RPF0239-Andreea_Ayers_Interview
00:00:00.000 | Don't just dream about paradise, live it with Fiji Airways.
00:00:05.000 | Escape the ordinary with Fiji Airways Global Beat the Rush Sale.
00:00:09.120 | Immerse yourself in white sandy beaches or dive deep into coral reefs.
00:00:14.040 | Fiji Airways has flights to Nadi starting at just $748 for light and just $798 for value.
00:00:21.160 | Discover your tropical dreams at FijiAirways.com.
00:00:24.920 | That's FijiAirways.com.
00:00:26.640 | From here to happy.
00:00:28.160 | Flying direct with Fiji Airways.
00:00:30.800 | In the world of lifestyle design of which radical personal finance is kind of a part
00:00:36.800 | and e-commerce, mobile, online, business opportunities, things like that,
00:00:41.800 | that's partly the space in which radical personal finance participates.
00:00:45.800 | It's very easy to think that the way to get rich is to create some sort of digital product.
00:00:51.800 | And many of the people that we have on the show have done just that.
00:00:57.800 | But what about the stuff that you actually hold in your hands?
00:01:00.800 | Are there opportunities in today's world for you to simply create something cool,
00:01:05.800 | market it, and make some money and build a cool lifestyle off of it?
00:01:11.800 | Well, my guest today is Andrea Ayers and she's done exactly that.
00:01:17.800 | Taken a physical product, applied a little bit of expertise,
00:01:21.800 | a little bit of modern marketing kung fu, modern marketing foo,
00:01:27.800 | and made herself some money.
00:01:29.800 | And today she's going to share some lessons with you and me that I think can be helpful
00:01:35.800 | for us to do a more effective job marketing our physical products.
00:01:39.800 | [Music]
00:01:55.800 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.
00:01:57.800 | My name is Joshua Sheets and I'm your host.
00:01:59.800 | Thank you for being with me today.
00:02:00.800 | I think you're going to enjoy today's show because what it's going to talk about
00:02:04.800 | is the intersection between the physical world, the digital world,
00:02:09.800 | the lifestyle design world, and the business world all mixed up.
00:02:13.800 | Our guide is Andrea Ayers.
00:02:15.800 | She is the founder of Launch Grow Joy.
00:02:19.800 | And, well, I think we're going to have fun.
00:02:22.800 | [Music]
00:02:28.800 | This is an interview that was recorded at the podcast movement 2015 in August
00:02:32.800 | in Fort Worth, Texas.
00:02:34.800 | And if you're just joining us today, just remember that this week is interview week
00:02:37.800 | on Radical Personal Finances.
00:02:39.800 | I am up in Charlotte, North Carolina, speaking at the XYPN '15 conference
00:02:44.800 | and also at the FinCon '15 conference.
00:02:48.800 | So I am in Charlotte, North Carolina this week.
00:02:50.800 | Hopefully I am seeing some of you there in person.
00:02:52.800 | If you're up in Charlotte, make sure to reach out to me and we can connect.
00:02:56.800 | I'd love to meet as many of you as I possibly can while I'm in Charlotte.
00:02:59.800 | But prior to the podcast movement conference in August,
00:03:02.800 | I was going through and looking through a list of all the speakers
00:03:05.800 | and going through a list of as many attendees as I could find,
00:03:09.800 | just looking for people who might have an interesting story
00:03:12.800 | or interesting insight and expertise that I could bring to you,
00:03:17.800 | the listening audience here on Radical Personal Finance.
00:03:19.800 | And when I read Andrea Ayers' bio, I had not previously been familiar with her,
00:03:24.800 | I immediately knew that I wanted to have her on the show
00:03:26.800 | because she made some money setting up a business selling T-shirts.
00:03:32.800 | How cool is that?
00:03:34.800 | And so I immediately invited her on.
00:03:37.800 | She accepted and we had a lot of fun doing this interview.
00:03:39.800 | I tried to get as much free information as I could out of her.
00:03:42.800 | Hopefully some of you can take this information and go and make some money with it.
00:03:46.800 | If you do, let her know and also let me know.
00:03:49.800 | Andrea, welcome to Radical Personal Finance.
00:03:53.800 | Thanks so much. It's fun being here.
00:03:55.800 | Right before we flipped on the microphones,
00:03:57.800 | I started showing you some money that I was actually given,
00:04:01.800 | some currency from Romania that I was given.
00:04:05.800 | And I was demonstrating to ask you how to say the Romanian words.
00:04:08.800 | And I'd like for you to start.
00:04:11.800 | And I said, right in the middle of an interesting conversation,
00:04:14.800 | I said, wait, wait, wait, wait, we're going to turn the microphones on.
00:04:16.800 | I'd love for you to start.
00:04:17.800 | How did you wind up moving out of Romania and coming to the United States?
00:04:22.800 | So my parents brought me here.
00:04:25.800 | I sort of had nothing to do with it,
00:04:27.800 | but it was something that almost I could say every family in Romania wanted to do.
00:04:32.800 | And my family was one of the "lucky ones" to be able to come to the US.
00:04:39.800 | How old were you when they immigrated?
00:04:41.800 | I was about to be 13.
00:04:43.800 | Okay. So was it because of the economic crisis happening at that time?
00:04:48.800 | Absolutely, yes.
00:04:50.800 | So did they tell stories about how they made that decision?
00:04:54.800 | Did they tell stories about, did they know anybody in the United States?
00:04:57.800 | How did it work from their perspective?
00:05:00.800 | Yeah, it's interesting because my aunt and uncle made it here,
00:05:03.800 | and they were here before we were here.
00:05:05.800 | But almost every friend I had, they all had the same story,
00:05:09.800 | where they were all trying to get here as soon as possible.
00:05:13.800 | So for me, it was just a normal part of growing up, wanting to come here.
00:05:17.800 | It's fascinating because a lot of listeners of my show and a lot of people are concerned
00:05:22.800 | that the United States seems to be on a similar track with our currency
00:05:26.800 | that many countries have already taken with regard to hyperinflation
00:05:30.800 | and the economic recession and depression that can accompany it.
00:05:33.800 | And so I'm always interested in talking and noticing the stories of others
00:05:38.800 | who have gone through that type of thing.
00:05:41.800 | And I guess the end result is you take the steps that you need to take
00:05:44.800 | to provide for your family. Life doesn't end, it just changes.
00:05:48.800 | Exactly, yep. And you sort of start over.
00:05:51.800 | Right, right. So how are your parents doing?
00:05:53.800 | Did they emigrate with anything or did they emigrate penniless, essentially?
00:05:57.800 | So they sort of emigrated pennilessly.
00:05:59.800 | My dad came here first to my aunt and uncle who sponsored him.
00:06:05.800 | And then he started working, made his way, and then my sister and I came over, too.
00:06:10.800 | Are they doing okay now financially?
00:06:12.800 | They're doing okay. My dad actually retired back in Romania,
00:06:15.800 | so he's back there now. So it's an interesting story.
00:06:18.800 | Awesome. Well, let's dig into your story now.
00:06:21.800 | I brought you on the show because I'm interested in your perspective on marketing,
00:06:24.800 | specifically how you've been able to generate results of marketing physical products
00:06:29.800 | in a public space, even on a small scale.
00:06:31.800 | And I think this is a topic that will have many, many points of value
00:06:36.800 | for the radical personal finance community.
00:06:38.800 | I'd love for you to start with just sharing with us a little bit about your story
00:06:43.800 | and your own entrepreneurial journey.
00:06:45.800 | Yeah, sure. So I started a t-shirt business,
00:06:48.800 | which I knew nothing about t-shirts or marketing or selling online.
00:06:52.800 | And I decided to launch this t-shirt business, invest $1,000 in it,
00:06:57.800 | and see where it went.
00:06:59.800 | So I bought 96 t-shirts. That's what I could afford with $1,000.
00:07:04.800 | And I took photos of them, put them up online, and sort of hoped that I would get sales.
00:07:11.800 | And I didn't get sales at first, so I thought, well, maybe,
00:07:14.800 | obviously I don't have an audience yet, let me try Etsy.
00:07:17.800 | So I put my photos on Etsy, too, and I started getting sales.
00:07:21.800 | And I think that's what gave me the confidence to keep going with it.
00:07:25.800 | And I knew right away that part of my target market was yoga studios.
00:07:30.800 | So I reached out to a ton of yoga studios and asked them if they wanted to carry my t-shirts in their studio.
00:07:37.800 | And I had about 3,000 yoga studios on that list that I made.
00:07:42.800 | And as I was sending out emails, they started saying,
00:07:45.800 | "Yes, we'd love to bring your t-shirts into our store."
00:07:48.800 | And that's when I realized, oh, boy, okay, I reached out to way too many studios.
00:07:53.800 | I don't have enough shirts.
00:07:54.800 | Let me go back and take the money that I've made from these first initial orders and invest back into making more shirts.
00:08:01.800 | Did you design the shirts or did you just find a design that you liked and sell those?
00:08:05.800 | So I kept it really simple.
00:08:07.800 | It was just text.
00:08:08.800 | So I'm not a designer.
00:08:10.800 | I didn't really know how to go about designing.
00:08:13.800 | So I figured if I can just keep a text, make it super simple, then I can do something myself.
00:08:19.800 | So it was just text at first.
00:08:21.800 | How many shirts were you able to sell and how much money did you make?
00:08:23.800 | Well, I had 96 shirts and I sold out of all of them within my first month.
00:08:28.800 | So it was, I can't remember exactly how much it was, but that gave me enough money to invest into buying more shirts.
00:08:35.800 | And ultimately, though, you sold quite a few, many thousands of shirts, right?
00:08:38.800 | I did, yeah.
00:08:39.800 | By the time I sold the business, I sold over 20,000 shirts.
00:08:44.800 | So it was a lot, yeah.
00:08:46.800 | It seems it's such an interesting story because it's hard to think of a more crowded marketplace than the t-shirt marketplace, right?
00:08:52.800 | Exactly, yeah.
00:08:53.800 | And I knew that when I was going into it, but I figured if I can focus on yoga studios and my t-shirts were made out of organic materials, which wasn't really popular at the time,
00:09:05.800 | I figured I had sort of a competitive advantage and I could market my t-shirts to these yoga studios that were actually looking for eco brands.
00:09:14.800 | So I think that's where I sort of made my mark in that crowded market.
00:09:18.800 | Was that an environment you were part of? You were part of the yoga community?
00:09:24.800 | And so it was natural to you or you just identified it and said, "I bet this is what they would like"?
00:09:29.800 | Yeah, so it was definitely, I was part of the yoga community and at the same time, I was doing a lot of research for eco and organic products.
00:09:37.800 | So I was part of that community as well.
00:09:39.800 | And I knew that when I would launch, I definitely wanted an eco-friendly product.
00:09:43.800 | And you went on to start another business with also a physical product business.
00:09:47.800 | Tell me about that.
00:09:48.800 | I did. So that was actually a soap business. It was organic and handcrafted soaps.
00:09:54.800 | Again, that organic theme and it was kind of my t-shirts, but on a soap because I had positive messages that I stamped onto each.
00:10:03.800 | I mean, I didn't do it, but I had someone else do it for me and every soap had a positive word on it as well.
00:10:09.800 | And now you're primarily focused on teaching other people how to more effectively market their products.
00:10:15.800 | Exactly. So my big passion is publicity and teaching product entrepreneurs how to get their products, whether it's soaps or t-shirts or whatever product they have,
00:10:26.800 | how to get them in magazines and how to drive more traffic to their website through publicity.
00:10:31.800 | So that's exactly why I've invited you on because I think one of the trends I see in the world is the barriers to distribution, the barriers to content are much lower.
00:10:46.800 | You could mark a t-shirt. You didn't have to go out and find necessarily the biggest distributor to get them into Macy's.
00:10:53.800 | You can do things yourselves. And with soaps, you can figure out how do I find my marketplace.
00:10:58.800 | And it's never been easier, I think, for a creator to be able to connect with the marketplace if they can access and build the publicity around their product.
00:11:08.800 | And there's such an interest in many brands and small companies and small products.
00:11:13.800 | And so what I'd like you to do is share with my audience. I'm going to give you two cases, two avatars to keep in your mind of specific listeners that I know of.
00:11:23.800 | And share with my audience some of your ideas and how you would approach this so that they can market their products.
00:11:30.800 | Here are the two avatars. I have a listener who is building a t-shirt business.
00:11:36.800 | And she's building a t-shirt business around debt-free slogans and financial slogans and things like that.
00:11:44.800 | The second listener is they make handcrafted beauty products, skin products, things like that.
00:11:51.800 | And it's a family business and they market those products out of their home.
00:11:54.800 | So if you're in this kind of niche business, which you were and are, how do you approach the process of marketing and building publicity?
00:12:05.800 | Yeah, that's such a great question. And first of all, I want to say that both of those people need to have a clear idea of who their audience is and who their target customer is.
00:12:17.800 | And I know so many people talk about that. It's one of the really hardest things to figure out as an entrepreneur is who is my market and who am I going after?
00:12:28.800 | And I think obviously the first one, it's women who want to achieve financial freedom.
00:12:34.800 | So for that, actually for both, I would say starting out with bloggers would be a great way to go.
00:12:40.800 | Because when you're working with bloggers, and there's not bloggers in every niche, there's bloggers that talk about handcrafted beauty products and bloggers who talk about finance and specifically women and giving tips for women how to make money and become debt-free.
00:12:55.800 | So I would recommend for both of those to make a list of 10 to 20 bloggers who are specifically targeting that audience and reach out to those bloggers and try to do product reviews and giveaways.
00:13:08.800 | And I've done that with both of my businesses. And the great reason as to why that works is because when you do a product review and a giveaway with a blogger, you're not only getting links back to your website, which are so important, but you're also getting in front of that blogger's audience and their audience is exactly who you want your customers to be.
00:13:30.800 | So that would be definitely my first step.
00:13:33.800 | So let's start with product reviews. If you're trying to get your product in front of an influential blogger, do you just send it? Do you ask them if you can send it? What's the process look like?
00:13:42.800 | Great question. So you reach out to them first by email and you let them know why you think your product would be a great fit for their blog and you offer to send them a sample.
00:13:52.800 | And usually almost 99.9% of the time you will have to send a product sample to that blogger. And the reason for that is that's their form of payment in a way, but they also want to use your product.
00:14:05.800 | They want to take photos of themselves using it and then they want to do a blog post with themselves using that product.
00:14:12.800 | So you sort of have to give them the product so they can test it and try it out and really review it from their experience.
00:14:18.800 | So yeah, just reaching out by email, but it's really important if you can connect with them via social media or other, maybe at events or something like that first, that's really great, but you definitely don't have to.
00:14:31.800 | You can just reach out, send them a really nice email, let them know why you think their readers would love to know about your products and offer to send them a sample and do a giveaway.
00:14:40.800 | With a giveaway, how does that work?
00:14:42.800 | So with a giveaway, they will let you know, for example, "Okay, yes, I would like a medium-sized t-shirt and here's my address."
00:14:50.800 | So you give them, you send them your product and then they do their thing with it. They'll review it, they'll test it out, they'll try it out.
00:14:57.800 | They oftentimes will ask you if you want to do a giveaway as well.
00:15:01.800 | So what they'll do with that, and I recommend doing those if you can, because what they'll often do is they'll post it on their blog with the giveaway and then they'll say, "Okay, one lucky reader, if you go to this t-shirt website, if you sign up for their email newsletter, if you share it on social media, you get certain entries towards the giveaway."
00:15:21.800 | So it really gets people to be engaged with that product and go to the website, test it out, and see how they like it.
00:15:29.800 | So that's a much better way of getting their audience involved as well.
00:15:33.800 | If you're getting involved in creating a product, would you spend more time focusing on clearly identifying the market and the customers or on enhancing the product and making it the best product out there?
00:15:48.800 | Yeah, clearly identifying your market, I would say, should be your most important step because you can have an amazing product, but if no one knows about it and no one knows it's out there, it doesn't really matter.
00:15:59.800 | But you have to, I would say, spend most of your time marketing your product.
00:16:03.800 | And then as your company grows, as you have more resources to dedicate towards improving your product, I think you can go in that direction too.
00:16:11.800 | And my t-shirts definitely, by the time I sold my business, they looked different and the quality in some ways was better than when I first started.
00:16:21.800 | But I never would have had those resources to have the best product when I first started.
00:16:25.800 | So I think that's something that a lot of people sort of use that as an excuse to not even get started because you're not going to have a perfect product right away.
00:16:33.800 | And the type of product we're talking about, I mean t-shirts, this is not meant to be insulting, they're a commodity.
00:16:41.800 | A t-shirt is a t-shirt is a t-shirt.
00:16:43.800 | And it might have some unique character to it, it might be organic cotton, and it might have a cool saying, but it's accomplishing the same job.
00:16:53.800 | And you see this in clothing as a good example.
00:16:55.800 | An Armani suit will cover your body, well, I was going to say as effectively, but who knows about the effectiveness.
00:17:02.800 | It'll cover your body just like a cheap JCPenney suit.
00:17:08.800 | And so in that situation, it's all about the branding and it's all about building the brand that's associated with it.
00:17:13.800 | And that takes a lot of work.
00:17:16.800 | So in a commodity business, it's all about building the brand behind the product and then reaching that brand.
00:17:25.800 | It's all about building the idea behind it.
00:17:28.800 | And if you're not in a specific niche, then you don't know how to target it.
00:17:32.800 | It's impossible to target bloggers, right?
00:17:34.800 | Exactly.
00:17:35.800 | But you could target yoga, very hardcore yoga aficionados.
00:17:41.800 | You could target the yoga, well, you'd probably even have to get much more focused than just yoga, because yoga in and of itself, there's a bit of different disciplines, it's very broad.
00:17:50.800 | You'd want to find people who have a unique variation of yoga, who are going to have an audience that's committed to their unique variation.
00:17:57.800 | And so spending a lot of time narrowing out the niche would seem to me to be thing number one.
00:18:03.800 | And then once you understand that niche, once you understand that core group of customers and you ask, what do they want, what's important to them, then adjusting the product to fit those attributes.
00:18:14.800 | Yeah, exactly.
00:18:15.800 | And it's interesting you brought that up because I work with a lot of t-shirt entrepreneurs.
00:18:19.800 | And I see a lot of them who are really passionate about a phrase or a logo or a saying, and they turn that into a t-shirt business.
00:18:27.800 | So they'll just take their logo or their phrase that means so much to them, and they'll put that on a t-shirt, hoping that other people will feel the same way and buy it.
00:18:36.800 | And what often happens is you really have to think about, okay, I know this phrase means a lot to me and this logo means something to me, but would it mean something to someone else as well?
00:18:47.800 | And if you have a product that someone else would actually want to buy, that could mean something to someone else, I think that you have a much better chance than just saying, oh, I love this phrase, I'm going to put it up there and hope that people will buy.
00:19:00.800 | How would you test that?
00:19:01.800 | Well, you can ask people that you don't know and don't ask your friends or family.
00:19:07.800 | They'll just say, oh, yes, I love it.
00:19:10.800 | But maybe go to, I don't know, if you have a product for yoga, go to your local yoga studio and ask people, hey, would you buy this?
00:19:19.800 | And if they say yes, okay, then you can sell it to them and see if they're actually willing to pay for it.
00:19:25.800 | Another way would be to sort of test it out and see what happens.
00:19:30.800 | So launch your business, see what sells, what doesn't sell, and then you can get feedback that way as well.
00:19:36.800 | What about partnering with the actual content creator?
00:19:40.800 | So let's stay on the t-shirt example.
00:19:41.800 | This person who's building the business, she's a friend of mine, she's actually my graphic designer.
00:19:46.800 | And she and her husband are working their way out to pay off their student loans, and that's their reason for building and working to build the company.
00:19:56.800 | And I recommended to her that she's building the brand, but the brand is called Debt Free Swag.
00:20:05.800 | So she's building the brand, but there's no market for it right now.
00:20:10.800 | No one knows about the brand.
00:20:11.800 | And I told her what I see, like I would love to have very cool, hip t-shirts with cool slogans and cool designs that are around radical personal finance.
00:20:22.800 | Debt free, freedom, financial independence, lots of -- and she's an incredibly talented designer.
00:20:28.800 | So I think it's a great product.
00:20:29.800 | But to build the brand, I said I would love to offer a radical personal finance branded t-shirt.
00:20:34.800 | And in my mind, if she could partner with me and partner with other financial bloggers, other financial writers, and just be the behind the scenes, and their brand is primary, that would allow them -- that would allow -- you know, I'm much more likely to spend a lot of time promoting the radical personal finance t-shirts than I am her brand, even though I like them.
00:20:56.800 | What do you think about that type of approach?
00:20:58.800 | Yeah, I think that could work, too.
00:20:59.800 | And since you already have an audience, I would reach out to your audience and do a mock-up and say, "Hey, here's what I'm thinking of doing.
00:21:07.800 | Here's my price.
00:21:09.800 | Go ahead.
00:21:10.800 | We only have a limited number.
00:21:11.800 | And if, let's say, 50 people buy it, we're going to go ahead and make it."
00:21:15.800 | And that would be a great way to actually test it out when you already have an audience who would be willing to do that.
00:21:21.800 | How did you figure out your pricing with your t-shirt business?
00:21:24.800 | Yeah, so I looked at how much it was costing me to actually get the t-shirts made, to get them printed, to get them shipped from the manufacturer to my printer.
00:21:34.800 | And I took the price.
00:21:36.800 | I also knew I wanted to sell to other retail stores, and that's something that you need to keep in mind as well.
00:21:42.800 | Because if you're just going to go direct to your customer, your pricing might be a little different than if you're selling to other retailers as well.
00:21:49.800 | But for me, I knew I wanted to be in Yoga Studios, so I knew they had to mark up the price as well.
00:21:55.800 | So, the cost of my t-shirt was around anywhere from $5 to maybe $7 or $8, depending on the t-shirt.
00:22:03.800 | And I would just double that and add a little more for the wholesale price and then double that for the retail price.
00:22:10.800 | So, I would sell a $5 to $7 t-shirt anywhere from $28 to $34.
00:22:17.800 | Did you test higher prices?
00:22:20.800 | I did, yeah. So, I started out with a $28 price point because that was just the straight math.
00:22:26.800 | But then I realized that at that point, I couldn't really pay myself.
00:22:30.800 | And if I'm going to spend so much time in this, I need to be able to make money off of it too.
00:22:35.800 | And I tried the $30 price point, and then I increased it at $32.
00:22:40.800 | And it's funny that every time I would increase my price, my shirts would sell better.
00:22:44.800 | So, I settled on $32 and $34 for my t-shirts, and they sold much better than the $28 price point.
00:22:53.800 | That's what it seems to me, and that's what I told my friend.
00:22:55.800 | I said, "I can go down to any place and find a t-shirt for a couple bucks.
00:23:01.800 | The t-shirt is not the value. The brand is the value."
00:23:04.800 | I'll pay a lot of money for a brand that I like, especially if it's my brand.
00:23:09.800 | I've got to show up on videos. I've got to show up at events.
00:23:14.800 | If I had a really cool t-shirt that was really beautifully branded with me, I'll pay a lot of money for that.
00:23:20.800 | So, the other thing is, in order to provide that, when you're in a commodity market,
00:23:25.800 | it seems to me that obviously there is a point at which people say, "That's just too much."
00:23:32.800 | But you need to be at the upper end of the market because you've got to recognize this is a luxury item.
00:23:37.800 | We're not selling the covering of my body. We're selling the promotion of my brand.
00:23:41.800 | That, in and of itself, is a luxury item, and there's some margin with pricing.
00:23:46.800 | Absolutely. I was going to say, for me, what really made a difference in why I was able to sell over 20,000 t-shirts for over $30
00:23:55.800 | is that I really established my brand, and I talked a lot about my story and what the brand means.
00:24:02.800 | I think that was part of my marketing materials. It was all over my website.
00:24:06.800 | It was on my social media. And what I was selling was not a t-shirt.
00:24:10.800 | What I was selling was inspiration and inspiring other people and changing someone's day and changing how they feel and how they look.
00:24:19.800 | So, I think if you can look at it like, what are you really selling?
00:24:23.800 | And it's not a t-shirt. You're selling how someone's going to look.
00:24:26.800 | You're selling how they're going to feel, and you're selling this way of helping them inspire themselves and express themselves.
00:24:33.800 | And people express themselves through clothing all the time, and I think that's why often they buy something,
00:24:38.800 | is because they feel like that piece of clothing is helping them to express themselves.
00:24:44.800 | What was your story that you shared behind the business?
00:24:47.800 | My story, it's a really interesting one.
00:24:49.800 | I started my t-shirt business when I was actually pregnant with my first baby, and my husband and I wanted to have a home birth.
00:24:58.800 | And everyone that I would tell, "We're going to have a home birth," they're like, "You're crazy. That's stupid."
00:25:03.800 | And I'm not throwing anyone under the bus, but everyone was like, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
00:25:08.800 | You should just not do that. It's dangerous."
00:25:11.800 | So, everywhere I turned, with the exception of a few people, everyone was really negative about it.
00:25:16.800 | And I said, "You know, I'm kind of tired of trying to explain myself and why I want to make this decision."
00:25:22.800 | And that's one idea of where my t-shirt came from, because my t-shirt had two word phrases on them,
00:25:29.800 | and it was allowing me to express myself.
00:25:32.800 | So, that's one story that I told.
00:25:34.800 | But then there's other stories, too, because there's other businesses that I was trying to, or thinking about starting as well.
00:25:41.800 | And the other story that I would tell, especially when I would go into the yoga studios,
00:25:46.800 | is that I would say I was inspired to start this t-shirt company when I was taking a yoga class,
00:25:51.800 | and I saw someone else wearing an inspirational t-shirt, and I thought I could do it better, and in eco-friendly material.
00:25:58.800 | So, everyone has a few different stories, and I think you can pick the story that you want to share
00:26:03.800 | with the audience that is hearing it at the other end.
00:26:08.800 | Have you ever read a book by Tim Ferriss called "The Four-Hour Workweek"?
00:26:12.800 | I have, yes.
00:26:13.800 | In that book, he uses as an example of a passive business.
00:26:17.800 | He calls it a muse. I don't get that word, but he calls it a muse, something that creates money for you.
00:26:22.800 | He uses a shirt business as an ideal example of a passive business,
00:26:28.800 | and he's only using it to illustrate the process of coming up with the company.
00:26:32.800 | But I think it's interesting that you've got some experience in that.
00:26:36.800 | What was the actual day-to-day like of running that business?
00:26:39.800 | Was it a passive business? You could sit at home and just get orders?
00:26:42.800 | Or what was it actually like?
00:26:43.800 | Yeah, so I would say it was definitely not a passive business.
00:26:47.800 | I'm shocked.
00:26:49.800 | Especially when I first started, and I was packing and shipping everything myself.
00:26:53.800 | And by the time I sold it, it was definitely more of a passive one.
00:26:56.800 | By that time, I had a fulfillment house, and I had someone do the blogging for me,
00:27:01.800 | and the customer service, and all of that.
00:27:03.800 | So, when I first started, it was very hands-on.
00:27:05.800 | My day-to-day was, "Okay, today I'm going to focus on publicity."
00:27:09.800 | I would make a list of all of the magazines and blogs that I wanted to be on,
00:27:13.800 | and reach out to them.
00:27:15.800 | Another day was all about selling to other stores and yoga studios,
00:27:18.800 | so I would reach out to those places.
00:27:20.800 | Other days were focused on designing, and what the next line or collection was going to be focused on.
00:27:26.800 | So, every day was totally different.
00:27:29.800 | I did have some consistency in terms of knowing that every week I would reach out to stores,
00:27:34.800 | and every week I would reach out to magazines, because publicity to me was a huge thing that I wanted to focus on.
00:27:41.800 | But, outside of that, every day was totally different.
00:27:44.800 | It was really hands-on.
00:27:46.800 | Definitely, if you want to start a passive business,
00:27:49.800 | starting a T-shirt business is not what I would recommend.
00:27:53.800 | There's other things you can do more passively than that.
00:27:56.800 | But, it's also a lot of fun, and if you really love it, it doesn't feel like work at all.
00:28:00.800 | So, for me, I would look forward to sitting down at my computer and working,
00:28:04.800 | and that's how I knew when it was the right thing for me to be doing.
00:28:08.800 | Why did you sell?
00:28:09.800 | I sold it for a couple of reasons.
00:28:12.800 | I started getting other emails from T-shirt entrepreneurs saying,
00:28:17.800 | "Hey, can I pay you to teach me how you got into so many stores, how you got into magazines?
00:28:22.800 | I want to learn everything from you."
00:28:24.800 | So, I said, "Sure, you can pay me if you're offering to pay me."
00:28:28.800 | So, I started taking on coaching clients, and I really loved it.
00:28:32.800 | I loved talking to them and helping them get their business off the ground
00:28:36.800 | and helping them set their online store.
00:28:38.800 | And I realized that other people kept on coming to me,
00:28:42.800 | and I just couldn't do both businesses.
00:28:45.800 | I was also pregnant with my third baby at that time,
00:28:48.800 | and I was moving cross-country, so I thought,
00:28:51.800 | "Okay, there's no way I can do two businesses, three kids, a move, and do it all well."
00:28:56.800 | So, I said, "Something has to go."
00:28:58.800 | Obviously, the kids couldn't go, so the business was the only thing that had to go.
00:29:02.800 | So, I loved teaching so much that I decided to sell my T-shirt business.
00:29:06.800 | And I also think it came at a really great point because the T-shirt business was doing really well,
00:29:11.800 | so it was really attractive for someone to buy.
00:29:14.800 | How did you find the buyer?
00:29:15.800 | I listed it on a yoga website.
00:29:17.800 | Really?
00:29:18.800 | Yep. I also listed it on a place.
00:29:20.800 | I think it's called Buy Biz Sell or Biz Buy Sell or something like that
00:29:24.800 | for websites or for online businesses.
00:29:27.800 | But the way I found this buyer was through a yoga website,
00:29:31.800 | and they had yoga studios for sale for people who were looking to buy yoga studios.
00:29:36.800 | And I said, "Well, I'm not selling a yoga studio, but I'm selling a yoga product,"
00:29:40.800 | because that was my main market.
00:29:42.800 | So, I listed it on there, got a whole bunch of people interested,
00:29:45.800 | and I interviewed them all, and then I just picked the one who I thought would be the best fit for the business at that time.
00:29:52.800 | How did you come up with the price?
00:29:53.800 | There's so many ways to do it, and different industries have different pricing.
00:29:58.800 | But for me, I took my profit and multiplied that by three times.
00:30:02.800 | Okay. Awesome.
00:30:04.800 | So, now you have this coaching business.
00:30:08.800 | You have some digital products that you sell.
00:30:11.800 | Yep. I have digital products and a membership site.
00:30:13.800 | Okay. And you have three kids?
00:30:15.800 | I have three kids.
00:30:16.800 | Three kids.
00:30:17.800 | How do you handle the balance in caring for your family and working?
00:30:23.800 | Yeah. So, for me, it's really important that I separate the two as much as I can.
00:30:27.800 | So, when my kids are home, I'm not really working, and when they're at school, that's when I get most of my work done.
00:30:32.800 | Got it.
00:30:33.800 | And my husband also, he teaches part-time at a university, so his schedule is really flexible.
00:30:39.800 | So, he has the kids a lot while I'm working, and we've been able to work it out where he's not working full-time,
00:30:45.800 | I'm not working full-time, but my business is bringing in enough money to support our family and allow us to do the things we want to do.
00:30:55.800 | That's awesome. It's the dream, right?
00:30:56.800 | Yeah. I know. Exactly.
00:30:58.800 | Do you feel like, as a fellow digital entrepreneur, I don't know what word to ascribe to us, but setting up a similar path,
00:31:08.800 | it's an interesting balance because you do have a lot of flexibility, a lot of freedom, but there's also a lot of work.
00:31:14.800 | Do you have any sense of how much you work at this point in time?
00:31:17.800 | Yeah, I would say I work anywhere between 20 to 30 hours a week, depending on...
00:31:21.800 | You're able to do it with that much? Wow!
00:31:23.800 | I am, yes.
00:31:24.800 | Good for you.
00:31:25.800 | Yeah, I mean, if I'm doing a launch or something like that, it can get a little more than that, but it's rare that I'll work more than 30 hours a week.
00:31:33.800 | I usually just work between 9 and 2 or 9 and 3 when my kids come home from school.
00:31:38.800 | So, you've built a pretty cool lifestyle. You guys still live in Colorado?
00:31:41.800 | We still live in Colorado, yeah.
00:31:43.800 | Is it better than New York City?
00:31:44.800 | Oh my God, so much better.
00:31:46.800 | How did you decide to move?
00:31:48.800 | I think I was just fed up with New York and I had been there for over 20 years.
00:31:53.800 | I was pregnant when we moved, as I said, and the deciding factor, and this sounds crazy, but I was working at NYU at the time,
00:32:01.800 | and I would come home on the subway. It was so hot and the staircase on the subway at my station was never working,
00:32:10.800 | so I would have to climb up this crazy, I don't know if you've ever been in those subway, some of these stations are crazy.
00:32:16.800 | And I just remember climbing up those stairs every single day after work.
00:32:20.800 | It was like 6 o'clock and I was like, I do not want to, I'm so over this.
00:32:24.800 | I just, something has to change.
00:32:26.800 | So, I went home one day and I told my husband, I'm ready to move. I don't want to be here anymore.
00:32:31.800 | Can we please move somewhere else?
00:32:33.800 | And he had, it's interesting because he moved to New York to pursue a theater career.
00:32:37.800 | So, he was like, oh, okay, I'm here for that, but we worked it out and it was one of the best decisions we've made.
00:32:46.800 | Yeah, the reason I probe on that is simply because it's one of the things that I observe and that I encourage people to consider.
00:32:53.800 | Where you live, just in and of itself, is going to make a massive difference to your lifestyle.
00:32:59.800 | Absolutely, yeah.
00:33:01.800 | Living in Boulder, Colorado, living in Barbados, living in New York City, living in Hong Kong,
00:33:08.800 | those are four dramatically distinct and different lifestyles.
00:33:12.800 | And that, in and of itself, is going to dictate what your days look like, what your evenings look like, everything that you do.
00:33:18.800 | I mean, Boulder's a wonderful place.
00:33:20.800 | My wife and I went there a couple years ago. We went hiking in the Chautauqua Park.
00:33:25.800 | Chautauqua, yeah, it's awesome there.
00:33:27.800 | Beautiful. Last question, not related to finance, I'm just curious.
00:33:30.800 | You and I have two children and both of them have been born at home.
00:33:33.800 | Were all three of your children born at home?
00:33:35.800 | They were, yeah.
00:33:36.800 | What were your reasons? Because we got sick and tired of everyone yelling at us, too.
00:33:40.800 | And, like, listen, I've done more research than you can imagine on this topic.
00:33:44.800 | And everyone loves to tell you their horror stories to help you prepare for your birth.
00:33:49.800 | But why did you guys make that choice?
00:33:51.800 | Yeah, it just seemed like the right choice.
00:33:53.800 | It's interesting because with us, we moved to Boulder and we're looking for a midwife or something that wasn't.
00:34:00.800 | And we've sort of always been a little more outside the box.
00:34:03.800 | And we met with this midwife who we absolutely loved.
00:34:06.800 | And she said, "Oh." And I asked her during that interview, I said, "Oh, so which hospital do you deliver at?"
00:34:11.800 | She's like, "Oh, we deliver at home."
00:34:13.800 | And I was like, "Oh."
00:34:14.800 | You can do that?
00:34:15.800 | You can do that.
00:34:16.800 | So then the more she started talking and telling us about why it makes sense, the more we're like, "This is right up our alley.
00:34:24.800 | I wouldn't want it any other way."
00:34:26.800 | And, yeah, it just made a lot of sense.
00:34:29.800 | Yeah. I know for us, obviously, there can be medical reasons why it's important to give birth in a hospital.
00:34:34.800 | And who knows if we'll ever be in that situation.
00:34:36.800 | But with our two babies, it's just been wonderful.
00:34:40.800 | Just a completely different experience than many people's birth experiences.
00:34:48.800 | So thank you for coming on.
00:34:49.800 | Share with us your website, your products.
00:34:52.800 | And you're right, you have a podcast.
00:34:55.800 | Share with us all about where people can find you and learn about all your products and services.
00:35:00.800 | Yep. So they can find me at launchgrowjoy.com.
00:35:03.800 | And there's a link to a podcast there, which is also called The Launch Grow Joy Show.
00:35:07.800 | And my focus is on helping entrepreneurs that have a physical product to market their products.
00:35:14.800 | Andrea, thanks for coming on.
00:35:15.800 | Thanks so much.
00:35:16.800 | If you've got a product that you'd like to get a little bit of exposure and publicity for, make sure you go and pursue Andrea's work a little bit further
00:35:25.800 | and see if her consulting services, see if her educational services can be of help to you.
00:35:30.800 | Don't waste your time beating your head against the wall trying to figure everything out yourself.
00:35:34.800 | Hire somebody who's been there, done that, and save yourself the time and the money.
00:35:39.800 | And so I hope that many of you can take some of her ideas and strategies and really leverage that in promoting your own products.
00:35:47.800 | There are many paths to financial freedom.
00:35:49.800 | Entrepreneurship is one path.
00:35:51.800 | But one of the cool things about it is that I think many of us have an idea, something simple,
00:35:56.800 | whether it's a T-shirt design or something more complex, that with a little bit of help and a little bit of focus,
00:36:02.800 | we could leverage it into a business.
00:36:05.800 | And it could just be a part-time business.
00:36:07.800 | But could $1,000 a month make a difference in your life?
00:36:10.800 | A couple thousand bucks a month make a difference in your life?
00:36:14.800 | And there are benefits that even go far beyond just the straight-up financial benefits.
00:36:19.800 | So I hope that many of you would be encouraged to pursue the path of entrepreneurship or, as Michael Masterson or Mark Ford, same guy, different pen name, would say,
00:36:28.800 | "Chicken entrepreneurship."
00:36:30.800 | Being a chicken and building something on the side.
00:36:35.800 | That's it for today's show.
00:36:36.800 | Thank you all so much for listening.
00:36:37.800 | I appreciate each and every one of you who listens and supports the show.
00:36:41.800 | On a push this month, I would love to build the patron list to up to in excess of 250 patrons by the end of September.
00:36:48.800 | That would be a huge benefit to me.
00:36:50.800 | If you are not yet supporting the show as a patron, please consider going to RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron and supporting the show.
00:36:56.800 | I've got a lot of exciting things planned.
00:36:58.800 | So after we get through interview week this week, a lot of exciting things planned that I hope to bring you a lot of very cool content.
00:37:04.800 | But in order to do that, I need financial income to be able to do some of those things.
00:37:08.800 | And so if this show creates value for you, I would appreciate your supporting the show directly.
00:37:13.800 | Different options at different levels, a lot of bribes at higher levels.
00:37:16.800 | Some of you, by the way, I've not done a great job in delivering on all those bribes.
00:37:21.800 | That's changing.
00:37:23.800 | Little by little.
00:37:25.800 | Thank you all so much.
00:37:26.800 | If you are in Charlotte, make sure you reach this week.
00:37:28.800 | Reach out to me.
00:37:30.800 | I would love to meet up with you.
00:37:31.800 | I'll buy you a drink.
00:37:32.800 | We'll get together.
00:37:33.800 | I'd love to meet with as many listeners as possible.
00:37:35.800 | I really enjoy doing that.
00:37:36.800 | So reach out to me on Twitter @JoshuaSheets or Facebook, JoshuaSheets.com/JoshuaSheets.
00:37:43.800 | Are you ready to make your next pro basketball, football, hockey, concert or live event unforgettable?
00:37:50.800 | Let Sweet Hop take your game to the next level.
00:37:53.800 | Sweet Hop is an online marketplace curating the best premium tickets at stadiums, arenas and amphitheaters nationwide.
00:37:59.800 | Sweet Hop's online marketplace makes it easy to browse and book the best seats.
00:38:04.800 | With no hidden fees and a 100% purchase guarantee, you can feel confident when you book your premium LA tickets with Sweet Hop.
00:38:11.800 | Visit SUITEHOP.COM today.