s always those things that there will be the deciding points of whether you’re going to quit or go on. And, and, and if so you have to understand that, first of all, if you decide that you’re gonna quit, you need to look at sales. Okay. Is that a good option? Is this an option? And for me, the option is we’re not going to quit because we’re, we have a goal in mind. Do we want to exit our brand? And if we do that, now we are significantly undervaluing our stuff. So all that to say that, that the movements that we’re making or we’re getting into retail, we have distributed distributors lined up for you know, I told you the whole thing with Mexico, like we’ve got this potential thing with a high-end retail in Mexico, we’re working on that.
Paul:
We’ve got potential for target and target.com. We just got accepted into Walmart fulfillment services. We’ve, you know, I’ve been doing sales calls, but really I’m just going to be, I’m going to just hire sales agents to go to these resorts, because over this last year, you know, we’ve started getting into more results. So all that to say we’re not throwing in the towel, but we’re doing what I have always wanted to do. And this is just forcing us to do it better, which is diversify focus on other channels, focus on Walmart, focus on, we’re unfair.com all these other channels. But that’s my point is that I don’t want, I don’t want to sit on a, on a one legged stool. I don’t want, you know, Amazon to come in, whether it’s a Black Hat thing or some honest mistake or whatever, like I want my income to be for multiple streams. And you could do that with one business. We have multiple businesses, but yeah, that’s what we’re doing in this one. And I think that
Tim Jordan:
The reason I wanted Paula to talk about this is just to show a few things. One is everybody’s struggles, right? Like even guys that are, you know, experts in the industry that are, you know, laugh and have a good time seeing like the world is awesome. You know, they’re, they’re having, they’re having poopy days too. They’re having crappy times as well. This is where like little, 12 year olds with all the poop jokes in this episode. And I’m sure once the camera turns off, they’ll probably get even worse.
Tim Jordan:
But the point is like a lot of times we set ourselves up for failure because we look at what we think reality is like, we perceive that all these other people are so successful. These other people have it so easy. All these other people aren’t going through the struggles that I am and having the challenges and being frustrated. Like I am an, everybody does, like, if you ever meet someone, that’s like, oh, this was easy. Punch him in the face, call them liar and quit listening to their crappy content because it’s just not true. Right. Well, we’ve sat around with some of the most, I don’t know, recognized, I guess, experts in the industry that like, you know, I’ve had adult men in this space that a lot of you would know, like crying, telling me stories, you know, the stuff they’ve gone through, like legit and it’s just a really good reminder that if you’re struggling, if you’re frustrated, if you’re discouraged, like you’re doing something right.
Tim Jordan:
Yeah. And I’ve said the analogy before, like babies, don’t just decide to stand up and start running. They have to try and then fall and try and fall and try and fall and try and fall. And then they’ll walk and then they’ll fall and then fall and they’ll fall and then they’ll run. Right? You have to do that. But the other thing is every struggle, every hurdle, every potential barricade gives us an important lesson, right? Paul will never make that mistake about trademarks. Again, it’s never going to happen. Paul’s never going to go back to not understanding how utilizing capital can help us business. Paul’s never going to go back to a situation where he’s not utilizing different traffic sources in different distribution channels. Right? So keep listening to content, keep listening to other people that have been through some of these struggles and listen, right?
Tim Jordan:
Like listen and pay attention. Because as we all continue to share our struggles and share our successes, even like, that’s just value for you guys. So I commend we’re about 30 minute mark, right? So if you listen to this, I know you’ve at least listened to the subs of 30 minutes and I commend you for that. You have to keep doing that. You have to keep learning. Otherwise you’re going to miss a great opportunity. So Paul, thanks for being on and thank you for sharing that. Absolutely, man. If someone wanted to find out more information about you, they could go
Paul:
To The Chat Agency
Tim Jordan:
thechatagency.com, where he is for hire to do not him, his team. He has a company that’s for hire to do external traffic and all sorts of cool stuff for your e-commerce brands. So everything else.
Paul:
Yeah. That’s it. I’m just going to say that. No, keep at it. If you’re failing, you’re winning you’re it’s failure is essential to success. Like you have to fail and just keep at it. Hey, if you liked this, I don’t know. Let’s share your stories.
Tim Jordan:
Thank you all for listening again. If you would leave us a review on Spotify podcast, whatever you’re listening to. If you’re watching this on YouTube, hit that thumbs up button, subscribe and share this around. If you know anybody that needs to hear this. If you’re in a mastermind program, if you’re in any sort of communities, please share this around with them and we appreciate y’all. We’ll see you on the next episode.
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