Working with charity partners – Lucy Jeffrey – Bare Kind

Vicki Weinberg: 00:00:01

Welcome to the Bring Your Product Idea to Life podcast. This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products, or if you'd like to create your own product to sell. I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly, practical advice, as well as inspirational stories from small businesses. Let's get started. Today on the podcast, I'm speaking to Lucy Jeffrey, the founder of Bare Kind, a band based sock company that saves endangered animals by donating 10 percent of the profits to the animal on the sock. Lucy is also the co founder of Candid Founders, a YouTube channel that shares the highs and lows of growing Bare Kind so other business owners can learn from their journey. Um, as you might've guessed just in that introduction, Lucy is really candid about every aspect of starting, growing, and running her business. This was a really great conversation. She was really open to all the questions I had to ask, including, you know, the big logistical challenge of partnering with so many charities. Um, I believe Lucy said it's over 25 at the moment and perhaps even more. Um, so as you can imagine, that's a big task in itself. It was really fascinating to talk to Lucy about how she went from having, um, an idea for a company to quitting her job to now running a business, employing staff. Um, yeah, there's, she's been on quite a journey and there's lots to share with you. So I really hope you enjoyed this conversation. So hi, Lucy. Thank you so much for being here.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:01:30

Hi, Vicki. Oh, thanks for having me.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:01:32

So can we start with you please give an introduction to yourself, your business and what you sell?

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:01:37

Yeah, absolutely. So hi, my name is Lucy Jeffrey. I'm the founder of a company called Bare Kind, started the brand five years ago, and we sell bamboo socks where 10 percent of the profits are donated to the animal on the sock. So the whole premise is you can wear these amazing, jazzy, cute animal socks, but know that you're doing some good as well. So we're partnered with nearly 30 animal conservation and rescue charities around the world now. Um, and we just really believe that you can, you know, do business for good.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:02:06

That's amazing. And I've got so many follow on questions I want to ask you, Lucy. Um, but before I go down any rabbit holes, I'm going to start right at the beginning and ask what inspired you to start Bare Kind?

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:02:16

So I used to work for a bank. Um, so I've got no background in this whatsoever, but it was an okay job. I enjoyed it. It was fine, but it wasn't really lighting any fires underneath me. So I just wanted to do something else to help the planet in my own little way. And I actually started the company with, not with the socks. It was with other products. So I started with reusable straws, um, recycled tote bags, things like that. I'd say I was just experimenting. They were mini projects. I didn't really think much would come from it. But I was just kind of enjoying the process and learning, you know, what it is to, you know, run a, you know, a very small business at that point. And then I came on to the socks. So I knew I wanted to donate to charity. I love animals. I wanted to support animal conservation. So it started with the charity model first. So this 10 percent donation, I then thought, okay, what product shall I start with? And I just landed on socks. Started with a pair of turtle socks. So it was literally just one design to start with. That was 2019 and my customers loved them. I'm like, what's coming next? I want orangutans. And so we've just kind of released socks, uh, since then. Um, it wasn't until the end of 2020 when I did actually quit my job. Um, to pursue this full time. So we're nearly on three years full time on the business now. And yeah, we've got, we've got over 50 animals now. Like it just kind of happened. I now own a sock company, but it was never really the plan. I was just experimenting and went with the flow and now I own a sock company, but yeah, I love it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:03:44

That's so interesting. Thank you. And I had no idea that that was never the, you know, that was never the plan. It's really interesting that you started out with other products, just seeing how it went and where you've ended up now.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:03:56

Yeah. I don't think many people have that one light bulb moment where they're like, bam, this is my best selling hero product. Like it didn't happen that way. Like I was just playing around and then I started moving in the direction that I saw was happening. So, you know, I gave up on the straws because they were everywhere. Like there was, there wasn't something super unique about them in the end. Um, you could buy them in Asda. So I was like, I don't think this has legs. Uh, but the socks part of it, I think is very unique. Um, you know, we do all the designs ourself. We're very targeted with, you know, how specific we're being on the designs. They're very, very curated. Um, and we're not just donating to say one blanket animal charity. Um, we're being super, super targeted with the animal and the charity. So if it's an orangutan sock, it's an orangutan charity and so on. So that actually creates a lot of work in itself, but it does mean we are quite unique in that way.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:04:51

Absolutely. And are the socks the first products that you designed yourself? Were the other products ones that you were sort of buying in, if, if you see what I mean?

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:05:00

Yeah, I guess so. So the straws were, yeah, they were just plain to start with. Then I started putting my logo on it. So nothing fancy there. The bags and the t shirts, um, I did get designed, very basic designs. I mean, some of the t shirts again were literally just my logo or we had like a few turtles on them, uh, but nothing, nothing too fancy. I just, I just paid a freelancer to do those, but the socks, I do see the socks as the first thing, which we were like highly, like, yeah, detailed on what we wanted from the design and the colours. Um, and you know, building that range and now it's turned into its own industry. It's actually quite a difficult part of the business. It's very exciting. Like what should we do next and what colours and, you know, but it can be overwhelming, um, because when I first started, it was a case of, okay, I don't have tigers, so I will do a tiger sock. We don't have many green socks, so let's throw in some more green colours. But now we've got quite a big range. We have to be more like considered about which designs we're doing next and which charities you want to work with. And that's, that's, that's a massive part of the business that's really grown legs.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:06:01

That makes sense. I didn't think about that as well as you're designing what the sock actually looks like. You're also having to think who you partner with. That's yeah. So that is that other angle. Which, which way round do you do that, Lucy? Do you work out who you want to partner with and then design the sock or is it the other way?

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:06:19

Bit of both. Um, so it used to be that I would fine, pick an animal. I'd say I want to do this animal next. We'd start working on the design and I would in the, in the process of that, I would start reaching out to animal charities that I'd like to work with. Now we've got bigger and more well known charities tend to come to us first now, which is quite nice. So we'll have someone come in and say, hey, I found you online. We support butterfly conservation and we'd love to work with you. So then we say we might even have something in the pipeline. This is the thing we had when the butterflies came to me, we had some butterfly socks being worked on. I just hadn't got around to the charity part of it. So I was like, great, yeah, let's work together. I've got a sock coming. Um, but we try, because it's actually quite a hard part of the business. It's actually hard to get in front of the charities at the right point. If they're, they tend to be very overworked teams that are relying on volunteers. So, um, it can be quite hard to kind of get their attention and get their time. So if you've got a charity that's willing to work with us and knows us already, that is definitely the easiest route for us.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:07:18

That makes a lot of sense. And I guess, do they, do the charities tend to have much input into the design process?

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:07:25

No, we, we tell them to send us, if they're involved from the start, we'll tell them to send us like exact photos of the animals that they work with. So we'll try and be as, um, realistic as possible. Um, a great example of that is when we've started working on our otter sock, um, it's wild, um, I think it's wild otter trust UK. Um, and they were very keen on the, at the start to say it is a European otter, not the American kind, because the American one is the one with the kind of cream, fluffy face that's used in a lot of advertising and on garments and things like that. They are very cute. Um, so they were very specific that, you know, they don't support that species, that's American. So, you know, make sure it is specific to European. So they are from like a, being a technical animal expert point of view, but for the most part, we just crack on with the design and you know, that, that's all part of it. They don't, they're not involved with, but we're looking to work with charities in a more bespoke way where we co brand with them because at the moment they're just fully, it just says Bare Kind on the socks. There are socks we say 10 percent donated to charity, but we don't put the charity on the sock. That's all on our website. So if we needed to change anything, we can do that. And it's not just like on the product, um, but looking to work with some charities where we actually build a range that's kind of co branded with the charity itself as well.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:08:40

That makes sense. That's really nice as well. And is it, um, I'm guessing the answers, yes, but it'd be really good to have some input. So is it a logistically a challenge to manage, making sure that the donations go to the charities? I know it sounds silly, but you've mentioned that you, I mean, I've seen you have a huge range of stocks. You work with 30 charities. How does that.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:09:02

Yeah, it was very difficult because to start with the way I've set it up was I just signed the contract at time of speaking to the charity. So we had donation days because I donate annually and we had them sporadically spread through the year. And at first I was like, okay, good. This is good for cashflow because it means I'm not having a massive lump sum coming out. But then it became logistically really hard to carry on with because we're trying, we're having to manually work out the donations at each different point. So now we've moved all of them to once a year. So we'll finish the calendar year. It means that we're kind of doing our accounts anyway. Um, and then we'll go to them in like Jan, Feb to say, okay, we've done the 2022 donations. This is what's coming to you. And it is a big job. Um, my partner has recently joined me. He quit his job at the start of the year. He's been a massive help because he's a whiz on spreadsheets. So that part has been because we do just have to rely on Excel and like pulling all the information, uh, that way.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:09:58

Yeah, that sounds really hard. I'm glad you've got someone who knows. Yeah. Obvious about that. So about, so let's go back to when you started creating your socks. Um, what I'd love to know is because your socks are, obviously, they're bamboo, they're really high quality. How did you go about getting the socks actually produced, because I mean, a sock isn't something that you're buying and sticking a logo on, you know, it's something that I presume, I don't know how, what the terminology is, darned maybe, but they're certainly manufactured bespoke for you. How did you go about finding someone to work with? Because I'm, I know that with, you know, the values that your company has, I'm sure you were, there was a lot of thought that went into finding the right facility as well.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:10:38

Yeah. So to start with, it was just a case of going to Google and having a look, um, at what manufacturers I could find. They're quite, uh, they're not very upfront with anything like pricing, MOQs or anything like that. You do have to kind of get in touch with quite a few to start understanding how they work. So it's a lot of emailing, um, and I found a few good partners in Turkey. Turkey's a very popular place for sock manufacturing. Um. Yeah. outside of China. And I wasn't at the time really sure if I wanted to manufacture in China, but I found a good partner in Turkey who we are still working with. And the reason I went with them is yes, one, I could see their certificates, their SEDEX audited, uh, things like that. So I could, there was transparent about that. They were very good at communication. Like I was, you know, hearing back from them quite quickly. Um, they were also willing to lower their MOQs for me. I kind of explained the situation, my like vision for the company. They liked the animal donation thing. So lowered the MOQ, this minimum order quantity. Um, so I didn't have to order thousands to start with. Um, and I've now like rewarded that because now we're ordering hundreds of thousands from them of pairs of socks. So it's kind of like they've, we've been able to grow with them. Um, what I would say though, is we recently went to visit them in Turkey. So, um, a few weeks ago, we went to visit them, um, as well as other manufacturers, because we're looking at kind of spreading the load a bit. Having one, more than one manufacturer, reducing our risk a bit. Um, going to see them was the best thing we ever did. Like, it was so interesting. We learned so much. I think the relationship building is so important. And I think especially if you're looking for new manufacturers, like just being there in person shows how serious you are. Like one of the factories we were at, they were working with massive brands. Um, I probably, I probably can't share, but massive brand UK worldwide brands. And they were being manufactured whilst we were there. And I was like, oh, we're just like a tiny UK based sock brand, but they didn't seem to care. They were just happy that we were there speaking about business and placing orders. So I think it's. Going to visit them was definitely the best thing we did. We should have done it sooner.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:12:46

It is hard though, isn't it? And obviously when you started out travel was not, you know, ideal.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:12:52

No, we wouldn't have been able to like, I quit my job in 2020, right? So travel wasn't, that was, that was, it is what it is. Um, but possibly should have gone last year, but I think we'll try and now we know how important it is to visit it, we'll make sure that that's kind of part of the process to finding new manufacturers.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:13:09

And as you say, relationships are so important and I like the fact that you, you know, you're talking about, you explained to them about your vision, about how you partner with the charities and that clearly made a difference to them deciding to lower their MOQs for you. Um, and I think that being open with, you know, with people you want to work with, trying to build a relationship rather than it being purely transactional really does make a difference.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:13:31

Yeah, a hundred percent. It's way easier to explain where you're coming from. I think, especially because their English is pretty good, but it is their second language. So I think it's so much easier to convey what you're trying to go for. So to give you a good example, um, we haven't had this yet, but we've had to had like warnings that this can happen specifically in China, that when you're trying to push on price to get price down, they will be like, okay, that's fine. Lower the price, but they will then lower quality somewhere else in the supply chain without really like speaking to you about it. Whereas we're trying to explain to them that price, we obviously want a good price, but we don't want a price so low that it compromises the product. Whereas I think other companies are like, well, just the cheapest possible price, because you know, there are cheap socks out there. Um, and I think they don't necessarily understand that as well. Whereas I feel like in person, it's so much easier to explain our values and say, look, that's, we just, we want a good price, but we don't want to compromise quality. We don't want you to give us a price that's so unsustainable for your business that you feel like you have to cut corners. Um, and it's just things like that, that it's really hard to convey over email.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:14:39

It is, but it's so important that you say to have those conversations because I've heard of similar things as well. Um, and it, and it really is hard as well when you're doing everything remotely and there may be shipping socks. I mean, I know that. You know, for lots of us, this is how we have to work, but it is hard when it's all email and you're getting things sent in the post and, you know, having to just, there's lots of back and forth, isn't there? There's nothing like being able to go and sit down with somebody.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:15:03

Yeah, absolutely. And that takes time, the back and forth. It's very time consuming.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:08

So you mentioned, um, quitting your job earlier. Um, am I right in thinking that that was right in the middle of the pandemic when you decided to do that?

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:15:16

Yeah, it was the end of end of 2020. So we were just going into the third lock, that Christmas lockdown that everyone hated because we were told we could go home for Christmas and then they changed their mind. So, um, and I remember it very well because it was my birthday. So I had to have a lockdown birthday and then I was like, you know what? I'm going to quit. And I literally did the next day. Like it was, it'd probably been in the pipeline for a while, so it wasn't like a super rash decision, but it was literally that day I was like, I don't want to go back to work. And so my partner was like, you know what? Just roll the dice. Let's do this. And I quit the next day and that was it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:15:52

That's really brave.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:15:54

Well, I did, my partner that was super supportive. He was like, roll the dice. Like he was, he worked for the same bank, um, a bit higher up than me. Um, so he was like, I've got us, I've got a sustainable, like income. So just, yeah, take the risk, go and do it. And now, he's now quit and joined me. So, um, we didn't think it would happen this fast. Like we kind of thought, oh, maybe one day that we'll run the business together, but didn't think it would be three years later. I thought it'd be much further into the distance.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:16:21

That's amazing. And it's amazing that he was so supportive as well. And were you like in the back. You said you'd been thinking about possibly quitting your job and going in full time for a while. Were there sort of milestones you were looking for or in your mind, was there, were you like, oh, I need to be at this stage before I do that. Was there anything like that you were thinking around?

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:16:40

No, I honestly cannot. I did not think about it too much. I just, I'm quite an impulsive person. I'm also very, follow my gut instinct. I guess it makes me quite a good entrepreneur because I'll just go kind of headfirst into something. Um, and so far it's. It's done well for me, but it was, I guess the path was, I actually shut the business down during the main parts of COVID. So like March onwards, because my mum was doing my shipping. So all the stock was at my parents house. And I was like, you can't leave the house. So don't, that's just, I'm going to just shut the website down. Um, then August that year. I took out a bounce back loan. So that was the kind of government scheme that came out. And I was like, why not? It's risk free. Like if I don't use the money, I'll just pay it back and not pay the interest, not pay any interest. So I took out a small loan. Honestly, it was like 3000 pounds. It wasn't too much. And I had quite a bit of stock. So actually the premise was, I was like, let me, I just need to clear through the stock and then I'll decide what's going to happen. Maybe I'll just. I honestly thought maybe I'll just close the business down. I don't know what I want to do with it. I put all that money, 3, 000 onto Facebook ads. I was like, here we go. Let's just see what happens. And I sold out like by November and I was like, huh, that felt good. Maybe I'm onto something. So I just quit my job. So it does sound very rash when you like look back on it, but I had been like looking at other jobs and other stuff, like I'd been considering like where my next move would be, so to me, it was a case of let me roll the dice now, see how the business goes. And if it doesn't work, I'll go find another job, but I'm still doing it. I'm still self employed. So, uh, it's going well so far.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:18:13

I mean, it kind of seems rationally, but then also, as you say, you sold so well during those three, two or three months that I guess you had the data, like you must've been able to see them, that it was a viable business. People like your products, they were continuing to buy them. So that must've been really reassuring.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:18:30

Yeah, absolutely. Like we had, we definitely had the sales for it. Like looking back. So I actually know that that October, which is when we first switched the ads on, we took 5, 000 pounds. So not like crazy money, but enough for me to think like I've just sold 5, 000 pounds worth of products. Like there is something here. I think we did about the same in November. Definitely would have done more, but we sold out. Um, and then to give context last year, last November, I think we did 150, 000 pounds. So like that's, that's the kind of different, like difference in growth that we've done. Um, and that's, yeah, we are very seasonal. So Christmas is like a huge time of year for us. Um, but yeah, we've, yeah, we've had some massive growth since that, that first October.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:19:12

Awesome. And I've got, and obviously you've grown in other ways as well because your range has expanded a bit. I know you've got a team behind you now. Do you want to talk a little bit about that and about some of the ways in which you've grown in the last few years?

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:19:22

Yeah, absolutely. So that, that first year where I was full time in the business, I hired a couple of people. And what I would say is I haven't hired anyone directly into the business without some kind of supporting grant or scheme. So my first hire was through the government Kickstarter scheme. So that was the thing that was going on during COVID to help people that were out of work. Um, so the government paid for her for six months, then I bought her on full time. Um, and then I did some like university internship programmes. Like a few where the university paid for them to be on board for eight weeks. Again, I did three of those and I've kept them all on. Um, people have like moved around since I've had two leavers because they've gone onto either grad schemes or back to university, but, um, I've, yeah, I've not hired someone full time into the business without having help first. And it's almost like a paid probation period. So it's fairly risk free to us, for us, um, as a business. Um, but that's been really, really helpful. So I think I've had slightly inorganic growth in the team because of that, because I wouldn't have been able to afford to grow the team in that way without those grants.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:20:29

That's really interesting. And thank you for sharing that because I'm not sure that people know that, that kind of thing is available. Um, because I know lots of businesses get to the point where it would be really handy to have another team member, but as you say, it is a cost and an up, well, yeah, it's an upfront cost. Um, so that's really used, that's really useful. So looking at what maybe. Yeah. Um, universities or, or the government are offering at the time. Sounds like a really sensible approach.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:20:52

Yeah, your local council, your own university. So I go back to my university for a lot of support or a local university. If you just, if you're in a university town, contact them, see if they have any kind of support like that, uh, local councils, but yeah, there's loads of schemes out there where you just, I mean, it's a bit of effort, but you have to go searching for them.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:11

I think you've definitely got a lot of initiative Lucy, because it sounds like you just like, yeah, just go out and find things. Which is, yeah.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:21:17

And then just grab it, just go for it. And that's the thing. Like I've, I don't think too much. I will make very quick decisions. So I'll find the scheme or whatever it is and then be like, that's a good opportunity. And then I'll just do it. So I think we don't flounder too much. We just make a decision and go. And that's why I really enjoy working for myself versus a corporate, because you can make a decision and then just do it. So you're really agile. Whereas in a corporate, I was working for one of the world's largest banks. Like that thing moves as slow as a cruise ship. Like that's not, you're not making fast decisions each day. So that's why I really enjoy working for myself.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:21:52

Yeah. It sounds like for you, that probably was quite frustrating.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:21:55

Yeah, I didn't mind, like, you don't really notice it at the time, but looking back on it, I've realised now, like, the absolute difference. I've recently done, did an exercise where, um, with my psychologist, where I'm working out, like, my values and how I like to live my life. And one of them we worked out is agency, which means I like to have the like autonomy to make a decision and do it if I want to. So I don't really like having like constraints, red tape, that kind of thing. So it's no wonder that I've like got frustrated with the corporate world.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:27

It sounds you're definitely like, you're definitely cut out to be an entrepreneur.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:22:30

Yeah, I hope so. I mean, it's been nearly three years now and I think I'd struggle to go back for working for someone else now, so hopefully I can keep doing it.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:22:38

Oh, I don't see any reason why not. It sounds like you're just growing and growing. And, um, so speaking of that, let's also talk a bit about the wholesale side of your business, because that's something else that I think has grown a bit.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:22:49

Yeah. So I started just with the website. So it was just D2C, um, maybe some marketplaces where I might've been on the Etsy or something like that, but didn't dive into wholesale straight away. So. In 2021, I had kind of reactive wholesale. So maybe up to 20 people came to me to say, we'd love to stock your socks. And I had no idea how to do that. So I just made up a price and a process and just went from there. Um, but then since the kind of birth of these marketplaces that have come out, Faire, Ankorstore, um, we've really seen growth through those platforms. So we signed up for Faire. In October, 2021, put all my own customers onto it because it's 0 percent commission when you put your own customers into the platform, but then I didn't really start really seeing the potential of the platform until February 22. And we started looking at it and thinking, okay, they actually offer lots of good deals. They had credit at the time. They offered that payment terms, free shipping, things like that. So we started really pumping volume through that all our own lead generation, loads of cold email outreach. And we've gone from those 20 to, I think up to 800 retailers total now. Um, yeah, over, over the course of like the last couple of years. So there'll be some of those that have kind of stopped us and then they're not. Um, so that's not a consistent 800, but we've got some massive wholesale customers now that order quite a lot from us. Um, so we've had some really good growth there.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:24:16

That's amazing. And it sounds like, again, you've been super proactive there with like getting people on to Faire, doing cold outreach, because I know that a lot of that is the things that people don't want to do. And I wonder if you're talking about sort of doing things without, I don't want to say about thinking, but sort of just getting things done. I think that sort of mentality really helps with things like cold outreach because it's so easy to overthink it and think, well, this person, why would they want to stock me? This person won't want to hear from me. I think there's a lot to be said for just sending the email or picking up the phone. And yeah, you've obviously had massive success from doing that.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:24:50

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's very easy to get in your own head and think, they might not be right for me, but on this, like we've ended up being stocked in so many random places that we wouldn't have thought of. Um, a massive part of our wholesale customer base is podiatrists. So people that look after foot health, um, they like stocking bamboo socks because they are really good for your feet. So that was kind of one person came to me and said, I'm a podiatrist. Like, have you thought about stocking in more podiatrists? Here's a Facebook group that, and you can sell in the Facebook group. So I just started in there. And that's, that's where a lot of our customers came from. Um, so we've kind of gone down into that niche. So again, it's just being really open minded and yeah, it's usually yourself and your own mindset that's holding yourself back. Like, don't be scared of cold emailing. Just embrace the fact that a lot of the time you won't get any replies, but then sometimes you might just get an order, like, and that happens a lot. We'll just suddenly get an order. We've been emailing them over the past few months. Maybe 10 emails total, we never hear anything back and then suddenly they place an order. It's yeah. It's a bit of a random one that you're not, you're not getting much from back from them until you get the sale.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:25:55

Yeah. That's really interesting. And I think it's good for people to hear as well, because I know that when, especially if you're doing sort of cold outreach, it can just feel really be demoralizing to constantly be churning out emails and not get anything back. So I think that hopefully that'd be really, really, really reassuring for people.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:26:10

Yeah, definitely. It's, don't expect replies. This thing you're, you're speaking to business owners. They're really busy. They're not for the most, I mean, I don't reply to cold emails, um, unless I'm like super interested and that's very rare. So, but just know that sometimes it's ticking over in someone's head. So you have to be persistent. Like if you give up after one email, you won't get anywhere. So you have to be persistent with it because they have to, you know, you just want to be front, like front of mind for them. Like. And it's, it might be that it gets to Christmas and they go, oh, that email from five months ago. Um, you know, okay, now I'm ready. So it's kind of a timing thing as well. They're not always going to be ready to stock you.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:26:47

That's really useful. I really think that's genuinely useful for people to hear. And you mentioned at the start when people started contacting you for wholesale, you would just almost, you know, make it up as you were going. Have your processes changed since then? I'm assuming they have, but yeah.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:27:01

Yeah. Yeah, we're much more professional now. I think it's, and it makes it easier for us. Because obviously I was starting from scratch then. So I kind of had to sit down and work out what my price was and my margins and all of that, and then just go back to them on the email and say, hey, this is the price. But now we have, you know, packs and catalogues and things we send out. And it's all the way that we've built it is we've completely systemized it. So we shouldn't have to think. So if someone comes to us and has a question, we should just have the answer there. Ready to send. Um, and that's good because it takes a bit of kind of the thinking out of it for you, but also it means if you're outsourcing it, if you've got a VA or someone in your team or anyone else that's doing it for you, it's, it's been passed on to them and they know the answers already and it's easy for them to be, um, working on it without your help.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:27:49

makes sense. Because obviously as you grow and you get busy, um, you just need things to work as smoothly and as simply as possible. Yeah, absolutely. So I know, uh, thank you by the way Lucy, for all that you shared with us today. Um, are we coming to, I've only got a few more questions, but one thing I did want to mention is that I know that as well as, you know, giving up your time to talk to me here, you also share a lot about how you're running your business and, uh, um, the sort of behind the scenes on your YouTube channel. So did you just want to mention that briefly? Because I do genuinely think that's something that will be interesting for people.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:28:21

Yeah. And it's an interesting one. It comes off the back of the wholesale side of it as well, because it started off because we wanted to talk about Faire. So the wholesale platform, we were trying to make more sales, but there was our blocker to it was people didn't really know what Faire was or how to use it. So we started doing tutorials to say, this is how you sign up. This is how you get our socks. And this is, this is why you get an offer and things like that. So we were trying to build trust through video. Then we realized that people were hitting our videos quite a lot because they were searching for Faire and finding us. So I was kind of like, I feel like we're onto something here. So we started doing more tutorials for the business side of it. So how to make more sales on Faire, how to use their email marketing tool and things like that. So we became a bit of a. We found, again, we found our niche in that little corner of the internet and it's grown from there. And now we've since released a podcast, but we do it on YouTube and more videos, just honestly anything to do with the business. We're very, we're oversharers I'd say. So we share our monthly ballpark. We share everything about our numbers and what profit we're aiming for. So we're just trying to be as transparent as possible of like, this is what it's actually like to run a business and grow one. And we say it as we're trying to grow our business from six figures to seven. So learn from us in the process. Um, and it's been a really fun journey. I really enjoy it actually. Um, so yeah, definitely check it out. It's, um, it's actually called Candid Founders. So we've kind of rebranded that side of the business to be Candid Founders. And it's all about founders being candid, funnily enough, um, and we've off the back of that, we've launched a wholesale course as well. So because we've learned so much of the process, we've actually now started teaching entrepreneurs how to wholesale. Um, so that's through the YouTube channel as well. You can find loads of tips on there for free, or you can find the course at wholesale autopilot. com. Um, but yeah, I mean, definitely check out the YouTube obviously, because it's free and there's so much stuff on there that you can learn from.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:30:13

Thank you so much, Lucy. So we'll put the link to the YouTube in the show notes. I genuinely think it'd be useful. And as I said, before we started recording, I really like what you're doing in terms of being really open about your business, how you're growing, what you're doing, decisions you'll make, all of that, I just think is invaluable to someone who's perhaps slightly, I don't want to say behind, but slightly earlier in their journey than you are, maybe, or maybe at the same stage and just wants to see what someone else is doing because not everyone is always up for sharing. Um, especially when it's not, you know, not the positive side, because obviously we all do things and think, oh, we could have done that differently, but it's really good to, you know, that you're so open about what you've learned and as well as all the wins as well.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:30:54

Oh, thank you. Yeah. It's because I really want that from someone else. Like, and it is, is you want to look at the person who's a step in front of you, because I feel like all the podcasts out there from the really big businesses and founders that have kind of done their multi million exits. Very inspiring, but it's not super relevant for me. And I can't necessarily learn too much from them. I actually want like practical advice and tips of what I could do right now for my business. And so, yeah, that's exactly why we've, why we started it. And yeah, it's kind of warts and all as well. Like we didn't hit our um, profit targets and things like that last year. So we kind of did a podcast on why we didn't, what went wrong type thing. And it's, it's not because it's things went badly wrong. It's more because we've learned something and we've changed it for this year. So it's, and people can learn from that too.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:31:42

That's really helpful. And what you said is so funny because it really mirrors, that's the whole reason for me starting up this podcast was that I too, so years ago, I had a product business. I'm not running that now, but I found that in the early days. Every podcast I listened to was a founder who was so far along the line. Sometimes they'd actually sell, you know, sell their business on it, but that far ahead. And I was just like, I don't know how to bridge that gap. I need to hear from people who are like just a tiny bit ahead of me, not, you know, so far that I can't, it's not even relatable. Um, so it's really good that you're, you're doing that because at the time I couldn't find anybody. And like I said, this was eight years ago. I couldn't find anybody who was sharing what they were doing in real time and being really honest about it because a lot of what I was seeing on social media at the time, as well as people sharing the good bits. Which is understandable because of course we all want to share our highlights, but it's really nice now that people seem to be more open to share the things that perhaps aren't ideal or the things they've learned from and not just the, the best bits.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:32:44

Yeah, definitely. I think there's a wave of it coming through, especially on LinkedIn, more and more. These people sharing the, not the low lights, but yeah, I guess the learning points as well as the highlights because yeah, I think it's Instagram is, is the worst one for it in my opinion, in terms of being a real highlight reel, like, especially like with all the influences and stuff there, you know, it's all very photoshopped and positive and happy and it's. I think it's not, it's not, everyone knows it's not always like that, but you're sitting there scrolling thinking, oh, this sucks. I want to do this. But it's, you're looking at someone else's highlight.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:33:17

Yeah. There is that saying, isn't there? You're comparing someone else's, I can't remember the word, I can't remember how that you're comparing someone else's highlights your everyday or something that I can't remember how the quote goes, but it's something like that because yeah. And I think, I think that's changing and I hope it continues to change. And your video I think is really helpful as, as well, because I feel like on video people are often more candid perhaps than, than in written form.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:33:44

Yeah, definitely.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:33:44

So before we finish off Lucy, what was your number one piece of advice for other product creators?

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:33:51

This is off the back of it happening to us at the moment is I think from the start or from wherever, wherever you are in your journey right now, I try and get super organised with like just everything that's going on from a process point of view and documenting it. So we use notion for this. It's really, really useful and it will, basically providing a database of like just all the information and bits and pieces to do with the business and the product. So we'll do things like, a, you know, kind of product timeline. So all the different designs we have, uh, idea design stage sampling in production, restocking out of stock. Like that's one thing in the notion. So we'll have that almost like as a little Kanban board. And then we'll have all the different charities and like, where are they in the journey? Who have I spoken to? Because I think it's so easy to do everything and just get it all done and then have no, have no record of what you've done. And then your brain just fills up and up and up. And then one that is really hard for you to keep track of everything, that's going on too, it's then really hard to pass it off onto someone else. So one of the girls that joined the team last year and then left eight months later, because she was joining a grad scheme. We knew she was going to leave. So we said, just anything you put in place, implement, do a tutorials, a screen record to show how you do it and then document it. And then it just means it's really easy to pass off onto someone else. And I think, especially in product, there are so many moving parts. Like you've got your website and your marketing, the product itself, sustainability, like shipping. Do you use a fulfillment warehouse? Like all those moving parts, keep it all in one place, because it just makes it so much easier when you're onboarding someone new or you're making any changes. And it's easier to do it from the start rather than now when we're five years in and trying to kind of scrabble around to get everything into one place.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:35:35

That's really smart. And I think as well, and I'm obviously, hopefully this won't happen, but from business continuity perspective, let's say you were, you know, something happens to you, maybe you were ill when you were out of the business for a few weeks or a team member leaves unexpectedly, I guess it makes it super easy for someone else to come in and go, okay, where were they with that? Let's pick it up. Well, not, maybe not easy, but certainly easier than if nothing was documented because yeah, you hear about this happening, don't you? About people maybe, um, falling ill, perhaps having to take a few weeks away and literally no one can step in and cover because nobody knows what they're doing and how they do it and where this piece of information is. So that sounds really sensible.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:36:16

Especially if it's a remote team as well. So I'd say in, um, to compliment that I definitely have a cloud service where everyone is saving all stuff centrally. So you should have nothing. If you've got a remote team, they shouldn't be saving stuff to their own laptops. One, if the laptop dies, that's it. Um, but two, you can't access those files when you need them. You know, they might just be on holiday. Like it doesn't have to be something like they've gone off sick or they've left the company suddenly. It might just be there on holiday and you need access to a file. So definitely have like one central place to put everything.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:36:45

That's such good advice. Thank you, Lucy. I love how much practical stuff you shared with us today. It's really useful.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:36:50

No worries.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:36:51

Well, thank you so much. I'm going to link to everywhere that people can find you in the show notes. And yeah, again, thank you.

Lucy Jeffrey: 00:36:57

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Vicki Weinberg: 00:37:00

Thank you so much for listening right to the end of this episode. Do remember that you can get the full back catalogue and lots of free resources on my website, vickiweinberg. com. Please do remember to rate and review this episode if you've enjoyed it and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful. Thank you again and see you next week.