Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / How to Manufacture Products in the Trump Era with Sherrill Mosee

Transcript

How to Manufacture Products in the Trump Era with Sherrill Mosee · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  Three, two, one, zero.
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  Ignition.
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  Lift off.
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  Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with the number one small business expert, Melinda
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  Emerson.
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  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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  you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
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  Now here's your host, the small biz chat lady herself, Melinda Emerson.
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  Have you subscribed to the small biz chat podcast?
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  Well, it's time.
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  Every Wednesday, we offer listeners bite sized actionable tips to start and grow a successful
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  small business.
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  In just twenty minutes or so a week, you can get a ton of insight and resources to propel
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  your business forward.
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  Be sure to subscribe to the Small Bitch Chat podcast today.
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  Now it's time for me to introduce my guest, Shereel Mosi, and she is a visionary with a
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  passion for fashion.
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  She is an innovator and she's also all about sustainability.
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  She has a keen eye for design and has dedicated all of her products to solving every day
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  challenges.
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  Her company, Minky Blue is committed to crafting bags that inspire confidence and
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  empower the everyday traveler.
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  And for more information, you can head over to mikyblue.com, but guess what?
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  Her stuff is also available in Macy's y'all.
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  So I wanna invite you guys to go and check her out at maces.com and support her because her
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  bags are amazing.
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  I've been traveling with her bag for the last few months and I am a fan.
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  And that's why I invited her to be on this podcast because I think more of us business
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  women out here in these streets traveling need to have a functional travel bag.
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  And so I am so excited, Terrell, to welcome you to the Small Bitch Chat podcast.
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  Thank you.
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  I've been
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  looking forward to this for a while now, so I'm excited about being here.
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  All right.
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  So tell us about Minky Blue.
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  Tell us
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  about your business.
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  Yeah.
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  So Minky Blue, I've been doing fashion functional bags for over ten years now.
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  So Minky Blue are organizational travel work bags.
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  And so what that means is that you, you know, as women we travel or we may be still commuting
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  to work, we got our lunch bag, we got our shoes and we got our laptop.
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  And so sometimes we're carrying two or three bags and that was me.
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  I was basically the bag lady.
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  And I just wanted one bag where I could organize and separate everything that I needed
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  for the day in the bag and not struggle with two or three bags.
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  So I came up with this design with a shelf, a folding shelf right in the middle of the bag
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  where you could put your shoes, you could separate your purse essentials.
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  Actually, it's probably easier if I just show you.
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  Please demonstrate the bag, girls.
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  Don't get to advertise it.
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  Demonstrate the bag.
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  Okay.
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  Let me talk about the bag.
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  So let me see.
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  I got my little lunch bag here.
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  So we have this bag right here.
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  This looks like a regular tote bag.
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  And I have these zippers here and they are expandable pockets here, so your water bottle,
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  your phone, or your umbrella can go here.
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  And then this is like a little hidden pocket here.
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  And so I can slide this over my luggage when I'm not using it for as a pocket.
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  And then on what's really special about it is that in the bottom part, I can actually open
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  this up and there is space in here where I can put my shoes or my lunch or change of clothes,
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  so it's a great water bottle, a great bag to carry your overnight things in it.
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  And then on the top part, there is actually a shelf in here and I can put my purse essentials
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  on the top and separate my purse essentials from everything at the bottom.
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  But in addition to that, I mentioned, you know, carrying, we could carry an extra lunch bag
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  sometimes.
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  Well, with Minky Blue, you no longer have to carry an extra lunch bag because it is included
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  in your bundle and this slides right in the bottom portion of the bag.
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  And so that's what Minky Blue is all about is separating and organizing things in the bag.
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  So I have my tote bags, I have backpacks here and I kind of bling this one out.
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  I bling that one out, but on the back of the bag, it functions the same way.
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  And so you can see that little lunch bag right in there and it comes out like that.
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  And like I mentioned, you can put your shoes in here when you're not carrying your lunch bag.
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  And then again, on the top, you have that folding shelf.
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  Love it, love it.
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  So I think that you are so innovative and talented, and I know that the reason why you
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  are in Macy's is because you were in a contest that Macy's had.
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  So can you talk to us a little bit about the contest and how all of that stuff came about
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  for your business?
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  Yeah, I was on a show called America's Big Deal, and it was on the USA Network.
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  And this was the first time they did this show.
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  It was a live pitch competition.
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  I was one of four contestants and we all had products.
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  So we had an opportunity to pitch our products in front of three judges.
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  One was QVC, the other one was Macy's and the other one was Lowe's.
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  So we pitched our product in front of the judges, but the kicker is that we also pitched
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  it in front of America Live.
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  And so America have the opportunity to purchase your product right then and there while you're
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  pitching live on TV, and the person that sold out of their product or either sold the most, I
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  actually sold out of my product during that live pitch, move forward to pitch to the
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  retailers for opportunity to be in the retail stores.
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  And so that's how that went.
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  It was very exciting.
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  I was so nervous, but we had an opportunity to work with the producers to hone in on our
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  pitches.
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  We originally had three minutes to pitch and like a couple of days they changed the format.
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  And so I had a minute and a half to pitch.
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  So you can imagine how that went trying to go from everything that I memorized for three
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  minutes to cut it down to a minute and a half.
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  Was crazy.
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  Well, persevered because guess who's being sold in Macy's?
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  Mickey Wu, okay.
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  So I wanna take it back a little bit.
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  So let's say I have a product idea.
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  Where would you say are the first steps if I have a product idea that I should do to sort of
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  create my minimum viable product?
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  Yeah, with any idea, it's about solving a problem.
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  And so my problem was, you know, carrying two or three bags struggling.
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  I'm looking around on the train and I said, man, it's a lot of women carrying two or three
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  bags.
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  So as I'm thinking about that, I'm looking at it as a problem, a problem to solve.
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  And then understanding who your target market is.
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  So I'm looking around the train, there are a lot of women that carry in two or three bags,
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  so I automatically knew who my target market is.
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  And then really doing the research.
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  First of all, is there a bag or an idea?
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  Not even talking about a bag.
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  Is your product already on the market?
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  Doing that market research, who are your competitors?
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  And if there is a product that's similar to your idea, there is still opportunity to make
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  an improvement on that product.
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  I mean, didn't invent the tote bag or the backpack, I made an improvement upon it.
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  So that's where I would start.
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  The other thing I would do is make your own prototype because sometimes we have ideas and
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  we think it's gonna, you know, it works automatically up here, but until you make your
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  own prototype, until you bring that thing to life, then that's when you're gonna realize,
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  know, is what I'm thinking, will it really work?
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  And what happened with me is that I went through a lot of iterations with this bag
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  before I came up with my solution.
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  I'm gonna pull one of my samples over here that I started with because I don't sew and I can
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  hardly draw.
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  My drawings are circles and squares.
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  So what I did is that years ago, I went to Target and I bought a bag the same shape and
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  size that I was thinking.
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  I think this bag was like, I don't know, 29.99.
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  But because I didn't know how to sew, I had to figure out a way how was I going to bring this
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  to life.
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  And so I bought this bag the same shape and size and I literally just started cutting it up
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  based on my idea.
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  So on the back of the bag, I cut this thing up.
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  I just kind of went through it and I said, okay, if I cut the back up, this is where I can
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  put my shoes.
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  This is where I can put my lunch bag.
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  And then I went in my daughter's room and I got this fabric here and I use cardboard and
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  staples and tape, you can see how raggedy this thing is, but it's bringing my idea to life.
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  And so what I did is I took this and I put it in the bottom.
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  I said, oh, okay, I can put my lunch bag in here.
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  And then when I'm not using that, I could put my shoes in here.
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  And then I had Velcro on the top part of this bag.
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  You can see the strips here.
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  And so that's where I became creative with that divider going up and down to make a shelf right
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  in the middle of the bag.
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  That's really interesting because I think people think they have to sew, right?
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  They think they have to make this thing.
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  And I think that that's really, really important.
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  So when you get to the point where you know what you want and you've got to figure out the
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  manufacturing partner, like how does that work?
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  I know, that was crazy, crazy.
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  Because it's like you've never done this before.
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  So, know, you figure out these little steps right here, now it's time to manufacture.
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  Before I even got there, I took my prototype, found someone to make my sample, and then it
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  was like, where did I go?
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  First, I started looking for a manufacturer in The US because I was adamant about making my
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  product in The US, but the costs were so expensive that it really forced me to go
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  overseas in China.
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  The prices that I was given in The US, because as you can see, all of the pieces that I talked
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  about in the bag is very labor intensive.
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  And so the prices that I was given just to make the bag, labor cost was between $98 and $108
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  Now that did not include the materials, that it didn't include the hardware, so you're already
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  talking about if I wanted to make a profit, it would have been like, you know, $2.50 to $500
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  to do it here in US.
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  So that really forced me overseas to China, And then looking for that, I was blogging at the
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  same time.
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  So I happened to, somebody was reading my blog that introduced me to a manufacturer in China.
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  So that's how I started over there with finding my first manufacturer.
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  I know you brought up China, we gotta talk about it.
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  Like, what is it like trying to manufacture your stuff in China now when our president has
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  like, you know, made training with The United States like the most difficult thing to do in
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  the world?
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  It is insane.
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  I have been manufacturing in China since 2014, so it's been a minute.
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  Now, today, it makes it impossible to manufacture in China because we're talking
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  about the tariffs, right?
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  The tariffs war.
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  Now before Trump's first term, my tariffs, which a tax that the importer pays, I wanna
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  make sure that everybody is clear on that.
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  China is not paying for the taxes.
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  Matter of fact, the other countries are not paying for the taxes.
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  The importer pays for the tax.
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  So when I buy something overseas and there's a tax, the first tax was 17.6%.
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  That was before his first term.
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  Then when he came in the first term, it compounded, he added on 25%.
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  So then my taxes, my tariffs went up to what, that 42.6%.
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  So now this year he added on, and remember we've been on a roller coaster with these
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  tariffs, When he came on, it was 25%,
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  then
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  he went to 50%, then he went to 145%.
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  There's no way if I'm buying something, a product for $10.20, $30.50, that I'm gonna pay
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  another extra 145% tax.
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  It doesn't make sense.
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  And so at that point, you manufacture.
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  It just doesn't make sense.
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  So now we're in this trade war, we're going back and forth.
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  Right now we're at 30% tariff, but I want to be clear that that 30% in my industry is on top of
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  the 25% from his first term, on top of the 17.6% before he came into office.
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  So people see the 30% and they say, oh, it went down from 145 to 30%, that's good.
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  No, it's not, it's still high.
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  It's still a high tax.
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  And so that brings me to what 92% on taxes.
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  So it is insane.
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  So what are you doing?
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  I mean, is this basically putting you out of business?
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  Like how are you handling it?
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  Right.
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  So I can no longer, as I am not looking at China to manufacture, I can't manufacture in
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  China because it doesn't make sense, especially for small businesses.
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  And so you look at other countries who can make the product, but it takes time to find that now
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  I got to go through this whole process, what basically took me a year, nine months to a year
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  to vet manufacturers to go through samples, to see if they can make the product.
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  That's going to take time to do that.
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  And now every country have tariffs.
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  So you got to look at who can make it and where are the tariffs for that country.
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  So it's crazy and it's very stressful.
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  And yes, it's putting a lot of people out of business.
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  So if you had to start all over again today, if you didn't have a trading partner in China,
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  what country would you go looking?
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  Where would you go look?
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  You know what?
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  I know so much more now than I knew twelve years ago.
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  And you know, when you're starting a business, you're really excited because you're naive
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  about everything.
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  And so I'm not even, what country?
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  I'll tell you what I'm looking at now.
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  I'm looking at Thailand, India, Cambodia.
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  Those are the countries that I'm looking at now.
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  So I don't know.
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  Fortunately for me, I'm not manufacturing, I'm not producing this year because I actually
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  bought in product late last year.
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  So I'm good and hopefully everything will start settling down with the courts.
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  The courts are intervening now.
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  So hopefully things will start settling down this year before I decide if I wanna keep
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  moving and producing.
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  Well, thank goodness you had the cash flow to do that because that sounds really, really But
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  tell me this, what is the best business advice you think you've ever been given in all of this
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  manufacturing process?
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  You know, I gotta say it was my mom, not even before I got in business because what she told
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  me I still use today is nothing beats a failure, but a try.
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  Nothing beats a failure, but a try.
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  If you have an idea and you never even pursue it or try, then you've already failed.
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  Hear that,
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  I hear that
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  and I receive that.
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  Thank you so much, Cheryl, for being with us.
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  And I really think your story is amazing and I hope that people have gleaned some really,
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  really valuable information from it.
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  And, we'll be in touch because I love your bag.
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  I've been telling people about it.
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  I've actually been seeing you.
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  So, I'm really excited to have you here and we will talk again soon.
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  Thanks for listening to the Small Biz Chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
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  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and join us next Wednesday for
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  more fantastic information and interviews.
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  You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
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  website, succeedasyourownboss.com.
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  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.