Speaker 1: Welcome back. This is a bonus episode of Big Business.
Speaker 1: And you know what, Xander, we need to come up
Speaker 1: with a little name for these kinds of episodes where
Speaker 1: people have sent ins like a DM to us and
Speaker 1: then we're answering, you know, like the Advice series or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Business the BBA.
Speaker 2: What's that Big Business Advice?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the BBA Advisory Board with Brittany. And but it's
Speaker 1: not just for business. You know, if you're an employee
Speaker 1: or if you're wanting to start a business, you can
Speaker 1: send in your questions as well.
Speaker 2: If you've got a nasty coworker, send me.
Speaker 1: Tell er, if you've got a workplace drama.
Speaker 2: Was like, ask the.
Speaker 1: Way, this is the BBA.
Speaker 2: We want to give you the advice, but also know.
Speaker 1: That the details. Okay, so we've got another message today, Xander.
Speaker 2: Yeah, does say so? It says, Hey, britt I'm a
Speaker 2: big fan of the podcast, thank you, and was wondering
Speaker 2: if you could offer advice. I am an emerging designer
Speaker 2: with my own business that is completely so funded. I
Speaker 2: have grown from using any spare income from my normal job,
Speaker 2: pouring that into the business, and now having the sales
Speaker 2: from my business fund the business itself. My question is
Speaker 2: where the heck do I go from here? How do
Speaker 2: I keep scaling the business forward? Much loved you always.
Speaker 2: I really hope I'm submitting my question in the right place.
Speaker 1: You have, yes, And by the way, send your questions
Speaker 1: to our Big Business podcast Instagram account, because that's where
Speaker 1: we see all of your dms and we collect them
Speaker 1: and screenshop them and we use them for episodes. This
Speaker 1: is a really kind of hard question to answer, frag you.
Speaker 1: This is hard for me to specifically answer without knowing
Speaker 1: the details of what kind of business that you have.
Speaker 2: In the context of fate, for example, you wouldn't have
Speaker 2: been making a ton of the money in the beginning
Speaker 2: that would completely self fund the business. Like I know
Speaker 2: you poured like fifty grand into it when you started,
Speaker 2: and that all came from your pocket.
Speaker 1: Ye.
Speaker 2: Now she's in the spot where she can actually pour
Speaker 2: all the money she's earning from the business to.
Speaker 1: Fack into the business into it.
Speaker 2: So, like, what are some steps you would have taken?
Speaker 1: My step from there? This is me assuming that she
Speaker 1: is still the only one working in the business, because
Speaker 1: she hasn't mentioned if there's staff or anything. I would
Speaker 1: say the next step there for your business is to
Speaker 1: keep ramping it up, whether that is hiring someone. And again,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you have the kind of business
Speaker 1: where you can just have someone come in and help,
Speaker 1: because I'll just use a reference of like someone who
Speaker 1: does like nails. You can't just have someone come in
Speaker 1: and help to do all the day to day tasks
Speaker 1: because you have to train someone a lot and they
Speaker 1: had to be like qualified or whatever. But like with me,
Speaker 1: for Fate, it was hiring that first person to take
Speaker 1: some of the tasks off me so that they could
Speaker 1: keep the day to day stuff going, like packing the orders,
Speaker 1: processing returns, you know, writing stuff on our website in
Speaker 1: the product descriptions, so that I could then focus on
Speaker 1: doing bigger picture things, which was going to in turn
Speaker 1: make the company more money. I could then focus more
Speaker 1: on the marketing. You know. My next suggestion would be,
Speaker 1: whatever you are going to do, take it slow and
Speaker 1: don't make any huge jumps because you're feeling confident in
Speaker 1: this moment. It's great to see momentum in a business,
Speaker 1: and it's amazing that you know, you were funding it
Speaker 1: from your outside job and now the business is kind
Speaker 1: of funding itself, which is a great position to be in.
Speaker 1: Be very careful with every step you take from here.
Speaker 1: And let's say, for example, the next step for you
Speaker 1: isn't hiring someone because they can't do what you do
Speaker 1: kind of thing. If you need to still be really
Speaker 1: hands on with your designs, it would be I guess
Speaker 1: building your client tell And again this might be hiring
Speaker 1: someone that is going to build the client tele with
Speaker 1: and for you, whether that's through organic social media, Like
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you're looking for more clients, I
Speaker 1: don't know exactly how your business works, but it might
Speaker 1: be worth you investing some money into paid marketing if
Speaker 1: that's going to work for your business type, whether that's
Speaker 1: like Facebook Ads or Google. You might want to take
Speaker 1: your social media to the next level. Again, I don't
Speaker 1: know what your business is or if it's suited to
Speaker 1: social media, but in saying that, every single business can
Speaker 1: benefit from being on social media. If you're wanting more
Speaker 1: eyes on your business, maybe this is the time where
Speaker 1: you invest more time of your own into your social media.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you can have that first hire come in
Speaker 1: and they're going to work as a social media assistant.
Speaker 1: Maybe they've got a really good eye for content creation,
Speaker 1: you've got the eyes for the designs. Both of you
Speaker 1: could come together and work together to bring eyes onto
Speaker 1: your brand through posting organically on Instagram and TikTok. I
Speaker 1: think that would be a great spot if you're wanting
Speaker 1: to grow and have more eyes on your business and
Speaker 1: maybe get new clients. And another point would be in
Speaker 1: your position. Again, it's really hard for me to answer
Speaker 1: without knowing exactly what your business is. I wouldn't suggest
Speaker 1: hiring any external companies. That's a big tip for all
Speaker 1: of you out there, if you're in those early days,
Speaker 1: don't go and sign up to like an agency that's
Speaker 1: going to charge you eight thousand dollars a month to
Speaker 1: give you the best PR and marketing ever or like ads,
Speaker 1: because I've been there, done that. A lot of business
Speaker 1: owners have been absolutely burnt by that. But they're like
Speaker 1: my main two things, Like, if you're wanting to scale
Speaker 1: from where you are, you're obviously wanting to get more
Speaker 1: customers or clients. However, your business is set up and
Speaker 1: it's it's thinking about whether it's hiring and all rounder
Speaker 1: to come and help you with the designs if that work.
Speaker 1: But I know that's so specific or hiring someone to
Speaker 1: come in that's going to help with your marketing to
Speaker 1: build your business bigger across paid media and organic socials.
Speaker 1: You might be able to explore working with content creators
Speaker 1: and influencers. That's another great way to get exposure. Again,
Speaker 1: you kind of got like a lot of options, but
Speaker 1: it's really hard for me to answer. I know I
Speaker 1: keep saying this without knowing the full context of your business.
Speaker 1: Can we like tap on her profile and see what
Speaker 1: it is?
Speaker 2: Yes, it is eoshop spelled eeyo dot shop on Instagram.
Speaker 1: So show me the Instagram page for one second. Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got this all wrong. I thought you were like
Speaker 1: a freelance designer, but now that we've looked at your website,
Speaker 1: you're a clothing brand. I thought she was like a
Speaker 1: freelance graphic designer or something. So now I can answer
Speaker 1: this exactly from my own experience. Hire that first employee
Speaker 1: that's going to be the one packing your orders, that's
Speaker 1: going to be doing your emails, going to be doing
Speaker 1: your returns, so you yourself can focus more on the pieces
Speaker 1: that you're coming out with and your marketing. Another great
Speaker 1: hire for you will be that social media person. Let
Speaker 1: me go look just quickly at your TikTok and your Instagram.
Speaker 1: She's already doing great. Oh and she's making it herself
Speaker 1: as well, sewing it by hand. I can see you're
Speaker 1: sewing things at home. So again that's a hard thing
Speaker 1: to hire someone to come and help when she's got
Speaker 1: the art of the craft with her hands. My advice
Speaker 1: would be all of the above that I've said, keep
Speaker 1: going with your organic marketing on Instagram and TikTok, which
Speaker 1: you're already doing. From what I can see like you're doing,
Speaker 1: making and packing orders on TikTok, I feel like you've
Speaker 1: already got the right idea. The next step for you
Speaker 1: once you feel like you're nailing your organic social content,
Speaker 1: which you're already doing, I would just say do it
Speaker 1: more and more and more. Then you need to be
Speaker 1: looking into those paid ads taking it to the next level,
Speaker 1: learning how to do meta ads if you don't already know.
Speaker 1: But make sure your organic social media is super super
Speaker 1: strong before you start investing in paid ads. The thing
Speaker 1: with like running Facebook ads is what a lot of
Speaker 1: people get wrong, I believe is just say you launch
Speaker 1: a brand and straight away you go to Facebook and
Speaker 1: meta and you set up ads and you start spending
Speaker 1: money in hopes to get customers. People don't realize how
Speaker 1: much organic content plays a part in that, and like
Speaker 1: your brand awareness in general. And when I do my ads, sorry,
Speaker 1: when I do my videos on my reels and stuff
Speaker 1: about my ads, people see how well our fate ads
Speaker 1: perform and think, how, like, how are you getting these results?
Speaker 1: It's because we have such strong social media presence and
Speaker 1: brand awareness. So for you, there's so many things that
Speaker 1: you could do, but I would focus on fostering a
Speaker 1: community even more on your organic socials. Build a strong
Speaker 1: community around your brand. Keep going with those behind the
Speaker 1: scenes videos. You're on the sewing machine at home, you
Speaker 1: doing all the things people love seeing that. They love
Speaker 1: seeing the behind the scenes, So I would say spend
Speaker 1: even more time on doing that, even if it's hiring
Speaker 1: that social media person that's going to come in and
Speaker 1: film all of that for you. Because you're the one
Speaker 1: that's doing the work. You're using your hands to make
Speaker 1: your tops. I would say do more of that and
Speaker 1: have someone else even edit and put all the videos together,
Speaker 1: because I know how time consuming it is.
Speaker 2: The close a sleigh, Yeah, I'm just looking out. You
Speaker 2: might actually get they because I sometimes like buy women's
Speaker 2: clothes and wear them. It's like yummy, Like everything is
Speaker 2: yummy on here, and I've seen I can see you
Speaker 2: on here. You in some of your like marketing and
Speaker 2: stuff and photoshoots. You've actually got food with the clothes,
Speaker 2: which is so the thing right now. Actually, we're going
Speaker 2: to get someone on the pod brit and have a
Speaker 2: chat about the way food is used in marketing at
Speaker 2: the moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, love that, But yeah, I would say keep doing
Speaker 1: what you're doing, keep hosting that organic content on your
Speaker 1: Instagram and TikTok, especially TikTok the behind the scenes taking
Speaker 1: people on the journey. And if it's getting too much
Speaker 1: for you, because I know how hard it would be
Speaker 1: to be sowing all of your clothes and packing all
Speaker 1: the orders and then making all the content, have like
Speaker 1: a freelance social media person, even if you're not ready
Speaker 1: to hire someone else, Hire a freelancer to come in
Speaker 1: once every two weeks and just bulk film a heap
Speaker 1: of videos with you, just anything that's going to take
Speaker 1: that time off you so you can focus on what
Speaker 1: you actually need to do. That would be my advice,
Speaker 1: but I think it's amazing that you are at where
Speaker 1: you're at in your journey right now. You've started this
Speaker 1: business whilst working another job. You've funded it to the
Speaker 1: point where it is now the business is paying for itself,
Speaker 1: which is amazing. And I think slow and steady wins
Speaker 1: the race, but you're doing bloody awesome and just keep
Speaker 1: going and don't forget to ask for help when you
Speaker 1: need it. That's a really important one as well.