Latest / The Confident Entrepreneur With Jennifer Ann Johnson / Beyond the Sale: How to Build a Brand Customers Love with Deanna Wallin

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Beyond the Sale: How to Build a Brand Customers Love with Deanna Wallin · The Confident Entrepreneur With Jennifer Ann Johnson

0:37
Jennifer Johnson: You've heard the saying you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
0:40
Jennifer Johnson: Well, in business, that first impression isn't just about a handshake or a smile.
0:45
Jennifer Johnson: It's about the entire customer journey.
0:48
Jennifer Johnson: In today's episode, we're going to explore why nailing your customer journey can be the difference between a one-time sale and a loyal, long-term client.
0:57
Jennifer Johnson: We'll discuss how a well-crafted experience that your customer had can set the tone for your entire customer relationship, boost satisfaction and ultimately drive your business growth.
1:07
Jennifer Johnson: Whether you're a seasoned business owner or just starting out, you'll walk away from this episode with actionable strategies to transform your customer experience from one simple welcome to a powerful tool for success.
1:20
Jennifer Johnson: And today we welcome back into the studio Deanna Wallen with Naples Soap Company.
1:25
Jennifer Johnson: Hi, Welcome back.
1:26
Jennifer Johnson: Thank you for having me on the last time we talked about customer loyalty, which ties so closely with the topic of having that customer journey.
1:35
Jennifer Johnson: You know from the minute the sights, the sounds, the smells, right From the minute they walk in.
1:41
Jennifer Johnson: We're hoping they're not tasting your product.
1:43
Deanna Wallin: I don't encourage it, although it has happened.
1:46
Deanna Wallin: It has happened, I've had people, yeah, weirdos.
1:49
Deanna Wallin: That was in the Key West store.
1:51
Deanna Wallin: Of course it was.
1:52
Deanna Wallin: That's a whole other show, that's another thing, yeah.
1:54
Jennifer Johnson: We'll have to do that, like the after hours.
1:57
Deanna Wallin: Yes, yes, retail location nightmares is what we're going to call that show.
2:02
Jennifer Johnson: But, starting from the moment they walk in your door, what they see, what they smell, what they hear, and through the buying process and then through coming back again, it's all the customer journey.
2:16
Jennifer Johnson: Right, absolutely, and that all fosters what you do there, fosters the loyalty that we talked about in the last episode, correct?
2:23
Jennifer Johnson: So, in your opinion, why is creating a customer journey, the ideal customer journey, so important to a business?
2:33
Jennifer Johnson: And to get it right.
2:36
Deanna Wallin: Well, first of all, the competition is so stiff.
2:41
Deanna Wallin: Well, first of all, the competition is so stiff.
2:43
Deanna Wallin: I'm not referring just to competition In Naples Subcompany.
2:46
Deanna Wallin: We have 13 bath and body and personal care stores throughout the state of Florida.
2:50
Deanna Wallin: I'm not just talking about my competition with other personal care companies or Sephora, ulta, any of that I'm talking about competition for the dollar.
2:59
Deanna Wallin: People are not spending like they used to.
3:01
Deanna Wallin: Inflation is high, so so you're competing with.
3:07
Deanna Wallin: You know I need to.
3:08
Deanna Wallin: You know I have to spend X, y and Z on this and it's costing me 30% more.
3:10
Deanna Wallin: Do I really need this?
3:11
Deanna Wallin: Um so so not just the.
3:13
Deanna Wallin: The competitive landscape has changed, so trying to get that dollar, it takes a lot more effort now for that.
3:23
Deanna Wallin: I'm a stickler for details and I find that when I go into a lot of other locations, a lot of details are overlooked, whether it is simple things like is your music going?
3:38
Deanna Wallin: Have you created an environment?
3:40
Deanna Wallin: I will stay in a store twice as long if I like the music that's playing.
3:45
Deanna Wallin: Yeah, is it tasteful?
3:46
Jennifer Johnson: or is it really loud and obnoxious?
3:48
Deanna Wallin: Yeah, Is it tasteful or is it offensive?
3:50
Deanna Wallin: And we have actually had situations where we had to terminate staff for changing music and we've had people complaining about.
3:57
Deanna Wallin: So we have a we use cloud cover and make sure that the that, that music, all the way down to that, is the employee.
4:05
Deanna Wallin: Are they dressed well?
4:06
Deanna Wallin: Are they do they?
4:07
Deanna Wallin: Or do they look like they just rolled out of bed?
4:09
Deanna Wallin: Um, you know, are they wearing offensive perfume or something to that effect?
4:15
Deanna Wallin: We have a no fragrance policy, believe it or not, at our company, at Naples soap company.
4:19
Deanna Wallin: Because Company, because I want the customer to experience the product, not what my sales associate is spraying on themselves heavily and, believe it or not, that's part of the customer experience.
4:32
Deanna Wallin: If I go somewhere and someone is selling me something and they're within, let's just say, two feet of my personal space, I'm a very hypersensitive person when it comes to odors and smells and things like that.
4:43
Deanna Wallin: I don't want to smell your lovely perfume or your body odor.
4:48
Deanna Wallin: You're getting far away from me, no you're good today, today, wow, she just said today.
4:53
Jennifer Johnson: Apparently, I wasn't when I saw her on Monday.
4:55
Deanna Wallin: No, she always is.
4:56
Deanna Wallin: She's always great, but, but these are all details, they're details.
5:00
Deanna Wallin: When you walk in the door, you know what is the first thing that they see Is there are there trash cans that are empty?
5:07
Deanna Wallin: For us, we have testers of body butters and I don't know.
5:13
Deanna Wallin: We have 600 products and every one of them has a tester, like you would see in, like Ulta or Sephora.
5:17
Deanna Wallin: So the question is are the testers clean?
5:19
Deanna Wallin: Sure, because, ew right, gross, yeah, like no different if you would want to go into a restaurant and eat somewhere if the floor was dirty or if the tables were dirty.
5:27
Deanna Wallin: So for me, the journey really is about walking in and paying attention to the details, not just the how the staff is treating, but the presentation of the physical location.
5:40
Deanna Wallin: Is that is the first impression that they see, before any of your staff ever opens their mouth.
5:46
Deanna Wallin: If they walk in and there's a hodgepodge or there's stuff sitting up on the cash wrap.
5:52
Jennifer Johnson: That drives me crazy.
5:53
Jennifer Johnson: You actually mentioned something at the last podcast that we had about even the outside, if a light is a different color in your sign.
6:01
Jennifer Johnson: Yes, it's that consistency.
6:06
Deanna Wallin: So for me, it's details.
6:07
Deanna Wallin: I think the customer may.
6:09
Deanna Wallin: It depends on who the customer is.
6:12
Deanna Wallin: They may or may not notice those details, but if you execute consistently, that's what's familiar to them.
6:19
Deanna Wallin: You set a quality and standard for excellence and they expect that from you as a retailer.
6:25
Deanna Wallin: Because I, you know, sadly, retail has felt is failing us, Big box is failing us.
6:33
Deanna Wallin: Um, you know that I won't say who the major retailer was, but there's a major retailer that, um, you know, after COVID, I would go in and uh, let's just say it's in, like the Walmart target category, you know, like the large.
6:49
Deanna Wallin: You walk in and it looked like had been looted.
6:52
Deanna Wallin: And this wasn't once or twice, this was ongoing.
6:55
Deanna Wallin: I understand short staffing, I understand, you know, not having enough people to stock, but when you walk in and they lost my business, they lost my business because if you're a floor manager or even a store manager and you walk through this store and it did not one area, multiple sections look like the store has been looted.
7:16
Deanna Wallin: Things hanging off of hangers all over the place, shoe boxes everywhere, Things hanging off of hangers all over the place, shoeboxes everywhere.
7:23
Deanna Wallin: I mean it was sad, very sad, and they lost my business.
7:26
Jennifer Johnson: Well it sends the wrong message and you know, okay, yes, like you said, staffing shortage is all that, but you're the manager of the store, like, then it falls on you, it's your responsibility to make sure that it looks good for everyone.
7:38
Deanna Wallin: Yeah, and I try not to be hypercritical, but I'm observant when I go into other retail everyone.
7:41
Deanna Wallin: Yeah, and I try not to be hypercritical, but I'm observant when I go into other retail and when I say retail is failing us as consumers, I I am speaking from that consumer perspective and, being a business owner and an operator, you know I make sure that we go above and beyond and that we're having those conversations with staff about the details, about the experience and that consistency and holding people accountable for your brand standards.
8:04
Deanna Wallin: That's it right.
8:05
Deanna Wallin: It is because you can.
8:08
Deanna Wallin: You can set brand standards, but if you're not holding people accountable, it doesn't matter.
8:13
Deanna Wallin: It's just paper, it's an HR book, it's a book.
8:17
Deanna Wallin: They stick it under the cash wrap and go.
8:19
Deanna Wallin: Yeah, I read, I read.
8:19
Jennifer Johnson: I signed up.
8:20
Jennifer Johnson: It's a book.
8:20
Jennifer Johnson: They stick it under the cash wrap and go yeah, I read, I read, I signed up for it.
8:24
Jennifer Johnson: It collects dust.
8:24
Jennifer Johnson: I'm glad you mentioned brand standard.
8:26
Jennifer Johnson: What do you think should go into having a brand standard Like is it three things, four things?
8:32
Jennifer Johnson: Is it up to your brand Like what?
8:35
Deanna Wallin: does that include?
8:36
Deanna Wallin: You know, I think really, what a lot of small businesses struggle with is their original brand identity.
8:45
Deanna Wallin: They may try something and it might not work, and then they change.
8:50
Deanna Wallin: We did this, I think we have, I think we've all done that, we have five different logos.
8:53
Deanna Wallin: You know, We've all done it.
8:55
Deanna Wallin: But really, if you set out and you have a very clear vision, it makes it easier and less waste of money.
9:02
Deanna Wallin: So brand standards it's really like a lot of people look at where they are today and I've been the entrepreneur and the pioneer.
9:09
Jennifer Johnson: Both.
9:10
Deanna Wallin: I've got both badges.
9:11
Deanna Wallin: I think they look at where they are today without focusing on really where they want to go and seeing the vision.
9:19
Deanna Wallin: For where do you want to be five years, 10 years from now?
9:22
Deanna Wallin: And even though you might have a business plan on paper, what does the visual look like?
9:26
Deanna Wallin: What does the flow and function feel like?
9:28
Deanna Wallin: What does that feel like from a customer perspective, from an employee perspective, from your perspective as a brand owner or operator?
9:36
Deanna Wallin: So I really try to visualize the flow and function of something, not just writing it down on paper.
9:41
Jennifer Johnson: Yeah.
9:42
Deanna Wallin: You know we've got, we've got AI.
9:44
Deanna Wallin: Now it takes no, no time to throw a business plan onto paper, Right, but what is what?
9:49
Deanna Wallin: Does the execution look like?
9:50
Deanna Wallin: Is the execution consistent and that's one of the things that really bothers me, whether it's a restaurant or a retailer is the inconsistency?
10:00
Deanna Wallin: If it's in the food or the meal I order, you're going to lose my business.
10:05
Deanna Wallin: I want to know what I'm buying when I go in.
10:07
Deanna Wallin: Now I might order different dishes or whatever, but I want the service and the quality to be consistent and it's that what's familiar?
10:14
Jennifer Johnson: again, it is.
10:15
Jennifer Johnson: It goes back to that.
10:16
Jennifer Johnson: I'm going to go where I and also where you feel like you are part, like cheers, I'm going to Norm at cheers Norm.
10:25
Jennifer Johnson: Right.
10:26
Jennifer Johnson: Granted.
10:28
Jennifer Johnson: I understand the more stores you have and the bigger the stores are.
10:32
Jennifer Johnson: That's hard to do, but it's important to at least acknowledge.
10:39
Deanna Wallin: We have our Fifth Avenue store is a really interesting comparison to that.
10:43
Deanna Wallin: We have a gentleman that walks his dog every day and the dog drags him in to the store.
10:48
Deanna Wallin: The dog has outfits on.
10:49
Deanna Wallin: I love the dog.
10:50
Deanna Wallin: The dog is so gorgeous and the dog drags him into the store every day for her treat.
10:55
Deanna Wallin: Oh, because the dog knows they have treats.
10:56
Jennifer Johnson: The dog knows they have treats.
11:00
Deanna Wallin: And then on Fifth Avenue in Naples we have two pink rocking chairs, and those rocking chairs were at a restaurant that my dad and I had before he passed away, and they were the only two things I really have left from that.
11:07
Deanna Wallin: Honestly, I did not know that, those pink rockers.
11:09
Deanna Wallin: Yeah, so I have two pink rocking chairs.
11:11
Deanna Wallin: They weren't pink when my dad had them at his restaurant, so they came from northern Georgia.
11:17
Deanna Wallin: They were raw wood.
11:18
Deanna Wallin: I saved them and I said you know what?
11:20
Deanna Wallin: I want?
11:20
Deanna Wallin: To put something really bright and vibrant on Fifth Avenue, and so we sprayed them pink.
11:24
Deanna Wallin: There is a couple that sits in front of our store every single day.
11:29
Deanna Wallin: They sit there.
11:30
Deanna Wallin: They are part of who we are.
11:32
Deanna Wallin: I walk by, speak with them.
11:34
Deanna Wallin: How are you guys doing?
11:35
Deanna Wallin: You feeling?
11:36
Deanna Wallin: Okay?
11:36
Deanna Wallin: Yeah, great, that is their spot and they've been married I don't know 200 years or something like that.
11:44
Deanna Wallin: They've been married forever.
11:45
Deanna Wallin: Yeah, they've been married forever and that is, they are happy there, they're comfortable there and they will sit there for hours on end and rock, and I don't even mind that they're taking up our chairs.
11:51
Jennifer Johnson: See, so that's another part of your brand.
11:54
Jennifer Johnson: Now I know it's part of your brand at that location.
12:00
Jennifer Johnson: Yeah, Certainly they're comfortable there.
12:01
Deanna Wallin: They sit and they people watch, and my staff knows the dog, my staff knows the couple that sits out front and and so it's about like being part of that community, you know.
12:11
Deanna Wallin: So we, we are part of the community and I one of the things that we also do is that, you know, being spread out, we're multi-unit retail and each store manager has their own budget, monthly budget, to donate back to causes within their area.
12:28
Deanna Wallin: So a lot of companies and we also have a budget where we donate and support.
12:33
Deanna Wallin: Philanthropy is a huge part of who we are.
12:36
Deanna Wallin: So we believe in giving back to the communities, not just taking.
12:39
Deanna Wallin: So, like our corporate offices will do, large drives in February for American Heart Association.
12:44
Deanna Wallin: We do, life is why at all those stores.
12:46
Deanna Wallin: But each store manager has a budget to donate raffle items or support whatever cause.
12:53
Deanna Wallin: It's got to be a 501c3.
12:55
Deanna Wallin: But to give back to the community, and the community knows that in each of their locations, like I mentioned to you before, we've got an 800 mile footprint.
13:03
Deanna Wallin: Yeah, in florida and I'm a native floridian, I like to take care of my home state, I like to create jobs, I like to support our economy, but being part of the community is really important you and I.
13:16
Deanna Wallin: We are chamber members, we are chamber, not just chamber members.
13:18
Deanna Wallin: Chamber not just chamber members.
13:20
Deanna Wallin: Chamber board members Talk about giving back to the community.
13:22
Deanna Wallin: That's a big commitment and when you're talking about, like, customer service, I think knowing what's going on in your community, if you have the ability, if you're a small business owner like getting involved with groups like that definitely gives you an advantage.
13:36
Deanna Wallin: You get to talk to other small businesses and you and I have started some retail networking groups as well together and even through the last few months you know we've, in the fall we had some hurricanes back to back, just being able to share information.
13:51
Deanna Wallin: So there's a lot of things that go into the customer journey as far as an owner goes, and my point with all the philanthropy conversation is that people know when they see you giving back in the community, it's about community.
14:04
Jennifer Johnson: It is about community.
14:05
Jennifer Johnson: I feel like that is part of that customer journey.
14:08
Jennifer Johnson: Correct, they know they do.
14:10
Jennifer Johnson: You're giving back to the community that gives to you every day by shopping in your store or eating at your restaurant or whatever it is.
14:16
Jennifer Johnson: It's not just about taking from the community.
14:19
Deanna Wallin: We turn around and we support the community and they know that they can count on us.
14:22
Deanna Wallin: People call me and I'll see my phone ring and I'm like uh-huh, what do you want?
14:25
Deanna Wallin: How can I help you?
14:26
Deanna Wallin: First it's what do you want.
14:27
Deanna Wallin: Then I flip this, which I go okay, how can I help you?
14:30
Deanna Wallin: You know, and that really is the important thing about, and that helps give that customer connection, because someone else may be a chamber member your customers that helps drive that customer loyalty.
14:46
Jennifer Johnson: You know, something I wanted to touch on.
14:47
Jennifer Johnson: So we've talked about every business.
14:48
Jennifer Johnson: You have to have policies and procedures and you have to have rules the unfun stuff, the unfun stuff.
14:53
Jennifer Johnson: And sometimes we have to relay that unfun stuff to our customers and that's a fine line.
15:02
Jennifer Johnson: We've had that conversation many times.
15:05
Jennifer Johnson: It's a fine line.
15:06
Jennifer Johnson: But how does that fit in to the customer journey and how?
15:12
Jennifer Johnson: You know?
15:12
Jennifer Johnson: Again, it's about consistency.
15:14
Jennifer Johnson: I know making sure that every location does it the same way.
15:19
Jennifer Johnson: But you know, sometimes you have employees who see black and white.
15:22
Jennifer Johnson: They never see the gray area.
15:25
Deanna Wallin: Yeah, they're going to plant their stake in the ground and die on a hill.
15:29
Deanna Wallin: And you're like okay, if you realized what my cost of goods was.
15:33
Deanna Wallin: On this whole argument, just settle it.
15:36
Deanna Wallin: I think you really have to choose your battles wisely.
15:39
Deanna Wallin: Um, I think if someone has a legitimate issue, um, it definitely warrants not only resolving the problem but going above and beyond, like a lot of times we'll.
15:51
Deanna Wallin: If someone has a legitimate issue and it was on us or something happened and it was our fault, we'll say, hey, you know what?
15:56
Deanna Wallin: Let us give you a gift card.
15:57
Deanna Wallin: Or let us give you something extra.
15:59
Deanna Wallin: Or, hey, I'm going to send you a gift set.
16:00
Deanna Wallin: You know owning it and taking responsibility.
16:03
Deanna Wallin: I think people appreciate that instead of just you know, not our fault.
16:08
Jennifer Johnson: Combative.
16:09
Deanna Wallin: Here's the fix, yeah.
16:10
Deanna Wallin: Because, a lot of customer service now because people have been so abusive with like return policies, you got to pick and choose your battles.
16:20
Deanna Wallin: If people are rude and nasty to my staff, you're not going to get a lot of cooperation from us.
16:24
Deanna Wallin: But if it's a legitimate customer service issue, we're going to go out of our way to make sure that you're happy.
16:30
Jennifer Johnson: You know, and what I found in business is nine times out of 10,.
16:33
Jennifer Johnson: You say to the customer what would you like us to do?
16:37
Jennifer Johnson: And if you say that they're nine times out of 10, going to come back with something less than you are going to offer to begin with, A hundred percent.
16:46
Deanna Wallin: Yeah, and then it also turns the table and it makes them feel more empowered.
16:51
Deanna Wallin: It does In the whole transaction.
16:53
Deanna Wallin: And if you're the business owner or the manager, look at the cost of goods and what really the issue is.
17:04
Deanna Wallin: I mean, obviously if you're dealing in computers and higher cost of goods but a lot of smaller retailers, you can afford to take the thing back or to fix the thing or to return the thing and you have to weigh out what that price of negative reviews is.
17:19
Jennifer Johnson: But that's yeah and you have to weigh out what that price of negative reviews is, but that's yeah, Because you're $10 worth losing all these people that saw your bad reviews on Google.
17:25
Jennifer Johnson: And again going back to Google, that's the one that people read.
17:29
Deanna Wallin: They do, yeah, you can have 50 great reviews and one bad review and people be like oh yeah, but there's a one star here.
17:35
Deanna Wallin: Right, they got a one star.
17:36
Jennifer Johnson: Isn't it interesting on Google and we find this with other platforms as well like it takes like 500 positives to move the needle one, but then you get a negative and it drops you like two points.
17:47
Deanna Wallin: It's painfully unfair.
17:48
Jennifer Johnson: You're like what the heck?
17:50
Deanna Wallin: I just had to throw that out there.
17:51
Jennifer Johnson: No, it's painfully unfair Kind of the elephant in the room when talking about Google.
17:55
Deanna Wallin: Amazon's the same way.
17:56
Deanna Wallin: We have reviews.
17:59
Deanna Wallin: We have a review system on our website as well, and it's hard.
18:08
Deanna Wallin: It's hard to get people and we appreciate when they take their time to actually write a positive review and most of the time, what I have found out 99.9% of the time a negative review is not the situation, was not a legitimate situation or someone trying to game a system or you know, or even sometimes it could be a disgruntled employee or their friends or the boyfriend you name it.
18:31
Deanna Wallin: Another business owner another business, competitive business, happened.
18:34
Deanna Wallin: Yeah, it's.
18:35
Deanna Wallin: It's hard and you know, you and I talk about this all the time.
18:39
Deanna Wallin: As retailers, we have to support each other, we have to share information, we have to talk and share what works and what doesn't work, and I'm really grateful to be on the podcast today.
18:49
Jennifer Johnson: It's a lot of fun to be able to share this information with people Because, as small business owners, we feel like we're the only one going through this, and we're not.
19:01
Jennifer Johnson: I mean plenty of people have gone down that road.
19:03
Jennifer Johnson: It's not a new problem.
19:04
Jennifer Johnson: Someone else had it somewhere down the line and if you just share it and help someone, that's going to come back to you tenfold, just like with your customer.
19:15
Jennifer Johnson: You know your customer journey.
19:18
Deanna Wallin: Right, and so if you think about this math on this, we are a very small publicly traded company.
19:24
Deanna Wallin: We are on the OTCQB and so our numbers are public, so I can talk about this.
19:28
Deanna Wallin: So we do 12 and a half million.
19:30
Deanna Wallin: Last year 12.3.
19:32
Deanna Wallin: We'll round it up to 12 and a half.
19:34
Deanna Wallin: About 2.3 of that was e-com, but our e-comm sales are higher.
19:41
Deanna Wallin: Our average e-comm order value is $75.
19:44
Deanna Wallin: In stores, our average order value is $45.
19:47
Jennifer Johnson: Oh wow, why I really don't know.
19:50
Deanna Wallin: Let's see there's some questions.
19:51
Deanna Wallin: All the trained sales associates I know.
19:54
Deanna Wallin: That's just been our metric for quite a while $45 to $50.
19:59
Deanna Wallin: That's just been our metric for quite a while, $45 to $50.
20:02
Deanna Wallin: But if you so, 13 brick and mortar stores doing $10 million a year at your average order of $50, that's a ton of transactions, that's a lot.
20:10
Deanna Wallin: So we're doing something right, we're doing a lot of things right, Because that is just mass volume of transactions on a daily basis, especially in fourth quarter.
20:19
Deanna Wallin: And to keep and we talked about this before consistency, you know, to keep the product consistent, to keep the experience consistent and to keep people coming back.
20:30
Deanna Wallin: Because guess what, the people that buy gifts for us from us, I want them to come back next year and buy their gifts.
20:34
Deanna Wallin: I want them to be rock stars when they put stuff under the tree.
20:37
Jennifer Johnson: You know you do something really right.
20:38
Jennifer Johnson: We were talking about community earlier and I first got introduced to your product.
20:43
Jennifer Johnson: This was before I knew you, really knew you.
20:45
Jennifer Johnson: Somebody had gifted me some stuff and I was like, so I used it.
20:52
Jennifer Johnson: I'm like, oh, this is really nice.
20:53
Jennifer Johnson: But then I went to another event and you had gifted items.
20:58
Jennifer Johnson: Yes, and I think that's so crucial, that part of it, because if you don't, you don't know what you don't know, right, and you're gifted something from an event and that's your community involvement, right, you're going to go support those people.
21:15
Deanna Wallin: I tell people I've made more money by giving product away than you can imagine.
21:18
Deanna Wallin: So this is funny.
21:19
Deanna Wallin: When I initially started out, we had two, maybe three stores and we used to run five green markets a week.
21:27
Jennifer Johnson: What do you mean?
21:28
Jennifer Johnson: Green markets Like farmer's markets, farmer's markets, yeah.
21:30
Deanna Wallin: So we would go out.
21:31
Deanna Wallin: I didn't know that that would be me.
21:32
Deanna Wallin: I know I have so much respect for people that do this because it's torturous.
21:36
Deanna Wallin: It is.
21:41
Deanna Wallin: I've done them.
21:42
Deanna Wallin: Yeah, the weather, you don't know.
21:43
Deanna Wallin: It's either hot in Florida or freezing, or I've had the wind rip my tents down.
21:46
Deanna Wallin: I mean, you name it.
21:47
Deanna Wallin: It happened right, I've had people back over my tent while I was in the tent.
21:51
Deanna Wallin: This is the true story.
21:52
Deanna Wallin: But on days when it was really super slow, I couldn't sell anything and no vibe, no energy, no nothing.
22:00
Deanna Wallin: And I was like, okay, it's like Oprah's favorite things.
22:02
Deanna Wallin: I would start slicing soap and I'm like, oh and sir, and you get a soap, and you get a soap, and you get a soap, and you get a soap.
22:09
Deanna Wallin: I might've given away 50 to a hundred dollars worth of product.
22:11
Deanna Wallin: But guess what, when I went back the next week, half the people that were there because they come get their veggies every week they come back and they're like I tried that, that was really great, let me buy from you.
22:21
Deanna Wallin: And so I took the time that we were invested there to still create a marketing opportunity, and that's six stores.
22:35
Deanna Wallin: We stopped doing the green markets, but that involvement, getting yourself out there, getting known in the community.
22:41
Deanna Wallin: That is part of that experience and that journey.
22:44
Deanna Wallin: So it's not just what happens in your four walls and you are so involved in the community.
22:49
Deanna Wallin: You do podcasts, you write books and you're very active on your social media.
22:54
Deanna Wallin: You know that is part of the customer experience too, like we have probably I don't know 40,000 people on Facebook.
23:04
Deanna Wallin: They see what we post.
23:05
Deanna Wallin: Yeah, they do we have to stay regular with your posts, with your communications.
23:09
Deanna Wallin: We talked about doing letters from the CEO during COVID.
23:14
Jennifer Johnson: So that communication is really important and when you involve your team it's even better.
23:17
Jennifer Johnson: They love it, or you, they love that even more because they want that connection.
23:23
Jennifer Johnson: Again, it still does tie back to that relationship.
23:26
Deanna Wallin: Yeah, one of our best performing videos that we did, that we posted on social media, was me interviewing our Welland Park store manager, sam, and she ended up working for us because she bought product for her mother's eczema and skin condition.
23:43
Deanna Wallin: It worked so well.
23:44
Deanna Wallin: Her mother sent her back and she came in and she was like my mother said this is magic, what else do you have?
23:49
Deanna Wallin: And then, through her experience with us as a customer, she came to work for us.
23:56
Deanna Wallin: Those are the unexpected, wonderful things that happened, and eventually worked her way up within a couple of years to a store manager.
24:02
Deanna Wallin: She runs our store in Venice, in Welland Park, and her family is like their family, feels like they're part of our family.
24:09
Deanna Wallin: So it's that's how you do it Connection, you do it right, yeah, and I love that.
24:14
Jennifer Johnson: Anything else you want to add, anything we missed?
24:18
Deanna Wallin: No, I mean, I really love being able to talk about connecting with the community.
24:23
Jennifer Johnson: And that would be a great just one podcast.
24:24
Deanna Wallin: We could do one podcast just on community outreach.
24:26
Jennifer Johnson: Very much.
24:26
Jennifer Johnson: That's huge, absolutely.
24:28
Deanna Wallin: But I'm really grateful for the chance to talk today and share some wisdom.
24:31
Deanna Wallin: So if our listeners want to buy some Naples Soap Company products, how can they do that?
24:40
Deanna Wallin: They can go to wwwnaplessoapcom.
24:42
Deanna Wallin: That's N-A-P-L-E-S-S-O-A-P, naplessoapcom, and we've got all sorts of products on there.
24:46
Deanna Wallin: There's a deals page on there If you want to check out some of the deals.
24:49
Deanna Wallin: We've always running deals and promotions.
24:51
Jennifer Johnson: And your almond is my favorite.
24:53
Deanna Wallin: Thanks, is it?
24:54
Jennifer Johnson: It's honey almond, honey almond.
24:55
Deanna Wallin: It is like that's my number one soap.
24:58
Jennifer Johnson: Love it, love it, love it, love it.
24:59
Jennifer Johnson: Thank you.
25:00
Deanna Wallin: Thank you so much again.
25:01
Deanna Wallin: Oh, my pleasure.